The time has come, once again, to Ask Wonderduck (almost) Anything!  In this semi-irregular featurette of The Pond, you the reader get to Ask Wonderduck (almost) Anything!, and I promise to answer to the best of my ability!

There are a couple of restrictions, of course.  I won't answer questions involving religion or politics... there are plenty of people out there who cover those topics infinitely better than I ever could, and I created The Pond specifically to be a place without such things.  Also, while I'm not opposed to answering personal questions, I withhold the right to tell you to buzz off.  Finally, there are many, many things in this world that I am not an expert, talented amateur, or even clueless n00b, regarding.  If you ask me a question like "how do I convert my car from using tires to running on tank treads," I'll do my best to answer correctly but I make no promises... no blaming me when you wind up stuffed into the side of a hill, upside down and on fire.

In the past, people have Asked Wonderduck why sloths don't live forever, why domesticated ducks are albinos, and was I planning on watching the Kancolle anime, and many many other things besides.  So now it's your turn...

Ask Wonderduck (almost) Anything!!!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:04 PM | Comments (28) | Add Comment
Post contains 225 words, total size 1 kb.

If you like Top Gear, but you didn't hoist the black flag for the new episode, I encourage you to make sure to catch it on BBC America on Monday evening.  The "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car" segment is, I think, the best they've had since Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz were on in 2011.  I'm not going to mention who the star is, but if you've ever trusted Wonderduck on anything, and god help you if you have, trust me on this.  The rest of the episode is kinda meh, but the SiaRPC is great fun.

If you did go all jolly roger on the episode, best not to mention the participants until Monday night, eh?

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:11 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 126 words, total size 1 kb.

The meandering blechs never really improved, and being CREATIVE!!! turned out to be more than I could deal with.  Now I'm dealing with the sort of headache that makes one wonder how best to remove one's own head with all due haste.

Maybe tonight there will be creativity.  I hope so.  I want this project done.  If it works, it's gonna be swell!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 03:10 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 66 words, total size 1 kb.

I'm dealing with a case of the meandering blechs, but I intend to plow through that and do something creative and exciting tonight.  After the nap I'm about to take, that is.  The "something" is what I've been hinting at for a while that I've just needed motivation for, and tonight, I've decided to make my own motivation.  Hooray for artificial ups!

Since I'm not one to leave y'all hangin' with nuthin', here's something else.

Vaucaunson's Duck has just fallen out of his chair.  Again.  GreyDuck is nodding his head.  But then, they've both heard this before.  Hopefully you, the neophyte listener, will enjoy this cover of the O'Jays classic "Back Stabbers" by the Last Gentlemen.  And if you've heard this version before, make yourself known!

Off to nap... Artistry Awaits Beyond!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 04:16 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 135 words, total size 1 kb.

So, yeah, I'm dead.  Mostly.  Kinda.  Pretty much.  It's not entirely easy to explain, but its not like I'm going anywhere soon, so I'll give it a shot.

I died on some battlefield somewhere.  I'm not entirely sure I ever actually knew where we were, even when I was alive.  Being in the sort of state I'm in tends to mess with the memories some.  That whole "dead" thing, y'know?  Anyway, yeah, battlefield.  We'd been advancing pretty steadily all day, like the bad guys weren't going to fight for the place.  Would have been a smart move, actually.  From where I was standing, all that the place had to offer anymore was craters and dirt.  Still, there we were, so there must have been something worthwhile.  That's what I tell myself, anyway. 

It wasn't until the artillery started to fall that we had any evidence the bad guys were even still around.  We weren't letting our guards down or anything; most of us had been around the block a few times already, and those that hadn't followed our lead.  When the first rounds screamed down, most of us ended up in craters of varying sizes.  Lucky me, I was in the only stretch of land around without a shellhole handy.  You can dig awfully fast when you need to, though, and soon enough I had cover.

Which was exactly what they wanted us to do, of course.  Didn't take long before I heard what sounded like a million bees heading towards me, followed by some confused orders.  One voice, sounded like the LT, said to get up and counterattack.  Another said to fall back... that one sounded like God Himself, which meant it was Sarge.  He wasn't trying to do it, it's just the way his voice rumbled.  Not that we'd laugh about it around him but hearing him in the mess hall, asking for another dish of pudding, was the most amazing thing ever.  Some of the unit did one thing, some did the other.  Me?  I somehow managed to split the difference, slowly moving to the rear while firing steadily and calling in a contact report to the intel weenies.

