We done did the tree
It was a dark and stormy night, almost. The wind was blowing a gale, the rain stung like needles, nearly dark, and Uncle B said cheerily, “so, we going to do the tree then?”
!
The tree was still in its bag in the garage at this point. Next you know, we’re out there in the gathering gloom grinding the butt off a spruce with an alligator (worked a treat, too). We made it!
Our tree this year is an abies lasiocarpa, a new species here. Internet tells me it grows from Alaska to Northern California, so you may know it. I think I knew it as a balsam fir.
It has a lovely tapering shape, top to bottom (our usual spruce is fat-bottomed and sparse at the top). It has soft needles that don’t poke you when you handle it. Sadly, though – despite what Wikipedia says – it’s not at all smelly.
We paid £43 for a 5′ tree. That’s about…$54. How does that compare?
December 11, 2023 — 8:19 pm
Comments: 9
Old woman is lost and confused
I thought for sure I’d called a new Dead Pool when Kissinger died. He was a fan favorite. Apparently, I did not.
So when I called it for Norman Lear, I thought it was a whole ‘nother Dead Pool. It was not.
Unwinning someone seems a churlish move, so I will recognize TheFritz as the proper winner of Dead Pool 172, and Armybrat a co-winner by way of my incompetence. It has been done before, ISTR.
Rich Rostrum, as usual, pulled me up on it. Rich, for accounting purposes, would you prefer I called Armybrat’s win DP 173?
The picture is the first row of examples when you give the prompt lost and confused old woman to Craiyon.com. These were the least worst – one old dear looked like she was bleeding from the eyes.
And no, none of these old women look a thing like me.
December 7, 2023 — 7:49 pm
Comments: 6
Dead Pool 173: My, it’s cold in here
‘Tis the season of old Dead Pool favorites falling off the perch. Kissinger. Huh. At last. Congratulations to thefritz.
I wonder if anybody ever called him Hank. I’m guessing not.
Get ready – here we go!
0. Rule Zero (AKA Steve’s Rule): your pick has to be living when picked. Also, nobody whose execution date is circled on the calendar. Also, please don’t kill anybody. Plus (Pupster’s Rule) no picking someone who’s only famous for being the oldest person alive.
1. Pick a celebrity. Any celebrity — though I reserve the right to nix picks I never heard of (I don’t generally follow the Dead Pool threads carefully, so if you’re unsure of your pick, call it to my attention).
2. We start from scratch every time. No matter who you had last time, or who you may have called between rounds, you have to turn up on this very thread and stake your claim.
3. Poaching and other dirty tricks positively encouraged.
4. Your first choice sticks. Don’t just blurt something out, m’kay? Also, make sure you have a correct spelling of your choice somewhere in your comment. These threads get longish and I use search to figure out if we have a winner.
5. It’s up to you to search the thread and make sure your choice is unique. I’m waayyyy too lazy to catch the dupes. Popular picks go fast.
6. The pool stays open until somebody on the list dies. Feel free to jump in any time. Noobs, strangers, drive-bys and one-comment-wonders — all are welcome.
7. If you want your fabulous prize, you have to entrust me with a mailing address. If you’ve won before, send me your address again. I don’t keep good records.
8. The new DeadPool will begin 6pm WBT (Weasel’s Blog Time) the Friday after the last round is concluded.
The winner, if the winner chooses to entrust me with a mailing address, will receive an Official Certificate of Dick Winning and a small original drawing on paper suffused with elephant shit particles. Because I’m fresh out
December 1, 2023 — 6:00 pm
Comments: 44
I got receipts!
I beat Uncle B about the head and shoulders with an inflated pig’s bladder until he rendered up the recipe. For the cake curious:
The Receipt
8 oz butter
8 oz soft dark brown sugar (ideally muscovado)
1 tablespoon black treacle
Grated peel of 1 lemon
4 medium sized eggs
9oz plain flour
1 tsp mixed spice
1/2 nutmeg grated
4 oz glace cherries
4 oz ground almonds
2 tablespoon sherry or brandy
The Method (Stavislavski did not know about this)
Cream the softened butter with a wooden spoon. Beat it, in fact. It owed you everything and is very lazy.
