Here’s a good-looking pelican:
I’m having an extremely shitty day, so I’d rather look at pelicans than talk about politics or other awful topics. But you feel free to discuss whatever you’d like — open thread!
Reader Interactions
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Prescott Cactus
Hope you can pull a 180′ and things become un-shitty !
Major Major Major Major
the think tank hasn’t called me to offer me all the jobs yet so of course all of creation hates me and wants me to be miserable
Also, kos has 11 Reasons Why Bernie Sanders Lost This Thing Fair and Square up at GOS, for those interested in that sort of thing.
Duke of Clay
Well. As good-looking as pelicans get.
Germy Shoemangler
Wouldn’t it make more sense for pelicans to deliver babies, rather than storks?
maryQ
My day-I have a new answer to the “If you won the lottery, would you keep working/” question: “Hell ya, I’d keep working. Just. Not. Here.”
maryQ
@Germy Shoemangler: Eeew-the pelicans would carry the babies in their mouths! The storks have those nice long beaks, so they can carry the babies in a baby-carrier, without getting bird germs on the babies.
Germy Shoemangler
@maryQ: I think that’s why the storks took the job. The pelicans were too messy.
Also, there were reports of babies disappearing. gulp!
FlyingToaster
My condolences, Betty; yesterday was my suck-ass day, and today (after HerrDoktor forgot to take out the trash, but I caught it in time) has been a VAST improvement.
dr. bloor
@Major Major Major Major:
And to think we accuse Cole of having a love-hate relationship with his readers.
maryQ
@Major Major Major Major: Kos’ 11 reasons thing was that perfect mix of fact and spleen.
Mustang Bobby
I love watching pelicans.
ET
Pelly! Love those birds.
Fred
We are moving from an apartment we really don’t like to a house with yard for our dogies. On the one hand I hate packing and moving. On the other, yard for the girls and better neighborhood. I can’t complain. Besides packing is mostly done and we load the truck tomorrow as evidenced in me having time to write this useless bit of uselessness.
I hope your day gets better Betty.
Miss Bianca
it’s not birds, Betty C, but would news of the burgeoning cephalopod population cheer you up? File it under “Hey, not *everything* in the ocean is dying!”
http://gizmodo.com/swarms-of-octopus-are-taking-over-the-world-s-oceans-1777790453
joel hanes
@Germy Shoemangler:
Wouldn’t it make more sense for pelicans to deliver babies, rather than storks?
Meme originated in Europe, where
1. there are no pelicans
2. storks roost on housetops, at least in the lowlands
3. storks have long been emblematic of good luck
(Engineers often answer rhetorical/humorous questions as if they were posed seriously.)
Major Major Major Major
@maryQ: Pretty much. I put it on the book of faces and have so far gotten one like, from the friend who likes everything I post.
ETA: Two likes! Another Hilldo.
Iowa Old Lady
@maryQ: And the comments are an example of every logical fallacy any philosopher ever considered.
I’m reading Iain Pears’ new book, ARCADIA. It’s a complex story with multiple points of view and settings, plus time travel. Any of you who know anything about the paradoxes of time travel would probably enjoy that part, which to me tends to be gobbeldygook. There’s also a lot about how narratives create reality. Here’s a sentence I read this morning: “The dangers of Henry’s imagination ending up inside itself are so evident they hardly need to be stated.”
Despite all the complexity, it’s engaging as all get out.
FlyingToaster
Speaking of wild fowl, I’m having to check out our upstairs bathroom windows every morning. The soffit vents had fallen out of the eves this winter (plastic rot) and the starlings tried to move in last Tuesday. I replaced the vents, but they managed to pull one out again Sunday afternoon. Rinse, repeat.
If I can hold them off until June, they’ll have nested somewhere else.
The noise from our bird population is amazing. The sparrows (after 12 years of us) are no longer afraid, and the robins don’t even move off of their branch when we walk out to the car. I pity my service people; they all say “how did you get so many sparrows?” and I just shrug. It’s not like there is a river two blocks away — oh, wait…
Jeffro
My day has kinda sucked too, Betty – started with seeing a squirrel go to his reward under the wheels of the car ahead of me while on my way to work, has gone downhill ever since.
