Random Randomness.

[chasfh]

16 hours ago, oblong said:

A discussion with the creator of the Seinfeld theme 

I'm generally not a man given to nostalgia, but ... I do miss the 90s.

[Motor City Sonics]

You want nostalgia?   

Best commercial ever made

 

 

[oblong]

7 hours ago, chasfh said:

I'm generally not a man given to nostalgia, but ... I do miss the 90s.

Seinfeld is the bookend to the time I dated my now wife. We started dating not long after it started airing consistently and it ended a week before our wedding.  I don’t know what it means other than kind of representing my 20s slacker years.  

[gehringer_2]

On 7/7/2024 at 11:30 PM, oblong said:

A discussion with the creator of the Seinfeld theme 

Interesting. Some composers of TV themes have been fairly well known, but in the cases I can think of it was prior to and not because of their TV theme work - Mike Post, Bob James, Lalo Schifrin...

[Motor City Sonics]

15 hours ago, chasfh said:

I'm generally not a man given to nostalgia, but ... I do miss the 90s.

I miss the 90s because everything didn't ache in the 90's and I could go to concerts 5 nights a week.     I am a Program Director at a radio station now and we do a ton of promotions with the record labels and concert promoters and I could go to pretty much every single concert if I wanted - for free  (like a sportswriter going to every game).    But those weeknight shows.........I am drained the next day.  That's what I miss about the 90s.  I wasn't happier then.   I don't know if I am happier now or just more pragmatic and realistic and accepting of where I am.  Actually I love my job, but my personal life is pretty non existent, but maybe that's good.  If I have too much time to think I think negative thoughts and I boredom-eat too much. 

  

   I'm going to see the Lemon Twigs on 7/24,  and that's a Wednesday.   I already know that Thursday is going to be a drain, but our station has Sonic Lunch that afternoon, so I can't miss that  (plus it's the Accidentals and they're fantastic at Sonic Lunch, it'll be packed).     But this is when the Twigs are playing and I think they're fantastic.   Very old school-great.  

[CMRivdogs]

7 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

Interesting. Some composers of TV themes have been fairly well known, but in the cases I can think of it was prior to and not because of their TV theme work - Mike Post, Bob James, Lalo Schifrin...

One of my favorite concert band composers got her start orchestrating for Bill Conti. Julie Giroux's work is best known on North and South, Broadcast News, Masters of the Universe, etc.

Her Facebook page is hilarious at times.

[chasfh]

Fun quiz time:

Without reverse image googling (that's OK, we'll trust you), guess whose parents these are?

Take a good look at the dad.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

Fun quiz time:

Without reverse image googling (that's OK, we'll trust you), guess whose parents these are?

Take a good look at the dad.

Nose is narrower and the eyebrows are less rounded, other than that....

[casimir]

4 hours ago, chasfh said:

Fun quiz time:

Without reverse image googling (that's OK, we'll trust you), guess whose parents these are?

Take a good look at the dad.

Gotta be Babe Ruth.

[Deleterious]

Those are the proud parents of the Hawk Tuah Girl.

[casimir]

14 minutes ago, Deleterious said:

Those are the proud parents of the Hawk Tuah Girl.

I’ve heard mention of this person and have no idea why she’s a thing.  I suspect I’m probably fine with not knowing.

[chasfh]

29 minutes ago, casimir said:

Gotta be Babe Ruth.

Gotta be!

[Deleterious]

12 minutes ago, casimir said:

I’ve heard mention of this person and have no idea why she’s a thing.  I suspect I’m probably fine with not knowing.

 

[casimir]

9 hours ago, Deleterious said:

 

Nope.  You're trying to lead me down a bad path.  Not.  Gonna.  Doit.

[chasfh]

She's a 10pm 6 and a 2am 9.

[casimir]

I played a game of NBA Jam yesterday.  The real stand up arcade version.  The Pistons had Thomas, Dumars, and Elliott.  Took my nephew to OT (Chicago) and lost by 4.  I struggled like crazy to remember how the damn buttons worked.  But fun stuff.

[Tigeraholic1]

On 7/12/2024 at 6:32 PM, casimir said:

I played a game of NBA Jam yesterday.  The real stand up arcade version.  The Pistons had Thomas, Dumars, and Elliott.  Took my nephew to OT (Chicago) and lost by 4.  I struggled like crazy to remember how the damn buttons worked.  But fun stuff.

