June 29, 2012
Five Words You Never Want To Hear...
...during the Summer in the Midwest: "Boy, the sky looks weird."
Click for apocalyptic size
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
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1
It rolled through fast, but it did enough damage to the fairgrounds at Wright-Patterson AFB that the Air Force Tattoo was cancelled. Wind speeds of 82 mph were recorded in the area.
Posted by: muon at June 30, 2012 02:57 AM (hQjNF)
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 30, 2012 01:47 PM (+rSRq)
3
That same storm caused power-fluctuations for me last night in Arlington VA, but luckily I got my electronic gear turned off quickly. It was almost constant lightning for almost an hour, along with high winds and rain.
Posted by: Siergen at June 30, 2012 02:12 PM (PuIGa)
4
Does your bookstore have a basement?
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 30, 2012 03:52 PM (+rSRq)
5
Steven, even better: half the store is actually underground, including the entire back room, where my desk is. It's built into the side of a hill, y'see. While the building we're in does have an official tornado evac site, which is essentially a basement area, it's on the far side of the building from us. The evac route takes us past some awfully exposed windows. In a short notice emergency, it's probably safer for us to hunker down in our back room.
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 30, 2012 04:53 PM (C7o1W)
6
While the building we're in does have an official tornado evac site,
which is essentially a basement area, it's on the far side of the
building from us.
I sorta expected a sliding panel behind your desk that led to the secret underground Wonderduck super-villain lair. Especially since you said that the building is built into the side of a hill...
Posted by: Siergen at July 01, 2012 10:29 AM (PuIGa)
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June 21, 2012
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
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1
Jerkoff ISP nuking you for torrenting? Mine has figured out how to limit torrents to 60K while letting everything else through. Although sometimes they relent.
Posted by: Mauser at June 22, 2012 04:47 AM (cZPoz)
2
No, it's a FAIL for the entire apartment complex. There was a power outage a couple of days ago that did something very bad to the network; they've been diddlin' with it since.
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 22, 2012 06:59 AM (2L1Hk)
3
Is it
really an Internet outage, or are you just too preoccupied with a
military exercise to post...
Posted by: Siergen at June 22, 2012 04:23 PM (PuIGa)
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June 15, 2012
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.
Posted by: Wonderduck at
07:01 AM
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1
Sooo...is the duck going to get leftovers
soon, or is the duck going to be the second course
soon?
Posted by: Siergen at June 15, 2012 03:56 PM (PuIGa)
2
I've never had any of the ducks around here come that close to me. (Of course, they all know about my Anti-Duck Blastoray.)
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 15, 2012 04:12 PM (+rSRq)
3
Of course, they all know about my Anti-Duck Blastoray.
I'm going to be moving to a more rural area in a month, and will be less protected. Can you tell me where to get an Anti-Duck Blastoray of my own?
Posted by: Siergen at June 15, 2012 05:15 PM (PuIGa)
4
I heard Acme Mail Order sells it. Installation is not included, and curiously, the warranty has been torn to shreds. Initial analysis indicates impressions left by a paw (coyote) and marks associated with the genus Geococcyx.
C.T.
Posted by: cxt217 at June 15, 2012 05:58 PM (hEbnX)
5
So, like, you don't have another secret identity who does that webcomic Quacked Panes, do you?
(Actually the guy's son does Friendship Is Dragons, so I was pretty sure it wasn't you. But the resemblance was eeeeerie.)
Posted by: Maureen O'Brien at June 17, 2012 06:18 PM (fGqjI)
6
He links to you.
I don't know, this duck conspiracy thing is sounding more plausible all the time.
Posted by: Maureen O'Brien at June 17, 2012 06:19 PM (fGqjI)
7
I don't know, this duck conspiracy thing is sounding more plausible all the time.
Wonderduck has let slip the existence of a corps of cyber-enhanced reconnaisance ducks. There is supposedly at least a squad assigned to maintain surveillance of Chizumatic HQ at all times. So far, they only seem to be watching...
Posted by: Siergen at June 17, 2012 06:29 PM (PuIGa)
8
Maureen, I'm proud to call friend GrayDuck my brother-in-feathers, but we are neither related or the same duck.
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 17, 2012 07:20 PM (V/OLv)
9
Of course, if he
was, wouldn't he say the same thing?
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 17, 2012 11:19 PM (+rSRq)
10
USE THE FRIGGIN' LINK BUTTON.
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 19, 2012 12:01 PM (jC8a0)
11
Well, for one thing,
this duck's a few time zones to the west. (Relatively speaking, Steven Den Beste and I are neighbors.)
Also: One of these days I'll need to address the
ducks versus
ponies issue in my family.
Posted by: GreyDuck at June 19, 2012 08:58 PM (Buiw/)
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June 13, 2012
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
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1
This is even worse, sorry to say.
Posted by: vonKrag at June 14, 2012 04:20 PM (XIY2m)
2
In Wonderduck's kitchen, the condiments eat you!
Posted by: Siergen at June 14, 2012 04:51 PM (PuIGa)
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 14, 2012 06:14 PM (V/OLv)
Posted by: vonKrag at June 14, 2012 10:27 PM (XIY2m)
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June 12, 2012
HSotD Ep10 Is Coming...
This episode is harder than all the previous ones combined... too much talkytalk, not enough zombie. Workin' on it.
Posted by: Wonderduck at
08:49 PM
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June 07, 2012
Whar Wonderduck? WHAR?
