IFLA: The “Suggested Dates” Edition of the Horoscope for the Week of Feb 4

by | Feb 4, 2024 | IFLA | 286 comments

This shit right here is why I hate thaws. It needs to stay frozen until March.


What with the site transfer getting postponed, I figured I should earn my keep around here and actually determine auspicious dates for a site upgrade.  Before the hucksters, frauds, and charlatans of newspapers columnists degraded the SCIENCE! of astrology, Real Astrologers(R) were employed by the nobility and primarily used to answer specific questions such as this.  While it’s very hard to pick your kids exact birthdate, you have a much better chance of determining their time of conception, so that was the auspicious moment that was more often determined.  Of course, that necessarily meant, depending on how precise your horoscope was, you had to be ready to nut on command when the guy looking at the stars outside on the balcony saw the perfected alignment.  This exacting precision was not only rewarding from a voyeuristic perspective, but the more precise you were the easier it was to blame any deformities nine months later on the royals getting their gonadal timing incorrect.


Fortunately we had enough snow come by to cover the mud.


Anyway, since we’re talking about a site upgrade, here are the main things to watch for:

Mercury – The messenger of the gods, also chance, chaos, magic and luck.  Obviously IT related.

Jupiter – Control, command, discipline and things just going well overall.

Venus – General benevolence and superficially related to the internet because the internet is for porn.

Capricorn – Related to geekery and computers becasue of something in ancient Egypt that I’ve forgotten the specifics of.

Gemini – The House of Communication.

The Sun and the Moon generally activate anything they’re interacting with, though the Moon occasionally ionteracts badly.

So, when you lay all of these out you get:

Anything before Feb 6th is great, with the 5th being the best.

The 9th-13th is not so good.

The 14th – 19th enco0mpasses two different periods of better-than-normal luck for the endeavor if there’s not time to get to it before the 6th.

If you are interested, IT-related tarot cards include The Magician, The Hierophant, the High Priestess, The Hanged Man, the Two of coins, Any of the Knights and Pages (though more so the Swords than the Coins), and the Three and Eight of Wands.


I’m just posting this for the 0:06


Aquarius: 5 of Cups reversed – News, alliances, affinity, consanguinity, ancestry, return, false projects.

Pisces: The Blank card – We’re sorry, all our cards are advising other signs. Please try again next week.

Aries: 9 of Swords – Death, failure, miscarriage, delay, deception, disappointment, despair. Could be worse.

Taurus: King of Wands reversed – Good, but severe; austere, yet tolerant.

Gemini: Death reversed – So not Death-death, but those things that are death-like or death-adjacent. Stil not good.

Cancer: 5 of Wands reversed – Litigation, disputes, trickery, contradiction.

Leo: Page of Cups – A studious youth; news, message; application, reflection, meditation; also these things directed to business.

Virgo: Wheel of Fortune reversed – It seems like it’s lucky, but it’s less than you’d think. Like getting a free crate of spoons when you have ten thousand spoons.

Libra: Queen of Wands reversed – Opposition, jealousy, deceit, infidelity.

Scorpio: The World reversed – Inertia, fixity, stagnation, permanence.

Sagittarius: The Empress reversed – Light, truth, the unravelling of involved matters, public rejoicings, vacillation.

Capricorn: King of Coins – Valor, realizing intelligence, business and normal intellectual aptitude, sometimes mathematical gifts and attainments of this kind; success in these paths. 


This seems sufficiently meta.

About The Author

Not Adahn

Not Adahn

Despite all my rage, I am still just an impeccably dressed rat.

286 Comments

  1. R.J.

    I’ll take a lack of disaster this week. Leo is pleasing.

  2. UnCivilServant

    When scheduling outages, I prefer techoprognostication to clumsy cardboard.

    Unfortunately, someone let out the magic blue smoke.

  3. KK, Plump & Unfiltered

    Fuckin-a

    • Ted S.

      Fuckin a RV guy?

  4. Sean

    Astrology, the one true science.

  5. The Late P Brooks

    Sagittarius: The Empress reversed – Light, truth, the unravelling of involved matters, public rejoicings, vacillation.

    I’ll believe it when I see it.

  6. Q Continuum

    Apologies for carrying over from dedthred:

    Thanks to all for kind words but I just want to clarify one thing. When I said “return to equal opportunity” that implies a complete lack of State intervention in a libertarian sense. I think of equal opportunity as the total absence of any de jure discrimination either positive or negative. The progs are right about one thing; we do have a systemically racist system in which we have de jure positive and negative discrimination in the form of affirmative action and anti-discrimination laws respectively.

    There’s a level of abstraction required to understand that the market would eventually work all these kinks out that neither most progs nor most cons typically possess. Reason #1 billion why libertarianism isn’t more popular.

    • Fourscore

      But then we wouldn’t need laws and what would politicians do?

      • R.J.

        Janitorial work.

      • cavalier973

        They’d charge too much and still not get the job done.

    • PieInTheSky

      in a libertarian sense – there’s your issue, no one will see it like this

      • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

        Pie nails the problem.

        All the talk about markets and the magical powers to solve every problem sounds no different than “well, REAL communism hasn’t been tried.” The problem is you, in the old New England vernacular, Can’t Get There From Here. The hard work of turning the ship of statism around needs to start with things that are both understandable and achievable. Trying to explain to normies that if we all had our own roads at different levels of repair and or ability to handle traffic everything would be better is a fools errand. Start with getting people to understand that just because thinking “there outta be a law” feels good, there are negative repercussions.

    • Urthona

      Gone through this so many times.

      The first argument that will be made is that businesses in the South had separate but equal policies and could not serve black people if they so desired.

      • Suthenboy

        And?
        ‘could not’ or ‘would not’? At least by the time I came along the segregation was self imposed, not necessarily govt mandated.

