Edited to add: I was unaware of this previously, but it popped up on Hacker News after I posted. I know, he only has 501 views as I write, but it seems like a good commentary. Or at least I found it mildly amusing.
Today’s my birthday, so I’m queuing this up in advance. I thought I’d try to do something a little different today, maybe go back to some things I haven’t done in a while.
Like trains.
“Last of the Giants”. This appears to be a Union Pacific documentary about their “Big Boy” steam locomotives, which they operated in “revenue service” until 1959. UP still operates one “Big Boy” and one “800 Series” locomotive for promotional purposes.
Interestingly, the “Big Boy” has actually been converted to run on oil:
Bonus: Do you like people speaking with Russian accents? Do you like Zippos? I like Zippos. Most of the time, I can take or leave Russian accents.
By way of “CrazyRussianHacker“, “7 Zippo Gadgets You Did NOT Know Exist”.
It doesn’t (generally) get that cold in Texas, but I kind of want one of those Zippo hand warmers anyway. I remember my dad used to have something similar kicking around, but he didn’t use it much in my memory, because it doesn’t (generally) get that cold in Texas. There have been some New Year’s Eve’s when we’ve been setting off fireworks, though…
Bonus #2: Here’s a bit of a time capsule for you. It could also fall under “Travel Thursday”, but I’m not putting it there for two reasons. One, this is different.
The “Museum of Automata” in York. Apparently, this was filmed sometime in the 1990s.
Reason number two is that, sadly, from what I’ve found on the Internet, the museum closed quite a while ago.
Bonus #3: I will freely admit, I am posting this one to tweak someone who says “‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ f–king ruled!” (My own personal opinion: the monster fight scenes were pretty good. Unfortunately, there was an excess of humans and human interaction in the movie, and I really didn’t like any of the humans. The kaiju film that would “f–king rule” for me would be the monster equivalent of “The Raid: Redemption”: maybe two minutes of introductory setup, two minutes of epilogue, and 116 minutes of giant monsters fighting.)
Anyway, C.W. Lemoine ruins the first fight scene from “Godzilla vs. Kong”.
To be honest, I thought the movie looked a lot better on the screen at the Alamo than it does in this video. Also, to be fair, it is just a TV show movie: I should really just relax.
Bonus #4: I see a lot of folks talking about minimizing their lifestyle, and stripping away almost everything to the point where they can live almost completely out of a van. (I see very few of these folks who have toilets in their vans: apparently, when they need a bathroom, they find one at a gym, gas station, store, or other place of public accommodation. But I digress.)
Have you ever listened to these folks talk, or read any of their praises for van life, and asked yourself, “Self, what do these people do when it is -20 degrees? -20 Communist Centigrade degrees, too, not -4 American Fahrenheit degrees.” (See, by converting from Centigrade to Fahrenheit, you’ve already made yourself feel warmer. If you go a step beyond and convert to 455 degrees Rankine, you’ll probably give yourself heat stroke.)
Well, here you go.
Bonus #5: Okay, I know I’m posting a lot of stuff today. Consider this a present on my birthday to you, my loyal readers.
Have you ever asked yourself, while stoned on your couch, “Self, what ever happened to all those paintings Bob Ross painted?”
I’m going to guess: probably not, because I don’t think most of you are stoners. But just in case, the NYT (who probably are a bunch of stoners, judging from some of the crazy (stuff) they publish these days) investigated. Here’s what they found.
No snark this time: I think this is kind of neat (both the art and the tweet):
Have I ever mentioned how much I love the Meat-Shaped Stone? I think about it often.
Made during the Qing dynasty from banded jasper, the naturally occuring layers in the stone have been exploited to create the illusion of braised pork belly. pic.twitter.com/LEADCma2R7
(Been a while since I’ve done one of these, hasn’t it?)
The Austin City Council has decided (based on a recommendation from the city’s Arts Commission) to “deaccession” several pieces of public art.
The big news is: one of those pieces is “Moments”. If you live in Austin, you know “Moments” better as “those blue panels bolted to the overpass wall on North Lamar Boulevard”.
A rapper turned himself into authorities and was charged with reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon after firing a flamethrower into the sky atop an occupied city bus. https://t.co/j1x8eb0cS4pic.twitter.com/s6ibiJy1zV
I’m really not sure I see the “reckless endangerment” part of that charge. It seems to me that he was pointing it away from and above people. As for the “criminal possession of a weapon” charge, well, maybe, given that this is NYC.
Some people may be surprised by this, but: I like poetry.
I know, maybe I should turn in my man card. But I’m weird about the poetry I like. I find much of T. S. Eliot incomprehensible, but his imagery! Rod Dreher wrote a while back about the Australian poet Les Murray, and I want to read more of his work. Someone gave me a coffee mug with a quote from James Merrill’s “The Black Swan” on it and now I want to read more Merrill.
And Penny Arcade introduced me to “i sing of Olaf glad and big” which I find comforting from time to time.
I believe there are two poets you don’t have to turn in your man card to like.
One is Kipling.
Charles Dance reads “The Road to Mandalay” during a 70th anniversary of VJ Day commemoration in London.
“The Power of the Dog”.
The other poet you don’t have to turn in your man card for? Robinson Jeffers. I think even TJIC would concede this point: you have to like a poet who apprenticed himself out so that he could learn stonemasonry, then used that skill to keep adding on to Tor House for the rest of his life.
Walter Lure. Interesting story: Mr. Lure was the rhythm guitarist for the Hearbreakers (also known as Johnny Thunders and the Hearbreakers, as opposed to Tom Petty’s Hearbreakers) one of those legendary NYC punk bands.
After the Hearbreakers, he went into product testing for the FDA (he had an English major and a chemistry minor from Fordham) and from there went into Wall Street.
He was also the last surviving member of the Heartbrakers (with the exception of Richard Hell, who was briefly the Heartbreakers bass player. Hell left/was fired from the band and formed Richard Hell and the Voidoids. Heartbreakers entry from Wikipedia.)
This is another one of those days when I don’t have a real theme, so I hope you enjoy some things that amused me.
First up: Salvador Dali appears on “What’s My Line?” You’ve got to like the way he signs in.
Bonus: Orson Welles talks about Ernest Hemingway. That story about Welles and Hemingway attempting to trade punches and ultimately opening a bottle and toasting each other is also recounted in a neat little book, To Have and Have Another, about Hemingway and Hemingway’s cocktails. (Affiliate link.)
