Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

If you are in line to indict donald trump, stay in line.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Bogus polls are all they’ve got left. Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls a year from now.

Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

“Cheese and Kraken paired together for the appetizer trial.”

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

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

Never forget that he train is barreling down on Trump, even as he dances on the tracks.

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

We are aware of all internet traditions.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Republicans don’t trust women.

When we show up, we win.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Saturday Afternoon Open Thread: The Bluest Sky

Saturday Afternoon Open Thread: The Bluest Sky

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Saturday Afternoon Open Thread 18
 
I have a few more BlueSky invites, plus some generously donated by other jackals. If you’re still curious, email me, and I’ll get back to you this evening.

(I’ve been conscientiously trying to retrain myself… to hit the ‘like’ button, reskeet, even venture a comment or two. It ain’t easy, relearning a whole new social-media ecosystem!)

What are y’all up to, this afternoon?

Reader Interactions

154Comments

  5. 5.

    TheOtherHank

    I have an account on bluesky (Thanks to Tenar Arha!), but I have not received any invite codes as yet. When that blessed day arrives, I’ll toss them into the BJ fund.

  7. 7.

    dc

    I’m not interested in BlueSky yet. I’ve been pleased with Mastodon. But I do make an effort on Mastodon to favorite and boost any posts that I like, something I did not do on Twitter.

  8. 8.

    patrick II

    I am now one of those oldsters who have taken a hard fall and almost couldn’t get up.  After tripping over an edge I didn’t see (it was pretty dark) I fell face-first onto the concrete sidewalk. I tried to break the fall with my hand, but it happened too fast. The brunt of the fall was taken just above the right eyebrow.  It has been brought home to me how important it is that your brow extends out further than your eye.  I wasn’t quite knocked out, got up and drove home (stupidly) and they my wife took me to the emergency room.
    Starting yesterday morning I started looking like I went a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson.  My eye and surrounding area are a bright red.  My right eye is completely swollen shut.  I could still see before the swelling, so I am alrigh there, but I told my wife this morning I apologize for her needing to be around the ugliest guy in town.  She seemed rather curious and amazed (besides sympathetic) and has kept a running log of pictures of my eye.
    The swelling is down a little today, so it should be O.K. after a while.  An interesting thing though.  Evidently when the eye is getting just a little light as it is starting to now it tries to fill in the picture.  I have seen birds flying around and some football players.  Probably just the Bears in their whites losing another football game.​
    Regards,
    Patrick II.

  20. 20.

    patrick II

    Thanks, twbrant, Betty, and others.  It is scarier than I imagined it would be and also a caution that I can’t react like I was a younger man and I need to be more careful generally and also not walking down a poorly lit sidewalk at night.

  21. 21.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @patrick II: Whoa. That sounds painful. So your wife if documenting your black eye?  For your memory book, I guess.

    @Betty Cracker: We went to Michigan, and this game is always a charged one. I remember having it on the car radio the time Woody Hayes tore up the line markers and pushed a referee. Good times.

    If you’re on Blue Sky, one of the feeds in Blue Sky Night Market where people can list stuff they’ve made for sale. I just GLASS GIRL there, linking to my publisher’s site since it’s small business Saturday. But if you have jewelry or needlework or anything, you might take a look.

  22. 22.

    jackmac

    Got back home after Thanksgiving in California in the wee hours of Saturday and picked up my dog a few hours ago after boarding him for a week.  He had a hoarse bark and I was immediately worried that he picked up the dog virus going around. However, the many dogs at the kennel seem to love excessive barking (including when we arrived) so we figured that maybe our Bailey also barked a lot more than normal. He’s otherwise fine and was delighted to see us. So we’ll wait and see through the weekend how he fares before a vet visit.

  23. 23.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Betty Cracker: My daughter went to *THE* OSU for two years of grad school. Only time she set foot in the football stadium was for commencement exercises. (We are not really football people.)

