449 Comments

  1. Francisco d'Anconia

    First

    But I cheated

    • mexican sharpshooter

      Damn, Russianz.

  2. Urthona

    Second

  3. Spudalicious

    Thanks for enacting my labor. It was going to be epic.

  4. Juvenile Bluster

    I have an appointment on Saturday with a doctor to hopefully get my medical marijuana card.

    I’ve been on various antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs since 1996, and I can’t say how much they’ve helped. They’ve kept me alive, and they’ve kept me able to exist in the real world, but I’m a mess. Let’s see if this stuff works. I’ve only smoked once in my life, when I was 18.

    Not going in expecting marijuana to be this miraculous panacea, but I feel like I have to try.

    • Tulip

      Good luck

    • Mojeaux

      Dude, I’m so sorry.

    • mexican sharpshooter

      I have relatives that use it for anxiety. Seems to help keep them from freaking out.

      • J. Frank Parnell

        Weird, it tends to crank my anxiety up to 11.

      • mexican sharpshooter

        I also don’t think my relatives suffer from any mental disorder.

      • Bob the Gravatar Hater

        try Indica

      • DenverJ

        That’s a beginner’s problem. I’ve heard it goes away with practice…

      • Lachowsky

        It always had a bad effect on my anxiety when i was driving.

        Other than that, not at all.

        Actually, i have no anxiety issues, except for when i used to smoke pot and drive.

    • MikeS

      I hope it helps. Even a little.

    • Spudalicious

      Stay away from sativa and try to use something other than smoking it. Vaping, edibles, etc. You don’t need to do that to your lungs.

    • LemonGrenade

      The only problem with edibles is it’s hard to figure out what’s enough for you. Inhaled methods give a more immediate effect, so that as soon as you’re feeling it, you can stop. Hope it helps, and hope you enjoy it – I sure do.

      • Trigger Hippie

        I ate 60 mg of high potency gummies about three hours ago. Nothing. I told my buddy that they’re wasted on me, but he insisted.

        *shrugs*

      • LemonGrenade

        I almost never notice edibles, either. I just stick with flower.

      • Bob the Gravatar Hater

        ^this,

      • Not Adahn

        The first time I legit got stoned was when it was ground up in a bowl of applesauce. I thought it was like all the other times (i.e. nothing) then all of a sudden I was completely paranoid that everyone in the house knew I was on the maryjewwanna.

      • LemonGrenade

        It took me a few tries, but once it hit me, I decided it was tons of fun. The trouble always used to be finding it.

      • Not Adahn

        I absolutely loved the shit that this one very tall busty chick (ask Unreconstructed) brought, but I felt too “dry” unless I was also drinking at the time.

        One of my bucket list items is to get completely drunk and stoned, and watch Moulin Rouge while holding a naked hottie.

    • westernsloper

      Hope it works JB. Can’t hurt to try from what you have mentioned.

    • Bob the Gravatar Hater

      You will get your card, don’t worry,

    • straffinrun

      Pot used to give me anxiety sometimes. But, it was anxiety from getting my house flooded with thugs in blue uniforms operating on an anonymous tip. Assholes.

    • Urthona

      You don’t need a permission slip from the government. I’ll sell you some,

    • Not Adahn

      As someone with both major depression and dysthemia, MJ has had both anxiety increasing and decreasing effects on me. If his helps, the stuff from poor people tended to make me more anxious, but the stuff that rich girls brought to the party was wonderful.

      I was put on a variety of antidepressants, but the one that has worked the longest for me (say 2011 to the present) has been basic old fluoxetine.

    • Fourscore

      Its a generational thing. Growing up we heard only the government point of view so I never have tried any recreational experiments and never thought about it, not as long a cheap whisky was available.

    • Mojeaux

      So I was on Abilify for a while. It worked great. Except … it made me want to eat everything I saw AND it totally flattened my emotions out. But I was totally chill and had my shit together.

      • LemonGrenade

        Apart from just liking to be stoned, I smoke it when my kids are being extra assholes. Helps keep me from flipping my lid; I’m a lot more patient when I’m high.

  5. Tres Cool

    And the drugs fell out of their furry ass after they stomped him in the nuts ?

    • JD is Unemployed

      Always drugs falling out of asses all the time. It is not possible to do anything without drugs falling out of an ass. For every action, an equal and opposite reaction drugs falling out of an ass.

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        ::AHEM::

        Drugs are sliding out of asses, not “falling”, TYVM.

      • Shirley Knott

        It’s survival of the feces.

  6. Sean

    Huh, I identify for at least 3 of those links. ?

    • Rhywun

      Dibs on one of the missile silos.

      • Sean

        That wasn’t one of the three for me.

        And I’m not moving out west.

      • Rhywun

        Good. More missile silos for me.

      • Sean

        I think there’s a Freudian joke there somewhere…

      • mexican sharpshooter

        Benson is not a town I’d live in.

      • We're not saying BEAM's an alien, but . . .

        D00d, you’re gonna be in a missile silo. What do you care?

      • Ted S.

        You don’t want to live in Benson?

      • Not Adahn

        Ya kno, Robert Guillaume died waaaaaay too early.

      • Ted S.

        I’m sure Fourscore is thrilled to know you think 89 is way too early.

      • Fourscore

        Still too young though. Bob Hope, George Burns, now those guys knew how to live.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Baby Peggy, Kirk Douglas, and Olivia de Havilland yet live!

      • Not Adahn

        I don’t care if he was 89, that fucker was singing on Broadway and delivering legitimately funny jokes. He needed at least a couple decades of decrepitude to enjoy all the good things he brought into the world.

      • Ted S.

        Marsha Hunt turned 102 last year and Nehemiah Persoff turned 100.

      • Ted S.

        He was also on Sports Night, which undoes a lot of the good he did.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Too far Ted’s! Too far!

      • MikeS

        My girl, Betty White, just turned 98.

    • westernsloper

      I got 5.

      • westernsloper

        And I couldn’t even read the one I was most.

      • DenverJ

        Did ya try an incognito tab?

      • westernsloper

        I did. Went into porn mode and everything.

      • DenverJ

        Huh. I never have problems with the NYT. Clear your cookies and cache.

      • DenverJ

        Access on sale for $119?!? Wow, they’re on drugs.

      • mexican sharpshooter

        And I couldn’t even read the one I was most.

        WASHINGTON — For more than an hour one evening in 2018, President Trump sat around a dinner table in a private suite in his Washington hotel with a group of donors, including two men at the center of the impeachment inquiry, talking about golf, trade, politics — and removing the United States ambassador to Ukraine.

        The conversation, captured on a recording made public Saturday, contradicted Mr. Trump’s repeated statements that he does not know the two men, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who went on to work with the president’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani to carry out a pressure campaign on Ukraine.

        The recording — a video shot on Mr. Fruman’s phone during the dinner in April 2018 — largely confirmed Mr. Parnas’s account of having raised with Mr. Trump criticisms of the ambassador to Kyiv at the time, Marie L. Yovanovitch, and the president’s immediate order that Ms. Yovanovitch should be removed from the post.

        “Get rid of her,” Mr. Trump can be heard responding.

        The recording was made public by Mr. Parnas’s lawyer, Joseph A. Bondy, hours after the president’s lawyers began presenting their defense in the impeachment trial and as Democrats looked for leverage to persuade Republicans to support their calls to expand the inquiry by introducing additional evidence and calling new witnesses.

        Mr. Bondy said it was being released in “an effort to provide clarity to the American people and the Senate as to the need to conduct a fair trial, with witnesses and evidence.”

        In the recording, Mr. Parnas, who is the more talkative of the two, broached an energy deal the two were pursuing in Ukraine, and then went on to discuss several themes that later became central to the pressure campaign. He claimed that Ms. Yovanovitch, whose name he did not cite, had been disparaging Mr. Trump. He said that the Ukrainians “were supporting the Clintons all these years.” He even mentioned in passing the family of the former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

        The recording does not appear to introduce substantive new information about the effort to oust Ms. Yovanovitch.

        But it does seem to shed light on the origins of Mr. Trump’s interest in the issue, and to foreshadow his administration’s withholding of military assistance from the country as part of the pressure campaign. It hints at the motivations of Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman, who had come to believe that Ms. Yovanovitch was opposed to their business plans in Ukraine, where they had tried to break into the natural gas market, according to associates of the two men, both of whom are Soviet-born American citizens.

