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Thursday 7 November 2024

A Sandwich Of Stupid

Yes, We Are Back On Youtube's Tales Of Terminally Toxic Toads

In human form.  I put 'toads' because the other word is a vulgarism that we couldn't possibly use on the blog, as we're still holding the moral high ground with SFW status. 

     There is another vulgar acronym that I want to use here, which is F.A.F.O. standing for "Fudge Around & Find Out", meaning that people who indulge in stupid behaviour get to suffer the horrendous consequences of their actions.  I will use an example of the complete opposite as the filling here.  Art!


     These are supposedly very expensive wedding and engagement rings, which Conrad will have to accept at face value, because to him jewellery is bits of glass set in metal, where silver might as well be steel and gold looks like silver with a suntan.  Let us say that their collective value comes to $10,000.  Now, to set the scene, Outraged Wifey (OW from herein) and her Dipstick Husband (DH from herein) were out on the ocean (not specified as to Atlantic or Pacific) in their boat, so they obviously have a few pennies to rub together.  Art!


    OW mentioned as a preface that DH thinks of himself as a comedian and is always saying stupid things.  This morning he took it to another level, whether higher or lower depends on your perspective.  In the middle of a perfectly normal conversation he became abjectly sorrowful and haltingly informed OW that he'd had an affair and could she ever forgive him?  Art!

Depths in the Gulf Of Mexico

     Not only did OW not forgive DH, she stood up in a towering fury, pulled all the rings from her fingers and hurled them into the abyssal deeps.  I've put the Gulf Of Mexico up as an example of how deep those waters can be.

     Those rings were gone, baby, gone.

     DH then begins shouting abuse at OW, because - get this! - it was a 'prank' and he was joking and how dare she not have a sense of humour and it was all her fault and those rings were expensive -

     Nobody in the Comments backed the husband and indeed most of them recommended divorce, as he seems to be escalating to abusive behaviour.  One has to wonder what was going through his peanut-sized brain that he ever thought doing this would be a good idea.  He's lucky he made it back to shore alive.  Art - show us that sandwich filling!


     Yes, this is a still from a video clip of a dog playing an electric home organ.  To be honest, the noise it makes is quite awfully discordant and not pleasant at all, but come on! a dog playing the organ?  That's quite impressive.  Art!


    Not all dogs want to go walkies, especially if it's wet and cold and windy.  This corgi is not only a homebody, but crafty with it, too.  When the owner comes to take it outside - Art!


     Both these 'dumb' animals exhibit more wit and intellect than DH above, and Gullible Witless Idiot below.

     As proof that women can be as stupid as men, just in different ways, allow me to introduce GWI, who claimed that her 'friends' - I use quotes here advisedly - told her they had all 'pranked' their husbands and partners by surprising them with a demand for divorce.  This had the beneficial result of having said male partners becoming O so attentive and affectionate and giving gifts, or so claimed the 'friends'.  Art!


     They pestered GWI to play this hilarious prank on her hubbo, and because she was weak-willed, she caved and informed her partner at dinner, entirely at random, that she wasn't happy and wanted a divorce.

     THIS IS AN EXTREMELY BAD IDEA AS MEN TAKE THINGS LITERALLY!

     Her husband stared at her in disbelieving silence for several seconds.  You can guess where this is going, can't you?

     Then he went to their bedroom, packed a suitcase and left, whilst GWI was braying about how it was a 'joke' and "See!  See!  My friends messaged me about it!" showing her phone screen.

     She subsequently tried to contact hubbo by messages, e-mails, chats, video calls, a visit to his workplace and pestering his family.  Nil results.  Art!


     Her soon-to-be-ex-husband prolonged the prank by having her served with real divorce papers, which rather sank the advice of her 'friends' group, which was to hang around and wait until he got over it.

     Conrad bets the kicker is that none of her 'friends' had actually done this 'prank' and were just egging GWI on, as she was the poster child for 'Gullible'.

     Perhaps DH and GWi will find each other in the near future, get married and save another pair of partners from having to endure their behaviour.  Art!



