Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

This blog will pay for itself.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

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

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

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

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

T R E 4 5 O N

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

You are here: Home / Open Threads / A Brief Interlude

A Brief Interlude

by | 203 Comments

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I’m sitting here, belly full, in a nice, warm, clean house, with three animals on top of me and one on the floor, watching the Punisher, and I just thought I would acknowledge how good I have it and stop bitching for ten seconds.

Ok, that ten seconds is over. Fuck motherfucking Donald Trump and everyone who voted for him.

What are you all up to tonight?

Reader Interactions

203Comments

  4. 4.

    Narya

    Watching Hawks/Pens (TiVo so onlyat end of 2nd period) and anticipating venison tenderloin from good friend who got one today. And drinking a Big Eddy Russian imperial stout (Leinenkugel)

  6. 6.

    ArchTeryx

    Finally finished my gift to an old friend, putting up a complete TVTropes page (and all its sub-pages) for her two crowdfunded “xenofiction” (read: furry) novels. They made surprisingly good, dark war stories, and I’m a sucker for those. War is hell, and we need reminders of that every so often in this country.

    It’s here: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/GriffinRanger. Have at it, jackals!

  8. 8.

    cmorenc

    Yeah, Trump’s presence intermittently intrudes on what would in other times have been moments of personal contentment and broader optimism about the future. It’s like trying to enjoy what would have been a quiet, but interesting weekend at home when you’ve got to put up with hosting an annoying close relative for the weekend that you don’t have any immediate feasible way to kick out.

  10. 10.

    BretH

    Just watched the first 2 episodes of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, after eating stuffed mushrooms a wonderful salad and we were also reflecting how good we have it.

  11. 11.

    jacy

    avs vs. preds — wish we were playing better. If you can’t score on 12 consecutive power play minutes, you’re doing something wrong…

  12. 12.

    cmorenc

    I’m referee/site coordinator for one of the complexes at a major competitive-level soccer showcase tournament; had to arrive at the site by 7am and didn’t get to leave until around dark (about 6pm). I am kinda spent – gotta be there at dawn again tomorrow, but thankfully it ends by mid-afternoon tomorrow.

    At least I have a charming little Italian Greyhound to sit in my lap tonight while I watch the other kind of football (NC State v Wake Forest).

  13. 13.

    Bruuuuce

    Tonight is Chinese food and continuing to wrap up loose ends before I go in for surgery (admit Monday 11/27 and get cut Tuesday 11/28) (resection of the remaining joint of my fifth right metatarsal, in hopes that this will allow the current wound to close and prevent further foot wounds — yes, I’m Type 2 diabetic but have it mostly under control). Loose ends include lots of housework and preparing an external hard drive to take with me for my laptop, with lots and lots of media to watch and/or rewatch. And trying not to lose my shit with the lying liars and fucking hypocrites of the GOP, particularly the governor of Alabama.

  15. 15.

    Mnemosyne

    Sitting in the Oakland airport waiting to fly home after a whirlwind trip to the Bay Area. It was nice to get to have a mini meetup with Major^4 but Christ does traveling on crutches suck. I had to get felt up by TSA in order to bypass the scanning thingy in an airline wheelchair. The lady was nice and professional (and fast!), but it was still annoying.

  16. 16.

    PaulWartenberg

    I just finished packing up for my trip to Clermont FL for tomorrow’s Comic Con at their Performing Arts Center. I hope to see about 2000 people there and will beg each and every one of them to buy my books. Also, I will be showing off my NaNo writing to promote that for the month.

  17. 17.

    Bruuuuce

    @Mnemosyne: When my wife had her hip replaced, she got a card stating that she had an artificial hip for the benefit of the TSA. We haven’t flown yet, but if they give her grief when we do, there WILL be loud words starting with “get me your supervisor” (and likely continuing to “your name and employee ID, please”)

  19. 19.

    frosty

    Tonight? Recovering from assembling an Ikea bed frame. A) Woulda been nice if the instructions were included, but anyhoo the website had them without a lot of searching B) the “self tapping” 8-32 screws didn’t, but I had an electrician’s tapping tool that did the job. Nice bed, once it was done.

    Tomorrow we tackle the dresser.

  20. 20.

    Mnemosyne

    @Bruuuuce:

    I’m only temporarily injured (I hope!) From what I’ve read, if you have the card and you tell the TSA person who checks your ID, it shouldn’t be a big deal.

  21. 21.

    Brachiator

    I’m heading out for a little dinner. Maybe Chinese food.

    I heard three critics on a movie podcast unanimously and lavishly praise the movie Mudbound, in select theaters and available on Netflix.

    Has anyone seen it?

  22. 22.

    Mnemosyne

    @frosty:

    The dresser will take 2 days. Just so you’re mentally prepared. It takes so long to put in all of the little shelves to hold the drawers that you will need to stop and finish it the next day.

    And watch out for the almost-identical wrong screw. G put it in the wrong spot on his Hemnes dresser and had to partially disassemble it after it was done.

  23. 23.

