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Miracles of Cuban medicine

So, I’m guessing they have Hugo Chavez hooked up to the latest modern machinery. While I suspect they will soon reach the limits of potato-based medicine, I’m not comfy calling the Dead Pool until we get an official death notice. That could take Some Time.

(On an unrelated note, did you see where Ariel Sharon is showing significant brain activity hooked up to a Functional MRI? Brrrrr).

No new Dead Pool tomorrow, even in the unlikely event they call him out before six WBT. So, tough luck, Hutch…for now.

February 28, 2013 — 10:34 pm
Comments: 24

*burp*

 

 

Uncle B had to go to London today, so the livestock and I have been on our own, whoopin’ it up big time.

Oh, there were chickens and banjos, two pork sammiches and a candy bar. There was Judge Judy and a movie. There were underpants! It was pandemonium.

It was underpantsdemonium!

Okay, that was lame, but it’s late and I haven’t posted anything and he’s home now.

I got most of the stains out of the carpets and the hall rug covers the rest, so…just…don’t say anything, okay?

 

— 12:31 am
Comments: 38

Scots go potty for Krispy Kreme

“The first few days were utterly chaotic, horrendous, and I know that police were called.”

The Krispy Kreme in Edinburgh has applied for special permission to stay open all night. On account of insatiable local demand. For some reason. Really, are there enough R’s in all the world for a drunken Scot to say “Krispy Kreme”?

Life insists on screwing with my cultural stereotypes.

You’ll be relieved to know the picture isn’t from the Edinburgh Krispy Kreme, it’s from a page about their stores in the Middle East. They have eighty.

No reason not to sell donuts in the Middle East, I just…that image of Keffiyeh Man holding up a glazed donut messes with my norms in the worst way (also, if they were going to use t-shirt guy twice, did they think we wouldn’t notice they flipped the picture and the 2 on his shirt is backwards?)

KK is, of course, an artifact of the Deep South (or the South, anyway…I think the first one was in North Carolina). Fond memory of childhood. Teen years, actually. Krispy Kreme was the only place a seriously impaired weasel could get a cup of coffee at three in the morning. As I recall, our local in Nashville was across from the Old Colony Cleaners (some wag always stole the “y”).

The whole back wall was glass, and we could watch as the donuts moved down a conveyor past the various Stations of the Cross. Most fascinating thing that the aforementioned seriously impaired weasel ever saw.

They give a pretty good feel for the experience here. Watch it a few dozen times, seriously impaired.

February 26, 2013 — 11:37 pm
Comments: 46

Prize winners

I mentioned this earlier — this is Vita’s sister (same farm, same flock, same breed, same year, same batch of eggs) winning it all. Needless to say, they look a lot alike. They’re chickens. But Vita has a darker beak, and a permanent look of rising terror.

Bottom of the pecking order, poor thing.

That would be my cue to spoil her rotten, but she’s even scareder of me than she is of the other chickens. She makes baby-chick peeping noises and runs from me, despite being a big, blowsy bird. For a bantam.

Today, she tried to lay an egg in the driveway and she let me scoop her up and carry her off to a proper nest. The Power of Estrogen.

Eh, sorry to fob you off with such weak sauce. I’m feeling vaguely and indescribably but very distinctly unwell today. Dunno what it is. I might have picked up a bug. Or, you know, I might have eaten something that was bumping around in the back of the car for two weeks. Maybe.

February 25, 2013 — 10:15 pm
Comments: 22

Round 46: man, that’s a lot of dicks!


Davem123 wins dick with…some…guy. Honestly, you people and your sports thingies. You’re the reason I could never win at Trivial Pursuits.

Okay, let’s hope this next round has some traction, because I’m, like, five dicks behind at this point.

Ready?

Okay then!

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.

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.

The prize? Dick! Dick! Dick! Dick!

February 22, 2013 — 6:00 pm
Comments: 117

SQUEEEE!

Hello, we’re new!

There’s one particular flock that is *always* the first to lamb (farmers control these things pretty closely). We swung by today on our way to lunch, and lookit! They’re old enough to have their ear tags and numbers sprayed on (this is 44 and his brother, 44)…but only just, I reckon. We first spotted a little pile of black lambs, which are so cute it hurts (probably the novelty; they don’t raise many around here), but they had dispersed before we got the camera.

And, guess what? It’s snowing tonight! Poor little baa-baas.

Okay, y’all. Back here. Tomorrow. Six WBT. We’re going to do it again.
Dead Pool Round Forty Six!

February 21, 2013 — 10:38 pm
Comments: 19

Nice going, socialists

That’s the front window of a little music shop in Shropshire. The manager, on his way out, paid a sign writer to decorate it thusly.

That’s a great wickedness of the local system of government — the power and incompetence of county councils. It was a Tory government, unfortunately, that decided to cut costs by combining councils into larger and fewer bodies. The upshot is, our local services are controlled by people who live far away, who are apt to see us more as cash cows than a constituency.

