Heinlein Reader’s Discussion Group
June 22, 2000
‘Ordeal in Space’, ‘Green Hills of Earth’ and ‘Searchlight’
Here begin the AFH Postings
You have just entered room “Heinlein Readers Group.”
dwrighsr has entered the room.
dwrighsr: Greetings David. I see you got the room aired out and straightened.
AGplusone: Afternoon, Dave … we could call Jani in and have a drink before the crowd arrives.
dwrighsr: Right on!
siannon prime has entered the room.
dwrighsr: Welcome Jani!
siannon prime: I’m not stopping! I was going to bed two hours ago!
siannon prime: Just called in to say hi and prove I’m still alive and kicking
AGplusone: That is exactly what she told me too!
dwrighsr: It is the middle of the night for you isn’t it?
siannon prime: 1.33 am. Hi David….
siannon prime: I got distracted disembowelling a troll
AGplusone: Hi, thought we’d have a quiet nitecap with you before you toddle off, bloody hands and all ….
siannon prime: drip, drip, drip <g>
AGplusone: can you make good sausage with troll casings …
AGplusone: er … bangers I meant.
dwrighsr: Ugh! No taste to them at all
siannon prime: According to JMA, we Brits make dreadful sausage anyway!
AGplusone: Ew … what does JMA know?
siannon prime: I have a real butcher’s shop locally, so we can get decent meat. Costs a bit, though
siannon prime: Good point, David 🙂
AGplusone: Nicest thing about the pub around the corner is it’ll serve a nice breakfast.
siannon prime: btw, S sends apologies, he’s done the sensible thing and gone to bed
AGplusone: Altho the beans taste a little odd with eggs … taste odd anyway
siannon prime: Heinz beans? Yuck
AGplusone: Then again, DaveW can tell you about ‘grits’ …
AGplusone: Not sure what brand they use … not what I’m used to, but not bad.
dwrighsr: Yumm Grits, ham eggs
siannon prime: I know how to cook chitlins, so there…
siannon prime: Not that I ever would, of course
siannon prime: fried intestines, ugh
AGplusone: hamsteak and eggs are nice, but what I like its salami, onions and scrambled eggs to start …
dwrighsr: I don’t blame you. Never could stand chitlins
AGplusone: is
siannon prime: salami and onions? Interesting
siannon prime: Sounds like the things pregnant women crave <g>
AGplusone: Ever have them, fried together, or lox and eggs with onions?
SAcademy has entered the room.
siannon prime: Lox also costs a bomb, here. It’s “posh”
AGplusone: Hi, SA … <g> we’re talking about breakfasts!
dwrighsr: Greetings SA! Welcome
siannon prime: Hi, SA
AGplusone: Lox costs a bomb everywhere, unless you catch and smoke your own.
SAcademy: Good evening to both.
siannon prime: Guys, I have to get some sleep. Anyway, as usual I haven’t dome my homework reading
dwrighsr: I think my wife would trade me in for lox any day
siannon prime: 🙂
AGplusone: When the stocked Lake Michigan with Coho Salmon, my uncle was salivating and waiting for them to grow up.
AGplusone: they
dwrighsr: Jani. As I told you earlier, you really should get some rest.
SAcademy: Could they live there?
siannon prime: So goodnight, you omnivores <g> I’ll see y’all tomorrow
dwrighsr: g’night
AGplusone: Yes, quite well … and they migrated out the St. Lawrence Seaway to the Atlantic
AGplusone: See ya, Jani … bright and happy faced Saturday
SAcademy: That’s amazing.
SAcademy: I’ve been yawning already.
siannon prime has left the room.
AGplusone: A success. After the lamprey eel wiped out the whitefish there was an ecological niche to fill … they decided salmon could cope with lamprey
dwrighsr: David. did you know that you can click on the ‘buddies’ heading and invite everyone at the same time? Some will show as on AOL, others as already in the room.
AGplusone: (and sturgeon, sp?)
SAcademy: Dr. Martin will be here tonight.
AGplusone: Yes. Sla they’re all signed on AIM they can get in, but if not, you’ll get a message to remind them to sign on.
AGplusone: He’s on now.
AGplusone: sla=so long as
AGplusone: Lawyer jargon=note taking
SAcademy: Thanks, I didn’t know that.
dwrighsr: He told me his name earlier, but I haven’t got it on this machine.
AGplusone: You can tell him by IM
AGplusone: “Bdelloguy”
dwrighsr: Right. Thanks.
AGplusone: Or we can haul him in …
Bdelloguy has entered the room.
SAcademy: That’s the name of a bacterium he’s researching.
AGplusone: Jani’s decree Nisi was final yesterday, she’s a little emotional …
dwrighsr: Welcome. Dr. Mark
Bdelloguy: Hi folks…just “Mark” is fine…
SAcademy: Evening Mark
dwrighsr: I think that she was up most of the night. I talked with her at some length.
AGplusone: “bdelloguy” what does it do? Eat Dell books only.
Bdelloguy: You know, my car’s license plate reads “Bdello,” and the DMV folks thought it was short for “Bordello.”
AGplusone: HI, Mark
AGplusone: Sounds like the dmv
SAcademy: LOL
AGplusone: You know where they get dmv ees? Cross IRS agents with Postal Workers
AGplusone:
SAcademy: That’s horrible!
SAcademy: What a mixture!
SAcademy: Is there any way to change the sound when I send something? The one I have is really awful.
Bdelloguy: Boy, you gotta think fast in this room. Or duck, I don’t know which! ;^)
AGplusone: But recently I’ve noticed male meter maids which means they finally found a strain they no longer will have to use Dept of Agriculture inspectors to cross with State Franchise Tax Board ees to breed them.
Bdelloguy: See what I mean?
dwrighsr: Hold on SA. I take a look and check it.
SAcademy: Great term–male meter maids!
AGplusone: 3M takes another dimension … into the surreal
dwrighsr: testing for sound
AGplusone: First they made sticky tape on both sides, now male meter maids, tomorrow: the World!
SAcademy: Poor Snowcat he can’t find a place to sleep on this desk, it’s so crowded.
Bdelloguy: Well, they brought us hot water heaters and jumbo shrimp. Why not male meter maids?
AGplusone: WE’re just chattin early … and Microsoft Works, don’t forget that one!
SAcademy: Is Bob with you David?
AGplusone: He’s out in the living room sitting in the window looking down on his domain.
ddavitt has entered the room.
dwrighsr: You can turn off the sound by clicking on ‘View’ then ‘Edit Chat Preferences’ and then ‘Buddy Chat’. On the buddy chat there are two check boxes, one for sending and one for receiving. click on these to uncheck and you will have no sound
ddavitt: Hello everyone.
AGplusone: Hi, Jane. Meet Mark (Bdelloguy)
ddavitt: Hello mark.
Bdelloguy: Hi! Maybe I should have used a different tag to identify myself?
AGplusone: Mark, this is Jane Davitt, from England now resident in Ontario, Canada
SAcademy: Got it, thanks.
dwrighsr: If you want to you can locate other sounds later by ‘browsing’ for each type. Hi Jane. I was just explaining to SA how to turn off the send and receive sounds
ddavitt: I like them but they can get annoying over a long chat period
Merfilly8 has entered the room.
AGplusone: Mark tortures microbes out her at a quiet little Western college, known as Occidental, coincidentally.
SAcademy: Do you think Kultsi will be here tonight?
AGplusone: here
ddavitt: Nice job!:)
AGplusone: We keep getting trapped in Kultsi’s spam trap.
Merfilly8: I walk into a torture chamber already? 🙂
Bdelloguy: Well, actually *I* don’t torture the microbes. The microbe I study eats other microbes!
AGplusone: Already, Filly.
AGplusone: “Good Microbe, good … ”
dwrighsr: Hi Filly.
Merfilly8: Hello, one and all!
ddavitt: Jim said he would be along later
SAcademy: Hello
ddavitt: I asked him to do a post on the hymn link with Ordeal but he ran out of time
Merfilly8: so you let microbes torute each other?
Bdelloguy: Yes. I suppose that makes me just as guilty. Or at least a voyeur.
AGplusone: I’ve always been fascinated with biology. Out at UCLA in the 60s when I attended all university had to talke a 3 quarter class for dumb-dumbs taught by a guy who was voted best instructor at the U a couple years later.
AGplusone: take
AGplusone: One of the most fascinating science courses I ever had.
Bdelloguy: I got my Biology undergrad degree from UCLA. Who was the prof?
AGplusone: Honestly can’t remember …
AGplusone: He may have been Department head at the time.
AGplusone: Taught it by TV …
Merfilly8: Best science course I took was in High School. Advanced Biology II. Spent each quarter delving into various life sciences
AGplusone: ’67-’70
Merfilly8: I was fascinated by Genetics
Bdelloguy: I teach the subject here to bored students. Well, and not so bored ones.
AGplusone: Young, black haired guy (TV was black and white but he came around from time to time) … a little chubby
Merfilly8: So, David(s), y’all remember the world getting colored, don’t y’all? 🙂
Bdelloguy: Sigh. Me too.
dwrighsr: Sure do.
AGplusone: Sure do. I remember books and the Saturday Evening Post, before the eye … in the corner.
Bdelloguy: Wasn’t Gilligan’s Island FIRST in B&W?
dwrighsr: I remember a friend in college, 1960 or thereabouts who smoked a particular brand of cigarettes because the were the sponsors to a favorite show.
Merfilly8: I only saw color eps of it. Jeannie on the other hand I remember in B&W.
AGplusone: If you didn’t have color it certainly was … I seem to recall some b&w of it.
Merfilly8: problem is, that was my first tv’s color
Merfilly8: Ebon says hi to all
ddavitt: Hi Ebon!
AGplusone: Ours was an 8 inch with a green plastic screen to relieve strain over it, so it was ‘color’ too.
AGplusone: 1950
dwrighsr: My first tv show was in 1947-8. It was definitely b&w. tv was only on for a few hours in the evening.
dwrighsr: It was a Laurel & Hardy movie, ‘Out West’ or something like that.
Merfilly8: The only milestone I clearly remember, are the additions of cable channels over the years
Merfilly8: poor grammar…sheesh
AGplusone: I saw my first TV in 47-8 one afternoon. A P-80 buzzing back and forth over a filed again and again and again …
ddavitt: The UK still only has five channels
AGplusone: field
dwrighsr: That was on a 5 incher. My dad immediately took it back and bought 9 incher.
Merfilly8: BBC, BBC, etc?
ddavitt: Yes..
AGplusone: Hi, Ebon!
ddavitt: Can get cable now though but that’s extra
dwrighsr: Hi Ebon.
Merfilly8: I clearly remember, HBO and MTV’s premiers in our areas
ddavitt: You pay a licence fee of about $250 pa for the basic five
Merfilly8: whoa
AGplusone: My dad decided to wait a few years … my sister’s husband was ‘rich’ and had a little 3 incher in the middle of his big floor mounted radio phonograph (in ’47)
dwrighsr: One of the first shows I saw featured a young Dick Van Dyke with a fellow called Phil Erickson. They were the ‘Merry Mutes’ and did pantomime
ddavitt: If you don’t pay you get heavy fines; they have detector vans that roam the streets
Merfilly8: our TV is currently dead, and I don’t miss it at all. No cable or sat here, so all we were watching was movies
AGplusone: You’re kidding!
ddavitt: We’ve been watching Euro 2000
ddavitt: About the vans? No; I’m seriuos,
dwrighsr: Was that ‘kidding’ for me or Filly?
AGplusone: We were shocked when we found that most bars in France didn’t have TVs for exactly that reason. The license fee.
AGplusone: No, Jane …
ddavitt: They track down the signal, cross check with list of people who’ve paid and if you haven’t…
dwrighsr: Gotcha. I just caught up
AGplusone: So speaking of TV … I wonder what the magazines really thought in the late 40s, early 50s, before they got killed by it.
dwrighsr: I hope their bookkeeping is up to date.
ddavitt: Yes but what we pay to Rogers for our cable is about the same amount and without the cable we’d get about two channels
ddavitt: I think it works out about the same…
dwrighsr: Passing fad. just like personal computers. 🙂
AGplusone: Did the authors and agents figure out that the market for short stories were going down the tubes ahead of the curve, or did most of them simply get blindsided?
ddavitt: LOL!
Merfilly8: Good question, David.
AGplusone: I was 5 to 10 years old, so I wasn’t reading what they were printing about it then … but … ?
Merfilly8: Though with the anthology books suddenly in vogue this past decade, short stories have a resurgence
ddavitt: They’ve never paid as well as a novel though have they?
AGplusone: I wonder what smart agents like Luther B thought … how far they got ahead of the curve?
Bdelloguy: You have that right!
dwrighsr: Well SF shorts didn’t seem to be hurt. I think the biggest boom times for Astounding and the others was in the 50-60’s unless I’m mistaken
SAcademy: Anthologies rarely make it into a second printing.
Bdelloguy: I wonder if shorts might not come back in a big way. Lots of folks I know are downloading stories into their PDAs and reading them in airports, etc.
ddavitt: Could do….
TAWN3 has entered the room.
ddavitt: But I prefer novels in general
dwrighsr: I’m getting a Palm Pilot next week. New toy.
ddavitt: Cool!
Bdelloguy: In fact, I downloaded that IASFM story about Heinlein and Asimov saving us from dimensional peril in the Philadelphia Project!
dwrighsr: My boss thought that we needed to ‘evaluate’ them to see what we could do with them.
TAWN3: Good evening everybody:)
Merfilly8: Short stories are merely foreplay to the senses
ddavitt: Hi Tawn
Merfilly8: hey Tawn
dwrighsr: Hi Tawn
ddavitt: I thought that story was a bit dire myself
Bdelloguy: Clever, Filly. Extra point for you!
Bdelloguy: Yeah, the story was bizarre…but it was written by 3 or 4 authors, if I remember correctly
Fldax has entered the room.
