FDR gives Steve Rogers his shield, an image that is about the most America there can be pic.twitter.com/IZtyeQv1pK
— Eric Rauchway (@rauchway) July 4, 2015
Certainly, “If only the accident that produced it could be duplicated!” is about the most Fourth-of-July-in-America comment ever…
Baud
In Real America, the president would cut Steve Rogers’ taxes so he could buy a shield on the free market.
Germy Shoemangler
Major Major Major Major
Should I go see Jaws at the castro theatre this evening? Never seen it on the big screen.
Baud
@Germy Shoemangler:
The Village will be thrilled with Jeb!’s seriousness. But will primary voters?
Keith G
@Major Major Major Major: Jaws at the Castro…Hmmm
Germy Shoemangler
@Baud: I honestly don’t know. Are repub primary voters as distrustful of the village as we are? The base wants someone more zesty and full-bodied than ¡Jeb!, I imagine.
Mike J
@Major Major Major Major: This is not the time or place for some sort of half-assed autopsy on a fish!
Big screen sounds fun.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major: Good sound system and big screen. Oh my, yes.
Baud
@Germy Shoemangler:
I think GOP primary voters still believe in the liberal media.
Germy Shoemangler
@Brachiator: After years of CGI, the original jaws shark may look too obviously like a big rubber puppet. But Spielberg knew how to build tension, and keeps us from seeing too much of him.
Tree With Water
If published pre-Hiroshima, it can thought of as an oddly prescient construct of a brave new world that loomed right around the corner. Unfortunately, the shield is also a boomerang… and whatever happened to the radioactive spider that bit Peter Parker?
the Conster
Whomever said they were going to start watching the Rectify marathon today in an earlier thread, thanks for the heads up. I’m recording it, even though I watched it when it was first on. Best show on television that no one’s seen, and I hope whoever you are sticks with it because it’s slow. Slow and deep and amazing, with a LOT to say. The actor who plays Daniel is a revelation.
justawriter
“My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”
Carl Schurz, 1872
The trouble with conservatives is they can’t read past the first five words.
Tree With Water
@Baud: No, in the real world the shield would instead be a the most awesome USAF drone attack system ever constructed, light years ahead of any such weapon system the world has ever seen…. and the captain would be in need of psychiatric counseling within a year.
schrodinger's cat
Happy 4th
ruemara
@Major Major Major Major: why the heck not?
I’m prepping the gifts for the house, the schedule for Comic-Con, the cab financing, dried food for healthy, cost-effective con eatin’. 4 days! So, anyone want to do an SD mini-meetup?
Chris
Steve Rogers: American Liberal.
@justawriter:
They can read past them; it’s just that in their world, “set right” means “cleansed of every extension of rights beyond what the Founders left us.”
Steeplejack
@Baud:
A congressional inquiry would show later—too late to affect anything—that the procurement process was spread out to involve 37 states, five (non-union) workers were accidentally killed in the manufacturing process, the shield ended up costing $48 million—and it failed in subfreezing temperatures against “cop killer” bullets that Hydra bought through a Koch subsidiary.
Another Holocene Human
This fucking stoned guy just came up to me complaining that his phone was dead and the intercity bus for ten after had left at ten til. He wanted information and my charger. Maybe this makes me a bad person but he annoyed me so damn much I just told him no. Too fucking stoned to discern for example that my work uniform was not in fact the uniform of the company from which he had bought a ticket. Am I wrong to think ‘serves him right’?
schrodinger's cat
@ruemara: How is your eye?
Baud
@Another Holocene Human:
You were not wrong. John Cole can be so damn annoying sometimes.
Baud
@Another Holocene Human:
Too realistic for comic books.
Germy Shoemangler
@Tree With Water:
Long waiting list due to budget cuts…
Tree With Water
@Germy Shoemangler: Jeb! the patriarch is a moral paragon (R.I.P. Terry Schiavo). His being righteously outraged by Trump’s bigoted remarks is a real profile in courage moment. Which makes his acquiescence with his brother’s plot to war all the more inexplicable.
craigie
@Major Major Major Major:
Ah, youth…
Mike J
@Tree With Water:
What a stupid argument to use against a vile person.
Germy Shoemangler
@Tree With Water: I feel like he’s inevitable.
As much as the primary voters dislike him, I feel like he’ll be the last one standing.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Germy Shoemangler: Gossip (i.e., chatter on MSNBC) is that Obama and his advisors think Walker’s going to win. I have no idea how right wingers think, but I really want to see Poppy and Bar see The Smart One get rejected, especially in favor of some upstart from the hinterlands who never even finished college.
ETA: Just for the record, I”m imagining Bar’s dudgeon, I’ve known too many degree-pedigreed morons to care if Walker has a sheepskin
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Speaking of Scottie, I think the credits he was short at Marquette were in US history
Germy Shoemangler
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Agreed. I never liked Poppy and I detest Bar.
As long as the hinterlands upstart gets his behind handed to him in the general.
And why exactly did he leave college? Shouldn’t Jeb!’s operatives have uncovered that by now? Was there some unethical behavior? Why aren’t Jeb!’s people sharing what they know?
Germy Shoemangler
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: April 15th is when I know my refunds (state and federal) will be heading my way.
I’ve never made enough money in my life to have to grudgingly “write checks to Uncle Sam on the 15th”
the Conster
#CookOutNewsNetwork is hilarious today. My favorite tweet so far.
Randy P
@Germy Shoemangler:
I have heard that was a happy accident, as so many of the best things about our favorite films are. The shark was not working very well and they couldn’t use it as much as they originally wanted to. Very few shots succeeded.
@Major Major Major Major: I’m going to vote yes. Now of course you know what’s coming and that will remove the surprise factor from some crucial scenes. But there’s still a big difference seeing it in the theater from seeing it in a living room.
Back in the day when nobody knew what was coming and that shark suddenly jumped out of the water onto the back (yeah, yeah, stern) of the boat, people in the theater practically fell out of their seats.
Germy Shoemangler
@Randy P: I was in high school when JAWS first came out. I think we knew Spielberg only from that weird tv movie he’d made, about the truck who keeps following a guy. All the low angles in the water, the music, the improvisational acting… we knew were were seeing something special.
I remember thinking at the time that Richard Dreyfus reminded me of a warner bros. cartoon character. But I couldn’t figure out which one… Daffy Duck? Bugs?
If Spielberg were like George Lucas, he would have released an updated version, with the rubber shark replaced with CGI. I’m glad he didn’t.
Major Major Major Major
@Germy Shoemangler: my dad was watching that Duel movie (the truck one) while I was being born. He was eventually yanked out of the waiting room by a very pissed off wife (well, a nurse on her behalf); still hasn’t seen the ending.
