Above: Japan 2004 conbini candy shelves. Lawson? Could be Lawson. Could be 2022ミックステープ: ローソンH 浅草観音店 サウンドトラック 2022年10月19日発売 (2022mixtape: Lawson H Asakusa Kannon Store Soundtrack October 19th, 2022).

jan feb mar apr may jun jul aug sep oct nov dec

Advertisement for Harness’ Electropathic Belt, The Strand, 1891.

The Billboard magazine March 4, 1905. Advertisement for Chicago House Wrecking Company, “Material From The [St. Louis] World’s Fair.”

The Druggists’ Ready Reference (Morrisson, Plummer & Company, Chicago). 1880.

1880 Druggists Ready Reference Archive: Heath & Milligan Strictly Pure Colored Lead. Chicago.

Popping Candy Probiotics. I don’t remember where I found this. It is probably unimportant, in the larger scheme of things. I should get more organized, he said for the nth decade in a row.

The Courier-Journal, Louisville, February 19, 1905. Doctors Say Drink More Schlitz, Assholes.

World’s Toughest Bespoke Hiking Boots. 100% HANDMADE. Korean Amazing shoemakers.

Not Just Bikes: The Best Dutch Cycling Infrastructure

Rowntree’s bookmark (circa 1901+). “By appointment to the late Queen Victoria” ... so did you want to reschedule?

Advertisement for live turtles “decorated” with Disney characters. Billboard August 27 1938.

Ebay is offering a staggering amount of fake porcelain signs from unscrupulous sellers who pepper their descriptions with weasel words and phrases like “vintage,” “found this at an estate sale,” “old,” etc. Buy an old sign that already has wear, scan it, add a minimally-clothed woman or superhero, turn that into a new sign that looks like an old sign. Someone purchased a fake Coke sign with an explicit (also fake) Marilyn Monroe pose plastered on it for over $300; there’s gold in these fake hills. Sellers abound in the US and UK, at least, and they also create “modern” fake porcelain signs with current brands. Some of the signs they create out of whole cloth ‒ find a drawing, add some crappy type to it and a manufacturer’s logo and done. If you’re curious, searching on “porcelain man cave vintage” seems to corral a large chunk of the “old” type.

Thought I had posted this already. Line Goes Up ‒ The Problem With NFTs [2hr 18min].

Think of this recent video by Munecat as a companion piece. A lot of the same things are covered, w/more coverage of the SEC and the influencer culture etc., then it dives deeper w/connections to Thiel/Peterson/white nationalism. [1hr 41min]

Being Not Straight ‒ Jaiden Animations

The Year 2000 as interpreted by Stollwerck GmbH. Hotels on rails, everything’s got wings, stay at a hotel that floats around the world, thieves have wings, cops have wings, hospitals float high in the air far away from us the end.

They got main street right, at least for Wuppertal.

See also Pre-War Cards.

Dry Cleaning ‒ Scratchcard Lanyard

Okay, it is time to start looking at ガチャポン (Gachapon). I have many images, we’ll take a look at about 10 every whenever or so. A lot of these come from がちゃぽん情報 (Gachapon Information), some come from Ebay, others from the [waves hands here] wider internet.

Some Gachapon are for well-known/beloved anime franchises, like Girls Und Panzer, “which depicts a competition between girls’ high schools practicing tank warfare as a sport.” So that is available to you in miniature form. Most Gachapon cost between 200-500¥ (~USD1.60-4).

Here’s a recent Gachapon posted to Gachapon Information, Drunken Kong.

Selections shown: Kong on a rampage, Drinking too much Kong, Kong the Good Listener, High-tension Kong, and Drunken Kong.

Here are some more.

Harry L. Schlesinger, Manufacturer of CANDY and CRACKERS. Atlanta, GA., Sept. 9, 1924 invoice. Two wonderful things going on here.

1) The cut-out at the upper-left. I am trying to remember the last time I saw something like this, and failing.

2) The rubber stamp:

-- JUST THINK MAN --
IF YOU PAY THIS INVOICE BY 9/19
YOU’LL SAVE .27. JUST LIKE
FINDING IT IN THE STREET, ISN’T IT?

