Kate noticed this weekend that Wendy prefers men to women. That she does, but it helps that some men let her be a lapdog.
Hope your Thanksgiving was what you wanted it to be, and that you still have a lap-like space on your body. I feel like I ate my weight in butter, so off to the gym for me on Black Friday. You?
Peter said on November 27, 2015 at 11:55 am
We tried a Martha Stewart concept for the turkey – wrapping it in cheesecloth and drowning it in butter.
About an hour in I had to take the smoke detectors down and the cheesecloth started to burn. The turkey looked like it was kept underneath a firing Saturn V rocket for a little too long.
We yanked off the cheesecloth, put the turkey in a new pan, and stuck to chicken stock, and oh my gosh, it was the best one we’ve ever had, both for taste and entertainment.
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Julie Robinson said on November 27, 2015 at 12:06 pm
Huge meal yesterday, pumpkin pie for breakfast, on the road to work on Mom’s house now. That’ll be sufficient penance for our sins.
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alex said on November 27, 2015 at 1:04 pm
Getting ready to put the dry-brined turkey on the grill after I slather it with herb butter. Just came back after buying a new dishwasher to match my new stove and go into the new hole my partner and I tore into the cabinetry yesterday.
We’re full-bore into a full-blown kitchen remodeling, it appears. Resolving all the things that have been bugging us for years. Behind the cabinetry we found a badly corroded galvanized steel furnace air duct, which we’re going to replace and also widen to maximize air flow. We’re still searching for where the cold water comes into the house so that we can appropriately place the water softener, which now resides outside in the well pit. Our old blueprints reveal nothing of the plumbing and the kitchen has been remodeled so many times that the water line is covered up and not evident anywhere.
We’ll be making new countertops (none of that grandiose granite; we’re doing this on the cheap and making our own laminate counters) and I bought a cool table some time ago that’s going to be my new island.
If only these walls could talk. And direct us to the fricking water main.
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Deborah said on November 27, 2015 at 1:05 pm
When I eat too much late in the day I have bad dreams. Last night’s was a doozy.
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Judybusy said on November 27, 2015 at 1:45 pm
Alex, I’d love to see pictures!
We had a mellow Thanksgiving with my partner’s family. Today, I began by taking a walk with the pup in a nearby state park, which were free today. (I’m afraid our off-leash park days are over. She’s had some bad incidents, 2 this week. Sometimes it’s her initiating stuff, once was another dog picking up on her anxiety and going after her.) We couldn’t have asked for a better walk today, though: turkeys, deer, a bald eagle, little birds at the visitor center bird feeders. The dog was a champ about being on leash. Later, I’ll be making our traditional turkey enchiladas with red sauce.
At some point, I’ll be heading out of town to help take my mom home from the hospital. She went in on Wednesday after not really eating for a week (Mom! You were a nurse for 42 years, fer cryin’ out loud!) and hopefully will be out tomorrow. She’s 2 1/2 hours away, and my sister is right in the middle, so she’s going to stay with the sister for a bit.
I hope everyone at nnc has a chance to relax and enjoy leftovers.
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coozledad said on November 27, 2015 at 2:06 pm
One of our mules died Wednesday afternoon. He was the line mule, old as dirt, and had a genius for disruption. If he wanted a gate knocked down, he’d position himself behind another mule and bite it on the ass so it bowled into it. He’d do the same thing to get one of the other mules to knock you down. He refused to have his feet touched, let alone lifted for inspection or trimmed. When I fed them, he’d move from one bucket to the other to check that nobody was getting more, and to keep the tension ratcheted up. He had the other mules so spooked they kicked at phantoms the entire time they fed.
I started to think he’d been trained to be foisted on people like me who would gradually develop a desire to return him to the trader for significantly less than they’d paid for him. As he approached what our vet seemed to think was his fiftieth year, he started to waste. He ate about twice as much, and multiple wormings didn’t do anything to help him bulk back up. He never fully lost his status as the #1 bastard of mules, but he lost enough of his grip they were able to ignore him.
