Belated thank you from a television broadcast engineer

[arfunk]

As a television broadcast engineer, I was thrilled when I first read of St. Vidicon. Thank you so much for coming up with the concept and character.

As a perfectionist, though, I feel I must point out what appears to be an inconsistency. The handle color of small screwdrivers indicates the blade size. Yellow-handled screwdrivers are just too large to fit the adjustment screws of broadcast electronics, that's why we use "greenies" - green-handled screwdrivers which have blades small enough to fit the adjustment screws.

Or is this discrepancy just an indication that St. Vidicon and his followers live(d) in an alternate universe?

-Andy

[cstasheff]

My memory may be at fault, Andy, but I do remember the shirt-pocked screwdriver from my college days. Please be assured that I'll get the color right in future St. Vidicon books, if there are any.

A female friend of mine (in 1963) went out on a date with our TV engineer and noticed the handle peeking from his shirt pocket. She asked why he wore it, and he said it was kind of like a fraternity pin. She said, :Oh. Can I wear your pin? He said "Sure" and hooked it into the sweater she was wearing. When her roomates saw her the next morning, they asked why, and she said, "I got screwdrivered last night." I'm sure she was talking about drinking her oragne juice with vodka -- or maybe it was milk of magnesia (a Phillips screwdriver)

Thanks for the kind words!

CBS

[arfunk]

Great story!

Please, don't change the screwdriver color to make it correct in this universe on my account. (Although one could imagine a plot revolving around archaeologists researching St. Vidicon finding green-handled screwdrivers, not yellow ones, throwing the order into chaos of doubt...)

It's a good thing you conceived of the concept when you did. "St. Charge-coupled-device" or "St. Image Sensor" just doesn't have the same ring.

[cstasheff]

Okay, now you got me goin'. How about two theologions debating the spiritual significance of the use of CCD in liturgy? (It's an acronym, of course -- say, "Conscience Creates Dogma?) Or a Vidiconian monk invents a gadget for finding lost or buried statues -- an image senosr? Hey, thanks for the ideas!

CBS

[james]

Okay, now you got me goin'. How about two theologions debating the spiritual significance of the use of CCD in liturgy? (It's an acronym, of course -- say, "Conscience Creates Dogma?) Or a Vidiconian monk invents a gadget for finding lost or buried statues -- an image senosr? Hey, thanks for the ideas!

CBS

Or a comparison of doctrines between Vidiconian Orthodoxy vs. the Plumbiconian Refomationists..? Or discussions of the basic beliefs between the Historical Turretists and Neo Zoomistas...?

(grin) Sorry, just stirrin' the waters!

J.

[cstasheff]

Great ideas! Keep stirrin'!

What're we gonna do with digital? Could the monks raise money by going on a pledge drive? 16-hour sermons about the plight of the poor? That would be a hard drive, no?

[Ortho the Frank]

>SNAP!< Mousetrap pun, darn you!