Re: Like talking about your period, but more smug.

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Ha! :-D

Back when Six Apart had banned default icons of women breastfeeding, I discovered how many people are freakishly opposed to the very notion that women's breasts can be used for something other than male ogling. I think someone actually came up with a word for it - I mean for breastfeeding phobia.


Posted by: Jesurgislac | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 11:28 AM
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notion that women's breasts can be used for something other than male ogling

Agreed, there's no reason breasts can't multitask.


Posted by: Brock Landers | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 11:35 AM
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Indeed, when lactating, they make awesome squirt guns. Before breastfeeding, I'd always sort of vaguely assumed that breastmilk seeped out gently. Turns out that's not so.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 11:37 AM
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2: For example, they can help set off a nice necklace?


Posted by: Charlie | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 11:41 AM
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2: That's why women have two, right? One can be oggled while the other one feeds a baby. Back on the veldt that was important.

Speaking of the veldt, the feminist evolutionary biologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy has a interview in Salon. She's now pushing the hypothesis that humans developed a sense of the existence of minds out of the need children had to keep track of their multiple caregivers.


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 11:45 AM
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Boy, I could totally do with fewer of those kinds of just-so stories, even the feminist ones.


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 11:50 AM
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Mammary glands - wo wo! Mother nature's dairy delight
You can't make cream or butter cause it's just a human udder
And a natural mammalian sight.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 11:50 AM
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Someone I met told me a story of how when she was at a family function, her baby cried, and she nursed her baby under a blanket. Later, when her baby cried again, one of her relatives said "Do that trick with the blanket." He had not noticed that she was nursing the baby the first time.


Posted by: Lemmy Caution | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 11:58 AM
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||
My internets are broken at home, so I checked if I could piggyback off an open WiFi connection from my neighbors. In among all the usual "Smith Family" type base station names one stood out: "beardporn." Now I'm dying to figure out who could possibly be the owner. I think we could be friends.
|>


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 12:04 PM
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Did you ever tell the douchebag that it wasn't beer, just Hawaiian Punch?


Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 12:15 PM
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Our next-door neighbors for a while had a network named "sparklepoop".


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 12:16 PM
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Our network is named "Howard Beale". We think this is pretty clever.


Posted by: Otto von Bisquick | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 12:18 PM
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You live next to Apo? (You know, while that thread doesn't have my first comment here ever, I think that's when I really got sucked in. Giving Ogged dating advice was fatal.)


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 12:19 PM
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13 to 11.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 12:19 PM
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Huh! Sparkle poop indeed.


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 12:20 PM
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Boy, I could totally do with fewer of those kinds of just-so stories, even the feminist ones.

Boy, do I hear you. I get that the feminist versions are trying to counter such nonsense as 'men invented language as a means of signalling to one another while out hunting big game,' but it's just nonsense countering nonsense, imho.


Posted by: Mary Catherine | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 12:28 PM
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I think that's when I really got sucked in. Giving Ogged dating advice was fatal.

Hmm, I'm not sure whether I first got sucked in by a pop music thread, or if it was getting unexpected positive feedback on a comment (which I can't find at the moment).


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 12:32 PM
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unexpected positive feedback

Yep, that was it for me. Ogged said something nice about my comment, and I was so flattered I'm still here. Is there an official diagnosis for over-the-top approval seeking behavior?


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 12:33 PM
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I remember my first joke here that got other people to comment that they laughed. Someone said something about how child porn was different than regular porn, and I said "Because of the stage moms?"

I gloated over that one, big-time.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 12:40 PM
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Is there an official diagnosis for over-the-top approval seeking behavior?

Leaving aside the question of in-group acceptance, etc . I imagine that it takes a specific personality type to be motivated by an environment in which one get's a compliment once and then goes months or years before getting a second one.

Perhaps it correlates with the use of the phrase "preen preen".


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 12:43 PM
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I want a thread in which people link to their favorite unfogged jokes. I chuckled over Apo's followup (#125) to this comment for far too long.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 12:47 PM
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Google tells me that I have commented on this before.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 12:50 PM
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Boy, I could totally do with fewer of those kinds of just-so stories, even the feminist ones.

