Over on the mothership, people who shouldn't be bickering and taking potshots at each other over relative trivialities are doing that anyway. I'm thinking about reminding them that it's tiresome, not a good look, and tends to drive commenters away. Maybe they'll turn on me with some whataboutism about how awful the trolls are or how awful the MAGAs and/or Wokes are, which of course is supposed to mean their own behavior couldn't possibly be considered problematic in any way.
As a rule now, I rarely reply to anyone, because of the bickering issue. I try to post either something funny, memorable, or an honest opinion which gets me in hot water.
I think posting funny stuff in response is a good tactic for you.
I might be able to get away with "now, now, boys"--though I am careful about when I do it--because of a phenomenon I first noticed online in the mid-1990s. Males in a commenting or chat community cannot directly admonish other males over their behavior without the attempt backfiring; it just turns into a "sez you? take that!" shoving match. But older females can often get away with telling a group of younger males to please mind their manners and remember what everyone is there for.
It's rainy and windy here, not a pleasant prospect for a chain of errands involving waiting for several buses and walking more than a block. So I decided to move that plan to tomorrow. It's nice not to have to say "can't do that, because I'm scheduled at the store." But that doesn't mean I'm going to be lazy today. First off, I have to reorganize my to-do list so I can figure out what I should try to get done today.
It’s 31 here with a “feels like” temperature of 17. It’more like mid March than mid April. There was an ice storm here in early April so there are lots of limbs in the yard. We are surrounded by 100 foot pines. We only lost one big limb, it could’ve been a lot worse.
Good morning. 50 degrees currently, with a windy day predicted, and temps staying about where they are now. Hope our US readers filed their tax returns.
The mothership reports on the visit of the El Salvador president to the White House. El Salvador was where many suspected gan members were sent by the Trump administration, including one who was sent due to an “administrative error” and who their president refuses to return to the US.
That guy was the President of El Salvador? He looked for all the world like a Miami nightclub promoter to me.
I suppose it's fitting that a banana republic president should strike me that way as he sat in the White House with a Banana Republican President whose previous claim to fame was as a Reality TV entertainer and who's now in reality in gleeful open defiance of a unanimous Supreme Court order to return the administratively errored individual now imprisoned in said banana republic, all while said Banana Republican's DOJ is torturing the English language as if it were the one imprisoned in a hell hole in a s**thole country by parsing the meaning of one single word in that order - that word being "facilitate" - in a way that not only rivals but may actually surpass the 20th Century World Word-Parsing Champion:
"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If the—if he—if 'is' means is and never has been, that is not—that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement. … Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true."
(From Bill Clinton's grand jury testimony - August 17, 1998 - answering questions about his attorney's description of an affidavit by Monica Lewinsky.)
Trump clearly should have put Clinton on the Supreme Court, guaranteeing that any order that Bill wrote could easily be interpreted to mean anything Trump wanted it to mean, no muss, no fuss.
And all this word salad fuss is in service to a no-returns policy that Jeff Bezos could only wish he had the cajónes to institute at Amazon: Once an item has been administratively errored to a customer, it may not be returned for any reason.
An iron-clad no-return policy I'd dearly like to have seen in place back in 2021 when Blue Origin's boss decided to take the company product up for a spin himself, and one I can only hope makes it onboard at SpaceX before its boss decides to do the same.
Meanwhile, Kilmar Garcia spends his days and nights not dressed like a Miami nightclub promoter in a place that makes an American Supermax facility look like The Tropicana.
Gotta love that whole nation of laws, not men thing.
iI drives me nuts when I encounter lefties who complain about Trump's lies but refuse to acknowledge that the last President of the 20th century, a democrat, was also a serial liar.
George Harrison wrote this song in protest of the top UK tax rate at the time, a whopping 95% as reflected in the lyrics "That's one for you nineteen for me".
At the same time, the top US tax rate was 70%.
So when you complain about the income tax, remember: It was once much worse.
The molt video was super cool and a few of my favorite words were included, gunk and cloaca. There’s nature and then there’s “Neature.” This is Neature.