Sure enough, the "million bees" were fantanks.  The official name is a lot longer, but we just called them fantanks.  Hovercraft that can go anywhere, and can do it fast.  Good guns, too, just not a lot of armor.  They swept in, volley fired, then scooted away before we could really respond.  If that wasn't enough, the arty came back, this time with rockets mixed in for good measure.  Through my helmet link, I saw the names of my squadmates flashing red or going out altogether, and I had just a moment to swear before the bees came back and suddenly there was a hole in me big enough to throw a small dog through.

The powered suit we wore was a marvelous piece of equipment.  Armored against most light arms, impressive mobility, boosted strength, environmental protection, and a built-in trauma center to boot.  If you had an arm blown off at the elbow, it'd snip the damage off, seal the wound to keep you from bleeding to death, pump you full of happypills, and call for pickup, all of it almost before you knew you'd been hurt.  Bullet hole from some armor piercing round?  Seal-and-heal man, seal-and-heal.  But what can it do when a round the size of a can of soup punches a through-and-through just below the ribs?  It didn't hurt anywhere near as bad as I thought something like that would, probably because the round took my spinal column with it. 

Bless the creators of the suit, though: it tried.  It pumped the hole full of the sealing foam, so it looked like I had banana cream pie embedded in my torso.  It shot an entire pharmacy's worth of drugs into me, and even as I blacked out it was calling for my emergency pickup.  As it turns out, my contact report saved me.  Well, no, but you know what I mean.  The officers behind the line saw that the bad guys were trying to break out through our position and moved to reinforce us even before I was hit.  A couple of minutes after I went down, suit screaming for pickup, I was in the hands of the medics and the bad guys were on the run.

Didn't really help me, though.  I was dead.

more...

Posted by: Wonderduck at 01:36 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 2748 words, total size 17 kb.

I woke up this morning feeling not all that chipper.  Took a shower, felt a little better.  Just a few minutes ago, I realized that I felt horrible... headache, bodyache, stomachache, sinusache, acheache.  As a result, everything I was going to get done today is being bumped to the back burner... which includes the Kantai Collection Ep04 writeup.  I'm sure somewhere, someone is feeling terrible yet working through it... "I may as well feel awful at work and get paid for it"... but I did that for years at the Bookstore and look where it got me.  Oh, and I'm not getting paid to blog, am I?  So here's this instead:

Probably better for you anyway.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 01:33 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 119 words, total size 1 kb.

1 Ah, you went and got a flue shot, didn't you?  

Posted by: Ben at January 29, 2015 06:37 PM (S4UJw)

2 Aw, you contracted the blarg. Feel better soon, man!

Posted by: GreyDuck at January 29, 2015 10:34 PM (AQ0bN)

3 ...you went and got a flue shot...

On the plus side, my fireplace works much better now.

Posted by: Wonderduck at January 30, 2015 12:08 AM (jGQR+)

4 When is flue hunting season?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at January 30, 2015 01:12 AM (+rSRq)

5 Ba-dum tish.

One of these days, I'll learn to stop commenting with my phone.

Posted by: Ben at January 30, 2015 02:22 AM (S4UJw)

6 That's some nice cheesecake.   Are you going to cover the Formula 1 pre-season at all this year?

Posted by: David at February 01, 2015 02:52 PM (+TPAa)

7 Workin' on it... I don't have quite the drive for it this season, but the F1 Pr0n is a-comin'.

Posted by: Wonderduck at February 01, 2015 07:49 PM (jGQR+)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Today would have been Momzerduck's 70th birthday.  I don't know how good a son I was to her, but I know she was the greatest mom I could have ever asked for.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 04:57 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 35 words, total size 1 kb.

Instead of doing something constructive, I decided to add two new categories to The Pond's sidebar!  Please welcome "Music" and "Anime Writeups"!  In the process of going through every single post ever made here at The Pond, I realized something that really surprised me... Ga-Rei Zero was not my first Episodic Writeup!  I had forgotten about one six episode omake that I had covered.  Which one?  Ah, that would be telling!  Fortunately, you can now easily find out by clicking on "anime writeups" on the sidebar!  It's like a library for The Pond's back content.

Just with fewer guns.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:23 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 101 words, total size 1 kb.

The man known as "Mr Cub", Ernie Banks, passed away this evening.  He was just short of his 84th birthday.

