Showing posts with label wiki wednesday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wiki wednesday. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Casey Kasem

This cat's missing. Apparently his caregiver, I believe his wife, wouldn't let the kids see him. He has some type of dementia and needs nursing care. Once the court ruled that the kids could see him, the wife says he's not in the country. Not sure if she's protecting her husband's estate from greedy children, or she's a gold-digging cunt herself, but there will be drama. I remember Kasem on the radio in the early 80's. He always had that warm voice and I found out years later he voiced the character of Shaggy on Scooby-Doo.
Back to the radio, he would take requests and told some of the most unintentionally funny stories. The one I remember, we were driving to my grandmother's house, my mom and I. Kasem retells this story from a girl who wanted, I think, a pair of boots for her birthday. Her father had given her the present to open before school, eluding to the fact that it was the boots. But when she opened them, it was something else entirely. She told him she hated him and wished he were dead, because that's what you're supposed to do when you don't get what you want. She then stormed out of the house and went to school. Later that day, her mom picked her up and told her the father had passed away of a heart attack. When she got home, there was a present on her bed, which contained the boots she wanted. My mother and I busted out in laughter at the ridiculousness of it all.
I hope Casey Kasem is doing well. Below is a video of him losing his shit because some ass played an uptempo record while he was doing a death dedication. He rules.



Wednesday, May 7, 2014

St. Hubert (Hubertus)

I was reading about the Devil Deer of Kentucky, which is an old hunters legend (there are hundreds from the past several hundred years) about a deer that has some wicked antlers and hunts hunters instead of the other way around. Then I stumbled upon the story of St. Hubert. As a good Catholic, I thought I should inform you heathens who he was. 
In typical fashion, he was a not-so-holy man leading a life that was destining him to Hell. While out hunting one day, he came across a magnificent stag and decided to pursue. When it turned to face him, he noticed a crucifix floating above it's head between it's antlers and then he heard the voice of God tell him he needed to change his ways and to lay off the shrooms. He did this and apparently decided to not be a sociopathic hunter anymore by declaring people would kill their prey humanely, with the cleanest shot possible so that the animal did not suffer. St. Eustace did the same exact thing even earlier, apparently, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Jesus Stag is real, but very little record of it remains, because they were all mostly pagans back then and set on fire. 
He became the patron saint of hunters, mathematicians, and thirty other unrelated occupations (like most saints). He was also called upon to cure rabies until they realized priests kept getting bit by infected people. What is most remarkable is that this magical Christ-bearing stag appears on every bottle of Jagermeister.

 It's a sin not to have a shot, 
unless you're a mathematician. 

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Covington

I was born in Covington, KY. It's the town across the river from Cincinnati. It's usually one of the top five largest cities in the state, but idiots often call it a small town, as if 100 people live here. Morons from Ohio also like to claim it's the Kentucky side of Cincinnati, which it isn't, because it's a completely different city, culture, geographic location, etc. But this blog is about the namesake. 
Leonard Covington was a war hero in the War of 1812, and it was here that he impressed so many of the troops he led, that when they returned home many of them suggested naming towns after him. But he didn't impress them so much because he could fire three muskets at once, or because he took so many bullets and lived to tel the tale (he was mortally wounded). Instead, he earned their respect because he took great care of them, on and off the field. Their needs were met as much as possible, first and foremost. Many can claim the same thing, but for an almost forgotten soldier to have so many (12) places named after him across the country, well, he was indeed an amazing man. 


