Bar Tabs And Tokens Of Esteem
Yes, it’s time to remind patrons that this rickety barge is kept afloat by the kindness of strangers. If you’d like to help it remain buoyant a while longer, and remain ad-free, there are shiny buttons below the fold with which to monetise any love. Debit and credit cards are accepted.
If one-click haste is called for, there’s a QR code in the sidebar, at which you point your phone, and my PayPal.Me page can be found here. As requested, I’ve added SubscribeStar and Ko-Fi accounts, via which love may also be monetised, whether as one-off donations or monthly subscriptions.
Additionally, any Amazon UK shopping done via this link, or for Amazon US via this link, or via the buttons in the sidebar, results in a small fee for your host at no extra cost to you. Feel free to buy things wildly and in bulk.
For newcomers wishing to know more about what’s been going on here for the last sixteen years, in over 3,000 posts and close to 200,000 comments, the reheated series is a pretty good place to start – in particular, the end-of-year summaries, which convey the fullest flavour of what it is we do. A sort of blog concentrate. If you like what you find there… well, there’s lots more of that.
Do take a moment to poke through the discussion threads too. The posts are intended as starting points, not full stops, and the comments are where much of the good stuff is waiting to be found. And do please join in.
As always, thanks for the support, the comments, and the company.
Oh yes. The buttons:
It’s a look.
I’m not entirely sure what it is I’m seeing.
Defending criminals: the belief is that racism is the sole cause of crime. As if there were no white criminals. As if crime does not exist in China, where white people do not exist. As if murderers were forced to kill someone by the police. It is nonsense. It is particularly nonsense when there has been so much social progress that they have to make up hate crimes.
Today’s word is pre-school.
She doesn’t subscribe to relationship hierarchies.
Today’s word is pre-school.
Woah, the effort that went into mastering that level of ventriloquism is uncanny.
I’m not entirely sure what it is I’m seeing.
Probably a degree in Wxymn’s & Gender Studies.
Ping!
Bless you, sir. May your chili never lack oomph.
Retractable?
Not sure if you had the audio on there but that’s a two-fer. Which might possibly explain the young woman’s actions…maybe. Gotta admit though, she wasn’t playing the helpless female. She did what she thought she had to do without whining for someone else to solve her problem.
It’s a look.
Wow. Londo Mollari really let himself go. You hate to see it.
I could swear I saw their lips moving.
There’s never a cuckoo handy when you need one.
That.
Token of esteem on its way.
I very much agree. Hence the quarterly fundraisers and the subscription options.
There are plenty of sites I simply won’t visit anymore because the experience is practically user-hostile. Whether it’s an overload of ugly, irrelevant ads that slow everything down, or pop-ups that want you to join a mailing list before you can even finish the first sentence of whatever you were mildly curious about, and which obscure the actual content until you can finally detect the near-invisible ‘close’ button. By which time, any mild curiosity has evaporated and been replaced by aggravation.
Bless you, sir. May your Yorkshire Puddings be perfection every time.
Re the above, one of the things that became apparent when moving the blog here from Typepad is that there are now any number of things I could enable and which, in theory, readers can interact with – prompts for this, options for that, all kinds of visual spamming.
At first, there’s a temptation to switch everything on just to see what it does, or to admire the cleverness of it, but it rarely makes the reader’s experience better. Just more cluttered.
One site I visited a while ago, I forget which, had obviously enabled all the bells and whistles. And so, within two seconds of loading the damn thing, I got a pop-up to join a mailing list – before I could actually read more than six or seven words – which was itself interrupted by another pop-up inviting me to upgrade to something or other, and which in turn was obscured by a third piece of crap.
And then of course it turned out that the third interruption couldn’t be closed until the first one had been closed – which was now impossible because it was entirely hidden by all of the crap on top of it.
It was almost funny.