Tree With Water
@Major Major Major Major: I saw Jaws in a theatre the summer it was released, and it hit me like a freight train. Few films before or since have ever grabbed me from beginning to end like it, and the big screen probably had a lot to do with it. It had been out for a while by the time I saw it, too, and was raking in the dough. Although I figured it must be good, I still went in with a “show me” attitude. Well, Speilberg did. When that lovely young thing got attacked in the opening scene, I felt as if I’d witnessed it happen in real time. He played my emotions like a violin in that movie, and it was very cool.
Hal
Watching my nephew’s girlfriend leave the house and start walking down the street. Tank top and shorts with sandals. Typical summer wear of young twenty something women. I just witnessed five separate cars of dudes either slow down and or beep their horns as they drove by. Do straight guys really think women find this behavior a compliment?
jacypods
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I read that as Bar’s dungeon — which didn’t strike me as odd at all.
Teaching kids how to grill for July 4th, then fireworks, then games.
On a sad note, started the day off with a funeral. One of my son’s closest friends (15-years-old) shot himself in the head on Wednesday. No idea why, but having a loaded gun lying around the house might have had something to do with it. :(
Germy Shoemangler
Nothing in my opinion beats the experience of a big screen in a theater.
A few years ago we saw Hitchcock’s “Rope” on the big screen; it was like watching a stage play. I felt like I was in the room with the actors.
Germy Shoemangler
@efgoldman: Remember him in “Bewitched” back in the ’60s?
gogol's wife
@Germy Shoemangler:
I’d love to see that on the big screen. I love that flick.
Today I’m immersed in the catalogue for the big Shirley Temple auction that will be in my home town (KCMO) on July 14 (I don’t live there any more, thank goodness, but I wish I did just for that day). She and her mother preserved tons of stuff in perfect condition, all her costumes, dolls, etc. You can pick up her original costume from her breakout role in Stand Up and Cheer for only $20,000+. I wonder if they’re really going to get that much. Objects and dolls aren’t really my thing, but I love having this as the ultimate coffee-table book.
Pogonip
@Hal: Yes, and as long as they restrict it to a beep or two, we do enjoy it. (Not that I’ll ever get beeped again, unless I move to one of those gated geezer communities in Florida where 55 is the youngest chick on the block.)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
There are so many ways those words are disturbing….
gogol's wife
@Germy Shoemangler:
What did he play on that? He visited my class once because his daughter was in it. He kept playing with his cell phone and making it ring.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Not me. The Villagers would be thrilled to pieces to fluff Walker up as a fresh-faced David vs the ebil Clinton Goliath, and it just might stick. They can’t credibly pass Jeb off as new or non-establishment. Better for him to win the nomination and get beaten by a girl. That would frost Poppy and Bar’s flakes without the Koch’s sock puppet get within spitting distance of the Oval.
gogol's wife
@Pogonip:
I never enjoyed it.
Germy Shoemangler
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I don’t know; I’ve never seen him with his shirt off.
gogol's wife
@Betty Cracker:
Yes, I’m more afraid of Walker than of Bush. But I have a tendency to be scared by Republicans more than I probably should be.
Germy Shoemangler
@gogol’s wife: I seem to recall he was a cousin of Samantha’s? Darren found him annoying because he was always popping in and out (like all of her family) but it’s been so many years I don’t remember the details.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: @gogol’s wife: In 2008 I thought Giuliani would at least be a strong primary candidate, and they’d never nominate Weather-Vane McCain, and in 2012 I thought they’d never give it to the flip-flopping Mormon (early on I thought they’d eventually settle on Tim Pawlenty), so that’s my talent for reading Republicans, but Walker seems a lot more willing to be a culture warrior than Bush, though if he’s said anything more about a We Hate Gays Amendment, I’ve missed it.
ETA: Checked wiki to see exactly when T-Paw dropped out
Pawlenty finished third in the Ames Straw Poll on August 13, 2011,[156] behind the winner Michele Bachmann and the runner-up Ron Paul. Before the Ames debate, he took a more aggressive stance against Romney, including the coining the term “Obamneycare”.[157] When pressed by John King during CNN’s June 13, 2011 debate to address why he used the word, he backed off.[158] However, he denied that he backed off.[159] The following day he announced his decision to withdraw from the presidential race.[160] On September 12, 2011, Pawlenty announced his endorsement of former Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, as well as his position as national co-chair for Romney’s campaign.[161] Romney retired over $400,000 of Pawlenty’s campaign debt.[162]
skerry
@gogol’s wife: me either
Tree With Water
@Major Major Major Major: Everyone, and I mean everyone at my school the next day was talking about Duel. I was the only one who thought it an absolutely preposterous plot (“pull the fuck off the road”), and I had turned it off within the first half hour. Tell your dad it was years before I ever saw the ending, and I didn’t miss a thing. It was, and will ever remain, a really dumb movie.
raven
@Tree With Water: Never seen it. We DVR’d it last night but, when I started it this morning, it had commercials so I bailed. I was never very interested until I watched Milieus and they explained that he was brought in to write the Shaw Indianapolis story.
satby
@jacypods: appalling that it was so easy for a distressed teen to end his life that way. Sad.
gogol's wife
@raven:
That’s the best scene.
raven
@gogol’s wife: Milieus is a real winger but, goddamn, he could write.
Germy Shoemangler
Here’s something I didn’t know until recently:
Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey
@Major Major Major Major: For reasons passing understanding, my mother allowed me to read Jaws when I was 11 or so, an act she immediately regretted (“Mommy, what does ‘cocksucker’ mean?”). The movie came out the next summer, and my sister and her friends let me tag along.
That movie fucked me up. I couldn’t watch the whole thing; about midway through I buried my face in my hands and didn’t look up until after the end. I felt physically ill, and when we got home I literally saw sharks swimming under the carpet. I stopped going to the neighborhood pool, had nightmares for weeks, and was deathly paranoid about letting my hands or feet hang off the edge of the bed. Then the Carol Burnett Show did the “Jowls” parody. Take the freshly damaged brain of an 11 year old who was hallucinating sharks swimming under the carpet and suggest they’re in the goddamned plumbing. I had to start taking showers because the thought of sitting in more than an inch of water made me nauseous with fear.
It was close to a decade before I could swim in open water again.
Yes, by all means, watch it on a big screen.
Pogonip
@Tree With Water: In the story, the guy has an urgent appointment to get to so he can’t just check into a hotel till the psycho gets bored and leaves. Major Senior and I are probably the only people on earth who missed the movie.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
In 2008 I was dead certain the election would be Clinton/Giuliani. And I was paying close attention way before the primaries. Obviously I was very wrong on both counts.
This taught me that nobody knows beans until it happens, and the media ginning up a horse race where there isn’t one makes predictions that much more difficult.
So I’m just riding this out until Iowa and NH are over. Then we’ll see. Everything before that is just the TV begging for eyeballs.
WaterGirl
@the Conster: That was Steeplejack.
