Sorry no post on Friday. I wrote something, read it over and declined to hit Publish. More people should do that from time to time. Not everything that can be said, should be said. More to the point, I’m not sure I said what I meant to say. But by then it was late, and work had piled up.
It remains in the Drafts folder. It may yet live.
I always thought of that as the sign of a true writer: That you don’t know exactly what you think of something until you write about it, because writing and thinking are so inextricably linked that it’s hard to do one without the other.
What a weekend. On Saturday, we spent a fair amount of money on a stove and dishwasher. We didn’t buy a fridge, because the one we have is only a few years old. Besides, I took one look at this…
…and laughed out loud. I asked the salesman who pays the hefty premium for a fridge that will take a photo of its contents, keep track of your shopping list and otherwise make you dependent on yet another electronic device. “Younger people,” he replied. Of course. It reminded me of when I was shopping with my mom in…I guess it was 1984, because the Apple Macintosh had just been released. We were playing with one in the computer store near our home. I explained that you could use it to write, paint and draw.
“There’s also a program you can get, where you put in all the food you have in your fridge and pantry, and it tells you what you can make from it,” I said.
“I do that every day, only I use my head,” she said. I had to admit I do the same thing. The few times every year that I duplicate-buy something I forgot I already have don’t add up to the $3,500 or so one of these things cost.
And then it was home to start clearing out the kitchen, because demo starts tomorrow. (Allegedly.) My kitchen gets a thorough cleaning every couple months, with a clean-as-you-go policy the rest of the time, but man, nothing like pulling that microwave out from its space on the countertop to feel a wave of shame wash over you. There aren’t dead mice or anything back there, but especially in the pantry, let’s just say some people like to eat snacks while standing in the doorway assessing other snacks, and Wendy can’t get every morsel that drops. If I lived in Florida, where (I’m told) the rinse-and-hold setting on the dishwasher gets used after every meal, lest cockroaches be drawn to a dirty plate within, well – I wouldn’t live in Florida.
Photos to come.
As to bloggage, well, I’m throwing in the towel today. Hot takes on the memo are so thick on the ground you can barely move, and it already feels like we’re hunkering down for the next disaster. Perhaps it will come in the form of a pandemic we’re unprepared to face because funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been slashed to finance tax cuts. Maybe it’ll be next year’s flu — wasn’t the 1918 pandemic preceded by a mini-pandemic in 1917? One of my colleagues just returned to work after his flu adventure, and he’d gotten the shot. I told him that next year he’d be safe, while I would die.
And then, of course, there’s the Super Bowl. Ring in on the best ads. And go Iggles.
beb said on February 4, 2018 at 2:23 pm
Rather than remode;ing, we’re thinking of moving. Our kitchen (circa 1947) is so small you really do have to leave the room to change your mind.
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David C. said on February 4, 2018 at 2:26 pm
I think the same thing about connected thermostats. Who buys them and for what purpose? If it’s summer and you get home before the programmable thermostat kicks on the a/c turn it down and wait 15 minutes, if it’s winter turn it up and wait 15 minutes. Seems simple enough to me. Maybe they get off on being unwitting co-conspirators to denial of service attacks. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37738823
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Deborah said on February 4, 2018 at 2:36 pm
Our old dishwasher was so bad that I basically did the dishes before I stuck them in, I scraped and scraped and rinsed and rinsed in the sink beforehand. I’m so used to doing that, I can’t seem to do it any other way now. It’s bad for water usage, which in Chicago isn’t horrible but in Santa Fe it’s astronomical plus obviously wasteful in that drought stricken part of the world. And we even have a brand new dishwasher in Santa Fe. Of course in Abiquiu we have a galvanized dishpan and a wooden drying rack that folds flat, I have quite a convoluted routine for doing dishes there, with as little water as possible since we have to carry it on to the premises each trip.
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nancy said on February 4, 2018 at 3:07 pm
We have a Nest thermostat. I kinda love it, except for when we went to Columbus over the holidays and it lowered the temperature to 50.
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Sherri said on February 4, 2018 at 3:16 pm
I have a rule of thumb about buying things like refrigerators with tablets built in: if the big thing has a significantly longer life span than the little thing being added on, don’t pay a premium for it. That’s how I felt about those o,d TVs with VCRs built in,and that’s how I feel about refrigerators with tablets. In 2-3 years, that tablet will stop getting OS updates, apps will stop working on it, and the refrigerator company will shrug its shoulders. If you really want a tablet on your refrigerator, buy a tablet and some Velcro.
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adrianne said on February 4, 2018 at 3:35 pm
Please don’t make appliances complicated! I love my old-school refrigerator, dishwasher and stove.
My fave media fail of the week was someone in Paul Ryan’s office thinking it was a good idea to post a constituent’s ode to the $1.50 a week tax cut. Smarter heads prevailed and the link is now gone.
