Reretaken Down

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NJCondon
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Re: Reretaken Down

Post by NJCondon »

John Boy wrote:
dhkendall wrote:So you're the instigator of our "misc rant thread" that defines the board? I always figured that was Eugene, he is inexorably tied to that thread that it's an honest mistake.

Speaking of which, we have to get Eugene here. (Heck, I wouldn't even mind having TRD here, but no one knows his true identity ... )

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

Not so loud, please.


There's still a chance he may not find this board.
It's funny that the internet has made real the old superstition that you can invoke the devil by saying his name aloud...

Let's try: TheRealDiogenes! TenPoundHammer!
Peggles
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Re: Reretaken Down

Post by Peggles »

I disagreed with many of TRD's posts, but he wrote some of the most clever puns I've ever read. :lol:
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dhkendall
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Re: Reretaken Down

Post by dhkendall »

Peggles wrote:I disagreed with many of TRD's posts, but he wrote some of the most clever puns I've ever read. :lol:
Indeed, this is why I have said I wouldn't mind TRD back, but didn't say the same thing about TPH. In fact, it's good to have people you disagree with on a board to add variety, but TRD at least brought something to the table, TPH brought stubborn refusal.
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BigDaddyJ
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Re: Reretaken Down

Post by BigDaddyJ »

dhkendall wrote:Indeed, this is why I have said I wouldn't mind TRD back, but didn't say the same thing about TPH.
There is a user registered on this message board with a username of TenPoundHammer, but zero posts. It seems very unlike TPH to simply lurk. Is somebody else just squatting on that username?
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MarkBarrett
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Re: Reretaken Down

Post by MarkBarrett »

Saw this on Tom Kunzen's wall: Vindication! Just got a letter from Jeopardy confirming that my response of "sari" should have been considered correct in my last game that I lost to Megan Rafferty Barnes. They will be sending me another $1K to cover what I should have received for second place.
GeoPETom
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Re: Reretaken Down

Post by GeoPETom »

So this is where you all relocated!
MarkBarrett wrote:Saw this on Tom Kunzen's wall: Vindication! Just got a letter from Jeopardy confirming that my response of "sari" should have been considered correct in my last game that I lost to Megan Rafferty Barnes. They will be sending me another $1K to cover what I should have received for second place.
Truth. It's been so long since I sent in my request to revisit the ruling that I forgot about it until I got the letter yesterday.
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Rafferty Barnes
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Re: Reretaken Down

Post by Rafferty Barnes »

MarkBarrett wrote:Saw this on Tom Kunzen's wall: Vindication! Just got a letter from Jeopardy confirming that my response of "sari" should have been considered correct in my last game that I lost to Megan Rafferty Barnes. They will be sending me another $1K to cover what I should have received for second place.
I know we've seen people brought back on the show who should have won if his or her response was ruled correct, but have we ever heard of a successful protest to go from 3rd to 2nd place before? A grand is a lot of money.
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alietr
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Re: Reretaken Down

Post by alietr »

Not to Mark Runsvold. Nowadays.

Interesting avatar, Rafferty. Pregnancy seems to have, uh, done something to you.
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Rafferty Barnes
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Re: Reretaken Down

Post by Rafferty Barnes »

alietr wrote:Not to Mark Runsvold. Nowadays.

Interesting avatar, Rafferty. Pregnancy seems to have, uh, done something to you.
What, don't you like our luxurious mustaches?
EugeneF
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Pox Populis

Post by EugeneF »

georgespelvin wrote:Eugene did you write this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4x0K2Y7 ... ture=share
I am flattered; thank you.

But I think that I would have done a better job on the Roman Emperors. Only four of them worth satirizing? Here are five emperors and their more recent incarnations: http://www.salon.com/people/feature/199 ... /poxpopuli

Eugene
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mam418
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Re: Reretaken Down

Post by mam418 »

Rafferty Barnes wrote:
alietr wrote:Not to Mark Runsvold. Nowadays.

Interesting avatar, Rafferty. Pregnancy seems to have, uh, done something to you.
What, don't you like our luxurious mustaches?
They are, if I may say so, bitchin'. :lol:
EugeneF
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Your RDA of Irony

Post by EugeneF »

On this day in 1959, the Cold War was fought over a dishwasher at the U.S. trade fair in Moscow. Dueling in a model kitchen over the respective merits of their ideologies were Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Vice President Richard Nixon. Each man was the champion and personification of his system. Krushchev was a vulgar, cunning peasant who through ruthlessness and guile rose to the apex of power. Nixon had more hair.

