The Random thought thread

[nomadpete]

11 minutes ago, facthunter said:

Google it mate. It's important you are clear on this..  Nev

My sincere apology, Nev. You are absolutely right. I was talking shyte.

 

 

 

[facthunter]

You get to be called "NUGGET" eventually.  Nev

[pmccarthy]

I am reading a book about the WW2 Burma campaign. The US 111 Brigade retreated from Blackpool to Indawgyi Lake and couldn’t take the badly wounded. They were all shot to save them from falling into Japanese hands.

[willedoo]

When I was in Burma in 1985, about the only reminder of the war was a lot of psp used for rural fencing once you got out of Rangooon into the countryside.

[pmccarthy]

I was there then too! I never got beyond Rangoon, stayed at the Inya Lake hotel for a couple of weeks on a mining job.

[rgmwa]

David Attenborough turned 100 today. 

[Marty_d]

Great man. He's done a lot for the world.

[willedoo]

2 hours ago, pmccarthy said:

I was there then too! I never got beyond Rangoon, stayed at the Inya Lake hotel for a couple of weeks on a mining job.

It was a crazy place back then, probably still is. It was fairly hard to find a safe place to eat in Rangoon from what I remember. We used to eat at the Strand for British food and the Karachi for Indian. Back then the Strand hotel was still like something from the days of British rule. The most far up north I got was Pagan, never made it as far as Mandalay. It surprised me how dry it was in that area, almost semi-arid with a lot of eucalypt plantations. The gum trees were a welcome smell having been away for a long time. My first impression of Burma was landing there on a Bangladesh Biman flight and getting a taxi into town. The taxi was a big yank tank from the late 50's, right hand drive and driving on the right side of the road. It's still like that, some left hand drive vehicles but predominantly right hand drive vehicles driving on the right.

[pmccarthy]

I have been back since and got to Pagan and Mandalay. But in 1985 Rangoon was crazy. There were slabs missing in the footpath and if you fell in you would be swept away in a giant storm drain. We thought the beer had no alcohol in it but instead had some hallucinogenic drug that made everyone weird.

[nomadpete]

Maybe this airline incident belongs in the Accidents and Incidents forum (Over the fence).

 

But it is rather random. 

 

BTW, if it isn't accompanied by a human assistance animal, is a two year old robot classified as an unaccompanied minor?

 

https://abc7news.com/post/humanoid-robot-named-bebop-causes-southwest-airlines-flight-delay-oakland-san-francisco-bay-airport/19016906/

 

[old man emu]

As long as it didn't walk into the cockpit and announce, "Good morning. This is your Captain speaking."

[old man emu]

11 hours ago, rgmwa said:

David Attenborough turned 100 today. 

This is beautiful. 

 

[facthunter]

My name is on a well wishing List. Very talented Person, as was his brother. Thanks OME. Nev

[onetrack]

It's lucky the BBC and King Charles didn't employ Lonesome George to deliver his birthday wishes! 😄 

 

Edited 5 hours ago by onetrack

[facthunter]

Between us, I think it's made up. Nev

[willedoo]

8 hours ago, pmccarthy said:

I have been back since and got to Pagan and Mandalay. But in 1985 Rangoon was crazy. There were slabs missing in the footpath and if you fell in you would be swept away in a giant storm drain. We thought the beer had no alcohol in it but instead had some hallucinogenic drug that made everyone weird.

I tried the beer when I was up in the country, but it was hard to get, warm and tasted like the worst home brew you'd ever tried. Rotten egg gas smell when you opened them and no two bottles were the same. Apart from right hand drive cars driving on the right, another oddity was a couple of years later when Ne Win introduced new currency based on his lucky number 9. He also demonetized three existing notes which rendered 75% of the country's cash invalid. It wiped out most people's savings in a country that relied heavily on black market cash and hammered the economy.

 

The military government was a bit crazy. In the first place I stayed there was a window between floors in the stairwell. In the distance seen out of the window was a big red building, and on the wall a poster with a stern government warning not to look at the big red building. I imagine in the big red building there would have been a government agent with the job of looking through a telescope to see if any foreigners were looking at the big red building. I wouldn't have even noticed the big red building if I hadn't seen the warning sign, so of course the natural response on reading the sign is to look out the window at the big red building.