Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Consistently wrong since 2002

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

I was promised a recession.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

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

You cannot shame the shameless.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

No one could have predicted…

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

You are here: Home / John Cole Presents "This Fucking Old House" / Negative

Reader Interactions

148Comments

  1. 1.

    zhena gogolia

    I’m glad you’re negative.

    ETA: My friend who watched the Schiff video said, “Oh, the man who started the blog is very personable and friendly, and so at ease with leading the conversation.” I was totally flummoxed until I realized she meant Curt, who MC’ed.

  6. 6.

    Another Scott

    Good, good.

    If you want to drive the little birdies away, get an owl or a hawk or …  Putting out more feed is probably the wrong way to go.  ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  15. 15.

    CaseyL

    Glad to hear the test was negative!

    What kind of birds are giving you the Hitchcovk treatment?  If it’s crows, you brought this on your own self.  “How can I attract more crows?” you asked, with everyone begging you not to do it. ?

    I think it’s too early for the porch families to be back yet. You might want to get rid of the multitudes who are hanging around, or they may not feel safe nesting there.

  17. 17.

    Redshift

    Oh, good. I feel like lots of us are getting nasty non-covid bugs. Maybe we’re just paying more attention to them while waiting for our test results. I caught something at New Year’s (from a friend’s teenager) that I guess was a bad cold, bad enough that I couldn’t work for a couple of days and felt rotten for a week.

    A friend has recently tested negative, but is having days of a fever spiking up to 104, going to the doctor, then the fever breaks, but it comes back the next day. None of this seems like the normal stuff we used to suffer through occasionally.

  18. 18.

    SiubhanDuinne

    On a wistful note, our friend and fellow blogger Schlemazel passed away three years ago today. I miss him.

    Laura Too, if you’re around, please know I’m thinking of you and your uncle’s family.

  21. 21.

    dnfree

    My husband was sick just before Thanksgiving. They tested him for both Covid and flu, and “fortunately” it was flu (type A), but he was miserable for days. They said both were going around.

    And we think he might have gotten the flu at the urgent care center where he had to go for a Covid test a couple of days before he got sick (in preparation for a minor procedure).

  23. 23.

    mrmoshpotato

    Good to hear about the negative test.

    Also to go get more birdseed cuz we got some hitchcock like shit going on out front and I am legit scared.

    So there’s currently seed in the feeder(s) but you fear the possible attack if it runs out?

  26. 26.

    mrmoshpotato

    @CaseyL: What kind of birds are giving you the Hitchcovk treatment?  If it’s crows, you brought this on your own self.  “How can I attract more crows?” you asked, with everyone begging you not to do it. ?

    I was nice enough not to mention the crows.

  29. 29.

    mrmoshpotato

    @WaterGirl: I deleted the empty block quote, so now you’ll never know the secret message that wasn’t there.

    Keep the birds fed, keep your eyes.

  30. 30.

    Omnes Omnibus

    I normally complain about negativity on this site, but, in this case, I will applaud it.

  31. 31.

    RaflW

    In the realm of Hitchcock, we live within a mile of Loring Park in Minneapolis. There’s a murder of crows that is estimated to be 5-10 thousand birds that swirls around here every evening this part of winter. Some days 20-50 of them hang out in the trees in the center courtyard of our townhouse complex. It’s something!

  37. 37.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Baud:

    One thing about getting old is that one racks up a lot of yahrzeits. According to my contemporaneous notes, Schlemazel’s death hit me hard — it was so fast.

  38. 38.

    WaterGirl

    So I was in the mood for dessert, and I had sour cherries in the freezer.  I am not a big fan of pie crust unless it’s a homemade gallette and I’m too lazy for that today.

    So I made a double batch of the cherry filling and cooked it on the stove top.

    I took a refrigerator-case pie crust and made a zillion tiny little crust circles with my tiniest biscuit cutter and baked those in the toaster oven.

    Negative

    Definitely not the prettiest thing I have ever made (to put it mildly) but I get 4:1 cherry to pie crust ratio and I’m hoping that’s just right.

    edit: In all fairness, it looks better in person because you can see the cherry filling peeking out.

