Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

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

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

Too little, too late, ftfnyt. fuck all the way off.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

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

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

This fight is for everything.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

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

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

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

Tick tock motherfuckers!

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: Saturday Distraction

Open Thread: Saturday Distraction

by | 42 Comments

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As all my friends and family know, I’ve suddenly (and by suddenly, I mean over the last few years) become obsessed with emus. I see videos like this and I have second thoughts:

https://twitter.com/p4ndr_/status/1548017731936497665?s=20&t=mGV_4Vf8H-4tb_nHmhKLiQ

But then I see this….and well, someone get me some acreage!

@knucklebumpfarms When he closes his eyes #emmanueltheemu #emusnuggles #bigbird #farmlife #dinosaur ♬ original sound – Knuckle Bump Farms

(here’s the link in case you can’t play the video as embedded) 

I harvested a bunch of tomatoes this morning and they are FAR away from Trixie (in case you missed her antics, here). Looking forward to having one for lunch today.

 

ETA: And then there is Karen, who, well, should put anyone off of emus (to be fair, she was rescued and came this way, but I live for the videos of their crazy interactions)

@useless_farm Reply to @lancebass ♬ original sound – Useless Farm

(direct link here)

 

Open thread

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42Comments

  1. 1.

    Jeffro

    LOL

    When we lived in Delaware, there was an emu farm west of town, and as local legend goes, that’s what caused one local drinker to sober up.

    The guy was stumbling out of his house to get the newspaper one weekend morning, head hanging down from his latest bender and the early morning sun.  He goes to reach for his paper…then sees two very large emu feet just behind it…slowly looks up…and finds himself staring straight into the face of a very large and cranky emu!

    (several of them had escaped their pen the night before  =)

    The guy turned and ran for his house, and swore that if alcohol was going to do THAT to him, hallucinating enormous angry birds and what not, he was going to dry out for good this time.

    (cue Paul Harvey voice: and now you know…the rest of the story ;)

  3. 3.

    sab

    Should we nominate “Emmanuel, don’t do it!”  as a rotating tag?  Then years later everyone will wonder what it means.

  7. 7.

    Benw

    I love the expressions of the OTHER animals in the first video: “Man, that emu is an asshole!”

  8. 8.

    Ken

    They look like they rank high on the “his last words were ‘what a funny–‘” scale.

  9. 9.

    sab

    Frosty in the comments a few threads back was right. The rotating tags have really upped their game lately.

  10. 10.

    kalakal

    That’s wonderful. Thanks I really needed those videos.

    There’s a peacock farm near us behind a park.  As well as the peacocks there are a couple of Emus. I am so glad they have an 8 ft fence*. Those things are scary, they’re taller than me (I’m 6 ft ) , look you straight in the eye with FOFO expression and those legs and claws show you exactly where dinosaurs went.

    *Which the peacocks can easily get over

  11. 11.

    trollhattan

    Two sides of the emu coin, right there. Holy moly they’re amusing.

    When the kid did zoo camp one summer and was helping feed various critters, the emus were perhaps her favorite and she learned some of their vocalizations, which she’d use with them when we later went to visit. They did respond, I guess making her a kind of emu whisperer.

    She’s never expressed an interest in pet emus, for which I’m very thankful.

  12. 12.

    Scout211

    Our neighbors across the road have a rescue emu.  The other animals (several horses and a rescue donkey) seem to keep in line.  My grandkids were introduced to the emu but they were told to keep their distance, so I guess the emu does have its moments of mischief, LOL.  They loved seeing the emu close-up though.  They are adorable creatures.

  13. 13.

    frosty

    @sab: ​
      Thank you for noticing! Confirmation from the lurker thread that it doesn’t matter if you get a reply to your comment, someone is reading it.

    Note: You’re getting a reply to your comment.

  14. 14.

    Mnemosyne

    There’s a video out there somewhere of a rescue emu incubating some eggs. He (yes, male emus are the incubators after the female lays the eggs) was sitting on his eggs and the other birds, like geese and chickens, were just nonchalantly laying their eggs under him and walking away. The owner had to rescue the viable eggs and put them in an incubator because emus don’t have a high enough body temperature to incubate smaller birds’ eggs.

    The owner’s dogs got a little too close a few times and that was some Jurassic Park-sounding shit when the emu hissed to warn them off.

  15. 15.

    sab

    @frosty: Before you commented I hadn’t been paying attention to the rotating tags. Shame on me. Thank you.

    ETA This blog is so full service it is hard to keep up on everything it does.

  17. 17.

    TaMara

    @Mnemosyne: Oh, I had forgotten about that one! Here’s the first tweet. Now I have to go find the one with the cool sounds, LOL Thanks for the reminder!

  19. 19.

    trollhattan

    In the open thread spirit, my new monitor was so close, now is touring northern California.