He joined the Cubs in 1953, becoming the team's first black player.  He played every game of his career with the Northsiders, over 2500 and hitting 512 home runs along the way.  He was the first National League player to win back-to-back MVP awards, 1958 and 1959.  He retired in 1971, and was elected into the Hall of Fame in 1977.

I met Ernie Banks once.  No, that makes it sound like it was more intimate than it really was.  I attended a Cubs game and he was riding a golf cart up one of the ramps in the stadium, obviously headed for a luxury box or the broadcasting area or whatever.  As he approached, I waved and said "Good day, Ernie?"  The permanent smile on his face got even larger than normal and he said "Great day!" and high-fived me as he rode by.  From all reports, that wasn't artifice.  For Ernie Banks, every day was a great day.  Cub fans, and baseball fans everywhere, have lost a paragon of the sport.  The world is a lesser place without him in it.

Let's play two.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:03 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 209 words, total size 1 kb.

In the final year of the 1980s, two of the biggest bands in Britain if not the world were imploding. 

The Smiths were a band that sounded like their songwriters were constantly on the edge of jumping off the highest building in Manchester.  This resonated with listeners and critics both, and they were hailed as "the most influential British guitar group of the decade."  They eschewed the keyboard and synth excesses of the time, instead concentrating on an echo-and-minor-key guitar-based sound.  Despite independent success unlike any seen before, the band split in 1987 from internal pressures.

New Order was formed from tragedy.  When the lead singer of Manchester-based "post-punk" band Joy Division hanged himself on the verge of the band's first North American tour in 1980, the survivors reformed as New Order.  Throughout the '80s, the band mixed what we'd call "alternative music" now and electronic dance music to create a critically acclaimed and influential sound that left major fingerprints on modern techno.  However, the various members all had audio interests that wouldn't fit the band's style.  Side projects were common, with a resulting loss of time for the main group.  Stumbling to the end, New Order broke up in 1993.

But in 1989, lead singer Bernard Sumner was wanting to add more synth programming to New Order, and was rebuffed.  He took to the recording studio alone, intending to make an "anonymous" album of whatever he felt like, but came to a discovery early on: he hated working alone.  Picking up the telephone, Sumner called Johnny Marr, the ex-guitarist of The Smiths, and asked for his input.  The two created a track, entitled "Lucky Bag", all loops and electronic drumkits, and called themselves Electronic.  If it had stopped there, Electronic would have been an interesting non-entity, a footnote in music history if that.  But of course it didn't... I wouldn't be writing about it if it had, right?

more...

Posted by: Wonderduck at 12:18 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 673 words, total size 5 kb.

I've got some pictures to take, and I've got a videogame I want to play.  So, here's some cheesecake to keep you entertained until I'm done with that.

I've always spoken highly of cheesecake.  A nice graham-cracker crust is what makes it.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 04:43 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 46 words, total size 1 kb.

I'm not feeling all that swell.  While I slowly work on the Kantai Collection Ep02 writeup, here's something that should put a smile on anybody's face... CORGISPINNING!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 02:12 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 29 words, total size 1 kb.

I've been sitting here, staring at the blank "new post" screen for nearly 10 minutes, trying to figure out what I want to write about... and failing.  Actually, it's not that I don't have anything to write about; I can always do a First Episode Writeup, or something along those lines.  The so-called problem is that I want to post something tonight, not something that's going to take a long time to do... particularly with Ep02 of KanColle airing on Wednesday: that takes priority on the writeup front.

So, since I'm just going back and forth between nothing and nada, here's an appropriate picture.

How are you?

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:13 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 114 words, total size 1 kb.

On Saturday, January 3rd, I had a late lunch with Ph.Duck, then went to the store to lay in some foodstocks.  I knew the weather was going to be taking a turn for the ugly, so I wanted to make sure I'd have enough supplies for it.  It began to snow that evening, and continued off and on through Sunday night.  Once it stopped, the skies cleared, the temperatures plummeted and the winds began to pick up.  Indeed, there was a winter weather advisory due to blowing and drifting snow on Monday, and the temps continued to fall on Tuesday.  Wednesday, we were forecasted to have a high of -3°F and windchills around negative forty.  It never actually got that warm.  Thursday was much the same, just with higher winds.  Friday, it made it above zero for the first time since midday Tuesday... not by much, and the winds still made it feel ridiculously cold, but yay for positive numbers!  Saturday, January 10th, it snowed some more, but the thermometer came close to 20... but high winds still made it feel stupidly cold.

