Growlers: Beers Or Bears?

I Ask This Question

Since, as I like to dig a little deeper on any subject I am writing about, I asked teh Interwebz if there was a comics character named 'Growler' and to nobody's great surprise, there was.  Art!

     A human-bear hybrid, in case that wasn't clear.  Then there are the containers of beer called 'growlers', which will intimate to you that we're back to dealing with the saga of the duelling brothers 'No Chrysler 4 Me' and his idiot elder brother 'Chad Wannabe', whom shall be NC4M and CW from now on.  Art!

    There being no love lost between them, NC4M had set up a growler that contained a whole bottle of laxative, which he must have been able to distinguish from the other, uncontaminated bottles he got filled with beer.  Let me be plain here, THIS IS HIGHLY ILLEGAL AND NOT TO BE CONDONED, which allows you to conclude how much bad blood there was between them.  

     NC4M let spill the details that he was off on his last camp of the year before autumn arrived and brought bad weather with it, along with two of his mates.  CW arrived at the same campsite, just a little further down the river from his brother, along with his pothead friends - thus becoming TRiO Of Potheads, TROOP from now on.  Art!

     NC4M stands in judgement of TROOP, who brought along the brands of beer above, which are known to be cheap as they use cheaper ingredients and brew in enormous quantities for economies of scale.  Art!

     Did I mention that CW hated hated hated to be upstaged?  He was irate that his younger brother had a portable DVD player and he didn't, and that they were playing 'Buckaroo Banzai' as he also liked the film.  TROOP did not have a generator so were using up tons of batteries to power the single boombox they had, and CW's laptop couldn't play DVDs, a sad indictment of modern IT as my laptop won't play DVDs either.

     ANYWAY Friday and Saturday passed without CW trying to steal beer growlers, so NC4M and his two friends went for a swim in the river at dusk, hoping to provoke a theft.

     It worked.  He stole the tainted growler and absconded with it, giving his brother the bird whilst doing so, the cad.  The untainted growlers were locked up in NC4M's Toyota Taurus, leaving only the laxative-dosed growler in his fridge to steal.  Younger brother confesses that he might have been better off not using the whole laxative bottle.  Wise after the fact.

     The effects were immediate and dramatic.  Art!

     TROOP were all off squatting in the bushes in order to unburden their uneasy bowels.  The noise!  The smell!  Which was so bad it made them also vomit, and I'm going to leave it to your imagination what that looked like.

     'I took this prank too far' admits NC4M O rlly D'YA THINK?  Given how litigious his brother was, he sneaks over to their campsite and retrieves the growler, washing it out in the river to remove any evidence of poisoning.  A wise move but you have just outed yourself on the internet to an audience of tens of millions.

     Even more humiliation arrives for TROOP in the shape of two other campers from another site further down the river, who came to investigate the awful smells and sounds, probably being downwind of the trio.  CW has to politely fend off their requests about what's going on and explain it away as 'bad beer'.  Art!

    Sid also blames 'bad beer' for involuntary defecating after undertaking a fairground ride.  Sid, and CW: the brewing industry goes to great lengths to ensure it's beer is not 'bad' as in chemically tainted, otherwise they would be paying an awful lot in compensation.

     NC4M and mates decide to leave the campsite in the middle of the night, as they firmly believe TROOP will retaliate, and you can understand why.  CW was extremely angry afterwards but didn't dare do anything, possibly because the tainted growler was gone, and trying to assert that 'The beer I stole -' is a losing proposition.

    NC4M then ordered his brother to stop following him around to campsites and went off on a last pre-autumn visit on his own to a different, more remote campsite, where he had tremendous fun and thoroughly enjoyed himself, all the more so as his idiot elder brother did not come along.  Art!

     The saga has one more tale yet to be told.  I'll get around to it at a later date.  I bet you can hardly wait.

A Bit Of Art For You

As put up by 'Bert Plumbswang' over on the hell-platform Twitter.  Bert is ploughing a lonely furrow in support of the Bolton Paul Defiant, one of the worst RAF fighters to ever wobble it's way into the skies.  

     ANYWAY Bert put up a painting of the Battle Of Cape Matapan which I've never seen before but loved to bits.  Art!

