That anecdote reminds me of an episode of Roseanne.
I wore my uncle's leather bomber jacket from when he was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, which I thought was endlessly cool.
My 4-year old daughter spent an hour asking me detailed questions about which animal eats which. After a while, it became clear that she had decided to set up her very own zoo, and she wanted to know which animals had to be separated by fences. So the reindeer and horses could be put together, but they had to be separated from the lions and the tigers by a fence.
When I was say 3 or so, my oldest brother walked into his room to find me on the floor emptying largish bags on the carpet and tossing it in the air yelling, Dirt! Dirt!
#5 is totally adorable. I love little kids.
It in fact reminds me of one of the amusing anecdotes in the opening chapters of Berube's Life As We Know It wherein they slowly realize that their son with Down Syndrome is rushing around an empty restaurant pretending to be a waiter and taking orders.
(No, I don't have kids of my own, so I am forced to steal from published works of esteemed internet and academic personages.)
Don't do drugs.
Heebie, you fogie!
max
['Chemicals, man, chemicals! Chemicals are the stuff of life!']
My career librarian dad had a book - probably still has - checked out of a public library in 1981 and never returned. I found it on the bookshelf when I was maybe seven or eight and gave him a bunch of crap for it. It's not clear to me now whether it was from a library book sale; I remember him not remembering when he got it.
9: It doesn't count when I do them.
Oh, oh, I have one of my own. My dad abandoned the family and my parents divorced when I was 2 or 3 (this gets better, promise). My mom was in the process of changing back to her maiden name a few years after that. One day in the car, she asked me if I'd like to change my (last) name, too.
I thought very long and hard about this, apparently, before finally busting out with, "I want to be called Shelley!"
Sadly, she never did change my first name.
I mean 10. Dang drugs make my vision hazy.
I think I told the story about how my sister and I were fighting over who got the ice cubes that remained in a soft drink cup and my dad decided to solve the problem by throwing the ice out the window - he was driving at the time - only to discover upon casting the ice out of the cup that the window was closed.
Anyway, is the new rule now 800 comments or 40 hours before new posts?
15: Oh dear.
I'm guessing that being super funny in this thread won't somehow stop the other thread from happening, will it?
A friend who was moving out of town and eager to get rid of stuff gave me a couple of 70s suit jackets he'd recently inherited from his uncle Carmine. As he was giving them to me, he said, wait, I should check the pockets, and in doing so extracted several hundred dollars in cash.
Forgetting where you put your weed is a total stoner move.
17: Probably not. But it did stop our argument because we were all laughing so hard. Also, no one wanted the ice anymore.
Forgetting where you put your weed is a total stoner move.
It becomes even more complicated when you forget whether or not you just smoked it.
What kind of complete failure as a dope fiend would misplace a precious bag of dope and then not completely tear the house to shreds until he found it? Your family doesn't deserve illegal drugs; they don't appreciate them enough.
20: That is always the best solution to those sort of disagreements. Hard to manufacture, though.
A friend who was moving out of town and eager to get rid of stuff gave me a couple of 70s suit jackets he'd recently inherited from his uncle Carmine. As he was giving them to me, he said, wait, I should check the pockets, and in doing so extracted several hundred dollars in cash.
Nice!
It's nylon, maroon, with a lot of snaps and zippers.
That sounds like some dank herb you got there, heebers.
Vietnam, which I thought was endlessly cool.
The Vietnam War did seem endless, I'll grant you. But cool? Not so much.
he said, wait, I should check the pockets, and in doing so extracted several hundred dollars in cash.
I am amused at your friend's odd verbal tic, and in doing so extracted several hundred dollars in cash.
What kind of complete failure as a dope fiend would misplace a precious bag of dope and then not completely tear the house to shreds until he found it?
Oh, not really. You might leave dirtweed kind of stuck in a corner somewhere because, you know, it's dirtweed. Then you find it some time later, maybe years, and throw it out.
Then you find it some time later, maybe years, and throw it outsmoke it gratefully.
32: If it's really years old, I'd pass, I think.
One of the best joints I ever smoked was on the occasion of a concert I'd talked some friends into attending to with me (and thus had to provide the drugs for). I thought I had some weed but didn't, so had to root around in an old stash box and combine a number of roaches. You can appreciate terroir better from a single source, but there's something to be said for blended cannabis.
30: If only my being amused would enable me to extract several hundred dollars in cash. Either way, I am not amused, and am the poorer for it.
I remain skeptical when we're talking years. I threw out a 3-years-old can of Bud Light that was for some reason in the back of the fridge a while back.
A three-year-old can of Bud Light is probably about as good as a new one, at least if it's been in the fridge.
Then what good is the Born On dating? Don't you want to know what day your Bud was born?
38
A three-year-old can of Bud Light is probably about as good as a new one, at least if it's been in the fridge.
Which isn't saying much.
12: 9: It doesn't count when I do them.
Get along, little fogie.
14: I mean 10. Dang drugs make my vision hazy.
Not so much hazy, as deprived of the ability to count.
max
['Smoke a joint - you're your own favorite student!']
I had a long little fogie. It was a foxund.
Take a long frag and pass the foobie.
|| Man. Time number six in a period of two years fixin' the same damn steamcleaner. Works though, even with a multiplicity of improvised repairs of POORLY MADE PLASTIC. Gee, an extra dollar in plastic and manufacturing costs and I wouldn't be doing it at all. But that would be Not Free Trader-y. And not Bissel-y either, I suppose.
max
['This is going to be another week of random repairs, I just know it.']
|>
39: No.
40: What, the server for Standpipe's blog crashed because of all the traffic from the Heebie's mom thread?
||
I made a couple mixes of kids music for HBGB and HP. This is the first one, called "Night Night Time." Heebie, I'm also sending physical copies to your physical location.
1. Dan Zanes, feat. Lou Reed & The Rubí Theatre Co. "What a Wonderful World."
2. Elizabeth Mitchell, "One Day, Two Days, Three Days Old"
3. Justin Roberts, "Everything Else Starts with E"
4. Laurie Berkner, "Great Big Dog"
5. Suzanne Vega, "Stay Awake"
6. Pete Seeger, "Kisses Sweeter than Wine"
7. Jerry Garcia and David Grisham, "Freight Train"
8. Kristin Hersh, "Whole Heap of Little Horses"
9. Sandra Boynton, feat. Natasha Richardson, "Silly Lullaby"
10. Bruce Springsteen, "Shenendoah"
11. Sweet Honey in the Rock, "Deep Blue Sea"
12. They Might Be Giants, "Bed, Bed, Bed, Bed, Bed"
13. Natalie Merchant, Michael Stipe, Mark Bingham, and the Roaches, "Little April Shower"
14. Elizabeth Mitchell, "Ladybug Picnic"
15. Justin Roberts, "Pick up the Pears"
16. Kristin Hersh, "What'll We Do with the Baby-O"
17. Dan Zanes, feat. Philip Glass, "A Place for Us."
Cover art included in the Zip file.
|>
Oh my goodness, thanks, Rob! How wonderfully awesome!! I am super excited.
46 presents an issue. Do you have something like 15 different "Artists" listd in your Itunes library, all of them starting with "Dan Zanes"? "Dan Zanes with Barbara Brousal", "Dan Zanes with Donald Saaf", "Dan Zanes feat. Kid Cudi", "Dan Zanes feat. the Royal Winnipeg Opera", etc.? I am unable to do that. It is the song title, not the artist, that contains the "feat. Little Feat" part.
re: 46
Cool. 5 and 13 are from that great Willner album of Disney covers, which I love and listen to fairly often. Tom Waits, Sinead O'Connor _and_ Sun Ra.
What is this album? Does it include a version of "Heffalumps and Woozles"?
47 is really right.
50: Yeah, I love that album. Perhaps best of all those "get a bunch of different artists to cover _____ songs".
Geez. It came out in '90!? 20 years ago?!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stay_Awake_%28album%29
The track listing is there. It's so so great. The Sun Ra Arkestra version of Pink Elephants on Parade, Sinead singing Someday My Prince Will Come, Tom Waits doing Heigh Ho, and loads of other great stuff [the Yma Sumac track, for example.
I have this on vinyl, I should probably get a CD copy now.
57, 58: I think it's best to trust the one of us with the calmer voice.
Great now I feel older. I got it when it came out (on CD). Biggest drawback is that most of the songs are too short. That Sun Ra piece would have been greater if longer.
42: I had a long little fogie. It was a foxund.
But you forgot and left it in your jacket.
max
['Facket.']
59: Sure, but that other guy has one of those sophisticated, Euro-sounding accents, which I find more trustworthy than Texas accents.
re: 59
Dammit.
A 'calmest voice' challenge, eh, M/lls? Mogadon and Shure SM58s at dawn.
In my experience, the Texas accent is dying out. Most people under 30 don't have much of one, except for the really reactionary "cowboy" crowd.
"reactionary" s/b some word meaning "willfully stuck in the past". I think there's a better one.
Oh man. I would love to hear a Voice-Off between ttaM and M/tch. Will the text be standardized or do the challengers get to choose their own readings?
I'm excited for 46, although 3 of the songs are already in heavy rotation.
And 49 reveals an annoyance that I share.
64 is not my experience. In the greater Austin area, sure, but definitely not statewide.
re: 66
Heh. Standardised, surely? Perhaps, to keep it neutral, something from the work of Irvine Welsh?
The Voice-Off should have divisions.
Calming a baby.
Controlling a crowd after a car accident.
Saying grace before a meal.
Quieting a classroom before the lecture starts.
The text will be "merry Mary is going to marry".
On the couture portion of the OP, not the cannabis portion, I wore a 1944-45 (it was thus stamped) US Marines heavy wool coat as my winter coat for about 15 years, until AB finally convinced me that it simply didn't look nice or professional. The shell held up beautifully, but the lining was shot to hell, and I think it was short a couple buttons.
Damn but that coat was warm - fully buttoned up, I was comfortable well below 0, with only normal wintry wear beneath. I'm not 100% certain whether it's still in the house - I think AB may have offed it to Goodwill at some point, which would be a shame, as it was such a great relic, sure to be desired by one of my kids at some point.
15, 20 C and I are very bad at arguing - we don't do it much, but when we do, one of us will stumble over our words, or say something stupid, and we'll just start laughing. This is hard to understand for our children.
I'm feeling all sentimental this week because this is the last week I get to have a 6 year old. My *baby* turning 7 shouldn't be allowed.
