Really? The man's previous sorties left me quite cold. (Even when trying to gross up my response to compensate for contempt inspired by wretched SWPL comedy nerd enthusiasm.)
1, 499-512: Would it be quicker if you just listed everything that you *do* like?
His standup is fantastic. The TV show is one of the oddest things ever. It takes the sort of self-deprecating anecdotes that standups tell, and shows you what it would be if those things happened to real people in real time. Guess what, it turns out that you don't laugh once. It's as if you're accustomed to seeing Three Stooges shorts, and they come out with a feature film that's all about an irritating and ignorant man with two friends that he insults and beats mercilessly, and their failures to succeed in various menial jobs.
I really like the show! I thought it would be too depressing/squirmy for me, but it turns out it's just right, because it is also wonderfully deranged. I do laugh, but it is also true that it's only sort of playing things for laughs at all.
2: Fat tourists in Bermuda shorts.
In theory I would like to download this and watch it, but I want to watch it on tv, not on my laptop. I'm sure there's probably some way to connect the one unto the other, but I don't know how to do that, and I'm not sure it's worth figuring out just to watch a comedy special. But I would like to honk like a goose, so it's tempting.
I would like to honk like a goose, so it's tempting.
Step into the right men's bathroom and something can be arranged.
2: Italian Renaissance paintings of the Nativity, really spicy ginger snaps, this new recruit into my unstoppable polar bear army, pants with adjustable side tabs instead of belt loops, that French movie about the guy who escapes from the Nazi prison, Robert E. Howard's original Conan stories,* Batman, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Miami Vice movie with Colin Farrell that most people found disappointing, that opera about the barber guy getting married, Grace Kelly, the works of J.M.W. Turner.
* Available on iTunes collected in a few reasonably-priced audiobooks.
Also, watching Rex Ryan lose football games. Sweet, sweet tears of unfathomable sadness.
Italian Renaissance paintings of the Nativity
11: To quote Stanley Hauerwas, ugly is not a theological category.
7: If your computer has a DVD burner you could just burn it to DVD (there's no DRM).
Recently we retired my old laptop so that it's permanently plugged into the TV. It's great. I highly recommend it as something to do with recently retired computers.
I've never burned a DVD before. Is it likely that my computer has a DVD burner?
I would probably also need to acquire a blank DVD. (Unless I can record over some disc of worthless bonus features on one of the DVDs I currently have?)
It's sort of weird to me how foreign the idea of recording something like that seems to me (I'd never have thought of it), considering how often I used to record things on VHS.
15, 16: See you at Christmas, Grandpa.
Over the last few years I've often wished I could record things off the TV. I used to be able to, but now all I can do is put them on the DVR.
11: I always wonder if there was an interval in the late Middle Ages when children were born looking like miniature adults.
Reading 9 I expected it to end with "...Tracy's face..." and then a dash through the streets of Manhattan to the Dalton School. You have to have a little faith in people, Flip.
I think it might not be the work of a moment to burn something onto a DVD such that it can be read by a normal DVD player (as opposed to by another computer). You need special software, or something like that, I think. Although DVD players could be better at reading them than when I tried.
At any rate, getting a dongle which connects your computer to a TV is not very hard, and not too expensive ($10-$30).
HDMI cable. Then you can watch movies streamed from Netflix on your TC.
11: Sweet Jesus, I am totally honking like a goose right now. Well played.
Flippanter has committed many terrible sins, for which he has been cursed by God with the worst taste of any person alive today. He may eat sweets, but tastes nothing but ashes.
Do you have an HDTV? If so, you probably already have an HDMI cable that might fit into your laptop, though Ive occasionally had some trouble with audio. It may be in a tangle with a bunch of other wires behind your tv, though. IMO, comedy is one of the easier thimgs to watch on a small screen, though.
26: I was also surprised how relatively cheap an Internet-enabled Blu-Ray/DVD player was. Does Netflix and some others, but for random Internet streaming we still use the laptop/HDMI cable.
2: Holiday specials and middlebrow novels
Striving state U grads in their relative hovels
The Ex and the foibles and regrets that sting
These are a few of Flip's favorite things
Cornel West's writing and Manhattan beggars
Gladwell, and Pierce and that fool David Eggers,
Midwestern tourists who clog up the streets
These are a few of Flip's favorite treats
Slackers and hippies and hipsters on fixies
Fried food with lard, and fat rednecks from Dixie
Bourgeoisie at the Met who say stupid things
These are a few of Flip's favorite things
When Yggles posts
When buffoons boast
When he's feeling sad
He simply writes comments on his favorite things
And then he doesn't feel so bad
Offered real friendly-like and in the spirit of Christmas and all that (and I'm thinking that the song/show/movie are on Flip's favorite list as well).
