New Scaratings

Dang, you know everything...

You impress me with all of the shit you know, with your comment, "Poor doggy..." Yep, the Ruskies had no plan to bring her back to Earth alive.

ZOG, it's your turn now. Take us back to the past with something you remember from your lifetime, that is now gone.

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"The game is afoot."

Not quite...
We already have an understood and agreed upon system of measurements. The people that have difficulty with the English system will be the same ones that suck with the metric system.

I suppose there are those who would like us to start using Esperanto as well.
I find both arguments equally pointless and whimsical.

This is an issue that should have been resolved and done with 30+ years ago.

I suppose the Greeks in 1921 or the Russians in 1917 could have rationalized that "they already have an understood and agreed upon calendar, and the anyone with difficulty with the Julian calendar would be the same ones with difficulty using the Gregorian..." I don't buy it.

For the most part, I don't have difficulty with the US system of measures, although the system of liquid measures is a different story that would not have been necessary in a metric society where everything is derived from liters. And with the metric system, a liter is the same in the US or Canada (or anywhere else); this could not be said for gallons...

This is not a discussion on Esperanto.

-- RWM

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"...It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED...."

It is now.
Mostly because my reference to esperanto is more valid than your reference to calendars.
Changing calendars requires making new calendars but mostly just involves everyone agreeing that they're all moving to a new day; essentially the same ease and effort as changing to DST.
There are volumes (pun intended) of issues involved in changing various measurement systems. It is nowhere near as arbitrary as time keeping. It requires fairly constant application by users, like Esperanto. And this doesn't even take into account the cost of all of the changes in associated descriptors (road signage alone would be astronomically costly), material manufacturing, etc. that go along with the process, like Esperanto.
If you think that is as cheap and easy as changing dates, I suspect you're overpaying tremendously for the calendars of kittens playing with balls of string you keep in your kitchen.

Your subtextual point of validity for the metric system is the same as every single other person with whom I have had this discussion; that it makes it easy for us to "work" with countries that have adopted the metric system.
We've been the largest importer in the world since most of the other countries have gone metric, by a margin over second place that is more than the rest of the top ten added together, so it sure doesn't seem to be presenting much of a problem for them to accommodate our "special" needs in goods manufacturing.
If nobody else in the world is having an issue, why change?

There is a reason why I mentioned Esperanto.
A lot of pretty sharp folks (William Shatner excluded) have come to the conclusion that the structure and usage of Esperanto is much easier to learn than all other languages. They feel that its ease of learning would lead to a widespread application in poorer countries thereby making it easier for them to do business with more developed nations.
Does that argument sound familiar to any other system you may have heard peddled by economists or other social scientists in your lifetime?

The reasons to change to the metric system are questionable at best.
Especially since the primary one seems to be appeasing folks that have some pseudo-intellectual inferiority complex about using a less graceful, but no less serviceable, system of measurements. Not you necessarily. You haven't really explained your reasoning other than the clue about the niceties of 400 meters.
Like most people, I suspect you just don't want to have to do the math.
Coward...

Where my reference to calendars trumps your reference to Esperanto is this: At the times referenced, almost the entire world, except for Russia and Greece and probably a small handful of others, was using the Gregorian calendar. Esperanto, in spite of its virtues as a language, has never been used by even 1/1000 of the world' s population and has never been the predominant language of any one country, let alone the entire world. In that sense, my reference to calendars is much more relevant.

I really don't think the US will truly go metric. Not in my lifetime, and I should still have a few decades left. However it is safe to say that the USA is more likely to truly embrace the metric system than to have even one country embrace Esperanto!

-- RWM

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"...It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED...."

I corrected your post to increase its accuracy.
Your argument considers prevalence of usage, the common support for metric conversion.
My argument considers validity of conversion. Since the debate stems from the failure of the US to convert, that's why you're stuck with me blathering on about the glory that is Esperanto.
I concur with your supposition re: US adoption of the metric system.
Other than sheer stubbornness, I believe the aforementioned cost involved to be the primary stumbling block.

I just saw an hour of my time flushed down the toilet, as the "ScaRatings" decided to log me off without warning me, or asking me if it was okay, sometime while I was creating one of the greatest posts ever on the "Try to Remember" thread. It was so good, that even Liljol would have liked it. So what do I do...? Should I just say screw it, and let the evil "ScaRatings" robot timer win, or should I foolishly spend another hour of my ever diminishing time to try to recreate it...?

Well, I've made my mind up. Seeing that my time these days ain't worth fecal material, I'm going to give it another shot.

Thank you for supporting me in my decision. I taped some of your responses:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un0s0NSsWNY

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"The game is afoot."

