A pop-in.

Just popping in to start a new thread, and post an update. Some of you long-timers may recall when we had a commenter named Marcia who was quite active here. She was a NICU nurse in Columbus and a pretty fair writer — she’d done a few blog posts here and there.

She dropped out of sight a couple-three years ago, but we stayed connected via Facebook. The reasons seemed mainly domestic — divorce, the usual — but then her son made the news for all the wrong reasons, and it was clear there was more going on. A heroin addict, he robbed a bank near their home and was arrested almost immediately.

Well, things are different now, for everybody. Her son was released from prison last week, in time for Christmas, and the AP caught up with the family for an update. Those of you who remember her might like to read it.

In other news, Mikhail Kalashnikov, dead at 94. Of course the designer of the most popular and deadly rifle in the world deserves a big obit, but you have to listen to this to truly understand how revolutionary his weapon was. Recommended for those of you who design things for a living — Deborah, Peter, J.C., others.

This little speech for “Lord of War” says it all, too:

Which brings us to Christmas Eve, almost! I’ll be buying tamales, shopping (for food, anyway) and cleaning. Hope your holiday is great.

Posted at 4:18 pm in Current events |
 

53 responses to “A pop-in.”

  1. Jolene said on December 23, 2013 at 5:05 pm

    Wow! Eleven deaths per week due to heroin overdose is a lot of deaths from a single drug in a single week. Of course, that’s probably because I don’t really know much about this topic.

    Jeff(tmmo) mentioned that he was seeing an increase in heroin use among his clients. Would be interested to know what you are observing, Jeff, and why you think this increase is occurring.

    In the meantime, bravo to young Mr. Kilpatrick for pulling his life together. I hope he’s able to stick with it.

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  2. Deborah said on December 23, 2013 at 5:34 pm

    Kudos to Marcia and her son (especially the son!). What an ordeal, but with a happy ending.

    We made home-made pasta this afternoon for our traditional holiday fare of pasta Bolognese. I’m not sure why we started this tradition, but have kept it up for at least the last decade. It is my favorite food, especially with home-made pasta.

    Our place in Santa Fe is kind of small, so no room for a Christmas tree. We got a rosemary tree this morning and Little Bird and I are making decorations for it out of Sculpy clay that you bake in the oven and then painting with acrylic paints. Dorky but fun.

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  3. alex said on December 23, 2013 at 6:51 pm

    The son of some friends just got arrested for meth again. He did a couple of years in prison the last time and I don’t know what’s in store for him now. He’s really a very sweet young man. My partner gave him a construction job and he was the golden boy on the crew for a while. Then he left for what he said was another job.

    He had gotten himself involved with a woman who had a couple of children by a couple of different baby daddies. His friends and family didn’t think much of her or the relationship and we were right on the money because she led him right back into using again. His mother turned him in when she discovered him cooking the stuff in their garage.

    So it’s kind of a sad Christmas for us this year knowing that he’s in the lockup awaiting an uncertain future. I’d hired him over the summer to help me with renovation work on our investment property and he was a very conscientious kid and a good worker. I know this is absolutely devastating for his parents, who are about as nice a couple as you’d ever hope to meet.

    On the bright side, I think I’m finally liberated from my own worst demon, tobacco. I’m vaping instead. My doctor told me to do it. Not that vaporized nicotine or nicotine in any form is good for you, but the tar and chemicals in cigarette smoke are a whole lot worse. I questioned this recommendation because I’d read that e-cigarettes are dangerous, unregulated by the FDA, etc. She told me to disregard all of it, that it’s a misinformation campaign bankrolled by Big Pharma and Big Tobacco, both of which are fast losing ground to this pleasant tasting upstart. I can see why. Cigarettes taste like shit by comparison, and once you start getting your nic fix in cinnamon or cherry you just can’t go back.

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  4. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on December 23, 2013 at 6:58 pm

    It’s actually very simple. Opiates, despite the many stories (mostly true) of poppy seed bagels triggering a positive result in a pee test, are actually fast to leave the system. So a poppy seed bagel can get you later that day . . . but a hit of black tar heroin will get you on a drug test that day, or the next, but if you push the fluids (water, pop, coffee), you can test clean in as little as 36 to 48 hours.

