Wonderduck's Pond

August 20, 2020

August 17th, Today, Is The Day The Time Loops Of Endless 8 Start.

Just thinking you might like to know.

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August 19, 2020

Today, August 17th, Is The Day The Time Loops Of Endless Eight Start.

I thought you would like to know.

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August 18, 2020

Today, August 17th, Is The Day The Time Loops Of Endless 8 Start.

Just thought you'd like to know.

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August 17, 2020

15532 To Go

Today, August 17th, is the day the time loops of Endless 8 start. Just thought you'd like to know!

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August 16, 2020

Derecho's Trumpet

Over at college graduate Brickmuppet's place, he tells a tale of a disappointed tastebuds as he recently had to deal with a cheeseburger made with cheez wiz. His disgust is entirely understandable. A mouthful of such a monstrosity when one is expecting a wonderful beef patty with ketchup, mustard, a small amount of relish, and a delightful amount of proud midwestern-made cheese, would be a horrible experience, akin to expecting a Chicago-style Hot Dog and discovering it topped instead with ketchup and raw wheatgrass.

This tale is bad enough, but he then goes on to mention something about a derecho that brought hurricane-force winds through Iowa, Southern Wisconsin, and the entirety of Illinois last Monday. The National Weather Service defines a Derecho as "a well-organized and long-lived complex of storms producing a family of particularly damaging downbursts." Tornadoes are a thing involved with these massive storm fronts, and indeed, two were involved in the Rockford area when the beast rolled through around 3pm.

I've helpfully placed an arrow pointing at the rough location of Duckford and Pond Central. The NWS did a great job with this thing, as they began warning those of us in the path of the storm that we were in for a spot of bother around 9am. A couple of hours later, they issued something I had never seen before: a "Particularly Dangerous Situation Severe Thunderstorm Watch". I had slept in that day, having been up very late playing Fate Grand Order.

It wasn't until 130pm or so that I finally noticed the frantic reports coming from the NWS and the decidedly less-frantic heads-up coming from the best weather team in the area, the good folks over at WREX, the local NBC affiliate. It was that rather calm unconcerned nature from them that fooled me into thinking this wasn't going to be a big deal, just another thunderstorm, ho-hum. This is odd, as they are usually quite good about getting their point across when it's going to be a bad one. Well, it didn't take much longer before my complacency was blown out of the water... almost literally.

While that photo above was taken in Chicago, that same wall o' clouds pretty much came through Duckford. Seriously, it was well-defined enough that when it passed overhead it felt very much like the space station crossing the terminator line in orbit... one moment it's sunlight, the next it's pitch black. Remember how I mentioned there were two tornadoes that hit the city? The larger of them was an EF-1 with 100mph winds that touched down just to the north of Duck U and traveled Northeast, eventually causing more than $500,000 in damage to Duck Valley College, the local JuCo, when it ran over them. This wasn't a glancing blow, this was a direct hit that went through a number of residential areas.

Duck U is at the orange arrow, the estimated tornado path is the purple line. Just offscreen to the bottom left is the busiest intersection in the city, State St and Alpine Rd (which is that north-south street just to the left of the tornado start point). Duck Valley College is top-center of the map. The rest of Duckford got away with only 75-80mph wind gusts, torrential rain... after it was all over, I saw a report of rainfall rates of up to three inches/hour... and much trees and roofs blown around. State and Alpine is approximately the half-way point between Pond Central (far offscreen to the bottom) and The Old Home Pond (well offscreen to the left), so fortunately both locations were spared the worst of it. But it did get a little exciting there for a while. At one point here at Pond Central, I had breezes coming from opposite sides of the apartment at once, which has never happened before. The weatherstripping on the apartment door couldn't keep the glancing wind gusts out, and the floor-to-ceiling windows/sliding glass door to the balcony are like a huge wind magnet. Thing is, the windows face south, and the door is in the northwest corner of the apartment, facing west, at the end of a hallway. Usually the wind has to be coming from the dead north to get in there, and it REALLY has to be blowing for it to leak around the door. But when THAT is happening, the windows to the south are shielded by the building. I think it's safe to say that the winds were... "confused" during the storm. I did prepare my emergency nest in the hallway, just in case of Really Bad Things.