He went down while we were taking delivery of some round bales of hay, and the hay folks tried to help me get him on his feet. He bit all three of us in turn, on the shins. He died a couple of hours later, his death mask an expression of utter contempt for all the things of this world. When I tied him off and dragged him up to the boneyard the other mules saw him moving and thought he’d come back from the dead. One of them, Jane, ran blowing the devil-in-the-woods alarm.
They all ate quietly yesterday evening, enjoying the extra sweet feed in the soft light of a warm autumn day.
I had my doubts about whether I’d outlive that mule. I used to threaten him- “Andy, if you die before I do I’m going to shit down your neck, you motherfucker.” It’s enough to be thankful he didn’t make me stroke out yelling at him, leaving me too paralyzed down one side to finally take a stick to his ass.
And no, I didn’t shit down his neck.
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susan said on November 27, 2015 at 2:17 pm
I could read coozledad all day long.
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David C. said on November 27, 2015 at 3:00 pm
God-damned
Syrianangry right wing male terrorists. http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/11/27/3726056/colorado-planned-parenthood-shooting/157 chars
MichaelG said on November 27, 2015 at 3:37 pm
I had no idea mules lived that long. I’m sorry for the loss of your mule, Cooz. I know how you love your animals.
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Dexter said on November 27, 2015 at 4:35 pm
For three years our family lived in an ancient farmhouse on a working farm, renting the old home. The barn was mere yards from the house door, a corncrib, old-timey smokehouse (brick) , a tanning shed, and an outdoor privy were like right there too. The rooster would “flop” us, scaring us to death…there were cows in the barn and farmyard but no pigs. We were allowed to keep a couple pet rabbits in hutches in the barn and the landlords-farmers ept rabbits to slaughter, which I hated. The most memorable farm animal was “Jack”, a mule (jackass). The little-kid neighbor girls used to laugh themselves silly when that jackass got his wood on, nearly dragging the ground with that long dong. Yep, I lived a full life, I reckon. Sorry for your loss, Coozledad.
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Dexter said on November 27, 2015 at 4:41 pm
Deborah…last night I dreamed I was nimble once again and was challenged to enter an MMA contest. I wanted no part of it but entered anyway and began kicking every challenger’s butt in matches. When my star ascended fully, I was to fly to Mozambique for the world title match. I was not allowed to get on the plane because I had neglected to vote in the election.
Musta been that triple portion of stewed fresh cranberries. Hell, I barely know what MMA is.
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Sherri said on November 27, 2015 at 4:42 pm
Cooz, I think your mule was a Koch brothers plant.
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Bob (not Greene) said on November 27, 2015 at 5:35 pm
Cooze, as I was reading that my first thought was,”how exactly does one dispose of a dead mule?” Then I get a little further in the tale and you “dragged him off to the boneyard.” What the hell is that? A pit in some forest where dead farm animals are collected? Rural America might as well be Mars for me.
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Dexter said on November 27, 2015 at 5:41 pm
I realize Kid Rock ain’t ‘zackly the most favoritest redneck around these here parts…never understood that. Why, his Malikbu digs are just so homey, kinda reminiscent of Loretta Lynn’s Butcher’s Holler. Right? 🙂 http://www.lonny.com/Inside+Kid+Rock's+Malibu+Mansion/articles/S_CCLYLDYzL/Don't+Knock+The+Rock
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coozledad said on November 27, 2015 at 5:56 pm
Bob (Not Greene):Just a spot far enough from the house and out of the prevailing wind. We used to cremate the dead animals, but it cheats the buzzards and crows out of a treat, and puts a lot of carbon in the air. It’s also a lot of filthy work. A draft mule is a heavy thing (in fact, impossible to lift without the kind of front-end loader used for mining operations) to lift onto a fire, and they won’t burn if they’re at the bottom of the stack.
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nancy said on November 27, 2015 at 6:04 pm
Adding condolences for Andy’s loss. At least, I think so.
