Tammy takes good pics:
Weeding and getting in the last crops are in the immediate future. First, some quality time with the doggos:
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
All your base are belong to Tunch.
rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius
And we’re all out of bubblegum.
š¶ Those boots were made for mockinā šµ
Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.
When someone says they ālove freedomā, rest assured they donāt mean yours.
A Senator Walker would also be an insult to reason, rationality, and decency.
No one could have predicted…
Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.
Iām pretty sure thereās only one Jack Smith.
Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.
… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP
A democracy canāt function when people canāt distinguish facts from lies.
ā¦ riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact
Bark louder, little dog.
I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.
You donāt get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.
Red lights blinking on democracyās dashboard
Republicans in disarray!
Everybody saw this coming.
We still have time to mess this up!
And now I have baud making fun of me. this day canāt get worse.
Tick tock motherfuckers!
Fuck the extremist election deniers. Whatās money for if not for keeping them out of office?
Betty
Thanks for sharing them.
HinTN
With the flower: ADORABLE
JPL
The pictures may my day.
kindness
Kid pics are on the same level as puppy/kitten pics. Warm, fuzzy & wonderful. Your yard looks great John. I am not touching the ‘Willows Controversy’. All I know is we had a giant willow tree in our back yard when I was growing up. 10 years after my folks planted it the roots grew in a manner that pushed the tree up on this huge mass of a mound and it became unwieldy. My Dad cut the tree down after 15 years. They are pretty trees though. I climbed it a lot as a kid. I marveled how woodpeckers would bore holes in the tree and then ants would steam up and collect the sap. There were 1000’s of woodpecker holes in that tree so climbing it meant ignoring ants everywhere. I was a kid. I didn’t care.
Quinerly
???ā¤ļø?
MomSense
She is a sweet, noodle muffin with the best expressions!
I am always shocked by how small the dogs look when they are in photos that show their relative size. Lily and Rosie look like medium sized dogs in photos by themselves – but here Iām pretty sure I could carry all of them at the same time.
Leto
Step 1: get your finger out of the lens. The rest of the steps kind of fall into place after that.
Sheās adorable! We need all the sun, laughs, and smiles we can get.
Renie
I have to admit I feel the same way as John does. My own 2 kids, both in their 20s, find it funny looking at videos of little kids (and dogs). At least once a day they want to show me a video they think is so funny of a little kid. I pretend to be interested, cuz it’s my kid showing me, but I really don’t care about looking at other people’s kids. And don’t get me started at being in a restaurant that’s not a family restaurant, and someone has their kids with them. I always make sure I am seated far away. Yet if I do see well-behaved kids in a restaurant I always compliment the parents. //my rant for today
JanieM
Iām not one who hates pets, I actually quite like a lot of them, but I am one who doesnāt immediately agree with people that their pets are cute. I mean, I know why parents think THEIR pets are cute, but I donāt have to agree with them, I just have to pretend to agree with them if I value their friendship. In other words, as I have no pets, I feel that I am a more accurate judge of which pets are cute and which ones are not….
(Ducks, then runs………)
(Or maybe, with a nod toward the adorable, voluble Pearl, I should say “crouches, then runs”…..)
Another Scott
Indeed it is a beautiful day. Thanks for the pics.
A couple of Wondermark comics that the GoT, etc. fans, and writers among us, may enjoy.
c1476 – and underlying it all
c1477 – the dark shape of.
:-)
Enjoy the weekend!
Cheers,
Scott.
stinger
Yep, that’s a cute kid. And the yard looks great.
Another Scott
OT, DeLong isn’t having @jack messing with his Twitter…:
Bravo.
The only thing these MotUs understand is money. Yes, vote with your wallet, Brad. (And everyone else.)
Cheers,
Scott.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Another Scott: Hee. Very funny. Is the bearded character purposely supposed to look like GRRM?
TaMara (HFG)
I currently have 110lbs of Great Dane in my lap. Sometimes Scout just needs cuddle time.
That sweet little girl has trouble written all over her face. She will either discover the solution to climate change or become a super villain. LOL. She could so be part of my family. We all waver on that line, as well.
Yard & pups look great, John.
Suzanne
The kid is cute. FWIW, I agree with you, John. I of course love my Spawns and I think they’re gorgeous, but I don’t really reflexively enjoy children in general. Meh.