Merfilly8:
ddavitt: That wouldn’t have helped, no.
dwrighsr: Isolated shorts never did much for me. I really preferred the kind of related shorts that RAH did
AGplusone: Hi, Laurie
Fldax: Hi all!
dwrighsr: Hi. Welcome
Bdelloguy: Sure. But the IASFM story did POVs for both RAH and IA. Funny.
Merfilly8: hello
ddavitt: No, it takes a lot for me to buy a book of short stories, even if I really like the author
ddavitt: Heinlein excepted 🙂
AGplusone: [Tawn, meet formally, Laurie. Laurie: Tawn. After meeting maybe we can get together and discuss a project you two might be able to work together on. More later.]
TAWN3: It’s hard to beat a short story like The Lottery or other famous shorts. By His Bootstraps, etc.
Fldax: okay
TAWN3: Hi Laurie.
Fldax: Hi, Tawn
Bdelloguy: But the field is driven by novels and collaborative projects (X-Files books, etc).
Merfilly8: The Lottery unnerved me at first reading
Merfilly8:
TAWN3: 🙂 It’s meant to!
Bdelloguy: Filly, thanks for remembering Shirley Jackson. She knows that horror isn’t about fangs and blood. Some of the time.
Fldax: It’s frightening to think about X-Files books dominating the field
Bdelloguy: Or Star Wars books
TAWN3: X-Men
Merfilly8: Hey, some of the SW books are great novels
TAWN3: 🙂
Bdelloguy: How about “Chewabacca’s Journey?” You see, Chewie is actually female, and is searching for her son, who has been kidnapped by the Grand Moff Tarkin…
TAWN3: Poe shorts are good. And Twain.
AGplusone: I thought, reading TGHOE, again, that next to writing poetry for money, writing short stories may be a dying art …
Bdelloguy: But you are right: I enjoy some of the X-Files books. But they are written by GOOD authors, mostly!
ddavitt: Inverse effort required you mean?
ddavitt: MUCH harder to do a good short than a good long story
Merfilly8: The first two X-Files Novels grabbed me
AGplusone: because I thought that in every writing there’s a poet trying to get out, but very rarely doing so. Only occasionally, like Angelou, who’s autobiographical works are far better known.
AGplusone: writing=writer
Merfilly8: I can’t write shorts well. I always leave threads to follow up
TAWN3: For whom the (?) bird sings?
TAWN3: Angelou
AGplusone: That and the rest following in that series
dwrighsr: Are we talking about Maya Angelou?
AGplusone: Yes
TAWN3: Aye
ddavitt: Speaking of poetry, just started “Back To The Moon’ and I see it has a quote from GHOE poem in it.
AGplusone: Yes, Homer is fun, isn’t he?
AGplusone: Chapter 7
Bdelloguy: Loved the movie made of R
ddavitt: I’ve only read this and October Sky; there’s another isn’t there?
AGplusone: [Homer Hickam, author of Back To The Moon, and the Rocketr Boys, aka October Sky]
dwrighsr: Had he read Heinlein when he started the rocket project?
TAWN3: Good movie
dwrighsr: Kept thinking of that while I was watching it.
AGplusone: Yes, he said he had in his e mail to AFH that I printed
dwrighsr: I missed that one.
ddavitt: He says he started with Verne
AGplusone: I’ll send you a copy
dwrighsr: Thanks.
ddavitt: Then moved on to all the SF he could get
AGplusone: He was very gracious, and gave us his website which has a lot of information
dwrighsr: Is he retired now?
AGplusone: Yes, but still living in Huntsville
TAWN3: How long ago did you post the Hickam letter David?
AGplusone: I’d have to look in my Netscape file jleebeane has entered the room.
dwrighsr: Huntsville is only a hop, skip and a jump from where I live.
AGplusone: About six-five months or so
ddavitt: Should be available via Deja?
AGplusone: Yes
AGplusone: But you’ll go crazy finding the thread … jleebeane has left the room.
ddavitt: Power search for Hickam
ddavitt: On afh in last year should do it
ddavitt: With you as author
dwrighsr has left the room.
ddavitt: Easy!
AGplusone: Anyone have jleebeane on list?
Merfilly8: I did from last week ÒjleebeaneÓ is online, but is away from the computer, and cannot respond to your invitation right now.
AGplusone: okay …
AGplusone: Which of the three we read, Ordeal, Searchlight, or GHOE do we want to discuss first?
ddavitt: Don’t mind…
Fldax: GHOE
TAWN3: Ordeal is first in chronological order.
dwrighsr has entered the room.
dwrighsr: Damn. Just got dropped. would someone please save from my last post until now and send it to me later.
Merfilly8: Searchlight is quickest
AGplusone: Let’s do Ordeal then … its an unusual story … twice to the well for the hero … did RAH ever do that again, or before?
TAWN3: OK
ddavitt: You didn’t miss anything David; just deciding on which story to start with
AGplusone: Or “once more unto the breach” …. <g>
dwrighsr: Ok.
TAWN3: None of these stories really grabbed me.
ddavitt: He was a hero who survived; that’s unusual
TAWN3: And ordeal was obvious once you found out there was a cat outside the window.
AGplusone: While I read it I was thinking about the nature of heroism … something you usually walk into blind, but that for the second time hero, it’s a lot tougher …
TAWN3: Predictable.
dwrighsr: He had a hard time thinking of himself as a ‘hero’
ddavitt: Why do the heroes always have to suffer?
Bdelloguy: I think Ordeal, in part, was an attempt to “humanize” space travel. I think I have read similar stories about war veterans.
TAWN3: Plus, how did the cat get there!
Fldax: Tawn, GHOE has been my favorite Heinlein story for years.
Bdelloguy: Cats teleport, of course.
ddavitt: Why can’t they get a reward other than knowledge of a job well done?
Merfilly8: Put there by Karma to test his mettle
dwrighsr: Walk through walls 🙂
ddavitt: Didn’t you see my post on afh Tawn?
Bdelloguy: Pixel could!
TAWN3: Really Fldax!
TAWN3: I forgot about cats teleporting!
ddavitt: My cats did it for real a few weeks back
AGplusone: Plus, actually, who in their right mind crawls out on a ledge 60 stories out to rescue a cat … (Cement donut for you, DaveW) …. [looking around warily for Bob]
TAWN3: But it uses up one of their lives each time.
Merfilly8: I would have been frantic if my cats had done that
ddavitt: Yes, cos when I got them in I felt like killing them! 🙂
AGplusone: [Except firemen, of course … who are by definition, nuts!]
Bdelloguy: RAH also liked to show how people really are gallant. Was this a cat, or a kitten?
ddavitt: It was hair raising Filly.
AGplusone: kitten
Bdelloguy: Hey, my dad’s a fireman…sure he is nuts, but in a GOOD way.
Fldax: A small, scruffy kitten
TAWN3: Walk through walls, LOL
AGplusone: [Bob, Mark, is my tomcat, nice dark black and nasty … and rules with an iron claw!]
Bdelloguy: My point: humans always trying to save the defenseless. Though kittens have more defenses than we expect!
TAWN3: No Jane, been too busy of late, have a lot of newsgroup reading to catch up on.
AGplusone: It’s the story of the hobo again … isn’t it?
Bdelloguy: My wife’s cat, Edgar, walks up purring and then bites my foot.
Merfilly8: he loves you then
ddavitt: Struck me as funny how Bill sees the Captain of the ship; “Thirty five if he’s a day” implying practically decrepit; how old is Bill?
Merfilly8: 🙂
AGplusone: Imagine a guy acrophobic as that … a hopeless chore ….
TAWN3: I noticed that Jane.
Bdelloguy: Remember the theme in other RAH—spacemen retire early and get married late.
AGplusone: ” knowing ” for sure he’s going to fall.
ddavitt: In Space Cadet they retire in early 30’s
ddavitt: Don’t know why; wouldn’t being in space make you last longer; less stress on muscles and such?
AGplusone: That’s Audie Murphy on the tank destroyer … he’d already gone through the got so mad he didn’t think stage by then
ddavitt: Though on the ship I suppose they weren’t always in free fall
TAWN3: Dangerous work, early retirement is an incentive
Bdelloguy: Sure. Except you don’t come back. Remember the old hermit in THE ROLLING STONES?
ddavitt: maybe
dwrighsr: But the implication in GHOE was that a lot of them were around a lot longer than that.
TAWN3: In one of the three shorts we read he mentions how so many are “lost in space”, i. e. die.
AGplusone: Sure … them that survived expected to live forever …
ddavitt: That was set partly in the early pioneering days though
Bdelloguy: I just don’t see how any spaceman could ever come back. Not after being Out There..
ddavitt: One thing I meant to follow up; lots of mentions of cadets in these stories but not the same as The Patrol I think?
TAWN3: Armstrong, etc Bdell
AGplusone: Someone try sending NitroPress an invite please …
Bdelloguy: You are right, TAWN3. And I don’t understand Neil at all.
ddavitt: Bill was a cadet; mentions songs and such and Harriman Hall gets mentioned too but this doesn’t seem the same as SC
TAWN3: I will David
NitroPress has entered the room.
TAWN3: Opps
dwrighsr: Hi Jim.
ddavitt: Hi JIm
TAWN3: Don’t have him on AIM
NitroPress: Hi, all.
TAWN3: HiJim, great book!
NitroPress: Thanks. We’ll be announcing our second title in a week or two.
TAWN3: Good!
AGplusone: He doesn’t show up on my buddy list either. Jim, did you set your prefs on the buddy list to block?
Bdelloguy: Not even a hint?
ddavitt: Seems as if it’s a different training set up, sponsered by DD’s company
NitroPress: I don’t think so. Let me see…
ddavitt: You’re on my buddy list; I see you as active
AGplusone: it may be that you have … in which case you won’t receive invitations someone on your list sends you …
dwrighsr: Mine too.
Merfilly8: he shows on mine
NitroPress: Nice to know I exist. 🙂
TAWN3: No mention of Space Patrol, but there was a mention of the Three Planets Treaty, AND, again, pre Stranger Martians, Martians.
ddavitt: Only if we say you d:)
NitroPress: I’ll be good.
TAWN3: In Ordeal at the dinner party.
ddavitt: Yes; and yet SC does tie into the FH thru Long Watch. Puzzling
TAWN3: Just not mentioned.
dwrighsr: My impression of the Martians was that they were similar to those in Red Planet and SIASL
ddavitt: Maybe they’re the Merchant Navy equivalent?
TAWN3: Can’t mention everything in every story!
Merfilly8: very similar
Bdelloguy: Heck, not everything can be perfectly self-consistent!
ddavitt: But why two sets of cadets?
AGplusone: Are there two sets?
ddavitt: No; the FH isn’t that for sure
dwrighsr: One was Patrol, the other were ordinary spacemen.
ddavitt: That’s what I’m trying to figure out David
AGplusone: Well, there’s the Merchant Marine Academy at King’s Point. Always been separate.
Bdelloguy: Space Marines have their own set up, different than the Patrol. Remember, the Patrol is called “The Professors.” Right?
Merfilly8: maybe same beginnings, but those without that little extra are ordinary, and the rest are Space Patrol
Merfilly8: other way around sorry
ddavitt: Mention of “The Company” as his employer; tie in with Mars revolution in Red Planet?
Bdelloguy: I always thought The Company was DD’s group.
ddavitt: Wasn’t it the Company who were the bad guts in that?
AGplusone: One of the companies … probably …. Harriman …
ddavitt: Guys…
ddavitt: But this would be long after DD’s death; could have become corrupt?
AGplusone: but not necessarily … I always felt that the Mars set up was a chapter like the Hudson Bay or Virginia Companies
ddavitt: Maybe not for Ordeal but later…
ddavitt: Logic of Empire?
AGplusone: charter
ddavitt: That’s the Venus Developement Company
ddavitt: Bound to be owned by Earth
AGplusone: under a “non-profit corporation,” of course …. <g> Harriman had some of them, he said.
TAWN3: Company was DD’s
TAWN3: Explicitedly stated in a couple of the three shorts, if not all three.
AGplusone: [some of ’em probably survived until Thorby’s time and were owned by then by Rudbeck cubed <g>]
ddavitt: Probably! <g>
AGplusone: all “non-profits”
Merfilly8: I noticed that heroes tend to have bad things happen when blokes that don’t belong try to buttinsky..like the captain in Ordeal
dwrighsr: It seems to me from GHOE that Harriman’s idea of regulating space to keep it safe didn’t work out too well for a while.
Merfilly8: Is this a poke at things only go wrong at the worst possible time?
ddavitt: Did seem very risky
AGplusone: Captain was being a ‘captain’ in a way just like the President was being a ‘president’ …
Merfilly8: meaning, when you should look best the worst happens?>
ddavitt: Not the Captain’s fault though
Merfilly8: not his fault
AGplusone: difference was once upon a time Captain could have done it … all that lap sitting with Poddy got to him
NitroPress: Space travel is inherently risky. I don’t see conflict between things like the ‘Space Precautionary Act’ and accidents happening to jetmen.
ddavitt: Just the way the ship was designed. Was Bill that much of a hero or did he make a mess of it?
TAWN3: I agree Jim.
Merfilly8: He did violate a cardinal rule seen elsewhere…safety tethers
dwrighsr: But they seemed to ignore it up until the latter part of Rhysling’s life.
Merfilly8: but was in best interest of ship to do so
NitroPress: No, he had a tether. He couldn’t reach it for return to the ship.
TAWN3: I was unclear in reading it about just exactly how it all happened, I missed that. He had no tetheres?
AGplusone: It’s very much like Maritime common law … absent Precautionary Acts, the Admiralty Courts will shove the same thing down your throat if you’re a shipowner … it’s just a longer time before they do it.
NitroPress: He unhitched it to reach further.
ddavitt: He did the job but had to unhook the line to do it
AGplusone: He could no longer pull himself back … tired.
ddavitt: Not very clear why exactly; I found it hard to visualise it
NitroPress: Description of the line’s behavior is inconsistent with spinning ship, though.