Timelapse of Merely Bad Things from the GOES-EAST weather satellite

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August 04, 2020

Air Penguins Redux

In these trying times, when all around us is going insane, when hiding in one's house for a month seems normal, when nothing really makes sense anymore, we need to be reminded that, once upon a time, this was a thing:

I first mentioned them ten years ago, but c'mon... flying penguins! I only wish the video was longer... I could watch it for hours. The same company has done many other flying things, including a very impressive (but nowhere near as fun) SmartBird, eButterflies, and... OH! I just found a longer Air Penguin video!

I want to say something inspiring, like "be like an air penguin", but I can't think of anything. Oh well.

Air Penguins.

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July 28, 2020

This Is Funny

What's the difference between a joke and a rhetorical question?

Well, I thought it was funny.

THIS... this is what I've been saying for decades, this guy just has a better voice and a better editing suite!

Maybe a little NSFW language. Lighting. Darn skippy.

EDIT: More Lighting! Even darner skippier!

What sort of music do wind turbines like to listen to?

They're huge metal fans.

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July 16, 2020

75 years ago on July 16th, 1945, the Trinity Device was detonated and the world became a different place. Whether that was for good or ill, I leave as a rhetorical question for the reader.

The title of this post is from the Bhagavad Gita, and is what Robert Oppenheimer originally claimed to have thought when he saw the result of his work:

If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one.

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July 14, 2020

Grant Imahara

If you read The Pond, you've almost certainly seen Mythbusters, right? I know I loved the show for most of its run, and while it couldn't really be called "science" it was certainly in the vicinity thereof.

Less than an hour from when I began typing this, news had broken that Grant Imahara, member of the so-called "Build Team" on Mythbusters, had suffered a brain aneurysm and passed away at the age of 49. He was known for being the "team geek", the one who specialized in high-tech gadgets and anything needing computers. Over his entire career, he would probably be best called a roboticist. He first became known to the public for his appearances on Battlebots, but he also worked for Industrial Light and Magic for years. Indeed, he was the one in charge of refreshing the old R2-D2s from the original Star Wars trilogy for use in the prequels. He was also a skilled movie model builder with a list of credits as long as your arm.

However for me, without a doubt, his finest creation has to have been Geoff Peterson, the skeleton-robot from The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Which brought us this moment of incredible hilarity that even after having seen it dozens of times cannot fail to bring me to tears laughing.

Thank you for being part of my television life for so long, Grant. Momzerduck liked you the best on the show. I tended to watch for Kari, but you were indispensable.

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July 03, 2020

Adventures In Going Outside

Had to break quarantine today to go out and get my Keep Wonderduck Alive and Happy Pills. 90 degree heat with 65% humidity meant the experience was like existing in a damp fire.

Because I'm a lazy bum... and other reasons... I got a lift from a taxi, which meant wearing my handy-dandy face mask. Nothing out of the ordinary, that's just what life is like in the world of the evildeathbatplague. One difficulty... I have a goatee that's probably three or four inches long.

Kinda like that, but bushier. My mustache isn't as majestic either. Oh, and the goatee is now two-toned... more on that later. The entire trip only took a half-hour, hardly what anybody would call a long time. The heat was hot, but hello! Summertime! It tend to do that here. But here's the thing... my goatee was tucked inside the mask. Once I got home and took the mask off, my goatee was pointing straight forward. And it would... not... lay... down. I'm not one to worry overmuch about looking stupid. It's kinda normal for me, truth be told. But this was too much for me to take. I immediately soaked my chin in water and brushed until I couldn't stand it any longer. It's sorta behaving itself now. Sorta.

Now then: the two-toned thing. Not too terribly long ago I realized, much to my horror, that my hair is beginning to show my age. Now as you can guess, I am not at all vain about my appearance... that'd be horribly stupid of me all things considered. However, I do have one thing that I'm extremely proud of, and that's my hair. It's a red-gold color, particularly in the sunlight, except for my mustache which is and hopefully always will be red. Back in the days of grad school, I had a friend whom we'll call Tweeter. I may have mentioned her somewhere in the past 15 years, but the search function being what it is, I can't find it. Anyway, she and I had happened to bump into each other at the library (she wasn't in the theater department) so we grabbed some lunch and began walking towards my office in the theater building. It was one of those rare wonderfully pleasant days you get in Minnesota during the week-long stretch they call "spring" up there.