      • Suthenboy

        Actually there is a fair amount of that still going on. Bars, restaurants, various other establishments are in practice segregated by choice of the customers.

      • Mojeaux

        It’s funny you should say that. I was on the r/kansascity subreddit last night and someone asked if it was usual for a bar (in this case, in a chichi district) to require a person of not-the-same-ethnicity to have an escort/rep to get into the bar. Many of the responses said the same thing you did: that there are bars that purposely segregate themselves based on color/ethnicity of the clientele. (This is not to be confused with a bar that’s in an ethnically populated area where other races/ethnicities just aren’t present.)

      • Q Continuum

        Again, not seeing the problem. If we have Pittsburgh Steelers bars how’s that qualitatively any different from having ethnic bars? As long as they’re self-organizing and operating according to voluntary, mutually beneficial transactions IDGAF who you serve. Anything else and we end up with “bAyK tHa CaYk!!!11!!”

        Of course, again, the vast majority of people aren’t going to agree with me either for ideological reasons or from the fact that their ability for abstract thought is insufficient.

    • juris imprudent

      So the issue is what we want (and had) was equality before the law. What the Declaration of Independence says is “all men are created equal”, not that they are simply equal before the law. I think cofnas is mostly right about this being a fairly natural outcome of enlightenment ideals. This is something Nietzsche saw.

      There is also the flawed concept of the arc of history, and being on the right side of that. People actually believe that. It’s stupid, but you don’t convince them of their error by telling them that. In fact you can’t convince them of their error in any way, shape or form.

      • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

        “There is also the flawed concept of the arc of history, and being on the right side of that. People actually believe that. It’s stupid, but you don’t convince them of their error by telling them that. In fact you can’t convince them of their error in any way, shape or form.”

        QFT

      • PieInTheSky

        Declaration of Independence says is “all men are created equal” – I would assume in rights or worth not that they are identical.

      • juris imprudent

        “that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…”

        Of course no one gives that clause equal attention.

    • Mojeaux

      I have a friend who asserts that the Civil Rights movement was too far ahead of its time to stick correctly, that those issues would have worked themselves out properly given enough time.

      • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

        Looking at economic data, black people were doing gradually and steadily better from the end of slavery to the start of Affirmative Action, and that gradual rise stops, and I believe falls over the last 50 years.

        But, that is just econ data.

      • juris imprudent

        Cue up the Moynihan Report.

      • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

        On the other side of that is the LAPD’s active policy of containment, which lasted over 50 years. Or,

      • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

        On the other side of that is the LAPD’s active policy of containment, which lasted over 50 years. Or, OaklandPD’s Night Riders, which was another version of the same thing.

      • Ted S.

        Ditto abortion, if the Supreme Court hadn’t stepped in with Roe v. Wade.

    • kinnath

      It’s been a long, but here it goes . . . . .

      Equal Opportunity does not guarantee Equal Outcomes.

      Equal Rights do not guarantee Equal Opportunity.

      Equal protection under the law is all you get.

    • Don escaped Texas

      a complete lack of State intervention

      ** chubs **

  7. juris imprudent

    Death, failure, miscarriage, delay, deception, disappointment, despair

    Joke’s on you, I have a new Nietzsche piece up for review/publication. Dear PTB – prefer a noon slot, if Ron takes another day off you can dump it on a Friday.

    • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

      Oh, that reminds me. I have a book review to finish.

  8. juris imprudent

    I used to post this kind of piece on FB with the tagline Not The Bee.

    An Norwegian parliamentary official said that he nominated the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for the Nobel Peace Prize this week, after Israeli intelligence alleged that UNRWA employees participated in Hamas’s October 7 attack against Israel.

    • Suthenboy

      Were I to participate in a violent attack on one of the US’ allies would I be held criminally responsible here in the states? Serious question, I dont know.
      Are any of the UNRWA workers involved in the attacks currently in the US?

    • rhywun

      he nominated the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for the Nobel Peace Prize this week

      Because of course he did.

      • Suthenboy

        Margaret Mead, Rigoberta Menchu, Barry Obama and various others heartily approve.
        If someone were to nominate me I would probably break their nose and ask “Fuck you sunshine, what did I ever do to you?”

        The nominating committee seems to go out of their way to nominate the worst possible people just to rub our noses in it. The watermelons and the Davos crowd engage in the most obvious, over-the-top hypocrisy for the same reason…so we know our place.

  9. The Late P Brooks

    So the issue is what we want (and had) was equality before the law. What the Declaration of Independence says is “all men are created equal”, not that they are simply equal before the law.

    Things nobody says anymore: “And let the chips fall where they may.”

  10. The Late P Brooks

    Tabloid journalism

    Last month, the Wall Street Journal dropped a bombshell investigation into SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s alleged use of illegal drugs including cocaine and MDMA.

    Now it’s back with a doozy of a followup, including the explosive claim that people close to Musk became so concerned around the winter of 2022 that some of them asked the billionaire to go to rehab.

    He should hook up with a famous singer.

      • slumbrew

        In retrospect, maybe she should have said yes.

      • Mojeaux

        She knew she was a crash course with death and kept speeding toward it, on purpose.

      • Tres Cool

        Just like James Dean ?

    • rhywun

      If only there was evidence of his hookers and blow on a laptop for the MSM to conveniently igno—

      LOL

      • Suthenboy

        Yes. It’s all projection all of the time with the trashbags on the left.

    • cavalier973

      Biden’s still okay, though.

      • Fourscore

        Too many apostrophes

  11. Not Adahn

    I made crumpets. The batter is easy, the cooking is very tricky. I’ll need some practice in order to make them correctly.

    However, the batter (which is the strangest freaking batter that I’ve even encountered) when just poured onto a hot griddle makes amazing… some sort of pancake/donut/sopapilla hybrid thing.

    • cavalier973

      Drizzled with maple syrup or honey?