They’ve got a point there. And that’s back when 27 cents was worth [FX: pushes face into calculator] $4.54 today. That’s almost a cup of coffee. Imagine finding a delicious, cold cup of coffee in the street, I wouldn’t turn that away, no sir. Hot coffee, ew. No. No thank you. Iced coffee yay.

ガチャポン (Gachapon) are small “toys” that are sold inside spherical capsules inside Gachapon vending machines like the one below from outside a store in Kojima (2004).

If you want to feverishly follow the Gachapon hit parade, I suggest you read がちゃぽん情報 (Gachapon Information) or follow がちゃぽんぽん (Gachaxpompom) which is their Twitter account. Here are some Gachapon.

Not Just Bikes: Business Parks Suck (but they don’t have to)

The Batman (2022), starring Adam West as the The Batman

Two new ice cream doots at Family Mart. Lookit the LINES on those things. This ice cream is too futuristic for me. I am not ready for the challenge. These graphics are very choice. Link/translation follows.

Family Mart twitter entry / Family Mart website entry

New today, Tuesday, 4/26! Black Thunder Frappe / Good old cookies zakzakzak! / Chocolate Frappe
Vanilla melt-in-your-mouth gobble / Cookie Vanilla Frappe / Cookie Vanilla Frappe

#FamilyFrappe2022

DEEP CUTS

when you rewound your tape you had a little movie you could watch “Will The Rectangle Make It Home I Hope It Does”

right now the video image looks like ass

oh right i’m converting all my precious video tapes to digital

This wonderful article about vending machines points to another article about an origami vending machine in Japan. You’re ahead of me on this one: yes, there are vending machine Gachapon. Good Cola, that’s my brand.

I am not a musician nor car expert. The source for the beginning drum solo of 1984’s 1984 Van Halen track “Hot for Teacher” is not universally agreed upon.

“Don Landee and I worked with Alex to create his trademark drum intro for the song. If you listen to the very beginning, it doesn’t sound like a drummer; it’s too random a pattern. That’s because the first five seconds are the Lambroghini exhaust; then Al’s electronic drums come in.” – Ted Templeman, producer of Van Halen’s 1984 in Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life in Music


“I have heard the master tape files from the session, in person, in a post production studio. As you might expect, the engineer at the session had come across the master files illegally. The recording starts off with the simmons pads, playing the alternating herta licks and whatnot, then the drum tracks (the bass drums, played with feet) come in over that. The simmons pads were on a separate audio track; it would appear that the bass drums were recorded on top of (i.e. along with) the simmons track. After the simmons track and bass drums go for a bit, the tom notes appear on the drums track. The simmons track ends when the cymbals enter, and the guitar solo begins. ¶ Obviously, the simmons track was recorded separately from the drums tracks. It was likely recorded first, and then the double bass and toms were laid over it. Sorry to destroy the mystique...” – drummerworld.com

This next video takes apart the drum pattern for “Hot for Teacher,” and the one that follows is a six-year-old playing the drums on “Hot for Teacher.”

Eddie Van Halen owned a 1972 Lamborghini Miura. We can just look at Miura videos all day and try to find one that has the Miura idling. This is difficult because in almost every video, the driver starts the car and immediately revs it. No one wants to hear the idle, they just want to hear it cranked. You’ve already heard the Miura cranked on the Van Halen song “Panama.” They also wanted to put the Miura on the song “Jump” according to Templeman. So let’s take a listen to whatever idling bits and snatches we can grab of various Miuras.

The thing that strikes me right away is that the idle is dirty compared to the beginning of “Hot for Teacher.” The intro does not sound like a miked Miura, it sounds like actual drums as explained by the comment on drummerworld.com. They may have actually miked the car, and played over it, then removed the original audio (this is something 808 State would do with extant songs: noodle along with a record they liked, then eventually remove the original track).

But there was a car in the “Hot for Teacher” video, a 1932 Ford, the 1932 Ford “hot rod” that is so quintessentially a “hot rod” that it appeared as the cover photo on the first issue of Hot Rod Magazine, a magazine about “hot rods.” It’s only on-screen for a second or so. Can’t even get a clear shot of it.

