**** STRETCHES ***
Now that we have this blazingly fast server, I feel as if I really need to stretch out and explore the space. So much to talk about.
First off, because I am hip and cool and on top of all things related to pop culture, I watched my first episode of the Walking Dead on Netflix in the hopes I will get sucked into the series. I particularly like the first scene of the show, because that 8 year old girl with the foaming green mouth and eyes like Michele Bachmann totally had it coming.
We had a touch of excitement yesterday when I woke up and discovered that Zsa Zsa was not in the house and had apparently gotten out Friday night. I would have written about it, but I knew the server would be down and I didn’t want 500 emails/tweets asking me for updates. However, all of Bethany was pleased to watch me drive around town yelling ZSA ZSA out my window. She finally showed up at around 10 pm last night, darted down the hallway into her room, ate, took a crap, and went to bed. She has not even made a move for the door today, so I guess her 20 hour real life adventure made her realize that not every cat has their own damned bedroom with a gate to keep everyone else out.
Currently enjoying my favorite late night tea, Ginger Root Superior from Upton Teas, while burning a touch of lemongrass essential oils. And no, I am neither gay or a metrosexual. Ask the Austin people, and I think they will have my back on this. I just like stuff that tastes good and I need something to help cover the smell of all the piglets. Speaking of, there is some very serious Dr. Doolittle shit going on around here, as there are three dogs and one cat in here with me.
Called Mistermix last night to ask about the server, and it turns out he was hosting a birthday party for some grumpy old man named DougJ. I won’t tell you how old he is, but we’re talking double viagra, statin block, a beaker of atenolol and a blood thinner before sex. Maybe even some amyl. Not to mention, by the time he gets ready, the hour will be up and he will owe another 500 bucks. Regardless, the party folks seemed to be having fun despite the fact that the birthday boy had one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.
Another fine Penguins win tonight, defeating the hated but hapless (this year) Flyers. Think I will finish my tea, let the girls out one more time, put them to bed, and watch another Walking Dead episode.
Citizen Alan
The important thing is that you believe that.
Alison
I’m glad you found Zsa Zsa. Lost pets are the sadness.
Here’s an interesting tidbit:
Chief justice’s lesbian cousin will attend Prop. 8 hearing
David Koch
So how does SCOTUS rule on gay marriage?
I’m betting they legalize to help the Goopers drop/bury the issue, which is killing them with young voters and rich gay contributors.
Comrade Mary
So Doug is one year older than you. Got it.
(Happy birthday, Doug!)
MikeJ
Watching the replay of Malaysian GP. What a battle.
Steeplejack
Good on you, Cole. You sound like you’re in a good place.
Zsa Zsa seems to be in a rebellious-teenager phase, climbing out her window late at night to party with the bad boys. If you confront her she’ll just scream at you: “I hate you! I hate you! You don’t understand anything about me! And your music sucks!” Keep telling yourself she’ll grow out of it.
I’m going to bed early–in a few minutes, in fact–because I have to drive to BWI tomorrow for a trip to Las Vegas. Business, not pleasure. Well, “family business”–getting my ticket punched for some quality time with my aged, leaning-right mother and my full-on teabagger gun-nut younger brother. Good times.
Oh, yeah, and we’re supposed to get 2-3″ of snow tomorrow morning. Driving to the airport will be fun.
SatanicPanic
That first episode of Walking Dead was awesome. The first season overall was pretty good.
suzanne
I hope someone puts that shit on YouTube. Comedy gold right there.
You do know cats don’t come when you call them, right?
My husband just informed me that it is apparently OK with the Catholic Church to eat puffin during Lent.
Origuy
Cole’s not giving us a pet picture tonight so I guess I will. This is my Moscow hostess Luda with Zhusha, Tisha, and Juma.
srv
If he bills himself as a younger Patrick Kennedy then like you, MM, ABL, Timmeh are all about 20 years younger than the median commenter.
Violet
So glad Zsa Zsa got home safely.
Happy Birthday, DougJ!
suzanne
Yes, DougJ! HAPPY HAPPY!!!
John O
I am 14 for 16 in my ESPN pool, putting me easily in the top 1% of the country.
Next week will be where the rubber meets the road. If OR beats L’ville, and Syracuse beats IN, I’m going to be tough if FL wins.
A few too many ifs to count, for sure, but…
Batocchio
Happy trolling by John of Doug’s happy birthday!
BGinCHI
Doug, happy 75th!
karen marie
How come I can’t get here straight on — by going to http://www.balloon-juice.com — but instead had to get here through the lexicon via google and then clicking on a “recent comment” in the side bar?
Alison
@karen marie: Hm, no problems like that on my end. Clear your cache?
AnneW
Three dogs and one cat? Has someone had a trans-species operation?
Yutsano
@Origuy: PUPPEHS!! Or more appropriate, собакы!!
