Totally Random – February 2017

Posted on February 4, 2017 by Fred Stiening

Nothing is off topic

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61 Responses to Totally Random – February 2017

  1. Fred Stiening says:
    February 4, 2017 at 11:22 am

    At a formal dinner, does the spork go on the left or right side of the plate?

  2. Parrott says:
    February 5, 2017 at 2:18 pm

    hmmmm, never thought about it. The glove box, isn’t very formal in a Jeep : )
    I’ll go with chairman’s answer.
    Oh and I am not watching the big game cause I don’t feel like listening to some
    BS politico message at half-time. I don’t care if ga-ga shows her ________.

    Best regards
    parrott

  3. briand75 says:
    February 6, 2017 at 7:00 am

    Big game. Okay so I watched it and I also saw the halftime show with Lady Gaga. I heard her say “God”. My heart stopped at that point and the rest is history.

  4. briand75 says:
    February 6, 2017 at 7:01 am

    By the way – you can tell the identity of a spork by which end is up 🙂

  5. Fred Stiening says:
    February 6, 2017 at 8:09 am

    AirBnB announces it will fund putting refugees into the homes of its clients. This will not turn out well.

    http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/5/14517708/airbnb-super-bowl-ad-donation-aid

    • Parrott says:
      February 8, 2017 at 8:22 am

      That should be fun to watch. I have some relatives that do the whole B&B thing, and they have rules, no smoking, no food in the guest room, quiet time, no videoing Porn in the shower room.
      Yeah wait until ‘third century’ hits these rules. The ‘refugee’ decides he is not being ‘satisfied’ enough, then beats the crap out of his ol lady, and goes outside and brings the goat into the bedroom for romance. Yeah thats about right,
      More millennial snowflakes is what we need . ,,,,,,
      parrott

  6. Fred Stiening says:
    February 6, 2017 at 9:09 am

    Saturday I got to experience a Pyrex baking dish explode in the microwave oven maybe three feet from my head. This seems to be happening a lot, but usually inside conventional ovens. It wasn’t thermal shock from going right from freezer to oven, which is even something pyrex should be able to do.

    Anyone have a similar story?

    • TheChairman says:
      February 6, 2017 at 8:56 pm

      Improper annealing (along with tiny air bubbles trapped in the glass) during manufacturing. Far too common in Chinese and American made glassware. Best glassware for everyday use is coming from eastern Europe and Brazil.

      We bought a set of Anchor-Hocking drinking glasses just before Xmas. When I looked at the glass up close I immediately told the wife not to use them and to return the set. Subsequent research on Google revealed a lot of problems with exploding cookware and drinking glasses from AH and others.

  7. Parrott says:
    February 6, 2017 at 9:22 pm

    Uh george Noory says National radio day is on February 14th this year.
    He say the C crane radios are on sale. But if everything is going digital well I’m not throwing good money after bad.
    kinda depressing.
    I have a good analog TV too, its good with the PS2.
    parrott

  8. Fred Stiening says:
    February 9, 2017 at 8:27 am

    Sales are dropping at Whole Foods

    http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2017/02/09/whole-foods-rethinks-expansion-as-sales-fall/

    Perhaps people are realizing local is better than organic. Perhaps the Republicans can relax the Food Safety act to make farmers markets great again

    • countess robini says:
      February 9, 2017 at 10:27 am

      there was a story in the inquirer about a year ago that whole foods was looking into a spin off chain of stores with a different name and lower prices. they figured out the millenials want to shop at whole foods (they think it’s cool) but can’t afford it.

    • countess robini says:
      February 9, 2017 at 11:29 am

      sometimes local radio is still the greatest thing since sliced bread.

      just listened to dom giordano (WPHT/1210 am in philly) re the issue of is it ok for philadelphians to mark” their” parking space once they’ve dug it out after a snow storm. (we got about four inches earlier today.) the answer appears to be “yeah, it’s ok — but only in south philly.” (i recollect that the most common placeholder was a beat-up kitchen chair.)

      dom had a philly cop (funny guy) on who agreed that years ago this worked fine and, if not, “a couple of guys punched each other” and it was settled. dom and the cop both used terms like “neighborhood tradition” and “cultural norms” to dance around the fact that the old italian families are mostly gone (out to the burbs) and new immigrant ethnic groups have moved in. as a result, there has been a drop in social cohesion.

      btw, dom said — with some pride and a certain wistfulness — that his favorite place holder was an old pool table he kept in the garage and dragged out a couple times a year to mark “his” snow-free parking space.

      i’ve been listening to discussions on this topic on philly radio for more than 30 years and it never gets old.

