The Seven Year Glitch

Aha!  Yes, That Is A Spectacularly Funny Pun

Because I say so, and it also means I can use that iconic shot of Marilyn Monro with her skirts flying up, because I know what you wretched perverts like to look at, so without further ado - Art!

     Conrad is not claiming to be a physician but I think if you've had an itch for seven years you need to see a dermatologist, because otherwise you're going to bankrupt yourself and raise Sudofed's share price.

     ANYWAY yesteryon being the First of December my Blogger stats all started from zero, as the algorithm functions on a 00:00:01 from the first day of the month to 59:59:59 on the last day.  By early evening it was up to 82, which is very respectable for an average Monday.

     Things went slightly awry later that night.  Art!

     The total for Monday had jumped to five times what it had been.  Erk!  In case you can't read that time in the bottom starboard corner, it's 00:15.  So - 122 visits in the space of 15 minutes?  A little unlikely.  Where were all these hits coming from, wondered Your Humble Scribe, and of course - obviously! - I had to check it out.  Art!

     Canuckistan the problem.  Unless reading BOOJUM! has been raised to a requirement for all British Americans <thinks> studying English Literature and Language, this is surely a mistake.

     "O but look at the traffic!" I hear you chortle.  "How flattering!"

     WRONG!  These figures are wildly inaccurate and I've no idea what the real ones are.

     Today's title comes from a similar run of algorithm-has-been-at-the-gin from seven years ago, when BOOJUM! was getting ridiculously high daily totals, up to 900 daily.  The thing is th

"Did someone say 'Thing'?"

      <sighs> No, Mac, it's alright, we were talking about The Fantastic Four, you can go sit back in the freezer.

     ANYWAY Conrad's worry was that the people and business entities that he is always slagging-off (which barristers and solicitors know as 'slander') would be far more likely to become aware of his irreverant (and illegal) attitude and he'd get a 'Cease And Desist' order from the courts; that or a fine.

     The previous glitch went on for weeks.  One wonders how long this one will run for.

Conrad Is Impressed

As Darling Daughter came up to visit, we three decided to sit down and watch "Everything Everywhere All At Once", which title turns out to actually quite an accurate description of the plot.  Art!

     I thought it was brilliantly bonkers entertaining, both funny and poignant, definitely my favourite film of 2022.  The thin - er - the meat of the matter is that is propels itself along at such a pace that you'd need to see it at least thrice to pick up all the nuances and symbolism and really awesome martial arts and the jumping around between different realities.  It did remind me, in some ways, of "The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across The Eighth Dimension", which is high praise indeed.

Conrad Is ANGRY!

Just because we've not been railing against Codewords does NOT mean that 1) they've been forgotten or 2) I have failed to complete any.  In fact, the two most recent I've completed were entirely without problems, which is a two-edged sword, since it doesn't harm my blood pressure but doesn't generate blog content, either.

"OFFISH": Er - what?  Yesteryon DD and I were discussing that classic Korean dish, kimchee, and she came out with an urban legend about how it was high-risk in terms of botulism, so you could call it 'Offish' I suppose?  Yet no.  My Collins Concise defines it as "Aloof or distant in manner".  Art

The poster boy for 'Offish'

"DAUPHIN": Egad!  Not only do we now have to be working experts on the monarchy, we have to be working experts on FRENCH monarchy.  This is going beyond obscure.  The title refers to the oldest son of the French king, even though it went out of use in 1830.  So, working experts on French monarchy as it was two hundred years ago?  BAH!  Art?

Close enough

"PUTSCH": Nope, nothing to do with golf.  Defined in ithe CC as "A violent and sudden uprising, or a political revolt."  What Peter The Average fears and what angry phone-factory workers are undertaking in The Populous Dictatorship.  Art!

This lot are cheerful for Ruffians

"The Sea Of Sand"

Sorbusa has decided on a self-sacrificing last stand, to ensure the Doctor escapes via trans-mat from Homeworld to Earth, free from pursuit.

          After a brief exchange of darts with encroaching Warriors, Sorbusa felt a dozen daggerlike impacts hit him as the Warriors regained their wits.  Painful, and debilitating.  He staggered sideways, falling against the massive base of the HQ Building.

          No stunners.  They must not send him into unconsciousness.  Pretending to be battered into senselessness, he allowed the enemy to close in on him, suffering several shards shot into him just to test.

          A last adrenaline surge allowed him to press the shard-thrower against the energy-cell of the stunner,  pulling the trigger hard, and feeling a sudden wash of heat over him, his dying senses not registering the full blast of the ruptured weapon, which sent explosive echoes rolling around the complex, and scattered Warrior bodies like leaves in the wind.

 

Scrabbling away from the clinking pile of bottles, the Doctor realised Sorbusa had deliberately given up his life to allow the Time Lord to escape.  The confusion, fighting and explosion managed just that, with the Doctor sneaking away to the south of Makin Al-Jinni. 

          For a pensive minute he looked back over the site.  Scores of Warriors congregated around the skirmish site, where the heretic had died.  

Probably come to feed off the life energy of their wounded comrades, the ghouls!  How can they do that?  Lack of positive role model, perhaps.  Sorbusa managed to develop a conscience in a surprisingly short time, given the sterling example of me.

     No false modesty there.

Replete With Cheat

No, nothing to do with Conrad and the blog, rather a response to a question on Quora: Who is the biggest lying cheater in the history of pro sports?

     You will immediately realise that this is completely out of Conrad's comfort and knowledge zone, but the answer was so interesting I would like to detail some of it here.  Quoran Jim Mowreader posted the answer, about a NASCAR mechanic called 'Smokey Yunick".  Conrad isn't quite sure what the acronym 'NASCAR' breaks down to, just that it involves car going around a racetrack REALLY REALLY FAST, and it seems to be popular in the South of South Canada.  Art!

National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing

     'Stock' meaning that you need to use a commercially available vehicle, not a custom-built job, and there are extensive regulations about how you can modify your vehicle, as well as what you can't do.  Art!

     Smokey was  nothing if not imaginative.  He was trying for a speed record at Bonneville Flats with a Camaro in 1968.  Art!

     He took all the bodywork panels off, and then soaked them in acid.  The acid ate away at the metal, and he probably had to juggle and jiggle the panels to ensure even erosion, and by the time he'd finished the panel's were half as thick as normal.  Which means half as heavy as normal.  Which means for the same engine power the car would go faster.

     I like this chap!

Finally -

It being one of my days off today, and the car being available, Conrad did the weekly shop this morning.  Morrisons infested with people even older than I am, who seemed to need their trolleys as an impromptu Zimmer frame.  At least being this early in the day meant lots of tills open.

     And with that we are DONE!