episodes 919 'The Solder Excursion Diversion' (March 31)

[Stephen Hawking]

1 hour ago, veejay said:

Yes and I guess he was using Linux (Ubuntu) at first as a dual boot system on his old computer.

The show suggests he's a Windows man.

[veejay]

Haha, but the screen shows a lot of Linux application-windows from the Gnome-Desktop (Ubuntu)....anyway...it's damaged now :-(

(btw. dual boot means two OS to select on one computer) 

Edited April 3, 2016 by veejay

[Stephen Hawking]

Well, in The Table Polarization, Sheldon states he is "falling back in love with Windows 98", and, in The Herb Garden Germination, when he's Skyping Amy about their gossip meme, the Desktop looks like a Windows one.

[veejay]

4 minutes ago, Stephen Hawking said:

...falling back in love with Windows 98".....

LOL and I guess he breaks after update No. 13728906655.....

[Judith]

5 hours ago, djsurrey said:

On a second viewing the first thing that came to mind that Sheldon had some options to construct his email and could have gotten around the keyboard issue. I can't imagine Sheldon sending a message missing letters.

1. He could remap some keys. I think there were only three that did not work. (see http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/map-any-key-to-any-key-on-windows-xp-vista/ )
2. He could plug in a spare USB keyboard. Most new desktops use USB keyboards and those keyboards can be plugged into laptops too.
3. Anyone who has used computers as long as I have probably has resorted to copy and paste in a pinch to construct an email on a computer with one or more non working keys. One can copy from existing messages or documents or webpages. A simple but tedious solution. 
4. A person as smart as Sheldon could probably think of ways to get autocorrect to fill in the missing letters.
5. Sheldon could have used his phone to compose the email.
6. If the laptop was expensive, and it sounds like it was, he could have the laptop fixed.

As far as the skype call. I have used an old android tablet for skype. One should be able to do the same with a newer android phone.

One can do the same with an iphone. 

All these are valid points, except for 6. I suspect that since the laptop was probably very expensive his guy would have told him that it wasn't worth fixing, he'd better get a new one. 

[djsurrey]

8 hours ago, Judith said:

All these are valid points, except for 6. I suspect that since the laptop was probably very expensive his guy would have told him that it wasn't worth fixing, he'd better get a new one. 

Yes, perhaps I should have stopped at 5.

[djsurrey]

10 hours ago, Stephen Hawking said:

Well, in The Table Polarization, Sheldon states he is "falling back in love with Windows 98", and, in The Herb Garden Germination, when he's Skyping Amy about their gossip meme, the Desktop looks like a Windows one.

...and in The Table Polarization he also refers to his ipad.

Quote

Scene: Amy’s apartment.

Sheldon: (Knock, knock, knock) Amy? (Knock, knock, knock) Amy? (Knock, knock, knock)Amy? I’ll get right to the point. I think we need to end this relationship, so just sign this with your finger, and, uh, please don’t cry on my iPad, I didn’t get AppleCare.

Amy: I’m not surprised you want to end the relationship. I’m a little surprised you didn’t get AppleCare. Anyway, enjoy your life. Where do I sign?

The man has multiple devices. 

Windows 7 is too user friendly...

 

[djsurrey]

11 hours ago, veejay said:

Haha, but the screen shows a lot of Linux application-windows from the Gnome-Desktop (Ubuntu)....anyway...it's damaged now :-(

(btw. dual boot means two OS to select on one computer) 

I spent some time looking for a reference. He is adding a linux partition in The Psychic Vortex 3.12.

So yes he is dual booting.

Quote

Raj: We do?

Sheldon: Oh, yes. I just discovered I don’t have enough room on my hard drive for a Linux partition, so you and I are going to perform a full backup, reinitialize and then reinstall all my operating systems.

Raj: I don’t want to do that.

Sheldon: All right. Well, I’m going to perform full backup, reinitialize and then reinstall all my operating systems.

 

[Stephen Hawking]

He sent Amy home, so he could look at her through Skype?

Where exactly, did his mother have him tested?

[Swedish Chef]

 

It's true that there's plenty to nitpick about this episode.

1) Buying someone else their laptop? Really? As others have noted, I get that this scene was meant to show well well Amy knows Sheldon, but picking out your own laptop is the sort of thing most people would do for themselves. And Sheldon doesn't need to have a functioning computer on which to do his work? I assume he wasn't completely devastated by his computer's death because he's been making regular back-ups of his work.

2) Mayim is one of the least hairy people I've ever seen - she can get away with never shaving her legs, and you can barely tell. Yet apparently Amy is one of the hairiest people ever known to mankind. Between her nose hair, dandruff, and one hell of a bikini wax, what the hell is the fixation on Amy's body hair?

3) Sheldon's hoarding problem - first of all, that's not actual hoarding as I know and have experienced it with two of my family members. Second of all, how has Sheldon managed to keep this a secret from Leonard, much less get so many items to this place? Last of all, how the hell has he managed to move all of his possessions from Texas up to this unit?

But I'm overthinking it all, right? This is a comedy. A lot of things in the episode were great, in particular that this was so clearly a Bill Prady written episode and that the actors were so comfortable, smiling and relaxed and at ease, playing their characters. I mean, they were literally teasing, smiling, and firing off their lines with that unmistakable ease of being in the skin of their characters as they know and love them from over 9 years playing them. It was really striking how easy it was for them all to be in character here, and how much they enjoyed acting in this episode, and I think that was the part I enjoyed most of all.

For the record, it was the tag scene which made me angry with this episode originally. It did not come off as bad when I watched it, but it still makes me annoyed that there seems no consequence or change from their break up and getting back together. That eye wag from Sheldon was a moment to show a surprise - things have changed, or things have stayed the same. They came up with a weird situation in which Amy was sent home, but there was something very intimate with the way Sheldon had set her up on the computer in bed with him, and seemed genuinely happy and fascinated that she seemed to be with him there in bed. Even though, as Amy pointed out, she was not. Would have been very interesting, even thrilling, back in season 7 or 8, but just makes me slap my forehead now.

I can only agree on Sheldons hoarding problem, I found that story totally unrealistic, as I watch the episode tonight on swedish television. How on earth could he have moved all this stuff without Leonard knowing. 

[Lionne]

On April 26, 2016 at 0:44 PM, Lagernisse said:

I can only agree on Sheldons hoarding problem, I found that story totally unrealistic, as I watch the episode tonight on swedish television. How on earth could he have moved all this stuff without Leonard knowing. 

Perhaps Frank and Alicia helped him do it.

[joyceraye]

On ‎26‎/‎04‎/‎2016 at 8:44 PM, Lagernisse said:

I can only agree on Sheldons hoarding problem, I found that story totally unrealistic, as I watch the episode tonight on swedish television. How on earth could he have moved all this stuff without Leonard knowing. 

Leonard could have thought he was throwing it away. He would only think Sheldon was on a tidying-up freak-out  if he appeared to  be going over the top chucking things out. You see someone carrying a bin bag and you think they're taking rubbish to the bin. You see someone loading a van with broken things and you assume they're taking them to the dump or the recycling centre.  If  you live in a shared apartment with only  one - albeit large - all-purpose  kitchen/dining/study/sitting/area and one bedroom each to keep things in, you might well need a storage unit or a rented garage for some of your stuff and if you think your flatmate has one you'll only assume he's using it for storage not for a genizah.

Edited April 30, 2016 by joyceraye

[wowbagger]

12 hours ago, Lionne said:

Perhaps Frank and Alicia helped him do it.

you know- frank and Alicia from under the sink.

[Swedish Chef]

9 hours ago, joyceraye said:

Leonard could have thought he was throwing it away. He would only think Sheldon was on a tidying-up freak-out  if he appeared to  be going over the top chucking things out. You see someone carrying a bin bag and you think they're taking rubbish to the bin. You see someone loading a van with broken things and you assume they're taking them to the dump or the recycling centre.  If  you live in a shared apartment with only  one - albeit large - all-purpose  kitchen/dining/study/sitting/area and one bedroom each to keep things in, you might well need a storage unit or a rented garage for some of your stuff and if you think your flatmate has one you'll only assume he's using it for storage not for a genizah.

How did he transport all this stuff to the storage facility ? 

12 hours ago, Lionne said:

Perhaps Frank and Alicia helped him do it.

You are totally right, It could not have been anybody else !  

[djsurrey]

On 01/05/2016 at 1:09 AM, Lagernisse said:

On 30/04/2016 at 0:20 PM, Lionne said:

Perhaps Frank and Alicia helped him do it.

You are totally right, It could not have been anybody else !  

except he said no one but Amy knows.

[joyceraye]

2 hours ago, djsurrey said:

except he said no one but Amy knows.

Nobody but Amy needs to know. If Frank drives Sheldon in his truck with some boxes to the storage building, Frank won't be interested in what's in them. Even if he's looked into Sheldon's unit and seen Monty he'll only think Monty's going to be scrapped for parts. The whole place is neat and organised. It won't tell anyone anything.

Frank sounds like the sort of bloke who'll have a truck. With a name like that he won't be very inquisitive.

Edited May 3, 2016 by joyceraye

[Stephen Hawking]

That improvised email message is so funny.  

Whoever wrote it, is a comic genius.

