Quest for a Plastic Model of a Junkyard

Realism is an important thing in a good model railroad--right down to flakes of rust and stains from dripping oil and chemicals. Shiny surfaces are for pink ponies.

For all of you chocolate lovers, here is a very disturbing article on the looming shortage of chocolate by Jessica Leeder in today's Globe and Mail. It's definitely worth a look. Politics, civil war, climate, disease and depleted soil all seem to be combining in a perfect storm.

And if you're interested in demolition crushers, here is the stainless steel Lumpbuster line from Jersey Crusher, Inc.

It's time to go and find some chocolate.

No worries.

Deep Thoughts

There's more to being a superhero than simply flying around, enjoying the scenery; there's the whole business of what to wear at public appearances, for instance.  And modern superheroes absolutely must have inner conflict; otherwise they're not cool anymore.

Which brings us to this chocolate Valentine cake from Women's Day. There's a recipe, so you can make your own, or just look at it and imagine eating it. With a cake like this in your possession, you're automatically conflicted and cool; you can ask yourself important questions, such as: shall I eat it all now, or shall I divide it up and eat a small piece every day?

Have you been thinking about demolition crusher buckets lately? Here's one from Northern Track designed for machines from 20-25 tonnes that features replaceable jaw plates bolted onto the lower and rear jaws.

It's operated from a standard hammer circuit.

No worries.

It's a Skunk; abandon UFO!

The new Lire magazine special, Horse-Serie No. 10, is entirely devoted to Jean-Paul Sartre, featuring a biography, articles, discussions of his philosophy, and a plethora of photos. There's even a sample of Robert Crumb's Klassic Komic view of La Nausee.

There's an article on Sartre and jazz, which is fascinating, including an interview with the jazz musicians, Baptiste Trotignon and Rene Urtreger, who played with Miles Davis, Lester Young, Stan Getz, Chet Baker, Dexter Gordon and Sonny Rollins.

Trotignon composed the music for a telefilm on Sartre--Sartre, l'age des passions, which depicted Sartre and de Beauvoir's relationship.

This is even better than chocolate and demolition machinery!

Well....let's not get carried away here.

Anyway, I keep sneaking glances at the magazine while writing this blog, so it's time to depart.

Remember, it's time to put winter tires on your wrecking ball.

Ciao!

How Frogs Become Radioactive.

It's surprising the amount of junk that accumulates in your pockets after awhile; I, myself have found old coins, bits of string, ceiling wax, cabbages, and kings. No missiles, though; I try to limit my exposure to radiation, keeping it down to dental x-rays, home insulation products, and chocolate.

Speaking of chocolate, look at this amazing chocolate tart. I want this. It comes from the Just Food Now site, where you will find a magnificent article, with pictures, on chocolate.

But wait; there's more. Here, on the Drill Cut site, you will find a picture of some nice drill cut machines just waiting to friend you and have a little chat about demolishing things.

Demolition machines and chocolate! My day is complete; I can go back to bed now.

Sweet dreams.....

McBowel's Funtime Meal with Happy Axe

It's a healthy meal because it comes with a lettuce leaf, which qualifies as a salad (if you eat it), and besides, tomato ketchup has tomatoes in it.

During the night, while I was sleeping, time moved ahead for everyone else and left me behind, so when I woke up, I was an hour behind.

That's the only explanation I can think of for the world inexplicably being an hour ahead of me. Come back, world!

Here is a chocolate clock, meaning it dispenses chocolate instead of cuckoo birds on the hour. Choco, choco, choco. I wonder if you get twelve chocolates at 12 o'clock.

Here is a boat made out of chocolate. This proves you can do almost anything you want to do, if you set your mind to it, and hire a good chocolatier.

More importantly, here, from a company called Rock and Dirt,  is a picture of a large grinder for grinding large things, or large amounts of things. This place is Valhalla for anyone who likes heavy machinery; it features dozens of pictures and specs on every item, and you can buy or lease.

So much happiness in one compressed morning.

I'll be back....

Happy Halloween

May the chocolate be with you!

Meanwhile, here's today's Ducks of Doom comic.
It's a well-known fact that if you're going to summon banker spirits, you'll have to use the correct magic spell. Here's a hint, it has something to do with doggies in windows.

Here is a picture of some scary, tasty looking Halloween treats. And here are a few more pictures of fine Halloween treats, many with chocolate in them.

And here is a picture of the new high-speed passenger train running between Toronto and Montreal.

No worries.

I'm an Undead Frog, Mind You!

In the race to develop an undead frog, no nation has achieved supremacy, although Toronto, under Mayor Vlod Ironbeak, has assembled a team of researchers, and may soon pull into the lead.

There's still time to develop a multi-national treaty banning the use of undead frogs in all conflicts. The consequences of an undead frog war are too terrible to contemplate, though I, in the interests of serving humanity, have contemplated just such horrors, and am here to tell you that they are unimaginable.

If the unthinkable happens, and an undead frog war breaks out, here is what you should include in your survival kit.

Here are some chocolate teddy bear cake decoration disks, from the cakescookiesandcraftsshop.co.uk. Don't eat them all at once, unless you want to.