Another Holocene Human
@Germy Shoemangler: the style of dialogue/acting is what struck me the most about the movie (watched for the first time in the 2000s)
movies now are extremely stylized. you would never have a summer blockbuster where characters casually talk over/into each other’s lines
even screaming matches are unusual
Pogonip
I think Anne should put up the owl-and-the-pussycat video here. It makes you want to run and get an owl AND a pussycat. Especially that pussycat. When she tries to lick her leg and falls over she reminds me of Tunch. (She’s not stoned; she’s just a baby.)
Scratching an owlet’s head results in dangerously high cuteness levels.
Germy Shoemangler
@Another Holocene Human: Agreed. And then when I saw Close Encounters I remember being impressed at how sloppy their house was. Most rooms in the movies before that were always neat and well decorated. It added a level of realism which helped while he molded his mashed potatoes.
Roger Moore
@Germy Shoemangler:
That’s because Spielberg is a good enough filmmaker that he’s still doing new stuff. Lucas hit it big early in his career and has been milking that success ever since.
Another Holocene Human
@Hal: Honking or shouting out of the car is done to a) attract attention i) positive response or ii) negative response, or b) to intimidate/threaten while not actually risking their own ass
It is blatantly aggressive behavior. No need to put a sweet gloss on it.
NotMax
Thought this image from Captain America #1 (first series, 1941) might be amusing.
Aside from the stilted grammar, note the flag has 36 stars and 14 stripes.
@Germy Shoemangler
The swimmer bit first. :)
Another Holocene Human
@Germy Shoemangler: Where can you even find a big screen anymore?
WaterGirl
@ruemara: How is your eye?
Davis X. Machina
@Germy Shoemangler:Fun fact: Richard Dreyfus played Stephen A. Douglas to David Strathairn’s Abe Lincoln in the — so far as I know — only readily available recording of the entire Lincoln-Douglas Debates
I have ’em. Riveting.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@raven:
Most people who were there agree that Milius has somewhat exaggerated his contribution. The story seems to be there were multiple versions written by different writers (including Milius and Carl Gottleib, the primary screenwriter) that Robert Shaw took and synthesized into the final speech. Milius did introduce the idea of Quint talking about being an Indianapolis survivor, but he did not write the final speech.
Germy Shoemangler
@Another Holocene Human: True.
I grew up near two giant movie palaces. I’d sit in the balcony and watch films on these immense screens. It made me the film nerd I am today.
There is a cinema close to my house. Multiplex, but the screens are still big. Just wish they’d turn down the volume a bit.
Pogonip
@Germy Shoemangler: We always liked the set on the Roseanne TV show. It actually looked like kids lived there!
Tree With Water
“Sen. Ted Cruz defended Donald Trump on immigration and called out “the Washington cartel” he says is ignoring the issue, in an interview to be broadcast Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press…”.
Pete Wilson launched similar gratuitously insulting attacks on hispanic Californians, just prior to most Californians turning their backs on the state’s republican party.
Another Holocene Human
@Germy Shoemangler: I think there are toys on the floor in Drew Barrymore’s room in ET….
Of course some movies are open about selling fantasy (and I don’t just mean magic powers), such as Disney’s Escape to Witch Mountain (the original and weirdest).
Another Holocene Human
@Tree With Water: From your lips to God’s ears.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
We’re watching our new Blu-Ray of 1776. Then burgers on the Foreman grill and possibly a hike up into the hills to see if we can spot some fireworks.
WaterGirl
@Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey: I’m so sorry you had to go through all that.
I have to say, though, that you are really good at story telling and it was a pleasure to read your comment. Except for the feeling bad that you went through all that part.
You last line was perfect.
Another Holocene Human
@Pogonip: Roseanne was amazing in portraying blue collar life including the parts TV shied away from — even the Simpsons quickly ran away from themes such as financial difficulties.
People call Roseanne Barr a bitch but if she hadn’t been an unreasonable tyrant with regards to the writing on that show it wouldn’t have been Roseanne. There are dozens of forgettable sitcoms that lasted a season and a half and all ran the same jokes.
Tree With Water
@Germy Shoemangler: All I know is Walker sheds his a few times a year.
Germy Shoemangler
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Why did you stop writing about movies on your blog? I want more insufferable movie snob essays. I’m fascinated with the 1930s era; the comedies especially.
NotMax
@Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey
Mom eschewed showers and took only baths for at least two years after seeing Psycho when it was first released.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey:
I was not allowed to see Jaws, or any other PG-rated movie, until I was around 10 or 11 for exactly that reason. I got way too easily freaked out.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Germy Shoemangler:
I have trouble timing my essays with TCM’s schedule so people can watch the whole film for themselves. Though now that Watch TCM is a thing, I really only have to post within the same month as the movie and not the same week, so I may try to get back to it. Thanks for the kind words and your comment the other day.
bystander
@Tree With Water: I’m guessing the only reason Jeb! marched with Noelle was because she’s holding and promised to share a doob at the end of the walk.
bystander
@efgoldman: Go on allthatchat.com and post that. I’ll hold your hat.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Another Holocene Human: I agree she made it a great show by insisting on showing a real blue collar family, then ruined it in the last season. Kind of like Mel Brooks, she lost all subtlety. She did a comeback stand-up special a few years ago, and her opening line was, “Hello, I’m the train wreck formerly known as Roseanne”, and I give her credit for that. A few months ago she was raising holy hell on twitter (to the extent that twitter can be hell, I guess) accusing the evil sexist corporate whore Obama of stealing her joke about the “fuck it list”
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@efgoldman:
But my husband keeps telling me it’s the greatest musical ever made about the signing of the Declaration of Independence. ?
The restored versions are much better than the original release, and there are a few good songs (especially “Look Sharp” and “Molasses to Rum to Slaves”). Plus Howard da Silva is a hoot as Franklin. It’s no West Side Story, but it has a few charms.
gogol's wife
I finally had the guts to watch Obama’s eulogy for Clementa Pinckney. What a great man he is. How fortunate I am to be living at the same time as he is.
WaterGirl
@Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey: I have still not seen Jaws, The Exorcist, any of the Jason movies or any other movie that was known to be super scary before I had the opportunity to see it.
I did watch Psycho when I was about 6 and that was the last intentionally scary movie I ever saw.
No regrets.
Davis X. Machina
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Saturated the market for ante-bellum political period pieces though. I could never get my musical on the Wilmot Proviso (Proviso!) so much as a read-through. I blame 1776
Great West Side Story-inspired dance/fight between the Hunkers and the Barnburners, too.
Germy Shoemangler
@Davis X. Machina: Timing is everything in this life.
Have you thought of doing a hip-hop version?
Tree With Water
@Mnemosyne (tablet): I had a friend who wasn’t allowed to watch the Three Stooges for just that reason. That, and the fact he had a brother who was a year younger and they would constantly wail on each other. So he watched every episode at my house. Edicts of adults weren’t all that hard to circumvent when you got the knack of it, were they? .. and like most things, the earlier you got started, the better.
John Revolta
@Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey: Good thing nobody told you about the Land Sharks.
Major Major Major Major
@Another Holocene Human: we’ve got some good rep houses in the Bay Area and some cineplexes too, why I saw Inside Out at one just last week.