[JohnPhD]

I thought this ep was unbalanced, in that the more interesting L, P, H, B and R stuff was a series of snapshots and the tedious S&A stuff was shown in what felt like real time. A scene with Penny is so much more watchable than one without, IMO.

[JohnPhD]

On 01/04/2016 at 0:46 AM, vasu said:

And how dumb was Amy to think that Sheldon was talking about having sex... its funny people say that she knows Sheldon very well... yet never properly get him........ I am pretty sure almost all the audience who was watching could have guessed that Sheldon atleast was not talking about sex.....

 

 

Yes; Shamy scenes are so boring because it's always the same joke. Even after 911 Amy's reverted to being perpetually sex-starved. There was an old-fashioned sort of comedy in which part of the appeal was that it was the same jokes every week, but thankfully that mostly died out decades ago. The repetitive Amy-thought-she-was-going-to-get-lucky joke is made more tedious by the poor facial acting: MB as Amy just has a fixed set of expressions that she uses every time, so it's always the same Damn-Sheldon-didn't-mean-sex-after-all face. Contrast this with the superb facial acting of KC as Penny, whose reaction shots are always new and special.

This episode seemed to be written by 2 different teams; a crack team on the wives-in-the-lab subplot, and much poorer writers on the Shamy story.

[joyceraye]

1 hour ago, JohnPhD said:

Yes; Shamy scenes are so boring because it's always the same joke. Even after 911 Amy's reverted to being perpetually sex-starved. There was an old-fashioned sort of comedy in which part of the appeal was that it was the same jokes every week, but thankfully that mostly died out decades ago. The repetitive Amy-thought-she-was-going-to-get-lucky joke is made more tedious by the poor facial acting: MB as Amy just has a fixed set of expressions that she uses every time, so it's always the same Damn-Sheldon-didn't-mean-sex-after-all face. Contrast this with the superb facial acting of KC as Penny, whose reaction shots are always new and special.

This episode seemed to be written by 2 different teams; a crack team on the wives-in-the-lab subplot, and much poorer writers on the Shamy story.

Funny how we the audience see different things. I didn't see anything of the old horny-hopeful Amy in her expression and her voice was even. I thought  she came over as trying to keep calm, wondering what Sheldon's facial gestures meant because the chances it would be anything to interest her would not be great.

The dialogue in the lab for me was so poorly articulated I had little idea of what was going on until the subtitles were available. Even after several viewings I don't get the part Raj was supposed to have played.

[JohnPhD]

1 hour ago, joyceraye said:

 

The dialogue in the lab for me was so poorly articulated I had little idea of what was going on until the subtitles were available. Even after several viewings I don't get the part Raj was supposed to have played.

I wouldn't go as far as that but I do sometimes think the dialogue seems too fast. Also it sometimes seems not to have been picked up properly. Glad it's not just me and my recorder.

[Stephen Hawking]

Jut watched the episode on All4.

Enjoyed it a lot.

Two things stand out, for different reasons.

1. How can Penny not know what solder is, when they were using it to make jewelry, in The Proton Displacement?

2. Another Amy outburst. "GET A NEW COMPUTER!!" Loved it.  

[joyceraye]

49 minutes ago, Stephen Hawking said:

Jut watched the episode on All4.

Enjoyed it a lot.

Two things stand out, for different reasons.

1. How can Penny not know what solder is, when they were using it to make jewelry, in The Proton Displacement?

2. Another Amy outburst. "GET A NEW COMPUTER!!" Loved it.  

Penny wasn't allowed near the soldering (aka 'soddering')  iron on that girls' night because she couldn't handle glue. She perhaps then forgot what it was.

I love Amy's shouts.  WE'RE ON THE SAME PLANET is my favourite.

Edited May 14, 2016 by joyceraye

[Stephen Hawking]

37 minutes ago, joyceraye said:

I love Amy's shouts.  WE'RE ON THE SAME PLANET is my favourite.

I forgot that one.  

Edited May 14, 2016 by Stephen Hawking

[JohnPhD]

2 hours ago, Stephen Hawking said:

1. How can Penny not know what solder is, when they were using it to make jewelry, in The Proton Displacement?

 

In 707  Penny wasn't listening when Howard said he'd get his "soddering iron", and was tool he turned up with actually a soldering iron? He seemed to have a welder's mask on his head. Solder wasn't mentioned again in 707. In general, do non-techies of that generation  know what solder is? (and do Americans really pronounce it like they did in the show?). I was quite surprised it's still used even in the lab - thought the delight of a wire you were trying to solder springing up and flicking molten solder in your face was a thing of the past. And whatever P&B were doing also seemed quite retro - in fact the whole apparatus was rather like something Professor Proton might have demonstrated. Something I've noticed before - doesn't CalTech employ any technicians to build equipment?