Random Thought Thread Part III: The Thinking

[zombie no.one]

^ What about a Jillion? "I just one like a jillion dollars!"

congrats...guess your bank account must now be embiggened to cromulent levels.

[Rev. Powell]

^ What about a Jillion? "I just one like a jillion dollars!"

congrats...guess your bank account must now be embiggened to cromulent levels.

More trivia: "cromulent" is in the Oxford English Dictionary. So is "jillion," but it doesn't count for Zombie's purposes because it's defined as a "large but indeterminate number." "Embiggen" has actually been listed as a word since 1884! It is perfectly cromulent after all!

[zombie no.one]

well Ive learn'd alot today...

[ER]

In the 1940s the projectionist at what is today called the Electric Theater, on Portobello Road, London, was serial slayer John Christie, who used to follow some of his victims home after a showing.

[Trevor]

In the 1940s the projectionist at what is today called the Electric Theater, on Portobello Road, London, was serial slayer John Christie, who used to follow some of his victims home after a showing.

Oy 😳😳

[ER]

After almost twenty-one years it's time I confessed something, and this is as good a place as any.

In 2004 my friend in Austin's cat went missing, or at least had gone roaming for several days, and she was worried about him but had a chance to go to an out of town music festival with her fiancé, so asked me if I would please come stay at her apartment that weekend so I could let the cat in if he came home. Since I had no house in Austin and was just staying with someone else down there, I said I would, packed up, went over, it was all good, whatever, when you're in your twenties such things add flavor to the fast food window of life.

It was in Rosewood, though, which is not in a good part of town at all, or at least wasn't then, though like half of Austin it's probably gentrified into seven-figures by now.

I was there the first night, nothing much went on at all, I slept on a futon, it was quiet, but then the next afternoon I was sitting in the living room watching some '80s movie with Patrick Swayze in it while a severe thunderstorm watch scrolled on the TV screen, and I thought, gee, just like back home. In the movie Patrick Swayze seemed to be in a gulag for some reason, sewing gloves for the Soviets, and in an act of All-American defiance he would sometimes sew the fingers closed so the gloves would be useless. Patrick Swayze was just cool that way, you know, after Red Dawn no Russians could push him around.

Well anyway, during a commercial break I started hearing loud voices outside, and after a few minutes finally went to look, only to see two twenty-something Mexican guys working on a car in the street itself beside where one of them apparently lived, half-consumed tall boys brazenly out in the open, several empties on the sidewalk, and the men were yelling at each other. The show came back on so I walked over to the futon I was sitting on and tried to watch it but the men got so loud in their Spanish-language shouting I went and looked again, just in time to see one man pick up some sort of wrench-like tool and smack the other man across the face with it, sending glistening blood down his cheek. Next thing I knew it was flying fists, screaming in a language I didn't much understand, and all-out efforts to do murder, by the look of it.

Someone must have called the police in response to the yelling before the fight broke out, because in seconds came first one, then two cruisers, out jumped cops from each, and at the head of the law enforcement phalanx was this black man about the size of a linebacker, who waded right into the fight and jerked the Mexican men apart, tossing one frontwards and one backwards, which was sort of fascinating to see, just the sheer strength of him being able to hurl a human body the distance these men went.

But then the Mexican man who had hit the other sprung up and threw a punch at the big black cop, connecting real hard against his arm, which he moved up just in time to keep from getting hit in the face, and like magic, like they'd risen straight from the earth itself, about six more Austin PD officers appeared and swarmed the scene, just flowed like a flood over the man who had punched the cop, but also grabbing the other man, and they slammed both of them right onto the street, just bam, way harder than was necessary.

People were coming out of their houses to see this, it was a big noisy, chaotic deal on an otherwise staid Saturday, and I admit I stood in the window and watched the whole thing too, including the men being arrested, and a tow truck for some reason hauling away the car they'd been working on, which scattered their tools all over from where they'd left them around the engine and propped hood, and some man, maybe connected to the Mexicans, maybe just an opportunist, eventually came out and picked up all the tools, but by then the cops and tow truck and car were gone, because one thing about this encounter was the response time by the authorities was fast, way faster than I think would have been the case back home, but then again, maybe they had a lot of units in the area, since it was such a high-crime neighborhood.