YellowJournalism
Happy Not-So-Secret Birthday, DougJ!
You old coot.
ulee
Zsa Zsa is terrible name. Horrible. How about Zoe or Alison or anything a just a little less horrible.
Johnny Coelacanth
@AnneW: We prefer “species reassignment.”
ulee
Sorry, John. I thought I was banned so I wrote something stupid and obnoxious. I apologize. Zsa Zsa is a good name. Alison is a nice name. got a good ring to it.
ruemara
Gave up on Walking Dead, because I hated everyone. Ever thought about finding how the cats get out and fixing it? Because that is way too much stress.
danielx
Keeping me company when I was sick and losing 26 lbs…they were a comfort.
Comrade Mary
@karen marie: You need to make sure your DNS cache is cleared. If regular cache cleaning doesn’t work, check here for a method that works with your operating system.
ulee
Just listened to Alison by Elvis Costello. Good song. Good name.
Irish Steel
Criminy, it started bucketing down snow @ 3am last night here in the middle of the Land Of Lincoln and it has scarce let up.
If I don’t hear from arguingwithsignposts or normal liberal by morning, I’m sending out the basenjis.
Pooh
Florida Gulf Coast University is what would happen if a Gulf State’s sovereign wealth fund decided to open a college in the US. I love that place.
ulee
Did he leave your pretty fingers lying in the weddding cake? Sometimes I wish that I could stop you from talking when I hear the silly things that you say. My aim is true.
suzanne
Did I miss a thread discussing (dissecting?) the upcoming aesthetic/visual changes to the site?
Because, once again, I would like to voice my support for the illustration of the man with the top hat and the big, lovely post numbers.
ulee
Alison. I know this world is killing you. Hang in there. Don’t let idiots like me fuck it up for you.
Ash Can
Weren’t you just driving all over town yelling “ROSIE” out your car window a couple of days ago? And yelling “TUNCH” not too long ago too? You and the menagerie must be a town legend by now.
Also too,
Um, how would you know all that?
PS: Happy birthday DougJ!
Higgs Boson's Mate
Happy birthday, Doug J!
moderateindy
Finished watching the IL vs Miami game and noticed that many of the questionable calls came from one ref who happened to be an older white dude, including a badly blown call late that gave Miami the ball back with a 2 point lead. Being pissed, and looking for conspiracy theories for the loss, my brother and I actually came up with something that we thought plausible, not really for this game but in general.
I don’t care what you say, all refs have biases that affect their judgement. Even though most aren’t intentionally biased, their attitudes toward particular coaches or athletes or teams etc color the way the perform. While racism used to run rampant, especially in sports like basketball in years past, on the higher level the teams are all so totally integrated that I doubt racism is very prevalent as a source of bias against a particular teams these days.
Consider, however; the extreme hatred today’s conservatives have toward anyone or thing they perceive as liberal, or Democratic. In much of the conservative community, the mindset is that anything, or anyone that seems democratic is in fact an enemy that must be defeated. I have no doubt that a modern conservative of today officiating a sport involving a team from a godless state like IL or NY or MA would express a bias against a team that they determine to be part of the godless socialist/communist regions that are destroying our country. It has been so ingrained into the conservative psyche that blue states are evil that I don’t see how that wouldn’t translate into bias. Just so there are no false equivalencies, the same wouldn’t hold true for liberal refs against teams from red states as liberals don’t tend to have the same visceral hatred for all things even remotely linked to Republicans.
The prophet Nostradumbass
I goddamn hate the Pittsburgh Penguins. Half the games in the “national” coverage on the NBC Sports Network feature that team, usually playing either the Flyers or the Capitals. Actually, fuck all three of those teams. I’m sick of them.
About the Walking Dead: I like that show too, I’m getting through the second season right now on Netflix.
NotMax
Dollars to doughnuts there’s an app for that.
PurpleGirl
Happy Birthday, DougJ.
Ulee: ZsaZsa is the perfect name for the new cat. She is floofy and has a very fluffy tail. She’s positively glamorous and has a certain attitude. ZsaZsa fits.
Opie_jeanne
@danielx: I had three darlings that kept me company while I was in a similar situation, sick from treatment for Hepatitis C. I don’t hav pix of all three together because my girl didn’t get along with the boys.
karen marie
@Comrade Mary: @Alison: Thanks. Cleared it. Phew!
Yes, the upgrade is indeed, as they say, zippy.
TriassicSands
The series takes place in Georgia, I believe, so there were plenty of Republicans to cast as zombies and lots of very satisfying ‘sploding zombie heads. Unfortunately, just like in real life, the Republicans/zombies do a lot of damage. It turns out that the resemblance of Modern Republicans to zombies is uncanny. The only real differences are that the zombies are better looking and make more sense.
Amir Khalid
Here is a review of the Les Misérables movie musical on disc. Note that it is from the campus newspaper of the University of Texas at Arlington.