    Amazon:
    Friday, July 15

    10:39 PM

    Package arrived at an Amazon facility.
    Tracy, California US

    2:20 PM

    Package left the carrier facility.
    Sacramento, CA US

    2:04 PM

    Package left an Amazon facility.
    Sacramento, CALIFORNIA US

    11:35 AM

    Package arrived at an Amazon facility.
    Sacramento, CALIFORNIA US

    8:27 AM

    Package left an Amazon facility.
    Rockford, IL US

    6:46 AM

    Package left the carrier facility.
    Rockford, IL US

    2:16 AM

    Package arrived at an Amazon facility.
    Rockford, IL US

    Post Amazon:

    Saturday, July 16

    5:56 AM

    Package arrived at a carrier facility.
    San Anselmo, CA US

    3:49 AM

    Package left the carrier facility.
    Tracy, CA US

    3:29 AM

    Package left an Amazon facility.
    Tracy, California US

    For the record, it seemed the thing landed in My Fair City yesterday and is now on a tour, a tour that has the latest sighting in Marin County? I’m getting a bad feeling about its chances of being delivered and this is not how I wanted to spend the day.

  20. 20.

    TaMara

    @TaMara: And here he is protecting them. (also, click on it and you can see all the photos of the goslings baby emus – I thought they were emus, but she never mentions he’s also sitting on emu eggs)

  22. 22.

    trollhattan

    @TaMara: That’s nuttyballs. Did birds sign some kind of compact re. incubating one another’s eggs?

    I know about starlings, cuckoos and that lot, who simply can’t be bothered.

  23. 23.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    Emus! At the top of the dirt road I used to live on, the farmer had a male rescue emu in a field right next to the road. It looked fierce and everyone else was afraid of it, but I tried feeding it dandelions and other growth from my side of the fence and we made friends. I could scratch his head and pet his neck.

    He made booming noises that I would imitate by making a low noise in my chest and then lightly hitting my chest and he seemed to approve.

    Boy they look like dinosaurs! And their eyes are so beady. But he never really tried to bite – just got careless sometimes taking food from my hand. And it didn’t really hurt. We were friends.

  25. 25.

    trollhattan

    Today’s Letters of Note include this bird-themed offering.

    [T]he chickens grow very fast I am afraid they will be so large that you cannot perceive them with the naked Eye when you get home the yellow hen is coming off with a brood of chickens we found a hens nest with four Eggs in it I took out three and brought them in the next day I went to see if there had been any laid and there had not been any laid and the one that was there had gone so I suppose a skonk had been there or else a hen In the shape of a skonk and I dont know which.

    11-year-old Emily Dickinson
    Letter to her brother
    18th April 1842

    Watch out for skonks.

  26. 26.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @trollhattan:

    so I suppose a skonk had been there or else a hen In the shape of a skonk and I dont know which.

    I love that. Ms. Dickinson already had a keen wit as an 11-year-old.

  29. 29.

    Kathleen

    I love Limu Emu on the Liberty Mutual commercials. He (and his SO) are hysterical. But I do wonder how hard it is to clothe an emu. They have some complicated costumes.

  30. 30.

    mrmoshpotato

    Was never an emu fan, but a creepy fucker (who we totally know is fucking that emu!) and a beastiality-condoning insurance company have forever wrecked my attitude towards emus.

  33. 33.

    trollhattan

    @mrmoshpotato: Yep. Sacramento, where the thing was for a few hours yesterday before launching its north state tour. Each subsequent location is farther away.

    I don’t want to hear complaints from shippers about their cost of fuel.

  35. 35.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @TaMara: yeah, he was fun. But we’re sort of even, since I have been jealous of your ducks for a few years now (condolences for Maddie and Mabel sigh)

  37. 37.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    I had assumed the emu was male because I assumed the booming noises were male type noises, but google informs me that it is the female who makes the booming sounds. Also the male incubates the eggs and is gentler than the female. Who knew?

  39. 39.

    Rob

    I spent 15 minutes watching the Knuckle Bump Farms TikToks on Twitter. Very delightful.

    Emmanuel, get away from my laptop!!

  40. 40.

    Rob

    @mrmoshpotato: I had a coffee mug I purchased go from New Jersey to Florida, no doubt passing just a few miles from my house in Maryland. It spent a couple of days in Floriday, before finally coming back north to be delivered to me in the Takoma Park-Silver Spring area.

  41. 41.

    trollhattan

    @Rob:

    Emmanuel is now my standard response to folks who advise, “Don’t waste your money on a protective filter for your lens.”

  42. 42.

    PIGL

    I am a bug fan of Useless Farm. My theory is that it’s somewhere off the 401 a few hours east of Toronto, between Kingston and Belleville.

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