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RTDNTOTO 🐻 Random Thoughts Deserving No Thread Of Their Own 19 (2024)

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dandy_warhol said:
Today I drove by a half-timber house built in 1694. Quite amazing.
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I heard the house said the same about you! (that you're amazing, not built in 1694...:) )

luckless pedestrian said:
foggy day outside and in my head - ugh
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I can't offer real help, so in lieu of that - When I find myself adrift in the fog inside my head, I like to hang my arm over the edge of the boat and think "Wow, I guess I'm in a boat. Is it a row-boat? Think so, just glad it's not a life-boat - that'd be scary. Not "Oh NO, gramma died" scary, but more like "Who are we going to eat first and is it me" scary, so I'm good that this is a row-boat. Water feels nice. Is it cold? Mmmmm. Are little tiny fish giving you one of those weird manicures I see on the internet? Yes? Good deal! This fog is gettin' better and better! So, drift. That's what fog is for. Drifting. Fog's not real. It's just rain that doesn't know what it is yet, and when it figures that out it will lift or fall - but YOU will remain. :)
 
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Excuse Me Reaction GIF by Rodney Dangerfield
 
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dandy_warhol said:
I can remember playing Qbert on our family computer on the giant computer desk in the kitchen. I remember playing it in the arcade too. Arcades are so much fun!
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My friend Ricky Hadden and I used to ride our bikes to an arcade called "The Dragon's Lair" in a little strip mall not too far from our houses. We blew every dime we could scrounge/earn there, Every Friday night, fourth grade. Then we'd ride back to Ricky's house and goof around till Rat Patrol or Maverick, and then the end of the night was always Benny Hill. Ricky's parents were SO cool. I learned to play blackjack at their house. :) Ricky was my Friday Friend.
 
I worked from home this morning, because I can, and I needed to be there for the photographer.

I get into my office after lunch to discover that the AC went down in the middle of record heat. My office is currently 82 degrees. They just got the AC up and running and said that it should be cooled back down within the hour.
 
ursus said:
My friend Ricky Hadden and I used to ride our bikes to an arcade called "The Dragon's Lair" in a little strip mall not too far from our houses. We blew every dime we could scrounge/earn there, Every Friday night, fourth grade. Then we'd ride back to Ricky's house and goof around till Rat Patrol or Maverick, and then the end of the night was always Benny Hill. Ricky's parents were SO cool. I learned to play blackjack at their house. :) Ricky was my Friday Friend.
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Good name for an arcade. Especially if they actually had Dragon's Lair. I loved that game!

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MD Planner said:
Good name for an arcade. Especially if they actually had Dragon's Lair. I loved that game!

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That game used to piss me off to no end. The way it worked was it played a few seconds of video, I believe off a disc, whenever a decision was made. It was all about the timing and I SWEAR the disc would lag a fraction of a second on certain challenges, resulting in instant death. The rolling ball challenge especially.

The art on those animated sequences I heard was provided by classic Disney animators. The style sure looked familiar
 
MD Planner said:
Good name for an arcade. Especially if they actually had Dragon's Lair. I loved that game!

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Maister said:
That game used to piss me off to no end. The way it worked was it played a few seconds of video, I believe off a disc, whenever a decision was made. It was all about the timing and I SWEAR the disc would lag a fraction of a second on certain challenges, resulting in instant death. The rolling ball challenge especially.

The art on those animated sequences I heard was provided by classic Disney animators. The style sure looked familiar
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This was the holy grail of arcade games.
 
Anyone else being distracted by Amazon Prime deals?

I've picked up a new knife set and a couple other items so far.
 
michaelskis said:
I worked from home this morning, because I can, and I needed to be there for the photographer.

I get into my office after lunch to discover that the AC went down in the middle of record heat. My office is currently 82 degrees. They just got the AC up and running and said that it should be cooled back down within the hour.
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Did it?
 
michaelskis said:
I worked from home this morning, because I can, and I needed to be there for the photographer.
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I've worked from home all week. My wife and son are Up North this week (Albany, NY). My wife will be there the rest of the month; my son will be back Friday. But we have a very geriatric dog who really can't be left alone for 11 or 12 hours at a stretch, so I got permission from the boss to work from home this week.
 
The county I work for is hosting our annual summer step contest for employees. The team from our office usually does really well in no small part because of all the miles a coworker and I run but this year one of the teams from the sheriff's department is far and away ahead of everybody else... like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles ahead of the 2nd place team. A little snooping and I discover that two of the four people on that team are semi-retired deputies who work in the summer as bicycle cops at a few of the busier parks and as auxiliary cops at local events and festivals so they convert their time on bikes to steps and just rack those steps up all day long. Hardly seems fair! :rofl:

Nobody from the Facilities or Parks ground maintenance crews ever participate in the steps challenges but I would imagine they'd also do pretty well if they did.
 
