Surprise discovery at the leisure centre today. Apparently I am now old enough to qualify for the over 50s ‘no strings attatched badminton club’. Seriously? You reach your half century and suddenly your backhand is such a danger to yourself and others they take your raquet strings away? I refuse to participate in this ageist debacle.

Put me down for senior's bingo afternoon.

HippieVan wrote:

Canadian customs has definitely been known to hold packages longer than is seemingly necessary, but they are pretty good about scanning it upon entry. When that's the issue I'll usually have a tracking update that says “Customs Clearance,” and it just hangs there for days. I suspect it never got to them and was lost by the USPS, especially because tracking stopped long before it would have reached the Canadian border. :(

I feel bad that the seller will probably just have to swallow the cost of USPS' mistake.

Over the years I've learned every regional sorting center. Some miss a scan in sorting or it takes a very long truck ride and there's no news for days. If the package was palletized in bulk there might be no individual scanning until it's past the border and reaches the Customs house and sits and sits. I had that happen to a package I ordered from Asia. That warehouse was steaming hot because when I opened the box this waft of hot Asian air came out.

All postal services are suspect in my view. I had a couple of packages vanish into Italian customs for eight weeks and another package bounce from Switzerland to New York and back again. That one ended happily because the Swiss guy felt so bad he sent chocolate to make up for the delay. I later bought out his whole collection of hard to find French made 54mm plastic Historex figures.

I hope it's just delayed rather than lost. I've had that happen too where a package vanished, I got the refund and it showed up weeks later.

Hey, ‘Zone -

I just heard about that situation in Aussie today on the radio. Apparently it’s resolved. Obviously, I assumed that any raving maniac in a cafe in Australia must be you; glad it wasn't.


We had our own attack here in Canada on the Parliament in Ottawa. They stopped a loonie (if you'll pardon the expression) from attacking. Though it was saddening/angering to lose the soldier that was shot, the hysterical response and cries of terrorism and the political push to strengthen security and expand police powers seemed like such an overreaction - or an agenda that someone wanted to push, using the attack as an excuse (nah! That could never happen!).


I'm feeling like ol' Canada is moving in the wrong direction, and that our government is not representing who we are as people. It's a drag. I used to think that was one of this country's strengths.


In better news, I'm almost done my Halloween Special in Typical Strange! Working the second job has definitely mucked up my comic schedule…

Banes wrote:
We had our own attack here in Canada on the Parliament in Ottawa. They stopped a loonie (if you'll pardon the expression) from attacking. Though it was saddening/angering to lose the soldier that was shot, the hysterical response and cries of terrorism and the political push to strengthen security and expand police powers seemed like such an overreaction - or an agenda that someone wanted to push, using the attack as an excuse (nah! That could never happen!).

I'm feeling like ol' Canada is moving in the wrong direction, and that our government is not representing who we are as people. It's a drag. I used to think that was one of this country's strengths.

I feel the same way, Banes. : (

My parents aren't super patriotic or anything, but they always told me when I was a kid that Canada was a “peace-keeping nation.” It makes me sad that that seems to have gone by the wayside.

I felt like I was crazy for a while, because politicians and the media just kept calling it a “terrorist attack” and I didn't think it was. But then I saw this poll that only a minority of Canadians are under that impression (even after hearing it everywhere), which made me feel better. I think you're right, the problem is that the rhetoric and policies of our politicians aren't actually representative of Canadians.

That's right guys! It's nutters who do the attacks and then it's the rest of the nutters in the community in general who froth at the mouth and react to them, dragging all the rest of us along with their idiocy in the form of a crazy over-reaction.
The irony in that the reacation is ALWAYS worse (for everyone) than the act that inspired it: the killing of Arch Duke Ferdinand - WW1, 9/11 - 10 years of neverending war, any attack by Palestinians on an Israeli - equals open shooting season on an entire city.

When you said “loonie” Banes I thought of a goose and I was trying to work of how that could have happened…

Interestingly this whole pathetic situation in Sydney went as I predicted months ago when the Aussie government was warning of a “terrorist” attack (which this was not as it turns out): I said that at most we'd only get a grubby little siege in a shopping centre or something.
My co-workers were eating it up, beleiveing that there were multipile “attackers” and telling me it was so SERIOUS and that there were bomb threats all over the city… blah blah blah and unicorns fart rainbow sprinkles that cure aids.

