Grumblerumblerazzin'frazzin'...

Oh yeah, I'm lovin' life right now, and I'm NOT in a good mood.

As the Regional Manager said the other day, "when things go south, it's Wonderduck who suffers."  For at least the rest of the week, I'll be running the Duck U Bookstore.  For at least the rest of the week, I'm also the entire staff of the Duck U Bookstore.  That's right, I'm open to close, alone, all day every day.  On one hand, yay overtime.  On the other hand, boo working myself into the ground.  On the gripping hand, kill me.

"But Wonderduck," I hear you say, which is impressive because I'm blasting a track by Galynerus at about 25% volume, which is loud enough to shake ducks off my two computer hutches, and couldn't actually hear anybody unless they were yelling in my ear... in fact, here, join me, won't you?
"But Wonderduck," I hear you say, "at least the textbook rush is over, right?"  Yep, it's over all right... which means it's time to send books back to their publishers.  Hundreds of books.  Thousands of pounds of books.  Alone.  Oh my achin' back.  Oh, and let's not forget the complaining customers... "no, you can't return the lab manual you've torn 12 pages out of... please stop swearing at me, miss."

I haven't watched any anime in over a week, and that was just a single episode of Bodacious Space Pirates.  So here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to go watch some anime and the Williams F1 Pr0n can bugger off until I feel like doing it (tomorrow or whenever).  Meanwhile, you folks have a whole comments section to play around in until I get back.  Have fun, don't make a mess.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:10 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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F1 Pr0n: Red Bull RB8

While the boys from Milton Keynes debuted their 2012 challenger yesterday, it wasn't much of a much.  Instead of actually showing the car in any way, they released a couple of renders and a crappy video.  However, with today being the start of Winter Testing in Jerez, Spain, we got to REALLY see the RB8 for the first time today.  Or, at least, we did once it finally took to the track some four hours late.  Seems the delivery of some important part of the car was delayed by fog at the airport.  Whoopsie.

Well, that's different.  Red Bull's solution to the platypus nose is to hollow it out... which makes sense, once you think about it.  That vent is certainly being used to cool the driver, the electronics, or both.  It probably does away with a lot of the drag caused by the stairstep, too... or at least removes much of the disturbed airflow from where it'd do the most damage, aerodynamically.  The sidepod inlets are smaller in comparison to last year's runaway winner, though not dramatically so. 


In fact, there aren't all that many changes from the RB7 (above, bottom).  I mean, beyond the obvious platypus nose.  The airbox cover doesn't have the thin fin any longer and the verticals on the rear wing are now square with dangling "fingers", as opposed to the curved cut of last year's car.  The sidepods don't look as high, but they also don't seem to slope down as far.  So, not many obvious changes, but that shouldn't be a surprise... I mean, it's not like the RB7 wasn't the best car around in 2011 or anything.  As I mentioned last year, any changes are probably under the skin.

After looking at the slot in the nose, I think we've finally figured out where Mark Webber and Seb Vettel have to slide their timecards.  That nose might just be the worst of the bunch... what is it that it reminds me of?  Oh... oh yeah, I've got it.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:17 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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F1 MegaPr0n: Lotus, Sauber and Toro Rosso

It's been a busy couple of days in the F1 rollout season!  Four teams brought out their 2012 challengers... and only one of them, Sauber, released glamour shots of their car.  So for a F1 MegaPr0n, we only have a few workable pictures, and there's only one angle that all three of the teams in this MegaPr0n used.  Fortunately, it's the three-quarters angle, which is the most useful for our purposes.  Ladies and gentlemen, the first ever F1 mini-MegaPr0n!  First up, Renault Lotus!

Proof that it's possible to make a good looking platypus nosed F1 car.  Of course, this isn't surprising, because the Renault Lotus E20 appears to be last year's Renault Renault!  It appears that the team had to do quite a bit of engineering work to re-route the forward facing exhaust system to meet the tech regs, and as a result development on the rest of the car stagnated.  The platypus nose is nothing particularly difficult to accomplish, obviously.  However, Renault Lotus actually managed to make this one look good... or at least, not as awful as all the others.  It's not the hideous ramp that Ferrari has, nor is it the "hills and valley" used by the other teams.  Other than those changes, though, it really is the Renault Renault R31, all over again.  That may not be a horrible thing.

