You see, it’s like this…
I suppose there’s no point having a friend in Old Blighty (that would be me) if you can’t get insight into current events out of it. Ummmm…so. A lot of American commentators are saying that Brits soured on the Iraq war after it went off badly.
Not so. They hated the Iraq war from the get-go and never wanted any part of it. Why should they? That it went badly was widely seen as inevitable, as the Brits (under both Labour and Tories) have cut their defense budget to the bone. They feel like they threw their boys into a meat grinder for no good reason.
Blair telling them they had to go to war or Saddam would use weapons of destruction right here in Britain was the kind of stupid scary story you tell kids to make them turn out the light and go to bed. That just added insult to death toll.
Oh, and speaking of insult, Barky started piling it on from “hello.” Forget the little things — the stupid bust of Churchill controversy, Her Maj’s iPod stuffed full of the Speeches of Chairman Obama — what really stings is the lack of support in the Falklands. Oh, and Kerry calling France America’s oldest ally tonight, that didn’t help.
So, without even going into Cameron’s failings, Syria was always going to be a hard sell.
I laugh whenever politicians talk about damaging the Special Relationship, though. They think it has something to do with them, and treaty obligations and shit like that. The Special Relationship is that we’re fundamentally the same people. Until almost the 19th C, we were fellow citizens. Well, subjects. We still watch each other’s TV and read each other’s novels in high school and follow each other’s newspapers.
This really happens: strangers hear my accent and come tell me about the vacation they took in Vegas or Disney Land or their kid who’s studying in Massachusetts. Politicians don’t own the relationship, and I get the feeling that pisses them off.
Right, then. Good weekend, all.
August 30, 2013 — 10:57 pm
Comments: 29
I found what I was looking for, and it was full of poo
I don’t like drawing on pure white paper, but I don’t really like the really dark ridged paper intended for pastels and chalk, either. My favorite papers, hippie nonsense aside, are many of the unbleached 100% recycled papers, because they’re usually slightly off white and have these delightfully random speckles in. I’ve been looking for a good source of supply by the sheets.
These people. These people rule. They make recycled paper out of 100% post-consumer waste collected from schools and offices, and then they put stuff in it.
Elephant shit. Rhino shit. Reindeer shit. Herbivores only. They wash it down to the roughage. Also, grass, straw, banana peel, old blue jeans and chewed up twenty-pound banknotes. Sawdust from particular building projects.
Also, flower petals and viable seeds. So you can write your friend a note and say, “bury this note in the garden and lavender will grow out of it.” And a lavender will grow out of it. I’m sorry, hippie bullshit or not, that is so cool.
I exchanged emails with someone there about the archival properties. He reassured me about the manufacturing process. They can’t call it archival because of the inclusions — which will likely change color with age — but the end product is neutral to slightly alkaline and likely to last an acceptably long time for an art paper.
So I bought a bunch of it. As papers go (particularly recycled ones) it isn’t terribly expensive. A sampler at first so I could pick out my favorite. Definitely elliepoo. Dark and warm, with little flecks of….well, you know.
So there it is: Elliepoo. The new official dick paper of the Dead Pool.
I was born to type that sentence.
July 23, 2013 — 11:00 pm
Comments: 25
I’m a pepper, you’re a pepper, she’s a pepper…
I’ve totally forgotten who suggested putting this on a shirt, so you, sir or madam, are off the hook. What the hell, it was a good idea.
Only, holy shit, I haven’t checked in with Zazzle for a while — they’ve done a redesign. Which effed up my customizations and makes my store look stupid. Also — damn, have their prices gone up. I have it set for the lowest allowed royalty and everything is still a freaking fortune.
Anyway, here it is on a shirt, a sticker and a coffee mug. As usual, if I put it on a shirt, you can move it to any other shirt they sell (any style or color. May I suggest a hoodie?). Same deal with the coffee mug.
If you order before the end of the day tomorrow, the code 4THOFJULYDAY will get you 17.76% off. Still too way fucking expensive, IMO. I’m going to have to think about this.
Ah, a point of grammar. I realize it’s probably improper Ebonics to put a hyphen in “creepy-ass” but I didn’t want anyone to think I was a creepy ass-cracker. That just wouldn’t do.
