People in the comments were trying to recall the Minion incident yesterday…
Trick or treat pic.twitter.com/bP7VpuRWZN
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) October 31, 2023
(Mike Luckovich via GoGomics.com)
Today in the Senate pic.twitter.com/czAdeWzGTR
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) October 31, 2023
lowtechcyclist
Welcome, fellow insomniacs!
SiubhanDuinne
@lowtechcyclist:
👋👋👋
Steve in the ATL
@lowtechcyclist: thank you! Looking forward to my alarm in about two hours!
Steve in the ATL
@SiubhanDuinne: you ok? I’ve been scarce lately and missed whatever happened to you. Was it Omnes? I’ll bet it was Omnes.
SiubhanDuinne
@Steve in the ATL:
Between you and me, it was Omnes. But my cover story is that I woke up a week ago, maybe 4:30am, pitch dark. I had evidently managed to kick all the bedclothes off in my sleep and when I took my first step toward the bathroom my feet got completely ensnarled in the quilt on the floor and I plunged headlong into a bookcase. A couple of forehead lumps, cut on one eyebrow, some minor bruising and abrasions. That’s my story and I’m staying with it, but of course we both know the truth.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
Insomniac? Heck, I’ve started work for the day. On the down side, woke up at six in the morning because my body clock hasn’t quite figured out that daylight savings time ended this past Sunday. It feels like a mild case of jet lag.
Hallowe’en isn’t so much of a thing here in Greece. Oddly, we have Black Friday even though Thanksgiving is obviously not a thing either.
sab
@SiubhanDuinne: Yikes! That could have been me. Not as nimble as I used to be.
ETA: tripping over stuff. I would never let Omnes around. And he has lost all interest in Ohio. We really do manage to discourage the younguns that express curiousity in the place.
Keeps us culturally pure in the stone age.
Geminid
@SiubhanDuinne: I bet the other guy came off a lot worse.
He probably said to the friend who found him lying in the alley, “Ooof! Ouch! Help me up…Aaarghh! Ohhh….Was…was that..?”
Friend: “Yup, she left a poem. That was Subaru Dianne.
SiubhanDuinne
@Geminid:
NOEWFTFYSID*
*No one else will fix that for you so I did.
ETA: LOL, love your edit!
SiubhanDuinne
@sab:
Nor am I, but I’ve been something of a klutz all my life. At my age, I naturally think about physical symptoms of aging, and I’m trying hard not to be in denial about this little Encounter with the Killer Bookcase — but in all truth I could just as easily have done this in my twenties.
Asparagus Aspersions
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
It’s been weird seeing Halloween morph into more a of thing in France. When I moved here 20 years ago, you just had some smattering of bars for foreigners offering Halloween drink specials.
Now, the local supermarket in the town where we’re staying this week is totally decked out, and we even had two groups of trick-or-treaters come to our door last night (my son, who has never been in the U.S. for Halloween, was THRILLED. I always wanted to take him back over October break so he could experience the pure bliss of unlimited candy from strangers, but I think the window of appropriate trick-or-treating age may be closing soon, so I don’t know if I’ll get around to it).
sab
@SiubhanDuinne: I broke a toe jumping over a sofa (not jumping high enough) when I was eleven. Why was I jumping over a sofa? Who knows.
frosty
@Steve in the ATL: As am I! 7AM wakeup sucks but it’s better if you slept.
sab
Since we are losing power for about 5 hours tomorrow, I just bumped the thermostat up a bit. Husband will be waking soon (too early) because the house is too damn hot. Cats are happy though. Snoozing in tropical bliss.
R-Jud
@Asparagus Aspersions: I’m an American living in England and have seen a similar transition here, particularly in the past five years (Scotland has always had some trick-or-treating). My teen daughter has never been to the US for Halloween, but she enjoyed giving out candy in her dragon costume last night.
We had well over two dozen groups. They cleaned us out! I had a couple of Twixes left over for breakfast (it’s also my birthday; leftover Halloween candy is my traditional birthday breakfast) and that’s it.
WereBear
@lowtechcyclist: What if I just went to bed really really early?
lowtechcyclist
@SiubhanDuinne:
Well, who would dare?!
I think the quilt and the bookcase collaborated in a devious plot against you. Keep a close eye on them!
I seem to have developed a habit of coming downstairs in the middle of the night and finishing my night’s sleep in the guest bed. I always get into that bed on the same side, I’ve taken to tucking the sheet and blankets in very firmly on the other side of the bed. Keeps me from sending sheets, blankets, etc. every which way in the night.
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
Yeah, I was thinking about you and Tony Jay (time for breakfast and/or going to work) and NotMax (late evening there) after I posted that!
Now it’s past 5am, and I’m pretty much always awake by now. If I could consistently sleep until 5, that would be a big win. In half an hour, I’ll be waking up the kiddo so he can get showered and catch the bus to school.
