In my life I have visited Valley Forge countless times but one day it struck me that none of those visits had been in the Winter, and Winter is at the heart of the story of the place. Having decided to make my first Winter visit, I nonetheless kept putting it off until Winter lifted and I had missed my chance. Then I waited for next Winter and then Winter came and I continued to put it off.
But when it came to the point where George Washington's birthday was coming up on Saturday, I had to pull the trigger. Visiting in the Winter on George Washington's birthday was too fitting. So I visited Valley Forge and, for the first time, visited George Washington's headquarters. The people there tell me the wood railing on the stairs is still original so I've now used a railing that George Washington also used.
Aside from visiting in the Winter and honoring the birthday, my other goal was to see the powder horn of Jabez Rockwell. I did a few laps around the museum and didn't see it. When I asked the Park Rangers where it was, they looked at me like I had two heads. No one knew where it was and so that objective ultimately failed. Turning to AI to locate it, it seems to be one of those cases where you get a completely confident answers that are nonetheless completely wrong. One AI answer does tell me this though:
The horn maintains an honored place within the historic collections of Valley Forge National Historical Park.
Oh, does it? Ok, show me. Searching for the horn on the park's website doesn't even return any results. A famous artifact that's nowhere to be seen and not worth mentioning? A "National Treasure" level heist is afoot.
So the final twist of this story is that the Park Rangers actually gave me contact info in case I want to actually call some people up to track this mystery further. Very strange. I may be enough of a loser to do that.
If you'd like to read the story of George Washington, Jabez Rockwell and his powder horn, you can do that here.
I always assumed that there was something I was missing about the Super Mario Bros 3 sliding picture game - I was sure there was a skill or "trick" to it, but I never figured out what that trick was. The following video goes pretty deep into NES programming, it's not going to be for everyone, but the point is: there is no skill or trick that would guarantee success. It was frustrating because it was always down to blind luck.
A while back, I shared a video which claimed to have cracked the code on movie theater popcorn at home and I teased that I would try the experiment myself. I have done so and can now report back from the field.
First off, using Amazon and area grocery stores I was able to obtain the recommended elements. Here is my own photo as proof.
It works. The result tastes exactly like movie theater popcorn in my opinion. In order to be authoritative, I would like to have tried other methods and recipes to determine a ranking but I have not done that so all I can say is this is as authentically movie theater popcorn as I can imagine any popcorn being.
Jeers to the original video for not giving ingredient measurements. Yes, everyone is going to need to figure it out according to their own tastes but that's going to happen anyway, you might as well give a starting point. You can keep adding more coconut oil until it's enough, so that's easy, but I overdid the Flavacol and paid the price. So for that I will pass on to you: 1/3 to 1/2 of a tablespoon.
The video mentions using 4 test kernels and waiting until all 4 have popped before adding the rest. It's a small moment in the video but a very important point: wait until all 4 have popped. I lifted the lid and got a kernel pop as I was working with it. The result was a spray pattern of oil on the wall and myself and probably other places that I just haven't found yet. Wait until all 4 have popped.
Part of the movie theater experience is the fake butter chemicals. For the video, I believe that's the "Popping and Topping Oil" that is covered briefly. I love the fake butter chemicals and would have liked to evaluate that as well but here my completionist tendencies butted head-on against my sense of trying not to eat like an absolute madman and I excluded that aspect as overkill. A future consideration perhaps; if you try it, you let me know.
One of the ingredients that he recommends (and I bought) was the "Movie Theater Butter Salt." That seems unnecessary to me. It's salt and the Flavacol is salt, so why both? Well, you might find at the end it needs more salt, but in that case, why not add more Flavacol? I say you can exclude this item but there may be a nuance I'm missing. Dunno.
Are you like me, are you horrified by a giant orange vat and a substance called Flavacol? What are we talking about here? Well, here are the ingredients.
Snappy Popcorn Colored Coconut Oil - Coconut oil and beta carotene. So that's actually, surprisingly, not horrifying.
Flavacol - Salt, natural flavors, artificial flavors, dyes. Hmm, so that's not actually horrifying either.
Popping and Topping Oil - Soybean oil, artificial flavor, beta carotene - Don't need more seed oils but not horrifying in the grand scheme of things.
Surprising result! Did not expect that.
The particular point of relish for me is the writing. Oh man, the writing. When is the last time you read (or heard) anything like this:
"It was under the hot summer sun of Camp Swamp Fox where the Eagles began to tread their comeback road, a path paved with a back-to-basics brand of fundamental football. The enthusiasm of assistant coaches... spread through the Eagles camp. There was an air of optimism filtering through the August heat. It sent the Eagles sailing through three pre-season victories and in September, it carried them to San Francisco's Candlestick Park where the 49ers' plans for a happy home opener were ambushed." - 1983
Or, consider the intro for the 1989 season:
"There are moments in a lifetime which defy explanation, moments when the natural becomes supernatural and mere words cannot do justice to a man's deeds- deeds which spring from desperate circumstances."
