It’s a Father John Misty morning here. This video is a strange brew of LA-trash emo hipsterism, and fairly disturbing. In other things that are disturbing but interesting, why the hell did Red State vanish without a trace? I watched it last night and thought it was pretty good, especially whenever John Goodman was on the screen. Consider this a open thread to talk about music, movies or whatever before the long weekend.
Update: Speaking of the themes of Red State, Steven L Taylor on the American Taliban is worth a read.
gnomedad
I’m considering migrating my email from Thunderbird and my personal web host to Gmail, mainly to have full online access. (Yes, there’s a web reader, but using it seems to confuse Thunderbird.) Any advice/warnings/tips/alternatives/etc out there? Thanks!
Joey Maloney
For a second I thought you were talking about the blog. Be still my heart.
SatanicPanic
Want to go out to see some bands, finally have time to do it… no one I want to see is playing this weekend. Maybe go check out someone bands I don’t know.
Suffern ACE
Bleah. I get to spend the morning preparing to give a lousy performance evaluation. But thats ok. In a month I get to have the no raises, no bonuses, no promotions discussions, too. My favorite time of the year.
Mnemosyne
Red State vanished because Kevin Smith thought he could have a hit movie by doing it as a roadshow for his fans rather than releasing it in theaters.
Note to filmmakers: any time you count on your internet fan base to make your movie a hit, you will fail. Smith probably should have talked to Joss Whedon before coming up with his business plan.
eric
@Suffern ACE: perhaps you should get romney to do it, by all accounts, it is his expertise.
Forum Transmitted Disease
Went to my first local school board meeting last night, watched a TeaTard speaker embarrass himself beyond belief, then watched the 17-year old student trustee dismantle the guy like a surgeon going after his own mother’s cancer.
The kids are alright, guys. They really are.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Anyone surprised that Chris Christie is thumbing his nose at the Feds and will violate federal law, announcing that he will allow sports betting in New Jersey.
Isn’t Republican ‘respect’ for the law just awesome?
Thor Heyerdahl
@Joey Maloney: You weren’t the only one.
Violet
In one of the threads last night someone said that the Supreme Court might announce their ruling on ACA today. Any truth to that? Any updates?
Thor Heyerdahl
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Ah Chris Christie. Stay classy Mr. Creosote!
Thor Heyerdahl
@Violet: Dump it on a Friday before a long weekend…seems plausible…
eric
@Thor Heyerdahl: I assumed Oklahoma or kansas had been raptured.
Xenos
Being an open thread and all, is anybody up to date on the latest thing on memeorandum, that the speedway bomber, who apparently is a prominent lefty, is cyberstalking right-wing bloggers? They are organizing some sort of large-scale counterstalking since they seem to be unimpressed with the response of police authorities.
TheMightyTrowel
Just saw the avengers (finally!) and loved it. Well done to joss whedon for getting quim past the censors…
Villago Delenda Est
Steven L. Taylor’s dislike of “American Taliban” is misplaced. It is an accurate term. They have more in common with barbarian Wahabbists than they do with other westerners.
He demonstrates in that post why it’s absolutely appropriate at all times. He’s cool, reasonable, cites scripture (obviously he’s never seen that early West Wing episode where President Bartlet rips that talibangical asswipe a new one) but he acts like these cretins can be swayed by reason or calm discussion of scripture.
What morans like this Gipson clown need are clue by fours upside the head. They have CHOSEN to be shitheads. Make them live with the consequences of that brilliant decision.
MattF
@gnomedad: My own email-drill is to have gmail as my principal email address, but use a local client (Apple’s Mail program, FWIW) to retrieve and store mail locally from all my addresses. All the local mail data gets backed up as part of my regular local backup routine. Your eggs should not all be in one basket, IMO.
BGK
’cause all I really have is cats:
My oldest cat, Jack, turns ten today. I’ve had him for nine years and four months of that life. I was his second chance, as his first adopter returned him to the shelter. I’ve no idea why, as he’s Spider-cat and the most loyal animal I’ve ever known. Also too, no one told him he’s no longer two, so he still chases the other cats around the house like a maniac.
