Category Archives: random
Random Awesomeness (part 2019.5)
- Meet Ray Lamb, the last Dodger to wear Jackie Robinson’s No. 42 — by mistake [Los Angeles Times]
- Report: Arrow Season 8 Will Feature Smallville Alum Tom Welling [CBR.com]
- Of Myths and Men (pt. 1) [SABR’s Baseball Cards Committee]
- Neil Young and Crazy Horse set to record their first album in seven years [Consequence of Sound]
- Bootlegging Dreams Into Reality [Branded in the 80s]
- 8 Silent Films Every Sci-Fi and Horror Fan Should See [io9]
- Reflections On Worship, From A-Z [Preacher Pollard’s Blog]
What I’m Reading Right Now: Firefight: The Reckoners, Book Two by Brandon Sanderson. (Yes, still working on it.)
Purchase Feral Roots from Rival Sons!
(Greta Van Fleet is great, no doubt, but Rival Sons rocks harder for my money.)
Random Awesomeness (part 2019.3)
- Stuck With Your Story? Why You Keep Hitting Walls and Dead Ends in Your Writing. [A Writer’s Path]
- Cards in The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings [Baseball Card Breakdown]
- Tracii Guns And Michael Sweet Join Forces In New ‘Metal’ Project Sunbomb [Blabbermouth]
- Report: Marvel’s Plans for Disney+ Could Include an Animated Take on Its Classic What If? Comics [io9]
- The Difference Between Archetypes, Tropes, and Clichés [Janice Hardy’s Fiction University]
- Decision Fatigue. Writer’s Block. Procrastination. Is There a Link? [Anne R. Allen’s Blog…with Ruth Harris]
- How Writing 3 Pages a Day Can Change Your Productivity [Almost an Author]
What I’m Reading Right Now: Firefight: The Reckoners, Book Two by Brandon Sanderson.
Random Awesomeness (part 2019.2)
- Stan Lee’s Captain Marvel cameo raises a lot of questions [AV News]
- There’s Only One Surviving Blockbuster Left on Planet Earth [Gizmodo]
- More 1979 Alt-Topps [Cards That Never Were]
- I Love The 80’s – Donruss [Dub Mentality]
- Did someone say “contest”? [Baseball Card Breakdown] (JT sez: The Breakdown’s animated baseball card gifs are always spectacular.)
- NaNoWriMo 2018 Bonus Episode, with Mercedes Lackey [Writing Excuses] (JT sez: I know this is an old episode, but it is a really good discussion of writer’s block.)
- Quit Trying to Write [Kill Zone]
What I’m Reading Right Now: Steelheart: The Reckoners, Book One by Brandon Sanderson.
The Return of Random Awesomeness (part 2019.01)
It has been nearly three years since my last “Random Awesomeness” post. Partly because I don’t blog as much as I used to, and partly because I don’t spend as much time on the internet as I used to. But there is still a lot of cool stuff to be found around the web, and things that I want to share with you that don’t naturally fit into my own blogposts. Each “Random Awesomeness” entry will feature seven or more links to some pretty rad stuff, so (obviously) I recommend checking them out. I usually include a music video of some sort and a link where you can buy the music (or something related to the video). New in 2019 is “What I’m Reading Right Now.” No spoilers, just a link to where you can buy the book I’m reading.
I don’t know how often I will publish a new list “Random Awesomeness”…maybe weekly? I’m really not sure. Be awesome, and you’ll probably end up on the list. Since this is the first post in almost three years, I decided to change up the top-of-post image as well, so without further ado…
- Rock star Jack White is helping restore a Detroit-area Negro Leagues Stadium [Cut 4]
- Luke Perry was in a Twisted Sister Video that MTV Banned [Ultimate Classic Rock]
- 1979 Alt-Topps [Cards That Never Were]
- We Got Our Hands on 73,000 Never-Before-Seen MLB Scouting Reports. Here’s What We Learned. [The Ringer]
- 2019 Donruss Baseball Checklist, Team Set Lists and Details [Beckett]
- Baseball Cards of Spring Training Celebrities [Beckett]
- Bryce Harper Phillies cards by Gummy Arts and The Phillies Room (1), (2)
- Uni Watch Readers Catch Flaw in Bush Memorial Patch [Uni Watch]
- Mark Hamill Once Again Expresses Unhappiness With New ‘Star Wars’ Sequels [/Film]
What I’m Reading Right Now: Steelheart: The Reckoners, Book One by Brandon Sanderson.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
What did you get for Christmas? I think this may be the first year in a long time that I didn’t get any baseball cards for Christmas, though a friend did gift me a nice stack of Topps Now and Living Set cards a couple of weeks ago. Does that count?
For those who received Amazon gift cards, what are you going to get?
I will probably pick up a few more Masters of the Universe Funko Pops, and since I just cleared some space on my bookshelves, maybe a new book or two.
Whatever you gave or got, I hope you had a great holiday season and that you were able to spend it with loved ones.