    Nicole

    Shaking my fist that the school photographer did not inform us they were taking 3/4 shots this year. I let the 7-year-old go in with a very bloody, very gruesome, very fake “wound” he’d had painted on his arm at a booth at a weekend fair. And now it is immortalized in his school photo. Years from now I imagine he’ll tell everyone how hard it was to be brave for the camera, what with his terrible injury.

  24. 24.

    satby

    I was a vendor at one of those church Christmas bazaars today, first one I’ve ever gone to. I did pretty well, sales wise though they didn’t have a lot of traffic. Now to finish making up all my lovely orders from the wonderful jackals here. And spend the week cleaning house before #2 son comes to stay next weekend. Outside of the kitchen and my workroom, the joint looks like it belongs to Miss Haversham.

  25. 25.

    Barbara

    Visiting my mother for the weekend. After really nice dinner out, watching US Olympic men’s team curling final.

  29. 29.

    Bruuuuce

    @Mnemosyne: I look forward to the day when money, time, and opportunity have us traveling for pleasure again. With both hope and trepidation. Thanks

  30. 30.

    ArchTeryx

    @Nicole: Somehow I just about died laughing visualizing this. Not often that a 7-year old manages to troll a school photographer AND his mother in one shot like that. ^.^

  32. 32.

    Shana

    @frosty: I love putting stuff together. Hope the dresser goes better than the bed.

    I made empanadas and salad for dinner with leftover fruit bars for dessert. Yum.

    Hubby and I just watched the first two episodes of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, which a friend had been urging us to watch for a couple of years. Damn, he was right, it’s great.

  35. 35.

    Amaranthine RBG

    Just docked in Noyo Harbor and waiting for our ride to dinner after a day of whale watching.

    Didn’t see a darn thing all day so we decided to chase pelagic birds instead. Stupid whales.

  37. 37.

    Tara the Antisocial Social Worker

    Apparently the latest thing from the right is that Starbuck’s Christmas cups are “lesbian.”

    I’m just glad I finally know what happened. I was totally straight until one day, I was sitting in a Starbucks, sipping my latte, and whoosh I was overwhelmed with the desire to find myself a woman and a U-Haul. It was the cup that did it!

    And all this time, I thought it was from eating the muffin!

  38. 38.

    Bruuuuce

    @satby and @Vheidi: Thanks. If it’s like the surgery last year, it’s ten days at lovely Hotel Mt Sinai/Beth Israel and then another couple of months at home. Probably bothering this crowd, since I’ll have the time to do so :-D

  40. 40.

    Amir Khalid

    @Nicole:

    Years from now I imagine he’ll tell everyone how hard it was to be brave for the camera, what with his terrible injury.

    It sounds like you actually did your son a favour.

  41. 41.

    Aardvark Cheeselog

    I’ve been tearing up a computer that I’ve been meaning to upgrade for a long time now: it looks like I’m buying an obsolete mobo on eBay to get it up off its ass far enough to actually proceed with that.

  42. 42.

    amygdala

    In my hotel in Vancouver, where I’ve spent a drizzly, pleasant long weekend. Heading home tomorrow.

  45. 45.

    NotMax

    Trivia time:

    The name personally chosen by a certain Adolf H. and assigned to his private train and mobile rolling command center was Amerika.

    That was somewhat hurriedly changed after Pearl Harbor.

  46. 46.

    Mnemosyne

    @Nicole:

    Well, at least you’ll have a good story, right? Maybe you and your son can collaborate to come up with the best fake story of how it happened.

  47. 47.

    Ladyraxterinok

    You all in WV: Are you familiar with Eric Flynt’s 1632 science fiction series? A small WV town is picked up and sent back to Germany in the midst of the 30 Years War.

    The members of the local branch of the mine workers union work together to help the inhabitants cope with their life in a totally different world. The leader of the local becomes the leader of the town.

    In the postscript to the 1st volume of the series, Flint explains some of the reasons why he wrote the series.As a young man, Flint worked as a union organizer. He lived for a while in WV.

    Flint based his fictional town on an actual WV town for surounding geographical features, town buildings and layout. The actual HS building becomes a very important feature in the many volumes of the series.

  48. 48.

    zhena gogolia

    I sent you an e-mail with a link to the positive review of Wiley Cash’s novel in the NYT book review.

  49. 49.

    Bruuuuce

    @Adam L Silverman: Any lampoon of the TSA is a good lampoon. Have never been impressed with them (and doubly so since, one time in Florida, one of the eejits asked me to check my key ring because I had, at the time. a pistol-shaped key to a Club for my steering wheel at home, approximately 1 1/2 inches long, with a shaft diameter, far less the aperture, smaller than a BB. Ultimately the gate agent and supervisor passed me through).

  50. 50.

    PST

    My dog just took an enormous dump in the aisle of a Home Depot. I keep forgetting she’s still a puppy and there are things she doesn’t know, like a vast warehouse is not a living room. I picked up, of course, and it came up cleanly. I tried to tell someone, so they could mop (or make me mop), but for the life of me I couldn’t find an employee anywhere in the vicinity. So I paid (self-serve, no cashiers I could see) and we slunk away. I’m a little ashamed.

