It’s a Christmas miracle!
So, a dog walker found this common seal in a field this morning in Merseyside. He had a minor head injury, a runny nose and he was, like, totally exhausted. They figure if he came up creeks and streams, he has swum some twenty miles from the sea.
Personally, I think he got there as a result of a Christmas party stunt gone horribly, horribly wrong.
December 22, 2014 — 10:12 pm
Comments: 23
Oh, you wretched tallists!
“I tell this story – I mean, even as the first lady – during that wonderfully publicized trip I took to Target, not highly disguised, the only person who came up to me in the store was a woman who asked me to help her take something off a shelf. Because she didn’t see me as the first lady, she saw me as someone who could help her. Those kinds of things happen in life. So it isn’t anything new,” Michelle Obama, who is 5’11”, said.
It’s a little hard to tell what her complaint is here. It’s racist to expect a black woman to help? Or she’s miffed that no-one recognized her? Or if they did, didn’t come up and say anything to her? (Reminder: that’s an actual shot from this famous trip to Target).
Since the article is about everyday racism, I’m going to assume it’s that first thing.
The internet says she’s 5’10”, not 5’11”, which makes her exactly the same height as me. And, lemme tell you, I have completely lost track of the number of times strangers have asked me to reach things off shelves. It’s a thing short people sometimes ask of tall people. It’s not a put-down, it’s a little interpersonal gracenote of community feeling.
I had a black co-worker once who made a formal complaint of racism when he was given the exact same shitty treatment as everyone else by one particularly shitty supervisor (you know the kind, the harmless asshole boss who makes a big show of looking at his watch when you get back five minutes late from lunch).
Do black people really think white people are super awesome to each other and only rotten to them? Do they not see us being rotten to each other?
The president told his own experiences. “There’s no black male my age, who’s a professional, who hasn’t come out of a restaurant and is waiting for their car and somebody didn’t hand them their car keys,” Obama told the magazine.
Pff! Right! Like this guy has ever had a job that honest.
December 17, 2014 — 9:13 pm
Comments: 30
Not me, yer Honor
In the thread below, commenter Brother Cavil kindly pointed to this item from Reddit. I took the liberty of transcribing it when it was bigger and more legible, because I’m pretty sure you won’t want to miss any of the details:
A PENSIONER pervert who kept a live STOAT for his “warped sexual gratification” has narrowly escaped jail.
Benjamin Wakeman, 86, pleaded guilty to three charges under the Wildlife and Countryside Act and two under the sexual Offences Act when he appeared before magistrates.
The court was told that his crimes were uncovered when he drunkenly boasted of his “stoat girlfriend” after boozing at a pub near the caravan where he lives in Peterlee, Co Durham.
An off-duty volunteer from a wildlife sanctuary overheard Wakeman’s boast and alerted the authorities, said Dennis Smith, prosecuting.
Nature chiefs launched surveillance at Wakeman’s home and after gathering conclusive evidence of stoat abuse they arrest the former forester.
As Wakeman pleaded guilty to the charge, full details of his stoat sex were not read out in court, though Sunday Sport understand the acts involved grease and his elderly arse.
Magistrate Dorothy Foster said “In 20 years on the bench I have never come across a case like this and, quite frankly, I hope I never do again.”
“You are a dirty old man who used an innocent stoat for your warped sexual gratification. In no small measure, your actions were motivated by loneliness and liquor, so I take that into consideration when sentencing.”
Wakeman was given a two-year suspended sentence, ordered to pay costs of £500 and a stuffed stoat — which he acquired legally — was ordered to be destroyed.
The stoat victim, which cannot be named for legal reasons, has since been released back into the wild.
Okay, okay…a bit of mickey-taking going on there. A lot of mickey-taking. Still, they can’t actually make shit up out of whole cloth.
By the way, I’m starting a band. We’re calling it Grease and His Elderly Arses.
Good weekend, all!
December 12, 2014 — 6:47 pm
Comments: 17
Why there were no cats in the manger
It’s a nativity scene made up entirely of Henrys.
Henry. It’s a vacuum cleaner. He’s a British institution. I’ve written about him before.
