Deep In The Kobold Warrens...

...The Blog hungers.

[Scene: A kitchen in the Warrens. Enter two panicky Kobold Blog-Herders.]

First Blog-Herder: Ohgodohgodohgodohgod - it's hungering! Do something!

Second Blog-Herder: Find it something to eat!

[They rummage through various cupboards, fridges, pantries, freezers, coolers, store-rooms, butteries, cellars, sideboards, and so on]

Second Blog-Herder: Aha! We could toss it a musical interlude or two!

First Blog-Herder: Won't work - it'll just be hungry again in a day or so. Should we fry it up a nice Catullus poem, or something like that?

Second Blog-Herder: Takes too long - that thing is ravenous (you could put some out to thaw, though - we haven't had any Catullus in a long time. Am I actually speaking in parentheses? I am! Cooooool...). Hey look! We've got half a barrel of Edmonton Oilers material - we could whip that up in a jiffy!

First Blog-Herder: Ennh, it's not very nutritious, especially right now.

Second Blog-Herder: Some Millwall, then?

First Blog-Herder: Better, but still - same problem. [wanders into cooler] Hey look! We've still got that pot of snark we made this summer and never used! You remember - the one with the ESPN guy who wrote the column about how the main problem with sports these days is that athletes don't hate each other enough, the column in which he completely screwed up the anecdote about Ted Williams! That one!

Second Blog-Herder: Ooh, I remember that - that was good snark! Well-researched, if I recall. Let's save that one for a special occasion, like next week.

First Blog-Herder: Ok. Hmm, what's in this jar marked "Use only on Fridays"?

Second Blog-Herder: Who cares, it's Thursday. [wanders into larder] Oh, here we go - I've got just the thing! [emerges from larder bearing bag labelled "Emergency Blog Food"]

First Blog-Herder: What's in that?

Second Blog-Herder: A slow loris being tickled.

First Blog Herder: Perrrfect.

[Exeunt. End Scene]

Milk Through The Nose Time!

Truly, the internet is a wondrous place:

Geekery!

More regular blogging will resume in the near future! We've got a Serie A Preview that is rapidly becoming a Postview, and something about an Irish monk. And some other things. In the meantime, have some delicious delicious geekery:

Update: Meant to mention: I've updated the list of Kobold-brand(tm) Sporcle quizzes to the left. Have fun!

Hey, Why Not?

Come to think of it, why wouldn't one release 100 cats into an IKEA store?

Post Title Goes Here!

So with the Premiership season due to commence on Saturday, the wizened Kobold seers are even now adding the eye of newt and such to the scrying cauldrons to see what may be seen. Last year the seers did pretty well, actually correctly selecting the three relegated teams (missed on the title winners, though, and went three-for-four on Champions League participants).

That's for tomorrow, however. In the meantime, behold! as one of the greatest scientific questions of our age is at last answered:

Short Post!

I've got a couple of posts that I'm poking away at, but in lieu of actually sitting down and finishing one, here's a movie of a deer washing a cat.

All together now: "Awwwwwwwww!"

How Did That Get There?

A quick vignette from the Bookstore:

We have doing some fairly hard-core cleaning and reorganization of the textbook section lately, and this has led to the discovery of some interesting cultural artefacts. My favourite one so far, discovered slipped down inside one of the shelves in the Health Education section, has been...

...wait for it...

... a copy of the Dragonheart Picture Storybook. You may remember Dragonheart as being the movie that managed to suck despite having Sean Connery playing a dragon.

The things people leave behind...

"Mai Così Brutta"*

Well, that went very poorly. My man Gattuso played the first half, and did what he could, but despite an exciting conclusion to the game, one never really got the feeling that Italy were going to pull it out. Big changes coming to the Italian national team, and not all of them are going to be voluntary.

Full congratulations, though, to Slovakia.

Anyway, to take all our minds off it, here's some vuvuzela-related hilarity:

*"Never [before] so ugly." - The headline in La Repubblica, referring to the overall performance of the Azzurri.

Well There's Your Problem...

First off, this is only funny because Sébastian Buemi wasn't hurt. Anyway, this is what the catastrophic failure, at 180 mph, of an F1 car's suspension looks like from the driver's point of view:

New Fashion Statement?

Saw a nice gentleman pottering around in the bookstore today wearing a blue boiler suit, which isn't terribly unusual since there's a lot of construction going on around campus, plus the building services people do drop by from time to time. What was unusual was that this particular character had accessorized his boiler suit with about eight cowboy hats, which he was wearing stacked up on his head. Well, one must have one's own look, I suppose...

Hey, Whatever It Takes, Right?

The Oilers are pondering some lineup adjustments...

Yay! Inventory All Done!

Many a book, pen, and doodad with the University crest on it has been counted in the last couple of days, I can tell you... And it went very smoothly, all-in all. Anyway, more on that later.

In the meantime, some inventory-done celebratory music is in order! Here's "Devil's Dance Floor" by Flogging Molly, with penguins dancing to it. That should about do the trick.