There are plenty of sites I simply won’t visit anymore because the experience is practically user-hostile. Whether it’s an overload of ugly, irrelevant ads that slow everything down…
AdBlock is your friend.
Daily Mail – 266 ads and trackers blocked, 2 ads at the bottom, one for Australia, one for Jordan (the country, not the sneakers).
Daily Mail with VPN set to UK, turn off cookies, no ads but the same two.
Ace of Spades – 37 ads and trackers blocked, one ad for King Harv’s coffee.
There are scripts for getting around adblock blockers, but in that case “I simply won’t visit” if a site has that crap.
Sarah Jane Baker has previous convictions for kidnapping and attempted murder.
Under what name is my question.
Sarah Jane Baker has previous convictions…
What a postalita*.
*(A word I learned today – Cuban slang for pretentious conceited twat – useful in polite company!)
AdBlock is your friend.
Amen to that. Except I have not been able to get it to block the disgustingly awful ads at Ace. I don’t go there anymore – not only are the visuals nauseating, but they slow the whole site down. Insty’s website had that for awhile, but AdBlock figured those out. Not so Ace. Whatever he’s got is more tenacious than toe fungus.
I have a whole New (to me) Truck Wishlist at Amazon I keep meaning to fulfill during one of these fund drives, but I keep forgetting to shop, probably because more important things keep coming up, like a new battery or tires. I shall endeavor to rectify the situation this evening. My bar tab has got to be getting rather large, the way things are going these days.
I’ve always found it annoying that those who claim “it’s only stuff that can be replaced” forget that it took a non-refundable portion of my life span to earn the money that was used to buy said stuff.
Also the time it takes to replace said stuff, or the earnings foregone because some putz has stolen the tools needed to make a living.
I don’t want to pressure you or anything.
[ Fetches fire, nipple clamps. ]
Many sites now insist on disabling adblockers, but very few seem worth the subsequent aggravation. My typical reaction is bugger that.
Inviting readers to bung a few quid in the tip jar seemed the better option.
[ Fetches fire, nipple clamps. ]
There are some, I name no names, who would consider that a bonus, not pressure.
On my Firefox, I use for the toober Adblocker. Works like a dream.
I also use Easy [sitename] Video Downloader Express and try to kick a 20 his way yearly because he keeps it updated.
NoScript helps me, too, although it’s a pain to turn parts of a site on temporarily.
I also click on every ad on the toober and my Gmail. In my small way, I hope their ad money is wasted and it also confuses their targeting algorithms.
I rarely visit now. I don’t want to be trying to read something that’s squashed in between images of gum disease or some other unsightly ailment.
Generally speaking, I don’t find a few ads all that annoying. Unless they show disgusting things or such, so long as they don’t slow things down, I really don’t care. Some are actually useful and informative. Though the repetitiveness is very disturbing. And the volume. Some bloody ad with Elton John on Spotify kept repeating such that I stopped using Spotify. Also, I really don’t like looking at people’s feet. WTH is with that? I’m not talking just the disgusting toenail and whatever stuff. I seem to get a lot of adverts with women’s shoes in them or carpet/flooring stuff or other innocent stuff. Maybe it has something to do with the number of beach-y or Florida or swimming related things that I peruse such that I get disproportionate adverts? I started noticing this about a year or so ago.
I recall attending a baseball game for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. They had removed every single ad from the stadium. Just big, green, blank walls. It was bloody creepy. Perhaps if they had displayed some sort of other information on those walls but all looking at that whatever shade of green felt like being in an institution.
[ Updates files, adds suspected deviant. ]
Dude, this feet advert thing started months, maybe as much as a year ago. I downloaded the Gorilla porn just last week. And that was purely for research purposes. I thought I was perfectly clear on that. Only a conspiracy theorist would think they were related.
Here and on Instapundit, I have AdBlock disabled and NoScript enabled. It seems to work pretty well. I don’t visit Ace normally, but I just did with both enabled and it wasn’t bad.
