I am going to try to get my assistant to do this!!
She is boyfriendless. We keep trying to convince her to do speed dating.
Isn't that some form of sexual harassment by proxy, or perhaps for a proxy?
I think it would feel weird to put on a nice outfit to sit in front of my computer.
"I want a boy to date."
"You should try speed dating!"
Fortunately, I dont think that meets the definition.
"Make sure to show him your tits!!!!" might.
I think it would feel weird to put on a nice outfit to sit in front of my computer.
Make your own rules.
I guess 3 would be easier in my usual infrontofthecomputer outfit (i.e., pajamas). Do you think I should flash the dudes right away, or should I wait until further along in our relationship (like, 2 minutes) to see if he really likes me first?
7: you could rehearse the various possibilities with me in advance, and I will give you feedback on what's most effective.
ok, the assistant isnt convinced.
Blume, you need to take one for the Unfogged team and do this speed dating.
Ehh, computer at home doesn't have a webcam. No way am I going to do this in my office!
I have a computer with a webcam, Blume. You can just come over here and do it.
I'm reasonably certain online speed dating would give me hives or make all the muscles in my body clinch up or something.
No way am I going to do this in my office!
But we were just joking about flashing your boobs.
Well, sort of, anyway.
I'm reasonably certain online speed dating would give me hives or make all the muscles in my body clinch up or something.
Then it's settled. You and mcmanus will do it, and report the results the day after.
I think I would actually be a lot more comfortable with online speed dating than the in-person kind.
I have finally figured Teo out. W/r/t everything, Teo will always, always choose to lower the stakes.
I say this out of love, Teo. Discuss.
I will admit that this is only easy for me to spot in others because I will always, always raise the stakes w/r/t everything. I heart risk.
16 is insightful. I'm pretty much the same way (risk averse, that is, not insightful).
I will always, always raise the stakes w/r/t everything. I heart risk.
This would be of a piece with your acknowledged fondness for deliberately inflicting awkwardness on your interlocutors, would it not?
19: Indeed. Awkwardness produces the highest potential outcome.
I am now thinking that I'd rather meet Teo than AWB. Less danger involved.
I heart risk.
So that's the reason you end up dating the guys you do?
I am now thinking that I'd rather meet Teo than AWB. Less danger involved.
I'm a lot less interesting, though.
22: I'm sure, at least in terms of short-term-risk opportunity. The long-term risks of commitment and intimacy are much more terrifying for me to confront.
25: Which works out perfectly! Win-win!
Re: risk-aversion. I'm not sure that the payoff matrix looks structurally different for online versus offline speed dating. It's a matter of how individuals think they would come across best--online or in person.
The payoff matrix in speed dating is structured so that the major downside is incurred the moment you enter the game: by acknowledging that you're the sort of person who engages in speed dating. Any incremental downside from rejection thereafter is comparatively minimal: it's somehow less shameful to be rejected after 3 minutes than after investing an evening on a blind date, and the public humiliation is minimized compared to, say, hitting on someone in a bar.
25: You might try dating the teos of the world. My wife is much more your style, and lord knows we've had our share of drama from time to time, but our different styles have ended up being complementary in ways that work for both of us.
27 just gave me an epiphany: speed dating is basically an external profit-motivated form of hitting on people in bars.
The payoff matrix in speed dating is structured so that the major downside is incurred the moment you enter the game: by acknowledging that you're the sort of person who engages in speed dating.
Yes, and this is true of online dating as well. The combination of the two probably doesn't make much difference, and someone's relative level of comfort with each largely depends on their attitude toward being identified as the sort of person who does each.
speed dating is basically an external profit-motivated form of hitting on people in bars.
Interesting. Could you elaborate?
I would have no problem doing speed dating face-to-face, but would never, ever, hit on anyone in a bar.
The difference being that everyone doing speed dating is looking for a date, though not necessarily with me. But some people in the bar are not looking for a date with anyone! How embarrassing to happen on such a person and be humored by her before realizing that you would have been better off doing nothing.
But this is what I don't get: who is actually objectively humiliated by talking to someone in a bar? The worst that will realistically happen, unless you're a total asshole, is that you'll be told your object of interest has a bf/gf. While that may feel humiliating, it's only a lack of experience that makes it so. Once you've been rejected a lot, you realize nothing is actually happening to you, you have no scars, you've suffered no illness or disease thereby, and it is nowhere near as painful as, say, being broken up with by someone you love. In fact, you as yourself have not even been rejected. Someone just ended a conversation. So why not up the stakes, since, in the online-speed-dating scenario, everyone's playing low stakes, everyone is suspicious, and there will be all the more reason for someone to blow you off?
The only reason I liked online dating for the time that I did it was that it allowed you to screen for certain characteristics that are difficult to find in bars, like blistering intelligence. However, I quickly discovered that profiles are not much better at screening for such things.
28: Believe me, I have dated most of the Teos in the world. Except for Teo Prime, of course.
But this is what I don't get: who is actually objectively humiliated by talking to someone in a bar?
Me. I don't like the power imbalances that go along with one person being the hitter-on, and the other person being the hittee-on. Speed dating (or blind dating, I guess) is much more straightforward.
Once you've been rejected a lot, you realize nothing is actually happening to you, you have no scars, you've suffered no illness or disease thereby
Keep telling yourself that.
Its been a long time since I've been rejected romantically, but my professional rejections are far more recent, and I assure you that I have not gone through any process like the one you describe.
33: Having a conversation is wasting her time? Is it impossible that we could trust women enough to assume that if they're talking in an engaged but nonsexual way with you, that they may, in fact, enjoy your company, despite not looking for a date?
Professional rejections are much more horrible, at least for me, because they are rejecting me as me. Someone I meet in a bar might reject me, but it's never for anything I consider intrinsic to my self-worth.
35: OK, then people who are like Teo, except normal. Which Teo seems to be, actually. Maybe the Teos you're dating have been too New Yorkified?
Is it impossible that we could trust women enough to assume that if they're talking in an engaged but nonsexual way with you, that they may, in fact, enjoy your company, despite not looking for a date?
"trust women enough"? I can see I'm not going to get anywhere in this conversation.
I just don't like conversations that involve power imbalances. I need to get over that, I guess.
So why not up the stakes, since, in the online-speed-dating scenario, everyone's playing low stakes, everyone is suspicious, and there will be all the more reason for someone to blow you off?
Because some of us have a really low tolerance for humiliation, even if it's the kind that doesn't involve any actual harm and goes away with experience. The low stakes of online speed dating mean that even though any given encounter is unlikely to lead to anything more, there's no disincentive to keep going for as long as it takes to get to an encounter that does go somewhere. This may be a very long time, of course, so patience is necessary.
What I say about online speed dating also goes for online dating in general as well, of course.
Indeed. Awkwardness produces the highest potential outcome.
I didn't mean to accuse of sexism, Ned. I guess it bothers me when men assume that women only pretend to want sex or enjoy someone's company. I know that feeling comes from insecurity in the guy, but it also implies that women couldn't possibly be getting something out of sex or conversation, too. You know what it looks like when someone is trying to blow you off but just being polite. In that case, leave her alone. But if she's nodding, or smiling, and has an open posture, and asks you questions about what you're saying, why not assume she's not wasting her time, that it's not an unequal situation? That is, treat her the way you'd treat, for example, a man you'd started a casual conversation with in a bar. Can't you tell if he's bored and just putting up with you?
But it's not so much thinking that women only pretend to enjoy conversation as thinking that they are on some level doing it under false pretenses if they aren't interested but don't indicate that up front. This assumes, of course, that the man's romantic interest is obvious, which is not necessarily true but difficult for the man to judge.
But I don't want to get too far into that issue, because there are a lot of problems with my argument in 46.
I'm also coming from the other side of that complaint, in that, if a man is talking flirtily with me, touching me, smiling at me, standing close to me, that he's interested in me. When I act on that and he's all "My girlfriend probably wouldn't appreciate you doing that!" it just blows. Are we all supposed to act on the assumption that people's inviting, sexy, flirtatious behavior is 100% meaningless and all initiation of sexual contact will be offensive to the recipient? If so, I didn't get the memo, and I don't really want to live in that world.
(I love this idea and want to do it, but I don't have a webcam.)
Are we all supposed to act on the assumption that people's inviting, sexy, flirtatious behavior is 100% meaningless and all initiation of sexual contact will be offensive to the recipient? If so, I didn't get the memo, and I don't really want to live in that world.
I don't want to live in that world either, but I really get the sense that I do.
Well sure, if you want to be sexy and flirtatious while being ugly and charmless, you take what you get, teo.
treat her the way you'd treat, for example, a man you'd started a casual conversation with in a bar
I don't start casual conversations with strange men in bars!
Are we all supposed to act on the assumption that people's inviting, sexy, flirtatious behavior is 100% meaningless and all initiation of sexual contact will be offensive to the recipient? If so, I didn't get the memo, and I don't really want to live in that world.
No, I think we're supposed to act on the assumption that some people enjoy whatever attention they can get. This is surprising?
