Probably Not AI

There Seems To Be A Focus On AI At Present

As in, It Will Kill Us All! or It Will Make Us All Rich!.  The latter of which is not possible, methinks, as you always need the povs present to be able to appreciate your higher earnings status.  Art!

     Let me clarify that the BAND is 'Camper Van Beethoven' and this unlovely word salad is one of their albums from the Eighties.  Which is way before AI would sweep in and create a fake background history, back from when AI only existed as Mike, the sentient computer that ran all the sy

     ANYWAY enough 'The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress' references - a novel I definitely recommend, and on with the sordid reality.  

The edition I had!

     What we will be looking at later is that vehicle the South Canadians term a 'Camper', but we are getting ahead of ourselves here.

     SO! CVB very probably did not ever consider that their name would eventually grace the Intro of a blog by your very favouritest alien spy Conrad.  The fools*!

    You see, we are now onto the next section of that Youtube saga "Brother Is Doing Silly Pranks On Me", which involves lots of car terminology that I have selflessly tracked down and defined.  Go me.  Art!

     The rascals in question before e'er they knew what an internal combustion engine was, perhaps.  

     ANYWAY as we recall, CW's Man Truck was a collection of clichés in motor form that had been nursed back to health, and which he naturally had to succour with recourse to A DRAG RACE.  Art!

     It was rather less salubrious than this, thanks to the Dodge Ram engine in CW's motor having to be drained of an engine liquor that resembled dirty treacle full of cooked iron suet puddings.   

     Naturally, what else would CW want after his giant Man Truck was rendered effective, but A DRAG RACE! because sequence and accountability do not exist in his world.  In this sense, a drag race is a competition between two cars over a short stretch of ground to see which can hit the finish line first.  NC4M patiently explained that this was a verrrry bad idea, which his brother dealt with in the same manner he's been dealing since the beginning of this Intro: completely ignoring it.

     Not only did the Ram lose, it blew the engine's head gasket, which is a phrase I've read many a-time, with no understanding of what a 'head gasket' was.  Like a 'basket' just a tad different?  Art!

Not suitable for holding groceries

     "When you blow a head gasket, the seal between your engine block and cylinder head fails, allowing coolant, engine oil, and combustion gases to leak into places they should not go"

     It doesn't kill an engine, just makes it run terribly and overheat.  NC4M, proving to be every inch the mechanic they claimed not to be, suggested that his elder idiot brother - who still wanted to drag race a two-out-of-three competition - apply 'Steel Seal' gasket sealer, a product neither you nor I knew existed before that sentence.  Art!

Who knew!

     The smart money says this is a temporary expedient, and that mechanical overhaul is needed to fix a blown gasket, which advice and reasoning was of course completely ignored by CW.  Because you can't fix stupid.  NC4M detailed that the Ram's engine developed a 'tick' that got worse over time.  Conrad makes a wild guess that we're not talking insects or clocks here, just slang for an engine problem.  

"Exhaust Leak: A cracked exhaust manifold or bad gasket lets gases escape. This creates a loud ticking sound that is often worse when the engine is cold"

     So now we know.

     Having prettttty much failed in all the ways a human being can fail, Chad Wannabe took mighty umbrage at his younger brother having a camper, hence today's title.  For the uninitiated out there, including me, a 'camper' is a vehicle (a van) or trailer for temporary accommodation.  CW simply had had had to have a BIGGER camper, and got one dirt cheap, because it was a wreck on wheels.  Who got stuck with helping fix it?  No, Vulnavia, not Lord Lucan.  No-Chrysler-4-Me is whom, the sap.  Art!

A fixer-upper

     In case you're worried, NC4M did say this camper was the last straw and he refused to be the helping hand again.  

     So! the list of accomplishments needing to be done before the camper - whoops, excuse me, The Camper - was fit to inhabit constituted: half the floor needed replacing; rotten wood in the walls had to be replaced; the roof needed re-sealing; a new vent had to - hang on, a new what?  Art!

     - ah, a ventilator for airflow, got it; and lots of black mould needed to be bleached into nothingness.

     Amidst all this work, the cone filter on the Ram blew out, a tragic event I have nil conception of.  NC4M states that it was part of the cold air intake, for which see Part One of this epic.  Art!

     Aha, so it's the cone-shaped filter-y looking gizmo.  Sweet.

     Failures on the Ram accumulated.  It needed a new radiator, water pump and catalytic converters.  The first two items are self-explanatory, but a 'catalytic converter'?  Art!