Add the sugar and treacle (keep beating – it will work eventually if you force it to). Sieve the flour and spices into the mix, stirring thoroughly. Beat the eggs (S&M time again) then stir into the mix, a little at a time. Add the fruit. If you can’t get mixed fruit, choose your own combination of currants, raisins and sultanas with mixed peel in proportions to taste. Also add grated lemon peel, nutmeg and brandy or sherry at this stage. Also ground almonds.
Stir it all very thoroughly, folding it all in, (an electric mixer will help but a wooden spoon is better – tradition!).
Place the gloppy mixture into an 8″ round cake tin lined with buttered greaseproof paper or baking parchment. Take several thick sheets of brown paper (newspaper works as well) and wrap the tin with it, tying it with string (not nylon string!). Cut a further piece of greaseproof to sit on top of the cake but cut a hole in the middle about 1″ diameter -coin size and shape.
Bake in the middle of an oven at 300 Fahrenheit for 3 1/2-4 hours. After three hours take a look at it. If the mixture is coming way from the sides of the tin, it may be on the way, so turn the oven down a little and pop hem (see Eliza Acton for why ‘hem’ is correct) back in. When the top seems golden brown and the mix is slightly away from the sides you can insert a skewer (if not, a long toothpick). If that comes out without any mix stuck to it, yer cake’s done.
This is important! Leave it to thoroughly cool, then carefully extract from the tin (I like spring loaded cake tins with removable bases). When absolutely cool, wrap in two sheets of greaseproof and silver foil after that. Store in a tin.
A week later, unwrap your cake. Cackle merrily and prick it with a toothpick until it confesses and then feed it with two tablespoons of brandy. My Canadian relatives use whisky, but Canadians, eh?
Repeat weekly. Be certain to drink what is left over from feeding the cake. Icing I don’t do…nor marzipan…
God save King Big Ears!…on second thoughts…maybe you lot were right after all. They say New Hampshire is nice at this time of the year.
Do they make worm pies there?
Henry Kissinger has fallen off the perch at last. Let us congregate here tomorrow for DEAD POOL 173.
November 30, 2023 — 7:53 pm
Comments: 6
Happy T’day!
For reasons I can’t articulate, the traditional presidential pardon of the turkey pisses me off. I don’t know. I’d totally support the first guy who said, “screw it – let’s eat this bird!”
I did some digging around but, believe it or not, it isn’t clear when the tradition started. Maybe with Lincoln (but probably not). You’d think something to do with the office of the president would be better documented.
Uncle B pointed out to me some years ago that Americans have two turkey holidays a month apart, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. So we just have a “nice meal” on Thanksgiving. Tonight, it’s steak and a baked potato with – I hope – homemade dinner rolls. It’s so cold in the kitchen, I don’t know if I can get them to proof properly.
Happy Thanksgiving, y’all – and turn up tomorrow for the Dead Pool. Maybe I’ll even get the number right this time.
November 23, 2023 — 6:10 pm
Comments: 7
Wherein I tell on myself
Though I work for a historical society (no, I will not say ‘an’ historical society), my job is fairly physical. I have to set up tables and stack chairs and do a lot of minor janitorial work. I manage just fine. In fact, it’s a kick to have a job where I am prized for my youth and strength.
But we’ve just had a sad, rainy weekend where I sat in this comfy chair for two days hardly moving, and I’ve put my back out.
There’s a lesson in that, and I have resolutely refused to learn it for years.
The image is courtesy of deepai.org – the prompt was “a ferret lying on a sofa” in a Renaissance style. It’s not great, but my first try was “a weasel reclining on a sofa” in a fuzzy animal style, and the result was a pile of fur with two eyes set vertically at one end and a sort of nose on the other. Nightmare fuel.
