September 04, 2020
All Of Them, Really.
You may remember a while ago, I was lamenting over the length of my hair and how badly it needed to be cut. Of course, with the Plague-19 going on getting out to a place of haircutting was difficult if not potentially fatal. This left me with two options: let it grow or cut it myself. For a while, I continued to let it grow... and grow... and grow...
But then came the issues. First, it was having to clean my hairbrush every few days. Then it was my bathtub drain clogging almost bi-weekly. Then it was random hair in my metaphorical (and sometimes literal) soup. But the real tipping point was being woken up by a literal mouthful of hair. It had gotten so long that what would have been a ponytail had I tied it was migrating to cover my face during the night. This could not stand, and so I made the decision... I had to do the deed.
Being nearly as impulsive as a block of concrete, I had to make sure I wasn't going to mess up. I have a very nice Remington beard trimmer...
No, not that Remington. At least, I don't think it's the same company. If it is, that's the weirdest case of business diversity I can think of. Anyway, beard trimmer. It's quite good for an entry-level model and it lets me remove my beard in about a fifth of the time it takes me to shave. Even better, I've had it long enough now that its now saving me money on the cost of razor blades! Win win all around! However, please notice the name: beard trimmer. I had no idea how well it'd do when it came to the overgrown field that was my hair. Its blade is less than one-and-a-half inches wide, and my head is much larger than that. Further, I didn't want to shave it all off, and the trimmer did have a guide that'd keep it an inch over my head. That'd still be short, but not oh-my-god-what-did-you-do short. So, I practiced.
Right in front, dead-center of my hairline.
Because where else would you practice when the possibility exists that screwing up would make you look incredibly stupid and would be obvious to everybody that looked at you? Then I doubled down on the stupid by not cutting flat, but at an angle so the resulting length was actually quite a bit less than 1" tall.
Yeah, about like that. Fer the luvva crepe. Before I continued, I did the one smart thing I'd done since the decision to shear myself had been made: I hopped onto the Chicago Cubs website and ordered myself a new Cubs ballcap. Because your hair can't look stupid if nobody can see it! That accomplished, I went back and got to work.
It's more exciting if you imagine a hair-cutting sequence occuring with this playing in the background. No seriously, imagine scenes of long hair dropping to the floor, close-ups of the trimmer blade deforesting whole rainforests of red, all in dramatic cinematic dramaticness. You picturing that? Pretty cool, isn't it? Heck yeah it is.
That's not what it was like. Instead it was me trying to get my hair to just all be the same height and failing miserably. For the next three days, every time I was in the bathroom, I'd see another patch that was clearly too long and work at it some more. Eventually I just set the trimmer to the very lowest height that wasn't blade-on-skin and said screw it. I'll be honest, it wasn't a good look for me. I didn't quite look like the sort of big dumb muscle you expect to see in a bad crime movie, but it was pretty close. It's been a couple of weeks now, and while it's still very very short... I can brush my hair just as well with my hand as I can an actual brush, and drying it after a shower takes about two rubs of a towel... it's not as horrible as it was. At least now you can tell I have actual hair.
Better than choking on it every morning, I'll tell you what.
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August 16, 2020
Derecho's Trumpet
Over at college graduate Brickmuppet's place, he tells a tale of a disappointed tastebuds as he recently had to deal with a cheeseburger made with cheez wiz. His disgust is entirely understandable. A mouthful of such a monstrosity when one is expecting a wonderful beef patty with ketchup, mustard, a small amount of relish, and a delightful amount of proud midwestern-made cheese, would be a horrible experience, akin to expecting a Chicago-style Hot Dog and discovering it topped instead with ketchup and raw wheatgrass.
This tale is bad enough, but he then goes on to mention something about a derecho that brought hurricane-force winds through Iowa, Southern Wisconsin, and the entirety of Illinois last Monday. The National Weather Service defines a Derecho as "a well-organized and long-lived complex of storms producing a family of particularly damaging downbursts." Tornadoes are a thing involved with these massive storm fronts, and indeed, two were involved in the Rockford area when the beast rolled through around 3pm.
