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.
...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!
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?
1
Is there anything new (or old, really) that you're watching nowadays?
Posted by: GreyDuck at May 23, 2020 11:18 PM (rKFiU)
2
I'm in the same boat... spending all my time playing games, which is fun, but I don't really feel like talking about what I'm doing in them is particularly interesting for people.
Posted by: Avatar at May 24, 2020 09:22 PM (v29Tn)
3
Hm. Thoughts on whether history would be substantially different if Winfield Scott had somehow defeated Franklin Pierce in the Presidential election of 1852?
4
There is something screwy going on with your site. Sometimes I see this post with one picture and sometimes with two, but most often I get a "502 Bad Gateway" when I visit the Pond. I usually need to reload the page several times to see it properly. This happens in Vivaldi, Brave, Edge and Safari on my Mac. It doesn't happen with Brickmuppet's or Pixy's sites.
5
That was my fault. This is a mu.nu blog running on the mee.nu software and I made a routing change that was causing a problem. It should be working now.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at May 27, 2020 04:21 PM (MqQvv)
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.
1
Dang. If I was still in touch with my old radio mentor/boss Bob Ancheta I'd ask what he thought of Little Charlie. (BA has been a blues hound most of his career.)
Posted by: GreyDuck at May 15, 2020 08:21 AM (rKFiU)
1
I'm concerned that we are becoming the real threat. Which is a statement painted in broad strokes, obviously, but dammit it'd be nice not to live in a country that's part laughingstock and part object-of-hatred-and-fear.
Posted by: GreyDuck at May 09, 2020 08:12 AM (rKFiU)
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.
1
Apparently Dadi is the musician and songwriter, and Gagnamagnid is the group of his friends whom he convinced to dress up and dance and sing with him for a Eurovision entry.
I had no idea all this stuff was going on....
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at April 29, 2020 04:44 AM (sF8WE)
2More detail!!! It appears that it's Dadi and his sister as the actual musicians, his wife, and three friends. So I wasn't terribly far off the mark as it turns out.
Sadly, Eurovision 2020 has been cancelled this year, so we are not going to get the great Dadi/Little Big showdown that was predicted. A shame, that.
Posted by: Wonderduck at April 29, 2020 05:11 PM (cTMj+)
52
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.
1
Happy Birthday, your Duckness!
If that's your candle, your cake may wind up a bit dry. Add extra ice cream for balance.
Posted by: mikeski at April 23, 2020 05:19 PM (P1f+c)
2
Happy Birthday, good sir.
The problem (okay, a problem) with these advancing years is that it's tough to justify buying a cake big enough to actually fit all the razzafraggin' candles.
Posted by: GreyDuck at April 23, 2020 08:12 PM (rKFiU)
Now THIS Is The Sort Of News We All Need
There is an ARIA movie in the works.
It's coming sometime late this year. If there was ever a year that we need new ARIA content, my god it's this one.
This is a 15th anniversary project for the series. Information is sparse at the moment, but it's officially sparse, as the announcement is up on the publisher of the ARIA manga's website. I think we all assumed that after Avvenire, our trips to Neo-Venezia had come to an end.
I've never been so glad to be wrong about something in my entire life.
Happy Not Tax Day!
Last night I fired up the H&R Blockhead website in preparation to have teeth pulled... i.e., do my taxes. I went through all the usual rigamarole... do you need to update your address, phone number, marital status, shoe size, all that sort of thing... but then, what to my wondering eyes did appear?
A message saying that the deadline for filing your taxes has been moved to July 15th.
At first, I didn't believe it. I would have heard something somewhere, right? That's not one of those things you just miss, right?
Right?
Anybody?
So it was just me? For some reason, I find that I'm not at all surprised.
But woo-hoo!!! Happy time for a little while longer!
So... how are you? Holding up okay? Yeah? Anything I can do to help you through?
