Hamanuptra, Baby, Hamanuptra!

The Egyptian City Of The Dead
Just imagine how different "Swingers" would have been if Jon and Vince had gone there instead of dull, shallow, materialistic Las Vegas.  They could have gambled with their lives instead of dollar chips, and fought mummified zombies* instead of a Los Angeles gang, and romanced Rachel Weitz instead of a mother cooing at her baby.
     Just remember this intro if every you see a film with the tagline "Swingers meets The Mummy!"

Billy Mumy.  Close enough

Beware Of Footwear
Conrad has just taken delivery of a pair of trainers of the "Zuuk" family, very lightweight and comfortable indeed, and which will make him the trendiest footclad person at work, for a week or so at least.

Conrad's less than dainty Size 11 foot.
Feet, fingers, he's not built on the small side.

     I know it's not really news (hello Metro!) but my elderly Krocks are looking rather the worse for wear, scuffed and covered with what look like the shoe equivalent of liver spots.  Although I think it's actually paint.  Can't show you a picture of them as they are sitting in our brand new atomic-powered dishwasher, which will either a) blast them clean with the scourging power of very hot water and coloured chalky tablets, or b) turn them into a black plastic slurry that blocks the dishwasher drain and floods the kitchen.
    Edna wasn't so impressed by the trainers themselves, but rather more in the plastic inserts that kept them rigid - she went for them with all the vim in her compact body and chewed them into bits.

The victims.  Quite why Edna went for them is a mystery

"Against The Day"
Yes, still reading this, and am now up to Page 640!
     In normal fiction this would be the equivalent of two long novels, but it's still less than 2/3 complete for ATD.  Today we had Gottingen, chloral hydrate parties and German mathematics students brought to wakefulness with a coffee enema, the quest for Shambala (imagine a Hamanuptra of the mind) and confusing speculation about the Fourth Dimension.

MUSIC

An aside to deal with that which calms the savage breast.

The Pipes, The Pipes -
No!  Not problems with the plumbing.  Bagpipes.  And tuneful Russians.  Conrad was slightly disgruntled not to find any interesting books in the charity shops of Royton, but he was recompensed by these:

"Bagpipe Classics" and "1812 Overture" - don't mention the guns ...

     The bagpipes CD was definitely new, but I couldn't remember if I'd got the Tchaikovsky stuff or not.  At £2 the pair it was worth taking the gamble, and I didn't have it.

Public Broadcasting Service
No!  Not films about Charlie the Cat and his advice about matches, nor that creepy one about dangerous water voiced by Donald Pleasance.  The band.  Pub quiz partners Phil and Rosie recounted how they were in the audience for same at the Galtres Music Festival, and enjoyed it as music and amusing entertainment.
     Conrad scuttled on over to Youtube to find this song, dubbed "Spitfire":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u4Md_aXVJE

     which he really rather enjoyed.  How can you not? Leslie Howard and David Niven, Spitfires, the Battle of Britain and Things Exploding.

Hey Hey Hey
Thank you - I think - to Ian Breen for highlighting this very odd Youtube clip with a moving mannequin singing a song inside a very small room:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLy-AwdCOmI

     Or, perhaps, it's just a very tall mannequin?

I-Tunes
Conrad = slightly shocked at the total of CDs he possesses now according to the I-tune status bar:

Get out your microscope!

     For those of you who don't have infra-red telescopic eyes, that's 585 Cds, 54 Gb of space taken up and the whole lot would take 19 days to listen to non-stop if you played them end-to-end.  All of which sits in a device smaller than a pack of cards, and which means Conrad doesn't need a wheelbarrow to carry the collection around.
     This is quite beside the 1,000 plus songs he has as a saved Collection on Grooveshark -

End of aside, you can come out now.

Get A Load Of This
This was a birthday present from the very thoughtful Anna at work (as opposed to Anna at play, Anna at Turtle Bay or Anna at PDSA).  It's a small nightlight for reading in the dark, a useful thing to have on the bus during the kind of bleak, black cloudy weather we have just now**.

     To operate it, a small piece of plastic insulation had to be removed from the battery compartment.  Conrad unseated the battery cover and gently tugged on a projecting slip of plastic.  Ping! went the three tiny batteries, taking flight like grouse on the moors.  Conrad - restricting himself to the officially-BOOJUM! sanctioned swear "Dog Buns!" grovelled in the gravel on the ground*** before finding them and refitting them into the nightlight.  He closed the battery compartment -
     Ping! went the batteries again, flying to all corners of the room.  Well, three corners, there were only three batteries.  Once again, with his quivering sausage fingers Conrad collected them all and carefully slid them into the nightlight and carefully slid the cover home and -
     - I know, I know, it's not really news, but it was a present and I have great big clumsy fingers.  I'm not even typing this, you know, thanks to clumsiness and those salami-sized digts, I've paid one of the cats to do it -

Conrad - still exploiting cute animals -

*  Or were they zombified mummies?
**  "Just now" meaning 365 days of the year, potentially
*** Mister Hand points out this is alliterative but also lies.  There's a carpet, not stones.