First day home, as a wee fellow.
His current cat-monsterdom.
gnomedad
This; which is why I think it’s not quite right to characterize them as stupid. They are not incapable of reason; they are at war with reason.
MattF
@Villago Delenda Est: When you see the video clip of Pat Robertson telling a questioner that statues of Buddha should be destroyed, it’s almost too obvious, but:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan
jeffreyw
@gnomedad: I did the same thing a few years ago. It was a minor PITA because of slow connection speeds for me at the time (curse you Hughes.net!) but it was worth the trouble. Google mail will archive your archives with labels you choose and redirect emails from the old addy to your new one. It took a little study but Gmail has tutorials to cover it. Worth the time to read James Fallows talking about Gmail security issues over at the Atlantic.
I have never looked back.
gnomedad
@MattF:
Thanks. I’m wanting to get away from local (downloading) clients because I’m increasingly working from multiple machines and don’t want to deal with synchronization. Periodically download for backup, certainly.
Mnemosyne
@BGK:
I think you may have answered your own question here.
Though I can’t really argue with your thesis that tuxedo cats are teh awesome. (That’s Charlotte on top and Keaton on the bottom. They are unrelated except in that Charlotte decided immediately upon meeting him that Keaton is her mommy, even if he is a neutered male.)
gnomedad
@jeffreyw:
Thanks. I did a search, and assume this is the article you mean: Hacked!
Tom
The song is good enough, but getting Aubrey Plaza for the video puts it over the top.
Randy P
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Details, please? Sounds like good fun.
I’m probably the only person in the world who doesn’t know, but could somebody tell what happened with the Facebook IPO? I gather people lost money and there is some sort of insider trading scandal? Synopsis please?
TaMara (BHF)
Oh, good an open thread. My FB page exploded this morning with video and pictures of the tornado near where my family lives. Some pretty cool stuff. One house gone, no injuries, so it feels okay to go, oooo, aaaahhh.
Tornado near Humphrey, NE
MattF
@Randy P: See Felix Salmon:
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/05/23/facebook-the-list-of-incompetents/
Steeplejack
@gnomedad:
Don’t know exactly what you mean by “full online access,” but I’m with MattF: I have a few e-mail accounts (Gmail, Cox Cable, etc.) and use Outlook to go get the mail from wherever and store it on my computer.
I am ambivalent about Outlook–it’s sort of like a 40-pound wristwatch–but I have learned to work with its idiosyncrasies and it gets the job done. And it insulated me from Gmail’s recent interface revision that had a lot of people griping here and elsewhere.
Are you abandoning Thunderbird? Because one of my perennial back-burner projects is to look at Thunderbird as a (presumably) lighter, less complicated alternative to Outlook.
ETA: One thing I do like about Outlook is the Word subset you get for writing/editing mail. That’s crucial for me.
Steeplejack
@gnomedad:
That could be an issue. I set up Outlook so that (only) my main computer deletes my mail from Gmail after downloading it. Outlook on my notebook downloads any e-mail but leaves it on the Gmail server to be grabbed later by the main computer.
In addition, I have set up Outlook to automatically leave a copy of any e-mail I send from the notebook on Gmail so that it will be downloaded by the main computer later. The end result is that everything gets collected and archived on the main computer. The only downside–which is not an issue for me–is that on the notebook I don’t have access to everything, only stuff that previously was downloaded by the notebook. That’s not an issue for me because the notebook is used only for (usually brief) trips away from home, so I just need to read new e-mail and respond to it. I don’t need to go back and research all the correspondence on that Figby contract from three years ago.
ETA: Obviously, in a pinch or for a long trip, I could copy the (gigantic) Outlook data file from the main computer to the notebook and have access to everything on the latter.
Uncle Cosmo
Oh goody, an open thread.
The Beeb reports that
I dunno much about “footy” but a ballpark ;) answer would seem to be obvious: Corner kicks.
