Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Everybody saw this coming.

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Let’s finish the job.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / To All The People I’ve Bigfooted Before

Reader Interactions

166Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    I have multiple tabs open on my browser.

    Please don’t ever confuse us with the porn site(s).

  3. 3.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Is it genuine furor? I thought it was just Cole-baiting, trying to get him to call us a bag of assholes or such like.

  4. 4.

    p.a.

    Living a life of constant change
    Every day means the turn of a page
    Yesterdays papers are such bad news
    Same thing applies to me and you
    Who wants yesterdays papers

  5. 5.

    SFAW

    Not to put too fine a point on it, but: why do you care what any of us thinks? (At least about stuff like this.) It’s your damn blog, if you want to bigfoot, knock yerself out. It’s not as if you think Anne Laurie, Betty Cracker, Adam, or any of the other front pagers is pond scum. [If you did start behaving that way, it might be a problem, however.]

  6. 6.

    eemom

    It’s cuz you’re the Mighty BlogLord, Cole. When other FPers bigfoot each other, it’s just a little nudge. But when you do it, it’s Bambi meets Godzilla.

  7. 7.

    Betty Cracker

    FWIW, I don’t get the angst either. The more the merrier, I say!

    The mister and I are watching the end of The Masters golf thingy (he’s the golf nut, not me). Big reversal today thanks to a quadrupal bogey by the defending champ.

    Anyhoo, the mister says back in the 70s, he remembers seeing the top golfers listed alongside their earnings for the year, but they no longer do that. I said probably to stop pitchfork and torch mobs from forming given the absurd sums involved. Anyone else remember that?

  10. 10.

    ? Martin

    In light of my previous posts, and the news from Chicago State.

    The withdrawal of state funds is often one of the direct causes of increased college tuition—not necessarily an increase in faculty size, spending on construction, or administrative costs. Yet, many state policymakers attribute the increased tuition to wasteful spending by the universities. To fill the financial hole, state universities are going national and international—admitting many more out-of-state and foreign students, who sometimes pay as much as three times the tuition of state residents.

  12. 12.

    Frankensteinbeck

    What a blog host and his front pagers do in the privacy of their blog posting system is none of my business. I don’t hear you folks cursing each other’s names, so I assume it’s consensual and don’t judge.

    EDIT – (And while I phrased that in a silly way, it’s basically how I feel.)

  13. 13.

    ? Martin

    @SFAW:

    why do you care what any of us thinks?

    Agreed. I don’t understand the sudden change of heart. Our previous relationship usually involved suggestions we should die in a fire or skull fuck a kitten.

  18. 18.

    Miss Bianca

    @? Martin: See, this is the thing that makes me crazy about this whole “make college free!” campaign. Just *how* are you supposed to do it when the states keep cutting higher education funding, and more and more people want to go to school? *Is* it actually feasible under any circumstances, or are certain candidates just blowing smoke up people’s…noses?

  20. 20.

    Germy

    I here on a macbook pro, and when I zoom in…. all the text starts shimmering and blinking like I’m having an acid flashback. But I’ve never taken acid.

  22. 22.

    Corner Stone

    What kind of parent names their child Bryson DeChambeau? Aren’t they doomed to douchebaggery with that handle?

  24. 24.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    Sarcastic apologies from the host are what keep me coming back.
    That and his periodic rants about the commenters.
    We love you John.

  25. 25.

    Ruckus

    @Germy:
    I’d say there is an issue in your graphic processor/memory area. On my imac I can zoom all the way up and the text is fine. Or maybe someone gave you acid in a previous life and you don’t know it.

  26. 26.

    Hill Dweller

    The American golf press should be put on suicide watch after Speith’s meltdown.

  34. 34.

    Miss Bianca

    @LAO: What’s the deal with the ceremony? Who jackets the winner? The runner-up? That seems a bit awkward.

  38. 38.

    Betty

    Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t get either the furor over the bigfooting or the humor in picking on John. Thanks, John, for putting up with these folks.

  41. 41.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    Why on earth is a comment with the innocuous terms microjoules and kilohertz in moderation?
    Maybe it was because I wrote h3art st3nt.

  43. 43.

    Germy

    @Betty: Neither do I. Old posts don’t disappear when a new one appears. Usually there are multiple discussions going on.