Leonard Covington

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Under God

A year ago today, my friend, Brad Miller, died at the age of 28. Today also would have been the 27th birthday of another friend, Stacy Florence, who also passed away last year. Every Wednesday I like to share something I found interesting on Wikipedia, and after I share a story about each of them, I'd like to share something I had no clue about. Let me be forthcoming and admit it has to do with the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, which is currently in the news because people want it removed, but I assure you, this is about two relevant memories of two fallen friends.
Wherever devout religious people were, they would find Brad, offering their Amens and go-with-Gods, much like a cat that can always find the person that is allergic to them. While listening to someone tell him their life story, like he cared, I sat at my desk across from him smiling, knowing both were irritating him. Once he finished helping them, they thanked him and said, "God bless you," to which Brad rolled his eyes. For the rest of the day, I said "God bless you" every time he did anything for me. He finally got tired of it and asked, "You don't even believe in the same shit as these people, do you?" I responded that I believed in democracy and that it was "one nation, under God." He gave me that fed up look, to which I asked, "So how does it feel, knowing you were forced to repeat that every day in grade school." His response was, "'One nation, under the flying spaghetti monster' didn't have the same ring to it." Touche.
In a college English class one day, we were divided into groups of four, where we had to introduce and tell a little about ourselves. I got Stacy, some other girl I can't remember, and this other dipshit who was rather strange and got on my nerves. Dipshit introduced himself, declared his undying love for the Lord, Jesus Christ, and wanted to go on missions in China to convert them to Christianity. He subsequently skipped over the part about how he was wound too tight to even risk eternal damnation and masturbate to relieve stress. I introduced myself, said I wanted to just die of old age in the United States, and then he asked me what religion I was, like it was any of his business. I responded, "No preference." When Stacy introduced herself, he cut her off before she could reveal anything and asked her the same, to which she responded that she was Wiccan. I imagine he studied world religions on the side, because he had never heard of it, so she explained it, much to his disliking. "I don't really know what to make of that," he said, before adding, "It says one nation, under God, for a reason." I interjected that she would be fine, regardless, so long as she was a good person. He asked her if she really didn't believe in God, to which she told him she believe in me and what I said, so that should be good enough. He shook his head, eventually graduated, and I would imagine was beheaded in China.
"Under God" is in the news again and I thought it coincidental that it just so happens to be around that specific date. I looked up the reason it was added to the Pledge of Allegiance and while it was certainly interjected by our reptilian overlord at the time to make people think he was a typical American, the phrase itself was actually borrowed from Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. We also used to salute the flag like Nazis, but I've been wordy enough, and I've just received news that it is also being inserted into the Chinese Pledge of Allegiance as well...

Brad's Obituary
Stacy's Obituary
Pledge of Allegiance Wiki

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Popiel and Hatto II (Not a Rap Group)

Wiki Wednesday is all about bringing you my interesting finds from the wonderful world of Wikipedia and I have something rather special for you today. Two entries carried the same exact theme, so I thought it best to share the similarity of their demise.
Popiel was a pre-Polish prince who ruled over the Polans and Goplans, western Slavic tribes that more or less invented Inspector Gadget. Okay, that's just an educated guess. But apparently Popiel was a cruel and unusual ruler, and I quote, "only cared about wine, women, and song." My kind of guy. As you can expect, his wife was a really hot German (fucking Germans) who was obsessed with power and manipulated her husband into doing her bidding (don't they all?) His magical number of 12 uncles decided to get rid of him, but the wife poisoned them instead. When the people got word, they rebelled, so the royal couple fled to a nearby tower. While there, they were eaten alive by a throng of menacing mice.
Hatto II was the arch-bishop of Mainz, which also made him a prince, a cruel one, possibly crueler than Hatto I, who was only struck by lightning. During a famine, the people demanded H-2 give up some of his grain, which he did, for a ridiculous price they couldn't even afford (fucking Germans again). They got pissed and organized Occupy Mainz, where five or so of them picketed, while everyone else took to Twitter and Facebook, pretending like they did something. H-2 decided to punish their ungratefulness by promising to feed all of them. They went to the barn where the food was going to be handed out, which was empty, and Hatto had them locked in it while it was set on fire. The famine was brilliantly wiped out as he remarked, "Hear the mice squeak!" When he returned home, his castle was stormed by a throng of mice, which chased him across water to a tower, where they finally found him and ate him. 
The moral of this story is that unless you're nobility or royalty, you're just a rat and they people above you must feed you, or you can eat them. Body of Christ? But with so many towers named Mouse Tower, why doesn't that Mouse Trap game have a damn tower? 

I imagine rats looked like this back in the day.

Popiel
Hatto II, Arch-Bishop of Mainz, of the Holy Roman Empire



Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Find Out Your personality Type (INTJ)

Ever since getting into psychology as a field, I've been interested in the personality types. I've taken all of those fun quizzes on social networking sites that tell you if you are a dragon, Jules Winnfield, or what Pokemon you are. However, there exists several online tools that can help you assess what type of person you are and if you are a murdering psycho who likes to wear masks and kill your siblings. One of them is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the other is the Keirsey Temperament Sorter. The former has a bit of criticism, since it lacks "critical scrutiny" blah blah blah, welcome to science, but it actually gives me the same results as the latter, which has hardly any criticism and is used by several big companies for self-assessment. They have other differences, but no one cares outside of testing circles. 
While I agree there are probably more than 16 personality types (MBTI) and that most won't always get the same answers across these tests, I almost always get the same one: INTJ. On some occasions, I get INFJ, which makes sense, because I can be a moody prick. But the INTJ, according to Keirsey, makes me a mastermind and I have used my abilities to get you to read my blog and I will now make you assess your own personality, slave! I also included the Big Five personality traits test, which serves as an excellent place to start, since it asks a lot of the same questions the others do. I scored a 6 in Agreeableness; lulz. 


