I forgot to show you the amazing bow that vet tech Melissa made for Lily today (dad is developing quite the thing for Melissa, who is just such a nice person and has such a kind air about her but is about 20 years younger than me):
Steve also says hi:
I love this house. It’s just such a comfortable relaxing place. I love how all five of us have our own spaces in the living room, and we just hang out and relax. I like that it is old and has character, and there is lots of color and lots of wood and there are multiple plants in every room. I’m so glad I was able to buy it, which I never would have if my father weren’t around to guide the progress.
It’s just a good place.
*** Update ***
Steve almost fell off the ottoman he achieved such a high level of relaxation:
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
What a cute bow for Lily!
I have a question for BJ: why do you think NASCAR is declining?
efgoldman
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
Too white, too expensive.
Comrade Mary
She looks so proud of how pretty she looks with that bow on!
Yarrow
Lilly girl! That is an amazing bow for an amazing doggie.
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: Too white and supposedly millennials aren’t into cars as much as previous generations.
Adam L Silverman
Who says you can’t train a cat? Who’s an exceptionally good kitty?
Adam L Silverman
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: You can only watch the same 20 cars drive counter clockwise in a circle before the mystique wears off.
1stgengirl
Happy for you, Cole. Love this community of jackals you have enticed to populate this site. Chair-bound 74 year old here in Western Washington, 10 year lurker. Thanks for your good heart, good head, and excellent critters!
opiejeanne
So glad you rescued this house as well as Walter. It’s good to see you and your pets enjoy the place.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I love that story. I hope the same lions find that giraffe-killing bitch who was gloating on the internet the other day.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I saw that. I get hunting when you’re going to use what you hunt for food. I don’t get this big game/trophy hunting that includes taking out giraffes.
AnotherBruce
This lovely old fucking house just doesn’t have the same ring to it. i’ll wait patiently to see the next post about the latest downpour.
Major Major Major Major
Ohhh my gosh what a great bow!
Ohio Mom
@1stgengirl: Stay around, don’t lurk anymore, keep us company!
On another note, that is quite the bow — maybe Melissa is also developing a thing?
Yarrow
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Giraffe-killing bitch is going to be on one of the four hours of the Today Show tomorrow. I saw Hoda promoting it this morning as, “she’s going to tell her side of the story.” Fucking no-ethics scum, giving that woman TV time.
NotMax
At least you eschewed the “This F*cking Old House” tag. This time.
Amir Khalid
If I dare suggest it, age is but a number.
Amir Khalid
Do you save Lily’s bows? It would be a treat to see her collection.
Ohio Mom
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: I can’t figure out why NASCAR was ever popular to begin with.
Mary G
I just posted this two threads back, but it’s too bizarre to languish in a dead post:
Truth is stranger than fiction.
I think you might have a chance with Melissa, John. The bows get fancier and fancier, and Lily exudes a powerful charm. Plus you have made yourself a home. Good to see you content in these insane times.
NotMax
@Mary G
Then shall repeat response here.
Dibs on betting that
a) They didn’t buy a legitimate copy, it’s a CD they burned themselves.
b) It turns out it’s the William Shatner rendition.
frosty
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: NASCAR: go fast, turn left.
My semi-real opinion, it’s a sport that’s part of a particular culture, and when that culture is on the outs, the sport will decline. I wonder if there’s an inverse relationship of the number of US fans of NASCAR and (snooty, European, elitist) Formula 1. Or, for that matter, football and handegg.
Amir Khalid
@Ohio Mom:
When I was a kid there was a lot of American stock-car racing (as it was called before the NASCAR branding) on Malaysian TV. I guess the footage was sold cheap to the foreign market in those days. Watching those boring-looking cars go around and around and around and around a circular track for an hour on end made me realise how dull motor racing is to watch.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: @NotMax:
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Pretty sure that Elton John never held a concert in North Dakota, so technically his live crowd size there is zero.
;)
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@efgoldman:
@Yarrow:
Yeah, they tried with Danica Patrick and they have a few other black drivers. Some F1 drivers as well. Just couldn’t make it work.
@Adam L Silverman:
It would be more interesting if they did more road courses, like Road of America or something. A fan might argue that the point is watching for the strategy of the drivers/crew chiefs but it is truly boring. From what I’ve read they just don’t have the personalities they used to have and the rule/car changes since 2005 or so haven’t helped either.
I also think the changing culture of America is doing them in as well. The south is still pretty bad (red states after all), but it’s different than it was even 15 years ago. Virginia has a transgender state senator representing a rural district.
Mike in NC
Fat Bastard’s trade war with China just kicked off. Enjoy the “fun and easy win”, y’all!
sgrAstar
Cole! Article in WaPo about rain gardens- could be worth a look. Here’s the link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/home/the-rewards-of-a-well-designed-rain-garden/2018/07/02/fd4d3362-7b0f-11e8-93cc-6d3beccdd7a3_story.html
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@frosty:
A big problem with NASCAR (and many American-centric sports) is that it’s never been able to get the same international appeal that F1 has. For its entire history it’s been trapped in a single geographical region; it couldn’t even keep mass appeal in the rest of the United States for an extended period of time.