  44. 44.

    Germy

    @Ruckus: I’m wondering if it’s my outlet. This is an old house. The wiring is funky.
    (previous owner fancied himself a “do-it-yourselfer”)

  45. 45.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @lollipopguild:

    How thunderous is your ultraviolet?

    34 microjoules at 100 kiloHertz.
    We use it to carve h3art st3nts out of titanium tubing.

  46. 46.

    Corner Stone

    @LAO: And Nantz seemed to shove him aside like dirty fast food wrappers. That was awful for that kid.
    “Bryson, you’re a young punk with ‘tude. We love you when you go pro.
    “Danny, you knew this was your destiny. Nicely done.”
    “STFU you POS and give Danny his jacket, you fucking hump.”

  49. 49.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Germy: I’ve got a Winders 7 laptop (Toshiba Portege R835) that has a screen that gets wonky when the hinge it at certain angles. I assume it’s a cable issue, but it’s nothing obvious when I have the main back off. I just periodically have to adjust the angle to make it go away.

    It’s telling me it’s tired, I think, but I’m going to live with it until it dies.

    Good luck keeping your Mac alive.

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (I’ve got another R835 that I can use if this one eventually dies, also too.)

  50. 50.

    LAO

    @redshirt: pressure is deadly to a golf swing. The kid is 22 years old. He’s already won 2 majors. Not ready to call him a choke artist. All golfers have done what he did, they just don’t have millions of people watching.

    While I’m defending Speith, I wasn’t actually rooting for him. The masters was boring till he hit the back 9.

  53. 53.

    dww44

    No doubt most sporting events have the ability to transport or deflate in equal measures, but it’s really tough to fall apart in front of virtually the whole world as Spieth did this afternoon after having led for 3 1/2 rounds.. That hurts and he owned up to it. OTOH, what a win for Willett, new father who almost didn’t come to Augusta this week.

    Change of subject, this obit was in my local paper today. Probably the most unusual I’ve ever read. Only cemented my opposition to the death penalty. Apparently my state is on a quest to execute all its death row prisoners post haste.

    http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/macon/obituary.aspx?n=josh-bishop&pid=179568761&fhid=4418

  54. 54.

    danielx

    Dixie Chicken

    Because I needs me some Little Feat. Lowell George in his prime with Bonnie Raitt and Emmylou Harris…..

    …and as he handed me a drink
    He began to hum a song
    And all the boys up at the bar
    Began to sing along….

  56. 56.

    scav

    @Germy: There’s always something for the prescious, the pure, to be upset and oppressed and digitally shouty about. For some, its their only persona.

  58. 58.

    BruceFromOhio

    @redshirt: I thought water, water, sand was the point of the activity. Why else put it all over the place, because it looks nice? Easy to maintain? I’d turn the backyard into a sand trap, except every cat in a hundred miles would be waiting in line to take a crap in it.

    Autistic, LOL, Gaia bless you.

    ETA: Not to make light of autism, it’s not a topic of humor. But “yes or no, an explanation would be helpful” reminds me of many conversations with my children over time.

  59. 59.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Miss Bianca: It was a bit, awkward, as LAO noted, this year.

    PS – I told my Triple Crown stories in the Sunday Evening AL post. They are very poorly spelled but I’m too stubborn to turn off MBBJ just so I can edit. Apologies to people who get headaches from bad spellings.

  60. 60.

    LAO

    @Corner Stone: Best question to Willet: what was it like chasing this guy (points to Speith) on the back 9? WTF was Willet supposed to say? It was ridiculous. I’m not a Nantz fan.

    ETA: apparently it’s Willett.

  62. 62.

    Germy

    @Ultraviolet Thunder:

    I can’t think of another blogger that I would consider helping push his Subaru out of a field.

    I would lift a Subaru over my head for Betty Cracker. One of my favorite writers here, next to DougJ

  64. 64.

    Corner Stone

    @LAO: I don’t know if Willett is an asshole or just shell shocked into where he currently finds himself. He seemed kind of jerky after it ended.
    Jim Nantz, however, is an asshole through and through.

  65. 65.

    Germy

    The price of a postage stamp dropped from 49¢ to 47¢ today.