     The artist is Frank Norton and he captures the chaos of a night action at sea, with explosions, tracer and searchlights all in play.  The ship in the foreground is 'HMAS Stuart' i.e. 'His Majesty's Australian Navy' as proof positive that the Ockers liked to get into a scrap no matter what the medium.

     O what you can't see is that the British and Commonwealth ships all have radar and the Romans do not.  We may come back to this, it has legs.  Or flippers.

Bring On The Wheelie-bins Of Popcorn!

We are now 23 days away from the South Canadian mid-term elections, which look to be so bad for the Wizard Lizard Gizzard party that Droopy might try to cancel them altogether, or 'postpone' them which means cancelling them altogether, or invoke the Insurrection Act, or declare that he is King Piggy The Fat Caligula Emperor and he cannot be voted out of office.  In truth he is as toxic as an uranium enema, and may dimly perceive this.  Members of his own party running for Senate seats certainly do, which is why they are trying to distance themselves from his radioactive aura.  Art!

     The chap to port is Jon Ossoff, the Ice Cream Bandit sitting senator and the chap to starboard is Mike Collins, the Trump-worshipping opponent.  Jon asked him if he still believes that Trump's election in 2020 was stolen.

     Utter silence.

     If Collins says 'yes' then he outs himself as a swivel-eyed loonwaffle.  If he says 'no' then that breaks faith with his fat orange god.

     This is hilarious to see but also means I've gotten through all my popcorn.

     Jen also posted a graphic illustrating just how much WLG party voters have gotten fed up with Cankles Von Yamteats.  Art!

     The issue here is that WLG party voters might just sit the mid-terms out, not bothering to vote, meaning the ICBs will win by default.  November 4th is going to be an interesting day.

Further To The Above -

Donnie Dorko continues to die by inches in front of the world's cameras, in addition to sounding as if he's gargling with a pint of phlegm in his throat, and spouting nonsense.  So - Art!

     I would say more - par-boiled.

     Note the goggle-shield where the orange spray did not land.

Further To The Above -

Pumpkinhead announced earlier today on his social media platform 'Truth Social' that there was now an energy ceasefire between Ukraine and Ruffia, which seems to exist only in his head.  Prez Zed, when asked about this, replied 'First I've heard about it' whilst the Kremlin could not be reached for comment.

     Also - Art!

     This, South Canada, is what happens when your President has a brain made of mashed potato.  Possibly also with butter and/or gravy.

Dogfish Head

It's A South Canadian Brewery

I am following up on the 'This Isn't Competition, It's Peculiar Cognition' story about 'No Chrysler 4 Me' hereafter NC4M and his idiot elder brother, Chad Wannabe, hereafter CW.  The core tenet of CW was that he HATED being upstaged by his younger brother and would go to ridiculous lengths to compete with him.

     NC4M had caught CW trying to steal his beer when they were out camping, which gave him a wicked idea for revenge.  Without stating the brand, he bought a couple of six packs of the 'hoppiest' beer he could find.  Art!

      Conrad suspects it was one of the Dogfish Head brands, possibly 'Hoo Lawd', which is about 20 times hoppier than a standard beer.  Poison made for masochists, one thinks.

     NC4M baited the trap by mentioning he was going camping again with a couple of mates, meaning that OF COURSE elder brother and a couple of his pothead mates, TRiO Of Potheads, hereafter TROOP, went to the same campsite, a bit further down.  In the small hours of Saturday CW tried to cadge beer off his bro and was rudely rebuffed, so he stole the two six-packs of Poison For Masochists from his brother's minifridge, thinking himself very clever.

     Ooops.  Art!

     Thirty minutes later he came back, looking ill, and demanding to know what was in the beer he drank, which lead to him confessing he'd stolen beer from NC4M's fridge.  His younger brother mocked him for drinking it and gave him the five remaining bottles from the first six-pack he bought.  TROOP were all wasted by this point and continued to drink Poison For Masochists, looking disgusted every time they took a sip.  Finally CW's stomach couldn't take any more and he vomited all over himself, having to get into the river to wash it all off, still vomiting.  Thieves not prospering and all that.  Art!

