1
Evidently a very Loony Tunes adaptable duet. They did a great job with Istanbul (not Constantinople).
Along with Ana Ng, these are three of my favorite songs from the college (and near post college) years. Thanks for the post!
Posted by: topmaker at Mon Sep 15 18:07:13 2014 (2yZsg)
2
"I don't want the world, I just want your half." Yeah, I liked TMBG as well.
Watching the video of "Istanbul..." is also how I caught my local station compressing the shows to stuff in an extra commercial per break, since I ended up taping it twice, once before they started doing it. The dropped frames in the long pan became obvious, as well as the tempo of the song.
Posted by: Mauser at Tue Sep 16 06:26:07 2014 (TJ7ih)
Freudian Radio
To my utter astonishment and joy, the car only cost 288 Sacagaweas to be resurrected after rolling an 18 on its "save versus ants" skill.
As I drove around performing all the errands I had needed to do this week, I listened to NPR's All Things Considered and one of their segments was a special on the 200th anniversary of the burning of Washington DC. Instead of just having some historians come and talk, they did a mock new report...as if NPR was covering it at the time.
"Boy howdy! Did they ever! "
The NPR reporter was embedded with the advancing British troops . They seemed to imply that the Madisons were having marital problems (not mentioning WHY they left the capital separately). To my surprise. they seemed to give fairly short shrift to Dolly Madison's heroics in getting certain national treasures out of DC .There was no mention of the one other bright spot in the debacle ( The President taking charge and turning what was a rout into an organized fighting retreat, as well as changing the direction of the shattered army towards Baltimore and away from the hinterlands). One of the embedded reporters noted a Redcoat carrying a decorative pillow as he applied gunpowder paste to the White House. Robert Siegel asked if she meant that they were looting and she said that was not the case, but rather, the British troops were just taking souvenirs.
An NPR reporter in a tavern tried to interview the American general who had just been defeated, but said officer was too inebriated to say much.
There was actually some credit given to Madison, though it was for the empty but quite inspirational gesture of having Congress re-convene in the burned out ruins of DC.
Finally, a pair of commentators (actually Historians) discussed what they thought was likely to follow and argued a bit before making different predictions, that, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight were nevertheless, both highly prescient.
Not able to be captured in this run-down is the palpable glee with which the whole catastrophe was reported.
At one point I was actually wondering if this was a parody, but no, it was completely straight, just not terribly self aware. At the end of the broadcast, they were happy and I was perversely amused, so a good time was had by all.
I guess that counts as some quality radio.
UPDATE: Duh...It's NPR so the actual broadcast is archived here. The whole episode, most of which lacked the spectacular levels of self parody is here.
Via Ace of Spades, we have a follow-up to that disturbing story about the dolls who appeared on the doorsteps of young girls (each bearing a resemblance to the girls in question). It has been solved. Astoundingly, the resolution did not involve dreadful discoveries in a basement or shallow graves.
It appears that the dolls were intended to be gifts from a woman who attended the girls church.
It was a scary story involving dolls, yet it appears to have just been someone being nice. Who on earth would have expected THAT!?
A Caption With Worrisome Implications
New Jersey has a snake problem of a sort that is, hype notwithstanding, fairly unremarkable. However, this caption is troubling.
I find that I'm far more alarmed about the 30-40 foot tall man holding it.
7
I'm sorry for using profanity in someone else's blog. That's what I get for posting at 4 in the morning. But please stop hinting and being coy and just tell me.
Stuff and Things
Apropos the previous post. My utter contempt for the people involved exceeded the scope of my Thesaurus. I don't think I've ever dropped 'f bombs' in a post before and I certainly do not intend to make a habit of it.
*****************
Frequent commentor Ralph Lauren Polo Shirts makes an interesting observation...
Send cause concoction towards large zip major naff plastic bag. Increase sirloin to successfully tote
Well, it might be an observation.
Of course, given that this faithful commentor has helpfully provide similar insights twenty times this weekend, my first impulse is to violate the promise made in the first paragraph. It occurs to me however, that perhaps what I need is not a bigger thesaurus, but a cypher. It could be that this is a coded message and all that stands between me and a great adventure is deciphering this! What if all of these comments, together form a sort of Rosetta Stone that has the potential to unlock the secrets of the Voynich Manuscript? Solving such a puzzle would have the potential to unlock wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. Formidable enemies would seek to suppress that disruptive information, but the potential to bring about a golden age of enlightenment would surely be worth the risk!
Heck, cute girls might talk to me!
If only...I hadn't deleted all those comments....
Once again I have sabotaged myself.
*********************
I may have to check out this show. Not only is this barista into military history, I hear tell she has good trigger discipline too!
3
No, the spelling errors are proof that the sender has not been replaced by an enemy agent (assuming the errors are in the correct position).