There was one particular phrase that leaped from my screen and captured my imagination. It was from the 1991 season recap:
"It was more grit than glitter, more spit than polish and it was the Eagles who sparkled."
I marveled and wondered, has professional writing deteriorated this much that, just a generation ago, we were getting this sterling quality from a football video? I couldn't comprehend it, except I considered maybe phrases like these were available cliches, plucked out of the ether of the time and since-forgotten. Then, as I progressed through further seasons the shroud of mystery lifted:
1992 - "Even for a defense long established as more grit than glitter, more spit than polish..."
1994 - "Zordich was the classic strong safety - more grit than glitter, more spit than polish."
1995 - "They were more grit than glitter, more spit than polish; most of all, they were winners."
1996 - "And while Ricky Watters projected flash and dazzle, he was really more spit than polish, more grit than glitter."
1997 - "And Michael Zordich, the rugged safety who's more grit than glitter, more spit than polish."
Ok, so yeah, they have their saved templates, sticking them in when needed. It is still an admirable style. Even if there are cliches, they are wonderful cliches.
It seems to me, the end of this classic writing style of the Golden Era coincides with the end of the 1990's when Pat Summerall takes over as narrator. Around this time, the narration is akin to the list of events you'll see written in a newspaper rather than the dime store novel panache of the past. It's prose rather than poetry, literal rather than literary. Ornate oratory was found old-fashioned, the mechanical was modern. The soaring spirit was discarded and faded - moving onward rather than forward, advance without ascension.
Yes, but NFL Films after that are still pretty great, though.
One of the goofy but endearing idiosyncrasies of the NFL Films season recaps is that they all end with victory. If a team wins the Championship, that's obviously a victory. If a team loses in the playoffs,it's a success and they've established that they're one of the elite teams in the NFL. If a team doesn't make the playoffs, they showed the heart of a champion. If a team only wins 3 games, they showed their courage and character through the adversity and never gave up. If every member of the team gets injured in the first game and they go 0-16, well, we look forward to next year when the players will be back and the ship will be righted. Every team for every season is victorious, either by actual victory or moral victory or looking ahead to a bright future. The narrative can never be: the team just stinks and watching them is a waste of time; the narrative is always: your team is bound for ever-increasing glory, glory, GLORY.
I completely missed the whole Barstool Sports thing. I never saw a second of it in my life, I never heard about it until recently I noticed a pattern where a bunch of the podcasts I listen to say they either love Barstool Sports or were even inspired by Barstool Sports.
Then concurrent to that, "One Bite Pizza Reviews" starts getting recommended to me. This show is hosted by the leader/owner/something of Barstool. I click, I find I don't particularly like it, then I click again, I'm not impressed, then I click again and again.
At some point you have to recognize that there's something here. I don't know what but something.
Super Bowl 39 took place in 2005 and was the Philadelphia Eagles vs. New England Patriots. Being a huge Eagles fan, and Super Bowl 39 being the first Super Bowl the Eagles played in the era where I was conscious, Super Bowl 39 was a huge deal for me. And for that reason, it's very strange that I don't remember hardly anything about it - no plays, no moments, not a general outline of what happened - but the one thing I do remember never happened.
I was mostly happy to not remember anything from the game, it was a painful memory, who revisits the big losses? But I was bothered enough by it and thought that enough time had passed that I decided to re-watch the game today.
First off, it now seems understandable that I didn't remember. Despite being one of the closest Super Bowl games of all time, it's not a particularly good or memorable game. Both offenses start off slow and then get into a better rhythm but somehow the game lacks drama. But eventually, with 5 minutes to go, the Eagles are down by 10 points with possession of the ball, "looking" to make a comeback. At least, in theory. In actuality they are in no hurry to do anything, they appear to be unaware that they're playing the game of football and the point of football is to win. It may be the worst clock management in the history of football and it just so happens to be at the end of a Super Bowl. The Eagles lose by a field goal.
At the epicenter of the Eagles loafing around was the quarterback, Donovan McNabb. Whether he was out of gas, hungover or ill is a matter of controversy to this day, but no one can tell me something wasn't wrong. And, in fact, this brings me to the one thing I remember most distinctly from watching the game live: watching McNabb vomit on live TV. His sickness was probably the difference maker in the Super Bowl and so people have wondered about the cause ever since. And when asked about it, McNabb denied that he ever vomited at all - ludicrous, I saw it, I know what I saw.
Except it never happened. At least it appears that way. Re-watching the game, there is no point where McNabb vomits. Yes, he looks ill, yes he's lethargic in his movement, yes some of his teammates claim he vomited, all the circumstantial evidence supports him being sick, but the point is that the thing that I was sure I remembered seeing on TV in the live broadcast is nowhere to be found in the live broadcast. It was a completely false memory.
