166 thoughts on “A Rabble in Memes”

  2. That last one sounds totally implausible. Don’t try this in a book. No one would believe it.

  3. Waitjustadamnminute. People go to bed and actually just” go to sleep like that? They don’t spontaneously and randomly fall unconscious in the middle of plotting an only slightly ridiculous plot point that only fails the reality test because magic isn’t a thing?

    I have doubts. “Refreshed” sounds like marketing hype, too. I mean, coffee does that.

    I miss coffee.

      1. If coffee were any good, you would not be trying to palm it off on those of us who don’t like it.

        1. The Reader spies another alien. Does Sarah know you all are monitoring her blog?

          2. I’m also of the other tribe. I just don’t get the attraction of coffee. Except as a small favor enhancement of chocolate.

        2. I’m the same. Very sensitive sense of smell and never fell for the smell of coffee (I don’t hate it, but it’s not appetizing either.) So when I don’t like the smell, why would I like the taste?

          I will, on occasion, go for chai. Regular hot-brewed tea tastes mostly like, well, boiled plants.

        1. There those that prefer tea. And some that like certain soda-pop. And then there are those that actually manage to get by without caffeine. Humans are… varied.

              1. Coffee, tea, assorted Cola/Pepper sodas, various “energy” drinks – starting with Jolt (decidedly NOT something one drank for flavor)… can’t say I’m impressed by Red Bull either. Though energy drinks are few and far between now. Coffee is almost daily, but the bulk of caffeine-containing fluid is, nowanights, green tea.

                1. Back in the late 80’s early 90’s there was a developer at DEC workstations in Palo Alto whose nickname was Jolt because he lived on that stuff. Second skinniest guy I ever met. Not a bad programmer either though conversations with him could be a bit like talking with a toddler on a sugar high.

                2. The loaders for our movers (circa ’03) drank a bunch of Red Bull, but the smell reminded me of some long-detested bubble gum. I’ve ignored the others, too.

                  Morning, coffee, with the first cuppa mixed with home made cocoa (tweaked from an Alton Brown recipe), followed by 1 or 2 more (depending on the size of the cup). When I was working and had to use an alarm clock, I sort of wished for an IV of coffee. Retirement is a good thing. 🙂

                  Barring fountain soda when I’m in town (weekly), no caffeine at lunch.

                  Evening is a cup of Just Plain Tea or green, alternating daily.

          2. You do not want to be locked in a room with me when I’m high on caffeine. On the other hand, give me 1 IB and I’ll pass out and sleep through the night.

            Probably not a good idea to combine the two.

    3. I somehow made it through Engineering School not drinking coffee, never really liked the taste, and went well into my 50s before I tried it again and enjoyed it. Now I’m a full convert.

      Looking back no doubt my university GPA would have benefited from more caffeine – well, that and understanding the fact that I aced the AP English exam and tested out of all the lower division English courses in which I would have nailed A’s did a number on my average.

      1. I too made it until early/mid-’20s before I could stand coffee. Someone put half&half in it (not cream, will use cream if half&half not available). Now I am a 3 cup a day, minimum. But must have half&half or cream. No creamers. Not black. (Translation – no cream, no coffee.)

        Full disclosure. When hubby sees me put half&half in my coffee “Do you like a little coffee with your cream?” Not quite that bad, there is more coffee than cream, honest. I don’t even like iced coffee or coffee that is only warm. Coffee is suppose to be hot. But my coffee is more of a cream tan than black, this is true.

        1. Worked with a guy from some South/Central American country (I’ve forgotten which.)

          He would come in in the morning, get out his 2-cup mug, fill it half with sugar (yes, actually a full cup of sugar), add half and half to partly dissolve, and then pour in a little coffee for color, I guess.

        2. And I was just the opposite. My dad (a serious coffee fanatic if I ever met one) started me with sugar cubes with coffee in them at 5-6. By 10 I had coffee after dinner out like he did. Through most of junior high and high school I would reheat the coffee he had made to go off in his thermos to third shift to have a cup (or two before catching the bus/riding to school. I will drink coffee almost any way except black with sugar. For some reason I just can’t stomach that. Oh and I do not like “flavored” coffees. My feeling on this is like peoples various sexual proclivities. Do what you want, just don’t force me to do it or tell me about it. What you do in the privacy of your coffee cup is between you and your barista.

          1. I do not like “flavored” coffees.
            ……………

            Yuk is right.

            What you do in the privacy of your coffee cup is between you and your barista.
            …………………….

            Yep.

      2. My husband hates coffee. He will sometimes, under duress, like when he has a cold, drink tea.
        Look, I did my best to corrupt him. He now has a glass of wine on special occasions and has been known to swear, in a very mild fashion.
        No, he wasn’t raised LDS. Go figure.

