A Bit Of Perspective

Ye Olde BOOJUM!
     Old by comparison, dear reader.  I was looking at old blog posts last night, and do you know, the ones from June were text-only.  No pictures or photographs.  Then Conrad discovered how to copy in pictures and Lo!  BOOJUM! became more entertaining.  Then Conrad discovered how to add in his own photographs, and So!  BOOJUM! becomes almost too exciting for mortal man*.
     What next? 

"So glad you asked ..."

 Tch!  Those Terminators - I keep telling them I have dibs on this planet, but will they listen?

A Little Light Reading

Frothy entertainment Conrad-style

As you can see here, I am getting in a bit of practice at this world-domination stuff.  Apparently watching "Pinky and the Brain" isn't sufficient.  I have now added the words "Narf" and "Poit" to my vocabulary, however.

This Post Is Unusual
     Any regular reader of BOOJUM! will know that the world of sport appeals to Conrad not at all.  Until or unless the Olympics bring in Atom Bombing The Moon as a competitive sport, that's how things will stay.
     And yet ... friends on Facebook who are Manchester City fans are gloating at the performance of the football team Manchester United FC.  Apparently they are doing woefully, and I wondered - is this because their previous manager, Alex Ferguson, departed?  Or did he see the fall coming and jumped before he got pushed**?
     There.  BOOJUM!'s only sporting post in 163 bloggings.  Let us turn to a pundit for a sustained, critical analysis of the question.

Quite.

Rhodomontade
     Once again we dip our toes into the waters of the English language, shiver and hastily towel ourselves dry.
     "Rhodomontade" is, pretty obviously, a species of orchid from China, one that can move about like a triffid, but only at night, and it - again, pretty obviously - feeds on blood.

Exactly!

 But wait! the dictionary defines it as "boasting".  That's it?  Being vain?  Tish.  Reality, you are boring.


How Times Change
     The BBC website has an article about a marine communications satellite being launched:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25199809


Take note of the location: Baikonur.  This is where the USSR sent up it's own rockets until there wasn't an USSR any longer.  Now the site is propelling Western commercial payloads into orbit.  Strikes one as ironic, no?


Righto, that zombie novel has been in limbo for weeks due to all my blog activity.  Off I go.

*  And woman.
** Don't bother answering, this is the living definition of a rhetorical question

Post Party Post

Gosh!  Another Blog Missed
     Well, yes.  Yesterday was our office Christmas meal, at 8 p.m.  Problem for Conrad: at work until 6 p.m.  and on the bus as there will be drinking, so it's not possible to go home and prettify self.  Thus I ducked into the Bierkeller for a 2-for-1 and decorated the bar until after 7, then tootled around the "Triangle" looking at Christmas Fair stalls.
     I weakened.  Bought a mulled wine that was supposedly Rum and Mint.  Tasty, warming, but - no taste of rum nor mint could I discover.
     With time to spare, Conrad lounged around WH Siths - they provide all the villain supplies for folk like Darth Sidious - sorry - WH Smiths. 

Musical icons and print media retailers - multi-talented, eh?

 Magazine Subculture
     Okay, I bought "Miniature Wargaming" and "Wargames: Soldiers and Strategy", so this is essentially the kettle speaking.  However - at the end of one magazine aisle there were at least a dozen different magazines about tattooing and tattoos.  This is supposedly the digital age where people read everything online, and there's still a market for a dozen tat mags*?  Then below the tattoo specialism were the woodcraft magazines - about twenty of those.  "How to use a wood bowl router" featured on one cover.  Another one boasted about "How To Carve An Oystercatcher".  Really?  "Woodturning".  Seriously?  There's a big enough market for so many of these magazines?
     Impeccably PC, Conrad does not judge, merely ponders in wonderment.

See?  See?  I may have had a few beers but I wasn't seeing imaginary mags

 Ahem!  Back On Track, Please.  Why No Blog?
     Oh!  Yes, right.  The meal - very nice by the way, and I discovered a verrry nice liquer called "limoncello" tha - oh, yes, the reason.  The meal didn't finish until nearly 10 and then it was off the a bar called "Noho", then the last bus to Royton and a walk home from there so I didn't get in until well after midnight  <sad face>
     However, 6 people had been for a visit on Friday even without Conrad's constant self-promotion on Facebook <happy face>.  So Karma balances out.

That's Set, Egyptian god , doing some work with scales.  Probably karma.  Possibly karma.  Hey, he's weighing something!

Take Off That Tinfoil Hat!
     There is a spectrum of people who regularly insist that the Moon landings were faked, that Bigfoot is real, aliens live amongst us**, that Adolf Hitler is alive and well in a secret base under the South Pole, and that the thoroughly eeeevil USA possesses weather-control and earthquake-inducing technology.
     The last claim is simultaneously refuted and proved.  Check out Auntie Beeb:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25205548

At a Richter Scale of 1 or 2 it's not a big earthquake - but a small earthquake is still an earthquake.  Not really produced by sinister technology, either, unless Hom. Sap. jumping up and down counts as "technology"***.


To you, a waste of turkey-wrap; to them, de rigeur headgear.  Also, that is one p155ed-off looking cat!

Okay, enough wibble for today.  Time for another pot of tea and some logic puzzles.  Chin chin!

* This sounds much ruder than it is.  Apologies.  I will be classier in future.
** Aliens - wearing human skins!
*** Little-known fact - this is how North Korea generates 35% of it's power.

Tomorrow:  Audubon's Book Of North American Words

Hasty But Tasty

The Baking, That Is, Not Conrad Himself ...
     I have to be quick to create tonight's blog before it becomes tomorrow.
     Last week I didn't manage to do a blog on Thursday because I'd done the shopping, there was baking to finish, then the pub quiz.  Tonight I also had the shopping to contend with, and some baking ends to tie up, and the pub quiz, but since I drank 69 cans of Red Bull today, I have energy to spare!

Bannoffee Whoopee Pies



There you have them, nine of the little rascals, straight from the Hummingbird Bakery Book.  There would have been ten, but someone - someone! - ate one.    

Secret Santa
     This ties in with the above.  I got my Hummingbird Bakery book as a secret santa present last year, and jolly splendid it's been.  Tomorrow we have 2013's secret santa, and I have no idea whom I'm buying a present for.  In fact I claim not to remember even being present when names were drawn out of a hat.

<checks wallet>

Nope.  There's my Western Front Association card, some Tesco vouchers and my USDAW union card, and a piece of paper with "France" on.
     Oh well, ingenuity will find a way ...


More of Laser-Armed Cats
     The guard hog and hard hog are not all that protects BOOJUM!s luxuriously-appointed mansion.  Yes, we have the gigantic mutant messenger mice, who are currently on a sabbatical, and occasional wolf-packs too, but the permanent protective presence are Felis Mortalis, cyborg hunting cats with lasers for eyes.  Here's one zapping a late autumn fly -

Cat 1  Fly 0

We tend to discourage this and use Raid instead, because the smell of roast fly!

Laser eyes removed for maintenance

Righto, time for bed!

Decision, Decisions

What's A Human To Do?
     During my drive home to and from work I tend to mull things over.  I can think and drive at the same time, you see.  This morning I was pondering what to put in the blog.  I even canvassed Darling Daughter.

Sally ready for some "mindless self indulgence".  A pop group, apparently.

     'Most people who write blogs post about what happened in their day,' she advised.
     No!  People do not want to hear about deadlines and targets and Service Level Agreements and where all the teaspoons went*.
     Instead we have -

"Inchoate"
     As part of the rounded induction that BOOJUM! offers all readers, let us examine this word.
     Obviously it refers to a tribe of Amazonian Indians, who inhabit the upper headwaters of that mighty river, and who subsist on a diet of fish and monkeys.  Oh, and yams**.
     What's that?  It's not?  It means "rudimentary" or "a process only just begun".  Bah!

