Twin Political Sub-Rug Bulldogism

No, I Am Not Going To Apologise For Being Obscure

For that would be 1) unworthy of the blog and 2) pandering to those whom do not have a perspective greater than that of a lobotomised goldfish.

     You see, I am recalling an observation from one of the sharpest political wits that This Sceptred Isle ever produced, namely Winston Churchill, and his analysis of what went on inside the Kremlin during the Cold War, and even before.  Art!

A dogfight

     "Kremlin political intrigues are comparable to a bulldog fight under a rug. An outsider only hears the growling, and when he sees the bones fly out from beneath it is obvious who won."

     What am I talking about?  O I thought you'd never ask!  You see, for nearly two weeks now, there has been an internet blackout in the very heart of Mordorvia, and the orcs there have long been looking puzzled and fearful - not angry, as they are credulous and witless sheep.  Art!

    I am going to be resorting to notes I have made from 'Jason Jay Smart' and his Youtube channel, and a certain amount of witter from teh Interwebz.  You can view this as being underneath the rug as the bulldogs fight.

     SO!  one conspiracy theory is that the internet death in Ruffia is because the latest satrap to acquire the crown in Iran is <checks> Mojtab Khamenei, and the Israelis and South Canadians and a lot of Iranians all want him dead dead dead. They have not been successful in this endeavour, only removing one of his legs in situ.  Thus, his single-legged carcass has been flown to Barad Dur for medical care.  Cue enormous e-methods of preventing his presence from being revealed, or King Piggy would be disheartened.  Art!

As humourless as his dad, except less so

    The second conspiracy theory is that the Israelis and South Canadians tracked down the Iranian regime's echelon of leaders by following them on teh Interwebz, and then delivering truckloads of bombs directly on their heads.  Putinpot, being as worried about his epidermis as any other authoritarian dictator, has closed down the Mordorvian internet to prevent anyone delivering a bomb directly to his bony bonce.  True?  False?  Exaggerated?  Like I said, bulldogs under a rug.

     Doctor Smart was posting five days ago about the mobile internet blackout, which as of the time I am typing this is now up to Day Fifteen.  The official narrative has changed, from being 'Routine Maintenance' to 'Security reasons', a move that inspires confidence in nobody.  Taking only Barad Dur and Saint Petersbug, the blackout affects 18 million orcs, who are now resorting to pagers, walkie-talkies and good old-fashioned paper maps.  In all, 63 regions have been affected, for a total economic cost of $12 billion, but it is apparently more important to keep the sheep in the dark than it is to suffer even more drain on revenue.  Art!

They lived so well.

     Then there is the censorship.  I know, censorship in Ruffia, who would have believed it!  All social media mentioning the mobile internet blackout is being censored, although the print media has been able to publish comments and articles about it, presumably because few orcs can read?  Art!

     Illo from Our Man In Moscow, Steve Rosenberg, and a rather cheeky Ruffian cartoon that may get the artist ten years in a gulag if the FSB get off their waffle-patterned behinds.

     Back to Doctor Smart.  Another reason for the mobile internet blackout may be an ongoing purge of the 'Old Guard', that is, the proteges of Shoigu.  The blackout would prevent coordination and cooperation between these threatened parties, as they get picked off one at a time.  Thus, less risk of a coup being staged.  Art!

Courtesy Dr Smart

     Shoigu lost a lot of power and influence when he was replaced as Minister Of Defence, and his move sideways to the Security Council was not a moment of mercy from Putinpot, it was leaving a scapegoat around whom could be thrown under the bus later on.  Bulldogs. Rug.  The four above are merely the most recent arrestees, out of a total of 17 Ruffian generals.

     Another interesting observation over these arrests is the lack of any official statement, which is a variety of state statement in itself, to keep the minions troubled and divided.  Doctor Smart noted that Vladimir Surkov, one of the architects of Putin's rise to power and methodology of ruling, has vanished of late, very possibly fleeing abroad to avoid arrest and punishment.  When figures of his stature and import do a runner, the regime is looking for scapegoats for a 3 day Special Idiotic Operation that has clearly failed.  Art!

How to strangle cats the Surkov way!

