I’m watching The Unknown Known – the Errol Morris interview/dockumentary on Donald Rumsfeld.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone where the distance between how brilliant he thinks he is, versus how smart he *actually* is, is so great. I can’t believe this guy was Secretary of Defense.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone where the distance between how brilliant he thinks he is, versus how smart he *actually* is, is so great.
I am truly coming to believe that the smartest people are the ones who freely admit there are things they don’t know.
3.
Amir Khalid
@Comrade Luke:
Over the years, it seems to me, Donald Rumsfeld has so well disguised himself as a smart person that even he has fallen for it. By the way, did you know that he is both the youngest man ever appointed US Secretary of Defense and the oldest?
4.
Comrade Luke
@Mnemosyne: I don’t understand how anyone thinks this guy is smart, at all. Other than maybe you can get away with just about anything if you do it with confidence. And Rumsfeld has plenty of that.
5.
? Martin
Ok, ‘Big Ass Spider’ qualifies as high art of low-budget disaster movies. Sharknado got the social media buzz, but it wasn’t really deserving. The writers here did a surprisingly good job.
6.
Amir Khalid
This is surely a product that has BAD IDEA stamped all over it.
7.
Comrade Luke
@Mnemosyne: Paused it at a random point, and I think this pretty much sums it up.
@Amir Khalid: “These are essentially Capri Suns for adults”. Great.
9.
ruemara
@? Martin: Agreed. I had a lot of fun livetweeting it. And just about lost it when they had the Tupac clone appear for the man on the street interview thing. My tweet was, “Tupac came back from the dead to warn Compton. Praise #bigassspiders”. It was consistently funny, lacking in the voyeuristic slasher porn aesthete of the Asylum’s catalog and was really high quality cheese.
10.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: You beat me to it about Rummy being the youngest and oldest SecDef.
11.
JCJ
@Amir Khalid:
Good luck to Liverpool later on today. Very nice of Sunderland to give the Reds a little extra breathing room!
@JCJ:
And Jose Mourinho has been such a good sport about it, too. Incidentally, Sunderland’s winning penalty was scored by a player on loan from Liverpool, so …
14.
Betty Cracker
Holy crap, that’s a cute puppy!
15.
? Martin
Man, Hamilton/Mercedes is just embarrassingly faster than the rest of the field. Another 18 second win, and he was coasting. Mercedes is going to win every race this season – they’re so much faster they can save their engines, not take risks on track.
16.
Betty Cracker
Guys, I don’t know WTF to do about this accursed insomnia! I can’t keep this up, though. It’s seriously screwing up my life.
17.
raven
@Betty Cracker: I know it’s silly to be recommending books but
Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness by Jon Kabat-Zinn has a section on sleep stress.
“Stress. It is everywhere around us. Even worse, it gets inside us: sapping our energy, undermining our health, and making us more vulnerable to anxiety, depression, and disease. Now, based on Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn’s renowned mindfulness-based stress reduction program, this groundbreaking book shows you how to use natural, medically proven methods to soothe and heal your body, mind, and spirit. “
18.
Betty Cracker
@raven: “Full Catastrophe Living” — sounds like my kind of book! Thanks, I will check it out!
19.
raven
@Betty Cracker: I know you are aware of this but don’t discount the impact of what you have been through in the last few months. It might be good to see someone who can help you sort through what is going on.
20.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: Don’t worry Betty, you’ll get used to it.
I beat my recent vicious period of insomnia by giving up all caffeine, all booze, all weed, eating only natural foods… and exercising like hell so I was too bone-tired to stay awake, having a hot bath before bedtime too.
Took a week or so but got into a pattern of waking up at 5am and crashing at 9pm, staying away from all screens: tablets, phones and displays after 7pm, preferring to read or listen to music instead.
May not work for everyone, but it did the trick for me.
22.
OzarkHillbilly
Whip-or-wills are back. Actually have been back for about a week. Listening to one through my window now. I know they drive some people nuts but I never tire of them.
DK all by itself explains a lot of the world’s problems.
25.
martha
@Betty Cracker: Betty, I second Raven’s suggestion. I actually took the “mindfulness meditation” series based on this book here at UW Madison when I was really struggling and while I’m not a woo woo kind of gal it was really helpful. I still use the practices to help me sleep and de-stress when I’m in freak out mode.
