
Well, here’s your next installment of classics.
All Internet Traditions
I’m Probably Going to Hell for This
The PayPal Ordeal
PayPal Is Pissing Me Off
The Helpful People at PayPal
PayPal Is the Worst Company In the World
Day 76 of PayPal’s Reign of Error
A Human at PayPal At Last!
Gravatar Sunday (Chaos Reigns)
Oh My God, Gravatars
Okay, Now You Can Comment
Open Thread (Part 3)
The Gravatars Are Gone
The Story of Walter
I Found a Dog
Walter Gets a Name
Walter’s New Home
Walter Loves His Kids & More
RIP, Walter
Big Wings for a Big Cat
You Guys are the Best
Almost $12,000
Insane
I’m Off To Bed
I just read The Legend of Shitmas and can’t stop laughing.
I hope the Gravatar posts are as fun as they were the first time around. That was a Sunday never to be forgotten. We all woke up just like any other day, only a new site was rolled out and it included gravatars for everyone, that was a wild ride while it lasted. Which wasn’t all that long because they were gone by nightfall. I wonder if it’s as funny when you can’t see the gravatars?
Jimmm, Ruckus and Mary G, I looked yours up as requested earlier, so if you comment in this thread I will add them.
I’ll look up first posts for another 7 BJ peeps, first come, first served!
Open thread.
WaterGirl
So I googled “balloon boy” earlier today to refresh my memory before reading the Faxing Credenzas post, and I discovered a crazy-pants article from the 10th anniversary of the balloon boy event.
They interviewed the family and the article was called The Balloon Boy Hoax Solved!
They claimed that they had finally learned the true story of what really happened that day. Did we miss the 10th anniversary of balloon boy here? Or did I just miss it because it was October 2019 and I was knee deep in the site rebuild and hardly had any time to read the posts
If we all missed it, and not just me, I will put up a post next week.
Baud
That art is so cool.
Raoul Paste
Just reading the sequence of PayPal post titles is a hoot
dmsilev
@WaterGirl: I don’t remember a commemorative story, but as we all know, 2019 was roughly 342 years ago so my memory may not be the most reliable.
WaterGirl
@Raoul Paste: You have to imagine the second one with the word “helpful” in quotes.
WaterGirl
@Baud: i know! Avalune is amazing.
What I want to know is how Lily got to a disco with the neon lights and everything.
I would not have pegged her as a hot pink girl, but it totally works for her ;-)
WaterGirl
I was going to put this up later in the evening but thought we could use a palate cleanser after the last thread got off on a bad foot.
HeleninEire
@WaterGirl: I read the faxing credenzas post at work today. Big mistake. I could not stop laughing. Holy hell. And the best part was Mr. Gass came back the next day and argued with someone until 9pm the next night!!!
Oh and I have a question for John Cole. Mr. Gass said you wrote him an email where you agreed with him that the BJ commentators were acting like idiots. Please Cole..tell me that is not true.
A great thread!!! Of course that fucking analysis of Federal Grant Special Conditions that I was supposed to write didn’t get written. But there’s always tomorrow.
WaterGirl
I’m Probably Going to Hell for This was a fun one.
evap
First post, please :) I have been using the same email all along.
Mezz
@WaterGirl:
Thank you.
WaterGirl
@HeleninEire: It was 2009 so I would guess that Cole won’t remember.
If it were me, I could just check my email. But Cole periodically – and this causes me so much anxiety I can barely stand to write it – deletes his entire inbox.
(I think i may have to throw up now.)
WaterGirl
@Mezz: For the balloon boy story next week or for pointing out that you’re not a troll?
Jimmm
@WaterGirl:
So… is this an appropriate time to ask how long it has been since our first post? I suspect that I lurked for most of a decade before I finally said something, and then I promptly went dark again.
cain
@watergirl .. would love to know my first post ! ?
I’ve had Cain for the whole journey.
WaterGirl
@Jimmm:
Jimmm, your first post was on June 1, 2009 on a post by John Cole, titled The Fact That I Am Completely Wrong Is Just More Proof How Right I Am.
