Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

We still have time to mess this up!

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

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

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

This fight is for everything.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

It’s not hopeless, and we’re not helpless.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

We won’t go back.

People are complicated. Love is not.

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

American History and Black History can not be separated.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: I Guess Photobombing Is a Real Thing!

Reader Interactions

104Comments

  3. 3.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I have no idea whom to credit for these photos, or I would. I got a batch of about 30 from a cousin, and because they amused me, I passed them along to WG. Most of them made me laugh, and really, can we ask for more?

  10. 10.

    WaterGirl

    I am catching up on Arrow (on my Tivo) and now I’m sorry that I previously deleted all the Crisis on Infinite Earth episodes because I decided they weren’t important to the storylines.

  13. 13.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud:  Thanks, I checked that out.

    They are all on Netflix, too, except the one that was on Batwoman.  That one is on HBOMax, which I might have because I have HBO on cable.

    It’s just so much easier to avoid commercials when I have them on Tivo.  They have a nifty little button you push that jumps to where the commercial has just finished. :-)

  14. 14.

    WaterGirl

    @Martin: Did you see the one where some yoga instructor (I think) was doing her routine for her online class – and all the vehicles for the coup in Myanmar were driving by behind her?

    She was totally clueless.

  16. 16.

    Tony Jay

    Good to see from picture three that James Coburn was reincarnated in a body capable of housing those teeth.

  17. 17.

    chrome agnomen

    those raccoons look like they’re waiting to catch the bouquet.   and eat it.

  20. 20.

    MoCaAce

    When I was a teen we camped at Mammoth Caves and around dusk my sisters started feeding marshmallows to a racoon and her two younguns… within 15 minutes it devolved into at least 15 racoons fighting and getting aggressive.  As we took refuge in the camper they began climbing all over it and tearing up the window screens!  I had a racoon pup that survived a family road kill accident when I was a kid and I know how vicious and strong they are… it was terrifying!

  23. 23.

    Another Scott

    So, it is pretty well confirmed that the raptor on my deck yesterday violated the Albatrossity Rule and was either a Cooper’s hawk or a Sharp-shinned hawk.  Not a red-tailed hawk.

    In other news, …

    This is an important report. It largely jibes with our personal observations. First, anger is an important motivation for them, but not the only one. They are despondent and seek a leader who restores a sense of control. https://t.co/2ZAhdRU0rh

    — Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) March 28, 2021

    An interesting thread.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  27. 27.

    Miss Bianca

    @Baud:

    Something old, something new, something borrowed, something rabid.

    Oh, Jesus Christ, am I glad I put my beer down before scrolling down this thread. LOL!!

  28. 28.

    Bruuuuce

    This being an open thread, I thought I’d share some good news.

    Wednesday night, we received two phone calls. The first was from my MiL, who reported that she was vaccinated (she has the beginnings of memory issues and can’t find her ID, so we were despairing of getting her a shot, but the adult community she’s living in brought someone in for everyone there). Probably J&J, but we won’t know until we see her card.

    The second call was to tell us that seller of the house on which we had put in an offer had accepted it! Since we have to leave our apartment by April 30 (landlord troubles that ultimately come down to us being grandfathered as rent-stabilized in a building converting to coop, in an apartment valued at over $1mm by the landlord, and an agreement we reached over their proximate cause to evict us), we had been looking. It’s a good size, built in the 1930s and in good shape. Next up, we get the inspection done. Projected closing date: May 31.

    Woo-hoo!

  29. 29.

    NotMax

    @Baud

    There’s projection and there’s projection. If she’s not careful she could put someone’s eyes out with those.

    :)

  36. 36.

    Baud

    @NotMax:

    If she’s not careful she could put someone’s eyes out with those.

    Fun fact: The original plot of A Christmas Story was based on a similar idea.

  39. 39.

    Bruuuuce

    @debbie: Thank you  Yes, indeed, the landlord sucks. They have been giving us grief for years, and when a major plumbing issue happened that they blamed us for — with misleading photos — we knew it was time to get out. Our attorney believed they would win an eviction, so we cut a deal to be out in six months. I consider it a win for us, because the house is awesome. And we’ll move M’s mom in with us, so she can stop hemorrhaging money.

