@Kawaii- the perils of typing on a phone… I have lots of spelling mistakes to fix! Dammit!

@Lonne- in historical military yes, if the person was very well connected or had a high ranking sponsor like a king or highly connected person. Not in modern militaries… But I think Star Trek is based around meritocracy so it's different. People are promoted on real ability there.

kawaiidaigakusei wrote:
Blast it all to bloody hell!

Is the Indiegogo campaign saying that Ironscarf is now offering his artwork to go toward fundraising??

That one is sure to be picked up like a hotcake.

Ooo all you skilled and talented artists on DD.

I knooooow! I almost regret the anthology now.

—

I stayed out until 11:30 playing DnD so I guess I will be writing that dream-inspired newspost after all. Whoops.

kawaiidaigakusei wrote:
@Black Kitty
Woo woo! Congratulations on your engagement!

I love Hong Kong from Mong Kok to the Mid-Levels. I did feel that my bargaining ability was reduced there compared to Guangzhou because the main language was Cantonese and I only knew the “lower the price” phrases in Mandarin. The toy and stationary shops in China were sometimes located underground so I would walk through tunnels filled with plush toys and stickers. It was pretty cute.

I am a big fan of tokidoki by Lesportsac, so I can spot the real deal from the knock offs. That is how I knew Greece was selling the exact same bags as in China.


As far as fresh produce is concerned, the California drought has reduced the variety of produce sold, but I still like to buy most of my produce from the frozen section because it lasts longer. Broccoli in meatballs are the best. I once tried turkey meatballs with broccoli and they were the best.

Thanks! :D

Your bargaining skills are probably way better than mine. I'm too used to the Canadian way which is to go in, see the price, think about it, and then either buy it or leave. Instead in Hong Kong I can't go in without someone immediately offering customer service. One time I spent an hour in Canada deciding what wallet to buy. You don't want to offer me any customer service. I'm a slow thinker when it comes to shopping (but generally pretty satisfied with what I bought once I take the plunge.)


With that being said, I did give haggling a shot. Sometimes it worked out, sometimes itdidn't. Sometimes I just get my dad, a natural Hong Konger, to just do it for me. I always feel bad haggling. :(

Turkey meatballs are on my list of things to try making. I like meatballs because if you have leftovers of them the next day, you can just help yourself to a little snack. >.>

ozoneocean wrote:
@Lonne- in historical military yes, if the person was very well connected or had a high ranking sponsor like a king or highly connected person. Not in modern militaries… But I think Star Trek is based around meritocracy so it's different. People are promoted on real ability there.

So basically because your character survived a Klingon ambush and then a Borg invasion while saving a lot of colonists, the Admiral gives you your own ship command?

And even funnier (I think), later in the game both the Romulan Republic commander and Admiral Tuvok note your “meteoric” rise in ranks and history, but only Kim seems to give you the respect your rank commands.

As for the Klingon and Romulan players… The Klingon player kills their commander (but it's complicated as the player's superior attempts to kill the captain but fails with the player succeeding in the task seconds later, forcing him/her to undergo a special ritual to determine their right to command).

As for the Romulan player it's simpler. The Tal Shiar commander shows up during a celebration in the player character's colony and blows it up. The Romulan player is as ticked as hell. They go with their best friend and take on the enemy in an old Romulan Warbird. After the resulting fight, the Tal Shiar commander flees having lost his eye. The result is a story that is essentially a TITANICALLY HUGE GRUDGE MATCH between the Player and the Tal Shiar commander (and we really LOVE to hate him).

Spending years making rank in a steady career progression doesn't make for an intriguing game. So you get in all in one mission and have your own ship like the Star Trek reboot movie.

I know what you mean about styar trek, they made it clear it skipped through the training but straight to captain was pushing it. personally I'd like to have seen more development but thats the thing with feature films.

There is a difference between Star Trek and most real navies. Different sized ships in reality have different ranked skippers. A submarine only had a lieutenant commander as “Captain ” the actual rank captain only commanded a capital ship like a heavy Cruiser (which is what Enterprise is) . I had wanted to show that in Tales of SIG with Rickover only really being a full commander in rank though “captain” of a scout class vessel. It made things too complicated so I did it the same way as the series.

