Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Books are my comfort food!

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

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

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Second rate reporter says what?

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Friday Night Open Thread

Reader Interactions

63Comments

  1. 1.

    Zzyzx

    Phish’s guitarist has been webcasting a live 2-3 hour show for free every Friday night and I’ve been appreciating the hell out of that as it gives me something to do while the endless Corona evenings slowly roll by.

  5. 5.

    Zzyzx

    @cain:

    It’s at an empty (except for the band) Beacon Theatre. It’s to raise funds for a rehab clinic he’s trying to build in Vermont.

    Alas it only goes on for 2 more weeks.

  6. 6.

    lahke

    Well, hospitals are full of germs, duh.

    Kicked in a few bucks via Venmo.  Which autofill wants to call Venom.   Peter Thiel’s blood, no doubt.

  10. 10.

    dmsilev

    Comedy futures are up:

    Breaking News: President Trump is said to have put his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, in charge of campaign lawsuits related to the outcome of the election. https://t.co/0T4ryXzK1K
    — The New York Times (@nytimes) November 14, 2020

    President Trump has put his personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, in charge of his campaign lawsuits related to the outcome of the election, as well as all public communications related to them, four people familiar with the move said on Friday.
    Mr. Trump turned to Mr. Giuliani earlier on Friday in reaction to the latest setback he faced in court, this one relating to votes in Maricopa County, Ariz., the people said.
    The president’s advisers had warned him that they were likely to lose in that case, and he faces increasingly dim hopes of overturning the election results. Nonetheless, Mr. Trump has been trying every possible option to change the outcome and trying to get what he sees as “fighters” making his case, often conflating a media strategy with a legal one.
    But the involvement of Mr. Giuliani, who held a widely mocked news conference in front of a landscaping company in Philadelphia last weekend in which he claimed widespread fraud, has vexed people on the campaign and in the White House.

  12. 12.

    Mike in NC

    I saw one of my doctors last week and he showed me my lab results. At the bottom of the form he wrote, “Completely Normal”. Showed it to my wife and she said “That can’t possibly be right”.

  17. 17.

    J R in WV

    @Mike in NC:

    Doesn’t sound like MY doctor, either!

    Glad you are as normal as however you are, tho…

    I usually get a phone call from a nurse a week after I visit Doc Bill, and sometimes they want to read a bunch of number that don’t mean much to me, other times she will say “everything looks OK” which is all I want to hear.

  18. 18.

    West of the Rockies

    @Zzyzx:

    I was befuddled by the Scavino vids, too.  Faux-stirring music and stupid imagery.   The point was not  clear.

  19. 19.

    Alison Rose

    Congratulate me, folks, I made it through another week without cursing at a customer.

    (I’m a CSR for a mail-order company and while most of the people we talk to are fine, some of them……………………………are NOT. And deserve curse words. Which I rattle off as soon as I hang up the phone. But HOW MANY TIMES did I ALMOST say them on the call? Many.)

  20. 20.

    Emma from FL

    @Alison Rose: The one job I would never, ever do except in the most extreme case. You must end up with teeth tracks on your tongue. I am impressed by your fortitude.

  22. 22.

    Alison Rose

    @Emma from FL: It’s difficult, trust me! Especially because a lot of our customers are, oh say, 117 years old and they’re cranky and super slow and speak like they have marbles in their mouths. And then just in general, people are so entitled and whiny, and especially this year, I’m like BITCH STOP. Like, you’re mad that an item on backorder was supposed to come in on this day and now it won’t be here for another week or so? Did you happen to notice the fucking pandemic we’re in? Yeah, maybe your beeswax crayons* are not exactly the highest priority for shipping companies right now.

    I promise I’m generally very good at being fake nice :P

    (*We sell supplies and materials for Montessori schools, as well as items for the home in line with those ideals, including a lot of art products. Beeswax crayons are actually pretty neat.)