Yes, exactly like that, 100%, Anyway, we're walking along and Tweeter suddenly gets this weird look on her face. I mean, weirder than I usually got from women. Finally she goes "Holy crap Slick," because that was the nickname she gave me, "you really are a redhead, aren't you? You look like your head is on fire!" The sun had turned my hair into a shining halo of glorious red-gold. Anyway. I'm inordinately proud of my hair.

This actually is what my hair color looks like when the sun hits it like it did that day. That I'm 52 and show no sign of grey in it that anybody could possibly detect just makes me even more proud. Until a few days ago, when I realized something terrifying: my goatee had grey in it. Worse, I had a reverse-skunk going on. Instead of a single grey stripe, the middle 50% of my goatee is red, and the 25% on either side is grey... or at least something that isn't red. It made me feel really really old... and now today, when it made me feel old and stupid looking. I'll tell ya, it doesn't make for a great experience. But I've got my pills, the a/c here at Pond Central is still doing its thing, and I can always shave off the goatee. My fear is that it'll grow back ALL grey. That'd be a disaster! "Anyway, here's Wonderwall."

This is Pink Floyd level of lighting. When I stumbled upon it, I was flabbergasted... then I watched the whole concert, and was even more blown away. Forget the quality of the songs... I'm not big on a lot of them... but pay attention to the way the designer plays with the light curtains. Kudos to Trent Reznor for working with LeRoy Bennett, the designer, to get this look. It's friggin' beautiful in a way a lot of the songs aren't, and the combination is wonderful.

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1 Yeah, I hear you. I've worn a full beard and mustache since I was 17. When the skunk streak started coming in, I couldn't stand it. The Mr. Fantastic look at the temples and the growing bald spot, no big deal, but Not The Beard.

These days there's not a lot of brown left in the beard, but I never got an acceptable salt-and-pepper look, so I still dye it. Not so much the past few months, but as lockdowns recede and job interviews resume, I broke out the dye again this week. I was tempted to keep the disposable mask from my haircut yesterday, though, since it has enough hair clippings on it to blend with my beard. :-)

-j

Posted by: J Greely at July 03, 2020 05:50 PM (ZlYZd)

2 I literally cannot imagine even the most talented colorist successfully matching the hair on top of my head to the hair on my chin. Short of a full dye job of all of it, that is.
Then again, my hair is long enough that, like you, I could take the cuttings and spirit-gum it in place on my chin for an insta-beard... and since it's been 16 months since the last haircut, it'd be darned impressive to boot.

Posted by: Wonderduck at July 03, 2020 07:34 PM (UdIkr)

3 Yeah, Red would be tough. I use the Medium Brown Just for Men beard coloring. Fortunately it's just a goatee, and I shave my head because most of it is bald anyway.

Posted by: Mauser at July 03, 2020 10:29 PM (Ix1l6)

4 That is a STUNNING lightshow. The music... meh.

My dad was full gray by age 40, and I figured I'd follow in his footsteps since I get most of my looks from his side of the family, yet here I am pushing 50 with just a few strays here & there to show for it. (Mind you, I also don't grow out my facial hair, maybe those are grayer? We may never know.)

Posted by: GreyDuck at July 04, 2020 11:05 AM (rKFiU)

5 My first gray hair showed up the day after my 31st birthday. I haven't had to dye it yet, but the time is coming. I plan to go blonde just long enough to thoroughly piss my sister off (she always wanted to go blonde, but she has extremely dark brown hair and is olive-skinned, so she can't. I, on the other hand, have medium brown hair with natural blonde and red highlights, very fair skin, and blue eyes, so I can totally pull it off), then I'll probably do a nice dark reddish brown.

It'll be interesting to see if I get more male attention while blonde. I actually prefer my current situation, where I have the freedom to wear whatever I want while still receiving absolutely no male attention whatsoever, but it would be interesting to spend a few weeks seeing how the other half lives.

Posted by: Kathryn at July 04, 2020 04:01 PM (rWZ8Y)

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June 26, 2020

Because Sometimes You Just Need To Post Trains

Union Pacific was the only railroad to use the 4-12-2, and it was apparently a maintenance nightmare due to a third cylinder powering the second driving axle. Why was that a problem? Because it was directly under the firebox, in the center of the engine. That aside, it is an intimidating-looking beast.

