This is No Joke: This is No Joke:
All hands to gaming stations:
Tonight at 9pm EST 2am UTC we will be having a surprise Saturday stream. The occasion is the one year anniversary of the first attempt at streaming on the channel as well as the fact that we will almost caertainly finish La Pucelle: Tactics this evening.
If we finish before or around midnight we will also show 2 silent film. The short comedy 1 Week staring Buster Keaton and the Semi-Documentary CHANG from 1927. The latter is a true classic, filmed on location in Siam that follows the lives of a young Thai couple as they try to eek out a living in the unforgiving jungle.
Its academic nature is somewhat hampered by the lack of any anthropologists on the 3 person shooting crew, but Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack and Adventurer (and former spy) Marguerite Harrison more than make up for the lack of scholarly references by filming an absolutely great story. This film has been really hard to find and only just now have I managed to track down a copy not in French.
Stop by, grab a drink and a snack and join us at Twitch.tv/brickmuppet for all the fun.
OK: We did not finish La Pucelle.
Tactics need to be reassessed. Next Movie night will be at the one year anniversary of our first full stream on Saturday April 15.
A Reminder
Just a quick reminder that tomorrow is the last day to download,acquire er... WATCH any particular Pikamee streams you might be fond of, because her agency has stated they will purge all her content once she graduates on April 1.
An Observation.
Yesterday, after confirming that the blog was working again, I literally had my phone in hand to call a friend and tell him the good news. (He had been quite eager to get back to the keyboard with duck pictures). However, as I cleared out my spam comment's, I noted a comment that conveyed the terrible news that my friend had passed away.
On the 8th.
I had not spoken to him since mid February.
Do not let the interval between contacting friends get out of hand. Days become weeks which become months and then years....and then they are gone.
See that you make some time for friends, while you can.
So, yesterday, I learned that Wonderduck, (Eric Carra) had thrown off this mortal coil on the 8th of March.
I do not know the circumstances of his passing beyond that it was due to complications stemming from his health issues, which were many of late.
Eric was a blogger from back when blogging was new and his website remained an eclectic convergence of interests; ducks, history, anime, ducks, wacky anecdotes science fiction, music, Formula One racing, and ducks....rubber ones usually. He was an avid collector of rubber ducks.
Wonderduck's Pond remains a repository for quite a few reviews of anime spanning nigh on 20 years, reviews that were exceptionally entertaining and brought many a chuckle to his readers over the years.
He was also an amateur historiographer with a particular interest in the battle of Midway. Shortly before his health took a sharp turn for the worse in 2021 he was invited to contribute to a historian's roundtable on the battle. Due to his hospitalization he was unable to do so.
'Wonderduck' encouraged me to become an early adopter of mee.nu, when I outgrew Blogger. (His site was hosted on mu.nu, the predecessor of this service.)
He also was a good friend. When I was recovering from my stroke he was in a hospital bed, yet despite his own issues, he gave me considerable encouragement through those dark times.
Eric was a well liked blogger who had a following and counted as fans some of the more impressive representatives of the medium. No small feat.
His last few years were fraught. A blood clot precipitated a hospitalization which in turn led to several other issues that combined to cause him great dismay.
Yet he soldiered on.
While we never physically met, we did used to correspond at least once a week, however, I had not spoken to him in just over a month. Despite his myriad problems, his main complaint was that he was having difficulty blogging due to technical issues, so he was still pursuing his hobby after everything.
Wonderduck had a lot of hurdles to deal with in his short life. Despite that he brought smiles to the faces of many people from all over the world over the years and made the world just a little quirkier and fun.
Few people accomplish that.
Eric, you will be missed.
We've managed to obtain an actual picture of Eric in heaven, studying naval history and being a kaiju.
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Hospitals kill. The sleep deprivation is a legitimate crime against humanity when bad guys use it, but we allow hospitals to continue with it. And, of course, infections. Finally, one of my friends died in post-op in 2002 because they mixed-up his meds. I was quite relieved when Wonderduck transitioned to rehab, but then he had to check in again and looks like that was too much.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Mon Mar 27 16:31:56 2023 (LZ7Bg)
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Mon Mar 27 23:40:03 2023 (PiXy!)
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March 8 is the feast of St. John of God, who tried to improve conditions in hospitals (among other things). So I guess Wonderduck has been recruited for a new job.
