"it's still November, Laura"
??: @semco89 pic.twitter.com/rVrf6mulBI
— Paul Bronks (@SlenderSherbet) November 16, 2019
Spouse: I guess you're not putting up a Christmas tree this year.
Me: Of course I'm putting up a tree.
Spouse: But we have a kitten.
Me: Dude, we have a kitten.
— JJ MacNab (@jjmacnab) November 17, 2019
Anchovy didn't get a tree in her kitten year since we were out of the country for the holidays, but Paisley's kitten tree experience was glorious. pic.twitter.com/ap1DQR4wMB
— JJ MacNab (@jjmacnab) November 17, 2019
Cats 'n trees
Rule #1: I don't care if you have the Fort Knox of tree stands, always anchor the tree to the ceiling with fishing line.
Rule #2: Shatterproof ornaments.
Rule #3: No tinsel.
Rule #4: You're the idiot who decorated a tree. No whining when the cat undecorates it.
— JJ MacNab (@jjmacnab) November 17, 2019
At least this year I know where my treasured (unbreakable!) ornaments are… unless the Spousal Unit decided to move them again. And after forty years, he should know better than that!
OzarkHillbilly
Blech.
satby
Good morning all! I was hoping to sleep later than 4:30, but nope. Full day with work and the kids, who better be planning on coming for a second Thanksgiving dinner tonight. Plus they’re taking food home whether they want to or not.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: ?
day 2 of the 4 day blechoning
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: It’s not easy for a committed atheist to survive the “holidays”. First there is the food fight known as “Thanksgiving”… Whatever the fuck that means. Immediately followed by Black Friday, that uniquely American celebration of over consumption of cheap plastic shit from China, which doesn’t even have the decency to wait until “Thanksgiving” is done fucking up my world before piling on. And don’t even get me started on Sordid Saturday and Sacrilege Sunday.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ? ??
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: see, that’s why I’m agnostic… Less commitment.
No, I get it, and when I left retail eons ago for desk jobs one resolution I stuck to for more than 20 years was avoiding the whole “festive” retail season as much as I could. Today is *literally* the first time in more than a decade that I will leave the house on Black Friday (shudder), and I can’t believe it’s to work retail even if it is my own business.t
edit to add: plus enduring the horrors that is Clear Channel “Christmas music”, guaranteed to make me homicidal by December 8th.
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning rikyrah ?
hope your Thanksgiving was nice!
Dorothy A. Winsor
We’re in the process of docking in Rio. It’s raining a little, but the sail-in was spectacular.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@satby: I’m considering driving down to Palos Verdes to shoot the sunset, remember this is LA traffic. Considering the weather forecast for the next week, I may not get to see a sunset for a bit.
satby
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Will you have a day or so to see Rio, or are you off again after a few hours?
satby
@?BillinGlendaleCA: you’re a braver man than me! Wait….
Besides, isn’t rain in California a good thing unless it’s so much you get mudslides?
geg6
Going to see “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” at the early show (11:30 am!) and then lunch with my younger sister. Since the theater is nearby, I want to go to the Sewickley Hotel. My sister, who lives less than 10 minutes away from the place, has never been there, so I want to introduce her to one of my favorite places.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@satby: Good for the state, bad for photography.
WereBear
@rikyrah: Good morning!
I’m with @satby: on retail. I never even considered it, because I knew I couldn’t handle weeks of non-stop Christmas music when 20 minutes in the store badly influenced my mental state.
OzarkHillbilly
Ohio bill orders doctors to ‘reimplant ectopic pregnancy’ or face ‘abortion murder’ charges
Like bad pennys, these assholes keep turning up.
Amir Khalid
Why would anyone need a 100,000 lumen flashlight? Apparently, James Taylor does.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: I could use one for light painting.
(checks price) Not for $670.
Raven
Well my knee is swollen and scabbing but I think I may still be able to fish!
Raven
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Wonder if the whale watchers will be there?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Raven: Don’t know, I’m gonna be way up on a hill. The sun sets behind Santa Barbara Island this time of year, I think I have until about mid month to try and get the shot.
Raven
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Nice, I’m going to the bait shop at 6 and the sun comes up over the bay at 6:18.
WereBear
@Raven: I think if you were a head in a jar you would figure out a way to still fish. :)
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: And people wonder why I hate them.
Came across this piece of silliness the other day: People Don’t Realize You’re An Introvert
Which kinda made me laugh, because I’m not shy and really don’t care if people think me offensive due to what they consider rude behavior. As far as bluntness, if one is afraid of the answer then one shouldn’t ask the question.
