In the news…. K.O. KO’d by Current TV….Sean Payton to appeal his suspension….Bin Laden liked to buy homes and father babies….A sequel to Twins in the works….Jim Leyland has actually been dead since 1994….and finally Velveeta proven to be a weapon of mass destruction.
728 thoughts on “The Lounge where the streets have no name….well, except for Huston Street.”
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If it’s for my viewing pleasure, how’s come there’s not more comments in here?
Give me time. It would help if others joined in as well though.
Not part of your contract.
I should have read that thing but Monkeyball had a gun to my head so what was I going to do?
If you watched more Burn Notice you’d know exactly what to do in that situation.
I’m sure that’s the case. WWMWD?….what would Michael Westen do?
I have that bracelet.
And he has about 20 outs in that situation. He’s awesome.
when you’re a spy…
Indeed. The show goes from strength to strength too, which is unusual.
You’re no doubt the world’s biggest Burn Notice fan.
This is not true.
Well, you’re certainly the biggest one on FK.
I’m the best lots of things on FK.
I concur.
Biggest, not best.
It’s one of the few fictional TV shows I don’t hate.
I don’t see where it’s suggesting it’s for you viewing pleasure. Also, I’m naked. Enjoy.
oh. okay.
hi.
Why hellooooo there.
and how come there’s no picture of Huston?
They are re-paving him
asvd
I be dumn( please explain what that means?)
Anna whatever her name is venereal disease, a.k.a. Golf clap.
Ah! thanks.
Because I’m not bright and I have no clue how to post pictures….well, that and he’s not nearly as hot as Rick Santorum.
Why would anyone want to be reminded of him?
To be honest I barely remember him….the A’s have a new closer every year or so it seems.
He was the dude that had a wicked slider and was fantastic when healthy.
However he was constantly injured – only he hid said injury and his slider became a meatball.
And then he said bad things about oldbob.
I don’t recall that, but to be fair it was probably warranted.
IIRC, it was something along the lines of oldbob being the worst coach he’s had since the impressionable age of 7.
This is why I couldn’t be a coach:
“That’s funny Houston ‘cos you’re the worst closer I’ve had since I started coaching”.
That was after Fuentes had his say. Huston also made some remarks before being traded. T-Long type remarks.
yep, something like that.
I don’t think it’s fair to say he was “constantly injured” — that implies Rich Harden levels of injury-prone-ness, which was not Huston at all. He did struggle during his last year here because he hid an injury… not his finest moment.
But he was fantastic during his rookie season, and won ROY! (Not that that necessarily means much; see Crosby, Bobby.) He was good and I miss him.
Also, he’s gorgeous. So there’s that.
Ahem.
♥ you, ‘shoes!!!
If Olbermann really needs a job I am looking for someone to mow my lawn this summer.
Careful. He’ll sue you when you fire him.
and I would end up firing him….just like everybody else.
In my spare time I like to run in slow motion and pretend I’m the Six Million Dollar Man.
Do you make the bionic sounds? I do…
Well, of course I do….you have to make the sounds or it’s not realistic at all.
Truf. Without the sounds, it’s just Landon Powell running to first
col. (chuckle out loud.)
Good, I just wanted to make sure you weren’t crazy.
When I was a kid they wanted me to play the bionic kid during one of those shows at universal studios. I was too embarrassed. But the next time we went I got to do a green screen with Elliot’s bike from ET.
Were you a child actor? I was but mostly just commercials and theater.
no no no. On the tour…
My acting experience starts and ends with staring in some training videos for Prints Plus at your local mall back in the mid-90’s. If you ever wanted great instructions on how to pray glue your $30 Nagel print to Foam-core, I’m your man.
Heh….if you saw late 80’s ads in Sacramento you might have seen some of my “work” I did more radio ads than anything else though….I have a face for radio it would seem.
I actually have about 100 hours of 80’s television commercials on VHS.
I likely have got whatever you were in, ‘cuz they were mostly from Sacramento stations…
Lucky you. My Mom has them on tape but I haven’t seen them in 20+ years.
Dammit Bed… you mean you’re going to make me go back through them and try to figure out which handful of kids could possibly be you?
Don’t make me sic Jack Gallagher on you!
messy. marvin.
He IS just old enough to be Messy Marvin.
Cal Worthington?
I can sing his jingle on cue….I’m a talented boy.
I’m literally guessing a Crystal ad with Jack Gallagher…
second guess would be Rico’s Pizza
I was the lead in our 7th grade production of How The Grinch Stole Christmas.
How do I know I have the best wife ever? She bought me 3 new polo shirts today…..that’s love, baby.
I don’t own a polo shirt.
I’m sure your parents are proud.
It’s 11:30pm. I’ll ring tomorrow and confirm.
You crack me up.
I own three. Navy, white, and light blue. We have to wear them on Mondays to get our patient assignments at the hospital.
Oh, and it has telemetry embroidered on the left chest.
SHOW US YOUR TELEMETRY!
They’ve tried to pawn one off on me at work for ‘official engagements’ (it has the logo on the breast). Screw that, I’ll just wear a shirt and a name badge whenever I go somewhere for work.
I own more than 3.
I don’t believe it.
That’s probably the smart play.
but when you say polo shirt, you mean actual polo brand, not just a button up teeshirt with a collar, right? (i’ll be very disappointed if it’s not actual polo brand.)
If there isn’t a polo player on the shirt I don’t wear it.
damn right!
Those shirts aren’t cheap but they last for years. I have one that’s well over 10 years old.
they were TEH thing when i was in middle school. i lived in a weird boundary area with super rich kids on one side of the school and us on the other. polos, 501s rolled up, and top siders. even better if you wore one bright polo on top of a white polo. but my mom got my 2 or 3 polos at marshall’s, and you could tell because the tag had a hole punched out. so kids were always grabbing behind other kids neck to pull the tag out and see if they were really rich or faking it. then i discovered punk and went to high school.
Yep…polo shirts and 501’s….that was me.
Pink polo, White slacks, top-siders, no socks.
Sonny Crockett is that you?
Oh to dream. Truth be told I only wore it a handful of times. Even then I feared I didn’t have the charm to pull it off
I had the crop hair and I’d go without socks but I didn’t really pull it off either.
Isn’t getting fired by Current TV only one step up from your cable access show being canceled?
So the Raiders traded a scrub for a scrub today but the new scrub will hopefully add some depth to the backfield.
Sweeney for Sweeney? Didn’t the A’s just do that?
We have a new Slapper?….Reddick?
Yeah, that was a comment some scout made to Susan Slusser.
What happens when you have Reddick hit a home run with Rosales on base? Reddick chasing Redass.
well then, no wonder it’s red.
You really don’t spend any time here except in the lounges, do you?
I may or may not actually know more about what’s going on with the A’s then I say.
yeah, but it’s pronounced house-ton. /NYCsnob
Olbermann suing Gore…..I think Limbaugh just pissed himself in excitement.
I read that last word differently
It’s over the internet isn’t? He wants his part of the credit of inventing it?
If I’m piecing this together right, Olbermann’s going to spend the next few years in seclusion buying houses, fathering twin babies with the late Jim Leyland, and raising them on a diet of Velveeta and bile.
Finally someone understands my writing.
That sounds like a weird creepy version of Weekend At Bernie’s.
I thought the weird creepy version of Weekend at Bernie’s was Weekend at Bernie’s.
good point.
Good luck with your new fumble machine, Raiders.
Good luck with the workout warrior who can’t actually play, Panthers.
His tape from Maryland looked ok.
Obviously you just have shitty coaches.
His tape from Maryland? So what you break down game film now? Oh and anything you see on TV isn’t actually game film.
Always have done.
And no it’s not coaches’ tape, but you only need that for the secondary/wrs. Cameras focus on the QB 90% of the time making O-line/D-line play very easy to judge.
Well, you’re wrong but I’m sure you won’t agree with me on that. I’ve broken down coaches tape….it’s very different.
I’d say I’m one of the top 100 scouts in the country. Plus, I used to do the play-by-play for the single A affiliate fifteen or twenty years ago.
Clearly, my credentials speak for themselves.
You’re a student of the game!
I guess this means I can only use “legitimate criticism” against you now, Bloom. Also may I offer a goat to you in tribute to your greatness?
There is no such thing as “legitimate” criticism of administration
Hmm….good point but I think we can agree that making “jokes” about Cindi is the apex of comedy in the history of the world!
