Happy birthday to ME!

Now, this is not an artless method to have you glad-handing, and hale-fellow, well-met, and Many Happy Returns of the Day, though none of these would be unappreciated. No, this is the Hook whereby Hangs the Tale.

For much of our married lives together, The Dread Dormomoo and I have had a Little Hobby in January or February. It is the annual What Do We Waste Money on This Year. We have been the targets of circle-drawers, vitamin pushers, juicers, hot-shot diet programmes, but nothing that slices, dices or makes mounds of Julienne fries. Home business opportunities for the win! Finally, we have come to the knowledge (some years back) that people offering An Opportunity are far more interested in their wallet than ours, that "MLM Love" is a shallow commodity, and that with mult-level marketing, the House always wins; we don't play that game anymore. Now, the habit involves household or business tools, like that. We have not really thought about it this year, and February cometh to a close. "A-HA!" he cried! My birthday is upon us!

Earlier in the week, I was at our preacher's shop (he has his own business, a gun and ammo store. Really. We were talking about current events and getting a scope for my youngest's vintage sniper rifle when his wife came in. She is a teeny thing, sweet and chirpy.  She proceeded to instruct me as to my future. Her name is Robin, and she viewed this as a fait accompli. I need to do blog radio, she said, and rattled off some favorites of hers. And that was that. She would be Robin to my Howard Stern. Or Firm, because I am not Stern. In any sense.

It is my birthday on Tuesday. My USB microphone and stand should be here by then. Oh, and my pop filter, so I don't Ppop my Pp's. The Aardvark's Plumbline will be On The Air in a couple of weeks, 2 hours a day, 5 days a week. We'll see what happens. Details will follow.






Happy Birthday to Me!




This will be way to extricate me from Facebook. The show will be the same absurd mix of pop-culture, homilies, and current events. Plus, I will have perhaps the only show with a Christian angle that isn't End Timey Wimey. Perhaps my Most Hated Christian Blogger award will be in the mail when I do not bow to Bebe Netanyahu, although Vox Day may have won it for a lifetime.

Just when you think....

Busy week, all.

I was working late last night (I prefer shift 2.5, as the 'phone stays quiet.), and put on an old film from 1968: "Mission Mars" starring that workhorse of small and large screens, Darren McGavin, Kolchak his own self.





                     

                                                                                                    











Also stars Nick Adams, the peripatetic character actor who everywhere played himself, rather like a small wiry Patrick Warburton. McGavin plays the commander of the first manned mission to Mars, and Adams the geologist (Aresologist?). George de Vries, one of Ivan Tors' stable of regulars, plays the navigator who apparently wears red undershirts.

They land on Mars, lose their supply module, and meet this guy:

Who ultimately turns the navigator into this:



and kills him. The body is dragged into this:




Did I mention this is low-budget? It makes "The Green Slime" look polished.
Mission Control inexplicably dubs the bulb-critters "Solonites". If something has a name, you can defeat it. Write it backwards on its forehead or summat.

OH! They find a freeze-dried cosmonaut, as well. He gets better.

Beside McGavin and Adams, I did not recognise anyone else in this movie, not even the effects house. They do clever things with miniatures, strobes and fades, and thus propel the movie to the dizzying heights of could be worse. They are Haberstroh Studios, and they did the SFX for "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians". That is their only other IMDB credit.

Editorially, they use lots of stock shots of NASA rocketeering, none of which matches well with the Mars probe model they use for long shots.

It is a fun Jiffy-Pop movie, chewing gum for the mind. Bear in that selfsame that 1968 is the year that saw the release of  "2001: A Space Odyssey.

Here Are All the Different Genders You Can Be on Facebook!

Sex is in your genes, not your jeans. This smacks of "See, I'm SPECIAL and UNIQUE...just like everybody else." Somehow we have muddled through umpty-ump thousand years of human history with male/female, but now, in keeping with societal entropy, we move toward more complexity and chaos. I await whole Scooby-Doo hallways of cis-this and fluid-that bathrooms, with people running across the halls to new and more interesting rooms at whim...of course chased by the evil M/F monster, who is in reality Mr. Anderson the loan officer in a glowing rubber mask.





HERE are all the new gender labels for you to enjoy.

Happy Valentines Day, Part the Second!

Even the ocularly impaired need love:

The black-olive slices for irises are novel.

"NO!" means "Tear down this wall!"

Hallmark brings class. Always.

Nothing sez "love" quite like a heart on a platter, courtesy of Peter Lorre!

It pains me to pork fun at this....

I have a sudden yen for fava beans and a nice Chianti....

Certainly helps to know the ropes, or knot....

Shibe on!

Happy Valentines Day!

 Once gave my daughter a heart with two aspirin tablets glued on: "Happy Valium-tines Day".


Here's a droll one I found on Patricia Tallman's page on Facebook:






And this from elsewhere...




The quotations around the word-play always amuse me...



The prevalence of sharp objects can be a litle disturbing.





You "Rocket" my world?








MOAR! The emotional violence....

This will need to be continued...Blogger is being a pill....