  42. 42.

    Ken

    @NotMax: If she’s not careful she could put someone’s eyes out with those.

    Are you familiar with Deadly Weapons, one of the many films in the unique oeuvre of Doris Wishman?

    Well, I use the word “films” loosely. They are undoubtedly shot on filmstock, but as one reviewer noted, “Doris Wishman makes you painfully aware of the many conventions of film-making by violating every one.”

  45. 45.

    raven

    Anyone besides us watch this? We loved it.

     

    If The Morning Show is Apple TV Plus’ crown-jewel prestige drama and See is its bet on sci-fi programming, Dickinson is its most fun. Circumventing Apple’s idea of what a prestigious show should look like brings some much needed carefreeness to the streaming platform.
    The show finds Emily Dickinson (Hailee Steinfeld) in the 1850s as she struggles to follow her dreams of becoming a poet at a time when female writers were frowned upon. Her father Edward (Toby Huss) sours at the idea of people in Massachusetts finding out she’s a writer, afraid of the shame she’ll bring to their family. Only two people support her ambitious desires: George Gould (Samuel Farnsworth), a local literary magazine editor who also wants to marry Emily, and Sue Gilbert (Ella Hunt), her best friend turned secret lover.
    Using period-accurate costumes and sets gives it a slightly prestigious feel, but the dialogue is deliberately contemporary. Characters speak to one another like they’re living in modern times, cursing at each other and saying things like, “What up, girl?” Though Dickinson feels like it’s nearing disaster at times, the show’s best moments come when it leans into its own absurdity: when a science experiment is used to simulate an orgasm, or a house party devolves into maelstrom as underage teens mess around with opioids, twerking to pulsating trap music.

  46. 46.

    NotMax

    @Ken

    Doris mined to a different drummer. Regardless of what a dreckfest it is, Nude on the Moon is a terrific title for boosting ticket sales.

  48. 48.

    Ken

    @NotMax: Last but not least, in yer face, Musk.

    The vehicle in ad #1 has some resemblance to Musk’s Cybertruck.

    And after digging up that quote about Doris Wishman, I just realized that the Cybertruck makes you painfully aware of the number of conventions involved in a pickup truck…

  49. 49.

    MoCaAce

    @mrmoshpotato:  Fifteen trash pandas vs the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man

    Marshmallow man wouldn’t stand a chance.  When my raccoon weighed about 10 lbs he was attacked by a neighbors German Shepherd… the GS lost that battle.

    He was a temporary guest.  We first put him in a rabbit cage and he escaped within hours, then lived in the attic of my dads workshop.  After about a year and a half he started wandering off more and getting more wild.  He eventually stopped coming around to beg for food.

  55. 55.

    NotMax

    @a href=”https://balloon-juice.com/2021/03/27/open-thread-i-guess-photobombing-is-a-real-thing/#comment-8124851″>Ken

    If we’re talking outre trucks….

    :)

  58. 58.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, … Reuters:

    NORTH VANCOUVER, Canada (Reuters) – One person is dead and multiple others were wounded in a stabbing at a public library in an affluent Vancouver suburb on Saturday, and a suspect, who apparently acted alone, was taken into custody.

    Canada’s Global News reported one death, citing homicide police, who were not immediately available to confirm. No details were provided.

    Horrible.

    (Insert obvious comparison with USA here.)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  60. 60.

    Kattails

    @Bruuuuce: All great news! Congratulations. May the inspection give a solid thumbs up. You are going to be very very busy, look forward to hearing about yourprogress.

  64. 64.

    CaseyL

    Subaru Diane, those are wonderful photos.  Thanks for providing them and thanks, WaterGirl, for posting them.

    I don’t care what people say,  I always like seeing raccoons.  I would love to see the next few photos of that encounter, though.  The bride throwing them her bouquet, and then beating feet outta there while they decide whether or not the flowers are edible?

    @Bruuuuce:  Congratulations!  I do love old houses.  They sometimes have interesting, non-standard interiors.  Like unexpected rooms opening up from another room, built-ins, and hobbit house spaces under the staircase.  Best of luck with the new place – I hope it doesn’t need too much refurbishing!