AGplusone: And a hand hold no longer existed …
ddavitt: Loop of the line was out of reach; shouldn’t he have anticipated that?
Fldax: I did, too.
TAWN3: It will take a while in the era of space travel before the minor rules and Precautionary Acts and other things get added. RAH seems to have understood this.
NitroPress: And it will take longer before the hotshots (like Rhysling) pay attention to them. 🙂
TAWN3: Just like the internet, takers a while for the regulators to catch up with the rest of us, it is “new” teritory.
dwrighsr: Of course,it made a better story environment
AGplusone: Maybe not … I think if they find the Admiralty jurisdiction exists in space, the admiralty courts will apply the same rules quicker than spit.
ddavitt: It says that jetmen are wild and woolly
AGplusone: Of course the companies will fight them
TAWN3: Ah, that’s right, about the time (right before?) he lost the wrench.
ddavitt: Trying to think of a present day equivalent of privileged workers in a dnagerous job…
AGplusone: Seamen
NitroPress: Steeplejacks.
ddavitt: No…
NitroPress: Iron workers.
TAWN3: Military
Fldax: Navy SEAL’s
NitroPress: Writers.
TAWN3: Retire after twenty years
TAWN3: writes, lol:)
ddavitt: People who can talk back to the boss and get away with it because of who they are; like the people on Sisu who can talk back to the Captain
Merfilly8: soem military Tawn
AGplusone: Military has the “Feres” doctrine applying, and are far from ‘privileged’ in our courts
ddavitt: Enginneers; mad because of their job 🙂
dwrighsr: I’m not sure what you mean by privileged.
TAWN3: privelidged how, in the sense of dangerous work, retire eary? Mil does that.
ddavitt: No….just special, sorry not explaining it well;
TAWN3: Or used to, Congress has been messing with it for ten years, now it is broke.
Merfilly8: I used to get away with a few breaches of military etiquette because I was a hotshot techie
Merfilly8: that was a privelage of sorts
NitroPress: Is it SAS teams that have very informal relations among the team members?
TAWN3: But will be fixed again lest we see more and more Condotierrie (Mercenary) forces pop up.
ddavitt: jetmen were risking having no j=kids, dying on the job; this let them get away with stuff; they were doing a job few would want
AGplusone: ‘privileged’ in the sense that courts have applied all the rules that workers comp legislation, and other employee legislation usually enacted by legislatures?
AGplusone: That’s what admiralty courts have done with seamen by the way …
TAWN3: Cobol writers a year ago? LOL
ddavitt: Look at Rhysling’s arrogance and attitude towards the Captain on his final journey
AGplusone: Comes as a big surprise to people who owe foreign flag vessels …
NitroPress: COBOL writers in any era… or APL jockeys.
dwrighsr: Yea for APL. my favorite
AGplusone: owe=own
ddavitt: No one answered my query on afh btw; what’s Brewster’s Ridge?
NitroPress: Battle site?
AGplusone: They walk into the courts and say, but I’m flying Nigerian flag … Court then nails they hide to wall … says admiralty law applies, an international common law of the sea.
ddavitt: Dunno; it’s lumped in with halley’s Comet and the rings so i assume it’s space related
AGplusone: they=their
NitroPress: Oh, right. I think it’s an invention of RAH’s.
AGplusone: Who’s Brewster, then?
ddavitt: darn! How’m I supposes to know that? 🙂
BPRAL22169 has entered the room.
BPRAL22169: Thanks.
NitroPress: Hey, Bill.
dwrighsr: Hi Bill. Welcome
AGplusone: Evening, Bill
BPRAL22169: Mr. G!
Fldax: Hi Bill!
BPRAL22169: Hi one, hi all.
BPRAL22169: Laurie
TAWN3: Hi Bill!
BPRAL22169: Tawn
BPRAL22169: (That was a nod and a tip of the hat — two tips)
BPRAL22169: Where are we?
NitroPress: Earth.
ddavitt: Ok; so what’s one thumb?
TAWN3: Cool
BPRAL22169: Matter of opinion.
Merfilly8: Brewster, Sir David1781-1868, Scottish physicist and natural philosopher. His invention of the kaleidoscope was one result of his notable light-polarization studies. He improved the spectroscope and devised the dioptic system of lighthouse illumination. Among his many writings is a major biography (1855) of Sir Isaac NEWTON.
Merfilly8: this seems relevant
ddavitt: Wow! I;m impressed Filly!
AGplusone: [btw, Jane: there’s a series of court cases going on in Long Beach right now against several of the cruise lines in which this admiralty jurisdiction is being applied to crewmen on the cruise lines, waiters, etc.]
NitroPress: Sure, throw in facts. 🙂
Merfilly8: thank you
TAWN3: What are the cases about David?
BPRAL22169: (A most unfair way to argue)
ddavitt: Thanks David
AGplusone: Paying virtually no wages, kickbacks to get jobs, abandoned employees, fired and kicked off ships remote from their homes, etc.
TAWN3: Oh
AGplusone: US News & World Report wrote it up recently.
TAWN3: I find that hard to beleive
AGplusone: Similar cases in Florida … believe it.
TAWN3: Lots of people would do it for the free trip.
AGplusone: Yeah, right …
TAWN3: yeah right.
AGplusone: Tell that to a forty year old Filipino busboy who paid a couple thou to a middle man to get the job for a season … and paid air fare from the Phils to Florida and got fired after two weeks.
TAWN3: I seen articles about it on how to get free cruises and other things. Readers Digest, Kipplinger, Bottom Line etc. Some people WANT to do that, just like couriers in return for airfare and room and board.
ddavitt: Like Bill, Rhysling isn’t so much of a hero as a man doing his job….does this make the story better? Less unbelievable?
AGplusone: And left in Miami …
AGplusone: or dropped off in Saudi Arabia …
Merfilly8: Bill actually thought about his actions; Rhysling’s instincts took over
Bdelloguy: Heroes are everywhere…and they surprise themselves sometimes, just like Noisy did.
TAWN3: I’m not sure busboys are paying thousands of dollars to middle men to get busboy jobs, if they are, they must be REALLY desireable jobs.
ddavitt: He never stopped thinking of himself as a jetman; automatic response to a crisis
BPRAL22169: So he never stopped being a jetman.
AGplusone: If you live in the Fils, I suppose …
TAWN3: Rhysling was beleiveable, Ordeal left me wanting. I didn’t beleive it at all.
Bdelloguy: Bill believes in you!
dwrighsr: How come?
ddavitt: Which bit? Kitten or ship?
Merfilly8: Both are kinda hard to stomach
ddavitt: I find it hard to believe that a ship wpould be designed so that you had to go outside to repair it….
TAWN3: Oh, him going out on the ledge despite the Hitchcock lebel fear of falling (actually I thought it was called vertigo) he had
Bdelloguy: I remember reading essays by RAH about ordinary folks risking their lives to save others; I’m sure that that was the genesis of the “kitten on the ledge” device.
Merfilly8: I agree that the spin, etc on ship were hard to visualize….and then a ship miraculopusly catching him in his fall
Merfilly8: grrr.sp
Merfilly8: oh I can see outside repairs
TAWN3: Also, it struck more me as vertigo than agoraphobia, which I relate with large open spaces in public, but I could be technically wrong.
Fldax: I remember those essays, too.
ddavitt: That’s the problem with a short story; have to stretch the facts a bit to make an impact
Merfilly8: just not smooth, no handhold sides, repairs on ship in spin, etc
TAWN3: Hitchcock level of fear
ddavitt: Don’t have the space to elaborate, build up details
Merfilly8: true
AGplusone: Possibly all that training our astronauts got in space walking and the devices for doing so were a result of that story, and the event in Destination Moon, Tawn?
BPRAL22169: One of the remarkable things about Heinlein’s stories is that we find these stories about self-healing all over the place1 That’s very unusual in today’s climate. In current lit, you have to be victimized by your neuroses and build the story around that.
ddavitt: Interesting point is that he had the fear BEFORE he went out but it was supressed
ddavitt: See his reaction as he watches the Captain being lowered out of the ship; sinking feeling he gets
TAWN3: Actually David, I thought a lot about the shuttle and other space walks while reading that part
AGplusone: Acrophobia is not unusual. Thousands of parachutists have it.
TAWN3: The need to go outside seemed real (think of Space Cadet and their training btw).
BPRAL22169: (Before or after the first jump, hmmm?)
ddavitt: Heinlein says fear of falling and noises are the only two innate fears.
ddavitt: Noises surpises me?
BPRAL22169: I think that’s a finding from developmental psychology.
AGplusone: Before, after, during, at night, when awake, drunk, sober … always. Even now.
TAWN3: I think our training in space walking, at least in the early days, was simply “because it was there”.
BPRAL22169: Shrinks were looking for instincts and couldn’t find any — so they settled for innate reflexes.
ddavitt: Noises make us jump; but do they scare us all that much?
Bdelloguy: Once I went camping at San Diego’s Wild Animal Park. In the middle of the night, a leopard “coughed.” I came FULL awake, instantly. Sure I was safe, but my body KNEW that noise meant a predator was nearby.
ddavitt: What about the dark, enclosed places etc
AGplusone: And if you think pointing a gun at my head could make me jump today unless I believed it necessary you’re nuts!
TAWN3: Were there any real functions for space walking in the early days other than to show up the Russians and be a good PR stunt, as well as just the thrill of we actually could do it. Like swimming off an aircraft carrier, it’s cool, but not necessary.
geeairmoe2 has entered the room.
ddavitt: Hi Will
dwrighsr: Hi Will
Merfilly8: Hi Will
NitroPress: ‘Allo, Guillermo
geeairmoe2: Hi, all
TAWN3: Now, with the shuttle, and Hubble, and in space repair jobs it is necessary. At first it seemed just because “we could”.
Merfilly8: The fear of dark enclosements seems inborn to me
AGplusone: I think training for the future was what they had in mind, Tawn … eventually there’d be satillites …
NitroPress: Don’t you have that backwards?
AGplusone: and experimentation
dwrighsr: They had to start somewhere, not wait until they needed to
ddavitt: Yet that’s how a baby spends it’s first nine months…
BPRAL22169: Actually, infants go to sleep in dark enclosed environments — like parrots.
AGplusone: that would have to be fixed, augmented, etc.
Merfilly8: but light filters through, they say
AGplusone: It wasn’t the equivalent of ‘wing-walking’
ddavitt: Some is supposed to yes but it must be dark quite a lot of the time
ddavitt: At night and if you’re wearing lots of layers!:)
Merfilly8: yeah
geeairmoe2: Sorry to be late. Following the Graham execution.
TAWN3: Hi Will.
AGplusone: Funny, I watched “True Crimes” last night, Eastwood’s movie.
Merfilly8: good movie
geeairmoe2: Hi Tawn.
TAWN3: Is he dead?
geeairmoe2: Mr. Graham has assumed room temperature.
TAWN3: Should have happened about an hour ago.
AGplusone: Odd that Eastwood would make a movie like that …
TAWN3: Wish I had cable, not sure where I stand on it.
AGplusone: cautionary.
BPRAL22169: You don’t stand on the cable, silly: it ruins the reception.
TAWN3: Which movie was true crimes?
TAWN3: lol Bill,
Merfilly8: Reporter supposed to do human interest on a condemned killer
AGplusone: Innocent man about to be executed. Reporter finds out whodoneit at last moment.
TAWN3: But if I stand on my rabbit ears it improves reception.
TAWN3: Never saw it.
Fldax: If my cat stands on my TV it doesn’t do a thing
AGplusone: Not on tape yet …
BPRAL22169: All I get in like circumstances is a very angry rabbit.
dwrighsr: My rabbit gets very upset if I stand on it’s ears
Merfilly8: should have seen the reception array I built for my Barracks tv….
AGplusone: I think, but I get Oscar nomination tapes.
Merfilly8: more wire hangers than you could shake a stick at
NitroPress: Anyone mourning Mr. Graham?
AGplusone: Haven’t a clue who he is … the one in Texas?
geeairmoe2: 95% of what Graham’s supporters were saying was BS.
TAWN3: When I was in the barracks, tin foil unrolled worked best. About a foot worth, like a flag around one of the antenna. But we were all commo men and came up with field expedient stuff which usually worked better than store stuff.
BPRAL22169: Actually, I have foudn that to be the case about just about anything on TV, Will…
TAWN3: Yes David
dwrighsr: If those quotes I saw earlier are true, then absolutely not.
TAWN3: Is an obvious miscarriage of justice, until…..you hear even more facts, so…..
Merfilly8: Foil doesn’t work so well anymore. Now, the cable antennae we rigged to our surveilance shelters worked great
TAWN3: An iffy case. Wish I had CNN and MSNBC tio follow it.
geeairmoe2: CNN and MSNBC were 99% BS.
AGplusone: I believe that more than 95% of everything any lawyer says is bullshit, on both sides … so I dunno. The media doesn’t report facts any more, it emotes.
dwrighsr: And how does that make you feel 🙂
Merfilly8: personal flavor to most reports
AGplusone: Jeffrey Tobin and the rest are idiots … just like the rest of the Sunday through Saturday gasbags.
Bdelloguy: I don’t care what the Talking Heads think. I care about them reporting the facts.
BPRAL22169: It’s not so much that I object to personal flavor, as I would just like to be able to get some of the facts, some of the time.
AGplusone: I agree Mark
Bdelloguy: Do we really care what actors think about stuff like this?
AGplusone: The media thinks we do …
TAWN3: I hung coax out a window once and got some soso cable. It is getting harder and harder to pick up bleed though, what with new tech.
Merfilly8: “This is not my beautiful wide…” oh, sorry Talking HEads
AGplusone: or the Press Lords would have it so.
geeairmoe2: This happened back when I was a reporter, and had tons of law enforcement contacts who hear lots of hearsay that can’t be testified too, Graham happily bragged about how many of the “whitey’s” he offed and sent to Honkey Hell.
Bdelloguy: We need to get facts, and then make up our own minds. Then—we need to know how to disagree with each other, with respect!
