Disconnected Jottings

I recall a pleasant afternoon when I was six years old. An ice cream truck had stopped near my home. My mummy gave me four pennies to buy an ice cream. As I ran toward the truck, a French bugger stopped me. "Bonjour, little m'sieur," he said. "I perceive you are going to buy ice cream, but please allow me to double your money, first." The thought of being able to buy two ice creams tempted me. He bent lower and held his hand out, flatly, and told me to lay  my pennies on the palm of his hand. I did so. Then he placed his other hand over the top of the pennies and rubbed his hands in a circular motion. He then removed his hand, and my pennies were gone. He laughed and began to walk away. "Why did you do that?" I cried. "Je suis un bugeer Francais... I am a French bugger," he declared. "I am a member of the French Bugger's Union and I do as I please." I ran back to my home and told my mummy what the French bugger did, and I told h

I like to edit people's photos especially those taken in an art gallery. This one is of a lady in a London art gallery, standing in front of a portrait of Sir Winston Churchill.    

  A lady in a London art gallery. She was standing in front of a portrait of king George V. I changed it to a bar fight.    

  A New Jersey man traveled to Delaware and stole twenty-eight pairs of Nike shoes. He later returned to the store and took another nine pairs of Nike shoes. Police reviewed the store surveillance and recognized him. The New Jersey state police arrested him and extradited him to Delaware to face the felony charges. Thirty-seven pairs of shoes were valued at almost $4,000. I ran that through my calculator to get the average price, and here is what the calculator showed. I did it a few times because I thought there was something wrong with it. I checked math with the Windows 10 calculator and it's the same.    

 Facebook's algorithm would probably see this as nudity, remove it and lock me out. They removed a photo and threatened to lock me out if I posted it, again. It had no nudity in it and nothing that could be construed as violating their community rules. Their algorithm is far from perfect but it will lock you out.

  I posted a comment on Yahoo, a few days ago, and I've just been notified it has been rejected. 'Scientists' claim that same-sex relationships between monkeys helps them father more offspring. I disputed it but it's no longer acceptable to go against the 'scientists' who are so wise.    

  The poem about Little Bo Peep was written in 1805, and as reported, she was short, not little. That makes sense because it's unlikely a little girl would be tending sheep. The name 'Bo' intrigues me. I had a friend known as 'Bo' whose name was Robert. It's possible, then, that the person we think of as a little girl, was actually a short male  named Robert. Little Robert Peep has lost his sheep. That makes more sense but if Bo Peep was actually a short male, why was he posing as a little girl? Could he have been a transgender around the turn of the nineteenth century? Yet it's only well into the twenty-first century that so many are coming out as transgender. I have, now, decided there will be no more renditions of Little Bo Peep in my home. Anyway, onto the subject of a mouse running up a clock: Was its name really Hickory Dickory Dock? And who would give a mouse such a name?

  Between a rock and a hard place. It was the only toilet Ben had in his house.    

Learning the new camera. I'm amazed at what it can do. This picture is about focus stacking. The left photo of the dial caliper is out of focus at the far end; that is normal. Then if I set it on Post Focus, it brings both ends into focus after the photo is shot, as shown in the right picture. Normally, several photos have to be taken and then stacking software used to stack them and bring out all the sharp points.        

  Everyone has their own idea of what constitutes art. For me, Picasso's and Hunter Biden's paintings are garbage. At the risk of seeming conceited, mine rates just a tad above theirs.    

  I saw a picture of a fake hundred-dollar bill, and liked Ben Franklin's face. It wasn't even a whole bill, only a part of it but my picture editing program refused to open it, and a notice popped up to say why. Evidently, no editing program is allowed to open it, to prevent the copying of genuine bills. But it's obvious I wasn't trying to edit a genuine bill, and all I wanted to do was to clip Ben's portrait.   I went online to find out why picture editors won't touch even comical treasury bills, and they said there's no way around it. I turned the photo upside down. Still my editor wouldn't let me touch it. I turned it into a negative and still no go. So what to do? I took a nap, and then an idea hit me: print it on my printer, then cut it out. I did that then scanned it into my editing program. Here's my finished picture and the one my editor wouldn't touch.    

 

 

  While riding down the road, this evening, I couldn't help noticing a billboard ad for two lawyers is still up there. I do think it's time for something else; I'm fed up looking at their lawyer faces. Then I began to think: They practice law and are known as lawyers. What about bricklayers? Why aren't they called brickyers? And painters... paintyers? Plumbers... plumbyers? Popes... popeyers? It's just lawyers who want to be called 'lawyers' because they think they're better than everyone else.  And, yes, I edited the billboard photo a bit.    

 

When I moved from London to the east coast, I finished high school there. My form master was Mr. Wallen, a former naval officer, and he must have been close to retirement. He'd say things like, "Peter the Great stuck his nose in a plate." Then he'd laugh. I also saw him deal with two unruly boys from another class. After lunch they stood before him and he yelled at them. Then he hauled off and smacked their faces so hard that it's a wonder he didn't cause them a neck injury. Anyway, Peter the Great was on my mind so I looked for a picture about him.      

