Did Brickmuppet Visit Pond Central?

So last Friday morning, I get into the DuckMobile, buckle in, put the key in the ignition, turn it, and...

...nothing.  After a sound similar to that which a lonely puppy makes escaped my throat, I tried again.

...rapid clicking noise.  A third try gave the clicking noise with the sound of the engine trying to turn over.  On the fourth try, the car started.  Well, that's no good.  A quick call to Ph.Duck obtained the loan of his car for a few days while mine went to visit the Official Mechanic of The Pond.

Yesterday, I got the call from Tom, and he started with "I've got good news and bad news."

"The good news is that your battery was old and dead; your car starts fine now.  The bad news is that you've got an oil leak."   At that point, I started laughing.  THAT'S the bad news?  I knew I had a leak, I wanted y'all to fix it!  "Well, it'll be a bit difficult, what with where it's located, maybe cost a couple hundred in labor."  Do it.  "Are you sure?"  DO IT!  I want my car to stop dripping.  I want to stop having to put a quart of oil in it ever three weeks.  DO IT!

A couple hours later, it was all done for under $500... including the battery, parts and labor.  The oil pump needed a new seal, and it had leaked all over the timing belt, ruining that fairly important item.  They told me that the battery failure was actually a good thing, otherwise it was only a matter of time before the belt failed.  There were some other, smaller, things that they fixed while they were at it, too.  All in all, though, the DuckMobile is running like it's six or seven years old now, instead of sixteen.  Well worth the cost.  Just wish it hadn't happened the day before all heck broke loose at Duck U... that silence took a few years off my life!
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Good-bye Free Time!

There are a couple of reasons for the title of this post.  The first is simple: this is the week classes start back up at Duck U.  The first-year fledgelings moved into the dorms on Saturday, everybody else comes in on Tuesday, and the first day of classes is Wednesday.  Eep.

The OTHER, primary, reason is because of an e-mail I got from my Uncle JoeDuck.  Contained in this innocent-looking missive was a link to this site.  Oh god, the time I've already lost there... just at random, I clicked on "W"... and eventually found this:

Go to the site and marvel at the wonderment that you will find... it isn't all advertising.  In fact, most of it isn't old ads, but just... stuff.  It's as time-sucking as tvtropes (link withheld to prevent then entire internet from disappearing into this post).

Posting may be sparse this week... or may not be; we'll see.

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Saturday Night Tunage XV

And now, by nobody's request whatsoever, Wonderduck Productions in conjunction with The Pond Entertainment presents... DJ Wonderduck with another installment of Saturday Night Tunage!  It's an eclectic mix of old and new music tonight, always with an eye on keeping your ear intrigued.  And some '80s, too.  So lets just get right to it, shall we?  Surely!

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Just Another Skyrim Picture

Even now, after eight months and over 200 hours of gameplay, Skyrim can still throw things at me that make me just sit back and gawp in amazement.

On those occasions that I get all introspective and crap, I remind myself just how much computer gaming has changed over the years.  When I got my first real computer, "pretty graphics" looked like this:

...or this:

...so it's just mindblowing to see stuff like this:

I love living in the future.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 06:18 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Razzenfrazzeninternetgrmblgrmbl

Y'know, or maybe not.  My broadband connection has been down almost all day, other than for a hour or two around 5pm.  As a result, I've gotten zero work done on Ben-To! Ep01.  Hopefully, my connection will be alive tomorrow (yeah, right) so I can do it then.  Until then, here's another teaser for you.

Because I'm nothing if not nice and friendly to my readers.

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Telling A Tale

Around here, adventures tend to start in the usual cliched ways.  Beggars tell a story for a bit of coin, or an innkeeper mentions a rumor, and the usual suspects go running off brandishing their sword and shield knowing that this time, they'll strike it rich.  Certainly some have succeeded in the past: old Greyfang the Portly there, he slew the Witch of Glammistor and hasn't needed to work since.  Doubtless there's been others, but I'll be switched if I know who. 

Every time they go out, a couple less come back.  "Firedrake got Beardy Ned over by the Rocks," they'll claim, then drink to their failure by reminiscing about the poor sod.  Gripping tales of exciting adventure, sure, when Ned probably just fell off his horse and split his skull open on a rock.  "Helmet will save yer life," I told 'em, but did they ever listen?  In a pig's ear they did.  Just like their fathers before 'em, not that any of that lot knew who their fathers were.  Killed in the Great Marsh War, probably.  Lots of men went that way, called to the colors to fight in one godsforsaken spot or another.  Marshes don't seem like a place you'd want to fight for if you ask me, but what do I know?

