Conrad Versus The Pakoras

An Epic, Almost Legendary Battle
If you recall yesterday's post, I put up a photograph of a plate piled high with baked goodies, thus:

Actually after I'd eaten quite a bit

     Derek's remark on seeing the plateful when he arrived in the kitchen was understated: "Wow, that's a feast!"*
     Well I didn't have any choice, did I?  Those two packs were going for only 75p each, so I really had to buy them, before they - er - became poisonous.  Or exploded.  Yeah, before they exploded.  Before they became poisonous then exploded.  Plus I only bought two packs when there were three going cheap, which is really restrained.
     Now, here you have the evidence that your gifted writer conquered the pakoras, and the samosas, and the spicy potato wedges and the breaded garlic mushrooms.

Victory!

     You'll just have to take my word for it that there's none in the bin, nor in Edna.  Lord alone knows what eating a plateful of this stuff would have on her bowels, but those words "poisonous" and "exploding" are hovering in the background.
     So, here you have a post that proves one of Conrad's salient characteristics: greed.  Allow me to continue with another of his salient characteristics: mucking around with the English language:

A legend.
A foot, anyway.  Which is close enough.

Aaaand Here's The Latest Worrying Coincidence
Actually this only came to light yesterday after I'd posted, so pretend it's still December the 13th.  What was your humble scribe banging on about?  His triumph in purchasing a jar of pickled sushi ginger.   Art?  Put down that coal and work -

Fair enough

     What was I banging on about exactly a year earlier, on 13th December 2014?
     Pickled sushi ginger.  Not a subject you find a lot of blogging about.

 So, a little random nonsense first.  How do you make pickled ginger a la sushi?  Well, first you scrape all the skin off the ginger, and then you slice off pieces as thin as you can manage -

Thus

      Then you dissolve a lot of sugar and a little salt in wine vinegar and steep the ginger in it for at least an hour:

Sic*

     Conrad hopes this works well - the jars of pickled sushi ginger available at all fine supermarkets are not cheap, and he can go through said jar in minutes.

     It didn't work very well.  I suspect you need to leave the ginger to a-pickle for months and months, not an hour, but that's Conrad for you: greedy.
     And also apparently stretching the laws of reality at the same time.  Only a little - it was only pickled ginger after all, not Sprong, caviar or Unobtanium.

Z Nation: How It All Began
Well now, this is known as Establishing Backstory, and then some.  It's a while since the series began, so you may not be aware that the story begins 3 years after a zombie virus outbreak has ravaged the world.
     Today we had the origins story for our surviving characters**, at the point where Zees are beginning to make a real pest of themselves, like that person on the bus with the i-pod playing loud weird music*** live polecat in a basket.
     So we meet Citizen Z, who has been a very naughty boy.  Very naughty.

For a start, orange is not a good colour for him

     In fact he's been so naughty his only option to avoid 425 years in jail is to - join the NSA.  The people who tracked him down in the first place.  
     Also his lawyer strongly resembles the lovely Laura at work:

Conrad.  Works with all the hot women.

     Didn't see that one coming.  Then there's Sergeant Warren -

Totally rocking the military fatigues look

     Who is doing her job of arranging transportation, until suddenly ZEES!
     Next up we have Doc.  Doc is a counsellor, but is also pretty nifty on his pins and capable of immobilising a guy three times his size:

The grippy hippy

     Drug counselling, it seems.  Fox in the chicken-coop ...
     Then we have the romantic and bloody partnership of Mac and Addy:

Other people's blood, I should point out

     Strange to see Mac clean shaven and Addy showing her legs.  Oh well.

10K.  Not batting a hundred

     This nerdy chump with the bad haircut is 10K before he got brutal.  Brutal and significantly cooler.  Finally we have:

Vasquez

     - in his default condition, Beaten Black And Blue.  Don't worry, it would take a whole passle of nukes^ to finish off this guy.
     Given that the actors are mostly grimy, grungy and underfed during the series, this episode must have been a pleasant change for them.  Clean, washed and well-clad.
     Plus, Disneyland got nuked^.  Always a plus in this writer's opinion.

The Metro
Sometimes Conrad has to pinch himself to see if he's still awake, although he remembers doing this in at least one nightmare where it didn't work and the scaly severed arms continued to creep across the -
     - actually let us move on from that, onto matters more pleasant.  Doctor Who, for one thing.  Not only is it back, it's been back for 10 years and is an international hit.
     Then there's this:

     If you had told me only a couple of years ago that The Metro - that fish-and-chip-wrapper-with-pretensions - would be featuring an article about a film of a Thomas Pynchon novel, I'd have fallen off my chair laughing.

Well, Time the Heeler has brought it's well-polished brogues down upon us with a determined thud.  In less flowery language, Conrad's hit the time limit.  And then some - up to nearly 1,000 words.  


*  The subtext "Conrad you greedy grey-haired blimp" remained unsaid
** Mostly surviving.
*** Too close to home.
^  This is sailing close to the Charm Offensive's Rule Number 2 ("No atom bombs") but I haven't actually used those words, have I?