Might have been this

     TROOP were missing in action until mid-afternoon the next day, all three of them extremely hungover - a condition I am told is very unpleasant - with the dead marines all present as proof of what hideous brewed concoctions they'd been swilling.  CW came over to demand that NC4M apologise, which takes a lot of brass neck, as NC4M guffawed about apologising for having his beer stolen.  His elder brother left, humiliated and pursued by mocking laughter.

     That Sunday NC4M left the campsite before his brother did, thus ensuring he didn't get stuck behind the Mini-Ram for half of the route.  CW kept quiet about the humiliation this time, not wanting his fragile ego to suffer by admitting that his younger brother very much got the better of him.  NC4M then ends this camping tale with the threatening words "I think next time I'll get some beer spiked with laxative to leave for him.  That might be funny.'

     Conrad is pretty sure that's very illegal.  No wonder he's not putting any identifying information in his Reddit posts!  Art?

     That, gentle reader, is a 'growler', it being a re-usable glass bottle for holding beer, standard capacity 64 PROUD IMPERIAL OUNCES or 4 pints.  Allegedly the name comes from beer carried in sealed buckets making a growling noise as gas escaped, an explanation I am not very convinced by.  

ANYWAY NC4M took along a batch of those very same growlers to get them filled at a local inn, making sure to keep track of the one he'd added a whole bottle of laxative to ONCE AGAIN HIGHLY ILLEGAL!  Being canny and cautious he also deliberately omitted the name of the beer brand, because that would give away his location as it's a locally-brewed honey-beer.  Yes, the police would indeed love to have that information.  Art!

Very old school

     He also bought a cheap second-hand DVD player to take camping as a source of entertainment and he might be an incorrigible poisoning rogue, but he and his two friends watched 'Buckaroo Banzai*' on it, redeeming him somewhat in Your Humble Scribe's eyes.

     I shall leave things at this point.  We will most definitely get back to this.  I bet you can hardly wait.

Another 'You What?' Moment

Art!

     Er - say what?  This seems to be senseless word salad.  Let me Google a little.

     Aha!

     So it's a fishing hook.  Now we all know and you're welcome.

Wings And Things

Or, more from IWM Duxford.  I cannot remember where we left off - gin, rum and old age - so I'll just have to review the files.  Wait one.

Art!

     We were just about to leave the hangar when I noticed this hanging from the ceiling.  Not sure how I managed to miss anything that large.  The roundels are rather small, so let me inform you that it's an Avro Canada CF-100 'Canuck' of the PROUDLY ROYAL Canadian Air Force.  Given that the aircraft, unloaded, weighs in at ten tons, I rather suspect that this one is a shell or you'd need cables three feet thick to hold it up.  The only Canuckistanian fighter to ever go into mass production.  Art!

Twofer with Tom and Sal

     The large coffin-shaped vehicle - an apt comparison - is an ex-East German BTR-60 barely-armoured personnel carrier.  Whilst the idea of having a large wheeled vehicle able to keep up with and support mechanised operations, the execution was botched.  Dismounting via the side hatches was difficult, the armour was only a fifth of an inch thick, there was no anti-spalling liner and it had two engines which consistently broke down.  When the South Canadians got hold of some courtesy Israel, they were hugely unimpresssed.

     Behind it is the Victor V-bomber and later flying tanker.  Google has it wrong; the BTR is NOT located next to the Vulcan.  Art!

     A Hawker Hunter.  Designed as a daytime interceptor, it had a verrry long lifetime: introduced in 1954, the Lebanese Air Force used them up until 2014, thanks to being built out of box girders and railway sleepers.  Hawker made 1,97 of them and exported them to customers across the globe.  Art!

     I did say 'things' and here is one.  This is a First Unpleasantness Teuton mast periscope, which I'm pretty sure used to be on display in London.  The idea was that the observer sat in safety, then elevated the mast in order to view and correct artillery fire.  Art!

The periscope erected NO SNIGGERING AT THE BACK!

Ouch

I am going to put up an illo I created from thumbnails created by 'Suchomimus' over on Youtube.  Art!

     The print is rather small, so let me explicate.  These are Yandex data centres, the first of which was destroyed three days ago.  There was speculation by people like yours truly as to whether this was a one-off or if the Kozaky were going to do a Wildberries on these sites, and the answer is 'yes'.  The orcs have been doing this to Ukraine since 2022, so it's time they got a bit of payback.  Sucho also put up a graph of connectivity which is pleasant viewing.  Art!