In the case of a tie, we'll go to this phrase.
||
There were technical difficulites, but they are gone. This is the Wake Up Time mix
1. Justin Roberts, "Airplane of Food"
2. Sandra Boynton feat. Kevin Kline, "Busy, Busy, Busy"
3. They Might Be Giants, "Alphabet of Nations"
4. The Apples (In Stereo), "Signal in the Sky (Let's Go)
5. Optagonally Yours, "Walk & Chew Gum"
6. Sandra Boynton, feat. Sha Na Na, "Banana"
7. Justin Roberts, "Meltdown"
8. The Might Be Giants, "Edison Museum"
9. Veggie Tales, "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything"
10. Veggie Tales, feat. Newsboys, "Yo Ho, Hero"
11. Marlo Thomas & Mel Brooks, "Boy Meets Girl"
12. Sandra Boynton, "Dinosaur Round"
13. Laurie Berkner, "We are the Dinosaurs"
14. Justin Roberts, "Brontosaurus Got a Sweet Tooth"
15. Laurie Berkner, "The Goldfish"
16. Bruce Springsteen, "John Henry,"
17. Dan Zanes, "Pay Me My Money Down"
18. Laurie Berkner, "Victor Vito"
19. Justin Roberts, "D-O-G"
20. Dan Zanes, Feat. Father Goose "Cape Cod Girls"
21. Bruce Springsteen, "Jacob's Ladder"
22. Sweet Honey in the Rock, "Run Molly Run"
23. Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie, "Run, Come See Jerusalem"
Let me know if this actually works for people. I'm new at this.
I selected the tracks that have made parenting more enjoyable for us. All these tracks have at one time or another been on very heavy rotation in our house. I hope you like it.
|>
Damn but that coat was warm - fully buttoned up, I was comfortable well below 0, with only normal wintry wear beneath. I'm not 100% certain whether it's still in the house - I think AB may have offed it to Goodwill at some point, which would be a shame, as it was such a great relic, sure to be desired by one of my kids at some point.
Bummer. Surely it could be spruced back up into respectability by a professional clothing sprucer.
17: Wow, did I miss that completely. Glad to have missed it, yet, now that it's Archived, I must RTF thing.
Well, maybe skim.
re: 73
Yeah, I have a 60s [or possibly 70s, it's hard to tell] Crombie wool overcoat which is incredibly warm. It's quite beautiful cloth, but, unfortunately a slightly boxy cut around the shoulders and my wife thinks I look too much like a night-club bouncer in it.
Basically like this:
http://www.crombie.co.uk/p/Category_Men_Coats/1681.htm
or this
http://www.crombie.co.uk/p/Category_Men_Coats/A301.htm
although I bought mine from a vintage clothing stall.
74: Awwww. Condolences, asilon.
But back to the contest: I should warn you, ttaM, that I used up all my exclamation points ages ago, so it's probably not a fair contest.
Also, saying or even vaguely implying that I'm immature or the like is unsporting and strictly forbidden.
I look too much like a night-club bouncer in it
That might be to your advantage in the contest . . . .
80.3: What are you going to do, cry all over us?
In the Finals Round:
Guiding Savasana
Talking to a teabagger
Returning home after a long hike with a good dog
I'm pretty sure the teabaggers don't even realize they're ridiculous.
(Pretend 85 leads someplace charming and whimsical, with comity and ponies and shit.)
Well, most people are averse to thinking of their behavior as ridiculous, and so they take steps to act differently if they decide that they are behaving ridiculously. So I'd say that yes, the teabaggers probably don't realize they're ridiculous.
Which is why you'd need skilled voice technique to calm them. Definitely only for experienced competitors.
I, on the other hand, continue right on ahead when I realize I'm on the road to ridiculousness.
re: 80
Damn, my plan to recite the Hand of Fu Manchu, but replace every instance of 'Fu Manchu' with M/tch M/lls might not go down well ..
90: All together now:
RACIST!!!111!!1!
re: 91
It's not my fault M/tch M/lls is an insidious green-eyed fiend from the Orient ...
Are the judges going to allow a reading that long? I'd have predicted something more like "one minute per category".
92: And perhaps the dramatic possibilities of Braveheart vs. Fu Manchu have not yet been fully explored.... What the hell, carry on.
re: 93
I was assume whatever reading, if it really happens, would be a couple of lines at most.
Do you figure there's a platonic ideal, a breed standard for calmness? Do you think it is Garrison Keillor? Would you say that competitive Voice Calming has been too long stifled by tradition and regulation, and you're just going to have to play your own game and bring your own streetstyle to break it wide open?
M/tch will be countering by reading passages from our own national epic of racism, Take Your Choice.
I am strongly in favor of mongrel kids. Smart, good-looking, and can be trained to eat out of your hand.
re: 96
I think the British have calmness pretty much down to a fine art. It's a national cliché, and much satirised.
"I say, Smith, those Germans appear to be shooting at us. Terribly rude when a chap is having his tea, don't you think?"
Are you going to go with the tried and true, or do you have to bring your own twist? Make it yours, you know. Is that going to be a subtle refinement or do think you're going to show the 2009 Voice Off Finals a whole new direction for the sport?
The Scottish twist, I suppose, would be to sound utterly relaxed while threatening grevious violence [and eating Mars bars dipped in curry].
Followup on 78:
Egad.
And, I almost flipped out on D^2 when he went after Megan, but then that thread ended and he went away, so that was that.
Lastly, I support all of you in email.
Eating Mars bars dipped in curry is grevious violence.
102: You left off: "Wanna fuck?"
Our misspelling of that word is pretty grievous too. In my defense: ttaM started it!
106: Well, it's either fucking, or separation. And no-one wants separation.
M/tch, how do you feel about all this trashtalking ttaM is doing? Do you think he can really contain his talk of violence, or do you think his big talk before the Voice Off will naturally affect his performance? Do you think the serenity has to come from within to win the Voice Off?
Speaking of Keillor, did everyone see he just recently had a stroke?
109: I think ttaM is all coat and no (hairy) cattle.
110: Hope he pulls through okay.
OT: Birthing Man.
And what about the doping scandals that have plagued competitive Voice Calming in recent seasons? Will suspicions that the competitors are using banned relaxants cast a pall over the outcome of these finals, even if all the tests come back clean? Or are fans beginning to see no difference between calming oneself with Valium versus Transcendental Meditation?
For some reason I associate the need to calm down with the music in these classic ads:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlYMID5qCdE
[There was a whole series]
Does M/tch have a Texas accent? I met him once, at unfoggedConII, but it was very brief and I don't recall. I thought he was from Maryland, or perhaps that's Sir Kraab.
I have never met M/tch—my accusation of a Texas accent was baseless. I apologize.
No more masturbating to Patrick Swayze.
In fact, I rend my garments in shame. Is shame an appropriate occasion for garment rending? A quick Google (I'm on my way out) suggests mourning is the more customary occasion.
I'm rending my garments over Swayze too.
:-(
Holy cow, Iris was totally trolling us at dinner.
Background: Iris has always been a nibbler with food, but a voracious drinker - she had a "nursing blister" years after she'd weaned, so forcefully did she suck on straws. When she was 2 and 3, we wouldn't give her her milk until after she'd finished her dinner, because otherwise she'd guzzle her milk and then pick at her food. She's better now, but we still admonish her not to guzzle.
At dinner tonight she was being a bit petulant because she wanted more bread (another staple of her diet) while there was still manicotti on her plate. She extended her whine to complaining that she didn't have anything to drink, because her water cup was empty, and she "wasn't allowed to drink milk." Where it really became trolling was when she said, "You guys told me, 'Don't drink your milk.'" Because of course we had said (about a million times), "Don't guzzle your milk," but, in true troll form, she altered the quote for maximum outrage. I was impressed.
No-one mocks the hairy coos!
But just the other day in Sainsbury's I saw several different brands of vegan mock coo.
Does M/tch have a Texas accent?
Not much of one. I was born and raised in Texas, but in Austin, where the constant influx of non-Texans has diluted the accent quite a bit.
Both my parents are from small Texas towns up near Oklahoma, so they have stronger accents. My mom's is much stronger than my dad's, I think because in academia at the time he was becoming a professor, a southern accent was equated with Forrest Gump type attributes, so he suppressed it.
Also, my years teaching English as a foreign language further bleached out what accent I had. I do say "y'all" and pronounce the words "pin" and "pen" pretty much identically and other such typical Southernisms. And I talk pretty slowly. And if I'm on the phone with my mom or around other kinfolk with stronger accents, mine bends that way.
123: If you let her drink Scotch, she'll probably be more pliant.
Wow, that's a shame about Swayze. I'm not usually much of one for the "inspiring Hollywood story," but the whole "starring in a new show while fighting a wasting, terminal illness" thing was pretty intense.
OTOH, Ghost.
mine bends that way
Where it counts, anyway.
No-one mocks the hairy coos!
Further, I now think I've found the secret to rendering ttaM's voice uncalm.
My experience is in the rather rural northeast texas. Dallas and Houston, of course, seem to be similar to Austin with regards to accent. OTOH, I did live there long enough to become acclimated to it, so maybe I just don't hear it anymore. (Or more likely, treat it not as an accent but rather as a social marker (though not particularly a class marker).)
East Texas, like Beaumont, has one weird freaking accent. It's like a parody of a rural hick accent. Talk about a thick Southern drawl, and not the spunky kind.
|| I say: I feel badly for Di, and pass along to her my concern for her well-being. I don't have her email address, and her blog is blocked now. |>
Indeed. Thanks, read. Thanks M/tch.
Yeah, M/tch sure did drive Di away. Damn that M/tch.
{confused look} Waitaminute. Di actually left because of fucking sock puppet?
This. Will. Not. Do.
max
['You never take sock puppets seriously.']
Ditto to 131. I wish I'd have spoken up before now. (I was writing a comment to the thread that's now blocked, but it got blocked before I could post it.) Don't know if it would have helped or not - part of the debate was about that very thing - but still. Sorry, Di.
Max and I either have different definitions of sock puppet (web edition) or he knows something I don't know.
133
Yeah, M/tch sure did drive Di away. Damn that M/tch.
You ever hear of blowback.
139: You ever hear of question marks?
What the hell kind of text message did Heebie's mom send to Di?
142: She didn't, she got heebie to do it for her.
Sigh.
I think read had already decided to go all in with the troll hand when she came back and is showing her ass in a decidedly nasty fashion. And I like Di a lot. However, people who leave in a huff due to hurt feelings may not be well suited to the tone of this place.
However, people who leave in a huff due to hurt feelings may not be well suited to the tone of this place.