26.
Steeplejack
Norwich is determined to make this a match with Liverpool. I bet Amir Khalid is sweating bullets.
Isn’t it just? Even my husband, who is not a squee-er, has watched that vid about 20 times for the cuteness rush.
28.
Cassidy
Going out drinking before zombie jesus day was a poor plan.
29.
shelly
I looove how puppies can be tearing around one minute, you turn around and they’re dead to the world.
30.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Hey, on rewatching my way through “Game of Thrones”, I’ve just realised that Bronn was wrong in his most famous line,
It turns out there IS a cure for being a c**t…
31.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
A few years ago I went through a period where 4 hrs of sleep a night was about max. It crept up on me and it took me a while to realize that my relatively new business failing and really having nothing to replace it, like any money coming in at all had created a huge amount of stress.
You have been through a lot of stress the last bit so I would suspect similar results, lack of sleep and it’s accompanying cheerfulness. It most likely will subside as that stress level goes down and you become a little used to the major changes you have been through. Someone suggested you seek professional counseling help and that is always a good idea.
My hope is that you find the way for you to relieve the level of excess stress that it sounds like you are carrying around.
I agree with everyone else that you might want to sign up for some grief counseling — if nothing else, your local hospital probably has groups available. My mother-in-law did that after my father-in-law died and it was really helpful for her.
Depending on what kind of insomnia it is, some of these tips might help. If you’re going to bed at your regular time but keep waking up early (3:00 or 4:00 am) and unable to get back to sleep, that can be a warning sign of depression.
And, dumb as it sounds, when I can’t sleep because I have things rattling around in my brain, it almost always helps to write everything down. I guess technically it’s a journal, but I feel like my brain is trying to tell me things or remind me about things and I need to write them down. This may be especially useful if what’s rattling around is stories and memories about your mom — on some level, you may be afraid that you’ll forget them now that she’s gone, so write them down now so you can relieve that worry.
33.
Betty Cracker
Thanks, guys. I’m considering all of the above.
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Comrade Luke
I’m watching The Unknown Known – the Errol Morris interview/dockumentary on Donald Rumsfeld.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone where the distance between how brilliant he thinks he is, versus how smart he *actually* is, is so great. I can’t believe this guy was Secretary of Defense.
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Luke:
I am truly coming to believe that the smartest people are the ones who freely admit there are things they don’t know.
Amir Khalid
@Comrade Luke:
Over the years, it seems to me, Donald Rumsfeld has so well disguised himself as a smart person that even he has fallen for it. By the way, did you know that he is both the youngest man ever appointed US Secretary of Defense and the oldest?
Comrade Luke
@Mnemosyne: I don’t understand how anyone thinks this guy is smart, at all. Other than maybe you can get away with just about anything if you do it with confidence. And Rumsfeld has plenty of that.
? Martin
Ok, ‘Big Ass Spider’ qualifies as high art of low-budget disaster movies. Sharknado got the social media buzz, but it wasn’t really deserving. The writers here did a surprisingly good job.
Amir Khalid
This is surely a product that has BAD IDEA stamped all over it.
Comrade Luke
@Mnemosyne: Paused it at a random point, and I think this pretty much sums it up.
The smartest guy in the room.
Comrade Luke
@Amir Khalid: “These are essentially Capri Suns for adults”. Great.
ruemara
@? Martin: Agreed. I had a lot of fun livetweeting it. And just about lost it when they had the Tupac clone appear for the man on the street interview thing. My tweet was, “Tupac came back from the dead to warn Compton. Praise #bigassspiders”. It was consistently funny, lacking in the voyeuristic slasher porn aesthete of the Asylum’s catalog and was really high quality cheese.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: You beat me to it about Rummy being the youngest and oldest SecDef.
JCJ
@Amir Khalid:
Good luck to Liverpool later on today. Very nice of Sunderland to give the Reds a little extra breathing room!
A Humble Lurker
@Mnemosyne: Plato and Socrates, man.
Amir Khalid
@JCJ:
And Jose Mourinho has been such a good sport about it, too. Incidentally, Sunderland’s winning penalty was scored by a player on loan from Liverpool, so …
Betty Cracker
Holy crap, that’s a cute puppy!