I went over today. They have evolved from a prime journalistic site, to an award winning television channel. Perhaps we get to see Cindi and the Goats soon
Next stop…a Pulitzer prize winning Ham radio outlet!
just as an aside for anyone who has never met him. He is legitimately quite creepy.
That’s what I have on my business card…..legitimately quite creepy.
I started watching Friday Night Lights. It is set in Texas. One of the lead guys is named Street. I couldn’t get our former Street out of my head. I stopped watching, and turned to comic book movies.
Tell me you watched to the end of the first episode.
I watched the first… 5? episodes. The drunk guy made me rage.
We decided to start watching it due to the positive feedback I got last night here.
Meh.
It seemed like the best of the choices but if we don’t like it after a few episodes we’ll punt.
I suspect you’ll like it. Best portrayal of marriage I’ve ever seen on TV
hm. never thought of that. it’s very realistic in that way. (i still can’t stand her character as a person.)
Smart move.
that character is only focal at the beginning. things take off from there.
How much screen time is dedicated to the football?
Or is it a drama with occasional football?
There’s some football in just about every episode, but the on-field stuff isn’t the focus of the show by any means.
Then boo.
What do you do when you keep waiting for the lead to get tomorrow’s newspaper, but keep getting annoyed that it never happens?
I love you.
So, this place is now MatchFK.com?
FKMatch.com sounds like a porn site.
I’m dyslexic.
Type that into a browser and it redirects to millionairematch.com. Because once MikeV wins the lottery, all us FKers gonna be millionaires.
So two chicks at once for all of us then!
Sadly not. I need a Green Card.
My debit card is green. I don’t know if that’ll work for you or not?
I don’t think it’d work with the Immigration Office.
Or whatever they’re called. ICE?
ICE ICE BABY?…..well, we need more A’s fans in this country so I’ll happily be a character witness for you.
They’re the enforcement people. The normal people are called USCIS
wait. what? (it’s been like 5 years since i saw the 1st season.)
Kyle Chandler was on a show were he got tomorrow’s newspaper today.
oh yeah… vaguely remember.
Fun fact. The guy who plays his friend in that is not only an accomplished producer but also the Indian guy from Short Circuit and Short Circuit 2.
Fisher Stevens
Wow! And he has a name!!!
I have no idea why I knew this.
Either way, it’s correct.
Look up “Early Edition” on imdb.com
FK, I loved that show.
Me too! Around time it was Early Edition and The Pretender.
My mom watched that.
The concept seemed kind of embarrassing to me.
no, i remember now that jennifer clued me in. i did watch it a little bit.
It was the drunk guy and Street’s girlfriend that made me stop watching.
Jeter’s girlfriend too.
That doesn’t narrow it down much.
They all look alike anyway.
buddy’s daughter. super cute brunette.
She looks like Leighton Meester, which was confusing.
I know not who that is.
Works for me
Wow, good call. I don’t find either of them very attractive, I must say.
Me neither.
You’re saving yourself for Michael Westen.
He’s taken.
I’m obviously saving myself for a Texas school teacher.
Heh. Dream a little dream tonight?
Now it sounds like I’m a schoolmarm who lives in a cabin in the middle of nowhere… ’cause that’s definitely not true at all… nope…
Which part is not true?
I have underwear older than them
That just means you need to buy new underwear.
’tis truf
I do, but there are many ways to float a boat.
I think they’re both quite pretty.
One on the left, yeah. One on the right, meh. Take the makeup away and they’re probably both meh.
Well, who one finds attractive is subjective of course.
Yeah, in a jail-bait kinda way
This is pretty much my position on the issue
perfect example of je ne sais quoi. i find them totally alike, but i only like one of them.
The one on the left would look alright if she gained 30 pounds.
So I have date night coming up tomorrow….monster truck rally or mud wrestling?
Ladies and gentlemen, the Arkansas cultural stew (with possum, no doubt).
We only eats what we hits with our Vee-Hickle.
Like a gas pump? **jk :)
I tell you what, my friend…
Squirrel is good eats.
Befriend a redneck who likes used polo shirts or old golf clubs or something.
Movies I want to see NOW:
1. The Dark Knight Rises
2. Snow White and the Huntsman
3. The Avengers
4. Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter
5. The Bourne Legacy
I want to see Batman, I’m curious about the non-Damon Bourne movie buy I have my doubts. Not interested in the others.
Bourne- Jeremy Renner. Period.
Snow White looks BADASS, and I hate Kristen Stewart.
Charlize Theron looks amazing.
Usually does. Except for Monster.
She’s lovely…but yeah in that movie she was um, less lovely.
Agreed.
MR. F!
I’m meh on Renner and he’s no Damon to me. I have no clue who Kristen Stewart is.
The chick from those annoying vampire movies.
She is not a good actress, although I have only seen her in one thing.
Jeremy Renner is ageing badly.
I will cut you.
He’s a very good actor and I like him a lot.
But compare him in SWAT to say MI:4 Ghost Protocol. Age is not being kind to him.
I never got around to seeing MI:4. He was the bad guy in SWAT right?
Simon Pegg and Renner were the only things about it worth watching. Oh, and Paula Patton is sexy.
Get the fuck out.
Paula Patton is gorgeous.
Indeed.
Yeah he played Gamble in SWAT.
The SWAT guy that went rogue.
Thanks, I can finally picture him. Not sure I agree with the aging thing, but I’m not sure he’s really Jason Bourne material either.
His face is becoming increasingly craggy.
The Town wasn’t as annoying as I thought it would be. I loathe Boston.
I don’t mind Boston. It’s the people I can’t stand
i wish they would all stop cheering for sports teams.
I really enjoyed The Town a lot.
I saw The Town opening weekend in Somerville, which is adjacent to Charlestown. So the party atmosphere in the lobby was pretty fun, but I thought the movie kind of sucked.
the justine bateman of short blonde dudes.
Heh
I just want to know: in what universe is Kristen Stewart more beautiful than Charlize Theron?
No universe I want to live in, that’s for sure.
Bizarro universe.
It’s a universe I want to live in. It give me hope.
I don’t even know Kirsten Stewart, yet I know it’s a FKed up universe
Paul Greengrass not directing, either. Could be terrible.
I don’t know who that is. Sorry.
The director of Bourne 2 and 3.
Oh. Thanks. I don’t really pay attention to directors. I love the Bourne stuff, though. And that chick from The Princess and the Warrior.
He directed The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum. His action sequences are incredible.
I still thought the story in part one was the best though. I love all 3 films though.
Probably. The visuals in 2 and 3 are just so compelling.
I agree. The action scenes were done in a fascinating way.
Fun trilogy.
I’m interested to see how they’re going to explain the new film.
Very excited about the Huntsman. Love the Theron.
Like, midnight showing excited.
Well, I hope you both enjoy it.
It comes out in June. My schedule right now is NUTS, so who knows if I’ll actually make it. I wanted to see the Hunger Games yesterday, but I fell asleep in my living room chair. When I got up I watched it illegally online. Meh. I didn’t love it.
I guess I might watch that on DVD but I didn’t even know what it was until a week ago. With your schedule I imagine it is hard to find a lot of movie time.
It’s a good night if I’m in bed by 2. I’m up by 5:30.
It actually looked quite good.
Right up until the ‘Robin Hood’ moment at the end there.
I would have been excited about Huntsman but he was never going to be successful in the primary.
whedon just for respect of whedon. the rest can SMD till they show up on netflix.
I have a love/hate relationship with Joss Whedon.
He makes fantastic tv shows, but he keeps on killing characters I’ve grown to know and love.
I’m 99% sure he’d have killed Mal Reynolds at some point if Fox hadn’t cancelled the GREATEST SHOW EVAH! cos that’s how he rolls.
The only thing I’ve ever seen by him is Firefly and I didn’t see that until last year. It was fun.
I lof Firefly. Literally I adore every single episode.
He also created Buffy and Angel – both were fantastic although lost a little luster as time went on. In all three though he kills characters he’s spent hours developing at the drop of a hat.
He created Dollhouse too, but I didn’t like the first season. The second is meant to be much better, but I don’t have the time to invest in it at the moment.
Oh and DR HORRIBLE’S SING ALONG BLOG.
i like dollhouse.
He lost me when the FBI guy didn’t jump all over his super cute next door neighbour when she was offering it on a plate.
Ok not really, but that certainly didn’t help.
I just didn’t like the story in the first series and a lot of the actors were just shitty.
the FBI guy is a bit funny and he walks with a stick up his butt. he’s in gallactica too, right? but so many of the other actors are in his other shows too…
topher is my favorite and his birthday episode is awesome. also, sierra.
