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Dead Pool Round 82: Abe, we hardly knew ye

Abe Vigoda. At last. Howard Devore took the dick, but do shout out in the comments if you’d ever picked ol’ Abe before. You won’t win a prize or nothing, I’m just curious how many different people tried it with such a long-running favorite.

A short round, but not the shortest ever. Let’s get busy…

0. Rule Zero (AKA Steve’s Rule): your pick has to be living when picked. Also, nobody whose execution date is circled on the calendar. Also, please don’t kill anybody. Plus (Pupster’s Rule) no picking someone who’s only famous for being the oldest person alive.

1. Pick a celebrity. Any celebrity — though I reserve the right to nix picks I never heard of (I don’t generally follow the Dead Pool threads carefully, so if you’re unsure of your pick, call it to my attention).

2. We start from scratch every time. No matter who you had last time, or who you may have called between rounds, you have to turn up on this very thread and stake your claim.

3. Poaching and other dirty tricks positively encouraged.

4. Your first choice sticks. Don’t just blurt something out, m’kay? Also, make sure you have a correct spelling of your choice somewhere in your comment. These threads get longish and I use search to figure out if we have a winner.

5. It’s up to you to search the thread and make sure your choice is unique. I’m waayyyy too lazy to catch the dupes. Popular picks go fast.

6. The pool stays open until somebody on the list dies. Feel free to jump in any time. Noobs, strangers, drive-bys and one-comment-wonders — all are welcome.

7. If you want your fabulous prize, you have to entrust me with a mailing address. If you’ve won before, send me your address again. I don’t keep good records.

8. The new DeadPool will begin 6pm WBT (Weasel’s Blog Time) the Friday after the last round is concluded.

The winner, if the winner chooses to entrust me with a mailing address, will receive an Official Certificate of Dick Winning and a small original drawing on paper suffused with elephant shit particles. Because I’m fresh out of fairy shit particles.

January 29, 2016 — 6:00 pm
Comments: 95

G’bye, Buddy

cianci

Well, well…Buddy Cianci died today. Probably the most corrupt politician I’ve lived under. When I first moved to Providence, there were dark rumors going around about him, and the following year he was arrested — for, if I remember correctly, kidnapping a state trooper, tying him to a chair and putting a cigar out on his chest.

Anyway, in or out of prison, the people of Rhode Island were happy to elect him over and over again. Six times. He was a much beloved figure, despite everything, not completely without reason. This obit catches the flavor of him pretty well.

Many thanks to reader Formerly Known as Skeptic for letting me know. And thanks to Buddy for giving me something to post about tonight — been out drinkin’ with the neighbors and just got in.

January 28, 2016 — 11:45 pm
Comments: 4

Insidious government is insidious

dryjanuary

Dry January is a thing here. Or perhaps an attempted thing. It can be hard to tell how much of a public health campaign is genuine, how much it’s working and how much it’s just one more scolding voice in the howling cacophony of government nannying.

Dry January is funded by an organization called Alcohol Concern, which is a fake charity. Fake charities are a thing here, too.

Here’s how it works:

►Government wants people to, say, drink less
►Up pops a charity, say, Citizens Concerned that Government is not Doing Enough to Make People Drink Less
►All of CCGDEMPDL’s funding, somehow, comes from the government itself
►CCGDEMPDL spends the money lobbying government to do that thing government wanted to do in the first place

Ultimately, if it hangs in there long enough, CCGDEMPDL may get some corporate sponsors or even individual donors, but government remains its biggest benefactor. So it’s government lobbying government to do things government wants to do. Meanwhile, out go big wads of public money, in come a few more cushy jobs for cronies in the governing class.

Astroturf.

I made it almost all the way through (my not entirely) Dry January before I discovered Ginuary! Business lobbying me to buy products so they can make money — that familiar old relationship seems downright wholesome by comparison.


January 27, 2016 — 8:49 pm
Comments: 13

Nice skirts, boys

upskellyaa

Screw Burns Night, Up Helly Aa is here! It’s a Viking festival held in Lerwick celebrating Viking influence in the Shetlands and Orkneys, those bits of island Scotland that are practically Norway.