     This is going to make everything much, much harder for the orcs of Mordorvia, and that rasping noise is Conrad rubbing his hands with glee.  Problem number one for the Ruffians is that these sites are completely vulnerable and also completely undefended, thanks to about 150 SAM systems in the five rings of defences around Barad Duh, which have been overwhelmed by wave upon wave of Kozaky drones.  Second problem is that most of these data centres are located in European Ruffia, well within Firepoint 1 and 2 range.  The others might get a visit from the Firepoint 9, the soon-to-arrive ballistic missile.

Finally -

Going out with another Biercism, then it's time to do the laundry.  My rock and roll lifestyle.

'White, adj and n: Black'

*  One of my favourites.  Bonkers entertaining and a stellar cast.

The Dogsitting Begins

Yes Indeedy Ally Sheedy

The rest of the family are off on a cruise, which is not my kind of thing, so here I am solo in The Mansion, which also means Madame Mutt doesn't have to go into kennels.  Heaven forfend that Her Majesty had to slum it for ten days!  Normally during the working day I keep the door to my Sekrit Layr closed, because the wunderhund likes to bark at people passing by on the street outside; I now need to leave it open or there will be endless scratching, whining and howling.  O the cross I have to bear.  Art!

     Ally Sheedy, whom, horrifyingly, is now  aged 64.   Only a year younger than Your Aged Scribe.

     ANYWAY let us now list the links.

2025

BOOJUM!: A Little Different Today

2024

BOOJUM!: If I Were To Say "The Starship"

2023

BOOJUM!: Your Irony Supplement Is Here

2022

BOOJUM!: Spaced Opera

2021

BOOJUM!: Not Quite A Theme

2020

BOOJUM!: Collective Retrospective

2019

BOOJUM!: I Am About -

2018

BOOJUM!: How To Lose A Billion Pounds Without Trying

2017

BOOJUM!: Hailing The USS Entearprise ...

2016

BOOJUM!: TERROR IN THE SKIES!

2015

BOOJUM!: "I Like Clubbing!"

2014

BOOJUM!: Bit Of A Dick Van Dyke Today

2013

BOOJUM!: A Day of Doing

This Isn't Competition, It's Peculiar Cognition

For Lo!

We are back on the saga of No-Chrysler-4-Me and his idiot elder brother Chad Wannabe, whom are dubbed NC4M and CW hereafter.  CW absolutely could not stand in any way to be upstaged even slightly by NC4M, hence the previous tales of his money-pit Dodge Ram and decrepit camper.  Not to mention the ooooold Ford Minivan he turned into a faux truck, dubbed the 'Mini-Ram'.  Art!

     Something like that.  NC4M literally fell over laughing when he first saw it, as it was so bizarre, but didn't dare post a photo as CW is extremely litigious.   He made a passing comment about how on earth it got insured, which I suspect is a case of It Never Did.  Art!

Like this, but with added extra Stupid

     The tale up to that point had been mostly to do with all sorts of mechanical work on car bodies and engines, which was educational to Your Humble Scribe as I barely know how to hold a screwdriver.  I did learn that 'Harbor Freight' is a retailer that sells construction and repair equipment.  Art!

 From the point the Mini-Ram made it's debut, it was more about CW's behaviour, which was a combination of extreme jealousy, rage and spite.  You'll see.  Art!

     One of NC4M's weekend diversions was to go off to campsites, towing his camper trailer with his Toyota Tundra.  Conrad cannot see the attraction of traipsing to a location with no amenities, especially  if the weather is miserable.

     ANYWAY enough of my preferences.  The year was wearing on and the younger brother wanted to get in a weekend before the weather turned and it got wet or cold or both at once.  So off he went, to a campsite he knew of, next to a river.  No, I don't know where it was, NC4M is careful not to identify even the state he lived in.  So, off he popped to a campsite he knew of, where he was the only occupant -

     Until his brother turned up in the Mini-Ram, towing his renovated trailer and a car with a pair of what NC4M described as his 'pothead friends'.  Ooops.  Did I mention CW hated hated hated being upstaged?  They set up at the same location, causing NC4M to lay down some ground rules:

1)  Leave my stuff alone

2)  LEAVE MY STUFF ALONE

3)  LEAVE MY STUFF ALONE

Art!

