I hate to pick nits. I mean, I really, REALLY hate to pick nits…
So, we had our own personal bonfire night on Saturday. That’s common — to let off your own fireworks the weekend after the 5th. On the general principle that they were going to join us for the experience whether they liked it or not, we invited the neighbors over.
Fireworks, by the way, are sold freely here, and in the most unlikely places. Our grocery store. Our garden center. A local bookshop. Quite fierce ones, too. Brits have trouble wrapping their heads around the idea that there are places in the States you can legally buy a .357 magnum revolver, but not a roman candle.
We had wine and beer and hotdogs and popcorn and fire and explosives and a really good time. The neighbors brought over their granddaughter, who is about four and cute as the proverbial button. Kids are excitement multipliers.
So the next morning, we get this call, “ummm…thanks…had a nice time…probably should mention…turns out granddaughter has headlice…” AAAAAAIIIIIIIII!
I think we’re clear, but it raises the topic: does anybody know where the surge of headlice comes from? When I was a kid in the US, nobody but the lowest had headlice. It was a matter for some shame. Now it seems outbreaks are common across all social strata. Uncle B says it’s the same in the UK. He puts it down to central heating, but we had central heating everywhere when I was a kid.
Any public health types out there know what this is all about?
November 10, 2009 — 8:33 pm
Comments: 27
Mmmm mmmm mmmm. Thanks, Nancy!
220-215. No Congress has ever tried to ram through such a huge change with so little public support by such a narrow margin. Not since the run-up to the Civil War, anyhow. And so I don’t actually believe this healthcare shit sandwich will ever make it to law. It has a long, long way to go and it barely cleared the first hurdle.
It may be that the only outcome of Obamacare will be to ignite fifty percent of the country with incandescent antigovernment rage. You know, that nice fifty percent in flyover country who coach Little League, make Frito pie for their new neighbors and go to church more than once a week.
We may really and truly owe Nancy thanks for this turdburger.
Still, I thought some of y’all might like to write your congresswanker with some less amiable sentiments, so I made up a few handy postcards. They’re in the new section. Problem is, the one I think most appropriate — the Shit Sammich, above — is invisible unless you’ve gone into your Zazzle settings and upped them to at least PG-13. On account of the word “shit” being in there. But you can reach it from this direct link.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “jesus christ, you oily crapweasel, is there no end to this attempted picking of pockets?” Well, this time you’re wrong. This time. A postcard is a buck; my markup is nuffink. I’m just trying to help you express yourselfs with my beautiful arts, m’kay?
If you’ve got any bright postcard ideas, sing out in the comments.
November 9, 2009 — 3:38 pm
Comments: 24
Now, let’s not jump to any hasty conclusions
Keep fucking that chicken, mainstream media!
November 6, 2009 — 3:31 pm
Comments: 35
Happy Guy Fawkes Night! Don’t burn anybody I wouldn’t burn…
I mentioned a while back that Sussex makes a Very Big Deal out of Bonfire Night, holding parades and fireworks and bonfires in one village or another most weekends between late September and late November.
Well, tonight — November 5 — is the real Guy Fawkes Night. By Sussex tradition, Lewes holds this one, the biggest one. That’s because Mary Tudor burned 17 Protestants in Lewes High Street while she was on the throne, so they kind of earned the right to a party. Yeah. It’s a whole sectarian thing.
Lewes has been trying to put people off recently. It’s getting big and out of hand, with Londoners coming down and all. So instead we went to one in the ancient tiny village of Icklesham tonight.
And a damn fine firework display they put on, too. They charge £3 a head and put it all toward next year’s fireworks. And they roast a pig (a heartbroken Uncle B was put off by the queue) and serve booze and dance about in ancient costumes and bang drums and burn a honking great huge pile of wood pallets with a Guy on.
You know, the nannies have been trying to shut this thing down for years. The fires and the crowds are both very big and very dangerous. Some bonfire societies drag their explosives through town carrying torches(!). Some Guys are rigged with dynamite(!). Some of the fireworks are homemade(!).
There was a sign saying “no sparklers — they will be confiscated!” under which a group of drunk people were happily waving sparklers. There’s lots of booze involved. This afternoon, we bought a whole big box of fireworks (for our own personal bonfire night) in the grocery store.