     Zero illumination.  Hang on - ah.  Quite a complex bit of kit.  Briefly explained, it's a box full of palladium and rhodium - two words you never expected to hear today - that break apart exhaust fumes into less harmful compounds.  With those rare earth metals, a pricey bit of kit as well.

     NC4M also states that the 'dash', the uncouth South Canadian slang for 'dashboard', was held together by 'JB Weld and duct tape'.  Art!

     It's a cold resin, to be used as an alternative to hot welding.  Now we are all better-educated than we were five minutes ago.

     THEN! the headlights failed.  O noes.  THEN! CW broke a U-joint in his drive shaft.  That sounds bad.  Art!

     That's what a U-joint looks like.

     The calamities multiplied.  NC4M had warned his idiot elder brother about buying this car - sorry, MAN TRUCK - and that warning stood true.  THEN! the transmission died.  THEN! the cheapbottom replacement transmission died.  Buying a new transmission would have cost CW more than the Ram cost him in the first place, so it wasn't happening.

     Thus the Ram was well and truly, honestly, deeply out of commission.  Art!

     No, it's not the fusion engine on a light torpedo-bomber from 'The Expanse', which would be cool and property dep

     ANYWAY it's the transmission from a Dodge Ram.  Just so we're clear.

     CW's ex, whom had the good sense to become an ex, took pity on the poor unfortunate creature she used to be in a relationship with and gave her very old, tired Ford minivan to him.  Art!

     Was he grateful?  Not a bit of it!  He hated the minivan because it was, in his words, a 'Chick car' not a MAN TRUCK.  But he had no choice as the Ram was, as observed above, very much a Norwegian Blue parrot at this point.

     Here I shall call a halt, as there is still more about the petulant manchild CW and his camper and car to come, and we're at Count.

CYA!

*  My star-ship invasion force is only 45 light years away, you pikers**

**  Typo.  245 light years away, the pikers.

The Cars, The Cars!

I Had To Duplicate And Punctuate

Also use the indefinite article, as otherwise folks might mistake this title as being to do with that execrable Disney animated slop that I already hate without seeing it.  Don't tell me about prejudice; I know being punched in the face hurts without needing to experience it.

     Nor are we talking about the seminal South Canadian band, whom I think I have a DVD of lurking in the Sekrit Layr.  Art!

     I mentioned them so I can use a related image.

     What this Intro, and perhaps the whole blog, will be about is an unbelievable tale from Youtube and 'r/slash's channel there.  It concerns two brothers, whom are both petrolheads when it comes to cars.  What adds extra spice to the tale is the manchild Zeppelin-ego of the elder brother, Chad Wannabe, CW hereafter.  He hated hated hated being upstaged by his younger brother, 'No-Chrysler-4-Me' hereafter NC4M, in anything.  Anything.

     What I propose is to explicate about what NC4M narrates, as a lot of it was a complete mystery to me.  I mean, to me God created mechanics so I don't have to know anything about cars.  Recall the blog I did about building swimming pools?  Like that.  Art!

     This is a Toyota Tundra, with a 4.8 litre engine, the vehicle that NC4M drove, which cost him all of $6,000, with 250,000 PROUD IMPERIAL MILES on the clock.  He uses the term 'Odometer' which is derived from the Greek 'Hodos' meaning 'Road', a phrase you probably never expected to hear today.

     NC4M rendered his brother's background, including an ex and a five year-old daughter, whom turned out surprisingly well considering her bottomhole father.  The key factor is the vehicle CW was driving, a Subaru Baja, yet another car I don't know anything about.  Art!

     He considered himself upstaged by the Tundra and sold the Baja, settling for buying a third car I've never heard of: a 01 Black Dodge Ram 1500 4x4.  Art!

     Except the one that CW bought had 200,000 miles on the odometer and was worn out.  NC4M warned repeatedly about NOT buying this lemon, but was ignored and CW shelled out $3,000 for it.  The list of Lemon Factors included: a winch on the front that was so badly rusted it had to be cut free; shock-absorbers that had totally lost the ability to absorb shocks; a transmission that shifted only sluggishly, and 'rockers' that were gone.

     Say what?  Art!

On a car, "rockers" (short for rocker panels) are the metal structural beams that run horizontally along the sides of the vehicle directly beneath the doors, between the front and rear wheel wells

     Now I know.  Don't we all feel richer for that knowledge?

