Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

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

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

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

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

“woke” is the new caravan.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

People are weird.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

You are here: Home / John Cole Presents "Stories from the Road" / Friday Night Open Thread

Friday Night Open Thread

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Another busy day with work and doing things around the house, and there wasn’t much dinner prep because we enjoyed the fajitas so much last night we did it again tonight.

Big day tomorrow because we are going to tear the living room apart, clean, and put it back together, and then we are going out to one of her favorite places with live music.

Reader Interactions

61Comments

  3. 3.

    Trivia Man

    @Urza: I guess best case is he caucuses with neither? I see no outcome for a D win so maybe evil coal baron who keeps R out if leadership is the only hope?

  4. 4.

    teezyskeezy

    Fajitas are so damn good (with cheese or without, I know it’s a fierce, um, disagreement out there). I feel bad beef tastes so damn good. Especially with salsa and guac. However, I rationalize it this way: I keep the consumption down to a sustainable level, if everyone only ate as much beef as me. Hope I’m right.

  5. 5.

    KrackenJack

    Goodness, I get tired just envisioning all the cleaning and rearranging you do. I could do that or cook, but not both. You’re a whirling Dervish, JC.

    We did pan-seared pork chops with garlic thyme butter and a Waldorf salad that made two delightful meals this week.

  10. 10.

    teezyskeezy

    @Urza: At some point, you gotta admit you only care about what affects the federal offices. These people want to fuck themselves over forever with the rusty blunt rake of conservative hate, what can you do? Some people can’t be reached. I only care they have 2 senators and a collection of biomineralization crusts that call themselves human so they ‘qualify’ to vote for republican bullshit. That’s the problem.

  11. 11.

    J. Arthur Crank

    Big day tomorrow because we are going to tear the living room apart, clean, and put it back together,

    Be sure to take plenty of “before” pictures so that you don’t end up with parts left over after the rebuild.

  12. 12.

    Jackie

    Oh pleeeze…!

    “A beleaguered and broke Rudy Giuliani listed a ‘possible claim for unpaid legal fees against Donald J. Trump’ in bankruptcy filings submitted to court Friday,” the Daily Beast reports.

    Please, please, pretty please!🤞🏻🤞🏻

  16. 16.

    Carlo Graziani

    Just saw your last post on kitchenware, and the knife that Began It All.

    So I thought I’d comment briefly on knives that changed my outlook on knives, and on cooking. The knives in question are the VictorInox Fibrox line. These are relatively ugly plastic-handled knives, but the balance is good, and the steel is unbelievably hard. As in, “resharpen every 5-10 years” hard. Unlike a lot of fancy brands that I’ve trafficked in over the years, these knives are sharp even after 10 uses. The 10″ chef will make thin slices of tomato without making ketchup, and fly through an avocado skin without making guacamole. Limes practically surrender and halve themselves when they see this thing coming.

    And the best part is that they are relatively cheap—the 10″ chef knife is $45. The day that I understood this, I resolved never to buy, or accept as a gift, another knife set. I just think “hmm, I need a fish filet knife” and go select one from the Fibrox line. I have a kitchen drawer with a flat knife block half full of the things.

    I’m just waiting for the day some dinner guest avers that you need a serrated knife to cut a tomato. It will be Demo Time…

  17. 17.

    Omnes Omnibus

    we are going to tear the living room apart, clean, and put it back together

    Why?  This is all incomprehensible to me.

  20. 20.

    Scout211

    @J. Arthur Crank: Be sure to take plenty of “before” pictures so that you don’t end up with parts left over after the rebuild.

    He can rebuild it.  He has the technology.

  21. 21.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Watching the GoPers with that border shit in Northern Mexico Texas, Oklahoma and other nonsense, I am starting to sense full blown panic from these clowns mixed with drugs. It’s like the NH primary scared them hard.

