Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

White supremacy is terrorism.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Accountability, motherfuckers.

I was promised a recession.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

The words do not have to be perfect.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

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

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

No Justins, No Peace

Not all heroes wear capes.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

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

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Because of wow. / Late Night/Early Morning Open Thread: Sleep Soundly

Late Night/Early Morning Open Thread: Sleep Soundly

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For your drifting off to sleep enjoyment this evening you have your choice: 15 foot bull gator toddling about a golf course in Florida, the two female protagonists from The Ring and The Grudge promoting their new movie by throwing out the first pitch at a Japanese baseball game, or both! Pleasant dreams!

 

Reader Interactions

139Comments

  2. 2.

    Major Major Major Major

    I choose you, baseball videochu!

    My cat sure did miss me! This is his first time with the place totally empty since he got used to living here and I was gone for five days. I’m not a monster, I had a sitter, but he only stopped by for food, water, and poop and a little playing. Now Samwise won’t stop following me and meowing! (He’s not quite two)

  4. 4.

    Adam L Silverman

    @redshirt: The USF golf course in Tampa used to have a big bull gator that lived in the wetlands just off of one of the greens. He would often go up onto the green and sun himself. Everyone I knew that played that course, if they came up to that hole and he was up there basking in the warmth, just skipped the hole. Not sure how folks worked out what to do about the scoring though.

  5. 5.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: Click on the first link and watch the chuckleheads decide to walk within about ten feet and get video. Its not like even a gator this size can’t go from waddling along to 35 mph in about three steps.

  7. 7.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: I don’t get the cheerleaders in the Catholic schoolgirl uniforms. I”m not complaining about them, but seems strangely out of place. Normal cheerleader uniforms would have worked just as well for a routine that included being scared off the field.

  14. 14.

    Emma

    @Adam L Silverman: Someone should introduce you to some of the Japanese girls-in-uniforms kinks. Not me. Even at 60 and having several times ’round the block under my belt, I still blush at some of it.

    Methinks the cold meds are kicking in and making the mouth run overtime. Night all.

  15. 15.

    benw

    @redshirt: The Japanese are extremely weird. Unless you’re Japanese. Then you seem normal, and everyone else seems extremely weird. Weird, huh?

  17. 17.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: I think you’re supposed to zig zag into and out of the water. Apparently they have to slow way down when they go from water to land because of the drag from the water and its when they’re at their least agile. I just try to stay way away from them. We have several were I live and my biggest worry is to come across one when I’m out walking my dogs.

  18. 18.

    DocSardonic

    @redshirt: That one is typical of an older bull. Although I have seen them as large as 24 feet. A trapper used to have a 22 foot bull that he used to take on tours, that gator was a sight to behold.

  19. 19.

    Adam L Silverman

    @redshirt: Bull gator is sort of slang for a very large and dominant male. Specifically one with that pouch under its jaw like in the video. They make a vocalization that sounds like a bullfrog, on steroids, exposed to Dr. Banner’s gamma radiation experiment, run through a megaphone. We have one like that in the retention pond behind and to the right of my house. The dogs do not go back there. I generally do not go back there, but you can hear him on occasion. Especially during mating season.

    This one seems to be a fairly old one. He’s at least 15 feet, which is a large adult male.

  21. 21.

    Juju

    @Adam L Silverman: The alligator coming after my dog thing and not really being a person who likes sun exposure are two of a few reasons I’ve only been to Florida once.

  23. 23.

    Mike in NC

    We currently have about a 10 foot gator making the rounds of the water hazards on our golf course. Seen bigger ones but not in a few years.

  24. 24.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    Adam, you could have just posted this – a combination of the two – and saved us a click.

    ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  25. 25.

    lamh36

    @CNBCnow 1h1 hour ago
    JUST IN: Clinton now 57 delegates away from clinching nomination; Puerto Rico (67 delegates) votes tomorrow.

    @costareports
    Bernie Sanders, eyeing a ‘contested convention,’ urges press to hold off on calling race

  27. 27.

    redshirt

    While the Maine golf season is short, at least the waters and woods aren’t filled with deadly creatures from the Cretaceous. It makes ball hunting a far more enjoyable sport.

  30. 30.