Do You Have A Tourniquet For That?

Or, Deadly Dodgy Wood Choppers Part the Second.  Art!


     Here you can see two levels of Dangerous come into play.  First of all, there's all that exposed machinery connecting the tractor to the wood chopper, with no protection, lots of moving parts just itching to cause mayhem thanks to the uneven ground.  Then matey has to stick (no pun intended) the branch into the cutting arc by standing right next to it, again liable to any stumbling, tripping, sliding or snagging.  The previous model of rotary cutter had the tree introduced from behind the cutting arc, making it far, far safer.  I can't see any way to Emergency Stop this chop, unless you have to get back into the cab and kill the engine.  Er - that is - stop the engine.


"The War Illustrated Edition 197 5th January 1944"

I think the next photographs from Europe deal with Holland, after briefly focussing on Yugoslavia, where Tito's Partisans were busy liberating their own country before the Red Army arrived to 'help'.  Art!

Or perhaps not

     Yes, that is spelled correctly.  Note the difference between tropical dress and that of Europe, principally the slouch hat used in lieu of a helmet, because it was lighter, cooler and more versatile.  Wearing a steel helmet in tropical heat will probably give you heatstroke.  Also, note that only one man has his shirt sleeves rolled down, which means he's not going to get bitten by mosquitoes.

     That chap not wearing anything above the waist isn't Welch, either, as he's wearing a Scottish tam-o-shanter, so either from the Royal Scots Fusiliers or the Cameronians.  You're welcome.



Whilst The Lion Kips, The Coincidence Hydra Nips

Conrad fears naught because his heart is pure nethers are protected by armoured underwear, Hah! chew on that, Hydra!

     To what am I referring?  Art!


     We mentioned this a few weeks back, remember?  The London theatre named after the architect Palladio, which venue is never named in the media, except today it was.  No, I don't know, nor care, who Hanah Gadfly is.

AFTER You Have Chopped Your Wood -

Presuming you have all your limbs and digits intact, why not make a bonfire out of it, especially at this time of year when it's so very very topical.  Art!


     Don't forget to carelessly splash petrol over it by throwing instead of pouring from a container with a spout, because health and safety is for jessies.  Art!


     Ensure you get dangerously close to the petrol-soaked wood and light with a match instead of a spill, taper or lit ball of rags, because adrenaline.  Art!


     One-fifth of a second later.  Art!


     At one half-second.  Art!


     Just past the one second mark.  Art!


     Nine seconds later.  As a Commenter on Youtube commented, rather like the opening scene of "Apocalypse Now".


Finally -

Stay safe!






Wednesday 6 November 2024

359 Days Early

Or 6 Days Late

Depending on your perspective, you know, if you're one of those 'glass half-empty' or 'glass half-full' folks, and not one of the 'did you spill my drink!' followed by fisticuffs folk.

     For yes, we are that late for Halloween 2024, yet that early for 2025, much like that pumpkin I bought last week that I've not done anything with yet.  Pumpkin soup?  Pumpkin pie?  We shall see.  Art!



     There you go, no messing about today, just right into a retrospective of on excellent horror film, which for some reason has cropped up twice on my Youtube selection.  Now, don't be disappointed when I inform you that NOTD was made in monochrome and not colour as this duplicitous poster suggests, because it was directed by Jacques Tourneur, a Hollywood auteur who made excellent use of light and shadows.  The demon in question has very little scream screen time and NOTD works by virtue of creating an atmosphere of suspense and dread anticipation, more than gore.  Art!

Beginning bookend

Ending bookend

     The story is taken from "Casting The Runes" by M. R. James, and we did mention it in the blog once, six years ago in passing, so here is a deeper dive.
     Dana Andrews stars as 'John Holden', a straight-laced South Canadian scientist who scorns the supernatural, until he's faced with incontrovertible evidence that it not only exists, it has targeted his bottom for termination.  Art!


