Monday, December 16, 2024
Megalithic
Saturday, December 14, 2024
BBC Quislings
Every so often I allow my inner monologue to be diverted into a brief put pointless rant about BBC Scotland's cheap, distorted and sycophantic news coverage. I actually haven't watched or listened to any of it for about ten years but those annoying memories remain. Avoiding the BBC's news coverage has been good medicine for me in terms of keeping 🤬 at bay and I'd recommend doing it. Occasionally I wonder if maybe I'm missing something really intelligent, informed and unbiased. I doubt it though.
Friday, December 13, 2024
Wet Belt
This article on wet belts in auto internal combustion engines has been semi-redacted by the ghostly powers of complete and benign authority.
Wednesday, December 11, 2024
SHOP NOW!
The simple graphics, the clear and compelling message, the good sense it describes, there on my phone, arriving seemingly from nowhere, without any context or invitation into my feed of carefully curated (by AI) information - and ending with that magic phrase "Shop Now". So did I stop what I was doing, did I obey and shop now? No.
Tuesday, December 10, 2024
Future Christmas
I'm now a few days away from my 69th Christmas. Bah Humbug! There's fine cheese and wine* and optional body warmers for all OAPs but no heating allowance. I'm tempted by the impractical thought of heavy drinking*. The relentless winter festival of whatever meaning you choose to give it or whatever meaning you're happy to have imposed on you is finally with us all. It arrives every year, now smoothly delivered via the pumpkin coloured sphincter of a USA themed Halloween.
I am however partial to mindless Christmas movies if the necessary drugs are unavailable or remain illegal. There, comfy on the couch, watching my smiling virtual friends resolving trivial problems on Netflix and somehow stumbling upon the true meaning of Christmas (?) and in so doing the true meaning of life. In a fantasy season everything can be true for a little while. What's not to like? Let the festivities commence*.
*One thing to note: I find that the older I get the less I can eat and drink. It's quite useful to experience this part of my physical degradation at this time of year when we're all supposed to binge on endless party food.
Monday, December 09, 2024
The Past Sure Is Tense
Sunday, December 08, 2024
Meeting Famous Actors
Above, should be obvious to all which one is Sassy the cat.
I haven't met very many famous actors in my time. I've never been involved in that world at all. However I was thinking the other day of one famous actor that I did meet over thirty years ago in Disneyland. It was at a live animal encounters show where animal actors perform tricks. Dogs, birds and monkeys do clever things while looking cute and eager. I'm not sure that the show is still part of the current menu of attractions there. Things have changed. We were more easily amused and impressed then.
Cats tend not to figure in animal shows but my encounter with fame was with Sassy, an cat actor. Well the cat I met was one of the ten different cats who played Sassy in the film, Sally Field did the voice. There was only ever one of her. So Sassy (not sure of her real name) performed and defied common animal knowledge in the sunny outside theater by doing various fetch and catch kind of things and also ran out several times amongst the audience. She was briefly next to me. So that was where I met her, turning tricks. The 1992 movie she starred in (Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey) made $57m worldwide. I hope she enjoyed a good retirement thanks to the proceeds.
Saturday, December 07, 2024
Orange Claw Hammer
Friday, December 06, 2024
Tiny Apple
Our tiny apple tree has provided us with a tiny crop of tiny apples of which this is one. No surprises there. The key is of course in the photo to provide some sense of scale. It's a regular sized door key. If you're wandering what the point of these tiny apples is then you're not the only one.
Wednesday, December 04, 2024
Interesting
The new Jaguar: Interesting concept car design but ... high angled gradients, speed bumps and pot holes? Perhaps there are sensors that adjust the height. Not that I could ever afford one anyway. Not really my thing.
Why?