Merfilly8: we tended to monitor the local stations when we were ‘testing’ equipment
AGplusone: That’s why they call it hearsay, Will.
ddavitt: In an ideal world Mark…
TAWN3: Bill, for facts. Watch Mcneil Newshour and Charlie Rose on PBS.
AGplusone: I don’t want to hear what informants and cops tell me they hear …
Bdelloguy: Notice how we settle for far less than ideal, though?
TAWN3: Or listen to the BBC from time to time.
Merfilly8: Quick question: anyone seen the ads for Big Brother, an upcoming series?
ddavitt: Compromise is a killer isn’t it?
AGplusone: Or lawyers and politicians think they can get away with claiming are the facts
ddavitt: No Filly
geeairmoe2: Because its hearsay doesn’t mean its not true.
AGplusone: <—-25 years a lawyer
Merfilly8: So many people in a building, completely wired for surveillance, no radio no tv, last one remaining in gets a bunch of moolah
TAWN3: Yes David
TAWN3: Will be on after Survival.. Looks like they ripped off MTV’s The Real World.
AGplusone: Do we get wine, wimmen and song too?
Bdelloguy: It has been fun folks–my first exposure to “chatrooms.” It’s been great “meeting” everyone. I’ll log on again on Saturday for the next session…now I have to go make dinner for my wife! Take care, all….
BPRAL22169: Sounds like an urban version of Survival.
Bdelloguy has left the room.
ddavitt: None of those appeal to me at all
AGplusone: Nice to have you, Mark
geeairmoe2: I’ll watch Survivor until jenna’s voted off.
Merfilly8: Yes, but the lack of privacy is supposed to be more severe than Real World
TAWN3: Nice to meet you Bdell
AGplusone: Back to Heinlein … anyone interested in talking about Heinlein’s poetry?
Merfilly8: It’s fair to middlin
ddavitt: Getting back to GHOE…..did everyone realise that he was Nosiy in TEFL? I didn’t until someone pointed it out on afh some while back.
Merfilly8:
ddavitt: I like it!
Merfilly8: I recognized it right away…but had read TEFL first
AGplusone: I was very surprised to find in Jim’s book the mention of the poem to his sister ….
AGplusone: what opus is that JIM [waving …. ]
AGplusone: ?
ddavitt: I see a strong Kipling link and I like Kipling too; similar rhythm and swing to it
TAWN3: Geez, they have sites on the internet where you pay to watch people live 24 hours with a monitor in every room. Apparently these sites make lots of money. Are the networks trying to cash in?
dwrighsr: I think the best ‘poetry’ that I recall was that intro to New Beginnings in TEFL.
ddavitt: Hiawatha bit…yes.
AGplusone: “Atlantis” G001, 1929 ….
BPRAL22169: I can’t recall that one, David.
ddavitt: Plus, as I mentioned in my pre meeting post, there’s a very similar bit in Ordeal to the the GHOE poem
BPRAL22169: I liked the new Beginnings bit, too — took a few sentences into it before you realized you were reading verse.
geeairmoe2: I’m afraid I tend to glace past the poetry. Kinda ignore the quotes at the beginning of chapters, too.
BPRAL22169: That passage is an oblique reference to Cabell, btw.
ddavitt: Thy’re a lot of fun Will….
AGplusone: found on a sheet of pulp paper with “Louise Heinlein” written on outside
ddavitt: Which passage Bill?
AGplusone: earliest known preserved writing …
BPRAL22169: TELF — the New Begininngs passage.
TAWN3: Really?
ddavitt: What’s the Cabell link?
Merfilly8: A T-elf?
AGplusone: Was Louise the one who died in the auto accident, Bill?
TAWN3: Where did you find this out David?
BPRAL22169: Yes, I believe so.
ddavitt: ARC of course 🙂
AGplusone: p. 215 of Jim’s book
Merfilly8: I’ll have to hope I can one day afford that book
ddavitt: Still seems very Longfellow to me….
TAWN3: Ah, I’ve been using it like a reference, jumping from the glossary to whatever I was researching.
BPRAL22169: Sorry for ignoring the “Cabell link” question.
ddavitt: Order it from your library Filly
AGplusone: I agree about the New Beginnings poetry, very Longfellow
TAWN3: Will have to read it cover to cover at some point I suppose. I love the way it is set up as a reference though.
ddavitt: I forgive you Bill 🙂
BPRAL22169: it’s not a reference — it’s just the kind of thing Cabell did a lot in his Biography of manuel books. Disguised poetry.
TAWN3: Merf, it’s affordable.
ddavitt: Oh…I see. There’s some of that in L M Montgomery too
BPRAL22169: He called them “contrapuntal passages.”
ddavitt: Again, I didn’t notice until a researcher pointed it out in a book about her work
AGplusone: If you’re not Maya Angelou, you sneak it into your novels <g>
Merfilly8: Uhh…not yet. We are arse end up in debt due to getting hubby to the convention last weekend to help his burgeoning desire to be an artist
AGplusone: as “prose”
ddavitt: Library will have to get it for you won’t they?
ddavitt: Isn’t it free in the States?
BPRAL22169: You can get one one E-Bay if you wish to pay more than the cover price, heh, heh.
TAWN3: Everything is free in the states.
TAWN3: lol
TAWN3: Really? They are being sold on e-bay?!!!!!
dwrighsr: You can get them free from the library, *after* they are persuaded to buy it.
TAWN3: Oh, you mean #1 and # 100
TAWN3: of the special collectors edition.
dwrighsr: What are they going for?
ddavitt: In the Uk and here in Canada you just request it; any fee is nominal; less than a dollar, if at all
TAWN3: limited edition
TAWN3: which I was too late to get. They went fast!
geeairmoe2 has left the room.
BPRAL22169: I don’t think so — Jim put one up. I didn’t follow the auction, but last I looked it was over $25.
Merfilly8: Our library still thinks sci-fi is scandalous and unfit to read
BPRAL22169: Only the good stuff.
ddavitt: You’re kidding!
AGplusone: ABout five minute break in three minutes ….
Merfilly8: I’m, not
AGplusone: to refresh liquids, etc. …
ddavitt: That’s wicked…have they banned the Harry Potter books too?
Merfilly8: I dont’ recall seeing them
ddavitt: makes me angry….
Merfilly8: of course, it is resource poor, and might just be conserving to carry as many new top tens as they can
dwrighsr: I got #7. Aren’t you drooling with envy 🙂
SAcademy: Nite, all.
SAcademy has left the room.
AGplusone: Nite …
dwrighsr: Night SA. Talk to you later.
ddavitt: Yes; the UK libraries are suffering a lot from lack of resources.
TAWN3: drooling with envy
TAWN3: it was my own fault of course.
TAWN3: SA left fast.
Merfilly8: Whoa TMIAHM 1st ed hard back over $200
Merfilly8: sorry…ebay is addictive
dwrighsr: It just happened to ‘almost’ coincide with my birthday, so I didn’t have any trouble talking my wife into it.
AGplusone: Break until 1035 pm, ET …. Bill, greet anyone please?
TAWN3: 🙂
ddavitt: My birthday as well! May 7
dwrighsr: Mine was the 4th. A long 60 years ago 🙂
dwrighsr: The day before Ricky Nelson’s
ddavitt: My dad was 60 last week…
Fldax: Mine was the 29th about a million years ago!
geeairmoe2 has entered the room.
ddavitt: I can’t imagine him on a chat group like this though!
AGplusone: Daughter gave me Rio Brovo for Father’s Day, Dave …
dwrighsr: Are you one of the Howard Family?
ddavitt: But my mum loves them and she will be 60 in Nov
geeairmoe2: Am I back?
ddavitt: Yes.
Fldax: Right!
ddavitt: Much coverage of the soccer in the US?
geeairmoe2: Local ISP seems on the fritz.
geeairmoe2: Had to come back through Earthlink.
ddavitt: We are getting it all in Canada…not that I’m watching with much interest now
Merfilly8: ESPN2 sometimes covers non-cup matches
BPRAL22169: OK Fine.
Merfilly8: I used to follow, but haven’t in quite some time
ddavitt: It’s Euro 2000 at the moment; huge tournament, second only to World Cup
Merfilly8: probably on, then
ddavitt: England have been knoecked out; penalty conceded in last minute of the game
ddavitt:
AGplusone: Understand they’re celebrating in Europe the fact that fans won’t be celebrating in Europe this year. At least that’s what BBC reported on WorldNewsTonight over here.
dwrighsr: If you haven’t done so already, check out the Heinlein Bulletin Board for instructions on how to get yourself into the room without an invite.
ddavitt: But we beat germany for the first time in 34 years….
geeairmoe2: I like watching woman’s soccer. More measured and cerebral; less testosetronish.
Merfilly8: says who?
Merfilly8: those women play vicious sometimes
ddavitt: They are not fans David; they are hooligans who use soccer as an excuse for barbarism
AGplusone: I like Itchy and Scratchy cartoons meself ….
Merfilly8: like the ladies nba
ddavitt: they nearly got us chucked out; not the behaviur of fans
ddavitt: Plus we probably won’t get to host the World Cup….
AGplusone: Everyone knows that … we even had some idiots for the Lakers here.
ddavitt: Damn, darn, spit…
ddavitt: Yes, it’s so infuriating to have a handful spoil it for the mjority
Merfilly8: I heard about riots after the game?
AGplusone: The politicians are excusing the LAPD saying they’re afraid of Rampart so they’re not knocking heads like they usta …
ddavitt: They rioted in LA didn’t they?
AGplusone: Some vandalism …
Merfilly8: ahh
ddavitt: In Eurpoe people die because of football; that seems really shocking to me…
ddavitt: It’s a game for heaven’s sake…I’m a fan but I can’t imagine getting that worked up over it
ddavitt: david was depressed for two days but he’s recovering slowly 🙂
TAWN3: They do stupid things, abuse minorities. Then the press and public beats them up for it. As a result, they go to the opposite extreme and do nothiong. What they need to do is be less racsist, don’t abuse people, but act when it is actually necessary.
AGplusone: Does seem a bit extreme, but as wonderful as the 1950s were, the only killing I knew about in high school was a basketball center at a dance who got killed by a gang from another school because they beat him … nothin’ ever changes, same idiots every century.
BPRAL22169: Never happen — LA has the most corrupt police department in the country.
geeairmoe2: Some newscasts blamed patriotism for the Euro2000 riots. People too caught up in pride for their country.
AGplusone: because ‘he beat them’
ddavitt: You’re right there david…
TAWN3: On the other hand, if I was a cop, constantly being ytold about “cultural sensitivity”, I might very well say “fine” and stand by and do nothinmg also.
TAWN3: the only killing I knew about in high school was a basketball center at a dance who got killed by a gang from another school because they beat him … nothin’ ever changes, same idiots every century.
AGplusone: They walked up and shot him with a .22 zip gun, like the one Bill has in Cat Who Walked throu
TAWN3: Capulets and Mantagues
TAWN3: Montagues
Dehede011 has entered the room.
TAWN3: That’s where they learned how to make them, by read RAH (LOL)
Merfilly8: hello
AGplusone: Hi, Ron … they fought an actual war in South America over soccer ….
TAWN3: Hi
Dehede011: Hello everyone.
ddavitt: I’m proud of being English Will; I was chuffed when we beat Germany…but if we’d lost I wouldn’t have thrown a brick thru a German neighbour’s window…
TAWN3: Hi Ron
ddavitt: Hi
Dehede011: Chuffed??
geeairmoe2: I think a bit of beer, etc, is more a culprit than loving one’s country.
ddavitt: Over the moon, pleasede, happy
Dehede011: Thanks Jane.
ddavitt: yes; my mum says the Belgians were serving 18% beer ,shudder>
ddavitt: Silly thing to do….
dwrighsr: Interesting expression. Is it an old one or recent?
Dehede011: I am surprised they could still stand in that case
AGplusone: Yum! Do they serve 18% beer always?
ddavitt: Old; “well chuffed”
ddavitt: Must be British….
dwrighsr: Thanks. I’ll add that to my special list
geeairmoe2: This tea drinker needs “18% beer” explained.
ddavitt: Don’t know…
Merfilly8: 18%alcohol
ddavitt: Normal beer is between 2 to 6 %
AGplusone: The fact that Belgium has 18% beer or “well chuffed”? 🙂
Dehede011: The old old comment still stands – “England and the US. Two countries seperated by a common language.”
ddavitt: That’s come over a lot to me since I’ve been on the net!
ddavitt: I have to be very careful with my posts not to get too colloquial
dwrighsr: Sadly, the net will probably erase all of the difference over time.
Merfilly8: I speak ‘Murican, and sometimes NewEnglandese
ddavitt: Not on your nellie! 🙂
Merfilly8: English is within my realm of possibility 🙂
Dehede011: I speak “murican,” Hillbilly and Pig Latin
AGplusone: Notice, btw, the Lakers celebration and riot occurred downtown, where home owners don’t have guns …. because there ain’t no homes, Jane.
geeairmoe2: I tend to drawl, almost 30 years in Texas will do that.
ddavitt: I have to go soon…can we do Searchlight?
Dehede011: Then you know about the three types of Yankees don’t you gee?
ddavitt: Imagine those Englsih fans with guns David!
AGplusone: Sure … ask away, or make a statement …
geeairmoe2: Searchlight. Wasn’t that kinda based on a true event?
ddavitt: Was it?
Fldax: Got to run. Will be back later.
AGplusone: Howso, Will?
Fldax has left the room.
Dehede011: Yes, on the Lexington in the early thirties.
Merfilly8: Searchlight is amazing for brevity and the wisp of a tear, like a lassie episode
ddavitt: Sea rescue maybe?
geeairmoe2: Some vauge recollection of something written in EU.
ddavitt: But don’t you think he piled it on?
ddavitt: Oh yes….that rings a bell?
Dehede011: Yes and no.
ddavitt: As i said on afh, it’s like a Jubal tear jerker.