        During the dinner, Mr. Trump lashed out at the European Union for trying to “screw” the United States, assailed the World Trade Organization as a “weapon” intended to harm America and lamented the “globalists” around him who do not care if manufacturing plants shutter.

        Democrats are seeking Mr. Trump’s removal from office on the grounds that he abused his power by pressing Ukraine to investigate targets of the president, including Mr. Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman worked closely with Mr. Giuliani in seeking information and making contacts in Ukraine in support of the effort, starting months after the April 2018 dinner.

        For most of the recording, the camera is pointed at the ceiling but the audio is clear. Early in the recording, Mr. Trump can be seen as he enters the private room at the Trump International Hotel in Washington on April 30, 2018.

        The existence and some of the conversation in the recording were first reported by ABC News on Friday.

        The effort to oust Ms. Yovanovitch would later become directly linked to the broader pressure campaign on Ukraine waged by Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman. Evidence provided to House investigators showed that Mr. Parnas was in regular contact last year with Ukraine’s chief prosecutor, who also wanted Ms. Yovanovitch replaced, and seemed to be willing to trade investigations of Mr. Biden for her removal and other signs of support from the Trump administration.

        By the time of the dinner with Mr. Trump, Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman already saw Ms. Yovanovitch as an impediment to their efforts to get into the energy business in Ukraine.

        In the full recording released on Saturday, Mr. Parnas can be heard telling Mr. Trump that he and Mr. Fruman “are in the process of purchasing an energy company in Ukraine right now.”

        Mr. Trump responds, “How’s Ukraine doing?” then quickly adds, “Don’t answer,” prompting laughter in the room.

        After some conversation about Ukraine’s war with its hostile neighbor, Russia, and its efforts to establish energy security, Mr. Trump asked, “How long would they last in a fight with Russia?”

        “I don’t think very long,” Mr. Parnas responded. “Without us, not very long,” adding “they feel they’re going to be O.K. if you support them.”

        Mr. Parnas continued by saying that “the biggest problem is corruption there,” and later added Ms. Yovanovitch, though not by name, to a list of issues Mr. Trump should address in Ukraine.

        “The biggest problem there, I think, where we, where you, need to start is we got to get rid of the ambassador,” he said. “She’s basically walking around telling everybody, ‘Wait, he’s going to get impeached, just wait.’”

        The remark prompted laughter in the room.

        Mr. Trump asked for the ambassador’s name. Mr. Fruman said, “I don’t remember.” Mr. Trump, sounding stern, then said: “Get rid of her. Get her out tomorrow. I don’t care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. O.K.? Do it.”

        Those comments were directed at one of Mr. Trump’s aides who was in the room at the time, Mr. Parnas has previously said. There was some additional laughter in the room at Mr. Trump’s remarks.

        Ms. Yovanovitch remained in her job for another year after Mr. Trump’s remarks until she was recalled on the White House’s orders. It is not clear whether the president changed his mind, forgot about his order or was talked out of dismissing her. Mr. Parnas has recently acknowledged that he was wrong about Ms. Yovanovitch, who has denied ever disparaging Mr. Trump.

        The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Mr. Trump has previously acknowledged that he had problems with Ms. Yovanovitch but has defended his actions as appropriate, given that presidents have the right to name and replace ambassadors as they see fit.

        Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman gained access to the dinner, which was organized by a pro-Trump super PAC, America First Action, by pledging to donate $1 million to the group.

        The month after the event, they donated $325,000 to the group through a company they had recently formed to pursue energy deals called Global Energy Producers.

        At the beginning of the video, the person holding the phone walks around the private suite filming chatter among the guests, who included Donald Trump Jr., Jack Nicklaus III, the grandson and namesake of the legendary golfer, and Barry Zekelman, a Canadian billionaire whose steel business is mostly in the United States.

        Later, Mr. Trump said to attendees, “This is all sort of, like, off the record, right?”

        During the dinner, attendees fawned over Mr. Trump and seemed to revel in their ability to ask him for direct help with business issues.

        In the meandering conversation, Mr. Trump defended the aggressive actions he was taking against China and explained that he overruled advisers who urged him to take a softer approach because the United States was already so deeply on the losing end of the relationship.

        “They’re tough, but I always say when you’re $500 billion down, you can’t lose the trade war,” Mr. Trump said, referring to the bilateral trade deficit the United States runs with China.

        Mr. Trump, who has since reached a trade truce with China, foreshadowed his next big trade fight, taking aim at the European Union.

        “The European Union is a group of countries that got together to screw the United States, it’s as simple as that,” Mr. Trump said, adding that such a notion is surprising because “we’re all sort of from there, right?”

        The conversation came just one month after Mr. Trump had slapped tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum, including metals imported from Europe.

        At the dinner, Mr. Trump repeatedly praised the tariffs, though he occasionally expressed concern that they could reduce the amount of available metals. “I don’t want to be at a point where we don’t have enough steel in this country,” he said. A few minutes later, he added, “You’re going to see prices go up. Hopefully not too much.”

        It has been a decade since legal changes paved the way for unlimited donations to super PACs, making such gatherings an even more explicit demonstration of how a large political payment can turn into access to push a special interest.

        The donors competed for time to walk through their sometimes conflicting issues, one by one, pitching the president to take up their causes almost as if they were on “Shark Tank,” the reality television show, looking for investors in their ideas.

        Mr. Zekelman, a Canadian citizen who owns a steel tube manufacturing company that donated $1.75 million to the political action committee supporting Mr. Trump, pushed the president on what he saw as the top two challenges facing his company: cheap steel tube imports from Asia and new federal rules that make it harder to find truck drivers.

        He first urged Mr. Trump to go even further in his effort to limit steel imports to the United States, and he then questioned the rules intended to prevent fatal truck accidents by using electronic monitoring systems to limit how many hours drivers can be on the road.

        Since that dinner, legislation has been introduced in the House with the co-sponsorship of 12 Republicans, including the brother of Vice President Mike Pence, to allow smaller trucking companies to get exemptions from the rule.

        Mr. Zekelman is not legally allowed under federal law to make a contribution to the political action committee. So his company donated the money through one of its subsidiaries based in the United States, a maneuver that has generated a complaint with the Federal Election Commission that he might have violated federal election law, after The New York Times wrote about the donations last year.

        One attendee told Mr. Trump that he operates a company that supplies trucks powered by compressed natural gas and urged Mr. Trump to take steps to make the business more competitive with electric powered trucks or cars.

        Another, who said he runs a company that does business with the United States Postal Service, pushed Mr. Trump to consider backing the construction of a 500-mile section of highway in the United States that would be used exclusively by self-driving trucks. Paying truck drivers, he said, is one of his company’s biggest costs.

        “All the technology is there, right now,” he said. “It is absolutely safe.”

        Mr. Parnas did not limit his efforts to influence Mr. Trump to Ukraine. He can be heard trying to engage Mr. Trump about issues related to another business venture he would go on to pursue — a plan to win marijuana retail licenses in Nevada and elsewhere.

        He appeared to ask Mr. Trump to consider changing regulations that banks have said made it difficult for them to process transactions related to the cannabis business.

        “Have you thought about allowing banking in some of these states that allow cannabis?” Mr. Parnas asked.

        “What?” Mr. Trump responded. “You can’t do banking there?”

        Mr. Parnas said banking regulations were “the biggest problem” for the industry, and argued that the issue could help Mr. Trump politically. If the president created a bipartisan committee to study it, Mr. Parnas argued “you can know what’s going on, and make the right decision. By just putting the committee together, it will give you such a boost in the midterm with a lot of the millennials.”

        Mr. Trump expressed some skepticism, saying marijuana use has led to “more accidents” and asserting “it does cause an I.Q. problem.”

        But Donald Trump Jr. seemed more agreeable, arguing “between that and alcohol, as far as I’m concerned alcohol does much more damage,” and asserting “you don’t see people beating their wives on marijuana. It’s just different.”

        A spokesman for the younger Mr. Trump did not respond to a request for comment.