      • Not Adahn

        Maple syrup.

    • Suthenboy

      That’s it? No recipe?

    • one true athena

      Oh yes link recipe. The spouse loves crumpets. I’d love to try it too.

      • Not Adahn

        Yup, that one.

      • kinnath

        Now youtube is feeding me a bunch of cooking videos. They’re algorithm is fucked. Watch one video, and you’ll be fed hundreds more over the next week.

    • Suthenboy

      I have been searching for the dumbest thing I could read today. I think you just found it. I dare anyone to top that.
      OK, maybe it is a toss up with the CO pet tax Nazis….

      • cavalier973

        Bastiat

        Bastiat, you foolish spell check. He was a real dude.

      • cavalier973

        “Supporters of the ambitious sunshade idea posit that, if implemented successfully, the world would still need to stop using fossil fuels to power the global economy, according to the Times.”

        If we could somehow…harness…the stupidity…we would need no other source of energy!

      • Tres Cool

        1.21 Idiot-watts!

      • cavalier973

        “What the hell’s an ‘idjitwatt’?”

      • Suthenboy

        “…scientists are looking to prove the idea could work by first producing a 100-square foot prototype with the help of $10 to $20 million of funding.”

        A ten by ten umbrella will cost up to $20M….I mean, with cost overruns $60M? Total cost for 1M square miles? That works out to about thirteen million, seventy thousand such umbrellas. Hmmmm….even lowballing by their estimate that comes to around 261 trillion dollars.
        That sounds doable. How much CO2 will all those rockets produce?

        Let me rephrase the quoted line: “…scientists are looking to bilk as much govt grant and subsidy money as they can, even if it takes the world’s entire economy.” Go big, win big…I guess.

      • cavalier973

        What sparks my conspiracy theory side is the specification that this umbrella would be “the size of Argentina.”

        Why “Argentina”?

        Is this intel coms to take out Milei?

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        Bassist, Lol,

        It reminds me of a musician’s joke:

        An explorer was trekking through the heart of Africa with native guides when a cacophony of drums started, originating from nowhere and everywhere at once. The explorer asked his guides what this meant, they told him it was not a good sign. The drumming continued for days on end as the continued on and on…

        Then one day… the drumming stopped. The guides began panicking and pleading with their gods’ for mercy. The explorer managed to calm one of them down enough to ask them why they were scarred and they told him, “Drums stopping means that a horrifying event is about to befall us…

        … Bass solo.”

      • Tres Cool

        I need a beer. I read your comment as “Carbon Monoxide Pet Taxis”.

  12. The Late P Brooks

    “Supporters of the ambitious sunshade idea posit that, if implemented successfully, the world would still need to stop using fossil fuels to power the global economy, according to the Times.”

    No

    fucking

    way.

    • one true athena

      I never expected the gd Day After Tomorrow (the “sudden ice age destroys NY” disaster movie) to become a documentary but these idiots sure seem to be working on it.

    • Suthenboy

      “…the world would still need to stop using fossil fuels to power the global economy, according to the Times.”

      “Bend your knee and take the scold’s bridle, serf!”

      • prolefeed

        They misspelled “shut down” as “power”.

  13. Sean

    Did any of the freshly minted Glibs say their locations?

    • slumbrew

      Not that I’ve seen.

      On your behalf:

      “Bring bacon and bourbon “

      • Sean

        😁

    • Cunctator

      I didn’t say my location as a means of communicating it specifically, but in my comments I have said I live in California. Actually, I just missed Yusef before he left for Arizona, so I am in that general area.

    • mrfamous

      On top of everything else that’s wrong with this, the fact that “facial recognition” seems to not be working very well (and sending innocent people to jail) should be more of a concern.

      • Mojeaux

        Oooh, we haven’t seen YOU in a while! You should come back to the Zooms and hang out.

      • mrfamous

        I’ve had quite a 12 months. Been lurking. Just came out of open heart surgery and appear to be on the way to a full recovery.

      • Mojeaux

        Woah, dude! Be careful. Do your rehab (unlike the aforementioned Amy Winehouse).

      • mrfamous

        Past that point. Jogging and weight lifting again. Valve replacement due to a birth defect. Just was one of those things. It’s not often you walk into the hospital to have open heart surgery when you feel perfectly fine, but that’s what I had to do. The doctors argument was that the fact that I felt so good and was doing well physically, was all the more reason to fix this thing now as it gave me the best chance for the best outcome. So far so good,

      • Sean

        Wow. Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

      • mrfamous

        Thanks Sean

      • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

        Well, when you put it that way…

        (good on you getting this done, you wouldn’t want the bad thing to happen!)

      • slumbrew

        Woah! You’re a young (ish) fella to be dealing with that.

        Glad you’re on the mend.

      • mrfamous

        It was apparently there my whole life and they just found it now (or end of June to be precise). It apparently is similar to the thing that killed John Ritter. It is a little disconcerting to give your sister all your internet passwords and stuff before you go in, just in case. But I’m good. Hell I did a half hour jog this morning 3 months after the surgery, so…

      • Mojeaux

        Aortic dissection.

      • mrfamous

        Yeah the aortic dissection was indeed the risk from the bad aortic valve (as well as eventual heart failure down the line). But it’s been replaced and the aorta itself appears to be fine and there are no signs of any heart or coronary artery disease. I just got a bad model valve from the storks.

      • slumbrew

        Excellent that they caught it now.

        Speedy healing.

      • Mojeaux

        Many of the dudes on my dad’s side of the family always died young (I mean, relatively speaking) from heart disease. Dad’s 1st cousin, 42; dad, 51; dad’s dad, 63. My aunt (on that side) had her first heart attack and bypass at 48. I’m 55 (not for very much longer).

        So. I go to the cardiologist annually and do my little stress tests biennially. Get my sugars checked, too. No problems at all, but I keep on top of it.

