Random Thoughts That Don't Deserve Their Own Thread Go Here

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

ESPN is showing Ripken's 2131 game. I cannot believe how poor the video quality is. It's like they are showing a VHS tape of the broadcast.

It is weird how quickly sports broadcasts feel dated.

I guess they are constantly pushing the edges of production values, so they end up dating the old stuff more quickly than scripted shows and the like.

[NobodyHere]

It makes me wonder if the virus shutdown is going to cause a minor baby boom in 9 months.

[molson]

Greatest time waster I've come across in a long time..

sandspiel

[thesloppy]

Originally Posted by molson

Greatest time waster I've come across in a long time..

sandspiel

Fun! That distracted me for a good while.

Noita is an excellent gamified/rpg/roguelike take on these type of pixel physics webtoys that I highly recommend, FWIW:

Noita on Steam

[panerd]

So been watching a lot of the Pixar/Marvel stuff with the kids on the Disney+ app occasionally mixing in the classics. So earlier tonight we go to watch Pinocchio. My memories were of a fun tale of a little wooden boy lying and his nose growing comically. Well to say that movie was quite a bit darker than I remember is an understatement. Wow that movie was from a whole different era!

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by panerd

So been watching a lot of the Pixar/Marvel stuff with the kids on the Disney+ app occasionally mixing in the classics. So earlier tonight we go to watch Pinocchio. My memories were of a fun tale of a little wooden boy lying and his nose growing comically. Well to say that movie was quite a bit darker than I remember is an understatement. Wow that movie was from a whole different era!

Wait until you do alice in wonderland

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by Lathum

Wait until you do alice in wonderland

Isn't she under age?

[tarcone]

Lie was different back in the day. This is why Okay Boomer or whatever the saying came about.

The 80s was still ripe for a;; the 50s shit. We are still living ina world where shit was realistic. Not like today where you cant say shit because it may offend someone.

This world is soft and weak. Can you imagine these 18 year olds storming Normandy beach?

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

Isn't she under age?

According to IMDB she is almost 70

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by Lathum

According to IMDB she is almost 70

Then I imagine Alice's wonderland isn't so wonderful anymore.

[Warhammer]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

Then I imagine Alice's wonderland isn't so wonderful anymore.

It depends if you are looking "Through the Looking Glass".

[tarcone]

ED drugs are THE BOMB

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by tarcone

Can you imagine these 18 year olds storming Normandy beach?

Not until an environmental impact study was completed.

[Ben E Lou]

With our eldest entering 6th grade this fall, SWMBO recently purchased a book that discusses parenting during the middle school years. Neither of us has read it yet. However, not only did our daughter run across it and read it, but tonight, with a serious/authoritative/educated tone, she offered up some positive feedback in affirmation of some of our parenting decisions, based on the book.

[Lathum]

So my son said he heard a noise by the fire place. Told him it was likely just birds messing with the screen. Look over a few minutes later and the cat is going crazy by the fireplace doors. Turns out there was a damn squirrel in the fireplace hanging from the flu rod. Have a humane pest control company coming out to remove it and recap the chimney. quite the exciting day.

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by Lathum

So my son said he heard a noise by the fire place. Told him it was likely just birds messing with the screen. Look over a few minutes later and the cat is going crazy by the fireplace doors. Turns out there was a damn squirrel in the fireplace hanging from the flu rod. Have a humane pest control company coming out to remove it and recap the chimney. quite the exciting day.

You have a flu rod?

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

You have a flu rod?

yeah, the flu is open and closed by a steel rod that hangs down

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by Lathum

yeah, the flu is open and closed by a steel rod that hangs down

You're referring to the "flue"

I thought you had a magical rod that gave people the virus.

[PilotMan]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

I thought you had a magical rod that gave people the virus.

A magical HIV rod? How's Mrs. Lathum feeling about that?

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by PilotMan

A magical HIV rod? How's Mrs. Lathum feeling about that?

don't worry. She is safe.

[JonInMiddleGA]

You'd think that child labor laws would prevent Facebook from hiring a layout/design department filled with 8 year olds ... and yet here we are.

[NobodyHere]

Why are people trying to Email the Amish?

You're suppose to send faxes to the Amish.

[QuikSand]

“Home” by Edward Sharpe & Magnetic Zeroes is a perfect song to be grabbed by Madison Avenue to turn tricks to sell some bullshit tires or insurance or whatever it is I’m overhearing.

[stevew]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

Why are people trying to Email the Amish?

You're suppose to send faxes to the Amish.

I’ve delivered amazon packages to the Amish. Wasn’t fun, and you can smell the lack of electricity in the summer

[cuervo72]

Surprised it took this long to resurface (caught it on a commercial too, didn't think I'd heard it in a while).

Also: Pizza Groundhog.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

We could select from a ton more than that if we wanted. I haven't bothered to count, but there are well over a dozen public school options for us. There are so many options here that the school system holds a "school choice expo" every year at the Greensboro Coliseum to help people be aware of what's available. The middle school that our neighborhood is zoned for is roughly top-3 in the county, among non-choice schools, so we're ignoring all the charter and magnet options that are lotteries, and just focusing on...


a. the 'academic excellence' magnet that just accepts the top 75ish kids each year based on grades and test scores. (No lottery, and as mentioned above, it's considered one of the top tiny handful of public middle schools in the state.)
b. the private school near us
c. the school we're zoned for

Two months, one global pandemic, and a whole bunch of remote interviews and tests later, we have a winnah. We mailed the check for option "b" today.

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Admittedly not a great basketball fan but isn't Michael Jordan's 10-part biopic a little too much? Couldn't they condense it all down to a 2 hour show?

