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Ron Obvious

Ron Obvious's Journal
Ron Obvious's Journal
September 11, 2016

We were visiting my sister in Italy

We were sitting on her patio drinking wine, probably talking about the Champions League game that was going to be on that evening ,when her husband called and told her to turn on the TV.

It was unreal. Something from a movie - it couldn't be real. At that time they were saying that 50,000 people worked in those buildings during the day and that they might all be dead. Just imagine, roughly the entire casualty count of the entire Vietnam war lost in single day. I felt that life would never be the same again...

Over the next few days, while travelling around Rome and Florence, people from all sorts of nationalities made a point of talking to us and shaking our hands and telling us how they were with and behind us.

Although we lived 3,000 miles away from New York in Seattle, we felt like stand-ins for stricken America, and I suffered jaw cramp from the manfully determined look I felt obligated to return to those people who had come to shake our hand. Pity I'm rather lactose-intolerant to the milk of human kindness...

Just a few years later, most of the civilised world had turned against us because of the Iraq war and other excesses.

It took an exceptionally incompetent moron in the White House to turn all the goodwill we felt at that time into hostility in such a short period of time...

August 19, 2016

The amazing colour changing card trick

Richard Wiseman is an interesting guy. I highly recommend his book Quirkology on quirky phenomoma. This is a classic youtube video, if anything can be said to be a classic in that relatively new medium. Be sure to watch it to the end. It isn't what you think it is....

August 17, 2016

Epic Emotional | Liquid Cinema - Aeterna

This music was used in a Mercedes commercial, the Sam Harris Waking Up podcast as well as others.

August 13, 2016

I've been chatting with a cow orker on and off for about 5 years

Interesting hobby. I can't give you his name, of course, because it is still illegal in several states as well as the District of Columbia.

August 5, 2016

Unaired 'All in the Family' pilot (1968): Justice for All

I think this is pretty close to the actual pilot later, but of course, other than Archie & Edith, the cast is different and the house looks different. The family is called Justice (not Bunker)



A second pilot: Those were the days (1969) was also not picked up



Interesting to see these embryonic efforts to produce this show.

All in the Family was a remake of the British (far harsher and less sentimental) Till Death us do Part.



Well, they don't make them like they used to.
July 11, 2016

This message was not deleted by anyone.

Though perhaps it should have been.

Neither was it kicked or recommended, and for good reason.

July 5, 2016

Big disconnect between the singer and the voice

Do you visualise the singer when you hear a song for the first time? I do, and I'm often spectacularly off the mark when I later actually see what they really look like.

The prime example of this category is, of course, Amy Winehouse, a twenty-something Welsh girl who sang with the voice of a 50-year old black woman from the Mississippi delta.

Here's another example:

I like this song, but I pictured the singer as a big, bearded, biker-type who rolls his own cigarettes. Imagine my surprise to hear that voice coming out of a 22 year-old beardless boy:

May 28, 2016

Did you know Euro 2016 is exactly two weeks away only?

I think I'm suffering a bit of football fatigue and I think the tournament has too many teams anyway (best 3d place finishers -- yuck!!!), but maybe I'll get excited once it gets started. Predictions in the next post.

Groups

Group A
Albania, France, Romania, Switzerland

Group B
England, Russia, Slovakia, Wales

Group C
Germany, Northern Ireland, Poland, Ukraine

Group D
Croatia, Czech Republic, Spain, Turkey

Group E
Belgium, Italy, Republic of Ireland, Sweden

Group F
Austria, Hungary, Iceland, Portugal

Group Stages

Friday, June 10
France vs. Romania -- Saint-Denis (9 p.m. CET/3 p.m. ET)

Saturday, June 11
Albania vs. Switzerland -- Lens (3 p.m. CET/9 a.m. ET)
Wales vs. Slovakia -- Bordeaux (6 p.m. CET/12 p.m. ET)
England vs. Russia -- Marseille (9 p.m. CET/3 p.m. ET)

Sunday, June 12
Turkey vs. Croatia -- Paris (3 p.m. CET/9 a.m. ET)
Poland vs. Northern Ireland -- Nice (6 p.m. CET/12 p.m. ET)
Germany vs. Ukraine -- Lille (9 p.m. CET/3 p.m. ET)

Monday, June 13
Spain vs. Czech Rep -- Toulouse (3 p.m. CET/9 a.m. ET)
Rep of Ireland vs. Sweden -- Saint-Denis (6 p.m. CET/12 p.m. ET)
Belgium vs. Italy -- Lyon (9 p.m. CET/3 p.m. ET)

