Wednesday Night Open Thread

Several days ago, I posted a video by the Beach Boys. Until then, I forgot how much I used to enjoy listening to them. Still do, as it turns out.

[The YouTube]

What about you? Got something you’d like to share? It’s Wednesday Night Open Thread.

What’s on your mind?

Also, the Word “Club” Was Offensive to the Non-Violent

In Connecticut, a substitute teacher was fired for running a “fight club” in his classroom.

Serves him right. Should’ve made it a “run & hide” club like the other teachers have.

Although Easier to Lose in an O’Hare Blizzard

[REASON WHY PLANES ARE PAINTED WHITE! Explained by CAPTAIN JOE] (Viewer #359,775)

I also guessed “because white paint is cheaper”, but that doesn’t appear to factor into it.

Link of the Day: How to Solve Your Violence Problem

[High Praise! to The Babylon Bee via American Digest]

In Response To Growing Number Of Fistfights, London Mayor Bans Hands

[Think you have a link that’s IMAO-worthy? Send it to harvolson@gmail.com. If I use your link, you will receive High Praise! (assuming you remember to put your name in the email)]

Icebreaker: Where Would You Love to Go on Holiday?

Having finished “The 25 most popular icebreaker questions based on four years of data” and enjoyed the results, I’m moving on to a new list:

76 Fun Icebreaker Questions (Not all of which will be used, since some are either/or questions, which are boring.)

Your mission: answer the question in the comments with a good story.

If you don’t have a good story, you are encouraged to make one up.

Where would you love to go on holiday?

Right now… anyplace where it doesn’t snow in April.

“Eat It With Your Fingers” – “But We Ordered Soup!”

[Submitted by slapout (High Praise!)]

[reference link]

Straight Line of the Day: Thanks to Genetic Modification Technology, Humans Will Soon Be Able to…

Works like this: I feed you Moon Nukers a straight line, and you hit me with a punch line in the comments.

Thanks to genetic modification technology, humans will soon be able to…

The Illustrated Frank J: Hard to Have a Civil War With Only One Side

[source]

My Tiny Thought on Barbara Bush

I liked her because she didn’t color her hair to hide the gray, which – after a certain point – starts to look ridiculous.

Barbara Bush never looked ridiculous.

So… Venezuela’s Problem Is Too Many Robots?

The governor of the Bank of England said that millions of job losses caused by robots could lead to the rise of communism.

That’s true. If we elect communist politicians.

Random Thoughts: Chick-fil-A and Tolerance

The only time I believe a politician might genuinely believe in something is when they decide not to run for office anymore.

Kids don’t make things easy on you. I tried to make the simple point that when you have a question of “Who would win in a fight between Batman and…” the answer is always Batman, and then my daughter said “How about Batman vs. 10 Batmans?”

“Batman always works alone.”
That shut her up. Luckily she didn’t think to bring up Robin or the Justice League.

I do need to work hard to teach my kids how to be right all the time so one day they’ll be prepared for the internet.

Who was the last president who got through his presidency without starting another war in the Middle East? Lincoln?

Don’t tell me it’s William Henry Harrison.

For so many, it’s all “blue good, red bad” or vice versa, and you pretend to believe whatever else you need to to support that.

Anyone want some legal advice? I don’t know what the law is, but I know what it should be.

I assume it’s a lot of nostalgia, but I’m really enjoying the Roseanne revival. Feels like it’s just been ever ongoing and now in its 31st season.

Maybe I should pretend there’s been a Simpsons revival and just start watching it again.

Ooh. There are Popular Highlights now on the Kindle edition of Sidequest: In Realms Ungoogled. I always like to know what lines people liked.
Book writing is kind of frustrating thing. I’m used to tweets and blog posts where people tell me how clever I am right away. With a book, it can takes years until people finally see all the witty things you wrote.

Wow. I’ve banned from Facebook.
No. Wait. I think I just forgot my password.
sighs
Yeah, I’m still on it.

I’m not sure how bad a revelation could come out about Trump where I wouldn’t just shrug and say, “Sounds like Trump.”

My 2yo has to get glasses. Is that too young to yell “NERRRRRRD!” at her?

“Oh. You can count to twelve? Count this!”
I slap the Sesame Street counting book out of her hands
“NERRRRRD!”

