07:17 – We’re back in stock and shipping chemistry kits, so I’m back to working heads-down on the forensics book. I’ll finish the text later this week, which leaves me a week to go back and clean things up, shoot more images, and so on.
Monday, 21 May 2012
16 Comments and discussion on "Monday, 21 May 2012"
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Boy, slow day today…
A work colleague uses the following in his signature block, which is pretty much true:
“Hardware eventually fails. Software eventually works.”
Well, software does not *always* eventually work.
Well, it’s a holiday in Canada. Don’t you guys still celebrate Queen Victoria’s birthday?
Ah, Victoria. One of those on my list of “if these people had never been born, the world would have been better off”.
She was, to put it charitably, a moron. Even with Albert’s genes mixed in, all of her children were sub-normal. Even the “bright” one (Alice?) was at best normal in intelligence. And it’s no coincidence that so many of her descendants carried the gene for hemophilia. It’s hard to imagine a person less genetically suited to be ancestor of European and Russian royalty.
Yeah. But it makes for a perfect queen, does it not? After all, smart kings and queens are so much more difficult to deal with. They often have ideas! Victoria was like dough. They shaped her and plunked her on the throne for 64 years. She even looks a bit like Poppin’ Fresh, the Pillsbury Doughboy.
And between you and me, the current resident of Buckingham isn’t much smarter, nor are her kids. If anything, that dolt she’s married to turn that particular gene pool into the Dead Sea. Well below sea level, and only good for floating.
*looked
I should look into that edit plugin Dave B. mentioned…
“It’s hard to imagine a person less genetically suited to be ancestor of European and Russian royalty.”
She was the mother and grandmother of many US presidents too, wasn’t she?
No way, man! We want the morons, the hemophiliacs, the strangely long-lived defectives on and around the throne. Same goes for the rest of the hereditary gentry. If you have a competent, honest ruler, people might get the idea that leadership should be bestowed by birth. If you have a bunch of stumbling fools, there’s a chance, slight though it may be, that the ordinary people will figure it out that their “betters” are no better and quite likely worse than themselves.
Well, Elizabeth is after all a direct descendant of Victoria, as is Charles the Imbecile.
Speaking of matrilineal lines, Barbara and I have been watching the Showtime series The Borgias. The history, as usual, is dubious, at best. But one of the major characters, Lucretia, is also an ancestor shared by much of European royalty.
I suspect that all the average person “knows” about Lucretia Borgia is that she was beautiful and poisoned people, neither of which is true. Or least there’s no evidence for either assertion. All that’s really known of her was that she reportedly had a pleasant personality, walked very gracefully, and had thick blonde hair and very large boobs. She was apparently the Dolly Parton of her day. There isn’t even a painting known to be of her.
I don’t know if Charles the Imbecile is descended from Lucretia, but his sons certainly are through Diana.
Nah. I should be emperor. Both Julius Caesar and Augustus are my ancestors.
Julius Caesar? That weirdo? Did you know he was the great-great-great etc etc grand father of Queen Victoria?
You know, of course, that he had sexual relations with cats, sacrificed puppies to his gods (feline, of course) three times a day and needed Cicero to proof-read his writings?
Give me Cicero and Cincinnatus any day.
Bill wrote:
“Well, it’s a holiday in Canada. Don’t you guys still celebrate Queen Victoria’s birthday?”
Well, we still celebrate Boxing Day, which I had always thought was related to the good guys putting down the Boxer Rebellion in China, but appears not to be.
Down with the rebels! Long Live Her Majesty!
Boxing Day? I always thought that had to do with fisticuffs.
Boxing Day is an excuse to sleep off Christmas dinner.
It’s a WordPress plugin, so our host would need to install it. I realize he’s far too busy to do that right now. Plus there’s an issue I need to figure out how to resolve before I’m willing to recommend it to our host.
Then I should nag our host…
Uh, on second thought, having an idea of the firepower he packs, and guessing at what he hasn’t told us, maybe I’ll hold off for a bit!
Geez. I told you guys that I’m a meek, shy, gentle, unassuming kind of guy. I used to shoot a lot, but it was all target shooting other than the couple times that I actually shot at people who were shooting at me. And that hasn’t happened since 1979.