As fresh as a springtime goat (April 2026 goat nominations)

@MrGoodGuy I am honored but due to my poor health of chronic fatigue I really dont have any extra GOAT time. Let @zippyus have the honor!

@fjp999 @zippyus Sorry to hear of your condition; hope you’ll manage it as best as possible. I’ve upvoted @zippyus to help him / her win.

@MrGoodGuy @zippyus I appreciate that. Have CF for over a decade and it isn’t the worse disability to have… I have always loved sleeping now I just cant control it. lol

@fjp999 I didn’t really want it either but a lot of goats go over the top with cool games and stuff. Which I love. I just was like here’s a cat a day in one thread.

And just checked the blame thread and added comments sometimes.

If you were elected at some point you are allowed to do nothing. We have had ghost goats.

I think it’s also fine to say no

But you could just do “here’s a thing that happened today”

@unksol I have not really followed the goat threads much so appreciate your details. “Ghost goat” sounds cool. lol

/giphy ghost goat

Where are the goats?

@fjp999 I’m sure meh knows since they assign the dead goat badges. I’m not sure if there is still a public list.

This was my post for the entire month. Just here is a cat
https://meh.com/forum/topics/marcheveryday-is-caturday

And then just checking the goat blame thread and saying that sucks. Sorry. Hope it gets better.

The blame thread is just. Wanting someone to listen. Although if it was a practical problem. I may have suggested some fixes cause I couldn’t help myself.

But people have been elected and not posted at all for the entire month. Hence ghost goats.

Ya don’t have to engage with us but it’s usually fun
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@fjp999 @unksol The list is here:
https://meh.com/forum/topics/calendar-of-the-scapegoat

@narfcake rabble rabble something something where are our trophies rabble rabble

Lol

@narfcake omg marklog and his dog was 2014? How fucking old are we?!?!

@cfg83 So do I!

@cfg83
/showme Uncle Remus singing “@zippyus will do ya” with Brer Fox and Brer Bear looking on, if you can sneak that past the PC police and Disney

@phendrick Here’s the image you requested for “Uncle Remus singing @zippyus will do ya with Brer Fox and Brer Bear looking on.”

@mediocrebot @zippyus Love it.
Great GOAT campaign poster!

@cfg83 Hmmm …

/showme Anthropomorphized goat in Roman toga named “zippyus” is being bestowed a crown of golden laurel leaves and being named Emperor Aprilis Goatius

@cfg83 Here’s the image you requested for “Anthropomorphized goat in Roman toga named zippyus is being bestowed a crown of golden laurel lea…”

@mediocrebot Egg-salad! I hope I haven’t jumped the goat. Actually, no name, so I think we’re good.

@zippyus That attitude didn’t negate my Army draft notice. YMMV.

@phendrick last draft was Vietnam. I would be interested in hearing anything people from that era were able/willing to share.

Obviously on a separate topic. But like that would be very interesting. If you wanted to make that topic/share something. See who else was drafted and wants to share

@phendrick @unksol
I was in the cohort just after the draft ended.
Of course, I was also living in France at the time ('73)

@chienfou @phendrick wasn’t even born but military history has been interesting since I was a kid. My grandfather on my mother’s side went in on a glider as a radio operator on d day. Crash was so bad they had to leave him. Nazis found him but also thought he was done for. Eventually the allies took the area and got him to a hospital. Made it home or I wouldn’t exist lol. But he died from a genetic issue before I can remember him…

Can’t ask questions. Generations skip some things.

I would be down for some threads about the 60’s/70s/80s. Things people would want to ask/share

I know the history but the personal twist is different

@phendrick @unksol I was within 60 days of being sent The letter when the draft ended. I was prepared to flee to Canada or Sweden if it came to that, as I’d heard way too much from Vietnamese students here in the US about just how idiotic our involvement in Vietnam was. Needless to say, my life would have been unimaginably different if that had come to pass.

@phendrick @werehatrack would have probably gotten better health care with those options too.

Something something war obsessed person with “bone spurs”

@unksol
Are you an expert on VA health care?
I know many veterans who were overall very pleased with extensive and ongoing care they got there (not in Canada).

I’d be willing to answer whatever relevant questions are asked on a suitable thread. Start the thread; list your questions.

