Especially when designed by committee.
I hardly need words, as images tell this tale so well. So let us start with one of my top contenders for mascots who are clearly serial killers, and paedophiles to boot. Je presente Bonhomme Carnival:
He is the living incarnation of the snowmen that have enchanted [haunted, ed.] children of Québec City for generations. Bonhomme is the ambassador of this celebration to foreigners and he is the symbol of the festivities during this joyous period of the year. Bonhomme proudly wears the traditional red hat and belt. Bonhomme was created in 1954 and since 1955, the date of the first annual edition of the Carnival, he has personified [snowmanified, mascotified, ed.?] the “joie de vivre” associated with this winter celebration.
What a nice imagination these PR types have. All those words defeated by one look into his soulless plastic eyes. I’ll give them the traditional belt, though. The coureurs de bois did use woven belts to support their backs and to use, presumably, as tump-lines when portaging. [The fur trading companies looked especially for short, illiterate, men to paddle the canoes, and I think one can see the short stature still reflected in the populace. Not to mention the smoking pregnant mamas. But that is a cultural difference that seems impregnable, unlike the youth of Quebec.]
But back to soulless mascots, how about those delightful beasts from the London olympics?
Are these cyclopean fiends not the stuff of nightmares?
And then let me just die of embarrassment at this lame attempt not to offend anyone, except perhaps for the uni-ocular.
Is it any wonder they had to give them out for free? Isn’t the Wonderbread logo a nice corporate touch? Almost as healthy as MacDonalds, the official olympic restaurant or something like that. Is Miga’s mitten a piece of toast? Many Canadians identify with the name Quatchi of course, and Sumi clearly reflects our cultural history. The missing side-kick, Mukmuk, was the best of a bad lot:
And you’ll be happy to know you can buy that particular Mukmuk [did you notice the very clever word play on mukluk, ed.?] on eBay, if you have a child you would like to confuse.
There is a terrific, odd, Canadian movie, Bad Cop Bon Cop, in which the bad guy [whose motives one sympathizes with greatly, if Canadian] dons a beaver mascot suit as a disguise:
What more does one need for proof?
Mascots and clowns. Dreadful creatures.
But I feel better, having shared my horror.
i thought the lucky cat mascot was Chinese, and that it was associated with the Chinese New Year. but i was wrong. so Happy New Year anyhow. this is your 2nd shot at it, so don’t blow it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneki-neko
Is it happy Chinese New Year? How arbitrarily exciting!
Chinese new year 2014: Eight things you (probably) didn’t know about the year of the horse
The 15-day celebration of Chinese new year starts on Friday, with the first new moon of the calendar year. The day marks the end of the year of the water snake and welcomes the start of the year of the wooden horse. To bring you luck this new year, we’ve listed eight (a lucky number in China) things you possibly didn’t know about the year ahead.
1) The Chinese zodiac – or Shēngxiào – is a calendar system originating in the Han dynasty (206-220BC), which names each of the years in its 12-year cycle after an animal: the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig, in that order. According to the system, the universe is made up of five elements – earth, water, fire, wood and metal – which interact with the 12 animals, resulting in the specific character of the year ahead.
Children hold up the Chinese character ma, meaning horse. Photograph: Imaginechina/Corbis
my lucky cat GIF has disappeared. i wonder if i should try it again, or just lay low for a while. 😯
does anyone really not believe that all financial markets are rigged yet? watching month end today with a new found sense of complete financial apathy. i just wish they would hurry up and steal what’s left, so i could get on.
oh, and what a nice raise you got there Mr. Dimon. enjoy it sir, because methinks you will pay it back dearly. but with all your hubris you will be the last to jump, won’t ya?
hope the whole gang shows up later. January sucked around here, so i want to sign off the month in style.
yummy. try the Hopslam EO. very hoppy, and 10% ABV – they call it a double India Pale Ale. you can get it at Woodmans.
my face is already feeling warm. i think i will only have one of these at a time.
http://bellsbeer.com/
and see ya next year around the same time Bob!
unreal. 11 inch frozen pizzas are here. same price as the old standard 12″. so doing the math, using pi*r^2, to get the area of a circle, and (area 12″ – area 11″)/area 12″ gives a pizza price inflation rate of 16%. bastards.
next week, the incredible shrinking quart of ice cream. 🙁
They used to be racist.
http://thoughtcatalog.com/nico-lang/2013/09/41-mind-blowingly-racist-vintage-ads-you-need-to-see/
Hi Dude. i don’t know what this will look like when it’s all done, but in your honor it’s already named “Smoking Joe Pye”.
flotsam, jetsam, lagan and derelict.
tough crowd.
