It Could Have Been Worse, I Suppose...

Three weeks ago as I walked from the parking lot to Pond Central, I had the misfortune of slipping on some ice.  While I didn't fall down, my left knee twisted in a way that knees aren't really meant to twist.  It hurt, but it wasn't too bad... until the next day, which was the last time the manager of the Duck U. Bookstore was around (she's on maternity leave). 

That day the pain was pretty impressive, and my knee was awfully stiff.  For the next week, it got better slowly, until it really didn't bother me much anymore.  Oh, a weird step would make it hurt, but nothing too bad.  It was making some really cool popping noises, though.

This afternoon as I walked out of the back room at the store, my knee suddenly felt like someone had hit it with a spiked baseball bat.  I swear it was the worst pain I've ever felt, and this is coming from someone who passed 13 kidneystones in 12 months, and had a foot twisted backwards (not at the same time).  Fortunately, it only lasted a second or two, but ever since, my knee got stiffer and stiffer, and it got harder and harder to find a position that didn't hurt.

Well, tonight I went to a medical clinic, and the doc (who looked like she was maybe 15) took some x-rays and checked the swelling and range of motion.  Diagnosis: severe sprain.

Prognosis: ow.

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And Now For Something Completely Different...

Yep... made me laugh.  A lot.

Lyrics below:

more...

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Happy V-D!

Pizza, beer and Fallout 3 for me and my duckies tonight.

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What If...? #2

Outwardly, Warrant Officer Takeo Koyani, pilot of the G4M, looked calm and capable.  On the inside, however, he was cursing everybody involved on sending him on this stupid mission.  "Fly Admiral Yamamoto on an inspection tour of  the Solomons," they had said.  "It'll be easy, and the morale boost will be enormous."  And so it had, these past few days.  Then that airstrip commander at Rabaul had warned of ambushes coming from Guadalcanal, and yet here he was, flying towards Ballale island near Bouganville... in the direction of Starvation Island itself... in a damned "One-shot Lighter."  Still, here he was, and the flight had been uneventful so far.  Buka was nearby, and some additional Zeros would be lifting off right about... now... to provide additional cover.  Then he'd be... well, not safe exactly, but he'd feel a lot better.

Then the tailgunner shouted a warning.  With a curse, Koyani pushed the nose of the G4M down, picking up speed to get closer to Buka as fast as possible.  Tracers shot past the cockpit, but he heard the unmistakable sounds of bullets whipping through the fuselage.  Dammit, where was his escort?  A solid whump drew his attention to the left wing, where he saw a huge plume of smoke pouring from the engine.  Suddenly, the G4M snap-rolled that direction.  Koyani frantically struggled to level the bomber out, an American P-38 flashed by, the jungle below looked very green.  "We're going to crash, brace yourself," Koyani yelled as he hauled back on the stick.  Dammit, why hadn't he been picked for fighters?  Why the hell was he here right now anyway?   

Some miles away, an IJN minesweeper cruised in the Solomon Sea.  The brief aerial struggle had been in clear view, and the captain radioed back to Rabaul that two G4Ms had been shot down by Lightnings.  That task done, he turned as the man next to him spoke quietly.  "No wonder we lost at Midway.  They've been reading our mail."  The captain nodded.  "Take me back to Rabaul, Captain.  I've got a lot of work to do, and the inspection can wait."

As the minesweeper came about, Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto strode from the bridge and began calling for his aides.


more...

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Ph.Duck, This is for you.

CLICK HERE.

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I Hate Illinois Zombies!

Here they come... the zombies left Texas, now they're in southern Illinois.  Oh, sure, the authorities deny everything, but they're coming... they're coming.

Next stop, Yonkers.

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Well, it was new to me...

Watching last night's SuperBowl, I finally figured out what bothered me about Steelers' coach Mike Tomlin:

...he's a dead ringer for House actor Omar Epps.

Turns out this has been noticed before, by only about thirty gazillion people.  Well, I didn't know!

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Stealing From Brickmuppet...

It's Brickmuppet's Wonderduck's Banality Blogging!  To avoid boring whatever readers I have left, the details are below the so-called fold.  For everybody else, here's a nice picture which is completely unrelated to the subject matter:

more...

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Greatest. News Blooper. EVAR.

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A Tourist From Japan...

...by way of Virginia:

Yes, Gojira paid a visit to the Rubber Duck Factory this evening!  After the usual tour, he was presented with a special parting gift:

Yes, another special day here at Pond Central.  You never know who (or what) will show up!