1
I finally did my taxes yesterday, and was pleasantly surprised to get nearly $5,000 back. That'll come in handy while I'm job-hunting. I'd expected to owe a little to the feds and get a little back from the state, like last year.
Unrelated, I just found the little box of mini onsen duckies I never mailed to you last year...
-j
Posted by: J Greely at April 15, 2020 11:19 AM (ZlYZd)
2
We did ours months ago...we got $37 back and a lovely notice that we have to pay estimated taxes each quarter this year. Supposedly, the deadline for the first payment got moved back, but I didn't trust that announcement, so I went ahead and sent it in. You'll be surprised - nay, astonished - to know that the IRS cashed the check within a few days of its mailing.
Posted by: Kathryn at April 15, 2020 11:38 AM (rWZ8Y)
3
Make sure that your deadline was moved for both federal and state taxes. I know Oregon took about a week to come to the decision that they would also postpone the filing deadline.
I always do my taxes pretty much as soon as I get all the required documents at the end of January, I got in that habit years ago when I was always getting large refunds. Now that I've got it more balanced and I usually end up owing the fed a small amount and getting just a little bit more than that back from the state, I may start filing closer to the deadline, in case stuff like this happens.
Posted by: David at April 15, 2020 12:18 PM (UmjNG)
4
David, Illinois has indeed postponed to July 15 as well... I spent a lot of time last night making sure both Fed and State were really delaying. Whee!
Posted by: Wonderduck at April 15, 2020 01:10 PM (cTMj+)
5
By the way, if you don't qualify for Free File, but don't need all the "Advice" Turbotax gives you, there's also a Free E-Forms program at the IRS. The only thing it does is calculate the fields and you have to add whatever schedules you need from a list. Then you can file it for free, which beats paying the $74 they charged me last year for the equivalent of filling out a 1040EZ (Which no longer exists). Since the increased standard deduction finally outweighed my itemized ones.
Posted by: Mauser at April 16, 2020 04:26 AM (Ix1l6)
6
Got mine done early (every year), and got $4 back. Nearly perfect.
Great shot of Matoi.
Posted by: skyhack at April 16, 2020 12:32 PM (KrC5e)
7
Mauser, I've used H&R Blockhead's free filing service for... a decade? Around about that long, anyway. Sadly, 2019 will be the last I qualify for the service... I'm aging out, like a member of an idol group.
Posted by: Wonderduck at April 16, 2020 03:07 PM (cTMj+)
8
I thought the limit on free file was just Income.
Posted by: Mauser at April 18, 2020 07:47 AM (Ix1l6)
9
Nope, age is part of it as well. If you are 52 during the year involved, you are no longer eligible to free-file.
Posted by: Wonderduck at April 18, 2020 05:33 PM (cTMj+)
10
Huh, I had never run across that. Then again, after I got my current job I eventually crossed the income threshold.
But the change in the standard deduction really threw things off last year.
Posted by: Mauser at April 19, 2020 11:57 PM (Ix1l6)
Yep, I'm Still Alive
I've had more phone calls in the past two days from actual human beings than I've had in the past six months, and all because I haven't posted anything to The Pond in the past week. It's like... people actually care about me or something.
While this whole social distancing/don't go out thing is second nature to me... it's all I've been doing for months anyway... I've begun to see signs that even I need SOME human contact once in a while. I'm not sure which is more disturbing, that I legitimately thought I didn't, or that it took this long to prove otherwise. I'm watching a lot of Twitch streams... there are even human faces in a couple of them!
Hope you folks are doing better than me in your isolation!
I'm still playing Fate Grand Order quite a lot, and quite happily. Remember back in 2018, there was a show called Today's Menu for the Emiya Family? It was essentially a slice-of-life version of Fate/Stay Night where everybody is alive, healthy, and happy. Yeah, in other words exactly the opposite of the rest of the franchise. Here's what the ED looked like:
Light and fluffy, yeah? Well, someone sat down and decided to redo it for FGO. Here are the results:
Saturday Fright
A short while after I wrote the prior post, I'm watching a twitch stream when the streamer disses Chicago-style pizza with the usual "casserole" comment... which always makes me wonder how they grew up when this...
