Goat you... forget about me (March 2025 scapegoat blame thread)

I thought I’d add this…
/showme a goat wearing a radiation treatment head mask

@mediocrebot Uhhhh… no, but interesting.

@ItalianScallion @mediocrebot /showme goat with radiometer at 3-mile island

@ItalianScallion @mediocrebot Hmm that didn’t work

/showme goats in hazmat suits with Geiger counters

@mediocrebot Oh that’s what I was looking for. If you see them in your yard, it’s Baahd,

@pmarin Goats with hands and fingers? It might already be too late…

@mycya4me Although I am the (a) goat, I should be able to control the weather. Prediction is not necessary, therefore. I can only blame myself for this shortcoming. Baaaa! Bleat!

@ItalianScallion @mycya4me I had the same burden going into early Winter; some complained about the cold but others had heat and bugs. Now you get the Spring season, some still too cold, and others getting garden weeds and bugs. there’s just no pleasing people everywhere all at once.

On good days you’ll say “It’s good to be the King”.
But only that 1 or 2 days out of the month. The rest will suck just like for the rest of us.

@mycya4me @pmarin On good days I’ll say “It’s baad to be the Goat”. On baad days I’ll say “It’s baad to be the Goat”.

@ItalianScallion But you are the goat, you get the Blame for Everything, That is what was told to me when I was the Goat! So Yes we can blame you for the Weather!

@Wollyhop Well, you did snatch defeat from the jaws of victory last month by bumping me to this month as the goat…

@pmarin Maaach! Bleat!

(with a Boston accent)

@ItalianScallion @pmarin a Boston, Ma accent, do they even speak English up there? Yes I have been there on a job and it’s wondering if they did speak English or let me rephrase American English.

@mycya4me It’s interesting that you mention American English specifically. The Boston accent, of course, has its roots in the early British colonists’ mode of speaking and, I’ve read, is the closest accent to the way 18th century British English was spoken. Back when I used to speak with a Boston accent (actually more of a Rhode Island accent), my British friends would compliment me on my accent!

@ItalianScallion @mycya4me
After I had lived and worked there [in the suburbs of Boston] for the better part of a year, when I returned home to Upstate NY, I was often accused of being [or pretending at being] from Beantown, at least temporarily.
It I am or maybe used to be, quite susceptible to being influenced by the dialects of people I speak with.
A similar thing happened after I went to Kentucky for my freshman year of college- except people said that I had developed somewhat of a southern drawl, at least temporarily.
I say used to be, because it didn’t seem to happen when as an alleged adult, I moved to Pennsylvania for PA school, but that may have been because my classmates were from diverse other places including Toronto, CA; Detroit, MI; NYC; and a number of various locations in PA.

@ItalianScallion I am from the South, I had problems understanding people, Plus Driving in Boston is a Nightmare, I prefer driving in Washington, DC Rush hour in the Rain than Boston. BTW I have also driven in Philly too!

@mycya4me The difficulty in understanding runs the opposite way for me. Strong Southern accents are sometimes tough for me to understand.

And you are so right about driving in Boston. It’s absolutely a nightmare especially when you get into the heart of the city. I much preferred taking my Vespa when I had to go there. The only place with worse drivers is Rhode Island (and I can say that because I was raised in R.I.).

@PhysAssist Back in the 80s, I used to go to England every now and then for a week or so for business. I’d already pretty much dropped my Boston/R.I. accent by then, but I too found myself adopting Britishisms and a bit of the their accent that took a little while to go away when I got home.

@ItalianScallion @mycya4me Neither Boston nor NYC nor Chicago was able to scare me.

I learned to drive in Miami. Driving in Manhattan was fun.

@ItalianScallion When I was up in Boston, well the personal GPS was not available, So I had to use paper maps to go to 10 different locations. You see I had to go to Kinko stores, Map the layout of the store, its Computers, Copiers, ect. Install a new server & a single training Computer for the staff to learn the new system they were about to get. You see FedEx bought Kinko’s.
BTW this was in mid July, It was a dry heat around 90f, people were complaining that it was so very Hot. I was enjoying it with the very low humidity, being from the South we are used to the humidity being high, 70-90+%. Not getting a bath by walking out the door.
Plus this was about a year before one of the celling panels in one of the tunnels of the “Big Dig” dropped on a car. The car did not stand a chance! it was flat, the driver did not make it!
BTW driving in Philly was easy (yes the same Job as above)

@mycya4me Dry heat in a Boston summer. You got lucky. It’s almost always heat with humidity!

We had a recent incident of concrete (4x5 ft) falling from a tunnel ceiling, by the way, this time in the Prudential Tunnel on Feb. 21st. Fortunately no one was hurt and there was only minor vehicle damage.

