Friday Ephemera

Finally! 🙂

“They’re gaining on us.”
Dog we had that needed an ear operation never learned the trick of going through a door wearing the Cone of Shame. Cats simply ditched them at the first opportunity.

jars of handcrafted hump fat and other unappealing products.
I’ll pass on the hump fat.
But the flask gloves are awesome.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0789R3NDT/ref=?tag=drsynth-20

Door shits in Shoreditch?

I have to say, those really are impressive balls.

“What do youngsters do there?” “We make perfect balls of aluminum out of boredom, and you?” “We eat Tide Pods”

That grain elevator reminds me…. they’ve started painting old disused or underused silos in country towns in my state of Victoria. I don’t always like the results (I actually really love the simple industrial beauty of silos and think smothering them all with paint is more than a little tacky) but some of the works aren’t so bad. Check them out here.

Albeit, no surprise, the book was better.
I was actually surprised that the film, 2010, isn’t bad. It ain’t Kubrick, and the ending’s a tad schmaltzy for my taste, but there are moments of genuine tension. As when Jupiter is being upgraded.

“For fun.”

“For fun.”
The words simulated pus should pull in the customers.

Thanks for the Cordon Bleu potato cooking class. Very useful!

The words simulated pus should pull in the customers.
Well, now we know what the market for the hump fat is.

Who has the better 80s hair?
It’s close but I think Patti wins, what with the jumpsuit.

If anyone has trouble with comments not appearing, email me and I’ll rattle the spam filter.

I’m trying to remember when, exactly, Michael McDonald went off the rails. The Doobie Brothers had some good albums, but then, out of nowhere McDonald got all . . . disco-y.

Battleships solitaire.
*Writes off afternoon*

what
https://twitter.com/IHLaking/status/979138955181371393

jars of handcrafted hump fat and other unappealing products.
I don’t know whether to get the ingrown toenail phone case or the Kim Kardashian human centipede T-shirt.

Vanessa Slothouber
Seems an appropriate name somehow.

Continuing the toilet-related motif:

Via Obnoxio.

Again, I’m not so much surprised that people shit on doorsteps. That anyone would defend such for any reason is the real problem.
Excuse-making is a defining vice of our age.

Excuse-making is a defining vice of our age.
There are always people ready to make excuses, even when the criminal was using a gun or beating a victim with a baseball bat. No matter how vicious the violence, the criminal has friends and family who will condemn his victims for successfully defending themselves.
The comments in the linked item describe the victim as a “poor old sod”. I’ve always wondered: Is “old sod” always or nearly always an affectionate expression? I get that impression from the few instances I have read.

Is “old sod” always or nearly always an affectionate expression?
Usually, as in this case. Though it can also be the opposite.

Falling down the twitter rabbit hole, I ran across John Barrowman pitching a fit because the manager at the Hollywoo Target told him not to buy stuff for the homeless guy outside. Now everybody in the world is losing their minds, Target’s PR bot is doing damage control, and the virtue signalling meter has been reduced to a smouldering ruin.
And all because some Target drone had the gall to internalize the advice given by the “DON’T FEED THE ANIMALS” sign at the park he visited when he was growing up.

[me in the Princess Leia buns, 1961]
I see you’re supervising the carving.

Apropos of nothing but our host’s stated fondness for The Blacklist, I ran off the end of fourth season this week. I have progressed beyond the point of being appalled by the blatant pandering; I have now reached Charmed/Switched at Birth levels of assuming that the entire show is deliberately Poe’s Law trolling.
David, if you’re enjoying the relationship between Navabi and Aram check out NBC’s Chuck (2007), which was clearly the template for it. I’m rewatching it now.

our host’s stated fondness for The Blacklist,
I’m assuming the rest of you don’t have guilty pleasures…?

Also, I knew when my parents were planning a dinner party — Sister and I were being shipped out to the grandparents’ for the weekend and mom would be getting out the ashtrays with the barely naughty cartoons on them from the back cabinet.
Great memories.

The envy of the world.

I believe the phrase “aspiring rapper” has become a meme.
As has his momma claiming “he din’ do nuffin”, aka Dindu Nuffin as a catch-all name for thwarted thugs.