He is in Galactica, yes.
Sierra is fugly. Topher’s asian assistant is hawt though.
i have a taste for sexy-ugly. and sierra is a 10 in that. only kathy acker (though she’s merely sexy-cute) can compare on that show.
I know a lot of folks love the Buffy show but I think that would be a tough watch for me.
You’re probably too old now.
I think I was likely born too old.
too old to start it. i’m his age and i love it. but it’s ingrained in me by now.
I just don’t think it’s my cup of tea.
yeah, but sometimes he brings them back even cooler. or, as cope would say, illyria!!!
Or whinier.
I’m looking at you, Buffy.
oh, come on! she was in post-celestial anguish.
For two seasons?!
heaven is forever! and they pulled her down for some petty crap.
She was whiny for way, way more than two seasons.
More like ‘all of them’.
I miss Cope.
Me too
I had an extensive conversation about Ghost Protocol recently.
Agreed
ain’t he on AN still?
I barely have time for FK. I don’t AN anymore.
i breezed through the other day and though i saw your avatar there in the lounge. not the beerpong cup. the fun one.
The last time I went over there he was. He’s the me of their monthly lounge in that he posts the most it looked like.
Twitter and whatnot.
kinda wobbly, ain’t he?
I thought FSU was the Wobbly.
He is! EVD!
I like a director/producer who’s not afraid to kill off his lead characters. When you watch their shows, you’re much more connected to them because you know at any point they could be gone. It makes the drama of getting into bad situations real. Things get really stale quickly when you know they’ll find some unreasonably absurd way of getting out that tricky bind unscathed.
I agree. It makes dangerous situations actually tense.
Killing a title character was the stated objective of teh first season of
You’d be interested to know that he did a last-minute script re-write of Speed, and of course it was his idea to kill Jeff Daniel’s character.
Pop quiz, hotshot.
That’s why he’s a genius.
There’s a few character deaths I can never forgive him for.
Like, almost all of them.
Especially since of all people fucking XANDER gets to live while awesome people die. PORQUEEEEEEEE.
So apparently the coworker who sits next to me over a cube wall now has a moisturizer or something that smells so gawdawful that it makes me want to vomit having to smell it.
Male or female?
Probably.
Female.
Are you sure it’s not her nether regions?
Quite.
Does the guy in the wheelchair have no arms?
He’s wearing a black shirt and he’s clapping his hands above his head.
I noticed that as well….it would make it tough to get around.
He’s clapping around the dude above him’s crotch.
oh, gross!
If I were you I’d send her to the Principal’s Office.
Vomiting over the cube wall is permitted in these circumstances.
It’s a pretty high wall. Not sure I can projectile it like that. And it’s not an easily cleaned thing so I’d have to smell it forever.
That’s so weird that almost everything about your body is FK’d up except your sense of smell.
If I hadn’t already have met you in person, I’d swear you were Captain Christopher Pike.
Fuck….that guy needs some sun.
My sense of smell is pretty weak too. So really think about that. If I can smell it, how bad must it really be?
story of my wife. er… life!
Okay so now I’m making The Bionic noises and humming the theme song.
Are you dreaming about the Fem-bots?
When am I not dreaming about Fem-bots?
gp
speaking of shows from that era… caught a few wonder womans the other day, which i hadn’t seen since i was at most 9. OMG. delightful. delightful and bondagy.
Linda Carter might have given me my first stiffy.
She could tie me up any time she wanted.
truth.
So I keep seeing things about Posnanski joining MLBAM and, try as I might, I can’t stop from reading it as NAMBLA.
My only complaint is I love it when Joe writes about all sports and I worry this will make him baseball only except for maybe books and his personal blog.
Agree there. I’d read him writing about his grocery list. Heck, I even read things he does about Basketball.
I was lucky in that I was living in KC when he arrived there so I’ve pretty much read everything he’s written since the mid 90’s.
Well, Pos did really like Penn State…
I quit reading him after the Penn State stuff.
The only think that will bring me back is if he writes a piece called “Joe Paterno was an Evil Piece Of Shit” and urinates on his grave.
I don’t always agree with him but he makes me laugh and I think he’s a very talented writer.
Well, he just happened to take the wrong side on one of my pet issues, and I don’t know if I can ever forgive him.
He drank the Kool-Aid. Let him choke on it.
Fair enough….we all have issues that can cause us to change our minds about people. I tend to turn on writers when I can predict what they’ll write before they write it or get lazy and just write crap off the top of their head.
Agreed.
I used to HATE Ratto, and now he’s one of my favorites.
Oh, I’ve always been a Ratto fan….he cracks me up and his stuff is still fresh to me.
I adore him, but I too have thought less of him since that episode and have not enjoyed his recent pieces as much as a result.
My biggest knock on Joe right now is that he’s gotten a little to focused on just a couple of subjects. When he had 3-4 columns to do for the KC Star each week he had to broaden his focus.
It’s the same with his podcast as most of them have just been him and that TV writer repeating themselves. He needs a good editor to kick him in the ass and try new things.
I rode my new motorcycle into work today and I think I’m the only rider who wears a helmet in the entire state of Arkansas.
well, i bet the other riders park outside and walk into work, so there’s probably less danger that way.
Hmm….good point and boy was my first period class surprised at my entrance through the wall.
that’s because kids today have no culture. next year prepare them with a viewing of the weird science party scene.
Oh….Kelly LeBrock….yummy.
oh, the usual… chains, whips, chips, and dip.
And a real, live Barbie doll
She was 80’s hot in every way.
Im not talking candlewax on the nipples or witchcraft…
well that means I’m out then.
you know, your basic high school orgy type of thing.
CHET! CHET!
“chet. my name is chet. and i didn’t think it was a whale’s dick, honey.” that’s my favorite line.
close second is the pork chop in the ashtray. or, “you spit in this?”
weird science is really funny and holds up very well. much better than bfast club.
yupyup. big time.
Heh
Nobody wears helmets on bicycles here either.
Well, I wouldn’t wear a helmet on a bicycle….I’m not a tool (well?) but on a motorcycle I think you’re crazy not to.
I’ll tell that to the cyclist that died outside my work last week.
People die everyday in a lot of different ways so you really didn’t make much of a point in my opinion.
He died because he cracked his head open on the pavement after a car clipped him.
i.e. wearing a helmet would have saved his life.
Each to their own I guess. I wanna live.
I want to live as well but I don’t see it as much of a risk.
He died because a car clipped him.
Thanks, and go As.
Yeah, no he didn’t.
The car only hit him his bike with enough force to unbalance him. It was practically stationary (just pulling off from a standing start).
He died because his unprotected head slammed into the pavement.
Which was caused by a car hitting him.
Thanks, and go As.
He would have survived had he been wearing a helmet.
Also would have survived if a car hadn’t hit him.
Thanks, and go As.
yeah, there is cause, and there is contributing factor.
been doing a bit of reading on the scape-goating of bike helmets in respect to actual bike safety. found this hilarious bit that statheads oughta like:
Is that normalized by how often we drive/bike? Because otherwise, it’s a pretty useless graphic.
i’d say it’s useful in shaking up the public’s perception that there is something inherently and greatly dangerous about biking, especially if only evidenced by the one stat that everybody wants you to swallow when citing why bike helmets should be mandatory (or are even common sensical).
the bottom line is that the numbers are inconclusive. so the debate will rage on.
and the numbers themselves are shifty, going this way or that depending on what country did the study or how you normalize.
that 1/2 of all serious head injuries stat is from the US, but there’s one study from australia, 1996, that says:
*
of course, part of the debate is that biking safety is cultural, and therefore studies in other countries may not apply to the US. this one compares biking with walking, but alas leaves driving out. but you can see that the US has a bigger problem, and that even then, biking is not so much worse than walking (fatality per trip) and is in fact better (fatality per distance), so it seems silly to justify that bikers need to wear a helmet and walkers don’t. and then it compares that to other countries, specifically countries that do much better than the US and that have non-helmet cultures. *
Where’s skiing?
In the mountains usually.
which is when you need a ski helmet. but for commuting? pshaw…
heh
It’s a pretty useless graphic either way. In a car you have a seatbelt, head rest, and airbags doing everything they can to protect you. And, apparently, still lots of head injuries because driving is dangerous.
On a bike, you have nothing but a helmet available to protect your head. And less-than-complete control over whether you will crash (doors, potholes, whatever).
