I like baby carrots, and those veggie chips from Whole Foods (who knows if the latter are any better than regular chips).
Maybe I'll finally getting around to making those damn kale chips you people rave about.
Make me some!
The kale chips are pretty fragile -- I don't know if they'd hold up for packing them to snack at your desk. Good, though.
THE HOLLOWED SKULL OF A DEFEATED ENEMY CHAMPION!
FILLED WITH THOSE DRIED, UNSALTED PEAS AND CORN KERNELS, PERHAPS!
a more reasonable keep-at-my-desk snack alternative
4
We know the hell of a Parisian street, And Venice, cool in water and in stone; The scent of lemons in the southern heat; The fuming piles of soot-begrimed Cologne.We love raw flesh, its color and its stench.
We love to taste it in our hungry maws.
Are we to blame then, if your ribs should crunch,
Fragile between our massive, gentle paws?
You've left out the key detail -- which trail mix is it that you find phenomenal.
The trail mix that I find irresistible when I buy it is this. Thankfully for me it is not only somewhat expensive, it's also only available via mail order. So most of the time I don't have any around. But darn is it good.
I'll eat these Wasabi-Soy Almonds until I hurt myself; they're at the perfect crunchy/salty/hot point where I find them irresistible.
9: I love those so much.
(The Trader Joe's Rosemary Marcona Almonds are really good too.)
I used to keep two things at my desk for snacking purposes: a Costco bag of trail mix (I think it was like $9-10 for a 4.5lb bag) and a jar of peanut butter, with spoon. Now I pretend not to snack as much, so I just make near-daily trips to the vending machine.
which trail mix is it that you find phenomenal.
Harris Teeter's store-brand Fruit & Nut mix.
Trail mix is a perfectly reasonable snack-at-your-desk food. The issue here is portion control. And the way you do that is by packing yourself a small amount of it for each day instead of having the whole bag at your desk.
You can avoid snacking entirely by eating a full packet of bacon for breakfast. Just FYI.
I used to keep two things at my desk for snacking purposes:
Worth mentioning: I like having snacks available; if I don't have enough lunch my blood sugar will crash around 3:30, and I have to eat something.
But I have also learned that it's worth having some sugar-free candy in my desk for the times when I'm not hungry, just frustrated by work and I want a flavor to placate/distract myself.
packing yourself a small amount of it for each day
OR by having such a giant bag of it that you very, very seldom reach the point where you think "oh, I might as well just finish it. It worked surprisingly well.
14: How is bacon paleolithic? It's all smoked. And sliced. And from a domesticated pig.
I thought you had to catch your own squirrels.
TJs sells these snack pack sized things of salted and I think fried nori squares, that I find pretty damn tasty.
7, 12: Let me ask a different but related question: what, more specifically, is in the compelling trail mix.
The cavemen totally WOULD have eaten bacon. You know it's just the kind of thing they would have done. It's kind of like original intent in constitutional interpretation.
(The semi-non-insane point is that you can substitute large quantities of fat for sugar/grains, and you get hungry less often).
You know it's just the kind of thing they would have done.
As a believer in the living constitution, I buy this.
I don't the issue is hunger so much as the ennui brought about by the meaninglessness of our labor.
The semi-non-insane point is that you can substitute large quantities of fat for sugar/grains, and you get hungry less often
I have a large bowl of this cereal for breakfast and it does a very good job of keeping me from feeling hungry until lunch and doesn't feel like a carb overload.
I haven't bothered to re-search the science behind it, but I do think the "sprouted whole grain" aspect of it keeps my body from processing it into sugar as quickly as a more processed flour.
Cavemen would have eaten pretty much anything they could find that didn't kill the brave first eaters. I mean, they were CAVEMEN!
(please join me in imagining that last word as pronounced by Captain Caveman)
15 gets it right.
I try to have snacks that I don't find particularly addictive but don't find repulsive either, which have flavors that don't require immeidate replenishment. Salted almonds for the one craving and crystallized ginger for the eotehr.
I also endorse 15. For me, it's less about the blood sugar than the flavor dosing. I just need someone to pack my lunch for me to remember to portion out some wasabi peas, or something.
It's kind of like original intent in constitutional interpretation.
I vote we give Halford special dispensation for his analogy-ban violation, because this is too good.
22: I eat that! Well, the gingery one. It's really good, but sometimes I feel like I should look into whatever their religious dealio is.
Instead of the lawyers v. the elite college people, we could divide up by bacon:
Bacon-lovers v. Grass-eaters (oudemia, stanley, Kraab, m/tch, etc)
15 et al. Yes, boredom is a big snacking motivator for me too, now that you mention it. I haven't taken any action based on that fact, but maybe now I will. Thanks, Unfogged!
(speaking of action based on Unfogged: iPad acquired as christmas gift for wife who's currently home with new baby! chances that I manage to keep it from her until Christmas: 0. chances that I manage to keep it from her past this evening: less than 10%)
And on preview, I second 27.
I am kind of on one of those paleo diets, but I have to admit that Hunter gatherers eat as much honey as they can find. It is their favorite food.
Walgreens has a good selection of nuts and trail mixes that are not that expensive.
24: Crystallized ginger is brilliant -- I like it a lot, but I want to nibble one piece slowly and then not have any more. Normally, I don't have snack food at my desk because anything I like at all I'll hoover down at high speed until it's gone (I don't eat an unusual amount, but do that by staying more than arms length away from anything I don't think would be a good idea to eat immediately. Any room I'm in, I'm either eating, or there's no food in reach.) But crystallized ginger I could keep around.
I'm eating smoked almonds. I gave up sweets because I really don't want to buy new pants it's advent. I've stopped my usual snack of Swedish Fish or jelly beans.
Speaking of diets, this diet was pitched to me (for
my daughter) by several different sources.
http://vimeo.com/10507542
Smoked almonds are fucked up. Every time I try to eat them I eat all of them.
35: You can lick the smokey salt from them and put them back in your co-worker's bowl.
I don't the issue is hunger so much as the ennui brought about by the meaninglessness of our labor lives.
Peep gets it (almost) exactly right in 22. At least, that's been my experience. I've recently tried rice cakes & celery, thinking that if it's just munching due to stress, I should aim at the lowest-calorie items possible. Although really, rice cakes actually have a fair number. Is it actually true, that old factoid about celery consuming more calories in chewing/digestion than they provide?
I was once at a wedding where there were little packets of jordan almonds for each guest. Like 3-4 white ones, and 1 green in each packet. The green ones were so smoky they tasted kind of like pork--it was totally unexpected and not delicious, even after the first person at the table warned the rest of us.
Is it actually true, that old factoid about celery consuming more calories in chewing/digestion than they provide?
That is true for any food, if you chew it for long enough.
Pistachio nuts.
My brother. Also almonds, tossed with a drop of oil, coarse salt, and rosemary.
My standard desk snack is trail mix, but I mix it myself from various TJ's dried fruits and nuts, a wide variety of which I keep on hand anyway. I haven't checked carefully, but I would guess it's cheaper than buying pre-made trail mix.
If measuring out daily snack rations is too much of a pain, you can always just try tricking your brain. There was a study a few years ago, which I'm now failing to find online, in which office workers were given clear or opaque containers of candy, which were to be placed either on the worker's desk or across the room. Clear, handy container: actual snacking higher than self-reported level. Opaque, far-away container: higher self-reported level than with the clear, handy container, but lower actual snacking. (Of course I have no memory of the robustness of the analysis. Could be nonsense!)
38.last: I remember seeing somewhere that it's false, but celery really is so low calorie that it's not importantly false. You could eat celery until you got tired and you'd still starve.
You son of a bitch, putting me with fucking rosemary. Asshole.
It would be useful if I could find some self-restraint where crystallized ginger is concerned. I will snarf that stuff down by the handful, given half a chance.
but sometimes I feel like I should look into whatever their religious dealio is.
I assume that they're religious/hippies rather than religious/authoritarian but it might be good to actually check.
On the other hand maybe I'm better off not knowing. I eat a lot of their cereal.
I thought yogurt was the official snack of Unfogged.
Move over then. I wouldn't mind fucking Rosemary.
I thought yogurt was the official snack of Unfogged.
I've eaten 1.5kg of yogurt, plus 600g granola, over the past 24 hours. Stress eating, hello!
I don't even want to go into detail about what Roesmary and I are doing.
I feel you, man, for I too am weak in the face of trail mix. And it certainly is healthier than a lot of snacking alternatives, and in theory the nuts promote satiety and thus curb your cravings, but the stuff sure is calorie-dense. I've realized I can't control myself around big bags of the stuff, so now I only buy single-serving packages. Less cost effective, but that's the price I pay for my lack of self-control around copious amounts of food.
Being with me almost got Rosemary sent to prison.
Hey, that's the girl next door you're talking about there!
I've eaten 1.5kg of yogurt
I like to spell it "yoghurt" because then you can split the syllables after the 'g'. I'm working on a joke about a Swedish guy who got hurt while running.
Saltiest thread ever?
It's making me thirsty!
what, more specifically, is in the compelling trail mix
Let's see here: pineapple tidbits, mango-flavored pineapple, raisins, almonds, banana chips, yogurt(!)-covered raisins, cranberries, cashews, and mango strips.
As for pistachios, I've mentioned before that these (specifically, the salt and pepper ones) are awesome and often at my desk.
I find her rustic simplicity completely disarming.
I want almonds and I want them right now.
All you yogurt eaters probably know this already, but the other day I took some thick Arabic strained yogurt, mixed it with some old, crystallized buckwheat honey, and it was great.
I don't even want to go into detail about what Roesmary and I are doing.
She does get pretty crazy...
thick Arabic strained yogurt, mixed it with some old, crystallized buckwheat honey
Strained yogurt and apricot preserves is also a classic middle eastern pairing and can be very good.
58.1: You lost me at "mango-flavored pineapple," but to each their own. Also, are you sure you don't like dried fruit, because that's a lot of dried fruit.
58.2: That website frightens and confuses me.
62, 66: What do they do with the yoghurt juice? Or it is just water?
Also, are you sure you don't like dried fruit, because that's a lot of dried fruit.
I *know*. Who have I become?
Yoghurt juice is basically whey, and I don't know what they do with it, but I use in baked goods. Excellent in cornbread, for instance.
70: You're a ranch hand in New Mexico. You've just seen a light shoot across the night sky. Look in the rear view mirror of the truck.