@ItalianScallion @mycya4me I found driving in Palermo to be the most challenging I have faced. Cars with vespas darting in and out. If you dont move fast enough they go around you or cut you off. I swear I even saw someone drive on the sidewalk. Morning rush hour was just insane.

@mycya4me @tinamarie1974 Yep. I’ve been a passenger in Palermo. It doesn’t surprise me that you saw someone driving on the sidewalk and Vespa drivers take many more risks in Italy than they do here. Naples is the worst city I’ve ever seen for driving, though. A favorite thing there is that the second a light turns green, drivers as far back as ten cars lay on the horn until they’re able to move! Che casino!

@ItalianScallion @mycya4me yes, yes!!! And I recall being the first car at the light and because I didnt INSTANTLY slam the gas, cars perpendicular to me just took advantage (while horns blared behind me) such pressure

/giphy under pressure

@ItalianScallion @tinamarie1974 I did a Holy Land tour back in the 1990’s I remember how they drive. We were on a tour bus.

@pmarin Well march to a different drummer would punner (to rhyme with drummer)…

@ItalianScallion @mycya4me
The disorganized and often dead-end roads in Beantown were bad enough, but the drivers- OMG, they were/are so aggressive and [as my philosophy professor used to say was a damning trait] acting totally arbitrarily and whimsically [and not in a fun way] in their actions.

The only things they did really predictably were to cut you off and after dashing out to get in front of you, to drive slowly in front of you, holding up traffic.

Speaking of which, no where else in the US, have I seen cars stop on the highway- middle of the road-randomly for no discernable reason whatsoever.

My driving style has since mellowed, but when I first came home, my partner [now ex-SWMBO] was terrified to ride with me because I had learned to drive in the offensively defensive Boston style.

Also, I was there before the Big Dig, and the highway bridges and tunnels were hellacious to navigate.

We went back for a conference after the BD had been completed, and it was so much easier to get around and figure out where we needed to go to get to where we needed to be.

@mycya4me @PhysAssist Yep, I agree with your characterization of Boston drivers, except that I have never seen one stop in the middle of a highway.
BTW, only out-of-towners say Beantown.

@ItalianScallion @PhysAssist I was in a rental car, with out of state plates. I was going down a Ramp to the larger road, They passed me on the Ramp. I was NOT going slow!
As I have said I would rather tackle Washington Metro Belt way during Rush hour, Raining than Boston!

@ItalianScallion @mycya4me
Then I apparently used it correctly.

@chienfou I am gearing up to be less than pleased w spring forward

@chienfou @tinamarie1974 Our pets (dog and 2 cats) start pestering around sunrise. So I will welcome the extra hour of morning sleep awarded by DST (for a few weeks, anyway).

@chienfou @tinamarie1974
Same- I am enjoying seeing the sun in the AMs, however, I also like having sunlight while working outside at home ‘after work’, so I’m a bit conflicted.

@chienfou @macromeh @tinamarie1974 hint: the cats can’t read the clocks…yet. just wait for the Apple Catwatch; it will change everything!

@Kyeh
I actually enjoyed my stint. Of course the alternative was thinking about all the CoViD surrounding me at work…

@Kyeh Yes I sure did when I was the GOAT! A lot of fun! But I was glad when the month was over & I could pass the Blame to the next goat!

@chienfou @Kyeh @mycya4me
I would say it’s one of the weirdest fun traditions that makes no sense. Like needing to click a button every day for no reason other than to increment a counter without missing a day. All from a site focused on selling overstock, obsolete, or semi-defective merchandise.

@Kyeh @mycya4me @pmarin

Like needing to click a button every day for no reason

Is that a thing?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@chienfou @Kyeh @mycya4me @pmarin Right there with you buddy:

macromeh clicked the meh button 56 times, 0 days in a row, with a longest streak of 4 days in a row.

@chienfou @Kyeh @pmarin So do I, very rarely do I buy anything!

@PhysAssist Yow that sounds bad. National Guardsmen/women end up in some of the most difficult situations. In several states they have been helping with severe flooding and fires and now thrust into the middle of a firestorm of a political kind.

@PhysAssist Blame indeed, and rightly so. That situation sucks for the I/Is and for those substituting for the guards. Update: oh wait, the blame is on me. I accept it for no other reason than to take if off the hands of all involved with the hope it is one less obstacle to them coming to an agreement.

@ItalianScallion
Thanks-it’s getting better.
Over the back 1/2 of last week and the past 2 days, a lot, though not all of the CO’s returned to work.

A large part of the Guard contingent remains on duty as well, but we’re still a long way from back to normal.

@yakkoTDI I must, by tradition, accept the blame. Would you like me to send you one of my RPi Zeros that I’m not using to solve your problem? I’m serious. I have more of them than I know what to do with.

@ItalianScallion No thanks. It might get lost in my pile of Zero 2Ws.

