A Long Time Ago

Almost a year ago, there was a bit of hullabaloo over a movie that was coming out.  You may have heard of it, a little thing called Star Wars: The Force Awakens.  You may have even gone to see it, I heard it was kinda popular.  Wouldn't you know it?  Between work and just being me, I never did see it.  Yup, that's right, Wonderduck, the old Star Wars fan from waaaaay the hell back, he never saw the new film.  Thanks to a free movie weekend on one of them premium stations on my satellite dish, however, I have rectified that problem.

Imagine my surprise when I realized I had seen it already!  Oh, at the time it was just called "Star Wars", and it was 1977, but SW:TFA is about as blatant a copy of that first movie as you're ever going to see. 

I'm not complaining.  The first English words spoken in the film are "This will begin to make things right," and if those aren't a shot across the bows of the three prequels, it's only because the shot actually hit.  Director JJ Abrams set out to put the magic back into the franchise, and the best way to do that is to make people forget about the bad movies.  What better way to do that than to take what worked and do it better?

For all that the film has been out for a year, I had managed to avoid all but the most basic spoilers... mainly the things from the trailers.  That took some doing, let me tell you.  But oh so worth it.  The scene from the trailers when the Millennium Falcon goes into combat with some TIE fighters at low altitude?  I knew something was coming, but I didn't expect it to put a gigantic grin on my face the way it did. 

When it's action time, the film delivers in spades.  Modernized X-Wings fight updated TIE fighters, lightsaber duels, Han Solo using a bowcaster, there's even a trench run as another nod to the original movie.  Really, there's so many hat tips to the original trilogy it's impossible to see them all on one viewing... which is one of many reasons I'm glad SW:TFA is on my DVR.  But as with all good films, you're not here for the action.  You're here because of the characters...

The only thing that could have ruined the movie faster than having George Lucas involved would have been if the new characters didn't work.  Fortunately for everybody, they do... mostly.  What few fails the movie has involves them and their oh-so-witty banter.  There are moments where I wanted to curse the name of Joss Whedon for making the "overly cool snark" school of dialogue popular, even though he has nothing to do with SW:TFA.  Nothing directly, at least, but some points in the script are pretty much lifted straight from Buffy or Firefly, and when that occurs, it doesn't fit quite right.  Even if you didn't know it in advance, it's pretty obvious that this is the first film of a series though, because we don't learn diddly-poo about backstories of any of' 'em.  Except for Finn, the ex-Stormtrooper, we learn his entire life story.  Not hard to do when a life story is "taken from family as a child, trained to be a Stormtrooper since then."  Rey, the nominal lead?  Well... um... she was left on a planet bysomeone, and has lived there all her life waiting for them to come back.   Poe, the Resistance's hottest pilot?  That's about it, really.  But there's still time to learn about them, and in the meanwhile, we've got all the characters from the first movies back! 

Sure, they're older, but aren't we all?  It was nice to see 'em all in the roles that made them legends.  They certainly kept up with the kids... or, really, vice-versa.  Whichever.  It all works.  I went into it hopeful, and 2-1/2 hours later I wanted to watch it again, so I guess that's a good sign.

I'm not fooling anybody, am I?  My GOD that was fun!  The bang and the whoosh and the Falcon did that thing and X-Wings over the lake and lightsaber duels at night in the snow and... and... and...

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:56 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
Post contains 732 words, total size 5 kb.

Bless You, Boys!

This has the potential of becoming the greatest thing ever.  If he was given a Cubs jersey with "Pope" on the back... or maybe he if he was presented with a "W" flag...?

Ah.  Yes.  St Peter's Square.  Perfect.  Maybe get some ivy on those walls...?

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:16 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 49 words, total size 1 kb.

Everybody Knows

The unstoppable beast that is 2016 has claimed another victim.

Leonard Cohen died today at the age of 82.  By the time I first experienced his incredibly rich, almost frighteningly bass voice, he was already legend.  Strangely, it was in the slightly-better-than-mediocre movie Pump Up The Volume, which had a killer soundtrack.  Cohen's "Everybody Knows" was featured throughout the film.

