Kay can not make it this year, so DougJ and Mistermix will be the Balloon Juice reps at Netroots Nation this year. I’ve instructed them they need to wear Tunch t-shirts at any Balloon Juice meet-ups (and if any of you are going, you need to, as well!), and I also think they need to have substantive reviews of the panels they attend, complete with pictures and maybe, *GASP*, live blogging that people can follow with the NRN live feed.
Having said that, the website ads will be paying for their registration and gas (thank the pig picture you all are bitching about), but we need to raise a little scratch ($1300.00) to pay for hotels. If you are so inclined, please hit the paypal link up above to the left. I’d also like to get a roll call of readers who will be going, and if enough of you are interested maybe we can splurge and rent a room and cater an official Balloon Juice official meet-up. Otherwise, I predict it will just be DougJ coordinating “WE WILL BE AT BAR X at THIS TIME. COME!”
And no, I will not be in attendance. I am still an agoraphobic misanthrope who loves you all at a distance who would rather shower in prison than go subject myself to a conference full of thousands of people when I could just stay at home and love on my dogs and prune and water plants and maybe, just maybe, see one or two people a day walk by my house. But points for me loving you, right?
Basically, I’ve realized I’m the uni-bomber, but I adore technology and I only drop F-bombs. And I fucking love my dogs and my very secluded life.
But if you are so inclined and have some spare cash, help send our correspondents to NRN. This is kind of an important one, what with the election and all that.
Thanks in advance!
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
But do you still believe in Climate Change?
Joseph Nobles
Pigs do deserve to turn around.
The prophet Nostradumbass
Last year was fun. It was great to meet Kay and some of the Minneapolis contingent of Balloon Juice readers.
Uncle Glenny
Dude! Agoraphobic misanthrope? I bought a car in September and have put all of 240 miles on it. It is my only source of transportation. [*]
The only reason I have no pets now is that I dread the risk of unexpected medical expenses as I’m on disability, have no cash reserve, and what I have as an IRA went all to hell because I wasn’t paying attention (I’m on disability for a reason).
Still may risk getting a kitty though (I’m a renter and once had 3 cats and a dog – landlord likes pets).
[*] Car got prepaid maintenance plan, so the only expenses of any significance now are insurance and excise.
BGinCHI
I see Cole rejected my idea of holding a raffle to send a couple of lucky BJers to NRN gratis so they could impulse streak at the conference, or participate in organizing for change or whatever. Streaking is more glamorous, fyi.
Thanks John for ruining the possibility of eemom and cato winning that raffle.
eemom
The pig ad isn’t funny, Cole.
Steve in DC
I might go, depends on transportation, I hate anything that isn’t plane or train direct.
John Cole
@eemom: No, there is nothing funny about it at all. It’s horrifying. Which is why you should eschew buying meat from grocery stores and do what I do, which is get all my meat from local producers who love their animals.
If that pig picture upsets some people, maybe it will also have the benefit of making people change their behaviors. Those cheap pork loins that had no flavor you got from your chain market- they came from that poor bastard.
Maybe you should change your purchasing or dietary habits.
And for the vegans and the rest of you who already do the right thing, I’m sorry the ad is there, but your discomfort is a small price to pay to get people to do the right thing. Your discomfort was nowhere near what that poor bastard went through.
srv
Why don’t we just buy a whole bunch of t’s and have Doug hand them out so you can flash mob all the emobagger sessions?
Front could have. “Tunch questions your commitment to sparkle ponies” and the back could say “Who is John Cole?”
Amanda in the South Bay
NRN is great and everything, but can you please lay off the prison rape jokes? Thanks.
BGinCHI
@Amanda in the South Bay: How about this as an alternative:
All of the American Bishops walk into a
barprison….Fordpowers
And that is why I read this blog.
gaz
@Amanda in the South Bay: Umm, I must have missed the prison rape reference.
ETA: Oh… there it is
Ash Can
Aah, blow it out yer bung hole.
Steve in DC
@JC
we need more butchers! smart meat, well grown meat, but meat lovers! I get my meat from a local butcher and my fish at the warf. Good stuff.
Making frog legs now, but I caught the fuckers on my own.
kc
“would rather shower in prison”
I’m sure that could be arranged …
eemom
@John Cole:
fywp ate the rest of my reply. I know very well all of what you’ve said, thank you. I was an animal rights activist while you were still jerking off on tanks in Iraq.
How’s this, though? Suppose it was a picture of your beloved Lily in a state of horrific torment like many dogs suffer? That would get the point across to an awful lot of people about dog abuse, wouldn’t it? And nothing compared to what those poor dogs suffer. Do you still deserve to have it to look at it 24/7?
