I knew you could purchase military rations online. What I didn’t know, until recently (but should not have surprised me), is that there are people on YouTube who purchase and review them.
Steve1989MREInfo has over 1.5 million subscribers.
Here he reviews a French MRE from 2017.
Bonus video #1: an Italian MRE from 2014, which is interesting: as I understand it, Italian MREs are the only ones that contain alcohol.
Bonus video #2: a British “emergency” field ration from some time between 1899 and 1902.
This isn’t actually a random YouTube recommendation. I ran across this by way of a post from McThag – I thought it was a while back, but apparently it was earlier this year. Time flies when you’re locked down.
I’m not a big car guy, and I was never much of a “Motor Trend” fan. As I’ve written before, “Car and Driver” during that late 1970s – early 1980s period was my jam. “Motor Trend” seemed to be “Who Spent the Most Money On Advertising With Us”, and “Road and Track” was the magazine for 50ish guys who drove MGs painted British Racing Green while wearing tweed jackets and dapper little caps and looking down their nose at the rest of the car world.
But I digress. “Motor Trend” apparently had a YouTube channel. One of their features was “RoadKill”, where, as I understand, the two hosts bought crappy cars, fixed them up to the point where they were minimally driveable, and then went on road trips with them. Hilarity frequently ensued.
This particular video amuses me: in this case, they bought the world’s worst Corvette, with the intention of driving it from Florida to Bowling Green, Kentucky…
I think even my non-car people readers should get some amusement out of this, as the Corvette in question is astonishingly bad. The fact that it doesn’t have a windshield is only the start of the troubles.
Bonus video: according to the person who re-uploaded this video, “Motor Trend” moved their content off of YouTube and on to “Motor Trend On Demand”. But other people have uploaded more “Roadkill” videos, if you find the idea of two guys patching up crappy cars and going on road trips oddly appealing. Here’s a playlist.
Who’s up for some travel on Pan Am? And what exotic destination sounds good today?
How about…Finland! It isn’t quite Paris in the the spring, but we can make do.
Bonus: Here’s something a little different. “Airline Pilot”, a 1970 documentary from BOAC, following a young pilot through his training and first flight.
According to the YouTube notes, Stephen Radcliffe (the subject) was BOAC’s youngest pilot ever.
BOAC was merged with British European Airways (BEC) in 1974 to form British Airways. According to various online sources, Mr. Radcliffe died in 1971: he fell off of a cliff while camping.
I thought it might be fun to post some more Convair promotional videos. Especially since these show some nice vintage livery from airlines back in the day.
Bonus: “The Convair Liner”, another promo film. This one covers the 240, 340, 440, and even the military variants.
I really like seeing the old Braniff paint jobs. I never flew Braniff, but I have sort of a sentimental fondness for them after reading Splash of Colors, John Nance’s history of the airline.
There’s a story in Nance’s book that I like: Braniff’s mechanics were on strike, and marching the picket line when a thunderstorm hit. Tom Braniff saw that the mechanics were getting wet, so he told one of his people to get some rainsuits, coffee, and doughnuts and take them to the guys on the picket line.
I have a reputation for being a disturber of the peace. You have to take me as I am. If I’m a disturber of the peace, it’s for good reason. And, ladies and gentlemen, if someone wakes up a sleeping man so as to make him watch out, then the man who shakes him is no disturber of the peace. I wish to cry out, wake up! Watch out for the years to come.
Jeremiah said: “I hear the whisperings of many, “Terror on every side! Denounce! Let us denounce him!” All those who were my friends are on the watch for any misstep of mine. “Perhaps he will be trapped; then we can prevail and take our vengeance on him.” But the Lord is with me, like a mighty champion: my persecutors will stumble, they will not triumph. In their failure they will be put to utter shame, to lasting unforgettable confusion. O Lord of hosts, you who test the just, who probe mind and heart, let me witness the vengeance you take on them, for to you I have entrusted my cause. Sing to the Lord, praise the Lord, for he has rescued the life of the poor from the power of the wicked!