This young duck was stunned... and then he quickly tried to find out more about this guy.  Turned out he'd been around for nearly 30 years by that point.   I felt right at home with I'm Your Man, the album I purchased.  It was all full of synths and drum machines, and it reminded me a lot of the band Double.  Which just goes to show what I knew of Leonard Cohen.

Allow me a digression here... I promise it all ties together in the end.  When I moved to the northlands for grad school, it was actually the second time I'd been there.  The first time was when I went up to find an apartment.  I was graciously shown around the town by a lass I had contacted via Prodigy... yes, that long ago.  I had sent out 25 or 30 e-mails more or less at random to people in Mankato that were on Prodigy, essentially saying "I'm moving there in a few months for grad school, I don't know anybody, will you be my friend?"  Most went unanswered.  One replied "no."  One said he didn't live there anymore, but he owned a bar and grill in town... I should stop in, tell the guy behind the bar that he had sent me, and I'd get a burger and beer out of it.  Sure 'nuff, I did.  And then there was the one who accused me of writing to her because she was female... "yeah, that's so slick."  Well, she wasn't entirely wrong... anyway, she agreed to show me around the town, have dinner with me the first night I was up there, you know the drill.  And she gave me the nickname that stuck with me throughout my Minnesota years: "Slick".  Actually, for many years after she continued to call me that.  Um.  Like I was saying...  Somewhere along the line, it came out that I worked in radio, and she insisted I let her hear some of my stuff.  So, I made her a mixtape in the station's production studio, with voice drops by me.  The catch was, every song had something to do with her.  The featured tune?

I've often joked that "Suzanne" was Cohen singing falsetto.  According to him, he just wasn't quite sure how to use his voice at that time.  Still, a lovely song.  In case you're wondering, that picture at the start of this digression is of a Mankato landmark; my apartment would be just off-picture to the right.  I could see the place from my bedroom window.

I've often wondered just what it must be like to have written and sung one of the most beautiful songs of all time and have it be famous because of the performances of others.  "Hallelujah", off the album Various Positions, was popularized somewhat by John Cale, turned famous when Jeff Buckley covered Cale's version, which then got used in the movie Shrek, though Rufus Wainright's version was on the soundtrack album, and then kd lang did my favorite performance of the song at the opening ceremonies to the 2010 Winter Olympics.

There are at least 300 known recordings of the song.  He's certainly been honored worldwide for the song, both by the public and by fellow musicians, but one wonders... 

Just a couple of weeks ago, Leonard Cohen released a new album, You Want It Darker.  Given the lyrics of the title song, it's hard to imagine that he didn't know his time was short.

If so, then I think it can be said that he went out on his own terms.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:54 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 660 words, total size 5 kb.

Vascilating Back To Normal

Of late, things have gotten a little off-track here at The Pond.  First came the tragic news about SDB, which threw the place into a funk.  Then there was the whole Cubs winning the World Series thing.  Following each game of the playoffs closely tended to eat up entire evenings and nights, setting me up with little time to sleep, let alone blog.  Fall anime got ignored, too... even Hibike! Euphonium 2 got left at the wayside, for heaven's sake.  I've gotten caught up on that, and I'm trying to figure out a three-episode YWA, just to bring that feature back to speed. 

It's a mess around here right now, but these have been extraordinary times.  Just bear with me.  Again.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:43 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 125 words, total size 1 kb.

Cubswatch 2016: Reflection

Now that it's been a few days since the Chicago Cubs won the 2016 World Series, I can look back and talk about the whole thing with something like restraint.  Before now, just thinking "the Cubs won the World Series" would make me break out in a huge grin and a case of the giggles.  My boss, who is also a big Cubs fan, played Eddie Vetter's love song to the Cubs, Someday We'll Go All The Way, over the intercom and it was everything I could do to not cry again.

Truth be told, it still makes me tear up.  Anyway... where was I?  Oh, right, the Cubs won the World Series, their first in 108 years.  Did you see the movie Bull Durham?  Do you remember Baseball Annie's opening monologue?  Specifically the part where she says "...there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and 108 stitches in a baseball"?  Almost enough to make you believe in things like curses and stuff like that.  Which I don't.  Never have.  It's never been about the Goat, or Bartman, or stuff like that.  It's been about lousy team management that cared more about making money than winning ballgames.  Once a real owner came on board, he hired the best people to rebuild the team from ground zero. 

