I’m going to pre-bigfoot On The Road After Dark.
Several people have said they would like a political or open thread to discuss other things at this time of night – especially for the west coast peeps because this is only 7 pm for them, so I’ll try this tonight and see how it goes.
Kattails doesn’t just create beautiful artwork, she also sends in fun stuff now and again. This is from Kattails.
Open Thread.
NotMax
Chickens. Home. Roost.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
OT – Watching Lupin, which is amazing.
debbie
The hamster is supposed to understand the arrows? ?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Rachel Maddow just talked about this guy. She said he was a Wall St economist who lived on the Upper East Side, with a degree from Middlebury.
Everything about him screams Rust Belt diner and economic anxiety
Several people have said they would like a political or open thread to discuss other things at this time of night –
I thought it was just me, so… Thank you, Several People
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
Love the hamster maze video. So elaborate! And the hamster is so cute! Gonna have to show this one to the minors…
Brachiator
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I don’t have Netflix, but this is tempting me.
Didn’t know about this show, but I see a lot of positive reviews.
SiubhanDuinne
Love love love the hamster video!
Mike in NC
We just replaced our old Apple TV box with the newer Apple TV HD 4th Generation thingee, which is impossible to program. I’ll have our cable company send somebody out to figure how it works.
CaseyL
That is a very cooperative hammie, and I was getting a little angry on her behalf. “There’d better be great treats, and lots of them, at the end of this!” I wonder if the video (and the maze) was made in stages – will have to go to that channel to find out.
Oh, and now I know what hamsters do when perplexed: they groom themselves. A lot of thoughtful self-preening, there.
Oh, um… politics? I’ve come to the conclusion that every Republican is a vile individual not worth the air it takes to inflate their lungs. I think I’ve said that before, so I won’t belabor the point.
Chetan Murthy
@Mike in NC: Wouldn’t it, y’know, be easier to just, y’know, call a grandchild (or child)?
gwangung
@NotMax: One of my friends is an entertainer, who does satirical posts as well as theatre. She reports she’s being inundated by right wingers trying to get her thrown off Twitter for a tweet she did then.
Oh, she’s also a WOC…..
Scout211
What do any of you California jackals think about Newsom’s new plan to contract with Blue Shield to run the new state-wide vaccination plan?
https://www.kcra.com/article/blue-shield-of-california-tapped-run-state-vaccine-system/35341802
susanna
This is amazingly creative, a definite step up from dominoes. It must be fun to come up with the challenges for the little furball and make it work.
West coaster appreciated this levity in the early evening, which must be the challenge here for you.
trollhattan
Season’s first big rolled through California last night and today, wrecking havoc along the way. No expen$ive damage to our place but we spent the night with no power. Next street over a ginormous deodar cedar ripped out of the ground and luckily, instead of crashing into the apartment building it fronted fell onto the street. Fortunate except for the vintage Mercedes across the street, which is mooshed from the B-pillar back. While it invaded the front yard it did not hit the house.
IDK when that street will open because they’re busy cutting trees up on major arterials all over town. Several more lined up but no storms like the opening act.
We REALLY need the rain and snow, just would like it spread out over a few months, m’kay?
Another Scott
Very well done Kattails. Thanks for sharing!
Cheers,
Scott.
Wag
That hamster is all kinds of awesome.
Old Dan and Little Ann
I just went down a horrible fb rabbit hole. I spent about 25 minutes reading some dude’s posts and all the comments. One bugfuck crazy thing after the next. Then one was his invite to see him at the car dealership. I realized It was the guy who my wife and I leased our last car from. I feel like I should takes shower. Puke.
Ken
@CaseyL: I was thinking that’s what’s missing from James Bond movies. “Ah, another inescapable death trap. Think I’ll groom myself.”
Fair Economist
That’s a hamster with an interesting life. Envy them, all you hamsters in boring hamster balls!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
That hamster is cute (and smart!). It was so cool to see it squeeze itself through those crisscrossing rods. I love videos like this. Here’s one where a hamster naviagates the Emerald Hill Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog: Act 1
Cute Hamster in Sonic the Hedgehog Maze – Act.2 Chemical Plant Zone
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@trollhattan:
Glad to hear you’re safe. Over the last few years, my town has had a few downbursts which have caused considerable damage so I know where you’re coming from
Platonicspoof
I am less smarter than a hamster . . . .
