<< HICKS LIKES BEARDS ~ MAIN ~ DOVES KARLED >>
NEWS BRIEFLETS
* Last week’s column.
* Hugo Chavez gets his tilt on.
* A celebrity-owned Humvee is headed for the crusher.
* Behold, the garages of Murmansk.
Hey Paco,
Has this secret mens business going on in the Murmansk garages got anything to do with your many enterprises?
One wouldn’t know anymore with you having so many fingers in so many pies so I thought I’d just come straight out and ask.Posted by Hank Reardon on 2007 08 15 at 11:33 PM • permalinkthe garages of Murmansk.
Even Superman had his fortress of solitude. That’s assuming these aren’t PACO’s sweatshops.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 08 15 at 11:40 PM • permalinkCourtesy of the ever-alert Capt’n Heinrichs, a funny, AP-style Bush video.
I have to admit that - even as a proud American - the Aussies do have some of the most awesome garage projects ever devised by a man with to much time and technology on his hands.
“Pacovna” brand? Isn’t that name just a tad on the feminine side?
And does it mean that the truckload of “Pacovitch” vodka I was sold late last night is not genuine?
Posted by Steve at the pub on 2007 08 16 at 12:37 AM • permalinkIf a promise is made in front of a Live Earth crowd, then did it ever really happen?
Maybe the leguminous pop star should cop an eye-ful of this.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 08 16 at 12:46 AM • permalinkPacovna” brand? Isn’t that name just a tad on the feminine side?
Well it is just like Stalin’s mother made?
Mrs A
Posted by Apparatchik on 2007 08 16 at 12:51 AM • permalink#14 - Pacovna brand vodka was the second worst shit that Stalin’s mum made.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 08 16 at 01:05 AM • permalinkHow absolutely fantastic! Illegal garages, so the guys can get together for some much-needed solitude and -dare i say it? - toolwork out of reach of the authorities.
Now THAT’S revolution!
Couldn’t get into the previous thread, it was way too crowded and the smell of mead and Hicksian Flummery was overpowering.
If Ash shows up here, please accept my hand-waving congratulations on Ember/Packypus’ photos! I like her slightly suspicious expression in the non-bath photo! Her bullshit detector seems intact and ready to exercise!Posted by carpefraise on 2007 08 16 at 01:24 AM • permalinkGadzooks!
When I was learning to be a photo interpreter back in the early Seventies, we of course had to learn to recognize Russian equipment. One of the things that struck me then was that it looked as if Kama and GAZ bought cast-off tooling, primarily from Ford, for pickups and light trucks, and made only minor changes to the grille, etc. before putting the things into production. Of course that makes sense—Ford built GAZ in the first place; it just looked a little odd, what with the Cold War and all. (One of the things I’d like to have is an original name plate from a GAZ A, with the Russian letters distorted into a resemblance of the Ford Blue Oval logo.)
And now, in 2007, sitting in front of garages in Murmansk we see a pair of Explorers, only lightly modified, one early version, another from the last-but-one redesign complete with plastic wheel-arch trim. It’s past time to invent space travel, folks. The planet is just too damn small.
Regards,
Ric#18 - Your propensity for prolixity knows no satiety.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 08 16 at 01:27 AM • permalinkLooks like the blokes in Murmansk are just like the blokes in Oz. I never thought I would be shamed by a Russian, but alas, I have no pickles in my shed. I do have two beer fridges and a colour TV though.
Does that make up for the lack of pickles?“Garage” is a bit of a poofy name for a bloke’s lair.
“Shed” is a much more manly terminology.Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2007 08 16 at 01:30 AM • permalinkYeah, but do the Russians have ice fishing houses? That’s where the men of the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin go to drink schnapps and/or beer, and get away from the little lady during their six-month long winters.
And the fish they catch? Tiny little, and very bony, but very tasty perch, mostly.Posted by David Crawford on 2007 08 16 at 01:39 AM • permalink#29 - From what I hear egg, that’s a standard day on a Russian road. Those pricks die of everything but natural causes.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 08 16 at 02:21 AM • permalinkGood column Tim.
Speaking of clowns from universities, the SBS’s favourite US news roundup (Jim Lehrer News Hour) is on and guess who they have commenting on Iraq: Juan Cole!
So much for the credibility of that show. News services (like our own ABC) who pathologically cherry pick their favourite commenters and “experts” are almost beneath contempt, but I’ll give them some anyway.Tim, if you’re going to get stuck into academics, you’ll have to do better than just offering your readers Chris Sheil misspelling a word. There’s a whole world of lunacy out there in the Arts Faculties of Australian Universities. Next time, start with Australia’s Wackiest Web Sites.