Well, that was a short Dead Pool. Poor old Rosalynn Carter, cut down in her prime.
November 20, 2023 — 8:20 pm
Comments: 5
Let me tell you how my day started
I was biking ahead of yet another storm this morning. Bearing in mind how wet I got the other day, I wore my full banana suit. I was tearing down the path when my bike suddenly shuddered to a halt.
Upon examination, a doggy poop bag had been picked up by the chain and wrapped securely around the gear shifting mechanism at the back. I mean, that sucker was cinched up tight.
For once, I wasn’t carrying my trusty Leatherman. Not even a pocket knife. What did I have?
My fingers, dear reader. My fingers.
I won’t overdramatize what happened next. I was able to pick away the neck of the bag in little bits and then advance the chain to free it. I don’t even know if there was poop in the bag.
It wasn’t like squeezing a pastry bag full of flaming dogshit, which is I’m sure the image that went through everyone’s mind. In fact, I even made it in ahead of the rain. But still – screw you, Thursday morning!
Dead Pool tomorrow! Comest thou here and choose!
November 16, 2023 — 7:47 pm
Comments: 6
Go outside and look up!
You won’t see this. I mean, you will see this, but tiny. But bigger than usual!
Actually, Jupiter was at its closest and brightest was on November 4, but Uncle B read on t’Internet that it was bright tonight and we ran outside and looked up and it sure was.
You may think a dot in the sky being slightly larger than usual isn’t very exciting, but Jupiter is special. At any given time, you can see up to four of Jupiter’s moons with an ordinary pair of binoculars.
The first time I read that, there was an unusual confluence and, sure enough, there I saw all four of them – dot-dot-dot-dot – in a perfectly straight line, evenly spaced, on the left side of Jupiter. Which looked totally fake and wrong.
Tonight I saw at least one moon, but holding binoculars to my face and staring up gave me the dizzies, so I didn’t persist.
Also visible with binoculars: NASA ladies lose their handbag in space. You can watch video of it tumbling through the cosmos. Not unheard of, but it does seem the lady astronauts lose their bags more often.
“In September 2023, the European Space Agency estimated 35,290 objects were being tracked and cataloged by the various space surveillance networks, with the total mass of objects orbiting Earth amounting to more than 11,000 tons.”
Wear a hat.
November 15, 2023 — 7:16 pm
Comments: 5
Wait…what?!?
This just landed in my inbox. I nearly threw it away thinking it was spam. I swear, I haven’t had any notification from the Home Office.
Guys. I did it! I’M GOING TO BE A LIMEY!
November 14, 2023 — 8:15 pm
Comments: 8
What’s brown and sticky?
Uncle B bought hisself a stick. Apparently, it’s a super special kind of walnut tree that can grow and fruit in a pot. He’s been deep in conversation with an expert walnut grower on the other side of the country and this is the result.
We shall see.
We were expecting another violent rainstorm today. I looked at the weather satellite this morning and reckoned I could outrun it.
I was wrong. I was absolutely drenched by the time I got to the office. It was early enough that I could peel off the outer layer and put it on radiators to dry out a bit, but I was stuck with the soaking wet jeans. Worse, my art club had its AGM this afternoon, so I stayed late. In my wet jeans.
I am shattered.
I had to do the minutes. I’m often asked to take notes at meetings because everyone tells me I take very good notes at meetings. Now, you may think this is a ploy to trick me into taking the notes because it’s an awful bore and nobody else wants to do it and…okay, maybe.
But I do take damn good minutes, and I’ll tell you my secret: I leave most of it out. I boil the meeting down to the main points and cut the crosstalk. By the time anyone else sees my minutes, that’s exactly the way they remember it going down.
The aging membership helps.
November 13, 2023 — 8:06 pm
Comments: 12