53: I have a theory that people who don't start conversations with strangers are the ones who seem really weird when they hit on strangers. People who make conversation with people they're not trying to sex are people who don't seem weird when hitting on strangers. That is, it's not your sexual desire that makes you seem awkward; it's the fact that you obviously aren't comfortable talking with strangers at all.
55: well, I would imagine that's partly because then, if you do start a conversation with a stranger, it's totally obvious they're trying to get in your pants.
People who talk to strange people are the luckiest people of the world.
54: I guess not. Unnerving to me, perhaps, because it feels like I'm being blamed for the object of my lustation having an unmentionable girlfriend.
Webcams go for something like $30 at the low end.
If guy has been hiding this girlfriend info long enough that you've gotten to embarrassment-worthy levels of flirting, then the only conclusion is that he's a giant ass.
Oh, sure, ruin my fun, ogged. Any female unfogged commenter who wants to come over and use my webcam to flash people doing internet speed dating is still totally welcome.
60: It happens to me on like a weekly basis. Lots of people are giant asses?
I can get the idea of speed dating; at least you're chatting people up who you know are interested in dating. Plus, you get to go out, and maybe have a drink, and if there's a spark, maybe you can go somewhere at the end of the hour of minidates.
But I'm not sure what the advantage of speed internet dating would be over, e.g., online profiles. The amount of personal contact's about the same, except that you have to dress up to talk to your computer. And it's not social.
At Sifu's you'd get webcam access AND he'd probably mix you a rusty nail, too. So that's $38 you've already saved right there.
I have a theory that people who don't start conversations with strangers are the ones who seem really weird when they hit on strangers.
I'm quite certain that this is both true and a major part of the reason such people tend to be very unsuccessful romantically.
Hey, I do alright.
But seriously, random people? What do you have to say to them?
Hm, so it turns out if you put a random word in angle brackets, that's treated as an unreadable HTML tag.
s/b "<defensively> Hey, I do alright"
AWB, you're apparently an ass-magnet.
66: "You're mighty handy with that rifle" was my last opening line, but she was playing Big Buck Hunter II.
[visions of paperclips stuck to AWB's ass.]
I suppose they aren't as sticky as sugarplums would have been.
72: And this is an instance where you weren't trying to hit on her?
Once you've been rejected a lot, you realize nothing is actually happening to you, you have no scars, you've suffered no illness or disease thereby, and it is nowhere near as painful as, say, being broken up with by someone you love.
I sense much truth here.
But seriously, random people? What do you have to say to them?
I strike up conversations with random people all the time.
The key is that the conversation should feel like it's okay if it lapses into silence. It should not feel like a conversation that must be maintained at all costs until you and the stranger part ways.
I care deeply about the conversation's feelings. Conversations are sensitive. Fuck the other person.
I strike random people constantly, and they almost always lapse into silence. They lay prone, too, what's that about?
76: In that case, your answer seems to be nonresponsive to the question in 66.
No, heebie! That's how they get you!
Like sharks, conversations can smell sincerity.
78 is correct, and the thing that most likely results in rejection from strangers is when the person who starts the conversation seems too invested in it, as if the death of the conversation would be his own death.
My rooommate M and I went to a bar last week and found ourselves the recipients of what seemed to be a jovial conversation-starter from a suit. When his friends came by the table, his attitude became frantic and needy; we had to take pity on him and laugh at his bad jokes because otherwise his friends would humiliate him. At that point, we got a little creeped out. He edged closer to us and found stupid reasons to touch us. We backed off; he edged closer.
I guess I often feel like the humiliation is not something that naturally occurs when someone exits a conversation; it's something that's socially enforced by douchebag friends. If you're at a bar with friends who will support your attempts to talk to strangers, you have a lot less to fear. But I'm pretty sure who's getting blamed for Suit's humiliation, and it's not his friends who did the humiliating.
I guess I often feel like the humiliation is not something that naturally occurs when someone exits a conversation; it's something that's socially enforced by douchebag friends.
See, this makes me think we're not talking about the same kinds of situations at all.
Yeah. I'm talking about like when I'm in the sandwich shop and I'm waiting in line, I don't talk to the other people in line.
That and sharks.
I don't talk to people in the sandwich line, either. They're not there to meet people and hang out. But people who go out to bars instead of drinking at home, and who look around the room or dance or participate in social activity, are presumably open to the possibility of socializing.
There's no such things as shark attacks.
Someone hasn't seen West Side Story.
I think there's truth in the idea that talking to strangers is a skill on its own that helps when it comes to talking to strangers with the purpose of hitting on them.
I don't necessarily agree that douchebag friends are the main cause of conversational awkwardness, but I do agree that goal-oriented conversation is much harder and more awkward than random conversation.
A Mako took a snap at me last week when I was watching Top Chef. Taught me to leave the door unlocked.
But I'm not sure what the advantage of speed internet dating would be over, e.g., online profiles. The amount of personal contact's about the same, except that you have to dress up to talk to your computer. And it's not social.
You have to travel to an internet date. Sometimes you can tell within two minutes of the beginning of the date that it's not going to happen. You could have gotten that information from a short video introduction. But instead you wind up spending an hour making conversation to be polite. If you were smart, you'd make a resolution, and stick to it, to explicitly set up a 15 minute period in which you decide if you want to keep talking. But you're never that smart. And even that wouldn't solve the travel time problem.
Except that webcams are a pretty horrible substitute for face-to-face meeting, and a couple of minutes isn't going to tell you all that much.
I think that random chatter in line at the sandwich shop and flirty banter at the bar are different degrees or the same thing. I have historically been reticent because at some subconscious level I would be thinking something along the lines of, "This random person might think I'm a total dork if I say anything." One of the really cool things about a bitter, vitriolic divorce is that I have found myself far less inhibited about random chatter with strangers and even occasional flirtation. They may think I'm a dork, but whatever. There are worse things. I like to think that this will progress to craziness like new friendships or even dates someday.
I think there's truth in the idea that talking to strangers is a skill on its own that helps when it comes to talking to strangers with the purpose of hitting on them.
Are there people who don't think this statement is a tautology?
I don't think I've ever started a conversation with a complete stranger, male or female, in my entire life. Except maybe in situations where something hilarious or bizarre happens that gives us something in common to talk about ("Did you just see that? That was a cop chasing a clown pushing a shopping cart filled with bowling pins, right?").
In speed dating I would have no such difficulties. Knowing that we have something in common is key.
Are there people who don't think this statement is a tautology?
I don't know the answer to your question, but there are people who really don't know what a tautology is. By which I don't mean to advance a reputation of myself as a dumb blond. I'm not even blond.
I don't think I've ever started a conversation with a complete stranger, male or female, in my entire life.
Pussy.
I thought we'd established that all female lawyers are blonde online. I'm not sure why, but it appears to be the case.
My wife's colleagues address her as "Blondie" (among other things).
Are there people who don't think this statement is a tautology?
Yes.
(that was me)
Except that webcams are a pretty horrible substitute for face-to-face meeting, and a couple of minutes isn't going to tell you all that much.
it's main advantage would be that it screens out glaringly obvious nos: the people who otherwise would have put up very deceptive photos, or whose unpleasant weirdness is instantly telegraphed in their vocal or gestural mannerisms. A couple of minutes can tell you that. In person speed dating is also efficient in this respect, but I just get a sense that the people who go to speed dating events would not be my people, whereas I think the people who gravitated toward speeddate.com might be more internetty and facebooky and fun.
Some regular online dating sites have IM and webcam capabilities.
Though I suppose the time limit in speed dating is the big deal.
A Mako took a snap at me last week when I was watching Top Chef. Taught me to leave the door unlocked.
You should tell Gilbert Arenas that.
I don't think I've ever started a conversation with a complete stranger, male or female, in my entire life.
In speed dating I would have no such difficulties
You know I think I would have the problem even in the speed dating situation.
In speed dating, don't you have to just have one conversation, and use it over and over again?
That's my impression, yes. I suppose you could have more than one for variety.
I bet you'd drive yourself batty and come off poorly if you only told one prepared story. Better to fumble light-heartedly.
In speed dating, don't you have to just have one conversation, and use it over and over again?
random people? What do you have to say to them?
Bookstore: That's a good book. (Or) read anything good lately? I don't know what to buy.
Grocery store: Ogged gave us an example a few days ago.
Bar: Oh man, what a great play. (Or) I'm always tempted to order the crazy cocktails, but I always fall back on a Manhattan. (Or) What's good on the bar menu? (Or) Shitty/good weather we're having, isn't it? (Or) How's that drink? I haven't tried that one yet. Etc.
I think even light-hearted fumbling would get pretty dull after a few times.
I think even light-hearted fumbling would get pretty dull after a few times.
True.
It's a cliche, but the only way to handle a forced conversation is to find out what makes the other person interesting and dig after it like a raccoon in the dumpster.
Just be yourself:
"Hey man, got a doobie?"
"Hey lady, nice tits!"
"Dude, didja know that Lithuanians were the last pagans in Europe and once ruled an empire reaching from Baltic to the Black Sea?"
"Have you ever wondered about the etymology of the word 'cunt'?"