I've never seen it. I bow to your metrical fluency, though I want to be clear that I don't have anything in general against state universities (except Penn State, I guess). Yes, probably plenty of grudges against individual graduates, but who doesn't?
I've never seen it.
Well played.
Maybe "striving Cornell grads" is better?
Flip has never seen the Sound of Music?
Don't look at me like that. I'm not an animal.
39: "Take your stinking paws eyes off me, you damned dirty apes!"
41: Funny story: that is not in the Bible.
Nor have I. I was 14 when it came out, so the only way I'd have been forced to see it was being dragged there by relatives. None of them were inclined to.
Well no wonder you're both so gloomy.
32 is very, very good. Also, not that it's my business, but it seems like your place of work has been making you really miserable lately, Stormcrow, unless I've misread you, which is always possible. Anyway, if that's the case, I hope thing improve in the new year. I wish I had more to offer beyond such pablum. I suppose you could always do as we do at my place of business: start pepper-spraying people.
Class-based resentment and GPS systems
Archival research and E.B.G. Wilson
Maps with topography
Liesegang rings
These are the Stormcrow's favorite things
OK, that's a poor tribute, I couldn't get beyond that and that's not very good. Also, I'm not sure what "Liesegang rings" are, it's what I got from a google search for "geology" and "rings." Anyhow, merry Christmas.
I assume 47 was to let us know VW just gave someone a little spritz.
Anyhow, merry Christmas.
You bastard!
50: they linked arms. What was I to do?
I'm with Flip and chris y. I should really go to the singalong at the Castro one of these days.
Tribute to another commenter:
Killing the wealthy except for Mark Cuban
Trolling and ranting and predicting ruin
Nuke it to save it, Egyptian kings
These are a few of Bob's favorite things
Taking the dogs for walks in the dog park
Telling S. Tweety to check Blume for bruise marks
Japanese cinema, Ozu's Late Spring
These are a few of Bob's favorite things
I performed in that play in eighth grade. The Japanese kid and I played the two non-singing, uniformed Nazis.
Telling S. Tweety to check Blume for bruise marks
Not sure that captures the gist.
How could I be gloomy when there is shit like this in the world?
49: I'm not sure what "Liesegang rings" are,
I had to Google that as well.
Class-based resentment
Hmm .... This was probably reinforced by that law school stuff*. I got very busy during that thread and was never able to clarify anything; I actually have the start of a guest post on it that I will send to LB if we ever are in danger of overcomitousness and I get less busy. I will merely say that I was not aware at the time of the uttter gobsmackedness of the bi-modailty of starting law salaries that has developed over the last 20 years.
*Or maybe I'm just a bristling ball of class resentment in general. You never know just how you look through other people's eyes.
Goddamnit. I just found out that a semi-estranged family member changed jobs a couple of months ago (or at least left her then-current job), meaning that I don't know how to find her or if she's okay. She's probably fine, but I'm closer to being in touch with her than anyone else, and people are going to ask questions at Christmas -- I'll have to either evade or say that I have no idea where she is or how she's doing anymore.
I miss her, and I wish she was really back in touch with the rest of us, but I could understand if she decided that contact with her family wasn't working for her. But I really wish she'd at least keep in good enough touch that we knew where she was and that she was all right.
55: As did Moby Hick, that's almost like you blueblood Mayflower descendants sharing non-cheating ancestors.
58 -- oh, just a rhyme that fit, not meant to be an indictment or taken seriously at all. I also have class-based resentment on the same scale. Actually, my class-based resentment is high right now, mostly at the uberwealthy individual whose failure to respond to email or phone calls is requiring me to work up until Christmas morning.
60: he did? I've also mentioned it before, which is almost like my ancestors are related to my other ancestors which... right, well, that too.
57: Nice. I find that the 15 seconds of video that is most likely to make me laugh out loud remains this (playground pony bomb scare).
54:The more I learn of the Occupation and Reconstruction, and the abrupt flip to Cold War reaction in 1948, and the betrayal of Japanese leftists, feminists, and labor unions at the demand of the US, the more I appreciate Late Spring 1949. It haunts me.
Just like Dan Fogelberg and Tim Weisberg only very different.
59 -- that sucks.
Also, on a down note, as you all know I am a selfish privileged asshole, but I must share that driving in to work today I saw not one but three food lines (one might have been a toy drive) at churches stretching well around the block and packing the street, these were not at all standard transients, mostly families with tons of kids.
Not to mention my acquaintance who was fired on Wednesday for "insubordination" with no prior notice, along with the rest of his group, and had the awesome experience of having to walk over immediately from the shock of being unexpectedly fired to take his 3 year old kid out of the company-run preschool. Or my other good friend who had to declare bankruptcy last week for his long-standing startup dream. Times suck and people are really hurting out there.
66: It's probably less of a statement on your level of talent if you are in 8th grade, not 12th.