In general, I get irritated by parents who don’t teach their kids to adapt to adult society. My kids have always behaved in restaurants and on airplanes and in spaces like museums and libraries because I have been taking them to those places since they were very young and I planned ahead and bribe don’t them if necessary. (Seriously, I frequently got comments like “I didn’t even realize there was a kid there!”.) I of course make exceptions for kids who are not neuro-typical. I just find it obnoxious when parents who would never consider themselves indulgent put up with shifty behavior. It’s your job as a parent to make sure that your kids know how to deal in all kinds of situations.
Of course, I remember going to the Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, AR, and before any of the visitors were allowed to enter the galleries, we were pulled aside in a big group and given a talking-to about NOT TOUCHING THE ART. I was completely horrified that museum staff would be so insulting…..until I walked into the first gallery and saw people putting their hands all over the art. Those fuckers must have been raised by wolves.
AliceBlue
She’s a cutie pie!
(But sheesh–scratching mom’s face, throwing sunglasses? I’m 65 years old and if I had done that, I would still be confined to my room on bread and water).
japa21
Okay John, I’ll admit she is cute. Not as cute as my grandkids or my great nephews and great nieces, but cute. By the way, I am totally unbiased when I make that statement.
geg6
OMG, as a non-parent, I totally agree with you, John.
I despise the bring your kid to work day. If I wanted to spend the day with kids, I would have had some. And quit bringing your new babies to work for everyone to admire. Iām always getting pressured to hold them and coo at them. Ummm, no thanks. And how much can possibly care about that babyās well-being, passing it around to be exposed to every germ in the place? I have co-workers who I know donāt wash their hands in the restroom but these new parents just hand their babies over to them. Keep your kids to yourselves, people. Itās best for the kids and for those who hate being forced to slobber over them.
That said, little girl is very cute and has that trouble maker vibe that I always admire.
MagdaInBlack
This week I am envious of the conifers (I’m too lazy to identify) because until this last December I had one like that outside my 3rd floor bedroom window, full of birds and squirrels and life. A slushy icy windstorm broke the top and they (the evil tree removers) took it down.
I am still in mourning. They cut down my sacred grove.
Your yard is wonderful, John. ?
I love the willow āŗļø
Brachiator
Great photos and great sentiments. Viewing this has been a great way for me to start a lazy Saturday after a very trying week.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Buttigieg reacting to Trump calling him Alfred E. Neuman:
LOL. Burn! I’m young, you’re old, Trump. And don’t you have work to do?
Nicole
Those photos are adorable. She’s so expressive!
And your yard looks gorgeous.
I, on the less fun ways to spend a weekend, am trying to figure out how my stepmom is going to find the $ necessary to deal with the absolutely awful mold in her basement (waiting on the arrival of the 3rd company we are having come out to inspect it, but the quotes are all going to be $$$$). She and my dad (who has since passed) did not deal with the flooding from Tropical Storm Lee properly, and now the green chickens have come home to roost. It’s an absolute disaster. Sigh. I was hoping to go on vacation in June (have not had one of any sort for a couple of years), but I think I’ll be here, helping her throw things away. Ah, the sandwich generation; I am part of it (sandwiched between caring for my kid and my parent).
afanasia
I had a tiny adorable blonde daughter once – but this little girl is UNUSUALLY charming and expressive. And if she’s anything like mine, she will grow up and suddenly express sadness for the times she emptied out the contents of her mother’s purse in a busy parking lot or bit her on the knee and will need hugs for that.
Suzanne
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I had the same thought yesterday: who the hell under 60 knows who Alfred E. Neuman is? When I was a teenager, my mom bought me one issue of MAD (because Boomers* always seem to think that Teh Youngz simply MUST know all of their cultural touchstones) and pointed out the character to me on the cover. That is the extent of my knowledge of the character. I never read the issue of the magazine that she bought, and I don’t know anyone in my age cohort who ever read it at all (I am about 18 months older than Mayor Pete).
Seriously, if he was trying to remind the public that he is about ten thousand years old, referencing Alfred E. Neuman was a good way to do it.
*yeah, yeah, I know….#notallBoomers
Eric U.
