YGIFS

It's helpful. I oscillate between physical cravings. Don't know how else to explain it but my body just craves it like some people crave salt, or nicotine, or sleeping in. Other times, it's totally mental/psychological. Body is okay but brain is just saying, "Hey, let's fast forward 6 hours so we don't have to deal with this other shit going on in here." Sometimes it's just muscle memory, "Hey remember after a long day at work...you just bend an elbow and pound 4-6 drinks without even blinking?" Some of it's hereditary, some of it's learned, some of it's just addictive cravings. I think I'm a little bit of it all. I've noticed after being around meetings and other friends in recovery, that we really come in all stripes and variances. But statistics bear out 10-15% of American adults, probably true for the rest of the planet as well, are clinically "alcoholics." Not that I am in a place to judge, I'm still fucking up. But I kinda, sorta know our different breeds now after two years of true acknowledgement. I can see it in people, not always. But sometimes. And we come in different shapes and sizes, but the disease is still there and you can tell. Still not in a place to judge, or inquire, or even help...but you sorta begin to pick up on it after awhile. Yeah, there's the guy or gal who smells like battery acid and can't speak or walk correctly-that's easy to spot. But so many of us can walk around in plain sight and only another fisherman can spot another fisherman from afar. This is certainly not my category, I'm a hereditary/mental/physical alcoholic. But what has me intrigued is of our 10-15% fellow Americans who are clinical alcoholics, many of them never took up drinking to begin with. Now, in many cases it's because they saw what it did to loved ones and got proactive about it. But I've seen/met folks that are pre-wired for it that never were really around any alcohol-induced trauma. They have the bug, but witnessed nothing related to it, just grew up and lived their lives as a casual social-drinker or even non-drinker in the same subconscious fashion some of us just drive by a liquor store on the way home before even realizing as we reach for the door handle that this is not a good idea. There have to be hundreds of thousands of genetic alcoholics who don't even know it and never had any traumatic experiences in their personal lives. They just somehow never went down the rabbit hole. Obviously, that's not a model I can emulate, but I find it interesting...to say the least.

And because of that animal trick, Kramer got to know another animal handler/variety show regular, Jim Fowler. Practically raised his kids.

Gee, if only we didn't have one the highest tax revenue rolls of a large American city, we could maybe buy one less homeless hotel that will go unused and put up a few cameras between IH-35 to Davis to South Congress Bridge. Hmmmmm. Nah, let's just some more tactical gear Where was that Fat Tuesday's again? I remember it was a big deal when it opened because I think it was the first one in Texas. I think I went a whopping 1 time. I was walking around Barton Creek Square today. And for some reason, I found myself trying to remember where that bar/pub was? It was like "EPCOT" styled generic pub that served crappy American food. And I couldn't remember the name or the location of it. Been bugging me all day.

Yes, tell me more about this "political chaos" in contemporary America. Certainly hasn't happened over the last 8 years. Is Grimace's Auntie fucking new here to our timeline or what?

Me, "Being a public, international airport...CNN or WaPo or NYT could easily FOIA from the ATC/FAA what those foreign planes were doing there/logs/flight plans/tail numbers/etc. You know, like actual journalism." Media, "Biden misspoke a few times last week. Here's what that means for pro-Palestinian protestors lack of support for him at Pomona College, which nobody is on right now because it shuts down each summer."

dibs on Jewish Wang for my Macau Bar Mitzvah house band name. I like when Rex claims to have all these people on ignore, even posting the full list of them at times. Yet, somehow chimes in whenever they post something he claims not have seen but has issue with. He also worries about being doxxed, which I don't think has ever happened, despite him having done it multiple times to others, and suspended for it. But yeah, now that y'all mention it---where is Z-Tejas? We all need a break from here now and again. But sadly, you start doing the math. A lot of early adopters of computer technology in the 1980's era already in their 20's and 30's. 1990's come around, and they start getting on the webs, and as UT fans, that means 360/statesman, HornFans, LFZ, et. al. So the older side of those boards are already in their 40-50's. Well now we're 25+ years into the age of Longhorn message boards. So a lotta folks, despite our denial of it, are now 70-80 years old. Sucks to think about, but some of the old guard we used to read posts from 25 years ago are well into senior age and dying off more and more. Our children are gonna pull up archives of this website and with any luck, all our dumb posts will be deleted. It'll just be Neikia posts about selling awkward looking baby dolls suffocating in plastic bags.