        In the months after the dinner, Mr. Parnas, Mr. Fruman and two associates tried to enlist political support for an effort to win marijuana retail licenses in Nevada and elsewhere by planning to spend $1 million to $2 million for potential political donations, some of which prosecutors say was funded by a Russian investor, according to an indictment against the men.

        They have pleaded not guilty.

        Kenneth P. Vogel reported from Washington, and Ben Protess from New York. Alan Rappeport, Jim Tankersley and Eric Lipton contributed reporting from Washington.

      • Spudalicious

        I’m not seeing the downside for Trump. In fact, I see it as helping him.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Yeah, a lot of those private comments are going to endear him to even more blue collar workers in swing states, not less.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Thank you.

      • Ted S.

        Isn’t DC an all-party recording jurisdiction?

  7. Spudalicious

    I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the links were done by Banjos.

    • Francisco d'Anconia

      *Limb snaps, killing Spud*

      • Spudalicious

        Dammit.

    • Ted S.

      I think we know they weren’t done by Kobe Bryant.

      • Francisco d'Anconia

        Lou Reed

      • straffinrun

        Fuck. That was one helluva a way to find out the Mamba died. Peace out, Kobe.

      • Fourscore

        Or my sister-in-law, at least not in the past hour. She left this earthly paradise, peacefully but not unexpectedly. She was in hospice for the past 7 days or so.

      • Francisco d'Anconia

        Sorry to hear that

      • westernsloper

        Condolences Four.

      • straffinrun

        Sorry to hear that, FS. Peacefully is good.

      • We're not saying BEAM's an alien, but . . .

        7 days. D000000000d. My poor sainted mother spent the last three months of her life in hospice, being slowly tortured to death by liver cancer. 7 days would’ve been a huge blessing.

      • Fourscore

        Thanks fellers. She’d been in bad health for a number of years, living in a nursing home environment. She will be buried in a military cemetery where my brother is.

      • We're not saying BEAM's an alien, but . . .

        Ah. Additional info always helpful (at least to keep me from looking like the asshole I am). And my sincere condolences. The one thing about old age neither I nor any of my friends are looking forward to is failing health over an extended period of time.

      • Not Adahn

        My maternal grandfather (Seabee) was buried with military honors. When I heard “…and on the behalf of a grateful nation” it broke me.

      • LemonGrenade

        My condolences.

      • Fourscore

        Thanks, LG

      • Mojeaux

        I’m so sorry.

      • mindyourbusiness

        I’ll echo Straff. Being able to go in peace is good. Our sympathies.

      • Fourscore

        Thanks. Her immediate family was prepared. She had suffered enough.

      • Spudalicious

        Sorry, buddy.

      • MikeS

        Sounds like it was a a blessing. Condolences to you and the Mrs.

      • Fourscore

        I think Chauncey Gardner said something like “There is a time for planting and a time for harvesting”

        Thanks to all the Glibs, makes somethings easier.

      • mexican sharpshooter

        I too wish to convey my condolences.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Sorry, 4×20.

    • Urthona

      According to my paranoid perusal of the CDC website, the main danger from this is secondary infection. It leaves lungs, etc in a state where they are very vulnerable to things like pneumonia.

      It’s something first world countries will deal with much better.

      • LJW

        I’ve only heard of elderly with preexisting conditions dying. Of course there are very limited details on the dead. Not sure if that’s because the Chinese are covering it up, or the media are ignoring it in favor of fear mongering for clicks.

      • Spudalicious

        It’s being covered up and a few of the people that have died were healthy, young adults.

      • Urthona

        Happens here even during ordinary flus as well, but I don’t think overall it will be as bad.

      • Spudalicious

        I’m hoping it’s pretty much limited to China. This came out of a bio weapons lab.

      • Urthona

        Is that really true?

      • Rhywun

        So you think the “weird meat market” explanation is a hoax?

      • Urthona

        If by “weird meat market” you mean a Wuhan Applebee’s.

      • Ted S.

        Spud forgot the reverse zombies.

      • straffinrun

        Racist.

      • Spudalicious

        From what I’ve read, China’s only bio weapons lab is in Wuhan. The SARS epidemic was caused by an animal escaping and spreading the disease to other animals, that humans ate. I’ve read the same story about this outbreak. I may be wrong, but there’s just too much coincidence for me.

      • cyto

        That story is kinda silly. They have already sequenced the entire code of the new virus. They know its origins – a recombination of two strains in a snake. This is a normal phenomenon for viruses.

        You would never design a bioweapon this way. You’d use something much more deadly and modify it in much more obvious ways – like the Russian version that caused the body to attack myelin, It caused essentially muscular dystrophy. Nasty. Disable your enemy, but don’t kill… so the unaffected are busy caring for those you infected. Also, needs to be something you can vaccinate for, so you don’t nuke your own population.

      • Fourscore

        Even here, ordinary flu culls the old, the infirm and the young, for the most part. I’ve had pneumonia X2, first time was in the hospital for about 10 days and weak for a month after, second time some antibiotics and rest and back to normal in a few days.

  8. Trigger Hippie

    Trump lying, Ukrainians, NYT paywall. Potheads don’t pay for the NYT. No self-respecting pothead, anyway.

    • DenverJ

      I had a letter to the editor published in the Times way back during the Bush the Younger presidency.

      • Trigger Hippie

        One of my roommates at the time subscribed to the NYT back then, and the only letter to the editor I remember was a guy lamenting the loss of the historical artifacts looted from Iraq’s museums immediately after Saddam was toppled. The person contented that those bits of metal and stone were so precious that people should forever stay under the yolk of a brutal dictatorship if that meant preserving them. Now, any long term benefit of our presence in Iraq to the Iraqis is extremely debatable, but that comment just seemed coldblooded.

      • DenverJ

        Mine was talking about an article reporting that mental health professionals were assisting in the interrogation of prisoners by helping the CIA exploit the prisoners’ phobias. I was less than supportive of these professionals’ interpretation of the Hippocratic Oath…

  9. westernsloper

    During the dinner, attendees fawned over Mr. Trump and seemed to revel in their ability to ask him for direct help with business issues.

    Interesting they wrote this days after Peter Schweizers latest book came out about the Bidens and the Obama administration. Maybe we can count on it all being exposed by the NYT…….LOL I crack myself up.

    • Fatty Bolger

      What’s crazy about this is that the tape is from April 2018, which entirely undercuts the Democrats narrative that Trump had no interest in Ukraine until after Biden was running.

      • westernsloper

        It won’t matter. It will turn into he only cared about Ukraine because of big donors who are under indictment. Their interests are why the sweet pure noble life long public servant ambassador was fired.

      • Fatty Bolger

        No doubt. But one of the reasons the impeachment is barely registering is that they’ve been running from one failed narrative to the next for Trump’s entire term. This just continues the trend.

    • cyto

      Also funny that they pretend that it is novel that donors get access to politicians. Back in the late 90’s, early aughts I was part of a lobbying effort on behalf of my industry. We were under attack from the insurance industry and needed to stop legislation intended to put us out of business. Since the key politicians were all democrats, that’s who we talked to. We went as a group to fundraiser dinners that we organized, checks in hand. It really didn’t take all that much money to get an audience, a few grand will get you breakfast or dinner with a congressman. I learned that they are not always who they seem on TV. Charlie Rangel was really smart and wicked funny, and not at all the race-baiting hack he played on TV. It was apparent that they don’t always hold the views they spout on TV either. Many of them appeared to be playing characters when on TV.

  10. Not Adahn

    “Glibs Staff” my ass. This is so obviously a Frankie set of links.

    • Gustave Lytton

      “Glibs staff my ass”

      No judging!

    • Francisco d'Anconia

      Nope.

  11. Gustave Lytton

    CNN has gone into full 9/11 blanket coverage of Kobe. Christ, it’s not the end of the world. A guest was saying that people will know where they were when they heard Kobe died, just like JFK.

    • Urthona

      That thing looked like it exploded.

      All I’m saying is where was Shaq when this happened?

    • We're not saying BEAM's an alien, but . . .

      Yeah, for me that was when Challenger blew up. (Although I do vaguely remember JFK, even though I was but a wee lad in a Canadian pre-school . . . )

    • Not Adahn

      …nope.

      I remember where I was when the Challenger went Boom, and I remember where I was when the Towers fell. IIR that I was glibbing when Kobe died, I will be supremely disappointed with my life. Or even iirc who tf “Kobe” was.

