Conrad Is A Tad Worried
Don't worry, he's also seething with anger at the same time - we must maintain our standards, after all - because he finds it easy to do both simultaneously.
The cause for apprehension? Our daily stats. These have been worryingly high for the past couple of days. Conrad seriously expected figures to be low, since it's the Christmas season and folks have better things to entertain themselves with than a grumpy old man's peculiar musings. Now, I ought to put up a picture taken of the Stats page on Blogger to illustrate my point. That would be rather dull, though, so instead let's have <thinks> Beer!
Breakfast in a bottle, hmmm? A touch extreme, I think. If you delay until 12:01 then that should be okay.
Okay, now let's have a clip from the Stats page on Blogger. Art!
91 hits before lunch-time? Hmmmm, worrying, worrying. "Why is this, O white-haired sage?" I hear you question. Pausing only to state that I prefer "Snowy-haired sage", Your Humble Scribe will explicate.
BOOJUM! freely slanders and libels all sorts of people and institutions, including low-hanging fruit such as The Metro and First Bus, who might decide to wheel in their barristers were this blog ever impinge on their awareness. There are others, such as The Only Fat Man In North Korea, who we don't care about, as well as Tsar Putin and I'm not going to stop belittling Dimya because it's fun to make him cry.
Cry me a Volga, Dimya.
So you can see why I am a bit bothered, and keep looking over my shoulder to check for lawyers. Yet the desire to get as much traffic also pushes me to ask that you ask your friends to take a look, but to keep it secret.
Okay, motley, time to clean the Magma Moat clear again. I'll use the power drill and you can have the lump hammer and cold steel chisel.
"Don't Look Up"
Conrad watched this enjoyable satire a couple of days ago, taking advantage of the new pre-owned television that was already linked to Netflix. It is a bit sweary, so be advised NSFW. O, and there is that thing about nearly all life on Earth being exterminated, so not for the faint of heart. Art!
I CANNOT find the image I want
There are a couple of gaping plot holes, however, that Conrad The Pedantic Astronomy Nerd would like to point out. Comet Dibiasky is an astronomical phenomenon, not an industrial secret, so astronomers in Ruffia and The Populous Dictatorship would pick it up in short order. And do you know, they wouldn't be worried about mid-terms or popularity ratings or alternative strategies, they would send off robot spacecraft armed with multi-gigaton warheads - we've discussed this as a method of asteroid diversion previously - and they would blast the living daylights out of CB. And they'd do it immediately, because the farther away the comet is, the less effort is needed to divert it. Art!
Hairy scary
This is what Oglethorpe should have tried to pressure the South Canadian politicians with - "the Ruffians and Populous Dictatorship will have saved the planet whilst you sat on your waffle-patterned ass and did nothing." That would have got them moving.
Secondly, which is why I'm cross I cannot find any relevant pictures, that prat Isherwell is proposing to shatter the comet with brand-new technology that has never carried out so much as a test run, with insufficient redundancy and no fall-back plan. What can possibly go wrong!
Well, yes, there is that.
Conrad would like to reassure nervous readers that a scenario like that in DLU is inherently unlikely*.
More On Don Gordon
You remember, the actor chap? Bezzie mates with Steve McQueen, which may explain why he had a featured role in "Bullitt" and "The Towering Inferno", since Steve had a lot of clout. He must have been a husky well-fed lad growing up, because he managed to lie his way into the South Canadian Navy when Pearl Harbour happened. At age fifteen. Art!
Steve and Don (in later years)
He 'persuaded' his mother to lie about his age and say he was eighteen. Whilst serving on the briny deeps his ship got in harms way no fewer than eleven times, and you can tell because he was awarded a battle star for each battle. So not sitting it out in a sinecure. I bet this impressed Steve, who had been in the South Canadian Marine Corps but whom never saw action.
More "Tormentor"? Why Certainly!
If you recall - and you ought to - we left Luma with the Reverend Sharples, resident pastoral care vicar at the college our protagonist works at, explaining what sounds like a psychotic hallucination.
‘Yes,
yes, I know it sounds like a delusional hallucination. I thought that originally, that I was going
mad. However, this spirit can affect
things, physically. I’ve seen proof of
what it can do. That is, objective
evidence that can’t be disputed.’
‘Such as?’ asked the vicar.
Louis felt embarassed, a reaction
he was unused to.
‘Er – she emptied all my spirits
down the sink and threw away a bottle of sleeping tablets I’d been using.’
‘I see, I see.
That could be explained away as you acting in a fugue state. Anything else?’
‘Oh, yes. What
else – ah, she gave me a description of her attacker. When the police came around to check if I’d
seen any potential suspects hanging around, he was in their files already.’
The vicar paid close attention.
‘Really? So you
indicated the suspect. You didn’t give
your source to the police, I take it?
No, doing that would make you a suspect.’
‘I’ve been a
suspect already. Apparently the DNA
evidence got me dismissed.’
The vicar gave a low whistle of surprise.
‘So there’s quantifiable evidence. Really, this is quite unique, Mister
McMahon. I’ve had people come to me in
the past, quite convinced that they had, quote, “psychic abilities”, only to be
rapidly disproven.’
Louis made a despairing gesture.
‘Look, I didn’t ask to be haunted by a spirit. I’m searching for answers. Last week I would have cheerily condemned the
whole of organised religion. Today I don’t
know what to think. My view of the world
is changing.’
The reverend sat back firmly on his chair.
‘Mister McMahon, you need to speak with someone rather
better versed in these matters than I.
Normally my time here consists of advising young Christian students on
practical matters, like where to volunteer for missionary work, or when the
soup and sandwich van is touring the city centre. Can I consult with a more learned colleague?’
Louis waved vaguely.
‘Go right ahead.
Oh - ’ he got up and turned. ‘One
thing you might like to know. This
spirit doesn’t like blasphemy.’
This Parthian shot left the Reverend Sharples rubbing
his chin in contemplation.
From The Mysterious To The Equally Mysterious
Except this is real life. Really, I promise! We've had a sequence of photographs of spectacular thermal inversions in Caledonia, and in a related follow-up, the BBC also had several examples of what's known as "The Spectre of the Brocken". Let us witness one of these. Art!
Courtesy Jonny Oldbury
This rather creepy phenomenon has a giant, shimmering, rainbow-auraed shadow appear before you. It happens when the sun is behind the observer and thus casts their shadow onto mist or fog lying ahead of them. As the mist moves, so the shadow appears to move also. The name comes from Brocken, in the Harz mountains, where the ideal conditions for creating such an apparition are frequently encountered.
* But still not impossible
No comments:
Post a Comment