Hump Day. You know what to do.
Sometimes I feel sorry for all those poor bastards who have to work for a living.
May 2, 2018 — 3:00 pm
Comments: 13
May Day! May Day!
May Day is a public holiday usually celebrated on May 1. It is an ancient northern hemisphere spring festival and a traditional spring holiday in many cultures. Dances, singing, and cake are usually part of the festivities. In the late 19th century, May Day was chosen as the date for International Workers’ Day by the Socialists and Communists of the Second International to commemorate the Haymarket affair in Chicago. International Workers’ Day may also be referred to as “May Day”, but it is a different celebration from the traditional May Day.
The earliest May Day celebrations appeared with the Floralia, festival of Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers, held on April 27 during the Roman Republic era, and with the Walpurgis Night celebrations of the Germanic countries. It is also associated with the Gaelic Beltane, most commonly held on April 30. The day was a traditional summer holiday in many European pagan cultures. While February 1 was the first day of spring, May 1 was the first day of summer; hence, the summer solstice on June 25 (now June 21) was Midsummer.
As Europe became Christianised, the pagan holidays lost their religious character and May Day changed into a popular secular celebration. A significant celebration of May Day occurs in Germany where it is one of several days on which St. Walburga, credited with bringing Christianity to Germany, is celebrated. The secular versions of May Day, observed in Europe and North America, may be best known for their traditions of dancing around the maypole and crowning the Queen of May. Fading in popularity since the late 20th century is the giving of “May baskets,” small baskets of sweets or flowers, usually left anonymously on neighbours’ doorsteps.
Since the 18th century, many Roman Catholics have observed May – and May Day – with various May devotions to the Blessed Virgin Mary In works of art, school skits, and so forth, Mary’s head will often be adorned with flowers in a May crowning. May 1 is also one of two feast days of the Catholic patron saint of workers St Joseph the Worker, a carpenter, husband to Mother Mary, and surrogate father of Jesus. Replacing another feast to St. Joseph, this date was chosen by Pope Pius XII in 1955 as a counterpoint to the communist International Workers Day celebrations on May Day.
In the late 20th century, many neopagans began reconstructing traditions and celebrating May Day as a pagan religious festival.
May 1, 2018 — 3:00 pm
Comments: 7
It’s that time of year again
My, how time flies when you’re terribly, terribly old. Yes, it’s that time of year again — Weasel’s Birthday Month. I’m taking the first week of May off work (and blog), as is my wont.
I shall leave you with these nifty placeholder graphics, however, and I encourage you to turn up and shoot the breeze.
April 30, 2018 — 3:00 pm
Comments: 6
y u do dis?
Anybody understand seagulls? I grew up a thousand miles from the sea, so I don’t have the usual seaside prejudices about gulls. On the other hand, they’re a mystery to me.
In the town where I work, the rooves are covered with little clumps of moss. And every Spring, the gulls pluck the moss off clump by clump and drop it on the sidewalk. I mean, seriously — the sidewalks are covered with flattened mossburgers where people have walked on it.
Today, I had to sit through a meeting on an upper floor, and I watched a gull on the roof across from me busily snatching up clumps of moss and tossing them over the side.
I know what you’re thinking – they’re building nests. Well they’re not. Okay, maybe they are, but I don’t see them doing it. I see them plonking them into the road deliberately. Last year, I was talking to a lady in the street when a wet ripe moss splatted onto her head. She said, “eh, they do that.”
They do! Buy why?
Think on it, get back to me, and have a good weekend!
April 27, 2018 — 9:18 pm
Comments: 19
One thin trime
No, really. It’s called a trime. It’s an 1852 US silver threepenny piece. There’s also a larger version in nickel (I got one of those, too).
I had a wander through a flea market near work today and found ten little coins they were selling as a busted bracelet: three bunhead Victorias, two bedhead George IVs, two trimes, and three other. “Bunhead” is what they call early coins with Victoria on them (you can probably guess why) and “bedhead” is what I call George IVs coins, because he always looks tousled.
They all have holes bored in them, so they have next to no value to collectors. I paid £2 for the lot, and that isn’t far wrong. Collectors are silly people.
April 26, 2018 — 7:25 pm
Comments: 10
Dead Pool Round 108: The Sun is ‘ot!
Unkawill wins a second time with Barbara Bush, bless her heart. America’s mom. Everyone always remarked how much older she looked than George H.W. I assume she knew and wonder if it bothered her.
I shall gloss over the indecency of her critics this week.
Time for a new round. Are we 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.
April 20, 2018 — 6:00 pm
Comments: 81
Pssst…hey, kid! You like comics?