@AliceBlue: we didn’t get confined to our room, but we were kept in fear of the spatula. Scratching mom’s face and throwing her sunglasses was something we would never do. Funny thing about the spatula is that it didn’t really hurt and was mostly used as a threat, “I’m going to go get the spatula!” Mom was the one who taught me how to raise kids so you didn’t hit them, she learned after we were too big for the spatula.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Suzanne: Trump is flailing more than usual with Mayor Pete. Alfred E. Neuman was supposed to be stupid and Buttegieg was a Rhodes Scholar. The other day Trump implied Buttegieg was too weak to negotiate with enemies, though he served as an intelligence officer in Afghanistan, which President Bone Spurs couldn’t find a map.
Suzanne
@Dorothy A. Winsor: The accusations of weakness are hilarious, considering how Agent Orange fell in love with Kim Jong Un.
lamh36
āŖYESSS! I got my grade back on my research paper and presentation!!!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/125933bb017c15efb296ff798c99e5c7774ea1325ebb7d8d518f684ed3b65b10.jpg
JoyceH
I keep getting one of those scammy spammy āyouāve won a prizeā pop ups when Iām on Balloon Juice, and only here. Anyone else?
Felanius Kootea
@lamh36: Congratulations!
schrodingers_cat
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I have no idea either who Alfred E Neuman is supposed to be.
gbbalto
@lamh36: Congratulations on your 100%! Wonderful to get those comments too.
evodevo
@Renie: That little girl is adorable. and Yes. Totally agree. Of course MY grandkids are the cutest in the world lol, but I would rather eat razorblades than take the three boys to a nice restaurant (at least the 4-yr-old anyway). And having to listen to someone else’s scream their head off when I am trying to eat my steak at a nice steakhouse is cruel and unusual punishment for all the surrounding adults, IMHO.
Suzanne
@lamh36: WOOHOO WTG!
evodevo
@geg6: Yes. Bring your newborn over to the workplace so all your co-workers can coo over them….I had a co-worker bring in her new little ??(don’t remember if it was girl or boy), and it was the UGLIEST baby I think I have ever seen….what do you say?! A friend of mine said “Compliment them on what a cute outfit it is wearing and scoot off somewhere and find some busywork to do” lol
Catherine D.
@JoyceH: Yup, I did too until I switched to a more locked down browser.
oldster
a) yup, she’s a cute kid, and
b) it’s not surprising you feel a special affinity for her, because you look a lot like her. Similar head-shapes, face-shapes, coloring, etc.. That’s part of why you find it easy to project your own moods and thoughts onto her expressions.
I am not trying to doom her to a life of dogs and mopping-accidents. I’m just saying that, if you had kids, they might well look like this. And that sense of affinity is a lot of what drives the judgements of parents about their own kids.
Raven
Nice pics. I landed another keeper red, gravy for the last day. I also hooked a sea turtle and we raced to get it back in the water so the only pic we got was of here headed out to sea.
rikyrah
All the pictures were great.
Your backyard looks fabulous ?
The animals ?
Your friend’s daughter ???
rikyrah
I am someone who sees the cuteness in kids. …unless they are nasty in personality. But, if they are a kid just being a kid, brightens my day automatically.
debbie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
He’s flailing because he has 20+ opponents and no multitasking skills. I hope people don’t start dropping out any time soon. It will frustrate the hell out of him.
The absolute joy that small children have is the best!
Barbara
@evodevo: There is a Seinfeld episode for that . . .
@schrodingers_cat: Character from Mad Magazine, which I do recall reading a few times as a kid. I am not sure I would have remembered without prompting.
Harbison
Okay, I used to play banjo but haven’t touched it in 10 years.
We were cleaning out a barn so we could turn it into a guest house and I came across my old banjo. I uncased it, and was pleasantly surprised that I could tune it up, I brought it into my studio and and started doing some rolls and butchering some very simple tunes over the past week.
I opened up Amazon to buy some new pruning shears and my suggested items list was full of banjo strings, capos, tighteners, instructional books, etc.
I have not searched for anything banjo related in many years. I have never bought any banjo related things on Amazon (checked my order history to be sure). I don’t even listen to bluegrass music anymore.
But I do have Sonos speakers with built in Alexa in my studio.
This is … unsettling.
Raven
@Harbison: I may look like a bank teller but Iām just a hawg caller.. .
mrmoshpotato
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Buttigieg should’ve also asked if Dump had another casino to run into bankruptcy because he’s a businessdumbass.