    I’m gonna sit right down and write myself a letter…

  69. 69.

    BruceFromOhio

    @dww44: Such things are not generally written so, and I wonder at the author – usually it is the family that supplies the details, and it would seem he had none.

    ETA: Read further, and he did have family in his life.

  71. 71.

    Troublesome Carp fka Geeno

    @Betty Cracker: Yeah, the earnings rankings used to be like golf’s version of NASCAR circuit points. The earnings only counted prize money. If you win a big tournament, it counts more than a lower lever tournament (more prize money) so it had a way taking the level of competition into account. Don’t why they don’t still do that, the prize money awarded is public information. It probably had to do with the disparity in prize money between the PGA and LPGA. No need to publicize that even more.

  72. 72.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @Germy:

    I would lift a Subaru over my head for Betty Cracker. One of my favorite writers here, next to DougJ

    All sterling people, and I would be delighted to be able to come to their aid.
    I’m going to leave off this rhetorical course before I give our host one more impolite nudge than a guest is entitled to.

  74. 74.

    NotMax

    @LAO

    Had* an uncle who kept well over a hundred videotapes filled with recorded golf tournaments in his den.

    *May still have – we’re not in any sense a close family or one which keeps contact.

  76. 76.

    dww44

    @BruceFromOhio: I would also love to know who wrote his obit, because it is not only well-written but gets an appropriate dig in at the state for:

    “His continued concern for the suffering of others while he faced the ultimate penalty showed that the evil the State wanted to stamp out was not there, and all that was lost was the potential of a redeemed soul to do good –

    He did have a brother and niece and nephew. Also worthy of note, an obit of this length would have cost a tidy little sum of money, but apparently was worth it to the author.

  77. 77.

    ThresherK

    @Germy: Did you ever stop and consider how…off-putting the lyrics of that song, and “Cab Driver” sorta sound?

  79. 79.

    PurpleGirl

    @Corner Stone: The Bryson could be a family name that gets used as first name or middle name every generation or so. (Like the English actor Robson Green. Robson is a family name and gets used every other generation.)

  80. 80.

    ThresherK

    @Germy: Glad I’m not the only one who noticed. My mom had a few Mills Brothers records and that got me into an appreciation of the tight singing. Only later did I become old enough to figure some things out.

  83. 83.

    Ruckus

    @Germy:
    That’s what I’m suspecting, power/ground problems. Hard to tie down as they aren’t consistent. As the problem is also not consistent it may be the charging/battery system but that isn’t a likely as a wall socket/power issue as the computer works OK on the battery.

  84. 84.

    NotMax

    @Germy

    That they were able to maintain a long and stellar career after the quartet was reduced to a trio is testament to their talent.

  87. 87.

    Corner Stone

    @PurpleGirl: Still a conscious decision to lay a handle on a kid that will be doing him no favors.
    I look forward to many years of douchecanoe from him, or ignominious *poof*. There will be no in between.

  88. 88.

    Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)

    @srv:
    That is so true in your case. There is a more than zero chance that someone reading the blog may not yet know you are a a brain dead moron. Your posting that on every thread will help identify you, thanks

  91. 91.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @Ruckus:
    The pulse mode power supply in the charger should filter out all of the powerline grunge from your house. But if the charger itself is defective then it could be generating noise. They run at ~192kHz and the hash should be filtered at the output. Noisy power from the charger can cause the screen to look funky. If it works OK on the battery then the problem is almost certainly coming from teh charger brick. Probably not a ground loop because the charger is the only ground connection in the system. Standard practice is to test by substitution; try a different charger and see if the problem persists. If it does, then either they all do that (unlikely) or the laptop’s charging circuit is doing a poor job of noise rejection.

  93. 93.

    Ruckus

    @Ultraviolet Thunder:
    That’s where I was headed. But getting info from a pro is always a good idea. Thanks!
    I wasn’t sure but I thought I remembered that his house was old and he had commented about wiring issues before.

  94. 94.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @Ruckus:
    Power bricks are pretty tolerant. They’ll run on 100VAC to 250VAC and 50 or 60 Hz. They just turn whatever comes in into DC and generate the output current/voltage (usually 19VDC @ ~4A) from that. The laptop itself should just have a lowpass filter in it to reject residual noise. Best case: the power brick is failing (they do). Worst case: the charge circuit in the laptop is failing (It happens rarely).