    THC, on the other hand, traces a line on the stick for up to 30 days, 45 for the biochemically challenged: seriously, people have used once and failed a workplace screener six weeks later. So, if you’re at a party on a Friday, and work where you might have to pee in a cup on Monday, or any time next week . . . or the next two weeks, for sure, then if you have a choice between a toke and a hit, you’re gonna pick the heroin. It’s a rational choice in the artificial marketplace of intoxicants and consequences we’ve created.

    That’s right, I’m saying cheap pee tests at workplaces have created the renewed demand for heroin & opiate-based substances. Because it’s safer than pot in the employment posterior-protection game-playing. I understand that factories and physically demanding environments are concerned, often sincerely, in protecting the safety of non-abusing employees, but much of what we’ve got is because of litigation by employees injured by mistakes of other employees who sue the employer for not having taken adequate precautions against workplace impairment. A wide-spectrum test costs more than a simple meth-THC cup & stick, while a cheap test gets you protection as “due diligence.” So rare is the hourly-wage shop that springs to test for opiates, hallucinogens, or synthetics, while most are casually doing random screens (also cheap if you use “sampling” aka cost control) for that joint you smoked last week.

    The solution? That I’m not so sure about, but most testing is not helping — in the drug war, let alone in standardized education tests. It’s a symbolic action that we are all expected to pretend is doing something socially important, while we’re not supposed to notice the actual unintended consequences.

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  5. Basset said on December 23, 2013 at 7:18 pm

    My goal for the holiday season’s family events (with Mrs. B’s family, mine’s either strangers or dead – just to maintain thread relevance I’ll mention that one was from heroin) is to drink enough to stay outwardly calm but not so much that I say or do anything inappropriate. A delicate balance, but possible.

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  6. Basset said on December 23, 2013 at 7:31 pm

    About the Kalashnikov…. I’d recommend this, written by a former Marine officer who knows his firearms:

    http://www.amazon.com/The-Gun-C-J-Chivers/dp/0743271734

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  7. Jolene said on December 23, 2013 at 7:38 pm

    I second Basset’s recommendation. Can’t claim to have read this book, but have read some of Chivers’s journalism. Very good work.

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  8. Brandon said on December 23, 2013 at 7:44 pm

    In other news, Mikhail Kalashnikov, dead at 94. Of course the designer of the most popular and deadly rifle in the world deserves a big obit, but you have to listen to this to truly understand how revolutionary his weapon was. Recommended for those of you who design things for a living — Deborah, Peter, J.C., others.

    Let the record show I broke the news of his death on this site in the previous thread.

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  9. Little Bird said on December 23, 2013 at 7:58 pm

    Geeks and nerds understand and can make cool things, dorks are baffled by cool things. We are not dorky!

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  10. Danny said on December 23, 2013 at 10:39 pm

    Dang, what an absolute trial for Marcia and her family. Really sorry to hear that they had to go through all of that. From brief quote in the article, it sounds like she is still carrying a heavy burden that she probably should not be carrying. I mean, kids are their own people and will sometimes get into troubles that do not remotely reflect how well you raised them.

    She and her family will undoubtedly be busy this holiday season, but tell her I say hello anyway.

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  11. mark said on December 23, 2013 at 10:55 pm

    “That’s right, I’m saying cheap pee tests at workplaces have created the renewed demand for heroin & opiate-based substances.”

    Jeff,

    Over the last several years I’ve attended probably 2500 12 Step meetings and I’ve never heard an opiate addict blame pee tests for his addiction or confirm by anecdote what you claim. I’ve also never known any heroin addicts who limited their use to Friday 6 pm to 10 pm in order to beat random urine tests and act responsibly at work. There is a bridge of sorts between pot use and heroin use but it is a long and convoluted one that far more people choose not to cross than to cross.

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  12. Deborah said on December 23, 2013 at 11:27 pm

    Happy Holidays to all of you. I hope you all know how much you mean to me, especially Nancy. What a great place to hang out. Thanks to all of you, you’re the best.

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  13. jcburns said on December 24, 2013 at 12:01 am

    Mikhail Kalashnikov…whatta dancer! Oh.

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  14. Danny said on December 24, 2013 at 12:14 am

    jc, hilarious!!!

