Very Hot Rails To Hell

Yes, I'm Spoofing A Blue Oyster Cult Title

Sue me if you like, it's not as if you're paying to read this scrivel, is it?  Besides, it absolutely fits with what today's Intro is about, in an item I cribbed from 'Be Amazed's Youtube channel 'When Engineers Get It Incredibly Wrong', as well as doing a bit of digging on my own part.  Art!

The Great Black Swamp Monster

     Forgive me for being over-dramatic, I wanted something with a little more vim than a photograph of  a swamp.  The Great Black Swamp, in fact.  It was a wetland expanse of 1,500 square miles, taking in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana, almost impossible to cross and home to millions of mosquitoes.  Art!

     Putting King Piggy to shame, in the late 19th century the South Canadians successfully drained the swamp, thus creating fertile arable land for agriculture.

     What else did they have lots of in the late 19th century?  Railways, of course - obviously! - and what do railroad makers like best?  Nice flat land that they don't have to tunnel or embank through.

     Thus was born the Maumee and Western Railroad, which stretched from Ohio to Cecil, and here is where we meet up with BA.  Art!

     A helpful illo of the route.  Art!

     No, this is not Photoshopped.  Yes, that is a real railway line.  The freight train is going dead slow, and the wagons behind it bounce and judder as they cross these grossly deformed tracks.  If traversed at a walking pace it's possible to cross the rails without getting - you may be ahead of me here - derailed.

     What has caused this?  Well, BA focuses on merely one aspect of the line's deformation, stating that a normally-constructed railroad ensures that rails are pre-stressed, meaning that after they expand due to heating, they return to normal with no thermal deformation.

     Cheaply-constructed railways don't bother with pre-stressing, and from the background I have, 'cheap' seems to have defined the M&WR.  Art!

    Non-stressed rails do not revert back to normal after being heated up, leading to gradual deformation, a process dubbed 'spaghettification'.  Somewhat unfairly, BA then shows the famous, or infamous, photo of the Kiwi railway lines that turned into an 'S' shape.  Art!

     They deformed, yes, but only after being hit with a 7.3 Richter magnitude earthquake, which is not the same as being heated up by the sun.

    ANYWAY M&WR had built their line over the drained land of the Great Black Swamp, which was not especially stable and was prone to subsidence.  Sleepers and ballast sank, causing progressive warping and deformation of the rails.  This would have entailed a high budget for maintenance and repair, and guess what?  M&WR decided to be cheap and not bother, consistently avoiding repairs, since trains could still use the line if they went at 3 m.p.h. over the wobbly bits.  If it ain't broke, or not broke much, keep your management bonus by not fixing it.  Art!

     Whilst you might have expected a continuous series of accidents on these tracks with more warp than 'Starry Trex', there were only minor derailments, because, O burning irony! the low speed imposed kept risky high-speed collisions completely out of the picture.

     I think criticising the engineers involved is, again, rather unfair, as the original problems of the underlying terrain were seemingly ignored by management, who wanted to operate as cheaply as possible.  When problems showed up, manglement once more stuck their head in the sand with fingers in both ears going LAH-LAH-LAH.  Art!

     In 2013 it was bought up by Patriot Rail and re-named the 'Napoleon, Defiance and Western Railway' to exorcise the bad reputation of Waumee.  They have since invested heavily in improving and repairing the roller-coaster parts of the line, spending millions of dollars on it.  There are still pockets of bad rails, but it is over 430 days since Patriot had to notify the Federal authorities of any serious incidents.  That's when the engineers get it right when management pays attention to them.  Art!

     Dig all that specialised kit that I bet you never knew existed.  Me neither until about two minutes ago, although I seem to remember that we have covered railway track maintenance before.  Can't hurt to have more of it.

     I love a happy ending.

More Ungentle Shoeing

Please make sure you're not eating or drinking, because once again we have The Werefootball appearing in an hideously unflattering photograph, which he will hate as it disproves all the silly AI images of him looking slim and muscly.  Art!

     For whatever reason, Donnie Dorko cannot understand that his orange face clashes sharply with his pink piggy eyes and his pink piggy ears.  I dare say the make up artists who spray him daily don't dare point out this omission or they'll get fired on the spot and have Big Macs thrown at them.  He does look especially bloated and football-like here, which is most apt given the World Cup.