Rally racing is more exciting to watch, imo.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
I’m glad you’re happy John. Having a comfy home that’s all yours can be very satisfying.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Amir Khalid:
About what time period would that have been out of curiosity?
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
“Billy Ray would’a won it, except he had to make six pit stops. Three for fuel and tires, three to ask directions.”
Steeplejack
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
My theory: young people in general are becoming less interested in cars as “car culture,” and the ones who still are can’t afford “hot cars.” So less interest in watching fast cars go fast.
jacy
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
Indy Car is fun. It’s got a lot of different courses and the drivers aren’t jerks for the most part. (The Boyfriend got me into it. He’s a car guy, but hates, hates, hates NASCAR. He likes Formula 1 too, but I find it boring, because there are never any lead changes.) But I’m enjoying following Indy Car, probably because the racer I chose to follow won the title last year…..I can get a little competitive about sports.
Amir Khalid
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
I am two and a half weeks older than Barack Obama. My kidhood was contemporary with his.
Elizabelle
Lily and her corsage of ribbons. She does look proud.
Best in show, any day of the year. Steve too.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
NASCAR was shown on Kenyan TV?
:)
So your birthday is just around the corner, as we speak. Early happies.
Steeplejack
@Yarrow:
I read one story where “her side” is that she was participating in herd management/conservation, the giraffe was 18 years old (old—sad!) and plus it had totally killed three other giraffes. Seriously, that was her line. The only thing she left out is that it was just about to crush a baby human right in front of her.
And of course all that is completely at odds with her Twitter/Facebook history of “Yoo-hoo! I bagged another trophy on my bucket list!”
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
Trump can’t even get this simple detail of popular culture right: Sir Elton’s characteristic instrument is the piano.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
To add to this: some fans complain that the drivers are too “corporate”. They preferred it when drivers would fight on the track. That never appealed to me. It sounds barbaric.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Steeplejack:
For my part, the mechanical workings of car, beyond the basics, have always bored the hell out of me. I can’t get interested.
jnfr
I love your house and the animals and even you, John. Keep on keeping on.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Yarrow:
Don’t you know? There’s always two sides to a story! Never more, never less, so says our media overlords.
Steeplejack
@Amir Khalid:
I went to the Indianapolis 500 one year in the early ’80s and found it to be surprisingly exciting—the noise and the incredible speed that you don’t really pick up on TV. But it was a junket on a client’s dime, and I’ve never felt the urge to repeat the experience. Just one of those “glad I did it once” things.
Adam L Silverman
@NotMax: Yeah, that’s not really the part that was standing out (see what I did there) in that tweet.
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
It was mentioned in these threads last year that my birthday* is on the anniversary of TWA 800 and MH17. There was some joshing about it not being wise to travel by air on that date.
*David Hasselhoff’s, too.
Adam L Silverman
Another successful end to Infrastructure Week…
Mike J
@jacy: I’m an F1 fan, but there are few lead changes. They’ve changed the aero rules for next year to make it easier to pass, but it’s not going to help.
I like the fact that it’s a development class of racing. The cars are different (NASCAR cars are all alike), and teams tend to do better at different tracks. I hate the dumb things they do to appease the euro hillbillies who think Jeremy Clarkson is a deep thinker. (Like taking out the MGU-H (which produces more power for racing) because it changes exhaust flow and fans complained that the cars weren’t loud enough. Making cars worse for the sole purpose of making more noise.)
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Penetrating insight.
;)
Adam L Silverman
@sgrAstar: I fixed your link for you. It had captured the reply button.
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
Bismarck Civic Center, April 6, 2011.
ETA: I was expecting something from the early ’70s. I saw him in Columbia, Missouri, then. He did the college circuit before he hit it really big.
Calouste
@Mike in NC: Considering the rest of the world out numbers the US about 4:1 in GDP, I’m willing to bet who this is going to be easy for. The shitgibbon thinks it is still 1980, when the US was 40% of global GDP and a chunk of that (Eastern bloc) didn’t really take part in world trade. These days, the rest of the world can get by without the US if they’re being difficult.
Amir Khalid
@Steeplejack:
Is she a wildlife ranger in Africa? Culling is sometimes necessary in wildlife management, but that should be a job for professionals, not a pastime for trigger-happy foreigners with money.
NotMax
Debating on whether or not to start watching a Russian 4-part program about the Crimean War (“World War Zero”) which is sitting in the queue. Expect it to be somewhat … differently focused.
Christopher Hades
Is it (honestly) finally time to flee the U.S. because of this?
Teddys Person
@Yarrow: Her side of the story? I fired a gun and an animal that was alive is now senselessly dead. JFC
Adam L Silverman
@Steeplejack: It is not uncommon on the firearms sites/blogs, as well as the hunting sites/blogs, to see big game hunting written about as if it was for conservation purposes. “The lion was harvested in order to stop its predation and all the meat was donated to the closest village to the preserve and the money raised from the hunting fees – licenses and tags – gets plowed back into the conservation and anti-poaching programs” type of thing. While there is conservation hunting that does these things, I’ve never seen those hunts written up. I’ve only ever seen the write ups when a controversial kill occurs. I know a number of folks who hunt – lot of the military guys I work with hunt. Most of it is deer and wild boar/feral hogs. Some elk. Occasionally bear. The latter two really depend on where they’re from and where they live/hunt. Everyone of those guys uses the entire animal. The meat is butchered and ultimately eaten. The hides are either self tanned for leather or sold to a tannery. There is no waste. And everything is taken in season and is done to actually maintain healthy populations of those animals. Or, in the case of the wild boar/feral hogs, trying to keep them under control so they don’t do as much damage.