    Jeff, gotta agree with mark. In my early days, I smoked enough weed to rate as my own personal Colombian forest fire and I was never ever tempted to chase the dragon, regardless of a strong affinity for Steely Dan music.

    Nancy, something else that was bothering me is how horrid it must be for Marcia that all of this is being covered… in friggin’ depth.. in the local paper. Holy crap that sucks. Most of us could not bear up under the weight of our own family dysfunctions being aired out so publicly. Gawd, how awful.

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  15. crazycatlady said on December 24, 2013 at 1:22 am

    Congrats for making the Quotes Of The Week list in Deadline Detroit. Cool.

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  16. Sherri said on December 24, 2013 at 1:56 am

    The heroin addicts I’ve met in 12 step meetings were not what I’d call functional addicts, whereas I knew many functional alcoholics and weed users. Life seemed to spiral out of control pretty quickly for the heroin users. However, the means of using the drug has an impact on the how quickly the effects are felt, and thus an impact on the addictiveness, so maybe that’s a factor. Alcohol was legal and easily obtainable and sufficient for my addiction, so I never did anything else other than smoke a little weed.

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  17. Sherri said on December 24, 2013 at 2:21 am

    BTW, a urine test is not like a Breathalyzer; it’s not indicating immediate use and impairment. A urine test works because there are THC metabolites that end up in fat cells, and eventually in urine. Blood or saliva tests would be more indicative of impairment. With legalization of marijuana in Washington, the test for driving while stoned is a blood test.

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  18. Dexter said on December 24, 2013 at 3:50 am

    I have a photo of me brandishing an AK-47. It was taken outside my hootch in Vietnam. It belonged to my buddy Paul from Canoga Park, California. He had bartered for it in Nha Trang for some goods he bought from his ration card at the PX.
    He had one magazine for it but only one magazine worth of bullets. As I recall he was not supposed to have it, but really, nobody gave a damn. We were , as medics, supposed to have been issued .45 caliber handguns but only the officers actually got them, and the rest were sold downtown on the black market. We only had a few M-16s available to us on a moment’s notice. A few of our guys finagled deals on the black market themselves to obtain M-16s. Kalashnikovs cost like 5x what an M-16 cost. Black market M-16s obtained downtown were always all fucked up and needed a really good cleaning and a prayer to even get them to fire. I know the US army people improved the quality of the M-16s eventually, but those earlier ones were cause for much anguish for US troops. I never met one soldier who had had a real chance to use both weapons in battle prefer the American weapon. The AK-47 was the shit then and still is today. BTW, that photo-op I staged with that AK-47 was a Chinese made, not a Russian-made. Many countries made them, but the ones that come out of Russia are what you would want.

    Hilliard, eh? That is where my holiday home is. Daughter’s place. Christmas. Can’t wait to see my toddling granddaughter. Leaving soon. Everybody be good…rumor is I will be getting a nice present, so I better walk the straight and narrow!

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  19. Dexter said on December 24, 2013 at 3:56 am

    I don’t know about that, Sherri…lots of H users function and get by for like thirty years before things catch up.
    We all know folks that drink a little and smoke a little weed, then there are some of us who can’t allow any of that behavior into our lives.

    Oh, last night a friend recommended “Seven Psychopaths”, on Showtime OnDemand now. I watched it. Crazy, man. Sam Rockwell, Tom Waits, Christopher Walken, bunch of other stars. Check it out.

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  20. Dorothy said on December 24, 2013 at 7:22 am

    Marcia and I are Facebook friends too so I was aware of Clay’s release. It made me so very happy for her and her family to know he was released two weeks before Christmas. The article was in yesterday’s Dayton Daily News. If you’re reading Nancy but not commenting, Marcia, please know you have my sincere wish for the happiest of Christmases this year! I’ll keep praying for Clay as he begins this next part of his life.

    Speaking of sons, ours is in the downturn of his deployment. We don’t know the specific date, but we expect him to be back on US soil the first week or ten days of February. I miss him fiercely these days but exchange messages almost daily on Facebook so I am thankful for that.

    I hope all of my nn.c pals have a tremendous holiday! I love you all and am grateful for your counsel and stories.

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  21. Jolene said on December 24, 2013 at 7:32 am

    Dorothy, tell us something about your new place. How is the settling in going? Any promising job prospects?