@BGinCHI:
Man, I don’t know what I’ve done to recruit so many new reinforcements to my personal troll brigade today, but fuck you too, asshole.
Suffern ACE
Ok. I donated. I was going to go, but then I realized I would probably clobber someone who couldn’t handle their outrage.
BGinCHI
@eemom: I meant that lovingly!
I really thought your sense of humor could accommodate that. I really did.
I only wanted you and VICTORY! to win the raffle so that once you got there you could throttle him/her/it in him/her/it’s sleep.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@John Cole: The blog scold has spoken, John, you MUST take that ad down. Her web surfing experience is paramount, you know.
John Cole
@Amanda in the South Bay: Sorry.
George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina
isn’t that a little expense for 4 nights in Providence ($325 per night) ?
George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina
Instead of wasting $1300 on some self indulgent wankfest like NN, wouldn’t it go to better use by donating to Elizabeth Warren?
Royston Vasey
@George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina: ah good to you posting on h
ere, George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina.
suzanne
Exceedingly sad that I won’t be going to NRN. ComiCon is a good consolation prize, though.
Uncle Glenny
@George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina:
Maybe Tunch is going along. The room service bills would be atrocious.
eemom
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
I get the self-aggrandizing thing, but srsly, we’ve gotten the point by now. A simple “dumbass” would suffice.
RadioOne
Fuck Net Roots Nation. It’s just a conference to shit on President Obama year after year. I’m sure Jane Hamsher and Dan Choi will have some new focus panel at the conference that will lead participants to believe by that Obama will relocate all American gays to Guantanamo Bay as criminals if he gets a second term.
Warren Terra
@George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina:
They may not care to share a room. Or with a convention in town the room rates may be high.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@RadioOne: So, you’ve never been there, or actually watched any of the talks that are posted on the Internet, eh?
The prophet Nostradumbass
Why did you delete your reply to me, John?
George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Well, you don’t have to be there or even watch a video feed to know what goes on as there are numerous live blogging and write-up. For example, last year Kay (as she always does) did great reporting on what was occurring in NN.
WereBear
@Uncle Glenny: While I certainly understand your concerns, poverty being one of my own problems, I don’t let that stop me from giving a cat a home.
The way I see it, the cat can sit in a shelter, with life in a cage/the threat of death hanging over their head; or they can have a happy life with me.
Either way, they aren’t getting that expensive operation, no? But with me, they get love, and a life.
Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
kay
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
It was fun to meet the commentors.
If it’s like last year, DougJ and mistermix should wear t-shirts that say “John Cole isn’t here” because that’s the question they’ll be asked most often.
I was going to start making up John Cole-related anecdotes because I didn’t have any.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
if you are going to do a john cole t-shirt, you can’t go wrong starting with the motif of “cole’s law”, shit, that could be a meme someday.
Egg Berry
@kay:
I hear he shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.
jayackroyd
@John Cole:
In An Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan observes that all it would take to make our industrial treatment of domestic food animals widely reviled, and then reformed, would be glass walls on our slaughterhouses.
jayackroyd
@kay:
Actually, that’s not a bad idea for a button in BJ store. To be worn all over the country where John Cole isn’t.
gluon1
@srv: I’ve nothing useful to add but someone needs to praise this idea.
bjacques
In the spirit of vegetarianism I’ve just sent some cabbage yer way.
auntie beak
i will be attending, though i live close enough that i won’t be staying over at any of the hotels. guess i need to get a tunch tee, right?
Clime Acts
Hilarious reading Cole being instructed by various commenters on what images and language are permissible on his blog.
Even more hilarious, but sad also too, is reading as Cole knuckles under.
Just another way in which BJ is becoming hermetically sealed, self-pleasure chamber for Bots whose fee fees are very, very delicate.
But never fear…I am here to keep the door slightly ajar to reality.
You’re welcome.
Peter VE
The highlight of NRN will be the WaterFire Saturday night. I’ll see you on the river! waterfire.org/
Clime Acts
@RadioOne:
Is there some reason why a group of people who believe Obama sucks the big one shouldn’t be free to gather and say so?
Also, too: I’m sure the BJ crowd will shit on Obama A LOT.
As if.
Clime Acts
THIS IS THE IMAGE OF JOHN COLE that you all need on your tee shirts.
Let me know about arrangements.
Donut
@Clime Acts:
Fuck right the fuck off and fuck you on top of that after you’re done fucking off. Fucking useless.
Clime Acts
@Donut:
Indeed you are, fucky mouth.