AGplusone: Is that the ‘talking in’ he did with the pilot, Searles?>
Dehede011: Yes,
BPRAL22169: In the short-short format you don’t have much room for exposition.
ddavitt: Now if only she’s had her pet cat in the ship with her it would’ve been perfect….
geeairmoe2: I tried to look it up but couldn’t find my copy of EU.
AGplusone: Do you have a page cite, Ron?
Dehede011: No, I just remember the story.
AGplusone: I’ll look through the EU and post a page, Will
AGplusone: Apparently a pilot of the Lex got lost and they steered in his direction while RAH kept him talking
Dehede011: If you remember the famous incident of the flight of TBMs lost off Florida then the story comes much more into perspective and seems much more matter of fact.
dwrighsr: That’s why I want to put *every* Heinlein book on a CD so I can do instant searches.
AGplusone: or something like that ….
geeairmoe2: Just remembered where I left my copy. P. 452 of the ace paperback.
ddavitt: He took the most emotionally charged person he could and stranded her on the Moon….had to be deliberate. Her blindness was not needed for the story really.
AGplusone: Why not?
ddavitt: The way they found her would’ve worked for a sighted person too….but me, i would have died being unable to distinguish notes.
BPRAL22169: Perfect pitch was though.
ddavitt: Exactly; had to be musical; didn’t have to be blind.
Dehede011: When I was in flight school we lost a flight of five SNJs over Alabama and where they went was a complete mystery until we found them.
AGplusone: ‘greatest artists’ are impaired theme, isn’t it, Jane?
Merfilly8: Stressing the disability increases other perceptions?
dwrighsr: Yeah, that was Bud Scoles, the guy who got RAH to Philadelphia during the war.
AGplusone: Yes, him.
BPRAL22169: They could have gotten around that using a base tone to establish the range and then used another tone — gives you even more variation as you’ve got itnerval as well as absolute pitch.
ddavitt: maybe,,,but I still think he was just twisting the screw a little to get every ounce of empathy out of the reader
BPRAL22169: Come to think of it, I would have done it that way instead of absolute pitch — don’t have to worry about frequency fluctuations in radio.
TAWN3: Of course he was jane.
AGplusone: In a short short you haveta do something ….
TAWN3: Jane
AGplusone: Poe used to turn the screw, din’t he?
Merfilly8: groan
TAWN3: Arghhhhh!
AGplusone: And Henry James did too
ddavitt: Oh, I agree, but it was so blatant; the shorter the story the more such gimmicks show up…and this was _short_
AGplusone: superarggh!
ddavitt: 🙂
BPRAL22169: A lot of people faced with the need to do a short-short write elaborate puns.
ddavitt: I remmeber Asimov using this technique
Dehede011: But legitimate in that such things are part of the work-a-day world of Naval Aviation.
BPRAL22169: Like Asimov’s “A niche in time saves Stein.”
ddavitt: I liked that one!
AGplusone: 🙂
dwrighsr: Look at a couple of Asimov’s
ddavitt: He was very good at short stories.
dwrighsr: You people type too fast for me
BPRAL22169: Reginald Bretnor used to do Ferdinand Feghoots for the old F&SF that were all puns like that.
ddavitt: OK, I have to go now, nice chatting, see you all soon. Bye.
Dehede011: Bye
BPRAL22169: Ciao, Jane.
dwrighsr: Have a good evening.
TAWN3: byew
DenvToday has entered the room.
geeairmoe2: I’ve tried writing short stories. They all want to turn into novels.
ddavitt has left the room.
DenvToday: Evening everybody.
dwrighsr: HI Denv.
TAWN3: Hi Denv
DenvToday: Howdy 🙂
Merfilly8: I made that comment Will
Merfilly8: I leave too many openings in a short story
AGplusone: Anyone happen to have read any of the other five short shorts that Hoffman Electronics published?
BPRAL22169: You know, that would make a very interesting pamphlet — here me, Jim?
AGplusone: I think ou have to write a short short like you tell a joke!
DenvToday: Were they previously unpublished?
TAWN3: David, shorts by who?
AGplusone: Wait one … paging through …
BPRAL22169: Didn’t Asimov reprint his in one of hsi 400 opera?
geeairmoe2: page 168 in ARC
Dehede011: Dave that is the outstanding thing about Searchlight. It is basically the kind of story navy flyers sit around telling each other. RAH just wrote one down.
Dehede011: Got paid for it too.
BPRAL22169: Incidentally, has everyone heard Don Henley’s latest? There’s a wonderful n umber: “they’re not here; they’re not coming.”
geeairmoe2: Gives the issue of Sci-Amer the Hoffman stories appeared in.
Merfilly8: got paid big
TAWN3: What are the Hoffman stories?
AGplusone: Van Vogt, Asimov, Fritz Leiber, Frank Rile, and Asimov again
AGplusone: Hoffman Electronic commissioned the six to run in advertisements they were placing in magazines
geeairmoe2: Short-shorts by famous authors inside Hoffman Electronics ads. Jan, Feb, Apr, Jun, Aug, Nov of 1962.
TAWN3: Do you have titles, or a citation?
DenvToday: Are they on the Web?
Dehede011: I wonder if any of the others had Searchlights realism.
geeairmoe2: Getting my info from RAH:ARC, p. 168.
dwrighsr: You recall what RAH said about Bud Scoles and the impact it might have had if he hadn’t made it back to his carrier?
AGplusone: yes … “Itself” by Van Vogt, “My Son, the Physicist” by Asimov, “Mirror,” by Leiber, “Wunderkaltz” by Riley, “S” by RAH, and “Starlight” by Asimov
TAWN3: Figured that Will
Dehede011: Yes, RAH would not have made it to Philadelphia.
AGplusone: What’s ‘wunderkaltz’ mean, Dave?
dwrighsr: what’s the context?
AGplusone: Hoffman made radios …
AGplusone: and TVs
AGplusone: consols …
AGplusone: No idea, just a title of a work
dwrighsr: You got me. I don’t have a good German dictionary. I’ll have to try and find it.
AGplusone: Actually never heard of Riley ….
TAWN3: Me either
TAWN3: neither?
AGplusone: nor I
geeairmoe2: eBay has someone selling all 1962 issues of Scientific American. http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=363084649
AGplusone: Does it mention RAH and the writers?
geeairmoe2: Riley is best known for his collaboration with Clifton which won one of the early Hugos. “They’d Rather Be Right”.
geeairmoe2: No mention of writers, just the featured article. Doesn’t save if the Hoffman ads are still inside and intact.
geeairmoe2: Sometimes the ads fall out and the owners don’t notice.
TAWN3: BRB
DenvToday: I checked an online German-English dictionary. There was no definition for “wunderkaltz”
BPRAL22169: Ibelieve Riley died in the early 60’s. THEY’D RATHER BE RIGHT was a Dianetics novel. Fandom deeply regrets and is embarrased about giving it a Hugo.
geeairmoe2: I have a copy, haven’t read it yet.
BPRAL22169: It’s interesting for the light it throws on STRANGER.
AGplusone: Howso?
dwrighsr: Wunder is Wonder, kalt is cold, but the z throws me. and the combo doesn’t make a lot of sense. Trying to find in online also.
BPRAL22169: There’s the remote ancestress of Patty Paiwonski in there.
AGplusone: Ahha! You mentioned that before once.
DenvToday: Could it be slang for Wonder Kid?
AGplusone: Maybe Hoffman made refrigerators too <g>
BPRAL22169: I speculated once that the opening of the Founding Church of Scientology in 1955 might have prompted RAH to work on STRANGER that year — might have happened that way.
geeairmoe2: It is the only Hugo winner of my collection that isn’t paperback; had to get it from the SF book club years ago.
DenvToday: http://dictionaries.travlang.com/GermanEnglish/dict.cgi?query=wohn&max=50
BPRAL22169: I think it was republished in 1974 or something like that.
BPRAL22169: It’ sthe only Hugo Winner I know of that’s a stinker, no question about it.
AGplusone: Or it’s possibly a ‘cold-sleep’ story … where is Cyro Randy when we need him?
Merfilly8: lol
BPRAL22169: Both Clifton and Riley were dead and gone by that time.
BPRAL22169: Do you REALLY need cryo-Randy? Time for me to leave!
AGplusone: 😛
geeairmoe2: It has an alternate title: The Forever Machine.
AGplusone: That’s a happy face with a tongue sticking out.
Merfilly8: :)~
Merfilly8: don’t like that one
Dehede011: 🙂
AGplusone: Sounds like it … referring to “Wunderkultz”, Will?
BPRAL22169: It’s an odd idea really — they build a supercomputer who can do Dianetics auditing, so Joe kidnaps it and hides in San Francisco’s skid row (where the Moscone Center is now).
geeairmoe2: re: They’d Rather Be Right.
DenvToday: <—wunder klutz
AGplusone: nice!
Dehede011: Gentle men and gentlewomen. Dinner is calling me.
AGplusone: maybe it’s a misspelling in Jim’s book
DenvToday: Bye Dehe
Merfilly8: Good eats
Dehede011 has left the room.
AGplusone: Before you go, De
AGplusone: … I was going to tell him our next meeting is a birthday party ….
BPRAL22169: I wonder if he caught the “Universe” reference . . .
AGplusone: and his Gulf is up in four, not two weeks
Merfilly8: It is?
AGplusone: Uh-huh … closest meeting to RAH’s birthday
AGplusone: July 5th and July 7th ….
Merfilly8: oh kewlies
DenvToday: Happy 93rd
AGplusone: Yes!
Merfilly8: no, only my 25th 🙂
BPRAL22169: That can’tbe right; 6th and 8th, I think?
AGplusone: And, not too coincidentally 3d anniversary of this chat group and Bill’s THJ
geeairmoe2: 6th & 8th are Thurs & sat.
BPRAL22169: Right — I just looked it up.
AGplusone: Ah, well, 30 days have September April June and November … I musta miscounted. Thankyew for correction.
AGplusone: Not enough thumbs and fingers unless I take off shoes
BPRAL22169: (You made me cheat)
AGplusone: I’m sorry Missy, Jerry be better ….
AGplusone: need sigret!
BPRAL22169: Someone’s been reading THRILLING WONDER!
Merfilly8: what’s an Obie, in awards?
dwrighsr: Yngvi is a louse!
AGplusone: 🙂
DenvToday: It’s off-broadway
BPRAL22169: Who sawed Courtney’s boat?
DenvToday: O.B.–off broadway
AGplusone: Is that like: who shaved the barber?
BPRAL22169: E(:
Merfilly8: thankx
BPRAL22169: Ten egoboo bucks to anyone who can recognize that last emoticon.
AGplusone: Kirk Douglas frowing?
AGplusone: frowing up or frowning
geeairmoe2: Smiley with goatee.
AGplusone: btw, need blood :-|= much blood!
geeairmoe2: Egoboo bucks always burn a hole in my pocket anyway.
BPRAL22169: David W just did something that suggested he might be an olde tyme fan. Who sawed Courtney’s boat is a fan tag from the 40’s, I think, and the E(: was how Roscoe (blessed be his name) was abbreviated in the days of hecto and mimeo stencils.
BPRAL22169: Roscoe is the invisible flying beaver who is the patron of all things fannish.
AGplusone: Now if you tell me … okay.
Merfilly8: Gave already
dwrighsr: Well, I am an old fan, but you lost me with that one.
BPRAL22169: He is properly toasted in ice water at Hugo awards banquets.
AGplusone: Oh, looking left.
BPRAL22169: Goes back to the thirties — almost as far back as fandom goes. Predates the Staple Wars and Foo-Foo and Ghu-Ghu.
AGplusone: Is he an ancestor of Bucky, or Rocky?
BPRAL22169: Well, he does fly, so probably Rocky if anyone — but being invisible must make it hard to get dates.
Merfilly8: Anyone here read S.M. Stirling?
AGplusone: Bucky Beaver (“get the new Ipana … it’s better for your teef”)
AGplusone: Only in the Pournelle collabs so far
Merfilly8: ok
AGplusone: Anyone ever read JD MacDonald’s Girl, Gold Watch and Everything?
Merfilly8: nope
BPRAL22169: Saw the movie.
AGplusone: He didn’t have trouble getting dates …. not a very good movie, but fun. Story’s better.
AGplusone: Is he worth looking at separately, Filly? Liked the Pournelle collaborations.
BPRAL22169: Not surprised — can only think of 2 cases where the movie is better than the book.
Merfilly8: Liked his collabs on a series called Fifth Millenium, and with McCaffrey…ship who fought I think
Merfilly8: which 2?
Merfilly8: still haven’t read his singles
BPRAL22169: The Abyss and ET
AGplusone: Shame McD found his metier (sp?) in adventure … he wrote decent fantasy and sci-fi
Merfilly8: The Abyss book not good?
BPRAL22169: He showed up fairly frequently in F&SF in the 1950’s
BPRAL22169: It’s a good book, but not as good as the film.
Merfilly8: the comic had scenes that would have been so great in the movie
AGplusone: Did he … ?
BPRAL22169: Kotzwinkle’s ET novelization sucked.
AGplusone: Din;’t know that …
Merfilly8: Practical Magic is better than the book
AGplusone: I agree with OJ, btw, McD’s characterizations are as good or better than RAH
AGplusone: for walkons …
Merfilly8: Walk-ons in Heinlein have a tendency to grab attention at times
AGplusone: Sergeant “Corpo” I’ll never forget from Last One Left
Merfilly8: but then I found out some of the walk ons were already established.
AGplusone: They do indeed
geeairmoe2: Any time I see “walk-ons” I think of Hitchcock and his movies.
Merfilly8: That’s what I get for reading non-publishing-sequence
AGplusone: Yes. Was lucky. Grew up with RAH, except the pre war stuff
Merfilly8: I really jumped around in publication date. Think I read all of FH backwards
AGplusone: Was it fun to discover there were prequels?
geeairmoe2: Discovered RAH in mid 1970’s, which gave me a huge pile to jump right into.
