Zimbies!

No!  That Is Not A Spelling Mistake
You insult me, sir*!  By now you should be aware that language serves Conrad, the words do what I want, they get up and move as I tell them and no typos are allowed.  So no, I did not mis-spell "Zombies".
     "But Conrad," I hear you query.  "You never stop banging on about the walking dead."
     Entirely true.  However, let me change the subject to - Darling Daughter.  Sally, to give her the proper name.

Darling Daughter Sal

     "Hang on," I hear you quibble.  "What -"
     LATER!
     As I boasted yesterday, I had provided DD with a hand-written set of notes for her final degree project, and then drove over to her student hovel apartment to hand-deliver same to her.  I also got rid of "Kid A" and the IWM Book Of Modern British Warfare, the latter for Tom to deliver to Colin.

A Kid.  Close enough.

     Because she was still in pyjamas, Conrad then got to see her ankle, which was adorned with - a tattoo!  Art?

    "IS THAT ANOTHER TATTOO!" I expostulated, which is like exclaiming except more arty and higher in volume.  To which DD replied that it was, indeed.
     "No tattoos until you're 18 -" sprang to my lips, before I recalled that DD is in fact 22.
     I thought the pain of her first tattoo, a blue rose, had put her off, but no.  Not only that, if I squinted a bit then that design looked familiar.
     "Is that 'Invader Zim'?" I asked, to be told that indeed it was.  Both DD and Tom are fans of this animated series, of which Conrad has seen a few episodes although ages ago.  Art?

Zim and his idiot robot assistant GIR

     It has a place in your humble scribe's heart, as it concerns an undercover alien spy, who is here to spy on humans and prepare the way for his evil alien empire to invade and enslave Earth.  Except that, unlike me, Zim is a hopeless incompetent who turns everything he touches to disastrous failure.
     So!  I decided to dub fans of this programme as - Zimbies.

"Taofledermaus"
NO!  I DIDN'T MIS-SPELL IT!  Go back to the beginning and READ IT AGAIN!!
     Pausing only to let my pulse settle and let the throbbing veins on my forehead calm once more, I have to admit that this odd portmanteau word combining Oriental philosophy and the German for "Bat" can be misinterpreted.  It's a couple of people over on Youtube who, basically, shoot things.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=taofledermaus

     That above is a link to their pages on Youtube.  Their philosophy can be summed up in one of their video titles - "You make it, we'll shoot it".

Some people have entirely too much time on their hands ...

     What they mean is that, if you make a particular type of projectile for a shotgun, they will indeed go ahead and shoot it.  They shoot bullets - don't bother to tell me that they're actually shells - made out of glass, bubble gum, silly putty, nails - pretty much anything that people out there with too much time on their hands come up with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFhqyvCTA1I

     That's a link to them shooting cubes out of a shotgun, which they dub 'Borg Bullets', where they work in as many dreadful "Star Trek" puns as they can.

I repeat the caption above

 
A Palladium Lining To Every Cloud
I'm using this instead of silver because it's a lot more useful, and because some of you might go away and look it up on teh interwebz and discover interesting things about Element 46.
     What I'm going on about now is that cyber attack on the NHS here in the Pond of Eden, which affected your humble scribe as he was due to have a Special Super Duper Eye test at the Health Centre in Royton today.  At 9:45, which meant not being able to fester in bed for ages.  

The lining in question

     However, and you're probably waaaay ahead of me here, when I got there the tests had been cancelled; that cyber attack again.
     The palladium lining is that I'd needed to drop off a sample < we shall say no more than that > and my prescription order sheet, so the trip wasn't wasted, all the more so as I got a Double Pepperoni Pizza going cheap at the Co-Op.

A sample

     Plus I walked to and from Royton, which is pretty impressive for someone who is 175 years old.


*  Or madam.