Opening sentence:
Facepalm.
JenJen
Go Pens!! Streak should be getting way more attention than it is.
mai naem
WTF. How come we weren’t invited to this party? Do we embarrass y’all or something?
PeakVT
Now here’s something crazy: Krugthulu, after having looked at the data, is now okay with capital controls.
Unfortunately, the Very Serious Persons won’t agree with him for a couple of decades.
Anne Laurie
@suzanne:
Ah, so puffin — like goose — is liturgically classified as a fish. The medieval argument was that snow geese grew from gooseneck barnacles, since ‘nobody’ (south of the Arctic Circle) ever saw snow geese nests & those birds hadda come from somewhere. Puffins nest in holes, which is obviously non-bird behavior. According to the only person I’ve ever met who’d actually eaten a puffin, it tasted like a firm-textured fish anyways, not that that matters when it comes to religious ritual…
@AnneW:
I’m guessing that John’s brother’s dog Ellie is still staying with John, who didn’t include Zsa Zsa in the tally because she’s not hanging with the gang, she’s sleeping off her latest binge.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
Explore the space, Gene! Explore the space!
Betty Cracker
I hope you get sucked into the Walking Dead! I did, and misery loves company. There’s only one show left in this season, but if you get good and sucked in now, perhaps we can have a BJ WD Discussion Society next season.
Higgs Boson's Mate
The Walking Dead started out so well that I watched several episodes in sequence. Hmmmm. Maybe a mistake there, maybe it’s better sipped. The show seemed to me to evolve into a soap opera with zombies. Neat concept, decent acting though. No, I’m not inclined to watch it any more.
amk
Happy b’day dougj aka perennial blog troll. May you miss the banana peel.
Your mom sent ZsaZsa to you for a purpose, cole. (hint, hint, ditch the fucking car and use your fucking feet).
Valdivia
happy bday DougJ you don’t look a day over 70! :)
gogol's wife
@Origuy:
Beautiful sobachki. Where in Moscow are you?
johnny aquitard
I am content to quote without comment.
YAFB
This just bears out my long-held view that when naming a pet, you should always take into consideration how you’ll feel yelling it while wandering around your ‘hood dressed in night attire at ungodly hours, and how you’ll explain the situation to a cop patrol should one pass by.
It could have been worse. Old neighbors of ours had a herd of cats named after a cocktail cabinetful of alcoholic drinks. I can still clearly recall the ladylike bellows of “WHISKY!!!!” resounding around the block at bedtime.
Then there were the people I once shared a house with, who adopted a frisky labrador already named Blackie.
All well and good until you have to call it back repeatedly across a busy park in a multiracial area.
Garbo
@johnny aquitard: ISWYDT, kudos.
Origuy
@gogol’s wife: I’m back in California now. I was staying near the Skhodnenskaya metro station. Luda is the friend of my friend Natasha’s mother.
gogol's wife
@Origuy:
Как вы съездили? Did you get to see some good things?
steverino
An astute person will notice that the cat will show up at the door by itself when it is ready to come in.
My outdoor cats I trained to come when I whistled for them (yell name, then whistle– they associate the two), and they’d come, but of course not come in. Had to trick them: when they show up, ignore ’em, and they’d eventually come over to be petted. Then you snag them. Worked every time.
kc
@Betty Cracker:
Yes, please!
Origuy
@gogol’s wife: I hit most of the main sights: St Basil’s, Kremlin Armory Museum, the Kremlin churches, the Pushkin and Tretyakov. One day we took the train to Sergiev Posad and saw the monastery. I saw a lot of the metro as my friend was staying with her mother on the other side of Moscow, so we would meet somewhere in the middle. I read enough Russian to be able to get around okay.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
” One day we took the train to Sergiev Posad and saw the monastery.”
Sergiev Posad is very beautiful. Lovely forests in that area too.
Russians are very hospitable, but, at least decade or so ago, had the weirdest attitudes to sex imaginable. You couldn’t say “huix” (cock) with a woman around, but a woman gynaecologist I knew there (and went to the armory with) said the thing she hated was scraping out her patients for the eighth or ninth time, but that it was impossible to talk about contraception with her patients. Also, despite her being married, she was constantly being hit on by friends (also married) at parties because when she talked about her work, the guys thought because she was talking about ladyparts she was coming on to them. And, almost every single married person I knew there was cheating on their spouses, probably because they married young to get apartments or permits to live in Moscow.
Strange place. Maybe more prosperity and contact with the outside has changed it for the better.
ArchPundit
Who knew that getting old turns you into Frank Booth.
Get ready to fuck! You fuckers fucker! You fucker!
gogol's wife
@Origuy:
I love Sergiev Posad.
manhattanite
Zsa Zsa has you trained already, has she not?
Sandia Blanca
Yes, Austin person has John’s back on the not-gay, not-metrosexual claim. But he doesn’t run around in overalls, either.