At one time — so I’m told — councils were run by local businessmen on a voluntary (or at least modestly remunerated) basis. Now, of course, it’s run by our global professional ruling class (read: smug, self-important lefties) on eye-watering salaries. And those lefties in turn hire scores of other lefties, in the form of Lesbian Outreach Managers and Pet Hair Recycling Wardens.

But, hey, if there’s anything socialist dimbulbs know how to do, it’s make money, right? Cut essential services and raise taxes! Pff! Easy peasy. It’s not like raising prices ever changes buying behavior.

Down here in the sunny South, most towns still have a charming high street (read: Main Street) full of interesting little shops and pubs and cafes. We do as much buying as we can in these places. You pay a bit more, but you get undeniably better goods and help keep the heart of the town beating.

We’ve watched as high streets all over our shopping territory visibly shrink, thanks to…well, read the sign.

— 1:42 pm
Comments: 21

Things you don’t like to see in your inbox

This isn’t spam. I’m registered with the US Embassy in London, so’s somebody knows where I’m supposed to be in case I…bump into Dennis Moore and I’m fresh out of lupins or something.

They don’t contact me often. The previous email I got from them was telling me the last mailing day for packages to reach home by Christmas. Then this.

The Department of State has issued this Worldwide Caution to update information on the continuing threat of terrorist actions and violence against U.S. citizens and interests throughout the world. U.S. citizens are reminded to maintain a high level of vigilance and to take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness. This replaces the Worldwide Caution dated July 18, 2012, to provide updated information on security threats and terrorist activities worldwide.

I don’t remember getting a Caution in July. I think it would’ve stuck in my head. Anyhoo, it rambles on for two thousand words of badly-formatted blah-blah-blah — stuff pretty much anyone who follows international news would probably know. This bit was cute:

In September 2012, civil unrest, large scale protests and demonstrations as well as violent attacks – some of which were in reaction to an anti-Islamic video and cartoons – targeted U.S. missions and schools overseas including in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan, and Yemen.

That’s as close as it got to Benghazi. Note the dollop of weasel sauce in the middle. If anyone wants a copy of the whole boring thing, I’ll send it to you or post it or something.

So! Why? And why now?

February 20, 2013 — 11:49 pm
Comments: 15

Chicken in a Blender

Gentlemen, we can rebuild her. We have the technology.

Heh. Got sidetracked playing with 3D modeling tonight. Damn, there’s a lot to learn just to get started. I keep inventing geometries that are positively non-Euclidean.

To be honest, I tried sticking a toe in politics tonight, and pulled back a smoking stump. Ugh. Great. Now the other kids’ll call me Ol’ Smoky Stumptoe.

Oh, hey, I know…computer tip for you. You know I picked up that address book virus a couple of weeks ago? Well, contrary to what I told you at the time, I later found out Malwarebytes didn’t clean it up for me and the damn virus sent out another embarrassing mailshot the next day. Malwarebytes has never let me down before, so I says to myself, “I bet they have an online forum with, like, tame geeks and stuff.”

They have. Go to that link, post your problem, and wait. They take turns troubleshooting threads. There’s some kind of credentialling program for guys who are allowed to troubleshoot virus removal, so the people on there are all vetted.

It took a bunch of back-and-forth and some running of utilities and posting of logs, but we got it all off eventually. In the end, I PayPal’d the guy who helped me a few bucks. By which I mean five of them. Eh, I’ve been unemployed a long time now.

February 19, 2013 — 11:58 pm
Comments: 19

First! (Then second, third and fourth).

There it is, folks. Proof that Spring is just around the corner, if you can hang on a little longer.

Specialist laying breeds will lay all through the Winter (and all chickens will lay through the Winter if you give them a few hours of artificial light). But fancy poncy fru-fru chickens like ours knock off between, oh, mid October and mid February. It’s the amount of daylight what does it.

How precise is a chicken’s internal clock? Wellll…Lucia laid that first egg (the grubby one on the end) on the 15th of February. Last year, she laid her first egg on the 16th of February. Of course, she is the Mary Poppins of chickens — practically perfect in every way.

Example: given that I have four chickens, you might assume that each of my girls has kindly laid me an egg. Well, you would be wrong. (Seriously, don’t you get tired of being wrong all the time?). The score would be Lucia 3, Vita 1. The other two just…better not…look too delicious until they start laying some damn eggs. Moochers!

I’ve been chatting up my chicken pushers, scoping out the new Spring collection. Hoping to add two more soon. Turns out, Vita’s sister won Best in Show at the Reading and District Bantam Society Annual Show last year. Same breed, same year, same flock, same batch of eggs.

Vita is the beautifullest of chickens, but she’s the very bottom of the pecking order in our little flock. Ain’t life funny like that?


Another Dead Pool?! *sigh*. I had no idea who Jerry Buss was, but Uncle Al was so chuffed to win dick, I couldn’t bear to see a hurt looked on that adorable little mug of his. You do have an adorable little mug, right Al? I mean, I had an Uncle Al who was as ugly as a smacked ass, but that’s neither here nor there. Meet you back here Friday, 6WBT for Dead Pool Round Umpty-ump!

February 18, 2013 — 10:59 pm
Comments: 33