  25. 25.

    SpaceUnit

    I have little interest in social media but I’m curious as to what’s behind needing an invitation to join Bluesky.  Is it a strategy to ward off trolls and bots?

  26. 26.

    Kayla Rudbek

    Celtic Women concert at the Kennedy Center and it’s intermission right now. I’m going to have to buy some more of their albums.

  30. 30.

    Betty Cracker

    @SpaceUnit: I think it’s a beta testing strategy so they won’t grow too fast before they iron out the bugs. I wish they’d hurry the hell up and add GIF/vid functions and open it up though. Never a better time to kill Musk’s shitty platform.

  32. 32.

    MattF

    @patrick II: Yup. Been there, done that. I used to be able to fall without hurting myself, but I think those days are past. And it takes some time to fully recover. So, be careful and be patient.

  35. 35.

    JaySinWA

    It looks like BJ Bluesky fever may be dying down, or perhaps it is post T-day lethargy. I have a couple of invites to spare. You click on my nym to reach me in Mastodon land.

  36. 36.

    Redshift

    @SpaceUnit: It at least has the potential to avoid that. They’ve laid out plans to open up the system to other servers and make it accessible from Mastodon, but we’ll have to wait to see if they follow through.

    That’s why I’ve never gone near Threads, because Facebook’s top priority is always locking you into their system.

  37. 37.

    SpaceUnit

    It’s gonna become a status symbol among the rich fuckboi class to have bought a social media platform and turned it into a raging shithole.

  38. 38.

    Central Planning

    Our weekend plans did not start with us adopting a kitten from the local shelter. We had to put down one of our cats about 6 weeks ago due to a saddle thrombus that was really bad (she had 5 or 6 others) but it was clear there wasn’t going to be recovery from this one.
    Anyway, I wasn’t thinking we were getting a new kitten/cat so soon. We now have this adorable little black kitten with a faint white patch on her chest from one of the local shelters. We are coming up with new names, but my wife is not thrilled with 99.999% of them. I keep telling her we’re in the brainstorming stage and shouldn’t be saying no, but that doesn’t help.
    So there’s that, and then some mandatory training/pitch I need to record for work before tomorrow night. I need to cut a minute of talk time out, but the AI grading tool will give me shit for not being specific enough OR for talking too fast.​​​

  39. 39.

    Scout211

    @Betty Cracker: The Michigan — Ohio State game is living up to the hype.

    So what you are saying is that Iowa has no chance in the Big Ten Championship game next week.  Story of my life as an Iowa graduate and Hawkeye sports fan.  Sigh.

  41. 41.

    MattF

    @JaySinWA: I suspect that the recent Xmeltdowns have motivated people to get invites and then just poke around with the app. There’s a fairly large total audience now and a long list of custom feeds that appeal to a lot of separate small audiences. A significant proportion of my X follows have moved to the new place.

  45. 45.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Hail! to the victors valiant
    Hail! to the conquering heroes
    Hail! Hail! to Michigan
    the leaders and best

  48. 48.

    Gvg

    Gardening. I shopped yesterday so don’t like people today. I should mow the yard before it gets dark.

  53. 53.

    eclare

    @SpaceUnit:

    I joined FB years ago to keep up with one friend in another city.  All of a sudden all of these people that I hadn’t seen in years and/or people that I had talked to a couple of times wanted to friend me.  I thought to hell with this and quit.

  57. 57.

    thruppence

    @patrick II: Some sort of medical alert is probably a good idea. A few years back we were at a house party of family and friends on a snowy evening and the grandfather, ex-military, trained engineer, went out for more firewood, slipped and fell, hit his head and basically froze to death before anyone wondered what was taking so long.

  59. 59.

    lowtechcyclist

    We got the outdoor lights up earlier this afternoon, and the kiddo is chomping at the bit to put up the trees, but I need a bit of a breather, so he’s just gonna have to wait.

