Hope you all are having a lovely day today, whatever this day means to you (or doesn’t). Consider this an open thread, to discuss whatever, from presents to politics to cats to whatever holiday stress you might be feeling.
And here’s some stuff I found on the Twitter.
— David, who is hanging in there
Merry Christmas, everyone! 🎄🎅 pic.twitter.com/YfyTsQ95de
— Maggie Serota (@maggieserota) December 25, 2017
At this time of year, take a few moments to remember who Christmas is truly about… pic.twitter.com/TQ9tSP5EED
— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) December 24, 2017
I haven’t laughed this hard in a while. I needed this. pic.twitter.com/2aQFpugdis
— deray (@deray) December 7, 2017
Brian Eno, Paris, 1973 (with Christmas 2017 augmentation) pic.twitter.com/hRwMDTOUKv
— Brian Eno News (@dark_shark) December 25, 2017
“Fun” pic.twitter.com/tsAdsZeez8
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) December 24, 2017
#MerryChristmas 🎄🤶🏻 pic.twitter.com/IahMZhf5gc
— Melania Trump 45 Archived (@FLOTUS45) December 25, 2017
Same. pic.twitter.com/kcNPdrLy6R
— Adrenalin (@adrenalindenver) May 24, 2017
🎈🐾🐅🎈🐾🐅🎈🐾🐅🎈🐾🐅🎈🐾🐅
All of a sudden …
🐾🐾🐾🐾 pic.twitter.com/fza8NZioI0
— The Cult Cat (@Elverojaguar) December 25, 2017
Human: My cat has an easy life
Me: pic.twitter.com/e8kvlVhUdR— Curious Zelda (@CuriousZelda) December 20, 2017
https://twitter.com/awwcuteness/status/945193410662682624
@ yamara
I like that. I imagine I’ll be stealing it.
Re: lady doritos
Turns out I’ve been having those for years. Mainly by opening packets of crisps then forgetting them in the cupboard for a few days.
Skiriki – I wish I have fast internet to see your kitten purr! I had to left my kitten at home and when I return he will no longer be a kitten – but a cat.(( my girlfriend already sent me photos and he already looks too big ?
about Doritos – maybe this is just stupid mistake in Doritos factory? somebody left them unattended and returned to find they are stale and soft. so they decide, we can’t waste this product – let’s say they are for women!
Even more annoying than most gendered products because those are usually “the same basic thing, only pink.” These seem to be “chips that are neither crunchy nor flavoured,” which sort of defeats the whole purpose of chips.
Regarding the dopey-ass Doritos, I’m just going to quote my tweet on the subject:
Taco Bell Holocaust burritos?
Spices so explosive they cause a holocaust in your intestines!
@SFHC
“When life gives you Hitler…you make Hitlerade! Our new Ubermensch flavored Gatorade will give you the purest flavor of any sports drink!”
Валя – My one new kitty is roughly 7 – 8 months old and is bigger and outweighs the other* already, but he is still a baby in a lot of ways; he still purrs like a kitten, for instance, and doesn’t seem to know his own strength or how big he is. Truthfully, he’s kind of an adorable klutz!
I just recently stumbled on Marmalade and Cole; my kitties are the same colors, except Desmond (the kitten) is orange and white, not solid orange.
*Mr. Mistoffelees (Stoffy) is really coming into his own after having to fight Des for every inch of territory outside the bedroom. He’s come such a long way from being the scared cat huddled in my closet who was convinced Husbeast and I were evil cat-nappers!
I’ll try to get pics up, but in the meantime, some of our first photos can be seen on their Facebook page More Cats on The internet.
Customer review for Ethnic(R) household cleanser
“This product does not quite live up to its marketing promises. It’s supposed to keep all the surfaces in your home permanently white by adding a dirt repellent micro-coating. However, that kind of glosses over the fact that everything has to be gleaming white from start – in practice you have to get your hands dirty and do a ridiculous amount of scrubbing to achieve that. Not only that, but when you get one spot relatively white, other spots that looked white before start looking kind of grubby.”
SFHC:
“New Pepsi 1488: the final solution to thirst!”
Hey, you know how both the Dow and Buttcoin have been looking a bit poorly? You’ll never guess the reason! Allow economic super-genius Ben Garrison to explain:
Edit: ah, his labelling looks rather tiny on my screen. If you can’t read the side of the plane, it says “Illuminati”. That’s totally a real thing that happens.