      3. The Reader is in awe. He would have never made it through his EE without his trusty aluminum percolator, crappy coffee and cheap hotplate.

      1. Oh, all of you sweet sweet dear summer children and your dribbles of caffeine. 😉

        I have strong Irish tea, coffee as black as Satan’s bowels, multiple energy drinks, and a hell of a lot of hatred to get me through one day.

          1. Tea works well with scotch, too. Un-peated better than peated – imagine Lapsang Souchong with a splash of Octomore …

            Somehow coffee and scotch mixed is not so pleasant.

          2. It’s a blend, like Scottish tea. The Scottish tea I tried was, “malty,” the Irish very strong.
            But maybe he augments it. It would be interesting. Come to think of it, “Irish,” is one way I’ve drunk coffee.

            1. No, no, Tea is Tea. Maybe occasionally a little lemon or honey.

              The mountain tea, tho’, is very strong, and a very good liniment. Unfortunately I wasn’t bale to bring any back from Inis Mór… 😦

        2. There was an evening when I did a half liter mug of strong Darjeeling* and started to do some fiddly work project from home. One of the operators called around 11PM, and it was clear to me that since sleep was not an option, I could drive to work (20 miles, sigh) and fix the problem. Got home and continued the fiddly stuff. Not sure when I stopped vibrating.

          $SPOUSE does the briefest dip for evening tea. I leave the tea bag in the mug until the tea is cool enough to drink. (She knows how to do a proper brew courtesy Left Coast Canada birth and heritage, but Lipton is affordable and fast, and their green tea is also decent.) I haven’t gotten out the weapons grade tea leaves in ages.

          ((*)) Yes, it was strong tea. Had to fight to get it into the mug. 🙂

          1. Earl Grey, honey, no milk, no cream. The best is fresh leaves in a tea ball, but that is so hard to find, the bags work.

            1. I think it dates back to my childhood, but I cannot drink tea with sugar in it. I used to get sweetened tea when I was sick, and for some reason*, I got sick a lot in school. (Much better in college, and almost nil now, barring KungFlu in ’20 and ordinary Flu last winter. (Not sure I ever had regular flu before.)

              ((*)) I gather classrooms are great incubators for virii and bacterial crud.

              1. If you feed me coffee, you can hook up an antenna to me, ’cause I’m gonna transmit. Then puke. Can’t drink it. Yet I can and do enjoy chocolate covered coffee beans, and red eye gravy. Go figure.

                Tea and I are fast friends. Interestingly, the amount of caffeine in tea does not seem to have an affect on me. I just drink it because I love it.

                My aunt put me off sweet tea forever. She served a little tea in her iced sugar water. Shudder. No tea flavor at all, just sugar.

                Have never tried an energy drink. That just sounds wrong (and too full of sugar).

                1. My Cajun in-laws make sweet tea so thick you can slice it.
                  Not a fan, generally, but a quick nibble does seem to take the heat out of the etouffe.

          2. When it tries to crawl out of the French press…
            (I discovered Taylor’s of Harrodgate a while back. Pricey, but I tend to stock up when It’s on sale).

            1. Try any of the the TJMax chain, if they’re down by you. They often have it cheap. I really like the straight up Yorkshire. Loose for a preference, but they’re all good.

              be sure to use a teapot.

          3. You might check out BritishTea dot com for a wide variety of excellent loose leaf teas (also tea bags). Their website includes information about the different tea-growing regions, and often descriptions of the various estate teas.

            As for being expensive, $42/pound for a top notch Ceylon tea like Kenmare, for example, may sound very pricey, but at the recommended 2-3 grams loose tea per 8 ounce cup, it makes 150-200 cups at less than 30¢ each. 😉

      2. raises paw Tea drinker. I can do coffee if it has milk/cream and sweetener in it. Otherwise it is too bitter, with a very, very few exceptions.

            1. That’s survival, albeit in an altered state. Surely we’re broad-minded enough here to handle ghosts as long as they can comment and are reasonable about what they say.

        2. Of course. When the Burmese pony had a seizure (the fit hit the shan), he wasn’t in withdrawal due to a sudden lack of stimulant/depressant. In that way, it’s a survival advantage.

        3. Thrived. Usually awakend ready to take on the Universe.

          Was once ordered to go see the Chaplain, to ensure nothing infernal was involved.

          Lol.

          Order a couple of bottles of Grape Nihi in a Dive bar. (Long record scratch noise) Or Cokes if I wanted “stronger stuff”. Very rarely, demonstrate why “leave one capped”. (Doesnt bust in your hand when you club someone with it. Empties break.)