Chetan Murthy
@Scout211: Oh, this a great idea! Let’s put another big commercial organization in charge, as if the ones we put in charge haven’t fucked it up already. Jesus. We already know how to do this: mass vaccination sites in the urban areas, get most of the state’s population inoculated, and fast.
SMDH.
RSA
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
An escaping prisoner needs to stop and groom every once in a while.
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne:
It’s the best action thriller I’ve seen all year!
WaterGirl
@Mike in NC: Oh, no, say it isn’t so! I was thinking about getting one of the new ones. What is there to program?
Wapiti
A very cool maze.
satby
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Not just you.
75th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz today. I was hoping to see that noted.
West of the Rockies
Fun hamster vid. I kept hoping to hear Morgan Freeman say, “Hammy Dufresne crawled through 500 yards of….”
West of the Rockies
@Amir Khalid:
If you see just one movie this year involving hamsters….
WaterGirl
That is one calm, cool and collected hamster!
HumboldtBlue
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
It didn’t capture me. I think I made it 40 minutes in, maybe episode one but that’s it.
Elsewhere:
WaterGirl
@susanna:
I’m trying to understand what the second half of that sentence means.
M. Bouffant
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): This is an entire YouTube genre, I’m guessing.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@WaterGirl: I think a reference to the time difference, and an assumption that you’re an East Coastal elitist.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I can’t be an east coast elitist, I’m on central time!
opiejeanne
@CaseyL: In a book about cats, there was a photo of a cat bathing. The caption was, “When in doubt, wash.
Paul Gallico was the author.
PJ
@satby: Pedant here: it’s the 76th anniversary of the arrival of the Red Army at Auschwitz (most of the prisoners had been sent on a death march westward before then.)
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@WaterGirl:
Au contraire, “coastal elitism” is just a state of mind /conservatives
?
HumboldtBlue
@WaterGirl:
You’re just elitist and some folks are saying it’s a bit much with you words an’ stuff.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@M. Bouffant:
From what I can tell, it is
Alison Rose
I was just spending some time finding my own respite via watching a bunch of old Simone Biles videos. She is honestly one of the most amazing athletes I’ve ever seen. I kept replaying some of her moves trying to figure out how a human body can do such things.
The hamster was a bit of a change of pace, but also delightful in its own way :)
sdhays
@WaterGirl: Centrist!!11!
HumboldtBlue
@sdhays:
Exactly!
Elitist centrist from a college town!
Oh, and Texas realtor lady who flew the private jet to the insurrection is having trouble raising money for her criminal defense.
WaterGirl
@HumboldtBlue: Okay, I don’t understand this comment, either. Time for me to go to bed!
Chetan Murthy
@Alison Rose: Greatest living female gymnast, right? No expert, but wow, she can fly in every direction at once.
satby
@PJ: Ok 76th Anniversary of this. The point was to mark and remember it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@satby: Lawrence O’Donnell just played part of this statement by Tony Blinken, our new SoS (with video)
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@satby:
I learned today that January 27th is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Biden issued a statement on it through the WH website:
It’s a good, powerful statement
hitchhiker
Watching a French spy TV series called The Bureau … refreshingly not American (everyone is not beautiful with perfect white teeth and things are happening in Paris besides gooey romance and expats) & very, very well done (pacing, acting, story). I know just enough French pronunciation/grammar to catch the meaning of some dialogue w/the help of subtitles, so that bit of workout for the brain is nice.
Current mood re: Republicans? They’re either cynical or cult-owned. No other option. Fuck ’em.
HumboldtBlue
Youse have been saying it since Cole was a right-winger — with the GOP the sedition is a feature, not a bug.
Pete Downunder
@hitchhiker: Le Bureau is excellent. Good practice for your French and well subtitled if you don’t speak the language. I have found many French films to be far superior to their Hollywood competitors. The Intouchables is among the best movies I’ve ever seen.