And they did.  They based their team of the future around a core of hitters in the minors like Kris Bryant, Kyle Schwarber, Willson Contreras, Jorge Soler, Addison Russell, and Javier Baez, sprinkled in some veterans like David Ross, Ben Zobrist, Anthony Rizzo, and Dexter Fowler, and then went out and obtained a pitching staff.  Not one of the Cubs starters came up through the organization... and it worked.  Obviously.  The Chicago Cubs won the World Series!

The victory parade and rally on Friday saw an estimated five million fans gather along the parade route and in Grant Park.  If that number is accurate, and it's anybody's guess if it is, it is the seventh-largest peaceful gathering of people worldwide in history.  It's the largest gathering in American history.  But to get to that point, the Cubs had to win a Game 7 against the Indians, a game that went to extra innings after they blew a 6-3 lead.  A rain delay gave the team a chance to recover their wits and score twice in the top of the 10th.  And when MVP-in-waiting Kris Bryant fielded a grounder with a smile on his face and threw it over to Anthony Rizzo at first, the Cubs had finally won one for not only themselves, but for their fans.

I'll freely admit to showing more emotion after they beat the Dodgers to earn a trip to the World Series.  After this game, I was exhausted... the way the game whipsawed back and forth was emotionally draining.  The final out was as much relief as triumph.  On paper, there was very little way the Indians could hang with the Cubs, particularly after losing two of their starting pitchers... but the playoffs usually aren't about the best team, but the hottest.  The Indians had been very hot indeed, taking three of the first four games in the series, but the depth of the Cubs showed.  One could argue that the Cubs got hot, but it really was more a case of the better team winning.  Make no mistake, the Cubs were the better team.  In fact, they had been the best team in baseball all season long.  It was only during a stretch in July when they played something like 28 games in 28 days just before the All-Star Break that they didn't have the best record in baseball, relinquishing it to the Texas Rangers for a week or so.  Beyond that, they were a massive steamroller.  Some people have suggested that this triumph changes the Cubs... that they've now lost their identity as the "lovable losers", the butt of all jokes, the "wait 'til next year" that never comes.  Maybe so.

I'm okay with that.  I haven't been happy like this since 2009.  Because 40+ years of fandom have finally been rewarded.  The Cubs have won the World Series. 

The Cubs have won the World Series.

The Cubs have won the World Series.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:53 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 741 words, total size 5 kb.

Cubswatch 2016: Eamus Catuli! AC 0000000

The Chicago Cubs have won the World Series for the first time in 108 years.  I'm laughing and crying at the same time. 

I am not exaggerating when I say that this is one of the greatest moments of my life. 

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:48 PM | Comments (58) | Add Comment
Post contains 50 words, total size 1 kb.

Cubswatch 2016: "...And We'll See You Tomorrow Night!"

A few days ago, the Cubs were down three games to one to the Indians in the World Series, and they looked like they deserved to be down three games to one.  And then the Cubs did what they've done all year: win.  Which brought us to tonight: the Indians were throwing Josh Tomlin, who made the Boys in Blue look silly earlier.  And they were back in Cleveland, in front of a full house at what might be the loudest stadium in baseball.  Cubs fans everywhere were torqued down so tight it was hard to breathe.  The tension was unbearable.  For two batters.  Then Kris Bryant came up.

433 feet later, the Cubs had the lead.  By the end of the first inning, the Cubs had scored three runs and Cubs fans everywhere began to relax slightly.  By the time Addison Russell hit a grand slam in the third to make it 7-0, Cubs fans began to smile grimly.  One game for all the marbles on Wednesday.  The Indians will send their ace Corey Kluber out on short rest to face the Cubs Kyle Hendricks, 2016's ERA champion, going on normal rest.  I like those odds.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:05 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
Post contains 206 words, total size 1 kb.

Long Draining Week

This week probably could have been worse, and I'm extremely relieved that it wasn't.  Steven's death has hit me harder than I expected, even though as last week's research went on it became obvious that bad things were likely.  Still, its weighed heavily upon my furrowed brow.