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LAMary said on February 4, 2018 at 5:27 pm
The only jazzy thing on any of my appliances is the icemaker. The fact I think that’s jazzy gives you an idea of how basic I like my appliances. My generous brother in Denver regularly sends me expensive kitchen stuff that I mostly keep, sometimes return because I just can’t imagine using it. The Keurig got returned. The Keurig my other brother sent me got returned too. I have a Chemex, the philosophical opposite of a Keurig. This year the Denver brother sent me a Vitamix. Last year I got an instant pot. I use the instant pot but the Vitamix is still intimidating me. I also can’t find a good spot for it because I have a small kitchen. On a different note, I use a Williams Sonoma gift card to order a cast iron wok.
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brian stouder said on February 4, 2018 at 5:49 pm
Well, we’re ready for the Big Game, and the Big Commercials, and the so on and so forth. Lotsa munchies here and there, plus Target had 12-packs of Diet Pepsi [etc] at 4/$8.88 – so we made a Target run before the snow (which is currently falling) really got going in earnest.
I grabbed Pam’s minivan, which is new-to-us (it’s a ’15 Dodge), and which has Sirius satellite radio.
My mom or dad would have thought I was insane, for willingly paying a monthly bill for the radio in a car – but I LOVE LOVE LOVE its Pearl Jam station. (Pammy has other preferences – and that’s OK; I’ll run errands and get my fix; a win/win/win!). Pam has a friend who clued us in on how to play the Sirius game. The first month was free; at the end of that month, you cancel the service, rather than pay whatever price they have on offer; Sirrius then makes a 6-month offer for a reduced rate, which you accept; in 6 months, they either make another offer, or we cancel; wash/rinse/repeat)
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on February 4, 2018 at 7:01 pm
Solo – a Star Wars Story.
Oh yeah.
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alex said on February 4, 2018 at 8:20 pm
Brian I have Sirius and siriusly love it too. The local radio market is such a fucking wasteland. I didn’t love it at first and was going to let it drop at the end of the free trial on my last new car, but then they made it worth my while and I’m glad they did.
I still prefer accuradio.com on my system at home and I’ll drop Sirius when I can figure out how to stream from accuradio for less than it costs to have Sirius.
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brian stouder said on February 4, 2018 at 8:33 pm
Alex – true about our local radio market.
I can stomach WMEE in the morning drive-time; I’m only about 7 minutes from work in any case.
But otherwise, it seems to be national (and/or local) Right-Wing Fever Swamp stuff.
The Pearl Jam station plays concerts from the past 20 years, and it is unfailingly marvelous.
When we saddle up for longer trips (such as to Logansport) Pammy gets control one way, and I get the other (unless I trade it away for future options), but we digress
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Joe Kobiela said on February 4, 2018 at 8:45 pm
Was a subscriber to the original XM, I believe I got into it when there were less than 150,000 members, they were bought out by Sirius, I still liked XM better, deeper play list and only a occasional break for who you just heard. I was able to listen in my airplane, which was helpful on long cross country flights especially at night. Both of my Ford Focuses have it and I would not want a car without it. I do however play Pandora at times instead, I enjoy having 15-20 artist that randomly play different types of music.
Pilot Joe
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Andrea said on February 5, 2018 at 12:40 am
I got to meet Gloria Steinem today!! She appeared at a fundraiser for Marie Newman. It was held in a bungalow in my neighborhood. Less than 48 hours notice, but the place was packed. A local bakery donated pink frosted cookies with the word NASTY written in beautiful flowing script. They called it Superwoman Sunday. What a treat!
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Jakash said on February 5, 2018 at 1:03 am
D’oh! First, I tried to post this here and it didn’t post for some reason. Then, I went back to the previous thread and accidentally posted it there. One more time…
Matthew Yglesias via Twitter:
“The FBI kept an open counterintelligence probe of the GOP nominee secret at McConnell’s behest while the Director twice violated DOJ guidelines to hit Clinton’s campaign. Everyone saw that happen and the people pretending to believe otherwise don’t deserve the time of day.”
“You can mount a plausible defense of each of the Bureau’s choices in isolation. You can mount a less plausible defense of the consistency between them. But there’s no plane of reality in which they were out to stop Trump. If they had been, he’d have been stopped!”
“Never forget, the conclusion of the Clinton email probe was that she had been … … extremely careless.”
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Dexter said on February 5, 2018 at 3:11 am
brian…XM 22, Pearl Jam…tune in and throw away the knob! I also hit up Beatles Ch 18 and lately Bruce on Ch 20. Sunday the Bruce channel played some recent kick-ass concerts.
I got a kick out of Doritos/ Mountain Dew commercial, hip hop beats danced to by Morgan Freeman and a fire breathing Peter Dinklage. Tide came up with a very witty series of ads; I liked the greasy old car mechanic in the clean white shirt. If you watched the game, you saw one of the best ever.
