Saturday Open Thread: Baby Panda

Weekends back at the old ranch were always slower than weekdays, so let’s try something different. No jokes, just a thread where you can talk about whatever you want. And, courtesy of sender-inner MJP, here’s a baby panda. Discuss.




You already voted!

61 thoughts on “Saturday Open Thread: Baby Panda

  1. Lois M. November 14, 2015 / 8:08 am

    Love the way mama scooped him up for a cuddle after he toppled backwards in his first walking attempts. Too bad his twin didn’t make it to join him. It would have really been great to see the 2 of them growing together. Hopefully there will be more videos as he grows to greatness!!

  2. allein November 14, 2015 / 8:38 am

    I like this idea. Not a frequent commenter but I’m loving what you’re doing so far!

  3. birdcage November 14, 2015 / 9:00 am

    Toronto resident here – I’m off to our Royal Agricultural Winter Fair today so I’m hoping to spend the day surrounded by the QTE! There’s the annual canine/equine jump off, the sheeps, the bunnehs, chickens, cows, butter sculping …. taking my camera!!!!! This cuteporter will check in later!!!!

  4. gail November 14, 2015 / 9:11 am

    I love how baby pandi’s caboose waddles to and fro. When my does that, it ain’t as cute! 🙂

  5. PS November 14, 2015 / 9:42 am

    Thanks for bringing the Qte back!!!

  6. LunaChickFringe November 14, 2015 / 10:07 am

    The little booty wiggles kilt me ded!

    • Smartypants November 14, 2015 / 10:13 am

      Yes, he makes so much more progress sideways than forward! Very sweet.

  7. Gigi_the cat lady November 14, 2015 / 10:22 am

    In a world where things like yesterday’s attack on Paris happens, we need sites like this one more than ever. Not to hide form reality but to remind us that there is still hope and goodness, cute and laughter in the world. Thank you for that NTMTOM.

    • jlamusings November 14, 2015 / 10:49 am

      Agreed!!

      • Faye November 14, 2015 / 11:52 am

        I also agree. Baby pandas always help.

  8. Saffron November 14, 2015 / 11:20 am

    Ehn! Ehn!

  9. Lucy's Mom November 14, 2015 / 11:38 am

    The cuddle schnuddle at the end! Moms are moms the world over. 🙂

  10. Faye November 14, 2015 / 11:53 am

    The women in my family are shaped just like that panda mom. They gave good hugs too.

  11. SYD November 14, 2015 / 12:12 pm

    The squeeking!!!!! Thank you again NTMTOM for filling the void!! Can we start rules of cute, or is that like.plagiarism? Or perhaps we need a rule free environment, letting us run cute wild?

      • fkaWaldenPond November 14, 2015 / 11:26 pm

        I second that Gigi.

  12. fkaWaldenPond November 14, 2015 / 1:14 pm

    Wait a second… I’m on to you Panda; you had me believing you were an actual ‘panda’ until the very end when you suddenly scooped up the bebeh– you are a human in a panda suit! Busted!

  13. bananabreadhead November 14, 2015 / 1:25 pm

    Baby Panda could well be part crab, as NTMTOM hypothesizes, but I would also observe that Baby Panda is clearly part otter — witness how he sounds just like baby Otter 696 at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Given his genetics, Baby Panda may be a better swimmer than a walker! I propose a shallow wading pool experiment!

    • beemoused November 14, 2015 / 1:41 pm

      I call lifeguard!! 🙂

      • bananabreadhead November 14, 2015 / 2:28 pm

        Thanks, beemoused. We’ll need at least one lifeguard for this wading pool experiment. And unless we get more volunteers, I’m also going to need you to hold the fluffy towel and wrap up Baby Panda, post-swim.

        • beemoused November 14, 2015 / 4:16 pm

          Such a hardship! Well, someone has to do the really difficult jobs–I’ll just force myself.

  14. Faye November 14, 2015 / 2:46 pm

    Maybe we can compile “witticisms” to be known as NTMTOMisms Or “axioms” aka NTMTOMioms rather than rules.

    • Not That Mike The Other Mike November 14, 2015 / 3:30 pm

      I’ll have to think about a gimmick along those lines, but I don’t want to force it. “The Rules of Cuteness” are Meg’s creation and belong with Cute Overload. I don’t know this for a fact, but the feature seems to have evolved over time, first one rule then another and then readers making suggestions. Some of the best ideas happen that way, not from planning.

      • Smartypants November 14, 2015 / 4:17 pm

        Yes, I’m really eager to see what evolves here organically. I definitely already like the “free form Saturday” format, and the Cute/Not Cute categories.

      • Faye November 14, 2015 / 4:49 pm

        We shall savor the unfolding of the story. ?

  15. Jen the Rockhopper November 14, 2015 / 4:36 pm

    with all that is going on in thw world today cute baby panda much needed yup yup

  16. whawhawhatsis November 14, 2015 / 4:56 pm

    I really need to post more often here. I had so much trouble with my login over on CO that I finally quit posting there because I’d just end up tearing my hair out. But we need to do whatever we can to keep this wonderful site going!

    Mike, if you find it causing you too much hassle, or worse yet, costing you too much money, do not hesitate to put up a tip box or start a subscription plan or something. I’d love to support your version of teh qte! You make me laugh out loud, and right now, that’s what I suspect we all need.

