Friday Ephemera (671)
Rust of some significance. || The French being French. || The atmosphere of the Sun. || When you want to be at an angle. || Incoming. || Incoming 2. And yes, they survived. || One for the bargain hunters. || Our betters being better than us. || Washing instructions should always be read carefully. || Nesting materials. || At last, a dance music genre quiz. Can you sort the dubstep and glitch hop from the darkstep and post-dubstep? || It’s nice to be appreciated. || The progressive retail experience, parts 460 and 461. The second of which is pleasingly interrupted. || The pulp magazine archive. || A project for the weekend. || I’m guessing it’s not a good sign when the wheel comes off. || Mug retrieval of note. || “Zarkov invents a machine that makes Flash invisible.” || And finally, I think I’ll call him Chompers.
And yes, by all means, follow me on Twitter.
What, it’s Friday already?
I’d flunk. The only thing I know about dubstep is that it sounds like Optimus Prime fucking a dishwasher.
Hotel toilet – American Standard brand – heh.
“Zarkov invents a machine that makes Flash invisible.”
Odd, I thought that was a video of David and a henchlesbian operating the Link-O-Matic 9000™.
Farnsworth, stop saying that! I still have nightmares about the Scold-o-Matic 9000.
I’m guessing it’s not a good sign when the wheel comes off.
I like how he puts on the emergency brake before he exits the vehicle.
“Zarkov invents a machine that makes Flash invisible.”
Nope. Not going to fall for that again. Last time you put a Flash Gordon in Ephemera I spent days watching all the episodes I could find.
I’d flunk. The only thing I know about dubstep is that it sounds like Optimus Prime fucking a dishwasher.
I did flunk, it all sounds like a bunch of spoons and loose change thrown into a sink garbage disposal, but less melodic.
sounds like Optimus Prime fucking a dishwasher.
Boinking the Bosch, making the Maytag, schtupping the Samsung…
Is the salmonella included?
Morning, all.
Yes, and now you can watch them in dreamlike colour. I’d forgotten that most of the cast is striding about in hotpants. Apparently, that’s a thing in outer space.
Think of it as pre-fondled chicken.
“One for the bargain hunters.“
This is why I shop at Waitrose…
[ Rummages under bar, eventually emerges with an unstained coaster. ]
There you go, madam.
That needs to happen every time.
“The second of which is pleasingly interrupted”
A lucrative career in the NBA beckons.
Well, it must be utterly demoralising for staff to watch thieves getting ever bolder and clearly expecting to thieve, in bulk, with impunity. And it occurs to me that if you’re one of the verminous creatures doing this and you then assault any member of staff who tries to intervene, and then, apparently, spit on them – an unequivocal gesture of contempt – you should expect to be punched to the floor. Before waking, in a cell, to discover that you’ve lost several teeth.
After all, that would be justice, would it not?
Justice? Not in clown world.
The “victim” will often end up considerably richer (hence the theatrical fall) although in this case the necessary intersectional qualifications may be lacking.
The pulp magazine archive is great.
Yes. And if you like that kind of thing, there is a lot of it.
It also occurs to me that pre-fondled chicken is a passable band name.
This means war.
Seems a little carb-heavy. I realise that’s not the only objection one might have.
That looked like a knockout blow.
And have been sentenced to transportation. To Australia. Or a rare earth mine in Africa.
Suggested experiment: See what his rock does to his own head.
And in this case, the perp should be placed in a sealed box with 100 hungry rats. While his parents and friends are forced to watch.
Cardinal or clown?
It really does need the car sound from the Jetsons cartoon.
A valid question.
Stupid analysis, though, but consider the source.
Well, I suppose that if you’re a Guardian reader and you dream of a fragrant, cuddlesome high-trust society, in which people want to use public transport and are able to leave their bicycles unattended for more than 30 seconds, then you’re going to have to deal with the bipedal rat problem. And the ones who want such things and bang on about it in the Guardian tend to have difficulty with even the idea of practical pest control.
Let me see if I have this right, by using cellulose, which comes from plants or made in a factory, they have made fake liquid trees that need to be enclosed in glass and illuminated by electricity as an alternative to a real urban trees just like the one next to it in the photos.
I am not sure it is an upgrade, even by Serbian standards.
(As a bonus scroll down for the sneakers no one asked for)
“Anthropologist” in the audience wonders why he is being laughed at.
That.