I wouldn’t count these people out just yet.
November 5, 2009 — 7:32 pm
Comments: 11
Anybody seen that damn donkey?
Yeah, I was hoping for a Republican blow-out. I’m disappointed the Hoffman race wasn’t a win, but it was a squeaker. Reading around the web this morning, it seems everyone — right, left and gooey caramel center — is claiming NY-23 just goes to show everything I’ve been saying all along was dead right.
Me, I’m not sure you can draw much of a conclusion from an endgame that tight. Casper Milquetoast went from single digits to within two points of the win in a month. With the DNC clamped around one ankle and the GOP clamped around the other.
Anyhow, let’s take a moment and appreciate Virginia and New Jersey. Not for the wins, for the turning of the tide
November 4, 2009 — 2:50 pm
Comments: 32
Hey, morons!
I was going to post something triumphalist about today’s elections, but it occurs to me that the counts won’t be final for a while. And New Jersey is currently looking like a squeaker.
So why not another attempt to pick the pockets of my pretend internet friends? Yes, that’s right — new crap in my store! I got around to embiggening the Moronosphere News Network logo.
But, wait! There’s a twist! These designs are customizable to include the URL of your very own Moronblog! Just hit the “customize” button in the product information and type in your thang.
That’s right — I’m targeting you at your weakest point: your overweening vanity! WIN!
So whether you regard Ace as your blog’s baby daddy or not, I don’t care. Shit, I don’t care if you never heard of blogging. I’m just trying to con you out of a little scratch here.
But for chrissakes, morons — don’t forget to re-size and re-center the text after you change it, m’kay? I won’t have you getting moron all over my nice designs.
ADDENDUM: Uncle B is getting itchy about the Dead Pool. The prizes, I mean. We promptly mailed out all three and haven’t heard if any of them got there. Enas? Mongo? Princess B? If canned goods aren’t getting past Customs, we’ll have to re-think. (But a magazine surely would be okay).
November 3, 2009 — 9:08 pm
Comments: 25
Long tails and ears for hats…
Oh, right. I was going to let this go. I’m not made of stone, you know.
OH, and — listen to the original J and the Ps theme (or the whole damn album. You knew there was an album, didn’t you?) here.
God, childhood sucked, didn’t it?
November 2, 2009 — 6:21 pm
Comments: 42
Alas, poor Stoaty!
Spotted on display in the gift shop of a nature reserve. Barbarians. Far too many bird people involved in the local reserves, if you ask me. They don’t have nearly the requisite respect for carnivores.
Have a good weekend, everyone. Be careful on Halloween. Remember, just because you were too drunk to remember, doesn’t mean you didn’t do it.
October 30, 2009 — 6:50 pm
Comments: 17
Mourning in America
Thanks to AliceH from D-Pud for kicking my tail, I’ve finally got a production version of Zombie Reagan up on the Zazzle site. Two Reagan shirt/mug variants and a bumper sticker. More to come.
Sadly, the product AliceH particularly wanted — Zombie Reagan postage stamps for mailing those critical government forms — is not to be. Violation of the postal guidelines:
• Result: Not Approved
• Policy Violations:o Design incorporates the name or likeness of a current or former world leader or politician, or a local, regional, national or international leader, religious figurehead, or politician.
I was hoping the undead version wouldn’t count.
Anyhoo, thanks to Alice (and Ace!) I’m well on my way to a cool twenty bucks!
October 28, 2009 — 6:54 pm
Comments: 27
Eating rodents, eating
The thing above is a harvest loaf. You find them in shops this time of year. Britons serve them at their…naked Gaia-invoking rituals, or whatever damn pagan thing they get up to at harvest time.
Anyhow, the traditional harvest loaf always has a little mouse baked into it.
Meanwhile, the Rat of Badger House has developed a taste for hand soap. Two new bars have vanished from the dish by the kitchen sink in the last week. And I mean vanished — not a trace. That’s got to be a major rodent, right there.
Then this gnawed lump appeared on the pantry shelf. Complete with gnawed wrapper, so it isn’t one of the missing kitchen bars.
I’ve switched to Pear’s (love that herb-y smell!) which seems to have put him off. So far.
What mystifies me is — no piles of waxy rat poops have turned up.
October 27, 2009 — 5:15 pm
Comments: 31