Things you were shockingly old when you learned

If it was a snake it would have bit me.

I probably only became aware because the time displayed at the top of my POS iPhone will get hung up and then suddenly jump 2-3 minutes ahead to the correct time so I stopped paying any attention to it.

Both the clock app thing and the Tre/Trey/Trip thing are blowing my mind. And I'm a third, though my preferred name has little to do with my legal name.

I've known one or two Chips...short for Charles, is it not?

Juan is a name traditionally used for the first born.

Joseph Smith never actually made it to Utah.

Hugo Boss is not a contemporary guy. He got his break making uniforms for the Nazis and then died in 1948.

Super Fly (1972) was directed by the son of the man who directed Shaft (1971). If only Gordon 'Trey' Parks III could've directed a seminal blaxploitation film in 1973 to complete the circle of life.

Are those pun names for bands still popular? Because Trey Parker Jr. would be a good one.

The "taka taka taka" dance that Dr. Evil does in the first Austin Powers movie is the macarena.

that shit band KONGOS is made up of four sons of John Kongos

Hiding in plain sight

that Elmlea isn’t cream.

🤯

cool i can start eating it again

I always thought it was kind of strange that we have a metal door that goes from our kitchen into our garage, until last week when some friends car spontaneously caught on fire in their garage and the metal door prevented the entire house from being destroyed.

Everywhere else I've lived were outfitted with wooden doors, probably before this was part of the building code

That happened to someone I knew and it wiped out the animal sanctuary next to the garage, ouch. Luckily the garage was away from the house. Did any US houses ever actually have a set-up like Dan Tanner's in the stupid cop show Vegas, where he'd essentially park the car in the kitchen?

ooooh. i didn't know this either about the metal door thing

Oh man. We don’t have a metal door but we also don’t have a car.

Slapstick comedy gets its name from a thing called a slapstick which is used in theatres to make a slapping sound.

The etymology of the word 'cockpit' is thus (leading on from a conversation with someone about the origin of 'dashboard', which I think is detailed upthread somewhere):

The word cockpit seems to have been used as a nautical term in the 17th century, without reference to cock fighting. It referred to an area in the rear of a ship where the cockswain's station was located, the cockswain being the pilot of a smaller "boat" that could be dispatched from the ship to board another ship or to bring people ashore. The word "cockswain" in turn derives from the old English terms for "boat-servant" (coque is the French word for "shell"; and swain was old English for boy or servant)...From about 1935, cockpit came to be used informally to refer to the driver's cabin, especially in high performance cars

I can't remember where I read this now, but further upthread...

That 'cockpit' originally referred to a space reserved for cockfighting and was adapted to denote the area of a ship where injured crewmen were taken (and which was often a bloody mess, resembling its linguistic forebear).

― Mummenschanz in a Metal Mood (Old Lunch), Wednesday, October 3, 2018 6:13 PM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Maybe I need to recall the things I was shockingly old when I learned, although re-learning them over and over again is quite fun

Slapstick comedy gets its name from a thing called a slapstick which is used in theatres to make a slapping sound.

And every high school symphonic band's percussion section needs one so that they can play "Sleigh Ride" as written.

See also the vibraslap, which is used exactly once in the score of "Godspell" and then languishes in the closet the rest of the time.

Specialty percussion instruments have a bittersweet air to me because they could someday cease to exist physically. It's easier to just trigger the samples, rather than lugging a cuica and berimbau and surdo and afuche-cabasa around town.

And every high school symphonic band's percussion section needs one so that they can play "Sleigh Ride" as written.

Likely my least-favorite bit of any song ever.

bada duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh DUH
SH-MACK
duh duh

I always thought they just slapped someone's face really hard during that part.

whhhhhhiiinnnNnNNYYYY
CLoP cLOp CloP clOP CLop
SH-MACK
duh duh

I have always wanted to have someone in an Indiana Jones costume, using a bullwhip, for that part

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZfasru1i9I

"Specialty percussion instruments"... a recording engineer I know has a closet of these, and calls it 'the money maker' because bands waste so much time messing around with vibraslaps and shakers and triangles and whatnot

ngl, I loved it when bands like REM threw a bunch of random percussion shit into their tracks back in the 80s

it was very much a thing in college rock at the time

the finger cymbals in "In Your Eyes" are dope af

Cuica in "The Obvious Child" too

I found a Vibraslap at a thrift store for $3 a year or so ago. It's in my collection of stuff I used once or twice then put away.

I am pretty sure I have one somewhere. Behind the bouzouki, underneath the autoharp, or perhaps next to the spare bodhran.

I learned what a cuica was last summer when I finally googled "beastie boy straw sound lighten up" and the second result was an ilx thread: songs with the straw going through the plastic lid sound

I tend to forget every ten years or so and google "drum that sounds like a monkey."

Someone around here once started a thread about those kinds of percussion instruments.

Hate that thing; I said this a while ago "(a horrible Brazilian instrument that sounds like a rat trapped in a tennis ball can; Airto Moreira polluted several early 70s Miles Davis albums with this thing)" and I stand by every word.

(Now I feel dumb because I said "Obvious Child" above; I should have said "Me and Julio" instead. My penance is that I will now go lash myself with a rainstick)

Lou Bega's real name is David Lubega

He was born in Germany, and currently lives in Berlin

He is half Sicilian, half Ugandan

He actually sampled 30 seconds of an 40s instrumental mambo called "Mambo No 5"

wut @ all of that, thank u 4 breaking my brain

One of the classic blunders.

Never get into a battle of wits with a half-Sicilian/half-Ugandan when death is on the line.

or a even a battle of half-wits

Chrysalis Records was named after its founders, Chris and Ellis.

There have got to be a lot of things like that. Like Ikea, et al.

See also the vibraslap

I was driving around with the windows down last week. I wish I could remember the song, but whatever I was listening to, as I passed a crew working on concrete with a jackhammer, the jackhammer (rapidly fading in volume as I passed) synched up *perfectly* with the song like a giant, loud vibraslap.

For a long time i used to think that whenever someone said the weather was humid, I just thought they meant it was too hot. I blame this on my actual belief that these people also thought that humid just meant hot.

And if I'm totally honest, even though I now know what it means, I wouldn't be able to tell you if the weather was ever too humid or not.

my simple and probably wrong definition of humidity is if it isn't particularly hot and you are getting a sweat on walking up a hill - it's usually down to it. Then if it's hot and you feel like you need an oxygen tank, then also humidity. When old folks say "it's a bit close today" I presume it's the humidity they are talking about

ooh i like that

That reminds me I have a distinct memory of a colleague describing the weather as 'close' in my first graduate job and me being shockingly old to have no idea what she meant. "Close, close, you know, humid!" she said. She was only a few years older than me but I guess I'm getting on a bit now too.