Tuesday, I had jury duty.  I was originally called back in April, but I postponed it twice "because of my job".  It wasn't untrue, I just would have rather pushed claims than go do jury stuff.  Not that I'm opposed to doing my civic duty... I've been called four, now five, times after all.  Except I know plenty of people who haven't ever been summoned, why not give them a chance?  Ah well.  So Tuesday morning found me in downtown Duckford, trudging my way to the County Courthouse, barely noticing how gray the environment looked.  Anywhodles, I made it to the holding pen for us fortunate folk, and was exposed to an hour of HGTV banality.  And here I was, thinking I was doing something good for the community.  Instead, I was clearly being punished.  Eventually we had to sit through a video on how wonderful jury duty is, which was a mixed blessing.  On one hand, HGTV was turned off.  On the other, a video made by people who had never even heard of the concept of "acting", let alone doing it professionally.  After another hour, during which time I started Max Hasting's Battle for the Falklands, then promptly dozed off.  Then a judge appeared in our midst!  Turns out the threat of a jury trial caused the defendant to strike a deal... turns out it was a felony case we had been summoned for, one that the judge had expected to take all week.  Oy.  So as it turned out, my jury duty lasted just under three hours.  I promptly came back to Pond Central and went back to sleep.  And then the Cubs lost the first game of the World Series.  They did come back to take the second, which is exactly what you'd want when you start on the road.

Wednesday and Thursday were terrible at work.  A mixture of garbage claims and worsening problems on the client's end made processing any claim a (pardon the pun) trial.  Until, inevitably, the client's server farm caught fire just before it fell over into the swamp.  Wednesday, after an hour of literally sitting around doing nothing, we were sent home in late afternoon. Thursday was more of the same, without sitting around for an hour.  Now it was only 15 - 20 minutes at a time.  But today!  Today, the server farm, stacked on top of the other farms in the swamp, didn't fall over!  Too bad all it was serving up was reversal after corrected claim after "screw you, here's a thirty line, $25000 total corrected claim... in Barzani Jewish Neo-Aramaic!"

And now the Cubs have lost Game Three of the World Series, and I have 10 hours of overtime to do next week.  The two are not related, but I just had to say something.  The week could have been worse.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:10 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 525 words, total size 4 kb.

The Crying Of The Catgirls: SDB

Steven Den Beste was not the reason I became a blogger.

But if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have been a blogger for long.  I began Wonderduck's Pond back in July of 2005, primarily as a way to entertain the Official First Reader of The Pond, Mallory, with expanded versions of the Formula 1 emails I sent her.  Along the way, I began to work some anime into the mix.  The Pond muddled along, read by practically nobody, for a couple of years.

And then something odd happened.  Steven linked to one of my posts and people came from Chizumatic to read it.  Then he did it again.  And again.  Every time he did, people came to read what he linked, some stayed around, and by The Pond's glory years of 2010/11, I was getting perhaps 5000 real hits/day.

I doubt that he ran an intentional campaign to send readers here, but that was the effect.  Because HE had a loyal fanbase that made almost all other animeblogs look small.  A link from him would be a boon for a small blog.  A permanent place on his small blogroll made you.  I was tremendously flattered when he put The Pond there ten years ago.

Which is not to say that all was sweetness and light.  He and I had a few arguments, some blog-based, some e-mail.  He could be an irascible old coot, entirely unwilling to change his opinion on something once he got it in his head.  He refused to say much about his health... when I e-mailed him once to see how he was doing, he wrote back saying that people who asked that weren't really interested so he wouldn't say.  I suspect a lot of his "cootness" stemmed from his old USS Clueless days, when he was hated by roughly half the blogosphere.  Death threats weren't unheard of.  And if you knew what's best for you, you never ever made suggestions.

All of this was part of a brilliant thinker that also had the ability to take those thoughts and write them legibly.  He didn't do straight humor very much, perhaps his only weakness and perhaps the only category I would say I was at least his equal in.  Everything else, however?  There's a reason he was one of the first bloggers to wind up published semi-occasionally in the mainstream media.  When I started The Pond, one of my conscious decisions was to never write about politics.  There were plenty of people writing about politics out there, and they were infinitely better at it than myself.  When I thought that, I was thinking about Steven in particular.