And, of course, there is a public concern here. People who bike without helmets definitely want ER access when the decision goes bad…
It also doesn’t account for how many of the cyclist with head injuries were wearing a helmet at the time.
it also doesn’t account for cyclists who woulda died even with a helmet when they died not wearing one or those who woulda been fine without even when they crashed wearing it.
one of the issues is that while helmets do show to protect from skull fractures (and cuts and scrapes, ie, things that you suffer but don’t really kill you), there is no statistical evidence that they protect from contusion or intracranial hemorrhage, which are the killers in these cases.
but guys, guys… the graphic… it’s funny!
FREE WILL!!
she snorted his ashes!
I keep comparing it to skiing, where, after the longest time I have (mostly) come around and started wearing the helmet. (I still don’t use it when I work, because I can’t put the camera close enough to the eye, but I wear a turtle when I wear the photo backpack and/or ski off-piste).
The reasons are mostly similar. There is no other protection, as nevermoor says. Also, the chances of an impact due to events not in one’s control are highly present. Like people opening doors in a car, on slopes there is an increasing number of low-skill/high-velocity skiers.
And also, it’s warmer than the wool, but I guess that doesn’t count as an advantage when cycling
another subtle element in the graphic, is that the driver looks ridiculous wearing the helmet (at least to our common sense understanding of what is helmet-worthy activity), but if he were in a race car we’d expect him to wear a helmet. there’s a distinction to be drawn between the sports-related side of the activity and the utilitarian side.
i have an urge to compare skiing to lycra-wearing biking — things that you set out to do as a special activity using special equipment and that by nature entice one to the edge of safety because they make you want to go a little bit faster than before, or take the turn sharper. and commute biking to sidewalk walking or other forms of normal city activity where all you’re doing is getting from A to B using the available infrastructure. the stats i’ve seen don’t make that distinction though.
Commute biking has top speeds of travel which are much closer to recreational skiing than to sidewalking. Also, sidewalking has much clearer demarcation of territory with cars and trucks than commute biking does.
now we’re getting at the actual problem. the distance to cars. that’s the significant danger. a fall from a bike at human-generated speeds is not risky enough to mandate helmets for all, see the link i left NM. and my understanding of the stats i’ve been reading, as feeble as my understanding of stats is, is that there is no actual clear and significant advantage to a population wearing helmets: there’s no proof that helmets always help, the rates of incidence are not lowered that much, the causation between safety and helmets is not clear when it can be suggested that the people who are more likely to wear a helmet are already safer bikers and therefore less likely to get into accidents in the first place, there’s no control to prove statements such as “he’d be alive if he’d been wearing a helmet” or “he’d be dead if he hadn’t,” adversely the psychological effect on drivers near helmeted bikers is that they will get closer to the bikers and are more likely to clip them, the social cost of a population biking less because wearing a helmet is mandated goes up with health costs and pollution simply because fewer people bike… on and on like that. it’s like for that slight percentage of betterment imagined in everybody wearing a helmet can be looked at in a different angle to imagine a slight worsening. so the issue of helmets itself seems like a distraction where we need to ask, what is our actual goal here?
if our goal is to provide safety to the biking community, the first target is getting bikes away from cars (one stat does stand out, and that’s the incidence of car-involved biking accidents that cause serious injury — like MV said, it’s not because he wasn’t wearing a helmet, it’s because he got clipped by a car).
and if our goal is to lower social costs such as from having to support 1000 people who’ve sustained brain damage which may or may not have been avoided by wearing a helmet (including those who sustained brain damage while wearing one), we can also look at the cost-benefit of having a population increasingly ditch their cars and start biking (because another unfortunate stat is that when helmets are mandated, fewer people bike.), including health costs, gas, pollution, municipally paid public transpo that doesn’t serve enough customers to support itself (you may not be experiencing this in europe), etc.
but if our goal is to just debate about an inconclusive little dot in the larger picture, one that is predicated by eyeball (i’m using that term pejoratively) observations such as a car is safer because it has seatbelts and a bike is not because when you fall your head hits the ground therefore… brain damage (at humans speeds, physics and anatomy tag-team for a good bit of brain protection. this was covered in one of the links), that can be used by insurance to avoid payouts, and that shifts the onus of long-term and community-wide economics onto the individual rather than keeping it at the community level, then sure, let’s talk about helmets.
and to be clear, i’m not telling anyone not to wear a helmet. not anymore than i would tell anyone not to wear gloves if they want to. or reflective gear. or anything that makes them feel more comfortable in their skin as a biker. anything that they think will keep them from falling. because falling hurts. which sucks. but that is not a social issue. what i am saying is what i started with, helmets are a scapegoat.
am looking forward to the protected bike lane on telegraph avenue. too bad it will the wrong direction from my office, and not toward my home. i may have to make my commute longer just to make use of it. at least until cars are banned from surface streets. that won’t be long, right?
Completely agree that separated bike lanes are a good and important thing.
Not even a little convinced that you can waive away stats based on the assumption that naturally-safer bikers wear helmets. Wouldn’t it be at least as logical to assume less skilled bikers would wear helmets but more skilled bikers wouldn’t?
Not even a little convinced that car drivers look for a helmet to determine whether or not to clip bikers.
Not even a little persuaded that we have no way of knowing whether helmets save lives (though I will concede we don’t run live tests with humans replicating the same accident with and without a helmet). I have a friend who hit a pothole going down a hill (i.e. achieved a dangerous speed without any car involvement), shattered her helmet completely, and still barely made it through. I don’t have a double blind test to show the helmet saved her life. But it did.
And not even a little persuaded that society has no right to regulate biking. Would you prefer that all bikes be required to have a license plate on the back with annual renewal and mandatory insurance?
for the most part, i liked what i said better than what you said i said…
1) good.
2) not trying to waive them away. just saying the small margin they represent is even smaller when you consider that causation is not as clear as it seems.
3) http://www.helmets.org/walkerstudy.htm
4) i said there’s no proof that they *always* save lives. this rests between the theory that sometimes helmets cause more damage, and that the proving study on the advantage is pretty questionable. http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1068.html
5) i didn’t say society has no right to regulate biking. what i’m getting at is, let’s make sure the regulation is actually positive. http://www.cycle-helmets.com/us_helmets.html
2) Or more plain if the causation runs the other way.
3) From your link: “Other findings from the study make it plain that the cyclist’s position on the roadway (distance from the edge) made more difference than the wearing of a helmet or a wig.”
4) I’m happy to concede that helmets don’t ALWAYS save lives. I don’t see where in that link I’m supposed to conclude that wearing a helmet can cause more damage.
5) Absent evidence that the helmet itself results in worse injury outcomes than helmetless biking (as distinct from the argument that people are more reckless when wearing a helmet), I don’t see how it isn’t a positive regulation. Your link tries to suggest that helmet regulations reduce biking, but admits it has no support for the proposition (“Child cycling participation rates in all American states warrant further study to determine if the reduction is related to helmet laws”). I can think of other possible explanations (culture of child-control, car-oriented suburbs, etc.), so I’m not inclined to buy the argument without evidence.
2) … but we don’t know. inconclusive. red herring. put it aside.
3) indeed, cars don’t want to get near that shitty edge of the road where the pavement is uneven and you can dip a tire into the dirt. that’s where bikes belong! (let’s just get the bikes away from the cars and stop talking about helmets.)
4) that link was to question the advantages. the link for causing more damage is http://www.cyclehelmets.org/papers/p787.pdf
et many al.
feeds into 5.
3) fully agree that infrastructure improvements to support biking would be well worth it. Hell, I think grid-street cities should create bike “trails” by closing off one of the two lanes on a road every few blocks and making a single-lane one-way for cars, with the rest for bikes. I think those types of improvements (with the gold standard being physically separated paths) are the single best way to encourage bike use, which is a definite civic and environmental good.
4) I have to say someone speculating about “theoretical disadvantages” is not particularly convincing when he comes in biased (“Other countries followed this [mandatory helmet law] precedent, but it is a poor one because it had scant regard for the traditional rights of individuals to protect their own persons. . .”). I am strongly convinced that, in certain circumstances, helmets can save lives or significantly reduce severity of head injury. I would have been biased towards the position that “certain” was “the overwhelming majority”, but it looks like that’s a poorly-supported point. Even without it, I’m having trouble seeing opposition as much different to opposition to seatbelt laws (on purely safety grounds).
taking pine up to the marina is glorious now
Huh? pine is e-w not ns?
post
What is another e-w street that is not north south?
what the fuck street is the hemlock on that goes by city hall?