     The murder instrument is a runic script (see above), passed to him covertly, which will ensure he is the anti-apple of the titular demon's eye.  The paper is endowed with a variety of half-life and seeks to destroy itself as soon as possible after being inflicted.  Who is the sinister villain doing the dirty deeds?  None other than Julian Karswell, the leader of a Satanic cult, who wants to stop John poking his long, inquisitive nose into said satanists doings and delvings.  Art!



     Here is Niall Macginnis in possibly his best role, in his tramp guise as he throws a Halloween party for local children, and blithely catching John breaking into his mansion.  Karswell is possibly the politest-ever villain seen in a horror film, being genial, affable, quietly-spoken and possibly out of his depth.  Yes, he seems exceedingly wealthy, yet he cautions his mother that his riches and possessions don't come from thin air - "Nothing for nothing", and he has a definite position in an hierarchy of fear.  Art!


     This is near the climax of the film, where Karswell has kind-of-abducted Joanna, the niece of another scientist he'd de-clogged via demonic intervention.  He'd hypnotised her 'to prevent idle chatter on the train', he alleges, which I don't think Network Rail would quite go for today.

     The point is made here by Joanna, when roused, that Karswell is a very frightened man, well aware that there is considerable scope for collateral damage when Ol' Horny - the demon, do keep up! - appears to fillet John.

     Here is where the producer, Hal Chester, decided to add-in a model demon, which continues to stoke controversy to this day.  Does the up-front appearance of the demon cheapen the ending? or does it provide a fitting denoument?  Conrad himself can't help but feel that Holden's fleeing an invisible monster in the woods beyond Karswell's mansion is more effective.  Art!


"The blasted thing's invisible!"

     Shades of "Forbidden Planet", hmmm? which was a 1957 production, too.  The studios were separated by an ocean so I doubt there was any stealing going on.

     Mr MacGinnis left the acting profession in 1975, and returned to what he had qualified as all those years ago; a doctor, which is a factoid utterly unknown to Conrad, as was the fact that he served in the Royal Navy in the Second Unpleasantness as a surgeon.  Since he was born a citizen of the Irish Republic, he could have sat it out on dry land.  Props to the guy!

     ANYWAY this is one to keep an eye out for, as long as you don't confuse it with the "Curse Of The Demon", which is a cut-down version clocking only 83 minutes, hacked about in order to fit in on a double-bill at South Canadian cinemas.  Good job Jacques never invoked a demon of his own .....

"Hal kept having horrible nightmares"

I Found Another One!

That is, another 'Tech Freeze' video of mechanical wood-choppers, because the last few from the other video (boasting 19 wood-chopping machines) were all large, safely designed and remotely operated, which is great for the Health & Safety Executive, less so for people hunting for blog content.  Art!


     This one uses a geared cam to propel a ram forward, meaning anything in front of it is going to be compressed against the fixed blade, which, if Art will cease however briefly sucking uranium out of that fuel rod - 

Pare us the cutter

     Anything that gets in front of that ram is going to be split apart.  BUT things are not as dangerous as they seem, for whoever designed this engine realised that getting an arm or hand severed was bad for business.  Art!


     Check the first picture, where this lever is horizontal, because the ram is not moving.  Here the operator hoiks it up through ninety degrees and the ram punches forward.  5/10 not bad.


Blunderbirds!

No, Conrad has not suddenly thrown a mental gear and decided he doesn't like Gerry Anderson's stuff any more.  I will blatantly nick some "Thunderbirds" images to make my scurrilous and satirical point, mind.

     In the end credits of "Thunderbirds" the camera focussed closely on one of International Rescue's craft, then zoomed out to reveal which one it was.  Art!

Can you guess what it is yet?

     It's pretty obvious.  Art!


     I have a puzzle for you along similar lines.  Art!


     You might be thinking along the lines of "DIY disaster"?  "Badly-put together model kit"? or "Drunken apprentice wearing blindfold goes awry".

     Nope, although that last one is closest.  Art!


     It's the highly-touted (by the Ruffians) Su-57 at a Chinese air show, showing all the screws and gaps filled in with Polyfilla.  This is supposed to be a 5th generation stealth fighter.  No wonder their last arms exhibition in the Middle East got no orders.