"Dude, didja know that Lithuanians were the last pagans in Europe and once ruled an empire reaching from Baltic to the Black Sea?"
That'd be a pretty good filter, actually. Who'd want to date someone who *didn't* know that?
find out what makes the other person interesting and dig after it like a raccoon in the dumpster
Right - speed dating is easy for this reason. And if you're lucky, they know the game to and you can spend about half the time just answering questions, which isn't any thought at all.
118 is a fine, fine comment.
Another grocery store ice-breaker: a woman and I were standing at the granola bar section, each carefully reading labels and she asked me if I was looking for anything in particular. Viola, conversation. We chatted for a few minutes, easily could have gone longer.
a few minutes, easily could have gone longer
There, I italicized it for you and everything.
I wish you'd italicized "Viola, conversation" instead.
like a raccoon in the dumpster.
Are you gonna eat that?
He does prefer his women kinda butch...
(did I mention I'm avoiding work?)
a woman and I were standing at the granola bar section
Doesn't this belong in the deal-breaker thread?
122: What is the deal with the chewy granola bar takeover, anyhow? I hate those things, and I can't find the old-fashioned crunchy kind anywhere. Dammit.
Weren't the Lithuanians in alliance with the Poles by the time they reached the Black Sea?
123: So, what did one viola say to the other?
129 makes me sound like Andy Rooney.
But what does it mean that the Illyrians helped conquer Persia?
129: They still make 'em. I got one at the convenience store just a couple of hours ago. 7-11 should stock them.
135: Would you believe that I don't think there's a 7-11 in this town?
Further research suggest the answer might be: "kind of." I can't let this conversation end or I'll be humiliated.
Emerson, have I mentioned that I'm part Lithuanian?
136: Oh. Um, "It's okay, she's legal."
So, eb, where do you do all this research on Lithuanian history?
Witt, if you're part Irish, too, you could say that your family history ranges from Lublin to Dublin.
Oh. Um, "It's okay, she's legal."
Good. If they have sex, then, it won't be a viola-tion.
To begin with the Lithuanians ruled the Poles (not by conquest but by dynastic marriage). The ruling dynasty eventually was Polonized. The Jagiellon University in Poland was founded by the Lithuanian dynasty.
Witt, it's obvious from your commenting style.
142: On the internet. Where all dates should take place. I can't look these things up in a bar, you know!
"dynastic marriage" is a kind of alliance.
I screwed that up. It's "Just kidding. She's totally legal." See? Much funnier.
I think even light-hearted fumbling would get pretty dull after a few times.
I've been told that awkwardness can be charming. This may have just been patronizing reassurance.
As for crunchy granola bars, I think we got them at Costco.
147: True. Unless you're in a bar that also has wi-fi.
I like the chewy granola bars. Mmmmm, corn syrup.
Just be yourself:
"Betcha ten bucks it won't fit in your mouth."
I am not getting a Costco membership just for granola bars. I guess I'll just keep up the bitching and moaning.
If trivia be the stuff of flirtation, banter on.
Just be yourself:
The marketing for that product is totally sexist, you know.
I read 152 as ""Betcha ten bucks won't fit in your mouth."
I'm pretty sure I could do dimes. Probably not nickels.
And then Trevor choked to death in the breakfast foods aisle.
A man walks into a bar. A random stranger strikes up a conversation about abalone. The man, after using the bar's wi-fi to learn more, shoots himself. The random stranger will never strike up a conversation with another stranger again.
I am not getting a Costco membership just for granola bars.
Do you bake? If so, I think you can probably make something of the right consistency fairly easily.
This conversation is making me realize that although I like Clif and Luna bars, they are no-way no-how the crunchy granola bars of my youth.
If I wanted to make homemade shit, I wouldn't bother buying granola bars. You people are not getting the point here.
I am not getting a Costco membership just for granola bars. I guess I'll just keep up the bitching and moaning.
There's cheese, too. And meat. (You're not vegan, are you?) And coffee. Good price for good coffee. Actually, the trick is to latch onto a friend with a membership.
eb's 159 prompts me to ask: Is it possible to have a happy relationship where one partner values jokes and the other one, wit? This is a semi-serious question.
I personally enjoy bitching and kvetching. Bitch, I think I read you loud and clear.
Wait a minute, never mind. Just train PK to bake!
People, the Costco is in the next town. My entire life revolves around shopping wherever's closest and ideally locally owned.
Y'know, if I never do get my dog that craps pot, a Trevor that craps nickels would still be pretty cool.
161: There are no convenience stores in your area? Come to think of it, I think I've even seen them in the grocery store.
Have you actually *looked* for them? Have you?
163: Let's ask Jokes and see what she says.
What did one viola said to the other?
Just kidding. She's totally legal.
Oddly enough, convenient, locally owned stores don't always have the lowest prices or widest selection in the area.
164: THANK YOU. Jeez. It's like talking to a brick wall around here sometimes.
I have to admit, I still don't get the viola joke.
It's like talking to a brick wall around here sometimes.
A brick wall on a hot dog.
Wow, totally pwned.
At least you got the punchline right.
"Dude, didja know that Lithuanians were the last pagans in Europe and once ruled an empire reaching from Baltic to the Black Sea?"
I am going to a bar tonight. I will use this line and report back.
168: I have looked in all the grocery stores (most of which are not locally owned, Teo, thank you for the advice). And yes, they have them at the convenience store where I buy my cigarettes, but only in a crappy flavor I don't like and I am not paying a dollar apiece for fucking granola bars, either.
Really, people. I am capable of finding crunchy granola bars if they are to be found. They are not to be found here in the flavor I prefer without going further out of my way than I am interested in going. Okay?
148: perhaps, but the Lithuanians ruled both Poland and Lithuania.
Okay?
Okay, well, we realize you'd rather bitch and moan than do anything else, but how do you expect us to respond?
I don't like crunchy granola bars. Tend to spray crumbs all over the place.
Anyone? Help on the viola joke?
182: I don't get it either. It's probably some guy thing.
I take no responsibility for results, AWB. Maybe you should try my other two lines instead.
Your first mistake is assuming there's something to get.
Teo, Jammies is from Farmington. I keep seeing Farmington on your posts but not wanting to clutter up your recent posts with mindless trivia.
Jesus was well known for his dry sense of humor. "Eloi lama sabachthani" was actually a zinger.
186: Thanks for making that explicit, apo.
Kashi makes very good crunchy granola bars, but I do prefer the chewy ones. Honey, almond and flax! Yummers!
Teo, Jammies is from Farmington.
My Farmington? There are a lot of others.
I assume so - four corners area?
Sorry, laydeez, I can't find it. Somebody help the pretty laydeez out, here.
I am capable of finding crunchy granola bars if they are to be found. They are not to be found here in the flavor I prefer without going further out of my way than I am interested in going.
The locally-owned grocery store just past the one you go to has granola bars and ponies. (Alas, no dogs that crap pot.)
Thanks for making that explicit, apo.
I wanted you to get at least one joke this evening.
I'm willing to grant end-of-nowhere precedence to Farmington over Wobegon.
I once spent some time in Manassa and Alamosa in that very general hellhole area.
Kashi makes very good crunchy granola bars, but I do prefer the chewy ones. Honey, almond and flax! Yummers!
You know where you can find those? Costco!
194: Why don't you pick some up for me next time you're there? Thanks.
Alas, no dogs that crap pot.
Fucking anti-science Republicans.
I can probably get my cat to hork up a catnip-laced hairball for you, apo.
in the flavor that I prefer
First it was crunchy granola bars, then they had to be from a locally-owned store, now you're getting all picky about the flavor.
You don't need to keep coming up with excuses for complaining, you know.
Okay, HG, B, here you go. Good thing I have work to do, or I'd never have taken the trouble to find that.
I feel like the Marie Antoinette of Food-Cooperative Land. Why don't you just tell your store to order what you want?
then they had to be from a locally-owned store
No, I'd buy the fucking things at Vons or Trader Joe's if they carried them. I just won't drive fifteen miles to buy stupid granola bars.
207: Hm. I'll try. They haven't been real responsive with the toothpaste issue, but, hey.
Jesus, I hope the Times guy reporting on blog comments doesn't come by right now.
People. It was a one-off remark about an incredibly petty preference of mine. I do not need you all to solve it for me. Thank you just the same.
211: "Unfogged, a political blog that seems to be mostly about granola bars...."
It's too late, B. Our scintillating repartee is going to be on the front page of the Times. Thanks for letting the side down.
"Pedophilia jokes abound, in tandem with tender, caring advice to shy would-be lotharios."
See, we're not just individuals. At all times we represent Unfogged.
Hahahaha
Haven't you people read Women Go Like This, Men Go Like That? Women don't want you to solve their problems, they want you to listen. All women. Everywhere.
214: I am not responsible for the granola bar nonsense. It was everyone who felt they needed to personally offer me advice.
Excellent! A new focus for my ire. Cerebrocrat, I am going to have you killed.
217: We're "hard-wired" that way!
