The last of the village fêtes
It’s a bank holiday here today (read: long weekend). The last one before Christmas, believe it or not. That means it was the last village fête of the season. There are a few more commercial events, but this was the last amateur festival.
It was rammed. Packed. Stuffed. Busiest I’ve ever seen it.
They all have been this summer. Chock full of people dying to get out and go somewhere and spend money.
It was a little hard, to be honest, seeing so many happy people celebrating and knowing the shit is most definitely about to hit the fan here.
It’s like, have you ever cut yourself badly in the kitchen? And, for just a second, there’s no blood, no pain, no sign of it…but you know what’s coming. It’s like that.
Oh, I just thought the tombstone was cool. I wasn’t trying to be *that* doomy. Saw it in the churchyard. Completely unreadable, sadly – not even the date.
August 29, 2022 — 6:33 pm
Comments: 15
Dead Pool 157: Autumn is upon us
Lavendergirl takes another scalp with Len Dawson. I had no idea who he was, but I eschew sports as hard as they can possibly be eschewed. I eschew ’em with both hands.
He played pro football for 19 seasons, so I’m sure he was major enough.
Remember to widen your picks to random young athletes – they’re dropping like flies!
Ready?
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.
August 26, 2022 — 6:00 pm
Comments: 67
Two questions
This is our septic tank during installation. It is a complex beastie operated entirely by a finicky computer. Oh, how I wish I was kidding. We had to agree to this to buy the house. If the power goes off for more than a day or so, we cannot shit.
It is my belief that the power will go this winter. Maybe for only a few hours at a time. Maybe longer. I am partial to the occasional shit.
So we’re looking to buy a generator. Uncle B is excellent at researching these things, but I thought I’d ask if anyone had insight.
We’re thinking something small, sufficient to power one thing at a time. Like, plug in our two freezers until they’re down to temp. Same with the fridge. Plug in the shit tank for an hour until it does its thang. We’re not trying to run the whole shebang off a generator.
Just thought I’d ask.
Unrelated, it came up in the comments of the previous thread what supplements people were taking to ward off the coof. My own regimen was zinc, magnesium, C and D (with quercetin on hand in case I needed it). I ran out of C recently, went to reorder and thought…how long am I going to do this?
Well? How long are you going to continue your covid supplements?
Oh, and don’t forget – Dead Pool tomorrow. Be here. Or don’t.
August 25, 2022 — 7:09 pm
Comments: 26
Hmmm…
We went to a country fair this weekend, and this was one of the booths. I looked it up and this outfit has been around since 1995, but I wonder if there’s any acknowledgement that business has been booming lately. They haven’t put out a press release in two years.
Meanwhile, just when you think Biden’s team couldn’t be more politically inept, today’s student loan announcement is just right. Ten grand isn’t enough to help anyone with serious student loan debt (who were plumping for blanket forgiveness), but it’s way enough to piss off anyone who didn’t go to college, didn’t take out loans of paid off their loans the painful way.
Bad feelings all around! And all for the low, low price of $300 billion!
Finally, I gather we have a Dead Pool winner. Lavendergirl has tragically taken another life: Len Dawson cut down at 87. I have time to gin up enthusiasm for Friday, so see you back in two days!
August 24, 2022 — 7:46 pm
Comments: 7
The metaverse is dumb and gay
Zuckerberg got a shellacking this week for proudly posting this selfie. He celebrated one of his VR products expanding into France and Spain with this dead-eyed robot standing in front of two glommy clipart clichés. Who wouldn’t want to live in cyberspace!
Never send a socially abnormal nerd to build your interactive experience.
Meta sank $2.81 billion into this stuff in just the second quarter of 2022 and it’s still this ugly.
Thing is, so many other apps are beautiful. AAA games are an absolute blast in VR. But single person experiences are tightly curated. They can afford high quality 3D models because they control everything in the environment so carefully.
For a social VR application, you’ll have lots of people interacting and everyone needs an individually recognizable avatar. That leads to simple, awful images like the above.
They’re going to need much more processing or much better designers. And that’s just to deal with the ugliness of the metaverse. The uselessness is a whole ‘nother thing.
