Friday Ephemera (750)
Incoming. || Incoming 2. || Machine uprising, day 8. Previously. || Please deposit keys in secure storage box. || Load-bearing rave balcony. || Improvised theatre deemed insufficiently gay. || Gather sandbags, passports, and be ready to sell the house. || He’s a hugger. || Width issue. || When starfish attack. || “The owner serves customers while moving like a robot.” || Penetrating rays. || “Salaam, don’t stress,” he says, helpfully. || The progressive retail experience, parts 603, 604, 605, and 606. || To prevent cheating, obviously. || Quality care. || Adventures in modernity. || He “combats racism” by being obnoxious and racist. || Best not to, really. || I suspect the first sentence may be a lie. || And lo, an alarming wind. || Wheel of fortune. || First taste. || And finally, you want one and you know it.
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In the comments to that post Steve 2 lists some games including “Sim Gulag”, “Stasi the Hedgehog”, and “Trabant Racer”.
Regarding the latter, that could be exciting, two cylinder two stroke, four on the tree, what is not to like? Many such cases…
Travel tip: Babyland General Hospital
The Husband and I are enjoying a weekend in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia. Whilst driving around, we passed by Babyland – it is where Cabbage Patch Dolls are “born.” Having a penchant for the bizarre and absured (hence why I lurk here daily), I demanded my Husband pull in. After all, admission was free and who doesn’t like a freak show.
Now, to be fair, there were people there with children. I overheard one grandmotherly type mention to a little girl that she already owned nineteen Cabbage Patch dolls, which I suspected were kept at Meemaw’s home for “safekeeping.” Because there were a number of childless women of an age north of 50 who were visiting . . . and shopping.
Okay, nursery rooms with dolls in cribs were set up. An elderly woman in a nurse’s outfit greets you at the main reception desk. Meh. But in the middle of a giant store was a tree, beneath which was “Mother Cabbage.” Hanging from the tree were lighted “Bunnybees” whose job was to pollinate Mother Cabbage. And around the base of the tree, in a mound that was faceless Mother Cabbage’s body, were little doll heads, some of which were moving ever so slightly, their blank eyes staring into your soul.
Freaky, enough? Ah, no – suddenly, a voice came over the PA, informing us that Mother Cabbage was dilated and the miracle of birth of a Cabbage Patch doll was imminent, so could we please move to her in the middle of the store? At regular intervals we were kept up to date as to how her birth was progressing. Finally, a woman in scrubs appeared and introduced herself as Mother Cabbage’s midwife.
She told us that Mother Cabbage appeared to be fully dilated and she could see a head, also adding that if she saw a limb, they call that a “trunk birth” and a c-section might be needed. She teasingly asked the audience whether they had predictions of a girl baby or a boy baby (I wanted to yell out “Intersex!” but the Husband had the car keys in his possession and I didn’t want to have to call an Uber). When the chorus seemed to favor a girl, she told us that crystals near the birth site (discreetly by her but out of sight) would glow the color to indicate the baby’s sex and lo, pink appeared.
She then picked up what looked like a surgical instrument to help her birth the baby, made a snip while explaining that sometimes an episiotomy was needed (JFC!) and asked us to yell “Push! Push!” And lo, a Cabbage Patch doll was born, to cheers and appaluse from the assembled (at that point, I asked my Husband was he sure he did not have his flask on him?).
We had seen enough. For the record, a “newborn” was available for $39.99 and there was a large display of accoutrements that you may need, such as diapers and bottles. Needless to say, we did not spend any time shopping and left as women gathered about the tree to admire the blessed arrival.
Keep this in mind for your next road trip . . .
I mean, when you’re 64 years old, as Mr Mason is, it is, I’d suggest, time to grow the fuck up.
Maybe he’s already in his second childhood?
Can’t listen to the PoC what with these deranged men having hysterics.
Maybe he should stick to churning out plonk.
There is nothing the left/liberal/progressive won’t f*** up.
Lies of the Left: for some political activists, they know they are lying but rationalize it as “for the revolution”. But I am afraid that for many many wokies, they no longer can tell what is true or false. All they know is their own feelings. They have been told so often about “lived experience” and “your truth” and truth is relative and all cultures are equal and up is down that they are lost in word land. They can proclaim gays for palestine with a straight face. They can turn away from the Rothamstad girls with no qualms. They can be the medical examiner for Floyd who proclaims he doesn’t need the drug test results to determine cause of death. They can decide to hand out little business cards on the train when confronted by crazy. Reality is all just how you feel, you see.
Thomas Sowell is instructive. As a young black man he was a left wing radical, full of anger. As he studied economics he realized a bunch of truths and became conservative. If you can change your mind when confronted with the facts, you can navigate the world properly.
