Brickmuppet says that the first picture in this post is, and I'm quoting here, "KEWEL".

*shaking head*

Muppet, Muppet, Muppet... that's not cool.

THIS is cool:

I hope you've learned your lesson.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 12:13 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Humans have started hanging out in the back yard of The Pond again. It's a group of about 10, mixed male and female.

Yesterday I fed them a bunch. This morning I didn't see any, but I put out soda and pizza anyway. However, it ended up being ant food instead of human food.

Not totally; about half of it is still there, but it's been picked over pretty fine. Probably end up being food for the local humans, or children, or whatever the heck they're called. Gawky pink humans with brown hair and little round pieces of glass over their eyes. They're really quite unattractive, but I don't have the slightest idea what they are. (Update: I just did some googling, and they're called 'nerds'.)

This area is lousy with humans, but there aren't really all that many kinds. Last year there was a Spaniard in the stream a couple of times, and that was genuinely cool. But what we normally see are Italians, Swedes, those little nerds, us ducks, and Germans. I don't think I've seen a door-to-door salesman since I moved back here. (When I was a kid, I remember door-to-door salesman being everywhere. I wonder what happened to them?)

I'm a little afraid for the field behind The Pond. There are a couple of green tractors trundling back and forth over the whole thing, with the words "John Deere" next to them. Clearly someone is picking corn, and it makes me wonder if the farmers, or someone else, plans on replanting with soybeans.

UPDATE: I'm not expecting to see that Spaniard back again, either. It was standing on top of one of the improvements put in by the local human civil engineers, fishing in the drainage stream behind it. Unfortunately, last winter men from the county came through here and pulled out all the stuff the engineers had put in, the spoil sports. I don't really understand why they did it, either. I thought the stream was a lot neater the way the engineers had it set up.

Of course, for engineers, flooding is a bug, not a feature. That's probably the reason why. Regardless, our creek is no longer inviting territory for Spaniards, so I doubt it will be back.

Our humans aren't redheads. They used to be, though. None of the ones around now have red hair. But some of them have pocket protectors on their shirts; I'm assuming those are geeks.

I'm wondering if my memory has gone bad. I could have sworn the humans were nerds. Of course, one possibility is that the nerds are the winter shift, and the whatever-the-heck-is-out-there-now (geeks?) is the summer detail.

UPDATE: Actually, they might be nerds. It might just be that there are no calculators around. The pocket protectors apparently are for 'math majors'.

(see the post this is blatantly ripped off from here)

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Okay! It's CHRISTMAS!!!

Let me explain.

As you're aware, I work at the Duck U. Bookstore. Yes, I'm one of those people, squeezing ridiculous amounts of cash out of poor struggling college students, yadda yadda yadda.

Whatever. Don't get me started.

Anyway, it's that time again. Froshducks move in on Saturday. Classes for everyone begin on Wednesday. From today thru end of the month, the Duck U. Bookstore will do roughly 1/3rd of our yearly sales.

Gonna be a little busy... I WILL post coverage of the Turkish GP activites, but I may not get to much else.

Of course, some might say that I don't do much else anyway...

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THIS has to be the all-time greatest bit of unintentional humor. I can see the hundreds of spit-takes from the unsuspecting readers now.

Mr Headline Writer, thank you for making us feel all warm and tingly... again.

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Earlier this week saw the 62nd anniversary of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As is always the case, there were the usual gatherings of protester groups around Duckford, deploring the use of Fat Man and Little Boy. Usually I ignore these uninformed people, knowing that they are simply kneejerking to the anti-war sentiments of the Cold War era.

Unfortunately, I went to a grocery store today, and in the parking lot was a small group of noisy protestors. None of them were over 30, I'd guess, and none of them had any grasp of the history of the Pacific War, other than that the US was bad for using nukes.

A moment of insanity later, I found myself in a discussion with them. Unfortunately for them, I could answer any of their claims and provide references, to boot. Why?

I wrote a short paper on this topic a few years back, as part of an argument I was having.

Of course, they weren't really listening to me, one even going so far as to claim that the Japanese military was 'a band of noble warriors'. When I asked them about Unit 731 and Bataan (the first two things that lept to mind), they all gave me blank looks.

In the end, I told them that I agreed with them: nuclear weapons are terrible things, and I hoped they'd never be used again, but I disagreed with them regarding their use in WWII... and that I'd put my paper here on The Pond for them to read.

