Am I the only one?

@sammydog01 giphy doesn’t like you tonight. That’s what you get for going automated and not doing the work ;)~

@mfladd
/giphy I’m lazy

@sammydog01 Possibly insane too.

@sammydog01 That’s what I love about you. Don’t change.

@Pantheist actively dislike? Weird. So do the playlists make vomit or something?

@Pantheist I’ve heard some good stuff on those playlists. But admittedly, not all the time.

@mfladd

/giphy "si señor"

@mfladd Double points to you for using Gladiator.

@djslack I’ve got the site patch loaded up for Monday actually.

@InnocuousFarmer

@f00l @InnocuousFarmer Agree, I like them, but my browser hates them. I always get “an error has occurred so the page was reloaded” on Sunday nights. But occasionally I get to listen to a few. I may not like all of the choices but I learn different styles/songs. However, I do wish @JasonToon was on here more. I prefer his writing style.

@RiotDemon or “I don’t give a crap”.

@cranky1950 I’d give this 20 stars if I could. Sure, I miss @JasonToon’s clever and witty product presentations, but the way he presents his love for music is stellar and insightful. Musical tastes differ, but if you don’t know the history, you don’t even understand your own tastes. Open your fucking minds.
And you all KNOW there are product descriptions all over the internet!
Whiner, whiner, ocean liner.

@cranky1950 You’re cranky.

@gregormehndel Yes product descriptions are usually, but not always, on the internet elsewhere. I’d like to see more information HERE and not have to look elsewhere. The playlists and product descriptions aren’t an either or choice.

@Kidsandliz agreed. You can have both.

@Kidsandliz Fair enough. Jason has described product better on previous Sundays, but his self-described “contrived intro” probably broke the camel’s back and caused this thread.

@gregormehndel The thing is the

clever and witty product presentations
don’t need to go away just because someone wants to focus on music history/appreciation instead of the product. This is not an “either/or” choice.

@Kidsandliz We’re on the same page. It’s just that I still love Meh as it is and I dislike it when I see what I define as bashing. Makes me say things like “open your fucking minds.” What people seem to be requesting is more creativity in the product descriptions, but negativity doesn’t encourage creativity from Meh staff or anyone else. There are less-negative (even positive!) ways to voice displeasure.

@cranky1950 For me, maybe I don’t understand the community well enough to participate. Is the purpose of the site to sell products, or are occasional purchase price of admission to a club? Is a side benefit of membership the view into the people of the company, their personalities and playlists?

I’m not intentionally trying to be negative but I’m also frustrated that these smart and amazing people are offering something I don’t comprehend. I don’t want them to fail, so I’m telling them I would give them money more than once in a blue moon if the site offered specific value to me more often.

Mind cracked open- c’mon in.

For me, maybe I don’t understand the community well enough to participate.

@stevekirks That’s the beauty of it; you DON’T have to understand the community at all. Almost anything goes here in the forum, whether it’s about the product sold here, a product sold elsewhere, opinions on movies, games, life situations, etc.

And all that with no admission fee.

The product write ups started back at Woot – that retail doesn’t have to be the same boring sell that’s read off the manufacturer’s marketing material.

The sales method started long before that, though. Something about some crazy guy who sold returned computer stuff out the back of a rental truck at 2am in the morning. I think he goes by @snapster nowadays …

@gregormehndel

Makes me say things like “open your fucking minds.”

This.

@2many2no Duh!

@cranky1950 Said

Suck it up and enjoy you sniveling mommy’s basement dwelling bastards.
Have a nice day.

Happy day, huh?

/youtube don’t worry be happy

@narfcake

Yeah I prob didn’t buy something from him once, wandering around with a flashlight, in the pre-dawn fog, under the freeway, surrounded by geeks who avoided the sunlight.

I used to love going there.

@stevekirks

This is kinda a side business for mediocre.com. I’m sure they want it to be profitable. I assume it is.

Their main biz is probably something to do with creating and growing unusual selling venues, plus acquiring and disposing of odd and cheap and remaindered merchandise on a wholesale volume level.

As for the community:. Just jump in. Be nice. Be humorous or funny or insightful or kind.

You will be valued here if you start that way and kinda keep on the path.

