Author: Don

Timely question

Robbo:

It’s been a long time now since Uncle paid any attention to the notion that you only buy what you can pay for and that there should at least be some rational relationship between federal outlays and federal revenues. He simply prints the stuff now. (Inflation? Never heard of it!) That being the case, why am I still paying any income tax at all?

(… and Revolver is indeed the best of The Beatles.)

***

Yesterday the high was 89°F. I just looked out the window and saw fat snowflakes blowing in the wind. Yep, it’s springtime in Kansas.

The end of anime

Crunchyroll has changed its policy on watching shows for free. Hitherto, those without accounts could see episodes of current shows after a week’s embargo, albeit with six minutes of dumb, loud commercials inserted at awkward moments. Since there are too few good new shows to justify spending $95.88 plus tax for a year’s membership — in all of 2021, I found only two worth watching all the way through — that was acceptable. However, Crunchyroll recently changed its policy. From the spring season on, people without paid memberships can watch only the first three episodes of any new show some new shows. The hell with it.

Since I no longer download fansubs1, this means I won’t keep up with what’s current. Yeah, there are plenty of older series on Crunchyroll and elsewhere I can still view (with commercials), but while the online collections may be more extensive than mine, they’re mostly junk. My own library is better. I will keep an eye out for further work by Masaaki Yuasa, Hiroyuki Imaishi and Kazuki Nakashima, Kenji Nakamura and a few others, and purchase hard copies when they are available for reasonable prices2, but at this point I’m pretty much done with Japanese animation.

My streaming history does end on a fairly high note. Miss Kuroitsu from the Monster Development Department is the funniest show since at least Endro. There are screencaps below the fold to suggest why I found this study of tokusatsu and corporate cultures from the point of view of the bad guys so entertaining, despite its limited animation budget.

(I can’t quite give the show an unreserved recommendation. One of the characters is a wolf boy who is stuck in a girl’s body because of executive meddling. The writers spend too much time finding ways to make him blush.)

***

I also watched the rest of Life with an Ordinary Guy Who Reincarnated as a Total Fantasy Knockout. It never quite fell through the thin ice it skated on, and some of it was clever, but despite better animation, it was not in the same class as Kuroitsu. It’s a tolerable waste of time, and that’s it.

Continue reading “The end of anime”

Hmm

Perhaps I shouldn’t have formally disaffiliated myself from all political parties. Dutch:

I don’t really vote any more, but I keep my Repub voter registration. The reason is this—the single strongest factor in vote results is the party breakdown of voter registrations. When a precinct has 65% Repub voters registered, but the Dem wins the precinct with 55%, the game is obvious, for someone who is actually paying attention and knows how things work.

The relationship between voter registration percentages, at the precinct level, and actual vote tally percentages was tight, very tight, until 2008. That’s when precincts tallying 65% or 70% Republican registrations started going for the Dem candidate 50% or more. There’s your break, and that is where Dominion entered the picture, 2008.

This seems all too plausible, but I would like to see the documentation.

What is a conservative?

The Z Man:

From time to time a debate breaks out in outsider politics between those who prefer meta politics and those who prefer activism. The former takes the view that it is ideas that drive history so getting the ideas right is the priority. The latter notes that we live in the real world not the world of ideas. Keeping the groomers out of the schools, for example, is what matters now. You are not going to talk them out of it so you have to get involved in order to solve the immediate problem

This is a debate that has haunted conservative politics and it was something that haunted radical politics until the 20th century. Conservatives never solved the problem and it eventually ruined them. The reason is they committed to participating in a political system that leaves no room for conservative ideas. Once you sign onto the long list of left-wing taboos and mob rule, there is nothing worth defending. Conservatives became the tax collectors of liberal democracy.

William M. Briggs:

Another non-surprising discovery is that [Bätzing] describes himself as a “conservative.” This is so if we take the word in its modern connotation as one who surrenders, gracefully, to the left. Surrender is precisely what he wants, saying he wants the Church to “change.”

Just wondering

Does this distress you?

From the Daily Mail:

A University has slapped a trigger warning on some of Britain’s greatest Romantic poets because their work contains ‘representations of sexism and misogyny’.

