Jonathan L. Howard

"Emperor Tiddles! We have just received a report! The Earthman yet lives!"
"WHAT? GORDON'S ALIVE?"

a woman is standing next to a man in a room ALT: a woman is standing next to a man in a room

It makes my day that this has been added to the fabric of the internet as a GIF

Thanks be to @quiteamess.bsky.social!

A box top containing two frames of track components, some in stretches, but a fair number of individual links. Above are two lengths of track made from flexible rubber-like plastic.

All the wheels are done. The next stage is a bit terrifying. The tracks. I have options, either the flexible tracks that are very easy to wrap around the wheels, but don't look very good, or the rigid links I have to glue together. Yeah, I'm doing the rigid ones. Hard's better than floppy, right?

UPDATE: Another Chicago-area church has put up an immigration-themed Nativity scene.

A church member at Urban Village Church sent this one along, where Mary, Joseph and Jesus are gone and replaced with a sign that reads: “Due to ICE activity in our community, the Holy Family is in hiding.”

THAT Dick Dastardly cartoon character and his sidekicks were a bit shit when you think about it. Me and my mate caught a pigeon with the works van the other morning and we weren't even trying. Stephen Cochrane, Gateshead

subscriptions >>> shop.viz.co.uk/viz351bs

There's the option of the Mk.IV combat version, or the Mk.VI, which is the combat engineering version with a short-barrelled 95mm howitzer intended for lobbing filthy great hollow-nosed shaped charges at bunkers and the like. It also has a Cullins hedge-cutter, which is like something out of WH40k.

“Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. But teach a man how to fish and Pete Hegseth will murder him.”

Hull of the tank lacking its turret, tools, exhaust cover, idler wheels, drive sprockets, and tracks. Oh, and apart from the exhaust compartment, it's unpainted. So, almost finished, really.

Tonight I have been mainly building the road wheels for this here 1:35th scale Cromwell Mk.VI cruiser tank. Idler wheels and drive sprockets next. Thank Cthulhu all the photo etch work is done; working with super glue is unforgiving and therefore fraught.

Bronze plaque saying "A Letter to the Future. Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier. In the next 200 years all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it. August 2019. 415ppm CO2"

TIL about a memorial ceremony in Iceland in 2019 to mark the end of a glacier, changing the place name from Okjökull to Ok (jökull = glacier). Uncompromising wording on the bronze plaque:
"This is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it".

YouTube video by How I Filmed This - Rachel Talalay A Shot that (Almost) Couldn't be Done. Doctor Who: Star Beast

This is fascinating; @racheltalalay.com describing in detail how a technically horrific shot in DOCTOR WHO "The Star Beast" was achieved. youtu.be/U1JkABy0UBA Also, kudos to the residents of that Cardiff street who were cool with a battle taking place outside for three late evenings on the trot.

When Lemmy met The Nolans

dangerousminds.net/comments/tha...

Martin Parr was the only photographer who I shared the first batch of photos from Outsiders with back in 2016. He thought they were very moving and told me I must do a series, but he felt they should be in colour. I stuck to my guns and used monochrome. Our styles couldn’t be more different but

2023 illustration of a roller derby skater- skating backwards with a pronounced hip check and a cityscape blurring behind

Roller Derby portrait (2023)

The image is of a comic. Panel one depicts a young girl in bed. She hears "CLOP CLOP CLOP" noises. Panel two depicts the same girl with an excited expression. She thinks, "That must be santa on the roof!" Panel three depicts the girl smiling. Panel four depicts a possum on the roof in heels making the "CLOP CLOP CLOP" noises.

You are ABSOLUTELY NOT going to regret listening to this bird:

Additionally (or perhaps reductively), the existence of Tim Roth also implies the existences of Tim Roil, Tim Rine, Tim Reath, Tim Ristle, Tim Reast, and Tim Ritain.

a clown is holding a bunch of balloons and says `` happy birthday ! '' Alt: Pennywise from IT standing by the roadside, waving at a car. He's holding a bunch of balloons. The caption is "Happy Birthday!"

Oh, hey! Happy Birthday! Have a balloon!

Unlike Mr Lonsdale, I wasn't being serious.

Probably.

That's a reminder that I need to reread it; it's been a very long time. I remember even as a teenager, which was the last time I read it, thinking that there were parallels between Hook and George Darling and their desires to get being a man "right."

Still, he may have a point about public executions. I was imagining guillotines, though.

Ironic that "It's time to bring back masculine leadership" is one of the most insecure, tiny dick energy things I have ever heard in my life.