      • Urthona

        For me a teacher wheeled a tv a into the classroom and showed us. Wonder if they do that now.

      • Gustave Lytton

        No need. They’d just tell the kids to turn on the their school issued iPads.

      • Ted S.

        I was at home for the Challenger, because there was some sort of state-mandated testing that mean we only had a half day at school. I was irritated that it interrupted The Price Is Right.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        For 9/11 they thought we were too young (7th and 8th grade) to watch the news coverage of it.

      • Ted S.

        Get off our lawns!

      • Not an Economist

        I was at work. Some of my coworkers had worked on the shuttle years earlier. We spent the rest of the day trying to figure out what happened from the little information we had.

      • straffinrun

        I don’t remember where you were when the challenger went boom. *Pulls hair, smacks forehead* C’mon, brain! Work!

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        It’s interesting that Challenger was a cultural touchstone, but Columbia wasn’t.

      • MikeS

        You never forget your first.

      • Not an Economist

        Challenger was the first NASA accident in a space mission that cost lives.

        For the record I remember where I was when I heard about Columbia.

      • UnCivilServant

        You’re just saying that Because Apollo 1 never got off the ground.

      • one true athena

        Columbia blew up on re-entry, so hardly anyone was watching it live, whereas Challenger launch was a big media event. Especially for schools – students were all tuned in. I remember being in the school library to watch Challenger.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Yeah, I was in a class, and they had it on all the mounted TV’s around campus. Word went around about the explosion and everybody went to watch. I don’t think classes were officially canceled, but it pretty much shut down everything for the day.

      • Ted S.

        That’s because some teachers’ union flunkie was on the mission.

    • westernsloper

      Well, most will remember they weren’t in his helicopter.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Good one.

    • Tulip

      Um, no.

      • Rhywun

        Yeah, no. I’m trying to watch live tennis now (from Australia) and it’s all Kobe. I don’t watch basketball so *shrug*.

    • straffinrun

      Great player. Did well in his life after retiring. For me, that’s enough. Oh, and wonder if they’ll bring up the bullshit proto metoo moment he went through.

      • MikeS

        So he didn’t rape her?

      • straffinrun

        Not if I’m remembering the details right.

      • Jarflax

        I wasn’t there and it never saw court, but the doctor that did the rape kit reported vaginal trauma consistent with rape and choking bruises on her neck, Kobe’s defense was that he liked to choke women when he was screwing them, and that he thought she wanted it. Maybe it wasn’t rape, maybe it was just an entitled asshole thinking since she was willing to screw him he could go wild on her, but I wouldn’t put it in metoo territory.

      • MikeS

        Maybe it wasn’t rape, maybe it was just an entitled asshole thinking since she was willing to screw him he could go wild on her

        This is basically what I was thinking at the time. I honestly had forgotten all about it…probably over a decade ago.

      • straffinrun

        Checking the details and the accuser changed her story in meaningful ways, was most likely on drugs for schizophrenia, had two suicide attempts under her belt and had another man’s semen in her underwear at the time. Kobe came off as a total douchebag, but even douche’s should be defended in he said, she said cases. And that, to me, is what metoo is all about. It’s only about the she said part. Proto metoo isn’t the same as full blown metoo and I’ll concede that.

      • egould310

        He didn’t rape her. He stuck it in crazy, and paid the price.

      • straffinrun

        This. That lady had more than one kind of coffee in her cup.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Oops, that’s what I get for skimming the comments…sorry.

      • straffinrun

        Just wanted to post a Brim Job with dark roast joke. You were right.

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        No, no–that was excellent Brim job, straff.

      • Naptown Bill

        I don’t quite remember and I hesitate to look it up because this close to his death the info will likely be biased, but I believe it never went to trial and they settled out of court. I think it wound up being one of those things where she said she felt pressured into it but he thought it was consensual.

      • Trigger Hippie

        The charges were dropped after it was revealed that the prosecution tried to keep evidence of there being hair and semen samples in her panties that didn’t match Bryant’s DNA from the trial. If I remember correctly, the samples indicated that sex with the unknown male very well may have happened not soon after the alleged rape.

      • Naptown Bill

        Oh yeah, I’m starting to remember now. Wasn’t the pro-Kobe narrative that she was, to put it delicately, something of a sexual opportunist, and figured she could bang a famous NBA player and retire young?

      • Trigger Hippie

        Yeah. Again just going off of memory, but I recall a story about her going out clubbing just a few days after the alleged rape and hitting on dudes and bragging about her upcoming windfall.

      • MikeS

        None of which is proof that she wanted things to go as far as they did. Callous and opportunistic is a hell of a defense mechanism.

      • Trigger Hippie

        That’s fair, Mike. And I’ll also add this to your point: As far as the alleged conduct was concerned, it was no different than what Mike Tyson was said to have done. But one guy is handsome, articulate, speaks Italian, and was the face of ome of the NBA’s top two most prestigious franchises. The other guy was a brutish looking, scary guy with a speech impediment and a criminal past who participated in a notoriously crooked sport. One skated, one went to prison.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Well, Kobe’s case never went to trial because the accuser refused to testify.

      • Playa Manhattan

        If I believed he raped her, I wouldn’t be a fan.

      • MikeS

        Unfortunately, this is also a real, if unspoken, attitude: “I’m a fan, so I believe he didn’t rape her.”

      • Playa Manhattan

        I believed he did at first. Not after the facts came out.

    • Naptown Bill

      I feel terrible for his family and I think it’s sad but that’s the extent of it. I think it’s sad when *most people die unexpectedly, or even expectedly, depending on the circumstances. What CNN and it seems like CNBC and MSNBC are doing is milking the “Kobe Bryant DIED!” angle for ratings because it’s 100000 times more interesting than the impeachment bullshit and the rest of the crap they try to peddle. That annoys me, honestly, because the real tragedy is that a young (hey, he was my age on the nose, and I’m still young, dammit) father and daughter died before their time; that it was Kobe Bryant is significant as trivia but shouldn’t make it more or less a tragedy. It seems like the cable stations couldn’t give a shit that there were other people who died in the crash, and that’s shitty.

      • Naptown Bill

        *I don’t wish death on people, but there are definitely some people I wouldn’t shed a tear for if they got hit by a truck…maybe even my truck.

      • straffinrun

        Yep. The daughter part makes it unbelievably sad. I’m gonna go some day and I pray to god it isn’t the same time as my daughter.

      • Naptown Bill

        We had it on in the background and I had to turn it off after a little while. I can’t handle thinking about something happening to my daughter.

      • Ted S.

        It’s like when Gabby Giffords got shot and they only cared about the judge who died and the little girl who was interested in becoming part of the ruling class, and none of the other dead.

      • Fourscore

        The Demos are either gonna take Kobi’s death poorly, as competition for their DC carnival or be given a chance to slip out the back quietly.

        “We’d a had ‘im if it hadn’t been for the helicopter stuff”

        Schiff, Pelosi and Feinstien will have to shut down and go to their best friend’s funeral

      • Naptown Bill

        Mike Tirico was on the phone during a live segment on CNBC today talking about it and he said something along the lines of, “This news will come as a surprise to your viewers who are tuning in to hear about the impeachment,” and I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not. They’re clinging to this like grim death because I’m betting their ratings with the impeachment nonevent are going down the drain.

    • Francisco d'Anconia

      people will know where they were when they heard Kobe died, just like JFK.

      I hadda google him when I heard.

      • AlmightyJB

        He was President.

      • Ted S.

        The Kardashians of the 60s.

      • hayeksplosives

        I feel more pangs of grief, by far, for the 30 US troops who died in a copter crash today.

      • Spudalicious

        We lost 30? Where? Chinook?

      • dbleagle

        I am not finding it. Afghanistan?

        There also was a rocket that hit the US Embassy in Iraq today. Based on my experience from being rocketed near there my guess the POO was near Sadr City.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Marketing opportunity?

      • AlmightyJB

        That’s a nice Sunday night tune.

      • AlmightyJB

        C&T should have stuck with covering other people’s songs instead of writing Muskrat Love.