Well, it’s perhaps worth noting that in Mr Becket’s article, he bemoans “theft… with impunity” and its effects on those who can ill-afford replacing whatever was stolen. He also bemoans the resignation and “acceptance” of those being preyed upon and whose lives are being degraded, sometimes repeatedly, sometimes at knife point. “Bike theft,” he says, “has never been taken seriously.”
And yet the words punishment and prison, or any synonyms and related concepts, simply don’t appear anywhere in the piece. As if the criminal predators, often organised gangs – the ones treating him with utter contempt and stealing his possessions – could be decisively corrected with “better bike racks.”
It’s very Guardian, and almost funny.
But isn’t that what stopped the Mongols? /sarcasm
An appreciation of knob feel.
Previously.
The ‘take that’ fillip at the end that gives it a certain je ne sais quoi.
My wife saw retail theft happen right in front of her for the first time in a Ross discount store here just last week. Two women in hijabs. The hispanic store employee seemed quite distressed. She was trying to tell them that they couldn’t put store clothes on, multiple layers, and just walk out the door. When my wife related some of this in context of a similar episode being discussed on a conservative-leaning social media group, I think it was a Facebook group, she got a bit of push back by being told (as if she didn’t know…she had worked retail herself and been trained “appropriately”) that that staff wasn’t allowed to intervene, as if that was crux of her comment. Then after she explained that yes, she knew this because of what I just said, a couple of these supposedly conservative…”conservative” people started picking at the word she had used to describe the sales person…”you said clerk, was it a clerk or associate?” That sort of wtf knows and does it really matter BS.
It’s demoralizing to the customers as well.
Why do you think they would care?
For the few weeks that I lived in Tokyo I would go to Omotesando Dori on Sunday afternoons to see the local bands playing up and down the street. On of my favorites, though a bit too Led Zeppelin derivative, was called King Fucker Chicken.
[ Rolls single, fluff-covered peanut along bar. ]
You’re welcome.
I’m thinking of all the “he dint do nuffin!” people who start screaming when a punk is justifiably shot.
“An appreciation of knob feel.”
Oh, baby baby…
er…nevermind
Speaking of which, did you read about the punk who was shot dead when he assaulted an off duty chicago cop and was shot dead? His family is suing for $10 million.
This one’s funny: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oib8o7qAKXg&ab_channel=KnobFeel
Those people don’t care about the perp in question. They’re just helping setup the table for if…likely when…they get caught doing anything. It’s not ‘he’ dindunuffin. It’s ‘we’ dindunuffin. This is obvious to those who have done the analysis.*
*h/t to happyfeet, wherever you went to.
That.
Flash gordon: what I’ve always wondered is–did they know how campy it was or was that the best they could do?
rust: “how did he die?”–“somehow he just fell out. it is a mystery”
Yes. But also no: I have seen reports of the family and friends and neighbors raging at the death of a thug. I also once saw a video from a black church in which the preacher clearly said that Jesus was waiting to welcome every vicious ghetto thug.
Thieves and muggers can of course be dealt with in other ways.
One of WTP’s boring stories for Ephemera day so skip on if necessary…
When I first moved to this neighborhood, into a house that for whatever reason has a fireplace, I didn’t have those fireplace cleaning tools, the little shovel, the brush, the poker, the tong-thingy…whatever that set is called. I’m sure there’s a name for it. So anyway, walking to the country club one night for dinner & etc, all those years ago I saw a neighbor had put one of those things out by the curb. Walking home after a little too much…or just the right amount…purely by accident I saw her as she was taking out other trash. Rather than just take the thing I politely asked the rather rhetorical question and she said sure. She was getting rid of it because it was all loose and rattley and whatever. I’m thinking probably lost a screw or something, I could fix it. From her demeanor I got the impression she hated the damn thing and was glad to see me take it. This being Florida, it’s not the kind of thing I would bother to buy yet OTOH something I could definitely use. It was also rather nice, not just cheap metal but the tools had wood handles of a color that would look real nice in our place. Did I mention that this lady was someone who whenever I saw her was pretty much always was wearing a “Johns Hopkins University” shirt or sweatshirt of some kind? Always looked new and neat. Her house was one of the nicest, well kept places in our neighborhood..