Fare, simple…wings with dipping sauce, several sizes and flavors of chips to scoop up melty cheese sauce, bean dip, salsa, crushed avocado, and some spicy sauced hamburger, texture of chili, sorta. Choice of Twist-Up soda, Coke, Diet Pepsi, Vernors Diet & regular. For nervous munching and sucking of sweets, I set out bowls of jelly beans , Jolly Ranchers, and pecan “turtles”. The turtles disappeared immediately after everyone had their fill of chips and dippers, and I O.D.’d on the giant jelly beans. Oh…one man showed up with a twelve pack of suds but when he observed nobody here was touching any alcohol he just set it off by the door and grabbed a Vernors, not that any of us old reformed drunkees would have given 2 shits if he had had a few beers. Oh…I had some pizzas delivered at halftime, one cheese, one pepperoni, one meat-lover’s. There were just 3 pieces left at clean-up time…anyway, simple little TV party, nothing fancy at all, hell, if you have enough chicken wings everybody’s happy. The whole party was improvised anyway in record time. After visiting earlier in the day with my wife (10 more days in a nursing home before her scheduled knee surgery) I just decided to call my entire phone contact list and invite anybody who I thought usually watched the game at home. I was happy to see them when they indeed came over. A good night.
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basset said on February 5, 2018 at 3:53 am
Our tv stayed off.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on February 5, 2018 at 5:51 am
Basset, if you did that, how did you know when it was time to watch “This Is Us”?
#Kidding
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basset said on February 5, 2018 at 7:29 am
time to watch what?
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adrianne said on February 5, 2018 at 8:47 am
This WaPo headline says it all: “Scenes of drunken revelry in Philadelphia.” Or, it’s Monday.
My only regret from the big game is that my dad was not around to see it. He was a faithful Iggles fan for the ages. But, alas, never saw a Super Bowl win.
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Suzanne said on February 5, 2018 at 9:03 am
I watched the second half of the big game. I thought the commercials were a little better this year. I liked the Alexa lost her voice one, especially the Gordon Ramsey part, and a few others. Watched the half-time show half heartedly. At least this year, I had heard of the singer, unlike some years, although I thought Timberlake’s choic of clothing was ugly and blah. He’s ok. I was hoping for a left shark kind of thing.
I did stay up to watch the end of the game because it got exciting even though I didn’t care who won. Apparently, the conspiracy people are already ramped up that the game was “given” to the Eagles (deep state, don’t ya know) because Tom Brady is a Trump fan. It never stops.
I would never want one of those fancy refrigerators for reasons stated above. Way too many things to go wrong. And I can’t get organized enough to jot down a list for grocery shopping most of the time, so doubt I’d use an on screen list thing any more often.
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Julie Robinson said on February 5, 2018 at 9:15 am
Bassett, I’m with you, but Dexter, I’m glad you had friends over since you’ve had a lot of sadness and loneliness lately.
We don’t usually buy appliances with gizmos, and since Consumer Reports said for years that icemakers always break, we don’t even have one of those. But the Orlando place came with a frig that has one, and it is awfully nice, especially in that climate. When I come back home I think of it fondly, so I timed myself making ice. Four minutes. Four minutes a day.
We finally got to see The Post over the weekend; what a great movie! And what a paean to the newspaper industry, with several references to Mr. Knight and Mr. Ridder, may the chain rest in peace. Easily my favorite movie in recent time.
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Suzanne said on February 5, 2018 at 9:25 am
I agree about The Post! The ending was perfection, too.
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Deborah said on February 5, 2018 at 9:27 am
No football viewing in our household either. TV off all evening, I went to bed insanely early.
It was 2 this morning in Chicago, windchill of -8. Meanwhile it’s getting up in the 50s and 60s during the days in Abiquiu, still no rain though, which is not good.
I will probably not venture outside much today if at all, sidewalks are icy.
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Suzanne said on February 5, 2018 at 10:15 am
The stock market is on its way down already again today. Correction? Or something worse?
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Deborah said on February 5, 2018 at 10:26 am
Suzanne, Krugman says, be cautious https://mobile.twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/960521632287637505
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Judybusy said on February 5, 2018 at 10:54 am
I came off the best weekend in a while. My sister came in for an overnight visit. Now that her 3 girls are launched, she has more time. She loves coming to the city for big adventures, as she puts it. She had never had a martini, so we went to a swanky place to that and to another for dessert. Sunchoke ice cream was part of it, and it was amazingly good. On Saturday we went to to the Art Shanties, which she found really funny, because they have a real fish house and use it to fish.
Sunday, I was finally able to really XC for the first time in 3 years–the winters have just been too warm to keep a snow base. It was brilliantly blue, -17 windchill, and just sublime. Very few out on the course. A bald eagle swooped over my car as I was driving in.
I also began to read David McCullough’s The Greater Journey, about Americans in Paris from about 1830-1870. I’ve never read him before, and I see why he is much admired and got the Pulitzer.
We ended by re-watching some of Death in Paradise, which inspired our upcoming trip to the island of Guadeloupe. We also researched restaurants–the food is a mix of French and Caribbean flavors. We were defintely drooling!