  51. 51.

    Mnemosyne

    Also, the flight attendant on Southwest told me that if someone needs an ice pack while in flight, they make one out of a clean barf bag, which made me laugh.

  52. 52.

    Ruckus

    @Bruuuuce:
    First, good luck and heal up soon.
    Second, the only way we will ever be able to enjoy travel ever again is if all the conservatives are run out of office and off the federal payroll. AND we get a long enough run with democratic presidents and good ones at that, who know the difference between a terrorist and a black guy from Brooklyn. Other countries manage it what is it that makes it impossible here?
    Third, just got back from the International Motorcycle Show in Long Beach. I still hate assholes, especially self entitled ones in politics or behind the wheel.

  55. 55.

    SFBayAreaGal

    Waiting for my sister and her family to return home. Keeping me company is their two loveable dogs Marley and Domino (mom and son)

  56. 56.

    Ruckus

    @Nicole:
    That will be a great story in 50 yrs. It’s a great story now.
    How many kids have stories like that from age 7?
    Wanna bet he asks for copies?

  57. 57.

    Bruuuuce

    @Ruckus: Thanks.

    And yes, we need people who live in reality, with their heads in sunshine, not dark, smelly bodily cavities. We may have a shot at that in 2018, but I don’t see the Dems doing the ground work they need to, to ensure it.

    @zhena gogolia: Excellent. Maybe it’s only the guys at FLL who are complete jerks

  58. 58.

    Patricia Kayden

    @PST: You’re allowed to take your dog into Home Depot? Hmmmm. I’ve never tried. Our Petsmart allows critters but that’s about it.

  59. 59.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Bruuuuce: At Pensacola airport in DEC 2010 the very inexperienced screener told me to take my hoody off. I wasn’t wearing a hoody. I was wearing a 1/4 zip US Military Academy West Point fleece over a t shirt. When I said to him excuse me? He repeated the instructions as a loud command. When I politely explained I wasn’t wearing a hoody he commanded me not to move and screamed for a supervisor. When the supervisor came over he informed him that I was refusing to comply with instructions to take off my hoody. The supervisor turned to me, I handed him my CAC card as ID, which had my GS rank on it, the supervisor first looked at my back, told the kid to join him, and asked him if he saw a hood. The kid said no. He then showed the kid my CAC card and pointed to the GS rank on it. The kid turned green. The supervisor handed me back my card, apologized, and said: “he’s kind of new”. I said I understood. We both laughed. I went on my way. The only bad interaction I’ve ever had with someone from TSA.

  63. 63.

    Tara the Antisocial Social Worker

    @satby: My favorite of their genius ideas was to protest by buying coffee and giving their name as “merry Christmas” so the barista would have to say it.

    Dude. Any “protest” that makes them money is a win for Starbucks – and they’re still gonna spell the name wrong.

  65. 65.

    NotMax

    Until such time (very soon, they promise – it’s necessarily a big job) that the new iteration of NoScript for FF’s new bones comes out, rolled Firefox back to version 56.0.2 and set updates to notify rather than auto-install.

  66. 66.

    Mnemosyne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I once had TSA at the Phoenix airport freak out and do a full search of my carry-on bag because I had a 1-ounce bottle of hand lotion that was not inside a quart-sized bag. That was during the W years, however. They seemed to unclench a bit under Obama.

  70. 70.

    Tehanu

    Just got home from the Getty Center where we went to see the David Hockney show. His “Pearblossom Highway” photocollage is pretty damn impressive in person (so to speak). However, that was totally blown out of my mind by the purely accidental discovery — we were trying to find the exit — that in 3 days, they are opening a Caravaggio show. The guard pointed at a sheer black curtain and said, “It’ll be in there,” and when I looked, I could see through the curtain that they have Caravaggio’s “David with the Head of Goliath,” which is my favorite painting in the entire world. A photo of it sits above my desk so I can look at it every single day. The last time I actually saw it was almost 30 years ago, at the Met in New York, and since it normally resides in Italy, I never thought I’d see it again. I got so excited I started to hyperventilate! So one week from today, barring That Asshole in the White House blowing us all up, we will be back at the Getty and I will probably sit there for two hours crying with happiness.

    @Ladyraxterinok:

    Yes, 1632 and most (not all, alas) of its sequels are terrific!

  71. 71.

    Amir Khalid

    @PST:
    It’s amusing, but now that I think about it, it does make sense: there are plenty of barf bags on board and they won’t leak freezing-cold water.

  75. 75.

    rikyrah

    Peanut gave us a scare earlier this week. Wound up being nothing serious, but not before she missed three days of school. So, we just spent the day catching up on school work. Not a fun way to spend a Saturday, but we only have one thing to do tomorrow.

  77. 77.

    Ninedragonspot

    Busy weekend of opera-watching in Taipei. Two nights of Tang Meiyun’s “New Butterfly Lovers”, which quintuple cast the title roles to allow three generations of actors to each take a turn in a couple parts of the story. I cried at the end.

    Saturday afternoon watching old-school Beijing opera with the Fuxing troupe: first. a bawdy play about a bumpkin mother from the countryside meeting the bourgeois in-laws for the first time, then a play where Li Hui convinces the Lord of Hell that she had been unjustly murdered, is allowed to return to life, clears up some misunderstandings with her beloved, and then rescues him from assassination, blowing fire eight or nine times.

    This afternoon a new production of the Yi Xin (One Heart) Taiwanese Opera Troupe, who won my affection years ago with Taiwan’s first gay opera (“Cut Sleeves”, sisters Sun Shiyong and Sun Shipei portray an emperor and his male lover).

  79. 79.

    Ruckus

    @zhena gogolia:
    I flew once last year LAX to SFO. Northbound was a pain, had to go through the scanner that you stand still with your arms raised and then be patted down and bag inspected. Return leg they upped me to the prepass line and I just breezed through, no muss no fuss. I used to fly about 7 months a year for work. That was always fun. Nothing but fun. Best time was when whoever it is that checks to see if the TSA/DHS is doing it’s job. After I placed my bag on the belt they placed a pistol in the handle of my bag. I didn’t see it until my hand was 2 inches away from it. The inspector thought it was funny when I said “WHAT THE FUCK?” in a rather loud voice, and then got pissed at them for doing this to a civilian. Yeah, real fucking professional people they got working for the DHS.

  80. 80.

    frosty

    @Mnemosyne:

    And watch out for the almost-identical wrong screw. G put it in the wrong spot on his Hemnes dresser and had to partially disassemble it after it was done.

    Thanks for the warning! Hemnes (where do they get these names??) is what we bought. I had to start over on the bed after I looked at the instructions and realized they wanted me to do the footboard first, not the headboard.

  83. 83.

    NotMax

    FYI.

    The top nuclear commander in the US says he would resist any “illegal” presidential order to launch a strike.
    [snip]
    Speaking at the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada, Gen Hyten said: “We think about these things a lot. When you have this responsibility, how do you not think about it?”

    “I provide advice to the president, he will tell me what to do,” he said.

    “And if it’s illegal, guess what’s going to happen? I’m going to say: ‘Mr President, that’s illegal.’ And guess what he’s going to do? He’s going to say, ‘What would be legal?’ And we’ll come up with options, of a mix of capabilities to respond to whatever the situation is, and that’s the way it works.

    “It’s not that complicated,” Gen Hyten added.

    He also added: “If you execute an unlawful order, you will go to jail. You could go to jail for the rest of your life.” Source

  85. 85.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Bruuuuce: I would normally have just handed my travel orders over, but those were in my briefcase on the scanner conveyer belt. Since I wasn’t wearing a hoody, I wasn’t worried about that. And since I knew the supervisor was going to ask for my ID, I made sure to give him the Federal/DOD one, not my driver’s license.

  87. 87.

    amygdala

    @opiejeanne: BC. It’s been quite nice–cool, but not uncomfortably so. Picked up some hot smoked salmon at Granville Market today, now sitting in the fridge in my room. Just pinned a note to my backpack “FISH IN FRIDGE” so I remember to pack it in my carryon. Although I guess it would be a rather nice gratuity for housekeeping.

  89. 89.

    opiejeanne

    @Adam L Silverman: I had an issue with TSA in Dulles about 12 years ago, coming back to the west coast. Dad was in a wheelchair and they made him shuffle through the gate, which was ok. But then while I was putting Dad’s shoes back on him, the woman scanning our carry-ons yelled at me, asking about what was in my purse. I travel with a big canvas bag that has a lot of stuff in it and had no idea what it was that was setting her off. I started to list what I could remember, not even half the stuff in there, and she insisted that I tell her RIGHT NOW! I said, “Well, show me what you are looking at.”
    “No ma’am, I can’t do that. What’s in your purse?”
    I told her she could dump it all out and have a look because I had no idea what she was talking about.
    “No ma’am, I can’t do that.”
    Do you want me to pull everything out of the purse so you can check each item?
    “No, I can’t let you do that.”
    And now I’ve got some little twit TSA agent, looks 17, who is telling me I have to move my dad.”
    I barked at him that I would move him WHEN I AM DONE WITH HER! and pointed at her. And peeked over her shoulder.
    It was the 4 inch long bar of metal that has three cut-outs: It’s a wrench.
    “Is that what you’re asking me about?”
    And just as she turned to me to let me have it her supervisor strolls up and tells her she’s an idiot, that the wrench has been on the approved sheet for weeks.
    That was the only real problem I’ve had with them, other than when I was transferring planes and they stuck me in a glass box and yelled for security because the agent thought the airline code number meant I was to be randomly checked, but then they shoved my husband in there and we were watching the minutes tick by for the plane we were supposed to catch. And security did not come but this was at a time when they were doing really evil things to people who complained, like that woman with the baby and the bottle of breast milk.
    Her supervisor finally came over, told her she was an idiot and we just made it to our gate in time.

  90. 90.

    Peale

    Saw that super friends movie. I’m still not enjoying Ben Affleck’s Batman. I’m confused by Atlantians and why they must live under water. And how they evolved. Do they just hold their breath or do they have both gills and lungs? I guess I’d watch a Flash movie. And another Wonder Woman movie. But the rest of them I’ll set aside.

  91. 91.

    NotMax

    Peek-a-boo prime minister.

    Saad Hariri, who resigned as Lebanon’s prime minister on Nov. 4, said he will join President Michel Aoun and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Independence Day celebrations on Wednesday.
    [snip]
    The spokesman for the Lebanese presidential palace, Rafiq Shalala, told Arab News that Hariri “will attend the military parade as prime minister because he didn’t submit his resignation to the president.”
    Shalala added: “The step of submitting the resignation to President Aoun isn’t clear until the return of Hariri to Beirut. We haven’t been informed of its date yet.”
    [snip]
    Saudi Arabia on Saturday asked its citizens for the second time in less than two weeks to leave Lebanon “as soon as possible” given the “circumstances” there, according to The Associated Press (AP). Source

  92. 92.

    Ruckus

    @NotMax:

    “If you execute an unlawful order, you will go to jail. You could go to jail for the rest of your life.”

    Which, if you are in charge of carrying out drumpf’s idiot order you may not have all that long a life left.

  99. 99.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Peale: They were forced evolved by Atlantean magic after an ancient Atlantean king’s use of said magic to protect the earth caused the city to sink.

  100. 100.

    Bruuuuce

    @NotMax:

    “And if it’s illegal, guess what’s going to happen? I’m going to say: ‘Mr President, that’s illegal.’ And guess what he’s going to do? He’s going to say, ‘What would be legal?’ And we’ll come up with options, of a mix of capabilities to respond to whatever the situation is, and that’s the way it works.

    Nope. What he’s going to do is say “you’re fired! Find me a general who will do what I say.” That’s the way THIS regime works, sadly.

  102. 102.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Bruuuuce: I do not have an artificial hip, but I have a fairly significant amount of surgical hardware and I don’t set off metal detectors. When I was traveling with my arm brace, every interaction I had with TSA was unfailingly polite.

  105. 105.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: @Bruuuuce: I can’t prove it, but I guarantee that Secretary Mattis, Gen. Dunford, the rest of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Geographic Combatant Commanders, and, perhaps, the Service Component Commanders, had a quiet conversation about how to handle these issues going forward. And knowing how thorough Secretary Mattis is, he ran it past his most senior Staff Judge Advocate first.

  106. 106.

    opiejeanne

    @Adam L Silverman: It was when W was in office. Since those two incidents we’ve had great people check us through and for some reason they tend to put us in the pre-pass line. Maybe they’re nice because it’s Seattle. The second one, the time in the box, was at Chicago O’Hare. We were returning from France, I think.

  112. 112.

    NotMax

    Slap on the tennis braceleted wrist, as it were.

    22-year-old Norwegian billionaire handed $30,400 fine for drunk driving — it could have been $4.9 million Source

  113. 113.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    You have worked for the government. That is a statement that they couldn’t argue with because it’s true and which is as cutting as can be.
    Although I can say that I’ve had issues with inspectors before the TSA as well. Once at SFO one of the private security inspectors told her boss that she thought she’d seen a knife in a bag on the X-Ray. About 15 minutes prior. So they emptied out the entire terminal, and emptied all the planes that had boarded but were still at the gate. Police and dogs were brought in to search. Once that was done we all had to go through the x-ray twice, once in each line and then have all bags hand inspected. Other than a pain in the ass and I missed my connection on the other end, not so bad. But. And it’s a big, round, firm but, I was carrying the backgate money for the event I had just worked. $33,000+ cash. The woman inspecting my bag yelled out at the top of her voice “His bag is full of cash!” Her supervisor came over and told her to shut up and that there is no law against carrying cash. “But his bag is full of cash!” The supervisor told me to take my bag and go but now the entire terminal knew that I was carrying what must have been a rather large sum of money. I liked traveling for my job. I really, really did. And if you believe that I’ve got a bridge which I can let you have for cheap.

  114. 114.

    gene108

    I wish I still drank*, my college football team lost a game in gut wrenching fashion. They gave me so much hope we’d have a good season and to fall flat this week. Hope sucks. Booze understands this.

    * I quit drinking because it interefered with medications I am on. And now my kidneys are shot, so why take chances. God, I miss booze.

  117. 117.

    chopper

    @Amir Khalid:

    it’s funny that the navy pilots are in trouble over drawing one in the skies over washington, apparently drawing boners goes back 8000 years.

  119. 119.

    Ruckus

    @Gin & Tonic:
    Titanium will not set off a magnetic only detector but it will set off some of the new stuff. I’ve known a number of people with a lot of hardware who flew regularly and they all carried a docs note and x-rays. OTOH I have no surgical metal in me and I set off some of the new sensors every time and have to be hand searched.