    1. I mean, Texas used to go up to about Cheyenne, everything between the Rio Grande and the Arkansas Rivers then up to the northern claim limit of Spanish Mexico, so there’s the whole historical ancestral land thing so popular these days in certain reclaim-the-glorious-past irredentist circles*.

      Before the CA Gold Rush in 1849 they could have added a strip from there out to the Pacific with a little concerted effort.

      But these days I doubt they would really want anything much north of around Denver. They live that far south on purpose.

      —
      * Only related to the joke comparison: Writing this it just struck me how much Vlad the Shirtless speeches and his governments positions are basically recycled Mussolini stuff from the late 20s and 30s. Glorious past is our birthright, we’re really superior donchaknow, restoring the symbols of the empire without any underlying substance. I’m waiting for everything within the state, nothing outside the state. I’ve been mentally classing him as Adolfish but he’s really very Benitoish.

    3. The southernmost strip of counties in MN would be likely to join in, too. Seems much of the rest of MN keeps forgetting they exist… until they want something.

    4. I’m just thrilled that they’re apparently planning to annex Colorado rather than just abandoning us to Californiastan.

  6. To avoid interrupting the enjoyment of memes in this post, I posted something off-topic (me asking for advice) as the last comment of the previous post, if anyone cares to check it out. Thank you.

    3. Posted an answer over there. Dang it, forgot something! Check it in a few minutes, please.

      Also sending out a prayer, for whatever it’s worth from an agnostic…

      1. Matter of fact, I don’t drink coffee or stimulants for religious reasons. I’ve never had coffee, so I couldn’t say whether I like it or not . . . though I don’t particularly like the smell.

        1. Yeah . . . I have never eaten tiramisu. Perhaps I’m missing out, but there are chocolate or fruit desserts enough in the world without trying one that involves coffee.

        1. Oh, you don’t need the GOOD vodka for that.

          Granted, using vodka that is better than a couple I’ve the misfortune to sample is good idea. Those? So bad I wouldn’t use it to clean tape machine heads.

      2. I wish I could laugh that off, but my brother literally dumpster dives for (canned or otherwise sealed) food, which I do, on occasion, eat.

  8. Just a few thoughts:

    “On average the typical American has one testicle and one ovary.”

    The Ghostbusters would be deployed to Chicago first.

    Shouldn’t the ‘banning stoves’ one feature whatever poor woman is married to Gruesom?

    People are being banned from thinking, and the imbeciles are still Offended.

    And, good trigger discipline in the American Family!

    (Oops, 2 different versions of ‘Texas calls for aid’)

    4. Ghostbusters to Chicago? Movie idea!

      Ghostbusters: Voter Integrity or Voter Suppression?

      1. Somewhere in my drafts pile is story where the dead have started making policy demands in exchange for their votes. This leads to counter-protesters demanding “No representation without respiration!”, which of course is roundly condemned as Vitalist.

        2. I want to see an April Fools short story about Monster Hunter International being called in to deal with hordes of angry dead voters in Chicago. 😀

          “All those dead voters have risen from their graves and they’re pissed!”

          How about a voting map meme that shows an entire state solid red, except the cemeteries which are hard blue?

    5. In California, the “ban gas stoves stuff” has, iirc, been limited to certain cities. My recollection is that the state as a whole hasn’t started doing anything. On the other hand, we’ve got Biden’s EPA actively “suggesting” new rules to do away with them across the entire country.

                    1. Bob has a lovely bunch of coconuts
                      Mary has a lovely bunch of coconuts
                      Mort has a snickers
                      Be like Mort
                      That is all

          2. The Reader believes the entire comments section exists to confuse the Fred. And the computers in the funny building at the intersection of I295 and Rt 32 north of DC.

            1. The possibility that there exists, somewhere in the dank bowels of bureaucratic basements, an entity that is paid, W2s and all, to actually read and even moreso analyze the comments section of quite literally any blog upon the wild and wooly and questionable intellect frontier of the interwebz is a source of not small mirth to me.

            3. The purposes of the comment section are overdetermined. There are more reasons for it than are sufficient to justify it.

  10. I mean, given Christ was a Carpenter, I expect the next words would be “Do you need a hand?”

    To which the response should always be, “Sorry… Yes.”

      1. Actually, I couldn’t remember what handle I had used.
        Shoot me an e-mail with what it was and I will in turn
        send you a meme you can use at your leisure. BTW
        thank you for keeping track of this stuff because
        I sure can’t.

              1. A link to your PC desktop won’t work. Have to upload to a public location and link it from there.

                Others on the forum can tell you better what needs to be done. Best I can do is give Sarah links to uploaded stuff on my Facebook page. That works because Sarah has access to those links since she is an acknowledged FB Friend.