It was nice of your son to leave out some lavender hand creme and a note for the crazy lady. Glad nothing bad happened after that. I just shake my head in frustration, especially after working on housing bonds for the city for so many years and seeing how poorly the sausage was being made. There's still two encampments between our home and my girls' elementary school. I gotta coach them up on everything from active shooter drills, to how to non-offensively avoid people talking to themselves and slapping their own heads, to what to do if they see a knife or syringe or gun. Never mind downtown. Last year, we're at the new Waterloo Greenway installation and my oldest picks up this "silver ball" she thinks is jewelry in a bush. Well, it's the device you use to mash up drugs with so you can snort/smoke 'em. You want to instill compassion for other people into their hearts and minds. But sometimes there's just some asshole leaving crushed up heroin or a 9mm, who needs help but you don't want to get your kids involved. But I'm sure City of Austin will buy another hotel and assume everything is going to plan.

Nate killed on SNL that night, especially for such a dry and reserved guy. I told this story way upthread, but Lobo repeats himself. A mutual friend of Nate and I's (I don't know Nate at all), had this great long-bit about the abbreviation of the states down to 2-letters. And the premise of the bit is that he was watching a documentary about it, which was bullshit. But he's pretending to recant the documentary as the foundation of his jokes. I think it's one the best long-form bits in comedy history. But Gary sat on it for years, because he knew if people didn't buy into the documentary hook at the start, they'd just think he was being weird just to be weird. But Gary sees this documentary I think right before Covid or during lockdown, about the invention of the Helvetica font. And figures, if people think that's compelling, I can certainly now do my bit about the state abbreviations. So it kills. Gary has collaborated with other SNL writers like Mulaney and Colin Quinn, as well as many standup hosts (sadly, Dane Cook among them). Anyway, Bargatze calls him up---along with several other standup comics, and thinks back to Gary's abbreviation bit. And Nate says he's been sitting on this idea for a bit about the goofiness of America's system of weights and measures versus the metric system. But it won't really work in standup format. But he thinks about Garry's ability to do this mundane shit and make it funny. So they chatter about it a lot two weeks before Nate does his week at SNL. Obviously, the writing staff at SNL does most of the heavy lifting since Nate can't just work on the one sketch, with all the other skits, pre-recorded clips, promos, stand-up sets in Manhattan, and Late Night appearances. But he worked with them a fair amount to flesh out this sketch about Washington and the Metric System with Gary's encouragement. All because a dumb documentary about a fucking font made some comics realize, "Oh, you literally make the most mundane, boring shit funny if you got the chops." Not a week goes by that my 9yo daughter and I don't watch this Bargetze sketch because she loves the dry ludicrousness of it and it makes her think about why nobody knows how many yards are in a mile. Nate is really blowing up right now as a result of this appearance and his last special. He deserves it. Helluva good guy who put in his years and finally turned the corner when he got his confidence level up. Again, I don't know him, but know some comics who do. And they frequently root against one another because they got their own internal shit going on (as most artists do), but they all love Nate and are rooting for him. /csb

219 lies by the consensus account of Trump's debate sentences/comments. On to the Chicago convention: Growing up in Chicago, we learned a lot about the 1968 DNC convention in our junior high social studies class. Spent a few days on it, and ended it up with a film of interviews with then legendary Mayor Richard J. Daley. And I remember Mr. Hays telling us "there will be some language." So a reporter asks Daley why he doesn't go down to the park with all the protestors and riot police to calm things down. Daley responded, "I'm not going down to that fucking riot...I could get hurt." It was bleeped out when it aired on the news, but this was an unedited version. Johnson had just dropped out a few months before. Daley was trying to broker a deal between Johnson and RFK to figure out where the party should head. Sound familiar? Daley got a little too over his skis, just as RFK's son would 56 years later. With RFK deceased and McCarthy having not much sway, Humphrey emerges as the "safe" choice for nomination in Chicago. Sound familiar? But a substantial bloc of the party wants to replace the former Vice President, and put up McGovern. Outside, massive protests erupt, led by the infamous Chicago 7, over unjust wars in SE Asia (though one could substitute Gaza/Palestine-Biden/Israel). In the after-math of the Chicago convention, Daley would lose his grip on the DNC. As retribution for having him skipper over in '68, McGovern has Daley physically removed from the 1972 national convention. Knowing Daley could still fuck things up for McGovern (who would later lead the way to change the entire nominating process), he later makes an overture and heeds Daley's recommendation to put the uncle of RFK, Jr. (who might fuck this election up)---Sargent Shriver. 1968's Chicago convention was really the last 'open' one for the Democratic Party. With the Gaza protestors, "Biden should step aside", and other internal issues---this might get weird as Chicago usually does. Here's a fun historical connection---Mayor Daley took solace over all this internal strife in his party in the arms of his wife, Eleanor---whom everyone called "Sis." Eleanor's cousin would go on to have a grand-daughter named Kimberly. Kimberly would one day marry a man who may also up-end the Democratic Party this cycle or the next, Gov. Gavin Newsom (hopefully in a good way). She now dates Biden's opponent's son, also a Junior. the First Lady of Chicago, Eleanor Daley's maiden name was Guilfoyle. Keep Biden on the ticket, take him off. Alls I know is this is a fucking simulation.

