Wednesday Overnight Open Thread - July 23, 2025 [TRex]

Good evening Horde. The time has come for mid-week shenanigans of the overnight variety.

Welcome to the Wednesday night ONT. Pull up a chair and sit a spell. Be nice to your fellow commenters and AoS contributors.

While Ozzy is gone, be thankful that his passing purged our collective social media streams of Coldplay memes and comments.

I feel seen.

Sorry, Alamo museum. You have one job - and that doesn't involve Pee-wee or his big adventure.

The Alamo acquires original bike from "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" Pee-wee Hermann's bike will be permanently displayed in the Alamo Visitor Center and Museum when it opens in 2027.

The bike went up for auction in May. It was sold to a private collector for $125,000, though it was originally expected to sell for between $30,000 and $60,000.

I don't care if there is a basement joke involved. Get off my lawn.

On the other hand, Phil Collins is a well-known Alamo collector and honorary Texan. Unfortunately, he's taken ribbing and disdain from the media and others at times (like Rolling Stone - shocker!) for his Alamo hobby.

Come and Take a Look at Me Now - written in 2012 before he donated his massive collection of over 400 artifacts to the Alamo museum

"We'd sit in Jim's shop, and he'd say, 'You know, nobody's ever dug here. They put electricity in and some sewer lines, but there was never a proper dig.' And it's just across from the north wall, the site of the bloodiest fighting. Well, Jim only rented the space, so I made arrangements to get him the building."

"Wait, wait, wait," I interrupted. "You 'made some arrangements'?"

"Well, I gave him the money to buy it. And then we dug-"

"Wait, wait, wait. You 'dug'? You mean you just put up a Closed sign and dug through the floor?"

"Exactly. We boarded up the place, moved his shop next door, and started digging. And we found loads of stuff! Flattened cannonballs that had bounced off the wall, cannon handles, personal effects like buttons and buckles, knives, hundreds of horseshoes."

Generosity Beyond Compare

Collins fell in love with the Alamo's inspiring story as a 5-year-old boy, when he saw the Disney production of Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier. When other children were out playing cops and robbers or other childhood games, Collins says that he was re-enacting the Battle of the Alamo.

I hesitate to include anything from CBS "News" on this sacred corner of the interweb, but many among the Horde will enjoy this:

Hat tip: Don Jr.

Facepalm:

California legislation would fine stores for theft of their shopping carts

Under current law, cities can only charge businesses $50 for each shopping cart found and retrieved by the city off of the businesses' property after the first three violations within a six-month period, or for failing to pick up retrieved carts within three business days.

Shopping carts also currently have to be held for 30 days before the city disposes of them, which bill author state Sen. Dave Cortese, D-San Jose, said creates a nuisance for cities. Cortese's bill would authorize cities to return the carts to businesses, and charge the businesses up to $500 for the service of returning each cart and up to an additional $150 in fines.

ONT request: the Horde knows many things, so let's try a question. Are there credible resources available that compare the brands of gasoline? We all have our favorite brands, but my sense is that most people buy gas based on price and convenience.

But is the Shell Super V-power really any different than the Bucee's premium or Costco/Kirkland gas? Setting aside differences of octane, individual state regulations (thank you California) or seasonal blends, is there really any difference between gasoline brands?

There is a thing called Top Tier" gas which involves added detergents and additives. That criteria at least makes a difference between "Top Tier" brands and other brands.

Found this which is modestly helpful but doesn't answer all the questions.Top Tier Gasoline Is Worth the Extra Price, Study Shows For what its worth, Costco shows as Top Tier gas but not Bucee's or Love's.

But is there really a difference between "Top Tier" brands?

Are there good interweb resources?

It is sharkweek, right? Hard to imagine this has over 16 BILLION views but here we are.

I can't believe that I just learned this bit of historical trivia: Dr. Seuss (aka Theodore Geisel) wrote "Green Eggs and Ham" on $50 bet with his publisher to write a book using 50 or fewer unique words. His publisher never paid, but "Green Eggs and Ham" became the best selling Dr. Seuss book. Source

Geisel's first successful children's book, Cat in the Hat, also was the result of a challenge to write a book in under a certain number of words.

At the time, children were reading primers like "Fun with Dick and Jane," which are anything but fun and don't inspire kids to want to read outside of what they are required.

As a response to this, William Spaulding, director of Houghton Mifflin's educational division, challenged Geisel to "write a story that first-graders can't put down" and asked that it be limited to 225 distinct words from a list of 348 words that were selected from a standard first grader's vocabulary list.

Geisel nearly succeeded, using 236 unique words in the story, though the endeavor took him nine months largely due to the word restriction.

The original story itself was supposed to be about a King cat and a Queen cat, but "queen" wasn't on the list of acceptable words. Geisel then looked through the list of words and spotted "hat," which obviously rhymed with "cat," so decided to make a story out of that instead.

Bonus trivia:

Geisel first used the pen name "Seuss" in college after being removed as the editor of the Dartmouth College's humor magazine "Jack-O-Lantern" and being banned from writing for that magazine due to being caught drinking by the dean in 1925. He subsequently started publishing under various pen names, including T. Seuss. Two years later, he adopted "Dr. Theophrastus Seuss," which subsequently was shortened to "Dr. Seuss" by 1928.

Along with advertising and writing children's books, Geisel also wrote over 400 political cartoons, between 1941 and 1943 while working for the New York City daily newspaper.

I don't *think* this is a bit but not entirely sure:

Women's Pro Baseball League to hold tryouts at Nationals Park

The Women's Professional Baseball League will hold tryouts next month at the Washington Nationals' home ballpark as it moves closer to its launch.

The league is aiming to play its first season with six teams starting in spring 2026. The tryouts, which will be held Aug. 22-25, will determine the 150 players who will be invited to the league's draft in October.

As it nears its launch, the WPBL has already struck a media deal with Fremantle, the production company behind shows like "The Price Is Right" and "Family Feud," and brought in global women's sports investor Assia Grazioli-Venier as its chair.

As a Yinzer, I have to admit that they can't be worse than the Pirates...

The Pittsburgh Police Scanner:

The Pittsburgh police scanner keeps giving. Thank you people of Pittsburgh!

Turn it up. Boston for the big ONT finish:

Bonus: Rick Beato explains What Makes This Song Great?

Disclaimer: Dropkick Murphy's "Shipping up to Boston" was among the musical candidates for the ONT. After stumbling onto a recent video clip of their commentary from the stage regarding MAGA, they were excluded. Unfortunate.

This ONT is hereby declassified. Written correspondence can be sent to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com. Are you lurking ?? Thank you for your attention to this matter.

posted by Open Blogger at 10:00 PM

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