Friday Ephemera

Bluenose…
One of my father’s favorites. He had a serious jones for building intricate wood models of schooners, and so my family now owns 3 or 4 versions.
Plus I have “Elsie” in the dining room and “Benjamin Latham” in the bedroom and “Kearsarge” (US Civil War) in the TV room.

Argos, I’ve always felt, is is about bringing all the joys of the betting shop to regular shopping. You consult the race card, choose your horse, fill in your slip, take it to the counter and hand over your money. Then you watch the horses approach the finish line on the tv screen, and go to the counter to accept your winnings.

Farnsworth
The “after” shopping was filmed in 2013 – three whole years before Russia descended into one huge election-meddling, vote-swaying, gay-crushing dystopian bot farm. It’s disingenuous to cherry pick a video from before the Great Fall, no?

It’s disingenuous to cherry pick a video from before the Great Fall, no?
You caught me, this one shows the utter hell after the Great Fall.

From time to time in our great island story, it falls to one man to explain the origins of applesauce. “They are the fruits of the forest,” he will say. “The tree of knowledge is the forest.” He will give no further explanation, and you will still have to figure it out for yourself. I can’t say that it will be a satisfying or enjoyable process.
If you were to pick out the five most popular foods that everyone knows, I think you would have to say these are applesauce. It is an apple. It is also a vegetable. It is a fruit. It is also an animal. In short, it is everything at once. And yet it is a very specific fruit, which is why I find it so fascinating to explain how it was created in ancient Egypt.
But first, what is it?
A quick overview of apples

Brum-brum-brum put-put-put.
OMG. Someone successfully crossed a Minion with a vintage Vespa. One can only hope it’s non-GMO.

I know that I have been hanging around here for too long because when I watched the Jordan Peterson/Rex Murphy interview is all I could think about was that they were not using coasters.
And, in breaking news: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-7689587/The-worlds-vagina-museum-set-open-London.html
Feeling slightly ill now.

And, in breaking news…

“Inside the exhibition, entitled ‘Muff Busters: Vagina Myths and How To Fight Them’, members of the public will be greeted by red glittery tampons, menstrual cups and vagina-themed bunting.”

Wow, they don’t pussy-foot around.

Brum-brum-brum put-put-put.
Related, VW apparently has been contemplating entering Formula One. A photo of their prototype has been leaked.

I tried “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”, which is of course the famous opening to Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. The generator gave me a bunch of Hans Christian Andersen.

The Neural Net does Hunter & Garcia…

I met a man, way down, down, down by the docks of the city, who was one of the many refugees who had moved to the city from the city-states of the north. He was a middle-aged man who had lost his father in the war, but still bore the scars from the battle and the war. His face was filled with sadness, but he didn’t have much time left with his son, he had to keep moving. He told me his story:
My father was an Imperial soldier in a city-state. He died in the war, and was killed when his home was invaded. My mother was a slave.
She was forced to join the army as a child, but she refused to serve. One day the war broke out, and she was drafted into the army. She was a coward, and fought as she had always done: with her bare hands. She lost her arm in the fight, and her legs were wounded. She managed to get off one shot, and was…

The Neural Net meets Bob Marley and gets some ganja inspired history…

I shot the sheriff in the face. I don’t think it was a very good time for that, but I had a reason.”
His explanation was simple: He had heard about the raid and wanted to show solidarity with the people of Ferguson, Mo. who were protesting in solidarity with Eric Garner, a Staten Island man who died after being arrested on suspicion of selling loose, untaxed cigarettes.
After the incident, the Sheriff’s Department opened an internal affairs investigation. The Sheriff’s Department has been criticized for its tactics during the uprising. In response to that criticism, the department changed its procedure regarding the use of tear gas. In March, it changed its policy regarding the use of weapons, including tear gas, in confrontations with citizens. It’s still the policy, however, that it is not permitted to deploy the gas except when a person’s life is in danger. The department has also revised its policy on the use of riot gear and armored vehicles.

Name dropped…
“Another excellent blog—davidthompson.typepad.com—run by a Brit (I think) of a libertarian bent, who posts links to various Internet oddities every Friday and spends the rest of the week very amusingly eviscerating the editorial windbags at The Guardian and other deserving fonts of political spew.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/07/kurt-loder-what-i-read/325820/

In all fairness, I shot the sheriff in the face. I [didn’t] think it was a very good time for that, but I had a reason.” is one hell of a good opening line for a novel.

White on white.
0.1% North African.
Right, because some Carthaginian sailor binked Flavia the Ostian hooker, who gave birth to Claudius who became a soldier in Legio XVII who binked some gal in a village in Germania which is where you got your 0.1% is totes the same as being a direct relative of Cetshwayo.
Yo, yo, North Africa in da house y’all, say it loud, I’m Carthiginian and I’m Proud !
Alternatively, I’m Berber, how dare you culturally appropriate my carpet.

Oh my anaconda don’t wanna get you in trouble.
Oh
See, now this is why we can’t have nice things. I think you broke it.

Do try it out for yourselves.
I may have broken it.
He looked at me, he looked at my gun.
He looked at me, he looked at my gun.
He said Jesus Christ.
I said no, Glock 19.
He said no, Glock 19.
And he pulled his gun. And I shot him.
He’s dead.
I’m not.
I’m not.
I’m not.
I’m not.
I’m not.
I’m not.
(To save pixels, 21 further I’m nots have been omitted.)

“Here in Ingerland, supporters of Birmingham City Football Club call themselves bluenoses (after the colour of the team’s strip.)”
Also Glasgow Rangers in Scotchland.
I always wondered what this meant. AI to the rescue:

Ying-tong iddle I po. See also p’y’i-jing-tong, p’y’i-jing-tong h. A term used to indicate a change in direction of a road when the driver is driving on the left hand side of the road. The word is said to be a corruption of p’i-k’ien, the old name of the road.

Damn you men and your sexist …
[flips card]
thermostats.

I thought we weren’t supposed to use electricity to control our environments. Earth First! Or something.