What Inchoate ought to be ...

What Cake To Make?
     Another critical decision that needs making.  On Friday I shall be going to the Christmas dinner at Pizza Express, so I shall need to do the shopping tomorrow before the Pub Quiz, so I have to bake tonight.
     I have decided that the recipe will be - Bannoffee Whoopee Pies. 
     No, I have no idea why they're called "Pies", as they are two pieces of cake held together with creamy filling.  Nor do I know where the "Whoopee" comes in - oh no actually I do - that will be the ganterpies at work spotting them and hovering like helicopter gunships.

Positively gleeful!

 And on that note Conrad needs to get going.

* Yes, they all vanished.  Again.
**  Just testing.  There was only one asterisk.

Arga Warga!

From the play "Riddley Walker"
     If you wanted to know.  Just a phrase that stuck in my head a looong time ago, and it still pops up as an expression of surprise.  Why surprised?  because it isn't 6 p.m. as my watch informed me - the solar-powered simpleton. 

21 Visitors Yesterday
     Thank you for dropping by to read the muted rantings of Conrad!
     Not sure how the rest of the week will go, since I'm off to the work's Christmas meal on Friday and won't be returning home in between finishing the shift and shifting the eats.  Thursday is Pub Quiz night, of course, and the ganterpies at work will expect cake if not cakes plural, so that's probably Wednesday already plotted out.
     With all this, my plans for world domination are kind of on the back-burner at present.  Don't worry, I'll get round to being an abominable dictator sooner or later, although you, dear reader, will be spared the unspeakable torments to come.  Tell your friends - reading BOOJUM! prevents invidious punishment by diktat*!

A longer moustache, but less gifted upstairs.  Dictator!  You're letting the side down!

A New Decoration
     Not a Christmas one, no.  This is a room-enhancing one.  Allow me to impress you:

Dubbed the "Doctor Who" light by Wonder Wife, it reminds me more of - oooh, what was it?

There we are!

 From that relatively unknown cult 60's series**.


- And In The Tradition Of WIlliam Shatner -
     NNNOOOOO!!! 
     Why the raving and drooling***?  Read on, courtesy of Auntie Beeb:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25197786

One of Conrad's guilty secrets/pleasures is watching those television shows that feature clips of police cameras and desperate, demented or drugged drivers.  To think that all might be replaced by a black box and a slowly freewheeling stolen car.  Damn it, the best clips are those where the villains drive over a spike strip and shred their tyres and still try to keep going!  Why, don't they realise <post trails off into muttered cursing and mumbling>

Exactly what I meant!  Chortle.

Lastly, Here Is Your Entertainer, Tidied
     Our new offices have a hand-drier in the toilets that seems to be a dismounted Tornado jet engine.  You can watch and wonder as the blast of air shapes the skin on your hands, and since there are mirrors off to the side, you can also watch as your hair is violently tossed about, at which point Conrad decided that a bit of thatch trimming was in order.
     Here he is, clad in full human disguise.

Conrad.  Making grey a fashion statement.

* Yes, a shallow and blatant attempt to garner more traffic.
** "The Corbomite Maneuver" if you must know!
*** Yes, a prototype Pink Floyd song title.


    

Conrad, Cool As Helium

Not In The Sense Of Being "Hip" -
     - although in his middle-aged mind this tends to get confused.  No, today Conrad did not suffer from debilitating thirst, nor did he swill down litres of lemonade and fruit juice followed by pints of water.
     He attributes this change in behaviour to sitting directly over one of the floor-mounted vents in The Electric Goldfish Bowl.  And do you know what else?  There are no radiators for staff to set at "Broil".  True, you can't open the windows, but there is an atrium of several million cubic metres just at one's elbow.

What?  Even Roger*?

