Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

“Joe Biden deserved better than he got from some folks in his own party.”

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

When we show up, we win.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

“Cheese and Kraken paired together for the appetizer trial.”

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

In after Baud. Damn.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

The jury literally has a bell they can ring to force Trump to show up on command. Greatest thing ever!

“Why isn’t this Snickers bar only a nickel?”

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / Friday Evening Open Thread: If You Can’t Keep Them Home…

Friday Evening Open Thread: If You Can’t Keep Them Home…

by | 111 Comments

This post is in: ,

… (Try to) keep them outside, and encourage proper pandemic precautions:

Reader Interactions

111Comments

  1. 1.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    ☕️??‍?Wynifred Wizenasse ?✨ @snarky_ginger1
    New Years hottest club is….
    Stay The Hell Home.
    This place has EVERYTHING! Cheap drinks. Heavy pours. Your favorite spot on the couch. No bathroom charge. No cover for ladies (mask & bras not required). VIP fridge access. Live performances by you staring at your phone & MORE!

  2. 2.

    dmsilev

    Here on the other side of the country, at nine this morning there were already people camped out along the route of the Rose Parade. I guess it’s just as well we had our rain storm yesterday rather than today.

  6. 6.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Am grilling surf and turf. Our initial plans (staying overnight in Cincinnati to watch their orchestra do James Bond tunes and a night out eating and dancing) got scotched over wife coming up with a nasty little cold (tested negative). Wouldn’t be kind to other patrons having her snort and sniff and cough. Plus, we’re getting tested Sunday ahead of traveling to Barbados Tuesday (MIA overnight Monday). Our chances are good – each of us has gotten full Moderna AND Pfizer cycles, and we got the Moderna booster a week ago.

    It’s supposed to be a week of leisure and diving, but Sandals has gotten kind of goofy on dive schedules given staffing issues. We’ll be lucky to get in one, maybe two dives – I’m not gonna be chuffed about it – we’ll have more opportunities this year, and we have a nice dedicated dive week planned for Roatan in September, at the place we were at when COVID stopped our world.

    I got to brave my local exurban stores today. Trumpist assholes were out in force, sneering at the masked (about 50%) but looking less assured of their plague rat selves. Louisville is running 20+ percent positivity, and everybody knows several positives. That doesn’t count the plague rats who won’t test.

  9. 9.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    And for anyone looking for a good deal, Naked Wines will sell you a case of really nice curated bottles for $60, and ships it to you if you’re in an eligible state. Value is about $160, and we haven’t opened a clunker among them. Tonight will be a nice Syrah, followed by a decent Irish Whiskey nightcap.

  12. 12.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Gin & Tonic: Dark as shit here. The fireworks assholes have already started.

    We really out to be on Central Time. We’re like at the western extreme of EST.

  13. 13.

    dmsilev

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Back in the days when we were young and foolish.

    As opposed to now, older yet still foolish.

    (A note: By the standards of places with real winters, Pasadena tonight won’t be all that cold, just dipping into the upper 30s. People in Southern California will, regardless, find this to be basically the coming of the next Ice Age)

  17. 17.

    WaterGirl

    I just got email from my friend who is in France for Christmas. New year wishes were sent by email to family and friends.  His sister wrote back to all of us with this message and a photo:

    Where I am now. At a church service where we burn all we wish to leave from the old year and make our wishes for the new year!

    How cool is that tradition???

  21. 21.

    Kayla Rudbek

    Home from a tandem bike ride and trying to decide which leftovers to eat for dinner. We stopped at the Austrian/Bavarian restaurant for lunch and Mr. Rudbek is still not that hungry as a result. Since I couldn’t have cheese on my wurst bun or on my fries, or any onion soup, I am more hungry than he is.

  22. 22.

    phdesmond

    @debbie:

    i wish researchers would do exit interviews at events like this, asking vaccination-seekers why they didn’t get a Round Tuit until new year’s eve 2022?    it would be nice to know what’s going on in the minds of some of the 90 million, or however many remain to be inoculated.

  24. 24.

    Tony Jay

    It’s officially 2022 here in the Unfortunate Kingdom of Brexitania. Happy New Year jackals, juicers and lurkers!

    May the new year be a better one and the eyes of our enemies melt in their stupid, porcine faces.

    Huzzah!