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  22. coozledad said on December 24, 2013 at 9:35 am

    How to talk to white trash gulls and crypto-Nazis:
    http://wonkette.com/537313/gay-lady-houston-mayor-does-not-care-one-bit-about-duck-dynasty-dude#more-537313

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  23. brian stouder said on December 24, 2013 at 9:50 am

    I’m with Danny on how mortifying it must be to have this splashed all over the newspapers.

    Other than my obituary, and maybe the occasional letter to the editor (!), I’d as soon never have my name in the newspaper.

    Cooze – keep this up, and you’ll make me a wonkette dude

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  24. coozledad said on December 24, 2013 at 9:58 am

    Brian: It’s actually a better news aggregator than most, and it’s much, much smarter than the New York Times editorial page and its sinecured columnists, or Fred Hiatt’s repulsive trough of old racists.

    It’s got wit, like the papers used to. We’ve forgotten that Twain was a newspaper man. It’s got art. Anything worth doing in that sphere should approach art. That’s why Pareene deserves a Pulitzer, and it’s why he won’t get one.

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  25. Danny said on December 24, 2013 at 10:38 am

    Oh yeah, like when that one dude mocked Trig Palin for having Down Syndrome and then theorized that he was the offspring of an incestuous relationship between Todd Palin and one of his daughters. Now that there is some high art.

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  26. Scout said on December 24, 2013 at 10:45 am

    We’ll be spending Christmas Eve with the local daughter and grandkids, missing the back east family like crazy. Christmas Day will be a quiet day at home, just us and the five kittehs, with gifts, phone calls to the kin, good food and Christmas dvds.

    Merry Christmas Eve to all who celebrate and insert appropriate seasonal greeting here to all those who don’t. nn.c and the delicious comment section is a gift I give myself every day of the year, and I am thankful for this community.

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  27. brian stouder said on December 24, 2013 at 10:46 am

    Danny – you DO realize that snarky/hostile/merciless newspaper treatment is as American as apple pie, right?

    (See Abraham Lincoln/Lost Townships letters/Shields/Duel; Abe’s letters WERE pretty funny, unless you were the target!)

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  28. brian stouder said on December 24, 2013 at 10:53 am

    ..and if I recall correctly, some of of Abe’s (and Mary’s) anonymous insinuations about the hapless Shields (who was the state’s Auditor, at the time) included incest)

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  29. coozledad said on December 24, 2013 at 10:57 am

    Merry white jeebus day, Daniel!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWm03wYBTbM

    Wishing that the markets fell
    Weep. Thou grizzly mama
    News had just come over,
    we had four more years of ‘Bama

    News gal wept and told us
    Rove was plainly crying
    cried until she shut his mouth
    then we knew he was not lying

    I saw crying jags, laundry bags, stretched over heads
    I saw hillbillies blow their brains out in their sheds
    My brain felt like a teabag
    it was swollen and limp
    I had to snort some more crystal
    to get on with my gimp
    And all the fat-stupid people, and all the logic-short people
    oxycodone glazed people, and methamphetamine people
    The GOP would need so many people

    A man my age went off his head
    bought some gold from Glen Beck
    If his wife hadn’t transferred funds, It could have been a trainwreck

    A bagger with a rebel flag, fixed his flagpole five inches up his crack
    A priest knelt and kissed the cock of a cop
    and a queer said who’d ever thunk of that?
    I think I saw you reading Camile Paglia
    forming the words with your lips
    trying so hard to make sense of that shit
    you forgot to eat your potato chips

    And it was cold and it rained so I needed a jacket
    And I thought of how I might get into this racket
    Sell mace! bait race! and kick me some poors
    oh fuck it, I’ll go home and play me some Doors

    This is the end, beautiful friend
    This is the end, my only friend
    I’ve got four years. Struck stupid, struck dumb
    Four years, I’ll kill dad and do mum!

    Four years!
    Four years!
    Four years!
    Waaaaah!

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  30. coozledad said on December 24, 2013 at 11:04 am

    track 2: Assoul love.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3dtDdO5Op4

    Stone drunk, she kneels inside the lab
    Her damn son is not back from the drugstore, fuck him.
    fuck ephedrine, gonna whip this batch
    Up from brake fluid and sugar

    Coolers , a boy and girl are drinking coolers
    Levi and friends they swear by coolers
    Hooch so strong
    The knickers fly right off
    And they’re penetrating, heaving.
    Booze is careless in its choosing
    You might jump just any asshole
    Hooch will make your ass defenseless
    Add some weed, you’ll hump a doorknob!