Posted by Blithering Bunny on 2007 08 16 at 03:56 AM • permalinkMurmansk men have nothing on Australian men’s sheds.
The saddest aspect of high density living is that a generation of men will know what food best accompanies a ‘05 pinot gris , but won’t know that WD-40 accompanies everything. Progress? I think not.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 08 16 at 04:30 AM • permalinkThe splendid scenes of Murmansk is what awaits Australians under the joint Age-ABC-ALP dream of a one-party state united under the ACTU.
On the subject of one-party states in waiting, our friend Hugo “The Devil Made Me Do It” Chavez is again seeking to change Venezuela’s constitution. He is doing it for the most patriotic of reasons - to allow him to continue as president beyond his present six year term. It is not that long ago that Hugo had the constitution altered for another good excuse - to allow him to continue as president beyond the then five-year term. This boy isn’t going to go quietly.
And a final comment, on Australia’s academics. The massive dumbing down of academia in Australia is a consequence of very shallow gene pool from which university staff are drawn. It is a gene pool that also has staff the ABC and the Canberra press gallery and provide Labor with its “celebrity” candidates.
#37 - A gene pool with two shallow ends and no lifeguard.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 08 16 at 04:51 AM • permalink#36 - The Qld. hospital system is in worse shape than we thought. People are taking matters into their own hands!
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 08 16 at 04:54 AM • permalink#29 Dangerously straight, that tunnel, I’d say.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 08 16 at 04:54 AM • permalinkOT.
My sister in law (a public school teacher) visited this afternoon after today receiving her “Cultural Sensitivity” training at work.
My wife got the full rundown for me. The session was conducted by two african/muslim men that by the standard of their english would have been very recent migrants. The most enlightening information was that apparently when confronting a muslim child for a misdemeanor such as lying it is considered disrespectful by the teacher to demand or seek eye contact. What was further surprising is that these two very new australians were aware that this also applies to aboriginal kids as well.Posted by Hank Reardon on 2007 08 16 at 05:28 AM • permalinkMurmansk looks like a charming, lovely spot.
Or not.
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2007 08 16 at 06:56 AM • permalinkNigel Calder kicks Robyn 100m Williams’ butt over AGW
Robyn 100m Williams: I see. Now you were interviewed when a paper came out by Lockwood, from I think Southampton that was supposed to have looked at the record of the sun over the last 20 years or so, and they discounted that. And David Karoly, who is from the University of Melbourne, a Federation Fellow, who spoke on The Science Show, suggesting that the latest analysis as published by the proceedings of the Royal Society indicated that the cosmic ray story wasn’t happening.
Nigel Calder: Well he would say that, wouldn’t he. No, look, Lockwood and Fröhlich agree with Svensmark and me that the Sun has played a major role over hundreds of thousands of years. Henrik and I agree with them that the Sun, which was becoming more and more agitated during the 20th century, has stopped becoming more agitated and may even be calming down a bit. Where we disagree, and it’s perfectly simple Robyn, they say that in spite of the Sun quietening down a bit, temperatures are still shooting up. That is simply not true; temperatures are not still shooting up. The temperature, by the latest records both from surface stations and from satellites show that the temperatures in 2007 are lower than they were in 1998. Now I won’t swing anything on 1998 because that was an exceptional year of the warming in the Pacific called El Nino, but if you look at what’s happened since then it’s flat, just as the Sun is flat. It’s a perfectly simple argument; it’s just that the way they present their evidence of the warming they give a wrong picture of continuing warming.Murmansk!!!!! Ah I remember it well. All those buildings done out in the same shade of hospital-interior green, the (hospital-interior green) statue of Lenin with pigeon-shit on his head, the abject misery in the faces of the locals….
Happy days…...!!
Posted by ThinAndBritish on 2007 08 16 at 07:30 AM • permalinkThere was an old man from Murmansk
Who was given to vodka-fuelled rants:
“My marriage is going,
It never stops snowing,
And the economy’s totally pants.”Posted by ThinAndBritish on 2007 08 16 at 08:09 AM • permalink#11: “Pacovna” brand? Isn’t that name just a tad on the feminine side?
It’s all marketing, Steve. Pacovna is an attempt to soften the traditional guzzling-male-peasant image and bridge the gap between masculine and feminine appeal. Besides, it’s distilled from pig manure (based on the secret recipe revealed in The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin), so we had to create the illusion of palatability. The picture on the label - a basket of Russian wolfhound puppies - helps to accomplish this goal.