NotMax
@Calouste
Hence the Elton John call out. Likely half the crowd had only a vague conception (if that) who that is.
Adam L Silverman
What did Kay know and when did she know it?
Steeplejack
@Amir Khalid:
Outsourcing!
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Mike J:
Ah, yes, Jeremy Clarkson. That same Clarkson who said that striking workers (I think it was public sector ones) should be shot in front of their families. But it was just a joke lol!
I remember when the BBC let him go because he punched out a producer because he didn’t get exactly what he wanted for dinner on a shoot. And his two co-hosts sided with him and left Top Gear despite the fact that he was clearly in the wrong. Top Gear has only recently found its footing and gotten good hosts with chemistry.
Clarkson wouldn’t be so bad if wasn’t for his politics. You could tell he, May, and Hammond had real chemistry and the show’s writers were able to write hilarious skits, especially the one where they tried to make a van convertible. They tried to take it through the carwash and it automatic carwash ended up getting wrecked. It may have been fake but it was funny. I still watch their new show Grand Tour and it has good moments too. It’s just sometimes hard to get over Clarkson’s assholishness.
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: Organ has more than one meaning…//
Steeplejack
@Adam L Silverman:
Yeah, I know.
How do you say “Christ, who the hell wants giraffe meat?!” in Swahili?
Yarrow
@Steeplejack:
I got to go to the drag races one time. We even had pit passes so we got to wander around and look at all the cars. It was pretty fun and interesting to do once. Same as you, though, I wouldn’t really want to go again. It was amazingly loud and the crowd was really into it, so it was kind of a fascinating culture I knew nothing about. Plus, the smell of nitro is something I’ll never forget.
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: Apparently some places in Africa have programs where you can purchase the licenses and tags to do a hunt that is a cull. They charge through the nose and the money goes back into the conservation and anti-poaching programs.
Teddys Person
@Mary G: It’s the autograph that puts this story over the top.
Adam L Silverman
@Christopher Hades: Because Lilly got a nice bow at the Vet’s?
I think seeking asylum somewhere else is a bit of an extreme reaction, but you need to make the best decision for you.//
Steeplejack
@Yarrow:
Nitro funny cars! Didn’t we have this discussion a few years ago, complete with call-outs to the twangy-guitar radio commercials?
Adam L Silverman
@Steeplejack: I don’t know. I could email the Kenyan generals I supervised when I was at USAWC and ask if giraffe meat is actually eaten if you like?
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
Firesign Theater:
Teddys Person
Apparently, John Kelly asked Scott Pruit to resign.
Adam L Silverman
@Steeplejack: Yes, when I used the “Sunday, SUNDAY, SUNDAY!!! ad to promote guest posts by Cheryl on the DPRK’s nuclear program.
Chip Daniels
Imagining Steve seeing that story about the poacher-eating lions and thinking, “were I only 50 pounds heavier, i could so make a meal of John…”
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: From the article:
Uh huh.
Platonailedit
@Teddys Person: And yet pruitt’s ass kissing of the thug was so firm.
Steeplejack
Almost forgot, and it might be too late, even for the night shift:
Hypothetical question: If one drops one’s cell phone in the toilet—only for two seconds (and clean water, thank God!)—how long does the “rice in a baggie” cure usually take? Asking for a—oh, hell, I did it. Can’t believe it, but I did. D’oh!
Silver lining: the trusty Moto X (first gen) is 4½ years old, so it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if I have to get a new phone.
L85NJGT
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
American open wheel (sprint cars, Indycar) collapsed a decade ago. The fan demographics for NASCAR is in a similar state – old. Auto racing was of its time and place – industrial age small city America. Car dealers, small piece shops, metal benders and mechanic shops were ground zero. That sort of work has gone away or changed drastically. Tracks can’t afford the insurance, recruiting and retaining fans that have far more entertainment options is $$$$$, and the hardware has changed drastically.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Giraffe meat is eaten. I’ve eaten it.
rikyrah
Lily’s bow is beautiful ?
Hi Steve, with your scary self?
Jager
@NotMax:
Elton John has played in ND several times and scheduled again in 2019. The Fargodome seats 24,000 for music.
trump didn’t schedule his rally at the dome, he was at a 6,000 seat hockey rink.
Platonailedit
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: I still think this is all the revenge of Boehner.
Calouste
@Adam L Silverman: That newspaper article is actually from last December, and “Republican is a lying hypocrit” isn’t particularly surprising, but there was one interesting tidbit in there:
“He previously worked for conservative U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, a Champaign County Republican.”
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: I will not bother my former students then.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
There were two big attractions that drew crowds at the way out in the boonies county fair back when I resided in the Poconos.