I've helpfully placed an arrow pointing at the rough location of Duckford and Pond Central. The NWS did a great job with this thing, as they began warning those of us in the path of the storm that we were in for a spot of bother around 9am. A couple of hours later, they issued something I had never seen before: a "Particularly Dangerous Situation Severe Thunderstorm Watch". I had slept in that day, having been up very late playing Fate Grand Order.
It wasn't until 130pm or so that I finally noticed the frantic reports coming from the NWS and the decidedly less-frantic heads-up coming from the best weather team in the area, the good folks over at WREX, the local NBC affiliate. It was that rather calm unconcerned nature from them that fooled me into thinking this wasn't going to be a big deal, just another thunderstorm, ho-hum. This is odd, as they are usually quite good about getting their point across when it's going to be a bad one. Well, it didn't take much longer before my complacency was blown out of the water... almost literally.
While that photo above was taken in Chicago, that same wall o' clouds pretty much came through Duckford. Seriously, it was well-defined enough that when it passed overhead it felt very much like the space station crossing the terminator line in orbit... one moment it's sunlight, the next it's pitch black. Remember how I mentioned there were two tornadoes that hit the city? The larger of them was an EF-1 with 100mph winds that touched down just to the north of Duck U and traveled Northeast, eventually causing more than $500,000 in damage to Duck Valley College, the local JuCo, when it ran over them. This wasn't a glancing blow, this was a direct hit that went through a number of residential areas.
Duck U is at the orange arrow, the estimated tornado path is the purple line. Just offscreen to the bottom left is the busiest intersection in the city, State St and Alpine Rd (which is that north-south street just to the left of the tornado start point). Duck Valley College is top-center of the map. The rest of Duckford got away with only 75-80mph wind gusts, torrential rain... after it was all over, I saw a report of rainfall rates of up to three inches/hour... and much trees and roofs blown around. State and Alpine is approximately the half-way point between Pond Central (far offscreen to the bottom) and The Old Home Pond (well offscreen to the left), so fortunately both locations were spared the worst of it. But it did get a little exciting there for a while. At one point here at Pond Central, I had breezes coming from opposite sides of the apartment at once, which has never happened before. The weatherstripping on the apartment door couldn't keep the glancing wind gusts out, and the floor-to-ceiling windows/sliding glass door to the balcony are like a huge wind magnet. Thing is, the windows face south, and the door is in the northwest corner of the apartment, facing west, at the end of a hallway. Usually the wind has to be coming from the dead north to get in there, and it REALLY has to be blowing for it to leak around the door. But when THAT is happening, the windows to the south are shielded by the building. I think it's safe to say that the winds were... "confused" during the storm. I did prepare my emergency nest in the hallway, just in case of Really Bad Things.
Timelapse of Merely Bad Things from the GOES-EAST weather satellite
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August 04, 2020
Air Penguins Redux
In these trying times, when all around us is going insane, when hiding in one's house for a month seems normal, when nothing really makes sense anymore, we need to be reminded that, once upon a time, this was a thing:
I first mentioned them ten years ago, but c'mon... flying penguins! I only wish the video was longer... I could watch it for hours. The same company has done many other flying things, including a very impressive (but nowhere near as fun) SmartBird, eButterflies, and... OH! I just found a longer Air Penguin video!
I want to say something inspiring, like "be like an air penguin", but I can't think of anything. Oh well.
Air Penguins.
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July 28, 2020
This Is Funny
What's the difference between a joke and a rhetorical question?
Well, I thought it was funny.
THIS... this is what I've been saying for decades, this guy just has a better voice and a better editing suite!
Maybe a little NSFW language. Lighting. Darn skippy.
EDIT: More Lighting! Even darner skippier!
What sort of music do wind turbines like to listen to?
They're huge metal fans.
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July 14, 2020
Grant Imahara
If you read The Pond, you've almost certainly seen Mythbusters, right? I know I loved the show for most of its run, and while it couldn't really be called "science" it was certainly in the vicinity thereof.