In theory, evolutionary psychology could be a reasonable enterprise, but as practiced, it's all bullshit.

I'd like to have an open mind about it, but there's just too much nonsense that the field treats as respectable inquiry.

Perhaps it correlates with the use of the phrase "preen preen".

Isn't the canonical form of this "preen, preen, masturbate, preen"?


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 12:55 PM
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I imagine that it takes a specific personality type to be motivated by an environment in which one get's a compliment once and then goes months or years before getting a second one.

Well, there *are* a lot of grad students here...


Posted by: Josh | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 1:04 PM
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5: Then why were the malls back on the veldt always filled with kids who had wandered off with the wrong adults?


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 1:09 PM
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I was only a little bitter to be on the sideline

Put that baby in a sling and get out there, Heebie. It will toughen her up.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 1:12 PM
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I did go jogging for the first time last Thursday! My post-partem incontinence is no match for the bathrooms helpfully located throughout the park.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 1:16 PM
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26: After all, it's soccer -- it's not as if you're using your hands for anything other than holding the baby. I wouldn't play goalie, mind you.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 1:19 PM
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I guess. But Jammies usually does play goalie, so he'd have to play out on the field with her.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 1:24 PM
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Is there an official diagnosis for over-the-top approval seeking behavior?

According to Karen Horney, the indiscriminate need for affection and approval and the anxiety induced by a fear of the absence of such is a core component of the neurotic personality.

(See what I did there? Pretty clever, eh?)


Posted by: Populuxe | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 1:26 PM
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12 would be funnier if Otto lived here.

One of our neighbors has the wireless network GodIsLove. *shiver*


Posted by: Magpie | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 1:27 PM
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Having told my friends when I started reading here that it would probably take the rest of my thirties to become accepted (without telling them where here is, because I see enough of them elsewhere), I blogged somewhere, in March 2007:

Phase 1 of the infiltration complete, I think! Towards the end of a 150+ comment thread, in which I have not commented: I'm not very squeemish, but this anecdote is profoundly anti-Asilonian, in the sense that it takes my horn away. That's made my evening!

That was from IDP - lovely man, where is he? And I just looked to see, and the story in question was about an "orangutan jerking off, using large bowel movement as lube". Naturally.

(Breastfeeding kept my MIL away too, which was great.)


Posted by: asilon | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 1:29 PM
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We just changed broadband providers and C named our new WLAN 'The Wire'. Ha ha. Around us are FISH and evangelist, amongst others.


Posted by: asilon | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 1:30 PM
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He's drifted off -- I haven't 'seen' him for ages.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 1:31 PM
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Phase 1 of the infiltration complete, I think! Towards the end of a 150+ comment thread, in which I have not commented: I'm not very squeemish, but this anecdote is profoundly anti-Asilonian, in the sense that it takes my horn away. That's made my evening!

That was from IDP - lovely man, where is he? And I just looked to see, and the story in question was about an "orangutan jerking off, using large bowel movement as lube". Naturally.

I don't understand this comment. Asilon signifies totally horniness?


Posted by: will | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 1:34 PM
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'men invented language as a means of signalling to one another while out hunting big game,'

men invented language because we needed a way to talk about sports. Also, because we're so smart.


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 1:38 PM
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35 - to IDP, I guess! I'll try not to be insulted that it wasn't obvious to you, Will.


Posted by: asilon | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 1:45 PM
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||

Fucking citimortgage just called me to hassle me about making my payment. Which is due on the 15th*. Fuck you, I'll mail it on the 12th, just like I have for the last 96 months.

I'm so angry my hand is shaking.

* Standard mortgage thing, where it's "due" on the 1st but late fees commence on the 16th. When we signed our mortgage, the goddamn broker advised us that we shouldn't pay any earlier than necessary.

|>


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 1:45 PM
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One of our neighbors has the wireless network GodIsLove. *shiver*
Is GodIsLove password protected?


