World of Warships: High Score

Due to gentle proddings from friend Ben over at Midnight Tease, the hooligans over at Bo Time! Gaming, and my innate interest in a naval combat game similar in style to War Thunder, I downloaded the free-to-play game World of Warships a couple of weeks ago.  I'm trying to catch up with Ben so we can squad up... that seems to be the best way to play in head-to-head... but the game has a fairly robust player vs bot play too.  The bots can and will kill you dead if you give them half a chance.  After nearly 100 matches against bots, I decided to try my hand at head-to-head earlier today.  The results surprised me:

The short version was that most of my team went east, while myself, another cruiser and a destroyer went west.  I was lagging behind the other two (they were in Tier IV and V ships, while I was in a stock Tier III St Louis) when they rounded the islands at that end of the map... and discovered that almost all of the enemy team also went west.  Meanwhile, the rest of my team discovered to the east that the bad guys had left three battleships to bottle up that side of the map.  Effectively, as it turned out.  When I saw the approaching red horde on my side of the map, knowing that all I could do to help my two teammates was get myself killed, I reversed course... and headed for the center capture point.  The bad guys got the west point, we got the east... and a couple of minutes later, I captured the center.  I did, however, take an aerial torpedo in the bows, the result of a desultory air attack that I couldn't quite dodge, and a stock St Louis has an Anti-Aircraft rating of "zero."  As they flew away, I noticed that they were disappearing from view after descending about 10 km away... almost like they were landing.  As the only enemy in sight was both a long ways away and something I had no desire at all to engage, I decided to see if I couldn't cause a slowdown in enemy flight operations.  Sure enough, both enemy carriers were sailing together, less than a half-kilometer apart... and on the near side of a decent sized island.  I told my Chief Engineer to disable the engine room's safety features and give me all ahead full as I closed in on two helpless Langley-class flattops.

Well, "helpless" is a relative term.  As I charged in, they both began flinging torpedo planes at me as fast as they could.  At one point, they even managed an absolutely textbook "hammer-and-anvil" attack on me that if I hadn't seen it coming would have killed me deader than disco.  As it was, I ate two torps that took my health down to below half... anything with guns could have taken me easily.  But Langleys, like most carriers, are armed with slingshots and spitballs.  Soon enough I was giving the lead carrier full broadsides.  It rolled over and sank in a couple of minutes.  The other carrier was frantically trying to reverse course back towards the Myoko, which would have had me for lunch even if I'd been at full health.  It never completed the turn: my first volley disabled both his engines and his steering.  The third set him afire.  I didn't need many more past that.

Meanwhile, my team's carriers, given control of the air, did bad things to the Red Team's fleet; they still had the western cap point, but they never even came close to getting anything else.  We won a resounding victory; I was second on the scoreboard but I rightfully feel like I won the game for us.

World of Warships isn't anywhere near perfect.  It's very arcadey, destroyers are incredibly overpowered (the guy above me on the scoresheet was in a DD that sank three enemy ships), and the next time someone calls it "realistic" will be the first time.  But it's pretty fun, and really, that's all I need. 

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Interstellar: The Ten Word Review

I will never look at dust the same way again.

Oh, you want more?

more...

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What? In WINTER??? Is That Even Possible?

I have to admit something to y'all... I'm sick. 

No, no, not that type of sick... I mean the illness type of sick.  A couple of weeks ago, I took a day off from work as a sort of mental health (shaddap you!) day; I was feeling somewhat stressed by life.  The holidays have never been my favorite time of the year, and with some stuff happening at work, I needed to hide away for a while.  So I did... and that Saturday night my chest started to feel a little tight.  I woke up Sunday morning with an abrasive cough.  By Monday morning, the cough was joined by a headache and indications that this was going to be ugly... but I had a more pressing issue: I was in training for claims processing on a new state.  I couldn't miss any of that... it was scheduled for three or four half-days, mornings.  So I gritted my teeth and made it through the entirety of Monday.  I wasn't swell, but I could work through it easily enough.  Or so I thought.

Monday night, all hell broke loose.  I'll spare you the details because this isn't that sort of blog, but it wasn't pretty, it kept me awake for hours longer than I should have been, and thankfully I always have an emergency pack of toilet paper stored in a closet.

