USAFunny

(Tugs Ends Of Moustache In Glee)
That there is me being clever; as clever as Albert Einstein and Richard Feynman put together, except not in the fields of anything to do with mathematics.
     Because, you see, it can be pronounced as "Youse a funny" in a kind of street argot, when it also refers to the "United States Air Force" and we will see where the funny comes in*. 
     Okay, first of all, remember the Greek for "Terrible Lizard"?  That's right -"Dinosaur".  Art?

Lizardiness open to question, but terrible?  In spades!

     We now transition abruptly from 60 million years ago to the late Fifties in South Canada, where the USAF was working on a project to create a re-usable 'space plane' that would launch into low orbit on a rocket, then glide back to Earth as a variety of powered glider.  Art?

An artist's impression

     And the name for this innovative craft?  Waitforitwaitforit - "Dyno-Soar".  I bet someone was clutching themselves with glee at that, having sat up all night and two days to create it.  Let's have a picture of the X20 itself.  Art!

Look at it soar.

     The USAF's reasons for wanting such a craft were somewhat vague, along the lines of "Let's invent it first and then see what we can do with it!".  Reconnaissance, bombing, satellite retrieval, anti-satellite operations, anti-anti-satellite operations, and ferrying Santa were all posited.  The idea was a little more sophisticated than the technology allowed, meaning it would have taken at least five years to get a prototype off the ground.  Eventually the bean counters got morbidly suspicious, pointing out that rocketry applications were part of NASA's remit, not the USAF.  Budgets were halted and the whole idea died out, only to come back as the Shuttle.  That's why the picture above is an artist's impression; the real thing never came to be.

"So - the Dyna-soar is <ahem> extinct?"

     I think the only reason the project lasted as long as it did is because of that terrible punning title.  You might also say that the X20 is now simply an ex-.
     Motley!  Quickly, think up a pun about pterodactyls and divert attention from my howlers!

More Of Sunday's Wargame
SIT BACK DOWN!  It is interesting, I tell you.
     Okay, let us have the first picture.  Art?

The first turn

      That's Jamie there, who was playing some of the Home Guard stalwarts, barely visible in their beach defences.  You can also see the unpleasant surprise for the British: Teuton glider-borne troops have landed!  Richard, Sam and Jamie, having seen that there was a beach, expected the landing to an amphibious one.  Sorry, chaps!
     Things did not go all the Teuton's way, as Andy's first glider landed practically on top of a Home Guard section with an elderly Lewis gun, which they used to good effect.  One of my three gliders simply failed to turn up, and to cap it all, the Random Event meant it was raining (this reduces visibility a lot).  This was all thanks to the clever randomising factor of having to throw a paper plane to determine where one's glider landed.

Turn Two

     My elite Teuton Fallschirmjager are moving out to try and capture the British boffins - except they don't know which house they're in, so I shall need to do a bit of storming.  Nor do I know the strength of the British forces on the board.  At least the beach defenders have forgotten to ring their HQ to inform that an invasion is on!
     <To Be Continued ...>

Now, Now, Brain
As many of you will know by now, Conrad's brain is a law unto itself.  It has to be kept on a pretty tight leash or it will wander; one of the most dangerous times is of a morning at the bus stop, with nothing to do but pass the time.
     Anyway, if Art will put down his plate of coal for a moment - 

???

     I went to the bother of taking this last night, for reasons that completely escape me now.  I was having a bit of a cull, as a lot of these selections are so old I now have the CD of them.  Perhaps that was the point?
     Answers in the Comments, please!

A Blast From The Very Distant Past
No, not from 60 million years ago, nor yet the Fifties.  About thirty-five years ago, actually, back when Conrad was a starving student and lived on toasties made in a toastie sandwich maker, the most recent iteration of which you see below.  Art?

     Since I had been making improvised make-do toasties a la the Sarah D. methodology, and frequently, at that, I decided to go Whole Sandwich Maker and buy one.  I did a test run last night with a Cheese, Ham and Mushroom toastie, which I probably let overcook, as there was a Cheese Leakage event.  The other toastie was an egg one, which turned out very well indeed, thank you for asking.
     So, not quite the Look What I Had For Dinner bloggoreah that you see all too often.

Oh What A Gift!
OR
Star Light, Star Bright -
As you ought to know by now, Your Modest Artisan** is tangentially interested in astronomy, for there is nothing quite as awesome and mysterious as a hypernova, though preferably one not taking place in your neighbourhood (we fear not the Gamma Ray Burster for technical reasons).
     Anyway, the BBC gifted me a response when they put up an image to do with the SpaceX Starlink satellites, as launched by Elon Musk's other company that doesn't make cars.  Art?

Hay Pesto!

     Of course the various species of Swivel Eyed Loons were immediately out of the woodwork and the rubber room, shrieking "UFO!  UFO!  The end times are upon us!", running around and gibbering.
     What they are, as a very annoyed astronomer explained, is a series of SpaceX satellites that were launched earlier this year, and which maintain a linear formation.  They are considered light pollution by astronomers, being yet another thing to confuse their views of the heavens.  What do you say, Phil Plait?

Er - I think Phil's busy - let's just tiptoe quietly away ...

     Quick, Art, divert people!

Spacex Starlink satellite deploying it's solar panels.

     Given the opportunities this news item opens up for punnery, you can better believe we're going to return to it, O my word Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Finally -
As we are on the cusp of 2020, please allow the editorial staff of BOOJUM! (Conrad, Steve, Oscar, Art and that wretched traitor Mister Hand) to wish you a peaceful and prosperous New Year***.