Not as downhill as the squirrel’s day, of course, but still…
Keith P.
Anyone else get endless debug breakpoint messages when reading TPM lately? It’s that damn google ad code he uses, but every workstation I use has a debugger installed, so that site is horrible to try to read (not too fun emailing JMM about it either, since he takes the “I have no control over my ads” tact when I email him with issues) But c’mon, who leaves a hard breakpoint in production code? Oh, right, TPM does :)
Trollhattan
Hi Betty. Here’s a particularly talented Aussie pelican to match your day. (Not my pic, sorry to say.)
Xantar
UNMARKED GAME OF THRONES SPOILER!!!
.
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.
.
.
Tyrion doesn’t speak Valyrian.
Hillary Rettig
the bird looks nice, Betty, but if your intention was to get those of us landlocked in the north pining for life someplace with a warm water beach, you succeeded!
Shantanu Saha
All this talk of the democratic merits of open v. closed primaries, but no talk of the democratic merits of open v. closed threads? I see an effort to squelch legitimate debate!
Major Major Major Major
@Iowa Old Lady: Looks cool, put it on my list.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Sanders picked Cornel West for his portion of the platform committee. Gee, I just can’t understand why he isn’t well liked by his colleagues.
Shell
@Iowa Old Lady: Yes, the Bernie fans keep insisting, “Hey, we’re still voting!”
No kidding. Unfortunately, the math is still against them no matter how many coup-fantasies they’re still holding onto.
Chyron HR
@Major Major Major Major:
B-b-but THE WORM HAS TURNED: Barring unforeseeable events, Bernie Sanders will be the Democratic nominee. :^(
Roger Moore
@FlyingToaster:
Just be glad you don’t have parrots.
FlyingToaster
@Shantanu Saha: ‽
FlyingToaster
@Roger Moore: I expect a parrot in Watertown would spend a lot of time pining for the fjords…
LAO
@Iowa Old Lady:
An Instance of the Fingerpost, was one of my favorite reads. I also enjoyed Stone’s Fall.
ETA: I will definitely be adding Arcadia to my never ending list of must reads
Major Major Major Major
@Shantanu Saha: Every thread is an open thread after 100 comments. Open threads become closed-to-all-but-BernieBro v. Hilldo flamewars after 100 comments.
You knew the rules when you started commenting. Don’t blame me.
@FlyingToaster: Best. Punctuation mark. EVER.
FlyingToaster
@efgoldman:
Or a coyote :)
Shell
As they say, everybody’s Irony Detector is useless this campaign cycle.
This from the duo that has had a phone-in chat with the Donald nearly every morning since he declared. And way before. Morning Joe was always the place where Trump could count on spewing his Birther nonsense.
Schlemazel Khan
@Iowa Old Lady:
I wanted to answer the question you posed in the last thread about what kind of organization can send it’s entire security staff off for 3 months.
One that recently got owned by the Chinese. One that has been chronically under staffed (20 employees and about the same contractors for a network that is one of the largest in the world) and under funded. One with a security Dept that needs a culture change after years of being beaten down but can now suddenly afford to staff contractors at a level that might make a difference.
Yes, we are huge but we are also critical to the nation and cannot afford a failure again.
gogol's wife
@Hillary Rettig:
Betty’s pictures of exotic birds are the only thing that has ever made me contemplate living in Florida for even a nanosecond.
singfoom
@Chyron HR: MMMMM.. Shai Hulud?
Is Bernie’s name a killing word? I don’t think he’s the kwitzak haderack (I don’t care about the spelling there.)
FlyingToaster
@Major Major Major Major: I had to go find it for a project I finished this morning, and damn if it isn’t the most fucking useful mark I’ve got. Wish I had it on my iPhone (add that to my to-do list).