Oh, well. Excuse lameness. My doctor was over an hour late for my appointment today, and it turns out those rough patches on my legs are psoriasis. I’m feeling sorry for myself.
If you’re an American of a certain age, your brain automatically corrected that to the heartbreak of psoriasis.
December 8, 2014 — 10:42 pm
Comments: 25
Tasteful.
Believe it or not, this is not a ferocious set of brass knuckles. It is a pony skin handbag. It’s an Alexander McQueen — if that means anything to you, it’ll mean something to you — and it was one of the things taken in a recent London house robbery.
Brief article, short on details, but here’s guessing one of the robbers was a relative. Who else would know she had this pile of ugly crap that was worth a shit-ton of money?
How weak is the connection between money and taste.
Speaking of which, if you haven’t watched the video linked off Drudge yet, do it. The one with the Hillary song. When cynical manipulation goes wrong, it goes hilariously, toe-curlingly wrong.
Hillary is like the anti-Slick Willy.
December 4, 2014 — 11:05 pm
Comments: 17
Heh.
Welp, it’s Steam Sale time again, that Amok Time when Valve cuts prices so low you buy a ton of shit you don’t need and somehow believe you’ve saved a bunch of money. Ninety percent off Goat Simulator? Sign me up!
So I was browsing titles and came across Castlevania — you play an old and weary Dracula, yearning to retire. But first you have to fight your boss, Satan, to get out of your contract. It is rated 17+ for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language, Nudity.
The punters loved it. The critics, not so much. In fact, it got a mysteriously low Metascore of 58 (user votes are excluded from Metascore). A halfway decent game is always going to be 80+. Then I noticed the disclaimer above.
For those who haven’t been following this particularly complicated internet shit-storm, the simple version is: pro-#GamerGate = people who love videogames just the way they are. Anti-#GamerGate = people who think today’s video games promote violence and sexism and would like to see that change. Much of the professional gaming press — like our lefty betters in journalism everywhere — are firmly in Column B.
See the little #GamerGate recommends icon? Yeah. Steam is promoting games off of the back of the #GamerGate controversy. Gabe Newell is a sooper genius.
Hells yes I bought Castlevania.
And, um, Goat Simulator, too.
Good weekend, folks. Assuming you’ve shaken off the tryptophan coma yet.
November 28, 2014 — 10:06 pm
Comments: 20
Poison in the body politic
The length of one of the most aggressively monitored borders in the world runs for 3,145 km (1,954 miles). The iron pillars, concrete walls, security cameras and drones that make it virtually impermeable today were partly triggered by just a tiny bit of paper during WW1 – a telegram.
Recognize that? It’s the BBC’s description of the US/Mexico border! It was an aside in an article today about WWI. (With socialized medicine, the crazy pills are free!).
I can’t tell you what a problem the BBC is in this country. I know US media is corrupt, but we’ve got nothing as pervasive, as ubiquitous as the BBC. Depending how you count, they control half a dozen TV channels and a dozen radio stations. It’s not at all unusual for a typical Brit to consume nothing but BBC from morning to night.
And they talk complete shit.
Beautifully produced and often clever and highly entertaining shit, but shit nonetheless.
After the Boston Marathon, a neighbor of mine — a solid conservative gun-toting Americanophile — sidled up and asked “so — Tea Party?” Because that’s the only suspect he knew. I’ve had two people in the last few weeks congratulate me in casual conversation on dodging that horrible Palin woman. No doubt, they had never heard a single good thing about her until I hissed, “well, actually, she’s a bright and articulate woman who was the most popular governor in America when she was selected to run.”
Truth is, I consume as much BBC as anyone. Mostly radio. Mostly Radio 4. I swear, they can work a George Bush joke into the cooking program. The can make flower arranging positively Marxist. Lately, I’ve taken to playing a little game with every program I listen to — Spot the BBC Hook.
Our next guest is an eminent British composer — who is from an immigrant family. Let’s get a legal opinion from a senior judge — who is militantly gay. Our science program this evening is about women scientists who rose in their professions despite gender discrimination.