Another Not-So-Gentle Shoeing

I think I got this unflattering photo of Dozy Don The Nodfather from a Youtube thumbnail, cropping out the other two talking heads.  Was it from 'David Pakman'?  Quite possibly, he loathes Donnie Dorko quite as much as me, and makes an income from it, which is nice work if you can get it.  Art!

     Not the most animated of Presidents, is he?  You can just imagine him dreaming of cheating at golf, rather than being talked at by a lot of people who polish his shoes with their tongues.

     Nobody has objected to these less than flattering photos, so - they will continue!

More Fun With Fences

I came across this story on the Youtube channel 'RedWheel' and Lo! it concerned a fence and what befell it.  Art!

Literally

     This is the scene that met NEighbour Affecting Trash, hereafter NEAT, when she looked out into her backyard.  Their unpleasant neighbours, Scummy Losers & Unpleasant Munters, hereafter SLUM, had piled so much rubbish against the fence that it had collapsed, dumping a load of rubbish into NEAT's back yard.

     Despite being polite about it, then being firm about it, then pursuing them on social media, SLUM left their garbage fester for 5 weeks, until NEAT hired a removal team and had it all taken to the city dump.

     Predictably, SLUM were irate about this and threatened to sue for theft of the disposed of rubbish.  They unwisely contacted city compliance, who came to inspect and instantly ruled in NEAT's favour, because there was a whole lot of other dangerous and toxic rubbish lying around SLUM's back yard.  The husband sent a formal explanation that they would be replacing the fence section, and then neither of SLUM ever tried to communicate with NEAT again.  A happy ending!  In this case good fences make bad neighbours go silent.

I Hate Half A Story

Especially when it concerns TREE LAW.  Now, the original story here is one I picked up on attorney Steve Lehto's Youtube channel, about another bottomhole who decided to cut down another person's trees in order to improve his own view.  Art!

     The story dates back to late 2023.  The defendant, Grant Haber, had hired a team of tree-fellers to trespass on his neighbour's property and cut down 32 healthy mature trees in order to better his views.  One has to wonder at the morals and scruples of a business willing to commit trespass in order to secure a payment.

     ANYWAY the court accepted a plea deal, specifically on the charge of not obtaining a permit to fell trees as per local legislation, which cost Haber $13,000.

     HOWEVER, this is not the  end of the tale.  

    You see, the Borough Prosecutor believed that Haber would be on the hook for replacing the felled trees, and at around $30,000 each, he might be paying up to $1 million for full restitution.

     Except that the story dates from two years ago and there are no further updates, which is annoying, to say the least.  I am sure a settlement hitting a million dollars would feature in at least local news media, yet nothing.

     Bah!

Finally -

Rounding things off with another Biercism.

"Gipsy, n: A person who is willing to tell your fortune for a small part of it."

More Of Fence

You Will Be As Delighted As I Am

When I inform you that I re-discovered the original story about a fence in dispute between The Fencing Master and BONE - BOttomhole NEighbour*.  I can now inform you that the colour scheme used by TFM was 'highliner yellow, blue and green, with slabs of black and brown', which sounds as unpleasant as it looks.  Art!

     Also, BONE hated this colour scheme so much he spammed the whole HOA subdivision with an e-mail complaining about it and trying to drum up support - which is what led to the two other neighbours* copying TFM's colour scheme.  Conrad was also right about the ending, BONE moved out a few months later.  

     Digging a bit further into fences as a topic, it seems there's almost as much material about them on teh Interwebz as there is about TREE LAW, since fences are usually associated with property boundaries, which are, again, a source of much dispute.  Art!

     This style of fence is known as 'Good Neighbour*'.  Why so?  O I thought you'd never ask!  Because it looks the same from both sides, meaning there is no 'bad' side that looks unsightly after installation, so your wrathful or wonderful neighbour* has nothing to complain about.

     The state of California - excuse me, CALIFORNIA, because saying it loudly annoys King Piggy - even has laws pertaining to neighbours* and fences.  The 'Good Neighbour**Fence Law California Civil Code ⨖841' requires adjoining property owners to share the upkeep and installation of boundary fences, unless they have come to an alternate arrangement.  

