Progressive Boink

[Hanstock]

The National Hockey League required all players to wear helmets in 1979. However, if a player had signed his first professional contract before this ruling, he was allowed to play without a helmet. Craig MacTavish was the last player to do so. A similar rule, 1.16, exists in Major League Baseball concerning batting helmets, requiring players who were not in the major leagues prior to 1983 to wear a helmet with at least one earflap, as of 2007, the only Major League Baseball player allowed to wear an earflap-less batting helmet is Julio Franco of the Mets. In a strange coincidence that is outside the scope of this article, Craig MacTavish and Julio Franco were born only eight days apart in 1958.

[blacktoothgrin]

The Modjadji or Rain Queen is the hereditary queen of Balobedu, the people of the Limpopo Province of South Africa. The succession to the position of Rain Queen is matrilineal, meaning that the Queen's eldest daughter is the heir, and that males are not entitled to inherit the throne at all. The Rain Queen is believed to have special powers, including the ability to control the clouds and rainfall.

Currently there is no ruling Rain Queen as the previous Rain Queen died on 12 June 2005.

[normalman]

This song is pure, nonsensical potty humor, joking about various places the singer's "bum" finds itself, such as on a step, on cheese, or on a battleship. A sample of the lyrics:

My bum is on the gum
My bum is on the gum
I can blow a bubble with my bum bum bum

The song came about when Green did a bit on a cruise ship, where he wandered the decks bothering people. During an altercation with a ship employee, Green began rubbing his bottom against a rail, singing, "My bum is on the rail, my bum is on the rail..." The incident inspired Green to compose the full song.

[zack hoagie!]

normalman consult the ggm wikipedia thread

[normalman]

#%&*$! Sorry.

[Captain Hot Stuff]

Harold Edward Holt CH (5 August 2025 – presumed dead 17 December 2025) was an Australian politician who became the 17th Prime Minister of Australia in 1966. His term as Prime Minister was dramatically ended in December of the following year when he disappeared while swimming at Cheviot Beach near Portsea and was presumed drowned.

[Hanstock]

The “Gallagher Too” controversy

At some point during the early 1990s, Gallagher’s younger brother Ron Gallagher asked Gallagher for permission to perform shows using Gallagher’s old routines, and also using Gallagher’s trademark Sledge-O-Matic routine. The idea was that Ron Gallagher, who was unemployed, would tour the country working small venues that couldn’t afford a show put on by Gallagher himself. Since Ron bears a strong familial resemblance to his older brother, the show would be almost like having a real Gallagher show.

Gallagher granted his blessing to his younger brother on the condition that Ron and his manager would make it clear in their promotional materials that it was Ron Gallagher, not Gallagher himself, that was putting on the show.

After a few years of complying with Gallagher’s conditions, Ron began subtly blurring the line between his act and that of his brother. He would often promote his act as “Gallagher Too,” a moniker Gallagher felt was insufficiently informative. In some instances, Ron’s act was promoted in a way that provided no clue to prospective attendees that they were seeing someone other than Gallagher himself.

Gallagher initially attempted to get his brother to stop these activities by requesting that he stop using Gallagher’s well-known Sledge-O-Matic routine. These efforts proved fruitless, and Ron kept touring as “Gallagher Too” while using the Sledge-O-Matic routine his older brother had made famous. Consequently, in August 2000, Gallagher sued his brother for trademark violations and false advertising. The courts ultimately sided with Leo Gallagher, and an injunction was granted prohibiting Ron from performing any act that impersonates his brother in small clubs and venues.

During the lawsuit, all of Gallagher’s immediate family sided with Ron over the controversy. As a consequence Gallagher is now estranged from his parents and siblings.

The Oregonian interview

In January of 2005, the Oregonian’s entertainment section printed a short interview with Gallagher where he gave scathing reviews about many of the top comedic performers in America. Among the criticisms were the low quality of stand-up performances by David Letterman, Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, Tom Hanks, and Michael Keaton. Gallagher expressed frustration over Hanks and Keaton’s success, remarking that they were millionaires and someone with his skills and ability was reduced to renting a condo. While criticising Jay Leno and Letterman, he expressed surprise that they never invited him to appear in their shows, citing that Johnny Carson never liked him, but still booked him.

Gallagher reserved special wrath for Comedy Central’s list of the greatest 100 stand-up comedians, where he was listed as #100, just below Janeane Garofalo. Gallagher insulted the list as a whole, stating that when reading it he “was trying to find anyone I ever heard of.” He went on to claim that he had invented the concept of the one-person comedy show on cable television.[1] To counter the list, he ran his own top comedians election at his website where he was voted the #9 comedian.


god damn fascinating

[zack hoagie!]

gallagher is a dick

[Shamrock]

Annabelle's pet guard dog who defends Annabelle's house with the viciousness (and also the overall appearance) of a shark. Sharky does not speak, but more than makes up for it in growls. Sharky typically terrorizes Eek! for fun, although occasionally as a reaction to Eek!'s incessant trouble-causing helpfulness. There are moments where the two get along and partner in the plotline, but they happen to be rare.

[Wat, But A Girl]

Gallagher only ranked #9 on his own website.

Even devoted Gallagher fans don't like him as much as 8 other people.