You know the one that has the new n/s bike lane at market?
that one
Polk?
there we go!… thats what I was thinking.
i’m at a place where it seems like the better way to safeguard riding is to have more riders. (there’s a stat on that too, but don’t make me look it up. done with the stringent part of this conversation and am settling into confessional resolutionlike chatter…) it’s cyclical (pun!) that the more riders there are, the better the infra, the better the laws, the better the culture, the safer it is, the more riders there are.
and i find it partly amusing (though the other part is exasperating) how black/white people think this helmet topic is. they think it’s so obvious and common sense that they won’t listen to their own assumptions as assumptions. like even with seasoned yet progressive urban riders at, say, bikeparty, there’s a bit of aghast/zomg you don’t wear a… H-E-L-M-E-T?? but there’s a lot of gray. so much.
which hurts, really, because it bogs the conversation there when it should really be somewhere else.
i have a helmet. i wear it when i think i’m going to be in a certain situation (the undewhelming minority of situations), such as offroad or bombing hills at 3am.
and i get in plenty of scrapes. not with my head though. got doored once and flipped over. landed on my back. that sucked. and lots of knee, hand, feet scrapes. about 1 or 2 good falls a year since i was… 7 years old? never hit my skull. odd, now that i think about it.
[knocks on wooden head.]
[falls over with brain damage.]
Helmet… never leave home without one.
Also more bbike riders leads to bike on bike collisions when idiots cant ride in straight lines, see mornings on Market Street.
two things.
bike on bike accidents don’t kill.
and when every single other city lowers accident rates with rising ridership, but not SF, (and i’m including NYC in the ones that lower it), that’s not a biking problem. that’s just entitled assholes.
have to admit i just walked in the door raging at an entitled asshole biker. guy was so busy figuring out a way to cross an avenue against the light that he didn’t notice he was blocking me from using the crosswalk (walking) with a green my way, the car behind him from making a regular right turn on a red, and a bus that had to stop in the middle of the intersection because the driver wasn’t sure the biker wouldn’t make his attempt right in front of him. so the bus stops, the biker goes, the car that was in the lane next to the bus doesn’t see what’s happening, suddenly there’s a bike in front of him, he honks while stopping, so the biker… FLIPS HIM OFF, and rides on across the red.
So he basically broke the law since he’s supposed to only cross on green? He deserved to be hit by the bus.
but i’m OK with breaking the law (if done right). he broke the law in this tunnel-vision, self-centered, totally unaware way where he messed up everybody’s trajectory and didn’t better his own.
if he’d stood between the r-turn lane and the going forward lane and surveyed the situation: i get to cross the street on green, while the bus goes on green and stops at its bus stop which was full of people, which lets the car turning make its turn on red, and we don’t even notice the car going straight because it’s long gone… and THEN the biker still gets to go against the light and get ahead of the pack that forms when a light turns green (if we’re giving him tons of credit and assuming that’s what he was trying to do. but i’d bet he didn’t even have this in mind. he was all just… ME ME ME! GO GO GO!).
have to be aware of all turners.
I don’t feel bad when its a busy intersection with lots of peds, cars can’t turn there
I’m not. If you want access to the road and to be treated as equals in the sense of being given some level of priority on the roads, then you need to be willing to follow the rules associated with those roads.
why? don’t the US constitution and its 14th amendment already give me the right to access roads and be treated as equal?
Any alleged right to access roads and receive equal protection while flouting traffic laws is simply not going to give rise to a constitutional claim.
i was kidding around mostly. the notion that there are drivers out there who see other people’s equality as conditional took me by surprise. it’s scary too. didn’t know what to say. didn’t want to leave him hanging either. it was awkward. i panicked. sorry.
I laughed.
Riders who skirt the traffic laws are just as big an asshole as drivers who do it. Failure to stop is failure to stop, you’re equally dicky doing it.
i’m talking about stopping, letting all the cars who have the light go, and then crossing the completely empty intersection even though you have the red light.
there are even times this is safer than waiting for the green. such as having a pack of cars next to you also waiting for the light to turn green, and on the other side of the intersection there is a bus or some other reason that the bike has to wedge itself between driving cars and stopped cars. it’s pretty hairy to negotiate a bike lane with a car in motion next to you and you can’t even be sure the driver’s aware of you. but if you jump the gun and go before the pack can, you take the lane, pass the obstacle, and by the time the light is green for cars and they start catching up, you have established a bike lane and are visible.
and yes, a bike could wait at the signal for all the cars to go by first (and endure the honks of the cars who are turning right, and are waiting for you to clear the F out of the way…), but then you end up behind the bus and caught up in that game where you’re criss-crossing paths with an extra large vehicle with extra large blind spots that’s actively coming in and out of bus stops.
yeah, i’ll definitely go on an empty red to get ahead of a bus. all day every day. and i’ll live with the dick tag.
Free will!
FREE WILL!!
This.
Cheapest life insurance you can buy.
I want life insurance that actually gives me my life back rather than paying someone a bunch of money because Im dead.
Also availible in Disco
Alternatively you can just paint a target on yourself.
“Bummer of a birth mark, dude.”
You think people would go after you if you wore that?
cool
:/
http://www.risksense.org/2012/06/14/the-myth-of-the-bicycle-helmet/
how do you forget your password, but remember these comments?
2nd ¶ here.
Also from that grill, what could have been.
i don’t get it.
2012!
I do. Always.
A helmet usually doesn’t help if you are hit by a car.
I fought the car and the car won.
it’s gotta make a difference when your head hits the ground.
My friend is alive because he wore a helmet.
I’d never get on a bike without one.
i can say the same thing about a friend of mine. he didn’t make contact with the car, but the car did cut him off into the curb and he ended up flipping over the handle bars and landing back-of-head first. two days in the hospital, but alive. (also, and i won’t say this to his face, a little dumber than before.)
and here i am about to ride home without the hardware.
Agreed.
Yeah. I have landed on my head a couple time when I would have been super fucked up if I hadn’t.
Too easy!
Thanks, and go As.
“I’m sorry to tell you this, but you’ll never spell correctly again.”
If the car hit you hard enough it doesn’t matter.
Well that’s pretty redundant.
I don’t think you’re talking about the same thing. There’s a certain speed and/or amount of force at which in no longer matters what protective gear you have on that you’re going to die. Kind of like crashing at 100mph or 500mph, it’s not going to matter whether you remembered to wear a seat belt. But that “safe” number does go up by wearing that protective gear in a meaningful way.
this.
I wanna see you doing 500 mph on your bike!
Getting close. Still can’t aim that thing, though
TWSS
Thanks, and go As.
But maybe you can do extra damage to the car with your helmet then. So, small victories.
Actually they prevent 70% of traumatic brain injuries.
I meant thoracic and abdominal injuries. A helmet doesn’t help if the car rips your leg off or tears your aorta and you hemorrhage.
Maybe this is why Gomes bought a full suit of samurai armor
…or maybe he’s just FUCKING AWESOME!!!!! /Archer
Neither will a seatbelt prevent you from being impaled by parts of your car’s frame in an accident.
Or being impaled by flying shards of hipster tibia.
I’m a Democrat and everything but if Olbermann and Gore fought in a steel cage match I’d root for the cage to collapse on them.
… and the cage would likely be manufactured by a company owned by Dick Blum
I’d root for Mick Foley to fall through it and land on the both of them, killing them instantly.
That would work.
Keith Olbermann thinks he’s Edward R. Murrow, but really he’s just a younger, less employable Andy Rooney with an even larger head.
Actually you know what would be FK’ing awesome? If Olbermann replaced Glen Kuiper and called the A’s games on CSN with Ray Fosse. THAT would be must-see TV.
Olbermann would be wise to go back to sports. No one in news is going to hire him at this point.
Yes. Whereas back in sports, he could aspire to being a latter day Cosell.
THIS… IS… KEI… THOL… BER… MANN…
Cosell defined that role of the non-jock commentator in the booth so well that no one has been able to duplicate it and few have even tried. Dennis Miller and Tony Kornheiser both flopped. Olbermann would have a decent chance of pulling it off. Actually Buck-McCarver-Olbermann on postseason baseball might be highly entertaining, especially when the fists start flying.
