Tuesday, December 09, 2008
The Broadstreet Bullies v. The Red Army
While researching The Miracle On Ice I found the story about the Philadelphia Flyers versus the HC CSKA Moscow. The game is also known as The Broadstreet Bullies v. The Red Army. For Philadelphia sports fans, this is one of the moments that separate the real fans from the posers. The real fans have heard about this game. I am not old enough to remember this game, I was only three years at the time. I have heard story of this game since I was a little kid. There is something about sports and the cold war. I do not think international sports will ever have this feeling again for the US. The American professional sports all have international players in them. Sports is so much about money now, they do not have that same nationalism feel. These days are gone forever. Related Links. Summit Series Game 6CBC ArchivesLabels: Flyers, hockey, philadelphia, sports, Wikipedia
- Rich,
6:18 PM
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Getting my Dive on
I have been watching Diners, Drive-ins and Dives on the Food Network lately. These are my kind of places. I want to check out as many of these places as I can. I have already gone to Falafel's Drive-In, Byways Cafe, and Daddypops. The problem is that the official website does not break down these sites on a single list. I have to click on each episode to see them. I was ticked off by this. I wanted to see list in one place. There is where Wikipedia comes in. I had a feeling they would have and entry for Diners, Drive-ins, and dives and a list of what I wanted to know. This is one of the joys of Wikipedia. I can find information in a format that is useful to me, not just in the format that people want me to see it. They even have a link to a site that uses Google Maps to show you where the joints in the show are. Now I just need to go out and eat at as many of these places as I can. Labels: Diners Drive-ins and Dives, Food Network, tag overload, television, Wikipedia
- Rich,
4:24 PM
Sunday, April 13, 2008
One Term Presidents
I have been watching John Adams on HBO. When I was watching the show I could not remember if John Adams was a one or two term president. Of course I looked on Wikipedia and found the answer. I found out how many days every U.S. President served. I think this is a cool list. I am not sure if it correct, but it is still cool. Labels: hbo, John Adams, president, Wikipedia
- Rich,
10:01 PM
Monday, April 16, 2007
Molotov cocktail
I just read the Wikipedia entry for Molotov cocktail. There is a lot here I did not know before. I know that Wikipedia can be questionable at times. Even if this is a lie, it is a pretty good story about how Molotov Cocktails came to be. Just for the record, I have never made, held, or used a Molotov Cocktail. Not even in a video game. Labels: Molotov Cocktail, Wikipedia
- Rich,
8:38 AM
Thursday, March 29, 2007
California Travel: Hearst Castle
Today I toured Hearst Castle on the central coast. On my current vacation I have been trying to do things that I have been putting off. The top of the list are Hearst Castle and the Getty museum. I picked Hearst Castle because it is closer, would cost me less to visit it, and there is a much better chance I will go to Los Angeles in the future. I have a hard time seeing myself just happening through San Simeon. I am happy I have came to see it. It is a pretty cool place. It is in the middle of nowhere on the central coast. It is not the kind of place people come by accident. I can see why it was a good get away in William Randolph Hearst's time. I can see why it was popular with famous people. I have to file Hearst Castle under crazy California homes of Rich People. Currently the other place in that file is the Winchester Mystery House. They both have a lot in comment. Never ending construction, never finished, owners who kept on changing the plans, and ended up being historic sites. I know that William Randolph Hearst just called it the Ranch, but a castle is a good name for it. You can see how visiting the castles and residents of Europe influences. It reminded me of the Würzburg Residence. Both building were build to impress the guests who came to visit. I wonder if it was a way for Hearst to remind people who came to visit who he is. No matter what kind of Hollywood star you are, you are not as big as William Randolph Hearst. Walking though the building I just thought to myself, "of course this place is in California. California is a place of people putting really big dreams into action. You would have to dream really big to build a place like this. It is on the top of a hill that is 1000 feet up. The place has amazing views of the country side and of the ocean. It is just an amazing place. The building is amazing, but it is also a mis-mash. Both on the inside and on the outside it is a strange combination of styles. The building complex exterior is a combination of Spanish, Italian and Ancient Roman. In my head I can hear an architectural snob declare how the different style clash. You get the feeling that Hearst could not make up his mind. He wanted everything. On the inside there are a ton of different art styles. I cannot even count how many different countries the art came from. It is almost dizzying. I bet that is what Hearst was going for. I bet it looked better when it was a house and not a museum. Now it is too much to take in. All the different styles were too much. There is something about the Hearst Castle that made me a feel a little sad. I get the same feeling when I go to the Winchester Mystery House. All of these effort went into making this house, but now it is not a house. If feels like it is a little dead. It would be better is someone was living there. Since it is just a display piece now, it has lost a little of what made it special. Worst of all it was only in use for 29 years. It has been a state park for almost 50 now. Labels: California, Hearst Castle, tag overload, travel, Wikipedia, William Randolph Hearst
- Rich,
6:02 PM
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Berlin Wall in Mountain View
Today I went to the section of the Berlin Wall that is in a parking lot in Mountain View California. I have know about this for years not, but this is the first time actually visited. There are sections of the Berlin Wall in a couple of places in America. There is plaque for the display, but it does not say why it is there. It is in the back of a business park in the edge of Mountain View. When I talk to people about this they all want to know why it is there. I never have a good answer for them. It makes sense that pieces of the wall are in places like the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum, and Westminster College. People have no clue why this is here.  When I saw the piece of the way, I wondered why these are not all over the place. I wondered why every state in America does not have a piece of the Berlin Wall on displace. You would think that Americans would want to show off more. You would think we would have imported 100s of sections of the wall. This is a cool piece of history to have close to me. I am glad that I went to see it. This vacation is becoming about doing things I have put off for a while. UPDATE: I wanted to include this comment from Don The wikipeida article is not complete. There are more pieces of the Berlin Wall in America than are listed. For example, there's one at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Don Labels: Berlin Wall, comment, flickrpost, history, Mountain View, tag overload, update, vacation, Wikipedia
