Tetherd Cow Ahead

Well, Faithful Acowlytes, the season is upon us, and as the Herald Angels sing and the chestnuts smoulder away on open fires from here* to Chocowinity, it behooves† me to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, a Cool Yule and the finest things for the season. I’d like to thank you all for your companionship, zest and humour over the last year, and I look forward to you joining me in continued moosings in 2008.

But enough of that! I know why you’re really hanging around, so on to the winner of the Christmas Competition!

I have to say at the outset that it wasn’t as well contested as I’d hoped, especially when I promised a very special prize… But having said that, the four contenders who did participate didn’t hold back, and all showed the kind of plucky spirit that makes the Cow Comments the kind of feisty tête-à-tête that we all know and love. I am certain that RadioShack will be plagiarizing us for ideas next year. Maybe they’ll even pay us to come smarten up their dumb asses.‡

All the entries showed verve and flair, and disconcertingly high levels of technical competence. Casey’s Destruct-O-Matic Shock Tank was so terrifying that I think it might be better served up at Halloween, and Jedimacfan’s Virtual Sled is a promise to fat kids everywhere that their position in front of the XBox is eternally safe & warm. The Colonel’s aerial Christmas lights were an inspiration to Book Elves of all nations (perhaps to the detriment of some) and hewhohears‘ Aussie Snow Shredder was as fine an example of innovative uselessness as I’ve ever encountered. A generous piece of Christmas Cake for you all!

But after all was said and done, I kept coming back to Casey’s first offering – The Reindeer-Spooking Whirlygig Death Contraption. Casey promises that after the implementation of this device, you need never need worry again about clattering hooves and messy reindeer droppings all over your roof on Christmas Eve. Casey, the Very Special Christmas Prize is yours! Mail me at [reverend-at-tetherdcow.com] with a postal address and I’ll set Santa on a special delivery mission for the New Year.

Anyways, there’s tinsel to be hung and stockings to be filled so glad tidings of comfort and joy to one and all! Don’t eat too much holly, and remember that reindeer poop and raisins look fairly similar.

The Reverend

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*Seriously – I was in Melbourne CBD yesterday and there were guys roasting chestnuts. Thankfully the weather has been a mite cooler these last few days than the 35° (95°F) of last week, but even so, that’s just plain weird.

†Cow Joke…

‡Speaking in a Christmas manner, of course.

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Violet Towne and I were in inner city Melbourne this week when we were accosted by person who might be these days termed ‘height-challenged’ but in the time of my less politically correct childhood would gave been called a dwarf.

Personally, I can’t see much of a problem with the term ‘dwarf’. Before Lord of the Rings the logical cultural link anyone was likely to make with that term was with the happy chaps that whistled while they worked, made squillions from their diamond mine and were shacked up with a spunky chick. When I was a teenager hanging out in the theatre, we had a chap who fit that image perfectly. Well, if you included a fondness for sherry and imagined the local newspaper packing room was a diamond mine. In any event, he certainly hit it off well with the young ladies…

But I digress.

The short fellow who confronted us in town seemed a little agitated and with little preamble reeled off a story about his wallet having been stolen and how he was going to have to make phone calls to cancel all his credit cards and how he needed some money to get a train to his home in the Dandenong Ranges (an area just on the outskirts of Melbourne).

Now, as cynical as you all know me to be, I am still inclined at first flush to cut people the benefit of the doubt. I gave the guy a bill. Not enough for his train fare all the way, but I thought it would help him out. It has to be said: he snaffled the cash without so much as a backward glance and was on his way.

Violet Towne, who is possibly a little more street savvy than I am, wasn’t about to part with any of her hard-earned change for someone she pegged pretty quickly as a pan-handler (I noticed that she kept a tight grip on her purse as the exchange took place). Reflecting on it as the little man zipped off into the crowd, I couldn’t help but agree with her; it did seem fairly likely that Shorty had peddled that particular story more than once.

“Oh well,” I said, “I guess if he feels compelled to ask people for a handout he’s somewhat worse off than we are.”