@Hambeast
my kitten us almost same exactly like this! he is more than 6 months already. but even when I am at home before, when he is about 4 months, he is quite big, he tries to come and sleep on my neck in the night and he is already very heavy and purrs quite loudly. he tries to sleep in our bed at night, I like it but usually he purrs so much we have to send him away? but I didn’t know there is difference between adult cat and kitten purr. what is it? because I can’t imagine this sound ?
I too also have 2 adult cats, and they also hidden like your cat. especially my black and white cat who Alan helped me before and shared his picture. before he is very afraid and hidden below the sofa and would not move. now he sleeps in our bed!
re: the spasming stock market…
as my meager (though WAYYYYY more than most Americans) retirement accounts vaporize — again, I note from the twitter:
John Cleese
(@JohnCleese)
I learn that the Dow Index is dropping because very rich Americans are running scared, because some poorer people are getting paid slightly bit more. Meanwhile, Trump appeals for unity because all American are ‘in the same boat’ Where is this boat to be found ?
Jay Carney
(@JayCarney)
Good time to recall that in the previous administration, we NEVER boasted about the stock market — even though the Dow more than doubled on Obama’s watch — because we knew two things: 1) the stock market is not the economy; and 2) if you claim the rise, you own the fall.
@ Moggie, re: the Illuminati… ish… folks….
Yeah, that’s a (kinda) real thing, though there’s some things to understand;
1) they’re just a bunch of very, very (really, VERY) rich people
2) they’re not conspiring, they just all have the same goals, filling their pockets with our money
3) they don’t control all the banks, all the corporations and all the governments, they just control (as in have veto power over) about 40% of the wealth in the world, and can affect (as in manipulate the use of) maybe as much as 90% of the wealth in the world
4) they’re not Jewish (except for the ones that are)
5) there is no U.N. “Blue Army”, no “Black Helicopters”, and no “Noo World Order”
6) we DID go to the moon
7) this has nothing to do with the Knights Templar, or their “lost treasure”
It’s what happens to predatory capitalism when it reaches the point where all the wealth is squashed into a very small number of very large wallets!
missed the edit window, an addendum:
2) they’re not conspiring, they just all have the same goals, filling their pockets with our money
make no mistake, if one (or more) of these “Illumati-ish folks” saw the opportunity to prey upon another one (or more) of their fellow “Illumati-ish folks”, they would have no hesitation!!!
(The infamous Pepsi ad last year came out about the same time it was revealed that Donald Trump had installed a red coke order button on his desk, as a humorous reference to the “nuke button” meme. In memory of that…)
“When the President presses the button on the right, House butler will bring him a Coca-cola. The left button is when the President thinks we need a nuclear strike. That’s when Kendall Jenner will bring him a Pepsi.”
Can we please have a Kamala Harris/Tammy Duckworth ticket in 2020?
http://www.cnn.com/2018/02/06/politics/tammy-duckworth-cadet-bone-spurs/index.html
Tammy Duckworth – Hell yes!!! (You think I’m gonna argue against a veteran? We stick together. 😛 )
Kamala Harris – eh, there’s better out there. She pulled some shitty (and dodgy) moves as California AG (and while in San Franciso) in my book. Wasn’t terribly impressed with her line of reasoning in a few cases (I mean, the state can’t obey a court order to increase parole because the prisons would “lose an important labour pool?” BS) Your opinion may differ, that’s fair enough.
Shadowplay,
There’s not going to be a perfect candidate. But she’s impressed me so far as a senator. You probably only heard anything critical about her because Bernie bros are working to discredit her as insufficiently progressive. Sometimes with racist commentary. Because white dudes don’t have to be perfect to be good enough, everyone else does.
Even men of color aren’t getting the same progressive purity testing. Kamala Harris has better progressive bonafides than Cory Booker but he’s not getting anywhere near as much criticism from the brogressives.
wwth
Oh, I agree, and making the perfect the enemy of the good is sort of what caused the mess we’re in. And the brogressive criticism is, as you well know, sex based to a certain extent (how much, don’t know, but it’s deffo there and a significant factor. Be nice if it weren’t, but … same old shit.).
Dammit, hit post.
She’s not bad at all. It is, however, fair to look at her less good points at least as deeply as you would anyone else. Overall, I’d be prefectly fine with saying “Morning, Madam President” to her 😀
Spot the “racing the edit timer” typo 😛
In rather dispiriting news: White House suggests 10-page memo is ‘too lengthy’ for Trump to read
When “unable to read 10 pages” is considered a valid defense of a president, it’s time for SMOD.