I often confuse my own name with that of "Harry Dean Stanton."
I don't the issue is hunger so much as the ennui brought about by the meaninglessness of our labor.
Because we don't make things anymore, right?
74: Come back to me. You know I can give you meaning.
This thread is activating my hunger. Damn you all.
77: Look out, peep! Annelid Gustator's on a hunger rampage! And you're, well, a peep!
78: First I have to go on a leaving work rampage. Then I have to go on a working out rampage. Then I might get around to devouring some peeps.
43: I thought I read that *just chewing* won't make them negative calorie, but that their woody/fiberyness takes quite a bit of going after to break down once it's inside you, and all that work does make them a negative calorie food. I have no idea if that is actually true.
79 cont'd: but I do promise some peeps a day of reckoning they won't last long enough to forget.
80- I totally lack the ability to find any comment on a past thread, no matter how recent, but I thought Blume just debunked that last week or so.
Thanks. Apparently the thoroughness and rigor of said debunking was greatly magnified in my memory.
How long can this go one before I have to feel bad for starting it?
88: So what I read was right -- it can result in negative calories, but not from chewing -- from one's body working to break down the cellulose.
Can I just say how much I hate that Snopes seems to have blocked cutting-and-pasting?
87: This far, if I get my hands on you.
You feel it's bogging down the thread?
You feel it's bogging down the thread?
Nothing can hold me down. I'm free as the waves on the ocean.
89.last: I give them a break on that for being so fucking right on almost everything. And if you're really desperate you can cut-and-paste from viewing the page source. For instance:
Celery has about 6 calories per 8-inch stalk, making it a dieter's staple. Although it's loaded with latent energy, the amount we are capable of extracting from it is negligible thanks to the plant's cellulose composition. Its ingestion can result in negative calories, but it is a fallacy to believe that effect has to do with energy expended in chewing. Though chewing might feel like a somewhat strenuous activity, it burns about the same amount of energy as watching paint dry. It is the bodily energy devoted to the digestion of the green stalks that exhausts calories.
Mormons just came to my door. I did not offer them a snack. (Mormons! In Austin!)
95: You should have offered them baked potatoes. Many people think they take multiple chives, but nowadays that's really only a small subset of LDS adherents.
Snopes is so often right I'm surprised there isn't a conservative version devoted to chain letter rebunking.
96: This way lies madness, young Stanley.
Oh man, Stanley, you should not have gone with 96. I am literally placing the order for the Anton Chigurh air powered bolt shooter thing right now.
87: How long can this go on
You appear to have confused me with a coal mine.
Celery has about 6 calories per 8-inch stalk
Especially girthy celery has up to 8.625 calories.
Okay, so you lot seem like the sort who could answer me this. And a thread about the munchies seems a good place to ask it:
What would it cost someone to use marijuana on average of three times per week?
(And no, this is not for my personal budget planning.)
102 if there is one thing I have learned in my job, it's that the price of illegal drugs varies wildly. Well, that and that there's no formal word for "pimp" that sounds right in a legal context and you have to either talk around it or just say pimp.
(Some googling unearthed "procurer" but it feels a bit Victorian and one is not confident it will be understood.)
That's a question with a lot of variables, including where you are, how much you're smoking in a sitting, whether you're doing it alone or socially, what quality pot you're smoking, etc. Around here, high-quality pot runs about $100 retail for a quarter-ounce. Three days a week, smoking by yourself most of the time, at a rate lower than "from the moment I get home until I pass out in front of the television", that amount would probably last a couple months or so.
Not from personal experience either, but from some research I've been doing: very roughly, assuming "doing" is 0.5g, about $18.
Highly variable to be sure - my working estimate is with sinsemilla-grade as $350/oz. in California.
Thanks guys. That's more or less what I wanted to know -- i.e., it sounds like a not especially expensive habit, in the same ballpark as social drinking or heartfelt smoking.
It would be useful if I could find some self-restraint where crystallized ginger is concerned. I will snarf that stuff down by the handful, given half a chance.
You and me both. The quantity that I allowed myself to consume while pregnant was truly staggering.
Per unit intoxication marijuana is much cheaper than alcohol.
The low cost explains the private sector's lack of interest in developing dog-that-craps-pot technology.
109: Taxes and the PA Liquor Control Board will do that.
107: You haven't priced smokes in a while.
Moby, what am I missing? Advent seems like the worst possible time of year to give up sweets. There's gingerbread, for chrissakes.
111: And on the other side of the ledger is a black market premium.
113: My hobby, weighing myself before and after I use the toilet has revealed that I'm gaining weight or the Michael Jordan of constipation.
Oh, okay. "Because I'm gaining weight" is a perfectly valid reason to give up sweets. "Because it's advent" isn't.
I can only do self-denial for money or religion, so I started with Advent.
As far as I can figure, the Michael Jordan of constipation would be someone who produces a minimum of bullshit.
42: There was a study a few years ago, which I'm now failing to find online, in which office workers were given clear or opaque containers of candy, which were to be placed either on the worker's desk or across the room. Clear, handy container: actual snacking higher than self-reported level. Opaque, far-away container: higher self-reported level than with the clear, handy container, but lower actual snacking.
I believe this, though I hadn't really thought about it. I tend to keep snacks in another room at work. For the type we're talking about, that will be homemade 'trail mix' -- just very basic mixed dried fruit and nuts, often just raisins and almonds/cashews/walnuts/sunflower seeds, unsalted just because I'll eat more if they're salted, and have to keep wiping my fingers off -- in a semi-opaque tupperware container. It's a decision process to decide to go get them in the late afternoon, and I inevitably have some, not a lot, then put them away in the other room again. Some of that is just a conservation impulse: if I finish these, there will be none left for tomorrow or whenever I next want some, and then I will be sad.
Does crystallized ginger keep indefinitely? I have a container that's several, actually many, years old and keep assuming that it will be good forever.
Does crystallized ginger keep indefinitely?
Maybe, but Mary Ann's still much, much sweeter.
If you put it in a box with a radioactive isotope and a bomb that will blow up the box if the isotope decays, crystallized ginger keeps indeterminately.
Have we seen this yet? If someone wants to explain it to me, I'll be in the bathroom, screaming.
I can only do self-denial for money or religion, so I started with Advent.
I'm particularly fond of John the Baptist's "Gettin' Shredded for Jesus" solo in the Messiah.
124: Phillip Michael Thomas aged very well. (I have the sound off, so I may not have gotten the horror.)
You haven't priced smokes in a while.
Sadly, this is false. Perhaps I just don't have a good gauge of what "heartfelt" smoking requires.
124: They get extra bonus points for having Fab Morvan lip-syncing.
Perhaps I just don't have a good gauge of what "heartfelt" smoking requires.
I assumed it meant you felt you heart giving out when you took the stairs too quick.
Now that they switched to calling Camel Lights "Camel Blue", smoking feels like I'm giving my heartfelt support to the Democratic Party.
Oh yeah, and an explanation for the video here.
124: A wonderful sendoff for "mannen med den nakne pistol".
Well, that and that there's no formal word for "pimp" that sounds right in a legal context and you have to either talk around it or just say pimp.
You could got to old fashioned slang instead of old fashioned formal speech and refer to them as 'mackerels'.
I feel that I am going to be compelled to place a substantial order from Nuts Online.
124: Wow, I didn't know things had gone so badly for Glenn Close and Kathleen Turner. Description at one site: Every C-lister on Earth (and Glenn Close?), lipsynching the Beatles on a Norwegian beach.
135: Be careful to get the food retail one and not the discount vasectomy one.
I assumed it meant you felt you heart giving out when you took the stairs too quick.
That happens at $5 a week worth of smoking.
124 Somebody linked to that one today already. My take from getting about half way through: Katrina Witt, hotter in her mid thirties than any much younger skating star.
102: What would it cost someone to use marijuana on average of three times per week?
As Apo said, many, many variables are at play here. Of course, there are often discounts if you are buying in quantity, especially at the lower end of the price range. I've seen quads of very mediocre stuff go for $25, and an oz of the same for $75, but somehow that discount never scales up for the good stuff.
If you're just looking to get high for an hour or so before you go to bed, a fairly popular way of doing things, you might need only 3-4 tokes, which means a regular bowl could conceivably last you 3 nights. So a quarter ounce could last quite a long time. Alternatively, you could spend $100 a quad on really decent stuff, smoke pretty heavily (and/or with friends) and go through an ounce or so a month, so like $300-$400.
And then if you're serious about it, a real connoisseur, shit, you can spend REAL money on weed. That's the kind that has some fancy name indicating which High Times-approved strains were crossed to produce it.
136: From this I discern that you're not a "Nip/Tuck" fan.
(Per Wikipedia, she has rheumatoid arthritis and the drugs she was on (plus the booze she was drinking to kill the pain) caused her weight gain.)
141: I was just commenting on the fact that either of them felt compelled to participate in the video.
Speaking of drugs, did I get high at some point this evening without realizing it, or am I really listening to a TAL bit about a chicken puppet opera that's sung in Italian?
140: you might need only 3-4 tokes
Wow, I've apparently become an incredible lightweight; either that or most people don't inhale (much). Or they're smoking dirtweed. Or.
Then again, what means "a regular bowl"? At 3-4 tokes/night, a regular bowl might last 3 nights? So this is a largish bowl. I don't even know what kind of bowls people smoke out of these days; I thought people pretty much kept to bongs or one-hitters.
Not to get technical about it or anything.
124: Yeah, I didn't think it was particularly inexplicable. Same gimmick as my friends who take a Polaroid of everyone who visits their studio. Except boringer.
But be that as it may, Right Said Fred are remarkably well-preserved. I would not mind partying with them at all.
Or they're smoking dirtweed.
I've heard "ditchweed" but never "dirtweed."
144: Well, it depends on how high you want to get, doesn't it? I mean, if you can do one or two hits of halfway decent stuff, and that's all you need, that's great. I'd call that somewhere around the "Enhancement Smoker" part of the continuum.
I mean, the folx I've known who are really serious about their mota hardly even consider it getting high if they don't repack the bowl at least once in a session. Most of those people are pretty low-functioning if they are not stoned though, and in my experience they constitute a fairly small minority of regular smokers.
146: 'Tis an old-fashioned term, perhaps, but it was the term.
I'd call that somewhere around the "Enhancement Smoker" part of the continuum.