...looks like a casserole to them. Must have been a strange childhood, but I digress. I immediately stood up and told him to "bite my shiny Chicago butt" at about the same time someone else ripped into him as well. As it turns out, the two of us live relatively near each other, with him being about 25 miles away. A pleasant coincidence indeed, but nothing more than that really.
And then a while later, he announced in chat that the sirens had just gone off, that there was a tornado warning, and he was heading for the basement. Now, the weather had been bad all day, but not BAD bad. After wishing him luck, I hopped onto a local tv station's weather facebook page to see what was what... and they were streaming live which is never a good sign. They were talking in serious tones and looking at live doppler radar image closeups and sure enough, there was a pretty obvious spot of bother...
I mean, obvious enough that someone who had never seen a weather radar could have spotted it as meaning something. A few minutes watching, and bam... they declare it's probably a tornado, no way of knowing if it's on the ground however... and it's right over the town my new chat friend lives in. A few tense minutes passed until he popped back up in chat... they had just been given the all-clear. Phew, good news! Until the weather nabobs said that Duckford was now under a tornado warning... from the same storm! It was a fast mover, too... 60 or 65 mph. They spent the next half-hour following the storm as near to live as possible, and the more time passed, the worse things got.
At this point, we were about 10 minutes away from having a tornado hit Duckford, and if the predicted path held firm, it'd be passing about a half-mile or so to the west of Pond Central. It was at this point that I shut down my computer, grabbed a couple of battery-operated lamps, pulled a heavy comforter off my bed, and took up position in the hallway outside the loo, where I also called up the facebook stream on my phone. Blanket fort for the win, I guess.
Pond Central has had bad weather moments before. A few of them had driven me to the hallway just in case. But never before had I really wished I lived in a first-floor apartment, which are mostly below ground level in my building (built into a hillside). Instead, all I could do if it looked like the tornado was going to hit was get in bathtub, pull the heavy vinyl curtain closed, thrown the comforter over my body, and hope it all worked out. The live stream kept coverage on it going, imploring everybody to get to cover immediately. And then... the rotation weakened as it approached the vicinity of the Duckford Airport, then basically broke up altogether as it entered the city limits. We don't know if the tornado had been on the ground all the way from Oregon, or if it had touched down for a bit then lifted back up while still being a threat, or what. What Duckford got was torrential rain... the Airport reported a rate equal to five inches/hour... but that was it.
Back where the tornado had definitely touched down, there were many power poles down, a farm had its dairy barn, outbuildings, and home destroyed (nobody was there at the time), and for a few moments there was a distinct possibility we'd find out what would happen if a nuclear plant was hit by a tornado. Fortunately there were no injuries reported. The National Weather Service was on site today trying to figure out details of the tornado... strength, how long it was on the ground, that sort of thing... hopefully we'll know more on Monday. Impressively, the weather nabobs had predicted where it would have hit Duckford almost exactly. It would have missed Pond Central, but by less than a half-mile or so.
1
May that be your close call with disaster for the 2020s entire, praise be unto the goddesses that it wasn't closer.
Posted by: GreyDuck at March 29, 2020 09:28 PM (rKFiU)
2
What GreyDuck said, especially since some "wedge" tornadoes can have a width of a half-mile or more. Stay safe, Wonderduck.
Posted by: JT at March 30, 2020 09:14 AM (arhpx)
3
I'm glad you're OK. My mom lives in central Illinois and she reported a late night the other night, staying up to watch the progress on tv. (She has neither a smartphone nor a weather alert radio; one of those things needs to change soon)
Posted by: fillyjonk at March 30, 2020 05:00 PM (+MBAo)
4
I'm also glad you're okay. Tornado warnings are nerve-wracking events, especially at night.