  42. 42.

    Jharp

    I had to quit feeding the birds.  It was attracting far too many critters.

    And one further and interested in anyone’s thoughts.

    I have decided that it is irresponsible to plant a garden and not secure it from critters.

    I came to this conclusion when a ground hog dug a hole under my neighbors deck right next to his foundation.

    The ground hog moved in to dine on my garden. We have very few of them. I live a very urban environment.

    Thoughts?

  49. 49.

    NeenerNeener

    Glad your test came back negative, John.

    I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I didn’t pick up anything from the 10 masked minutes I spent in Kohls on Saturday morning. So far, so good.

  50. 50.

    RaflW

    My partner, unaware of my last comment here, just came down a few minutes ago and said “It’s really Hitchcockian today!” His home office faces the courtyard/short-term roosts. Here’s a couple photos. Loud buggers, too!

  51. 51.

    laura

    @SiubhanDuinne: Schlemazel’s memory is a blessing. I’d like to tell his niece, from one laura to another, your Uncle was such a wonderful Jackal and though it was due to his passing, that you, too, became a Jackal.

  52. 52.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Chief Oshkosh: ​
     

    Shit, Cole, I coulda told you that you’re negative. It’s how you roll.

    Nonsense! There’s a difference between being a grouch and a misanthrope, as our host is, and being negative.

  55. 55.

    WaterGirl

    @laura: I wanted to say something similar to Laura, but the best I could come up with was that we were lucky to get her out of the deal, but that sounded awful, so I left it off my note to her.

    Yours is so nice and mine sounded awful!

  57. 57.

    Ruckus

    @Redshift:

    I’ve been hospitalized with a fever of 105 for 9 days after vaccination day in boot camp. Good times. Aw the fun we had…..

    I’ve never lived during a pandemic but there are a few alive who have. Of course one has to be a bit over 100 for that and the likelihood they would remember what it was like is slim. But with this heightened awareness of the potential issues, every thing is going to cause a scare. And if you’ve been vaccinated and boosted your symptoms can vary quite a bit from unvaccinated covid at least from people I know that have had it of which I know of 4 with the latest version in my small world.

  63. 63.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Ken: Isn’t there an old episode of The Simpsons where that chain of madness is unleashed upon Springfield?

  65. 65.

    cckids

    What is it with birds today? Here  (N. of Seattle), we had an enormous gaggle of birds loudly gathering across the street. For noise level, think of the loudest truck going by outside. They stayed about 10 minutes, then were gone.

    Maybe we should all watch for meteors?

  67. 67.

    Geminid

    @Chief Oshkosh: David Perdue has at least two comorbidities: he’s 72 years old. And Trump persuaded him to enter the Governor’s race, and they say that everything Trump touches dies.

  68. 68.

    CaseyL

    @mrmoshpotato: Heh.  I couldn’t resist.  Also, I am genuinely worried about the family birds who’ve been nesting on John’s porch, who he (and we) are looking forward to seeing again come Spring. Crows kill and eat baby birds, and I doubt the parents will nest anywhere near large numbers of them.

  71. 71.

    debbie

    Just finished off a bag of Trader Joes dark chocolate covered graham crackers with sea salt. I’ve decided putting salt on dark chocolate is a crime. It was okay in the beginning, but enough already.

  72. 72.

    Cacti

    I saw that David Ortiz was inducted into the baseball HOF.

    So, there is literally no reason left for Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds to be left out anymore.

  75. 75.

    Ken

    @mrmoshpotato: Not sure, but on the principle of “Simpsons did it!” I’ll guess yes.  I was thinking of one of Pratchett’s books, Making Money, where the head of the post office is explaining why they were putting mongooses in the letter boxes.

    (Snails were eating the glue on the stamps, so they put in toads to eat the snails, requiring snakes to eat the toads.)

  76. 76.

    zhena gogolia

    @debbie: We like the Vermont Country Store chocolate-covered graham crackers (dark of course). There’s no salt. They are divine.

