Get Your Grump on Thursdays - Was (What's chapping my @ss today?)

[OtherDarren]

When I go for a ride with someone thinking
it's going to be 40 miles and it ends up being 90.

Mostly uphill.

You do that to me all the time which reminds me that you're worse than those people in the crosswalk.

The first ride I went on you was an "easy 40" which turned out to be a 85 mile death march. After the ride, I hung around in my bathrobe downstairs for hours because I didn't have the legs to go upstairs to my room and find clothing.

Ride Sunday?

[davids]

I work in the ME often. I have lots of military friends and I'm always fascinated how so many intelligent people can be so myopic. There's a video floating around on all of the right-wing idiot sites that is supposedly of "stupid muslims too dumb to take suicide belt off dead terrorist...bomb blows up at funeral." This video has been sent to me at least 4x today with various idiotic subjects.

It goes a long way to reinforce their racist view of the rest of the world. In reality, it's a video of a FSA funeral wherein the Assad regime (or someone connected) detonated an IED to kill mourners. Children died, but you know, fuck dark people.

I hear you. My daughter's in Jordan now, doing a semester abroad to deepen her Arabic, learn much more about the region and actually, y'know, get to know a bunch of Arabs.

Most friends/acquaintances, as soon as they hear, ask, "Aren't you worried?!?" No, I'm not, because I actually pay attention. Jordan (with all its issues) is not Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, etc...

The most painfully entertaining part has been watching my agoraphobic, scared-of-the-world mother deal with this. She is trying to reconcile her ignorant fearful pre-conceptions of Amman with her granddaughter's joyful blog posts. I think it sprained her brain.

OTOH, dealing with racism as deep and pernicious as what you're relating would probably have me frothing at the mouth.

[znfdl]

My wife has another very bad case of Lyme disease and the infectious disease doctor has decided o do a month of IV antibiotics. Here comes a PIC line.

We also have to cancel our trip to Arizona.

On the bright side she is producing carbon dioxide and in good spirits.

[Jonathan]

My grump: out of the 19 or so things I have to be grumpy about for the second consecutive week I'm still fucking happy. That's not really something to grump about, not being able to grump. My energy level is about 20% lately. Work is backing up, my paint prices are through the roof, My wife's car needs more work to follow the last work, my kid has missed every day of school but 4 this year, and some how I've got happy music ear wormed into my head. Jesus, just let me be pissed off for a few minutes.

[Saab2000]

My wife has another very bad case of Lyme disease and the infectious disease doctor has decided o do a month of IV antibiotics. Here comes a PIC line.

We also have to cancel our trip to Arizona.

On the bright side she is producing carbon dioxide and in good spirits.

Oh boy.... I'm sorry to hear that. I know you were looking forward to that trip. Greetings to Mrs. Znfdl and best wishes for a rapid and full recovery.

PS - pre-punished myself. No pushups but a ride and a run today.

My grump is that I have to go to La Guardia again tomorrow. Twice. When Joe Biden called that a third-world airport he insulted third world airports around the world. They can't possibly be as much of a Charlie Foxtrot as LGA is. (BTW I hate the term "Third World" - it's patronizing and condescending.)

But nothing really to whine about. I keep going to work. My employer keeps paying me. And I'm also still producing CO2.

[SpeedyChix]

One of my email accounts is flooded with spam and I've yet to sort out how to get spamassasin filters added to clear it. sigh.
Big doe wandered through middle of the day, was i in the stand???

@znfdl: hope this is the last lyme disease bout for her.

[MarkC]

My wife has another very bad case of Lyme disease and the infectious disease doctor has decided o do a month of IV antibiotics. Here comes a PIC line.

We also have to cancel our trip to Arizona.

On the bright side she is producing carbon dioxide and in good spirits.

Have a friend dealing with same right now. Two doc family so at least the patient doesn't need to go to clinic each day. But wow this is a terrible infection. Keeps me out of the woods in the warm temps as we have tones of deer, mice and ticks.

I'm grumpy about Lymes so no Burpees!

Best,

Mark

[giordana93]

just found out that the professor who steered me into academics died 2 weeks ago, just two days after my fiftieth. which only drove home a greater grump: I moved back to New Orleans, leaving a safe but staid position to chair a department, but in spite of having tenure, I had no case when they closed said department 2 years later. so I've gone from chair with tenure to unemployed last 2 years with virtually no prospect of finding another position within 1000 miles. hadn't grumped about that, but the moment seemed opportune with Jeff's passing. vive la litterature francaise--just not as a career choice. carry on.

