Entertainment desk
< February 6	<< Jan \| February \| Mar >>	February 8 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Entertainment Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

February 7[edit]

Sheldon Cooper's shirts[edit]

Why does Sheldon Cooper wear a long-sleeve T-shirt under his regular t-shirt? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:42, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See fashion. --Jayron32 02:47, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that Sheldon is a slave to fashion. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:45, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No, he follows a very specific fashion type: one that wears long sleeved T-shirts under graphic T's. It's a fairly common fashion for Generation X. I'm almost the same age as he is, and I wear the same basic fashion frequently; its a fairly ubiquitous fashion for many people of our age. Most of my peers, when dressing casually, dress the same way. --Jayron32 05:15, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just to show examples: Here is a Google image search for "layered T shirts" which shows dozens of different examples of this. The fashion is so ubiquitous you can easily find "faux layered T shirts" which is a single piece garment with sleeves and collars sewn inside a graphic T shirt to give the illusion of layering. My kids have several of these, though I don't because I generally like the flexibility of deciding which colors to layer. --Jayron32 05:34, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also of that generation, but wouldn't be caught dead in such clothes. My take on it was that they were showing how incredibly unfashionable he is, which makes sense, since he cares nothing for the social aspects of life (except for the warm beverage obligation, apparently). StuRat (talk) 05:36, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think it depends a LOT on your social group (as does much fashion). There's lots of Gen-X fashion types, but Sheldon's isn't particularly unusual or unknown. Even if Stu doesn't dress that way, I do (again, when dressing casually. I don't dress that way to go to church or work) and have for 20 years. --Jayron32 05:38, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I believe Sheldon also wears them to work, which emphasizes his not understanding appropriate attire for a given situation.

Was this type of clothing part of the grunge movement ? Do you have to mess up your hair and give yourself bed head to go with it ? StuRat (talk) 05:43, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe it was particularly associated with grunge. Grunge's uniform was unbuttoned flannel button-down shirts over white T shirts and ripped jeans. I button down all of my shirts that require it when I wear them. I have a few flannel button downs, but I'd never wear them unbuttoned. I also throw jeans away when they get holes in them. Regarding my hair I keep my hair cut short and neat, not military short, but not really long enough to part either, and certainly not long enough to have "bed head". I comb it daily and keep it as tidy as it will go. I do have a bit of a natural cowlick in the front, which is why I keep it short, if I let it grow it's not possible to keep neat. I have short side burns which extend as far as the lower third of my ears which I keep neatly trimmed and well blended with my hair; this exact hair style I have kept for 20 years as well. I'm always careful to have well maintained, clean clothes as well. I don't wear dirty or unkempt clothes. I just wear a solid colored long sleeved T shirt under my short sleeved T shirts in the winter, because my arms get cold. --Jayron32 06:15, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What's wrong with long sleeved shirts ? StuRat (talk) 06:25, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing. Like I said, fashion. It's a style me and my peers were wearing when I was of an age when such things mattered in high school and college in the early and mid 1990s. As I've gotten older, like all people do, I've mostly retained the tastes that formed when I was younger. --Jayron32 06:28, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Since a picture's worth a thousand words, I dug up a 4 year old picture of me: [1]. It's not a great picture, since I'm about 50 pounds lighter today, and that one was taken after I had literally been up all night. But it does show the style I tend to wear in the winter. I've worn this same style of clothes and hair for 20 years or so. I don't dress this way to stand out; on the contrary this was pretty much the fashion when and where I went to high school and college. I don't think it's all that unusual. I know that Stu has never seen it before, and looks down on me for it. Such is his right. --Jayron32 06:41, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Congrats on losing 50 lbs, how'd you do it ? It kind of looks like you gave birth, what with a newborn baby, in a hospital, with an hospital bracelet, and no sign of a mother, but somehow that seems wrong. :-) StuRat (talk) 07:00, 7 February 2013 (UTC) [reply]