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
We have a parrot next door to work. Second most annoying bird ever. First was a cockatoo owned by a guy I knew that he carted around on his shoulder constantly. His shirts had cockatoo crap running down both the front and back. Insured that he always had plenty of space wherever he went. Also insured that he didn’t have to interact with any humans on a friends type basis.
Ajabu
And, on that note:
Dixon Lanier Merritt
(Just checked the author. I always thought it was Ogden Nash or Bennet Cerf.but it goes back to 1910!)
LAO
@FlyingToaster: My folks have an 85 lbs lab (not fat — a blocky English Laborabor) who has no prey instinct so all the wild animals in their yard are free to cavort as they wish. A large hedgehog has moved in to their yard and my father is convinced it poses a serious danger to their dog. Which of course is ridiculous, but I had to talk my father out of trying to shoot the hedgehog this weekend.
FlyingToaster
@efgoldman: My neighbor across the street moved after both of her cats were eaten.
Around here, you’ve either got coyotes or turkeys. If you have both, one drives the other one out. Turkeys have driven off the coyotes in Brookline, but they’re still duking it out in Watertown.
Turkeys seem to limit their attacks to yuppies and hipsters.
Iowa Old Lady
@Schlemazel Khan: Cool. I hope this all turns out to be worthwhile, and everyone is happier and more effective at work. Work takes too many hours for it to be frustrating.
gogol's wife
@Major Major Major Major:
That’s good.
gogol's wife
@Major Major Major Major:
I mean the article is good, not the fact that the think tanks haven’t called.
Ruckus
@gogol’s wife:
Not quite the same but there are zoos all over the place. No need to live in FL to enjoy them. Or you could live in HI.
Roger Moore
@FlyingToaster:
There are apparently feral populations in Brooklyn and Chicago, so Watertown would be possible.
FlyingToaster
@LAO: Cool! All we have is the coyotes of Walker Pond, from which rabbits hide under our porch.
Major Major Major Major
@FlyingToaster: I carry mine around with me.
joel hanes
@efgoldman:
I actually own a striped denim cap that I got at Roaring Camp (steam) Railroads in Felton, CA.
And I have a set of striped bib overalls, because I am a fat former Iowan who sometimes does outdoor work, and they have the best-designed system of pockets ever devised.
Oh, you push the lever in, and you pull the lever out …
—
Down by the station, early in the morning, see the little pufferbellies all in a row …
FlyingToaster
@Roger Moore: I’m not sure Greater Boston is a big-enough heat island. The Olmstead legacy means that a lot of that otherwise wasted energy is being used by the greenery.
Raven
Fishing one of the coastal dune lakes and waiting for the crowds to thin on the beach at dinner time. The Pelicans are all over here and there is heartburn between them and the people that fish for a living. They can be really agressive.
FlyingToaster
@Major Major Major Major: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
WarriorGirl approves. But I won’t let her have one.
joel hanes
@FlyingToaster:
I find it much easier to type “WTF ?”
FlyingToaster
@joel hanes: I like it because it’s the perfect symbol for Jon Stewart’s “Whuh?!” expression.
D58826
@Shell: Maybe I’m just reading the wrong things but all I see are articles with the premise ‘what should Bernie demand’ or ‘What should Hillary give Bernie’ or ‘How can Hillary make it up to the Bernie Bros’. I don’t see where the Bernie side i.e. the losing side, has to give up anything. Seems odd but maybe that just me.
Major Major Major Major
@joel hanes: But that would be a lame tattoo.
@D58826: No, that’s pretty much how they feel. They lost, so the Democrats must woo them again, and anyway it’s Hillary’s fault, and the chair wasn’t really thrown so everybody’s out to get them. And you can’t prove the death threats were theirs. But the important thing is it’s Hillary’s fault. You haven’t noticed them around these parts?
FlyingToaster
@efgoldman: In Australia, my husband fell in love with Wombat Crossing signs. I ended up getting him one for his office.
Ramping Up
Wow, look at what’s happening in The Old Dominion! From a 9 point lead to tied.
