We’ve made a mess of everything
Well, the bookcase is in place and looking very handsome. Unfortunately, getting it there, we’ve made a complete wreck of the rest of the house. Piles of books and magazines and CDs. Dust and cobwebs everywhere. It’s all got to go…somewhere.
If you’ll excuse us…shit to do.
December 4, 2024 — 7:19 pm
Comments: 4
Say hello to my new bookcase
Wait, no…don’t say hello. It just might say hello back.
We picked this up at the auction house this afternoon. They described it as a ‘green man’ but it’s more sort of a lion headed foliate humanoid…thing.
The Victorians. What were they on?
December 3, 2024 — 7:47 pm
Comments: 9
Like the Cheshire cat…
Well, it made me laugh. Also, the car needs washing.
We had something of a milk panic over the weekend. The Twitterati got hold of the news that Bovaer, a feed product that supposedly makes cows fart 27% less methane, has been introduced into dairy herds on 30 farms. People no likee.
Turns out, the FDA approved it earlier this year after “a multi-year” study, so you’re probably getting it too.
Arla, a Danish/Swedish dairy cooperative, provides a ginormous number of milk-based products in this country and is starting to introduce it. Like, the only sure defense is to buy from a known farm or go organic. I hate organic because I think it’s a rip, but you can’t label a milk product organic if you use feed additives.
There’s been a mad scramble to find local dairy farms (it’s legal to sell raw milk at the farm gate here). I’ve never tried it, but people say it tastes amazing. Also, I know someone who knows someone who got TB drinking raw milk. So whatever.
On the whole, I suspect Bovaer metabolizes into something harmless, like the FDA claimed when they approved it. The farmers who have to handle the stuff raw have a different risk profile, though, and I’m not sure it won’t eventually have an impact on the cows.
I mean, you’re shifting their microbiome. I believe in microbiome. I tend my microbiome like a beautiful garden.
Have you ever tried raw milk?
December 2, 2024 — 7:07 pm
Comments: 7
EHHHHH EHHHHHH HEH EHHHH
Pine marten, if you’re wondering. This lovely specimen went for £30 at auction, £10 less than the lower guide price. A travesty.
I wasn’t there for the taxidermy, though. I was there for a silly piece of furniture, which I won. I’ll show you after we pick it up.
Why do stuffed mustelids always look like this? EHHHHHH. EHHHHHH. Have a good weekend! May you finish your turkey before December come.
November 29, 2024 — 6:08 pm
Comments: 8
Happy T’day!
I checked the exchange rate – £94 to £124 is $119.25 to $157.31. For a turkey.
To be fair, this is from a very special local farm but, I mean, how special can a turkey be? We always get the smallest bird available, which is about ten pounds in weight, and last year (from this same poncy farm) it was around £60. And we felt ripped off.
I think we’re getting a supermarket bird in protest this year. Anyway, that’s Christmas – for tonight, we had the butcher make us a turkey roll. We do Thanksgiving as an evening meal, so we’ll be firing it all up shortly.
Honestly, I think Uncle B is a more enthusiastic keeper of Turkey Day than I am.
November 28, 2024 — 6:54 pm
Comments: 15
Back in City 17
In honor of its 20th birthday, Half Life 2 got a major overhaul last week. It’s mostly updates to the console version, I gather – so not much of interest to me – but they have put developers commentary on the main game. That’s the speech bubble up there.
I love developers commentary – especially from Valve. It’s clear that they take playtesting with utmost seriousness, which is why they make infinitely replayable games. It’s fun to hear how they agonized over the smallest maps. The tell you at the outset you can’t be killed while listening to commentary.
They lie.
I thought it was such a shame I couldn’t play games here in the library with my ten year old computer. And then it struck me – this is a twenty year old game! It runs just fine on my funky old laptop. There has to be a world of ancient games in my Steam backlog that I can play while I wait for the AAA studios to get collective their heads out of their collective butts.
p.s. Did you know the voice of the Combine Overwatch AI is Ellen McClain – who played GLaDOS seven years later? I honestly didn’t recognize her. Her husband is the voice of most of the male NPCs in Half Life 2. He’s a fan of the game and says playing it is a weird experience.
November 27, 2024 — 7:45 pm
Comments: 5
Wikipedia: ruining my fun since 2001
‘The Aztec skull whistle is a unique and unsettling instrument that has fascinated historians and archaeologists for centuries. These whistles, typically shaped like human skulls, produce a blood-curdling, high-pitched sound that has been described as a “scream of death.”’
So says Brave AI. Just listen to these recordings. Spooky, neh?
You can even buy one from Amazon.
Then along comes Wikipedia:
“The whistle was discovered after the 1999 excavation of an Aztec temple at the Tlatelolco site, in Mexico City by archaeologists, revealed the remains of a 20-year-old sacrificial victim clutching various musical instruments, among them a small ceramic skull-shaped whistle. This artifact, later dubbed the “Aztec death whistle,” gathered public interest.”
Wait, there’s only the one? And it was discovered 25 years ago?
“The whistle’s sounds, analyzed through its functioning mechanism, have been noted to resemble the sound of wind and fall within the human hearing sensitivity range.”
It was dug up in the temple of the wind god Ehecatl, so that makes sense. But, I mean, the screaming?
“A common misconception is that this whistle produced a sharp shriek-like sound. However, these sounds credited as the Aztec death whistle are actually produced by much larger reproductions of the whistle.”
Larger reproductions and, apparently, blown with some kind of intense hydraulic mechanisms. I mean, you could blow a giant whoopee cushion with a foghorn and it would probably sound pretty scary.
I got played :(
November 26, 2024 — 5:41 pm
Comments: 8
You can have it if you want
At auction: “oil on canvas by Muriel A Jackson, framed woodland cottage scene, with witch tentatively walking towards.” Muriel was a strange lass.
Today I bumped into someone I haven’t seen in a while. I asked him how it was going and he said his big brother died last week. He died alone.
“It’s his own fault,” he said, “he was a womanizer his whole life. We think he took up drinking toward the end. And, of course, he was a chain smoker.”
I’m like, “Wait! His life was filled with women and booze and cigarettes and he died at 81 in his own bed in his sleep? Your brother is MY HERO!”
November 25, 2024 — 5:15 pm
Comments: 3
You don’t look so good, Punkin’
Actually, it’s worse. I put him at the end of the drive, in the traditional post-Halloween position, and after our recent cold weather he’s about three inches tall. I don’t think he’s going to make it.
Tonight’s the last of the cold ones. After this, warm, wet and windy. Like 40+ mph alllll weekend long. It’s Storm Bert.
Who the hell names a storm Bert? And how is it late November and we’re only on B? This must be some newfangled storm naming regime.
Two days of howling wind! I shall go mad! You have a good weekend, though.
November 22, 2024 — 7:31 pm
Comments: 13
Uh-uh. Ain’t coming out.
We’re having our first cold snap of the season – three nights below freezing. That doesn’t sound much, but we’re ill prepared for it here. This is an ancient, damp house with sputtering central heating.
When I was a novice chicken keeper, I was puzzled to see my chickens hadn’t drunk up their water in three days. That’s when I realized it was frozen solid. Poor things – imagine them pecking at their rock hard water in amazement and distress.
Just a skim of ice on the chicken water today, but it’s cold enough in here that I’ve taken to my electric blanket and I ain’t coming out until he’s got a proper fire in the stove. I am typing this with one exposed finger.
I can hear it’s lit…
November 21, 2024 — 6:46 pm
Comments: 8