Posted by: Siergen at Mon Jun 23 17:22:07 2014 (8/vFI)
4
Honestly, I'm a touch torn. Rize is pretty good in that show. That said, everything without her is -amazingly- saccharine, and she's just not in enough of it to counter the cloying sweetness.
The studio's previous show, Kin-iro Mosaic, had much the same tone, but under some of the cuteness lay some real edged wit (being a show about Japanese/English exchange students, they were perfectly happy to point and say "look, Japan, we are ridiculous here" or "hey gaijin, what is up with this thing you do?") I liked it a good bit better, so you'd think "same basic recipe plus a military kid" would be a winner, but I just don't think it came through.
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at Mon Jun 23 19:49:32 2014 (zJsIy)
5
Indeed, GochiUsa is much too overdone with the sweetness. It's not just Rize, but just about everyone. The only bearable character is Aoyama.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Tue Jun 24 00:12:02 2014 (RqRa5)
6
Don't worry about having deleted them, they will soon provide you with revised and improved instructions for wealth beyond the dreams of Avarice. And I've met Avarice, he can dream BIG.
Posted by: Mauser at Tue Jun 24 06:06:35 2014 (TJ7ih)
Paraskevidekatriaphobia...Missed
I had intended to do two posts yesterday including one on the silly Friday the Thirteenth nonsense. Unfortunately my Friday involved, getting off work late, having my car stuck in the shop (where it remains over the weekend), a letter from the VA telling me I owe them 1800 dollars, an attack of sinusitis and a power failure.
On the other hand, while yesterday was the only such quirk of the gregorian calendar this year, there will be no less than three opportunities to post on Paraskevidekatriaphobia next year. Also, today has involved leveraging last nights power failure into about 13 hours of sleep, so things are definitely looking up.....embedded video notwithstanding.
We here at Brickmuppet Blog wish give our sincerest thanks to Don of Zoopraxiscopeinfamy fame for nominating this site for a Liebster Award. This nomination brings with it many privileges...most of which are like those 'privileges' I'm constantly asked to check.
The Quasi-Official Rules of the Liebster Award
If you have been nominated for The Liebster Award AND YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT, write a blog post about the Liebster award in which you:
1. thank the person who nominated you, and post a link to their blog on your blog.
2. display the award on your blog — by including it in your post and/or displaying it using a "widget†or a "gadgetâ€. (Note that the best way to do this is to save the image to your own computer and then upload it to your blog post.)
3. answer 11 questions about yourself, which will be provided to you by the person who nominated you.
4. provide 11 random facts about yourself.
5. nominate 5 – 11 blogs that you feel deserve the award, who have a less than 1000 followers. (Note that you can always ask the blog owner this since not all blogs display a widget that lets the readers know this information!)
6. create a new list of questions for the blogger to answer.
7. list these rules in your post (You can copy and paste from here.) Once you have written and published it, you then have to:
8. Inform the people/blogs that you nominated that they have been nominated for the Liebster award and provide a link for them to your post so that they can learn about it (they might not have ever heard of it!)
Don has helpfully provided 11 questions
1. Who should write your biography?
James Joyce (in the style of Finnigan's Wake).
2. Who should direct the movie version?
Ridley Scott: Seeing his choices in lighting, set design and camera angles on the mobile home would be fascinating.
3. Who should do the musical score for the movie?
The Puppini Sisters.
4. Please tell a favorite joke (keep it tasteful, thank you).
[ insert joke here ]
5. What book should everyone read?
I'm gonna go with Animal Farm. It would be imprudent to elaborate at this time.
6. What obscure movie is worth tracking down?
There are many, but the 1916 version of 20,000 leagues under the sea is surprisingly good.
7. Do you have a battle song, i.e., a tune that you hum, sing or stomp your feet to while on the way to a difficult day at work or an unpleasant appointment?
No. But upon refection, the Benny Hill theme might serve to reduce tension.
8. What fictional character do you particularly identify with?
Walter Mitty I'm afraid.
9. Which mode of literature do you find most congenial: comedy, romance (in the Arthurian, high-fantasy sense), tragedy or satire?
Romance ( In the Arthurian Sense)
10. Who is a writer you once thought highly of but have since outgrown?
David Webber
11. What neglected writer, composer or performer deserves rediscovery?
Marguitte Harrison, a producer who's filmography is sparse, but who was a fascinating person people should know more about.
I am now obligated to reveal 11 heretofore unknown facts about myself...which will be difficult given the sheer banality of my Walter Mitty lifestyle.
1: I enjoy spearfishing and SCUBA diving. But have done neither in 3 years.
2: I've been blogging since 2003.
3: In high school I was on the chess team, the track team and played the trombone.
4: The only rescue I participated in while on duty with the Coast Guard was assisting in saving a St. Bernard.
5: I was a college DJ in 1990-91 and 1994-6.
6: The name of this blog is actually a Hayao Miyazaki reference....by way of a wild rose.