Today, we might have just hit the freezing point, with light winds... and for the first time since January 3rd, I left my apartment. 

I got the snow off the Duckmobile, made sure it started after a week of ickycold (it did), then went back inside, where it was warm and comfy.  In some ways, it disturbs me that I was able to hermitize myself with so little fuss.  There were a few days where I didn't say a single word except for the traditional "Goodnight, duckie" to Lucky Duck, the little plush duckie that I was given in the hospital by Momzerduck.  He watches over me as I sleep to make sure I'm okay, and it's the least I can do to bid him goodnight.  But that's all I said.  No human contact beyond the internet, which is arguable, and sports talk radio, which has little to do with humanity.  I'll have to go out this week... I desperately need to do laundry, and I'm out of edible tastyyums... but I find myself reluctant to do so.  People, y'know?

Or perhaps you don't.  Good call.  I'm an outsider... you probably shouldn't be like me.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:53 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 380 words, total size 2 kb.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 02:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1 words, total size 1 kb.

So I just got a text message and a phone call from Duck U, telling me that they'll be closed on Wednesday.  Seems like I forgot to get myself removed from the emergency contact line.  Anyway, they're going to be closed tomorrow because of the high of -3°F with windchills of -40°F.

I just checked, and the same thing happened on the same date last year.  Huh.  It gets cold in January, go figure.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:46 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 77 words, total size 1 kb.

Have I missed anything yet?

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:10 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 9 words, total size 1 kb.

In the grand scheme of things, I believe it's safe to say that 2014 was very much a year to forget.

You folks made it easier to deal with.  For that, you have my thanks.  Thanks for reading, thanks for putting up with my vapors and complaints, thanks for sticking around and thanks for coming back. 

Let's hope for a 2015 where things get better.  I like that idea.  A lot.  I can do with a bit of better.

Anything you'd like to see from The Pond in the coming year?

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:34 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 95 words, total size 1 kb.

The torpedo plane post is going to be delayed until Monday Tuesday.  Two reasons for this:

1) I'm researching.  Dragging out the reference books, combing them for details, trying to make this one a decent effort instead of half-arsing it like I could do.

Everything from Salamander's Fighting Aircraft of World War II to ER Johnson's American Attack Aircraft Since 1926 are piled next to my computer, allowing quick and easy access for nigh-on any question I may have.  Research is fun!

2) I am in a nasty, evil mood.  It's the sort of mood where I am aware that I am going to be rude and bitter towards things, and I don't care.  This is carrying over to my writing.

So in lieu of putting out crap, I'm postponing the Torpedo Plane post until Monday.  It's better for everybody that way.  Trust me on this.  Or don't.  You are your own person, you don't have to trust me on anything.  But you'd be better off if you did.

We all would.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:10 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 175 words, total size 1 kb.

Here, have a Japanese carrier!

Pretty much based on the Shokaku-class, I think... but of course that means it could be based on the Soryu/Hiryu ships, too, since they were the basis for the design of the bigger ships.

Would you prefer an US carrier?

Easy enough: that's a Yorktown-class.  Even now after all these years I think the islands are on backwards.

Finally, the Brits!

Illustrious-class, seen here being torpedoes by one of her own Swordfish... I didn't mean to hit the [spacebar] on the run-in as I was maneuvering the camera around, but I did.  Well, that's one way to get around the armored flight-deck.

All pictures are from War Thunder, of course.  They certainly took their time modeling these things, even though at the moment we only see them briefly and in passing as targets or...

...when landing or taking off, a relatively rare occurrence.  Still, it gives you a new angle on the size of these things; to whit, not all that big.  Of course, the islands got larger as time went on, but in the late '30s?  Even the Americans had more-or-less small bridge areas.  Of course, the Japanese had teeny-tiny bridge structures, if they had any at all!  However, since I can't seem to actually LAND on a Japanese carrier right now, I don't have a close-up.  Oh well.

UPDATE:


For all it's problems, it is a pretty game.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 12:51 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
Post contains 238 words, total size 2 kb.

1 On the other hand, I've unlocked three T-34 variants and am enjoying things immensely on the ground end.

Definitely not well-balanced... the specs for the tanks themselves are pretty faithful, but the ammunition is another thing entirely. Part of this is because how damage is modeled. Shells with high explosive blow up and send lovely fragments all over the place, so a penetrating hit will do tons of damage within a vehicle. Conversely, solid-round penetrators do relatively little, because the game doesn't model armor spalling on high-velocity penetrations... so the fragments that would be going through crew and other important things don't exist, and you basically just make a neat hole, so if the bit you happened to shoot didn't have anything important behind it, you didn't end up doing any damage.

