I like this meme because it expresses how random life is:
Some neighbors down the road were repairing their fence in the blazing heat this afternoon, and I mentioned it to my husband. He probably took it as a mild form of nagging because our fence also needs repair.
He said, “Won’t they feel like idiots if the hurricane comes and knocks it down.”
Yeah. They probably would.
Missed a lot of news over the weekend due to holiday activities, and I’m catching up now. OMFG. Hurry the hell up, Mr. Mueller.
Thread open for randomness.
Suzanne
I had a Trump-free weekend, insofar as that is possible. Didn’t watch TV, tried to stick to puffy internet, etc. it was great.
I made some new body butter, and I have slathered it on my feet, wrapped my feet in Saran Wrap, then socks, and now I’m trying to sleep. AAAAHHHH THIS IS WEIRD.
Major Major Major Major
Lol, I’ve seen the fish one before but had forgotten about it.
Randomness?
– A nice twilight panorama of the East River
– I’m very pleased with how the title card for the next chapter of my comic turned out.
– A good read about the effort to archive internet memes as part of the folklore of our times
Lalophobia
You know those half-hearted arguments about whether Pence would be better than 45 should impeachment happen?
Weeeellll….
Also, according to Politico, (yeah, I know) Obama wouldn’t take DACA going down lightly.
jl
The friends-of-fish-killed-by-lightning-strike community is deeply offended.
As far as I know right now, that consists of me, but there are more. We are legion. I just know it.
What did those 6 fish in particular do, in particular?
Ruckus
@jl:
They got in the way.
Or
They pissed off mother nature in some fashion.
Your choice.
CZanne
Stayed indoors. We gots smoke haze, yes indeed. Also, driving as little as possible. Tomorrow I’ll go dump some yard waste at municipal compost, then go check the closet/office for confused students (project ends in December, I am not taking on a work study for 3 months, but apparently my project is on the list…) and the paper spam the department and Uni send at beginning of term, then back to work.
Instead of being responsible, I sorted sewing tools and material all weekend, played with Twitter, and realized I have Senioritis. I’m checking out on this project because, as good as it is, a competing project (with less thoroughly excellent data) hit press before us, so will get the funding and attention. I know their work is good enough and it’s the right path, so I’m good with them getting the likely go. Whatever gets us to the treatment protocol fast. I haven’t found funding for a next, so… I think I’m going full-time Independent/meta as of January. I may go offer data services to political campaigns, or doxx Nazis. Don’t know yet. Sigh. I like the research. I hate writing begging letters.
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: Pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to sleep with Saran Wrap on my feet! Heck, I’m wide awake now without partial plastic mummification!
One time on a road trip, we had car trouble in a tiny, god forsaken town in N FL and were forced to rent a motel room for the night. The desk clerk appeared to check us in, and he was wearing bread bags on this arms, secured at the elbow by rubber bands.
He was answering my questions about where we might find ice and food, gesturing, etc., as if it were perfectly normal that he had Wonder Bread bags on his arms. I felt I was owed an explanation, but none was forthcoming.
It has remained a mystery for nearly 20 years. But now I realize he was probably just moisturizing!
@Major Major Major Major: Nice! I agree memes should be preserved. They really are a snapshot of the zeitgeist.
martian
Yeah. I was just over at Weather Underground ’cause I can’t sleep. Now I’m *really* anxious. Evacuating Houston would have been pretty impossible, so, how would evacuating Florida work out? Holy fucking shitballs, Irma is a monster. I’m sure you’re figuring things out Betty. Hope the next few days doesn’t see you and yours piled in a car heading north with offended chickens flapping about your ears.
I hate pinning my hopes on Mueller. I remember the Fitzmas that wasn’t.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Suzanne:
Some kind of infection involved with this?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature(to tie in with the last post).
jl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: And there are, I suppose, some ‘good’ people among the anti-fishists..
gene108
I could sleep, but I don’t want to. Binging watching on Netflix. Bad idea, as I need to be at work*, but fuck it…
*Edit: Later this morning.
?BillinGlendaleCA
I took my IR equipped camera to the local photography meetup on Sunday; I’ve posted a few IR pics, they seem to be impressed.
Frankensteinbeck
@jl:
They know what they did.
TenguPhule
A watched special prosecutor never comes to a boil.
TenguPhule
SIDEBAR of BJ IS ADVERTISING FOR DONALD TRUMP.
MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP!!!
Jay S
@Frankensteinbeck: LGBT fish, I am sure.
sukabi
@?BillinGlendaleCA: think it’s code for p0rn.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@sukabi: Isn’t everything code for porn?
mai naem mobile
I was on Weather Underground as well. They’re saying there’s an 80 % chance of Irma hitting Fl. and it’s the biggest one since Andrew. Jeezus. I know there’s lot of non believers on BJ but,man, I think god is trying to send a message. Not sure what the message is but 2 huge storms this close together?? I don’t remember that happening before.
