AOB #1

The Thirty-First of July Two Thousand and Eleven. Sunday.

Every now and then when my poor brain is too fried to go into too much detail on stuff we'll just have a quick recap of some of the nonsense that has just flicked through my brain recently.

Ok, so I've been catching up on watching Castle today (yes it's got the guy from Firefly in it, but it's good fun in its own right so, ping! Thirteenth Telly Recommendation). By a bizarre stroke of fate (heh - they're always saying that in the 60s Legion of Super Heroes comics No1 son and I have been reading) I watched two episodes back to back that were shown a fortnight apart - I'd watched the one in between 'live'. Both of them had references to a 'Sleestak', something I had only heard for the first time recently on the track 'Cloisonné' from They Might Be Giants' new album Join Us (I call upon the power of the Sword of Omens to extend the Third Music Recommendation to include all the tracks off that album, not just Can't Keep Johnny Down as mentioned here).

Yes, it doesn't take much effort to google something, but it must only be done when it's mentioned three times in fairly quick succession. It's a bit like Beetlejuice in that way. Or something.

Hands up who knew a 'Sleestak' was one of these from Land of the Lost?

I'd heard of the series, but had never seen it, its 90s remake or the film with Will Ferrell from a few years back. I don't know how well known it is in this country, but I checked with my friend the American Pop Cultural Attaché in London and she remembered 'em with barely a prompt. The Wikipedia entry makes it sound really odd for what was essentially a kids' series which makes it right up my street. Will look out for it, I think.

Oh, and this guy does Monet pictures featuring Sleestaks. Cool.

Re the Wankel Rotary engine that I mentioned the other night. Well, walking home from work what was on the corner but a Mazda RX8 that is powered by... Ah, you're way ahead of me.

Pity I didn't see it in motion. I'd be curious to hear what its engine sounds like.

I can't find the photo from work that states 'NO UNATHORISED ENTRY' - I'll have to take another one tomorrow. But yesterday I came across a couple of odd misspellings. We all do this, so I'm not pointing any fingers, but they stood out a bit.

On the ticket office-cum-shop for the North Bay miniature railway:

And this was on my orange juice carton:

And that's July over and done with. Not the best there's been. Join me for a much better August.

More soonliest.

Castling

The Fourth of June Two Thousand and Eleven. Saturday.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel was a genius. Inventor of the steam teleporter he also designed many of the Great Western railway's great engines. Only now have some of these been combined with a modern version of the teleport control equipment.

The most successful of Brunel's desgins was that for GWR's Castle class of locomotives - so named as they had the capability of swapping places with other locos in a tele-maneuvre reminiscent of a chess rook castling.

Anyhoo, one of these fabulous loco popped in to work today. Very well looked after - a great photo opportunity.I'll have to get my photos organised at some point. Meanwhile here's someone else's view of it:

Yes, there's nothing more satisfying than the ozone-tinted odour of a large locomotive punching through several unspecified dimensions of reality.

There were all sorts of spotters and enthusiasts there today - lots of them from parallel worlds . There were quite a few people there who were chatting away with other versions of themselves from across the dimensions. It was all very cosy.

Anyway, why's it called Earl of Mount Edgcumbe? He's not a castle. Is he? Maybe he is.

Maybe we're all castles.

Or maybe I'm just very overdue for some sleep. Night night, all.

More soonliest