Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

The lights are all blinking red.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

When we show up, we win.

All hail the time of the bunny!

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

The revolution will be supervised.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

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

Optimism opens the door to great things.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / I Am So Unmotivated

Reader Interactions

89Comments

  1. 1.

    SFAW

    What should I do?

    You should go Christmas shopping for WaterGirl and her elves, you cheap bastid.

     

    More seriously: Merry Christmas to you and your (extended) family, John. [“Extended” here means both four-legged and two-legged.

     

    ETA: I realize you may have already done so for WGirl et al.

  6. 6.

    AJ

    Level a new Classic PVE toon?

    I’ll come along if you want company. I’m in the same boat – nothing I need to do for several days. Either faction’s ok w me, as long as it’s not a dwarf hunter bc I hate the gun noise.

  8. 8.

    germy

    Every time I buy cat food, most cashiers will comment on my purchase and share stories about their own cats.

  9. 9.

    ruemara

    I’m baking patties for tomorrow, releasing a new story for the holidays & delivering cookies to the community meal for the homeless.  So, I just want to workout and relax.

  10. 10.

    Quinerly

    I’m a huge fan of Chewy. Poco’s lamb and rice Wellness brand a bit cheaper, plus convenience of front door delivery. Just saying…

  11. 11.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    get cat food, go home and binge watch something

    I used to love the holidays, thought people who complained about Xmas coming too soon after T-giving were cranks, now I’m half tempted to start a national campaign to move TG up to the second Thursday in November. I have small family party today, big family party tomorrow, and I’m supposed to be setting up some kind of gathering with a cousin for those who haven’t connected yet. Apparently neither one of us has the energy for that third thing cause she hasn’t heard from me and I haven’t heard from her.

    Just glad I’ve aged out of giving a shit about New Years

  15. 15.

    Adam L Silverman

    Have you considered forging the unborn conscience of your race in the dark smithy of your soul?

  18. 18.

    frosty

    @laura: ”Take the “nap. The store will still be there when you awake.”

    No no no!!! If you don’t want to be eaten in your sleep, buy the cat food first!!!!

  19. 19.

    Adam L Silverman

    For those wondering, I’m at the gym because it closes early today and all day tomorrow. So I have to get my lift in now or I won’t be able to get all four splits in this week.

  20. 20.

    Adam L Silverman

    @germy: That’s been coming for a while and has been reported on for the past several weeks. The Pentagon is missing at least fifteen senior appointees that require senate confirmation and Deity knows how many in the tiers below that.

  22. 22.

    JoyceH

    I’m unmotivated too. An old college friend is coming down this evening and staying for Christmas and I haven’t put up a tree or done the house cleaning I thought I would do. Now I’m just committed to fresh sheets in the guest room and clearing the table.

    For some background, my twin sister died a few weeks ago and I’ve been flailing around dealing with that and getting my book released and my sleep patterns are all gone to hell.

    Just doin’ the best I can…

  26. 26.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    My only real responsibility today is hauling myself to the grocery store to get cat food.

    What should I do?

    Buy the cat food, Cole! Do it for the kitties!

  27. 27.

    Amir Khalid

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Come on. That’s asking the Bloglord to do some serious work, and he just said his body told him it wants a nap. He just needs to get the katfud to keep Steve happy, then listen to his body and crash sur le canapé.

  34. 34.

    orchid moon

    Just relax, and embrace doing nothing.  I call those days, I don’t want to.  Whatever it is I don’t want to.  It will pass

  37. 37.

    dmsilev

    My mom and I are getting started on cooking Christmas dinner. Which is odd for a Jewish family… We’re going to visit some very old friends tomorrow, and it’s been a hard year for them (one word: Alzheimer’s), so our gift is basically taking care of all of the cooking and other logistics of the holiday dinner. The cake and most of the prep for the other dishes is today, tomorrow we roast the lamb leg and the various vegetables etc.

  39. 39.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I wish the Executive Office of the President would collapse; Trump would shortly follow. But of course, toadies like Mulvaney (“Acting” COS) have to always step in to save Trump from the consequences of his own actions.

    It’s this propping up that pisses me off the most about the Trumps. Eric’s stupid book would’ve never made the NYT Bestsellers list if not for the GOP buying all of the copies in bulk. I mean, how much money have the Trumps made illegally because Trump is president?

    They deserve to be destitute, not only because they’re bad people, but because they’re bad with money and incompetent. They shouldn’t be propped up and constantly bailed out. I know the GOP are hypocrites, but they should at least admit that their “values” of hard work and meritocracy are transparent bullshit

  42. 42.

    Amir Khalid

    @JoyceH:

    Wow. That’s a lot to deal with, especially at this stressful time of year. Sending you condolences and thoughts of  mental fortitude.

