LOOK AT THESE CHIKKENS!
Just LOOK at them! The breed is (usually) called Polish in the US, or Polands in Europe. Also sometimes Pols, which is closer to the thing. Calm down, mein Führer, they don’t (probably) have any relationship to actual Poland. It’s a very old breed and the name likely comes from the Middle Dutch word Pols, which meant “head.” Because duh.
And yes, they bump into things if you don’t trim around their eyes. Though I saw one lady who hated to trim and gathered the feathers up in a hipster topknot with a teeny, tiny rubber band instead. It was adorable.
Yeah, I want one of these in the worst way. I haven’t worked out yet if they come in a Pekin bantam variant — little chicken, feathery feet — except possibly as an accidental crossbreed. I shall investigate. Anyway, I promised Uncle B our next birds would be lemon cuckoos, which are a pretty little Pekin bantam. Very fat and sweet tempered.
I wonder if I could persuade someone to breed me a Polish lemon cuckoo. Hell, that would be worth doing for the name alone.
Anyway, I bring this up because I was looking for a picture of a chicken skull (as you do) and I found this picture of what a Poland’s head bones look like. I thought it was a diseased chicken at first.
Whatever they keep in that thing, it’s probably not brains.
November 16, 2016 — 10:22 pm
Comments: 20
Oh, somebody left me a shrew today
I’m hoping it wasn’t Uncle B.
Cat and mouse from the 14th Century chapel in St. Mary Magdalene Church, Newark, Nottinghamshire. Pinched from FaceBook. I feel like a villain not giving credit more explicitly, but I try to keep People FaceBook and Weasel FaceBook separate.
Yeah, Weasel has more friends than I do. Thanks for asking.
Anyhoo, I inherited an old computer from work today. They were going to throw it away, so I thought I could put it up in my leetle art room.
Anybody remember how to speak XP?
November 15, 2016 — 8:59 pm
Comments: 17
Now, how do I change the subject?
Ah, yes…chickens playing the xylophone. No, no link. Unfortunately, it’s a FaceBook video — I refuse to link to ’em, and I can’t find this particular video elsewhere. Never mind. If you enter “chickens xylophone” into YouTube, you will find literally minutes of wholesome entertainment.
Chickens like sounds. They will return again and again to peck things that have no food value but make an interesting noise, like empty buckets, wooden gates or my banjo.
So anyway, I have thoroughly enjoyed the political salt storm this week. I intend to continue enjoying (and probably posting about it) for some time to come. But, let’s face it, it’s politics — if you get pulled in too far, it will always break your heart.
No hostages to fortune.
p.s. Tell me electric blanket stories. We bought an expensive one last year, got a whole luxuriant season out of it, fired it up this year and…control burnout. To be fair, I think the big fat cat napping on it during the heat-up cycle tripped the heat sensor — but it’s a lousy failsafe design that permanently breaks when overheated. Any advice?
November 14, 2016 — 7:25 pm
Comments: 19
Good weekend, all!
And, just now announced, Robert Vaughn has shuffled off today, as well. It was a bit of a shock to see a picture of him as an old man; in my dessicated old brain, he’s still the embodiment of cool.
It’s too late to queue a new Pool this week, so gather ’round next Friday.
FRIDAY – NOVEMBER 18 – 6WBT – DEAD POOL ROUND 90
November 11, 2016 — 7:06 pm
Comments: 7
More. MOAR!
Oh, how I am enjoying social media this week. I’m pretty sure this much schadenfreude is bad for my spleen, or something. I have nothing insightful to add.
In honor of our new overlord, please enjoy this delightful scrap of futuristic pulp misogyny. The artist is Ed Emshwiller.
Please, continue to discuss the election in the comments. Your words, they are like delicious candy.
November 10, 2016 — 10:42 pm
Comments: 26
Spare a thought for me…
Sadly, my neighbors and co-workers weren’t nearly as salty as I expected. All kinds of hostility in the run-up to the election, and now just a little languid and fatalistic moo.
But social media — that’s a different story. I have wasted (!) most of the day enjoying the beautiful deluge of salt on Twitter, Facebook, and the rest. O frabjous day!
It surely is dawning on EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE that we have been incredibly badly served by the media and pollsters (not counting Drudge).
Trump may well make a lousy president, but he has well and truly smashed the Clinton Machine forever. And for that, my gratitude.
November 9, 2016 — 8:39 am
Comments: 48
Nothin’ to do but wait
Cartoon is from Tom Gauld. Who works for the Guardian, sadly. I almost typed that he sadly worked for the Guardian, but he’s probably pretty happy about it. His official website is here and isn’t very fun, but his old Flickr page is. Fun, that is.
The election results won’t start coming in until very late my time, and the earliest the shebang could be called is 4 am. So I won’t be staying up for it.
I wouldn’t anyway. That shit is soul-killing.
November 8, 2016 — 9:01 pm
Comments: 7
How have I never seen this?
Holy shit, look at this thing! It’s a tiny part of this necklace which was found in a grave in Tolstaya Mogila, Ukraine and is thought to date from about 400 BC. (Here’s a big, color view of that detail).
It’s Scythian. I mean, I’ve heard of the Scythians, but I won’t say I knew anything about them. I had no idea they were exquisite goldsmiths. Wikipedia says they were a group of Iranians, the very first horse warriors. So, proto-Mongols. Famous warriors.
But I can’t get over the workmanship on this, particularly given the date. Banging around the web looking for more information, much has been said about how this particular piece had influence from classical Greek art. And it clearly does. But the stuff that isn’t classically inspired is still lovely and technically sophisticated. See Google Images search.
And still most of the articles are about how martial they were. Boo.
November 7, 2016 — 10:31 pm
Comments: 11
…and then the rains came…
This picture. It’s part of the wedding ritual of the Kwakwaka’wakw tribe.
I am NOT making that up.
I was looking for old footage of somebody baling out a canoe, because that’s what I’ve been doing to my kitchen all evening. We haven’t had rain in ages (driest October in a thousand years, or some shit) and then the heavens opened for a couple of hours.
So, like an old fishing smack, our kitchen roof had dried out and the seams opened up. It was leaking in parallel lines across the stove and working surfaces. Yay.
Fortunately, the kitchen is the only room in the house that does this, as far as we can tell, and it doesn’t do it often. The frame of it is old, but the roof is Seventies. Like Nineteen-Seventies, brrrr.
Anyway. All clean. Hamburgers tonight. It’s the weekend, w00t!
November 4, 2016 — 9:57 pm
Comments: 6
insert thread pun
Eh. I stayed late at work to meet a client who never turned up. I don’t have much to show for myself today.
This guy recreates old master fragments using round frames and a single spool of thread. The text says he usually does computer art and I’m sure he devised a program to work out how to cross over from what angles to get the dark spots just right make the picture. Still cool.
Speaking in my capacity as somebody who went to art school and later dropped out, we need a word for works that are extremely cool but ultimately pointless and emotionally sterile. I don’t have a suggestion, I’m just pointing out the need.
Yes, yes…I am reduced to trawling Bored Panda tonight. Now I’m’a go to Skyrim and shoot more arrows into my horse.
November 3, 2016 — 9:10 pm
Comments: 8