You’ll have to check out the post for context because I have no idea what that was about!
guachi
Lol. I loved the “all internet traditions” post. Don’t see the “shorter” thing much any more. Now we usually see a fake quote signed with “Name, probably”
WaterGirl
@cain: With a nym like “cain’ that could be in a million different words, what’s important is to know whether your email would have been the same back then as the one you use in BJ now.
WaterGirl
@guachi: was the “shorter” a link that didn’t work? If so, that would have been a “tiny url” that no longer exists.
frosty
Hi WG! Can you trace my first comment? Same email as now. Thanks!
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’d love to know what my first post was. Somehow I think it was about the Romney/Obama race. I’ve used the same email all along but used to post as Iowa Old Lady
Roger Moore
@guachi:
I love doing the “shorter” thing. I don’t really see it as the same as “So and so, probably”. “Shorter” is a pithy summary of what someone has actually said that cuts through their BS. For example, if someone gives a complicated explanation for why you should have to win a majority of white votes for your win to be legitimate, it would be totally fair to shorter that to “minority votes shouldn’t count”. “So and so, probably” is more about give your impression of what they really think, even if they never say anything that could be summarized to say that.
WaterGirl
@evap:
Wow, Aug 24, 2008! In a John Cole post called Second Awarding of the Golden McPenis.
Edmund Dantes
I asked last time within the 10 limit and I got missed. As ones past me got theirs.
First post? Email definitely same. Pretty sure the name is except formatting.
Mike E
My first post was either surprisingly cogent for me or completely off topic but probably both.
mrmoshpotato
Can you look up my first post? Same email.
evap
@WaterGirl: Thanks, WG! I thought I started reading in 2004, but I’m guessing it was 2008. No way I could have kept my mouth shut for 4 years :)
WaterGirl
@frosty:
June 29, 2008! In a post by Michael titled October, 1975.
WaterGirl
@evap: Unless you changed your email?
WaterGirl
@Edmund Dantes: As I explained, ones past you had also put in a request in the previous post, but past the 10th position, so those folks got moved up.
HeleninEire
Ah look at that beautiful Lily. I was behind my desk in Dublin just starting my job and I read that Lily was sick and probably terminal. I must have yelled out. I don’t remember. But my office mate, who has since then become my best Irish friend said “Helen are you OK?”
And after a few seconds of babbling I said “John may have to put Lily down!”
And here we are 5ish years later and there is Lily looking up at us with her beautiful eyes.
Suzanne
I’m curious about my first post!
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: This doesn’t seem right. Did you change your email address?
Oct 14, 2017
In a DougJ Fuck yeah post. (That’s like being born under a good sign!)
Even that comment makes it clear you had been here before. If you have another email address, send it to me by email and I can check again.
Suzanne
Another fond Balloon Juice memory: Spawn the Youngest grabbed my device and accidentally sent WaterGirl an email full of gibberish. WG was so sweet and sent me a reply, asking if I’d had a stroke. Nope, just a toddler!
Tony Jay
@WaterGirl:
As an aside, remember a couple of days ago you dug up my first comment (as Tony J) from 2006, but wondered what nym I was using between 2010 and 2017 because you couldn’t find me?
Well, I must still have been Tony J, because I’m in the second of those Gravatar threads under that name.
No further action needed or requested, I just like to fill out After Action Reports.
As you were.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@WaterGirl: Anything is possible. I’m pretty sure I started commenting in 2012. Since then, I moved and had to get a new email. But it’s beyond me to know what it was. Thanks for trying.
WaterGirl
@Tony Jay: Aha! But you were using a different email address then. That’s why it looked like you were AWOL from 2010-17.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Your email now is your author email at your domain. So you surely had one before that?
WaterGirl
@Edmund Dantes:
Sept 1, 2005
Rising Gas Prices
Edmund Dantes
@WaterGirl: interesting and thanks.
Definitely know I didn’t post right away so good to have an idea. Pretty sure I was here in the war blogging days.
schrodingers_cat
I was wrong, my first post was not the Tunch being furminated post. I think it was probably in 2009. Can you find my first post. My login was schrodinger’s cat and the same email as I use now.