If any of them are reading this, welcome and click below for OLYMPIC AND TRINITY. If any of my usual readers have gotten this far, I'd enjoy your thoughts! more...

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Thanks to the good offices of Vaucaunson's Duck, I've recently been exposed to the glories and wonders of "A Bit of Fry and Laurie."

May I now present... The Barman Sketch.

It's a beautiful thing.

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The rain that was supposed to occur last night actually happened around 1pm today, and it just bucketed. Animals were walking by the Duck U. Bookstore in pairs, though I didn't see an annoyed, long-bearded man in robes anywhere nearby.

Unfortunately, you may have seen something about Duckford on TV yesterday, as we DID get flooding... just not anywhere near the Duck U. campus. It was an area of town that was flooded during last year's Labor Day storm ... That particular day was termed a "100 years' storm"... which puts the past few days in perspective, I suppose.

That area of town hadn't yet recovered from the flooding of last year, now they got it again. Is the Gorebot nearby or something? It must be global warmening! Or coldening. Or, more likely, raininging.

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My phoneline is down at The Pond, so I may not be around much for a couple of days... we had something like a half-foot of rain last night, and all of Duckford is suffering.

UPDATE, 1030pm: Honey, I'm home! The phone came back about 20 minutes ago, about 24 hours sooner than was predicted... they must've found the break/water-damage/whatever.

Quite the interesting day, all told. As I mentioned, Duckford got a half-foot of rain overnight. When I went to bed, it was raining, but nothing out of the ordinary. From people I spoke to, around 4am all hell broke loose, and there were sightings of pairs of animals heading north.

By the time I woke up (around 720am), the rain had stopped, and around The Pond there was no obvious sign that there had been anything untoward about the storm. It was on the drive in to Duck U. that I started to notice little things... like entire yards covered with water, or big honkin' trees down, or live power lines sparking and zatzing in the road... that seemed to indicate that something large had happened.

Then the city evacuated the land to the west of Duck U. The U. is positioned on top of a hill, y'see... along with a 'water retention structure' located in a park. Said structure (aka 'dam') was about, oh, a foot or so from being overfull (additional rumors were that the dam was leaking and about to let go), and was beautifully positioned to swamp a chunk of the business district to the west.

As you can guess, we weren't all that busy at the Duck U. Bookstore today. When I did leave, I went to pay a visit to Momzerduck and Ph.Duck, and drove by the park in question... which was completely submerged. I noticed one of the baseball diamond backstops, just the top of which was visible... eep.

However, all is right now... except it's damn hot, and really damn humid.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:17 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Earth to go splat on the Sun like bugs on windshield.

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About 3 hours ago, a major bridge across the Mississippi river collapsed during rush hour in Minneapolis. I-35W is a large traffic artery in the Twin Cities, and this bridge carries an average of 100K-200K cars every day. It's very close to the U of Minnesota (MSP Campus), and near Dinkytown.

Breaking news shows six dead, six in life-threatening condition, and dozens (possibly hundreds) with 'minor' injuries. The whole bridge just fell down with no apparant warning. We're not just talking about some of the bridge, but the entire thing. The section over the river, the sections that run to the land, everything.

The bridge was an "over-under" span, with a road bridge over a rail bridge. There was a train loaded with tanker cars on the bridge when the road span collapsed on top of it.

Eyewitness reports say that there "had to have been" hundreds of cars bumper-to-bumper on the bridge at the time of the collapse. There was construction ongoing on the bridge, but not structural: pothole fixes and that sort of thing.

Fortunately, Ph.Duck's family, many of whom drive this bridge every day, have all checked in: everybody's okay.

I lived in Minnesota for two years, and have driven across this bridge dozens of times. I'm just... stunned.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 02:42 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Oops.

I'm just wondering how it hit THREE cars. One I could understand, but THREE? That truck driver's got some 'splainin' to do...

UPDATE: I just noticed two things, completely unrelated to this story.
1) This is post number 600, and
2) I missed the two-year anniversary of The Pond @ .mu.nu!

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This past weekend, the Philadelphia Phillies became the first professional sports team in any league anywhere to lose 10,000 games.

That's quite the achievement. Think about it: they have gone out and lost an average of 80 games a season for the past 125 years. These days, that's not so horrible, what with the season being 162 games long. But for a long, LONG time, 154 games or fewer was the norm.