I do want people I know to stop dying, though. This last five years has been rough.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Wed Mar 29 11:25:18 2023 (cHUaN)
We. Be. BLOGGIN'!
So I woke up late this morning. Very, very late.
It's actually 13:21 EST.
I've got some errands to run before I stream at 18:00, but before I ran out the door in a mad tizzy I checked my E-mails.
And there in my gmail account vying for attention with all the "5.56mm ammo IN STOCK" spam was a message from the blogfather, the Antipodean of awesomeness, the man himself, Pixy Misa.
"The problem with the blog is fixed. Please return my pet turtles unharmed."
So before I run out into the world, let's test this to see if it works.
Remember: When Doing the Spicy Curry Challenge...
Bleach is a base and therefore does not qualify as a spice.
Picture of Bleach Bottle Goes Here
This unfortunate fact befell a Japanese school teacher last September who got transferred to a different homeroom against her wishes. She responded to this affront by sneaking BLEACH into the curry of her new class....as one does....when one is crazy and evil....and a public school teacher.
This story was covered by various outlets at the time but her trial has garnered some coverage as well. Her stated reasoning seems to be that she did not want the students to "create happy memories without me" (Giggle translate is here). This does not make sense because she attempted to poison the new class, not the class she was unhealthily attached to.
Nevertheless Miss. Munchausen by Proxy Sensei seems to have gotten transferred into the class of a protagonist in some kids elementary school drama because the child in charge of distributing the curry noted that it was emanating bleach stank and, being unimpressed with the teachers response to their concerns, warned the class and got the principle, saving their class.
Miss Munchausen by Proxy Sensei was the only teacher who did not show up for the all hands meeting the principle called after being tracked down by the principle confessed to the crime and related in great detail how she'd done it.
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Bummer. On the other hand, easy to contest those charges.
Posted by: David Eastman at Sat Mar 11 21:20:15 2023 (sYlgI)
2
This is just a fact of life with cards. Even the chip does not protect fully from this. Also, online merchants are compromised periodically.
I ended using 4 cards.
Card 1: for a small number of recurring payments that I do not want to fail and for Amazon (historically it includes AWS S3 that hosts my backups and I also do not want to fail). I do not give this card to anyone else unless in a dire emergency.
Card 2: Everyday use where it gets stolen all the time.
Card 3: Backup (it's my wife's mileage card)
Card 4: Amex for aviation and travel items, mostly aviation fuel, parking, landing fees, hotels etc.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Mon Mar 13 14:27:04 2023 (LZ7Bg)
As was mentioned briefly in the brief post talking about the Silvervale situation, Pikamee had a similar experience to Silvervale in that she announced that she was going to be playing The Game That Must Not be Named. This also resulted in massive harassment from the degenerate hellions that get their marching orders from the latest Twitter encyclical. This included death threats and doxxing.
You see, J.K. Rowling (the creator of Harry Potter) has expressed views that do not align perfectly with the most extreme transgender activists. Thus, playing the game is said by Twitter freaks to be literally killing somebody with gender dysphoria.
Normally the rantings of mentally ill cultists can just be ignored, but this is more difficult when you are a public figure who has to engage the public. It is also much harder when the gleeful lynch mobs actively hound you.
Pikamee has been to the U.S. and speaks English, but is not obsessed with politics and really has no frame of reference for our blinkered gender ideology debates and associated insanity, which was, no doubt, an out of context problem from her perspective. This foul brigading becomes very hard to ignore with when doxxing and death threats are involved and this is particularly true in Japan given fairly recent events involving idols.
They mercilessly bullied this poor girl from another country who had literally nothing to do with any of this this lunatic critical studies shit. They brigaded her so ferociously that she cancelled plans to play the game. Then she was hounded into cancelling another stream. And another
Pikamee has now announced she's "graduating", which is a neurotically polite Japanese euphemism for idols that basically means retirement.
Pikamee was a hilarious and talented bi-lingual streamer that helped to establish V-tubing as a genre. Pikamee clips have made the rounds for years, have been the basis of countless memes and have brought joy to millions.
Now, because of some mentally ill narcissistic cultists, she's gone.
I'm not a particular fanboi of Rowling or her views. Her TERFitude is an extension of her very anti-male brand of feminism, but her remarks on the trans issue have not been particularly hateful or insane. (Biological men in women's locker rooms is a legitimate concern, as some unfortunate schoolgirls here in Virginia found out 2 years ago).
