Boo!
Good morning, Halloweenies! (Okay, that’s not original. They’re serving halloweenies in the company cafeteria today).
I am as psychic as a potato. I itch to see something I can’t explain, but I am utterly blind to auras, cold spots, vibes, premonitions and heebie jeebies.
I thought I saw a UFO once. I stood in the side yard at the farm one night watching these strange lights moving far off in the sky…until the sun came up and I saw it was actually a nearby badly insulated electrical wire arcing when it slapped against the pole. I had a touch of heebie-jeebies — call it a heebie — before I knew what I was looking at. I’m apparently capable of the creeps, but my life has been sadly bereft of them.
Something about this guy gives me a heebie, though. Usually, ‘ghost’ photos are meh. Obvious double exposures. Flash noise.
This spooky dude turned up on surveillance photos at Hampton Court Palace. That’s one of Henry VIII’s haunts (ho, ho) about ten miles West of Central London. It’s mostly a tourist attraction now.
In December of ’03, a pair of fire doors in a seldom-used area of the palace blipped the security panel three days running. The third time, the guard checked the nearest camera, and these images turned up.
It doesn’t match anyone authorized to be in the area, or any of the Tudor costumes sometimes used by staff. Security in palaces isn’t infallable, but it’s generally good. Nobody ‘fessed up, nor tried to make hay afterwards.
Britain has a tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas (that’s why A Christmas Carol is one), and this looks an awful lot like Zombie Father Christmas. So…probable hooey.
But we drove past Hampton Court not long after, and Uncle B pointed it out to me. And it was kind of brrrr.
October 31, 2008 — 10:11 am
Comments: 62
Fishing for tarts
Lots and lots of things have been fished out of the Seine. This was one of them. Maybe. If you want the long version, ask Google and spend an afternoon at it. Or go with the short version:
No-one knows who she was, really. She is called l’Inconnue de la Seine. The usual story is that she was drawn from the river in the late 1880s and the morgue attendant was so taken with her beauty and poignant expression that he called for a mask to be made.
I’m going to call bullshit on that bit, anyhow. No way this is the face of a dead woman. In fact, it would be difficult to take a cast of a living woman and catch a smile. Plaster is heavy and the dead seriously lack muscle tone. If this thing started life as the mask of a woman, it was heavily recarved afterwards (which is not at all uncommon with casts).
Anyhow, the story continues, she was put on display (in the 1880s, unclaimed bodies — up to fourteen at a time — were put in a chilled room at the morgue, fronted by plate glass. It was the most popular shop window in Paris). No-one claimed her.
Then somehow the mask escaped into the population. It was a sensation. Factories were contracted to churn out copies (in fact, one story I find plausible is that l’Inconnue was actually an entrepreneurial mask-maker’s daughter, alive and well at the time). No salon or filthy bohemian garret was complete without one. She appeared in poems, novels, baudy limericks (I’m just guessing on that last one). She was an icon of feminine beauty for decades, well into the 20th Century.
And then she really got popular. In 1958, emergency docs Peter Safar and Asmund Laerdal chose l’Inconnue for the face of the original Resusci Annie (Snopes says oui to this story). Making her, officially, the most kissed woman of all time.
Thought a little creepy story might not go amiss today, this being Hallowe’en week and everybody being utterly sick to death of poltics and all.
October 29, 2008 — 2:11 pm
Comments: 37
Give a weasel some sugar, Chris
For the benefit of those outside the rich linguistic traditions of the Deep South, to “give sugar” is to touch one’s lips to another in an expression of affection. Grandmothers and aunties must be given sugar in this manner regularly. cf “smoochies.”
It’s Columbus Day — I’m still restesing!
October 13, 2008 — 11:29 am
Comments: 51
fanniemAeTM
If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.
– John McCain, May 25, 2006
Needless to say, Congess did not act. Lord knows I’m no fan of John McCain, but he’s too right on this one and has been riding it for years.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together hold or own up to FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS in mortgage debt. That’s more than half the total of the current U.S. national debt.
Their failure is what has sparked the world financial crisis and the blame lies solely with the Democrats in Congress who shielded them from reform for years while Democrat party hacks running the companies enriched themselves.
From Flopping Aces, where there is plenty more. We put five trillion dollars in the hands of the sleaziest band of thieves and sociopaths in America? And told them to make loans to people with bad credit? And then didn’t keep an eye on them? We did this? Really?
So now I have my nice little house on the market 30% below the value I’m paying taxes on and I can’t get a nibble because the city is stuffed with foreclosed property. Which doesn’t matter because the sort of first-time buyer who would be interested in my house couldn’t get a mortgage in this market if he sacrificed his firstborn on the altar of Ba’al.
So, Democrats — this helps minorities and poor people…how, exactly? Oh…right, right. That was never the point. It was only the cover.
John McCain is lord and master of this one. If he continues to point finger at “greedy Wall Street” out of deference to his friends in the Kleptomaniac Kongress — verily, my Bonce shall catcheth on Fyre with ye Rayge.
I barely have enough good humor left to mention that it’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day, however horribly appropriate that might be.
September 19, 2008 — 5:21 am
Comments: 46
Happy Alevromoutzouromata!
Yup! Yesterday was Alevromoutzouromata already! We missed it. Although, you know, once you get to Underpants Day, you know Alevromoutzouromata can’t be far behind.
Alevromoutzouromata is Greek for “people throw flour at each other.” Kidding? Der Spiegel says nein. People of the little village of Galaxidi in Greece celebrate the end of Carnival and the beginning of Greek Orthodox Lent by dancing and throwing 3,000 pounds of colorfully dyed flour at each other. The day is known, brain-hurtingly, as Clean Monday. (Click for pictures).
