October 03, 2024
Zenless Zone Zero
Zenless Zone Zero is...weird. A supernatural / cyber-punk story by the makers of, and with similar mechanics to Genshin Impact, The combat mechanics seem more forgiving, but also more random and mysterious.
The story itself, at least as far as we got on stream Monday night, is genuinely intriguing. It also leans much more into Manga/Manhwa/Comics than anime or light novels for its storytelling style (particularly noticeable in contrast with Genshin)
I've only played one day and I'm not at all clear on some of the mechanics (like pulls), but I'm actually liking it so far and find it quite interesting. The slightly scuffed V.O.D. from Monday's toe dip into the game from is here. Note that ZZZ doesn't actually start until 18 minutes in, due to channel bidness and the fact that I sat through the whole ZZZ opening bit, thinking it would be a lore dump. (it is not, it just sets the mood)
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
07:25 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 159 words, total size 2 kb.
Buy Toilet Paper.....While You Can
It appears that there is a lot of panic buying of posterior fecal defenestration rolls that is being fueled by the longshoreman's strike.
A quick perusal of local store shelves confirms a report I heard on the radio.
This is weird for 2 reasons:
1:We don't import more than 10% of our toilet paper.
2:The strike has been called off until January.
But the shelves remain devoid of toilet paper.
So panic accordingly.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
07:05 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 78 words, total size 1 kb.
September 15, 2024
Well: Another Win for the Cats and Geese
It appears that ANOTHER assassin has taken a shot at former President Trump.
The story is only two hours old, and I'm sure more information will come out. Here is a selection of news stories at the moment from the AP, Clown News Network, FAUX, the oldest newspaper in the country and Reuters . Megan Kelly is doing a live show on it as I type this I assume the link will still be good for the V.O.D.
.
This is twice now that things have gone awry with secret service protection for the former president. This time it appears that they missed and the gunman escaped, though there is a report that a suspect has been arrested.
The gunman’s arrest was given a big boost by a bystander who spotted the suspect running out of the bushes and getting into a black Nissan, even photographing the man and reporting the sighting to law enforcement, who then blasted it out statewide leading to his arrest after a felony stop on I-95 a short time later.
Wow.
We are on perilous ground. I think that if/when Trump finally eats a bullet, (they can't all miss) the disenfranchised half of the country and especially the angry young men I alluded to in the previous post will react to their last ray of hope being plucked from their grasp....poorly.
A major segment of society firmly believes and not without some reason that the fix is in on them and their advocates. IF they come to believe that we cannot vote our way out of this mess, then the reaction will be dreadful.
The reaction to such a reaction will be brutal and totalitarian....and I firmly believe will be gleefully sadistic.
The times we find ourselves in are akin to the Roman Republic's Dénouement, the English and Spanish civil wars and a myriad of examples amongst out neighbors to the south. They are much more applicable to our current situation than the failed secession of the 1860's.
What we may be facing is far worse: a true civil war. And there are few things in the human experience that are more terrible.
There is still hope. But hope is not a plan. Start making preparations for a serious disruption of services...and worse.
Everyone stay safe.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
06:11 PM
| Comments (4)
| Add Comment
Post contains 389 words, total size 5 kb.
...And Then The Abyss Stared Back
I don't agree with Kisin about everything, but he's dead right about this.
This is going to get some peoples hackles up, as on the face of it, criticizing/boycotting/cancelling a broadcaster for "platforming' someone with odious views is pretty much Woke 101. So an argument might be made that we must not become like them. In the absence of the actual context I'd generally tend to agree with that statement and I did not speak up when Tucker face-planted in his Putin interview, and Moscow grocery run, which took place in a literal Potempkin grocery store. I racked it up to a combination of historical ignorance and being rolled by a master of manipulation and a likely tight schedule. However, describing a holocaust-denying, Churchill-hating 2-didgit Jew-hating Chud as "The most respected independent historian in America" and not confronting him with hard questions about his asshattery is pretty low.