      • KK, Plump & Unfiltered

        WOW…hoping for a speedy recovery!

      • mrfamous

        Thanks. I feel very much recovered already. And they haven’t given me much in the way of restrictions other than those related to the blood thinners I have to be on (no future MMA career unfortunately). The hardest part was the four month wait to get the surgery.

      • slumbrew

        My cousin had a triple bypass some years ago, in his 30s (bad genes – adopted so wasn’t forewarned) and has been on a handful of drugs every day since then.

        The blood thinners make him bruise like a peach – huge bruises after even minor contact.

        Still, beats the alternative.

      • mrfamous

        “Still, beats the alternative.” Sure does. It’s now incumbent on me to take care of myself to take advantage.

      • Tres Cool

        You make your recovery sound like a walk in the park.

        Due to my inbred Mennonite background, Im looking forward to getting mine out of the way. Up until Tres Sr (and modern medicine) no male on his side of the family had made it past 65 due to some coronary issue. He had his bypass at 70, my older brother at 54 (my age) and I have an uncle with a chest full of stents.

        Heart bypass always reminds me of Honey Boo Boo.

      • rhywun

        Sketti and butter!

        LOL I just saw that one.

      • Mojeaux

        KETCHUP!!!!

        And if you’ve got more than a couple of pennies to rub together, cheap parmesan.

      • rhywun

        Speaking of… Comedy Central is running the fuck out of South Park lately and I’m catching a lot of the last few seasons for the first time.

        Season 20 is on tonight and holy shit, it’s unwatchable.

      • cavalier973

        Yeah, I saw the story about the guy arrested for robbing a store in Texas, based on facial recognition software, when he was in California at the time of the robbery, and then he was beaten and raped by three other prisoners while in jail.

      • mrfamous

        Yeah and it’s not the only one. I’m not sure why people think all the problems with human eye witness testimony go away when it becomes computer eye witness testimony.

      • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

        Honestly, I would say they get much worse. People tend to give technology (red light camera’s, key strokes, etc,) a big pass when it should be looked at just as, if not more, thoroughly than human testimony.

    • Mojeaux

      I bemoan brutalist architecture, but our old KCI brutalist airport was the easiest in’n’out airport ever. It looked like a 3-leaf clover. You could get out at the curb, walk 20 feet, check your bags (or you know, let the skycap do it at the curb), walk another 10 feet to your gate, and get on the plane. 100 feet from curb to plane. Baggage carousels galore around the loop. It was designed to be a fucking bus station, in’n’out quickly, ffs, which an airport rightfully should be. This doesn’t do it justice.

      It was the best airport EVAR—until the TSA got hold of it, then it was the WORST possible configuration evar.

    • juris imprudent

      “TSA uses facial recognition algorithms developed by top-performing vendors,” the agency says in its press release.

      Sure. What’s the version number of the software?

  14. Sean

    Cleaned and shined my ride today. It was fairly nice out. Almost 50.

    • The Gunslinger

      Nice. I started a fire in the fire pit and burned some stuff. It was sunny all day.

  15. The Late P Brooks

    I’m not going to bother with the link. This bit stands alone. It’s, Politico, if you care.

    But now that a proposed deal is in the works, GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump has argued against it, and at least some congressional Republicans have changed their tune. According to Himes, “before the wording of a bipartisan border deal was even available to anybody,” Johnson said the bill would be dead on arrival.

    “I think what’s happening here is that the speaker is taking a move to get Israel aid done, which we all support, most of us support, I shouldn’t say all. But that will allow him to ultimately not do a border deal because there are Republicans, Mike Turner not amongst them, who would rather that problem be an issue in November and that it not be solved,” Himes said.

    I don’t buy the bit about Republicans saying “We won’t do a deal because we want this to drag on into the fall as an election issue.” That doesn’t mean there isn’t anybody saying that. Same thing with that “dead on arrival” claim. What i read was Johnson said IF the leaks coming out of the Senate negotiations were true, the bill was DOA.

    There is no reason the Republicans can’t say, in the unlikely event Biden does something on the border, “The only reason he did anything was because we held his feet to the fire. Without us, nothing would have happened.” Followed by, “That was just a start. We need to do more.”

    • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

      From the sounds of it, the deal is a way to prevent Trump from securing the border if he wins. 5000 illegal crossings per day are allowed before the President can declare an emergency. That’s something like 1.8 million per year.

      • Urthona

        I doubt Trump wins, but the orange dude would not have to declare any emergency to secure the border if he so desired.

      • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

        Nor does Biden need republican compromise to use powers specific to the presidency.

      • Urthona

        yup.

    • juris imprudent

      Ha, you mean if they cared about the matter other than for scrounging up votes?

  16. The Late P Brooks

    5000 illegal crossings per day are allowed before the President can declare an emergency.

    Is that in total, or at any specific monitored location? I couldn’t tell. And it looked like “closure” pertained to official border entry points.

    There is no telling what’s in that abomination. We’ll only find out when it’s too late.

    • Urthona

      Aren’t they saying it’s doa anyway?

    • Cunctator

      —“There is no telling what’s in that abomination. We’ll only find out when it’s too late.”—

      We have to pass it to know what’s in it.

  17. cavalier973

    Roku added a tailgate party scene to its rolling cityscape.

    I saw something that I don’t remember noticing before: a flat gift box sitting on the bench outside one of the buildings—possibly a reference to “Forrest Gump”.

    Other movies referenced (as I watch the scroll):

    In the background
    *Wizard of Oz
    *Spiderman
    *generic robot monster movie
    *Superman
    *The Avengers
    *Escape from Alcatraz
    *Pirates of the Caribbean
    *Jaws
    *King Kong
    *There’s a Ferris wheel; I don’t know what movie. A pun on “Ferris Bueller’s day off”?
    *generic alien invasion movie
    *Joe versus the volcano?
    *a dragon
    *a blimp or dirigible
    *Castaway
    *The Hunt for Red October
    *The Death Star
    *Showboat?

