Rain Gryphon

Okay, I just saw something I'm unable to account for. I was outside getting something from the trunk of the grey car. I stopped to look out over the south field towards the neighbor's place, about a half mile down the road (they're lit up for Easter), and in my field I saw four, possibly five, extremely faint parallel lines of blue light, each one a different length, but none of them over two feet long, or under one. They were maybe eight inches apart, maybe a bit more, and seemed to be lying on or just above the ground. I had to look for a bit to be sure that I was really seeing them. I walked closer to see what it was, and they faded away. I went back to my original position, thinking that maybe I was seeing some sort of reflection, but didn't see them anymore from there either. So...

Some sort of chemical reaction? Something related to the fertilizers used? The orientation was the same as the corn rows from '22 (it was fallow this past year).

*****

Ollie Bearman's six points from Saudi Arabia means that Ferrari are only four points behind Red Bull! I'd forgotten that.

*****

BBC is already busy "Debunking the False Moscow Attack Claims". That was quick. There needs to be a great deal less knee-jerk "debunking", and a great deal more information gathering, IMHO. News services aren't what they used to be.

*****

I've taken to sleeping in my collar. It's a blue nylon one with a horse and cowboy pattern on it, so old it's way, way soft. I've got a chrome-plated heart-shaped tag that says "Hen" (one of Christopher's nicknames for me). I find wearing it very comforting. I've been way nervous of late, and I don't know why. I've been taking hydroxyzine (generic Atarax). I'm assured that it's neither addictive nor habit-forming (it's been on the market since 1956, established as very safe), so it's not an reaction to taking that every day.

*****

Went to see the South Bend Cubs (A-division farm team for Chicago) last night with mom. I hadn't realized that NL A-division uses a designated hitter, which undoubtedly puts the team in Ol' Mayor Pete's crosshairs.

There's something inherently comforting about watching baseball, especially on a warm summer night, while Bats and Nightjars fly overhead looking for prey in the lights. Baseball, I suspect, occupies the same position in American experience that soccer does for the rest of the world. It's something that everyone has played at some point, and you know in consequence how it feels to be out there doing that. It's relatable. It's safe, and comfortable.

SB Cubs won with a walkoff homer 3-2, and we got home in time to see the Chicago Cubs finish a remarkable 12-11 victory over the Giants.

Got a nice Yu Darvish bobblehead as a door prize at the game. He used to pitch for these guys, and was pitching in Chicago last night.

*****

The last time I actually attended a baseball game was so many years ago... I was part of the onfield entertainment (freelance mascot - an Otter, with Rapid Rabbit's crew) for the Erie Seawolves game when they had Mascot Day. I wore a good-quality Japanese sports jersey, and everyone assumed I was some mascot from Japan. To this day, I have no idea what team the jersey was for. IIRC, I was given an impromptu introduction as the mascot for "the Otters, all the way from Japan!", since the MC knew that nobody would know any better than him anyway.

*****

Cubs now lead the NL Central by a game. Sadly, St.Louis is beginning a four game homestand against the lowly Colorado Wreckage. :P

So... Whilst engaged in the traditional furry pastime of organizing my collection of, um, animal pictures, I created a new folder in Win10, then selected some files to move into it. I failed to realize that the new folder was also selected. I will give Win10 credit in that it flagged recursively nesting a folder as probably not being something I had actually intended to do. I'm pleased on the whole, as I like an OS that does as it's told, but do appreciate a warning for questionable commands. I wonder now if I'd done it, whether it would have filled my drive with copies, or maybe just created some sort of pointer from the folder to itself? Something to try if I decide to re-image this machine.

*****

I have to wonder too just what the hell happened with Renault? Both cars just shutting themselves off, on the same corner of the same lap, has got to be a software issue, whatever Renault says.

I don't really like using computers to run race cars, but I suppose it's appropriate, given that production cars are operated that way anymore. R&D is pretty much what keeps the big teams involved. I'd still love to see all the downforce generators taken off. Those, at any rate, have no relationship to production vehicles.

Surreal sight as well, when everyone is afraid to touch a car, for fear that the energy management system will electrocute them. For more than a century, touching the hot exhaust was about the only hazard an inert race car offered. The March of Progress!

And now I'm trying to think of people who've been injured in unusual ways by dead cars. There's ol' AJ Foyt, of course, who broke his nose by clobbering a tire with a humongous wrench trying to free a stuck suspension element (it bounced back and hit him), although I'm not sure that's really on the car.

I recall Jean Marcenac listening to the '49 Five Hundred from the hospital (a famous tale in itself, in that he could identify, over the radio broadcast, Dennis 'The Iron Duke' Nalon riding his clutch to the start, and he was absolutely correct), and I think it was that very car that put him there, but don't recall the details. Both of the twin Novis seemed to have a curse on them anyway.