Less than an hour from when I began typing this, news had broken that Grant Imahara, member of the so-called "Build Team" on Mythbusters, had suffered a brain aneurysm and passed away at the age of 49. He was known for being the "team geek", the one who specialized in high-tech gadgets and anything needing computers. Over his entire career, he would probably be best called a roboticist. He first became known to the public for his appearances on Battlebots, but he also worked for Industrial Light and Magic for years. Indeed, he was the one in charge of refreshing the old R2-D2s from the original Star Wars trilogy for use in the prequels. He was also a skilled movie model builder with a list of credits as long as your arm.
However for me, without a doubt, his finest creation has to have been Geoff Peterson, the skeleton-robot from The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Which brought us this moment of incredible hilarity that even after having seen it dozens of times cannot fail to bring me to tears laughing.
Thank you for being part of my television life for so long, Grant. Momzerduck liked you the best on the show. I tended to watch for Kari, but you were indispensable.
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July 03, 2020
Adventures In Going Outside
Had to break quarantine today to go out and get my Keep Wonderduck Alive and Happy Pills. 90 degree heat with 65% humidity meant the experience was like existing in a damp fire.
Because I'm a lazy bum... and other reasons... I got a lift from a taxi, which meant wearing my handy-dandy face mask. Nothing out of the ordinary, that's just what life is like in the world of the evildeathbatplague. One difficulty... I have a goatee that's probably three or four inches long.
Kinda like that, but bushier. My mustache isn't as majestic either. Oh, and the goatee is now two-toned... more on that later. The entire trip only took a half-hour, hardly what anybody would call a long time. The heat was hot, but hello! Summertime! It tend to do that here. But here's the thing... my goatee was tucked inside the mask. Once I got home and took the mask off, my goatee was pointing straight forward. And it would... not... lay... down. I'm not one to worry overmuch about looking stupid. It's kinda normal for me, truth be told. But this was too much for me to take. I immediately soaked my chin in water and brushed until I couldn't stand it any longer. It's sorta behaving itself now. Sorta.
Now then: the two-toned thing. Not too terribly long ago I realized, much to my horror, that my hair is beginning to show my age. Now as you can guess, I am not at all vain about my appearance... that'd be horribly stupid of me all things considered. However, I do have one thing that I'm extremely proud of, and that's my hair. It's a red-gold color, particularly in the sunlight, except for my mustache which is and hopefully always will be red. Back in the days of grad school, I had a friend whom we'll call Tweeter. I may have mentioned her somewhere in the past 15 years, but the search function being what it is, I can't find it. Anyway, she and I had happened to bump into each other at the library (she wasn't in the theater department) so we grabbed some lunch and began walking towards my office in the theater building. It was one of those rare wonderfully pleasant days you get in Minnesota during the week-long stretch they call "spring" up there.
Yes, exactly like that, 100%, Anyway, we're walking along and Tweeter suddenly gets this weird look on her face. I mean, weirder than I usually got from women. Finally she goes "Holy crap Slick," because that was the nickname she gave me, "you really are a redhead, aren't you? You look like your head is on fire!" The sun had turned my hair into a shining halo of glorious red-gold. Anyway. I'm inordinately proud of my hair.
This actually is what my hair color looks like when the sun hits it like it did that day. That I'm 52 and show no sign of grey in it that anybody could possibly detect just makes me even more proud. Until a few days ago, when I realized something terrifying: my goatee had grey in it. Worse, I had a reverse-skunk going on. Instead of a single grey stripe, the middle 50% of my goatee is red, and the 25% on either side is grey... or at least something that isn't red. It made me feel really really old... and now today, when it made me feel old and stupid looking. I'll tell ya, it doesn't make for a great experience. But I've got my pills, the a/c here at Pond Central is still doing its thing, and I can always shave off the goatee. My fear is that it'll grow back ALL grey. That'd be a disaster! "Anyway, here's Wonderwall."
This is Pink Floyd level of lighting. When I stumbled upon it, I was flabbergasted... then I watched the whole concert, and was even more blown away. Forget the quality of the songs... I'm not big on a lot of them... but pay attention to the way the designer plays with the light curtains. Kudos to Trent Reznor for working with LeRoy Bennett, the designer, to get this look. It's friggin' beautiful in a way a lot of the songs aren't, and the combination is wonderful.