Also scored a 6 in Agreeableness. 


Wednesday, April 2, 2014

The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon

This is a strange Wiki Wednesday entry in that it no longer has a Wiki page, for the fourth time. But what is it?

Well, it's a term you will now hear in the future, despite not having heard of or known of it until now. Baader-Meinhof is just that. You learn a bit of obscure knowledge, and then it seems that you see it everywhere. For example, someone in one of the very few countries where my blog is not read mentions Insanislupus' Anti-Social Club, which, since you obviously live in a cave, is an obscure reference. The following day, another of your cave-dwelling friends mention Insanislupus' Anti-Social Club, as if it was never an obscure bit of knowledge. Now this person could not have learned about it from the same source, or it doesn't count. 

And then come all the cognitive biases, none of which directly fit or apply here, try as they might, to cover something interesting up and make light of an inconsistency in our consciousness (They Live). You'll see a lot of comment geniuses with their BS about how this is similar to blah blah, i.e. it's not the same fucking thing. I completely understand why it was deleted from Wikipedia, oh, wait, no, I don't because there should be a big warning explaining that it needs credible sources. I doubt that Baader-Meinhof is a technical term, being as I have studied cognitive biases to death and have never seen it listed in a textbook, but the moment I learned about, it popped up a few times here and there. I research every term with the word phenomenon behind it, so it's unlikely I would have seen it before and disregarded it. 

The Damn Interesting Article That Tries To Explain It
Wiki (The Internet Never Forgets, Reptilians!)
A Really Long and Mildly Interesting Moderator Discussion Over the Term

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Solomon Northup

Normally when people hype a movie I go and see it only to have my high expectations dashed against the rocks and covered in waves of salty water, further aggravating my wounds. Well, I have grown used to waiting for long periods so as not to be biased, and with '12 Years a Slave' I was very impressed and agree with the awards it won. Being impressed with and having enjoyed the movie so much, I naturally wanted to know the ultimate demise of the lead character. 
I read a few articles, which you can Google yourself, but apparently no one really knows what happened to Solomon Northup after he reunited with his family, helped the underground railroad, and went on speaking engagements. His house was supposedly foreclosed on, and there is one article that said he became a vagabond, but the actual reality is that no one knows and probably never will. 
I have submitted my theory that he may have been the one who traveled to an undisclosed location in South America to establish a colony for people who wished to disappear. Or maybe it was already established and he took on a position there? I suspect both Amelia Earhart and Ambrose Bierce know. 

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

PSP UMD Movies

I once had a friend that was going to sell a Playstation Portable, no games, but the move 28 Days Later was included. I think it was around a hundred bucks total, and this was in 2007 so it was probably a good deal. I thought to myself, man, that would be cool to have one of those just so I could watch movies or listen to music, and maybe even play a few games here and there. I decided against it, which I don't regret, but recently I've noticed a lot of these UMD movies pop up for under $5. Not a bad deal. Just looking up PSP Horror on eBay yields over 300 results, and most of them are different films. What was so cool about the PSP and the movies it had was that they were mostly contemporary, with very few classics. Sure, that might be an odd endorsement, but as a kid, I grew up on the films that were coming out at the time, not the ones before I was born. Sure, you have region encoding and all that other crap those bastards try to do to prevent you from enjoying something, but regardless, it's an impressive list and surprisingly lasted from 2005 to 2011. Check the Amazon UK link for the Harry Potter series, and then make sure you look at how many 1-Star idiots ordered it thinking it was a different format. 

List of Titles
Harry Potter

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Highway Hi-Fi

Think your modified Android OS on your phone sucks because it only allows you to access Sprint's app store? Well, before it was cool, Chrysler did the same thing with proprietary, under-the-dash record players, in 1956. Yes, Chrysler, as in the car. Yes, record players, as in vinyl records. You might be thinking, wow, they had that technology back then and we don't even have it today. Well, it sucked back then and so far not enough hipsters buy Chrysler to get them to make them now. The biggest drawback for music fans was that some old fogey was deciding what music off of CBS' back catalog was available for purchase. If you wanted to listen to Aimee Mann's cover of One, you'd be shit out of luck today, but you could probably get that Margaritaville song. Also, automobiles are the only place I ever listen to CDs anymore, so let's not. Still, it was a cool idea and one they attempted again in the 60's, but while the music selection was better, the players were apparently worse. Hmm.

