A Day Off -

 - Which Is Not The Same As An Off Day
Just so we're clear.  An Off Day begins badly, fares poorly and ends ill.
     Conrad is on leave today, because he has to use up leave before the end of March, and everyone is in the same situation, so leave days are being taken here and there.
     In practice this means the rules of the weekend apply - get up late*, potter about on the internet, head downstairs for crumpets and a bucket of tea.
     Lunch today came courtesy of the Marsden Muppets crushing victory at the Halfway House last week - a meal for two to the value of £25, which began with garlic mushrooms on toasted ciabatta, and ended with Conrad feeling utterly stuffed.
     Then a quick walk with Edna to help the digestion, and Hay Pesto!  Time to start the Strawberry Fluff Cheesecake for Red Nose Day tomorrow.  Given that it's only mid-afternoon as I type these words, I should be able to bake another item.
     "I wonder what to bake for -"
     "Gluten-free Brownies," came the riposte as fast as thought from Wonder Wifey.  "Then you can leave some at home."
     Cupboard love, eh?  Ain't it great.

Dawn And Ceres
No, I don't mean my sister-in-law.  
No, I don't refer to "Ceres Special" which you used to be able to get on draught at the Danish Food Centre in the Arndale. 9% proof.  You took it cereiously.
     No!  What I refer to is the NASA space probe "Dawn", and the asteroid Ceres.  After a seven and a half year journey, Dawn is now in orbit around Ceres.

Dawn under power

     Ceres itself is what you might call "Queen of the Asteroids", being an enormous almost spherical object 950km in diameter (this makes it rather smaller than the object destined to smash into Earth in "Riggers In Spaaaace" a.k.a. "Armageddon", which is bigger than Texas and has mysteriously hidden from astronomers for centuries).
     The plan is for Dawn to orbit Ceres for a period of months, gradually getting closer to the surface and sending back images to Earth.  What will we see?
     Not my spaceship.  Parked elsewhere.
     There are some unexplained bright spots - presumably where meterorite impact has revealed the inner workings of the troglodyte alien culture  ... **

Green-skinned alien lovelies not wearing a lot, perhaps?

PENS

You may not want or like but - whose blog is it again?  Exactly - you are going to learn at least a little about pens.

     NO I DON'T MEAN BIROS!

     Conrad hateth the biro yeah, even unto death.  Looking around the Upstairs Lair I can see at least 20 pens, not one of them a biro.

     

The artist's materials

      Here is the pot of ink, the fountain and the quill pen.  Behold the difference in styles:

"DAMMIT IT CAT GET OFF MY LAP!"

     Excuse me, please, Jenny is exercising her feline rights to sit right where it's most disruptive.  The difference in styles:

Top: Quill Pen  Bottom: Fountain Pen

     Okay, now witness a whole page of quill longhand:

"DAMMIT IT CAT STOP FIGHTING WITH THE PHONE!"

     Excuse me whilst I shift the cat and refill my cup of tea -

"DAMMIT CAT GO SIT ON THE MAT!"

     The page of writing, mostly in quill:

Very spidery

     The inkpot has to be dipped into every few lines, as the quill has no reservoir to sustain writing - this meant Jenny trying to stick her nose in the pot, in addition to fighting with my fountain pen.  Anyway, the quill's nib is so fine it almost tempts one to over-elaborate the handwriting to take advantage.
     There you are.  Pens.  And overly-curious cats.

The Metro
It's hard trying to be positive about the Future Egg Carton, under the new "Sweetness and Light" editorial policy, so I won't bother.  Instead I shall merely be direct.
     Here's an article title: "Intrigued about Netflix's offbeat sitcom "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt"?"
     NO.


"Still Alice"
Conrad encountered an advert for this film today, and was immediately struck by two things: 1) Julianne Moore is pretty easy on the eyes, and 2) That's a rather ambiguous title.       Since we here at BOOJUM! are far above slobbering over screenshots of attractive people, Conrad will instead address the second issue.
     "Still Alice", emphasis added.  Well, of course she's still Alice!  People don't go trans-mutating into other people***, do they?  Or do they imply that she refuses to enter the Witness Protection Program?  Or the third possibility, one that makes for an extremely boring film:  Alice just sits there, static, for ninety minutes.

"It's a still, Alice"

"Critical" And Drama Tropes
Another advert for what people in studios laughably call "entertainment".  This one appears to be a medical drama, which got Conrad thinking about the central tropes of television drama, especially those that hail from across the pond.  They appear to come in three flavours:
1)  The medical.  This is great for people who like gore without violence as you get to see people getting ripped apart in accidents and then put together again in hospital.  Blood, scalpels, gorgeous nurses flirting with handsome doctors, we had "Emergency Ward Ten" here in the UK you know.

Perhaps I was reaching a bit with "Handsome"

2)  The police.  This is great for people who like gore with violence as you get to see endless gun battles and stacks of bodies, with lots of car chases and screeching sirens.  We had "Dixon of Dock Green" here in the UK you know.

Superglue accident, poor chap

3)  The legal.  This features that repellent species of creature known as the "lawyer", and makes them out to be exciting and wonderful and dramatic.  In reality they are dull as ditchwater, drab as dirt pie, aand have the soul and drama of a stale bagel stricken with mould, and presumably the only reason these things get green-lit is that the studio executives are all lawyers themselves^.

They wish they were this exciting.
More like "Devil's Avocado"

What Beer Am I?




Easy -

Bomb - Bard - Ear
Simples!

* "Late" meaning 8:30 rather than 6:30; Conrad is not one of those fools who boast about "having a lie-in until as late as 6:45!"
** That obscure cult series "Stars Trek" has an episode "For The World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky" that references this.
** Unless it's a David Lynch film, and then they do.
^ This isn't current affairs, there's a joke about getting rid of lawyers in "The Count of Monte Cristo"