  95. 95.

    ? Martin

    @Miss Bianca:

    *Is* it actually feasible under any circumstances, or are certain candidates just blowing smoke up people’s…noses?

    Well, the community college plan is more feasible than Bernies, simply because the community college capacity is huge and isn’t nearly as overburdened. Expanding it to meet demand would be hard, but not impossible. The hitch is getting the states on board – and good luck with that. Even the blue states aren’t investing.

    Alternatively, the feds could dump money in, but I don’t see that being sustainable. But consider the math here for the public research universities. My institution gets 8% of our funding from the state. If you increased the state contribution by 50%, our budget goes up by 4%. That’s not going to enroll 50% more students, not without a change in what a research university means to the country.

    And we’re the most heavily impacted by demand. You make public universities free, and suddenly we’ll get swamped by students that are currently opting over to the private university system. Adding those students into the public system, and suddenly we’re going to wind up turning down the students at the margins of our admission pool – and they’re nearly 50% under-represented and majority are low income and first generation. Free tuition to Berkeley means a lot of rich and middle class kids get a free ride and a lot of low income and first generation students get denied.

  96. 96.

    BruceFromOhio

    @Ultraviolet Thunder: When in doubt, test and replace – a misbehaving power supply is like poison ivy. It won’t kill you, but it may drive you bananas until its healed/fixed.

    (btw, thoroughly enjoyed the microjoules explanation, that’s some crazy awesome technology)

  97. 97.

    Miss Bianca

    @? Martin: So, in other words…*not* feasible at the four-year state university level, not *un*feasible at the community college level?

  99. 99.

    Ruckus

    @Ultraviolet Thunder:
    I have a tig welder that runs on 110, 220 single or three phase, 440 three phase. All you do is wire up the proper plug and turn it on. Don’t get full current on 110 but can weld just fine down to .001-.002 thick stock. Only did that once to see if it was possible. But have welded .020-.025 tubing with no problem on 110 as well as 3/16 stock.

  100. 100.

    eemom

    As further evidence of how stupid this “big footing” bullshit is, note that this post, AL’s post below and TaMara’s post above are ALL actively generating comments and have been since they went up.

    Please. This is some REALLY stupid shit. I’d like to think AL’s whiny ass post on the last thread was meant as a joke, but….well, who knows.

  104. 104.

    John Cole

    @redshirt: No, I’m not autistic nor do I have aspberger’s, Unless that was just an autocorrect and you meant to write asshole, and yes, I am an asshole.

    If anything, I am able to tone out all the bullshit around me, not hypersensitive.

  106. 106.

    Miss Bianca

    @eemom: I have a feeling that AL’s post *was* a joke. So if, you’d like to think so too, I’d say…go ahead! I’m all for doing what gives us pleasure.

  110. 110.

    Steve in the ATL

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):

    We’re all assholes, I think

    What about Roger Moore? On the one hand, he’s not a lawyer, but on the other hand he knows more about the law than some of us who are lawyers.

    I guess he counts as an asshole not for being a lawyer but for showing up the lawyers!

  114. 114.

    Ruckus

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    I always thought that one’s strongest feature did at least let you know who they were. It may not be becoming but it is informative.

  116. 116.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Germy: In addition to trying a different power brick (if you have one available), you can get a cheap little gizmo to check the outlet for shorts/opens/mixed hot and neutral, etc. E.g. this $5 tester. (There are fancier ones that test GFCIs and the like, but GFCIs should have their own testers built-in).

    Good luck.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  119. 119.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Ruckus:

    I’m going to type REAL SLOW here, just for you:

    Whether John Cole
    is
    or is not
    on the autism spectrum
    is not your business,
    not my business,
    not anyone’s business
    except John’s
    (and then only if he wants it to be).

    If he is,
    or if he isn’t,
    it makes no difference to the quality of this blog one way or the other.

    So knock it
    the fuck
    off.

  121. 121.

    Aleta

    @Germy: Love them too, and also the train whistle resonance, and sometimes a little Doppler effect, and most of all the joy that bounces around.

  125. 125.

    eemom

    Cole isn’t an asshole. He just plays one on teevee.