  77. 77.

    joel hanes

    @WaterGirl:

    windchill has almost nothing to do with pipes freezing.

    Pay attention to the actual temperatures, which do.

    Actual -10 is more dangerous to pipes than 0 degrees with a -25 windchill.

  78. 78.

    JPL

    @Geminid: Since he’s fully vaxxed, he’s probably fine.  At the Faith and Freedom luncheon, he didn’t receive a lot of applause, so the time off the campaign trail is probably a welcome respite for him. The Faith and Freedom Coalition is a tad week on faith though, since they love Herschel.

  80. 80.

    satby

    @Jharp: If there’s snow on the ground it’s hard for birds to find enough food to survive in winter, they depend on feeders. Critters (I assume squirrels mostly) need to eat too so I just factor them in. I also throw old produce I won’t eat (think wizened, not rotten) out for the bunnies. Then they leave my shrubs alone instead of eating them in desperation. Groundhogs will eat a lot of stuff, I once watched one stroll up the stairs of the abandoned house where I left the ferals food to chow down on the leftovers after the cats were done; so I kind of doubt your garden is the only thing that attracted the groundhog. The deck offered a safe sheltered place to dig a burrow.

  82. 82.

    Another Scott

    4th Circuit also says Negative to approval of permit for the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

    BlueVirginia.US:

    See below for some good news (I know, what a concept these days! LOL) from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has issued a ruling in a case in which “several environmental advocacy organizations — Wild Virginia, the Sierra Club, Appalachian Voices, the Wilderness Society, Preserve Craig, Save Monroe, and the Indian Creek Watershed Association (collectively, “Petitioners”) — seek review of the renewed decisions of the United States Forest Service (the “Forest Service”) and the Bureau of Land Management (the “BLM”) to allow the Mountain Valley Pipeline (the “Pipeline”), an interstate natural gas pipeline system, to cross three and a half miles of the Jefferson National Forest in Virginia and West Virginia.”

    The Court’s conclusion is that:

    […]

    Good, good.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  84. 84.

    Geminid

    @JPL: Have you seen Perdue’s campaign launch video? That’s a creepy two and a half minutes! There was this eerie music, and Perdue did that thing where he talked but his lips hardly moved. It was like something out of a science fiction movie.

  88. 88.

    satby

    About those crows:

    As temperatures get cooler, crows form large groups that number in the hundreds and even thousands. Despite this common phenomenon, not much has been studied as to why crows gather in such large numbers…. Some researchers suggest that large groups of crows provide a number of benefits. Roosting in large numbers provides heat, safety, and better access to food sources during the winter months.

  90. 90.

    Nelle

    @Jharp: I was inundated with sparrows, over one hundred at a time.  They were driving all the other birds out.  So, following Google’s advice, I quit feeding all the birds.  Then I had to take everything down, including the birdbath, to prep for the approach of the December derecho (second derecho in a year and a half).  Never put anything back out.  After that, I screwed up my knee and I couldn’t have kept up with going out on the ice and snow.  I just tossed a cup of seed out on the deck since tonight it is to be -13, striaght temp.

  91. 91.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    did a bit of re-write:

    Scene 1 and… ACTION!
    “Mr Turtle, how many pandemic deaths does it take to get Republicans to start caring?”

    “I’ve never made it without biting! Ask Mr Owl.”

    Never made it without biting, see? Because their constant indifference to the suffering adn death gets so aggravating that… look, you’d have been tempted to, if you were Mr Turtle, and he only nipped. Okay, Scene two… ACTION!

    “Mr Owl, how many pandemic deaths does it take to get Republicans to start caring?”

    “Let’s find out. One. Twohoo, three (loud crunch, as you see 6 eager young zeros line up behind the number 3).

    “Three.

    “Million.” No wonder the poor kid looked so forlorn!

  93. 93.

    persistentillusion

    @Jharp: Battled them for years in a semi-rural setting.  Either a Have-a-Heart trap or a .22.  They are very difficult to get rid of, or to have them take the hint and leave.