WSU MUP Student said:
The county I work for is hosting our annual summer step contest for employees. The team from our office usually does really well in no small part because of all the miles a coworker and I run but this year one of the teams from the sheriff's department is far and away ahead of everybody else... like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles ahead of the 2nd place team. A little snooping and I discover that two of the four people on that team are semi-retired deputies who work in the summer as bicycle cops at a few of the busier parks and as auxiliary cops at local events and festivals so they convert their time on bikes to steps and just rack those steps up all day long. Hardly seems fair! :rofl:

Nobody from the Facilities or Parks ground maintenance crews ever participate in the steps challenges but I would imagine they'd also do pretty well if they did.
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Sort of like when our DPW won the Christmas door decorating contest last year because they decorated an entire garage door and used city-owned decorations for it. The other departments just decorated regular doors with our own decorations.
 
WSU MUP Student said:
The county I work for is hosting our annual summer step contest for employees. The team from our office usually does really well in no small part because of all the miles a coworker and I run but this year one of the teams from the sheriff's department is far and away ahead of everybody else... like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles ahead of the 2nd place team. A little snooping and I discover that two of the four people on that team are semi-retired deputies who work in the summer as bicycle cops at a few of the busier parks and as auxiliary cops at local events and festivals so they convert their time on bikes to steps and just rack those steps up all day long. Hardly seems fair! :rofl:

Nobody from the Facilities or Parks ground maintenance crews ever participate in the steps challenges but I would imagine they'd also do pretty well if they did.
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I converted pedaling time to steps based on a formula that one of the organizers provided. Another coworker counted stationary bike time as she tried to lose weight for her wedding. I won one week and everybody questioned it. I was insulted and defended myself, but it was an empty victory.
 
Okay, this is something I didn't believe could be real but now I know. Guess it will be an Olympic sport in 2032.

 
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kms said:
I converted pedaling time to steps based on a formula that one of the organizers provided. Another coworker counted stationary bike time as she tried to lose weight for her wedding. I won one week and everybody questioned it. I was insulted and defended myself, but it was an empty victory.
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We have a sheet with formulas for conversion rates for all sorts of activities and even takes into account different speeds/efforts for some activities. Bicycling and spinning are great exercises in terms of converting to steps so that really makes it easy to rack up some miles. I may get 30 to 45 minutes of really heavy effort on the bike a lot of days but that still pales in comparison to some cop out there for 8 hours at a leisurely pace!

It's interesting to look through the list of convertible activities and see what ranks the highest per minute. Squash has the highest conversion rate by a long shot and Kickboxing, karate, and tae kwon do are all tied at second and that all makes sense to me as those are all pretty strenuous. Coming in close behind at third place? Bicylcing ("vigorous" or above 15.9 mph avg) and breastfeeding. We used to be able to convert servings of fruits and vegetables to extra steps but that's not an accepted activity any more.

Back to squash... do people still play that? The club I belong to used to have squash courts but got rid of them a long time ago and I've never once heard any of the members complain. There's another club near my house that has outdoor squash courts that I rarely ever see anybody using. Maybe The Eradicator scared most of the players away?

 
Best work contest I won was the Halloween contest at a past city. HR was working hard :rofl: to improve moral at the place so they set up this costume contest. They were all in and trying to get other departments to play along. Every time they came to planning someone just told them we're too busy for that. Last minute this guy Adam just says, why don't we do Men in Black. We all have suits and throw on some sunglasses. One person had a couple cheesy alien masks and the topper, someone had a pug they brought in. We one with no question. HR was pissed because they wanted the free lunch prize for themselves. Next year, HR did a Wizard of Oz thing with a dog - wonder where they got that idea. We did the worst ghostbustters costumes and ghosts in sheets, but had a white station wagon drive up playing ghostbusters. Another win for us and another year for HR to be pissed. I also think we won because no one liked HR.
 
Planit said:
Okay, this is something I didn't believe could be real but now I know. Guess it will be an Olympic sport in 2032.

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Why not, we have synchronized swimming.

On one hand, this reminds me a bit of the steeplechase event, but without the fake horses and with a need for actual physical skill.
 
Planit said:
Okay, this is something I didn't believe could be real but now I know. Guess it will be an Olympic sport in 2032.

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We're going to a county agriculture fair tomorrow and looking at the schedule of events for the day, it looks like if we get there by noon we can watch a "stick horse rodeo"
 
One of my clients is a transportation planner. We had a good chat about the lack of accessibility in Germany.
 
dandy_warhol said:
One of my clients is a transportation planner. We had a good chat about the lack of accessibility in Germany.
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I understand most of the London Tube is not accessible either.

(Speaking of which, I love to play "World of Subways 3," which simulates the Circle Line . . . I hate when I get dinged for being late arriving into a station, when I had been stuck at a red signal for two minutes.)

Jim
 
I would certainly eat that BUT would be totaled choked up, disappointed & generally freaked out if I expected to bite into a cinnamon bun & got the taste of a savory breakfast.
 
Last night at dinner, my youngest asked how many different times are there. We were not sure where he was going so we started to respond with the following:

  • Time Out
  • Time In
  • Out of Time
  • Back in Time
  • Dinner Time
  • Lunch Time
  • Breakfast Time
  • Bed Time
  • Nap Time
  • Break Time
  • Time Zone
  • Snack Time
  • Regulation Time
  • Over Time
  • Time to Leave
  • Time to Arrive
  • Time to Answer
  • Quitting Time....

When you think of it, we have a lot of time... yet not quite enough.
 
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