Posted by: mcmc | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 2:16 PM
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I think I love breastfeeding Heebie even more than pre-baby Heebie, if such a thing were possible.

(And yes, that kind of thing is so awesome. I'd forgotten.)


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 2:19 PM
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38: Oy. And it's that awful thing where someone's harassing you unjustifiably, but the person you're actually talking to and can yell isn't the one whose fault it is.

Citimortgage did that to us, once -- we might have been late, I can't remember -- but if we were it was a week, after a decade of on time payments. I just got stuck quizzing the guy "No, you can't possibly be calling about a payment that's a week late, something must be really wrong. Check the file and figure it out -- if something's fucked up, I need to know." He finally managed to satisfy me that no, they really really were hassling us about something that picayune, and I let him hang up.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 2:22 PM
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41: I was probably a bit short with the powerless person on the phone, but kept the words more or less polite: "After making 95 of 96 payments between the first and the fifteenth, I'm not interested in hearing on the eleventh that I'm late. Thank you."

After I hung up I was thinking that I could have mentioned bailouts, but that would have been gratuitous.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 2:32 PM
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40: At first I read that as you love to breastfeed Heebie, and I was trying to figure out the clever inside joke. Then I realized what you meant and was disappointed.


Posted by: Frostbite | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 2:38 PM
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Yeah! How come no one ever breastfeeds me anymore?


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 2:49 PM
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There's a wireless network on my block called mating-season. Mine's pretty unimaginative. I had an 802.11b network named krelboyne, and when I upgraded to 802.11g I kept the old one online to avoid running the new network in mixed mode (which is almost as slow as 802.11b is). So the new network was, and still is, Krelboyne Mark II. All the 802.11b devices have been retired, though, so the original network is no longer running either.


Posted by: fedward | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 2:53 PM
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Ours is called "linksys".


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 2:56 PM
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Our password is "GinoAlex".


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 2:56 PM
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We had to lock it after we got in trouble for illegally downloading Friday Night Lights, and then claiming that someone else must have done it, bumming off our open network. Those jerks.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 2:57 PM
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Our cats are named Gino and Alex.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 2:58 PM
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I just want everyone to be able to get online when you come to visit.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 2:58 PM
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So that we can talk, via the comment threads on Unfogged, from across the room.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:01 PM
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Which one is the psycho? Gino, or Alex? (I ask only because my mother had a dangerously unbalanced and hostile cat named Alan, and I'm wondering if a general rule can be deduced.)


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:01 PM
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It's the little things, like a mint on your pillow, that make the difference to guests.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:02 PM
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Alex! I smell a pattern.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:02 PM
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Just as long as we don't have to watch you breastfeeding. Awkward!


Posted by: fedward | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:02 PM
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53, 54: in this group house I used to live in we had a really insane cat named Lucifer. I don't know where he fits in.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:03 PM
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55: I demand that my guests gather round, as if for storytime, and watch me fixedly while I breastfeed. It's the little things that alienate your guests.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:04 PM
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My friend had a dog named Bitey, and my favorite thing was when people tried to ask if he was named Bitey because he was actually dangerous. My friend would say, patronizingly, "Well, he bites."


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:06 PM
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55 - you have to have a taste too. She'll insist. (Think Mrs Doyle out of Father Ted.)

46 - Linksys???? Either you've been faking the imagination or you have no neighbours.


Posted by: asilon | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:09 PM
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Actually our cat was named Lucifer before we really understood how bad he would be. Admittedly, the roommate who picked him out chose him because he was the one kitten in the box who bit her when she reached her hand in, but we didn't know the scale of his antisocial tendencies until later.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:10 PM
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Ours is SkyNet, because we are unimaginative dorks.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:11 PM
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Heebie, I see "linksys," but the password in 47 doesn't work.

Should I try "Alexgino"?


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:13 PM
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My AP is named for the BBS I ran in high school which, miraculously, somebody on the internet remembers.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:14 PM
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We named ours Pica, after our neighbors' dog. We don't really know our neighbors very well, but they yell at their dog ("No, Pica! No, Pica! Bad dog, Pica!") all day.