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Dave said on February 5, 2018 at 11:06 am
We did not watch most of the Super Bowl for the first time in many years. No protest, just little interest and we got into a family discussion that distracted our focus from watching the game. My PA native brother-in-law was thrilled, though, a lifelong Eagles fan, he texted, “My life is complete”.
We saw a similar refrigerator when we had to buy a new one two summers ago. We thought, who buys that and how long is it going to last? I do have to say, though, that I thought nearly all new refrigerators come with ice makers. We do appreciate ours and we’ve never had a problem with one.
I can’t remember who brought up IF I DON’T SIX by Elwood Reid last week but I thought that was a book I would want to read. Luckily, I was able to get it from the local library. So, thank you.
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Connie said on February 5, 2018 at 11:10 am
I never turned the TV on this weekend.
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Sherri said on February 5, 2018 at 11:18 am
I was working out at the gym during the first half, but watched the second half with my daughter. Iggles coach Doug Pederson deserves a ton of credit for a well-designed game plan.
My husband is back in TN. His mother is declining more rapidly now.
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Jenine said on February 5, 2018 at 11:46 am
@Judybusy: thanks for telling about your cross country ski outing. Sounds marvelous, peaceful outdoor time plus an eagle! I’m jealous.
Those other eagles were tricky and tenacious and I found it a very satisfying football game.
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Scout said on February 5, 2018 at 12:52 pm
Not a sportsing fan myself, but due to a bikes and brews outing yesterday afternoon I got swept into watching the game at a brew pub. I have limited knowledge about The Football, but it seemed to be quite an exciting game. Being from PA originally, I was of course rooting for the Bird Team. And then I found out New England’s owner and QB are Trump lovers, so that made the Eagles win even more delicious.
The Paul Ryan tweet about the $1.50 and the subsequent deletion was yet another smfh moment in over a year of daily smfh moments. Seriously, what is WRONG with Those People? This article had a good roundup of the Twitterverse reaction.
http://www.scarymommy.com/paul-ryan-tweets-about-tax-bill/?utm_source=FB
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Bitter Scribe said on February 5, 2018 at 1:47 pm
I did what I usually do now with football games: Freeze it on my DVR and start watching a half-hour or so late. This allows me to zap through all the commercials. Only this time I watched a lot of them, because, you know, Super Bowl. I echo Suzanne @ 20 on the Alexa-loses-her-voice commercial, only I’m not sure what Anthony Hopkins was going for at the end of that one.
OTOH, I was able to zap through the halftime show. Justin Timberlake seems likable and is said to be a quality human being, but my gosh, fella, you’re a little long in the tooth to go around pretending to still be a teenybopper heartthrob.
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Jakash said on February 5, 2018 at 1:54 pm
So, the Dodge commercial during the SB using Martin Luther King to sell trucks seems to have been well-received. (Uh, not really!)
“A different portion of the same Martin Luther King speech used in the recent Dodge RAM commercial.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_v1h6Zoi-Q&feature=youtu.be
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Deborah said on February 5, 2018 at 2:59 pm
Twitter was aflame this weekend with the yo memo jabs and then the Ryan idiocy.
I needed to do some errands today, I bundled up and trudged out, walked to Whole Foods about 3/4 of a mile, did my shopping and took a Lyft back home. My bags were too heavy to try to balance myself on ice patches and it was ccccccold.
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Suzanne said on February 5, 2018 at 3:10 pm
Market continues to fall. Now down over 1000 points.
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Deborah said on February 5, 2018 at 3:13 pm
Ha ha ha, some people are so clever https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sinker/pee-tape-and-robert-mueller-iii-prayer-candles
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Brandon said on February 5, 2018 at 3:36 pm
Does anyone here have substantial holdings in stocks? Are you worried about the Dow plunge, or do you think the market was overdue for a “correction”?
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Scout said on February 5, 2018 at 3:49 pm
I’ve been saying for months that the market was going to correct. So, no surprise. Also no surprise that after all that strutting and crowing when it was way up, Hair Furor is now quiet as a wee orange mouse.
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Jolene said on February 5, 2018 at 3:55 pm
Re the controversy over the use of MLK, Jr.’s words in the Dodge Ram ad, check out this article re the role of his children in licensing his words for commercial use.
Dodge is not the only entity seeking to use his words for commercial gain.
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alex said on February 5, 2018 at 4:25 pm
MLK’s son endorsed Trump. Nuff said.
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Icarus said on February 5, 2018 at 4:27 pm
sometime last year I decided to finally break down and get a new dishwasher. It seemed silly to me to have to rinse every dish before putting it in the machine to be washed. We got a fancy Kenmore Elite, higher end model than I wanted. It’s an improvement over what we had (Whirlpool elite) but we still have to wash some of the dishes…it might be the water pressure in our old house even though the plumbing appears to be fairly updated. Also, apparently it’s a dish washer, not dryer. We have to wait a very long time for the dishes to dry or hand dry them.
