The 128-Ton Insect

No!  Nothing To Do With Fifties Big Bug Films
And whisper that if you mention it at all, because who was the undisputed leading lady of said creature features?  Why, none other than Mara Corday, Art's unrequited crush.  He's not bungled up our picture posting quite as badly since we got him a cheesecake calendar of Mara as a Christmas present, but still - the mere mention of her name can have him fainting in coils.

Oh.  Well, there you go.

     Here an aside.  Yes, already!  Once again, whose blog is it?  Okay.  At this point I shake my fist (a very large and forbidding object) at the heavens and declaim "Damn you, BBC!  Damn you!" because of a recurring problem, which follows.  Your humble scribe has very little time to dawdle of a morning, as he has to rely on First Bus to get him into work on time - O Pious Hope!  My routine ought to be: Arise; ablutions; re-pimp yesterday's BOOJUM!; don clothing; leave house.

A house

     Except not.  O no!  Forsooth, whene'er I am on a tight schedule, there the BBC website is with at least half-a-dozen interesting stories, all of which compete for my attention as the most diverting YOU'RE MAKING ME LATE!!*
     Conrad refuses to take any responsibility for missing the bus.  It's all the fault of the BBC, and Nicholas Maduro agrees with me.
     Where were we?  Oh yes: that insect.  Say hello to an excessively ugly spaceship, namely the "Serenity".  Art?

An ugly beast indeed

     This hideous rocketship is of the "Firefly" class, hence today's title.  It more resembles a plucked turkey than anything else, doncha think?  Hugly fugly.  Whatever happened to the sleek designs of <thinks> "The Tomorrow People" or "Tom Corbett Space Cadet"?  The television series didn't make it to Episode 15, and part of that reason must be studio executives looking at this flying junkyard and thinking "This is offensive to mine eyes".  It's staple virtues, apparently, are that it is easy to keep running and it's very robust.  Kind of like the Valentine tank of spaceships, hmmm?

There is a long and interesting story behind this photo -

      - which I won't go into, as we're looking at spaceships of the far future.
     Okay, time to tie the motley to that anchor and see how long it can hold it's breath underwater!

What The Actual Flip!
My mind has done it again.  There I was, alighting from the 24 bus, when a word sprang, unbidden, into my brain.
     "Quaternion", I pondered.  Who is it?  What is it? Where are they?  Does the mighty sabre-toothed hunting quaternion still haunt the tropical jungles of distant Batavia?  Or - can we only reach the stars in a spaceship (preferably not an ugly one) made out of quaternion?  Maybe the quaternion bomb will end war, since it has a yield of petatons -

A whole flock of Quaternions!

     Sadly, the answer is None Of The Above.  No.  Quaternions, apparently, are something horribly complicated, or just horrid, to do with mathematics, blah blah vectors blab blab orientation <Conrad fights to stay awake>.
     I heartily dislike mathematics, because it's difficult.  So - where the blue flying flip have I read about quaternions?  And WHY did they make a special guest appearance in my head?

Bitten By The Coincidence Hydra - AGAIN!
Dog Buns!  What happened when I had a quick peek at the BBC website, just to see if the world was still there?  Up comes a sidebar informing us about the top 5 series people wanted to see revived.
     And Hey Pesto!  What was top of that list? 
     "Firefly"

With extra added ugly!

     Clearly the Universe is trying to tell me something - though I would much prefer that it sent me a postcard, instead of mucking about with causality and probability.**

Finally -
I am typing this up at work in the Dark Tower, during my lunch, because I was LAZY and BAD last night and didn't type up anything.  Naughty Conrad!  Slacker Conrad!  No biscuit for you!  (even without the diabetes).  Thus I doubt today's blog will hit the 1,000+ words mark.  Unless - unless I am a bit cheeky and do a bit using Comfort Break time on my phone ... <a wicked gleam comes into your humble scribe's eyes>

Look at 'em, gleaming.

     Though one has to be careful, since anyone sitting in the rooms behind me can see what I'm doing, and one is not paid to type streams of scrivel.

     Hmmm.  Well, I've been busy working - O the outrage! - and haven't had time to add much more slander and invective.  Maybe tomorrow!




*  I apologise for the hysterical use of TWO exclamation marks, but this is serious stuff.
**  You can, after all, break the space-time continuum.