Are You Ready?

I Would Hope So!

We've been putting out this content for 13 years, you ought to be ready for it by now, at least a little.  Don't worry, the Sherman diatribe is not present today, although IT WILL COME COUNT ON IT we may see it at a slightly later date.

     No, what I am about to pontificate upon is - Art!

One of their albums is titled 'Are You Ready?'

     What you see here is the album 'PG&E', performed by the eponymous band Pacific Gas And Electric, whom were forced to change their name for the slightly inconvenient and minor detail that there was already an organisation called Pacific Gas And Electric.   Who threatened to sue their bottoms off.

     As an aside, one also notes that the band Chicago were originally dubbed 'Chicago Transit Authority', until the real Chicago Transit Authority made threatening legal noises, and they became Chicago.  Art!

     Brilliant album cover.

     ANYWAY we're beyond bands and album covers, so let us now move on to the meat of today's Intro, which is another in the 'Be Amazed' compilation of "When Building Demolitions Go Horribly Wrong".  This one goes as horribly wrong as one might expect.  Art!

     These monoliths are the steam generating plant for Pacific Gas & Electric, which went dark in 1985, located at Kern in Bakersfield, California.  Eventually, after having stood for twenty-eight years, it was decided to bring them down with explosive demolition.  No gradual or partial removal by excavators bearing mechanical jaws or chaps with pneumatic jackhammers, this was a single big-bang method to save time and money.  Art!

Jack and his hammer

     The demolition takes place as per schedule, a crowd has gathered (officially or not it unclear), there are explosions and cheers.  Art!

     It looks like an incandescent pipe photo, but this is in fact the explosives detonating around the base of the units.  What seems to be bright light is in fact the detonation of explosives.

     This is where the problems begin.  Art!

     Down go the steam generators, the evil swine!  Cry God for Harry and England, and our overseas benighted cousins the other side of The Pond!

     <ahem straightens tie and collar>  the thing is, the 'implosion' managed to create an 'implosion' that was far more influential than anticipated, translating into 'an explosion bigger than we wanted', possibly the least-wanted words heard to issue from your supervisor at a demolitions company.

     

     You can see metal spall being thrown from the boiler structures, some of which travelled 1,400 feet from the blast site, meaning that the spectators were within range of the shrapnel zone.  Five people were injured with one, Jerry Wood, losing a leg thanks to severe injury, and cars and buildings were damaged.  Art!

     What were the reasons for this disaster?  Well, Pacific Gas & Electric were not to blame; being in the business of supplying energy, they had no expertise in demolitions, so they hire 'Demtech' to carry out the work.  More like 'Dementech', because a subsequent investigation by the Californian Safety and Enforcement Division found multiple failings.  Art

     Primary reason was that they used FIFTEEN times more explosive than was required.  An error of that magnitude really calls into question their ability to manage a demolition safely.  In addition, Demtech failed to - 

1. Used any scientific approach to determine the proper blast loads, 

 2. Applied scientific criteria to calculate the proper safety zone distance,

 3. Prescribed adequate blast shields to contain flying debris or fragmentation, 

 4. Consulted an engineer or reviewed structural drawings to analyze the boiler structure, or 

 5. Used computer modeling to simulate and validate its implosion design.

     I can illustrate No. 3.  Art!

     Those are plywood boxes encasing the explosive charges, which Demtech fondly imagined would prevent debris from being flung about.  Why use plywood?  Because it doesn't cost $50 per square metre that blast-proof fabric does, which is what they should have been using.  Consequently, as we have seen, you get debris hurled at high velocity for a long way.

     Demtech didn't even carry out test blasts, as they claimed the boiler's structure was similar to other demolitions they'd carried out in the past, so there was no need.  Conrad shudders to think how many other people they put at risk.

     Jerry Wood sued P G & E, which you might expect, whom settled up pretty quickly.  I cannot find what dollar amount he went for, although PG & E stated that they paid him 90% of what he was asking, and no, there is nothing in the media detailing what the total was.  Probably enforced with a Non-Disclosure Agreement.

     PG & E then stated it intended to sue Demtech for the compensation, at which point this Intro ends, as we're here for demolitions not legal process.  Also, I never checked up to see what happened between them.

Conrad's Curiosity Conspires

One of the incessant adverts on Youtube is for 'Intuit Turbo Tax', a business that takes over the calculation of taxes, which for reasons utterly foreign to me is how individual South Canadians deal with tax.  Art!

