Chester's Gorilla

[rain_gryphon]

So, Gerald Ford has bitten the dust. In retrospect, he seems a much wiser and better President than he seemed at the time. He did the correct thing by pardoning that scoundrel Nixon, although I was bitterly opposed to it back then.

*****

Gedrean makes an interesting argument that perhaps God favours OSU. He points out Bo Schembechler's (presumed) smiting on the eve of the Michigan game, and the Ohio lottery numbers coming up the same as the game score. Hmm...

*****

So, Christmas is over, and it's not yet New Year. This week always feels to me like it doesn't belong to either year. 2006 is really over, and we're just kind of sitting here waiting on 2007.

*****

The Mt. Hood climbers seem to have vanished from the news. Before Christmas, that was everywhere. Now, they're just gone.

*****

Koreans apparently believe that sleeping with an electric fan in the room can kill you.

*****

Those of you who sent me Christmas cards will receive a small present in the next few weeks. I meant to send cards myself, but things got away from me.

*****

The original Rudolph puppet has survived. I've wondered before, but always figured there wasn't a chance that it was still around. It pleases me deeply to find that it still exists.

That had such a huge and lasting impact on my life, and that of others as well, but I'm reasonably sure that the people making it thought of it as a throwaway project. You never really know what's going to change the world.

Rudolph's much smaller than I'd expected. I'd guessed he'd have been about 18" or so. I'd never have thought of using lead wire for joint armatures either. Kind of a low-tech version of Schlagel wire. I may have a try at building my own Reindeer.

*****

A collection of ads for Santa arriving in a helicopter. I remember my mother taking me downtown in what must have been 1965 or so to see Santa arrive in a helicopter. In retrospect, I'm fairly sure that it was old Mr. Rosenblatt, who was Jewish, but had this great regard for Santa Claus, and usually played him for most civic functions.

He landed on the bank parking lot, and then sat on this little outdoor stage. We all got little paper sacks with a candycane and (I think) an orange and maybe some nuts for visiting him.

I can't even imagine the slightest chance of people being allowed to stand close to a landing helicopter these days. The insurance companies rule our lives now.

*****

I never knew why Mr. Rosenblatt loved Santa so much. I'm sure it was something in his childhood. Most of us spend our lives trying to process the overwhelming things that we encountered as children. If you're lucky, and if your parents took some care with what they exposed you to, these can become lifelong sources of fascination and wonder, like Santa or Rudolph or coloured lights.

*****

Friend Otter made a comment some time back about smudge pots being primary process material to his young consciousness. They held that place for me as well, along with coloured lights. They still do, to some degree. There's always this urge to get inside the lightbulb, to merge with it in some ill-defined way. When I stare at the filament in my fairy bulbs, to some degree I experience myself as inside the bulb. I'm not sure how many people carry that sort of consciousness over into adulthood.

*****

Edit: From an account of the Nigerian pipeline fire. What is there in this sentence that makes me think the reporter didn't even visit the scene?

"The charred remains of victims still clutched the plastic cups, funnels and cans yesterday they intended to use to scoop gasoline from a punctured pipeline before it exploded [...]]"

Comments

[whitetail.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to hear about the Rudolph puppet, too. I was actually thinking about that the other day, wondering if it still existed. But what about the other characters? Hermey? The Bumble? et al.?

[jnlldxn.livejournal.com]

Saw the antiques road show episode last week. The guy that used to own them said there was a full set of them in the box. The other characters melted from the heat, and were ruined.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

That's a pity, but not terribly surprising. I'm sure nobody at the time thought of them as being anything special.

[maxgoof.livejournal.com]

I *LOVE* your icon!

[xolo.livejournal.com]

I was hoping for Clarice, myself :)

[maxgoof.livejournal.com]

If the remains are charred, how could they be holding plastic cups?

[xolo.livejournal.com]

That sort of thing disturbs me more than it should, probably, but I have a strong suspicion that much of what's presented as news anymore is simply written by someone guessing what probably happened, then adding in fictional, emotionally loaded details like the dead people clutching their plastic cups. Time magazine seems to have an actual house style that's built around this. Notice how many of their stories start out with an example of an un-named man or woman who's going through some situation that illustrates the main focus of the article.

[maxgoof.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and more and more publications are being called on this.

Remember that Pulitzer Prize winning writer for the Washington Post who used a composite person?