"Hard-wired" is the new "common sense," the argument that trumps everything.
hee
You can't argue with me while I'm wearing my labcoat.
Not arguing. Calling killers-for-hire.
B, It's really terrible that you can't find a granola bar. I wish I could send you one, or at least give you a hug. I know how awful it is to be a granola bar short in a critical situation.
Cerebrocrat, sucks to be you. Your life is probably over.
Shove it up your crockus, Cerebrocrat!
Wearing white will just make it easier for B's hired killers to pick you off.
Thank you, John. I hope you don't mind if I get tears on your shoulder.
214: You know, they sell Nature Valley crunchy granola bars pretty much everywhere, at least last time I bought granola bars. And I think you should probably get the peanut butter flavor. But don't eat them for breakfast, you need a nice hearty meal there. It's the most important meal of the day.
I'll always be there for you, B.
BTW, that crockus link is one of the best ongoing projects I've seen on LL. So fucking funny and enraging. If you haven't been following, some liar has been going around doing vague lectures about "hard-wired" differences between boys and girls, with obvious, sexist conclusions, all based on a part of the brain he seems to have made up, named after a doctor he seems to have made up, including research he seems to have made up. And people are paying him big bucks to lecture about it.
This sentence from the link in 224 is totally going in my next paper:
It is the detailed section of the brain, a part of the frontal lope.
Totally. Yeah, sometimes I send out abstracts of my work where I'm all "This guy you may heard of Jon Lock wrote a big book called Human Consciousness or something, and it's really important for novels and stories and politics and literature like Tom Pain's thing."
B contract killers solve problems; you don't want that. You want contract listeners.
Through relatives and friends in counseling-education-rehab areas, I've frequently run into examples of the kind of stuff cranked out by semi-slick for-profit consultants who do in-services and continuing ed for people on the front lines. The intellectual level is incredibly low, and a lot of it seems to be unreviewed, self-promoted and free-lance.
227: THOSE ARE THE ONES I WANT YOU FUCKER.
And no, they do NOT sell them practically anywhere, apparently.
Hmm, maybe *that's* what I should do for my next job.
"Research has shown that boys and girls are EXACTLY THE SAME..."
235: I have never seen a grocery store without them, except Whole Foods. I've hardly ever seen a convenience store without them. Perhaps you are hallucinating.
I haven't read the thread, but I know this'll be off-topic. Does anyone know where I can get a good granola bar? Not the chewy kind, but the old-fashioned crunchy kind?
I'm off to watch the game at a bar, and I'm going to use my big fat crockus to do it.
She may be sitting in a room full of hundreds of unopened boxes of granola bars which she's saving for emergencies.
235: this is clearly immensely complicated.
239: I think the consensus here is that you should make them yourself, unless you're an effete yuppie.
237: I dunno how much potential that scheme has. The sales numbers for Women Go Like This, Men Go Like This Too were lousy.
242: Have you seen how much excess packaging Amazon uses when they ship your order? No way B's gonna go for that... too environmentally unfriendly. Plus, think of the energy cost involved in shipping them!
Probably I'm just cranky because I'm on my period and haven't slept well for three nights because of fucking cramps (what the hell? I haven't had cramps for years). AND because my darling husband bitched at me earlier today for not spending time with him by *paying bills together* after he'd spent 2 hours in the bathroom followed by 2 hours online followed by an hour nap.
What was I doing that prevented me from paying bills with him? Looking for a fucking place for us to live. Which he told me two weeks ago I have to "do on my own because he's too busy."
Tonight he's in Simi Valley at some Obama thing. Last week he was in Denver all week. This weekend he spent two hours at PK's school carnival and then declared at the end of the day that he was too exhausted to put PK to bed.
Thank you all for listening.
239: I hear you Walt, I hate that too.
I have never seen a grocery store without them
I've seen them in the Harris Teeter, Kroger, and Food Lion by my house. Do you live in a foreign country or something, B?
For fun, we could explain to B how to solve these problems and see what happens.
246 is totally true. We're talking granola bars here. It is not the holy fucking grail, and I am not going to pay shipping or comb through the greater Ventura area to find them. I just want the fucking grocery store to stock them on the goddamn shelves so I can pick them up when I buy my other damn groceries.
WHICH I won't be doing tonight, even though we're out of juice, because Mr. B. has the fucking car.
I'm on my period
That would explain the half-assed lapdance.
I just wish I could hug you B. I'll always be virtually there for you. I know how terrible you feel.
248: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
At least it might divert the killers who are coming for me.
I'd like to thank you all for being so incredibly irritating tonight that I have no desire to participate in the conversation, which I really don't have time for. God, I want to go home and go to sleep and I won't be able to for hours.
Maybe you could go to a grocery store that actually has them, and buy other stuff there too. In fact, I bet that if you go to your normal grocery store they will magically appear just before you get there. In fact, I'll use my magic to deliver them there right now. There they are! Go get them! Scurry scurry! Schnell!
252: It might also explain me filing divorce papers tomorrow.
"The newcomer to the site is struck by the characteristic style of the comments section: a discordant blend of academic vocabulary and sleepaway camp crudity. And while most of the "community members", as they call themselves, identify as politically left of center, their discourse is peppered with overt racial stereotyping and even the occasional ethnic slur."
2 hours in the bathroom? That sounds like a medical problem.
Also, who are these people writing reviews of granola bars on Amazon?
you could go to a grocery store that actually has them
WHICH DOESN'T EXIST IN MY TOWN THANK YOU NOW SHUT UP.
256: I know you're just saying that because of your work, LB.
2 hours in the bathroom? That sounds like a medical problem.
Sounds like Mr. B just needs more fiber in his diet. Hey, you know what's a great source of dietary fiber...?
Well sure, if you insisting on living somewhere with houses that cost $800,000, the presumption is that you can buy your own granola, corn syrup, and trans fats and get one of your servants to make it into a rectangle for you. Your priorities are off-kilter with the prevailing dominant ethos.
2 hours in the bathroom? That sounds like a medical problem.
So if I divorce him over this habit he has of spending hours in the bathroom, I suppose I'll get pilloried for dumping a sick man.
Is Brock here? Someone needs help with his bloody diarrhea that he's keeping secret from his wife.
Mr. Portnoy isn't a bad person, I'm sure, but he needs help.
Surely sharing your husband's bathroom habits with people online consigns you to one of the inner circles of hell.
It is not the holy fucking grail, and I am not going to pay shipping
I bet if you bought the holy grail on Amazon you'd qualify for free Super Saver shipping.
263: THEN MR. B. CAN DO HIS OWN GODDAMN GROCERY SHOPPING.
Which actually I am going to do tonight. After going to the AAUW meeting to listen to the presentations by the school board candidates so I know who to vote for next month. Which I "get" to do because he just called to say he'll be home from *tonight's* out-of-town fucking Obama gig* in 15 minutes, so I'll have 15 minutes to not eat dinner and drive to the meeting.
If only I could grab a couple granola bars, I wouldn't have to skip a meal. Oh well.
*As opposed to the 2-3 out-of-town Obama things that seem to happen every goddamn week.
(btw, I am not voting for Obama out of spite.)
O-hell is a strange place.
267: THERE ARE GROCERY STORES HERE THEY JUST DON'T STOCK THE RIGHT KIND OF GRANOLA BARS.
270: If he's going to bitch about me "not spending time with him" after he spends two hours on the can, he deserves it.
Maybe he's having an affair with Obama?
"Oh, Barack, Nature Valley is my very favorite!"
Are you claiming, bitchphd, that none of the grocery stores at the linked page stocks Kashi granola bars?
I don't want Kashi. I want Nature Valley peanut butter, dammit. Which is apparently too much to ask.
HOWEVER. Now I'll look for the fucking Kashi ones, although I HAVE MY DOUBTS that anything labelled "kashi" is going to taste like anything other than rabbit crap.
I'm sure they all have Kashi granola bars. We're talking about Nature Valley. See #265.
All granola bars taste like rabbit crap. Well, except the chewy ones. Those are pretty tasty.
I feel like Proust here, longing for the granola bars of my youth.
Maybe I'll skip the school board thing and go to every grocery in town looking for granola bars instead.
Kashi has a breakfast cereal that tastes like slightly healthier Golden Grahams. I like it.
Nature Valley peanut butter granola bars sound kind of gross.
After watching this video I can empathize with your situation.
You people have driven away Lizardbreath. How do you live with yourselves?
Granola bars are super complicated.
Who are you to be more picky about your food than this horse, ogged?
I feel bad we drove away LB. We should switch to a topic that she would find interesting. For example, we could discuss how lawyers are ruining America.
Oh come on Walt, nothing is more interesting than B's travails.
THOSE ARE THE ONES I WANT YOU FUCKER.
And no, they do NOT sell them practically anywhere, apparently.
They sell them at Costco. Really, a little protein will take the edge off. I get cranky when I'm hungry, too.
Granola bars, like oatmeal, are purely emergency food.
(Oh, and go ahead and give the Kashi a try. But they are not as good as the Nature Valley. And I'll be shocked if PK would eat them.)
Just tell him they're mouse food.
