You Have To Be Pretty Long In The Tooth For That To Make Sense
We are talking about the early Eighties, when CDs and DVDs were still science fiction, and dinosaurs roamed the Earth, or at least the prog rock bands of the time still did, which is much the same. With the honourable exception of Pink Floyd, thanks to "Animals" and "The Wall".
You see, at the time there was still a strong market demand for 'singles', which were vinyl records that typically only had 2 songs, one upon each side. These went on a turntable - I'm not making this up - and would rotate at 45 revolutions per minutes. Art!
Perhaps you had to be there.
ANYWAY, some Dutch session musicians were organised by one of the ex-members of Golden Earring into a band who did cover versions of songs. Initially these were of Beatles tracks, and they crammed as many covers onto a single 45 as possible, eight of them on their first successful single. They had a drum loop in the background and were only credited as 'Stars On 45'. Art!
THEY WERE <insert swear here> AWFUL! Conrad hated them and never understood why they were popular.
Of course - obviously! - hardly any of this has anything to do with the real meat of the matter in today's Intro, except the number '45'. You may guess where this is going ...
Yes! Ex-45th Prez of South Canada, Donnie Brass Co, has now been indicted for (technically) a fourth time, by Jack 'Smiley' Smith, the Special Prosecutor appointed to cast a beady laser eye over his behaviour. In a pleasing synchronicity, the indictment itself comes to a total of 45 pages. Your Humble Scribe simply doesn't have the leisure time to thoroughly peruse this missive, but I can tell you that the charges levelled are quite a bit more serious than farting in a jacuzzi or nicking towels from an hotel. Art!
They are: "USC 371: Conspiring to defraud the United States*"
USC 1512 K: "Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding"
USC 1512 (c) (2): "Obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding"
USC 241: "Conspiracy against rights"
It bluntly states "The Defendant lost the 2020 presidential election." Well. There's not much wiggle room there.
At present it's not possible to say when this case will come to trial, but we are faced with the delicious prospect of Agent Orange having to appear in court to be formally arrested, an experience he does not relish one bit. Last time in New York he claimed that people were coming up to him crying in sympathy, which is verbal excrement; they dislike him so much in NYNY they allowed the court exit door to swing shut in his face, as he seemed to expect it to be held open for his sheer magnificence. He already has a full trial schedule in March and May of next year, which are going to take place in the middle of the South Canadian primary campaign season. This is when the Republicans decide whom they want to run for Prez. Conrad recommends Citizen Trump to pencil in July for his arrest. Art!
This is Chris Christie, ex-governor of New York and previously a friend of Trump, as much as he can ever have a friend. They have now fallen out and Christie is also running for Prez. Not that he has the chance of a nitrocellulose dog in Hades, but it gives him a platform to attack Darth Marmalade at every opportunity. I wonder what he'll have to say about Indictment #4?
Lay in your supply of popcorn!
There's A Reason It Was Called 'Deepwater Horizon'
More fascinating fun facts! Or - is it just me? The DH was classified as an 'Ultra-deep water semi-submersible', meaning that it was purposed to drill out in the briny deeps, the better to lay hold of the old black gold. Art!
This thing was designed to operate in ocean waters of up to 8,000 foot depth, which is one-and-a-half miles. To put it another way, if the pipe to the ocean floor was laid horizontally, it would take you half an hour to walk it's length. The drill itself was able to operate to 30,000 foot depth of seabed, which is five and a half miles. So that horizontal stroll would take nearly two hours.
When the blowout occurred, DH was 'only' operating in waters of 5,000 feet depth and the drill was 'only' 18,360 feet into the substratum. Is this significant? O yes indeed! If we guess at a back-of-fag-packet calculation of there being 5 gallons of slurry and cement and oil and gas and water per foot of pipe, then this yields a total of 350 tons exploding onto the DH at the blowout. At maximum depth this would have almost doubled the amount of blowout material. Art!
There might well have been nothing left.
The fascinating world of deep-sea oil drilling!
"City In The Sky"
Ace, nosy and inquisitive as a passel of cats, has got an invitation to the Comms centre aboard Arcology One. Which she immediately regrets.
‘Cool!’ replied
Ace, with an enthusiasm that quickly turned to a queasy sense of horror when
she realised what the enormous array of curved monitors inside were
showing. There were more display tracks,
new ones crawling across monitors towards
For ten minutes she watched in the silent
room, hearing only the soft sound of anxious breathing and a subdued hum from
the air-conditioner.
‘Oh god,’ said an anonymous watcher, in a
voice loaded with quiet despair. ‘The
Chinese have emptied their silos and mobile launchers.’
Dozens and dozens and dozens of yellow
tracks began to crawl outwards from at least six different locations on the
monitor showing mainland
‘Secret launchers,’ commented another
watcher, turning to glance sideways at Ace.
‘The Russians missed those.’
More blue tracks began to erupt from
Russian territory, and then there were suddenly green ones sprouting from the
Yep, it's not every day you get a grandstand view of World War Three in progress.
O Goodness Me, They're Dogpiling Indy!
'Dogpile' is a South Canadianism, referring to people jumping atop another person and creating a giant immobile heap, where the victim presumably expires from asphyxiation and crush injuries. A bit grim for Conrad - although I did hear it used of Darth Marmalade at his impeachment; one wit asserted his defence attorneys would dogpile him to prevent him from giving evidence. Art!
I hasten to add that this is from the "Daily Express", which is one of the tabloid press, and not noted for any great degree of journalistic integrity. But if even they are being critical of Indy 5, things are bleaker than ever for Disney.
The details are that this $1 billion loss is over the whole of 2023 to date, not just for Indy 5, and includes distinctly lacklustre box office from Disney's other flops this year - "Elemental", "Haunted Mansion" and "The Little Mermaid" being the most notable. Is that distant, mocking laughter "The Sound Of Freedom"?
Some People Have Entirely TOO MUCH Time On Their Hands
Yes, this is rather like the toilet calling out the sink for being made of porcelain. However, allow me to put forth a map that must be familiar with you all by now. Art!
One of the people on Quora, Tomaz, who appears by his surname to be Polish, undertook a serious geographic and geological analysis of this map. Conrad is unaware of what his qualifications in either of these fields are, but they undoubtedly surpass mine. We may come back to this.
* We will forego our traditional "South Canada" for the moment.
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