     CW was, despite all this, hap-hap-happy, since he was now driving a 'man's truck' - excuse me MAN'S TRUCK.

     NC4M in the next sentence proclaims that they are not a mechanic, and then proceed to do the veriest mechanicy mechanicing it's possible to do in aid of his brother.  He installed new, home-made rockers.  Art!

Totally rockering it

     Then they used 'Rust-Oleum' paint, a car accessory Your Humble Scribe had been ignorant of his entire life.  Art!

 

Rust-Oleum is a popular brand of protective paints and coatings designed to stop and prevent rust on metal surfaces. [1, 2]

What It Is and How It Works

• Origin: A sea captain named Robert Fergusson invented it in 1921 after noticing that fish oil stopped rust from spreading on his ship's metal deck.

     Well now.  NC4M described using a 'Harbour Freight' spray gun.  I know what a spray gun is, so what does the HF version look like?  Art!

      AND AT THIS POINT I MANAGED TO DELETE THE REST OF THE INTRO

     I only have the above because I saved it to Word in order to count the total.

     Bah!

     Art!

      O I see.  'Harbor Freight' is a retail organisation, not a model of spray gun.  Useful to know.  

     Next up, CW installed a pair of 'OEM-style headlights', which once again baffled Your Humble Scribe, despite NC4M warning him that they were cheap, nasty and wouldn't last long.  I also discovered that 'OEM' means 'Original Equipment Manufacturer', meaning that CW dug up a pair of cheap Dodge headlights.

      Then came the 'Cold air intake', yet again a car mystery.  One presumes that it permits the intake of - you may be ahead of me here - cold air.  Art!

     That, gentle reader, is a cold air intake sitting in a Dodge Ram 1500 engine.  What are they for?  As the name says, they intake cold air from outside the car, since said air contains a lot more oxygen than the hot air inside the engine.  More oxygen gives better engine performance, as the oxygen helps improve combustion inside the pistons, and yes I looked that up on teh Interwebz.  CW clearly wanted his MAN TRUCK to be as manly as possible.  10,000 years ago he would have been beating his chest, waving a club and dragging his fiancée around by the hair.  

     Back to up-manning the MAN TRUCK.  NC4M added 'Lucas Stop Slip' which to my ears sounds like industrial safety matting.  Let me be proven wrong.  Art!

Conrad schooled again

     Either the product of sinister dark magic or highly-advanced science*, LSS is intended to succour worn transmissions by preventing slip, hesitation and rough shifting, which to my ears all sound like mountaineering errors.

     Moving swiftly along -

     He then 'ran two cans of Sea Foam through the gasoline', of which I understand the 'cans' part.  We can forgive him calling 'petrol' by another name.  He capitalised 'Sea Foam' which implies it is more than the froth upon the briny deeps.  Allow me - Art!

     According to the blurb, this is a petrol-based liquid additive that cleans engines by dissolving gum, varnish and carbon deposits inside engines, and also lubr

     BY GRABTHAR'S HAMMER!  Let me add in what the AI blurb explained.

"Stabilizes Fuel: It keeps gas or diesel fuel fresh in the tank for up to two years"

     Here is the answer, at least partially, to all the weeping and wailing we have done of late about using date-expired petrol in the Zombie Apocalypse.  Methinks NC4M would be one of those survivors who gimmick up Mad Max vehicles that are both cool and zombie-proof and w

     ANYWAY we got off-topic a tad there.  Sorry**.  Our Non-Mechanic Who Can Out-Mechanic Professional Mechanics then flushed the radiator, a process I think I understand; you empty the fluid currently sitting in the radiator, which may be years old and congested with unspeakably vile substances, then run some inert or mildly abrasive fluid to remove any clots of glop, then refill it again.  Art!

A radiator untouched for 40 years.  Perhaps.

     The radiator is intended to maintain the engine at a constant, optimal temperature by - you may be ahead of me here - radiating away excess heat, and if it's full of rusty sewage and iron filings, engine performance will suffer.

     Finally, NC4M cautioned his older brother against stressing the Ram's engine, since, at least in his opinion and it's an opinion definitely worth paying attention to, Dodge engines on high mileage figures were not to be trusted for tolerance to excess stress and strain.  Note that NC4M's own Tundra had over 200,000 on the odometer, implying that it had been treated with care and attendance to get that far.

     You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it swim.  What do you think CW did?  Listen carefully to the advice of a person with long, intimate knowledge of engines and cars, or -

     Just without the 'RuPaul'.