    In the foreground

    *The Graduate
    *an outdoor cafe for generic rom-com?
    *a classic diner
    *some sort of office building
    *Back to the Future
    *Doctor Who
    *a cinema advertising free movies on Roku
    *the graduate, again
    *TMNT (but only three of them)
    *Times Square?
    *A Christmas Story
    *Singing in the Rain
    *Psycho (I’m pretty sure that’s the Bates’s house)
    *Ghostbusters
    *Rear Window, and possibly Sweeney Todd

    • cavalier973

      I *think* that some of the industrial chimneys in the background are a reference to “Conspiracy Theory”.

    • cavalier973

      *Mary Poppins (in the background)

      • Mojeaux

        I love that movie so much.

      • cavalier973

        The movie is better than the book. A rare case.

      • Mojeaux

        I have never read the book. I very rarely cross the book/movie streams.

      • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

        I will go from movie to book, but almost never the other direction. I have been universally disappointed when I do.

      • Gender Traitor

        That’s my general rule. A recent exception: I finally watched the Hunger Games movies and thought they were pretty good, though still not as good as the books.

      • Gender Traitor

        Also arguably true of The Wizard of Oz. Years ago, when I had delusions of becoming a teacher, I read a book on picking books to read aloud to kids. They argued against TWOO in favor of one of Baum’s later Oz books, Ozma of Oz, first because most kids had probably seen the movie, but also because Baum “hadn’t hit his stride” with the first book.

      • cavalier973

        I agree about Wizard.

        I also liked the Godfather movie much better than the book.

        The Princess Bride is another.

      • Gender Traitor

        I may have mentioned this a while back – my sister gave me a 40th anniversary DVD of Mary Poppins. It was a blast to watch it with TT because he knew all the music by heart from his little sisters playing the grooves off the soundtrack, but he’d never seen the movie.

        And on the same subject, have you seen

      • Gender Traitor

        Oops! Hit the wrong command! Have you seen Saving Mr. Banks? Alternates between Walt Disney trying to convince P.L. Travers to let him make the movie of her book and Travers’ childhood in Australia with her alcoholic father. Highly recommended for MP fans.

      • Mojeaux

        I’ll give it a whirl. I don’t know if you remember, but in The Proviso, Sebastian told Eilis that when he was in art school in Paris, he busked with sidewalk chalk drawing, not the Mona Lisa like everybody else, but recreated the drawings Bert did in that movie, and stills of the animation.

      • Gender Traitor

        I had forgotten that! It was the first of your books that I read, so that was a lot of your books ago!

      • Mojeaux

        I wouldn’t expect anybody to remember, honestly. Hell, *I* don’t remember most of what I write. I always said I’d stop when I started repeating myself.

        Oops. That happened 3 books in.

      • Tres Cool

        Dick Van Dyke explains his shitty accent in Mary Poppins.

        Fun fact- when he moved to hollywood, his agent insisted he couldnt find work under his real name, Penis Von Lesbian. So he changed it.

    • cavalier973

      Also in the background:
      *Close Encounters of the Third Kind
      *Some sort of giant monster crawling out of the water

  18. The Late P Brooks

    Aren’t they saying it’s doa anyway?

    I believe Johnson said “if what he had heard about it was correct” it would be DOA. They may now be having some sort of procedural spat, too.

    • Urthona

      Good good.

  19. slumbrew

    Catching the end of the pro bowl games. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers cheerleader on stage with Baker has some serious shoulders on her.

  20. The Late P Brooks

    I doubt Trump wins, but the orange dude would not have to declare any emergency to secure the border if he so desired.

    It is incredibly galling to hear from the media about how much Joe really wants to secure the border but his hands are tied. The Republicans won’t let him. What a steaming plate of preposterous hogwash.

    • juris imprudent

      French farmers have the appropriate response to that.

      • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

        Refer to Disney as Mouschwitz?

  21. The Late P Brooks

    Speaking of movies…

    Movies I fucking hate hate hate:

    -Gentlemen’s Agreement

    -On Golden Pond

    -One Eyed Jacks

    There are more.

    *Starship Troopers was the worst movie ever made, but I do not despise it in the same way I hate the others.

    • Tres Cool

      Jugsy has “Back to the Future” on. Even though I know damn near every line (and largely cant stand Huey Louis), it still holds up.

      • cavalier973

        You probably already thought of this, but the Marty that we see at the end of the movie, getting into the Delorian and traveling back in time, is not the same Marty that we’ve been with throughout the movie.

        That second Marty grew up with a father who was not a loser. He grew up with a mother who was not a depressed drunk. He grew up seeing Biff as this comical buffoon that his dad ordered around.

        Must’ve been quite a shock to see how they were in high school.

    • Suthenboy

      Worst movie ever made? Denise Richards in the shower?
      Maybe you should watch it again and pay closer attention.

      • rhywun

        lol

        I’ve heard this opinion expressed too many times for it to be rational.

      • juris imprudent

        The dick wants what the dick wants, no?

      • rhywun

        Yes, but I meant the opinion that ST is the “worst movie ever made”.

      • juris imprudent

        LOL, I took it the Denise Richards comment! I think the people that hate the movie the most at least liked the book.

      • R.J.

        If you want the worst movie ever made, you will have to hold my beer.

      • creech

        I thought it was the blond chick? Then again I wasn’t exactly noticing faces.

      • rhywun

        Both.

        Part of the joke is that all the lead actors are cheesecake or beefcake.

      • Not Adahn

        Nope, Denise was NOT in the shower scene. That was MI, she was Fleet.

      • slumbrew

        Dina Meyer.

        Rawr.

    • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

      Wasn’t One-eyed Jacks supposed to be a Kubrick film, but Brando took it over?