The hoochie coochie girl attractions off on one side of the midway (who looked as if they’d been hoochieing and coochieing since the Garfield administration) and the Joie Chitwoood Thrill Show. I took a pass on both every year.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Jager:
And even then he couldn’t fill it up, if reports are to be believed. I really think his support is a mile wide and an inch deep at this point.
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Well, the article about Wes Goodman is from November 2017, so it’s hardly new.
Mandalay
@Teddys Person:
Nobody could have predicted that Trump would lie about it (from your link):
I’ve only just read what actually triggered Pruitt’s firing:
So Pruitt did the one thing those in Trump’s cabinet should never, ever do: give Trump bad press.
NotMax
@Jager
Who knew?
Thanks for that, though.
Was in Fargo but once, ’76 or ’77. Place was redolent with the unmistakable smell of too old potatoes.
Ruckus
@Mike J:
There is a subset of humans who think that things that make the most noise are best. It doesn’t have to be actually better, it doesn’t have to go any faster, it just has to sound like it. And to them sounding like it’s faster is good because then they don’t have to prove anything except how loud it is. Try this logical theme on our president. In his case it doesn’t matter what is true, or if anything is, just as long as he says it, it’s great. Or just as long as it’s loud, it’s great. They are 4 yr old spoiled fucking brats.
They want what they want, when they want it and that’s the end of it for them.
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
I’m aware of that, but I still disapprove of rich foreigners paying to shoot wild animals for fun.
Yarrow
@Steeplejack: That’s a bummer. I think you’re supposed to leave it in the rice for 24 hours or so. I remember seeing that you’re supposed to take the battery out as well.
Jager
@L85NJGT:
I don’t know about NASCAR costs, but Jalopnik has a breakout of costs in Prototype racing, interesting read. Tires for the 24 hour race at Daytona? 50k
https://jalopnik.com/this-is-how-much-it-costs-to-run-a-professional-race-te-1724802119
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
As I understand it the wildlife folks sometimes sell the “kills.” They can use the money and the animal in question has to be put down for some reason, disease, injury, aggression…. They do benefit from it so that they can keep doing their work.
Not saying I agree with this, just that I’ve heard about it.
efgoldman
@Ruckus:
Maybe there’s a reason why our teeny tiny State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations(*) leads the world in Harleys per capita.
(*)Yes, that’s the longest official name of the smallest state
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: “the unmistakable smell of too old potatoes.”
Vodka?
NotMax
@Ruckus
There was a maker of vacuum cleaners who (1940s, IIRC) put a muffler on the devices to make them quieter.
Sales were dismal and returns common. People complained that if they weren’t loud, they weren’t cleaning.
Amir Khalid
@Teddys Person:
For you, I fix:
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
Not even close.
But thanks for the reminder. Going to pour one right now.
Jager
@NotMax:
Fargo is a pretty good town, population in 120k, trading area 300k plus. Microsoft has a big operation there. One of my high school classmates owned a full line GM car store in Fargo, 500 plus cars a month. That’s about as big as car stores can get.
If you were there in the late fall, you probably were smelling sugar beets being processed by American Crystal sugar. Potatoes generally don’t stink unless they are making potato chips.
NotMax
@Jager
Obviously much smaller population then. One pizza place (exotic!) – only thing other than bars we could find open after they rolled up the sidewalks not long after sunset. Whatever the aroma was, the first whiffs were evident from about 8 to 10 miles out before one rolled into town.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Amir Khalid: I love how much that angle is getting played by the media, the great and heroic general wins one last battle. First he won the Battle of Omarosa in less than a week, now as a twilight roar, he wins the Siege of Pruitt.
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
So Trump is admitting he doesn’t have an organ? Hmm …
efgoldman
@Jager:
Years ago (early 70s) I worked across the street from the Lay’s potato chip factory (long closed) in Fall River, MA. They would back a 45′ trailer load of potatoes up to the dock, and tilt the whole truck up so that the product rolled down into the production line. An hour or so later, it the wind was blowing the right way, the smell of frying (and occasionally rancid oil) drifted across the street.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: Usually you get over this by 25, those that don’t are called assholes. Speaking of which, some assholes just set off some firecrakers. I’m sure the neighbors will appreciate it, just like the ones they set off at 5:15am today.
Ruckus
@L85NJGT:
The people that might normally come into the sport don’t have the money, that’s kids. What kind of car can they buy or what gets handed down to them? A small Honda/Toyota, etc. They aren’t big, outdated V8s. The interest isn’t there. Second, the costs have gone sky high because the cars aren’t in any way production like NASCAR started out. Of course it has been that way for quite some time. But now pretty much anyone with any interest knows this. So it isn’t watching someone turn left for 2 hrs in a car like the one Jimmy Joe Bob sold you. And local boy make good? Sorry it’s a traveling carnival. Times have changed and so has NASCAR. It’s just the changes didn’t make the show better, they made it more expensive and less appealing to the fans. And there is only so much that appeals to someone who came for the barbecue and the beer.
Mary G
Wow. Sad.
Retired Thai navy SEAL dies while working to rescue soccer team in cave (WaPo).
He was only 38. He was putting oxygen tanks along the route out for the boys and ran out of oxygen himself. What a horrible situation.