I... I can't believe you said that. I just. Wow. I can't believe you'd even write something like that on the internet. So disrespectful to me and Beyonce.
I quit the blog.
However, people who leave in a huff due to hurt feelings may not be well suited to the tone of this place.
I agree with this in general (and I think it applies to many of the Great Storm-Offs of Unfogged's mythic past) but I don't think it's as relevant in this case, which seemed to me to be a somewhat unique instance of sustained personal nastiness.
144:I miss Tia
145.2:I am not enjoying those jokes today
However, people who leave in a huff due to hurt feelings may not be well suited to the tone of this place.
That seems uncalled for. I am assuming or, at least, hoping that Di will come back at some point. But, at that moment, in that conversation, stomping off in a huff seems like, not only an appropriate rhetorical move but hopefully a move to preserve sanity and temper.
The best reason to leave like that is if it allows you to psychologically remove yourself from the conversation, and I'm hoping that's what Di did.
147.2: fine then.
I quit the blog!
Hah, hoo.
Possibly I wouldn't be doing this if I'd actually read the giant absurd hurt-feelings thread, but hey, I didn't, and I am.
I agree with 146 and 148. Also, Di's been around Unfogged a long time and knows how things go here and I think she's pretty well accustomed to the tone of this place. She didn't leave because of general tone problems. And of course I hope she decides to come back, and soon.
I hope she comes back too, and I don't mean any criticism or anything particular to Di or anybody else about it. Just the standard disclaimer.
However, people who leave in a huff due to hurt feelings may not be well suited to the tone of this place.
Totally out of line. My tenure only goes back 2 1/2 years, but I have never seen anything remotely like read's deliberately cruel attack on Di, which had as its stated purpose nothing other than cruelty.
I think DK left because read continuously attacked her, personally, without provocation, and about things Di had expressed a lot of sensitivity about. Read did this for a sustained amount of time, and the bosses of the blog declined to express any censure of read's comments, while read continued to explicitly attack DK. I think Di was owed more protection than that, as a member of the community.
I would probably leave, too, under these circumstances. I am really sorry to see Di go.
Hey all, I can't decide whether to try something new under the sun or to chase after wind. Thoughts?
155: Have you tried cheeseburgers?
149.2: Missing a clause, or are you packing your bags?
155: Try a new variety of cabbage = two birds, one stone.
158: it's mysterious!
I quit the grammar!
FWIW (almost nothing, I'm a D-List lurker/commenter) I thought read was so far over the line w/ Di that it's pretty crazy to say that she was just acting in the rough-and-tumble-spirit-of-the-blog.
And I also thought that M/itch was being kind of a dick, and I was pissed off at the last big pile-on on read. But, here, read clearly said she was going to be an offensive troll, and she was, so why bother to defend her?
I mean, not that I care that much -- this is basically just a place for depressed procrastinators to waste time. But from what I know of her, I like Di, and was sorry to see her hurt from that nonsense.
the bosses of the blog declined to express any censure of read's comments
Part of the problem is that there are no "bosses of the blog" in a meaningful sense. Not since ogged left.
159: I'm not seeing the "chase" part in your equation.
162: a power vacuum!
I unquit the blog... IN ORDER TO RULE IT!
Needless to say my mad grab for power will leave a trail of bloody, nigh-incomprehensible comments from horizon to horizon.
149: Don't miss out on the fun, Sifu! Try at least one or two.
Part of the problem is that there are no "bosses of the blog" in a meaningful sense. Not since ogged left.
I don't think the posters expressing disapproval actually requires any secret bossy powers, but it can carry significant symbolic weight.
And I also thought that M/itch was being kind of a dick
How is this day different from any other day?
Part of the problem is that there are no "bosses of the blog" in a meaningful sense. Not since ogged left.
Weak. The posters have weight to throw around, should they choose to.
I should have put a link to this in 169.
167: I sort of figured it had to have been worse than that, actually. Shows what I know!
Goddammit, M/tch. Only a total dick would have pwned me like that.
Chasing after wind means one seeks to acquire it, no? One will acquire said wind after a suitable period of digestion.
this is basically just a place for depressed procrastinators to waste time
Ouch. I think the depressed procrastinators might post more, or with more seriousness, than those of us who have other stuff to do. Sifu, for example, understands that the Internet is serious fucking business.
Sifu, for example, understands that the Internet is serious fucking business.
It is the life and the way.
I sort of figured it had to have been worse than that, actually.
Not for nothing, but I'd kind of appreciate it if you'd stop belittling what read did to Di.
And on that note, I've got sleeping to do. Conference submission in; baby due to awake in 3 hours.
I think the depressed procrastinators might post more [...] than those of us who have other stuff to do.
You know, it is possible to both be a depressed procrastinator and to have other stuff to do. For instance, I'm off to yoga!
Bust a downward facing dog for me Otto!
I'm off to bed. Nobody break the blog until I get back.
I'm fucking STILL AT WORK. Depressed procrastinator indeed.
Was 132 a joke? I'm sorry to be dense. But I'm quite confused. And I, too, hope that Di is just taking some time away from an ugly situation. Finally, if you're considering (re)starting to ban people, feel free to get rid of me.
Weak. The posters have weight to throw around, should they choose to.
The posters aren't always here. The posters aren't all of one mind. If I read the relevant thread correctly, one or more posters expressly declined to throw weight around. Perhaps they would have, if they thought they had the authority, perhaps not. Anyway, my point is, shit is disorganized, and it's showing.
No sock puppet, radio.
Standpipe? A sock puppet? I don't think so. But if so, a particularly ingenious one. Who's the puppeteer, I wonder?
186: perhaps Standpipe is Standpipe's puppeteer! Ingenious!
182: I think you'd only get banned if they started banning people for self-deprecation.
BTW, you're banned.
138: Max and I either have different definitions of sock puppet (web edition)
Sock puppet: A person (sometimes persons) who deliberately construct another identity for themselves, for entertainment and/or trolling and/or mastubatory activities. Such an identity usually tends to the ridiculous simply because the person playing the sock puppet chooses some identity as far away from their own identity as they can get. When a puppet is created solely for purposes of self-support (m3, t00!), or purely for reasons of flamage, I usually call it a suck poppet. In a certain sense, trolling is implicit in such an action, since the identity exists only to garner reactions.
In fact, the kids these days tell me there is some famous celebrity person who makes a habit of pretending to be someone other than he is (often a parody of a 'foreigner') for comedic purposes.
When a sock puppet is identified, a common phrase to use to signify the identification of a sock is the phrase, 'I smell dirty socks' or 'Someone left their sock drawer open.' One uses the phrase to avoid the explicit discussion and the resulting long and tedious flamewars.
max
['As I said, in Reno, I killed a sock, just to watch it die.']
I can't really figure out what to say to 176 that wouldn't start another giant, billion comment boring-ass meta-thread, except that maybe the things I expect and like about online communication are... not the same as they are for other people.
Finally, if you're considering (re)starting to ban people, feel free to get rid of me.
Dear Full Professor Committee:
Now that I've been banned from the blog where I waste all my time (Not that one; the other one), I shall be able to fulfill all the requirements of the position of Full Professor, just as soon as someone explains to me what the hell they are.
In ChristObama, &c.
To me, sock puppet: a different handle and false identity someone adopts for him or herself, often to stage arguments with the original identity or, better yet, to chime in with support. A classic example would be John Lott's "Mary Rosh" sock puppet.
190: So who has been posting under the alternate identity "read"?
shit is disorganized, and it's showing.
This is correct. Nobody is really in charge and some people got very uncomfortable when I ran Jes off because I did it without talking to anybody else first. And I'd be uncomfortable watching somebody else do it but having done it, wouldn't feel that I could say anything. And so one and down the line.
For the record, read's behavior was pointedly foul. I wish I had been within striking distance of the Internet when the episode unfolded in order to have said so.
Also, I disagree with LizardBreath and apostropher as to the bounds of the tolerable, but I hardly feel entitled to unilaterally contradict them on matters of policy. What grounds would I have for doing so?
And I don't see how that applies here, unless you know of some pre-existing online person who created read, or some other persona here, as a sockpuppet.
201 obviously meant as a followup to 195.
Or rather, the comment previously known as 195, now 194.
We ban people all the time. Just to watch them leave. But ours is a very different kind of blog. And really, it's important to remember that LB actually was there (right?) when the fireworks were still going off and expressed "a pox on all of your houses" sentiment -- recapitulated in this thread (right?). Which is her business, of course.
A couple of read's comments were no better than the raft of ToS comments that were just deleted. (And worse, even, as they deliberately traded in bits of DK's biography with the expressed intent of hurting her.)
I disagree with LizardBreath and apostropher as to the bounds of the tolerable, but I hardly feel entitled to unilaterally contradict them on matters of policy
I'm not sure LB and I agree. Anything you or LB or anybody else decided to do wouldn't be contradicting me.
194: Agreed with rtfs's definition, but the first example that comes to mind for me is Lee Siegel's "sprezzatura." And agreed with rtfs that unless there's something about read I don't know, there's no reason to think she is a sockpuppet, just an asshole or troll or whatever epithet you prefer for a mean person. And I know that to call read that is to pile on in a way, but reviewing some parts of the previous thread, I really don't feel out of line about it. Yes, sure, unfogged can be cliquish and insidery and we should avoid that, but that has nothing to do with stuff like in 167.
Holy shit, speaking of me ranting at NPR* and "pox on both your houses," did y'all hear the execrable Cokie and whoever was host this morning talking about Censure for Wilson? Because, obviously, it's Bad for Democrats. And Cokie actually used that phrase. Because, plainly, an apolitical American would look at a Congressman screaming, "You Lie!" at the President during a Joint Session and Congress censuring said Congressman, and think, "They're both equally bad."
I was ready to throw the fucking radio out the window.
I blame public education, which is forcing me to get up to the alarm clock again. Maybe I'll just set the radio to the hate talk station, so I can mainline the bullshit.
* May be on the Charlie Sheen thread
I disagree with everyone in a different way.
A couple of read's comments were no better than the raft of ToS comments that were just deleted. (And worse, even, as they deliberately traded in bits of DK's biography with the expressed intent of hurting her.)
I really hope that at minimum future such comments of read's will be deleted as soon as a poster spots them.
208: My feelings for NPR (most of the news commentary, at any rate) have gone rapidly from ambivalence to antipathy. The major players seem to be trying to out-Broder each other every moment.
I tried to post that I pretty much agreed with Halford, except for the part about procrastinators because I was on a bus and commenting while doing something at the same time, but the comment wouldn't go through and then I reached my stop and now I'm putting off doing my laundry.