Like Renault Lotus, Sauber's C31 seems to be a C30 in 2012 regulations, there are a few changes.  Obviously the platypus nose is present... but the hump has a trick involved.  There's a thin gap where the nosecone meets the hump, apparently an attempt to disrupt a little bit of the drag that'll undoubtedly be created by the thing.  Will it work?  Who knows?  Other changes are a touch more subtle.  The sidepods, which were already cut down last year, have been even smaller and more rounded.  The top of the car from the cockpit to the front tires is flat; last year it actually was angled up from the cockpit to the tires.  The whole chassis is very clean, almost austere in looks.  I rather like it.  The biggest change, though, is the addition of Oerlikon as a sponsor.  Does this mean there's a 20mm autocannon hidden in the airbox?

Toro Rosso's STR7 has a "hills-and-valley" approach to the platypus, which is as good as any, I suppose.  I suppose it's boring to say that it's very similar to last year's STR6, so I won't... though it is.  The sidepods are shorter and more deeply cut than those on last year's car, which should remove quite a bit of parasitic drag from the chassis.  The airbox has an interesting support arrangement to it now, and under the main intake, there's a second intake, presumably for cooling the KERS unit.  Something that isn't particularly visible in the pictures of the cars rolled out to date is the position of the exhausts.  Toro Rosso's is set about as far back as they can legally go, and their position seems to be blowing right onto the rear wing.  "We can't use a blown diffuser, but nobody said anything about a blown rear wing," seems to be the plan.

In an interview with Toro Rosso's designer, Georgio Ascanelli, I finally heard an explanation for the new nose height.  It seems that the maximum height of 550mm is the same as the height of the anti-penetration panels on the sides of the cockpit.  It was done to prevent an impalement, which of course we've seen dozens of times in the past couple of years alone (/sarcasm off).  A solution looking for a problem...

Now, sharp-eyed readers might have noticed that I said that there had been FOUR rollouts over the past two days, yet I've only shown three.  That's because the fourth team was Red Bull, and all they let us see were a couple of cheap renders of the car they'll be defending their title with.  With the first offseason practice session beginning on Tuesday, I expect we'll be seeing a little more than that tomorrow, so I'll hit it and Williams then!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:56 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Katawa Shoujo: The Review

Over five years ago, a particular bit of colorized doujin art from the year 2000 made its way to the 4chan image boards, where it made quite the splash.  So much of one that some denizens of that board decided to follow the original artist's intentions and turn the artwork into a ren'ai game.  Two years later, the group (now calling itself 4Leaf Studios, or "4LS") brought out a demo.  The demo, entitled "Act I", was a hit and brought quite a bit of attention to the game.  And then... three more years would pass before 4LS announced that the full game would be released before the end of 2011.  Shortly before that deadline, they moved the date to January 4th, 2012; five years to the day that a particular bit of colorized doujin art hit 4chan. 

Nobody on the staff of 4LS had ever made a game before.  The amount of work involved in such an endeavor is daunting, but they certainly pulled it off; they did release a game.  The question, though, is just how good is it?  To be truthful, it's hard to imagine it being any good at all considering the topic material.  Disabled high school students?  A dating sim about disabled high school students?  Controversial, to say the least.  When Act I came out, a common reaction was "...that game makes me ill, what's wrong with those people?"  So now that the full version has been released, what's the real verdict?


more...

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:23 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Name This Mystery Ship XII

Might be a fun one this time... or it might be ridiculously easy.  It'll be one of the two, for sure.

Usual rules apply: no Imagesearch or anything like that.  I can't do anything about it, but your victory will be tainted and hagridden.  If you DO win, you get a post on a topic of your choice!  While I don't do politics, religion or pr0n (other than F1 Pr0n), anything else is fair game.