I ate better food and I exercised more. Mostly cutting out sweets and chips and processed foods, replaced it with cheese and nuts and fruit. Also 4 days/week in the gym. The baby is my second son, 4 years old now. The hospital required both parents to get a bracelet, which has RFID tags in it that match the baby's RFID tagged bracelet as well. Its security: if someone other than a nurse/doctor or a properly tagged parent tried to go past a checkpoint without matching tags, alarms go off and doors lock. I believe my wife was off-frame napping when this picture was taken. She did the hard work. --Jayron32 07:06, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I lost about 40 lbs, by switching to sugarless (and sugar-substitute-less) herbal tea from fruit juices, etc., and also cutting out many processed foods, like pizza. I'm surprised you list cheese as a diet food, though. I prefer lean meat/foul/fish for protein, with nuts on occasion. StuRat (talk) 01:03, 9 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I lost one-sixth of my considerable total in four years, without trying; my best guess is that it was because I stopped eating rice every day. —Tamfang (talk) 02:48, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Why is this question just about Sheldon? Wolowitz also dresses this way much of the time. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 06:42, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. Howard is even more unfashionable than Sheldon, what with his skin-tight lime-green pants and such. StuRat (talk) 06:56, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sheldon Cooper probably wears it because the actor portraying him, Jim Parsons, was instructed to dress that way. A possibility is that the real life person Cooper is based on dressed that way as well. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 13:29, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

His dress style is sufficiently well-known (per Jayron) not to raise too many eyebrows, but sufficiently odd for some viewers to act as an identifying feature of his persona. He is nothing if not a slave to routine, not to mention OCD-type behaviour. Dressing in a different way each episode would be contra-indicated. But that's no different from any character in any successful TV show. They find the one that works for the character, and stick to it. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 19:08, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Jack makes a very good point here by turning us back to the conventions of the sitcom. When trying to understand fiction, it helps to look more at how the fiction itself works, and not necessarily try to pretend as though it is real life. Sitcom characters often have a MUCH more limited wardrobe than anyone else, and that is deliberate on the part of the creators of the sitcom. When you have 22 minutes, you need to take shortcuts, and characters become characterized by their visual persona. Imagine Heathcliff Huxtable in anything except a "Cosby sweater". Imagine Ray Barone wearing anything except a plaid button-down shirt and khakis or jeans. It's the same with Sheldon and his shirts. No real person has a wardrobe that limited (well, except maybe Simon Cowell and his black T-shirt thing. But then again, I think he's mostly a fictional character too). The reason he always dresses that way is that he's a sitcom character, and that's what sitcoms do with their characters. --Jayron32 19:19, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My wardrobe (the top half, at least) consists entirely of plain black t-shirts (not counting the formal wear I have to wear for interviews and such, but Sheldon's been shown to own those, too). I don't think I'm a fictional character. 90.193.232.199 (talk) 00:37, 9 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is OR, but this fashion (long-sleeve shirt under short-sleeve shirt) was popular with a lot of kids in the mid-90s, possibly even earlier. I remember specifically people wearing this style. I liken it to what girls do, where they wear a longer colored shirt under a shorter black or white top to get a sort of "cummerbund" effect. I see it at malls all the time. I don't know what this is called and can't even find a picture of it. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 00:45, 9 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I thought you were going to say it's like girls who wear tights/legwarmers/etc., under a skirt. That at least makes some sense, as they can still look feminine without freezing. The Sheldon look doesn't seem to have any advantages, though. StuRat (talk) 00:57, 9 February 2013 (UTC) [reply]

I'm sure that if you were able to ask him, he'd tell you exactly in chapter and verse why he does it, and not "Oh, I just like them". But I suppose we'll never really know about Sheldon. Why not ask Jayron why he wore that attire? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 03:06, 9 February 2013 (UTC) [reply]

Actually, he regularly answers such questions with some form of "I do it because I do it", like "We have to eat Chinese food tonight because it's Chinese food night". StuRat (talk) 04:15, 9 February 2013 (UTC) [reply]

Related to the appropriateness of his outfit "for work" -- our page says he is a theoretical physicist at Cal tech, but does not say his position. I always assumed he was a postdoc or research scientist, not a professor. I have not worked at Cal tech, but I have worked as a theoretical scientist at a few universities, and my WP:OR is that pretty much anything goes for wardrobe choice. Currently, there is someone wearing similar garb across the hall from me. Most professors wouldn't lecture in those clothes, but around the lab, people pretty much wear what they want. SemanticMantis (talk) 22:41, 11 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