     This chubby jolly lady is busily typing away on a keyboard - apparently.  Conrad, being the utter cynic he is, wonders if she's just tapping keys randomly, because they don't show the monitor.  I guess we'll never know the truth and I will forever be haunted by such a minor thing.

Knowing Where The Bodies Are Buried

Metaphorically, I hasten to add.  There is a Malicious Compliance tale on 'Slash Start's Youtube channel, concerning Student Spa Worker, hereafter SSPOW because I can juggle the letters if I want to.  She worked at a spa where the rarely-seen owner was bonkers, they were always desperately short of staff and nobody wanted to work there.  

      The manager, Pam, ran a verrrry dodgy operation, which SPOW was careful to note, all the more as Pam took every opportunity to write her up for fake reasons, which SPOW found mystifying.  Was Pam trying to make her quit?  

     Well, yes.  You see, she wanted to get her son employed at the spa in SPOW's place, because he was a lazy bottomhole who couldn't hold down a job anywhere else.  She also got the other employees to bully SPOW and lie about her performance and behaviour.  This came back to bite them badly later on.  Pam got her way when SPOW resigned for a better job, and spitefully retained her last payment.

     "Take us to court if you dare!" was the response, probably thinking that a high-schooler  wouldn't know how or dare to. 

     O foolish Pam!  Art?

     SPOW had noted all sorts of naughty goings-on, which included:

1)  Working 8 hour days with no breaks or lunch

2)  Rats

3)  Ants

4)  Underage drinking

5)  Untreated mould

6)  'Employing' underage staff - Pam's daughter

7)  Selling client information

     Plus more that she couldn't remember so long after the fact.  Art!

     SPOW e-mailed the lot to the above people, who love love love investigating shady businesses who are breaking the law.  The owner and Pam were both fined, heavily, with Pam facing time in jail due to the number and seriousness of her crimes.  The owner had to sell the business, and SPOW very thoughtfully e-mailed all the other spas within a 50-mile radius about what happened, so neither the owner nor her ex-staff could ever get spa work again.

Another "What On Earth?" Moment

Conrad was perusing Youtube, scoping out potential Reddit tales and enjoying the Malicious Compliance ones, when this bizarre advert appeared. Art!

     What on earth are they talking about?  Popcorn is in no way an adventure.  Nor would I want it to be; Conrad wants to be able to safely open a bag and gorge on it, not worry about what calamity might befall me.  

Finally -

To get us over the Word Count line, a Biercism.

"Bachelor, n: A man whom women are still sampling."

Tree Lore

NOT To Be Confused With 'Tree Law'

You can blame the Bee Network for this Intro, because I was stuck at the 409 bus stop for thirty minutes waiting for a bus, and then two came at once.  During this time I happened to notice two 409's heading in the opposite direction - it's always the case, isn't it? - and both had posters for  "The Magic Faraway Tree" on the side.  That started me to pondering, always a dangerous process, and a couple of other films came to mind.  Art!

From the Enid Blyton books

     It's about a tree that's - you may be ahead of me here - magic and far away.  Which is a good thing, because if it were nearby you'd get endless complications from people stumbling across it.  The three children of the story and film, Beth, Fran and Joe, discover an enchanted wood known as "The Enchanted Wood".  Nobody ever said Blyton was known for rampant creativity.  In the centre of the wood is a tree so large it's branches reach into the clouds, presumably also making it a traffic hazard to passing planes, which plot hole we will ignore.  Art!

     A ladder from the tree leading into the clouds allows access to a land above the clouds, another traffic hazard, which land changes on a daily basis.  Examples given are The Land Of Goodies, full of things that diabetics cannot consume, or The Land Of Birthdays.  The film has a plot centring around tomatoes, instead of crashing 747s.

     This reminded Conrad of a fantastically strange film that was shown on the BBC, namely "The Singing Ringing Tree" and which I saw in the early Seventies.  Art!

     Not just German in origin, but from East Germany, that humourless grey cultural wasteland aligned with the Sinister Union.  Wait, what?

     It was a loose adaptation from one of Grimm's fairy tales, concerning a beautiful but selfish and entitled princess, who consistently rejects the suits of a handsome prince, until he can bring her the Singing Ringing Tree of the title.  Art!

Entitlement oozing from every pore

     The prince, being a determined kind of chap, tracks down the miniature kingdom the SRT is located in, only to encounter a couple of property possession rights getting in the way.  Art!