Wait, wait: Kilmer skipped out on Batman because he wanted to do “The Island of Dr. Moreau“? I haven’t laughed this hard since the hogs ate my kid brother.
Jim Kiick, Miami Dolphins running back in the early 1970s.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón. I had not heard of him, either, but he wrote The Shadow of the Wind, which is “…the second-most-successful Spanish novel after Miguel de Cervantes’s masterpiece “Don Quixote,” according to Planeta.”
The theme for today is: “Things That I Found Oddly Compelling”.
Techmoan fixes an old dual cassette deck. But it’s not just any cassette deck: it was taken off a decommissioned British warship. And this one isn’t designed for disco parties: this is a highly specialized cassette deck designed for the aftermath of disco parties, when someone is interrogating you about how that dead body ended up in your bed surrounded by enough cocaine to fuel a sequel to “Popeye”.
Bonus video: by way of the Northwest New Jersey Beekeepers Association, a beekeeper shows how he investigates a very aggressive hive, makes the decision to destroy it, and then carries out that decision.
I don’t much like any insect that is capable of stinging me, including bees (though I acknowledge the need for bees, which is more than I’m willing to say about wasps, yellow jackets, or hornets – murder or otherwise). But when this guy – someone who knows about bees – says “This is an aggressive and dangerous hive” and “I can’t just take it out into a field somewhere and leave it”, and then backs that up with video of hot bee action…well.
No grand unifying theme today, just some things that popped up in my recommendations that I thought were interesting.
“The Penetrating Eye”. From 1970, a documentary about the scanning electron microscope produced by Eli Lilly.
Bonus: “Nuclear Propulsion In Space”, a 1968 joint production of NASA and the old Atomic Energy Commission about experimental nuclear reactors for space propulsion.
There’s a lot of “The Future We Could Have Had” in this video, including discussion of how a manned Mars mission would work. It also includes some nifty reactor test footage.
You know, the history of aviation wasn’t all Pan Am and Boeing. There were other companies involved.
Like Delta. And Convair, a division of General Dynamics (as of 1953).
“Introduction to a Champion”, a Delta/Convair promotional film for the then-new Convair 880 jet. The 880, in theory, was supposed to be a competitor to the 707 and DC-8 by being smaller and faster.
The film certainly makes the 880 look comfortable, in that sort of idealized vintage 1960s air travel kind of way. They even manage to make airline food look almost appetizing. It also places great emphasis on the alleged speed of the 880.
Unfortunately, it was not entirely successful. Convair made 65 of them from 1959 to 1962. Delta ran 17 of them between 1960 and 1974. As far as I can tell, there are no currently operational 880s, though there is one in storage somewhere in California. Most of the others have been chopped up and parts put on display (or, in one case, used in a lodge in South Africa).
There is one surviving intact (but not airworthy) example that I know of that is on display. You may even have seen it, which leads me to…
Bonus video: this is a little below my usual standards of quality, but short. “Lisa Marie: The History Tour 1960 – 2015”. You see, Elvis bought one of Delta’s retired Convair 880s in 1975 for $250,000. He then spent a truckload of money having it extensively customized:
(Probably true story, at least according to a couple of sources: Elvis originally wanted to buy a 707, and had even put down a deposit on one. He probably would have been happier long term with that plane – or at least it would have been easier to find parts, I suspect – but the 707 he put money down on was Robert Vesco‘s, and when the fecal matter of Vesco’s empire impacted the rotating blades of the Federal impeller, that deal fell apart. I don’t know if Elvis got his money back or not: I suspect the IRS or the SEC immediately confiscated it from Vesco’s people, and they didn’t have it to give back. But I digress.)
There’s some good shots in here of the “Lisa Marie”‘s interior, which I guess is pretty much what you’d expect from a plane owned by Elvis.