A good reply to Mr.Dan would be “If you are so concerned about people being killed when they violently break into someone else’s home, you should find another hobby.”
Green screens for the television broadcast?
Assuming a serious question…Not that I know of but I was at the game. Way up next to the scoreboard, nowhere near a consistent camera angle. Highly unlikely. Highly. Thus would have been much more exposure time-wise, faces-wise to the 50,000 or so people in the stands. Again, assuming a serious question. These days I have no idea.
Defending criminals:
Related, “…they are desperate…” , poor dears.
Yes it was serious. I know broadcasters can customise event space advertising banners using digital editing. It seemed plausible it was an attempt to do something similar with the technology of the time.
Oppenheimer takes centre stage. Do the long held suspicions still apply, or have they melted away?
[ Fetches fire, nipple clamps. ]
ACK!
[hurriedly rummages through pockets, purse, backpack, sofa cushions]
[stuffs handful of random coins, fossil shells, gum wrappers, small bills in tip jar]
The funds have been transferred. Message ends.
Not so much desperate as unspanked. Such that they feel emboldened to harass and aggravate hundreds of random people, to steal other people’s time, to put jobs in jeopardy, and to block emergency vehicles and thereby endanger lives. All to feel powerful and important, to feed those nasty little egos.
It’s not an attitude one should reward, really, or indeed tolerate.
Heh. Bless you, madam, and bless you, sir. May you always have the right size of sturdy, zippable freezer bags.
Apparently, she’s not at all entitled. It’s just that the world must revolve around her.
“To all the cis out there.“
Scenes.
It’s always a made-up disability. It’s never their fault.
Well, I think we can assume that her professed “time blindness” – which apparently precludes the use of the reminder function on her phone – doesn’t result in her turning up for work early, or accidentally working extra hours. Or being in any way more useful or helpful, or less self-involved.
I think we can assume that with some confidence.
The NHL did that a while ago; I don’t know if it’s still used.
https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/34717938/nhl-debut-digitally-enhanced-dasherboards-virtual-ads-replace-traditional-signage-arena-rink-boards
I forget if the ads were visible from all camera angles or just selected ones.
Tim does have a point.
I’ll just leave this here, I think.
Is she too “special” to use alarm clocks and calendars?
But I’ll bet that she’s never late for recreational activities that she enjoys.
It would be amusing for people who provide goods and services to practice “time blindness” when she is waiting for something that she wants or even needs.
The American castle doctrine provides an effective solution: Fill them full of bullets when they try to force their way in.
It’s always a made-up disability.
I think a just accommodation would be to have whatever poor fool employed her have someone go to her home and play reveille at 0430.
Might not be economically wise, but worth it for the comedy value.
And R Lee Ermey behind her, yelling in her ear, as she runs to work.
A reasonable concern.
We do seem to be witnessing, on a large scale, the kind of pretentious, practised narcissism that should have been corrected, or at least strongly discouraged, in childhood, by parents.
No Friday Ephemera?
Didn’t have time to compile one this week. At least, not one I was happy with. Contrary to rumour, and all appearances to the contrary, there is some quality control.
Counting sheep.
Nor am I happy with my failure to save up links to contribute.
[ Lifts bread to examine sandwich filling. Directs questioning glance at David. ]
[ Suddenly overcome with despair at how civilization falls short of expectations. ]
I’m not entirely convinced that their relationship is working.
I’m not entirely convinced that their relationship is working.
I may have paraphrased a bit.
yeah, because they can’t stop you from using fossil fuels and the world is going to end unless they stop you….of course the world ends if they succeed too. The blatant lies about so many things (“hands up don’t shoot”, cop killing stats, “mostly peaceful protests”, climate change disaster, covid) in the media create a state of panic or mania or fury in so many that they are willing to do anything. You also have people who are underemployed, have never had a serious job, and are not married.
Today’s word is professionalism.
Considering how much time she’s likely to be spending at the unemployment office maybe she should see if they’d take her on.