Originally Posted by miami_fan

We will wait and see but I could have gone for another 2 hours of that OJ doc that ESPN did. That was 8 hours long.

Sadly, I don't think it can live up to the expectations.

It’s early but I am definitely ready for ten hours of this.

[stevew]

can I get 82 episodes?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Two months, one global pandemic, and a whole bunch of remote interviews and tests later, we have a winnah. We mailed the check for option "b" today.

Wait til "the post-grad" years.

That's all I gotta say I think.

[RainMaker]

Scott 1000 and my butt are not working well together.

[stevew]

Had to make Chinese food today. Every joint around me is closed at the moment. Particularly fond of the one place and I hope it’s still standing after this.

[CrimsonFox]

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by CrimsonFox

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by stevew

Had to make Chinese food today. Every joint around me is closed at the moment. Particularly fond of the one place and I hope it’s still standing after this.

Read this today.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/21/busin...nts/index.html

As of April 15, 59% of independent Chinese restaurants across America had completely stopped taking debit and credit card transactions, indicating they have ceased operations, according to Womply, a data subscription service. Womply tracks credit and debit card transactions to provide market insights to 10 million small businesses.

Restaurants across the United States are suffering under the business shutdowns in place because of the pandemic, but Chinese restaurants are by far the worst-hit segment of the industry, Womply reported.

[JonInMiddleGA]

re: the Chinese restaurant thing -- I wonder what percentage of those closed relied heavily on buffet business at lunch (or dinner, or both).

[stevew]

My favorite one has a (shitty) buffet but it was the only one that delivered. Like around us I wanna say the nearest open Chinese joint is in Youngstown and that’s 25+ minutes.

[cuervo72]

I haven't checked any of ours. One we used to go to fairly often is strictly a buffet; they have by-the-pound take-out, but I'm not sure that's tenable at the moment. (We haven't been there as often recently because my daughter doesn't care for it much, son has been at school, and overall it's gone downhill.)

The other one -- right across the street from the middle/high school -- has been closed ever since they had a fire the night my son and I had eaten there for lunch. This was last May; still no sign of anything happening at the building (which apparently was an old Burger Chef).

There are tons of other Asian places in town but those were our two defaults.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

I haven't checked any of ours.

I have - kinda - checked ours, now that the subject has been mentioned.

And, sure enough, only one in Athens remains open best I could tell last weekend. I think I found 4 others that were closed.

While it does run contrary to my lunch buffet theory, it's also by far the oldest/most established Chinese restaurant in town, dating back to at least the early/mid 80s so that could be an advantage.

[Edward64]

FWIW, we did try ordering Chinese to-go last weekend (when we got Mediterranean instead) but one restaurant did not pickup and the other, my favorite go-to, was closed. There was a third that we called but it said it was only opened from 12 noon and we wanted something by 11:30am. None of them were buffet places. I figure Chinese food is easy to microwave.

I am craving some sushi but don't think those should be microwaved. We did talk about maybe some Indian this weekend.

My guess is fast food (burgers, pizza) places are barely surviving and hope the mom-and-pop are hunkering down and will come back when this is over because they have lower overhead.

[PilotMan]

Our favorite Chinese Restaurant closed up shop long ago, but the crappy takeout place close by is still open.

[albionmoonlight]

I'm not sure how it will come out of COVID, but there is a horrible cheap Chinese restaurant by our house--one of the worst I've ever had. And it has managed to survive even as other restaurants around it open and close constantly. And I never see anyone eating there.

I don't understand the economics of cheap Chinese restaurants, but I get the sense that they work differently than other places.

[ISiddiqui]

Well that's annoying re: Chinese restaurants. We have quite a few where we live in Atlanta, so I think they'll be ok. But hopefully the new Sichuan place that opened a few miles away survives (it's better going 10 mins than 20-25mins to our Chinatown area) - it closed down for 2 weeks in early April, but is back to serving (and saying 25-35 minutes for delivery on Grubhub, which is a decent sign).

[Breeze]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

I'm not sure how it will come out of COVID, but there is a horrible cheap Chinese restaurant by our house--one of the worst I've ever had. And it has managed to survive even as other restaurants around it open and close constantly. And I never see anyone eating there.

I don't understand the economics of cheap Chinese restaurants, but I get the sense that they work differently than other places.

Money Laundering

[cuervo72]

There's a place in Lafayette (IN) that was allegedly a Chinese restaurant, but despite being on a major road it has a lot which is very hard to get to, never had more than a couple cars in it, and looked to have hills acting as bunkers around the building. It's closed for good now it appears and was apparently legit, but we were never confident enough that it was and opted not to check a couple of times when looking for somewhere to eat.

[Lathum]

It's hard to type with a cast on your hand

[stevew]

We're so short on advertising that "Paper and Packaging" is a major commercial sponsor right now. like straight up boxes.

[stevew]

Using the word “hoaks” instead of hoax has to belong in the inner circle of a bad grammar hall of shame.


(Was not pertaining to Covid)

[stevew]

Never thought much of the air fryer we have. Maybe I was using it wrong before, but I just made insanely good mini potatoes with it. I think I never used enough oil in it before.

[AlexB]

Just watched Super Duper Alice Cooper, a documentary about Alice up to 1984. I like a lot of Alice’s early stuff, but did not know much of the detail about how they formed, physically or musically, and how his early career played out.

Highly recommended

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by stevew

Never thought much of the air fryer we have. Maybe I was using it wrong before, but I just made insanely good mini potatoes with it. I think I never used enough oil in it before.

I don't use any oil in my air fryer. Just a little cooking spray.