Brickmuppet Blog 2.0

April 03, 2016

Well SOMEBODY is Fighting Back

Cover Shores reports that two ISIS patrol boats/blockade runners were just sunk last week by limpet mine attack.

In other news: ISIS has a navy.

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April 02, 2016

A Reliable Substitute for Thoughtful Content

...is pandering to the audience, so here is a rendering of Hephaestus by Shima Shima.

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This is Not a Change in Format

...nor a trend.

However, this discussion by Milo Yiannopoulos and some less exuberantly gay fellow about current political trends and especially political correctness is well worth an hour and a half of your time.

I obviously don't agree with Milo's sanguine take on Trump, particularly regarding his proposals about libel law, but this is a very good, thoughtful, and topical discussion.

more...

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Suddenly, in Russia....

The Russians now appear set to perhaps double the number of nuclear warheads that they have deployed. This seems unpossible U.S and R.F warhead totals are limited to 1550 each by a treaty which has all the binding power of....

It gets worse. While the State Department disputes this, the article is reporting that...

Officials said that in addition to adding warheads to the new missiles, Russian officials have sought to prevent U.S. weapons inspectors from checking warheads as part of the 2010 treaty.

Russia also enjoys a strong civil defense system and some years ago constructed 5000 blast/fallout shelters around Moscow alone. They've recently begun an inventory and inspection of them, you know, just because.

Puchkov said on August 14 that his ministry has its "fixed attention" on making sure Russia's bomb shelters are "ready to use for their intended purposes."

Russia is also increasing its ties to China which, likewise, is greatly increasing its warhead numbers, and MIRVing its missiles.

While all that's going on, the U.S. is going in rather the opposite direction.

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April 01, 2016

NASA

....has set up a tribble cam today so people can observe the breeding operation. Tribbles, which are more properly called Flatcats or Arctic Shmoos are, high in protein, not picky about their diet and taste like chicken.

UPDATE: Oddly enough, the camera was shut off sometime around midnight and all references to the program have been removed.

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J.C. Staff to Helm 13 Episode Princess Mononoke Reboot

UPDATE: Since it is no longer April First, I should give proper credit for the above art to Maldives.

Well, this is unexpected....

UPDATE: Link fixed ( more here)

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March 28, 2016

Zombjas in Snowflake Village!

If you understand this message, it is meant for you.

Kurumi Ebisuzawa Crossing sign by Maboroshi Dandy

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So Very True...

(Some of her typings not subject to the 'Trust and Safety Council are here)

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March 27, 2016

It's Spring

...so watch out for snakes.

Milia cosplay by Shiro Ang

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What the HELL Did I Just Watch!?

Please Tell Me Galko-Chan! has been getting some positive buzz, so I decided to give it a whirl.

The series is a slice of life show revolving around three young ladies, who, in their own way, are...different. From left to right: We have Galko the EPONYMOUS ringleader of our group of misfits. She suffers from acute Steatopygia, Macromastia, and blonde hair. These tragic deformities have resulted in her having a completely unearned reputation as a...party girl. She is quite good at reading prose. To the right of her is Oujo, a young lady from a rich family with pitch perfect etiquette and an immaculate uniform, who suffers from the tragic handicap of being an airhead. Finally there is Outo, whose disabilities include myopia, frumpiness and being a smart ass.

Over the course of the first 7 and a half minute episode they discuss such deep philosophical topics as nipples, pubic hair and poop...both spicy and sweetened.

So it's kind of like Katawa Shoujo meets Beavis and Butthead..but without the angst or the music videos.

What the hell Japan?!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 10:49 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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1 I'm afraid I didn't set the expectations forcefuly enough. At least for me, the best part of Galko was the characterization, rather than the subject matter of the conversations.

For example, I mentioned the case of Charao fixated on Galko while on a date because something like that happened to me when Kojiharu's pictures in bed with some actor pretty boy were floated around. I remember that for some couple of days after that, I sometimes found myself wondering randomly why Kojiharu is so dumb and what's wrong with her (news reports at the time indicated that it was a part of her attempts to shed a "good girl" image - it was almost like Brittney Spears serial marriages). And it's not like I care about entertainment personalities in general. I'm not her fan in particular either. I have the Heart Ereki CD, but mostly for unrelated reasons. Likewise, Charao isn't in love with Galko either... He just can't help getting fascinated by the damn shirt.

The pool shota was phenomenal too, I thought. It wasn't quite powerful like the assberger shota of Initial D who had his balls drop at the sight of Mako's slender legs. Galko's focus was once again how she combines all the appeals of playful exterior and kind personality in a certain kind of life example (not only for the shota, but for his lowlife girl classmates as well, hopefuly).

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Mon Mar 28 13:50:18 2016 (XOPVE)

I got far enough into the first episode to where they were talking about whether the aurolea (or however that's spelled; I refuse to look it up) on an eponymous also was big. And one of them draws circles on a balloon with a magic marker.

And then I decided I didn't care anymore.