Sometimes, even classic steam engines need a little help. Here, Norfolk & Southern's 611 gets exactly that... a little help.

I'm a twain! Choo choo! It's a Swiss railroad battery-powered shunter from the '20s, apparently rated for a whoppin' 5 h.p. Of course, you don't need much to move cars around, you just need to get 'em moving.

Ever wonder how they keep the switches clear of ice and snow during a Chicago winter? Yup, they set 'em on fire.

Special Bonus Not-Train Picture

Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-V...

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June 14, 2020

Mind Savers

No matter how well we may (or may not) be coping with Introvert Celebration 2020, staring at the same four walls (more if you have access to more than one room) can begin to get anybody a little bugnutty. I've come across a number of yootoobers that allow me to take virtual journeys to get me out of Pond Central, at least mentally.

It all started, of course, with Rambalac. I began watching his videowalks long before Social Distancing Is A Thing 2020 kicked in, and he's still my favorite of all of these people I'll be mentioning. What he does is so uncomplicated that nobody else that I've found does it half as well, which confuses me. All he does is load up a high-end videocamera with a swell microphone on a stabilizer-like rig, and he goes for walks. That's it, that's all. He doesn't talk, there's no music overlaid on it, it's just ambient sound. And I simply adore having his vids playing while I do my FGO runs, or have dinner, or just to get myself ready for bed.

In search of something new and exciting, a few months back I stumbled across Railfan Aunz. Consisting of mostly cab rides of trains, this yootoober leans more toward the not-Tokyo side of Japan, though they spend a lot of time outside of Japan too... there's videos from Australia, Italy, England, Hong Kong and others, too. Two of my favorite videos are a roundtrip between two fairly rural areas, one out, one back... and during the four hour round trip, the weather changes from heavy snow to zero snow on the ground. Of course, during the trip back the weather gets bad again. Throw that onto some rather stunning terrain and you've got a great way to spend a night or two. The video I've included here is easily my favorite, however. It looks like a regular train ride in dense-pack Japan somewhere... and then you reach the 3:40 mark.

Yeah. Not a bad way to commute.

Compared to the first two, Wingin' It With Paul Lucas is totally different. He's a flight sorta guy, and he literally does nothing but flight reviews for a living. Fortunately for him, he had a backlog to work through during the Coming Of The Quiet Time 2020. While I'm fascinated by the Business/First Class flights he's been on, he's not afraid to sit back in the cattle section with the unwashed masses. He's done everything from 747s to teeny-tiny puddlejumpers in the Caribbean, as well as the occasional train and even a submarine once. His style has changed radically from the beginning of the channel, for the better I think.

Finally, in stark contrast to the other three's exotic locales, we come to CTAConnections, the official yootoob channel of the Chicago Transit Authority. About half of the channel is stuff that nobody will ever watch... the monthly CTA Transit Board meetings... but the other half is filled with historical footage of Chicago's light rail system, as well as real-time ride-alongs of every "color" route... the Purple Line, the Blue Line, etc etc etc.

Around about 20:30 or so on this Red Line video, you may see something really really gorgeous off to the right.

There's plenty of other channels out there that I've taken virtual trips on, but I'll leave those for your own adventures... and if you have anything like this that you like to watch, like a bus trip from London to Paris, let me know in the comments! Enjoy!

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1 I know it's a job like any other with its ups and downs and joys and frustrations and the novelty would wear off almost instantly, but part of me would love to have a commuter rail operator gig somewhere scenic.

That Fuji run, for instance. I'd be willing to find out how long it would take for me to tire of that view, and I wager it would take more years than I have remaining.

Posted by: GreyDuck at June 15, 2020 08:18 AM (rKFiU)

2 WildEarth. Nothing but streams from various safari lodge areas in South Africa, with commentary from various guides. They drive around for three hours, sunrise and sunset times, and they cut back and forth between streams when guides find something. It could be elephants, giraffes, leopards, meerkats... or butterflies, or birds, or interesting plants.
One stream is from the Kalahari, a couple are from a plains area, and one from a rolling mountainous area.
I have learned a lot from watching, and the "kids ask questions" hour is pretty good fun.

Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at June 19, 2020 10:25 PM (sF8WE)

3 WildEarth now has a bunch of new viewers behind the Great Chinese Firewall. Apparently the big Chinese discount store consortium, Tencent, has its own video platform, and WildEarth is now streaming there.
So some of the "kids ask questions" hours have been replaced by "Chinese folks from Tencent ask questions" hours.
Sadly, the live chat/comment on YouTube doesn't cross over with Tencent's question line, so the community can't embrace the Chinese newbies. (And realistically, most of them would have been posting in Chinese, even if they weren't captives of a totalitarian government.)
OTOH, the questions are pretty interesting. Some of it is just basic newb inquiries, like "Why don't the animals attack the guide vehicles?", but some of it reveals cultural differences and individual quirks.
Anyhow, it's interesting because these "apolitical" things can turn out to be surprisingly subversive. (And the guides work a month on, a month off, so that will blow the Chinese viewers' minds. It kinda blows mine... but yeah, they deserve the cash and the rest for all their hard work and study.)

Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at June 23, 2020 09:16 AM (sF8WE)

4 Ha! A WildEarth guide went to see the hyena cubs, and a bunch more hyena cubs from other families came out, and spent several minutes sniffing all around the vehicle, running away, coming back, running away....
It's toward the end of today's sunset stream, so you can watch it on the repeats.

Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at June 23, 2020 09:37 AM (sF8WE)

5 What have you done! For 2 months now I've been watching Japanese train cams.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at August 17, 2020 09:48 AM (LZ7Bg)

6 ...and there are so MANY channels to choose from.

Posted by: Wonderduck at August 17, 2020 03:29 PM (D9Okp)

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June 09, 2020

Serious Questions For The Pond Scum

Are you okay?

Has it been difficult dealing with all... this?

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1 Ugh. Going into "lockdown time" I thought:
1. "I can hack this, I am a total introvert/hermit" 2. "I've got so many craft projects lined up, it will be great!"
Yeah no. It's not been great. I didn't realize how important the tiny daily interactions - with co-workers, at church, whatever - mattered. And how easily I can worry-spiral.

I am worse company for myself than I realized. I feel now like it's a good thing I never married: I am a profoundly boring person.

Everything *else* going on doesn't help.

And for someone as touch-averse as I normally am - well, one of my greatest desires right now is for someone bigger than me just to hug me and tell me everything's going to be all right in a way that actually convines me.

Posted by: fillyjonk at June 09, 2020 07:09 PM (+MBAo)

2 Yes and no. Which... yeah, not the most helpful response but it's where I am at this point.

The intense cabin-fever part is (mostly) under control now, and I'm adjusted (mostly) to the work-from-home routine. It's manageable. I'm also abso-flogging-lutely fighting the brain weasels tooth and nail day in and day out. Between the terror over catching the covid bug, something that has a good chance of outright destroying my body, and watching the world kinda burn (in varying degrees of literal/figurative), I haven't been able to follow through on any of the things I planned to half a year ago or so. Breadmaking? Too many fiddly bits and my hands are jittery (-er) now, so that's kind of out. (I know it's "easy" and "simple" but tell that to the broken parts of my brain.) 3D stuff? With as easily frustrated as I am, trying to climb that learning curve is a non-starter right now. Writing? Yeah right.

I am immersed in books and shows and some music. I am keeping my head above water day by day. It's all I can do so I hope I can keep doing it.

Posted by: GreyDuck at June 09, 2020 09:55 PM (rKFiU)

3 I found Satisfactory about two weeks ago. It scratches the same itch as Factorio, but with vigor. And hit at a good point with the FF14 lull...
Overall I'm okay. I've got work, I've got books, I have no real trouble keeping myself busy. My personal stress levels are pretty low.

Posted by: Avatar at June 10, 2020 01:39 AM (v29Tn)

4 Myself, I'm fine. However, my opinion of Homo sapiens has never been lower.

Posted by: Don at June 10, 2020 04:58 AM (ID8+V)

5 I work in a remote office for an out-of-state company anyways, so working from home full time isn't that big a change for me. And my company is doing well, so I don't have that kind of stress to deal with. I was just realizing the other day that I'm actually interacting with my co-workers *more* these days than before. Mostly because most of them are going stir-crazy and reaching out on our conferencing software just to talk to somebody, and I'm the one that's usually available.
I miss my few out of home activities more than I would have expected though. I'm very much looking forward to being able to sit down and just chat with people that are actually really there, not pixels on my screen.