      • Fourscore

        My daughter sent off for her KTel C & T when she was about 12-13. Allow 6 weeks for shipping and handling. By the time she got it the muskrat was in a fur coat somewhere in NJ. She had already moved on to what ever Donny and Marie were doing.

      • one true athena

        oh my god, sudden memory of some proto-music video for that song with puppet muskrats? (or they were stuffed and animated? not sure) Anybody remember what the hell that was?

    • DrOtto

      Sell the lists like a leads list to pimps and prostitutes!

      • ruodberht

        The fuckin’ leads are weak?!

      • Rhywun

        These leads are for closers.

      • straffinrun

        Think it was you, but did you ever has your wife’s dad if he knows who Tora san is?

      • straffinrun

        *did you ever ask your wife’s dad

  12. AlmightyJB

    Beat up by Furries:) Fur shame!

    • westernsloper

      Weirdos beating up an abuser makes for a good tail though.

    • Naptown Bill

      My wife watched the first season and decided to read the books. She’ll never play the games, but she really likes the books and is understanding a lot of the show that didn’t make sense at first. It’s not that it’s a complicated setting as such, but there’s a lot of little stuff that winds up being really important to making sense of what you’re seeing. I think the writers of the show wanted to try to stick as close as they could to the source material but still get the important characters and concepts introduced early so newcomers to the series wouldn’t drop off out of impatience.

      • Fatty Bolger

        I think they did a pretty good job on the show, except they didn’t make the timelines and locations very clear. It’s badly in need of a map and title cards.

      • Urthona

        Also an entire episode dedicated to Gwent is needed.

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        HEAR, HEAR!!

      • Naptown Bill

        I’ve read the books and played the games and even I was confused for the first few episodes until I realized what they were doing. Based on reviews I’d read from people who were coming to the series cold I prepped my wife that the show was going to jump around in time and she should pay close attention to who’s saying what (and how) to whom because that’s going to indicate when it’s happening. Apparently that helped.

        There’s a bunch of world lore type stuff that they don’t bother to explain–witcher potions, how magic works, silver–and I honestly think it’s better that way. If you tried to provide some sort of Witcher primer you’d lose the people who’d need it.

      • Urthona

        I played the games. Did not read the books. Loved the show. A lot of fun for me.

        It’s not for everyone. Magic is a huge and significant factor throughout.

      • Naptown Bill

        Do yourself a favor and read the books. They take place before the games and the games are supposedly canon, so there are no jarring differences. Without giving anything away, there are aspects of the way the stories are told in the first two books (which are collections of short stories) that are lost in the series. Particularly in the “Lesser Evil” part. Recasting fairy tales in a “realistic” light within the Witcher world is a theme in the stories that doesn’t look like it’s making it to the show.

      • Fatty Bolger

        “There’s a bunch of world lore type stuff that they don’t bother to explain–witcher potions, how magic works, silver–and I honestly think it’s better that way.”

        Absolutely agree. It’s the greater world context that’s missing. GOT did this brilliantly with it’s opening credits and scenes like Maester Luwin teaching Bran about the Houses.

      • Naptown Bill

        Ooh, yeah, GoT did do that well. Again, this is one of the reasons why you get a lot more (I think) out of the show if you have some experience either with the games or the books, and especially with the books. There’s so much political stuff happening in the background.

  13. "Tulsi Gabbard Apologist"

    I hate NYT linked articles. No, I have no interest subscribing to your newspaper. I’d sooner subscribe to Jacobin then I would the NYT

    • Fatty Bolger

      I just open them in incognito mode.

      • "Tulsi Gabbard Apologist"

        Stopped working for me. I think they’ve caught on or something

    • hayeksplosives

      Joy is hilariously in-your-face about being a “woman of color” who is sick of being pigeonholed.

      I follow her on Facebook. She turns up some real gems now and then.

      • AlmightyJB

        To the Grammys. That’s just awesome:)

      • Rhywun

        No idea who that is but I appreciate her balls.

      • MikeS

        Agreed. I also appreciate other parts of her.

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        sick of being pigeonholed

        She simply needs to talk to her partner.

  14. hayeksplosives

    “semiunderground resort for those with electromagnetic sensitivities.”

    Lol-whut?

    • AlmightyJB

      Robots?

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      That’s a fun community if you’re up for some reading on conspiracy theories.

    • Ted S.

      It’s a ladyboy, isn’t it?

      • "Tulsi Gabbard Apologist"

        Worst than finding out that Taylor Hanson was a boy all those years

      • "Tulsi Gabbard Apologist"

        Mmm… bop

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        True story: I always got the two of them confused. Didn’t help that I was 6 when they were famous.

      • "Tulsi Gabbard Apologist"

        You’re thinking of Johnathan Taylor Thomas, kid

      • AlmightyJB

        MMM Bop and I Oop.

      • AlmightyJB

        With lips like that, I could probably over look it. As long as her pants stay on.

      • Naptown Bill

        If that’s an underage ladyboy then I don’t wanna be right.

  15. "Tulsi Gabbard Apologist"

    LeBron is crying like Xi died or something.

    • Rhywun

      ?

    • AlmightyJB

      Harsh.

    • straffinrun

      Please start a Twitter. I’ll follow you.

  16. hayeksplosives

    Ok, let’s pretend that the Dems win the presidential election this year.

    Who is the “least bad” option? I’m thinking Pete Buttigieg.

    Tulsi has her good points but is too much of a socialist for me. She’d be good as the Secretary of Defense though, where she couldn’t get her mitts on domestic policy.

    Biden, Warren, Bernie, Klobuchar (bleargh— how is she even still in this ?)—are all just too terrible to countenance.

    What say the other glibbies?

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      Buttigieg. Maybe Yang because he’d face similar headwinds to Trump as an outsider. Bloomberg because there’d be a civil war by the midterms?

      • Chipping Pioneer

        You’ll have to pry my Big Gulp from my cold, dead hands!

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Bloomberg looks like a reptile.

      • Trigger Hippie

        Dead eyes, cold blood, looks like he wears a skin suit…I wonder if he eats mice?

      • Rhywun

        So does Yang.

      • straffinrun

        Wang?

    • MikeS

      Depends. Who controls congress? I think Biden does the least damage from a “pen and a phone” standpoint.

      • Trigger Hippie

        He forgets where he put them?

      • hayeksplosives

        President wears a LifeAlert fib around his neck.

        “Help! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”

      • Rhywun

        I’m seriously considering getting one of those. I live alone. Who the hell is gonna dial 911 if I’m stroking out or having a heart attack? Not me.

      • Fourscore

        Put UCS on speed dial, he’s closest.

      • Rhywun

        L0b0t would like a word.

        There used to be someone – I forget his handle* – who lived very near me, in my neighborhood.

        *Slammer – haven’t seen that dude around in ages

      • Trigger Hippie

        *Biden lying on the ground, waiting for help*

        “Say, is that a hairball?”

        *sniffs*

      • RAHeinlein

        Aligned – Biden is the least dangerous. Butta/Yang are political neophytes, who would give-in to the Dem party extremes.

      • Rhywun

        Fair point.

      • AlmightyJB

        Well looks like Kamala could be a potential Biden VP choice, so I’m sure he’d have an “accident” straight away.

      • MikeS

        If that’s the case, I’m changing my vote.

      • JaimeRoberto Delecto

        Biden might just sign anything put in front of him by his handlers, so I think he’s one of the more dangerous pen and phoners, but not as dangerous as Barney or Warren.

      • KSuellington

        Exactly, Biden is in no way gonna reign in the hard leftist part of the party. He would be pliable putty in their hands to do whatever the hell they wanted. If the Dems somehow managed to win the Senate along with the Presidency look forward to California as the model for how the federal government will be heading.

      • one true athena

        Yeah that’s my thought. I sense he’s already a puppet and that would just be worse as president.

        And while he wouldn’t originate anything as terrible as Bernie or Warren, there’s no telling what he’d sign when we know the bureaucracy is full of ambitious lefties, too.

    • straffinrun

      Buttigeig seems like he’d be about the same as Joe. Fewer gaffes, but same policy. What makes you think Buttshisname would be the best?

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        He has said some less than bellicose things about capitalism. That’s more than you can say about the rest of the field.