DP, your dedication has placed me into a state of honorificabilitudinitatibus. Thank you for that and thank you for using prettier feet than mine. Alas though, I DO NOT eat Wonder bread.
How about a 24 on ice, to make that foot happy?
Better yet, a 24 for each toe, but not for you, you’re on meds.
Here’s one of my pet peeves. Joe Pye weed used to be simply Eupatorium maculatum (spotted stem) or E. pupureum (green stem), depending on sub species. After I put in the work to learn these names, now they want to change the term for this species. First they tried out Eupatoriadelphus but it never caught on. Now the species is Eutrochium in all the newer literature. I can only handle so much- maybe I shouldn’t have killed all those brain cells.
Good lord, and I found the change from Brontosaurus to Apatosaurus too much to handle.
Here’s something ridiculous I just found out. The pretentious use of the word ‘mirepoix’, common with foodies these days, to mean carrots, onions and celery is a) wrong; and b) has a ludicrous etymology:
Though the cooking technique is probably older, the term mirepoix dates from the 18th century and derives, as do many other appellations in French cuisine,[1] from the aristocratic employer of the cook credited with establishing and stabilizing it: in this case,[2] Charles-Pierre-Gaston François de Lévis, duc de Lévis-Mirepoix (1699–1757), French field marshal and ambassador and a member of the noble family of Lévis, lords of Mirepoix in Languedoc since the 11th century.[3] According to Pierre Larousse (quoted in the Oxford Companion to Food), the unfortunate Duke of Mirepoix was “an incompetent and mediocre individual. . . who owed his vast fortune to the affection Louis XV felt toward his wife and who had but one claim to fame: he gave his name to a sauce made of all kinds of meat and a variety of seasonings”:
Mirepoix from Wikipedia
the wonder bread must have washed ashore. even seabirds won’t eat it.
i’ll stick some more items into the beach scene over time. not feeling it today, maybe because i just again shoveled snow. i must be well past the 10,000 hours mark, for total lifetime snow removal achievement.
and remember all, tomorrow is officially Groundhog Day! or is it today, or was it yesterday. aaaaarrrrrggggghhhh!!!
edit: by the way EO and Dude – the red brick square is downtown Woodstock Illinois.
i prefer to build my soups beginning with the even more pretentious, perhaps even blasphemous “Holy Trinity”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_trinity_%28cuisine%29
stuff like this gives me hope…
Netflix is threatening a corporate coup — in FAVOR of Net Neutrality!
In an open letter to investors, Netflix warned that if broadband providers started charging tolls for US Internet subscribers and slowing down video, it would encourage its 34 million American customers to join them in demanding an open Internet — and ditching ISPs who don’t follow them.
This is an amazing first step, and an amazing ally to win in the war for a better Internet. But if we want to succeed, we need to make sure Netflix uses action, not just words.
Please, join us in thanking CEO Reed Hastings and CFO Davids Wells and encouraging them to take action, putting pressure on Internet Service Providers and call on the Federal Communications Commission to take back the Open Internet reins.
PETITION TO HASTINGS AND WELLS: Thank you for standing up for Net Neutrality and the right of everyone to have access to an Open Internet. Go one step further, directly reaching out to ISPs like Verizon and organizations like the FCC.
http://act.watchdog.net/petitions/4230?r=1266862.lfSw1u
I don’t want to be the only ignoramus here, but I’ve never encountered mirepoix before even though I watch my fair share of Cooking Channel and Food Network.
As a matter of fact, Ive even been on the Food Network. They have filmed several segments at various Swiss Colony operations and I happened to be in one of them about 8-9 years ago. No big deal, no speaking and only two brief glimpses of 4-5 seconds each. What I came away with was how incredibly expensive their cameras were- about $240,000 if I remember correctly.
I should add that it was before HD became the standard, so I couldn’t even guess what they cost now.
i have been familiar with the term since my early twenties, but i realized today that i was spelling it wrong – at least in my head.
do you saute anything first when you make your soups? i bet you have prepared mirepoix before. hey, spell checker still thinks i’m spelling it wrong. this is how i thought it was spelled, “mirapaux”. nope – spellchecker thinks that’s wrong too.
Meerapwaw, Shmeerapwaw. I have no use for celery under any circumstances, but if you are not tossing in some onion and carrots into your Roast Beast, then you are missing the boat. It don’t take no frenchy goofball to tell you that. Just let your own taste buds be your guide. 🙄
I thought this was interesting.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-warren/coming-to-a-post-office-n_b_4709485.html
Apparently someone is thinking the Post Office should get into the business of small loans, etc. This will raise hackles all over the WingNuttoSphere. They’ve made careers out of passing laws and regs that make it virtually impossible for the Post Office to operate profitably, in order to make some sort of back door “proof” that Gubmint Can’t do Nuthin Right. Well, yeah, if you assholes make it impossible in the first place.