The most charitable possible explanation is still pretty bad, that is, Tucker is so guilt ridden over his support for the late unpleasantness in Iraq that he is basically becoming a mirror image of the corporatist establishment, believing anything that contradicts their view. No matter how odious. Even if you assume that the baseline worldview of the Uni-party is cackling, sadistic, young-adult-novel level villainous, sadistic evil (to be fair, not an unreasonable conclusion) it is important to not reject things that they might get right (like, oh, I don't know, the NAZIs were actually...bad...or that antisemitism is a particularly stupid notion that leads one to VERY dark places). If this is the case, the Tucker has been so traumatized by his experiences that he's become reactionary.
"Reactionary" is another of those terms that has been ruined by the left in their never ending battle against words and the ability to express non-leftist ideas as anything other than an epithet. However, it just means that someone is identified not by what they are for, but what they are against. They will react against anything seen as good and proper by those they oppose, even things (few as they might be) that are universally agreed upon; sort of a shallow hipster contrarianism. When someone has descended this far into demoralization then they really can't be taken seriously, since their views are simply an inverse of their opponents, rather than ideas that were weighed and thought out. I can probably be persuaded that Carlson, who has been, along with his family, viciously attacked, gotten fired, and received death threats from the left and their 5th columnists on the neocon-right has descended into this tar-pit of the mind. But I will need to be persuaded, and remember that this is the most charitable explanation for his behavior during this interview.
A less charitable view is that Tucker is chasing the algorithm and making bank off feeding the demoralized reactionaries and the old school, unreconstructed darkness that sees in the possibly ascendant right, something to attach themselves to, remora-like, and ride to power. Tucker in this case is nothing but a later day Father Coughlin playing footsie with the American political sewers that represent the darkest angels of human nature.
The woke left is a thing of abominable evil, supporting the butchery of Hamas, the genital mutilation of children, race hustling, violence, and policies, that even if well intentioned will result in (and are resulting in) disaster. It is natural to oppose them on all things, but even the stereotypical blue haired harpies wielding Gurkha castration knives probably think that the sky is blue and NAZIs are bad (the latter, somewhat ironic given that they support Hamas). It is not, therefore, advisable to adopt a position that the sky is brown and the NAZIS were poor oppressed victims of international Jewery, cruelly being denied their rightful lebensraum.
Antisemitism has been overwhelmingly a fixture of the left in the last 120 years. Even the vile German socialists were trying to make Marx's ideas work., We on the right have grown accustomed to pointing this out and the fact that "woke" ideology, with its general dismissal of competence & equality in favor of equity is inherently antisemitic. We on the right are mostly correct about this, but there IS an actual strain of this awful mental malignancy on the populist right. It's origins are much as in Europe, frustration with ones station, seasoned with envy and a belief that jews, who, do to their success-enabling culture and high IQ's are over represented in the upper echelons of society, must have somehow "cheated" this astutely avoids and self reflection and self improvement, perpetuating this vile meme and the socio-economic stagnation amongst losers of all stripes.
Today, we have a whole class of young men who have actually been singled out for torment by "the powers that be" both as a matter of intentionally vindictive policy as well as the side-effects of monetary and economic policy. These same young men are tormented in school and told that they are the cause of all the worlds problems and that they are monsters. They are also taught that true virtue and power is rightly held by the oppressed. It is inevitable that a percentage of these young men, given by their teachers only the binary choice between supplicant and master will choose the later and embrace the monster-hood they are told (ironically enough) is their birthright, especially if, as is so often the case today, they have no fathers to guide them through those difficult years. What we are NOT teaching is history, except in the most bizarro funhouse-mirror sort of way.
Into this mix comes a bunch of folks like Tucker, who take the fight to the tormentors of these young men. If those influencers do not point away from the abyss, but rather encourage their followers to stare into it and become one with it, then we are truly in for some dark times.