     Now we come to the meat of the matter in today's Intro, a dispute between neighbours over boundary lines and fences.  ILLEGAL fences!  Art!

     There are two characters here, SAintly Mother's Mother ('grandmother if we're being formal), hereafter SAMM, and BOundary Bottomhole, hereafter BOB.  It's,  important to note that SAMM was elderly and frail, yet she had a spine of brightest vanadium steel.  There is no mention of a Mister SAMM, so we can presume she was a widow, or BOB might have taken a few swipes to the jaw.

     First point of contention was their backyard fence, which was as old as SAMM and in a derelict condition, for which see above.  It supposedly marked the boundary between their properties, except that when SAMM approached BOB to contribute to a new fence, he immediately refused, saying the fence was on her property so it was her responsibility.  

     Then, fatefully, SAMM had a fall, and at her age this meant being hospitalized for several weeks.  When she got back home, SURPRISE! because BOB had built a fence 5 feet into her backyard.  Art!

BOB gloating.  Just wait, BOB, just wait

     Not only that, he'd sent her the bill for erecting the fence.  You see, BOB had decided that whilst SAMM was out of the way, it was the perfect time to claim the boundary line was five feet adrift of where it had been and enforce it with a fence.

     SAMM did not pay the bill.  In fact she hired a surveyor, who confirmed what she thought: the boundary line was where the original tatty old fence had been.  Having spent months in disputes with BOB, who was living down to his full name, and being old and frail, she decided to stop complaining and resort to direct action.

     How does a lady of advanced years and delicate state  take on an abusive bottomhole?

     With gardening.  Art!

     She planted blackberry bushes all along the newly erected fence.  Within two years they had covered the fence on her side, and she took pains to throw blackberry seeds over the fence onto BOB's illegally-acquired land.  By Year Five they had totally covered the extra ground BOB had stolen.  He tried to get rid of them by digging them up, but they grew back from SAMM's side every time.  SAMM's grandson informed that she has been gone a few years now, but her Blackberry Revenge Plan continues to <ahem!> bear fruit as the bushes still sprout and re-seed on BOB's property.  Art!

     One of the Commenters stated that blackberry bushes are extraordinarily hard to get rid of, requiring that they be cut back, the stems burned to ground level and chickens imported to consume the seeds.  There is corroborative advice on Google - 

Rampant, invasive Himalayan blackberry bushes can be controlled by cutting, digging out root balls, and consistent maintenance. For large infestations, cut canes to the ground, use machinery to till, or use goats to graze the area. For long-term control, remove all root fragments, as they can regenerate

     Looks like BOB is going to have this problem in perpetuity.  Tee hee!

I warned you, BOB.  I warned you!

DIFTII

Normally this would only be 'DIFTI' for 'Destroying It From The Inside' but I feel compelled to add 'Idiotically' to this one, because it concerns an utter chump.  His name is not mentioned, nor is his employment status, so we'll dub him Jack The Sack.  Art!

     What you see here is Boeing's Everrett facility in Washington, where Jack worked - hopefully past tense, for Boeing at least, for reasons we shall see.

     Jack was working on an Excel  spreadsheet, and he had trouble formatting it, the poor dear.  Rather than raise the issue with a senior or raise a ticket with IT, he did the most obvious thing possible NOT REALLY and e-mailed the spreadsheet to Jill, his wife.

     Jill did not work for Boeing.  Jill should not have been able to view the document and Jack shouldn't have sent it.  Major data protection breach here, as Jack shouldn't have been able to send it.

     Why was this a big deal?

     Because of the hidden columns.  Jack seems to have been a complete tyro with Excel, as there were birth dates and Social Security numbers for 36,000 Boeing employees present, unseen.  Art!

     Doing a bit of closing the stable door post-bolted horse, Boeing confirmed that the info had gone nowhere else after Jill received the spreadsheet.  Still, they felt obliged to offer everyone potentially affected free credit evaluation for two years, at a cost to the firm of $7 million.

More Of Beer Here

I detailed yesteryon about how Conrad collects beer cans and bottles that look interesting, regardless of what they taste like.  My collection has been run down over the last year, but last weekend I got another two new cans.  Here's the second one.  Art!

