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Which events/excursions/loved ones will be putting the ‘fun’ in ‘dysfunctional’ for you this year?
Saturday Evening Open Thread: The Season’s Upon UsPost + Comments (75)
This post is in: Music, Open Threads
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Which events/excursions/loved ones will be putting the ‘fun’ in ‘dysfunctional’ for you this year?
Saturday Evening Open Thread: The Season’s Upon UsPost + Comments (75)
This post is in: Gamer Dork, Open Threads
I’m playing Star Wars: The Old Republic today. This morning I watched “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” for the first time in about 20 years.
Be excellent to each other.
by $8 blue check mistermix| 27 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
My 2013 Pets of Balloon Juice calendar showed up yesterday and it’s very nice. Beth did a great job with it. If you haven’t gotten yours yet, click on the picture of Tunch on the right before the new year.
Here’s an open thread.
This post is in: Open Threads
First, the earworm I have been dealing with for the last 48 hours:
Next- How do you all deal with chronic pain? Thing are just getting worse and worse for me. I’ve broken all my fingers twice, or in some cases, three times, and they basically throb and hurt all day every day. My left knee used to lock up, and my knee would lock my leg in place at a 90 degree angle until I twisted my foot back and forth, and I would hear something pop and then I could extend my leg again. It really sucked when I was swimming. My left shoulder aches every day because I broke that collarbone twice (once in a car wreck, once in the army) and I dislocated my shoulder at least a half dozen times playing lacrosse. My right shoulder, well, longtime readers know all about that. Walking dear Lily I completely shattered that shoulder, detached my bicep, broke the shoulder in 8 place, broke the collarbone, and completely destroyed the joint, shattering it in multiple places, etc., and had reconstructive surgery that included 6 hours of surgery and a half dozen arthroscopic procedures.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg. I fell 3 stories (I was 18 and tequila was involved) and landed on concrete and had to go to the e-room to deal with the ankle and heel situation (nothing broke and none of the doctors believed I fell that far), I have been through two windshields in car accidents and had multiple concussions and bit a molar in half (which was actually the worst pain I have ever been in), and so forth.
And I won’t go in to the broken ribs and the smashed toes. Long story short, I am in pain almost every day, and as I get older, it gets worse, and I just don’t know what to do about it. It was easier to deal with ten years ago, but now that I am 42, it is much less easier to ignore. I mean, for fuck’s sake, my fingers hurt. Every part of me hurts except my back and my ass and my thighs.
I just can’t keep eating advil, I refuse to take narcotics because they just have such an adverse effect on me (histamine, confusion, etc.) and while my wine therapy always works, that isn’t really healthy.
So what can I do to try to make myself not be in pain every day? And again, as I age, the pain is getting worse. I just ignored it or dealt with it before, but it is getting to the point that it is distracting. Do you guys have any ideas?
Also, too- Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be John Cole.
This post is in: Cat Blogging, Open Threads, Science & Technology
I’ve been detecting just a bit of battle-weariness in the comment threads. I’ve got a bunch more gun posts up my sleeve, but I can see how a diet of lead, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, might wear a little thin. So here’s an olive-branch — something to feed your head, completely sorrow free.
My science writing buddy Jennifer Ouellette (my interview with her here) has a really excellent piece up at ScientificAmerican.com on a new puzzle roiling theoretical physics. She writes about a paradox raised by a re-examination of an idea in black-hole physics long thought settled.
The question that prompted the latest discussion is what happens when you have a couple — people for now, by convention Bob and Alice — wandering through the cosmos. But then, as Jennifer writes:
The adventurous, rather reckless Alice jumps into a very large black hole, leaving a presumably forlorn Bob outside the event horizon — a black hole’s point of no return, beyond which nothing, not even light, can escape.
Conventionally, physicists have assumed that if the black hole is large enough, Alice won’t notice anything unusual as she crosses the horizon. In this scenario, colorfully dubbed “No Drama,” the gravitational forces won’t become extreme until she approaches a point inside the black hole called the singularity. There, the gravitational pull will be so much stronger on her feet than on her head that Alice will be “spaghettified.”
Now a new hypothesis is giving poor Alice even more drama than she bargained for. If this alternative is correct, as the unsuspecting Alice crosses the event horizon, she will encounter a massive wall of fire that will incinerate her on the spot. As unfair as this seems for Alice, the scenario would also mean that at least one of three cherished notions in theoretical physics must be wrong.
From that pyrotechnic foundation, Jennifer then tells a fascinating story that both gives an account of the confusion and excitement this line of thought has produced — and along the way, provides a nice insight into the style of thought that (some) theoreticians use to pursue ideas far into the deep.
So, if you’ve had enough of murder and mayhem here in this vale of tears, here’s a chance to take yourself quite a good way out of the everyday.
Now, no post like this would be complete without (a) the appropriate sound track, and (b) given that I’ve invited you into the hairy realm of quantum mechanics, a cat picture:
This one illustrates why I feel a moral obligation not to fold laundry prematurely.
All of which adds up to an open thread, I’d say.
Enough With The Guns, Already. Time For Death By Cosmic Walls of FirePost + Comments (113)
This post is in: Gamer Dork, Gun nuts, Open Threads
Just as LaPierre was finishing up his flopsweat-fest, wherein he described every single problem with society except the proliferation of firearms, news started rolling in of a multiple shooting in Blair County, PA.
Four dead, including the shooter. At least five persons wounded or injured including apparently at least three PA State Troopers.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/21/16069042-four-killed-including-gunman-in-shooting-incident-in-pennsylvania-three-troopers-injured?lite
If only there’d been trained men with guns who could have stopped this…Oh, dear.
You know, I wonder what games the shooter played for fun. Open thread.
Wayne LaPierre probably thinks he’s the victim of the bad timing herePost + Comments (141)
by Betty Cracker| 255 Comments
This post is in: Gun nuts, Open Threads, Assholes
Shorter Wayne LaPierre so far: MOAR GUNS!
Protester scores points with “NRA Kills Children” sign.
Update: Calls for national database of the mentally ill. Christ.
Update II: Blames gun-free zones, media, videos, Hollywood, music, hurricanes, natural disasters, etc. Oh, and another protester!
Update III: Calls for armed guards in schools. Well, that would increase gun sales.
And Maddow sums it up (H/T — Comrade Jake):
Update IV: The craven son of a bitch is proposing to let the NRA implement an armed security guard program in schools. There isn’t a circle of hell hot enough, fellow citizens…
Presser over. Wow, what a bizarre, rambling rant. LaPierre was clearly moved — by self-pity. The “Leave Britney Alone” guy was more credible and articulate in stating his case. This was just weird.