Dog Gone

Nearly
Tonight the other denizens of The Mansion arrive back home from their sojourn in the Western Mediterranean, where they have been gorging themselves silly, seeing the sights and indulging in swimming pools - the poor dastards!*
     So my lonely vigil as walker, feeder, human-shaped cushion and thrower of balls for Edna Wunderhund is nearly at an end.  This will go down well with Edna, since she has only been getting one-third of her normal attention, which is at least a tenth of what she expects to get.  No doubt she will go potty with joy upon seeing Wonder Wifey again - she waggles her bum so much it's in danger of falling off.**

Edna plus ball (which she later burst)

     And as I speak the Lemon and Poppy Seed Cake is baking in the oven; another gluteny concoction which I can get away with in the absence of WW.
     Righto! Time to fire up the brain, kick the Muse awake and create another collection of things that offend me.

Pineapples
Pineapples offend your humble scribe, horribly so.  The taste, texture and smell of the Devil's Hand-grenade all inflict instant nausea on Conrad and he doesn't enjoy the sight of them, either.  Own up and admit it, the world wouldn't be any worse off if the pineapple never existed, would it?

The Hideous Truth, Revealed

Mobile Phones
Another hideous modern invention that appears to have been dreamed up by a consortium from Hades, with the brief: "Let's invent something that allows people who want to be LEFT ALONE instead to be endlessly tormented by folk they want nothing to do with - oh, and which allows expounding idiots to inflict their entire life story on hapless bystanders."
     Did we need mobile phones to build an Empire?  NO!
     When I take over there will be a need for enormous excavation sites to be created, because ALL THE MOBILE PHONES ARE GETTING SCRAPPED.

I call this a good start

     I feel better for getting that off my chest.  What next?

Actually we'd better move on or this post will rapidly hit 1,000 words, all about what I hate.***

BOOJUM! Reviews Films
We've been doing this for a while, so you ought to know the rules of a Conrad critique: I make them up as I go along, and we generally go off the title alone, to hilarious comic effect.  Okay, let's see what cinematic dross has been inflicted on the world of late -
"Rampage":  Conrad is not sure what to make of this.  It features a giant gorilla in the posters, so is it treading in the footsteps of King Kong?  'Big meets bigger' and apparently Chicago gets trashed, which makes a pleasant change for New York and Los Angeles.  Things Exploding Genre, I suppose, or Engage Eyes and De-clutch Brain.

Ram Pages?

"Hurricane Heist":  Really, I can't see this one having much appeal to audiences of today.  If you'd brought it out eight years ago, to coincide with the 70th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain, then you'd have a chance, but to choose 2018 at random?  One has to ask, what are the crooks going to do once they have laid their scrofulitic appendages on a Hurricane?  Blackmail film studios into paying top dollar for an authentic period warplane?  I think you'll find they can use CGI or radio-controlled models instead, matey.

"You'll believe a man can fly."
(Yes, because he's what is known as "a pilot")

"Ghost Stories": How apt!  I've just finished reading a collection of same that I borrowed from the ER Direct team's library at work.  This film looks to be a rather higher-class version of those old multiple-story films that - Amicus? - put out back in the Seventies, that usually had an unconvincing twist in the tail - "It was a Killer Eel disguised as a human being all along!" kind of thing.  Oh, going off on a tangent, "A Chinese Ghost Story" and "A Chinese Ghost Story 2" are both well worth watching, especially since Chinese ghosts behave rather differently from our homely European ones.

      One stars Martin Freeman, the other doesn't 
     
     By all accounts, GS is pretty strong fare, which uses fright rather than gore to achieve it's effects, and you ought to sleep with the lights on afterwards.
     Oh, the kicker is that it's adapted from a play, written by a comedian.


*  Hang on - do I have that right?
**  Edna.  Not WW.  Just to be clear.
***  But remember - Sharks Are Our Friends!

An Embarrassment Of Glitches

Jerome Klapka Jerome Was Right, You Know

JKJ (for so we shall abbreviate him to keep things tight) early put into print what you might call The Scourge Of The Inanimate - when dumb objects with no intellect appear to be part of a sinister plot against you.  