Got it. And that sounds about right.
I don't know many people any more who smoke much more seriously than that on a casual, weeknightly basis. There are those who, yeah, function better for certain purposes (making art, chiefly) when stoned, but even they have had to find another way by now. New Year's Eve is a different matter.
Are you implying she only slept with me because she was stoned?
I would get busy with Rosemary right now, but it's that time of the month.
My supplier is a neighbor's nanny, who has a grower's card and produces the best pot ever. $80 for a quarter, and it's like loaves-and-fishes, Hannukah-miracle stuff; a small bit seems to last forever. As in, I could see a three-times-a-week smoker making a half ounce last a year.
So the guy with the PhD posts the video 124 like 8 hours after I do and gets a response. I'm off to join the tea party in protest at your elitism, liberals. Can Weman come back and explain this all to us?
152: in Eugene one used to get (late nineties) urchins offering "hey man $40 eighths" as one walked by. Interesting that all this time and the per unit price is roughly unchanged. Though I guess that they probably weren't selling their highest quality produce.
154: Pricing has been like Apple's here as long as I can remember, about 25 years for both. Your basic desktop Mac cost about two grand for ages regardless of advances in processor speed and storage capacity; similarly, you can still get a quarter ounce of pot for eighty, but now it's medical-grade high-THC weed in multiple varieties.
153: Your description made me think it was a librarian video, and not the good kind.
155 was I, in case that wasn't obvious.
In other news of global importance....
OT but our government is saying that no promising diplomats wanted by State I mean do you really want a person in SIPA who is thinking of becoming an FSO who isn't closely reading all this stuff and discussing it with friends? What does this say about them?
And the French maybe even worse Eric Besson, the minister in charge of the internet, is calling for a policy of first warning anybody who hosts Wikileaks, and then prosecuting them if they don't immediately see the light.
"On ne peut héberger des sites Internet qualifiés de criminels et rejetés par d'autres Etats en raison d'atteintes qu'ils portent à leurs droits fondamentaux, écrit Eric Besson. Je vous demande de bien vouloir m'indiquer dans les meilleurs délais possibles quelles actions peuvent êtres entreprises afin que ce site Internet ne soit plus hébergé en France et que tous les opérateurs ayant participé à son hébergement puissent être dans un premier temps sensibilisés aux conséquences de leurs actes, et dans un deuxième temps placés devant leurs responsabilités."
Fuckety fuck fuck. I think the publication of the cables by Wikileaks was irresponsible, and will have a negative impact on good government functioning, but the reaction of US and now French governments is much more disturbing, if only because they're the goddamn governments, not some crusading anarchist egomaniac.
158: Where do we send the check?
For some reason, I was positive that Lou Ferrigno was dead. Also, 124 is a fascinating look at what mostly beautiful people look like when they reach the age where they stop trying so hard to look good.
a quarter's going to last us how many months now with the what now? I mean...um, maybe I've never had weed and smoked it fewer than 7 days a week? all alone--yeah, I guess I could see that. I would sit down to smoke 1 joint or a decently packed bowl...scratch all this, I was wasted all the time, so never mind.
Is anyone else seeing status messages on Facebook urging people to change their profile pictures to cartoons in order to fight child abuse? I'm... not seeing the logic.
165: Yeah, as FB memes go that seems to be one of the dumber ones.
I hadn't, but a search on youropenbook.org says it's quite the thing.
The goal? To not see a human face on FB until Monday, December 6th.
The reasoning? Got me.
Further Googling reveals that some people think it is to "raise awareness", while others state that it will "prevent future abuse". God, people are morons.
(Someone said to me yesterday: "do you realize you're completely unable to keep a look of overwhelming contempt from crossing your face whenever someone says something you think is stupid?")
You could do underwhelming contempt for a change.
Speaking of snacks, a friend and I are going to soon inaugurate the Anarchist Soup Society & Federated Equitable Eating Team.
hai, quick question. Lets say there is mental illness that runs in the family, as well as being raised in conservative xian 'values'. And that sister (successful and not conservative) wants to know what meds i've taken, and whats worked and what hasn't.
do i mention that ssris=sexual bad? I mean, it seems obvious, but i get squicked while typing the email (plus discount a few drinks)
168: you gotta work on that essear, you're missing out on a crucial life skill. you can practice in front of the mirror with fox news on. just make sure you don't smoke a blunt right before.
If anything vaguely related to breasts (sexual innuendo, the color pink, etc.) helps promote breast cancer awareness, then by analogy anything vaguely related to children ought to help child abuse awareness.
Simply Red singer is boy who couldn't say no
'I regret the philandering," says Mick Hucknall, a man who, by his own estimation, had sex with more than 3,000 women in a three-year stretch in the mid-80s. "In fact, can I issue a public apology through the Guardian? They know who they are and I'm truly sorry."
"I like good food and I've always had a very natural empathy with women," he says. "A red-headed man is not generally considered to be a sexual icon, but when I had the fame, oh my God, it went crazy. Between 1985 and 1987, I would sleep with about three women a day, every day. I never said no.Three different women, no repeats, day in, day out for three years? That sounds sort of nightmarish, and I don't mean for the women.
124: I'm not saying that I can defend this reaction in any way, but I found the video inexplicably touching.
I dunno, maybe (cf. 163) because of the idea that these people who spent a lot of time trying to be all glamorous seem to have come down to earth and have accepted it, found joy in ordinary things etc. - the idea that they have, in other words, let it be.
Hello, my name's Mick Hucknall. Please don't be surprised if you find me inexplicably touching (your breasts).
171: mention it. awkward but you'll be doing her a disservice. you'd warn of, like, weight gain as a side effect; this isn't so different. or maybe just link to a discussion of it?
Hrm. I should really switch to pot instead of alcohol, what with the depression etc. But, arrgh. It's not like you can just substitute them; they're embedded in social rituals and such. Grump grump.
Okay, off to Frankfurt again. Whee, trains.
171: yes, mention it. You don't have to personalize it, if that's the awkward bit. "Some side effects of SSRIs include decreased libido..." vs. "Zoloft totally wrecked my sexual mojo." But I suspect she's most interested in knowing what worked and what didn't. According to my doc, the SSRI that worked for your mother/father/sister/brother is most likely to work for you as well.
Re 124 - some odd names in there. But at the end they offer you "We are the World" and that was even better - Peter Shilton, Ian Rush and Luke Skywalker!
"I am advised that it would be contrary to the national interest to divulge details of my whereabouts or activities during the past period."
Discuss your pioneering work in the limits of pseudonymity and the effect of Internet communications on relationships?
Or just be like "damn, I been chillin'."
Have your daughters write it.
183: My ideal alumni update has always taken the form of one of my classmates saying "I thought you were dead."
190 seems like a good tack: "LEFT FOR DEAD, MORE ANIMAL THAN MAN, I HAVE COME BACK TO DESTROY YOU."
191: "I'm the best there is at what I do, and what I do best isn't very nice, so please stop asking me to contribute to the class gift."
Something so disarmingly humble that the overachievers feel like schmucks for their boasting. The report as written by your girls seems perfect for this.
||
I'm about to go ride a horse. Wish me luck in not dying.
|>
You've got to get on the horse before you can get back on the horse, Stanley.
Remind them, then, that: the Senate is a joke; that Thailand is chock full of AIDS, so they can't be doing all that good a job; that as rich as they may be, Bill Gates still makes them look like poor cheap bastards.
You apparently haven't had much exposure to the alumni of my alma mater.
I have a look of overwhelming contempt in the face of blatant pomposity that is pretty effective as a repellant. (Though the only alumni I've met from your alma mater have been perfectly pleasant and unassuming, so.)
I vote for the sifu "I been chillin'" response. tell them you go through a quarter of this insane white widow shit grown indoors in kentucky, in like, 3 days. they'll see the emptiness of their fabled occupations then.
I think my discontent comes mostly from having sold out so comprehensively, and having so little to show for it.
Seven more sorrowing souls and we'll have a baseball team.
so little to show for it
Beautiful wife. Adorable and engaging daughters. Good home. Fascinating friends. If you measure yourself with the right yardstick, you've plenty to show.
Look at it this way, in a world of major league dicks a minor league dick is a pretty good guy.
This morning I took a shower and there were two bars of soap, one nearly full bar and one little sliver. Because I care about conservation, I used the little sliver. When I finished, I tossed the sliver down to the side of the tub. Looking back later, it stuck by the thin edge to the big bar of soap. There it remains, about 20 degrees from perpendicular, as if there was a contest to find the stupidest construction/siting for a sundial.
(KR: Feel free to borrow this for your class note.)
as rich as they may be, Bill Gates still makes them look like poor cheap bastards.
I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but all my anxiety about my high school of overachievers evaporated when one of my classmates (who was a year ahead of me) succeeded so far beyond the wildest baroque imaginings of the biggest-dreaming high school student that basically nothing anybody ever does can possibly rate. So even when I was in community college in my thirties and some of my classmates were working on their second PhD, they were much, much closer to me on the "things that count as success to high school students" scale than they were to him.
Roadkilll, roadkill, that's what I turned out to be
Roadkill, roadkill, that's what became of me
If I ever had the inexplicable inclination to send an update to one of various educational establishments I attended that is what I would write.
Feel free to borrow, although it may not work as well without the tune.
Also, I just figured out (by watching the cartoon Avatar) that "Sifu" actually means something in some other language.
The soap sliver fell. My powers are gone.
But it was erect for, like, 40 minutes or so judging from the timestamps. So lay off the false modesty, dude.
||
So I think my understanding is that for technical reasons the Dems cannot now do the tax thing via Reconciliation (as the original Bush ones were), but could they have set it up that way with some planning? Just annoyed at reading about some aspect of it "failing" 53-36. Somebody has a seemingly reasonable proposal for filibuster reform, but am not finding it.
|>
213: cause they didn't pass a budget, I think, where a reconciliation rule could be included.
Somebody has a seemingly reasonable proposal for filibuster reform, but am not finding it.
One of my senators. Good for him, but I still wish we'd elected the short guy with the sharp tongue and the prosthetic hand.
not some crusading anarchist egomaniac.
Assange isn't an anarchist.
216:Richard Estes and Nihilo Zero argue otherwise
217: Not so great.