[zack hoagie!]

eyyy wat where you been

[Wat, But A Girl]

Cambodia, Laos or Thailand.

[Wat, But A Girl]

o ya and also I was hand-picked to be part of a team of supercriminals that headed to China to break into Emperor Qin's tomb, apparantly.

the heist went pretty well except for some meddling superdork, but i grappled him and we rolled into a vat of molten mercury so s'cool now

anyone wanna buy a gold buddha

[James]

In the Vietnam War U.S squads usually had at least one soldier whose role was that of a grenadier. He was usually armed with an M79 grenade launcher, although towards the end of the war it was replaced with an XM148 grenade launcher underslinging an M16 rifle. In infantry squads the grenadier was dedicated to his weapon, meaning that he usually carried only the M79 and a Colt 1911 side arm. In some cases, grenadiers were not even issued this sidearm.

it might just be interesting to me but i think it's pretty funny that they basically gave a guy a single shot grenade launcher with like four or five rounds and said OKAY STAY ALIVE MAYBE

"but what if they get in close"

well you will have to aim carefully then won't you

[webber Cooledge]

Iron Man Contest
The goal of the Iron Man competition was simple: you had to carry your game for as long as you could. If anyone passed 100 hours, they would be awarded a $10,000 prize from the Sports Achievement Association. The contest started at 11:00 AM. One player, a Japanese teenager, resigned his game at the seven-hour mark after being confronted by his weeping family.

The games continued unbroken until the 24-hour barrier, in which Tom Asaki lost his Nibbler game due to a glitch in the game. In Nibbler, each statistic was allotted 256 bits of data. Each extra life accumulated would add two bits to the load on the Extra Lives data. If it were to go over 256 bits (128 lives), all the lives in reserve would be reset to zero. Asaki did not even know of this bug until warned by Billy Mitchell that he was accumulating lives too fast. Tom's game ended with a score of 300 million points.

Mitchell himself was the next to go, after 39 hours. The trackball broke down due to the body oils from his hands. By the time the machine could be repaired, Mitchell was already in a deep sleep, effectively eliminating him from the competition. His game ended with an impressive 10,774,191 points.

Mark Bersabe lost his final man on Asteroids after 45 hours, with a score of 18,552,590 points (far from Scott Safran's record of 41,336,440 points). Jeff Peters, who played Q*Bert while sitting in a recliner (with the control panel in his lap) lasted until the fifty-hour mark until collapsing from exhaustion, with 19,498,150 points.

The winner of the contest was 18-year-old James Vollandt, who carried his Joust game for 67½ hours. After being the only one remaining in competition (after Peters' elimination), he resorted to dangerous techniques to keep himself awake, including blasting his face with freon, starting at the sixty-hour mark. The game malfunctioned at around 58 hours, wiping out all of his 210 extra lives. However, he earned back forty of them. He left the game voluntarily, with a record-breaking score of 107,216,700 points, a record that still stands to this day. However, Vollandt did not receive the prize money because he did not pass the 100-hour mark.

[webber Cooledge]

fuckin freon to the face, that's hardcore

[webber Cooledge]

nerds are awesome:

The U.S. National Video Game Team
On July 25, 1983, Day founded the U.S. National Video Game Team, consisting of he and five of the nation's best players: Billy Mitchell, from Hollywood, Florida; Steve Harris, from Gladstone, Missouri; Jay Kim, from Miami, Florida; Ben Gold, from Dallas, Texas, and Tim McVey, a local Ottumwa resident who became Day's favorite arcade customer.

They soon headed for the 1983 Video Game Master's Tournament, a charity fundraiser for cystic fibrosis research. They arrived on August 11, and attracted audiences, who donated to the fundraiser. After setting a few new records, the team toured the United States. One memorable journey, in September 1983, was a tour of the East Coast to verify excessive scores (such as the aforementioned twelve million points on Pac-Man). After arriving in Baltimore, Maryland, they confronted the player who made the claim. He snapped at them in zealot-like daze, screaming, "This is NOT HOLY!!! You are LOW PEOPLE!!!". The man's claim was subsequently wiped off of the record, with the official record of 3.1 million points the new record. In November 1983, Day hand-delivered documents to both the Italian Embassy and the Japanese embassy, to challenge them to an "international video game challenge", to which Italy declined, but Japan accepted. However, plans fell through and the match never took place.

On January 14, 1984, the 1984 Coronation Day occurred in Dallas, Texas. Tim Collum was crowned as 1983's best player, an honor he accepted.

[Wes]

In 1997 a statue of Gibson as "William Wallace" was placed outside the Wallace Monument near Stirling, Scotland.[5] The statue, which includes the word "Braveheart" on Wallace's shield, was the cause of much controversy and one local resident stated that it was wrong to "desecrate the main memorial to Wallace with a lump of crap".[6] In 1998 the statue was vandalised by someone who smashed the face in with a hammer. After repairs were made, the statue was encased in a cage at night to prevent further vandalism. This has only incited more calls for the statue to be removed as it now appears that the Gibson/Wallace figure is imprisoned; an irony, considering that the statue bears the word "Freedom" on the plinth. As well, the images agreed to be that of William Wallace do not resemble Mel Gibson.

[Terry Cheesecake]

That statue is a lump of crap.

[Kyle]

holy shit lol