Still, one has to tip the cap to the Phils. You don't get to lose that many games without doing something right! So, in honor of their record, I present them with this:

Why, yes, I AM a Cubs fan, why do you ask?

Posted by: Wonderduck at 05:02 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Today, July 7th, would have been Robert A. Heinlein's 100th birthday.

Starship Troopers was the first sci-fi book I ever read, and got me hooked on the genre for life. I'm proud to have a complete collection of his books on my shelves.

The man invented waldos, the waterbed, helped with the creation of the spacesuit, and was the first to use the word "moonbat".

I can't stand Stranger In A Strange Land, which I think is a pretentious pile of steaming dingo kidneys, and some of his later books show signs of having been affected by his TIA, blocked carotid artery, and 2-year bout with peritonitis, but even the worst Heinlein novels (except for Farnham's Freehold, which is his weakest book ever) are better than 75% of all books ever (in my opinion, of course; your mileage may vary).

His juveniles, while now dated (having been written over 50 years ago), still hold up well, just as ripping yarns... I suspect kids would still get a kick out of them.

His attitude towards sexuality, race, religion, and individualism inspired and educated my own.

It may not be hyperbole for me to say that nobody influenced me more (save Momzerduck, of course) growing up than Robert Heinlein. I don't, and didn't, agree with everything he proposed, but he, more than any other author, made me think.

For that, if nothing else, I can only say 'thank you, Robert Heinlein.'

And happy birthday!

Oh, and for the record? My favorite of his books are, in order, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Job: A Comedy of Justice, and Double Star.

*with apologies to Spider Robinson's tribute with the same title.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 12:37 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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This will be a very recursive post: I'm blogging about not being able to blog.

I'm having a crisis of writing. I can't seem to make myself write anything interesting, clever, or informative (I leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out if I ever did).

Perhaps worse, I don't seem to particularly care that I'm not being "interesting, clever or informative." I KNOW I'm just blogging by the numbers, particularly on the one thing I consider the flagship of The Pond: the F1 UPDATE!s.

Of course, this would have to be a race weekend, wouldn't it? And at Silverstone, my favorite F1 track to boot. The way it's going, I'll trot out all the usual tropes: "Becketts, Copse and Maggots blah blah blah," "cars changing direction like slotcars natter natter natter," "Lewis Hamilton's first F1 race on his home track yadda yadda yadda."

Is that interesting to anybody?

Then there's anime. I'm still watching Hayate The Combat Butler and Lucky Star, and even Hidamari Sketch (when there's a new episode online), but I'm not exactly excited about it. The shows are fine, funny in the right places, melodramatic at times, but they aren't like, say, Haruhi or Kanon... the gripping show that grabs me by the pinfeathers and forces me to watch four or five or six episodes at a sitting.

I want to write something about the finale of Rocket Girls, but in my current blogblocked state, I know I'd just pee it down my leg.

Heck, go back and look at my post about Fred Saberhagen's death... is that well-written, clever, or interesting? I suggest the answer would be 'no'.

So welcome to the mind of The Duck: blocked tighter than someone who swallowed a bottle of Imodium.

I have a desire to make another AMV (using Kanon again, because I don't want to get into DVD ripping quite yet), but the idea just isn't there. I want to feel like I'm being creative, like I did during the making of "...Angel"... that felt really, really good, but nothing's jumping off the screen at me.

Anybody have any suggestions on what a struggling duck could do to unplug himself? Because I'm fresh out...

Posted by: Wonderduck at 01:33 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 Well, if it's all the back and forth about my project that's giving you the itch, I'm not sure whether to be glad or apologize.

Are you still watching El Cazador? One of the things that really impresses me about the show is the effort that went into facial expressions. There's just an incredible range shown by Nadie, and they started getting Ellis into the act in the more recent episodes.

Posted by: Will at July 05, 2007 04:42 PM (olS40)

2 You could start by not selling yourself short. We are always our own worst critics. Besides, there really was nothing to write about after the French GP. Of course, now there's a little espionage happening that may need analysis.

Why not take a vacation from blogging and all after-work computer activity for a while? (After Silverstone, I mean. I still rely on F1 update - even if it doesn't meet your standards, it meets mine.) Do something palate-cleansing - maybe pay a visit to your brother ducks down at the lagoon. No doubt a week away from the computer (and the self-imposed pressure to write) would make it better when you got back into it...

Posted by: Vaucanson's Duck at July 06, 2007 04:16 AM (oplPK)

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...always killing the people who don't deserve it.