So … Join in!

PS
@cranky1959 gets to be cranky. It’s a thing with him.

/giphy thing

@narfcake thanks for taking the time to write. Serious here: not complaint in an effort to make people at Meh do only what I want. Instead, trying to participate and learn. All of the feedback and help I’ve received in the comments was good, even the stuff that looks snarky on the surface.

@stevekirks You need to understand the community in order to participate? I’m in trouble, I don’t understand half what goes on here, especially tech talk and music musings. I just pitch in my .02 on those topoics I think I understand, and sometimes I’m wrong about that (see toothbrushing thread). But folks still put up with me.

@f00l Which there?

@stevekirks Morningsave.com is the mild side of Meh- they sell leftovers and assorted stuff over there. But come here for entertainment. And learn the giphy command- he’s awesome!
/giphy too much fun

@InnocuousFarmer

History of techie geekdom n the DFW area:

Before Frys came to town and before Amazon swallowed the known universe, this was where people who didn’t have upper middle class or corporate-level tech shopping budgets went to get hardware.

I think I started going in the mid-1980’s but not sure. They were also a bunch of local Radio Shack warehouses we used to scavenge. Not only the known warehouses. The unknown wholesale ones, but the staff knew us and would let us shop for small items anyway.

I knew one person who had some sort of Trash-80 machine that used 8" floppies who shopped there.

Most of us has cobbled together Trash-80’s and DOS PC’s from weird parts. A couple of us had early Osbornes, which everyone else envied.

For a while I had a light-up display 5’ tall tube-tester that lit up like and looked a lot like a pinball machine. It has been a grand item in a local Radio Shack once. Wish I still had that one. It was stolen from a garage; I miss it.

I had a machine for a while that a friend made for me: Parts and cables nailed to a piece of plywood. This was back in the “acoustic coupler” days.

And we would go talk our way into about-to-be-discarded stuff from local businesses.

This was how people I knew got the equipment to run home bbs’s.

We would go out sometime between midnight and 4am with lots of flashlights. It was like a flea market where vendors pulled up their vehicles and set up tables. You could bargain.

It mostly happened in empty deserted and neglected parking areas on the east side of downtown under the long freeway bridges, so it still went on in the rain.

On foggy mornings you would see all these ghostly people and their flashlight trails. If you talked to someone you didn’t know well, we would used or flashlights to illuminate our faces. The whole thing was spooky and cinematic and had a real underground feel to it.

Everyone there in the early hours seemed to be the sorts who had read Stephenson and Vinge and Gibson.

We felt like we were - unknown to the ordinary folk - among those who slipped into the mysterious and simultaneous digital world.

The best times to go, by legend, were early, early, in the dark. The sale went on during the day. The rumor among us was that the normal and corporate people came then to shop, and big volume or expensive deals were done then. I don’t think I was ever there after 7am. Usually we were gone by 4-5 am if not earlier, headed to some all-night coffee shop.

Dallas Observer, 2005

Started in 1969 as a get-together for ham radio enthusiasts, the sidewalk sale has had several locations, including under the Woodall Rodgers bridge between Routh Street and Central Expressway and in a parking lot on Ross Avenue. Under a bridge and in a parking lot? That’s sketchy enough right there. Nowadays a good portion of the sale takes place at night because, according to the sidewalk sale’s Web site, that is when the best “deals” often take place. Let’s see, computer shopping at night to get the best “deals”? This just gets better and better. What’s funny though, is that these guys love what they do and, as offended as they may pretend to be, they all probably like being called computer geeks when they are trying to sell the best “deal” of the night under a bridge.
http://www.dallasobserver.com/best-of/2005/shopping-and-services/best-place-to-pick-up-sketchy-computer-freaks-6461225

This sale appears to have migrated from the grubby and deserted east end if downtown to the tonier west end.

I haven’t been since sometime last century. Frys and online made it become no longer a necessity.

I should go again; it might be quite fun.