I eat oatmeal for breakfast any day that I don't have to be in a super hurry to get out of the house. My oatmeal is amazing.
Whenever I can, I eat almond croissants for breakfast.
Oatmeal is pretty boss.
Whenever I can, I eat lots and lots of bacon.
Oh, breakfast? Yeah, then too.
I just saw a preview for this movie:
It may sound like a contradiction in terms to say that a movie about a guy in love with a sex doll is bursting with humanity, but that's really the most apt way to describe the warm, wonderful "Lars and the Real Girl."
(In deference to Ogged's unfathomable preferences, the Rotten Tomatoes link.)
Unfortunately what I eat for breakfast every day does not have any Amazon reviews. Am I not a trend-setter?
Yummmm. The café in my department's building just started getting almond croissants from a local bakery, with marzipan in the middle. But they cost $4.
Sadly, no bacon at the café.
I associate oatmeal with that week in Paris I spent alone, delirious from fever and hunger, drifting between sleep and reading Crime and Punishment. It's strictly emergency calories, for me.
I'm gonna start a bacon stand next door to compete with them. Just watch, they'll be out of business in months.
a sex doll is bursting with humanity
Probably what the guys in the real doll "community" say when they puncture the thing by mistake.
No reviews of ogged's breakfast, but there are clubs.
I dread tomorrow's Times. Blog comments is the next big thing, and we could all be cashing in, but no. Miss Granola had to ruin it for everyone.
I don't even want to think of what kind of "humanity" the dolls are bursting with.
"A real ogged's breakfast" should be a phrase, I think. Making an ogged's breakfast of it, etc.
There goes my humanity, all over ya face
Maybe bacon croissants.
High-falutin' pigs-in-a-blanket.
I can't believe you're comparing bacon to sausage. They aren't even from the same animal!
I just looked up the Wikipedia entry for "Pigs in a blanket." It is tagged: "This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims" and also, "This article does not cite any references or sources."
Battered bacon-wrapped bacon/oatmeal croissants deep fried and served on a stick made of Marzipan. Breakfast!
We can't help it that your mom makes your pigs in a blanket with yuppie turkey sausage from Whole Foods.
With a side of granola bars for your PVC laydee.
Whose mom cooks for his RealDoll?
320: I still hold to the IHOP definition of pigs-in-a-blanket. Breakfast sausage in pancakes or nothing!
I am ashamed to admit I've ordered the turkey bacon breakfast sandwich thing at Starbucks. Talk about craven.
Turns out that what I have for breakfast is online.
Oatmeal is yummy. And did you notice that most of the folks at sixpackabs.com had oatmeal as their carb throughout the day? Maybe that's your secret, Blume.
This is gravy?
# 2 tbsp vegetable oil
# 1 onion, thinly sliced
# 2 tsp plain flour
# 2 tsp ready-made English mustard
# 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce or soy sauce
# 600ml chicken or vegetable stock
Sounds pretty good though. Except for the oil.
Everything is better wrapped in bacon. Or at least with bacon added. The French have the right idea putting lardons in everything.
Did anyone here ever see the movie Idiocracy? Whenever the subject of bacon comes up at Unfogged, the level of dialogue here immediately falls to that of the far future where everyone is dumb. It's like:
I like bacon.
Dude! Me too! We should totally hang out.
329: there's nothing anti-intellectual about bacon. I consider myself a bacon scholar.
The kid and I have oatmeal and maple syrup every few mornings. Yum. The sixpack has yet to materialize, though.
The post that made me realize that I was meant to marry Moira.
Dude! Me too! We should totally hang out.
we could wrap each other in bacon.
You people are just trying to piss me off.
I hope B's OK.
So say something scholarly about bacon. You can't. It's scientifically proven to be impossible. As soon as you think of the word "bacon", you start imagining the smell, the taste, and next thing you know your fingers are covered in grease and your mind is totally blank.
Huh. Maybe that explains the current state of my abs: I eat the liverwurst on the days I have to teach (more energy!), and that's most days now.
But look what I just found while looking for the Waffle House version of pigs in a blanket! No one ever believes me that there are special Waffle House songs on the Waffle House jukeboxes.
You know what's amazing? Duck bacon. Fry it up and then you have delicious duck fat left in the pan to fry other things in. And everything tastes *really* good in duck fat. It's like super-bacon. The next bacon wave.
Is it possible to have a happy relationship where one partner values jokes and the other one, wit? This is a semi-serious question.
No one should value only one at the expense of the other, and if you are one such, you don't deserve a happy relationship. I see, though, that the conversation has moved on to bacon. There's a restaurant in seattle that, according to one of my sister's charcuterie books, which reproduces the recipe, makes deep-fried pork belly confit. First you confit the pork belly, which basically amounts to cooking pork fat in pork fat, then, after it's cooled, you heat it up to serve by deep frying it in vegetable oil, since, after all, there's basically no way to meaningfully increase the caloric or fat content at that point. Sounds good to me! But you'd need a lot of pork fat. So I'm thinking one might go a different route, and reproduce the excellent pork shoulder braised in milk, except with belly substituted for the shoulder. I bet that would be pretty amazing.
The heterocyclic aromatic amines (HAAs) 2-amino-l-methyl-6-phenylimidazo[4, 5-b]pyridine (PhIP), 2-amino-3, 8-di-methylimidazo[4,5-f)quinoxaline (MelQx), 2-amino-3, 4, 8-tri-methylimidazo[4, 5-f)quinoxaline (4, 8-DiMeIQx) and 2-aminocarboline (AC) were quantitated in grilled bacon, smart guy.
You know who could do with eating some bacon?
See? Even w-lfs-n can't do it. He has to change the subject to not-bacon.
You can buy the CD? Blume is clearly fishing for gifts.
No one should value only one at the expense of the other, and if you are one such, you don't deserve a happy relationship.
Jokes tend to be lame, while wit is witty. Practically by definition. So I guess I don't deserve a happy relationship. I already knew that, but this is a new reason.
That's the chemical formula for glue.
Bacon isn't like what Faraday thought water was. There's bacon from different parts of the pig, including from the belly.
I'd really like to find some jowl bacon. Sounds like it takes belly bacon to whole other levels of unhealthiness.
For my 30th birthday, my friend sent me a basket from Wolfermans that had some kind of bread, some sort of jam, and this heavenly, heavenly, thick cut smoke cured bacon. You can still get all sorts of bread from Wolfermans, but I've never been able to track down that bacon. Oh, that was some good bacon.
I think I'd get more use out of the mug.
This is a bit late, but I just want to note that B is so cranky because Mr. B spent two hours in the bathroom washing with her soap, fondling her towel, and grooming with her comb. It's a miracle she didn't make granola with his minced flesh.
"State of Origin: Missouri"
YEAH, MISSOURI! [Blume and mrh jump up and give each other high fives.]
Still not amusing me. Discussions of bacon: dull. Actual bacon: admittedly, compelling. But this is not actual bacon.
In other news, lawyers all suck. By a week before filing, we should have a clear idea of which parts of this pile of crap go in our brief and which go in the joint defense brief. We do not have such a clear idea.
351: "rich, bacon-y flavors."
Proustian! I bet it's good, though.
Waffle House has some incredibly rad merchandise.
Still not amusing me. ... By a week before filing,
Maybe the fault is not in us, dear Brutus, but in our clients.
Jokes tend to be lame, while wit is witty. Practically by definition.
You have the distinction all wrong. Wit is kairotic, essentially situation-bound; jokes are portable—the setup is part of the joke, so the context travels with it. Wit, one might say, is the recognition of a set-up in life and the deployment of a punchline. One consequence of this is the "you had to be there" phenomenon. Obviously we need to research this more and the foregoing is suitable only as a preliminary guiding analytic, but I think you'll agree that we're already beyond "jokes r lame but wit is witty".
One reason jokes seem lame is the way they're handled on sitcoms: to create the illusion of wit, a joke-situation is engineered to arise so that one of the characters can deliver himself of a punchline. But this is generally done very clumsily.
I recently told my dad my "festina lente" joke, which he thought good, and of which he said something along these lines (though by my lights 87 in that thread isn't actually a joke). If it weren't for the fact that grad school, or something, anyway, has apparently destroyed my ability to come up with them, and for the fact that it's probably not true anyway, I would be confident in saying that I could never be happy with someone who didn't appreciate the odd pun.
This Chris Rock joke (contain naughty words) still cracks me up.
joint defense brief
I still break into a cold sweat at the sight of these words. Getting the one or two lawyers you are working with at your firm on the same page is battle enough. To then have to get the little teams from a dozen other firms onto that same page as well... Torture! My thoughts are with you.
We've switched over to pancetta. I bet they'd have some good pancetta at Whole Foods.
One consequence of this is the "you had to be there" phenomenon.
Seems like the right analysis. Pretty much the funniest thing I ever said -- as measured by the well known log(size of audience)*amount of laughter metric -- would be incomprehensible without two or three minutes worth of contextualization, and it still wouldn't be funny at all.
