That’s right, folks, FREE RAW MEAT. Visit either link below and download your own tenderloin, grilled or raw, with carrots, plate, knife and fork. And there’s prolly a link somewhere on the internest to download your own dry beaujolais to go with it.
Cool stuff coming up tomorrow and Saturday, but be back here Sunday for REAL FOOD.
[Original post here via RGS. Both have downloadable links.]
[Update: Old linkys are dead. Here are templates.]
There are a lotta folks who become mired in traffic on a daily basis that don’t have a clue as to what to read while they wait for their graffiti-encrusted freeway exit.
Some read the news, sports, comics, classifieds, Oprah’s itinerary, etc. Many others choose history, historical fiction, fictional history, and science fictional history for mental diversion and carbon monoxide abatement while crawling along at low-torque idle speed on their way to work.
For those of you who find yourselves puzzling over what novelette to take along for your morning roadtrip to lunchtime, check out Spuddie’s Book Blog, a vast (or at least half-vast) summary of popular novels to peruse at 0.5mph. Here’s a typical example:
“WITCH HUNT by Shirley Damsgaard. #4 in the Ophelia and Abby paranormal mystery series featuring Ophelia Jensen, a librarian in small-town Iowa who has pre-cognitive abilities and her grandmother Abby, a witch. When a biker gang starts hanging out in their small town and essentially taking over a bar there, Ophelia begins to have feelings of unease that something bad is going to happen. And sure enough, one of the bikers ends up dead, and the accused is none other than her good friend and co-worker Darci’s cousin Becca who is visiting from California. Ophelia herself is distracted, trying to be a good parent to Tink, the thirteen-year-old girl she’s taken into her home as a foster child—from their last book’s escapades—and not finding it a very easy task. This book just seemed ‘off’ to me. I’ve enjoyed the previous ones in the series, though it did take me til the middle of the second book before I really began to warm to Ophelia. I found plenty to be annoyed with in this book though—much repetitive text and phrases, too many scenarios that were extremely unlikely, and Ophelia needed slapping upside the head way too often. I did finish it—if it weren’t such a quick, easy read I probably wouldn’t have—but I admit that I skimmed the last couple of chapters, and I’ve decided to hang up the spurs on this series since I can’t honestly say I much care what happens to Ophelia any longer. I do have the next one in series here, but I’m going to trade it off. C-.”
Spuddie knows what you like, reads it for you, and tells you all about it while you wait for your exit to come up 45 minutes from now.
[Image from here. Concept from here. Book review from WAY out there.]
[Image from Pixdaus.]
I’d never quite figgered out how to add a “contact us” clicky thingy to the home page of Tacky Raccoons. It really wasn’t at the top of my list of time wasting experiments, and I’d completely forgotten about it until Finnicky Penguin emailed me the Key to the WordPress Chamber of Secrets (more commonly known as the WordPress FAQ forum). Talk about new and improved, cutting edge, wave of the future, now more than ever, state of the art advanced tublication.
In other words, we’re at the dawn of a new era, and it’s all for our children and grandchildren for they are our future. It’s all gravy from here on in, and we’re all in it together.
By adding this simple contact tool to your favorite website, we are proactively reducing YOUR carbon footprint and saving the environment. “But how is that even remotely possible, Bunk?” you axe. It’s actually very simple.
Every keystroke takes energy that every reader of TR must replenish with fuel consumption, like eating Cheetos while typing.
Each additional unnecessary keystroke it takes to contact us also consumes the electricity that powers your keyboard, mouse, monitor/screen, PC and laptop. Fewer keystrokes lead to energy savings. Click on the “Write Bunk” thingy at the upper right hand side of the page. One click. That results in a gross energy consumption reduction of 2,200%, not counting the Cheetos. Very impressive.
The climate is already cooling as we speak… because it’s night. Also, fewer people are clicking fewer keys to contact me. At night.
It’s your choice, so do your part. Click once. Leave a comment and save the planet, or live with your decision and die. If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for all the little bastards of the future.
Your Pal, Bunk
P.S. Diesel’s Basic Tenets of Economics and Capitalism is a must read, especially for you folks whose garage is infested with teenagers, or if you are a teenager yourself. It’s very concise, and it’s very very true.
Bluegrass has its roots in northern Britain according to my ear. The chord patterns of early country music from Appalachia follow those of Scottish and Irish reels. In the immigration wave of the early 1800’s, the Scottish and Irish tended to venture southward, away from the constrictions of the north, to where they could work their own land. No wonder that early southern recordings sound similar to those of Ireland and Scotland.
Bill Monroe & his Bluegrass Boys popularized it and gave the style it’s moniker: Bluegrass. This song (video from 1956) is a tribute to Pendleton Vandiver, Monroe’s uncle. Monroe joined his uncle Pen’s band as a kid; his sound dates back to the turn of the century.
Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs put Bluegrass on the popular map as pickin’ speed demons.
The Dillards were the Darlings clan on the Andy Griffith show. The Dillards decided that L.A. had more to offer than the Missouri Ozarks, and advertised themselves on the streets in the early 1960’s.