I passed eighth grade years ago.
The entire group was insubordinate?! Sounds like an attempt to block unemployment insurance payments.
And I don't want to kill the rich, I just want to take all their money, by whatever means necessary. It ain't personal, and I think I really have very little class-based resentment.
Since I don't care about money. The ressentiment I probably have is against the various academics and intellectuals who create and sustain the justifications for the hegemony and political economy, which is also likely fueled by an envy of their tools and skills.
70: And I'm sure you now have a magnificent singing voice.
73 -- yeah, it's really just an acquaintance/not close friend, but I am really worked up about it. Apparently the kid was crying; he had to go take the kid immediately out of the preschool and leave the building with a security guard escort, the kid couldn't understand why he couldn't just stay and play with the others until snack time or whatever.
I mean, they may not win if his employer is exceptionally devious, but people sue about that kind of stuff all the time around here and seem to win often enough to make it worthwhile.
My guess is they'll probably sue.
And the employer almost certain knew that. Following this chain of thought, the employer is probably at a non-trivial risk of bankruptcy before they see a dime. The potential reward is saving higher unemployment insurance premiums and maybe a short term boost in productivity by making every one else live in fear. On the other hand, the potential costs are huge. In addition to the lawsuit, everybody who can (i.e. their best employees) will be sending out resumés over the holiday. Even huge assholes who like causing pain would try to minimize that type of problem.
And the employer is clearly a huge asshole, regardless.
46: Also, not that it's my business, but it seems like your place of work has been making you really miserable lately, Stormcrow, unless I've misread you, which is always possible.
Well, since I've both dropped broad hints and stated so directly, I've pretty much made it everyone's "business" to whatever degree they are interested. And yes, it has not been the most comfortable few months of my career (nor the least ...so far). That said:
1) As I've noted elsewhere, I am keenly aware of the Faustian bargain that puts the SUV* in the garage. In my career I've sometimes just gone through the motions/practiced dance moves, and other times danced like a motherfucker; at the moment I happen to be dancing like a motherfucker for motherfuckers. And all else being equal it ain't that bad (on preview, 68.last for instance), why just last week I read two of LB's hubby's articles in the performance of my actual job duties.
2) Not unexpected. The person I worked directly for (and for whom I had a lot of respect and a very comfortable if idiosyncratic working relationship) for over a decade retired last spring and then the guy who had been above him (and with whom I had a pretty good relationship) retired/was pushed out and my old boss's greatest "rival" took over that role (so is now my new boss's boss). As a result I've been pretty much working my way back up through the re-education camp.
3) The next three months are potentially going to be fun/interesting/extremely frustrating, working through something that is certainly not rocket science (and I would be mocked mercilessly here if I were to reveal it) but it has a lot of moving parts and actual millions of dollars involved. But what I need is for me to get a few days/weeks to sit back and sort it all out, but instead my "task" for next week is to come up with a detailed plan which accounts for my every day and a good part of my boss's and 4 or 5 other people's for the next 3 months to meet the milestones (or whatever the fuck we're calling "getting it done" these days).
*A relatively small, tasteful one that gets fairly good gas mileage ...
Shorter/Addendum to 82:
unless I've misread you, which is always possible.
Thanks for mocking my labored prose-style tenure-boy.
1) First-world problem. Don't cry for me Argentina.
2) All else being equal, do not work for the same person for 10+ years.
3) More to come.
||
This seems perfect for Unfogged:
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2011/12/voice-pitch-and-semen-quality.html
>
Date the bass, marry the tenor?
Hey! Drove through ttaM's ancestral homeland today, and visited the wheel. It was pretty cool.
Also, Prague was totes cool, although parts of it are hilariously shady, and other parts hilariously touristy. The museum of decorative arts was fucking awesome, and the cubist tableware was real nice.
87. Fuck, you're in Europe? We were worried about you.
Yeah, to be honest it is worse hearing about chch here, because, you know, nothing you can do.
Also watched first ministers questions yesterday. The Tory woman is fucking good. Not so sold on Lamont.
re: 89
I haven't heard her speak. It's amazing, however, that the head of the Conservatives in Scotland has so little experience. She's barely been involved in politics, at all, for more than a couple of years.
Following the resignation of Annabel Goldie as Scottish Conservative leader on 9 May 2011, Davidson became a contender in the leadership election.[24] Her rivals later claimed that Davidson received assistance from Party headquarters,[19] though her supporters stated that these claims were part of a smear campaign.[19]
On 11 September 2011, Davidson sacked her election agent and parliamentary assistant Ross McFarlane after a newspaper unearthed camera footage of McFarlane drunkenly trying to burn a European Union flag while making anti-Catholic sectarian remarks in a Glasgow street in November 2010.[25]
On 5 October 2011, the Scottish Conservative media director Ramsay Jones was suspended from his duties during the leadership contest, after it was revealed that he had met Davidson and her campaign team in her flat on Sunday, September 18.[26][27]
Davidson subsequently won the leadership election and was made the leader of the Scottish Conservatives on 4 November 2011. She gained 2,278 first preference votes out of the 5,676 votes cast, after second preference votes were counted, she won by 2,983 votes to second-placed Murdo Fraser's 2,417.[28]
Quite a lot of intrigue for a party that holds 15 out of 139 seats in the parliament. Also, if you told me yesterday that there was a man named Murdo Fraser and asked me who he was, my first guess would have been "Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party".