    Stopped paying any attention to football a decade ago when I heard about CTE. It’s one thing to know that a player might suffer nontrivial physical injuries and disabilities from his football-playing days, because that’s the sort of risk you can see and assess, even though kids playing football in high school and getting signed to football scholarships are really too young to do so very well. But getting your brain circuitry pulverized is a whole ‘nother thing, and besides, I just couldn’t stomach the notion that I was deriving entertainment from a process that was doing that to some of the players. So I stopped.

  61. 61.

    trollhattan

    Scooping Adam here, but good news.

    A Qatar Foreign Ministry spokesman says 13 Israelis and a number of foreign nationals are now with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Gaza.
    We’ll bring you more as we have it.
    BBC

  63. 63.

    Mousebumples

    I’m [email protected]

    And i also have invites to spare. 5 total, though 2 of those I’d shared with Juicers over email who never used them.

    Low key Saturday here, awaiting snow, probably, overnight.

  64. 64.

    Grumpy Old Railroader

    @patrick II: I am now one of those oldsters who have taken a hard fall and almost couldn’t get up.

    I hear ya Brother. When I was a young man, if I fell, no matter how hurt I was, I would jump right back up and look around hoping nobody saw me. Now I just lay there and wait for a kind soul to help me get back up

  65. 65.

    BeautifulPlumage

    @Raven: great picture, it’s sunrise?

    @patrick II: OUCH! Last time I tripped & fell forward I did manage to get my hand out but ended up breaking a bone plus still getting the black eye. Hope you recover fully!

    @Central Planning: yay for a new furry love but sorry for your earlier loss.

    @Tim in SF: same as my BJ name: BeautifulPlumage. I was never on Twitter (just lurked) so am taking it slow at Bluesky. A lot of the folks I read on X/Twitter have become more active over there.

    Someone gave the butter goblin an invite, so I made a pre-emptive block : )

  66. 66.

    Sister Golden Bear

    With the iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max switching to the USB-C port, I’ve experimenting with an ultralight “back pocket” video rig — yes it literally fits in my back pocket — that can record in 4K Pro Res format to a thumb drive and has external mic. Total cost, excluding the thumb drive, is about $30.

    No it’s not remotely professional grade — at least the mic isn’t, but it’s better than the iPhone mic because it’s semi-directional — but I can carry it in my purse at all times.

    it’s frankly more of an experiment I’m using to dabble in videography, but the tinkering itself was satisfying.

    Must. Resist. Black. Friday. Gear. Acquisition.  Syndrome.

  67. 67.

    Another Scott

    ICYMI, Pew Research (from May 22) won’t be kicking Boomers and GenZ around any more.

    […]

    Here’s a short overview of how we’ll approach generational research in the future:

    We’ll only do generational analysis when we have historical data that allows us to compare generations at similar stages of life. When comparing generations, it’s crucial to control for age. In other words, researchers need to look at each generation or age cohort at a similar point in the life cycle. (“Age cohort” is a fancy way of referring to a group of people who were born around the same time.)

    When doing this kind of research, the question isn’t whether young adults today are different from middle-aged or older adults today. The question is whether young adults today are different from young adults at some specific point in the past.

    To answer this question, it’s necessary to have data that’s been collected over a considerable amount of time – think decades. Standard surveys don’t allow for this type of analysis. We can look at differences across age groups, but we can’t compare age groups over time.

    Another complication is that the surveys we conducted 20 or 30 years ago aren’t usually comparable enough to the surveys we’re doing today. Our earlier surveys were done over the phone, and we’ve since transitioned to our nationally representative online survey panel, the American Trends Panel. Our internal testing showed that on many topics, respondents answer questions differently depending on the way they’re being interviewed. So we can’t use most of our surveys from the late 1980s and early 2000s to compare Gen Z with Millennials and Gen Xers at a similar stage of life.

    […]

    Good, good.

    (I was inspired to find this via a toot on Mastodon)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  69. 69.

    Betty

    @patrick II: You need to pay attention for several weeks to make sure there is no hemorrhaging. Any persistent headaches or trouble focusing your eyes means you need a CT scan. Happened to my husband three weeks ago.  Now in the hospital awaiting surgery.

  70. 70.

    danielx

    @patrick II:
    I feel your pain. Spent three days in hospital after a fall at the end of September and I’m still not right, although I survived the brain bleeds etc. (There was some concern about brain death, but friends said there was no way to tell.)​
     
    @Betty: ​
     Had four heads CTs in three days, I’ve noticed I have a faint glow in the dark.

  71. 71.

    nonrev321

    I’m dipping my toe in also.  Made one post waiting to see what happens.  Would love to see Musk eat humble crow

  72. 72.

    Kirk

    @Mousebumples: one of the reasons I haven’t requested an invite from anyone is that my posting would be almost non-existent. I go in shorts spurts and it’s just not been time.

  80. 80.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @lowtechcyclist: Me too.  That and my fave team (Stillerz) having a credibly accused rapist for a QB*, were big factors in pushing me away from being a regular viewer.

    * and marrying someone whose Dad (RIP) used to force them all to watch like 50 hours of football every weekend and doesn’t want to anymore, and moving to SoCal where frankly, there are so many better ways to spend several hours outdoors on a Sunday.

  83. 83.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @satby: link doesn’t work. Is that the ‘in the land of dum drops and fairies’ post. I have that saved somewhere on my phone.

  87. 87.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @patrick II:

    Ouch. How awful. I’m so sorry, and I wish you a speedy, complete, and uncomplicated recovery. What you describe is scarily close to my own adventure a few weeks ago when I tangled with the Killer Bookcase. AFAICT, I’ve had no lasting ill effects, and I hope the same is true for you.

  88. 88.

    twbrandt

    @thruppence: that’s good advice. My Apple Watch has a fall detector, which, if it thinks you have fallen, alerts you and tells you to click a button if you have not if fact fallen or don’t need help. If you don’t click the button, it calls 911.

  89. 89.

    Ruckus

    @Betty Cracker:

    Never a better time to kill Musk’s shitty platform.

    He seems to be doing that all by himself.

    I myself no longer use XTwitter and it requires me to go through some sort of something-something to even be able to log on or see it, and I’m not bothering to go back. It was a regular hang out and I was on it about the same amount of time I’m on BJ. But his majesty has made it undesirable and so I’m one of the millions that has left/escaped/run away smiling/paid him the nothing he deserves for spending his $44billion to make his head even fatter.

  95. 95.

    sab

    @thruppence: Ditto on the medical alerts. My brother in law fell, phone went flying, and he lay there for two days until a utility crew banged on his door to get him to move his car. Otherwise he might have died there.

  99. 99.

    eclare

    @sab:

    Wow.  I’ve thought about getting one as I live alone and have a slippery porcelain tub.  I have some appliques on the bottom of the tub, but it still worries me.

  100. 100.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @sab: i knew a widowed retired insurance guy who walked, drove, volunteered in a bunch of stuff, who fell in his shower. He laid there for 3 days before his kids who lived out of town got the cops to do a welfare check. Anyhow, that was the beginning of the end. Ended up in the hospital, rehab etc and died less than 2 years later. I am really glad when I see bars and other stuff in bathrooms now. It’s becoming more of a norm rather than the exception.

  101. 101.

    zhena gogolia

    @Mai Naem mobile: It never gets old. It’s like some of my favorite scenes in War and Peace (Andrei remembering Natasha on the eve of the Battle of Borodino, for example). I can read them ten times in a row and not tire of them.

  103. 103.

    sab

    @eclare: We had them for my parents. We used Alert One. There was a speaker/microphone by the bed, so you could talk to them if someone accidentally set off the alarm. You could set it up to call a couple of friends or relatives before they called 911 if you didn’t answer the speaker. You could also set it up so that they call you every day and respond if you don’t answer. They had pendants or wristbands. They also offer a lockbox (like realtors use) so that first reponders 911 don’t have to kick in the door.

  104. 104.

    Rose Weiss

    I have a knock-off smart watch, but it won’t stay linked to my phone… keeps needing to be reset, etc. So I’m thinking of splurging on an Apple watch. They seems to much easier to navigate. I not only live alone, I live in the boondocks about 20 minutes from the closest small town.

    But instead of shopping for another watch, today I spent hours of online shopping for a new computer game. I don’t like all the demon war shoot ’em ups, I need something relaxing and fun. Preferably with lovely/interesting graphics. Any suggestions?

  105. 105.

    Marc

    We’re prepping for a “Thanksgiving Leftover” pot-luck party tomorrow afternoon.  Intent is to get rid of the bulk of a 20 pound turkey that the daughter was gifted by her employer (part of Disney) but, of course, more food will be involved.  I just prepped and 3/4 baked a dish of candied sweet potatoes, the wife has made a dish of tiramisu, and the daughter will eventually wander over from her apartment to make some vegetarian dressing.  It will mostly be her twenty-something friends (some we’ve known since they were toddlers), plus a few of the parents, neighbors, and long-time friends.

  106. 106.

    justinb

    If there is anyone here that’s living outside the US (that emigrated), please ask WG for my email … I have a couple questions for you.

    Thanks!

  107. 107.

    Miss Bianca

    @Betty Cracker: Oh, my Lord – Michigan/Ohio State! That takes me back – not that I was ever a football fan, but that rivalry was just fucking NUTS, there was no escaping it in Ann Arbor, even as an East Quaddie (notorious for housing the arty-farty, “who me – sportsball?” crowd like Yours Truly).

  108. 108.

    BruceFromOhio

    I see people are trashing Threads. As a life-long anti-Twatter, Instagram is the only social media I bothered with as it is easy to hide in plain sight, is innately photo-centric, and embraced as easily as ignored in contrast with FB, which seemed to consume everyone I knew that touched it.

    When Threads popped, it was a couple of clicks to create a profile from my IG account. I went along with a sort of “let’s see how badly this sucks” approach, and was surprised to find a nearly-instantaneous and highly active community of authors, photographers, musicians, all the sorts I followed on IG, but many  entirely new to me. Right on the heels of that I wandered into an absolutely lovely encampment of LGBTQ+ and allies. Some names I’m familiar with but hadn’t followed closely now appear on my feed daily: George Takei, Hank Green, John Scalzi, Anne Wheaton (Wil’s wife).

    There is universal disdain of legacy media misrepresentation, spam-p0rn-troll accounts, and a healthy attitude towards pie’ing assholes that view the social media world as a big emotional punching bag.  The lightweight interface is super mobile friendly, and, at the moment, deliciously ad-free.

    I really like it.

    I took an early run at Mastodon, failing miserably primarily due to lack of patience. I hear a lot about Bluesky, but between Threads, IG and good old fashioned blogs, my screen time is maxed out.​

  110. 110.

    NeenerNeener

    @sab: ​
     Yikes! You folks are making me regret that I canceled my MobileHelp account and sent all the equipment back yesterday. The pendant assumed I’d fallen every time I bent over to pick something up off the floor, so I quit wearing it.

    I think I’ve gotten another abcessed tooth again. It may be round two under the same tooth that had a root canal in early October. I’ve got movers coming on Tuesday to pack up my house and Wednesday to put everything in storage, and I move to Virginia next Saturday, so I’ve got Monday and Thursday to try to talk my dentist into doing an xray to see what’s going on in there before my NYS Medicare insurance expires, and somewhere in there I have to pray to the automobile gods that the local Mavis store managed to score rear shocks for my 2018 Kia Niro too. Nothing is ever easy.