Merfilly8: Yep
BPRAL22169: People didn’t know it was a series for two years. They were shocked and delighted to find out about the Future History.
Merfilly8: Hazel was the one walk on that grabbed me
AGplusone: LOL!
Merfilly8: that turned out to star in another book
geeairmoe2: I would have like some “prequels” with Friday.
AGplusone: Actually, I think Charlie probably did do strange things in that habitute, out there in the astroid belt.
Merfilly8: Àdo you think Rhysling was heroic by action or nature, and then what was Bill?
BPRAL22169: “Gulf” was a prequel to Friday.
Merfilly8: I still have not read Gulf
AGplusone: Can you imagine today’s parents letting C & P hang around in Charlie’s ‘tute …
DenvToday: I saw RAH’s The Puppet Masters on cable last week. It was the first time I’d seen it. What did you all think of it?
Merfilly8: which collection is it in?
geeairmoe2: I mean books detailing Friday’s courier adventures.
AGplusone: AiE is published newly, by Baen, in march
BPRAL22169: Assignmentin Eternity.
AGplusone: or so
BPRAL22169: I rather liked the Puppet masters film — Donald Sutherland was not The Old man, but he was great anyway.
Merfilly8: I just requested that or Past Thru Tomorrow on the book exchange
AGplusone: Go get it. One of his greatest stories. and the other three aren’t slugs by any means. I like Sutherland’s movie, ….
BPRAL22169: Mer, you can find PTT on EBay — typically about $15 for a hardback.
Merfilly8: Puppet Masters was a fun movie for me…had not read the book at that time all the way through
DenvToday: I thought Sutherland was the best thing in the film.
AGplusone: I liked the girl!
Merfilly8: i did too
geeairmoe2: I like just about anything with Julie Warner.
BPRAL22169: They had to do some odd tapdancing to take it out of the Future History.
Merfilly8: Friday or Puppet Masters?
Merfilly8: <–slow on uptake
AGplusone: Or “Gulf”?
BPRAL22169: Puppet masters — no inhabited Venus for Mary to come from.
AGplusone: Ah, yes … forget, where were they?
AGplusone: Some jungle somewhere?
DenvToday: It seemed to me that “the old man” in Puppet Masters was basically the same character as in Friday.
AGplusone: No, not to me.
Lucylou98 has entered the room.
Merfilly8: Really?
DenvToday: Not literally, but very similar.
AGplusone: Baldwin is more of a con-artist …
geeairmoe2: Cut from the same template, I thought.
BPRAL22169: Very similar to Kettle Belly Baldwin in some respects.
Lucylou98: Evening everyone
DenvToday: True. Kettle Belly is one of my favorites.
DenvToday: Hi Lucy.
AGplusone: The Old Man is the same character as the one in the Matt Helm stories to me.
BPRAL22169: RAH might have started off with that character then changed it slightly soit wouldn’t have to be in the same universe.
AGplusone: Hard, cold ruthless ice cube.
geeairmoe2: The Matt Helm movies? James Gregory?
AGplusone: Baldwin is more hearty, more human
BPRAL22169: Curious fact — Jubal Harshaw started out as Baldwin and got mutated and mutated as the story grew in the planning.
AGplusone: Novels … never watched the movies after Dean Martin did the first one.
dwrighsr has left the room.
Merfilly8: interesting
Lucylou98: Which story are you talking about?
geeairmoe2: I saw the Helm movies before I read any of the books. Slight difference, no?
BPRAL22169: Talking around the Puppet Masters movie.
Featherz Dad has entered the room.
Merfilly8: hi!
AGplusone: Very different, played the stories for gags in the Martin movies. “Eric” is an assassin and colder than hell in the books.
Featherz Dad: Hi. I was going to miss it tonight. but I got online at the last mo
AGplusone: We started out talking about the Old Man in PM, Luc and somehow find outselves on another author’s creation by analogy.
AGplusone: Hi, Will w/Feather
Featherz Dad: Hi,
Lucylou98: That happens easily enough
Featherz Dad: sending the topic to the moon.
AGplusone: Matt Helm novels, forget real name of author, …..
Merfilly8: what topic? someone let a topic in? 🙂
Featherz Dad: a term from a political discussion club I used to belong to
BPRAL22169: With liquid water in Valle Marineris, we may have Heinlein’s Grand Canal after all.
AGplusone: Speaking of the moon … anyone hear able to distinguish bullfrog G?
AGplusone: from middle C
geeairmoe2: Hamilton wrote Helm books. Donald Hamilton, I think.
AGplusone: here
Merfilly8: I can distinguish, but not name
BPRAL22169: Don’t have perfect pitch.
AGplusone: That’s a pseudonym
Featherz Dad: I think I could distinguish them. At least back when i played bass.
geeairmoe2: Don’t recall his real name, or names.
BPRAL22169: I used to be able to fudge by humming an “a” 220 because it was the center of my tessitura.
Merfilly8: My pitch is very good. I used to help my friends tune up
Merfilly8: but i can’t keep myself in tune 🙂
DenvToday: Donald Hamilton, I think.
Lucylou98: Mer, you play an instrument?
BPRAL22169: Me neither — and my pitch has changed since I don’t sing any more.
Merfilly8: not well, LucyLou
Featherz Dad: People say that not being able to sing well comes from having a bad ear but I play two instruments OK and I can’t sing at all
Merfilly8: but I can handle piano, keyboard, xylophone
AGplusone: Can’t do any of the above ….
Merfilly8: and lap harpsichord
Lucylou98: I play a clarinet…but can’t sing.
AGplusone: but wife and daughter play piano, sing, guitar, etc …
Merfilly8: Don’t sing anymore…scarred my cords, supposedly
Featherz Dad: anyone can lap a harpsichord thay can’t run at all
Merfilly8: hahaha
Merfilly8: 🙂
BPRAL22169: *sigh*
Featherz Dad: and on THAT note
Merfilly8: tried bells once
AGplusone: My voice changed substantially for the worse when I was eleven …. and was too embarassed thereafter, but I was a lovely boy sophrano ….
DenvToday: Merfilly, how did that happen?
Featherz Dad: and kept tripping over them
Merfilly8: decided I liked not having headaches
Lucylou98: lol
dwrighsr has entered the room.
BPRAL22169: You’re back!
Merfilly8: Severe throat infection with sores and lacerations. I think I just over strained when I went back to Choral
dwrighsr: I got thrown off and couldn’t get back on.
AGplusone: He kept getting booted
Merfilly8: revolving door
BPRAL22169: Are we ok for a chat log?
DenvToday: Wow. I hope you’re better now.
Featherz Dad: happened to me many times. After we break up I am gonna have to try to turn this thing off and aim doesn”t cooperate
Merfilly8: oh much. was a long time ago, in a land far away 🙂
dwrighsr: Unusual for me. My ISP is usually more reliable. David go ahead and send me your log. I’ll patch in where needed.
DenvToday: Glad to hear it 🙂
Merfilly8: teenage at the time. so voice was maturing anyway
DenvToday: I sang opera in school. Ah, the good ol’ days.
Featherz Dad: People let me sing carols at christmas time, otherwise no
Merfilly8: I can still sing gospel and carols, lucky little pagan me. they don’t require as much voice actually as the stuff I sang in Choral
BPRAL22169: They hand you a bucket?
Featherz Dad: a bucket with eggnog
Merfilly8: and rum?
Featherz Dad: and rum
BPRAL22169: I would much rather carry eggnog in a bucket.
BPRAL22169: than a tune.
Merfilly8: Still can’t make myself try that stuff
BPRAL22169: It can be wonderful . . . mmmm.
Lucylou98 has left the room.
DenvToday: It makes a lovely omelette. lol
dwrighsr: You don’t know what you are missing.
geeairmoe2: I had no pitch at all; that’s why I played thirdbase and leftfield.
Featherz Dad: it pretty much IS a lovely omellete
Featherz Dad: No pitch no hit. Always a catcher
Merfilly8: I can hit, can’t run well, don’t catch well
Featherz Dad: play on the other team
Dehede011 has entered the room.
Merfilly8: so I stayed away from BB
Merfilly8: Soccer was great
Merfilly8: so was volleyball
geeairmoe2: I couldn’t ctahc or hit, but I could run.
Major oz has entered the room.
AGplusone: Glad you’re back, Ron, Hi, Oz
Major oz: Yo, all
Merfilly8: hi
Featherz Dad: soccer is a popular youth sport for many reasons but one of the big ones is that you are never “at bat”
Dehede011: Back from a delicious Braised Chicken Breast ala Florintine dinner.
BPRAL22169: Reduce the rum so it’s concentrated, then make a sabayon of yolks with no white.
Dehede011: Sabayon??
Major oz: Did I stumble into a food chat ?
BPRAL22169: lighten with cream and milk.
DenvToday: Well, it’s beddy-bye time for me. Night everybody!
Merfilly8: it is possible to be anonymous in soccer
Featherz Dad: reducing the rum takes a certain “something” out of the thing
Merfilly8: night Denv
Dehede011: The alcohol
DenvToday: TANSTAAFL!!
geeairmoe2: Night denv
BPRAL22169: Somebody brought up eggnog.
AGplusone: About two weeks off … meeting subject will be “Birthday Party” RAH’s 93d … so you’re reprieved for two weeks
DenvToday: Nighters…
DenvToday: See you then, Dave.
Featherz Dad: right mer, you are almost never in the center of attention unless you are doing somethng good
BPRAL22169: That’s just for the flavor — add full-alcohol rum when you serve it.
AGplusone: I’ll post some things …. See ya, DT
DenvToday: Byee
DenvToday has left the room.
Merfilly8: I’m an anonymous sort of girl
AGplusone: But we’ll go to “Gulf” in four weeks fersure!
Featherz Dad: you don’t seem that way on afh
geeairmoe2: I never noticed the Gulf-Friday connection until it was pointed out.
Merfilly8: The internet, my friend, proves to make some garolous
AGplusone: I did. That was the delight in reading Friday for the first time!
Featherz Dad: baldwin kinda stood out
AGplusone: I always liked Joe and Gail
Dehede011: That is one of RAH’s most overlooked stories.
BPRAL22169: It was a rare instance where Heinelin seems to have re-thought his initial position.
AGplusone: And Hartley wasn’t too bad …
BPRAL22169: Baldwin repudiated his supermen.
AGplusone: ‘seems’
AGplusone: If you think about it, Howards were supermen ….
Dehede011: Or did he just develop a different kind of superman?
AGplusone: to the natives.
Merfilly8: I had never heard of Gulf til Pop pointed it out to me when I told him I had finally made it thru Friday
Featherz Dad: and for a limited value of ‘repudiated.’
Featherz Dad: tgif
AGplusone: in Nova Scotia … and points east
Featherz Dad: a couple of minutes here in New Haven
BPRAL22169: I thought initially Heinlein might be repudiating the whole White Brotherhood / Platonic Guardians notion, but, no, it shows up doubled and redoubled in the other World as Myth books.
Merfilly8: Gulf to me was “of Mexico”
AGplusone: 7 minutes … my Mac checks time signal everytime I log on …
geeairmoe2: The problem with having “supermen” is that they are a minority; and being “superior” doesn’t carry much weight in a democracy.
AGplusone: Was Michael a Superman, and did Gillian become one …
BPRAL22169: I would say so.
Merfilly8: My computer was fast…caller id box is true time
AGplusone: being ‘superior’ doesn’t carry much weight when the brown monkeys notice you …. <g>
Dehede011: Easily based on the criteria in Gulf.
Featherz Dad: superior firepower
AGplusone: which is one indication telling me that mebbe he didn’t change his mind.
AGplusone: Giff mentions that some of the new scripts were based on the ‘world of Gulf’ … ever read anything in them, Bill.
Dehede011: I think he just moved to a higher level of what he considered superman.
AGplusone: Indicating he was reworking the ‘superman’ prototype?
BPRAL22169: I havent actually read the scripts, but the Century XXII pilot was based on “Gulf.”
Featherz Dad: never read ANY of the scripts
AGplusone: That would have been great to see, still would be …
BPRAL22169: More closely than Destination Moon was based on RSG
BPRAL22169: It’s not completely out of the question, even yet.
AGplusone: DM to RSG as Verhoeven’s SST to SST
Featherz Dad: have you noticed that space.com has printed NO letters on the review of SsT?
BPRAL22169: Much as I hate to say so, yeah — just a few elements left in.
BPRAL22169: It wsn’t as bad as I had feared.
AGplusone: probably waiting for us to drop an AFH bombshell on him
AGplusone: BTW, Jani said tell everyone she’s fine and finally sleeping.
Featherz Dad: I know several people who have already sent them stuff but they say they are swamped with face on mars letters
AGplusone: Face on Mars? Thought that was disproven.
BPRAL22169: Somebody give the Face on Mars a soda straw!
Merfilly8: I’ve worried over Jani
BPRAL22169: Reaching to Valle Marinaris.
AGplusone: She sounded really good today, Filly
BPRAL22169: I think it’s a good sign she can be cross in public.
Featherz Dad: Good. That was so damn sudden with Jani.
Featherz Dad: Well, I can be cross in public and I am still pretty blue
AGplusone: [which was shame, because that Ian Douglas series I like was based, vol. I, anyway, on Face on Mars.]
Featherz Dad: But I can ALWAYS be cross in public
BPRAL22169: Well — some people just have a natural talent, I guess.
Merfilly8: I’ve worried over you too
AGplusone: Jani has a natural talent to make people feel comfortable
Featherz Dad: thanks, mer but it was a lot different. I KNEW there was no real future after awhile. I just wanted a longer PRESENT
geeairmoe2: I can be crass in public, but never cross.
AGplusone: whereas most of us have a natural talent to ****** (present company excluded, of course)
Dehede011: Dave did Ian Douglas keep up the quality in the later volumes; after vol one.
AGplusone: yes, his Three is outstanding!