When I lived in Cedar Rapids, my bugout point was my garage. Like the first floor apartments at Pond Central, the walls opposite the doors were underground.
Posted by: Ed Hering at March 30, 2020 05:17 PM (/cXdK)
5
Eep. Good work on the predictions and tracking though.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 31, 2020 04:40 AM (MqQvv)
6
Good grief, what a scare. I'm glad you're all right.
My policy regarding pizza with tomato-based sauces is that if I can taste the sauce at all, then there is way too much of it. So I don't think the pictured item would work for me!
Posted by: Kathryn at March 31, 2020 12:44 PM (rWZ8Y)
7
2020 needs to be sent back for a warranty repair.
Posted by: Brickmuppet at April 01, 2020 09:18 AM (5iiQK)
Well That Was A Thing That Happened
Illinois is under a "shelter-in-place" order, and has been for a week now. Which, of course, means that this week was the PERFECT time for me to have to go get my monthly meds. Of course, Illinois' shelter-in-place is my "Tuesday", so I'm probably not infected by the evildeathbatvirus... or I wasn't before the trip out. As it turns out, my doctor's office didn't give me a full refill of the Keep Wonderduck Alive pills because they need to see me.
In the middle of a huge pandemic.
Yeah.
I grabbed a taxi... don't ask why... and had a gosh-darned-lovely time getting into and out of it. THANKS, crappy knees! Also it was pushing 60 degrees and I was wearing a scarf over my mouth and nose.
You know what? I'm just complaining. Human contact appears to be a thing I'm running low on? Scary that it's taken this long, actually. Here, have some music.
Anybody out there got anything on their mind they'd like THE Wonderduck's opinion on?
Oh! Almost forgot! Redditor 3ikal on the Fate Grand Order subreddit took pity on this poor little duck, and made for me a most awesome thing. Click *more* to see it!
#NotTheBahGP
A more-or-less not-quite official race this weekend is located at the Veloce Esports twitch channel. As I write this at 125pm on Sunday, Quals are about to wrap up. Here's the level of competition: F1 driver Lando Norris? He's sixth on the grid.
And yes, there's announcers and standard-style coverage. I don't believe I'm going to say this but cheer on the Ferraris... those are driven by yootoobers SuperGT and Jimmy Broadbent, who I've mentioned in here once or twice before.
If you need a racing fix, here's your chance.
EDIT: Okay, I take it back. Yeesh, that was ugly. Friggin' bumpercars. The worst offenders were the actual racers! I'd rather watch a Wreckfest race.
ANOTHER EDIT: So I watched the official F1 e-race. At least the#NotTheBahGP had a full grid of real drivers and experienced simracers...the OFFICIAL F1 race had people who had never raced before in ANY manner in it. A musician? An Olympic cyclist (who did at least race at Le Mans in 2016)? I don't like to swear, but it was a total sh*tshow from the moment Quals began. Disappointing.
1
Some entertainment activities fare better under these new societal conditions than others, I suppose. Yikes, what a mess.
Posted by: GreyDuck at March 23, 2020 08:40 AM (rKFiU)
2
F1E looked really interesting to me for a brief period of time, but they shot straight past "F1 with some interesting gimmicks to make it less team dominant" to "just gimmick racing."
3
Max wasn't in this, but in a different eracing event, apparently Lando crashed him off the course. He said later that Lando just meant to give him a bump, but the cars they were racing weren't well suited for that.
I guess I should figure out what twitch is/how it works, because Lando apparently does a lot of streaming, and it's supposedly quite entertaining.
Posted by: Kathryn at March 23, 2020 11:44 AM (rWZ8Y)
4
Kathryn, it's basically just live television. People do things (concerts, play video games, build models, whatever) while people watch and interact with other viewers and in many cases the people doing things.
Here's a link. Just search for what you want.
