Today I Learned....PartII

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TIL The Fanny Pack is making a comeback

Some things are better left dead

 

 

7 hours ago, Canadian Bills Fan said:

TIL That Electronic Arts were voted "The Worst Company In America" by The Consumerist for 2 years in a row in 2012 and 2013

 

 

CBF

Today I also learned CBF mustn't be much of a gamer if you're just learning that  

 

EA's latest infraction is the Star Wars Battlefront 2 would take 40 hours of multiplayer in order to accumulate enough credits to unlock Luke or Vader.  They have since drastically cut the unlock cost

https://www.polygon.com/2017/11/13/16646374/battlefront-2-40-hours-unlock-luke-vader-prices

[Canadian Bills Fan]

TIL that in December 1777, Morocco officially became the first nation to recognize the United States as a country, Morocco also holds the record for maintaining the longest unbroken treaty with the U.S.

 

 

CBF

[Canadian Bills Fan]

TIL that the golden circle on the flag of Portugal represents an armillary sphere, a nautical device used by Portuguese sailors exploring unknown seas during the Age of Discoveries

 

 

 

 

 

PORTUGAL!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

CBF

[Canadian Bills Fan]

TIL that Sir Richard Branson dislikes the formality of neck ties so much that he often carries around a pair of scissors with him, ready to cut the ties off of unsuspecting tie wearers. He even has a cushion that he keeps at his home on Necker Island made up from the ties of some of his victims.

 

 

 

CBF

[Canadian Bills Fan]

TIL Metallica’s ‘Master of Puppets’ was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" enough for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the United States Library of Congress in 2016, the first metal recording to do so.

 

 

 

CBF

[ExiledInIllinois]

On 11/13/2017 at 12:56 PM, DC Tom said:

Today you learned.

It's the 75th anniversary today of the start of Naval Battle of Guadalcanal (or for you Japanese out there: the Third Battle of Savo Island).  It's the most vicious little naval battle you've never heard of:

 

The Japanese and Americans scheduled simultaneous major reinforcements of their forces on Guadalcanal for mid-November.  The dynamic of the campaign overall was interesting - the Americans controlled the airfield on Guadalcanal, but the Japanese were vastly superior in night surface warfare, which meant that the Americans can unload during the day, but would evacuate their transports at night, and the Japanese vice-versa, which caused serious problems unloading.  The solution for the Japanese was to suppress the airfield with battleship bombardment, and for the Americans to simply win night surface battles to keep the IJN out of Indispensable Strait (the main shipping channel off Guadalcanal).

 

What this led to, on the day of Nov. 12, 1942, is two Japanese battleships escorted by a light cruiser and 11 destroyers making their way to Guadalcanal to bombard the airfield.  The US Navy had supply ships unloading at that time; Admiral Kelly Turner threw together a scratch force of five cruisers and eight destroyers to contest the Japanese, under an inexperienced Rear Admiral Daniel Callaghan (who was senior to, but far less experienced than, the other admiral available, Norman Scott) on his flagship USS San Francisco.  

 

On the night of the 13th, Callaghan's force was sailing in column formation, and detected the Japanese force.  Through a series of maneuvers and unclear orders, Callaghan's presumed attempt to cross the front of the Japanese formation instead aimed the American line directly through the center of the dispersed Japanese formation, separated the van destroyers from the column, and forced the lead cruiser - Atlanta, with Scott aboard - to back down and turn hard to port to avoid running over the van destroyers, and the Japanese illuminated Atlanta with searchlights, opened fire, and disabled her.  At this point, with the American fleet in the middle of the Japanese force, command and control fell apart on both sides, and the battle became a close-quarters naval battle unlike any other in the war - "a barroom brawl with the lights shot out." 

 

Admiral Scott was killed by a salvo from USS San Francisco, almost immediately after which Admiral Callaghan was killed by a Japanese shell on San Francisco, along with all the senior officers on the ship and destroyed all communications, leaving command of the entire US force to Lt. Commander Bruce McCandless (it should have gone to the senior captain afloat - Captain Hoover, on USS Helena, but there was no way to communicate that).  McCandless smartly realized that if San Francisco withdrew, the rest of the US force would follow, leaving Guadalcanal uncovered, and conn'd the wrecked ship (San Francisco had every gun destroyed by that point) back towards the Japanese fleet.  And was awarded a well-deserved Medal of Honor for his act.

 

To shorten a long story, in a 38 minute battle so confused that it's still not, and never likely to be, coherently documented, six ships were sunk, two disabled (Atlanta and one Japanese battleship, Hiei) and scuttled later in the day, and of the thirteen American ships committed to battle, only two (Helena and USS Fletcher) were still capable of fighting.  But the self-sacrifice of Callaghan's force turned back a Japanese force that should have dominated the battle, and gained a day's respite for the Americans on Guadalcanal.