Large animals are where a person loses any sentimentality about livestock. At the boarding barn where I kept my horse, the decedent ones went to a rendering plant, but it was at least 60 miles away, and they generally only made pickups in our county every few days, not daily. In warm weather, that creates problems. I’m told one of the great old school horses went down in his stall overnight. They were able to drag him behind the stablehands’ trailer without too much trouble, but when the renderers tried to get him into their truck, parts of him came off in the loading.
Fortunately, no customers were there at the time.
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coozledad said on November 27, 2015 at 6:20 pm
It just occurred to me that if I were a real muleskinner, I’d have hitched up the other mules to drag Andy off to his rest. But we’re all retirees now, me and the mules.
And yes, dislocation of large parts is a problem moving a big dead mammal, especially if you let them get soft. They’re only built to stand up. Noooo surfing.
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Deborah said on November 27, 2015 at 7:09 pm
Good story Coozledad. Again, I always read your comments in the voice of Gregory Peck in “To Kill a Mockingbird”. But sorry you lost one of your critters.
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Deborah said on November 27, 2015 at 7:10 pm
What I meant was I mentally read your comments in that voice.
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Deborah said on November 27, 2015 at 7:53 pm
I sorta wish I had been in Chicago today, the protesters were close to where I live. But it’s rainy and cold there so maybe not.
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coozledad said on November 27, 2015 at 8:08 pm
Deborah: I will be your Gregory Peck as long as I can keep Junior Samples locked in the corncrib, so help me.
It’s funny you mention that, because I don’t think much about voice in terms of prose. And I was just talking to my wife about pop singers, and the harmonic depth of their voices, or how you’d score their vocal lines for strings.
I was using this as an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG-BK08XF6Y
Joni gets a violin-viola pair for her vocal line alone. And I hear an octet between her and the guitar. Where do these people come from?
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coozledad said on November 27, 2015 at 10:59 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPEESN8flA8
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basset said on November 27, 2015 at 11:43 pm
I hear a weapons-grade set of earplugs between me and Joni Mitchell. I just cannot stand that woman’s voice. XTC I have never heard and don’t care to.
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coozledad said on November 27, 2015 at 11:54 pm
What the world needs now is sadass and more sadass.
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Dexter said on November 28, 2015 at 3:08 am
I never got to see Joni perform, but my great friend Greg from New York tried to see her concerts a few times. He told me no artist was more revered and/or loved, and for those who liked to see celebrities, those shows were the place to be. Any pop and jazz-world and blues artist who could possibly work it into their schedules were there; one example: my buddy said he was shocked to see his favorite artist, Dave Mason (Traffic, long solo career) sitting in front of him. The entire star list was liable to be there…nobody was more popular with their peers. https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQZ2py_VLpzPoo73C1vBQDVDzRfwFQOjCg4FOTy0JeXSDaS3eeZ
I listened to “Miles of Aisles” until I wore the vinyl disc into oblivion.
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Dexter said on November 28, 2015 at 3:15 am
…and to sour the “sadass” mood, another song I love but…I’m guessing you’ll abhor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UAn7WOqtOs
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coozledad said on November 28, 2015 at 7:32 am
Captured alive after exchanging fire with police officers. Let that sink in.
John Cole nails this one:
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2015/11/27/homegrown-hate/
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basset said on November 28, 2015 at 8:17 am
“Sadass?” y’all be nice, now… Neil Young is a whole lot more interesting than Joni Mitchell to me. And didn’t he write “Sugar Mountain” when he was 19 or so?
Dragging the mule off for the buzzards to eat… in Tibet they do that with people & call it a “sky burial.” Google it… aaack.
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ROGirl said on November 28, 2015 at 9:05 am
Cooz, loved Joni from way back, although she went through that phase that I found unlistenable, and now her voice has dropped about 2 octaves. There was a Candian documentary about her on TV a while back and she revealed that she had given up a baby for adoption. I immediately thought of the song “Little Green” and realized that was what it was about. I’m also a fan of XTC. Quirky, articulate British boys who write great, poppy Beatlesque melodies.
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Deborah said on November 28, 2015 at 9:12 am
Joni is one of my favorites of all time, love her.
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basset said on November 28, 2015 at 9:31 am
Looks like I’m in the minority here, which is fine.