Although there are transcripts of the “Kitchen Debate” here is what they really meant.

Nixon: We call this a dishwasher. In America people have more than one dish.

Khrushchev: Communist people are proud to wash their dishes. We gather around the basin and sing folk songs. Lenin took special pride in cleaning samovars.

Nixon: This is a refrigerator. It keeps food cold and from spoiling.

Khrushchev: We have something similar called a climate. It is great for food and bad for invading armies.

Nixon: Yes, I’ve heard “The 1812 Overture”. You must be proud of Tchaikovsky. Our fairies only write show tunes. And most of them are Jews.

Khrushchev: Russian ones I believe.

Nixon: They didn’t mind leaving. Now this is an electric range. It is an oven and a stove combined. You can simultaneously bake and boil beets. Now there will be some variety to your diet.

Khrushchev: Actually these days, we are getting lots of Hungarian goulash, German potato salad and Bulgarian yogurt. The same way you get Latin American bananas, sugar and coffee. I really don’t see the value of all these decadent gadgets.

Nixon: So you can bug them! It is so easy to plant microphones in all these appliances. Really, Nick, I thought you’d understand. The kitchen is the perfect place to eavesdrop on your citizens. Families gathered over a meal and forced to talk to each other. Their guard is down. Find out what they really think. Let them incriminate themselves.

Khrushchev: We bug bedrooms.

Nixon: J. Edgar Hoover would be a problem. He thinks that sex is a criminal activity. We want to arrest people for treason, not the missionary position.

Khrushchev: Beria could be the same way. So we shot him.

Nixon: You know, in some ways, your system is superior.
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Leah
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Re: Reretaken Down

Post by Leah »

William Safire claimed to have organized (our more precisely, hondled into happening) the kitchen debate. Is this true? He also said Barbara Walters used to be his secretary. That I find perfectly believable.
EugeneF
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Re: Reretaken Down

Post by EugeneF »

Leah wrote:William Safire claimed to have organized (our more precisely, hondled into happening) the kitchen debate. Is this true? He also said Barbara Walters used to be his secretary. That I find perfectly believable.
If I may quote myself (one of my favorite activities), here is an excerpt of an article I wrote about Safire.
Further opportunities beckoned young Safire: a chance to work in radio and a new medium called television. Then, in 1952, he received a job offer from his draft board. Yet, even in the army, Corporal Safire pursued his career in communications, working as a reporter for the Armed Forces Radio Network. Once back in civilian life, he had a career waiting for him. His old boss and mentor at the Herald Tribune owned a public relations agency and knew that the clever, energetic Safire had the makings of a p.r. man. In fact, within a year, Safire had become a vice president in the film. Public relations demands many of the same skills as journalism: one has to know how to tell a compelling story. However, in p.r., there is no attempt at objectivity; the client's needs are being interpreted and marketed. Representing one such client--a home construction company--William Safire first made history.

In 1959, the United States and the Soviet Union enjoyed a thaw in the Cold War, and the powers sponsored cultural exchanges. The people of Moscow could see the American National Exhibit", a display of the appliances and comforts derived from capitalist ingenuity. Safire was there, overseeing his client's exhibit: a model home "priced for the average American family." Hosting the Exhibit's opening ceremonies was Vice President Richard Nixon; the guest of honor was the Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. The two leaders might have browsed past the model home but Safire thought of a way to make them the inadvertent promoters of his client. The exhibit had planned for a smooth, one way-flow of traffic. Safire made a slight alteration, rearranging the cordons so that tourists were coming from both directions and blocking the access of Nixon and Khrushchev. Along with their interpreters and other dignitaries, they were trapped inside the model house's kitchen. Trying to make the best of the impasse, Nixon tried discussing the merits of American dishwashers. Khrushchev defended Soviet appliances and somehow the conversation veered into a discussion of nuclear weapons. All the while the "Kitchen Debate" was photographed and recorded. Safire had smuggled a reporter to within eavesdropping proximity--assuring the Soviet bodyguards that the journalist was the exhibit's refrigerator repairman. The most memorable photograph of this encounter was of Nixon poking his finger into Khrushchev's chest. That image embellished Nixon's credentials as a man who could stand up to the Soviets. Indeed, the Kitchen Debate would be one of the highlights of Nixon's career, and the Vice President had to admire the conniving publicist who manipulated the encounter. William Safire had won a new client.
Eugene
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jepkid97
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Re: Reretaken Down

Post by jepkid97 »

Oh, how I miss Eugene's posts. I feel complete again.
EugeneF
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Your RDA of Irony: Eugene's Travel and Adultery Tips

Post by EugeneF »

If, through some lapse in the space-time continuum, you find yourself in 16th century Florence, here are some recommendations for tourists. First, congratulations on beating the waiting lines for the Uffizi Gallery. Try not to bother the muncipal bureaucrats; you are in their offices (hence, Uffizi). You have to admit that they really knew how to decorate their cubicles, hallways and employee lounges. ("The men's chamber pots? Turn left at the Raphael, in between the Botticelli and the Titian.")