Miller didn’t know sports well enough and was way too enamored obscure references for the sake of tehir own cleverness. Kornheiser had the opposite problem, the more common one of the funny sportswriter who can’t translate his skills into the booth. Olbermann has the potential to be much, much better than either of them. But I don’t get the sense that any of the networks are chomping at the bit to bring the next erudite egomaniac on board.
I love Kornheiser and I still think with a better play by play guy he could have done better on MNF but he’s better on PTI and the radio. Dennis Miller told his last funny joke in 1994.
Kornheiser was also an outstanding feature writer for Sports Illustrated in his day. Like, really great.
I’ve said this before but I used to go to Tower Books to get Washington Posts with his columns in them in Sacramento. He’s in my top 3 all time for sportswriters.
I was just reading this 1983 piece of his on Rick Barry the other day following the unpleasantness at the Chris Mullin ceremony. Good stuff.
The SI vault is one of the greatest things ever.
Seriously. Once I start poking in around in there my family doesn’t see me for days.
clever
I think he’s a blowhard plain and simple.
That ESPN book made it abundantly clear to me that everyone thinks he’s a genius. And completely insufferable.
KeithHal Olbermann should be a sentient server bank.My experience as a producer has been that most of the great talents are insufferable, and most of the mediocre ones are as well. So you might as well go with the best talent and roll your eyes at him or her in the safety of the control room. I’d hire Olbermann in a heartbeat.
he really apparently is just stunningly intelligent and sharp.
heh
having fun afternoon-lounging with y’all, but i have to go. i’ll check in again in a while.
See ya’
bye, tuuts.
I’m hopeful that my April Fools Day plans will work….it could go very badly.
If it rains a lot tomorrow, I’m going to the gender support group, unless I chicken out again.
If it doesn’t rain a lot tomorrow, Wiffle Opening Day! The 11th season of Sacramento “Professional” Wiffleball Circuit…
Although it’ll probably rain a lot tomorrow and next week and the real opening day will be the 15th.
It’s going to be warm and sunny here. If the group is something that you want to do I hope you find a way to get yourself there when you’re ready.
i don’t know about sacramento but bay area chance of rain is 100%. i don’t think i’ve ever seen a 100% chance of rain announced before. but i don’t always check the weather either.
dangit. they downgraded to 90%. more likely but makes my story suspect.
yeah, 90. Last weeks Buena Vista Horace Mann Seals t ball game was rained out and this weeks looks the same.
It’s gonna rain tomorrow. I’m just being optimistic that it’ll be light and early, even though it won’t.
Yes, those of us who are planning to drive to Sacto for the game tomorrow have some concern about being rained out. The Golden State Museum isn’t open on Saturday evening, is it?
No, Ma’am.
Monday thru Friday.
I thought the game was on Sunday. It should stop raining by then.
It’s tomorrow.
Stay home and keep the team there with you.
i forgot all about it. the japan series put me back in off-season limbo. yeah, i don’t see the game tomorrow happening.
Right I have to be up in five hours to start my two hour drive for a work gig tomorrow.
Time for sleep.
Sleep well, OA
Goodnight.
sleep like a spy!
I love my Raiders but there’s no way in hell that the 76 Raiders and 00 Ravens are the two best NFL teams of all time.
Yeah, the 1972 Dolphins called from Undefeatedland and said hi.
I just found a song on my hard drive that I’m surprised didn’t come from you…
“Santa Claus Is A Black Man” by Akim and the Teddy Vann Production Co.
that sounds like a FK’in dope jam
https://youtube.com/watch?v=oz04BwDgRkI” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen>
Yeah and the 1984 & 1989 49ers, 1985 Bears some of the Steelers and Cowboys teams are all better to me. I’d put the 83 Raiders team over the 76 team but it’s close and as far as the 00 Ravens…Trent Dilfer, enough said.
I think ’76 Raiders stack up pretty strongly, but yeah. I couldn’t rate them over the ’85 Bears at least, and probably the ’75 Steelers. I’d throw one of those 9ers teams in too, but typing the words would make my fingers throw up.
That whole “bracket” is bullshit. The 84, 89, and 94 Niners teams are 3 of the top 10 teams ever and all three are in the same bracket? LOL.
Thanks, and go As.
You may have facts but I have uniformed opinions and a really big squirt gun so I win.
/Lukas
You ever talk to yourself and find out you’re really boring?
Frequently.
Meh. When I think I’m boring, I pretty much think everyone and everything else is boring too.
It’s hard for me to get bored. When you’re an only child you have to learn to amuse yourself….it helps if you have lots of lotion.
I just realized I can’t name a single San Diego Padre.
Hmm…
Will Venable… Chase Headley… Yonder Alonso…
Damn… that is hard!
I’ve heard of Headley but I have no clue who he actually is. My baseball knowledge is at a all time low. I think part of it is I had lots of baseball fan friends in Kansas but only a couple here in Arkansas. People just aren’t into baseball here.
Will Venable is the son of one of my former little league coaches. A couple of years, Max Venable Jr would come to early practices before going off to Spring Training. Senior would occasionally come to a practice to shoot the shit with the manager, ‘cuz they were both on the Sacramento Smokeys senior softball club at the time.
Friar john
Except in the title of the lounge?
Huston Street plays for the Padres? I had no idea.
Eric Show, Terry Kennedy, Gary Templeton. It is 84 right?
I bet I could name a shitload of guys from that team…
Steve Garvey, Alan Wiggins, Craig Lefferts, Mark Thurmond, Keith McReynolds, Bruce Bochy, Carmelo Martinez, Luis Salazar, Bruce Hurst (?), Dave Dravecky, Tony Gwynn Sr., Kurt Bevacqua, and of course, managed by Dick Williams.
fuckin kurt bevaqua
Couldn’t hit water if he fell off a fkin boat.
Can you name the player from the ’83 Padres who signed with the Tigers in ’84, becoming (at that time, before guys switched teams every 6 minutes) the rare player to play against the team that let him go in the next year’s World Series? He was also an original Mariner and that team’s very first All-Star.
Hint: I am friends with his son, who works at Amoeba Music in Berkeley.
Oh yeah, your list there — it’s not Keith but Kevin McReynolds…
oh yeah…
still, that’s a lot of 1984 Padres to remember, dont’cha think? I was only seven years old at the time.
and of course, you’re referring to Ruppert Jones, but I would have had to look it up without the “Original Mariner” reference.
I was gonna say rupert jones as a gag cuz he is the only original mariner I know (his tops 1978 card had a gold cup)
you are correct sir! I worked for a fundraising company with his kid, who is a hoot.
Goose Gossage closing if memory serves..
that reminds me to check autotrader.com
oh yeah, and Graig Nettles at third… got traded over during spring training…
Man that team was sure built from other’s parts. That was one of the first years I really started to be interested in Baseball outside of “my teams”. I liked that team, the Cubs, and the Tigers (ok so I was a bandwagon kid that year…)
I didn’t start watching baseball until 1985.
I know the 1984 players from the baseball cards.
I could probably name 10 players off of each 1984 roster, just from remembering my baseballl card collection.
1984 Expos. Go.
Andy McGaffigan, Charlie Lea, Gary Carter, Bill Gullickson, Dave Palmer, Terry Francona, Pete Rose, Dan Driessen, Razor Shines, Wallace Johnson (a partial guess… 1984 might have been the year he was on the Giants)
and Johnson was on the Expos that year…
I can’t believe I forgot Tim Wallach, Tim Raines, and Andre Dawson… Steve Rogers too (I thought he retired in ’83)
Maybe the 1984 Mariners’ll stump me…
Alvin Davis, Phil Bradley, Mike Moore, Jim Pressley, Harold Reynolds, Mike Stanton the first, that FKing white boy with the afro, what the FK is his name… oh yeah, Pete Ladd, Matt Young, Spike Owen, Mark Langston, Henry Cotto, Bob Kearney, Dave Henderson
Wrong about Cotto and Ladd, but 11/13 ain’t bad.
that is impressive. The mid to late 80s are my teen years, so I couldn’t name 10 players that played in 1982-1993 with any accuracy. (couldn’t say waht team what year).
My baseball gap is 1994-1997. I was too busy being in eight bands at a time to watch or care about baseball.
prolly around the same ages as me.
I turn 35 this year, although it looks like I’m reverse aging at the moment, with the hormones and all.
I don’t like video based articles on the interweb
Me neither. Half of them rainbow my ancient Apple.