So get your guessin' shoes on!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:44 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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F1 Pr0n: Ferrari F2012

You know something's kinda wrong when no less a light than Stefano Domenicali, team principal for Scuderia Ferrari, comes out and publicly says "Well, actually, it’s not really so pretty from my personal perspective.  But this is a value that doesn’t count in Formula 1... ...as our chairman has already said the fact that it is ugly or very nice doesn’t count a lot. The most important thing is that the car has to be performing."  In other words, "winning fixes ugly."  Having said that, Ferrari better win a lot of races this season, because the new F2012 is a lot of ugly.

Though to be honest, from the front it looks not so bad at all.  The front wing is supposedly evolved from the flexi-bendy wing they ran at the end of the 2011 season.  For their sake, I hope they got the "oscillating like a USGS seismometer in a magnitude 9.5 earthquake" feature fixed.  There were times when I wondered how the Red cars were able to stay on the track, even going in a straight line, because of that wing flapping like an ornithopter.

From the side, it still doesn't look so bad.  Like the McLaren, there appears to be an angle (back-to-front) to the floor.  The sidepods are deeply undercut, more like the Force India than the McLaren, though not the same sort of profile.  Amazing how so many teams can do the same thing, but come up with completely different designs.  It'll be interesting to see which one comes off the best.  One thing that comes back from past designs is the weird double rear bodywork thingy on the engine cover.  I've never been fond of that design element, and it doesn't look any better here.  It looks like the engine cover came off the sprue badly and nobody bothered to trim the flash off.

...and now the hideousness of the nose becomes apparent.  Yeesh... if anything, it may be worse than the Lotus Caterham and the Force India solutions.  However, this does raise an interesting question: just how did McLaren's nose fit under the technical regulations while a team like Ferrari does... this?  Interesting that there's another fin between the front wheels; haven't seen that before, have we?  According to the team, the car is almost all brand new, with very little coming over from the F150° Italia.  I gather the rear wing is pretty much the same, with just some very minor tweaking.

The Scuderia was to have a huge blowout at the Ferrari factory at Maranello, followed by a few laps at the team's test track, literally right across the street.  One little problem, though: it's been snowing in Northern Italy.  A lot.  So instead of the big media presser and hot laps, we got... well, this:

I'm pretty sure they trucked it to the track.  I mean, could you imagine driving a F1 car... in the snow... on slicks?  I suspect the car would be in the wall, on its back, and on fire, within a few feet.

Renault Lotus is next up on Sunday, followed by a F1 MegaPr0n on Monday, when Sauber, Toro Rosso, and defending constructor's champion Red Bull all roll out.  See ya then!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:49 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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F1 Pr0n: Force India VJM05

We've had two rollouts to date, and the score is one normal nose (MP4-27), one platypus nose (CT01).  The question is, which way would Force India's fifth design, the VJM05, go? 

Platypus.  Definitely platypus.  The people who know these things say that Force India used the same wing for two years, with the team issuing upgrades and developments at various points over those seasons.  It appears that the VJM05 is rockin' a new, more complex, front wing that some suggest will be flexi-bendy, like the Red Bull's.  If they can pull that off, it'll be a major coup.  Remember, Ferrari couldn't make it work, ending up with something that flapped like a hummingbird's wing.  This had a rather unfortunate effect on the structural stability of the car.

The sidepods are longer than the McLaren's, but seem to have a bigger undercut to them.  Other than that, the chassis seems to be fairly conventional.  Smooth airbox. 

The platypus nose looks hideous in this picture.  Unlike the CT01, this one has a rounded nose, again similar in appearance to the Red Bull designs.  Though we can't see it in these shots, I gather that the underside of the nose is also rounded, better to shed air in the direction of the underside of the car and increasing the downforce.  The, for lack of a better term, "barge boards" just to the outside of the sidepods seem much more prominent than they do on the other two chassis that have been rolled out thus far.  I'm sure they're perfectly legal, but I'll be switched if I like 'em.  The nicest rule change in the past five years was the one that got rid of the proliferation of such things; these bring back unpleasant memories. 