Trump is rising, and he’s been rising for a while. A state Democrats thought they had in the bag is now “up in the air”. Is Clinton so desparate she’s going to choose Mark Cuban as a running mate to try to steal Trump’s Reality TV thunder? Stay tuned!
Democrats are getting increasingly nervous…
Gravenstone
@singfoom:
Fuck you.
Fuck David Lynch.
Fuck Frank Herbert for agreeing to that debacle of a script.
/crawls off into a corner to wait for the twitching to subside
Major Major Major Major
@Ramping Up: Keep on fuckin’ that chicken.
FlyingToaster
@efgoldman: Eight-and-a-half. Her Heroism presentation* is Wednesday. She’s practicing her violin right now, then we break out the index cards and start in again. And then the dress rehearsal, where she wears the costume and doesn’t look at the cards.
If I disappear abruptly, it’s to deal with a crisis in “Gavotte from Mignon”. Such is my life.
*Semester long project studying a famous and heroic person, culminating in a one-hour “interview” by her class.
Major Major Major Major
@FlyingToaster: Who’s the hero?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Major Major Major Major: Thanks for the pointer.
Kos misunderstood the Facebook usage stats from that 2015 survey. 62% of all Americans have a Facebook account, but only 70% of those use it daily, so only 0.62 x 0.7 = 43% of all Americans use Facebook daily (not 62%).
/pedant
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who feels that’s important because he doesn’t have a Facebook account.)
scav
@joel hanes: Whether or not there are pelicans in Europe, there certainly are pelicans in European heraldry and symbolism— it’s essentially a symbol for Christ and is said to have fed its children with blood from its own breast. Maybe they were just too busy with feeding the kids to bring them in the first place.
piratedan
@Gravenstone: and we have wormsign the likes that God himself has never seen……. and the answer is… what is cringe worthy dialogue in SF movies for 200.00, Alex
piratedan
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: but do you have a newsletter than needs subscribing to?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: At least we’re getting an early start in moving from ‘I blame Obama’ to ‘I blame Hillary’.
Betty Cracker
@FlyingToaster: Now I want turkeys roaming my property!
gogol's wife
@Major Major Major Major:
The only appropriate response.
BillinGlendaleCA
@piratedan: It’s on Facebook.
Major Major Major Major
@BillinGlendaleCA: I’m going to get an “IMPEACH HILLARY” tshirt made soon.
FlyingToaster
@Major Major Major Major: Nelson Mandela.
D58826
@maryQ: But he should have told us how he really really felt
FlyingToaster
@Betty Cracker: So would I. They’re on the other end of Watertown, stalking unwary hipsters at Filipello.
Feathers
@FlyingToaster: Apparently it is the same with foxes and coyotes. Don’t know about fox v turkey. A while back I had foxes coming through the backyard with some frequency. Haven’t seen them lately. If some nasty ass coyotes drove them away I’m going to be pissed. #teamfox
I’m in Arlington, I know there is a fox colony in the Alewife Brook marshy nature reserve. Turkeys can be nasty. There was one at my old work who started chasing people and then “disappeared” one weekend.
Miss Bianca
@srv:
this is your idea of *cheer*?
FlyingToaster
@Feathers: UHub has a whole category for Turkeys, emphasis on Turkey attacks in Brookline.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: Aren’t some ReThuglicans talking about impeaching Hillary before the inauguration? I think you may be late to the party.
D58826
@Major Major Major Major: I have. And when challenged to prove their point or say what they would do differently its usually crickets or DWS let those Nile crocs lose in Fla to hunt down Bernie fans.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Roger Moore: I can testify that there are indeed parrots in Chicago. One of the weirdest sights I saw there (early ’80s) was seeing one in a tree in a park near the Loop.
Cheers,
Scott.
D58826
@Major Major Major Major: Trade mark the phrase and donate the royalties to Baud 2020
FlyingToaster
@efgoldman: WarriorGirl is in 2nd grade at private school; she went to Suzuki School of Newton for preschool and is there for violin 3 classes a week. Her school has group strings from 2nd to 5th grade.