     Unlike the Shindigger can, this one does not list the ingredients.  It does give the address for '7 Brothers', which to my surprise is another Manchester address: Salford, Manchester M50 1DS.  Art!

    This is the brewery from the outside on a sunny day, and one hopes that the people who came on bikes are going to either walk home or stick at one pint.  Art!

     Meet the shining spotless metal interior where they make the brews.  That's a lot of beer here.  Also - 

SEVEN BRO7HERS BREWING CO is a family-run brewery located at 63 Waybridge Enterprise Centre, Daniel Adamson Road, Salford, M50 1DS. Founded in 2014 by seven McAvoy brothers, it features a taproom, offers Saturday brewery tours, and produces craft ales. The site operates on weekends, providing fresh beer straight from the tank

     Perhaps one for the summer diary?

Good News!

Conrad was browsing his news feed this morning and came across an item that had him a-whooping and a-hollering.  Quietly, so as not to worry the neighbours.  Art!

    Missing Doctor Who episodes rediscovered in private collection

     Woohoo!  Only two episodes, but that's better than nothing.  We are told they are 'The Nightmare Begins' and 'Devil's Planet' of which I know nothing but rest assured I am going to go dig right now.  Art!

     This is the tenth episode of "The Dalek's Masterplan", a twelve-parter featuring the obnoxious motorised dustbins.  Art!

     'Devil's Planet' is the 3rd episode of TDMP, and I don't have a title shot for it.

Finally -

Going out with a Biercism.

"Fridge,n:  A fashionable church."

*  NOTE CORRECT SPELLING

**  Okay I've rubbed it in enough.

The Best Defence -

Is An Of Fence

NO!  That is not a typo, it's an hilarious pun, hilarious I tell you - laugh or it's the Remote Nuclear Tormentor for you!  Art?

Possibly a RNT

     We may have covered camels in the past, that being the beast, the Sopwith aircraft and the naval outriggers, but definitely not fences.  Let me utilise my 'Collins Concise English Dictionary' once more.  'Fence: A structure that serves to enclose an area, such as a garden or field.'  There's another 7 definitions that I won't bother going into as that one will serve.  Art!

     You may be forgiven for not knowing who this chap is, as he's a long-dead South Canadian poet: Robert Frost.  He coined the phrase "Good fences make good neighbours*".  Typically, critics have been quick to ascribe deep and meaningful concepts behind these five words.  The most prevalent one is that clear boundaries are essential when dealing with other people, both in literal and metaphorical terms.  Art!

     Conrad will add to that: "Good fences make good neighbours, especially if you've gotten planning permission."  What you see above is a fence, constructed to replace a hedge, which was erected at a cost of £4,500, just up the road from us, in Bolton.  The problem was, the couple who had it put up did not apply for planning permission, and the local council ordered them to remove the fence, which they deemed unsightly and unfitting the local aesthetic.   Very much an Ooops! moment.

     ANYWAY enough preamble, onto the meat of the matter, which I found on Youtube under the banner of something I cannot remember, which is a bit of a problem as I didn't Save To Watch Later or Favourite it.  So this will be from my gin-addled memory <sigh>.

     So, there is also a HOA in this story, making it kind of a twofer.  The Fencing Master, hereafter TFM, lived next to a BOttomhole NEighbour, hereafter BONE.  There was a neighbour directly behind BONE, and another on the other side.  Art!

     TFM decided to put up a fence on his own property between himself and BONE, and invited him to help contribute to the cost.  BONE refused.  The two other neighbours also put up fencing, and again BONE refused to pay.  Thus BONE had effectively gotten his back yard fenced in for free, at the cost of good relations with all three neighbours.  Which will become important later.

     TFM stated that BONE's dog managed to break through the fence, implying either a rather frail fence or an enormous dog, perhaps both.  No, Vulnavia, we are not told what breed of dog it was.  Art!

     There.  Happy now?

     ANYWAY AGAIN TFM tried to get BONE to pay for the damage inflicted by Monster Dog, which the bottomhole refused to do.  I am beginning to dislike him.

     Then the HOA got involved <shudder!> and informed - told, actually - TFM that it was his responsibility to keep the fence maintained, regardless of whom damaged it. Ooops.  Art!