"Hey, little girl, wanna hear some Benny Goodman?"

Aimee Mann "One"
Highway Hi-Fi Wiki




Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Chef Boyardee

Wiki Wednesday is full of cool information.

Chef Boyardee, pasta in a can, was named as such because the guy who founded the company realized Americans would pronounce his Italian name wrong. If it was invented today, we would make Italian a mandatory language in grade school. Something I didn't know was that he supplied the troops in WWII, his factory running around the clock. Instant cred. His wiki article is still pretty week. 

The other half of the battle.

Chef Boiarwiki

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

It's Called Bluegrass Because of Blue Grass, Idiots

I don't know how many articles I've read about Bluegrass musicians that have to give a few sentences or a paragraph about the origins of the name, and then get it wrong. Being as this is Wiki Wednesday, I thought what better way to settle this apparent dispute than to type Blue Grass into the site? Herein lies my treatise on the subject.

The first thing that pops up is, "Bluegrass refers to several species of grasses of the genus Poa (with the most famous being the Kentucky bluegrass.)" Clicking the Kentucky bluegrass link takes you to the Poa listing, so I can understand a little confusion at first. The next one is the "Bluegrass region, a region of the United States centered in Kentucky," and might I add, it doesn't go much beyond the state of Kentucky since it's surrounded on the north, east, and west sides by a river. Then we have, "Bluegrass music, a form of American roots music." You know, I almost understand the common oversight, since this article states it's a form of American roots music (50 states and 14 fucking territories), which is a bit worse than saying, and I quote, "Bluegrass was inspired by the music of Appalachia," (13 fucking states and more than half of the goddamn east coast,) and the article more or less buries the origins reference without ever mentioning an actual location. However, it does finally agree that it was more than likely named after The Blue Grass Boys, Bill Monroe's band, which formed in 1939. 

As you may have guessed, the next entry in the grand ol' Wikipedia is none other than, "The Blue Grass Boys, the band led by Bill Monroe that defined the Bluegrass genre." Sadly, clicking it goes straight to Bill Monroe (the Father of Bluegrass, born in the state of Kentucky) and gives little coverage of the others members at the time. Let's see, you had, "banjo prodigy Earl Scruggs (NC), singer-guitarist Lester Flatt (TN), fiddler Chubby Wise, and bassist Howard Watts (both from FL) - sometimes called "the original bluegrass band." 

But before I continue, I'd like to return to the previous genre entry, where Ralph Stanley of the Stanley Brothers, pretty much the second biggest Bluegrass band, ever, says the term came from deciding on the name of a music festival. "It was decided that since Bill was the oldest man, and was from the bluegrass state of Kentucky and he had the Blue Grass Boys, it would be called 'bluegrass." Well, if that doesn't make sense to me and the entire world, I don't know what would. And of course, it's quickly followed by someone adding, "The Oxford Companion to Music suggests an etymology related to the "Blue Mountains [sic] of Virginia." Thanks a lot, dickhead, since Ralph Stanley's from VA, I couldn't have guessed. Also, your vague and pointless entry often gets people confused and they credit the creation of the name to the Blue Ridge Mountains. When I think of blue mountains, I think of  blue grass. And when I think of a Ford Mustang, I think of orange juice. This is why I hate people. 

Moving forward, the last official entry under bluegrass is, "Bluegrass & Backroads, a television show about people and places in the Bluegrass region." Also known as Kentucky Farm Bureau's Bluegrass & Backroads, produced by Kentucky Farm Bureau Federation and Kentucky Farm Bureau Insurance Companies, based in Louisville, Kentucky, and you can watch it on Kentucky Educational Television.  

There are a few Other uses before we go. "Blue Grass, Iowa, a small city" no one has ever heard of, "Blue Grass, Virginia," an even smaller city no one has ever heard of and wasn't even named that until 1950, the "Blue Grass Army Depot in Richmond, Kentucky," which, while Richmond isn't a big secret, mentioning a chemical weapons stockpile will probably get my blog flagged by the NSA, again, and we have the "Bluegrass (Sirius)" radio station that was merged with one on XM, and "Bluegrass (train), a passenger train of the Monon Railroad," that I know nothing about and it doesn't even have a damn entry, so why is it listed?

In short, bluegrass music gets its origins from the name of a region in Kentucky. 



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