  111. 111.

    Miss Bianca

    @coin operated: Jealous! I love the Coronado Beach – my grandmother lived on Coronado and I spent may happy hours on that beach.

    (To say nothing of the Hotel del Coronado. Are you at least in sight of it?) :)

  112. 112.

    eclare

    @NeenerNeener:

    Good luck with everything on your plate, especially getting in to see a dentist.  Tooth pain is excruciating, unfortunately I know from experience.

  116. 116.

    BruceFromOhio

    @Miss Bianca: ​
     Had a fellow nerd weasel his way into the beta, and he sent me an invite when they were limiting it to five at a time. I scored firstname.lastname AT gmail dot com for both TeensFromOhio, and they still use them to this day.

  118. 118.

    Nukular Biskits

    Been putting up outdoor Christmas decorations all day today.

    I tried to convince Miss Nukular Biskits that it’s against federal law to do that, but she wouldn’t listen.

  119. 119.

    persistentilluion

    @Miss Bianca: I was there for a semester in the late 70s.  Went to a game (not Oh how I hate Ohio State) and sat behind a couple in their 70s dressed for church and behind me was a guy about my age smoking what I thought at the time was opium.
    I also waved a joint at Gerald Ford when he launched his campaign.
    Good times.​

    ETA – Ford’s motorcade was rolling down a street near Yost Stadium, which was my destination.  I was smoking a joint, yelled “Hey, Gerry” and the cop at the corner just smirked.  Dope was legal in A squared.

  122. 122.

    Ohio Mom

    @Betty: Oh my. Waiting for a spouse to have surgery on an important organ is hard stuff. Sending good vibes your way, please keep us posted.

  123. 123.

    TriassicSands

    What am I up to this afternoon? Day 21 in the hospital. It looks like I may get out on Monday, but scheduling and dates have constantly changed. I’ve now been trained to give myself IV nutrition at home.

    My care here (UW Medical Center) has been generally excellent. Hospital pharmacies seem to be lousy at providing prescription medications, but that is a complicated subject and, unlike my last stay in a different hospital, they haven’t harmed me here because of pharmacy incompetence.

    The big downside here is the food service. There are a lot of people here who are on liquid diets (either clear or full), but the food selection is pathetic. What makes things worse is that in addition to a very limited selection, they are constantly out of the most important things. That is probably because they are the most important things and for some reason the food service can’t plan or acquire things reliably. The condition of the wider economy could have something to do with some of that (staff shortages), but definitely not all.

    I love kefir. The hospital stocks only two flavors — peach and strawberry. But only the peach is available to full liquid diets. Supposedly, the strawberry has chunks in it. So, why have they sent me strawberry kefir not once, by mistake, or twice by oversight, but three times? And I couldn’t find any of the disqualifying “chunks” in it. When I call to order, they tell me I can’t have strawberry, but the reason I know about it is because they sent it to me. And why, after I ordered soup for lunch (the only warm or hot food with any substance at all) did they send my order up without any soup at all? That has happened repeatedly with them sending me things I supposedly can’t have or things i didn’t order, or they don’t send me things I did order. Gosh, kids, Zippy is so confused.

    I’m not a fan, but I can see the U of Washington football stadium across from the window in the hall. I doubt if there is an empty seat in the house.

  125. 125.

    Miss Bianca

    @persistentilluion: Yep – only time I ever got busted for smoking dope was in Ann Arbor – I was working at a bar called Del Rio at the time, and I was getting high on break with the guy who sold us our peeled garlic (ah, Spooner – you were a true original). Out front – stupidly. Up come two of A2’s gendarmes, give us the A2 version of the 3rd degree (Copper #1 to Spooner: “What do you do for a living?” Spooner, completely deadpan: “I peel garlic.”)