Besides, nobody talks as fast as I can read. If all the videos were done by the MicroMachine man, I’d be more down.
this too
My traffic at cnn.com for basic quick news updates plummeted over the past few years as more and more of their stories were just links to newscasts. It’s not even the ads…I just want to skim a few paragraphs to get the salient details and move on. There’s value to the written pyramid lead which video news does not provide.
bingo
I just realized I can’t believe it’s not butter.
You’ve been flip-flopping on that one a lot.
That and the polo shirts makes me think you might actually be Mitt Romney.
He has much better hair and about 250 million more in the bank than I do.
I can’t believe it’s not Hana buttah.
You know you have a fabulous, exciting life when you spend your Friday evening meticulously stitching together a compilation of Amon Düül II non-LP tracks.
I’m working on my music collection too… Googling album titles for stuff that’s from sampler compilations… correcting year & genre… and making sure that things are in proper alphabetical order, except for Tori Amos, whom I leave in “T” for my wife’s sanity’s sake.
My entire family hates my quirky music collection organization, because I categorize by decade instead of by letter. This drives them nuts.
I did this recently. Ive started using Google music and wanted everything clean and to have a list to import that wasnt EVERY track I own.
Somewhere along the line though I had issues with the fix. Im hoping this weekend I can get some time to go back and fix the glitches..
ICI had a button on my backpack that said “ask me about tori amos”
i don’t remember why.
I wear my Righteous Babe Records patches on general principles, even though I’m not a big Ani DiFranco fan.
I should get a button that says “ask me about kate bush”
hi, i miss you. ♥
Hi, beautiful!
hello, lovely one!
Life is good… cooking chicken and quinoa for my wife…
My boobies are growing, and I can’t complain about that.
The hormones haven’t much impeded the facial hair, and I would complain about that, except I’m likely starting electrolysis or laser next month, and that’s gonna hurt, so I’ll save the complaints until then.
ha. well, you are on my mind, sweetheart. it’s good to “see” you tonight.
I feel bad about that day I was manic and thought I could kill your nightmares.
Sorry I opened my fingermouths.
it made me happy, babe. it really did. HUGS!
(looks up)….did someone say growing boobies?
Hi, LadyJ! How have you been?
hi sweetie. good! :) hope you and the fam are well. :)
Thomas turned 13 on Wednesday. Maria is “blossoming” (which scares the heck out of me). Surgery on the 16th. I don’t think I’m ready for another round of teens. :)
you can do it!!!! :D
wow, surgery is coming up fast!
I know! The Doc screwed up my referral, so instead of surgery last Fall, it’s now. I was hoping to get it done in the offseason, so that all of us could meet up this season. Oh, well. At least I’ll be able to walk without pain.
hi!
yay! hi!!!!!
R’s store this weekend is close to barlata and i thought of you guys when i saw the sign. did G make it through work OK?
I didn’t accomplish enough at work today, did some thinking about Elton John though. He was such an odd rock star, a short of throwback to Tin Pan Alley who showed up at the end of the 1960s. And he was actually gay, unlike David Bowie (who played the part). But he couldn’t make himself interesting in spite of that, and most of his songs feel so inauthentic, not just because of the insipid lyrics he didn’t write.
Still, Elton’s best songs have aged pretty well because they are so well crafted. And he was almost absurdly productive during his peak years, cranking out albums so quickly that they would interfere with the sales of each other.
Bernie Taupin says hi.
Bernie seems like he was one of the luckiest men in show business. Write poems, hand them to Elton, who comes back a few minutes later with hard-to-resist ear candy. His lyrics aren’t all awful, but most of them are forgettable at best. The best thing for Bernie is that nobody cares about that, because so many people love those songs. Shoot, when they split up, it coincided with John’s decline in popularity, so Bernie even gets credit for being the key to Elton’s success.
That’s ridiculous, Bernie’s lyrics are often the reason the songs worked so well. “Indian Sunset” and “Sixty Years On” and “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” are as good as rock lyrics get IMO.
This. Other examples I can think of: “I need you to turn to” and “Tonight.” without the lyrics, Elton is a talented but schmaltzy pianist.
Well, I thought someone would toss “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” back at me, and that’s fair. But while “Indian Sunset” is a lyric-driven song, Someone works due to a combination of some nice writing and the strength of the arrangements and one of John’s better vocal performances.
Although, “Sugar Bear” still takes me out of the song.
work? its a holiday
by my unofficial count, EJ’s songs are the most prevalent in oldies/classic radio. that’s gotta say something.
bowie isn’t exactly authentic though. i don’t believe a word he’s ever sung actually.
The one authentic thing he did was to retire and make it stick.
I still think Bowie was awesome though.
i think he’s a neat entity all on his own. singing and acting. and i love the songs themselves. i just don’t believe him when he sings them.
But Bowie, after his initial singer-songwriter phase, wasn’t really trying to be “authentic.” He was playing characters, even when he was supposedly playing himself.
Shoot, “Heroes” – one of his best songs – has quotation marks around it.
hi y’all.
Hi, Bloom!
Hi, LB! I’m sorry I won’t be able to meet up with you at a game this season. We’ll have to plan on 2013.
hi sweetheart!
so what’s going on tonight?
Watching season 4 of Deadwood.
You just made me cry.
Happy now?
My work here is done.
(But seriously, it’s nice to have you back – missed you there for a while)
fucking brit.
I have dead wood.
Does that make you cry too?
a bit.
Finding out “Just Ken” isn’t actually by Ken Korach made me cry a bit too.
Didn’t you get any satisfaction that the Curse of Deadwood continues to plague all subsequent HBO David Milch projects?
yes, I do like that. fucker deserves it.
While there’s not much point in making the show’s creator continue to make shows when he doesn’t want to, because that’s a guarantee it would suck, I have always been miffed that Milch and HBO didn’t respect the show’s audience enough to try to wrap the show up in proper fashion.
So, yeah. Cocksuckers.
seriously. It was such a disservice to a great show, a great ensemble…just a big fuck you. And then they ran out that John from Cincinnati at us like we wouldn’t care…
My wife is watching bad sci-fi and I have my headphones on to drown it out.
My wife is watching bad rom-com in the other room, but that’s okay because the soundtrack of old Police songs and other 80s stuff is pretty good.
right on.
I was listening to a band called The Advantage… math rock covers of old C64 and Nintendo tunes…
Good stuff…
Those are Sacramento dudes. I got into them via the Hella connection, and also because they do mean versions of the themes from the Duck Tails and Goonies videogames.
watching the black donnellys and making cookies.
Goodnight, everyone!
night 22
Apparently, my roommate isn’t coming home tonight and I’m contemplating masturbating…
After fucking Brit?
well. sure.
all night?
also, real roommate, or ex-wife roommate?
real roommate. no moar exwife no longer…
good for you!
hmmm. maybe. lonely.
move forward toward unloneliness, not backward. (i’ve been making cookies. i have no idea what i’m saying right now.)
i like cookies, and i like what you are saying, even more.
how does one move forward toward unloneliness? And does anyone know anyone that wants to date a slightly used Bloom?
one breath at a time. and i’m sure there are many, many women(?) worthy of you that we could find! ♥
hmmm. name three.
do i even have three women friends?
hmmm. good point.
you date someone you never dated before?
hmmm…just might be crazy enough to work…
i had too much dinner.
awwww. well, what did you have, cute witch?
i made fettuccine with sausage, basil, ricotta, and smashed peas. :)
Peas deserve to be smashed…
…ornery little green FKs…
and they were so sweet and tasty. ;)
nom nom nom nom!!!
it was a new recipe, and i’m not sure yet what i would change. still pondering…
I want.
you could have it, sans the pasta. it would be fabulous on polenta.
you’ll beok
???
from eating too much.
You will be ok.
oh! i read it as chicken-speak.
i don’t remember the last time i had pasta. ;)
I did, too! Mikie bait!
he was making FROSTING!!!
I saw that. Poor little guy, all alone…
i want the fucking frosting.
I would take you to get frosting were I there.
chickie frosting?
yes.
woo! ;)
AV bait
that’s really neat. i want to combine it with oakland crime spotting.
lynn, if you are here…reading “Venetia” :D
Woah
Thanks, and go As.
GAME CHANGER!
nice rainbow sombrero! what is math?
My friend came up with a neat idea: “Has there ever been action movie where the main protagonist has the revelation that he cannot be killed because of his integral role in the goings on? That might make for an interesting flick.”
Meant to be part of the Joss Whedon conversation above.
i have a feeling that yes. like in a comedy where they break down the 4th wall. maybe in blazing saddles when they invade the studio, does mel say anything like that?
but i bet you mean straight action.
