And Now: Your Monday Ghurkas
This is an Indian Ghurka unit, so I was rather surprised at the choice of musical instruments. The Kukris come out about halfway through.
Thank You
For a variety of reasons I was not able to post yesterday. However, Neo, J.C. Carlton, Paterrico, Rand Simberg and Tam all have posts on Veteran's Day.
He was far more sanguine about Trump than I am and one hopes he is on some other plane taking some satisfaction from the weeks events. So, in the sincere hope that he was right about our president elect, and in acknowledgement of the surprising events of Tuesday, the and my own character flaws, we here at Brickmuppet Blog present you with topical cheesecake...
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In other words, all that serious examination of anime was designed to kill all the catgirls so they'd be waiting for him when he arrived.
In the words of Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, "As far as evil plans go, it doesn't suck."
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Thu Nov 10 22:45:04 2016 (CLiR9)
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Wow, something broke the formatting of the comments... Everything's overlapping.
I'm long overdue for posting some pictures, I'll try to come up with something (I just wish there were an easier way to manage image files on mee.nu, or even FTP access).
Posted by: Mauser at Thu Nov 10 23:08:55 2016 (5Ktpu)
I was pleasantly impressed with Trump's magnanimous acceptance speech, which has, at least for a time, tempered the very mixed emotions I had voting for him.
In fairness, I was also pleasantly surprised with Madame Secretary's prompt and congenial concession.
A lot of people are worried. Even many of us that voted for him believe that Trump warrants considerable vigilance. Rest assured though that the press will provide that oversight with verve and a sense of urgency in exactly the same way that they wouldn't have for his opponent.
So lighten up.
Finally,
TakumiYanai's work may not be the only evidence of time travel....
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Those #NotMyPresident buffoons? Someone should ask them how they felt about the people who said the same about Obama, and then point and laugh when they say "That's different!"
Posted by: Rick C at Thu Nov 10 01:20:40 2016 (ITnFO)
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Did you see Paul Krugman's reaction to the stockmarket blip?
Paraphrasing, it was "When can we expect to see it recover? Short answer, never."
By the end of the day it was at a record high.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thu Nov 10 01:21:39 2016 (PiXy!)
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Yes. I laughed.
Nobel prize winner and ENRON advisor.
I'm less amused with the riots.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Thu Nov 10 19:07:04 2016 (1zM3A)
HOLY CRAP!
We are actually less utterly screwed than I thought we would be this morning!
I remain deeply skeptical of Trump, but credit where it is due, he has done what most thought impossible. Whatever his flaws (and they are legion) I can, with considerable confidence, wholeheartedly and without reservation agree that by far the lesser of two evils won this election.
Hillary Clinton wasn't just singularly corrupt. She was the standard bearer for a group, a party and an self-appointed faux aristocracy that not only feels unwarranted entitlement to rule over us, but despises us with every fiber of their being.
We're in for a rough ride as a nation. Trump quite scary in his own ways. However, there is another bright side to this; the intensity with which political correctness got a kick in the groin this morning.
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Well, there's still the whole President Trump thing to wrap our heads around. But despite my misgivings on that quarter, on the whole, a good day.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wed Nov 9 05:18:25 2016 (PiXy!)
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My faith in the electorate is renewed. It was wonderful watching the press freak out last night. I don't remember them being that shell-shocked on 9/11.
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The Press and the Posters being so wrong, and shocked, and upset by the results of the election I think is a testament to how much they were trying to wish it into being. I've observed that liberals have this belief that words can control reality, and they get very indignant when reality does not obey.
Posted by: Mauser at Wed Nov 9 21:44:17 2016 (5Ktpu)
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Now that we have some numbers to analyse, it's all pretty easy to see. Clinton is up by 1% in the popular vote, so that's well-within the margin of error. A approximate 12% decrease in total votes from *2012*, which was a 5% decrease from 2008. If Hillary was any other Democrat, she likely would have won handily. Trump pulled similar percentages in most demographics to Romney and McCain, but pulled quite a bit fewer total votes than Romney and about the same as McCain.