From 2014

http://www.vcfed.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-40956.html

The First Saturday Computer sale is still happening in Dallas
and often has rare old and vintage computers and accessories.
It has expanded to include Third Saturday also.
The focus of the SideWalk Sale is mostly computers and software.
Not to forget, though, all kinds of other treasured electronic apparatti
can be found there also. And, ham radio operators still frequent
the sale and deal in radios and related equipment.
It is an ALLNIGHT Garage Workroom & Office SALE
9pm Fri Jan 17 till Sat 2pm Jan 18
( And every 1st & 3rd Saturday )

Woodall Rodgers Plaza at McKinney Avenue and Lamar Street, Dallas, Tx

Folks have cleaned out their garage, workroom, and office
computer areas and will be there to sell assorted stuff.

BIG SALE SATURDAY and yes Friday NIGHT early birds welcome also

Saturday, January 18th and Friday NIGHT ( for NIGHT TIME early bird ) January 17th

Best shopping after 9 pm Friday Jan 17
until 2 pm on Saturday Jan 18

That’s right… the sale goes on ALL NIGHT
FRIDAY NIGHT till Saturday afternoon.

Best bargain hunters can start shopping Friday night
and continue all night till Saturday afternoon.

ALL KINDS OF TREASURED ITEMS AND MERCHANDISE !!!

The sale goes on - Rain or shine.

SALE LOCATION : WOODALL RODGERS PLAZA
The sale is at Woodall Rodgers Plaza, a park-like paved and
lighted SPECIAL EVENT AREA by the Dallas’ West End.

Woodall Rodgers Plaza is the Plaza under the freeway bridge
at McKinney Avenue and Lamar Street.

YES UNDER THE HIGHWAY BRIDGE in the park-like paved
lighted plaza NEAR the famous West End of Downtown Dallas.

BORDERING STREETS SURROUNDING Woodall Rodgers Plaza :
Continental Avenue ( northern border street )
North Houston Street ( western border street )
McKinney Avenue ( southern border street )
North Lamar Street ( eastern border street )

GPS or electronic online map coordinates :
2200 N. Record St., Dallas 75202
or GPS coordinates
McKinney Ave and N. Record St., Dallas 75202

Want more information visit the website:

http://www.sidewalksale.com

In the 75202 zip code

WTB Wanted to buy
WTT wanted to trade
WTS wanted to sale / swap

This ia a big sale and worth a few miles travel.

Woodall Rodgers Plaza at McKinney Avenue and Lamar Street

http://www.sidewalksale.com/FAQ.html

@snapster used to sell there.

D Magazine

From 2011

https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-ceo/2011/special-report-dfw-technology/woot-hits-it-big/

From 2014

https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2014/july/matt-rutledge-woot-has-a-new-deal-mediocre-corporation/

@f00l

From the 2014 D Magazine Article, about First Saturdays.

The First Saturday swap meet started in 1972 as a market for ham radio enthusiasts. By the time Rutledge returned to Dallas in the early ’90s, First Saturday had grown to include computer hardware and all sorts of related gadgetry. Vendors set up Friday evening in a downtown Dallas parking lot. People arrived at midnight to shop in darkness, haggling over motherboards and hard drives as the sun rose on the first Saturday of every month. Enter Matt Rutledge—doing it his own way.

“On Friday night, I’d go to the bar,” he says, “probably the Salute Club on Midway. When the bar closed, I’d get a buddy, pay him a couple hundred bucks to come back to the warehouse with me and load up the Ryder truck. All the other guys had already set up their tables, wearing miner hats. This was grassroots stuff. But I was a closeout distributor with a bunch of returns already written off. So at 2 or 3 in the morning, everybody else is already set up, and we’re these assholes with bloodshot eyes trying to figure out how to park a truck in our spot at the last minute.”

Rutledge has a mischievous laugh that he lets loose in bursts. “You went to the bar, you were up late, and you made the best of it. I didn’t plan it that way. It just happened. And people knew who we were. I was almost like a drug dealer to them. They’d follow us, gather around the back of the truck when we threw the door up. ‘I’ve got these motherboards!’ You’re delirious. ‘No warranty! Who wants it for $10?’ You’re a jerk, but you’re having fun, taking cash, stuffing it in this pocket, making change from that pocket. People would come just to watch, not even buy anything. That was kind of cool.”