      What I find fascinating is the different opinions on what Starship Trooper was about. Anti-fascist story? Space adventure? Pro military? You Be The Judge!

    • Aloysious

      Ordinary People.

      Barf.

      In spite of the fact that I enjoy watching Timothy Hutton and Donald Sutherland.

      • juris imprudent

        My ex and I refer to the son’s in-laws as Ordinary People-ish.

    • Don escaped Texas

      Bolero
      Gone in Sixty Seconds
      Island of Doctor Moreau
      Waterworld
      Con Air
      Ishtar
      The Gods must be Crazy

      • juris imprudent

        The Gods must be Crazy

        Thank you. I was a total outcast for hating that. I didn’t know anyone that didn’t love it.

      • Don escaped Texas

        I’ve only ever got up and walked out of a movie twice

      • juris imprudent

        I can’t think of another I walked out on. Rhino scene, that was it, I was up and walking.

      • Grummun

        walked out of a movie

        Navy Seals. It was a free showing and I still felt like I’d been cheated.

      • Sean

        Once. Don Juan Demarco.

      • The Hyperbole

        Con Air?!?

        The one with John fucking Cusack, America’s greatest living actor. You sir have crossed a line.

      • Don escaped Texas

        Con Air couldn’t be worse even if Kevin Costner were in it

      • juris imprudent

        John Malkovich redeems that movie, even if Costner had had Cage’s part.

      • Don escaped Texas

        doubles down: Con Air couldn’t be worse even if Kevin Costner, Tim Allen, Sylvester Stalone, Kevin James, Burt Reynolds, Keanu Reeves, Adam Sandler, Judd Nelson, Steven Seagal, Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Richard Gere, Ashton Kutcher, Tony Danza, and Jack Black were in it

      • juris imprudent

        Still not as bad as Bonfire of the Vanities.

      • Mojeaux

        Now I can’t remember if I saw Bonfire of the Vanities or not. I think I did. I may have blocked it from my mind because I loved the book so much.

        Yeah, so there’s nothing like remembering that cringe moment you gushed about one well-known author to another not-so-well-known-but-still-filthy-rich author while you’re interviewing for a job at the Century Club. That whole lunch was *cringe*

      • cavalier973

        ….

        Stephen King and Tom Clancy?

      • Mojeaux

        No. I gushed to Warren Adler about Tom Wolfe. I mean, I knew I’d stepped in it halfway through and I couldn’t shut my mouth.

      • juris imprudent

        Moj – I loved the book too, I think it was his best. I think Don may have cast everyone in Bonfire, judging from his opinion of the Con Air actors, and his alternate cast for that.

      • Mojeaux

        I can see how one might think it’s his best, but I FLUVED A Man in Full. It informs quite a bit of what/how I write.

      • cavalier973

        I read that book. The main guy juts out his enormous chin as an intimidation tactic, and the married assistant DA (or something) gets caught dating one of the jury members.

        Apparently, Irish cops will take a bullet to the face before backing down.

      • rhywun

        America’s greatest living actor

        Now you’re just being ridiculous.

      • Don escaped Texas

        Robert duVall?

      • The Hyperbole

        He’s 93, doesn’t really doesn’t qualify anymore (no offense 4sq)

      • rhywun

        He is an actor and alive. I’ll allow it.

        And yes, he is great.

      • Mojeaux

        Robert DuVall is one of the actors of his age range who doesn’t play himself in every single role. I mean, he DOES, but not every role.

        DeNiro and Pacino, I’m looking at you.

      • The Hyperbole

        Meh, he hasn’t acted in 6 years, some may say he’s been playing the same role since Lonesome Dove.

      • rhywun

        Oh yeah, I like Duvall way better than those two hacks.

      • Mojeaux

        Ha! That was exactly the movie I was thinking of, where he just said “fuck it” and started turning in the same performance.

      • Mojeaux

        Don’t get me wrong, I LIKE them, but a little goes a long way. I have a soft spot in my heart for Scent of a Woman. The tango scene in the restaurant and the mousy history professor wanting to talk to him after his spiel were both very sweet.

      • Mojeaux

        I rented it and sat through the whole thing in one shot, so pardon me I remembered it as a movie.

      • The Hyperbole

        Serious as a heart attack, the man has mad skills.

      • Mojeaux

        I’ll say it. I liked Waterworld.

        I turned The Gods Must Be Crazy off about 10 minutes in. I was so confused. I had no idea what it was supposed to be about, with all the aboriginal clicking and whatnot. My Grandmother From Hell #1 loved it. It may be that I just didn’t have any patience for it, which is weird, because in the 90s, I saw damn near everything, including half of Pedro Almodovar’s oeuvre. (Yes, I know TGMBC was an 80s movie. I rented the VHS.)

        I saw Strictly Ballroom in the art house when it first came out. I was so happy when it went wide. I told my parents to go see it, “but roll with the first 10 minutes; it gets normal after that.” Good thing I said that, too, because they would’ve walked out. Now it’s one of my mom’s favorite movies.

      • KK, Plump & Unfiltered

        A life lived in fear is a life half lived

      • Mojeaux

        ¡Vivir con miedo es como vivir a medias!

        Used it in a book. 😁

    • Gustave Lytton

      Heaven’s Gate
      Last Tango in Paris
      Eyes Wide Shut
      The Deer Hunter

      • Mojeaux

        I saw Eyes Wide Shut when I was single. I saw it again after I was married a couple of years. It was an entirely different movie the second time.

      • Gustave Lytton

        I may have to watch it again. Well, fully. Got sick halfway through, left and puked in garbage can in hallway. Not related really but thought the movie was awful up to that point anyways.

      • Mojeaux

        Tom Cruise’s acting doesn’t improve between viewings. Nicole Kidman acted rings around him.