The Pacovitch brand - with the label featuring a ferocious, mustachioed kossack on horseback, speculatively eyeing a group of laughing, buxom milkmaids - is designed specifically for the masculine market.
NEWS BRIEFLETS
One at a time…..
* Last week’s column.
* Hugo Chavez gets his tilt on.
But Hugo, it tilts to the right, bad for a Leftist, no?
* A celebrity-owned Humvee is headed for the crusher.
He should go down with the ship, so to speak.
* Behold, the garages of Murmansk.
A good friend sent me this…Thank you good friend. Read it Ruskies, may help bring you up to modern.
My dad had a big shop where he would piddle around, work on stuff, listen to big band music, etc. There was a big spider in there which built a huge web, Dad would catch moths and toss them in and watch the spider come out and grab them. One day my mom angrily invaded this space and swept up the web. They split shortly thereafter. Amen.
Posted by dean martin on 2007 08 16 at 08:30 AM • permalinkAddendum to #54
Behold, the garages of Murmansk.
“Many men in Murmansk love escaping to their garages, which are often built far away from the apartment blocks where they live.”
Now THAT I must say, is the damn good part of it, Ruskies. Win/Win…for both of human *species.
*Unless, this is the female of the species, you left at home.
#55: I trust the rest of the world appreciates the trouble that P.A.C.O. Industries goes to in order to bring us all innovative and high quality products.
See? Another satisfied customer! And Peter has nailed it: the mission of PACO Industries is to create a happier world (well, that and accumulate sackfuls of gold).
#50: Well done, kae! A combination of dieting and exercise?
#35 That is truly appalling. I can’t live without my WD-40!
And I’m a sheila!
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 08 16 at 08:49 AM • permalink63 paco
Actually, maybe that’s the kind they keep in the garage.
That is MY kind of shed, my fine friend. THE most perfect of Shed’s…:)
Could just hear it now...
HE: ‘Oh Dear, must do some work on the jalopy, be back in a few hours’
SHE: ‘Ralph, you spend more damn time in that thing, then you do here. Why don’t you just stay.’
HE: Evil Grin.
#62 Paco
Mostly diet. Been too um, fat*, to comfortably exercise, but it’ll be easier now, if I can just find the time between leaving home at 5:30am and getting home at 5:30pm.
*and did I mention ashtma?Oh, and while I’m here, and before I go to bed:
News!
Mo shot at Granville.
I wonder what’s behind that.
He had a mini skip business and was a “devout muslim”.
yeah, right
And the ‘tard Australian base jumper killed in Europe
jeebuzz
Some idiot on the radio today said it’s safer than driving a car, you can get killed driving a car.
Well, i’m not driving my fucking car off a fucking cliff, with a piece of nylon neatly folded in a backpack behind me.
/rant
sorrysheds are not just for blokes. used to really enjoy mine till it got too full of pointless projects & junk. must have a purge. anyone want a concrete sink, a copper, a monstrous tv aerial, 3 dead lawnmowers, several dead phones, 50-odd posters of the most useless local member in australia, assorted ancient golf club & matching buggy, a trundle bed, some wobbly ladders & a pile of rusty tools? thought not
From the previous thread: “And where is my mention in the Ode to a Blog???? Hmm? Will I need to break out the big boots and cluebat?” - Nilknarf Arbed
She’s tougher than Tyson, Ali and Hulk Hogan,
She’s Nilknarf Arbed , the Right Wing Death Bogan !#71 Hahahahaha! Thanks, Paco. I can sleep easily tonight.
*thinks: I hope Paco wasn’t thinking of Ali McGraw when he wrote that.*
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 08 16 at 09:15 AM • permalink#69: anyone want a concrete sink, a copper, a monstrous tv aerial, 3 dead lawnmowers, several dead phones, 50-odd posters of the most useless local member in australia, assorted ancient golf club & matching buggy, a trundle bed, some wobbly ladders & a pile of rusty tools?
You know, Michael Lonie or Mental Floss could build a fusion reactor with that stuff, maybe even a perpetual-motion machine. You ought to at least be able to get a redneck riding lawnmower out of that junk.
“It is a tradition that the men build the garages themselves. Many of them were illegally built, though a few months ago there was an amnesty for unregistered garages.”
Great, amnesty for illegal garages. That’ll just encourage more of them to go to Murmansk“The garages are often furnished with old furniture, so after bad rows with their wives the men can come here to stay for a few days.”
Some things are just universal. Also noticed that there were girlie pictures in the garages.
Ya’ll have garages, we have “sewing” rooms. Enter mine at your peril.