Sorry for screwing up the formatting on my last post.
Speaking of electrical issues….
@ Surplus and our pesky problems we might want to blame on a “curse” ….
It’s always something electrical for me. Always. Like right here! I tried to edit the last post and put in the final brackets to close the italics, did it work? No.
And the car. Any car I’ve had, always electrical problems. And things in the house. Or outside. Yes indeed I’m one of those people who makes the streetlights go out. Yes, this is a thing. From what I looked up online, I think people like us are referred to as “sliders”. I forgot what that means. I don’t take this stuff overly seriously, – but maybe I should?
And others too. Why isn’t there any serious sci inquiry into this? Probably because it got attached to “new age mysticism” and people treat it like a joke.
But why is that, too? If there is something to it, why is it lumped in with the “paranormal”? Of the sort of things that are eye rolled at. Why?
There must be something to this, and I think it has to do with electrical fields. The interested can look it up, I think I’ve seen this phenomenon referred to as “electric people” also.
Note to self: Start wearing gloves while driving again. Hey maybe this is how driving gloves came about?
Reminded me also – those touch screens and such in stores, ATMs, those things NEVER work for me! I touch it – like to put in a credit card or like that, press the things that come up on the screen, – NEVER works right! The cashier always has to help. Or what sometimes works is instead of using the pad of a finger, hit it with a knuckle. That sometimes works.
It explains my screen name here too. Various people I speak of, they set up a separate network because the net is crap here and the wifi barely works at all. I often have to quit my wifi and then go to ‘z and t’s thing’ because that will work better at times. And I’m another Z and we all read here and someone said, to make a screen name, well hell I don’t know, just make it Z&T. Like the network name.
But sometimes my wifi works better. We switch back and forth, they have my wifi password also. I pay ATT $100 a month for this and it’s shit.
And why should you have to take the trouble to set up some network? I think their original idea is because the wifi is so jammed here (urban area) but maybe that’s not the issue at all?
And sometimes I do kick myself for choosing mechanical over electrical engineering. Would such knowledge help me? For those with more knowledge of these things, who made this “network”, well this doesn’t work all that great either.
And if you continually break things, doesn’t look like anyone takes this seriously, there’s no serious sci inquiry into it, would EE study help you? Probably not.
I was going to say something about sexual harassment…..
Got myself sidetracked again here.
@Z&T: “Sliders” … maybe because of the TV show that used to exist with people shifting to parallel worlds? I’ve wondered if such a thing could explain these incidents. It seems it has to be either that, or time travel actually changing history, or else “mind control rays”, and the latter is tinfoil hat territory.
The first type object-meddling weirdness, the “snap back”, seems as if something is editing either your memories or history itself, one or the other, such that they no longer comport. The “object shell game” could be explained by the latter, in rapid fire fashion so every time you check in location A for the object the history-du-jour has you having left it at B or at C, but not the former, or else by some kind of concealment effect, other than in the final case of the object being found at a location where you never leave it. In that case, presumably no version of history has you leaving it there, nor could you have left it there and then your memory been altered. The fact that it’s where you sometimes leave other objects does suggest a possibility: that the “snap back” can exchange an object in your hand with another object. So you’re going to move a mug to the kitchen to wash it and put it away later, and then return, and then move the TV remote. You pick up the mug, walk into the kitchen, and put down the TV remote. The change was which object you chose to move first, and hit while you were walking with the chosen object in hand. If you don’t subsequently look at the “mug” while putting it down you don’t realize at the time that anything hinky has happened. But then when you go to move the TV remote next, it’s not on the end table … or by the exercise machine, or on the coffee table. But a dirty mug is.
Memory edits might be able to do the job in this case as well. If everything in your brain that correlates with having chosen the remote first is changed to what it would have been had you chosen the mug first, just after you picked up the remote, you’d walk into the kitchen to put it on the counter. It might also explain the “shell game” case where the object really is in one of its normal resting places, but you kept not seeing it, if the moment you saw it you were somehow caused to forget you’d just seen it, before you could react by beginning to pick it up. Switching out your brain state for a brain state corresponding to not finding the object there would a) edit it right out of your visual perceptions and b) start you moving to the next location to check.