Handy And Dandy And Not Just With Candy
     Or confectionery of any description.  Yesterday I prepared a beef stew for the slow cooker and set it off this morning at 7:00 a.m., arriving back 10 hours later to a very nice braised steak stew.  The trick with braising steak is to cook it gently for a long, long time.  Never grill it!  Or you end up with meat-flavoured rubber.
     How good was it, Wonder Wife?

That good!

O My Country, 'Tis of Tree
     Last year one of the more dubious and borderline-wicked amusements at BOOJUM! mansion occurred during the heavy snows.  We live near the summit and near The Summit, near Summit, of a very steep hill.  When the white stuff fell in inches, it became exceedingly difficult for traffic to make it's way up the hill and bus services terminated at the foot because they frankly weren't going to make it up that incline.  Drivers of individual cars tried to get up, skidding all over the place, only to give up at our house since there is a road junction there that allows them to turn around and motor-ski back to the bottom.
     Where were the denizens of the mansion whilst all this was going on?  Why, sitting on the lounge windowledge, gawping, laughing and pointing.
     In order to camouflage our diabolical enjoyment of schadenfreude, we have a bit of foliage in the lounge to hide behind this year.  Is Wonder Wife all set for some malicious enjoyment of other people's traffliction**?

Wonder Wife is not amused.  No snow, you see.  No snow = no traffic in trouble.

Mighty Apollo.  Beaten By A Bunny.
     Well, almost.  The Chinese are slowly and seriously creating a space programme that will see them putting boots onto regolith well within your lifetime, gentle reader.  They haven't put a man (or woman) up there - yet.  The "Jade Bunny" is going to be a predecessor to humans and I refer you to Aunty Beeb:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25178299

Mind you, Apollo did manage it 44 years ago.

Buzz.  Not as punchy as Neil, but a good man in a tight spot.

 * A Pink Floyd joke
** I made this word up myself.  Can you tell? 

Hipster Conrad

For So I Have Been Dubbed By Darling Daughter
     In support of which I give you Conrad, wearing the world's trendiest and warmest cardigan, listening to Eels, The Mars Volta and Deerhunter.  Impeccable credentials, are they not?
     I'm also eating a roll with haslet, but we'll gloss over that ...

Haslet.  Not quite rock 'n' roll enough, is it?

The Leisure Load Increases
     I can listen to my CDs easily enough whilst carrying out another task, but you really can only read a book whilst reading it, a tautological truism.  So once again with DVDs to watch - yes I still haven't finished watching "John Carter" - and com <ahem> graphic novels to get through, once again - oh yes plus a detective novel and another four books from my "Wants" list - where was I?
     I still say I'd have plenty to occupy myself even if I never slept and there were more hours in the day.  Don't forget this is all without watching any television, except those two Doctor Who programmes (see earlier Blogs for details) and avoiding playing any computer games.  I was a bugger for those back in the Nineties.

Ah, if only.

 The haslet rolls are now history.  Time for - Ice Cream!  Maybe not the Blueberry, which was rather sharp and less pleasant than expected.  So, allow a short pause here readers -

Whoops, that bowl of ice-cream looks awfully like a tin of Old Golden Hen.  Must be my eyes playing tricks on me.  Next!

From Book to Nook to Inglenook
     I was sitting here reading my book, waiting for inspiration to strike, before going to get the bee - ice-cream.  The ice-cream.  My eye fell upon the container my Nook had arrived in, and my mind immediately threw up the term "Inglenook".
     Thank you, mind.  I then had no choice but to find out what an "inglenook" is.  Apparently a small enclosure next to a fireplace, because what is an "ingle"?  A fireplace.  Not to be confused with a "dingle" which is a small copse or wooded area, as well as the sounds bells make, especially at this time of year when every UFO has a rack of carillons added.

An inglenook.  Obviously built before straight lines were invented.

And Finally -
     Having a bit of a rest from tanks, and since Anna may be reading, here's a Teddy bear.

Zombie Teddy Bear is still a Teddy, right?