It’s only a flesh wound
Heyyyy…I didn’t know they’d identified Ned Kelly’s remains last month. Dug him up with a bunch of other old bones and ran some DNA tests. He finally gets to be buried in the family plot, a hundred and thirty something years after it was his last wish.
Kelly was either a cop-killing savage or Robin Hood, depending on where you lean in the Irish/Aussie/English ethnic preferences continuum. They’ve made a couple of movies about it, so you may know all about him and his gang, and some of that may even be true.
Me, I only love him for this bad-ass body armor he kluged together out of old farm equipment for his last shootout.
The authorities not being complete morons, they shot him through the legs.
November 9, 2011 — 11:09 pm
Comments: 27
Oh, you beautiful doll
You remember that scene in Poltergeist where somebody opens the haunted bedroom door, and it’s all shrieking and howling and shit swirling around and toys playing with themselves? I looked in on Twitter today, and it was just like that.
I’m not digging politics at the moment.
So let’s talk about something nicer. Like, have you seen this Russian guy who was caught this week with the mummified bodies of 29 young women he’d dug up and dressed like dolls? One was got up as a teddy bear. Also, there were actual dolls. All of which was good going, because most reports say he lived in a tiny apartment with his parents.
Reports describe him as a well-known historian and expert on local cemeteries, but I dunno. This doesn’t sound like any academic I know:
Moskvin claimed that from 2005 to 2007 he had inspected 752 cemeteries across the region, often traveling about 30 kilometers (20 miles) a day by foot. He said he drank from puddles, spent nights in haystacks or at abandoned farms and once even slept in a coffin readied for a funeral. He said he was repeatedly questioned by police, who then always let him go.
Oh, my mother would have loved this story.
November 8, 2011 — 10:03 pm
Comments: 27
Prince of FAILs
This picture sums up nicely why I want to apply for my maroon passport while Her Maj is still on the big sparkly chair (Charles and Camilla apparently trying — and failing — to make trinkets in the manner of disabled Tanzanians).
I know, I know…the oath is to the crown, whoever’s under it. But I’m hoping they skip over this goof in favor of that nice young man in the Dudley Do-right getup.
November 7, 2011 — 10:39 pm
Comments: 33
My pet goat
Happy Eid al-Adha, everyone (this year, it runs from Sunday the 6th until Wednesday the 9th). The Festival of Sacrifice celebrates Abraham’s willingness to cut his son’s throat in obedience to God — one of the more disturbing chapters in the book, I’ve always thought.
Today, a taxi driver told my mother in law this story: when he was a lad in Kashmir, his grandmother bought a young goat every Summer and raised it as a pet. She stroked it and spoiled it with treats until it loved her and followed her everywhere.
Then they killed it for Eid al-Adha.
Because, see, Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son, you should sacrifice something you love, and that loves you back.
I’ve been trying to tell myself that of course the gods must ask you to do difficult things; but I’m not sure it follows that the gods must tell you to do rotten, shitty things. You can draw a pretty straight line between people who think God expects them to kill their pets, and people who rejoice when their sons fly airplanes into office buildings in the name of God.
November 4, 2011 — 11:09 pm
Comments: 46
I see naked people
Finally did something I’ve been meaning to do for years — found a local life drawing class and signed up. Just had my first two-and-a-half hour session.
Woo! Have I ever slipped. It’s been thirty years since I’ve drawn from the model, but I was kind of hoping all that other drawing I did would make up for it.
Nope.
Nude models, as a class, are not especially attractive people. Just people who feel comfy being naked and holding poses.
Our lady tonight had a butt-crack tattoo. A single Chinese character. My opinion of her would soar to great heights if it turned out to be the Chinese word for “butt crack.”
When I was in art school, tattoos were unusual — and tattoos on young women were unheard of. But one of our models had one. She was a dumpy young woman with a daisy tattoo’d growing out of her butt crack. The whole class was riveted to that thing. You could walk around the room, and I guarantee you the darkest, most fully rendered object on anyone’s drawing was that daisy.
No, you may not see my drawings. Not until I get a whole lot better.
November 2, 2011 — 10:50 pm
Comments: 25
I’m Batman!
I’m Batman! I’m Batman! I’m Batman! Ahahahaha…I love that.
Now that Batman: Arkham City is about to be released, I was able to pick up Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of the Year edition for, like, ten quid. Because somehow, my unemployed ass isn’t embarrassed to play video games all day, but my cheap ass is too cheap to pay new game prices.