Over the years, I know he and I became friends despite never having met.  He became a Formula 1 fan due to my writings, almost against his will.  When I first thought about closing this place down, he was the first to say that he'd miss reading what I wrote.  Imagine that: a legend of the medium saying he'd miss my writing.  He was a willing participant in the continuing story of the Anatidae Liberation Front, a bit of whimsy that never failed to amuse the hell out of me.  His last comment here at The Pond was about the history of failure that surrounds the Cubs, a common theme from him. 

This afternoon brought the news that the man I was pleased to call my friend, Steven Den Beste, had passed away. 

I'm going to miss reading what he wrote.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:15 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 588 words, total size 4 kb.

Cubswatch 2016: Seven!

The Chicago Cubs are going to the World Series.

Holy crepe, I don't believe I finally got to type those words.

Kyle Hendricks threw a gem against the Dodgers tonight, pitching 7.1 innings of shutout baseball.  He was relieved by Aroldis Chapman, who got a sweet double play to end the game.  On offense, they beat the crepe out of the best pitcher in baseball, hitting two homers and scoring five runs off Clayton Kershaw.  It was never close.

Next up, the Cubs will be facing the Cleveland Indians.  First game of the World Series will be Tuesday.  Seven down, four to go!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:15 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 108 words, total size 1 kb.

Cubswatch 2016: Six!

21 innings without scoring a run has been forgotten, that's for sure!

Addison Russell hit his second homer in two nights to give the Cubs a 3-1 lead in the sixth inning. Two innings later, they broke it open with five runs, and ultimately cruised to a 8-4 victory over the Dodgers.  They now have a three-games to two lead in this best of seven series as the NLCS moves back to Wrigley for a possible clinching game on Saturday.  Six down, five to go!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:50 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 89 words, total size 1 kb.

Cubswatch 2016: Finally Five!

The last two games in this here NLCS were kinda grim.  The first time the Cubs had ever been shut out two games running in the playoffs.  Including the first few innings of this game, they reached 21 straight innings without scoring a run.  And then this happened:

Now that's the curbstompin' Cubs we've come to know and love during the regular season!  More importantly, Anthony Rizzo and Addison Russell, both mired in post-season long slumps, broke out tonight.  Both went deep to lead the team to victory and tied the series 2 - 2.  Seeing Rizzo start to hit is good news for the Cubbies indeed, for while Kris Bryant is probably going to be the MVP of the league, Rizzo is the guy that leads the team.  With him hitting, this team just doesn't lose very often.  Five down, six to go!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 12:03 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 151 words, total size 1 kb.

Cubswatch 2016: Four!

When everybody is looking up and out...

...say it with me: you know it's gone.  The Dodgers intentionally loaded the bases with two outs to bring up the pitcher's spot in the order.  Which, at the moment, was occupied by the Cubs ace closer Aroldis Chapman.  Manager Joe Maddon brought in pinch-hitter Miguel Montero.  There was some question as to whether Montero would make the roster for the NLCS, for he was suffering from a sore back, but he talked his way on.  And then he hit a pinch-hit grand slam on a 0-2 count, putting the Cubs ahead 7-3. 

If you've followed the Cubs this season, you knew what was coming.  They've already hit a granny, why not add on?  Center fielder Dexter Fowler, who had already had a spectacular catch under his belt, went back-to-back to make make it 8-3.  That the Dodgers scored a run in the top of the ninth meant nothing in the end.  The Cubs won it 8-4, in a game that also had a Javy Baez steal of home.  Four down, seven to go!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:49 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 185 words, total size 2 kb.

Cubswatch 2016: And THAT Makes Three!

Last night, the Giants beat the Cubs in 13 innings to stay alive in the NLDS.  Tonight, they were ahead 5-2 in the 9th inning, at home, with their closer coming in.

And then magic occurred.