NotMax
@Jager
Fargo just seems dull because it’s across the river from exciting Moorhead, Minnesota.
(Variation of an age-old joke: Philadelphia just seems dull because it’s across the river from exciting Camden, New Jersey.)
:)
L85NJGT
@Jager:
Speed costs money – how fast do you want to go?
Auto racing has a long and glorious history of sketchy finance sources.
Steeplejack
@Adam L Silverman:
I was thinking of this one.
Cckids
@Ruckus: “As I understand it the wildlife folks sometimes sell the “kills.” They can use the money and the animal in question has to be put down for some reason, disease, injury, aggression…. They do benefit from it so that they can keep doing their work.
Not saying I agree with this, just that I’ve heard about it.”
I’ve heard this as well; I guess, all in all, I can see the utility of it; just the bragging and flaunting online is horrible. Plus, you “hunted” & killed a giraffe? In a preserve? How is that difficult or commendable? Why not shoot a cow on the neighbor’s farm? It seems like a similar challenge.
NotMax
@efgoldman
Used to be (maybe still is) a Kraft cheese plant outside of Allentown, PA. Gigantic open top, above ground rectangular fiberglass reservoirs held cheese processing waste water (and who knows what else). Stench was so bad that Kraft installed sprayers above each tank that let out puffs of perfume at timed intervals.
Now Hershey, PA, there’s a town which smells good. Not kidding, the whole place smells of chocolate.
Jager
@NotMax:
When I was in high school in Grand Forks (60’s) we drove to Fargo after school one day because we heard on the radio a taco shop opened, 180 mile round trip for shitty tacos made by a bored Norwegian girl. She was cute, though. Thank god a Mexican family opened one in my old home town and their Mexican food was and still is really good. People in Boston used to ask me what it was like to grow up in ND. After American Graffiti came out in 72, I’d just say, “Ever see American Graffiti?”,
Amir Khalid
@efgoldman:
There are better-engineered, better-made, and better-looking motorcycles to be had from all three former Axis nations.
Steeplejack
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
And I think at this point there’s an element of just wanting to go see “the President” and/or the geek spectacle—like nitro funny cars or WrestleMania.
NotMax
@Jager
Heh. Stop in Fargo was on the way to visit a friend in East Grand Forks, MN.
“You’ve got to show up, we’re throwing a killer party!” He gave us the wrong date and we showed up promptly – the day after.
The 70s, in a nutshell.
Steeplejack
@Yarrow:
Thanks. Battery is non-removable. I’ll see how it turns out. May be time for a new phone, as I said.
NotMax
@Jager
In fact, now that I muse on it 40+ years after, memory may be unjustly accusing Fargo. Could have been Grand Forks which had the tater aroma.
Jager
@NotMax:
My grandmother graduated from Concordia College in Moorhead in 1913, a teacher in those days with a 4 year degree was a rarity. Grandma was asked by my oldest daughter why she got a 4 year degree when she could have taught with a 2 year diploma, Grandma Clara said, “I liked school”. In Jr High I was playing hockey on two teams, in different age divisions. I slipped behind in 7th grade math. I spent my Christmas vacation “going to school with grandma” I sat at her dining room table from 8am to 11:30, ate lunch and went back to the numbers from 1 to 3. She was relentless. I got A’s after that, because I sure the hell didn’t want to go back to Grandma’s classroom.
Ruckus
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Assholes get over it by 25 if they have something else in life. Let’s face it life in the US isn’t all that pretty right now. Large corps hire based on some irrational concept of success in college that has nothing to do with the job and place requirements as was being discussed on an earlier thread, like an expert with 4 yrs experience in a language/program that’s only a year old. A lot of the jobs that ill equipped people used to get, don’t exist any longer. We still produce stuff, lots of it but the methods require lots fewer people to do. Build a car, used to take three to four times more people than it does now and a lot of parts are build in other countries. Tee shirts and most every thing else are sown in third or fourth world countries rather than by my ex’s or pretty much anyone’s mom. Those jobs weren’t great but they were jobs. And while the pay wasn’t anything to write home about, they did provide something close to a living wage. And on this blog people have been writing that to be single and work and live in SF for example, one has to make $100K/year. Or have a bitch of a commute. A single in my building is almost as much as a two bedroom. I couldn’t come close to living here without a room mate. Basically it take 2 incomes to live in most urban areas. Average income has not in any way kept up with the cost of stuff. Look around, you see $80-100K cars and 15 yr old junkers. I do OK because I have a job that requires my skills, honed for decades and a boss that doesn’t give a shit if you have a college or HS diploma, only that you can move metal properly. But these types of jobs used to be everywhere and now are far less. In some ways it’s the technology and in some ways it’s progress. And in some ways it’s people wanting to be rich and having no scruples in getting there.
Aleta
@Steeplejack: I fished one out of the sink and left it in a bowl of rice overnight (battery out) and it worked again the next morning. Put it back in the rice for another 12 hours to make sure it was dry everywhere. Worked for years after.
Eta: It wasn’t a smart phone.
Platonailedit
@Amir Khalid:
A Ducati >>> than any murkan crap.
