Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

In my day, never was longer.

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

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

Let’s finish the job.

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

I also would like a pony to improve my balloon juice experience.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

Consistently wrong since 2002

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

When we show up, we win.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Guilty Pleasures Open Thread (and a little OTR thrown in)

Guilty Pleasures Open Thread (and a little OTR thrown in)

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So… Blood & Treasure showed up on Tivo yesterday with the start of season two.  It’s a totally not serious show but mindless and fun.  Are you willing to share your guilty pleasures?  (On TV and in books, of course, not in real life.)  That would be TMI.

Oh, and it’s hot out.  Have one of my homemade popsicles.  White nectarine / cherry.

Guilty Pleasures Open Thread (and a little OTR thrown in)

I’m pairing this with the quilt block photos thread because it will be tough to have a conversation on a thread with 20 images!  But I wanted everyone to be able to see the block images in a big enough size to really be able to see them.  Don’t tell us which ones you want yet, that will be in another thread after the raffle closes at midnight on Tuesday.

Open thread.

Interrupting the open thread for a quick minute.

Because the merge “published” some pending On the Road submissions, and it lost pictures on some posts and lost comments on some other posts,  I’m asking anyone who has submitted an OTR post that hasn’t been published yet to take a look at this list.

My best source of info – while the developers (hopefully) get this worked out – is in my OTR email folder.  So I want to make sure that is right, at least!

So if you have a pending On the Road submission, please confirm that you are on this list.  Or if I’ve somehow missed you, let me know that you should be on the list.

Resume open thread!

On the Road – Sorting Things Out

 

Reader Interactions

59Comments

  1. 1.

    Alison Rose 💙🌻💛

    My philosophy is that as long as it ain’t hurting anyone, no pleasure is guilty. But I get the vibe behind it, as someone who loves her a good angsty historical romance. Give me all the drama and yearning and clinch covers. And I say this as an aro/ace. I contain multitudes!

  3. 3.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @WaterGirl:

    I can figure out “clinch covers,” I think, but am going to have to look up “aro/ace.”

    *cough* unless Alison Rose cares to tell us

  5. 5.

    Alison Rose 💙🌻💛

    @WaterGirl: Hahahaha…”clinch cover” is what we call those classic romance covers where the couple are holding onto each other, usually in a steamy embrace.

    Aro = aromantic, ace = asexual. On the former, I’m more in the “gray” area, meaning like “eh maybe one day, who knows”, but for now, I am uninterested. But I do love reading romance books. They’re fun and light and a nice escape.

  6. 6.

    Scout211

    @Alison Rose 💙🌻💛:

    Yes to romance novels as a way to escape . I used to love the historicals but prefer the contemporary ones these days. With my kindle and kindle unlimited, I don’t even miss the streaming that all the cool kids are talking about these days. 😉

  17. 17.

    Chacal Charles Calthrop

    my guilty pleasures are my Chinese historical romances, first on Netflix, now on Viki.com.

    just finished “Nirvana in fire”= 54 episodes of one man taking down an empire.

    (Of course, it helps that the crown prince — and everyone except his adversaries — is basically in love with him.  But this is a Chinese romance, so it is as strictly gen as possible.  Not one stitch of clothing ever comes off, reunited couples don’t even kiss, hair is still tied up even when the character was supposedly roused from deep sleep in the middle of the night, etc.)

    Now going to start on the “longest day in Chang’an”:

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10551640/

    Oh, and my cat’s guilty pleasure is the AC.  She has figured out that I control it. She  jumps in my lap and purrs until I get up to turn it on, and then she sprawls out on the carpet right below it with every sign of pleasure.

  18. 18.

    raven

    @WaterGirl: She is, most of the time. We have put  ourselves in a pickle because she hates to be left alone and we are so focused on her we don’t EVER want to leave her.

  22. 22.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    I have been watching Snowflake Mountain on Netflix.  It’s contrived bullshit and completely stupid but it still makes me laugh.

  26. 26.

