Went out to dinner with my wife and kids. Great steak, grilled to perfection, and the broccoli and the potato were very well done too. Got some more done with getting moved in to the house.
Tomorrow is Soonercon. I’ve never been and it should be a nice contrast with San Diego Comic Con next month. We’re supposed to have something called a “cool front” this weekend. I don’t believe such things exist, but we’ll see. Perhaps I’ll build the raised garden beds.
What kinds of things have you all got going on this weekend?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
I’m in the Dallas area, we’re supposed to get the cold front as well. It was 103 here today. Tomorrow and for the next few days, highs will be 97, 92, 88, 89, 93, 92*, 91. (* = 4th of July).
Punchy
Farmers market w/ the spawn and sex provider, yardwork, beer consumption, and live music. Not necessarily in that order. Also, too in-laws.
/sigh
yopd
Wait, you can register at the door at SoonerCON? At comic-con, unless you buy tickets within 30 minutes of them going on sale, you cannot go, which is why we’re missing it this year.
The prophet Nostradumbass
Right now I’m watching the A’s dismantle the Cardinals. The next 4 days it’s supposed to be 95, 95, 97, 95. Also, multiple “spare the air” days, which mean BBQ use is banned.
peach flavored shampoo
@Punchy: not in that order, eh? So beer consumption followed by sex provided by the in-laws that involves bush trimming, spawning music sung in grunts and high-pitched squeals?
patroclus
My movie recommendation is for everyone to rent the movie “NO” which is about the 1988 plebiscite in Chile which ultimately led to the downfall of Augusto Pinochet and his military dictatorship. It stars Gael Garcia Bernal (who most should know from Y tu Mama Tambien and Che) who plays an advertising and marketing exec who develops the campaign and bases it on a simple slogan “Chile: Happiness is Coming”. At the beginning, everyone expects Pinochet to win and get another 8 years as El Presidente, or if he doesn’t win, overturn the election results. But, weirdly, the No campaign catches on, which causes the Pinochet forces to censor some of the broadcasts, send police and military to harass the No campaign’s organizers, and thenh it REALLY catches on, with all the actors, artists, musicians and cool people of Chile to stand up for the No campaign. Then, they win in a landslide and a year later, general elections are held and the dictatorship is swept away and happiness realy does come.
A really really good film – highly recommended!
Big R
@peach flavored shampoo: The in-laws are excluded from the scramble. They always come last.
Soonergrunt
@yopd: Soonercon is nowhere near that big, There will be 130,000+ ppl at SDCC. There will be maybe 15,000 at Soonercon.
Punchy
@peach flavored shampoo: Well….not exactly. The SIL is unpretty and forcing me to consider the hair follicle status of her hoo-hah ought to put you in a special place in hell.
yopd
@Soonergrunt: That’s what I figured. It actually gets frustrating because my son is/was into a lot of the stuff there (video games, Legos, super-heroes, Star Wars, etc.) But it’s just so overcrowded and nuts, that the past few years, we’d go for a couple of hours on Sunday and we’d all be done. Luckily, they still keep the prices reasonable and there really is not much scalping if at all because of the rules they set up. We’ll try to make there again next year.
Suzanne
I am hoping to spend the vast majority of this weekend in my PJs on the couch. I am getting a haircut tomorrow, but other than that, I am hoping for peace and quiet in my house. It is unbelievably hot this weekend….it was over 120 in the parking lot at work today. So I did my shopping this evening so I wouldn’t have to leave the house again. Going to nurse the kitty, and take more painkillers, and maybe order in some Chinese food.
I am excited to have a four-day weekend next week. I need a vacation.
yopd
We’re gong to beat the heat by going to see Monster’s University for my daughter’s birthday at the Cinepolis.
Mnemosyne
@yopd:
Monsters U is pretty fun — you’ll probably enjoy it. I was skeptical but I ended up liking it.
I, too, am planning a pajama day tomorrow, assuming I can figure out how to work our new TV. Poor G has to work all weekend.
Yatsuno
@Soonergrunt: You get your own con? How did you pull that trick off?