     I shall stop recounting the Secret Life Of Car Engines, because we're not even half-way through Part 1 and yes, there's a Part 2.  This family are entertaining to read about but exhausting to be part of.

     

 

 

* Arthur C. Clarke reference for you there.

**  Not really.

Property Lies

Welcome Back To Round Two!

I did caution you yesteryon that I'd got more literary ammunition in reserve about the ongoing troubles of the Mordorvians, and we'll get to that eventually as I also have more stuff about property lines and people who take too much after - Art!

     He's an excellent corrective to the usual bootlicking worship of Judge Dredd, being a rebel with a streak of mayhem running th

     ANYWAY back to unpleasant neighbours NOTE CORRECT SPELLING whom one would pay folding money to not live next to.  'froggyc19' wrote a long Comment on the original story, explaining how a similar event happened to her mother long before.  A new neighbour bought the house next door and proceeded to whinge that froggy's parent's fence was on their land.  Art!

     The frogster's parents explained that the property lines were all over the place, had been for 30 years and they were not encroaching.  Nasty New Neighbour, hereafter NNN, wasn't having any of this and continued the accusations.

     What do you do if a person metaphorically requests that you punch them in the facee?  Why you do so.  Frogstar's mom ordered a new survey be done of the property lines between her house and NNN.

     What is reality, papa?  Well, that NNN's fence was well over the property line and into the frogster's parent's yard.  He had been so heinous and obstreperous that frogstar's parents informed all the other neighbours who bordered his back yard, and they all had new surveys done.

     By the time the new surveys were done, he had lost half of his property to the neighbours.  Ouch.  Art!

A Frogstar Fighter from HHGTTG

     Then comes the tale of LOFI, the acronym for Lovely Old Farmhouse Indianapolis, built in 1902 which the narrator and hubbo bought in 2018.  The plot had 1/3 of an acre of land and had old trees around what they thought was the property line.  The plant life provided shade and kept their two dogs in the garden.  4 weeks after moving in they heard their neighbour trimming trees with a chainsaw but thought no more about it.  Art!

Before

     When they returned from a weekend away, Chopper had cut down and removed all the plants, shrubs and trees, as well as the fence.  Art!

After

     

     They came to Reddit to ask for advice, cautioning that they didn't have a lot of money.

      The most apposite reply was a person canny in Tree Law, who informed that the fence was not necessarily that important.  The property line was.  They were advised to check the survey they had done when buying LOFI and see where it ran.  If the chopped vegetation was on their side of the property line, Chopper's bottom was in the grinder.  Provide picture or video evidence of the prior state of the garden.  Hire a lawyer who specialises in tree law and take him to court, and check if your state has a Treble Damages rule in such cases (Indiana does, I checked).  Get a quote from a Certified Arborist about the value of what was cut down and what it would cost to replace.    Chopper could end up paying to replace all the clear-cut plants and trees and shrubs, because the advice given is golden.

     Annoyingly, there was no resolution given and a check on Google reveals this entire story may be fictional.  I'm not removing it because it gives a clear picture of what to do in such an event.  Art!

The Prof summarises

     Property lines being moved in Ukraine as the Kozaky take back lands the orcs had been holding.  The Ruffians are now back to where they were 18 months ago.  Art!

     Radov's text mention orc forces being surrounded at Ivanivka, which has been highlighted on the map above.  It's at the base of the salient, again implying that the Ukrainians have completely eliminated it, and Radov highlights how few troops the orcs have to hold their positions behind the Zherebets River.  Art!

     The river in question.  The orcses might be able to hold it as a defensive position BUT if the Ukrainians get across and establish a bridgehead, they'd have to retreat again, or risk being outflanked and rolled up.
     'ChrisO-wiki' also published a few quotes from Putinpot, who really has NO idea what is going on in Ukraine, since his generals are all lying to him.  

     "19.12.2025 50% of Lyman is under control and will soon be captured."  Art!

     There's Lyman, and don't forget that the salient to the north of it no longer exists.

"28.06.2026  There are only 149 houses left to liberate in Lyman out of a total of 11,000."

"07.09.2026  Ruffian forces have now completed occupying the city."

     Once again, Charlie Chipmunk Cheeks is parroting lies that have been sent up the Ruffian chain of command, being embellished with even more lies, then encrusted with additional gloss by his lackeys in the Kremlin, until you get the above. Hence today's title.

