New Scaratings

If you are new to the "Try to Remember" thread, or haven't been here for a while, you might want to take a look at the previous posts, and check out all of the unanswered posts about the past, that are waiting for you to add your 2 cents. Feel free to jump in on any one you want.

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p.s. Of course you can add a new post of things of the past that you remember.

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"The game is afoot."

Enough for me tonight...



.............. Goodnight I'm going to bed.

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"The game is afoot."

No, but bicyclists are supposed to (and often do) use them. The first few times I saw someone do it I thought they were waving at me.

DANTE, you are absolutely correct. However, I would say that they do not "often" use them. I think the word "seldom" would be more correct.

p.s. Trying to reply to you earlier, I lost a lengthy post about bicycles on the highway that I will not try to recreate tonight. It probably belonged on the "Chip the Bartender" thread, so good Lord willing I will try to put it up there tomorrow.

You might have guessed it:



...............Goodnight I'm going to bed.

(Very belated edit: DANTE, I finally remembered that I never posted my commentary about bicycles on the highway on the "Chip the Bartender" thread, as I had promised. I did it yesterday, and am still waiting to see how much trouble it gets me into.)

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"The game is afoot."

There was a time when quarters and dimes actually had silver in them. Today, I think they are made out of Playdough and Silly Putty. Does anybody know what U.S. coins are made of these days? I don't, but I'm betting that a penny ain't made out of copper anymore.

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........................................... Goodnight I'm going to bed.

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"The game is afoot."

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liljol, still residing in a humble lil abode in Buzztime's Backyard, San Diego County, in The Horribly Site-Poor Golden State, California...

<--805 NTN Buzztime sites visited as of 11/13/2018...

F CUBS!!!!! FBOSOX!!!!!

FPDRES!!!!! FCHGRS!!!!!

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/```\
(o\_!_/o)

Good research Liljol.

About the penny...

I have been saying for a least a decade that the penny has to go. It makes no sense to mint it anymore. Penny candy is long gone. Gum ball machines that took pennies have disappeared. The penny postcard is a thing of the past, as well as the 3 cent first class stamp. If what I heard is correct, it now costs the government more than one cent to mint a penny. The penny is a nuisance, and fooling with them in stores and everywhere else takes more time than they are worth.

As I understand it, the Canadians are eliminating the penny from their coinage. Way to go all of you Canucks, the Yanks need to learn something from you.

If the United States did away with the penny, I can see a great benefit to all of the states that have a sales tax. Seeing that there would be no more pennies, they could easily round their sales tax up to the nearest nickel. What a boon this could be to States that are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.

p.s. What disturbs me is that instead of deep sixing the penny, as they should, our government decided to create three new versions of the penny's reverse side. What wasteful stupidity. I'll bet it cost the taxpayers a pretty penny for this tomfoolery.

p.p.s. I understand that if there were no more pennies, that the game I played on Staley Junior High school's parking lot curb of "Pitching Pennies" would be gone. However, I don't see this as a big problem. Kids could still play the game with nickels. They would just have to come up with a new name for it.

Here's a link to a site that explains the basics of "Pitching Pennies", which is pretty close to the rules I used to play as a kid, with the exceptions of wall leaners and flat to the wall penny tosses. We never used those rules. The video ends with a goofy, left wing commentary that says this game corrupts children, and encourages them to become greedy capitalists when they grow up. I guess that is yet one more reason for eliminating the penny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQp5eQuzNDM

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"The game is afoot."

I was too old, and the only Hot Wheels I ever bought were for my son, but nothing as elaborate as you have described. My brother, Bob, and I got a Christmas present back in the late 1950's (or early 1960's) that was similar to your Hot Wheels race track, but the cars that we raced against each other were quite a bit larger, and they were not Hot Wheels.

However, if you still have your Hot Wheels race track, I think PENGWN has a Hot Wheels Pittsburg Penguins Zamboni that will kick your ass.

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.................................... Gentlemen, you may start your engines, because it's goodnight I'm going to bed, and will be out of your way.

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"The game is afoot."

Does anyone remember when TV stations actually signed-off the air?

You youngsters, who are used to 24 hour TV on 300 stations, probably won't believe that at one time, before you were born, that there were only three stations (Rome, NY only received two until 1963.) and they signed-off the air somewhere around midnight or maybe 1:00 a.m.

When they signed-off they always played a brief patriotic clip, before the test pattern came on.

Here's one typical TV sign off from years gone by:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMZ_rQKAy7c

Then you got this:



p.s. This if for Liljol. My grumpy, curmudgeonly, cantankerous, friend, you will happy to know that ABC, CBS, and NBC never used this when they signed-off:

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................................................................ Goodnight, go to bed.

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"The game is afoot."