  43. 43.

    dmsilev

    @Adam L Silverman: Latkes are on the menu actually. We considered brisket, but my mom isn’t hugely fond of it in general so opted for lamb instead. Nothing fancy on the lamb, just a garlic and rosemary rub and then roast.

  45. 45.

    SFAW

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I mean, how much money have the Trumps made illegally because Trump is president?

    “If the President or his family or his personal lawyer or various other grifters he knows do it, it’s not illegal.”

    Says that right here in Article XII of the Constitution.

  46. 46.

    Damned_at_Random

    Cat food first. Then a nice ,long, hot bath (NOT a shower), then a nap – if you fall asleep in the bath, that is just an appetizer. Indulge yourself. We are all too frantic in the holiday season, for just today, fuck stress

  47. 47.

    zhena gogolia

    John, if you haven’t watched the Eddie Murphy SNL sketches, be sure to do it. My favorite was “Home for the Holidays.” I’ve watched it about five times just to see him build up to the final shot. What a master.

  49. 49.

    JanieM

    First — Happy holidays to all, and thanks for being here.

    Second — since it’s an open thread, I’m going to ask a trivia question that I have not been able to answer myself for almost forty years.

    In the early eighties I was programming for a large commercial insurance agency that had dipped its toe into the new world of computers and bought a software package for insurance agencies, and the hardware to run it on. I was hired to do….who knew what, since the guy who ran the agency expected me to turn up with a toolbox.

    But I plunged in and started writing code for reports and other useful stuff, and that eventually led me to having to deal with bugs in the purchased software package. In those wild days, I was actually given source code when I asked for it – I was on close terms with the company that sold us the package. ;-)

    I was reading some code one day to try to find a bug (free service to the software supplier!). I came to the end of a routine and the progammer had written a comment to close off the section:

    “Pop goes the fil-um, good night!”

    I laughed, because I recognized that line from childhood. It was said by a cartoon character (so I thought) during the end credits of some cartoon (so I thought), and if I could just dredge around in my memory for a few more seconds, I would remember which cartoon it had been…..

    Forty years later, I have no idea. I’ve asked all my friends, and every few years I ask Google, and I’ve come up blank. Given that so many people here are within a wide ballpark of my age/generation, I’m hoping <i>someone</i> will have the answer.

    P.S. for clarification – “fil-um” was the coder’s way of spelling the way the cartoon character (if such it was) said the word “film” — with two syllables. I’ve Googled the sentence with various spellings and misspellings of “film” and mostly I get “Pop goes the Weasel” references. Help!

  50. 50.

    Jess

    Do nothing. Wallow in it. Celebrate it. Watch stupid videos on YouTube. Hold yourself back from the slightest exertion. Tell Uber Eats to get the cat food. By the next day or so your motivation will return refreshed from its vacation.

  52. 52.

    ruemara

    @AJ: I shall post it on medium link it, if folks want to read

     

    @JoyceH: I’m so sorry, Joyce. Right now, you’re doing amazing. Be gentle with yourself.

  56. 56.

    opiejeanne

    Had our family party on Saturday because both local kids & spouses are visiting their in-laws on the day.

    We always do a standing rib and I was fooling around with the electric oven, trying to set the temp for the internal probe’s alarm, but it wouldn’t let me. So I resorted to a method of low & slow cooking, and guessed at the point where I should check it, based on its weight. That would be around 5:30pm, after 3.5 hours.  At 2pm I set if for 250 degrees and went upstairs to watch a movie because everything else was ready and no one was expected until 4pm.

    After half an hour I asked mr opiejeanne if the smells coming from the kitchen smelled like something was burning. He said it did a little, but we didn’t go downstairs to check on things until 3:30, an hour and a half after I started the roast. There was the smell of something burning, and when I opened the oven door black smoke rolled out and the fire alarm went off. The roast itself was a blackened mess but what we’d been smelling was the several big sprigs of rosemary and thyme on top of the roast. We pulled the roast out and the outside was just black, the saddest thing I’ve seen in a long time. I sent mr opiejeanne to the store to get us another roast, and just before he got back, the kids arrived. Older daughter’s fiance took over and helped me by figuring out how long to roast it & temp, and got the new roast into the oven of the gas range. When I took the first roast out, I checked the stand-alone thermometer and it read 450.

     

    This is how the first roast  looked after it cooled down:

    https://flic.kr/p/2i4vuMF

    Doesn’t look quite as bad as when it came out of the oven, and we’ve removed the burned rosemary & other herbs.

    The second roast was perfect, finished on time and we had our party, playing games while it roasted.

    Yesterday we cut the burned roast in half, to see just how bad it was, and it was perfect too, other than the burned crust on the outside. This is how it looked:

    https://flic.kr/p/2i4vqMS

    The fiance discovered that in my efforts to set up the probe that came with the oven, I had changed the little F to a C, and never noticed. No wonder it burned: 250 C is not a low temp.  He brought over a slicer and we will portion it out and freeze most of it.