TRiO Of Potheads, hereafter TROOP, ran out of food and beer on the first night, possibly because a trio of stoners inhaling 'joints' means a trio with the munchies.  CW tries to steal his brother's beer, unsuccessfully, as being drunk does not make you invisible.  He did steal power from his brothers portable generator until the theft got discovered and stopped.  In fact NC4M locked up all his kit to prevent it being stolen.  Art!

Revenge breakfast!

     The subsequent morning, he had a massive cooked breakfast and ate it outside to rub in the fact that he'd brought enough food and drink.  TROOP, feeling humiliated, moved further down the campsite so as not to see or smell the food.

     Did I mention the elder brother hated hated hated being upstaged?  He had brought along an old .22 rifle he had and TROOP spent the morning shooting tin cans and bottles, taking hours to do so since the rifle had no magazine and needed to be reloaded every time it fired.  Art!

     NC4M had, seemingly, anticipated his noisy neighbours pulling something sonically subvertive like this and took along a pair of noise-cancelling headphones.  Art!

The secret weapon

     Did I mention that the elder brother hated hated hated being upstaged?  Thus he left the campsite slightly ahead of NC4M and blocked him all the way home until their roads diverged.
     On a later conference call with his parents, NC4M brought up his toxic elder brother's 'extreme jealousy, rage and spite' and wondered if there was an underlying mental problem.  Given what we have seen so far, very possibly!  Art?

     NC4M decided, in a decidedly evil way, to strike back at his idiot elder brother by using his major weakness: beer.  Recalling that CW had tried to steal his beer, NC4M made a point of finding the 'hoppiest' beer possible, without naming the brand for fear of litigation after what happened later.

     Here an aside.  Conrad did a bit of digging and found that there is a rating scale for 'hoppiness' in beer - the 'International Bitterness Unit' scale.  Your average beer has about 15 IBUs.  Art!

     This is 'Dogfish Head Hoo Lawd' which has an IBU rating of - waitforitwaitforit - 658.  I strongly suspect that this is the brew NC4M tried, having been able to only finish one bottle of it, so foul was the taste.  He got two six packs of this beer.

     The trap now needed to be baited.  More to come.

Another 'You What' Moment

Conrad suspects that all my looking up terms like 'rocker panels' and 'cold air intake filter' has perhaps persuaded the tracking algorithms on my newsfeed that I am a keen amateur engineer.  This might explain why it keeps throwing up items like this one.  Art!

     This, apparently, is a 'crankshaft pulley'.  I have no idea why it's a 'crankshaft' pulley and will now confirm the algorithm's conclusion by looking up what it is.

     Aha!

A crankshaft pulley is a round, grooved metal wheel attached to the end of an engine's crankshaft. As the engine's pistons move up and down to turn the crankshaft, the pulley spins and uses a serpentine or drive belt to power vital engine accessories

     So now we know.

Ponta De Sant Ponc

Another location 'Flavour Trip' broadcast from 3 years ago.  I thought it looked a little like a campsite from one viewpoint.  Art!

     Might be a bit risky pitching a tent next to a river, especially since the weather looks overcast and rainfall upriver might raise the level.  

     ANYWAY ANYWAY it's definitely not a campsite, as proven by the next shot.   Art!

     A dam!  You should surely know by now that BOOJUM! loves dams, intact or destroyed.  Also love the wheelbarrow being used to carry equipment to the broadcast site.

     So - where is this?  O I thought you'd never ask!  Spain.  Let me dig a little.  

     The reservoir dates from 1957, when it was filled after the dam was constructed.  It is half a PROUD IMPERIAL MILE in area, sits 530 EVIL METRIC METRES above sea level and is in Catalonia.  There you go.  Art!

Bringing Back Brucie

More of the Pennington slideshow from 'Sci-Fi Art' with the clock at 6:21 out of a 7:09 total, so we're nearing the end if you're not a big fan.  Art!

     His/her/it's hairdressing bill must be monstrous.  Conrad is convinced this is cover art for a book, and it even looks to have the wrinkles and scuffs of a paperback, even if I cannot recall the title or author.  Let me Google-fu and see if this can be determined.  

