About The Author

Riven

Riven

[riv-uhn] noun 1. a gaming, lifting, shooting, intoxicated, ravenous, and happily-taken nerd. 2. often aims to misbehave. 3. and though she be but little, she is fierce.* And rumor has it that she (and her husband) are also delightful dinner companions. You didn't hear it from me, though.

133 Comments

  1. DrOtto

    I’d like to dedicate this first to the real Firster- MikeS

    • R.J.

      Mike S. Firster, Esquire.

    • Chafed

      Oof. That’s going to leave a mark.

  2. Count Potato

    Which episode of the Mod Squad was that?

  3. Tundra

    ULA’s Vulcan Centaur was originally supposed to fly in 2020 but the project has suffered from multiple delays. However, the company announced Wednesday that the two-stage rocket is “nearing completion” and scheduled to launch early next year.

    Suuuuure it will

    • SDF-7

      Probably before SLS/Orion, but that’s not saying much.

    • Tonio

      I just hope they don’t lose the Peregrine lander and its CMU rover payload.

  4. Rat on a train

    These are the sins most likely to earn you eternal damnation.

    As I understand it, the Catholic church (or God, if you’re Catholic) has provided an “out” in the form of confession to a priest and acts of penance. These remove your sins and clean your spirit, but even so, you have to get the timing right to die in a state of grace. And given how many sins you and I commit on the regular, and how quickly they pile up, it seems unlikely any of us will end up in the Good Place. Sorry.

    No one said getting into heaven would be easy

    Ah, Catholics. It is actually easy.

    • Fatty Bolger

      There’s always Purgatory, as long as you stay away from the really big infractions. A few thousand years in the Purg, I can do that standing on my head.

      • Rat on a train

        Purgatory is only for Catholics until they figure out there is no need for purgatory.

      • Nephilium

        Of course… apostasy is one of those big infractions.

    • The Other Kevin

      Did they even mention purgatory? That’s kind of important.

      • DrOtto

        what about limbo?

      • Rat on a train

        How low can you go?

    • SDF-7

      They rather leave out the important part — the Sacrament of Confession is meaningless without true contrition in your heart and in your soul. You can’t just do a deathbed confession and go “Psyche!” to God, after all.

      And personally, the longer I live the more convinced we’re already in Purgatory and we just keep going through it until we get it right.

      • Rat on a train

        Well, they already have degrees of sin so they are already off track.

      • The Other Kevin

        Buddhists believe we keep getting reincarnated and have to live here over and over until we get it right. That’s not so different.

      • Rat on a train

        So we will live forever.

      • Animal

        Yeah, OK, but who decides when we have it “right,” and by what standard? Because I think I’m doing pretty good.

      • juris imprudent

        Karma must be some kind of AI since there’s no particular god doing the judging.

      • Count Potato

        Wouldn’t that be Yama?

    • Tundra

      In hindsight, Vatican II was a serious lapse in judgement.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Tundra revealed to be Marcel Lefebvre.

      • Tundra

        Lol. Dude was sure right a lot, though.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Yep. And his opposition wasn’t just as an outsider reacting to the final public announcement but as someone who was a part of and saw the sausage making up close and personal.

    • Pat

      Whoever wrote that doesn’t seem to have the firmest handle on Catholic soteriology. Despite its schizophrenic understanding of the Pauline theology of free grace, even prior to the reformation the Catholic church has never practiced the works-based salvation the author describes. Ephesians 2:4-10 is still in the Catholic canon.

    • SDF-7

      I was expecting This is Halloween from Nightmare Before Christmas myself — but I rather liked what she did link. Will have to see what else the singer has done, reminded me a good deal of Scott Bradlee;s Postmodern Jukebox, and I like a lot of their stuff.

      • B.P.

        The second link was the correct one.

    • KSuellington

      Hey slum, speaking of music have you ever heard of the 70’s experimental/Krautrock band called Can? A friend of mine just turned me on to them and I’m digging their stuff a lot. I can see they were a big punk/electronic music influence. Way ahead of their time. I think Tundra would probably dig them as well if he doesn’t know them.

