Hotel Californium

I Know What You're Thinking -
"Good lord aloft, did Conrad really mention the ballfoot game in today's earlier blog?  And without sneering at it?"
     Yes indeed, although perhaps I was rather gloating at the sense of Schadenfreude visited at the vehement venomous verbiage that the various vying fans vent upon each other over on the Beeb's Sport comment pages.  What can I say?  I'm a terrible person.

The source of all woe in the world today

     It's always amusing, in a sinister way, to see other folks getting riled up about a matter you have absolutely no interest in.
     Oh - the title.  You weren't confusing my opening gambit with that soft-rock classic by the Eagles, were you?  How foolish!  No, this was my take on Star Trek's replicator technology and how to ensure some teenager with angst issues doesn't create a nuclear weapon simply by asking for a few kilos of Californium.

"Take that, evil parents!"

      Cf98 is simply an example, used because I quoted it in earlier posts.  Nothing to do with clickbait tactics, honest.
      Anyway - the replicator will be programmed with a list of potentially harmful substances; given that there might be genuine emergency issues requiring a kilo of Cf98, it won't do to simply ban them from being replicated.  Instead, the resulting artefact will be whisked away by a local transporter, to a safe holding facility (the 'Hotel') that prevents any noxious, toxic, radioactive or explosive effects from damaging either ship or crew.  Nifty, eh?  Then the person making the request has to satisfy Security that they desperately need the Cf98 releasing.  

Starfleet Security.  Like some isotopes, they have a short half-life

"Because I hate the whole world and my parents and they're going to be sorry!" said in a teenaged snarl will, frankly, not cut it.

Oh go on.

     
Atmospheric Meaning "Cold, Damp And Creepy"
As you already know, Conrad takes Edna for regular walks without any regard for profit or reward, simply out of the sheer overflowing goodness of his heart.*  Even when the weather was as it was today, grey to the limit.  Art?

     This is the prospect at the far end of Tandle Hill Avenue.  It ticks all the boxes in the title, doesn't it?  You could tell the weather was grim by how few cars are present.  On a sunny day there's no room for half a mile on either side, and the same applies if it snows.  Note I say "if" because, this being the Pond of Eden, there's no certainty we'll see any of the cold white stuff this winter.

BOOJUM! Ventures Into Current Affairs
I know we normally steer clear of the Toxic Trio - Politics, Religion, Current Affairs and Strictly Come Dancing** - thus ensuring we don't alienate or offend people, because we can manage that quite adequately already with Business As Normal.  Still, I am tempted to comment on a video uploaded to Youtube by "Nicco", a youthful squaddie in the British Army.  He and a couple of friends viewed with staggered disbelief and hilarity a propaganda video posted by the Norks, about their "Special Forces".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQJfiJUrHO8&t=121s

     Therein the link.  I, too, watched the video with vast amusement.  First, it seems that the Nork SF are extensively trained in hitting things with their bare hands, and also being hit with things.  Art?

     This is a bloke being hit on the back with a sledgehammer, protected only by a big rock.  Such training is typical, it seems.  They hit bricks and slates and each other, they dive through flaming hoops and jump over moving cars.  Whilst this is sterling training for performing in a circus, Conrad suspects that it might have little utility when encountering the beaten zone of a Browning M2 machine gun.  Nicco makes the same point; all the waving arms and flailing legs in the Korean peninsula aren't going to stop a 9 mm bullet.
     Then there are their weapons.  Nicco bursts out laughing when we witness the Nork SF practicing firing on the range.  "That's World War Two!" he exclaims.  Art?

     He refers to the gun in the foreground, a Degtyarev DP 27, which is actually a lot earlier in origin than the Second Unpleasantness.  It got replaced in the Sinister bloc over 50 years ago, because it was an antiquated piece of junk, so the question must be why these <ahem> elite super-soldiers are still using them.
     
     Well, here we are at count, when I was just about to begin typing out my 5,000 monograph on "The Contextual Design Influences of 'Forbidden Planet' on Modern Cinematography".  Maybe tomorrow.

Finally -
Because the Norks can only dream about technology like this -

The mighty spork!

*  Yes, I know this contradicts that earlier bit about being eeeevil.  I'm complicated.
**  "Trio" because I am still not convinced that SCD is actually real