This chap probably regrets getting out of bed.

You know how it goes: the car refuses to start because the battery is flat, you can't call the AA because you've lost the card, you can't Google for the number because your Wifi is on the blink, and you realise that, in the dark, you've put on odd socks.  When you do eventually get going, an hour late, there are roadworks, a traffic accident and a diversion.  Finally, just as you're about to go on lunch, there's a fire drill and you end up outside, with no coat, just as a torrential thunderstorm starts.*

     That sort of thing.

JKJ
(What, you think I just picked someone at random?)

     JKJ specifically picked on a tin of pineapple chunks to illustrate TSOTI, which I have mentioned a couple of times before, and make no apologies for mentioning again:  TSTOI is a serious business! and it'a also an amusing tale.  Our trio, you see, have brought along a tin of pineapple chunks but no tin opener.  They are not going to be denied those pineapple chunks!  They go at the tin with every implement they can lay their hands on, to no avail.  Finally -

Ha!  Take that, tin!

     - they batter it into a shape that greatly resembles a mocking grin, which frightens them so much they chuck the tin away.

     Righto!  Let us abruptly change the specific subject matter yet still stay with TSTOI.  Art?

Upper right, ta.

     This is today's morning stats page on Blogger for BOOJUM! after I've reposted a link to yesterday's deathless prose/witless scribble.*** 127 hits?!  

     "What is the old bafoon prating about now?" I hear your quibbling quote.  "High traffic figures are what bloggers live for, are they not?"

     Yes, but only if they're correct figures.  Cast your mind back to November 2016, when my daily traffic figures suddenly soared to at least 500 per day.  Flattering, yet incorrect, doubtless due to some glitch in the traffic algorithm, and it took months to get corrected.  So we shall see what madness today's posts bring up, later.

     Well, that's half this post done already, and all based on '127' which is inspiration/wordy inflation.***

The Curse Of Conrad Strikes Again

This keeps happening when I'm off work for a week or so.  Back when I was at the Co-Op in it's creaking old slum at Old Bank Building, I had to absent myself for a week's jury service.  Before I left we were all about being on a "3 year journey" to merge with the Co-Op Bank.  When I came back the Bank was being split off and sold and the journey had come to a very dead end indeed.

Ha!  Take that, bank!

     I am now at the end of a week's leave, which has been principally spent dog-sitting, and what do I see as a breaking news headline on the Beeb's website?

"Merger talks are at an advanced stage"

     I won't give away which one I work for, just that I work in the HR services part.  What's going to come of this?  Who knows!  Doubtless Monday morning will bring lots of questions, and also some cakes I've baked whilst off.

     As the old Scottish curse goes, "May you live in interesting times".

Which Is The Very Definition Of "The Omega Man"'s Existence

I have been going on about how some of the scenes were shot in this film, and now I want to look at the bigger picture.  'The Family', that bunch of psychotic disease-ridden albinos, number how many?  If we guesstimate about 70, then that divides neatly into the population of Los Angeles at the time the plague struck - 7,000,000 people.  So, only 1 in 100,000 survived, meaning that the global population is down to perhaps 30,000 people.

Or less, if Colonel Neville has his way ...

     I doubt the human race can come back from that kind of down-tick, but you never know.  Presumably either China or Russia, who let loose this disease, had a vaccine or were working on one?  It being the height of stupidity to let a bug like this into the real world WITHOUT HAVING A CURE!

Righto, time for some lunch.  Later!

*  It could be worse; you've not been struck by lightning.**

**  Yet.

***  Delete where appropriate

Immobilised By Dog

Yes, You Read That Correctly -
And no, it isn't a typo - by now you ought to realise that your humble scribe is in fact a spelling and grammar pedant of the very worst kind, and if it says 'XYZ' then that's what I mean.  PAY ATTENTION AT THE BACK THERE!  No slacking off - you never know when BOOJUM!'s helpful hints about protection from zombies or how to detect hidden killer eels will save your life.
     Anyway, that's getting rather off-track, so let us head back on 2770 and head for Relevant.  As I said, immobilised by dog.  In this case, Edna.  Art?