Posted by: Wonderduck at March 24, 2020 12:21 AM (cTMj+)
F1Update!: Virus 7, F1 0
The Evil Death Bat Soup Virus has destroyed motorsports in general these days, but Formula 1 has been particularly well massacred. Yesterday F1 CEO Chase Carey came out and announced that the season has been either postponed or flat-out cancelled up to and including Monaco.
This is going to be the first time since 1955 that there hasn't been a grand prix at Monaco. It makes sense that they'd cancel instead of postpone; it takes SO much time to set up the circuit around the Principality. They had already started, in fact; the ancillary buildings were being activated a week ago.
Now, only two races have been confirmed to be outright cancelled: Monaco and Australia. The rest have merely been "postponed", but lets face it... it's not like the teams are going to be hankerin' to go to China anytime soon because of all this. In an attempt to save SOME of the season, the mandatory "Summer Break" has been moved to... well, NOW... and once things start again they'll just race straight through.
Which sort of defeats the original purpose of the summer break, but special times require special measures I guess. Assuming, of course, that there's a season at all... and wouldn't that be a fine kettle of fish? I wonder how many teams would fold if that occurred? No racing, no sponsor money, no sponsor money...
There's always sim racing, however. And lots of it, in fact. At one point this past weekend, Lando Norris had the most watched Twitch stream as he participated in a star-studded sim race on the Daytona 24 Hour Circuit, and the Not Bahrain Grand Prix is this weekend. So that's an option, I suppose.
I guess we'll get through this. Duckford, and all of Illinois, has finally gone on lockdown effective 5pm Saturday. The usual places are still allowed to be open, but we're all supposed to "shelter in place." Which I've been doing all year thus far. Sadly, the Pond Central complex office broke my not-quarantine-just-antisocial yesterday when they came in and installed a new furnace. No, the old one was working, they just felt this was the best time to do it. Or something. Oh, and I had a grocery delivery on Wednesday. Usually it's a two-hour wait, sometimes as long as five. This time? I placed the order on SUNDAY, but Wednesday was the earliest they could get to me. No bread, no regular Ritz crackers.
This has been a wild freakin' day in Melbourne. It began with five Haas F1 race staffers being tested for COVID-19 and being quarantined in place. A credentialed photographer was showing symptoms of the disease. Then a McLaren mechanic was confirmed to have the virus, leading the team to withdraw from the Australian Grand Prix.
And then everything went straight to hell.
Team principals had a meeting over what the teams wanted to do, took a vote... and they split 5-5 between racing and leaving. 12 more McLaren staffers were quarantined. Reports came out that the race would continue with nine teams only. Then news came out that the FOM, the media wing of Formula 1, had told all their staffers... camera operators, producers, sound ops, coffee makers... to stay away from the track.
Saturday's 12 Hours of Sebring was postponed until November by IMSA; NASCAR decided to run their next two races in closed stadiums. Baseball postponed the first two weeks of their season, the NHL put their season on hold, as has the NBA.
Around about 4pm Pond Central time, some of the teams showed up at the track and began to pack up the paddock... except the support races were using the pitlane so they couldn't roll the shipping containers into place to really do anything. Then both Ferrari's Seb Vettel and Alfa Romeo's Mumbles Raikkonen got on a plane headed for Dubai. Meanwhile, the organizers, FIA and Formula 1 were all saying that they couldn't make the call to cancel the race, the other two orgs were in charge of that.
Shortly after that, a FIA spokesman said "For us to cancel on our own would require less than 12 cars to be available. But other than that or from the local authorities the FIA cannot cancel because there are too many commercial agreements that in cancelling the liability would come back to us."
Note: this is hands-down the worst answer anybody could have come up with.
The Sky Sports broadcast crew... the english-speaking world's broadcaster... packed up and flew home. Mercedes announced that they had sent a letter to the FIA calling for the race to be cancelled. "We no longer feel the safety of our employees can be guaranteed if we continue to take part in the event."
