A Three-Way Split

I Refer, Of Course, To My Attention
You were expecting some seedy criminal endeavour, where four armed robbers try to split their ill-gotten gains three ways, ending in gunplay and a pool of blood?

Yeah, in this kind of ballpark

     Not at all.  No, I tell yer, Michelle Gellar.  I am currently watching Season Three of "The Expanse", and am on Episode 4: "Reload", which I have paused because it's a tense and crucial bit, so I can't simply have it playing in the background as it's too distracting.
     For the preachy, talky, boring bits I simply mute the sound <sniggers with malicious glee>.

Before going on live television, all politicians make the Fly-Undone check

     Then I am also watching a BBC program about a Certain Major Retail Organisation, where the cameras have been allowed behind the scenes to see what goes on at shop floor level and at their Holbor - er - at their headquarters Somewhere In London, and with the specialist agents and buyers.  Purely out of academic interest*.  I note that they seem to be simply whizzing through the year, we're already at March and it's only 15 minutes into the first of six episodes.

Carefully chosen shot that avoids revealing any identities

      And then I am also trying to catch up with the backlog over at "We Have Ways Of Making You Talk", where I am currently listening to the lads "XXX Corps" podcast -
     THIS IS NOTHING TO DO WITH PORNOGRAPHY YOU DIRTY-MINDED SWINES!
     If you recall your Roman numerals, "XXX" is actually "Thirty", the whole thing pronounced "Thirty Core".  A military formation that went back to the war in North Africa, actually.
     Anyway, James Holland, he of the floppy boyish haircut, is in a huge convoy of 500 vehicles that are re-enacting the advance of XXX Corps up Hell's Highway, attempting to reach Arnhem Bridge.  Art?

About 1% of the total re-enactment column

     As Jim remarks, 500 vehicles sounds like a lot, and ordinarily it would be, but XXX Corps consisted of 20,000 vehicles.  You can imagine the kind of traffic control issues there would be if this column was merely advancing in peacetime - as we here in the North West of the Pond Of Eden have discovered with biblical flooding today that has badly-affected roads and railways (though probably not canals).
     So, I am splitting my attention three ways over about three hours of content at any one time, and this is completely neglecting "Dark".  Of which perhaps more in a bit.
     Oh - I quite forgot!  There's also a DVD of "A Bridge Too Far" paused in the laptop that I'm watching "The Expanse" on, which might make it a four-way split.
     Motley!  Motley, have I not explicitly told you NOT to use my ice-cream maker's paddle attachment as a makeshift whirlpool bath-maker?

XXX Corps in real life
(Sherman Firefly to starboard)

     Hmmm, already half-way to the Compositional Ton and I've done none of what was written down in my Book Of Notes.  Conrad, nose back to grindstone!

Idlers!  Popinjays!
GET MOVING!
(This will all make sense on Facebook)

The Palouse
Generally, Conrad's eyes glaze over then the Bing screensaver comes up, and one day he will purge it from his system AS A WARRIOR BEFORE COMBAT when he has the time.  Recently, however, it brought up The Palouse, a geographical area of North Western America (because "North Western South Canadian" is confusing) which looks rather - odd?  exceptional? unusual?  Art!

Oddly exceptional

     If there were any tesselating, once would think this was straight out of M.C. Escher (that's Mauritz Cornelius for those unaware).  The contrast is a little more remarked on a smaller scale, which you're not going to get here because I'm horrid that way.  Art?

Thus

      There's not really any more to this item other than that the Palouse is a very photogenic piece of geography, which the South Canadians probably don't recognise as such since they are used to it.  Wicked neglectful South Canadians!  South Canadians may defend themselves in the Comments if they care to.

Like a Seventies sci-fi cover picture
("Vermillion Sands"?)

Terror In The Skies!
Okay, okay, I exaggerate a tad.  "Nervousness On The Ground" doesn't really capture the imagination, and "High Anxiety" has already been taken.
     I refer, of course - obviously! - to the launch and deployment of Skylab, NASA's sinister mind-control experiment sustained living-in-space experimental space station.  I had been vaguely aware of it way back when in the Seventies, and that it had existed, but not precisely what it did.  Art?

Skylab as it ought to have been

     Perhaps the most significant thing is what went badly wrong at the very start.  As related by one of the astronauts in the first crew, during launch of the unmanned station module there was an unexpected, unexplained and severe shock recorded.  When the station deployed in space, it's temperature promptly sky-rocketed***.  As immediately realised on the ground, Skylab had just lost it's heat-shield.
     Oops.
     Not only that, the destruction of same had completely ripped off one of the undeployed solar panels, and debris had jammed the second USP, preventing it from doing anything.
     Double Oops.
     So, Skylab had only just gone into orbit.  It had almost no power, and was heating up to a dangerous level, to the point where electrical components and wiring would melt.
     Triple Oops.

There is a happy ending -

          - which I'm far too horrid to go into here.  Not today.

     And now for a bunch of Lepidopterae.  Art?

This will all make sense on Facebook, honestly.

Finally -
I shall be musing on this at length, for sure, Drew Barrymore, so here's a preview.
     "Marvel Universe Live" is a poster I've recently seen adorning the sides of buses here in Gomorrah-in-the-Irwell (thanks to the recent biblical deluges), and Your Humble Scribe has thus had cause to ponder whilst waiting at the bus stop (which is always, without exception, a dangerous thing).  Art?


     For Cap, Ferro, Panty and Spidey, you can see that they're wearing a costume.  What about Hulk?  Do they employ a ridiculously buffed-up bodybuilder, then paint him dayglo green? Which cannot be good for him.  Or is this really a tall thin chap with a ton of prosthetics added?
     Enquiring minds want to know!

     And with that, we are done.  And I can't be bothered to change this Times font to Trebuchet.


*  This is an utter lie!  <the unpleasant truth courtesy Mister Hand!>**
**  Mister Hand is an unscrupulous liar! <see, Conrad can do this too>
***  Too embarrassed to try "Do you see -" here