  24. 24.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Alison Rose: At the time of Katrina, my ex worked for a company that did catering for private aviation.  There were people flying out of NOLA and Baton Rouge just in front the storm who complained that the champagne on the fight wasn’t what they had ordered.  She had to restrain herself from shouting at them that there were people dying a few miles from them and the least they could do as they flew away in their private plane was shut the fuck up about their fucking champagne.

  26. 26.

    FlyingToaster

    @Alison Rose: I feel for you.

    As a customer, I’ve (only via e-mail) had to send, “okay, this was supposed to arrive yesterday/last week, you can’t seem to tell me where it is, can you give me a revised delivery date, please”.

    A month ago it was an exploded gallon of detergent.  Ugh.  Right now it’s a missing desk (which I think someone entered the ARR date in wrong, it shoulda been next Friday).  Last week it was a custom thang that is only 7 weeks late, but seems to have sat in a port for 5 weeks.

    FSM bless you for not screaming at the huddled masses.

  27. 27.

    Another Scott

    Decompressing after a long night at work. Have the TV on, the Tennis Channel.

    A promo for an upcoming tournament in “London, Great Britain”.

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (“Posting from NoVA, North America…”)

  29. 29.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Alison Rose:

    Working with the public sucks, believe me I know. My workplace today updated it’s mask policy, probably in response to Mike DeWimp’s threats to shut down businesses for 24 hours who don’t enforce the mask mandate. All customers will be (politely) refused service that don’t wear masks. There were already some meltdowns over it.

    My boss actually confronted the guy before I could. Told the guy, who was waiting in my line, that I wouldn’t process his order until he put on a mask. Guy said he wouldn’t put a mask on. My boss left to get a surgical mask for him. When the customer came up to the register, he tried pulling his shirt up around his face, looking ridiculous. My boss, mask in hand, quips the guy could’ve just put the mask on instead. Guy flips out,“I know, I know, I know! Get the fuck away from me!” 

    All of this over a piece of fucking fabric you have to wear for a short time. Most of them had this reaction. They’re being so put upon dontcha know! We’re the annoying ones!

    I’m legitimately afraid for my coworkers. I’ve seen the videos and read the articles where nut-jobs pulled guns on people just for the horrendous crime of asking them to wear a mask during a pandemic

  31. 31.

    Alison Rose

    @FlyingToaster: I mean, I totally get being frustrated about things being late, I’ve been there! But what is tough for me is people acting like it’s our fault, and when I tell them the new date, they get so pissy. I’m like, yeah we’re mad too, LOL.

  33. 33.

    Alison Rose

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): UGHHHHHHHHH i hate so many people. I’ve been working from home since March, and in normal times, we have a showroom where people can come in to shop. I’m so glad we’re not in the office and allowing shoppers now, because even here in our uber-blue area, I can bet we’d get plenty of anti-maskers being dicks about it.

  35. 35.

    NotMax

    Not that anyone cares but Friday the 13th turned out to be lucky as somehow managed to get 8 – count ’em, 8 – hours uninterrupted snoozing.

    Granted, that occurred from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. but I’ll take it whenever it comes and am stoked about it as the entire rest of the week had been two hours here, three hours there.

  36. 36.

    sfinny

    My office is moving so I went in to pack up my desk and tag the computer set-ups so I could put them back together easily on Monday.  It actually went really well as I got some things done and packed up by 3 pm.  Crossing my fingers for Monday when I set up the computers in the new office.

    I used to get so anxious about things like this, and I still worry, but am amazed at how much calmer I am.

  37. 37.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Alison Rose: That and when the Romanian government gave some palaces back to the old Romanian royal family are the only two times she ever went Mme Defarge.

  38. 38.

    Jinchi

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): All of this over a piece of fucking fabric you have to wear for a short time.

    A niece of mine posted to Facebook “I just voted without a mask and you can too!”. I thought to myself, I did too – it’s called a mail-in ballot. But you know she’s fighting for freedom and all that. Wearing a mask is literally the least she can do to keep her neighbors safe, but it’s simply too much to ask.

