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      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!
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Things That Make You Happy

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23 minutes ago, mlooney said:

I just got a book in the mail.  "Postwar AFV 1945-Present."

Does this dead-tree book auto-update regularly?

No?

Then the title is inaccurate. It doesn't cover a period ending in the present. It covers a period ending at some specific date in the past.

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The title may be inaccurate.  But it was not necessarily a deliberate lie IF the author or publisher sincerely believed that there would be no improvements or changes to the subject for the entire time that this particular edition would be available for reference.

Of course, if the author or publisher sincerely believed that to be the case, you may be justified in questioning their expertise on the subject.

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6 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

Does this dead-tree book auto-update regularly?

No?

Then the title is inaccurate. It doesn't cover a period ending in the present. It covers a period ending at some specific date in the past.

 

5 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

The title may be inaccurate.  But it was not necessarily a deliberate lie IF the author or publisher sincerely believed that there would be no improvements or changes to the subject for the entire time that this particular edition would be available for reference.

Of course, if the author or publisher sincerely believed that to be the case, you may be justified in questioning their expertise on the subject.

 

There is a class of writers that do "historical reviews" and what not that use "<SUBJECT> from <SOME YEAR> to Present" as a template.  This can cause confusion when the book in question isn't, shall we say, current, so you find a book about the French Army, for example, list as "1816 to Present" ends somewhere right before the Franco-Prussian war.

In this case, however

  1. I don't look gift horses in the mouth that much
  2. It's more or less correct
  3. "Present" more or less maps to 2010
     

 

 

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IndyCar stuff: I tweeted to the guy on NBCSN's race broadcasts who does the "how it works" segments after last week's race, asking him if he'd do a segment about how one particular item in the cockpit worked. He actually tweeted back, with a link to a video he did last year. Don't know how I missed that one, but I was pleasantly surprised that a network expert commentator responded!

I would be ∞ times happier if I could spend my twilight years driving around, chasing and attending IndyCar races and DCI drum corps shows. :D

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13 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

I would be ∞ times happier if I could spend my twilight years driving around, chasing and attending IndyCar races and DCI drum corps shows. :D

Start a blog on each.  Who knows, someone might decide to either sponsor you or hire you outright for one or the other.  And in the meantime, you'd be writing about something you enjoy, for others who enjoy the same thing.

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23 hours ago, mlooney said:

There is a class of writers that do "historical reviews" and what not that use "<SUBJECT> from <SOME YEAR> to Present" as a template.  This can cause confusion when the book in question isn't, shall we say, current, so you find a book about the French Army, for example, list as "1816 to Present" ends somewhere right before the Franco-Prussian war.

It can nonetheless be amusing to read older history texts. I have in my collection an early 20th century history text that discusses World War One; it is titled 'Lions led by Donkeys.' I was somewhat startled when the writer at one point detoured to what had happened in Italy after the war and spoke of 'the excellent Mr. Mussolini.'

I checked the date of print and found it was written and printed in 1929. ^_^

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9 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Start a blog on each.  Who knows, someone might decide to either sponsor you or hire you outright for one or the other.  And in the meantime, you'd be writing about something you enjoy, for others who enjoy the same thing.

While I'd love to blog about both, the end result you suggest would be one I wouldn't be able to take advantage of even if offered. My health is in too bad of a shape to allow me to attend the events.

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3 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

While I'd love to blog about both, the end result you suggest would be one I wouldn't be able to take advantage of even if offered. My health is in too bad of a shape to allow me to attend the events.

You should not let this keep you from blogging. If nothing else, you may give the rest of us an interesting read. I know I would like to read what you write about it.

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On 7/12/2017 at 7:12 PM, ProfessorTomoe said:

I would be ∞ times happier if I could spend my twilight years driving around, chasing and attending IndyCar races and DCI drum corps shows. :D

A number of years ago, my dad agreed to be the designated driver for the owners of the Ready-Mix concrete company he worked for and drove them to Toronto to see the Molson Indy, they didn't give him a ticket to sit by the track so he was just milling about outside waiting. At one point he got chatting with one of the security guys and the subject of why my dad was there came up and next thing he knew, he was being given a tour of the pits, got to see where the racers trailers were and such, basically a complete behind the scenes look. He figured he had a much better time that his bosses were.