    Got a ticket, went down to City Hall, paid my $5 fine, and was on my merry way. (Remember those “$5 is fine by me” buttons? Yeah, good times – Ann Arbor was way ahead of the societal curve in so many ways – sometimes I wonder why I ever left!)

  129. 129.

    Yutsano

    Welp. Wazzu lost but only by a last minute field goal. If this is the supposed Mighty Huskies they sure didn’t look that good.

  132. 132.

    citizen dave

    Blue Sky: Yes thanks to AL and the jackals sharing invite codes–I signed up a week or two ago.  Even found my info just now, and thought, why did I pick that number after my name?  …     …    Oh yeah, it’s the year my hometown was founded.

    I’m at citizendave1794.bsky.social

    So far I’m following Formula 1, science, and the US Women’s soccer team as interests.

  133. 133.

    citizen dave

    @TriassicSands: All the best!  Sounds like you have been through something.  I just flipped channels and saw the aftermath of that game on my over-the-air tv.

    My wife is a kefir fan, and a snob as well–she claims the organic versions taste better–and are the only ones acceptable to her.

    Re: strawberries, had to google–recently read those things aren’t seeds, but now see they are the fruits, with seeds inside of them (the little yellow things on the outside).  https://www.thespruce.com/fruits-with-their-seeds-outside-3269379

  134. 134.

    wjca

    @lowtechcyclist: Stopped paying any attention to football a decade ago when I heard about CTE.

    Likewise.  Eventually, we may see pushing (or even just letting) a kid to play football classified as child abuse.  Speed the day!

  138. 138.

    persistentilluion

    @Miss Bianca: Because the winters were awful!!!! I remember walking back from the pool and my wet hair freezing solid.  Hair breaking from freezing weather is not a haircut!

  139. 139.

    KM in NS

    Just back from my red-state, home-state… 3 flight down and 3 back. I hope I don’t get COVID. Ugh!

  141. 141.

    TriassicSands

    @CarolPW:

    Of course, but the question is why send it to me three times if it is not approved??? Given the consistency of the kefir, it is a little difficult to believe that something so tiny will cause a problem.

    My other question is, why have two flavors of kefir and make one off limits to the many, many people who are on liquid diets?

  144. 144.

    Brachiator

    @TriassicSands:

    The big downside here is the food service.

    Sorry to hear about your hospital issues. I have had a few hospital stays recently. Fortunately, they were good experiences. I know that things like poor food service can wear on you.

    I was limited to a low sodium and calorie restricted menu, but the selections were pretty good and Food Service would come by with an iPad menu to get breakfast, lunch and dinner orders.

    I don’t know who I could have complained to had things been bad. But I was thinking that a hospital has multiple logistics operations that they should get right. You have the execution of doctors’ directives and dispensing of medication. And you have the equivalent of hotel management in physical patient room care and food service, among other services.

    But the whole point of the hospital is to get these things right.

    Anyway, that’s enough of my ramble. I hope you get better soon.

  150. 150.

    TerryC

    @Miss Bianca: Jealous! I love the Coronado Beach – my grandmother lived on Coronado and I spent may happy hours on that beach.

    I spent two wonderful years on the strand with Underwater Demolition Team 13 in the late 60s.

  152. 152.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @BeautifulPlumage: It uses the iPhone to record video, but uses an external mic for audio, and saves the recording to a USB-C thumb drive.

    Pro Res formatted video is quite large, but has the advantage that it can be color-adjusted, kind of equivalent to shooting RAW instead of jpeg for still images. Better for color correcting, and  “color grading” is used to get the “toned” look you can see in TV/movies. E.g. think “Blade Runner 2049.”

  153. 153.

    Kay

    Ohio legalized weed (I was opposed but the potheads won and I recognize The Will of The People) so my local (conservative) city council immediately put forth a ban on sales within the city (ok to do according to the weed law) but then nearly as fast backed off this ban when someone showed them what the projected tax revenue would look like.

    Sellouts! :)

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