  39. 39.

    piratedan

    @Mike in NC: the key to reading lab results is pretty simple…. look at the numbers… if there are no asterisks, then there are no problems.  Just about any reporting system for laboratory results analysis includes a normal range factor of some kind, be it numeric or alpha (negative/positive/abnormal).  The reason its constructed this way is that a good many physicians don’t have a clue as to what constitutes a normal result, so the flags are there to tell them what’s what (because those ranges can vary based on age, sex and even in rare cases, race).  While most of them have a basic understanding of chemistries and cell counts, that crutch is there to aid them in what types of things could be wrong… The more esoteric the result, the lesser the familiarity.. (and believe me, that’s not a knock on docs and nurses, they have a buttload of shit to keep track of, so any kind of shortcut you can give them is an absolute bonus)

  40. 40.

    sfinny

    @Jinchi: I get complacent that certain areas of my life have pretty much everyone wearing a mask.  The I go to my office in CT (work from home mostly) and there are people in the office with their masks down all over the place.  They apologize but jeez, just wear your mask.

  41. 41.

    JoyceH

    @JaySinWA: Your pinned post is sucking up all the oxygen.

    It is! I checked several times today, saw the fundraiser, and thought, darn, no new posts. But it occurred to me to scroll, and found new posts under the fundraiser. Pinned posts need to be marked in all caps, so people know to scroll down.

  42. 42.

    NotMax

    @Alison Rose

    Fortuitous conjunction of Prime Days and some wiggle room in the monthly budget (for a change) allowed me to give in to temptation and order a reduced price Kindle on October 13th. Here it is November 13th and not only has it not arrived, it has not even been shipped yet.

    Am I frustrated? Nah. Am I angry? Nope. There are much more important things upon which to vent my spleen.

    It’ll get here when it gets here or else I’ll receive a refund and wait until the next big sale.

    ;)

  43. 43.

    Ruckus

    Some days, and this is one of those days, I don’t care if every conservative dies of, well anything.

    They literally don’t seem to give a damn if they die or are killing other people, so why should I care?

    I don’t like feeling like this, but the reality is that some days, I just can’t find it in me to give a fuck about willfully stupid people who want me and you and anyone who isn’t a full blown fucking racist to die.

    Rant over.

  44. 44.

    Another Scott

    Doug Jones actually did call Tommy Tuberville.

    Tuberville refused to take the call and bragged about it at his rally, saying he had no intention of ever returning it. https://t.co/TD0YHe52Ro

    — Lakshya Jain (@lxeagle17) November 14, 2020

    The man’s a psychopath. Who knows what he’ll do next.

    Grr…

    Here’s hoping Doug Jones has a good position in the Biden administration if he wants it.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  45. 45.

    JanieM

    @FlyingToaster: Maybe this is a dumb question, but if it’s the stab in the back motif, which Wikipedia tells me is coded anti-semitism, is he veiledly going after, let’s say, Stephen Miller and Jared? Or am I assuming too much actual logic?

  46. 46.

    MomSense

    I was so tired after work and then going to the store that I fell asleep early.  Now I’m wide awake.

  47. 47.

    PaulWartenberg

    Just watched the latest episode of The Mandalorian.

    I swear the Doug Chiang artwork they show at the end of each episode makes me wanna buy the whole portfolio of art and get it all framed to hang at my house. If I even have any wall space left…

  48. 48.

    sfinny

    @MomSense: I am somewhat awake and not able to sleep, and the thing that is completely occupying my attention is that I need to design and build a box that will cover my files, and yet allow my cat to sit atop them and sleep.  Because if they are not covered, she constantly plays with them and pushes them to the floor.

  49. 49.

    Winston

    Someone posted the other night some music by Edith Piaf. I remembered hearing her in a movie I believed to be Saving Private Ryan. So I rented it. Fucking great movie. Scenes so real they make you want to cry. The soldiers were playing Edit Piaf records on a gramophone just as they heard the German tanks off in the distance arriving in the town they were going to do or die defending this bridge and they did.

    Yep, back to Edith Piaf. So I youtubed, googled and wikied and listened to her most of the evening. Voice. Anyway I wanted to thank the jackal who posted that tip for a pleasant evening of song and war.