Roger Moore
@Tree With Water:
Yeah, but Trump has nothing to lose because most Hispanics have already given up on the Republican party nationally. This is what the purity death spiral looks like on the Republican side. They have to gratuitously insult minorities to pander to the racist base, which drives minorities out of the party, making pandering to the base that much more important.
Frankensteinbeck
@Hal:
They think there’s one chance in a million that they’ll get laid, and that’s worth a shot. The slightly more intelligent think that they enjoy focusing on a woman’s beauty, and mean no cruelty, so how could it be a bad thing? If it didn’t blend into a culture of harassment, it probably wouldn’t be, but it does.
John Revolta
@Germy Shoemangler: I recall that that was the first time I had seen product placement in a film- Pepsi cans and such on the table. I found it distracting.
Germy Shoemangler
@John Revolta: At first I was impressed with the realism of it, and then later I realized I’d been had. Nowadays I HATE product placement.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Tree With Water:
My grandmother was a big Vincent Price fan so she took me to see Theater of Blood when it came out in ’73. I’d have been 13 years old. It was R rated, very bloody and very explicitly sexy. We were both kinda shocked but me more than her.
John Revolta
@Davis X. Machina: Wait’ll you see my Kansas-Nebraska Act!!
Tree With Water
@Roger Moore: The difference being Cruz represents the republican party in Texas, as Wilson once did in California. I foresee political repercussions in the Lone Star state- then again, maybe it’s just wishful thinking on my part. Charles Pierce just may have drawn the sharpest bead in pronouncing the Grand Old Party as dead as a dodo, but that’s a whole different equation..
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
More 1776 trivia:
Roger Moore
@Germy Shoemangler:
Product placement isn’t too bad if it’s done unobtrusively. They generally want to use real stuff in the movies, so why not get paid by the brand owner to use one brand instead of another? It’s when they obviously linger on the brand to make it obvious that it gets obnoxious. Of course they can also have fun on the opposite, like the way absolutely everything in Repo Man was generic.
WaterGirl
Is anybody watching Mr. Robot? The reviews are amazingly good, just wondering what real humans think.
schrodinger's cat
@Hal: I don’t, sometimes it can be annoying, at times down right creepy.
Germy Shoemangler
@Pogonip:
For some reason, I always find myself noticing sets. Often, the set decorators get carried away, and the house or apartment is way too fancy and big for the characters.
I’d watch America’s Funniest Videos (for a few moments before switching it off in disgust) and see that most homes are depressing ranch style with white blank walls and beige carpeting. Tiny, low-ceilinged rooms. And fictional houses are all traditional style with natural woodwork and beautiful details.
John Revolta
@Germy Shoemangler: Yeah, I just thought of it as a gimmick. It put me off of Steven King’s books early on too, so I guess it has it’s good points.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Germy Shoemangler: spinning off of the Friends apartments that the younglings on the show could never have realistically afforded in Manhattan, somebody (Slate?) once did an analysis of TV characters, their jobs and their homes and how realistic they were. The only one I remember was Frasier, where they estimated a popular local radio host in Seattle would probably make about $300K/yr, and to afford that apartment, Frasier must have done very well in the stock market.
Pogonip
@Germy Shoemangler: I think of that carpet color as Apartment Beige.
I once rented an apartment with beautiful hardwood floors; the lady showing it said apologetically, “Sorry about the floor, we’ll carpet it at no charge if you want.” !!!! (I HATE carpet and enjoyed the occasional polite beep; I guess I’m a minority!)
Corner Stone
@efgoldman:
It’s been that for a long time.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Mucho liking for the premiere episode (viewed it this past May when A&E put it up on YouTube). Downloaded the 2nd episode but haven’t watched it yet.
Quite a few other folks here have also mentioned that they like it.
Germy Shoemangler
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: And it’s nothing new. I remember reading about the Marx brothers’ movie “A Day At The Races” where the plot is basically about the young lady worrying about getting enough money to save her sanitarium. Of course, being an MGM film, the sets are palatial. One reviewer said the characters’ money problems could all be solved in an instant by selling one of the chandeliers.
Corner Stone
@WaterGirl:
I thought it started pretty ok but jumped really far ahead in the tension development area. There was no need to out Christian Slater in the pilot episode.
They kind of hang around the outside area of technical details, which is good, but the main character has revealed he is way too good already.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Tree With Water:
Oh, I was a major scaredy-cat, so I wasn’t really that upset by the ban. Interestingly, my parents would let me watch old horror movies like “Frankenstein” on TV, I was only banned from seeing them on the big screen.
John Revolta
@efgoldman: Apple polly logies. I don’t click on a lot of links on accounta they often don’t work on my steam-powered computer.
Germy Shoemangler
@Pogonip: I love wood, just love natural wood with varnish. And it pains me that it became the custom some years back to PAINT OVER IT.
I notice on shows like Grimm and others, the houses have such beautiful woodwork, and it is a deep, lovely woodstain. And I look at my house, and some fool years ago decided the wood details were “too dark” and would be improved with a coat of beige paint.
There is a show on tv currently; I can’t remember the name. Two young ladies help people redecorate their homes on a budget. I HATE the show because they always paint over natural wood and brick. They talked one young couple into painting a 100-year-old wood door a shade of purple. And they painted a beautiful red-brick fireplace bright white… “to brighten up the room!”
ruemara
Heys. For those asking, my eye is loads better, thanks to a generous application of antibiotics. Now I look like I’m trying to sexy wink all the time with a cherry on my eyelid. The doctor visit story is epic but deserves to be a comic. Suffice to say, the first prescription was for an antibiotic that cost nearly $500. I have no insurance right now. I asked if it was made of angel foeti and shaved diamonds.
ruemara
@WaterGirl: I gave the second episode a go today while I did my pushups. Strangely engrossing and complicated.
Pogonip
@ruemara: Oh good (that you’re better, not good that you can’t afford to put angel poop on your eye).
Germy Shoemangler
@ruemara:
No, but that’s what the pharmaceutical executives like sprinkled on their steaks, hence the high price.
Pogonip
@Germy Shoemangler: May those women spend eternity with sore eyes and no angel poop. The fiends!
Corner Stone
Oh, shit. Snark Week all next week on We TV.
tybee
@Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey:
pretty funny story.
WaterGirl
@ruemara: Glad to hear your take on the show.
Your prescription really cost $500? Out of pocket???
WaterGirl
@Germy Shoemangler: I wouldn’t be able to watch that.
I love natural wood, unstained. Painting over wood, not good!
gwangung
@Germy Shoemangler: Oh, Hamilton?
John Revolta
@Germy Shoemangler: This is a major pet peeve of mine too. I’ve owned four 1920’s houses and the first thing I do is have the floor guys in for a sanding and refinish. Then I whip out my trusty heat gun and go to town. WOOD!!