This utter demoralization of a whole generation of young men is why the last few years have seen Phenomena like Andrew Tate, the rise of antisemitism and various other vile crap on the right. I have a degree in history and this sort of thing, frankly scares me shitless, even as I understand the evolutionary and social dynamics that make it all too likely.
The left in it's current form is a monstrous thing and it must be opposed, however American Conservatism is fit to do so because it has historically been a movement based in the Scottish and English enlightenments, as opposed to the American left's current ideological roots in the French Terror and post-modern philosophy. If we allow our movement to become the monsters we are fighting, then not only do we lose any ethical or political argument to reform, we will trade one emerging dystopia for another.
I think free speech is vital. I support it's curtailment only in a few cases that can be counted on one injured hand. Child pr0n, actual military secrets, true death threats and doxxing. I cannot think of anything else that would justify actual censorship.
Free speech is profoundly important, and one of the reasons is that it allows folks to debate ideas and know where people stand. I do not call for Tucker to be banned. I do call for folks to engage in some pushback and not let the fiends like Daryll Cooper hijack the opposition to the left, and then leave us with no hope or choice. Free speech only works if it is a two way street.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
12:34 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 1259 words, total size 8 kb.
September 11, 2024
23 Years On
As those of us in the U.S. watched those brave firefighters and policemen run fearlessly into danger from which 403 of them and nearly 3000 of their countrymen would never return, we drew inspiration from the first responder's sacrifice and resolved to pursue the perpetrators to the ends of the earth.
23 years on, the results of our nation's efforts to address this atrocity would be unimaginable to most of us at that time.
The "experts" predictions of how the next 20 or so years would go proved far less accurate than writers of dystopian science fiction.
Ignoring most of the the bat-scat insanity of current year, and focusing on the perpetrators of the debacle and terrorism in particular, the prognostications of foreign policy wonks and intelligence analysts proved to be bunk, leaving us with thousands of our best dead in Mesopotamia and the Hindu Kush. The Taliban, who, with their allies in Al Queada, perpetrated the vile act of mass murder we commemorate today, are now in charge of Afghanistan, as they were when our punitive expedition went in to slay them. These barbarians leveraged this administration's shameful withdrawal under fire and it's associated incompetence to acquire vast quantities of ordinance abandoned in the pell-mell retreat;
...ordinance that they are using not only to oppress their own people, but to finance themselves by supplying very bad actors with weapons as well as spread their medieval ideology around the world, but this time with purpose built munitions to supplement those extemporized from airliners.
Far from making us safer, the security measures implemented after Sept. 11, have instead focused with impressive effectiveness on rooting out grass roots dissent and engaging in censorious policies to attack those who take umbrage at the Acela Corridor's consensus.
This laser-like focus on political opponents has necessarily come at the expense of vetting the vast multitudes of individuals who stream across our boarders with the blessing of the current administration, apparently in the hopes that they will swing elections in their favor, since, being quite disappointed with the American Citizenry, they have resolved to import another, more compliant one.
Amongst the small percentage of illegal border crossers that are being confronted are a disturbing number of those with connections to terrorist organizations.
Source: A Customs & Border Patrol Report
So our country is filling up with people who share the ideology and goals of those who inflicted upon us such torment 23 years ago today.
This does not include those from less feral but no less troubling regimes, particularly China, which as Dr. Weinstein notes here, is placing a vast number of individuals in our nation for an unclear but likely not benign purpose.
Time stamp is not working for some reason: the relevant dialog begins at 04:06
Far from being safer than we were, I fear we are vastly less so.
I further fear that we stand on the precipice of something far worse than the events we so solemnly commemorate today.
What is likely coming down the pike is dark indeed. I fear that what is on the horizon is going to be far worse in many ways than the events of 23 years ago.
So do not forget them.
Get to know your neighbors.
If you can, get out of the cities.
Be as prepared for utility and societal disruptions as you can make yourself.
And be not afraid.
For dark times may well be coming, but dark times do end eventually.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
04:38 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 586 words, total size 6 kb.
