Western Railroad Discussion > Sweet ba-da-boom dreams!

Notice to trolls & other cave-man dullards: This is a parody thread, posted strictly tongue-in-cheek

Last month I bagged this coal empty running through my home town. I may have caught it because I was out running errands. Or I may have gotten a friendly tip from my cohort, ‘mg8711’. Short history can easily blur when there is a LOT of it, and you don’t keep notes. As I was running these 2 images through Photoshop I noticed the motel on the left was from one of my current pet-peeve TV commercials. You know the one; where that minimum IQ dullard just stands there and regurgitates “ba-da-book-ba-da-boom”.

I’ve never met anyone who hasn’t in their lifetimes had at least one TV commercial they just loved to HATE. I’ve got dozens. It’s inescapable human nature. And today’s advertising industry has gone completely off the rails with advertising tactics. Their current modus operandi seems to be: the more in-your-face obnoxious & infuriatingly repetitive a commercial is, the bigger chance they have of selling you the garbage they’re shoving into your eyes & ears and down your throat. You can find this frontal attack method in 100’s of modern commercials.

Because of my current & massive slide scanning project(s) I spend several hours a day at my computer. I usually have the TV on for background noise. Good thing I don’t have a stack of bricks within my reach, because every time one of those obnoxious ~ repetitive ~ idiot TV commercials comes on I feel like picking up a brick and heaving it at the monitor. That would get pretty expensive replacing several TV monitors every month. But I’ve made a wonderful discovery. It’s called a “mute’ button, and it’s right there on my remote. It’s fantastic! You just depress the button and that audible drivel goes away. And I’ve become very proficient with it. If hitting the mute button was a rodeo event, I would easily rank as one of the deadliest quick-on-the-mute draws in the whole wild west.

Back to scene: The motel here in my images not is likely a choice place to sleep if train noises bother a person. Maybe all the ad campaign buffoons responsible for the never-ending assault on our collective intelligences should be made to try to sleep in this motel every night for a couple of weeks. Sweet ba-da-boom dreams, indeed!

And how is your week going…

1. & 2. UP 8644 points a coal empty past one of them thar ‘book-boom’ motels in Manhattan, KS.
Photo date: March 22, 2018

Thank God for the mute button!
Lance Garrels
santafe199



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/25/18 10:21 by santafe199.

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Lance --
You hit another one outta the park with your wonderful and amusing prose! Oh, my.... LOLOL!

I always enjoy your posts, and your writings are usually almost as good as your superb photos. (Those Kansas sunsets......wow.....)

I feel about some computer programs the same way you do about those TV commercials -- aaarrrggghhh! (And the less said about where that clueless keyboard designer put that stupid "CapsLock" key, the better! Aarrgghh! Ditto "AutoCotrrect".)

Those are two nice photos.

Lance,
I also mute most of that crap.I watch a lot of
History channel etc and it is the same crap over
and over and-----------!
What in the hell is badda-boommm???????????

Uncle Joe
Seffner,Fl.

retcsxcfm Wrote: > ... same crap over and over and ...
Those pesky TV commercials will find you no matter what channel you run to...

> What in the hell is badda-boommm???????????
That's a good question, Uncle Joe! Apparently a whole train load of computer-bred, college educated morons think it will cause people to run en masse to their motels and give them patronage. And I'm sure the stockholders are thrilled with 100s of thousands of their $$$$$$$$$$$$ being spent on those interminable ads...

Nice shots and narrative! Looks like a railfan motel, lol.

Larry

Annoying guy aside (and I agree Lance), those are the kinds of places I look for when staying out of town. Adjacent to a mainline RR.

zfan Wrote: > ... those are the kinds of places I look for ...

Now that I've been retired for 8 years I maybe kinda-sorta might agree with you, under limited circumstances. But after 32 years in train service I spent a goodly percentage of those 32 years sleeping in all sorts of lodging from flea-bag dumps to top-of-the-line Red Lions. Some of those were in fairly close proximity to noisy main lines, but most weren't. (I don't guess I need to tell you which sleeping situation I preferred...  ;^)

Lance/199

Great photos and story line. We may be long lost brothers, as I'm in 100% agreement with your assessment of the advertising industry. Keep up the good work. Ronnie

One night years ago, coming back from a desert geology and rail-fanning trip, I checked into the first motel in eastern Mojave because I couldn't safely drive any longer. There was a sign on the counter saying something like "No refunds after registering." I assumed the message was for anyone planning to do a certain thing quickly, come back and say "The room's not acceptable, I've changed my mind, gimme a refund". The first hour or so was quiet. Then the parade started, with the road crossing about 50 feet from the motel. I hadn't been aware of it in the dark, because my route had not crossed it. I think I left about 3:30 and was home before sunrise.