This Dutch lady is Ria van Dijk. When she was 16, she went to the shooting gallery at an amusement park in Tilburg, Holland. When she hit the target, the booth automagically took a picture. That was her prize.

So — what the hey — she went back every year. Well, excepting 1939 to 1945.

She’s still doing it. She’s 88. And she’s put them all together in a book.

That sort of thing totally warms my cockles.

Good weekend, everyone!

Arrrr…I’ve just spent an hour on the phone to my elderly father trying to talk him through a YouTube search. It’s such a shame…dude was a huge gadget and technology guy back in the day. If the internet had hit him a little earlier in life, he’d have been all over it.

Oh, he’s not senile. He’s doped up and crabby and hears that clock ticking all the time. As in, “consarnit, how many dubyas I got to poke before I git pitchers?”

Between you and me, I bet anything he worked out how to get porn years ago.

Anyhow…this happen to you? Leave the door open, and the next thing you know, the car is full of stray cats.

Okay, so this private detective firm in Sydney, Oz advertised in a career magazine for a “Brothel Buster Investigator”. Must have private investigator’s license, good command of written and spoken English, be willing to have protected sex with prostitutes. Seventy grand a year.

Because, apparently, having actual sex with prostitutes is “really good evidence” of prostitution. Much better than getting close and then bottling out, like those stupid cops.

The company works on contract for local Councils, ten to twenty investigations a year. Not only do they bust unregistered brothels, but they often find improper fire exits and waste disposal issues at the same time. So, you know, important.

Sorry, gents…the job has been filled.

Let the private dick jokes begin…

The only thing the American robin (Turdus migratorius) and the original robin redbreast (Erithacus rubecula) have in common is red feathers. They are otherwise completely different birds. The American robin is a sort of big thrush; the British robin is one of those tiny round puffball bastards, like a chickadee.

The robin was once voted Britain’s favorite bird. He’s a cheeky, aggressive little sod, often pictured perching on the handle of a garden spade. Because, apparently, he’ll fly down and do that if you’ve been turning earth, to check if you’ve dug up any worms.

He’s also one of the few songbirds that overwinters in the UK. Very confusing to an American, all the robins on Christmas cards.

Anyhoo, I just ran across this: the nursery rhyme “Little Robin Red breast” boasts an unusual number of variations. The reason? Trying to get around the original last line:

Little Robin Red breast,
Sitting on a pole,
Nidde, Noddle, Went his head.
And poop went his Hole.

So. There you go.

Meet DeWet du Toit. His name means “de wet of the roof” but his friends call him Wet Twat. I’m just sure they do.

Psych! He doesn’t have any friends. He’s a South African bodybuilder and mall cop who love-love-LOVES him some Tarzan. And, um, Hollywood film contracts.

Three days a week, he lives in the jungle, just like Tarzan, plus a cameraman (the other four, he lives with his mom and dad). The plan is to win a Hollywood movie deal by filming himself, mostly splashing barefoot through puddles of muddy water, from what I saw.

I kept thinking, “dude, you are so going to get worms or cut yourself really badly.” If that’s the kind of excitement they’re looking for in a Tarzan movie, he’s got a shot.

Otherwise…hopeless.

He says his best friend is an elephant called Shaka, and he’s been photographed with lots of other African exotics, so somebody lets this young man hang out in a petting zoo.

That doesn’t strike me as a great idea.

Or they will do. There’s been a run on dick around here. My local supplier put Aunty’s products on sale and has utterly sold out of spotted dicks! So there’s a dearth of dick for the nonce. Cross your fingers, weasels!

No. No, the dick jokes never get old. You don’t even want to know me when it’s time to buy more fat balls.

Okay, here we go…!

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.

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?

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 don’t want the fabulous prize, you’re too smart to be a regular. It takes me forever to put them in the mail, packages go by slow boat, typically take minimum eight to ten weeks and lose the will to live along the way.