Thanks to Brickmuppet for the Gojira figure... purchased in Japan during one of his trips, no less!

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"Fire in the cockpit!"

During training for the first manned Apollo mission, Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee were strapped into their seats in capsule CM-012.  The air in the capsule had been replaced by a 100% oxygen atmosphere, as was the standard procedure.  Communications between the astronauts and the ground crew were interrupted briefly by the sound of a voltage transient.  Ten seconds later...

"Hey!"
"Fire!"
"We've got a fire in the cockpit!"
"Fire in the cockpit!"
"We've got a bad fire!  Let's get out!  We're burning up!  We're on fire!  Get us out of here!"

Seventeen seconds after the first indication of fire from the crew, a scream of pain was cut short as the capsule ruptured from a massive pressure spike caused by the fire.  After that, it took five minutes to open the capsule's hatch from the outside; nobody ever thought that the hatch would need to be opened in a hurry by the launch tower crew.  The hatch was designed to swing inwards, and because of the overpressure caused by the fire, the astronauts were unable to pull it open.

The inside of the capsule was a charred ruin.  The three astronauts had become the first Americans to die in a space vehicle on January 27, 1967. 

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The Sole Survivor.

On December 7th, 1941, the strongest navy in the world was undoubtably the Nihon Kaigun of Japan.  Foremost in this powerhouse were the fleet's 10 aircraft carriers.  Carrying the best, most experienced pilots, flying the best fighter and torpedo bomber and a dive bomber that was very nearly the equal of the best, this striking force ran roughshod over the Pacific Ocean.

By the end of the war, however, all of the carriers in the fleet at the beginning had been sent to the bottom of the ocean by the "Big Blue Blanket" of the US Navy.  All, that is, except for one... the Sole Survivor.  Ironically, it was the smallest, slowest, oldest, least capable of Japan's flattops, the Hosho.

The Hosho was also the first ship ever built from the keel up as an aircraft carrier, commissioned on December 27th, 1922, 13 months before the HMS Hermes, the first ship designed as a CV, took to the water.

As the first carrier in the Japanese navy, it was influential in many ways, serving as a testbed for experimental methods that later became standard operational procedures for the fleet.  Experience gained from the Hosho's construction and service influenced the conversion of the Kaga and Akagi, and led directly to the design of the Ryujo. 

By the time of Pearl Harbor, however, the Hosho was only just barely able to operate with the rest of the fleet.  She was too small and slow to be able to handle the modern Zero, Kate and Val planes, and was only just able to fly the A5M Claude off her deck in the best of situations (fresh headwinds with a relatively calm sea).  As this combination was rare at best, and the Claude was obsolete as a whole and rapidly retired, this quickly left the Hosho without a fighter it could carry.  During the Battle of Midway, where she gave the battleships of Yamamoto's Main Body a tiny organic air capability, the Hosho was carrying eight B4Y Jean torpedo bombers.

It was one of these planes that took the famous picture of the burning Hiryu after she had been pummeled by Dauntless bombers at Midway.

After Midway, the Japanese fleet was desperate for carrier decks.  Despite this, the Hosho was removed from active duty as a combatant on June 20th, 1942.  She was then used exclusively for landing exercises and carrier training in the Inland Sea of Japan.  She very nearly escaped the war unharmed.

On March 19th, 1945, while operating near the battleship Yamato in the Inland Sea, the Hosho was attacked by seven planes.  She suffered either a small bomb or a rocket hit that punched a few small holes in her flight deck, losing six crewmen in the process.  The war revisited the Hosho on July 24th, 1945, when she was attacked in harbor on July 24th, 1945, and she reportedly took one hit for scant damage.

After the war ended, she was used as a troop carrier to bring Japanese soldiers home from Wotje and Jaluit.  Struck from the list in 1946, she was finally broken up for scrap on May 1st, 1947.

Hosho, the Sole Survior, was no more.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:43 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Zorched.

It's the new semester at Duck U., and that means one thing:

BOOK RUSH AT THE DUCK U. BOOKSTORE!  PANIC!!!  FLEE IN TERROR!!!  AIEEEEEEEEEE!!!

*ahem*

As a result, I'm somewhat worn down.  On Tuesday, the first day of rush, we had our second-busiest sales day ever... and it felt like it.  In one day, we did a sizable percentage of the Bookstore's annual sales.

Fortunately, the worst of rush is pretty much over.  One or two more days of being quite busy, and it'll slow down again. 