Alison Rose
From the second Paypal post:
LOL I forgot about her. Blessedly so.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@WaterGirl: I had several. :-)
Don’t worry about it, WG.
cope
My nickname and my email of choice have remained the same for however long I have been making comments here but I have no interest in revisiting my first one but thanks for offering.
Tony Jay
@WaterGirl:
Ahhhhhh.
I can’t even remember what that e-mail was. When you get a free second or two at some point could you possibly forward it to the e-mail I’m using now?
What long lost treasures could I find within, nestled amongst the winkie-enhancement adds and ‘Your Amazon Account Has Been Frozen’ scams?
WaterGirl
@HeleninEire: What a nice story.
currawong
We’ll, it’s refreshing to find out that it wasn’t TFG who first suggested drinking bleach.
p.a.
Too late for a1st post request? No changes in info.
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato:
Oct 3, 2018
A TaMara baseball thread! MLB Wild Card: Rockies – Cubs
She must have asked what everybody was up to;
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl: Ah yes. Long ass game. Thanks.
WaterGirl
@Suzanne:
July 30, 2009
On a Tim F Open Thread
Roger Moore
@Alison Rose:
I still love Jerry Brown’s ad that quotes Meg Whitman talking about how great California was when she moved there- back when Brown was governor for the first time. It was one of the simplest ad concepts I’ve ever seen, and very potent for it.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: (think mchsi)
April 4, 2014
Wow, you have the honor of posting the first time in a thread about TBogg!
TBogg Has Outdone Himself
MazeDancer
What a great painting! Totally captures Lily.
WaterGirl
@p.a.:
Dec 8,
200712007!John Cole: I Was Waiting For This
Avalune
Thanks all re the painting. I was really proud of the eyes/nose and that collar. :D
I don’t want to revisit my first post. I’m pretty sure I know what it was and nah.
WaterGirl
@MazeDancer: That’s what I thought, too!
WaterGirl
Mary G, here’s yours from your request the other night:
Mary G your first post was on July 15, 2009 on a post by Tim F titled Deep Thought
It was a reply to this comment from arguingwithsignposts:
He was right. It has been 13 years and I have not had that “It would be so nice if I was just dead” feeling more than two or three times since. Keep trying things until you find what works. Your children will never be the same if you do something to hurt yourself.
WaterGirl
@Avalune: I thought Steve was absolutely amazing, too!
p.a.
@WaterGirl: I… I’m commenting from the FUTURE!!?? I’d tell you folks how things turn out, but Prime Directive and all that… ?
WaterGirl
The SC search is percolating as we speak.
With that, I think i got everyone from this thread and a couple from the thread yesterday.
I am at 10 for the night.
WaterGirl
@schrodingers_cat:
Feb 17, 2009
John Cole post: Dead Center
WaterGirl
@p.a.: Ha! corrected
debit
Thanks for the Walter links. I haven’t gone back and read them until now. He was such a good boy. There were some comments worrying about potential food aggression, and I had serious worries about house soiling (both reasonable worries considering where he came from) but Walter never had an accident in the house, and was never anything but a gentleman when it came to food.
I’ve had several dogs over the course of my life, and loved all of them, but Walter was the dog of my heart. I’m not around here very much these days, but will always love this place for giving me Walter.
Suzanne
@WaterGirl: DOOD, that comment held up WELL.
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: yep.
schrodingers_cat
@WaterGirl: Thank You
Ruckus
WaterGirl
The earliest I found in my search was 2012 but I know I was here before then. I might have been using an earlier email, I go all the way back to early AOL and Yahoo email but I thought that my current email was in use by 2006. I may have even commented using my name, perish the thought. The other side might be that Google might only access some things back a decade or so.
Anyway if you can find earlier please do, and thank you.
WaterGirl
@debit: I haven’t read the Walter links yet. Busy collecting, but not much time for reading. But every day i’ve been reading one set, so I will be reading about Walter soon.