                Not Sarah doing this. It is WP.

              2. You are linking to a file on your PC. No one should have access there.

                You need someplace web and public to host it for that.

      1. Doesn’t help me that, occasionally, I KNOW right where I left it, and I am right – but a family member came along, “Oh, that’s just what I need for what I’m doing.”

        I’ve learned to go asking around, unless I’m the ONLY one home, or we’re both working on the same thing. (Son and I just finished fixing the bathtub/shower valve. Just finished cleaning up a few minutes ago.)

        1. $SPOUSE told me about her father “losing” screwdrivers, while her mother denied having anything to do with it. It seems that after he died, MIL found a whole bunch of screwdrivers where she left them. (Sewing room, kitchen, and so on…) Oops.

      2. I spent a couple of hours looking for a shop-made T-nut for my lathe and could not find it. I had cleared off my biggest workbench/clutter collector to put a decent surface on it, and Things Went Various Places. Half convinced myself I never made it. (Done several years ago. Cleaning the bench was instructive. “I did that? Why?”)

        Then I glanced at the lathe this afternoon, and the not-so imaginary T-nut was sitting nicely in the slot for the tool post.

        Part of redoing the bench is making labels for small parts and fasteners. I realized I need to come up with an index so I don’t have to spend way too much time looking for the drawer with the creative name

        1. I couldn’t find the hammer or the square. I had them the day before. I looked everywhere, even in the toolbox.

          Found them this morning. Hammer is the same color as the coat it was sitting on. Square had turned sideways so I was looking at it edge on.

  13. A lot of good ones today.
    I liked the laundry one. And I think we may go back to that if they screw up washing machines any more with their water conservation and saving the climate crap.

    2. There is one of those work arounds’ there, buy old and refurbish and sell to people who know. In most cases used private sales are exempt from conservation schemes. Any body know where I can buy a full sized toilet tank? You end up flushing twice to three times as much as before which defeats the purpose of having a smaller tank. And another one, why haven’t any of those MENSA’s out there thought of a way to make cheap pet toilets? C’mon people it is the 21st century, not asking for rocket science.

      2. You end up flushing twice to three times as much as before which defeats the purpose of having a smaller tank.
        …………………….

        We are going to have to redo our bathrooms too. Luckily the toilets we have are still in good shape. The contractors can’t put them back in but we could.

        And another one, why haven’t any of those MENSA’s out there thought of a way to make cheap pet toilets? C’mon people it is the 21st century, not asking for rocket science.
        …………………….

        I know! Right?

        1. Got that one on the back window, along with “My Boss is a Jewish Carpenter”, “I Will NOT Comply” and “We the People…Have Had ENOUGH”.
          Yeah, I know; a bit eclectic. Sue me. 🙂

      4. For what it’s worth, the “comfort” toilets (with the seat several inches higher than the bog-standard ones) do flush better. As $SPOUSE’s and my knees started complaining about the age/mileage, the higher position is just easier on the body. And, it flushes damned well. (American Standard Champion. One is a 1.6 gpf, the other/newer one a 1.28, and both work well. )

        Not cheap, but a) they work, and b) (tempting Murphy) don’t seem to have the leaks conventional toilet flapper valves develop. I’m not sure when we got either, but both were in use in spring 2016 when we redid floors. Beyond the parts to re-set the toilets, they haven’t needed repair.

    3. Watched a YT vid last night on the new LG all-in-one washer-dryer with heat pump, which only took FOUR HOURS to wash and dry what I considered a not huge load.

      FOUR HOURS.

      Ooh it had a couple towels in it.

      I mean, Yeesh.

      3. We had an LG towerless top loading machine. Eventually it developed the squeak from hell, and the only fix was to replace the transmission. (There was a temporary fix of tightening a central bolt–that lasted a few weeks.) Drove the dogs nuts.

        We now have a front loader, an Electrolux. A basic load (medium full, cold water wash) takes 47 minutes, though $SPOUSE will do an additional rinse & spin for another 12 minutes. It has far more features than we use, but It. Just. Works. The dryer is a Speed Queen, basic as all get out.

        If memory serves, the E-lux was made in Canada.

    4. And immediately thereafter, the old stuff you could fix with any decent machine shop will come back in style. Second washing machine we had did not die to mechanical or electrical failure (those are fixable) but to metal fatigue.

    1. Move (almost) everything east of the Cascades to Greater Texas and there would be a bunch of happy people. (Bend and Spokane might be lost causes.)

  18. The “I’m still going to the pub” one reminds me of a Russian proverb: “The church is near but the way is icy; the bar is far but I will walk carefully.”

  20. I do believe the ‘I am still going to the Pub’ one is me. But only if the pub has darts.

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