But I was right and they were wrong, because I'm not an idiot. :D

Aaand we just had a bomb threat at the hospital today. All the crazies are crawling out of the woodwork. Nothing related to terrorists though…

I guess those people who hate Christmas, those who think Humans aren't a natural part of the universe (and therefore must be exterminated), and those who think Free Will is a work of the devil are also not crazy… :)

Please I was hoping I could go someplace and not hear about this Islamophobic crap. Bad enough all the shit I hear at work. And the Afghan vets just shake their heads. Stop exaggerating stuff to sell newspapers or get cable ratings.

It's hyperbole and fear mongering. Crazies will glom onto anything to support their yearning for violence to instill terror. Islam just happens to make it so easy to be an extreme fanatic. The Koran and Hadith is just so open to that interprettion and there is no established orthadox clergy to say it isn't. A nut is a nut whatever symbol of faith he prefers.

Yeah, I studied Islamic history and the Koran and the teachings of the Prophet. Fine it says all thsoe things but you don't have to make it a pillar of faith any more than the blood-drenched xenophobia in the Old Testament defines a Jew. Yeech.

Well said bravo. Blind hate, ignorance, irrational fear - they amount to the same thing however you dress them up. I like the sound of this Ride With Me thing they've come up with over there, so Muslims can feel safe getting from A to B.

They should have a simlilar thing in the States. A Go About Your Daily Business With Me scheme, so black folks can buy their groceries without being blasted all to hell at point blank range.

Ironscarf wrote:

They should have a simlilar thing in the States. A Go About Your Daily Business With Me scheme, so black folks can buy their groceries without being blasted all to hell at point blank range.

Bring back the Freedom riders from the 1950's-60's. Someone to walk along side a person of color so they won't get harrassed by an itchy-trigger fingered cop wth a chip on his shoulder.

Blacks routinely get pulled over by the police in NJ for DWB; Driving While Black. 50,000 years ago out of Africa buddy. We're all African-Americans.

Ugh… staying away from dry roasted peanuts for a while. Ate maybe 5 pieces and now my stomach hurts…

I try to stay away from all that fear monger stuff. I'd rather not have to deal with it. The people I deal with at work are already bad enough… like that woman a few nights ago who insisted she had the right to sleep at the front of a business I was watching. Called the police who then hauled her away (with the permission of the business owner who had to get out of bed at midnight to help deal with her)…

kawaiidaigakusei wrote:
Is your novel written in English or in Dutch? When it is all complete will you make and audio version? It would be interesting to hear, regardless of the language.

I'm writing in Dutch, which is a big change from most of my short stories and the like. I decided that I would be taken more seriously as a writer if I actually wrote in the language of my own country.

The possibility of an Audio version would have to be up to the publishers. I'm not going to self-publish anything. I'm just hoping that I'm sellable enough to be accepted by one of the publishing houses in the Netherlands, and that I'm good enough to actually be liked by an ever declining group of readers.

In my ideal world, everything I write would be published in multiple languages. A few publishers worldwide bring the books to the masses, but only the German, Dutch, Italian and English versions are really read.

That would then lead to a few people at the BBC that love my stuff, and want to make an English television series about it. I'd accept, but have a few requests, and eventually I'd collaborate with them, and put out about three seasons and a movie. Of course, that would end up being even more popular in the states than in the UK, but by that time nothing that American Networks do is even slightly relevant anymore. They'd buy the rights to a show of their own, and give me enough money to be okay with any bad decisions they inevitably make.

The show turns out to be quite good, and improves over a number of seasons, until eventually it ends with a climactic cliffhanger. The entire world is over me by that time, mostly because I am seen as a sell-out. I write a few more books, more for myself than anyone else, and eventually go into video games, where I really find my medium. I work on a few of the best videogame series ever made, finally making people accept the medium as an artform, but stay in the background, keeping my name away from the press.

I retire at an age that is much too young, and I am unhappy with the freedom I have gained. For years I'm trapped in an ever-speeding downward spiral of drugs and sex and alcohol. My family abandons me, and my friends have no way they can help me, until finally I almost die because of an overdose. In the hospital I begin writing again. My health keeps falling, and that fear, and pain, and sadness all bleeds into the words that I write. I finish the final page on the same day that I die. My burial gets very little attention, and my grave has no visitors for years.

One of my best friends, the only one that still visited me in the end, decides to get my final book published. It is a long and difficult process, because the publishing world does not believe that I wrote it, and does not want much to do with it if I did. Eventually a small publishing house picks it up and does a hundred copy run. And then another. And then finds out that they can not print the book fast enough for the demand. The book touches the people, somewhere in their souls, and they can never forget the message it carries.