August 23, 2022 — 7:49 pm
Comments: 10
Speechless
I went to save an image in my \sweasel folder tonight, and the \sweasel folder is no more. It’s gone. It ain’t there. It done vanished.
It isn’t accidentally dropped into another folder. It isn’t in the recycle bin. It’s not on a different drive.
A couple of nights ago, I did a thing I never, ever do and emptied the recycle bin. My C: drive is getting full up. I must have accidentally deleted \sweasel into it some time before. And, because it was the weekend, I didn’t notice until today. That’s all I can think.
What an extraordinary series of coincidences.
Oh, well. It’s only the place I save photos before uploading them, so they’re all here with you. There was some unfinished junk that had been kicking around and some other stuff I guess. If I can’t name it, I won’t miss it.
But gosh.
August 22, 2022 — 7:03 pm
Comments: 9
Dead Pool Round 156: Dog Days of August Edition
Dissent555 takes it with Clu Gulager. The name only vaguely rang a bell, but – holy shit, he’s been in a lot of things! From 1956 to 2019, a pretty long career. I’ve seen him in dozens of movies and TV shows. And so have you. He was 94.
Are we sitting comfortably with a cool beverage? Then we’ll 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.
August 19, 2022 — 6:00 pm
Comments: 55
But, alas, I’m not qualified
Ever since the Atlantic printed that rosaries are associated with extremism, they’ve been flying off the shelves.
True story: I once seriously considered joining the Confraternity of the Rosary.
I liked the idea of making a lifetime commitment to an act of personal discipline. You vow to say a full rosary at least once a week, if not daily. I think repetitive prayers work like meditation on the brain and are good for you in the same way.
Plus, when you are in the Confraternity, you get: “A share during life, and even after death, in all the good works and prayers of the members of the Confraternity” and also the entire Dominican Order. So it’s like a giant feedback loop of goodness.
Problem is, I’m not a Catholic. A pretty strong requirement. I’m not even a believer. I don’t even believe in vibes, auras or karma. Or aliens or ghosts. My spiritual antenna got snapped off in a tragic accident.
Dead Pool tomorrow! Lest you forget…
August 18, 2022 — 7:31 pm
Comments: 5
This guy!
Excuse late, I’ve been chasing a chicken ’round and ’round a sheep field.
Occasionally, one of my birds pops through the double fence and finds itself in the field next door. This is bad. They frequently can’t find their way back and, isolated from the flock, they’re very likely to get picked off silently by something carnivorous. So when somebody doesn’t turn up at roll call, that’s where I look first.
Unfortunately, it was Sam – my quickest and nimblest chicken. Bastard ran me ragged.
Worse, we’ve had thunderstorms all day. Every time I ducked under a hawthorn, it pissed down my back. Worse yet, I finally cornered him in a patch of stinging nettles. Yes, I was wearing shorts.
My shins are alive with the sound of music.
So I’ve had a hot bath and a cold gin and I’m off. Stupid rooster. Yes, he’s fine. Wet and sorry for himself, like me.
August 17, 2022 — 7:49 pm
Comments: 5
Go home, grandma – you’re embarrassing me
This is Carolyn Maloney, politician. She was mentioned in a Breitbart article today. I don’t know anything about her, but she’s a Democrat from New York, so hisssss. I’m here to be cruel about her fashion choices.
Why do older female public figures do this look? See it in color. Blonde hair, red lipstick, glommy eyelashes. She doesn’t look like a young woman, she looks like the mummified corpse of a young woman left out in the sun.
I won’t say it’s only Democrat women who do this, but they’re the ones that come to mind: Hillary, Barbara Walters, Nancy (except not blonde).
Maloney is 76. That’s about the median age of my group of friends (why am I always the youngest in my social circle?). A couple of them color their hair. There are some smart dressers and some more casual, but they all look age-appropriate like the tasteful old ladies they are.
Why would a woman seeking power aspire to look like a bimbo, anyway? If I wanted to rule the world, I’d go to my stylist and say, “make me look mean. Like, BIG mean.” Like, pull my gray hair back in a mean ol’ bun and give me a mean ol’ Hugo Boss greatcoat and a riding crop. I want to look like a Bond villain.
I’d vote for that in an old woman.
August 16, 2022 — 7:42 pm
Comments: 10