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Dead Pool Round 155: I’m not dead yet!

Another sneaky win! Tony Dow of Leave it to Beaver fame was pronounced dead Wednesday.

Problem was, he warn’t. Not quite. This gave HottyTottyGirl the opportunity to nip in and claim him.

He died Thursday.

Poor bastiche. That role pretty much ruined his life.

Are we feeling strong enough to try again? Sit up straight and we’ll begin:

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.

July 29, 2022 — 6:00 pm
Comments: 63

Ladies and gentlemen, the most expensive TV series ever made


This is a still from the Twitter trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power coming this September from Amazon. The cost of the first season alone was $462 million. There is speculation that the entire series could cost a cool billion dollars.

Hahaha…like it will survive its first season.

The actual fandom is going to hate this thing, and if you’re not trying to appeal to the fandom, what exactly are you doing? You think Star Wars nerds are fussy about canon? Hoo boy! LOTR aficionados are like Medieval abbots.

I hate it, I’m not a super fan and all I saw was a one-minute trailer.

It’s not just the random race-swapping; the whole production is horribly tone deaf. The wise and beautiful Galadriel of the Tolkien books appears as some kind of sword-slinging action hero. Young Sauron is a dead ringer for Eminem, without the aura of menace. The CGI is good in places and bad in others but, point is, there’s way too much of it.

I hope it costs so much money even Bezos winces.


We have a winner! HottyTottyGirl takes the dick with Tony Dow. In a thrilling first for the Dead Pool, Dow was erroneously declared dead a few hours prematurely, giving our girl an open goal for a sneaky pick.

Back here? Tomorrow? 6 WBT? Dead Pool 155! You betcha!

July 28, 2022 — 7:18 pm
Comments: 11

Twitter is weird

Holy cow – look at the likes on this thing! It was a question, for goodnessakes! My saucy quips and pearls of wisdom never get this kind of support.

It was a reply to a tweet of that old clip of Jacinda Ardern saying, “We will continue to be your single source of truth. Unless you hear it from us it is not the truth” and I was sincerely curious about the answer. I got lots of them.

I have to admit to the shallowness of a weasel: part of my visceral dislike of that clip has to do with her looks and her accent. I can’t reasonably expect New Zealanders to have the same reaction.

I gather she was popular when first elected. She held informal Q&A sessions and was generally approachable. The words “kindness” and “empathy” appeared a number of times. Her popularity is starting(!) to sag.

And, naturally, there were a number of kiwis who said they hated her guts.

The most interesting one to me was the person who said 40% support her, 40% oppose her and the other 20% mess it up for everyone. I wonder how many countries that ratio applies to!

Worth clicking the link if you’re interested.

July 27, 2022 — 5:35 pm
Comments: 4

Unexpected.

The pretty little church from yesterday has an unusual feature – a Mithraic altar! Ahem. See, there’s a bull carved on all four faces. There were probably some kind of unpleasant meat rituals performed upon it.

It’s not certain if there was a temple to Mithras on the spot before the church was built. The first documentation of the church was 1265 and the alter stone is, like, 1st C. The temple could have been anywhere in the neighborhood.

The stone first turns up in the yard of the nearby Ferry Inn, where it was used for many years to tie up horses. Hence the weathering. I wonder if the ring was already embedded in it. Then it was moved to the vicar’s garden. And finally – presumably when someone noticed it was an important object- into the church itself.

It’s in the back of the church itself, in the Narthex (yes, looked it up), opposite end to the Christian altar. Which says something about the CofE. I’m not entirely sure what. That the church is unperturbed to bring a sacred pagan object into a holy place. Confident? Phlegmatic?

The worship of Mithras was very popular among Roman army officers. I have read that it competed closely with Christianity as the official Roman religion. Now, wouldn’t that have been a thing?

July 26, 2022 — 7:31 pm
Comments: 6

Peaceful

The Summer fetes are upon us, after two dry years. Some of our favorites didn’t make it – though a couple of those died before the lockdown.

We went to two on Saturday. We knew most everyone at the first one and no-one at the second. I’m happy to say, it was absolutely 100% the old normal. People were hugging and shaking hands, there were no masks. I pointed it out to Uncle B and he was startled that he hadn’t even noticed.

It’s just so easy to fall back into that groove. If they try to lock us down again this Fall, they may have a time of it.

