# Blimps abounding... **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 8, 2017, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blimps-abounding/786121 "2017-05-08T12:57:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2017, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blimps-abounding/786121/1 "2017-05-08T12:57:06Z")
A fairly trivial thing lately noticed – but occasioning slight surprise for me. In the couple of years since my joining SDMB, I had somehow missed **Scylla** ’s celebrated comic piece _The Horror of Blimps_. A passing reference to it, caused me to seek it out, using the Search facility, keyword “blimps”. Having envisaged this as a fairly rare word, unlikely to be of frequent incidence; I was a tad surprised to find it yielding the “Search” ’s maximum five pages’ worth of references, spanning the period from 2003 to 2017 – **Scylla** ’s tour de force having been posted in Feb. 2003. I would reckon nearly half the threads “Searched” as above, to be on the themes of favourite / funniest threads, and what first attracted people to the Dope; and another nearly-half, airship / unmanned balloon-related – literally; or metaphors / similes about things resembling said aerial devices. (With my not being into matters of aviation, I hadn’t imagined there being such a degree of interest in airships and the like; or there being that much potentially to say about them.) Plus a few threads containing references to “blimp” as a figure of speech for someone ultra-conservative, old-fashioned, hidebound and unimaginative – yet fundamentally a decent person: after the long-ago British comic character Colonel Blimp. Altogether, more action on the “blimp” scene, than I’d ever have imagined… ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blimps-abounding/786121/2 "2017-05-09T17:18:00Z")
Is it possible the popularity of “blimp” is inflated? ---
**Author:** ![G0sp3l](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c68b51/32.png) [@G0sp3l](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G0sp3l)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blimps-abounding/786121/3 "2017-05-09T20:58:24Z")
The views of this thread are ballooning. ---
**Author:** ![excavating\_for\_a\_mind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e8c25b/32.png) [@excavating\_for\_a\_mind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/excavating_for_a_mind)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2017, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blimps-abounding/786121/4 "2017-05-10T03:28:41Z")
I suspect it will end up going down in flames. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2017, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blimps-abounding/786121/5 "2017-05-10T03:34:54Z")
You all are Macon too much of this blimp thing. ---
**Author:** ![G0sp3l](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c68b51/32.png) [@G0sp3l](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G0sp3l)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2017, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blimps-abounding/786121/6 "2017-05-10T03:46:32Z")
> [@blondebear](#): > > You all are Macon too much of this blimp thing. it’s going over like a lead zeppelin? ---
**Author:** ![Biotop](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biotop/32/321_2.png) [@Biotop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biotop)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2017, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blimps-abounding/786121/7 "2017-05-10T07:27:04Z")
This is a goodyear for blimp references. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2017, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blimps-abounding/786121/8 "2017-05-10T22:52:54Z")
> [@Biotop](#): > > This is a goodyear for blimp references. I’m not…_wait for it_…Akron-onious about the year. Goodyear is based in Akron, Ohio and there is huge blimp hangers there Ugh, I feel so dirty. Like never-be-clean-again dirty. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2017, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blimps-abounding/786121/9 "2017-05-10T23:59:07Z")
Five pages? Did you constrain the search to keywords (search title only) blimp/ User (find threads started by) Scylla? Because if you did, and it delivered five pages, don’t even try to find the touching story of his dog. ---
**Author:** ![G0sp3l](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c68b51/32.png) [@G0sp3l](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G0sp3l)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2017, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blimps-abounding/786121/10 "2017-05-11T01:47:13Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > Five pages? Did you constrain the search to keywords (search title only) blimp/ User (find threads started by) Scylla? Because if you did, and it delivered five pages, don’t even try to find the touching story of his dog. The true horror is Pirate the goat. Oh, the humanity! ---
**Author:** ![Biotop](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biotop/32/321_2.png) [@Biotop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biotop)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2017, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blimps-abounding/786121/11 "2017-05-11T01:53:25Z")
Don’t let them blow up. A blimp is a dirigible thing to waste.