I love this image, aboard a train thundering across a plain dotted with tornadoes, debris flying around, the light all yellowed and attenuated by it.

SLEEPER AGENT ACTIVATION CODE WORD: "Fountain pen" 🖋️

...

Please tell me I'm not the only one. ✒️ 🤓

Title: The street tom waits grew up on. Image: a shabby, broken down old timey American street. Caption: Buildings (left to right): vern's all-nite pizza 'n' tattoo, accordion players' graveyard, abandoned clown-shoe factory, divorced salesmen's polka club, tomb of the unknown cabbie, bootleg ice-cream warehouse, saint frank's hobo orphanage, illegal umbrella incinerator.

Happy 76th Birthday, Tom Waits!

A black number 7, almost entirely veiled within a handkerchief wrapped vertically about the digit and knotted at the top, all against the ubiquitous red background. If I ever fail to mention colours in one of these descriptions, rest assured that the number's in black, the background's red, and any additional art is white (with black lines).

“Who…" quavered Hugg, "who are you, strange figure?" It was indeed a strange figure, arrayed in the clothes of two generations before, and powdered white from head to buckled shoe. About its head was a handkerchief tied from crown to jaw, as the jaw of a corpse is secured to prevent it sagging open. The figure groaned, horribly. "'Tis I, Felicitus Hugg!" it spoke in ghastly tones. "I, Jesmond Malarkey, your old business partner!" "Jesmond?" Hugg gaped in wonderment. "You? But... you're dead..."

"Aye," said the apparition, slightly peeved that — for an admirer of Dickens — Hugg was wandering far off-script. "I am here to warn you, Felicitus, to warn you of what awaits you, of what awaits us all!" "You speak of Heaven?" asked Hugg fearfully. "Or of Hell!" "I speak of neither, for nothing lies beyond but a reckoning and re-reckoning of our own lives." "But you were good, Jesmond. A kind, charitable man. I modelled myself upon you!" "And what a dull recounting it makes in the afterlife, let me tell you. Life is for living, Felicitus. Live your own life, and live it full.

You will be visited this night by three spirits, shades of what could have been, what is, and what may be." "Oh," said Hugg. "This is all a bit like A Christmas C..." "Yes, yes," said the ghost. "We're all big fans of Dickens in the afterlife. Apart from the bit with Little Nell. That was rubbish. Anyway... three spirits, Felicitus! Three... spirits..." And so saying, the ghost of Jesmond Malarkey drew back into the shadows, and Felicitus Hugg fell into a faint.

A mysterious figure approaches! Only the most top grade cliff-hangers from me.

Well, that's a relief. I mean, just as long as Pete Hegseth has a super secret list of people it's totally legal to kill, and all these people he ordered to be killed were on this list, why, everything's peachy. I mean, a system as resilient as that can't possibly be abused.

Polish Foreign Minister replies to Musk: 🇵🇱

this genuinely, for real, does make me feel better sometimes

every time you really land a joke, just remind yourself, "wow, all that money and Elon Musk still can't do that"

A black number 6 arrayed saucily upon a white chaise longue against a red background.

‘T was the night before Christmas. The house of Mr Felicitus Hugg was barely lit, and the rooms were cold, but this was less due to parsimony on his part as a general desire to live a simple life and to remain humble despite — or perhaps because of — his great personal wealth. Besides, he preferred to visit, and when he did wish to entertain, it was easy enough to hire rooms in which to do so. His home, then, gave the impression of belonging to a poor or miserly man, but nothing could have been further from the truth. He returned home from a pleasant

afternoon distributing presents at the local orphanage only to find his routine slightly unsettled by the absence of his housekeeper. In her place was a young woman busily making his supper. "Mrs Poplet was taken a little ill, sir," said the woman. "Oh, dear," said Mr Hugg, filled with the concern for others that characterised him so much. "Nothing serious, I hope?" "No, bless you, sir. Just a tad under the weather, so as she and my old mum are friends, I agreed to do her work tonight." In truth, there was little to do beyond making him his supper, and she was gone

soon enough, with a sovereign he pressed upon her for her kindheartedness. He changed for bed, ate his broth and drank his posset. A strange languor settled upon him, however, and he remained in the kitchen, dozing by the fire. He was roused by the sense that he was no longer alone. Startled into wakefulness, he looked up suddenly and was appalled by the sight of a figure in the doorway.

You had one single job, to remind me to post these advent thingies because you KNOW how easily distracted I oooh squirrel.

He still wakes screaming at 2am, "That's not popcorn!"