I mean, if you got that ideology in the first place, then make damn sure it holds up, by hook or by crook.
Plus, if you just follow the money, the whole PayDay Loan, Check Cashing, and Pawn Shop industry is in real tight with the same crowd, so they sure as hell don’t want any competition from the Post Office, and they have their checkbook ready to make damn sure about it. Same as FedEx and UPS don’t want any competition from the Post Office either, and they make smart use of their payola to the proper politicos too.
So here’s the question, does ideology drive the money or does the money drive ideology?
Here’s what I’d really like to know. I want to look at the books of the whole damn goldbugger/austrian/doomsday blogosphere and find out where they are really getting their money from. It might be pretty F’ in illuminating.
Cutting pretty close to the bone now, so I think I’ll just let one that lay awhile.
Leave it to Liz Warren to forward that sort of info. She’s a major P.I.T.A. to the whole cabal, especially those Manchurian Candidate “Dems” over there at Third Way.
I hardly ever do karaoke, but I nailed this one once. No political statements involved, I just happen to have the perfect voice for it.
Mrs. O and I once did a karaoke duet on this one. It was not half bad.
Didn’t get back to you peckerwood on the Bell’s beer recommendation, but I feel I just have to lay down my marker right here and now.
I’m a lager man through and through. I’ve tried and tried and tried ales until I want to puke, but they all taste like homebrew gone bad to me. This is why 90% of the craft brew industry is dead to me. Buttfucks think they are doing something special, when in fact they are just too cheap and lazy and undereducated to actually do something special.
OK, that was harsh, but that’s how I feel.
Give Me Lager, Or Give Me Death. I chalk it up to Genetic Memory. google it.
Sorry, but that is pretty much end of discussion on that front from my end.
you have things ordered correctly EO. let’s talk about deregulation! look at where it’s got us. the bankers have stolen everything! a few gigantic companies dominate almost every industry! it’s dog eat dog, honesty and fairness be damned, winner take all! but we still have the far right going after regulation. the latest strategy is to hype stories such as local dip-shits shutting down Kool-Aid stands, and taking kids lunches! anyone with two brain cells knows that these are always examples of over zealous small town doofuses with Napoleon Complexes. speaking of doofuses, anyone that believes that the Koch brothers give billions of dollars to the Tea Party because they ideologically respect individual rights and freedom should be forgiven if they believe anything at all. you see, i don’t hate ignorance. i feel sorry for it.
Yeah, ran out of time to edit, but hey all you Brit Lovers this one’s for you too. Ales, Stouts, Porters, IPA’s, Nut Brown’s, whatever the hell else, how many more centuries is it going to take for you guys to fugure out that you get a cleaner beer if you ferment it at cooler temperatures? The Czechs and Bavarians figured it out in the 1840’s. I’m still waiting on the Brits. Maybe they’ll get with the program someday.
OK, maybe I’ve overstated my case, but I just wanted everyone to be clear on where I stand.
The main problem is that I really like all of Cher’s parts better, so it’s… awkward.
Best Speech of 2012 Election year. Of course she had to pander to the actual nominee, but there’s stuff in there that is still giving the bad guys nightmares.
I just listened to it again for the first time in months. And I wept. Just like the first time.
well i wrote that above before the beer rant. fine, i won’t suggest any ales, porters, pilseners, or anything not brewed in strict accordance to the Reinheitsgebot. but please remember that it is only your opinion that these other beers suck, and that home brewers are not brewing great beer!
i put rutabaga in my pot roast. i am braced. go ahead, and let me have it.
Pilseners are fine. Better than fine. Just having a fun rant about the rest.
Just a roundabout way of saying I don’t like ales.
Pilsners, Munchners, Oktoberfests, Amber Lagers, Maerzens, Dortmunders, Bocks, yup, those all pass muster with me. Ales, Porters, Stouts, IPA’s, just don’t even start with me… 🙄
Every goofball homebrewer who thinks he can make a business on the cheap out of brewing that crap…well they are just clogging up the marketplace and taking up shelf space as far as I’m concerned. They don’t want to invest in the equipment and the knowledge required to brew beer at something in the 40 degree F range, or less. Cheap ass…
Again, just having fun. Just trying to say I like lagers over ales, with some flair….
And I didn’t mean to imply that it could ONLY be carrots and onions, just that it has to be those as a base and whatever else you want, go for it. Even celery, if you must.
When I eat canned chicken noodle soup, I eat all the celery first. Gotta get that junk out of the way right away, so I have something truly wonderful left over.
