Michael Schumacher announced this morning that he will be returning to Formula 1 as a driver for the Mercedes GP Petronas (nee Brawn) F1 team.

Somewhere, Rubens Barrichello just yelled something obscene very loudly.

More to come once I get back to Pond Central. 

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Blitzen, Rudolph and Comet were sure they had an interloper in their midst, but how to prove it?

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The staff of The Japanese Kitchen (Sushi Side) had not a clue the importance of the two people who walked in around noon today.  One, a tall man with a Russian accent.  The other, a duck from the Midwest.  Both are anime bloggers and greatly enjoy Japanese food.

The orders were for simple fare: croquettes for both, gyoza for the human, cali rolls for the duck. While the croquettes and gyoza were tasty indeed, the sushi wouldn't've made it to the table without inquiries as to where it had gone to.

In between bites, they chatted mostly about either linux or anime... go figure.  It turns out that, for the most part, what show one liked, the other did not... save for Azumanga Daioh and Kampfer, of which the duck had only yet seen a couple of episodes.

Still and all, a good time was had.  Comestibles were masticated, beverages were imbibed, and the tall one was kind enough to pick up the tab.

Thanks for lunch, Pete!  A pleasure to meet you, and my offer stands: you ever make it out Duckford way, lemme know!

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I attracted a little bit of attention while I took this shot, I'm afraid.  Security attention, to be exact.  See, this particular mall was the one where a dumb bumbler had planned to set off hand grenades during christmas rush three years ago, and I guess they're a little shy about the whole "people taking photographs" thing.

The security guy whipped out his iPhone, took a look at The Pond (and last year's 12 Days of Duckmas), then let me finish taking the pictures.

There were also three generations of women from one family shopping that stopped and coo'd over the duckies, so that was fun... at this point, I'd like to say hello to the Trotten family (I hope I got that right)!

Ph.Duck and I are returning to Duckford tomorrow afternoon, weather permitting. 

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All the ducklings loved to hear Santaduck's stories of Christmases past...

...and the cookies afterward.  Can't forget about those.

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We arrived safely in New Mexico late last night.  There are mountains here...

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Ducks... at... niiiiiiiiiiight!

Amazing what a digital camera set to a 4 second exposure and a 10-LED flashlight can do...

I really like the concept of the picture; too bad half of the lights on the tree were off.  I've been doing test shots for this one for the past three days.  Nice to see that all the planning paid off.

Later tonight I'm heading to New Mexico until the 23rd, but the 12 Days of Duckmas will continue uninterrupted!

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Say it with me now: "Four wings!  Four freakin' wings!"

The picture of Angel that I used last year was easily my favorite, and this one doesn't measure up to that one.  It was actually my fallback photo, in case the planned one failed... which it did.  If you'd like to see an example, click "more"...



more...

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It's the last Thursday before Christmas, and since I'm going to New Mexico for a few days on Saturday, The Librarian and I decided to make tonight our Christmas celebration.  So, after watching Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, which is great by the way, we exchanged gifts.

She got the book I Slept With Joey Ramone, written by Joey Ramone's brother, and the box set of Monster (thank you VERY much, Robert!).  And me?

Look, The Librarian gives the best presents.  Last year, she conspired with Momzerduck to give me the Rubber Duck Factory.  This year, though, she nearly beat that.  She gave me this:

It's a body pillowcase, in case you can't tell, featuring Nagisa and Sanae Furukawa!  Even better, it's a promo item, meaning it wasn't actually for sale.  Better still, I think it's from the game as opposed to the anime, since KyoAni's logo doesn't appear anywhere on it.  That's far from certain, though.

Yes, I have no idea what I'm going to do with it, but it's amazingly cool anyway!  Thanks, The Librarian!!!

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It's Frosty the Snowduck!

Once again, I find myself with more than one picture that I liked for this entry.  Click on "more" to take a look...


more...

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Happy Hanukkah (a few days late)!

I took a lot of pics for this one, and I really couldn't decide which one I liked the best.  In the end, I went with the one above, because the stained glass looks nice, but I can't not post the other one.  Click "more" to see it...

more...

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Just like the picture above, the answer has to be "not quite," but close.  The BBC and the German newspaper Bild are both reporting that the only thing separating Michael "Slappy" Schumacher from returning to F1 with Mercedes is a signature on the contract.  Both reports say that Luca di Montezemelo, Ferrari's grand poobah, has agreed to let Slappy go from his consulting position with the Prancing Ponies, for the good of the sport.  Reportedly it's only the tiny details that need to be worked out before it all becomes official.  Reports vary as to how much he'll be paid: somewhere between €3.5million and €7million seems to be the range.  Obviously, we'll keep an eye on this and let you know when something becomes official.