      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9a1NhRbNJ_Y

      • Pat

        That’s giving me 4chan /mu/ circa 2010 flashbacks.

      • DrOtto

        I Heard that song in the movie Inherent Vice and had to look it up on IMDB to see who performed it. I really liked it. Now I’m going to have to rewatch that.

      • Zwak. who's suit is as ragged as his nerves.

        CAN has been coming up a lot with the, for lack of a better term, uneasy listening music that has been my go to for a while. Lots of Einsterzende Nuebauten, The Birthday Party, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, that sort of thing.

      • Pat

        Ever dabbled in Black Dice, Cardiacs or The Lounge Lizards? If not, you may enjoy.

      • Zwak. who's suit is as ragged as his nerves.

        I have been a Lounge Lizard and John Lurie fan since the late eighties, when there were no Tom Waits albums for a while. Also got into Nick Cave at that point. I will check out the other two, I love hearing new music.

      • KSuellington

        I’ve found some cool music on this site that I’d never have heard of otherwise on this site.

        https://endlesscrate.com/

      • Tundra

        I love that!

        No, never heard of them. Thanks, KS!

      • B.P.

        Influential band.

      • slumbrew

        Really late, but thanks! Not familiar with them but that’s great.

    • Pat

      I’m not one of those people for whom Halloween is a major event, but I plan to listen to Hellbilly Deluxe, as is my annual tradition, and watch the new Rob Zombie Munsters flick to see if my mom would have hated it or not.

      • R.J.

        I can save you the trouble. She would have hated it.

      • The Other Kevin

        A friend of mine went out of his way to tell me how bad it was.

      • R.J.

        I too, have had people come up to me and just start talking about it, unbidden. It’s an absolute sh*t show. I can usually find something redeeming in a film, and I can focus on that. I cannot here. I don’t like the colors, the film techniques used, the script, the costumes. I cannot blame the actors for taking a job. But there was nothing that could be done with that script. Everyone with common sense will deny having anything to do with that film as soon as possible.

      • Pat

        I saw the reviews were looking pretty bad, but I figured that might be misaligned audience expectations. Too bad. He’s done some OK horror throwbacks, and I figured he of all people might pull it off considering his admiration for the source material. At least we still have Dragula.

      • R.J.

        Yes. At least that was short.

    • SDF-7

      WHEN STEVE SMITH ASKED FOR SCANDINAVIAN TWINS, THIS NOT QUITE WHAT HE HAD IN MIND. STILL, WHEN IN ICELAND… AND BY “IN” MEAN….

  5. Tundra

    Fact check: True!

    Iowahawk never disappoints.

    • Chafed

      No he does not. That’s great.

  6. Tundra

    For Not Adahn

    Lily would probably catch it, though.

    • The Other Kevin

      I once saw someone set up a greyhound race in a park. Looked a lot like that.

  7. JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

    Given the way the bureaucrats in DC think they should lord over the rest of the country, I find the name Washington Commanders to be far more offensive than the Redskins. It was enough to make me root for the Bears in last night’s game.

    • Dr. Fronkensteen

      As a long time Bears fan, I hope you learned your lesson.

    • Rat on a train

      If I followed football I would root against the Commies.

      • R C Dean

        Commies is the only way I refer to them.

      • juris imprudent

        Commissars.

    • Zwak. who's suit is as ragged as his nerves.

      I rooted for the Redskins. Fuck this name change bullshit, and whatever the owner is doing to piss people off, good.

  8. hayeksplosives

    I know too much.

    • Dr. Fronkensteen

      Sorry to hear about your impending suicide.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      Do you have to kill us now?

    • Gender Traitor

      About the Clintons? 😳

    • Sean

      As a contact wearer, I ain’t clicking that.

      Ick.

      • rhywun

        As a long-ago contact wearer (I can’t be bothered with that shit anymore), ditto.

      • robc

        I once put both in same eye.

        Once.