[cash]

I hear you. My daughter's in Jordan now, doing a semester abroad to deepen her Arabic, learn much more about the region and actually, y'know, get to know a bunch of Arabs.

Most friends/acquaintances, as soon as they hear, ask, "Aren't you worried?!?" No, I'm not, because I actually pay attention. Jordan (with all its issues) is not Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, etc...

The most painfully entertaining part has been watching my agoraphobic, scared-of-the-world mother deal with this. She is trying to reconcile her ignorant fearful pre-conceptions of Amman with her granddaughter's joyful blog posts. I think it sprained her brain.

OTOH, dealing with racism as deep and pernicious as what you're relating would probably have me frothing at the mouth.

Interesting. A very good friend and co-worker was in Amman this summer for a month (his brother in law works for the State Department and his sister an NGO). My pal is a former Marine (he lived through Mogadishu) and grew up in Saudi Arabia (his father was a petroleum engineer). Anyway, he's a worldly, well travelled dude. He traveled with his 20 year old daughter and 37 year old partner (who is a SE Asia Peace Corps alum, who may be the most well traveled person I know).

To the point. His description of Jordan was decidedly different and he said it's the first time in all of his international travel he's ever felt in danger. He told of driving back to Amman from the beach in a rental car on a freeway. He mistakenly cut off another car, who then proceeded to pursue him and force him to stop by blocking the road. Two men in uniform - unknown what they were .. military, police) got out of the car and acted in a very threatening manner. My friend's Arabic is not good, but as soon as the men learned he was American they drove off.

I know this story is apropos of nothing, but a legitimate belief that your murder, the murder of your loved ones, or a kidnapping is imminent, tends to make an impact. And this wasn't the only thing that colored his exeperience, but certainly the most memorable.

I hope your daughter has a wonderful experience. To be young and adventurous!

[Matthew J]

Arrived home tonight to find downstair neighbors significant other standing by the front door. We know each other by face so I thought nothing about letting her in with me.

Appears she was hanging around outside for a reason. They have been arguing loud going on more than an hour now.

[Corso]

Judges across the country striking down voter picture ID laws.

You need an ID to drive, need an ID to cash checks, Need an ID to buy booze, or get into a bar, rent a car, but having a photo ID to VOTE is too much of a burden.

I guess it’s better to have voter fraud than inconvenience people. Another factor in the quality of politicians we have...

[EricKeller]

you don't see the blatent, obvious, admitted racism of voter id laws? So you're saying that a person who was denied a birth certificate because of Jim Crow laws doesn't know a hell of a lot more about the state of American politics than you do? Because I reject that assertion, if you choose to make it. You sir, are the one that's too ignorant to vote. The whole reason behind voter ID laws is that republicans think that they can keep democrats from voting. There is absolutely no other purpose. There have been exactly zero cases of voter impersonation in this country other than idiot republicans that think it's easy to do.

[devlin]

Same as last week. Not enough hours at home with my family and not enough time to then learn some more about building.

Teh upshot was there were some useful threads this week but FNL hasn't hit my desk yet. Damn it.

[Corso]

You choose to make this a personal? Racism? You threw that card out pretty fast.

Republicans want id’s to keep Democrats from voting? Talk about over-generalizing.

The reason to have an ID is to stop voter fraud. If the Dems are against it, it’s because they know they benefit from this system.

Zero case? I went to vote several years ago, and was told I had already voted, because someone crossed my name off a roster sheet. (both to get a ballot, then after a ballot was put in a machine. Luckily for me, i knew a cop who was there, who vouched for me. When i asked what was going to happen next, shoulders shrugged, and nothing was going to happen after that.

Yeah, so someone may have voted under my name. Yes, it happened to ME! In Massachusetts.

And if ID’s are not checked, how can you prove it hasn’t happened?

The Democratic politicians in my state are against the id, but when they had their recent convention, they INSISTED all delegates MUST have a photo id to vote. Explain that logic. I guess they didn’t really want “jim crow” victims to vote in their own convention.

Jim crow laws? Whats the number in that demographic? Are you saying no african american who wasn’t issued Birth certificate never had to prove who he/she was for any reason?

