I went to a meeting on Tuesday. One of the women there had just had a birthday, and a friend had gifted her with “a Cameo by that guy from the Fyre Festival documentary,” Andy someone. We all watched this thing, a roughly 30-second video in which Fyre Festival Guy called her by her name, specifically mentioned the big milestone (40) and her two kids, then threw in a Fyre Festival joke to wrap it all up.
“What is this…Cameo?” I asked, and got the usual answer: It’s an app.
Boy, is it. It’s an app (and a website) with dozens of photographs on it, along with prices, of individuals ranging from basically unknown to mid-level-oh-that-guy celebrities. For the price quoted, you can hire them to record a brief personalized video. A birthday greeting, congratulations, whatever. I haven’t dived all the way into the site; I assume all this has to be a mutual agreement thing. You can’t put any old words into…Charlie Sheen’s mouth. But that you can get Charlie Sheen at all is kinda amazing, when you think about it.
I got lost, scrolling through the possibilities. Stormy Daniels, $250. Gilbert Gottfried, $150. Tom Arnold, $100. OMG Tomi Lahren, $70!!! (Like anyone would pay that. Even Heidi Montag and Andy Dick fetch more than that.) It’s hilarious, proof that even the nominally famous are not immune from money-grubbing for a few $20s. Sooner or later, this shit will bring on the revolution, and I welcome it. Before it does, though, I’d love to get Stormy to record a birthday greeting for my boss. I’ll even write the script.
So, today. The hearings. I had a lot to do, which meant I could only pay attention here and there. I tried to keep it on in the background, but once Nunes started talking, I simply couldn’t keep my wits about me. I swear, the last three years have taken 10 off my own life. This can’t be good for me. So I muted it and checked in via Twitter from time to time.
My takeaway is that this is going to be bad for the Republicans, but only in the long run, and not as bad as it should be. Anyone stupid enough to put their faith in this moron are unlikely to be moved.
By the way, the snow that fell the other day? It overperformed. We were supposed to get five inches, but it ended up being closer to eight. Because the autumn leaf pickup was only about half over, much of the equipment that would normally clear it away was still fitted with leaf-collecting stuff, not snowplows, and some streets remain kinda rutted because they were only salted, not plowed. Then there was this phenomenon:
Leaves falling on top of snow. It’s unlikely to melt for at least another week, too.
One more link? Sure: A serious book-critic’s review of the Anonymous book:
More often in “A Warning,” actions are not taken; they are almost taken. In a particularly dire circumstance, several top officials consider resigning together, a “midnight self-massacre” that would draw attention to Trump’s mismanagement. “The move was deemed too risky because it would shake public confidence,” Anonymous explains. At any moment, the author writes, there are at least a handful of top aides “on the brink” of quitting. (The brink is a popular hangout for Trump officials.) Anonymous also wonders if Trump’s response to the Charlottesville protests in 2017, when the president drew a moral equivalence between white nationalists and those opposing them, would have been the time for such a gesture. “Maybe that was a lost moment, when a rush to the exits would have meant something.”
It’s like “Profiles in Thinking About Courage.”
Good one. OK, must run. Time to pull in the latchstring and think about Thursday.
alex said on November 14, 2019 at 7:16 am
Speaking of profiles in thinking about courage, you’ve gotta have at least half a brain to at least be thinking about it. I hope these two dorks will never live down their ignominy when this shit show’s over:
https://journalgazette.net/news/local/indiana/20191114/public-smear-campaign-area-lawmakers-say
In these parts it’s like “1984” and “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” playing out in real life.
We have leaves iced to the ground here also, and a 65-foot Genie lift in the driveway that has to go back to where it came from even though we only got less than half the job done that we’d intended. Since it costs anywhere from $1K-$3K to take down a tree, and we have a multitude of dangerous ones, we decided to handle it ourselves. And bit off more than we could reasonably chew in two weeks.
Even so, the Genie rental has already more than paid for itself.
We got rid of a dead tree near power lines and another dead one in the middle of the back yard. We also got rid of a live one that was too close to the house for comfort, about 80-90 feet tall with big, heavy, moss-spotted, brittle limbs overhanging the rooftops of both our house and our rental. That one’s a red oak and the cut wood smells like ass for miles.
