GrannyJ is a former journalist and sometime sweasel-reader who has been knocked down with pneumonia. Or the peenumonia, as my mother used to call it. If you want to know what that has to do with Her Maj, you’ll have to wander over to Granny’s blog to find out.

And leave her an encouraging word, if you’re so inclined. She’s in rehab at the moment (no, not THAT rehab — been-sick rehab); I’m sure good wishes will go a long way.

I had pneumonia (I think) a few years ago. Sick as a dog. By the time I realized how sick I was, I was too sick to make arrangements to go to the hospital or anything. I slept sitting in a chair for a week waiting for it to pass.

Worse, it was six months before I got my stamina back. Before that experience, I had no idea oxygen and stamina were essentially the same thing.

Hey, GrannyJ — if you move over here, Her Maj will send you a birthday card on your 100th. No kidding.

Of course, she’ll be a pretty old broad herself by then.

To be sung to the tune of “looks like a pump, feels like a sneaker.” (Uncle B says I perceive the world through advertising jingles, but he’s just squeezin’ the Charmin).

Anyhoo, this is his fault. He’s one of those guys — I’ve known a few, and it’s almost always guys — whose entire diet consists of peas, potatoes, bread, fruit and dead animals. No veg, no sauces or herbs, certainly no casseroles or stews or furrin food. It’s kind of the Grizzly Bear diet.

(Except he likes Chinese. Work that one out).

So when it comes to navigating my way through all the exotic food on offer here, he’s no damn help at all. One of the oldest and most pervasive being Anglo-Indian food.

That thing in the front is a bhaji, a deep-fried onion concoction. Pretty good, as you might imagine, but really does smell a bit arm-pitty. The other two things are samosas, which are little fried pastry packets full of spicy meat and veg. The pastry was nice, but the filling was heavily ginger. I like ginger, but not as a savory.

So, ummm…that’s it. Later, we went to a farmer’s market.

Any idea what I can do with a large rutabega? SFW suggestions only, please.

Okay, so am I, like, the last person to discover the internet meme again? Been laughing myself silly over the Really Annoying Orange this morning.

If you’re even more behind than I am (what’re the odds?) the orange’s personal YouTube channel is here.

Or, if you’re a thoroughly lazy sack of shit (again, odds?), here are direct links to episode 1, episode 2, episode 3, episode 4, episode 5 and episode 6.

Knife! 

 
]]> http://sweasel.com/archives/5445/feed 26 http://sweasel.com/archives/5234 http://sweasel.com/archives/5234#comments Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:48:55 +0000 S. Weasel http://sweasel.com/?p=5234

I was on the phone to my old man the other day, reminiscing about the time he shot a huge rat in the family hunting cabin and all the little rats went screaming insane around us for a day. I had it in my head that a master rat was known as a rat king, but it turns out these are rat kings — a bunch of rats that somehow get tangled at the tails and live out their days as a big traveling clump o’ rats.

First reported in 1564, they may or may not be for real — despite several found in museums and sightings well into the 20th C. The Rucphen rat king (above) shows what looks like damage and healing of the knotted tail bones on x-ray, so if it’s a fake, it’s a clever one.

Surviving rat kings are made up of black rats, Rattus rattus, which have been almost completely displaced in Europe by the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus. So that explains why there aren’t any more. That, or because the whole thing was bullshit.

Rat kings were believed to bring plague — which I suppose they could do as well as any other kind of rat.

Have some Alta Vista translations: the Dutch rat king a Rutphen, the German rat king of Altenburger and the French rat king of Nantes.

Now, does anybody know what a rat patriarch is called?

Because they’re nuts is why.

James Gordon Bennett, jr. was an American, son of the Scot who founded the New York Herald. He continued the newspaper tradition, but he was better known as the archtypal crazy rich bastard who does not give a shit.

He was the editor who arranged and financed Sir Henry M. Stanley’s search for Dr. David Livingstone (if all you remember is the tagline, Livingstone was a missionary missing and presumed dead in Africa). This brought the Herald all kinds of good publicity, which they promptly pissed away in the Central Park Zoo hoax.

On November 9, 1874 the Herald ran a breathless front-page story that all the animals had escaped from the Central Park Zoo and were rampaging through Manhatten eating people. The hoax ‘fessed up in the last line, but most New Yorkers didn’t read to the bottom before utterly losing their shit, making this the War of the Worlds of 1874.

Shortly after, Bennet became engaged to socialite Caroline May — until her parents threw a legendary New Year’s party. Bennett arrived late and drunk and pissed into the fireplace (or possibly the grand piano) in view of the guests. This sort of thing was frowned upon in 1877. The engagement was off, and Miss May’s brother caught Bennett in the street soon after and horsewhipped him.

This freaked Bennett so badly, he fled the country forever and didn’t marry until the age of 72 (to Baroness de Reuters, of the Reuter’s News Reuters).

In between, he was pretty much the first international playboy; all yachts and polo ponies and fast cars. There’s still a balloon racing trophy named after him. He died in France in 1918.

I’d love to think his last words were “Gordon Bennett!” but it doesn’t appear in print as an exclamation until 1937. It’s probably just a ‘god’ substitute, like “golly gee” or “gosh.”

Thinking about it, I’d like to volunteer myself as a curse word. I think you’ll find hissing SSsssssssstoatyWEEZel an entirely satisfying response to moderate pain or surprise. I live to serve.