      • Gustave Lytton

        My appreciation for Cruise really grew when he did Tropic Thunder. Also, his stunt work for the MI movies.

      • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

        Kubrick loves to cast actors at or just past their ability. See Shelly Duval, Tom Cruise, Ryan O’Neal.

        Mojo is right though, it is a completely different movie when you have been married for a while. Everyone puts it down as Kubrick Does Sex, but that isn’t quite it. As sex is only part of a relationship, sex is only a part of the film. It is about time in a relationship.

    • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

      Worst movie: Howard the Duck.

      Walked out of: Sleepless in Seattle, and some Star War thingy.

      Greatest American Actor: Nicholas Cage.

      FIGHT ME!

      • Mojeaux

        Certainly, Hollywood’s hardest working actor, anyway.

      • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

        (I like poking the bear)

      • Mojeaux

        Well, I mean, poor guy needs the money. The only person who can hire worse people than Cage, it’s Trump.

      • The Hyperbole

        Cage is a great character actor who somehow managed to get starring roles. Cusack is an actor, a man capable of portraying depth and pathos, not just goofy accents and forced intensity.

      • The Hyperbole

        Better living Character actors than Nick Cage- Stephen Tobolowsky and Walter Goggins. The GOAT of course is Jack Elam.

      • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

        Yes on Stephen Tobolowsky, also a very good pianist. Not sold yet on the Goggins, and had to look up Jack Elam. Which should tell you just how good he is. Just disappears into a role.

        I would add Philip Baker Hall to that list though.

      • The Hyperbole

        PBH- He’s a good one, I can see where you’re at on Goggins but he gets the benefit of the doubt from me just for The Shield and Justified.

      • slumbrew

        Garret Dillahunt

        So good he played two different roles on Deadwood and nobody noticed.

      • Mojeaux

        He was in Raising Hope, which was hilarious. He’s also in Sprung, which I started watching and just haven’t gotten back to it yet.

      • slumbrew

        Also in the cancelled-all-too-soon Sarah Connor Chronicles

      • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

        Yes, Weird Science certainly showed off his myriad talents.

      • The Hyperbole

        Nice try but everybody knows Risky Business was his breakout movie not Weird Science.

      • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

        Wait, he was in it? I thought he just auditioned (like every other dude in Hollywood.)

      • slumbrew

        Even better in The Breakfast Club

      • Tres Cool

        Eat me. Cusack in “Grosse Pointe Blank” is no deeper an actor than he was in “16 Candles”.

        His sister Joan, however- the chubby redhead….HUBBA HUBBA

      • Gustave Lytton

        HTD at least had Lea Thompson.

      • prolefeed

        Nicholas Cage???

        * walks off muttering, “The fuck? Cage? CAGE? Gotta be trolling us. Next he’s gonna be telling us underage Tracy Lord’s is the best female actor ever.” *

        😂🤣

      • Zwak says the real is not governable, but self-governing.

        Well, she could get really deep into a role, if you know what I mean.

  22. The Late P Brooks

    I watched Hooper last night. It still works pretty well.

  23. cavalier973

    Speaking of movies, if you haven’t seen it yet, watch “Kung Fury”.

      • Tres Cool

        That reminded me of something, and perhaps my submission for Thursday night movie night.
        While a bad movie, its a comedy and maybe not fit the criteria of actual bad movie.

        Kung Pao: Enter the Fist

      • R.J.

        That is a good one.

      • juris imprudent

        Or Master of the Flying Guillotine.

      • slumbrew

        Five Deadly Venoms

      • R.J.

        How about Balls of Fury? That’s a good one.

      • Grummun

        +1 Balls of Fury

        Outstanding movie despite George Lopez. Walken is hilarious. Dietrich Bader in the last third of the movie is a real treat.

        “I’m going to save the panda! ….. Panda is dead!”

    • cavalier973

      Kung Fury 2 (if it ever gets made) is supposed to have Arnold Schwarzenegger in it, playing the President of the US.

      The first one was a vanity project of the main star, David Sandberg. Somehow David Hasselhoff got involved, and wrote a song for the movie: https://youtu.be/ZTidn2dBYbY?si=wkgILlPcsavwNr8c

  24. KK, Plump & Unfiltered

    Stay safe CA glibs

    • Don escaped Texas

      anyone seen Blackjack or Playa lately?

      • The Bearded Hobbit

        Blackjack hasn’t been around for a very long time. Playa showed up just a few days ago.

    • The Hyperbole

      Am I the only one who’s never heard of an ‘Atmospheric River’ before? Is this a common term or is it the scary term du jour.

      • kinnath

        scary term du jour.

        Recent. I’ve only heard in the last year or so.

      • one true athena

        used to be the “pineapple express’ but the WEather Channel decided that all storms need a Super Scary WE’RE GONNA DIE OF CLIMATE CHANGEEEEE name for everything. it’s so exhausting.

      • Mojeaux

        “Pineapple Express” is cheeky. I like it.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Thank you. It was always pineapple express when I was a kid. The big snows would happen there was an arctic air mass hanging over and then got a PE.

        I guess also when the commercial pineapple crop ended in HI, the name wasn’t as appropriate.

      • Ownbestenemy

        pineapple express – growing up in Cali, that is what we used to hear.

      • Tres Cool

        See also: “Polar Vortex”.
        You know- when January comes, the jet stream moves a bit, and those filthy canadians cant shut the door and we get cold air.

        I always just called it “winter”.

      • juris imprudent

        And that is why you aren’t a media mogul.

      • Tres Cool

        Thats why I climb smokestacks.
        Im no (((Tartikoff))).

      • whiz

        I’d never heard of it either. Kinda like “derecho,” which I’d never heard of before we got blasted by one a few years ago.

      • Plinker762

        Internet says it was first used in 1994

  25. Fourscore

    My monitor randomly turn black, I shut off the monitor, wait a second, turn it back, flashes the brand name “Acer” goes black and then restores to whatever was on.

