Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

It’s easier to kill a dangerous animal than a man who just happens to have different thoughts/values than one’s own.

Trump makes a mockery of the legal system and cowardly judges just sit back and let him.

So many bastards, so little time.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

I really should read my own blog.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

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

Joe Biden can go out like FDR, not by dying in office, but by crushing the fascists.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

“But what about the lurkers?”

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

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

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

You are here: Home / John Cole Presents "This Fucking Old House" / Saturday Night Open Thread

Saturday Night Open Thread

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The beard was getting unmanageable so I drove to the big city and got a haircut:

Saturday Night Open Thread 15

I don’t know if I like it or not, and to be honest, don’t much care, but I am pissed I didn’t wipe the iced coffee out of the corner of my lips before taking a picture I blasted out all over the internet. Solid.

When I got there the lady asked me what I wanted and I said hold on I have a text from Joelle describing what to do and all the women squealed “how sweet she sent you with a note,” and it’s nice they think that is cool, because so do I, but at the same time I wanted to make sure they knew this was not learned helplessness, this was just complete apathy about the process and the understanding that Joelle is the one who has to look at me all the time so she can do what she wants with this head of hair.

Other than that, I really have nothing to report. Had a tomato sandwich for dinner, and I reckon I might have another in a little bit, and I can’t decide if I want peaches or cantaloupe as a snack. Maybe both. It’s the weekend, after all.

Reader Interactions

133Comments

  5. 5.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    Had a tomato sandwich for dinner

    Among the best sandwiches. Little mayo, some salt and pepper on good bread; perfect.

  6. 6.

    Jeffro

    The great thing about having a tomato sandwich at any time of day is…you can just keep right on having them, the whole rest of the day (and evening!)

  9. 9.

    Betsy

    The adorable art supply store I used to go to, before the neighborhood was gentrified by idiots,  had long since ceased to be a house-paint store, its original purpose.

    But there was  still a handpainted sign over the cash register from that first incarnation, which read:

    Husbands Selecting Paint Colors Must Have Note From Wife

  11. 11.

    Jackie

    That’s a handsome pic, JC! Great haircut and your beard looks perfect! Good job, Joelle!

  16. 16.

    SoupCatcher

    Stone fruit has been amazing this year, out here on the west coast.

    I eat them outside or leaning over the sink.

    There’s an Alameda Hemskirke variety of apricot that you can get locally and they’ve been so good this year that I started hoarding the pits; maybe in five years or so I’ll have some of my own

    edited to add: I have no idea if you can grow from seeds or if you need to graft.  I haven’t got that far yet =)

  17. 17.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    How much longer before John is posting videos of him doing rants in his car wearing a T shirt of with a picture of JD Vance howling at the moon?

  20. 20.

    WaterGirl

    @Betsy:

    That’s a lot of incentive for people on the blog to donate!

    That is so awesome!

    I saw the best sign at a coffee shop in Colorado, but I can’t seem to find the picture.  Something unaccompanied children.

  21. 21.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    My friend’s brain tumor finally did him in this past Sunday.  He was just 48. The memorial was today.  The 1st song was “Hallallejua.”  Beautifully sad.  We had drinks with Friends afterwards.  Now off to our neighbor’s bonfire to honor their dad.  He dropped dead in his driveway about 6 weeks ago.  He was 63. Love the ones your with.

  27. 27.

    M31

    @BR:

    About the circulating memo: here is an article on Semafor with more concrete information, including a link to what purports to be the actual memo

    Seems to be the product of “Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks and venture capitalist Ted Dintersmith”, and while they say it is ‘circulating’ among “top Democrats”, as far as I can tell, top Democrats didn’t write it.

    I don’t want this thread to become a rehash of stuff that has been so hashed it’s become that pink slime chicken nugget paste, but I will say that this is a deeply unserious crock of shit.

  28. 28.

    jowriter

    @WaterGirl: A sandwich shop I frequent has a sign that says, “Unaccompanied children will be given a free espresso and a puppy.” Oops, Omnes beat me to it…

  30. 30.

    Eyeroller

    @BR: We should not speak of it in this thread but I happen to be listening to AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” for unrelated reasons.  Synchronicity I guess.

