April 15, 2023
Anniversary!
Note: It's a Blogging Best Practice to let your post sit for a bit before hitting "publish" so you can check spelling and grammar with a fresh eye.
It is an even better practice to actually hit "post" and not assume one has made a programming announcement like one did on Discord.
Tonight is the one year anniversary of my first stream. So, despite it being a Saturday we will have an extended channel stream this evening beginning at 9PM EST 1AM UTC.
We are on the Final Fantasy 14 North American server (in Sargatanas) if any members of chat who are FF14 players would like to do a dungeon or something.
However:
After a bit of gaming while people filter in, we will change gears. At around midnight EST (depending on combat and cut-scenes) we will show two films from the 1920s that promise to be quite a treat.
1 Week is a Buster Keaton short from 1923. Watch and be amazed at the master of physical comedy.
Our feature for the evening is CHANG! A semi-documentary from 1927. These days the academic nature of this film is criticized, its educational bonafides being somewhat hampered by the lack of any anthropologists on the 3 person shooting crew, but Adventurers Meriam C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack and Adventuress (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 recently have I managed to track down a copy not in French.
In addition to narrating the title cards, I'll be providing some trivia about the making of the films.
After the movies, we'll most likely do a little bit of grinding, in one of the channels current games.
Stop by, grab a drink and a snack and join us at https://www.twitch.tv/brickmuppet for all the fun.
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April 12, 2023
We Have a Date (UPDATE: No We Don't)
Mauser missed it by THAT much.
I have it on very good authority that Twitch.tv/brickmuppet will be livestreaming it. Join my internet alter-ego and his Crack Team of Science Babes....
(well....at least one of them)
...as they discuss this momentous occasion and provide a thoughtful, if snarky peanut gallery to any unplanned fireworks.
Like this for instance...
Join us for the festivities beginning at 07:00 EST/ 11:00 UTC next Wednesday the 19th.
UPDATE: Well...THAT'S a nice clarification. The Space Rocket Launch Schedule website now says that the launch date is TBD. I'm not 100% sure it did not say that before , but I didn't see it, and I'm fairly sure that paragraph was not as long when I read it the first time.
This morning I saw an announcement that it was going to be next Monday and currently I'm seeing this on Yahoo News :
Current federal requests point to a liftoff between Monday, April 17, and Friday, April 21. Many believe Musk would be happy to see Starship fly on April 20, or 4/20, which is often used to reference all things marijuana-related and has become a favorite joke for Musk.
I'm sorry about jumping the gun on this, but it looks like no date is set as of this time.
Spaceflight Now (currently) has the launch as No Earlier Than April 17th.
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April 10, 2023
2 Hours With Vivek Ramaswamy
Vivek Ramaswamy is the GOP candidate that I'm currently most likely to throw my vote away on during the primary.
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Soon!
Starship is stacked and ready for launch.
The only thing that is needed is FAA approval.
If this thing works as advertised, it will be a game changer, heralding a massive downturn in launch costs and increase in frequency.
Starship also is designed to go to Mars, though it can potentially reach anywhere between Mercury and the astroid belt, perhaps even the outer Jovian system which is about the absolute distance limit of useful solar power.
This is a much bigger deal than people seem to realize.
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April 08, 2023
Mili Really Captures The Essence of The Current Year
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April 01, 2023
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.
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When This Sort of Historiography Is THIS Well Done
....It borders on disturbing.
On the other hand, heretofore, Ian's usually been pretty good about range safety.
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March 30, 2023
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.
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March 27, 2023
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.
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Wonderduck Has Left Us
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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March 26, 2023
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.
Some current event commentary.
A link.
Update:
Yep it looks like it's working again.
Thanks Pixy.
P.S.
They are in the pup tent set up on the road 5 miles east of your house in a ventilated box marked "DANGER SALMONELLA"
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March 12, 2023
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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Thankfully, no one was hurt.
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March 11, 2023
When WAS the Last Time I Was in Hong Kong?
Was I there Thursday?
Did I rent room 3317 at the VT Holiday in Hong Kong?
(Checks Thursday's itinerary "Work, Laundry, Dishes, Dinner, Streaming, Sleep")
Huh.
I was in Southeastern Virginia all day.
Soooooo.....my card has been hacked.
Well, Poop.
APPLICABLE MEME GOES HERE
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March 06, 2023
Kancelled Kettle
Well. Fuck.
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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March 05, 2023
In Which We Engage In Plaigarism and VERY Poor Taste
The fact that this thing had me in stitches probably means I'm a bad person.
(Trigger Warning: Profanity, gore, deep deep lore!)
Check out Moonshine Animations & Support them on Patreon!
I actually saw this on a Pipkin Pippa "best of" clip the other day, she really seemed to enjoy it.
Pixy mentions that this is actual, physical stop motion, and not a CGI facsimile thereof, which is impressive!
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March 01, 2023
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.
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Yes We're Reduced to Running Ads In Hopes of Getting Images Back
There is ONE Blockbuster left on Earth....and they have a commercial.
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February 27, 2023
Work Around Test
I still cannot load images to the blog.
However, it's only taken my big brained self 2 frigging MONTHS to see if I can do a work around by posting images I've already loaded.
Oh good.
I can do a post on A.I. now.
Oh wait, Stross already has. (via)
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February 21, 2023
Pipkin Pippa Explains The Problem
Silvervale weighs in briefly here. (Warning, it's sad and painful to watch)
Loosing Pikamee to these bullies is appalling.
Also, Twitch automod can make ANYTHING worse.
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February 20, 2023
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!).
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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.
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