Years ago, when some of us were much younger, and the rest of you were not yet born, many pop songs created dances. The songs probably weren't all that great, and the dances that went with them were kind of goofy, but it was fun. Here's a list of a few of them:

"The Stroll" by the Diamonds
"The Twist" by Chubby Checker
"Mashed Potato Time" by Dee Dee Sharp
"Pony Time" by Chubby Checker
"C'ome on and Swim" by Bobby Freeman
"The Wanderer" by Dion
"The Fly" by Chubby Checker
"Loco-motion" by Little Eva
"Do the Freddie" by Freddie and the Dreamers
"The Bump" by Kenny
"Mickey's Monkey" by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles

Wanna see what some of those goofy dances looked like?

"The Loco-motion"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5OoQadZTPk
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"The Twist"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbK0C9AYMd8
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"C'mon and Swim"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBEwqQU5s_0
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"Do the Freddie"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGxDS10VAbg
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"Pony Time"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyaxcvHSyZY
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"The Stroll"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrGLNtZ0rEg
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"Mashed Potato Time"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQBKpV9emKc
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"The Fly"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8XBsNa8EwQ
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"Mickey's Monkey"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP5VaEm9 ... re=related
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Over the past 30 years I can only think of two song created dances. They would be "The Macarena" and "The Electric Slide". Admittedly that over the last 30 years I've been pretty old, and didn't go to many sock hops. If you younger guys know of song created dance fads that I'm unaware of please let me know.

p.s. You should all thank me for leaving "The Hokey Pokey" out.

(Belated edit: How did I ever miss "The Bristol Stomp" by the Dovells...?)

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"The game is afoot."

Sorry, Cloudy, I just couldn't resist:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjIMqfWDPC4



-- RWM

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"...It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED...."

Then I think you should start

The Esperanto Language Thread

(even if it does sort of sound like a thread that Cloudy would concoct.)

-- RWM

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"...It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED...."

ZOG, this is stuff worth banning you for, but seeing this ain't the banning thread, I'll give you a pass this time.

By the way, what dance was that? Can you do it? Is it one of those things, where you fall on your back and flip back and forth, while you spin around on the floor?

p.s. That really wasn't music was it? I've got to think that was a recording of someone's transmission going bad, with the garage mechanic telling you what was wrong with it, and what it's going to cost.

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"The game is afoot."

Only in a Burger King bathroom.

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"...It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED...."

Your Burger King bathroom comment prompted me to listen to that noise again. Son-of-a-gun, "Burger King bathroom" IS mentioned.

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"The game is afoot."

Did any of you ever play the game called "Capture the Flag"? This was a playground game that I played sometime in the mid 1950's. It was my favorite game back then. It wasn't a game with referees, and there was no adult supervision. Kids in the neighborhood just got together and played it in the summer, when there was no school, and we had the vacated school grounds to ourselves. I mention this because I don't believe kids play this game anymore, with the organized control kids have in the sports (games) they play today. It was a wonderful game, and I will tell you how we played it.

This is how:

We set up crude boundries marked by whatever junk we could find to deliniate the playing field, which was usually somewhere close to 20 yards wide and 50 yards long.

We drew a line in the dirt with a stick, dividing the playing field roughly in half. This separated the teams' attack and defend areas.

Each team would then position their flag (any piece of cloth that was handy) in the middle backside of their side of the field. (It was not allowed to be placed close to the out of bounds line.)

Once the game began players could run across the dividing line, and go after the opposing team's flag. However, once you crossed over the line to the opponents' side of the field, you were in jeopardy of being tagged by the other team.

If you got tagged by a defender after you crossed the line, you had to stay at the spot where you got tagged, and could not move again unless a teammate touched you to set you free to run again. (When the bad guys crossed the line to after your flag, you could tag them. You could not be tagged on the side of the field, where your flag was.)

If you were able to grab the opponents flag, you took off with it, dodging defenders, and sprinting to get it across the line to your side of the field. If you got across the line with the flag, your team won. (You were not allowed to throw the flag across the line, you had to have it in your possession and run it across.)

If you got tagged by a defender on your way with the flag, before you crossed the line, that was the new position of the opponents' flag, and you and it had to stay there, waiting for a teammate to touch you, and set you free to run again. (You could hand the flag off to a teammate when they touched you, if you thought they had a better chance of getting the flag across the line than you did.) (The defenders were never allowed to move their own flag.)

Actually, once you had possession of the opponent's flag, you could hand it off to any of your teammates whenever you wanted.

In gameplay, both teams had to be careful not to send everybody rushing for the opponent's flag, because that would leave them with no one to defend their own flag.

Almost always, (if not always) both teams would leave one of their players back standing next to their flag to defend it, which meant attackers had to be fast, and try to fake the person guarding the flag away from it, while a teammate snatched it up.

