Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

This fight is for everything.

Let there be snark.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Classics III

Classics III

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Beautiful girl! Artwork by Avalune.

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.

Reader Interactions

88Comments

  1. 1.

    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.

  4. 4.

    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.

  6. 6.

    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 ;-)

  7. 7.

    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.

  8. 8.

    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.

  12. 12.

    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.)

  14. 14.

    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.

  17. 17.

    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”

  18. 18.

    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.

  21. 21.

    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

  22. 22.

    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.

  24. 24.

    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.

  25. 25.

    Mike E

    My first post was either surprisingly cogent for me or completely off topic but probably both.

  27. 27.

    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 :)

  28. 28.

    WaterGirl

    @frosty:

    June 29, 2008!  In a post by Michael titled October, 1975.

    I watched it in ’75 and SNL was a revelation. We started to stay home on Saturday nights – you have no idea.

    Life has gotten faster since then, and it took them a season to figure out that the host wasn’t hosting a variety show.

    That being said, I always thought “Why is there no blue food?” was pretty lame.

  31. 31.

    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.

  33. 33.

    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!)

    My computer is gummed up somehow. Lots of sites won’t open. Frex msnbc. Luckily BJ works!

    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.

  34. 34.

    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!

  35. 35.

    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.

  39. 39.

    WaterGirl

    @Edmund Dantes:

    Sept 1, 2005

    Rising Gas Prices

    Price Gouging. Pure and simple. The gas that was already in the tanks at the station didn’t suddenly get more expensive for the companies (especially the integrated ones from ground to your tank like ExxonMobil, BP, etc.).

    http://www.masslive.com/news/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1125560875246600.xml&coll=1

    This is what happens when you go to the people on the ground as opposed to asking corporate to comment…

    Debra A. Correggio, manager of the Springfield Gulf station charging $3.19 a gallon for regular gas, said the price was dictated by corporate headquarters.

    “It’s up 50 cents since yesterday,” said Correggio, who expressed surprise when she learned her station was 52 cents a gallon higher than a Getty station several blocks away on Main Street.

    “I thought we were all the same. … My regular customers are still coming here. Business really hasn’t dropped off,” Correggio said.

    The pump prices reflect the previous day’s commodity prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange, said Paul O’Connell, executive director of the New England Service Station and Automotive Repair Association.

    “Spot market prices rose 42 cents Tuesday,” he said. “And the same is happening today.”

  40. 40.

    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.

  41. 41.

    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.

  42. 42.

    Alison Rose

    From the second Paypal post:

    Seriously, California- this is what Meg Whitman wants to do to your state.

    LOL I forgot about her. Blessedly so.

  44. 44.

    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.

  45. 45.

    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?

  47. 47.

    currawong

    We’ll, it’s refreshing to find out that it wasn’t TFG who first suggested drinking bleach.

  52. 52.

    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.

  53. 53.

    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

    TBogg is distressing at the same time he’s funny because he’s so right on.

    Message for people who live in tornado alley: Put shoes in your shelter. Last night, we went to a talk by a history prof from the local university who started taping interviews with people in Parkersburg IA a week after the tornado flattened it in 2008. Unexpected themes emerged, including numerous people saying they emerged from their basements to find glass and debris everywhere while they were barefoot.

    Btw, this guy has never made a movie before and is putting these things together into a documentary. I admire his courage.

  56. 56.

    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.

  58. 58.

    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:

    I’m not being glib here. someone please tell me why i should keep going. all smiles off. all snark killed. i’m in a really bad place, and looking for some help. sorry if this throws off your thread. mock if you want. i’m circling the drain.

    Don’t know if I’m doing this right, but signposts, I am crying for you now and agree with everything everyone has said. I had done it all – hospitalizations, therapy, exercise, meditation, biofeedback, pets, booze, food, the whole nine yards, and was still “visited by the black dog” of despair, as Churchill called it, way more often than not. It started when I was two or three years old and went on whether my life was good or bad.

    Finally at the age of 40 I saw my umpteenth psychiatrist who was department head at a large teaching hospital. He put me on three different anti-depressants. I had been on more of them than I could count and objected to trying yet another expensive regimen. He looked at me through his glasses and told me that he wore trifocals because he couldn’t see near, far or in-between and I was exactly the same.

    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.

  61. 61.

    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.

  64. 64.

    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.

  68. 68.

    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.

  69. 69.

    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?

  70. 70.

    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:

    Hope you find measure of peace of mind in the next few days, and though i don’t like speaking for anyone but myself, but eh, fuck it. You know that everyone here, the insomniacs, the cynics, even the daylight crowd and the many lurkers here, not to mention the goddamned trolls. We are with you and yours. What you’re facing is tangible on a cellular level, but those that are on your side number the heavens.

    Which was a reply to Cole in his post:

    Haven’t slept since more than a few hours since getting back from Florida. I keep telling everyone I am “catching up on sleep.” Even my good friends, because I don’t want to burden them. No one told me it would be like this. You are either sick, your pets are sick, or you are stressed, or you have too much to do to think, or you don’t have the time to do what you want to do, or someone is pissed at you and won’t explain why, or your car breaks down, or your dishwasher breaks, or your plants get blight, or something. Always something. Guess I should just consider the fact that my mom, dad, brother, sisters, and pets are healthy. But it just always seems like it is something.

    On the other hand, I am watching a lot of old Sopranos episodes. Thank ALLAH I do not have kids. I feel for you people.

    Your reply to freelancer:

    Wow. Just Wow.
    What he said.

    I will see if you used another email address.  depends on how many times people have used “ruckus” in a comment.

  71. 71.

    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.

  74. 74.

    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

    @Mnemosyne
    It’s a natural mistake, given the evidence, but I think you’re correct.

    I know we’re in a big pile of shit right now and no one knows where the keys are to the bigass tractor are or even how big that bigass tractor needs to be to move the pile, at least we are starting to have fun with the losers (or at least at their expense).

  75. 75.

    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 human democrat, 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.

  76. 76.

    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.

  79. 79.

    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.

  82. 82.

    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.

  83. 83.

    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.

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