So, these occurrences suggest something is hacking either a) brains or b) history. The latter, and only the latter, could also explain some of the other “cursed” things. Consider a simple case. A pair of unloaded dice should come up snake eyes on average once in 36 rolls. Let’s say you play a few games in which that roll is an impediment, and they come up snake eyes for you on average of four times in each 36 rolls. Obviously something’s hinky. But the dice themselves can’t be loaded, or everyone else would be getting unusually many snake eyes, and even more commonly, die rolls of 1 and some other number. Nobody would actually be at a disadvantage, but in fact nobody else seems to be getting a lot of 1s, and you do seem to be experiencing a disadvantage. How is this being done?
The simplest conventional explanation I can come up with for the above hypothetical scenario involves dice not merely loaded, but modified extensively: there’s a mobile weight that can shunt between two positions, the die’s center and near the middle of the 6 face, in response to a wireless signal; plus an antenna and other machinery packed into a seemingly normal die. Someone, likely another player, has the remote. Also, that someone doesn’t really care if they win, just that you lose — so, negative-sum thinking. A vendetta, perhaps. They press the button to load and un-load the dice when the turn passes to and then from you, so everyone else finds the dice balanced when they roll and gets a normal probability distribution of results (a lot of sixes and sevens, and few twos or twelves).
No memory mutation can explain the game events, short of a post-facto replacement of your memory of a statistically typical game session with a version of events in which you were abnormally unlucky that didn’t actually happen.
On the other hand, history editing could explain it, if someone or something could in effect “steer” you onto a path through the branching tree of possibilities that has disproportionately many snake eyes rolls along it. So you roll a 3 and a 4 and something edits time so that instead it was a 1 and a 1. And does this many times over the course of a game.
My big problem with all of this is, everything I’ve learned about physics says that changing the past should be impossible, even if visiting it isn’t. And everything I’ve learned about neuroscience says that modifying memories in a seamless, undetectable way should likewise be impossible, as everyone’s brain probably “learns” its own unique internal language and storage formats for everything. There’d be no way to invent a one-size-fits-all method for doing precise edits to human memories. There’s also the question of motive. If someone had a time machine and could change history, wouldn’t they do something more audacious with that than gaslight one random person? And who would be developing the tech to edit memories? The CIA? Wouldn’t they have bigger fish to fry, like, say, Putin? Even if they used a few ordinary citizens as guinea pigs to test the thing to make sure it worked, who maintains a pattern of tests for decades before saying “it works, now let’s go get Putin”?
And do keep in mind that some of these putative edits happen while you’re walking from the living room to the kitchen, without you noticing anything unusual or the advertisement break ending before you get back, and the show continues from where you expected it to. No chunks of missing time longer than, at the very most, three minutes. Any brain modifying technology that can be used on an ambulatory “patient” in mid-stride and do its work in seconds is way, way beyond humans. So is time travel. I don’t want to be the one to say “it’s aliens”, much less since they are even less plausibly motivated to pull pranks like these, but I’m sorely lacking in alternative explanations … other than someone in the far future built the time machine and somehow ended up leaving it here in their past, for some prankster to find.
All of which seems to leave parallel worlds … and something malevolent steering one’s path through them, or (equivalently) loading the quantum dice to make less desirable-to-you paths likelier than they otherwise would be. Sometimes enormously likelier.
Call me the “c” word, but then, there are now two or three of us reporting such experiences … evidence that there’s a real phenomenon here that is external to us.
…like, have you ruled out carbon monoxide poisoning? Missing time is a symptom of that. Finding your shit rearranged is a symptom of that. Seeing apparitions is a symptom of that.
The new car battery did not solve the issues,
And wow am I depressed.
I am seriously contemplating suicide. What is this?
Why am I here? I do think there was no point of me ever being born.
You get so upset over such problems? My entire life has been this way, I’m just done. There is only so much a person can take.
I don’t want anything anymore and just wish is was over.
What a joke this all is! I literally hate being alive, I wish I wasn’t here.
I have to go see the atty tomorrow, will have to take the train, which will involve enough of walking too. In the cold and snow, while I have the flu. Well, maybe that alone will kill me.
Oh fuck am I so DONE with this!
Nice knowing you all, anyway….
And I hate to lay this off on others, but I don’t see any other answer. I am so goddamned tired….
And no, I probably won’t do it – only because I lack the nerve.