Here is a chocolate Christmas tree from Italy that was made with 60 kgs of chocolate. This definitely solves the problem of what to do with the tree once the festive season is over.

And here is a picture of an excavator, in case you want to excavate something.

Somewhere, over the rainbow....

OddVlod Coolbeak, Mayor of Toronto

The beat generation goes in and out of fashion, but their jargon lingers on, because it's rooted in jazz, and jazz is a fixed and beckoning star in a murky firmament.

Ha! Fine words for a Monday morning.

I've been reading old 'Archie' comics, where you can find a complete alternate universe, as friendly and safe as many of the early Disney universes. A little unreality is an effective antidote to the heavy concepts that people often bash you with--duty, responsibility, earnest endeavor etc.

If you'd like to purchase some heavy duty mining equipment this morning, here is a nice bucket wheel excavator (batteries not included).

And here are lots of chocolate chip cookies from laaloosh.com.

Time out....

Eat your broccoli!

Nomads Don't Ride Ducks

The moral today is: Don't put off until yesterday what you can do tomorrow.

I've been reading an amusing book on philosophers by Jean-Jacques Barrere and Christian Roche entitled le Betisier des Philosphes. It's a collection of silly, nasty, and sarcastic pronouncements by philosophers, often on other philosophers.

The blurb on the back cover of this book sums it up nicely: "As surprising as it may seem, a philosopher is not always a profound type producing sublime thoughts. He is also stupid, from time to time."

Here are some good ones from the book: Pascale wrote that the self is detestable. Paul Valery wrote that, yes the self is detestable, but this refers to the selves of others.

Leibniz on Descartes: Descartes lodged Truth in the hotel of evidence, but he forgot to give us the address.

Levi-Strauss on existentialism: This promotion of personal problems to the level of profound philosophical problems risks ending in a sort of metaphysics for dressmaker's assistants.

Schopenhauer on Hegel: A nauseating scribbler, a charlatan, a cultural parvenu....

Well, you get the picture. The book is in French; I can't seem to find an English edition, but I'm sure one will show up.

In the meantime, here is a list of chocolate breakfasts from mrbreakfast.com that will undoubtedly do a number on your health. The site also features lots of recipes for interesting looking items, including this one for chocolate strawberry waffles, which I wouldn't mind eating right now.

And here is a picture of an Old Dutch Cleanser railroad refrigerator car, in case you want some extra storage space for perishables.

Happy Rutabaga Day!

A Troll Nanny for Artina

A troll nanny can give your child a nice edge against the forces of evil. And think of the advantages of learning Welsh! For one thing, you'll be able to utter lots more syllables in one breath than most people manage in a week or so of chatting. For another thing, Welsh people don't have to travel enormous distances to visit Wales--they're already there.

When you're in Wales, you might want to visit Pemberton's Chocolate Farm, which seems to be pronounced this way in Welsh: Croeso I'r Fferm Siocled Cymraeg  Don't blame me!

Actually, this place looks quite interesting; there are tours, there's a chocolate village, a 'Little People' gallery, a chocolate cinema, chocolate games, the Cocoa Bean Cafe, and, of course, a place where you can acquire various tasty and useful items made of chocolate.

I've always wanted to visit Wales. Now I have another reason.
Here's the official gateway to Wales, with information about everything, except Welsh trolls.

Here on this site,  however, you'll find details on magical Wales, including trolls, knights, Merlin and other fantastical elements.

That's all folks!

We Only Reveal Patient Data to the Tabloids

If you don't read the tabloids, you can always read Facebook, or the backs of cereal boxes. And you'll find lots of secret, coded information in model railroad magazines. The editors of these magazines are all in a gigantic occult conspiracy to make everybody watch trains.

Just look at this magazine! At first glance, you'd think it's nothing more than another innocent compendium of interesting details and pictures on an endlessly fascinating subject. But it's more than that--much more.

If you count the number of pages in each magazine, divide by the number of pyramids in Egypt, and multiply by the number of writers in the Louvre, you'll get the secret number that unlocks a vault deep in the bowels of the Royal Ontario Museum.

One of the curators left his lunch in there, and he wants it back.

Here's a thing from Marks and Spencer called a Chocolate Viennese Sandwich. You can eat any number of these and never get a secret code. But that's the thing about chocolate--it doesn't matter!

This post brought to you by Mcbowel's Inflammable Porridge--if it doesn't light you up, it's not breakfast!

Happy trails....

Sparkles the Wonder Computer

Sparkles runs on the famous Macrohard Angst operating system. It never crashes, except when something goes wrong.
Tech support is located in the Andromeda galaxy.

Vlod Ironbeak's computer terminal is an old pipe organ salvaged from a bankrupt goth rock band. Many people write programs for Angst using old Caledonian, which the Scots developed during the Middle Ages to control their Mars shuttle, the Bonnie Haggis.

If you don't like messing around with computers, you can try one of these gift baskets filled with useful chocolate. I've heard it said that you can use almost any kind of numbering system to write a computer program, so why not use chocolate? If the program doesn't work, you can just eat it, and start again with a fresh batch of chocolate.

