The EVIL Little House On The Prairie of DEATH!!!

Do You Think That's Too Much?
I mean, three exclamation marks is going a bit far, I admit, yet I wanted to make a point.
     Okay, jumping wildly, as we are wont to do, to "The  Wages of Fear", that 1953 classic helmed by George Clouzot - also remade as "Sorcerer" in 1977 by William Friedkin when he had the clout to do whatever he wanted, and is good film in it's own right, though it suffers by comparison - which Conrad confesses he's not actaually seen.  It's on my list of To See In 2017, okay?
     The plot of TWOF concerns two trucks full of dangerously sweaty and unstable dynamite that need to be transported across the South American jungle, to be used to put out an oil well fire.  Art?

Actually in black and white, so don't get your hopes up

     Conrad, no stranger to explosives, has to advise that dynamite that hasn't been stored correctly can degrade into all sorts of interesting compounds, generally liable to go off if you look at them.
     Those of you who sarcastically remark "Helicopters?" with a sneer and curled lip are probably the very same people who remarked "Eagles?" to the solution of how to destroy the One Ring.  Yes, feasible, in which case - a film of five minutes duration.
     "Blimey, the old fogey is going off on a grand tangent today," I hear you say.  "What does any of this have to do with the title?"
     I'll get there eventually.  Meanwhile, let's have another picture.  Art?

NO!  Wrong kind of -

     <Sound of Tazer charging up>

<Art gets Tazered anyway>

     Back to "The Little House On The Prairie", which is where the title comes in.  Come on, do keep up!
     Normally Conrad avoids this programme like a dose of bubonic dysenteric blight, as he finds it so sugary it gives you diabetes and weight problems.  However, he accidentally caught an episode today that mirrored TWOF exactly in terms of plot.  There's these two wagons of nitro-glycerin that need transporting from where it gets made to the railroad, each driven by a team of two, who have to overcome terrain and banditry to get their uneasy  cargo to the railhead.
     This being TLHOTP, all parties make it to the rendezvous without being turned into a cloud of earth and sawdust, which is a shame as any television programme is always enhanced by an explosion.  Transporting liquid nitro-glycerin, however, is an extremely dangerous practice in real life, and eventually after umpteen disasters the South Canadians banned it from being transported as a liquid.  Nowadays if it goes anywhere it is frozen, rendering it a lot safer.
     So - three exclamation marks, because potentially this could have been a goodbye to Michael Landon and perhaps a lot of Walnut Grove, too.

Like this.  Wait - what? -

Bodies In Rest And Motion
Not quite the title of a film, this title refers to Edna Wunderhund and her two modes of being:  Flat Out or Dead Stop.  First of all we have her leaping around with a ball in her mouth, desperately trying to get us humans - okay, you humans - to chase her.  Art?

The feet are mine.  Notice lack of chasing.

     The other mode usually involves using humans as furniture, your humble scribe being a frequent resort because his lap is large and normally unencumbered by a computer.  Art?

Mode 2

     This may look like me peering myopically at the pictures, in reality the captions were in a faint grey font that required sticking one's nose almost upon the page to read them correctly.

More Of The Giant Flying Mallets
As you should surely know by now, Conrad has a tendency to witter on about things British, and also the Second Unpleasantness, and beer.  What better than an item that combines all three at the same time?  Art?

"Bogeys on starboard beam at angels twelve, skipper."

     I couldn't resist getting this on the weekly shop last night.  Here's a picture of the real thing:

With humans for scale

     You don't get a sense of how freakin' enormous these beasts were if all you can see is them against the skies, so here's one with a few groundcrew added in.  "Giant Flying Mallet" sums it up pretty well.
     Right, off in a minute to empty that bottle into a glass and consume!

Finally -
Here we have a saucer made of gold.  Art?

Voila

     "Or" being the French for gold, so you could say that this was a - waitforitwaitforit - 
Saucer Or.

"Ouch"

"By The Pricking Of My Thumbs -"

Apologies For Quoting The Barb
As you know, Conrad loathes Shakespeare with a mild passion.  A wild passion would involve too much commitment and expenditure of my strictly-rationed time.  Does the rest of the world have to study this hateful hound, as I did at school and college, or is it just us here in the Allotment?

