Conrad Is CROSS! INCANDESCENTLY CROSS!

No, Not In The Sense Of Angry
In the sense of "Hot CROSS Bun", thank you very much.  Yes, yes, I did boast earlier about avoiding terrible Easter puns, well it's long past Easter now, so there*.  
     Damn.  The Mansion's stragegic stockpile of HXB has shrunk to but a couple - actually only one now, damnation take whoever scoffed the next to last one.  They're also rather flat, as the shop staff obviously stacked too many packs atop each other.  Still gloriously tasty, just a little less appealing to the eye.

Hot cross bun, hot cross bun -
How I wish I had another one

     "Shall I have one this morning?" I asked myself this morning, aloud as there were no witnesses.  "There's just enough time before the bus comes."  Then mentally added:  Yes, conventional buses on a normal schedule.  Here, we are dealing with First the Worst!
     Your humble scribe forewent a HXB, and a good thing too, as the 24 came early.
     Since I am on an early shift tomorrow there really won't be time enough to finish off that last HXB tomorrow, so I may have to <rubs hands and chuckles merrily**> sneak down later on and toast it tonight.  Heh heh!

Conrad.  His impression of "Heh"

Clash Of The Competing CROSSword Completists
You see?  You see how clever I am?  O you do.  Let us move on, then.  As you surely know by now, Conrad likes to tackle the Metro's Cryptic Crossword of a morning, as today.  He doesn't always complete it before arriving in Manchester, but has learned that the law of diminishing returns applies here.  That is, spending 15 minutes wracking the grey matter over those last 2 clues is a singular waste of time, as today.  Better to cut and act elsewhere, as today.
     Now, Quiet Tom of the office also loves him some crossword, except that Tom can't be doing with anything but the conventional - also known as the "Quick" - crossword.  No Cryptic compositor he!  So, he doesn't look forward to Conrad gloasting*** "TOM! TOM! I did the Cryptic in 12 minutes^!"  Foolishly he once admitted that this irritates him, which means Conrad is guaranteed to do it forever (tee hee!)

Conrad.  His impression of "Tee heh!"

Metromorphosis
Ah, I would miss The Metro if it were to suddenly improve in quality (as the title above suggests), because it makes such an easy, regular target.  It isn't so much the yellow press as the dirty off-tone sepia press.  Take all this recent media furore about the Panama financial leaks.  On the day when every media outlet is going on about the Mossack Fonseca revelations, it is indeed on the front page of the rag we love to slag (or jibe with diatribe).  "Continued on Page 9" says the footer on the front page.  Page 9?  Whatever happened to Page?  
     Adverts
     Page 3?  
     A woman called Gemma Atherton in a dress.  This trumps Panama, apparently.
     Page 4?
     Adverts
     Page 5?  Muse in concert, and drugs.  Not in the same story, you gutter-minded gits.
     Page 6?
     Home digest of humourous short items.
     Page 7?
     Drugs again.
     Page 8?
     Adverts
     Page 9 arrives (Yay!), but they make sure to get some vapid celebritute in at the top of the page before we get to Panama (Boo!).

No publicity for celbritutes!
Have an industrial yoghurt maker instead

     I'm not sure if this next speculation is Current Affairs or not (er - the above is not, it's a satirical dig at The Metro, which has been around in execrable form for years) - isn't it odd that none of the leaks went to Wikileaks?  Ed Snow, you look a bit feeble now.


"Inherent Vice" By Thomas Pynchon
Ah, the work that I put in so that you don't have to.  In my current reading I've been making notes about odd words or names encountered in the depths of the novel.  We came across the automatic bazooka yesterday.  Today we have the following:
     "Connex":  better known here in the UK as a shipping container.

Intermodal -

     - which means it can be redeployed via train, ship or truck without having to unload and reload the cargo.
     "Vibrasonic":  At one point Denis turns on what he thinks is a random radion button on Doc Sportello's car, and from the text one understands that this action made their teeth rattle.  Art?

The Button

     Let me add in detail from a car forum: " It was an additon to the monaural tape/radio, which gave the impression of separation between front and rear speakers."
     "Deep Fried Hostess Twinkies": You know Conrad's love for all things sweet, preferably cloyingly so, and the humble Hostess Twinky certainly hits that spot.  Art?

Before

Gasp!  How - how can you improve on perfection?

     Conrad is interested in these but had better wait until Wonder Wifey is out of the way.  I'll get back to you on this one.



* Besides - whose blog is it?
** That is, horribly
*** I made this up from "boasting" and "gloating"
^  A blatant lie <the truth courtesy Mister Hand>