It was on this day in 1802 that William Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, happened upon a profusion of daffodils along the banks of the nine-mile-long Ullswater Lake. Dorothy wrote down a detailed description of the daffodils that helped inspire Wordsworth to write the famous poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" five years later. It begins:
There is a delightful book, The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, in which "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" features prominently. The book weaves together the kidnapping of Jane Eyre, police procedurals, the Crimean War, a "prose portal," government pigheadedness, a brilliant criminal mastermind and true love.
I will have to give Brandon Sanderson another try. I think I read a book by him when my daughter was young but it did not tempt me to go in search of others.
You make me think and challenge my perception. There is darkness, but Thursday Next's earnest determination came as a bright light in the mud of angsty relativism in the novels I was encountering at the time.
An author who can write such crazy, complicated, cerebral, entertaining and yet morally traditional stories makes the world a better place. The market for such books means that ordinary people trying to do the right thing are not as alone as they might feel.
I agree with all that. Fforde's stories didn't give me personally hope for the world, but, at a meta level, I see where you're coming from, and I find your points persuasive.
Try "The Frugal Wizard's Guide to Surviving Medieval England".
That is implied in the articles about them. There are also videos on cooking. As with many kinds of animal food, the younger ones are probably tastier than the ones that are older than you.
Ditto. Another good cleaning solvent I used for years at work for small jobs was Toolmaker's Ink Remover. It was a clear spray designed to remove layout ink from metal parts, but it was excellent for removing mill grease and the like as well. Too expensive for large stuff, but small pieces of steel or a few small dirty parts were ok. Had to watch the fumes though. Made Gunk and other degreasers smell like Eau de Toilette.
Exactly? How 'bout generally? Generally, I'd posit that if this keeps up, we'll all have stress goiters and need physical therapy from having been curled up in a catatonic fetal position for too long.
There are new bird sounds over here. Lots of different birds. Seeing new birds is fun. There are some truly spectacular colorful birds out in the mountain areas.
I'd pile it all in their bed. Anything on the floor, stuck to the wall, tossed indiscriminately...into their bed.
Trash and litter...it's a hot button. Youngsters complaining about Boomers...pick up your trash, then you're allowed to disparage us because we deserve disparagement....but not until you pick up your own trash.
They put it in trash cans. They just usually don't take it down to the garage, even if I say, "Vlad, pack your trash out!" every time I go in the room.
For anyone still awake... I recommend Dave Barry's Substack. It's a welcome good laugh in the current train wreck.
That. Is. Fantastic.
Yeah, it sure is. Every one of them gets me laughing so hard my eyes water.
He might be too big to crawl up a water spout, but dang if he wouldn't give me nightmares for trying.
How the Kremlin trains its diplomats:
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/04/14/i-trained-with-russian-diplomats-i-can-tell-you-how-they-work-a88722
Over on the mothership, people who shouldn't be bickering and taking potshots at each other over relative trivialities are doing that anyway. I'm thinking about reminding them that it's tiresome, not a good look, and tends to drive commenters away. Maybe they'll turn on me with some whataboutism about how awful the trolls are or how awful the MAGAs and/or Wokes are, which of course is supposed to mean their own behavior couldn't possibly be considered problematic in any way.
As a rule now, I rarely reply to anyone, because of the bickering issue. I try to post either something funny, memorable, or an honest opinion which gets me in hot water.
I think posting funny stuff in response is a good tactic for you.
I might be able to get away with "now, now, boys"--though I am careful about when I do it--because of a phenomenon I first noticed online in the mid-1990s. Males in a commenting or chat community cannot directly admonish other males over their behavior without the attempt backfiring; it just turns into a "sez you? take that!" shoving match. But older females can often get away with telling a group of younger males to please mind their manners and remember what everyone is there for.
It's rainy and windy here, not a pleasant prospect for a chain of errands involving waiting for several buses and walking more than a block. So I decided to move that plan to tomorrow. It's nice not to have to say "can't do that, because I'm scheduled at the store." But that doesn't mean I'm going to be lazy today. First off, I have to reorganize my to-do list so I can figure out what I should try to get done today.
A crab. I don't have any problems with a crab. Maybe that's because crabs keep to the ocean floor, where I don't go.
It’s 31 here with a “feels like” temperature of 17. It’more like mid March than mid April. There was an ice storm here in early April so there are lots of limbs in the yard. We are surrounded by 100 foot pines. We only lost one big limb, it could’ve been a lot worse.
