Wednesday Night ONT - October 21, 2026 [TRex]

Good evening Horde! The time has come for mid-week shenanigans of the overnight variety. The bar is open and fully stocked. Step up and place your order.

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

If you're a troll, go away.

This is a Tucker, Candace, Megyn, and Bill Kristol free zone. Please.

[Top photo: The Walk Toward the Thousand Yard Range]

ONT Shopping Guide

Am I the last to learn that Goodyear Blimp tires are sold online?

ONT X activity monitor

Spotted on the TSA X account recently:

ONT Department of Dino Nostalgia

Wow. July 1964 magazine cover.

Mandatory Metallica

Heavy metal songs with bell chimes are cool. Pretty sure that's in the rules somewhere. For Whom the Bell Tolls is a great example. Also a great demonstration of bass guitar carrying the weight of a song. Cliff Burton reportedly had the opening riff before joining Metallica. It took Cliff, James and Lars to refine and develop the riff into a complete song.

Niche YouTube Channel of the Week

Tonight's feature is a YouTube channel called Hand Tool Rescue. A recurring theme of this feature is my endless fascination that a relatively niche interest - if done well - can find and sustain an audience. Tonight's channel is a great example. It is a YouTube channel dedicated to showing restorations of hand tools. That's it.

Looking for a video showing restoration of an antique vise, an old metal lathe, hand plane, nail gun, hammer drill, safe, chainsaw, lawnmower, coffee mill, belt sander, paint sprayer, soviet chain mortiser, and more? This is your place. The restorations themselves are well done and fascinating to watch. The subject matter is even better because many tools are antiques and rarities that you may never have heard of or seen before. Yes, it is almost educational.

Most videos are about 25 minutes. The channel has over 1.2 million subscribers and popular videos often attract millions of views. How are there 8.3 million views of a 1920s Maytag washing machine engine? Maybe tool repair and rescue is a modern resurrection story? The channel is about nine years old and there are plenty of older videos worth watching.

I selected this video as an example mostly because the tool looks like something from a horror movie. It is a longer video, so bookmark and play back later.

Mini Rant: How much do you think adult mission costs for the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville? Standard, basic, no-frills, no extras, no guided tours, no shows, no souvenirs, no ticketing fees, no credit card fees, no taxes, no discounts, etc.

Guess. I'll wait.

$32. Really? I understand that they need to pay all the expenses to keep it operating and keep the lights on and they are entitled to ask for any price they can get, but $32 per adult?

Surely that must be an outlier, right? Not so fast my friend. NASCAR charges $29, baseball charges $35, and football charges $45.45 (before taxes and fees). Yikes.

As long as there is sufficient demand at the price point, there is zero incentive to charge less. There is only one hall of fame for each flavor.

In terms of entertainment, I may be interested but not at any price point. However, I always have the choice of "none of the above." This isn't a rant about how everything used to cost less or a dissertation on inflation.

Three questions:

1) Shouldn't a hall of fame be a love letter from the sport or hobby to the fan base? Shouldn't the purpose be to deepen the relationship? Shouldn't the mission be different than any other entertainment alternative? Shouldn't the objective to get as many people through the doors as possible?

2) Our mental model is often to ask ourselves what we would be willing to pay before we see what the venue is charging. That way, we gauge our interest level and budget independent of what the venue posts as an admission price. Do others do this? (If you come up with a price but don't honor it, then you need to re-calibrate your process for coming up with your price to give it more credibility.)

3) Do most visitors pay the full admission charge? Are there such a large amount of discounts, tour group packages, hotel packages, etc. that most don't pay the stated rate? Do most not expect most to pay the "regular" admission price? If some walk-ins are willing to pay the full rate, that's a welcome bonus but is the full rate is irrelevant for most which makes a visit more viable? Or are there just many people willing to pay the full admission?

Pittsburgh Scanner

The Pittsburgh police scanner is an internet treasure. Thank you people of Pittsburgh and thank you Pittsburgh scanner!

Charlie Daniels for the big ONT finish:

To the best of my knowledge, I did not marry a sibling to get this gig. Correspondence can be sent to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com where it will be sorted and processed and filed. Are you lurking ????

posted by Open Blogger at 10:00 PM

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