Category: Cool

In Memory of Erin O’Keefe

Mountain Rats 1876 a

A somber ceremony at Pike’s Peak 1876. The dangers of the new frontier were many, and there were many horrible ways one could part from the living.

Mountain Rats 1876

The U.S. Signal Service (an early Weather Bureau) built a telegraph station on the summit [of Pike’s Peak] in 1873 to monitor the weather, and a guard was posted in Manitou at the beginning of the trail to collect a toll for hiking to the summit.

In May of 1876, tragedy befell the O’Keefe family when their daughter Erin was apparently eaten by mountain rats. The true story may be found here.

[Bottom image found here, top image here. Related post here.]

Saturday Matinee – Frog Payback, Armadillo Song & Red Nightmare

Froggie payback in less than half a minute.

“I Wanna Go Home To The Armadillo.”
I’ve heard that song so many times without knowing the words, let alone the source. It’s the theme song to Austin City Limits, performed by Gary P. Nunn and Jerry Jeff Walker. (Oh and by the way, unless you’re sporting functional longrider hats, y’all just look silly.)

Red Nightmare is a must watch. Anything featuring Jack Webb is by default automatically awesome and true. [via]

Have a great weekend, folks. More great stuff is coming up, whether you like it or not.

The .Gif Friday Post No.256 – Dance Hard, Old Man Doodle & Ephemeral Barrio

[First and Third found here and here.]

The middle one was my own experiment with MS Paint. Doodle, click, save, repeat x 86, then plug it into JASC and see what happens. Note that it was all done by right-hand mouse-clicks, even though I’m a southpaw. It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes I’m just entirely too bitchin’ for words.

Another Great Gift Idea

I love rural hand-painted highway signs that are spelled correctly and get right to the point, like this one. (Note that the pavement is blackened from all the cars screeching to a stop upon spotting this effective advertisement).

[Found here.]

Telephone Devolution 1967

Mail Call Letterpack – You get two players that play only the cartridges you can buy from Smith Corona and you can send a 3, 6 or 10 minutes letter. Just $70 a pair in 1967, these would be $450 in today’s dollars. How is this better than a phone? They say, it has no static and it’s cheaper!

Life, 1967

Make a 10 minute telephone call that will get to its destination in 4-5 business days, and in 4-5 business days you might get one back and can continue the conversation. Beats buying a reel-to-reel, and squelches telemarketers, too.

[Found here.]

Extreme Makeovers 1928

[Found here.]

I Don’t Know What It Means, But I Like It.

[Found here.]

Saturday Matinee – Imelda May, Jimmy & The Rackets; Ron Levy & Ronnie Earl; J. Geils, Duke Robillard & Gerry Beaudoin

Imelda May is way cool. That’s her version of  Buddy Holly’s “Looking For Love” which was also covered by The Stray Cats. It was never covered by Andy Tielman as far as I know, but here on The Saturday Matinee, one vid and three links just don’t make the nut.

Yep. That’s Jimmy & The Rackets as if I had to tell you, but now I’m torn between two more vids to post. I’ll resolve the dilemma by posting them both, back-to-back, because each of them made me smile for different reasons. Have a great weekend folks, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow.


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The .Gif Friday Post No.255 – Quasicrystals as sums of waves in the plane

[Found here, via here. Updated with enlarged portion.]

[Update 2: Just realized that I made a typo several months ago, and The .Gif Friday Posts were mis-numbered by a factor of 100. The titles and permalinks are fixed now. Lo siento.]

Happy Thanksgiving

“When I was 5 years old, my mom always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy.’ They told me I didn’t understand the assignment and I told them they didn’t understand life.”

Quoted from here. It’s one of my favorites, especially on a modern-day rarity when family and friends get together to share their blessings and to reminisce about what was and what could have been, and then, to discuss what might be. Keep your children happy always, but never depend on someone else to teach them. –Bunk