Wednesday Overnight Open Thread - October 8, 2025 [Autumn Rex]

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

Welcome to the Wednesday night ONT which means another random assortment of interweb debris. Pull up a chair and sit a spell. Be nice to your fellow commenters and AoS contributors.

[Top photo: Giles County Courthouse, Pearisburg, Virginia]

This wasn't me. Really.

Man caught on video stealing beloved dinosaur statue from LA gas station

A man was caught on surveillance video stealing a large dinosaur from a gas station in Brentwood.

The incident happened Saturday, Sept. 27 at a Sinclair gas station on 13060 San Vicente Blvd.

Video shows the man walking towards the green Apatosaurus and appears to unscrew it from the ground. He walks away then returns with a white tarp or blanket over his shoulder.

As he covers the dinosaur, a white pickup truck then pulls up besides him. The man then places the dinosaur into the pickup and gets into the passenger side as the vehicle drives off.

Update: Beloved dinosaur statue returned to LA gas station

A Sinclair gas station owner in Los Angeles is breathing a sigh of relief after a beloved fiberglass dinosaur statue was returned after being stolen late last month.

It's a crime that was so shocking, the owner said people were crying and even leaving flowers at the spot Claire the dinosaur stood.

The green Apatosaurus, named Claire, was returned after being stolen over a week ago. The dinosaur was covered in a blanket along with a note that read, "Sorry for stealing Claire! Please do not press charges!"

Related (but again, not me):

Five random bits of unverified (by me) Texas trivia found on the interweb:

1) El Paso is closer to California than to Dallas

2) The King Ranch in South Texas is larger than Rhode Island.

3) Dr Pepper was invented in Waco in 1885. There is no period in Dr Pepper.

4) The name "Texas" comes from the Hasini Indian word "tejas" meaning "friends." Tejas is NOT Spanish for Texas.

5) The first word spoken from the moon, July 20, 1969, was "Houston," but the NASA Space Center was actually in Clear Lake City at the time - just outside Houston limits. Clear Lake City was annexed by Houston in 1977.

Is there a mystery click behind this one?

Is there a mystery click behind this one?

Somewhat related tangential trivia.

We Finally Know How The Lights Switched on at The Dawn of Time

According to data from the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes, the origins of the free-flying photons in the early cosmic dawn were small dwarf galaxies that flared to life, clearing the fog of murky hydrogen that filled intergalactic space. A paper about the research was published in February 2024.

"This discovery unveils the crucial role played by ultra-faint galaxies in the early Universe's evolution," said astrophysicist Iryna Chemerynska of the Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris.

Do we trust the French to opine on free flying photo formulae?

Somehow, TRex made it this far thought life without seeing the early days of Snoopy's story. Shame, shame.

How the Beloved "Peanuts" Found Its Way to Define the Modern Comic Strip

In 1950, Schulz took a somewhat spiffed-up "Li'l Folks" to United Feature Syndicate for nationwide distribution. The group agreed to publish the strip, with one stipulation: The name had to change. "Li'l Folks" was deemed too similar to multiple existing newspaper strips, so the syndicate rebranded it "Peanuts," a reference to the peanut gallery on the "Howdy Doody Show," where boisterous little children sat. Though Schulz never liked the name and would harbor no small resentment of it for decades, the cartoonist nurtured "Peanuts" into one of the most successful comic strips in history.

How does Porsche test engines in development? This is not a new video, but first time for TRex. Instead of a standard engine dyno, this dynamic cradle replicates the g-force demands of the Nurburgring. One for the gearheads and engineers:

Public service announcement: Dolly Parton remains among the living.

Dolly Parton says, "I ain't dead yet!" after sister's call for prayers sparks worry about the singer's health

Good.

Bob Ross paintings to be auctioned to support public TV stations after federal funding cuts

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

Eliminator for the big ONT finish:

Written correspondence can be sent to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com. Reports of lost large scale dinos looking for homes are also welcome. Are you lurking ?? Thank you for your attention to this matter.

posted by Open Blogger at 10:00 PM

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