More Of 'Charley's War'

I still haven't finished 'Volume 1' yet and I bought it nine months ago.  I might have started Volume 2 before the anniversary in September.  ANYWAY Art!

     This is very stirring and dramatic, and it echoes, not the Battle of the Somme in November 1916, but the Battle of Le Cateau, of August 1914.  There, the Royal Artillery learned a very painful lesson about modern artillery, being deployed just behind their infantry, out in the open.  They were consequently to lose 38 guns to Teuton shellfire and advancing infantry, being far too close to the front lines to be able to retreat quickly or without being fired upon.

     Thus, during the Somme, the guns were miles behind the front lines and there was absolutely NO chance of the Teutons making a counter-attack that would penetrate that far, despite Pat being elastic with the truth.  Art!

Joe's inspiration

     The pair of sweating Tommies to starboard were armbands with 'SB' upon them.  At first I thought this meant 'Special Brigade', the Royal Engineers who carried out gas warfare, but no, it means 'Stretcher Bearer', men who carried those too badly wounded to move themselves.  Art!

BOOJUM! Reviews Films

We haven't done this for a while, so I shall explicate again how we do things here on the blog.  First of all, we take the film title entirely at face value, unless we don't, we generalise wildly and if you want a proper film review then you're in entirely the wrong desert.  Go look up Mark Kermode, whom is also a fan of The Comsat Angels.  Art!

'MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE' Due for release later this month, this comes almost 40 years after the original, made when Dolph Lundgren was a star, and which I've only ever seen clips of, as it really didn't interest me.  The universe is also a pretty big place to try and master, matey.  One of my compatriots at the time of the original commented that there are huge battles taking place in the middle of streets full of apartment blocks - but nobody as much as comes to the window to see what's going on.  I shall reserve judgement until 'Robothead' and 'The Critical Drinker' assess.  Art!

'THE SHEEP DETECTIVES' Hey what say what?  I am familiar with the band Pigeon Detectives, did they branch out into films?  The colour palette for the posters seems quite bright and primary, so Conrad guesses this is a comedy?  Did the herd from 'Babe' get a stay of execution and a career change?  Ah yes, described as a 'mystery comedy'.  It is adapted from the novel 'Three Bags Full' in case you were wondering and even if you weren't.

'RIVALS'  Only glimpsed in passing on a bus poster so I couldn't tell anything about it, and assumed it was 'The Rivals' by Richard Sheridan of 1774 vintage.  Art!

     But no, the definite article is missing.  It seems to be a television series about power struggles in the boardroom and similar shizzle.  Cross off my 'To Watch' list.

Barely Bearing It

You'll See What I Mean Eventually

For today's Intro we've going to cover the Special Idiotic Operation, based around 'Professor Gerdes Explains' as Jake Broe is still on holiday, the lazy slacker, as well as input from other sources on Twitter, whom I will credit if I use them.  Art!

     This is Sevastopol in occupied Crimea, which I like to call Krim, as that's the Ukrainian name for it and a touch of verisimilitude, a word that is greedy about the 'i's it has.

     ANYWAY what you're seeing here is a kilometer-long queue of Ruffians, and there will be a petrol station at the head of said line.  I Snipped this clip at 16 seconds in, and the queue was still going by 1:20 when the clip ends.  On Friday motorists were only allowed to purchase 20 litres of petrol - if they could find a petrol station with, you know, petrol - until Saturday, when fuel would only be sold to motorists with special vouchers, and on Sunday the voucher scheme was suspended.  Krim has a fuel crisis.  Art!

Courtesy Jay in Kyiv

     That's the oil storage depot at Feodosia in Krim, with footage from a Firepoint 2 or Hornet playing to port, and an overlay of which tanks were still intact to starboard.  Note past tense, because one of them was hit and still burning two days later.  Art!

Bavovna*!

     What is causing this fuel shortage?  O I thought you'd never ask!  The Prof pointed out that, on Saturday, the Kozaky Hornet and Firepoint medium-range drones destroyed 483 Ruffian transport vehicles and tankers.  This is a record total and one reason why no fuel is getting to Krim, the other being that the RoRo ferries the orcs were using have been drone-damaged and are out of commission, and apparently by law no fuel tank trains are allowed to use the Kerch Bridge, except in an emergency, and rail companies won't send fuel trains anyway because they can't get insured.  It's a perfect storm.  Conrad did speculate that they may try flying fuel in, which is a grossly inefficient method and unlikely to meet more than a fraction of demand.  Besides which, said aircraft would become targets themselves.  Art!