In it I have a desk, my comfy chair, my sewing table with machine, boxes lining the walls with supplies, my stereo and all my CD’s. If I could stuff in a small refrigerator and a TV I’d never leave.
Elizabeth
Imperial KeeperPosted by Elizabeth Imperial Keeper on 2007 08 16 at 10:26 AM • permalinkDoughy is more like it at my age, which will increase by one on Labor Day this year.
Elizabeth
Imperial KeeperPosted by Elizabeth Imperial Keeper on 2007 08 16 at 10:33 AM • permalinkRe your column… well now I don’t know. I don’t think it was very nice of the anonymous prankster to add that bit about the granddaughter being pregnant to the fax about her getting into university. It sounds, in fact, like the sort of jealous sniping Americans get from the envious in other areas that we’re always decrying here (about our cars, our guns, our wealth, our military, etc.).
I can say that the obsession over college leaves me non-plussed—it wasn’t that way in our family. Then again, despite the fact that my mother’s side of the family grew up poor in Tennessee during the Depression, she and all her sisters made out well. One of my aunts, for instance, went to work in a factory a la Rosie the Riverter during World War 2, then later was employed by the FBI to work on their early computer database system—back when computers had switches and filled entire rooms, and then she married a meteorologist who worked at the hurricane center in the University of Miami. She never went to college, and neither did my mother. However, back in their day a high school education was the equivalent of college today. My father also grew up poor in Washington DC, but he got to go to Georgetown on the GI Bill.
Anyway, for what it’s worth, my parents were not passionately involved in getting me into any particular university. Of course they thought it would be nice if I went to college, but they weren’t fussy about where. While that the college obsession has become more widespread than it used to be, I think that the intensity varies from region to region, depends on whether the university has a famous football team, and as well is dependent upon class—the college mania is most intense among the “middle middle” class (America is a middle class nation—upper middle class, middle middle class, and lower middle class—the upper middle class with its traditional automatic “in” at ivy league unis tend to be blasé about going to college because they all just go, the lower middle class tends to be blasé about college because they don’t need no pansy degree to get ahead in life).
Impugning the honor of a young lady (it is touching that the grandmother was upset, rather than thrilled, at the idea that her granddaughter might be an unwed mother) used to be considered an offense. If I’d been the kid’s male relative I’d have hopped a plain to Australia just to find the creep who thought he was being so funny, for nice little diplomatic chat, with fists.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 08 16 at 10:38 AM • permalink#85 Andrea: I thought that was some pretty raw work with the fax, too. As to college, except for the quantitative/scientific disciplines, I still think most people ultimately wind up being largely self-taught.
#86 Missred: I have my library - or rather, two: one upstairs, one downstairs. The small one upstairs has an antique desk and chair, an oriental carpet, and three bookcases, one of which is filled with 18th century English literature (the other two bookcases are a grab-bag of Shakespeare, Edwardian fiction, Washington Irving and Sir Walter Scott). The window over the desk, offering northern exposure, admits soft light filtered through the leaves of maple and beech trees. Peace, indeed.
No, no, Elizabeth (#83). Aussie men don’t have garages.
We have sheds.
Sheds are to garages are what McMansions are to humpies.
See entropy’s link at #34. Those sheds are works of art, admittedly, but are pretty close to the average bloke’s shed.
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2007 08 16 at 11:04 AM • permalinkSorry, Pedro. To Virginians of my generation, the “shed” was usually a ramshackle hut where we used to toss things we didn’t want but were too good to throw away.
The one we had was white with a lopsided green door, and you didn’t go anywhere near it because of the spiders/mice/snakes/poison sumac that inhabited and surrounded it. It eventually collapsed and my mother had to hire a company to haul all that c@#% away.
So I never got the point of a shed. A garage, however, is another story.
Elizabeth
Imperial KeeperPosted by Elizabeth Imperial Keeper on 2007 08 16 at 11:43 AM • permalinkI have a nice room in my basement where I store bottles of wine and oaken casks of mead. It’s secured by passcard system. Plus I have a big fucking padlock since paco recently mentioned he was hankering for some Akkadian mead.
It’s big enough for a couch, comfy chair and ottaman, a desk, and TV. I’ve also borrowed a few codexes from the Alexandria Library I plan to read. Except I don’t read Egyptian. Or maybe it’s Greek. I can’t tell. I was hoping MentalFloss could translate them.
I guess I’ll just drink the mead instead.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 08 16 at 12:08 PM • permalinkGood plan Wron
I think you might save a heaping of that stuff for November 17th though. I have a feeling you just might need it with all those people coming back for just two things, and you’re one of them.
