Busy week for me as I've been looking at rental properties so I can move my workshop and maybe a retail part but that doesn't mean I couldn't get some gaming in. One of my iRacing leagues has started their championships which I blew a tire out on and got a DNF......yeah. I did finish up my Sorceress play-through in Dragon's Crown, a lot of fun though man is it tricky at the end playing as her as I kept getting cornered. Still have the New Game+ to get through so I can see the ending. Also have been playing a bit of Plants VS Zombies 2 on my iPad which has been good so far, no need yet for buying the IAP.

With the new consoles, looking forward to the new news to come out of Gamescon (Euro videogame event) this upcoming weekend.

Anyways, gaming stuff below..... more...

Posted by: Gang of Gaming Morons! at 12:22 PM | Comments (93)
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Good morning morons and moronettes and welcome to AoSHQ's prestigious Sunday Morning Book Thread.

The Incomparable Literary Genius of MAD Magazine

Yes, I suppose that's a bit of an exaggeration. But not by much:

You can talk of beef and spuds
When you're frocked in fancy duds
A-sittin' there as cozy as you please.
But then some heathen demon
In your stomach starts a-screamin'
And you'll sell your bloomin' soul for buttered peas.

For it's peas, peas, peas.
They're enough to bring a blighter to his knees.
I'll give up those flyin' fishes
'Long as I've great heapin' dishes
Of those wonderful, delicious buttered peas!

Don't ask me why I remember this parody, but some of you might recognize that it came from MAD magazine, which used to publish silly poems like this often. "What if Kipling wrote cook books?" was the title, probably from the mid 70s. Note that this takes for granted that the reader knows who Kipling is, and is familiar with his poetry, in particular, "Gunga Din", the poem that's being parodized parodied here.

Again, I don't why I remember it after these many years. I guess the rhyming patters of certain poems lend themselves to easy memorization. Like this one:

...with two outs, my fate, it beckoned
For with men on at third and second
I could win the game, or at least tie up the score.
Only that, and nothing more

This is what it would sound like if Edgar Allen Poe wrote "Casey at the Bat". MAD frequently mashed up the poetry of different authors like this, and Poe and Kipling were a rich source of original material.

The good news is, you can now get 50+ years of MAD Magazine, digitally scanned on DVD for $60 and relive your misspent youth.

This sounds pretty good, except I'd be worried about a couple of things: 1. What is the quality of the scanned images of the original material? And 2. What O/S is it compatible with? Unlike software apps which are frequently updated and improved, this sort of archival material usually gets set up once and then that's the end of that. The specs on the Amazon page says "Windows 2000 / Me / XP, Mac OS X" which may mean that you have to view the material through some DRMed-up reader app that may not be compatible with Windows Vista/7/8.

And below the fold, one more MAD parody from back in the days when a the idea of a co-ed army was actually controversial:
more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:00 AM | Comments (155)
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Issued by General Douglas MacArthur, prepared by the Joint Chiefs and approved by President Truman, in the aftermath of having brought the Japanese to unconditional surrender. An excerpt:

a. The senior Japanese commanders and all ground, sea, air and auxiliary forces within China [meaning "Republic of China"] (excluding Manchuria), Formosa and French Indo-China north of 16° north latitude shall surrender to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.

b. The senior Japanese commanders and all ground, sea, air and auxiliary forces within Manchuria, Korea north of 38° north latitude and Karafuto shall surrender to the Commander in Chief of Soviet Forces in the Far East. [bad call, DiT]

c. The senior Japanese commanders and all ground, sea, air and auxiliary forces within the Andamans, Nicobars, Burma, Thailand, French Indo-China south of 16 degrees north latitude, Malaya, Borneo, Netherlands Indies, New Guinea, Bismarcks and the Solomons, shall surrender to the Supreme Allied Commander, Southeast Asia Command.

d. The senior Japanese commanders and all ground, sea, air and auxiliary forces in the Japanese Mandated Islands, Ryukyus, Bonins, and other Pacific Islands shall surrender to the Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet.

e. The Imperial General Headquarters, its senior commanders, and all ground, sea, air and auxiliary forces in the main islands of Japan, minor islands adjacent thereto, Korea south of 38° north latitude, and the Philippines shall surrender to the Commander in Chief, U. S. Army Forces in the Pacific.

V-J Day is commemorated in a couple of weeks. On my birthday (not that year you jerks).