     These are figures for total Ruffian transport vehicles destroyed at peak, and you can see 9 out of the top 10 are from April and May 2026, meaning things are only getting worse for the orcs.  One Ruffian milblogger, 'FigherBomber', citricly criticised the Ruffian logistics, as the tanker drivers are poorly-paid civilians, whom are now refusing to drive what amounts to a 20-ton petrol bomb into the jaws of death.  In fact he was so angry he only remembered to put 'Of course this is all about Laos' at the end of his screed; doing this means the FSB aren't likely to come a-knocking at the door to have a little chat.

      You recall a paragraph above where I talked about attacking planes whilst on runway?  Well, the Kozaky managed just that at the orc's airbase at Taganrog.  Art!

     Here is a Tupolev Tu-142, NATO reporting name 'Bear', so you can see where today's title derives from, before it got all smashed up.  The Kozaky also destroyed another Bear on the tarmac.  These things are assessed at costing $65 million apiece, but this is nominal as they haven't been in production since the Nineties.  Art!

     One of them was a specially-equipped comms airframe - I like using that word to sound like an expert - used to communicate with Ruffian ballistic missile submarines, which they cannot afford to lose, so another Tu-142 is going to have to be adapted, taking it off their strategic bomber fleet total.  I wonder who drew the short straw and had to tell Putinpot the good news?

     There's also the question of how the Kozaky knew those two bombers were sitting on the runway, since it takes about an hour for a drone to reach Taganrog airbase from Ukraine.  Did a little birdy sing?

      On the other foot, or hand, you have the Ruffians launching another wave of drones and missiles at Ukraine: 290 Shahed drones and 6 'Kinzhal'. Kh-101 cruise missiles.  Art!

$10 million per

     5 of the latter were shot down, as well as 284 drones, a 95% interception rate and above the usual 92 - 93% rate.  So the Ruffians launched $5.6 million in drones at a minimum as that's the base rate for the rotary engined version, and $60 million in cruise missiles, and got through with 1 missile and 6 drones, of $10, 06,000 worth of kit.  A return of 1/6th is a pretty poor Return On Investment. 

Another thing I recall the Prof saying that one reason Ukraine will eventually win was that the orcs high command are either unaware or unwilling to admit reality, which is why their planning always goes awry.  There is leaked evidence to prove this.  Art!

     This is 'Deep State's map, which they usually build a 48-hour delay into to avoid tipping off the orcs.  Art!

     Here is what Putinpot's generals are showing him - the red line is where they claim to have advanced to, which is blatantly untrue.  But flattering.

Talking Of That Slacker Jake Broe

Rather than posting 25 or 30 minute vlogs on the Special Idiotic Operation, Jake has been posting video shorts on Youtube of him enjoying his first holiday in 8 years in Sorkland.  South Korea, if we're being formal.  He was challenged by one of his subscribers to find a bagel shop in Seoul, and -

     He found one!

     Also, that's a verrrry cool t-shirt.

More Ungentle Shoeing

I have a new photograph of King Piggy looking awful that I dearly want to share with you, it's definitely a new one.  Art!

     Once again we see DJ Tango falling asleep during an official meeting because it wasn't all about him, so he's bored, and also he was up until  03:45 posting on Truth Social.  He doesn't look very good for someone supposedly 'aging in reverse', does he? and more as if he's stroking out.  Remember, this is after half an hour of fake tan application and ninety minutes to array his Hair Helmet.  Art!

     Here is Weekend Trump, not bothering with the makeup or Hair Helmet and boy does it show his swollen bloated jowly face as it really is.  Sorry if you were eating.

The Algorithm Is Going Potty Again

The news feed algorithm, that is, I don't bother wondering if the Blogger traffic stats are real or coming out of la-la land.  Art!

     I'm not going to add the blurb that came with this item, as I'm horrid that way.  Just guess what you think it is.  I'll wait.

     If it were me having to guess, I'd go for aerials as on Thunderbird 5.  Art!

     Now, I shall reveal what it is.  Art!

     So - it's a golf club.

     WHEN HAVE I EVER EXPRESSED THE SLIGHTES SMIDGEON OF INTEREST IN GOLF AND GOLFING?!

     The only thing I remember ever writing about golf was a mention of 'The Clicking Of Cuthbert' by P. G. Wodehouse, and that was many years ago.

     BAH!

 

Progress Report

Wonder Wifey gave me a pair of jigsaws, only one of which she had completed, as the other was almost a metre long and her foam base she jigsaws upon wasn't wide enough to handle it.

     Thus, Conrad was gifted it.  Art!

     That's me holding the camera way up high to capture the whole of the outline.  Probably only needing another 800 pieces to be complete and I've started at extreme starboard on the Incredible Hulk as he's all green and there's only a small patch of green at extreme port on Hawkeye.

     I like to keep you informed.

Finally -

I made an awful lot of Sausage and Pork Loin stew yesteryon and may need to freeze one large tub of it, whilst there's still Chicken Tagine left, which is what I'm eating right now.

*  The ironic Ukrainian nickname for clouds of smoke: 'Cotton'

When GREGarious Was Not Good

Conrad Is Unsure

Quite how long this Intro is going to be, and it might well take up the whole of the blog, as the original tale on 'Karma Stories' was just over an hour long, although with quite a bit of symapthy-padding.  It was titled 'Nuclear Revenge - He Ruined My Paycheck, I Ruined His Life' and both assertions are true. 

     Edited to add yes, this tale of woe and revenge is the whole of today's blog.   Art!

     This is the Canuckistanian 401 Highway, officially the busiest motorway in North America, and our story is located in a 'gas' station as I believe they are called, located off the highway.  The narrator, Ramen Resorter (because they were poor and barely managed to survive on their minimum wage), RARE hereafter, doesn't name the franchised station's name, but Conrad did a bit of digging and suspects it was a 'Petro-Canada'.  They have 1,500 franchised stations across the nation.  No, I couldn't locate this specific one as there are 12 all along the route.  Art!

     It was open 24/7 and was a franchise, which is to say that the manager had paid Petro-Canada for the right to operate the gas station under their corporate logo and signage.

     Enter the villain of the piece: GREG, which stands for Generally Repulsive Execrable Git.  GREG was a short, bald, petty tyrant who loved to exercise his right to be a total bottomhole to his staff.  He hid in his back office, watching the staff on camera so he could burst out and dock their pay for 'time theft'.

     THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS 'TIME THEFT'!

     It is crucial to know that he'd bought the franchise two years previously.  Make a note of that.     

Thanks to the layout of the station, pumps 7 - 12 were so far away licence plates could not be read, which led to greedy selfish motorised bottomholes filling up and driving off without paying.  GREG, being an equally greedy, selfish bottomhole, would then dock the cashier responsible for that pump and in fact had this policy on a laminated sheet next to the tills, called 'Inattention tax'.

     ONCE AGAIN THIS IS HIGHLY ILLEGAL WAGE THEFT!

     Art!

     Then a Dodge Ram fuels up and drives off without paying, to the value of $152, which GREG loudly announces to a packed station will come out of RARE's next paycheck.  This would reduce them to eating ramen for two weeks and be unable to make rent, so they were verrrry aggrieved.

     So aggrieved and upset, in fact, that they vented about this to a new customer, an elderly gent who listened to the story with an expression that got grimmer by the second.

     He was, he explained, the owner of a gas station in nearby Sudbury.  What GREG was doing to their wages was highly illegal and wage theft.  The Ontario Employment Standards Act forbade any such deductions and if the Ministry of Labour got involved they would crucify GREG.  Art!

RARE's imagination at work

     RARE became a man with a mission.  He pulled all the other staff, one at a time, into the cooler room, which was the only room without camera surveillance, he explained that GREG's deductions were highly illegal and would they get in on a set of claims to the Ministry of Labour?

     All of them were up for it, especially Chloe, GREG's niece, whom he regularly docked for things that were nothing to do with her, counting on her not wanting to create family drama by exposing him for the little tin Hitler he was.

     The eight of them held a meeting at a pizza parlour, having brought pay stubs for proof, and RARE submitted 8 wage theft claims to the MoL through their portal.  Aware that the MoL would take months to deal with their claim, and then only get their stolen wages back, when he went home he dug up the e-mail addresses of Petro-Canada's Regional Director of Franchise Operations and the Vice President of Corporate Legal, put together a polite, factual account of what had been happening and included 32 pay stubs WITH GREG WRITING IN THE REASON FOR DEDUCTIONS AS BEING DUE TO DRIVE OFFS.

Art!

A pay stub

     Initially, nothing happened and RARE wondered if the HQ didn't care what Greg had done.  What they were actually doing was an investigation from their end, to see if what RARE had claimed was correct, because on the next Tuesday, when things were quiet, up turned three Ford Expeditions in black paint schema, and out stepped two middle-aged men in suits, backed up by five enormous individuals wearing tee-shirts with 'Corporate Loss Prevention' emblazoned upon them.  Art!

Ford Expedition

     They immediately went up to GREG's back room, knocked loudly on the door and, when he angrily opened it, his face went white with fear.  The two suited men instantly laid into GREG, the Regional Director (Marcus Vance) informing the wretched individual that the station was being seized.  He had made them liable for legal exposure, the MoL had gotten involved and they were looking at a potential class action lawsuit likely to hit six figures in costs and compensation. The other man, Corporate Legal, informed GREG that he had violated the Master Franchise Agreement with his illegal deductions, which meant his franchise was being terminated and Corporate were now taking over.  This meant GREG had blown $250,000 with no compensation, which left him sobbing, so loudly he could be heard through the locked door.  They took his master keys, safe codes and corporate access card, then he was escorted out of what was no longer his station, right past a grinning RARE.  Which enabled GREG to put two and two together and realise who had utterly <insert swear here> him.

     This was the end of RARE's Calvary.  Art!

     The 8 employees were paid their stolen wages along with hefty compensation to keep them away from the press.

     HOWEVER - a word you surely knew was coming - this was just the beginning for GREG.

     A month after being fired, Senior Investigator Agent Miller of the Ministry of Labour contacted RARE to confirm case details, also to say that the case was being closed since Petro-Canada had done all the right things.  She further informed that for the two years GREG had held the franchise, he had taken all the staff's employment insurance, pension contributions and income tax deductions, and then used them for his own personal lifestyle.

     ONCE AGAIN HIGHLY ILLEGAL!

     The total stolen across 2 years came to $120,000*.  Agent Miller passed the file over to the Criminal Investigation Division of the Canadian Revenue Agency, whom are the Canuckistanian equivalent of the IRS, and just as ruthless and focussed on getting back what they are owed.  They went after GREG under an ordinance called 'Director's Liability' meaning he couldn't try to file for bankruptcy protection. Art!

The people you absolutely do not want on your behind

     Chloe updated RARE about her uncle three months later.  Her extended family had cut all ties with him.  All his accounts had been frozen.  His wife left him and went to stay with her sister in Toronto.  He was forced by the bank to sell his house.  Nobody would employ him as a manager so he had to get a job working overnight, stacking shelves in a warehouse.  AND because he still owed $80,000 his wages were 50% garnished.  

     Conrad frowned at that total owed.  He only got $40,000 for the sale of his house?  Then I dug into the $120,000.  The CRA charge 7% interest on fines, so that totalled an additional $16,800.  They also charge 50% of the original sum owed if there is gross negligence involved, which is another $60,000.  So GREG's total owed came to nearly $200,000.

     Once more, Conrad did more digging.  Minimum wage in Ontario is $17.60 per hour, meaning a 40-hour week for 4 weeks yields $2,816, of which GREG would only see $1,408 and it would take him four and a half years to pay off what he still owed.

     Moral of the story: don't be GREGarious.

*  We shall have more to say on this.

Sunday's Sternward Sojourn

I Looked It Up

It means 'a temporary stay' and we'll only be here a short while as I'm compiling the past 12 years worth of posts on 31st May.  Yes yes yes, I've been doing this for 13 years now but didn't begin until June 2013, that's why.  Art!

     

     

     Behold, gentle reader, a steam-powered car.  They were all the rage at the beginning of the twentieth century but died out after a couple of decades, to be replaced by the petrol and diesel engined version.

     ANYWAY on with the links.

2025

BOOJUM!: Bear With Me

2024

BOOJUM!: Blood And Water

2023

BOOJUM!: That's Reet, I Cheat

2022

BOOJUM!: Conrad: A Bit Peeved

2021

BOOJUM!: The Burning Barn

2020

BOOJUM!: We Are Living In The Future

2019

BOOJUM!: Wings Are The Things

2018

BOOJUM!: I Dance I Dance - For 'The Expanse'

2017

BOOJUM!: Obsessive, Compulsive And, Above All -

2016

BOOJUM!: The Consolation Of Dog And Pasta

2015

BOOJUM!: It's Cheryl Cole - And Her Terror Tadpole!

2014

BOOJUM!: That's Not A Tank!

Once Again -

We're Being A Bit Different Today

For today we return to the hot-button topic of The Adventures Of Artie Schickelbaum and his wife Gardenia, as inspired by lots of ridiculously foreign or obscure solutions to Codewords over the past month.  I shall, as per our previous outing, highlight and en-fuschia these words with a definition to boot.

     In their first outing, Gardenia had moved from Australia, where she was living, to New York, where Artie was living.  Conrad never bothered to give an explanation about this domestic arrangement.  Art!

Deep space mining robot

     As you should surely remember, Artie was a veeblefetzer repairman, a trade always in demand as the mighty veebelfetzer is everywhere.  I can't remember what Gardenia was.  Work from home nanny?

     ANYWAY, Artie was offered a two-year contract to repair and maintain veeblefetzers at the Freeport McMoran mining facility on Amalthea, one of the moons of JUPITER (Largest planet in the solar system, 5th from the Sun.  Over 16 major satellites and possesses a planar ring system.  Orbits at 778 million kilometres from the Sun.  One Jovian 'day' is 9.83 hours, and a Jovian 'year' lasts for 11.86 years).  Art!

In Roman mythology, the king of the gods

     As for Amalthea, it is the most cerise-coloured object in the solar system (CERISE: A moderate to dark red colour, from the French for 'Cherry').  

     The money was fantastic, a million dollars per month, including the six-month trip to get there and return.  Yes, it took that long, even with the brand spanking new fusion flux engines (FLUX: A flow or discharge, as with a neutron flux found in thermonuclear reactions.  From the Latin 'Fluxus' meaning 'Flow').  Art!

Amalthea.  What, you were expecting a potato?

     The FM mine was dug into, and constructed on, the Gallileo Massif, named after the scientist and the probe.  (MASSIF: a geologically distinct mass of rock or a series of interconnecting masses forming the peaks of a mountain range).  It's on the other side of that photo.  That's why you can't see it.  Honest.

     Before even stepping aboard the thermonuclear-powered spacecraft, Artie had to undergo extensive survival and spacesuit training, having to repeat actions so many times they were inculcated as muscle-memory.  (INCULCATE: To instil by forceful or insistent repetition.  From the <hack spit> Latin 'Inculcare' meaning 'To tread down').

     Gardenia was a bit put out that she wouldn't have her hubbo's company for two years, but the prospect of him returning as a multi-millionaire sweetened the deal and she had plans on what they could spend his money on.  Art!

     To help pass the time she learned to play the dulcimer (DULCIMER: a tuned percussion instrument consisting of strings of graduated length stretched over a sounding board and SMOTE with a pair of hammers.  From the Italian 'Dolcimelo' meaning 'Sweet') in what was patently the author reaching.  SMOTE: The past tense of SMITE, meaning to strike with a heavy blow).

     One of the consequences of her moving back to New York was her accent, which had taken on an Antipodean twang thanks to her time spent in Wellington, except she had to keep informing people that she was not a native Kiwi. (KIWI: nocturnal flightless bird of New Zealand, genus Apteryx, having a long beak, short legs and weakly barbed feathers.  Or a New Zealander, of Maori origin.  Also the 'Kiwi fruit' thanks to the resemblance, re-branded from the 'Cape Gooseberry' in 1959).  Art!

Also the national symbol of New Zealand.  No, I don't know why either

     

     In a fit of boredom, she joined the New York Liberation OrganisatioN or NYLON, which had quickly dropped their original New York Liberation Front, as that acronym brought unwanted applicants.  As part of their para-legal paramilitary training in case the day came when NYNY became an independent state, she learned how to drill, use a gun and lie in ambuscade.  (AMBUSCADE: An ambush or to lie in ambush.  From the French 'Embuscade' from Old Italian 'Imboscata').  Art!