Many of here have way more knowledge than me on this topic, but what are some of the big shoe/merch/training deals some of the prominent WNBA players have? There's got to be some money in that because the girls in my oldest's league go through sneakers and sweatbands and shorts and water bottles each season faster than the boys do. And they talk about women players, mostly college---but I started hearing chatter at the of the season about the WNBA for the first time. I would think if Clark and other big names played overseas, they'd get way more salary and adulation, the WNBA would fold; but I bet it would limit their marketability back here in the U.S. Girls 8-18 in our area would follow the UT Women's hoops team, and the Olympics, but I don't see any of them buying some shoe or random non-hoops product endorsed by the 2nd best women's player in the Italian League-even if she is an American. It makes me petty, but when organizations just implode themselves instead of course-correcting...it's always fascinating to me as a business academic. I know there's socio-political factors here, and marketing/media implications, and the Olympic team bullshit, and ribbing the rookie. But there's a 50/50 chance this whole thing ends up like a Blockbuster Video or Kodak or Sears. Nobody can predict the future, but when the future knocks on your door and offers to exponentially increase your revenue/exposure...you at least listen to it. You don't hip check it into the fucking ground.

Sometimes for the ugly ones, giving a good blow job just means more.

I agree. But we’re not being recruited to play college hoops. Young men still care about which programs are getting guys into the league. Of course, the portal is a bigger factor in recruiting than draft picks, I suppose. As are deep tourney runs. I follow UT hoops more than most, but you guys know far more. But the whole way we attract high school players has changed so much because they can see who comes and goes on a university roster and change their mind in late spring with not much impact. Whole different with. NiL too. Here’s to second weekend in the Big Dance

Guam, sir? There’s nothing happening in Guam!

Just saw that this 3-years no draft picks is our second longest draught in 30 years for Texas. Anybody have a full roster? I mean, I know we have all the names through this thread but is there a place where's all put together with updated class/eligibility/etc.?

wrong thread. oops.

That's why the ramp agents wear those beautiful orange headphones, to keep from getting cancer. The British, during the Revolutionary War, then they tried to storm the Washington airports.....it was the windmill jets that made their heads explode and die so we could take back our country, hugely. 35% of America could read this and think, "Yeah, that checks out."

For Junior. I mean, last time I saw him he was in his mid-30's. Dude's abandoned his kids and doing likely about an 8-ball a day. You can't do that at 46. He won't make it. His paternal bloodline obviously has longevity despite shitty diets, but his father doesn't drink or do blow like it's the end of the world. But he's still got more honor than Jared or Eric, so I'll give him that.

You certainly can identify cis-plaining far better than I can. I wasn't trying to discount that fact, merely to point out the parallels between this and German Purity Laws and 100 other instances like it, are eerily familiar. They never open with, "Let's get the immigrants in that country over there. And get the gays in that place over there. And then we'll go for that religious minority across the sea." That's how they drum up support and get into power. But the playbook remains the same. Once you get your own people to turn on one another, going after foreign conquest is a breeze. There are a mind-bottling number of people of color, Muslims, LGBTQ+ populations, and women voting for Abbott and Patrick and Paxton and Trump. And people will weep in the streets for their suffering, exclusion, condemnation, and compression of rights. And I will not be at the ramp to say "I told you so"...I will be at the depot to smile and simply ask in Anton's voice, "If the rule you followed led you to this, of what use was the rule?" Some of these people's political decisions are going to get their loved ones in some serious shit and spend their waining moments in utter and total regret. It's in that last moment, when a person looks back on the folly of their ways and wishes they had to do it all over again. But they can't. And regret reaches from inside their soul and tattoos itself all across their face. When these "leaders" finally out-do one another in the game of intolerable cruelty and there is nobody left to marginalize and vilify. What do we suppose will happen then?

So we're literally like 5 days away from him declaring "And what if these planes? These beautiful planes, what if the wind turns off up there and can't fly because the planes are powered by wind? What then, huh?"

Not every time a straight male says something means it’s “cis-plaining.” Most of the time we’re just being condescending. What this ruling opinion is is much, much darker. It reads like the 1935 Nuremberg laws for civic purity brought forth to the Reich by Dr. Stuckart. The camps and sterilizations and evacuations didn’t begin for another 7 years. He drafted laws for the Reich that read eerily similar to this one. They didn’t open up Auschwitz at the outset. They implemented these laws of classification like Texas is. And they started with the people inside their own borders. Elderly, disabled, gay, trans, Romani, and fatherland born Jews. They were the first. Once you legally codify hatred among your own, conquering and extermination “different” people in other lands is a fucking breeze. we’ve done this a thousand times and haven’t learned a fucking thing.