You might also want some guidelines for adultery. (What better way to demonstrate your humanism!)

Men: do not have affairs with women of superior social standing. Unless you are an emperor, king, duke or cardinal (it is Renaissance Italy), do not seduce a duchess. You will only get yourself poisoned and her strangled.

Women: only have affairs with men of superior social standing. They can protect you from your outraged husband or buy him off.

Take for example the happy couple Francesco de Medici (1541-1587) and Bianca Capello. He is the Grand Duke of Tuscany and she is the wife of a Florentine clerk. Of course, the Duke also has a wife, Johanna the daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor and the first cousin of Philip II of Spain. (Johanna's opportunities for "correct" adultery would have been very limited; the only men with superior social standing would have been her father or the Emperor of China.) The cuckolded clerk is bought off with a few bureaucratic promotions, perhaps a bigger warren at the Uffizi.

So, in this domestic skein, three out of four people are happy. The Duchess is consistently miserable; in so many ways Florence is just too hot for an Austrian girl. Then in 1572 the clerk becomes unhappy; that would be a normal reaction to being stabbed to death in public. Of course, the culprits were never found. The Duke and his widowed mistress continued in their bliss. In 1578 Duchess Johanna was found at the bottom of a stairwell; apparently she had fallen. In all probability, the Duke wouldn't have been that stupid; you don't needlessly offend in-laws like the Hapsburgs. But would Bianca have been so ruthless? Well, she was Mrs. Medici and the Grand Duchess the following year.

And Francesco and Bianca lived happily ever after until the very same day in 1587. The cause of their deaths was said to be malaria. Of course, the official coroner's report took awhile....

NEWS FLASH: "Italian scientists believe they have uncovered a 400-year-old murder. Historians have long suspected that Francesco de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and his second wife Bianca Cappello did not die of malaria but were poisoned - probably by Francesco's brother, Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici, who was vying for the title."
Under normal circumstances, the Italian Coroner's Office would not be dealing with a case from 1587 so soon. The Office has a backlog of autopsies dating back to AD. 19. (The preliminary report on Germanicus is expected shortly; but he is definitely dead.) However, the death of Francesco de Medici did involve a malpractice suit against his physician. The doctor was being sued for using unclean leeches. His insurance company expedited the case. Four centuries of free lunches will get things done in Italy.

It should be noted that Cardinal Ferdinando made a much better ruler than his conveniently late brother. Although he was a Prince of the Church, Ferdinando never took any holy orders, and so was free to marry. He chose a French cousin--the granddaughter of Catherine de Medici; and with that lineage, he might have been too terrified to cheat on her. In any case, when Grand Duke Ferdinando died in 1608, there were no rumors and a genuinely sad widow.

So why am I writing this. It is the birthday of Ferdinando de Medici: good husband, capable ruler, dubious cardinal and a bad--but tasteful-brother.
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pinkfreud
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Re: Reretaken Down

Post by pinkfreud »

jepkid97 wrote:Oh, how I miss Eugene's posts. I feel complete again.
Me, too. Now this board feels like the real deal.
Bamaman
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Re: Reretaken Down

Post by Bamaman »

Glad you found us, pink. Nice seeing your car again.

I'm sure a lot of people on here are fans of Sporcle, so you may enjoy this article I ran across.

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/126430863.html
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Volante
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Re: Reretaken Down

Post by Volante »

So I'm watching the Rise of the Planet of the Apes trailer and I'm thinking to myself, "I'm supposed to be worried about this happening? There's nowhere NEAR that many primates left in the wild to be worried about." Suspension of disbelief fail.
The best thing that Neil Armstrong ever did, was to let us all imagine we were him.
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alietr
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Re: Reretaken Down

Post by alietr »

Frightening Name Reference of the Day (article about China's hacking intrusions):

Scott Borg, chief economist at the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, a research group, has assessed the annual loss of intellectual property and investment opportunities across all industries at $6 billion to $20 billion, with a big part owing to oil industry losses.
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