World leaders and giant corporations begin to feel fear, and for the first time in the history of mankind it becomes apparent to everyone that the meek will indeed inherit the earth. Society crumbles and is rebuilt. Man and woman, black and white, everyone is equal in every way, and they all work together to achieve their full potential. My name is remembered for a few hundred years, until eventually only my message is remembered, and brought with mankind into the stars. My bones turn to ash, and my planet burns, but my words will reach the ends of time.

And yes, eventually, there will be an audiobook version, but it will cost way too much, and people will not really like the actor reading the words, because he pronounces S's, T's, and F's too much and it is anoying to listen to.

- - -

I hate all the newscoverage of terrible disasters, and dangerous terrorist threats. It just seems like that is the only way that networks can still get people to watch. And Ive read Orwell, I know the underlying danger that government involvement poses. The forced feelings of fear and anger do not really make it all the way to the Netherlands, but I can see how the world is becoming a worse place everywhere else. Of course the Netherlands are in a small way also affected, but our government does not really have the power to change things in the same way that many other governments can. They can send a few soldiers overseas, but because we are a smaller country it would not make sense to put our people on the front lines. Of course they can monitor our communications, but it would mostly be about the weather, and whether or not some football team would win their match next week or not.

It doesnt really seem to me that there is more danger in the world than before 9-11, but less. And I hate that. The world is no longer as interesting as I grew up believing it to be. Because we have less freedom, and less options to do something dangerous to ourselves or others, any decision we make has less value. If murder is not on the table, then choosing not to murder has no moral value at all.

We cant bring toothpaste to another country, and we cant go out into the street without our name on a card, printed and laminated somewhere in one of our pockets. Freedom of speech is no longer a thing, and freedom of religion is only true as long as we do not talk about it.

Sorry about the stream of consciousness there, I get really angry about that kind of stuff, but I don't have the necessary eloquence to actually write a coherent piece about it.

I'm waiting for the Audio book version of your post Kroatz. That was a masterpiece! :D
I think Banes will have to read that as part of the last Quackcast of 2014.
-So that will be the Audio book version right there ^_^

Thanks man, but I think Banes will blow out his vocal cords if you make him read all that. It does seem like a “My Perfect World” podcast would fit the christmassness of the season. And I'm betting that quite a few DunkDruckers would have something interesting, deep, or otherwise podcastable to say.

Augh! Just ruined my christmas in the weirdest way. So my mom works retail and she's pretty good at customer service. She's been wanting a micheal kors handbag (200-300$) for the better part of the year, only stopped because the price. I research and research…snag a nice leather one for 230$! This is expensive for me but I want her to have an awesome surprise, so the money is worth it.

I get a call from her manager(good friend) asking if I delievered a micheal kors purse to the store. My brain is just like ‘the fuck?’ and i stutter and ask her to clarify…a beautiful blonde woman walked into the store with a package and handed it to a cashier. It's for my mom, who is a supervisor at the store. She opens it…a brand new micheal kors purse and a note from someone completely anonymous. What. The. Fuck. I mean, I'm happy for her but at the same time i'm fuming that my expensive present is basically gonna be like ‘oh another one’.
At this point there's nothing I can do but give it to her, the only other present idea was a laptop and moms manager got her that. Fuck.
So yeah I'm just sitting here fuming also feeling bad about fuming because this is a random act of kindness by a stanger but still arrghhkgfjghzkhfej

Give it to her anyway, but fill it with boxes of tastey chocolates?
Might salvage things somewhat and that's not tooo expensive.

Huge bummer SKull :(

Sounds to me like this mysterious blonde has some grudge against you - or is employed by someone who has. The plan is obviously to out-gift you this christmas. Could be a lot worse as revenge attacks go.

Ironscarf wrote:
Sounds to me like this mysterious blonde has some grudge against you - or is employed by someone who has. The plan is obviously to out-gift you this christmas. Could be a lot worse as revenge attacks go.

Ever heard the phrase ‘kill them with kindness’? This could very well be the proverbial horse head at the foot of the bed- a dire warning of more holiday cheer to come. DD:

Happy Solstice, one and all. One of my bucket list items is to welcome the solstice at Newgrange. However, there's an actual lottery to do so. I guess I should hope reincarnation is for real; it would up the ante.

