Jurassic Park, but cat
Okay, this is fun. But the shot-by-shot making of is even funner.
This guy’s whole channel is green-screening his cat, Lizzie, into movies. For the love of it, I guess. I can’t find any evidence he’s found a sponsor.
She’s a remarkably tolerant cat, particularly for tummy rubs (hint: it’s all about the Dreamies).
All the OwlKitty behind the scenes videos.
November 16, 2021 — 7:32 pm
Comments: 5
Return of the angry, authoritarian fridge
Half of the message has been wiped away, seemingly by people opening and closing the fridge. It appears to be a stern injunction never to put the crab and lobsters above the salad.
I have many unpleasant mental images why that might be.
They mostly involve lobster poop. I have no idea what lobster poop is like, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want it on my salad.
Yes, this is the same fish shop as before.
November 15, 2021 — 8:23 pm
Comments: 2
I finally came to one
Spotted on my way to the lecture last night. If I told you the answer is “I went straight” you’d think I was a criminal before (or a lesbian).
I’ve been sitting in the comfy chair snoozing all afternoon. They made me work a five-day week, y’all – and two of them were 9-5! Oh, the humanity!
That photo came straight off my camera and this laptop saves images huge. So I fixed it using an online file compression service that worked a treat, and all they want is for me to share their url on my social media.
There you go. I’m probably all loaded up with Russian viruses now.
Good weekend, everyone!
November 12, 2021 — 7:42 pm
Comments: 11
Remembrance
I’ve had to go to work, a Remembrance Day ceremony, a funeral and a lecture today. And I ain’t done the lecture yet. I am a tuckered weasel.
I have to go. I’m the only one who knows how to work the new security system.
The wearing of the British Legion poppy (at right) is a thing here from the beginning of November until the 11th. Or it was a thing absolutely everyone did for a hundred years and now, just in the last couple of years, it’s considered not woke.
And so, OF COURSE, I’m at great pains to wear one.
You buy them in supermarkets and news agents, usually at a table manned by elderly veterans. But the dang things only come with a straight pin, so they’re always falling off. I’ve been through three poppies this year, but I’m still by-god wearing one.
Oh, and I had to sing God Save the Queen at the Remembrance Ceremony. Which I don’t mind, but it made me think how painful it’s going to be to sing God Save the King when that day comes.
Perhaps I can think to myself that “save” is a euphemism.
November 11, 2021 — 5:24 pm
Comments: 11
Not sure how I feel about this…
We had our antiquated security system updated this week.
As they were finishing up, one engineer said to me, “there’s an app, you know.” And damme, there’s an app.
I can check the alarm status. I can alarm and unalarm remotely. I’m notified if an alarm goes off and which sensor has been tripped. I get a log of every alarm setting event and which keyfob was responsible.
But so, of course, can everyone else in the company who downloads the app. Whee! I’m punching a timeclock again.
I don’t actually mind punching a time clock, literally or figuratively. And I don’t suppose any of the old dears I work for has the slightest interest in a phone app, anyway. But I am perfectly poised between thinking this is a great and useful thing to have and thinking it’s a level of surveillance too far.
On a side note, I’ve had to work a 9-to-5 to babysit the workmen and I am shattered. How did I ever do this day after day?
November 10, 2021 — 6:46 pm
Comments: 6
With a name like that, what did they expect…?
We have workmen in doing workman stuff in the office this week. One of them told me he went to a coffee shop in London called Fuckoffee. Hipster place.
I thought that was funny, so I looked it up. First hit I got was this article slamming this sign outside: “THIS IS THE LONGEST SOMETHING MADE IN CHINA HAS EVER LASTED.” Re: the bug, naturally.
I’m not sure what they were angrier about, being blamed for the virus or the insult to the quality of their goods, but they big mad.
To be fair, it’s an East Asian advocacy group. East Asians want so desperately badly to be picked-upon POCs.
The article is from April; I hope they didn’t cave and take down the sign.
November 9, 2021 — 5:22 pm
Comments: 6
Aw, I kind of like it
At six years, this house has been on the market longer than any other in Sussex. It’s £200,000, in good shape and has lovely views out the back.
I mean, people do know you can repaint a house, yes?
It is a tribute to his beloved dalmation. Not the current one, the one before. He does continue the polka dot theme inside, but it’s soft furnishings and things the next owner wouldn’t keep.
You can’t please some people.
November 8, 2021 — 6:13 pm
Comments: 8
Remember, remember
Bonfire Night! I’ve posted before the Bonfire Nights in Sussex are staggered, every one marches in everyone else’s parade and the celebrations are huge affairs that stretch on from September to December.
But everyone defers to Lewes (pictured above) and theirs is on November 5 proper. It is by far the biggest, even though they close the roads and stop the trains and beg outsiders not to come. The town had 17 Protestant Martyrs under Bloody Mary and they’re still sore about it.
Hence the 17 burning crosses. And Lewes is the only one that still burns the Pope as their Guy.
I heard a rumor Lewes is not burning the Pope this year out of sensitivity. I don’t want it to be true, so I didn’t do any research at all for this. Bonfire Nights are a time of lawlessness, rough manners and excess and I won’t have it any other way.
Good weekend, folks!
November 5, 2021 — 5:57 pm
Comments: 6
Well, I’ll be…
We were talking in the thread below about strange store combinations we have known. I give you: Walker’s Shoes and Cheese.
The internet said it was in Smithville, but I remember it outside of town. Why yes, it has a footprint on the internet.
The picture came from this Facebook page. This guy from Boonetown called his autobiography Shoes and Cheese, which doesn’t seem like a coincidence. I never heard of Boonetown; it looks like a suburb of Nashville.
Then I found this 42-second clip of a not especially musical young man singing of a little number called “Please take me back to Walker’s Shoes and Cheese.” It’s definitely our Walker’s Shoes and Cheese because he describes it as “two miles North of Smithville, Tennessee.”
And yes, “our” Walker’s Shoes and Cheese. There also appears to be one in Kansas City. No. No idea.
What’s that you say? The backstory? My mother asked. They said, “we used to be a shoe store and then somebody gave us a cooler.”
November 4, 2021 — 5:29 pm
Comments: 9
Kind of overkill, don’t you think?
This image is rattling around social media today. It’s a vampire hunting kit that supposedly sold at Sotheby’s in 2011. I did a search using those keywords and found a totally different vampire hunting kit that sold at a different auction.
The one in the picture is supposedly 1890s, but people in the threads are pointing out that this conception of vampire hunting really didn’t crystallize until the Hammer films. I suspect these were a novelty item assembled in the 20th C using 19th C components.
I know someone who claimed to have seen a simple one. He said it was a velvet-lined mahogany box with a revolver, a crucifix and six silver bullets. A revolver, so post 1850 anyway. I told him it would have been a much better story if one of the bullets was missing.
He owned a combination gun and appliance shop in Providence. That shop was wild. As you walked in, the left half was guns and knives and the right half was white goods. I bought a television there one year and a .357 magnum another year.
Usually it was too expensive for my budget, but once a year they had an invitation-only gun sale with serious discounts. The .357 became my bedside table gun – an S&W 686 snubby in nickel. It was a heavy, ugly, okay-lady-I-can-see-you’re-serious kind of gun and I think I paid less than $200 for it.
I still regret not buying the evillest machete I ever saw at that sale. It was obviously very old and had been sharped and sharpened until there was nought left but a thin, wicked sharp sickle.
I decided I was too clumsy to own that one.
November 3, 2021 — 6:09 pm
Comments: 12