    You’re off to a great start. There’s just one small request I’d make — can you indent the replies a bit more? It’s hard for old eyes like mine to tell whether something is a reply much of the time because the indent is so small. If you can’t, not to worry, I’ll cope!

    • Not That Mike The Other Mike November 14, 2015 / 5:01 pm

      Tip jar: Working on it. Indented replies: I’m probably going to ditch this entire WordPress theme shortly, and I’ll make sure any replacement has a good layout for the comments.

      • Lois M. November 14, 2015 / 5:08 pm

        Comment on the replies. What is being replied to needs to be a bit darker as it’s hard for MY old eyes to really see what it says. I have to squint. The responses are OK, it’s just what’s being replied to that’s a problem. A bit bigger font would also help. The indentation part is totally fine for me. Just a couple of suggestions based on what I’ve read from others today.

      • Faye November 14, 2015 / 5:59 pm

        Good on tip jar. Also have old eyes!

      • ffleur2 November 15, 2015 / 1:49 am

        This indenting is excellent now NTMTOM.

  17. deb November 14, 2015 / 5:20 pm

    We definitely need some good laughs and cute. Sometimes it’s really difficult to focus on the good in this crazy world.

  18. Smartypants November 14, 2015 / 5:45 pm

    Testing: Can we say the “P” word here without being modded? (puppy).

    • Not That Mike The Other Mike November 14, 2015 / 5:46 pm

      So far, I haven’t enabled any word filtering. I can add words to a blocked words list as necessary.

      • AuntieM1996 November 16, 2015 / 11:32 am

        I don’t know about the others, but I definitely wouldn’t mind a visit to the Mod Lounge every now and then. The libations are out of this world and I’m told there’s a fully stocked gourmet kitchen so I can bake goodies while I’m waiting. That way I won’t end up eating everything like I would if I baked at home….

  19. Smartypants November 14, 2015 / 5:46 pm

    Puppy! Puppy, puppy, puppy! Bwa ha ha 😀

    • Faye November 14, 2015 / 6:02 pm

      Puuppy! Yeah!! Ooh that felt good. Thanks for breaking the ice Smartypants.

  20. deb November 14, 2015 / 6:58 pm

    Maybe I’m naive, but why would “puppy” be blocked on the other site?

    • Sixkatlady November 14, 2015 / 7:11 pm

      Puppeh, kitteh, bunneh……were the preferred spellingks on the other site. Not sure why but we all conformed to that way or you spent a lot of time in the mod lounge.

      • Lois M. November 14, 2015 / 7:22 pm

        They were probably not recognized as REAL words so they didn’t accept them. I like the idea that OUR words mean a lot to all of us and sure aren’t used negatively but used with LOVE and, of course, CUTENESS!! Now there sure isn’t anything wrong with that. Our own language gets the cute across quite nicely!!

      • Smartypants November 15, 2015 / 9:42 am

        I heard that the software interpreted any use of ‘puppy’ as a possible reference to puppy mills (controversy) and so it got automatically blocked (I don’t know if this is accurate). So folks developed ‘puppeh’ as a work-around.

    • beemoused November 14, 2015 / 7:35 pm

      Thank you for asking! I was wondering that too.

    • 6rabbits November 15, 2015 / 9:47 am

      It was because of “puppy mills”. That helped to weed out some rants back in the old days. Thus, “puppeh”. Kitteh, bunneh etc. just followed naturally, tho their regular spellings could be used without being modded. Also, the pronunciation sort of immitates that “it’s so cuuuute” voice we use with baby (bebeh) animals. ? the more you know…?

  21. ffleur2 November 14, 2015 / 7:28 pm

    Hi all, since this is an open post I’m going with a joke I saw yesterday. It was on a tee-shirt posed in the window of a store that fitted hearing aids, I was walking past and stopped to read the tee-shirt. The shirt had a man and woman talking:

    Woman: You never listen to me. You only hear what you want to hear.

    Man: A beer? I’d love a beer!

  22. one cranky lady November 14, 2015 / 7:47 pm

    I’m so bummed — both my employers have this site blocked because it’s an Unknown Website (fear the UNKNOWN!)
    Pah! They just don’t know nuffin.

    • Not That Mike The Other Mike November 14, 2015 / 8:15 pm

      Well, we are all of three days old, after all. Maybe I can get this site well-known enough to get whitelisted soon.

    • Gigi_the cat lady November 14, 2015 / 8:17 pm

      I’m going to test if I can access the site from my workplace on Monday. Keeping my fingers crossed.

  23. whawhawhatsis November 14, 2015 / 9:54 pm

    I work at home, so the only employer who might block this site is me. Unfortunately, that means there’s nothing preventing me from spending time here (or on far too many other websites!) when I should be working!

    • Smartypants November 15, 2015 / 9:56 am

      Hehe, me too – and it’s so exciting watching this take shape!

  24. fkaWaldenPond November 14, 2015 / 10:54 pm

    Banner image rocks. 😀

  25. Faye November 15, 2015 / 12:58 am

    Whackadoodle dog banner is hilarious.

    • Smartypants November 15, 2015 / 9:39 am

      Yes – love the derping dog! 😀

  26. Gigi_the cat lady November 15, 2015 / 7:38 am

    Love the new layout and the dog banner!

  27. beemoused November 15, 2015 / 7:49 am

    New layout works for me but I am curious as to how you got a copy of my company ID photo for that banner.

    • Faye November 15, 2015 / 8:09 am

      Good one. It looks like me before coffee.

Comments are closed.