      • Fred Stiening says:
        February 9, 2017 at 11:45 am

        It was 73 degrees in Charlotte yesterday. About all we fight over is the flea markets and thumping melons at the farmer markets.

          • countess robini says:
            February 9, 2017 at 6:13 pm

            does anyone else have a favorite topic that your local station talks about endlessly and you still love listening? or memories of a time local radio really came through for you and others in that area?

            • Fred Stiening says:
              February 10, 2017 at 8:15 am

              The local radio host that had the biggest influence on me was a man named Mark Scott. He was a host on WXYT-AM in Detroit

              Mark was an objectivist and much of what he said zoomed over the head of the typical talk show listener, including me in the beginning.

              One of his favorite things to talk about was aristotle’s law of identity – A is A. A thing cannot be both A and not be A at the same time. He talked a fair bit about rational self interest and logic as the basis of morality rather than belief in a supreme being. People who have been here forever know that I was disappointed with both Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead. I was more influenced by reading Anthem, which I found in a book case up in the attic. To this day, I have no idea which family member would have read it or wanted it in the bookcase

              https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthem_(novella)

            • Parrott says:
              February 10, 2017 at 9:30 am

              God I would ‘Love’ to be empowered to go out and ‘mark’ my parking space !
              I’m all in !
              : )

              Best regards
              parrott

          • TheChairman says:
            February 9, 2017 at 10:03 pm

            Yes Countess, I have fond memories of local radio from 1997-2003 in Phoenix. e.g. KFYI.

            Back then, KFYI was still a fairly conservative station. My favorite hosts were Bob Mohan, John Dayl, and others (but -not- Barry Young).

            When Clear Channel (iHeart) took over, Mohan refused to wear “those stupid shirts that make us look like a girls slow-pitch softball team” for various PR events arranged by Clear Channel. According to remarks during his last shows, he detested the CC group-think and chose to quit.

            I think John Dayl either retired or was canceled. Other hosts ‘went on vacation’ but didn’t return.

            That’s when I knew local talk radio was toast… at least for staunch conservative personalities.

            Likewise, some of the best nationally syndicated conservative hosts were purged at that time: Ken Hamblin, David Gold, and others.

            • Fred Stiening says:
              February 10, 2017 at 8:24 am

              My favorite national host was Chuck Harder. During his peak around the 1992 election, I was between jobs (voluntarily) and spending days driving around Northwest Indiana and Chicagoland looking at train stuff. Chicago was the Center of the train universe. Back before airplanes, going from anywhere to anywhere invariably meant going to Chicago and having to change to another railroad – there were 6 different railroad stations in “the loop”.

              Harder was on a small station in Valparaiso Indiana – many small town AM stations had no money for programming and Harder’s show was free (unlike Rush)

            • Fred Stiening says:
              February 10, 2017 at 8:46 am

              For those who don’t know, Barry Young is Mr Kim Komando

          • Fred Stiening says:
            February 10, 2017 at 8:28 am

            Oh, and of couse we argue over sports. Professional wrestling, NASCAR and college football and basketball. America loves its sports!

            Some people actually believe pro wrestling is “fake”, which is preposterous

            • countess robini says:
              February 12, 2017 at 1:34 am

              thanks, guys.

              p.s. to parrott: no question you’re a south philly kind of guy. two weeks there and the locals would have had you gluing feathers and sequins onto mummer’s costumes.

  13. Parrott says:
    February 12, 2017 at 4:30 pm

    Awesome, Thanks Countess !

    Best regards
    parrott

  14. Parrott says:
    February 12, 2017 at 11:08 pm

    You all need to check out the Live stream from emergency management:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJVG0z1g6Eo

    “BREAKING: Threat of Oroville spillway collapse prompts evacuation of Marysville, Yuba, Butte and Sutter counties. The worst case scenario”
    There is no map showing exactly what will happen if the emergency spillway collapses tonight.
    “Officials only have a map showing a failure of the dam. That worst case scenario is useful in that it shows where water goes and how fast it gets there.”