All that said, of the 7 behaviors:
1) Avoid phone calls
2) Go traveling alone
3) Read books or work from a cafe
4) Have a small group of friends
5) Spend time alone to recharge
6) Leave parties early
7) Frequently cancel plans
I am guilty of all but the last one. I rarely cancel plans because I don’t make plans I don’t want to follow through on. #3 is a thing I used to do but don’t anymore, not sure why.
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: Not to make you repeat yourself but, what happened?
Amir Khalid
@OzarkHillbilly:
I too do all the things on that list. Maybe we could start an introverts club. ;-)
WereBear
@Amir Khalid: I think we already have :)
mrmoshpotato
Why did I pick the 7am train? *grumbles out of bed
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: I hadn’t had a hit all day and we were just chillin when one of my rods flew out of the holder and took off for Davey Jones locker. I dove out of my chair, landed on my knee and basically crawled as fast as I could and got the rig. It was a mighty fight that took me way down the beach in front of tons of onlookers! When I got it close in I could see it was a ray so I landed it, de hooked it and sent it in its merry way. A lady next to us videod it and I love the commentary!
bemused
So I overheard some people talking about trump tweeting image of his head on Balboa/Stallone. One said something like trump is clearly nuts and a huge stain on our country. Another guy asked if it occurred to them that he did it to just piss them off and probably succeeded. I couldn’t hear what the others replied but what the heck would anyone say to a guy who seems to think it’s amusing nor appears to to think trump is any kind of problem for the country.
Baud
@Raven:
That was better than most of the movies I’ve seen lately.
Baud
@bemused:
“Why is the president of the United States even trying to piss off decent Americans?”
OzarkHillbilly
@Amir Khalid: I’m too introverted. Besides, I could never join a club that would have me.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
8) Hang out at political blogs rather than with real people.
debbie
@satby:
Heh. Long ago, I returned to college after Thanksgiving, opened my suitcase, and found a half-turkey heavily wrapped in foil. I never trusted my mother after that.
bemused
@Baud:
Good one although I’m not sure that people who think like that guy would get it. Pissing off liberals seems to be the top motivation for trump supporters and they loved to piss off liberals before trump ever came on their radar.
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: Heh, I’ve had that experience a few times while catfishing. That knee… Ouch.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
That bit about the death penalty is a lovely flourish, no? //
Baud
@bemused:
Trying to get Trump supporters to get it is a lost cause.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: What’re you talking about? The only people he’s pissing off are libtards.
debbie
@bemused:
Can’t find it now, but one of his supporter groups posted that the Washington Post alleged “without evidence” that the photo was fake.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Yep, I rather expect a higher incidence of introverts among blog commentators than there is among the general public.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Like I said, decent Americans.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa… Wrong on both counts.
WereBear
This is a public service announcement regarding cats and Christmas trees: an expansion on the pertinent tweets from AL:
Dear Pammy, Is there a cat-safe Christmas tree?
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Present company excepted.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: As a young child I was so painfully shy and introverted that at least one teacher was concerned I was on the spectrum. I learned to be very social, but it’s an acquired skill and my natural inclination is still pretty solitary. I do all seven of the listed behaviors, though I try not to cancel plans anymore because it’s discourteous to the other people involved. I often feel like canceling though.
JPL
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Enjoy
OzarkHillbilly
Interview: Edward Norton and Thom Yorke: ‘The last thing we wanted was for it to get bloody’
After watching the trailer, I’m gonna have to see this one.
satby
@Amir Khalid: @WereBear: Yeah, I do too!
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Moi? Why, I never….!
satby
@debbie: well, I wouldn’t go that far ????
satby
@debbie: just goes to demonstrate their “pro-life” credibility! They’re willing to kill to protect life! That’s dedication.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby:
Same here, and sensitive. I remember getting pushed into a fight in the 4th grade. Beat the fuck out of the poor kid, and then cried all the way home. I hadn’t wanted to hurt him but ‘honor’, or whatever the fuck it is, demanded it of me.
debbie
@satby:
Exactly!
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: @debbie: You may or may not have seen it but there is a bumper sticker that is common around here:
“Guns Save Lives”.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: oh, that does look good!
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Well, if you count only one side of the ledger….
eclare
@OzarkHillbilly: It was a very good book, but from what I understand the movie changes several plotlines. Still sounds good.
bemused
@OzarkHillbilly:
So much for “family values”! The legislators who are pushing this monstrosity of a bill are too stupid or too hard core to imagine that the women in their own families could have an ectopic pregnancy emergency. The again, if they were faced with that issue, they’d probably secretly send their wives, daughters, sisters to be treated out of state.
satby
Well, everyone have a good day! I’m off to see what kinds of crazy fuckers would shop at a farmer’s market on Black Friday. I’m expecting “not many”, which will let me head out with my son and his gf a bit earlier.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: If they were being honest they’d say, “Guns Save the Right Lives”. Meaning…
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Right next to their All Lives Matter sticker.