Tha is the only thing standing between me and ending it. I lack the nerve to do so.
But I’m close –
And soon enough I may get the nerve. I do hope so, because I so want OUT.
I’m done. I can’t take anymore. I don’t want anything anymore either.
I’m so sorry you’re feeling this way Z&T. Please don’t give up. Please let me know what I can do to help you. Could you call a friend or counselor and tell them that you’re feeling this way?
I felt I should say more on the above,
No, I’m not going to kill myself, I am just very very upset. Over so many things going wrong. Maybe just venting. But I am also not in a good state of mind.
But I also realize that it’s up to me to fix it.
No one else will, and it’s highly unlikely that I’ll get any “good luck” any time soon. Never have, I have always had to live by my wits.
I was going to say something about sexual harassment. Which I could go on at length about, but I’m tired and have to get up early to hike to the train.
Will say this one thing, which irritated me greatly…
My mom left my cousin’s kids some money, not a whole lot, just a small amount for each of them. They were like her grand kids, I don’t have any kids. Cousin asked if her one son could have her old car in lieu of the money, and I said sure.
Because it isn’t worth much and has multiple issues. The lawyer tried to argue me out of this. Oh, it’s probably worth more! (then the amount mom willed the boy), oh you’re not obligated to do so, blah blah.
I said: The car has issues. It is not worth much more than what she willed him. I enumerated the issues, he kind of waved me off, like I didn’t know what I was talking about. The ONLY thing that shut him up on this was that I said: Mom would’ve wanted it. OK, then he backed off.
Once he looked at the value of this car, and ones in poor condition, he said, OK, you’re right.
My cousin. This kid’s mom. She BSed me about it too – Could the kid have the car instead of the money? I said sure. And why she was BSing me and trying to kiss my ass was – she too, at the time, thought it might be worth more.
And at the time I said the only value I can see of it online is for retail, for a decent one, and it was in the 10K range. Meaning – this can’t be right, or does not apply to a high mileage one with issues.
She took a condescending tone with me, Z, you know it isn’t worth that much! Yeah I KNOW that’s what I’m telling you. Telling everyone – who doesn’t listen.
Women can be condescending to you too.
And she further went on her high horse by saying her new BF is a mechanic and this that the other, she’s an expert on cars now, because she’s dating a mechanic, I guess.
I said: In case you forgot – I am a mechanical engineer.
Eventually got back to me and said: You were right, the one wheel bearing is shot. Among other issues.
I TOLD YOU SO!
Do you think I’m an idiot?
This is like sexism and condescension by proxy. She’s an expert on cars now because she has a BF who’s an auto tech.
And also – trying to “argue me down” on this car – when I ALREADY SAID it’s not worth that much / has issues that will cost, but she’s talking down to me – and I ALREADY SAID I’d give them the car!
Meanwhile, I have a car that I can’t drive. Is an ironic part.
This isn’t sex harassment, but it is someone “talking down to you” – and is laughable really too, because like I reminded her – You do know I’m a mechanical engineer, right?
But that’s another sad part of it all too. What “family” I have – never really bothered with me. They probably don’t even know what I took in school nor what line of work I was in. Part of is because we all just drifted apart, I try to be understanding. I always try to be understanding, no one else seems to, let alone in regards to me.
GOD am I sick of dealing with JERKS!
Oh and watch and see – after she breaks up with this guy, and her car craps out – I can see it now – OH HI HONEY! I remembered that you know cars and can you help me?
Wait for it. I would bet money on this. I’d bet a vital organ on it.
SICK of dealing with jerks and this is your so called “family”? Very tired of dealing with assholes, and way too many things going wrong – which is why I am sick of EVERYTHING too.
Just more venting. Not seriously planning to kill self – I wanted to say that also, in fact I think you shouldn’t say such things unless you mean it. I am getting pretty close though…
WOW am I FED UP with about everything!
Am still trying to keep a grip, thanks for letting me vent.
And if I can slog through the upcoming, OH BOY can I tell you tales of sexual harassment! Me, everyone I know, we’ll have to get some drinks and gather round ye olde laptope here, and I alone have so many tales of it that it will likely clog up the entire internet.
In the future, I have to go rest. I have to quit and go to bed to slog to the train, in the snow, for my appointment with the people who keep fucking up all my paperwork. And paying $295 per hour to them to do so.
What a Fun Fest!
I better make sure to thank Jesus for it all, before I go to sleep.