The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band were influenced by the Dillards, and took Jerry Jeff Walker’s “Mr. BoJangles” for a ride.
What I was really looking for when all this linkyness began was New Grass Revival‘s version of “Steam Powered Aeroplane,” one of the prettiest bluegrass songs I ever heard:
"Well I went away on a Steam Powered Aeroplane. Well I went and I stayed and damn near didn't come back again. Didn't go very fast on a steam powered aeroplane, The wheels went around, up and down, and inside and then back again. Sittin' on a 747 just watching them clouds roll by, Can't tell if it's sunshine, if it's rain. Rather be sittin' in a deck chair high up over Kansas City, On a genuine old fashioned oil finish Steam Powered Aeroplane. Well I'd could be PILOT on the Steam Powered Aeroplane. I'd pull that pilot wheel 'round, then back again. And I'd wear a blue hat, YEAH, on the Steam Powered Aeroplane, With letters go 'round the brim and then back again. Sittin' on a 747 just watching them clouds roll by, Can't tell if it's sunshine or if it's rain. Rather be sittin' in a deck chair high up over Kansas City, On a genuine old fashioned oil finish Steam Powered Aeroplane."
Here’s the songwriter, John Hartford, with Tony Rice, Vassar Clements and others. (Yeah, his vocals don’t do justice for the song.)
Great pre-sunrise morning roadtrip music, just like Pat Metheny’s “New Chataqua Highway,” or anything by Django Reinhardt and Stephan Grappelli.
[Bunk’s compiling his roadtrip list for next month. Lemme know your favorites.]
Individually, these .gif’s are kinda bland, but patch ’em together and they’re kinda cool. Scrolling your mouse wheel up and down like you just did doesn’t faze ’em either. Too hot to handle and too cold to hold.
[Standing orders: If anyone recobanizes these and knows the original source we’ll give proper credit here.]
I really need one of these for when pens become obsolete. The complex shapes you can create while leading on and convincing telemarketers that you’re REALLY interested in their product/service/investment scams almost rival my own analog version.
Reminds me of The Stress Calendar. It was an 18″x 24″ blotter type pad that sat on top of a file cabinet adjacent to one of the office telephones. The boss didn’t believe in letting underlings have telephones at our desks so we had to go to the one next to The Stress Calendar. Very efficient.
Here’s a sample:
[Doodle Keyboard images from here. The Stress Calendar doodles from Bunk’s Garage.]
[Original undoctored image from here.]
She’s obviously tech support for Microsoft. (To be honest, I’d prolly be doing the same thing if I hadda work in a cubicle like that.)
Nancy Cartwright’s 2004 interview in Australia.
“I’m Bart Simpson, man. Who the hell are you?”
Whoa! This Monster Magoo automatically qualifies as a genuine Babe Magnet if only because its owner photographed it from dog-eye level and printed it in B&W just to keep the yellow snow in check.
Good God, I’m drooling over this one… way too many places to begin, so let’s start here.
IT’S A PINTO!
But wait, there’s more! It’s a dark color, prolly navy blue, with flames erupting from the wrong end of this rolling molotov cocktail. The Ford Pinto was designed to be, and was, a real carp car, until GMC AMC beat Ford to the bottom with the Gremlin. At least the Gremlin didn’t spray atomized gasoline all over the neighborhood when it was rear-ended by that little s.o.b. Bobby Bieber on his Honda 50.
In order to enhance the Pinto’s reputation as a rolling flamethrower, Earl “Tom” Slick jacked it up to make sure that ANY rear end collision would hit the gas tank, and not just the ones caused by Stevie Wonder backing into the 6-inch yellow-painted steel pipe filled with concrete adjacent to the Wendy’s drive-thru window.
Oh, but then there are the snow tires that say either “Granola” or “Formula.” If the former, Earl is the whelp of hippy wannabes; if the latter, Tom has at least one PET Milk fan in his nuclear family. He gets some serious BM points either way.
Good God. There’s just too much to comment on, like the air dam with what appears to be a Life Motto: “To the House.” Maybe it’s “To the Mouse.” Or maybe it’s “To the Noose.” Doesn’t matter. It’s there, and it’s going to the thing that it refers to. Whew.
This is a classic Babe Magnet if there ever was one.
We haven’t even touched on Earl’s aluminum tower. Two lame Carter carburetors take the place of one lame Rochester on a homemade aluminum chimney.
We didn’t get to the sound system, designed solely for Brownsville Station’s greatest 8-track hit. We didn’t clamp down on Earl’s taste in sidewalk sirens/pavement princesses.
SO much left untouched and undone.
This BABE MAGNET deserves a second helping. Fill in the blanks with a Number Two pencil in the comments section below.
[UPDATE: The air dam inscription is “TO THE WOODS” and makes just about as much sense as the other interpretations. Oh, wait, maybe it’s “TO THE HOODS.” Hold on… “TO THE WOOS’S?” I dunno, Babs.]
[Pinto Blowage from here.]
Tacky Raccoons 