Because when the new year opens with the same arrant and unrelenting bullshit with which the old one closed, a purely beautiful moment is welcome:
And this thread? Why yes…yes: it is open.
This post is in: Because of wow., Open Threads
Because when the new year opens with the same arrant and unrelenting bullshit with which the old one closed, a purely beautiful moment is welcome:
And this thread? Why yes…yes: it is open.
Comments are closed.
Cheryl Rofer
Also – those of you in the region of extreme cold should be seeing more sundogs and moondogs.
Yarrow
Open thread? Thanks to everyone who offered advice and kind words when I asked questions about what I was observing with the cats I was talking care of while my neighbor was out of town. She is back and says the cats seem fine. I’ve talked to her about the input/output issues I saw and she’s going to keep an eye on that. All else seems good. Thanks, everyone.
Yarrow
Posted this in the previous thread, but since it’s an open thread…
Patricia Kayden
With Trump in the White House and Republicans in control of Congress, we are in for another year of what you so eloquently call “arrant and unrelenting b.s.” We might catch a break in November if Trump’s arrogance ticks off so many Americans that they come out in droves to kick Republicans out. I can’t imagine Trump changing so he’ll have ample time between now and the mid-terms to embarrass and anger more voters and give them multiple reasons to vote against his party. That’s probably why so many Republican Congress Critters are jumping from the ship.
Mary G
This is probably fake news, but it seems like poetic justice, so I have decided to believe it without reading the article:
Matt McIrvin
@Cheryl Rofer: Great picture!
When I see bright sundogs and the sun is not too high in the sky, I always make sure to look straight up, because there’s a chance of seeing a circumzenithal arc, which looks like a detached rainbow with lovely, highly saturated colors hovering at the top of the sky. They’re more common than most people realize, but it’s easy to miss them because they appear directly overhead.
(If the sun is high in the sky, you may instead see a circumhorizontal arc, which is similar only huge and shaped like a horizontal bar below the sun. Those are somewhat rarer, but I’ve seen a couple; it’s what sometimes gets incorrectly described in Facebook memes as a “fire rainbow”.)
hellslittlestangel
@Yarrow: But what are you if you read the New York Post (or The Sun, which is like,incredibly, a dumbed-down Post)?
Mathguy
We were doing something similar New Year’s Eve since it was -15F in Omaha. The bubbles would float downward as they froze and sit on the ground unbroken for minutes. Very cool (and very cold).
MattF
@Yarrow: Liking bitter food isn’t the only thing– it seems, (unsurprisingly), that there’s been a lot of research on what behaviors correlate with being a psychopath.
Kraux Pas
I just started watching “One Day at a Time” on Netflix, a remake of the old series or so I understand.
Never saw the original, but I loved some of Norman Lear’s other shows and this has been good so far.
Roger Moore
I’ve done that. If it gets cold enough, you can blow a bubble and it will freeze and shatter when it hits the ground instead of popping. Unless it gets caught in an updraft, in which case it can stay up way, way longer than a regular bubble because it doesn’t dry out and pop the same way.
Gin & Tonic
@Yarrow: “Might.”
ThresherK
@Yarrow: I’m gonna have to drink a lot to get that knowledge out of my head!
—
Since we moved seven weeks ago we haven’t found the box where the kitty nail clippers are stored. I finally broke down and tried the human toenail model on the feistier of our cats, and it went pretty well.
AliceBlue
@Mary G:
This wasn’t fake news.
Yarrow
@Gin & Tonic: LOL. It’s such a dumb clickbait headline, but it did catch my eye so I guess it did its job.
Cheryl Rofer
BTW, there’s a big storm headed for the east coast on Thursday.
Immanentize
@Yarrow: Yes but even if you hate gin and tonics, you still might be a psychopath (whatever that is).
efgoldman
Sort of related: My 4 y.o. granddaughter informed me yesterday, with all the possible seriousness, that last nite was a supermoon, “Which looks big, big, big SO BIG! [with gestures]….. but we can’t see it because it’s cloudy.”
efgoldman
@Immanentize:
I fall back on Justice Stewart’s definition of pornography: I know it when I see it.
gene108
@efgoldman:
You should have informed her that tonight is the actual full moon. She’s off by a day.
Or were you a good grandpa and said “oh my god, it’s that big…I think that’s amazing” :-)
Immanentize
@efgoldman: All told, I’d rather see pornography….
ThresherK
@efgoldman: At least she didn’t say “Yuge!”, which would indicate she’s been consuming too much media.
efgoldman
@gene108:
I remain astonished at the things she knows. She goes to an excellent preschool, and Mom and Dad answer every question even if the answer itself makes no sense to her yet.
Schlemazel
@Kraux Pas:
I thought this was not Lear’s best work. It was OK for a season & then sort of fell off (IMO).
I didn’t know they were remaking it.
Miss Bianca
@gene108: you could have fooled me – looked fully full last night!
I was driving home last night from New Year’s festivities elsewhere. I love driving at night in the middle of the desert and the mountains, when it’s so bright from the moonlight that you never need to turn your brights on (tho’ that doesn’t stop other people, I’ve noticed, just me).
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: Here’s wishing you a healthier 2018 than 2017, so you can continue to be astonished by her.
sp98
@gene108: According to http://www.sunrisesunset.com, the new moon was 9:25 PM last night (January 1), for Tidewater Virginia, at least.
brendancalling
Cold as a witch’s tit in Philly. I’m a wuss and won’t run when it’s cold. Dying of cold and sloth.
Kraux Pas
@Schlemazel: It’s on Netflix, a new season is coming out in a couple weeks apparently. I think the family is really charming and it has a lot of the character archetypes one might expect from a Norman Lear show. The political extremes are a little magnified but, hey, it’s a sitcom.
Schlemazel
@Kraux Pas:
If there is politics it is not the same series as the original
gene108
@sp98:
Guess you are right. It’s Jan 2nd for the Eastern hemisphere due to time zone differences.
Phylllis
@Cheryl Rofer: Just got the call that school is closed tomorrow due to the ever-increasing likelihood of snow in these parts tomorrow from that storm.
efgoldman
@Phylllis: mrs efg and her co-director have already cancelled their Girl Scout chorus rehearsal for Friday evening. The church parking lot dooesn’t get plowed until Sunday, and the basement where the rehearse is unheated.
J R in WV
School is closed around here because it’s so fuqing unusually COLD here. Kids get on school buses really early, and it they have to wait long could get harmed by the unusual weather.
Lots of these kids would be eligible for free winter coats, if there were enough coat drives for everyone who needs one.
ruemara
‘Tis the season for me to clear out all the stuff I baked and cooked and try to get back down to the weight I want to be. Except people keep giving me chocolate.
I have a hilarious (from a distance) story about cat poop, but I’m at work.
debbie
@Cheryl Rofer:
Take a look at what they saw in Sweden a month ago!
NotMax
9:15 p.m. Eastern time tonight on TCM – It’s a Gift.
Personal favorite of the movies of W.C. Fields. Makes me smile just thinking about it.
Be there or be square.
Following at 10:45 is The Bank Dick, and then the benignly surreal Never Give a Sucker an Even Break at 12:15.
Bitter Scribe
It’s like a snow globe in reverse.
Mr Stagger Lee
So Roy Moore’s lawyer, the one who Mrs. MOORE referred as a Jew,voted for his good friend Doug Jones.
japa21
This may well have been reported on some other thread, but my wife is in tears because of this news. Chocolate may disappear within 40 years due to climate change, you know, the thing Trump says is a Chinese plot. http://www.businessinsider.com/when-chocolate-extinct-2017-12
ruemara
@japa21: I read that and I am not ready for a carob based future.
lamh36
Welp…ya’ll finally did it.
All ya’ll jealousy over the South’s “warm” winters…today I woke up and it was 25 degrees!!!! And we’ve got an arctic blast forecast for the entire week until at least the weekend…
It’s currently 35 degrees!!!!
It’s too damn cold out’chere
Cheryl Rofer
@debbie: There was a gorgeous photo last year of a complete halo around the sun in New Mexico, with four sundogs and other accessories.
debbie
@Cheryl Rofer:
Impressive!
FlyingToaster
@efgoldman: I’m really dreading having to a) drive out to WarriorGirl’s old preschool on Thursday morning in the snow and then b) drive her to music school on Saturday when it is supposed to be -3 at 9am. The synagogue which hosts the preschool does remember to plow, but the church which hosts the music school? Not so much, plus about half of us park at the local grade school two blocks away since the church lot is SMALL. I’m not inclined to have her or her violin out there when it’s below 0.
Phylllis
@efgoldman: We’ve taken a hit in the past for making the call to close & then the predicted weather doesn’t pan out. My superintendent has a better safe than sorry attitude. Particularly since we’re in a rural area and our buses have to navigate roads that either dirt or crusher run.
Schlemazel
@japa21:
That story has been making the rounds but if you look at the article it references a two year old article that really does not say that chocolate is going to be gone because of climate change. The real threat is over consumption
Gelfling 545
Considerably warmer here today. This welcome condition is being offset by our current blizzard.
это курам на смех
@Cheryl Rofer: For a great Sun Halo, check out this video from Sweden.
ETA oops, Debbie saw it first.
brettvk
Is anyone else having problems getting to some sites on the web? Twitter is having problems loading images and I can’t reach Patheos or LGM.
SiubhanDuinne
@Schlemazel:
Sigh. Every damn thing is my fault.
HumboldtBlue
Happy New Year, motherfuckers, let’s hope we get another.
Bitter Scribe
@japa21: Also endangered by climate change: Arabica coffee. It has to be planted in the cool mountains, and coffee farmers are being forced farther and farther up the slopes.
efgoldman
@FlyingToaster:
Enormous Brokerage & Mutual Funds LLC, fro which I’m retired, never closed for weather – NEVER – to the extent that they’d buy out nearby hotels and put us up.
I never could afford an all-wheel or four-wheel vehicle. I had some interesting drives.
Uncle Cosmo
@Phylllis: I was a participant in (AFAIK) the only indoor chess tournament ever to be rained out: 1966 MD Junior Championship, a 3-day affair in Baltimore late December of that year. On the evening of the first day 6″ of snow was forecast for the next morning, & we had players commuting from the DC suburbs; when the tournament director woke up at 5:30 AM & the radio still predicted 6″ later in the morning, he cancelled the second day. It rained instead.