I suspect this is a make-or-break season for Vijay Mallya's team.  It's been five years without a win, only one podium and just one pole, both of which look like flukes.  There are reports that Mallya's financial empire is showing cracks;  Kingfisher Airlines paid their salaried employees late four months running, for example.  If this is truly the case, one could reasonably assume that F1 would prove to be something totally disposable... unless good things start happening in a hurry.  We'll see how the VJM05 does down the road!

Ferrari's rollout will be covered tonight.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:24 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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F1 Pr0n: McLaren MP4-27

McLaren has always seemed to have been of two minds when it comes to their F1 cars.  Either they're a little boring or they're completely goofball.  Last year's MP4-26 went full goofball, what with the L-shaped air intakes on the sidepods and all.  For 2012, it looks like the team from Woking has gone button-down collar and pocket protector on us.  Ladies and gentlemen, the MP4-27.

The first thing that leaps out at you is... the more or less normal looking nose.  As we'll see in the next picture, all is not as it appears, though in comparison to the Lotus Caterham, it's boring.  The air intakes on the sidepods are back to something a little more staid than last year, though they are somewhat... elongated.  The section directly under the nose is a little busier than last year.

As with the Caterham before it, the MP4-27 has teeny sculpted sidepods, clearly to steer more air towards the back.  As mentioned earlier, the nose doesn't have the stonking great stepdown like the CT01, but it does rather plummet.  It's a graceful plummet, but compare it to the MP4-26, and you'll see the difference:

The rear wing of the new car also has... fingers at the bottom of the rear wing assembly.  These started to appear on the cars last season, and I'm sure there's something good aerodynamically involved with them, but I'll be switched if I can figure out what it is.  I'm not the big brain though, as anybody who's read The Pond could attest to.

No matter how fast the MP4-27 goes, there is one thing you can say about it: it sure is purty.  I think they need to go back to the silver rims though.  The black just doesn't work.

Now for the best thing of them all: the annual McLaren centerfold!  Just click "more" for some sweet sweet Glare On Wheels action, sans staples!

more...

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:36 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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There Is Justice In The World

It's no secret to readers of The Pond that I am a fan of the Chicago Cubs.  By extension, therefore, I am a detractor of the St Louis Cardinals.  It's as natural as breathing, which Cardinals fans tend to do through their mouth.  One cannot be a Cubs fan without hating the Cardinals.  I assume Cardinals fans feel the same way about the Cubs, though to be honest I've never met one articulate enough to voice such things.  But I digress.  Last season, the Cardinals won the World Series, and it would be churlish of me to not congratulate them on having done so.  One of the heroes of their run was Skip Schumaker, a 31 year old utility player who still goes by the nickname "Skip."  Schumaker, whose name bears a startling resemblance to that of Mercedes F1 driver Slappy Schumacher, was at bat in Game 4 of the NL Divisional Series against the Phillies when a panicked and frightened grey squirrel dashed across home plate.

Unsurprisingly, St Louis went completely gaga for the squirrel, nicknaming it "The Rally Squirrel" and practically deifying the rodent.  T-shirts, songs, plushies, you name it, the Cardinals milked it for all it was worth.  Never mind that they had a good team on a hot run, The Rally Squirrel was the MVP.

Today, Topps Inc released an image of Skip Schumaker's 2012 baseball card.

As with most people involved with the St Louis Cardinals, Schumaker has zero sense of humor.  "I'm not frustrated, I just think people are going to look at it and laugh and that's ridiculous," said the 31-year old who still goes by Skip.  "I don't care about what I look like or anything but it's literally just a squirrel that has nothing to do with me.  It's not disappointing, it's just ridiculous"

You just won the World Series, Skippy.  Lighten up a bit, particularly since it's a limited edition card that will be replaced with a regular one in a short while.  It's funny... get over yourself.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:46 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Name This Mystery Ship XI

Well, this is a fine kettle of fish.  I received an e-mail this afternoon from the Official First Friend of The Pond, Vaucaunson's Duck.  Attached was a challenge: "Name This Mystery Ship."  After working on it for an hour or so, I gave up.  And now it's your turn... and I don't know the answer!

