Happy St Paddy’s Day, peeps!
I didn’t think I had any Irish ancestry at all, but then I spent a couple of weeks digging around in ancestry.co.uk and found a branch of the family that set sail from Ireland. So probably there go the Irish jokes.
On a happier note, my French great-grandfather wasn’t. He had a French-sounding name (in the most common spelling) but I never managed to find any of his line outside Texas. So, French jokes back in the repertoire.
I managed to get the main branches of my family back to the 18th C (when they emigrated — early adopters, us). But grandpa French-sounding-name’s line petered out in the Nineteenth. With somebody in a Texas Home for Imbeciles.
Yee-haw and pass the green beer!
ADDENDUM: Carl wins the Dead Pool with magician Paul Daniels. I had no idea who he was, but Uncle B tells me he was super famous, so it’s a fair win. I think we have enough time to queue up another one for tomorrow, yes? Meet me here at 6 for Dead Pool Round 84! (Notez bien: Weasel Blog Time is the same as GMT — it doesn’t take any notice of the clock change).
March 17, 2016 — 9:48 pm
Comments: 9
More eyes
So yesterday, Uncle B asks if I’d looked at my checking account lately. I say no and he says go look. And this was on the front page of Lloyd’s bank.
The urge to write “now, some of my best friends…” or “of course, what happens between two consenting adults…” or “well, I’m surely no prude…” is powerful. The instinct to conform to the zeitgeist is mighty and, these days, the consequences of stepping out of line can be swift and severe.
But I’m not going to do that because I’m angry.
This is not their job. They’re my bank. We have a business relationship. They’re supposed to do things that appeal to me as a customer, not lecture me on social justice. There is a lot — I mean a real lot — of this going on in advertising over here at the moment. Please god we’re reaching peak SJW.
Related: this guy says he invented the term “virtue signalling” and tracks its spread.
March 16, 2016 — 10:48 pm
Comments: 13
Just for fun…
Heh. Deborah HH suggested this pitcha in the previous thread comments. I had fun making it.
Problem is, I don’t think Che would object, I don’t think Bernie would object and I don’t think Bernie’s supporters would object. And, honestly, if a picture isn’t mean-spirited and off-pissing, it kinda ruins the game.
March 15, 2016 — 8:39 pm
Comments: 20
Inspirational quotes
Angry eyes in the picture belong to serial killer Carl Panzram (1891–1930). Ordinarily, it isn’t necessary to explain that a serial killer is a bad person, but Panzram is pretty much in his own little world of evil badness. Theft, arson, murder and sodomy. Lots and lots of sodomy. He claimed he didn’t like sodomy all that much, but it was a terrific put-down.
Doesn’t really pass the smell test, does it?
Anyway, they caught him and hanged him, eventually. As they were putting the noose around his neck, he spat in the face of the executioner and uttered this famous quotation: “I wish the entire human race had one neck and I had my hands around it!”
I find that catchy phrase coming to mind more and more often of late, in different contexts. Like, “I wish the entire European Parliament had one neck and I had my hands around it!” and “I wish everybody running for President of the United States had one neck and I had my hands around it!” and “I wish every single lying sack of shit in the media had one neck and I had my hands around it!”
Try it! It’s fun!
p.s. his other famous quotation is “In my lifetime I have murdered 21 human beings, I have committed thousands of burglaries, robberies, larcenies, arsons and, last but not least, I have committed sodomy on more than 1,000 male human beings. For all these things I am not in the least bit sorry.”
Please don’t try that one.
March 14, 2016 — 10:06 pm
Comments: 17
Dead Pool Round 83: First lambs of Spring edition
Oops! Almost forgot to queue up a Dead Pool! Real quick then, ExpressoBold takes another dick with Nancy Reagan. God speed, ma’am. Now she knows if those séances were worth the money.
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 of fairy shit particles.
March 11, 2016 — 6:00 pm
Comments: 74
What the hell, Belgians?
There’s something super creepy about the Belgians. Like, these guys. The Blancs Moussis, or ‘clad in white’, from the mid-Lenten celebration of Stavelot (it was last weekend). “During the afternoon a procession of floats travel through the streets showering crowds with confetti and flogging them with pig bladders.”
Oh, and Kattenstoet (means Cat Parade) where they commemorate that time they threw cats from the towers by throwing toy cats from the towers. Those and more creepy Belgian festivals at the link above.
I’m not sure why this story has floated up again, since it happened in the Nineties. I think because his lawyer has been telling stories to a local magazine. Innyhoo, Marc Dutroux was a pedophile serial killer who kidnapped girls and kept them in his basement. Some he killed, two just plain old starved and a couple were found alive.
During the investigation and trial, the behavior of the police and other authorities was so strange and incompetent that when Dutroux insisted he was part of a large pedophile ring that included people at all levels of government, he wasn’t completely dismissed. This was all going on when I first began travelling to the UK and I remember the scandal festered unresolved for a very long time.
