Smartie's Bar & Grill #66

Its hard to lose an old friend.

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Me too. I have an old chair in the upper pasture and sometimes I just sit and watch. But then I always find something to do.

 

I am looking for Easter stuff, Valentine's Day stuff is old hat already.

 

The Sheep and Goat auction is tonight, hinting it would be fun to go. I told him I just want to look not buy....yet.

 

So sorry for your loss Prunepicker, I know the feeling. There is nothing like the love a dog shows his/her owner. Their capacity for loving someone is unequal.

 

I just love to go to goat auctions. I usually look them over, write down the numbers of goats I like, and then get outbid. But rarely I strike gold.

 

Goats are cute but can be a bit stinky....Had some horses in a field with goats and every time the male goat came around WHEW!!!

 

I never notice the goat smell. But we do have chickens.

 

I've dated a couple of old goats, but that's about as close to livestock as I get.

 

Well hello there.

I hope you won't get too upset that I post a really long post. But as anyone who knows who might remember me, that's kind of my thing.

The thing is I'm sitting in Hong Kong where I live and today is Chinese New Year's Eve. I'm British (but I'm such a weedy liberal that I have just got myself an Irish passport in protest, so now I'm dual nationality) and am a bit out of synch with my Chinese wife's relatives (especially as, citizen of the world though I am, my Mandarin is...not very good).

So as they settle down to watch a Chinese New Year's Even tradition - a sort of trashy variety show of patriotic songs, slapstick comedy acts and Western imitation acts on the main State Controlled TV channel that disseminates drivel to the masses much as Fox News does (I'm being nice but I can't resist - bear with me) - I'm shuffling back to my computer. What do I do. I indulge in a little nostalgia by logging into that alt-right (I know you are all Trumpistas but bear with me) site called www.politicalforum.com. that I used to frequent back in the day when the world wasn't threatened by instant nuclear annihilation as it has been for the last...week (only half joking with that one).

So there I go... and something seems to have happened which has wiped out my old posts, but I still manage to find a few old fights that I had. There I go reliving the old battles as if I was at Agincourt with Henry V. (we few, we happy few, we band of brothers) the only way that I can manage to do this though is through the "rep" record. Even though I was a filthy liberal and the whole military industrial complex, FBI and CIA, and their acolytes the mods on www.politicalforum.com , were against me in an evil plot to control the rep system...I did find a few. Of course reading "great post Hero" took me to my best work and I started to swell with pride and self belief as if I was a recently elected Head of State of a former British colony...God forbid!

So...sorry but it's late here in China...then I came across a thread where i found that I had received a rep from Talon. I looked at it and it was one of my "I might be a liberal but I'm not an apologist for commie, islamofascist scum posts" that occasionally registered with some of the more fair-minded conservatives on this site. But then I thought, that's about 1% of them. I started to think: that's great, that's beautiful, that's maybe the most beautiful thing in the world, it's true, beautiful". And then I looked out for the thousands (it was thousands, literally thousands, actually literally millions, a beautiful thing, it's true) more cases where I was lauded and praised by my fellow communist insurgents and the Iranian clerics who are my secret fan club.

Then I came across two things that shocked me.

I found a rep from SmartMouthWoman!

I think she called me "sweetie"

SmartMouthWoman of Smartie's Bar and Grill (some restaurant names never leave me, I'm sure that is in Greensboro, North Carolina).

SMW (as she is known to her friends) repd me!

Little ol' me!

And then...

Trinity called me "honey"!

Sorry Trinnity.

Gobsmacked (as we say in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China.)

I look more deeply and we are having a nice (very witty and funny chat) about why we should pay money to PF when they don'y tell us anything.

And I had a sudden thought:

"Maybe, as in real life, these Americans are just like all the other Right wing Americans I have met in "Real Life"?"

The ones who despite (let me say) our slight differences of opinion, have invited me into their homes.

Like the one who despite his certainty that Clinton was a Chinese spy

Presented me with an American flag in a mahogany case when I stopped being his boss (I moved one, I didn't fire him)

It's possible that these people are nice people

Even (or maybe especially) that SmartMouthWoman from Smartie's Bar and Grill.

Then, as I continued to surf I started to notice something. Whole threads that I had participated were made up of people from all sides - that were banned.

Hoosier is banned?

WTF? (Sorry) Is the world ending? I thought this was an alt-right site?

And then I thought I'd check into the Grill (and true enough it's still there as in days of yore) and share a little story with y'all.

Well not a story, but my experience. I was once a member of a site called "whistlestopper". The owner closed it down and we were sent as refugees (yes, remember that PF conservatives, this can happen to you too!) to other sites. On another sites we had a little sub Group. We had a solidarity that transcended our opinions. We were a family. For a little time in cyberspace all the petty differences we had seemed silly and the similarities were the things we noticed. Then we heard that one of our number had died and we were mortified, similar to what happened when Flounder passed away here. We were a band of brothers (and sisters) but not on ideological lines.

We live in free societies. This is something we should be grateful for. We should all defend it and debate is part of how we do that. From China let me wish you all Happy New Year of the Rooster. Kung Hey Fat Choi as they say in Cantonese. From free (as yet) Hong Kong.

 

Welcome back, Hero. I enjoyed reading your post with my morning coffee, thanks for sharing. As always, there are two sides to every story. I think PF has too many whiney liberals (especially post Trump) whereas you think it's a conservative site. Guess that's why it's been around so long, eh?

No politics allowed in the bar, but you're welcome to kick back and enjoy a beer here anytime. Hey, I bet there are some outrageous fireworks for Chinese NY!

 

I went to the auction last night,. looked at the goats and saw a few that were quite nice. There were some in the back that was a mixture of sheep and goats.
Buying from the farmer direct might be the way to go. I didn't stay long at the auction it was busy. So no goats today.

 

A woman istayed at a left turn signal till it turned red because someone honked at her.. I loved it. Was that you Smartie....LOL.

 

'Mornin, gf. Coulda been me, I don't respond well to honking. Lol

So you went goat shopping, huh. About how much does one have to pay for a goat?

 

On my 2017 Chevy, I have AAA, roadside assistance from State Farm, GM, OnStar and the Chevy dealer.

*throws back of hand to forehead*

I'll never be stranded again, so help me God.

 

You are not a "commie" Lenin was the last one.
But limey pinks are okay - unless their Mandarin is very good - at which point they 'have no shame'.

 

I didn't stay long enough to see what the goats were selling for, you would have had to be there. It was so busy ,chickens clucking, roosters crowing, ducks quacking and ginnies pot racking it was a sight not to mention the pigs oinking and goats and sheep baa, baa, baaing. I looked at the goats and sheep, decided it was time to go home. I'll look in the want ads for goats or sheep. I have seen a few ads that are selling them for $75.00 up to 150.00 a head. I want to be able to see them in their environment before buying.

 

Now that is the goat I want..he/she is so cute.

 

Change that if you want purebred they are 450.00 to 1500.00 depending on the type. I am thinking my herd won't be large..LOL.

 

Goats are sweet, last night I walked by one and he stuck his head out of the pen for a scratch. He evidently had been raised as a pet the others were a bit skittish.