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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

So join us why, don’t you?

I know, I know…I’m an addict. I’m not doing myself any favors here, but I canNOT keep away from the tossed word salad that is Meghan McCain’s Daily Beast column.

I can’t fisk the whole thing or I’d teach my keyboard to fly. Gah! It’s like stream of consciousness lightly sprinkled with punctuation.

Only someone as rich as Meghan could uncritically accept the story that a New York City schoolteacher made $15,000 a year (the first woman she talked to). Or that birth control is somehow harder or more expensive than bearing that lady’s six children.

But most of the people who I spoke to had real stories of hardship and despair. Tom Quigley, a 23-year-old college graduate from Buffalo, N.Y., said he couldn’t find a full-time job after graduating from college. He’s taking a cross country bike trip, and he plans on stopping at all the various Occupy Wall Street gatherings across the nation.

That’s a real story of hardship and despair? Really? I couldn’t find a full-time job right out of school, either, so I slung donuts for Dunkin’ for a couple of years (I won’t lie; I loved that damn job).

I’m the daughter of one of the most long-standing senators in politics and I have been given every opportunity that anyone could possibly dream of.

Quick, get John McCain a chair!

I was given those opportunities as a result of the hard work from both sides of my family.

No, Meghan, you were given those opportunities because of money. You inherit money. You don’t inherit hard work. Your forebears may (or may not) have worked hard for the money, but you just woke up under a pile of it. If you want credit for hard work, you’ll have to do some of your own.

What struck me more than anything is that for the first time possibly in history, people aren’t being given the same opportunities that my parents and grandparents had.

First time in the history of what? Oh, god, this is such a tragic mess.

The last paragraph…oh, you just know how great it sounded in her head. All quirky and Cohn-brothers.

As I was leaving Occupy Wall Street, I spotted a man who was attending the festivities wearing a giant cape made of tin foil. He was pretending that he could fly, but the tin foil just kept blowing around him, making an empty crinkling sound. He isn’t the kind of superhero that these people need.

Aluminum cape, tin ear. Not sure the dude in the picture is Meghan’s bud, but he’s the only hit I got for foil and Occupy Wall Street (nicked from Weasel Zippers).

Okay, I’ll stop now.

October 25, 2011 — 10:21 pm
Comments: 34

Our incurious press

Did you see this thing on the front page of Drudge last week? Drudge’s headline writer saw this picture and wrote “Protesters in Pakistan burn Hillary…”

Me, I saw the picture and thought, “wow! Cousin Mamoud has a really, really nice color inkjet printer.”

Seriously, that’s a sharp print (click for color). I make that an A1 size at least (max width 33.1″). A printer like that’s going to run you, I dunno, at least a thousand quid (that’s $1,500 for you Yanks). How much is that in goats?

The pic is Hillary’s State Department bio portrait. It’s the first in line if you do a Google images search and specify ‘large’ – though the actual image is the Wikipedia version. Spec: (2,070 × 2,588 pixels, file size: 3.69 MB, MIME type: image/jpeg). So, decent internet connection; comfortable on the web. Copy of Photoshop, most likely.

I wonder what they do with that rig between Hillary burnings.

Paper for those printers ain’t cheap, either, so they must’ve made sure the photographer was in place and ready to go before they touched it off (all’s I’m saying is, these things look very different when you step back and include the photographer).

No, no big point. It’s just, we have a press that is obsessed with “the narrative” — they decide on a good story, then go looking for some shit to back it up. They’ll go on forever mechanically recording this boneheaded tribal street theater without ever looking behind the curtain, because it suits them.

Call me crazy — when I see dudes in the quaint native costume of goat-riddled Durka-durkastan holding up a flaming giclée print, I’m thinking what the hell? Why not make a little scratch running off Justin Bieber posters with that thing instead?

October 24, 2011 — 9:46 pm
Comments: 31

Round 21: race for the dick!


After forty-two years of batshit insane misrule, Moammar Gadhafi finally gets two in the hat. Hooray, and congratulations to Formerly Known as Skeptic.

Ready? Here we go…!

0. Rule Zero (AKA Steve’s Rule): your pick has to be living when picked. Also, nobody whose execution actually has a scheduled appointment.

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?

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 don’t want the fabulous prize, you’re too smart to be a regular. It takes me forever to put them in the mail, packages go by slow boat, typically take minimum eight to ten weeks and lose the will to live along the way.

8. The new DeadPool will begin 6pm WBT (Weasel’s Blog Time) the Friday after the last round is concluded.

What’re we playing for? Aunty’s dick!

October 21, 2011 — 6:00 pm
Comments: 129

Warner Brothers thanks you for your custom

I haven’t seen V for Vendetta, either in its comic book or movie form, but from the plot synopsis, I can see why anonymous glommed onto the mask as a fitting symbol.

But, geez, Guy Fawkes? Wanted to blow up parliament because he hoped the next king would be nicer to Catholics. Not really a man for our times. Oh, and he failed. Also, drawn and quartered.

Even better, those masks are made by Rubie’s Costume Company of Long Island, under license to Warner Brothers. They reckon they’ve sold 100,000, list price $9.99.

So, the delightful question is, just how much money has the anti-corporate-greed crowd generated for one of America’s richest corporations?

October 20, 2011 — 10:00 pm
Comments: 43

ding-ding-ding

Looks like it’s confirmed; Moammar Gadhafi’s been iced. Formerly known as Skeptic takes the dick!

Plenty of time to kick off a new Dead Pool.
Tomorrow. Six o’clock Weasel Blog Time!
Be there! Um, here.

— 3:09 pm
Comments: 18

I will force spiders and badgers on the enemy

“Now you got me whispering to a freak who thinks that fish have menstrual cycles.”

I’m always late to the party, so y’all have probably seen the Bad Lip Reading people. File this under “ideas I wish I’d thought of” — except that it takes some skill and hard work to overdub video as convincingly as these are.

They’re all worth a browse, but my favorite is still the Mitt Romney one that made the rounds yesterday. Not because I hate Romney (though I’m kind of working toward it), but because he’s such a polished character, it’s extra special fun hearing bugfuck crazy things come out of his mouth.

So — let’s go out and shop and grease a big nickel!

October 19, 2011 — 9:28 pm
Comments: 8