  125. 125.

    Sab

    @Mathguy: My grandmother had a gorgeous IG. She was apparently gay, always humping the miniature poodle. Gorgeous dog, very sweet, but the poodle couldnt stand her.

  126. 126.

    Bruuuuce

    Needed a pickup from general malaise, and actually had occasion to post this as a comment to a friend’s FB posting. Here are The Dresden Dolls with “Sing” live, preceded by Amanda reading “Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus” (one of my few favorite holiday pieces). The Kleenex box is over there to the right.

  129. 129.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Bruuuuce: I do too. That said in my experience 4 star operational commanders don’t make statements like this, in an open forum, willy nilly.

  131. 131.

    Emma

    Do I have TSA stories (but then, I fly out of Miami). My favorite is about flying to a library conference about a month after 9/11. They seemed to be pulling people at random out of the coach line. In quick succession me and my laptop bag, an elderly Hasidic gentleman carrying a briefcase, and a woman wearing amazingly tight leggings and carrying the kind of straw bag you buy from the dockside vendors all over cruise-ship ports. As we are standing there, two TSA agents come through the first class line escorting six gentlemen in thawbs and kaffiyeh. As they stroll past us I hear a soft throat-clearing noise and I look over at the Hasidic gent and he grins at me and does this shrug-and-hand gesture that conveyed a million words. I had to bite the side of my cheek to stop from laughing hysterically.

  132. 132.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Bruuuuce: She was a Vietnam War protestor, so she may be on some list somewhere. OTOH, since the issue began after her first hip replacement, I think it may well be related.

  133. 133.

    Feathers

    My favorite TSA story is the lady who told me she needed to examine my weave. I told her I didn’t have a weave. It was more amusing than anything else. She gave my scalp a good massage and was genuinely surprised to discover that it was all my hair.

  134. 134.

    Bruuuuce

    @Adam L Silverman: My concern isn’t so much for his, or other high-ranking personnel’s, reactions. It’s the wild card in the White House, and his three-year-old personality, notably the tantrums he throws when someone tells him “no”.

  135. 135.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ruckus: This is what happens when you decide you have to have the TSA because it is the only line of defense between an open ended existential threat and, at the same time, decide that nothing in the government is going to be funded our resourced properly so that you’re hiring from a very wide, but not very deep pool of prospective candidates.

  136. 136.

    Idaho Flaneuse

    @zhena gogolia: I just got back from overseas by way of SEA. Between the international terminal and the main terminal I had to go through a TSA checkpoint. It consisted of one people scanner, two hand luggage scanners and a dozen people to yell continuously that you needed to take EVERYTHING out of your pockets before you go into the people scanner. After customs and immigration, I was a little close to violence when I was yelled at for the 57th time to have my pockets empty.

  137. 137.

    Bruuuuce

    @Omnes Omnibus: Ah. Rather like the warrant discovered for the woman with the “Fuck Trump and Fuck His Voters” bumper sticker after the sherriff was advised that he was unlikely to succeed with a charge of inciting against the public peace or some such

  146. 146.

    Bruuuuce

    @Feathers: Awesome! Have never seen them, and now fear I might not. (Which puts them onto a list with others like Richard Thompson, still performing but whom I’ve never yet managed to see.)

  152. 152.

    Adria McDowell

    Have an upcoming trip out to California for my stepdaughter’s wedding. It’ll be the first time my 5 year old has flown since she was 18 months old and we flew back to the States. Not looking forward to explaining airport security to her. Luckily, she’s very cute and friendly, so hopefully going through TSA won’t be a problem.

    In other news, I bit the absolute beJesus out of my tongue- I feel like the kid from A Christmas Story.

  156. 156.

    Bruuuuce

    @Omnes Omnibus: I know. I have about a zillion bootlegs of him, but have never been there in the flesh. Something about time and money simultaneously :-(

    I do know that if I ever do see him, and it’s a request show, the song I would push hard for is “Hots for the Smarts”

  158. 158.

    frosty

    @Emma:

    As we are standing there, two TSA agents come through the first class line escorting six gentlemen in thawbs and kaffiyeh.

    I flew round trip BWI to ABQ in November 2001. (The airfare was awesome because no one was flying, ~$120 RT IIRC). Departure from Albuquerque was delayed because they took a guy in a turban off the plane. Probably a Sikh, probably no threat. Just overzealous stupidity.

  160. 160.

    CaseyL

    I’m envious of y’all with travel plans.

    Today I finished binge-watching Westworld, thanks to HBO Free Weekend. Damn, that’s a good show. I’m very glad I was able to see the whole season at once because some of the twists and turns would have driven me nuts if I had to wait a week to see them develop.

  161. 161.

    Emma

    @frosty: In this case they were being escorted into first class. No stop in security, nada. It was funny because a Cuban-American librarian, an elderly Hasidic man and a woman that looked and sounded like the ultimate American tourist coming home were pulled over.