My guess is that it's a destroyer, destroyer escort, or frigate.  The flag looks Dutch, but my searching didn't turn up a match of any sort.  I guess it could be a cruiser, but it seems like the armament is awfully light for that.

Name the ship and if Vauc can verify that your guess is correct, you win a post on a topic of your choice!  As usual, I won't write about politics, religion or pr0n... anything else is free game.  Have at it, y'all!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 06:29 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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OV-099

Seventeen years and one day after the tragedy of Apollo 1, the American space program lost another crew.

The story of the Challenger disaster and the associated fallout has been often told, and I won't repeat it here.  What I do want to mention is that I'm one of those few people who was actually watching the launch live on CNN when everything went pear-shaped.  The three major networks were showing normal programming; Space Shuttle launches had already become old hat by 1986.  To CNN, then only six years old and not the monolithic success it is now, launches were still important news. 

And to a young Wonderduck, they were all fascinating.  That I had the flu, or something flu-like, was only a minor impediment.  I had stayed home from school and was sacked out on the couch, covered with a couple of blankets, as I watched the whole terrible event live.  Some say that the loss of the Challenger was my generation's Kennedy Assassination.  I suppose that's so.  It certainly changed me.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 06:52 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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AS-204

45 years ago today, the US space program suffered the first fatalities of its history.  Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee died during a routine training mission when their Apollo capsule caught fire.  The conflagration was aided by a 100% oxygen atmosphere in the capsule.  A single ignition source was unable to be found.  A study did find, however, that the standard nylon astronaut pressure suit of the time could generate enough static electricity to create a spark just from regular movement in the capsule's flight seats.

Their mission was officially designated Apollo-Saturn 204, or AS-204, until April 24, 1967.  At that time, NASA retired the name Apollo 1 in their honor.

Sadly, they would not be the last to die in mankind's quest for space.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:47 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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F1 Pr0n: Caterham CT01

Historically, the opening of the F1 season comes when Ferrari debuts their new challenger.  They are always the first.  Pride of place should be with them, truth be told.  It's not like they aren't the oldest and most famous team in Formula 1, after all.  Which makes the first debut of the year all the weirder, because it's not the oldest team, but one of the newest, which rolled out their steed.  The team that was Lotus and now is Caterham stole a march on the big guys today, releasing pictures of the CT01.  Ladies and gentlemen, F1 Pr0n is back!

Some interesting stuff here from Caterham.  The sidepods are shorter, making for a more compact, almost wasp-waisted, chassis.  Unseen in the picture above is that there's a vent in the back of the airbox to add cooling to that which the smaller sidepods lose.  The exhausts are low-mounted and positioned in the lee of the sidepod's airflow.  The leader at the clubhouse turn is that they'll blow over the lower elements of the rear wing, trying to claw back some of the downforce lost by the banning of blown diffusers.  However, the F1 sites across the interwebs are all abuzz over the nose.

To be charitable, it's not pretty.  To not be charitable, it might be the ugliest nose since the 2004 Williams "Walrusnose"... or this one.  Unfortunately, that stepdown is mandated by the new tech regulations.  Yes, really.  It's a safety feature, designed to keep cars from being launched, somehow.  I think it accomplishes the feat by being so repulsive that no self-respecting F1 chassis would deign to approach it.  I tells ya, Morty, it's like it got taken back behind the woodshed and got beaten with the ugly stick.  And because the rules require that the nose be no more than 550mm above the ground, but the rest of the body has to be 650mm above, we'll probably see this on EVERY car this year.

BEHOLD!  The era of the ugly F1 car is upon us, and woe be unto those who think that the individualism of the teams is being legislated out of the sport by the FIA.

