The Sky and the Moon

 Just a reminder for The Nature-led Life's March photo submission request: The Sky and the Moon - as hosted by the delightful Melanie.

 I've emailed my photos in, but narrowing down the many, MANY photos I have of the sky and the Moon was rather harrowing, so I thought I'd create a post out of some of those that I didn't submit.

25 January 2018 : Pre-dawn

[Featured in No Moon At All]

Art Trek: The Andorian with the Rubber Ducky Room Tattoo

 Well, it's Tuesday, and fortunately someone did make a delivery to the Rubber Ducky Room which means I was able to escape from there to bring you this: a double helping of Star Trek fan art!   Unfortunately, I don't know who it was that left the door open while they stacked the tractor beam emitters, or nurses, or photon torpedoes, or whatever it was they'd delivered, so I don't know who it is you can thank for enabling this glut of self indulgence gallery of fine art?

 

[It all happens on Tuesdays]

 Before we get to the Rubber Ducky Room nonsense, we need to make a quick return to February when I eventually managed to drag myself away from my Rutherford action figures and make a start on that month's art challenge: "I like the Old Stuff better than the New Stuff" (art based on 20th century Trek).   

 I returned to an idea I had for January 2018's "Your favourite Trek moment" challenge, and which has been languishing in my files since then.  I'd got as far as selecting some screen caps from ST III: The Search For Spock (my favourite ST film!) and making a very quick sketch of how I wanted to put them together, but that's it.  I'd named it Uhura: Queen of Starfleet!

 

Speaking of favourite trek moments, here's some music from one of mine to accompany

your tutting, sighing, and scrolling: "Stealing the Enterprise" from ST:III, of course!

 

 Anyway, I chose some more screen caps (from TrekCore and Cygnus-X1), resized them, roughly "cut them out" in MSPaint, and slapped them all together in order to create a poster featuring my favourite scenes, characters, and props:

 

Clockwise from the top: Earth Spacedock, Commander Nyota Uhura, Vulcan guard and maidens, Spock (age 17), Lieutenant Saavik, Doctor David Marcus, Spock's and Saavik's hands doing the pon farr finger thingy, Grissom comms officer, Commander Janice Rand, USS Grissom, Valkris, and a Klingon Bird-of-Prey coming in to land near Mount Seleya on Vulcan in the centre.

Help! I'm trapped in the Rubber Ducky Room!

And there's not a tin foil hat, nor baking parchment Sou'wester to be seen!

"... the gossip, and a Bertie update!"

 As Jon asked so nicely demanded, here is the gossip, and a Bitey Bertie update.

 

 Bertie first: He is willful, stubborn, hates being told off, bitey (still, but he's started to lose his baby teeth, so hopefully he'll be less bitey soon), and a right little aggravator.  However, he's lovely when he's asleep!

 I took him down to the beach earlier, and here are some photos that document his mischieviousness:

Here he is looking guilty after causing a mud slide with an enormous fart - you can see how the force of the trump has blown all those reeds over behind him.

(Really though, this cliff slump happened as we were walking by, although Bertie was oblivious.  A larger version from 2019 can be seen here.)

Art Trek: Cybernetic implant set to SEXY MODE

 It's not a toilet seat!  It's a folded up robe, albeit with a collar that looks a lot like a toilet seat depending on one's frame of mind...

 

 Anyway, enough from the depths beyond the U-bend of Mago's subconscious, what I want to do is publish an explanatory post complete with screenshots and lines from the various episodes of Star Trek: Lower Decks that inspired the following artistic lascivious dalliances with my current infatuation and muse, Ensign Sam Rutherford.

 But, as I said over at The Very Mistress's place in answer to her question about how the year is going for her faithful bitches, today* has been "filled with far too many irritants and annoyances already, and I can't seem to get anything done."  So, there's precious little explanation, just some pervy Rutherford 'art' which probably won't mean anything to anyone who hasn't watched Lower Decks eleventy-billion times...

 

* The "today" in question was actually last Sunday, 5th Feb.

This past week didn't get much better - I'm only publishing this so that you know I'm still alive.

Please Hold...

 Remember that scene in Jaws 2 in which Chief Brody is trying to convince Mayor Vaughn and the rest of the town council that the photograph retrieved from the missing divers' camera is of a shark?  Well, I've been dealing with a (not very) similar situation - as you can see from the image above - which is why I haven't been around much lately (although I have been visiting your blogs when I can).  More on that in a bit.

 To be honest, what with the above and other matters, it'll probably be a little while longer before I'm back to my semi-(ir)regular posting and commenting.  So, in the meantime, here's some 'hold music':

"Mysterious Times" - Sash! feat. Tina Cousins

Moss Walk for Melanie

A moss island on the Madam's Lane bridge

  What with one thing or another (which I shall elaborate on in a future post), December passed by in a bit of a blur.  This meant that I managed to forget about Melanie's Nature Led photo submission (the theme for which was 'Nature at Rest').  Oops!

 So, as the skies were blue, this morning I headed out with Camera to get some photos for this month's theme: Moss.  And here are the results:

Exposed tree roots near the radar station

Moss lining the edge of the Paston Way path leading up past the radar station

It's Arrived!

 Yes, 2023 has arrived safely upon the shores of Great Britain, only slightly worse for wear after all those libations first in Australia (Dinah!) and then, most recently, The Netherlands.

As per, there's too much cloud cover to actually see the sun...

The Year of the Lazy Baggage*

* No.  Not that one this time.  It's IWeMeUs!

 That's right, We are the Lazy Baggage in question.  I'm sure you can't have failed to notice a glut of lazyitis in the vicinity of Hexenhäusli Device this year?  In fact, I'm so lazy that I can't even be bothered to come up with an excuse think of the reason for not actually blogging that much.  I'm sure there was one, though...

 As luck would have it, a certain someone's penchant for Monday GIFs has come in handy as this one from January illustrates the horror and despair I felt upon opening this draft post and realising that it was so unfinished as to be barely started!

 Look, we haven't got time to appear terrified-yet-glamorous while trotting about in the garden encrusted in jewels and wearing something far too skimpy for this time of year!  We've got to try and remember what happened this year, then wrap it up and bundle it in the back of the sideboard so that the New Year can start on time!

 Oh, cripes.  We'd better get on with it, then.  It's a good job that everyone else has been quite productive:

January

Event : After years and years and years of deliberation, cogitation, and waiting for just the right moment, Ms Scarlet banished her FGES anxiety and launched the New Year by holding the Freakin' Green Elf Shorts Caption Competition!

Rimpy's sigh of relief could be heard across the globe...

 Two weeks later, Maddie, the Mistress Borghese, won the competition and became the 28th person to become inflicted with the 'Shorts!

 

 And two weeks after that, Ms Scarlet prepares herself to go through Post Shorts Syndrome...

 

Discovery : I was almost beside myself when I discovered a modern, live-action clip from one of my favourite 80s cartoons - Dungeons and Dragons!

 My excitement was dulled somewhat when I realised that it was from a Brazilian Renault advert, but I still live in hope of a car-less reboot (fan-edited English language version here).

February

Quotes : "An erect stud at 16 hands is something to behold and rather terrifying I must say!", and...

"Julian fingering Fanny's lip"*

1983 Bantam Books cover

by Yvonne Gilbert

 It's almost the end of the year, so here are most of the things I've read, watched and listened to since my last update back in September.  Unfortunately, I don't have much time to spend on this as I need all the time I can get to work on the end-of-year roundup - which I've barely begun - Eeeek! (The observant amongst you will notice that I copied this intro from last year's end-of-year update because it's still relevant.)

 

Read

Oh, gods, it's been a year and I'm still struggling through Little, Big by John Crowley.  And I haven't even re-read anything either!  We'd better quickly move on to the next category...

Watched

⸰ The Vast of Night (Prime Video) - I could not make out what the male lead was saying for much of this alien abduction film.  His accent and specific 50s dialogue combined to become almost impenetrable to me.

⸰ Star Trek: Lower Decks, S3 eps 7-10 (Prime Video) - Amazing! The finale was so exhilarating, but rather than post a video of that and ruin it for anyone who may want to watch it without spoilers, here is a clip from an earlier episode.

 

"Thanks again for the mimosas."

Frost and Fungi

 Inspired by Melanie's latest Nature-Led mushroom free-for-all - and also because I had loads of photos to use up that didn't make the cut, and have nothing else ready to publish - here are some fungi photos from the last couple of months:

 

A broken & blurry specimen from my allotment on 11th October:

 

A little nubbin of a toadstool by the front garden fence (from 20th October):

 

 

The following fungi were all from a walk around Blickling Hall grounds on 22nd October:

 

CHOKING HAZARD - No Small Parts

 Brace yourselves: This is a self-indulgent dumping ground for my latest Star Trek fan art, so either nod & smile until you get to the end, or just click away now and wait until I post something more interesting (athough that could take a while...)

 

 Diving straight in, here is the result from August's 'bonus photo' in my Cloud Mouth post: August's Art Challenge: "Hailing Frequencies Closed" (in honour of the dearly departed Nichelle Nichols at the end of July)

 

 

➣

 

 I had an idea for September's "TOS Anniversary" Art Challenge theme - the Ardanan floating city, Stratos.  That didn't pan out - the sketch on the right is as far as I got - so I ended up submitting a sculpture-type thing of the TOS operations & engineering insignia instead.  I cobbled it together from old, broken & seaworn roof tiles on a wander down to the beach to blow away the frustration that Stratos had built up.