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June 26, 2020
Because Sometimes You Just Need To Post Trains
Union Pacific was the only railroad to use the 4-12-2, and it was apparently a maintenance nightmare due to a third cylinder powering the second driving axle. Why was that a problem? Because it was directly under the firebox, in the center of the engine. That aside, it is an intimidating-looking beast.
Sometimes, even classic steam engines need a little help. Here, Norfolk & Southern's 611 gets exactly that... a little help.
I'm a twain! Choo choo! It's a Swiss railroad battery-powered shunter from the '20s, apparently rated for a whoppin' 5 h.p. Of course, you don't need much to move cars around, you just need to get 'em moving.
Ever wonder how they keep the switches clear of ice and snow during a Chicago winter? Yup, they set 'em on fire.
Special Bonus Not-Train Picture
Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-V...
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June 14, 2020
Mind Savers
No matter how well we may (or may not) be coping with Introvert Celebration 2020, staring at the same four walls (more if you have access to more than one room) can begin to get anybody a little bugnutty. I've come across a number of yootoobers that allow me to take virtual journeys to get me out of Pond Central, at least mentally.
It all started, of course, with Rambalac. I began watching his videowalks long before Social Distancing Is A Thing 2020 kicked in, and he's still my favorite of all of these people I'll be mentioning. What he does is so uncomplicated that nobody else that I've found does it half as well, which confuses me. All he does is load up a high-end videocamera with a swell microphone on a stabilizer-like rig, and he goes for walks. That's it, that's all. He doesn't talk, there's no music overlaid on it, it's just ambient sound. And I simply adore having his vids playing while I do my FGO runs, or have dinner, or just to get myself ready for bed.
In search of something new and exciting, a few months back I stumbled across Railfan Aunz. Consisting of mostly cab rides of trains, this yootoober leans more toward the not-Tokyo side of Japan, though they spend a lot of time outside of Japan too... there's videos from Australia, Italy, England, Hong Kong and others, too. Two of my favorite videos are a roundtrip between two fairly rural areas, one out, one back... and during the four hour round trip, the weather changes from heavy snow to zero snow on the ground. Of course, during the trip back the weather gets bad again. Throw that onto some rather stunning terrain and you've got a great way to spend a night or two. The video I've included here is easily my favorite, however. It looks like a regular train ride in dense-pack Japan somewhere... and then you reach the 3:40 mark.
Yeah. Not a bad way to commute.
Compared to the first two, Wingin' It With Paul Lucas is totally different. He's a flight sorta guy, and he literally does nothing but flight reviews for a living. Fortunately for him, he had a backlog to work through during the Coming Of The Quiet Time 2020. While I'm fascinated by the Business/First Class flights he's been on, he's not afraid to sit back in the cattle section with the unwashed masses. He's done everything from 747s to teeny-tiny puddlejumpers in the Caribbean, as well as the occasional train and even a submarine once. His style has changed radically from the beginning of the channel, for the better I think.
Finally, in stark contrast to the other three's exotic locales, we come to CTAConnections, the official yootoob channel of the Chicago Transit Authority. About half of the channel is stuff that nobody will ever watch... the monthly CTA Transit Board meetings... but the other half is filled with historical footage of Chicago's light rail system, as well as real-time ride-alongs of every "color" route... the Purple Line, the Blue Line, etc etc etc.
Around about 20:30 or so on this Red Line video, you may see something really really gorgeous off to the right.
There's plenty of other channels out there that I've taken virtual trips on, but I'll leave those for your own adventures... and if you have anything like this that you like to watch, like a bus trip from London to Paris, let me know in the comments! Enjoy!
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June 09, 2020
Serious Questions For The Pond Scum
Are you okay?
Has it been difficult dealing with all... this?
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June 03, 2020
Thankfully, Baseball
The KBO, Korea's professional baseball league, is playing out their season these days over on ESPN. For those of us starved for the sport, it's something of a blessing. And even in this day and age of Evildeathbatplague, they've got great attendance!