We have another big one overhanging the house on the other side but will just give it a temporary pruning on this go-round. We also managed to accomplish a lot of pruning on other big trees, but we still have a lot more that need it and a couple of trees that need to be removed entirely.
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Suzanne said on November 14, 2019 at 8:59 am
Alex, (and anyone else who wants to explode their head) go to Twitter and see what @RepJimBanks tweets. It’s unbelievably juvenile and idiotic. He such an embarrassment for the state. Well, maybe not. We did have the guy who said that if a woman was raped and got pregnant it was God’s will, didn’t we…
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Jeff Borden said on November 14, 2019 at 9:18 am
Fascinating to watch Ohio Rep. Jockstrap Gym Jordan, who kept his lips zipped while numerous Ohio State wrestlers came forward with reports the team physician was molesting them, taking the lead role in assailing the whistleblower. He and Matt “Seven DUIs” Gaetz of Florida are competing to replace Louis Gohmert of Texas as the dumbest mofo in Congress.
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Watson said on November 14, 2019 at 9:44 am
The $25 my husband forked out on Cameo to have Olympic gold-medal curler Matt Hamilton record a video note of thanks to a curling-fan colleague was EXTREMELY well spent. And our football-nut teen nephew about died over the “happy birthday” video from an NFL player on his favorite team (which is the Bengals, so the guy came cheap).
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Dorothy said on November 14, 2019 at 9:46 am
Representative Pete Welch (D) of Vermont sure made an excellent point yesterday at the impeachment hearing: https://thehill.com/homenews/house/470338-impeachment-hearing-breaks-into-laughter-after-democrat-invites-trump-to
I don’t mean to be contrary but that does not look like 8″ of snow on your lawn. Did some of it melt before you took the shot of the leaves on top of the snow? I know snow was bad in that area though cuz Mike had to drive home Tuesday morning from the Detroit airport. He said the roads Monday night around the airport were awful.
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Jakash said on November 14, 2019 at 11:16 am
I realize that it has ever been thus, and that I’m in the minority about this, but the celebrity-worship in this country is not only pathetic, but dangerous. (See, for example, President Donald Trump.)
When folks decided that there weren’t already enough pop music stars in the nation, but that we needed to start manufacturing “American Idols” on some kind of weird assembly line, ultimately and circuitously leading to the unimaginable stupidity of Sean Spicer dancing on nationwide television — uh, that was not a good day, IMHO.
Baseball players have not been “immune from money-grubbing for a few $20s” by selling autographs at “shows” for decades. You got a baseball card autographed by Mickey Mantle, ’cause he reached over into the stands and signed it for you? Cool! You stood in line for hours and paid whatever amount to get it? Fool. IMHO.
That said, I don’t begrudge Olympic gold-medal curler Matt Hamilton making a few bucks off of his accomplishment, since this is the way things are, and monetizing one’s talent is more problematic with certain sports than with others. Charlie Sheen mopping up cash off the floor, because he’s pissed away the ten-lifetime fortune he was lucky enough to be awarded for his “talent?” Not amazing to me, just disgusting.
In a country with a shred of self-respect and gravitas, the only people who would know Tomi Lahren’s name would be whoever dyes her hair and the chapter-leader of the local Hitler-youth.
I’m Andy Rooney, see you next week… (Who’s calling whom pathetic, it’s certainly fair to ask!)
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jcburns said on November 14, 2019 at 11:50 am
“time to pull in the latchstring”—in an age where a lot of your youthful, with-it readers don’t get the 20th century references, you decide to drop a 19th century reference. That’s what I like about you, Nancy.
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nancy said on November 14, 2019 at 12:20 pm
I was doing the Deadline Detroit newsletter a few weeks ago and realized I’d used three definitely outdated references, and no I can’t remember what they were, but I thought, “Anyone who reads this knows the person who writes this is over 50.” When I throw in a latchstring, I’m really trying to fuck with your heads.
BTW, I knew someone who actually had a latchstring on their house, and no other lock. It was in the Upper Peninsula, too.