The kicker: the very Sunday we pulled the trigger and ordered the dishwasher, our dryer stopped working. I knew I was on borrowed time with that sucker but wanted the dishwasher paid off first.
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Julie Robinson said on February 5, 2018 at 4:28 pm
We’ve been thinking the market is too high too, though our 401K is in a retirement mix that has been decreasing the stocks percentage as we’re closer to the big day. Remember Alan Greenspan and irrational exuberance? The recent buildup has felt like that.
The next generation of the King family has been a disappointment.
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Judybusy said on February 5, 2018 at 5:10 pm
Icarus, that bites.
We invest in IRAs and a 401K. Our financial planner has projected for only a 5% growth in our planning to make our retirement goals. I think we are still Ok. Unless the bottom REALLY drops out. I still have a public employee pension and of course social security. I don’t think we will ever starve, just might not be able to travel in retirement.
Along with Nancy, several friends have remodeled their kitchens.I am so envious. I know we have enough equity in the house to back up a loan (I don’t want to do a re-fi and pull out equity) but we want to discuss a plan with our financial planner. If I get to do that in 2020, I’d be happy.
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Sherri said on February 5, 2018 at 5:15 pm
When it comes to the market, I always keep the words of John Maynard Keynes in mind: the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. I did sell some stock today, an item that had been sitting on my to-do list and moved up in priority thanks to the market dropping.
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Dexter said on February 5, 2018 at 5:38 pm
I must have been imagining this, because nobody apparently picked up on it, but JT was playing around with the entrance choreography…if you saw it, he was spinning and poking at the girls’ chests as he entered through a hall/tunnel, and the girls grabbed to form a shield for their chests and spun away, like they were denying another Janet Jackson fiasco. I was sure of this and after the game I went looking for comments…nada, zippo zilch. I can only assume I have eagle eyes or I am crazy…or both, I guess. JT ain’t no spring chicken but he’s a loosy-goosy bastard, helluva dancer. I preferred acts like Bruno Mars, Prince, even Bono and Bruce’s acts, but JT had ’em all fired up; he did his job.
And that game was as tense as a Hawaiian bomb scare until the clocks showed 0:00. You must really hate football to have ignored this beautiful display of sport. Now your fucking winter Olympics? My turn to leave the teevee off. I don’t give a damn about Lindsey Vonn and her broken and patched up body, going 90 down a snow hill. Because we all are negative superior at times.
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David C. said on February 5, 2018 at 6:00 pm
All the executives at work are cashing in their stock options. They don’t do that expecting the market to go up. I switched 90% of my 401(k) to cash a couple of weeks ago. I’m not going to ride another Republican stock market to the bottom as they tell us to keep our money in place because we have to be in it for the long run dontchaknow.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on February 5, 2018 at 6:24 pm
Dexter, I have one relaxing, calming, tranquility inducing word for you this Olympic season:
Curling.
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brian stouder said on February 5, 2018 at 6:25 pm
All I think I know about the market is – when we contribute to our 401k, it is with pre-tax dollars, so there’s an automatic ‘gain’ right off the bat.
Then, we go largely for S&P index funds, along with other stable funds, and don’t sweat the short-term market swings. Over the long-term, the market grows because the population grows
My advice to our young folks, who are just at the beginning of the long road is to immediately get in on a 401(k) if their employer offers it, and stay with it.
Ours has added up pretty nicely, over the past few decades, despite that I know essentially nothing about how Wall Street (et al) operates
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Dorothy said on February 5, 2018 at 6:49 pm
I sure hope you did a sell of some stock to fund your kitchen remodel last week, Nancy, before these recent drops. It’s been long overdue for a market correction so we’re not too worried. It’s routine for the stock market. Maybe once we retire we’ll do what David c. did recently – cash in most of the investments.
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Suzanne said on February 5, 2018 at 7:28 pm
We had some bank stock that my husband had gotten when he was born and it split and split and split over the years until it added up to a nice amount. We sold most of it before our kids went to college to help defray costs. When we sold it in 2007, it was about $38 per share. Then you know what happened. We kept the few shares that we had left and they might be up to $3 or $4 per share now after 10 years.
So, diversify, diversify.
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David C. said on February 5, 2018 at 7:53 pm
I’m not out for good. We’re getting too close to full employment and they just couldn’t stand to have to pay more money. A good recession will cure that and they have enough money to make that happen. After they’ve corrected us, I’ll go back to my old reliable and really cheap S&P 500 fund. I saw my 401(k) halved under Bush II. I’m got going to make the same mistake under Bush III.
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Bitter Scribe said on February 5, 2018 at 8:22 pm
I converted my 401(k) into bonds during the Bush recession. I still took a hit but it wasn’t nearly as bad as a lot of people’s.