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

What do we want? Aunty’s dick! When do we want it? When somebody on the list dies!

Okay, so this is Johnny Depp’s “Jack Sparrow” tattoo, in honor his role as Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie and his own son Jack, born the year before.

Problem is? That’s not a sparrow. It’s a swallow.

“Jack Swallow” may not be the most prepossessing moniker, but at least the swallow has a long history starring in nautical tattoos. Supposedly, you were entitled to a swallow for every 5,000 nautical miles traveled.

No sniggering in the back there.

Only, Prof. Keith Simpson‘s Forensic Medicine says a swallow tattoo was once used as a discreet signal of homosexuality.

You don’t need to think about that one too hard. The lesson is, don’t let people doodle permanent pictures on your skin, ‘K?

Tomorrow – 6pm WBT – new Dead Pool. Be here.

Dick “Danger, Will Robinson” Tufeld, dead at 85. Died watching the NFL playoffs (football is bad for you, m’kay). He was preceded in 2009 by Bob May, the little dude who actually wore the suit (it was hard to get out of the suit and he was a smoker, so smoke would be seen drifting out of the seams of the robot at breaktime).

And before them, Jonathan Harris, my hero. Born in the Bronx to Russian immigrant parents. When he got the theater bug, he watched British B movies for weeks straight until it thoroughly effed up his accent.

Sometimes, I poke Uncle B in the ribs until he says, “Oh, the pain!”

I’m really torn on this one. On the one hand, the US government is stomping around the internet playing freestyle HULK SMASH in the name of intellectual property owners. That’s going bad places, fast.

On the other hand, this needledick had his name legally changed to Dotcom.

Don’t like this whole Megaupload business one bit. As far as I can tell, the site functioned purely as a free storage and retrieval service. Made its money on banner ads. Inevitably, it became storage and retrieval for a whole lot of bad and stolen content, but Megaupload itself was just a digital U-Stor-It. It had 180 million registered users chewing up 4% of global internet traffic…and then the US reached over and casually pulled the plug. Didn’t need SOPA at all.

What happened to everybody else’s data? The non-pirates, I mean. What does this mean for the future of cloud computing? Who the hell would trust stuff in the cloud if huge sites could be wiped out any time at the pleasure of the US government?

And this kind of thing will surely not win friends. (It’s Megaupload’s current front page — but don’t worry, the image is hosted locally on this blog. You’re not clicking a bad thing).

On the other hand, this Dotcom weenus is a piece of work (if you don’t like Dotcom, his other alias is Kim Tim Jim Vestor). He started as a teenager, hacking into sites and stealing credit card numbers, and he got cuddlier from there. He’s been convicted of embezzlement, insider trading. Personally? Don’t get me started. The guy needs to go down.

So here you have a man who richly deserves a bloody nose, and there you have a ham-fisted bully who won’t stop with the richly deserving.

Ugh.

No, no…not another Skyrim post (although, yes — that’s me! Standing in front of the latest dragon I murdelated in Skyrim!) Today is Chinese New Year (though, I suppose, properly it’s the beginning of Chinese New Year, as they celebrate it for, like, two weeks).

It’s the Year of the Dragon, an especially auspicious year in the Chinese calendar. Let us hope so, as 2012 hasn’t exactly been a little slice of heaven so far.

We’re celebrating by picking up some Chinese takeout. Our favorite chinko is half an hour away and gas is around $8 a gallon here, so this is not a treat we get often. Kung Hei Fat Choi!

I had a peep into the political blogs earlier. Eh. All the candidates still running are unacceptable and my favorite blogs are standing around in a circle kicking each other in the balls about it.

Mmmmm…no thanks. Tap on the door when we’ve picked our final Impossibly Flawed Candidate, and I’ll swing into action trying to shoe-horn his sorry ass into the Oval Office. It’s all Dead Pools and chicken blogging until then!

Um, yay.