    Aspirations has he none
    Just to get into her shorts
    All he has is his high school sports
    A van that’s unlovely.

    Oh fuck, the baby bump is showing
    Bad luck. We’ll tell them you’ve got really bad gas
    Gas so strong we have to keep you in
    And communicate by wire

    Duh, duh, duh duh duh duh duh duhd duh duh duh duh durr.

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  31. coozledad said on December 24, 2013 at 11:08 am

    Track3: Starburst Daydream Festus.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFDj3shXvco

    I’m a hungry cougar, I’m a mountin’ lion coming for you
    I’ll invade your space, dawg, I’m in a doggie slaughtering mood

    Keep your mouth shut,
    I’m reading ALL the papers, ya slut
    And I listen to the brain in my gut

    Keep that camera’s eye on me, pop
    Pull it closer to my breastis
    Press your crank against the screen, dad

    Spazz out in a starburst daydream, Festus!

    Don’t stiff me daddy, lay the gift card on me
    The Phoenix Nordstrom’s
    Is such a holy place to be
    Show me daddy, show me that you really care
    Put my family on the air!

    Keep that camera’s eye on me, bud
    Pull in closer to my breastis
    Press your face against the screen, loser
    Spazz out in a starburst daydream , Festus!

    Spazz out!
    Starbursts!
    Cougar!
    Festus!

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  32. coozledad said on December 24, 2013 at 11:14 am

    Track 4: Hang on to your cash

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL0Vwqm1rGc

    Well she’s a word salad shooter
    She’ll be on the show tonight
    Praying to the cash machine
    She wants my money and your money
    She’s a fundie plate collector
    griftin’ on your Christmas dreams
    So pay up, pay up, She’s really got a good grift going
    Well pay up, well pay up, if you think she’s gonna muff it
    You better hang on to your cash.
    We can’t dance, we don’t talk good
    We just reproduce
    But we ‘d bob for coins in your ass
    Well the bitter comes out bitter when we’re on the TV
    You’re the “heartland”
    We’re the Yonis of Grift
    So step up, cough up, we’ve really got a good grift going
    Well pay up, well pay up, if you think we’re gonna muff it
    You better hang on to your cash
    Pay up!
    (Chorus)
    Pay up
    Pay up (yeah)
    Pay up!

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  33. brian stouder said on December 24, 2013 at 11:17 am

    Christmas comes early; my eyes are watering and my sides hurt!!

    Cooze – you go, man!

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  34. coozledad said on December 24, 2013 at 11:19 am

    Track5: Sarah Starbursts

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfW-xPaesdM

    Sarah played the rubes, shaking down each shack and gully
    With the Yonis of Grift. She played the fifth ace
    with a vacant face
    Became the bagger’s God, And we were Sarah’s sprog.

    Sarah really talked, screwed up words and piled up hairdo
    Like some bint huffing paint, she could convince them
    She’d licked their taint.
    It got them so loaded man, Bill Kristol was a Fan.

    So where were the Yonis while the lamestream stood stout as bones
    Just the cash scent to guide us,
    So we bitched on the TV and tried to do something twee.

    Oh
    Ooh oh

    Sarah played for time, Bashir said she should eat doodoo
    But he was just wired. She got him fired
    The right was inspired
    Her argument was invalid, but boy could she toss a salad

    Making words into porridge Sarah sucked up beyond her clothes
    Like a skeletal stripper
    When she lost her TV slot I had to mop up the spot

    Oh yeah
    Ooooooo
    Sarah played da roooooooobes.

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  35. Scout said on December 24, 2013 at 12:22 pm

    OMG! I’ll never listen to my well worn Ziggy Stardust CD in the same way ever again. Hilarious! I love you, cooz. Sending an extra special ho-ho-ho to you, sir!

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  36. coozledad said on December 24, 2013 at 12:26 pm

    Right back at’cher, Scout!

    In some ways I wish I could hear that album the way I heard it the first time. Dopamine!