No I Am Not Staying Up Until 06:30!

This is being written at 12:16 on 6th November, as I like to get a head start on the next day's blog, and I'll be doing the weekly shop after finishing work, thus this attempt to get R done well before then.

     I did wonder why there was so little coverage of the South Canadian election on Youtube, before the penny dropped.  Art!


     Because their East Coast is five hours behind the UK and their West Coast is eight hours behind.  So on the coast of California it's only 16:21, and voting will likely continue until 22:00, or 06:00 Greenwich Mean Time.  Conrad needs all the beauty sleep he can get.  Art!


     Ol' Dave is doing a live stream as of right now, which has actually started and which I may glance at for a moment or two, given that I also have to finish watching that episode of "The Umbrella Academy".  


You What?

Conrad spotted this amongst his Youtube thumbnails and cannot make heads, tails or middles out of it.  Art!


     What on earth are they babbling about?  Is this reality television?  A sport of a peculiar variety?  AI-generated word salad?  Or even world-salad?

     Yes yes yes, I could click on it to find out.  Which is exactly what they want me to do.  So I shan't.






Tuesday 5 November 2024

If I Were To Say "Hurricane"

You'd Probably Tut And Shake Your Head

Convinced that I was going to go on a rant about the humble Hawker Hurricane, the mainstay of Perfidious Albion's air force at the beginning of the Second Unpleasantness, and also an airframe capable of being adapted to many different configurations.  "Dr Peter Caddick-Adams" of Twitter posted an unusual and colour photograph of a Hurricane just today.  Art!

Courtesy of the Imperial War Museum

     We did cover this on the blog, eighteen months ago, and your memorymay be a tad deficient, so I shall repeat myself for your elucidation.

     What looks like a Hurricane mounted on the world's shortest railway track is the 'Armed' part of "Catapult Armed Merchantman", which was a civilian freighter of considerable length, able to support a rocket-sled that propelled said Hurricane off the deck at 160 miles per hour.  Art!


     This is a test run of the catapult on a ship at anchor.  Note that the Hurricane pilot did not control the catapult ignition; that was done by another officer entirely.  An interim measure, yet an effective one.  Art!


     I shouldn't waste word count on what the Intro's not about but I couldn't resist this Hurricane,  nicknamed the 'Flying Can Opener'.  It mounted two 40 mm cannon under the wings and was used to strafe Afrika Korps vehicles, whom did not enjoy being under deadly attack from the skies (remember this for later).  Art!


     The there's this unlovely melon-farmer, which is predictably Ruffian, known as the "Uragan", which is their barbarous version of the noble British "Hurricane", as if th

     ANYWAY 

     HURRICANE: "A severe, often destructive, storm, a wind of force 12 on the Beaufort scale, with speeds of over 72 m.p.h." from the Amerind "Hura" meaning "Wind", which is still less barbarous than Uragan.  Art!


     Say a hearty "Hello!" to Kyle, of his "Geography King" Youtube channel, who has put up an interesting, if rather gloomy, vlog on The Most Dangerous Places In South Canada.  You're probably ahead of me here, as the first type of natural disaster encountered are - 

HURRICANES: A cautionary word to those of you who anticipate visiting Florida between August and November inclusive, because this is Hurricane Season for these tropical cyclones.  They are, á la Kyle, the most numerous of all the natural disasters that befall South Canada.  Art!

Before

After

     What you might call the 'engine' of a hurricane is warm water, which is what cranks up the Category, thus the areas at biggest risk are those on the Gulf and southern Atlantic coasts, and Kyle has a handy-dandy map showing the hurricane-heavy areas.  Art!


     Purple is where a hurricane may make landfall, and Florida really looks like a target here.  Notice that the risk area extends way up the Atlantic coast, a lot further than I realised.  Kyle, ever the voice of reason, explained that these waters aren't as warm as Florida - the clue is in the name - so any tropical cyclones that hit will only rarely get up to Category Three.  On the down side, these areas are far less prepared to host hurricanes, both in terms of emergency procedures and resilient architecture.  Can you imagine FEMA* trying to convince bolshy New Yorkers that they need to get their grab-bag and move inland?  Art!