First Saturday was essentially a live rehearsal for what became Woot. Start selling at midnight. Clear out all the crap quickly. Make it an event. That’s why Rutledge was taken aback when Woot hit it big and people called the concept genius. “It was so bizarre to me to have so much fanfare,” he says. “I wasn’t trying to be innovative in e-commerce in the least bit. I was just selling stuff cheap.”

@f00l

I tried to find an image of what it looked like to be there, but so far no luck.

It’s a whole different deal now, in terms of presentation. Good lighting, good displays, not people cursing while they change or the batteries in their flashlights.

This is the Osborne

Everyone wanted one.

@f00l

I still can’t find an image. The truest image might comes from a movie about something else.

Imagine deserted unlit parking lots with gravel and some broken glass and weeds growing everywhere, under freeway bridges.

Imagine lots of tables of tech illuminated by common flashlight. Imagine hundreds of techies, most in black or navy for some reason, wandering around in the dark and examining stuff by flashlight.

So it’s all quite monochromatic. Kinda like a nighttime rubble scene from a B/W apocalyptic survivor film.

Kinda like this, except with less color and less light and all these flashlit ghosts.

A bit like shopping in a place like this:

But darker, no buildings, deserted otherwise, way seedier.

@f00l Several of the Halt and Catch Fire episodes are recreations of that entire world, truck sales and all.

@OldCatLady

Ok more I gotta watch that.

It was way way fun to go to.

@f00l Do you mean to say you have NEVER watched the series? Tech friends and I watch and comment live on FB. They have some extras, too, including playlists for each episode- what the characters were listening to at the time. The attention to detail is wonderful. The COMDEX show, especially if you ever went, rings true.

@OldCatLady

The only series I’ve watched in the last few years was Silicon Valley, HBO on my phone.

Before that I did Mad Men on Netflix.

I know there’s some great TV out there, got a list of stuff to see “someday”

The last time I watched a series week by week was perhaps the second season of Lost.

I’ve also never seen a single episode of Breaking Bad or TWD.

I’m pathetically out of it.

@f00l Except for Major Crimes and HCF, I match your lack of media exposure. Oh, and Antiques Roadshow, and maybe Midnight, Texas (the Charlaine Harris series).

@OldCatLady
@f00l

I am only a few episodes into Halt and Catch Fire. I’ll try to stick with it, then.

@f00l that sounds amazing. I wish I had ever been able to visit something like that. (I’ve left this thread open on my phone. Been waiting for downtime where I’m awake to read the posts more thoroughly.)

@Kidsandliz i actually find the opposite. It used to be you had to scroll at least 20 comments into the product thread for any information more than “first,” " bath," or “fuck.” The last 2 times i looked to buy something, i was able to find useful info within 5 comments.
Of course i might not be the best judge, i rarely buy anything, but that’s true of me anywhere. I’ve probably bought as much from here as from all department stores combined in the last 2 years.
i actually come more to read the humorous “write-up” then read a couple threads to hear what you people are doing, to start my day on a happy note. That they are selling something is incidental to my visiting. :0

@mollama

then read a couple threads to hear what you people are doing, to start my day on a happy note

Then you definitely aren’t reading my stuff.
Have a great day!

@Kidsandliz Take a look at the spec page for today’s offering. Exactly what is missing? A review? Do you want @moose to take one home and see if his dog still smells after a month? Do you trust Moose and his dog?

I check any purchase other than a second offering or $5 VMP bait for independent reviews and would guess that most of us do. Or Hotwheels because you can’t go wrong with Hotwheels.

@mfladd Maybe @mollama is entertained by whining? I like you @mollama!

@sammydog01 I haven’t checked today as I wasn’t interested in the product. But some days, when I am interested and the price is low, there can be a lack of information and other days are fine. It seems to be a crap shoot. Of course maybe today there is more detail because of people’s comments?

@mfladd
Nobody reads your threads. Didn’t you know?

Here is a good suggestion for you:

@f00l @sammydog01

@moondrake

Quetzalcoatlus

Please do expound.

We need this.

@f00l I got drawn into the black hole of YouTube the other night, went from dog videos to wild animals rescuing baby animals of other species videos, to rare animals videos, to weird extinct animals videos. Always had a fond spot for the Mayan god Quetzalcoatl, so this one stuck in my mind.