You could almost say the stadium is... um... stuffed.
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May 23, 2020
Well, I Dunno
So I've been sitting here trying to figure out what to write and honestly can't come up with anything worth reading.
This is the point where I say "There's some question as to whether or not I ever did," of course, because that's one of The Pond's normal jokes. Really, The Pond could write itself... probably do a better job than I could anyway.
The Pond's been such a part of me for so long that I can't imagine letting it go but it's not like I'm doing anything here either. Any requests for topics?
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April 23, 2020
52
It's that time again. Once again, I commemorate surviving another year by posting energetic birthday candles. And lo, here it is:
According to the yootoob comments, the fire is actually adhesive burning off the ablative coating of the engine. Whatever it is, it's certainly spectacular.
Like 52 candles on a birthday cake for one would look like, come to think of it... just without the smoke alarm going off. I'm not even sure that many candles is legal in a multi-unit dwelling here in Illinois.
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April 15, 2020
Happy Not Tax Day!
Last night I fired up the H&R Blockhead website in preparation to have teeth pulled... i.e., do my taxes. I went through all the usual rigamarole... do you need to update your address, phone number, marital status, shoe size, all that sort of thing... but then, what to my wondering eyes did appear?
A message saying that the deadline for filing your taxes has been moved to July 15th.
At first, I didn't believe it. I would have heard something somewhere, right? That's not one of those things you just miss, right?
Right?
Anybody?
So it was just me? For some reason, I find that I'm not at all surprised.
But woo-hoo!!! Happy time for a little while longer!
So... how are you? Holding up okay? Yeah? Anything I can do to help you through?
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April 08, 2020
Yep, I'm Still Alive
I've had more phone calls in the past two days from actual human beings than I've had in the past six months, and all because I haven't posted anything to The Pond in the past week. It's like... people actually care about me or something.
While this whole social distancing/don't go out thing is second nature to me... it's all I've been doing for months anyway... I've begun to see signs that even I need SOME human contact once in a while. I'm not sure which is more disturbing, that I legitimately thought I didn't, or that it took this long to prove otherwise. I'm watching a lot of Twitch streams... there are even human faces in a couple of them!
Hope you folks are doing better than me in your isolation!
I'm still playing Fate Grand Order quite a lot, and quite happily. Remember back in 2018, there was a show called Today's Menu for the Emiya Family? It was essentially a slice-of-life version of Fate/Stay Night where everybody is alive, healthy, and happy. Yeah, in other words exactly the opposite of the rest of the franchise. Here's what the ED looked like:
Light and fluffy, yeah? Well, someone sat down and decided to redo it for FGO. Here are the results:
Yeah, I'd play THAT game.
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March 29, 2020
Saturday Fright
A short while after I wrote the prior post, I'm watching a twitch stream when the streamer disses Chicago-style pizza with the usual "casserole" comment... which always makes me wonder how they grew up when this...
...looks like a casserole to them. Must have been a strange childhood, but I digress. I immediately stood up and told him to "bite my shiny Chicago butt" at about the same time someone else ripped into him as well. As it turns out, the two of us live relatively near each other, with him being about 25 miles away. A pleasant coincidence indeed, but nothing more than that really.
And then a while later, he announced in chat that the sirens had just gone off, that there was a tornado warning, and he was heading for the basement. Now, the weather had been bad all day, but not BAD bad. After wishing him luck, I hopped onto a local tv station's weather facebook page to see what was what... and they were streaming live which is never a good sign. They were talking in serious tones and looking at live doppler radar image closeups and sure enough, there was a pretty obvious spot of bother...
I mean, obvious enough that someone who had never seen a weather radar could have spotted it as meaning something. A few minutes watching, and bam... they declare it's probably a tornado, no way of knowing if it's on the ground however... and it's right over the town my new chat friend lives in. A few tense minutes passed until he popped back up in chat... they had just been given the all-clear. Phew, good news! Until the weather nabobs said that Duckford was now under a tornado warning... from the same storm! It was a fast mover, too... 60 or 65 mph. They spent the next half-hour following the storm as near to live as possible, and the more time passed, the worse things got.