So what camp is the the more populated these days: the Humbuggers or the Oh-Yeah-ers? Without having the pesky distraction of regular employment, this year I'm firmly planted in the latter. Even did a Christmas letter this year, which will go out tomorrow. Today is cookie day: Mexican Wedding, Almond something-somethings, and apricot bars with lime icing (the German Chocolate bars and Cherry/Pistachio cookies have already wreaked havoc with the diet).

I'll be ready Early. Don't know that this has ever happened before. What will I do with the time? (I should write “exercise” but that's dipping into Christmas Miracle territory) I should look into what local charity needs a hand, as Hippy Van most brilliantly suggested. :D

I'm looking forward to christmas because I won't be at work. :)
I hate work so very much… Even though it's so quiet at the moment all I do is sit around in a comfy chair, listen to standup comedy on my phone and goof off on the net the entire time and do no work at all.

Ayes, if you have spare time you can do my Secret Santa for me. ^_^

———–

I caved in and went to see the christmas carols sung this year. I now see why a lot of American athiests have been so anoyed at christmas for so long and identify it so closely with christianity.
Christmas in Australia has always been a very secullar thing for as long as I can remember. You got displays of the nativity scene but that was just tradition.
Recently though some Jesusy things have been taking over. This particular christmas carols performance is the best example of that. The local Anglican church put it on and unfortunatly the priest there has taken his queues from the American style born-again/baptist/evangelical style madness. So instead of all the fun carols they picked mostly the overly jesusy ones and this idiot preist had a long seach where he yammered on embarrasinglyly about Jesus for 10 minutes… Jeust Christ! heh.

Plus a crappy Christmas play where pirate learn the “true” jesusy meaning of Xmas. -_-
Well, I was mainly anoyed at the costumes- The pirates and royal navy guys all carried spodroons instead of cutlasses; the sailor uniforms were early 20thC while their captain was dressed for the 18thC, except he had 20thc rank braid on his cuffs instead of a fold over and buttons! Infamy!!! There is no god T_T

ozoneocean wrote:
Well, I was mainly anoyed at the costumes- The pirates and royal navy guys all carried spodroons instead of cutlasses; the sailor uniforms were early 20thC while their captain was dressed for the 18thC, except he had 20thc rank braid on his cuffs instead of a fold over and buttons! Infamy!!! There is no god T_T

Too bad it wasn't Gilbert and Sullivan. I can forgive any lapses in uniforms for good music. I love the great classical composers' Christmas music. I'll even listen to Handel's Messiah all the way through. Great music makes the “Geee-zuz” tolerable. Religous music doesn't have to be cloying and sappy. Triumphant and reveling in the glory of god and exulting in the pure joy of music.

I find the whole “Put Christ in Christmas” thing ironic. English is the only language where Christ is in Christmas. Navidad, Weinachts? No Christ in Christmas in Spanish or German. Little cultural arrogance there English speakers?

I WISH is was Gilbert and Sulivan! :D Pirates of Penzance, HMS Pinafore… Great navy and pirate related stuff.

I think they're using Christmas as a Christian promotion tool now… proselytizing. That's a shame because it diminishes Christmas. At a time when the holiday is expanding all over the world to many countries, cultures and religious they're trying to limit it down to just them. It's better to share the holiday than claim it or else all that will happen is that people will work to cut them out of it in an obvious and stupid way.
Weird how short sighted and dumb a lot of hard core religious people are. I mean if say Conservative Muslim groups weren't such a big factor then everyone would be enjoying the wonders of Islamic culture a lot more instead of fearing and reviling it.

————

Enough of that! As off this afternoon I have the next 3 and a half weeks off on holiday! Woooo! :) :) :)
Also, I have a weird nerve twinge in my left bum-cheek that fricken hurts! Don't know what cased it. :( :( :(

I actually really like all the Jesus-y Christmas songs, although my family's Christmas has always been very secular. I have this sort of idealized notion of what it might feel like to believe in god…which I'm only able to maintain by ignoring how nasty and unhappy some of the loudest Christians seem to be.

ozoneocean wrote:
Also, I have a weird nerve twinge in my left bum-cheek that fricken hurts! Don't know what cased it. :( :( :(

That's even worse because you can't complain about it to most people!
“OW!” “What's wrong?” “My butt hurts!”

—

I just realized we never did a radio play in 2014! We should definitely do one in 2015, although I guess they're probably a lot of work to organize and edit together. Is it ayesinback who usually does them?