WereBear
@SiubhanDuinne: I am likewise a Sister of the Silly Clumsy. But it’s mostly Lucy and Ethel disarray to objects. I tried to make a hot chocolate smoothie yesterday morning and completely screwed up the delicate chemistry.
The season of ice is upon us. Time to find the cleats and worry about whether or not I should wear a helmet :)
lowtechcyclist
@Steve in the ATL:
Yep, that’s my world too! If it weren’t for having to get the kid out of bed, I wouldn’t even set mine anymore; I always wake up with more than enough time to get ready for work.
satby
@R-Jud: Happy Birthday!
Daylight savings time will really mess me up and the times change never used to. But I keep waking up at three and not getting back to sleep. 2 am will suck when that’s the time I start waking up for the day.
satby
@WereBear: The season of ice is upon us.
We got snow yesterday and into the night, looks like maybe an inch stuck. The hard freeze the night before killed off my potted plants, but I had hoped to rescue the begonia and canna tubers before the soil in the pots froze. It’s even colder this morning, 22°, so I probably lost them all. And tomorrow it’ll be in the 50°s again for three days.
BellyCat
My seven year old son would gladly move his birthday nine months to employ this excuse.
Happy Birthday!
NotMax
@R-Jud
Have a happy!
Geminid
In the tense news department: a Pentagon spokesman has confirmed that the US has sent a unit of special forces to Israel to aid in recovering hostages, including US citizens, who are being held in Gaza.
VeniceRiley
Senator Fetterman is THE low effort costume! I’m going as him next year.
geg6
Well, we got our first snow overnight. Shit.
mrmoshpotato
Great comic.
And Senator Fetterman has a great sense of humor.
mrmoshpotato
@geg6: :(
We got our first snow yesterday afternoon. Chicago blizzard on Halloween! Woop Woop!
mrmoshpotato
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
Well, you gotta celebrate consumerism by trampling other people! Duh!
LiminalOwl
@SiubhanDuinne: oof! I had missed that, though I saw some of the aftermath comments. So sorry you got hurt, and hoping you are recovering well and thoroughly.
LiminalOwl
@R-Jud: What a great picture! I followed the link and said, “oh, wow!” My husband looked up and said, “”what?”; I passed him the tablet and he likewise said, “oh, wow!”
Matt McIrvin
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: I’m getting up before 6 AM most days to make sure my daughter gets out the door on time to catch the bus, and I find myself actually looking forward to the end of DST, which, here, doesn’t happen until next Sunday.
There’s been a movement to get rid of the changeover and go to year-round… something, and the US Senate (which is usually the obstacle to these things) actually already passed a bill to go to year-round DST, but I don’t see any further motion happening on it. The problem is that while almost nobody likes the changeover twice a year, people can’t agree on whether year-round DST or year-round Standard Time is the better solution. Since I’m getting up early these days, year-round Standard Time would probably be easier on me in the winter. But years ago I was in the opposite situation and mostly hated the early sunsets in the winter. Unfortunately there’s no way to actually make more hours of daylight.
catclub
I think the universal answer to this question and others like it is: “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
sab
@sab: I was right. My alarm went off at 6:45 and husband was already up watching reruns. I had upped the heat at 5am, and that woke him about half an hour later.
Cats and pitbull sleeping in because the house is toasty (aka oppressively hot.)
MomSense
Busy day here. It’s just below freezing here and should warm up to about 40 degrees. I don’t mind the cold so much but the darkness is tough.
catclub
>> Space mirrors.
Kay
Elvis Presley’s cousin, a Democrat, might win :)
WereBear
@satby: I know how they feel :)
We are supposed to get snow today, and it is 27, so there will be sightings. One fortunate thing is we had new sidewalks put in, and the little snowplow from the village comes out and then I can walk to town.
WereBear
@MomSense: Get a lightbox, honestagawd, it makes a difference. Anywhere you sit down for 20 minutes, like checking email on a desktop.
If you never sit down for 20 minutes, get out at noon :) The time of 3:30 sunsets, here in the mountains. In the old days, we’d arrive at our Thanksgiving buffet situation, with friends, and catch the spectacular sunset on the snow from their Great Room.
Don’t know what winter will look like this time. That’s a sad fact.
JPL
@SiubhanDuinne: Ouch!
JAFD
@R-Jud:
Happy Birthday, and many many more
Barbara
@Kay: Maybe he should change his first name. I bet there are lots of people who would love to say they voted for Elvis. Good luck to him, it’s such an uphill battle.
Betty
@Kay: I see his posts on Threads, and he is making a very strong case against Reeves- if that’s enough.
Matt McIrvin
@catclub: Indian Standard Time is a half-hour zone (with no DST), so it’d definitely make those Zoom conferences easier to manage.
JAFD
Good morning, fellow jackals !
Vaccine aftermath: both arms sore, dominant arm got bigger ‘shot’ so less mobile.