But the the post below the first link, on Estes continuing series on "sub-proletarianization" is pretty interesting, is very good, and has embedded links worth following. Especially "potentially dystopian catastrophe"
"But capitalists fail to recognize that violence is a form of labor, a particular means of production."
"As the renumeration of labor is pushed towards zero, so is the extent and scope of capital."
That is why they call it neo-feudalism
"And this brings me back to my first point, a society that allows capital to overwhelmingly expropriate the productivity of labor for itself will discover that labor diverts its productivity more and more into violent resistance."
Not yet convinced, Richard.
...
My own thought about Assange and WikiLeaks today. If they shutdown WikiLeaks so easily and quickly, to me that means that that THEY think every other form and site of resistance, however incremental or radical, is absolutely, not relatively, but absolutely not a threat or matter for concern.
IOW, THEY now have absolute power.
I was asked to write something article-length for my alma mater about what I've been doing, but after reading it, they decided not to publish it. I am not very impressive!
Among my high school classmates, there are quite a high number of people who have gone on to do rather impressive things, but no one who makes us all look like chumps. We got a good education for a bunch of Plains folks with basically no connections. I don't feel either like I am some kind of insane success story or a disappointment, which is nice.
The thing about anarchism is that it's always a big tent. Pretty much all we ask is that you oppose state power. You don't even have to be anti-capitalist, per se, although I think at this point the arguments of right-wing anarchists which aver that corporations can somehow protect liberty in the absence of the state are starting to sound a bit hollow, even to them.
So, certainly, in many senses of the word, Julian Assange is an anarchist, and is committed to anarchist activities. But if there's any one group that has cause to be suspicious when people tell us they're our friends, it's the anarchists. Too often, we've been tricked into providing unreciprocated solidarity to people who claim to be our comrades, only to have them stab us in the back after our contributions are no longer necessary and have, in fact, become embarrassing.
The enemy of my enemy is my potential ally, and Assange is going to remain firmly in that category for me until I see evidence that moves him into the camp of friends. That said, I'm not even sure why it matters whether I and other anarchists support this particular individual. For one thing, our support is usually not something people facing serious government repression usually need or want. Any port in a storm, of course, but Assange hardly stands to benefit by having 150 anarchists chanting his name in front of the Federal building on Monday. For another, I'm dubious about any exhortation to elevate anyone, especially a single individual, into the apotheosis of martyrdom. Everyone knows we anarchists take our martyrs pretty seriously. This, despite the fact that we're generally so suspicious of other saints and leaders. If Assange is indeed an anarchist, that will become obvious in time. And whether he is or not, it seems like the real question here is whether his activism represents an important paradigm shift, or whether it is simply another case of the cult of novelty obscuring a more nuanced analysis.
197: Great advice, Tweety! I didn't die.
213
So I think my understanding is that for technical reasons the Dems cannot now do the tax thing via Reconciliation (as the original Bush ones were), but could they have set it up that way with some planning? ...
According to a NYT article (found via wikipedia ):
To get it [not the tax bill] passed, Mr. Obama will not be able to rely on the procedural tactic of budget reconciliation, which Senate Democrats are employing to pass a package of fixes to the health care bill. (There can be only one reconciliation bill each year.) ...
So the answer would appear to be no. Although I believe I recall reading that the Democrats hadn't set things up properly to use reconciliation for their tax bill even if they hadn't already used up the 2010 slot. Or I suppose they could have passed a tax bill in 2009 (which could have dealt with the estate tax also).
Assange is going to remain firmly in that category for me until I see evidence that moves him into the camp of friends
Does losing the B movie heavy hair cut help?
221: Good work. Keep it up for 209 years and you'll have a record.
223: You don't have to cut your hair, Mobers. We can still be friends.
After you get back on the horse, switch to a different horse in midstream.
213,214:I can't be bothered for a link (although if you absolutely insist I'll try to remember), but there was a technically possible way.
1) We are in a new fiscal year, a budget bill can be passed. But only with 60 votes.
2) So pass a budget bill including the millionaire tax cuts.
3) Then the Senate can pass tax increases on millionaires via reconciliation with 51 votes, if they have the votes, and if they can do this all in the lame duck.
Which they can't, so please don't ask for a link.
227:Why in the lame duck? Because 227 1 2 3 will also have to get through the House.
183: You could point to your achievements in spreading rumors about said Oscar-winner on blogs.
"So the guy with the PhD posts the video 124 like 8 hours after I do and gets a response. I'm off to join the tea party in protest at your elitism, liberals. Can Weman come back and explain this all to us?"
Fuck man, I was feeling all flattered and pleased with myself til I saw you meant explain that youtube clip. I couldn't tell you a thing about Norway. They're rich, they have tiny farms on mountains and they talk funny. That's about it.
KR:
I vote that your kids write the report.
Or, perhaps, Fleur could write something vaguely aggressive: "If you dont appreciate KR, I will fight you."
I hope she isnt upset with me for making this comment. I dont want to have to fight her.
KR, you should let us do it. We could just cut and paste from your comments. Pretty please?
KR: Tell them you've become a hobo railroad consultant. I dare you.
Someone at Crooked Timber thinks we're fun to watch for seven comments! Probably not this one.
234: seven posts, actually. But he claims we're "hermetic", which is risible.
If they shutdown WikiLeaks so easily and quickly
They have neither shut Wikileaks down, nor have they shut them down easily, nor quickly. I have never had any difficulty at all in getting Wikileaks material.
236: Some of us have great respect for Thoth, nosflow.
Someone else implied that threads here were 300 comments worth of mediocre jokes. Wait, that was bob.
I can't find any good picures, but a vivid memory of my family's car trip in Norway in 19995 is tiny plots at the foot of mountains that were so impossibly steep you didn't understand how tractors got up there.
They must have been heavily subsidized considering how tiny they were.
238:The DoS attacks only got going Thursday, I think, and PayPal was yesterday? I would say they are making good progress. Come back with your contemptuous confidence in WikiLeaks ability to withstand the power of united Wrld Gov't, like oh, Tuesday.
Someone else implied that threads here were 300 comments worth of mediocre jokes.
That's being remarkably generous toward the puns.
238:And the definitely did shut them down, liar, for the few hours while they transferred servers.
244: Right. I'm thinking maybe a hundred non-jokes, a hundred awful puns, ninety-nine mediocre jokes and one funny one.
244: We should try for puns on "sheet" so we could have a 300 sheet count thread.
245: Well, now we're just arguing semantics. It's a website. For a few hours it was unavailable. Now it is available at a different URL. For some meanings of "shut down", it was shut down. But if we're going to define "shut down" as "made unavailable to its intended audience" then no, it has not been shut down.
X. Trapnel seems to be having a much better time in Frankfurt than I ever did.
Fuck! Something small and furry just ran between my dishwasher and my stove. Fucking maintenance fucks, never replying to my fucking phone calls about an animal in the walls.
251: You can fix that with a rodent depilatory cream.
252: You can fix that with a rodent depilatory cream.
I heard those have been shown to increase the frequency, length and intensity of mouse orgasms, with surprisingly few side-effects.
Also, I meant "length" in the sense of "duration", so get your minds out of the gutter.
Knecht, aren't you the one who's always going on crazy safaris and stuff? I mean, maybe you don't have a 120' yacht, but you're still top 10%, right?
Not that I'm implying you'll be first up against the wall when the revolution comes or anything.
Knecht, I'm not sure why you'd feel bad if you submitted nothing (per your initial explanation in 183). I was getting those email reminders somewhat incessantly a few weeks or so ago as well, and sure, when someone's pelting you with appeals, you consider, but not for long, at least to my mind.
Put it this way: do you think the classmate who's a "billionaire entrepreneur, a Senate-confirmed presidential appointee, an Oscar-winner, or the governor of a Midwestern state" is going to be submitting something for the class report? You can turn on the TV once a week and update yourself on their doings.
One of the emails I received -- the announcement of an extension of the deadline -- included a list of people who'd already submitted a write-up. I didn't see any of the famous people there.
You could reach a different conclusion from that: the people who are submitting write-ups have gone on to live ordinary lives. If you want to write something like that, go for charming and slightly amused: a kind of 'What ho, fellow alums! My wife and I are charmed to have these wonderful children, blah blah blah. The dog continues to torment us, blah blah. We (I) find that there's an unfortunate amount of travel perpetually on the agenda (snerk snerk). Overall this is a bewildering and stupid exercise, but if anyone is curious about me, that's the general idea.'
Or not.
Mostly comes down to whether you want to apprise anyone from your class with whom you're not already in touch, but who may vaguely remember you, of your circumstances. I don't see it myself. You have to buy a copy of the class report anyway, I think, and like who's going to do that? Or maybe you get a copy for free if you contribute. I forget.
KR, Could Natilo borrow the finished list of notes to use for wall-against sorting?
Too bad I don't have a snake living in my closet that could eat the mouse.
I'm going to pretend that the psychotic cleaning spree I just went on intimidated the creature and made it flee to my neighbors' apartment.
238 I wasn't able to get onto wikileaks on Thursday or today. Before that I was fine. Any ideas on how to get there?
Sorry about your mouse, essear. Keep an eye out for little mouse poopies. You'll know what they are if you see them. Try not to leave sweets out; they love that stuff. They'll find it wherever it is. In fact they'll rip the container of brown sugar open and eat it! They'll drool all over the place as they do this!!* and poop right there!!! some kind of instantaneous gastrointestinal thing they have, or maybe it's excitement.
Anyway, yes, make your kitchen as uninteresting as it can possibly be. Put things in jars.
* Actually that was the raccoons.
OK, found a working mirror via Boing Boing. But the first half dozen I checked weren't responding.
Teraz: here you go. wikileaks.nl is loading the fastest for me.
You had raccoons in your house?
Boy do those snap traps make a mess.
I just searched for "wikileaks mirror", got the site with the list and clicked on the .ch one, I think. Maybe the Swiss one. Either way, it only took about 30 seconds.
So the MSRI at Berkeley has withdrawn their support from a screening of this film that claims to be an homage to Mishima, because apparently they are shocked! shocked! that women in mathematics might be uncomfortable with a film about how the beauty of math is like the beauty of the naked female form. I eagerly await bob's description of how this is because they fail to understand Mishima's subtle feminism. To me the trailer doesn't suggest "interesting film about math" but rather "math professor wanted to be filmed naked with a hot chick while pretending to be arty", but maybe I'm unfair.