Some of you may have noticed an odd lack of Wonderduckage on Tuesday. "Oh, but you just didn't put up a post," I hear you saying and could you turn your head a few degrees to the left to improve sound quality, "there's nothing unusual in that. In fact, if you could do that a little more often, we'd all be quite grateful."
To which I reply with lighthearted laughter and another note in the Duck Vengeance book. But enough of this entertaining but essentially pointless banter! The whole thing is that I usually do my F1 on SPEED/TV! post on Mondays. With the 70th Anniversary of the Battle of Midway being Monday, logically I should have moved the F1 on (MEDIA TYPE HERE) post to... Tuesday. Nothing of the sort occurred... it ended up on Wednesday, and not early on Wednesday either. When it comes to my F1 posts, that's quite the uncommon occurrence. So just what in the world was I doing?
more...
Posted by: Wonderduck at
07:51 PM
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1
A few more friendly "networking" trips to Wisconsin, and you'll be one of us. Might as well order the cheesehead hat now. Resistance is futile!
Posted by: Siergen at June 07, 2012 07:58 PM (PuIGa)
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 07, 2012 09:53 PM (V/OLv)
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June 02, 2012
T-Bird Saturday
So I'm sitting around Pond Central, pointedly not accomplishing anything, when I hear a haunting moan from outside. I immediately grabbed my camera and dashed to the balcony, for this is Duckford AirFest weekend, and that moan was the sound of the six F-16C (block 52) Fighting Falcons of the USAF Thunderbirds. Minutes went by, and I realized that this was probably not going to be a good day for them to overfly Pond Central: the wind was all wrong. My guess turned out to be correct; the route they took to clear the airfield wound up being to the south, instead of directly overhead. Which didn't mean that they didn't surprise me once. See, one of the problems with jet fighters is that from the front, they're actually quite quiet. They don't get loud until they're heading away from you and those big honkin' engines (F-110-PW-229, in this case) are staring you in the face. So when the Diamond blew past Pond Central just east of me, I didn't expect it... and then they curved around to the south at high speed, passing by a gap in the trees in about a millionth of a second (or so it felt). I raised my camera and pressed the shutter button... and hoped I got the shot.
Sometimes you get lucky. Here's what the full picture looked like:
Click on the pic to see it in full 3968x2232 resolution... and see just how lucky I got. The forecast for tomorrow isn't swell... though if it gets better, I might just head out, see what I can snap.
Posted by: Wonderduck at
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June 01, 2012
"You're Old!" Milestone #2 Reached
Milestone #1: turning 40. Did that four years ago.
Milestone #2: bifocals.
Or, in my case,
progressive lenses. Three distinct zones: far away,
not far away, and reading. Computer screen falls into the "not far away" category, but only barely. It's like looking at the world through a fishbowl.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. My last eye checkup was
over six years ago, and I've noticed a distinct amount of fuzziness around objects for the past half-year or so. So I hied myself over to LensCrafters on Wednesday for a trip to the OptyDoc. She said "your left eye hasn't gotten any worse. The astigmatism in your right eye has, however." Just how much worse? One full diopter's worse. The technicians told me that I now have four times as much vision correction in that lens as I did. However, I was right on the edge of needing bifocals. My vanity, of course, said "nope, no bifocals for me!" And out the door I went with my new glasses.
...and immediately realized two things. 1) everything seemed farther away, and B) everything was sharper and clearer. Neat! And then I misjudged the distance to a curb and sprained my ankle when I stepped off a stride earlier than I expected. I went through all of Thursday with the glasses, and noticed that I was having problems seeing mid-range things... like computer screens, or the dashboard of the DuckMobile. I figured it was just a case of my eyes adjusting.
This morning, I realized it wasn't an adjustment thing, I needed something bigger than that. So back I went to LensCrafters this afternoon, where they took more of my money and gave me back a new set of progressive lenses... and boy, is it gonna take time to get used to these. On the way home, I stopped at Walgreens and realized that I was... nodding... as I'm looking at the shampoo, trying to figure out what part of my lenses I needed to look through to not be blurry. And walking through the aisles. And being rung up. And in my car. I feel like one of those
drinking birds.
But at least I can see, right?
Posted by: Wonderduck at
10:16 PM
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1
Welcome to the club! I got mine a couple years ago. In my case, I need to tilt my head back to read my computer screen, but everything else seems to be at the normal viewing angle.
Posted by: Siergen at June 02, 2012 09:46 AM (PuIGa)
2
I just got back from a "grocery" run (some soda, both for Pond Central and for work, some Gatoraid, again for both places, mouthwash), and halfway through I felt nauseous. I closed my eyes for a second and it went away. Kept looking through the wrong part of the lens, then adjusting to the right part, with a noticeable "swimming" effect.
I haven't even had them 24 hours yet, so I'm hardly concerned, but that was unpleasant.
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 02, 2012 11:48 AM (V/OLv)
3
I have reading glasses as well as the regular ones now, but haven't made the leap to bifocals (or multifocals) - yet. Not so much vanity as that I tend to spend hours at one distance or the other and don't switch that often.
But when I need to read labels in the supermarket, that's a nuisance. (And I do, because I'm gluten and lactose intolerant.)
Posted by: Pixy Misa at June 02, 2012 11:59 AM (PiXy!)
4
I'm way overdue for mine. I HAVE the benefit, I just need to USE it.
they do make some lenses specifically for computer distances which have a larger mid-range section.
Posted by: Mauser at June 02, 2012 09:35 PM (cZPoz)
5
Got mine 10 years ago (at 45) and never wear them.
Pure luck, I suppose.
Posted by: skyhack at June 04, 2012 10:30 PM (3ESSA)
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