I still have a lingering interest in comics (eh, I’m a illustrator. If I try hard enough, I can make that sound like something other than arrested development). I haven’t really said anything about the ongoing shitstorm known by the highly original moniker Comics Gate. If you care about comics, you know already. If you don’t care, you don’t care.
Synopsis: SJW’s attempt to take over and destroy yet another industry beloved of dudebros. They managed the takeover pretty well (most strikingly at Marvel comics) and they very nearly managed the ruin, but there was pushback.
One of the most effective pusher-backers is some guy calling himself Zack. Beginning about a year ago, he began making a couple of videos a day talking about comics. They have no scripting and lousy production values and are just him rambling over a shot of his knee with a comic on it. He’s a nobody who works in IT and clearly loves comics and — oh my god, it’s making the right people so crazy — he’s been the most effective in rallying opposition.
Honestly, click the link above and watch a few. He’s become my favorite congenial background noise for a boring job. I think he would be fun whether you read comics or not.
A couple of weeks ago, he fired up an Indiegogo to fund his own graphic novel. He’s been writing comics for years and he’s flogging the money to hire professional talent to do the art. He initially asked for $5,000 – a sum he managed to raise in minutes. As of five minutes ago, it’s up to $67,525, with two weeks left to go. It’s become something of a popular uprising.
Have a look. Back it if it you’re interested (the comic will go on sale in regular comic stores for a regular price after the launch in October). Watch some of his videos (particularly some of the earlier ones) if you want an idea of what’s been going on.
Then come back here, tomorrow, 6WBT for Dead Pool Round 108. (Remember: Weasel Blog Time does not observe British Summer Time).
April 19, 2018 — 8:48 pm
Comments: 13
Oh, I don’t like that…
Eh, I just did a Google search on my sad old machine upstairs and for the very first time, at the bottom of the search screen, it said something like “based on your search history, your location is THE LITTLE TEENY VILLAGE POPULATED MOSTLY BY SHEEP THAT YOU ACTUALLY LIVE IN(!!!)“. Substitute the real village name for the phrase in italics, obvsly.
Usually, the closest it gets is a largish town at least twenty miles away. When I use Opera, with its built-in VPN, it defaults to Amsterdam (which sometimes plays havoc with authentication).
I was sure I turned off location services on all my devices, but they have a bad habit of turning themselves back on after just about any software update. So the question is, who ratted me out — my phone? My Kindle? One of my three tablets? My desktop machine? The wheezy old thumper upstairs?
One thing’s for sure, it won’t be Uncle B’s machine. Dude is crazy paranoid.
So…what are you doing to keep Google out of your panties? Are you using a VPN? Are you paying for it? I…really don’t like this.
April 18, 2018 — 9:32 pm
Comments: 22
More fun with eBay UK
I’m still looking for a rough old writing slope I can use for an oil paint box. Everything so far is too big, too small, too fancy, too expensive or too crap. I’ll find it in the end. Meanwhile, I keep running into the most weird and wonderful things. If you ever have time to kill, I recommend going to eBay UK and looking at “best match” under, say, Antique Woodenware.
In addition to last week’s 18th Century Reeves paint box, I found an even more complete one from 1835, a fine student set from 1883, and various other also rans.
Turns out, George Rowney and Co. is also an older brand of art supplies than I realized, with two nice examples from the 19th C, a painter’s watercolor box and this one labeled “Box of Colours for Illuminating and Missal Painting” — I didn’t know that was still a thing in the Victorian age.
Also learned a word: treen. “Small domestic wooden objects, especially antiques.” AKA weird little bits of old wooden junk.
Behold, treen! Ow! Charming. Yipe! What’s he doing here? Ohhhh…I don’t think I want this on a cane topper. Ew.
Of course, I realize this post will age badly. Not long after the auctions are over, the links will go dead. Sometimes, you just gotta be there.
April 17, 2018 — 6:45 pm
Comments: 16
Heh. Neat.
The Natural History Museum is setting out to digitize 80 million specimens. Most of these are part of various herbariums (herbaria?), particularly the Hans Sloane Herbarium. Plant samples. You know.
The challenge is, most of this stuff is just plants pressed into albums. Not even glued, just pressed. You can imagine how hard it is to open and photograph that stuff without dropping bits all over the floor.
I don’t know if you can see it, but those little armatures holding the pages open? They’re made of Legos. Which makes perfect sense:
‘By making it completely out of Lego it is possible to have it ordered and shipped to almost anywhere, and the low cost makes it affordable to everyone. It is especially important for scientists in developing countries and students.’
To be honest, I’m surprised there doesn’t exist some special titanium-and-molybdenum super-sciencey chrome-plated lego-like but much more serious kind of building kit for projects like this.
Surprised and bitterly disappointed.
April 16, 2018 — 7:59 pm
Comments: 5