Conrad - Is Concerned

That's Me
I am Conrad, for the unsure.  You know, the chap who writes this thing.  Old, white-haired and perpetually seething with rage at the slightest actual or imagined slight.*
     Why am I concerned, rather than anxious, or bothered, or worried?  I thought you'd never ask!
     The blog stats, for one thing.  Conrad likes BOOJUM! to be popular, yet not too popular, otherwise the entities and people who are regularly slandered on these pages might get to hear of it and object.  Not only that, UNIT and Spectrum are ever-ready to come snooping around if anything particularly trips their software sensors.**Art?

     This is a bit odd, since "It's A Rose" has absolutely nothing to recommend that it be read in such large numbers.  A couple of years ago the tracking algorithm on Blogger went haywire in November, regularly giving me figures in excess of 500 readers a day, and it didn't settle down until the following May.  Today's most-read stats do not feature "It's A Rose" at all, meaning that it's total has somehow declined, if that's possible.  Nor is that the end of oddness - check out the global readership map at bottom starboard and - nobody is reading the blog!  This map ought to be covered in various shades of green, the deeper the shade meaning the more readers.  There ought to be at least the faintest verdant blush there in Perfidious Albion yet - no.

My biggest fans!
(Thank you, Greenland)

     I shall have to speak to the Hamster Wranglers over at Blogger and see what they advise.
     In the meantime, let us bombard the motley with <thinks> stewed prunes!  That we've not extracted the stones from!

Very nearly a war-crime-in-a-bowl

Sorry To Keep Harping On About Blasters And Phasers -
It's just that the very entertaining Youtube channel "Because Science" did a mathematical and analytical breakdown of how your phaser/blaster would work in real life, and it backs up what I've already mentioned: that they are pointlessly complex, expensive and delicate weapons which are grossly inferior to the humble Webley Mark VI.
     Nor is that all.  O no!  Art?

Kyle Killing Krazily

     That there is Kyle, the presenter.  By dodging and fudging a bit, he comes up with figures for how much energy it would require to do that characteristic phaser thing of "vapourising" a victim.  You know, where they glow brightly for a second before vanishing into - well, vapour, I suppose.  Herein the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46VLsmkt0-8&t=171s

     As Kyle points out, the energy required to manage this gruesome feat is 130,000,000 Joules, which would cause the target (if a person) to explode into a gigantic cloud of organic offal, generating an overpressure that would most likely kill the phaser-firer and also rupture the hull if they were incautious enough to do their shooting inside a spaceship.  

That tank is toast

     Kyle points out that a simple pistol will kill far more cheaply and safely for all concerned - bar the person getting shot, of course - which is also what I've asserted earlier.  Nice to know that science backs up some of my more - ah - exotic assertions.

Meanwhile, Somewhere In Arabia -

That's all you need to know

     You will need to go back and check the link on Facebook.  Hopefully that exercise will cause you to appreciate how thoughtfully and intricately all the precision-cut pieces of BOOJUM! fit together, except when they don't.

I Haven't Lost It
(Although It can get a little mis-placed at times).
     As you know, the heart is a lonely hunter, and the mind is a mined-field, and so you never can tell what mental flotsam will come drifting ashore on the sands of Conrad's consciousness.  Except that it probably won't be how to wire a plug, cook a taglet or how a certain ballfoot team are doing in the Prime League.

A taglet - not very nutritious

     The latest item to bob up to awareness was the question "Who wrote that novel about Repairman Jack and what was it called?"  Art!

The question answered

     I remembered this for it's unusual adoption of Bengali demons as the antagonists, and the rather ambiguous ending, which, IIRC, left it unclear whether Jack would survive or not.
     Well he did, and then some.  There's a whole series of novels about him and his adventures, and you can't blame Ol' FPW for sticking to a winning theme; if the audience buys it, the author will write it.***

If the name sounds familiar -

     - he also wrote that above, which uses the unusual setting of Romania during the Second Unpleasantness.

Finally -
This will make more sense if you've come here via Facebook.  You see the outline of a castle in the above illustration?  Of course you do!  Do you know what comes as a standard in state-of-the-art castle design?  No?  Art?



     Embrasures, that's what.  These were designed so that archers within the castle walls could traverse a wide arc of fire, yet expose as little of themselves as possible to return fire.  In those above you're on the outside looking in.
     Fascinating, eh?  Believe me, there's a lot more to castle design that I could go on about, if it weren't for the need to hike it into Royton to get some sliced cheese.


*  Also at "Strictly Come Dancing" and Russell Brand.
**  What's that?  Both are fictional organisations?  Yeah, yeah - that's what they want you to believe.
***  Except for "Calvin and Hobbes".  That boat has sailed.