Unless someone has gone back and edited the video, that just doesn't exist and never did.
So that's super strange and I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around this reality. I guess that's it. Apologies for the structure and content of this post, I couldn't get it right. This "writing" mirrors the performance of the Eagles' in that fateful game and there's no fixing either.
Here's a photo of the car Princess Diana was in during her fatal car crash.
The last remaining member of The Band, Garth Hudson, has passed away at 87.
Here is The Band (sans Robbie and Richard) performing on Late Show with the CBS Orchestra.
"Impressions" is a new game show where Rich, Josh (the new Josh) and Jay compete to see who is the best impressionist.
The key here is that the required impressions are randomized.... randomized.
It's interesting to note that Josh was Geoff, the robotic side-kick of Craig Ferguson.
Stay tuned until the end.
I've heard of "The Gout" for most of my life, here and there, and I have to admit I had no idea what it referred to. So I found this history and description of the ailment interesting.
I have to say, I suspect there's something still out there that I'm missing. Gout attacks people who eat rich foods (and alcohol) but isn't 2025 America is eating more richly than any of the aristocracy of history? Shouldn't gout be epidemic today? An internet search tells me gout affects 3.9% of the U.S, which isn't great, but isn't as high as I would expect.
Bob Uecker has passed away and the Late Show has done its usual thing of releasing a video for them.
This one begins with Norm MacDonald telling a Bob Uecker story. I have no idea what is bleeped.
Revisiting Arcade Fire's performance of "Neighborhood #2 (Laika)" on Conan. Of all the musical performances on Conan's "Late Night," this is my #2 all-time*. Perhaps I'm too easily impressed by chaotic percussionists and cute violinists. You decide.
Having loved this version, I listened to, and was disappointed by, the album version. The main key is this version's Talking Heads style vocals vs. the album version's distant bullhorn vocals. Plus, this has the live energy. The good news though is that the rest of the album is superb.
In 1957 the Russian space program launched a stray dog into space with no possibility of return. The dog's name was Laika.
* - In case you're interested, #1 was posted 8 years ago.
First a summary of events from the Yacht or Nyacht Podcast(s) and then a personal anecdote.
On the Beyond Yacht Rock Podcast, Episode 99, they're listening to audience suggestions to determine, officially, whether the song is Yacht Rock. The suggestion is "Can't Stop Runnin'" by Roby Duke (above). The deck is stacked against it. They are decidedly anti-Christian and isn't Christian rock always lame? To top it off, the cover of the album, a photo of Roby himself, looks like this:
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| Rock Star. |
And now a personal anecdote.
When I was a young teen, this one singer would sometimes visit my church to do concerts and/or lead the music in the service. I always especially enjoyed when he would make an appearance because he had such a relaxed, casual, somewhat goofy style. He was constantly talking, telling stories and making jokes, even at the expense of the music, if need be. He was like 60% singer with an acoustic guitar, 30% storyteller and 10% stand-up comedian. And when you're a kid in church, that's a really great break from the norm. The singer was Roby Duke.
The thing was, every time I saw him it was pretty much him with an acoustic guitar; he may have had a backing track sometimes but it was never a full band. Furthermore, I only saw him in church, I never investigated any of his albums. So how shocking it was to find that a small Yacht Rock podcast is listening to the "unknown acoustic guitar guy." And how much more shocking to find that he was not just a Yacht Rock artist all along but actually a Yacht Rock legend. Mind blowing.
Roby Duke's albums today are rare and seem to fetch hefty prices; some are apparently being imported from Japan. I learn from the internet that Roby Duke died in 2007. RIP.
It's a little Journey, come on.
While this is one of my favorite Journey songs (perhaps #2), I really hate the music video. It's part of a genre of music videos from the late 80s and early 90s about the dreariness of touring which was so repetitive as to become monotonous. Sitting on the tour bus, getting on and off of planes, occasional black and white footage, roadies hauling equipment - oh being a rock star is drudgery - isn't living the dream a nightmare?
I haven't been able to define the genre sufficiently because I never gave it a name and didn't collect enough examples. Motley Crue "Home Sweet Home" and Bon Jovi "Wanted Dead or Alive" both flirt with the genre but don't ultimately succumb to it. The genre-defining examples I had were Journey "Faithfully" and Genesis "Throwing It All Away." I think there are a million examples out there but I needed to do more research and never got around to it.
Oh, and I think my thoughts are independent here but just in case, the Beyond Yacht Rock Podcast has an episode that defines the genre "This Was Supposed to be Fun" which is songs about the difficulties of touring. But they're talking about a type of song and I was thinking of a type of music video.
The thumbnail for "The Hunt for Red October" on youtube is blue. Who are the ad wizards who came up with that one?