@Kyeh and what would they say if it was a woman

@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 In Congress, they’ve used “gentlewoman” and sometimes “gentlelady” which seem quite archaic to me as does “gentleman” in contexts like you cite, Kyeh.

I snicker especially when law enforcement uses “gentleman” or “individual” instead of the simple and straightforward “person.” It’s seems to me that the speaker is trying to put forth an image of intelligence, authority, and/or higher class by using words that they presumably think aren’t used in common speech and therefore demonstrate those elevated qualities.

@ItalianScallion @tinamarie1974 Yeah; “lady” does get misused the same way but it’s used more commonly for any woman, whereas “gentleman” sounds so formal. People say “the lady who rang up my groceries” or whatever but not “the gentleman who bagged them.”

@Kyeh @tinamarie1974

and what would they say if it was a woman

I have been entirely unsurprised by what I’ve heard used in such circumstances, both to the subjects’ faces and then as muttered addendums when they thought they were out of earshot. The former are vile; the latter are much worse.

I can’t even feign being shocked about this, having been privy to all such utterances in the past due to my (incorrectly) perceived group membership. Some things are going to take decades to get reduced; I am not sure that our cultural norms will ever allow them to be eliminated. The automatic assumption of the unquestionable rightness of male supremacy is a major foundation of the attitudes fully embedded in the very langauge itself.

This does not mean that we should surrender to it.

@Kyeh @werehatrack that was my point. Just with less words…

@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 @werehatrack

. The automatic assumption of the unquestionable rightness of male supremacy is a major foundation of the attitudes fully embedded in the very langauge itself.

Ummm… I think you missed the entire point of the post. The question she posited was concerning the use of the term gentleman, not the comments made by said gentleman according to the post on next door.

@chienfou @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 @werehatrack
Dude seems to be often used as a non-gendered reference these days.

@Kyeh @macromeh @tinamarie1974
I believe the term gentleman in this case was used in a hyperbolic, sarcastic way since a “true” gentleman would not be an asshole to a random stranger as indicated by the poster on nextdoor.

@ItalianScallion @Kyeh @tinamarie1974
Similarly to what they do in Congress, saying “gentle-whatever” when what they really mean is ignorant asshole or some such…

@chienfou @macromeh @tinamarie1974 @physassist I think you’re giving them too much credit. I hear police interviews on the news all the time where they call depraved attackers “gentlemen” in a completely straight-faced earnest way. I think a lot of people just believe it’s a more proper way to speak.

@Kyeh @macromeh @PhysAssist @tinamarie1974
Probably right… Though it wasn’t that long ago that local cops used the term ‘citizen’ in a similar fashion. Don’t think that’s acceptable PC anymore…

@chienfou @Kyeh @macromeh @PhysAssist I was wondering about that. Not knowing how someone identifies, can an officer get in trouble for assuming gentleman or lady?

@phendrick corrected link (no ending “f”, but editing window expired):

https://www.whiskeyriff.com/2025/03/10/mlb-releases-new-overlap-collection-the-tetas-rangers-hat-was-immediately-pulled-down-for-obvious-reasons/

And the hat is only $50 (with tax); who wouldn’t want one?

@phendrick
thanks for fixing the link… I was confused there for a minute!

@phendrick I bet they could sell a lot of them, really!
And now I know what an “asshat” looks like. I’ve always thought that was a stupid term but now it makes sense!

@Kyeh @phendrick and yet, they seem to still be selling the AS HOS?

@Kyeh @ybmuG
After the sign stealing allegations a few years ago, i think that sentiment has been accepted into the vernacular, so no longer controversial.

@farhatkabir secret response

@Ahmadba @farhatkabir Super Secret Secret Squirrel.

@Ahmadba @farhatkabir @yakkoTDI Secretly you need to blame or unblame the not so secret @ItalianScallion

@Ahmadba @farhatkabir @Kidsandliz @yakkoTDI My reason is a secret.

@Ahmadba @farhatkabir @ItalianScallion @yakkoTDI

/showme a goat with a really big secret

@mediocrebot Hmm is that to fool us into thinking the goat has no secrets?

@Kidsandliz @mediocrebot Whether or not the goat has a secret might be… a secret.

@mediocrebot That goat has a secret. This one has warm jammies
<img src=“”/>s

From a NextDoor post

@phendrick Is it just me that saw only the HTML code <img src=“”/>s in your comment?

@ItalianScallion can’t testify to the “just you” part, but apparently others can see the pic OK. Shows up for me fine.
[right click on img place holder and select open in other tab, maybe?]

[img src url had buch of junk with it; tried editing but lost img every time, so left all; you’re seeing some of the extra. i thought img too good to pass up]

@ItalianScallion Well, I’ll give you an unblame, because I’m trying not to buy stuff and so far it’s been going well for me!