(Yes, that’s a new compound word. Dump isn’t a businessman, but a businessdumbass.)
jeffreyw
@Harbison: I’ll say! I wonder if a human decided you needed instruction or if their robots are developing ..taste?
NotMax
@evodevo
Try this: “You must be very proud.”
Dorothy A. Winsor
Mr DAW tells me we are considering taking a very bourgeois vacation in November–a cruise across the southern Atlantic from Barcelona to Buenos Aires. Destinations we’ve never been to including Dakar, Casablanca, Rio, etc. I feel guilty already. Our carbon footprint would be massive
WhatsMyNym
@Harbison:
Everybody is a critic.
JoyceH
@debbie:
I like that Mayor Pete is hitting him with the age zingers. A while ago, he said something about how we have to be thinking long term – “to the 2050s, when I’ll be Donald Trump’s age”.
As for Trump, man, does his age show with that Neuman thing. First Mister Magoo and now this! What’s next? Crusader Rabbit? Beany and Cecil?
Harbison
@jeffreyw:
Ha. I didn’t even think of the insult that was was embedded in that suggestion. I was just freaked out that Alexa is clearly eavesdropping.
What am I going to have to do, go back to CDs or something?
@Raven:
So I googled that lyric to find the song and the front page showed this, from 6 years ago:
raven says:
March 4, 2013 at 1:19 pm
@joel hanes: As Ricky Scaggs says he
āmay look like a bank teller
but heās just a hawg caller. . . ā
John Revolta
Bloomberg, April 10
zhena gogolia
@geg6:
I do always wonder why people think I’m just dying to hold their infants. I’m not. But I pretty much always love toddlers.
And cats — I’ll hold your cat any time.
The little girl is incredibly cute.
zhena gogolia
@lamh36:
congratulations!
zhena gogolia
@NotMax:
I never have the slightest trouble telling someone their baby is cute. (I’ve actually never seen an ugly baby.) But hold it? No thanks.
zhena gogolia
@JoyceH:
If he does Milton the Monster I’ll larf.
SiubhanDuinne
@JoyceH:
Several times a day! And thereās no way to get rid of it except to close the window entirely, and sometimes not even then.
Jay Noble
http://cbldf.org/2014/04/60-years-ago-today-the-us-senate-puts-comics-on-trial/
MAD and Alfred E. Neuman should be ingrained into anyone who interested in the 1st Amendment
J R in WV
@lamh36:
Girl, you rock!! That’s a great msg from your professor, congratulations!!!
You deserve a trip to Londontown now! Go, enjoy, keep in touch!!!!
cmorenc
@MagdaInBlack:
I have a lovely wild coastal cedar tree in the front yard of our beach house out on an N.C. barrier island that initially sprouted 22 years ago as a spindly, unpromising-looking calf-high seedling in a nonviable location underneath the back deck of the house. I was able to simply pull it up by hand, roots and all, from the sandy soil, and almost simply threw it away, but decided what-the-heck, I’ll stick it in this spot out in front of a quad of oleanders we had in the front yard – and to my surprise, it thrived and grew into a robustly bushy, wonderfully untamed-looking 25-ft tall tree. To tie into your story of your beloved but wind-damaged tree that alas someone else had decision-power to take down – my tree had the top six feet of its crown blown off by a hurricane, and a major, thick branch that comprised a quarter of the tree’s mass blown off by a strong tropical storm, which at the time each rendered the tree looking very raggedly asymmetric and compromised – but each time, within two or three years, the tree robustly grew itself back out to a different, but pleasingly handsome shape such that you couldn’t tell at a glance that its newer incarnation wasn’t the way it always was, always meant to be.
What really makes my tree seem even more special is that in the front yard of a house diagonally across the street, there are a couple of obviously nursery-cultivated, quite symmetrical cedars that my neighbor planted not long after I replanted my wild one – irony is, he originally planted four, but two of them got unrecoverably ripped up and toppled by the hurricane, and had to be sawn up and hauled away. But my wild, not-so-symmetrical tree survived and thrived, albeit a bit battered-looking for the first couple of post-storm years until it could lushly regenerate itself, all on its own.
J R in WV
@zhena gogolia:
Oh, honey… you don’t ever want to hold my cat.