Ah. Nothing like reminiscing about how good health insurance used to be.
“Remember when we had a $125 copay?”
“Oh yeah. That was back when our premium didn’t rival our mortgage at all.”
Luckily the government realized how cushy we in middle class had it and fixed that good.

I’m trying to think if anything the federal government has done in my lifetime has affected me personally as much as Obamacare. That might be it so far.

My newsletter is a huge scam. I’m trying to get people to sign up because they like my current books, keep them entertained with my writing, and then try and sell them my next books when they come out. Huge scam.

There’s more even more characters than in Game of Thrones to keep track of in this Trump saga, and I’m forgetting who half of them are now. Plus, I can’t even follow the James Comey character arc.

Probably the best thing about being a progressive is coming up with new dumb things to be scared of.

I don’t know what kind of blackness in your soul you have to have to not like Chick-fil-A. It’s a great fast food restaurant, especially for families. And for a family that eats gluten-free, it’s about the only traditional fast food option.

This is how good Chick-fil-A is: They out-gross all the other fast food restaurants (per location) while only being open 6/7ths as much.

If you react to everything out of your tribe like a vampire does to sunlight, maybe—just maybe—you’re not the beacon of tolerance you think you are.

There’s a simple solution to all this: Turn the city of DC into one big prison ala Escape from New York and then we just start over somewhere else.
And please stop Snake Plissken from rescuing the president this time.

Didn’t The Simpsons put a lampshade on the whole Apu thing back in ‘96 when Apu talked about how the bowling team The Stereotypes begged him to join their team?

How to Survive If a Chick-fil-A Comes to Your Neighborhood:
You don’t.

How many new wars are we getting? Just one? That’s not too bad.

“Let’s find on the map which place is getting fighted!”
Yay. My daughter is watching the news.

My brother is in Jordan for twenty days. What was the chance of us starting a big new war while he was over there? 1 in 3?

Next they’ll be saying Speedy Gonzales is problematic.

Hey, both the Flash and Speedy Gonzales are owned by Warner Brothers, so shouldn’t there be a canon answer on who is faster?

I’m going to multitask and march because I believe in science while clapping because I believe in fairies.

It’s not enough to argue an option is bad when they’re all bad options; you have to argue why it’s worse.
I’m either talking about current events or still going on about the 2016 election.

I have to see Black Panther. If I go see Avengers: Infinity War and Black Panther is the only MCU movie I haven’t seen, I’m going to feel like super racist.
The worst I’ve heard about Black Panther is that it’s no more than a good Marvel movie.

So is Donald Trump a real person? I always thought he was a comedian doing a bit like Pee-wee Herman.

It’s like the left is just beginning to learn to deal with pop culture that doesn’t gently massage all their already held views and it is hilarious.

Unions are an outdated thing from yesteryear. Like tribes.

The exponential growth of things people are finding that we should now consider offensive is not sustainable unless the goal is to end all communication because of the risks or covert everyone to some bland Newspeak.
It’s good to try to consider others in what you say and not go out of the way to be offensive, but we also must recognize that in all the instance of man’s inhumanity to man, lightly offending people through speech is extremely low on the list.
I say this as a Christian who is offended by other people’s speech countless times per day. You just have to learn to deal, people. In other words, toughen up, buttercup.
(and I would like to apologize for that previous statement, as it’s probably offensive to my daughter, Buttercup)

“I picked up this book as an impulse purchase; just something that looked like it might provide a few moments of entertainment off and on over the next week or so. I ended up becoming engrossed in it and finished reading it over the weekend.”
That’s what I want to hear. I like hearing how quickly people read the book. I like an engrossing read you can’t put down.
As an author, the data I would love from Kindle is which chapter breaks were people least likely to stop reading. For Sidequest, I’m guessing the Chapter 21/22 break was the most compelling to continue reading.

It’s going to be hard to look at Hannity as objective and non-partisan from now on.

I accidentally left my coffee alone on a table at Starbucks and then they had the police take it away because it was black.

What do you call a conservative that everyone on the left considers a conservative but no one on the right does?

I wish some activists would boycott my new novel so everyone would hear about it.
The only problem is that Sidequest: In Realms Ungoogled is a great fantasy novel enjoyed by all. Rats.

I often never realized there were sad little people who hated someone until that someone dies.
It’s distressing how many people hate so many other people. I’m trying to think of who died in the past that I felt the need to say bad things about right after, and all I can come up with is Osama bin Laden and Ted Kennedy.