Think I will stop mentioning deer hunting here, was having a pretty good season till I brought it up & now everything’s slowed way down. Due to weather and moon phase mostly, none of my friends are seeing many either.
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Deborah said on November 28, 2015 at 9:41 am
So the Planned Parenthood shooter is white, he’s been IDd and he’s from North Carolina. Can we now speculate as to what his motives might be? The NC part is a dead giveaway.
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alex said on November 28, 2015 at 9:53 am
Basset, I have Neil Young in my music archives but no Joni Mitchell.
And my ex’s son called last weekend to ask if I knew anyone around here who could process a deer. He said he’d been having a horrible season in this area so he decided to try his luck around Bloomington and spend the weekend with my former in-laws, who live just outside Harrodsburg. No sooner did he enter the house carrying his shotgun when he saw three deer in the woods behind the house, slid open the sliding glass door and blasted away from the living room.
And on Thursday we used a chainsaw indoors to separate a stubborn kitchen island from a bank of cabinetry. Thank God I always married men who know how to git ‘er done.
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alex said on November 28, 2015 at 10:12 am
And regarding the Planned Parenthood shooter, I wonder what his affiliations are besides Republican. Although it’s a stretch to call school/theater/mall shooters “terrorists” as they are typically loners with no political agenda and aren’t doing it for a political cause, this time it’s different. At Fox they’ll probably call him a freedom fighter.
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basset said on November 28, 2015 at 10:55 am
Alex, I have offered to do that for some of my friends but their locations are a little too suburban. If I was there I’d cut it up for him… I’m from northwestern Martin County but have been gone for many years & didn’t hunt deer till I moved to TN.
Canadian music… does anyone agree with me that the Guess Who’s “Live at the Paramount” is one of the best rock live albums ever?
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MichaelG said on November 28, 2015 at 2:16 pm
Another round of chemo starts Monday. So after an excellent breakfast of huevos rancheros at Tres Hermanas I ran up to Kaiser to give the lab some blood and to pee in a little plastic jar.
Then I went and spent $100 on a pair of shoes. The brand is NB, whatever that means. I know, you’re all wondering what this guy is doing buying new shoes, but hope springs eternal. And blame it on my wife. After decades of spending $19.95 for shoes at Ross, she convinced me that I would be happier if I went to a real store and bought real shoes. I was very pleased with the store and the guy was very pleasant and seemed to know what he was about. It was a novelty to have somebody actually size each foot and talk knowledgeably about sizes and about what I would be doing with these shoes. Hints: no running, no mountain climbing. He brought shoes for me to try, put them on my feet, I walked around, we talked about how they felt, the whole thing. I was most pleased with the service and we’ll see how the shoes work out.
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MichaelG said on November 28, 2015 at 2:17 pm
Yeah, yeah, NB is New Balance.
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David C. said on November 28, 2015 at 2:17 pm
How did the dry brining work on your bird, Alex? I’ve never tried it on turkey before.
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beb said on November 28, 2015 at 2:36 pm
One of my playlists is called “All Neil.” It’s about 12 hours long – no duplicated. Yeah, I like him a lot.
It’s interesting how singer’s voices change as they grow older. I was listening to a Steve Winwood acoustic version of “John Barleycoorn must die,” A favorite Traffic song. It sounded just like the album version from 2-3 decades before, but in the youtube notes someone with a better ear than me noted that he had shifted down into a lower key. In another case while at a movie watching for the show to start the theater was playing some music advertising. One of the songs was a horrible version of an early Chicago, maybe “Does anybody know what time it is.” I thought they had hired a new wretched lead singer. Nope, it was the same guy, only his voice was gone.
Isn’t amazing how the Planned Parenthood terrorist was arrested alive even though heavily armed with a black kid with a knife gets 16 rounds in the back. Captured alive after killing a police officer no less.
Looking over Rawstory.com’s reporting yesterday was enough to make one fear for all humanity. Colorado Springs, Texas vigilantes patrolling out side of mosques, elsewhere a mosque received email death threats, Trump heckling an American with disabilities, heckling a black protest beaten up at one of his rallies. It’s like the whole country has become rabid. It’s scary to be black, muslim, or alive.
