A few weeks ago, the players of World of Warships were asked to fill out a survey about how they felt about the game.  For the most part, it was all the usual stuff: "would you recommend the game to your friends?", "what do you like about the game?", you know the drill.  One of the final questions was "what don't you like?"  I'm sure most of my response was echoed by others: destroyers (and torpedoes in general) are waaaaaay too overpowered, too many "paper warships", why Soviet ships and no Royal Navy... and at the end, I tacked on "Oh, and not enough rubber ducks.  You really should do something about that."

It appears that the producers listened.  It's still a combat game, it's just that now you've got toy ships floating in a bathtub firing... things... at each other.  With rubber ducks as terrain.  There are other things in the tub, too, but who cares about them?

First I'm partially to blame for Rio: Rainbow Gate! getting a US release, now there are rubber duckies in WoWS?  I need to use this power only for good...

I still sink just as readily in this version of the game as I do in the regular game, that's for sure.  But hey!  Rubber ducks!  Thanks, Wargaming!!!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:53 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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It's been five years, three months and nine days since I last had a cigarette... not that I'm counting or anything, because I'm not.  I only figured out exactly how long its been for the sake of this post.  Knowing that bit of information, combined with the post's title, should give you an idea of what's coming.

Fortunately, it's not as bad as you think... I didn't have a smoke.  Let me repeat myself: I did NOT smoke a cigarette or any other device intended for the partaking of tobacco.

I only want one about as badly as I've ever wanted anything in my life.  Its a damn good thing I'm taking a personal day from work tomorrow, otherwise I'd never be able to resist bumming one from a coworker.

It's not like I want to go back to the bad breath, the smelly clothes, the lack of taste and smell, the stained teeth, the ever-empty wallet, and the lack of wind.  But dear heavens above, none of that matters right now.

I'm NOT happy about this.  Hopefully the craving will dissipate overnight.  Wingtips crossed.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:16 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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Did anybody here read OMNI magazine?  I did, quite a bit.  I remember it mostly for the science-fiction stories, some of which were quite good, but the occasional article stuck in my mind as well.  For example, I'm sure the first time I heard about the Hubble Space Telescope was in the pages of OMNI, years before it ever made it to space.  This morning, after being awakened from a deep sleep by a text that was sent much too early, I remembered something I read 30 or more years ago...

It was an article about the coming environmental disaster, or the hole in the ozone layer, or how we were causing the next ice age, or something along those lines.  Contained in the article was a chart showing what sort of prices we'd be looking at for common items... milk, bread, construction materials, gasoline (note: environmental disaster makes gas prices go down from current rates), metal plates, cars, that sort of thing... wait, what?

That seemed like an odd item to compare prices with, at least for the type of article we're talking about here.  Everything else were common household goods, and then along comes "metal plates" and everything gets thrown into a cocked hat.

Then came this morning's text-message wakeup call, ruining a somewhat humorous dream about a world-wide raccoon shortage, but also for whatever reason reminding me of the OMNI article.  And then it hit me: metal plates, not metal plates!

I was a very intelligent youngster, but I wasn't a smart kid... or adult apparently, since it's taken me 30-plus years to figure out "metal plates."  Unfortunately, I've never been able to find that article again... maybe it wasn't in OMNI.  National Geographic?  Mad?  It is a puzzlement.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 01:47 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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...apparently has less of a budget than anticipated.

Needs more of the Goofy Cute.  But there IS a duck...

Posted by: Wonderduck at 05:55 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I kinda reached a break point last night.  Something occurred that pushed me a little too far, and I just sort of... cracked, just a bit.  I might be quiet for a little bit. 

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:52 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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The drawback of taking a "mental health" day when you have mandatory overtime to complete is that you have fewer days to accomplish the task with.  As a result, I've done five hours of overtime in the past two nights... and both nights I was the last person in the building.  To be honest, this isn't a bad thing.  After all, when I was running the Duck U Bookstore, I was always there long after the store closed, and that meant I could pretty much behave how I wished.  If I wanted to sing along with my music, I could.  If it was warm in the store, I could change into a pair of shorts.  Y'know, that sort of thing.  So I'm alone in my office, and it appears that I was totally alone in the entire building... what's a Wonderduck to do? 

That's right, crank up the tunes and sing along!

And if you're totally sure you're alone, you occasionally throw caution to the wind and do hand motions, chairdance, and once or twice do a stand-up-spin-in-place-sit-back-down thing in time with the music.  And for the record, I very much want that scrolling light frontispiece that SNL has on the stage for this performance of Uptown Funk, that's sweet.

...until the cleaning staff shows up, and you don't hear them come in because you've got your headphones cranked, and they walk in on you singing and carrying on.  I very nearly jumped out of my shoes, and near to wet myself to boot.  Oh dear.

On the way home, I stopped at a local gas station for... motor oil and some two liter bottles of ginger ale.  I bet you thought I was going to get gas, didn't you?  Hah!  Fooled ya!  Anyway, y'all know the Duckmobile is old... indeed, it's 20 years old, I've had it for 18, and it's really showing its age in many ways.  When I exited the gas station, I smelled a horrible odor, one I've unfortunately smelled before.  It was the stench of drastically overheated radiator fluid, burning oil, and melted rubber.  It was the smell of automotive death, is what it was.  I froze, desperately staring at the Duckmobile, looking for the telltale plume of steam and smoke that always accompanies such smells... and not seeing it.  And I should have, the car was wonderfully back-lighted by the bright lights of the pumping area.  It wasn't until I got to the driver's side that I discovered that a SUV parked a few cars down from me had its hood up... and there was the huge gout of vapor, too.  Poor guy was just standing there, trying to figure out what to do, while his passenger went inside... hopefully to buy a jug of Prestone or something.

Then I finally made it home, got comfy... and found THIS waiting for me:

It amused the heck outta me, I'll tell you what.  And now it's the weekend, yay!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:17 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Y'know, I was trying to write about various complaints and gripes and pains and how I have 10 toes but only nine toenails and it took me two hours to take a test at work that should have taken a half-hour and even my walletmoths have walletmoths and I'm sick of cup noodles and I got an unpleasant letter from a friend and I don't want to deal with it and I'm up for potential jury duty and I just want it all to stop so I'm taking a mental health day at work tomorrow and sleeping late and taking a nap or two and I couldn't make any of it interesting so here's a picture instead and I think I can finally now end this incredibly long run-on sentence.

So there.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:46 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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