It didn't help that I'm repelled by the character art.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Mon Mar 28 18:54:27 2016 (+rSRq)

3 So...while reading one of the comments I came across these words typed in this order...

"The pool shota was phenomenal too"

http://brickmuppet.mee.nu/images/1305547484945.png

...and I'm thinking that there has got to be context that I'm missing 'cause that just does not look like it belongs in a pitch that's attempting to get me to watch something.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Mon Mar 28 21:50:25 2016 (/4jFR)

4 Aww man, I went and rewatched 01. The best part is when Otako brings the pillow. Her intelligence and foresight are off the chart. I could never have done that for my best friend in school: even if I figured it out, I would've forgotten it in the morning.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Mon Mar 28 22:03:57 2016 (XOPVE)

5 Yes but that was a fairly fancy pillow and now it probably needs to be burned.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Mon Mar 28 22:09:37 2016 (/4jFR)

6 It was a donut pillow; getting sat on by people with tender rears is what it's for. ;p

I had a couple of friends who had the same reaction as Steven. "Ugh" and nope'd right out. And that's a fair reaction - the show is not merely earthy but outright fertilizer here and there. If that bugs you, definitely not worth it to wade through.

I liked it because, frankly, at this point I'm pretty jaded; I've also developed the "don't create a mental image of that" perk that has served me well over the years, so I can talk about disgusting topics without inconvenient visualization. ;p And underneath the discussions of nipples, anal hair, and feminine hygiene products, the characters in the show are pretty good. Galko will make a great mom sometime.

Maybe I should say that it's offensive, but in a genuine way rather than one intended to titillate the viewer.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at Tue Mar 29 03:49:05 2016 (v29Tn)

They're good friends, which is rare. They, esp. Outo, make some mistakes about that, but it's a pleasant show to watch.

Offensive? Titillating? I've two teenage daughters on a highly competitive swim-team. You'd be amazed at what girls talk about; and these days, they could care less who's listening.

Good show; thanks for the post, BM.

Posted by: Clayton Barnett at Tue Mar 29 18:40:33 2016 (lU4ZJ)

8 Okay, in case you didn't notice. All niknames except Ojou's are made by using a characteristic word, or its stem, then either applying "~ko" for girls and "~o" for boys. Thus...

Gal-ko is "gal". You know about the Gal subculture, right? Mika Jougasaki etc. I still remember when this sort of thing was called "kogal".

Ota-ko is "otaku". Duh.

Niku-ko(-cchi) is "meat". Because it wasn't so funny in Haganai.

Boys are a little harder. Well, not Spo-o, whose name means "sport". Ota-o is male Otako. But why Chara-o? He is supposed to lampoon a VN character? Or what?

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Tue Mar 29 21:26:05 2016 (XOPVE)

9 There's a Kogal in "Re-Kan". She's one of the ghosts, and Hibiki calls her "Kogal-san".

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Tue Mar 29 21:28:14 2016 (+rSRq)

10 "chara" = "flashy" (in the "shallow" sense).

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at Tue Mar 29 22:17:59 2016 (/lg1c)

11 Thanks. What about Okako? It's the tall girl who stoops. Also plays in a hard rock band.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Tue Mar 29 22:46:53 2016 (XOPVE)

12 That one I don't know. (More like, I got through the show without learning that was her name...)

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at Wed Mar 30 00:50:01 2016 (v29Tn)

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March 26, 2016

Hey! They Got The Scale Right!

The Dumpy Despot of the DPRK has released a new propaganda video, which exhibits his typical subtle and nuanced approach to foreign relations.

Interestingly, the size of the blast and mushroom cloud are not wild exaggerations, but rather, given its size in comparison to the Lincoln Memorial, it's about what one would expect from a 10 to 15 kiloton blast. Given the quality of the video's FX, especially that business around the 24 second mark, this level of verisimilitude is...surprising.

Sadly, they missed an opportunity, given that if they'd set the detonation for this weekend, they'd have been able to show apocalyptic cherry blossoms flying everywhere. Of course they probably don't appreciate that.

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All You Had to Do Was Say That They Were Cosplayers

Because Frankly, this picture does not look at all incongruous.

Yes, Gate is over. It will be missed.

The series was overall, quite entertaining despite having had an uneven run, which suffered additionally from being a bit rushed, especially towards the end.

However, when one's biggest complaint about a show is that one wished one could have seen more, it could be a clue that he show's not bad. Overall GATE, was, most of the time, a thoroughly entertaining show and most importantly, it ended on a quite satisfying note.

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And Then Suddenly The Show Inadvertently Stumbled Upon its Long Lost Plot

Episode 12 of Phantom World begins with an explanation of the legalities that make folktale fanfic the safest fanfic...

....which cleverly ensured that no one was expecting this week's villain to be Carmen SanDiego.

"Yeah, that's her, but she never mentioned anything about geography."

