Wednesday Overnight Open Thread - December 10, 2025 [Frosty Rex]

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

Welcome to the Wednesday night ONT which means another edition of overnight fun and games. Pull up a chair and sit a spell. Good will offerings of amusing puns are happily accepted. Pants are optional. Be nice to your fellow commenters and AoS contributors.

"This is easy to understand. Doof has Thursday night, Weird Dave does memes on Friday night (but he used to do Thursday night), Doof (also known as Disco) posts on Sunday night with posting stats and a fashion report from Piper, TRex (also known a Dino) has the Pittsburgh scanner on Wednesdays, Doof has Tuesday night (formerly done by Doggo), the three D's (Disco, Dino and Doggo) host Club ONT on Saturday (which is now is open from time to time with a limited menu in other ONTs upon request), and Monday is a rotation between MisHum (who used to do ONTs five nights a week) and CBD. Launch times are predictable unless they're not. Got it?"

Wednesday ONT Department of Fine Art

This is the Winter Egg, commissioned by Emperor Nicholas II from the firm of Faberge, and presented to his mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, on Easter Day, 1913.

The naturalistic design is not the only outstanding thing about this egg. The approach to materials, too, is rare and peculiarly timeless. Rock crystal, from which the shell and the base are made, is not the most lavish choice - and it had been used in previous eggs to create a kind of ovoid display case. But the Winter Egg is different. Transparent quartz is deployed here, because in the right hands it can be made to emulate both hoar-encrusted glass and jagged ice. A beautiful material has been rendered priceless by the artistry invested in it, by an ineffable human touch.

There are, of course, plenty of precious metals and gems in the egg, too - but always they serve the design. The trickling meltwater on the craggy base is made of platinum, while the sparkling effect of the whole ensemble is produced by the careful placement of minuscule diamonds, more than 4,000 of them in all.

The surprise inside the egg is a separate work of art, and also a feat of botanical mimicry. The wood anemones are arranged informally in a woven basket that is made of platinum and set with rose-cut diamonds. Some of the windflowers - as wood anemones are also known - are fully in bloom, some still half-closed. Their pale petals are of white quartz, and at the centre of each head is a demantoid garnet set within a gold stamen. The leaves on the golden stems are carved from pale green nephrite. Source: Christies

One of 50 made. Only 43 survive.

Sold at auction recently for USD$30.2 million. Where are you going to find another one for sale?

The Wednesday ONT has no time for hidden musical themes. Just turn the volume up:

Some days are better than others...

Jesus will be at the Club ONT Christmas party on Saturday. Will you? Don't miss it and get a mark on your permanent record.

ONT Department of Military History

On November 4, 1965, CDR Clarence W. Stoddard, Jr., Executive Officer of VA-25 "Fist of the Fleet," flying A-1H Skyraider Bu. No. 135297, NE/572, from Carrier Air Wing Two aboard USS Midway, carried a special bomb to the North Vietnamese in commemoration of the 6-millionth pound of ordnance dropped. This bomb was unique because of the type... it was a toilet!

Also unique to this mission is the fact that this aircraft was named "Paper Tiger II" (a temporary name used for just this one flight.)

The following is an account of this event, courtesy of Clint Johnson, Captain, USNR Ret. Captain Johnson was one of the two VA-25 A-1 Skyraider pilots credited with shooting down a MiG-17 on June 20, 1965.

"I was a pilot in VA-25 on the 1965 Vietnam cruise.

572 was flown by CDR C. W. "Bill" Stoddard. His wingman in 577 (which was my assigned airplane) was LCDR Robin Bacon, who had a wing station mounted movie camera (the only one remaining in the fleet from WWII.)

The flight was a Dixie Station strike (South Vietnam) going to the Delta. When they arrived in the target area and CDR Stoddard was reading the ordnance list to the FAC [Forward Air Controller], he ended with "and one code name Sani-Flush." The FAC couldn't believe it and joined up to see it. It was dropped in a dive with LCDR Bacon flying tight wing position to film the drop. When it came off, it turned hole to the wind and almost struck his airplane. It made a great ready room movie.

The FAC said that it whistled all the way down.

The toilet was a damaged toilet, which was going to be thrown overboard. One of our plane captains rescued it and the ordnance crew made a rack, tailfins and nose fuse for it. Our checkers maintained a position to block the view of the air boss and the Captain while the aircraft was taxiing forward. Just as it was being shot off we got a 1MC message from the bridge, "What the hell was on 572's right wing?"

There were a lot of jokes with air intelligence about germ warfare. I wish that we had saved the movie film. CDR Stoddard was later killed while flying 572 in Oct. 1966. He was hit by three SAMs over Vinh." Source

Bonus points if you know why an "E" was added to the toilet bomb.

ONT Department of History and Languages

Hat tip: OrangeEnt

REMINDER

Saturday's Hobby Thread requires Horde participation. We are honoring the Christmas ornament. Please send photos of ornaments from your collection to the Hobby Thread email address. What qualifies?

Could be something sentimental, something you made as a child or an adult, something special given to you, something you picked up on your travels, something whimsical or fun, something particularly novel, something really old, something handmade, something intricate or fancy, something irreverent and cheeky, etc.

Don't worry about sending your "favorite." We all know that many ornaments are treasures for different reasons.

If there is a story behind your photo, send a brief description. I may edit or inappropriately embellish, so be warned.

Send individual photos - one ornament for each photo (unless there is a cohesive set that go together). No limit, but the humble Hobby Thread only has so much space to work with.

If you don't usually drop into the Hobby Thread, this weekend would be a good time to stop by and say hello. It is going to be fun.

THANK YOU!

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was from Chicago? Apparently so.

From Wikipedia:

Robert L. May created Rudolph in 1939 as an assignment for Chicago-based Montgomery Ward. The retailer had been buying and giving away booklets for Christmas every year and it was decided that creating their own book would save money. May considered naming the reindeer Rollo or Reginald before deciding upon using the name Rudolph. May chose a reindeer because of his daughter's love of the deer at Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, IL. May also said he was treated like Rudolph as a child. In its first year of publication, Montgomery Ward distributed 2.4 million copies of Rudolph's story.

While May was staring out his office window in downtown Chicago, pondering how best to craft a Christmas story about a reindeer, a thick fog from Lake Michigan blocked his view - giving him a flash of inspiration. "Suddenly I had it!" he recalled. "A nose! A bright red nose that would shine through fog like a spotlight."

You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen
Comet and Cupid and and Donner and Blitzen
But do you recall the most famous reindeer of all - LEROY!!!

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

TSO for the big ONT finish.

Amazing that TSO started as a side project from Savatage. Songs like Prelude to Madness are thinly disguised orchestra metal. Warning: 80s Savatage isn't for everyone. Take in small doses.

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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