  163. 163.

    Mike J

    @CaseyL: Last week I binged The Good Place, season 1 and the first 7 of season 2. There is nothing better on TV. So annoying there’s no more til the end of December.

  164. 164.

    Villago Delenda Est

    I’m playing WoW. 13th Anniversary celebration in progress.

    Oh, and Cole…It’s “Donald motherfucking moron Trump” if you please.

    Yes, and fuck anyone who voted for him. With an unlubed rusted chainsaw.

  166. 166.

    Emerald

    @Bruuuuce:

    I just had a hip replacement three months ago. They don’t give you the card anymore. Too easy to forge one of those.

    Now you just tell the TSA folk that you have a total hip replacement. They must deal with dozens of them every day.

    ‘Course, I haven’t been through any kind of security since the surgery, but that’s what Kaiser tells you now.

  167. 167.

    NotMax

    @Villago Delenda Est

    The random boss dragon in Hinterlands today for the anniversary quest was a real pain. BTW, the bronze sunglasses purchasable from the timewalking vendor in SW library , even though marked as a cosmetic item, ARE transmoggable.

  168. 168.

    Feathers

    @Bruuuuce: I had friends who were in their circle, but they were all team Brian. I’ve seen Amanda’s solo shows too, but In Dresden Dolls she has a focus and energy that she doesn’t have when she performs by herself.

    Funny thing, I ended up with an extra ticket that night. Small world.

  170. 170.

    Bruuuuce

    @Emerald: Maybe it was the company (or the hospital); she had hers done with financing by Aetna, at NY’s Mount Sinai Beth Israel. Or maybe it’s a policy change across the board. I still feel better knowing she has it.

  172. 172.

    mai naem mobile

    I sometimes find myself walking around at the park or mall or whatever and thinking to myself, at least three people out of ten (total ppl number minus ineligible ppl.)that I am around right now voted for this idiot. It’s an awful thought. I kind of seethe inside that these idiots actually thought he was qualified. Why? How? Arrggh.

  174. 174.

    burnspbesq

    @frosty:

    Things were weird in the days right after 9/11. I think I may have been the first person to take an iPod through security at Kahului (Thanksgiving weekend 2001). The contractors had no idea what it was, so I pretty much had to turn it on and let the whole staff mess with it. By the time they let me through I didn’t have enough battery left to detonate the little block of C-4 hidden inside the hard drive.

  177. 177.

    Bruuuuce

    @NotMax: :-)

    Oddly enough, while that’s my favorite (or maybe second fave, to “The Men Who Murdered Mohammed”) time travel story, I’ve never yet sat all the way through the flick.

  181. 181.

    Ruckus

    @Amir Khalid:
    I don’t think they will.
    @Gin & Tonic:
    Stainless? Some types of stainless are magnetic and some types are not. I don’t believe they’d use the magnetic types inside the body. Corrosion would be possible because it’s iron or chromium that makes it magnetic. Even the normally considered non magnetic 303 and 304 series have very very slight magnetic properties because of the chromium they are alloyed with. 316 is considered non magnetic because it’s major alloy is molybdenum. Other stainless steels such as 17-4 are magnetic.
    I’d bet that most stainless used in surgical implants are 316, because it is one of the most corrosion resistant stainless steels and is quite strong.

  182. 182.

    Juice Box

    @Bruuuuce: Where do I get this card for an artificial joint? I paid $100 for a “trusted traveler” GOES card and automatic pre-check just before I got my knee replaced. Now I have to wait 20 minutes for them to find a female TSA agent so that I won’t be sullied by the eyes of a male agent looking at my scrawny, 60 year-old frame to ascertain that yes, the knee is setting off the metal detector.

  185. 185.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    The SFO story was pre TSA. These were private “security” as used to be hired by the airlines/airport to provide flight “security.” I’d bet a number of the people who used to work in private security for the airlines/airports got hired by the TSA. They had experience, such as it was.

  187. 187.

    danielx

    Ok, that ten seconds is over. Fuck motherfucking Donald Trump and everyone who voted for him.

    Cole, I am sorry to know things did not work out with ABC. She brightened your life and definitely improved your taste, decor-wise. Better photographer, too.

    On the flip side, that line above shows more of your disposition and outlook than I’ve seen for a while.

  188. 188.

    Ruckus

    @frosty:

    Just overzealous stupidity.

    In the TSA? I’m heartbroken to hear that the TSA is a moron melting pot. Not surprised mind you, just………

  189. 189.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @danielx:

    Cole, I am sorry to know things did not work out with ABC. She brightened your life and definitely improved your taste, decor-wise. Better photographer, too.

    Wait, when did this happen?

  190. 190.

    Ruckus

    @mai naem mobile:
    I’m not sure most thought he was qualified, they were just trying to get their racist on and they knew that HRC wasn’t qualified for that. But then I have also heard that many of them think that the last 8 yrs was the country headed into the crapper. Morons really don’t have a fucking clue about economics, health care, anything really, that’s why we are comfortable calling them morons.