The next rollout is McLaren on February 1st!  See you then for more F1 Pr0n!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:39 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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From Daylight to Warbonnets

A lot of railfans love the locomotives.  They like being able to look at these huge pieces of machinery and be able to rattle off statistics about how much horsepower it has, or how much it can pull, or how many of them there are, or whatever.  And who can blame 'em?  One of the (few) things I appreciate about diesels is that the railroads realized that they could be painted in company colors... and so they were.  And what colors!  Everywhere you went, the most boring of engines could be made interesting by the various liveries.  For example, as a young duckling here in Northern Illinois, one of the most common railroad lines to see was the Chicago Central, a junior member of the Illinois Central company.  They ran from Chicago to Iowa with a spur going north to Albert Lea, MN... a more boring trackmap would be difficult to find.  But then you saw the locomotives.

Cardinal and White, and they look glorious.  I don't even know if the company is around anymore or if they were om nom nommed by CN when they took the Illinois Central, but I still remember the plain but beautiful look of the engines.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg.  Let's take a look at some of the better known and beautiful liveries throughout rail history, shall we?

more...

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Random Anime Picture #68: What, Again?

-Sora no Woto, Ep13

Didn't I just do one of these a couple of days ago?  Well, yes, yes I did.  Except that one actually had a point to it (i.e., don't watch Kill Me Baby).  This one, on the other hand, is some attempt at an explanation of my lack of actual content here at The Pond of late.  One could argue that it's been 18 days since my last post of any real value.  I will concede the point.  It's not like I don't have big things to write about... indeed, I've got two major posts staring me in the face (Best Late War Fighters, Katawa Shoujo). 

Thing is... I just don't feel like writing.  Part of it is work-related; we've been going great guns all month in preparation for the start of Spring classes, which occurred this week.  Tuesday, to be exact, which might tell you just how sick I really was this past Wednesday.  Anyway, work is part of it.  The aforementioned Katawa Shoujo and Skyrim are also reasons why I haven't blogged much.  It may not be a coincidence that my output went through the floor the same day that KS was released.  I'm enjoying my time in two radically different imaginary worlds for radically different reasons.  I just... look, I've been here at The Pond for a long time (well, in blog time at least).  I still enjoy blogging, it's just a different sort of enjoyment now.

Back in the "old days," when nobody knew who this Wonderduck guy was, I wrote to a) entertain myself; and b) make people aware that there was a hyperintelligent duck with phenomenal (for a duck) typing skills out there who might have some interesting things to say.  Then once I got noticed by a few folks who decided to stick around, the "new day" of blogging dawned.  In some ways, I felt I had to keep one-upping myself.  This led to mammoth posts that took waaaaaaay too long to write; 4100 words and eight hours?  For an episode of Rio Rainbow Gate!?

Maybe I'm just getting old, but the immense need to write seems to have gone away at some point over the past few months.  Maybe having that tooth pulled let it all leak out?  I'm not going anywhere, don't fret none 'bout that.  I'm not even taking a hiatus.  I'm just... going to take it easy for a bit.  Not for long, and you might not even notice a difference, but I'm going to stress less about blogging and try to have myself a little fun again.

Besides, the F1 thing starts up in earnest this week when Caterham rolls out their 2012 car to begin the F1 Pr0n season.  I weep for my lost weekends...

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:14 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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But Wait, There's MORE!

Dragging my food-poisoned butt to the car this morning, I breathed in the refreshingly cold air.  When it's  12° with no wind to speak of and the sun shining, it's actually rather pleasant assuming you're dressed correctly.  Got in the DuckMobile and she started right up, no problems!  I let her warm up for a couple of minutes as I caught my breath (I'm still kinda shaky after the events of yesterday), then headed off to work.

As I pulled into the main lot at Duck U, the DuckMobile suddenly started to jerk and, well, chug, particularly at low RPMs.  Rubbawhut?  I pulled into a spot, shut her down, went into the Duck U Bookstore and immediately called Ricotta's Automotive, official mechanic of The Pond. 