31, feels like 17 - ugh!
Good morning. 50 degrees currently, with a windy day predicted, and temps staying about where they are now. Hope our US readers filed their tax returns.
The mothership reports on the visit of the El Salvador president to the White House. El Salvador was where many suspected gan members were sent by the Trump administration, including one who was sent due to an “administrative error” and who their president refuses to return to the US.
That guy was the President of El Salvador? He looked for all the world like a Miami nightclub promoter to me.
I suppose it's fitting that a banana republic president should strike me that way as he sat in the White House with a Banana Republican President whose previous claim to fame was as a Reality TV entertainer and who's now in reality in gleeful open defiance of a unanimous Supreme Court order to return the administratively errored individual now imprisoned in said banana republic, all while said Banana Republican's DOJ is torturing the English language as if it were the one imprisoned in a hell hole in a s**thole country by parsing the meaning of one single word in that order - that word being "facilitate" - in a way that not only rivals but may actually surpass the 20th Century World Word-Parsing Champion:
"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If the—if he—if 'is' means is and never has been, that is not—that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement. … Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true."
(From Bill Clinton's grand jury testimony - August 17, 1998 - answering questions about his attorney's description of an affidavit by Monica Lewinsky.)
Trump clearly should have put Clinton on the Supreme Court, guaranteeing that any order that Bill wrote could easily be interpreted to mean anything Trump wanted it to mean, no muss, no fuss.
And all this word salad fuss is in service to a no-returns policy that Jeff Bezos could only wish he had the cajónes to institute at Amazon: Once an item has been administratively errored to a customer, it may not be returned for any reason.
An iron-clad no-return policy I'd dearly like to have seen in place back in 2021 when Blue Origin's boss decided to take the company product up for a spin himself, and one I can only hope makes it onboard at SpaceX before its boss decides to do the same.
Meanwhile, Kilmar Garcia spends his days and nights not dressed like a Miami nightclub promoter in a place that makes an American Supermax facility look like The Tropicana.
Gotta love that whole nation of laws, not men thing.
iI drives me nuts when I encounter lefties who complain about Trump's lies but refuse to acknowledge that the last President of the 20th century, a democrat, was also a serial liar.
Not to mention the most recent Democratic president. To be fair, by the end of his term, he lacked the cognitive ability to "lie."
And that's no Malarkey!
No, it's dementia.
For your Tax Day listening pleasure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0zaebtU-CA
George Harrison wrote this song in protest of the top UK tax rate at the time, a whopping 95% as reflected in the lyrics "That's one for you nineteen for me".
At the same time, the top US tax rate was 70%.
So when you complain about the income tax, remember: It was once much worse.
The molt video was super cool and a few of my favorite words were included, gunk and cloaca. There’s nature and then there’s “Neature.” This is Neature.
Popular when my girls were in high school. One of those dumb videos that stick with you for some reason. https://youtu.be/Hm3JodBR-vs?feature=shared
This is weird, my Facebook memory from 4/15/2011 is "I went on a neature walk and saw two loons."
Just like Marlin Perkins!
It's cool when a goofy person embraces being goofy.
Not a big hairy spider :)
No, it's not an arachnid.
No, a crustacean.
Just a yummy arthropod?
@ JJ and his daffodils....
It was on this day in 1802 that William Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, happened upon a profusion of daffodils along the banks of the nine-mile-long Ullswater Lake. Dorothy wrote down a detailed description of the daffodils that helped inspire Wordsworth to write the famous poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" five years later. It begins:
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
When you see a large cluster of daffodils, yeah, they are beautiful and peaceful.
There is a delightful book, The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, in which "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" features prominently. The book weaves together the kidnapping of Jane Eyre, police procedurals, the Crimean War, a "prose portal," government pigheadedness, a brilliant criminal mastermind and true love.
That sounds like our current societal wasteland...except for the true love part.
Reading Jasper Fforde leaves one with hope for the world.
Yes and no. Behind the humor, his books are very dark.
Brandon Sanderson gives me hope for the world, though.
I will have to give Brandon Sanderson another try. I think I read a book by him when my daughter was young but it did not tempt me to go in search of others.
You make me think and challenge my perception. There is darkness, but Thursday Next's earnest determination came as a bright light in the mud of angsty relativism in the novels I was encountering at the time.