  60. 60.

    J R in WV

    Joyce, so sorry to hear about your loss. Seems to me that you’re doing well, so just take it easy from here on out through the holidays. All the Jackals are thinking of you!

    I’ll be downloading that new book asap… thanks for writing ghostly regency fiction!

  62. 62.

    Brachiator

    @germy:

    repeated from another thread:

    Has Mr. Silverman written about this?
    Ambassador Kaidanow becomes 5th Pentagon official to resign in 7 days

     

    Is this a real person?

    A day later, Jimmy Stewart, the acting undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said he was retiring.

    Who’s next? Jiminy Cricket?

    I guess I am doubly alarmed by this.  I worry about good people leaving.  And I worry about what kind of people their replacements might be.

    And even though it is easy and typical to demonize the GOP, to just write them off as malignant, I still am stunned that they care so little about the country that they will sit back and meekly support Trump as he subverts the government from within.

  63. 63.

    J R in WV

    @Gin & Tonic:

    And reading about the sequel to the burning, it wasn’t ruined, mostly. Just the external crust was too black, the OK interior to be sliced for future servings.

    IIRC it wasn’t NASA who F’ked te mars mission by failing to keep Imperial measurements consistent with metric measurements, but a highly paid contractor firm… Really sad, that!

  66. 66.

    opiejeanne

    @Gin & Tonic: $90 is a lot of sawbucks, but did you look at the second photo? It’s actually perfect, aside from the overcooked “deckle”, which usually gets overcooked in the standard method of cooking a roast. We will be eating it on and off for a couple of months. yum.

    Is that what really happened to the Mars probe?

  67. 67.

    Soprano2

    @JoyceH: I am so, so sorry.  The first Christmas after a loss is tough, especially when it’s such a close sibling.  Please cut yourself multiple breaks and do what you feel like doing and nothing more.

  68. 68.

    Soprano2

    I am one of those people who doesn’t care that much for partying; usually on New Year’s Eve I’d be at home on the couch lucky to still be awake at midnight.  Now that we own a pub, that’s where I’ll be every New Year’s Eve.  It’s a mixed bag; now I’m getting all the bar experiences I missed in my 20’s.

  73. 73.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    Call or write one media outlet that has referenced the likelihood of the GOP Senate’s failure to convince Trump and ask:

    1. You do see that it’s massively corrupt to declare, before your oath to be an impartial juror, that you will make a particular decision, right?
    2. So you’re either letting them get away with dishonest cheats, whispering words in your ear to manipulate you, and prepare you for the shock, by removing some of the surprise if they go for it; or, you’ve got them on the record, and you’re normalizing corruption in the public mind.

    In this case, I do think Trump wins it: I believe this really is the most corrupt action ever taken within the Federal government, in sheer audacity, at least. So, yeah, for all his “I’m bigger and better than everyone at everything,”

    Seriously, John, not suggesting you do it, but I did realize that *now* is when we need to push back. We don’t have an outrage machine for when someone a playful pun, and we need a distraction. But we can push back with the truth.

  74. 74.

    Denali

    Merry Impeachment, John Cole.  That Nancy was able to pull it off is cause for celebration this year.

    Take a walk in the sunshine- it will lift your spirits.  Also, have some chocolate.

    And hug your doggies.

  76. 76.

    debbie

    @JoyceH:

    So sorry to read this. I hope you find the strength you need (maybe with the help of your visiting friend) to get through this.

  80. 80.

    Yutsano

    @JoyceH:  *hug*
    You’re doing amazing. You got the book out the door. You have a friend who might even help you clean up the rest of the house with you. And your sister is always a part of you. Much love and peace this holiday season to you.

  82. 82.

    Miss Bianca

    @JoyceH:

    OMG! My condolences on losing your sister – a twin, that must be particularly devastating – and my heartfelt admiration for your forging ahead with keeping your book on schedule in the midst of that kind of turmoil. Especially in the holiday season.

  84. 84.

    Ohio Mom

    Buy cat food today? Um no, not unless you go before noon.

    I made a quick trip to my neighborhood Target this morning to buy paint and glue to finish a small project and those poor sales clerks have to work until 10 tonight!

    The more we all run to the store just before Christmas Eve, the more we are encouraging the corporate overlords to abuse their workers.

    Just for a few hours, we can do without commerce. Everyone can pretend they are shomer shabbos  (Yiddish term for someone who is a strict observer of the sabbath, including the prohibitions on work and spending g money),

    My god, I am grumpy today.

  87. 87.

    SWMBO

    @Ohio Mom: I went to Publix to pick up some prescriptions around 2:30.  There were people screaming and beating on the windows of cars that had pulled into “their” parking space.  Screams of “fuck you bitch” echoing in the parking garage. Kicking of car doors.  I told the manager about it and he said they were calling the police.  You may be grumpy but at least you’re not raging insane.

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