It’s odd that for all the trouble that Andy the mule has caused Coolzedad over the years, he still seems to have lost him.
I wish Youtube links were a little more informative. Instead of a scramble of letters, show something like artist+song title.
I’m a space fan and one amazing feat happened this week. Blue Origins, Jeff Bezos’ space tourism company conducted a test flight of their New Shepherd rocket which went off without a flaw. The launch vehicle took the capsule to 100.4 kilometers (the international definition of space), the capsule separated from the rocket and parachuted safety back to earth while the launch vehicle did a controlled descent but re-igniting its engine and making a powered landing within yards if its bullseye. Pretty damn impressive.
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susan said on November 28, 2015 at 4:12 pm
Speaking of voices that really grate (on me), Neil Young. His whiny-ass voice drives me straight to the quick-change-the-station button! Not fast enough. Ugh.
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MichaelG said on November 28, 2015 at 4:30 pm
And my shoes are white. I wasn’t having any green, red, gold, purple or whatever shoes with stupid stars, comets, lightning bolts or other crap on them.
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Deborah said on November 28, 2015 at 4:50 pm
MichaelG, I’m with you on athletic shoes that don’t have crazy colors and crap on them. Only I go for black, grey, dark blue or maybe brown. They’re really hard to find. I just got a pair of snow boots at REI that are grey and were on sale too. They have a thin-sulate lining so they’re warm and comfy.
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alex said on November 28, 2015 at 5:03 pm
The bird was superb, David C. At twenty pounds it would have taken about five hours in the oven, but only took about three on the grill. Still kind of bland, as all turkeys are, but the meat was tender and the skin was crispy and flavorful. And I have enough left over to make a tetrazzini which I’m contemplating for brunch tomorrow. Of course I’ll have to borrow the oven because mine’s currently out of commission.
Hubby’s cursing up a blue streak while installing our new dishwasher. Some dweeb at Home Depot handed us the wrong connector so we had to go back and do an exchange. The water intake on this machine is at the front and the hose goes through a channel underneath, which is kind of bizarro, but it’s a higher-end machine than our old cheap-ass unit which was noisy and broke dishes and didn’t do such a hot job of cleaning either. We’re eager to try it out.
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Snarkworth said on November 28, 2015 at 5:23 pm
Alex, I have to laugh at your old dishwasher. You should have just broken the dirty dishes first. It would have saved time, and been a lot quieter.
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brian stouder said on November 28, 2015 at 5:50 pm
Susan, I would have agreed with you about Neil Young, years ago, but a buddy of mine loves that guy, so I began giving him the extra few seconds before punching the button….and then this song can preety much break your heart
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v64cQnsIa_Q
I see a woman in the night
With a baby in her hand
Under an old street light
Near a garbage can
Now she puts the kid away, and she’s gone to get a hit
She hates her life, and what she’s done to it
There’s one more kid that will never go to school
Never get to fall in love, never get to be cool.
Keep on rockin’ in the free world
I mean, for Heaven’s sake – Young absolutely captures, right there, so much.
And then you hear some of his other music (especially Ohio), and – wow.
Aside from him, it’s Pearl Jam/Eddie Vedder, baby! (and indeed, I have Mirror Ball, where PJ & NY collaborated)
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alex said on November 28, 2015 at 5:51 pm
Amazing. This one’s quiet and the upper rack also raises up so you can do big pots and pans, which we used to do by hand. Along with the good crystal. What’s left of it, I should say.
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brian stouder said on November 28, 2015 at 6:27 pm
Alex – superb news! Our Summer 2015 ordeal was really no fun; but the house is transformed, and we love love love it.
We snapped a photo of the clogged drain pipe they broke concrete to get to, and then cut out and replaced. Our house turned 50 this year, which is a sobering thought…but on the other hand, we have refurbished much of, a piece at a time, before the water-catastrophe struck.
And in a few short years, the thing will be paid-off, which will be a happy day, indeed.