Weather here went from 80 and sunshine Saturday to 55 cloudy and damp yesterday and this morn. That kind of swing will leave you out of sorts without pharmceutical help
Got up in middle of ‘dark thirtys’, put on extra covers. Going to take an after breakfast nap. Have had orange and banana, pot of oatmeal on double boiler.
Hoping y’all have a grreat November !
sdhays
@Kay: He should win. His opponent is a blatantly corrupt thief (among all the other awful things which come standard with being a Mississippi Republican). Hopefully Mississippi will stop Mississippi’ing for a moment and do something about it.
Kay
@Betty:
I read he’s running on Medicaid expansion. Medicaid expansion polls at 65% in the state but is being blocked by the GOP. He’s also anti choice and anti gun regulation – maybe you have to be to run in Mississippi.
Kay
@sdhays:
Yup. The extremism of the far Right gets all the attention but the corruption is also important. The further Right Ohio has gone the more corrupt it has become. We had the three largest state corruption scandals in the last ten years, “largest” measured by amount of public money stolen, all GOP scandals.
Another Scott
@WereBear: I started looking at light boxes a week or so ago. Some of the claims of light output made no sense to me, and I didn’t want to waste money.
So, I did some figuring:
Most of the boxes on Amazon that claim 10,000 lux must be bogus unless your face is a few inches away.
A decent LED puts out around 100 lumens per watt of electricity. 1 lux = 1 lumen per square meter. Claims of giant light output from something that only needs around 5 watts of electricity need to be investigated carefully.
I ended up getting a couple of these Cree 18W 2000 lumen daylight bulbs for $12 for bedside lamps. I turn one on when the alarm goes off, and it really lights up the whole room. It helps me to wake up, dunno if it helps with SAD but it seems promising.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kay: I’ve always thought corruption was more common when there was single party rule. Is that true in Ohio?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Another Scott: Do you remember the old Northern Exposure episode where they’re wearing lighted visors? I liked that show.
Another Scott
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I actually never watched the show. Sounds fun though!
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Seems to be. The part that is frightening to me is the state law enforcement apparatus seems to be broken- compromised. The scandals only come to light because there are federal investigations. The state AG just doesn’t seem to function anymore. There was an enormous charter school scandal where one family essentially robbed 117 million. No one went after their assets. The patriarch died and since no one bothered to seize or attach any assets for a recovery of the ill-gotten gains I guess the entire 117 million remained with the family and was passed down. I don’t care if they could only recover (some) millions in family/charter school real estate (although it would be more than that). They should have seized it and sold the assets to help make the public whole. Crime paid. A lot.
SFAW
@SiubhanDuinne:
Long after I pass off this mortal coil, my legacy will live on. [I’m flattering myself into believing I coined that epithet, lo these not-so-many years ago. Of course, given how much else I’ve forgotten, and how much other stuff I “remember” — for example, winning the Nobel Peace Prize for
FizziesPhysics — I’m probably worng. Again.]RevRick
@lowtechcyclist: Ugh, yes! I had the lousiest night’s sleep in a long time and was wide awake at 3:15.
Following my bout with sciatica X-rays we’re taken of my back and revealed that I have some scoliosis of the lower spine. First question is how is that mess supporting my upper body. And then I go to wondering/obsessing about the possibility it was caused by being hit by a car as a kid when I was in 3rd grade.
To make productive use of the time, I answered questions about my life on Storyworth. My daughter got this for me as a Christmas present, and at the end of the year the answers will be compiled in a book of memories. I presume she will eventually want to share this with my granddaughter. (My daughter can read my answers as I write them).
On a different note, I have been asked by two different church bodies to make significant commitments. In the Penn Northeast Conference of the United Church of Christ, I have been asked to head up their racial justice team. Meanwhile, I just got asked to become the Treasurer for the Pennsylvania Council of Churches. I currently serve on the Facilities and Finance Committee and Board of Directors for the latter. As is true across the country, regional church bodies are hemorrhaging money and staff even more quickly than local churches.
RevRick
@sdhays: As is the case for all Democratic candidates running in Mississippi, they have a high floor and low ceiling. The floor is the black vote, the ceiling is finding the 20% of the white vote needed to win.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I believe Trump Jr is testifying today. I predict a lot of events he can’t recall.
Honus
@Dorothy A. Winsor: the actor that played the radio announcer character was from out the blog father’s way near Wheeling. He was also in Dinner Rush
Denali5
I had this awful vision of white stuff out the window this morning. Fortunately, the sun came out and it went away.
Steeplejack
@RevRick:
Good luck with your projects, if you decide to take them on.
Manyakitty
@R-Jud: happy birthday to you! Candy all around!
Manyakitty
@VeniceRiley: one of my pgh friends has a photo of him and Big Jawn at a fundraiser the other night. He’s a solid foot shorter and the hoodie makes it hilarious.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: @Honus:
Two comments in a row related to white powder!
Dorothy, with powder is the first thing I thought of when I read “Don Jr.”
Honus, you were talking about the good stuff. Snow!