210: Speaking only for myself, I'm not interested in playing the time-honored troll game of refereeing whether a comment contains a sufficient amount of hostile versus cryptic versus joking etc. Everything ToS posts gets deleted, whether it's nasty or innocuous.
211: I don't listen much anymore (no more commuting), but pretty much, yeah. It was already too centrist, but the new crop of hosts seems very much to be of the Stockholm Syndrome journalist cast.
214: I tend to think of national NPR as the end state of bob's perception of American politics. The commentators and newsreaders are all reliably middle-of-the-road to right-wing when it comes to class analysis, and always, always, always scornful of the left. Except, that is, when it comes to human-interest stories, in which color is just that: something used to liven up the piece, to reach liberal listeners, but never really meaningfully human or even politically engaged. Which is to say, their version of left is the cultural politics of the precocious kid on the Pine Ridge reservation who's beating the odds by learning to sculpt or compose poetry. Hmm, maybe that's too harsh.
214: Wait; now that it's a Democratic presidency, wouldn't it be reverse Stockholm syndrome?
always, always, always scornful of the left
Yes, this.
215 gets it totally right. Still better than any other US broadcast news organization, though, except for maybe the 40 percent of Pacifica that's non-crazy.
218: Hey, while you're around, I meant to ask you way back during the LAPD threads if you've read any Robert Fogelson and what you think of his work (if you have). I'm about halfway through his LA book.
I wish 218 didn't get it right, but it does.
For a long time, I didn't get the NRP haters (and I still have no problem with the style, which seems to grate on so many), but I'm pretty much on board now. The resolute refusal to change in any proactive way (same discredited "analysts" since the impeachment, if not longer, but the hosts are younger and more reactionary) is just maddening.
196
This is correct. Nobody is really in charge and some people got very uncomfortable when I ran Jes off because I did it without talking to anybody else first. And I'd be uncomfortable watching somebody else do it but having done it, wouldn't feel that I could say anything. And so one and down the line.
Wait, Jes was actually banned? I missed that.
Also, I'm reading the thread from the start (god help me), and it does seem that, around comment 250, everything should have been fine, with MM perhaps having overreacted early. I already read 400ff., so I'm curious what led to the intense ugliness.
I'm curious what led to the intense ugliness
Somebody deprecated lingonberries. And it was on!
144
... However, people who leave in a huff due to hurt feelings may not be well suited to the tone of this place.
Well some in the other thread were claiming that the tone in this place leaves something to be desired. Which I sort of agree with. But I am wary of cures that are worse than the disease.
Wait, Jes was actually banned?
No, she left before it came to that explicitly.
I personally dislike the fact that several people here are rather antipathistic (?) towards some of my deeper-held beliefs, but if Shearer can handle it, I guess I can. And really, there's no avoiding the fact that some people will sometimes find others' opinions appalling or ridiculous.
And if any one person were to start being positively rude to me, I'd have no trouble telling them to fuck off and ignore them. In fact, I have done so. (This is not to say that Di should have been less sensitive. I have no opinion on that matter.)
I certainly didn't help; I don't think I said anything wrong, but I certainly didn't say much right.
154
I think DK left because read continuously attacked her, personally, without provocation, ...
I though read was way over the line at the end and perhaps the best thing to do at this point is to ban her (which seems to be what she wants anyway). But "without provocation" is rewriting history.
rewriting history
What could be better?
227
I certainly didn't help; I don't think I said anything wrong, but I certainly didn't say much right.
You might have been better off letting the target of the day remark go, especially after Megan tried to withdraw it. As it was it seems you just gave read ideas.
214-220 (NPR haters): RIGHT ON! Can't stand the tone, the posturing, anything.
Which is to say, their version of left is the cultural politics of the precocious kid on the Pine Ridge reservation who's beating the odds by learning to sculpt or compose poetry.
Or the ubiquitous piece memorializing some aspect of the civil rights movement, circa 1961-65. Because after that, the left became declasse.
I've smoked so much pot now I can hardly feel the stuff any more. It's kind of a shame. If I hadn't been such a drug abuser, I would still be able to get high today. Learn from my sad experience!
Yeah; it really annoyed me at the time, because it seemed such a presumption of bad faith that I thought withdrawing really wasn't enough, but looking back, not one of my finer moments.
(And then am I pleased I stop ed talking when I did.)
EB, I read Fogelson's "Fragmented Metropolis" a few years ago and thought it was great, one of the best books about the city -- although I do think the "fragmentation" theme and general negative cast is a bit overdone (or, really, the argument that LA's civic culture was unusually "fragmented" compared to most other major American cities, unless by "fragmented" you mean "geographically spread out"). But I'm just an amateur, not an urban historian or a city planning expert or anything.
Thanks. I haven't noticed such a negative theme so far, but I'm still in the background chapters - just finished transportation and water.
|| I'm unemployed! Yay!
Also: "Enfuckulating". |>
I would just like to pop up here and get in on the NPR bashing. Jack Schafer's take down of Cokie Roberts on Slate was both satisfying and a good description of the general problem. And do not even get me started on Juan Williams or I'll be grinding my teeth all night.
http://www.slate.com/id/2216890/
Wow.
Mike Huckabee uses the expression "bright red lips" when discussing Van Jones on Fox News tonight. If FDL hadn't helped, that dog whistle would have gone right past me.
but I have never seen anything remotely like read's deliberately cruel attack on Di
I still think the way dsquared gunned for me was comparable (and we didn't talk about me, Me, ME enough in the last thread). I never did get dsquared's motivation, since it started with my very first link at Marginal Revolution. If he wasn't confusing me and McArdle, then I don't know what the story was.
Nobody is really in charge
Where the hell *is* Becks these days, anyway? Did I miss something?
Oh thank god. I thought maybe now we were buying *her* dinner at the French Laundry.
245: It's OK. Now we can be sure that Josh really got the message.
Just finished reading that Thread of Sorrow. Sometimes "meta" is an insufficient descriptor. Without commenting on any of the original issues, I think when you get to the stage of a close reading of an analysis of a refutation of a musing over whether someone's behavior crossed a line, everyone needs to step away.
Also, I hope Di comes back - the powers-that-be may want to be chary with giving or threatening bans, but that's not the same as being OK with what read said.
Just to reiterate what I said in that other thread and join the chorus here, I really hope Di's departure is temporary. I'll be really unhappy if not. (Phone just tried to autocorrect unhappy as unholy!)
Of course, we all know, including his phone, that essear is a bloodsucking creature of the night.
Speaking of which, Let the Right One In is a really good movie.
I still think the way dsquared gunned for me was comparable (and we didn't talk about me, Me, ME enough in the last thread). I never did get dsquared's motivation, since it started with my very first link at Marginal Revolution. If he wasn't confusing me and McArdle, then I don't know what the story was.
Dsquared doesn't like engineers in politcs & he doesn't like clever schemes. Given you're an engineer and have clever schemes...
Speaking only for myself among the front-page posters, keep self-policing. You're doing pretty well, as these things go.
Huh, that's as plausible as anything I've got. Although he started before he knew I was an engineer. But it'd be an understandable reason.
if I had been awake I probably would have said, jesus read, stop being such an asshole, but I wasn't. that said, di should just say, fuck off, I'm not going to let that weak mongolian sauce drive me away from the magic that is unfogged. aaah, why am I talking about this?
here, I'll tell you a really depressing story. last night I met someone who is 65 years old and has spent more than half of his life in jail for non-violent drug offenses. and I think, christ, getting high isn't all that much fun what the fuck, guy? and then I think, well, I've used dirty needles before, what kind of dumbass disregard for the value of life is that? and then I think the government of ainraN is unspeakably evil because...fuck, seriously? and then I reflect that I should be more grateful for winning the lottery of life, and perfect a kind of anti-ayn randian "you get what you deserve" attitude. it seems sometimes like I got the stuff a lot of other people were deserving. but then I think, what's the point of me going and suffering from serious depression? I have everything in the world to be happy about and they still just doubled all my meds so I won't go do something stupid. not that I'm going to! or anything, but I just think about it a lot more than non-crazy people. well, they still haven't put me on the anti-psychotics that make you fat, so let's all give a cheer for that. nothing worse than when cute chicks get fat because they had to give them anti-psychotics.
and then I go and don't close a tag. no wonder I want to step in front of a bus.
Y'okay, alameida? Wanna talk or anything? Because, you know, buses are big and you're not, not having taken any anti-psychotics.
NO BUSES! If nothing else, public transit is un-American.
and it's crazy to say that because something particularly awesome happened today and now it looks like I will get my dream house after all! the flaky landlord was just being flaky, but we still won out over the french family. now I get to make graph paper and arrange my furniture! I really am happy about it.
So, do those of you from the front page have a plan for tomorrow? I'm actually pretty chill about the prospect of coming next (been worked over by better men than read), but still curious about whether you intend to step in.
Plus, you beat the French. If that's not something to celebrate (though, really, who hasn't? beat the French, I mean), I don't know what is.
and I'm not going to step in front of a bus. I just feel kind of cheated because i thought if I quit drinking and using drugs I wouldn't get depressed anymore, but it turns out I'm just crazy and no amount of home-spun, spiritual/commercial ledger balancing is going to take it away. stupid crazy.
been worked over by better men than read
Are you trying to turn this place into Penthouse Forum again?
I never thought it could happen to me...
yeah, suck it french family! megan, I don't know. I think if read actually shows up tomorrow and starts talking about how watershed management is really fucking unimportant we'll all just laugh at her, but I suppose there's some level of vitriol that would make me think it was drifting into ToS territory.
i thought if I quit drinking and using drugs I wouldn't get depressed anymore
Not that this is particularly helpful (or even necessarily applicable), but my first thought is that this has cause and effect backwards.
260: Eh, why don't we just get the two minutes' hate out of the way now? No one gives a shit about water, or California, or lifting. Balding 47-year-olds in their moms' basements have better things to masturbate worry about.
stupid crazy.
Who isn't? I mean, for awhile there I thought I was smart crazy. But it turns out not so much. That said, ime it does suck giving up something that's sort-of life-defining, and also supposedly the root of The Problem, and then finding out that the miseries are going to chase you down no matter what.
I'm not really sure why I've chosen to pretend that we're old friends. I think I'll shut the fuck up now. I have to spend my time screwing up my promotion packet; there's still hours before daylight.
Yay, dream house! Boo, craziness! I think I've been some of the places (or at least some of the neighborhoods) of which you speak, and, well, my sympathies. Whatever happened with the tenure stuff?