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alex said on November 28, 2015 at 6:56 pm
Brian, our house is 64, and could use a more major freshening up than it got when purchased eleven years ago. A lot of the vintage touches that I thought were so cool at the time are also major pains in the ass and I’m ready to go full swing from conservationist to consumerista. Or find some tasteful balance, anyway.
We were turning it into a Hugh Hefner pad without realizing we’re becoming old Barcalounger farts.
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Heather said on November 28, 2015 at 7:07 pm
Hey everyone. I’m checking in from Lisbon, where I’ve been for the past week, staying with friends who are here on sabbatical. My thanksgiving dinner was braised beef, rice, and other homey Portuguese delicacies. Lisbon is wonderful, gorgeous and very relaxed. I highly recommend it. Weather has been sunny and in the 60s, which is making it hard to be excited to come back to Chicago. Well, that and all the police videos and random shootings in the US.
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Deborah said on November 28, 2015 at 7:24 pm
Our building in Chicago was built in 1957 so that makes it 58 years old. We have the original bathrooms and part of the original kitchen. We like that we have some of the original stuff but the stuff that was added is not so nice. We’re probably going to downsize to a different unit before we would be making any improvements, so we’re living with what we’ve got, which is fine.
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susan said on November 28, 2015 at 7:52 pm
Brian @45 – It’s just his voice. It makes me crazy, it’s so whiny. I guess another problem is that I don’t listen to words, I’m so music-focussed, so I completely miss that word part. Has always been thus. Some his songs, music-wise, are really wonderful, when other people sing them. Now when I read his words, yes, I see your point.
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MichaelG said on November 28, 2015 at 8:55 pm
Enjoy yourself, Heather! Lisbon is a great town. My wife is from there and I’ve had some good times there. Wonderful wines to go with the wonderful food.
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brian stouder said on November 28, 2015 at 10:09 pm
Susan, you should hear my wife make fun of the way Eddie Vedder sings. Actually, I think her parody was inspired by a Saturday Night Live bit, wherein the joke is that the guy’s lyrics are utterly incoherent….which is true on some of his songs, indeed.
I’ve come to the conclusion that beauty is always in the eye (and ear!) of the beholder.
Aside from that, you make a very thought-provoking observation about Young’s whiny voice; it definitely is that!
It is genuinely interesting to me how perception – of literally the exact same thing – can change over time (either positively or negatively).
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Dexter said on November 29, 2015 at 12:38 am
I got my first pair of New Balance in 1980 when I went on a running regime, which lasted only a few months before I switched to bicycling for exercise. Heavy endomorphs are not made to run, but try to tell that to 1960s gym teachers…leave the running to ectomorphs. (Of course the athletic mesomorphs can do it all…run, lift weights, swim, play popular sports like football and basketball.)
Brian, having been a fan iof Pearl Jam for at least 21 years, and since the XM station “Pearl Jam” plays the same hit songs over and over many times a day, and because I listen every day for anywhere from 15 minutes to 90 minutes, I finally have mastered hearing his words. A few times I searched the lyrics sites to confirm what I thought he was singing. Twice in the 1990s I had chances to go to concerts but didn’t go, and I regret it now. I only saw Eddie once; fans know Eddie is a bicyclist and a Cubs fan and I saw him ride his bike up to Wrigley Field one afternoon. He had a concert that evening and he was out for some exercise, I guess. He’s kinda a little guy, sort of nondescript…so I only thought the guy was a ringer for Eddie, until the next day’s Trib had a photo of him on that bike…it was him alright. He was riding on Clark, turned right onto Waveland where I saw him, then he turned right onto Sheffield and was gone from sight.
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coozledad said on November 29, 2015 at 7:40 am
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/11/domestic-terrorism-and-the-evil-that-men-do/
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coozledad said on November 29, 2015 at 8:38 am
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2015/11/colorado_springs_planned_parenthood_anti_abortion_violence.html
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basset said on November 29, 2015 at 9:10 am
Couldn’t name you one Pearl Jam song, sorry. I’d say the line between “distinctive voice” and “can’t sing” has a lot to do with the material, Bob Dylan being another example – their voices work for their own songs but not always for someone else’s.