It’s now located in the Peterson Auto Museum in Los Angeles which I have been to but I only remember the car with the circular door (1925 Rolls-Royce Phantom I Jonckheere Coupe) not because it’s a car with a circular door but because it is a very beautiful car even without a round door and I don’t say that very often. Say, let’s listen to some idling 1932 Fords.

[added later] Just to say, these 1932 Fords sure do sound like the intro drum solo as much as any of the other candidates I’ve read about; given that the very model is in the video, I’m guessing that the solo was based on the 1932 Ford idle and someone is going to have to produce an interview with/quote from Alex Van Halen himself at this point to convince me otherwise even though absolutely no one else has pointed this out, ever in the history of histories and I award myself one “hi-carb” (NPI) snack like a cinnamon bun in the shape of a cute rabbit for the thorough investigatin’ and you can’t take that away from me because it’s in my tummy the end. PS: Someone will turn this into a high-paying long-ass drawn-out “Youtub” video and we can all agree in a court of law that person owes me at least 10% vig for the idea the end part 2.

McKesson & Robbins Ideal Felt Tooth Polisher (1889).

Not Just Bikes: I Don’t Exercise (my city does that for me)

ガチャポン (Gachapon): The Cult Of The Fruit Sando. I can’t claim to understand the appeal of フルーツサンド (fruit sando). Milk bread, cream filling, fruit. It sounds tasty, but wrong. If you need fruit sando gachapon, I have some good news.

Van Neistat: The Value of Mentorship

I’ve been on a diet for months so I can become a “Tick Tock” dancer and downshifted into a “lo-carb” version about a month ago when originally what I was eating was an “all-carb USA” diet that I made up in my head out of pizza and bread. So you know what that means. That’s right. That’s right. Food-based ガチャポン (Gachapon). Just fruit sandos didn’t cut the mustard. All food, everywhere, at all times. Bread? Yes please, thank you. Can I get a “to go” bag of bread and bread accessories? Bread. #bread

Fashionable Hats. The Delineator, 1892.

Those Awful Hats, 1909.

Not Just Bikes: Why We Won’t Raise Our Kids in Suburbia

Why Am I Doing This? (A Film About Touring; 2021)

Detailed mattress drawings, various postcards ~1880s.

I got a call from some spam thing and punched it into a popular but loathed search engine. It showed a few numbers that had the same area code/prefix, along with obviously fake names. Glarsore Deleiros. Stuff like that.

The page itself is something like “xxxxx.gov.tr/293-403” and when i go to it there’s a prompt from Spokeo to enter the last four digits.

So it’s a fake page with a Spokeo prompt just so the government of Turkey/Türkiye can figure out what random spam ro-bot is calling me.

this place is fun [FX: spins globe, kicks it across room]

Not Just Bikes: America Always Gets This Wrong (when building transit)

I Lied About Being An Artist . A Documentary About Visual Artist David Fullarton

Tom Scott: This clock (Netherland’s flower auction clock) was famous, but the internet ruined it.

I’ve been in a few parking structures the last month or so and every time, there’s no cash option for exiting. “Isn’t this illegal?” I asked the small disco ball that accompanies me on exciting pandemic adventures like “going to the hospital” and “going to an entirely different hospital” and “going to the first hospital again.”

Turns out it is illegal in California. Less than $5000? Cash is OK!

Along the same lines, city garages in SF used to be the tightest, hottest parking place for your dollar value. Years ago. Now it’s where you go to get corked. Additionally, SF finally found my last coveted secret parking spot in the last year or so and made it two-hour parking. Like you can do ANYTHING in the city under two hours/$20. Now I have to buy a boat or something. “Land HO, Bally. Toss the anchor and we’ll swim ashore, get ourselves a twenty-three dollar do-nut.”

Craiyon (AI model drawing images from any prompt)

In the street : chalk drawings and messages, New York City, 1938-1948 (Helen Levitt)

24 Hours With a Japanese Hermit in a Hidden Village ‒ Tokyo Lens

Stewart Lee: The Audience is the Problem

July 19th 1919 Billboard Magazine. “The Beach Flirt. / Although poor imitations are being offered in the market ‒ she still is the biggest seller the toy trade has known. Don’t be buncoed. Get the original and only BEACH FLIRT”

1923 July Confectioners Journal. Melloyd Company, Inc. Frozen Joy. “1 Shells of pure crisp wafer Covered with high-grade Chocolate ---- America’s favorite flavor.” “2 Chocolate Covered Ice Cream Shells” “Rapid Fire Gun ‒ Quick Service / No Waste / No Waiting” “5c filled-any flavor of cream”

honestly i think we all hate cream-wasters

Normally I don’t read about anything Facebook-related but The Verge published three articles today including this brief look at Zuckerberg blathering about the future at an employee round-up. “Mark Apple isn’t joining our open standards Mark what do we do.” See Apple just ate ten billion of Facebook’s ad dollars and isn’t joining the Metaverse Open Standards Group. In the middle of Mark’s seven-paragraph answer, this:

Our north star is can we get a billion people into the metaverse doing hundreds of dollars a piece in digital commerce by the end of the decade? If we do that, we’ll build a business that is as big as our current ad business within this decade.

The place is on fire and his stretch goal is ... hilarious. Oh god, I just started looking up the current numbers on the metaverse “population” and apparently it’s already at a billion people! WoWww! So amaze. Such verse. Oh wait, back up, the author is including NFTs and cryptocurrency people. Also electronic gaming. Also Esports. So, I mean, if Facebook can get a cut of all THAT ... I mean before crypto finishes imploding ... then woooo north star here we come baby! 2030! [FX: alcohols]

finally found out what binch means

“Jill with Jack” candy bar (“Sweet as honey”) and “Jack with Jill” (“Nice as pie”) candy bar. Ucanco Candy Co., Davenport Iowa. “2 for 5c”

What is Maximum USA? Maximum USA is the scene in Hooper (1978) in which the stunt crew ~six-car pack is travelling down the highway and there’s a spatial problem passing beers between cars so Hooper turns his truck around and drives it backward. I’m going to have to dock Hooper one USA point for obeying the speed limit, however. Later they pull shenans on a cop.

Watchdogs: Legion (2020) is a dystopic dystopia computer program game in which the dystopian nightmare of a dystopic paramilitary force has taken over London (I’m only talking about the single-player campaign; here’s a good review; see also this one). And there’s a shit ton of drones. Also, crypto keeps getting hacked, both by you and various other major and minor NPCs and the logo for crypto is the international “NO” symbol. Anyway, you walk down a block and there’s a person being beat by the paramilitary force so you help them out then hide because they instantly call in reinforcements. Then you walk a block away and there’s a person being beat by the paramilitary force so you help them out etc until you just learn to walk by the endless beating because you’re never going to progress in the game. It’s kind of like the theme of the game. “WE ARE KEEPING YOU SAFE,” a shooty drone broadcasts high above you. Oh here comes another one, seconds later: “WE ARE KEEPING YOU SAFE.” And etc., etc.

You start with one person then you recruit others. They have varying skillsets, but there’s usually only one skill they have that is appealing, like having reduced damage, or lowering the time your other crew members spend in the hospital/jail if injured/arrested. Missions will occasionally re-occur in an area you’d already “completed,” and yet by the end of my play-through there were several areas that had remained unused. If you like gory torture chairs, strap in! So many variations. So many body bags. Everything’s a set, you don’t really interact with any of it, it’s just fetch quests or touch this machine and stand near it while reinforcements arrive (map shows big glowy dot buried far in the complex). “Oh, this place has three torture chairs, two jail cells, disembodied hand, two body bags.” “Oh, this place has four body bags, some drugs, ...” You can hack your way through the place, or shoot, and it becomes highly repetitive after awhile. Boss fights are boss fights. You’re trapped in a room, shoot the thing while reinforcements are called up.

The single time I felt like I had actually “accomplished” something was finding a collectible high on a roof. Some collectibles, like crypto, you can just hack from a distance. Get a drone, fly over to it, hack it. Packages, you have to be “present,” which means either you or your robo-spider (I called mine John Peters Jr.) need to be next to it to pick it up. This roof was too high for the spider. 99.9% of the time there’s some utterly obvious way to get the collectible ‒ if the roof is too high, there will be a spider-dispensing station already on the roof, which you hack to barf out a spider. That’s how everything in the game is ‒ the tools you need are always right next to the problem, so your puzzle-solving requirement is only “be able to look around.” Except for this roof. I got a giant drone and wondered if you can shoot packages, move ’em around. Yes.