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Deborah said on November 14, 2019 at 12:48 pm
I had to google latch string, there are actually YouTube videos that show how they work.
My husband checks out Fox News online from time to time to see what crap their putting out there, I can’t stomach it. He’s always astounded by how much celebrity stuff they put front and center as if it’s the most important news in the world. I like spotting celebrities in the real world but I’m not compulsive about following their lives.
Still at Uncle J’s, he’s fading fast even since I was here last, two weeks ago.
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Suzanne said on November 14, 2019 at 12:51 pm
Good God. Another school shooting. https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/11/14/shooting-reported-los-angeles-area-high-school/
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LAMary said on November 14, 2019 at 3:53 pm
I have a latch string on my front gate.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 14, 2019 at 4:29 pm
Jon Huntsman, who almost certainly wrote “A Warning” as Anonymous, is running for governor of Utah. Wonder when he will decide to accidentally on purpose let that secret slip.
I loved the latchstring reference.
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David C. said on November 14, 2019 at 5:39 pm
My grandparents had a latchstring on the back porch of their house. It was just “the string” to us though.
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Heather said on November 14, 2019 at 6:43 pm
I started watching The Kominsky Method on Netflix (it’s funny and I have a soft spot for Alan Arkin) and there was a joke about Peter Lawford. I wonder how many people under 50 would get that reference. I imagine I’m in the minority.
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Jakash said on November 14, 2019 at 7:28 pm
I mean, sure, Il Douche is full of shit. Sure, according to Daniel Dale, a journalist who actually keeps track, he’s upped his batting average to 10 lies a day in the last few months, from 8 per day in 2018, and 3 per day in 2017…
But this… *this* is really Hall of Fame material, even for him.
“Trump Tells Crowd Ivanka Has Created 14 Million New Jobs”
“The president announced this figure — so astonishingly ludicrous it would embarrass a Stalin-era pronouncement — and then repeated it twice more as the crowd applauded politely.
The entire U.S. economy has created fewer than 6 million new jobs since Trump took office. So Trump is crediting his daughter with having personally created more than 200 percent of all new jobs in the United States. This is like supply-side economics but for authoritarian nepotism.”
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/11/trump-ivanka-created-14-million-jobs-lie.html
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Julie Robinson said on November 14, 2019 at 8:34 pm
I knew what a latchstring was from reading Little House on the Prairie, but leave it to LAMary to one-up the rest of us.
Jackash, I very much agree with you on celebrity worship. It pains me to see girls and young women looking at the Kardashian clan as role models. I remember People magazine being considered scandalous when it first came out, and…wait, I am also Andy Rooney.
Deborah, I’m so sorry about Uncle J. It’s really hard to watch it happen and feel helpless.
I landed in Orlando this afternoon and it’s soooo nice to be warm.
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Dorothy said on November 14, 2019 at 8:43 pm
You took the words right out of my mouth/head, Julie! Laura Ingalls did a great description in one of the books about how Pa made the latch string door in one of the houses he built. When I was a little girl reading I could not really follow, but when I re-read them when I was older it was fascinating to follow the description and marvel at it.
Have any of you readers had superficial blood clots in a leg? If so what did you do for treatment, if anything? Two weeks ago I had to go to the ER with symptoms of a blood clot. An ultrasound showed it was not a DVT. But one or two of my veins in my right thigh have been tight, sore, red and painful since then. It has not really let up. I’m seeing my family doc tomorrow morning for a follow up. I’m wondering if she’s going to refer me to a vein specialist, or just wait and see if the vein loosens up in time. This is not a fun thing to have happen.
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jcburns said on November 14, 2019 at 9:25 pm
Did any of you hoosier-y folks hear about this, either recently or back in May when it apparently happened? https://www.npr.org/2019/11/14/779339897/3-indiana-judges-suspended-after-white-castle-brawl-that-left-2-of-them-wounded
Seems newsworthy on so many levels.
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Julie Robinson said on November 14, 2019 at 9:33 pm
jc, there were stories in the paper when it first happened, seemed like the quintessential small town yokels hitting the big city for some excitement. Alcohol *may* have been involved.