*****

Good on Trump for stopping South American aid. The money was obviously being wasted. I hope he'll close the Mexican border as well, perhaps permanently. Those people are not our friends. I am sick as hell of the situation, and wouldn't mind a bit if we had to engage in some regime change to get a friendly government in place.

*****

Some guy fell into the Grand Canyon. The coroner's office say they're investigating the cause of death. Offhand, I'm gonna guess whole-body impact.

If I meet my doom by falling into the Grand Canyon, I hope I have the presence of mind to yell "Oy Veeeyyyyyyy..." on the way down, and that someone videos that. And as the camera follows me down, I'll dwindle to a dot, and then there'll be a tiny puff of dust, and a few seconds later, a faint 'poom...', and I will have achieved oneness with the Coyote.

*****

It's 2019, and here I sit playing the modern implementation of "Lemmings". And... While it's pretty true to the original design and feel of the game, something is hinky. It takes about two minutes to load. The explosions aren't real-time. The explosion animation plays, clears away, you briefly see the undamaged map, and then the crater appears. No flying, bouncing debris, and each crater is identical. No physics engine for the explosions, apparently. Worse still, when I pushed 'nuke' with 90 lemmings in play, it pretty much used all my processor (holy shit!), and bogged down to about one frame every three seconds. They all exploded at the exact same time, too. On my old 486, I could pack 'em all in a tiny space, nuke 'em, and they'd go off in rapid sequence like a string of firecrackers, maybe eight to ten a second, chewing their way down through the rock with debris flying everywhere as they fell into the crater and then exploded in turn. I loved the game when I played it as designed, but I also liked seeing how much of the landscape I could obliterate too. It accomodated me however I wanted to play, which is characteristic of a good toy. The new one plays adequately (apart from the explosions) when you play it as a puzzle, but is worthless if you just want to relax by blowing stuff up and giggling. Why? This machine, cheap laptop that it is, is nonetheless a monster compared to that 486. I can do animation and video processing, but what's essentially a 16 bit game is too much for it? I doubt that. I suspect that the repro game is built on some generic engine, rather than actually being programmed.

The proper response to "can furries ruin it?" is "does it exist?"

So, I opened up a container that I think has been sealed since 2002 or so, and found... Old-Ass Art! I remember drawing a lot of this, and just haven't seen it in years. None of it's really great, but it brings back memories, and like Grizabella from Cats, I'm finding that I can smile at those again. I currently don't have a scanner, so I just propped 'em up and photographed them. I may go back and do a better job, plus there's more art in storage, I'm sure. I need to create more stuff. I feel happier and better in control when I do.



I used to be a huge Rescue Rangers fan, and Foxglove was a solid favourite. This is ink on heavy paper, from Dec 1999.

*****



Generic, rather awkward skwirl girl from Jan 2000. I think this and Foxglove both ended up in a small press fanzine called Sheepette Gazette.

*****



Ralph the camel, from Jan 2000. This was because I had this boxed set of pastel sticks, and was screwing around trying to decide what to do with them, or if I even liked them. Ralph the Camel is from this song that I and one of my weird friends made up when we were 12 or so:

Ralph the Ca-mel!
He is e-vil!
He is here to spoil your Monday!
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday!
Ralph the Camel!

For some reason, I stuck a mane on him, so he ended up looking kind of like a pony, but he's still a camel. An evil, purple camel.

After not seeing it for 17 years, I find that I kind of like the heavily stylized manner of it.

*****



Baby Dragon in the Milky Way. This is pigma pencil on Bristol, probably from summer of 2000. When I was little I used to love Casper the Friendly Ghost (until it finally dawned on me that he was dead, and then it got a bit weird). I had a View-Master reel set of Casper, and one of the pictures was Casper in the Milky Way, talking to an anthropomorphic star. That fascinated me. Thirty-five years later, my fascination with that scene gave birth to this. It's awkward, but I love the bright colours, and it somehow did manage to evoke what fascinated me about that scene.

*****



Dragon with Naughty Bits (Findra named it that). This is pigma pencil on Bristol, probably from summer of 2000. Just a generic dragon. I have a thing for big eyes, if it's not obvious.

*****



Sea Star. Pigma pencil on Bristol, definitely autumn of 2000. Sea Star was one of my MLP OCs (Personal Ponies, they were generally called back then). She lives in that castle with a bunch of her friends. I really like the leaves to the upper right. I had a maple right outside my window, and did those from life.

I'm really glad I found this one again!

Ethopian garbage avalanche.

*****

Haitian bus massacre.

*****

The BBC reports Inmate arrested after Guys Marsh prison fire. I'm by no means convinced that it's technically possible to arrest someone who's already incarcerated.

*****

Soft sculpture butts.