@werehatrack So you rendered patriotic service equivalent to that of many presidents: Trump and Clinton, to name a couple.

@phendrick I refused to help my country make a grave mistake. I do not belittle those who had a different analysis of the situation; many of those from my age cohort have expressed their disgust with what they learned while involved in that mess, and most have openly stated that I would have made the wiser choice.

Sometimes, the best response is an adamant NO! And I was prepared to back mine up via the most effective method, if it came to that.

@phendrick Also, based on what I hear from the veterans I know, our VA health care isn’t remarkably better than what the general public gets in much of the rest of the first world nations (and some farther down the list.) OTOH, I also know a couple of them who would not be around today were it not for that benefit, so its value is certainly far higher than what the uninsured US public can count on.

In many cases, they paid dearly for it, and I think they’re getting shortchanged. (One example is across the street from me, and I try to keep an eye on him for signs that his rope is fraying again.)

@phendrick @werehatrack ok. Just to be clear I would be interested in anyone sharing what it was like to be growing up/living in the 50s/60s/70s/80s.

Not just the Vietnam war. Which is a very important piece.

Just history. Like you know. Questions you wanted to ask your parents/grandparents but just didn’t get to. Or more importantly don’t know to ask. I keep not wanting to call them stories but. IDK a better word. And because I don’t know you I don’t know the questions so more a… anything you want to share with the “kids”?

Especially with war there are things people just don’t want to talk about. Which I absolutely understand.

It’s a just a fact that the US healthcare system is not great.

It’s a fact that the VA has been underfunded. Long term. The type of healthcare offered also matters which was what I was referring to that was very case specific. Not in general

But just getting post traumatic healthcare for Iraq veterans was a huge thing. The fact we don’t take care of our veterans is a known thing.

There are famous draft dodgers including the US president. Who was just rich… Vs choosing to resign their citizenship has based on moral grounds.

Nobody is denigrating your or anyone else’s service so please don’t take it that way. Personally we shouldn’t have been there. But you were called and went.

Sometimes politicians are fuck ups

@unksol @werehatrack

Sometimes politicians are fuck ups

No argument on that, other than I think it understates it.

50s/60s/70s/80s

Too broad; that’s like looking for a reincarnation of Will Durant to start a new many-volume series.

E.g., music of the 60s was very tied in to teen years, of the 70s to the Nam/draft area. At least a volume or two to cover the social significance of each of those (Cf films of Woodstock & Forest Gump for summaries, or virtually any popular retelling of VietNam – Boys in Co C, Apocalypse Now, Good Morning VN). If you weren’t there, you have no idea of the impact. And that’s just the music of half or so of one decade.

Social mores, life expectations, respect for authority (misguided or not), overall unity in the country – notwithstandind struggles of minorities which were still improving, though slowly-- all different back then. And to us older folks, made us better off then.

Again, start a thread, ask very specific questions.

@werehatrack New press release from VA. Might be something in here to help your veteran acquaintances. First part on education, but it goes on about health care.
https://news.va.gov/press-room/va-helps-veterans-maximize-their-g-i-bill-education-benefits/?utm_source=middle&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=VetResources&utm_id=01APR2026

I personally don’t use VA for health care bc I have good insurance benefits from TRS, so don’t keep up that well currently. But my late FIL used them extensively. I did use some of the education benefits. My father, who had been wounded in WW2, was similar to me.

@chienfou @phendrick @unksol

< My grandfather on my mother’s side went in on a glider as a radio operator on d day

Interesting tidbit from WW1. My grandfather flew planes in WW1. When he was learning how to fly (flying planes back then was one of the more dangerous jobs in the war as I am sure being on a glider was too) his roommate was Jackie Kennedy Onassis’s father. My grandfather told us that her dad was “quite the cad”.

@phendrick @unksol @werehatrack I was lucky to grow up in the 1970s because I got to see Star Wars at age 11 (only 7 times) and play D&D (badly) and play Star Raiders (ok) on an Atari 800 + stuff. I feel VERY lucky to have been a kid at that time.
I remember having a toy rifle with a wooden stock that looked 100% real from a short distance. We used to go to a nursery and play “war”. There were big holes in the ground for trees before they were boxed for transit. The holes made fantastic foxholes.
After playing war we could walk into a FEDERAL building with our faux weapons in order to buy a candy or soda in the gift shop. Try that today.
Times long gone …

@chienfou @Kidsandliz @phendrick @unksol That is an amazing story. I couldn’t imagine having a WW1 flyboy in my family.