This was a great game for kids to play. It gave them lots of exercise. It tought them team play. It tought them how to think quickly on their own, and how to strategize on the run. Perhaps the best thing about it though was that there were no referees, and no grownups there to tell us what to do. We made our own calls, and when there was a disagreement, we worked it out, and the game went on...

p.s. I do not mean to suggest that organized sports with referees and adult supervision are wrong. Of course they aren't, but I think the days when kids got together on their own, and played games like "Capture the Flag", perhaps provided a better learning experience for young people for the life that was ahead of them.

p.p.s. I would love to hear if any of you other guys or gals ever played "Capture the Flag", or any other sandlot type games that seem to have faded into the past.

....................................................................

.................................................................................Good MORNING I'm going to bed.

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"The game is afoot."

Oh, I've played Capture the Flag, all right -- but the way Goddess intended

With fog machines, camo gear and paintball guns!

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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?

PENGWN, is this one of those grown up games that you have to pay money to play? One where a bunch of Navy Seals wannabes suit up, don goggles to protect them from being blinded by paint balls, and fight it out on a non-lethal course set up somewhere out in the boondocks. If so, please let me know, I would like to join your team. I'm a little old, but I think I can still shoot to kill, run on the attack, and know when it's time to hide. I would be honored to be a member of your fire team.

Semper Fi... Do or die...!

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"The game is afoot."

We played it in my neighborhood. We also played "Kick the Can" and a few other games I can't remeber the name of besides "Hide and seek". We also played several types of marble games and competative throwing spining tops games.

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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 thought I would hear from you about games we played, when we were young. If I read you right, I think you said that you and your buddies also played "Capture the Flag". If I'm correct, were the rules you played it by anything close to the rules we played it by?

I never got to play "Kick the Can", and don't know how that game went. I would like it, if you would tell me about the game.

I think we all played "Hide and Seek" back then, but you know what, I don't think my kids ever did. I guess that's my fault, because I didn't realize that the days of neighborhood kids getting together on their own to play these games was gone, and I never suggested any of the old games to them.

However, my buddies and I back in the 1950's didn't play these games because our parents taught us. The games we played were simply passed down from older neighborhood kids to younger ones, who showed up on the playground.

Again, I will say that the adult controlled sports that arose after we were kids may be a factor here.

p.s. We played mable games also. There is still a kid out there, who owes me several thousand marbles he lost to me, after going double or nothing and losing repeatedly, time after time, while we were in back of DeWitt Clinton elementary school during recess. I'm thinking that this is a debt, that is very unlikely that I will ever collect.

(Actually, I remember the last name of the kid, who still owes me thousands of marbles. It was Broderick.)

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"The game is afoot."

Whistle Pops are not a memory from my childhood. There wasn't any candy this cool, when I was a kid. However, I bought a lot of them for my kids in the 1980's. They could actually whistle tunes on them until they decided to crunch down on them, and gobble them up. I believe Whistle Pops have been discontinued, but you might still find some on eBay, if you're lucky...

p.s. If you find them on eBay, be sure to bid on the new ones instead of used.

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"The game is afoot."

If you play with the paintballs, then yeah, you've got to purchase your ammo, either rent or buy your weaponry and CO2, and book time at whatever farm or converted warehouse offers the sport. I can count on one hand the number of times I've played, owing to the expense, and the fact I'm usually the guy who suffers the most frags

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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 almost did, but I have never played it...

My good buddy at Merrill Lynch, Don Miller, who had been an Army officer in Nam, set a paintball game up for the office. I was ready to go, when I had some kind of conflict, and missed the shoot out. On Monday, when Don returned from his paintball combat, he told me, that if you showed up and rented a weapon, instead of showing up with your own that could hold a gazillion paint balls in its magazine and had a special barrel, you would soon be toast once the battle began.

Paintball wars in Canada...? I thought all of you Canucks became pacifists after World War II.

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"The game is afoot."

Did any of you old farts go to Sock Hops, when you were young...?

Yep, we had to take our shoes off, before we entered the gym.

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"The game is afoot."

Whistlepops were around in the 50's. This is one of those things that came and went over the years. I think that after a few weeks, the adults got driven nuts and demanded the store owners remove them. They were around for a while in the early 60's.

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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 guys, who grew up in Chicago, probably had fancier penny candy shops than we ever had in tiny Rome, NY, back in the 1950's. We NEVER saw whistlepops...!

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"The game is afoot."

We did get those paper sheets of tattoos at the penny candy store in Rome, NY, back in the 1950's though.

First you cut one off of the sheet. Then you licked your arm where you wanted it, and pressed it there with your free hand for about ten or fifteen seconds. When you pulled the paper off of your arm, and had a neat tattoo of skull and crossbones, or something neater, you would run home to see if you could make your mom think it was real.

I guess there are similar things out there today, but I would have to guess that they go for something more than the nickel we paid for those paper tattoo sheets back in the 1950's.

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"The game is afoot."