Scrooge is going to heaven, what’s your deal?
This one is classic Chick. The proof is in the truly awful faces.
I hope you’re settled in and ready for tomorrow. Here’s a recipe for sugarplums, in case you have a dearth of things to dance in your head tonight. That one calls for actual plums. This more complicated recipe involves prunes.
Hoo boy, did I ever tell you about the Christmas Eve I got into vodka and prune juice? I was visiting my mother and her water wasn’t safe to drink. Prune juice was all she had in the fridge. Did I ever get a big ol’ surprise Christmas morning!
December 24, 2024 — 5:00 pm
Comments: 4
Christmas with Jack
I was desperately trawling through Ebay looking for something interesting to buy for Onkle B for Christmas (I failed), when – for reasons known only to God and the algorithm – I was offered a block of 25 sealed copies of a Jack Chick tract, That Crazy Guy. Dear seller in Georgia – ain’t nobody pay a hundred bucks for this.
I collected Chick tracts when I were a lass. There were tons of them in circulation in the Seventies. They had two qualities I adored: really, genuinely, outrageously awful artwork and bizarre messages.
Lots of straight up evangelizing, naturally, but with odd twists. He hated Catholicism, for example – which may have limited his reach. Though it was said he was probably the most widely read living author in the world. Er, when he was alive.
Chick didn’t do interviews and remained a bit of a mystery. David Daniels, who worked with him toward the end, has published a biography, You Don’t Know Jack, and a video series of the same name.
I can’t imagine I’ll be bored enough to follow up on that.
His whole oeuvre is available at chick.com. I wish they were better about recording the artist and publication date – I can identify the hand of at least three different illustrators at minimum, each very different but all truly awful.
I thought it would be fun to visit some of the weirder panels over the holidays, by way of easy content. It’s tempting to think That Crazy Guy is a Steve Martin reference, which places it late Seventies. Untreatable AIDS (spoiler, he gives her AIDS) makes it mid Eighties. This illustrator is better than Chick.
December 23, 2024 — 5:00 pm
Comments: 3
How did they know I’m a serial killer?
One thing I was not expecting to see on my chocolate cake was a little plastic axe. “Weasel,” Uncle B says, “it’s a Yule log. Get it?”
Huh.
That’s it! I’m off! I’m done! I’ve queued up a whole holiday’s worth of posts, but nobody better die because I’m not Dead Pooling for a couple weeks.
Merry Christmas! See you on the other side!
December 20, 2024 — 2:24 pm
Comments: 14
Where’d the weasel belly go?
I didn’t realize Grok had an image creator, but it does. Go to regular Grok and type “create a picture of a weasel playing the banjo.”
It clearly has an issue with middles. And feet. It did the same thing to “badger playing a violin” (no, Uncle B doesn’t play the violin).
I satisfied my curiosity on one point: if you give it the exact same prompt you will get different images each time, including some wild ones (two-necked banjo, anyone?).
One more day of work!
December 19, 2024 — 5:02 pm
Comments: 4
*clink* moooo
Today, we went to the farm shop OF THE FUTURE! It’s a giant farm shop vending machine. Inside the cubbyholes are eggs and homemade cakes and vegetables and slabs of meat. Like a New York automat, but for farm produce.
This is their publicity photo. We found the actual shop considerably grubbier, but still cool. It’s a collection of vending machines in a shipping container on a gravel farm lot. The touch screen in the far right is where you choose what you want, pay by contactless and the correct doors pop open for you.
It’s a bit of a drive for us, but we had to go.
Oh, had a horrible scare, though. The milk vendor is in a separate building. I went to take my debit card out of my phone case to pay, and neither my credit nor debit cards were there! Turns out, when I opened my phone to take a picture of this shop, both cards fell on the ground at my feet. Found them when I went back to the car, but I had visions of ass-ache for Christmas.
December 18, 2024 — 5:56 pm
Comments: 6
Something skeert my chicken
We heard a squawk late the other night and I went flying out to the henhouse (O, how many times?). That little cross in the window was missing and my hen was downstairs in the run sitting in her water bowl making distressed chicken noises.
Near as I can figure it, something punched its face through the window (there’s no glass or anything). Probably a fox, because a badger would have bulldozed the hutch over. It’s a tiny house; foxy probably poked her off the perch with his nose. Poor girl.
The rooster, naturally, slept through the whole thing.
December 17, 2024 — 5:34 pm
Comments: 4
Language lesson
If you can’t read it, the French for rubber band is bracelets élastiques and the German is Gümmibander. Perfect.
I sure hope these are the right size, because I just bought a kilo of them. Do you know how many rubber bands are in a kilo? A real lot.
Welp, here we go. Last week before Christmas week, which I have off. I’ve bought everything I’m going to, I suspect. Pity Uncle B. He’s getting a weird assortment of weaselkitch this year.
December 16, 2024 — 6:38 pm
Comments: 11
Happy Friday the 13th!
I’m friendly with a woman who owns a coffee shop in town. She’s been moaning at how bad business has been these last couple weeks, so I stopped off and had a double espresso this morning on the way in.
Then when my boss arrived, I had a black Americano first thing. I don’t know why they call it an Americano. Do you?
Then on Fridays I get together with a group of old ladies for a cappachino mid morning. I was thrumming like a banjo string by lunch. Electric weasel.
Have a good weekend. I promise you more of the same lazy, low quality content all next week.
December 13, 2024 — 6:48 pm
Comments: 12
That sucker. Right there!
Leg cramp! Leg cramp! And not the usual calf muscle, either, but that funny little muscle that runs along the shin. Pulled my toes toward my knees and made me dance around hooting.
Yes, you have been experiencing lazy holiday Weasel. I’m not actually off for another week, but I’m soooo tapped out already.
I see the Your Daily Dose of Internet guy has picked up on the geriatric albatross story. Also, he’s gone from three minute videos to nine minute videos. If you’ve never wasted an afternoon with this guy, you’re welcome.
December 12, 2024 — 7:55 pm
Comments: 6
Huh. Things I didn’t realize I wanted.
The auction house we bought that bookcase from is currently running an auction entirely of Vinaigrettes, Snuff Boxes and Vesta Cases. So much pretty silver.
A vinaigrette – if you didn’t know, and I had to look it up – is a little silver box with a grill. Under the grill is a sponge and onto the sponge you’d soak – vinegar, I suppose. Something to hold up to your delicate nose because the olden days stank.
I can absolutely see how these things would be collectibles. I love engraving…
December 11, 2024 — 7:26 pm
Comments: 4