Seriously though, Emerald City ComicCon and SakuraCon are amazing events. I highly recommend getting to them if possible.
mike with a mic
http://www.blueducktavern.com/gallery/blueduck/home.html
Went there tonight, great food, all local (or close to it) well paid staff but thus of course it costs $$$ in some cases. Will play the rest by ear and who knows. FYI check out their menu, and yes the bone marrow app is better than the foie gras!
RaflW
Twin Cities Pride Festival all weekend. We’ll be hocking the UU religion in a booth.
By hocking, I really mean evangelizing, but that’s a taboo word in a free faith like Unitarian Universalism. But we love our church and so do a lot of our friends. We want other people to find us and decideWhat bums us out is people discovering decades later than they needed to that our congregations exist.
RobertDSC-PowerMac G5 Dual
The only thing I’m doing this weekend is combing through NASA’s image archive for good wallpaper ideas. I’ve been on a walk through the past in the past few weeks, reading about the Apollo program and how such a thing would never get off the ground today because of the fucknuts in the GOP and their bitching about government spending.
MikeJ
@Yatsuno: Penny Arcade has their get together here too.
Mornington Crescent
If you couldn’t be bothered to watch the Stanley Cup finals, here’s a summary, although it’s not quite what I expected:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gaXwHz6MjQ
RaflW
Re: my last, Oy vey typing on an iPod touch is tricky. G’night y’all.
Mnemosyne
Watching Rosemary’s Baby. Haven’t seen it in years, and it’s still pretty goddamned freaky.
Suzanne
Kitty update: she is not eating much, but was purring vigorously when we pet her. She is clearer-eyed, and more alert/responsive. Not twitching. And she pooped. I am hoping that this continues.
YellowJournalism
@Mnemosyne: Pixar movies are like sexy times. Even the mediocre examples are pretty entertaining and have their fun moments.
Yatsuno
@Suzanne: Yay good kitteh news!!!
Tomorrow is a graduation party for an old friend, so I get free Ethiopian foods. Then Sunday I go take a look at a new place that will be $300 cheaper but an actual house. I hope this works out.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Not-camping. Daytime temps are 118° at my favorite spot. Guess I’ll have to work on the book.
FlipYrWhig
@Suzanne: Come on, little kitty, come on…
Roger Moore
Staying inside as much as possible. NWS is predicting near record highs combined with higher than normal humidity, which is going to make doing anything outside during the day unpleasant to dangerous. Sounds like the right time to lounge around playing with the kitty and trying out my new ice cream maker attachment for my Kitchen-Aid mixer.
Redshift
My weekend plans are highly dependent on when they get our power back on. :-(
We had a few hours of overly exciting weather here (luckily I was just stuck in unmoving traffic on a blocked street, not in the car at the front that had a tree fall on it.)
We spent the evening at a friend’s house with a/c and electrical outlets, but it’s still dark here. Since there are lights a couple of blocks away, I’m hoping it’ll be on by morning, but the power company isn’t making any promises (or even estimates.) If it isn’t, I get to hook up the borrowed generator to the refrigerator tomorrow.
Linkmeister
Cousins visiting from LA. Another cousin’s husband just got stationed here, so it’s a big get-together at our house, with tri-tip, salads, sodas, maybe beer, wine, and a pool.
Spaghetti Lee
It’s actually been cooler than normal in Chicago, which has done hell for my place of employment (swimming pool supplies store). On the other hand, working there is actually more bearable when it’s not 105 in the sun and the air is choked with sweat.
Anne Laurie
@RaflW:
Thirty-some years ago, Michigan gubernatorial candidate Jamie Blanchard explained that he was at a certain disadvantage campaigning against a “Moral Majority” candidate because “I’m a Unitarian; the last time Christ was mentioned in our church was when the janitor fell down the stairs.”
(We elected him anyways, but the narrowness of the margin gave me one more reason to start looking for a new home in the Northeast… )
trollhattan
Death Valley is right out. This fellow went there today.
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/06/28/5532374/ap-photographer-describes-128.html#storylink=cpy
BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan: I’m just happy we did the trip up to Whitney Portal 4 weeks ago. Though it was a bit steamy that weekend too.