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56 minutes ago, Scotty said:

A number of years ago, my dad agreed to be the designated driver for the owners of the Ready-Mix concrete company he worked for and drove them to Toronto to see the Molson Indy, they didn't give him a ticket to sit by the track so he was just milling about outside waiting. At one point he got chatting with one of the security guys and the subject of why my dad was there came up and next thing he knew, he was being given a tour of the pits, got to see where the racers trailers were and such, basically a complete behind the scenes look. He figured he had a much better time that his bosses were.

I had a similar experience with a group of friends from an online message board about the TV show The Invisible Man back in 2001.  We talked about the show, but also about other things, much like this board, and decided it would be fun to get together in real life.  The show was filmed in San Diego, and the entire cast was thus available for Comic-Con, so we decided to all go to the convention and try to get into their panel together.

Well, after arriving a couple of days before the Con so we could hang out together, one of the group who actually lived in San Diego revealed that she'd found a whole bunch of locations from the show, and planned out a walking tour of them.  We had a blast.

Thanks to the help of a then-minor character's actor, who had occasionally visited us online, we soon learned we were going to get to visit the actual studio, and tour sets that weren't in use and see some of the props.  The crew we met were amazing, very friendly, and did little things like get out the rubber stamp they used to create the monitor tattoo the main character had on his wrist, and stamp all of our wrists with it!  We were so happy just to get that close to the show we loved.  We even got to see a couple of sets that gave away big spoilers for upcoming episodes.

As we were finishing the tour, ready to go home happy, we then found ourselves coinciding with a break in filming, and suddenly we were talking with the stars themselves, just outside the stage they'd been filming in (any fellow fans may be amused to know it was Stage Five).  It was only for five or ten minutes, but just imagine a small group of Trekkies getting to hang around with the actors playing Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Sulu, and Chekov!

....and then imagine them getting to hang out on the bridge of the Enterprise set while they set up the next bit, and then watch them film it!  In our case, it was the Keeper's lab.  We took each others' pictures in the equivalent of Kirk's command chair, and I personally got the bonus of discovering that the binders sitting on a shelf weren't just empty props, they contained scripts.  For episodes we hadn't seen yet.  And I quietly read through one of them, not daring to attract attention by showing anyone else.

And to top it all off, when they broke for lunch, they invited us to join them at Craft Services too!  This time we were hanging out with them, actually sitting down to a meal with them, for more like half an hour.  I don't think the Nerdgasm Happiness Meter can go much higher.  They did everything short of putting us in the show itself, and I get the feeling the only reason they didn't was that the episode they were working on didn't call for anyone outside main cast.

When we went to the show's panel later that weekend, the star mentioned our group, and we all held up our wrists with the tattoo, most of them colored in with Sharpies, in thanks.  When they did what was supposed to be an hour-long autograph session, it was still going strong at the four hour mark.  And a personal favorite, I got to meet the writer of some of my favorite episodes, and he said when he signed a script for me that it was his very first autograph!

As you might be able to tell, even after all these years, it still makes me very happy just remembering that weekend.  :-D

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41 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

 And a personal favorite, I got to meet the writer of some of my favorite episodes, and he said when he signed a script for me that it was his very first autograph!

I've only had one instance of getting someone's autograph and I think you might get a kick out of it considering where you live. I wanna say it was back in May or June of 1991, I was in 6th grade and most of my class was out for either Track and Field or something sports related the grade 7's and 8's also had most of their classes out for that as well so the remnants were combined into one class for the day and we pretty much got to do whatever. Shortly after lunch our teacher stated he had a bus line up to take us out for something special, he didn't say what but we all piled in and hit the road. The drive was about 20-30 minutes out of town to an arena in another township where it turned out that the Chicago Blackhawks were doing a practice session in front of several other schools in the area, they did the whole skate around, shooting pucks at the empty nets, then at goalies Ed Belfour and Dominik Hasek, then they had a 20 minute mini game before going out to the parking lot to do signings and such.

I didn't even know I would be there, I didn't have a pen or piece of paper on me but somehow I managed to get Ed Belfour's autograph.

I can't even remember why they were having a practice session in a rural town in the middle of Southwestern Ontario, Canada, looking back, they played and lost the first round of the playoffs that year to Minnesota, they might have been just touring around for the rest of the post season.

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1) Spent a weekend with my mom and sister.

2) The announcement of who the next Doctor will be on Doctor Who.

3) They were doing a free HBO weekend, so I got to record the first episode of the new season of Game of Thrones, which may or may not make me happy, but I'm glad to get to find out!

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This is sort of a combination irritation/happy situation, with a happy outcome, hence posting it here.