- Rich,
9:49 PM
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Dial B for Blogs
I have been reading all the archive post from Dial B for Blog. Dial B for Blog is no longer active, but it has a big archive. The writer has taken the character Robby Reed from the Dial H for Hero comic as his pen name. The blog mostly looks at old comics. At the start he did a lot of funny comparisons of different comics, but as it goes on the blog becomes more sincere. I have been thinking about comics lately and the internet has just been making it worst. Wikipedia has a lot of good comics information. I have been able to find just about everything that I have been looking for there. There is a lot of good writing about comics on the internet. Most of the stuff that interests me right now is looking at stories about old comics. Looking at Dial B for Blog made me look for the list of Public Domain Comic Book characters. There is part of me that would love to write a story with an old public domain comic book character. I would love to mine those old storied to make new stories. I think that is one of the powers of comics. I would love to write a story like that. Labels: B for Blog, blog, comic book, Wikipedia
- Rich,
7:12 AM
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Wiki Famous
Are you famous enough to be on Wikipedia? I know I am not. As of right now, there is no one named Rich Thomas famous enough to have a Wikipedia entry. There are a handful of people named Richard Thomas that have entries. I know that I am not one of them. I wonder who the least famous living person with a Wikipedia entry it. There are rules about who can have a page and who cannot. I cannot put up an entry for myself and I cannot put up an entry for my next door neighbor. I know that fame is a hard thing to measure. Someone has to be the least famous. I just wonder who that person is. I also wonder if I know anyone famous enough to have a Wikipedia entry. Let me know if you have an entry. Labels: fame, self, Wikipedia
- Rich,
8:54 PM
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Air America Close to Signing Off?
I am not surprised that Air America filed bankruptcy. I will admit that I am not a huge radio fan, but I respect radio. This is not the first time Air America has run into problems. I remember hearing a story about Air America on NPR's On The Media. (I do not remember the specific show) The problem is that you cannot just stick a talker in front of a microphone and expect it to be good radio. The host or the producer has to understand radio. They have to know how to keep a audience through a brake and how to pace a show. Whenever I listed to Al Franken his shows sounded like he knew nothing about radio. When I worked in radio I remember that Rush Limbaugh's audience was extremely loyal to the sponsors to the program. When Snapple first launched nationally they advertised on Limbaugh. They could see the effect on their sales. Even as the ratings feel the audience would buy the products that were advertising on the show. I am not sure Air America ever got that loyalty. I wonder if it because their target audience is more cynical about advertising From the New York Times: "It was doomed to fail," Mr. Limbaugh said, according to news wire reports. "They were not a broadcasting concern to begin with. ... They went into business to affect elections." When I worked for WNZT in Columbia PA I talked to the owner a lot. He did not care about the politics of the shows he ran. He just carried that they made money. He was a very political man, but he knew that business was business. That is the problem with putting politics before business. Labels: air america, news, on the media, radio, Wikipedia
- Rich,
3:36 PM
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Do Your Job
As people know pro wrestling is one of my guilty pleasures. I always love when little bits of pro-wresling language gets into regular language. Every once in a while I will hear Jim Rome use a pro wresting term to refer to other sports. One of my favorite terms Job. I think there are lots of time in life when people need to do their job and put other people over. I would like to see this term used more in the real world. Labels: Jim Rome, language, pro wrestling, slang, sports, Wikipedia
- Rich,
7:17 PM
Saturday, September 23, 2006
More Better Search
A Comment Tom made on my last post about Google really got me thinking. I often wonder if it's not just a skill that we need to teach people - data mining, or searching. I can often find stuff very quickly when my wife has been looking for a half hour because I can think of ways to quantify the search better to find information that's useful. With more and more information that is available and the amount growing, searching is rapidly becoming less useful than it was even a year or two ago. If I find that I need real information about a single thing, I'm more likely to search Wikipedia than Google now.
Tom homepage I do use Wikipedia a lot lately. I use it as much as I use Google. I think I am starting to use them for two different kinds of information. It I am looking for a Fact, concept, or statistic I start with Wikipedia. If I am looking for a web site, data that is specific to a web site, or questions about a product I use Google. Often I come upon a question I know that I will not find an answer using Google. I find that I want to be able to ask a question and get an answer. Now I have to ask the question of myself, analysis what kind of website would have the answer to that questions, and figure out the right combination of keywords that will bring me to that data. I think that this means that Google can be beat by another company. Google was much better than the search engines that came before it. That does not mean another search engine could not be better than them. Labels: comment, ecatbox, google, search, Wikipedia
- Rich,
4:38 PM
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
More On Search
Here is a comment from Tom
I often wonder if it's not just a skill that we need to teach people - data mining, or searching. I can often find stuff very quickly when my wife has been looking for a half hour because I can think of ways to quantify the search better to find information that's useful. With more and more information that is available and the amount growing, searching is rapidly becoming less useful than it was even a year or two ago. If I find that I need real information about a single thing, I'm more likely to search Wikipedia than Google now.
TomLabels: comment, google, information, search, Wikipedia
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