The following morning this text conversation takes place between me & VT:

VT (on her way to work on the train): Hey! The dwarf just got on the train! He’s dressed in a suit!

Reverend: See! I was right!

VT: But he got on at Heatherdale. That’s a long way from Dandenongs.

Reverend: Whaddya expect? You were too mean to give him the extra he needed to get home.

The jury will probably remain forever out on the truth of the matter, but I figure that this is a Christmas Parable that can be read in whichever way you are inclined to view the Season.

Where they keep the Good Books.

(Spotted by jmf in his local book store.)

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Hey CowPokes!! Don’t Forget: the Christmas Competition is still running! Be sure to get yer entry in!

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Longtime readers will remember the story of The Prowler and how illustrator Kevin Cornell realised him in frightening watercolour on his great site over at Bearskin Rug (go there now and be amused).

Kevin was kind enough to send me an artist’s proof of his Prowler watercolour which I recently had framed in an appropriate manner. I am now awaiting the refurbishment of the crypt so that I may hang this wonderful rendering on the wall, flanked, of course, by two sputtering candles.

This is how the finished piece came out!

It has been noted that to make The Reverend a very happy man, all one has to do is sit him down with a good cup of hot tea and a slice of fruitcake. Of course, as Christmas approaches, the opportunities to offer fruitcake (in the form of Christmas cake) proliferate and the Reverend is continually on the lookout for the very best offerings.

It probably doesn’t need to be said that the highest calibre Christmas cake is always homemade. This does not mean that just because Christmas cake is homemade it is necessarily exceptional of course.

What is true is that I have yet to taste a commercially manufactured cake that is anything other than merely mediocre. Unfortunately, and in spite of numerous examples to the contrary, I continue to be ever-hopeful.

Consider the label on this nicely presented tinned Christmas cake I bought yesterday. Pay particular attention to that phrase: Authentic homemade recipe. Now it’s quite plain what the Woolworth’s people intend to convey with this, but seriously, it’s just one GREAT BIG LIE!

First of all, before we go into the semantics, who are they kidding with the basic pitch here? There were, by my rough count, around three hundred cakes in the stack that this one came from, and I think we can assume that this wasn’t the only Woolworths’ supermarket to feature this product. So at around 800 Australian Woolworth’s stores x 300 cakes, we’re looking at display stock of 240,000 Christmas cakes.

Whose home did they make these in?!! Donald Trump’s?!!

The idea that this cake was homemade, then, is plainly preposterous. So there must be some trickery in that phrase authentic homemade recipe. You can see where I’m going here, I know. Yes, when the lawyers go before the judge in the Tetherd Cow vs Woolworth’s Christmas Cake Action of ’08 they are going to say this:

But Your Honour, it is an authentic homemade recipe. Old Mrs Woolworth did really scribble down this recipe at home. Sure, we make the cakes themselves in a fifty floor stainless-steel factory full of conveyor belts and robots and digital cherry glazers, but the recipe was authentically made at home. That’s all we claim on our product.

The defense rests.

And the cake? Well, it wasn’t bad. Desperately in need of a good dosing of brandy, and a little wimpy as far as Christmas cakes go, but passable. Not even close though, not even remotely, to the delights I used to sample every year as the judge for Kate & Annie’s annual Christmas bakeoff.

After all, homemade is where the heart is.

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Hey CowPokes!! Don’t Forget: the Christmas Competition is still running! Be sure to get yer entry in!

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You will remember that in recent times I wrote a letter to my buddy Prophet Peter Popoff in an effort to make the discourse between us more of an actual discourse and less of a him-just-crapping-on-and-on-and-on-and-on-and-on-and-on with the baffling and profuse garblings I have come to expect.

My epistle has not, it appears, even halted him in his tracks, and this week he sent me another five foolscap pages of claptrap.

Except… wait… what have we here..? A questionnaire..?