    Other references to more serious “a” words are frankly both ignorant and offensive.

  127. 127.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @eemom:

    Other references to more serious “a” words are frankly both ignorant and offensive.

    Yes ma’am, they are that.

  130. 130.

    ? Martin

    @Miss Bianca: Correct. It gets harder as you go up because desirability goes up which means demand goes up.

    When Bernie says ‘free college for all’, you need to hear what the universities hear: ‘who do we deny free college to’? That’s already a hard question, and if you are Berkeley or GA Tech or any of the other top universities, that’s really what you are dealing with. Keep in mind, the public is already pretty pissed at how many students we need to turn down now. That’s going to get 10x worse. At least now when you move down the tiers from more to less exclusive, the cost goes down. That won’t happen under Bernie’s plan.

    The reason the community college plan is easier to deal with is that community colleges are already open to everyone. Nobody loses with that move. A lot of students will lose with Bernie’s plan. Now, if the free community college works out, we can always look at expanding it once the dynamics are a bit better understood. I have no idea how turning our institution free would work. We already have nearly 100,000 applications for about 7,000 seats, and that’s with a $10,500 tuition.

  131. 131.

    Miss Bianca

    @? Martin: 100,000 applications for 7,000 seats?? Boy, I’m glad I’m not applying for colleges these days – I don’t think there’s any way I’d get in! Which UC campus is that, if I may be so indiscreet as to inquire? (feel free to say “none of yer beeswax”, if you’d rather not say).

  132. 132.

    ? Martin

    @Miss Bianca: Most of the UCs are now in that range – Berkeley, UCLA, San Diego, Irvine, Davis all have numbers like that. Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and Riverside are a bit behind them, but not much. Merced is still the most open, but it’s still small and adding buildings/programs.

  133. 133.

    cbear

    @Corner Stone:

    I don’t know if Willett is an asshole or just shell shocked into where he currently finds himself. He seemed kind of jerky after it ended.
    Jim Nantz, however, is an asshole through and through.

    Willett came off as a somewhat of a twit after his great round, but handled himself well later.

    Jim Nantz is a smarmy, ball-licking asshole who, along with CBS and the Master’s Committee, is helping ruin the Master’s broadcast. Every year it get worse, and we have to hear and see more puff pieces and less actual golf. The new norm in the last 5-6 years is covering EVERY fucking second of the leader and one or two other player’s rounds on Saturday and Sunday, and ignoring the actual tournament and where other great players are in their round.
    Everything has to have a “storyline” that gets repeated ad nauseum instead of watching actual golfers play golf–AND, worst of all, they will go hours without even showing you a leaderboard that lists more than the top 5 or 6 players.

    And fuck Augusta GC Chairman”Billy” Payne. Nobody wants to hear his pretentious self-serving shit multiple times a day during the tournament. He and Jim Nantz need to take their love affair back to Butler Cabin and blow each other out of our sight and hearing.

    JFC, I used to love watching the Masters.

    And you kids get off my fucking lawn.

  134. 134.

    J R in WV

    @dww44:

    Wow, that’s quite an Obit.

    I worked with a guy who was released from prison after being convicted of murder. He killed his father seconds after his father murdered his mother. I think he was a teen when all that horror went down. Not sure I could have voted to convict if I had been on that jury.

    He was a good guy, quite well educated, doing a good job. I didn’t keep in touch with him after I moved on to another employer, I hope he did well.

  135. 135.

    Aleta

    There’s that Japanese saying about the way to control your ox: let him loose in a really big field. John’s method of creating a blog seems like that, which I think is cool. So here’s a blog with relativlely few rules compared to many others, a sense of freedom, something that draws a lot of us here to enjoy improvising. Run by a tolerant guy, seems admirably nonjudgemental toward commenters, seems very generous. And then the paradox of us freedom-seeking humans every so often coming up with rules that were never there, the length of a comment, the way someone writes, the timing of posts, what is and is not sequential, how John should spend his time. My roommate says this is not that strange for someone like him who went to a boy’s prep school.

  139. 139.

    Redshift

    Well, JC, since you claim you keep multiple posts open in browser tabs, I’ll respond here to the original topic, even though there are a couple more recent posts.