The .ch one wasn't working for me. One of the others had a working homepage but the cables weren't accessible. Some .it site seems fine.
263: No, actually, we (I) completely fucked up -- when we cleaned out the pantry/closet that had been infiltrated by mice, and separated the stuff to be tossed completely from the stuff that was okay but just had to be better secured, I put the tossers in a small garbage bag out on the porch for the night, intending to bring it to a dumpster the following morning. (I didn't want to put it in the kitchen trash can -- mice, you know.)
The raccoons tore the trash bag apart on the porch overnight, apparently slobbered helplessly over the brown sugar, which resulted in the floor of the porch having large areas of sticky sugar with grains of rice stuck all over it. Awesome! I'm sure they had a blast, though. Stupid me. It resulted in nightly porch visits from raccoons for a couple of weeks until they were satisfied that the porch was no longer interesting.
268: As the number of correspondents grew, I began to understand the extent of the hurt and anxiety that these readings of the trailer, the promotional material for the film, and, in some cases, the film itself were generating.
Seriously? "Readings"? Alan Sokol would be rolling in his grave if he were dead.
Sokal. Apparently I was confusing him with a Czech falcon or something.
I must clarify for mouse-clearing purposes, however, that they do go for sweets. I had some 3-month-old chocolates in a drawer, and they found them.
252: Didn't want to go with RGH, for ROUS's?
213, 215: a seemingly reasonable proposal for filibuster reform
I put this here only because this is the active thread, but Sen. Jeff Merkley's proposal for filibuster reform deserves a lot of attention.
We have a serious problem. As John Cole put it recently with respect to the filibuster, Senate supermajorities, and Republican behavior regarding tax cut extensions:
If you haven't been paying attention, the Senate voted 53-36 in favor of the President's tax cut plan, which, to most Americans, would make it seem like the President won.
Sadly, in America, this means that the 36% of the Senate who voted against the tax cut plan win, trumping the majority view point in the Senate, a clear majority in the House, the President, and the majority will of the American people.
Drum has a good overview of Merkley's proposal. Possibly many have seen it, but if not, it's worth a read.
I should put this comment somewhere else, but the tax cut thread is long and dead.
If I were ambitious, I would look up how they went frok needing 67 votes to close debate to the current 60.
53-36 is about 60% in favor. Can't we throw out the people who didn't bother to vote?
Knecht:
Nothing much new with me. Say, anybody want to sue somebody in Montana? I have a friend who's a lawyer out there, and he says he could use a new case or two in 2011.
File that as another wish for filibuster reform, I guess. Absentees should not automatically count as wanting to obstruct a bill to go forward.
282: You'd want to put in a floor or both parties would conspire so that nobody had to defend a tough vote again.
279: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,912966,00.html
283: Would you? I would want 51 votes for a bill to pass. But just for avoiding a filibuster?
(As you see from my link, Sen. Mondale was pressing for exactly the solution in 282, but leadership compromised to win a few more votes.)
Any suggestions welcome, Jesus.
"Former classmates probably remember me, Knecht, as the poster child for the Freudian theory of infantile sexuality. I'm still a horndog, pining for the thin girls with the see-through shirts and no bra, but I'm married to a smokin' hot woman who towers over me in emotional intelligence. I spent several years in Germany, where I learned, above all, how to open a beer without a proper opener..."
That's just from a little cursory searching; I'm sure there's enough material in the archives for a colorful bio.
Having a little trouble in the kitchen tonight, Moby?
Maybe you should just do the husking yourself. Corn turnovers are worth the trouble.
Jesus is not invited to write a class report for anyone else.
C'mon, parsimon, l'll do yours. Everyone would be dying to talk to you at the next reunion.
I would love it if someone would compile a class report for me! Not that anyone cares back at old Big Land Grant U. Of course, you could just print the pithier bits of Barefoot Boy With Cheek and it wouldn't be too far off.
Good lord, please don't. It's frightening what the archives hold. And who goes to reunions?
Jesus can totally write mine. Alas, these days Di is sitting at the bar, sipping her drink, and checking Unfogged because that seemed more fun than attempting to flirt with boys.
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parsimon: I made applesauce bread tonight, and thought of you. It didn't turn out perfectly it could have used a little more lemon juice and the flour in the store was an even courser grind than usual and it's a little odd but it's still good.
You should make some before apple season ends completely.
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"Workers, workers,
Don't be shirkers,
There's a job we have to do.
Flee your prison,
Collectivism
Is the thing for you to do."
If only my brother had warned me that the SSRIs would kill my libido!
I had forgotten how good the comment linked in the third link in 287 was.
On that note, "Take Back The Knecht" was an inspired mix title.
I don't know if there is enough worker solidarity for you to get away with rhyming prison and collectivism.
300: We're getting to the point where we could write an entire maudlin 70s California ballad just from comments made this week.
304: Is he the guy who backed into my retaining wall last night?
297: I've just now cleared the fridge of turkey, and am reveling in the available space, so give me a second to breathe, but yeah, I'll look into it. Since it's a large bread/batch, can you freeze a portion? I don't see why not.
I've recently discovered Honeycrisp apples, which seem fairly excellent.
can you freeze a portion? I don't see why not.
I don't see why not. Though, since it's a moist bread, it will be slow to thaw.
I've recently discovered Honeycrisp apples, which seem fairly excellent.
Very tasty, though probably a better eating apple than cooking apple, but I don't know that I've tried cooking with it. It's definitely sweeter, so you could probably cut back on the sugar if you use it.
Mice, snakes, raccoon, and now turkey. You need to fix your window screens or something.
303: Have I been maudlin this week? Huh. I'm actually quite content, if dull.
I made duck soup yesterday with the carcass left over from Thanksgiving, and it just occurred to me that I could use the fat for making latkes. Mmmm.
306: I've recently discovered Honeycrisp apples, which seem fairly excellent.
Gasp! YOU DID NOT! The heroic apple researchers at the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station's Horticultural Research Center at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, cultivated it!
309: Not just you, other people too.
307: Wait, I'm supposed to use a particular kind of apple? You didn't say that! You just said "apples." Sheesh.
Seriously, though, cooking apples, the better kinds for making applesauce, would be what?
311: A thousand hurrahs to the apples researchers at the MAESHRC at the UofMTC, then! Everybody says so. It was actually pretty funny at the small local grocery store I favor -- the produce guy I invariably chat with was like, "All the apples are the same price, except [knowing look, slightly raised eyebrow] the Honeycrisps. [Brief pause] You've tried them, yes?"
Well, they'll be getting a lot cheaper soon enough -- the patent just expired, so presumably many more orchards will be planting them in the near future. I like them about the same as Fujis myself. Now we're all supposed to fall in line to support the execrably named "Zestar", which I have not yet tried.
"So, Captain Hardman, your Terran bravado has once again caused you to fall into my clutches!" sneered Zestar, the Galactic Tyrant and Emperor of the Spaceways, as he leered menacingly at the bound and seemingly helpless Hardman, while the voluptuous blue-skinned Xeera, Princess of the Neezorial Confederation looked on in terror.
312: 'Tis the season, I suppose. I finally came across someone I'd flirt with and my besotten companion needs to get home. Sigh.
I've recently discovered Honeycrisp apples, which seem fairly excellent.
Meh. I tried Honeycrisps because a bunch of people recommended them to me; they're too damn sweet. The Arkansas Black, though, there's a fine apple...
316: Why marijuana bars would be better. Reason # 107.
I like Macs and Fujis and whatever varietal it was that I bought two weeks ago. My dad swears by the Coxes of his youth, but the one time I tried them at the market this year they were good but not great.
316 Because staring off into space, unable and uninterested in speaking to anyone would do wonders for getting laid?
I also tried Nittany apples for the first time recently -- more tart.
Where are the Coxes of yesteryear?
So I realize I'm like two years behind on this, but Ta-Nehisi Coates's memoir is a damn good read. His prose style occasionally grates, which sometimes turns me off his blog posts, but the book is seriously powerful stuff.
I have previously expressed my favoring nittany-yorks (some crossbreed that grows in pennsylvania). I wonder if there are any left, my mom could bring me one--surely illegal, though, and guaranteed the narnian airport police would be all over that.
But he claims we're "hermetic", which is risible.
But it totally doesn't have to be. Who better than nosflow to write a long post about Renaissance magical systems? We could take it to a thousand!
KR and AWB (219) should submit each other's life reports without comment and let their respective alma maters make of them what they will.
Because staring off into space, unable and uninterested in speaking to anyone would do wonders for getting laid
I'm pretty sure that this is really insulting.
I like Northern Spies. And Winesaps.
If you boil a Winesap, you get brandy and syrup.
I like Northern Spies. And Winesaps.
My second favorite fictional law firm name is Winesap, Macintosh & Spy, from William Hjortsberg's Falling Angel. Favorite: Bother, Writson, Horn, Pleader & Hoot, from J.P. Donleavy's The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B.
My second favorite fictional law firm name is Winesap, Macintosh & Spy, from William Hjortsberg's Falling Angel. Favorite: Bother, Writson, Horn, Pleader & Hoot, from J.P. Donleavy's The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B.
Excellent.
...the voluptuous blue-skinned Xeera, Princess of the Neezorial Confederation....
Go on....
yeah, does she have, like 4 boobs? that would be cool.
This is off-topic, but are any of you other old and crumbly people taking glucosamine/chondroitin supplements for joint pain? And do you feel like it's doing anything?
Good morning, cherished friends! Who wants a body massage before I head to work at the ol' Radio Shack?
336: It seemed to help my (old, crumbling) dog.
336: Can't say I've noticed any particular improvement in my much-abused carcass,* but, less anecdotally, I recall reading a news report recently indicating that the benefits of glucosamine/chondroitin have been pretty sharply disparaged by scienticians.
* Seriously, in December weather a couple of my joints crackle like Rice Krispies.
Yeah, the literature I've read was ambivalent.
"Once again you have underestimated the cunning of my network of Imperial spies, and the power which allowed me to pluck you from your puny Terran starship like an overripe Nolgomp fruit which hung from the lowest branch of a tree in my Imperial spacegarden," Zestar continued, while fondling his proboscis and casting his lascivious fifth eye at the six heaving bosoms of the now-barely composed Xeera.
"Nuts!" replied the gallant space captain. "Your sniveling minions and irresistible tractor beam are no match for the secret weapon Space Command is currently preparing, Zestar!" blurted Hardman, realizing to his chagrin that this meant the Micro-Disruptor Ray was no longer quite so much of a secret.