HOA 1 TFM 0

     TFM bit the bullet and replaced the panel.  He then took a closer look at the HOA rules and regulations, which informed that he could paint it in whatever colour he wanted.  As a bit of malicious compliance and petty revenge, he went down to the local supermarket and chose whatever tins of paint were being remaindered, and used these to paint his fence facing BONE in as nauseating colour scheme as could be managed.  Art!

Like this but much, much worse.

     BONE complained to the HOA, who told him that, as long as the fence was properly maintained, they didn't care what eye-watering colour scheme was used.  BONE painted over the side of the fence facing his backyard.  TFM sicced the HOA on him for 'vandalism' and he had to re-paint in the original retina-roasting hues and tones.

     Then the other two neighbours twigged how successful the petty revenge was, and they, too, painted their fences facing BONE's backyard in equally hideous colours.

     Unfortunately I cannot locate this story to confirm the ending, but if I recall correctly, BONE sold up and moved elsewhere in the HOA.  TFM 2 BONE 0

Get Thee Behind Me, Clickbaiter!

Of course - obviously! - it's fine if Conrad is doing the click-baity stuff, as I have double, treble and quadruple standards. What I object to is other people or entities doing the clickbaiting.  Such as this - Art!

     Judging by the text used here, and the presence of Nathan Fillion, they are talking about 'Firefly', which was indeed cancelled after one season.  The fans of this series, which I have seen and was mostly underwhelmed with, whom call themselves 'Browncoats' - not very flattering - never stop harping on about how it was strangled at birth and what a tragedy and the studio execs pass the port to the right.  We'll see if this gets out of Development Hell

     Ooh! Look what I just came across!

    I can see it being an animated series as the original cast is getting a bit long in the tooth.  Except Morena Baccarin, she  looks as delicious as ever.

More Gentle Shoeing

In case you weren't aware, Donnie Dorko lost the 2020 presidential election, which kind of broke his brain.  He is so obsessed with being an alpha male who never loses that he concocted a bizarrely twisted confabulation about how he was cheated.  With absolutely no evidence.  

     It looks as if King Piggy wants to go back to the litigation trail again, and revisit the 65 cases that Sydney Powell and Rudi Giuliani lost.  If you don't recall, because it was years ago, they brayed very loudly about how they were going to prove Trump was cheated out of his votes - whilst they were outside the courthouse.  Once inside they promptly collapsed into incredibly vague allusions in order to avoid perjuring themselves.  65 times.  The Wizard Lizard Gizzard party are having kittens about Pumpkinhead trying to rake over old coals from 6 years ago.  Well, it might distract attention from the Epstein Files and the Straits of Hormuz.

     Lay in supplies of popcorn.

Reinstating A Tradition

For several years, Your Humble Scribe has been collecting cans or bottles of beer that look interesting, then putting up illustrations of same so that the whole world can ponder and wonder at the designer's craft.

     What they taste like is very much secondary.  This collection has been run down to a single beer bottle, sitting forlorn behind my work monitor.  

     Until now, as I've added a brace of cans and will explicate for you.  Art!

     In contrast to the ingredients on a Pringles tube, this lager lists: Water, barley, wheat, yeast and hops.  I've been aware of the existence of Shindigger before but didn't realise until just now that it's brewed in Gomorrah-on-the-Irwell.  Well well.  Art!

     I recognise this location - that's the Electric Goldfish Bowl to port, and the old Co-op HQ behind it.  The address on the can says Manchester M12 but this looks more like M3, perhaps even in Salford.  Just so you know.

Another Throwback To The Sixties

Conrad was just browsing for more content in order to get up to Count, and came across the "Vintage Space Art" that I'd saved as a favourite on Youtube.  Art!

    This is a launch of one of NASA's Project Gemini manned capsules, using a Titan missile body.  Yes, a Titan inter-continental ballistic missile, the ones that had Moscow in their electronic eyes when used with a 9-megaton nuke.  One has to wonder what the astronaut sitting where a warhead would have been felt about things.  Shades of Major Kong**.

Finally -

Let's tie things up with a Biercism:

"Famous: conspicuously miserable

Done to a turn on the iron, behold

Him to be famous aspired.