Well, I'm procrastinating again. Time to cut up the week's veggies.
starts talking about how watershed management is really fucking unimportant
Oh holy crap, how excellent would that be.
No one gives a shit about water, or California, or lifting..
So long as you don't start talking trash about protein.
Boo, protein. Atkins is a dick!
260:No one gives a shit about water, or California, or lifting.
Muscle Beach Party is a great movie. one of Buster Keatons' finest works.
No one gives a shit about [...] California
Watch it, motherfucker.
270: On the weekend, I buy a pile of veggies. I cut them up and dump them in a big container. I then cut and wash some chard or kale and dump it in a different container. In the mornings, I combine veggies with salad greens in a container. Nuts (and sometimes Craisins, if I am feeling frivolous and gay) go on top. At lunchtime, olive oil and vinegar get added. This is lunch.
Sometimes the same algorithm is repeated for dinner.
yes, my husband got tenure! yay! the high level of external happiness-building events combined with the depressed is making me irritated. but actually I feel better now than just recently, I didn't post about it because I just thought people would worry about me uneccesarily from far away. definitely the mood is lifting.
also, protein is lame and doesn't help build muscles! it just, like, sits there in your body not having beneficial effects!! and, um, ultimate frisbee isn't a real sport! it's just some sort of para-sport activity.
re: 275
That seems very organised. Don't they end up limp before you get round to eating them all?
otto dude, you must be hella thin.
277: Generally not. Or at least, not limp enough to make me want to put more effort into my "cooking". (This is a step up from the way I was eating previously.)
para-sport activity
Those are the best kind!* Except 'Ultimate' of course, which is some sort of hippie/nerd travesty ...
* I'm not doing well on the calmness of voice thing...
re: 279
I should be doing something similar, at least for lunches, as part of Project Fat-be-Gone.
I agree with 278. And not just because alameida and I are friends from way back in the 'hood.
Oh, I would be if I were that virtuous for all my meals. So far I'm just trying to work my way towards "thin". But down ~50 lbs so far from the beginning of 2007.
282.2: Fucking WASP solidarity.
Almost as bad as fucking California ultimate water protein.
holy shit, that's amazing! well done, von bisquick. for lunch I'm having a coke zero and some crest whitestrips, because I care about nutrition like that.
Project Fat-be-Gone
I need to get started on that too. I'm now as heavy as I've ever been.
Hm. Otto, you struck me as an athletically fit person, certainly closer to thin than pudgy. Regular-looking-in-SF-type thin. You should, of course, have your body however you want to make it, but I'd blink my eyes a lot if you told me you wanted to be substantially thinner.
I'm now as heavy as I've ever been.
Me too. I blame my children. And my hatred of chard.
alameida,
I definitely sympathize with the depression shit. I've only just recently, after much trouble, found a combination of meds that even starts to work. And suicide is never far from my thoughts.
Good wishes.
you should boil some vinegar with a little sugar, chopped ginger, and chopped chillies in it, and pour that on your chard (which you have briefly stir-fried in a tiny bit of oil and the water clinging to the leaves after washing). it's really good. or pepper sherry (where you pack a bunch of peppers into a cruet of sherry and let it steep a while).
thanks for the good wishes, paranoid and others. I actually worked up the courage to ask a normal person and it seems like many non-depressed people walk around just never thinking about killing themselves at all, all day long. it's strange to think the interior lives of people could be so different.
re: 287
I lost about 25lbs earlier this year, but have managed to put about 10 of those back on again, and seem now to have stabilised about 15lbs lighter than I was [which was, in turn, about 10lbs lighter than the heaviest I've ever been]. Realistically, though, I have another 25lb or so to lose.
re: 292
Depression seems to take many forms, too. Not everyone, thankfully, feels suicidal when they are depressed. Best wishes, etc.
just never thinking about killing themselves at all
Can't say that suicide ever crosses my mind. Homicide is another story altogether.
292: Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about there and above: the "Will I ever get unfuckedup?" feeling. I haven't really taken any of my suicidal ideation seriously since it started (ca. ages 13-15), and really truly am much happier now, but those thoughts come back surprisingly often. Visiting my parents at the beginning of the month, after one of our arguments, I walked down to my bedroom and immediately found myself thinking, "Well I'll show you: I'll just kill myself." It was like those thoughts got stuck so deeply down in there that I wonder if I'll ever be rid of them. Anything remotely frustrating happens, I start fantasizing about suicide again.
Yet I don't take it seriously anymore. In some ways, maybe it's a perverse release--I fantasize about it all being over, and how if that I were the case, I would not have to deal with $ISSUE, and maybe that fantasy gives me momentary relief? I dunno. It sure feels fucked up. And I don't feel like I can talk about it with many people, because you don't want to worry folks and all that.
Maybe 2 years ago my psych was trying to taper me off the meds, just to see if I still needed them, and a fair bit more of this stuff came back. Only those times, it was as if I no longer could even fantasize about suicide being an option. I knew that it would crush my parents, and I felt that I couldn't do that to them. (I actually felt similarly about my shrink, too: "Wouldn't doing this make her really doubt herself?") So the more vanilla suicidal ideations got turned into an anger at my parents for giving me life. I.e., "I never asked to be here, existing; yet now I have to stay here and fight just because it would fuck you guys up if I offed myself?" Fortunately, when we moved the meds back up, those thoughts went away.
And yeah, it feels quite fucked up typing it out.
288: Thanks, Megan. And I'm not trying to lose a crapload more weight. Maybe 5-10 will do it. I'll probably redo the hydrostatic body fat testing when they come around again. The real question, of course, is how to keep it off--I can think of 4 guys at work right now who have lost a significant amount, and seem to have gained a bunch of it back.
Not that we should all be hypercritical of each other's bodies, etc., etc., but I've received enough positive feedback on my appearance now relative to previously that I am inclined to think I should do my best to keep it this way.
my brother and sister and I used to have a mutually assured destruction suicide pact as deterrence: if anyone offed themselves, we all would. now that I have children it really would be too horrible, of course. it's just boring to have your brain continually offering up this unwanted option.
it's just boring to have your brain continually offering up this unwanted option.
Yes. Exactly. It's like a mental habit. It really doesn't take much distress before I start in with the Golden Gate Bridge fantasies—just silently and on the inside, no tears or anything—but I know damn well that's not going to happen. So it's sort of a pointless exercise in intensified drama and anguish.
mine is more like if I do or say anything less than perfect my brain immediately tells me: that's it, you're worthless and deserve to die, probably soon, and hey what about that 30-story condo tower, not much could go wrong there, right? none of this pussy getting your stomach pumped bullshit like in the past, that would be the sureshot, right? and I'm like, shut the fuck up, stupid brain. no one wants to hear your stupid ideas.
294
... Not everyone, thankfully, feels suicidal when they are depressed ...
Yes.
now I'm kind of interested in the content of non-suicidal depressed interior monologue. I mean, homicidal, that's pretty obvious I guess. general sense that all is gray, dull and useless? obsessive thinking about pustules? feelings of terror and alienation like the fragile skin of the world is going to rip away and reveal pitiless, insectoid metal gears? hook me up here, James B.
general sense that all is gray, dull and useless? obsessive thinking about pustules? feelings of terror and alienation like the fragile skin of the world is going to rip away and reveal pitiless, insectoid metal gears?
Most of that could be me on occasion. Though I generally don't think of myself as depressed.
Dunno that I've ever been depressed in the “clinically depressed” sense. When I get the mopes I just generally feel like doing nothing &mdash so “gray, dull, and useless”. Often there is no particular cause and it goes away in a day. Normally I've rather happy; I think my brain needs some downtime every once in a while.
Normally, I can spell. Actually no, no I can't.
in my experience clinically depressed feels different from sad-for-an-actual-reason, though obviously there's a spectrum. more of a loathsome toad crouched on my heart type of thing. I started reading infinite jest and I've been enjoying it but I'm too depressed to read it right now, it's freaking me out. just like how when people feel paranoid they shouldn't read philip k. dick., speaking of pitiless insectoid metal gears.
I don't know if I've ever been severely clinically depressed. I've had depression that was obviously for a reason -- where my life was inutterably shitty, and showing no signs of future improvement -- and that sort of long term miserableness that gets labelled dysthymia, but never full-on severe depression with no obvious cause, thankfully. But even during very bad episodes suicide was never a thought. I could see the attraction of just dropping out and walking away from responsibilities and starting again. But never the idea of ending my life.
what a touching display of solidarity and affection for DK! there must be something good in her that i couldn't see
but she's got the full community support, poor woman, good for her, she'll be okay then
so it's normal if i've been there being kicked from all sides and be an object of pity, and her being a part of the bullying mob, but i don't think so
when faced with the mob, talk to the one of them at a time, a successful strategy i've learned!
she's got what she wanted to see in me and besides i didn't say anything new and shocking that i didn't say before in the open threads on various topics she brought up herself
but this all is so yesterday, i hope dear Megan will show up shortly and my satisfactory performance will ensue, it shouldn't be that hard
it shouldn't be that hard
Megan isn't quite as vulnerable as DK -- but you knew that already didn't you? Cruelty will not accomplish your goal; that's just "the tone here". No, you'll have to be really boring in your disruptiveness. The trick is, you can't be too boring or it wouldn't be disruptive. It will take persistence to comment with enough frequency to do want you want to do. But I believe in you. You can do it!
295: I've thought about about doing both nearly every day for more than a half-century. It doesn't prevent one from leading a reasonably happy, productive life.
maa, the day is long, she'll give me enough to troll i hope
read, that's not bad. it will be kind of funny if you do this long enough to be scouring the archives for material on lesser-known or even departed commenters. on the whole, no one is rooting for either side so much as they are hoping for fewer pointless meta threads. whatever you can do to further that goal will mean the lurkers support you in email. I feel compelled to say that I have always thought that the idea of a native mongolian speaker reading unfogged to improve her english was awesome. you really have improved a lot, there's no way you would have been able to approach this level of trolling before. seriously, though, as a word of personal advice I'd just knock off the excessively personal attacks and pretend it never happened, and then go on either criticizing our bourgeois conformism or not, as you choose.
the only fair way would be a lottery.
Yeah, we don't want hurt feelings.
I'll thank you to take it elsewhere, read.
unfoggedtarian pause, endlessly; then go in would be all, you picked cerebrocrat first?!!
Crisis moment: is that even English? Boo.
patience, people, one more day and the experiment will be over
on the whole, no one is rooting for either side so much as they are hoping for fewer pointless meta threads.
What you mean we, paleface?
That's funny, I heard on NPR this morning that the experiment was over.
g/ve it a moth/rfuck/ing r/st, d/de.