Bath Spa University has told students that poems by William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats and Alexander Pope have the potential to ‘disturb’ or ‘distress’.

Is there any writer worth reading, anyone at all, who will not “trigger” some ideologue?

(Via Kim Du Toit.)

X marks the spot

California poppies have distinctive forked cotyledons, and seedlings look like little green X’s on the ground.

Winter is leaving at last — I hope — and I can finally start rehabilitating the badly neglected quarter-acre on which I now live. Posting will continue to be light as I prune, rake, dig, cuss, plant and dig some more.

There are two garden centers in town. Both are inconveniently distant, and neither has much of what I need. Fortunately, there are a Walmart and a Home Depot within easy reach. I’ve had better luck with them, but it’s still often frustrating. Walmart, for instance, has a surprising good selection of neatly packaged perennials for seemingly excellent prices. I found Eryngium and two kinds of Tricyrtis, neither of which I’ve ever seen in any Wichita store. However, they’re Walmart quality. If the package says it contains three roots, expect two. If it says two, one will be small and the other just a fragment or missing entirely. It’s not entirely a bad deal; these plants typically cost three times as much from online sources, and if they survive, they’ll put on a good show — eventually. But unless you have more patience than money, look elsewhere for your plants.

Art and entertainment notes

I’m down to two shows, which is still twice as many as I was following at this time last year. The best remains Miss Kuroitsu from the Monster Development Department. However, despite its squicky premise, Life with an Ordinary Guy… hasn’t made me throw up yet. It helps to know your isekai clichés.

Continue reading “Art and entertainment notes”

Quote of the day

methylethyl, in the comments at Joseph Moore’s place:

Whenever I see study titles, or headlines, that involve “models”– I mentally add “In Legend of Zelda” or something equivalent to every conclusion. It helps put it in perspective. So, you know “model estimates covid spread by vaccination rate in Legend of Zelda” or “Climate model predicts 3-foot sea level rise by 2050 in Kingdom of Hyrule” or “Model predicts 10% rise in heart attack deaths with 5% increase in calorie consumption in The SIMS” Because any time you’re working with a model, you’re in video-game land, not the real world: video-game land is simplified, has far fewer variables, by definition cannot have unexpected events or outcomes, etc.

The Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy of Gundam Wing Z

Via David Breitenbeck, here’s a list, “Things Mr. Welch Is No Longer Allowed to Do in an RPG.” A few items from the list:

20. Polka is not appropriate marching music.

94. I cannot base my ancient kung fu master on either Gene Simmons or Bluto Blutarski.

105. I am not allowed to polymorph anyone into Abe Vigoda.

134. The King’s Guards’ official name is not “The Royal Order of the Red Shirt”

174. There is no use of Shatner’s spoken word album that doesn’t require a humanity check.

199. My third wish cannot be ‘I wish you wouldn’t grant this wish.’

221. If I get that Yugo up to 120mph again, that’s gonna get some paradox.

251. I am not the Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy of Gundam Wing Z.

289. My character does not have the flaw Addiction: Helium.

330. The Halfling Paladin does not represent the Lollipop Guild.

411. It is bad form to shoot a god while he’s monologuing.

476. The alignment of 2 years olds is not automatically Neutral Evil.

559. Even if the Ranger offers his sword, the elf his bow and the dwarf his axe, my gnome can’t offer his accordion.

623. Even if the rules allow it, I cannot play a Dire Gummi Bear.

651. My alignment is not Sarcastic Good.

753. No encouraging Swedish accents.

781. My tribe’s trial by combat ritual is not best described as “Calvinball with axes.”

845. It’s not a good idea to taunt Greek heroes with “Who’s your daddy?”

968. A paladin with a British accent is acceptable. One with a Peter Lorre accent isn’t.

975. There is something wrong with a 2nd level Kamikaze.

1172. My brooding costumed vigilante can’t take the flaw Dark Secret: Well Adjusted to Society.

1337. Can’t lure the Bastet into an ambush by turning on the can opener.

See also DM of the Rings and Chainmail Bikini.