Alas, Hardman's gaze strayed too long to rest on Xeera and her sextupled womanly charms.
"Ah," lasciviated Zestar, "a secret weapon, is it? Perhaps you'll be willing to reveal more details, lest harm should come to your comely companion!"
Hard to beat Nastie, Brutisch & Short.
342: I've always felt cheated because, on the one occasion on which I had a legitimate reason to call Nasty Little Man, they did not answer the phone "Hello, Nasty". Sigh.
341: Not to pedantize, but "six heaving bosoms" would comprise twelve breasts, making the lady's cerulean charms dodecatuply womanly.
We have an estate agent in these parts called Crossland Otter Hunt, which creates a rather sad image for me of short legged carnivores being driven away from their native streams by men in red coats with horns.
But all was not lost! Unbeknownst to either the wheedling tyrant or his valiant captive, Hardman's trusty navigator Lt. Swee Tango was at that very moment probing the electronic brain of Zestar's Imperial flagship to find the one weakness in the otherwise impenetrable defenses.
"Aha!" whispered Tango, "this appears to be the one weakness in the otherwise impenetrable defenses!"
Meanwhile, Zestar inched closer to the heaving, terrified Xeera. "Come, come, my comely captive," alliterated the tyrant, "surely your Captain Hardman will not be so foolish as to allow any harm to come to you. After he is disposed of, I assure you that you will receive only the best treatment in my Imperial harem. The sweet Nolgomp wine is ever-flowing there, and you can have your very own Yobthrawn kitten to play with."
340: I have direct experience in this research and ambivalent is a good way to describe the literature. Much of it will have scope conditions such that you can't tell if you meet the criteria without consulting an x-ray. Anyway, if you have bad problems, it clearly doesn't matter.
Also, if you've had a bunch of joints start to hurt and this hurting isn't limited to mornings before you get warmed-up, you should go see a doctor. You'd want to rule out alternative explanations (mostly a variety of autoimmune disorders). This is especially true if you are a woman, but applies to men also.
344: Good point. Although, perhaps it is only one bosom, if bosom is a collective noun denoting the total breasts adjacent to one another.
Internet definition:
1. The chest of a human: He held the sleepy child to his bosom.
2. A woman's breast or breasts.
...if bosom is a collective noun....
That's one collective I'd be happy to work on. Hey-oh!
/weeps in shame
350: People say that want to work on the collective, but they really just mean to kibbutz.
So, when we all meet in Abraham's bosom, does that meen inside his ribcage, or just in the thicket of his chest hair?
if you've had a bunch of joints start to hurt
No, only the one knee and mostly just when going down stairs. Though it has been weirdly and completely pain-free for four or five days after slowly and steadily getting worse over the past several months. I've only taken two days worth of g/c, so it certainly isn't that.
332, 342, 343, 345: There's a grotesque character in Ngugi wa Thiong'o's Devil on the Cross whose Christian (as opposed to his traditional, African) name is "Rottenborough Groundflesh Shitland Narrow Isthmus Joint Stock Brown." He gives testimony based on his experience as a take-no-prisoners real-estate investor in a "Competition to Select Seven Experts in Modern Theft and Robbery."
A real law firm name that cracked me up was: Mou/nd Cot/ton W/ollan & Green/grass.
My arthritic dog is also on glucosamine and whatever the other thing is. We've seen a huge improvement, but we also started giving her painkillers every day (something dog-specific but that I understand to be Tylenol-class, not more than that), so the improved mobility might be all down to the painkillers.
Doesn't David Foster Wallace have a law firm of "Frequent and Vigorous." I'm getting various DFW related hits for the phrase, but I can't exactly track it down.
Apparently *Broom of the System* features the law firm of "Rummage and Naw."
336: My dad tried the glucosamine-chondroitin stuff and reported it didn't really help. I've actually had some noticeable improvement with Vitamin D (after autoimmune explanations were ruled out -- Moby's right about that, especially if you have other autoimmune issues personally or in the family). I also notice that smoking provides some relief. My doctor agreed this was plausible but nevertheless thought Tylenol or NSAIDs would be preferable.
332: Favorite: Bother, Writson, Horn, Pleader & Hoot, from J.P. Donleavy's The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B.
In The Onion Eaters (recommended for some of you) he has Bottomless Diddle Blameworthy and Dawn.
360: I've long wondered who represented the parties in Donleavy's suit against Maurice Girodias, to give him such a mordant view of the learned profession.
If you want some unsolicited advice, the only thing that I've heard of working well for knee pain is strengthening the muscles around the knee, to cushion the joint. Exercise bike (or real bike)? Bodyweight squats? Something that someone actually knowledgeable might suggest?
Something that someone actually knowledgeable might suggest?
Yes, that often works well.
Yes, that often works well.
"We have to preserve the creature knee for science!"
"Never!" spat Xeera, causing Zestar to flinch back in anger into his angora cowl. "Gneiss!" she shouted, causing Hardman to reluctantly raise his masculine gaze upward into the violet orbs she called "eyes", as she was fluent in no less than 14 Terran languages, including English.
"Gneiss, remember what you said aboard the Space Knight when you disintegrated your traitorous former lover, Honey Crisp: 'The deaths of ten thousand worlds are as nothing compared to the sweetness of victory over the savage Galactic Tyrant!' No matter what indignities or tortures the foul Zestar may inflict on me, don't give him any more information about the secret weapon!"
"Enough!" roared the Tyrant, "We will soon see who has the stronger will."
Something that someone actually knowledgeable might suggest?
My physical therapist recommended hip/glute exercises. (Specifically, the ones in this video.) They've worked really well for me.
354: Probably nothing you can do about that, but it doesn't hurt to see somebody if it keeps up. You may, as mentioned above, may want to get some exercises to strengthen the surrounding muscle. But it may not be arthritis. Symptoms don't mean damage and lack of pain doesn't mean no damage. That's not a very long history of pain, as far as those things go.
To be clear. I'm not a doctor. That was not medical advice, just a general sense of the research.
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Tangentially related to Knecht's dilemma: Yahoo commended to my attention this story from the NYT about a fellow who blew his $10 million payout on a bunch of foolish extravagances. There's a lot of lessons here, including don't go on margin to pay your living expenses, but it seems to me the overarching one is that $10 million just isn't wealth beyond the dreams of average anymore. Sure, it's a lot of money, and I'd sooner have $10 million than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but you can't really expect to live an upper-class life sustainably on that unless you are extremely careful and frugal. Not that you couldn't live pretty damn well, but you can't expect to go blowing 3.5% of your wealth on a single automobile and not come to grief at some point. Most of all, this story seems to give lie to that "Rich Dads..." series of books and what not. This guy grew up rich, his whole family is still rich, and he managed to fuck it up anyway.
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362
If you want some unsolicited advice, the only thing that I've heard of working well for knee pain is strengthening the muscles around the knee, to cushion the joint. ...
Sometimes it just goes away. An elderly woman I know was scheduled for a knee replacement operation some years ago. It had to be postponed because of an unrelated medical issue. In the interim the pain went away and has not returned. Of course she isn't trying to run 100 miles a week or anything like that.
but you can't really expect to live an upper-class life sustainably on that unless you are extremely careful and frugal
Maybe its just the growing gap between the rich and the super-rich, but I find that hard to believe.
I'm reminded of the scene in the sopranos where Meadow and some of her friends who think of themselves as rich visit another person, who is supposed to be even richer. They remark that the person's house seems quite small, until they realize that the house they are looking at is merely the gatehouse of a larger estate.
346: "Come, come, my comely captive," alliterated the tyrant
Oo, oo -- now use "assonanced"!
But don't stop now, Natilo. Not only have you destroyed any seriousness with which this consumer might greet a proposed "Zestar" apple (Zestar: is it a new pharmaceutical? a mouthwash? a new kitchen appliance?), but I have our Galactic Tyrant Zestar looking a little bit like a cross between John Boehner and Mitch McConnell. Because I'm obsessed like that.
I think Zestar's the same shade of orange as Boehner, but he has tentacles for arms.
Zestar's orange skin will look really dramatic next to Xeera's trembling blue flesh as he draws threateningly close to her.
The one thing I had prescribed for a dodgy knee ages ago was wall sits (position your back against a wall as though sitting in a chair, with heels on the floor and knees and hips at right angles). It's a common runner's/skier's exercise, but it also seems like a kind of torture that doctors and PTs use to separate patients who will work hard from patients who would just as soon take painkillers.
re: 362 and 367
When this came up not that long ago I recommended the quad strengthening exercises and was roundly dismissed by a few people as repeating out of date advice. So I did a bit of digging and it does seem like the emerging consensus is more in the direction of the sorts of hip exercises in 367, along with glute and core/abdominal work. IANAMD.
375: It seems like you could hurt yourself (your stressed knee(s)) pretty easily with that unless you work up to the full 90-degree sit position. Start with your back up higher against the wall, I guess, and over time work your way down to a 90-degree angle.
The horse I rode yesterday had mildly arthritic joints. The vet I was with suggested they could (but didn't have to) inject the knees with steroids, which apparently costs like $200/joint. Horses seem really fucking expensive.
My advice to apo is not to get a horse.
something dog-specific but that I understand to be Tylenol-class, not more than that
Probably Tramadol. Terrific stuff, very safe, pain-specific with little "high", slight anti-depressant or tranq effects. I know humans who swear by it as an alternative to Tylenol. Not as cheap as Tylenol. Dog broke off a claw past the quick on the wooded hills Frisbee Golf Course Friday, and she is getting 3 a day.
She uses Celebrex and Vicodin #1 (5 mg hydrocodone, 500 Tylenol) and maybe a muscle relaxant for her cartilege-free knees and bad hips.
I, well, whatever doesn't destroy me makes me stronger.
377: There's the standard caveat that if your knee is hurting while you do it, stop and do something else. Otherwise I think the idea is to start not at a different angle but at shorter periods. They really burn, so stopping early has an obvious appeal.
and I'd sooner have $10 million than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but you can't really expect to live an upper-class life sustainably on that unless you are extremely careful and frugal.
Assume, conservatively, that you can take two percent of that while keeping the principle constant in real terms. That's $200K in take home income. That is a very, very comfortable life, especially given that there's no need to worry about saving anything.