Lyrebird
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Yep. An excellent statement.
I am glad that the BJ crew exists. If all there was to read was either the NYT or the ung-yay erks-tay I would lose hope. Here is a sane tweet responding to one of the official alt Left types putting down the Veep.
HumboldtBlue
I like the rhetoric I am hearing, Jan. 6 is not going away. Eight dead, hundreds injured and a riot incited by the leadership of the WNP.
cain
@HumboldtBlue:
This is why they want us all to move on. These people are up to their eyeballs in sedition. And if we don’t cage them they will plot again – and if it fails – to be forgiven again.
Once again, we need to hold these folks accountable.
NotMax
@hitchhiker
if you’ve never checked it out, six of the seven seasons of the French police procedural series Spiral available on Prime. Gritty and graphic, but in toto addictive.
The actor portraying the prosecuting judge (kind of, sort of a rough equivalent of our District Attorneys) makes him a fascinatingly complex character.
Kattails
@Another Scott: someone else here, I believe, posted a link to a hamster rocket–or was that on Rex Chapman? Anyway, I sent that to a friend who replied with this. I thought it was just fun and amazingly inventive.
hitchhiker
@Pete Downunder:
It really is good. Forgot to say that I always enjoy foreign films/tv with portrayals of Americans as tangential, non-heroic characters; the view of us from outside is somehow calming.
Le Bureau is also acting as a geography tutor for me; a flight from Paris to Algiers is 2 hrs, like me going from Seattle to San Francisco. I always think of distances in Europe and the Middle East as much larger than they are.
ETA, thx, @NotMax. I’ll put it on my list.
John Revolta
@HumboldtBlue: Apparently the single donation she got was from herself. HILARIOUS
HumboldtBlue
@cain:
This is why they want us all to move on.
Agreed. I sense a difference in Republicans I know who at one point were reasonable but willing to let the poor racists — not the country club racists — make up the numbers and hate and violate the other while pointing to their own moderate positions, and they are no longer the base, in fact they haven’t been the base since the 90s.
I think Ted Cruz is scared. I dearly hope the DOJ takes this to the last thread they can and I hope these traitors pay.
HumboldtBlue
Florida/S’uthren folks, can we get a feel on Publix?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
If Comedy Central has a soul, they’ll post the entire clip of Cloris Leachman at Bob Saget’s roast
ETA: And a little more..…
The Moar You Know
@Scout211: Kaiser’s the other health care org being tapped. And that’s the only reason I’m not freaking out. Blue Shield is terrible. Kaiser’s not real great either (I’m a former patient) but they have the physical apparatus to do a lot of people and do them quickly
They’re not going to do a good job of it but there’s no way they can do worse than the counties.
Omnes Omnibus
@HumboldtBlue: They made an Inauguration Day Beer.
Mary G
?It’s a dog-eat-do party now:
Don’t think the censure of Cindy McCain went over too well with some of them.
FlyingToaster
@HumboldtBlue: If I ever get to my mom’s again (near Ft. Myers), I will pass the Publix and go to Winn Dixie. Or, Target.
FFS.
NotMax
@FlyingToaster
Moving from Publio and Publia to Publix misconceived?
//
HumboldtBlue
@Omnes Omnibus:
Gotta love a peaceful transition of flavor.
@FlyingToaster:
Huh.
phdesmond
amazing video.
human and animal intelligence, with good sound effects.
HumboldtBlue
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Wow! Just brilliant.
NotMax
Cloris Leachman, frontier hussy.
Another Scott
@Kattails: Ah, ok. Thanks again anyway for passing it along. :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
trollhattan
In his case, I blame anxiety brought on by years of working with Lucas electrics.
mrmoshpotato
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I am now shaking my bones to the Sonic The Hedgehog 2 music in the head.
Mystic Cave zone!
JWR
Thread has slowed a bit, but why in the wide wide world of sports did Hillary Clinton choose this guy as her running mate?