Posted by: jms | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:15 PM
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Our router lets you set the password, except that it remains the alphanumeric mess that's on a sticker on the back. I guess the password-setting is just sort of a little simulation of changing the settings. Whee!


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:16 PM
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Isn't pica the disease that makes people and animals eat non-food items? Does this belong on Standpipe's blog?


Posted by: A White Bear | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:16 PM
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I didn't know that. I think I belong on Standpipe's blog, where maybe I would understand something once in a while.


Posted by: jms | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:18 PM
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On the other hand, they may just be typographers.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:20 PM
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Pica is that disease! It's also the name of a typographic unit of measurement.


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:20 PM
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Pica. I only know because sometimes-commenter-here tonkelu's dog has it, which resulted in some pretty horrific events that are too gross to share.


Posted by: A White Bear | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:20 PM
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DAMN YOU.


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:20 PM
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Phew, just got that one in under the wire.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:20 PM
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I had a touch of the pica when I was a toddler, and ate dust out of corners of the floor, probably due to the iron deficiency I had. I think my parents just thought I was gross.


Posted by: A White Bear | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:23 PM
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I recently saw the documentary Helvetica. It came highly recommended by people who apparently have tons of patience for really boring documentaries. Don't operate heavy machinery while watching it.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:26 PM
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74: Yeah, I watched it too and found it far less impressive than I'd been led to believe it would be. I'm guessing that a particular obsession with NYT Style pages (design! is! everywhere!) mixed with a bizarre lack of previous awareness of fonts would make the perfect Helvetica viewer.


Posted by: A White Bear | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:29 PM
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Linksys???? Either you've been faking the imagination or you have no neighbours.

Hey now, maybe heebie's router is made by D-Link, and she just chose that SSID because she wanted to convey to the neighbors her passion for the linking together of systems.


Posted by: Otto von Bisquick | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:34 PM
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I'm guessing that a particular obsession with NYT Style pages (design! is! everywhere!) mixed with a bizarre lack of previous awareness of fonts would make the perfect Helvetica viewer.

Hmmm, I have the "bizarre lack of previous awareness of fonts" but no general obsession with design. But I do have a general affection for modernist aesthetics.

So I'm probably a good, but not perfect viewer for helvetica.

I liked it, but would describe it as a relatively good lecture with accompanying slide-show.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:34 PM
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61 - I like SkyNet.


Posted by: asilon | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:35 PM
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Mine is RussNet, which is not at all imaginative.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:35 PM
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79 - Proprietorial, too.

So how many other networks can you see? I've got 8 here currently, including us. Evangelist, FISH, ajh and 4 with no imagination. I know there's another gibberish one - ssurajz or similar - too. Don't remember any other regulars.


Posted by: asilon | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:45 PM
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75: Blume loved it, and doesn't fit those categories at all, so.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:46 PM
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Our network is named after our cat, who is named in honor of Mr. Belvedere.


Posted by: Bave Dee | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:47 PM
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80: "not yours" and "StudMuffin" are the only entertaining ones I'm getting right now. The rest are names, inexplicable strings, or something else boring.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:49 PM
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80: Right now I see four including mine. I live in a basement apartment, though, and if I go outside I can pick up at least a half dozen more.


Posted by: fedward | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:56 PM
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Uh, as a design professional who has also done layout & editing, I really enjoyed Helvetica. I thought it was interesting and well-presented, and that the people interviewed were themselves passionate, informed, and opinionated, which is [almost] always interesting.

I would not, however, claim that it's exciting. So there's that.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 3:58 PM
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I'll try not to be insulted that it wasn't obvious to you, Will.

Oh please. My screensaver is a picture of asilon flicking off the camera.


Posted by: will | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 4:00 PM
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I'm guessing that a particular obsession with NYT Style pages (design! is! everywhere!) mixed with a bizarre lack of previous awareness of fonts would make the perfect Helvetica viewer.

I would posit that there is another type of perfect Helvetica viewer at the opposite extreme of design-knowledge. The film is probably a different thing when you're all cracking up, say, because Er/k Spiek/rmann is being snotty in a way that's so very typical of him.