And now, back to work.

I put my huge, larger-than-life plastic model of a crow in my office. It startles my wife every time she sees it, until she remembers it's just a harmless plastic model.

heh heh heh....

Caw!

Gordo, the Bagpipe Camel

If you want to get along in this world, you have to learn how to classify things. A bagpipe, for instance, can be distinguished from a camel by its lack of a hump. A shortage in the legs and tail department also helps us to distinguish a bagpipe from a camel.

You could avoid all the hard work of classifying things if you made friends with a taxonomist, who would undoubtedly be happy to accompany you on your daily travels and point out the differences between, for instance, a chocolate bar and an elephant.

Taxonomists are often so busy making up lists of features that distinguish one thing from another thing, that they neglect their social lives, and can become quite lonely.

This may explain why there is a growing shortage of taxonomists, an event you can read about in this article from the Toronto Globe & Mail.

It seems to me we are increasingly running short of things, including taxonomists. Soon, we'll have to reboot and start over again.

All the more reason to eat as much chocolate as we can before it vanishes into the Great Big Dark Void. Here is a picture of some interesting chocolate to inspire you.

No worries.

Imagine a World, and Don't Forget the Chocolate!

If every world you drew became real, then you could have anything you wanted--buckets of diamonds, rubies, ice cream, chocolate bars, even rutabagas.
Eventually, however, you'd get lonely and bored just gloating over your wealth and going 'Ha Ha Ha Ha! I'm rich, I'm rich!' You'd want company.

This is when the trouble starts. You could draw someone you like and they'd pop into your world, but then what? Your friend follows a script that you wrote? If so, your friend is just a robot programmed by you. No arguments, no need to share the special horde of chocolate etc., but no surprises, no give and take, no sense of a real person.

So you generously allow your friend free will.
Hoo boy! Nobody with free will likes to be told what to do! So now your world is becoming a little more like that other world, the one you left behind because it wasn't up to your standards.

And what happens if someone you know draws their own world, then draws you? Pop!--you're in your friend's world. And your friend might have a script for you--one in which you don't recognize yourself at all because you're always loyal, generous, kind, thoughtful, in a good mood, cheerful, and devoted to your friend.
No one likes following a script, not even stage actors--they always try to meddle with it.

Speaking of chocolate, here, from homebakedmemories.com is a recipe for and a picture of some interesting looking chocolate sponge custard.

Most of these recipes I link to look like instructions from my old High School chemistry lab days--the experiments in which parts of the lab bench were scarred for life, perfectly respectable test tubes were cracked and blackened, and innocuous liquids turned into vile, toxic pellets of sludge. So, I salute all of you geniuses who can read a recipe and produce something tasty.

My wife just made some peanut butter cookies and left them to cool on the table in the living room. I can smell them. Peanut butter cookies...on the table...waiting....

Tell Mr. Rogers it's a fine day in the neighborhood....

Bedtime Stories in the Sky

I'm in New York because it's there. Fortunately my wife is here to make sure I don't get lost more than twice a day, and I eat something besides chocolate bars and tuna sandwiches (not necessarily in that order). I'm working on a netbook, which does the job nicely, now that I've fixed a few little problems, however graphics are another problem. It takes time to draw a comic, and there is so much to do here!
So that explains the golden oldie above, which may or may not play well on other computers--it's hard to tell with this small screen.

Here are some chocolate elephants, which, unfortunately, are not life-size, but if you collect enough of them you should be able to match the original creatures in mass.

And this is the paperback I brought with me to read on the plane. Reread, actually--I don't think I've missed a Terry Pratchett book, although I especially like his witch novels. I highly recommend it.

I can't think of anything else to say, except that, while waiting for the train from Jersey into Manhattan, I noticed the markings on a CN automobile freight car indicate that it's 90 feet long, and nearly 20 feet high. It also has a maximum loaded weight of 80,000 pounds, which seems a lot. The freight car was part of a train that included cars from Mexico, Texas, Canada and other places.

Isn't that nice!
No worries.

The Eyes Have it!

Drawing comics on the 10-inch, glossy screen of a netbook is not making my eyes feel carefree, happy and in harmony with the universe.
So, I am now awaiting the arrival of my MATTE-screen Lenovo Thinkpad, which should be here in a day or two, before proceeding with yet more comics. I know this delay could put the entire civilized world in jeopardy, and possibly lead to the fall of the Roman Empire, but we needed a breather anyway.
What's a little chaos and anarchy, a little disruption of trade, a little hiatus in the delivery of goods from far-away places with strange-sounding names, in the delivery of...chocolate...no more chocolate....the barbarians will steal all of the chocolate from the caravans....
Here is a chocolate camel caravan. Be nice to it; there might not be anymore, if civilization collapses.
And for those of you who would rather stand and fight for civilization, here are some CHOCOLATE terracotta warriors to help you.
On the other hand, these might not be such a good idea. Anyone marshaling a chocolate army is likely to eat it, thereby doing away with all defensive forces, and possibly getting ill from over-eating.
This is a problem for Superduck!
Anyway, enjoy! Gan Bei!
干杯
No worries.