It was likely an accident of scheduling, but I’ll be accompanying the better half to a performance of Carmen on Valentine’s Day. Unfortunately, I’m of the age where Bizet’s classic reminds me of one thing only – The Bad News Bears. I’ve been told that I am not to channel my inner Tanner Boyle, and that referring to the Company as “a bunch of Jews, spics, niggers, pansies, and a booger-eatin’ moron” would result in me getting my clock cleaned.
Meh – I was more of an Engleberg guy anyhow.
Follow me for more relationship advice:
I must say that I’m extremely fortunate that she’s stuck with me so long (the end of February will mark an even three dozen years), considering what my social life was like in high school:
Finding lady friends in college was a bit easier, though not without its pitfalls…
Of course, since I still live in Big College Town, I get regular reports of what a minefield it’s become. Sometimes it’s just a letdown:
Sometime’s it’s even worse than that:
Eventually, if you’re lucky enough, you find someone, settle down, and attempt to do nice things for each other.
So for most guys, long-term relationships are worth it. Bonus — you won’t have to visit this hamlet (for the first five or six years, anyway).
Valentine’s Day, %cet
The “gift of a lifetime” might work out. I mean, women dig boats right?
Or is it they dig the money the boat owner has?
Had. you mean had.
This.
Best days of a boat owners life.
Bringing it home.
Watching the south end of it head north behind someone else’s pickup.
Why is a sailboat like a woman?
The rigging costs much more than the hull.
Boat – noun
/bəʊt/
A hole in the water into which you pour money
Lots of women like to lounge on the bow of a boat in a bikini. Just try not to impale her with a bass lure.
On the water where I grew up we referred to them as “bow ornaments”. They sometimes became detached from the boat as the alcohol consumption and wakes surround the boat increased.
More than once I watched a woman get tossed like a rag doll.
A classic never gets old.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EYX1rIe3SaQ
“bass lure”
That’s what you call yours?
You know what woman had a thing for boats?
Natalie Wood.
What kind of wood doesn’t float? Natalie!
Helen of Troy?
Wanking festival? So….business as usual in ‘ol Blighty?
Greatest baseball movie ever made.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0025039/reference/
VD and my wife’s birthday is sandwiched between the kids birthdays which are less than a month apart.
She’s a thoughtful gift giver and I routinely don’t get her anything. She has me what else should she need?
I managed to get a preorder on this so I figure I’m covered for all the years I didn’t get her anything and several years into the future. Maybe she’ll give me another baby.
https://www.chicago-gaming.com/coinop/medieval-madness
VD is terrible birthday present
Bill Gates has a sad…
Valentine’s Day; then wife’s Bday, then my Bday, then our anniversary — all spanning just under 4 weeks. One of my most expensive months.
Christmas and the kids birthdays are close. It kinda sucks for them. And having a birthday in the winter is a bummer.
I’m sorry venereal disease is sandwiched between your kids’ birthdays.
I’m fortunate that my wife shares my indifference towards Valentine’s Day. We usually just go get sushi with friends (a tradition that started years ago with a last minute dinner and our friend suddenly exclaiming “wait, isn’t this Valentine’s Day?”).
OTOH, her birthday was last week and she’s a “birthday week” sort of person 🙄
We went to a restaurant that charged French Laundry prices. Phenomenal, but sadly outside the budget for regular visits.
Congrats on the longevity! Our 27th anniversary is tomorrow. We go heavy on that, and Valentine’s day is just a card or something. It makes it a lot easier to go out to dinner.
The big 5 0 is coming up in a month.
Oooh, powerful One-Upsmanship.
*gracefully walks to the Never Married alcove, awaiting a chance to spot the Cool Kids bicker*
That is one of my few life accomplishments that I am actually proud of.
Birthdays are a dime a dozen and are just an acknowlegement that I didn’t get run over by a truck in the last year.
Hell, kinnath, I am proud of my 20 years. 50 is a whole ‘nother ball game!
Mad props, as the kids say.
ZWAK, I would say the first 20 were the hardest part. Constant juggling of kids, careers, and financial madness. After the kids started moving out, it got a lot more sane and easier to manage.
Heh. And my son (from a first, very short marriage) is getting married this summer, clearing the path, so to speak.
Honest as the day is long
As the director of the documentary “The Librarians” and a librarian living and working in North Texas, who participated in the film, we witnessed how First Amendment rights are still an issue concerning parents and influencing how they vote. Rehmet’s win shows an aversion to letting outside political action groups and extremist politicians deny families their rights to determine what their children can and cannot read.
We hope voters will realize that this issue is far from settled. Rehmet and Wambsganss will face-off again in November for the full term. And Texas is not an outlier, but a preview. In North Texas and in communities across the nation, we have seen how easily our rights to intellectual freedom can be taken away. We must stay vigilant to ensure history does not continue to repeat itself.
Yes, yes, of course. You can’t expect parents to spend their own money on books. Objecting to certain books in public elementary school libraries is just like kicking down the door of private residences to clear the books from the shelves.
Fahrenheit 451 is a documentary.
Libraries are a constitutional requirement, right?