    Major Major Major Major

    @redshirt:

    While the Maine golf season is short, at least the waters and woods aren’t filled with deadly creatures from the Cretaceous. It makes ball hunting a far more enjoyable sport.

    I’m emailing that to Stephen King to start a short story with.

  31. 31.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @redshirt: My grad school adviser was from Australia. He told stories about when his kids were young he’d have to go out with a couple of fence pickets to smash the tarantulas before letting his kids out to play in their yard.

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  32. 32.

    amygdala

    That gator is the stuff of nightmares. I can’t believe the guys taking the video were doing so in an open vehicle so close to that damn thing. *shudder*

  33. 33.

    Adam L Silverman

    @redshirt: I’m sure there are. We do have water moccasins down here. And rattle snakes. As I’ve written before in other comment threads: we have coyotes/coywolves, there have been bobcat sightings in the area, there have been black bear sightings in the area, I’ve seen feral pig/wild hog sign, we have a variety of raptors – bald and golden eagles, red shoulder hawks, other hawks, swallow tailed kites, we have bard owls, we’ve got wild turkeys. There’s been a single one of those wandering around the neighborhood for the last several weeks. Normally they travel in a rafter (flock). Its a juvenile, so I’m not sure if it got separated from its tour group and is hoping someone calls social services or if he’s just adventurous. And there have been recent Florida panther sightings within central Florida again. This, and the bear sightings, are very good things.

  40. 40.

    Adam L Silverman

    @redshirt: The funniest are the turkeys. They’re really dangerous, but really stupid. They’ve got these razor sharp spurs and can be belligerent. Had a neighbor that had a black or dark blue Mercedes and parked it on his driveway one day. It had just been waxed and you could get a good reflection in it. A wild turkey came past, caught his own reflection from the car, and decided to puff up and warn this intruder off his territory. Of course his reflection did the same thing. So he attacked. That car’s paint job was ruined. That turkey attempted to rip his reflection to shreds on the driver’s side, on the hood, on the roof, on the trunk, on the passenger’s side.

    I’ve also been told they’ll stand in a rain storm with their heads back and mouths open and drown themselves while trying to drink. Itty bitty little brains, large very sharp spurs. What could go wrong?

  41. 41.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: The worst are the ones in the golf carts. I’ve almost been t-boned several times while driving. They just don’t think that cars on actual streets should have the right of way.

  43. 43.

    Betty Cracker

    @Adam L Silverman: Saw a couple of turkeys during my hike near Brooksville today. No gators, though.

    I know the USF course (The Claw) well. Lots of wildlife there for a fairly densely populated area.

  46. 46.

    TheMightyTrowel

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: not tarantulas, funnel webs. Vicious, aggressive and as poisonous as they come. They dig little burrows, build a funnel shaped Web pointing into it and then hang out waiting for something to wander by. I’m a remote area certified first aider and the advice for funnel webs is treat like a particularly venemous snake bite.

  47. 47.

    Betty Cracker

    @efgoldman: A local radio station used to have a jingle they played before relaying the latest elderly driver incident. The lyrics were: “Hit the gas instead of the brake! Another old fart makes a big mistake!”

  53. 53.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: They generally run off when I come past with the dogs. But I have seen video of them attacking walkers and joggers and bicyclers.

  54. 54.

    redshirt

    @efgoldman: A co-worker in Burlington described his car getting swarmed by a group of turkeys while stopped at a red light. One aggressively poking at the driver’s side window.

  58. 58.

    CaseyL

    @Adam L Silverman:

    we have coyotes/coywolves, there have been bobcat sightings in the area, there have been black bear sightings in the area, I’ve seen feral pig/wild hog sign, we have a variety of raptors – bald and golden eagles, red shoulder hawks, other hawks, swallow tailed kites, we have bard owls, we’ve got wild turkeys.

    Where in the state do you live??? I didn’t know there were bear and feral pigs in Florida, and I lived there for years! Not that I would’ve stayed, even for that: I couldn’t stand the climate back then, and have gotten even less heat & humidity tolerant since moving to Seattle 40 years ago.