    Brachiator

    Are you willing to share your guilty pleasures?  (On TV and in books, of course, not in real life.)  That would be TMI.

    I have been watching an odd category of YouTube entertainment. Younger people reacting to “classic” movies from the 1980s and rock era music. Most of this is mindless diversion.

    But there are these two young musicians who react to random songs covering the history of rock and roll who are often very insightful about how some great songs work. They appear to approach each song blind, without any research and sometimes have no clue about the context of a song or how people reacted to it when it was originally released.

    But I also am surprised to see the degree to which cultural history has changed and the degree to which younger people are surprisingly but understandably ignorant of much of social history.

    For example, the two guys, Alex and Andy, were reacting to the 1973 Paul Simon single, “Kodachrome.” They nailed the witty paen to nostalgia in the lyrics and were great on the artful complexity of the song’s rhythmic changes. But they had no idea what Kodachrome was. One of them guessed that it might have been a camera. They had to look it up.

  28. 28.

    mali muso

    @Alison Rose 💙🌻💛:

    @Scout211:

    count me in as another romance reader (although these days I’m almost exclusively an audiobook listener). The “trashier” the better, imo. Life is too short for boring and depressing literature. I want to sink into the possibility of love and emotional connection and an HEA.

  29. 29.

    Chacal Charles Calthrop

    @WaterGirl: pretty sure!  Purring and sitting in my lap is her way of asking for something.  But since she’s a cat, there’s a limited number of things she can want.  When there’s food in her dish and the feather isn’t very interesting, she must be after the AC — and then, when it’s turned on, she goes & enjoys it. So I think she’s figured it out.

  31. 31.

    WaterGirl

    @Brachiator: Are those the two young black guys?  I have seen them a couple of times and they are good.

    Though maybe they’re not that young at the point, that was a few years ago,

  33. 33.

    geg6

    Outlander, both the books and the Starz series, are a huge guilty pleasure for me.  I am also enjoying The Challenge USA.  Never watched any of the MTV series, but my favorite Survivor ever, Tyson Apostal, is on the CBS iteration and I am there for it.  I also admit to my most embarrassing and awful guilty pleasure, Survivor.  Yes, yes, I know…Mark Burnett should spend the rest of his life doing penance for bringing us Cheetolini.  But I never watched The Apprentice and I have watched Survivor from the start.  I love it so much.  I used to write a digital newsletter about it for some friends and co-workers.  I can’t quit it.

  34. 34.

    mali muso

    @geg6: Outlander!!! I remember picking up the original book from the library in the late 90s. Sixteen year old me was utterly enthralled. I followed the books very closely until the last few installments (I just don’t have the mental bandwidth to read long books these days) and always sign up for a few months of Starz when a new season of the tv show drops. Forty-something-year-old me now views some of Gabaldon’s plotting choices with side eye but I still love the characters and the world so much.

  35. 35.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @geg6: Me too! Never have seen an episode of The Apprentice (couldn’t stand Trump from the getgo, plus he’s boring, and the show sounded boring), but I love Survivor, and have seen all 40 (?) seasons.

    My husband and I also watch reality competitions.  Not the BS romance ones (The Bachelor – I tried one episode, and it was too boring), but we love Top Chef and Project Runway.  For two people who are not fashionable, it turned out even we could tell crap from something good, and we had a lot of opinions on the clothes!

    My reading guilty pleasure is (re)reading mystery thrillers by Robert P. Parker (Spenser, Jesse Stone), Lee Childs (Jack Reacher), and John D. MacDonald (Travis McGee), When I was a kid I read all the early Alistair MacLean thrillers.

  36. 36.

    CaseyL

    My guilty pleasure is historical romances.
    I love history, and a well written historical novel – whether romance, mystery, or just “You Are There at Dinner with the Plantagenets” – is a nice glimpse into those eras.  But the romances are the only ones I’d be embarrassed to be caught reading – and that’s how I define a “guilty pleasure” – something you don’t want to be seen doing.​

  38. 38.