     The tree is controlled by the Evil Dwarf, whom agrees to lend him the tree - BUT - yes there is a condition, if the princess rejects both him and it, he is bound in servitude to ED.  Surprise! Princess Entitled does reject him, as the tree neither sings nor rings, so he goes back to ED and - Art!

     He gets turned into a bear.  The logic for this escapes me, please contact the Brothers Grimm for elucidation.  Princess Entitlement gets put into servitude with ED, and learns to be a better person for it, and of course - obviously! - True Love wins out in the end.  Art!

No 747s were harmed in the making of this film

     It was remarkably different in design and production to anything else on television and left a lasting impression on anyone who watched it.

     FYI, the East German original came out in 1957 and was seen at cinemas by over a third of their entire population.  So much for socialist realism, hmmm?  Art!

     It does what it says on the tin.  This film features Kirk Douglas in an untypical role as an utter swine, a lumber baron determined to chop down the sequoias of northern California, despite the protests and antipathy of locals.  Art!

     That's a sequoia, also known as the Californian Redwood, and boy are they large.  In case you were wondering, True Love conquers all and redeems Kirk by the end.  Art!

     Sorry, I couldn't resist.  There aren't any trees per se, but please note that Forrest is sitting on a bench made primarily of wood.  Where do you get wood from?  Art!

 

     I haven't seen 'The Tree Of Life' but, since it's a Terence Malick film, I undoubtedly will at some point, because it will at least look good.  Having had a look at plot descriptions and synopses on teh Interwebz, it looks a bit bonkers.  Actually a lot bonkers.  Hot Tip: True Love does not conquer all, it seems.  Art!

     Let me end this Intro by going out with 'Tree Coins In The Fountain' WHICH IS AN HILARIOUS PUN I TELL YOU HILARIOUS!

Get Your Popcorn Ready

Forsooth, Conrad has paid exactly 0% attention to the 'Starry Trex' franchise on television since the Deep Space Mine, or whatever it was called.  In my opinion they ought to completely shut down the franchise for a good ten years, then try making it again from a completely fresh perspective, instead of increasingly faded photocopies of the original.  Art!

Courtesy Ryan Kinel

     Now we come to 'Star Trek: Star Fleet Academy', which has been absolutely pot, kettle, spoon and panned by audiences, who hated it.  Bear in mind that the show has been cancelled before the first episode of Season Two has been streamed, and that each season is of ten episodes, which cost $10 million each.  $200 million expended.  Art!

     Enter Red Letter Media, whom Ryan does not see eye-to-eye with, nor they with him.  However - that word again! - they are a film and video production company with a lot of network links and inside contacts, whose output is credible.

     Whilst on another completely different topic, RLM let it be known that their industry contacts discovered that STSFA had, over the space of 10 episodes, accumulated only 400,000 views, or 40,000 per episode on average.  Ryan counselled caution about these figures, as we only have RLM's statement as evidence.

     But, if true, this is an appalling failure for the series.  Small Youtube channels get more than this amount of traffic.  Conrad probably gets more than this across his blog traffic monthly <takes a quick look at Views> I'm up to 8,060 so far for April.  My outlay amounts to £1.10 for the 'Manchester Evening News'.  Art!

     As circumstantial evidence for that 40k being correct, here's an online petition to renew the season that Ryan dug out.  

     Season Two will probably get streamed but this isn't guaranteed if Paramount thinks it's just a big pile of dinosaur doo-doo that won't garner either views or critical praise.

Another "You What?" Moment

I actually came across this yesteryon but had already put up an item about incomprehensible drivel and didn't want to overdo it.  Art!

     What the actual Dog Buns?  What are 'Cornhole Boards' and why am I expected to know what they are already?  What is a 'Governing Body of Cornhole'? because it sounds like an entity from 'Beavis And Butthead'.  What is meant by 'Monthly Bag Drops'?  NO! I am not going to click on the link to find out.  That way lies madness.

South Canadian Food Fails

Back to the hilarious and scurrilous Tweet from 'Daractenus', listing the food that we here in the EU absolutely will not eat, unless it's Twinkies as I love their wonderful artificial taste but risk diabetic coma just by looking at them a

     ANYWAY Art!

     This is bleached flour.  To get that whiter-than-white colouration, South Canadian flour mills process it with chlorine or benzoyl peroxide, the former of which was the world's first poison gas.  Why would you want to bleach flour to make an already white substance even whiter?  