Watertown schools dumped the full time music and art teachers due to overcrowding, so there’s one of each who travels to all three schools over the course of the week. We did the math, and it was cheaper to send her to private school than to move to Lexington or Newton.
Major Major Major Major
@BillinGlendaleCA: Yeah, but to the 99.9% of people who don’t follow those fever swamps it’ll still be amusing/sufficient trolling to be worth it.
Brachiator
I’m coming off a shitty week and today is not much better.
Love the pelican photo, though. Something about these birds is just funny. Maybe remnant memories of a cartoon I saw as a kid.
To try to offset my mood I went to see “Neighbors 2” over the weekend. Shambolic fun as it inverts frat boy movie pranks and other tropes along the way for sorority craziness. Seth Rogan and Rose Byrne are great as the “old people.” It helps to have seen the original “Neighbors,” since some characters (and jokes) from that film show up again here and some in the audience go “Who?” “What?”
The two trailers they showed before the movie had some in the audience laughing, but me just going, “Oh, I have to make sure I NEVER see these movies. Ever.” The first was an animated film about “living groceries” that do not want to be eaten. I can imagine the pitch:
“You know that commercial about the dumb M&M that doesn’t realize he’s candy and about to be eaten? Let’s do a whole movie about that. No, not with the M&M. A whole grocery store of food. And let’s have pairs of food, you know like jars of peanut butter and jelly working together. And most of all, male hot dogs and their girlfriends, sexy buns!”
I can think of few things more horrific than eating a hot dog while watching a movie in which hot dogs try desperately not to get eaten. And while dopes might claim that the hidden agenda of movies with cute animals is to make us all vegan, what is the agenda of a movie that asks us not to eat prepared food? Starvation as a lifestyle choice?
The other trailer was some crap with Andy Samberg as a rock star? rapper? some kind of singer. I was forgetting everything about it even as I was watching it.
FlyingToaster
@efgoldman: I play other instruments :) Seriously, I studied music from 6 to 22; I rented a violin 3 years and learned with her, but quit because she’s got game and frankly, I haven’t.
Our summer project is to work our way through a Fiddle book; her on violin and me on guitar.
D58826
Well there goes one name off Hillary’s VP list> Va Gov McAlluff is under fbi/doj investigation over campaign contributions. according to cnn
scav
@srv: That trucker thing may be a lttle bit soft because of using past trends and statistics and applying them to contemporary situations. Depending on the company, truckers and their trucks are pretty complrehensively tracked now and their OD records certainly a lot more generally obtainable. And it’s far more likely and easy to correlate unsolved murders with similar MOs across wider areas (provided they cops can be bothered). Not that it can’t be done (especially with a careful choice of low-value targets and crappy jurisdictions), just that it may not be as much as a slam dunk as it was in the past. Still, follow your cheer / entertainment. (?)
Roger Moore
@FlyingToaster:
Look for Acme catalogs; it’s the surest sign.
Major Major Major Major
@D58826: Ugh.
I don’t think T-Mac was ever on her shortlist anyway. We need him in VA, and picking an old Clinton hand would be a bad idea methinks. I still think it’s gonna be Castro.
joel hanes
@scav:
I was wrong.
The white pelican breeds in SE Europe.
Nothern Europe is apparently without pelicans.
Thanks for showing me my mistake.
Brachiator
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Wasn’t this their not-so-secret anti-Obama plan in 2008? They need to update their playbook.
Roger Moore
@FlyingToaster:
It’s less a question of heat than of food availability. Birds are warm blooded and feathers offer excellent insulation, so they can manage surprising levels of cold as long as there’s enough food.
Matt McIrvin
@Miss Bianca: Jellyfish populations are exploding too. But octopuses… octopuses are tasty. Some of them, at least.
scav
@joel hanes: I had no idea if there were pelicans actually there — heraldry is full of things that aren’t in Europe, let alone the planet! So it’s fully an exchange of novel information.
dmsilev
@Roger Moore:
When I lived in Chicago, I lived for years directly across the street from a big parakeet nest. Probably 15 or 20 birds (monks build communal enclosed nests, which is how they can survive the winter). It was kind of cool watching them do their home improvement as it were. But yes, very loud birds.