7: I started following anime in earnest in 1987. The format debate at the time was not MP4 or FLV. It was VHS and Beta.
8: After an Identity theft incident some years ago, I shut down my Facebook account. When I attempted to reactivate it I discovered that I am now banned from Facebook.
9: #8 does not bother me in the least.
10: I did community theater for 6 years.
11: As a cub scout I once had to save a group of children including an infant from a herd of wild hogs.
3:What books are you reading now or are on your 'to read' pile?
4: Name a hobby you have that don't involve QWERTY or DVORAK keyboards?
5: You have 1 billion dollars. It must be spent within 3 days. The complicating factor is that it cannot be spent on any property or food for yourself. What do you spend it on?
6: If you had a chance to move off planet, to say the Moon, Mars or a NEO knowing it would take about 10 years to get beyond the "rustic" phase, would you?
7: If you were given (pinky under the nose) ONE MILLION DOLLARS but had to leave the US and never return...would you?
8: Jazz, Electronica or Symphonic Metal?
9: What period of history most interests you?
10:What city would you most like to visit if you had a week off?
11: Which anime has the highest re-watch value for you?
Your only hope now is to follow the rules above or else an unexpected phone call will surely befall you.
Thank you very kindly! I will attempt to answer in the near future. (I will not attempt to leave a smiley on this comment.)
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Mon Jun 2 14:34:43 2014 (nh8FR)
4
Oh. The smiley thing was entirely a PEBKAC error on my end and has to deal with the dashboard controls for a specific post.
I just put it out there in case anyone else was having weird formatting issues with copy/paste text.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Mon Jun 2 16:46:55 2014 (DnAJl)
5
Oh look! Turning off the smilies in a speciffic post does not turn them off in the comments.
Learning is a journey that never ends.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Mon Jun 2 16:50:38 2014 (DnAJl)
6
Mauser...
I...ummm...deleted your comment.
There was an entire army page and a half of orcs spam and in the process of slaying deleting them an errant arrow unfortunate typo slew deleted your champion comment.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Wed Jun 4 04:28:48 2014 (DnAJl)
7
Well, gee, I could repost it, or maybe make it a post on my on blog, where it would be safe... :-)
But it wouldn't be an official award post, I'm too iconoclastic for that. Yeah, that's it....
Posted by: Mauser at Wed Jun 4 05:52:34 2014 (TJ7ih)
8
Have to do this before it rolls off the Text Area Cache cache:
I prefer my smilies to be non-graphical. That's one obscure fact. 10 to go.
Lemmie try the questions:
1: The number of states you have visited.
Haven't
counted. I drove cross country from Virginia to Washington, partially
through Canada when I moved here. In my life I've been up and down both
coasts. And Nevada.
2: The the number of countries you have visited.
See 1. Canada. I think I'm unwelcome though because I brought NiCd batteries to donate to a school.
3:What books are you reading now or are on your 'to read' pile?
I have a to-read SHELF. And a stack of unread comics about a foot high.
4: Name a hobby you have that don't involve QWERTY or DVORAK keyboards?
Woodworking (also Gardening).
5: You have 1 billion dollars. It must be spent within 3 days. The
complicating factor is that it cannot be spent on any property or food
for yourself. What do you spend it on?
"Hello, Elon Musk? How about we advance your Moon Colony project a bit?"
6: If you had a chance to move off planet, to say the Moon, Mars or
a NEO knowing it would take about 10 years to get beyond the "rustic"
phase, would you?
See 5. Although, I imagine it would really screw up my Torrents.
7: If you were given (pinky under the nose) ONE MILLION DOLLARS but had to leave the US and never return...would you?
See 5. But no, I'm an American.
8: Jazz, Electronica or Symphonic Metal?
I suppose Electronica, but I really have varied tastes.
9: What period of history most interests you?
"The Golden Age of Aviation."
10:What city would you most like to visit if you had a week off?
Tokyo.
11: Which anime has the highest re-watch value for you?I rarely re-watch anything. My To-Watch list is pretty long too. Generally, I prefer to be surprised.
Posted by: Mauser at Sun Jun 8 18:49:55 2014 (TJ7ih)
Their Texture...
...has always been a source of speculation for me. However, now that I seem to have discovered where Pringles come from, I find that I rue my foolish curiousity.
1
Silly rabbit. Pringles come from Cincinnati, and those are _clearly_ Japanese girls. (Albeit I suppose it's possible that Kellogg's changed the process.)
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Fri May 9 13:46:04 2014 (nh8FR)
It's extremely peculiar that they'd use an English name (and English acronym)
I thought it was strange when the Japanese did that (JAXA), but at least they're allies. Given that NoKo sees the US as its most bitter enemy, why would they use the language we speak?
2
When I first saw it I thought it was a joke in part for that reason. However, they want to show the world they are a space power, which is probably why they went with a modified NASA logo.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun Apr 6 18:03:52 2014 (DnAJl)
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!!