      • hayeksplosives

        He’s a “moderate” compared to these far left nuts, and he knows he has to tread carefully because he doesn’t have powerful allies in DC and he wants to appeal to middle America. And he’s gay, but doesn’t flaunt it as a qualification; to the contrary, he has to reach further to conservatives in the Dem party as well as Republicans.

      • straffinrun

        I’ve watched some of the debates and honestly don’t remember anything he has said, good or bad. He seems like an empty vessel and the DNC/establishment Dems will just pour whatever they want in him*.

        *Phrasing.

      • "Tulsi Gabbard Apologist"

        I don’t get that. If anything, he’s more far left than Tulsi on everything except healthcare. Even worst, he’s representative of a gentry liberalism that I just find repulsive. I think he’d perform the worst out of all of them in the general.

    • Fatty Bolger

      I agree, Mayor Pete. My impression is that he’d govern from the center.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Biden would be my second choice. Though I fear that he’ll be at the mercy of his handlers, and it’s hard to say what that means in practical terms.

      • Lachowsky

        The center is the worst.

        The center is more social programs, more debt, and more war.

        Fuck the center. The center is the hillary Clinton/john McCain consensus of more war abroad and more domestic programs at home.

        The worst of all options.

    • mikey

      Creepy Joe may offer the two things I look for in a President. Entertainment and harmlessness. I was waay disappoinged with Bush the Younger on the second criterion. Donny’s been pretty good on both.

    • Rhywun

      Agree. He’s the least worst of the bunch. Still terrible, but survivable.

      • Urthona

        He seems live a total wuss to me, so he’s got that going for him.

      • Urthona

        i meant *like.

        why is there no edit feature here? you realize i’m fat fingering this on my phone?

      • Urthona

        i meant *your mom

    • Lachowsky

      Bernie.

      At least he is anti war and he would be dealing with a republican senate that wouldnt allow any if his socail programs to pass.

      Think obama without the noecon influence getting to his head.

      • Urthona

        no. going to go against the open communist every time.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Electing an actual commie would be a terrible harbinger for this country’s future.

      • DenverJ

        Or give the kids a good helping of what they want… there wouldn’t be another commie college kid for 3 decades.

      • MikeS

        ^ this ^

      • "Tulsi Gabbard Apologist"

        Agree on Bernie

      • "Tulsi Gabbard Apologist"

        The South Bend Mayor is basically Bush, but gay. Dude wants to increase our commitment in Syria and is thirsting for a harder proxy war in Ukraine. I will never understand the idea that socialized medicine is more offensive than murder. I mean they’re both bad, but one is so clearly worse. I just don’t understand the counter argument

      • straffinrun

        If Bernie somehow won, what are the odds that the senate would still be Republican controlled? I haven’t checked the races out, but it would have to be a pretty good sea change to have Bernie win.

      • "Tulsi Gabbard Apologist"

        Nah. Bernie has the best chance against Trump. The notion that rebooted neoliberalism could defeat Trump ignores the voters that delivered the election to Trump

      • straffinrun

        He might. I’m saying that if he were to win, he may be able to pull the senate with him. Again, I haven’t checked the races out.

      • KSuellington

        Bernie would lose bigly to Trump, maybe not Mondale style, but he’d take 15 states to 35. The black vote is absolutely critical for the Dems in national elections. Trump already looks to increase in that demographic from the last election, with Bernie as an opponent he would win in a landslide. I actually kind of want Bernie as the nominee, as much as it is completely disgusting that a straight up commie is as popular as he is. It would send a message to the Dems to control the hard left in their party.

      • "Tulsi Gabbard Apologist"

        The South Bend mayor hovers around 0% with blacks. They’ll turn out for Bernie at least as much as they did for Hillary. But, he doesn’t need them to turn out any higher, because he’ll win back some white collar voters, undercutting Trump’s electoral path.

      • Spudalicious

        Subtle. I like it.

      • Fatty Bolger

        You done good.

      • mexican sharpshooter

        I got the same one last Thursday. Different name of course, but identical message.

        I told the Berniebot I’ll see it in the gulag.

      • westernsloper

        Think obama……….Bernie would pen and phone it in more the Obama. Sanders is a fucking communist and would lead as such.

      • one true athena

        Almost all of them have pronounced all kinds of things on Day One. Some are illegal and unconstitutional, but still — they’re ALL gonna pen-and-phone it, and then good luck undoing any of that shit with the next pres, as we’ve seen.

      • "Tulsi Gabbard Apologist"

        Sanders would get called out by the press for the pen and phone act. He’s not one of them and they hate him because of that.

        The media isn’t biased toward Democrats, it’s primarily biased toward the establishment. They’re promoting an elite, not an ideology and Bernie’s not part of their group

      • westernsloper

        I disagree. The media is very much promoting an ideology. They hate Trump with a passion but did they call him out when he had ATF pen in a change that made bump stocks illegal? (At least that is my understanding on how that went down) Maybe you consider infringing rights an establishment goal but that would be because they all share the same ideology. Might be a potato pahtahto thing now that I typed that.

      • Urthona

        He would wage war against the US economy, though, and presidents seem to have been given insane power over trade now.

    • westernsloper

      Yang! I like me some $1000!

      • Spudalicious

        He’s vying for a cabinet post.

    • Fourscore

      Klobuchar wants VP or a cabinet position. She won’t be a VP with Butty, 2 Midwesterners.

    • Urthona

      fuck: buttigieg
      marry: bloomberg
      kill: warren

      I agree the game is most fun when everyone is unappealing.

    • AlmightyJB

      I’m going with Gabbard, because I can turn the sound down whenever she’s on TV and pretend she’s talking dirty.

      • Urthona

        I assumed she’s not allowed. can i change my fuck and/or marry?

      • Fourscore

        “pretend she’s talking dirty.”

        She’s not pretending, its your paycheck she’s talking about

      • westernsloper

        ?

    • JD is Unemployed

      I agree with The Bee on this.

      #androgynousscreamingperson2020

      • Rhywun

        That’s a man, baby!

      • Fatty Bolger

        She might do well with elderly voters. And we all know they show up at the polls.

      • Trigger Hippie

        ‘While others only have empty policy proposals and expensive healthcare plans, Screaming at Sky Lady has the ideal solution for everything: just screaming at the sky. Other candidates’ ideas could harm the country and send us plummeting into a socialist nightmare. Screaming at the sky, by way of contrast, never hurt anyone and is fun to watch.’

        Ha!

    • JD is Unemployed

      I’d have to agree with The Bee on this.

      #androgynousscreamingperson2020

    • grrizzly

      I do not want Pete Buttigieg to be President. Because he is gay. I expect him to be a bad president because he is a Democrat. Unfortunately, many people will bring up his sexual orientation when they will criticize him. I think the race relations deteriorated in this country during the Presidency of the first black president. I’m not aware that Buttigieg expressed any opposition to the totalitarian elements among the LGBTQ+ activists. I’m afraid gay people will be blamed even more–to some extent justifiably–for the actions of the LGBTQ+ fundamentalists with a gay president in the White House.

    • Naptown Bill

      Yeah, probably Buttigieg. For us 2A absolutists it’s pretty much a guarantee that any of the Dem candidates would be at best hostile to gun rights, so it’s almost not a consideration. For that matter, Trump’s not exactly good on them.

    • DenverJ

      Hickenlooper

      • egould310

        Buttgag and Lickinpooper 2020!

    • CPRM

      I’ll say the same thing I said when Bernie was running last time; I’d rather he win so we can burn it all quickly. He’s honest, his plans are shit, but it would be a quick and fiery demise. Why delay the inevitable?

      • Urthona

        Like whoa.

      • LJW

        If he gets elected it will be nothing but 4 years of the Democrats complaining about the Republicans obstructing. Unless the Dems take the house and senate. If that’s the case we are fucked.

      • Urthona

        There would be no ‘’quick and fiery demise” anyway. Decades of slow decent into poverty for everyone you love followed by the starvation and violence.

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        ^THIS!^

      • CPRM

        No republicans will once again become the totems of opposition without actually opposing, and it will burn fast and strong.

      • Urthona

        Actually How many Remaining Democrats do you think knew what sport Kobe played?

      • Urthona

        I bet Beto would’ve known.

        These don’t exactly seem like the hippest folk.

      • Rhywun

        Touchdown!

        *snort*

        I hated sports most of my life and even I am not that stupid.