We get the hint, LB. You want it to be all about you. So who's your favorite writer? Neil Gaiman? Or are you more of a P. G. Wodehouse person?
everything tastes *really* good in duck fat.
That is god's own truth. You want good eats? Roast a duck on a bed of shallots and parsnips. The fat renders and drips down on the veggies, pan frying them. Little sea salt, little rosemary, good to go.
Dude! I like John Collier! You and me should totally hang out!
Also, the last time I was out at a schmancy steak house, they had bacon as an appetizer. We ordered it, it came out as about a one pound slap, cooked like a steak on the grill. Charred outside, meltingly tender inside. So fucking good.
I assume so - four corners area?
That's the one.
I'm willing to grant end-of-nowhere precedence to Farmington over Wobegon.
We Farmingtonians appreciate that. It's not a pleasant place.
364: At first I thought you meant this John Collier, and was confused.
Pretty much the funniest thing I ever said -- as measured by the well known log(size of audience)*amount of laughter metric -- would be incomprehensible without two or three minutes worth of contextualization, and it still wouldn't be funny at all.
I certainly hope I'm not the only one that laughed harder at the concept of a person named "Coco LeBoobs" than at anything else in the last month.
I found it pretty amusing, but since it was my joke I probably don't count.
I have a young cousin from Farmington. FHS class of '04, a ways younger than Teo I guess.
Yeah, I don't think I would know anyone that young. I don't know very many people there at all, actually.
She's moved to Colorado for college, and her dad, my cousin, is living in Calgary now. No reason for me to visit Farmington.
Folks who want to witness the end of the Torre era need to get their radios/TVs on right now.
Welp, guess I'm gonna see Cleveland play on Saturday. Bring it on, Carmona.
No reason for me to visit Farmington.
No reason for anyone to visit Farmington, really. Except me.
I liked your essay about your grandparents and father a great deal, teo.
I have a young cousin from Farmington
Who said, "I think it is charming, son"
Sighed "we just need that w-lfs-n gone."
I have a young cousin from Farmington
Who said, "You will find this quite charming, son"
And, quick as a zephyr,
He turned to the heifer
And perpetrated some alarming fun
Dammit damn dammit dammity damn.
Damn damn damned a damn damn-y damn.
Damn damn damn damn fuck
Damn goddamit suck
Damn damn goddamn dammity damn.
Damn, that was a hell of a football game.
Aaaauuuugh it doesn't even a little bit.
Paul Byrd certainly shut down the New York pass attack. That guy must have had like 16 quarterback hurries.
Are the Yankees really going to fire Torre? I think it's more likely that in the off-season Steinbrenner opens the wallet and signs Randy Moss.
392, I think it does. Three antibacchii.
(I thought that was a common type of foot, but I guess not)
Our Sifu one night was a dummy
He thought writing rhymes would be rummy
Mistakes came direct
And his idiolect
Was just fundamentally crummy
The link in the original post (you guys remember, the one about online speed dating) says the company is addressing the one logistical problem—getting everyone online at the same time—by hosting "events". Is the thinking that once the site's userbase reaches a critical mass, you'll just go online whenever and check out the people in your (designated) area who happen to be logged in?
I would think you'd miss out on lots of potential mates, unless you purposefully varied your log-in times. Seems like a big hurdle to me. But hey, maybe. Has anyone committed to doing it? Maybe Tia? Teo?
396: Doesn't matter if the second and fifth lines aren't in the same meter, which they aren't.
Oh come on Walt, nothing is more interesting than B's travails.
You mock, but my granola issue sustained this thread for a good couple of hours.
B, you seem to think that we would be at a loss for topics if we weren't talking about you.
I thought we were talking about granola.
Charley, the first interesting question is what excuse Steinbrenner will give when he re-signs Torre. The second is how bad it will be for my liver that the Yankees lost tonight.
Energy-filled, rich in fiber and formulated for slow release, nothing sustains threads like bitchola.
Is the thinking that once the site's userbase reaches a critical mass, you'll just go online whenever and check out the people in your (designated) area who happen to be logged in?
I think so, yes. Doesn't seem like such a bad idea to me. If there are enough users, while you'll miss out on some, you'll still have a wide variety of people on whenever you log in.
Has anyone committed to doing it? Maybe Tia? Teo?
Not me. While I kind of like the idea, I'm going to wait to see how things go with the girl I saw last night before trying any new dating sites.
401: Why can't Mr. B. pick up your dang granola while he's gallivanting around the state for Barry O.?
I am always already ready to settle down.
That's what the girls are looking for. A guy in his early 20s who wants to get married, like, now.
406: the girl I saw last night
Oh, yeah, not sure if you mentioned: did you meet her through one of the online dating sites or elsewhere? (Optional: don't answer if that's too prying.)
Just earlier B, stuck in Oxnard
Was unfogged's own Granola Montagnard
She hijacked the thread
With her dark reign of dread
But talk soon turned back to le canard.
That's what the girls are looking for. A guy in his early 20s who wants to get married, like, now.
That's what they're looking for in Utah.
My limerick technique tonight is wrong on so many levels, but you won't get me to apologize for that last one.
I've been staring at that damn "While out on the Cam in a punt" line for nearly half an hour now, with only terrible reaches and poor punchlines to show for it. I give up. It's just amazing since the school so perfectly sets up the punchline rhyme with "cunt".
Except that I wasn't stuck in Oxnard. But poetic license.
It's a sure sign of injustice in the world that B. can get laid, while teo can get granola.
What, you think it should be the other way around?
I've been staring at that damn "While out on the Cam in a punt" line for nearly half an hour now, with only terrible reaches and poor punchlines to show for it.
Here's some help:
While out on the Cam in a punt
I spied Reverend Spooner in front
419: Dear heavens, no. Granola and lays for everyone!
He fell into the pond
With some trollopy blonde
Cause he was too busy watching her cunt.
You mock, but my granola issue sustained this thread for a good couple of hours.
Cure worse than the disease, a-yup.
While out on the Cam in a punt
I spied Reverend Spooner in front
He had projects brewing
I said "whatcha doing?"
And he said "I'm just coughing this bunt!"
my granola issue
...that which pours forth all crunchy outta me...
411: Who said anything about married?
412: I met her through OkCupid. I messaged a bunch of girls, and she's the only one who wrote me back. I mentioned it here at the time.
424: Let's see who you'll talk to next time you want to gripe about something, Mr. Smartypants.
428: When ben is eating a bowl of Blah-nola, B. is the milk that softens thinks up.
While out on the Cam in a punt
I spied Reverend Spooner in front
But he turned in a weir
And appeared in my rear
Which was really a quite cunning stunt.
You have the distinction all wrong. Wit is kairotic, essentially situation-bound; jokes are portable--the setup is part of the joke, so the context travels with it.
This is why jokes are lame, they bend over backwards to set up the situation and it ends up totally artificial. It is also why people with a really good sense of humor do not rely on jokes, since they are witty enough to respond to the steady flow of setups that life provides us with. Jokes are a kind of artificial crutch.
I think you'll agree that we're already beyond "jokes r lame but wit is witty".
In word count, yes. Brevity is the soul of wit, etc.
431 was me, you can tell because it's not very witty.
While out on the Cam in a punt
I spied Reverend Spooner in front
With him a young lass
Bearing blunts, tits, and sass
Which made for a fine bleezy skeg.
WHIWDOIJDOIDSAOIJADOIJAD
Why do I even bother.
Does [ redacted ] rhyme with [ redacted ]?
Does my short-term memory last for more than three seconds?
Mysteries, unknown to science!
In a cripplingly humiliating turn of fate, if I had just said "Skunt" it would have worked fine.
This is why jokes are lame, they bend over backwards to set up the situation and it ends up totally artificial.
Well, that's one way for bad jokes to be lame, sure, but it's not even the only way for that to be the case. However, not all jokes are bad. Also, it's easy to overlook the fact that there are better and worse times, and ways, to tell a joke; jokes are also situation-bound at least to that extent.
Those with a really good sense of humor have the sense to be able to recognize the good jokes and the bad, and to tell the good ones when appropriate, and to realize that joke-telling and wit are in basically different lines of business, such that the one isn't cut out to be a crutch for the other.
In word count, yes. Brevity is the soul of wit, etc.
Is the theory here that discussion of wit must itself be witty, and therefore short?
Is... discussion... short?
Oh, you.
428: That reminds me, I never thanked you for calling up B-wo to hector him just when I thought it'd be hilarious.
I'd rather have a briefing on wittery than a wittering brievary.
I'll go off and kill myself now.
Seems redundant.
OT: Why the Honolulu Marathon starts at 5 a.m.
For the groundlings, I offer up the one my roommate just came up with:
The committee asked for my rebuttal,
so did off to the bathroom I skuttle.
I took off my pants,
leaving nothing to chance.
I returned and I showed them my butthole
445 goddamn well doesn't scan either, I say petulantly.
Brevity, Tweety. 445 sucks.
It's for the groundlings, you patrician asshat.
Ain't no groundlings here. This is a patrician asshat blog.
Hey, some of us are down with the gente, you patrician asshat.