Debbie(aussie)
@Yatsuno: have you got your new kitty?
Sorry to al those suffering in the heat. We are having a weird winter here in SE Qld. Wet and cool. Daily temps colder than norm ( 15-18c) nightly warmer than norm(5-8c) had a couple of frosts so far, a bit early really. But the wet is weird, usually dry and cold ( by our standards) .
NotMax
@trollhattan
Back in the early 1920s, when Eric von Stroheim insisted on filming the Death Valley scenes for his epic movie adaptation, Greed, actually inside Death Valley, the crew had to keep the cameras surrounded with ice while they were cranking away.
raven
I’m in a hotel near the Nashville Airport waiting for my brother and his family to get in on the redeye from LA. The wife and kids are going to crash in my room because they can’t get in theirs until 3pm. We went to dinner with an old friend of my wife’s and it made sense for her to crash there since they were having such a great time. Looking forward to a day in music city!
Another Halocene Human
Looks like more genre writers than, say, media stars. Hate to say it, but there were bigger names at FestivalFantasie, the Czech Republic’s annual convention (held off in the hills somewhere where the locals think cosplayers should get off their lawn #@$% !*&^%). Well, hope you have fun. When I was younger I went to both Baltimore ComicCon and Baltimore’s Shore Leave and except for a panel with Mark Waid at the former they both sucked. :( Excuse to ride trains, pretty much the only upside.
Another Halocene Human
@yopd: From the pix I see online, SDCC seems to have really good cosplay, even better than Dragon*Con, which I’d never heard of living on the NEC^1 but turns out to be legendary in the Southeast, maybe because of how long it goes and how many Stormtroopers show up every year. Like, there were literally 70 in a parade the year I went. I wore a Star Trek uniform and weathered the harassment…. My biggest impressions from the con, aside from my friends being totally stoked after hearing Mr. Reading Rainbow Levar Burton speak, was Atlanta. I just went back recently so it was good I’d been once before and I’m planning to come back soon. So I’m grateful to the con for getting me started.
1-to be fair, I pretty much exclusively did anime cons for years. Anime cons have girls at them. Not to mention people under 40. I would have liked to go to Boskone but it costs too damn much for a broke student!!
geg6
Going for a haircut and pedicure with my sister. Then grocery shopping. I’m making beer and butter shrimp and potatoes on the grill. Hopefully, there will be some early corn to have with it. Also putting some flank steak in a marinade I found in the Food Network magazine. It’s basically a Bloody Mary. That will be dinner on Sunday. I’m off all next week, so it will be a lazy weekend for me.
jonas
Catching a flight across the pond for a conference in the UK — and hoping that all this thunderstormy weather in the NE doesn’t delay my connections too badly. Lovely outside this morning, tho.
Botsplainer, fka Todd
The shizzle. Phoenix Lady put this up at tbogg’s.
http://mattbruenig.com/2013/04/29/the-death-spiral-of-futile-leftism/
When civic minded people want to discuss infrastructure improvement, workplace safety, racial equality, wage improvement or regulation of capital markets, the futile leftist goes all in on the right of the aggressive nude panhandler to smear feces on the sidewalk in tourist areas while calling it art.
And does so loudly.
It could be anything from pleas to “understand” and rehabilitate the violent criminal to monkey wrenching construction sites to protesting an inconsequential bank branch in the suburbs to doing drum circles and giant puppets.
In the end, what the futile left doesn’t get is that nobody outside their immediate circle likes, cares about or respects them or their views. Were Obama to round them up and stick them in his secret FEMA reeducation camps with conservative white Christians, nobody would give a shit, which is appropriate.
IowaOldLady
@Anne Laurie: Hey, we used to go to the Unitarian Church Blanchard was talking about!
Poopyman
I might vacuum the house.
Today’s our anniversary.
The two are not necessarily related.
Poopyman
@RobertDSC-PowerMac G5 Dual: If space had been unexplored up to now and the Taliban had suddenly put a satellite in orbit broadcasting propaganda, you can betcherass that the wingnuts would fund a space program tootsuite, ’cause that’s the equivalent of what happened.