Where else beside libraries, city busses and light rail do the homeless have to masturbate and smoke meth & fenty?
Don’t forget the bedbugs and silverfish you bring home from the library DrOtto.
Having how-to books on switching genders, butt sex, and beastiality in school libraries is not just a constitutional right but a human right!
Huh, I never knew The Librarians was a documentary. I mean, Warehouse 13 is much more plausible.
I liked Warehouse 13.
Is that any good? Comet just started airing it.
My wife and I used to watch it. It was entertaining enough if not particularly challenging intellectually.
Perfect.
rhywun:
It’s not a bad genre show for background. Solid cast as well.
If I didn’t have to pay the library district that o never go to $80 a year I could buy my kids another 160 children’s books at goodwill or 80 paperbacks or 40 hardbound novels…
Word games and conflation are their favorite tools.
If the left had their way you would find out very quickly what real book banning/burning looks like.
For sure that library has “The Road to Serfdom” and all the libertarian and conservative classics, right?
https://x.com/matthewshaw1111/status/2021625837167038776?s=20
Nothing broken here.
Welfare and a non reproducing population.
We still make shit in Iowa.
It’s encouraging that people are finding something to do, at least.
Contributing factors would be offshoring of manufacturing and the transition to disposable goods instead of repairable & serviceable goods.
That leaves service work as the most likely option for skilled and semi-skill labor.
The aging of the boomer generation is driving growth in health services over other service industries.
The rest can and should be blamed on government meddling in economics and health care.
And that is why there is a budget debt.
Shpip:
“the end of February will mark an even three dozen years”
You got me beat by just under a year!
And I had the same dating success in high school.
And I had the same dating success in high school.
The future mrs. kinnath picked me out of a crowd, and I never had a chance.
It took me many years to figure out just how fucking lucky I was.
Nothing broken here.
Something tells me those “health care” jobs are not predominantly doctors and nurses.
Good guess.
https://www.wsj.com/economy/jobs/january-jobs-report-unemployment-b703b0e3?st=KXdNyj&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Exactly what I would have guessed.
And “social services”, whatever that is.
Low wage FTW!
Which are frequently paid with government funds.
Also OT – when you’ve lost the NYT on Mary J.
https://archive.fo/wf5jx
linky no worky for me
Take your pick. There are two bad options.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/opinion/regulate-legalized-marijuana.html
I can get around the NYT paywall with relative ease and a few browser settings. Others here struggle with that solution.
The one thing we all agree on is the NYT isn’t getting our nickel!
Not only that, they admit they were wrong. Inconceivable!
It’s almost like government profits from that.
Last year on VDay, Mom was in skilled nursing learning how to trust her legs again. I can’t remember what we did but Dude took the whole day off. Maybe we went to that Thai-KC BBQ fusion place. OMG. 🤤
So a local news station is “highlighting” the social engagement of our wonderful youth, writing a harrowing story about kids protesting ICE.
1. These same students missed 11 days of school over the last 2.5 school weeks because the local government was too incompetent to remove snow and ice even though we get similar amounts of both every fucking year. Eleven fucking school days missed over the last 14 school days, and within 2 days of a full return, they’re sanctioning walkouts to protest ICE enforcing longstanding federal law.
2. This is the school they highlighted. Notice less than 1/3 of them can read at grade level, and just over a quarter can do basic math.
We cannot burn down the school system fast enough.
That is….wow.
Yes, academia needs to be burned down and rebuilt from the ground up.
Good on the “burn it down” part, but I’m having a hard time with the “rebuild it” part.
I suppose that’s just me being reflexive and curmudgeonly, and that you surely meant it as a voluntaryist “rebuild”.
They are learning the more important lesson on how to become a permanent Democrat.
They are learing lessons you bigot!
The only boat anybody in my family ever owned was a small V-hull aluminum boat with oars and a trolling motor for running trot lines.
One of mom’s boyfriends or husbands had a boat – we watched the July 4 fireworks from Lake Ontario once. That was neat.
We had a small John Boat growing up in SoFla. My grandparents had a proper boat. But the real fun was when a friend’s dad had a boat in college.
My dad’s office partner, Paul, had a deep sea commercial boat for summer salmon runs. I spent some time on that…
….mostly throwing up.
V day: We are working on….I dont remember. Thirty two? Three? Five? Neither one of us keep up with it. Since we cant remember, dont bother digging out the marriage certificate and dont care we adopted Valentines as our celebratory day. Our tradition is to eat boiled crawfish.
Before anyone decries it let me assure you that if you haven’t eaten crawfish in Louisiana south of Alexandria you have no idea what it is like. Hell, you cant get decent crawfish anywhere else…not even in MS or TX five feet over the line. I dont know why but that is the way it is.
I made some kick-ass crawfish etouffee a couple of weekends ago. Frozen tails* bought off a truck from Texas.
*I don’t care to eat the heads nor the poop chute.
Just as good out of the river here but haven’t had them since I was a kid. But we have crawdads, not crawfish or crayfish. Exception for Jake’s Famous Crawfish. They’ve been around long enough and do a decent enough job to misname the product.
