History is fun because despite of the world getting dictated largely by massive and seemingly inevitable trends, sometimes things with a massive impact are decided by the most human elements.
Ancient China almost made direct contact with ancient Rome. They had heard of the place and this one guy - his name was Gan Ying - was sent to find it. He made it as far as “the Western sea”, which might have been the Persian Gulf, the Black Sea, or even the Mediterranean, nobody now knows for sure.
Anyway he started asking how to get to the other side, and how long does the journey by sea would take. And for some fucking reason someone told him “idk could be three months, could be two years. You just never know with these things. Pack food for three years and be prepared to die.”
And hearing this, Gan Ying thought “fuck that” and just went home.
I ever tell you guys about my ethically dubious radio show back in college? The Mad Dad Hour?
it was an entire radio show built around perpetuating a very simple joke, but it was uniquely powerful in its capacity to prompt the reaction I was looking for.
so my slot was at the tail end of rush hour, and i got a fair number of listeners/callers who were on the way home from the office. And like, I had a lot of callers, who almost all wanted to request songs that really didn’t fit with the aesthetic. I had pitched a power pop show when i got my slot, but the callers were not having it; they invariably wanted classic rock.
this made sense in a way. if you think about the demographics of the people who listened to the radio for music in 2010 instead of their ipods or cds or whatever, you’d expect them to skew older right? accordingly, i quickly realized that almost all of the people who called to request songs were Dads of a Certain Age. It was honestly annoying at first - I’m all for most classic rock, but that wasn’t what the show was supposed to be.
And so one day, when i was feeling particularly annoyed with requests that just didn’t fit thematically, i came up with the joke that rapidly became the only reason I kept the show going. Per station rules, I had to play a certain number of pre-recorded PSAs during my show, and before I cut to one I was supposed to read out the song titles and artists for all the music i had played before the break. So this one day when i had to inform the world before the break that the song they just heard was, per a listener’s request, Hey Jude by the Beatles, I decided to do a goof. I said:
“and finally, that last song you heard was Hey Jude, which was of course written and performed by the Rolling Stones.”
I barely had time to get the ads going before the phone started ringing. See, I had been assuming people would realize i was making an obvious joke by claiming one of the most well-known Beatles tracks was a Stones song, but i had failed to consider that my listeners were mostly 55-70 year old dads who were irritated from a long day in the office.
And when those dads heard me, a millennial woman, get the artist of an extremely well-known beatles song WRONG???!
they HAD to call in to correct my ignorance. never in a polite way either, it was condescending and annoyed or nothing. and like, they were just SO personally insulted by my inaccurate reporting that it took a massive amount of effort for me to avoid cracking up during the call. I had never understood why some people would enjoy trolling random strangers on the internet before, but in that moment, I understood the appeal entirely.
obviously i did it again right before the next commercial break, immediately after playing Don’t Stop Me Now by Queen David Bowie.
the phone immediately began to ring.
“ARE YOU AN IDIOT?” one of the callers began, “DAVID BOWIE???? THAT WAS QUEEN!”
“I thought David Bowie was the lead singer of Queen though?” I replied with as much innocent earnestness as i could conjure.
I could hear an intake of breath as the infuriated boomer on the other end of the line struggled to figure out where to even start.
And thus, the Mad Dad Hour was born.
@eduards-stuff I kept doing the same joke for an hour a week for an entire year, and the dads NEVER caught on. After episode 1 of the new format I started taking the angry dad calls on air, which added another layer of hilarity to the whole concept.
My friends on campus knew that hay I was doing and enjoyed tuning in, but only one actual listener ever figured out what I was doing, and he was literally a random 30 year old guy from the netherlands with access to an early internet connection radio service. He was possibly my only actual fan. I only know about him because he went to the effort of making a skype and paying for international service so he could call in, and while I got a few calls from him, the first remains my favorite:
me: hi there, you’ve got TST-
him: *strained, wheezing dutch laughter*
me: hey, is everything o-
him: pfffHAHAHAAH YOU MAKE THEM SO MAD. THEY THINK SO LITTLE OF YOUUUUUUUU BUT THE MEN ARE THE ONES WHO ARE FOOLISH! HA! HA! HA! YOU HAVE DUPED THEM!
me: sir i do not know you and i have never even seen you but i am in romantic love with you.
Yesterday in the Parc Montsouris, there was an elderly lady in a pink tracksuit with a done face (ie surgery), smoking a huge cigar while walking her parrot on a scooter, with two girlfriends. I envied her, terribly.
When it was time to turn off the light:
“Ah, thank God someone invented beds. And that the world wars are over.”
(my daughter, 7 years old)
Tomorrow I have my third Christmas meal
“I have no limit” (former president François Hollande)
My owner will be back soon, no worries, the heating is on and it’s 68°F.
My father left me in the car for five minutes to go get pizzas and he turned on the dog mode lmao.
When we say that the baby spends its time in our arms, there is always someone to say that we should “not get them too used to it” but why? What’s the problem Nicole? Are we going to turn into kangaroos?? (Please let me know as I like this belly pocket)
Please check before adding this type of ‘gotcha’ comment because Scotland is WAY ahead of the game on that one.