    It’s a few years old, I forget, 5 or 8 or something. I’m not in a hurry to buy a new one, unless this one is ‘broke’. I sent my son this:

    https://www.guidingtech.com/how-to-fix-monitor-randomly-going-black-on-windows/

    Hopefully we’ll TeamView tomorrow and he can figure it out. I might miss the Cal score but life has many missteps along the way.

    Sometimes it’ll work for hours, sometimes not. Intermittent

    • Tres Cool

      Shitty chinese capacitors on the power supply would be my guess. Never really associated that problem with Acer, but I have a couple of ViewSonics here that I rebuilt for fun.
      Let me know if you need a display and Ill ship it to MN.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        OT:
        I am a chump and a fool,
        Goodbye

      • Gender Traitor

        😕 ????

      • Fourscore

        Thank, TC, I’ll keep that in mind. See what happens tomorrow.

      • Fourscore

        Hey, we’re all chumps/fools. Nothing new in this world

      • juris imprudent

        We are all bozos on this bus.

  26. Mojeaux

    Fuck. Internal server error ate my comment about the good week I had.

    • Sensei

      Just did same for me. Sigh..

    • Plinker762

      Black pill commemys only!

      • Plinker762

        Or bad spelling

      • Mojeaux

        i r uh gud speler

  27. Grumbletarian

    Looks like President Dudebro got reelected.

    • juris imprudent

      Less surprising than Milei. After all Dudebro has delivered on what he promised.

    • rhywun

      Unless he was walking down the runway tonight, it didn’t happen.

  28. Brochettaward

    I don’t know what you people would do without me being here to First.

    You’d be stuck counting on UCS or some guy who calls himself a potato to do it.

  29. UnCivilServant

    MSP430: Flash/FRAM usage is 962 bytes. RAM usage is 86 bytes.</blockquote)(-.-)

    This does not bode well for fitting the final program into 1KB. I'm still missing an important feature.

    I'll have to rethink this.

    • UnCivilServant

      Well, I managed to shrink it by 60 bytes, but I expected my change to take more RAM, yet:

      MSP430: Flash/FRAM usage is 902 bytes. RAM usage is 86 bytes.

      • UnCivilServant

        MSP430: Flash/FRAM usage is 858 bytes. RAM usage is 94 bytes.

        Well, I traded eight bytes of RAM for 44 of storage. I’m not as happy since there’s only 128 bytes of RAM to work with, but I still need space for, you know, the actual program logic to exist.

    • Sean

      *waves*

    • Ted S.

      Off to work in a few minutes. 😐

  30. Suthenboy

    Morning UnCivil.
    Just whipped up some crumpet batter after Not Adahn’s comments last night. Put in a bit of vanilla and chopped cherries. We will see how it turns out.

    • UnCivilServant

      I still need to sort out breakfast. I just dragged myself into the living room to finish waking up.

    • Gender Traitor

      Good morning, Suthen, U, Ted’S., and Sean!

    • Not Adahn

      I’m definitely going to try it as pancake batter, and next time I visit my parents I’ll make a few dozen actual crumpets for them to keep in the freezer.

  31. UnCivilServant

    I spent the entire time I was getting breakfast together second-guessing myself on whether I just wired up something backwards. I’m puttit it together both for my own edification and for a follow-up article to the shift egister investigation. The funny part is, if I had wired it up backwards, the thing would have worked just fine, except the output would be rotated 180 degrees.

    • Gender Traitor

      So does that just leave the code that needs to be tweaked?

      • UnCivilServant

        The code as it stands will do what it’s written to do.

        What I’m missing is code to allow the user to set the variables.

  32. Grosspatzer, Superstar

    Mornin’, reprobates!

    • Gender Traitor

      Good morning, ‘patzie! How are you and yours?

      • Grosspatzer, Superstar

        Hwy, GT. All quiet on the Western front.

  33. Rat on a train

    WE’RE BUILDING AN AUDIO ARCHIVE OF AMERICAN EXPERIENCES WITH COVID-19

    This initiative is part of the COVID-19 American History Project, a Congressionally funded program to collect, preserve, and make available an archive of American COVID-19 stories.

    I expect them to filter out anyone telling the story of government tyranny.

    • Gender Traitor

      Or of serious side effects from the shots.

      • Fourscore

        Covid and the shots went hand-in-hand. I had neither,. The End.

    • Grosspatzer, Superstar

      The Ministry of Truth is alive and well.

    • rhywun

      I was watching some of a “Bar Rescure” marathon last night and there were episodes from the Peak Panic era: disclaimers, masks for the help, the works.

      Who the hell wants to remember any of that?

      • Ownbestenemy

        There are still unscripted TV shows (2023) where I see the whole production crew wearing masks while everyone else on stage is high fiving, hugging, etc.

      • rhywun

        That was a major turning point for me, where it became obvious the whole thing was a farce.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      The gist will be Fauci et al wonderful and wise, DeSantis et al stupid and demonic, and Trump inept and wreckless even though he oversaw the lockdowns the covid panickers wanted…in other words, a propagandistic political hit job like everything the goddamn thing government gets its hands on now.

      • Fourscore

        Warp Speed, that should be in the Stranger than True Hall of Fame.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Ask and answer questions like:

      When did you first realize the pandemic would radically change the world and/your way of life?
      Describe the ways in which your life now is different than before the pandemic.
      What do you wish more people knew about your experience during Covid?

      There’s no “right” or “wrong” way

      I have a feeling the Rat is correct and they are lying when they say there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to answer.

      • juris imprudent

        Close enough for govt work.

  34. Tres Cool

    suh fam
    whats goody

  35. cavalier973

    Have they purposely designed gallon containers of milk to be impossible to pour without spilling?

    • Suthenboy

      Yes. Now try kitchen bouquet.