A few hours later, the owner hisownbadself calls.  "Well, you've got an ignition problem; there was an oil leak into the distributor.  When I called Toyota, parts would be $1000 and take 3-5 days for shipping."  *pause* "Then I called a local parts guy, he's got a new one for $400 and it'll be here on Friday.  The only difference is that it doesn't say Toyota on it.  Oh, and it'll void the warranty."

Cue peals of laughter; the DuckMobile first took to the roads in 1996.  She'll be repaired Friday afternoon, probably.  Weather permitting.

Food poisoning and car problems; two lousy tastes that really suck together.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 07:29 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Food Poisoning

Tuesday night I had soup and sandwich for dinner.  Around midnight, I started getting stomach cramps... and then all hell broke loose.  For the next 15 hours, my life consisted of the bathroom and my bedroom, trying to get some sleep.

After she got out of the library, The Librarian brought over more bottled water, some gatorade and most importantly, pepto-bismol.  By 7pm I was feeling better.  By 8pm I was able to get up the energy to turn on the computer and chat with Brickmuppet, who'd gone through the same thing recently.

I finally managed to fall asleep at 10pm.  I'm still weak and shaky, but things are pretty much done, I think.

I don't recommend the experience.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:14 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Random Anime Picture #67: Oh Dear

-Kill Me Baby, Ep02

Pilots everywhere are frantically trying to change course right now.

I'll be blunt: Kill Me Baby is not funny.  At all.  I watched 10 minutes of the first episode and was surprised to find that it still had 12 minutes left to go... I thought for sure I'd gone through a half-hour already.  That is NOT a good sign.  Also not a good sign: Wonderduck skipping ahead during a show.  I just don't do that, particularly during the first episode of a show I was looking forward to.  It's not bad or anything, it's just not funny.

By the halfway point of Ep02, I was actually saying "Kill Me Baby" to my duck collection, hoping one of them would take me up on the offer.  No such luck.  When the above scene came on, I actually envied the one being choked out.  Then I closed zoomplayer and went off and played some Skyrim.

What I'm saying is that Kill Me Baby is not worth anybody's time.  Just writing this little post took more time than KMB was worth.  If I was in a better mood, maybe I'd turn it into the next Rio Rainbow Gate!, but it'd fail for lack of anything interesting.

Don't watch it.  Don't download it.  Don't even read this post... oh wait.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:41 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Ph.Duck, re: Our Lunchtime Conversation...

...Albert Einstein was born in 1879, Adrian Sutil still has not found a drive, and here's the Wikipedia entry for "visual novels" (per our discussion of Katawa Shoujo).  Not re: our lunchtime conversation, over at FARK, someone photoshopped a picture of Rumpole!

Pretty darn cool, eh?  Not that he was ever that energetic, but it's a neat bit of art.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:27 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Preach It, Sister...

I feel much the same way right now.  Tuesday is the start of Spring Rush, yet we're already stupid-busy at the Duck U Bookstore.  Part of that can be marked down to being a smidge shorthanded, but it really does seem like we've gotten more customers through our doors of late.  But there's a deeper, darker thing going on as well.  My knees are killing me.  Last Wednesday both of them hurt badly enough to make me weep when I got home.  Unfortunately, there's no position that I've found that makes them not hurt, just some that hurt less.  That'll make Rush Week particularly spicy! 

As you can guess from the picture above, I'm still playing Katawa Shoujo.  I've finished two paths, just stumbled into a third, and have the instructions on how to get into a fourth sitting here next to me.  Based on the two routes I've completed, I'll temper my excitement for the game a bit.  It's no longer "brilliant", just merely very very good indeed.  However, considering that it's an independently produced game made by a collection of amateurs working for free and released for the price of nothing, it's really quite astounding.

On a different note, I've now gone well over a month without a cigarette.  I think I'm handling it fairly well... I only occasionally want to massacre entire villages with my bare hands and drink the blood of my victims.

My ALCO PA post seems to have nudged my "I trains" button again.  Here's the image I'm currently using as my computer's wallpaper:

Inside a Chicago & Northwestern roundhouse, circa 1942.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:18 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
Post contains 271 words, total size 2 kb.