327: Um, I don't get it, al. What, I'm not allowed to tell jokes too?
Now imagining M/tch and read hurtling through space, imprisoned in a facet of two-dimensional glass.
Congrats on getting the house, alamedia!
john searle uses a random sentence which has allegedly never been uttered before but is comprehensible as some sort of object lesson on the first days of big classes, using, naturally, the same sentence each year. I submit that 322 is a much better candidate, because it is too english.
I can't really figure out what to say to 176 that wouldn't start another giant, billion comment boring-ass meta-thread, except that maybe the things I expect and like about online communication are... not the same as they are for other people.
Sorry for being overearnest last night, but I was pretty pissed at what happened to Di and how it was being handled. There were lots of e-mails from commenters and lurkers and posters flying around about it too, so I was pretty worked up.
Wile I enjoyed the "I quit" joke the first few times, it was getting a little old and the whole "ha ha, somebody quit! I don't know why, I didn't read the thread! Oh, I read it, and it's no big deal!" just grated on my nerves, and, given what I knew, seemed insensitive.
I didn't and don't think you were doing anything wrong, actually, I just wanted to voice that I felt you were kind of pushing some buttons.
323 to 321, but 332 gets it right.
Years ago, I was on this irc channel. It was a pretty good community for a while, lots of witty people, relatively low troll percentage. We even had a bot that would spout catchphrases in response to keywords, which sounds (and was) stupid, but was pretty entertaining nonetheless. Eventually, as happens, things started to curdle a little bit, people got pissed at each other. There were some real hurt feelings, some people left (the guy who ran the bot felt slighted and took that away), some people were really mean (I was a complete dick to a minor internet celebrity -- the things I said had some validity, but wow was I being a jerk) and by and large things degenerated. We (the ops) realized this was not a tenable situation, so we decided we had to start banning people; it was just too ugly and pointless all the time. So we did! Eventually we had quite a list, and the people who remained were generally good at being civil to each other. At least, until they all got bored and left shortly thereafter.
Anyhow, I think my point is clear: unfogged needs a bot that spouts catchphrases.
Heh, I use a [music related] channel with an infobot, too. Over many years of input, it's now getting quite Turing-testy.
well start writing some code, haxxor superhero. chop chop!
337: yeah we had that too. People would join the channel and start arguing with the bot.
it's now getting quite Turing-testy.
"Christ, how many times do I have to ask you how does it make you feel that what is my favorite color?"
To be honest, the whole "boring" and "pointless" thing grates too, but whatevs. Opinions differ, and there's some truth to it, but when it comes right down to it I really don't care whether everyone's constantly entertained or cares about any particular issue.
I have no interest in having eternal sworn enemies per 330 either, I just think community enforcement of norms is necessary sometimes, as is sticking up for friends, as is the occasional metathread.
In short: fuck you, clowns (said in a much calmer voice than ttaM could ever hope to achieve).
Anyhow, I think my point is clear: unfogged needs a bot that spouts catchphrases.
Some of us enjoy spouting handmade artisanal catchphrases.
345: I believe you mean "hand-stretched".
My catchphrases are [Juggernaut Firm].
See? A bot would would have jumped in before you finished typing 346.
I have no interest in having eternal sworn enemies per 330 either, I just think community enforcement of norms is necessary sometimes, as is sticking up for friends, as is the occasional metathread.
Oh, probably. I just like the dick jokes better.
You can have my catchphrases when you take them from my cold dead hands. I mean, if we automate catchphrases, what the heck are we the rest of us to do?
Dear Read:
Megan is not a fictional character. Nor am I. Nor is UNG or my alcoholic friend who threatened (attempted? committed?) suicide. The tears I shed most of yesterday, and truth be told a little yet this morning are not part of the plot of an amusing performance piece. You caused me very real, non-fictional pain. Deliberately.
Deliberately.
I'm not done.
The pain you caused was exacerbated by people I liked and respected sending the message that what you did was acceptable. What M/tch wrote deserved your reprimand and pleas to stop, LB, but what read wrote wasn't even close? Stomped off in a huff, Apo? Fuck you. I should not have ventured back here, but a few of the lurkers who support me in email mentioned the words of support that have also been expressed -- and for which I am sincerely grateful.
I compared you to UNG, read, because he is an emotional abuser. You share his talent for zeroing in on the most emotionally vulnerable target for your attack, for taking advantage of personal weakness to maximize the pain you cause. And you share his capacity for persisting in the belief that you are the poor, mistreated victim. As with UNG, you have succeeded in some part in isolating your victim from a supportive community by making that community an emotionally unsafe space for me. I stand by the comparison. I don't know what it is you get out of this, but perhaps as with UNG it's just a convenient distraction from the crushing shame someone instilled in you long ago. But you are earning that shame now, dear read.
What you did was not okay.
Sincerely,
Di Kotimy
['No. I am not back.']
my sincere apologies, if you can take it, DK
[Remainder of comment deleted at the commenter's request.]
I could give a rat's ass what you prefer.
Good morning, read.
I'm here now. Tell me more about myself, please.
Stomped off in a huff, Apo? Fuck you.
Okay. I'll apologize for phrasing that hurtfully. What I meant, though, was that if people are prone to getting their feelings hurt, my experience with this place (and the internet generally) is that it will absolutely happen. It wasn't my intention to add to it.
Di (if you are still lurking),
You are totally in the right in this debate. Your feelings are reasonable responses to unreasonable harassment. I am very sorry read did this to you. She should not be welcome here. She should leave, not you.
I'm also sorry I did not stick up for you yesterday in the previous thread. The argument was big, and I wasn't sure one more person offering their opinion would help, so I stayed away. That was a mistake.
Rob
315.last to 354. Also 353.UNG_comparison_explanatory_paragraph to 354. Christ. I've bent over backwards to stay out of this and previous similar meta-threads and I'm going to try to look up previous ones in a few minutes to reassure myself of this, and I realize that I'm still a relative short-timer here (although, now that I think of it, over three years) and don't have the authority to ban people, but personally if I could, I would.
hi, well, i think you are a very uninteresting person, you asked me what i take from Unfogged, well, a lot, English lessons and trolling classes mostly
no, i like to find a link there, a new for me book etc
so i've learned nothing from you, except appreciation of your perverse sarcastic jokes i think
in fact i wouldn't have mentioned you, if not your constant picking on me, what it gives to you i don't know, but you said it already what it gives yesterday
I'm here, and watching, and I'm slow to work out exactly what I'm okay with and not okay with, and what would be a suitable policy to enforce that.
I am not okay with personal attacks. I haven't worked out a practical way to evaluate and police what is a personal attack and delete those comments.
shut the fuck up, stupid brain. no one wants to hear your stupid ideas.
Wow, you're like every teacher I ever had.*
I had a lot of suicidal thoughts as a pre-adolescent - starting around age 9 and lasting 5-6 years - but I don't think I was ever depressive in any clinical sense. It was more a sense of despair, if that distinction makes sense - life sucks (I felt very friendless), there's no prospect for change, therefore.... But I had a happy, supportive family, and I could never have done that to them, so the thoughts never progressed far.
In subsequent life I've generally been happy and cheerful, but even when the black moods return, it's almost never with thoughts of suicide. Probably the last time I had that thought was as a freshman in college, in association with the stairwell where some poor kid did in fact just kill himself ("Architect's Leap"). But that was straightforward, "My childhood dream of being an architect is failing because I suck, what do I do?" stuff. Turns out I'm a good architect, I just can't make any money at it. But I don't have life insurance, so suicide wouldn't help any now.
* Not really
Appearances to the contrary, 367 is not an attempt to get read's attention.
362
What I meant, though, was that if people are prone to getting their feelings hurt, my experience with this place (and the internet generally) is that it will absolutely happen. It wasn't my intention to add to it.
This place, and the Internet generally, and adult relations generally, and socializing generally... but then you get lonely, which can hurt one's feelings too...
You're making the hole deeper, apo. "Prone to getting their feelings hurt" doesn't cover this situation.
How you doing with 311, HG?
(I don't care, but is "effect on the target" going to be part of your metric? I'm thinking it shouldn't.)
I agree with Rob in 363.
This really has gone on too long.
okay, i have to go elsewhere and will be back by lunchtime, Megan, see you then
363 and 372 get it right. This has moved beyond "the tone of the place." If read's comments are the tone around here--wait, fuck that. Read's comments are not the tone around here and I strongly resent them.
People behave worse on the Internets than IRL, because they can't see the person they're talking to, so the empathy doesn't kick in so much, and because everyone on the Internet is an austistic LOLtard so they don't have empathy anyway. I think that is relevant to Apo's point.
I try to stay out of big metathreads 'cause I don't hang here enough to follow it all, and by name and nature I'm aligned with the forces of whimsy. However in this case I much say that if real people are gonna feel real hurt from one's actions, one should not perform those actions. So I'm saddened that Di is hurt (and read too, I would assume from her actions, though I don't know the history and I'm not really interested in RTFA).
People seem to believe I'm sticking up for read. The other front pagers could attest that definitely isn't the case but, you know, off-blog sanctity etc.
People seem to believe I'm sticking up for read.
No, I don't think you're sticking up for read. I think you're just demonstrating an interpersonal version of Broderism.
Naw, I don't believe you're sticking up for read, apo. I think you're observing that people get hurt on the internet.
On reflection, 378 isn't quite right. Or funny.
376: The problem, apo -- my problem, anyway -- is that you are suggesting in a world where people can hurt and be hurt, it is those who can be hurt who should go away. Not the kind of world I would advocate. But again, not my blog.
BTW, I'm working through the aforementioned lacuna, and now see that it was essear's travel liveblogging that set this whole thing off. Nice work, essear, you fuck.
what 363 and 364 said. Heck
You are totally in the right in this debate. Your feelings are reasonable responses to unreasonable harassment. I am very sorry read did this to you. She should not be welcome here. She should leave, not you.I'm also sorry I did not stick up for you yesterday in the previous thread. The argument was big, and I wasn't sure one more person offering their opinion would help, so I stayed away. That was a mistake.
One of my personal conflicys is that I may have hurt DK in the past, and she may remember that hurt better than I, and consider expressed empathy hypocritical and disingenuous, and go from there to "the blog/world is just a fucked-up zone full of assholes".
All I can say is that ay this moment I am sorry DK was hurt, that I am enraged at read, and wish DK would stay. Feels sincere today.
it is those who can be hurt who should go away
I'm not suggesting that they should go away, but that they almost always are the ones who do. Believe me, if I was king, pretty much the whole internet would be banned, which is why I'm not the ban arbitrator. And with that, I'm bowing out of this to attack a giant pile of work I have in front of me.