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Germy Shoemangler:
It’s not just older homes. My parents custom-built a home in the early 1980s for which my mother hand-picked the pieces of natural cedar used on the exterior. They sold the house 25 years ago and yet my mother resents to this day that the new owners painted all of that handpicked cedar white.
Tree With Water
@Corner Stone: Well, there you go. There’s nothing quite like a blatant, “fuck you” caliber disrespect evinced by politician-or-party that better inspires a people to vote their interests for a change. That’s essentially what happened in California, and people grew revolted by the rabid politics of the state’s republican party…
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@ruemara:
Somehow in the past couple of years my prescription rosacea cream went from $150 a tube to $1,000 for the same size tube. And it’s essentially the same stuff you can buy OTC for a yeast infection (metronidazole).
germy shoemangler
Painting wood. I remember trying to make myself feel better by telling myself it was done everywhere. The last photos of John Lennon, he is posing in his Dakota building apartment, and all the wood trim is painted white. In the Dakota!
Once while doing research I spent hours in the library reading their old (1930s) Time magazines. I noticed quite a few ads and articles providing tips on home decorating. The big thing was “brightening up” a dark home. It seemed natural wood was something more suited for grandma. The modern thing was to cover all wood surfaces with a nice glossy coat of white. So it’s nothing new, and it happened in the fanciest places.
It’s just sad that people still persist in doing it. Respect the wood!
PurpleGirl
@jacypods: Condolences to your son on the loss of his friend. It is quite probable that the existence of the gun in the home facilitated what happened.
Guns are ‘easy’ to use and being accessible make a quick decision to use much more likely. While I know of two people tried to killed them themselves by leaping out windows, guns make it much easier and more probable for the attempt to succeed. (BTW, one person succeeded, the other didn’t and ended up very physically disabled.)
Tommy
@ruemara: Yes I was a little surprised how good it was.
Pogonip
@Mnemosyne (tablet): As well she should. I find the idea so upsetting I’m going back to Youtube for another dose of Fuku and Marimo (the owl and the pussycat, respectively).
Had anyone else been aware that there’s an owl fad in Japan? I wonder if it’s coming here? Lately stuffed owls, owl pictures, dancing solar-powered owls, you name it, are popping up all over where I work. It wouldn’t be the first time I failed to notice a fad gathering strength. (I think the last fad I got in on timely was hot pants.)
Steeplejack (phone)
@Davis X. Machina, @Germy Shoemangler:
Two words: Baz Luhrmann.
Poopyman
@Mnemosyne (tablet): @germy shoemangler: The one good thing to remember is that if the wood was finished (most likely shellac), then there’s a barrier between it and the paint, and it can be brought back to looking natural fairly easily.
@ruemara: Never heard the word foeti before, and now I’m worried about what confetti is made of.
Poopyman
@efgoldman: Sounds like a trigger for @Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey:
gelfling545
@Hal: Probably they never thought about it one way or the other. If you mentioned it to them they’d just look puzzled. People who do that kind of thing are, well, the kind of people who do that kind of thing. Sigh.
PurpleGirl
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Behind in reading threads because I watched The Devil’s Disciple and 1776 and sat in recliner and not in front of the computer. Yankee Doodle Dandy is starting.
Enjoy your evening.
germy shoemangler
@Poopyman: to be honest I worry about lead dust. It’s an old house and the painting happened during the lead paint era.
Kids are grown, but there is a kitteh.
JPL
@Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey: I hate birds because of Alfred Hitchcock.
Pogonip
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Can you switch to the OTC?
Since menopause I have had to use Vaniqua; the price fluctuates between $120-150 a tube. You are supposed to apply it twice a day but I can only afford once a day. I go through a lot of wax because of this. At least I’m helping keep people alive. For those who didn’t know, Vaniqua is eflornithine, one of a shrinking number of drugs effective against West African sleeping sickness. Victims of West African sleeping sickness can rarely afford to pay a lot of money so some years ago the only remaining eflornithine manufacturer was going to stop making it, until they noticed hair loss as a side effect. They graciously agreed to make some eflornithine available to people who need it to stay alive as long as they could profit from selling the cream form, Vaniqua.
germy shoemangler
@Steeplejack (phone):
Yes, he’s done a musical remake of “Blade Runner.”
Steeplejack (phone)
@germy shoemangler:
I blame Yoko.
Renie
@Germy Shoemangler: I loved the movie. Duel with Dennis Weaver. That was a masterpiece!!
Zinsky
Stan Lee, founder of Marvel Comic, of which Captain America was the signature superhero, is a lifelong Democrat:
http://hollowverse.com/stan-lee/
Have you ever met a conservative with a speck of creativity? I haven’t!
J R in WV
@WaterGirl:
My Mom liked science fiction, and scary movies, so I got to see them earlier than most kids. They DID scare me, but that was OK, ’cause Mom was right there
My little brother would get scared, and ran back to where the concession stand was, and brighter lights, and pop corn popping, and we would look over our shoulders back to see him peeking around the corner, holding the curtain that covered the actual corner, watching while he hid, mostly.
I loved that, sitting with Mom down front in the old theater while my brother hid back there with the kid making popcorn. I wonder if that’s why he carries a Glock ALL the time now? Too much psychology, probably…
Tommy
@Zinsky:
Not really. Worked at a number of ad agencies that were creative focused and not account service (what I did). Some on the account service side were OCD, anal, type A personalities, and Republican.
On the creative side almost every single person was liberal if not VERY liberal. It was a very fun work environment.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Zinsky:
Robert Heinlein (who I did not meet) was pretty conservative. I recall reading his YA books as a teen and identifying reactionary militarist ideas.
But he was not a dick. When Robert Anton Wilson, with whom he would have disagreed about everything short of the color of the sky was in desperate financial straits due to medical issues, Heinlein cut him a generous no strings attached check without being asked.
So he was conservative, creative and complicated.
John Revolta
@germy shoemangler: You don’t have to sand it off. Use a stripper (nasty) or take 95% off with the heat gun and the residue with some mineral spirits (slower, but less nasty).
Also, I’ve been in the Dakota a couple of times and if it makes you feel any better, most of the woodwork is intact and gorgeous. Dark heavy wainscoting like 4 or 5 feet up the walls. It is funny though how these things are subject to the whims of fashion- “Well, my parents (grandparents, etc.) liked this stuff so I’d better get rid of it. Shag carpeting! Yeah, that’s the stuff!”
Mobile Grumpy Code Monkey
@WaterGirl:
I should make it clear, I’m entirely sincere about seeing it on the big screen. It’s an excellent movie, and one of my favorites, and I wholeheartedly endorse seeing it in a theater with an audience.
I just shouldn’t have seen it when I was 11.
Poopyman
@John Revolta: Heat gun + lead paint = not good.