Semi feral affectionate, BUT doesn’t want to be held, ever, even to put her down at her food dish. Named Spike! loves t get on my chest at bedtime, skritches, purrs, then wants OUTSIDE for the night. Barely puts up with wife who mostly feeds her … cats can be strange!
TaMara (HFG)
@cmorenc: What a lovely description of a well-loved tree.
Yutsano
@lamh36: WOOOOOOT!!!
Ohio Mom
@JoyceH: Me too! It was worse earlier, seems to have quieted down (crosses fingers).
@lamh36: Wonderful! You deserve to brag!
Re MAD: You can still find MAD magazines ā my Krogerās stocks them. The MAD writers and artists are having a great time satirizing Trump.
Alfred E. Neuman was a historical advertising figure MAD adopted and adapted as a mascot. Heās always on the cover, and lately, Trump is too, being skewered. If I were Trump, I would not be inspiring people to google pictures of me being made fun of.
MAD had always had something of a lefty slant because the Right has always been full of targets needing taking down. On the whole, the magazine is not as transgressive as it used to be because the world caught up with them and then passed them by. But I think enough tweens find them funny and enlightening.
zhena gogolia
@J R in WV:
We had three (siblings) like that. Very affectionate but had to have control of all four feet at all times.
Gvg
@SiubhanDuinne: actually I have found I can get rid of it on my iPad by opening settings safari-advanced-java script turn off, then clear cache, then turn java script back on. This site is not useable without JavaScript unfortunately. I forget how I figured that out. I know I tried several different instructions found by googling before I found this.
Unfortunately I havenāt found a simple android instruction that works.
This site is very prone to doing this to me. Hope the rebuild has better anti spam built in.
J.
That face! Thanks for sharing. Those photos are great. (My daughter won the Whole Foods Crank Baby Contest when she was around 10 months. This little girl reminds me of her. :-) )
Ruckus
@JoyceH:
@SiubhanDuinne:
I use Safari with AdBlock by BetaFish.
I get no ads. No popups, nothing.
Yes John uses the money from ads to pay for the site, but one can always use an ad blocker and donate to him directly. Two birds and all that.
SiubhanDuinne
@lamh36:
OMG, 25/25! Just fantastic, and so well-deserved! Well done, lady, well done.
J R in WV
@Harbison:
My neighbor came to WV as a blues rock guitar player, 40 years ago. Now he is a blue ribbon prize winner on both ole time banjo and (more recently) fiddle. This would NOT be blue grass but traditional old time mountain music. Minor keys and all…
But more importantly, your story of having “speakers with built in Alexa” in your work space, and Amazon responding to your conversation and recent history is educational and revealing. It shows that Amazon is
probablybreaking laws and standards by using every sound “Alexa” hears for financial advantage.I’m not sure what should be done about it. But your experience reveals a lot about today’s internet that’s scary. Very scary!
Another Scott
@Harbison: Alexa and Alexa Device FAQs:
It’s to give you a “more personalized experience”, you see…
:-/
I thought it was creepy enough when, years ago, I would go some news website and see an ad on the sidebar, “Hi, Another Scott, check out these new books at Amazon!1” Cookies follow one everywhere, also too. (They’re less blatant about that now.)
HTH a little.
Cheers,
Scott.
(“Who doesn’t use any voice-activated AI stuff – not even on his phone.”)
Steeplejack
@lamh36:
Good job!
eemom
I guess this thread is deader than fried chicken, but I’m chiming in because I don’t think anybody has done justice to what MAD magazine was back in the day, nor to its mascot Alfred E.
MAD was waaaaay the fuck ahead of its time in both political and cultural satire. Brilliant writers and brilliant artists. It was also just plain funny as shit. I can’t possibly be the only one who remembers Snappy Answers To Stupid Questions….?
And the smirking mug of Alfred “What, me worry?” E. Neumann was the perfect face of it all. Think of it as the boomer equivalent of no fucks left to give.
eemom
In short, Dump’s pathetic little attempt at a diss of PB by reference to Alfred is merely the latest feather atop the gazillion ton body of evidence that he has no fucking clue what he’s talking about, ever, about anything.
dww44
@TaMara (HFG): From a lifelong “tree” person, I also appreciated cmorenc’s tribute to a much loved tree. It’s also a nice survival story.