  28. 28.

    raven

    @mrmoshpotato: I’ve lived here more than half my life, 2 degrees from the school but I’ve hated fucking Michigan for way longer. Fuck Schembechler and all that followed him.

  31. 31.

    raven

    @mrmoshpotato: When Mike White came to Illinois (after the incredible failure of Gary Moeller) Bo said “Michigan is the Harvard of the Midwest and Illinois is the Oakland Raiders of the Big Ten”. Fuck em.

  32. 32.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Betty White passed away today. She was just 3 weeks short of her 100th birthday. It really seemed like she would live forever

  35. 35.

    sab

    My city cancelled First Night about five years ago, because nobody was interested in a night out without drinking. Kind of sad, because First Night was fun.

  36. 36.

    Jay

    Quiet night, steak later, sick cat is eating, good sign.

    Glass of Pinot now, the good beer later,

    Wishing all the Jackals a better 2022.

  37. 37.

    Sure Lurkalot

    Finally finally snowing here in Denver and wicked cold expected tonight and tomorrow. Roasting some lamb, a twice baked potato (only one needed as the curbside grocery run yielded 4 russets each the size of my head) and something green. And wine.

    Happy New Year to everyone, let’s make 2022 as good as it gets.

  41. 41.

    Drdavechemist

    Well, I was all packed for a lovely weekend with friends on the Cape when the precautionary rapid test came up as a very faint but unmistakable positive.  Everyone else in the household tests negative so I’m isolating in the bedroom and looking at a few days of the same. No symptoms, no fever, pulse oximeter reading is good, so I may do another home rapid test and then the pcr that’s required for a return to work anyway, along with N95 masking around others until I get an all clear and/or enough time without symptoms that it’s clear I’m not going to infect anybody else.

    Biggest disappointment, aside from missing the trip, is that I had to cancel the case of high end craft beer (Treehouse for those in the area) that I had ordered to pick up on the way in Sandwich, MA. Now I will have to make a special trip sometime in the  future. I know an hour each way shouldn’t be a big deal, but after living in RI for thirty years, my sense of distance has shrunk dramatically. Oh well, first world problems. At least I managed to figure out how to stream TV to my iPad, so I have plenty of entertainment. Stay safe, regulars and lurkers alike.

  42. 42.

    CaseyL

    Happy New Year to those who’ve had the witching hour come and go!

    Not even 4:30 here so NYE still a long way off.

    I slept in this morning till about 11:00, which was UTTERLY WONDERFUL.  I should do that more often!

  43. 43.

    sab

    We haven’t gotten around to torching the Christmas pudding for at least five years, so tonight is the night, and then I can throw its box away and eat it.

    I actually like plum pudding. My husband hates it. I didn’t make hard sauce for it.

  45. 45.

    Starboard Tack

    @Sure Lurkalot: I’m ok with the cold and the shoveling since we really need the moisture. We’re 92% below the historical average. Here’s to a better 2022. I won’t say it can’t get worse cause everytime I do, it does.

  46. 46.

    Yutsano

    Wished my Dutch crew Gelukkig Nieuwjaar. I was surprised at how many were still awake. Now my English/Norwegian contingent. Should sneak in something for the other Europeans I know.

  47. 47.

    jnfr

    After all day yesterday spent worrying over the nearby wildfires, tonight we’re sitting home watching the snow come down. Why wasn’t it here a week ago?

  50. 50.

    Ken

    @Tony Jay: Huh, I thought it was still another 13 days before the UK would celebrate New Years.  I guess the plans to reclaim sovereignty by switching back to the Julian calendar were put off.

  51. 51.

    geg6

    Filets mignon with mushrooms in a butter/white wine sauce, wild rice and roasted zucchini and yellow peppers and a bottle of Coppola Pinot noir are just about to be devoured here.  Then something on Netflix…maybe the Python doc.

  55. 55.

    Suzanne

    I am home, on the couch, in pajama pants. Mr. Suzanne and I took all three Spawns to Ohiopyle today. It was fun but also tiring, as it is three hours of driving in total, and chasing a toddler around. So we ordered pizza and pasta and carboloaded. I doubt I will make it to midnight.

    Spawn the Elder has two friends over. There were going to be three, but one found out he had a COVID exposure, is negative thus far, but we’re going to wait that out. The other two are vaxxed and boosted, and they are hanging out with Elder in his room. I don’t know if I am being irresponsible. Tests are next to impossible to get, I have tried. He is only here for one more week, so I wanted him to be able to spend time with his friends.