Boy, someone must have given me a truth serum today. Tact? Who needs it?
Or, maybe it’s the beer. 😳
It’s the hops for me. I’ll drink anything that is not hops forward. I do not care for a bitter beer or a citrusy/flowery flavor that beers with amped hops provide. People rave about Ale Asylum’s Hopaliscious but to me it’s pukaliscious. I wouldn’t even put it in my pot roast, but I would sub jicama for rutabaga. I just said that because I just recently learned the correct pronunciation of that word along with quinoa. O.k., I might be the last to know, but I think my ways make more sense. I can be an iconoclast if I want to.
Yeah, I like Warren too and since we touched on politics, does anyone know the Libertarian stance on immigration reform?
I have no idea how my comment got out of sequence and ended up as a reply to myself. Must be the cold medicine and brandy. I’ve got to straighten up and go tend bar tonight.
Spotted Cow Sucks. There. I said it. This is Blasphemy in Wisconsin these days.
Best selling beer in an up and coming Wisconsin Brewery. But…it’s an ale. And I can taste it immediately. Just a whiff is about all it takes. No surprise though since they’ve seldom gotten any of their lagers right at all. Oh, snap.
Tact? Where are ye?
Note: Mrs O. Loves Spotted Cow. It’s getting to be a serious issue… 😆
Cold medicine and Brandy sounds pretty good.
Iconoclast theme song and what I’ll be thinking as I sell a lot of Spotted Cow tonight while thinking as Eric does “it ain’t all that great”.
i do not know the official libertarian stance on immigration reform, but i can tell you what a true libertarian would opine. people should live the heck where they want, and borders should be open. that would be the true libertarian planet Earth, would it not?
oh, the dangers of thinking for ones self. i can just feel the hate welling up as certain folks out there in the world read my truth.
Eric – just pushing back. i know you are scrappy. i like many different beers, but i also have a hard time with too much “bitters”. i can only really drink one IPA at a sit.
good answer- from you anyway.
Last one before I leave, and you know it will be good as it’s titled “Genderbending Our Grandson”.
He’s old enough to take his own potty breaks and and once today when he did he seemed to be gone way too long so the wife went to investigate. Found him playing in the water, but he apparently had been playing with something else previously as there was a bra on the floor that she had hand washed and hung to dry.
Grandma- “what’s that Landon?”
Landon- “That’s your bra Grandma.”
Grandma- “No it’s Grandpa’s.”
I can only imagine how priceless that drop jawed, bug eyed look on that 3 1/2 year old’s face was.
“from you anyway”
I have no idea what that means, but I laughed out loud. 😛
I’m just having fun with you guys. If anyone is getting pissed, I didn’t mean nuthin.
Turkey Legs and Thighs in the slow cooker for Super Bowl Sunday. Never done it before, but we’ve been in experimental mode with slow cookers lately.
Our mantra is “How bad can it be?” So far, it has never been bad no matter what we try.
Too funny. Josh Brown had this on his blog today.
i’m pretty sure that the Dude meant that the actual stance (on immigration) of many, especially of those claiming to be libertarian principled, is not libertarian at all.
i do not like hypocrisy. in fact, i might even say that it is my biggest pet peeve! i do believe that it is mostly unintentional. most people do not conceptually get past the talking points is all. oh, the politicians rhetoric is intentional. they know how and what to say to deceive. and most people are not introspective ~ 75% in fact. that is what is meant by introvert/extrovert. most people don’t realize their internal hypocrisies.
i wasn’t getting pissed. the written word leaves a lot to be desired. especially when one does not capitalize, punctuate…
sorry for rambling. i have to go because my wife is getting pissed! 😀
Got a check in the mail today for some silver I sold last week. Spot was 20.40 at the time and it was all stuff that went for a premium.
Now, amidst all this resurgent excitement for gold, silver is 19.13. What the hell?
In case anybody is wonderin, Provident is generally the best payer. Sometimes APMEX for a specific product here and there, but on average you can’t go wrong with Provident.
I’ll be a steady seller of metal regardless of price going forward, as needs to pay for two kids in college begin to mount. I’d love a rally as much as anyone, but I really don’t believe the fairy tale anymore.
Coldly technical about it now. Spot is 1243. 200 dma is 1317. It’s still on a sell. Has been for almost a year, from around the 1600-1650 area.
Looks like I’ve killed the thread and have the place pretty much to myself.
Here’s another great one for karaoke night.
Here’s one that should be right in my wheel house of late. I pretty much understand it, but I find it hard to concentrate because she’s pretty damn hot and my mind starts to wander. The Curse of the Y Chromosome, I suppose.