  192. 192.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @NotMax: All of the Nightmare Dragons are, well, nightmares. All that crap they spew on the ground which go both clockwise and counterclockwise, it’s next to impossible for a caster to do much of anything, but die and hope they got a tag in before they died.

    Most “cosmetic” items can be used for transmog.

  194. 194.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Ruckus: The country was “headed into the crapper” because Preznit was blah. His competency, personality, integrity, intelligence had nothing to do with that assessment. It’s strictly about skin color with these fucking primitives.

  195. 195.

    Lyrebird

    @Adria McDowell: May you have the luck I had last spring, flying with a 5 year old and a not-yet-elderly-but-tired elder, myself still recuperating from surgery on my leg… several TSA ladies at DCA went above and beyond to be helpful and kind.

    Maybe my limp while hauling the dratted booster seat won me some sympathy, but anyhow, as @Adam L Silverman pointed out it’s an underpaid underappreciated job, and that does not always bring out sympathy in people.

    Anyhow this long tale is just meant as good wishes!

  196. 196.

    Ruckus

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:
    I’m economically anxious and I don’t even have a college degree. And I worked and voted for President Obama, every primary and every election. No, I think that’s the wrong term. Or maybe the wrong bullshit excuse.
    @Villago Delenda Est:
    That’s why I said they were trying to get their racist on. To be acceptable to drumpf voters a black man has to be better than perfect, stronger than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, and not black. All in all a difficult task to pull off. And as good as he was President Obama falls down on that last one.

  197. 197.

    Tehanu

    @Mnemosyne: The thing I love about the “David” is the expression on his face: not triumph or vengefulness, but pity. I was also lucky enough to see Caravaggio’s “Peter Denying Christ” at LACMA a couple of years back; the words have barely left Peter’s mouth when he realizes what he’s done and is overcome with shame and remorse. It’s a privilege to be able to see these things with your own eyes.

    @SFBayAreaGal: The Getty website doesn’t have much info, so I don’t know if this (rather small, by the way) show is traveling elsewhere. LA’s not that far though and it will be at the Getty till Feb. 18.

  198. 198.

    J R in WV

    @Ladyraxterinok:

    Have multiple copies of some of those books, there are seemingly 100s of them so far, and it’s a little hard t tell one from the other. There are multiple plot lines continuing by various authors, mostly edited and complied by Eric. Some hilarious bits at times where confiict between union guys and former Wall Street type management gets intense.

    And the Barby Doll financial empire is also pretty funny. Original time persons can be amusing, but also a little sad because they don’t believe the reference library books made available to them by the people from the future. There has to be a trick somewhere somehow for many of these residents of the mid 1600s.

  199. 199.

    Denali

    The best art exhibit surprise I have had was last summer at the O’keeffe show in Toronto when I came upon her Lake George reflection painting which is homed in San Francisco. I first discovered it in a book of her painitings, and used it as inspiration for a painting Thehigh peaks reflected in Heart Lake in the Adirondacks. The painting sold at a fund-raising auction, and I forget to take a photo of it. Oh well.

  200. 200.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ruckus: There are definitely things to criticize about the US economy over the last eight years, but nobody who insists that it was terrible and getting worse can reasonably insist that it all magically turned around and became great when Trump was inaugurated… and that’s exactly what they do, encouraged by unbelievable whoppers from Trump himself. All the statistics that were fake before Inauguration Day immediately became real, like the Velveteen Rabbit, and vice versa.

  201. 201.

    Adria McDowell

    @Lyrebird: Thanks. She’s pretty excited and loves planes (my husband is an aircraft mechanic). We are flying out of Columbus, so maybe they will be more chill. The return flight out of LAX might be interesting, though.

    Her car seat weighs about 5,798,948 pounds. That’s gonna be a challenge!

  202. 202.

    J R in WV

    @Mnemosyne:

    Full search because…
    ” I had a 1-ounce bottle of hand lotion that was not inside a quart-sized bag.”

    I travel (as does wife) with a ton of prescriptions for sevefral different chronic problems, plus whatever acute illnesses I might have. They technically aren’t allowed to fuss about medical material. Plus I have two joint replacements (shoulders) as does wife, knees. They don’t do cards anymore, you just tell them what to expect.

    Once checking in nere to fly out of WV wife had an antique pocket knife that had slid into a fold inside her purse. They could see it on x-ray but couldn’t find it physically to remove it. They kept saying to wife they would have to start all over if she touched it, but of course they were starting all over repeatedly anyway.

    Eventually she asked to have the bag, which did have complicated pockets galore, and pulled the small Case knife out. A police officer was watching, and asked after the knife was found “Is that an heirloom, Miss?” and she said, “It was my fathers!” and he offered to take into custody until she returned, told her it would be in an envelope on the cork-board in the police station. Very polite, and yes, it was right there 4 weeks later when we got home. And no further hassles departing.

    I do get my shoulders massaged after the detector booth, and Mrs J gets her knees inspected…. what can you hide in you knee under tights?

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