Brendan O'Toole

Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 03, 2024 at 03:52 UTC

Vaguely reassuring to know who'll be running things in 30 years

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 03, 2024 at 03:28 UTC

For no reason at all I've been imagining what social media would have looked like after Bull Run

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 03, 2024 at 03:24 UTC

My second thought was "this guy's talking real big at halftime" My first was "why do they all look like thumbs in bad suits"

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 03, 2024 at 02:47 UTC

The (not even that old, common for the most reliable voters) line was that the election didn't start till the World Series was over. The World Series is in November now and no one watches baseball anymore, but also fucks sake, it's July, 95% of the country is just sorting out their charcoal choice.

3 replies 1 reposts 43 likes

Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 03, 2024 at 02:27 UTC

I honestly forget who said it but someone once referred to LBJ stepping down as being probably the right move but also the Democrats losing their best sonofabitch when they were already short of them

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 02, 2024 at 17:49 UTC

A longtime party insider and well-known kingmaker said something reasonable that only sounds panicky and game-changing if it's been cherry-picked to oblivion. Huh

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 05:07 UTC

He occasionally does a piece at Defector, mostly in memoriams

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 05:05 UTC

He's a brilliant writer and it's wonderful that he comes from the Irish New England "fuck the rich, help people" tradition. But the sports background of "here's what happened and what comes next" is maybe most important.

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 04:55 UTC

My father is of about the same age and demographic as Charlie Pierce and I can actually hear him saying "sure, but why" every time I open this site.

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 04:49 UTC

Writing about sports made me better at thinking about American politics, for those reasons and also the way Americans think about politics

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 04:41 UTC

Beltway journalism is pure high school. Everything is either "everyone knows" or "they won't talk to me specifically, so it must be bad"

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 04:28 UTC

I honestly can't watch a Tigers game without thinking of Clarence Boddicker.

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 04:25 UTC

Bluesky is wonderful in many ways and I also think "dammit, even Nedry knew not to mess with the raptor fences" several times a day

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 02:54 UTC

Right, this is the labor equivalent of poisonings went down by more than half after no-fault divorce became the law

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 02:47 UTC

This tracks uncomfortably well onto Rep/Dem fundraising ads.

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 02:13 UTC

He strikes me as someone who was prone to NYT from youth and wound up snorting it uncut during an election.

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 02:06 UTC

Save-spamming does not seem like an optimal "preserve democracy against fascism" strategy, but I guess if it works in Civ 5...

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 00:58 UTC

Is coalition progressive politics useless, or do I just need a glass of water

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 30, 2024 at 23:56 UTC

It's like staring into an eclipse

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 30, 2024 at 23:16 UTC

I had not really considered that the Enterprise captain's chair was "what if the Eames brothers worked for the Navy in 1943," but there it is

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 30, 2024 at 22:26 UTC

My primary Fallout 4 confusion came when I met the sarcastic dark-haired journalist who lives on the third-base side of Fenway and immediately thought "that's my real-life partner, game, what the hell?"

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 30, 2024 at 21:19 UTC

And this isn't even fully that. It's just "it's not Harris." I'd have a lot more respect for "Pritzker would be up by 10 points" speculation than this half-assed "these two are bad, nominate the good one."

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 30, 2024 at 20:49 UTC

I decided there'd been Vault 77 under L Street, named in honor of Ray Bourque; an experiment in creating a society whose only cultural media was Peaky Blinders and hurling replays.

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 30, 2024 at 04:38 UTC

Definitely not watching the Bell Riots one, no sir

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 30, 2024 at 00:38 UTC

The Democratic primary electorate is... *gestures futilely* but is legitimately good at sniffing out an empty suit.

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 30, 2024 at 00:32 UTC

Excellent. We've been playing long enough that we've house-ruled a lot of stuff, but very glad they've worked some out

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 30, 2024 at 00:31 UTC

That sounds delightful and terrifying

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 30, 2024 at 00:20 UTC

It's very easy to pick up, great for groups, and basically infinitely replayable.

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 30, 2024 at 00:19 UTC

!!! It's a horror-ish game, 3-6 players. You explore (build) a haunted house, gaining items/powers/etc, and at some point the game turns into a "haunt," where one of the players (usually) becomes the bad guy and everyone else has to stop them. boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10...

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 30, 2024 at 00:16 UTC

This is basically where we were on Betrayal at House on the Hill. Throw some new stuff in, why not

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 29, 2024 at 22:27 UTC

Rye manhattan at the local whiskey concern

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 29, 2024 at 20:50 UTC

I am not a political super genius but four months of Harris running around stumping on abortion rights and Trump's racism in a way that Biden can't/won't seems like it improves his 2024 chances and makes her a more appealing backup/2028 frontrunner.

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 29, 2024 at 20:39 UTC

Endorsing Warren *and* (or?also?) Klobuchar was a perfect encapsulation of how seriously anyone should take the Times board

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 29, 2024 at 19:35 UTC

Is that Norse or Dwarvish on the resurrection tub?

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 29, 2024 at 15:24 UTC

Failing that, the constitution has a process, which would be quicker, simpler, and likely much more stable, but that's not acceptable for some strange reason.

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 29, 2024 at 04:08 UTC

Saw this in a Maine Walmart over a decade ago and I still think of it once or twice a week

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Brendan O'Toole @brendanotoole.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 29, 2024 at 01:39 UTC

There's a reasonable chance the only actual effect of the debate was reminding the "wait, is it an election year" vote that, "yes," and "fuck's sake, Trump again?"

1 replies 1 reposts 13 likes