At this point, we were about 10 minutes away from having a tornado hit Duckford, and if the predicted path held firm, it'd be passing about a half-mile or so to the west of Pond Central. It was at this point that I shut down my computer, grabbed a couple of battery-operated lamps, pulled a heavy comforter off my bed, and took up position in the hallway outside the loo, where I also called up the facebook stream on my phone. Blanket fort for the win, I guess.
Pond Central has had bad weather moments before. A few of them had driven me to the hallway just in case. But never before had I really wished I lived in a first-floor apartment, which are mostly below ground level in my building (built into a hillside). Instead, all I could do if it looked like the tornado was going to hit was get in bathtub, pull the heavy vinyl curtain closed, thrown the comforter over my body, and hope it all worked out. The live stream kept coverage on it going, imploring everybody to get to cover immediately. And then... the rotation weakened as it approached the vicinity of the Duckford Airport, then basically broke up altogether as it entered the city limits. We don't know if the tornado had been on the ground all the way from Oregon, or if it had touched down for a bit then lifted back up while still being a threat, or what. What Duckford got was torrential rain... the Airport reported a rate equal to five inches/hour... but that was it.
Back where the tornado had definitely touched down, there were many power poles down, a farm had its dairy barn, outbuildings, and home destroyed (nobody was there at the time), and for a few moments there was a distinct possibility we'd find out what would happen if a nuclear plant was hit by a tornado. Fortunately there were no injuries reported. The National Weather Service was on site today trying to figure out details of the tornado... strength, how long it was on the ground, that sort of thing... hopefully we'll know more on Monday. Impressively, the weather nabobs had predicted where it would have hit Duckford almost exactly. It would have missed Pond Central, but by less than a half-mile or so.
I'm still a little freaked out.
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March 28, 2020
Well That Was A Thing That Happened
Illinois is under a "shelter-in-place" order, and has been for a week now. Which, of course, means that this week was the PERFECT time for me to have to go get my monthly meds. Of course, Illinois' shelter-in-place is my "Tuesday", so I'm probably not infected by the evildeathbatvirus... or I wasn't before the trip out. As it turns out, my doctor's office didn't give me a full refill of the Keep Wonderduck Alive pills because they need to see me.
more...
In the middle of a huge pandemic.
Yeah.
I grabbed a taxi... don't ask why... and had a gosh-darned-lovely time getting into and out of it. THANKS, crappy knees! Also it was pushing 60 degrees and I was wearing a scarf over my mouth and nose.
You know what? I'm just complaining. Human contact appears to be a thing I'm running low on? Scary that it's taken this long, actually. Here, have some music.
Anybody out there got anything on their mind they'd like THE Wonderduck's opinion on?
Oh! Almost forgot! Redditor 3ikal on the Fate Grand Order subreddit took pity on this poor little duck, and made for me a most awesome thing. Click *more* to see it!
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March 08, 2020
Not Entirely Dead Yet
I wouldn't entirely blame you for not believing me considering the amount of time between posts these days. Honestly, nothing to write about has leaped at me. I haven't seen the Midway movie yet, I'm afraid to watch considering reviews. Which, considering I'm really only interested in the history of the thing, is a stupid reason to be afraid to watch.
Actually, being afraid to watch is stupid, period. To which I say to you, have you ever read The Pond before? Which is a long-time joke here, but these days? I dunno what to expect from that question.
Y'know what? I got nothing. I got less than nothing! I've wasted your time on nothing, which makes this post a net negative! I have some things I want to say, but can't because it wouldn't be fair for someone else, so instead you get this. Aren't you lucky? Here, have an AMV.
I've never actually seen a Trans-Siberian Orchestra song used for an AMV before. Despite being a Christmas tune, it works well enough here. And that should make this post a net-zero. Great, I don't feel as guilty now.
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February 26, 2020
F1 Season Coming Around Again.
I know, right? You think I'm not still watching Formula 1, but I am! Mostly. Kinda. I mean, I know it's there. There's been two thingies to come out of the pre-season testing that are vaguely important... one rules-related, one not so much. Let's start with that last one, shall we?