Adrift
@mai naem mobile: It’s a convenient excuse for Pat Robertson to declare the immorality of the USA. Shame he wasn’t the one struck by lightning.
opiejeanne
@CZanne: We spent very little time outside today; too hot and too smoky here. Supposed to be 99 in Seattle tomorrow. I may camp out downstairs with a fan and a book.
opiejeanne
@mai naem mobile: God’s telling us to stop global warming.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@opiejeanne: The kid’s flying up there this morning, sounds like she sent our weather ahead of her.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: When I was a kid I had really bad eczema. I mean horrific. When I took my blood soaked socks off at the end of the day half my skin came with them. The regimens of ointments and soaking baths etc were multiple times a day and different ones at different times. Among the things I had to deal with was sleeping with, yes, saran wrapped legs and arms slathered in ointments with plastic bags over my feet and socks on my hands (so I could not scratch in my sleep, which I somehow managed to do anyway as was evidenced by the bloodied sheets).
The very idea of doing that voluntarily puts my teeth on edge. MY SKIN WANTS AIR!!!!!
OzarkHillbilly
@mai naem mobile: 2005, Katrina (NO) was followed up by Rita (TX-LA) then followed by Wilma (southern FL). It was a very busy season.
OldDave
@OzarkHillbilly: 2005 answered the question “How do they name the storms after W?” The answer was use the Greek alphabet. So we had Hurricane Beta, TS Gamma, etc.
I don’t want another year like that, thankyouverymuch.
Gvg
@mai naem mobile: 2004 Atlantic hurricane season had 15 named storms, 9 became hurricanes. 4 hit Florida. I think 8 formed in August with 5 becoming hurricanes then September was almost as active per wiki. The last one was in December which was well past the usual end of hurricane season. The cartoonists had a field day with the Florida jokes. 2005 was even more intense overall though I don’t think as many hit the US, that was Katrina and Rita. Wiki also says 2012 was active.
How soon people forget.
Global warming gets blamed but there are other factors. Pre 1970’s Florida was hit regularly going on records back to Spanish settlement. Then there was about a 30 year drought in Africa which was related to hurricanes dropping off. This coincided with an internal immigration to the south and Florida caused by air conditioning getting affordable and common. People built on the coasts. Insurance companies and scientists did try to tell people but after a while their warnings sounded like the boy who cried wolf. Then normal patterns resumed. Andrew was the change.
bystander
@Betty Cracker:
Warding off fleas or bedbugs.
There was a guy in KC who would walk around downtown wearing welding goggles and his face was striped with zinc oxide, war paint-style.
mai naem mobile
@opiejeanne: yeah, thats my thought as well – get our shit together looking after the environment. I definitely was not thinking of some freaking Pat Robertson bigoted message.
The only two really bad hurricanes that are in my memory are Andrew and Katrina. I know there have been plenty of others but they just don’t seem to have been as post apocalyptic looking. Harvey looks awful. Maybe it’s social media. Maybe because I never really paid that much attention to hurricanes before.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: yeah, I started making soap because of my allergies and eczema, and the thought of plastic wrapped around any part of me gives me shudders. My eczema was/is always worse in hot, humid weather so artificially creating that condition would give me a terrible flare up.
satby
@mai naem mobile: one of the other “worst” hurricanes was Camille in 1969, which also struck Waveland MS; approximately near west to where Katrina made landfall. Camille was a cat 5 at landfall.
Suzanne
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I don’t know, it made sense at the time. I meant to say that I tried to stick to non-serious, non-bummer-y stuff. Like I looked at a lot of fail videos and hat patterns.
chopper
@OldDave:
truth is, there was another nameable storm during the 05 season that was only discovered in postseason. had it been noticed at the time, Wilma would have been named Alpha, and we would have had to deal with the issue of retiring a Greek letter. the next super busy season we’d have to skip right over it.
J R in WV
@satby:
We spent my last year in the Navy with my ship in the yards for overhaul, first in Mobile Bay in drydock, the rest in Pascagoula MS at the eastern Litton Yard. I had been to NOLA twice on board the ship who was named after a Navy MOH winner who’s widow lived in NOLsA, annual courtesy call. So I very much wanted to take Mrs J there.
Driving west from Pascagoula along the coastal highway, it was pretty much a mess still from Camille. The most noticable thing wasn’t on the beach to our left, it was to our right. There were ships lodged in the woods inland from the highway!!!
These were not little fishing boats, nor even commercial shrimpers but full sized for 1969 cargo ships, ran into the ground and sitting there like giant dropped toys when dinner call happened. And that, children, is when we learned not fo FQ around with hurricane weather, or any other announced weather hazard, for the experts know whereof they speak when they say “Run Away!” or “Hole up”!
singing truth to power
@Lalophobia: As much as Trump disgusts and amazes me, he is pretty impotent, and I think will be increasingly so. I had fervently hoped for impeachment or resignation before – now I am hoping that he stays in office and completely destroys his brand of politics. I think Pence would have a good chance of achieving more awful things than Trump can.
singing truth to power
@bystander: There was a woman in my tiny hometown who often wore a home-made helmet of aluminum foil. Sometimes she wore it when beheading chickens in her back yard. I still have nightmares.
opiejeanne
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I hope she has fun despite the smoke and heat today.