That said, I now have an IRA and a financial adviser I trust. I think I’ll ride this one out.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on February 5, 2018 at 9:05 pm
Some of you may have been more aware of this earlier than I’ve been, but Newsweek’s implosion and the details of this latest (not their first for the masthead) is summarized by a fairly profane last line. Which I can’t argue with . . . and if this is what’s going on to some degree or another behind the screen, as it were, for most online news sources, it just makes the current moment all the more deranged . . .
https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/the-publisher-of-newsweek-and-the-international-business
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Sherri said on February 6, 2018 at 12:02 am
Zuckerberg has said a lot about being better, but Facebook’s actions show that they still don’t get it: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2018/02/05/25781471/seattle-says-facebook-has-failed-to-follow-law-on-election-ad-transparency
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Sherri said on February 6, 2018 at 12:49 am
What’s it like to work for a mayor you genuinely admire and respect who is accused of sexual assault?
https://www.thestranger.com/features/2018/01/31/25769813/staffing-the-accused-inside-the-intense-six-month-long-downfall-of-seattle-mayor-ed-murray
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LAMary said on February 6, 2018 at 1:15 am
I’m with a lot of the online observations that Justin Timberlake’s suit was fugly. The elk shirt was especially bad.
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Dexter said on February 6, 2018 at 2:59 am
JMMOne: Curling…when we bought our first home here in Bryan, the cable company had Channel 50, Detroit, which patched into some Canadian TV; this was 41 years ago…on Saturdays in the winter they featured curling, and I became a mildly interested fan, then a devotee of watching curling. Then the cable company was rebranded, the first of probably at least 7 times this happened, and CH.50 and curling vanished, but when it comes on TV now, I will watch. I just never liked watching winter sports on TV at all. Except luge. And curling. Maybe speed skating. I guess I don’t hate it, really. 🙂 I just was not much good at ice skating in giant hand-me-down blade skates. I’d shoot baskets on the ice wearing rubber boots instead. Each season, a one-trick-pony, me.
A real treat to dvr tonight: the 4-hour director’s cut of “Woodstock”. I watched Arlo, Alvin Lee, Joe Cocker & The Grease Band, The Who, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Country Joe & The Fish, then I decided to check the online sites and blogs and call it a night. Any of you folks attend the 1969 Woodstock concert in New York state? In my entire life, I did know just two…one guy I knew well at work and his aunt took him there when he was just a little boy of 8 years; all he recalled was mud and hunger. The other guy was from Detroit and I remember his name, Bob Gendron. He was in Basic Training (US Army) with me just a few days after he finished his last big civilian blow-out at Woodstock. He didn’t even have time to get his pictures back from the photo lab but his family mailed them to him. He had had hair down to his ass before the army barber skinned it all onto the floor. He really was a smartass who considered all us Indiana boys dumb hicks. I did not like him. All he had going for him was yeah…he went to Woodstock and had pictures to prove it. The lucky son-of-a-bitch anyway. Oh…he got sent to the infantry. I hope he made it home, I’ll never know.
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Deborah said on February 6, 2018 at 8:38 am
I don’t know anyone personally who actually went to Woodstock.
Edit: my husband just told me one of our friends went. I didn’t know that until today.
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Bob (Not Greene) said on February 6, 2018 at 11:23 am
Dexter @57, not sure it’s him (he’s very clean cut, from California and appears to have been a helicopter pilot), but there’s a Bob Gendron on the Vietnam Memorial. http://www.vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/18231/ROBERT-M-GENDRON
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Deborah said on February 6, 2018 at 12:16 pm
It couldn’t be the same guy (Gendron) because according to your link his casualty occurred in April of 69, and Woodstock was in August of 69.
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Bob (Not Greene) said on February 6, 2018 at 12:30 pm
Yep, Deborah, didn’t pay attention to that actually. Just saw the name. Definitely not the same guy.
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Charlotte said on February 6, 2018 at 12:31 pm
My 1903 house, and lack of kids, means it’s luddite-land here. The last thing I want is a fridge connected to the intertubes that flashes ads at me, or one of those infernal Amazon echo/Google things surveilling me. No Nest because I don’t have central heat (woodstove + infrared electric backups for winter, window AC in the summer). No dishwasher because my kitchen is old, and there’s just the two of us so it seems silly (although if someone could invent a robot that would empty the dish drainer, I might be in). Himself is finally adjusting the the display screen in his new Subaru, now that he found out how to turn the brightness way down. This was deliberate on my part, I wasn’t looking to get off the grid entirely, but stay way out here on the edge where I’m hoping that with the garden and the chickens and my friends who hunt elk, we can weather whatever crashes are coming our way.
Speaking of crashes– since I didn’t move into cash 2 weeks ago, I’m just going to ride it out. Most of my stuff is in funds, and the few individual stocks I own are all dividend ones that don’t go up and down much, so fingers crossed. We’ve all known this was coming — the market has been wildly inflated for at least a year. I’ve still got about a decade until I can think about using any of it (and I’m ahead of what my mother inherited)so we’ll see. Now I just have to hope that the correction doesn’t hose my freelance tech writing gig, and that the right-wing legislature doesn’t kill health insurance for adjunct professors. If those hold out, I should be okay out here in the gig economy … working 6-7 days a week, but working.