Posted by: David at June 10, 2020 10:20 AM (UmjNG)

6 When I was in quarantine for two weeks, I was fine. Ever since then, I've had to deal with people responding to everything, and that's brought me quite low.

Posted by: Ben at June 10, 2020 10:23 AM (osxtX)

7 My employer is "essential", so for me not a whole lot has been different day to day. The first couple weeks when just schools shut down were a bit odd with the sudden disappearance of any appreciable traffic, but otherwise things were fairly normal. Then the mandates started rolling down from on high like a flood of diarrhea, and the HR busybodies got to exercise their inner 1984 fantasies: demanding masks, temperature screenings (a complete CYA maneuver, official company policy does not allow for sick days, so people naturally feel compelled to come in sick so as not to burn their vacation days), MiniTru signage everywhere, and just a large helping of general bullshit.
It's been nice to actually sit down and eat away from my desk occasionally as restaurants begin to open up, but all the national fast food chains are still drive-thru only.

Posted by: Will at June 10, 2020 09:39 PM (rWZ8Y)

8 WFH in and of itself is no big deal; I miss seeing my coworkers, but being productive away from my desk is not a problem. I spend a decent amount of my time working with people in another state anyway.

However, I haven't gotten to be ALONE for...months? Not that I got a lot of alone time with two little kids anyway, but I occasionally had the office to myself, and if I happened to WFH some day, I'd be alone. But with not having childcare for the 8yo, I haven't been separated from him for more than maybe five hours total for the last three months, and let me tell you, I need a break from that kid.

I'm also really, really sick of my work day being 14 hours long because I have to start work before the kids get up and continue work after Will gets home (his company refused to allow any WFH, so it's all fallen on me) to take over the kids in order to get my tasks done. I have 20 hours of meetings in a good week, and often as many as 50 hours (overlapping, so I have to find coverage for the ones I miss), so most of my day is spent fitting in the 8yo's needs around the meetings, then the actual work happens at night.

As for the depression and OCD, I'd say this is the third-worst it's been. The suicidal ideation is only a little above the baseline (which is not zero), so really not too bad considering, and the nightmares are about the same level. I haven't had to go on meds or go to the mental hospital yet, so I'll probably make it this time too. (I'm terrified of meds because it's so hard to get off them, and from what I can find, the long-term effects of taking meds over 50+ years are not well understood. A "long-term" study in this area is maybe 18 months.)

Posted by: Kathryn at June 10, 2020 10:13 PM (rWZ8Y)

9 As another person who is able to go on WFH, that's really been the only change. My biggest issue is that I sort of lose track of what day of the week it is without the daily commute to give me some daily segmentation.

Posted by: Really Bored at June 11, 2020 02:25 PM (7vK48)

10 We were shut down about a month at the airplane mines. But we're "Essential" so I'm still in the same body-destroying routine, and management has been blindly trying to maintain schedule with rampant absenteeism.
So about the only difference for me is a vastly faster commute, and weird supermarket shortages that have slowly abated and been replaced with price increases.

Also, gas did NOT get that much cheaper.

Posted by: Mauser at June 11, 2020 08:41 PM (Ix1l6)

11 I'm thriving. There were some changes: we stopped going to a store for groceries and as a result stopped eating apples. The InstaCart delivers too much rot. Had to switch to apricots and oranges, which are not as affected. We still have to visit home improvement stores though. So, had to learn to pack the mask and take it off in such a way as not to make a mockery of the whole idea (not touching the outside, putting it into a plastic bag). Dealing with gloves well is also an acquired skill. But beyond that there was nothing noteworthy happening.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at June 11, 2020 10:43 PM (LZ7Bg)

12 Doing well here. I'm a librarian, so I can still do some of my job online, and now I don't have to deal with the students directly! Yay!
So aside from working from home, nothing much has changed. I'm in rural Texas, so the whole mask thing has been pretty much optional, and I've opted out. A few weeks when TP was scarce in the stores, but I already had enough, so no issues there.
I've even lost weight! Finally got serious about maintaining a caloric deficit (flavored rice cakes FTW!).