Anyway, by this point I'd missed so much of the Patrick Swayze movie I turned it off, and kind of sat doing not much of anything for a while, waiting to see if the cat came home, waiting to see if all my Saturday was going to consist of was me just sitting there, and in this state I saw my friend had a little squeeze bottle of hand sanitizer on her old, battered, probably 1970s-era coffee table, its surface scratched up and spattered with dried-on paint from long-ago art projects, and for some reason in my bored state I dribbled out a puddle of hand sanitizer about as big as a quarter onto the surface of the table, and using a toothpick that was there inside a plastic-wrapped sheath, I manipulated the hand sanitizer until it said HI, but it flowed a little more on the table's uneven surface and sort of became runic-looking, which amused me, so I left it there and pretty much forgot about it.

Weekend passed, remained quiet from then on, the cat never showed, and eventually after my friend came back and stayed home for the next week after I'd left, it was determined he never would, hopefully having found sweeter accommodations elsewhere in Austin, as cats will with their mercenary natures, but maybe ten days later my friend told me something strange happened and wondered if it was a sign (since she was new agey and believed in signs).

I asked what that was, and she said some strange symbols had spontaneously appeared on her coffee table, like they'd come from the wood itself, and it happened right when her cat vanished.

I said huh, really, catching on in the flash of light why the "symbols" were on the coffee table and wondering if she was trying to smoke me out into explaining how they happened, which I was contemplating doing, just coming clean about my accidentally marring her property with gelatinized rubbing alcohol and offering to pick her up a comparable thrift store table, but she just got excited and said yes, she couldn't make these symbols out but they were definitely symbols and meant something, and she wondered if it was a message that her cat was all right, whatever it was that had actually happened to him, be it car-related, dog-ish, an unfortunate one-way trip to a University of Texas research lab across town, or a nice new home with an adoring lesbian couple, perhaps.

I told her I was pulling for it being the last option on her list, but I didn't tell her the mystical runes were actually hand sanitizer that I'd stupidly let dissolve the varnish on her tabletop, and she came away from the episode with her convictions on otherworldly messages strengthened, which I figure was a win-win, since she got closure on her cat, and I didn't have to buy a new/old piece of furniture.

I haven't heard from her in almost eighteen years, but I wonder if she's still down there in Texas telling the story of her cat's spirit guides communicating to her from the astral plane?

You know, I really hope she is.

[Zapranoth]

Where do you come up with all this stuff, ER?   I'm visualizing virtual realms of nameless and hopelessly weird fanfic that you've generated in similar fashion over the years.

[LilCerberus]

Why is it, every time a scientist shoots a monster with a tranquilizer, it never works???
How come the monster never, like, gets stoned, or something???

[ER]

Where do you come up with all this stuff, ER?   I'm visualizing virtual realms of nameless and hopelessly weird fanfic that you've generated in similar fashion over the years.

Yeah, my favorite fanfic is Madam President. 

[Trevor]

Why is it, every time a scientist shoots a monster with a tranquilizer, it never works???
How come the monster never, like, gets stoned, or something???

In Men In Black 2, J attempts to stab a sewer monster and ends up jabbing himself with it instead 😳😉

[RCMerchant]

Why is it, every time a scientist shoots a monster with a tranquilizer, it never works???
How come the monster never, like, gets stoned, or something???

In Men In Black 2, J attempts to stab a sewer monster and ends up jabbing himself with it instead 😳😉

It worked in KING KONG (1933).

[Trevor]

Why is it, every time a scientist shoots a monster with a tranquilizer, it never works???
How come the monster never, like, gets stoned, or something???

In Men In Black 2, J attempts to stab a sewer monster and ends up jabbing himself with it instead 😳😉

It worked in KING KONG (1933).

😄😊😊😉

[zombie no.one]

youtube got rid of their 'thumbs down' counter a while back, but today I can't see any video's 'thumbs up' counter either?

can any of you guys? the thumbs icons are still there, just no numbers for likes now...

[Rev. Powell]

Thumbs up counter displays as always for me.

Thumbs down counter works, by the way, it just doesn't display the numbers to regular viewers, probably to discourage trolls from organize downvote campaigns on particular videos. Creators can figure out the downvotes indirectly (you can see the number of upvotes, and they tell you the percentage of people who upvote it, so you can do the arithmetic.)

[zombie no.one]

yeah I'm aware of all that... just can't see any counter by the 'thumbs up' icon on any vids today... it's still like it now. weird!