Toro Rosso is no more. In it's place we find...
ALPHATAURI!
...
Okay, yeah, it's the same Red Bull B-team, just with a spiffy new livery which is, honestly, awfully eye-catching. Damn well should be, AlphaTauri is Red Bull's bespoke fashion line... which to be honest I think looks either goofy over overpriced. Or both. Really, they look like Carhartt went glam. Wouldn't cost $500 for a jacket then, lemme tell ya.
Gotta make money for the spiffy new livery somehow amirite?
Now for the more serious bit: Mercedes has been clever again. A week ago, they introduced a new steering gimmick. If the driver pulls the steering wheel towards him or pushes it away, it adjusts the "toe" on the front tires... the angle the tires are in relation to the track.
Among other things, the amount of toe-in or -out affects tire heating (and what part of the tire gets heated) and on straight-line top speed... the less the tires scrub against the track, the less drag is generated and the faster you go. It's not a huge amount, but it is a real thing.
Amazingly, this trick is NOT illegal... yet. The FIA has gone on record as saying that it doesn't contravene safety rules and in that way is okay to be used in 2020. However, it's already been, if not outright banned in 2021 and the new tech regs, financially banned for that season. It's a neat idea though, and while I wish it had been any other team that came up with it, Mercedes deserve praise for being clever.
First race is Australia in mid-March. I'll be watching, though who knows if I'll be writing? Or if I did, if anybody would be reading it! It's not like I've been churning out the quality free ice cream of late.
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February 14, 2020
Valentines Day 2020
I've been playing a lot of Fate Grand Order of late.
Because of that, I've also gone back and done a general Fate franchise anime rewatch... Fate/Stay Night, Fate/Zero, Unlimited Blade Works, Fate Apocrypha, El-Melloi II Case Files, as much of Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya as I could stand without feeling like a pervert (not much), Fate/Extra Last Encore, Today's Menu for the Emiya Family, of course the ongoing Fate/Grand Order - Absolute Demonic Front: Babylonia, and hopefully culminating in an all-up viewing of the three Fate/Stay Night Heaven's Feel movies.
I must admit though... Fate/Make Dinner really is my favorite of the bunch.
One thing that's impressed me during this whole rewatch project is just how consistently good it's all been. Even the allegedly lackluster Apocrypha is only so because it gets compared to the best of the other series in the franchise... in comparison to most non-Fate series it's pretty good.
So yeah, Fate Grand Order is fun. If you play already, I'm 264.380.184... add me to get access to a bunch of lvl 40-60 servants! You'll regret it in time, but you'll feel good when you're rollin' in all the friend points I give ya.
I'm just in it for the headpats.
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January 22, 2020
Terry Jones, Screeching Harridan, Passes Away
Terry Jones, one of the members of Monty Python, became the nude organist for the choir invisible today. He was 77.
Sadly, he'd been suffering from a rare form of dementia since 2016 and had lost the ability to speak over a year ago. Best known for his work with the legendary comedy troupe, Jones was also an accomplished director, historian and children's book author.
A few months ago, I wrote about the effect Monty Python's Flying Circus had on my sense of humor, but it was only today I discovered that Jones was the "inventor" of the show's non-ending ending... a sketch has gotten lost along the way to the punch line? Have a knight in full armor walk in and hit somebody over the head with a rubber chicken. Have someone in uniform declare everything to be too silly and cut to another sketch. Simple and stupid, sure, but funny as hell and I've used the same technique in my writing here at The Pond over the years.
I had just glanced at my phone after briefly waking up this morning and saw the news that he had died, and I can't explain just how strongly it affected me. I mean, beyond rolling over and going back to sleep. I've long outgrown the concept of personal heroes, but the Pythons are the closest I might possibly have anymore. They've been one of the few things that I can say have always been a part of my life... at least, as long as I've been aware of such things. And now I've gotten old enough to see them begin to go away. Hard to come to grips with such thoughts at nine in the morning..
And now I'm going to go watch the Spam sketch.
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