Anyway I get the thing home and notice that the handles and such just needed to be tightened, maybe some tape applied to the threads to lessen the loosening problem. A screwdriver was needed to tighten up the bracket post but it was no big deal to fix. Anyway…I thought of that lady today as I was cleaning out the fireplace. As April is approaching we won’t be making a fire again. In the process I had to futz with the fireplace itself as the chain-mail thingy that keeps the ashes from burning the floor came loose. First time that happened. Futzed around and fixed that. Also had to tighten the handle on the little shovel thingy as the plumbers’ tape, or wtf it’s called, that I put on the threads had finally, after a ten years or so, worn out. In the process I was thinking how I have no idea what the proper words are for all those tools/devices. Boy am I dumb. I imagined that one might, in the process of writing a fancy-pants novel, use the proper terms for all those things. A novel like one you might be required to read if you went to school at university just like Johns Hopkins.
…did they know how campy it was…
Once they entered wardrobe they had a pretty good idea
And you take them at their word? The “preacher” too? Interesting.
[ Rolls single, fluff-covered peanut along bar. ]
Dude. Why isn’t there any salt and pepper on the tables? Boy, if you had grown up in our house…
Thieves and muggers can of course be dealt with in other ways.
As can car hijackers.
Too busy retching to fight.
I’d like to hear these guys’ take on that one.
I scored 27401. Which is embarrassingly high. I think they’re making some of them up, to be honest. It was bad enough when I stopped paying attention in the late ’90s, but at this stage, basically every single track is a different “genre”.
Hmm. American Film Fun seems to have been very different to the British version.
(My dad used to tell me it was his favourite comic as a kid, before the Beano and Dandy came along and blew everything else out of the water.)
See also, tea in a microwave.
All good-hearted people know that microwaves are for warming plates.
All good-hearted people know that dance music peaked in 1991/92.
So am I. It’s on the tip of my tongue. But every search for “fireplace tools” comes up with a bunch of results for… fireplace tools.
Stupid internet.
Suggested experiment: See what his rock does to his own head.
there are multiple vids online of thieves using a brick to attack plate glass and having it bounce back and knock them out. Priceless.
The vid of the barricade and they are grilling the driver for why they need to go into that area…a busybody wet dream. You can only go where we give you permission to go. To save the planet!!! And the impracticality of forcing people to walk, take bikes and buses is never acknowledged.
Quite. Imagine the kinds of people to whom it would appeal.
Dude. Why isn’t there any salt and pepper on the tables?
Wypipo don’t season their peanuts.
Making assumptions. I’m part Irish. Bugger off.
Dog with a bell: if you are dumb enough to give your dog a bell, you deserve the ding ding ding.
My grandmother proudly would say we were part scots-irish but I was 50 before I understood that Oliver Cromwell 400 yrs ago brought loyal scots (protestant) in to rule the conquered N. Ireland (Catholic). 400 yrs ago and my grandma in the US was still keen to make the distinction. Not irish. ugh. scots-irish.
I’ll just leave this here, I think.
Speaking of Japan…We’ve run through our Clarkson’s Farm episodes last Monday. Had to explain the “I just became a tripod” to my wife…anyway…Amazon suggested the James May series about Japan, Our Man in Japan IIRC. I haven’t heard any talk about it over here though. Would you recommend it? We have a thing about Sunday/Monday shows like that. Generally construction/building/creating stuff but travel stuff and sometimes history stuff works on those days as well….for some reason…
Er… no. It has its moments, but it’s very low-key, by which I mean, pretty dull. The Hammond and May solo ventures that I’ve seen are less successful.
Thanks. That would have been my guess based on his personality. I greatly enjoyed the few episodes that I saw of the original Top Gear. I found the other two guys a bit dull in comparison, but especially May. He seems like a nice enough guy but that also seems that might be the issue. Or non-issue…whatever Tried to watch the first episode of Grand Tour or whatever but I wasn’t really drawn in by it and it didn’t hold much interest for the wife. She loves Clarkson though. I’m thinking I should hunt around for the original Top Gear but last time I tried that during the pandemic, I either couldn’t find it or it was country restricted or something. I did recently (I think) sign us up for BritBox which I presume is just an outside-UK thing. Some remotely in-laws are fans and post about watching it. I wanted to show the wife those Yes, Minister shows which we found via Amazon. I forgot how few of them there actually were. There was a “free trial” of BritBox that was required that I didn’t cancel but I haven’t gone exploring the BritBox concept yet as we’re still watching Minister via Amazon. Comedies and dramas (well Columbo) are the sort of thing we watch near the end of the week and we have a good backlog of that kind of stuff right now.
If you’re stuck for something to watch, I’d suggest the Top Gear Polar Special, and the Grand Tour Mongolia Special, aka Survival of the Fattest.
There used to be a saying that “An Ulsterman is an Irishman who’ll knock you down if you call him one”. My great-grandfather was from Armagh, and apparently that described him to a “T”.