  59. 59.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: My grandfather, also a driver of questionable skill at best, killed himself that way. Though it was a prolonged death. He wouldn’t give up driving, wrapped the car around a tree, shattered his pelvic girdle, and, of course because they were all younger than him and had them fancy pants degrees, refused to listen to any of the doctors or therapists in terms of rehab. So he never followed any of the rehabilitation advice and after almost a year in convalescent care ultimately died there.

    Glad yours was smart enough to know when to call it quits!

  60. 60.

    Major Major Major Major

    I finally got my Hillary bumper stickers today. Right onto the laptop with the big square H➡ for me! No sure what to do with HILLARY 2016.

    I posted a pic of the computer on FB and one of my friends said “Where’s Bern?” I replied “Laptop sticker space is for closers.”

  61. 61.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Adam L Silverman: :-)

    I saw some wild turkeys out winter camping in WV once. We spooked in them in a stand of trees and they took off through the pines, snapping branches in the process. One left a nice feather impression in the snow.

    I also saw one off I-295 in DC within the last year, just hiking around by an off-ramp, apparently looking for something to eat.

    There’s been an explosion of wildlife around here in the last 10-15 years. As you say, it’s a good thing.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  62. 62.

    PurpleGirl

    @Adam L Silverman: When my friends who lived in Peekskill either had business trips or vacations, I’d move into the their place… well with the menagerie they had it was easier that way. (A full size, old styled Doberman pinscher; 4 retired racing grayhounds, a cat, 2 parrots, 3 ferrets, an ever changing number of gerbils.) Especially too because of the parrots since vets won’t take parrots for boarding.

    They paid for my carfare to work in Manhattan and my food.

    ETA: When they would come home from joint trip, Hugo (the Dobie) would stand in the hallway between the bedrooms, look into their room, then into my room, their’s, mine, back and forth. He go into their room and half way the night he’d open my door and come inside to join me.

  63. 63.

    TheMightyTrowel

    @Adam L Silverman: i get your sarcasm, don’t worry… but yes here in straya the 1st aid courses come with a clear severity rating for the fauna. It more of less runs from ‘No worries, mate. Stick a plaster on it, get an ice pack and see a doctor if it gets worse’ to ‘lie down, don’t move, pray’.

    Stuff that in Europe or the states would merit immediate medical response (e.g. python bites, redbacks – the black widow’s more venemous aussie cousin) get the former treatment while funnel webs, taipans and browns get the latter.

  64. 64.

    Adam L Silverman

    @CaseyL: Florida has always had black bears, but they were critically endangered for years. They were a subspecies of the American black bear – Ursas Americanus Floridanus, just like the Florida panther is a subspecies too. Someone caught one on a trail cam a bit north of New Port Richey a couple of years ago. So the range indicated on the map at the link isn’t accurate anymore.
    http://www.fnai.org/FieldGuide/pdf/Ursus_americanus_floridanus.PDF

    As for feral pigs/wild hogs: they’re everywhere.
    http://myfwc.com/media/2102702/6staffreport-wildhog_presentation.pdf

  66. 66.

    redshirt

    Us really old people of the future shouldn’t have to worry about getting out and about in a car, since the car, hopefully, will be driving.

  67. 67.

    Adam L Silverman

    @TheMightyTrowel: I have always understood Australia as both beautiful and designed to kill anyone that isn’t paying attention while enjoying its natural beauty.

  70. 70.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @efgoldman: Indeed.

    My excuse is I learned just enough German in HS and college to mess up what little English grammar I learned in grade school. ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  71. 71.

    PurpleGirl

    @Adam L Silverman: I’m very light sensitive. I’ll close my eyes automatically but so tight and so fast that if I were driving I wouldn’t have time to pull off the road. Been like that since my teens. Anyway and some point I decided not to learn to drive and not drive because killing myself is one thing but taking other people with me… I couldn’t do that.

  73. 73.

    Pete Downunder

    Here is Australia the apex predators are more of a worry than the creepy crawlies. This last week alone a woman was taken by a croc and a surfer died of a shark attack. Snake and spider bite deaths are pretty rare – but the risk is there. Of the ten deadliest snakes in world we have all ten.

  76. 76.

    Adam L Silverman

    Good night all. I’m for bed.

    I’ve got lamh36’s guest post on the Roots remake schedule to go up at 11 AM EDT, so make sure to show the love in the comments.