Then, finally, about an hour ago as I type this, the news finally came out... the FIA in association with the Australian Grand Prix Corporation had made the decision to cancel the race.
Arguments will be ongoing as to whether this happened in a timely manner (no) or if there were any plans in place for this seemingly obvious eventuality (sure doesn't look like it), but at least the correct decision was made. Eventually.
Reportedly the season will now be starting in Baku and there will be no summer break. We'll see.
Not Entirely Dead Yet
I wouldn't entirely blame you for not believing me considering the amount of time between posts these days. Honestly, nothing to write about has leaped at me. I haven't seen the Midway movie yet, I'm afraid to watch considering reviews. Which, considering I'm really only interested in the history of the thing, is a stupid reason to be afraid to watch.
Actually, being afraid to watch is stupid, period. To which I say to you, have you ever read The Pond before? Which is a long-time joke here, but these days? I dunno what to expect from that question.
Y'know what? I got nothing. I got less than nothing! I've wasted your time on nothing, which makes this post a net negative! I have some things I want to say, but can't because it wouldn't be fair for someone else, so instead you get this. Aren't you lucky? Here, have an AMV.
I've never actually seen a Trans-Siberian Orchestra song used for an AMV before. Despite being a Christmas tune, it works well enough here. And that should make this post a net-zero. Great, I don't feel as guilty now.
1
That's a very nice AMV. I wonder if the anime can possibly live up to that.
Posted by: David at March 09, 2020 01:09 AM (UmjNG)
2
Revue Starlight: Come for the fight choreography, stay for Nana "Banana" Daiba, objectively best girl. (Suffer through yet another whiny-butt genki-girl doofus lead character.)
Posted by: GreyDuck at March 09, 2020 08:29 AM (rKFiU)
Posted by: Wonderduck at March 09, 2020 02:56 PM (cTMj+)
4
There's also a mobile game with lots of songs and characters, and original characters too. Pretty much the same as every other mobile game with character collecting and an element combat system.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at March 15, 2020 03:46 PM (sF8WE)
F1 Season Coming Around Again.
I know, right? You think I'm not still watching Formula 1, but I am! Mostly. Kinda. I mean, I know it's there. There's been two thingies to come out of the pre-season testing that are vaguely important... one rules-related, one not so much. Let's start with that last one, shall we?
Toro Rosso is no more. In it's place we find...
ALPHATAURI!
...
Okay, yeah, it's the same Red Bull B-team, just with a spiffy new livery which is, honestly, awfully eye-catching. Damn well should be, AlphaTauri is Red Bull's bespoke fashion line... which to be honest I think looks either goofy over overpriced. Or both. Really, they look like Carhartt went glam. Wouldn't cost $500 for a jacket then, lemme tell ya.
Gotta make money for the spiffy new livery somehow amirite?
Now for the more serious bit: Mercedes has been clever again. A week ago, they introduced a new steering gimmick. If the driver pulls the steering wheel towards him or pushes it away, it adjusts the "toe" on the front tires... the angle the tires are in relation to the track.
Among other things, the amount of toe-in or -out affects tire heating (and what part of the tire gets heated) and on straight-line top speed... the less the tires scrub against the track, the less drag is generated and the faster you go. It's not a huge amount, but it is a real thing.
Amazingly, this trick is NOT illegal... yet. The FIA has gone on record as saying that it doesn't contravene safety rules and in that way is okay to be used in 2020. However, it's already been, if not outright banned in 2021 and the new tech regs, financially banned for that season. It's a neat idea though, and while I wish it had been any other team that came up with it, Mercedes deserve praise for being clever.
First race is Australia in mid-March. I'll be watching, though who knows if I'll be writing? Or if I did, if anybody would be reading it! It's not like I've been churning out the quality free ice cream of late.
1
AlphaTauri, huh? I mean I get it, but at the same time I can't help but think it's a terrible way to shorten Alpha Centauri.