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 4:01 PM
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I am not surprised that our neighbors don't seem to have wireless. Actually, on one side, our neighbors actually live in Houston, and call this their "vacation house" and come out for weekends to tube the river. Anyway, I'm not picking up any other networks.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 4:02 PM
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Ah! Partially JRoth-pwned. But I've met Spiek/rmann! (The Berlin connection.)


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 4:02 PM
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Currently visible other than our own network: "OneCommunityPublic"(ho hum) and "hail_eris".


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 4:03 PM
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I'm really bad at watching movies in general. I didn't hold it against Helvetica.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 4:03 PM
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our network is Spanish Pipedream. (John Prine song)


Posted by: will | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 4:04 PM
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There are 16 to 22 networks showing up here off and on. RussWig, Pacman Jones, and Nickmatic could belong to commenters (and a former commenter) here.


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 4:05 PM
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Ours is "Numbat Heaven".

It seems wrong, somehow, that "hail_eris" is password-protected.


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 4:05 PM
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The Helvetica director's film about Moog (yes, the synthesizer guy) is good too.


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 4:10 PM
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95: I've seen that one! It is good. The interviews with Brian Wilson are wild.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 4:14 PM
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Or maybe I'm just simultaneously obsessed with Sasha Frere-Jones's column (synthesizers! are! everywhere!) yet have a bizarre lack of previous awareness of voltage controlled oscillators.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 4:15 PM
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My wireless is "Apple Network f127c3", or some similar hexadecimal string. I never saw any reason to change the default.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 4:25 PM
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The one person I know who is seriously into fonts and design adored Helvetica, so I guess he's in the Blume camp.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 4:27 PM
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It seems wrong, somehow, that "hail_eris" is password-protected.

The password is only available to those chosen by a prince slumming as a shepherd.

In an ideal world, Iris would have a frienemy named Eris.

And a cousin named Athena who would visit and kick Eris' smarmy little ass.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 4:42 PM
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BTW, I think you should totally get smug about your period. "My body is an ongoing miracle of fertility. Jack off into a napkin lately?"


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 4:43 PM
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In light of 85 and 89, 99 says something about the nature of pwnage.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 4:44 PM
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I've been wanting to design my own synthesizer recently. That would be a fun project.


Posted by: paranoid android | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 4:47 PM
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See also.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 4:50 PM
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39: shibboleth?


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 4:54 PM
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it's "due" on the 1st but late fees commence on the 16th. When we signed our mortgage, the goddamn broker advised us that we shouldn't pay any earlier than necessary.

omg. I have to look into when our mortgage starts having late fees. It never occurred to me not to pay bang on the first, and Mr. B. is a total stickler about it, but if I can pay later that might be useful knowledge.

I demand that my guests gather round, as if for storytime, and watch me fixedly while I breastfeed.

Hey, I'm game.


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 6:34 PM
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106: Paying before the late fee is like paying your taxes early, or filing for a refund late - giving up interest for no benefit to yourself.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 6:44 PM
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Yeah, that just sort of dawned on me. What can I say, I'm an inveterate Good Girl with terrible money skills. Duh.


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 6:47 PM
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Most interesting network name I can pick up: "The Cucumber Slice is Nice." Ours is just "Box"


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 6:52 PM
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Interest? Where do people have their money that they gain appreciable interest in a 14-day period? Granted, I have very little money, but I'm genuinely curious.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 6:54 PM
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I occasionally see a network called "infectyouwithavirus".


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 6:55 PM
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14 days times 12 = 168 per year of interest.


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 6:56 PM
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Since parenting is mostly a journey of self-discovery, I was wondering if Heebie learned the same thing about herself that I learned about myself in the first two weeks of parenthood: the only songs I know the lyrics to are about sex (or at best, romantic love). Rather than learn any new songs, I would just make up new lyrics when singing. The only one I remember is "Sea of Pudding".

I now know the lyrics to "I'm a Little Teapot", so I now can simulate normal parenthood acceptably.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 6:57 PM
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168 days, that is, which is almost half a year.