Oh, hey, Di, if you're still reading. Thanks for coming back today to say something to protect me.
And with that, I'm bowing out of this to attack a giant pile of work I have in front of me.
giant pile of work if you were worth anything you'd complete yourself
maybe not possible i guess, so worthless
most emotionally vulnerable
This is exactly right and very ugly. It takes courage to speak about personal matters. Pointed attacks aimed at vulnerabilities are shameful, cowardly.
i wish DK wouldn't leave, and I think read is really behaving very badly at the moment.
I still remain convinced I was right early, but that really isn't important at the moment, because I think that there is a difference between now and then, viz. the detailed nastiness.
If anybody can fix this I would be grateful; otherwise, fuckinghell it is not good.
(and thank you printmaker who gave me a lift home!)
I thought the earlier thread was a display of quaint ancient customs, which dictate that if you determine that someone else's personality flaws make her a bad mother, you are obliged to hound her to suicide so that her children can be raised in better surroundings. But now it's unclear what's going on.
for christ's sake, read, stop being such an asshole. everybody chill the fuck out. now I'm bowing out of this conversation to tackle the big pile of falling asleep I have in front of me. and by "falling asleep" I mean, "have sexual fantasies about zachary quinto."
there fucking better not be 895 archived comments in this thread when I get up, or I am going to be pissed off.
no, no, on posting I see read has simply declared victory, an excellent strategy in many cases, and now the affair is over. well done, unfogged, I know you guys wouldn't let me down.
everybody chill the fuck out.
I'm chill. You seem to be worked up about something here though. The constant "what you think is important isn't!" is getting kind of annoying to me, but no big deal.
But anyways, I missed saying this before: congratulations on the house and tenure and good things like that, and best of luck with the depression and non-good things.
Good night Al. Please let us know if you and imaginary Quinto do anything particularly entertaining tonight.
398: "entertaining" s/b "highly illogical".
Crap.
399: "entertaining" s/b "particularly entertaining"
Crap.
"399: "entertaining" s/b "particularly entertaining"
" s/b "Kobe!"
I'm hoping tonight's episode features that exploding hippie flower that makes Spock hang from tree limbs and recite poetry to Nurse Chapel.
rob, if you're around, thanks very much for posting those mixes yesterday. That was incredibly awesome of you, particularly given the mood around here at the time. Seriously, well done.
Di, if you're around, I hope you know that you have the overwhelming support of nearly everyone here. Take the time you need to feel okay about coming back, but then come back. Seriously, almost everyone here has your back. Even Apo, I'm nearly certain, if I'm reading between the lines correctly -- and I'm an excellent between-the-lines reader. (Hear that, promotion committee? I'm excellent at something.)
M/tch, if you're around, it seems worth saying, in case you're sweating it, that all of the equivalence in which you now find yourself mired seems totally ill-founded to me. Sure, you could have kept your mouth shut. But choosing not to do that doesn't make you a villain. In fact, it has meant a great deal to me when you've spoken up on my behalf in the past. (You have spoken up on my behalf, haven't you?)
403: Excuse me, do I KNOW you?
(Just kidding. And, did you already meet with the committee, or is that coming up? Either way, best of luck. If you need me to come around and, um, "persuade" anyone, just let me know.)
You know, I'm still chuckling over 25. People need to realize.
194: To me, sock puppet: a different handle and false identity someone adopts for him or herself, often to stage arguments with the original identity or, better yet, to chime in with support. A classic example would be John Lott's "Mary Rosh" sock puppet.
Sure. I included that under 'self-support and/or mastubatory purposes'. It's also classic for say, TV persons to go under a female name and 'voice'. Usually it was considered de riguer to add '(TV)' after a name like 'Sharilynn' or 'Savannah'. That's not strictly a sock unless they are attempting conceal their actual identity. Adopting an alternate identity for trolling purposes is very common as well, whether or not the poster participates under their 'real' identity (or sometimes two socks are run at the same time). All that is distinct from anonymity - the distinction being that a sock reports identity information that is untrue, as opposed to concealed or unreported information. Obviously, a transexual who was 'living as a female' is fine by me and not really a sock since they would actually living as a woman IRL, but strictly speaking, they aren't quite, yet, a woman. I would also count OPINIONATED GRANDMA as a sock, even though it is used by a wide number of people. That said, most socks are fine by me as long as they aren't malevolent. Which is why I haven't been inclined to say anything.
However, I very much do not care for socks deciding to go after people I like. However, before ogged died, he said he wanted everyone to wear the white gloves when commenting and the blue helmets mostly enforce this and I am fine with that for most purposes.
192: Also 190 is weird, and wrong.
324: patience, people, one more day and the experiment will be over
Yeah... I don't think I am; I tend to have a pretty good nose for this sort of thing. I might be wrong on some specific details, but I'm pretty sure I'm headed in the right direction. That said, I'm not really invested one way or the other (OG is entertaining, after all), except the part about not going after people. I would ask on how many occasions someone has to say something like, 'the experiment will be over' (I count three times so far) before catching on becomes mandatory.
max
['IYKWIM.']
I've somehow ended up with an Internet persona who's gay, Mormon, and occasionally smokes years-old weed.
I've been wracking My brain and for the life of Me I can't remember which day I created socks on.
303
... hook me up here, James B.
I tend to do things like playing solitaire on the computer endlessly. Or obsessively hitting refresh on unfogged threads. Things like that.
309
Hey read, if you have decided the marriage is over the right thing to do is to leave not to see how many times you can burn your husband's toast before he throws you out.
383
The problem, apo -- my problem, anyway -- is that you are suggesting in a world where people can hurt and be hurt, it is those who can be hurt who should go away. Not the kind of world I would advocate. But again, not my blog.
It isn't so simple. Some deranged people enjoy playing rugby.
||
B just linked to this post, which is a pretty thoughtful view of the Teabag march last weekend. But the part that I cherish is a discussion of how clean rightwingers leave the Mall, in contrast to the filth left behind by "those people":
I asked whether people who marched on behalf of abortion cleaned up after themselves, and I was told that no one knew, but that "Pro-Life marchers always clean up."|>I then asked if homosexual marchers cleaned up, and that brought the conversation to a thoughtful stop for a moment. One person said she didn't know, as she had never been to a homosexual march, and another said, "Oh, I think they would clean up!"
We are a very neat people. And if you are really lucky we divide all the perennials before we go home to sodomize each other.
411: Heh.
But I'm pretty sure "toast" s/b "pastry".
412: I need a Venn diagram here, James. Are all rugby-players deranged, or is it an overlap situation?
It's also classic for say, TV persons to go under a female name and 'voice'. Usually it was considered de riguer to add '(TV)' after a name like 'Sharilynn' or 'Savannah'. That's not strictly a sock
If it were the other way round, it would be a rolled-up sock.
413: Love the design flaw in the sign apparently intended to read "NO OBAMA HEALTH CARE", giving the message "NO HEALTH CARE". Also the "COMMUNIST CZARS" bit. No, you see, the Communists were actually against the...Oh, forget it.
417: Typical elitist liberal hair-splitting.
OT:
This is a scary video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUPMjC9mq5Y
418: When there's an elitist liberal march in DC, my sign will read: "the great task remaining before us...that government exasperated by the people, contemptuous of the people, desirous of an absolute minimum of contact with the people, shall not perish from the earth." It will be hand-painted, and the lettering will be in exquisite taste.
Well, your name is 4 all lowercase letters, and hmm, might suspicious that you're the one asking that question...may I see your papers, sir?
My papers? Why they're right here in my coat pocket -- HEY LOOK OVER THERE!
(mad scramble to the hills)
Joshing aside, it ain't me, babe. I'd die of shame.
read is the sockpuppet of ... ZOMBIE RONALD REGAN!!!
Donald Regan was a sockpuppet of Ronald Reagan. And vice versa.
Duh.
||
Since this has been a little bit of a suicide thread, maybe I'll refer back to an old conversation we had. I finally got to talk to an expert on farmer suicides. Got some of my questions answered:
Farmers kill themselves a lot, even considering that they are men and old, both categories that kill themselves at high rates.
Farmer suicide is the number one external (not disease related, like a heart attack) cause of death for farmers . Tractor roll-over is next, then animal-caused injury.
Farmworkers do not kill themselves, presumably because they are immigrants, who generally do not kill themselves. Catholicism and a strong family structure are also buffers against suicide and hispanic farmworkers tend to have both.
He didn't know whether fishermen also kill themselves a lot, so he couldn't tell me what would be different. I was curious about whether there was some kind of "attachment to the land" contributing factor, but he said it was more of a "farming is my identity" problem.
The chief factors are depression, perception of financial situation, and expectation of whether the farm can survive a downturn. Of those, I think the state could provide funding for counseling help for depression (the dude mentioned farmer-to-farmer phone hotlines), and, if it wanted to, assurance that a farm will get income to last out a drought.
Australia's drought has now seen about 20 grower suicides. Rumors are that California's drought has caused three dairyman suicides.
|>
429: Megan, thank you for passing that along. For whatever reason I find that particularly touching at the moment.
Related: since I didn't say it earlier, my sympathies to Alameda, pdf23ds, and everybody else talking about dealing with depression.
429: Yeah, "farming as my identity" jumped to mind as soon as you mentioned farmer suicide (I don't remember the old conversation, which doesn't mean I didn't participate). "It's who I am and what I do, and if I've failed at that . . . ."
Particularly for someone older, it's not like there are many appealing job prospects for a former full-time farmer.
I can also see an "attachment to the land" or "attachment to these animals" possibility for those with a strong sense of stewardship over their land and livestock, which in my experience is inversely related to farm/herd size.
If it's a second or more generation family farm, I can also see having the sense that one has squandered something given down as a trust from the parents, grandparents, etc.
OMG, you are supposed to divide perennials? Fuck. I think the daffodils have died back too far to divide. Maybe I can still divide the day lilies.
If only I were homosexual, then I would know these things!
Newspaper articles cite "attachment to animals", but only in the very manly sense of "having developed the quality of the herd for generations", and certainly not anything cute or fuzzy about your stock.
if your stock is fuzzy, you may have cooked it down too much.
if your stock is fuzzy, you may have cooked it down too much.
Or left it unrefrigerated for too long.
Speaking of interesting social phenomena: hikikomori.
I now a decent number of ranchers, dairypersons, and farmers of the small, free range, grassfed variety, and all of them, men and women, are passionate about the welfare of their animals and love spending time with them.