JPL
@ruemara: Decades ago, a son had conjunctivitis and I called the same doctor we had seen earlier in the day for an ear infection. He told me to use an over the counter antibiotic cream that I happened to have. I read the label and called him back because it had a large warning about not to use in eyes, and he said not to worry about it because the pharma lobbyists had great control over the industry and labeling. It worked. In case, they changed the formula, I’m not mentioning any name though.
satby
Painted wood is bad enough, but the current Pinterest FAIL of gluing vintage plates and glassware together to make garden “flowers” almost makes me cry. Yesterday one moran was so proud of her ugly piles of glued dinnerware she nearly hit me when I asked her if she ever checked to see if the pieces she was destroying might be valuable. She had glued one “flower” with Depression glass lusterware, and another one with a McCoy bowl. And she put old hockey pucks on the bottom for some mysterious reason (I think to stick poles into). If she had had a micron of artistic sense it might not have been the obscenity it was, but she didn’t.
ruemara
@WaterGirl: out of someone’s pocket but not mine. I refused it and said they can find an approximate generic. And spent 4 hours haranguing the doctor until he approved it. To his credit, he apologized for such an outrageous prescription. To my mind, it’s good to know. The flaws in the ACA are directly traceable to this sort of thing.
satby
@ruemara: Good for you and glad to hear you’re doing better!
germy shoemangler
@efgoldman: I was just repeating an amy schumer gag. In her latest, she appears as a flirtatious guest on a talk-show, and that is what she is plugging: the musical remake of blade runner.
It ends with the young guys in the audience literally… well, I won’t describe it.
Jay C
@Zinsky:
Was that supposed to be FDR in that picture on top? Oy! In 1940-whatever, you would have thought a
comicgraphic-novel artist would have been able to caricature the President better that this – he looks like a generic mad-scientist-in-a-wheelchair: not even a cigarette-holder!JPL
Is anyone else watching a Capitol Fourth on PBS?
Baud
@JPL:
Flipping. Barry Manilow’s botox is terrifying.
Steeplejack (tablet)
I’m thinking of making really good margaritas for the cookout tomorrow—no mix, all real ingredients. Is there any non-OCD reason not to make up a big batch in a pitcher, rather than hand-making each one?
Liquid
You know the ‘ol Lawerence of Arabia trick works wonders.
JPL
@Baud: Yeah.. I kinda miss the olden days when they showed the Boston Pops.
satby
@Steeplejack (tablet): The bartender would be able to socialize too, instead of mixing drinks one after the other all night?
Origuy
Just got back from The Book of Mormon at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts. Great show, but the theater wasn’t well thought out. My friend uses a wheelchair or a walker. The wheelchair seats are way in the back and off to the side, so she wanted a regular seat. Getting there was a struggle. It didn’t help that an SJPD car was parked in the passenger drop off area the whole time.
Tree With Water
@Pogonip: Hmmm. Make it to an urgent appointment on time, or avoid a rampaging psycho killer by pulling off the road, and getting out of a car… what to do, what to do?
NotMax
@efgoldman
There’s a musical version of American Psycho set to open on Broadway this coming theater season.
@Zinsky
Lee certainly was not a founder of Marvel Comics, the company. A co-creator of the modern Marvel universe, yes.
Stan Lee was brought in during the Forties as an office go-fer by his uncle at an already extant comics company which subsequently went through several name changes over a couple of decades before settling on Marvel. The very first comic book Timely Comics (its name then) put out was titled Marvel Comics* (in 1939, before Stan Lee was hired).
*Issues 2 and up were titled Marvel Mystery Comics and later on, Marvel Tales.
Mike J
@efgoldman: Some of my fondest 4ths were sitting in a sailboat at Community Boating listening to the orchestra and watching the fireworks.
the Conster
@efgoldman:
You know what’s hilarious? For one 3 day period last week, the entire country coast to coast was happy smiles and rainbows. There’s no going back from that. Ted Cruz said it was America’s darkest 24 hours, after witnessing everything simultaneously, in one 24 hour period, literally turn into rainbows under his nose. Believe me, Ted says, and not your lying eyes. Really Ted? The GOP has always been able to hide how unmoored from reality they were, but after last week we see how much. Things seen cannot be unseen.
Steeplejack
@satby:
Well, there is that, although it’s mostly that the other day I realized I hadn’t had a really good margarita in a long time. The closest was last month at a chain Mexican restaurant where I ended up with two or three (very expensive!) ounces after allowing for all the ice in the glass. And that one was just okay.
I guess I wanted to see if some mixmaster says a margarita would be fatally damaged by being made ahead of time and that it must be constructed immediately before consumption.
John Revolta
@Poopyman: Yeah, you should probably wear a mask. They’re not expensive. Stripper’s just as toxic, maybe worse.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Strictly IMHO.
Might suggest chilling all the ingredients well beforehand. More than just a little ice in the pitcher to maintain coldness will dilute the mix. (One of the very few legitimate uses for those plastic “ice cubes” one can keep in the freezer is to add them to pitchers such as you’re planning.)
gogol's wife
@Steeplejack (tablet):
No. I always had great success with a pre-made pitcher.
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
Oh, hell, no! No ice goes in the pitcher. One of Steep’s strictest rules. I’ll put the pitcher of margs in the refrigerator to cool, but people can put ice in their individual glasses. Damn. That you could even hint at such a thing.
Steeplejack
@gogol’s wife:
Thanks for the input. I’m almost certain that’s the way I’ll go.
And, although you know I am slightly Shirley-phobic, I’m glad you appear to have gotten your cable problems sorted out in advance of the Temple tot marathon on Monday.
the Conster
@gogol’s wife:
Uh huh. I watched the eulogy in real time because I was home on staycation. It’s epic. I live tweeted it to myself for posterity. It brought all the feels. I keep thinking of my favorite scene from To Kill A Mockingbird when Scout is told to stand up because Atticus was leaving the court house. Whenever the time comes, I want to stand up for when Obama leaves the White House.
sharl
@Poopyman: I actually think a heat gun to remove lead paint from wood substrates would be safe, at least as far as respiratory issues are concerned. I don’t have my usual references at hand, but none of the lead pigments I know of has appreciable volatility at the elevated temperatures that would be used for paint removal from wood. The paint resin and/or wood would likely char and ignite before temperatures were reached where the lead pigment becomes volatile.
Sanding of old lead paint, on the other hand, would potentially create a lot of hazardous respirable dust. And you wouldn’t want kids or chew-curious pets around a job like that, no matter what method is used. Just learned (via Wikipedia) that lead paint “tastes sweet.” I did not know that!
ETA: John Revolta‘s precautions about other potentially hazardous aspects of the paint removal procedure also need to be considered, of course.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Yowza. Mentioned the ice just in case.
Lost during a move sometime over the years was an attractive tall glass pitcher which had a removable stainless steel lid with a lip for pouring, and attached to the underside of the lid was a stainless steel tube which stuck nearly all the way down into the pitcher. One could fill the tube with ice via a screw top on the lid to keep contents cold. Mostly used it for iced tea.
catclub
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yep. Team Obama was focused on Romney throughout the 2012 primaries. Their focus On Walker and Wisconsin looks similar.