July 3, 2013 — 9:29 pm
Comments: 26
Kimjongunzilla
Dangerous baby is dangerous.
Yes. Yes, I went to art school so I could paint people who scare me as ugly fat babies. A friend of mine pissed me off once, so I painted her as Joan of Arc and burned her at the stake. Beware the wrath of the art nerd.
So, okay. AltBBrown takes the dick with…I dunno. Some sports guy again. Round 48 of the Dead Pool starts tomorrow. Here. Six p.m. Weasel Blog Time. Remember, our clocks have changed since the last time, so WBT is now…fucked if I know. Same as GMT, whatever that is. You do the math; I lied on my transcripts to get out of High School algebra.
April 4, 2013 — 11:19 pm
Comments: 22
Because I’m trying to give you fits, is why
Heh. Sorry to do this to you two posts in a row, but I’ve been screwing around with Photoshop’s .gif animation tools. I’ve resolved to learn all I can about CS6, since paying for it gave me a nosebleed. They changed the interface a little between CS3 and CS6.
This, for those who haven’t been hanging out on my blog for years, is Damien. Isn’t he cute? Gosh, he was an evil fucker.
He disappeared when he was about two, causing my nice blog to go all emo and angsty for a while. Thing is, people all over the neighborhood said they’d spotted him. One lady even took him in and fed for a few days.
Anyway, here’s His Wickedness waking up from a nap when he was just a tiny wee slip of an evil fucker.
March 21, 2013 — 11:35 pm
Comments: 12
Keep this up and he’ll lose weight
Still playing with Blender. Sorry for the longer-than-usual download. And the fact the ball is turning the wrong way. And I messed up the front legs part of his walk cycle.
But the ears, they’re awesome!
March 20, 2013 — 11:13 pm
Comments: 26
Chicken in a Blender
Gentlemen, we can rebuild her. We have the technology.
Heh. Got sidetracked playing with 3D modeling tonight. Damn, there’s a lot to learn just to get started. I keep inventing geometries that are positively non-Euclidean.
To be honest, I tried sticking a toe in politics tonight, and pulled back a smoking stump. Ugh. Great. Now the other kids’ll call me Ol’ Smoky Stumptoe.
Oh, hey, I know…computer tip for you. You know I picked up that address book virus a couple of weeks ago? Well, contrary to what I told you at the time, I later found out Malwarebytes didn’t clean it up for me and the damn virus sent out another embarrassing mailshot the next day. Malwarebytes has never let me down before, so I says to myself, “I bet they have an online forum with, like, tame geeks and stuff.”
They have. Go to that link, post your problem, and wait. They take turns troubleshooting threads. There’s some kind of credentialling program for guys who are allowed to troubleshoot virus removal, so the people on there are all vetted.
It took a bunch of back-and-forth and some running of utilities and posting of logs, but we got it all off eventually. In the end, I PayPal’d the guy who helped me a few bucks. By which I mean five of them. Eh, I’ve been unemployed a long time now.
February 19, 2013 — 11:58 pm
Comments: 19
Weasel of Turin
Pff, obviously. Just ran across this in my documents folder. It’s from an old website I did ages ago and then accidentally lost control of the domain name for.
Don’t diagram that sentence. I think you’d have to divide by zero.
December 21, 2012 — 11:02 pm
Comments: 43
Mister Bubbles
Okay, okay…sorry about that post yesterday. Here’s an adorable kitten.
With a terminal heart condition.
Ha! Ha! Just kidding! His heart condition is totally treatable.
Only, his family doesn’t have the money to pay for the treatment, so they’ll have to choose between paying the vet and heating the house this Christmas.
Yeah, that’s right — if I’m going to feel like this, you are, too.
Wait, what? What do you mean you don’t have to come here??
November 13, 2012 — 10:04 pm
Comments: 47
Santa’s coming…
…and he looks hungry.
Ta da! After a couple of years of Zombie Santa Christmas cards, I decided to go with feral Santa this year. Obviously, it works better in color.
I’m not trying to sell you stuff. I’m just putting this link up here to get it into the search engines in plenty of time for Christmas.
I’d rather have you guys as readers and commenters than customers.
November 12, 2012 — 5:57 pm
Comments: 28