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
Whey has many uses: you can drink it, cook with it, make cream and butter and protein supplements from it, spray it on garden plants and crops as fertiliser, or feed it to livestock.
NotMax
@Jager
Wow. Good on her.
Had a Grandma Clara as well. First (and AFAIK, only) female to go all the way through high school in her shtetl in what was then Poland.
Jager
@NotMax:
Jesus I hope you went to Whitey’s in EGF or to Frenchy’s out by the UND campus. Both gone now, but they were great bars in their day.
Mary G
Oopsie:
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
All I can tell you is there wasn’t a cop on the planet who would pull you over for exceeding the speed limit while driving past the Kraft plant.
Steeplejack
@Aleta:
Thanks. Pretty sure my battery doesn’t come out. I’ll rice the phone and see what happens.
In the meantime, I get very few phone calls anyway, and I found Verizon apps to read/send texts on my computer and my tablet. Actually, the computer one is pretty cool, because I can blast out texts with the full-sized clicky keyboard. Nice!
Ruckus
@Cckids:
Absolutely.
It’s the manly bullshit bragging that gets me. How brave they were to shoot an animal. And they had people that knew what they were doing along in case little Jonnie or Joanna screwed up. I used to have a customer who went big game hunting, decades ago. I thought it was perverse then, my views have gotten stronger against it over time, even though I can see the benefit to the system.
Wanting to see your kill up on the wall is just letting everyone know that you are a useless fuck of a human being, that you have no respect for life, only power. If those animals got their turn there’d be no trophy heads on the walls, just piles of digested useless fuck.
NotMax
@Jager
Not that recall. He was attending St. Cloud. We may have gone somewhere near there. Memories intermittent and fuzzy. Was living in St. Paul at the time, so the drive was not undertaken blithely.
Except for one kind of distasteful story which is better related in person, so shall demur on that.
frosty
@Steeplejack: My nephew is a car nut. We helped him buy a dog-ass Maverick, straight 6, automatic. He’s gonna drop a 302 and 4-speed into it. Maybe part of the problem with the yout’s is that you can’t do anything to modern cars, not even change the spark plugs. I was like my nephew but I gave up when the index to the wiring diagram in my 1990 Miata was more pages than the whole wiring diagram in my TR-3. Plus, changing the oil filter required a contortionist!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: No, these are just assholes.
frosty
@Steeplejack:
Me too 1987, agreed with the difference in person. That trip was the source of “Go fast, turn left” which was soaped onto the windows of several cars westbound for Indiana on I-70.
prostratedragon
“Chatterbox,” Duke Ellington and His Orchestra, live in Fargo, ND, 1940. The whole album is around.
frosty
@Adam L Silverman: Shit, I should have cleaned up my 401K before this week. Meant to get into safer stuff.
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
And, as much as this pains me, Harleys aren’t half bad any more. It’s just that they used to be all bad so that’s a 50% improvement. Of course they also cost and arm and a leg. Which makes riding them difficult.
It’s a cult purchase, like the latest clothing line.
NotMax
@frosty
A long time ago, when was looking for autos, the eyes stopped on an ad for an Austin-Healy into which someone had crammed a Rolls-Royce engine.
“Too bizarre,” shouted the brain, adamantly. “Keep looking.”
Amir Khalid
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
The business that got Jeremy Clarkson sacked from Top Gear had nothing to do with his libertarian politics; and everything to do with his sense of entitlement. He figured that being the BBC’s biggest star allowed him to go drinking with Hammond and May after the shoot, then return to the hotel after its kitchen had closed for the night and demand a steak dinner.
I’m disappointed that Hammond and May chose to stick with him for the money.
Ruckus
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I never said they got better.
Assholes gotta asshole. That saying is older than I am, I seem to recall I heard it in a machine shop when I was 12-13.
Steeplejack
@Ruckus:
Totally agree. Maybe if the hunter was really in a situation where he had just one shot to drop that charging rhino or get a giant horn splitting him from stem to stern it would mean something. But the hunts are so “curated” now—like climbing Mount Everest, probably—that it’s almost meaningless.
The other thing is that our understanding of “wildlife” has broadened so much. It’s interesting to look at old movies (and TV shows) from the ’30s through ’50s. The great white hunters basically shoot everything on sight, and the animals are always depicted as threatening, if not actively attacking. It’s ridiculous with what we have seen now from several decades of “nature photography.” The fierce lions are more likely to be dozing in the sun and looking like “Yo, s’up?”
And, finally, how many macho points are there really for shooting a goddamn giraffe?! As someone upthread might have said, or should have, it’s like shooting Bambi.
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
The whole stick of the show was Clarkson being an asshole. He’d even admit it occasionally. Not in those words but the gist was there. If May and/or Hammond had gone on their own it wouldn’t have worked. All three of them did shows on their own but without the lead asshole they had to be a lot different.
Jager
@frosty:
Some of the youts out here in SoCal don’t have a problem playing with their little rice burners, interesting to see a hopped up Civic smoking the front tires from a stoplight. Damn kids today! Says the old man who used to smoke his back tires from time to time.