  77. 77.

    Brachiator

    Trump and his monstrous orange hair would be a natural at that Japanese baseball game ceremony.

  85. 85.

    Miss Bianca

    @Adam L Silverman: I think that’s domestic turkeys, not wild turkeys, that are supposed to be that stupid. I don’t think a wild turkey could survive being that stupid.

    ETA: I see someone beat me to it. But at least *I* didn’t entirely burst the bubble of dad-mythologizing..

  89. 89.

    Pete Downunder

    @TheMightyTrowel: Why anyone goes in the ocean here is beyond me.

    @Major Major Major Major: I read that when I was in HS (in the late Jurasic), by Walter Miller as I recall, not to be confused with Barry Goldwater’s running mate William Miller. Don’t recall the book too much though.

  92. 92.

    Mnemosyne

    @Pete Downunder:

    We have Great Whites here in California that mostly bite people by accident (surfers on surfboards wearing wetsuits look like seals from a shark’s POV). IIRC, you guys have copper sharks, which are truly nasty customers that like the way humans taste.

  94. 94.

    Pete Downunder

    @Major Major Major Major: I recall really liking the book and thinking it would be a good movie.

    @Mnemosyne: We have white pointers here which I suspect are either great whites or closely related. They mostly get surfers. But we also have three or four kinds of really nasty jelly fish, cone snails, and even a tree with really nasty nettles that will send you to the hospital (the gympie stinging tree). We won’t even discuss the bull ants, fire ants, or bird eating tarantulas.

  95. 95.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    When the kid and I went hiking in the Verdugos, she was worried about bears, I told her that there aren’t any bears in these mountains(there are mountain lions and coyotes). Last time we went hiking in the San Gabriels, I told her that there are bears here. I also told her they generally won’t bother you, unless you have food which I was carrying. She does seem to have an irrational fear of bears.

  98. 98.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Mnemosyne: The universe tries to even out pointless deaths country by country, however it can. Australia doesn’t have guns, so they have kangaroo accidents, deadly sharks, toad epidemics, poisonous trees… even the platypus has toxic spines.

  99. 99.

    Redshift

    @Major Major Major Major: Yeah, I read it way back when. I remember quite a bit of it, and also the weird publisher’s blurb on the back of the paperback, which made it sound like a big twist in the story was that St. Leibowitz was Jewish! In reality, that wasn’t part of the story at all, and whoever wrote the blurb obviously hasn’t read it.

  100. 100.

    TheMightyTrowel

    @Pete Downunder: Don’t fucking forget the goddamned jack jumpers. Bastards invaded my field school’s campsite last year. They’re just like fire ants except (a) they jump and (b) they’re 3x as likely to provoke an anaphylactic response than bees or wasps.

  101. 101.

    TheMightyTrowel

    @Mnemosyne: being serious, this is a guess but as an American who lived in Europe for a while before moving down here my gut says it’s because there are so few people and population centres here. If attacked you probably have fewer people present to get you out of a situation and perform first aid plus it will take the emts longer to get there and then you’ll have to travel further to get to a large hospital.

  103. 103.

    Pete Downunder

    @Mnemosyne: And for some reason Western Australia has most of the serious attacks, but the east coast is not immune. I was scuba diving in the bay off Brisbane and a week later a young woman was taken about a kilometer from where we were. I haven’t been back.

    Most of the croc attacks are due to stupidity. In croc country just don’t go within 40 meters of any body of water where you can’t see the bottom clearly (which is pretty much everything but the motel pool). They are ambush hunters and you won’t see them coming. They are very slow on land so you’re safe away from the water if you’re paying any attention at all.

  104. 104.

    Luthe

    @redshirt: No, you just have moose. Which are mega fauna left over from the last ice age. And can also be deadly when provoked.

  105. 105.

    TheMightyTrowel

    @Pete Downunder: remember the golfer a few years ago who lost a leg when he approached a water feature get his ball despite the large and visible Croc in it?

  108. 108.

    Mnemosyne

    @Luthe:

    Moose are the largest species of true deer. South America’s pudus are the smallest at about a foot tall.

    I wanted to bring one home from the zoo, but G seemed to think there was some kind of law against keeping an endangered species in your apartment. I still don’t know what that was all about.

