Your Bag of Nothing for Wednesday, September 25, 2024

  • I was pleasantly surprised to find Top Gun: Maverick playing on basic cable yesterday. It doesn’t seem like it’s old enough.
  • Has anyone actually seen a person pop out of a real cake? I did find the following on Wikipedia:
    • Until the beginning of the 1970s most pop out cakes were real. Things  changed in 1975 when “the AP newspaper published an interview with a baker that worked making them for a small fee of $2,000. They were built around huge cylinders that could house an adult.” Nowadays, the construction is generally made of corrugated cardboard, often covered with whipped cream or frosting to make them look real. This kind of pop out cakes present the advantages of being cheaper to build and easier to move, due to their lightness, but they are also much more fragile and should be handled with care. 
  • If you think an image has been doctored or photoshopped, you can use FakeImageDetector.com to verify. Here are five other tools. I found them because I was curious if the image at the top of this post was real or manipulated. It appears authentic.
  • President Trump was inside a grocery store yesterday and helped pay for a woman’s groceries. It reminded me of the time President George H.W. Bush was inside a grocery store and made some remarks about the UPC scanner that was taken out of context. I’m serious when I ask, and I don’t mean this to be derogatory, but I wonder when was the last time he went inside a grocery store to make an actual purchase for himself.
  • This gentleman achieved one of my life goals and got a love back from the social media staff from the other libraries.

  • This was popular yesterday. Kelley Heyer, creator of the “Apple” dance, was given a special moment at a Charli XCX concert, but many people were upset that the girl tried to take her moment and steal the spotlight. Others were upset at the girl touching her. It’s actually kinda funny because at the start of it, the man in blue realizes he may be in the way and steps back, but the female fan just doesn’t care and jumps in.
  • As estimated by the World Gold Council, here are the current rankings of gold reserves by country in Q2, 2024.
    Rank Country Gold Reserves (Tonnes) Gold Reserves (Millions) Holdings (%)
    1 United States of America 8,133.46 609,527.85 72.41
    2 Germany 3,351.53 251,166.13 71.46
    3 Italy 2,451.84 183,742.52 68.33
    4 France 2,436.97 182,628.35 69.99
    5 Russian Federation 2,335.85 175,050.59 29.47
    6 China 2,264.32 169,689.52 4.91
    7 Japan 845.97 63,397.87 5.15
    8 India 840.76 63,007.20 9.57
  • This seems like a practical solution, and I can picture many American businesses buying it to eliminate illegal parking. But then again, calling a tow truck to remove an illegally parked vehicle sends a stiffer message.
    @happyhouse160 “Only in China” #china #car #cars #tow #towing #robot #traffic #highlights #foryou #trending #everyone #viral #fyp #fypシ #subscribers #subscribe #innovation ♬ original sound – Audience Focused Entertainment

  • He’s throwing rocks inside of a glass house.

  • Yesterday wasn’t a good time to be around Oklahoma City.

  • Wow, that was one low-flying plane.

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Your Bag of Nothing for Tuesday, September 24, 3024

  • This is Lane Kiffin, the head football coach of Ole Miss. I think it’s great that he has a close relationship with his daughter. However, it proves that times have changed, and college football and its coaches aren’t what they used to be, and that’s both good and bad.

  • Should we rethink arming teachers and staff at public schools?  But then again, Secret Service officers are shooting themselves as well.
    • Students jump in to help after school resource officer accidentally shoots himself

      MARBLE FALLS, Texas (KSAT) – A group of Junior ROTC students in Texas came to the rescue after a school resource officer accidentally shot and injured himself hours before a football game.

      Police say the firearm of a Marble Falls High School school resource officer accidentally discharged while he was seated, injuring his leg. The incident happened just before 6 p.m. Friday on school property by the visitor parking area.

  • I guess what I considered a traditional homecoming mum is no longer a thing. It looks like a conventional mum is now one that a girl wears like a dog collar, covers not half but your entire chest, and the bottom has to be at mid-calf.
  • Octopuses seen hunting together with fish in rare video — and punching fish that don’t cooperate
  • Boy abducted from California at age 6 found alive more than 70 years later
  • I’m not sure what to think of this video. It could be fake, but maybe the technology is identifying human remains as they pass each grave. I’m very curious about what the software takes into consideration when identifying a human.

  • I haven’t seen this footage of someone trying to aggressively grab Taylor Swift at one of her shows. But I have to hand it to her for her rapid recovery and continuing her performance as if nothing happened.

  • I’m impressed by this guy’s strength. The last bit looks like it was played in reverse, but I’m still impressed.

  • I wonder when drone shows will become mainstream and integrated with fireworks. I don’t think fireworks are going anywhere, our culture likes tradition.