But on this day 68 years ago it began to end. (headline from Aug 15 1945)

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:21 PM | Comments (132)
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The draft: The war in Vietnam was raging, and my friend and I learned about the draft. Getting drafted and going away to fight was a scary thought for a five year old. Later, we compared notes and realized every time we went to the Buster Brown shoe store, the clerk would ask our mothers for our birth dates and Social Security numbers. We reasoned this was how the Army found out who you were, and we determined never to give out our Social Security numbers ever again. And that meant sometimes asking mom if we could go to a different store.

Catching birds: Someone told us if you could sprinkle salt on a bird's tail, you could catch it. We tried a lot, but it never worked. Thing is, that one is probably true.

Macaroni and cheese: I couldn't eat macaroni and cheese for about five years. I couldn't figure out where the macaroni came from, and then it dawned on me one day: chicken throats. It was diced chicken throats. Just thinking about it made me nauseous. And it bothered me they called it "macaroni."

You guys got any good ones?

Open thread.

Posted by: rdbrewer at 03:49 PM | Comments (333)
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I'm not sure if this is a prayer for or a prayer to Obama. The little boy's words shift back and forth between addressing Obama directly and addressing God about Obama, so it's a little ambiguous. But either way, I think the overall effect is kind of creepy. He's obviously reading from a script (as opposed to making up an extemporaneous prayer), so I'd guess the refusal to disambiguate is likely the intention of the author. Which makes it doubly creepy.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 01:20 PM | Comments (283)
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Man, you could cross out Egypt and put in a whole range of words and this picture would still work.
Michael Ramirez. more...

Posted by: CDR M at 06:00 PM | Comments (652)
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Victim was heard screaming for help.

Another open thread

Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:45 AM | Comments (206)
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Less filling. Tastes great.

Posted by: andy at 02:36 AM | Comments (376)
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In honor of the WWII cruiser USS Indianapolis.

Good call.

Most of you know the story of the USS Indianapolis, I remembered it here. Delivered the first atomic bomb in WWII. Torpedoed by a Japanese submarine, sank in minutes with heavy losses.

Littoral combat vessels are small and designed for operations in the "littoral" (shallow) zone.

Good to see their memory and their vessel honored in this naming. I like it much better than the name chosen for LCS-10. With all due respect.

*via Dick

UPDATE: heh, you monkeys. Suggested names for future vessels (however many of those there will be.) Via commenter Garrett: USS Middle Class

carry on

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 09:55 AM | Comments (352)
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"Stop & Frisk" Through a 2A Lens

As I mentioned on the podcast, it occurred to me that New York's "stop & frisk" law that was put on hold by a judge last week was just the logical outcome of a path that began when the "wrong people" *wink, nod* were prevented from owning firearms after the Sullivan Act went into effect in 1911. Last century's usurpation of New Yorkers' 2nd amendment rights begat this century's usurpation of their 4th amendment and 14th amendment rights.

Little did I expect to find a pretty clear line drawn to this same idea (although directed at Nanny Bloomberg not the Sullivan Act) directly in the opinion (pdf):

"Mayor Bloomberg stated in April that the NYPD’s use of stop and frisk is necessary “to deter people from carrying guns. . . . [I]f you end stops looking for guns, . . . there will be more guns in the hands of young people and more people will be getting killed.”

"At the same time, the City emphasized in its opening arguments that “blacks and Hispanics account for a disproportionate share of . . . crime perpetrators,” and that “90 percent of all violent crime suspects are black and Hispanic.” When these premises are combined — that the purpose of stop and frisk is to deter people from carrying guns and that blacks and Hispanics are a disproportionate source of violent crime — it is only a short leap to the conclusion that blacks and Hispanics should be targeted for stops in order to deter gun violence, regardless of whether they appear objectively suspicious."

Remind me again how those slippery slope arguments about gun control are invalid.

Related, from Charles C. W. Cooke: Mayors Against BloombergÂ’s Bombast
The New York NannyÂ’s group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, is attracting scant support.

Duck Dynasty

Season 4 opened to about a month's worth of MSNBC's audience. Good on 'em.

And if you're in the market for a new pair of running shoes, these come highly recommended from Moronette '2nd Amendment Mother'.

Gun Of The Week

(answer below) more...

Posted by: andy at 05:35 AM | Comments (145)
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