I did an independent study in undergrad on literature that directly addressed the reader.
the reader is dear.
i was into metafiction myself. author directly addresses the work?
Borges, yes. Tristram Shandy. Anthony Burgess.
and lemony snicket!
I’m Tris Shandy yes I’m the Real Shandy all you other Tris Shandys are just imitatin.
I love you, you know.
[beams]
Along those lines, I love “If on a winter’s night a traveler.” And the whole concept would never work in the hands of a worse author.
THAT WAS THE STARTING POINT!
here’s a funhouse one: the reader! you, dogged, uninsultable, print-oriented bastard, it’s you who i’m addressing, who else, from inside this monstrous fiction.
Your independent study directly addressed the reader?
Actually, yes, it did.
They sort of touched on it in Last Action Hero. I thought that was an interesting concept wrapped in a crappy movie.id it iThey
I really liked that movie.
I never saw it when it cam eout. I thought it would be fantastic (it was Arnold at his peak, etc). Then my movie going friends saw it and killed it. Hearing that and seeing the low box office I just put it into the “don’t bother” pile.
When I did eventually see it on cable years later I thought it was pretty good. But I have never been able to figure out if it is because I went in with low expectations, or if they originally disliked because of high expectations or what.
But I still laugh when I think about them going into Hollywood video and showing Terminator staring Sly.
and then s/he starts getting depressed and tries to commit suicide multiple times… each time getting foiled by something more and more improbable…
Yeah, something like that.
They kill themselves, then wake up at 6am to Sonny and Cher.
creeeeeeeeeeepy…
I didn’t win the lottery last night….I guess that means I’ll have to play golf today.
I won mine. This means I don’t have to play golf
Well, you don’t live on the edge like I do so golf is too extreme for you.
I’d like to say something profound now so bear with me…..or is that bare with me?…..hmmm…..bear, bare, bear, bare…..um……hmm…..well…..uh……their, there, they’re, uh….hmmm……oh….right….ask Ringo, you bastard!
(calls Ringo)
Yeah….uh-huh…..so bear then?…..right….thanks, Ringo.
okay so bear with me as I make my profound point….which I’ve now forgotten…..probably something about how I can’t believe it’s not butter or some such foolishness.
Turns out you can make a nice little paper airplane with used lottery tickets so I guess I got my money’s worth after all.
I have chicken fried steak and eggs in my near future. It’s a golfing tradition unlike any other.
OK, you’ve changed my mind. I’ll golf after all
With some great southern gravy….can’t beat it.
Today’s random Journey song is….Don’t Stop Believin’….listen to this song and every conversation you have will just fade to black and people will think their cable went out.
Time for breakfast. See you, bed
Have a good weekend and I’ll see you later.
Eef Barzelay covers Journey’s “Faithfully”
The last few lounges have been a lot of fun.
I’ll leave you with this….nice is underrated. Be well, everyone.
TOday is going to be interesting. We have our second scheduled tball game (last week rainout), then swimming right after.
But it appears to be raining now. The weather people say it will end around 11, the time of the game, But I don’t know if the league will call the game. SO I need to be readyfor the game (meaning dress the kid in his seals uni) but we may have an extra hour and a half to kill in the rain at GG Park.
i’m betting on called due to mud.
yup cancelled. He has a sharp Seals uni, though
8 bit google maps
hahahahahahahaahah
Thanks, and go As.
nice
Makes me want to breakout my old TI-99/4A, and play some TI Invaders.
that’s pretty badass.
The bestest part is that if you go up to the tip of Northern Michigan, the baddies are way stronger than they are in the rest of the US, so you can level up your party way in advance, and that makes conquering the rest of the US easy.
the costs might be tough with the mountains and all. Have to make sure you have enough supplies
coasts
My party has white and red mages.
It helps to stock up on Phoenix Downs before heading to some parts of the country, too.
excellent
barçsterbation. real is already up by 2. (OMG, did you see that rocket CR just laid into the top corner? and did you see him showing leg to celebrate? yeah, they cancel each other out in a way…) it might take a miracle for osasuna to score, never mind affecting the number of points madrid wants to take from this game. immediately following, barcelona plays bilbao (and pipita chips it in as i’m writing this), who’s coming off hot from that game two days ago, but also perhaps tired from that game two days ago. pep’s gotta have his eye on wednesday and inter, because it’s a do-or-die in the champions and it’s probably not going to be easier than last week’s 0-0 against them. so what’s a pep to do? put the best guys on to start today no matter what until the W is safe and then sub out 2 guys to rest? does he sort of concede the liga race and rest more of his good guys? who ARE his good guys right now? last weds everybody looked lukewarm.
um. is this in English or…?
english is broken here.
I’m so sorry. It wasn’t me.
it was broken when i got here!
also.
English is broken far more than here. I mean it doesn’t even recognize my imppecable spelling as correct.
…that would be quite the paradigm shift, huh? DFA’s spelling is always right…
I think that was the premise of an old Twilight Zone episode.
Do DO do DO do DO!
Wouldn’t the world be a better place if things like fustrated were spelled correctly?
no.
you are wrong.
The kiddies agree with you, DFA. Fonetiks is always rite.
I think that’s spelled “impeachable.”
i forgot to factor in that bilbao is also more concerned with the tournament they have a chance to win. it way they who showed up with the B team. barcelona keeps pace with madrid and la liga stays the same for the week. wednesday is going to be a nail biter.
till then i focus back on argentina for today’s continuation of the ongoing disaster that is dead-last independiente (2-0-5) and tomorrow’s clash between #2 boca and #1 estudiantes.
why did i think barça plays inter? i love inter. they’re playing the other milan. and i’m nervous. kickoff in 10.
Cuenca with the start.
who’s he replacing?
oh, they just showed the diagram. left forward.
man, Barca is just on another level from everybody else.
Thanks, and go As.
hrmm… not sure how i feel about this statement today.
ok. that third one was impeccable.
Phone conversation from today: “Can you tell me if my kid’s cut needs stiches?”
Me: [silence]
Them: “He blahblahblah.”
Me: “No, I can’t tell if he needs stiches just by this phone conversation.”
“And if he needs stitches, is there a good website to learn how I can do them myself?”
“First, get some thread…”
“You are going to need a pencil for him to bite on….”
We’ll see who gets more honey.
I don’t know what you are talking about.
Jennifer is not on board.
Not at all.
BEES?!
Good news for bed
Uh….no comment.
Needless to say the parents of the squash kids I went to watch love me.
Loooong day though.
I have this song stuck in my head, and it’s driving me crazy. I know one word of the entire thing, but it has this crazy catching piano beat.
What’s the word you know?
LOL!
Feet.
Feed?!
ISWYDT.
A’s/Rivercats game courtesy of chickie and LTF:
http://www.iheart.com/#/live/229/
LTF?
m! :)
Oh! I lof her.
you know what? i think i messed up. it was skigurl. oops. (still, m!)
My son’s nebulous band is contemplating “Mockingjay” as a name. I bet someone’s beaten them to it.
I bet some boy band beat them to it.
Which would be hilarious, since the guy who suggested it is about 32 and their strength is actually grunge.
Truth: Sometimes I get IED, IUD, and AED mixed up.
Truth: I somtimes don’t know the difference between Phil Mickelson, Jack Nicholson, and Jack Nicklaus.
Truth: As a kid I didn’t know the difference between Paul Newman and Robert Redfore, and between Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood.
Truth: As a kid, whenever I saw a “speed checked by radar” sign, I imagined Radar O’Reilly on the roadside up ahead with a clipboard.
me too!
High five!
I always thought “reduced speed zone ahead” meant we could get meth at a discount
wait till you see “drug free zone!” whoo hoooooo!!!
Truth: as a kid, I thought “drinking and driving” referred to coffee.
Truth: as a kid, I thought premature ejaculation was orgasming before anything came out (when you’re really young as a male, if you don’t know, nothing comes out). And having started masturbating very young, I was very concerned with premature ejaculation as a preteen. I didn’t quite understand WHY it was such as issue with everyone and couldn’t find much out in the pre-internet era, but…
Yes. I have…issues.
said preteen problem solved!
lol
well, that was a tidy little rain-enhanced win, even though it doesn’t count, yay!
When your team has a great coach like Bill Self it’s such a pleasure. You know you’re in good hands.
This thing is pretty full so I put up a new lounge.
I come from the future…in the year 2015 we’ll be invaded by Canada and all of us will be forced to pray to Wayne Gretzky.