Welp, here we go
So, first hat in the ring, and it’s a sombrero. Bad-dum-tssss.
I like Ted Cruz. I really do. I think. From what I know. But I just cannot deal with his face. It just ain’t right.
And if you think that’s incredibly shallow and foolish of me, just think how not shallow and foolish I am compared to huge swathes of America.
Facial hair. It’s the only answer.
Yeah, I know I’ve posted this before. I realized that. What I didn’t realize was that I’d used the exact same starting photo. This isn’t a repost. I’ve done the same stupid Photoshop twice.
March 23, 2015 — 9:46 pm
Comments: 28
Well, there’s always 2025
A bunch of us, strangers, gathered on a scenic overlook facing East at 9:35 and saw a deep and impenetrable nothingburger. We weren’t even able to figure out exactly where the sun was. After a while, someone muttered, “looks like your typical gray English morning.”
Other parts of the country were luckier.
In addition to the eclipse, y’all know it’s the Equinox, yes? So it was also the day blue hairs descend on Stonehenge for the world’s most elderly cosplay competition.
Good weekend, all!
March 20, 2015 — 10:49 pm
Comments: 18
Then and now
This is a ring that turned up in a 9th C Viking burial in Sweden. It’s made of glass (apparently that was a new and expensive material then) and the inscription reads “to Allah” in Arabic. It was a woman’s burial in a place called Birka (ha! ha!), but the body has completely rotted away, sadly, so they can’t tell if it was an Arabic woman that somehow made it to Sweden. Here’s hoping some hardy Viking beat up and A-rab and stole his stuff to give his good lady.
Archaeologists think it confirms old stories that there was trade between the Vikings and the Islamic world. Quite possible, too — those guys got everywhere.
There’s an escalating kerfuffle between Sweden and the region. Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström had planned to address the Arab League and give them a finger-wagging lecture on human rights. So the Saudis blocked her. So Sweden published the speech she was going to give (it didn’t mention the Saudis by name, but it talked up women’s and human rights — wait, there’s a difference?). So the Saudis won’t issue any more visas to Swedish businessmen. So the Swedes cut off military cooperation with the Saudis. So the Saudis have expelled Sweden’s ambassador.
All this matters, I guess, because the Swedes desperately need oil. And the Saudis desperately need…pass. I don’t know. Blondes?
Anyway, it’s not just the Saudis. The whole Arab world has its panties in a twist (wait, do they wear panties under those things?). The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) which represents 57 muslim countries (wait, there are fifty seven of the buggers?) issued a statement that read in part:
“The world community, with its multiple cultures, diverse social norms, rich and varied ethical standards and different institutional structures, can not, and should not, be based on a single and centric perspective that seeks to remake the world in its own image.”
Emphasis mine. Rich and varied ethical standards. Ho ho ho.
March 19, 2015 — 9:14 pm
Comments: 20
Oh, that’s right – YOU DON’T GET THIS ONE
We’re getting a total eclipse on Friday — first one since 1999.
I’m not sure why that is. It seems like y’all in the States get one every year or two, but there you go. Not quite total where we are; about 80% on the South coast.
It should peak in the middle of my Friday commute, but I’m not getting too excited. The weather is due to be very overcast, and probably will be (I say that because weather forecasting here is atrocious, but this is a big predictable band of dark cloud). Although I suppose overcast will just make it eerily darker.
I like eclipses. I haven’t seen many.
Anyhoo, check out this neat tool. It’s a 3D global eclipse tracker (yes, yes…it works for you, too). Go play with the buttons and knobs!
March 18, 2015 — 10:27 pm
Comments: 16
That cruel thing I did to Debbie Wasserman-Schlutz’s eyeballs
I ran across this Mashable series of photos of inmates from a Victorian mental hospital in Yorkshire. It’s a sad browse, but interesting. I was particularly struck by this woman.
The caption says she suffers from “general paralysis of the insane” but it’s more usually called general paresis. It’s a sudden onset bugfuck crazy that used to be blamed on bad character but was ultimately recognized as the third and final stage of syphilis, when the bugs finally eat the brain.
It was tricky to work out because the madness strikes abruptly as much as thirty years after the initial infection, so the bad character explanation made as much sense as anything (a Victorian with syphilis being the very definition). But somebody got a Nobel in the thirties curing paresis by infecting patients with malaria (the syphilis bacterium can’t take the heat, so one good fever can kill it off).
My mother describes seeing a tertiary syphilis sufferer on Bourbon Street, stumbling along the road suddenly freezing with one foot in the air, having forgotten how to walk. The diagnosis comes courtesy of my grandmother being a nurse and jazzmen being no better than they should be, *sniff*.