  111. 111.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @Major Major Major Major:
    Yeah. Several square feet of dried human cadaver skin.
    I commissioned a high power pulse laser this week and asked the customer what they were going to process on it.
    Wasn’t expecting to be handed that and it kinda weirded me out.

  113. 113.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @Major Major Major Major:
    Thanks. Home for a couple of weeks, then Tuscaloosa, then Stuttgart and home in time for my birthday at the end of July.

    I have a super boring book that I save for nights like this.

  114. 114.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    And in case you were wondering, like the dried seaweed they wrap sushi rolls in (nori?) except translucent beige.

  118. 118.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    I dreamed that my superpower was to create a static electrical charge by pressing my thumb and forefinger together. It was useless and caused me to attract lint and give people unpleasant small shocks.
    Ultimately I learned to use only my fingers for everything so as to avoid building up the voltage.
    I suppose I could have just worn a grounding strap but in dreams you don’t think of things like that.

  120. 120.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @Elizabelle:
    Perforated for use in treating burn victims I think. Honestly the conversation crashed to a halt and I had to go take a walk at that point so I didn’t get any details.
    Usually our pulse lasers are used on cool stuff like solar cells or jet engine compressor blades. Up to now the weirdest application was ablating batter residue from Eggo waffle irons.
    I doubt cadaver skin will get topped soon.
    It’s haunting me a little.

  122. 122.

    Elizabelle

    @Ultraviolet Thunder: It is haunting. Shades of the Third Reich, although this time it’s for healing and restorative purposes. Anything they can do to help burn victims.

    Your work helps bring about some interesting accomplishments.

  123. 123.

    sm*t cl*de

    @redshirt:

    What’s the ruling if your ball hits a gator from Jurassic?

    You return to the present to find that you have changed the time-line and then there is A sound of thunder.

  124. 124.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @Elizabelle:
    Your work helps bring about some interesting accomplishments.

    Mostly cutting and welding automobile components in filthy factories, which is fun. That’s the primary industrial use of lasers.
    But there’s a certain amount of research and medical manufacturing done with the high energy pulse lasers.
    I’m just the mechanic though. Other people design them and come up with applications. I come in when something goes wrong and needs fixing.

  128. 128.

    satby

    @Ultraviolet Thunder: I hope you’re asleep by now, but if it’s any help, remember people donate their organs (skin is an organ) after death in the hope that lives will be saved and made better, and your work just helped someone accomplish that in a small way.

  129. 129.

    Zinsky

    That is one massive gator! I say we turn him loose in Donald Trump’s office and nail the door shut! Then we will see what kind of problem solver he is!

  131. 131.

    BC in Illinois

    @Major Major Major Major:

    In the mid-60s, A Canticle for Leibowitz was standard fare for Jr High / High School dystopian reading. (At one point, I figured that I could write a book report on it, just by listening to book reports on it.) Think of what a steady diet of On the Beach, 1984, Lord of the Flies, Alas, Babylon, Fahrenheit 451 did to the up-and-coming Baby Boomer teenaged reader. When Planet of the Apes came out (the movie more powerful than the book), I received it as a not-far-fetched documentary of the future. Entirely believable.

  133. 133.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @satby:
    Thanks I did get a few more hours after the Nilsson.
    The epidermis incident, as we shall refer to it, got me to thinking on the plane home that I should donate my organs and skin. And that I should tattoo happy and inspiring things on it in the meantime so as to maximize its utility after my demise.
    Happy faces and like that maybe.
    It’s an idea.

  139. 139.

    Gvg

    @redshirt: move it to where? Gator population in Florida is so dense, that it’s pointless to move them. There are several others just as big nearby even if you don’t see them right then. You need to get used to them and sort of both ignore them while giving them a wide berth.
    My sister still laughs about how the fellow Dr. she worked with who bought a home on the Hillsborough river who called animal control about the gator in her back yard. When they asked her where she lived, they laughed and said “lady, where do you think we release the ones we do remove?” She told the story to Floridians thinking they would understand her point of view….
    Stay away and they won’t bother you. No big deal, except really keep dogs away from them. For some reason they think dogs are tasty.

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