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 6:57 PM
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For the first two years I lived in this apartment there was a network named "audrey" that was never password protected. Then suddenly one day it was. Over the next few months, a few new networks popped up with names like "cmon audrey" and "audrey why'd you go secure".


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 6:57 PM
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That's why I don't bother- to keep it in an interest bearing account (currently 1.5%!!!!) I'd have to set up a regular transfer that takes 3-5 days to clear (depending on where the weekend falls) so you're talking about 60 cents a month.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 6:59 PM
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"audrey how come you don't put out no more"


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 6:59 PM
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113: "Sea of Love" is too racy for newborns? Or is there a song out there titled something like "Sea of Cum" that I'm unaware of?


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 6:59 PM
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114: True enough. I guess the money is not in a checking account, or there's a decent amount of the money. I do need to pay more attention to these things.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 7:00 PM
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An older, wealthier woman was recently giving me grief that I pay my rent before the very day that it's due. I explained to her that I don't have interest checking, so it doesn't matter. She gave me grief that I don't have interest checking. I informed her that I do not have $5000 to sit around maintaining a required minimum balance in a checking account.


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 7:01 PM
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120: Did she take pity on you and offer you some leftovers from her luncheon banquet? Or some money if you'd sweep the scullery stairs?

By the way, my Credit Union only requires a $100 minimum balance in my checking account.


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 7:04 PM
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When I was in college one of the neighboring networks was called "Hooray For Beer!" (Password-protected, unfortunately.) I also remember a "NotYours" network, but I forget if it was from the same period.

Our network here is called "CHACO"; there are no others.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 7:08 PM
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121: Does the Credit Union have a decent interest rate on a checking account? Because my thinking is more along the lines of SP's in 116.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 7:10 PM
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121a: She had actually just bought me lunch at the time, so no complaints about her generosity. Just a little light fun-poking at her obliviousness.


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 7:14 PM
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123: Nobody is getting any interest on anything short term. At least not in dollars.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 7:16 PM
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125: Right. How do you pay your mortgage (or rent) if not from a checking account? I may be missing something. But if from a checking account, you're not gaining much of anything by holding off payment.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 7:19 PM
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107

Paying before the late fee is like paying your taxes early, or filing for a refund late - giving up interest for no benefit to yourself.

I used to think like this and then I got nailed for a 10% property tax late fee which I figure put me behind overall.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 7:21 PM
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110: For the record, nowhere for us personally. But it does represent liquidity, which is valuable in and of itself. Not to mention, you know, FUCK citimortgage. I'll hold on to their money out of spite - that's my interest.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 7:21 PM
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126: My mortgage is due the first and has a late fee that kicks in on the 14th. I pay it on the 2nd or so because I get paid on the first and that gives me time to fix things if I see the check hasn't gone through.

That said, if I delayed a week or so and the bank called me, I'd assume my bank was in trouble.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 7:23 PM
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128: For the longest time, I tried to spite the water company by paying like 2 or 3 cents too much every month.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 7:25 PM
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127: There's no question that failing to pay early bears risks. But it's just that - paying early. If you paid every bill the day you received it (which is typically ~2 weeks, similar to the spread we're talking about here), you're looking at thousands of dollars a month being shifted by 2 weeks, and you're back to the ~half year that M/tch noted.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 7:25 PM
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I understand 128 completely.

Still, though, I appreciate the discussion if only because I should stop letting people hold my money for longer than they should. I dislike thinking in these terms, but it's probably dumb for me to be so casual about it.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 7:28 PM
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Here's a more maddening Fuck You Bank story- we just refinanced, and the bank (local bank who certainly knows the local tax laws) calculated our property tax escrow using the full amount rather than the residential exemption amount, so we're overpaying our mortgage + taxes each month by about $200. Since it's in escrow we'll get it back when they recalculate the minimum required balance on the account, but they refuse to do it before a year has passed on the mortgage. With the prepaid escrow balance, it's an almost-interest free (escrow accounts get ~0.2%) $2500 loan to them.
That, and their closing attorney screwed us out of $900 which he keeps saying is ours (I have it in writing) but has been saying for 3 months that the check is sitting on his desk and he's just waiting for permission to send it.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 7:41 PM
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There's a great way to avoid paying the IRS early - owe taxes! But what other people said about the total lack of interest checking and the high risk/reward ratio. We're talking about numbers in the range of six months of 1.5% interest on $2000, which is fifteen bucks per year. For that money, there's no point to the mental or emotional overhead of not paying bills right when they come in (or the next natural payment moment thereafter).