    What they are thinking is some desperate ploy to get rid of both Biden and Harris.  That seems clear enough.

    I’ll also note that I saw that Trump was at a rally in Michigan with no bandage at all and a fully intact right ear.

  31. 31.

    Another Scott

    Looking very good, JC.

    Meanwhile, … NotMax? Photographers out there?

    Mastodon.social:

    Ian Coldwater 📦💥
    @[email protected]

    PSA: delete your old Photobucket account now! Don’t put it off.

    You know those emails you’ve been getting for a year from Photobucket threatening to delete your old account and you were like lol who cares and ignored them?

    Turns out they didn’t delete them anyway, they repurposed the business as a broker of biometric data to AI companies and they’re using your old pictures for that. You have to actually go in and delete your account to opt out, and you only have until Monday, July 22 to do it.

    [ image ]

    [ALT text:]

    New Biometric Information Policy includes:

    Information about the rights you grant us, including the right to the extent permitted by the laws of your region, to license or sell your Public User Uploaded Content to third parties for the scanning and processing of your Public User Uploaded Content, including extracting physical features, e.g. measurements, of your Biometric Information, solely for the purpose of artificial intelligence and machine learning training and the subsequent uses derived therefrom. • How to opt-out if you do not want Photobucket to se.., lease, trade, or use your Public User Uploaded Content for profit. There is an initial opt-out period that exists for forty-five (45) days from the Effective Date listed above (“Initial Opt-Out Period”) that will be prior to any license or sale taking effect. Please note that if you opt-out, Photobucket will delete your Account and all of your User Uploaded Content. If you decide to opt-out, please download and save any of your User Uploaded Content that you wish to keep and store. After the end of the Initial Opt-Out Period, you will still have the option to opt-out from granting Photobucket the right to sell, lease, trade or otherwise profit from the disclosure of your Biometric Information contained in your Public User Uploaded Content prospectively.
    ALT

    Jul 20, 2024, 07:07 PM

    Given that companies want to squeeze every nickel they can out of “AI” before the bubble pops, deleting all old personal information from sites out there is probably a good idea. :-/

    I dread the prospect. :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  32. 32.

    M31

    that’s a good look, a bit longer on the top and trim but not too short on the sides

  35. 35.

    geg6

    @BR:

    I have no idea who Mr. Beast is.  And since Oprah has brought us such brilliant superstars as Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil and Marianne Williamson, they can fuck right off with that shit, too.

  38. 38.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    I don’t know why I bring this up, but John please forgive me.

    During the Civil War, and after the fall of Vicksburg, General Halleck, the US army chief of staff, got it into his head that capturing Shreveport was an awesome idea. He wrote all the generals in the in west, “Would you object if the President ordered you take Shreveport?” and the replies were basically “No, but what a dumb idea”, so Halleck then went to Lincoln and said “All the generals in the west wrote me about taking Shreveport”, to which Lincoln replied basically “That sounds like dumb idea to me, but they are the professionals. So sure”

    The result was the Red River failed Red River campaign that afterward Halleck blamed General Banks for.

  39. 39.

    Betsy

    @WaterGirl: I remember a sign about unaccompanied children, but can’t quote it.

    Off topic: Do any of the front pagers remember posting about a YouTuber who characterized men as submissive?  It wa a month or so ago.  She had some awesome content about gender and I’d  like to go back and look at it.

    I think YouTuber, but she might’ve been  an Instagrammer or something.

  40. 40.

    Chet Murthy

    @M31:

    I don’t want this thread to become a rehash of stuff that has been so hashed it’s become that pink slime chicken nugget paste,

    amen to that.  I don’t mean this to be taken the wrong way, but I am past wanting to discuss or read about this thing that we are not going to talk about in this thread. I’m just done with it.  None of us have any effect on it, it will be decided regardless of what we think or do, and we will simply have to live with the consequences.  I made a plan long before the debate for what I planned to do this yearfor the election, And I have not changed it.  Since I know what I’m going to do and I’m doing it, I’m just going to ignore all this noise.

    Sadly, prickly pear, porn star name, and the other one are probably going to beset us for quite a bit longer. Oh well.  It’s good we have the pie filter.

  43. 43.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @geg6: I have no idea who Mr. Beast is.

