Let me call you sweetheart…
Twelve. The number of the bloggiversary is Twelve. What this blog lacks in content it has surely made up for in staying power.
Oh. And. This is also our tenth wedding anniversary, Uncle B and me. The tenth anniversary is tin or aluminum. And I’m, like, you’ve got to be shitting me! Ten years of my life and I’m going to get, what — a can of beans?
Screw that. He bought me chocolate and I bought him meat. And we bought ourselves a nice 17th Century coffer for the living room. It is not made of tin or aluminum.
I’m also taking tomorrow off, but I’m going to stop right now and queue up a Dead Pool ready to go. So tonight raise a toast to your favorite mustelids, probably, and meet us back here tomorrow, 6pm WBT for Dead Pool Round 119!
February 14, 2019 — 6:11 pm
Comments: 20
The Beast
Uncle B heard the most horrible galomphing up and down the roof today. Her ran out to find…this.
I really like the full size, color version. It’s like one of those Find the Hidden Pictures thing you used to see in Highlights for Children in the dentist’s office (if that made sense to you, you are American. And old).
Can you spot: a wheelbarrow? A chicken house? A fallen tile? A sheep? A holly bush? A lavender? A fruit cage? A hop vine? The first daffodil of Spring?
And some horrible child had always drawn a circle around all the right answers in crayon.
February 13, 2019 — 8:46 pm
Comments: 15
This hamster broken
I was out late at a Parish meeting tonight. Not the official Parish Meeting — that’s in May — just a little one where we divvy up chores and gossip.
I suggested a chicken theme for the flower festival. I don’t think it’s going to happen. Just a guess.
So hurrah for the tiny hamster with his widdle weg in a cast, courtesy of a veterinary clinic in Petrozavodsk, Russia. And you guys said Twitter wasn’t good for anything.
February 12, 2019 — 10:23 pm
Comments: 7
How have I not seen this before?
This thing crossed my path yesterday. It’s called a Vein Viewer.
It’s a hand-held wand that you pass over the surface of the skin. It emits near-infrared light that is absorbed by the blood but bounces off the skin, showing the shape and position of veins – the closer to the surface, the better the image. Then the hand-held dingus makes a display out of that in real time and projects it onto the person with a laser.
I would really, really like to have one of those to play with for an afternoon. Its use is mostly just for precise needle sticks, particularly with difficult patients (like babbies). But it is very cool to watch in action.
So how come the top video on that page is eight years old?
February 11, 2019 — 8:07 pm
Comments: 1
DINGELL-NORWOOD, muthafucka!
Xul’s fedora has won the dick with John Dingell. I’ll be honest witcha – I thought about disallowing this pick. Dingell is not exactly a household name. Not anymore, anyway.
And then I recollected that he gave me, albeit indirectly, one of my favorite ever moments in politics: the moment Al Gore tried to intimidate George Bush in the 2000 presidential debates.
Remember? Somebody must have told him to get in George’s space, so he goes clickity-clacking over in the middle of an answer and blares, “WHAT ABOUT THE DINGELL-NORWOOD BILL?”
George gave him a little nod, got a little laugh and Al looked like a Boston Dynamics prototype reject.
So congrats, Xul. It’s too late to queue up a Dead Pool for today, obviously, so everyone keep your powder dry and come back next Friday for DEAD POOL ROUND 119.
p.s. you owe me one. The header graphic I originally did was animated, but I decided to be merciful. Do go watch the clip at the link above, though. And have a good weekend!
p.p.s. If you haven’t seen the video making the rounds of the Boston Dynamics door-opening robot dog, here you go. It’s creepy as hell. Though I have to admit, I feel an awful pang when the demonstrator hits it and kicks it and pulls its tail.
February 8, 2019 — 6:30 pm
Comments: 13
There I was, shopping for antiques…
When all of a sudden…GIANT FRENCH STONE LAWN SNAILS! And only £650 each.
I don’t think Uncle B would appreciate the joke. Snails are a scourge upon his horticulture.
If you’d like to see the sort of antiques you can get over here, it’s pretty cool. Even here, there’s a general movement of antiques from East to West. Quite a lot of the stuff we see in Britain comes from France at the moment.
Not my favorite stuff. I like local rustic furniture, appropriate to our local rustic house.
February 7, 2019 — 9:28 pm
Comments: 10
Ew…skeevy…
This thing has been turning up in my FaceBook feed for days. It’s a sponsored post (meaning, they paid for an ad) for these tiny cameras.
Can you appreciate the size of them? I mean tiny. About an inch cubed. And according to the page, they run for 100 hours wirelessly and record to SD card. According to the website at the link, they’re $25.
I know there have been seriously tiny spy cameras for a while, but these things are so little and cheap and simple, and something about them being advertised on grandma’s social media platform of choice is just creepy.
February 6, 2019 — 7:58 pm
Comments: 6
Happy New Year!
The pig is for generosity and wealth. Have at it, pig!
It is also the time of the Steam Lunar New Year Sale. Looks like everything on my wishlist is at least 70% off. Somehow, I don’t think this is the path to prosperity, pig!
I have superhuman restraint and I limited myself to one: Assassin’s Creed Origins, a purty open world game set in ancient Egypt.
And now it has downloaded. Goodbye!
February 5, 2019 — 9:08 pm
Comments: 10
Rollin’ rollin’ rollin’
Go check out the pictures in the article. It’s a real thing, not a practical joke — at least, that’s what Google tells me.
When the wind and snow are just right, it rolls the snow up into big ‘bales’. There are even what look like tire tracks (or, I suppose, tyre tracks) in the wake of the thing (but no footprints). Six of them were spotted in a field in Marlborough yesterday (not far from Stonehenge, woo).
I guess it’s like those big rocks that get pushed around Death Valley.
Can confirm the wind was fierce and strange today. It blew over some stuff at work with an unsettling bang first thing, before I had my coffee.
February 4, 2019 — 9:41 pm
Comments: 12
Fizzle
Not really. Maybe an inch. And it was raining hard this morning, washing it all away.
So I didn’t pay it much mind, went dashing out to feed the chickens first thing, put one foot onto the wet snow and went ass over teakettle. I slid across the wet grass and got soaked, but my head came to rest with the gentlest kiss of the cement walkway, so I’m counting it a win. I MAHT HAVE DAHD.
After I changed clothes, Uncle B gave me a ride into work. The end.
Have a good weekend, everyone. Stay warm. Be dry. Somebody at work saw a baby lamb yesterday (poor little thing, in this weather) so hold on just a bit longer.
Image courtesy one of the nice old ladies on my FaceBook feed. It’s like having Grandma back!
February 1, 2019 — 8:25 pm
Comments: 7