The seemingly inconsequential stretch of recent episodes actually provided a good bit of background that made this story more impactful. Besides important insights into the protagonist's backstories those installments offhandedly introduced some background characters who make this episode somewhat more impactful.

This tale is a lot darker than the previous ones and the story is (rather belatedly) really starting to move. Whether it will live up to its considerable early potential is unclear, but next week's episode certainly bears watching. Things certainly have gotten serious for our heroes.

Mai oh my!

One thing that I have begun to wonder, although Haruhiko is the narrator, I do wonder if Mai is actually the protagonist.

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March 22, 2016

Well...Crap.

By now most of you know that an apparently ongoing series of explosions at transportation nodes has killed at least 34 people in Belgium. As I type this the news is reporting that a suicide vest has been recovered, it apparently failed to detonate and was discarded. The terrorists whose corpses are not evenly dispersed across airports and train stations remain at large.

First reports during events like these are often unreliable, however this story mentions some news that has been out there for several days. That Jihadist they caught last week mentioned during his interrogation that his group was planning something in Brussels. Thus it is not unreasonable to speculate that this was either the operation mentioned or it was his group acting out of fear that their discovery was eminent.

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An Atypical Indicator of Genius

While by no means a reliable marker of stupidity, lowbrow humor is generally not a particularly dependable indicator of high intellect. However, it should be noted that humor of any type often does not translate well across cultures and this difficulty is greatly increased when one is attempting to convey a boorish bon-mot in something other than ones native tongue.

Learning a language is hard. Learning its nuances is extremely difficult.

Thus, the use by a native Russian speaker of the word 'titular' in this particular context can only be an indicator of the highest acumen and as such serves as an uplifting inspiration to all of us who are striving to learn a foreign language...at least those of us who are sufficiently problematic and déclassé to snicker at a boob joke.

Well played Pete.

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March 20, 2016

Concerns Appear Unwarranted

So this animation apparently showed up on the Kyoto Animation webpage recently. I gather that the translation of the text at the end "Thank you for everything!" caused some...speculation.

Obviously, the cutest suicide note ever.

A quick perusal of their site indicated no resumes being posted, and there is nothing on the news about the company's demise...What there is is a news blurb halfway down the page and if one clicks on it it is illustrated with the above animation and a "Thank You!" for the fact that they've reached 50,000 hits on Twitter.

Thing is...I didn't need to sit there with a dictionary or ponder the screen for several minutes. I was able to figure this out with 20 seconds of web searching and 4 seconds of Google translate.

So "unwarranted" is rather an understatement.

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Meanwhile, In, Over and Underneath the DPRK

In the course of discussing the recent photo-op involving Kim Jong Un and a nuclear warhead mock-up, Jeffery Lewis makes the following observation...

One of the big questions about North Koreaâ€™s nuclear program is whether or not North Korea can design a reentry vehicle that will protect the warhead during its journey from launch to target. The KN-08 missiles that North Korea paraded in 2012 and 2013 were almost certainly mock-ups. Although the quality of the mock-ups improved between parades, the nosecones were particularly unconvincing. North Korea has now shown a reentry body that looks like early US and Soviet ones. The reentry body still hasnâ€™t been tested, but this is the first credible reentry vehicle design that North Korea has displayed.

Well, that last sentence may need to be amended now ...

A rocket warhead tip is in flames during a simulated test of atmospheric re-entry of a ballistic missile, at an unidentified location in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency

Now that the doughy despot has announced further missile and warhead tests (at least one of which appears imminent), there is some speculation that one of the upcoming tests might be a combined affair. That is, there is concern that the North Koreans might launch an ICBM with a live warhead on it against a test range in the DPRK resulting in an above ground nuclear test.

Such a test would crank the violation of international propriety up to 11 and would, no doubt, result in very harshly worded letter written by the most august of calligraphers and transcribed onto gold leafed bond paper. However, it would give the Norks a rock solid credibility to their small deterrent. Even in the days when the U.S. was conducting over 900 above ground nuclear tests, America only conducted one such test. There were some small antiaircraft missile tests, a single shot fired from a cannon and a handful of ballistic missile tests where the target point was almost directly overhead, but only one long range ballistic missile fired with a live nuclear warhead.. That was shot Frigate Bird of Operation Dominic which involved firing a Polaris missile from a submerged submarine at the ever hapless Johnston Island. Interestingly, the Chinese only conducted one such test as well. Thus one can assume that such a test would be rather challenging.

It's unclear how much of this concern is based in actual intel rather than prattle, but given that North Korea's missile program has a checkered history, such an endeavor has the potential for truly spectacular bedlam.

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R.R.S. Boaty McBoatface!

The United Kingdom is building a state of the art oceanographic research ship. Ice strengthened for operations in the polar regions, this floating temple to the spirit of discovery will cost 200 million pounds. The vessel will have extensive laboratory facilities and be able to keep its crew of 90 mariners and scientists at sea continuously for 60 days.

Her Majesty's government decided to put the matter of the ships name to an internet vote....