You know, I could almost do a day of great TV theme songs from the ‘Tube. I don’t think I’m going to, but I could…
But today: “Pattern For Progress”, “…which shows how machines increase the power of farming operations, therefore increasing production and revenue.” This is a product of the Ethyl Corporation and Esso.
Bonus #1: I’ve never heard of “Combat Dealers” before. It might be on Quest TV. It might also need subtitles.
I’ve noted before that I think an old VW Thing would be fun to hack around in, if I could afford one. Someone a while back recommended a used Jeep Cherokee as another fun hacking around car.
So: “American Jeep Vs German Kubelwagen”. Neither of these is exactly a Cherokee or a Thing, but they’re kind of within shouting distance.
Bonus #2: I’m actually going to link to an entire playlist here, for bookmarking purposes and because I can’t pick just one.
These are fairly short, but there are a bunch of them. Just to give you a taste: “4 Special Tricks with the Victorinox Toothpick” that don’t involve picking your teeth with it.
Monte Hellman, director. We haven’t seen “Two Lane Blacktop” yet, but we have watched “Cockfighter”. I can really only recommend that one to fans of Charles Willeford, but it seems like there are a lot of those folks out there…
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.
This is a little shorter than I usually do for MHM, but it is also higher quality, and I thought it was kind of interesting: “Russian Undersea Cable Recon”. I’ve heard a fair amount about US undersea cable recon, but very little about the other side’s activities.
Bonus: since that was short, I’m going to share something a little longer that I’ve been holding in reserve: “The Science Of Spying”.
Rusty Young, one of the founding members of Poco. I feel like I’m giving him short shrift, and perhaps tim will weigh in on this one. Poco was just a little before my time.
Catching up on a couple from the past few days when I’ve been tied up: Helen McCrory, “Harry Potter” and “Peaky Blinders” actress. She also did quite a bit of work in British theater.
Felix Silla. He was “Cousin Itt” on “The Adams Family”, and (as I understand it) played the physical role of “Twiki” on “Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century”. (Mel Blanc did the voice.)
1. There was a 1989 movie called “Return From the River Kwai”.
It was not a sequel. Really. That’s what the filmmakers said. It was supposedly based on a book of the same name.
Columbia pulled out of a distribution contract after Sony bought them, and claimed Sam Spiegel’s estate threatened to sue. The filmmakers claimed Columbia pulled out because the movie made the Japanese look bad, and, anyway, Columbia owned the rights, not Spiegel’s estate.
Obviously, I knew about this. The subject came up again over the weekend as part of a discussion with Mike the Musicologist about Broadway being out of ideas, and the sheer number of recent musicals based on movies.
What I did not know: Houston’s “Theater Under the Stars” (TUTS) tried to stage a production of “HoH” in 2014. Thing is, the director of the production decided that he was going to make changes:
This upset a lot of people. Including Amanda Green and Doug Wright, the other creator. It also upset Samuel French, the theatrical agency that licensed the show.
That’s what i didn’t know, and honestly, was surprised by. I thought it was extremely rare for a licensing agency to go to that length: then again, I also thought it was extremely rare for a professional theater company to make those kind of production changes without permission of the licensing agency.
I’m still not sure how common this is, but someone in one of the linked articles above mentions a production of David Mamet’s “Oleanna” which was shut down after one performance because the theater company gender-swapped a key role. This may be more common, and less newsworthy, than I think it is. But I still find it surprising that professional productions think nobody’s watching and they can do this (stuff).
It seems like it has been a while since I’ve done anything computer or computer history related. How about something from General Electric? Specifically the “Heavy Military Electronics Department”?
“Systems That Look Ahead”, a 1960s promo video on the virtues of computer information processing.
Honestly, I’m just fascinated by the idea of the “Heavy Military Electronics Department”. Was there a “Light Military Electronics Department”?
Bonus #1: They call economics the “dismal science”, right? Actually, this sits kind of at the interesection.
“Economics of Nuclear Reactor”, with our old friend Illinois EnergyProf.
Bonus #2: Periscope Films has put up some more educational videos from Shell Oil. This is actually one that they posted a while back from the 1970s that’s in color: “How an Airplane Flies: Part 1, Weight and Lift” and “Part 2: Thrust and Drag”.
I thought I’d put this up, mostly as a nod to Lawrence, and because I found it mildly amusing: “Top 5 Hilariously Bad Carry Guns” from TFB TV.
I could almost see carrying a cap and ball gun. Something like a reproduction Walker Colt would be retro cool, and pack a significant punch. Then again, I’m the guy who is thinking about getting a shoulder holster for his XP-100, so what do I know about hilariously bad carry guns?
Bonus #1: What does a flight medic carry?
Bonus #2: “The Impossible Micro Survival Kit”. I’ve been fascinated by survival kits since I was very, very young, and I like the idea of one that can fit into an Altoids tin. If I was doing this, though, I might split the first aid and the survival components out. If you wear Internet pants, you should be able to throw both into the pockets. Or you could fit both into a fanny pack.
Continuing our tour of the United States, let’s visit Wisconsin! More specifically, let’s visit a place I’d really like to see, and hope to one day soon: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin.
Bonus: This is a historical oddity that I confess I haven’t watched all of yet, but am bookmarking here.
“Ridin’ the Dog” is a documentary from 1989 about taking Greyhound from Seattle to Chicago. The extra historical oddity here is: Studs Terkel narrates.
I want to wish everyone a happy National Buy a Gun Day today.
I’ve been kind of playing it down this year because, frankly, try finding a gun to buy in today’s environment. I encourage you to shop (since BAG day falls in the middle of the week, you can have through the weekend) but really, good luck.
As for myself, Mike the Musicologist and I plan to do some gun shopping over the weekend. But unless I find something extremely compelling, my plan for this year is to put more money into improvements and updates to my existing guns.
Also, Midway is offering me a screaming birthday deal on a chronograph with Bluetooth that I may just have to take advantage of…