That was my Favorite. There was no beating me when I had Kamp and Payton. 

[casimir]

20 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

That was my Favorite. There was no beating me when I had Kamp and Payton. 

I didn't do much looking around the teams, but I bet that duo was a beast.  I just wanted the nostalgia of the Palace Guards (sans Vinnie Johnson, sigh).  And then the bonus of the single Sean Elliott Piston season to boot?  OK< maybe not much of a bonus.

The controls really flustered me.  I did finally sort of get the hang of it at the end.  i was never really good at those games anyway, but I truly felt like an old guy that hadn't played it in about 30 years.

[chasfh]

In other news, congratulations to new poster @Shelton for achieving the rank of Apprentice. The kid’s got talent and I see big things for him here … 

 

😉

[smr-nj]

Thought we were having another earthquake here in New Jersey this afternoon. Now it turns out they think it was a meteor - sonic boom. But it was a pretty loud boom. Strange times we live in.

[Tigeraholic1]

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used?

Well, because that's the way they built them in England, and English engineers designed the first US railroads. Why did the English build them like that?

Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the wagon tramways, and that's the gauge they used. So, why did 'they' use that gauge then?

Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that same wheel spacing. Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?

Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break more often on some of the old, long distance roads in England. You see, that's the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads?

Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including England) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since. And what about the ruts in the roads?

Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match or run the risk of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore, the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process and wonder 'What horse's ass came up with this?', you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' asses.)

Now, the twist to the story:

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature, of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system, was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass. And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important? Ancient horse's asses control almost everything.

[casimir]

7 hours ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used?

Well, because that's the way they built them in England, and English engineers designed the first US railroads. Why did the English build them like that?

Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the wagon tramways, and that's the gauge they used. So, why did 'they' use that gauge then?

Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that same wheel spacing. Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?

Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break more often on some of the old, long distance roads in England. You see, that's the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads?

Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including England) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since. And what about the ruts in the roads?

Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match or run the risk of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore, the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process and wonder 'What horse's ass came up with this?', you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' asses.)

Now, the twist to the story:

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature, of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system, was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass. And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important? Ancient horse's asses control almost everything.

I can only add to this by saying that I bike ride a rails-to-trails where a section of it is shared with horses and there are signs that explicitly give them the right of way for the 100 yards or so of shared trail bounded by wooden fencing.  And by right of way, I mean you also make sure you avoid what isn't blacktop.

[oblong]

11 hours ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used?

Well, because that's the way they built them in England, and English engineers designed the first US railroads. Why did the English build them like that?

Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the wagon tramways, and that's the gauge they used. So, why did 'they' use that gauge then?

Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had used for building wagons, which used that same wheel spacing. Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?

Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break more often on some of the old, long distance roads in England. You see, that's the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads?

Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (including England) for their legions. Those roads have been used ever since. And what about the ruts in the roads?

Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match or run the risk of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore, the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process and wonder 'What horse's ass came up with this?', you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' asses.)

Now, the twist to the story:

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature, of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system, was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass. And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important? Ancient horse's asses control almost everything.

By the time the space shuttle development came about in the 70's NASA didn't have unlimited funding like they pretty much did on Mercury/Gemini/Apollo.  So much of the work on those programs involved building things just to support the work... like in the case of the SRB's they would have just built a transportation system that would have fit their preferred requirements.

And Thoikol's SRB's are what led to Challenger.   NASA and senior managers didn't listen to the engineers.

This is a great story.

[gehringer_2]

11 hours ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important? Ancient horse's asses control almost everything.

Can't knock horses though. You can make a fair argument that the horse was as much responsible for Western civilization as any other single factor.

[Tigeraholic1]

2 hours ago, oblong said:

By the time the space shuttle development came about in the 70's NASA didn't have unlimited funding like they pretty much did on Mercury/Gemini/Apollo.  So much of the work on those programs involved building things just to support the work... like in the case of the SRB's they would have just built a transportation system that would have fit their preferred requirements.

And Thoikol's SRB's are what led to Challenger.   NASA and senior managers didn't listen to the engineers.

This is a great story.

I figured you would get a kick out of the (No horse pun intended) NASA tie in!