And the cough had gotten worse to boot.  It had gone from a rasping thing to the biological equivalent of running piece of luon through a table-mounted router: loud, messy, and totally, epically, pointless. Tuesday's training was misery, both for myself and my fellow trainees.  Once it ended, I walked back to my desk, collected my stuff, talked briefly to my boss, and went home for the day.  I managed to make it through Wednesday and Thursday, finishing the training and working full days, though "death warmed over" makes it sound like there was a positive to be found in my condition somewhere.  And then came Friday.

I got up, got dressed, drove to work, and told my boss I was realistically too sick to be there.  When she (quite reasonably) asked why I didn't just call in, I didn't really have an answer except "I don't like to do that."  So I drove back home, crawled back into bed and slept until Sunday.  The cough changed from agonizing to productive, the headache wound down to tolerable levels, and all is right with the world.

Okay, no.  I'm still sick.  I still cough occasionally, I'm tired as hell, and while I feel okay to start the day, by the time work is done I'm miserable.  So, yeah, still sick.  The weather ain't helpin' none, neither.  The temperature is jumping up and down like a pogo stick, highs in the negatives one day, then highs in the 30s the next.  It's like my immune system tried as hard as it could, threw its metaphorical hands in the air and said "we're moving to someplace warm... like Hell.... as fast as possible."  So why am I telling you all of this? 

Gotta tell somebody, I guess.

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Random Anime Picture #108: (happy sigh)

-ARIA the Avvenire, Ep01
Don't worry, there's a review coming.

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Firefoxy, Yootoob, And Thou (Updated) (Updated again)

Earlier tonight, Firefoxy and Yootoob appeared to have a sort of snitfit with each other.  All of Yootoob's formatting went out the window, down a dozen stories and straight into the dumpster.  The dumpster was then set on fire by a guy named Sal using a half-dozen old tires, a jerrican of gasoline, a butane torch, and a hairdryer.  All the while, Firefoxy laughed and laughed and laughed, illuminated by the glow of the flames.

Even worse, the same thing happened on websites that embedded yootoob viddies.  Like, for example, Wonderduck's Pond and this post.  All was horror and trouble and everything had a toothache and dogs and cats living together.  But it was only yootoob, and it was only in Firefoxy.  Different browsers had no problem, different video sites played fine.  Updating Firefoxy didn't help, nor did the usual cache and cookie cleansing.  So what in tarnation was going on?

Some digging around hither and yon seemed to suggest that it wasn't, in fact, a problem with yootoob or Firefoxy at all, but with the AdBlockPlus add-on.  I was resigned to turning it off for yootoob and going through the hell of their ads once again... which would probably drive me back to smokin' and drinkin' and carryin' on.  Knowing how close the world was to a horrible fate, a couple of users over at reddit came up with a solution.  If you're having this problem, open ABP, go to exceptions, and add the following lines:

@@||s.ytimg.com/yts/cssbin/$stylesheet
@@||s.ytimg.com/yts/imgbin/

Voila!  Everything solved, even embeded videos play now!  Apparently, the problem extended into other browsers using ABP as well, so it should work with Opera, Chrome, etc, too.  So there.  That's fixed.  Everybody back on your heads!

UPDATE Friday 947am: A rep from ABP showed up in that reddit thread and says the culprit is the "Malware Domains filter".  If you disable that, yootoob is fixed.  As most people have multiple filters running, this shouldn't be a problem.  I turned off the two exceptions and the filter and everything is back to normal; indeed, it's a better fix than the two exceptions provided.  I've inquired as to what sort of timeframe we're looking at for the filter to be fixed... I'll let you know when I find out.

UPDATE Friday 402pm: As of right now, you need to actually press the "update" button on the Malware Domains filter.  Once you do that, the problem is fixed and you can reactivate the filter!

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I Had No Idea!

January 13th is National Rubber Duckie Day!

Any excuse to post a picture of Scooter, The Flock's First Duck (center).  He's actually around 25 years old now.  That's old for a duckie, but he's still goin' strong!

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A Starman Falls To Earth

David Bowie died of liver cancer late Sunday night, two days after he turned 69.