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LAMary said on November 14, 2019 at 9:36 pm
I would never have thought that string would rank as a one upping feature. In my neighborhood lots of houses have six foot tall redwood fences and the gates in those fences mostly have latchstrings. Mine is a little jazzy because he has some brass bells on the inside so I know when someone is opening the gate. I would have mentioned earlier that I do, in fact, have two latchstrings. I have three gates. Two of them have latchstrings and the other is locked.
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LAMary said on November 14, 2019 at 9:41 pm
Heather, what was the joke about Peter Lawford?
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Deborah said on November 14, 2019 at 9:54 pm
https://mobile.twitter.com/ddale8/status/1195162858037895171 this Twitter thread description of Trump speaking at a rally is mind blowing. This guy is the president of the United States. He sounds like a lunatic
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beb said on November 15, 2019 at 2:46 am
This Cameo thing reminds of all those nostalgia conventions where you can go and autographs from former celebrities. Are the stars there to wallow in the celebration of their fans or does the few hundred dollars they bring back from all those signings what keeps the wolf from the door? Seriously, does Andy Dick have a career?
To the doubters about Nancy’s snowfall… Yeah, that picture looks like it was taken Thursday when the temps went up and everything started melting. But I can assure that when we were digging our car out on Wednesday there was a good 8-9 inches on snow piled up on it. And it wasn’t the fluffy powdery stuff, it was good packing snow.
The Pointes have a nice service that I wish Detroit could afford. There you can just rake your leaves to the curb and the city comes around with a vacuum truck and sucks them all up. No need to paper bags and wondering if the city will ome around to pick those up….
Deadline Detroit says that FRee Press is letting people go in anticipation of being bought by PE vultures. Thoughts? (also prayers)
About Trumps speeches. First off I think the media spends too much time playing sound bytes from Trump’s speeches and noto just summarizing them the way they seem to do with opposition speeches. Secondly the media seems to spend too much time cleaning up Trump’s rambling, mispronunciations and non-sequiturs. They’re making him sound a lot more coherent than he really is.
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basset said on November 15, 2019 at 6:39 am
Car buying, what fun… two local dealers offer what we want, one traditional downtown where we feel like prey the minute we walk onto the lot and the other suburban, a little lower pressure. So after a week or so of back and forth we go to the latter to look at a car they say is in stock. Sorry, the salesman tells us, we damaged that one getting it off the truck but we have another, different color but otherwise the same, same price. Fine, we like that color better anyway. Call back the next day to place the order… sorry, he says, misread the papers, that one’s gonna be a little more but we’ll have the first one fixed soon if you want the original price. Uhhh… no.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 15, 2019 at 6:47 am
“Florida man” now supplanted by “Indiana judge.”
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alex said on November 15, 2019 at 7:27 am
JC, the Indiana judge story has gotten a lot of local press from the git-go, but I had no idea what really happened there until I read the Washington Post yesterday. That should tell you something about the quality of the reporting around here.
Initially it had been a bizarre story of how two judges got shot by a street thug, then there was a stunning revelation that the judges were partly to blame over it but no explanation. And I get the daily online version of Indiana Lawyer, which didn’t offer any better information than local papers and TV news.
In Fort Wayne there was another drunken public official story this summer kept tightly under wraps and very limited in details. The local sheriff got into a physical brawl with a teenager at a festival beer tent. The teen was a volunteer working there who got officious with the off-duty sheriff who was in civilian clothes and went to use a porta-potty that had been closed for the night. The sheriff responded with physical violence. The kid and his family are now suing for a hefty settlement.
Good thing for the sheriff, though, that he didn’t get to drive home drunk that night. Surely that’s the only time it would have ever happened.
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Connie said on November 15, 2019 at 7:38 am
I am about 40 miles north/northwest of Nancy and on Monday we had a good nine inches of wet snow.
I saw the original judge story in the Star and wondered what the real story was.