OzarkHillbilly
@eclare: I am interested in the book too. Movies can never hold to the impossible standard set by books, too different a medium. It’s why I prefer to see the movie before I read the book. They each get to stand on their own merits that way
OzarkHillbilly
@bemused: For people who spend so much time talking about family values, they sure don’t place a very high value on families.
@Baud: Dingdingding… We have a winner.
eclare
@OzarkHillbilly: There were several really potent descriptions of Tourette’s and its effects in the book, it will be interesting to see how that translates to the screen. I just hope the movie plays here in Memphis.
Betty Cracker
@Raven: That’s a great video; I love how the crowd clapped when you returned the ray to sea. But your knee — ouch!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@satby: We’re off again this evening. This is not a good way to get to know a country or city well. We’re just getting a little taste of a lot of places we’ve never been.
OzarkHillbilly
@eclare: The trailer puts Tourettes right up front as key to the movie.
Raven
@Betty Cracker: I can walk so I got my srimps and I’m off!
OzarkHillbilly
Turns out Puh-tooey (actually spelled Ptuj) is a town in northeast Slovenia and is home to Slovenia’s oldest winter festival, Kurentovanje:
Maybe some day I will return to the motherland and take it in. 9 other traditional European winter festivals at the link.
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: Tight lines!
MomSense
Morning, Jackals. It’s thanksgiving here for us. Kid and SO are just leaving CT and headed this way.
The dog is pre-napping. She is going to go nuts when she sees her boy walk in after so many months. Usually she starts crying and then her legs give out and she starts flopping like one of Raven’s fish. Next she jumps up and has a frantic tear in circles around the room going up and over the couch and chairs and up and down the stairs. Then she cries and flops like a fish again and repeats this crazy scene until whatever it is is out of her system. I really should try to get this on video.
Hope everyone has a great Friday. Fuck the malls and Black Friday nonsense. Hope Satby gets through this ok and home to rest.
Sab
@OzarkHillbilly: My stepsons’ girlfriends were both completely apolitical, and this bill has enraged them. Next year’s Ohio electikns might be interesting.
Calmer tiki
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/279223245616652012/
mrmoshpotato
@OzarkHillbilly: Gotta fend off all those marauding herds of 30-50 feral hogs!
snoey
@mrmoshpotato: Gun nuts being fractally wrong of course, shooting the things isn’t a good idea:
https://billingsgazette.com/lifestyles/recreation/sport-hunting-hogs-makes-it-harder-to-stamp-them-out/article_c812fbe5-1abf-5d14-b563-5fa14bbd71b2.html
OzarkHillbilly
@Sab: I hope so.
On a lighter note: Police called after automated vacuum sucks up dog in Ballwin
WereBear
@snoey: I suggest they watch the 1984 Australian film, Razorback.
Then again, they hate to learn anything.
WereBear
@MomSense: Of course. She thought he was gone forever.
OzarkHillbilly
@mrmoshpotato: @snoey: I haven’t had any problems with wild pigs yet but they are in the area. MDC says don’t shoot them for the reasons snoey stipulated, and I won’t…. As long as they stay out of my garden. I do have limits after all.
OzarkHillbilly
@MomSense: My son’s Aussie has the exact same reaction every time I walk thru the door. It would be a great ego booster except for the fact that he reacts that way no matter who walks thru the door.
zhena gogolia
@MomSense:
Oh, please video it!
I’m back online! I have missed the jackals sorely. I am totally addicted. It’s like if I can’t monitor whatever evil stuff Drumpf has been doing with you guys, I get very, very anxious. Thanksgiving conversation: “Who cares about Russia invading Ukraine? Did you care when they invaded Syria?” “Bill Clinton LIED TO CONGRESS!” Then when I tried to rebut, “STOP TALKING ABOUT POLITICS!”
Immanentize
Happy day after Thanksgiving!
I am one of those crazy people who hates anything Christmas before Thanksgiving. But it now cannot be avoided, but I can still hate it!
But yesterday was the day that Santa arrived at Macy’s so I am digging out my Xmas CDs and gonna listen to my favorites: by the group Low, Tracie Thorne, Sufjan Stevens and Nick Lowe. While I clean up yesterday’s epic mess.
Stay away from the malls!! And feral pigs.