    • Sean

      *sad trombone*

    • R C Dean

      I love the crowd chanting “just say no”.

    • Fatty Bolger

      #FailedFirstDates

    • Mojeaux

      Public proposals are not wise.

      • Raven Nation

        I’ve always thought they were highly manipulative.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Reason #340553 I love my wife. She laid out all the no go for proposal ideas and public proposal was #1 on that list

  9. Shpip

    One of my buddies from college bought some waterfront property a few years ago and has been pestering me ever since to bring my boat to his place so we could go fishing. I finally did today, only to find out that he never bothered to put in that dock that he said he would.

    Still, I consider him a friend without pier.

    • Sensei

      Sunk cost?

      • SDF-7

        For shore.

    • Pat

      Well played

    • SDF-7

      You can take that to the bank.

    • R.J.

      Maybe if you float him a few bucks he can embark on a new mission to build a jetty.

    • The Other Kevin

      You might want to look into a new boat, I hear there is a sale.

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      Did you at least get to motorboat?

    • Tres Cool

      My dentist will sedate you with a gas or a boat paddle.

      Its ether oar.

    • Pat

      She looks like one of those bodybuilder chicks on YouTube that splits watermelons with her thighs. It’s a borderline yikes from me.

      • Count Potato

        🌈 GAY 🦄

  10. NoDakMat

    Last night I watched the Netflix short series about swear words hosted by Nic Cage. For some reason I like Nic Cage. And I always feel like I’m doing him a very small favor by watching his stuff on demand, like maybe he’ll get another quarter in his royalty check which will help him with his troubles. Anyway…

    It was mildly entertaining (TW; Sarah Silverman is in it). My biggest takeaway is an old South African curse:

    May your fingers turn into fishhooks, and your balls start to itch.

    Oh, and a euphemism for vagina that I’ve never heard; bum trinket. I like it.

    • Tres Cool

      I still prefer “pink sink”

    • Pat

      A friend of mine knows all the best old yiddish curses and has a knack for dropping them at the perfect moment with expert comedic timing. But the one that always stuck with me was, I believe, an original he created from scratch: May you be struck by a dirigible and buried upside down in a faulty casket!

  11. The Other Kevin

    Big news around here is that a 5th grade teacher a few towns over told a kid they were on the teacher’s kill list. And there actually was a kill list, with other teachers and kids on it. Then they waited a whole day before the cops talked to her.

    • DrOtto

      Any word on who made the “fuck” and “marry” lists?

    • The Other Kevin

      Hopefully none of the 5th graders.

  12. Enough About Palin

    Today, I went to the local Asian grocery store. Saw a cutting board I liked and bought it. It was made in Vietnam, so I figured it was the least that I could do given our history and all.

    At home, upon closer inspection, I read the following in super-tiny writing:

    __________________________________

    Cancer and Reproductive Harm
    http://www.P65warnings.ca.gov
    __________________________________

    Went to the website. Worthless.

    Looked elsewhere and found this:

    Do all wood products have Prop 65 warning?

    Established in 1987, the list of chemicals must be updated each year and now includes approximately 800 substances. Wood dust was added to the list in 2010, and therefore, all wood products sold in California must bear the Prop 65 warning.

    A cutting board. WTF?

    • Dr. Fronkensteen

      They’ll be tattooing babies. Warning life causes cancer.

    • Gustave Lytton

      There was a Prop 65 warning at the check in desk of a hotel near SFO. For the hotel. I’ve seen those statements on food items.

      It’s become ubiquitous to be useless. There’s no reason not to include one just in case no matter how far fetched because of liability.

      • R.J.

        Movie post nights now must have a Prop 65 warning. Thankfully I am not in California so the governor can fuck right off.

      • rhywun

        Yes, that sign is in every hotel. I worked at one in SF.

      • rhywun

        Oh, and I had to explain it to hundreds of midwestern tourists who looked at me like I had three heads. “I not from around here; I don’t get it either.”

    • Sensei

      CA causes cancer.