Featherz Dad: I thought I had become rather mild during my recent brief fling
AGplusone: And I’m tracking down his TWo
AGplusone: I attributed it to Feather, actually, Will
AGplusone: <g>
Featherz Dad: Basing something on the Face would seem to be asking for it, unless the story is good enough to keep from being ruined by the Face being debunked. Feather is a big help
Featherz Dad: He is trying to help me TYPE right now
BPRAL22169: Now, I do’nt think MISSION TO MARS was ruined by the Face on mars being debunked, do you?
AGplusone: It was, believe it or not. Face was debunked the week it went to national paperback selection … he musta felt like he’d been killed.
AGplusone: And I figured we’d never see Two or Three
AGplusone: But I found Three in Seattle when I went up there …. so Two’s around somewhere.
Featherz Dad: Well, I must admit that I don’t generally like fiction that uses pop science as a starting point bad pop science
geeairmoe2: Probably felt like those writers who had life on Venus before the planet turned molten tropical.
AGplusone: This guy’s science isn’t too bad …. he used Face as a gimmick to engender the space colonialization off Top Dead Center
Merfilly8: I read McCaffrey…we now call her glaring science errors Anne-science
AGplusone: Exactly, Will w/out Feather
Featherz Dad: Well, the Fifties model of the Solar System was pretty funny now
Lucylou98 has entered the room.
AGplusone: WB Lucy
Featherz Dad: I was just reading Dolphins of Pern and threw the book against the wall
Dehede011: Hi Ms Lucy.
Lucylou98: Good to be back!
AGplusone: I miss the chance of having ‘move-overs’
Lucylou98: hi there Dehede
Dehede011: Howdy ma’am.
Merfilly8: Query: I remember there being a question as to if Pluto had a moon, or if there was a tenth planet, ages ago. What was decided?
Featherz Dad: I liked the moveovers alot
Merfilly8: please don’t laugh too much at that
Major oz: yo, loose
Dehede011: Moon I believe
BPRAL22169: You can stillhave them — they’d just have to have molten tin for blood.
Lucylou98: Hey, Oz doing ok?
Featherz Dad: Didn’t Pluto have a doghouse or was that Goofy?
AGplusone: I somehow liked them almost as much as dogs, but I really want to have “Bucks” … (rem’ber Francis the Talking Mule?)
Dehede011: Charon by name isn’t it.
AGplusone: Pluto had a doghouse.
Merfilly8: that’s what I thought
Major oz: doin’ good
Merfilly8: Okay, if Pluto is a pet dog, and can’t talk, what’s Goofy?
Featherz Dad: to have that much impact on the solar system, a BIG doghouse
AGplusone: Goofy is a human dog … Pluto is a Mouse Dog
BPRAL22169: I think the 10th planet has pretty much been ruled out — there’s still a possibility of a gas giant at a highly inclined orbit, but it would be halfway to the Oort Cloud.
geeairmoe2: We’re not going to get into Uranus jokes, are we?
Major oz: ….isn’t that “tenth planed” Persiphone ?
Featherz Dad: the goofy-pluto dichotomy one of the big questions of my childhood
BPRAL22169: This is me waving bye-bye as y’all go there.
AGplusone: Dogs have fleas … mice have dogs … pluto has mice fleas
Dehede011: In Alabama there is a river Styx. As you cross the bridge over the river Styx there is, or was, a sign – Charon retired.
AGplusone: Bye Bill
AGplusone: Actually, the original Mickey (now imprisoned under space mountain) objected to having a dog which is one reason why Walt locked him up
BPRAL22169: Just meant “not going there” -i.e., Uranus jokes.
Lucylou98: Ron, what are you talking about?
AGplusone: and brought in the imposter …
BPRAL22169: The OTHER 6′ mouse in yellow shorts?
Featherz Dad: steamboat Willy sure don’t look like MM from teh Fifties or now
Dehede011: Look it up, LL
Dehede011: It is just east of Mobile.
AGplusone: The river Styx in Greek mythlogy has a boat with a boatman named Charon who takes you to the underworld if you have the fare ….
Merfilly8: A copper coin
AGplusone: I always wondered what happened if no fare …
BPRAL22169: hence the custom of putting pennies on a dead person’s eyes.
AGplusone: wander around on the wrong bank?
Merfilly8: Styx supposedly predated all but the original void, and was holy to the gods even
Lucylou98: That’s way south of me. Ag, that’s what i couldn’t put together…Alabama and the Styx
BPRAL22169: of course, English pennies are somewhat larger than ours.
AGplusone: Like the ones outside the Gate in Dante?
Merfilly8: Yes, David, according to myth
Merfilly8: They begged and pleaded with some adventurers who came to Hades
AGplusone: The Undead ….
Featherz Dad: And if you gave them the penny they were..
BPRAL22169: 1/240 of a lb. of silver is still a fair amount of copper.
AGplusone: Like Fluffy the Vampire Killer …. too weak and unprepared.
Featherz Dad: The GREATFUL DEAD
Merfilly8: Alabama and Styx? Wierd concert
AGplusone: Fluffy is Buffy’s big sister ….
Lucylou98: Mer lol
Dehede011: Is that like Elvis’ brother?
AGplusone: Aaron?
Merfilly8: Pelvis?
Featherz Dad: enis
Merfilly8: Elvis the Pelvis
AGplusone: Sorta …
AGplusone: Actually Aaron existed, briefly …
Featherz Dad: I heard that one in 1959
AGplusone: Not that I was ever a Presley fan …
Merfilly8: My mom was an Elvis nut…had the news clippings over all the hullaballoo witht he gravestone, the body, etc
Dehede011: It went around Navy Flight school in the spring of 56 as I recall.
Merfilly8: Grew up in MS…He’s a hero of sorts there
Major oz: what did ?
Dehede011: The joke about Elvis and his brother.
Featherz Dad: the Elvis has a brother named enis joke
AGplusone: I was jealous of him and couldn’t move my hips that way … too inhibited, Catholic school upbringing you know.
Merfilly8: You?
AGplusone: Absolutely!
Dehede011: Just a boy from Tupelo, Ms that made good.
geeairmoe2: When Elvis was in the Army he lived briefly in nearby Killeen, Texas, and people still go by that house.
Dehede011: He had a house off base?
AGplusone: Sure did. In Germany too
geeairmoe2: Yep.
Major oz: David, was that the Little Sisters of Hobokon ?
Dehede011: He wasn’t in the Navy then.
Merfilly8: Sela Ward and Le Ann Rhymes are the two latest MS exports
Merfilly8: they made real good too
geeairmoe2: Love those Sprint commercials.
Merfilly8: but they are not cult heroes like Presley
AGplusone: Actually, the Immaculate Heart Sisters in LA … Corrita Kent and them. Tough nuns.
Featherz Dad: I’ve been listening to Patsy Cline all night
Merfilly8: She was a denied Bond girl
Merfilly8: Oh, I love Patsy Cline!
Merfilly8: sorry..must be late, am rambling
BPRAL22169: The Sweet Dreams soundtrack was absolutely astonishing.
Featherz Dad: I was listening to Hank, sr. earlier but that was too depressing even for me
Dehede011: I understand Charlie Rose is doing a good series of interviews on the Genome project.
Major oz: right now
AGplusone: Let’s twist it back to RAH. What can we do for his birthday out of the ordinary … that we’re not doing already?
Major oz: I have it on while we are here.
Dehede011: I understand tomorrow is the summary.
Featherz Dad: I gave a bunch of the juvies to a local Jr. High
Major oz: great series……
Featherz Dad: almost all, the ones where I had dupes
AGplusone: We could sing Happy Birthday to You know who when she comes in the room, but she’d probably get mad. This comes out of log, David!
Major oz: David, are you “heading” the blood drive?
dwrighsr: Right
BPRAL22169: Before we do that — I’ve got some spare copies of Assignment in Eternity if people need it to prep for the “Gulf” chat.
Merfilly8: can I beg one from you Bill?
AGplusone: I thought Doc was … but any one of us who wants to post to encourage donations ought to
Merfilly8: I’d buy one, but we’re eating fried mush this month
AGplusone: or mail to e groups and anywhere else …
BPRAL22169: Send me your address –
Major oz: I just wondered if there was a central location where we could tally the donations / volunteer work, etc.
Merfilly8: Thank you so very much
BPRAL22169: Pass it forward.
Lucylou98: um….what about a scholorship fund in his name. One to help a needy person pay tuition….
AGplusone: Just email or post commitment on AFH
AGplusone: And I’ll collect and summarize for Ginny in letter
BPRAL22169: y’all know about the Heinlein Chair of Aerospace studies, right?
Dehede011: At Annapolis?
AGplusone: Know about it, but when is the ceremony?
BPRAL22169: Yup. next year sometime. Haven’t seen a date yet.
Featherz Dad: Yeh, I heard about it but don’t know when
AGplusone: Good, JT on sff asked Ginny for a name, through me, and she gave him one. He got an invitation.
Major oz: Is it to be a public ceremony?
AGplusone: Yes
BPRAL22169: Oneof my subscribers has just hooked me up with the head of the committee doing the arrangements.
BPRAL22169: That’s him.
AGplusone: Anyone who wants to ask probably will get tyhe same name, sooner the better ….
AGplusone: Yes, probably same guy
BPRAL22169: JT is my subscriber.
BPRAL22169: The contact is Dan Struble.
AGplusone: ah, good. I’ve got the name …. it worked right away …. that’s him
Featherz Dad: I know, let’s drop a HOUSE on space.com
BPRAL22169: Why? Will the ruby slippers stick out?
dwrighsr: Lets drop a house on verhoeven
AGplusone: Naw, let’s drop an evil review of the review … I’ve been watching good satire of the military … like Full Metal Jacket ….
AGplusone: Kubrick:Verhoeven::music:military music
Featherz Dad: I dunno. I am nearly asleep and Feather has somehting cornered in the bathroom, hope it is just a bug. NOT a SsT bug
AGplusone: as they kept saying in the late unlamented 60s
Merfilly8: but I liked Basic Instinct from Paul
AGplusone: actually I like military music … Sousa
Featherz Dad: I thought Full Metal Jacket showed that Kubrick though USains were crazy.
AGplusone: He thinks the media is crazy
AGplusone: Watch the movie again …
Merfilly8: I’d be afraid of a Kubrick/Stone movie
AGplusone: and to blame for the US craziness
AGplusone: Kubrick would kill Stone or Verhoeven …
Featherz Dad: I never knew a DI anything like his and I was in basic and then I was the XO of a basic training co. knew a lot of di
AGplusone: unfortunately Kubrick is dead …
AGplusone: Lee Emry did a parody …
geeairmoe2: Dr. Strangelove was one of AFI’s highly rated comedies.
AGplusone: but there’s enough in there to be almost a loving portrait of some I knew
AGplusone: See Emry in Purple Hearts?
Featherz Dad: well, you have to go over the top to have a good film of that type
Dehede011: FeatherzDad; you sound like a Marine?
Featherz Dad: No, Army
Featherz Dad: long time and many pounds ago
Major oz: There is parody / satire and then there is an illustration of a hatred.
AGplusone: Purple Hearts is far from a parody, showing the other side of Emry
Major oz: Ollie is a trendy whiner.
Dehede011: I had the best of both worlds. I was in the Navy but had a Marine DI.
Featherz Dad: my problem with verhoeven, my big problem, is that a parody isn’t supposed to SAY that it is the original work.
AGplusone: Hope he had you use up a lot of tooth brushes on the floors Navy
Dehede011: Nope nothing like that. We had the cream of the crop and they were very good
AGplusone: I agree … and FMJ was an original work, the author was one of the screenwriters and they stuck to the book
AGplusone: You didn’t sand decks with bricks and sand?
Featherz Dad has left the room.
Dehede011: Nope, they just drove our b_____s in the sand.
AGplusone: Will got booted
AGplusone: LOL … sounds like you had Marine DIs after all.
Major oz: The movie M*A*S*H was a great parody. The TV show panders to a hatred / ignorance of the military.
Dehede011: They were. No mickey mouse, just hard tough training.
AGplusone: It does. Why China Beach had to be written.
Major oz: China Beach was ON — and totally misunderstood
AGplusone: In FMJ, they never would have kept the fat boy … irl
AGplusone: I didn’t misunderstand it. I loved the episode with “Oliver Stoned” in it.
AGplusone: That’s when you realize it’s a parody … when they keep him that long.
Major oz: Unfortunately, I didn’t see too much of it. Was traveling when it was on.
AGplusone: Especially after the soap incident ….
AGplusone: That happens to somebody in a basic company they get him the hell out.
AGplusone: Recycle him at best, 208 him at worst
TAWN3: BAK
AGplusone: Usually before it happens …
Major oz: There was a “blanket party” in FMJ?
AGplusone: Hi, Tawn … yes.
AGplusone: A serious blanket party
Major oz: ….memory fades…….
Dehede011: Never even heard of a blanket party. Helped on one KIYI party though.
AGplusone: Blanket party in Army slang for putting a blanket over a scew up in basic and then beating the hell out of him (the recruits do it)
Lucylou98: my goodness.
Dehede011: Okay, I knew what it was. In the Navy we prefer a kiyi brush in the shower.
AGplusone: Yeah. Why they get him out Lucy …
geeairmoe2: In “A Few Good Men” they had something called a Code Red.
TAWN3: It works Lisa
Major oz: Also, it can be a generic term for ganging up on a scrrew-up or various sorts.
AGplusone: because by ‘n by somebody gets a loaded M1 to play with
Dehede011: We had one crumb bum that we shined up purty and pink
Major oz: Often for someone who doesn’t bathe.
AGplusone: and you don’t want a firing line accident
TAWN3: When William F. Buckley trips on TV.
AGplusone: Some sad idea … Code Red …
Lucylou98: thought you and the guys you survived the military with were supposed to be brothers and have this bond….
AGplusone: Uh-huh …
Merfilly8: We doused one non-bather in pine oil while at Basic, and shoved her in the shower, but a few flipped bunks were all we got away with for the other whiners
AGplusone: all social organizations operate by exclusion, not inclusion ….