Hence my Belgophobia, probably. Just thought I’d share, since Dutroux is back in the news.
Tomorrow? Dead Pool! Be here, 6 sharp.
March 10, 2016 — 10:39 pm
Comments: 8
Happy birthday, grrl
March 9 is Barbie’s birthday. She’s 57. Lookin’ good (but psssst…I think she’s had some work done).
I suppose you’ve seen the new Fat Barbie. Time magazine did a cover issue on her (subscriber only, but here’s the relevant bit repeated in Slate):
Dockterman watched unattended little girls playing with the doll, presumably through some kind of two-way mirror. In one session, for the pleasure of her peers, a 6-year-old speaks as if she’s the curvy doll. Here’s what she says: “Hello, I’m a fat person, fat, fat, fat.” Later, when an adult arrives, she calls the doll “a little chubbier.” Another child says she doesn’t want to hurt that Barbie’s feelings, so she spells it: “F-A-T.” A Mattel research head told Dockterman that, when adults weren’t in the room, focus-group girls often undressed the curvy dolls and laughed at them.
Of course, Slate being Slate, the message they took away was ZOMG this is why we need curvy Barbie, not don’t use toys for propagandizing; kids see right through you.
I was never much into Barbie qua Barbie, but I absolutely adored miniatures. All those tiny coke bottles and appliances and costumes and sidearms (wait, no…that was GI Joe. Loved his stuff, too). I could not get enough accessories. And, if you recall, you could buy costumes in complete packages, with more tiny thingumbobs.
More Barbie magic: the very first Barbie commercial, 1959; how to make your own zombie Barbie; twenty disturbing special edition Barbies (Tippi-Hedren-pecked-to-death-by-birds Barbie is a must have; reminder that these Barbies are aimed at adult collectors); talking Barbie apparently says “WTF?” over and over. I hear you, girl.
March 9, 2016 — 9:44 pm
Comments: 12
And your little d’….awww g’wan witcha
I just love seeing the Wicked Witch of the West crack up laughing. This is from Margaret Hamilton’s makeup test. An early one.
I’m struck by how much she looks like Carl Sagan here.
March 8, 2016 — 8:24 pm
Comments: 10
Enter title here
Proofing copy tonight. Ugh. I’m sort of the academic version of the rag picker; I scratch a living sifting through the intellectual debris of my betters.
I snatched this picture from a Google Images search of “proofing copy.” I think I was drawn to the juxtaposition of the words “the floor” and “unhygienic.”
Check out the nails on that chick. My nails do not look like that. In fact, I’d be willing to bet the set of women who proof copy for a living and the set of women who have huge long acrylic fingernails do not much overlap in real life.
Anyway, poor Nancy Reagan, eh? Expresso Bold takes dick again (how many times is this?). I apologize: I am remiss in my dicking. There aren’t many of you still waiting but, owing to the unusual length of a few rounds, those that are waiting have been waiting a long time.
So, you know the drill. Back here Friday 6WBT. Dead Pool Round 84.
March 7, 2016 — 10:55 pm
Comments: 15
Oh, just Brit stuffs…
Welp, they do one of these articles about once a year. I know, because I always steal it to post: silliest placenames in Britain. Enjoy!
Food question
I refuse to believe there’s any part of a pig a Tennesseean doesn’t eat, so I suspect what we have here is a failure to communicate. On the menu this week at Badger Manor is gammon or boiled bacon. The internet tells me “Gammon is the leg from a side of a pig which has been cured. Ham is the leg which has been removed and cured separately.”
The internet also tells me “Gammon has been cured in the same way as bacon whereas ham has been dry-cured or cooked.” But, since British bacon bears little resemblance to the good American stuff of that name, I don’t think this is likely to be helpful.
So, the question is, what is this cut called in the US, and how do we usually cook it?
Also served with
The Brit version is, indeed, boiled (or pressure cooked, in our case) and is often served with pease pudding.
Not to be confused with mushy peas, often served with fish’n’chips. I like pease pudding and mushy peas just fine. They sit comfortably in the mashed potato slot.
When Uncle B asked me if we had pease pudding in the colonies, I said we have the rhyme, “pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold, pease porridge in the pot, nine days old,” but really no fucking idea what pease pudding (or porridge) might be.
Does that tally with your experience?
Thanks for the memories
Last two Christmases, we were treated to a dead rat under the master bedroom floor. Or a dead something, anyway. As the floor is made of gigantic Tudor oak planks spiked into the support beams, there’s no chance of getting them up and extricating the corpse. (Some nights I lie awake and imagine the ancient rat boneyard directly under me).
We didn’t get one for Christmas this year. Looks like we’re getting one for Easter instead. Um, yay? My sense of smell is very poor, so I don’t suffer that much. But Uncle B sleeps in agony for the weeks until the smell goes away completely.
Spare his poor nose a thought this weekend. And have a good one your good selves! We saw the first lambs of Spring this week…
March 4, 2016 — 7:39 pm
Comments: 31