Nuclear Testing

This amazing YouTube video shows every nuclear explosion from 1945 through 1998, month by month, with a running count for each country. In total, 2053, beginning with the first US test in 1945 through a 1998 test by Pakistan. -- very scary

Andy Rooney

For over 30 years the highlight of CBS' Sunday night news magazine for me has been the few minutes with Andy Rooney, WW 2 war correspondent, author and writer of numerous television documentaries. At the age of 92 Andy still produces weekly sometimes witty and sometimes serious thought provoking essays.

Here are two of the many that can be found on CBS's YouTube channel.

USC Drumline Cadence

This is a video featuring the drumline of the University of Southern California. Absolutely fantastic. But I pity their poor parents!

Ominous Storm Clouds at Football Game

This YouTube video shows very scary looking storm clouds approaching Kansas State University's stadium during a September, 2010 game between Kansas State and Central Florida University in Manhattan, Kansas. The game was suspended for an hour and a half. It is amazing how many of the crowd remained in the open as the storm approached. I can guarantee that I would have been under the stands in record time, coward that I am!

How to Terrify Children

This Civil Defense film from 1951 is a typical example of the propaganda we children were subjected to in the early days of the Cold War. The intention may not have been to scare the Bejesus out of us but that certainly was the result.

I recall often wondering on mornings as I left for school if it was going to be my last day on Earth. I also recall the frequent A-Bomb drills at school where sirens alerted us to duck and cower beneath our desks so we could get our clothes dirty!

Ad for 1956 Studebaker

The 1956 Studebakers in this advertisement I found on YouTube look great to me; not like 55 year old relics. They look like what I think cars should look like. Today's cars look like wieners on wheels to me.

I am not normally one obsessed with the "good old days". I like to think of myself as being "with it" even though the calendar suggests that I am rapidly approaching relic status. But in the case of automobiles I feel that modern designs suck from an aesthetic standpoint.

Hail Storm

Here are two amazing home videos from YouTube taken during a violent hailstorm in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in May of 2010. In each case you see the hail start out slowly, then get really wild.

Some years ago when I was working in Indianapolis, Indiana a thunderstorm suddenly turned to hail while I was in my car stopped for a red light. It sounded and felt as if hundreds of people were attacking my car with hammers. So many hailstones were hitting at once that it made the car begin to rock. It lasted less than a minute and stopped as suddenly as it had begun. That was some kind of scary! Surprisingly, there was no damage to my car.