     I would not care to be the bootlicker who has to tell Putinpot that Lyman is not, in fact, under Ruffian control, never has been and looks to never be.

Finishing The '20 Classic Books That Continue To Inspire'

Hooray! this is the last one.  Art!

     Your Humble Scribe has in fact heard of this one, and I believe it's mentioned in a work on modern Sicily that I no longer have.  It's one I wouldn't actually mind reading, especially as it's not a doorstopper like WAP.  The final in this list of (perhaps) classics, this one came out in 1958.  You can't expect me to believe that no great novels have been written in the last sixty years?  If you feel like cheating, there's a 1963 film adaptation.

However -

There is another tab on my Favourites list that concerns 20 books on the classical world, which I've refrained from opening or examining and now have the time to nosy at.  Which will inevitably involve telling you alllllll about them.  Art!

     I believe I've got one of Tom Holland's - brother of the more famous Jim - works lurking in a bookcase in my Sekrit Layr.  Allow me to tease you with a title - 

20. Intimations of Christianity among the Ancient Greeks (1957)

by Simone Weil

     This has an intriguing blurb, where the philosopher Weil analyses ancient Greek authors and philosophers and seeks to put their musings into a framework where they express Christian ethics not to become a religion for centuries.  I had a look at the list and have even read one of them, but because I'm a meanie I shan't tell you which one.  Tee hee!

     I also realise there's a danger I might feel the need, not the want, to purchase one of these works.  Hopefully I can remain strong.  We'll see.

Pleased To Report This One

Conrad was happy to notice that the superior supernatural suspense series 'Widow's Bay' won a couple of Emmy's last night.  Or, rather, Matthew Rhys, the lead actor did.  Art!

     This will be a surprising revelation to a lot of South Canadians, who will not realise that he's British and Welsh, since his accent is so convincing.  I shall add in a quote of his to hurry up the Word Count, as I want my tea.

"We are a small but mighty nation. This is incredible," he said, adding, "diolch yn fawr iawn" which means "thank you very much" in Welsh.

Property Lines

Which Is Possibly A Subset Of TREE LAW

But only perhaps as I don't want to trick you into clicking on this link by mistake, and gosh those people who were setting off fireworks, as well as those owls, seem to have gone quiet of late.  It is mid-September after all.

     Okay, let us now approach the subject of defining proper and legal boundaries.  Art!

     Art!  How d - O very well we'll let it stand.  As the title says, the orcs spend 18 months and an absolute ocean of blood establishing a salient that the Kozaky eliminated in 3.  Ooops.  Unlike legal debates about borders and boundaries, it took mere months before the truth was revealed, and how bad things are for Mordorvia is judged by how utterly silent they are being about this.  You have to understand that Putinpot will not have been informed about the state of affairs on the ground, which illumination will not happen for a couple of weeks, just in case a miracle occurs.  Once the cold hard horrid facts are admitted, some hapless minion will be sent into the Kremlin to whisper that things have gone The Opposite Of Good, and will then be commanded to join The Noble And Ancient Muscovite Order Of Window Diving.  Art!

     The AI Art Generator could not cope with 'Zakharova' so deal with the above.

     Art!

     AGAIN WITH THE BOUNDARIES!

     This is 11 seconds into a Ruffian video posted by one of the surviving orc vehicles in occupied Ukraine, thus beyond the boundaries of sovreignity.  No identification of where it is, just that it's a clip lasting 4 minutes, where Your Humble Scribe counted 109 Ruffian wrecks in the space of the clip, and definitely missed some.  During the vlog you, the viewer, note that the wrecks have all been moved off the roadway, meaning that the orc commanders are determined to use this route despite however many orcs die in the process.  Ol' Tolky would be proud of you, chaps, proud, w
     ANYWAY we ought to be concentrating on the interdivisional boundaries between South Canadian neighbours, rather than internecine affairs elsewhere.  Art!

     If you want to follow Property Line Law, which is closely aligned with Tree Law, then read no further.  Art!

     Only joking.  

     ANYWAY the Youtube-derived title for this tale refers to a tale told by Closely Aligned Neighbour*, hereafter CAN, who posted their tale on Reddit.  They had but recently moved into a house that had a very narrow median strip between theirs and the neighbouring house.  SO! They wanted privacy and to prevent said neighbour, whom we shall call Entitled Neighbour Termagant, ENT hereafter, from being able to look into their kitchen, for who doesn't want privacy when shelling peas at 2 a.m.?