      • juris imprudent

        CA is cancer, politically.

    • Zwak. who's suit is as ragged as his nerves.

      Every thing sold in CA has one. They all mean the same thing; this product can be sold in CA.

      Nothing more, nothing less.

    • KSuellington

      It is on almost every single product sold in California. It is purely there for manufacturers to cover their ass against any potential lawsuit. It is on every restaurant and store in the state as well. Thanks Chevy Chase and the other Hollywood ejits who promotes that idiotic law on the voters back in the 80’s.

    • KK the Porcine Pearl-Eater

      The blue stuff I put in my RV’s tank says it “contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer”

      I LOLed at that

  13. Gustave Lytton

    RIP Robbie Coltrane. No chance of another Cracker now. I blame the sight of Baldrick’s posing pouch for causing his (delayed) death.

    • Zwak. who's suit is as ragged as his nerves.

      He was also in a really good Bob Hoskins movie, Mona Lisa. Michael Cain is in it too.

  14. Name's BEAM. James BEAM.

    Apropos for the Lifehacker article:

    A hapless greaseball dies horribly and immediately finds himself confronted by Satan at the Threshold of Hell.

    Much to the greaseball’s surprise, he’s given the opportunity to “preview” various eternal torments awaiting him, and he can choose which one he’ll finally be consigned to forever. The whole thing is reminiscent of Monty Hall’s “Let’s Make A Deal,” and after being shown Door #1 (people standing up to their waists in dogshit) and Door #2 (people standing up to their necks in dogshit) he’s finally shown what’s inside Door #3:

    Satan: “How does this appeal to you?”
    Greaseball: “Well . . . I mean, it’s not so bad; everybody here’s only up to their knees in dogshit. And they’re all drinking coffee! I’ll stay here!”

    Satan looks him up and down and says “Are you sure?”
    “Yeah!” the greaseball says enthusiastically.
    “Very well!” Satan says. ”So long, hapless greaseball!”

    Door #3 slams shut with an awe-inspiring finality, and the hapless greaseball wanders over to say hello to his new companions. Just at this moment, a demon walks back into sight and yells at the crowd “Okay you guys, coffee break’s over! BACK ON YOUR HEADS!”

  15. Tonio

    Zoomeister Neph has been waylaid by miscreants, so the onus of hosting Glibs Friday Night Zoom falls upon me. Tune in at 8:00 PM Eastern for the usual writer wrangling, editor rattling, STFU Sloper, pinniped appreciation, bonhomie, and poo-flinging.

    • Animal

      ***Stocks up on poo and makes sure the STFU Sloper sign is handy***

    • Ownbestenemy

      Do we have a designated poo-flinger? Like a talking stick we can pass around?

  16. DEG

    Back in 2008, the Church was like “Yo, new sins dropping,” and made it clear to everyone that the following are sins:

    polluting the environment
    engaging in “manipulative” genetic science
    social injustices that cause poverty
    the excessive accumulation of wealth by a few
    paedophilia

    Only one out of five is a sin. OK. I’m happy I moved on from the Catholic Church.

    The fairy tale side of Lukashenko is legendary. He boasts a fondness for the old Soviet Union, whose collapse he labeled “a disaster.”

    Not surprising. He’s an old school Communist who was a politician during Soviet days.

  17. DEG

    The Truth About Guns interviews Kyle Rittenhouse

    I met Kyle in Fort Collins, Colorado. The National Association for Gun Rights and the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners had issued an open-ended invitation to him after the not guilty verdict, offering to bring him to the Centennial State to shoot some guns, hang out, and be among friends and supporters.

    Those aren’t easy things to do when the majority of the population knows your face and has very strong opinions about you, both good and bad.

    NAGR and RMGO had helped to support Rittenhouse and his family financially during his trial and with that all now well and truly in his rear-view mirror, Kyle flew to Colorado with his girlfriend and his advisor to be among people who saw what he did that night as a case of armed self-defense — if an extraordinarily high profile one — against multiple attackers after a number of attempts on his part to get away from them.