     Ah, I see.  To shorten the aging process and speed up production, thus cutting costs.  Enjoy your Cloaf! or not as bleached flour doesn't make good bread.

Fair Warning

Conrad Bookmarked an interesting Youtube vlog about the Sherman tank, and if I can prod Art into semi-sentience -

     The title is a fib in itself, as 'Lied' is not exactly truthful.  I know this because I rewatched the whole thing and annotated it, so you can bet your buns there's going to be an Intro about it in the near future.

Finally -

Going out with a QI quote.

"Honesty may be the best policy, but it's important to remember that, apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy".  George Carlin.

I Need To Crank This Out Quickly

Because, Although Windy

There's a lot of blue sky around and I need to get my Step Count up, so am anticipating trotties with Edna.  Which also allows me Thinking Time for more blog content, and to check on how those two houses are getting in the construction phase.  Art!

     It makes weird noises, according to Google.  Enjoy it.  Now for the links!

2025

BOOJUM!: Whisky Makes You Risky

2024

BOOJUM!: The Joy Of - Petroleum!

2023

BOOJUM!: The Big Bang Practice

2022

BOOJUM!: Conrad: STILL Hates All Musicals

2021

BOOJUM!: Vindicated

2020

BOOJUM!: I'm So Uber -

2019

BOOJUM!: Greetings, You Pikers!

2018

BOOJUM!: Gene Genie

2017

BOOJUM!: Diesel Four-Stroke

2016

BOOJUM!: It's A Chronic Palindromic

2015

BOOJUM!: Look Out - It's A Pooka, With A Bazooka!

2014

BOOJUM!: No Cake For Conrad

Welcome To Newport News

Which Has The Fetching Nickname 'Bad News'

Due to it's poverty-stricken unpleasant living environment, and if Art will put down his bowl of coal -

     There you go.  I wanted something more concrete than a phrase to begin this Intro, because it's all about bad news.  Or, if you live outside Mordorvia, good news.  For Lo! the consequences of Putinpot's Special Idiotic Operation continue to multiply, especially losing mobile internet, which has incensed the orcs like nothing else.  Never mind war crimes or inflation or oligarch's yachts being seized, OMG I DON'T HAVE TELEGRAM TO SHOP AT WILDBERRYS ANY MORE!

     ANYWAY I am going to be quoting from the Tweets of 'Beefeater', 'LX', 'SPRAVDI' and 'Chris0_wiki', collected in March and Bookmarked for later referral.  Art!

     That, ever so obviously, is 'Ruffian GDP' according to the AI Art Generator.  Because the Mordorviian economy is in trouble, according to Ruffian financial experts.  "The risks of the Ruffian economy overheating are intensifying" said a Saint Petersbug Bank official, as it would be freeform window diving time if such euphemisms weren't used.  Overall, Ruffian GDP has fallen by 1.8% in the first two months of 2026.  This counteracts the 1% growth of 2025.  If this trend continues in March, and there's no reason it won't, then they will be in a formal recession.  The orcs have already noticed this and are choosing to save money rather than spending it, thanks to continuing high interest rates, inflation and VAT hikes.  Art!

     Even military production has suffered.  The class 'Finished Metal Products', which includes military hardware and which was the poster child for how wonderful Ruffian industry was doing, has contracted by 1.9% compared to 2025.  There is still a crucial shortage of personnel to actually staff industry, which is why 15,000 Norks have been imported to do the serf's work.  Art!

     These are two stills from the derailment of seven passenger carriages on the Chelyabinsk-Moscow railway, where 24 people were injured.  No fatalities, thankfully.  Art!

     Only one carriage stayed upright, and you can see one here where the bogies have completely separated from the undercarriage.  Two contributing factors to this are the total removal of investment in railways by the state rail company RZD, and a cut in track repair funding, both due to a x22 drop in profits.  That's not per cent, that's a reduction of 95.5%.  Art!

'Magnit'

     Magnit is one of the largest supermarket chains in Ruffia, having over 29,000 stores of various types.  In March they posted their worst financial outcome in over 20 years, running up a ₽22.5 billion loss, or $280 million in proper money.  This is bad: you can choose not to have a car or mobile phone or the internet, but you HAVE to eat.

     Then there's AvtoVAZ, the Mordorvian auto manufacturer, which we have mentioned in the past and which is haemorrhaging money like a Moscow sewer pipe in winter.  Art!