This is something from the past that nobody talks about today, and I know it will be hard to believe, but it is true.

Many years ago, upscale department stores had x-ray machines in their shoe departments, that you put your feet into wearing the new shoes that you were about to buy, to see how well they fit. The only shielding was a 1 mm thick aluminum filter. This might explain why I grew a sixth toe on one of my feet, when I was seven-years-old. Do you think it's to late to sue...?

http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/shoe ... r/shoe.htm

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Back then you didn't see this warning sign:



p.s. The sixth toe bit ain't true, but it sounded funny, so I just tossed it in.

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"The game is afoot."

All my buddies and I did this in the 1950's. We took baseball cards of players we didn't care about, borrowed mom's spring loaded clothes pins, clipped the baseball cards to the frame that supported the wheels so the cards projected out between the spokes, and took off pedaling. All of a sudden we sounded like motorcycles as we raced around the neighborhood. Did any of you ever do this? Do kids still do it today?

After watching the following video, I guess some kids still do this today, but only if their dad teaches them how:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tvLe-_TPRY

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"The game is afoot."

According to the "Red Book" of US coins:
Cent (from mid-1982): 2.5 grams, pure copper plated on a core of 0.992 Zn 0.008 Cu, net content 0.975 Zn 0.025 Cu
Nickel (since 1866, except mid-1942 through 1945): 5.0 grams, 0.750 Cu 0.250 Ni
Dime (since 1965): 2.27 grams, outer layers of cupro-nickel (0.750 Cu 0.250 Ni), pure copper core
Quarter (since 1965): 5.67 grams, outer layers of cupro-nickel (0.750 Cu 0.250 Ni), pure copper core
Half Dollar (since 1971): 11.34 grams, outer layers of cupro-nickel (0.750 Cu 0.250 Ni), pure copper core
Golden Dollar: 8.1 grams, outer layers of manganese brass (0.770 Cu 0.120 Zn 0.070 Mn 0.040 Ni), pure copper core


First off, it took you folks long enough to figure out how to print banknotes with inks not named green and black. We had four dollar bills with orange and brown back in 1882, and the current colour coding mostly dates back to 1937 (Today, the $50 is pink. Before 1975, it was orange and the $1000 was pink)

Baby steps



For a massively large image of the 1937 $1-$100 set: http://imagehost.vendio.com/a/17891141/view/canada_7pc_set__063.jpg
And the $1000 usually sold separately: http://media.liveauctiongroup.net/i/9982/10734510_2.jpg?v=8CDF870E71C5FD0

When the $1000 was updated in 1988, the base colour became purple-pink, with a light yellow tint thrown in for free
http://media.liveauctiongroup.net/i/4413/5776619_1.jpg

Where was I? Oh yes, the last cent (I'm pedantic enough to insist the penny is British) was struck in March, and distribution will cease sometime this autumn. They will remain legal tender indefinitely, just like every other issue of coin or note issued in the name of Canada since 1858.

(Legally, anyone could walk into a Tim Hortons with that $4 bill above and spend it on a double-double or box of Timbits)


Five, actually, but four of those were to honour the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth, and will not be used again

I guess if I know what's good for me, I won't get you started on the design diversity of State/Territorial/Parks quarters. Oh, oops . . .

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/°v°\ • Every time Linux boots, a penguin gets its wings
I'm a solipsistic conspiracy theorist. I'm sure I must be up to something, and I won't stop until I find out what
Why not downgrade Plutonium to a dwarf element?

I've only run across three of the new Lincoln pennies. Guess I will have to look a little closer at the change I get from now on, 'til I find the two that I have missed. The two I haven't seen aren't rare, are they?

PENGWN, I believe you must be an authority, when it comes to coinage and paper currency.

p.s. With how our government is running up our deficits and national debt, they might as well start printing dollars on toilet paper. (That's a CLOUDY original.)

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"The game is afoot."

No. Here's the four designs for 2009, each of which should be roughly 25% of the year's mintage. And I'm sure you've seen the Shield reverse that debuted in 2010, and will probably be used until the cent finally goes extinct



I've been collecting since 1988, and am Second Vice President of the Calgary Numismatic Society


What a shitty idea!

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/°v°\ • Every time Linux boots, a penguin gets its wings
I'm a solipsistic conspiracy theorist. I'm sure I must be up to something, and I won't stop until I find out what
Why not downgrade Plutonium to a dwarf element?

The only Bicentenial Lincoln pennies, that you have shown us, that I have seen were the log cabin and Abe sitting on the log ones. I have never seen the other two. Where I came up with three new pennies was the one with the shield on the reverse side.



