Asleep In The Back

Chance Would Be A Fine Thing!
     Creatively idle as ever, Conrad picked a CD at random to generate a blog title.
     "The Vaccines".  Nope.  Doesn't work.  Next to it - Elbow's debut, "Asleep In The Back".  Right!  That'll do.

A Creep in a Mac.  Close enough

     Why the mocking title?  Because of Edna, of course.  The only time I'd be able to get to sleep is when she's asleep, although Conrad falling asleep is not likely to happen as 1) I am a busy chap, reading, annotating and writing & 2) I get through about 4 pints of tea per day.  I know, I know, I've cut back since a couple of years ago.

- there will now be a pause, as the weather has improved to the point that I dare take Edna for walkies, although typing this will probably invoke the anger of the Weather Gods -  actually it didn't and as proof I offer you Edna, uncharacteristically static in Dogford Park:

  

Caught in one of seven seconds where she stood still

The Enormous Giant Chocolate Sandwich Cookie
     Conrad had the novel experience of being mentor to Dogsitter Daughter and Tom Howl, who were determined to make a Giant Cookie yesterday.  I offered up advice on making a chocolate and a plain cookie, advised not to bother sifting flour (unless it's been sitting in an open container in your humid kitchen for six weeks), to use a fork to mix in the dough instead of a spoon, and to grease the cooking trays - two of which will fit perfectly into the oven side-by-side.
     Result, two giant cookies that were then sandwiched together with melted chocolate - and again Conrad advised - use block choc not chips as chips are designed to retain their shape.
     Here you can see most of the cookie carcass, with an 8 inch whisk for scale:

- and this is just the remains!

1998
     Another brief snapshot in time, another pair of similarly-themed films that came out together.  In alphabetical order:
     Armageddon
     Michael Bay film, right?  Then there will be orange filter shots, a group of men walking      in slow-motion and THINGS EXPLODING!  Am I right?  Of course I am.  I'm Conrad, it's 
     my blog, I know the Michael Bay Patented Plot And Director Generator.

"Planet Earth. It was fun while it lasted" was better, I feel

     Okay, the silliness begins early, peaks midway and resurfaces at the end.  An asteroid
     "the size of Texas" is about to hit Earth in a months time, so NASA recruits a bunch of
     zany oil-riggers, trains them as astronauts, launches them on a do-or-die mission and
     Bruce Willis sacrifices himself to save us all.  Thanks, Bruce!

Bruce's daughter.  Grrr, the pouty-lipped human temptress!

     
     Er - except any asteroid as big as Texas would have been spotted way back in the 19th
     century.  Astronomers would have been able to plot it's orbit for decades, anticipating      any impact with Earth.  They'd have been able to land gigatonne nuclear warheads on
     the asteroid years ahead of impact, detonating them to alter the asteroid's orbit 
     slightly.
     NASA would be far more likely to train a bunch of astronauts to carry out drilling ops
     in outer space, especially given that the drillers are a wildly disfunctional bunch of
     sleazebags, idiots and the morbidly overweight.
     Oh, and NASA is composed of chimps who manage to assemble Harry Stamper's patent
     drill upside down.  Oh, NASA, you ragamuffins! <wags finger at NASA).
     What else?  Oh yes, one of the drillers goes mental.  The other drillers and astronauts 
     all announce that he must be suffering from "space madness".  Excuse me?  That may 
     occur in Ren and Stimpy - not in real life.  And the drillers go wild with shocked horror
     when they discover an astronaut has brought along a pistol.
     A pistol?  They're about to detonate the biggest bomb evah and they quibble about a
     pistol? When their drilling vehicles were equipped with rotary-action machine-guns?
     (Hey, outer space is a dangerous place.  They might have needed those guns)
     Despite all this, or possibly (Conrad shudders a bit) because of it, this film still made
     over half a billion dollars at the box office.

     Deep Impact
     This film takes itself rather more seriously than Armageddon and the plot is somewhat        more realistic - the planet-busting comet is picked up a year ahead of impact.  Yes, a
     space mission to blast it off-course is despatched, but in case it fails a small portion of
     humanity are selected to take refuge in underground bunkers.

Well of course "Deep" impact!  What kind of title would "Shallow" or "Moderately Penetrating" Impact be? 

     The great Robert Duvall heads the astronauts, as the splendidly named "Spurgeon   
     Tanner".  He automatically brings gravitas to the picture, and the cast list is a very
     impressive list of character actors - Morgan Freeman, Vanessa Redgrave, Elijah Wood,
     Tea Leoni, James Cromwell, and more.
     For disaster-porn enthusiasts, one gets to have one's cake and to eat it, for the comet-
     busting mission is only partially successful, and at the cost of the ship and all aboard
     her.  So there is a gigantic, devastating impact and untold millions choke it, but this
     is only a fraction of the damage that could have occurred.

Comet impact: one way to get rid of traffic congestion

          In terms of bean-counting, this fillum made back a third of a billion dollars, but it
     did have a far smaller budget than Armageddon.  Conrad asks, it cost far less yet with
     all those actors?  Brucie, I think you have some 'splaining to do*!

Death Of A Bookmark
     Edna trotted out of the Upstairs Lair with a paper bookmark in her mouth, an event observed by Conrad from the corner of his eye (they can swivel independently and work in infra-red, too).  Not thinking much of it, he continued to make notes.
     However, this was obviously - obviously! - one of those killer poisonous evil bookmarks, as witness it's remains:

Sound "The Last Post" and fire five rounds

Finally
     Battling ice-cubes takes it out of you.  This is Edna after chasing, chewing and pawing ice-cubes around the kitchen:

* American readers with long memories may remember Desi Arnez saying "Lucie, you got some 'splaining to do!"