Blood And Water

Two Essential Liquids

They say that one can survive for a couple of weeks without food, but two days without water will see you gaily waltz off this mortal coil.  Nor will all the food and H₂O in the world do you any good if you don't have 8 pints of the red stuff flowing through your veins.  And arteries, mustn't be circulatorist.  Art!

     This, in case you were unaware, is how MacReady in "Who Goes There" discovers who were Things; by taking a blood sample in a test tube, and then poking it with a red-hot wire.  Thing-blood, being an entirely separate organism, will try to escape the wire.  The author, John Campbell, relates that, when disposed of in the camp furnace, the test tube of Thing-blood " - screamed tinnily"
     ANYWAY let's get back on track.  "Blood is thicker than water" is the saying I am laboriously working towards.  It appears in literature way back in the 12th century, and the implication is that the ties of family matter more than anything else.

     WRONGITYWRONGWRONGWRONG!

     First of all, what about ice?  It's a solid.  That makes it thicker than water from the outset.  I just thought, as a pedantic hair-splitter, I ought to get that in there.  Art!

Close enough

     I also have a case on Youtube bookmarked from ages ago which disproves the water > blood assertion.  How it proves!

     Okay, so Original Poster was a computer whiz, who was 'recruited' by his brother's financial advisory business, supposedly to establish the IT infrastructure for the company over the summer.  Art!

     This temporary job turned into a constellation of roles, including: system technician, accountant, receptionist, research assistant and secretary.  Oddly enough not chef.  Funny, that.

     OP was paid erratically and not at all.  His total remuneration for two years work was $8,000 so they didn't pay based on the roles he did.  What was that about blood and water?

     After 2 years OP got fed up and left to go gain further qualifications in computing.  Surprise!  Bottomhole brother and partners were livid that their cheap labour was leaving.  Art!

     They then, in an excess of pettiness, decided to traduce and slander OP when he applied for jobs, claiming that 1) He'd never worked for them; 2) He was trying to piggyback employment on his brother's name and 3)  He'd sexually harassed (non-existent) female employees.  Blood and water, anyone?

     That picture is because OP knew where the bodies were buried.

     You see, Bottomhole Brother and his equally bottomhole-resembling partners, had stolen client lists from their previous employers, in order to get a start in business.  They had OP encrypt the data and keep it on a laptop.  OP's laptop.  Which he kept.  Without deleting the data.

     You can probably guess where this is going.  Art!

     As well as defrauding OP, the trio of traitors had also been defrauding the IRS, whom are like a bulldog-on-steroids when it comes to taking legal action.  BB had also forged OP's signature on some documents, meaning he'd probably dodged not merely a bullet but a whole artillery salvo.

     Well, this whole blood-water rigidity co-efficient business plays both ways, because OP took formal legal action against BB for slander, whilst also turning over that laptop FULL OF ILLEGALLY STOLEN DATA to his attorney, who promptly turned it over to a government attorney.

If it was this dude, no wonder they were ruined

     Net result: BB and his partners were utterly ruined.  They were stripped of their licences to practice financial advice, their company went bust, they had to sell their houses to satisfy OP's slander judgement, and they may still possibly be prosecuted by other businesses for the stolen data.  No love lost there, then.  O and they had to write letters of apology to the businesses they'd lied to about OP's employment.  Water and blood, gentle reader?  Gee, ain't Hom. Sap. a wonderful species!
     Great.  Now I can remove that Bookmark.

Reasons To Be Fearful

Over the past few days we've been exploring the multiple reasons why Bunker Grandad might have had his puling minions broadcasting noises about a cease fire with Ukraine.  In short, because things are going very badly and are only going to get worse.  The Ruffian offensive towards Kharkhiv got less than 5 kilometres inside Ukraine before coming to a halt, bloodily.  You may recall that the first such invasion used things like tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and armoured personnel carriers.  Now the orcs attack with Chinese golf-carts and motorbikes.  As I only half-joked, by August they'll be using bicycles.

     Well, things did get worse.  Art!

     I wonder which puling minion will draw the short straw and get to tell Charlie Chipmunk Cheeks the bad news?

     O and just to egg the pudding, here's another vlog I shall be watching.  Art!

Prof Justin Bronk!

Fresh Footwear Finally Found

As you should surely know by now, Conrad is a reluctant purchaser of anything to do with clothing, because the line 'How many books could you buy with that?' is a constant refrain in my head.  This financial foot-dragging also extends to footwear.  My old slippers, a Christmas present, fell apart thanks to use, my Skechers are indeed very sketchy and I have resorted to my Grinch slippers.  Art!

     They are comfy, if a trifle snug, but not really dignified enough for an Apprentice World Dictator.  So, Conrad finally got his act together and - Art!

     By the time you read this, I may be wearing them.  Courtesy of Degsy and his Amazon profile.

"City In The Sky"

Here we have an insight of how Lithoi culture works.  They are so inherently unpleasant that one pines for the noble orc.

     They presented the evidence, recorded film of the single flying eye in action, flying along.  Along it flew, until it flew apart.  Not having seen the film, Orskan’s flinch when the eye exploded was genuine.  Thanks to the low angle of Ace’s missile launch and it’s low explosive yield, the Lithoi assumed sabotage or disaster, not armed interception.

     ‘As you see, your construction was faulty.  Not only is our only flying eye destroyed, but you have deliberately slowed construction of the other flying eyes.’

     ‘Only because we already had a working one,’ he sullenly informed them.  ‘I can’t pluck objects from thin air.  My minions need proper rest or their work suffers.’

     A low murmuring went back and forth between the different heads of department.

     ‘Ah, yes, “your” minions,’ said Arkan, silkily, in a manner that promised trouble.  ‘They do not belong to you, Orskan.  You are not of sufficiently high caste to own workers.  You merely supervise.’

     ‘What?’ gurgled Orskan, not sure where this new direction was leading.  He got the feeling that he was being set up to take any and all blame for the problems they’d suffered so far.

     Mirskan bared his fangs in disapproval.

     ‘Have you finished completing a new camouflage cover?  Created the missile system?  Built more flying eyes?  No?  Hardly a creditable performance, is it!’

     Poor old Orskan.  The perils of middle-management, hmmm?

Wow, Just Noticed This One

In case you have been living on the Moon or a submarine environment on the Mediterranean littoral, then you ought to be aware of music artists selling their back catalogue to make bank.  They typically rake in tens of millions as they simultaneously cash-in and sell out.  Art!

     With the exception of "Bohemian Rhapsody" Conrad is not a fan of Queen, but I do have a fair amount of respect for Brian May, their guitarist, as he's almost as clever as me, and qualified in Astrophysics to boot.

     ANYWAY describing this as a 'sell out' is a stretch, given the enormous amount of money involved.  Conrad wonders if the three surviving band members will net $333 million each, or will Phreddie the Prancing Popinjay's estate divide it into four portions of $250 million?

Just A Reminder

Conrad was reading a screeching polemic by some frothing swivel-eyed loonwaffle on Twitter, who was calling for the invasion of - amongst others - the UK.

     Hmmmmm.

     As I pointed out - 

     
     That is all.

Finally -

Actually, now that is all.