     Yes, conceptually it looks like an AI was prompted by "Do Jackson Pollock over a map of South Canada".  This is the tracks of 45 hurricanes that made landfall on continental South Canada over the past 20 years: 18 were Category One, 9 were category Two, 9 were Category Three, 7 were Category Four and (only, thankfully!) 2 were Category Five.  Art!


     This is one of the Category One storms that hit New York.  The effect was compounded by them not being prepared or experienced in hurricane mitigation.

     So - beware when holidaying in South Canada and be wary of the time of year and your location - stay safe!  Don't forget to run if you hear a siren going off when you're pretty sure it's not the Ruffians attempting to start the Third Unpleasantness, because that's the hurricane warning.  And you're welcome.

     <Conrad leaned back in his chair, appreciative of This Sceptred Isle's frequently disgustrous yet very rarely dangerous weather>


"The War Illustrated Edition 197 5th January 1945"

Let us see what photographs the censor has allowed through, shall we? Conrad confesses he's usually forgotten what these are as it's ages since I took the photos of the photos.  Art!


     

     That map at lower starboard (helpfully enlarged above) indicates what the Teutons found so unpleasant about fighting Tito's partisans; they could whistle up air support from the Brylcreem Boys of the RAF at short notice.  Not only that, Perfidious Albion was close enough across the Adriatic, which it ruled, to send troops.

     At top a huddle of nervous Teutons lie down under the eyes and rifles of watchful Partisan guards.  Lower port, we see a Teuton stronghold that had been visited by the RAF, who came to say hello with rockets and machine guns.  To starboard is a Partisan machine gun team, harassing retreating Teutons, and at bottom the Royal Artillery have landed at Risan (see map) to deliver the good news.  Art!

     Note that they are using the dinky little 75 mm Pack Howitzer, which could be broken down into smaller loads, the easier to get it up mountainsides.

     No, Vulnavia, nothing about the Battle Of The Bulge.  Patience, my sweet, patience!


Celebrating Today, It Being -

November the Fifth.  Art!


     What's this?  Why, none other than a Liebherr jib crane in action, putting together a skyscraper in the fair city of New York, thus being an apt picture and topic for the ongoing South Canadian erection, which everyone seems to be making an especially big fuss about.  O and WASH OUT YOUR FILTHY MINDS!


Blogger Still Algorithm Hogger

Conrad did think the traffic algorithm had re-set, thanks to us starting a new month, and for a couple of days the traffic figures were believable.  Not now!  Art?

     At an average of over 500 hits per day, this means November's total stands to be over 16,000, which is bonkers.  A sop to the ego, yes, and almost wholly fake.

     First world problems, hmmmmm?


Dog Food

One of the most acutely-observing commentators on the Norc soldiers turning up inside Modern-day Mordor is Jake Broe, on his vlogs under his Youtube channel "Jake Broe".  This is because he spent 6 years in South Korea and both speaks and reads Korean.  He pointed out how very formal and polite conversations between Koreans are, thanks to both culture and language, and that their Ruffian liaison officers are going to inadvertently trample roughshod over this necessary behaviour.  Art!


     That's Korean labelling for 'Dog Meat', not that any Ruffian soldiers can read it, they just open up the tin and begin scoffing.

     Until they find out what they've been stuffing their faces with.  Art!


     This particular Fido will never wet the carpet, steal food or bark at the postie.  The Ruffian soldier who posted this was disgusted, although it's not clear if that was merely the concept of eating dog, or anger at man's best friend being turned into canned spam.


Finally -

Night has fallen, it's quite dry yet the artillery barrage of fireworks is very muted so far.  Good! says Edna.


*Federal Emergency Management Agency, the sinister organisation that conspires to send South Canadians to death camps and has done so for the last 25 years, according to the swivel-eyed loonwaffles.