I’ve had them in New Orleans, several times. I’m a fan.
I eat a lot of things. Mud bugs ain’t one of them.
Today I learned
Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett is in Livigno to support Kim, his girlfriend. Before she took her first run, he hiked up the side of the halfpipe with his camera gear and set up to get the shot.
Well whaddaya know.
We haven’t celebrated Valentines Day since college in the late 90s. We don’t even really recognize it.
Best advice I was ever given
On your first anniversary, buy your wife the best shotgun you can afford and a nice hunting outfit to go with it. If she likes it you’ll have a hunting partner for
life. If she doesn’t you’ll have a nice shotgun.
In high school, my father advised me to marry a nymphomaniac that owned a liquor store. You won’t have to work for a living. And you’ll always have something to do with your free time.
And worst case, you’ll go quick instead of a rusty knife.
https://www.wankersstore.com/
I’m not clicking that.
Cmon man. It’s Wankers Country Store in/on Wankers Corner. I picked up a T-shirt last time I stopped in.
Well Threedoor, I appreciate the offer. I’m on ChristianMingle right now since the couple that ran my Bible Study in VA met there – but all my current matches are within 500km of where I live in Naples. Frankly…like I said about the traveling stuff earlier – the distance wouldn’t be a problem stateside, but here it’s just that much more of a headache. I thought it might be a little easier over here…before I started thinking about how many folks here are actual practicing Christians (surprisingly not that many active Catholics from how I hear it from others), much less more in my non-denom evangelical-leaning framework. And of course…being back in the military limits some things too since you always got to look out for the enlisted match (with occasional possible exceptions).
Not feeling sorry for myself – still hoping there might be an opportunity if I do a year or so in Japan after this…although technically speaking the odds are probably even lower on the whole.
Stupid fraternization policy. Army used to be only if in same chain of command, maybe it was same org? But changed it to blanket officer/enlisted because of the other services to perpetuate the phony aristocracy divide.
My bro met his wife on ChristianMingle. Stateside, of course. Id expect you might get more traction in Japan than you would think. Likely fewer Christians overall, but I would think that the density and the lack of 1700 years of institutional Catholicism would increase the likelihood of a good match.
In Japan in Kyushu are the largest amount of Catholics. The other Christian community that I’m aware the ethnic Koreans. I know next to nothing about them, but I’m imagining a better match.
It’s official
“Under the process just completed by the EPA, we are officially terminating the so-called endangerment finding,” President Donald Trump said at the White House with EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.
Zeldin said all greenhouse gas emissions standards on light, medium and heavy duty vehicles that followed the endangerment finding have been eliminated.
The endangerment finding emerged from a Supreme Court decision in 2007 that greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act and the EPA must determine whether they pose a threat to public health.
It’s curtains for Mother Earth. Trump has sealed our fate.
I can’t help wondering if that phrase “a Supreme Court decision in 2007 that greenhouse gases are air pollutants” is a mischaracterization of the actual ruling but I’m definitely too lazy to read it for myself.
Here is the Cliff Notes Version:
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/549/497/
Also the EPA Administrative decision to regulate CO2, etc. etc.
https://www.epa.gov/climate-change/endangerment-and-cause-or-contribute-findings-greenhouse-gases-under-section-202a
https://i.postimg.cc/bNSDtQ0L/VD-7.jpg
St. Val’s day is not one the wife and I celebrate. Mostly as she isn’t a romantic type at all, and I hate (like a good GenXer) any commercial holiday where some greeting card company is telling me how to feel.
Make it your own. Find someone with a Tommy Gun and a place to shoot it, and have a date she won’t forget.
I hate (like a good GenXer) any… company… telling me [anything]
*fist-bumps fellow oppositional defiant disorder non-sufferer*
Be thankful you don’t have Sweetest Day out there.
I eat a lot of things. Mud bugs ain’t one of them.
Too much work. Too messy. Same with shrimp still in the shell.
-Bubba Gump
Also plate-o’-shrimp. You ever notice that?
Garlic shrimp from a sketchy van on a Hawaiian beach.
Shrimp scampi
I am always getting grief for not planning things. This year I found some openings at our favorite restaurant, but between roller derby practice and running strength classes at the gym, the Mrs. doesn’t have a free night open. So tomorrow I’m making filet mignon and some giant shrimp we got at Costco. Yes they are bugs, yes they are messy, but they’re worth it.
You gonna do shrimp cocktail before the steak, or shrimp and steak together?
The shrimp will be sauteed in garlic butter, so surf & turf. We need something green too, so maybe bacon-wrapped asparagus. Damn I’m hungry.
Broccoli with sauce Bearnaise is my go-to with steak.
I like shrimp.
I like shrimp, too. I just want somebody else to wrestle it out of its armor for me.
You can get them shell off, etc.
We keep these in the freezer: https://www.wegmans.com/shop/product/44592-Frozen-Large-Raw-Shrimp-FAMILY-PACK
Toss them in the sous vide straight from frozen and they’re done in ~ 20 minutes.
You can get them shell off, etc.
Oh, I do.