Lionel catalogs on "The Big Bang Theory"

If you guys haven't noticed the tend to make fun of every type of hobby or carrer on the show. Not all comic book geek lives in moms basement. Engineers don't all wear 70s clothing. Not all farm girls in the big city are wanna be actresses and randy all the time.

But after watching people in a train shop go round and round about the placement of some molded in detail or frantically going through teh tables at York looking for that one particular item then you gotta wonder how we look to the outside world.

.... and then theres that whole "body odor" issue too

That too

 

But man if you ever walk into a Fry's electronic store the smell of Geek is far worse than the smell of any of the halls at York

I gave up worrying about that stuff years ago, so if I feel like bringing up my model train hobby in a casual conversation with someone I do it--and if they find it distasteful in any way it's basically their problem....

 

As far as politics go, I have a simple rule; I never bring it up in a conversation, but I'm never afraid to reveal my political mindset if someone asks me directly. I have friends of all political persuasions, and I also have several very good friends who've never revealed their political beliefs to me (nor I to them), and we do just fine.

 

Some model railroaders are pretty darned odd, but many more are well rounded (mentally, if not also physically ) people who comfortably fit within the parameters of "normal". 

 

I enjoy the tv show, and it think whatever exposure model trains receive is good, in the same vein as "say anything you want about me but spell my name right." There are a lot of vapid people out there who diss anything that they perceive as being geeky or uncool, but most people have more depth than that, and there are many, many people out there who still admire craftsmanship of any type, even if they never become interested in a hobby or craft.

 

Jeff C

 

 

I can not believe how much the innocuous placement of a couple of Lionel train catalogs garners the commentary offered here. I also can not believe I am even commenting on it myself.  I better go mow the grass.  

I just thought it was neat. Silly me. I didn't know there was so much deeper meaning to those few catalogs. 

There's an entire industry devoted to finding "deeper meaning" in things that really don't need the extra introspection....

 

Jeff C

 

Yeah, Marty. Thanks a lot! 

Spend five minutes watching, listening, or reading and observe how today's 24 hour media over examines, over dramatizes, and over-sells everything....

 

 

Jeff C

Here is a link to the scene that is on Youtube.  The catalog is at about the 45 second mark.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOQp3FHOPyQ

 

 

I remember watching the episode with my 20 year old daughter. She turned to me, with a huge grin and said Sheldon was just a train geek like me with the catalogs next to my bed.

 

I took it as a huge compliment!!!!

 

I recently heard that there was a intro to pysch class at a university where they talk about Sheldon Cooper in regard to what his issues are. I guess it's a good way to start talking about issues people have?

I heard a 2 hour serious discussion on the issues the character has on talk radio once, with professional psychiatric doctors.

Remember that Sheldon has a hi IQ and he likes trains and that cant be a coincidence.

 

       
       


True but that high IQ is greatly overshadowed by his social ineptness, which again takes us back to the prior thread drift regarding certain perceptions (justifiable in more than some cases) regarding model & toy train hobbyists.

As Sheldon Cooper would say, I believe you mean the Nth degree, which is a mathematically specious phrase intended to convey that something is raised to a very high level, where "n" is assumed to be a relatively high number even though by definition it is unspecified and may be large or small. That is, unless you were referring to an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, in which case I have no idea how that is relevant to the discussion. 

 

 

 

 

What, me worry?

It's all good! 

I am enjoying this Topic.  The reason is simple, entertainment.  I

was a big fan of the old Tim Allen show Home Improvment, I never

read much into the fact that when Tim and his son's visited the local

Hobby Shop, that right in back of the main counter was a set of Lionel

2500 series passenager cars.

 

To the best of my knowledge they were 2500 series cars.  Being a

toy train three rail nut, I found this very entertaining that someone

on that show may have been like us here on the Forum, a toy train

nut.  It was good TV, no more, nor less.

 

Many thanks,

 

Billy C