Sunday, October 30, 2011

Work pix from Friday

These are from my regular cycle 4, which I did Friday, and which centers on the area of Cincinnati and Zarzamora. I've always thought a sign advertising colon therapy with an "info tube" was funny.


And from the other side of the same route, someone has just discovered Gloria Gainer Gaynor.


Saturday, October 29, 2011

Some fantastic Deep One art

By Bryan Wynia.  A very high level of realism in these, in my opinion.

Tonight

We had our Halloween festival at church tonight, and they put on a pretty good spook house.  I went through it with my daughter because they wouldn't let kids go through it unaccompanied.  But as I told her, they don't scare me or even spook me.  They just irritate me because I don't like loud noises and the strobe lights make me feel sick.

A 20-something girl behind us freaked out and went back about 1/3 through.  My son (who is 10) went through with another adult and said it was scary.  My daughter (who is 12) said it wasn't scary.  She laughed most of the time, which is what I was doing.  After we came out, I heard her tell a friend of hers:  "I don't scream.  I either laugh or stab."*  G-d I feel sorry for any future boyfriend(s) of hers.

I still think they need something at least a little Lovecraftian in it.  Maybe next year I'll see if I can come up with a Cthulhu mask.  I think it would work okay for "the thing that crawls out of the well."



*Can I get that on a t-shirt?

In R'lyeh...

Squishables squish you.

Via The Texian Partisan via email.

Friday, October 28, 2011

Insert evil laughter here


Click to enlarge.  Well, I was one of the drones who filled out this survey, and believe me, I was not instrumental in having your w4t3r company selected as a top place to work.  I didn't say anything really bad about it, but I didn't say anything very good, either.

Anyhow, I already had my two original floating holidays scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, so I just scheduled the new one for Wednesday.  So I have a long 5-day weekend coming up, followed by a super-short 2-day work week.

And even though I've been telling them for months that they need to let me train more people on certain cycle 5 & 6 routes, they haven't.  Which means when that 6 comes up next week, it's going to be a major clusterf*** because guess who's the only person there who knows the route.

I was snickering sardonically about it all day today.

James Branch Cabell could tell you


I don't know if this is now considered obsolete usage, or if it's just one of those things where so many people kept getting it wrong that everyone now thinks it's right.  I hear this usage on the radio often and it always bugs me.

"He strolled down the street in a leisurely manner."

"He strolled down the street leisurely."

The first is correct.  The second is not.  It should be, "He strolled down the street leisurelily."  Whenever I hear someone speak this way, it makes me wince as if I'd heard a flat note in a song.

If anyone wants to correct me on this, you better be a super hard-core English nerd with some serious academic credentials if you expect to change my mind.

And two months later, he was gone

Via San Antonio Remembers:

1913
Ambrose Bierce, American author, is visiting San Antonio before starting a trip through Mexico. Bierce said he may make the Mexico tour by horseback.

Somebody find out where he stayed. He's sure to be haunting it.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Popcorn!

My son is a Webelos and it's popcorn season.  I just want to give my legions of readers the opportunity to help support his scouting activities.  He's just a little short of his $600 goal and our local area has been pretty much exhausted as far as sales possibilites.

Even if you don't want any popcorn, you can also use this to support our military.  Just click on the "military donation" button and your donation will be used to send popcorn to our troops.

Thanks!

Click here

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Monday, October 24, 2011

Graphical adaptation of "Cool Air"

Originally published in Eerie magazine in 1975, created by Berni Wrightson.  H.P. Lovecraft's "Cool Air."

link

Of interest to Ghost in the Shell fans

NSFW.  No actual nekkididity, but still I'm sure it's NSFW.

link

Murder ballads

Farce the Music has posted another collection of parody album covers, one of which is something I have actually thought about.

Although I don't think Alfred E. Neumann could really handle it, the one about "Murder Ballads of the Appalachians" is something that someone should really do.

I have specifically wondered how hard it would be to research, track down and create my own collection of folk, bluegrass and old-time country songs about murder.  There seems especially to be a recurring theme of the singer having killed a woman (usually his girlfriend), for example "Knoxville Girl."*  Unfortunately that's the only one I can think of right now off the top of my head, but I know there are others.  There's even a Wikipedia entry on it.



*Read those lyrics and then feel free to think:  WTF?

I didn't make this one


demotivational posters - TRACKS
see more Very Demotivational


But I really like it so I'm going to post it.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Another stolen metal item: the manhole cover


In my nightmares, and possibly in some future story, this is where vampires hide out during the day when they get caught too far from shelter.


This is an open storm drain--because someone stole the manhole cover.  I saw two of these in one day last week.  You can expect to see this more and more in the coming years because the more easily stolen meter box lids won't be around to steal anymore.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

The most popular chord progression in pop music




I was already conscious of this.  You might want to not watch this video if you choose to remain a more passive music listener, because after this you'll probably at least smirk quietly in recognition any time you hear a song like this.

The chord progression in question is I-V-vi-IV, that is, Do-Mi-So to So-Ti-Re to La-Do-Mi to Fa-La-Do and back again.  The upper case Roman numerals indicate a major chord, the lower case a minor chord.

I've had a sort of sub-genre of songs like this in my head for a long time.  Yes, sometimes I'm listening to a song and I think, "Oh, this is one of those one-five-six-four songs."  Almost as popular is a very similar progression, I-vi-IV-V.

Anyway, this video is a great demonstration of what seems to be an extremely popular, if not the most popular chord progression in pop music.

Forgot one

To this I would add:  people who hold up the line for 10 minutes trying to decide which lottery tickets to waste their money on when all I want to do is buy a frikkin' Mr. Pibb.

Whatever "this" is


I had mandatory OT today due to the periodic double-billing cycle, and found this sign near the corner of Lubbock and S. Flores.  I have no idea to what they are referring.