Well, you know Conrad, he has all the pens. Most of them reside in his bag, but a ready-use residue cluster at the neck of his tee-shirt. First I had to see how many I'd stuck there - a modest five.
"I like pens," I explained. Then, just to egg the pudding: "It's my thing."
As you may have guessed, your humble scribe has just been doing the weekly shop, after finishing a late shift and, although I've got lots of notes to type up, it'll be after ten by the time they get posted, so once again I am going to cheat and post a copy of what was hot a couple of years ago. This way I get to be green by recycling, and you can see the development (or not) of BOOJUM through the years.
Lay it on us Steve!
This is from July 8th 2013
Don't Touch That Dial! (nor that mouse, either) OR Why Conrad Feareth Not the BPI
Ah, on-line streaming music websites! How I fondly remember Spotify's free service of, and here my memory gets a bit vague, five years ago.
Then it got progressively worse and worser* and I haven't been there for probably a year. "Why not?" chorus thousands of readers, "Tell us, Conrad, tell us!"
By the time I metaphorically kicked it in the teeth and swore a heated goodbye to the free service, your time per month had been whittled down to
YEAH! SKY-PUNCH! BLUE OYSTER CULT PLAYING R U READY 2 ROCK!
Ahem. I shall explain about that in a bit. Oh, yes, Spotify. Not only that, you got ghastly interrupting adverts every other song. I'm sure by now and by extension for free you get thirty minutes per month, can play a song once and have five aural adverts for each song.
Then we come to Grooveshark. Initially their website was glitchy, un-intuitive and not user-friendly. However, they picked up my telepathic criticism and had a redesign. There are no restrictions on access time, you can play a song all day long until your speakers vibrate apart, the adverts are subtle and sidebarred and are VISUAL and so don't interrupt. Searching for songs and creating a collection is easy. I tend to have it on in the background, playing whilst I create, and - well, apologies from a middle-aged man pathetically trying to stay young, those guitar slides in "R U Ready 2 Rock" played live really hit the spot. Excuse an old rockist his foibles. That "Beaming" in the title refers to my being happy with Grooveshark. So be it.
And no, I'm not getting paid for this. Any Grooveshark managing directors reading this who might want to give me vast amounts of £££ are kindly welcome, but I'd post this even if it didn't make me a penny.
Oh, for any overseas visitors, the "BPI" of the title are the "British Phonographic Industry", a trade association which includes anti-piracy measures amongst it's activities. With Grooveshark, why bother downloading pirated music? Simply not worth it.
*Yes I know that's not a proper English word but it feels right
** Again inaccurate but, damn it, they feel right!
My own personal nickname for them. Surprise! Other people think the same. Conrad. Trailblazing.
The hilarious irony about this is that Grooveshark was ILLEGAL and went bust last year, being faced with a fine of $700 million. Conrad has still not got over it*.
And this one is from 8th July 2014:
Don't Sneer -
- trying to create wonderful wittiness on an empty stomach is a trial like little else, the keyboard-tapping being interrupted by groaning bowels, dizzy spells thanks to hunger, fainting in coils and thus falling off the ergonomic stool -
| An ergonomic stool. Comfortable - yet DEADLY! |
Perhaps Conrad exaggerates a little - only a little - yet he has undoubtedly quelled his ever-demanding stomach. All it took was some Mini Egg Bites, and a set of salami slices, and a lemon-cream muffin, and a chunk of salami, then a couple of handfuls of chips and two slices of grilled cheese on toast (with mushrooms).
The Life Story Of A Pack Of Jaffa Cakes In Conrad's Lair
One of Conrad's guilty pleasures is the humble Jaffa cake. He can hoover his way though a packet in five minutes - four if he has a drink to hand - and is always looking for those wonderful miniature Polish ones with strawberry instead of orange.
(Pause to remember the Polish Jaffa cakes. In Memoriam)
As you can imagine, gentle reader, once that seal is broken, their life expectancy is short:
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| ONE! The countdown has begun |
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| TWO! Not long for you |
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| THREE! The packet is empty |
Not made of sloth, no, not at all, merely delivered as if by one. Here is the offending article:
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| Nice, and free, but oh! the time it took ... |
It was free, but involved waiting for 125 hours whilst the jalapeno chillies were flown in from Mexico City and then carried on foot by the caterers from Manchester Airport, diverting around the M62 so they could look at the scenery and having a massage and pedicure before arriving back at my Still Nameless Employer's ground-floor kitchen - and then being put in the burrito.
Perhaps Conrad does exaggerate a little - but it was a loooong wait.
How Many Bodies?
Lately, in the car park that sits next to my Coyly Anonymous Workplace, a digger has been excavating, uncovering dank brick-built cellars and walls. After uncovering possibly Victorian masonry and perching on a big spoil heap as if guarding it jealously, the digger has been replacing the earth. This process has been repeated at different places in the car park, viz:
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| Re-filled diggings over at centre right |
What can they be doing? Conrad, with the delusion that he knows anything about civil engineering and construction, suspects that further construction work might be taking place in this car park, so the engineers need to know if there are any potential voids or obstructions to pilings or foundations.
Either that, or they have a hell of a lot of corpses to dispose of .....
"Inept"
This word popped into Conrad's consciousness round about Hour 54 of waiting for his burrito. He mused on it. Later, he pondered. Finally, he cogitated.
You are all, dear audience, familiar with the word "inept" used as a term of opprobrium*? Fitting example to theme, were Conrad to commentate on the World Cup you, gentle readers, would find his analysis inept, as Conrad knows very little about football. Dave Kerry is attempting to fill the gaps in, but as there is more gap than substance, this may take a while**.
So. Inept. Which begs the question, why do we never hear the word "ept" minus the "in" prefix? Come on, think about it, have you ever heard anyone described as "ept"?
No you haven't, have you?
Conrad feels another letter to The Times coming on.
Locomotive
Yes, this is being rather formal. Conrad, with that characteristic habit of his of hopping from one subject to another without rhyme or reason***, wondered where this name comes from.
Wonder no longer - "loco" comes from the Latin "From a place" and "Motive" is again Latin for "Causing motion". A "Locomotive engine" distinguished the old steam loco from stationary engines.
And don't make the mistake of calling a locomotive a train, because it's sooo not; the train is the whole entity of rolling stock and locomotive <Mister Hand intervenes here in the interests of people not dying of boredom, apart from the train-spotters>
Er- Talking Of Bodies ...
Conrad just noticed this picture on Facebook:
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| Is that a spade? |
Now, isn't that cave the one from "The Usual Suspects" where they find Benicio Del Toro's character, brutally murdered? I'd question quite who my "friends" were if this is the case ...
Finally
The evil of Conrad knows no limits as he pimps his blog with pictures of cute animals!
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| Come on, Edna, look cute, damnit! |
* Insult. Why use a six letter word when you can use a ten letter one?
** Decades.
*** I've given up on why Conrad's mind works the way it does. It just does.
Apologies that some of the photographs don't appear properly. Just use your imagination.
Wow, that was easy! Twice the normal word count in less than ten minutes - I may try this again. Pip pip!
* Muted background sobs
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