The Cubs scored four runs in the top of the 9th, their closer, Aroldis Chapman, came in and struck out the side, and not one pitch was below 100mph.  Next up is the winner of the Dodgers / Nationals series.  The NLCS starts Saturday.  Three down, eight to go.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:48 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 95 words, total size 1 kb.

Cubswatch 2016: That's Two.

When everybody is looking up and out...

...you know it's gone.  Kinda like a repeat of Game 1, except this home run was hit by relief pitcher Travis Wood to make score 5-2.  In doing so, he became the first reliever since 1924 to hit a playoff home run.  In fact, Cubs pitchers drove in three runs by themselves.  Unlike last night, this game never felt like it was ever in danger of getting away from them.  That's more like it!  Two down, nine to go.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:34 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 91 words, total size 1 kb.

Cubswatch 2016: That's One.

When everybody is looking up and out...

...you know it's gone.  Javy Baez took Johnny Cueto to the basket in left to break a scoreless tie in the bottom of the eighth.  That's the way the game ended, Cubs 1, Giants 0.  One down, ten to go.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:34 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 52 words, total size 1 kb.

Thank You For Your Service

Gather 'round my good and dear, for I have a tale to spin for you.  It is a tale of long and unprecedented attention to duty, a saga of unswerving loyalty, a story of honor and faithfulness.  It is the story of a light bulb.

Not just any light bulb, however.  No, it's the story of a compact fluorescent lamp that put any other CFL to shame.  It began its life in the manufactury of Feit Electric, item number BPESL13T/R, a red party bulb.  It sat on the shelf at a Walgreens here in Duckford, waiting to provide service to whomever purchased it.  And waiting.  And waiting.

In October of 2005, I had a Cardiac Incident that sent me to the hospital, wondering if I was going to live or not.  I did, of course, but I did not escape the incident unscathed.  For a long time after, as I lay in bed trying to sleep, I would unintentionally concentrate on my heartbeat, freaking out slightly with every slight unsteadiness.  I began to worry about what would happen if I had to call the EMTs late at night but couldn't get out of bed.  I decided to leave a light on as I slept, but that was a problem.  I don't sleep well when there's light in the room, but it had to be bright enough for someone unfamiliar with the layout of Pond Central to be able to see the way to my bedroom.  Oddly enough, or maybe not so oddly if you know me, it was the US Navy that gave me an idea.

The Combat Information Center on Navy warships are routinely kept dark, with only dim red lights glowing.  The red light protects night vision while providing enough illumination to see what the heck you're doing... exactly what I was looking for.  Now I just needed to find a red light bulb.

The first one I purchased was a regular incandescent bulb, a little too bright, not really red enough for my purposes, and it stank to high heaven.  Undoubtedly the "dip" on the bulb, cooking from the inside out.  Unacceptable.  I searched the usual Home Improvement places, no joy whatsoever.  I knew there were red bulbs out there somewhere, I just had to find them! 

And then, one night after work, I stopped into my local Walgreens for... something.  I don't remember what anymore.  But what I actually got was that red CFL from Feit Electric.  I got home, put it in the artsy bakelite-like lamp a cousin gave me for Christmas the year before, and turned it on in the dining room.  Perfect.  Bright, but not so bright that it was going to bother my sleep in the next room over.  The rest of the apartment had a nice reddish glow to it, too.  Couldn't have done it better myself.  Leaving the light on, I moved on to other things.

For nearly ELEVEN YEARS that light was left on.  It was off only if the power went out or when I was vacuuming during the summer; the big fan was using the other outlet at that point, and I'd just unplug the light and plug it back in when I was done with the room.  According to the fact sheet for good ol' BPESL13T/R, it was supposed to have a lifespan of 8000 hours.  It passed that mark during the first year.  After eleven years, it would have been on for right around 96000 hours.  A few years ago, I realized just how incredible the performance of this thing was, and I began to wonder which of us would die first.  Until that time came, I let it do its job.  And it did, hour after hour, day after day, never weakening, never flagging, just illuminating the apartment for my entertainment and safety.

This morning, around 3am, I woke up.  Not entirely however... I was in that nice "mostly awake, partially zonked" state.  Rolling over to check the time, I noticed that it was VERY dark.  Not just in my bedroom, but out in the living room as well... and my brain processed that as "power outage."  Never mind that the fan in my bedroom was howling away at full speed and the alarm clock was glowing redly on my desk, the power must be out.  I fell back to sleep almost immediately.