Go figure, "The Skipper" (Jonas Grumby) makes it out of that hell hole yet has closer calls at the hands of Gilligan in every episode.  How he survived, we will never know!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh that's right:

 

"The Skipper met Gilligan in the navy, where Gilligan saved his life by pushing him out of the way of a depth charge that had broken loose and was rolling down the deck of their destroyer."

 

http://www.gilligansisle.com/skip.html

 

[Saxum]

7 hours ago, ExiledInIllinois said:

Go figure, "The Skipper" (Jonas Grumby) makes it out of that hell hole yet has closer calls at the hands of Gilligan in every episode.  How he survived, we will never know!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh that's right:

 

"The Skipper met Gilligan in the navy, where Gilligan saved his life by pushing him out of the way of a depth charge that had broken loose and was rolling down the deck of their destroyer."

 

http://www.gilligansisle.com/skip.html

 

 

The Skipper has the heartiest appetite.

He played the line on the high school football team, and now weighs in at 220 pounds in his mid-forties. He says if they ever get rescued, "I'll go straight to an Italian restaurant and have 8 or 10 pizzas, 6 dozen meatballs, and 2 miles of spaghetti, and then I'll have dinner." His favorite steak sandwich? A filet between two top sirloins!

 

Two Twenty Pounds?  That is a pretty small lineman.  I outweigh him and I certainly not have lineman type of body.

[ExiledInIllinois]

3 hours ago, Limeaid said:

 

 

 

 

Two Twenty Pounds?  That is a pretty small lineman.  I outweigh him and I certainly not have lineman type of body.

I noticed that too.  Alan Hale Jr. was 6'2"... I am 6'2"-3" and go anywhere from 195-210 and skinny... They had to be fibbing, Skipper (mid-40s) looks +270... At least 250!  I'd guess-timate 280#. Check out his gut and face.  That's where it shows... I was like that approaching 300.

 

220 is a nice robust, athletic weight for that height.  Maybe in his earlier days.  Her he is a few years earlier in 1959:

 

 

 

Definitely more svelte.

[DC Tom]

Today in history...

75 years ago today, the Russians encircled Stalingrad.

[Nanker]

10 minutes ago, DC Tom said:

Today in history...

75 years ago today, the Russians encircled Stalingrad.

 

Ah, yes. Operation Uranus. 

Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus has the distinction of being the only German Field Marshal to surrender... ever. 

Lived out his post-war prisoner time in Dresden. Died in '57 of ALS. 

[DC Tom]

22 minutes ago, Nanker said:

 

Ah, yes. Operation Uranus. 

Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus has the distinction of being the only German Field Marshal to surrender... ever. 

 

Not true.  He may have been the first, but Kesselring surrendered an army in the field as well.  And Keitel and Goering surrendered themselves at the end of the war (as distinct from "caught trying to avoid capture.")  Providing, of course, you consider those two overstuffed buffoons to be "real" field marshals.

 

Interesting thing about Paulus...he understood his promotion to be an invitation to suicide, but refused to kill himself for "that Bavarian corporal."

[row_33]

Guderian was fortunate to not hit the centre of the storm and was moved around and eventually relieved of duty, never in fear of criticizing Hitler's orders.

 

Then made sure the US took him in after it was over.

 

 

[Canadian Bills Fan]

TIL of the "Pompeii Masturbator:" a man who appears to have been forever immortalised in the midst of some personal time.

 

 

CBF

[/dev/null]

2 hours ago, Canadian Bills Fan said:

TIL of the "Pompeii Masturbator:" a man who appears to have been forever immortalised in the midst of some personal time.

 

 

CBF

Vesuvius wasn't the only one to blow it's top that day

[Canadian Bills Fan]

TIL even after years of lying about her brother Michael Jackson being a pedophile as a way to extort money from the press, when La Toya Jackson asked him for forgiveness he simply opened his arms, hugged her and said “I will always love my sister.”

 

 

 

CBF

[ExiledInIllinois]

TIL that 3 people still use an iron lung:

 

http://m.newser.com/story/251950/meet-the-last-3-people-still-using-an-iron-lung.html?utm_source=syn&utm_medium=goognews&utm_campaign=chan3_feed&google_editors_picks=true

 

Here's one Dude typing away on his keyboard: 

 

[Canadian Bills Fan]

TIL that Jon Lovitz blames Andy Dick for contributing to the death of Phil Hartman by giving Hartman’s sober wife coke causing her to relapse and have a mental breakdown

 

 

CBF

[Nanker]

Today I learned that Andy is a dick.

[Canadian Bills Fan]

TIL that whilst Filming the Wizard of Oz, Judy Garland was shunned by the Scarecrow, Tinman and Cowardly Lion due to jealousy. Her only friend on the set was Margaret Hamilton who played the Wicked Witch of the West

 

 

 

CBF

[Canadian Bills Fan]

TIL when men don't masturbate for 7 days their testosterone levels increase by 45.7%.

 

 

 

CBF