They!

That's An Hommage
If you don't know to which film I refer, then the exit door IS THAT WAY!
     Okay, relenting slightly, because some of you are younger than Conrad, the film I refer to is "Them!" which is a stone-cold classic of Atomic Era Cinema (1954).  It is actually well-produced for a Giant Creature Feature, although the original plan to have the climactic battle take place in the New York subways was exchanged for the Los Angeles storm drains for budget reasons.  And because NYNY didn't want giant ants running around their train stations.  Art?

Both good and bad

     It features a female scientist, which is quite something for the times, even if she does end up being a Rescue Me! on occasion (see above).  The New Mexico settings are quite eerie, especially to us folks from the Pond, due to the incredibly arid conditions.

It begins ...

     The Wise Elder Savant (Edmund Gwenn) identifies the strange high-pitched noises that our heroes hear as "Stridulations", which is how ants gossip to each other.  This word comes from the Latin "stridulus", which appears to have a common root with "stridele" - see today's earlier post.

Pest control, 1950's style

     Those with sharp eyes will notice Leonard Nimoy has a small role, being a flirt.
     None of which has anything to do with what I actually wanted to post, which is par for the course round here.  So, Intro over, let the motley commence!

They!
Here I refer, of course*, to those rather scary South African rockers "Die Antwoord", and perhaps Art can get his hands (and mouth) out of the coal-scuttle and give us a picture?

In one of their milder, friendlier moments

     Their chosen name is Afrikaans, I believe, for "The Answer", except if you're reading it in a hurry and have no idea who they are it's easy to misread it, or think that they've experienced a typo and what you ought to see is "Die, Ant World" and you can throw an exclamation mark or two in there to jazz it up.

"Die, Ant World!"

     Which has been a long and meandering way of exploiting two words.

"Mailbox Baseball"
Conrad had never heard the expression before today, because he is both a law-abiding citizen**, and because we here in the <checks window, see's it isn't raining> Allotment of Eden have letterboxes that our mail gets posted through.  I shall explicate a little further.  Many folks in South Canada have a box affixed to a post at the street end of their property, with a cute little flag attached.  Art?  Coal down, picture up!

Thus

     The mailman comes along, sticks the post in and raises the flag, so Norm knows that he has mail.  Simple, right?
     Wrong!  In the same way that work expands to fill the time available, human ingenuity and malice can exploit anything ever invented for evil ends.  Mailbox baseball consequently involves miscreants driving alongside a road where mailboxes are plentiful, and proceeding to leather the heck out of them with a baseball bat.  Art?

Good underhand hit

     Great fun for inebriated youths on a Friday night!  Er - well - not so much, as the US Postal Service takes a very dim view of mailboxes being so abused.  So dim there is a three-year prison sentence attached to this most odious of crimes.

The hapless victims

     Also, as a caution to some of those inebriate youths, craftier mailbox owners have taken to lining theirs with concrete, on the inside, where it won't show.

Tap that!

More Of Madoff
Bernie Madoff, investment crook, that is.  As I mentioned earlier today, he is serving 150 years in prison for his $65 billion fraud, so he'll get out in 2159.  Or, if he behaves well, 2139 due to a reduction.  The Madoff's didn't come out of this affair very well.
     His brother Peter will be out rather sooner, having only been sentenced to 10 years in 2012.  
     The family woes continue.  One of Bernie's sons committed suicide, the other died of cancer.  His wife is now estranged, thanks to an affair Bernie had -
     Hubris, eh?  Which is what the ancient Greeks used as a shorthand for "How have the mighty fallen."

Gosh that was dark!  And we're nearly at count, so there's little space or time - talking of which, "Doctor Who" is on soon as well - to remedy that.  Quick, quick, pictures of happy furry bunnies!



     Close enough ...


*  Of course it's "of course", that much is obvious.
**  Don't want law enforcement poking around The Mansion