I promise you, the number of programs without such a social justice hook is vanishingly small.
Tell you what, though — I stole that image off the internet and I’m’a call bullshit on it. Why would a BBC logo be centered over North America?
November 26, 2014 — 10:46 pm
Comments: 8
news.
Meet Ann Dally of Fairview Close, Walthamstow. She suffers from mobility problems, depression and Third Degree Bitchface.
I call this expression Daily Mail face. This wasn’t in the Mail, it was in a local London paper, but y’all know the phenomenon: some tragic looking bugger holding up a crumpled object in a pokey room. The Union Jack afghan tossed over the sofa is a nice touch. Cue Emmett Kelly with sad trombone.
Anyway, her toilet needed work and she waited sixteen days before she got it. She put in a formal complaint was compensated £70. That’s not the story.
The story is, when she got the paperwork back (why her toilet needed a gas safety certificate, I cannot imagine) her name thereon had been changed to “@@@@ U Mrs A Dally.”
“It felt horrible. To know that someone had done that to me, someone who has access to my home. I suffer from depression and it just made me feel awful, like I am a joke.”
Now from the breathlessness of the article you could be forgiven for assuming, as I did, that the certificate had actually been changed to say “fuck U Mrs A Dally”. But no. There’s a picture. It is literally four ‘at’ symbols followed by a U.
So it’s like an interpretive hate crime.
It’s Friday. I’m tuckered. You know what? I’m going to let you build your own right-wing rant based on this story. Good weekend, everyone!
November 21, 2014 — 9:18 pm
Comments: 22
ew.
Britain’s first ‘poo bus’ has gone into service. It runs a dedicated route between Bristol and Bath. It’s powered by a methane/propane mix, methane generated by anaerobic bacteria fed a mix of human and food waste.
The engine design is not much different from a diesel bus. The gas is stored in that bulgy bit on the roof; it’ll go 186 miles on a tankful.
Well. I dunno. I’m not opposed to things like this on principle, just on account of I’m a heartless gaia-h8r. I’m opposed to things like this because every time you look closer, it’s a shell game. Wonderful clean free energy comes out one end, but grubby wasteful things go on behind the curtain first.
There are clues in the article. It says the fuel burns with 30% less carbon emissions, for example. But it says earlier the methane is “upgraded” by removing carbon dioxide and adding propane. So, is the carbon comparable but simply unlocked during manufacture rather than use? Not that I object to a bit of good old CO2, y’unnerstand, I’m just doing a veracity check here.
It says one person’s annual food and personal waste will fuel the bus for 37 miles, so five people for a whole tank. A year’s worth of solid waste from five people for one refueling. That sounds like a big process. I mean, big tanks, big mixers, big energy consumption. Big investment.
The Bristol sewage treatment plant processes 35,000 tonnes (that’s a fancy British metric ton) of food waste and 75 million cubic meters of shit every year. In the process, they make 17 million cubic meters of this here biomethane. So, eh. Maybe they have figured out a way to do their sewage treatment job and squeeze some free energy out of it in the process. If so, good for them.
But I wouldn’t mind seeing some numbers on that.
November 20, 2014 — 5:55 pm
Comments: 18
Meanwhile in Tonbridge…
So, somebody is leaving £5, £10 and reportedly even £20 notes under rubber ducks on Tonbridge High Street, with notes that say things like
“I am a duck and I have a present for you. Why not buy a coffee or treat yourself. You can do whatever you want. Keep me in your pocket and when you can, put something else under me and hide me in town for someone else to find and benefit from your kindness. Let’s be nice. Go be nice.”
I find I don’t have anything to add to this story.
Changing the subject, I dropped by the fruiterer for some physalis today. You have no idea how much it pleases me to say that.
They do actually call them fruiterers here; fancy old-fashioned little fruit and veg stores. There’s a nice one near work where signs tell you where it all comes from, including sometimes the actual farm.
They sell local stuff, but also wild mushrooms and fresh herbs and heavy cream and exotic things. I love that shop. But mostly I love saying “fruiterer.”
November 17, 2014 — 8:53 pm
Comments: 17