In other news, the new Lotus F1 team announced their driver lineup for 2010 as "hiring two race-winning drivers."

That's right, Lotus F1 is putting their faith in Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovaleininninninnie.  It is true that both have won races in Formula 1; Trulli won the 2004 GP of Monaco, Heikki the 2008 Hungarian Grand Prix.  I'm not entirely sure that one win each, 2 wins in 17 seasons combined is something to trumpet, but what the hey?  Let 'em have their fun!  It might be the only time this season they get to...

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And we're off!

The traditional beginning of the 12 Days of Duckmas, the "duckie in a fir tree."  It's how the first two years began, and I'm not going to break the string now!

Check back every day between now and Christmas for a new entry in the 2009 12 Days of Duckmas!

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So the past few days, I've felt a little disinterested in posting here at The Pond.  Obviously there isn't much going on in Formula 1 right now, points payout change notwithstanding.  My anime watching has sort of trickled away.  And despite a link to the Tone 4 post of a few months back in the recent Battle Of Midway RoundTable newsletter, I don't have any pressing need to write about the War in the Pacific at the moment.

However, I am happy to announce that Monday will see the beginning of the annual 12 Days of Duckmas series.  So you've got that to look forward to.

It'll be interesting, as I'm going on vacation next Saturday, and will be gone until the 23rd.  Well, my destination has a computer, I suppose.  I'll just have to upload everything ahead of time.

So I guess this post is just to say I'm alive and don't go anywhere!  Oh, and the following picture is completely unrelated to anything:

-Banner of the Stars, ep03

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Well, this comes as something of a surprise!  The FIA, with the support of the teams, is expected to approve a change to the points scheme for the 2010 season.  The first change is that that the first 10 finishers will now score points, as opposed to the first eight.  The reason for that is simple: there's going to be a lot more cars on the grid: 26 as opposed to 20.  The percentage of cars scoring points will essentially remain the same: 40%.

The other change is the number of points everybody will score.  Under the old system, 1st place netted 10 points, 2nd was 8, 3rd was 6, then 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 for 4th thru 8th.  For the new system, though, the points layout will be as follows:

1st: 25 points
2nd: 20 points
3rd: 15 points
4th: 10 points
5th: 8 points
6th: 6 points
7th: 5 points
8th: 3 points
9th: 2 points
10th: 1 point.

Suddenly there's a substantially larger incentive to win.  That five point differential, proportionally, is much more valuable than the two point differential we used to have.  The same goes for 2nd to 3rd.  The jump from 3rd to 4th, however, is even bigger than the others.  This is obviously a response to the call to give race wins more weight, though it's extended over the entire podium.

Hopefully, this will stick a four-tined fork in Darth Bernie's stupid "medals" idea in which the driver's championship would be decided solely on race wins. 

I think I actually like this.  Who knew the FIA could actually do something right once in a while?

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-To Aru Kagaku no Railgun, ep10

It's not just a widget!  We still don't know what it is, but it's not just a widget!

My lust for this app is increasing exponentially...

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Snow day!  Yesterday morning, there was nothing on the ground... the above is what greeted me when I stuck my head outside.  The University of Wisconsin-Madison, about 70 miles north of here, has closed for the first time since 1990.  Duckford has gotten around 10 inches, with another 1"-4" expected by the noon.

However, the bad part is going to be the wind.  We're expecting whiteout conditions later as the wind picks up.  Roads are lousy, according to the live chat taking place on one of the Duckford TV station's website, with pretty much everything outside of the city itself being dangerous and impassable.  In city, only the major East-West streets are clean; North-South are bad because of drifting.  The plows come through, but the wind just blows it over again.

A couple hours to our west, in the Quad Cities, Iowa, they're reporting blizzard conditions and emergency vehicles stuck in city centers.  That's what we've got to look forward to, yay!  I'll update occasionally during the day.

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Winter has returned to Duckford, with a frickin' vengeance.  The drive home from the Duck U Bookstore took me nigh on 25 minutes instead of the usual 10-12.  About half of the trip was done blind; the snow was coming down so heavily that, when the wind blew just right (i.e.: at all), I could see maybe past the hood of the Duckmobile.

I'm glad I made it home, but I feel fearful for the ducklings back at Duck U.  This is Finals Week, y'see, and there were quite a few scheduled tonight.  Hopefully, the kids realized that their safety is more important than their grades and called their professors.

Still no word on if Duck U will be in session tomorrow... snow days are even better when you're an adult.

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Pearl Harbor, 12/7/1941

Ceremony for those killed at NAS Kaneohe, Memorial Day 1942.

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