<The Yojimbo actually likes The Ohio State University but just loves to give Wron some grief>
I think the problem is that, at least in the US, more and more colleges and universities are having to do what high schools used to do. In fact, we are starting to slowly return to the days of prep schools (the so-called “magnet schools” with special programs for what used to be called “gifted” students) and vocational schools (community colleges and the various technical colleges and beauty “institutes.” The standard high school is more and more becoming nothing but a holding pen for disaffected goths, dumb bullying jocks, and gang bangers and their baby mommas. A lot of the college mania might be more attributed to the fact that people are realizing that three decades of playing with our childrens’ education instead of just educating them has resulted in a new generation of 18-year-olds who can’t write a letter or add simple figures. The ones who can are considered college-material by default, with a “right” to go to a “prestigious” university.
That being said, I would rather we reverenced universities than treated them as just another building full of idiots—the problem with that is our reverence for the halls of academe has been disconnected from the idea that the people actually attached to such places be worthy of such reverence. Back when universities were restricted for an elite few, professors could be wacky and unworldly, but they had to at least have an intellect higher than that of most people—the creepy Marxists and overgrown tenured babies infesting our university system wouldn’t have been allowed in the door.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 08 16 at 12:36 PM • permalinkAaah. . . . . Cultural confusion, Elizabeth.
Spiders, lizards, cobwebs and assorted urban wildlife are part of the Secret Men’s Business that ensures our sheds are never visited by the distaff side of the family.
Young boys learn how to tie fish hooks, create explosives, zero rifle sights, adjust the points on a car, oil motorcycle chains, place a bet at the TAB, sharpen a knife well enough to shave the hair off the forearm, what colour wire is positive in DC current, how to clip a dog’s toenails, what fuze wire does, how to set up a diode in an arc welder, where to hold a hammer to drive a nail properly, why sandpaper has grades, how to inflate a football, glue a sole on a shoe, charge a battery, take a tyre off a rim, clean a rifle, read a compass and a map, put polish on shoes, light a fire without a match, thread a needle, tie a knot for a given job, splice a rope, use a screwdriver, tan a skin, sharpen drill bits, replace a torch globe, swap a bike tyre tube, learn what a vice grip is good for, fit glass to a window, learn how to hold a cricket ball for good off spin, how much linseed oil to put on the bat before the season starts, how binoculars need to be adjusted, how to cross lace boots, how to use a signal mirror, and, in many, many ways, how not to be dickhead.Maybe the Oz shed culture is an anachronism, but for the first time in a long life , I feel some kinship with the men of Murmansk, Russia.
Long live the shed.
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2007 08 16 at 12:51 PM • permalinkHey, at least the people of Chicago are taking steps to ward off attack by an army of vengeful zombie clowns.
Marcus shoulda told that to his son, Commodus.
Posted by Harry Eagar on 2007 08 16 at 03:42 PM • permalinkThanks, paco, making up for some of the Ode’s deficiencies. Nilknarf was in there but fell prey to some savage editing in the final moments.
Elizabeth…I hope you find it in your heart one day to forgive me. You, and all the others.
(Writing something like that has the potential to create more enemies than friends. Fact is, it was my 1000th comment, but by the end I just wanted to get it over with and keep on commenting!).
#109 - There was a time, Dminor, when Margos Maid would go out of her way to congratulate commenters reaching milestones. Alas, it is symptomatic of society’s failings that this is no longer the case.
Now it appears the only milestones we celebrate are grim ones.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 08 16 at 10:38 PM • permalink#103 - fabulous quote! Of the standard I have come to expect fom the blog shed stored liberally with the Fastest Minds in the West (Mark Steyn notwithstanding).
Posted by carpefraise on 2007 08 17 at 01:59 AM • permalink#109 No worries, Dminor, I was just being contrary and not really fussed.
My ego has been soothed, though, which is always nice.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 08 17 at 05:29 AM • permalinkCongratulations on making 1000 excellent posts Dminor.
A few commenters suggested that mentioning every milestone was a bit tedious - and riteous indignation aside - I have come to agree with them.
Some of my favourite commenters are the long timers who post only occasionally but make ‘em count. However, it’s understandable for those making it to 1000 or more to feel chuffed to have joined the
cool club.Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 08 17 at 05:44 AM • permalinkNo problem, Dminor.
Until next time. (Sharpening sounds heard in background).
Elizabeth
Imperial KeeperP.S. You know I’m just kidding.
Posted by Elizabeth Imperial Keeper on 2007 08 17 at 11:01 AM • permalink
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If enough goofy people gather in the one place, be on your guard and expect a university.
That’s the stuff, mate!