However, my opinion on one bit of somebody's public persona are not really germane to anything. She's an individual. Rowling wrote a popular series of books, that, while not MY cup of tea, are well crafted, beloved, and got millions of kids to actually read. Furthermore, I generally believe that we should separate the art from the artist in most cases that don't involve violence*.
Speech is not violence.
Violence is violence.
But we're now in a situation where normal discourse is counted as violence and actual violence by political extremists is considered speech.
This cannot stand.
I noted on stream last night that I stream on an iMac and my only console is a PS2, but if I had the equipment I'd stream HOGWART'S LEGACY in a hot minute. I'll also support anyone who does so. I'm gonna buy the game (a game I cannot play) next week. I hope it is the best selling game of the year and these pitiless Jacobin myrmidons get their noses rubbed in their own impotence.
Good by Pikamee.
Thanks for all the fun.
*(Lovecraft's stated views on ethnicity and race were abhorrent, but his work brilliant. If he were alive, I'd not vote for him. Marrion Zimmer Bradely ran a pedophile ring, so I've tossed her books.)
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If "trans women" were actually trying to be women, they would perfectly understand women's need to have private restrooms, lockerrooms, etc. They would understand fear of being raped. And they would be pushing for separate restrooms for themselves.
But largely they are not pushing for more unisex bathrooms, or for anything like that. Because most of the activists are misogynists or autogynephiles. Or both.
And frankly, the number of male sex offenders and rapists who suddenly discover their identity when it is time to go to prison is pretty amazing... And they should probably have their own prison, just for them.
It is a shame for the guys who just want to dress up in women's clothing, or who have genuine issues of other kinds, to be lumped in with dangerous predators. But then again, they are not the ones arriving at women's shelters and raping the women who were already in trouble.
I wonder when the vigilantism starts. Hopefully we get things in order before it gets to that point, but we'll see.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Mon Mar 6 11:10:21 2023 (sF8WE)
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The only good thing that can arise from such petty tyranny of the young white middle class nihilist set (Based on the most common demographic of the woke class.) is if they make the mistake of participating in Woke Olympics while NOT residing in the US can result in classic unintended consequences. Namely, defamation as a legal case is a lot easier to purse outside the US - as unhinged Twitter users in the UK have found to their cost.
Posted by: cxt217 at Mon Mar 6 21:38:34 2023 (2tHvf)
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Some pretty horrible people seem to self select for activist.
Situations are kinda amazing really, just not in a wonderful way.
I seem to be particularly out of answers tonight.
I'm sure there are remedies, I just do not have any new ideas.
Posted by: Pat Buckman at Tue Mar 7 23:59:32 2023 (r9O5h)
RESULTS!
So, night before last, ACAB, Defund the Police, and "Law and order is racist!" finally got results in the form of a running gun battle down my suburban street that shot out several car windows and missed a neighbors head (in his house) by about 8 inches.
Don't know how much longer I'm gonna be staying here.
1
Well, maybe we are supposed to be going full Frank Castle/Mack Bolan, and that this is why things are not having the initially claimed results. Community policing could be understood as vigilante killings.
Spoilers: Full Metal Vigilante actually isn't the answer, those academics simply had zero contact with or awareness of reality.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Thu Mar 2 13:17:17 2023 (r9O5h)
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Ah, the joys of living in a cul-de-sac. Any running gun battles automatically reach a dead end.
Don't Choke on That Black Pill
Well, it seems that James O'Keefe has been pushed out at Project Veritas.There have been rumors of this for several days along with contradictory reports from the company. There have also been persistent, (but unsourced and vague) reports that during and after the Pfizer story he and others at the company were approached by several members of the board who noted that the organization could get a LOT more money if they just didn't...you know...push the big pharma stories, and that if they'd look the other way they could get LOTS of money to do an awful lot of good....in other areas....reporting on other things.
James has just given an apparently heartfelt, if somewhat rambling speech in which he seems to confirm the darkest rumors including that they are being leaned on by the IRS (which wants them to switch to all zoom meetings!).
Reaction Image Goes Here
Pleasant Celebratory Picture With Just a Touch of Fan Service Goes Here
So it looks like someone was sufficiently annoyed by the Pfizer story seeing the light of day that they drove a dump-truck full of money up to Project Veritas and emptied it on those who would take the 30 pieces of silver.