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Deborah said on November 29, 2015 at 10:42 am
Basset, My husband is a huge Dylan fan and has everything he’s ever come out with. Have you heard Dylan’s CD where he sings Sinatra songs? It is just so wrong. Dylan croaks out the songs and all I can think of whenever I hear it is what a sweet wonderful voice Sinatra had. But my husband loves Dylan’s voice. I like the lyrics of his own songs but not his voice.
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Deborah said on November 29, 2015 at 11:28 am
“Stochastic terrorism is the use of mass communications to incite random actors to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable. In short, remote-control murder by lone wolf.”
http://valerietarico.com/2015/11/28/christianist-republicans-systematically-incited-colorado-clinic-assault/
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coozledad said on November 29, 2015 at 12:33 pm
Deborah; Here’s an example of stochastic terror.
Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLMC) was a Rwandan radio station which broadcast from July 8, 1993 to July 31, 1994. It played a significant role during the April–July 1994 Rwandan Genocide.
The station’s name is French for “Thousand Hills Free Radio and Television”, deriving from the description of Rwanda as “Land of a Thousand Hills”. It received support from the government-controlled Radio Rwanda, which initially allowed it to transmit using their equipment.[1]
Widely listened to by the general population, it projected racist propaganda against Tutsis, moderate Hutus, Belgians, and the United Nations mission UNAMIR. It is widely regarded by many Rwandan citizens (a view also shared and expressed by the UN war crimes tribunal) as having played a crucial role in creating the atmosphere of charged racial hostility that allowed the genocide to occur. A study by a Harvard University researcher estimates that 9.9% of the participation in the genocidal violence was due to the broadcasts. The estimate of the study suggests that approximately 51,000 deaths were caused by the station’s broadcasts.
Wingnuts may not have studied this, but they certainly ape it. They already have the necessary framework of an ideology whose adherents revel in their brute stupidity. The only reason we haven’t seen waves of suicide bombers from their quarter is they’re as cowardly as they are opportunistic. Huckabee was on TV today, stirring that shit up. And Carly Fiorina’s lying ass needs to be under house arrest until she can be hauled up as an accessory to murder.
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Dave said on November 29, 2015 at 3:59 pm
Didn’t Pearl Jam once do “Last Kiss”? Other than that, I’m a total loss, even thought Dexter and I are nearly the same age, I know nothing about them. As I’ve said before, somewhere around the early to mid-eighties, my awareness of the music scene faded badly.
I know I don’t post all the time but I read everyday and I’m wondering about LAMary, seems like she’s not been around lately. Hope she’s ok, seems like when you see regulars all the time and then you don’t, you start to wonder.
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brian stouder said on November 29, 2015 at 4:58 pm
Dave – PJ had a huge (‘YUUUGE’!) hit with their cover of Last Kiss; even our very with-it 17 year old stops everything and listens, when that one comes on.
I recall someone asking Eddie Vedder about the appeal of that song, and his darkly sarcastic response was something like ‘we do well when the subject is dead teenagers’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0B-hJ_gotc
I think the first song of theirs that tuned my head was Black; and then the album Ten, which contains that one (and which was why I bought it), plus Jeremy and Evenflow and Alive and Once…
that album is like a fireworks show – just shockingly good, one song after the next (to me).
And, as I’m sure I’ve bragged about a time or two before, I had the very great pleasure of seeing Pearl Jam live and in person at the Elliott Music Hall at Purdue/West Lafayette about 20 years ago…a cozy-sized acoustically marvelous venue….and the tickets were free!!
A friend at work won the tix off a radio station, and it was for a weeknight, and he didn’t want to do that, and when he offered them to me I pretty much snapped ’em up, instantly!!
