web analytics

Pen porn

ink

The 1670 Inks collection celebrates the life and adventures of J. Herbin, a famous French sailor.

On his travels, J. Herbin gathered formulas for inks and sealing waxes. The inks in this collection pay homage to this history.

Each bottle contains 50ml of finest quality Herbin ink in colours only available in this collection, and include tiny flecks of gold; whilst these give another dimension to the ink and to your writing, we recommend that you don’t leave this ink unused in a pen for a prolonged period of time. The gold flakes do make it an ink that deserves extra care.

When writing with Stormy Grey ink, you’ll notice that the ink will go down a deep grey colour and dry to a slightly lighter grey with an intense gold sheen. The gold sheen tends to linger at the centre of your writing, taking on a grey shadow effect.

The Ocean Blue and Rouge Hematite inks seem to give a more consistent sheen of gold all through your writing, adding a little sparkle to what’s usually more conservative colours.

New colour for 2016, Caroube de Chypre is a deep golden brown colour, with a green sheen when laid down very heavily, and a warm gold sparkle.

£14.59 a bottle, if you please.

I’m sure I must have mentioned Cult Pens before. Their monthly newsletter is chock full of pen porn.

I don’t go in for super expensive fountain pens. I have a nasty habit of performing life-altering surgery on my pens (generally by grinding the balls off (!)). This doesn’t always work out so good, so I can’t afford to experiment on the best. But they have really good cheap pens, too. And all kinds of unusual things.

Like Herbin, the guys who make the hoity-toity ink above also do handmade, all glass dipping pens. Nib, barrel, the lot.

Here it is plain, spiral and marbleized. They sure are purty, but. I dunno. Does this sound like it would work to you?

You sharpen them with sandpaper.

November 30, 2016 — 10:06 pm
Comments: 13

Meet our new plastic fiver

fiver

This thing is our new plastic five pound note. They’ve started appearing over the last month or so. For a little while, there was a gold rush of currency collectors buying up notes with AA serial numbers for stupid money on eBay, but that seems to have passed. Then there were all the people stress-testing them to see if they’d go through the dryer or catch fire.

Now the thrill is gone, and shopkeepers are finding that plastic notes, once folded, never again lie flat in the cash register. Two of them together in the pocket slip around in the most unpleasant way. I start every month drawing £50 in cash in £5 notes for mad money, so I’m getting a big, irritating dose of it.

We have been assured that plastic banknotes have been used in Australia and Hong Kong for ages without any problems so quit your bitching already.

So everybody did. Until today. Today it leaks out that animal fat is used in their manufacture, and the vegans and vegetarians are having a hissy. I can understand a conscientious bunny-hugger of a vegan being upset, but honestly, vegetarians — just don’t put them in your stupid mouth.

Phun phacts: y’all probably know that every color copier and image manipulation program has a built in currency detector to prevent counterfeiting. We were warned about this when our office got our very first color copier in the Eighties (back when they cost a quarter million dollars and were the size of chest freezers). If you try to make a copy of a bill, you get a blank page or a scary warning message. If you persist, you eventually get a visit from the Feds.

We had a routine copier service at work the other day and I got to chatting with the technician. Apparently this is still true. He said you get three tries to copy a banknote and then your copier seizes and has to have a service in person.

I mention this because I right-click-and-copied the image from this article, tried to paste it into Photoshop, and got a scary warning and no image. I’d do it again to show you the scary warning, but I’m skeert. In the end, I did a screen grab and then cropped it down to the note, and we’re just waiting for the knock at the door.

Don’t try this at home.

You’re going to try this, aren’t you?

November 29, 2016 — 7:13 pm
Comments: 22

Never let ’em know you have Photoshop

snowglobe

I’m sulking. This is my sulky face. I’ve spent most of my evening trying to P’shop our office building into a snow globe for the company Christmas card. Sometimes, that picture idea just ain’t going to work.

Or, at least, I ain’t the weasel to make it work.

Yes, dear friends, the Christmas season is upon us. And, while I keep Christmas as enthusiastically as the next post-visitation Ebeneezer Scrooge, I admit that the early prep sometimes gets me down. Particularly the Christmas card thing.

November 28, 2016 — 10:59 pm
Comments: 14

Happy leftovers, y’all!

angryweasel

Well, our turkey roll wasn’t very good, I woke up this morning with a streaming cold, and Florence Henderson died in the night.

On the other hand, nobody had her in the Dead Pool and I bought Doom 2016 for 67% off. It kicks several different kinds of ass. So, a draw.

Good weekend, everyone!