Posted by: GreyDuck at February 27, 2020 08:31 AM (rKFiU)
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Nah, it's clever. They left out the centaur of the name.
Posted by: mikeski at February 27, 2020 06:34 PM (P1f+c)
3
Did you see that the FIA released a statement that they have reached "a settlement" with Ferrari on last year's PU...which they have very carefully NOT said was or was not within the rules? My eyebrows just about shot off my head on that one.
Posted by: Kathryn at February 29, 2020 08:30 PM (mcr6l)
4
I have a vague memory of the Ferrari PU being a concern early last year, but I had forgotten about it. I guess it didn't make that much of a difference in the end, anyway.
5
Long story short, several teams suspected Ferrari had found a clever way around the fuel flow rate restrictions. So Red Bull asked the FIA to issue a clarification as to whether it would be legal to get around them, proposing at least one way to do it. The FIA said no, that would not be legal, and Ferrari had a significant drop in speed the next race (which was Austin) and through the rest of the season. (They attributed the drop to running more downforce.)
(Max got in trouble because he was asked to comment on Ferrari's poor pace, and he said, "That's what happens when you stop cheating." Ferrari was Extremely Offended and made a number of pointed remarks in return.)
Posted by: Kathryn at March 02, 2020 11:07 AM (A4dfb)
I've been playing a lot of Fate Grand Order of late.
Because of that, I've also gone back and done a general Fate franchise anime rewatch... Fate/Stay Night, Fate/Zero, Unlimited Blade Works, Fate Apocrypha, El-Melloi II Case Files, as much of Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya as I could stand without feeling like a pervert (not much), Fate/Extra Last Encore, Today's Menu for the Emiya Family, of course the ongoing Fate/Grand Order - Absolute Demonic Front: Babylonia, and hopefully culminating in an all-up viewing of the three Fate/Stay Night Heaven's Feel movies.
I must admit though... Fate/Make Dinner really is my favorite of the bunch.
One thing that's impressed me during this whole rewatch project is just how consistently good it's all been. Even the allegedly lackluster Apocrypha is only so because it gets compared to the best of the other series in the franchise... in comparison to most non-Fate series it's pretty good.
So yeah, Fate Grand Order is fun. If you play already, I'm 264.380.184... add me to get access to a bunch of lvl 40-60 servants! You'll regret it in time, but you'll feel good when you're rollin' in all the friend points I give ya.
Another person playing Fate/Grand Order! I played quite a bit and it is entertaining for what it is, and having my favorite servant (Rider Medusa.) is even better. Sadly, I have not drawn any 5 Star Servants yet, although I am pretty close to finishing a lineup of the original F/SN Servants in my collection.
A lot of the recent Fate series tended to leave me underwhelmed (I am not a fan of ufotable's productions in the franchise.) but I do enjoy Today's Menu since it has the greatest concentration of appearances by Mitsuzuri in any of the franchise, with the exception of the Hollow Ataraxia game, which I can not play.
Posted by: cxt217 at February 15, 2020 10:47 PM (LMsTt)
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... if this Symphogear game doesn't pan out (very iffy right now), I will take you up on the FGO friend code thingy.
Posted by: GreyDuck at February 16, 2020 04:24 PM (rKFiU)
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I have gotten extremely lucky on the 5* front: Nero Bride, Hokusai, Jalter, Xuanzang Sanzang, Shuten-Douji, Raiko. Good selection of 4* as well.
Point in fact, the only class I don't have a SR or SSR in is Lancer... though I do have both Cu and Cu Proto as NP5, though. I've got a metric crapton of gold-border Casters.
Posted by: Wonderduck at February 16, 2020 09:36 PM (cTMj+)
4
I do not have many 4 star Servants, though Parvati hits like a brick of neutronium and Arturia Alter (Saber) filled a desperate lack of Sabers in my line-up. I would love to get Miyamoto Musashi the next time her event rolls around, and also to make all the tickets and Saint Quartz I used to try and fail to get her the last time she was available.