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Trying my hand at illustrating a scene from the Shakespeare play 'The Burning Pudding.'    

If you have some Bud Light or other Anheuser Busch beers in your home, and you want to get rid of it, don't pour it down the toilet. Give it to your favorite politician.

 

  McCoy is well-known for his gas problem but he always blames it on other crew members.    

 

  Joe bought a large house in London but when he went to see it...    

  I used to think this way before I accepted Jesus Christ. Twain is wrong that he was dead for billions of years before he was born. His thinking is that if he didn't know anything before he was born, he won't know anything after he dies. It's true to say he didn't exist during those years, but he will exist forever after his death. In fact, he now knows how wrong he was, and there is nothing he can do to repent and have a second chance.   God creates the human spirit at a time when he decides, and once the human spirit comes into existence it is eternal. The spirit consists of the mind, emotions and will; the flesh is simply a vehicle to contain us while we're on this earth. At the time of death, the body returns to the dust from where it came, but the spirit enters one of two places: Heaven or hell. Hell is worse than anything the human mind can imagine, and there is no respite from the eternal pain and suffering; it goes on forever, as Twain now knows.   Jesus C

 

 

 

  I have a part time job in a grocery store as a security guard. They don't pay me anything but they gave me this awesome Darth Vader hat, so that's okay. And Mini Me is in security training with me.    

 

 I read something about rooftop dining. I don't see the appeal but, each to their own. Facebook locks people out for anything that might depict danger, even though it's only a joke, so I won't post it there.  Incidentally, this photo was flagged on ReTalk because of the two glasses of wine. It's alcohol! Oh, no!    

 It's a good thing the T-Rex was after a bit of cyclist bum, or it might have eaten Joe.    

 HAPPY TO NOT BE A FART The reason is, a fart has a very short life span. The moment it's born, its methane molecules begin to become exponentially diluted as it mixes with air molecules. If it's lucky it will manage to penetrate a nostril or two before it becomes too weak to be noticed. When a fart mother releases one in a field, on a windy day, it's just wasted because nobody gets to enjoy it. So what's a fart mother? A fart mother is a person, either male or female who births their methane in a fart bomb. The birth canal is the gastrointestinal tract which terminates in the butt crack. The gas doesn't care from whom it emerges, so either gender is said to be the fart mother. In the human race the male is generally said to be physically stronger than the female, but this is not so with farts. Generally speaking, the gas from the female fart mother is much stronger than that from the male fart mother.

  Occasionally, I have strange dreams, so real that I wake up, exhausted. This began to happen a few years ago when I started to learn about astral projection. That is where a person can learn to leave their body and go to other places. I had also read that it can be dangerous because evil spirits could intervene and prevent the person from returning to their body which would then die. I don't think that is true, though.   There are many books on the subject and I know that with some Eastern religions it is a regular practice. A person may go to another place, and when they return to their body, they relate what they saw, and it can be verified.   So I asked God to allow me to project from my body. That's when I began to go places in dreams, and return, exhausted. That doesn't happen with all of my dreams.   Until three years ago I was involved with a spiritual ministry that God drew me into. I had no idea what I would be doing at the time, but it continued for nineteen yea

  I've given everybody's favorite president a new look. I'm tired of looking at his same, old, sober business suit, so I designed a new, classy one for him, and a nice hat to go with it.    

  Turkish movie theaters are laid out differently to American ones. Movie goers like the screen smaller and to one side so they have to turn their heads.    

  A couple of the judges stepped out to take a dump, so me and Zuck stepped in for the Christmas photo op. I think their judgeships will love it.    

 

I mistakenly thought I would blend in but there was no fooling the girls rifle team. These were the days before 'Wokeness' infested America. 'Inclusiveness' was not a thing to be grasped; 'Exclusiveness' was the order of the day. It was legal to exclude anyone who didn't fit the mold. And so it was that the girls took my rifle away and ordered me into the kitchen to make their sandwiches. I had no choice because I was disarmed and they all had rifles.      

 The late Peter Jennings said he was there, somewhere else, but I was there at the royal stuff. And so was someone else.    

 

 

  Normally concealed under their chasubles, the bishes posed for the camera with the weapons exposed. Extra magazines are kept in their miters. The hidden lesson, here, is: Never mess with a bish. And I'm thinking 'cadre' would be a better collective noun than 'assortment' for a bunch of bishops.  

 

 The photo is actually of a group of men in an alleyway in London in the late 1890s. I added me in the golfing outfit.     

 The Grim Reaper was not having a good day, rushed off his feet and feeling fed up. He had just been kicked off the number 41 bus at Stoke Newington High Street because he didn't have the right fare to go to Urswick Road in Hackney. He was supposed to be at the home of James Fripp at 2 p.m. and it was now 1.56 p.m. It was a two-mile walk  and he knew he wouldn't get there at the right time. Besides that, he felt a bit silly in his long robe and carrying a scythe past Clapton Pond, especially as it was a hot day. He knew he dare not strip down to his shorts, though, because that would be most undignified for someone of his status. Ah, well, Jim was going to be allowed to live a bit longer than planned. You can't win 'em all.