Okay, I’ll shoot it off the roof. Nope, there’s a little lip around the edge. Can’t use the big drone to push it over the lip. Can I use a smaller drone to bop the package?

Yes. Now I can use another shooty drone to shoot the package off the edge.

One gold star for me [FX: APPLIES TO FOREHEAD]. There has to be some sort of way to balance the hand-holding/puzzle-solving teeter totter, seems like everyone just throws anvils on the hand-holding side.

Addendum. I discovered some time later that the smashed-up drone model shown next to the package which you can “hack” to drop packages also picks up packages as well. So the PUZZLE CHALLENGE was supposed to be: grab that type of drone, fly to roof, grab package, fly down.

How Handcrafted Sake is Made in Japan

Saw a bumper sticker today making reference to Ea-nasir. Seems like there are opposing camps in the redbubble/etsy merchandising arena. Hope Ea-nasir is getting a cut.

Unused client work (2022).

The last one seemed familiar. Couldn’t place it. Searched all over various logo sites/books etc. I figured it out about a half-hour after that.

I purchased a Logitech mouse about a year ago, and used the “G Hub” software to turn the glowing RGB logo off. I remember it being a bear to achieve this modest goal. Today, the logo RGB light turned back on for whatever reason. Re-installed G Hub and wow, I had forgotten what absolute dogshit this program is. Twenty minutes later I was finally able to turn the light off and save it in the “on board” mouse memory, and uninstall the program. I have no idea how I did it since all my frantic mouse-clicking experiments let me do was either make a change to a profile in software (so I’d have to let the G Hub program run in the background, no thanks), or -view- the on board memory profiles.

I will never again buy a Logitech anything.

Johnson Smith & Company, Detroit Michigan. Catalog No. 148 (1938). “Tsk! Tsk! and Tut! Tut! Both Books for $1.25” “HOW CRAZY ARE YOU? Now You Can Find Out” “An amusing but scientifically sound questionnaire prepared by Frederic Brewer”

Not Just Bikes ‒ Crossing the Street Shouldn’t Be Deadly (but it is)

Solo Solo Travel: 3 Days on Japan’s Vending Machine Overnight Ferry. This is not narrated, so make sure you have captioning on. I’m really digging little slice-of-life snapshots like this that don’t have someone yapping all the time.

I was talking with Doc about crap zine distributrors from back in the day for whatever reason and I sidetracked for a bit yapping about the -best- zine distributor, Tower Records, and Doug Biggert. Here is a 2014 interview with Biggert. (Below ‒ Tower Records X Magazine account closing invoice 1995)

Important documentation RE upcoming technological advancements in payment processing (found on street circa 1988).

Monogram “Tijuana Tonnage” Garbage Truck model (1968). Per a promotional poster, this model is “The ‘In’ Way To Haul Out”

“You know, kids are fascinated by garbage. Can’t get enough of the shit. And they also like those goddamn surfing musical bands. What if we combine them. I mean together.”
“Frank, I want you to pack up your kit ... because you’re moving to the HEAD ARTIST TABLE.”
“Will I get my own ink pot?”
[scoffing noises] “One step at a time, Frank.”

action button reviews boku no natsuyasumi

this review is four hours long and essential

it is essential

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but I really enjoy reading old selling guides; this one is called The Grocer’s Idea Book (1937). “You could use a hat. People will ask about it. Write a thing on it.” I gather these in a separate folder, for when I’m senile. “Ha ha, hat.” I still need to dig up a 191X article I read detailing how a “sign in a window” can unlock elusive product sales.

Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared (television series episode 1: “Jobs”). NME interview

Back when I was an old child somehow sweat pants became a thing and everyone was wearing sweat pants. I thought sweat pants were awful. “They’re awful,” I thought. One day I thought perhaps I was wrong so I bought a pair of sweat pants. I wore them one day.