    He is a YouTube personality who makes his name giving money and property to poor folk. I don’t know where the money comes from, I’m guessing YouTube or Bitcoin .

    Other names on the list include Condoleeza Rice, Ben Sasse, Liz Cheney, Robert Gates, and Stanley McChrystal. Y’know, the exact sort of people we want determining the future of Democrats.

  51. 51.

    geg6

    So John, is Joelle coming for a visit any time soon?  And either way, any chance of puppy pics?  I miss seeing Thurston.

  54. 54.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @geg6: Zendaya made the list, though. I know nothing about her politics, but this is one name on the list I rather like.

    Reading the memo, it doesn’t look like they took the actual step of reaching out to any of these individuals.

    ETA: Mr. Beast honestly doesn’t seem like a bad guy. He recently caught my attention for standing up for a trans member of his production team.

    Doesn’t mean he should be front and center in a closed process to choose the D nominee.

  56. 56.

    NotMax

    Question for the techies. Have a Samsung tablet (5, maybe 6 years old) which I previously brought along on the annual NY trips. Last year luggage was so stuffed I decided against it*, so it’s essentially been sitting unused, not switched on for two years.

    Checked out yesterday if it would take a charge after such an extended period of being ignored, It does and tops out at 100%. Do y’all think that battery might be okay enough to hold a charge for everyday use if I take it along this year?

    *Besides the cell phone brought along a different phone (one not compatible with U.S. carriers) with a larger, crisper screen as an entertainment device.

  57. 57.

    zhena gogolia

    @geg6: I’m beginning to think crypto is behind every nook and cranny of this thing. That’s all I’m going to say — I had a blissful day and I’m not going to spoil it.

  58. 58.

    Martin

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Its money either from patrons or his YouTube ad revenue. He makes about $3M a month. It’s basically exploitative philanthropy. But if you want to reach a lot of young people and non-political voters, it’d be a good venue. Can’t really imagine he’d risk his audience base by taking a political position though.

  61. 61.

    White & Gold Purgatorian

    @Another Scott:  Thank you. I’ve been ignoring those “your account will be deleted” emails for ages, but your comment moved me to finally be proactive and ask them to delete it. And it didn’t matter that the password is long forgotten, they sent a one time login. After refusing to agree to their new policy, it takes you right to the account deletion procedure.

  62. 62.

    Martin

    @zhena gogolia: There’s some crypto out there, but it’s not as much as people make it out to be. But it’s new to the space and it has its own agenda, so it does complicate things.

  65. 65.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @BR:

    They really are talking about Oprah and Mr. Beast the youtuber hosting forums with random Dem candidates.

    Assuming the article is correct, also potential moderators like noted Democrats Republicans like Ben Sasse, Condolezza Rice, Liz Cheney, evangelical mega church leader Rick Warren, as well as Bernice King, who’s been a huge anti-LGBTQ+ activist, and anti-LGBTQ+ Evangelistic mega church, T.D. Jakes.

    No fucking thank you.

  67. 67.

    Jackie

    @Eyeroller:

    I saw that Trump was at a rally in Michigan with no bandage at all and a fully intact right ear.

    We know the yuuuge bandage was theater, but I thought for sure he’d milk it for as long as possible, shrinking the bandage size over time, before abandoning it completely.

    A golden opportunity to milk his base as long as possible for sympathy $$ lost.

  70. 70.

    Layer8Problem

    We’ve been watching The Bridge on MHz and just finished the second series.  Pretty engaging although the murdering’s a little too diabolically clever by half.  We’re also watching season 5 of Veep, which pushes all my sarcasm buttons in a happy way, much less earnestly reverential than The West Wing.  And week by week enjoying the long overdue fourth series of Babylon Berlin, f— you very much Netflix.

    Earlier today somebody mentioned 2000’s The Dish as a good film for the day.  Does anyone know which service might have it?  I know Amazon does, but they want money.

  71. 71.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Chet Murthy: I have not. I’m writing the title in my journal right now, while simultaneously eyeing the 33% of my library that remains unread.

  73. 73.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @brendancalling: Sounds amazing. Yet to find a jambalaya recipe I’ve been happy with. The rare thing I prefer to get from a restaurant.