The bottom line is, the people who said it's all about "who wants to vote for Hillary Clinton?" were absolutely right. She was just so unpopular no one wanted to vote for her.
But, if she couldn't win, at least Trump won. So I guess she has that going for her. Kind of "win-win" for the left, really.
RWBY 4-2
There's no actual action in this episode, but a lot of stuff is established.
Ruby keeps having nightmares about Pyrrha and keeps hearing her voice at night.
Do you remember when the backgrounds were an afterthought if they were present at all?
We do get to see Weiss. Her family life is about what we'd come to expect.
Our heroes reach the village they've been looking for only to find it razed. The lone survivor explains that it was bandits, followed by grimm...and expires. Ren and Nora recognize....something.
Ren and Nora's history has only been alluded to obliquely. It is known that they are both orphans and strongly implied that they are the only survivors of their village(s?).
We do find out what Ruby's been hearing at night.
Jaune's been drilling at night, away from the party, but just within range of Ruby's hearing, using a recording of Pyrrha.
It looks like, in that very bad week for her, before she died when she feared she might "die" in a completely different way, Pyrrha made some videos for Jaune to continue his training without her. This REALLY was a surprisingly poingniant scene, and it made perfect sense, in the context of the show.
It's pretty clear from the title what this show's going to be about...
When two teenage girls trying to make it as real estate speculators in Prohibition era Chicago decide to compete for top prize in a dance contest at a local speakeasy, they manage to run afoul of the mob, some cultists, a Bolshevik plot and an inept gumshoe. Our heroines must cope with bandits, biplanes, and 10,000 bullets as they...
Wait...
That synopsis may not actually be entirely accurate.
Good Grief! This show's title is completely misleading.
OK, I have NO idea what is going on in Flip-Flappers, and can't even make a guess as to the etymology of the title
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Amazingly, CR is letting me see it in high rez. It is interesting. The style is so loose, it makes me think of some of the really old hand-drawn anime from when I first started watching. (I wanna say Leda or Birth, but it's been so long I can't be sure.).
Posted by: Mauser at Sun Nov 6 20:18:02 2016 (5Ktpu)
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Okay, that was only the first in high rez. and my, that 3rd one was rather kinky....
They're really not sharing a lot of information with the Audience. Nary an Infodump, and even the scraps of what's going on aren't very informative. I guess they really want us to concentrate on the relationships there.
Posted by: Mauser at Sun Nov 6 22:39:21 2016 (5Ktpu)
Good Hunting, but do Be CarefulJ.C. Carlton (whose blog you should be following) has a thoughtful disquisition on the state of political discourse. Out of consideration for our readers, we'll post our quibbles below the fold and post a picture of Best Oni here.
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The Tea Party was a petition; ignored by both sides of the aisle .
Trump is a warning; hated by both sides of the aisle
What comes next against the oligarchs...?
I've two teenage daughters. I'd rather they not see the "Kosovo-ization" of America.
Posted by: Clayton Barnett at Thu Nov 3 20:30:49 2016 (ug1Mc)
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For what it's worth, here's my reasoning for why not voting for Clinton is the least-worst choice for US voters:
It's highly likely that Russian and Chinese cyberspies have copies of all the emails Clinton sent and received on her illicit email server back when she was Secretary of State; if Clinton becomes President, it would be highly likely that the Russian and/or Chinese governments will attempt to blackmail her with those emails, in an effort to bend US policy to their will. If this does happen, I'd wager that she would not take being blackmailed very well, and that she would act out by provoking a confrontation with her blackmailers ("You can't push me around, Mister Putin!!")--a confrontation that could degenerate into a shooting war.
Posted by: Peter the Not-so-Great at Thu Nov 3 21:17:28 2016 (jS1F0)
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I figured out months ago that there is no argument either in favor of or against either candidate that can not be convincingly refuted. I'm a bit disappointed but not surprised that Hoyt tried to reason her way to her current position...advocacy for either defies rationality. You can argue for chance, luck, or faith. But I believe the only aspect of the next for years that can be reasoned is how to deal with the aftermath, as reason has already failed in this election for President.