It’s a good ‘un. I like the hallucination sequences best, though the game suddenly becomes a side-scroller and the controls are all different and I tend to walk my Batman over a cliff.
I’ll be perfectly honest with you — I’m not in very good control of my Batman. I’m not getting the hang of the commands. I just mash buttons and hope for the best.
Also — while I’m being honest — I get a kick out of it when Harley Quinn leans over my dead body and chants “loser, loser, loser – ha!”
Hey, if anybody else is on Steam, would you friend me, please? I play as AuntieWeasel. You don’t want me on your team or anything — I’m an old lady with old lady reflexes and I avoid multiplayer like a plague of zombies — but it’s just killing me every time I log in and Steam tells me “You Have 0 Friends.”
Geez, rub it in, why don’t you?
November 1, 2011 — 9:27 pm
Comments: 26
Boo!
Okay, okay…Ray Villafane, I ain’t. But I couldn’t find my modeling tools. Also, I suck at pumpkin carving.
Hallowe’en wasn’t a thing here when Uncle B were a lad. It is now. Not a huge thing, but a very definite holiday, much in the style of the American version.
If I had to guess, I’d point a finger at retailers, yearning after that sweet candy-and-costume money. Older Brits mill about confusedly at Hallowe’en, muttering questions.
Is there any special food we eat on the 31st? Do we send cards? Is there a greeting? They worry about these things.
Happy All Hallows, anyhoo! Our clocks changed already, so we’re a bit out of synch tonight. Oh, and…BEAK-BEAK-BUTT-BUTT. Pass it on.
October 31, 2011 — 11:29 pm
Comments: 21
Yeah, this guy
His name is Ray Villafane and his motto is “You bet it’s a real Pucking Fumpkin!”
I love this guy. He’s an exquisite modeler, and his choice of media reflects a refreshing humility (he works in pumpkins and also sand).
I know you’ve seen his stuff before; they trot him out every Hallowe’en. This year, the Last Vegas Sun ran a couple of excellent slideshows of his work (here and here).
On his website, he’s selling a set of his seven indispensable carving tools and a pair of instructional DVDs (also a couple of rad t-shirts).
I’m sorely tempted — pumpkin carving is one of those things I think I should be good at, and I am not — but international postage and duties would probably make the whole package eye-wateringly expensive.
Anyway, Happy Hallowe’en, y’all! (Yeah, I know the 31st Monday, but I wanted to leave you with some cool stuff to look at over the weekend).
October 28, 2011 — 8:30 pm
Comments: 22
Guess what? Chicken butts!
So the chickens put themselves to bed at dusk every night, and half an hour later I steal out to set up the wildlife camera and look in on them. Say goodnight, as it were.
When I look in the henhouse, I’m going to see one of the following things:
butt-butt-butt-butt
butt-butt-butt-beak
butt-butt-beak-butt
butt-beak-butt-butt
beak-butt-butt-butt
butt-beak-butt-beak
beak-butt-butt-beak
butt-beak-beak-butt
beak-beak-butt-butt
butt-butt-beak-beak
beak-butt-beak-beak
butt-beak-beak-beak
beak-beak-beak-beak
So I have two questions. First, for you programmer types, this is basically a four-digit binary number, right? There must be some neat-o mathemagical way to work out how many permutations there are, and to ensure I haven’t missed any. Um, right?
And secondly — WHAT ARE THE CHICKENS TRYING TO TELL ME?
p.s. I know what you’re thinking. You think this is beak-butt-beak-butt. Well, you’re wrong. It’s always the two older girls at the left and the two babies at the right, but I lifted Mapp off her perch to check her feet and accidentally put her back in the wrong place (she’s going to be very cross when she wakes up in the wrong spot tomorrow).
So today’s secret message is BEAK-BEAK-BUTT-BUTT.
October 27, 2011 — 9:38 pm
Comments: 44
No. No, no, no.
I can’t possibly vote for Newt. His face is too small. That little pinched face all scrunched up in the middle of that big head. Oh, no.
Also, Newt Gingrich. When he was a thing, my shirts had shoulder pads. I am not going back to that place.
Also, “Newt.” Jesus. Dude’s name is Newton Leroy.
Newton Leroy. Willard Mitt. Barack Hussein. Criminy buckets, what’s gone screwy with American politics?
How about — Vote for Herman Cain. He doesn’t even have a middle name.
October 26, 2011 — 7:46 pm
Comments: 50