During a musical career that spanned nearly 50 years, he managed to change musical styles practically as often as he released albums.  From glam to funk and soul to blues to electronica to rock to new wave to industrial and back again, one never really knew what you'd be hearing when you popped in a new Bowie disc.  My first real exposure to his work came in his "new wave" period, with the 1983 album, Let's Dance. 

In many ways, Let's Dance is both the best and worst way to be introduced to Bowie.  It's easily his most accessible work, being unabashedly pop-flavored... and it and 1984's Tonight are rather unlike the darker, more thoughtful work he produced before and after.  Ironically, the short movie/music video for "Jazzing For Blue Jean" off Tonight earned him his only Grammy out of 10 nominations. (he was given a Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 2006).  I went into my next taste of Bowie's music thinking he was a slightly lightweight musician.

This is many things, but lightweight pop is not one of them.  David Bowie is very much like weather in the Midwest... if you don't like it, just wait a short time: it'll change.  But along with his music, the other thing that Bowie was known for was his ever-changing personae.  From Ziggy Stardust to The Thin White Duke to the Scary Goatee Guy to Elder Rock Statesman, again he changed from hither to yon constantly.  At one point in his life he gave an interview where he basically said that "David Bowie is the costume, the thing onstage is the real Me."  In his later career, after he married supermodel Imam and "settled down", he more or less stayed in the Statesman mode.  All the while, he stayed impeccably dressed.

He collaborated with artists like Queen, Mick Jagger, Nine Inch Nails, Peter Frampton, Tina Turner, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Bing Crosby.  Countless artists covered his work.  Countless fans adored him.  I am not particularly a huge fan, to be honest... I own a couple of his CDs, know many of his hits, but beyond that?  There are many others who will write more about him in the coming days, more eloquently and with more knowledge than I can.  This, I admit.  None of this denies the fact that I know that he was a true Rock Icon, and with his passing the music world is greatly diminished.  I also know that he is the musician behind one of my favorite songs of all time.

It felt like David Bowie was immortal.  We know now that wasn't true, to our sorrow.

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I Might Start Following Soccer

The Bundesliga is Germany's top-level soccer league... their version of the better known English Premiere League, I suppose.  However, they are the only league anywhere of any sort that have an official rubber duck race.  The 2015 season was the first, and the

Qualifying round from the Aquadome of Destiny.  That frog really shouldn't have been included... it's called the BunDucksLiga for a reason, after all.

The Duck Speedway also hosted the Final Round, which was a more exciting race than anything F1's given us in recent years.

I love how totally serious the announcer was, and the camerawork / on-screen graphics quality is top-notch.  Obviously the parent broadcaster must have been involved.  Mindblowing.

But wait, there's more... the next season was just announced, with a new twist!

I can't wait.

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That Was A Laugh I Needed Badly

The job has been kicking my asterisk something fierce of late.

I haven't been feeling all that swell, thanks to the weather we've been having.  I've got a nagging ache in my right index finger from when I slipped in the bathtub and jammed it into a broken towel rack trying (successfully) to keep myself from wiping out... the middle knuckle just hurts after a short time on the computer, which in my line of work is something of a Very Bad Thing. 

And then when I came home tonight, I managed to get the Duckmobile stuck in what looked like a perfectly clear parking space here at Pond Central.  Perfectly clear... except for the patch of ice that was located directly under where the front tires ended up.  Did I mention that the Duckmobile is front-wheel drive?  Needed a neighbor to give me a shove, but only after a half-hour of scraping and shoveling ALL the residual snow and ice from the spot and getting (literally) nowhere.

So what I'm saying is that I was in a murderous sort of mood when I got home.  After doing all the usual stuff I do when I first get home, I hopped online to see if there was anything funny out there.  After a while spent getting pissed off because there wasn't, I somehow stumbled across this clip.

That's some impressive vocaling right there, particularly since, y'know, t'ree a 'em ain't singin' whutall they's use'ta singin'.  And yes, the humor isn't exactly "Steve Martin in the '70s" level, but what the hell, it made me laugh.

Maybe it'll do for you, too.