Posted by: cxt217 at February 17, 2020 10:48 PM (LMsTt)
5
Carnival Phantasm... how could you leave the best out of your list?
Posted by: Clayton Barnett at February 23, 2020 09:01 AM (ug1Mc)
Music... From Foreign Lands!
Over the past few months I've been spending time listening to a lot of music I've never experienced before. When you do this, you get a lot of stuff that's... not worth listening to again. Sometimes you get stuff that's... nice, but not anything you're going to go out of your way to hear again. Then there's the small percentage of tunes that make you sit up and pay attention (or even better, make you lean back, close your eyes, and pay attention). That's the category that I'll be inflicting upon you here now. We've got music from such far-flung places as Scandahoovia, India, California, Japan, Sweden, and an odd Irish/Italian thing.
1
The proto-germanic chanting scared my two smaller dogs out of the room, but my larger dog was hoping around with a waggy tail. I'm not sure what to think about that...
I have several SIDH songs in my generic playlist, Iridium is my favorite, but I prefer the cleaner studio version.
An antidote to the proto-germanic chanting. It's possible I originally found it here in a post like this one, I'm not sure.
Two of my favorites right now come from youtube's recommendation system, from very different genre's. I don't think this drumstep one will keep my interest long-term, but it's fun for a while. This one will have more staying power.
Posted by: David at February 02, 2020 03:32 PM (rweeV)
2
Among other things, you've reminded me that I've had a Red Hot Chilli Pipers record in my to-purchase queue for a few months now. Hmm.
Posted by: GreyDuck at February 02, 2020 09:26 PM (rKFiU)
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I happen to like pipes, so we're good. Very good.
Posted by: Mauser at February 03, 2020 09:39 PM (Ix1l6)
Terry Jones, Screeching Harridan, Passes Away
Terry Jones, one of the members of Monty Python, became the nude organist for the choir invisible today. He was 77.
Sadly, he'd been suffering from a rare form of dementia since 2016 and had lost the ability to speak over a year ago. Best known for his work with the legendary comedy troupe, Jones was also an accomplished director, historian and children's book author.
A few months ago, I wrote about the effect Monty Python's Flying Circus had on my sense of humor, but it was only today I discovered that Jones was the "inventor" of the show's non-ending ending... a sketch has gotten lost along the way to the punch line? Have a knight in full armor walk in and hit somebody over the head with a rubber chicken. Have someone in uniform declare everything to be too silly and cut to another sketch. Simple and stupid, sure, but funny as hell and I've used the same technique in my writing here at The Pond over the years.
I had just glanced at my phone after briefly waking up this morning and saw the news that he had died, and I can't explain just how strongly it affected me. I mean, beyond rolling over and going back to sleep. I've long outgrown the concept of personal heroes, but the Pythons are the closest I might possibly have anymore. They've been one of the few things that I can say have always been a part of my life... at least, as long as I've been aware of such things. And now I've gotten old enough to see them begin to go away. Hard to come to grips with such thoughts at nine in the morning..
1
My memorial viewing is The Story of 1, since The Crusades and Medieval Lives are both a bit long of a commitment for my available free time lately, unfortunately. I like that Jones and Palin both got into doing fun documentary-style shows as a late-career thing to do. Palin's travelogues are amusing, and Jones' historicals are a marvelous blend of humor and serious-historian material.
May his memory be a blessing.
Posted by: GreyDuck at January 22, 2020 10:44 PM (rKFiU)
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He does a fair job imitating Douglas Adams, if you ever played, read, or listened to Starship Titanic.
Posted by: Ben at January 23, 2020 09:41 AM (osxtX)
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Terry Jones provided us with some great humor, and his loss is a tragic blow. But I'm going to break my normal rule and beg for new content, so that when I come to your page I'm not confronted by naked middle aged man at a piano.
Posted by: David at January 29, 2020 09:09 PM (rweeV)