Posted by: jabrwok at June 12, 2020 05:21 AM (T4WaI)

13 Regarding the WuFlu, my DayJob is in a hospital pharmacy, so no change at all there. When I had deliveries to the Chicom Lung Rot Wing I'd take my clothes off in the garage when I got home, just in case (wife is 2x cancer survivor with compromised immune system). Otherwise at home still drinking and writing books.
Regarding the Bolshevik-led riots? We're in a bedroom community of Columbus so just a few, quiet talks with reliable neighbors. Some plans and drills with the fam if a van-load of antifa/diversity shows up in our neighborhood. I did tell my two friends in the city that if things go south for them they can use our basement as a temporary bolthole.
Wish the spring anime season was better. Only watching Bookworm, Wave, and Arte.

Posted by: Clayton Barnett at June 12, 2020 12:20 PM (ug1Mc)

My routine did not change very much, other than the mandates. I also maintain sizeable amount of supplies so I could have easily sheltered in place if I needed. I had to deal with less traffic on the roads during commute, more people at the places that are open - so basically, like when the schools let out for summer vacation. The only things that sucked was that the places that were closed included places that I had a needed to visit, like barbershops.

On the other hand, I live in a state with a governor who is/was both slow, incompetent, ineffective, and hypocritical with his actions, so I still have to deal with the effects of that. Yes, he's a Democrat.

Posted by: cxt217 at June 13, 2020 09:49 PM (4i7w0)

15 I was pretty fortunate in that my company decided to close down my physical office early last year and converted us to work at home, so I'd already been doing it for a bit over a year when the lockdown started (and I've had experience with it already at previous jobs.) Plus, mostly through lucky timing, I guess, I wound up getting a just-longer-than-a-buzzcut right before, so I'm still good on that front. Also, as soon I heard rumors of shortages I went to Walmart and picked up a big multipack of TP, and by the time that was getting low, it was fairly widely available in Dallas again. (I've got a friend in Maine who said last week that the stuff *still* disappears off the shelves up there just as soon as it gets stocked, which is just crazy.) Ditto for enough food supplies.
It's been kind of boring, admittedly, so I've gone on a bit of a cheap-video-game buying spree (I just ordered the bundle Pixy mentioned, for example), and got a couple of neat things I've had my eyes on for a while; I just picked up a 3D printer this morning, and a couple of weeks ago I ordered a neat 40% layout keyboard that's taking up a decent hunk of my brainpower (it's an OLKB Planck if anyone cares to look it up. 47 keys the way I've configured it.)

Posted by: Rick C at June 14, 2020 03:48 PM (Iwkd4)

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June 03, 2020

Thankfully, Baseball

The KBO, Korea's professional baseball league, is playing out their season these days over on ESPN. For those of us starved for the sport, it's something of a blessing. And even in this day and age of Evildeathbatplague, they've got great attendance!

You could almost say the stadium is... um... stuffed.

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May 29, 2020

Elfstedentocht? I Don't Even Know Her!

Every once in a while you get a double-bonus situation that drops in your lap. I was aimlessly wandering around yootoob, as one does, clicking on whatever struck my fancy... um... fancily. From a train line that stares Mt Fuji in the face to an absolutely killer electronic track called Turbo Killer to a discussion of Cthulhu's Family Tree to a fan-made Spess Muhreens mini-film to a music video involving very angry ducks, it's been a mix of good and not-so-good (not seen here)...

...and then I stumbled upon something called the Elfstedentocht, or Eleven Cities Tour in English. For those of you who, like me, have never heard of it, the Elfstedentocht is a 200km long speed-skating event held when the weather allows in the Netherlands. As can be guessed by the name, it runs through "the eleven historic cities of the province of Friesland" via canals, rivers, and lakes, beginning and terminating in the city of Leeuwarden, which I'd only heard of because it was the birthplace of the noted spy Mata Hari.

The race has only been held 15 times since 1909, with the most recent having been in 1997. See, the entire route must have at least six inches of good ice on it... no thinning ice, no mush, and at least a 12-day stretch of sub-zero Celsius temperatures preceding a race. As you can guess, this is A Big Deal; there's usually just 48 hours warning that the race will actually occur. Apparently in 2012, the last time conditions appeared perfect, it hovered right below the target for long enough that any tiny temperature increase would have nixed the race. On the day the "go" would have been given, organizers said "no" for safety reasons, disappointing the 16000 casual skaters, 300 racers, and the entire nation.