Someone needs to take these writers and slap them. They need to realize that when you make up a person, even if it is a composite, you invalidate your point.

Just like the guys on Dateline needed to be fired for faking that truck explosion, and Dan Rather *was* fired (yeah, yeah, I know...he retired but still) for using forged documents.

[gedrean.livejournal.com]

The OSU statement was more interesting trivia. Though if there is a (Christian Mythos) god, maybe he does favor OSU. Heh. Not that Bo wasn't old or anything, and he's in a much better place now, so it wasn't so much a smite as it was leaving early to catch the game from the best seats in the house.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

I rather like the idea of God smiting OSU's opponents.

[maxgoof.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of an old joke:

OSU/Michigan game. Fourth quarter, OSU is ahead, 24/21. Two seconds left on the clock. Time for only one more play. Michigan has the ball on the OSU 40 yard line, too far away for a field goal try.

Lloyd Carr gets down on his knees and prays, "Lord, you know I haven't been able to beat OSU except for one time in the last six years. I could really used your help now. What do I do?"

Suddenly the sun broke through. Lloyd Carr heard the singing of angels, and the voice of God said, "RUNNING BACK OVER LEFT TACKLE!"

Lloyd Carr leaped to his feet, overjoyed! He sent in the play. The Michigan Quarterback takes the snap. He hands it off to the Running Back, to heads towards Left Tackle...

Only to be slammed to the ground by a Buckeye Line Backer. Time runs out. OSU wins the game.

Lloyd Carr looks on stunned. He then prays, "Lord, why did you have me run that play?"

God turns to his left and says, "WOODY, WHY *DID* I HAVE HIM RUN THAT PLAY?"

[mejeep.livejournal.com]

Friend Otter made a comment some time back about smudge pots being primary process material to his young consciousness. They held that place for me as well, along with coloured lights. They still do, to some degree. There's always this urge to get inside the lightbulb, to merge with it in some ill-defined way. When I stare at the filament in my fairy bulbs, to some degree I experience myself as inside the bulb. I'm not sure how many people carry that sort of consciousness over into adulthood.

I still have a radical fascination about glowing bulbs, particularly neon bulbs of any shape or size. I find the fuzzy glow mesmerizing.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

I love gas discharge too :) Would you know, perhaps, being an engineering sort, whether there's still any source in the States for the coloured NE2 peanut bulbs? Back before LEDs became popular, you could get those in five or six colours for indicator lamps. I know they're still made in China, but I'm unable to find a distributor in the States unless I want thousands of the things. I'd like to have a try sometime at reconstructing the old-fashioned Miller gas discharge Christmas lights, which used those at their heart.

neon ferrets

[mejeep.livejournal.com]

Google finds that JKL still sells green, orange neon lamps
http://jkllamps.com/index.cfm?action=fam&tid=1&fID=18

The neonixie-l folks sometimes swap neon displays and bulbs. I have only about 5-10 green NE2s and I know there were other colors such as blue. I NEVER saw them in any surplus catalogue at a bargain price. I don't recall what I was thinking but I bought some boxes of NE2s on ebay: about 1,000 without resistors, about 100 with resistor already attached. Long ago even Radio Shack sold bare neon bulbs, such as NE2 style but with square electrodes and a magnifier on the top to make the glow more even.

I'm visiting my parents, else I'd have included links to web pages with a dazzling collection of neon bulbs, indicators and such.

[maxgoof.livejournal.com]

Actually, to be *really* technical and anal, that is not the original Rudolph puppet.

See, the song was written for Montgomery Ward in 1939. The most famous recording of the song was made by Gene Autry in 1949, ten years later. The TV special did not come out until 1964, 15 years after that.

Surely someone manufactured and distributed a puppet of Rudolph (either hand or marionette) somewhere in those 25 years.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Actually the song wasn't written until 1949. Rudolph started as a storybook for Ward's in 1939. I have, BTW, an earlier cartoon version of Rudolph from 1944, if you're ever interested in seeing it.

Anyway, that's an interesting hypothesis, but I'm not sure it's true. The copyright holder was quite protective, and almost didn't approve the 1964 special, on the grounds that it might overexpose the story and song, and people would get sick of it. I'm not at all sure that puppets would have been available.

[maxgoof.livejournal.com]

Wow...you know more about it than I thought!

[xolo.livejournal.com]

People are always surprised when I give an intelligent reply.