He was such a good boy and i do love that picture of him with the antlers.
BillinGlendale offered to fix a few low res photos for the calendar, and i recall that photo of Walter is pretty low res. I bet Bill would be willing to use his magic software that turns a low-res photo into a high res photo, which i think shouldn’t be possible but apparently it is!
Let me know if you’d like me to check with Bill to see if he can work on that photo?
WaterGirl
@Ruckus:
Ruckus, your first post with this email was on Nov 3, 2009 in an Open Thread by John Cole.
It was a response to this comment by freelancer:
Which was a reply to Cole in his post:
Your reply to freelancer:
I will see if you used another email address. depends on how many times people have used “ruckus” in a comment.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
From things I remember (which become fewer and fewer things as days go by!) I was here before that. I may have not commented when I first arrived on the scene, but not talking is unlike me at all – some still greet me with STFU, often with an exclamation point.
WaterGirl
zzyzx, your first comment was on June 26, 2005 on a John Cole post Best Buffy Episodes where he claimed to be trying to solidify his Buffy The Vampire Slayer fanboy street cred!
Your comment was short and sweet;
No Passion?
CaseyL
I love Avalune’s artwork.
That is all.
WaterGirl
@Ruckus: Searching on your NYM, the first one is March 6, 2009.
(assuming that “osg” sounds familiar as part of your email?
The self-anointed president
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
That is one of my emails. I may have been using other emails or a different name to post under before that, I have 3 email addresses now, I’ve had others with other providers that I couldn’t tell you what they were to save anyone’s life. It is possible I used a name like Old Slow Guy – OSG, or even my actual name. I know I read BJ before John’s conversion to
humandemocrat, although if I commented way back then I sure can’t remember. Oh well it is what it is, the knowing is only for bragging rights and who on BJ would care about that?And thanks for looking – and all you do.
Also I remember that comment to Mnemosyne, that wasn’t my first.
debit
@WaterGirl: That would be lovely. I do have the original, but as it was taken in poor light on an iphone 5, don’t know how much could be done to improve it.
WaterGirl
@Ruckus: It may not have been your first, but it was your first using “ruckus” as your nym.
WaterGirl
@debit: I’m not sure if I have the original or just a cropped version. Can you send me the original as an email attachment to my watergirl email address?
kmax
just wanted to say thank-you for posting the Walter saga.
Been mostly lurking here for years and for me this is the top story ever posted here.
I am reading the posts again now and they make me happy/sad just like the first time I read them. Love the photos from the trip to the vet.
WaterGirl
@Ruckus: I tried your real name, too, and nothing came up. ?♀️
WaterGirl
@kmax: You are welcome!
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
That does make sense, I recall that I was heavy on the internet before that, likely a different name/handle whatever.
Next, a question for the hive.
I opened a box and found the 78 speed records that my parents had. Six 4 record albums, Duke E, and the like, and a 12 record album with assorted folks, all recognizable names and a couple in paper sleeves. That’s a total of 36 – 78rpm records. Anyone interested? I have no way to play them and no real interest in playing them and I’ve really lost interest in carrying them around. 25.1 lbs of records.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
Somewhere, back in the dark recesses that make up my mind, I recall that I used a different handle back then, I don’t recall every using my real name other than FB. But whatever it might have been, I have zero idea. Once again, thanks for the effort, but some things are just lost in time. It is also possible that I read but didn’t comment before that March 09 one but I seriously doubt it. As I said in #82 it’s gone, forgotten, it’s Lost in Space, which is what I call the storage area in my head.
debit
@WaterGirl: Done!
WaterGirl
@debit: Got it!
edit: I sent the photo and a note to Bill, we’ll see what happens.
Steeplejack (phone)
@debit:
And thank you for giving Walter a loving home and haven in his last days.
I found your follow-on comment after the last Walter link above. A touching coda.
frosty
@WaterGirl: Thanks! I didn’t get onto any blogs until TPM and GOS in 2005, so it’s nice to know I found B-J not too long after that.
cain
@WaterGirl: Yep, my email is the same! :-) Sorry for the late response.