Anyway, I mention it because this condition informs one of my most cherished phobias: Lyme disease. On account of it’s a very similar disease with a very similar progression: spirochete causes a small rash, disappears, roars back with a leather mask and a chainsaw thirty years later. Except Lyme is a lot harder to kill.
Summer is coming. Tick check, people!
March 17, 2015 — 9:05 pm
Comments: 9
PICTURED: Rudely shaped carrot grown in allotment in Lower Belvedere
Actual headline. For the blind, this helpful description is provided:
It bears a resemblance to two human legs, with a growth between them that leaves little to the imagination.
It leaves everything to the imagination. It’s a flipping carrot.
Also discussed, a strawberry shaped like a penis and a carrot shaped like a foot that “caused a social media sensation.”
This isn’t the Sheep Testicle Gazette out here in the ass-end of nowhere. That’s a London paper that somehow found room for this snuggled between the muggings and burglaries.
A hard people to understand, at times.
Anyway, I broke my good camera this Summer, so Uncle B loaned me his one and I’ve now broken that too. Down-twinkles. I’m cameraless. That leaves me at the mercy of any old rude vegetable I can dig up until I buy a new one.
March 16, 2015 — 10:24 pm
Comments: 23
Remembering Ric Locke
So, do you? Remember Ric Locke?
He was a blogger and occasional commenter here who self-published an entertaining scifi book called Temporary Duty.
It sold well enough that he spent his last days arguing with the IRS. Yes, sadly, that rat bastard cancer got him in the Summer of 2012.
Welp, I got an email earlier this week from a dude called Yuris Daudish, who read Ric’s book and thought it deserved a public fandom. He put out the call for anybody who might have had dealings with Ric who could share anecdotes or insights into the man or the book. Or might want to join the discussion forum. I promised to go through what emails we traded back in the day to see if anything interesting turns up — and to spread the word to any reader here who might have had some interaction.
The fan site is http://temporaryduty.org. Contact Yuris at master@temporaryduty.org or through his site. Or here in the comments, if you like.
I can’t help thinking how pleased Ric would’ve been. Good weekend, all!
March 13, 2015 — 9:05 pm
Comments: 28
I’ll see your woodpecker-riding weasel…
Nope. Not my work. Oh, also there is this (which is apparently real).
We’re starting to see the new lambs appearing in the fields, which cheers me up no end. We haven’t had a bad Winter at all (sorry ‘Merkins), but I’m still ready to see it go.
March 12, 2015 — 10:19 pm
Comments: 12
Oh, grandma!
In the previous thread, geoff axed for a P’shop of Hillary and the iconic phone. Happy to oblige, but I couldn’t come up with anything better than riffing on her pretend inability to comprehend the cellphone. I’ve got all the bits and pieces still open, if you can think of a better take.
Seriously, did they believe this one would fly? Like, “c’mon, honey — you know grandma can’t operate simple modern gadgets. But you still want her for President of the United States in 2016, right?”
Some of these errors are so awful and unforced, you have to wonder what the Clintons are playing at. Whether they know she can’t win, but they’ve decided to swing the big Clinton dick around and ruin 2016 for their party, because…fuck you, we’re the Clintons.
I can honestly see that bunch of sociopaths doing that.
Oh, here you go, Deborah — my big color Hillary! 2016 poster, the little black and white witchy one, plus some assorted Hillary ‘shops.
March 11, 2015 — 9:18 pm
Comments: 34
Don’t touch our ‘Butthole’, say residents
Yeah. Actual headline. I only posted it for that. I suppose I could do a post on funny English road names, but that’s been done to death.
So, instead, I’m going to post about corvids. Couple of weeks ago, the BBC ran a story about a little girl in Seattle who leaves food for the crows. They pay her back in bits of junk and shiny trinkets.
At the end of the story, they asked readers for any similar experiences and got back some amazing stories. All of them were crows, I think. Worth a read.
We had a couple of pet crows when I was little. My mother was good with animals, so we had lots of them. The crows really impressed me as personalities — smart and alert and a little wicked. They loved to tease the cats.
It’s very birdy where we live now, including a lively colony of rooks. I like the rooks. A few years ago, I was walking home along a busy road and I spotted a rook on the sidewalk. Or maybe a crow. Not sure. Anyway, it was limping badly; it had probably been grazed by a car.
I thought, “awwww…I will throw my coat over him and take him home and nurse him back to health and we’ll be bestest of friends.” I took one step in its direction and it squawked and flew straight into the path of a gravel truck and disappeared in a cloud of feathers and red mist.
I still feel shit.
March 10, 2015 — 11:05 pm
Comments: 9