Month: July 2024

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This Is How We Did It Before The Internet

Saturday, 19 June 1999

I just got back from a little trip to Menlo Park.  Two weeks ago I was there with John and Charlie at a place called The Record Man.  The guy has got a gold mine in vinyl—unfortunately you pay through the nose for it.

Anyway, when I was there last, I found one of the records off my "hot list," the soundtrack of Trocadero Bleu Citron, a very obscure recording by Alec Costandinos, which also happened to be the first record Steve Golden ever gave me.  While musing this on the drive down 280—and wondering what the hell ever happened to that the framed photo of him spinning music at Hotbods that I'd given him back in '81 while simultaneously wishing I'd had it now—an idea came to me.

Dangerous, I know, but the thought was to take the good 3×5 copy of that portrait (I no longer have the negative), scan it at a very high resolution, and then print it out at 8×10 on the glossy photo paper at 1440 dpi.  I know it won't be as good as the original 11×17 print I gave Steve, but it would definitely be good enough to frame and hang.

Of course, that led me to thoughts of all the other things I've been meaning to have framed over the years, most of which are still firmly rolled in tubes in the hall closet and will probably never see the light of day.  But who knows?  I suppose anything is possible if I can ever dig myself out of the pile of debt that's that seems to be a required part of 20thcentury American life.

 Trocadero was—of course—right where I'd left it two weeks ago.  It's not exactly the kind of recording that people are going to come looking for.  This time, however, I'd brought my "hot list" and thought I might try laying my hands on a few other things as well.

Not surprisingly, there were several pieces of vinyl I would've scooped up if funds had allowed:  Kraftwerk's Man Machine and Computer World (I haven't seen either on vinyl at all since I sold my original copies, even though I recently replaced Man Machine with a CD copy) and Meco's Star Wars.

The find of Star Wars led me to a search for Boris Midney's Music from the Empire Strikes Back, an promo album I doubt ever saw the light of day and was originally given to me—again by Steve Golden—for my 22nd birthday in 1980.  The memories of that day are as strong almost twenty years later as they were when they occurred.  (It happened at work—Lewis & Roca Attorneys at Law—only a few short weeks before I went down to visit Tucson and met Kyle Tumlinson, setting me on the whole path which would eventually lead to Dennis, Lee, Bernie, Kekku, San Francisco, and the whole rest of this thing called my life.)

I'm really going to have to scan and print out that photo.  Obviously Steve is trying to say hello today.

Anyhow, Boris Midney was not hiding in the soul/dance section as might be expected, but rather in soundtracks (duh!).  I pulled it down, added it to Trocadero, Star Wars and Computer World and walked up to the counter.

As I noted earlier, The Record Man does have just about everything ever pressed.  On the other hand, his prices are book-quoted, so it's no place to find bargains.

He wanted $9 for Empire, $12 for Star Wars, $12 for Computer World, and sixteen fucking dollars for Trocadero.

 Since Trocadero wasn't even on the original Casablanca label, and I wasn't going to spend $40 for 4 records anyway, I put everything back except Empire.  I told him I was looking for the Casablanca pressing of Trocadero and all he said was, "If I had that, it would be $18."

I'm certainly not going to pay eighteen dollars for a piece of vinyl I'm sure I could find at The Record Rack for $3, if I'm just willing to spend a day down there going through their unsorted back room.

And as a sideline, there's a picture of Boris Midney on the back of this album, looking amazingly like my mechanic friend Louie Tasista—who I haven't seen in months and months, so I just called to invite to him dinner.  Sometimes life is just too damned strange.

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It's The Blatant Hypocrisy

And with the likes of Lauren Theater-Handjob* Bobert preaching that this should be nationwide? Are you saying honey that if there had been Ten Commandment posters in classrooms earlier it would've prevented your entire fucking family from having mugshots?

*Not that there's anything wrong with a theater-handjob, but there is a time and a proper venue for such things, and it's not at a public performance of Beetlejuice!

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55 Years Ago Today

From NASA:

One Giant Leap for Mankind

Millions of people around the globe will come together for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games later this month to witness a grand event—the culmination of years of training and preparation.

Fifty-five years ago this July, the world was watching as a different history-changing event was unfolding: the Apollo 11 mission was landing humans on the surface of another world for the first time. An estimated 650 million people watched on TV as Neil Armstrong reached the bottom of the ladder of the lunar module on July 20, 1969, and spoke the words, "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."

While the quest to land astronauts on the Moon was born from the space race with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, this moment was an achievement for the whole of humanity. To mark the world-embracing nature of the Moon landing, several tokens of world peace were left on the Moon during the astronauts' moonwalk.

"We came in peace for all mankind"

These words, as well as drawings of Earth's western and eastern hemispheres, are etched on a metal plaque affixed to a leg of the Apollo 11 lunar lander. Because the base of the lander remained on the Moon after the astronauts returned, it is still there today as a permanent memorial of the historic landing.