  95. 95.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @mrmoshpotato: I’m definitely interested in the shredded beef recipe.

    We finally got some snow in Denver, about 3” and cold, but not wicked. I’ve just prepared a pot of mean green chili. I use frozen green chiles, this time, one tub mild, the other hot. Last time all hot was a bit much but capsaicin does give you quite a buzz.

  96. 96.

    JPL

    @Geminid: I hoped that he would damage Kemp, but it is unlikely.    Kemp is handing out bonuses and giving raises to state employees to buy goodwill.

  97. 97.

    mrmoshpotato

    @WaterGirl: Tonight 01/25

    Bitterly cold. Mainly clear skies. Low near -5F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph

    Bet we’ll get that weird fog/steam effect on the lake.

  99. 99.

    Ruckus

    @raven:

    Sure!

    They may have asked, as you well know they didn’t ask out loud.

    I remember that after I got out of the hospital on a Saturday I got to spend 2 nights in the discipline barracks and showing up and seeing 3 guys on the floor scrubbing it with tooth brushes and the guy behind the desk laughing because of the look on my face, and then telling me that I would get a new company Monday morning and no I was not in trouble. That and my new company commander really, really liked to swear at every thing but especially at everyone. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard fuck used in one sentence so many times. And you may have noticed that I’m not shy with using that word myself……

  101. 101.

    Geminid

    @Another Scott: I hope this puts a stake in that gd pipeline’s heart. It was to be a 42″ pipeline running from the Marcellas shale straight to the North Carolina coast. The plan showed it stopping 50 miles from Morehead City, and the owners downplayed the possibility of exporting the gas.  Like, someone’s gonna set up a hundred brick factories in coastal North Carolina. The environmental groups did a great job resisting it.

  105. 105.

    Dan B

    @RaflW: When we moved to our house 12 years ago there was a twenty minute long parade of crows at dusk from horizon to horizon.  That happened two years in a row.  Since then there have been an occasional trickle.  How does that happen?

    And, John, it’s good to hear that you don’t have Covid.  Keep the snark coming as soon as you feel better.

  106. 106.

    Laura Too

    @SiubhanDuinne: Thank you. He is being remembered tonight by his family. They made roulauden together and will share stories. I miss him very much. I miss his stories. It is why I love hanging out here, there are so many amazing story tellers with such wonderful tales. Hugs to Watergirl for the heads up, I had a local political zoom call I just got off of.

  108. 108.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    Random thought: did Mitch McConnell ever use the excuse, during the impeachment trial, that he won’t “do the Democrat’s work for them”? Or, did he think that was perfectly fine for a colleague to say, certainly nothing to raise a fuss over?

    And did that happen after he swore an oath to see impartial justice done?

    See, “impartial” means, well, being impartial, right? Any Republican present at the first two, or all three trials, in recent memory, had solemnly sworn that, if they were out for blood – er, I mean, guilt – with Clinton, they would do the exact same thing for Trump. Again: that’s what “impartial” means. If you think “impartial” means “we’ll favor the home team”, then you really do need to mention that, when taking your oath, because everyone else thinks “impartial” means “we don’t care which team he’s on”.

    The notion that Republicans “won’t do the Democrat’s work for them” lays it out with precision. Democrats have a duty to search for the truth, and try to collect evidence, etc., but Republicans only have to do that if they feel like it. Because, hey, they love the constitution, everyone knows that they say that, over and over, even when their love is clearly in doubt.

    Anyway: if you transliterate from BS to Human, they only think Democrats are bound by the Constitution.

  111. 111.

    Roger Moore

    @CaseyL:

    Crows kill and eat baby birds, and I doubt the parents will nest anywhere near large numbers of them.

    Crows have an undeservedly bad reputation in this regard.  Jays are apparently much worse in this department, and obviously nest parasites like cuckoos and cowbirds are even worse.

  112. 112.

    Dan B

    @Ruckus: My father had the Spanish Flu and had an open draining sinus for almost forty years.  We got every vaccine ever.  Then I went to India and got all the rest.

  115. 115.