I wonder if the mint has been exporting the two that I have never seen to Canada, to help us with our balance of trade...?

p.s. I knew you must have been some coin collector geek, seeing how much you knew about coinage. However, I had no idea that you held the title of Second Vice President of the Calgary Numismatic Society. It's too bad that Buzztime doesn't have more numismatic questions. Send them an e-mail suggesting that numismatics be a Topix category.

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"The game is afoot."

I think this belongs here. We were trying to create some new space in the basement for new stuff my wife wanted to store posterity and I found a box of my army memoribility which I have not seen in 30 years. In fact I thought my wife tossed it years ago.

I found the Pacific Stars and Stripes Korea Edition newspaper from the day I left Korea, dated Monday, Nov. 20, 1967. Does anybody remember these apparently important events in the headlines? "US Population Hits 200 Million", "Pound Devalued; Britain Asks Loan". In the story Johnson says he will not devalue the dollar. Gold would remain 35 dollars per ounce. Other headlines "Viet Cong Plans 3 Cease-Fires During Holidays", "Explosion Cripples Gripsholm", "Romney Says He Will Run To Lead Nation Out of War".

The most important thing is does anyone remember these Comics and are any still around: "THEY'LL DO IT EVERY TIME, GRIN AND BEAR IT, DICK TRACY, TERRY AND THE PIRATES, MARY WORTH, POPEYE, STEVE ROPER, LIL ABNER, STEVE CANYON, MAGGIE & JIGGS, BUZ SAWYER, SNUFFY SMITH, JOE PALOOKA, MR. ABERNATHY, ANDY CAPP" .

And the headline from the sports page was " O.J. RUN PUTS TROJANS IN ROSE BOWL 21-20"

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"Truth Like Football. Gets kicked around much, before reaching goal." - Charlie Chan

" Don't look back, The bastards might be gaining on you." - Satchel Paige

Frank

Frank, you have uncovered a fortune of memorabilia. Hold on to all of it, and hide it in a safe place. It will only become more valuable as the years go by. Be sure to let your kids know where you have hidden this stuff, so that when you die, they can sell it all on eBay, and use the money to buy things they see on the QVC Online Shopping channel.

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"The game is afoot."

They'll Do it Every Time is still around as our local weekly rag usually includes it on their comics page.

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Middle age is when a broad mind and a slim waist exchange places.

There were ads in the back of the comic books I used to get for "X-Ray Glasses" in the 1950's. The ads suggested that with these amazing glasses, you could see right through a girl's dress. I still regret to this day that I never bought them. If any of you guys did buy them, I would like to know if they really worked.

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p.s. They don't still offer these amazing "X-Ray Glasses" in comic books anymore, do they? If they do, please let me know, because I think I can up with the $1.25 to buy a pair of them now.

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"The game is afoot."

We had a coal furnace that looked a lot like this one back around 1956. When my dad was gone on a trip, I had to get the sucker going. (In Rome, NY, where it gets way below zero in the winter, you had no choice, but to shovel coal.) If there were no glowing coals, I had to light newspapers and kindling to get it started. When it was burning pretty good, I shoveled the coal in. I'll bet that none of you had to do this when you were seven-years-old. I also doubt that there are very many homes in the United States today that still have shovel loaded coal furnaces today.



Earnie sang this song about me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Joo90ZWrUkU

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"The game is afoot."

When I was 7 I had to feed coal into two of these. One in the kitchen and ane in the front room.

You carried the coal in from the back porch coal bin in one of these .

You shoveled the coal from the bin to the bucket and from the bucket to the sove with one of these:

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"Truth Like Football. Gets kicked around much, before reaching goal." - Charlie Chan

" Don't look back, The bastards might be gaining on you." - Satchel Paige

Frank

Frank, I guess that makes two of us. It was always exciting when the coal truck pulled up to our house, opened the little door to the basement, and filled our coal bin from the truck, down the chute. It wasn't fun, shoveling coal into the furnace in the dead of winter, but somehow I think it was an experience that builds character, when you are young.

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"The game is afoot."

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....... (Looks like they only cost a nickel back then.)

I haven't seen a pistachio nut vending machine for a long time. I wonder if there are any of them still out there. In the 1950's and 60's they were everywhere. Back then almost all of their shells were dyed red. When is the last time any of you have seen one of these pistachio vending machines?

p.s. There is an interesting story behind why the shells were dyed red. Ain't gonna tell ya, you'll have to Google it yourselves to find out.

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"The game is afoot."

I have not seen one of those machines since the 70's. The red pistachios came from Iran. Because of the Iran hostage crisis all supplies of red pistachios were cut off. Iranian pistachios had black spots on the shells so they were died red to cover up the spots. In Chicago around St Patrick's day you could buy green dyed pistachios.

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"Truth Like Football. Gets kicked around much, before reaching goal." - Charlie Chan

" Don't look back, The bastards might be gaining on you." - Satchel Paige

Frank