It all got started, quoth the Tourist Bureau, at the beginning of the 19th Century, when the Ottoman occupiers (read: killjoy Muslims) forbade the celebration of Christian holidays. In protest, the men of Galaxni painted their faces with ash and danced solemnly in the village square on the Monday before Lent. And then when the Muzzies were gone, it was all, like, ‘FOOD FIGHT!’
Weird? Pff! Not even the weirdest Clean Monday celebration on the Island of Greece. That would have to be the Penis Festival of Tyrnavos. There, once a year, you may dress up like a winkie and eat things that look like peens, drink strong beverages from tallywhacker-shaped cups through straws shaped like weiners, stir the spinach soup with unthinkable utensils and sing songs about boners.
I knew about this one. One of my roommates in art school was Greek — a city girl from Athens. She described how her family drove across the island one year on Clean Monday and unwittingly drove into the middle of Peckerfest. In a convertible.
Traumatized for life, poor girl. “Huge penises! They were…all around the car. Pressing against us…dancing…singing…waving things. Oh, it was horrible!”
Despite the timing, this is an explicitly Dionysian festival — another big fat Olde Worlde religion mash-up. Let us hope Galaxidi and Tyrnavos never get together for this one.
August 19, 2008 — 12:45 pm
Comments: 28
Happy Underpants Day!
I know it’s legit, because Hasbro is teaming up with FreshPair.com to put underpants on the Operation guy (whose name, disturbingly, is Cavity Sam). Only, I can’t find anything on Hasbro’s site about it.
Sadly, both NationalUnderpantsDay.com and its sponsor FreshPair.com are blocked from work, so I can’t tell you how NUD is observed. Some minion without Websense filtering will have to tell us what we’re supposed to do today. And no making shit up!
Gyah. You know? I try to keep the true spirit of National Underpants Day, but they’re not making it easy.
Edit: fixed the link (thanks, Musli). I guess, since
I can’t follow it myself. Sadly, it’s National Underwear day,
which isn’t nearly as amusing. “Pants” is a comedy word.
August 5, 2008 — 10:02 am
Comments: 35
I did not know that
This dude? Uncle Sam. No shit.
He was Samuel Wilson (1766 — 1854), a meat packer from Troy, New York. During the War of 1812, he won a contract to supply meat to the army. The barrels were market “U.S.” and the soldiers joked that it stood for “Uncle Sam.”
It stuck.
When he got the little beard and the kicky star-spangled weskit, I do not know. I found this by following McGoo’s link to an article about James Mongomery Flagg. You know: the guy who painted the I Want You poster with finger-waggin’ Sam on it.
It’s the day before a holiday and my boss is out, so I have no intention of doing anything that even vaguely resembles work today.
And tomorrow? I’ll celebrate the Fourth the way I always do: ringing up Uncle Badger and yelling “Hey Limey — you suck!” and hanging up.
Got to be careful. One of these days, he’s going to figure out it’s me.
July 3, 2008 — 10:41 am
Comments: 27
Happy birthday, Brother Weasel
Yesterday was my big brother’s…ummmm…56th birthday. June the 15th. Or, as he used to run around the house singing it, “June the Sisteense.” My brother didn’t discover the letter “F” or the phoneme “th” until he was about ten (oh, the tragic day mother sent him to buy fish food!).
That’s his horse, Polly. I insisted she was our horse, but by the time I was old enough to ride her alone, it would have been kinder not to. When running, she blew rhythmic wind out both ends simultaneously in a maneuver I called the “wheezefarts” while she worked up a big ol’ mouthful of lather to fling back in my face, like a big wet equine meringue clown-pie.
But I digress.
My brother and I aren’t estranged; we were never close. He’s a very nice guy, really. But he’s just such a…huge…banana. He’s my only surviving full sibling, which makes him closer to me genetically than anybody in the whole wide world.
Shit. That makes me feel warm; like a generous slice of equine meringue pie.
June 16, 2008 — 5:20 pm
Comments: 38
Happy Memorial Day
Weasels can’t salute. Necks too long, arms too short. But the warriors among us, consider yourself saluted.
If you want me, I’ll be around back in the new lawnchair I bought at Wal*Mart on Saturday, reading an actual book. With words and everything.
Later there will be booze. And hamburgers.
May 26, 2008 — 9:47 am
Comments: 51
Let’s kill stuff — for Gaia!
Happy Earth Day! Yes, today’s the actual date, though NPR is pretty much observing Earth Week. (I listen to NPR so you don’t have to. You’re welcome).
Yesterday they ran a little feature called Food Footprint: Minimizing Greenhouse Gasses (yes, with “gasses” spelled like that…when did that become okay?).
Did you know that 18% of the world’s greenhouse gases are produced by “animal agriculture”? Animal agriculture: making and moving meat.
Turns out cows are especially bad, because hippies hate beef. Raising a cow and bringing it to market releases thirty six pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for every pound of edible meat.
So I’m thinking…hunting has got to be the greenest thing on Gaia’s green earth. It tranforms dangerous wild animals — animals that would otherwise spend their lives destroying nascent forests and emitting harmful fumes into the atmosphere — into healthful, planet-saving food.
Why let Al Gore have all the fun? Once we work out the lifetime carbon load of various animals, every hunter is his own one-man carbon credits business.
“Mornin’, Sir. I’m taking carbon orders. Will you be needing a rabbit-sized credit or the deer-sized credit today?”
April 22, 2008 — 12:28 pm
Comments: 102