OMG! Maybe I’ve been too hasty in dismissing Prophet Pete’s Predictive Powers. Why would he ask a question like that unless…

Oh Holy Crap! And what’s this:

Yes Prophet Pete! Oh yes, you’re right, you’re right!!! I managed to trick it outside this morning but – Jesus, Mary and Joseph! – it’s trying to get in again!!!.

Prophet Pete! I’m sorry I ever doubted your magnificent powers! Please come ’round with your Holy Water and Golden Braid as quick as you can! I can hear the mournful keening of the creature even now as I sit quaking under a table in the corner farthest from the window.

I know it can only be a matter of time before my soul is beyond salvation…

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Hey CowPokes!! Don’t Forget: the Christmas Competition is still running! Be sure to get yer entry in!

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This post is a very special one in that it marks the inaugural Fart Joke here on The Cow. I have an hypothesis that any artist, no matter what their chosen artform, no matter how lofty their philosophy, and no matter how impeccably high their standards, will eventually succumb to the lure of the Fart Joke. It is inevitable.

It may interest you to know that I did copious research for the creation of this illustration. Specifically, I searched far and wide for an appropriate cartoon depiction of a fart, and the corresponding noise. It is a surprisingly difficult thing to portray.

Of course, my first stopping point was Viz. If you want comicbook portrayals of bodily functions, Viz is always likely to come up with the goods. No disappointment here as far as fart humour is concerned, but sadly, nothing of the quite the right tonality for my farting Gabriel.

My quest then led me to a page about fart facts on an extraordinary site called SmellyPoop.Com which is not only comprehensive, but entertaining and highly informative. Here, I found the answers to questions such as: Do even movie stars fart? through Where do farts go when you hold them in? to Is it possible to get stoned after inhaling two or three farts in a row? and Can a man fart out of his genital opening? There is also a comprehensive list of euphemisms for farting, an even longer list of alternative terms for farting (fartrogen dioxide… air monkey… poofume…) and poems and limericks about farting. SmellyPoop.Com is a veritable fartucopia!

Alas, nothing at all about graphical cartoon depictions of brown body radiation and its accompanying audio effect, however.

After that it was nothing but sidetracks – combine the internet with farts and you’re set for a rainy day of truly intellectually-undemanding entertainment. I had to play England’s Most Farted House twice because I wasn’t entirely convinced it was a send-up, so convincing was the performance from the featured ‘psychic’. I got waylaid for half an hour at halfbakery.com (a site that encourages people to post up ‘half-baked’ ideas) reading proposals for a Rectal Karaoke Machine, a Fart Lamp and The Smellevator.

Then I discovered a MythBusters episode that was never screened for the general public in which Jamie and Adam, with the help of an extremely good-spirited Kari, address the myth that ‘Pretty Girls Don’t Fart’. (Busted, in case you didn’t guess).

But still no help with the cartoon sign language. And so it went.

In the end, I just had to go with my best instincts. I don’t know if the Annunciation works – I can’t tell. I showed it to Violet Towne and she laughed. But not until she’d scrutinized it for a minute or so. She didn’t think that ‘br-a-a-ap!’ quite did it, but after several alternatives agreed that it did seem the best fit.

So there you have it Cowmrades. Once again your visit to Tetherd Cow Ahead has made it well worth the subscription fee.*

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*You didn’t think you were paying? Check your IQ. Same as when you first started reading? No? See!

Hey CowPokes!! Don’t Forget: the Christmas Competition is still running! Be sure to get yer entry in!

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UPDATE to the UPDATE: Blogger folk – here’s what you need to know to set your comments to allow links to blogs on other platforms. First, you need to log into your blog via Blogger in Draft, which is a kind of sandpit or beta Blogger that exists, supposedly, so that you can play with Blogger features before they’re actually released. What the hell is that? They implement a feature (OpenID) blog-wide on the main platform but you can only change it from the beta??? O-k-a-a-a-y… Anyways, once you’re in Blogger in Draft go to Settings->Comments and check ‘Registered Users – Includes OpenID‘

So, after spending ten minutes figuring this out, and with help from someone who was clued-in, I don’t feel quite as bad that I flew off the handle at Blogger. What kind of idiots alter their current release software to take away utility that existed previously and that can only be restored if you happen to be running the beta? And where is the notification on your Blogger Dashboard that says ‘Parts of your blog have been changed, and will not be accesssible to you unless you go and log in to another site entirely’?