This. I am constantly baffled when I go to people's homes and use their restroom and the toothbrush or hand towel is just sitting mere inches from the toilet bowl I just defiled. Like the hotel/semen thing, yeah---there's "be tough and grow strong like a man" mentality. But it's like an extra 5% of work to not ingest shit and semen in strange places if you don't need to. You don't get healthy guy bacteria from semen and toilet spray. Every year, we go to this old friend's place for Christmas party. And her brother stays with her at the holidays. And every year, there's his fucking toothbrush, literally on top of the toilet tank. And I close to the lid before flushing, but still---it takes 3 seconds to walk it over to the other end of the vanity or back into the guest bedroom. I'm not like Howie Mandel germaphobe level, but I just look at people's situations sometimes like, "Yeah, I can be a little OCD, but you could also just spend 5 seconds not putting the salad you just made for our dinner party right next to the disposal as you run it for 60 seconds splashing like a fucked up attraction at Sea World."

I know it was Garvin on the show, but I was tempted by the proximate comedy of a male prostitute being the voiceover guide of a mobile mapping system. I mean, we are two wild and crazy guys!

While I initially treated him as simply the cure for the Tumor Trump in 2020, I've come to appreciate that Joe has done remarkably well given the shit sandwich he was handed. And has surrounded himself by an outstanding team while Trump filled his senior positions and cabinet with either people that were woefully unqualified and stuck around the grift or were actually qualified, served for 15 minutes, and got the fuck outta Dodge. It's a helluva gambit, but worth considering and toot-sweet. Does Biden run on his record, which is strong, while being rather feckless towards a piece of shit like Trump and his record of crime and confidence schemes? But may not be able to pull it off? Or does the DNC convince him and run somebody else before August who reinvigorates the party? It may be better in the long run for the Democrats, but it could also be a roll of the dice that implodes on them and puts Trump back into the Oval. I think 2032 and beyond, y'all's party should be fine given census, redistricting, and demography shifts. But that's an awfully long way from now for the old school Clinton-Obama-Biden-Schumer-Pelosi regime. You're talking about 5 people who'll be in their 80's, 90's, or dead by then. So I get you wanna stick with probably has a 55% of working to get Trump outta there but you gotta marry that with what might happen to the 8-year period after this election if Biden dies, Harris isn't electable, MAGA nation throws its weight behind a new candidate, etc. It's a precarious position, and it lays heavy upon the shoulders of an 81yo man who is a great delegating point guard, but not exactly a high-energy team Captain. Time is always winding down in America. But I have a bad feeling, that we may be winding down with it.

Yeah, particularly in Chicago, that 1-2 punch of the Adam Walsh story and the Oprah propaganda really put the fear of god into parents. Thankfully, my parents didn't fall for it too hard, so we pretty much grew up carefree and unattended in the 1980's like most of y'all. But I remember the PSA's about that "Adam" made-for-TV-movie. And a bunch of family friends got together to watch it. So the adults are in the living all us kids are playing in the basement playing games and drinking 7-Up. Not sure why we never got together to watch normal shit, just child snuff films. It was our uncle T.W.'s house. And I'll never forget, we heard them all screaming and crying at the same time, so we run upstairs to see like a dozen bawling adults and our 7yo dumbasses thought it was so comically odd that all these strong people we looked up to were in utter shock. So about a year later, we're in SE Florida visiting the grandparents and there's some signage about him or the show, this was near Hollywood. And I finally watched that movie and the ending. And realized how fucked up the world was. Only later in life did I realize that yes, there are awful monsters that do random acts of violence. But the people you need to worry most about are already in your life. Once you come to terms with that horrifying fact, only then can you move forward. I guess we're wired not to focus on the bad people all around us, because we'd just be too tense and defensive and not part of a social fabric. But looking back on my life now in middle age with some modicum of perceptivity---I know I've met murderers, assassins, drug mules, passers of state secrets, cartel leadership, crooked politicians, dirty cops, people on the run, people using fake identities, violent sociopaths, carnies, a Waffen SS officer living in South America in exile, and even a Wandering Jew named Cartaphilus. There is still the bad guy in the van, but he is the outlier. The real monsters have already had lunch with you. It's not a pleasant attitude to have about humanity, but I don't tell my kids "Don't walk to Strangers." I say spefically, "Don't talk to Mr. R. down the street." It scares them more, but it's a helluva lot more practical than "Stranger, Danger! I don't know you! That's my purse!" Humanity has always been like this, we just didn't want to admit it. The girls are old enough now they hear from Dad---never get into a room with a teacher/coach/priest with less than 3 other kids including yourself. We have large extended families on both sides, anybody claims to be one 'em...assume they are not. Never get into a car with anybody we didn't arrange it with ahead of time, no matter what they say. And never, ever believe anybody you know who finishes a sentence with the phrase 'trust me.' And before I know it, I gotta start on the date-rape warnings. Woo-hoo.