This morning, I got out of bed, verified the power was not, in fact, out, and realized that the time I had long dreaded had finally come.  The seemingly undying red light, the light that has served me so well for so long, had finally ceased its efforts on my behalf. 

Another red CFL has taken its place in the lamp.  But it's not the same.  Nothing will be able to replace that BPESL13T/R.  Thank you for your service, little light.  You will always have a place of honor in my heart, and after I find a suitable ribbon, on my christmas tree.  Thank you.  I was lucky to have you.  Rest now.

You did well.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 07:58 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 850 words, total size 5 kb.

It's Book Review Time!

A while ago, J Greely of .Clue mentioned that an old series of Star Trek books was available in omnibus form, bringing back fond memories of Ensign Rock and Romulan history and much derring-do from characters other than the bridge crew of the Enterprise.  This reminded me that old novels that I haven't thought about in decades were available at the click of a mouse.  I didn't actually act on that information right away, but it was there. 

Somewhat recently, a NPR report mentioned that "Father Andrew Greeley" passed away in 2013.  I knew the name, but I couldn't place it exactly.  When I got home, I hied myself off to google, and suddenly it all came to me... the Writing Priest from Chicago!  Of course.  And I had even read one of his novels, to boot... and remembered enjoying it, too, a very long time ago.  A few clicks later, and it was on its way here.  It took a few days to get to it, but once I did it went quickly and in a pleasant manner.  I last read God Game (1986) when it was only a few years old and some of it is amusingly dated, but despite that it holds together nicely.  The main character is a Chicago Catholic priest that's asked by a relative to playtest a computer game he's working on.  Duke and Dutchess is big, coming on a whopping eight floppy discs, and the "fast" version is designed to run on computers using the new 286 processor.  It's interactive fiction that the player can control, with at least 50 possible endings., limited animation, and a huge vocabulary of commands available.  And if you hook it up to your TV, it's in color, too!  In a small swords & sorcery world, there's two warring nations, ruled by the game's titular characters... and from there, it's up to the player to decide where the story will go.  The first night he starts in on the game, a big thunderstorm rolls in off Lake Michigan, and as he's playing lightning strikes his C-band satellite dish.  When the power comes back on, he finds that the graphics are now exceedingly lifelike, and that the characters now consider him as their God... or something like it, at least.  Suddenly the game has become all too real... imagine a cross between The Sims, Civilization, and a Visual Novel coming to life.

While God Game is primarily a fantasy novel, as you can imagine the philosophical conundrums of playing God (or being an author, which the narrator equates to being the same thing) play a large part in the story.  While interesting, it's the actions of the game's secondary characters that are of the greatest interest.  Their contact with "God" is quite personal, hearing his commands directly when directed at them, so it comes as no surprise that they talk back.  They consider themselves to be worthy of elevation to main character status, and work to get to that point... or not, depending.  But then they start showing up in the Player's bedroom in late night dreams, to have a talk with their God.  One of them has a fondness for Bailey's Irish Creme, but when the narrator wakes in the morning, there's an empty bottle on the end table...  And why do the secondary characters' events in the game start spilling over into the Real World?

In many ways, God Game is a delivery vehicle for a sermon on the perils of hubris and cause & effect.  However, much the way Robert Heinlein couched his lectures in Starship Troopers in an action novel, Greeley succeeds in masking the preaching (pardon the pun) in an entertaining story.  It's light enough fare to read casually, but you get out of it what you put in to reading the book.  There's quite a bit of meat here, particularly if you're a player of RPGs or so-called "4X" titles.  Actually, I wonder if Sid Meier or Wil Wright have read God Game.  It wouldn't surprise me much if they had.  A very good read on many levels.

Similarly, I was doing some research on Scapa Flow, the Royal Navy base in Scotland, when I came across a reference to the Picts.  That reminded me of another book I had read around the same time as God Game, a rollicking bundle of violence and sex called Calgaich The Swordsman.  Unlike the first book I reviewed in this post, however, there's absolutely no philosophy or introspection in this one... nor should there be: it's not that type of novel. 