*  "Funny" as I see it.  This may not be how the rest of you do.
**  I can call myself this as a sandwich technician
***  To achieve this you are NOT allowed to kill everybody and then rob the banks, okay?

An Eminently Sensible Fruit

This Came About Thanks To -
My merry morning meander to gainful paid employment in the Dark Tower, during which stroll I pass a couple of greengrocers or fruit and veg stalls, depending on how formal we are being.  I noticed a big cardboard box with the legend "Bananas" upon it, and my mind instantly wondered why we in the West pronounce anything unusual or askance as "Bananas".
                                         

     And do you know, there doesn't seem to be much of an explanation.  Certainly not on the interwebz, where the Urban Dictionary entry has expired and the Slang Dictionary has suspended their entry for legal reasons (?).  It may be due to the curved nature of this fruit, which can be taken as being "bent" - although this, in the Allotment of Eden at least, means "Criminal" rather than crazy. 
     As I said, the banana is an eminently sensible fruit; it has a dense protective cover that protects it from harm, it's only ripe when it's yellow otherwise it's a plantain, and it lacks any jaw-breaking seeds or pits or stones within it's body.
     I don't know if he was cashing in on this or blazing a trail, but back in the day when you could say "Woody Allen" without flinching, he did do a film with the same name.  Art?

Hmmmm.  No bendy yellow fruit in sight.

     Perhaps this is an allusion to the term "Banana Republic", which is fringing on Politics, or, in other words, waters we will not sail upon.
     Motley, got any nice ripe nectarines?

A Little Musical Critique
This title usually has people like Peter Gabriel and Paul Simon cringing and ducking for cover - not today, chaps, because we're taking aim at a tune my colleague Jason was merrily tootling away at.  It is by <hastily Googles> Bart Howard, and you can forgive some of the lyrics as it was composed in 1954 - you know, before Sputnik.
     So, let us focus the jaundiced yellow eyes of BOOJUM! upon "Fly Me To The Moon".

Just to be clear*.

"Fly me to the Moon,

Okay, this was an ambitious yet reasonably realistic request in 1954.  I think we'll let this one stand, if only to point out that you have to work for NASA and be very astronaut-y to manage this in real life.  The Ruffians can get in the queue.

And let me play among the stars.

NO!  Said very loudly.  There is no prospect of Hom. Sap. ever getting out amongst the stars, plural, let alone even Proxima Centauri, given the distances involved and the limitations of velocity and reaction mass.

THIS IS NOT REAL.

Let me know what Spring is like

On Jupiter and Mars"

<facepalm>  NO! Just as loud.  We are not aware that Jupiter has seasons, although I can tell you it would be toxic, freezing and crushing and you'd not last longer than a second there.  You could manage longer on Mars, maybe 30 seconds before you asphyxiated and froze into a human ice-cube.  "Spring" on either planet would most definitely not be romanic, no matter who croons about it.

No Santa Claus at this North Pole.

      That's quite enough of that <said with a lip-curling sneer>.

      Alright, you don't need to hide behind the sofa - no wargaming pictures today as I am typing this at work and didn't load any up yesteryon in preparation.  So you have a day off.  Make the most of it.
     Next!

All Hail The Mighty Baluchitherium!
Named, I believe, after the region of Baluchistan, over in the Indian subcontinent, and yet it sounds like the kind of thing Lewis Carroll would come up with.  This word popping up in my brain is explicable, for once: a couple of them featured in "Ice Age", the beginning of which I witnessed at Christmas, as I happened to be in the same room as it.  Art?

With puny human for scale

     You can see that it is indeed a mighty monster of a mammal, and there doesn't appear to be anything bigger in terms of mammals since then.  You don't often see an elephant looking quite humble and compact, do you?  Since it was a herbivore it must have gobbled one heck of a lot of greenery on a daily basis.
     Well, there you have (or had) the Baluchitherium, which is so extreme a beast that Lewis Carroll might well have invented it.  Did he take out a patent?

Forgotten And Resurrected By Accident
I refer, obviously - of course! - to an entry in Listy's "Forgotten Tanks and Guns", about a British beast called the "Alecto".  I only remembered about this peculiar object as I'd forgotten what the name of that hosepipe puncturing device was and typed in "Alecto" by mistake.  Of course it was "Antelco", which is close enough that I ought to be let off.
     They (Antelco, do keep up!) also do a double action hosepipe holer and chopper, which looks to be quite useful as a makeshift torture implement cigar cutter.  Art?

Draw a pair of eyes and Hay Pesto!  A monster.

     Where was I?
     Oh yes, the Alecto.  This was apparently based on the chassis of the Harry Hopkins tank.  Art?

The mighty Harry Hopkins, with puny humans for scale

     The HH was a singularly rubbish bit of kit; so bad, in fact, that the original order for 2,100 was cancelled when only 100 had been made, and none of them ever went to war, for which their potential crews can be grateful.
     Since they were lying around not being useful, some bright spark took the opportunity to remove the turret and stick a much bigger gun in the hull, hence the Alecto.  Art?

An Alecto

     This never fired a shot in anger, either, and there weren't many made.  It does have a nice low profile, however, which is probably the best thing to be said about it, and which cannot be said of BOOJUM!  I think we've already mentioned the ones that got gifted to the Royal Engineers (Who said "thanks" in a very sullen tone) and turned into bulldozers.  There's a joke in there somewhere - except I can't be bothered for -

     - we are done!


*  And to answer a very, very stupid question, Dear Swivel Eyed Loonwaffles, NO the Moon is not an artificial satellite.  Go stand in the corner until you stop being stupid**.
**  Yes, this may take a very long time.  I am very patient.