1) because wearing a long-sleeve T-shirt over his regular t-shirt would be silly

or

2) to cover up his biker tattoo sleeves Gzuckier (talk) 15:58, 12 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

releases vice versa[edit]

I'm trying to find a copy of the book Newsies by Harvey Fierstein. When I tried Amazon and Barnes & Noble, there weren't any. I'm also interested in finding out about a motion picture adaptation of Bombing Harvey. Who's behind it? And where's another good place to try and find a copy of Newsies, the book?142.255.103.121 (talk) 05:13, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Newsies isn't a book, it's a musical play whose spoken dialogue is written by Harvey Fierstein. The spoken parts in a musical are called "the book" in the parlance of the theater. It doesn't refer to an actual published novel, it's just jargon for "spoken dialogue in a musical". Book is just the English equivalent of Libretto, which is the Italian word for the same concept. I don't believe that Newsies has been published in a novel adaptation; the script itself for such musicals is generally only availible for purchase by theater companies which are going to be staging it. --Jayron32 05:20, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Alright. I'm still interested in finding out more about a motion picture adaptation of Bombing Harvey. That's a book about the Harvey's Resort Hotel bombing.142.255.103.121 (talk) 08:56, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Is there something that you know which indicates that there is a motion picture adaptation? The Wikipedia article about the event doesn't mention a movie, and there is no movie of that title listed at imdb. RNealK (talk) 22:45, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's listed as "in development" in a few places, though some references go back to 2006. In development hell, I imagine. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 23:10, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I read the book, which was published in 2010. In one area, there's an indication on a soon-to-be released motion picture about the bombing.142.255.103.121 (talk) 03:37, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Soon to be a major motion picture" is a common marketing ploy in the publishing industry, as this tells the casual browser who picks up the book that "the story is so good that Hollywood wants to turn it into a film". But it doesn't necessarily mean that you should rush to your local movie theater to buy a seat. Sometimes, the book's edition is a tie-in to an upcoming movie release, and in such a case the book's cover will often be similar to the movie poster. But in many cases, the line may simply mean that a possible film is somewhere in the development cycle, and it may not be more advanced than a movie studio having taken an option on the story (which they do for many more books than will ever make it to the screen). The movie project may be aborted at any time before release, so what looked promising in 2010 may have reached a dead end by 2013. Many famous books have taken years to adapt, with "On the Road" a famous recent example of a very drawn out process (see under "film adaptation" in that article). --Xuxl (talk) 12:35, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

XBox Controller Joysticks Transposed-- But Only On "Lego" Games[edit]

Here's one that has kind of stumped me. We have a newer (black) XBox 360 console with a 4Gb hard drive. We have about 25 games, including Lego Star Wars (Complete Saga), Lego Batman, Lego Indiana Jones (Original Adventures), and Lego Lord of the Rings. On each of these four games, but on NONE of our other games, the left joystick for the controller in the first position (but strangely, not on the controller in the 2nd position) controls the view/perspective, rather than the character motion. The motion is controlled by the right joystick (or it can also be controlled by the round "arrow" button directly under the left joystick). Also strangely (to me), this is only the case during actual game play. Other screens of the game (selection of "extras" or selection of freeplay characters) is controlled in the regular way, with the left joystick controlling the cursor.

I'm confident that embedded somewhere in the Lego game(s), there is a LH/RH setting that I have messed up (I *do* have a 2-year old) and that this is a relatively simple fix, but try as I might, I haven't been able to find it, even by Googling it.

Is anyone out there familiar enough with XBox 360, and with the Lego games in particular to help me fix this? Thanks! Kingsfold (Quack quack!) 18:53, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Your profile's global game defaults may have been changed. From the XBox start screen (not from within the Lego games themselves), check Settings → Profile → Game Defaults → Action → Movement— it should be set to "Left Stick". Best of luck, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 06:27, 11 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

YES! AWESOME! THANK YOU! Kingsfold (Quack quack!) 12:59, 2 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]