Rick: When I was 10 my parents were grasped by a 1960’s ideal of self-sufficiency. Then moved us to a small farm, planted a huge garden, and started raising pigs, cattle, and chickens for food. We kids gave the animals fanciful names like Buttercup, Heathcliff, and Pansy.

The next fall my parents prepared a celebratory feast for Sunday dinner, using only foods grown on the farm. The crowning glory was a perfect ham from our first group of pigs. Just as we were biting into that beautiful ham, my four-year-old brother looked up and said “Pansy was a nice pig.” This put an end to the dinner, and to the practice of naming animals intended for the table. The remaining bits and pieces of Pansy were removed from the freezer and given to people who were not personally acquainted with her.

Theodosia in Natter:

Some people believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I believe in the Boneless Chicken Tree.

Cindy in Natter:

Oh, my poor children. They think they feel the full depth of pain of a citizen of Red Sox Nation. They've seen the Red Sox as World Series Champions before they were 8, 6, and 4.

They think they know what's to come, what we are… They haven't even begun.

Nutty:

Rush Limbaugh is against prescription drugs unless you can score them illegally from your hired help. Double points if you lie about their known side-effects in major interviews. Triple points if you suddenly become and advocate for treatment instead of throw-away-the-key options for drug offenders.

As my friend Eric likes to say, "This is what Republicans call 'flip-flopping,' but which is more commonly known as 'learning.'"

In Minearverse:

msbelle: Tim is funny when he's being crazy hermit guy.

Cashmere: Yes, especially when he answers the door wearing a pair of Playtex Living Gloves.

Kristen: He really wants you to call first.

Baseball chatter, in Natter:

DX: And just for Jesse, Joe Torre just put Bernie Williams, his DH today, into center field, which means that Yankee pitchers will have to bat for the rest of their game today.

Jesse: See, I don't even know what that means.

Edit: I mean, I know what the words mean, and that DH is Designated Hitter (right?), but the significance is lost on me.

JenP: Took me a split second to turn DH from dear husband to designated hitter. Not that it particularly helps my understanding, but it does make the paragraph much less odd.

Jesse: JOE TORRE AND BERNIE WILLIAMS GOT GAY-MARRIED?!?!?

JenP: This is what I'm saying. Plus, according to that paragraph? Just for the day. Which, you know, odd.

Barry Woodward: While watching the [Profit DVDs] a silly idea popped into my noggin. If the Spike TV movie truly is to take place post-Not Fade Away, Wolfram & Hart are going to have to rebuild their firm in LA and who better to be the new CEO than Jim Profit. I know, I know, Jim wasn't a lawyer but then neither was Angel or the rest of the fang gang.

Tim Minear: Barry, you have no idea how many times Greenie tried to get Pasdar into the Wolfram and Hart mix as Jim Profit.

Cashmere: I'd have hurt a lot less never knowing this.

Oh, wait. I forgot who posted it for a second. Nevermind.

Rick:

Buffistas need to stop scaring themselves with unvalidated internet tests. You go to a therapist if you have persistent feelings of sadness, anxiety, or anger that cause you significant distress. You go to a therapist if you have symptoms that interfere with your ability to maintain strong, satisfying social relationships or your ability to make a living. You don’t go to a therapist because you turn out to be different from the average American. For that, you need only rejoice.

In Natter --

brenda: Somewhere I aquired a Donny Osmond doll, and the best part was that it came with a little purple satin dickey. Even when I was seven I knew there was something not right about that.

Not gleaning someone else's woe for comedy, really I'm not. In technology:

DXM: Speaking of power supplies, a loud cracking noise just came from my main machine, followed by the odor of electrical smoke. That can't be good.

Daniel Jensen: Whoops. That's the magic smoke. Without it, your computer can't compute well.

DXM: Fortunately, power supplies are cheap. I'm just worried that it took something with it. It was a pretty loud bang, the most spectacular failure I've ever witnessed.

Tommyrot: Was it preceded by a synthesized female voice saying, "Warning. Magic smoke containment failure in one minute."?

DXM: Nope, but I may have turned that option off when I set the thing up.

The other possibility is that it was attacked by a Lutheran space fleet from my kitchen sink. That would explain a lot.

Daniel Jensen: Actually, if it was white smoke, your computer may have a new pope.

So, maybe Space Catholics.

DXM: Electrical smoke is supposed to be blue, isn't it? At least that's what my physics professor said. Would that mean BB King was elected Pope?