In what she considers her rightful position

     As you may suspect, Conrad's bluster about having a heart made of equal parts ice and flint does not stand up to shifting Edna from his lap once she settles there.  This picture from last night shows how I was prevented - O prevented! - from attending Pub Quiz, because - Edna.
     Her keen interest in playing games is also somewhat intrusive, because it's a case of "Edna feels like playing regardless of your opinion in the matter, human."* This means either chasing her to try and capture her ball, or tugging on a chew-toy for a good ten minutes until she gets tired or it comes apart.  Art?

After 5 minutes, the old shoulder aches a bit

     So there you have the lengthy explanation for today's title: immboilised and monopolised and sat upon by dog.
     Time to send the motley down a 1 mile zipwire - backwards and blindfolded!

There Shchi Goes -
You know, by The LAs, featured in "I Married An Axe Murderer".  This theme of punning about songs with "She" in the title may continue for some time, because of the Russian Cabbage Soup that I made, which is spelled as above and pronounced "She".  Art?

     The thing is, I followed the recipe, which has made enough soup for about 8 people.  I've had two bowlfuls and there's still oodles left; it's not bad, you know, definitely helped by the caraway seeds, which is good, as I still have to get through another 6 helpings.
     Next up - "Little Does Shchi Know"?

Who's A Clever Boy Then?
Modesty prevents your talented typist from claiming this title, so instead we shall look at that seminal sci-fi classic, "The Omega Man", so-called because he fondly believes himself to the The Last Man On Earth.  Alpha-Omega, remember?
     Early in the film we see Lt. Col. Neville emerging from his personal private showing of "Woodstock", and suddenly realising that (because he had to swap cars previously) it's much later than he realised.  "My God, they'll be waking up soon!" he exclaims, and proceeds to drive at dangerous speeds back to his pocket fortress.  Art?

     This is the scene where he sees the sun supposedly sinking in the West before haring off.  However!  This is where the film-makers were deviously clever.  This is actually filmed not long after dawn, where those tower blocks would be empty of staff or workers, and thus wouldn't have any lights on.  It wouldn't be practical to try and arrange for all those lights to be turned off for hours and hours whilst the scene was set up.
     Kudos all round!
     But - even earlier than this scene, we see Neville driving around Los Angeles to a jazzy cartridge in the car stereo, and what does your humble scribe espy?  Art!

Centre shot

Upper right

     Not one but two working traffic lights, when the power has been off for three years, if not longer.  One supposes that these frames, which last for perhaps half a second, weren't deemed important enough to bother covering the traffic lamps with a mask, or then again perhaps the LAPD took a dim view of that being done.

"Moonraker" By Ian Fleming
An acquaintance over on Facebook (hi Nick!) described this as one of his favourite novels, so of course your humble scribe simply had to have a nosey at it over on Wikipedia, since I've not read it myself.  I may have seen the film, which is - er - rather different from the source novel.
     Surprise!  Art?

Not to scale

     The 'Moonraker' is an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile, carrying a nuclear warhead.  I don't know if the novel actually gives a yield for this, but given the Blue Danube designs of the time, it would only (!) have been about 10 kilotons.  What interested me was the fuel system used - liquid hydrogen and liquid fluorine as the oxidiser.  This is a theoretically feasible mixture, and because fluorine is one of the most powerful oxidising agents there is, it would deliver a very high Specific Impulse - of the order of 385 per second, very close to the maximum possible of 400.  Basically, this thing would go like stink, and create one, too, with perfectly ghastly exhaust fumes which would probably melt you from the inside.  Hydrofluoric acid will do that.  Mind you SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER if you're tied up underneath the missile's exhausts then what the fumes smell like is of little consequence, eh James?

"James felt a little ruffled as the Moonraker launched -"

Finally - 
In memento mori - since it was ANZAC Day a couple of days gone - let us celebrate the Anzac Biscuit!  Art?

There they are

     I've never made these before.  Hmmmm.  Let me get back to you on that -


*  "Mere puny human" when she's feeling entitled.