     Thanks to the deep pockets of it's members, NYLON was heavily armed, even running to a battery of artillery, consisting of the war surplus M2 howitzer, as above (HOWITZER: A cannon having a short or medium barrel with a low muzzle velocity and a steep angle of fire.  From the Dutch 'Houwitser' itself from the Teuton 'Haubitze' which came from the Czech 'Houfnice' meaning 'Stone sling.) and thus great for firing over NY buildings.

     She wasn't so fond of the attitude some of her fellow male members exhibited, being over-fond of machismo (MACHISMO: Exaggerated masculine pride, from Mexican, from the Spanish 'Macho' for 'Male'), which she combatted by standing haughtily, arms akimbo (AKIMBO: With hands on hips and elbows projecting outwards.  From 15th century English 'In kenebow' meaning 'In keen bow' as in a sharp curve).  Art!

     At the same time as Gardenia was learning how to field strip an AR-15, her hubbo Artie was learning that Amalthea orbited close enough to Jupiter to experience 'tides'.  Not as in Spring or Neap (NEAP: Of, or relating to, a Neap tide.  From the Old English 'Nepflode', a tide occurring in the 1st or 4th quarter of the Moon) tides, but gravitational ones that squeezed the moon and deformed it's surface.  Art!

KM's mine on Amalthea

     Okay, I think that's enough wibble for this Intro.  I didn't use APSE or ASBESTOS here, so they may crop up again if I write about Artie and Gardenia again.  You may not enjoy reading this, but I had great fun writing it.

Less Text More Pics!

Of late I have been listening to music vlogs on Youtube whilst I craft words of wit, wisdom and wonder, meaning tha - what's that?  THE BLOG!  The blog, of course - obviously! - for those denser than depleted uranium.

     So, here's a screenshot of one I was listening to last night.  Art!

                              

     It has minimal animation and runs on a loop.  Conrad, being Mister Sensible, was rather worried about that young lady's safety and well-being as there is nothing to hang on to, the surfaces are wet and it looks like a long way down.

     From

     Currently running another one in the background.

Heeeeere's Jake!

One of my go-to vloggers on the Special Idiotic Operation, Jake Broe, of the Youtube Channel - you may be ahead of me here - 'Jake Broe', has been taking a holiday for the first time in 7 years.  He's posting occasional short vlogs of him in Sorkland and one short came up on - "Did you ever see a UFO whilst you were in the Air Force? as a Commenter enquired.  Art!

     Short ansewr: no.

     Longer answer: he'd love to have seen one but in all the 6 years of his service it never happened.  Sorry.

More Not-So-Gentle Shoeing

There's an absolutely ghastly video clip on Twitter of late that I cannot possibly post here as it's definitely NSFW.  See, we do have standards.  Just not many.  ANYWAY AGAIN let us put up another illo of King Piggy looking less than jiggy.  Art!

     I have been merciful and only used 'Large' as I am not convinced you could withstand 'Extra-large'.  A sterling example of why Your Humble Scribe dubbed him the 'Saggy Senile Sepia Sackbut'.  If this is him supposedly 'aging backwards' then allow me to age forwards.  Garnished from Twitter.

Calling Putinpot And Belousev

If you're not familiar with the second name, allow me to explicate.  He is the Ruffian Defence Minister, brought in to replace the previous incumbent, the utterly useless Shoigu.  Art!

Shuggy and Belly

     Supposedly, Belly is there to clean house and root out corruption, thus enhancing competence and credibility.  In reality he's been undercutting Shuggy by arresting and imprisoning all his protegés, because all Ruffian generals are corrupt and rotten to the core.  He can hardly arrest them all as it wouldn't look good, but the orc army might conceivably run better with them gone.

     ANYWAY ANYWAY as you should surely know by now, Mordorvia has burned through nearly all it's Soviet era stockpiles and has trouble fielding anything mothballed later than 1960.  So!  I have the perfect answer for you.  Art!

     A steal at $1,500 each.  

Finally -

Another Biercism.

"Defenceless, adj: Unable to attack."