Finally, if the above images are just too pleasant for you, there is always the Halloween episode of Gumball, which has Gumball, Darwin and the ghost girl who haunts their school encounter the most accurate depiction of a shouggath ever.
RWBY Season 4 Begins
When last we left our intrepid heroes in team RNGR (or JNRR, there is some disagreement on this point) they had struck out across the continent in the hopes of finding out who was behind the destruction of Beacon Academy, and the devastation of Vale.
This episode takes place between 6 and 18 months since the last one and there have been some developments....
For one thing, Cinder's underlings managed to drag her broken, crushed self out of the tower. She's lost an eye, the use of her left arm, is horrifically scarred and can barely speak, but she IS alive. Her employer, Salem, who we met at the end of the last episode has a team of lieutenants worthy of any Sentai villain....at least with regards to disposition.
The other members of the evil council of evil...emote...and it is decided to send one of them to collect Ruby, since silver eyed superpowered women are a potential complication to their plans.
I do note that even Cinder's surviving underlings (two stone cold murderers) are appalled to discover what their employer's employers are capable of.
Meanwhile, our heroes have been doing good deeds, as they've traveled through the countryside. Most recently they agreed to dispose of a.....ummm.....huh.
This is something we haven't seen before, and it's a particularly tough enemy
Really, really tough. Jaune, despite being without so much as his sword, does figure out how to kill the thing, and Ruby exercizes title character privilege to land the killing shot.
During the course of the fight, we do see that both Nora and Ruby have had their weapons upgraded, The reason that was possible for four kids in the wilderness with no resources, is that our heroes, being competent PCs, have been parlaying the good will they've generated in various towns into trade credit at blacksmiths. Jaune was without a sword during the fight because his was in the shop.
He received new armor and had both his sword and shield reinforced. The blacksmith commented on the amazing quality of the metal Jaune gave him to work with...it appears that it was from Pyrrha's armor. He had the shield decorated with Pyrrha's crest. It was only then, that I realized he was wearing a replica of her sash.
And so our heroes are off, unaware that they are being actively pursued by the coalition of evildoers.
This person, despite not a whit of dialog, seems to be significant.
We do learn several things, including the true nature of Pumpkin Pete, but mostly that three years of practice and a major increase in budget allow for a tremendous boost in quality. This looks gorgeous! The fight sequence was much more in the spirit of Monty Oum than the trailer, which I was somewhat critical of. the voice work is still very good and the pacing is excellent.
On the debit side, most of the new additions to the villian side seem to lack the panache of the ones we know, and seem to be mimeographs of cardboard cutouts, though their screen time was brief and that may well change moving forward.
This series went through a dramatic shift in tone and direction at the end of last season to something rather darker than many of its fans had grown accustomed to. That hasn't changed, however it is refreshing to see that the show has not lost its sense of humor or heart. This season is starting off promising.
Note that as I type this, RWBY is not on Crunchyroll's front page, but it is viewable there.
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Can't emphasize the graphical enhancements enough. I was amazed at just how good it looked. It's not anime quality yet, but it's certainly better than most Adult Swim shows.
Posted by: Wonderduck at Sun Oct 30 12:55:24 2016 (vZvpB)
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Although to be fair, Rocky and Bullwinkle had better animation than a lot of the Adult Swim shows. Not counting the Anime.
Still, for the best Flash-based animation, nothing comes close to Wakfu.
Posted by: Mauser at Sun Oct 30 21:34:21 2016 (5Ktpu)
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Okay, having watched 4-1 on the RoosterTeeth site, I have to say the animation IS significantly improved.
I'm not a huge fan of the 4th wall breakage (Or whatever term you use for the giant head or floating letters stuff). I think it's possible to do humor without hanging a flashing neon sign on it.
Does the Big Bad make you think of the woman from the new Star Trek movie?
Theory on Wordless Kid: He saw that whole opening scene in his dream, but has no idea of its significance.
Posted by: Mauser at Sun Oct 30 22:02:34 2016 (5Ktpu)
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