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        Kevin M. Kruse
        @KevinMKruse
        Replying to @atrupar
        Well, come on — Pete’s from Indiana and that’s not really much of a basketball state.

        Hahahahahahahaha!

      • straffinrun

        Delivered with sincerity and righteousness. MMMM, righteousness.

    • Fatty Bolger

      Yeah, just saw that the other day and wondered how I hadn’t heard about it. Casting looks good IMO.

    • Chafed

      Thanos, Aquaman, and Dax the Destroyer are in it. And a member of the ZARDOZ cast. Sounds good.

    • CPRM

      I watched that earlier today, I couldn’t find any actual jokes in it.

      • Fatty Bolger

        OK Boomer. ?

      • CPRM

        That’s not a joke, that’s just a reference.

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        …Used in a humorous way.

      • CPRM

        I mean, this the failure of a lot of comedy that might get a chuckle ‘in current year’ but in no way is it a joke. A joke has a set-up, a reveal and juxtaposition. It’s a three act structure, like a story. This is why Airplane! is still funny, while the 2000s parodies don’t hold up. Airplane! is funny without knowing the references, it is a series of jokes. the 2000s parodies are a series of pop culture references, disguised as jokes. Comedy is a reversal of expectations; but if you don’t get the reference to the expectation it fails. Where as a joke, when done right, can be timeless.

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        Maybe they weren’t going for a “joke”, and just wanted something humorous? Maybe the writers weren’t concerned about it having a lasting impact?

        I certainly would, if I were in that position, and I somewhat doubt that they don’t want that. Still, that could be the case.

      • CPRM

        I’m not denying you can have humor without a joke. The idea for my own parodies was ‘the jokeless comedy’. But, I just think it seems I’ve put a lot more thought into how comedy works than the current writers of SNL. I’ve thought about how to do comedy without doing a joke; they never seemed to even comprehend what a joke is, much less to try to intentionally subvert that. I’m also not saying their were things that didn’t get a chuckle out of me when I watched, but I pondered why exactly those things made me chuckle.

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        I just think it seems I’ve put a lot more thought into how comedy works than the current writers of SNL.

        I absolutely agree. 100%.

  17. CPRM

    Script written! It is the longest script written for the cartoon, not sure if that will translate to the longest cartoon or not.

  18. Possibly Sir Digby

    Umm…TPTB? I linked that Bee article about the new AR last night…..

    Just sayin’….

    • Possibly Sir Digby

      Every single action that Columbia makes should be documented in as many reporting/news sites as possible.

      I got a bad feeling they will settle, when it really needs to be an entire proceedings, with Columbia crucified in the judgment.

    • Rhywun

      Dude should have known by now not to pick up strange on campus – hell, I figured it out 30 years ago & I had the luxury of no women being involved.

    • Nikkodemus

      This right here is what scares me about having 2 boys.

      • Rhywun

        At least you can just direct those eyes at anyone who gives you shit.

      • hayeksplosives

        I had a friend in public school who was a few years younger, but looked like he was 25 when he was 12.

        He was “active” early.

        A couple of gems:

        “The day I wake up before my dick does, I’m killing myself.”

        And, relevant to your post,

        “I hope my kids are only sons. Because if you have a son, you only have to worry about one dick. But if you have a daughter, you have to worry about ALL of them,”

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        Yes, but–if they have an off-day, dick-wise, he’ll be minus a kid or two.

        Speaking of early, I knew a guy in HS (SHUT UP!! No way!!) who claims his 1st was when he was 9.

        I was never able to move onto the idea of consent, because….he got it up @ 9 y.o.??? Early bloomer, I guess.

  19. Mojeaux

    I’m working my way through a bunch of Amazon Prime stuff. I quit Being Human after one episode. Ditto Undone. So far Red Oaks is not awful.

    • Mojeaux

      Wait, I lied. I got 5 minutes into Undone before I bailed.

    • Fatty Bolger

      Aw, I enjoyed Undone. But I like dark comedy/drama.

      • Mojeaux

        I usually do too, but the two chicks hanging out at the bar drinking shots seemed like a cliché and, I dunno. It just wasn’t hitting the right spots. I like Preacher and The Boys.

      • PudPaisley

        Have you seen Patriot? I think Crusty recommended it last weekend. I binged both seasons this week and really liked it. Really funny parts and good action / suspense.

      • Mojeaux

        I have not. When it was recommended, they were joking or something and I thought they meant the Mel Gibson movie.

        I’ll check it out.

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        Oh, Patriot is no joke!

        Well….it’s funny as hell, in a rather dry way. And, poignant.

        The main characters/family are said to have been raised in Denton, TX. The main character’s actor is from New Zealand.

        I live in Denton County. I turned to my wife when I was having her watch it and asked her if there was any way she would think he wasn’t raised in Denton.

        Absolutely not. Whoever taught him did the best damned job I’ve ever seen, considering how often the southern and southwestern dialects get mangled by actors.

        Anyway, quality show that will having angry there ins’t more.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Loved Patriot. Sadly canceled after only 2 seasons.

      • Mojeaux

        Sadlier, I found Dead Like Me AFTER it was canceled and I binged it anyway. Then I had a sad.

      • CPRM

        If you haven’t watched Pushing Daisies then do so where it is available.

      • Mojeaux

        That has been on my list, yes.

      • Rhywun

        I was a fan WHEN it was canceled. Pissed off, I was.

      • PudPaisley

        There are some legit LMFAO scenes in that show. I was bummed too when I realized it was over. They had enough good characters to write a new story.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Yep. And I loved Cocaine Red. Just awesome.

    • CPRM

      Which ‘Being Human’? There was a BBC version (which wasn’t terrible) and an American version (that was terrible). Either one I didn’t find interesting, because they were about ‘feelings’ and I ain’t got them.

      • Mojeaux

        The BBC one. The first episode was fine. Almost interesting. Not enough original about it to keep me there. The ghost was good. I liked her. That was a twist. But I didn’t want to deal with the unoriginality for one character.

  20. Bob the Gravatar Hater

    Good night Mein Froinds! Vegas tomorrow, Wendy’s Birthday, YAY!

    • hayeksplosives

      Huzzah! A hearty Happy BDay to the both of ya!

    • Bob the Gravatar Hater

      It’s Nagger, Jeez,
      /Randy Marsh

    • Possibly Sir Digby

      Well, to her, it is. Anything to take away from her dropping THE N-word in her report.

      Which she did.

      • CPRM

        While, as I assume she is racist because she’s liberal, as someone who has bee live on air, and listened to the clips, it was a slip of tongue, not a slur. But look at all the Nu Puritans coming out to join in the spectacle. This is why I hate politics.

      • straffinrun

        I heard the n word clearly. Still, she obviously didn’t do it on purpose or she is the Andy Kaufman we deserve.

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        Totally–I agree with 95, 97% of this.

    • KSuellington

      Naker please.

    • Rhywun

      I actually believe her. I get tongue-twisted all the time in public—though admittedly, speechifying is not my profession.

      At the end of the day I don’t really care that her life is now ruined, but… I can understand how these things happen.

      • Mojeaux

        I have heard no protestations by her because I haven’t been online much, but it was clearly “naker.” That said, I just assumed her life was over.

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        I don’t hear “naker”. The vowel is quite different in the “naker”–far closer to a short “i”, as in “Nicks”.

        Was it a combination/tongue-tie things? Yeah, probably. I mean, all of the variations of American English have problem areas, as far as pronunciation go.

        There’s been a commercial on a lot in the last couple of months (I honestly can’t remember what it’s pitching; something beauty-based), where the model has to say “written”, and pronounces it as “wri-en”; no “T” sound at all. It sounds ridiculous in a sales pitch. Or, anywhere, really. But, I can’t say it isn’t common with some.

      • Mojeaux

        I get pretty tongue-tied when I have a dry mouth. Can’t say anything right.

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        Note to self: Mojeaux gets a bit bigoted sans liquid…

        Got it. ?

      • Mojeaux

        Heh.

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        I mean, you could have some other issue with liquids

        /Sorry; I was just running with it

    • Mojeaux

      I just googled “naker.”

      If I were her, I’d move to Montana and live in a sod house and raise green beans.

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        raise green beans.

        Also, chitlins–don’t forget chitlins.