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basset said on November 15, 2019 at 9:14 am
Opening day of deer season once again in Michigan. Thirty years ago Mrs B’s family farm in Newaygo County would have had ten or a dozen uncles, cousins and friends camping out in the abandoned farmhouse and experiencing a male-bonding weekend. But some died and some moved away, I haven’t gone the last few years, and nobody at all is hunting today… Mrs. B’s brother was gonna come up from Frankenmuth and hunt by himself today but work got in the way, guess it’s another family tradition gone.
Muzzleloader’s been on here since last Saturday, and rifle starts on the 23rd. I’ve gotten one so far. Did luck out and take some video of an eagle harassing a deer last weekend, though; it was on local tv last night and the state wildlife agency’s putting it out on social media, nice ego bump anyway and over 200 hits on Vimeo, which is a lot for me.
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Heather said on November 15, 2019 at 9:22 am
LA Mary, the Michael Douglas character can’t get his girlfriend or Alan Arkin to join him for a late night drink, so he says, “I’m going stag tonight.” Arkin says, “Stag? Who are you, Peter Lawford?”
The show is a little creaky but overall I think it’s pretty well done and funny. Maybe it’s the talent. Michael Douglas is getting up there but his hair still looks fantastic.
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alex said on November 15, 2019 at 9:38 am
Basset, you should provide a link.
Heather, you’re making me feel ancient. I remember when Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner were hot young things in the soft-core porn flick “Romancing the Stone.”
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4dbirds said on November 15, 2019 at 9:39 am
Hi Dorothy, sorry about your blood clots. My husband is coming off a surgery that involved DVT. He was quite ill and the doctors feared for him. They put him on blood thinners. Hope you get better soon.
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Julie Robinson said on November 15, 2019 at 10:52 am
Dorothy, my sis also had DVT, more than once, and was hospitalized because they feared the clot breaking off and going to her heart. I’m glad they determined that’s not what you have. Hope by now you have some answers.
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Jakash said on November 15, 2019 at 12:11 pm
Yeah, Basset, I’d like to see the eagle video, too.
Julie R., I see that Rob Greenfield, the guy farming your yard in Orlando, is moving on to whatever his next project is. If I may ask, does that mean you’ll have to do all the gardening yourselves, or are there volunteers, or something, who’ll be helping out? What will you be doing with the abundance of produce?
We were in greater Orlando in late October, “the hottest October ever,” if I’m not mistaken. As much as I hated the upper-80s, low-90s temps and preposterous humidity there, coming back to the ridiculous winter weather in Chicago has been brutal. I think this may be the first time I’m actually debating which I hate worse, having experienced them in such close proximity. And I’ve always been a “you can put an extra layer on, but you can only take off so many layers” kinda guy…
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Heather said on November 15, 2019 at 12:27 pm
Alex, I think you’re thinking of Kathleen Turner and William Hurt in “Body Heat.” “Romancing the Stone” was a rom-com. But yeah, I hear ya.
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alex said on November 15, 2019 at 12:29 pm
Roger Stone convicted on all counts. Yay!
Wonder how Fox will spin that. Not that I’ll be tuning in to find out.
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alex said on November 15, 2019 at 12:33 pm
I remember “Body Heat” as well. But I seem to remember “Romancing the Stone” as a pretty racy rom-com and Turner getting naked at every opportunity in those days.
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Julie Robinson said on November 15, 2019 at 1:27 pm
Jackash, it’s in transition. Rob and volunteers were here the last two days, digging up most of the annual plants and prepping it for the new. The new arrangement will be much lower maintenance with more perennials and flowers, and still some veggies. They are hoping to continue to attract volunteers, and there are a couple planting out there right now. It’ll be interesting to see how it goes.
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Deborah said on November 15, 2019 at 6:08 pm
Back in Chicago from Uncle J’s, it’s getting really depressing to go there, mainly because he’s fading fast but also because the vultures are out in force, when you’ve got a lot of money it can be vicious.
Tonight we’re having company, academics that my husband used to teach with. Thank goodness I made a big pot of chili Monday when we were still here so all I had to do tonight was add a few things and heat it up for the dinner. We will add all kinds of fixings to our chili filled bowls on the table, like chopped cilantro, green onion, chopped jalapenos for those who like it extra hot, pepitas (roasted with salt and chili pepper), sliced (canned) black olives, beans, cheese, sour cream, avocado, and I’m probably forgetting to list something here. I used to put the beans right in the chili but now I cook them separately and let people add them if they wish. I’m hungry.