I say to you again: WordPress, peeps.

UPDATE: rd5 comments that the reason this happens is due to Blogger implementing OpenID! So all you folks on Blogger, please read the comments on this post to find out how to allow other blog platforms to get active links. And I’ll just go eat a slice of Humble Pie that comes direct from the Oven of Shame set at gas mark ‘Egg on your Face’ ‡

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Once upon a time, so long ago that it seems like just a bad dream, Tetherd Cow Ahead started its life on the Blogger™ platform. All went well for a while, and indeed, I am grateful that Blogger™ was such an easy way for me to start The Cow rolling.*

But then, not long after Blogger™ was acquired by Google™, things started going haywire. There was the dreaded ‘smenita’ affair that intermittently took down Blogger™ Comments for weeks. After that, there was a several-week-long crapshoot in which nobody (including me) could tell whether or not The Cow was likely to be functioning or commentable. This was made aggravatingly worse by the fact that Blogger™ personnel went completely incommunicado, and made no effort whatsoever to let users know what was going on, let alone apologize for the problems. Then there were numerous smaller but infinitely annoying shutdowns and faults that served to make a quick read of The Cow into an interminable chore. Again, with no explanations from Blogger™. After weeks of frustration I’d had enough and (with surprisingly little effort) I migrated The Cow over to WordPress where I’ve maintained it with no trouble ever since.

Only now, it seems, I have cause to bitch about Blogger™ once again.

I visit many friends who have their digs on Blogger.™ Up until now, whenever I have left a comment, I have been able to enter my name as either a user from a Blogger™ account (which I can do, since my old account is still active)†, a name & url combination (which creates a direct link on my name to the url, in most cases TCA) or post anonymously.

My preference is to leave my name linked directly to my (non-Blogger™) blog. This means that if you want to visit my blog, you simply click on my name.

Over the last few days though, I have noticed a disturbing difference in the way that Blogger™ allows a visitor to comment: now, instead of having the option to link my name to a url, I am only allowed a non-linkable ‘nickname’. Either that or I must have a Blogger™ account. In other words, I can no longer leave my name as ‘reverend anaglyph’ and have it link back to Tetherd Cow Ahead.

This is a really shabby and pathetic impediment for Blogger™ (and one must therefore assume Google™) to have foisted on its users. It effectively says to your commenters: you cannot comment and be linked to your own blog without being a member of the Blogger™ club. It is, in fact, antithetical to the very concept of blogging.

If you have been thinking about shifting your blog elsewhere (and I do recommend WordPress supported by your own host if you can afford it) then now is the time to do it, as a protest to this extremely Microsoftian draconian imposition. Either that, or write to Google/Blogger™™™™™ and use strong language on them.

Blogging is about interaction, not about clubs & closed doors. These kinds of ideas will bring the utility of the internet to its knees if they get a grip. Acowlytes! Protest them, and protest them strongly!

ADDENDUM: And here’s a thought: if, in the course of your wonderful philosophizing, you manage to attract new readers to your blog, and they reside on platforms external to Blogger™ (and there are now dozens of free blogging sites) you can almost certainly kiss them goodbye as new connections in your blogging circle. Why? Because no-one will be able to follow them back to their own place to engage in the community that is set up by such a practice. Why should they visit you and engage in your show if their is no possibility of reciprocation? My best blogging buddies – indeed, nearly all my current blogging friends – came here via other people’s blogs, often on other platforms.

If you think I’m over-reacting a bit on this, go spend some time trawling around a closed community, like, oh, MySpace let’s say, and see exactly what calibre of intellectual tête-à-tête a whole lot of inbreeding gets you.