What it means is, whenever a bureaucrat is ordered to cut back, he immediately chooses the most beloved or most important programs and threatens to disembowel them, as though it’s the only possible way to cut costs. Walk right on by all the useless cash-eating bullshit government sponsors — tax cuts mean drastic changes to the national parks or the military or highways.

Here in the UK, it’s usually schools and hospitals. Fortunately, those things mean nothing in the Badger household, but they get us with police and trash collection.

I know from my own experience (mostly reading the little area paper) that our local district council has a salaried position to show new-ish mothers at home how to brush a baby’s teeth (only this!), keeps someone on staff to come around and look at your compost heap and tell you if you’re doing it right, floats a full-time rat-catcher (okay, this guy was quite useful and interesting). They recently sponsored a trapeze artist to teach basic moves in the community centre (fitness, don’tcha know).

Don’t forget these employees enjoy salaries well above those in the private sector, benefits often equal in value to their salaries, and pensions...well. Pensions are the killer. Carrying civil servants through their golden years is murdelating our budgets. And, even worse than the States, government is the only part of the economy that has continued to grow and grow as the private sector shrinks.

We’re coming up on an election here, probably in May, and the Tories are probably going to walk it, though they richly undeserve to win. Already the BBC and Labour (but I repeat myself) are full of “ZOMG, Tory cuts in services!!!!!” and already the Tories have responded by deciding that cuts really don’t need to be deep.

Ugh. We are drowning in tax over here.

So what I like to do — it’s a little masochistic game I play — is mosey over to the Guardian jobs section and spot the most useless, expensive government job opening on the books. Lesbian outreach workers and sustainability officers and like that. Our entire household tax expenditure probably isn’t enough to support one of those useless parasites, and that makes me feel as warm and fuzzy as goat testicles.

Interesting to note, by the way, that the government’s favorite place for classified ads is a highly left-wing paper with tiny circulation. They know their constituency. Although today’s winner is from that once-great conservative paper, the Daily Telegraph.

Enjoy.

It’s a huge ass moon!

No, seriously. Tonight’s moon is a “perigee moon” — meaning the moon’s squashed orbit brings it closer to us than it will be for any other full moon during 2010. So it looks about 14% wider and 30% brighter than usual.

And that is a total no shit. We drove home tonight sandwiched between two of the spookiest-looking rainstorms I’ve ever seen — one over the Channel and moving out, one over the hills and moving in. And we got home just in time to see THIS thing hanging over our back garden.

I’ve honestly never seen the moon look so huge and round and close to the earth. I know the photo doesn’t mean much, but you’ve got to go outside and see this thing for yourself, if your local conditions are at all favorable.

Good weekend, everyone!

Hours before Obama’s State of the Union yesterday, perky Katie Couric tweeted this:

Just had lunch with the president who seems pensive, slightly deflated, realistic, aggravated and resolute. Didn’t eat his pie.

I haven’t really got the hang of Twitter yet, but I’ve figured out this much — with a 160-character message limit (less if you want to leave room for people to forward or “retweet” your message), complicated ideas are right out. A thought of even the teeniest ambition comes out like something your senile Aunt Irma might mutter in her sleep.

Katie’s first sentence? Excellent. Katie’s second sentence…oh god, it just cracks me up. Every time I think about it. Didn’t eat his pie.

“Pie” is a comedy word, like “pants” or “Schenectady.” It’s inherently funny. You don’t ever want to couple “pie” with someone whose stature and dignity you wish to preserve.

I can’t help thinking what a wonderfully useful metaphor that’s going to be in the next few years. Any time Barack Obama just has been or is just about to be thwarted, smacked down, brought up short or otherwise disappointed — who wants some pie?

The latest Rasmussen numbers were released today; Barack Obama didn’t eat his pie

Pie not on White House menu after April unemployment figures soar

Pie? No, thanks. Dems’ electoral hopes fade in latest round of voter polls

Oh, we’re going to have SO MUCH fun. Thanks, Katie!

Nah, don’t bother clicking. For one thing, it’s in the Daily Beast. And for another, it’s Christopher Buckley, who still writes in the painfully cute, brittle style that probably made him the star of his Advanced Placement English class in High School. You can be right and still be a twit.

I only bring it up because commenter Blast Hardcheese remembered the last time I made fun of Buckley and wondered if I could do it again. You know, now that he’s quietly sashayed into the anti-Obama camp without mentioned his earlier…infatuations.

I dunno, dude. It’s hard to mock a man who deliberately chooses for his profile shot that painfully twee photo everyone was snickering about last year. Jeezum crow! Best I can do is point out those accessories no longer go with these slacks.

Maybe Iowahawk will have some better ideas.

Don’t mind me. I’m grumpy today. I took my driving exam this afternoon and flunked.

Worse, I deserved to. I did a lousy hour’s driving. The thing that failed me, I made one of those judgement calls on a right-hand turn against traffic and called it too close. I knew instantly that I’d blown it.

Oddly, though, having gone through it once, I’m a lot less nervous about next time. I thought there were four or five things I should have failed upon, so learning that only my most boneheaded screwup mattered is some comfort. And failing isn’t at all uncommon; only 40% a day pass the test.

But every try is another month’s delay and £100 in moneys.

Fuck.

Meanwhile, Ace linked to my pudding t-shirt, so I’ll quit now and leave yesterday’s illo near the top to greet the bounce traffic. Dude is a traffic moncster.