Tomorrow night is opera night, Dead Man Walking which I have been looking forward to for months.
I was so disgusted with Trump’s tweet today about the former Ukraine ambassador while she testified today, but it sounds like a lot of people were too. We can’t get rid of that guy fast enough. How vile.
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LAMary said on November 15, 2019 at 9:03 pm
I love Alan Arkin. Especially in The Russians Are Coming and The In Laws.
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basset said on November 15, 2019 at 10:16 pm
Thanks, Alex and Jakash. Thought this was an immature bald eagle but the wildlife guys say it’s a golden, many fewer of those around here than balds:
https://vimeo.com/372263619
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basset said on November 15, 2019 at 11:04 pm
explaining the caption on that video… Bucksnort is a rural community about 45 min west of Nashville, between Only and Bold Springs and not far from Hurricane Mills.
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Jakash said on November 16, 2019 at 1:05 am
Very cool video, Basset; thanks for linking to it. Love the slo-mo. What’s the eagle harassing the deer for, though? Just for fun?
Bucksnort, Tennessee, eh? Wikipedia says “Bucksnort, a term for a sound well known to deer hunters since pioneer days…” All righty, then. : )
Over 200 hits on Vimeo, but nearly 2,000 views on that Tennessee wildlife Twitter feed and over 7,000 on Facebook, evidently!
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beb said on November 16, 2019 at 2:37 am
Thanks for the video, Basset. What a magnificent bird. And that wingspan, I didn’t realize they could be so wide! Great camera work.
My wife thought she had a DVT a week back, when to the ER and were referred to the doowntown complex for a doppler. Turned out it was excess water in her leg. She’s had to hit the water pills hard. Better edma than a clot.
Deborah, chili is the one thing my wife lets me cook, or asks me to cook. She was visiting my father in Iindiana for a week or so while I was still working. So one night I decided to make chili. Didn’t have a recipe as such: just hamburger, diced tomatoes, an onion, green pepper and kidney beans and beef broth (or had I bought beef stock?) I added salt, pepper, some old diced garlic and chili powder, a lot of chili power in the end. She came home the night I made it. It was still on the stove, she was hunger and had some. And really liked it. So now I’m the chili maker. I’ve never quite duplicated that batch but still like it. Part of it I think is that since neither of us like hot spices the dish is savory without being burning.
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alex said on November 16, 2019 at 8:36 am
Awesome video. Deer must look like food porn to an eagle.
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Deborah said on November 16, 2019 at 10:29 am
Very cool video Basset.
I think chili is always better after a few days in the fridge, it was good last night. I hardly have any leftovers darn it. I think I’ll use the leftovers for huevos rancheros later today, tonight is opera night so we’ll have to eat early.
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susan said on November 16, 2019 at 10:49 am
No way would I eat a bowl of chili before going to the opera…
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Deborah said on November 16, 2019 at 4:13 pm
Susan, you made me chuckle. But I don’t have that particular problem with beans, and besides I made the chili without beans because I’ve been on the low carb diet. I provided beans separately for the guests last night for those who like them in their chili. Ever since I first had chili without beans that LB made back when we were in New Mexico in October, I’ve realized that I actually like chili a lot better without beans.
Speaking of the low carb diet, I’ve now lost 15 lbs, which is 3 to 5 more lbs than I had originally wanted to lose. I decided to stay on the diet through next week since the following week is Thanksgiving and I want to be able to eat mashed potatoes and stuffing, plus pumpkin pie then. They say you should come off of the diet gradually by adding 10 grams of carbs a day. Also the week after Thanksgiving is when we leave for France (Dec 2) so I will be completely weaned off of the diet by then and can eat all types of food there. Moderately, of course so that I don’t pack the weight back on.