An author who can write such crazy, complicated, cerebral, entertaining and yet morally traditional stories makes the world a better place. The market for such books means that ordinary people trying to do the right thing are not as alone as they might feel.
I agree with all that. Fforde's stories didn't give me personally hope for the world, but, at a meta level, I see where you're coming from, and I find your points persuasive.
Try "The Frugal Wizard's Guide to Surviving Medieval England".
That was a different era when poets wrote poems and achieved fame and fortune for doing so.
Right. Now, one might gain fame, but fortune...nope. One has to be a teacher with a salary, or it's penury.
Not sure a TSAF has ever made me hungry before.
I grade the TSAF's on a metric based on which ones might be the tastiest.
Octopus appear to like them as a snack.
Although they give me nightmares when they protest: 𝑶𝒄𝒕𝒐𝒑𝒊 𝑾𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝑺𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒆𝒕 was scary! 😬
I'm gonna guess Phil H didn't read this one! 😏
Good morning.
The look on the face of the guy holding the crab - that is a man who loves his job!
Steve, the post-doc maybe?
I'm presuming that these are delicious when served with melted butter?
Oh yes. The pictures did make me nostalgic for the soft shell crab poorboy from the Ragin' Cajun.
I was looking at those long legs and thinking the same thing.
Dinner for six?
Order lemons for the butter dip.
Extra napkins.
Bibs.
That is implied in the articles about them. There are also videos on cooking. As with many kinds of animal food, the younger ones are probably tastier than the ones that are older than you.
Gunk. That's a science-y technical term.
Also useful if you have a dirty engine lying about...
https://gunk.com/product-category/engine-cleaners/
It’s also what America used to get the 1950s off of itself, iirc.
Way back when I was into working on engines, I used a lot of Gunk. The stuff was amazing.
Ditto. Another good cleaning solvent I used for years at work for small jobs was Toolmaker's Ink Remover. It was a clear spray designed to remove layout ink from metal parts, but it was excellent for removing mill grease and the like as well. Too expensive for large stuff, but small pieces of steel or a few small dirty parts were ok. Had to watch the fumes though. Made Gunk and other degreasers smell like Eau de Toilette.
Sometimes I get into the real science vocabulary, and other times, I just wing it.
How are you tonight?
I'm finding myself sanity challenged in various politico-socio-lunatico announcements from your side of the globe.
How exactly do you imagine our sanity is holding up?
with clothes pins would be my guess
Exactly? How 'bout generally? Generally, I'd posit that if this keeps up, we'll all have stress goiters and need physical therapy from having been curled up in a catatonic fetal position for too long.
Drama Queen and her husband went to see Stress Goiters at a club in Gastonia recently. Thor was asked to babysit.
What did they think of the performance? Did they, for instance, think it swell?
Of course...there's a band name Stress Goiters.
There does not appear to be a band named "Giant Spiders".
That’ll do it.
I use "stuff" for most things nowadays.
Weather is great. I made dumplings. Lots of kids are out running around, playing and making fun kid noises.
It's morning here. Presently, there are bird sounds, but we're about to hear the ghastly wails of teens when I tell them to get up.
There are new bird sounds over here. Lots of different birds. Seeing new birds is fun. There are some truly spectacular colorful birds out in the mountain areas.
Ghastly teen wailing upon waking is the same.
Good morning, everyone. Happy Tiw's Day!
Morning. Happy TSAF day.
I was about to blurt something about politics, but decided it would be indistinguishable from noisy teen waking complaints…
Indistinguishable, and just as exhausting. Couldn't the teens just get up one time without all the wailing and gnashing?
I filed 1 1/2 months ago.
I respect that.
In the eternal question of what to do first, I choose the thing I don't want to do.
Yeah, I need to go pack the trash out from upstairs. It's not like the teens are going to do it.
I'd pile it all in their bed. Anything on the floor, stuck to the wall, tossed indiscriminately...into their bed.
Trash and litter...it's a hot button. Youngsters complaining about Boomers...pick up your trash, then you're allowed to disparage us because we deserve disparagement....but not until you pick up your own trash.
They put it in trash cans. They just usually don't take it down to the garage, even if I say, "Vlad, pack your trash out!" every time I go in the room.