    Brachiator

    @WaterGirl:

    Are those the two young black guys?  I have seen them a couple of times and they are good.

    No. I think I know who you’re talking about. Those guys were fun, but not musicians, I don’t believe.

    This is a short video. Andy and Alex on Kodachrome.

  39. 39.

    Brachiator

    @geg6:

    But I never watched The Apprentice and I have watched Survivor from the start.  I love it so much.  I used to write a digital newsletter about it for some friends and co-workers.  I can’t quit it.

    Never been big on most reality TV shows, but I also loved the early seasons of Survivor. I would regularly participate in the Survivor discussions on the Television Without Pity site.

    I wonder whatever happened to Rob and Amber.

    I could understand why some people loved The Amazing Race, but was not a faithful viewer of that show.

  40. 40.

    Jay

    This is an all time top 5 typo https://t.co/bIQwRHenJ5— Matt Bevan (@MatthewBevan) July 25, 2022

    <blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>This is misinformation about <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/monkeypox?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#monkeypox</a>. The outbreak is occurring almost entirely among men who have sex with me. Public health experts agree that sexual contact is the principle driver of transmission and have asserted that risk to kids remains *very low*.</p>&mdash; Benjamin Ryan (@benryanwriter) <a href=”https://twitter.com/benryanwriter/status/1549742435189886976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>July 20, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>

  42. 42.

    Salty Sam

    When asked what HER guilty pleasures were, Julia Childs replied, “Oh, I have none.  I don’t feel any guilt about pleasure.”

    Smart woman!

  43. 43.

    frosty

    My guilty pleasure (at least a few years ago): Rom coms, books. I love Jennifer Cruisie; especially the ones featuring the Dempsey family of con men and women.

  44. 44.

    eachother

    On book 8 of the Rowland Sinclair WWII Mystery series by Sulari Gentill.

    I hate nazis.  Guilty.   The writing and stories are pleasure.

  45. 45.

    Wag

    I see that I’m on the OTR list.  I think there in only one pending post from me, but I’ve got a foreign travel series that’ll be a 5 day fun fest.  Should be submitting it later this week.  

  46. 46.

    frosty

    @Brachiator: The story I heard about Kodachrome that Paul was writing it and singing the phrase “Going home” while the melody came together. He thought that was really overused and boring and somehow changed it to Kodachrome and voila! The song!

    The “somehow” is probably documented somewhere but I’m too lazy to look it up.

  47. 47.

    CaseyL

    Oh, and BTW: My OTR submission is on the list you posted.  (I’ve also sent you an email letting you know.)

  48. 48.

    Liminal Owl

    Guilty pleasure… C.S. Lewis.  And the other Inklings.

    Royalty mags. I hate myself every time, but if I’m in the supermarket checkout line and there’s a story about the British royal family, I cannot resist.

  50. 50.

    HumboldtBlue

    @eachother:

    On book 8 of the Rowland Sinclair WWII Mystery series by Sulari Gentill.

    Unknown author to me, thank you for the reference.

    @Brachiator:

    I’ve been down a few of those rabbit holes, this is a new one for me. Thanks.

  51. 51.

    eclare

    Guilty pleasure confession:  Fboy Island on HBO Max.  It is a competition to see if the three female leads can correctly determine which guys are there as Fboys and which guys are there as Nice guys.  And there is a cash prize.

    None of that “looking for my soulmate” stuff for the most part, and eye candy for all.  Hosted by Nikki Glaser, who is hilariously profane.

  56. 56.

    WaterGirl

    @Wag: Well then hopefully the one I have on the list is the unpublished one!  :-)

    Will look forward to your new series!

    But everybody wait until I give the all clear to send more in.  As I try to sort through the OTR mess, fewer to sort through is better. :-)

  59. 59.

    WaterGirl

    @Munira: Thanks for checking.  I would like to give the developers one more week to figure out the On the Road mess before we start adding new ones.

    But I’ve still got your place held in the queue, so you won’t lose that!  :-)

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