     Nope.  Not a single hit.  O well.  Art!

     Dog Buns! I'm sure that came up in the search for Snake-hair Man.  Aha!  Art?

     I'm pretttty sure it's been used as a book cover as well, since these publishing houses like to save money by re-using the same image for different media or books.  More shovel work.  Art!

     Told you so.

This Encapsulates What I Was Saying About 'Survivors'

Conrad has asserted, across several platforms, that the recent outbreak of plague in Irkutsk, Siberia, Mordorvia - which has been confirmed by the Kremlin denying it has happened - is reflected in the opening credits of the above television series.  It's unstated but implicit that the television virus was spread globally by air travel.

     Well, 'Jake Broe' has put up a rather worrying graphic.  Art!

Jake's hand.  Wave back.

     These are 40 flights that left Irkutsk in the window between Patient Zero becoming infected and when she was admitted to hospital, four days later.  No similar cases reported in any of these destinations - yet.

     Cross your fingers.

Finally -

Rather than leave you with that chilling item, let's go out with a Biercism.

'Implacable, adj: Not to be appeased without a large sum of money.'

Twelve Years After

No!  I Have Not Done A Typo

 - and mis-typed the name of that band, you know, Ten Years After, whom are still around a good fifty years after they started.  Might be time to think about retiring, chaps, rockers on stage at eighty are not a good look.

     ANYWAY I'm going to be my usual perverse self and not put up a picture of them, and instead we'll use an early iteration of Pink Floyd.  Art!

     Featuring the debonair, dashing and demented Syd Barrett at starboard.  This was the band's first single and it did comparatively well, reaching Number 20 in the UK charts in May of 1967.

     Mark that date.

     Dave Gilmour joined the band, Syd left and they became a very different kind of beast, gradually moving from psychedelia to prog, and only releasing another 4 singles in the late Sixties.

     Then, in December 1979 - Art!

12 years later

     It was top of the charts for 5 weeks, including Christmas of 1979, yet you will listen in vain for it in the run-up to Xmas as it's not exactly sweet or bland, doesn't mention 'holly' or have bells a-ringing.  Hence today's blog title.  Art!

Gerald Scarfe's nightmarish vision.  I wonder what the inside of his head is like.

     So, this Intro, for as long as I feel entertained by it, is going to look at the rest of the chart for December 1979, see what I approve of, what I disapprove of and which will get the Remote Nuclear Detonator.  Art!

     
     REMOTE NUCLEAR DETONATOR!  Conrad loathes ABBA and always has, it's a constant in his life he's happy to maintain, and that's all the girning quartet deserve.  Art!

     A very strong debut from this band, and an album I used to have on vinyl.  The song got played to death but I still like it.  Chrissie's bandmates guitarist and bassist were sadly over-fond of WICKED ILLEGAL DRUGS, the kind that come in powdered form and which killed 'em dead.

     For those who are unfortunate enough to not hail from the shores of This Sceptred Isle, 'Brass' here refers to cash coins, meaning the narrator of the song has money, possibly due to copper coinage being the colour of brass.  My 'Brewer's' didn't help any, the piker.  Art!

     The very definition of a novelty one-hit wonder.  They were a folk band who never troubled the charts again BUT they did allow Lurpak to nick the music and recite a song praising Danish butter above all things, which is surreal enough to be mentioned here.  I Don't Approve.  In case you were wondering.  Art!

     Their cover of the old Dusty Springfield classic, and a rather anodyne song it is too, which doesn't hint at the much darker direction they took later on, instead of cranking out commercially-successful covers as their label wanted them to.  I Approve.  Art!

     Please note that this band is 'THE Beat', the definite article you might say, and another cover, this being a version of the old Smokey Robinson and the Miracles classic, which - shock horror! - I Approve of, especially the instrumentation.  The Beat were one of the more successful ska bands that suddenly sprouted up in the late Seventies for no good reason.  I Approve.  Art!

Very small people or very big champagne bottle

REMOTE NUCLEAR DETONATOR!  Conrad hates this song, which is a concatenation of all that is mawkish, tawdry and gimcrack.  You want sunshine?  I'll give you a supernova!  Art!