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Dave said on February 6, 2018 at 12:35 pm
I worked with a guy who told me he just had gotten out of the Army and heard about this music festival. He didn’t know the first thing about it but he went all by himself. He had a detailed description of seeing the Chambers Brothers and stories of what a mess it was, which made me believe him because he really wasn’t the kind of guy who made things up. Yes, I know the Chambers Brothers are in the movie but still, I believe he was really there.
Also met a girl one time who went but I can’t remember anything else she told me.
I’ve known two different people who saw The Beatles. I wish I could say that.
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Jolene said on February 6, 2018 at 12:46 pm
Just for grins, I looked up Robert Gendron on Facebook. There are dozens. Very common name in Quebec, apparently.
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Suzanne said on February 6, 2018 at 1:52 pm
Last week, I emailed both my GOP Senator and my GOP Rep and asked them why, when the legislation to put Russian sanctions in place was passed by an overwhelming majority, the sanctions haven’t been enacted yet. So I get a return email from the Senator in which he says this: “…with respect to Russia, this legislation sanctions a number of Russian interests, including their oil industry, financial institutions, and defense and intelligence sectors in response to recent Russian aggression, malign cyber activities, corruption, and human rights violations. On August 2, 2017, President Trump signed H.R. 3364 into law.” followed by the usual “what an honor it is to serve, blah, blah.”
But am I not correct? I already knew Trump signed it into law, but we aren’t actually sanctioning Russia. The law is just sitting there on paper, gathering dust, or that is my understanding.
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susan said on February 6, 2018 at 2:22 pm
The closest I came to going to Woodstock was that I almost went. A friend from graduate school asked if I wanted to drive with him up to this big music festival in New York state. I was then living in the Boston area, he was from New Jersey, and had driven up to Boston to visit. I hedged, not sure I wanted to camp out with a mass of the unwashed at a rock fest, since I sometimes panic in big crowds. My hedging turned to nope as I hung around while he kept trying to get his Triumph TR3 not only started, but to get it to stay running. He’d mutter strings of expletives about goddamned British automotive electrics as he fiddled around with wires and plugs. For hours. Not only did I fear hordes of stoners, but I sure as hell didn’t want to get stuck around those hordes. (Let alone in the great iconic mud that was to come.)
So, nope, but I could have!
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basset said on February 6, 2018 at 3:01 pm
And why do the English drink warm beer? Because they have Lucas refrigerators…
badump-bump. We’ll be here all week, try the veal…
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Scout said on February 6, 2018 at 3:22 pm
Susan, my ex-hub had an MG when we were dating. He was always under the damn thing working on it, plus it had a hole in the muffler so you could hear him coming when he was a mile from our house. He said they should have called it an NG for No Good. He tried to teach me to drive it but my short little legs could not reach the pedals easily so I was always stalling it on hills and having to throw the emergency brake on so he could take over. I never did learn to drive that car. It was a pretty English racing green, though.
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Joe Kobiela said on February 6, 2018 at 4:08 pm
Just watched the launch of the Falcon Heavy. Flawless launch and they landed the boosters to use again. Elon Musks Tesla was the payload with a dummy astronaut at the wheel, pretty cool what mankind can do. the difference between the technicians from mercury thru the shuttle is staggering, white shirts and black ties give way to shorts and tie die, beards, Tats, Piercings, those kids running things are amazing and fun to watch. I saw 3 shuttle launches including a night launch, can’t wait to see one of these heavys live sometime.
Pilot Joe
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Deborah said on February 6, 2018 at 5:23 pm
I had 3 MGs in a row, I’ve said this here before, they were always in the shop. I don’t know why I kept getting them. I finally got a Miata when they started making them and was in heaven by comparison. I really liked little convertibles.
I got my new pair of glasses this afternoon, my first progressive bifocals. I’m getting used to them, it’s nice to be able to see distance and read with the same pair.
I’m helping my husband do some posters for a film program at his school. I’m about to kill him and throw the printer out the window.
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Sherri said on February 6, 2018 at 5:27 pm
We don’t own very much in the way of individual stocks. The stock I mentioned selling the other day was a batch of ESPP stock, which we don’t hold onto, figuring that working for a company is investment enough in that company. We have some Adobe stock, because I never got around to selling the last batch of ESPP stock when I left on maternity leave and never came back (I was distracted), and now I don’t know what the basis is anymore.
Most of our money is invested in various index funds and bond funds, because I’ve never heard a convincing argument for managed funds.
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Peter said on February 6, 2018 at 5:46 pm
Scout – back in the day we used to say that Ford stood for Fix or Repair Daily, and FIAT stood for Fix It Again Tony.
You old guys talking about Woodstock – so funny.
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beb said on February 6, 2018 at 5:53 pm
Just watched the SpaceX video of the Falcon Heavy launch. Considering that Musk was giving it a 50/50 chance of blowing up I was amazed by how well everything looked. Loved the video of the Mannikin sitting in the roadster as well as the two boosters landing side-by-side on land. What a day for space travel!
