Aside from the requisite CEO bashing, forons opted to stay local this week, discussing Madison cafés, political endorsements and our lax drinking restrictions of yore.
Funny and absurd
How will we ever know which D-lister slept with her sister's husband?
Channel 27...the bastids
Post by chainsawcurtis Fri Mar 13, 2009 3:16 pm
Channel 27 has been running the crawls at the bottom of the screen for, like, two years announcing the switch to digital etc. In fact some stations are still running notices.
I really don't keep up with local sports but I do tape General Hospital every day. My wife and I watch it as a kind of wind down from all the crap. It's fun and harmless. Ya think 27 could run a crawl that says they're pre-empting it for girls high school basketball? Noooooooo.[/rant]
I bet anyone born after '88 would disagree.
Re: Live Like You Mean It....
Post by Bigote Tue Mar 17, 2009 4:53 pm
Growing up in another part of the Midwest, it was a badge of honor for seniors at my high school to slap an "Escape to Wisconsin" sticker on their bumper, showing they had visited and taken advantage of the lower drinking age. The only place this new slogan deserves to be slapped, however, is upside the head....
Debbie Downer, reporting for duty.
Re: espresso royale at cafe zoma?
Post by fennel Sun Mar 15, 2009 10:04 pm
So you're saying they're just like local cafes, then? (Who also serve pastries worthy of a 1960's era East European Automat ... who also think the crema of an espresso comes from a pressurized can ... ) In those terms, I don't think local cafes bother to offer anything beyond what's minimally expected. (Why can't they offer a remotely palatable croissant or scone? Is that unpatriotic, or what?)
But yes, using locally roasted coffee is a good thing, provided it's good.
Sad thing is, it'll be a Borders bestseller for months.
Re: You said it, George...
Post by Bwis53 Wed Mar 18, 2009 12:08 pm
See George run. Run George run. See George eat pretzel. See George drink beer. See George fall off couch. Mission accomplished.
Re: Should Remmele just shut up when she votes no?
Post by Bad Gradger Wed Mar 18, 2009 11:58 pm
I'd take Konkel's sanctimonious-yet-well-informed editorializing over Thuy's total insanity any day.
Smart and sharp
All this speculation sure shot University Square to shit.
Re: Are Madison house prices returning to earth?
Post by fennel Sat Mar 14, 2009 9:48 pm
I think you're right about values in the postwar east side. I expect those weren't as inflated, being less appealing to short-term speculators. Just as they were resistant to inflation, they'll be resistant to depreciation. On the near west side, I think sellers are trying to wait it out. But there are always some who really do want to sell, for one reason or another. My hunch is that we'll have to wait until August to get a clear sense of which parties the recovery will favor buyers or sellers. I think owners will be fine, as long as they can sit tight for 4-5 years. For the near east side, who knows? It has a lot of appeal, but values there are so hyper-inflated that the whole of it might eventually become a homogenous enclave of rich folk. Real estate speculation (unbridled) has a way of killing communities.
You mean it didn't end with Ken Lay?
Re: CEOs a reckoning
Post by Bwis53 Sat Mar 14, 2009 11:43 pm
I'd like to see some more prosecutions!
Too many took "Greed is good." and "He, who dies with the most toys, wins." seriously.
Some CEOs are as bad as thugs. Look at the way thugs do "business" and the way some companies do business (and they have advanced degrees!) Some educators, in the anti-gang meetings I used to attend, say, thugs are going corporate. I wish I could pull up that link, but after the stuff my CEO has been pulling, I'm beat.
It might be big news, but People Magazine will stick to Bristol Palin.
Re: Big endorsements in 2nd A.D.
Post by Nick Berigan Mon Mar 16, 2009 3:35 pm
"...some very big endorsements coming..."
This is why I got out of local politics. It insulted my intelligence on too regular a schedule. It's all about making a big personality-based splash. In the process of getting splashed upon, you, as the voter, are supposed to jump past the thoughtfulness that might make you wonder - "well, what do these guys have to do with my life?" and go straight to "oh, he's a BIG guy (at least in terms of Madison). This candidate must be 'what's happening'".
And to Stu's point that this is about equations, tell me please, what do you think "..if they didn't think it could pay off" means? For whom?
I thought we all wanted to forget high school
Fiends From The Past
Post by Marvell Wed Mar 18, 2009 12:45 pm
I have a slightly different take on this phenomenon:
When I was a sophomore in high school my family moved from rural Vermont to a small city in Ohio. Culturally, the shift was huge; in Vermont I enjoyed a large circle of friends who were educated, creative and iconoclastic, and who were culturally and politically engaged. In Ohio I found myself amidst a culture that was defiantly anti-intellectual and slavishly conformist, and who viewed with suspicion anything that didn't reflect the values and aesthetics of the local shopping mall.
As a result my experience of the rest of high school was one of extreme social isolation and a grim, daily battle to maintain my self of identity in the face of a peer group who relentlessly degraded and discounted the things I valued. My nickname at school was either 'Freak' or 'Geek'; I was voted 'Least Likely to Succeed' by my graduating class.
After graduation I got the fuck out of Ohio and never looked back. I lost track of everyone I knew from my Buckeye high school, and considered it good riddance to bad rubbish.
Fast forward to this year, when I create my Facebook account. All of a sudden I start getting friend requests from folks from my graduating class - and what's particularly weird about it is, from the tone of their contacts with me, they remember me from high school with notable fondness and esteem.
It's as if the whole nature of my high school experience as perceived by me never happened. I guess that, to them, it was all just 'good-natured fun' (or whatev).
Well, it's a quarter-century later; when I get these requests I allow them - I'm not generally inclined to carry grudges. The fact that I have what I feel is a great life helps me to be so magnanimous. But it does speak to the inherently subjective nature of human experience, and how even objectively cruel group behavior can be justified/glossed-over by individual members of the herd.