Fred Saberhagen has passed away at the age of 77. I've always been in awe of the... human-ness of his Berserker stories, even though they're about sentient killing machines out to destroy all life (and the people who deal with them).

I think my favorite was called 'The Jester' (I might have that title wrong), where a berserker captures an exiled (for political reasons) comedian, who convinces the world-killing machine to head to the planet that kicked him out.

Along the way, he prepares his greatest joke, and in the climax of the story...
(SPOILER: CLICK BELOW FOR THE RESULT) more...

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Welcome home, my brothers!

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Bonus points if anybody can name the character...

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1 Isn't that a duckified Lobo? I don't know if it's original artwork, or a very talented fanart, but it made me laugh.

Posted by: mauro at June 28, 2007 03:59 PM (d7gQa)

2 Close... but no cigar for Mauro! It's an actual character from The Big Two, done by one of their artists. Not fanart at all!

Posted by: Wonderduck at June 28, 2007 04:01 PM (A5s0y)

3 If I didn't know any better, I'd think that was from "Howard the Duck", but I don't recall that image. And I don't believe the series was ever revived after I used to read it.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 28, 2007 04:14 PM (+rSRq)

4 Wow, so close, Steven! But no cigar for you, either.

And the series wasn't revived, by the way, though Howard made the occasional guest appearance (and showed up in "What If...?" and "What The...?" a lot!) in other series.

Posted by: Wonderduck at June 28, 2007 04:31 PM (A5s0y)

5 "It's an actual character from The Big Two, done by one of their artists. Not fanart at all!"

*********************************************

No Wonderduck...it was a production of the big "one" that being the whole point of that line.

Posted by: Brickmuppet at June 28, 2007 04:34 PM (73lWn)

6 I expected you to know the backstory, Muppet, what with the whole 'I worked in a comic store' thing and all.

But you're passing on the bonus points???

Posted by: Wonderduck at June 28, 2007 04:36 PM (A5s0y)

7 I'll give it till tonight in case anybody else gets it.

Posted by: Brickmuppet at June 28, 2007 06:09 PM (73lWn)

8 Lobo the Duck

One of the Amalgam charachters from the late 90's.

Posted by: Ken Talton at June 29, 2007 02:33 PM (h/YdH)

9 Wikipedia's got you covered.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 29, 2007 03:12 PM (+rSRq)

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I won't claim that Chris Benoit was a hero, or an idol, of mine. He wasn't. He was an excellent performer in the ring, who never turned in a poor match that I saw. He never gave less than everything he had when he hit the stage, and 'everything he had' was enough to make him one of the best professional wrestlers ever, in any country.

He was quick enough to hang with the fastest cruiserweights, and powerful enough to go toe-to-toe with the behemoths. His pure wrestling skill was jaw-dropping. His only weakness was his ability to cut a promo, but he didn't need to speak like The Rock or Triple-H to get his point across.

The performer is not the man, obviously, though it seemed that in the case of Chris Benoit, they were one in the same... a man who enjoyed what he did, though it caused him pain, and nearly cost him his ability to move when it broke his neck.

Now, however, the last acts of Chris Benoit's life were to smother his seven-year-old son, strangle his wife, and then hang himself from a weight machine. Even though he was a professional wrestler, an actor if you will, he was also a person... a person, it seems, with a side so horrible that nobody could guess at it.

I mourn the death of a family, and the death of the wrestler, who entertained the fans at such cost to himself.

For the murderer, though, there is nothing but disgust.

In the weeks ahead, we may discover that it was not Chris Benoit that killed himself and his family, but a drug-induced rage. If so, one wonders if professional wrestling will survive... and who will be next. For there almost certainly will be a "next." It probably won't be as horrifying a scene as this one, it'll probably just involve one person. It may be a wrestler... or a football player... or a baseball slugger... or just some high-school kid we may never hear of.

Let's hope that, if anything good can come of this, it convinces Vince McMahon that he doesn't need the musclemonsters anymore. Lets hope it convinces pro football to crack down even harder on those who use performance-enhancing drugs. Lets hope that baseball drops the axe on those who break records while on the needle.

And let's hope that unknown high-school kid realizes what he's doing to himself.

Of course, none of these things will happen.

And Chris Benoit, his wife, and his seven-year old son, will still be dead.