     I don't recall anything about this song, but it has 'Rap-' in the title so I hate it already.  Yes that's how shallow I am.  Do Not Approve.  Art!

     One wonders how much it cost to fly to South Canada and film at the Kennedy Space Centre, for that's where this cover and video were shot.  The Police played a king of bastardised-reggae and were howlingly popular for a while.  Sir John Peel was quite appreciative of their live performances, which he said were much, much harder than the commercial sound of their records.  I Approve.  Come on, a video featuring a Saturn V?  How can I not?  Art!

     I Do Not Approve.  Pablum for the ears, even if I cannot remember anything about the song.  It's my proud boast that I have never owned a song by The Three Degrees, and if I ever admit to buying one, it's time for a rubber room and blunt knives.

     Okay, at ten entries I think it's time to pause there and reflect.  We shall come back to this and I bet you can hardly wait.

Another 'You What?' Moment On The Newsfeed

Readers with long memories might remember when Your Modest Artisan had a subscription to 'The Daily Beast' and would feature mysterious objects their 'Temu' sidebar was trying to flog.  The 'Golf Divot Replacement Tool' is one of my favourite obscure artefacts.

     ANYWAY the newsfeed has partially filled this role.  Art!

     What the actual blue flying flip is this?  What is a '2" LOC' or a '5" OAL'?  Or a Milling Square End Mill?  I shall dig a little.  Aha!

A square end mill is a rotary cutting tool used in milling machines and CNC routers that features a flat, perpendicular cutting edge with sharp 90-degree corners. Unlike drill bits, which cut primarily along their tip, an end mill is designed for both radial (side) and axial (end) cutting, allowing it to carve shapes laterally across a workpiece

     Thus, a piece of cutting gear that I have no interest in, have not used and will only start using on the day I purchase The Three Degrees Greatest Hits.

A Man Thinking After My Own Thoughts

No idea whom this chap is, but I like the cut of his jib.  Art!

     My assertion is that it's made up of mashed potatoes, although I can well believe that it's 50% Eton Mess.

Bringing Back Brucie

More of the slideshow that 'Sci-fi Art' put up on Youtube.  I hope you like Bruce Pennington artworks.  If you don't then be reassured we're getting towards the end.  Art!

     Now, I know what the artwork is depicting here: the descent of explorers from Earth into the bowels of the gigantic spaceship dubbed 'Rama', from Arthur C* Clarke's 'Rendezvous With Rama'.  Yes, I have read it, several times, and am somewhat surprised nobody's optioned it for a film.

     Called it.  Art!

     I like Bruce's elegant way of conveying the sheer size of Rama's interior, with the astronauts descending a ladder that dwindles to nothing at the bottom, proving that those aren't smoke trails, they are clouds.  Art!

     Aha, all the Ol' Brucie elements present; coral architecture, a line of flying things receding to the horizon, and a purple palette.  That costume looks wildly elaborate; I bet the dry-cleaning bill is colossal.  Conrad is quite sure this is a book cover thanks to the 'Title Gap'.  Shovel work commences.  Art!

     I found this on a blog but the creator has failed to include the title.  O well.

     O!  Unusually, they include the novel cover.  Allow me - Art!

     So now we all know and are better off for it.

The Circus Continues!

This just gets more entertaining as the days go on.  I refer to the hilariously amusing South Canadian mid-term elections, all the more amusing as they are on the other side of The Pond and I don't get directly affected by them.  Art!

     This is James Talarico, the Ice Cream Bandit party candidate campaigning for a Senate seat in Texas.  He is so squeaky clean he makes squeaky clean look sleazy, and he is up against incumbent Ken Paxton, who is so sleazy he makes sleazy look squeaky clean.  The Wizard Lizard Gizzard party have spent $115 million in advertising and publicity attacks on Talarico, and his lead over Paxton has increased.  In one specific instance, Tallyho's spending in Dallas amounted to $950,000 to put out 10 political adverts, whilst Taxpon's party shelled out $4.65 million for 13 adverts; 33% more adverts for 500% more in expenditure.  This is how you run out of money well before your campaign ends.

     Bring on the wheelie-bins of popcorn!

*  To distinguish him from all the other Arthur C. Clarke's in the sci-fi world.