In 2013, the Elfstedentocht organizers, as part of a Leeuwarden festival, contacted Public Service Broadcasting and asked them to write some tunes about the race using historical footage from earlier events. Of course they said "yep!"

From what I've read, the 1963 race, shown in this second video, was held in absolutely brutal conditions: overly cold, strong winds, and snow gunking up the ice. Only 69 out of 10000 people were able to finish it, and the winner did not realize he had actually crossed the finish line due to being snowblind. Broken bones and eye damage were common that year.

I had no idea these tracks existed until they fell into my lap. A rare bright spot on another shut-in sort of day. Enjoy!

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May 23, 2020

Well, I Dunno

So I've been sitting here trying to figure out what to write and honestly can't come up with anything worth reading.

This is the point where I say "There's some question as to whether or not I ever did," of course, because that's one of The Pond's normal jokes. Really, The Pond could write itself... probably do a better job than I could anyway.

The Pond's been such a part of me for so long that I can't imagine letting it go but it's not like I'm doing anything here either. Any requests for topics?

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May 15, 2020

The Loss Of A (Little) Giant

No, not that one... Little Charlie Baty. Come with me on a voyage back in time...

The year was 1987. Duckford was in the midst of its annual end-of-summer music festival, On The Waterfront. Yours truly, having wandered away from Vaucaunson's Duck and some others, had stumbled upon a smaller stage... one of seven that year... as the sun had begun to set. While most of the people attending gathered for that year's headliner... Duckford's own Cheap Trick... to take the main stage, tucked away back here a young Duck was about to be truly exposed to a form of music he'd never heard before: The Blues.

While Rick Estrin was the frontman for the band, it was guitarist Little Charlie Baty that led The Nightcats. He "retired" from the band in 2008, still playing with them at certain festivals and shows in Europe, but he certainly didn't stop playing live.

I thought you had to be down on fingers to play Django Reinhardt correctly. His studio stuff didn't stop either.

The album "Skronky Tonk" was on got a four-star review from Downbeat, long the bible of blues and jazz music, and a notoriously stern grader when it comes to music.

While I only found out a couple of days ago, it turns out that Little Charlie passed away in March from a heart attack. He was 66. While I probably would have been a fan of the blues even if I didn't stumble into that small outdoor concert tucked into a back corner of a large festival, I think it certainly helped that the Nightcats were my first exposure to them... they were both talented and funny at the same time. I even bought their album that night... yes, on vinyl.

Thanks, Little Charlie... you were a huge influence on my music tastes, and I may not have realized it until just now.

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May 08, 2020

VE 75

Soviet troops capture the Reichstag

Parisians celebrate

A reminder in New York that the war still went on.

Lancaster crew and spotlights

75 years on, I'm beginning to believe that we've forgotten what a real threat looks like. Disappointing.

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April 28, 2020

Iceland!

Land of amazing vistas!

Land of continent-closing volcanoes with names that are impossible to pronounce (or spell)!

It's Eyjafjallajokull, by the way.

Land of broiled puffin!

Yes, really.

What Iceland generally is NOT known for is its popular music. Oh sure, there was Bjork (and the Sugarcubes) and Sigur Ros, you have to be particularly keyed in to know any others.

Until now.

Dadi Freyr is a DJ/EDM/whatever guy, I can only assume that Gagnamagnio is the band, and that considering this is Iceland, they're almost all certainly related. I went through much of what he/they have on yootoob looking for another gem like Think About Things, and came up mostly empty.

Fans of

Hibike! Euphonium, however, will recognize one tune... for better or worse.

I'll let you decide which it is.

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April 23, 2020

It's that time again. Once again, I commemorate surviving another year by posting energetic birthday candles. And lo, here it is:

According to the yootoob comments, the fire is actually adhesive burning off the ablative coating of the engine. Whatever it is, it's certainly spectacular.

Like 52 candles on a birthday cake for one would look like, come to think of it... just without the smoke alarm going off. I'm not even sure that many candles is legal in a multi-unit dwelling here in Illinois.

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