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  37. brian stouder said on December 24, 2013 at 1:54 pm

    Well, I know just-next-to-nothing about hockey, but this video made me laugh:

    http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1900188-coyotes-sabres-game-ends-in-craziest-way-possible?utm_source=cnn.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=editorial&hpt=hp_t2

    With the game tied at 1-1 in overtime, Phoenix goalie Mike Smith was put in an odd situation. The puck went into the air, and he had no idea where it was.

    The puck landed in the back of his pants without him knowing. Smith slid into the goal as he was looking for it and trying to protect the net at the same time. The game ended as he crossed the line with the puck in his pants.

    I’ve heard of hitting one “into the crease” – but it never made sense before now…

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  38. Deborah said on December 24, 2013 at 2:22 pm

    Holy Cow Coozledad, have you been saving these up or did you just have the inspiration today?

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  39. coozledad said on December 24, 2013 at 2:40 pm

    Deborah: Wrote some Saturday morning, some during the day Sunday. I was going to do the whole LP, but it would have been redundant.

    Sarah pulls some new stupid shit on a daily basis, and there’s always Hunky Dory.

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  40. brian stouder said on December 24, 2013 at 3:01 pm

    Maybe Rush Revere can write in that new character on his next ghost-written tripe; Honky Dora of the Great White North

    If there were annual NN.c awards, like the Academy Awards – Cooze would be our Speilberg

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  41. MichaelG said on December 24, 2013 at 3:18 pm

    Merry Christmas to everybody!

    The crease. Very good, Brian.

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  42. Sherri said on December 24, 2013 at 3:21 pm

    I passed the last major milestone of a long dental journey today: three crowns on teeth in front, one of which was replacing a very old crown from a long-ago root canal. After braces, jaw surgery, and now crowns, all I have to do is wear a retainer for a while longer, and then I’m done!

    (I drew a bad number in the genetic lottery for teeth. This is my second adventure with braces; the first time as a teen fixed my teeth, but not my bite, so over time, the teeth moved back to fit my bite. Hence, the jaw surgery.)

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  43. Dorothy said on December 24, 2013 at 4:04 pm

    Cooz is one helluva hard act to follow, even with just light conversation!

    We are pretty settled in, Jolene. Still waiting for the trash company to bring our receptacle. That, and my lack of any reaction to my many job applications, are my only complaints. It’s a rough time of year to be looking for work. I’m going to sign up with a temp agency if I don’t get any calls during the first week of January. I’m hoping to be free to visit with my daughter when she arrives on January 10 for a long weekend. Then maybe a month or less from then our son will be home. So much to look forward to!

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  44. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on December 24, 2013 at 4:19 pm

    I respect mark & Danny both, but what I’m responding to are the sudden (well, over the last five years) large numbers of what I can only call, from the outside, “casual” heroin users. I’m putting casual in quotes, but that’s the consumption and use pattern. Lots more people using, and then, yes, some are more likely to become addicts. Not all. That’s also a controversial statement, I know. But I’ve never used heroin, can’t imagine ever trying it, but the evidence rolls across my desk that people are using it as a weekend relaxant. And if you make a mistake, unlike that third beer, it can kill you even without getting into a car. But the volume of use is up, the number of users up, the number of arrests for dealing heroin is up; deaths from heroin use are up but not as much as you’d think. Pot use, still strong, but there are enough disincentives to keep smoking on a daily basis in the workforce that people are making changes, and that’s been — around central Ohio — to heroin for *some*. Enough to see the general numbers spike. How to define “heroin addicts” and who ends up going into NA and/or a recovery program I can’t say in brief, but I’m not in any way saying all heroin addicts are pot-shifters. I am saying heroin use is up, and my earlier statement as to why is what we’re hearing — and the science behind test results supports that.

    If you don’t have a job where you get pee tested, you might still migrate up/over/down from weed to black tar hits, but the impression I have is that regular pot smoking is still the cheaper and common. But heroin is here in a way it wasn’t ten years ago, and my impression is that it’s been demand-side driven more than supplier driven. In this, as in so much, I could be wrong.

    Merry Christmas, all — our church just delivered out 600-plus Christmas eve dinners, then we let the Catholic-Lutheran team handle Christmas day (about the same number, a little less delivered but more at St. Francis), and the Presbyterians do Easter. That’s what ecumenism can do for a community!