85: Full paper.
Looks pretty weak to me offhand - all they found connecting sperm with voice was one significant correlation, a negative one between sperm/ml and voice-attractiveness, out of twelve tests (most of which used some technique called "principal components analysis" I'm unfamiliar with). Smells strongly of doing as many tests as possible until something finally hit the desired alpha-level. Plus that particular sperm/ml variable was "controlling for frequency of sexual activity and abstinence prior to sample collection," which leaves room for data-massaging.
Also, if you told me yesterday that there was a man named Murdo Fraser and asked me who he was, my first guess would have been "Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party" an Indo-Caledonian steampunk apothecary and pamphleteer and the protagonist of China Miéville's next novel, At Last Those Capitalist Pigs Will Pay for Their Crimes, Eh, Comrades?
Hah! You should have seen the Nz ACT party, who had 5 MPs. One, David garret, turned out to have stolen a dead baby's identity in order to illegal obtain a passport, one got sacked from their ministerial portfolios amid allegations of affairs and plotting, subsequently confirmed when she tried to get another act mp, Roger douglas, ex labour minister of finance, to roll Rodney hide, the leader, who had fallen from grace over allegations he'd taken his girlfriend to Paris on the taxpayer. Then, they got taken over by Don Brash, ex National party leader, a man who wasn't even in parliament. John banks, ex nat minister of police, was installed in Epsom as their candidate, as part of an elaborate plan to tort the electoral system. Banks was endorsed by the nat pm, and his nat opponent was unofficially endorsed by labour and the greens.
In the end, banks was returned, but no one else was, so Banks took over as leader.
Wouldn't not knowing what principal component analysis is make it tough to evaluate the paper?
30: I'm only racist in favor of the human race. We have many fine accomplishments, and I'm not going to sit here and listen to a goddamn dolphin run us down.
96: They didn't find anything significant using that analysis - the sperm/ml thing was just regular Pearson correlations.
99: It's a portmanteau of "flippant" and "instanter." It has nothing to do with dolphins!
Although I respect and sympathize with our large-brained mammalian brothers and sisters in the sea, of course.
And if people are so great, how come they got conquered by damned dirty apes?
101.1: It shows your contempt for another species that you think we'd believe that.
Maybe you're right, Walt. Maybe I should turn a corner and wallow in positivity like a mid-'90s rapper. Or a wrestling heel who loses a feud-capping match at Wrestlemania. Wait. After a face turn, would a wrestling Flippanter have to change his sobriquet to something like "Affirmer" or "Dr. Drew"?
Everybody's doing Xmas shit, it seems.
Not me, I'm manfully shouldering the burden of capitalism! FORWARD TO PROFIT!
"From [some very pleasant place--La Jolla? Greenwich? Provence?], weighing in at an appropriate figure relative to his height and family health history ... The Very Nice Young Man, Skippy Beauchamp-Cholmondeley!!!"
Somethingtron, leader of the Mumblicons.
94: you are making me feel pangs of regret for giving you stupid, unfollow-able advice yesterday, because you are cracking my shit up, flip. well, I was feeling regretful anyway, but your increased entertainingness is merely compounding the problem. did you know that somethingtron can seamlessly expand and transform from a something mumble transport device into a mumble space submarine robot mumble something? it's his most awesome power.
Liesegang rings are way cool. (For once, doing an image search is rewarding.)
85, 92: It does indeed look like an example of trying everything they could until they found some significant correlation. (Who starts with just 7 variables and uses 3 principal components? Seriously, who?) I'm tempted to try to turn this into a homework problem in my class next semester, but that's probably the beer talking.
You have talking beer? Physicists get all the cool toys.
112: One had a very down spell but feels a little better for Christmas.
115: I speak for the beer, or more exactly the yeast. It's a silencing-of-the-fungal-Other-through-representation-in-hegemonic-metazoan-discourse thing.
From my collecting days I have various agate and rhyolite pebbles with nice Liesegang rings.
The fearsome mumblicore--half man, half something, something, half indie film.
I'm tempted to try to turn this into a homework problem in my class next semester, but that's probably the beer talking.
When I'm tempted to do something ill-advised because I've been drinking, it's never yet been 'plan and assign additional homework.'