I may have mentioned before that this trip to France uncle J may not be going because he is not doing well mentally (physically he’s pretty much OK though). The reason we will be going no matter what is because we will be involved in a design project that uncle J will be funding. It’s still in the preliminary stage so I don’t want to say too much yet.
Uncle J is becoming more confused and as a result, anxious which is not good for someone with Alzheimer’s. His Dr has said that people should not be telling him their problems or unloading bad news on him, but he has one “friend” who just can’t seem to stop making him miserable by telling him her woes, even though she has been asked not to numerous times. It frustrates him that he is not in a position to help and it stresses him out which makes things worse for him mentally. It’s a sad spiral. We are having to keep that friend away from him as much as possible but it’s an old friend so it’s complicated.
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Charlotte said on November 16, 2019 at 5:04 pm
Beb @22 — around here we call those “stalker conventions” as per our dear departed Margie Kidder. Too bad she didn’t last long enough to be able to record out of her house … might have gotten her over another bad hump. (Local judge once banned one of her stalkers from the entire county.)
I’m with Jakash on the celebrity bullshit — for the life of me I can’t figure out why anyone pays any attention to those K people, or the Real Housewives, or the rest of it. They haven’t *accomplished* anything …
That said, the hearings did restore a tiny bit of my faith in a nation run by grownups — in my next life, I want to be one of those Schiff-like people who get calmer and calmer the more angry they are. This time around, I just go off like Donald Duck …
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beb said on November 16, 2019 at 5:10 pm
I was just reading edroso at alicublog when he figuratively threw up his hand and told someone to go ef themselves. Whick in turn reminded me on one of the obituaries for deadspin I read which said that we need spaces for rude reporters because sometimes the news is to bad that it needs to be disparaged if not savaged. I never visited deadspin when it was alive but already I miss it.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 17, 2019 at 12:59 am
Our last Varsity Show down in Athens, Ohio with the Marching 110 — we will go to the Palace Theatre in Columbus on Monday night to inexplicably see the same show a second time, for more money and with no senior recognition.
The Lad was cheered at his dance number, and in the senior recogs, which made his parents happy. Coming up on final juries, and the effective end of his degree program . . . it has been an amazing four years, and Athens is an interesting place, for sure. These two parents are ready to call it a degree, which technically doesn’t happen until May, but right now, the big “lasts” are happening thick and fast.
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Dexter Friend said on November 17, 2019 at 1:09 am
Thirty years ago a young man named Joey Belle who was born in Shreveport, broke into the Major Leagues with the Cleveland Indians. He sometimes was shall I say temperamental, and once he fired a baseball at a fan in the stands who had pissed him off somehow. The next year he decided to be known as Albert Belle. In the Indians’ resurgence of the 1990s, I began to attend weekend games, and Albert Belle became baseball’s most-feared hitter. Bedsheet signs in the stands proclaimed his ascendance to deity: “Albert IS God!”. Capitalizing on his status as baseball’s number one slugger, after a game he held a signing event…I stuck around , curious. The promoters had erected a small tent where Albert sat in a chair. A huge single file queue formed. A man with a bullhorn blared out rules. “Do not attempt to speak to Albert.” That was the main rule. Albert was not the sociable type…at all. You could bring any item that was easy to sign with a Sharpie, the fee was a flat $20 and cash only. You passed a large, full merch table before you entered the tent. You could buy a hat, a tee shirt, a jersey, a baseball, and then also pay the double-sawbuck. Outside the tent were two young women . You handed your item to be signed and she folded it or whatever it took to get the signing spot easy to find. She then handed it to the second woman who entered the tent and set the item by Albert’s right hand. You then entered the tent and a man with a hawker’s voice loudly repeating “move along now, no talking to Albert, move along now, keep the line moving, quickly, quickly!” Albert scratched a celebrity’s signature, no personalizing anything, and with his left hand fired it down the table where another person snatched it and away you went. I was just curious, at the merch table I just exited the whole thing. Albert collected a shitload of $20 bills. That’s how it goes, at least it did that day.
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Jakash said on November 17, 2019 at 1:59 am
Albert demonstrated one of the interesting things about sports, that also is the way it goes. Every fan of the American League knew he was an a-hole. Tribe fans knew he was an a-hole, too. But as long as he was “our” a-hole and was hitting the home runs for “us” — well, maybe being an a-hole wasn’t all that bad.