If you can present an intelligent argument other than an emotional one, please present. If you choose not to, I understand, as you’ll most likely blame Bush next.

[chasea]

You do that to me all the time which reminds me that you're worse than those people in the crosswalk.

The first ride I went on you was an "easy 40" which turned out to be a 85 mile death march. After the ride, I hung around in my bathrobe downstairs for hours because I didn't have the legs to go upstairs to my room and find clothing.

Ride Sunday?

Classic Darren(s)

I'm in for Sunday if I can get this stupid hip to stop shooting lightning bolts throughout my body when I pedal.

My grump: My hip is shooting lightning bolts throughout my body.

[chasea]

You choose to make this a personal? Racism? You threw that card out pretty fast.

Republicans want id’s to keep Democrats from voting? Talk about over-generalizing.

The reason to have an ID is to stop voter fraud. If the Dems are against it, it’s because they know they benefit from this system.

Zero case? I went to vote several years ago, and was told I had already voted, because someone crossed my name off a roster sheet. (both to get a ballot, then after a ballot was put in a machine. Luckily for me, i knew a cop who was there, who vouched for me. When i asked what was going to happen next, shoulders shrugged, and nothing was going to happen after that.

Yeah, so someone may have voted under my name. Yes, it happened to ME! In Massachusetts.

And if ID’s are not checked, how can you prove it hasn’t happened?

The Democratic politicians in my state are against the id, but when they had their recent convention, they INSISTED all delegates MUST have a photo id to vote. Explain that logic. I guess they didn’t really want “jim crow” victims to vote in their own convention.

Jim crow laws? Whats the number in that demographic? Are you saying no african american who wasn’t issued Birth certificate never had to prove who he/she was for any reason?

If you can present an intelligent argument other than an emotional one, please present. If you choose not to, I understand, as you’ll most likely blame Bush next.

You had to get a cop? Pick yourself up by your goddamned bootstraps instead of relying on taxpayer money to handle your personal problems for you. Deadbeat!

[Brandon White]

You choose to make this a personal? Racism? You threw that card out pretty fast.

Republicans want id’s to keep Democrats from voting? Talk about over-generalizing.

The reason to have an ID is to stop voter fraud. If the Dems are against it, it’s because they know they benefit from this system.

Zero case? I went to vote several years ago, and was told I had already voted, because someone crossed my name off a roster sheet. (both to get a ballot, then after a ballot was put in a machine. Luckily for me, i knew a cop who was there, who vouched for me. When i asked what was going to happen next, shoulders shrugged, and nothing was going to happen after that.

Yeah, so someone may have voted under my name. Yes, it happened to ME! In Massachusetts.

And if ID’s are not checked, how can you prove it hasn’t happened?

The Democratic politicians in my state are against the id, but when they had their recent convention, they INSISTED all delegates MUST have a photo id to vote. Explain that logic. I guess they didn’t really want “jim crow” victims to vote in their own convention.

Jim crow laws? Whats the number in that demographic? Are you saying no african american who wasn’t issued Birth certificate never had to prove who he/she was for any reason?

If you can present an intelligent argument other than an emotional one, please present. If you choose not to, I understand, as you’ll most likely blame Bush next.

I'm not going to get into right and left here - but let me say this. If someone high-up is pushing fraud, it's not going to be a crowd-sourced fraud mob hitting the polls. It's going to be much higher up with rigging machines and centralized reporting.

[Corso]

A deadbeat is one who doesn’t pay taxes. I have all my life. Unlike many in the country who don’t, and still have the right to vote.

My original post had nothing about race, age or political parties, by the way. Amazing how some interpret things.

[Jonathan]

And it's now Friday. Time to migrate over to the happy thread for the next 24 hours.

[monadnocky]

A deadbeat is one who doesn’t pay taxes. I have all my life. Unlike many in the country who don’t, and still have the right to vote.

My original post had nothing about race, age or political parties, by the way. Amazing how some interpret things.

Come on, man. You bring up one of the most racially-charged issues in the country and then you are "amazed" that some people "interpret" this? It was my first thought, as I can all but guarantee you it was the first thought of most others who read your post. It's almost like you're trolling with what you say above.
There's all sort of other stuff about your post that I find completely repulsive, but I'll leave it with the fact that I believe you knew exactly what you were doing when you brought up the political and racial issue of voter ID laws.

OK. It's Friday. Recommend for me some other exercise because I'm terrible at pushups.