Same story for HEAT ammunition - you make a hole, but the effects of a superheated jet of molten metal in a confined space aren't modeled, so again, you have to aim directly at something important or there's no damage.

Soviet tanks usually have APHE ammunition, as well as upgraded APHE ammunition with better penetration. The advanced German (and US, mostly) penetrators are mostly solid or solid-fragmenting.

It's certainly not impossible to rack up a good run in a German vehicle, and even T-34s will come apart if you expose yourself recklessly. The Marder III is a particular favorite of mine so far... no turret, exposed crew, long reload time, but put a shell in the right place and that satisfying flying-turret cook-off is yours. Heck, even in the wrong place, the other guy is probably stunned, wounded, gun pointing in the wrong direction with a smashed breech and a locked turret ring, engine on fire, and your next shot will be paying a visit very shortly...

I oughta do a post on this and take some screenshots. Don't get me wrong, the game is a lot of fun, but if you take it too seriously as a simulation it will seriously harm your blood pressure.

Thanks for introducing me to it, Duck. The aerial stuff is plenty fun too!

Posted by: Avatar at December 26, 2014 07:59 PM (zJsIy)

2 I didn't mean to hit the [spacebar] on the run-in as I was maneuvering the camera around, but I did.

Does the game penalize you for blue-on-blue incidents? 

Also, just how badly outclassed is the Swordfish compared to other torpedo bombers?  (It seems to me that in real life, WWII-era British naval aviation was a poor relation to US or Japanese naval aviation; their only triumph that comes to mind for me was crippling the Bismark.)

Posted by: Peter the Not-so-Great at December 27, 2014 08:16 AM (gt7kt)

3 Also, just how badly outclassed is the Swordfish compared to other torpedo bombers?

I was going to answer, but I realize that this is going to grow past a mere comment in size.  Congratulations, you've created a post!

Everybody else, hold your opinions until Sunday.  I have a mandatory post to do Saturday.

Posted by: Wonderduck at December 27, 2014 12:04 PM (jGQR+)

4 It's not very often that you see a TBF Avenger with the early-war red-dotted roundels.  They were officially eliminated May 15, 1942, due to concerns that the red center dots could be mistaken for Japanese hinomaru at a distance or in poor visibility conditions.  The TBF was just entering service around that time.  6 were delivered to Midway island in time for the pivotal battle there, but by that time in June the red dots were probably painted over with white.

In game terms, is that actually specifically a very early TBF, or do all the TBFs look like that?

Posted by: flatdarkmars at December 27, 2014 12:28 PM (wnKOA)

5 do all the TBFs look like that?

Yup, leastwise all I've seen.  Gaijin generally does a good job on historic liveries, but they tend to miss a bit on the American side.  I've recently acquired both the Hellcat and Corsair, and neither of them has the right shades of blue, for example.

Having said that, on average they're really quite good.  On those occasions that I've pointed and laughed at a color scheme (A6M2 mod 11, aka the Zero in the top picture, I'm looking at you), a little digging has proven Gaijin correct.  At least some of the mod 11s had that tan center section.

Posted by: Wonderduck at December 27, 2014 01:39 PM (jGQR+)

6 Just through I'd throw this out there for those who might be interested.  A friend of mine did a series of books about Japanese experimental warbirds. Here's the first.

Posted by: Mauser at December 27, 2014 05:16 PM (TJ7ih)

7 I assume he covers the J7W Shinden.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at December 27, 2014 10:56 PM (+rSRq)

8 Congratulations, you've created a post!

Thank you! I'm looking forward to it.

Posted by: Peter the Not-so-Great at December 28, 2014 05:34 PM (gt7kt)

9 I could ask him which volume it's in. There are similar books on German secret planes, including a lot that never got off the drawing board. The Japanese ones were particularly difficult to research though.

Posted by: Mauser at December 28, 2014 06:58 PM (TJ7ih)

10 (You know why I asked, don't you? About the Shinden?)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at December 28, 2014 07:13 PM (+rSRq)

11

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at December 28, 2014 07:19 PM (+rSRq)

12 He just got back to me and said it's in Volume 1.

Posted by: Mauser at December 28, 2014 08:45 PM (TJ7ih)

Hide Comments | Add Comment