The Stories and Novels By Derek Ward
On our last movie night, The Wife and I sat down to watch the movie on the Roku channel. We got ads through out the movie, which was annoying.
The movie itself was hilarious. The best way I can describe it is if there sprung up a Weird Al cult a couple of generations from now, and one of the most fervent followers decided to make a “holy video”. It is over the top, bears little resemblance to reality, and I was laughing throughout.
As many of you have heard, the Nord Stream pipeline in the Baltic “suffered a mischief”, as the Brits say. The linked CNN article – and just about every major news outlet – is saying sabotage on the Russians part. Why? Jonah Goldberg had the most plausible explanation behind sabotage – to get out of paying contract costs by simply not delivering the agreed upon gas. Oops sorry, broken pipe, can’t hold us accountable for non-delivery fees if we can’t deliver.
However, Lawdog, who grew up on oil fields has another take. Which is pretty much greed, corruption, and lack of preventive maintenance resulting in bad things happening. More explanation here. When it comes to Russia, I’m more apt to blame incompetence and bureaucratic ineptitude than outright malfeasance.
Another couple of stories came across that I think point to the future in entertainment. First, James Earl Jones has signed off on allowing AI to use his voice for Darth Vader. Using specialized software, Disney will be able to clone Jones’s voice so that it can continue to be used for one of the Star Wars franchise’s most notable characters. Next came news that Bruce Willis, who recently retired from acting due to health issues, licensed his likeness to be used for deepfakes. From the Ars Technica story: “Bruce Willis has sold the “digital twin” rights to his likeness for commercial video production use, according to a report by The Telegraph. This move allows the Hollywood actor to digitally appear in future commercials and possibly even films, and he has already appeared in a Russian commercial using the technology.” I can see this having some very interesting ramifications for actors in the future.
Finally, a news story about a couple who found a bit more than they were expecting when they bought a bunch of surplus storage containers. From the Guns.com article: “The unidentified winners of an auction for over 100 green plastic Hardigg rifle shipping and storage cases from a Georgia-based online surplus company cracked open one to find at least a dozen M16s inside, reports KTRK in Houston. In what was probably the right move from a legal standpoint but what will be an epic letdown for many, they called the ATF who “quickly” arrived to pick up the guns.” For the record, if this was me, my first call would be to my attorney. Who would then contact the authorities and arrange for their return. Because I wouldn’t want to get caught in the blame game of how these ended up in my possession without having arranged legal representation beforehand.
The Wife, MIL, and I watch a show while we eat a meal. Mostly dinner, but sometimes over a weekend breakfast. Sometimes, we will end up binging a show we planned to watch more slowly. Two of the more recent shows were Peaky Blinders on Netflix and Reacher on Amazon Prime.
Peaky Blinders starts as a gangster show about a family of gypsy street gangsters and their rise in post-WWI Birmingham England. The first four seasons are solid gangster crime heist type shows. Smart writing, interesting characters, twisty plots. Soundtrack is solid, but not period. The fifth and sixth seasons were good, but the writers were infected with a common need to prove their correctness. All of the sudden, the gangsters are fighting fascists with the communists in late twenties Britain. It felt very much like they were taking modern issues and loosely draping history. And it felt a bit preachy. Which is not what I wanted. The rest of the story was at least interesting. Would I still recommend the show (including the last two seasons)? Hell yes.
Reacher, by contrast, was great popcorn fun television. Amusing characters and dialogue, but heavily driven with action and a kind of tropey plot and atrocious tactics/gun handling/fight physics. I think The Wife got tired of me yelling at the screen. She also learned what it meant to “rat-fuck a body”. You know it was good when what should have been a week’s or so worth of viewing ended up being watched over a weekend.
Hmm… It looks like even WaPo is realizing that black women are buying more guns. They also realize there are more than just the stereotypical firearms trainers out there.
Probably to get some actual carbon-free sources, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is going to certify a new nuclear reactor design. From the ArsTechnica article: “The design, from a company called NuScale, is a small modular reactor that can be constructed at a central facility and then moved to the site where it will be operated.” Hopefully, they can use this to start decommissioning some of the older traditional plants.
I’m just going to steal TFB’s headline for this one. “The Gunshine State: Florida Ranks Only 41st in FFL Numbers.” This is both annoying and somewhat unsurprising.
On to some lighter items:
Those crazy Hungarians! Who else but the descendants of Steppe barbarians would decide the best way to fight a big fire was to mount a couple of jet engines to a tank.
From The Brother (who is a board game addict): SABATON HAS A BOARD GAME!
This is a good summary of what happened to Exo-Squad – which was a damn good show. And how Robotech was almost pulled into the series.
First, in case you haven’t heard, the report on the massive failures during the Uvalde shooting was released. Reason’s J.D. Tuccille takes the normal sacred goats to the woodshed. “If you really need further evidence of how foolish it is to surrender your right to protect yourself and defer to government employees who are supposed to assume that responsibility, the record of police non-response during the Uvalde mass murder should do the job. Those who, in the future, continue to insist that we disarm ourselves and venerate government enforcers who are tasked to protect us should be unceremoniously kicked to the curb.”
Second, while Texas cops were too afraid to confront a gunman, an Indiana concealed carrier wasn’t. Some asshole started opening fire, and Elisjsha Dicken ventilated said asshole. From apparently forty yards away. Per the New York Post article: “We’re very thankful for a young 22-year-old man who stopped this violent act,” Greenwood Mayor Mark Myers said. “This young man, Greenwood’s good Samaritan, acted within seconds, stopping the shooter and saving countless lives.”
Lastly, for our light item, comes a Gizmodo article on Hasbro allowing anyone to turn themselves into an action figure. Face scanning is done through the Hasbro Pulse mobile app available for iOS and Android, and fans will be able to base their action figure on “classic to current characters seen across popular films, television series and comics.” Initially, that will include costumes based on G.I. Joe, Ghostbusters, Power Rangers, Marvel, and designs inspired by Star Wars characters. You probably won’t be able to slap your face on Princess Leia’s body, or get a green face lift to become Yoda—but a provided press release did mention at the least an X-Wing pilot, so you can probably imagine what other kinds of generic bodies could be used.
Well, since The Wife and I have our birthdays in July, we tend to get a lot of Amazon monies as gifts. Which is useful with Prime Day.
This year, it was Power and Transformers. I picked up a USB C power block to use with my laptop, a couple of Anker power banks, and some inexpensive Transformers. Because, those are my fidget spinners for when I’m on camera. When I’m not on camera…well, that’s why I have a bunch of airsofts.
The amusing purchase was a new vacuum sealer. After the second one of the same brand died (which was supposed to be a test device anyway), we went on the Wirecutter to find a better one. Oh hey, we like this one, but it’s $150. Let’s see what the price is on Prime Day. Oh, look – it’s down to $100. Sometimes patience is rewarded. Still don’t like it much.
Another day, another lawsuit against Sig for malfunctioning weapons. This was one of the reasons I didn’t go with Sig when I upgraded my sidearm.
Lego is building a new factory stateside. Normally, I’d wonder if having a local plant would reduce their cost. But, inflation. And collectability.
From Lee Williams, an article on UPS changing its rules on shipping firearms and parts. It’s like they’re taking customer service lessons from Dick’s.
Lastly, Tampa’s largest McDonald’s franchisee is selling off its McDonald’s stores. This is interesting to me as I used to work for Casper’s as a night manager many a moon ago.
This is one of the opening themes for The Asterisk War anime.