@NotMax:
I was home one summer from college working on construction and we met two sisters from some tiny Minnesota town on a Saturday night. MY pal Tom and I offered to give them a ride back to Minneapolis where they were working. Tom had a new, red, 65 Impala SS convertible and between the two of us we had enough money to buy a case of beer and fill the gas tank. We thought we’d be getting laid! So we didn’t care. Tom’s sister lived in Bloomington and he could get enough dough from her to get us back. We don’t get laid, the girls just thanked us for the ride. Gas gauge is on E and Tom’s sister is not answering the phone. We slowly drove around Dinkytown to see if we can find somebody we know, I finally see Nikki, a girl I went to high school with, she loaned me 20 bucks to get back, cost 16 bucks to fill the Impala and we went to an all you can eat for 2 bucks dump and hit the road back.
Aleta
@Steeplejack: True story about a relative who was the last person in his town to get a phone.
For years he refused. Long after everyone else had one and he was aged and living alone, his daughters finally convinced him to have one put in. Now they wouldn’t have to drive over to his house every few days to check on him.
So they began to call him every day. But he wouldn’t pick up. They had to drive right over to make sure nothing was wrong.
After a few weeks they asked him, “Don’t you hear the phone ringing? Why don’t you answer?”
“I got the phone so I could call other people not so they could call me.”
He died before my time, but I feel like that almost every time the phone rings.
Ruckus
@Steeplejack:
Well, if you aren’t careful or 7 ft tall, a giraffe can shit on your head. They seem nicer than they would do that but if you heckle one long enough…….
Really it’s the power, the trophy is the merit badge of power. They finally can be stronger, deadlier than just swatting flies. I’ve wondered if they have visions of shooting people. You know, the darkies that just won’t remember their place. It is after all rich white fuckers who can afford this.
Steeplejack
@frosty:
That’s definitely a factor. I caught the end of the car craze (graduated from high school in ’69), but the days of “shade-tree mechanics” souping up their “hot rods” are long gone. Even my RWNJ brother (three years younger), who has always been a car nut and tinkerer, does all of his tinkering on motorcycles now. He says you get a computer interface to interface with the chips in the car, they tell you what needs to be done, and most of the time you can’t do it anyway because you don’t have the expensive, specialized tools.
For a while the tinkering gene moved on to building and souping up computers—the Michael Dell era, say—and now it’s not even that. It’s screwing around on the Web or, worse, tinkering with a subset of the Web, like WoW or some other game. Or maybe just commenting on 4chan. God.
J R in WV
@Steeplejack:
I would go through several batches of rice bet after fore putting the battery back in, 6 or 8 hours in each batch at least. I’ve collected a number of dissicant capsules from bottles of vitamin pills, if you have a collection of those they might work better than the rice.
But after a day ((24 hours)) or two I would think it would be good to go for a trial.
frosty
@NotMax: Story was that a (I think) aluminum Buick V-8 was the best engine swap for a Healey. Less weight than the truck engine it came with and more power. Apocryphal story was that the doors would flip open when you punched it because the whole body twisted from the torque. Great story, even if Fake News.
Steeplejack
@Aleta:
Yeah. Reminds me of that old misanthropic saying: “I hate that any idiot with a dime can make a bell ring in my house.”
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Trader Horn comes around on TCM periodically.
Un-PC as all get out, yet some of the wildlife footage remains amazing.
Also too, the oversize pith helmet on baby-faced Duncan Renaldo could not have been anything other than as laughable as it appears today.
Per Wikipedia:
Steeplejack
@Ruckus:
Yeah, they probably have fantasies of hunting “the most dangerous game.” Only they never see themselves ending up on the short end.
frosty
@Steeplejack: You and I are the same era. I’ve got a friend who used to build his own computers. Like you said, those days are gone, too. I’m getting pretty good at correcting people who are wrong on the internet, though.
Steeplejack
@J R in WV:
Thanks, I’ll report on my results.
frosty
Signing off. Still working, still gotta go to work in the morning. Ugh.
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
Even the “documentaries” from the ’30s—e.g., Frank Buck—are pretty “raw.”
Doug R
@Steeplejack:
Found an unlocked android handset at Staples for $100
J R in WV
This hunting thing. I agree that hunting on a game farm in TX isn’t manly outdoor adventure, for the most part.
My RWNJ brother hunts feral boar hogs with a large caliber pistol, A ruger revolver, .44 magnum or perhaps a .444 — I forget the exact caliber there years later on. But a very big revolver, and a 800 lb hog with tusks. And you only have 5 or 6 shots, then the hog is on you. I wouldn’t want to try that just for fun.
Lots of sausage, tho…
Suzanne
@frosty:
Yes. NASCAR is not popular amongst the influencer set. Coded as déclassé.
Jager
@frosty:
Went to a car show out here a few years ago, saw a perfect Austin Healy 3000 with a early 80’s Toyota Supra drive train. New Wilwood disc brakes, modern wheels and tires and reworked suspension, guy said it went like the proverbial “striped ass ape.”. A guy who worked for me out her has a all original 68 MGB, he bought it new. He stuck about 1200 dollars in it just to get it ready for the national MG show and got dinged in the judging for having the wrong nuts on the generator bracket. The car looks like it just rolled out of the show room.