372, 381: Right, but $200,000 a year doesn't cover many $5.3 million dollar renovations or $173,000 horses before you start waking up in the middle of the night wondering where it all went.
Also, did they recycle that Sopranos trope? Because I clearly remember an episode where AJ is trying to impress some girl from his private school, and his mother embarrasses him by warning them away from her ugly shepardess crockery, and the girl says "Huh, I thought your house would be more like the Godfather house", while they are sitting in her parents' living room, which is in the Godfather house.
370
... but it seems to me the overarching one is that $10 million just isn't wealth beyond the dreams of average anymore. Sure, it's a lot of money, and I'd sooner have $10 million than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but you can't really expect to live an upper-class life sustainably on that ...
If they had invested in a S&P 500 index fund in 1998 and lived on the dividends this would have been an annual income of about $120000 then and about $160000 now ($160000 is also about the dividend yield for $10 million today (since stock prices are about the same as they were 12 years ago although dividends have gone up a bit)). This is in fact well below what is considered really rich today.
On the other hand there are stories of sports stars and lottery winners blowing much larger sums of money. So if you can't handle money no amount is really enough.
And another lesson is you should really think twice about trying to build your own house. A large portion of the money seems to have gone into a bottomless pit, black hole, white elephant of a house. And this seems to be a fairly common disaster for some reason.
Speaking of horses, the farm I went riding at had just lost a horse, because it got out, wandered into the road, and was hit by a car.
I've been spooked almost hitting a deer. I can't imagine winding the bend at 4:30am going 55 mph and seeing...a goddamn horse standing there.
And even without the really silly extravagances, private school tuition for 3 kids, (at least) annual visits to the English in-laws, medical and dental care for five people, two nice cars, mortgage, eventually college costs for 3 kids -- you could certainly live that lifestyle on $200K, but it wouldn't be like you could just throw money at problems until they went away.
Coming from the background of a finance guy who works for a non-profit, really wealthy to me means: always covers his margin calls, and doesn't mind writing a $10,000 check once in awhile to support the arts. $200,000 per year doesn't get to that standard.
"Sloe & Bideawhile" from The Way We Live Now.
383: So if you can't handle money no amount is really enough.
Definitely.
And another lesson is you should really think twice about trying to build your own house.
Precisely. I mean, if you have $10 million in the bank, why not just fix up your current house until it's "the nicest house on the block" and then live there?
I have some friends who do quite well -- not $200K per year, but within sight of it -- and they wisely live a very modest lifestyle. The husband was telling me about visiting some friends of his who've done quite a bit better, who live in a 5,000 sq. foot house, which has its own screening room and all that. And yeah, if you had $10 million, and you wanted to do that McMansion trip, you could do that and still be okay, as long as that was your one extravagance.
black hole, white elephant
Fanon's less successful sequel.
387
... why not just fix up your current house ...
Even this can be dangerous. See Annie Leibovitz who decided her Greenwich village townhouse needed a bigger basement.
I always wanted to write one called "Black Vinyl, White Veves"
389: Good point, although I was imagining something more along the lines of a $650,000 Paso Robles Mission-style 4-bedroom that you put another $250,000 into, not that kind of craziness.
I once had a case where the opponent was pursuing the client's assets, and an issue arose about whether the client's spouse's inheritance -- and especially spouse's Arabian horses -- were subject to execution. A wag on the team suggested we give the opponent one of the horses: 'then they will know real pain.'
385.1: I'm losing track of your point, Nat.
From 370: $10 million just isn't wealth beyond the dreams of average anymore.
Yes, it is. Beyond the dreams of average.
393: What is my point? $10 million doesn't mean you can throw caution to the wind, is what it boils down to. Shearer is arguing that for any amount of money there is a fool who will soon be parted from it.
Yes, it is. Beyond the dreams of average.
Really? I don't think so. Sure, for people like you and me who are really marginal and always expect to be that way, it's hard to imagine having that much money and spending it. But for a middle-middle class family that takes home $75,000 annually from two salaries, has 2 or 3 kids, has pretensions to some of the gaucher finer things in life? You could go through $10 million a lot faster than the guy in the story did.
Large main home in a tony suburb: $800,000 (plus taxes & insurance & upkeep)
Vacation home at the lake: $250,000 (plus etc.)
Two big vacations per year, one with the kids: $15,000
Three nice new cars: $150,000 (plus taxes & insurance & gas & maintenance), trade two of them every 3 years.
Private school for the kids: $50,000 per year, plus incidentals
A decent private health plan for four or five people: $30,000 (this is one I'm really not sure about. But assuming you were going with a fairly low deductible, and had at least one red flag pre-existing condition among the four of you, I guess it would be something like that, maybe a lot more.)
Presents, charitable donations, church pledge, etc: $20,000 annually
Groceries, utilities, clothes, cleaning, other daily life expenses: $15,000 annually
Right there, we're up to over a million off the top, plus something like $175,000 in annual expenses. Probably closer to $200,000. And that's WITHOUT any serious extravagances -- jewelery, furs, horses, really expensive cars, boats, seeing all the big championship games, etc.
I think it would be pretty easy for the average middle class family to imagine all that and more. Whether they could do the math when they're looking at that check with all the zeroes on it is another question.
A second home isn't a serious extravagance? Three new cars (pretty nice ones, too), not a serious extravagance?
I agree with Natilo's basic point: $10 million sounds like $Infinity, and it's definitely not. It's plenty if you're thoughtful about it, but if you win $10 million and hear "YOU WON INFINITY MONEY!" you're likely to not have any a decade later.
395: I know people with second homes. Mostly they're more modest than what I'm imagining our hypothetical middle-class millionaires buying, but then most of those people don't have $10 million to throw around.
Part of my point here is that a lot of people who come into windfalls look at initial pricetags and don't really figure in the ongoing cost of maintaining a second home, or paying cash for private health insurance after you quit your job, or the fact that their kids aren't going to get any scholarships or even subsidized Stafford loans in college. Sure, there's things you can cut out of my imaginary budget, but that's precisely what I'm arguing -- $10 million means you still have to think about money.
Now, $40 million would be a different story.
Cut out $15K a year for the second home, cut down another that much on the cars. Cut $10K on charity Add $5K for travel/vacations and $15k for the groceries etc. line since for five people that would be rather modest.
All of this on a quite conservative treatment of that $10M nest egg.
I get Natilo's point, that it's not Scrooge McDuck money. But I also think that the fact that it doesn't seem like Scrooge McDuck money is more a product of the relentless media coverage of how brutally impossible it is to live on amounts that used to seem unthinkable to the real middle class. It's all about marketing tax breaks for the wealthy; we're supposed to be able to identify with their "plight," even as we turn the heat down, send kids to shitty public schools, pay out of pocket for medical treatment, and try to convince ourselves that it's reasonable to live on lentils and rice every day.
Also, aren't you losing close to half of the windfall on taxes before you ever get out of the gate?
more a product of the relentless media coverage of how brutally impossible it is to live on amounts that used to seem unthinkable to the real middle class. It's all about marketing tax breaks for the wealthy;
This doesn't ring true to me - I think the NYT relentlessly covers this angle, but local news doesn't. I think we at Unfogged over-see this phenomenon because it's so incredibly grating and obnoxious, but it doesn't actually turn up in, say, Oprah Magazine or the equivalent.
I think I figured I could maintain my lower middle class lifestyle with a nest egg of $2Mill. Although with the current interest rates I am not even sure that is true anymore.
What do you mean by "imagine"? I can imagine Scrooge McDuck money. In fact, having any amount of money. I can imagine having infinity monies. (I would immediately declare myself emperor of the Moon.)
But if my imagine you mean "can reasonably expect," I'd say most people's upper limit is around 100K
What do you mean by "imagine"?
How very sad. Don't you remember children's laughter?
$10 million means you still have to think about money.
If you insist. If you're defining things from the perspective of those who never have to think about money. Why would you do that?
394.last: I think it would be pretty easy for the average middle class family to imagine all that and more.
No doubt they could imagine it, but I'm not willing to let the "average middle class" lifestyle be defined up in that way. If your only point is that $10 million in assets is average wealth, okay. If it's that it is -- or should be or could be -- average for the middle class, no.
Honestly, $15,000 per year for vacations?
Sorry, but this is kind of important: many people have trouble coming up with even an extra $1,500. We have people on this very blog saying that a tax increase (expiration of the Bush tax cuts) on households earning less than $200,000/$250,000 per year is "negligible." Given the unemployment rate, it's actually not.
When you define the average middle class lifestyle upward in such a way, you invite if not endorse a sort of cluelessness about the state of affairs for those who are merely modest.
402:
It's like you never even watched MTV "Cribs."
(I originally had Robin Leach in my head, but that felt extra dated.)
401: Well, in this case the $10 million was after taxes. It was originally $14 million, but it was mostly capital gains I guess, so not taxed at income tax rates.
400: Yeah, I guess my point is: If you grew up in the 1950s, $10 million is always going to seem like Scrooge McDuck money. I remember an anecdote my incredibly bitter HS English teacher once told me about how he'd been talking to a younger teacher at some point (maybe the early 1970s?) and had said very stridently that public school teachers would never make $20,000 per year in their lifetimes. Of course, he was proved wrong relatively soon after that.
And the larger point is that, yeah, the aspirational wealth culture that we're part of is so insane that the kind of wretched excess even a regular person can imagine is not going to be covered even by $10 million.
A friend of mine is a single mom with 2 middle-school aged kids. She has never in her life made more than $20,000 a year -- in fact, most of the time she hasn't even made $15,000 a year. Thankfully, thankfully, things are looking up for her right now -- she's got a couple of good part-time jobs and a little side action under the table -- but on several occasions when we've talked about the possibility of her making a reasonable sub-living wage, say $25,000 or $30,000, she's actually cried, because the thought is so beautiful and incredible to her. This is someone who's a pillar of her community. Someone who's produced amazing art, held together all kinds of scenes, been a shoulder to cry on and a sympathetic ear for many, many people, and our society values her like shit.
I dunno, now I was just reading the transcript of that Amy Goodman interview with Noam Chomsky and it all makes me so angry and hopeless. So many people in this society are constantly wrapped up in this useless wealth game, that they don't even know how to play correctly, fer chrissakes! And here's all of these problems that might yield to some pressure if even 1% of people could be motivated to do something about it once in awhile. 1% of the Twin Cities would be 25,000 people. Do you think they could ignore it if 25,000 people showed up to protest every time the cops shot some black kid in the back? It all seems like such a waste.