Genuinely not sure why any sane person would click on that "sign up here" button and actually sign up for such a feast of stale propaganda and biased political pish. I'd rather stick pins in my eyes. Then again I often see (older) people buying the Sun or the Daily Mail in supermarkets and just can't help but think WTF. Do so many of our fellow humans just not get it yet? Grumble, grumble. 😉
Tuesday, December 03, 2024
Redemption and Rehabilitation
As the nights have drawn in I've been amusing myself by taking some guitars that are in my keep on a journey of redemption and rehabilitation. These were mostly unsaleable stock from my on-line shop of a few years back. In the aftermath of gradual failure I kind of gave up on them and allowed the weeds and moss to gather and grow.
Times change and so far I've redeemed two that were fairly useless planks due to faulty electrics, poor set up, action and notation problems, dodgy bridges and wonky machine heads etc. I know I should have done this sooner and I can be a serial procrastinator if left to my own devices, but I'm now working through my self generated backlog and actually getting somewhere.
So this is "Bodge" a black cat pyro'd Partscaster that I've been building and adjusting for about twelve of your Earth's years. Over time everything has gone wrong with this (hence the numerous bodged solutions naming), partly due to my incompetence, poor choices and apathy which also resulted in me ignoring it for quite a while. Somehow I awoke and I've finally got it playable; not great but not a guitar that you really have to fight with to enjoy (anyone who's played crappy guitars for a bit knows what I mean by that).
Another reason for this limited whiff of energy and success may the occasional and obviously seasonal visits of a small magical friend. We all need a little magic now and again.
Monday, December 02, 2024
1
Saturday, November 30, 2024
2
2 Sandwich of the non specific day. Anchovies, Boursin, French Mustard on toasted white sourdough. I'd mark it at a reasonable 6.5 out of a non decimal 10. I made and designed the sandwich so I'm scoring my own slightly disappointing but edible creation in a fair manner. A curious mix of flavours and textures that didn't quite work so I won't be recommending it to Greggs or Pret any time soon. "Not marketable in a meal-deal." I imagine that there are a team of sandwich chefs always on hand experimenting with the next big thing in that rarefied and exclusive world. I don't suppose suggested sandwiches from amateurs are all that welcome there either. Then there's the inevitable problems of royalties, rights and plagiarism. 2
Friday, November 29, 2024
3
3 If I had a fear of teeth, dentures or even dentists then I'd find this gaudy art work pretty troubling. I find it troubling anyway. The execution and composition with the keyboards, accordion and swirls, the colours, the cartoon style and the guitars, none of it is good. It's just way too toothy and mouthy for me so alas it has no future (other than to be pasted up here and so stuck in some futile orbit around the world of the blog-sphere for as long as the servers allow). 3
Thursday, November 28, 2024
4
4 Numerous consumer items (i.e. yogurt as above) that are neither reasonably priced nor a decent size. It seems to me that the only things that are getting bigger are motor cars, they're also getting heavier, more complex and more expensive. They are not getting better either in terms of reliability or looks. I suppose everyone of a certain age thinks that.
So back to yogurt, Chunky Kit-Kats and various other random products that I can't be bothered to list. At what point will these items cease to be viable and visible as they shrink to an almost microscopic size to fit the sales, marketing and production budgets that are now looking increasingly unsustainable?
We may need to breed a race of tiny people with reduced appetites if we are to survive. I believe there was an unsuccessful project pilot run on this a few years ago. It was based in the East Neuk of Fife and members of my family may have been a part of it. The records are either lost or buried somewhere out by Flanders Moss. The once well curated collective memory has also been erased. 4
Wednesday, November 27, 2024
5
Tuesday, November 26, 2024
6
6 When Epiphone was great and independent, though it's still alright and more affordable within Gibson these days imho. I like the Beatles, god knows I grew up with them and their relentless success but why is my small corner of the internet so obsessed with them still and why isn't Ringo in this photo? A drunk guy told me that I looked like Paul the other night. For some reason that troubled me. No one has ever in my life compared me to a Beatle until now. I can't help wondering what it was he (the drunk guy) was on. 6
Monday, November 25, 2024
Channeling Noel Fielding