     Thus was a 'plant screen' established, costing thousands of dollars, which served to block ENT's view of the 2 a.m. pea-shelling.  Art!

No trees.  Sorry.

     A week later they had all been chopped down, so CAN's father, bristling with rage, bearded ENT in their lair and asked, possibly with a little invective mixed in, what was going on.

     ENT claimed that all the plants were on his side of the property line, so he could do whatever he liked with them.  Moreover, any more intrusions would be reported to The Authorities.  'Your Honour, they maliciously planted!' hmmmm not sure how that would fly in court.

     Nothing daunted, CAN's parents re-planted the privacy screen, since their greenery was still under warranty and could be replaced for free later that week.  This time they were nowhere near ENT's property line.

     HOWEVER - oh my that word again! - CAN caught ENT trying to chop this privacy screen down.  At 02:00 in the morning.  Which sneakiness, without invoking The Authorities, suggests that their neighbour with choppy tendencies knew they were acting illegally.  Art!

     The cops were called.  ENT, looking at charges for destruction of property, suggested that they all mark property lines to prevent any such - ah - 'misunderstanding' from happening again.

     A couple of days later CAN arrived home to discover surveyor's orange tape all over their back yard and fence lines, and the denouemENT was bad for their neighbour.  His fence was ELEVEN PROUD IMPERIAL FEET over the property line.  He had to dismantle his fence, with CAN and parents indulging in watching him do so.  The privacy plants were relocated and ENT lost one-quarter of his back yard, in addition to paying $10,000 for destruction of property.  

     Wow.  What hideous attraction can pea-shelling have, I wonder?

Before The Descent

A bit of a palate-cleanser.  Art!

Thanks to 'War Witch Will Hold This Territory' for the image

     How charming.  Conrad, of course, can only sip his low-calorie ginger ale and contemplate wistfully all that sugar on display.  Taunt me, taunt me with what I cannot have!

DAY OF THE PAGBEAST!

Or, more ungentle shoeing.  Night or day, Donnie Dorko has no problem falling asleep if it's not all about him, as he has the attention span of a lobotomised gnat.  A lobotomised gnat with ADHD? if such a thing can exist.  Art!

     "If it's not me me me I don't care"

     King Piggy looks worse every week and I'm quite confident he's not going to make it into 2027.  So much for bloviating about being on the ballot in 2028.  Art!

     He looks about 30 seconds away from the gates of Hades.  Have pity on poor Melania for having to put up with the Pagbeast, at least until he divorces her and marries his Nappy Nurse.  Speaking of which - Art!

     Hmmmm I wonder what bulky items are taking up space in that enormous bag - a 3D printer and substrate? for printing out busts of himself?

     Other things are not going well for The Nodfather.  Art!

     Wow, I could carry the weekly shopping home in the bags under his eyes.  O, and that's bad news for him since the Wizard Lizard Gizzard party's calculation is that Democratic voters will be the majority of mail-in ballots.  And they begin as early as October.  Watch BOOH claim this is how 'They' cheated him out of an election win.

Also -

President Donald Trump’s 105-minute speech on the opening night of his Republican midterm convention in Dallas was seen by fewer people than a typical audience for Fox News shows Hannity and Gutfeld!, according to preliminary

viewing figures

     Conrad still has that emergency bottle of Prosecco in waiting.

You What?

Another item from my news feed that begs the question.  Art!

     The irresponsible Pablo Escobar, back in the Eighties, decided that a terrific way to spend some of his cocaine billions was to -

     - illegally import dozens of hippopotami into Columbia.  What a brilliant idea!  Well not really, but Ol' Pabs would kill you if he heard the 'N' word.  There are now at least 180 of these monsters at large in the Magdalena River drainage area, and they severely impact the local environment, threatening native species.  That sounds quite bad enough to me.  I think it would only be worse if they spat fire.

Back To Books

Yes, we are back to that list of '20 Classics That Continue To Inspire' although quite what they inspire is open to question in some cases.  You don't read Kafka or Orwell for descriptions of eternal happiness and lambs gambolling in a field.  Unless you plan on explaining where chops come from and how -

Art!

     The introductory blurb quotes from it "Mother died today."  NEXT!

     No, Conrad has not read it and does not feel culturally the poorer for it.  I can boast of having read Alain Robbe-Grillet's novel 'The Erasers' which I can only remember the title of.  And - was there a fly crawling along a lampshade.

*  Note the CORRECT spelling.  Thank you.