Oh, and speaking of fungus.
434.1: I'm pretty sure you can divide bulbs in the fall just fine. But I'm straight, so I could be wrong.
Hey Megan, how did the pie contest go?
434, 441: Should I do something with my daffodils? They are in the second year and flowered very nicely the whole summer. I don't want to lose them as they did nothing their first year, so I'm guessing replacements would suck for a year.
Small field this year, but nevertheless a good Pie Contest. A strawberry-rhubarb won, followed by a lemon merengue, then a green curry chicken pot pie. My re-painted screen door won the presentation award from the That's Not a Pie division.
Neither of my pies won. The wine-apple-pear pie was too bland. Next time, no pear, more wine.
My other pie, a corn-flavored custard surprised people. I thought it was very good and interesting, but I'm not sure the masses were ready for corn in sweet dessert.
I ordered corn pudding as a side recently, and assumed it would be savory. Wrong. It was basically vanilla pudding with corn in it. Not terrible, more just confusing. Why did they think I would want to eat that with my dinner?
Congrats on the screen door! We knew you could do it!
Gotta tell you. A nice lattice on a standard pie would have been a lot less trouble.
Speaking of competitions, back in school we had a band dance where the theme was "socks". Everyone wore socks. I forgot to find any fancy socks, though, (not that I had any,) and just wore the plain whites I had on. There was a sock contest, of course. I think five prizes? I won "most manly". I'm pretty sure what clenched it was the hole in the heel of my right sock.
I have to be honest though, Megan: I expected your pies this year would have had more protein in them.
385 BTW, I'm working through the aforementioned lacuna, and now see that it was essear's travel liveblogging that set this whole thing off. Nice work, essear, you fuck.
You discovered my evil plan! But then I went and got myself stuck with nigh-useless internet access and lost the opportunity to take part in the "fun".
443: You have daffodils that flowered the whole summer? Dude, that's like the goose that laid the golden egg. Don't touch them.
453: They didn't flower very much after July, but we've always had at least one bloom going. It's been a weird year weather-wise, so that might be it. I fertilized once, in August, and watered a bit, but otherwise haven't touched them.
445: Sounds like fun! And I'm intrigued by the corn flavored custard. I think I would like it.
The tropics are sadly lacking in crocuses, daffodils, and lilacs. OTOH, there's something in bloom 24/7/365, so.
Thanks twice! My fear is that the shiny new door means I have to paint the house. I don't happen to have $15K on hand, nor two idle months.
456: Indeed. Artisinal hand-sketched paisley! It gives it a very protein-rich look.
a very protein-rich look
The superlative compliment.
I believe you mean "superlativist".
24/7/365
The redundancy of this phrase has always bothered me. It should be 24/365 or 24/7/52.
464: What's redundant? 24 days a month, 7 months a year, for 365 years.
464: You mean 24/7/52 plus 1 day.
464: "24/7/365" is to avoid single-point failure vulnerabilities, like those in the sprinkler system in Tower 7. But I guess some people care more about looks/elegance than safety.
Hmmm. Maybe we shouldn't pile on Sifu like that. Wouldn't want him to qui . . . um, never mind.
Gotta tell you. A nice lattice on a standard pie would have been a lot less trouble.
But much, much less effective at keeping bugs out of the house.
Naw, it is a thousand sq-ft bungalow. You don't think that would take two months for one person to do it by hand? I thought I was underestimating. Even with setting up scaffolding and trim?
||
The hikikomori link made me wonder how bullying varies across cultures. A friend of mine claims that bullying is very rare in southern Europe, for example.
|>
I QUIT THE BOG.
470: Do you need to scrape? Do you own scaffolding/ladders? Wood siding?
2 months doesn't seem impossible to me, but then I've been painting the trim on my brick house for 8 years now, so what do I know?
Scaffolding? For a thousand-sq-ft bungalow?
470: Maybe if it is 1000 sq ft on five stories or if the trim is covered in very intricate murals.
475: they're stacked vertically, 1000 feet tall.
I didn't read the wikipedia article, but I once read an article that described Hikikomori as sort of tapping the same sort of part of the brain that anorexia does, loosely speaking. They're both definitely cultural-specific expressions of something deeper and wronger.
Actually, if you have siding, what might be a good way to go would be to hire someone to spray the siding (will only take a couple days and cost a grand or two) and then you paint the trim. You could do several windows per day (assuming no scraping), which really just leaves you with the porch and eaves. And, even with scaffolding and the like, eaves on a bungalow aren't such a big deal. You could probably get them done in one (intense) week taken off work.
Or just take it easy and paint the house over the next few years, spiraling out from your (gorgeous) screen door.
475: they're stacked vertically, 1000 feet tall.
Megan lives at Wayside school?
I've been painting the trim on my brick house for 8 years now
You should do fewer paisley per square inch.
Scrape, probably not much. 'Cept that always means a little and adds a day or two.
Don't own scaffolding, have one ladder that is too short. (The house has a tall attic.)
Wood siding yes.
I would, naturally, end up doing a two-tone trim.
Dear god, you've got me thinking about personally painting my house. I had successfully pushed that that project to the back of my mind.
We just had the exterior of our house painted. Cost about $4500 and was done in four days, with us doing nothing except cleaning up in preparation. It's more serviceable than artistic, but unless costs in California are unbelievably higher than they are here, your cost estimate or your time estimate or both are way high.
482: We got somebody to paint our house (bigger, two stories) for under $3,000. They scraped where needed. Of course, we only had one trim color.
482: Don't them bully you into it, Megan! It's no fun!
459: Just trash the door a little bit. Problem solved.
I was completely guessing on the cost estimate. I have no idea about that, so it is likely to be too high.
Time estimate: took me a loooong time to paint the interior in unreasonably ornate detail (three colors per room). The patching and prep were a fair amount of that.
Outside could be cruder, except that I would know and then how would I ever sleep again?
JRoth, I love your idea of having someone else do the siding. Now I'm pondering a ladder that would get me up to my eaves.
excuse me, 396 or whoever, would you please delete 365
i didn't mean it, it seems upon some soul searching
or consider this as undoing the apology
Outside could be cruder, except that I would know and then how would I ever sleep again?
It might be different for you because of all the exercise, but I find that after a day of climbing up and down ladders, I can hardly not sleep.
If one of the themes of this thread is whether pests can be kept out of a place without sacrificing aesthetics or a general spirit of bonhomie, I should say that yesterday evening I happened to see Megan's screen door up close and personal as paisleys were being applied, and it's a gorgeous addition to a very friendly porch.
Thanks, k-sky. It was great to meet you. Glad you got to use the porch.
Scrape, probably not much. 'Cept that always means a little and adds a day or two.
If you're looking for advice: Spend most of your time and/or money on prepping and priming, it's worth it in the long run. Brush in the primer, then you spray the top coats. Also, buy yourself a tall enough ladder (there should be several available locally through Craigslist). If you don't want to keep it, you can always resell it; either way, it's cheaper than renting. Also also: have a work party; you could get it done in a weekend.
i didn't mean it, it seems upon some soul searching
Don't worry, read. I knew before the end of the comment that you didn't mean it. Best of luck in searching for that soul!
487: Your house is a box full of smaller boxes. The combined surface areas of the smaller boxes is far, far greater than that of the overall box.
If I may, I recommend Benjamin Moore's Aura paint. The stuff goes on beautifully and doesn't need primer. On my frieze (~25' above grade), I only needed 1 coat over primer (I primed before I bought the Aura). Point being, you will definitely not need more than 2 total coats for your trim. Oh, and the stuff dries wicked-fast. You're low humidity there, right? You'll totally be able to do, say, 2 coats of Trim A and 1 coat of Trim B in a single day - maybe even all 4 coats in a long day.
OK, gotta go bake chocolate chip-pumpkin bread.
Yes, I am familiar with the prepping and priming. In my experience it always runs long, when what you really want to be doing it getting some of that gorgeous color on the walls.
I'm still thinking it would take one person a couple months of several hours a day to do it herself. When Chris did his giant house I think it took him a day just to set up the scaffolding.
Your house is a box full of smaller boxes.
I prefer to think of mine as a machine for living.
a tall enough ladder (there should be several available locally through Craigslist
Wow, that's a great idea I never thought of. Esp. since I really need to buy a second 28' ladder + 12-16' staging if I'm ever going to get this job done. Craigslist is a lot less intimidating than dropping $600 at Home Depot.
MH is Corbu!
I'm really not sure you need to sweat scaffolding for your little house, Megan. Esp. if you're working solo, it's a huge setup for what will be only a few hours of prep & painting per stage. You'll only gain a little efficiency on the painting end. IMO.
Very good point about the relative surface areas.
Naw, I'm not convinced that scaffolding is worth it in my case either. I was more trying to make the point that the subtasks take a long time.
Yup, I got a 32' for about $150. Now, if I can just get finished with one last soul-destroying project so I can get away from the computer and finish painting the damn house.
500: Holy shit. If I understand you correctly, you're going up 20 some feet in the air on a board set between two ladders. I'd rather eat food that Brock said was spoiled.
505: That's what (nearly) all my friends said, which is why it took all summer to get just the north soffit and fascia replaced and painted.
But it's gorgeous.
12" wide plank, btw. Just to pat myself on the back.
I second the recommendation to put in lots of time on prep work. I painted dorms in college, and the general rule is that prep should take 2-3 times as long as the actual painting. Cutting corners just extends the amount of time spent painting and increases the chances of things looking like shit. Also there's a tendency to think of the effort in terms of area, which is incorrect. Painting a big flat surface takes very little time. Most of the time is spent working on corners and edges. Doing the finer brushwork is fiddly and can be annoying, but it's actually quite fun if you get mildly baked and put on some music with a good medium-fast tempo.
Also, consider getting a pressure washer and just blasting the hell out of the walls for a first order prep. You'll need to let things dry before you paint, but you can do a hell of a lot of prep work in an afternoon just going to town with the pressure washer, plus it's hella fun.
A friend's dad was a professional painter/decorator. When the friend got married his dad got a bunch of us together to decorate a flat for him and his wife. It was pretty amazingly how quickly it could be done if you had good equipment and someone in charge who really knew what they were doing. The rest of us just ran about being monkeys while he told us what to do, and by the end of the day the entire place had been decorated, carpets laid, etc.
Probably doesn't need to be said given Megan's professional background, but check for lead paint before diving in too deep, especially if you're thinking about using a power washer. Kits are available for testing at just about any home improvement/hardware store. (And power washers are awesome and available for rent by the day.)