Tag Archive: wikipedia


After seeing her new Wikipedia entry I knew what I had to do.

I love all her albums. But Sirens will always hold a very special place in my heart.

So… I started working on her Discography pages with an entry for Sirens.

Let me tell you… Doing those pages from scratch… not as easy as you might think.

But I’ll do more when I get the time.

Oh nos…

I have started contributing to wikipedia… And I like it.

Gads.

Edit added a link to my contributions.

(Preface: this post is seasoned with a bunch of links. I recommend taking the time to look at the links because it helps explain and compliment the post)

Occasionally, I post strange fun facts that seem to come out of absolutely nowhere.

For example: The term “Pediddel” (Meaning a car missing a headlight) in fact originates to a 1984 episode of “Not Necessarily the News” with its usual segment of Rich Hall’s Sniglets.

Some of you may think… What the hell is ‘Pedidel?’; Some might think, “Pedidel was a sniglet?’

The real question is, “This is the sh&# that Andrei researches?”

So… If you’ve ever seen the episode of Pinky and the Brain where the response is, “I think so, Brain, but what if the hippopotamus won’t wear the beach thong.”… or even if you haven’t…

Here’s where my brain came from.

I was flipping thru youtube videos and saw a shot of a young girl. Maybe 13-15. It made me think of the one young girl I’d seen on TV that I’d really like to see again. Mary Lou Retton in 1984 taking a perfect score of 10 on the vault. Well, from there it was Torvill and Dean skating to Bolero. This got me wanting to find “ABC’s Wide World of Sports.”… I knew I’d see “Agony of Defeat” but… I actually wanted to see the whole thing.

I found it, But it was part of an interview with Jim McKay concerning “The agony of defeat.” This took me to WikiPedia to look up more about Vinko Bogataj, the man known to most Americans (Over 25) as “The agony of defeat.”

This is where I felt inclined to make one of my posts. Talking about the famed “Agony of defeat.” A man who received a standing ovation at a high class banquet for the 25th anniversary of ABC’s sport show. The ovation confused him, because in his native Yugoslavia he never really got a lot of notice. In the States on the other hand… living legend.

It turns out that Bogataj’s mishap is commemorated with a sniglet “Agonosis” meaning, “The syndrome of tuning in on Wide World of Sports every weekend just to watch the skier rack himself.”

Well, okay.. an accidental click there in wikipedia on Sniglets and there it is. “Pediddel”

My first thought was, “So that’s how it’s spelled.”

I think it was one of those driving games I learned by rote… And by an ironic twist was a word I discovered that until now, I’d never… um… “Wrote”.

The next thought was, ‘So it actually started as a sniglet. That’s kinda cool.’ Well, cool from my point of view.

And this is what I do when sick on the couch.

Yes, I was raised on television. I had one in my room as a kid. This probably had short and long range bad effects on me.

That being said… I am always happy to discover something obscure. Even more so because I’ve made one of my first posts to Wikipedia

When I was a kid… (Let’s avoid the references to when the rocks were soft) there were 3 main stations. ABC, NBC, and CBS. (There was PBS, and a bunch of hard to tune UHF stations as well)… Oh yeah.. there was a lot of fuzzy white-noise space between them.

My one thrill a year was a program called, “Battle of the Network Stars.” Back before greed had gotten out of control, the three networks would collaborate to host a series of fun physical challenges between teams made from the stars of their prime time shows.

The show stared Howard Cosell as sports commentator. Cosell was a television institution that I regret is slowly fading from memory and history.

The show was fun. There was an obstacle course, tug of war, swimming, even one year a pinball contest (which ironically was quickly lost by Elton John) But my fondest memory was of “Simon Says.” Not even really a part of the competition it was one man calling the game vs. most of the stars. And the caller was deadly. For years… I’ve tried to remember anything I can about it. Some of my friends have even fallen prey to my ability to make them lose “Simon Says” in less than 5 moves.

Well tonight while YouTube surfing on my AppleTV (A prize I won at work for helping to test our software), I found a video of Simon Says. The video gave me the master’s name. “Lou Goldstein” (Who despite being probably 80 may still be travelling and entertaining. Damn those Borscht Belt mensches!)

So, I appended the article. There was no information on Goldstein. The article now references him and includes an external link to the footage.

In some ways it may seem dated. But it’s a pearl of history. And I’m very, VERY, VERY happy to see it still exists. I wish I could explain the really warm feeling I got… get from putting this piece of Television history in Wikipedia.

MemeTime: WikiMania

From a post by isomeme by way of gridlore

Go to the Wikipedia home page and click random article. That is your band’s name.
Click random article again; that is your album name.
Click random article 15 more times; those are the tracks on your album.

(Fill in the details if you wish)

This was fun… details behind the cut…