August 31, 2024
I'm Beginning to Suspect that Mr. Herrera MIGHT be a Nerd
The Cybertruck is weird, but it is technically interesting...NOW it can be a technically interesting technical.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
10:32 AM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 27 words, total size 1 kb.
August 30, 2024
A Look at the Actual Decision-Making Process of the Federal Bureaucracy
It looks like School-House Rock is getting based.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
01:09 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 19 words, total size 1 kb.
August 21, 2024
Cacodemons, Imps, Deimos, Phobos and Science
Join us TONIGHT at 7:30pm EST/11:30pm UTC over on Twitch as we explore the Martian Moon Phobos, search for secrets, while we rip, tear, and otherwise perform necessary pest control in Doom (1993).
In between my many inevitable ignominious deaths, we'll be discussing various types of polyculture farming and their possible implementation in the context of a Martian settlement, particularly as it applies to animal proteins. (No really!) Stop by and meet one of my crack team of science babes! Then join the discussion! This will be fu...uh...This will be different.
*******
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
04:48 PM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 98 words, total size 1 kb.
Konstantin Kissin Nails the Problem
This is a bit of a longer video which is quite interesting, (Anderson's stuff usually is) but I really think this is the root of the intractability of many of today's problems.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
09:01 AM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 37 words, total size 1 kb.
Aaaaaand We're Back.
CAUTION: Banality lies in wait below the fold.
As compensation here is a temerarious Draph duelist wearing a set of coveral...er coversomethings.
Granblue Fantasy's Narmaya, rockin' some denim is by -Yoin.
more...
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
08:36 AM
| Comments (3)
| Add Comment
Post contains 876 words, total size 6 kb.
August 16, 2024
IRL Happenings....
....have been coming fast and furious. Currently, my Mom has had medical issues and is in the hospital again this time, looking at surgery tomorrow evening. As a result I will be going back to visit her tomorrow. This and other issues have kept me from commenting on the current, very dark season of CURRENT YEAR: a Civilizational Collapse Story.
I haven't even been streaming much (there is no internet at my folks house) however, I will be doing an extended Genshin Impact stream tonight, which will be my last for a while, so stop by tonight at 7:30pm EST/11:30pm UTC to chat and catch the scuff and the cringe while you still can.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
05:37 PM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 116 words, total size 1 kb.
July 25, 2024
The IRL RNG is a Female Dog
Tonight's stream is cancelled.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
05:57 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 11 words, total size 1 kb.
July 21, 2024
Para-Anti-Social Self Help
Tonight is a huge opportunity! Are you feeling down? Current events got you depressed? Well, cheer up! This evening you can deal with those frustrations in a way that would not be acceptable in the 3-D world! Because tonight you can bully a virtual streamer as he tries to break free from the shackles of his .png in a scuffed test stream...while derping in Genshin Impact. Come for the scuff, then stay for the cringe, all of which begins at 7:30pm EST / 11:30pm UTC at 
https://www.twitch.tv/brickmuppet
An actual sneak preview of what the new model does not look like!
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
01:56 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 103 words, total size 1 kb.
July 13, 2024
Trump Was Just Shot
I just received a call from my Dad. Trump has been shot. I won't go over my misgivings about the guy, they are here if you care, but those misgivings are irrelevant right now.
A leading candidate for the presidency has been shot.
Given the immense polarization in the country right now his is how you get a Civil War.
Don't do that.
It appears that Trump is OK with only a graze and the loss of a bit of his right ear, though one of the rally-goers behind him was reportedly shot in the head and killed.
Everything is in a state of flux at this time and the story changes moment to moment. Trump appears to be OK, but I'm old enough to remember Reagan being shot. They thought he was OK until he coughed up blood.
I'm still dubious about Trump's ability to win the election given the intense institutional and self-imposed headwinds he faces, but, given the optics, I do suspect this incident is unlikely to add measurably to those headwinds.
The photo was taken by Evan Vucci
...this despite CNN's headline, still desperately trying for a "Biden vs the stairs" moment.