Content?  Well his grill has a plating of gold,

And his twistings are greatly admired."

*  NOTE CORRECT SPELLING

**  

Ha!

I've Just Checked Next Week's Schedule

Which is LOUD CHEERING IN THE BACKGROUND the Sensible one, 09:00 - 17:00, for which small mercy we are truly thankful.  I do miss the one Friday in eight when we clocked off at two or three in the afternoon, which schedule is utter anathema to our Manager's Manager, who insists everyone finishes at 17:00.  Art!

     I think this work schedule must be South Canadian, they only get Sunday off.

     ANYWAY enough boring wibble about work, time to trawl teh Interwebz of yesteryon and find out what Conrad was fulminating about over a decade ago.

2025

BOOJUM!: Time Ravel

2024

BOOJUM!: In Support Of Niche And Nerdy

2023

BOOJUM!: Money Funny Money

2022

BOOJUM!: The Return Of The Hair-Splitting Pedant!

2021

BOOJUM!: Only Welsh Can Save Us Now!

2020

BOOJUM!: If I Were To Say "Big Rig" -

2019

BOOJUM!: Well That's The Upper Storey Safe

2018

BOOJUM!: Well Well - Wait - What The Hell?

2017

BOOJUM!: Clerihew!

2016

BOOJUM!: Conrad Versus The ATOMIC DEATH SALSA!

2015

BOOJUM!: Why, Dick Why?

2014

BOOJUM!: "And This, Too, Shall Pass Away"

If I Were To Say 'The Mechanic'

You Might Conflate Or Confuse My Meaning

First of all, a dinosaur like Conrad might be talking about a 1972 film called 'The Mechanic', starring Charles Bronson and Jan Michael Vincent, which I have seen, ages ago.  Art!

     It's an interesting if uneven film.  Bishop, the professional assassin working for a secret, un-named criminal organisation, lives alone on a diet of anti-depressants thanks to the emotional toll the job takes on him.  He hires a call girl to fake a romance with him and By Wild Coincidence, Bronson's wife Jill Ireland got the part.  Eventually he takes on Steve, the ruthless and ambitious son of his boss, as an apprentice mechanic.  'Mechanic' in this sense being an euphemism for a hitman or assassin.

     I won't spoil the ending, just point out that it had a typically bleak Seventies vibe to it.

     OR I could be talking about the 2011 remake, starring Jason 'The Stath' Statham and Ben Foster, which I believe I've also seen, once again ages ago.  Art!

     They copy the plot of the original, apart from the ending, which is revealed as a cop-out.  No, I won't spoil it for you.  I cannot remember anything about this remake apart from the very last scene, so it can't have been that great.

     ANYWAY there is also a novel of the same name, treading similar narrative ground, and if Art will put down his bowl of coal - 

     The protagonist, John Tyler, retired from the army 8 years previously, is a single dad to his daughter Lexi, and is working as - you may be ahead of me here - as mechanic, specialising in classic cars.  Then an old enemy from his past resurfaces and he needs to call on his Very Special Skillset.  This is the first in an ongoing series, so Fowler is obviously doing something right.

     ANYWAY AGAIN, the first two above are nothing to do with our real Intro, although the novel is swerving in the right direction.  For Lo! we have another tale about car mechanics, and you're going to be startled at the resolution in this tale, derived from the Comments on a Youtube Reddit post by 'Ripe'.  Art!

     Driver of Automobile Requiring Extensive Servicing, hereafter DARES, was going to drive from Atlanta to Washington DC, a distance of 650 PROUD IMPERIAL MILES and needed his brake pads changing.  He asked his sled-head roommate where to go and was recommended the Firepoint garage in Snelville, Georgia.  Yes, the narrator makes a point of deliberately identifying the garage.  Art!

Close enough

     I am assuming the tale is an old one, as there is no longer a Firepoint in Snellville.  

     After changing the brake pads, the garage mechanics took the car for a test drive, and warned that they needed to pump the brakes repeatedly to get them to function at all.  DARES knew there was an existing problem, since he had to pump the brakes repeatedly when starting his rusty bucket, but the pad change had made it much worse.  Art!