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  45. Danny said on December 24, 2013 at 5:10 pm

    Man, amazing riding weather today out here on the Left Coast! A nice cool breeze coming off the ocean the whole way up the 101 and spectacular views of breaking waves. Awesome…

    Brian,

    http://wonkette.com/443737/rude-post-deleted-by-editor-author-apologizes

    I was responding to the “art” comment and it appears that the site saw the better of it too and decided that making fun of an infant with Down Syndrome wasn’t so artful, apple pie be damned.

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  46. mark said on December 24, 2013 at 6:06 pm

    jtmmo- You may be correct. Just saying I haven’t heard it from a pretty large sampling of the usual suspects. Addiction, many say, is about self-will run riot. Narcissism seems to be the ism of the moment, so I suspect drug use/abuse rates will continue to climb.

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  47. Sherri said on December 25, 2013 at 4:24 am

    Merry Christmas, friends! Back from the midnight service, stockings are stuffed, and I’ve got a few minutes alone with everyone else gone to bed to enjoy peace and quiet. For those for whom the season doesn’t feel so merry, hang in there, this too shall pass. It’s okay to not feel like everybody else, and just find a quiet corner to accept that. I do that a lot, not just during the holiday seasons.

    But this moment, this is my most Christmas moment, when I finally feel ready to feel the holiday. Maybe I’m just a war on Advent grumbler!

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  48. Minnie said on December 25, 2013 at 9:32 am

    Merry Christmas all.

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  49. alex said on December 25, 2013 at 9:42 am

    In Trig’s defense, he’s the most lucid thing that ever came out of Sarah Palin.

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  50. Deborah said on December 25, 2013 at 9:44 am

    Merry Christmas! Last night we went to the dances at the San Juan pueblo, which is now called it’s native name Okhay Owingeh. It included a mass in the church, bonfires and costumed dancers. Quite spectacular. Then back to Santa Fe where we had our little family ritual of present opening with hot soup and homemade bread. Today some of my daughters friends will join us for dinner and present opening.

    Sherri, I try to find my own Christmas moment too. Sometimes it happens in the middle of a throng of people and sometimes I have to be completely alone. I’ve looked for it each year since I was a freshman in college. So far, I always find it, even if for just a few seconds.

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  51. Deborah said on December 25, 2013 at 9:46 am

    its not it’s #47

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  52. Deborah said on December 25, 2013 at 9:47 am

    I mean #50

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  53. coozledad said on December 25, 2013 at 9:48 am

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1I4Q6Px_78

    I’ve seen some boxed pizzas cooked up in my day
    So satisfying in their way.
    I’ve seen some boxed pizzas cooked up in my day
    So satisfying in their way.

    1.Take that one-hit in your room to prepare yourself
    2. Find the pizza making kit. It should be in the pantry, on the shelf.
    (‘Cause it’s time, it’s time for cheesy pizza chews. Boy-Ar-dee is the shit to use)
    3.Preheat oven 425
    4.Gather your supplies.
    (Just remember that the goal
    is a pair of cheesy, chewy pies)
    Yea, yea, yea.
    5. Use a fork to blend up the dough
    6. Drizzle on some oil
    7. Don’t forget to oil baking sheet
    8.Do not use aluminum foil..
    9.Don’t surround
    your hands (with the dough).
    ‘Cause it’s time, it’s time for cheesy pizza chews. Boy-ar-dee is the shit to use.

    Diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit didda.
    Diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit
    Didda.
    10.Don’t surround your hands with the dough
    11.Form it in two squares,
    12. Spoon the sauce all over the dough,
    close to the edge, with loving care.
    13. Don’t surround
    your hands with the sauce.
    14. Find the cheese and can opener.
    15 Do not cut yourself.
    16.Sprinkle cheese to the edge of the dough
    17. Place the sheet on oven shelf.
    ‘Cause it’s time, it’s time for cheesy pizza chews. Boy-ar-dee is the shit to use.
    Diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit didda.
    Diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit didda.
    Diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit didda.
    Diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit diddit didda.
    15.In twenty minutes it will be time for pizza chews Boy-Ar-Dee ….

    I’ve seen some boxed pizzas cooked up in my day, so satisfying. Not today.
    (repeat until you pass out)

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