I’ll just leave this here, I think.
“oh god” and “more” would work in both cases I guess, so long as not screamed loud enough to frighten the horses.
But I’m not sure about the premise of the question – it assumes a similar non-zero level of chattiness during both activities.
For all the Philip K. Dick fans.
From the thread: “I’m so glad so many of you showed up.”
Intervention needed.
Wishful thinking. Not even conservatives…”conservatives” discipline their children. Certainly not with the requisite tool(s). It’s simply beyond the pale. The mere suggestion gives many of them the vapors. Ask me how I know.
Time blindness: ahahaha. so many disabilities that are made up. How is a business supposed to allow that in an employee? “Sorry, we can’t serve you because we don’t know where our waitress is.” A commuter train driver in Chicago was not paying attention and drove almost full speed into the end of the line at O’Hare. Amazingly no one killed. He tried to play the pity card. Oh yes, a black man–another group that claims being on time is racist or something.
Open marriage: hahaha almost guaranteed to end in divorce, violence, STD, or someone raising someone else’s child.
Employees don’t exist to serve businesses, you know. Businesses exist to provide employees with a living wage. This is obvious to those who have done the analysis…of the zeitgeist anyway.
How is a business supposed to allow that in an employee?
Cheaper than a lawsuit these days…
And in sporting news.
“living wage”: another lie. And by “living wage” they mean someone able to support a family of four. Absurd demand. There are jobs that exist to give people experience. McDonald’s makes it clear that they are giving young people their first job and expect them to move on. These young people are not able to provide big value to their employer. At my grocery store, they have about a dozen somewhat retarded people (ooohh can I say that?) bagging groceries and retrieving carts. They are not even capable of stocking shelves. These twits have protested the low wages at places that employ those with autism, where the job really exists to give them dignity and a place to go. So the places close down. Mission accomplished?
My new earbuds (Sennheiser Momentum) are fantastic. They have really good sound quality, an excellent android app for EQ and a really cool feature called “active nagging cancellation” (ANC) technology – so I’m having a very peaceful evening.
Once you’ve watched this, I suggest this as a soothing calming balm.
How is that a sport for anyone over 9 years old?
I would be tempted to sneak into the arena with a pair of coconuts.
The best and brightest leading our indispensable teacher’s unions, is our children learning?
I’ve noticed that the latest Twitter annoyance is not showing comments.
In Calgary, not Portland, astonishingly.
Nature is amazing.
Won’t you say a prayer for the hard scrabble life of the influencer?
Prancercise with medals.
For the professional do-gooder set, yes. They love humanity . . . but haven’t much use for humans.
Bless her heart.
Perhaps it’s just me, but what’s there to kill?
Pied Piper.
Is my mental illness the problem? No, society is to blame.
I always knew that this assertion was the battle cry of parasitic narcissists, but the last few years working on a condo board have shown me many illustrative examples.
In Calgary, not Portland, astonishingly.
Hey, at least it wasn’t Bud Light.
pst314: ‘I would be tempted to sneak into the arena with a pair of coconuts.’
I’d be tempted to sit on the sidelines stroking a captive bolt pistol…
I used the buttons. Hope it helps.
Great blog, btw.
I KNOW, RIGHT?
It does. Bless you, sir. May your houseplants flourish.
Again, thanks to all who’ve chipped in, or subscribed, or done shopping via the Amazon links, including all those much too shy to say hello.
It’s much appreciated and is what keeps this place here.
Your 10-year-olds, their woo.
“Nonbinary” comedian says the quiet part out loud about performative pronouns:
“All I’m saying is, I don’t want anyone to refer to me and feel good about themselves.” (Via Dicentra.)
Imagine spending several years in grad school, working long hours for no money to become an expert in an ancient culture, but it turns out that every physical artifact of that culture is a forgery made by one guy. (Found via Dogs Don’t Have Thumbs.)