The other day, I thought it would be fun to start a thread on Did “mosquito” come from “mosque?” I was thinking that the quavering wingsong of Ms. Mozzie sounds a little like the call to prayer from a mosque. Then (gasp) I dragged out the old 12-pound Webster. There’s no connection. Mosca is Spanish for fly, so mosquito is a little fly. Another fun thread shattered.
Have you almost started a thread, and then changed your mind? Let’s see.
I wanted to start a thread on internet proof trivia but just coming up with a few questions to start was really difficult or the questions were insanely difficult. Like “This title is both the title of a western and a military movie, also the director of the former died the year the latter was released? (Hint: 31 years seperate these two American films.)” Now who would know that? I doubt the movie Geek would even have a chance. Plus it’s not really internet proof since while there are 6,885 westerns listed in the IMDB when you toss the the non-American films and all films after 1971 that number comes down and some Joe might decide to slog through them and find the answer. Or somebody might guess it. Bad idea and that’s why I never posted it, even though I did type it up with another question. (What movie ends with Steve Martin begging to be put on film and then driven home?)
Nope, instead I AskedNott.
When the “Ask the ___________ guy” threads were at their hight, I thought about starting an “Ask the South African” - since I thought that that was one of the few things to which I could make a unique and intelligent response, but then I wasn’t convinced that there would really be enough interest for a thread of that nature and people began to gett p*ssed of with them, so I didn’t…
::draws breath::
Grim
I almost started a “who defines what art is?” thread, but figured it’d devolve into a NEA funding slugfest.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, necessarily. In fact, I’m wondering whether I could get such a thread classified as performance art itself; a paean reflecting the ongoing struggle of free expression against the YOKE of TYRANN…
…anyway, that’s mine.
I was going to start a thread called, “What if Hitler had sideburns?”
The basic premise is this: I noticed that since the rise of Adolph Hitler, the little-square moustache that he sported is virtually non-existant, whereas before he came to power it was a fairly common style of facial hair. Therefore did Hitler actually have a negative effect on that style of moustache, or is it just a goofy looking piece of hair on one’s lip that came and went like so many other fashions? And suppose Hitler sported some big, fat lambchop sideburns instead? Whould he have in effect killed off the sideburn for all future generations?
Anyway, that’s my almost-thread. Don’t know why I never posted it, maybe I will someday…
Happy
I thought it would be interesting to ask
Would you rather see a cloned dinosaur or a cloned human?
Until it occured to me that cloned humans look like uncloned humans and a cloned dinosaur looks like nothing we currently have roaming the streets.
So all the replies would have been heavily in favor of the dinosaur. So it’s a waste of a topic.
I wanted to post a satiric topic called
Can we travel slower than the speed of light?
just to see what kind of reponse it would get.
I was under the impression that one could no longer sell porn on ebay, and I almost posted a thread asking if anybody knew what other alternatives were available. In trying to find evidence of ebay’s change in policy, I discovered that porn was still available, only now it’s category is called “Mature Audiences” instead of “Adults Only” or whatever I had been searching for.
Glad I did some research!
Every now and then I get all whipped up on coffee or something and start to post a thread in MPSIMS called “Monster at the End of this Thread”. Fortunately I haven’t seen this to fruition.
Yet.
Each of these were written and ready to go, but I decided not to post, after realizing just how stupid they were.
UT-1: Isn’t it ironic? No, it isn’t…
In which I pen a scathing op/ed piece on Alanis Morriset’s evident failure to grasp the meaning of the word “ironic”. No, Alanis, it’s not ironic. It sucks, but it’s not ironic. Dated/just plain stupid)
UT-2: A woman designed my boxer shorts…
In which I gripe that my skivvies must have been designed by a woman because there’s a tag on the inside of the “tent-flap” which rubs against you-know-what, and anyone that actually wore boxers would know better. Stupid. I know.
UT-3: Does your SO get jealous when you masturbate?..
Mine does, but I’m too shy to post the thread. :o
When there were a bunch of smokers vs. anti-smokers Pit threads, I wanted to start a thread about how I hate smokers because they’re always bumming cigarettes from me. But I never got around to it in the period when it might have been kinda funny.
Winston: write that column about irony and submit it to Fark. The “Ironic” tag is so blatantly misused (and yes, many people cite Alanis when the story is mere coincidence and not ironic).
I almost started a pit thread about how this guy that works at Starbucks threw away two or three cookies because they were broken. It really pissed me off since the cookies were perfectly good, all wrapped up and everything, except for the fact that they were broken; also there’s a homeless guy that walks around less than a block away that could put the cookies to better use than the trash can could :rolleyes: But then I decided not to start it because I wasn’t sure anyone would care.
“Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?”
Who would you like to host for dinner – and why?
A year ago I’d have chosen Tina Brown, the former editor of The New Yorker. She has great editor’s instincts, while being at the center of the New York business and social world.
apotheosis, Fenris started a thread like that about a month or so ago in CS.
Legomancer, someone did start that thread in MPSIMS awhile back. No idea who or where.
Thus ends my pitiful attempts to fight ignorance for the day
Thanks Enderw –
Given the fact that SDMB is down 50% of the time; 40% of the time one can’t make a post without the PHP server barfing; and the last 6 searches that I’ve tried have sent the system’s Commodore PET out into the weeds – it’s good to have someone that knows where other threads might be!
So who would you ask to dinner?
You mean besides Sidney Poitier?
It would probably be a toss-up. 1) Albert Einstein because I could ask him a wide range of questions spanning from life as a Jew in Germany to his theories on the universe as we know it.
2) Calista Flockhart because I’d get to make any meal I wanted and eat it all myself.
Good thread. Mooney252, the SDMB is unavailable, IMHE, for an hour or two in the early morning. Otherwise it’s usually a transitory thing. You should be able to get in about 90% of the time, if you’re patient.
Many of the “aborted thread topics” seem above average, actually. Marine_One, go for it (you know there is a way to go slower than light, tho?). apotheosis, go for it if you can make the art question a quality slugfest – how about something like “Picasso was a useless prick” or “Impressionists were just painters with poor eyesight”?
I’ve held back on a few questions. Reason 1: Certain individuals were certain to ask for cites, and I don’t remember where I read about it. Reason 2: Feeling some folks might be offended / yell and scream / forsake the religion of their ancestors. Reason 3: Not wanting a 500 lb. moderator on my back.
I can’t remember the questions offhand, but as I’m thinking I come up with:
I’m insatiable.
A lot of my aborted threads are because I think either the range of answers would be too broad, or that it asks something too specific that would generate only a few, if any responses. For example, one time I was going to start a thread in Cafe Society on “Which CDs did you almost buy, but were glad you didn’t?”. This could easily generate a very wide range of responses and reasons. I’ve also had a few proposed Pit threads that I backed out of, deciding that they were too trivial to be worthy of posting.