Calgaich is a part-Celtic, part-Roman swordsman, raised in one world but due to his Roman side, having served in the Roman Auxilaries.  Exiled for killing a fellow warrior, the book begins with him returning to Scotland for the first time in years.  Blood soon soaks the pages as he hacks, slashes, stabs, chokes, spears, punches and kicks his way through Pictish war bands and tribesmen displeased that he killed the son of the now-chief.  He's soon off to Hadrian's Wall to rescue his elderly father, the prior chief, from the hands of the Romans.  Eventually, he is caught and shipped to Rome to become fodder for the Games.  Along the way, he meets other colorful prisoners, all of them skilled fighters, and he's already making plans to escape...

Gordon D Shirreffs was primarily a writer of Westerns novels, churning out more than 80 of them in a career that spanned some 40 years.   Four of his novels were turned into films, including John Wayne's Rio Bravo.   Unsurprisingly, Calgaich has many similarities to a Western, with showdowns of honor, bravery, revenge, and lots of dead bodies left in the dust.  Surprisingly, the book seems rather well researched, not that I know anything about Scottish history or much about the Romans in Brittania.  Shirreffs was Scottish by birth, moving to America in his youth, so it's unsurprising that he knows enough about the history to make it read convincingly.  In the end however, Calgaich is a Conan knockoff, but an entertaining enough one.  In the long run, the book would be totally forgettable save for the historical footnote of being the first novel released by Playboy Press.  I bought this from a used book store while looking for D&D-style books, so the rather lusty sex scenes came as something of a surprise, as did the tone being more realistic than what I was expecting.  It's not a bad book, honestly, but it's pretty much disposable pulp.  I like it more because of the memories I had of it than any particular qualities it may have.  It's certainly worth the $.25 you're likely to spend online for it... leastwise, that's what I spent for it!

So there you have it!  A couple of old novels from the reading history of Wonderduck... enjoy, won't you?

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:00 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 1150 words, total size 8 kb.

Just For Laffs

I'm working on a couple of reviews, but they're taking longer than I expected to complete.  So, instead of just having the MiniDisc story at the top, I'm going to put some short videos that made me laugh here.

The death of rational discourse in video form.


This edit is almost as good.  Ditto with this one.


Important information we all need to know.

My sense of humor seems to be "low".

Posted by: Wonderduck at 12:26 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 75 words, total size 1 kb.

Well, I Tell Ya...

A few weeks ago, I had a doctor's appointment.  Mainly it was for the annual drug review... my prescription for the Keep Wonderduck Alive pills had run out... but while I was there, I had a little chat with Dr Red.  I explained to him how I was having problems staying awake at work, how I'd close my eyes and almost immediately almost fall asleep. 

Sure, like most adults in the United States, I don't get enough sleep, but it's not like I'm trying to operate on three hours and a can of Red Bull either.  I don't mind dozing off when I'm at home, but when I could be canned for sleeping on the job, it's kind of a bother.  So Doc Red took a gander down my throat (and how it fit, I'll never know), hemmed and hawed for a short time, then suggested that there's a good chance I have sleep apnea.  Well, that'd explain a lot... if my quality of sleep sucks, the quantity doesn't matter much.

So there's maybe a sleep study in my future sometime... nothing like sleeping in a strange bed while wired for sound with medical-like people watching you.  Actually, there are people who'd pay good money for just that for fun, probably.  Not like I know anything about that or anything.  Nope, not me.  Uh-uh.  But before that, there's something else we're trying: antidepressants.

Yup, I gave up.  I realized that I wasn't getting better mentally, so it was time to start taking the happy pills again.  It's been just over three weeks, and the only effect I've felt so far is the worst case of cottonmouth you can have without being a snake.  But it takes at least that long for it to start taking effect, so... yeah.  There ya go.  The thinking is that if I'm not so depressed, I'll be able to concentrate better and less likely to doze off.  Who knows, it might even work that way!  There is a part of me that feels like I'm a weakling for needing such help, but... well.  Piffle.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:38 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 353 words, total size 2 kb.