Steeplejack
@Doug R:
I don’t need a top-of-the-line TelTechTron 3000, but I could spend a little for a phone I like. I’ve kept the Moto simply because it does everything I need it to do and I like it.
I do realize that if I get a new phone I will immediately be like “Holy shit, this thing is so much faster than the old one!” The only time I wonder about that is on app updates. They go a lot slower on the Moto than they do on my Samsung tablet.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
Indeed yes. Rarely comes around on the TCM rotation but when it does, catch Eskimo from 1933. Fascinating for entirely different reasons today than at the time it was made.
Yutsano
@Steeplejack: If you like the Samsung tablet, you’ll like Samsung phones too. I have an S8 and it’s a nice piece of technology. But you can get earlier models for cheaper.
NotMax
@NotMax
Italics fail Just pretend the italics end after the o in Eskimo.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Yutsano: At this point, the S8 is an earlier model, the S9’s been out for over 6 months. The major problem is that older phones won’t get OS updates and eventually won’t even get security updates.
Mel
@Steeplejack: I left mine in for 3 days. Popped the SIM card out first, filled a large plastic freezer bag half full with rice, inserted saturated phone, filled the rest of the bag with more rice. It worked. [knock wood]
My stupid move: skidded in a spectacularly gloopy hairball vomit (left right next to the bed, of course) while turning off my phone alarm. Hopped to the bathroom on one foot, phone in hand, turned on the tub water to wash the vile mess out from between my toes, turned to set phone down on the towel shelf. My non-pukey foot slid out from under me, when I turned, and the phone and I both went airborne and ended up on our asses in the tub, in an inch of cat puke laced water.
Dropping ye olde phone in the toilet is a more dignified “oops” than swimming in cat puke, any day!
prostratedragon
Has this been noted? BBC article on the parameters of the Thai rescue situation. Has an informative graphic of the cave geography in overhead and cross-sectional views.
sgrAstar
@Adam L Silverman: oops! Thanks, Adam.
Viva BrisVegas
@J R in WV:
If you are close enough to a big boar that you can take it out with a handgun, even a big one, then you aren’t stalking the boar, the boar is stalking you.
That’s why they invented rifles.
Steeplejack
@Yutsano:
My main thing is that I don’t want a phone much bigger than the Moto X. It’s relatively small but has a good-sized screen because the bezel is thin.
sukabi
@Adam L Silverman: the only “good” thing are the crashes. Watching cars running a track is boring.
NobodySpecial
@frosty: Wildest engine drop I’ve ever seen was someone putting a Hayabusa 1300 engine in a Smart car.
Immanentize
Hey night crew. Sitting on a plane in Edinburgh to wing it back to Boston via Newark. I think I got some sunburn in Scotland! Sun every day, temps in the highCastle70’s But no climate change!
You’re the climate change!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack: The S8 and S9 also increase the screen size by reducing the bezel. The Note 8 does as well, I love my Note 8.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Immanentize:
Are you sure you got on the right flight and went to Scotland?
Amir Khalid
@sukabi:
Motor racing tracks outside the US aren’t just boring banked ovals. They have straights, turns of various radii, chicanes, hairpin turns, changes in elevation, and every track is unique in its layout. Most tracks are purpose-built but a few particularly challenging ones are laid out on city streets, the most famous of the latter being the Monaco track. This makes non-US motor racing less boring to watch, but it’s still very noisy cars going by very fast.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: We do have the Long Beach Grand Prix here in the Southland.
Schlemazel
@NotMax:
As a teen I fell in love with the schtick the hoochie barker had going on. It was the same patter every year, I watched him over & over until I knew the routine. I used to stand at the back of the crowd and do his routine a sentence or two ahead of him. People around thought that was amusing. The whole thing was a 10 minute tease that you were going to get some dancer he had called out front to perform . . . but he always just ran out of time and you needed to hurry and buy your tickets now. 10 cents for general admission 25 for the front rows. I can still do parts of it from memory, not my proudest achievement!
Schlemazel
@NotMax:
I grew up on the East side of St. Paul. Hamm’s was only a few blocks away & the South St. Paul cattle yards a few miles. Nothing finer than an incredibly hot, humid night when Hamms was malting & the wind was from the South.. It was a competition to see which smelled worse.
sukabi
@Amir Khalid: I know, things like the Grand Prix and other “real world” races are more interesting…running an oval 500 times makes games like golf seem interesting.
Nettoyeur
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: or maybe Donald Jr….
zhena gogolia
That top picture of Lily is unbelievably cute.
Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)
@frosty:
Heh.. reminds me of the old joke about NASCAR being IndyCar racing for trailer trash.
Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)
@Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman):
Though I will add that NASCAR was interesting back when they used real cars based on ones you could actually buy, instead of the specially built ones that vaguely look like a real car.
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
There are a lot of actual road race tracks in the US. We used to have 3 in southern CA. 2 have been gone a long time, one to make way for housing and the other for big box stores to sell more stuff. But in the last 10-15 yrs 3 rather nice courses have been built. A person who worked in the racing industry once told me that in the US a new race track usually had to go bankrupt 4 or 5 times before the cost of building was wiped out and the owner could stay in business.