And who was one of those other Democrats dowsing Kaine’s idea? None other than the ‘extremely liberal’ Joe Manchin. (And good for Joe on this one.) But Kaine points to the 55-45 test vote to prove that impeachment, followed by conviction, is an impossibility, so why bother.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@opiejeanne: Paul Gallico clearly loved, and wrote a few books on cats. A novel, Jennie, (or The Abandoned) was about a little boy who turned into a cat and was taken under the protection of a street tabby, Jennie. Her first lesson on how to be a cat was “when in doubt, wash”. He also was involved in a photo book about a stray kitten adopted by a family called The Silent Miaow. Both are wonderful.
I liked the hamster video but it went on too long for me. About 2/3 of the way through I fast-forwarded to see him get his reward. Yay!
NotMax
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
If for no other reason to have the evidence and the case presented by the House managers put on the open public record, allowing history to judge whatever the outcome may be. Not being convicted in now way negates criminal charges being brought afterward. Will also add that for those whose minds are not prematurely locked and closed, the case and evidence could sway a few more votes than the 5 he assumes.
KrackenJack
@Scout211: Newsome’s covid response performance has been getting steadily worse. He has problems with transparency and leadership. His default mode is negotiating backroom deals with vendors like his PPE deals and now Blue Shield. His sudden suspension of the stay at home order this week without consulting with or even warning the relevant authorities is another example.His office isn’t releasing the data that they say supports the decision.
If his goal is to fuel the recall effort, he’s succeeding brilliantly and alienating members of his own party. I suppose it’s too late to make recall votes instant run off. If that were the case, I’d sign the recall petition myself.
phdesmond
@CaseyL:
a keen observation on the role of preening!
NotMax
Steeplejack, if you’re still around, The Case of the Lucky Legs with Warren William as Perry Mason coming up at 2:30 a.m. Eastern on TCM.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The Last Bernie Meme.
JWR
@Mary G: Sorry I left you last night, but yes, Wally George, (Wally! Wally! Wally!), is deceased. ‘E’s kicked the bucket, ‘E’s no more, ‘E’s ceased to be. Wally is an X-Wally!
@opiejeanne: Also sorry for my disappearing act, but yeah, they’re going to re-run his crappy shows. Woo hoo.
NotMax
@JWR
“No calls please, everyone on this program is dead.”
//
Mary G
@JWR: That station’s always been run on a shoestring.
JWR
@NotMax: Heh! But srsly, just thinking back to The Wally George Show, he was just sooo Trumpy. He’d reprimand guests who said stuff that was true, he’d throw people off for getting the facts right, just everything Trump. That was Wally.
ETA, I wouldn’t be surprised if DJT was a big fan. Prolly has all the shows on VHS.
Martin
@JWR: When my wifes former church was shopping for a new building, we looked at the old building where Wally George’s show was. I think I was the only one there who understood who he was. The specific studio space was TINY. You have no idea how tiny these studios are.
NotMax
@JWR
Broadcast descendant of Joe Pyne.
JWR
@Mary G: At least they’re not bringing back Cops. Yet. (But I wouldn’t bet against it.) How about this… they’re digging up the corpse of Wally George, while another shoestring budget station has just canceled Married … with Children. I swear. I can’t have any nice things!
NotMax
@JWR
Poor Divine. Died shortly after being signed to play Peg Bundy’s mother, which would have been a mainstream breakout role. And quite possibly would have led to a spin-off series.
JWR
@NotMax: Wow! I did not know that. And oh boy, PBS is showing “American Carnage”. (11:00PM PDT) I don’t think I can take this right now.
ETA, For those not in the MWC know, Peggy Bundy’s mother was never shown, only referred to as the overweight monster upstairs.
Brachiator
@KrackenJack:
Good points. I have no idea why Newsom selected Blue Shield, and have not seen anything yet that suggests that they have any strong expertise to accomplish what needs to be done. And there are a number of local political leaders and health department officials who should have been consulted and treated as contributing partners.
It is strange. Newsom started out strong and got respect, if not praise, for his early decisions in dealing with the pandemic. But he seems to have squandered all the good will he had accumulated and appears to be panicking and flailing in all directions with no goal or purpose. It’s almost as if he were begging to be recalled.
