King Tom's Kingdom

A comedy staple in both movies and real life may be going out of style.

In it’s daily This Day In Tech feature, wired.com tells the story of the fire pole, which was first used 130 years ago today:

 

Firefighters at Engine Company 21 were unloading hay for the horses that pulled their fire engines. When the bell rang, firefighter George Reid was up in the hayloft on the third floor. The long binding pole that was used to secure the hay to the wagon had been stashed vertically up the loading area to the hayloft. Rather than run all the way down two flights of stairs, Reid decided to slide down the pole. Swift thinking, George.

However, because of safety concerns, fire poles are a dying breed:

Nowadays, the poles are sometimes considered safety hazards, and new firehouses are often built without them. Single-story firehouses are preferred.

It will be a sad day when the fire pole becomes extinct.  At least we can always go back to the works of the Three Stooges or Ghostbusters to see them in their prime.

 

I’ve mentioned before my friend and associate Iron Mike gave me the nickname “King Tom” some years ago.

Iron Mike is a big fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and based the nickname off an episode in which Joel, while trying to cheer up Tom Servo, dubs him King Tom.

While I enjoy MST3K, I haven’t seen a whole lot of it, so this particular episode has evaded me.

Until now.

Thanks to the magic of YouTube, I’ve finally seen the episode where my nickname comes from. I can’t embed the video, but here’s a link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LO2rOnW1SY

I guess this makes The Civee my “Giggles VonLaughsALot”

Nothing much exciting happens in downtown Columbus, especially during the work week.

A few years ago, we got buzzed by an Air Force jet, but other than that, there’s rarely anything to make you bug one of your co-workers and say “Hey! What was/Look at that!”

Until today. Sometime early this morning, I looked up from my computer, glanced out the window, and saw a gigantic plume of smoke emitting from a parking garage across the street. I watched for a few seconds, then alerted my co-workers. They all watched for a moment or two. As I watched, I did what anyone would do in this day and age, I whipped out my camera phone and started snapping away.

After a while, I got back to work, even though it looked as if the smoke was headed right for us. Eventually, the smoke died down.

Later on, I read the fire was caused by an SUV in the garage which caught fire, which then spread the flames to two other cars.

Overall, it was a lot of excitement for a Monday morning. Only time will tell if this displaces the low-flying fighter jet as the “hey remember when…” conversation starter in downtown Columbus.

By the way, I must acknowledge the fact that were it not for the pictures, you’d still be seeing the latest entry on the blog be a story about last week’s Monday night Raw. Gee, if it wasn’t for my new phone, which is also a camera, I don’t know what I’d write about.

As I mentioned earlier this week, this year’s WrestleMania was kind of weird. One of my biggest problems with the show was the way the Ric Flair career-ending match ended.

Well, thanks to the miracle of DVR, I finally got around to watching Monday night’s Raw. I actually fast-forwarded through most of it. The show ended with a tribute to Flair, including the Four Horsemen, many of Flair’s past opponents and the whole WWE roster. There was only one person whose absence was somewhat conspicious:

Vince, the last thing you need is someone who idolizes me marrying your daughter.

So I caught WrestleMania 24 tonight, and while I can’t say it was a great WrestleMania, I can’t say it was bad, either. It was just weird.

The show started off interesting, with a fun geriatric hardcore match, and an entertaining Money In The Bank Ladder Match. The MITB match was fun, had some insane spots and told a great story, with the right guy, CM Punk, snatching the briefcase dangling over the ring while Chris Jericho dangled upside-down from another ladder while Punk celebrated.

The Ric Flair-Shawn Michaels foregone conclusion match was also a great bout. Michaels seemingly impaled himself with a moonsault on the Raw announce table, but kept fighting. Michaels and Flair pulled out all the stops, with Michaels hitting three or four superkicks (all from different angles/locations) before getting the pin and ending Flair’s career.

And then it got weird.

Flair waved to the fans, hugged his family and walked up the (extraordinarily long) ramp. He waved once again and walked behind the video screen. That was it. No mic time for the Nature Boy to say goodbye (even after his induction into the HOF last night, some extra mic time might have been nice).

Following that was the ladies match, which was more annoying than anything. In the middle of that match, the lights went out. That was pretty much the most exciting thing to happen in that 15-minute span.

The weirdness continued, with the Orton/Cena/Triple H title match following that one. The match was a real good one for a triple threat match, but it was bizarre that it wasn’t the last match. The ending was abrubt though, which Triple H getting Orton in some bizarre figure-three leglock, then giving a pedigree to Cena, then Orton ruining the pin and covering Cena himself. I was a bit surprised Orton won, and even more surprised at the finish.

Even though it was the most hyped match of the night, the Big Show-Floyd Mayweather bout didn’t interest me much. Still, Mayweather played up to the crowd and it wasn’t a surprise he won (even if he did have to use a foreign object to do so). It was fun, however, to see him and his entourage get beaten up.

Finally, the Undertaker won the championship (one of them) from Edge, in a dramatic match. It was a good solid match, which saw Undertaker win with some type of choke-submission. But it wasn’t the kind of match to blow you away.

So there you have it. No blood. No Austin. No Rock. A lot of weirdness and a few things to laugh about. That was WrestleMania 24.