A random thread of absolute randomness...

[kejedo]

"Drinking the Kool aid, although associated with the Jonestown murder-suicides, actually originated in the Tom Wolfe book "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" about Ken Kesey and the "Merry Pranksters". Jonestown actually used Flavor Aid.

[hybridxer0]

35 minutes ago, kejedo said:

"Drinking the Kool aid, although associated with the Jonestown murder-suicides, actually originated in the Tom Wolfe book "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" about Ken Kesey and the "Merry Pranksters". Jonestown actually used Flavor Aid.

ah, the inferior product, lol -- I would always hate when my parents got FA instead of KA. As an adult, I can appreciate my parents trying to find cost-effective ways to make sure we didn't "miss out", but at the time it felt like a betrayal getting Peter Pan peanut butter instead of JIF 😄 

[kejedo]

In April 1969,North Korea shot down a US spy plane. An enraged Nixon allegedly ordered a tactical nuclear strike and told the joint chiefs to recommend targets. Henry Kissinger spoke to military commanders on the phone and agreed not to do anything until Nixon sobered up in the morning.

 

 

[kejedo]

 In the 1980s, NASA had a 1-900 number which charged $2 for the first minute and $.45 for each additional minute. It allowed callers to listen in on a mission status report and mid-flight press conferences, and thousands of them heard the Challenger explosion in real-time. January 28, 1986.

 

[kejedo]

Keurig co-inventor went to the ER with suspected  heart attack.John Sylvan suffered a severe case of caffeine poisoning in 1995 after drinking 30 to 40 cups of coffee a day.

[kejedo]

Tonight New Yorkers are watching for Manhattanhenge. It is a phenomenon where the setting sun aligns with the east/west street   grid and is framed between towering skyscrapers.

 

 

[dljbsp]

15 hours ago, kejedo said:

allegedly

That opens the field on randomness of this thread.

 

John Sylvan — the co-inventor of the Keurig machine — allegedly drank somewhere between 30 and 40 cups of coffee a day during the height of the company’s early years.

 

And honestly… you can almost picture it.

 

Two in the morning.
Prototype parts scattered everywhere.
A half-working machine hissing on a cluttered counter.
Another cup.
Then another.

 

Because when you are building something that might change everything, sleep starts looking like wasted production time.

 

Some reports say he later landed in the ER with what was believed to be severe caffeine poisoning and symptoms that mimicked a heart attack. The exact details get fuzzy in retellings — and that matters. Some of it is solid reporting. Some of it has drifted into modern entrepreneur folklore.

 

But the image survives because it feels believable.

 

A man so deep inside his invention that he may have been stress-testing not just the machine… but himself.

 

Was he checking consistency?
Trying to perfect the brew cycle?
Making sure cup number twenty tasted like cup number one?

 

Or was this just what happens when ambition, exhaustion, deadlines, and caffeine form an unholy alliance at 3 a.m.?

 

Either way, there is something darkly poetic about the possibility that the man who helped engineer instant coffee convenience may have nearly been consumed by the very thing he was trying to perfect.

[kejedo]

Earworms: Dionne Warwick was on tv last week and this started an earworm for me. When Dionne  sang the song Alfie, my mother and her then fiancee were both working at a Bar and Grill. Mum's boyfriend had attracted the attention of another femme who frequented there. To let dear Mom know how confused this left him, her boyfriend played Alfie (What's it all about) on the juke box, repeatedly. Mother had the bright idea of bringing everyone from the bar home after hours to have her teenage daughter sing this song a capella. I had sung thru-out school. Mum sang as well, but not ever together. So the drunk crowd came home and further disturbed the insomniac high schooler. Mum waved her arms about like she was conducting the restless songstress. So Alfie has been recurring. My earworm breaker was and is a French Nursery  song I learned in 4th grade. What cure for earworms do you use?

 

[minister159]

@Kejedo,

You are undoubtedly the queen of randomness, or is it trivia? Either way, you are numero uno!