Never can tell, though.  Occasionally there's reason enough for a war, though usually not so much.  "Prince Pureblood didn't like that batch of goldblossoms from Kroom, we've got to defend our honor!"  Queen Soggybottom oops-I-meant-Songbird-pardon-me tried to take over Salain-to-the-North because she thought that big mountain they've got would look good on the back of our coin.  Reckon she'd be right, too, except Salain-to-the-North kinda liked their mountain.  Sadly, they had a lot more swords than we did, not that our General Whats-his-name was any great tactician. "Towards those ugly bastards," he'd yell and forget about flanking maneuvers or that sort of thing.  Units charged and broke and ran, and he'd just yell for more.  "Victory will be ours, men, or we'll die trying!"

Well, he was half right.  Xenophobic dolt died trying to win against the Salainisti, and good riddance.  You like the story?  Zip me a coin, friend, and I'll tell you about the treasure General Whats-his-name had with him...

UPDATE: Since nobody seems to see it (I told Muppet what it was), there's a little trick hidden in the story... see if you can spot it!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:49 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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Marsdiving

If you haven't seen it yet, here's this year's Pulitzer Prize winner for Breaking News Photography.

Yes, that's Curiosity descending under a parachute towards the surface of Mars.  It was moving around 900mph at the time, approximately a minute before the rover was deployed via "SkyCrane"... i.e., dangled down to the surface on wires while the rest of the capsule hovers above the planet on rocket motors.

And it all worked.  Man, can us humans do some swell things sometimes.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 07:11 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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This IS The Future

I live in Duckford, IL.  It's quite a bit like any other city in the USA of similar size.  I'm sitting here in Pond Central, creating this post on software administered by someone I consider a friend... who lives in Australia.  I've never met Pixy, maybe never will though stranger things have happened.  Less than 24 hours ago, I received a text message from Brickmuppet, another friend that I've never met... who lives in Virginia.  However, he sent the text message from somewhere in Japan... which looks an awful lot like Michigan, as Steven says.  Steven's another friend I haven't met, who lives in Oregon.  I can only assume his work on cellphones back when such things were new-ish had some influence on the text message I got from Japan.

Which undoubtedly bounced off a satellite somewhere.  Meanwhile, my TV is currently tuned into the 2012 Olympic Games in London, which has athletes from 204 nations and one small group of independent athletes participating, the signal for which is also being bounced off a satellite, perhaps many of them, to arrive here in Pond Central.  As I'm watching that, I'm also recording NASA TV as they prepare to broadcast live coverage of our attempt to put a new rover (named Curiosity) on Mars via a technique that Rube Goldberg would find entertainingly complex.

None of this was really possible 44 years ago.  Heck, 20 years ago most of this would have been a pipe dream.  I didn't even receive my first text until two years ago.  And none of this is particularly exceptional today.  Well, Curiosity is, but we've seen rovers on Mars before. 

This IS the future!  We're living in it right now.  Science Fiction has nothing on the wonders we experience and take for granted every day.  I can hardly believe how lucky we are.

UPDATE 1232am 8/6/2012: Curiosity made it down, telemetry confirmed.  Pictures are forthcoming.  Oh my god, that was amazing!

UPDATE 1234am 8/6/2012: A picture has been transmitted from Mars, Curiosity has wheels fully deployed.

UPDATE 1241am 8/6/2012:

Curiosity's shadow on Mars, sent just a couple of minutes after the landing.  How frickin' cool is that?

UPDATE 1252am 8/12/2012:  The landing data is coming in, and pretty much everything was about as perfect as you could hope.  For example, at touchdown Curiosity was moving laterally at .044 meters/second.  Still no report on how far they missed the planned touchdown spot, but the last information they said was "around 1.5km".  After traveling about 154 million miles, missing the target by a mile or so is... eh, pretty okay, I guess.  Heh.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:53 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Picking At My Posting

You know how you have a lot of food on your plate, but none of it looks extra-special tasty?  You wind up just sort of lackadaisically nibbling at this, chewing a bit on that, not really doing anything with it?  That's pretty much where I am right now with The Pond.  I've started work on two major posts, the Ben-To Ep01 writeup and the Late War Best Fighter thing (finally!), but haven't really felt like devoting the hours required to make them any good.  So instead, I'm doing them in 10-15 minute nibbles.  It's weird, and I'm not sure I like the result, but there you are.  At least they're being worked on, right? 

Best darn photo of a Vindicator I've ever seen.  It's a pre-war shot of an Enterprise "Bombing 6" plane, stolen from the archives of LIFE.  No, there's no point to it being here, other than I wanted to put it up. 

So there's stuff in the pipeline to look forward to!  Just hope I have the time to work on them... Duck U classes start on the 22nd, the new fledgelings move in on the 18th.  Yep, it's busytime at the Bookstore, and I'm scheduled for 48 hours next week.  Who in the world writes the darn schedule anyway?