“I was right, about the sweat pants.”

I never wore sweat pants again.

Confetti, Meats, Piles, Enemas.

While I was whittling away on Large Current Project #72a I went too far back in time and tripped across Anigrate, my abandoned raster/vector animation program project from around 2007. I bailed because even though I was working twelve actual hours a day on it, I did the math and decided I didn’t want to work another three years or so to get a polished whatever out the door. Here are some quick milestone images/animations, mostly just checks on functionality, not quality. The larger images give a better idea of original frame quality (the tv/movie clips were a bit low-resolution). The last animation is entirely vector, for you vector fans out there.

Note: Firefox makes the downsampled animations even more downsampled. Try Vivaldi or Opera.

The thing that interests me the most about Banksy is the keen method of authenticating works [2], which is handled by Pest Control, Banksy’s official office/authenticator. A code is written on a Banksy Di-Faced Tenner, the note (and code) is ripped in half. Banksy keeps half, half is attached to the artwork. Pest Control also recommended the following short Antiques Roadshow segment [2 minutes] featuring someone w/a potential Banksy piece:

There is a ridiculous hearty trade in fake Banksy pieces. Here’s a few I’d seen awhile ago on Ebay (Pest Control: “[..] There are hundreds of stencils of Banksy images online, and unscrupulous people use them to make fakes ‒ especially road signs for some reason”). I reported them all, because I’m a fun guy.

And then there are the Fake Fake Banksys. Do a Fake Banksy piece, but use your signature. You could even pretend you’re the wife of Banksy. Mrs. Banksy. Use a real ten-pound note because less work. This one was priced at USD2285. Get it while it’s hot.

A Reverse Fake Fake Banksy: take someone else’s art, call it a Banksy. This piece was created by Meek, an Australian artist, then someone else added Banksy’s name, then someone else copied that because this can’t be the original copy of the copy of the copy. Then it ended up in a thrift store when someone was tired of it, and Doc took a photo of it.

Here are some more. Hang it in your dorm, show the world you care about it enough to buy a thing.

I forgot to mention the woman doing whooshy-whoosh with her hands in the Anigrate animations was from a UK LSD documentary called The Beyond Within (1987) (at 59:16).

Here’s that short bit isolated. “I can do everything.” I love the coincidental “I live in a monochromatic world.”

Van Neistat: The Romance of Being an International Artist

[Not Just Bikes] Groceries Delivered ... in 10 Minutes!?

Veritasium: The Most Important Algorithm Of All Time. “The Fast Fourier Transform is used everywhere but it has a fascinating origin story that could have ended the nuclear arms race.”

Toy Captain Badge, “made in Japan.”

JESUS CHRIST CAKE PANIC

『ドキドキ！ケーキパニック』12月発売予定。
ケーキを飾り付けるとプレートが飛び出す！
"Doki Doki! Cake Panic" will be released in December. When you decorate the cake, the plate pops out! (link)

USPTO Trademark Gazette. 31,219. POWDERED CHOCOLATE. Hance Bros. & White, Philadelphia, Pa. Filed Nov. 23, 1897.

Essential feature. ‒ The representation of a man beating a boy.
Used since October 29, 1897.

Not Just Bikes: The Great Places Erased by Suburbia (the Third Place)

Van Neistat: Why Veteran-Artists Don’t Quit

Billie Eilish: Same Interview, The Sixth Year ‒ Vanity Fair

Polygon: Control taught me to love the ugliest architecture

CGP Grey: The Maddening Mess of Airport Codes!

I just posted a link to a Polygon video about the architecture of Control, a 2019 video game. I both liked and hated this game [mild spoilers coming]. First, a warning: I don’t play a lot of PVE-intense games. I had enough problems getting past boss stages that I almost quit. I’ve seen reviews of the game crowing about how Control wasn’t difficult, these other video games are difficult. Etc. Apparently the thing to do in Control if you can’t fight a boss is to go fight some other boss, and level up your abilities. Boss #2, same as boss #1. Boss #3, even more difficult. I was about 2/3rds finished.

