Fix The Xylophone

Sorry For Being So Obvious

It's just that there's not many acceptable words that begin with "X", and using "Xavier" or "Xerxes" wouldn't be appropriate.

     For Lo! we are back with FTX again, the financial disaster that keeps cropping up in the headlines.  I see Joe Blogs has another story about it on Youtube, explaining why - Art!

     I may play this in the background whilst composing these words of wit, wisdom and wonder.

     ANYWAY this Intro concerns a whole bunch of celebrities who were paid to pimp for FTX, without explicitly declaring that they'd been paid to do so.  This kind of behaviour is a big no-no in South Canada and celebrities have had to pay fines - BIG fines - in the past for breaching ethical guidelines.  Art!

     This is Kim Kashdalonian (sp?) who had to pay £1 million in fines for pimping a crypto-currency.  Tee hee!

     Well, some of the one million investors who stand to lose everything they put into FTX are now suing the celebrities who endorsed the company.  Art!

     Those people to starboard are, from top to bottom, Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen, Steph Curry and Larry David.  That scruffy-looking dude to port is Sam Bankman-Fried.

     I'd never heard of Tom Brady, principally because he's a sports player.  Apparently he was the best player of Football in the history of forever, and when I say 'Football' I mean the namby-pamby South Canadian version of rugby.  Blondie is his wife.  Steph Curry is another 'celebrity' nobody in This Sceptred Isle has ever heard of, because he's another sports player - in the NBA, whatever that is.  Larry David is always described as 'the man behind "Seinfeld"' and starred in his own series, "Curb Your Enthusiasm".  The advert he did is pretty amusing.  Let me see if I can cattle-prod Art into action -

     He features in various historical vignettes, such as the invention of the wheel, the Moon landings and the fork, and he always scoffs dismissively at them, getting it wrong every time.  The last scene is him scoffing at FTX, claiming it's rubbish and "I'm never wrong."  This is quite the opposite of Tom Brady enthusiastically touting the platform, and possibly lowers Larry's legal liability.  At present, prosecuting a bunch of celebs is not the most pressing item on the agenda when it comes to tracking and tracing the money.  Give it time, give it time ...

At War With A Dinosaur

You may not be aware of it, but the Black Hills Institute in South Canada has a lock on a T rex fossil skeleton, meaning that if you want a cast of 'Stan' then you have to pony up £120,000.  Stan was unearthed at the aptly-named Hell Creek in South Dakota.  Art!

     Conrad is unaware why anybody would purchase a copy; the thing is freaking enormous and would be a swine to dust.  I suppose you could hang coats from it's teeth.

     ANYWAY have a look at Stan's head.  Got that?  Right.  Because someone from Hong Kong was going to auction a T Rex fossil, with an asking price of £21 million.  Theirs was called 'Shen'.  Art!

   The Black Hills Institute seem to keep a proprietary eye open when T Rex skeletons are involved, because they declared that Shen had been completed by using parts of Stan - not the done thing.

     Auction is now cancelled and Shen is being loaned to a museum.

     

But Stay!

I have mentioned Suchomimus a  few times on the blog already.  Without giving away his address, he's a British expatriate working in Taiwan.  Before Peter The Average invaded Ukraine, he posted videos about fossils, and his avatar on YT is of a dinosaur.

     Conrad, being the nosy inquisitive that he is, of course - obviously! - had to look up exactly what a 'Suchomimus' was.  Art!

CAUTION!  Not suitable as a domestic pet

     That shows you what it looked like.  Let's have another picture that gives you a sense of scale.  Art!

     Hmmmm looks like a very speedy version of a crocodile.  O.  Apparently the name means 'Crocodile mimic'.  It seems to have lived on fish, which it caught whilst wading in shallow waters.  Yeah, right; I wouldn't give much for the chances of the bloke above.

     So.  Suchomimus.

"The Sea Of Sand"

Things have gone well awry for the Italians fighting the bio-vores.  Being a couple of centuries behind in technology will do that to you.

Dominione scanned the depot with his binoculars.  The longer they delayed pulling-back the greater the chance of being caught by the remaining eight black tanks, which must be flanking the depot.

          The only movement was Sergente Capriccio, who came stumbling away from his hiding place amongst the crates, one arm dangling limply, running in  peculiar hopping fashion.

          ‘Pick him up!’ ordered the officer, sending the car darting forward.  Between himself and the gunner, they hauled Capriccio into the rear compartment; the sergeant’s right arm and leg were numb and useless.

          ‘Head for the rendezvous,’ called Dominione, feeling a macabre chill run down his back – nobody else had survived the encounter?

Under a sky shading into a purple dusk, Sorbusa rolled the body of the Warrior sentry into the sludgy, clotted waters at the beach edge.  Great ripples intermingled with the incoming waves, sending the algae cultures bobbing about, reflecting patches of purple and gold.  The body vanished into the sea, hidden by the algae blanket, weighted down by the equipment it carried.

          Sorbusa now had a shard-thrower and stunner, weapons the sentry had carried.  He offered one to Thedoctor, who refused.  Well enough, thought the leader.  Two weapons for me.

     Before you ask, Sorbusa acted before the Doctor could protest.

More Corporate Shenanigans

Unless you have been living on the Moon or at the bottom of the Mediterranean, you can hardly have failed to notice that Elon Musk has bought Twitter.  Conrad hasn't noticed any difference in how it operates, but there are an awful lot of matters underway behind the scenes.  Art!

     First of all, he paid far too much for the platform, at £36 billion, when even the most generous estimate of it's worth came to £20 billion.  This means he's saddled with loan payments that are more than Twitter's annual revenue.

     Secondly, he fired half the staff straight away.  This is known in business circles as "Stupid".  If you acquire a new company you study it carefully before making changes and you certainly don't jump in feet first after two weeks. 

     Thirdly, he had to re-hire some of those staff since they did essential work.

     Fourthly, a lot of the sacked staff are European, which makes a big difference.  Employees in South Canada are expendable slave labour; quite the opposite in Europe and this leaves open the lovely legal possibility of a class action lawsuit.  Terrific!

     Fifth, he let this guy back in.  Art!

Winner in the "Tribble-topped beer keg in a suit" category

      Sixthly, half the advertisers, you know, Twitter's MAIN SOURCE OF REVENUE, have jumped ship, unhappy at how things are being run.

     Seventhly, he expects people to work an 80 hour week for a 40 hour salary, which has led to a further exodus of talent.  And the possibility that some of these people might set up a rival platform.

     All in the space of a few weeks!  Keep watching this space and bring a bucket of popcorn.

Finally - 

Judging by the racket Edna made a few minutes ago, one of my books on order has arrived.  I shall wrap this up and go see which one it is.