  23. 23.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Urza: Blankenship could just switch party affiliation once he gets into the Senate. It might be a good thing that he’s such a crook that the Dems could probably give him something to keep him as a Dem just for governing purposes.

  24. 24.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, you’ve heard about heat pump water heaters, well … Electrek.co:

    Over the past few months, a new type of washer-dryer combo has emerged on the scene in North America (Yes, Europe and Asia have had great, tiny heat pump tech for decades). These new big combo units from GE Profile UltraFast PFQ97HSPVDS and now LG WashCombo WM6998HBA (introduced at CES) are now on the market.

    I’ve had the GE Profile for 2 weeks, and the LG is on the way for testing head-to-head, but for now, I want to tell you about all of the ways both of these things are amazing, and energy savings is just the tip of the iceberg…

    There is a revolution in all-in-one washer-dryers happening right now. Gone are the days of the tiny, 5-hour all-in-ones, and we now officially have 2 large, efficient heat pump washer-dryer combos to choose from. These are both ventless, take 2 hours to wash and dry, only require a 120V outlet, and are loaded to the gills with fantastic technologvaccy.

    […]

    Neato. And if they really are ventless and work really well, that’s a really big deal.

    Maybe we’ll have heatpump ovens soon?? ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  25. 25.

    Ken

    @Omnes Omnibus: They may be using the strategy I used when growing up — move everything out of my room, sweep and dust, then move most things back and throw away the rest.

  27. 27.

    Scout211

    @Omnes Omnibus: Why?  This is all incomprehensible to me.

    He’s a guy who wants to deep clean and organize his fiancé’s house. All women must encourage and celebrate this odd behavior seen in the wild.

    He is a unicorn. Amen.

  29. 29.

    KrackenJack

    @teezyskeezy: Not bad actually – chop up some apples and celery, add mayo*. We toasted the walnuts. Didn’t have any grapes. Skipped the raisins. KrackenJill was done with it before I got the chops ready to plate.

    *I am NOT going to reopen the brand preference debate

  30. 30.

    Lyrebird

    @schrodingers_cat: Hello physics cat, I just ate some delicious fish that was called “Amritsari fish” & came with some tamarind sauce, so I thought, hey I know who might know all about this.

    Thanks again for your guidance on fun art supplies!

  37. 37.

    Princess

    @Omnes Omnibus: It would personally irritate the hell out of me if someone moved into my house and changed every single thing about it but different strokes for different folks and there’s someone for everyone.

  41. 41.

    Steeplejack

    @Carlo Graziani:

    Agree with you about the Victorinox knives—very good quality, not expensive. And the non-slip handles (not sure if they’re all Fibrox) are great. I have a group that I’ve acquired over the past 15 years. “Serrated,” though: I have to say that my most used knife on a daily basis is the serrated knife in this pair of small knives. It’s great for small cutting jobs, making sandwiches, spreading mayonnaise, mustard, etc. And cutting tomatoes. (The paring knife is also great, but I use it less.)

    And the last year or two I have neglected my Victorinox chef’s knife in favor of this similar (good quality, low price) Mercer Cutlery nakiri. I like the wide blade, and it’s got a bit of a point at the end, which traditional nakiris don’t. Good all-around chef-ish knife.

  43. 43.

    Citizen Alan

    @Urza:  If Blankenship somehow won, he would immediately switch to GOP five minutes after taking office. He’s running as a Dem just to get past the primary and hope a miracle happens in the general. There are absolutely no issues on which Blankenship agrees with Democrats.

  45. 45.

    Alison Rose

    I only cohabitated with a partner once, for a couple years in my mid 20s, and we never tore anything apart to clean it, and now I wonder if we missed out.

    However the other day I went to YouTube to see if I could find an old clip of a web cartoon that played a role in our relationship. We were big Homestar Runner fans, and there was an episode during which Homestar is making some food for his girlfriend, Marzipan, and when he brings it to her in the living room, he greets her with “Hey, Stupid!”. From the first time we watched it, the dude and I probably greeted each other that way about 90% of the time. We’re still friends and talk on the phone occasionally, and yes, we still greet each other with “Hey, Stupid” most of the time.