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Ducks In Anime: In The Sticks

-Non Non Biyori, Ep01 ED

Over at some place or another, a conversation took place concerning "shows that were like ARIA."  The general consensus was that, other than YKK, there really aren't any shows like ARIA.  That led to me trotting out my theory that the two shows take place in the same universe, but that's not the point of this little missive right now.  One series that got a lot of support as feeling like ARIA without being anything like it was Non Non Biyori.  I'll be honest, I knew absolutely nothing about the series other than the name, so what the heck, let's give it a shot.  After watching the first two episodes, I've come to some general conclusions.

First, that's one darn handsome duck.  Second, neh, it's closer in feel to Sketchbook than to ARIA, which is no bad thing in my opinion.  Short version of story: Fifth-grader from Tokyo moves to tiny village out in the boonies, joins school that has four other students: 1st, 7th, 8th, and 9th graders.  They're all in the same classroom.  Hijinks occur languidly. 

Third, come for Renge-chan playing the recorder, stay for the scenery porn.  Everywhere you look, scenery porn.  Languid scenery porn, to be sure, but there nonetheless.  Should you watch it?  Heck, I dunno... I've only seen two episodes and it's kinda been hit-and-miss for me.  Languid scenery porn is nice and all, but something approximating a story would be useful once in a while.

Still... rubber duck in the credits.  A+ for effort.

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The Alhazred & Miskatonic Railroad

"In his station at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits for passengers."

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So. 2016, Huh?

Thus far, I'm not overly impressed.  It's cold, it's windy, the food hasn't been very good and my finger hurts.  On the other hand, I went in to work today to make up some hours and there was literally nobody else in my office, and only three or four people from all offices total.  Which allowed me to sing along with my music if I so chose.  And lo, thus I chose to do!

On the gripping hand, anybody walking past my office is undoubtedly having a substantially worse 2016.

You all good?

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New Year's Eve 2015

In the grand scheme of things, I suppose 2015 would have to count as a wash.  It started out pretty badly, somehow managed to get even worse, then the metaphorical arrow began heading up.  Slowly, to be sure, but up.  Certainly things look brighter than they did at the end of 2014, for no other reason than I'm employed.  So the prospects for 2016 look promising, yes?  One can only hope so... I'm kinda tired of bad years.

Thank you all for another year of finding The Pond interesting enough to stick around.  You have no idea how much I appreciate it.  Without you folk, I'd just be talking to myself and you know what that means, right?  ("You have a bluetooth headset?"  Shut up.)

Have a happy new year!  It's funny hat time for all, and for all, a funny hat!

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Random Anime Picture #107: Country Cooking

-Shokugeki no Soma, Ep20

After having finished the first series of SnS (the second is airing Summer of 2016), I get the distinct impression that some part of the production staff really wanted to make Shokugeki no Megumi instead.  On the whole, she's a much more interesting character than the lead is, that's for sure.  The titular character is a wizard in the kitchen, able to do just about anything, sometimes effortlessly, sometimes having to work at it.  But it's a fait accompli that he will wind up reaching his ultimate goal: it's that sort of show, after all, and he's the lead!  I find it amusing that he's actually lost substantially more head-to-head cooking battles than he's won thus far.  Even in defeat, he's gained the people's ovation and his opponent's respect and won over the judges to boot. 

But then there's Megumi.  She's literally a hick from a fishing village, attending an elite (some would say THE elite) culinary academy in the world.  Prior to the main character meeting her, she was on the verge of being kicked out in disgrace.  After a couple of pep talks, though, she gained confidence in her abilities and has been surprising people left and right.  To be blunt, she's a lot more interesting than Soma.  I suspect that it's no coincidence that at the end of Series 1, she advances in the big tournament... on the other side of the bracket from Soma.

She's also cute as a button and owns a rubber duck.  That's gotta count for something!

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Your Weekly Asuka, the OVA... or 12.5, whichever.

It's been quite some time since we last visited the Hibike! Euphonium show, but a few days ago the long-awaited OVA came out.  Considering how much I enjoyed the series, it shouldn't come as any surprise that I immediately watched it with one eye peeled for Asuka, the vice-president of the band club.

It should also come as no surprise that the Goofy Cute was being both goofy and cute... for the thirty seconds she was in the episode.  Alas, KyoAni stopped using her as a character around Ep12 in the original run, so Asuka bringing the goofy was to be expected.  Since that was her entire contribution to the story, it was a little bit disappointing.