HeartlandLiberal
I am going to leverage the benefits of retirement time and today teach myself how to take interval photos with my Pentax K-5, using an intervalometer I bought, then learn how to use software to stitch time lapses photos together into a video.
I think my wife and I will go see the new Star Trek movie this afternoon. Last summer at a vendors conference I won a $100 gift certificate to buy movie tickets through Fandango. Shows you how little we go to the movies at the theater anymore, this will be only the third time I have tapped the certificate.
The garden is under control. I have a bag of small cabbages we will be eating on, squash have been coming in. The tomatoes are six feet tall, and many dripping with green tomatoes. I have already been getting ripe grape tomatoes, and a new orange / yellow cherry size variety, which is absolutely great with blue cheese and crackers.
For some reason my okra is growing very slowly. I don’t know if there is something missing in the soil for it. It is in an area that has only been garden for 2-3 years. I hope it does well. We are from the South, and breaded fried okra is right at the top of must have foods.
Comrade Jake
Family is headed out to Holden Beach for the week. My wife’s whole family comes down, and her mother rents a huge place right on the beach. Thankfully everyone gets along.
I have two pork butts on my Big Green Egg right now, set to finish around noon. I got up at 3 in the morning to put them on. I’ll FTC them and we’ll bring them out to the beach for dinner tonight.
Should be fun!
WaterGIrl
Could someone update me on suzanne’s kitty? I saw the post on 6/27 about drinking paint water, but I think I missed the middle part where we learned what the vet said and what we can expect from here. In the meantime, come on kitty, hang in there.
Poopyman
@WaterGIrl: Up above right here:@Suzanne:
Maude
It was 128 F in Death Valley yesterday. Better here than there.
Schlemizel
decided a couple of weeks ago to take a weekend jaunt to see the Cedar Rapids Kernels, the MN Twins class A team. There is a player there that is supposed to be the real deal, hits for power & average, if super fast and has a great glove. We bought the tickets (a whopping $11, 5 rows back from home plate) and reserved hotel room last week. So this week the announced he was moved up to AA! We are going anyway, it was more of an excuse than a destination.
Elizabelle
World temperature record is 134, huh? Seems we are going to blow right past that, and sooner than we think.
Sitting out on deck getting splashed by trees releasing rainwater from last night’s shower. We had several afternoon thunderstorms, one with non-scary sized hail yesterday.
Hope Suzanne’s kitty mends.
peggy
@ Botsplainer #41
Agree.
We in Boston are trying to stop a state mandated transportation nightmare from happening. The worst effects will be felt by POC commuters. They have not been informed about what is going to happen. When we go to a stalled point that will be reconstructed to be worse, we get an amazing 90% positive response and people in cars grab leaflets at the rate of 400/hour.
I’m reaching out to the B-J community to ask for Advice, particularly from Kay. We need to get to Gov.Patrick to stop this monstrosity. How does one get a meeting with a governor? One approach, which we are using, is the personal- my friend’s husband, my cousin’s brother in law.
My preferred approach is political. Boston is having a mayoral race this year, with a huge primary slate. If we can get one of those candidates to adopt our infrastructure problem as one of their major campaign issues, we will get the press and TV exposure we desperately need. Our argument is that loads of potential voters reside in those areas which are negatively affected (Dorchester and Mattapan) and adopting a fight for fairness will lead to a winning campaign.
Kay (and others)- what is the best way to pitch to a candidate?
the website:
http://www.rebuildcasey.com/
WaterGIrl
@Poopyman: Thanks. Sorry I wasn’t clear. I saw that, but I am left guessing that maybe it’s kidney or liver or some other major organ that was damaged? I have no idea of the diagnosis, whether we there are hopes for long-term recovery. With an acute cause like this, is the idea that if they can make it through in the short-term that they will be okay?
Edit: off to the farmer’s market, will check back in when I return.
peggy
More on the Casey Bridge transportation monstrosity- I’ll be very busy today and away from home, so I probably won’t be responding. I will treasure, however, any useful suggestions.
PsiFighter37
Just planning on vegging out today. Maybe go catch ‘Man of Steel’, of which I’ve heard mixed things about.