We still have a landline for phone connectivity. We've got one hardwired phone in case of power outages, and a group of four Panasonic DECT 6.0 phones. They're semi-old, and they'd been losing power faster than usual lately.

One day I popped the back on one, and lo and behold, they take NiMH rechargeable batteries! Even better, genuine Panasonic brand with a longer mAh life (700 mAh vs. 550 mAh) were available and cheap on Amazon Prime! No-brainer, right? Order two four-packs of the new batteries for $20 and extend the life of my current phones.

The batteries were supposed to arrive along with something else (the Feliway replacement) yesterday, although I'd forgotten about them. At the peak of the afternoon heat, I stepped out to check for the mail. Amazon Prime had left the box sitting directly in the Texas sun, for two hours (I learn after checking online) without even bothering to knock. I open it up and find the Feliway. At this point I'm still not expecting the batteries to be in the box. I am, however, pissed off about how Amazon's delivery people left something without knocking for the umpteenth time. Screw this, I'm calling and complaining.

During the first call, I am advised that the batteries were supposed to be in the box. Surprise! I dig around. One four-pack is deep under a flap at the bottom. Behind this flap is an open gap in the taping where the other batteries probably fell out. I get connected to another person, who asks me to check around my front door. As I do, I get disconnected. Gah! I ask for another callback, which comes quickly. The problem is understood and a refund gets issued for the missing batteries, since they were sold by a storefront and fulfilled by Amazon. What I get for my trouble is free next day delivery of another four-pack. I also get to vent not only about the packaging, but about the failure to knock. End of call.

Next thing I do is pop a pair of the batteries into a test phone. They briefly power up the phone, then the power bars start going down. Put it on a cradle overnight. About an hour ago, I took it off its cradle, and it's been rock-solid stable at full bars. Success (so far)! As long as the batteries keep my phones in business, and as long as Amazon freaking knocks when they deliver the other four batteries tonight, I will be a happy camper.

ADDENDUM: I am not a happy camper. Free one-day shipping has turned into free two-to-three-day shipping. The package did not arrive last night. Complaining will do me no good, because this was done on a complaint in the first place. AAUUGGHH.

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14 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Complaining will do me no good, because this was done on a complaint in the first place. AAUUGGHH.

Complain anyway.  At worst, they'll learn about a problem and maybe do something about it, at best maybe they'll refund something.

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This makes me VERY happy indeed:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/2018-indycar-universal-aerokit-chris-beatty

The 2018 IndyCar road course and short oval universal aerokit. My God, that thing is SLEEK. It outdoes Formula 1 in sheer automotive sexiness. I can't wait to see what the superspeedway configuration will look like.

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11 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

This makes me VERY happy indeed:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/2018-indycar-universal-aerokit-chris-beatty

The 2018 IndyCar road course and short oval universal aerokit. My God, that thing is SLEEK. It outdoes Formula 1 in sheer automotive sexiness. I can't wait to see what the superspeedway configuration will look like.

Good Lord. It looks like Formula One died and went to heaven. Man, that thing is gorgeous. :icon_eek:

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24 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

Good Lord. It looks like Formula One died and went to heaven. Man, that thing is gorgeous. :icon_eek:

It is, isn't it? Like I said, I can't wait until I see the superspeedway configuration. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval with ground effects. Dear Lord, that's going to be sexy ...

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We have a little shelf at work with children's books, and another above it with a small collection of stuffed animals.  Today a little girl was hugging a golden retriever I'd acquired at a conference, which I must admit is one of my favorites and I would not want to see it wander home with anyone else (our Clifford disappeared a year or two ago).  So, while mom was paying the bill, I chatted with her and her older sister.  I told her she'd have to put the doggie back on the shelf, because a lot of other kids loved seeing him too, and she could visit him the next time they came in with their bird.

As she was child-version-of-subtly trying to delay putting the toy down, she asked what his name was, so I told her he had a lot of different names because different kids give him different names, and asked what she wanted his name to be.  She replied that she thought it was a girl and her name was Rosie.  I grinned and told her that it was fine, she could be a girl if she wanted to be, just like the Doctor.  Well, the whole family got what I was saying immediately, and everyone shared a cheer at the fact that the Doctor was going to be a girl.  I love it when geeky references are embraced instead of getting a puzzled look!

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2 hours ago, partner555 said:

The fact that I'm back! No really, I haven't even looked here in a while.

You picked a hell of a time to return, with the spammers hitting the forum and the subsequent forum upgrade (to keep out the spammers)!

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