  75. 75.

    Jacel

    @Sister Golden Bear: That Herb Alpert video is just amazing. Apart from coordinating all the people in this, how did they get satisfactory results from one camera in that unbroken succession of indoor/outdoor conditions?

    Here’s some more Herb Alpert footage, back in the TJB days (1967), in a production celebrating that their A&M studio had been Charlie Chaplin’s studio.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOmKy6ANmyM

  77. 77.

    Chet Murthy

    @Jacel:  i don’t know anything about filmmaking, and I’m sure not qualified to judge, but it sure looked like at the point when the camera zooms in on the guy in front of the door and then when it zooms back out all the people who were behind the door in the room behind him have disappeared; I thought to myself:This has to be more than one take.  But I could be wrong.  I just don’t see how they got all those people out of the room so quickly.

  82. 82.

    mrmoshpotato

    Chicago’s annual cicadas can shut the fuck up and die already.  That is all.

  86. 86.

    tam1MI

    @M31:

    About the circulating memo: here is an article on Semafor with more concrete information, including a link to what purports to be the actual memo

    Seems to be the product of “Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks and venture capitalist Ted Dintersmith”, and while they say it is ‘circulating’ among “top Democrats”, as far as I can tell, top Democrats didn’t write it.

    I don’t want this thread to become a rehash of stuff that has been so hashed it’s become that pink slime chicken nugget paste, but I will say that this is a deeply unserious crock of shit.

    ::Reads the memo::

    ::Blinks twice::

    ::Sits down::

    This has GOT to be some sort of prank, right?

    Right?

  88. 88.

    chrisanthemama

    @Sister Golden Bear: That’s really cool, and thank you.  I’d guess that’s Mr. Herb Alpert his own self as the bus-driver, the guy in the barbershop, and the bartender.  Tracking shots rock!

  89. 89.

    Juju

    You look good. Joelle knows stuff. I’m just curious, how weird or creepy do you think we are here that we would look that closely to see your iced coffee in the corner of your mouth?  I do like you, but I’m not obsessed.

  90. 90.

    Rusty

    This is my blog home but I was a regular reader, and very occasional commenter at LGM.  No more LGM.  The blog hosts have completely lost their minds, and are piling on Cheryl Rofer which is the last straw.  There has always been an asshole element there with hosts and commenters,  but it is really too much now.

  91. 91.

    eversor

    Niece made purple yam tempura french fries for us and they are great.

    Then the politics talk turned odd.  As a young female POC she’s not voting Democratic.  Israel must go.  Like gone.  The region must be turned into Palestine.  And Jews the world over must be made pay reparations permanently to support this.  Because this is helping solve the problem of whiteness.  And if Trump gets elected and destroys America it’s just because imperialism and support of Israel.

    I’m still sort of “you’re going to school at Georgetown living an apartment I pay for, you’ve never served, let alone seen combat, you know shit about shit”.

  92. 92.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Another Scott: ​

    Meanwhile, … NotMax? Photographers out there?

    This is gonna be fun. I tried to login to my Photobucket account, and finally the email address it recognized was a yahoo.com account I probably haven’t even logged into in five years, and haven’t actively used since the aughts. So that’s the account that would have been getting any warning messages. I guess I have to see if I can log into the Yahoo account, and then I’ll be able to log into Photobucket and delete the account.​

  94. 94.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Geminid: They’re getting torn to shreds in the comments too. Seems like a good opportunity to say how proud I am of Trae Crowder.  He jumped briefly on the palace coup bandwagon.  When his commenters weren’t having it, he showed some humility and changed course.

  95. 95.

    Layer8Problem

    @Rusty:  I haven’t been there for three days, since I decided I was done with them.  What did they do to Rofer?  She, Shakezula, Nussbaum, and Nelson ought to just give up and open their own blog.

  96. 96.

    eversor

    @geg6:

    Republicans are gold bugs crypto is another level of stupid.

    The key to grasping the cyrpto craze is 2008.  Not just the crash but then Obama bailing out the rich and letting  everyone else sink.  Then his push for a grand bargain to slash social security at which point quotes came out from before he ran for president where he was openly talking about the need to cut social security.  Some of the shit Obama said could have come out of Paul Ryans mouth.

