Holy krep!
This van appeared in a village near me this week. Nope, not a Photoshop job. There’s this guy who…does this on the back of dirty white vans. Here’s his FaceBook page if you want to see more.
Britain is lousy with white vans. It is the subject of many jokes. So he will never run out of canvas.
One of my earliest impressions of the difference between Britain and America? You know how we write “wash me” in the dirt on the back of a dirty car? I saw a filthy white van here with “also comes in white” written across the back.
November 22, 2017 — 10:03 pm
Comments: 15
My personal bodycount: 3
My mother told me before she died that she was going to come back and haunt me, but she was going to come back as a scrabbling noise in the closet, so I’d never really know if it was her or mice. And, whaddya know, I have a scrabbling noise in the closet.
Well, I’ve finally worked it out: it’s mice. I’ve been bailing them out of the mousetrap as soon as I can set it. The horrible thing is, I haven’t even had to re-bait the trap. Apparently, the smell of Bob’s final agony is not enough to overcome the smell of sweet, sweet peanut butter.
My little studio upstairs is the warmest room in the house, at least when the water heater or central heat is going. That’s because all the water pipes run along the outside of the walls. This attracts all sorts of vermin, not just me.
I hate doing this. There’s the horribleness of emptying the trap (all clean kills so far, at least). But also, I rather like mice. I used to keep them as pets.
Oh, well. At least it’s not my spectral mother!
November 21, 2017 — 7:02 pm
Comments: 34
There are no turtles in England
I’ve posted about this before. They have tortoises (land shellies) but not turtles (water shellies).
Every once in a while, you hear a horrible story about someone ‘rescuing’ a wild tortoise by dropping it in the nearest pond.
I mention this now because I took a nap after work this afternoon and had a vivid and curiously didactic dream about the difference between turtles and tortoises. Also, because I thought I’d be posting a new Dead Pool this evening, but Chuck Manson seems to be clinging on.
Oh, well. Everyone have a great weekend. Except you, Manson. Because fuck that guy, am I right?
November 17, 2017 — 8:23 pm
Comments: 18
Female Genital Mutilation Barbie is here!
Come to think of it, no Barbies has a hoo-ha, so there’s that. The lady in the stylish trash bag is apparently the US Olympic bronze medalist in fencing, which is why FGM Barbie is hefting a sword.
Poor dear has apparently dealt with her clinical depression by converting, I guess.
I can’t wait to see the Ken who goes with. There will be a Taliban Ken, right?
November 16, 2017 — 10:19 pm
Comments: 15
I have no Photoshop, and I must scream
Well, I have Photoshop now. I got it working in the end, but I had to reboot several times to do it. And one in three times I reboot, the computer does its best imitation of a brick. And has taken to freezing up randomly when it does run.
I wasn’t sure I’d be here tonight.
It sounds like a serious hardware problem, but the issues I’ve had with it track every new Windows update. New updates, new slew of misbehavior. Then it settles down for a while.
I’m well overdue for another one. This machine is about eight years old. But I always buy the highest spec machine I can possibly afford, so I’ve been putting it off until I hafta.
So, it sounds like the perfect day to change my cellphone provider, yes?
[gentle sobbing]
November 15, 2017 — 8:26 pm
Comments: 21
By way of apology
Sorry for downer post yesterday. Here’s something better. Baby lion roaring. (Link goes to some guy’s tweet, in case you’re incurably allergic to Twitter).
Now, if you’ll excuse me, we’ve decided to switch internet providers. I have, like, nine years worth of emails to download…
November 14, 2017 — 9:09 pm
Comments: 6
They shot muh gurl :(
The runaway lynx turned up chillin’ under a double-wide in an abandoned trailer park (yes, even here) and the bastards shot her. The answer to your next question is, yes, they probably do have tranq guns here, but she was shot by a hired marksman instead of zoo personnel, in the darkness with night vision equipment.
Maybe he wasn’t taking an opportunity to play with his fun toys.
Brits are animal mad — particularly cats — and this is not going down well at all. The head of the local council should probably have a flunky start his car for a while.
November 13, 2017 — 9:36 pm
Comments: 11
Drumroll please
We’ve got the electrician coming tomorrow for a couple of odd jobs, so I’m cleaning house. As you do. And I found this thing (look up).
There’s a baker who has a booth in a local market, from whom we occasionally buy sausage rolls. He was forever telling me he used to be sausage roll maker by appointment to Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.
One day, he flagged me down on the street as I went past on my bicycle and gave me a laminated copy of his Royal Warrant. (I happen to know, from professional experience, that a lamination pouch of that size costs 50p, so I was flattered).
I don’t even particularly like sausage rolls. Have a good weekend, everyone!
November 10, 2017 — 10:31 pm
Comments: 22
Lady Weasel Poison-Fist
Oooo…lookee what I have to play with! We have been loaned a suit of armor at work. It’s of modern manufacture, but it’s made for actual re-enactment use, so it’s properly articulated and very heavy.
You can see the six individual plates that make up each finger, for example, and underneath each is a leather loop that holds it in place. It’s the whole thing, head to toe. I’ve had on the helmet and gloves.
I’m itching to try out the whole kit, but it weighs around a hundred pounds, and I don’t think anyone would appreciate me going face first into the parquet with the fancy metal togs on.
November 9, 2017 — 10:24 pm
Comments: 15
Plus, you get a dog
Longtime sweasel commenter Ermine bought me a game. This astonished me, as I didn’t know anyone else could see my wishlist, let alone buy something on it. Thank you, fellow weasel!
Disclaimer: nobody else follow, pls! Most of the stuff on my wishlist isn’t stuff I actually want, it’s just games I’m keeping an eye on for one reason or another.
But Fallout 4 I really did want. Ermine is an open-worlds kindofa a mustelid, as am I, so he knew I’d like it.
And I do. I got frustrated the first few hours (I died and died and died), but eventually got a handle on it and am enjoying it muchly. It’s a shoot ’em up in post-apocalyptic Boston, which is fun. I can’t say I recognize many of the places, but I do the names.
I recognized part of the Freedom Trail, though, which really is set with red bricks in the sidewalk. I’d forgotten that!
So that’s what I’ve been up to. Games, I realized, remind me of incredibly vivid dreams: they feel like real and amazing experiences at the time, but they fade away, leaving mere wisps of memory.
Oh, well. Everybody’s got to waste time.
November 8, 2017 — 9:39 pm
Comments: 4