  • I don’t watch our local Fox station nor understand why this guy would wear such an outlandish suit or sportcoat. Is he an Aggie or something? He’s one of the reasons why I don’t watch the channel, he’s always talking down to the viewer.
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Your Bag of Nothing for Monday, September 23, 3024

  • I was supposed to go to jury duty today but I received a text saying it was cancelled. I was notified by a large postcard that I almost tossed out, thinking it was junk mail. It just didn’t look official to me.
  • It’s an interesting world we live in when the number one-ranked college football team in the country can’t be watched by traditional means, and you have to stream it. Crap like this didn’t happen in the Reagan administration. Gosh, I hope you get the humor in that last sentence.
  • Speaking of Reagan. Perhaps the most rememberable and grandest state dinner he and Nancy held was for Prince Charles and Diana. I recently found out that Nancy deliberately left Vice-President George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara, off the guest list. It turns out that Barbara and Nancy never got along after that, and it carried on through the first Bush administration when Nancy said something unpleasant about Bush losing his re-election bid. Nancy called to try to set the record straight, but Barbara told her to never call again and hung up on her. You can listen to that 1:41 segment here.
  • The Eagles made a Hotel California video for the Sphere, but I thought it would have been better. But, I saw some clips from some other songs that were quite impressive.
  • Allen’s pep rally went viral with all of its LED lights, smoke, lasers, and flame thrower-type contraptions. Here’s another video but without the fire and lasers.

  • Anyone remember the Gramatica brothers who kicked in the NFL? One of their sons is now kicking in college and celebrates like his old man. He should be careful since one of the elders injured himself in such a celebration.
  • It’s the 25th anniversary of the West Wing’s debut on NBC. First Lady Dr. Jill Biden invited the cast to the White House, and for fans like me, it was a delight to follow them on Twitter.
  • This is pretty funny; both guards pull in opposite directions only to run into and block each other.

  • I haven’t thought about Sonny Dykes in a while until I saw this tweet from the weekend. Dykes had that fantastic first season at TCU, making it to the title game, and then it’s been downhill ever since. I forgot he left SMU and went down the road to rival TCU. At the time, he was leaving to go to a school in a better conference. But now, SMU is in the ACC and I would say a better conference than the Big 12. Not to mention, his old school whipped his current team’s arse. I wonder if he would have been better off staying at SMU, and TCU holding on to Gary Patterson. But taking a team to the title game in your first year eclipses a lot of mistakes.
  • Hey, Cowboys fans, how about our kicker! He’s all we have to look forward to.
  • Umpires and other officials and referees often get a bad rap, so I thought it was cool that someone noticed the good merits of this guy.

  • I wonder if cancelling the whole thing was the right move, but then again, I don’t have much information to go on – Oklahoma high school cancels homecoming football game after students display racial slur in viral image
  • This is an interesting approach to solving the speeding problem.

  • I know I’m biased as a fan, but that’s some great camera work and a decent spiral.

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Your Bag of Randomness for Friday, September 20, 2024

  • A girl who was one or two grades behind me in high school reached out to me on a dating app. She’s a grandmother now, which is just hard for me to accept and process. But honestly, it was nice to know someone remembered me.
  • Yesterday, I mistakenly wrote that Mike “Fernando” Fernandez of The TICKET died when, in fact, Mark ‘Friedo’ Friedman died 11 months ago.
  • He may be the greatest baseball player in my lifetime, and that’s not even taking in his ability to pitch. Shohei Ohtani just had one of the greatest performances in MLB history yesterday:6-for-6
    3 Home runs
    2 Doubles
    1 Single
    10 Runs Batted In
    4 Runs Scored
    2 Stolen Bases

    He became the first player in MLB history to reach the 50/50 (and now 51/51) club. The 10 RBIs are the most by a Dodgers player in a game since RBIs became official in 1920, according to ESPN Research. His 51 homers also set a Dodgers record for the most in a single season. On a personal note, as someone who was bullied for having Asian heritage, it’s nice to see one be considered one of the greatest athletes of all time.

  • The Oklahoma Sooners had some trouble taking the field last Saturday.
  • I saw Vince Young trending on Twitter last night. The best I could find was a response to a popular account asking, “Name a player who didn’t win the Heisman but would die on the hill telling everyone they deserved it.” I see that argument, and I would have preferred VY to have won it, but Reggie Bush was deserving of that trophy. But undoubtedly, the greatest heist in Heisman history is when Andrew Luck lost it to a slightly above-average QB who padded his stats against cupcake teams and was on a hot streak when voting started. In this highlight reel, you see the man pass, run over tacklers, one-hand catch, and tackle. The only thing he didn’t do was special teams and catch an interception.
  • An interactive Sundown Town Map of the U.S.
    • A sundown town is not just a place where something racist happened. It is an entire community (or even county) that for decades was “all white” on purpose. “All white” is in quotes because some towns allowed one black family to remain when they drove out the rest. Also, institutionalized persons (in prisons, hospitals, colleges, etc.), live-in servants (in white households), and black or interracial children (in white households) do not violate the taboo.
  • Since my major life change several years ago, I’ve been rethinking my purpose in life, what I really want, and if nihilism is the way to go. Recently, I came across this in a book I’m reading, and I think there’s something to it. I’ve been chewing on it for a while. The author takes a bit of a back-door approach to finding an answer to that question.
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