Shortly thereafter, however, the store manager will go on maternity leave, as she is due to expel her parasite (currently named "Squishy") February 8th.  So it may not really slow down at all for Wonderduck!  Oog.

It's going to be a loooong couple of months.

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The Very Cool Thing I Found.

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Happy 10th Birthday!

...to the Powerpuff Girls!!!

UPDATE:


From The Powerpuff Girls Rule, a new episode that debuted tonight!

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Coldcoldcoldcoldcoldcold

I've lived in Duckford since 1976, and they say that back in 1978, it got this cold.  Except the listed temp is at 8am... and it was -30 last night.

I've been colder; I did live in MN for two years whilst I attended grad school, and we had one night when it got down to -50 (and the police were on the radio stations saying "do not go outside, you will die.").  But that's just quibbling: once it gets this cold, a few fewer degrees just doesn't make a difference; oh, your frozen corpsesickle might take a little bit longer to thaw out at -50, but that's about it.

Duck U. is closed today, due to the cold.  I'd be happier if I didn't already have the day off (I'm working on Saturday), but jeez, it's chilly out there.  Later this afternoon when the temps are above zero, I'm going to have to see if the Duckmobile will start.  It did pretty well yesterday morning, and it was -15 then.

Did I mention?  Coldcoldcoldcoldcoldcoldcoldcoldcoldcoldcoldcoldcoldcoldcoldcoldcold!

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Be Seeing You.

Patrick McGoohan, best known as Number 6 in the legendary TV program The Prisoner, passed away today at the age of 80.

It's a bloody shame that the show isn't better known.  It's very surreal, and would probably be quite popular these days.  You can see a lot of its influence in programs like Lost and 24.  There's a remake of The Prisoner coming from ITV, probably this year, but I can't imagine it'll be anywhere near as interesting... I'll be watching, though.

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The Happiest Car Ever!

The 1958 Austin-Healey Sprite "Bugeye".  I saw one on SPEED's live coverage of the Barrett-Jackson Automotive Auction - Scottsdale just an hour or so ago, and started giggling.  It's so cute it makes my teeth hurt!

Compare and contrast with the Angriest Car Ever.

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Amazing... and SNEAKY.

I just got back from dinner with The Librarian.  I also just got back from dinner with Momzerduck.  At the same place and the same time.  The two of them had never met before.

To say I was nervous would be an understatement.  It turns out that the two of them were being really really sneaky!  They teamed up on a Christmas gift for me... and had been planning it for nearly three months!

Sneaky, sneaky... and amazing, too.  I'm not going to say what the gift was yet, as it deserves a blogpost all its own and I don't have a camera at the moment, but it falls into that category of "Oh my."  There were almost tears.

Thank you, both of you.  You're both the greatest, y'know that?

But SNEAKY.

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Another Day, Another Meme.

Via Don through Ubu, there's this:

The gist…Retrieve and share the first sentence [or two, or three] of the first blog post of each of the twelve months of (r.i.p.) 2008.

In that I can't work up the energy to actually blog about something worthwhile at the moment, I'll bite.  Here we go!

January: ...I'll always have the duck.

February: So the first race of the 2008 F1 season, the Australian Grand Prix, is 38 days away.  This seems like a good time to take a look at who's driving for which team this year.

March: I almost wish I hadn't checked this.

April: Perhaps unsurprisingly, the organizers of this week's race in Bahrain have... requested... that Max Mosley perhaps not appear at the track.  He's expected to do comply with that request.

May:  Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit his own bad self, had a F1-related post today:

DANICA PATRICK going Formula One?

Now, while I appreciate any attention paid to F1 by someone here in the US, the Good Perfesser is in my territory here, so lets look at what this really means.

June: In an analysis of this scene, there are 11 ducks visible (though not in this picture, since some are blocked by Wolfie).

July: Funny, Tsubaki sure doesn't look like she's a living weapon.

August: As is usual with practice, it was dull, boring, and really uninteresting.  In fact, it was so bad that I didn't watch all of it.

September: From the world's only sterile street circuit at Valencia, the F1 Circus warily heads into the Ardennes Forest to race on what is probably the world's finest modern track: Spa-Francorchamps.

October:  So now we come to the most important part of Ikkitousen Great Guardians: the obligatory OVAs.

November: What the hell was THAT?

December: There is cake.  You just can't have any.

Six F1-related posts, five anime, two duck-related, and one gaming.  Yes, I know that's 13... June is both anime and duck.  Interesting balance there.

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