Yes, radio play next year!!!!
That butt twinge is like a knife in the arse T_T
It's Christmas eve and I'm in a mad rush to finish my Xmas pressies… GHA1!!!

Also, Pitface and I just finished writing the most horrible erotic cross-over fiction of Pinky TA and Putrid Meat ever. It was disgusting! Arrrrghhhhh! *hurl*
I plan to thumbnail it out over my holidays.

I finally had a real day off for the like the first time in four weeks. Wow. I work the “swing” shifts as the fill-in guy for the holes left in the other workers' regular schedules. So I work two nights, two afternoons and one day. So my perceptions are all messed up since I'm all over the clock weekly.

I have been covering an extra day the past few weeks. So I'd go home on Monday at midnight to come in for midnight Wednesday. Not really a day off. So I am having some issues with my head. So if I say screwy depressing things it's mostly a result of a mad work schedule and distorted view of time and sleep cycles. And caffeine is your best friend in the world!

I have been watching the original Dirty Pair from the mid 1980's. Rough all drawn animatin but still with lots of dynamic action and little if any fan-service (outside of the brief costumes) At the same time I'm also seeing Divergence EVE with it's battalion of torpedo tits where you never see real nipples but they're always poking through those outfits. But it's decent hard SF or what passes for hard SF in anime. I caught the reference to Ikkitousen in the first season. They came out within a few weeks of each other. The entire end credit sequence is a tribute to the first season of Ikkitousen with Misaki even showing up in Hakufu's school uniform. The second season has obvious parallels to When they Cry. I like tributes but in the same way it can be frustrating when someone says they can sence all the references but don't get them.

I'd love another radioplay to exist, but I'd like a departure from the epic saga of Maxwell McDuff. Imagine how cool we could make a science fiction radioplay (Sparks Nevada: Marshall on Mars comes to mind) or a radioplay about superheroes! And since we now have almost a full year to create it, why not all collaborate on the writing and sound effects and music as well? If we spread out the work, we could create a mini series! Multiple 5-10 minute episodes, continued tales of ‘Blinkie, the space goblin!’ or ‘Dark lord Fredrick!’ or maybe even ‘Shade and Shine, siblings against the sinister!’ (Each of these are of course completely trademarked, and I will sue anyone that even slightly references them.). And, hey… Guys… Gals… How awesome would a comic be, that not only had the radioplay story, but one-shot stories about supporting characters as well?! Who hasn't always wanted to know why ‘Commander Cole Chaos!’ (TM) speaks with a lisp, or how ‘Frank Fedora!’ (TM) got his amazing singing hat?

Let's be ambitious. Let's make something bigger than before, and get DD some sparkle!

How about Flush Morton intergalactic plumber facing off against Bing the Senseless? narrated by Bob “On the road again” Dope. Featuring Dottie and her wonder bra, so up-lifting…
Brought to you by Talbot pipes, Alka-seltzer, Playtex and People's Plumbing Supply.

Actually We have the Operation Moon series of scifi plays and mini-plays Banes and I have done for the Quackcast. There's almost as much material there as all the Official DD anual plays. ;)
That said, there's always a LOT of room for more material and better writers than I who don't just specialise in fart jokes and toilet humour.
Plus, it'd be great if someone else could put a play together as a full package so we could just slot it into the Quackcast. I love them , getting a “some assembly required” job can be a strain.

Kroatz, go ahead and let your imagination run free!

When evil creeps into the night,
Sneaking, hiding from the light,
When bad things happen, far from sight,
And violence proves that might makes right,
When fiends are spoiling for a fight,
And fear and anger take their bite,
From anything that is not theirs to take,
When all the other heroes take a break,
It is Shade and Shine time!

Shade and Shine, the siblings against the sinister!
The family against fear!
The children of cheer!
The kids of righteous killing!

- - -

Also, Merry Christmas to everyone!

ozoneocean wrote:
Actually We have the Operation Moon series of scifi plays and mini-plays Banes and I have done for the Quackcast. There's almost as much material there as all the Official DD anual plays. ;)

But quite unlike the DD radio plays the Operation Moon was just awful. We're talking beyond bad. Plan 9 from Outer Space bad, buttwith scatalogical humor. (haha get the pun, yeah that bad)

Which means they were outrageously funny. Beyond bad that is in fact great in its awfulness. A train wreck seen by someone on acid during a meteor shower during the Northern lights.

Kroatz, that sounds more like halloween to me! :D

————–

Bravo:


So good it's Great!