So yeah. One of the few really good investigative news outlets has been nerfed, and rendered completely untrustworthy by the very entities that make such reporting so important. Furthermore it will continue as a zombie organization doing the bidding of it's new masters.
However:
If this is all true, O'Keefe did not take the offer. He kept his integrity, and quit, singing to the four winds, so we know this happened. And we, the public can adjust accordingly.
So, do not give into despair, for the world is indeed a dark place, but it can still be lit with courage, integrity and hope.
Dad's surgery was much more successful than had been feared. The doctor called Friday to assure us that the surgeons HAD gotten all the cancer and no chemo would be needed.
Dad is in pain, but he's ambulatory and can take care of himself, So I have returned to home and went to work this morning.
Pleasant, Celebratory Picture With Just a Touch of Fan Service Goes Here:
Nothing to See Here! This is NOT Happening!
So. Note the grammatical error to prove an AI didn't write this
Last week Project Veritas released footage of the number 4 man at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals talking up a Grinder date and attempting to impress said date by displaying a knack for psychopathy and mass murder. Specifically, he was talking about Pfizer mutating COVID 19 and releasing new variants into the environment in order to create a market for new vaccine boosters...that would presumably be made to order by Pfizer before hand.
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Of course, WHY, exactly, he thought that revealing that he was working in the proud traditions of Vault Tech, Umbrella Corporation, and Weyland Yutani was gonna get him some sexy-fun-times is unclear. I'd think that anyone turned on by this is probably a bug chaser.
Additionally, what he was boasting about is not just a summer movie plot, it's an atrocity that if true has resulted in upwards of a million deaths. This is beyond even most of the more lurid conspiracy theories.
Veritas attempted to follow up with the fellow who went kind of bonkers...
He claimed that he had lied....please believe him, he was a liar, and he didn't even work for Pfizer (shockingly that last bit was a lie, as he is an executive at Pfizer meaning that, he is indeed a liar, just as he said he was before he attacked James O'Keefe. So I guess we should believe him...no wait).
Now as I write this, there seems to be a huge effort to bury this story. Uh...which does not engender the skepticism I wish to feel at this point.
And of course that proves that there's nothing going on. Because such coverups only happen in movies.
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This is how you get clickers.
I don't know what to believe about this. But given the craziness of the last few years, I'm not nearly as skeptical as I ought to be.
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Slight correction.. The mental meltdown only admitted that Pfizer was conduction gain of function research on COVID to develop vaccines against more virulent forms, he never stated they were releasing it. Of course, Pfizer doesn't have any legal BSL-4 labs and would be doing this in BSL-3 labs or below. Introducing gain of function to COVID to make it more virulent makes this decision questionable at the least; Musolini treament in a worst case.
Posted by: StargazerA5 at Mon Jan 30 21:01:29 2023 (zTmRe)
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Not nearly as skeptical as you wish you could be, I think.
I'm not as skeptical as I wish I could be.
The basic issue is that we do have a massive problem of betrayal by experts.
However, I have every reason to believe that PhDs can be gross idiots lacking basic competence in their nominal field. I do not have to believe that a company employing PhDs means that the PhDs can even do what they want to do, and say that they can do.
You would need some sort of cells to culture the virii in, and that is almost certainly a paper trail, and a more risky one if the work is being done in the US.
Furthermore, there are the questions of inference about 'Covid 19'. We have anecdotes, but the only real conclusive evidence that it even exists would have to be statistical, and the basis for the stats has clearly been boogered by the information war.
Basic detection hypothesis for anythign has a false alarm rate. Our folks leaped to declaring that the PRC claims were totally unimpeachable, while ignoring that the PRC had also claimed that it could have come from the US Army bio weapons place.
There's a bunch of stuff that publicly available information cannot rule out after you try to sort for the lying. a) US bioweapon b) it doesn't exist, there were only ordinary colds c) naturally occurring, but did not have the claimed properties, which were of the holy grail of respiratory viral bioweapons d) naturally occurring, but for the first time in human history with the claimed properties e) unnaturally occurring, without claimed properties f) unnaturally occurring, with claimed properties.
The ordinary situation with respiratory virii should be a lot of strains infecting various populations, with a fair rate of mutations and cross overs from animal populations.
Unless you had engineered a new type of virus entirely, a coronavirus based bioweapon should mutate like a coronavirus, IE, rapidly. Because mutation should be somewhat statistical and tied to structure of the genetics.