This weekend was Morphicon, although I was sick for much of it. I've been really detached from the con these last two years. I'm going to try to be more active in the con and the community next year.

The ALAA awarded us the Ursa Major Awards Ceremony, which we hosted before in 2008. We're the first con besides ConFurence to repeat. I did the emcee work myself, since I also serve on the ALAA Committee. I was afraid I'd lose my voice, so I asked the Wampus to help host, but I held out, and the audience seemed to enjoy us. We play well off one another.

I gave away Pony badges too - http://www.furaffinity.net/full/5607598/ and http://www.furaffinity.net/full/5755068/ . I'm much, much more into the Ponies than I have been for years. This alone is pulling me back towards the fandom.

The high point of the weekend for me was having dinner with the Wampus, austin_dern and bunny_hugger Sunday night at the downtown Ethopian restaurant, the Blue Nile. I kept referring to it as a Somali restaurant all day Sunday - I haven't a clue why. African Paradise, not too far from here, *is* a Somali restaurant, so it's not like I don't know the difference.

Ethopian food (what we had, at least) is a variety of spicy stews that come on a common platter. You get these sort of sourdough pancakes, and you break off pieces of those and scoop up the stews. We got like eight different varieties for four people. The platter has a big pancake on it as well, which soaks up all the gravy.

Here's where we went. You can click the little pictures on the right, and get some idea what it's like. You sit on little stools around a strange kind of table made from coiled rope. The walls were decorated with huge amateur murals showing scenes from Ethiopian life, and every pair of diners got a tiny red table set between them to hold their drinks and the basket that held the pancakes. I loved it. Family-owned restaurant, friendly staff, very much a family style dining experience. The owner just glowed to see us enjoying his food. I can't recall the last time I felt so welcome at a restaurant.

This was my first definite FTF meeting* with Austin Dern, despite having him among my online friends for ten or twelve years or so. He's surprisingly quiet in person. He comes across much louder online. I'm apparently not the only one to have remarked on this :)


*It develops that we were both at CFE II back in 1997, but neither of us remembers meeting the other.

Caloo! Calay! Ferrari's keeping Raikkonen and Massa both until 2010. I'd been afraid they'd stick that whiner Alonso in there.

*****

Interestingly, most of the drivers apparently feel that the penalty against Hamilton was justified. Admittedly, a driver as good as Hamilton shouldn't have gotten into that situation to begin with, but it does happen. It still looked to me like he gave back the position and let Raikkonen choose his line before he resumed his attack.

*****

Maine's King endorses Obama. Appropriately, the King is noted as being 'in the wind power business'.

*****

Friend Loganberry found this. I'm so proud to be a furry!

*****

Friend Spaceroo found this: Obama Llama!

*****

Well, what an ignominious end to our World Cup showing. Beaten by Ghana :P And for all the bitching that's going on over the penalty kick, they really did outplay us. They certainly deserved to advance more than our guys.

*****

I wonder if we'll blow up North Korea's missile? It'd be kind of cool in a John Wayne sort of way, but probably an over-reaction. What amazes me is that William Perry, who used to be Clinton's Sec'y of Defense, is rather frantically calling for pre-emptive strikes against their launch facility. I recall much the same thing happening during the run-up to the attack against Iraq. The left was carrying on constantly about the threat from North Korea, and how we needed to worry more about them than about the Arabs. At the time, I dismissed it as being an effort to divide public opinion, but even then I wasn't entirely sure - a lot of them seemed quite sincere. I have to suppose now that they were, although I have trouble wrapping my mind around the idea of North Korea as a dire threat. As far as I can tell, all they're trying to do is to keep their ramshackle little dictatorship afloat. Toward that end they need food and money to keep the army from revolting, and they need to be seen to get these things by threatening, to keep the lower ranks' morale high. They're a nuisance, but nothing more.

*****

I wonder if our current missile defense system even *can* shoot down a live enemy? It's a shame we never developed the Spartan / Sprint system. All other considerations aside, Sprint was just about one of the coolest Cold War devices ever. Sprint relied on the fact that only after the enemy's warheads entered the dense part of the atmosphere, under a minute before impact, could you tell the real ones from the decoys. The missile was literally blown from its tube like a bullet, then accelerated at 100G to hit the target before it could detonate. The test films were deeply impressive. It flew upward so fast that it was cloaked in a fireball from atmospheric friction. Imagine batteries of these ringing major cities. It's like Missile Command in RL.

*****

You can read the "Ernor" comics online now for free. That's spherically generous of them, I think. If you've never read Ernor, you should. It's just a plain nice comic.

A small selection of photographs from Saturday's picnic. Click to enlarge.


The best picture of the Goof ever!


A note to future picnic organizers: Don't leave Ostrich unsupervised around suggestible people.


Fox and friend.