  18. DEG

    US District Court rules Federal law prohibiting removing a gun’s serial number is unconstitutional

    Now another shoe has dropped. In United States v. Price, a district court in West Virginia considered whether bans on firearm possession by felons and possession of firearms with obliterated serial numbers were constitutional. While finding that the law barring convicted felons from possessing guns was justified under Bruen, the court found that the laws against removing the serial number on a firearm, or possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number were not.

  19. DEG

    Pfizer Board Member behind Alex Berenson being banned from Twitter

    On August 24, 2021, Dr. Scott Gottlieb sent an urgent email about my reporting to a contact at Twitter.

    Gottlieb is the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, a close colleague of many federal officials – and a senior board member of Pfizer, which has made $70 billion selling mRNA vaccines.

    In his email, Gottlieb forwarded an article I had written about Dr. Anthony Fauci on this Substack and complained, “This is whats promoted on Twitter. This is why Tony needs a security detail.”

  20. Mojeaux

    So I woke up from my conscious sedation anesthesia today aware of the passage of time, whereas general anesthesia is like a blink and you’re waking up.

    • Name's BEAM. James BEAM.

      I’ve used the “conscious” stuff four or five times now for various procedures, and unlike you, I was completely unaware of the passage of time.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Twilight is a no go for me. I’ve never been under but if I do put me to sleep

      • Zwak. who's suit is as ragged as his nerves.

        I don’t know, I just didn’t like the sparkly vampires.

      • Name's BEAM. James BEAM.

        It’s sorta necessary for some of the procedures docs do (they need to be able to give you simple commands involving movement etc.). The “twilight” stuff prevents short-term memory from transferring to long-term memory, and therefore (many people would argue) there’s no suffering involved, because you need episodic memory to suffer.

        Yeah, I know. First time I heard what they were planning for me, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. But I haven’t yet had any bad memories. It’d be fascinating (and probably embarrassing) to have a video of my reactions whilst under sedation, though…

      • R C Dean

        Also, I’ve had anesthesiologists tell me deep sedation is basically keeping you on the edge of death, without letting you slip over. Probably.

  21. DEG

    How about a little something to ramp up that Halloween spirit?

    Looks like the show-stealing bass player is there.

  22. cavalier973

    I don’t worry about going to hell for my sins, because I know a Guy.

    Hell isn’t really mentioned in Moses and the Prophets. There is talk about “Sheol”, or the shadowlands, but no detail about the place, that I can remember. Daniel (chapter 12) talks about some people being raised to shame and everlasting contempt. Isaiah 14 demonstrates this with the dead king of Babylon (who may possibly be the antichrist and/or Satan) being mocked by other dead kings.

    The Christian scriptures is where the fire and brimstone nature of hell is given. The Book of Revelation speaks of a “Lake of Fire”, where the unredeemed are sent. Death and Hell are also consigned to this lake. People who take the mark of the beast seem to get extra punishment.

    Jesus tells the tale of a rich man who dies and goes to hell, while the poor beggar, Lazarus, goes to “Abraham’s bosom”, which is probably more comfortable than it sounds.

    “Dives”, the rich man, complains about being in torment (“anguish”) in the flames, but what I find astonishing is that his first request isn’t to leave. He, instead, asks Abraham to send Lazarus with a bucket of ice water—no, that isn’t quite right. “Have Lazarus dip his finger in water and touch my tongue.” Dude, are you thirsty, or not?

    When Abraham denies his request, he asks that Lazarus be sent to his still-living brothers. Again, seems like a good time to ask to leave, himself, to warn his brothers. I conclude that he really doesn’t want to leave hell, even though he doesn’t want his brothers there. Also, he behaves as if he is more agitated at seeing Lazarus partying with Father Abraham than he is at his own pitiful circumstances.

    “The D and the A and the M and the N and the A and the T…I-O-N
    Lose your face
    Lose your name
    Then get fitted for a suit of flame.”

    https://youtu.be/yS2IBMQIjDo