        I hear their coats are worth a fortune.

      • Mojeaux

        CHITTERLINGS.

        Damn, Ted’S, why do I have to do your job?

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        Chitterlings (/ˈtʃɪtərlɪŋz/ or /ˈtʃɪtlɪnz/; sometimes spelled/pronounced chitlins or chittlins) are a prepared food usually made from the large intestines of a hog, although the intestines of cattle and other animals are sometimes used.[1]

        Say…you wouldn’t happen to need a drink, would ya?

        ? ?

      • Rhywun

        I would need a stiff drink before I ate that.

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        True, although I was attempting to hearken back to her dry mouth admission, and tie it to wypipo status .

        Of course, I would never get that close to the dish in the first place. I’m that much wypipo…

      • straffinrun

        I don’t want it on my search history. Don’t leave us hanging.

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        Hey, whoa-whoa-whoa! What about the site’s family-friendly cert???

      • Mojeaux

        Oh, nothing more than a woman’s life getting completely trashed over something stupid.

      • straffinrun

        The mob has spoken, MJ. No appellate court on Twitter.

      • Mojeaux

        Nope. Which is why she should get the hell out of Dodge and bury herself with those rubes she hates because they won’t care.

      • straffinrun

        She fed off the dopemine hits the mob mainlined her for years. Can’t picture her being content all by her lonesome.

      • straffinrun

        Oops. You’re saying she should move to Trump country?

      • dbleagle

        Sorry Moj. There is only one thing to raise in Montana.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ialhaxhr7iA

        I loved my time living there, but she should probably hide out in AZ until after Easter before moving to Big Sky Country. Sod is kinda frozen now.

      • Mojeaux

        Yep. Needs to pack up her stuff and flee.

  21. CPRM

    Alt-right, interview tomorrow, gotta get my beauty sleep. The town where the interview is has a Taco John’s, I think I’ll do that for lunch tomorrow before I come back and cut the TV show.

    • Fatty Bolger

      How could you not go after seeing that commercial.

    • Possibly Sir Digby

      Straight-up tex-mex “Tacos”….with tater tots/hash browns???

      Well, if that fuels your creative part (I said “P”art…), bon appetit!

      /No, not “Ape-tit”. Geesh….

    • straffinrun

      Is that some new fangled Mexican and tranny fusion restaurant?

      • straffinrun

        I pee spinning around while making a clicking sound.

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        #MeToo!!

        Er, um…#PeeToo!

  22. straffinrun

    Couldn’t see his face, but judging from the do I wanna party with this guy.

    https://imgur.com/a/PgwtMLg

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        I would have also accepted ‘Leo Sayer’.

      • straffinrun

        Even better. Boy oh boy do I hate nostalgia. I prefer amnesia.

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        Hmmm….so many gift possibilities for straff.

      • hayeksplosives

        I don’t want amnesia, per se, but I do take comfort in the fact that I have no rear view mirrors in my brain. When something (or someone) is done, it’s done.

  23. hayeksplosives

    I just posted this on FB but figured I’d add it here for fun.

    Movie quote pop quiz: Name That Movie

    Him: “Take this. Wave it at anything that slithers.”

    Her: “Thanks. Oh, my God! This whole place is slithering!”

    • Possibly Sir Digby

      ROTLA.

      • hayeksplosives

        Ding ding ding!! We have a winner, boyz and gals!!

        In what manner would you like to receive your award, M’Lord?

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        In person? Heh–just had to.

        Hmmm….what are my options?

      • hayeksplosives

        Well, first I’ll need your birthdate, mother’s maiden name, SSN, bank account #.

        Then I can meet you in Dallas. I’ll be wearing a rd carnation.

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        Ah! The ‘Nigerian Princess’ gambit, I see.

        Well, let me contact Mom and see if I can get all that stuff. I figure, small price to pay to meet THE Hayeksplosives.

        /jokes on Hayeks–I already have all that stuff! Wait…

    • The Bearded Hobbit

      First Raiders.

    • straffinrun

      The Impeachment Hearings?

      • hayeksplosives

        Lolz! Props for creative snark.

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        I’m almost of the opinion that he has the correct answer.

        /#WhyNotBoth

      • hayeksplosives

        IKR?

  24. The Bearded Hobbit

    Insomnia sucks donkey balls

    • hayeksplosives

      Stream Netflix “Roman Empire”. Excellent stuff.

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        And, if you like Die Hard, check out the Neflix series, The Movies That Made Us. One epi is about Die Hard, and it’s 30+ minutes of movie history that is quite fun to learn about.

        The players, movers, and shakers have aged quite a bit, but, it’s an interesting look at a standard-bearer movie.

      • hayeksplosives

        I loved that episode!! That’s a great series.

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        I do plan on checking other episodes. But, that definitely had to be my 1st viewing.

      • hayeksplosives

        I think the only one I haven’t seen is the Home Alone one. Because I hate that movie — it glorified naughty children and presaged the arrival of spoiled brat kids that are now Millennials.

        Also, that kid was not cute; he was a mutant.

      • Possibly Sir Digby

        Well, to be fair, he does learn some good lessons.

        Like, trusting scary strangers. Not trusting the police (even though he did call them for help. But it was a burglary and possible attempted murder and/or kidnapping…), how to be a good shopper, how to piss off family members, etc.

        Plus, I completely love hearing Daniel Stern scream over the tarantula.

        But, yes–I plan on holding off on it, too.

    • hayeksplosives

      Also, doxepin

      • The Bearded Hobbit

        I alternate between two sleep drugs (ambien and triazolam) combined with 10mg Indica edibles, alcohol, and a soak in the hot tub. Some nights it just doesn’t work.

  25. UnCivilServant

    *sigh*

    …I just don’t want to be at work today.

      • UnCivilServant

        I couldn’t read all of the street signs, but the ones I did were amusing.

      • straffinrun

        Maybe I’ll break out the ruler and make a full scale. That was just doodling.

      • Gender Traitor

        That’s great! Sadly, most of the time I’m in meetings at work, I have to be taking minutes (or at least notes.)

      • JD is Unemployed

        Nice vanishing point. Whycome you no have non-binary part of whorehouse?

      • UnCivilServant

        Because it’s Glibertopia Ave, so it’s a shitlordy neighborhood.

      • straffinrun

        It’s around back.

      • UnCivilServant

        I thought that was the lot for the woodchipper emporium.

      • Tejicano

        The sign is supposed to say “Liquor in the front. Poker in the rear.”

      • Not Adahn

        You’ll notice that the lack of regulations has completely wiped out the human population.

      • Sean

        A post coronavirus world.

      • straffinrun

        Corona virus. (Or I can’t draw humans).

      • UnCivilServant

        *squints* I’m not seeing any place that sells alcohol…

      • straffinrun

        It’s in the orphanage. Labor costs will kill you in Glibertopia.

      • Not Adahn

        EVERY place sells alcohol in Glibertopia. So there’s no need to advertise it.

    • Tejicano

      I was hoping to be at work today but the Philippine Customs Authorities had other ideas. Not sure if it just needed an admin adjustment or a “facilitation fee” – I had to leave that up to the locals to determine the correct course of action. Once they get that sorted out I can purchase my flights.

      • UnCivilServant

        They’re not just taking good old fashioned bribes anymore?

      • Tejicano

        There’s always Americans involved at some level so the word “bribe” can’t be spoken. Too obvious and we can’t be involved – so the cost levels drop substantially.

  26. Tejicano

    I’m doing sketches of a panther/jaguar head/face which I will be carving in wood. This is a really complex shape – everybody knows it when they see it but the details & proportions are complex.

    • UnCivilServant

      Do let us know how it turns out.

      • Tejicano

        The block is figured maple – I’ve had it around for almost 20 years. The project is a ball-headed war club (weapon – not group) with the ball in the mouth of a stylized panther’s head. I’ll post photos once it’s stained and oiled.

    • Gender Traitor

      Relief or a full 3-D sculpture?

      • Tejicano

        Full 3D

    • straffinrun

      Good luck. That would be hard.

      • UnCivilServant

        He never said what type of wood.

      • straffinrun

        YEwwww.

      • Not Adahn

        Fir shame!

      • Tejicano

        The sculpture is difficult. The wood is hard.