Sad News

The dog who played "Eddie" on Frasier has passed away.

To commemorate, here's yesterday's Forgotten English:

dog-watch
The half-watches of two hours each.

--Adm. William Smyth's Sailor's Word-book, 1867

The watch from four to eight P.M. is divided into two half, or dog-watches, one from four to six, and the other from six to eight. By this means they divide the twenty-four hours into seven watches instead of six, and thus shift the hours every night.

--Richard Henry Dana's Two Years before the Mast, 1840

The expression dog-watch, which at first sight may present a difficulty to the enquirer, is merely a corruption of dodge-watch.

--A. Wallace's Popular Sayings Dissected, 1895

England's First Official Dog Show
was held in Newcastle on this date in 1859. A local manufacturer and purveyor of hunting equipment, one Mr. Pape, sponsored the event, offering items of his merchandise to owners of the winners. The contestants in the limited field of breeds included half a dozen hunting dogs that probably looked and acted like today's pointers and setters. By the end of the 1860s, dog shows on a larger scale had become popular, first in London and then in New York.

...and just because I like it, here's today's!

tyromancy
Divining by the coagulation of cheese.

-John Gaule's Magicall Astrologicall Diviner, 1652

Feast Day of St. Paul
June 29 was once associated with a litany of predictions, such as:
     If St. Paul's Day be fair and clear,
     It does betide a happy year;
     But if it chance to snow or rain,
     Then will be dear all kind of grain.
In Antiquities of the Common People (1725) Henry Bourne pondered this undue emphasis on soothsaying: "How it came to have this particular knack of foretelling the good or ill fortune of the following year is no easy matter to find out. ... St. Paul did indeed labour more abundantly than all the apostles, but never, that I heard, in the field of astrology." Joseph Shipley's Dictionary of Early English (1955) defined another strange-sounding form of prophecy, gyromancy, as "a walking in a circle divided into zones until falling from dizziness, the prophecy dependent upon the zone in which one fell."

Has anybody informed Jack Chick?

-The Gneech

Fits of Enthusiasm

I get fits of enthusiasm; I expect most artistic-types are like this, at least to some extent. Right now, my fits of enthusiasm seem to be centered around painting and modeling miniatures. If I had time and money to spend on it, I'd start building a Wood Elf army for Warhammer, or possibly pick up some of the LotR boxed sets.

Playing the game would be fun too. ;) But it's the craft involved that's got my attention at the moment. Instead of model railroading, I'm all eager to get into model fantasy gaming.

But, for better or worse, I don't have the time and money to spend on it. I'm picking up a few bargains off of eBay, but as it is I have a bunch of trees and rocks that are still painted black because I couldn't continue working on them while I was at AC.

I blame Celedras. Because I was so into playing the character, I wanted a miniature that was just right -- which I have, but the search for it (and getting back into the mindset to hone my skills and paint him halfway decently) led me to the Reaper minis site, the Games Workshop site, tons of individual painter galleries, and so on -- and they're full of cool stuff!

Maybe I can squeeze in a couple of hours on it this weekend, when I'm not either doing laundry or bent over the drawing board.

-The Gneech

Yerf Pick of the Day

Dancin' by Meaghan Arbital
Not actually posted today, but who cares? ;) She says it's supposed to be a tanuki, but it looks like a raccoon to me! Given the R-rated anatomy peculiar to tanuki, I'm not sure you could post a tanuki pic on Yerf without strategic placement of furniture or something.

Anyway, I love the pose and attitude. Very fun pic!

-The Gneech

EDIT: Oh! Also! A nice quote via chef_troy:

"Humility does not mean thinking less of yourself; it means thinking of yourself less."
--C.S. Lewis

It Occurs to Me...

...that if Vince Suzukawa and Graveyard Greg hung out together a lot, their lives would be Comic Party.

-The Gneech