"gets it" and "Pongo," obviously.
407: If your only point is that $10 million in assets is average wealth, okay. If it's that it is -- or should be or could be -- average for the middle class, no.
I think you've misinterpreted a bit. What I'm saying is: take your average middle class person. Say to them: "You're going to get $10 million. Imagine what your lifestyle would be like." That's where I'm getting that scenario.
Honestly, $15,000 per year for vacations?
Obviously, I'm not talking about flying coach and staying in youth hostels and visiting fancy restaurants for lunch so that you save 20% on the bill. I'm talking about flying first-class to a Sandals resort for you and the spouse, something that, I assure you, many many middle-class people would easily aspire to. Then throw in a couple of weeks with the kids skiing in France and you're at $15,000 easily.
I know I'm yelling at you unnecessarily. But seriously, I would rather say that the kind of expenditures described are absurd and ridiculous than that many people think they're quite reasonable. I guess if you're just making descriptive remarks, okay, but I'd prefer that we always include a prescriptive, or normative, addendum: This is ridiculous.
I'd go further and say that it's immoral, to the extent that it convinces people that they need a great deal more money than they actually do, and they therefore keep money from others who are in great need. You know the drill.
If you're talking about flying first-class over long distances, you're going to need a lot more than $15000 for two vacations.
415: I was thinking first class for the parents' vacation, coach with the kids.
But yeah, good point. You could easily spend $15,000 on one first class trans-continental ticket, couldn't you?
I like how she's getting some "side action under the table." Needs more prepositional phrases. "In this league," or "between you and me," maybe.
A decent private health plan for four or five people: $30,000 (this is one I'm really not sure about.
I am. I found to my surprise that our plan (for a family of four) went up 25 percent at the beginning of the school year and now totals about $25,000 per year. My wife's hours went down to .5 FTE at the same time, so we pay a little over half, $13k and change. Which leaves us with about $35k total take-home for the two of us combined. So yes, if I had $10 million, I wouldn't have to think about money, and all the rich folks who are bitching about how they're not really rich should go see how most of the planet lives. Fortunately for them, that doesn't mean buying first-class tickets to a third-world country; they could just travel to their local poor neighborhood.
385:
really wealthy to me means: always covers his margin calls, and doesn't mind writing a $10,000 check once in awhile to support the arts purchase another ivory backscratcher.
$15,000 per year for vacations?
Five people, two vacations a year and that really isn't get you anything close to luxury.
To take Natilo's skiing in France example, something which I have a good idea of the cost. Five round trip economy air tickets $3K. A two week stay in a mid range apartment suitable for five, outside of the most expensive weeks, $2K. Two weeks of ski passes, $2.5K. Assume you already own your own equipment, and are planning on mostly eating at home and you.ve just spent $7.5K
I should add that flying half way across the world to go skiing is a pretty luxurious thing in and of itself, but once you're there, you're going to be doing what constitutes a standard mass market vacation for Europeans, just for twice as long.
Just went to the Sandals site. Looks like my estimate there was a lot closer ~$4,000 with a deal, ~$9,000 without.
419: Probably already said too much about that.
You could always take in your empty cans for the deposit if money got tight after your ski trip.
So yeah, if you said "I want to go on two very nice international vacations per year, and not worry about money" I guess you'd probably be talking more like $30,000 and up.
When I'm king, the rich will be forced to take their ski trips...in Wisconsin!
427 and previous: So this is an exercise in the grotesque.
Well, yeah.
I hate money. I don't even like exchange. Potlatch is highly suspect.
Paso Robles Mission-style
Where did this come from? Is this a thing? I've never seen Paso used as a descriptor like that.
(I ask, because it amuses me every single time I see Paso Robles referred to as some sort of beacon of luxury. I grew up just to the south, on the coast, and in our collective imaginations it was a poor, rural ag town that you drove up to for the fair and sweated a lot in for most of the 80s.)
I should say that I'm well aware the town has changed a ton with the wine boom, and there were always lovely parts to it.
(Also, I just realized that Natilo probably used it because of the origins of the $10 million guy's money. I thought that maybe somewhere in Minnesota people were marketing Paso Robles-style homes.)
No, we've developed our own style of ugly stucco monstrosities.
431: I don't know what you mean by that, could make up an account of it, but I'm willing to drop it, since I'm clearly rather jaundiced about relative value.
Nat has totally forgotten to add in upkeep on one's mistress or boy toy. That's probably 40K a year right there.
The money thing really is fascinating. The income of my household is probably over $200k now; we've been househunting for over a year, and have yet to find something that we both like and can afford. Both of us insisting on taking public transit to work, and my quasi-insistence on being within a mile's walk of a subway station, is probably what's dragging us down here. Today we saw a 3br/2ba 1500sf house (pretty nice already), in "as is" condition (which was not very good), for a mere $550k. Ugh. Good location, though.
Also, isn't there a standard formula accountants use to predict how much hush money someone should expect to pay out every year, given each increment of 500K a year one makes over a base of 1 million?
437: There's on like that for sale on my block for under $190k. I'd want a new kitchen if I had it. No subway but three blocks from main bus line.
I totally get that my needs are extremely few. I don't have kids, pets, or a partner to support. I don't have to travel very far or often, unlike my roommates who have to travel internationally just to see their families. I don't currently have a job that requires me to look fashionable or pretty, so I spend little or nothing on clothes, haircuts, gym, and makeup. I'm vegetarian and know how to cook, so food is very cheap. $35K is not enough for the amount I work, but it's enough for me to live on without worrying about money all the time the way I used to. If I had dependents and responsibilities, $35K would be depressingly little.
I can vaguely imagine what I'd do with twice that much. Maybe I'd put money down on a small home or apartment, depending on what part of the country I'm in. I'll probably have to get a car, and be expected to dress better. I could afford to help my parents out a bit, since they're completely out of money and unemployed. Maybe I'd even go on a real trip for fun once a year, and go out for a nice dinner when I want to.
That's about as far as my imagination goes. What would I do with $10 million? Presuming that having $10 million wouldn't instantly turn me into an asshole, I have no clue. I would probably be like one of those flash-in-the-pan rap stars who buy each of their friends a house and then file for bankruptcy because they didn't realize it wasn't Scrooge McDuck money.
Speaking of snacks, apparently there's a market for Taco Bell sauce packets. Who knew?
Damn. This sleekit beastie is neither cow'rin nor tim'rous.
If it doesn't cower, it probably has that virus that makes it want to get eaten by a cat. Don't eat it as that virus may cause depression in humans.
It ran a lap around my kitchen while I was cooking and skirted both the traps I set out. I think it's taunting me.
443: I thought toxo caused men tobe aggressive and stuff.
445: Men often react that way to depression. But I don't remember all of the details about that virus, or even the name until you mentioned it. Go ahead and eat a bold mouse and report back.
I didn't realize you were talking about the mouse. Did you put peanut butter on the traps? Also it may be better to take the traps up during your waking hours and only leave them out during the night when all is quiet. This encourages mouse-like investigation of good-smelling things.
Also! Vary the location of the traps. These beasties are smarter than you think.
Speaking of snacks, apparently there's a market for Taco Bell sauce packets. Who knew?
I remember when I first saw Taco Bell brand refried beans in the grocery store -- I thought it was a sign that civilization was in trouble.
Also, to parsimon above, other people answered the apple question, but I will say, first, that I encourage you to use a mix of a couple of types of apples and that if you can find some granny smith apples that have flavor (too often they can be bland) they would make a nice addition but, secondly, this list of good baking apples includes honeycrip, so you're probably fine with that.
It's not Scrooge McDuck money, that's for sure, and it's not even multiple luxury compound money. What I can't understand is why the guy was going into debt: it's not like these properties were going to produce cash flow.
Of course, this is very very familiar story, having played out with nearly every sudden unearned wealth recipient since the dawn of time. Folks can say they wouldn't do it, but I know I would fall into just the kind of sentimentality that led to multiple houses, and the wish to create something enduring for grandkids to be, etc. I don't have any grandkids yet, but with kids who are 24 and 15 respectively, it's not out of the question that 20 years hence, I might have a set. Would it be neat to take them fishing in the Straits of Georgia? If a couple of big cases come in, maybe we can go fishing in the Aegean.
I remember when I first saw Taco Bell brand refried beans in the grocery store -- I thought it was a sign that civilization was in trouble.
Civilization *is* in trouble.
Peeve: Websites, especially news media websites, that serve some local area and don't say what that area is. At least it's not "The news source for the tri-county area".
Offer not valid in sectors R and N.
Dea\na Ste\wart planned on eating at Taco Bell on Sunday.
Who plans to eat at Taco Bell ahead of time? I mean I have nothing against Taco Bell in general, but it doesn't exactly strike me as a place you make plans to go to more than 10 min in advance.
Hey, CJB, you're not associated with ND State, right? I'd be sorry if I had to hate you for the next week or two.
Associated with it, I'm employed there. Bwahahah.
446: I have had cats basically my while life; I probably picked up toxo long ago.
Oh! Well, I'm kind of torn. The bison must die. On the other hand, someone has to beat Eastern Washington on that damn red field.
32: Trader Joe's had chocolate crystallized ginger that was good. They dropped the regular crystallized ginger but now have a candied one that is very tasty. Ginger is supposed to be good for your digestion, and it allegedly bumps up your metabolism for a bit, so you can pretend that some of the sugar calories are being burned off.
will, there's also a super high-fat diet--like 90%-- called the ketogenic diet that sometimes gets tried for people who have treatment-resistant seizures. I think that it's pretty tough to follow, but a modified Atkins might help.
Html links are giving me trouble, so
http://myclevelandclinic.org/disorders/epilepsy/hic_introduction_to_the_ketogenic_diet.aspx
The link in 124 just told me to sign in to youtube. Can someone describe the video? Signing in to google didn't do anything for me.
It's a whole series of actors, each singing a line from Let It Be, on a beach. Some pop stars from the 80s too.
Signing in to google didn't do anything for me.
I get the same feeling whenever I open my e-mail.
457: On the other hand, someone has to beat Eastern Washington on that damn red field.
Agreed. But with their best player being named Taiwan Jones they've got the <placename> Jones mojo working for them.