Damn straight. This is America. They're fucking carp. (And they speak Spanish.)
How about this NYT article on last week's craiglist ad from the 25-year old woman looking to snag a rich husband based on her allegedly "spectacularly beautiful" looks?
The woman in question defines her appeal in terms of her own physical appearance and views potential husbands as nothing more than money machines. But if a man responds to her on her own terms and explains that her proposal is not compelling because her beauty will fade while his money will earn interest, then the Times declares him the sexist. I see.
We talked about that, like, last week. The NYT is catching up!
Apparently, there is a cadre of NYT reporters who just sift through the blogosphere and write about whatever was interesting last week. They get paid to do what we do better, and for free.
277: I HAVE MY DOUBTS that anything labelled "kashi" is going to taste like anything other than rabbit crap.
I felt that way until I tried GOLEAN Crunch!®. If you do not like this cereal, you have no soul.
I, for one, like burritos. Tell me, sweet Jesus, there is comity on burritos.
There better be comity on burritos.
I'm calling it: comity on burritos. Huzzah!
(Until those wily Scots arrive.)
Burritos stuffed with bacon. And sausage, and Scotch eggs. Congeal your aorta so fast, your heart will explode out of your chest.
Burritos stuffed with bacon. And sausage, and Scotch eggs.
Haggis. Deep-fried. With curry sauce.
That is all.
So we still have comity on burritos? At this late hour? Holy shit.
Until the Wall Street Journal article about ten years ago, describing Glascow eating preferences, which iirc said that it was class stratified, so that middle class Glaswegians were much like anywhere, but the working class were the ones who liked surprising things fried, I had no idea "stodgy" meant something like that preference. On this side it usually just means old-fashioned, unadaptive, reflexively traditional. Obviously related, but what exactly does stodgy mean?
Come to think of it, a haggis burrito would be nice.
Obviously related, but what exactly does stodgy mean?
With reference to food, stodgy would mean 'heavy, dense, often starchy food that sits heavy on the stomach'. Stodgy food doesn't necessarily have to be fried.
did you know that in the 14th century, the Welsh controlled an Empire roughly the size of modern Wales?
467: legendary Glasgow masonic restaurant "The Buttery" used to do a dish called "Haggis Raviolo in a whisky jus". It was basically a slab of haggis, wrapped in pasta, sitting in a bowl of Laphroaig. I never ate it, but a mate who did said it was possibly the single most indigestible thing he had ever eaten. I actually fear the people who must have scoffed it enthusiastically enough for it to remain on the menu so long.
So does your non-food meaning of stodgy resemble ours?
I thought 470 was a joke until I googled it. That's hilarious. I want to make it, just for science.
Hey! Here's a perfect chance for my question that's probably already been answered over and over.
My crap cover band played at an Irish pub (run by a real-live Irish lady, no lie) in Raleigh, North Carolina, this weekend. And she said they fly the Scottish flag proudly, in announcing the Scottish dance troupe that was about to go on.
What are the feelings amongst Scots, Irish, and English nowadays, at the pub level? My Irish-heritage grandparents seem to hate everyone that's not "26+6=1", but this pub's sentiment was pretty much "anyone but England" fer feck's sake.
re: 469
In the 7th century, Glasgow was in the middle of an entirely different 'Welsh' kingdom roughly the size of modern Wales.
re: 471
Yes, same.
re: 470/472
The Buttery is/was just round the corner from a flat I used to share in Glasgow. It had a reputation as a pretty decent restaurant. Haggis ravioli sounds nice. Not so sure about the whisky jus, though.
What are the feelings amongst Scots, Irish, and English nowadays, at the pub level?
As far as I am concerned, any member of these three who makes a big deal about actively disliking the others, rather than just taking the piss or in the context of sporting fixtures, is an arse.
What a fucking criminal waste of Laphroaig, they should be made to eat it forever.
BTW, what did the viola say to the other viola? "I'm not playing second fiddle to you!" As observed above, jokes are lame.
There cannot and will not be comity on burritos. One of the many failings of Cal-Mex is that it's just too damn burritocentric, when clearly the proper focus of any hypenated Mex cuisine should be the enchilada.
Also, I hold burritos directly responsible for the proliferation of "wraps".
469: And with no Poles and very few pagans involved!
Plus bonus in the geopolitical sweepstakes: Very Far from Russia!
My crap cover band played at an Irish pub (run by a real-live Irish lady, no lie) in Raleigh, North Carolina, this weekend.
If you'd announced that ahead of time, I might have shown up for it.
The problem with Tex-Mex is the chips and salsa that you fill up on before your food comes.
As far as I am concerned, any member of these three who makes a big deal about actively disliking the others, rather than just taking the piss or in the context of sporting fixtures, is an arse.
Typical fucking Scots BS.
The British are so quaint. Their little social classes and "ethnicities" are so cute! It's boggling to think that they are in some sense our ancestors, and that in ancient times they made real contributions to civilization.
What are the feelings amongst Scots, Irish, and English nowadays, at the pub level?
Even at the national level, ttaM is right. People in some American-claiming-to-be-Irish pub probably couldn't even tell the difference between the three unless Billy Connelly, Bono, and Queen Elizabeth walked in.
During major sports events that aren't covered well in America (World Cup, Rugby World Cup, etc.), I've usually found the local Irish pub to be the gathering place for a huge number of ex-pats to watch the game, regardless of nationality.
The true Irish pub in Portland (run by real Irishwomen) was distinctly unfriendly to two Britishers that I know of (one of whom was the widow of an Irishman from Ireland).
Queen Elizabeth is of course German.
The true Irish pub in Portland (run by real Irishwomen) was distinctly unfriendly to two Britishers that I know of
There's a reason that Ireland produced the word "gobshite."
Trivia: King George III loved to talk with the aphorist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Lichtenberg didn't know what to think but he was cool with it.
Queen Elizabeth is of course German.
Jacobite.
More trivia: Lichtenberg married a 13 year old when he was 35, and when she died five years later he married a 22 year old who outlived him by 49 years.
It was basically a slab of haggis, wrapped in pasta, sitting in a bowl of Laphroaig.
Some day when I get to Glasgow, I will absolutely pay to watch someone eat this.
It was basically a slab of haggis, wrapped in pasta, sitting in a bowl of Laphroaig.
It's Scotland's contribution to fusion cuisine.
Queen Elizabeth is of course German.
And so are the rest of us. I'd say that after 200 years, the House of Hanover is pretty well settled. And those who bring up that whole House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha are just shit-stirrers obsessed with the Patriarchy.
M/tch makes a good point re: burritos. They're good (I had one for dinner last night, in fact), but they're not substantial enough to be the basis of a cuisine.
re: Trivia--Emerson, have you read the later Markson? It's basically pages and pages of this stuff (with some thematic/narrative connection). Not only might you enjoy it, but you'd be set to comment for another fifteen years.
the proper focus of any hypenated Mex cuisine should be the enchilada
Lactonormativist.
494 is heresy and should be suppressed at all costs. When I lived in New York, I lived off of burritos and diet Snapple.
Lichtenberg was also a hunchback, and a scientist of some importance. He never ruled an empire stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea, however.
Any statement about Mexican food that begins "when I lived in New York" can be safely disregarded.
And here's an Amazon excerpt from one of them, John.
When I lived in New York, I noticed that most of the Mexican food around here was fairly pathetic.
Thus I refute you.
1. Heebie is banned.
2. Teo is right, although New Mexicans might do well to study the rolling technology used in burritos and enchiladas and apply it to their "enchiladas".
real contributions to civilization.
I don't have much sympathy for generic Brits, but aren't a disproportionate number of "US" Nobelists Brits who crossed the Atlantic for scientific funding? They're no better once you get to know them, of course, but I must say that Brits do small talk over a drink much better than Americans, broadly speaking. Plus, wasn't there that whole thing about accents and The Wire?
493. And her mother was, dare I say it, Scottish.
Thus I refute you.
Ah, but I could have guessed anyway. Value added: minimal.
New Mexicans might do well to study the rolling technology used in burritos and enchiladas and apply it to their "enchiladas".
Heresy.
I mean, why roll an enchilada? You have to eat it with a knife and fork anyway. Rolling's for burritos, which you can hold in your hand.
I recently discovered that Finnish people also have distasteful delicacies which have been completely overlooked in this country even as the Keillor-Industrial Complex has made "lutefisk" a household name. A friend was describing kalakukko to me.
Rolling's for burritos, which you can hold in your hand.
Kirk Cameron thinks God is Mexican.
Erik Satie's mother was Scottish. It pains me to say this. Satie was baptized in the Church of Scotland, but later rebaptized a Catholic. Satie also played golf.
The fact that God has the whole world in His hands is made more impressive by the fact that the world is not burrito-shaped.
The Icelanders have a rotten-fish dish which they learned from the Inuit. (Ja, ja: the Inuit do not live in Iceland, but Icelanders used to travel to Greenland).
511. All these are forgivable but the last.
New Mexicans have nothing to apologize for in the enchilada department because all sins are forgiven by green chile sauce.