Oh right... me.  Darn it.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:08 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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When You Have Nothing Left To Post...

...post cheesecake!

Either myself or Steven is doing it wrong... I'm just not sure which one of us it is.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:39 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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A Summer Malaise?

I suppose.  Heaven knows it's been bloody hot enough to make Satan at least think about putting ice cubes in his Tab, and I've never been a fan of hot anyway.  10 days of 100° or more is something of a record here in Duckford... and four of those were in a row, the first time that's happened since 1934.  So, yeah, it's been hot and it's sucked all the juice outta me.

Which goes a long way towards explaining why I come home from the Duck U Bookstore, eat something, then either pass out or play Skyrim or do something that isn't blogging... or at least isn't good or insightful or funny blogging, at any rate.  Whether or not this blog has ever actually had good, insightful or funny content is an exercise best left to the reader.  Just don't tell me about it, because I might cry.

All of which is my long-winded way of saying yes, I know I've not been writing a whole helluva lot recently.  Obviously there's a F1 race coming this weekend (and now they're saying it's gonna rain in Hungary on Sunday.  Yes, the entire country), and I've plans to get the Ep01 writeup for Ben-To done, too.  So maybe there'll be writing done.  At least I've got aircon at Pond Central... Mr Carrier is my hero.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:49 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Skyrim Knows How I Feel

Yep, that about covers it.

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Saturday Night Tunage XIV

By request, it's the return of Saturday Night Tunage with DJ Wonderduck!

Yes, "by request!"  At dinner this past Tuesday with Vaucaunson's Duck and his wife Geese, The Pond came up in conversation.  It turns out that both are avid readers of this little website, and she particularly liked Saturday Night Tunage... and wanted a return.  Well, I had been planning to do one last weekend, but the latest outage of Pond Central's broadband connection (caused by a van knocking down a telephone pole) put paid to that idea.

Knowing that someone out there actually wants it, here's the newest installment of Saturday Night Tunage, the catch-all edition!  It's music time!

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Adventures In Dump Table Diving

A few days ago, I was wandering around a local drugstore, stocking up on gatorade and shampoo, when I noticed a couple of newly filled dump tables in the aisle.  For those not in the retail know, a dump table is the technical name for those things you find bargains on... y'know, like "wow, I can get a DVD for $2.00!"  Usually they're crap, but every now and again you'll find something excellent.  Like the time I found the director's cut DVD of Blade Runner for $5.99, or 10 scissors (of varying sizes) for $5.00.  This time, the table was full of... well, stuff, none of which I needed.  Except down at the very bottom, there were some forehead-mounted LED flashlights (two for $4.99)... and these:

Six single-LED cliplights.  All of them for $5.00.  FIVE FRICKIN' DOLLARS!  Each one uses three watch-batteries; to replace those would cost more than five bucks!  These lights will revolutionize my duckphoto stage set!

I love finding crap stuff like this.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:27 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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I'm Back.

The Pond's internet connection has been down since ~3pm Saturday; sometime between 1am Monday morning and 7am Monday it came back.  Got a lot of backlog cleared from my DVR!

Regular blog programming will resume this evening.

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Five Words You Never Want To Hear...

...during the Summer in the Midwest: "Boy, the sky looks weird."

This was what I saw when I went outside after a customer said the above five words.  A few minutes later the skies opened up like Noah had been building an ark down the street.  Fortunately, that was ALL that happened... I was expecting funnel clouds, a hail of frogs, a hail of hail, an Elder God to crawl up out of the ground, that sort of thing.

What you can't see in these pictures is the rolling at the forward edge.  Yeesh.  I nigh on wet myself with fear.  The Midwest: don't like the weather?  Just wait a few minutes, it'll change.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 03:13 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Critical Internet Fail

Everything is loading but slowly.  Very slowly.  Glaciers move faster.  The "Help Desk" tells me that my internet connection is limited.  No, you don't say?  Really?

Blogging will resume... eventually.  I think.  No idea when.  You don't wanna know how long it took to load in the "Create Post" screen. 

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:16 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Still Creepy?

I've been informed that the second picture was even worse than the first.  I deeply and humbly apologize.  Let me fix that.

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A Public Service from your friends at The Pond

It has been brought to my attention that the owl in the preceding post is, and I quote here, "creepy."  Well, far be it for your friends at The Pond to be creepy in any way, shape or form, heavens no!  We hate creepy in all its myriad forms and guises.  To the last, Creepy, I will grapple with thee... from Hell's heart, I stab at thee!  For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee, Creepy!  And I replace thee with another picture.

Thank you for your continued patience.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:54 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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HSotD Ep10 Is Coming...

This episode is harder than all the previous ones combined... too much talkytalk, not enough zombie.  Workin' on it.

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