Actually, contraception is so easily available here that as teens in the summer we would use condoms as balloons in water fights because they were easier and cheaper to get a hold of than actual water balloons. As an adult I look back and go 'well that was really dumb’ but it shows just how easy it was to get them.
Prescription medications are also free and every baby that’s born in Scotland gets a box of essential supplies to start them off. And we’re doing all of this with one hand tied behind our collective back by still being attached to the regressive government in Westminster. Wait and see what we can do when we’re rid of them.
I didn’t know bucket toothpaste was only a thing here!
WAIT! How do people in other countries put toothpaste on their toothbrushes??? You d-don’t use your toothpaste spoon????
You keep your toothpaste in condiment tubes???
This whole thread is making me so sad 😔😔
For the americans out there, 1kg is about 2lbs. Rewriting this bost gives:
“To answer a lot of people’s question: this package is [4lbs] there’s also, [10lbs] and [20lbs] ones (which used to be sold in most stores, but you can find them only in specialized ones nowadays). There are some tiny ones, like 1lb! Those are the ones you buy to carry when you travel.”
Croatians apparently take a pound of toothpast with them when they travel.
Disclaimer: Yes this is a sock for safety reasons. Post is long, but please read it.
No shit there I was checking my email, as you do, and I saw I had a screener from one of the market research groups I’m signed up with. On average, I do a market research thing every 3-4 months because I like non-reportable money. And giving my opinions. And talking to people behind 2 way mirrors without having to go to a police station.
Market research itself was early December, 2016. First email contact with the screener was late October or early November.
I see it’s an “offsite,” meaning a market research company is subcontracted by another company who wants to do the market research at their own facility, but doesn’t want to find the participants on their own, so they use the Market research company (in this case Schlesinger and Associates) as an intermediary. I can’t remember if this screener identified itself as being for TV, not all do, some might identify only as entertainment, and some might be even more vague until you get into the screener. Regardless of the identification for the screener (TV or entertainment), I fill out almost every screener I receive unless it’s obvious, from the subject, they won’t want me (ie looking for certain types of professionals)- it didn’t matter, then, if the subject matter was something I particularly like, I would’ve filled it out anyway.
After normal, but more detailed than usual demographics questions, the screener asked about TV habits. Eventually, it said the word “fandom” and asked what TV fandoms I’d count myself in. It was roughly a list of 20 shows and listed “fandom” (defined as I watch every episode and read additional materials about the show. Note this is not what fandom itself would consider fandom, but people most fandom dwellers would still count as GA). Beyond fandom, one could indicate they: watch all episodes but don’t seek out more, watch most episodes, have seen some episodes, watched a few, or haven’t watched. (I just got a screener for soap operas and realized that part was the same and made note). Therefore, fandom, to corporate, are people who watch everything and maybe buy some swag for the show- magazines/shirts. Then, they asked about conventions I might have attended. And then asked about my dream vacation, so I babbled a lot about my dream to go to SDCC (I hadn’t at this point). Supernatural was on the list of shows, so I made sure I answered the essay questions about it, because why not? It was my favorite of what was listed. It was a long screener. I don’t remember the rest. Though sometimes I might remember a detail if a screener reminds me of it. Most fun screener I’ve filled out.
A few days/weeks later, I got a call for step 2- the phone screener for the people that sounded good when filling out the form. And where they try and make sure your answers match or fit that same person who answered them. I passed step 2, and was told there would be homework, and asked ifI’d have time for it, since I would only have so many days to watch the assigned material and write essays about them.
Homework arrives: I have to watch and write essays on all the bonus features of Supernatural S10. There might’ve been something in there from another year, too. And all the bonus features from some season of Big Bang Theory. Essays for all of it, too. And I mean essays, not short answers. It was like the SATs, and I was analyzing blooper reels (among other things). I still don’t get why they wanted essay questions on blooper reels, but I’ll always happily write one again cause that was the funniest essay to have to write!
I had to both print and bring and email all my answers ahead of time. I did not keep them. I’m honestly curious what I might’ve written.
So in December, I get to go to WB’s market research department. Fun fact: the entrance to that building faces what had recently been the Supernatural poster. I check in. At this point I think it’s a group. Because most market research is done in groups. Also they said I was there for the “DVD bonus features study”
I wait in the lobby, but I’m surprised there seem to be very few others around. I don’t think I got there too early, but all the others were taken back before me. And they didn’t seem to be there for the same study. Oh and I wore business casual clothes but had some show-based earrings for fun.
Finally a nice lady brings me back to a room. She turns off the lights and gives me a fancy remote and has me play with a new system for watching bonus features. I had to start with BBT. Then we did something else. Then I was allowed to scroll through and I picked Supernatural, and answered all the things. By this point I figured I would be released soonish because I was supposed to be there only for an hour. And this was at least half an hour at the most. No clock, though and cell phone off. Maybe this part went faster than I remember, but it was less interesting so it felt longer? Or less interesting compared to what came next.