NOT a Macguffin

     The problem was in the brake pump itself (see above), which couldn't be repaired and needed completely replacing because the car was now extremely dangerous to drive.  Conrad, as a driver himself, cannot imagine trying to drive and negotiate traffic with NO BRAKES: your car becomes a metal missile.  The Garage Operative Of Decency, hereafter GOOD, informed that parts and labour would come to $500.

     DARES explained that they were a broke-bottom waiter with only $200 to their name and would just have to live with it.  GOOD must have known of the intent to drive 650 miles without effective brakes, because they immediately looked very concerned.

     'Wait here, I need to speak to my manager' he informed.

     When he came back he had a stark message.  'My manager says we don't want you to die, so we're just going to do it for you. No charge.'

     Thus DARES got $500 worth of parts and labour for free, because GOOD and his manager had a conscience.  Art!

     I bet they got his repeat custom, and good word of mouth spread around, since a garage you can trust not to rip you off is worth sharing about.  A nice life-affirming change from mechanics inflicting death and violence.

 A Interesting Theory

Tim Dillon, a MAGA cult member and pro-Trump podcaster, is having buyer's regret about King Piggy and what demented adventures he's initiating.  Allow me to copy his recent comments:

"He's at the end of his life. He doesn't care about what happens next. That's the thing with Donald Trump, he doesn't really care about what happens next…Trump is just kind of on a farewell tour."

     It can get worse for Donnie Dorko, as his 'Military Combat Operation On Iran That Is Totally Not A War' will have cemented people's minds about him long before the mid-terms in November.

     Here's another unflattering photo of the Boorish Orange Oaf Himself.  Art!

     I know I have christened Viktor Orban the 'Weretoad' but Billy Bonespurs here is running him a close second.

You What?

Once again Your Humble Scribe is baffled at how the algorithms on his MSN news feed page function, if they function at all or simply pick items at random.  Take this one as an example.  Art!

     You may have noticed the complete omission of gardening in Conrad's blogs over the years, as it interests me NOT AT ALL.  Where in the back yard would we put a water feature, especially when we have water featuring all the time as it descends from the skies?

     At least it's not an oscilloscope.

      Dog Buns!  It's there four times!  Art?

     GO VERY FAR AWAY!

Destroying It From The Inside

Conrad has another electronic evisceration to inform about, although given the glacial pace of the South Canadian legal system, no resolution yet.  

     So - a research scientist at Yahoo, one Qian Sang, accepted a job with their direct competitor, The Trade Desk.  Art!

     This was May of 2022, in other words during Covid, which may have some bearing on how long this case is taking to reach judgement.  Sang immediately downloaded 570,000 (!) pages of proprietary Yahoo data on their AdLearn product, including a competitive analysis of TTD, which would have included things like strengths, weaknesses, potential strategies to compete more effectively - similar to a 'battle card'.

     Conrad can see an internal failure at Yahoo already, because it took them weeks to realise Sang had stolen over half a million pages of information, let alone allowing him to copy that much information in the first place.  Can you say 'Data Protection Breach'?  Because this wasn't just a batch of e-mails.  The theft involved:

source code, backend advertising architecture, algorithms that control ad placement and associated earnings tracking … and strategy behind Yahoo’s backend advertising technology

      The most recent information on the case, where Yahoo are suing for $5 million in damages, dates from April 2025, almost a year ago.  So, apparently, no resolution yet - again, possibly due to a Covid-created backlog.

I Am Going To Cheat Here

First of all, by copying and pasting an intro put up on Twitter by 'ChrisO_wiki', who usually posts long, multiple Tweets, and this one has 21 items to it.  Art!

Znamenyi Island

A superpower invades a small island off the coast of an enemy nation. After a short bombardment, marines seize and hold the island. 126 days later, they stage a humiliating retreat under constant fire from the mainland. This is the story of Ukraine's Snake Island.

     Conrad is pretty sure someone out there is going to put this out as a hex-and-counter board wargame, the ghouls.

     ANYWAY I've Bookmarked it for later perusal, and also note that it includes an analysis of the situation of Kharg Island in the Gulf of Hormuz.

Finally -

Another quote from my QI Banter book.

"The only really good thing about acting in movies is that there's no heavy lifting."  - Cary Grant.