It's Spelled C-O-P-Y-R-I-G-H-T

This actually happened a couple of months ago, during the height of the textbook rush. I had spotted a customer who seemed in need of some assistance, so I sauntered up to him, and the resulting dialogue went like this:

Me: Can I help you with anything?

Him: Yeah, is this the textbook for [course number]?

Me: It is.

Him: Ok, how much is it?

Me: It's $98.50.

[Long pause]

Him: Ok. Um, so is there a photocopier in the bookstore that I can use for awhile?

The funny thing was, he was dead serious. He could not understand why I would not let him simply photocopy his textbook rather than buy it.

Cuteness Abounds!

Well, I'm gradually getting around to the last bit of the trophies series, but in the meantime I leave you with this rather odd but catchy song, in which the ukulele makes its De Koboldorum Rebus debut! The video includes diabetes-inducing amounts of cuteness (of several different varieties), before coming to a morbid and tragic conclusion. Anyway, enjoy.

In Which Satire Curls Up In Fetal Position And Cries

Flanders and Swann, 50-some years ago (audio link):

If the juju had meant us not to eat people, he wouldn't have made us of meat.

Sarah Palin, apparently quite recently:

"If any vegans came over for dinner, I could whip them up a salad, then explain my philosophy on being a carnivore: If God had not intended for us to eat animals, how come He made them out of meat?"

Emphasis mine. Ok, we're missing some context here, and I'm willing to concede the possibility that Palin was joking. However, given her support for barbaric hunting practices, I also think it's entirely plausible that she actually believes that animals were placed on Earth simply for us to devour. Here's a bit of "bonus" Palin (link is to the same article as above):

"I always remind people from outside our state that there's plenty of room for all Alaska's animals -- right next to the mashed potatoes."

Full Disclosure: I am not a vegetarian. That said, I don't revel in the fact of my meat-eating; I eat meat because I enjoy the taste of it, not because I think I have any divine right or duty to do so. And I occasionally feel guilty about it, although that and $2.26 will get you an extra-large coffee at Starbucks.

In Retrospect, Maybe They Should Have Seen That Coming...

Ahh, gargoyles - or at least, what we refer to as "gargoyles." Technically, only the ones that channel water are gargoyles; the others are chimeras. But anyway, for centuries they have gazed down from the heights of gothic architecture, frightening away evil spirits and, as mentioned, sometimes channeling away rainwater.

Back in the 1980s, the folks at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., discovered that they had a couple of empty niches where new gargoyles might be placed. In the interests of community outreach, they asked a number of schoolchildren for suggestions as to what sort of shape the new gargoyles should take, specifically pointing out the "scariness" aspect of gargoyles in general. And then, being good sports, they acted on the suggestions:

The other child-inspired gargoyle? A raccoon.

Joyeux Anniversaire!

Fifty years ago today, on October 29th, 1959, the French comics magazine Pilote published its first issue. Defunct since 1989, Pilote would probably not be much remembered, except that one of its comics turned out to have quite a lot of sticking power, and if you've been over to Google today, you know which one it was.



Yes, today is the 50th birthday of Asterix, Obelix, and the rest of the village of indomitable Gauls, the brainchildren of Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo. And anyone who appreciates humour, or ancient history, or any combination thereof, owes those two gentlemen a deep debt of gratitude.

Personally, I think my favourite is Le Tour de Gaulle d'Asterix, mostly because it's the one in which they acquire Idefix, but that's just me...

BWAH-HAH-HAH

In which The Onion shoots and scores, yet again:

Man Dies After Secret 4-Year Battle With Gorilla
October 26, 2009 | Issue 45•44

ROANOKE, VA—Local claims adjuster David Seaborne, a devoted husband and father of three, died Tuesday at the age of 37 following a long and painful personal battle with a 512-pound eastern lowland gorilla.

Yes, it's somewhat tasteless, but still... Anyway, real posting soon!

A Bookstore Anecdote

As promised below, here we have the first in what will probably become a short series! And this one deals with the Comparative Literature section of the Bookstore. Unfortunately, the signage in said section employed a perhaps unfortunate and anatomical abbreviation, one which I'll let you bright sparks figure out on your own. Thus it was that a couple of days into rush, the floor manager tasked me with removing all of the offending signs, and replacing them with something a little less controversial. I assumed that there had been complaints; however, it actually turned that somebody had taken a picture of one of the old signs and posted it on a widely read internet site. The only real shock was that it took as long as it did for this to happen, since the old signs had been up for years.

The funny bit occurred a few days after the signs were replaced, when a young fellow, accompanied by his girlfriend, stopped me and asked for directions to the Comparative Literature section. "Follow me!" I said, and they did. However, when we hove in sight of the section and its new signs, both their faces fell, and they stopped. I must have looked at them quizzically, because the male half of the couple muttered something about it being "far too complicated to explain," and then they scurried off, out of the store.

So yeah, we actually had tourists making trips to the Bookstore expressly and only to look at the funny Comparative Literature signs.

Pitch Invasion

In which a last season's tense Ligue 1 match between Bordeaux and Nancy is watched, and participated in, with apparent enjoyment: