Farting around

Quoth the Raven, “Spend some more”

This was sent to me by RD Rick, back in 1996. Found it again while searching for something else entirely. It’s too good not to share, and since it’s not in the Googlesphere (yet), here you go.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of Volkswagen lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of something gently rapping, rapping in my engine core.
“‘Tis some valve lash, ” I muttered, “tapping on my flat four;
Only this, nothing more.”

And the sluggish sad uncertain revving of my recently installed engine
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
“‘Tis some loose valve entreating adjustment at my engine core,
Or some sloppy bearing entreating replacement at my engine core.
This is it, and nothing more.”

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
“Muir,” said I, “or Haynes, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is, I was napping, and so gently it came rapping,
And so faintly it came tapping, tapping at my rocker covers,
That I scarce was sure I heard it.” Here I opened wide the covers;
Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Rod?”,
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Rod!”
Merely this, and nothing more.

Back into the combustion chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping, something louder than before,
“Surely,” said I, “surely, that is something in my bottom end.
Let me see, then, what there is, and this mystery explore.
Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore.
‘Tis minor work, and nothing more.”

Open here I flung the engine cover, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
Out there stepped a stately raven, of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But with mien of lord or lady, perched above my engine core.
Perched upon the open deck lid, just above my engine core,
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly, grim, and ancient raven, wandering wandering from the nightly shore.
Tell me what the heck is wrong, the problem’s worse than before.”
Quoth the raven, “Spend some more.”

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning, little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his engine core,
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bonnet above his engine core,
With such name as “Spend some more.”

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast and followed faster, till his songs one burden bore,
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore
Of “Spend – Spend some more.”

“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!’ I shrieked, upstarting–
“Get thee back into the tempest and the engine’s bore!
Leave no black exhaust plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my Karmann Ghia unbroken! — quit the lid above my core!
Take thy beak from out my wallet, and take thy form from off my core!”
Quoth the raven, “Spend some more.”

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid engine lid just above my engine core;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming.
And the trouble light o’er him streaming throws the shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—nevermore

If you know who wrote this, please let me know (I’m guessing one of the interesting people I hung out with on the Vanagon list waybackthen).

My friend Jackie

selebi_1

This man was one of the main supporters of the South African Firearms Control Act of 2000. He thinks firearms are “evil things“.

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This man is responsible for ending smallbore rifle shooting at schools, collecting the rifles, and melting them down.

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This man is guilty of corruption and, if all goes well, will end up in jail.

Veuve Clicquot

This lady and I have some serious celebrating to do.

Update, 3 August 2010: 15 years. Yes!

(Yea, I know it’s not because of those beautiful little Anschutz rifles he melted, but I don’t care.)

Made of win!

From just about everyone in the blogosphere this morning.

“I’ll kill a man in a fair fight. Or if I think he’s gonna start a fair fight. Or if he bothers me. Or if there’s a woman. Or if I’m gettin’ paid. Mostly when I’m gettin’ paid.” — Jayne Cobb.

Jayne

Masters of Rock

Random thoughts.

  • Computicket is smoking their socks — They’ve been showing that all seats had been booked out for weeks, and when Tanya got tickets for us, there were only four available — yet at the venue about a third of the seats were empty. Block bookings?
  • Got better seats this time. Off to the side, which means we probably escaped the brunt of the loud :-( but the view was good :-)

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  • Grand West has a serious problem getting lots of people in through security. Once through, the queue disappears.
  • None of these guys have the voices they used to have. Ons word almal oud :-)
  • Uriah Heep still rocks, even though only Mick Box remains of the band I grew up on.
  • Bernie Shaw is Barney when he’s not touring with Uriah Heep.
  • It should be illegal to have as much fun behind a set of drums as Russell Gilbrook has.
  • Uriah Heep’s sound was awful — some kind of phase distortion in the middle of the keyboards. I suspect one of their floor speakers was beating with the main speakers where we were sitting — because after they re-arranged the stage for Deep Purple things were a lot better.
  • We were seated in the middle of the Wildebeest migration. Seriously. Every three minutes someone else decided they needed to be somewhere else. It was like Jane Fonda with heavy metal. Fortunately all these fools settled down eventually.
  • Deep Purple rawks.
  • Don Airey plays a mean keyboard.
  • Steve Morse mag maar ‘n kitaar tokkel.
  • They did Lazy! Yeah! But without the bouncy bit from Made in Japan, I guess that bit belongs to Richie Blackmore or Jon Lord.
  • Don Airey luves the right hand side of his Hammond organ. He must have a standing order for replacement keys.
  • They didn’t do Child in Time. Yea, I know, last time they did was in 2002. One can hope.
  • They did come back after leaving the stage and proceeded for another half an hour, with Hush and Black Night.
  • Getting home at 2 o’clock on a week night is Not a Good Thing.
  • Did I mention that Don Airey is incredible?

Forever young.

Fsck me, all these old people are my age!

20100505(002)r

So we went to the Alphaville / Spandau Ballet concert at the Grand West Grand Arena last night.

This is the view from the Q row (hint: there are no R, S or T rows).

Being far away was good, because… it was loud. I want a hi-fi like that. Alphaville was great, lots of good loud noise and stuph. And strobes have certainly improved since the eighties, these must draw the power of a small third world country each.

Spandau Ballet? zzzzzzz. I mean, a very nicely put together show, video footage from waybackwhen, very well done but… it’s still Spandau Ballet :-)  OK, Barricades was great, but the rest was just a variation on the theme. Pick a line, sing it N times, cue a sax solo, sing the line a few more times, end of song.

Maybe I’m just not a Spandau Ballet fan (I’m not. I was there for Alphaville)

Down in the mosh pit golden circle the glow of cellphones has pretty much replaced the traditional cigarette lighter (although a few lighters did come out for Forever Young). In our day you had to smuggle a recording Walkman in to make bootlegs.

Next up: Deep Purple, Uriah Heep and Wishbone Ash, on the first. If I can get the damn Computicket site to work right. Right now, it shows either “fully booked” or “no space available” — last night’s show was far from full, so I don’t believe that.

Nostalgie

Dis ‘n eetplek. In Baron van Reede straat. Ek is nie honger nie. Glad nie. But the smell of the buffet is going to drive me to gluttony.

Kêrel langs my voel dieselfde. Bel pêlle om te kom help vreet.

Sê vir my ma ek het dapper gesterf.

KKNK 2010

Brought to you by modern technology, in this case a Nokia E61i.

So hier sit ons oop die stoep by Fokus.com (was laas jaar iets anders en die jaar voor dit ook… maar was nog altyd ‘n nice venue). Kos is excellent, diens is moer stadig, en Theuns Jordaan is besig om Skipskop te cover by RSG voor die CP Nel museum. Of rather, klink soos hy, vermoed dit is nie (laat ons nou nie die man in die gesig vat nie).

Beste koffie so vêr is by die Montague huis, maar koffie hier is ook heel drinkbaar. Moet nog gaan shoppe voor 1 uur show.

OK nou het ek eers my cursor verloor, tik blind, meer later.

In my rear view mirror…

…the sun is going down, sinking behind bridges in the road [1].

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I took a quick road trip up to Witbank to collect some shooting goodness about which I shall still blog. Left Bellville at half past four on Thursday morning, turned the xcarlink to 11, and 15 hours (14 hours driving, one hour spent filling up the car and self) and 1498 kilometers later, reached eMalahleni (AKA Witbank).

Found the guest house, where they had a very reasonable (R300 B&B) single room for me. Turned out to be noisy, with the other guests arriving late and leaving early and not being quiet about it. Breakfast was good, though, and I can’t complain about the price.

Went over to Classic Arms and picked up 12 firearms. Also checked out a rifle for a friend, and had a look at some items which will be on the next auction.

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Spanish copy of a Smith & Wesson safety hammerless. Mine. All mine. Yea, I’m crazy like that.

From there I shot through to Camdix in Krugersdorp, stopping only to collect a R 100 speed fine for doing 137 in a 120 zone, downhill, in the middle of bloody nowhere.

On Saturday, I discovered AFTA, a gunshop and training centre in Cresta. Told them I collect Spanish Handguns, they pointed me at a crate full of guns and said “knock yourself out”. I ended up unpacking two crates, found an Astra Regent, a 32 Largo Ruby Rubi (which is a Brazilian copy of a Spanish copy of a Smith & Wesson…), a couple of 32 Cadixen, and an Astra Police in 357 (no sign of the 9mm cylinder, sadly).

And that concluded my business, so I waited for my brother to conclude his, and at 14:00 we headed south.

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Almost midnight, in Beaufort West, and it’s over 30 degrees. Obviously Breda’s global warming migrates with the swallows.

Finally got home (where home is Pieter’s place in Bellville) at 04:22. 1367 km this time, 12 hours 45 driving, with a rather long stop for lunch in Bloemfontein, and an average trip speed of 107 km/h, same as the trip up.

Had coffee, went home (where home is the one this blog is mostly about), woke Tanya up and said hi, kipped a bit, and went to the range with some of my new toys. Shootty post to follow.

[1] Some of you would recognise the Pink Floyd lyrics.