    It’s born out of people who do not trust the system.

    What’s needed is removing the caps on the taxes for social security and having a quality UBI program.  It needs to fucking happen.

  98. 98.

    tam1MI

    @Rusty:This is my blog home but I was a regular reader, and very occasional commenter at LGM.  No more LGM.  The blog hosts have completely lost their minds, and are piling on Cheryl Rofer which is the last straw.  There has always been an asshole element there with hosts and commenters,  but it is really too much now.

    I wonder if it would be possible for the blog hosts here to reach out to her and invite her back here.

  100. 100.

    Soprano2

    @BR: That is INSANE. Whatever you think about this issue, I can’t believe anyone thinks that’s a good idea.

  102. 102.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Maybe both. It’s the weekend, after all.

    Go batshit crazy and add strawberries!

  104. 104.

    Jackie

    @Jacel: Thanks for sharing! My mom and I had a hate relationship, but the ONE thing we loved  together was Herb Albert and TTB. Along with Al Hirt and the Big Band Era music. She played trumpet as a girl and I did, too. Back when playing brass and percussion in marching bands was cool😎

  108. 108.

    Origuy

    Cheryl does have her own blog. I believe she was duplicating what she posted at LGM at that one. Most recently she was dissecting the State Department section of Project 2025.

    Nuclear Diner.

  109. 109.

    laura

    @Jackie: Herb Alpert is out on tour. I’ve got tickets to see him in October. He does a storytelling/music show along with his wife of 60+ years. She was a backup singer for Sergio Mendez and Brazil 66. October’s gonna be lit: Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Herb Alpert and Tom Jones all in a single week of musical delights.

  110. 110.

    Rusty

    @WaterGirl: Most of the blog hosts there have gone full dump Biden.  (And went whole hog on Biden has Parkinson’s).  She wrote a post saying that for women and other minority groups, the risk calculus is different and could want to stay with Biden.  Paul Campos basically said she should leave, and he showed up in another thread to dump all over her again.  Yeah, I don’t see any need to be part of that kind of crap.

  111. 111.

    Soprano2

    @eversor: My grandma had a sour cherry tree in her yard. One year I picked and pitted a gallon of cherries and made a couple of pies. Mmm, they were good. I miss that tree, the property was finally sold long after she died.

  114. 114.

    Jackie

    @laura: Cool! I’ll have to see if he tours anywhere close by!

    Tom Jones…. 😂 My mom had such a crush on him… She and dad got to see him in Vegas probably 35 +/- yrs ago.

  119. 119.

    Joelle

    @Old School: “Haircut: very Textured on top. Short and tapered on sides and back. Full Beard, square jawline, closer on sides tapering into full chin.”  Gave an inspo photo for each: haircut and beard.  Also I picked out the mirrored cop shades. You’re welcome!

  120. 120.

    Princess

    I’d love to see Cheryl Rofer posting here again, even if what she’s doing is just reposting. Yes, we’re profoundly unserious and never saw a comment thread we wouldn’t derail, which I guess she dislikes. But not all of us are assholes, which has to count for something.

  123. 123.

    NotMax

    @Layer8Problem

    Sarcasm? MHz? Give Parlement a try. Light, but deft, satire.

    Oh, and The Dish apparently is not currently included with streaming on any of the usual (or unusual) services.

  125. 125.

    NotMax

    Dunno how that happened. Citation fix.

    @Layer8Problem

    Sarcasm? MHz? Give Parlement a try. Light, but deft, satire.

    Oh, and The Dish apparently is not currently included with streaming on any of the usual (or unusual) services.

  129. 129.

    Grover Gardner

    @Soprano2: When we moved into our house here in Southern Oregen 17 years ago, the original owner, an elderly widow, had sour cherry trees and a plot of rhubarb in the back yard.  Wonder what those were for! ;-)

  130. 130.

    tam1MI

    @Ohio Mom: I would advise them to tell there niece that if Trump gets elected it will be Palestine and the Palestinians who are wiped off the face of the map.

  133. 133.

    Anonymous At Work

    Amen, man.  Hair: You have to deal with it but don’t see it, while others have to see it but not deal with it.

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