Dammit.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 03:23 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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It was announced today that Chris Benoit, long-time professional wrestler, and his family, were found dead in his home in Georgia... and unlike the "death" of Vince McMahon a few weeks ago, this isn't fake. Instead of RAW tonight, the WWE is showing a three-hour retrospectice of his career... and they've only done that a couple of times before.

Benoit started his real career in Japan's NJPW, under the name "Wild Pegasus". He won the Super J Cup, which brought the best non-heavyweight wrestlers throughout Japan together to find out who was the best.

Of course, it was pre-plotted, but he was put over such luminaries as Jushin Liger, Gedo, Black Tiger, and the Great Sasuki, which meant he was probably the best pro wrestler in the world at the time.

After that, he moved on to ECW here in the US, where he took the name "The Canadian Crippler", a nickname that stuck with him for the rest of his career. He teamed with Dean Malenko to win the ECW Tag-team Championship in 1995.

His next stop was WCW, where he joined the infamous Four Horsemen along with Ric Flair, Arn Anderson and Brian Pillman (who's death a few years back was one of the first WWE retrospectives). It was also at this time that he met his wife-to-be, Nancy... who was married to WCW's booker (the man who decides who would win or lose) and wrestler, Kevin Sullivan. They had both a real-life and an in-ring feud. Another memorable "high"light of his career was when he wrestled Bret Hart as a tribute to Hart's brother, Owen, who had died due to an equipment malfunction.

A year later, he jumped to the WWF with Perry Saturn, Dean Malenko and Eddie Guerrero, who died in 2005. This was a huge thing in professional wrestling circles, as it really spelled the beginning of the end of WCW. He won a tag-team championship with Chris Jericho (another NJPW alumnus). He missed a year due to a neck injury (2001-2002).

It was at WrestleMania XX that he won the single greatest match I have ever seen, however, when he finally became the WWE Heavyweight Championship in a 'triple-threat' match against Shawn Michaels and HHH. I saw WrestleMania XX at a Hooters, along with maybe 50 others, and when Benoit put the "crippler crossface" submission hold on HHH, the place went completely wild... and it got even louder when HHH tried to roll out of it, but Benoit kept the hold on somehow. When Triple-H tapped out, finally, I was not the only person yelling at the top of their lungs.

As a rule, I don't purchase DVDs from World Wrestling Entertainment, but that one, I bought the minute it was out. That match wound up being chosen by PWI (Pro Wrestling Illustrated, the most respected pro wrestling periodical out there, because it has NO ties to any of the companies anywhere) as the runaway winner of "Match of the Year" for 2004.

A few months later, I stopped watching pro wrestling (though I did occasionally download legendary matches from Japan), but the last show I really watched was right here in Duckburg... and I was in the audience when he was the surprise tag-team partner of Eugene. When his theme music hit, the crowd went absolutely berserk. I wasn't too far from the entry ramp, and I know he saw the "Wild Pegasus" sign I brought (I really was a wrestling geek), as he pointed at it as he came down.

And now, he's dead, and all we currently know is that the Atlanta police have said that 1) he wasn't shot, and 2) he called the WWE to tell them that he wouldn't be able to work on Monday because his family was ill and "they were spitting up blood", which is really creepy.

I don't believe this.

UPDATE 1042pm: Fox News is reporting that Atlanta police are investigating the case as a murder/suicide, with Benoit killing his wife and son on Sunday, then himself on Monday. If this is the case, I can't imagine why.

UPDATE 1045pm: I gave it some thought, and for all you non-wrestling fans, here's something that'd cause Bernie Ecclestone to have a stroke: I'm going to compare recent WWE/F wrestlers to recent F1 drivers, by popularity.

Michael Schumacher would be Stone Cold Steve Austin... incredibly popular, despite some nasty tendencies.
Fernando Alonso would be The Rock... the 'face', almost as big as Schumacher.
Kimi Raikkonen would be The Undertaker... big name, big drawing power.
Felipe Massa would be Chris Benoit... the favorite of a certain group of fans (in Massa's case, the Ferrari tifosi. In Benoit's case, the 'smart' wrestling fan.)

ANOTHER UPDATE 1055pm: Mallory Mehling, the best wrestling writer out there (and the person who talked me into starting The Pond, way back when), writes for World Wrestling Insanity, where she reviews WWE RAW, the Monday night show. She's been kind enough to allow me to post her closing commentary for tonight's three-hour retrospective... click below to read. more...

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