“Continuing the toilet-related motif:”
This is why I don’t worry about AI. There’s a good little passage in Neil Stephenson’s The Diamond Age that mirrors my feelings about it, in fact:

Supposedly Finkle-McGraw still kept up with things and would recognise the abbreviation for pseudo-intelligence, and perhaps even appreciate that Hackworth had made the assumption.
Finkle-McGraw brightened a bit. “You know, when I was a lad, they called it A.I.: artificial intelligence.”
Hackworth allowed himself a tight, narrow, and brief smile. “Well, there’s something to be said for cheekiness, I suppose.”

“I’m assuming the rest of you don’t have guilty pleasures…?”
I’m sure I’ve mentioned these three oriental ladies before.

I think someone needs to cajole the spam filter for me.
Freed.

“Why are cyclists in London typically white?”
So apparently it’s “strange” and problematic that human beings aren’t entirely interchangeable or equally distributed among all possible activities. And it’s “strange” that members of some immigrant groups tend to regard cycling as an indicator of poverty, not status. And it’s “strange” that Muhammadan women in shrouds don’t regard cycling as terribly practical, assuming they’d be allowed to attempt it by their equally Muhammadan husbands. And so, for reasons that aren’t made clear, London’s “cycling boom” can’t be considered a “success” until it “becomes more representative of London’s population.” Because people must be made to behave in accord with baseless leftist presumption.
Such are the agonies of the New Statesman readership.

“Why are cyclists in London typically white?”
This came to mind. There seems to be some overlap in basic assumptions.

Oh dear. For reasons beyond my control, I’m about to watch The Hurricane Heist. It looks every bit as classy as you’d imagine.

That was quite a trailer.
I think it’s safe to say it’s not the pinnacle of cinema. I’ve now retreated into another room.

“…did I go to school too long?”
It’s quite funny to watch professed egalitarians instinctively and repeatedly using arguments from authority as a kind of mic drop, by invoking the status of institutions that their own politics have rendered worthless and absurd. As if the Clown Quarter were the measure of probity and intellectual heft.

As if the Clown Quarter were the measure of probity and intellectual heft.
Well, there certainly appears to be a surfeit of heft in the Clown Quarter, but “intellectual” doesn’t enter the picture.

Heh. Quite.

When 1960’s Leftists are confronted by their heirs
Well, leftism does have dysgenic effects.

When 1960’s Leftists are confronted by their heirs.
At some point, these institutions of higher learning will be forced to face the fact that Grievance Studies departments are cancerous. Unfortunately, when it comes, it will almost certainly be too late to save them.

This
The comments below that video review reaffirms my belief that YouTube has the worst and most idiotic commentary on the entire internet. Seriously.

The Brawndo gag was funny enough, but not nearly as funny as the internet meme of it. Oddly.

Cribbed from the AoSHQ ONT:
http://cheezburger.com/5263365/21-people-who-are-having-a-rough-one
Some of those are funny, some of those are (O_O)

Ephemeral:
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”

“Promising footballer”
Regarding our deceased burglar, the story gets more bizarre. A cousin of Mr Vincent is quoted as saying, “He was such a loving person… he shouldn’t have died out of it.” “It” being a long career of thieving, violence and criminal predation, such that the Vincent family’s unfortunate neighbours lived in fear of being targeted next. Some might argue that Mr Vincent’s death should have happened much sooner, say, during his very first attempt to violate someone’s home.
And of course the police have issued the usual statement implying a perverse moral equivalence. It’s “a tragic case for all of those involved,” they say. Apparently, the “thoughts” of the police also extend to the family of a thug who preyed on the elderly with – wait for it – the assistance of his father and other family members. Some of whom were also arrested in 2003 for thieving, burglary and conning pensioners out of their life savings.
It’s almost funny. But I can’t help thinking a little shame might be in order.

Promising footballer. Aspiring rapper.
Tragic – and indeed remarkable – that the violent gangsters murdering these prodigies don’t pick on their own sort. Instead they’re always going after good boys who love their Mum. And Dad presumably, although he never seems available for comment…

Beware: local weather can be dangerously capricious.
I’ll grant that this is an election year, with the situationally requisite speeches, but it is still a little early.