The rest of the OVA was quite entertaining, and it was really nice to be back with this bunch of characters that we came to love over the course of three months or so.  As usual, it was outstanding visually, but it was really quite nice to focus on the "junior leads", as it were, instead of the main characters.  Which is not to say I wouldn't have liked to see more of Asuka.

Since, y'know, that was kinda the whole point of this little series of mine in the first place.  I guess we'll just have to wait for the second season... or maybe the recap movie will have a little bit more about her in it.  Either way, it'll be good fun.  Unless KyoAni doesn't expound upon her character, in which case I'll be quite grumpy.

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Residual Photoshoot Thingy

Back last August, I finally posted the "creative project" I worked on for much of my enforced extended vacation.  In that post I mentioned that I had purchased a new camera for my birthday.  While I was learning how to use it, something I can honestly say I haven't figured out yet because it's a little more advanced than a point'n'click, I decided to see how it did in low-light situations.  The very first picture I took told me that I had gotten a nice camera.

I still think its the best picture I've taken with it.  Not bad for something taken on a whim with one hand holding the camera, the other holding the EL Wire.  The most surprising part was the faintly red background... that's from a glowing mushroom in my dining room.  I'm going to have to explain that, aren't I? 

Back when I had the Cardiac Incident in 2005, I had... concerns... that one night I'd have to call 911 and not be able to get out of bed due to whatever was happening in my chest.  I thought it'd be best if the EMTs would be able to see so a light would be needed... but it would have to be relatively unobtrusive, otherwise I'd not be able to sleep.  Some weeks later, I stopped at Walgreens and found a low-wattage red CFL for some decent price.  I put it into a more-or-less translucent mushroom-shaped lamp, put it on a small side table in the dining room, and turned it on.  Save for a few minutes here and there when I vacuum, that light has been on ever since.  Nearly 10 years... well over 80000 hours!  I don't care that it's "just a light bulb", that's pretty amazing.  Particularly since wikipedia suggests the usual lifespan for a CFL is ~15000 hours.  I don't know what I'm going to do when it finally passes from this world to Light Bulb Valhalla.

Amazing what a good camera can do, eh?  I don't like this picture anywhere near as much as the first, but it's still a swell photo.  Anyway, enjoy, won't you?

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Today, It Finally Happened.

As of today, December 25th in the year 2015 of the Gregorian Calendar, I, Wonderduck, have officially become an ADULT.  Because today, Christmas Day, I received some pairs of socks and some big bath sheet towels.

AND WAS HAPPY ABOUT IT!!!  Indeed, that was pretty much all I really asked for.

Because socks are useful.  And bigmclargehuge fluffy towels are great.  Also office supplies.  And a jar of lingonberry.

See?  Adult.  Grownup.  Me.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go watch a japanese cartoon about Santa Claus.

Merry Christmas again!

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Christmas 2015

Merry Christmas, my friends... or, if you don't celebrate that particular holiday, Happy Chinese Take-Out Day!  It's been quite the year, but without you folks it would have been even moreso.  Thanks for putting up with me.

Now.  Who's up for some egg nog?

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Well. THAT Was A Day.

It was sixty degrees today, the highest high ever for this day in Duckford history.  We also had a half-inch of rain fall, mostly when I was walking from my spot in the parking lot to the office.  Now we're getting 60mph wind gusts.  I love winter in Illinois... I just wish it was, y'know, happening this year.

At work, I can honestly say that the claims kicked my ass all day.  Twerent none of 'em what went down easy.  It felt like every one of them had something wrong with it, as opposed to being of the "three key presses, two mouse clicks and get paid" variety.  It isn't really that simple, but I'm not exaggerating by all that much.  It's nowhere near as intimidating as it used to be... mostly.  When you have a claim for $60000 hit your screen and you know that every auditor between here and the home office in Texas is just dying to find the teeniest mistake and doom you to a lower tax bracket forever, it can be a little stressful. 