Tuesday, June 14
Austria vs. Hungary -- Bordeaux (6 p.m. CET/12 p.m. ET)
Portugal vs. Iceland -- Saint-Etienne (9 p.m. CET/3 p.m. ET)

Wednesday, June 15
Russia vs. Slovakia -- Lille (3 p.m. CET/9 a.m. ET)
Romania vs. Switzerland -- Paris (6 p.m. CET/12 p.m. ET)
France vs. Albania -- Marseille (9 p.m. CET/3 p.m. ET)

Thursday, June 16
England vs. Wales -- Lens (3 p.m. CET/9 a.m. ET)
Ukraine vs. Northern Ireland -- Lyon (6 p.m. CET/12 p.m. ET)
Germany vs. Poland -- Saint-Denis (9 p.m. CET/3 p.m. ET)

Friday, June 17
Italy vs. Sweden -- Toulouse (3 p.m. CET/9 a.m. ET)
Czech Rep vs. Croatia -- Saint-Etienne (6 p.m. CET/12 p.m. ET)
Spain vs. Turkey -- Nice (9 p.m. CET/3 p.m. ET)

Saturday, June 18
Belgium vs. Rep of Ireland -- Bordeaux (3 p.m. CET/9 a.m. ET)
Iceland vs. Hungary -- Marseille (6 p.m. CET/12 p.m. ET)
Portugal vs. Austria -- Paris (9 p.m. CET/3 p.m. ET)

Sunday, June 19
Romania vs. Albania -- Lyon (9 p.m. CET/3 p.m. ET)
Switzerland vs. France -- Lille (9 p.m. CET/3 p.m. ET)

Monday, June 20
Russia vs. Wales -- Toulouse (9 p.m. CET/3 p.m. ET)
Slovakia vs. England -- Saint-Etienne (9 p.m. CET/3 p.m. ET)

Tuesday, June 21
Ukraine vs. Poland -- Marseille (6 p.m. CET/12 p.m. ET)
Northern Ireland vs. Germany -- Paris (6 p.m. CET/12 p.m. ET)
Czech Rep vs. Turkey -- Lens (9 p.m. CET/3 p.m. ET)
Croatia vs. Spain -- Bordeaux (9 p.m. CET/3 p.m. ET)

Wednesday, June 22
Iceland vs. Austria -- Saint-Denis (6 p.m. CET/12 p.m. ET)
Hungary vs. Portugal -- Lyon (6 p.m. CET/12 p.m. ET)
Italy vs. Rep of Ireland -- Lille (9 p.m. CET/3 p.m. ET)
Sweden vs. Belgium -- Nice (9 p.m. CET/3 p.m. ET)

Saturday, June Saturday, June 25

Round of 16 kicks off

May 27, 2016

Happy 75th Birthday, Saddam Hussein!

Oh no, wait! That's actually Eric Cantona, and he's turning 50. What the hell happened to him?



Eric Cantona turned 50 on Tuesday and is still doing what he has always done best: playing the part of Eric Cantona to a T. For Manchester United fans still digesting the end of the soured Louis van Gaal era and the imminent arrival of José Mourinho, he has a simple diagnosis of what has gone wrong.

“They miss me,” Cantona says, playful but serious at the same time. “I think they have lost something. You can feel it. But it’s difficult to come after someone who has been at the club 25 years. Even if you are a great manager, the fans still feel the philosophy of Ferguson.”

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/may/24/eric-cantona-mourinho-manchester-united-guardiola
May 27, 2016

Dr Henry Heimlich uses Heimlich manoeuvre for first time, aged 96

I had no idea this guy was even still alive. Cool story.

The 96-year-old surgeon credited with developing his namesake Heimlich manoeuvre recently used the emergency technique for the first time himself to save a woman choking on food at his retirement home.

Dr Henry Heimlich told the Cincinnati Enquirer in an interview on Thursday that he has demonstrated the well-known manoeuvre many times through the years but had never before used it on a person who was choking.

<snip>

Heimlich said it made him appreciate how wonderful it had been “to be able to save all those lives”.



http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/27/dr-heimlich-performs-heimlich-manoeuvre-for-first-time-aged-96#comments

Profile Information

Name: Ron
Gender: Male
Home country: Middle Earth
Current location: Seattle
Member since: Tue Dec 13, 2011, 11:37 PM
Number of posts: 6,261

About Ron Obvious

I got the nickname Ron Obvious because -- in addition to being a huge Python fan -- my name really is Ron and I used to start sentences with \"Obviously\" a lot. Obviously, that\'s no longer a problem.
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