Trabant: I saw one a few years ago. I was eating out lunch and noticed it in the parking lot. I saw a guy in the restaurant who looked like an aging communist. I figured, has to be his. Sure enough. I got a good look at it as I left. It is not only a crap car, but the guy had to pay to have it shipped to the US. hahahaha
Stephanie Richer: We visited Babyland on our honeymoon 33 years ago, so I’m happy to see that some traditions are still being maintained. My wife denies it made her decide to have children with me, but still I wonder …
but the guy had to pay to have it shipped to the US. hahahaha
If he was former military and relocated from Germany back to the US then the government paid to ship it. My mother worked on a base in Germany and bought a new Audi. The government paid to ship it when she came home.
Mistakes were made.
Maybe he should stick to churning out plonk.
‘We shall overthrow no capitalist swine before it’s time.’
I have noticed that as well. And can empathize completely.
I have noticed that as well. And can empathize completely.
He hasn’t been the same since he underwent therapy to get off of clonazepam.
It is not only a crap car, but the guy had to pay to have it shipped to the US.
Only in comparison with contemporary western cars. If the alternative is being crammed like sardines on a bus or tram with a bunch of other comrades or using LPCs, it was fit for purpose – unless of course one was a ranking party apparatchik and got a Wartburg.
I met a guy at a car show with one, said anybody who can turn a screwdriver can fix one and has a bit of brilliance in its simplicity – there is a service jack one can get which tilts the whole car 45 degrees so you can work on the underside, the sort of things you need in a country that had not a hell of a lot for the average Johann Sechspackung.
Meanwhile, speaking of shipping to the US…
Only in comparison with contemporary western cars.
Tell me about it. My first car was a 1969 Toyota Corolla 1100. Now that was a shit box. You could literally watch the body oxidise before your very eyes.
On X, I am bickering… about sharing links.
Well much like Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, many on the right could learn a thing or two from that in reverse. Tho not sure I’m familiar with this Paul Mason character. I thought he was all about not selling wine before its time. I could now nonsequitorily segue into what a d-bag Orson Wells was…but I’d rather not.
Understatement of the year has an early contender.
Tell me about it. My first car was a 1969 Toyota Corolla 1100. Now that was a shit box….
I should have said contemporaneous – at the end of the East German run in 1990 the only thing that really changed since the late 1950s were body panels and the engine getting an extra 100cc (up to a whopping 600). In the same period in West Germany for the average Joe cars went from the likes of Beetles (which at the end of their run still had all the creature comforts of a Trabi) and BMW Isettas to Golfs and E30s.
OTOH, for the average Joe in East Germany the lack of change meant spares were readily available, so that had that going for them.
Regardless, your point about the Corolla is spot on, there were plenty of cars of that general vintage that were pretty much equally craptastic – the first Japanese imports, Chevy Vegas, Morris Marinas, many such cases.
Heh. Pass that frequently. Wife hints that maybe we should check it out. I kinda vaguely reply…yeah…maybe. Then she mentioned it to her sister who laughed at the idea. It’s starting to appeal to me.
Over the years, I’ve had quite a few conversations very much like this.
Here’s a transatlantic/continental/UK kerfuffle that could be…uh…fun. Noel or Nowell?
Same here. On many, many topics from economics to religion to software development methodologies to finance to…etc. etc. etc.
Added, sometimes coming through both sides of the same argument.
‘Grooming gangs’ is Islamophobic.
‘Grooming gangs’ is Islamophobic.
Grooming gangs is a very good reason to fear Islam.
conversations like this:
“Women should take care when they go out at night and take care to not get pregnant”
“men should not rape”
“But they do. Also, a guy can just walk away from a pregnant girlfriend”
“they shouldn’t”
“But they can and do”
etc.
“grooming gangs is islamaphobic”
If you point out facts, that is not “phobic” or racist. If all the grooming gangs are paki, then pakis have a cultural problem they need to deal with.
Another hazard of growing old.
A hazard of not frequently tarring and feathering council commissars.
Yet another murderous subway lunatic.
I’d like to suggest a new technique for dealing with such people: Being crazy and/or being under the influence of drugs will no longer be an extenuating circumstance.
Video of George Friedrich Handel performing his newest composition, “Water Music”, for King George I in 1717 (colorized)
Tho that orchestra hit at the end is kinda cool.
It seems morally obvious that a criminal being psychotic or dispositionally violent is not a mitigating factor, but quite the opposite. If someone cannot be relied upon to observe normal social restraints, and cannot be relied upon to learn from their arrest, they are likely to remain dangerous, and this is more of a reason to brick them up in a dungeon.
It is to those deathly afraid of facts.
Orchestra members: “I spent how much to play backup to a lousy third grade science lesson?”
In ‘almost too incredible to be believed’ news, as the Labour Party and the PM fight off those awful colonials trying to imply that they are happy to see white girls raped by Pakistani immigrants, they release a TikTok video to try to hook young voters.
And that’s when things go from wrong to very wrong!
Heh. Oh dear.
Case in point, this deranged drugged out tranny:
The message to such people should be “If you don’t want to end up on death row, you’d better clean up your act because the law will show no mercy.”