The combination of this manner of media coverage, with the reality that a candidate that many in the desperate, hurting half of the country see as some sort of savior was shot (and one of his supporters murdered) is not likely to calm the tensions this nation is under.
My fear is that someone will seek retribution. Be assured, THAT will not get diffident coverage. Once a nation goes tit-for-tat assassinations it goes into a dark place.
This happened less than an hour ago. We still don't know what we don't know.
So everybody stay safe.
And above all stay calm.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
07:48 PM
| Comments (4)
| Add Comment
Post contains 301 words, total size 3 kb.
July 07, 2024
Oh God...Is it Over? PLEASE LET IT BE OVER!1!!
***THIS IS IT!*** We're finally going to finish this sidequest in Sumeru...The "sidequest" that has taken us over 25 hours of stream time over the course of six streams! The "sidequest" that has the most unpronounceable names in all of Teyvat. Hell, we might even get to do something with regards to the main story quest. Join us for the fun, the accomplishment, the satisfaction, the absolute EXTACY of finally finishing this thing at 7:30pm EST/ 11:30pm UTC over at https://www.twitch.tv/brickmuppet
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
06:20 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 90 words, total size 1 kb.
July 04, 2024
Today More Than Usual
248 years ago a group of men gathered together in Philadelphia to declare their independence from the largest, most powerful empire the world had ever known, as well as set forth their reasons for doing so.
Despite their diverse backgrounds, (some were German descended, some Swedish, at least one of African ancestry, and some French and Spanish), they were, in effect, fighting for the rights of Englishmen, against what they saw as a despotic German king. (The fact that George the 3rd, whose grandfather had been brought in from Germany due to an unlikely series of events following the despotism of the Commonwealth was actually just suffering from dementia was unknown to them, but that does have a certain bitterly amusing relevance today.)
After nearly a decade of struggle, against impossible odds, with help from foreign powers and their own unbridled determination they achieved an imperfect, but ultimately impressive and somewhat happy conclusion. This is not the norm for such affairs as they often tend to turn the lands they transpire in into abattoirs.
This latter is a lesson we should heed for our current circumstances bear less in common with the demands of those products of The Enlightenment, who were affronted by the trampling of their natural rights, than another similar struggle that happened a few years later.
In that instance an arrogant and spiteful aristocracy, imbued with a sense of their moral superiority and right to rule, tormented their social inferiors , rendering them destitute and keeping them down through a combination of aristocratic contempt, provincial ignorance, indifference and, occasionally, pure sadism. Such an environment breeds not magnanimity and justice, but bitterness and resentment. Movements based upon the latter tend to go to very dark places indeed, as the French revolution so effortlessly morphed into The Terror, much like the Russian upheaval of 128 years later that crushed, raped and strangled the soul of that benighted land.
These are lessons that should be noted and learned from, especially as people who are indeed hurting and even have just grievances make desperate pronouncements and L.A.R.P. intensely online. They seem to think that the outcome of such an affair will ultimately end as happily as our secession from England did.
That unusually benign result was a bizarre historical anomaly, depending on a literate and ethical cadre of revolutionaries and no small amount of fortuitous providence. It is an extreme rarity in the grand tapestry of human history. Remember that well as times become dark.
Remember all that especially today and appreciate the wisdom, fortitude and good fortune of those who, 248 years ago, signed the document that resides below this post's 'fold'.
Also: Have a happy fourth.
more...
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
08:13 AM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 1930 words, total size 24 kb.
July 03, 2024
Well. Happy July 3rd
This is a bit sobering.
Rudyard occasionally has some very hot takes, but his ideas are always interesting. Nick Freitas serves in the Virginia House of Delegates and also hosts a very thoughtful & literate channel on You Tube. Today they talk about...suboptimal political scenarios.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
04:06 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 49 words, total size 1 kb.
June 20, 2024
This Time Fer Sure!