    And I think that is just as heartwarming as manic housecleaning together.

    And I was chuffed to find that someone had indeed uploaded it to YT.

  46. 46.

    Lyrebird

    @Omnes Omnibus: Huh.  That’s not the most surprising cover ever… Alien Ant Farm “Smooth Criminal” is more surprising…  but I’m glad I have seen it.  Did you see that they’re making contributions to a homeless shelter with their proceeds?

     

    @schrodingers_cat: THanks, yes!  Just a little, because work has been nuts the past few weeks, but they are fun.  Still feels like doing art with makeup.  This weekend I want to see if I can do regular-crayon resist, filling in with the gel crayons & brushing on some water.

  47. 47.

    Geminid

    @cain: A poll on West Virginia’s Republican Senate primary was reported on November 23 by MetroNews and other media sites. Governor Justice was the choice of 55.7% of respondents and 19.9% picked Representative Mooney, his main rival.

    Like I’m saying, Jim Justice is a very popular politician in his state. Don Blankenship has a reputation there, but it’s not a good one. I’m surprised Blankenship’s even running. I guess he likes to hear himself talk.

  51. 51.

    Dangerman

    I know it’s getting late even PST but let’s see if anyone out there has tips to share.

    So, I have parked domain (at Google) I want to unpark and host someplace. It will be a simple page (text, links, a few pictures) but nothing remotely fancy.

    So, three questions:

    1) Any hosting service I should check out? Think cheap. Low traffic expectations.

    2) In unparking, do I transfer registration from Google to this other entity?

    3) Any simple WYSIWYG recommendations? I’m thinking about just doing it in Word. At one time, long ago, I used Dreamweaver, but that was over a decade ago and that was far fancier work. At one time, I was on the leading edge of this stuff; now, not so much. Such is the benefit of being semi-retired.

    All tips appreciated

  52. 52.

    KrackenJack

    @Another Scott: Probably beating a dead thread here, but thanks for posting this. I read Electrek regularly, but scrolled past this thinking it was sponsored advertising. I’ve been doing kludgy repairs as various plastic bits fail on our Whirlpool Duet pair. Retiring the electric dryer would make me feel better about replacing the gas range with induction / electric. We have solar and a battery and going electric will eat up a lot of our self-generation.  Heat pumps of one sort and another will offset some of that.Gas water heater died last Thanksgiving, so that’s one down. A/C is pretty new, so HVAC will be the last to go.

  55. 55.

    Another Scott

    @Dangerman: I’ve got some stuff on DreamHost that I’ve done almost nothing with.  It seems well run, never any issues with reminders or payment, updates seem to work without issues.  The prices seem reasonable to me (though I’m sure there are places that are cheaper).

    HTH a little.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  58. 58.

    KrackenJack

    @Dangerman: I was looking at domain registrars a couple weeks ago and encountered some hosting reviews. $3 a month is typical for the most basic hosting packages.

    I have a friend who uses HostGator for his various internet brainstorms. I think they now charge for domain transfers and aren’t as helpful for the basics like having a site builder.

    There’s also A2 Hosting which came up a lot. One page website with site builder templates included for $2.99 a month. I assume annual domain registration is extra, but you are already paying that with Google. Don’t know about transfer costs.

    You’ll need to initiate the domain transfer from your new hosting service user control panel, but you’ll also need an EPP / auth code from Google to complete it. Assuming your WHOIS is up to date and you haven’t made any changes in the last 60 days that could lock it up, it should be pretty easy. The details vary, but it’s usually well documented and you can read up on it before you sign up.

  60. 60.

    Tony G

    @Urza: The ordinary working people in West Virginia have been screwed by people like Blankenship for generations, yet they’ll probably vote for him.  I don’t pretend to understand these self-destructive morons.

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