  67. 67.

    something fabulous

    Open Thread? Would someone like to help me remember some specifics? :)

    I am in an argument on FB (I know I know…) with the friend of a friend who is engaging in some ridiculous revisionist history about some mythical time of comity before [reading between the lines _the evil_] Obama. A point I want to bring up is during Bush where– and this is where my memory has failed me too much for successful Googling!– Republicans would hold hearings and not tell the Democrats, or tell the the wrong room or hour, and cut the mics/lights when they would try to hold ones instead. Am pretty sure am not hallucinating this! But can’t find any examples offhand.

    Is not by any means the point of my counter-argument, e.g. “what on Earth are you smoking?” but now that I am thinking about it, is annoying me I can’t remember the details. All prompts welcomed and thanks!

  68. 68.

    Mary G

    OK, hell has frozen over and conservatives are making fun of TFG and are actually kinda funny:

    Okay give me your most Trump-like solutions for the stuck ship.— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) March 27, 2021

  69. 69.

    Bruuuuce

    @CaseyL: It’s in mostly very good shape. There’s one spot where some plaster came down in the master bedroom’s closet, so we’re anxious to hear about the (slate) roof. And there’s a buried oil tank for heating; the current owner has, and has passed on, an estimate for conversion to gas (about $10K) that we’ll defer if soil testing shows us that everything’s okay for now.

    There’s one thing that’s kind of puzzling: there’s what appears to be a butler’s pantry, with a prep room with a sink behind it, but it’s on the second floor, not the first. It’s a good quirk, though, because more shelving is always welcome.

  70. 70.

    Ken

    @NotMax: Fascinating, and little-known, backstory to that vehicle. It was actually a mobile rocket launcher disguised as a tube of French hair cream. It was part of France’s independent deterrent force, from that period when DeGaulle pulled them out of NATO.

  71. 71.

    Ken

    @Honus: wasn’t Deadly Weapons the Chesty Morgan star vehicle?

    Now when you say star….

    The incomparably talented Ms. Morgan was in two Doris Wishman movies. In Deadly Weapons she played an assassin who killed with her breasts, and in Double Agent 73 a spy with a secret camera implanted in her breasts.

  72. 72.

    dmsilev

    @something fabulous: I also have the same memory, but no specific cites I’m afraid. If you do want an example of what the GOP was up to during that time, consider the case of Tom ‘the hammer’ DeLay, who pushed through a partisan redistricting of Texas in the middle of the decade (i,e, not the usual time right after a census year) with the stated motivation of ‘I want more Republican seats’.

  74. 74.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Bruuuuce:  I’m surprised the sale will go through with a buried oil tank. In this area they have to be decommissioned before sale.

  75. 75.

    Bruuuuce

    @Gin & Tonic: AFAIK it will be fine, provided the soil samples come back okay. This is up in Poughkeepsie (very close to Vassar’s campus), and we’re just learning about the local rules and ordinances.

  76. 76.

    Ken

    @Mary G: Yeah, but all the “related tweets” are the usual crap. They might manage to scrape the Trump off, but what’s underneath is exactly the same.

  77. 77.

    Scuffletuffle

    Trash pandas are awesome and I feed them whenever possible, especially in spring. They are called basement kitties at my house and are welcome any time.

  79. 79.

    Origuy

    @Bruuuuce:There’s one thing that’s kind of puzzling: there’s what appears to be a butler’s pantry, with a prep room with a sink behind it, but it’s on the second floor, not the first.

    Could it have been fixed up as a darkroom or other kind of hobby room that required a sink? Maybe taxidermy?

  82. 82.

    Bruuuuce

    @Origuy: It could be. The fact that it’s behind the long, shelf-filled room would make it almost certainly a butler’s prep room if it were downstairs near the kitchen. I’m sure the previous owners used it for all sorts of things; we’re still debating what we might want to do with it.

  83. 83.

    Ken

    @Scuffletuffle: I don’t think there was ever a “man befriends raccoons and uses them to kill” film, along the lines of Willard or The Devil Bat or War of the Insects or Stanley or The Deadly Bees or….