And Uncle Google shares the set-list for that show –
http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/pearl-jam/1994/elliott-hall-of-music-west-lafayette-in-1bd65d84.html
and I see they did the cover of Rockin’ in the Free World, so the discussion comes full-circle!*
(If Prospero was around, I’d rib him a little, as CNN had an installment of their series “The Seventies” on last night, wherein they looked at popular music, and his beloved MC-5 came up. I can honestly say that those guys hold no charms for me, although lots of the others featured – particularly Carole King – made big impressions on me back in the day)
*and after they were done in West Lafayette, it appears they went to Detroit, and performed at the Masonic Temple there, on my birthday
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coozledad said on November 29, 2015 at 5:59 pm
One of the commenters on this story calls Carly a “Cockpuppet.” She’s that and worse, and she belongs in a jail.
http://theslot.jezebel.com/carly-fiorina-calls-planned-parenthood-shooter-a-protes-1745122854
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Charlotte said on November 29, 2015 at 7:40 pm
You guys with your youthful houses — mine is 1903, although it seems the basement wasn’t dug until sometime in the 1950s (one of the “kids” who grew up here told me the kids dug it out with buckets). About 1500 square feet — with an extra 750 in the basement — they raised 8 kids here. Good bones, but I’ve replaced the windows, the wiring, the plumbing, the stovepipe when we added the woodstove, and a lot of worn out clapboard on the exterior. Next summer — the roof. It’s been 12 years, but it’s just about “done” —
I’m hiding out from the news over on Instagram and Ravelry this weekend. It’s just all too much.
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Deborah said on November 29, 2015 at 7:47 pm
Fiorina and a lot of other right wingers don’t want to admit that there are some dots that can be connected between anti-abortion rhetoric and what happened in Colorado Springs. We have all had to pretend that we don’t know what the shooter’s motives were. Not that the shooter isn’t an unhealthy (mentally) maniac. But where do they think the suggestions came from? I’ll never forget the guest on Rachel Maddow a few years ago, a former rightwing evangelical who’s dad was a well known right wing “theologian”. He said that before he turned away from that ideology they freely talked about “trawling for assassins”. As I quoted earlier “… to incite random actors to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable. In short, remote-control murder by lone wolf.”
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basset said on November 29, 2015 at 9:40 pm
Brian, we watched it too and I have to say I had the same thought – MC5 was just crap, you can only take attitude so far and at some point you have to be able to play and sing.
The CNN 70s show about TV was good too, lots of clips from SNL back when it was funny.
Something else that came to mind today… a week or two back someone posted about “in my sixteenth year” and so forth and it drew some 70s Car & Driver references. Haven’t seen that person post anything since, hope we didn’t scare him/her off.
That said, I was fiddling around with Sirius in the car yesterday and found some car writer talking on Bloomberg about how Viagra and Cialis have the two biggest ads in this month’s C&D. Which could be true, I dunno, I only see it when I’m waiting on an oil change.
I doubt we’ll have to put up with Carly too much longer, she’ll go away well before the election.
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brian stouder said on November 29, 2015 at 10:20 pm
basset – we liked the one about the tv shows, too.
They were right; I remember my mom and dad had the TV set on channel 15 (CBS) each Saturday evening, and it was one favorite after the next. Mary Tyler Moore was definitely mom’s show, but All in the Family was too (as she was a New Yorker).
I was taken aback with how over-the-top the Archie Bunker comments were; the show had real power
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Dorothy said on November 29, 2015 at 10:27 pm
I used to work at a company named Mine Safety Appliances Company, and a guy there (Mike Theodore) had a voice that sounded so, so much like Gregory Peck. I told him so, and the pleased and kind of embarrassed look it gave him was just delightful. I think I became his favorite co-worker after I told him that! He was old enough to be my dad so there was nothing going on or anything – he just had a very melodious voice. Deep and rich. Your comment, Deborah, about Mr. Peck and Cooz made me think of Mike Theodore. I hadn’t done that in ages!
Count me among those who strongly dislike (1) Neil Young’s voice, (2) Bob Dylan’s voice and (3) Fingernails-on-the-Chalkboard Joni Mitchell. Oh and Emmylou Harris and her nasally twang drive me nuts. I refuse to listen to any of them.
I missed your birthday last week, Nancy. Hope it was a fun one.
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