     It's been in deep hot water for years and was desperately trying to cut costs by going to a four-day working week, cutting wages and laying off staff, which still wasn't enough.  So, they are going to shut down completely for 17 days in April and May, sending staff on compulsory leave.  Those who refuse leave will get their pay docked by 32%.  The serfs must pay for the Tsar's war!

  On a side note, one Commenter said that AvtoVAZ's cars aren't selling because they are of poor quality and vastly overpriced.  How very - Ruffian.  Art!

     This, gentle reader, is the Chelyabinsk Electro-Metallurgical Combine, one of the largest industrial sites in Ruffia.  It has eight ferroalloy 'workshops', which produce - you may be ahead of me here - ferroalloys.  They are now shutting down one of the smelting workshops and transferring 170 staff to other workshops, thanks to a fall in demand.  So much win!  Art?

     Oooops.  Let me quote: "The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture has reported outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease in two herds of cattle in it's northwestern province of Gansu and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region."  Hmmm   Art!

     I see.  So this is one of the border regions close to Ruffia, which has been carrying out mass cattle culls in Siberia, without ever naming the disease involved.  Because if they did so, WHO would get involved and there'd be a complete ban on beef exports.  Conrad doesn't imagine the Chinese are looking at their Forever Friends with charity and mercy at the moment.

     Then there are the 'kinetic sanctions' Ukraine has been imposing on Ruffian industry in March.  Art!

Courtesy Sergei Cristobal

     This is a graphic put up by 'Jake Broe' and you can see the green bars in 2025 when Ukraine ramped up mass production of their own drones and missiles.  Art!

     That's the Nizhnekamsk petrochemical plant exploding away, and it's 1,300 kilometres from Ukraine.  No hiding place.

Another 'What On Earth?' Moment

Once again, I am not convinced that Youtube's algorithm is functioning correctly, as this came up on the page when I refreshed it.  Art!

     Firstly, it's 'Fibre' not 'Fiber'.  Secondly, why on earth would Your Humble Scribe want to print fibre labels? at no point in the past have I ever expressed this wish, so this item popping up makes 0% sense.  Also, that skull motif is from 'Punisher' and will be a registered trademark, so I hope you have an attorney on speed-dial.  The one next to it is, I think, a reference to 'Glock' the arms company, and once again copyright issues arise, unless you got permission from them beforehand, which is highly doubtful.

     Bah!

Less Of A Rat And More Of A Flea
We have made mocking, slanderous comments on that bokebag in human shape, Alex Jones, before.  I imagine he's still trying to avoid paying the Sandy Hook victim's families, because - bokebag in human shape.  Art!

     When a conspiranoid swivel-eyed loonwaffle like Jones criticises you, things are bad.  So, BBIHF seems to be ditching his MAGA credentials, which would normally earn the comment 'rats leaving a sinking ship', but in this case it's more like the fleas are hopping from the rats.

     'The brain's not doing too hot' and neither is the body.  Which has gone missing for at least 12 hours, with no Truths posted, no falling asleep at meetings or getting up to waffle about ballrooms.  The truly repellent Stephen Cheung, a definitie shoo-in if 'Geldar and the Coneheads' ever gets a remake, bloviated about how the sun shines from BOOH's nethers, which is curious because you'd expect Donold to bloviate about himself.  It may be a tempest in a thimble, but the rumours of him secretly being in Walter Reed hospital are amusingly ghoulish.  A lot of people getting ready to crack a bottle of Prosecco if these rumours turn out to be true.

Our Public Service To You

A.k.a. Get The Behind Me, Clickbaiter.  It's okay if I'm doing clickbaity things, because I have morals of infinite flexibility, but HOW DARE OTHERS DO IT!  Art?

     Allow me.  They are talking about 'Defiance', which I believe is lurking in the Sekrit Layr.  It concerns Jewish Belarussian partisans who join the partisan movement and make life as unpleasant as possible for the occupying Teutons.  Art!

     As you can see from the still, it also features Jamie Bell, and Liev Schreiber, who turns in a kick-ass performance.  Caution: not for the faint-hearted.

Finally -

Another QI quote for you.  

"I sit here all day trying to persuade people to do the things they ought to have the common sense to do without my persuading them.  That's all the powers of the President amount to." - Harry S. Truman.

     Whom, I shall have you know, fought in the First Unpleasantness as an artillery officer.  He volunteered and joined the South Canadian army in 1917.  No bonespurs for him!