New Mexicans have nothing to apologize for in the enchilada department because all sins are forgiven by green chile sauce.
And topped with a fried egg.
Lactonormativist
Not all enchiladas involve cheese, honky. I'm beginning to doubt your cover story.
506: I actually agree, I like the stacked enchiladas, I was just looking for some hook to hang a dis on. Stack on, teo!
And topped with a fried egg.
Very few things are not improved by the addition of a fried egg.
Very few things are not improved by the addition of a fried egg.
Jammies??? Is that really you???
What in the world is a stacked enchilada? My youngest brother is a New Mexican.
520: yes
521: uhhhhhh yes honey, close your eyes and come to bed.
Topped with an egg could be hard to balance. Maybe switch to hardboiled eggs, and spear the cigarettes through 'em.
526: This must be teo. Clearly, sex is improved with fried eggs.
Did B get her granola bar yet? Is she even alive?
490: And yet, still no Lithuanians!
On preview, pwnas by 498.
I live with a Hobbesian New Mexicaner.
Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and red or green.
For me, reading Markson would be an eerie experience, like meeting a doppelganger.
531: And with hair on the tops of their feet?
re: 484
I second the 'gobshite' interpretation. Can't be doing with fucks like that.
re: 491
I'd do it for free.
just to avoid people getting the wrong impression, the Buttery's an excellent restaurant - I don't know if it's got a Michelin star but it wouldn't be absurd if it had.
You're dismissing a lucrative tourism opportunity. I see a business here: "Americans! Come watch a Scotsman eat haggis poached in whisky, and survive the experience!" People would totally par for that. Of course, you would have to dress up in the whole kilt routine, but we all need to make sacrifices.
re: 536
As I keep repeating to people [and I'm not saying this for comic effect], haggis is genuinely delicious. Of course, I'd happily exaggerate the danger if it propagated the idea that we Scots are hard.
"Americans! Come watch a Scotsman eat haggis poached in whisky, and survive the experience!"
The American or the Scot?
what be haggis?
I should just google it, but I'm laazzzy. As evidenced by my commenting here during work hours.
But why can't I just eat the haggis and drink the whisky?
539: I was sort of picturing everyone living through the experience. But dramatic background music to increase the perception of risk.
538: You keep saying you eat haggis because you enjoy it, but it's clear that you only do it because of your low self-esteem.
540: Offal and oatmeal cooked in a sheep's stomach, no? Sort of a sausage kind of thing.
I was sort of picturing everyone living through the experience. But dramatic background music to increase the perception of risk.
Oh god, not the bagpipes!
Offal and oatmeal cooked in a sheep's stomach
The trick is getting the sheep to stay in the pan while the offal and oatmeal is cooking.
re: 539
A friend of mine tells a story about taking a (huge) Texan friend of his to a (legendarily) rough bar in the east end of Glasgow, to watch a Celtic match on the TV. Before he goes in, he warns him, 'look, just keep your mouth shut, and watch yourself'.
They walk in. His Texan friend looks round the room. Amazed to see it's full of wee, pickled, wrinkly looking men.
"Jeez, what's the a/ggregate level of m/alnutrition in here?" he trumpets.
re: 540
Sheep-bits [lungs, liver and heart], mixed with onion, oatmeal, herbs and spices. Stuffed inside the stomach of the sheep and boiled.
544: Somewhat reminiscent of black pudding, if that means anything to anyone. And yeah, actually pretty damn good.
It also seems haggis is technically illegal in the US [according to wikipedia].
"Jeez, what's the a/ggregate level of m/alnutrition in here?" he trumpets.
Does the story go anywhere from here? Glasgwegian ultraviolence, or a communal decision in the bar to go on watching the game and ignoring the Texan?
re: 548
Yeah, like a slightly lighter, spicier black pudding.
549: Kind of like absinthe, but not as Parisian.
re: 550
I think they just ignored him, on a 'humour the foreign idiot' basis.
It also seems haggis is technically illegal in the US [according to wikipedia].
This attitude is probably a factor.
Also, you were worried that someone in the bar that night would google 'aggregate malnutrition' and find the story? Googleproofing has gone too far.
And since I linked to that thread already, I'd also like to highlight this. Ah, glory days!
I think both Grieg and Kant are of unexpectedly Scottish ancestry.
What in the world is a stacked enchilada?
The usual term is "flat," actually. Instead of being rolled, the tortillas are just put down in layers, with the filling in between.
I live with a Hobbesian New Mexicaner.
Hobbsian, I think you mean.
unexpectedly Scottish ancestry.
No one expects the Scottish Impregnation!
re: 557
I we are seriously having the 'Scots contributions to world culture, science and technology' they are almost comically disproportionate to the size of the nation. However, Scots are boring and often annoying on this topic.
re: 555
That particular phrase is used by my friend in the telling of the story and him and people who know him, it's not impossible someone might google it. He has, afaik, other written things floating about online.
I we are seriously having the 'Scots contributions to world culture, science and technology' they are almost comically disproportionate to the size of the nation.
Drunk already? Well, I guess it is 5PM over there.
However, Scots are boring and often annoying on this topic.
And incomprehensible.
You're just not appreciating the Scottish contribution to avantgarde grammar.
No one expects the Scottish Impregnation!
There have been times when I'd have found this a convenient belief, but I've never met anyone who held it.
that was supposed to be 'If'. Fuckin' angloorthographonormativists.
Very few things are not improved by the addition of a fried egg.
That is so true
You're just not appreciating the Scottish contribution to avantgarde grammar.
I admit that I have tried but failed to read the works of James Kelman.
Lichtenberg was also a hunchback, and a scientist of some importance
Lichtenberg wasn't that important as a scientist, Emerson, as I'm sure you're well aware. Stop messing with people.
The Scots also deep-fry the contents of a cow's third stomach and eat it sprinkled with sugar.
Or the Mongols, maybe, or the Tauregs. One of those.
I thought the wiki was absurdly pro-Lichtenberg, but some of this is pretty impressive (the bolded part goes a bit overboard):
In 1784 Alessandro Volta visited Göttingen especially to see the man and his experiments. The eminent mathematician Karl Friedrich Gauss was one of the hearers of his lectures. In 1793 he was elected a member of the Royal Society.
As a physicist, today he is remembered for his investigations in electricity, for discovering branching discharge patterns on dielectrics now called Lichtenberg figures. In 1777, he built a large Electrophorus in order to generate static electricity through induction. With it, he discovered the basic principle of modern Xerography copy machine technology. This discovery was also the forerunner of modern day Plasma Physics. By discharging a high voltage point near an insulator, he was able to record the resulting radial pattern in fixed dust. The Lichtenberg figures are considered today to be examples of fractals.
God damn Unfogged's goddamn formatting.
In 1784 Alessandro Volta visited Göttingen especially to see the man and his experiments. The eminent mathematician Karl Friedrich Gauss was one of the hearers of his lectures. In 1793 he was elected a member of the Royal Society.
As a physicist, today he is remembered for his investigations in electricity, for discovering branching discharge patterns on dielectrics now called Lichtenberg figures. In 1777, he built a large Electrophorus in order to generate static electricity through induction. With it, he discovered the basic principle of modern Xerography copy machine technology. This discovery was also the forerunner of modern day Plasma Physics. By discharging a high voltage point near an insulator, he was able to record the resulting radial pattern in fixed dust. The Lichtenberg figures are considered today to be examples of fractals.
Black pudding is yummy, but I'm not convinced by haggis. Nope.
One of the many failings of Cal-Mex is that it's just too damn burritocentric, when clearly the proper focus of any hypenated Mex cuisine should be the enchilada.
Burritos, on the other hand, you can eat with your hands.
But the real truth about Mexican food is that if anyone serves you a hard shell taco, or a soft shell taco with just one tortilla, or god forbid a taco with a fucking flour tortilla, they are to be shot.
491, 534
I will insist on at least paying for the meal plus your favorite to wash it down. Otherwise, my conscience will be challenged.
Speaking of fried eggs, Stanley, be at the White Spot this saturday.
Or the Mongols, maybe, or the Tauregs. One of those.
File under: 'Primitive peoples of the Eastern hemisphere.'
max
['You can never find a Friesian when you need one.']
558: Do you meanHobbes or Hobbs, when you say Hobbsian?
Tamales are good. I usually order them if I am at a non-"burrito lunch" place because it's the only thing that is likely to be made with corn instead of tasteless flour tortillas.
The real truth about mexican food is that burritos aren't mexican.
But the real truth about Mexican food is that if anyone serves you a hard shell taco, or a soft shell taco with just one tortilla, or god forbid a taco with a fucking flour tortilla, they are to be shot.
You seem to be advocating the wholesale slaughter of Mexicans from northern states like Sonora and Nuevo Leon.
B is a hard-core Oaxacan nationalist? I can see that.
People I know who've travelled in Mexico and Central America, or who grew up there, say that Mexican cuisine primarily consists of:
1. rice 2. beans 3. string cheese and 4. old tough stewing hens.
For any of the four could be substituted:
0. Nothing,
587: Those people are just trying to keep you and all your kind away so you won't ruin the place.