@cfg83 @phendrick @werehatrack lol I got to see star wars in theaters. But Dad took us to the dollar theater in the early 90s.

I may have also hooked his stereo receiver up to the VCR so we could hear the x wings scream in on the death star on the “huge” 32 inch CRT tv while they were out one Saturday. Which. I’m pretty sure I was not supposed to do. But didn’t blow the speakers/get caught.

Definitely played dads Atari. Sisters have them/their kids have. Idk that they were as into yars revenge. That tank game with the paddle controller with the wheels was our first multiplayer lol. Garage sale NES/mario brothers three.

386/486 computers. Cannon fodder. Sim Ants.

But writing homework on my moms type writer.

AMD kicking Intels ass/helping dad pick a compaq AMD K6. With that. Front purple cover. So we finally had a computer…standing in black Friday lines for free shit.

Circuit city had some bullshit sale on rebel assault and he did wade us through a packed store to get a raincheck cause they used to honor their sales. May have actually been rebel assault 2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_Rebel_Assault

None of my BB guns have orange tips.

Some nostalgia/rose colored glasses are fine. Everyone does that about being a kid

@phendrick you can say it’s too broad. Life is like that if you live long enough. You could tell us about being a kid. You could tell us about Vietnam(I have no idea how old people are on meh just some general absorbed context ) . Seeing a band. Just that life was shitty cause xyz. What school or college was. You could tell anyone anything or nothing.

I probably would recommend against confessing to a series of murders cause. Like. IDK I think I would have to tell someone about that but… If you wanna come clean about anything lol

@cfg83 @phendrick @werehatrack I don’t know why but this is gonna bother me. Blackfriday was a normal pre internet thing.

Three different black fridays. Got the ads in the papers

Computer at a staples or office max black friday.

Circuit City for free stuff.

Had to be rebel assault 2. But at noon. On black Friday. In best buy with idk. The store was packed. He made them write that raincheck.

There is a very important difference between circuit City and Best Buy in the 90s that you only get it you were there lol. We should have gone home not into best buy at noon

I definitely would have done many things different but gotta give him that one. Got me my stupid star wars game

@cfg83 @chienfou @phendrick @unksol

That is an amazing story. I couldn’t imagine having a WW1 flyboy in my family.

It is rather ironic that he then sold life insurance (and other kinds too but life was his primary product) for a living after that. I’d imagine it was a little bit too up front and personal about unexpectedly dying as pilots and those in the plane with them had one of the highest death rates in WW1.

They were wood (so caught on fire easily and easy to die from ground fire), open cockpits, no parachutes, unreliable engines… About 25% or more of them died - sometimes far more in some battles. I am surprised he lived through that. Being a pilot during combat have been incredibly traumatic although he said he liked flying when not in combat as he liked looking at the scenery from the air.

@phendrick For an insider’s take on our military from a former US Army captain who was deployed to Afghanistan twice as an intelligence officer (and saw actual combat), I can recommend the Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/@KnittingCultLady

@phendrick I think combat vs training? Cause those are… Vastly different things. The marching and the obstacle course and the combat course and sergeants yelling at you. Plus the lectures, note taking, history while exhausted… Got a taste during NROTC/OCS before making some decisions. Granted mid 2000s not 1960s.

War on terror mindset not war on communism…

And 6 weeks of OCS is not living years in the military

And being deployed to combat is a whole different thing obviously. I’ve never been shot at or asked to kill anyone.

I’m not sure where you’re getting/reading the negativity in. Sorry about that. It’s possible to both think we get into wars we shouldn’t because of bad politicians/policies. And still respect the military service members. Most Americans do even though the president doesn’t

@phendrick @werehatrack Thank you! I have seen her but I didn’t know she was a veteran. My goto vet is Combat Vet Reacts, who served in Afghanistan :

https://www.youtube.com/c/CombatVeteranReacts/videos

@cfg83 @phendrick Angry Male Vet is another whose commentary I find valuable, on various topics…