Otherwise, my crash diet/workout is going very well. No drinking helps a ton when it comes to this.
Ash Can
@Schlemizel: You’ll have fun anyway. Single-A ball is a blast.
Elie
Gonna prepare for the clinical section of my nursing refresher course today, besides working out this morning (spinning class) and a little food shopping —
Tomorrow Alan and I are attending the Folk Life Festival in DC… hope it doesn’t get too hot and humid —
Will also start packing for the big move back to the Northwest in August….Can’t wait
Randy P
Putting in wisteria. I am not a gardener and I have no grand vision. I seem to lack that “vision” gene everybody else has for their yards and gardens. But I get these ideas in my head about specific species and for several years I’ve been thinking wisteria.
(Several? At least 10)
So I finally bought a few and I’m putting them in. Yeah I know they take years to flower. “Do you know how old you’ll be before those bloom?” “Same age I’ll be if I never put them in.”
NickT
Eating cherries, watching Wimbledon, noodling around with a new programming language that I am teaching myself.
Suffern ACE
@Botsplainer, fka Todd: yes. The problem would be solved by rounding up large numbers of people. Most problems in history have been solved that way. Ranting at every opportunity about the use of puppets and your desire to violently strike at puppeteers isn’t your own personal self-righteous freak flag showing. That must be pragmatic centrism because its aimed at the left.
You actually aren’t any more mentally stable than the allegedly ineffective anarchists. Get help.
Botsplainer, fka Todd
@Suffern ACE:
It would sure give me some lulz. They could have a pay for webcam of the sadness.
I’d pay to watch.
MomSense
@RaflW:
3rd Gen UU here and I love evangelism!! It is true that there are so many people who discover us after they have suffered without a supportive community and wonder why we didn’t make our presence known.
A Ghost To Most
I am hoping to end the bumper saga. I ordered a new front bumper for my 4×4 (the W.T. Sherman) from a well thought of builder in Puyallup, spent two weeks badgering him to send it, only to find out that when he did send it, he neglected to pay the shipping to ABF (but did not neglect to charge my card). So the bumper was being held in the Denver terminal for a week until I paid the bill. He also neglected to set up home delivery (which I requested), so today I have to rent a truck, drive to the terminal, sort out an email I received last night informing me that ABF will be charging $21 a day for the last week for storage, wrestle the bumper (150 lbs) into the truck and out of the truck at home, and get back to the rental place in 4 hours. Then all I have to do is get the guy to remove the first set of shipping charges from my card (which he says he will do, but at this point, who knows). Best case, I actually get the bumper and am only out an additional $200. Then all I have to do is figure out how to install the bumper.
Good times.
Hunter
Cool fronts exist: two days ago it was 90. Today’s forecast is for the upper 60s.
As for the rest of it, trying to catch up after spending three days in the hospital trying to follow the news on my MP3 player.
Yeesh!
AliceBlue
I’m moving my 92 year old mother into an assisted living community. Long story short, it has been a stressful, emotionally grueling experience.
peggy
@Randy P:
Enjoy your vines. Just a warning- July- Monday is a bad time to plant shrubs and vines cause it’s so hot and their roots have been damaged in the process. I’m planning to plant bushes too, next week.
I cut them back, at least a third of all the leaves and plan to provide water at least once every day through August. I’m putting mine temporarily in self-watering gigantic pots sold for vegetables. Then I’ll transplant in the fall. Yours will be fine, if they are babied all summer.
I’m planting clematis which, for me, takes three years for the first flower and seven before it looks good. And I’m of an age to be eagerly looking forward to Medicare.
Soonergrunt
@Botsplainer, fka Todd: He’s describing a few of our posters here, and probably about 40% of FDL.
Dee Loralei
@peggy: I think it would be easier to get in to talk to candidates than to a sitting governor. Have you thought about hosting a forum or maybe a Mayoral Debate? Good luck to you!
peggy
@Dee Loralei:
Thanks Dee. Yes, approaching candidates one on one is easy.
Mayoral debate- interesting idea. Needs some thought, and some formal allies.