Bunch of lads dress up and parade through the town and then burn a Viking longship. Duuuuude.

I don’t know who does their costumes, but they’re clearly professional and from the same source. The boys look fabulous.


Abe Vigoda, dead at last. Abevigoda.com updates for the first time ever. Congratulations, Howard Devore. A short round, but not the shortest round ever. See you back here Friday for Dead Pool Round 81.


January 26, 2016 — 7:43 pm
Comments: 14

Every day, some new geekery

crestedware

Well, I learned a new thing today: there is a kind of pottery known as crested ware (crested pottery or crested china). Little tiny figurines with the crest of a city or county, obviously originally sold as inexpensive souvenirs. Ebay is alive with them. They are, not surprisingly, collectible.

I’d gone looking for a Sussex Pig. The wild pig is the unofficial mascot of Sussex, and his unofficial slogan is “Wunt be Druv.” Which has a ring to it.

This crested Sussex Pig is from a mold known as the sad pig, because duh. I was surprised to find pigs described as Sussex Pigs sporting crests not actually from places in Sussex.

But the one in the picture is from Bognor, which definitely is in Sussex, now officially Bognor Regis since George V convalesced there after a lung operation. Where he famously said, in some context or other, “bugger Bognor.”

Oh, also, happy Burns Night. Hope you’ve made the tatties, neaps and haggis. Or you could save time and just throw up in a bucket.


January 25, 2016 — 8:30 pm
Comments: 17

Dead Pool Round 80: new one for the new year

Ah, René Angélil. I remember when he…umm…there was that one time…well, who could forget the moment that…?

Aw, screw it. He was Celine Dion’s husband. And he’s dead. And ExpressoBold had him. That’s all I know.

But Round 79 was getting kind of tatty and I was pretty sick of it, so…onwards and deadwards!

0. Rule Zero (AKA Steve’s Rule): your pick has to be living when picked. Also, nobody whose execution date is circled on the calendar. Also, please don’t kill anybody. Plus (Pupster’s Rule) no picking someone who’s only famous for being the oldest person alive.

1. Pick a celebrity. Any celebrity — though I reserve the right to nix picks I never heard of (I don’t generally follow the Dead Pool threads carefully, so if you’re unsure of your pick, call it to my attention).

2. We start from scratch every time. No matter who you had last time, or who you may have called between rounds, you have to turn up on this very thread and stake your claim.

3. Poaching and other dirty tricks positively encouraged.

4. Your first choice sticks. Don’t just blurt something out, m’kay? Also, make sure you have a correct spelling of your choice somewhere in your comment. These threads get longish and I use search to figure out if we have a winner.

5. It’s up to you to search the thread and make sure your choice is unique. I’m waayyyy too lazy to catch the dupes. Popular picks go fast.

6. The pool stays open until somebody on the list dies. Feel free to jump in any time. Noobs, strangers, drive-bys and one-comment-wonders — all are welcome.

7. If you want your fabulous prize, you have to entrust me with a mailing address. If you’ve won before, send me your address again. I don’t keep good records.

8. The new DeadPool will begin 6pm WBT (Weasel’s Blog Time) the Friday after the last round is concluded.

The winner, if the winner chooses to entrust me with a mailing address, will receive an Official Certificate of Dick Winning and a small original drawing on paper suffused with elephant shit particles. Because I’m fresh out of fairy shit particles.

January 22, 2016 — 6:00 pm
Comments: 68

Lookin’ better all the time

tristandacunha

Behold, Tristan da Cunha, the Nipple of the Seven Seas. It’s not really called that, but just look at it. The capital — well, the only settlement, really — is called Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, though. It is the world’s remotest inhabited island, smack in the middle of the Atlantic, somewhere between Africa and South America.

The record high temperature is 75.9°, the record low temperature is 40.3° and it rains 250-plus days a year. It is a British Overseas Territory, natch.