My parents, in Brookline, have been threatened by turkeys on multiple occasions. There’s apparently one flock which is aggressive enough that it’s best referred to as a ‘gang’ of turkeys. Still, watching a mother and a bunch of chicks walk down the street is kind of cute.
Edit: I once told someone I lived across the street from a flock of feral monks, without adding ‘parakeets’. Enjoy the mental image that conjures up.
Betty Cracker
@Major Major Major Major: Hashbrown TeamPerez!
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: Gyad, the grocery movie sounds abominable! I need to go to the movies — that’ll snap me out of my sadness spiral! Don’t think I’ve seen a movie at a theater since the latest Star Wars…
J R in WV
I was camping with a friend in Wyoming and was amazed by the big white pelicans they have on the Green River up there. They just came floating by on the river like giant watercraft almost. Who knew?
We were collecting petrified wood in the middle of no where…
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker: I’m gonna see Keanu this week I think.
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
I find the parakeets around here (mostly yellow chevroned) are not nearly as loud as the Amazon parrots (mostly red crowned). The Amazons are really noisy, especially at one of their big roosting spots, where there can be hundreds or even thousands.
singfoom
@Gravenstone: You would have preferred Jodorwosky’s never realized version? Having read the first 4 Dune books, I didn’t have a problem with the movie, love the 4 hour Alan Smithee version that Lynch wouldn’t put his name on.
What’s the beef? Is it by your will that you set your mind in motion? :P
Denali
@Betty,
Hope your day is getting better!
Feathers
@Brachiator: I went to go see The Nice Guys to break a run of bad moodiness. It basically worked, although $13.50 for the ticket was a kick in the head. Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang is a favorite and I liked this one too. I was a 70s kid, so the period stuff was fun. Although the daughter character had the usual Shane Black lady-problem of being far too sweet and chipper. If you’re going for 70s, Jodie Foster in Bugsy Malone or Candleshoe/Freaky Friday should have been the mode to shoot for. I love all the John D MacDonald’s Travis McGee novels, as well as Ross Thomas and Ross Macdonald. Old, fat, and weary Russell Crowe is great and dumb and funny Ryan Gosling was a pleasant surprise. If you think you’ll like it, you probably will, but it won’t lose much of anything by waiting for the video.
@FlyingToaster: Apparently there was a turkey at the Turkey Hill bus berth last month, but no pics so it didn’t happen.
eclare
@Betty Cracker: I saw that grocery movie preview somewhere, and I thought, among other things, if you take a kid to see this, won’t that traumatize that kid from ever eating again?
ETA: ok, went on teh google, it’s rated R. Still not something I ever want to see, but neither is Angry Birds, and it’s number one.
joel hanes
@Matt McIrvin:
octopuses are tasty
Also more intelligent than dogs or horses or cats or pigs.
joel hanes
There’s been a flock of feral mitred conures in Sunnyvale, CA for over twenty years.
Their territory centers around the apartment complex adjoining the Olsen Cherry Orchards fruit stand near Mathilda and El Camino.,
They are unbelievably raucous; you can hear them a mile away even over Silicon Valley traffic.
Major Major Major Major
@joel hanes: And yet some people still say we shouldn’t eat horses. Odd, that.
The Lodger
@dmsilev: You’re the reporter in Spotlight?
gogol's wife
@Brachiator:
My brother sent me that one about the hot dogs. I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole.
Brachiator
@Feathers:
This was my second choice. I might try to catch it this holiday weekend.
I never saw Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Maybe I’ll rent it.
@eclare:
Really? Even more reason to stay away. Maybe the humor is intended to be gross and raunchy. But the trailer came across as intensely stupid.
Also, “Neighbors 2” is rated R as well, so the trailer could have shown more to justify the rating. What was shown was just obnoxiously PG-13.