  85. 85.

    CarolPW

    @Bruuuuce:

    We looked at a big old place in South Carolina years ago that had a butler’s pantry with a sink on the second floor, and the only thing I could think was that they might have originally used one of the big second floor rooms in the front of the house as another parlor. It had a great view, so having afternoon tea or morning coffee there would have been great.

  86. 86.

    Another Scott

    @something fabulous: I can’t find exactly what you’re looking for, but maybe this will help. Google Books. (A statement by Sen. Leahy on how much better things were working with Democrats in charge of the Judiciary than in the late 1990s when the GOP controlled things.)

    HTH a little. (But you know you’re wasting your time, right? :-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  87. 87.

    Bruuuuce

    @CarolPW: That’s possible. With three good-sized bedrooms on the second floor, one of them might well have been used that way in the past. We won’t be doing that, but it’s a reasonable explanation.

  88. 88.

    jonas

    Raccoons are insane. Years ago we were camping in California and as the sun set and the family prepared dinner at the campsite at a picnic table, you could shine a flashlight up on the hillside behind us and see literally dozens of glowing eyes reflecting back at you. “How cute!” we thought. “Wildlife!” As we started to eat (chicken? burgers? I forget), this fat raccoon couple sauntered out of the brush into the campsite with maybe 5-6 kits behind them and proceeded to just sidle up to the picnic table like dogs and beg. We tried to shoo them off, but then they got pissed. They jumped up *on* the table and just started helping themselves to watermelon, lettuce, hamburgers, whatever. For the next two days, we just tailgated so if they showed up again, we just threw everything in the back of the suv, closed the doors and waited for them to go away. Even that didn’t always work. At least there weren’t bears…

  92. 92.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Ken:

    she played an assassin who killed with her breasts 

    Just wanted to see this ridiculous sentence again.

  93. 93.

    Kattails

    @jonas: Racoons are dangerous.  As a teenager we had a small dog, a poodle (miniature, not toy) and it got off the leash one night while I was walking it.  It tore off barking into the backyard, woods behind. We heard a shrieking and tried to find it in the dark.  The dog came barely limping up, bleeding. Emergency visit to the vets. No tech available so I stood in because I’m not particularly sqeemish, but that dog was sliced radially from the front shoulder right under the “armpit” for lack of a better word.  A lot of stitches. Had to be a raccoon, they were regulars in getting into the garbage cans, nothing else around that could have done that damage.

    I will never fuck with raccoons.

  94. 94.

    mrmoshpotato

    @jonas:

    We tried to shoo them off, but then they got pissed. They jumped up *on* the table and just started helping themselves to watermelon, lettuce, hamburgers, whatever. 

    Assholes.

  98. 98.

    something fabulous

    @dmsilev: @Another Scott: 

    Thanks! Yeah, I couldn’t find exactly what I was after, either, went to the store, just came back to find he’s now on to “At least Newt Gingrich and Clinton found a way to work with one another [!!!!]” so there really doesn’t seem to be any point. Oy!

  99. 99.

    TriassicSands

    Witnesses at the wedding?

    Trust me, they’re there for the food.

    I’ve always really liked raccoons, but they can be the most annoying critters on the planet. Years ago, camping in Yosemite, the raccoons would terrorize the campsites (everyone in tents) every night. No matter how clean most people kept their sites, the raccoons would sort through anything left out. But every night someone would leave pots and pans on their picnic tables and the raccoons would inspect every pot — CRASH — and every pan — BLAM. They would open jars, sort through anything that had or had had food in it, and keep people awake. Getting up to go climbing in the morning we could see who was responsible for the previous night’s noise. It never stopped. If only someone had built a wall around Camp 4…

  102. 102.

    evodevo

    @something fabulous: ​
      Same here…I remember all those incidents, but I can’t find any articles detailing all of them…here’s a scholarly overview with footnotes, but the articles referenced aren’t readily available…

  104. 104.

    something fabulous

    @evodevo: If you happen to come back here, thank you, this is awesome! Am trying to no longer take the bait with this one individual who is CLEARLY arguing in bad faith, but was a good read for myself, and may still give in and use in the future– or other places! Thanks again.

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