  58. 58.

    Tony Jay

    @Ken:

    Oh, why do you have to give them such ideas? Why, man?

    “British Dates at British Rates! Up yours, Gregory!”

  60. 60.

    mali muso

    @Suzanne: Parenting in this brave new world feels like you can’t possibly make the “right” decision. Just a series of doing the best you can weighing lots of factors.

  62. 62.

    Mary G

    The rain finished last night and the roofers were here today at 8:15 am, so spent the day sleeping despite the scraping and banging. I have a horrible cough, but doubt it’s covid. I keep picking off the edges of the sad remaining pieces of See’s Candy just to make sure I can still taste and smell

    ETA: RIP, Ms White. What a remarkable life she led.

  63. 63.

    Ken

    @Tony Jay: Don’t worry, they won’t do such a ridiculous thing until they need a big distraction from some massive governmental failure driven by incompetence, stupidity, and a hint of malignance. So you’ve got at least a week, allowing for the long holiday.

  68. 68.

    Tony Jay

    @Baud:

    Salutations of the Season, El Presidente Futurisimo.

    @Ken:

    Maybe a week. They’ve just ennobled that horrendous streak of solopsistic self-advancement Anthony Blair for services to the very rich and bloodstained, so I imagine that might tide them over scandalwise until the Covid figures start bumping against Elon Musk’s Killer Death Satellites.

  70. 70.

    Ken

    It’s remarkable to think that when Betty White was born, it was still the 20th century.

    — A memorial comment in the spirit of Rose Nylund

  73. 73.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Good Lord, New Years is tonight, there were so much fireworks last night I got the days mixed up lol

  74. 74.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Gravenstone:

    eta: editing note. The site won’t let you end a post with an asterisk.

    Really? How very odd.

    ETA: I originally had an asterisk after odd. The site deleted it upon posting. Wonder what that little quirk’s in service of.

  78. 78.

    Starboard Tack

    TCM is showing all the Thin Man movies tonight.

    I don’t like crooks. And if I did like ’em, I wouldn’t like crooks that are stool pigeons. And if I did like crooks that are stool pigeons, I still wouldn’t like you.

  86. 86.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Tony Jay:

    On the one hand:

    They’ve just ennobled that horrendous streak of solopsistic self-advancement Anthony Blair

    On the other hand:

    Dame Joanna Lumley

    I’ll take the glass-half-full here.

  98. 98.

    Ken

    @sab: I still have a plum pudding to torch.

    What do you use?  I can’t find benzene any more, something about California and cancer.

  102. 102.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Baud:

    Ah, Jeff Bezos isn’t just some normal person. He’s one of the MOTUs! Practically a god! Or so he thinks, I’m sure

  104. 104.

    Tony Jay

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    National treasure and all that, but its hardly surprising that Flobalob would reward such a consistent and outspoken fan.

    There are quite a few Britons ‘of a certain age’ that leave a bad taste in my mouth these days, and sadly Joanna “Boris is simply wonderful” Lumley is on that list.

    Bah, enough of my grousing. Plenty of time for that over the coming weeks and months

  105. 105.

    Starboard Tack

    @MagdaInBlack: I see them again every year or so. Some are better than others. Myrna Loy is brilliant. The pratfall with Asta in the first movie is superb.

  106. 106.

    Jay

    @Ken:

    small refill “soldering” torch or “propane” torch?

    You can still legally buy odorized butane refills for the small torches, but you might need to order online.

    Bulk non-odorized are banned because people keep blowing themselves up making hash oil and other pot oil products.

  108. 108.

    Ruckus

    @dmsilev:

    I lived for 4 yrs within 2 blocks of the the west end of the Colorado start of the Rose Parade. Inside the you can’t drive here for 12+ hrs zone. Good times.

  109. 109.

    Ramalama

    1. @sab  my partner is francophone. Couple of her siblings are elsewhere in Canada, English parts. I love Quebec. But my french is terrible, and getting worse since my mother-in-law died. She didn’t speak English. I’m just a permanent resident up here. I learned most of my french walking my big sled dog. They seem to be the patron saint of Quebec…. everyone wanted to talk about him.

Comments are closed.