? Martin
Man, Hamilton/Mercedes is just embarrassingly faster than the rest of the field. Another 18 second win, and he was coasting. Mercedes is going to win every race this season – they’re so much faster they can save their engines, not take risks on track.
Betty Cracker
Guys, I don’t know WTF to do about this accursed insomnia! I can’t keep this up, though. It’s seriously screwing up my life.
raven
@Betty Cracker: I know it’s silly to be recommending books but
Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness by Jon Kabat-Zinn has a section on sleep stress.
“Stress. It is everywhere around us. Even worse, it gets inside us: sapping our energy, undermining our health, and making us more vulnerable to anxiety, depression, and disease. Now, based on Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn’s renowned mindfulness-based stress reduction program, this groundbreaking book shows you how to use natural, medically proven methods to soothe and heal your body, mind, and spirit. “
Betty Cracker
@raven: “Full Catastrophe Living” — sounds like my kind of book! Thanks, I will check it out!
raven
@Betty Cracker: I know you are aware of this but don’t discount the impact of what you have been through in the last few months. It might be good to see someone who can help you sort through what is going on.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: Don’t worry Betty, you’ll get used to it.
Alexandra
@Betty Cracker:
I beat my recent vicious period of insomnia by giving up all caffeine, all booze, all weed, eating only natural foods… and exercising like hell so I was too bone-tired to stay awake, having a hot bath before bedtime too.
Took a week or so but got into a pattern of waking up at 5am and crashing at 9pm, staying away from all screens: tablets, phones and displays after 7pm, preferring to read or listen to music instead.
May not work for everyone, but it did the trick for me.
OzarkHillbilly
Whip-or-wills are back. Actually have been back for about a week. Listening to one through my window now. I know they drive some people nuts but I never tire of them.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Amir Khalid:
“An American past time.” Twice. In the first paragraph. Head/desk.
Hillary Rettig
@Mnemosyne: This is thing, right? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
DK all by itself explains a lot of the world’s problems.
martha
@Betty Cracker: Betty, I second Raven’s suggestion. I actually took the “mindfulness meditation” series based on this book here at UW Madison when I was really struggling and while I’m not a woo woo kind of gal it was really helpful. I still use the practices to help me sleep and de-stress when I’m in freak out mode.
Steeplejack
Norwich is determined to make this a match with Liverpool. I bet Amir Khalid is sweating bullets.
Svensker
@Betty Cracker:
Isn’t it just? Even my husband, who is not a squee-er, has watched that vid about 20 times for the cuteness rush.
Cassidy
Going out drinking before zombie jesus day was a poor plan.
shelly
I looove how puppies can be tearing around one minute, you turn around and they’re dead to the world.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Hey, on rewatching my way through “Game of Thrones”, I’ve just realised that Bronn was wrong in his most famous line,
It turns out there IS a cure for being a c**t…
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
A few years ago I went through a period where 4 hrs of sleep a night was about max. It crept up on me and it took me a while to realize that my relatively new business failing and really having nothing to replace it, like any money coming in at all had created a huge amount of stress.
You have been through a lot of stress the last bit so I would suspect similar results, lack of sleep and it’s accompanying cheerfulness. It most likely will subside as that stress level goes down and you become a little used to the major changes you have been through. Someone suggested you seek professional counseling help and that is always a good idea.
My hope is that you find the way for you to relieve the level of excess stress that it sounds like you are carrying around.
Mnemosyne
@Betty Cracker:
I agree with everyone else that you might want to sign up for some grief counseling — if nothing else, your local hospital probably has groups available. My mother-in-law did that after my father-in-law died and it was really helpful for her.
Depending on what kind of insomnia it is, some of these tips might help. If you’re going to bed at your regular time but keep waking up early (3:00 or 4:00 am) and unable to get back to sleep, that can be a warning sign of depression.
And, dumb as it sounds, when I can’t sleep because I have things rattling around in my brain, it almost always helps to write everything down. I guess technically it’s a journal, but I feel like my brain is trying to tell me things or remind me about things and I need to write them down. This may be especially useful if what’s rattling around is stories and memories about your mom — on some level, you may be afraid that you’ll forget them now that she’s gone, so write them down now so you can relieve that worry.
Betty Cracker
Thanks, guys. I’m considering all of the above.