    “Water would get to the town of Oroville within an hour.
    If Oroville Dam were to suffer a massive breach, water would get to the town of Oroville within an hour, according to GIS maps maintained by CalFire.
    Within two hours, the small town of Briggs would be affected. In three hours, Gridley would be hit. Water would reach Live Oak in five hours..
    It would take eight to 12 hours for the water to get to Marysville and Yuba City.
    If the dam completely failed, flood depths could reach more than 100 feet in Oroville and up to 10 feet in Yuba City.”
    They need ‘Superman’ !
    Parrott

    • Fred Stiening says:
      February 13, 2017 at 8:12 am

      Headline on Drudge says that the dam is expected to fail and mandatory evacuations are underway.

      The most important issue is how can Donald Trump be blamed for this?

    • Fred Stiening says:
      February 13, 2017 at 9:42 am

      A few years ago I was looking in to the entire water situation in California for a friend who owned a condo she was renting out, and the association was tearing out the well established lawn at the demand of the city’s water conservation effort. I was doing research on whether the drought was real or manmade. I thought I wrote blog posts about that, but I don’t see them. I do remember some posts about the history of the Salton Sea

      If this dam fails, there is not only the issue of the immediate flooding, but this a very large part of the water supply that travels down to Los Angeles via the Sacramento river and then aquaducts. LA also gets water from the Colorado River. California might have to disgorge its immigrant population, who have gotten used to living in the Desert named Los Angeles. Water is life.

    • TheChairman says:
      February 15, 2017 at 1:16 pm

      The article left me wondering about the credentials of both the reporter and the staffing advisors. I guess the superficial content isn’t so surprising in the wake Obama’s obsequious media corps and D.C. entourage… particularly since it seems to be democrats/liberals who are the aggressors and malcontents.

      I’ve always thought taboo topics in the workplace were the same as for family gatherings; don’t discuss politics or religion if you’re not all on the same side.

      What really perplexed me was this illogical statement:

      “Managers are also advised not to follow employees on social media, so they don’t inadvertently see information they shouldn’t have access to.”

      I didn’t see a question or advice about bullying or ostracizing. What if the office is mostly liberals, and commit micro-aggressions against others?

  17. Fred Stiening says:
    February 22, 2017 at 9:17 am

    Here come the wacky NC Legislators

    http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article134037589.html

    Two Senators want to remove the section from the NC Constitution that bars succession

  18. Fred Stiening says:
    February 22, 2017 at 8:23 pm

    Brenda Buttner is dead @ 55

  19. Fred Stiening says:
    February 23, 2017 at 8:59 am

    Google creates software to automatically scrub media comment boards of “toxic” comments

    https://www.ft.com/content/8786cce8-f91e-11e6-bd4e-68d53499ed71

  21. Fred Stiening says:
    February 23, 2017 at 12:25 pm

    The Halls of Montezuma is a reference to the US war with Mexico

  24. Parrott says:
    February 26, 2017 at 8:59 pm

    Actor Bill Paxton is dead. He was pretty good, 61 . Kinda sad to see him gone.
    yeah, its been a year since my cat died, its been rough. Then today I was working on the brakes on the car, wifee said they were making a ‘noise’ so I pull the wheel off and loosen the caliper. Yep, the piston is not retracting on the rear passenger side caliper. So I compress the piston, drive it. It moves back out and grips again, but doesn’t let go. The piston doesn’t retract, again. Take the wheel off again , compress it again. wonder how many times I have to do this? Maybe just get a new caliper. Driver side is fine.
    Need new rear brake pads.
    Reason I post this, well I was getting my tools out of my tool box, near the water heater in the mud room. Hmmmm, what this, baby snake skin. When did this appear?
    Had to be sometime after my cat passed and this one year anniversary of her being gone! crap. Can’t tell wifee.
    Its wild to look at. Really miss my cat. We still have one cat but she is 18 years old and she can barely find the food bowl, let alone a snake in the house. Unless its in her food bowl. I need three more young cats by gosh.
    I guess I could borrow a couple from my parents to ‘scan’ the place.
    chaos
    parrott

  25. countess robini says:
    March 2, 2017 at 3:29 pm

    dear parrott: any cat who has made it to 18 deserves a stress-free retirement.

  26. countess robini says:
    March 28, 2017 at 3:17 pm

    page one story today in philadelphia daily news re local radio legend mary mason. she’s an elderly lady now, has dementia and is broke. the grandson is up on charges for stealing her considerable assets. she is now literally dependent on the kindness of strangers (a friend has set up a fund and is taking donations.) website for the daily news is philly.com.

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