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basset said on February 6, 2018 at 6:13 pm
Ford stood for Found On Road Dead… and Chrysler’s Mopar was Mostly Old Parts And Rust.
Too young for Woodstock and too young to see the movie when it first came out, got kicked out of the theater at College Mall in Bloomington for being under 18 and walked around for two hours rather than watch “Patton” with my dad and younger brother next door.
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David C. said on February 6, 2018 at 6:52 pm
Oh, FFS. He’ll probably have a uniform made with medals and epaulettes like a proper dictator.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-marching-orders-to-the-pentagon-plan-a-grand-military-parade/2018/02/06/9e19ca88-0b55-11e8-8b0d-891602206fb7_story.html?utm_term=.cc67127ea2e6
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Suzanne said on February 6, 2018 at 8:15 pm
David C, I just wrote to my Senator about this parade and told him how against it I was.
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Jolene said on February 6, 2018 at 9:37 pm
I saw an online comment saying that the WaPo article at David C.’s link sounded like a leak to the press intended to generate public opposition to the idea of a parade.
Of course, I have no idea whether that’s true, but I hope it is.
In addition to calling congressional representatives and the White House, consider calling the Pentagon’s public comment line. The number is 703-571-3343.
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Deborah said on February 6, 2018 at 9:42 pm
A freaking military parade, you have got to be kidding me. Sickening.
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shelley d said on February 6, 2018 at 10:15 pm
Brad, one of my brothers, was a good drummer, and played in cover bands from his years in what was then called Jr. High ’til the end of his days. I had attended a terrific music festival in 1968 in Milwaukee, and convinced him we should go to Woodstock. Four or so of his bandmates joined us. We flew from Detroit to Monticello, the nearest airport, and walked from there; (about five miles). We made better time than those in cars, because the roads were so jammed. The guys channeled their inner boy scout skills. We had water purification tablets, and lots of big plastic trashbags to construct tents. We were located near the trees that can be seen just at the edge of the huge field full of people. It was more comfortable there (our tents!). The music was amazing, the ca. half-million people more so. Everyone I encountered was kind and happy, though food was short and the weather was crummy. Heading back home, we bumped into Sly and the Family Stone in a coffee shop at Kennedy Airport and we all talked about how amazing it was.
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Deggjr said on February 6, 2018 at 10:26 pm
After the parade we could have a sing along. Here’s a nice opening song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29Mg6Gfh9Co
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Jolene said on February 6, 2018 at 11:01 pm
Excellent choice, Degg Jr. Exactly right for the occasion.
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Dexter said on February 7, 2018 at 2:43 am
Thanks for researching for me…yeah, I entered the army on 25AU69 and that chopper pilot died in April. The guy I knew was a typical kid, with the extremely long hair, and like most all the Detroiters, had the yen for the weed.
Remember the stories of the Vietnam War era USA judges who’d sentence young criminals for all kinds of crimes, some pretty strong crimes, and give the option: jail or armed service? It was damn-sure true; my barracks was about 3/4 Detroiters and most of them were there to stay out of jail or prison. I did not witness any heroin shoot-ups until I saw GIs sticking heroin spikes into their bodies in California, these Detroit bad asses had weed all the time, we had a dealer in the barracks. Gendron was high every chance he got. We also had some real bad-ass white-boy gang leader in our company, and he didn’t like a shit-head drill sergeant and in company formation the drill sergeant told the private to step forward , the sergeant told him to take a swing if he felt so damn tough. The Detroit kid popped that bastard sergeant right in the nose and sent him reeling. Of course the kid was marched off and I figured he was heading for the stockade. Next day he was back as if nothing happened. Nobody ever fucked with that kid again. Man he had brass balls. Graduation day, I saw him laughing and shaking hands with that sergeant. Maybe they both learned lessons by then. And…so no, I did not go to Woodstock, but I arrived in California 6 weeks post-Altamont (Rolling Stones show marred by murder by Hell’s Angels) . I heard all about that then, when the stories were just being published. Yeah, missed them all…Goose Lake, up by Jackson, Michigan, was probably the most successful Woodstock copycat show, and about all my friends attended, and I was in California.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on February 7, 2018 at 8:42 am
Full disclosure: we have a white board on our refrigerator. But since our son went to college we don’t use it much.
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Connie said on February 7, 2018 at 9:33 am
Big news at my house are the new hand controls that were installed in my Chevy last week. I am driving myself for the first time since Spring of 2016. I went to handicapped drivers ed for this. Spent close to $1,000 on classes, and $1,849 for the controls. Next comes a new front bumper and then I start my million dollar dental plan. Even with dental insurance this two year repair plan is going to cost a couple thousand. Starting with an implant. My Dad is a retired dentist. I never had to actually pay a dentist until I was 35 years old!
So I am driving myself and we are going to need a second vehicle, as we lost the old van to a deer in December 16. Another expensive thing.
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