    For whatever reason, the blog’s culture is that there isn’t much active conversation on more than one post at a time. I actually think that a good thing most of the time; it creates more of a sense of community than the GOS style of innumerable simultaneous posts. But the downside is that a new post quickly kills discussion on the previous one, so bigfooting can cut short a good topic.

    I don’t get too worked up about it myself, because I’m more likely miss out because I got to a post too late than because it’s been bigfooted. But that’s why it matters.

    Also, people just like messing with you.

  140. 140.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Redshift: When I am here, I generally have 2-4 threads at once and move back and forth between them. My experience is that many others do the same. It’s kind of like a cocktail or dinner party.

  141. 141.

    redshirt

    @Omnes Omnibus: BJ culture is such that the newest thread is always the dominant one. It takes a hot discussion or a very bad new thread to keep an older thread active. And anything older than that, more so.

    I wish it were not so, and I bet newer discussion systems could address this fact, but John was wise to cancel them – why mess with something that generally works?

    Then again, I’m not sure what John is looking to get out of this blog at this point.

  143. 143.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @redshirt: That is not necessarily true. I have seen threads languish at two or three comments while the one below burbles on.

    And shame on you for the autism shit earlier tonight. It is none of our business. BTW, I have it on good authority that Corner Stone does not have you pied and he just ignores you for fun.

  144. 144.

    Redshift

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    That is not necessarily true. I have seen threads languish at two or three comments while the one below burbles on.

    Sometimes a post isn’t compelling or just takes a while to catch fire. (Or like some of Richard’s health care posts, are very informative but there isn’t much to add.) The transition isn’t instantaneous, but I think it’s fairly rare that there’s a full bore conversation going on for long in multiple posts at once.

    I find that far more frequently, I’ll post a comment, see that there have been no other comments since my previous one, and figure out that everyone else has “left.”

  146. 146.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @redshirt: On the first, opinions differ. On the second, you were an asshole for reasons noted by many other people. Done on the topic.

  154. 154.

    Ruckus

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    I think you’ve mistaken me for redshirt. I was agreeing with you.

    ETA And I see in scrolling down that you caught that.
    I can be an asshole, I’ve done it before and while I’m getting old I haven’t forgotten how. I generally try not to be one, finding that life is nicer, but if the occasion requires…..

  156. 156.

    Ruckus

    @efgoldman:
    I think it depends on how much you’ve practiced before you become a pensioner. I had a job that required me to sometimes be one but never let on that I was. It’s a developed skill.
    ETA I also learned well while temporarily in the shore patrol. Dealing with drunks will help with that skill.

  158. 158.

    Steeplejack

    @Redshift:

    For whatever reason, the blog’s culture is that there isn’t much active conversation on more than one post at a time.

    Utter nonsense.

  161. 161.

    J R in WV

    @Ruckus:

    Most of my experience dealing with drunks was with my father-in-law, who was a sweet kind man with many talents when sober, and a mean s-o-b with a hair-trigger temper when binge-drinking, which he had no control over.

    I will confess that he had a reason to drink, his wife was a crazy narcissist with a graduate degree in passive-aggressive control.

    The first time I said dinner was tasty and F-I-L asked me “Whut the hell do you mean by that?” was a big wake-up. “Pass the ______” could do it too, when the cheap whiskey was burning just right.

  163. 163.

    Ruckus

    @J R in WV:
    Never had to live with one, but did work for one. Once at work went out in my car to yell and scream rather than do the same in the office. The CEO, whose office was between my bosses and mine didn’t know he was a drunk. He was the only person in the office who didn’t. Fun times.

  164. 164.

    Aleta

    @J R in WV:

    Most of my experience dealing with drunks was with my father-in-law, who was a sweet kind man with many talents when sober, and a mean s-o-b with a hair-trigger temper when binge-drinking, which he had no control over.

    exactly describes my near-miss F-I-l. The binge part was how he kept his job (popular teacher, sweet and kind) and how he fooled his 2nd wife until their honeymoon. They each brought small kids to the marriage and she (a former Maine, during WW2 no less) thought she had to stay for their sake. The whole family developed that passive aggressive approach to try to handle him without provoking him. He’s long gone but the nightmare Christmases and gatherings kept going strong. School vacations were when he drank, and years later vacations with them were like a MMA festival for control.

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