So after work, I drove out to the airport to do a little work on my airplane. I keep it at a rural airport that is small and quiet.
As I'm driving up to my hanger, I see a guy walking up the road towards me. He wearing a leather jacket, a beret, and has a red beard.
I've seen this guy somewhere. I stop the car and wait for him to walk by me. I'm sure it's the guy. I ask him, "aren't you the Mythbusters guy?", He replies, "yes, I am". He's Jamie Hyneman, cohost of Mythbusters. I get out and shake his hand and tell him I like his show. He seems tired and uninterested, so I don't pursue him. He says they are finishing up a shoot. I presume that it must have something to do with parachutes or skydiving since the airport has a world-class skydiving school.
Pretty strange dicks, imo. There is a lot of production pressure in these shows, and I think many involved need a big stiff drink at the end of each day to wind down. Tired and disinterested indeed. I've seen motivational speakers at the end of the day, and you'd think they were homeless or sumpn, the way the wander around aimlessly. Proly serves them right.
I think the concept of that show is great, and except for those two assholes I think a lot of the cast is interesting, some of the "experiments" intriguing and educational. But the writers/producers have, once again, found a way to make the audience grovel for crumbs of what might otherwise be decent educational entertainment, and essentially ruin a good concept.
Just not worth it. And stretching out each denouement to the end of the show is just effing insulting. I SED (E=enough) each day, I don't need to plaster my lips to the TV screen as well. Goodgawd....
Very nice place. Lots of unusual planes and good people. I myself don't jump out of perfectly good aircraft, but I did just get back from doing some touch-and-go's and some ground reference maneuvers practicing for my practical exam. It seemed like every student in the valley flew out to Yolo to practice today. It's usually much quieter.
I'm also jealous of those two assholes' shop--an effing airplane hangar! They might even have some cnc... Really a lot of good stuff in that show, if I could just keep from up-chucking.
You have obviously never been in a jump plane with one of the crazy assed pilots that fly them. You're GLAD to get out! :-) Now that you mention it, Yolo is where I soloed back in 1967, just prior to going to Vietnam. I took my training at the no longer existant glider port between Vacaville and Fairfield. Getting to final there was a fun trip. Base was flown behind and BELOW the ridge to the east. You couldn't see the runway until the ridge went away. That's when you turned in and lined up. Those were the days. $27/hr, WET plus $10 for the instructor, as I recall.
I rent my hanger space from the owner of the skydiving place. He said I can fly left seat in the jump plane sometime. I just haven't had the time. I guess I'll have to try it to find out how motivated I'd be to jump (:
I fly when I can afford it, which lately isn't very often. I think it's been over a year since I flew. i'm building an ultralight right now. Hopefully, that will close the gaps a bit. I owned a '47 Stinson but I wrecked it outside El Paso in '96 and sold the wreck three years ago, thus the e-mail address. I haven't jumped since I made the two illegal jumps from the C-130 I was a loadmaster on back in 1983. I keep thinking about it but the closest DZ is about 100 miles away and it would cost about $500 just to get in one jump, what with the training course and all. I'm hoping to get the U/L going this winter so I can take it down on the border and use it for aerial surveillance with the Minutemen.
In Mythbusters defense they do attempt to show some of the off camera help from time to time. However thats not who people are tuning in to watch. People watch OCC because they're so dysfunctional its funny (or sad, depends on how you look at it) so they get ratings and thus more air time.
Yeah, I get jealous of guys who get paid to do what they do, particularly if you understand all the auxiliary equipment and personnel off camera and back stage. They show a lot of the finished products, but don't show the machining work and expensive equipment it takes. All those adhesives, epoxy and ballistics gel, and special effects components ain't cheap, either.
Pretty soon they will be like OCC and have the water cutting machine and CNC wheel mill, etc. Same thing. They don't show the fifty people working off camera and behind the walls.
what kind of ultralight? i'd think you'd want to get some bulletproof plate for under your seat and below the fuel tanks/engine. are you going to paint some kind of message on the underside of the wing? (lol)
Indeed. These are major production efforts, deceptive in many ways, to the extent that they are passed off as DIY stuff, or, Oh, We just dashed this off, we're so brite and cute.... Yeah, with 50 muthafuckas humping in the background, yer brite and cute....
Way way back in the This Old House days, before this HGTV shit went absolutely out of control, even back then they had some "behind the scenes shows", which basically fessed up to the homeshow diy-fixit bidniss being a fraud: It took multiple multiple takes just to get simple simple shit done, almost to the point of ineptness. Yeah, it's funny, sort of, to see these assholes f*ck up time after time, but less funny when you grok the implications, the deception.
Shit can be made to appear simple, but it is generally not simple. Einstein: If you think stuff is simple, you really don't understand it. This design-on-a-dime stuff, where their crew builds furniture/chochkees right then and there, how much preparation was involved in that? Weeks, I'll bet. Without insight into the preparation/planning/thinking process, you lose probably about 90% of what could be taught or learned.
There was stuff you could learn, but mostly what you lernt was just what existed, no real improvement on what it was you yourself could do. Too much sleight of hand. There were some interesting people, who could educate and provide insight into the whole process. Christopher Lloyd, Lynette Jennings in the early HGTV days are now gone, a cupla other real woodworkers in the This Old House days were gone long ago. We, The Pubic, have essentially voted for what we now have. I'm not sure how that vote gets tabulated, cuz my vote certainly wadn't counted, but whatever....
It would be sumpn, tho, if in fact the Pubic didn't vote, and we've just been Unilaterally Mindfucked by the powers that be.
With the HGTV sleight of hand nowadays, you might as well just watch a Copperfield show. Nowadays, it's more of a really good mind-f****ng that ensures you will try to keep up with the Joneses, even imaginary Joneses, at virtually any cost. I'll never forget the smug twit in her 3-story vaulted ceiling bathroom. Just how much grandeur does one need, in which to take a dump and cough up a leungi?
This Old House set the real estate assfucking in motion, with HGTV ramping it up to 10 on the Richter scale, and is a major reason why your kids will be staying home with you until they're about 45.
I think it is also a subtler dumbing down/"competing up" of America, without really being obvious about it. Altho there is no real need to be coy: Look at Paris Hilton in The Simple Life, or I Love New York, or GrowinUpfuknGotti. The architects of these obscenities pretty much announce, revel in their contempt of the viewing audience.
The two assholes on Mythbusters, tho, do take some kind of cake, but at least they provide some reassuring evidence that you don't have to be good-looking to make it on the very small screen. goodgawd.... I'm pretty sure when they're not shooting, they're pretty much drunk/out of it. Man, *I* need a drink now....
how many other geeks can come CLOSE to identifying with a tv show anymore?
not beautiful people not stupid either make mistakes let their audience call them on mistakes REPEATEDLY (chicken cannon)
I like the concept i hope it get cancelled before its too "television" for my tastes
and the funniest thing it i WATCHED Grant in the battlebots he won i REMEMBER Deadblow. I remember watching battlebots and robot wars before the new slew of discovery channel shows
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