    Gin & Tonic

    Big Papi in the HoF, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens not – and Curt Schilling falls off the list after 10 years. Crying shame, there.

  116. 116.

    catclub

    @dnfree: ​
    &nbsp

    ;but he was miserable for days. They said both were going around.

    And we think he might have gotten the flu at the urgent care center where he had to go for a Covid test

    So here is my theory, last winter there was basically NO flu season, but lots of covid. This winter any natural immunities to everyday flu are two years out of date. The non-symptomatic everyday flu, which will top up immunities, was gone, so you get that worse. Also, I have a theory on the brontosaurus.

  118. 118.

    Roger Moore

    @satby: ​
     

    Despite this common phenomenon, not much has been studied as to why crows gather in such large numbers

    It might be interesting to compare them to our local parrot population. They also tend to form big communal roosts. One of the benefits is that they start the day at a common point, so if one of them has discovered a good food source they can recruit their fellows to join them in eating it. A tree with ripe fruit can provide more food than a whole flock of parrots can eat before it goes bad, so there’s no problem with sharing, and having a bigger flock provides security. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find crows have some of the same reasons for roosting communally.

  123. 123.

    catclub

    @Gin & Tonic: ​
      Let me know when Ty Cobb gets booted out. Till then, not having Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens in makes no sense. These were extremely famous, record settiong, extremely accomplished baseball players.

  125. 125.

    Laura Too

    @laura: you are why I am “too”. Under the circumstances I couldn’t come up with anything clever. I so admired all of your great stories so I hoped you wouldn’t mind my hanging on your coattails. Thank you for the kind words.

  126. 126.

    Laura Too

    @RaflW: It is one of the few things I love about our winter, the coming of the crows. I will say they do make a hell of a mess though. I have a white car, and the purple stains take forever to get off. :)

  129. 129.

    mrmoshpotato

    Local Tyrannosaurus has thoughts about Wordle.

    If I ever start tweeting about the Wordle, someone check on me. That’s how you’ll know I’ve been kidnapped by an English major and we’ve run out of David Foster Wallace books to argue about.— SUE the T. rex ? (@SUEtheTrex) January 25, 2022

  134. 134.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Doc Sardonic: I might do the same.  The problem I ran into last night was being right under my kitchen cabinets for the quick release.

    Moved out to the edge of my counter tonight, so hopefully I don’t slightly steam the underside of my cabinets again.  (I used a towel to redirect some of the steam.)

  135. 135.

    NotMax

    @mrmoshpotato

    There are steam diverters which slide over the release nozzle available for a few bucks on Amazon that direct the steam release to around 90 degrees.

    Nice thing about the 3 quart model is that the power cord unplugs from the unit if one wants to stow it inside the pot when unit not being used.

  139. 139.

    prostratedragon

    @mrmoshpotato:
    The new term for those circles is “pancake ice”. Appears almost every year since forever of course, but never heard the cute term, or any particular discussion of the stages of Lake freezing, before this year. They might be firming up a bit today.

  142. 142.

    prostratedragon

    (Edit box funny. Hope this works)
    This one is one big disk, where as Lake Michigan had numerous little ones about 1 to a few feet in diameter. No doubt it’s a difference in the kinds of water motion that’s the reason.

  143. 143.

    prostratedragon

    Yes, edit box is funny. I wanted to append, not eliminate, my original reply, which was to say that I’d seen something about the Maine disc before, probably in 2019 when they last had a big one.

  146. 146.

    NotMax

    @mrmoshpotato

    Heh. Happens to be the one I opted for (slightly lower price then) when there weren’t nearly so many choices. Functions well enough, although depending on what is being cooked it may spritz some hot liquid occasionally, which is no biggie as the entire IP lid gets washed afterward anyway.

    I laughed out loud at some of the reviews there: “It ends up facing the wall.” Well duh, takes all of three-quarters of a second to rotate the entire pot so the nozzle doesn’t face the wall before releasing pressure. At this point it is automatic procedure to pre-position the entire IP so that when the control is turned to vent the pressure the diverter is already pointing in the direction I want it to.

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