Posted by: Nathan Williams | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 7:46 PM
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133: When the bank does send the refund, it will be sent to your office in an envelope bearing the return address of ACME Tentacle Porn Corporation.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 7:55 PM
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How did you know the name of my bank?


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 8:01 PM
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I am your bank.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 8:03 PM
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ACME Tentacle Porn Corporation.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 8:15 PM
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There's a great way to avoid paying the IRS early - owe taxes!

But if you owe too many, you'll get hit with a fine for not paying estimated taxes won't you?


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 8:27 PM
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139: If you could possibly owe enough to get hit with a big fine, you'd have an accountant.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 8:31 PM
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Anyway, this guy told me I didn't have to pay income tax because the 16th amendment isn't valid because Ohio wasn't technically a state until 2003.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 8:38 PM
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that I learned about myself in the first two weeks of parenthood: the only songs I know the lyrics to are about sex (or at best, romantic love)

I also had a limited repertoire, since I like singing maudlin country songs and Leonard Cohen and such, so I often re-purposed romantic tunes like "They Say It's Spring", "It Might As Well Be Spring" (it was spring during their early infancy) and "C'est Si Bon". Yesterday I heard "Songbird" (the Christine McVie/Fleetwood Mac song) for the first time in years and regretted not remembering it back then, because it's kind of gauzy and drippy as a love song, but it would make an awesome lullaby.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 8:40 PM
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128 gets it exactly right. But, I mean, you don't need an interest-bearing checking account; you just need a regular old savings account, and then you transfer the money into checking on the day you write the check. That can't be that difficult to remember, even for me.

Re. singing to babies, when PK was a little one I realized that the lyrics to "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" work surprisingly well when sung to a baby boy, except that one line about being oversexed.



Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 9:02 PM
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GODDAMN POST KEY.


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 9:03 PM
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BUTTON.


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 9:03 PM
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We get it, B.

I used to know someone who used "Miss Otis Regrets" as his kids' bedtime lullaby.


Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 9:04 PM
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bitchphd's double-posting goes to 11.


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 9:05 PM
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this guy told me I didn't have to pay income tax because

Sadly, PK's teacher--who I like very much indeed and consider a friend--told me the same thing, but for different reasons. Because I like him, I wasn't guarded enough to disguise my reaction; because he likes me, he wasn't offended.


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 9:07 PM
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BitchPhD is the Nadya Suleyman of double-posters.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 9:07 PM
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142: The first song my daughter learned to sing was "Bird on a Wire". She liked to make up her own "like an X on a Y" lyrics, though.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 9:08 PM
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"I like you, but please don't shit on my desk again."


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 9:08 PM
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146: Yeah, I dunno why but Cole Porter tunes make great lullabies.

I spent a lot of time making up lyrics to "mockingbird," too, because it can just be sung on and on and on and on as long as you can keep thinking of rhyme words. Also, for god knows what reason, PK liked "danny boy," which really defies my range. But babies, what do they know.


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 9:09 PM
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I may double post like a motherfucker, but at least I know the secret keyword to clean up my mess


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 9:10 PM
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141: the 16th amendment isn't valid because Ohio wasn't technically a state until 2003.

He was undoubtedly referring to the following:

Congress recognized the state of Ohio on February 19, 1803, but no formal date of statehood was set by the act of admission or a later resolution, as occurred with all other new states. On August 7, 1953, Congress passed a law retroactively setting the date of Ohio's statehood at March 1, 1803, the date when Ohio's first legislature convened.

Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 9:10 PM
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The favorite in my limited repertoire was John Prine's "Paradise".


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 9:12 PM
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151: I can't tell you how many times I've heard that.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 9:14 PM
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154: Oops. I have to go write a big check.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 9:14 PM
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156: Dude's gotta clear his throat.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 9:17 PM
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152: I used to make-up lines for "mockingbird." Now I get yelled at if I sing the wrong words to anything. I have to stop myself from shouting, "Do you want ice cream ever again or do you want to let me finish Old MacDonald my way."


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 9:18 PM
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159: "Dad, for the last time, Old MacDonald did NOT have any cyborg zombie carebears!"


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 9:22 PM
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I get yelled at for singing, period. Little ingrate.


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 9:23 PM
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If I ever get that, I'll know my son isn't tone-deaf.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 9:30 PM
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139

But if you owe too many, you'll get hit with a fine for not paying estimated taxes won't you?

Yes, although the fine is basically just interest. But a real pain to compute.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 9:43 PM
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Also, for god knows what reason, PK liked "danny boy," which really defies my range.

It sounds good on the harmonica, and isn't hard to learn. Try that instead, all you budding lullabyists.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 9:44 PM
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165: I think the vibraphone might also be a good alternative.


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 9:46 PM
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165: Talking to yourself again?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 05-11-09 9:52 PM
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86 - mine is that photo of you friend's nice arse.


Posted by: asilon | Link to this comment | 05-12-09 1:43 AM
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your, goddamnit


Posted by: asilon | Link to this comment | 05-12-09 1:44 AM
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In the UK, mortgage repayments are (in most cases) applied to the account as soon as they are received by the lender. So here it's better to pay as soon as possible -- instead of earning 0.5% or less in your current (i.e. checking) account the funds are avoiding 5% or more of mortgage interest.


Posted by: gdr | Link to this comment | 05-12-09 2:23 AM
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Base rate is way below 5%, but still higher than most interest paid, which is pitiful atm.

And I can never quite believe all these people sending off cheques to pay bills. Seems so archaic.


Posted by: asilon | Link to this comment | 05-12-09 4:05 AM
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As someone once said: "Unfogged, born to pay full price, with a check".


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 05-12-09 4:59 AM
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My kids' favorite lullaby was the Pogues' Lorelei. I can recommend it -- the words are fairly incomprehensible, and it's easy to sing.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-12-09 5:28 AM
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||

Ryan North channels Emerson (briefly).

|>


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 05-12-09 5:35 AM
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171: "full price with interest"


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 05-12-09 6:09 AM
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I got in trouble once for singing The Threepenny Opera to an infant I was trying to put to sleep. It was all I could come up with on short notice, but the mother somehow objected to the lyrics.


Posted by: Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 05-12-09 6:19 AM
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mine is that photo of you friend's nice arse.

With her www.wetasoctober.com shirt on?

Yes, she does have a great booty.


Posted by: will | Link to this comment | 05-12-09 8:10 AM
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And I can never quite believe all these people sending off cheques to pay bills. Seems so archaic.

Fucking citimortgage will only let me pay online if I do it before the 1st.

I think it's actually the last bill I pay with a check.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-12-09 9:07 AM
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I used to make-up lines for "mockingbird."

When Iris was little I would go with the Bo Diddley version. Then we got a super-great board book by Sylvia Long with alternate lyrics that are really, really good ("If that lightning bug won't glow, Mama's gonna play on her old banjo"), so I went with those.

I get yelled at for singing, period.

Iris used to scold us for singing - we assume because we're terrible singers. But Kai likes it a lot. AB studied the lyrics to "Glowworm" for him.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 05-12-09 9:14 AM
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"When you're lost in the rain in Juarez and it's Eastertime too...." was my cradle song. Also "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen".


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 05-12-09 9:43 AM
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I just discovered my daughter knows the words to "Bubbly" by Colbie Caillat. This probably proves that I'm a bad parent.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 05-12-09 6:50 PM
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Noah likes to sing "Raise Up" by Petey Pablo.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 05-12-09 6:57 PM
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