It did happen that a bridge could get taken out and some junior officer left to take command. But his next voyage wouldn't see him helming his own ship. If anything he would get exec and only his own ship when a new one came along in the class befitting his rank. So a lieutenant who ends up helming a Cruiser because all above are dead might get promoted to commander and given a destroyer. But he wouldn't get that cruiser.


It even worked that way in the submarines unless an officer really excelled but even then they would give him another boat. This is based on US practice. Other services are different. The Germans had a seperate rank structure for vessel commanders versus those of the same grade not commanding.

It is not uncommon for a person to move up in rank after going to school. In the US Marine Corps, a college degree can be a ticket straight to Second Lieutenant. Of course, a career person who entered as a Private, PFC, Lance Corporal, Sergeant, Staff Sergeant, etc. would understand all the different stages from a personal perspective giving some legitimacy to the promotions.

I'm fascinated to see the insignia that the higher up officers from the Master Gunner to the Colonel wear and wonder how they achieved those ranks. I've noticed that the higher ranked officers smell good (or at least better than the younger guys who have to trudge up mountain paths and roll in the mud all day).

Genejoke wrote:
I know what you mean about styar trek, they made it clear it skipped through the training but straight to captain was pushing it. personally I'd like to have seen more development but thats the thing with feature films.

They revamped the tutorial missions in Star Trek Online so it shows that you actually had been through training. It's only your captain's graduation day that he becomes the ship's acting captain, after which he gets a field promotion when his ship is drawn into another mission by the captain that rescued him.

Anyways… if you feel like watching it, here's a video of the first few missions you go through as a Federation player…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX9or6CtyPQ

In the Army promotions come after school. You don't get sergeant until primary leadership training and the staff sergeant until after Basic NCO school.and so on. For officers it's similar with different schools necessary to advance beyond captain and major.and then to full colonel. To get to be a colonel you also need a civilian side graduate degree in addition to your military education.

When I left I had just finished the first layer of schooling to become military classroom instructor.

I could be VERY, VERY wrong, but I think most millitary insignia are modified from British ones…
though I'm pretty SURE that they were the ones who came up with all the naval insignia and eveyone else was influenced by those. The British Royal Navy was THE navy to emulate back in the day- the gold standard, the Rolls Royce of navies.

After Trafalger when they had the greatest victory ever, the British OWNED the waves, almost litterally. They were unchallanged till the Germans in WW1, and even then that was only because they'd changed the military landscape SO MUCH that everyone was fooled into beleiving they had to spend hundereds of billions to build massive navies in order to be world powers- a situation that lasted till WW2!!!!

The idea of officers wearing dark “navy blue” suits with gold insignia, usually bands on the cuffs and gold buttons, was British. As is the tradition of white suits with gold fittings, and white covers on hats in the tropics.
The sailor suits are british too. That famous tradition of Japanese children in sailor uniforms comes from Britian originally. I think there was a young Prince Albert who was the style setter for little kids wearing those outfits.

So in what sort of militaries does the “kill your superior officer to get your rank” apply? I know in the Klingon version of this the rule only applies to the person whose rank is immediately above yours (such as the first officer offing their captain) though in Star Trek Online you were second officer for only a few moments (the forming you just discovered dead at the captain's feet) which is why the government puts you through a special test to determine your worth.

From Pirate fiction I'd say. :)

Pirate reality. The stories are one thing, the reality was worse and a much tighter tangle of plots, counter plots, betrayal and vengeance. Remember Klingons are Mongols in space. Read the works on Ghenghis Khan. He killed to become khan. The Barbary pirates and those of Asia killed and mutinied to get command of a ship. So mix the two add a dash of Imperial China and you get Klingons.

If you read stories of Asian pirates and their deals with China you find characters every bit as colorful as the Doross sisters of Star Trek.

The indie gogo campaign got me thinking. We should sort out a new DD anthology. I have considered seeing about getting some of the lite bites/we are the duck stories printed, but in all honesty I have no clue about putting comics to print.

Feeling well enough to lift a pencil for a short spell today and the results were horrible. But checking back on previous pages, it seems they were terrible too!
Thank you mystery virus, for the gift of clear vision. Now please go away. Why not pay Rob Leifeld a visit for once?

Pfft spare rob liefeld and give it to Kanye west.