AGplusone: first you pass muster
Lucylou98: I’d be a whiner.
Major oz: Whiners usually met with accidents
AGplusone: The idea of basic is to get rid of the ones who cannot pass muster ….
Dehede011: No LL you would be the first one to grab a kiyi brush.
Lucylou98: shaved her?
AGplusone: not to make “men” of boys
Merfilly8: I was surprised that I nearly made guidon bearer…expected to be anonymous through Basic
AGplusone: And the parody of FMJ is that the Lee Emry character forgets this …. too long
AGplusone: That wasn’t a makeable man …
Dehede011: Here comes a sea story. I kept such a low profile during flight training they noticed my superior ratings and made me a class officer. Some anonymity.
AGplusone: If they can’t make it you have to run them out before the boys have a blanket party
Lucylou98: it’s to make fighting machines out of men and women?
AGplusone: it’s for their own good
BPRAL22169: Gentles, it’s near 10:00 p.m. and I’m fading from fasting. i’m going to make dinner and go to bed. night one and all.
AGplusone: not exactly ….
Merfilly8: That’s why Drills have to ask after the third week if anyone wants to quit
TAWN3: Bye Bill
Lucylou98: night Bill
Merfilly8: nite Bill
geeairmoe2: Night Bill
Major oz: Isn’t the troop that goes wacko and hoses the DI in FMJ the same actor (farm boy) that Zim splats, under challenge, in SST, the Movie?
Dehede011: nite bill
AGplusone: If they aren’t supposed to fight, then they do that too
BPRAL22169: Ciao.
BPRAL22169 has left the room.
Lucylou98: don’t they have “stress cards” nowdyas?
Merfilly8: I heard of that. Thought it was a legend
TAWN3: True
TAWN3: Big mistake
AGplusone: I didn’t think so … I thought that was helmet less’s kid
Lucylou98: wonder how many stress cards you get?
Merfilly8: Then I had to teach some puke how to do the job he should already have known, and found out he had been a stress card holder
TAWN3: They did away with that from what I hear.
AGplusone: Stress card? we had 208s
geeairmoe2: The guy who takes off his helmet and gets zapped played Rube in the 2nd & 3rd “Major League” movies.
Lucylou98: I’m never going into the military.
Merfilly8: Most kids go to Leonard Wood or Jackson now. I was Jackson, had to put up with it being called Camp Snoopy
Dehede011: STRESS CARD is that some kind of CHAPLINS CHIT.
AGplusone: I think so …
Lucylou98: it’s a way out of the bad stuff
Dehede011: Where is Jackson? Leonard Wood is in Arkansas.
Merfilly8: But half the stuff they did at Wood were supposed to have been dumped by TRADOC long time back
Lucylou98: “I think I’m stressed about now”
Merfilly8: Wood is Missouri
AGplusone: No such thing when I went through … they’d offer you a 208 or a 209 ….
Major oz: Stress card is a carry-over of the Carter military.
TAWN3: S.Carolina
Merfilly8: Jackson is South Carolina
Lucylou98: what was 208 or 209?
Major oz: ……and the airhead congressthing from Denver.
TAWN3: No OZ
Merfilly8: Is that a section 8?
Dehede011: No I am from Missouri – we gave leonard to Arkansas. LOL
TAWN3: Early Clinton
AGplusone: 208-undersirable, 209-unadaptable
AGplusone: Yes, basically
Merfilly8: K. Is it a border fort?
Major oz: FLW is just up the road from me — where I get my scripts.
Merfilly8: cause everyone had Missouri tags on their vehicles from there
AGplusone: Both Under Honorable Conditions discharges
Lucylou98: My psy. teacher told me guys would sneak and not take malaria pills so they could go home after contracting it
Dehede011: No, that is just a Missourian in denial.
AGplusone: Reverted to Honorable after six months
Dehede011: In my time that was all a section eight and a BCD
Dehede011: Nothing you wanted on your record.
AGplusone: section 8 by another name … unadaptable was a lesser form, that’s all. This boy can’t do it.
Major oz: ….simpler days, D……
Dehede011: Right.
Merfilly8: Chapter 13 — unable to adapt to Military life
Dehede011: Yes, Oz; sometimes we were simple
Major oz: ….before the military was a psych / soch lab
Merfilly8: supposed to only be used in first six months of career
Lucylou98: what would one have to do to geta section 8? refuse to do something?
geeairmoe2: Does the Air Force have basic training? It just occured to me that I’ve seen movies about Basic in the other services, but not the Air Force.
AGplusone: Undesirable was this boy won’t do it, but we’re going to get rid of him administratively instead of by Court Martial
Dehede011: UCMJ had just come aboard not to many years before.
Merfilly8: but expanded to cover a variety of things
Merfilly8: AF has basic
Major oz: Yes, the AF has basic
AGplusone: sorta …. <g>
Major oz: They just don’t dwell on it.
Major oz: ……as the others do.
AGplusone: Actually Army basic is pretty easy
Lucylou98: it’s not as tough?
Merfilly8: oh The AF hated Ft Huachuca….multiple services use the base and have to follow Army PT or more
Dehede011: The one section eight I ever knew of directly had as his only problem that he couldn’t quit crying
Major oz: “rough” has many meanings
AGplusone: Fun ‘n games start with places like Ranger, Parachute, other schools, OCS
NitroPress has left the room.
dwrighsr: I was in the Civil Air Patrol when I was a teenager and we went to summer camp where we got a lecture on UCMJ. I kept thinking that the words ‘as the court martial may direct’ was ‘court martial majorette’.
Lucylou98: any of you ever cry during it?
Merfilly8: I didn’t get to do the fun schools…hips were dysfunctional
Lucylou98: or feel like crying? did they make ou go without food, sleep and all that horror?
dwrighsr: Basic at Ft. Jackson did me out of any idea of going to OCS.
AGplusone: No, but I almost invited a fellow recruit in for a shower party with entrenching tools
Major oz: I did basic, NCO leadership school, NCO academy, OTS, SOS, and Command and Staff.
Major oz: Each was challenging in its own way
Major oz: ….except SOS
Merfilly8: I cried with anger several times….but never pain, fear, etc
Dehede011: I only threatened to plant my M1 butt on the nose of a tormentor once.
AGplusone: I came about this close to decking a Tac officer at OCS
Merfilly8: broke a knuckle on a wall rather than hit the puke that pissed me off
Lucylou98: yikes! Merilly…
Merfilly8: And then found out the response time of MPs to the bar on Huachuca was not quick enough to keep me out of fights
Major oz: I always blackmailed someone to do my sh** details for me.
Merfilly8: I had a temper
AGplusone: I wound up crying tears of frustration … my Tac told him to back off before he got killed
Merfilly8: and was older than the kids around me by some few years
Merfilly8: Well, one and all, the spouce is reminding me of the time. I best go before my babies are waking!
AGplusone: {very privately, while another Tac took over dressing me down)
Dehede011: I wouldn’t take a million dollars for the experience and wouldn’t repeat it for a million bucks.
dwrighsr: Night Filly
Lucylou98: Ever had to repell(sp?) face first with a gun in free hand?
Merfilly8 has left the room.
geeairmoe2: Peace, Filly.
dwrighsr: Amen to that Ron
Major oz: nite, filly……
TAWN3: Bye Filly
AGplusone: what’s free hand?
Lucylou98: bye MerFilly
AGplusone: in your free hand?
Lucylou98: yes the ne not holding the rope
AGplusone: you don’t do it that way … or I don’t, I don’t know about you.
Lucylou98: I didn’t and wouldn’t do it. lol
Major oz: ….can’t think of a practical use for it…..
AGplusone: You sling the piece
Dehede011: Did you know you can hang from a free swinging rope with no hands?
Lucylou98: so you can shoot the enemy on the way down from copter i suppose
geeairmoe2: Gun? Gun! You mean weapon.
Major oz: sure — with leg wraps……
AGplusone: Did that in Junior High, Ron
AGplusone: to rest
Dehede011: Free swinging? The Navy taught interesting stuff like that.
Major oz: …but not head-down, loose
AGplusone: without leg wraps … it hurts
Lucylou98: jeesh
AGplusone: eeew!
TAWN3: It can be done, good for clearing out cliff faces.
AGplusone: I didn’t get that far Tawn …
Lucylou98: you have done that Tawn?
TAWN3: Yes
Lucylou98: Now i know for sure…..
Lucylou98: all of you ARE crazy.
Lucylou98: 🙂
AGplusone: Musta been after the 75th was activated
Major oz: …naw — just fun loving
AGplusone: sounds like somethin they’d do
Lucylou98: I’m thankful there are people like you.
Dehede011: Have you guys ever seen how a seaplane is tied down?
TAWN3: Yes, it is not a case of “having To” repel, etc, it is a case of “getting to”. 🙂
AGplusone: presumably with ropes …
Lucylou98: they don’t make you Tawn?
Major oz: Don’t forget to hoist one to the 442nd. 22 of them finally got their well-deserves NOH’s yesterday.
TAWN3: If you don’t WANT to, you wouldn’t be there.
Major oz: “M”OH
Dehede011: Yes, once the first line was on one of my jobs was to climb up, hang no hands and put the other lines through
AGplusone: understand sometimes it wants to take the tie-downers with it to sea …
Lucylou98: you have a point
AGplusone: Ah, bend knees like on a parallel bar?
AGplusone: I did, already. The ARmy MOH site is down and I’ve been trying to d/l citations on all of ’em
Dehede011: NO, not in a sea plane squadron but I saw a plane start to roll over once before the guys could get loose from the lines.
Major oz: When I was about 12 or 13, I learned to hang onto a rope with one hand and tie a bowline around my waist with the other. Never got to use it though…….
AGplusone: Tying it to a ship …
AGplusone: So’d I. Part of first class for boy sprouts, isn’t it?
Dehede011: No, we were on the Bermuda Islands with a gale blowing. The wind shifted ninety after the planes were tied down.
Major oz: right, David
AGplusone: Nice duty
Dehede011: Actually you don’t need hands to hang on a rope
AGplusone: afterwards they gave you a three day pass to the recreation lounge, I suppose?
Major oz: You did when you were 12
Dehede011: Nope, didn’t even get to miss muster.
Lucylou98: I’m feeling pretty inadequate right now,.
AGplusone: I made first class when I was thirteen. Swam like a rock and got hung up there.
Dehede011: LL don’t feel bad because you weren’t at the right spot when you were young and crazy.
AGplusone: Barely made star before I went Explorer
geeairmoe2: Its hitting the midnight hour here, so I’ll mosey on off while you Band of Brothers swap your war stories. Night, all.
AGplusone: Night Will … see ya.
AGplusone: 🙂
Lucylou98: Night, gee
TAWN3: Bye Will
Major oz: This is scary, David — sounds like my bio
Dehede011: nite
dwrighsr: Night Will
geeairmoe2 has left the room.
AGplusone: But I got the rifle badge!
dwrighsr: Remind me some time to tell you about my experience on the machine gun infiltration course at Ft. Jackson.
Lucylou98: never was a right time for hanging off of things for me. Heights scare the bejesus out of me.
AGplusone: Somebody miss-set the T&E?
Dehede011: Never could understand guys that jump out of perfectly good airplanes.
dwrighsr: T&E?
AGplusone: Easy, $55/mo, enlisted, $110/officer
AGplusone: Transverse and elevation mechanism
Dehede011: But I got that Dave for staying in the damned plane.
AGplusone: You lock it in the tripod. You don’t fire free on an infiltration
Major oz: My kids never understood how I, with severe acrophobia, spent so long at Edwards in test a/c
dwrighsr: Nope ,this was apparently a partial mis-fire
AGplusone: unless you’re a little crazy
AGplusone: or a Seal or somethin’
AGplusone: Oh, and what happened?
Major oz: …never fired anything bigger than .30 (military)
AGplusone: cook-off?
Dehede011: My biggest was the old browning air cooled .30 (I think)
Major oz: ….unless you count a Minuteman II…..
AGplusone: I fired 106s … lost a lot of hearing doing that.
Lucylou98: Think I’ll take my pepper spray and retire.
Dehede011: Yeah, but mine was mounted in a plane and I was diving on a towed sleeve.
Lucylou98: night folks
dwrighsr: We had crawled about half-way. In the dark. All of a sudden we heard ‘I’ve been hit, I’ve been hit’. Lights came on. everyone froze and there were guys running all over. About ten feet from me was this guy with a neat hole through his helmet. He had a wound about a 1/8 inch deep right across the top of his head.
Dehede011: Nite LL
Major oz: Just M1A1, .38, and M16
TAWN3: Bye Lisa
Lucylou98 has left the room.
AGplusone: We had 106s with the 8th Abn Bde in the Arm Cav … cannot drop tanks so this was our substitute for them
AGplusone: mounted on jeeps
AGplusone: .50 cal spotting rifle and the 106 mm tube
dwrighsr: That ended the course for the rest of us.
AGplusone: The cookoff?
Major oz: Folks…..got to go through a few days mail (ISP down again)…See you all next time (maybe Saturday)
Major oz: nite
AGplusone: See ya, Oz … Saturday
Major oz has left the room.
Dehede011: Gotta go. I am been monopolizing this thing.
Dehede011 has left the room.
AGplusone: I’ll send you a log if you’ll hold a minute
dwrighsr: Thanks. I’ll need it. Also. I won’t be able to attend Sat. so send me that one when you get done.
dwrighsr: TAWN you still here?
TAWN3: Back
TAWN3: Yes,
TAWN3: I am going to keep this window open so I can read the two hours I missed
TAWN3: So, just ignore my presence in it if you want to leave, someone is IMing me on AOL at the same time.
dwrighsr: Just wondering. Dave is wrapping up the log for me. I’ll have it posted by tomorrow sometime.
TAWN3: Ah, back
dwrighsr: So long. Log officially closed 1:13 A.M. EDT
Final End of Discussion Log