For my own part, this very problem has prevented me from engaging in the TypePad and LiveJournal communities – every time I find myself at a TypePad blog and want to strike up some banter with the writer, I am supposed to ‘Join Up’ to do so. Bollocks! They’re gated communities by any other name, desperately trying to keep out the riff-raff.

Viva la revolucion! To the guillotine with the lot of them!

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‡TCA consumes and recommends The It Crowd.

*And as we all know, a rolling cow gathers no moss! (Cow rolling should not be confused with cow tipping which is a different thing altogether)

†On a technical note: I’ve hacked my Blogger site in such a way that if I do leave my Blogger name, you now never see my old blog – instead, you are whisked immediately to the proper home of TCA. I’m lucky – I know how to do these things, but it’s probably outside the capabilities of many less technically inclined bloggers.

Hey CowPokes!! Don’t Forget: the Christmas Competition is still running! Be sure to get yer entry in!

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The people at RadioShack have been running a rather clever advertising concept illuminating their ‘Do Stuff™’‡ slogan. Briefly, it involves demonstrating how to accomplish some task, such as shooting candid nature shots of wild animals, by buying off-the-shelf RadioShack items and repurposing them.

Being a bit of a techno-geek, I respond very well to this kind of idea, so I’ve been checking in with the RadioShack site now and then to see what else they’re coming up with. Amusingly, the current (December) offering sees the RadioShack Geek Department comprehensively out-clevering itself in an enthusiastic bid to ratchet up the Christmas shopping turnover.

The concept is outlined in easy-to-follow steps under the uber-tekky, up-to-the-minute-geeky* title Caroling 2.0 and this pitch:

When the weather outside is frightful, and the fire is so delightful, it can be pretty hard to get excited about caroling. Luckily, all it takes is technology and a little know-how to sing to the neighbourhood, without dashing through the snow.

To synopsize the idea: you video yourself singing Christmas carols, edit the results and transfer them to your iPod. You attach your pod and a little speaker to a radio-controlled toy truck and then, from the cosy comfort of your living room, drive it off to your neighbours’ houses to infuse them with jolly musical holiday cheer (and all of the aforementioned tech-toys are purchased from RadioShack, of course). Easy peasy, eh?

Or, as the RadioShack Geek Department rates it:

Difficulty: Easy
Time: About an hour
Result: A new holiday tradition

Here at the Tetherd Cow Geek Department, we think it would go slightly differently:

Difficulty: Somewhat easier than assembling an IKEA bookshelf. But not much.
Time: How good is your singing and how competent are your editing skills?
Result: One stolen iPod & RC toy

Aside from anything, isn’t the whole point of Christmas caroling that you get together with a bunch of friends and trudge through the snow in order to spread the neighbourly Christmas spirit? And so you can trudge back again and enjoy brandy and eggnog and chestnuts roasting on an open fire?†

Sigh. Obviously I have, once gain, been left behind by the latest trends.

These days, it would appear, with a RadioShack purchased Wireless AV Sender, a RadioShack purchased camcorder and some RadioShack purchased AV cables, not only will your kids get see mommy kissing Santa Claus, they’ll be able to project the whole sordid affair as it happens, for all the world to see, using a RadioShack purchased video projector pointed at a convenient neighbourhood snow drift.

So with that thought in mind, a Special Tetherd Cow Christmas Competition!

Your task: re-imagine a Christmas tradition using a combination of products from the RadioShack catalogue. Keep it realistic (ie, feasible), make it purposeless (points will be deducted for anything deemed useful), make it inspired, and make it funny. If possible, refer to the lyrics of your favourite Christmas song.

There will be a prize for the cleverest invention. And it will be a special one.

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‡Is it just me, or is all this trademarking starting to get A Bit Out Of Hand™?

*Sarcasm (in case you think I was being serious).

†Well, I dunno. We don’t have anything like snow or icicles or Frosty the Snowman here of course, but from watching all the American films, I certainly got the impression that that’s what it was all about.

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