Wow… my boss just died yesterday. Had a heart attack during one of her meetings. At 72, I shouldn't be surprised. And now I'm kinda worried. I know she's already trained a successor to take over the company when she passed on, but her family will want company control as well. Things may be shaken up for a while. It's unlikely that I'll lose my job (employed since 1999 without ever having quit once) but the chance I could lose my job is still there.

I guess I'll just wait and see what turns up in the next few months…

No use worrying about it. Just keep on doing a good job and ride out the changes.

You must rise to become the new boss yourself Lonne!

@Genejoke- a new anthology would be a good idea.

————–

I tripped on the garden stairs this morning and twisted my right ankle in a nasty way. Grazed both of them while doing it! My own fault for trying to jup over the bloody cat while wearing sandles. UGH!!!!
I don't think it's serious at all, I'm just mostly really stiff. Weird though- with the grazes where they are, each high up on the right side of my ankle, it means both feet twisted completelt over to the side when I landed. No wonder it hurt so much.
I will be a lot more careful when wearing stupid sandles in the future.

This morning I was hobbling about using my umbrella as a cane, thinking it was painful, awkward, hard, but also a little bit charming.
This afternoon it is NOT so. It is really extremely painful. My ankle is swollen and sore as F*CK! I have ice on it,k anti-inflamatory cream and I've takn stong painkillers. I can't concetrate to do the damn Quackcast editing! ARGH!

It's a public holiday for Australia day tomorrow so at least I have a day off work but that also means the doctor will be closed and I'll have to go to an expensive afterhours if I need to…

I don't want to call my dad to come out and help. I am thinking that it's only a sprain and should get better on its own given some time and rest. If I can make it till Wednesday I would be OK.
Arsebastards!!!!!!!!!!!!

I knew it. My winner tiki fell off the shelf and broke. We're all doomed. Not that we weren't doomed before.

Snow. The east coast blizzard left me with 20 inches. I was scheduled to go in for work at the height of the storm. An inch an hour and 40 mph wind gusts. I had to beg not to. I had just done two 12 hour shifts and already had 48 hours on the week, it was hazardous travel and I know payback will be a bitch. For the umpteenth time they're talking no more overtime. I'll believe it when I see it.

Well… nuts… That PSP 3000 screen I ordered earlier this month is late. According to the Amazon person I spoke with on the phone, the postal service is going to investigate what happened with the package. I was supposed to have gotten it yesterday, but it seems to have gotten lost. O_O

In the meantime, I'm tempted to order this as I can't find any here on island…
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002JT3JS?keywords=Maglite&qid=1453761981&ref_=sr_1_12&s=hardware&sr=1-12

bravo1102 wrote:
Snow. The east coast blizzard left me with 20 inches. I was scheduled to go in for work at the height of the storm. An inch an hour and 40 mph wind gusts. I had to beg not to. I had just done two 12 hour shifts and already had 48 hours on the week, it was hazardous travel and I know payback will be a bitch. For the umpteenth time they're talking no more overtime. I'll believe it when I see it.

We get the tail end of said blizzard today, with flooding and severe gales anticipated. Looking out of my window, it's already a bit breezy I must say, plus I can hear a soft moaning emanating from the chimney.

—

I was reading a depressing article in The Evening Standard yesterday, about how a group of UK students are banding together to fight for free speech in the culture of censorship consuming our Universities. Apparently, the internet culture of banning all opinions has spilled over into the real world and threatens to destroy democracy. One student union confirms it would ban a colour if students were offended by it. The University of East Anglia have already banned sombreros because apparently, they promote racial stereotyping.

As this forum is fixed and brought back within the capabilities of ordinary users to enjoy, it might be an idea to promote our tradition of open discussion and headgear here on the Duck. I still notice users on other forums complaining about tap dancing on eggshells once in a while. This could be the place for them and anyone else who likes to dress up in silly hats, or completely daft costumes for that matter.

You mean like the one on me and the Mexican guy who foisted it on me back en Ensenada? :D
The serape was a bit much but the extra sombreros on the pape mache burro ears look pretty fetching!

This reminds me of the Sexisim podcast we did just recently: http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/quackcast/episode-254-sexism-in-your-own-workk
The thing is that it IS an issue and it's not a good thing to stupidly cause offence or perpetuate stuff like that when you know it's wrong- but AT THE SAME TIME things aren't clear cut. Everything is on a case by case basis. You can't just say “lets ban images of g-strings on women because it's demeaning and sexist!” Because it isn't at all, everything is so context based.