If your engineered bioweapon is initially distributed in a very lethal configuration, a general prediction is that further mutation is going to break stuff, and result in less lethal strains. The major reason to expect it to grow more lethal would be if you knew that the point on the genetic space that you release is very close to several other much more lethal points. But, if you know that, why not release one of those instead?
Mutating stuff in the lab is probably going to get strains that are less effective, unless you also have a lot of informed and skilled manpower trying to find the rarer mutations that improve effectiveness as a weapon. Less effective strains would still be effective at selling vaccines, as long that you had media allies to provide information warfare support.
I tend to figure that the most dangerous strains probably died out prior to the lcokdown, that the post lockdown strains were probably mostly nothing, and I am not sure that the lunatics have the resources to produce a strain worth worrying over.
We recently had a Speaker election go for four or five days, and fifteen votes. Federal funding now is not necessarily stable. The guy's federal program could have gotten cut off, and he could have had a psychotic break just prior to the date.
The expected peaceful path out of the political mess involves a lot of leftists having psychotic breaks. They were never really sane, but were stable, but current circumstances will be pretty hard when it comes to a lot of them and their mental health.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Mon Jan 30 21:27:48 2023 (r9O5h)
Hobby Space News of the commercial space industry A Babe In The Universe Rather Eclectic Cosmology Encyclopedia Astronautica Superb spacecraft resource The Unwanted Blog Scott Lowther blogs about forgotten aerospace projects and sells amazingly informative articles on the same. Also, there are cats. Transterrestrial Musings Commentary on Infinity...and beyond! Colony WorldsSpace colonization news! The Alternate Energy Blog It's a blog about alternate energy (DUH!) Next Big Future Brian Wang: Tracking our progress to the FUTURE. Nuclear Green Charles Barton, who seems to be either a cool curmudgeon, or a rational hippy, talks about energy policy and the terrible environmental consequences of not going nuclear Energy From Thorium Focuses on the merits of thorium cycle nuclear reactors WizBang Current events commentary...with a wiz and a bang The Gates of Vienna Tenaciously studying a very old war The Anchoress insightful blogging, presumably from the catacombs Murdoc Online"Howling Mad Murdoc" has a millblog...golly! EaglespeakMaritime security matters Commander Salamander Fullbore blackshoe blogging! Belmont Club Richard Fernandez blogs on current events BaldilocksUnderstated and interesting blog on current events The Dissident Frogman French bi-lingual current events blog The "Moderate" VoiceI don't think that word means what they think it does....but this lefty blog is a worthy read nonetheless. Meryl Yourish News, Jews and Meryls' Views Classical Values Eric Scheie blogs about the culture war and its incompatibility with our republic. Jerry Pournell: Chaos ManorOne of Science fictions greats blogs on futurism, current events, technology and wisdom A Distant Soil The website of Colleen Dorans' superb fantasy comic, includes a blog focused on the comic industry, creator issues and human rights. John C. Wright The Sci-Fi/ Fantasy writer muses on a wide range of topics. Now Read This! The founder of the UK Comics Creators Guild blogs on comics past and present. The Rambling Rebuilder Charity, relief work, roleplaying games Rats NestThe Art and rantings of Vince Riley Gorilla Daze Allan Harvey, UK based cartoonist and comics historian has a comicophillic blog! Pulpjunkie Tim Driscoll reviews old movies, silents and talkies, classics and clunkers. Suburban Banshee Just like a suburban Leprechaun....but taller, more dangerous and a certified genius. Satharn's Musings Through TimeThe Crazy Catlady of The Barony of Tir Ysgithr アニ・ノート(Ani-Nouto) Thoughtful, curmudgeonly, otakuism that pulls no punches and suffers no fools. Chizumatic Stephen Den Beste analyzes anime...with a microscope, a slide rule and a tricorder. Wonderduck Anime, Formula One Racing, Sad Girls in Snow...Duck Triumphalism Beta Waffle What will likely be the most thoroughly tested waffle evah! Zoopraxiscope Too In this thrilling sequel to Zoopraxiscope, Don, Middle American Man of Mystery, keeps tabs on anime, orchids, and absurdities. Mahou Meido MeganekkoUbu blogs on Anime, computer games and other non-vital interests Twentysided More geekery than you can shake a stick at Shoplifting in the Marketplace of Ideas Sounds like Plaigarism...but isn't Ambient IronyAll Meenuvians Praise the lathe of the maker! Hail Pixy!!