@moondrake

That god has just about the coolest “lost civilization god name”. To me anyway.

Shouldn’t all “lost civilization god names” have a “q” in them, or better yet, start with “q” and perhaps have a “z” or “x” in there also, when translated into English?

@moondrake @f00l HAH! The book was Crystal Rain, by Tobias S. Buckell. It was part of a free ebook giveaway by TOR … probably in 2008 if these file date stamps are anything to go by. It’s some sci-fi or other, apparently alluding to Mayans or Aztecs or something. Had the name “Quetzylcoatl” in it – very distinctive and memorable, as I hadn’t heard or read it prior.

You have no idea how badly my brain was itching. I was going to have to take a sick day if I couldn’t figure out what I had read and when.

… I don’t think I’d read that book again, probably… must have been a long time ago, when I read it. 2008… Holy shit that was nine years ago! Oh, fuck this. I’m going to just have some coffee and not consider the span of life, right after waking up in the morning.

@f00l I’ve always had a strong affinity for Quetzalcoatl and Ganesh. Always felt drawn to them. This is an oil painting I made of Quetzalcoatl a few years ago.

@KDemo I don’t care if the playlists stay. I just want them to add in a choice for voting that I don’t want to listen to the music.

@RiotDemon Uh press mute! Whoooooooooa no music. FuckinAyyyyyyy

@cranky1950 I don’t listen to them. I was specifically talking about the weekly poll. I don’t know why you’ve got such a bug up your ass.

@RiotDemon If you had a bug up your ass you’d be cranky too, right?

@RiotDemon Devil’s advocate is more fun than clicking stars.

@therealjrn maybe he should get some pesticide.
/giphy bugs

@RiotDemon said:

@cranky1950 … I don’t know why you’ve got such a bug up your ass.

Hey @cranky1950, she wants to know all about your sex life.

Do tell.

/giphy do tell

@RiotDemon You sound like you have a bee in your bonnet over this.

It’s a big day for the insect kingdom around these parts…

@therealjrn it’s such a fashionable bonnet too.
/image bee in bonnet gif

Not quite a bonnet, but it might be cranky.

@djslack

It’s a big day for the insect kingdom around these parts…

And it’s a big day for these parts being around the insect kingdom.

@cranky1950, you’re next up at bat here.

“Press mute”? They won’t play at all unless you click on them individually. Maybe @RiotDemon is suffering from alien hand syndrome, and can’t resist clicking those Play buttons?

@aetris
/giphy alien hand syndrome

@ruouttaurmind
/giphy bumpity

/giphy nonsense

@daveinwarsh That looks just like me with a bag of Cheetos!

@OldCatLady oh God… the things you can’t unsee!

@OldCatLady
/giphy no thank you

@cranky1950

Reality regarding your sex practices loses to fantasy?

Not to us it doesn’t.

And all we really wanna know about is that thingy you do with the bug up your ass.

Has that practice become an entire XXX subcategory on Pr0nhub?

@daveinwarsh

@KDemo To be honest, I don’t frequent the forums often enough to be able to say what is normal and what is not. I’m something of an infrequent poster.

@Durago - Well, suffice it to say that your post is now part of meh history as ground zero for a crazy fun meh meme game (mehme?).
Really, @djslack deserves credit for the first spin-off, starting a legendary thread storm.

Am I the only one? will never be the same.

If we’re very lucky, it will be commemorated on a t shirt or something.

@KDemo I’m not sure what to think about that.

@Durago

@KDemo If there’s one thing I know I don’t want around here, it’s credit for starting something.

But thanks

@djslack - Did I say credit? I meant blame.

Oh. Uh - make that discredit.

@djslack Goat, goat, goat, goat, goat…

@sammydog01 - If someone deserves the goat horns for this, it’s Durago. Really, Hasselhoff deserves it for being a spoiler. I would truly love to blame him for what goes wrong.

In fact, maybe it’s time to move on to truly goatworthy public figures elected in absentia?

Hasselhoff for September goat!

@Pantheist Imposter

@PolkSaladAnnie No, nay, never.

@Pantheist You are one sick puppy.

@Pantheist then why is it in quotations?

@PolkSaladAnnie to include the whole phrase only