Pogonip
@NotMax: Plastic ice cubes are great for iced tea!
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
Just wanted to make sure we were clear on the basic ground rules.
I have seen those ice-insert pitchers around, although they don’t look as tasteful as the one that you had sounds.
Everybody has their idiosyncrasies, but I’m not dogmatic that the actual liquid to be served must be cold. That’s what ice cubes are for. Possible exception that proves the rule would be martinis, although I don’t think I have ever made a pitcher of martinis, or ever would, unless I found myself in a John Cheever short story.
Poopyman
A (tasty) thought occurs to me: With relations warming with Cuba, does anybody know if there are Cuban rums we should be hoping for?
catclub
@Liquid:
He had a trick for Iced margaritas?
NotMax
@Pogonip – @Steeplejack
Many, many moons ago a group of us who were sharing an abode got hold of a bubbler dispenser similar to this one. Made to keep juice, lemonade, etc. cold at soda fountains and featured a plastic tube poking up inside which kept the contents mixed by recirculating them in a spray. (Old-timers will remember these ubiquitous devices.)
Anyway, one time decided to see how it handled bourbon and water. Which it did just fine, except that if the recirculation was left on for a very long time the drinks actually became slightly fizzy.
Steeplejack
@Poopyman:
I can’t believe the rum industry flourished under the godless commies, but who knows? Avoid Myers’s and Ron [anything], that much I do know. My favorite rums are from Barbados (Mount Gay) and Haiti (Barbancourt). If you like a really dark, motor-oil-grade rum, Gosling’s Black Seal (from Bermuda).
ETA: Mount Gay is my go-to, although I’m out of it right now, thanks for reminding me.
the Conster
@WaterGirl:
I love it. It’s really smart, and the actor has an amazing face, which is the show really, because he registers things before everyone else on the show, and alerts you the viewer with just his eyes/demeanor. It’s up there with Orphan Black.
Mike J
@Poopyman: People are thinking about it: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-pernod-prepares-to-take-cuban-made-rum-to-the-united-states–2015-5
Pogonip
@Tree With Water: Ah, but if you don’t think your boss will believe you about the rampaging psycho, that ups the ante. If I remember right, the character’s a salesman on thin ice. I’ll get out the story and reread it when I get home. I’m at my father’s right now. You’ve heard of people who won’t keep any book but the Bible? That’s him, except, as an atheist, the Allowed Book is a dictionary, not the Bible. When Mom died, murder mystery fans all over town were blessed with manna from heaven as Dad unloaded her hundreds of books as fast as he could. There is a Bible here, a Masonic Bible that belonged to my maternal grandfather; I rhink it got grandfathered in (hee!). I’m trying to decide whether to give it to my uncle, Mom’s last surviving brother, or take it home and add it to the shelf of family memorabilia.
Pogonip
@Steeplejack: Target has those pitchers on sale right now. They’re ugly.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
That one dated back to when we were using the then new Scotch brand coolers.
For the youngsters, those had sealed cans (size about the same size as a frozen juice concentrate can), with FSM only knows what chemical inside, that were to be kept in the freezer and then placed into a thickly insulated carry bag to keep food, etc. cold. Both the bag and the cans were done up in a plaid pattern.
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
Awesome. For some reason I am reminded of the time a seemingly mild-mannered, suburban woman on my coed volleyball team hosted a party at her house, and she had a frozen margarita machine! OMG. At the time it seemed so out of character, although as I retell it now it doesn’t seem so strange. Funny how that works. Maybe it was because it seemed like a big production for what I thought was an ordinary get-together.
Steeplejack
@Mike J:
Thanks for reminding me: avoid Bacardi, too.
Mike J
@Steeplejack:
Yeah, their commercial where they speak of how they were “exiled” always rubbed me the wrong way.
Jay C
@Steeplejack:
Second the recc’s for pre-mixing the margaritas: once blended, there’s nothing to go bad – though it will help to keep the pitcher with the mixed margaritas nice and cold.
And just as a Fourth-of-July present, I’ll share my pet margarita formula with the Juicers (again):
3 parts tequila
2 parts margarita mix (unsweetened lemon-lime bar mix is ideal, but VERY hard to find for civilians)
1 part mixed half/half Triple Sec and Rose’s Lime Juice
scale up or down to suit the number of imbibers.
Happy Fourth, all!
Tree With Water
@Mnemosyne (tablet): My aunt and uncle’s house in the upper Napa Valley town of Saint Helena was one of two Victorian pre-fabs that was built in San Francisco and shipped there by railroad circa 1900. The other house is still standing in town, and it’s gorgeous. As was their house, until they sold it. A half dozen owners who didn’t know what they were doing later, and it had been turned into a Home Depot special.
Tripod
There’s a restored version of Le Voyage dans la Lune up on Netflix that’s worth a look. From a hand colored print. It looks great, and my only complaint would be the first track (by Air) is a bit heavy, but the rest are fine.
Steeplejack
@Tripod:
Cool; thanks for the tip.
Tripod
@Mike J:
Isn’t that clan living in the Bahamas to avoid US taxes?
gogol's wife
@Steeplejack:
Yes, it would have been tragic for me to miss Little Miss Marker (which I’ve only seen about 12 times) and the TCM premiere of Now and Forever (Shirley, Carole Lombard, and Gary Cooper — epic!).
gogol's wife
@the Conster:
Yes, that was epic too. (more than Shirley T., see #219)
gogol's wife
@Steeplejack:
Right. You can mix it ahead the same day (although it’s still pretty good the next day), keep it in the refrigerator, no ice. When it’s time to serve, take a lime wedge and run it around the rim of the glass, dip in kosher salt, then put in ice and pour the margarita over it. I use 5 parts Cuervo gold, 3 parts Cointreau or Triple Sec, and 2 parts Rose’s lime juice.
ETA: Although the next day it starts to have a bit of discoloration, but it still tastes good.
Ajabu
@Steeplejack:
Just a quick shoutout to my local product, Cruzan Rum (from St. Croix).
Don’ get no Betta!!
Steeplejack
@Ajabu:
I think I’ve had that. It is good!
muddy
@gogol’s wife: We had a couple of pitchers of Margaritas today. My recipe is: 1 part tequila, 1 part fresh squeezed lime juice, 1/2 part Cointreau and 1/2 part simple syrup. For an interesting change I used Sriracha salt on some of the rims. It looked funny but it tasted great.
Steeplejack
@gogol’s wife:
Thank you, on several levels. I probably will use exactly the recipe you gave here. I was looking on line and—as with everything you look for on line—was getting bogged down in the conflicting minutiae of everybody’s different flourishes and “touches” to make the perfect margarita. I was sort of looking to refresh myself on the basic but tasteful recipe I might have used back before premixed everything. And your recipe strikes a chord. Pretty sure that’s the way I’ll go. Might substitute fresh lime juice for the Rose’s if I’m feeling really ambitious/snooty.