O. Felix Culpa
@zhena gogolia: That “conversation” sounds awful. I hope you’re having a more pleasant day after Thanksgiving.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize:
The first is easy enough but that 2nd…. Too many damned Republicans out here.
germy
The $11 Million Dollar Medicare Tool That Gives Seniors the Wrong Insurance Information
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-11-million-dollar-medicare-tool-that-gives-seniors-the-wrong-insurance-information
J R in WV
@eclare:
So a few months ago I was shopping at the big Kroger’s we drive by to get into town. I heard yelling in the aisle one or two over from where I was. Thought it was a drunk, but soon learned it was a young man in a wheelchair with his older brother. Had Tourette’s for sure, according to all I’ve read about the syndrome.Was talking about food he wanted or liked, but surrounded by choice obscenities so that it was hard to tell he wasn’t just cussing a blue streak.
Probably some other physical issues, also, hence the chair.
Older brother was running the wheelchair with one hand and a grocery buggy with the other. Doing a good job. I was embarrassed to have suspected a drunk after seeing them…
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize: Sufjan has produced some of my Xmas favorites too. I don’t know the others; will have to check them out.
We had a wondrously relaxing Thanksgiving getaway in Taos. I made green chile lamb stew, baked bread and my killer truffle brownies ahead of time to bring with us and we feasted yesterday, nicely supplemented with a bottle of our favorite red wine. With snow outside and a fire inside our casita…twas perfect.
Kathleen
@OzarkHillbilly: Columbus Dispatch had searing editorial chastising Republicans in Ohio legislature for their fixation with pandering to extreme right wing evangelicals instead of passing legislation to benefit Ohioans and it called out this bill.
J R in WV
@Amir Khalid:
When I worked at the Dept of Env Protection, there were a ton of engineers and biologists. You would be surprised how many of them collected interesting flashlights. Bright, odd ball light spectrum, specialty batteries, all kinds of variations.
I personally like headlights, little LED lamps with a strap, and with a red illumination, for getting around at night without wrecking your night vision. Or big rechargeable lamps for working on a car at night fixing a flat, or plumbing under a sink, etc.
JPL
@Immanentize: What about Mariah Carey?
mrmoshpotato
@zhena gogolia:
Strength and support in numbers. :)
laura
@bemused: with an ectopic pregnancy there is No Time to pull a runner. It is a sudden unexpected emergency and occurs before a woman may even suspect she is pregnant. I almost lost a very dear friend to an ep. The ridiculous idea that it would be possible to reimplant an ep let alone consider it when the actual task at hand is to save the very life of the woman. So as with many if not all the other “pro-life” issues they Do Not Care if women die.
Also, Ed Norton is a jewel and this movie looks lush, infuriating and demanding of the viewer. I am here for it.
Lastly, spouse is either an introvert or shy extrovert. I never met a stranger. Our marriage is his worst nightmare. I really make an effort to only demand he attend a very few social engagements and he goes knowing he gets a pass on the majority -and then proceeds to have a grand time and says we should do it more often until he resets to his factory specs. We throw two parties a year -Day of the Dead house party with a dj and dancing -the does not dance, and a breakfast party the weekend before the superbowl. He spends the entire party squeezing oranges and tidying up as the crowd comes and goes in waves. If I had my way, we’d have a friendsgiving every Sunday afternoon. He’s an anchor on my social aspirations and I’m his tow-chain on solitude.
OzarkHillbilly
@J R in WV:
You should try hanging out with cavers. They are obsessed with lights, especially headlamps.
mrmoshpotato
@J R in WV: All hail the Black Diamond Storm headlamp.
bemused
@laura:
So irresponsible of legislators using these horrific bills to crank up their wingnut voters but I truly believe they enjoy making people suffer and even the threat of making people suffer gives them a rush. Sick and twisted.
RobertDSC-Work
@OzarkHillbilly:
I am the same. I don’t do #7.
I rarely travel but that’s because I don’t have the money to do so.
OzarkHillbilly
@RobertDSC-Work: I used to travel a lot more than I do now, not always alone tho it happened often enough. The thing I suddenly saw about myself when reading that little bit of nothing was that no matter the group, no matter the destination, whether the trip is one day, a week or a month, I have always, always, always gone off by myself. I just thought it was because I wanted to go see/do different things than everybody else, not that I had a core need to see/do things by myself.
Interesting.
RobertDSC-Work
@OzarkHillbilly:
As I worked alone on graveyard shift for many years, I have always been a self-starter. My job these days is mail delivery and I have to be up-close and personal with the people I deliver to. There are times when I get home that I need to be alone. Even yesterday with family, once the kitchen was clean, I went off to be by myself. I was overloaded with talking and closeness and people, so I was able to find a spot in the house where I could not be bothered.
debbie
@Kathleen:
I know you’re long gone, but screw the damn Dispatch. They’ve been jonesing for tighter controls over abortion. Had they tempered their words earlier, we might not be where we are today.
Miss Bianca
@O. Felix Culpa:
OK, *definitely* have to arrange another Jackal Moot in New Mexico with you and your charming spouse and Cheryl R…at *your* place! : )