Hooray!

     Anyway, none of the above has anything to do with what I'm about to bang on about next, I only used it to get an image across.  The rest of the quote is "Something wicked this way comes", except I've already arrived, thank you.  This will make sense later.
     Okay, enough guff, let us propel the pantechnicon of whimsy (the blog) into the aether (that's the internet) on a dedicated zephyr (that's Blogger) and shizzle.

Tom's Tonsil Tickling
This takes a bit of development, but stick with it, stick with it.  
     Yesterday Tom - Art?  Picture please.

That self-same Tom

     I asked if I could post a picture and he agreed, so here it is.  Look at that calculating mien, that sneer of cold command, that beetling brow* - I taught him everything he knows - yesterday Tom took issue with the fact printed in the bottle-cap of some peculiar drink he was supping.
     Personally, Conrad can quite sympathise with the lad.  You want your facts as purveyed to you (even by bottle-cap) to be factual, after all, which see Conrad's strident not to say bilious yarking about the Beeb mis-representing a photograph of the First Unpleasantness.  So, what had gotten Tom's Peevish Gland all swollen?
     "You cannot tickle yourself".
     Hmmm.   Well, hair-splitting pedantry like Tom's response might be considered the way to go.  By some.  
     'Perhaps,' ventured your humble scribe, 'They mean you can't actually make yourself laugh.'
     Oh, dear me, Tom had a ready reply to that.
     'If you tickle the roof of your mouth I GUARANTEE that you'll laugh,' I was informed.
     This is rather worrying.  What does Tom get up to in his spare time that he knows this to be a fact?  Don't expect Conrad to perform this feat, as he has too much dignity.

Most of the time

Excitement And Adventure Ahoy!
Worse luck.  Today's travel travails were reduced by 50% as I got a lift into The Electric Goldfish Bowl.  Bus home, though, so we shall yet see what adventures First can add to the day.  After all, every journey has to have an element of chance, doesn't it?  I firmly believe it was the problems of travel on public service vehicles that led Heisenberg to formulate his classic Uncertainty Principle, where the bus is not actually present or absent, existing as merely a potentiality quotient.

The 409 service to Rochdale

Ah Yes, The Mind Of Evil
This is either a serial of that dramatic reconstruction programme "Doctor Who", or how some people think of Conrad.  They may have a point ...
     Your modest artisan does worry about his sense of humour, at times.  Contrary to what some folk would have you believe, Conrad does have a sense of humour; however, it is my sense of humour, not yours, and there is nothing more subjective than a sense of humour.
     So.  "Matinee" the 1993 Joe Dante-helmed film.  At the film's climax, our not-quite-hero Lawrence seeks to empty the theatre in a hurry, by the engineered use of film and special effects.  Briefly, he makes the cinema patrons believe they're under nuclear assault, causing them to collectively shriek, panic and run.  Probably a good few changes of underwear needed, too.

Humour in a hydrogen bomb

     Conrad sat back in his chair and guffawed at this.  Hilarious!  Utterly hilarious.  Who'd have thought an atomic attack could be a source of such amusement?
     Er - yes, well - back to that sense of humour and being subjective.  "Karma Police", that's hilarious, am I right?

Worth checking out.  John Goodman excellent!

      I suppose being set during the Cuban Missile Crisis didn't help people think too rationally.  Heck, Stan Kubrick got away with it, didn't he?

 Finally
I think this screenshot comes under the heading "I've No Idea Why I Screenshotted This But Since I Took The Time You're Going To See It Regardless".  Art?

Yes, it's a submarine and it's yellow

     I don't know if it does any tricks like the old Dinky toy.

Anyway, that's enough words of wit, wisdom and wonderment for tonight, as I've not had any tea - see?  see the sacrifices I make for you lot? - and I've still got the weekly shop to do.  Let's see what mouldering remaindered past-it's-sell-by-date offal I can find to devour!

* Not entirely sure what a beetling brow is but I think it's a compliment.