Lard Motel

[hirez]

(Brain-chemistry still a bit knackered, so...)
(And I've been overcome by an attack of the prolix)
(And it would appear I've a set of new subscribers)
(And anonymous lurking wasp-factroids armed with vast mechanical badgers)
(It's like having clay-people lurking behind the sofa and gleefully absorbing the Gormo-Rays that come from the telly.)

Thus: Any daft questions before it all gets strange and antagonistic again? Or shall I just continue with the off-colour jokes and barbed comments until everybody gets a monk on and stumps off?

(And indeed, when in hell did I start to care about anyone else's opinion about what I choose to leave here? That's just broken...)

Comments

[codepope.livejournal.com]

Well, would you drink out of this (http://www.remotecentral.com/wn030227.htm)?

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

How many pulleys are there in a CVT ?

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Two cones, surely? Or was that just the DAF Variomatic?

Maybe they're filled with spiders. It was suggested today that my head was full of spiders, which is why flies never come out of my ears.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Only if it were a stiff drink...
[FX: Rimshot]

I think I want one of those new Clie-things though.

[reddragdiva]

I would say that anyone subscribing without the explicit intention of being confused is somewhat confused already. Bring on the obfuscation!

[hirez.livejournal.com]

"We're out of obfuscation. Would a dancing bear do?"
"He says he came here for obfuscation, and that's what he'll have."
"But it's a very nice dancing bear. It spins on it's head and everything..."
"Is it perplexed or in any way befuddled?"
"Well, no. Not really..."
"... At a loss? Mildly concerned at its misunderstanding or lack of grasp of the salient points of the matter at hand?"
"Hold on, I'll ask it..."
"Ask it?! It's a bleedin' bear, not brain of Britain! Oi! It's not a bear at all - it's a bloke in a suit! You're 'avin' a larf, you are!"

[allezbleu.livejournal.com]

mechanical badgers?

ace.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Yes.

20-foot tall, steam-powered MechaBadgers. With great stary eyes and teeth like an abandoned graveyard.

And a trail of coal-dust and embers wherever they may roam.

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

Wire bristles, striking sparks from the brickwork, stripping cars back to shiny steel as they brush by. Munching up taxis and gnawing on the bellies of tube trains. Whuffling in the night, as the population deserts their fragile houses & moves into fifty-foot-tall steel birdhouses they make out of old shipping containers and rusty I-beams.

[squiddity.livejournal.com]

Thus: Any daft questions before it all gets strange and antagonistic again?

Not really. Bring on the antagonism.

Oh, before I forget, and in completely the wrong place even though the right place is only a few clicks away[0], I really liked the last installment of 'JHR writes stuff about things (fiction)'. You had enough encouragement from enough impressed people to stop thinking you aren't good at it yet?

[0] Well, it is friday.

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

Of course, it was no use. No population raised on Ratty and Moley and Rupert is ever able to truly see a badger as its enemy, even when the badger happens to be a little careless. They didn't stand a chance.

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

Fried eggs. Why can no-one else make them right but oneself and mobile death-wagons on A-road laybys?

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

Daft question: why is belly-button fluff always a bluey grey?

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Zen. Mobile Lard Motel bloke used to have a proper job in a factory making things. Now he has to cook a legion of full Englishes, bacon rolls and mugs of tea, which is Woman's Work. Thus, he doesn't try hard to make it right, and it Just Works.

Actually, that seems to be true of most things.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Conformance to EU directive D-439.4S/JH76/01(A)

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

Works for dryer lint and dust bunnies, too. That's the joy of standards. Clouds used to be made of the same stuff, but they had to change that when the hot air balloons was invented.

And so, you see, all questions lead back to cosmology in the end, to God's managed retreat from coddling us in simple fictions and humble props. He has to stand *so* far away now, and he's retired nearly all of the crystal spheres that once gave us such certainty.

Of course, the cloud thing did free up a lot of lint resources. It was a bit of a silver lining, because the pocket had been a bit of an upper-class affectation for most of history, and there hadn't been much need for a big lint supply. As the pocket demographic exploded over the 18th century, the requirement for pocket lint vastly outstripped the existing supply, and recycled cumulonimbus had to be pressed into use.

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

"Giant steam-driven MechaBadgers are prohibited from using parking bays marked 'mother and child'"?

I think you meant D-439.4S/JH76/07(A)

[quercus.livejournal.com]

There's a Glaswegian smack-head called Steve who fries a mean fried egg. Pre- it all going a bit Irvine Welsh, he was some sort of chef.

I met the guy in a homeless shelter in Brissel. I was working there, he lived there (thanks for asking). New Year's Eve, and I've pulled an evening shift. Deep Joy.

The usual stuff happens. Tramp fights. Impromptu rehearsals for Jackass. Purple Tin gets spilled. Puke to mop up.

Then Steve goes for the New Year's Eve Giant Rollover Jackpot; OD's and collapses. Blue fingers, the lot. Bollocks - Who's got the naloxone kit and who's got a ticket to stick him ? (this is before Narcan in a nose-squirter) Where's Uma Thurmann when you need her ?

Time passes. So does the blue tinge (everyone should get to see naloxone in action, it's incredible). Ten minutes later, and he's back on his feet and hatching a plan to sneak onto a train to Glasgow, in time for Hogmanay morning. I'm knackered - I just want my bed.

Food for the journey - so I have to fire up the kitchen and make that favourite food of the itinerant smackhead, the fried-egg sarnie. Only I'm not doing it right, so I'm muscled out of the way and instructed in the art of making real fried eggs, by someone who I damn near saw die right in front of me, not an hour earlier. (The trick is to use plenty of oil, and have it well hot before the egg goes in - there's as much deep frying involved as anything else). Then he sets to train-hitch to Glasgow an hour before midnight, and I crawl home to my pit. Other people get to celebrate.

I believe he did make it to Glasgow, some time around the 3rd.

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

In the end, it was a wasteland.

Building were mostly rubble, from too many casual shoulderings. The strongest of the concrete structures survived, but the corners were all rounded, like bricks that have been on the beach too long.

Stilt-houses were scattered about in the spaces that had once been gardens. Most had bent legs, a few had fallen over from bad welding or from being used as scratching-posts. But they were all deserted.

The badgers were very comfortable there.

[redcountess]

Hey, you haven't pissed me off...yet :-P

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

posting frequency: up
content: not today thank you.
amusement value: surprisingly high
conformance to D-439.4S/JH76/07(A): middling to good.

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

It was a MechaBadger-Eden for a while. They had plenty of holes to convert into comfortable and durable setts, and there was no shortage of food. The few coalyards had been emptied pretty quickly, but construction lumber and trees from the parks were nearly as tasty and adequately calorific. A bit of fuel from an abandoned car made a warming dessert.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

[Some time later. jarkman has had M$ (un)natural keyboards since mimbly-mimbly sproigle years ago and I still can't use the damn things. It's what I imagine being rendered thick or seven might feel like. Flowers for JH-R?]

I've probably had enough encouragement (and some truly backhanded stuff which makes a chap wince when investigating the deeper meaning of same, but anyway). Especially since the last wedge was created during migraine-fallout when I felt particularly stupid and uncreative.

So, um, thanks. Yes.