Tessera
Folgen

Brian Smith

@onemorebrian.bsky.social

Newspaper editor; fan of Peanuts and Pac-Man; pessimistic optimist ("The glass SHOULD be half full, but somebody probably drank it already").

761 Posts291 Follower413 Folgt
Brian Smith@onemorebrian.bsky.social · 2w ago

Today I somehow thought of both "The Phantom Menace" and "Futurama," and my brain spat out, "Now, Viceroy, we will discuss a NEW treaty! With blackjack! And hookers!" ...is that anything? It doesn't feel like it's anything

Brian Smith@onemorebrian.bsky.social · last mo.

Almost 16 months ago, I pulled out my giant book of DVDs burned from shows I'd first recorded on VHS or DVR, uploaded this one segment to YouTube, and wrote what will almost certainly be the most popular post I'll ever make here.

Brian Smith@onemorebrian.bsky.social · last yr.

FINALLY, my unwillingness to delete time-shifted standard-definition "Cartoon Planet" episodes off my TiVo, eventually requiring me to burn them to DVDs because I saved so many, has PAID OFF:

Brian Smith@onemorebrian.bsky.social · last mo.

From roughly 1981 until November 2018, I believed my granddad when he told me that visors were placed over traffic signals so that the lights weren't visible from above, thereby preventing enemy planes and satellites from figuring out American traffic patterns.

Josh Fruhlinger@jfruh.bsky.social · last mo.

just remembered that when i was in grade school another kid told me that the ball at the top of every flagpole was hollow and had razor blades in it, and if the russians invaded you were supposed to climb up and use the razor blades to destroy the flag so it couldn't be captured

Brian Smith@onemorebrian.bsky.social · 4mo ago

ME IN GENERAL: "Ha ha! Kids today, they don't know about the now-obsolete technology of my youth, and that makes them worthy of contempt!" ME LOOKING AT THIS "NANCY" PUBLISHED ALMOST A DECADE BEFORE I WAS BORN: "...I genuinely have no idea what's happening here."

A four-panel "Nancy" from Oct. 21, 1963: Panel 1: Nancy: "Can I put the money in the meter?" Aunt Fritzi, wearing gloves and a pillbox hat because they're in the big city in 1963: "Okay, dear" Panel 2: Nancy puts the money in the parking meter and turns the crank. Panel 3: Nancy is delighted that a strip of paper comes out. Panel 4: Nancy: "Look --- the city has started giving trading stamps" Aunt Fritzi's eyes are wide, and she's got those three surprise drops over her head, like she's just one unexpected development away from falling backwards.
Brian Smith@onemorebrian.bsky.social · 6mo ago

When all the Bernie Madoff stuff was coming out 17 years ago, some internet-famous guy told his fans to stop calling it a "Ponzi scheme" because that "sounds like a Muppet." "Just call it a pyramid scheme!", he said! And the commentariat rose up, and they loudly taught him the difference.

Ryan North@ryannorth.ca · 6mo ago

imagine being so good at a crime that they actually rename the crime after you, like if you were so great at doing murders nobody called it "getting murdered" anymore but instead called it "getting [your name]d." For Charles Ponzi, this is no mere hypothetical

Brian Smith@onemorebrian.bsky.social · 7mo ago

I love this almost-4-year-old image because it make me think about what Norman Rockwell might have done differently, what other elements he might have introduced...but mostly, I love it because it's a friggin' PHOTOGRAPH OF REAL LIFE that somehow looks to me like a Norman Rockwell painting.

Weston Whitman,5, sits in the Blue Dome District in Tulsa, Okla., as his mom and sisters (not shown) talk with someone on St. Patrick's Day Thursday, March 17, 2022. (Mike Simons/Tulsa World via AP)
Semiotic Stochastic, purveyor of sick beats@mitdasein.bsky.social · 7mo ago

"I dare anyone who says Norman Rockwell was a bad artist to reproduce a single detail of this painting. You may not like his art — and this is, of course, your right — but I think his technique is impeccable."

Norman Rockwell painting of a guy standing to speak