Archive for January, 2007
Wondered if it would happen
Remember how I said in my previous post on the subject that there was a pretty good chance the alopecia would manifest in another spot? *sigh* Found it tonight. It’s pretty small so far, but it will probably get bigger.
Technobabble stream of consciousness
Thanks to Thomas for the cool link that got me started on this one.
First, anyone who watches Mythbusters must see this Flash animation.
Seen it? Okay. Jamie’s technobabble over the big diagram reminded me of an old electrical engineering in-joke: the turboencabulator. I have known for a long time about a video incarnation of this joke apparently made by some folks at Rockwell: The Rockwell Automation Retroencabulator.
However, what I didn’t realize is that Chrysler took a shot at this old joke even earlier: The Chrysler Turboencabulator. Keep listening. There are some screw-the-customer jokes at the end.
I love how this old joke just keeps coming back.
Bonus for the Mythbusters fans
Do pretty girls fart?
I hope they pay the poor girl well.
60’s References
One of my very favorite movies is That Thing You Do. I’m not exactly sure why, but I never get tired of watching it. I could go into a whole other post about why I like it, but I suspect that it just put together exactly the right mix of fun music, [mostly] clever dialogue, compelling story line, and well-chosen actors to hook me.
An interesting thing, though, is how much of the movie is concerned with period references. The movie is set in the mid-60s, about 10 years before I was born. So, I don’t have original memories of a lot of the little bones that they throw us in the movie. Some are fairly obvious (references to the Ed Sullivan show and the Beatles, the TV interview with Gus Grissom, etc.). Others are ones that I figured out but were not quite so obvious. For instance, “Rick and Anita” in the beach movie are almost certainly thinly-veiled stand-ins for Frankie and Annette. One of the really obscure ones that I actually picked up on is that Guy’s father is using a Zenith Space Command remote control for their TV (see this Wikipedia article for more info). Pushing a button on the remote caused a mechanically-produced (no batteries) ultrasonic tone that the TV “listened” for. There are a few that I actually had to look up. Guy’s “percussionist Foster Grant” line, I learned, is a reference to a famous ad campaign that sunglass maker Foster Grant ran back in the 60’s in which they asked, “Who’s that behind those Foster Grants?.”
One reference that eluded me for years, though, was Guy’s comment late in the movie that “If Jimmy’s a genius, then I’m [something that sounded like "ooh-TONT"].” I tried Google, but since I didn’t know how to spell the mystery word, I had no luck. I was talking to someone about it last night, and I decided to give it another shot. Thanks to this page, I finally found it. The line is actually, “If Jimmy’s a genius, then I’m U Thant.” U Thant was the 3rd Secretary General of the United Nations and would have been the current one during the time the movie was set. Thus, it makes sense that Guy’s response to “Who’s U Thant?” started with “He’s the Sec…”.
I think it’s interesting that Tom Hanks and company were able to make a movie that was appealing to younger moviegoers yet chock full of so many references that were so obviously intended for people who actually grew up in the 60’s. Bravo. 
Six (?) questions (?)
As requested by Geof, here are my responses to a set of questions/challenges that mostly resemble the ones he got from his friend. I say mostly, because I decided to mess with a couple of them and downright refused to answer one or two. *shrug* It’s my site.
I’ll tentatively tag Amy, with the understanding that her brain is totally involved in organizing PHE right now.
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