Random Awesomeness (part 210)
- When the Jedi Return: Make sure your troops are ready [Plaid Stallions]
- Topps Re-hash [Red Cardboard]
- Exclusive Photos: Van Halen Plays Houston in 1978 [Van Halen News Desk]
- Reds pitcher Jon Moscot once gave up seven home runs to, um, Rob Schneider [Cut4]
- AC/DC Auditioned Singer From Tribute Band Back In Black Before Deciding On Axl Rose [Blabbermouth]
- The San Diego Chicken: A Baseball Card History [Beckett]
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens syncs up to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon [Consequence of Sound]
Random Awesomeness (part 209)
- Listen to Joe Perry’s New Solo Song With Terry Reid, ‘I’ll Do Happiness’ [Ultimate Classic Rock]
- Watch: Unreleased The Highwaymen Gig [The Daily Beast]
- 2016 TSR: An Interesting First Week Of The Season [The Shlabotnik Report]
- Custom Baseball Cards Highlights 2016 – Trevor Story [Jason’s Custom Trading Cards]
- Custom ’55T for Reds barrier-buster Escalera [Bob Lemke’s Blog]
- This Web App Identifies Unnecessary Words In Your Writing [mental_floss]
- Movie Mobiles: Recreating Famous Cars from the Silver Screen [Great Big Story]
- THIS is what I’ve been up to lately… [The Infinite Baseball Card Set]
LOYO, Obamacar, and otter café: new words in OxfordDictionaries.com
The most recent update to OxfordDictionaries.com sees a host of new words added from the worlds of politics, popular culture, and social media. You can see ten highlights from the update below. In each case, clicking on the word will take you through to the word’s new dictionary entry, where you can see full definitions, example sentences, and more.
autocorreck verb (of software) cause (text) to contain mistakes by means of an autocorrect or autocomplete function: “I wrote a great text to her, but ‘love’ was autocorrecked to ‘move’.”
[Blend of autocorrect and wreck]
parrotocracy noun a hypothetical society governed by people selected according to their ability to repeat slogans and soundbites mechanically, or to repeat or steal the policies and ideas of others: “Heaven help us if we end up with a parrotocracy.”
[from parrot and -cracy]
reply-gall noun the perceived impudence of an individual who sends an email response to everyone addressed in the original message: “His reply-gall became infamous after he sent an 1800-word response to a company-wide announcement.”
[from reply + gall after reply-all]
Instayam noun a Thanksgiving photograph shared on social media: “Before we ate, we had to send an Instayam.”
[blend of Instagram and yam]
Leo verb to achieve something after years of trying: “I feel like I’ve Leoed this morning; I finally passed my driving test.”
[from the name of Leonardo DiCaprio, with allusion to his winning the 2016 Academy Award for Best Actor after six unsuccessful nominations.]
fanishment noun the state of being blocked by a celebrity on social media: “Steve’s fanishment was inevitable after he tweeted at the star footballer 1000 times in a single day.”
[blend of fan and banishment]
Obamacar noun (humorous) a hypothetical scheme under which current President of the United States Barack Obama would provide free cars for every citizen in America: “Republican commentators cracked wise about the so-called Obamacar.”
[from Obama + car, after Obamacare]
otter café noun a café or similar establishment where people pay to interact with otters housed on the premises: “Locals are already excited by the prospect of the area’s first otter café.”
LOYO abbreviation laughing on your own (used online in reply to a joke that others have not found amusing): “A better joke next time, please. LOYO.”
social fleedia noun a situation in which one or more social media users choose to close their accounts: “Commentators are seeing a huge rise in millennials encouraging social fleedia.”
“Social media continues to be a vital and constantly evolving catalyst for linguistic innovation,” says Richard Snary, a lexicographer at Oxford Dictionaries. “We’re recognizing this with words which specifically reference these sites, such as Instayam, fanishment, and social fleedia, but Twitter also accounts for much of our corpus data for Obamacar, LOYO, and the verb to Leo. In two of these examples, we’re seeing how the creation and sharing of memes relating to a specific public figure can quickly gain traction and help a coinage enter the language – and our language monitoring programme is uniquely placed to observe and record these changes.”
[JT sez: I think they have gone too far this time. When will the idiocy stop?]
Random Awesomeness (part 208)
- The David W. Niven Collection of Early Jazz Legends, 1921-1991 [Internet Archive]
- Fun with Junk Wax & Bubble Gum [Tan Man Baseball Fan]
- The 12 genres of baseball photos from Photo Day [SB Nation]
- 2016 Royals Spring Training: Edinson Volquez [A Hair Off Square]
- Unearthed: Killer Photos from Van Halen’s ‘1980 Invasion’ Tour! [Van Halen News Desk]
- 13 Writing Lessons From Stephen King’s On Writing [Writers Write]
- Every 1970’s Topps Reds Base Card [Red Cardboard]
Random Awesomeness (part 207)
- The 5 Albums That Changed Viv Campbell’s Life [Classic Rock]
- SSPC (Super spectacular perfect cards) [Night Owl Cards]
- These Should Exist: The Robo Force Edition! [Branded in the 80s]
- An Amazing Ernie Banks Project [Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius]
- A ‘Saved by the Bell’ Themed-Bar and Restaurant Is Finally Opening [GQ]
- Are you kidding me?!?! Mejia BANNED 4 LIFE! [Mets Baseball Cards Like They Ought To Be!]
- Color Swatch Baseball: Pantone Chips of Every MLB Team [S. Preston Art + Designs]
Purchase Hollywood Vampires – Hollywood Vampires (Deluxe with bonus tracks).