FIDEL IS DEAD! FIDEL IS DEAD! FIDEL CASTRO HAS FINALLY POPPED HIS CLOGS! Congratulations to Deborah HH, who has won dick in the most satisfying possible way. We all know what this means — DEAD POOL ROUND 91. Be here Friday.

November 25, 2016 — 10:01 pm
Comments: 27

Turkey ’bout done

turkey

When I went picture shopping, the caption to the Obama image was like “The President sheds a tear over…” and I didn’t even click the link to find out “over what.” I had a frisson of delight thinking — oh, I know. President Trump will let us down in a thousand ways — but it will surely be a long, long time before we see a president boo-hoo in public over anything again.

I haven’t forgotten — Leaky George Bush started it. And let’s not think about John Boehner.

Hope your turkey was de-lightful. Ours isn’t done yet — we do Thanksgiving as a midnight meal. With champagne. It’s a tradition. Hey, you move to a foreign country, you get to make all this ancient traditional shit up.

That’s a few hours yet, so I’m just boiling the sweet patooties (preparatory to candying) and pre-soaking the dressing. In butter. Last of the imported Pepperidge Farm. Man, I love this holiday.

p.s. We are totally stoked — we just heard a real, live owl going HOO HOO HOOOOOO in the back garden!

p.p.s. Oh, yeah – and I arrived in the UK for keeps Thanksgiving 2008. Eight years of limey goodness. T’day was the 27th that year — the 24th, the movers came and sucked all my worldly goods out the front door. May I never witness such a thing again!

November 24, 2016 — 9:03 pm
Comments: 18

Here we go!

thanksgiving

We’ve just got back from buying an obscene amount of food for tomorrow. The best part is, what does he know from Thanksgiving? I can tell him, “oh, yeah, dude — gin and red velvet cupcakes are totally part of a traditional Turkey Day celebration.”

Brits don’t celebrate Thanksgiving (duh), but they are aware of it and they try to show willing. I’m often asked if, like, they should buy me a card or something. I’m going in for a bit tomorrow, but taking Friday to accommodate the tryptophan coma.

So who and what are you having tomorrow?

November 23, 2016 — 9:48 pm
Comments: 20

Funny, I had no problem…

spider

Did I ever tell you my spider story? I was a kid, watching the tube with my mother, when a big fat spider skittered across the wood floor in the blue light of the TV. We were both arachnophobes (I caught it off her, probably). So I bravely grabbed a can of Coke and smished it.

And five hundred tiny baby spiders came boiling out in all directions.

November 22, 2016 — 7:55 pm
Comments: 16

Hail Sithis!

darkmother

By one of life’s happy accidents, I had just reached the Dark Brotherhood story arc in my play-through of the Skyrim Enhanced Edition — you know, the part where you get locked in the coffin with the 300-year-old corpse of the Night Mother and suddenly she starts sweet-talking you — just as Hillary Clinton made her first appearance in public since the election.

Those of you who don’t play Skyrim, you don’t really need to know what that means. HERE’S A SILLY PICTURE.

November 21, 2016 — 9:57 pm
Comments: 14

Dead Pool Round 90: Holiday Edition


Scott Jacobs wins the honors with Leonard Cohen. Died in his sleep after a fall. Not a bad way to go. Assumed he would meet a…darker end.

I have a gut feeling Hillary! is going to be the new Zsa Zsa. She looked so rough last time she appeared, I could almost squeeze out a little tear for her.

Almost.

Art thou ready? Then we begin:

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.

November 18, 2016 — 6:00 pm
Comments: 74

Word of the Day: braggot

braggot

A braggot is a mixture of honey and barley, used as an alcohol base (like malt for beer, or corn for moonshine). Remember, kids, yeasties eat sugar and pee alcohol!

I learned this word from this NPR story about reviving an ancient brew based on analysis of an archaeological find. Specifically: the cauldron in the picture. It was dug up and analyzed in Germany.

The 2,500-year-old brew was made with barley, honey, mint and meadowsweet. Barley and honey to feed the yeast, meadowsweet in place of hops as a bittering (and preservative?) agent, and mint for flavor, I guess. The author said it was strong and tasted pretty nice, but there are no plans to sell it.

I’m still unclear why alcoholic beverages need a bitter component, except hops are also a preservative agent. You would not believe how huge hop production was here until pretty recently. Even more so next door in Kent. The whole area is covered in old oast houses, once used to dry hops. Now converted into ultra expensive houses for the most part. They are dreadful cool.

Right! We know what tomorrow is. Friday. 6 WBT. DEAD POOL ROUND 90.

November 17, 2016 — 9:59 pm
Comments: 14