Microscopic messages from kings, queens, and presidents

Another artifact left on the Moon by the Apollo 11 astronauts is a small silicon disc etched with goodwill messages from leaders of 74 countries around the world. Each message was reduced to be smaller than the head of a pin and micro-etched on a disc roughly 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) in diameter. Thailand's message, translated into English, reads: "The Thai people rejoice in and support this historic achievement of Earth men, as a step towards Universal peace."

Curious to read what else was inscribed on the disk? Read the messages.

An ancient symbol

The olive branch, a symbol of peace and conciliation in ancient Greek mythology, also found its way to the Moon in July 1969. This small olive branch made of gold was left on the lunar surface during Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's 2.5-hour moonwalk. The olive branch also featured on the Apollo 11 mission patches sewed on the crew's spacesuits. Designed in part by command module pilot Michael Collins, the insignia shows a bald eagle landing on the Moon holding an olive branch in its talons.

We go together

As NASA's Artemis program prepares to again land astronauts on the Moon, including the first woman and the first person of color, this time we're collaborating with commercial and international partners. Together we will make new scientific discoveries, establish the first long-term presence on the Moon, and inspire a new generation of explorers.

Is aerospace history your cup of tea? Be sure to check out more from NASA's past at www.nasa.gov/history.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

 

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Quick! Someone Grab a Fire Extinguisher!

Let's be honest, it doesn't take any talent to insult someone.

After all, by the time children learn to speak in complete sentences, they're hurling sophisticated comebacks like:

"You're a doo-doo head!"

But a truly clever verbal takedown is a thing of beauty.

Reddit user BrucePennyworth asked:

"What is the most brutal insult you've ever heard in your life?"

Family Tree

"Your family tree is a wreath." ~ xRocketman52x

Knowledge

"Knowledge seeks you, but you're faster." ~ coffeebreakhero

Teaching The Children

"Before I had braces, my fifth grade teacher told me I looked like I could eat corn off the cob through a chain link fence." ~ KaptOKrunch

Wife

"If you could understand why your wife was right to leave you, then she wouldn't have left you." ~ Grimdotdotdot

Learning Curve

"Your learning curve is a circle." ~ Pandarenu

Love

"Everyone who ever loved you was wrong." ~ Deadsuooo

Friends

"One day you will realise that your friends were right to leave you behind. ~ Nullagainagain

Deutschland

"In Germany we ask politely, 'Did the Swings in your childhood stand too close to the wall?'" ~ DollimusMaximus

Bachelors

First time I heard "Bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others," I told my mom about it and she thought it was obnoxious.

A few weeks later we went to a restaurant with my dad. It was raining so he dropped us off at the front, parked in a lot three blocks down, and raced back in the pouring rain.

My dad makes good money, but most of it goes towards the family, obviously. His single brother has the same job and had just bought his third sports car before heading off for a 2 week singles cruise.

As we watched my dad run towards us, my mom turned to me and said,- "Oscar Wilde may not have had it entirely wrong." ~ midnightsunofabitch

Placenta

"Usually they throw out the placenta and keep the baby, but I see in your case they did the opposite."—a Jamaican sheetrocker I used to work with. ~ PantsOfALion

Envy

"'I envy people who don't know you'." ~ blackmesawest

Baby

During a teenage fight with my brother, I repeated what I thought was an iconic line:

"'Did you roll off the changing table as a baby??'"

Before he could answer, our mom replied, guilt ridden, from the other room:

"THAT ONLY HAPPENED TWICE!" ~ gloriomono

Heckler

"I'm so happy you're here. Give the people at home a break." —Dylan Moran to a heckler at a comedy show I was at. ~ CommanderKobe

Go

Good old Oscar Wilde provided many harsh, yet eloquent ways of being rude.

"Some people bring joy wherever they go. Some whenever they go." ~ Validarian

Astronomy

Our agency division was in a dispute with another department because one of the people in that office didn't want to certify a payment to a vendor because they 'didn't like' the terms of the vendor's contract with our agency (finance & accounting for the Air Force, Defense Department).

My supervisor and I were trying to explain to their supervisor it was a legally binding contract that didn't violate any agency or federal rules or regulations, so 'liking' the contract terms was immaterial. We needed to pay this vendor on time or we'd pay $$ penalties.

Government contracts with private sector vendors are subject to interest penalties if they're even a day late. This was a multimillion dollar payment.

Finally, exasperated, I told the room as a whole:

"I'm not an expert in astronomy, but I know for a fact the universe doesn't revolve around anyone in this room, so check your ego and certify the damn payment!"

After a moment of silence, their supervisor and mine started laughing. Their supervisor certified the payment and we avoided several hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest penalties for late payment." ~ LakotaGrl

There are some gems in here that I may have to use!

Do you have any to add to the list? Let me know in the comments.