[ Puts valuables in shoes. ]
Thanks. I do recall we watched something about the three of them taking power boats up the Mekong river that was incredibly cringy. Don’t recall what series that was a part of but…mmm…err…glad I wasn’t on that film crew.
The global warming one was great. I wonder if it’s been memory-holed.
Teen booted from Pokemon tournament.
Pronouns are serious stuff indeed.
Meanwhile a gentleman with a medical mystery.
Sure, why not? Evil people can love their friends and relatives too.
For anyone suffering from Top Gear/Grand Tour withdrawal. Less buggering about (although there is a proper Hammond Moment), and no May or Clarkson, but it’s rather good nonetheless.
Pokemon tournament stuff
If you think doxing people over judge calls is the right play, go home and rethink your life
Maybe being a judge at a pokemon tournament is good grounds for going home and re-thinking your life.
Hope I’m not the only one who recalls Penelope Keith in To the Manor Born.
See, this is one of those academic why-nots. Sure. Sounds reasonable. And it’s all a matter of degree of evil, of course, of course. People who are evil, raised in evil, who use what little good they allow into their lives as just another weapon for evil, not much love there, if any. But that’s just MNSHO. I do have tremendous sympathy for those who by whatever circumstances beyond their control,must live amongst such people, who fight against such evil. But evil people like that, nope.
But remember all those Nazi killers who by all accounts loved their families and friends?
Maybe being an ideologue at any tournament…
Buy physical media.
Even they were not this kind of evil. Even the leaders, as awful as they were, had principles. Grossly misguided principles, ego driven principles. But sufficient principles to hold together a functional civilization. A fascism way out of its time but not significantly different from that of the earlier race-based empires of most of human history.
This other sort of evil is far, far more feral. Much closer to animal type behavior. Our only saving grace being that such a vacuum of morals and honor cannot generally function to support itself. A hate for everyone and everything that differs from them. Hate even for their own kind on the other side of the street. This sort of hate is hampered by its own inability to organize itself. That’s some concentrated evil right there.
It is, I think, extraordinary how widely and rapidly the pronoun game has spread and been seemingly accepted by so many, or at least has been imposed on them with little pushback. As if the problems it necessarily entails, not least the erosion of probity and the general air of farce, were unobvious or difficult to fathom. You’d think people might at least intuit some vague sense of dodginess.
On the subject of schoolchildren’s homework.
That would be a grossly inappropriate intrusion into someone’s private thoughts and feelings even if the students were 20 years old. But for young children? Concrete overshoes come to mind.
The school is, I think, a high school and the children teenagers, but as you say, the age of the children is a pinhead to dance on. It’s still a matter of coercing minors to reveal or invent their sexual fantasies, presumably for reasons that need not be elaborated. Which sounds very much like a basis for firing, possibly prosecution, and certainly a good kicking in a darkened alleyway.
Oh, there’s more:
The teacher in question has been “placed on leave” following parents’ concerns.
Auto racing, the Australian Grand Prix F1 also has Drag.
Meanwhile, good parenting means being supportive.
As I said, and it bears repeating: It is a gross violation of the dignity and privacy of any individual to demand these sorts of personal revelations.
But “progressives” have trouble recognizing the concept of the personal, the private, and the dignity and autonomy of the individual: All must be slaves of the Collective.
A “drag race” of men in drag was a joke when I was a kid. I never expected it to become reality.
A fat queen in hotpants vogueing badly doesn’t really cut it. As I’ve said before, It might at least be entertaining to see enormous hair, fake boobs and yards of billowing chiffon all thundering along at 200 kph.
This sort of hate is hampered by its own inability to organize itself.
To WTP’s point, when Antifa in Seattle (or portland?) captured a neighborhood and declared CHAZ they could not even govern 1/8 sq mile and they had rapes and murders happen.
Oh, there’s even more than that (my emphasis)…
https://www.christianpost.com/news/health-teacher-placed-on-leave-over-sexual-fantasies-assignment.html
Children’s whole lives are not supposed to be the business of school teachers–but their totalitarian ambitions become clearer with each passing day.
Unitarians? Figures. I remember, from many years ago (60’s or 70’s) a Unitarian church which had a sex education class for kids in which the reading list was mostly pornography.
Was it also the one about the badgers? That touched on some environmental stuff that I found refreshing in the current context. Was also amusing in the context of Clarkson’s having to deal with them.
He’s educating us, you know.
Mr Riley Dennis, mentioned here recently, is now a sporting figure.