JWR
@Martin:
That’s funny. When I was maybe 12 years old, our church group(!) went to a taping of The Hollywood Squares, and that studio was a fairly large, open space. Down there were the Squares, sort of isolated in this large space, with a small, but not tiny area for the audience bleachers. But then, that was a huge network studio, and not a big room, like the one where Wally taped.
ColoradoGuy
@Mike in NC: Hi, Mike in NC. I made the same transition about a year ago, from Gen 3 to Gen 4 AppleTV. In terms of hookup, it’s pretty similar … Internet in, HDMI cable to the TV. If you have home theater, there’s no optical-digital any more (annoying), so the routing has to be AppleTV – home theater receiver – TV. No clue how a sound bar would be connected, though.
The user interface is completely different, though. It’s the much-hated touch remote. The upper, rough side is the touch interface, while the glossy side does nothing. The touch interface controls up/down, right/left, and clicking it means “do this”. Press and hold let’s you move the icons around. The big button with the shiny surround is the “go home” or “step back” button, while the play/pause button on the lower left does just that. The other buttons don’t do much. The more detailed settings, as in the Gen 3 AppleTV, are in the gear-shaped icon. They can mostly be left at default, unless you need to mess with WiFi settings, with passwords and all that. By the way, if you have a spare Apple keyboard, the AppleTV works with that, which can simplify tedious password entry.
Unlike the previous AppleTV, this one supports downloadable apps from the App Store. Think of it as an iPhone with a very restricted interface and many fewer apps. I’ve downloaded Amazon Prime, HBO+, PBS, the Washington Post, Tidal music, and an assortment of others. Syncing them with other accounts usually requires a PC or tablet nearby to transfer passcodes from a Web page to the AppleTV, but that’s the same registration process the previous device required.
The two most annoying aspects of this gizmo are connecting it to your local WiFi service and then syncing apps to accounts like Amazon Prime or other services. Both require pencil and paper, or having a PC or tablet in the same room as the AppleTV. I use a direct Ethernet connection to the household router, but that’s not practical for everyone. Like every Internet TV gizmo, they require a stable, high-speed Internet connection of at least 10 megabits/sec for viewable video, and if your local WiFi is congested, stable connections may be difficult. That’s where WiFi repeaters or mesh networks can be useful, but WiFi debugging is a whole different topic.
Hope this helps.
JWR
I said I wouldn’t, but I’m watching “American Carnage”, and wow, the similarities between T**** and Wally George are striking. The voice, the weirdly simple sayings, the friggin’ hair! Wally George had a similar, combover hairdo. Good for me that Stephen Colbert’s coming on soon.
HumboldtBlue
NotMax
Wowsers. Cobbled together what turned out to be all-star variation of feijoada in the Instant Pot. Eyeballed the amounts of eight — count ’em, eight — spices in the palm of the hand and the balance in the finished product is, in all modesty, perfection. Luscious din-din, and leftovers enough for three of four days.
NotMax
@NotMax
three or four, not three of four
rikyrah
@HumboldtBlue:
It’s a scam. Publix doesn’t have stores in the neighborhoods of people most hurt by COVID. The FEDS are going to have to step in in Florida and Texas for there to be some equitable distribution of the vaccine
Gvg
Publix is not a big political donor. They are a Florida based chain that has expanded into other nearby states. They have been here for ever and I grew up only shopping in Publix, and so did my closest black friend. I think they are less likely to be in the very very poor areas, but they are in the poor areas if that makes sense? Rural areas though are not covered and it’s a complaint. Publix is reliably clean and Winn Dixie and some others aren’t. Publix costs more usually but a lot of ordinary people really prefer it. They have good pharmacies in almost all stores.
their political donation strategy is according to analysts called access and trends republicans because that has been who controlled Florida and the Federal government but they aren’t big players and have been trending downward…since 2000 it looks to me. News stories say they have already had backlash in 2018 and before that. One of their earliest beneficiaries in their home county got caught in corruption and the Parkland kids did die ins at some of their stores. One politician they donated too became an anti NRA person from previously supporting them over Parkland.
Publix donations.https://www.theledger.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/08/01/publix-puts-little-less-green-in-politics/42164475/