Once he went to the White Sox, one could feel free to concede that he was just an a-hole, and their fans were the ones to decide that maybe putting up with the guy was worth it.
Kinda like pretending that signing Aroldis Chapman to help the Cubs finally win it all in 2016 season was a swell idea. Since you often end your stories with a bang, Dexter, I was pleased that this one didn’t end up with you admiring the Belle-signed baseball on your mantle tonight, not that I’d have expected that of you. 😉
Paying 20 bucks to get Mr. Belle to autograph something would be somewhat akin to lining up today to get an autographed copy of “Triggered.”
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basset said on November 17, 2019 at 5:45 am
Thanks for the comments on the video. Shot it with a Sony pocket camera… saw the eagle terrifying a flock of small birds and thought “damn, that’s a big hawk.” Shortly afterward he came back, dropped whatever it is you see on the ground in the video, and took off after the deer… not sure what he had in mind but eagles will occasionally kill deer and eat them.
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basset said on November 17, 2019 at 9:01 am
And we’re up over ten thousand views on the eagle video, nice ego bump.
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Deborah said on November 17, 2019 at 11:39 am
what are the odds that Trump really went to Walter Reed for the “first phase of his physical” on a Saturday? His aides said he had a free day yesterday so decided to do it unannounced because he has a busy 2020 schedule coming up. Normally it takes Walter Reed a while to prep for a president’s visit, you can imagine the security issues they’d have to deal with. Hoooey. Fox news is going gaga over how supposedly fit and healthy he is. And who ever heard of a routine physical in phases? I mean you might have to get follow up tests later but come on. So what do you think, heart issue? That’s my guess, the stress on him is tremendous right now.
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susan said on November 17, 2019 at 11:41 am
Deborah, my guess is something they couldn’t accomplish at the White House (I think they can do “routine” exams there), such as a stent…
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Suzanne said on November 17, 2019 at 12:02 pm
This is good
https://twitter.com/jheil/status/1196110044506529793?s=21
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Sherri said on November 17, 2019 at 12:39 pm
Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and the Hawaiian Islands is expanding. Into Indiana and Kentucky.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattle-based-planned-parenthood-ventures-into-indiana-and-kentucky-giving-a-blue-state-boost-to-red-state-clinics/
It’s a interesting model. In the ACLU, there are states that are unable to support an affiliate, but there’s a revenue-sharing model where states like Washington which have plenty of donations share half the money with national, and national supports affiliates in states that can’t raise enough to be self-supporting. PP doesn’t do that, so instead, over time, Washington’s PP affiliate has simply pulled in other states. The others have been nearby, though.
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Brian stouder said on November 17, 2019 at 2:44 pm
Well, we (Pammy and our youngest daughter and I) had occasion to ‘say “yes” to Michigan’ yesterday, via the Polar Express steam engine train excursion from Owasso to Ashley. The excursion lasts about an hour each way (with people at every crossing snapping photos of the beautiful locomotive), with 4 hours to wander around Ashley and shop and eat and see the pretty stuff. In a word, it was marvelous, not least because it was also sort of a rolling family reunion, and the weather was perfect.
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Brian stouder said on November 17, 2019 at 3:15 pm
Oh, and one other Michigan-related thing ocurred Friday. Our fine young son and our youngest daughter went to the movies to see ‘Ford versus Ferrari’ (or maybe it was ‘Ferrari versus Ford’), which was quite good. They didn’t put Carrol Shelby’s name in the movie title, but they should have…
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jcburns said on November 17, 2019 at 3:59 pm
Care to tune in radio from anywhere in the world by spinning the globe and settling on a dot? Oh, and as a companion, let me add What forms of radio will keep floating as legacy terrestrial radio sinks?
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susan said on November 17, 2019 at 7:15 pm
jc – Well, that radio site sure picks odd stations. Or maybe not, from their standpoint. There is only one dot for where I live, and it’s a xtian station. Out of a slew of others, that’s the one available. Nope.
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