Tonight, join us at 10:00pm EST/02:00am UTC as we join several other cool streamers in what promises to be an action packed Zomboid stream as we.... RETURN TO KINGSMOUTH....we were not able to clear or loot this location last week as we encountered one of the most challenging scenarios the group has ever encountered in the zombpocalypse. This place is absolutely PACKED with the living dead and we're going back tonight so grab a drink and a snack sit down, point, laugh, and get ready for mayhem, because this promises to be a lot of fun....or very tragic....or both. https://www.twitch.tv/brickmuppet
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
06:10 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 104 words, total size 1 kb.
June 19, 2024
Frieren : Beyond Journey's End
Anime, especially Fantasy Anime, has seemingly devolved into a morass of formulaic, trope-ridden cliche' buffets, and isekai stories that are little more than horny-N.E.E.T. affirmation fantasies. Frieren is one of those shows that really brings this unpleasant fact home as it demonstrates quite convincingly that the vast majority of shows are utter garbage...by comparison.
This show is thoughtful, exceedingly human, and quite genre-savvy, touching on concepts often talked about in the fantasy genre but seldom explored.
Frieren is an elven mage, over 1,000 years old, who joined a party of misfit adventurers on their way to travel to the dark lands and defeat the demon lord....basically the plot of every fantasy anime ever....except that this story begins as they are being welcomed home from their journey and honored for their success in ridding the world of the threat. As the night wears on a meteor shower that only happens about every 50 years occurs and the Emperor of the land they saved takes it as a sign, proclaiming the beginning of a new golden age. Frieren is unimpressed with the view, noting that she knows of a far more spectacular place to view the heavenly spectacle, one that is only a weeks travel away. Himmel, the leader of the victorious party of heroes notes that the meteor shower is a one night affair. Frieren, confused, explains that she was offering to take them all to the far better location when the meteor shower arrives again in 50 years, and seems perplexed at her companions reaction.
50 years later, Frieren the Elf keeps her promise, setting in motion a journey of understanding and discovery both for her, her companions and others whose lives she touches over the next few years...
This is a wonderful series that explores the meaning of heroism, virtue as well as both the pain and importance of loss. Elves great lifespans give them a vastly different outlook from the other races, and Frieren's is more different than most as she seems to actually be slightly autistic. She is definitely suffering from PTSD. She has to overcome, or at least account for her neurodivergence, inner demons, and her completely different perspective as she pulls together and mentors a new band of adventurers on a journey of discovery, whimsy, as well as peril, for while the lord of darkness may be gone, the world is not without danger.
This story is brilliantly paced and has some of the best character development and exposition I've seen in years. It brings laughter, heartbreak, and thrills in equal measure and is one of the most satisfying shows I've seen hands down. In any other show this elf girl would be a Mary Sue as the sheer depth and breadth of the experience mean that she is amazingly OP. Yet Frieren also has much to overcome and the story is as much about those who she mentors and those who mentored her. (This has a surprisingly ensemble cast). There was one point in the show that I dropped it for a bit. In this case it APPEARED that it had gone full Shonen and devolved into a tournament arc. In fact it kind of does. But it does so very well, in a way that both provides exposition and subverts expectations...but not in a Ryan Johnson way, in a very good way.
This show is excellent, my only complaint is that it ended. The ending is quite open ended and given the existence of vast story material in the manga as well as it's excellent ratings in Japan I'm huffing the hopium that this will not be the end of this wonderful show.
In the meantime, I would strongly advise anyone who has not seen it to do so. It was fantastic.
5 bricks out of 5.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
08:27 AM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 639 words, total size 5 kb.
Truly Ominous Portents
Two You-Tubers have a rational, well reasoned, and polite discussion of current gender issues.
This is surely a sign of the end times.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
07:14 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 26 words, total size 1 kb.
<< Page 1 of 245 >>
97kb generated in CPU 0.0718, elapsed 0.5638 seconds.
74 queries taking 0.5388 seconds, 416 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
74 queries taking 0.5388 seconds, 416 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