Give each team a corner kick. Usual rules apply with the following exceptions: (1) Fouls, handballs, or deflections out of bounds by the attacking team ends the try, as do a save by the goalie, a clear by the defense that lands in play on the attackers’ side of the mid-way line, or the failure of the attackers to score within (say) 2 minutes; (2) Fouls, handballs, or deflections out of bounds by the defense reset the clock to (say) 1 minute or time remaining, whichever is greater. The team that is ahead after any pair of “tries” wins. If teams are still tied after (say) 5 rounds of this, then revert to shoot-out.
You could embellish this process with requirements such as: (1) Teams change sides after each round (pair of tries), providing a (say) 3 minute breather for the players; (2) Teams can choose the corner from which to take their initial kick, but henceforth the side of the goal alternates; (3) The attackers’ goalie may participate in the attack; (4) The attackers’ goalie may be temporarily replaced by an extra attacker; (5) The player who takes a corner kick cannot take another until all other players on his side have done so (except for the goalie or the designated extra attacker in #4 above, who are disqualified from taking the kick). (This last would effectively limit each player to taking one CK if that phase lasts <11 rounds, but so what?)
I've always considered the corner kick the most exciting play in soccer, & even if the tiebreaking sort were played much more conservatively by most teams, they would still beat the hell out of PKs. And you could fiddle with the time allotment (& maybe other rules as well) to encourage more aggressive play.
I'm no Beckenbauer, but this seems like such an obvious fix–what am I missing?
Steeplejack
@Mnemosyne:
Thanks for the bike info the other night. My brother is still (good-naturedly) trying to manipulate me into doing all his bike research and purchasing for him, so I might tell him that for what he was planning to spend (he’s a bit of a brand snob) he can get two of the Trailways and I’ll even ride with him. Either it will shut him up or I’ll get a bike out of the deal. LOL.
gnomedad
@Steeplejack:
Basically, I mean “from any web browser, if that’s all that’s available”.
gnomedad
@Steeplejack:
That’s pretty much the case for me, too, so I’ll think about what that implies for how I want to do this. Thanks.
Arclite
@Mnemosyne:
I thought I read that he made his money back already on the tour. So, selling it to Netflix is just gravy.
Steeplejack
@gnomedad:
Then my setup would probably work for you. There are a couple of settings I had to tweak in either Gmail or Outlook to get it so that (a) the notebook would leave new incoming mail on the Gmail server and “post” new outgoing messages from me and (b) the main computer would download everything from the Gmail server and then delete it from there.
And, obviously, I can check Gmail “manually” on any computer if I need to. Actually, my Droid automatically gets my mail from Gmail too, but it’s a PITA to reply on the phone.
Heirn
I would suggest setting Gmail up an IMAP server for getting your mail. That way any system that you use stays in sync automatically.
Mnemosyne
@Steeplejack:
Apparently it’s axiomatic in the bike world that your first bike is always the wrong bike, so he may as well buy a cheapo one and get the process over with, right?
I couldn’t go the ultra-cheapo route myself because I am a 5’2″ woman and those mass-market bikes are way too tall for me (even the women’s bikes), but if you’re both guys who are not super-tall or super-short, you’ll probably be fine trying out a cheapo one first.
ETA: Also, too, if he’s a brand snob, he’s going to like the sound of “Schwinn” better than “Huffy” or “Magna,” which used to be the only ones they sold at Target.
Mnemosyne
@Arclite:
“Making your money back” and “having a hit movie” are two very different things. It’s the difference between making a living off Red State and making a shitload of money for yourself and your studio with The Avengers.
Steeplejack
@Mnemosyne:
True dat. I keep telling him that, since the last bike either one of us had was in junior high about a hundred years ago, anything he gets now is going to be fine. And, yeah, once he is regularly doing half-centuries, shaving his legs and drinking water out of a bladder gizmo strapped to his back, he can go back and buy that $1,500 beauty that he really needs.