    Did anyone hear who won the election? ?

  52. 52.

    FlyingToaster

    @JanieM: Dolchstoßlegende was retconned by Hitler et.al. to blame the “other”, Jews, Gypsies, Communists, Gays, Slavs, what-have-you.  Those traitors caused the loss of WWI.

    It was orignally blaming the socialist politicians who agreed to the Treaty of Versailles.  Since the German Empire didn’t lose in battle, but collapsed in the stalemate, they didn’t akchually lose WWI.

    The reparations required by the Treaty of Versailles destroyed the Weimar Republic.  You’ll notice that we didn’t make that mistake again with WWII.

     

    So, no, it’s not about blaming Jared and S.Miller.  It’s about blaming the “other”, who are all not only Democrats, but all untermenschen of various flavors.  Trump wuz robbed!  Robbed, I tell you!

  53. 53.

    Ivan X

    @Alison Rose: congratulations!

    I always try to make a point of being as pleasant and human as I am able when on the phone with a CSR because it seems like a it could be, well, difficult work sometimes. I hope to try to offset some of the dickheads. Plus, when I am nice to people, they are nice to me, imagine that.

    Sorry you sometimes get shitheads on the other end of the line. I don’t know what to do about people.

  54. 54.

    Bill Arnold

    @JanieM:

    but if it’s the stab in the back motif, which Wikipedia tells me is coded anti-semitism, is he veiledly going after, let’s say, Stephen Miller and Jared?

    Well, if we want to get as conspiratorial as DJT is (for amusement purposes only), “stab in the back” could also mean that the DJT campaign thought that they had things … arranged so that they would cruise to a surprise win, but that they were stabbed in the back. Remember Trump’s 2:30 AM Nvo 4 statement where he says “We were winning everything and all of the sudden it was just called off.”.
    (The rest of the conspiracy theory (tree; there are many here) left as an exercise for the reader.:-)

  56. 56.

    frosty

    @JoyceH:  ALL CAPS!!! Yeah, recommend that to Cole. I suggest an email with ALL CAPS./
    Old joke but whatthehell we gets our funnies where we can.

  57. 57.

    frosty

    @Winston: Yes, Saving Private Ryan was a damn good movie. The only flaw was that the plane that hit the tank at the end was a P-51 Mustang. I know they did ground attack too but it really should have been a P-47 Thunderbolt.

    /WWII aircraft pedant out

  58. 58.

    frosty

    @CaseyL: Four Seasons Landscaping

    Perfect! I bet all their competitors are gritting their teeth right now!

    ETA: Once again, responding to a dead thread late at night. Well, I liked my pithy comments, even if no one else reads them!

  60. 60.

    Kattails

    @Ruckus: You might enjoy this video by Meidas Touch; a former Marine pretty much saying that the current Republican Party is scum and need to be held accountable for the last four years. He’s  urging working on getting Ossoff and Warnock into the Senate.  Good ad.

  61. 61.

    Ruckus

    @Kattails:

    I wrote the other day that I watched an episode of the West Wing, it is one of my favs. I watched another tonight. This was the one where a Korean War vet died of exposure, sleeping on a park bench and he had Toby Ziegler’s card in the jacket he got at Good Will. It ends with a Marine Corp burial at Arlington. Even though it’s just a TV show, it is one that absolutely shows the difference between actual real human beings and the absolute dreck that calls itself the republican party. I realize that I’ve been ashamed to be an American for the last 4 yrs. Serving in the military at a time when we were in a totally bullshit war wasn’t enough, we had to actually have a president who struggles to be more than a totally spoiled 4 yr old fucking brat to make the most of my time on this rock. And his struggles always end in failure because while he acts like that spoiled fucking brat, he’s physically 70 yrs older than that spoiled fucking brat and should have figured out how to act at least like a spoiled 6 yr old fucking brat by now. So I guess I really don’t feel better about those assholes who voted for shitforbrains than I did this morning.

Comments are closed.