I really just takes not being an areshole. Blanket bans do nothing at all to fix that, the only thing they're good for is putting a temporary bandaid on things to fix flareups and problem areas- Like when people start snowbaling with a stuip racist meme and keep on building on it till something bad happens: you nip that in the bud as soon as you can just to short circut the inevitable situation it's leading to. That's all it can do because people always find ways around blanket bans and in the mean time they make life hard for evryone who wanted to use that launague or symbolisim for non-areshole purposes.

A radio show yesterday demanded in response to the North East blizzard that white snow be banned as racist and be replaced with rainbow snow to show solidarity with various communities.

All you need is more polution and the snow can be ANY colour you want. :)

With nothing more than a photograph with a name on the back I was able to find quite a lot about my familiy history from a couple of quick google searches! I was shocked!
It was just a pic of my great grandfarther in a uniform I couldn't quite place, but I surmised it was from the Boer War in 1899. I was spot on it turns out!
From there I was able to find out his parent's names when they came to Australia, on which ship, when they were born and where, what his siblings did… All sorts of stuff. Wow.

So that part of my family has been in Australia since the 1850s, came over as free setlers from England. My Great grandfarther fought in the Boer War in South Africa in 1899. Later on his brother fought in WW1 in flanders and eventually became a Luitenant Colonel!
Ultimately useless info but interesting, to me at least. XD

My great, great grandfather was born in Billingswade in Bedfordshire in England and my Great great grandmother came from Cornwall. -from my Grandmother's side. So Why was she and her sisters such extreme Irish Catholics? One grand aunt was a nun who traveled all over the world for the Vatican.
Mystery. I will have to find out about my grandmother's mum to solve this mysterious mystery. Or my grandfather…

Now you know what fuels genealogy. I've been to a couple of the conventions with my wife. She is really into it belonging to various regional clubs and subscribing to their journals. My father's brother researched that side going back to the American War for Independence. It had already been done before that, he had had only to establish which branch we had come from after the AWI.

@Oz, that geneology stuff is really interesting. It is so convenient that you found actual images online. I am curious to know more about my grandparents' grandparents and if any of my ancestors originated from another country.

Zoo-wee-mama! I just e-filed my 2015 taxes and I am getting a return in the triple digits. Oh extra money that was subtracted from my regular paychecks, how I missed thee. I am getting better and better at depositing my earnings in my savings accounts and limiting my weekly spending.

@bravo, you must elaborate what the destruction of your winner tiki means for the rest of us. It also happened during the first Mercury retrograde of the year and around the time of that ominous full moon we had over the weekend.

I feel like the ripple effects of your broken winner tiki traveled all the way to the west coast and could be felt in California because last Sunday was a dreadful mess at work. One girl wanted to call in sick at 4:00 AM and the police were involved; one of the girls (a single mom) brought her two young children to work and they had to sit unsupervised in the restaurant next door for the entire day; we also had a planned potluck scheduled for that day and I had to wake up early to bake pierogies before work. Then there was an incident involving me getting scheduled at two different places at the same time, because apparently, everyone wants to work with me. I feel appreciated and conflicted at the same time because I am a loyal person, but I also feel like a free agent, a mercenary. There are currently three managers at odds with each other over my weekend work schedule. Anyway, as I was driving away from work on Sunday night, I was just so very thankful that I could leave all of those problems far away in the mountains.

I am starting to plan my next getaway vacation. Montana is starting to sound really nice right now.

@Kawaii - actually it started with an original old pic I had with a name on the back:



I'd never really known much about this pic. I'd heard it was a relative of mine… I thought it was my paternal grandfather in his WW2 gear.
Now I know WAY more about everything than I did back then and understood the pic was much older, and also that the uniforms were very old too, that they weren't even from WW1.
It's a photo from 1899 of my Great, great grandfarther (father of my nanna on my dad's side)- the tall bloke on the right.

Not many people have ancestors who fought in the Boer war… It was the first war that Australians fought in as Australians. Before that there were no Australian troops, just British. The different colonies here all started up their own militias eventually and these are what became the Australian Army.
In fact the Queensland Imperial Bushmen, which he was a part of, formed the core of the later army and it was their uniform with the slouch hat that was the basis for the official Australian uniform in WW1 all the way through to Vietnaam.