The islands have a population of 301. The main settlement is Edinburgh of the Seven Seas (known locally as “The Settlement”). The only religion is Christianity, with denominations of Anglican and Roman Catholic. The current population is thought to have descended from 15 ancestors, eight males and seven females, who arrived on the island at various times between 1816 and 1908. The male founders originated from Scotland, England, The Netherlands, the United States and Italy, belonging to 3 Y-haplogroups: I (M170), R-SRY10831.2 and R (M207) (xSRY10831.2)[39] and share just eight surnames: Glass, Green, Hagan, Lavarello, Patterson, Repetto, Rogers, and Swain. There are 80 families on the island. Tristan da Cunha’s isolation has led to an unusual, patois-like dialect of English described by the writer Simon Winchester as “a sonorous amalgam of Home Counties lockjaw and nineteenth century idiom, Afrikaans slang and Italian.”

I mention this because a) it’s an interesting place, duh and b) THERE’S A JOB OPENING. Local government is searching for an agricultural advisor. Looks like a terrific place to ride out the apocalypse. Plus, a place that inbred is bound to be full of…certain…opportunities.

Man, if I were thirty years younger. And male. And knew jack shit about agriculture…

Have a good weekend, y’all. Tomorrow comes DEAD POOL ROUND 80. Be here, 6pm WBT, or pick through other people’s leftovers.


January 21, 2016 — 10:15 pm
Comments: 8

An environment minister who makes sense

mydolls

Tee hee. Swedish TV channel accidentally slaps subtitles from a kids’ show onto a political debate.

Maybe. It’s an Imgur link, so I wouldn’t put my hand on my heart. Clickworthy, though.

And I ain’t doing nothing the big guys ain’t. Have you noticed how many mainstream news sites — particularly click-whorehouses like the Daily Mail — are scraping a big chunk of their content from social media? That you already saw hours ago?

Meanwhile, social media and legacy media are working together with governments to help ban ban ‘hate speech’. You know, “I don’t want to live next door to a Syrian” and like that.

Late at night…when all is still…if you listen very carefully…you can hear the bonds of civil society creak and groan.


January 20, 2016 — 11:00 pm
Comments: 6

I don’t know. Is this smart?

cctv

 

So we’ve had a crime wave in our little village. We’ve had two — two! — burglaries in the last month.

Nope, it’s not our new Syrian friends. It looks like whoever did it was going straight for collectibles and walking past other valuable and more easily-fencible items. A refugee would hardly do that. It’s a bit of a mystery, really.

So we had a meeting of Neighborhood Watch (well, yes, of course I’m Neighborhood Watch, though it’s more usually called Farm Watch this far back in the boonies). The police gave us all a bunch of these. No, not CCTV cameras. They gave us a bunch of stickers that say we have CCTV cameras.

We don’t actually have any CCTV cameras.

Is this smart? I somehow don’t think this is smart.
 

 

 


January 19, 2016 — 10:04 pm
Comments: 13

Okay. At last, I’m in.

zbrush

ZBrush. Man, I’ve lusted after this program for years. It’s a 3D modeling package, but one aimed at people more accustomed to traditional modeling tools. Artards, in other words. Sadly, it’s like $800.

Naw, don’t worry, I’m not hitting you guys up for money. They offer a 45 day trial. The plan is, I download it, I make as many models as I can in 45 days, I upload them to TurboSquid (sort of like Zazzle for 3D models), and if that account ever reaches a high enough total to buy, I buy. If it never reaches $800, then I’m probably not all that good at it anyway.

So, here I go. I think I can remember a dim and distant time when learning new stuff was fun. Can you?


Oh, yeah. ExpressoBold takes the dick for René Angélil, Celine Dion’s husband. I hemmed and hawed about that pick, since I didn’t really know René Angélil from Adam. But then it occurred to me I don’t really know Celine Dion from Eve, so what’s the diff? Congrats, ExpressoBold — is that a second win? So, up Friday Dead Pool ROUND 80.


January 18, 2016 — 9:32 pm
Comments: 22