Steeplejack
@muddy:
Okay, this recipe filed for future reference and testing.
muddy
@Steeplejack: I got the recipe from a restaurant where I had an amazing one. I was surprised that the bartender told it to me, lest I not come back to buy more of his. He said everyone should be drinking the perfect margarita and he didn’t care where they did it. He got a pretty extravagant tip.
The Sriracha salt was my idea though.
WaterGirl
@ruemara: Just got home and was glad to see you weren’t stuck with that bill. Yay for that, and good for you for your persistence.
Steeplejack
@muddy:
I don’t have a lot of experience in this area, but I’m a little surprised when they don’t give you the recipe if you ask for it, unless it’s like a place called Just Funnel Cakes! and you ask for their recipe for funnel cakes. Duh. But a “normal” place and a “normal” drink, yeah, why wouldn’t they give it to you? Especially knowing that most people are going to forget about it or never follow through on it at home, much less conquer the world with this recipe that you foolishly leaked to them.
WaterGirl
@the Conster: Up there with Orphan Black? That’s high praise, indeed! thanks
Edit: Were you referring to Christian Slater, or the other actor that I don’t know?
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: Using Rose’s lime juice is almost as bad as adding the ice to the pitcher. Really.
It’s not hard to squeeze some limes and make simple syrup. Hint: use the ultra-fine baker’s sugar and simple syrup is amazingly simple. You don’t even have to boil the water or anything!
I definitely recommend using Cointreau instead of triple sec. I have yet to find triple sec that isn’t awful!
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
Okay, noted, and recipe duly tweaked.
Anne Laurie
@Hal:
I doubt it, but too many straight guys are convinced that if they don’t act like predatory idiots when an attractive woman walks past, all their guy friends will assume they’re… you know.
Someone (Twain?) said you tally the IQ of a mob by dividing the average IQ of its members by the number of individuals. One guy driving past in a car may make an idiot of himself. Two guys sharing a car will usually make idiots of themselves. Three or more guys will almost certainly include at least one idiot display…
mouse tolliver
@NotMax: “Thought this image from Captain America #1 (first series, 1941) might be amusing.”
Is that what Bucky used to look like?!
Yeessh! That would make Steve a pedophile in the unwritten fanfic that plays in my head after I watch Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I think I’ll keep Sebastian Stan.
Bill Murray
@efgoldman:
As long as you forget his Golden Globe for Best Actor for American Graffiti, 2 years before Jaws
Matt McIrvin
@catclub: It may be too early for this to mean anything, but if you look at the polls, Walker peaked sometime in May, when he was leading the Republican field, and has been losing mindshare ever since. Now he’s behind Rand Paul, Ben Carson and Mike Huckabee.
Lately almost everyone on the R side has been trending down except for Jeb Bush and Donald Trump, whose popularity shot up from nearly nil when he made his famous “Mexican rapists” announcement speech. Presumably he instantly took a chunk of the belligerent asshole vote. Assuming that Trump is not going to get the nomination, to me it looks like a shakeout is starting to happen in Jeb Bush’s favor.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: Sorry if I sounded scold-y! My friend Tina and I have tried several recipes over the past 4 years, trying to get the margaritas just right. Once we tried lime juice and simple syrup instead of Rose’s, we never looked back! Same thing with the Cointreau.
A couple of weeks ago I had a mojito with muddled strawberries, and it was delicious. So last week we made the usual margarita recipe (we have finally settled on one). I added muddled strawberries to mine and it was absolutely delicious. (None of that syrupy strawberry gunk they use if you order a strawberry margarita in a restaurant.) So good and you get to eat the muddled strawberries, too. I will definitely do that again.
So you could think of doing two pitchers, one with some muddled strawberries and one without. The drink with strawberries just gets prettier and prettier.
mouse tolliver
@Germy Shoemangler: “If Spielberg were like George Lucas, he would have released an updated version, with the rubber shark replaced with CGI. I’m glad he didn’t.”
Instead he did this to E.T. Updated the effects, added deleted scenes, and put CG walkie talkies in the hands of cops who were originally shown holding rifles.
But unlike Lucas, he release the theatrical cut on DVD at full resolution alongside the special edition.
Bill Murray
@Ultraviolet Thunder: Heinlein started as very left wing, then he divorced his second wife, who evidently was quite a radical, and married a very conservative woman about the same time as his writing career began to take off. Heinlein also was a big believer in Pay it Forward works
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
Not scold-y, more like impassioned. That’s what I want in a mixologist! To be honest, this is more of a “nailing it down for future reference” thing for me. I think there will only be about eight to 10 people at the cookout, and I don’t foresee a margarita orgy. I just thought it would be nice to bring a pitcher as a change of pace (and I could bring home any leftovers, heh). But the whole topic got me thinking that I need to codify my optimal margarita recipe. All input appreciated, especially reports from the trenches.
So what combination of fresh lime juice and simple syrup would you recommend to replace, say, one ounce of Rose’s lime juice? Half lime juice, half syrup?
joel hanes
@Germy Shoemangler:
And why exactly did [Walker] leave college?
The record is silent.
I think it was because he accurately perceived that he could make much more money much more quickly with much less effort by riding the tiger of movement conservatism. At that point, a bachelor’s degree became irrelevant.
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
So what exactly is your margarita recipe? Just belatedly realized that you didn’t say, unless you were agreeing with Gogol’s Wife except for the Rose’s lime juice.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
I know that wasn’t asked of me, but thought maybe this thread was defunct so a short while ago put up the old classic recipe here.
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
Yeah, I caught that. I’m in serious research mode. Key question now is what blend of fresh lime juice and simple syrup substitutes for Rose’s “lime juice.”
ETA: Although I see you’re going with straight lime juice and no simple syrup at all.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
The Triple Sec provides the touch of sweetness.
Recipe, BTW, is from a pocket-sized booklet obtained from the Angostura Bitters company many years ago. Have found it invaluable as a go-to for traditional unadorned bartender mixology.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@NotMax:
Cool. My go-to “non-drinking” drink is a dash or two of bitters in club soda. Tastes good and has some color, so you don’t get the stupid “Aren’t you drinking?” questions.
gogol's wife
@Steeplejack:
I think I gave it to you wrong — it should probably be 5 parts tequila, 3 parts lime juice, 2 parts triple sec or cointreau. That’s strong enough!
ETA: I tried fresh-squeezed lime juice once and hated it. YMMV
WaterGirl
@gogol’s wife: I’m gonna guess that when you tried it, you didn’t add enough sugar. I haven’t looked at a Rose’s lime juice bottle in years, but I’m guessing the sugar content is really high and that you never dreamed of adding that much sugar.
In my twenties, I had a friend who made the absolute best fried potatoes. I kept trying to make them and they were never as good as his, not even close. I even started cutting my potatoes in the same shape he did – little squares – but even that didn’t do it. So I watched carefully next time he made them.
Holy cow-ski, did he use a lot of butter. I mean, way more butter than I could ever think of using in a million years. No wonder his potatoes tasted so good!