When a claim enters your queue, it's supposed to be all set and ready to be processed.  Today, though... today was apparently Drive Wonderduck To Drink day.  Literally a quarter of the 200 or so claims I worked today didn't have the name of the doctor or the organization he bills through listed correctly.  Sometimes you can fix that... the computer isn't so smart that it can pick out the right organization when the doc works with, like, eight different places.  Think I'm exaggerating?  Doctor's own office.  The hospital he works with.  Two different hospital-associated clinics: one pediatric, one adult.  His office might have a clinic as well.  The doc's specialty practice.  The partnership he has with another doc.  Then the Urgent Care place people go to when they can't get appointments with their "real" doctor.  That's eight right there, and while they're all the same doctor, he might be billing to any of them at any time... fortunately each of them has a separate ID number.  In theory.  That's where the computer falls over and we have to come in and fix the mess.

Except when we can't, because sometimes a doctor was hired by an Urgent Care two months ago and is only now getting around to sending us the bills for his patients.  And gosh, lookit that, we have no record that Dr Smith works at that place!  So away goes those claims to the home office to deal with... hopefully we'll get them back at some point, after Dr Smith has been added to the rolls. 

Imagine beating your head against a wall.  It's kinda like that, except the wall is covered with broken glass, razor blades, and that stupid hot mustard Chinese places serve for you to dip your egg rolls in.  Each one of those takes time and doesn't pay you anything.  Bah.

Oh, and I discovered that I had been looking at the wrong Holiday Days Off list, too!  I had been looking at the one for the other branch of our business, the collections folk based in Colorado or somewhere like that, and they get Christmas Eve off.  Me, I have to be in tomorrow.  Well, shucks.

It could be a lot worse, though.  I stopped at the Walgreens near the office to pick up my monthly batch of Keep Wonderduck Alive pills on the way home tonight.  That's the Walgreens that's a block away from the Big Shopping Mall in the area.  The place was packed with Crazy... and that's just a drugstore near the mall.  What must the mall itself be like?  I know not, nor wish I to know.  I've done my time in Hell after all, and to that place I intend to never return.  If I'm lucky.

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At Last, Closure.

Duckford is many things, but "large" would not be considered one of them.  However, many people would consider that a feature, not a bug, and whatever else, it's still a city of respectable size.  What I'm saying is that just bumping into someone randomly must be considered quite unlikely.  Throw in my hermitish tendencies and all in all, bumping into one of my old employees from the Duck U Bookstore must be in the "ridiculously low" category.

This past Sunday, I had brunch with Ph.Duck and RN(ret)Duck at a place that falls into the category of "Duckford Original", the Stockholm Syndrome Inn.  Try the swedish pancakes!  Feel your arteries clog like someone poured fast-setting concrete into 'em!  Make sure you apply liberal amounts of lingonberry because oh my.  Please note that I'm not a huge fan of swedish pancakes, but I'm probably the only person in Duckford that's true for.  Me, I had a stack of regular pancakes and a hashbrown-like thing with cheese and onion.

As we were all nomming away, catching up on our adventures (or lack thereof) over the past while, I suddenly heard someone saying "I thought that sounded like you, Wonderduck!"  I immediately scanned the area for escape routes, cursing myself for letting down my guard.  Turning my head towards the voice, I found myself facing one of the three employees that I had on staff when my Bookstore Management career came to a screeching halt.  We'll call her Betty because that's not her name.  She was still working at the Duck U Bookstore, and we began catching up... it had been 18 months since I last saw her, after all.  Eventually I asked how THAT fall semester went after I was gone.  Turns out there were some problems, as expected... and I'm willing to believe that at least some of them were because I wasn't there anymore because, y'know, 10 years and stuff, and I'm willing to delude myself. 

But none of the problems Betty told me about had to do with textbook acquisition.  THAT part, at least, went smooth as butter on silk.  Hearing that bit of information made me feel pretty darn good... I may have been unceremoniously kicked to the curb, but I'll be damned if it was because of poor performance.  I also heard that they finally got spiral notebooks and folders with the school's new name on 'em... some two-plus years after the change from "college" to "university" occurred, and over three years since the announcement was made... at which point, I immediately began trying to get things with the new name.  See?  Not my fault, and screw anybody who thought it was. 

But I can finally say that I know that when I got canned, the store was in good shape.  It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't for lack of trying... and I can finally close the book on that substantial bit of my life.  And good riddance.

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