This pretty little church is in the village of Stone cum Ebony. We took a detour down a shady country lane to see it. We’ve never visited this one before – it’s kind of a trek for us – but we weren’t disappointed. English churches are left unlocked, even the very remote ones, so we could go inside and sit in the quiet for a while.

If you haven’t heard, blogosphere giant Dave in Texas died last Wednesday. He was once a major co-blogger at Ace of Spades and longtime member of the merry band at Innocent Bystanders.

I only Twitter knew him, but he was always a ray of fucking sunshine (it says so right in his bio). He was posting dog pictures the day before he died.

Internet bereavements are strange, aren’t they?

July 25, 2022 — 7:11 pm
Comments: 5

‘Member this guy?

This is Popo, the one rooster I managed to give away. I visited him yesterday afternoon. Her girls didn’t like him any my girls did…until she got a new hen.

That’s right – Popo the sex pest finally has a girlfriend!

I’m going to a party, y’all. Back late. You have a good weekend and I’ll see you on the other side.

July 22, 2022 — 4:39 pm
Comments: 5

Teasels in training

Teasels are spikey plants beloved of dried flower arrangers. I have only ever seen them fully dried, but on our nature walk the other day, we saw some when they were still clad in purple flower petals. They look like thistles (they’re not). Pretty things.

They’re called teasels because they were once used to tease the nap of woollen cloth. Wikipedia tells me they aren’t native to the US, where they are regarded as an invasive species.

Why am I babbling about teasels? I have spent my day writing short (but hopefully not terse) emails. Do you know what happens when you send a work email to several hundred English people? At least a hundred of the buggers write chatty emails back, like you were writing just to them…

July 21, 2022 — 7:48 pm
Comments: 6

We saw the kitties…!

Our favorite cat rescue finally had an open day – first time since the lockdown. And it was packed. People are obviously thirsty for the old normal.

It’s a very long way for us to go when there are cat rescues nearer, but we particularly like this one.

No, we’re not shopping for a puss, we just like to hang out with them. The British cat rescue is a zen place. None of these rows of cages with sad kitties waiting on death row. They’re open and fenced. The cats swan around as they please, with cat trees and boxes and toys and litterboxes at regular intervals.

The cats don’t fight. It’s quite remarkable. We’re told it’s because no cat regards it as his territory.

This time, the poor cats were completely traumatized by so many elderly white women running after them talking baby talk. Most of them hid under or behind the buildings. A few swanned around and hissed if you got too close. It was a hot day, so many were in a foul mood.

It was wonderful.

I know what you’re thinking. “Weasel, that’s the ugliest damn cat I ever saw.” Well, nuts to you, Mister Skeptic. There was a lady with a hedgehog rescue booth there, too.

July 20, 2022 — 7:54 pm
Comments: 9

I’m in!

They finally opened Truth Social outside the US. Well, to the UK, anyway. I’m not sure about other countries.

Yes, it’s a Twitter clone. It’s so close, in fact, I think Twitter might have a valid infringement case. Except the checkmarks are red, not blue. So there’s that.

You really have to follow a couple of hundred accounts on any site to get a good info stream going, but I’ve found a hundred worthy follows already (mostly names I knew from elsewhere) and it’s gaining steam.

The general IQ of comments is on the low side, as you might expect from a new social media site made up of rejects from other social media sites. They allow trolling, which is good. I mean, I mute idiots, but I hate sites that are ban-happy and build the bubble for you.

Honestly, it’s better than I expected. Not too buggy, moves fast. If you’re on there, let me know – though I get the impression most of you all are not social media ninnies.

The question is – do I go for my red checkmark?


Yes, it was hot today. No, I do not believe that sheds and cars spontaneously combusted. I do not believe all the fires in London today are perfectly natural consequences of hot weather. And as I sit here, comes the front of thunderstorms that will blow it all away. It’s in the seventies for the foreseeable.

Two days in the nineties and they lose their minds.

July 19, 2022 — 7:15 pm
Comments: 9

Dark!

The power is out! I am pecking this out on my phone, my only link to the civilised world.

Actually, I’m not. I’m using speech to text because I am lazy – which works remarkably well except every time I say comma, it types karma.

No doubt they will find some way to blame the power outage on the heat. It’s 90 something today. The news is claiming that cars and garden sheds are spontaneously bursting into flame and the tarmac at the airport has melted.

You never heard such hand-wavy bullshit.

July 18, 2022 — 6:03 pm
Comments: 14