The skill tree for abilities and gun improvements is random. Tons of comments about how the “Grip” gun was their gun of choice but I never got good pickups for it. All my other guns, nearly maxxed out. It was bizarre. “You can’t see that I’m not getting pickups for this gun? Why do you keep giving me shitty pickups?” On top of that, the UI for the skill tree is incredibly poor. You have 24 slots, and if you don’t keep pruning the shitty pickups, they fill the slots and now you ... can’t pick up any more pickups. The game could have done this automatically for me, automatically upgrading/pruning garbage around 80% of the time, but no, I’m in a boss fight, there’s a pickup I need, and now there’s a giant-ass rectangle on the screen glowing red no more room, can’t pick this up oh you died. Just as an example: there’s a pickup for “rate of fire.” It is expressed in a random percentage. So say you have a 12% rate of fire increase pickup. You will, over the course of the game, run into about 20+ pickups for rate of fire that are less than or equal to the pickup you already have. “Look it’s random!” But you just filled up a slot with garbage. And again. And again. Multiplied by all the different types of pickups. Keep trimming, Billy boy.

There’s a lot in this game that reminds me of the same sort of problems in the Tomb Raider reboot. But again I don’t play many of these, perhaps it’s a SOP plague. Keeping the books is not entertaining. Fighting enemies is entertaining because you get to throw chairs and shoot and throw filing cabinets and shoot. Which lasts for a good long while but after you go through a section, well, there are more enemies. Clear out a place, turn around and perhaps (more randomness here) within seconds there are more enemies. It never stops. Because of the way the missions are organized, you’re constantly back-tracking into areas you’ve ... not cleared out, clearly. I just wanted a checkbox “cleared-out areas remain cleared out.” Some enemies are invisible, one of my own personal eye-rollers (“hahah let’s put the player in a small enclosed space with ole’ Inviso” #stale). Same type of enemies that level up as you level up for the most part. After awhile, it becomes ... tedious. After the novelty wears off, the fights all feel the same. “Remember when I threw that chunk of wall at your identical brother dude, right here in this same fucking spot, two minutes ago? [throws large cabinet at dude]”

The maps are dog food. F-. Higher areas cover lower ones, but there’s no way to see the lower area floorplan. Along the same lines, the UI for the gun/health stats is needlessly complex. Not as bad as GTA5. Still, I’d rather not have to back up into a higher-level menu then go back down to change the gun mod I want to swap out. Playtesting: it’s a thing. Intentional/lazy? You get another F-.

I liked the story, the janitor, really liked the chattering pyramid (hey dude I want to hang out sometime call me), probably enjoyed The Threshold Kids a little too much.

Those three bosses, I gave up but then later the same day ran across a post about an invincibility update on the options screen I hadn’t seen. Sold! I danced through the rest of the game so I could see the architecture and follow the story. More entertaining floating in the middle of the room while being shot at by eight guys: “Okay, where were those stairs to that weird corridor?” I’ll be buying the DLC when it’s on sale again.

There’s a lot more. I just grabbed some of the biggest slices.

I don’t want any sour notes about any of this. I’m not writing this to be persuaded that my experience is non-canonical/wrong/etc. This is all I have, videogames and then complaining about videogames. Thanks for thinking of me though. Also I have coffee, ice cream, and coffee ice cream. Also images/short videos of dogs, cats, and birds. Licorice, that’s another one. Sleeping, I like that. Bread. Big one, bread. Watching billionaires self-immolate. Cake, but mostly pie. Pie is way more than cake.

Billboard Magazine, July 29 1950. TeleMagnet: The machine that answers your telephone and records messages when you’re out. $299.00 COD.

Wonderful article about a Parisian pastel shop in, mysteriously, The Financial Times (as seen on metafilter)

Find the Back of Your Hand ‒ Series 14 ‒ Taskmaster

If you have not watched the UK television program Taskmaster I recommend you do so. I recently made a link to one episode’s specific well-formed task, “Find The Back Of Your Hand.” The show was created in 2015 by Alex Horne, and Greg Davies is the “Taskmaster.” They have franchised the series to at least eleven other countries and offer some as full series on their Taskmaster video channel. I have my own preferences and about 70% of the time will fast-forward through the Bring In A Themed Thing intro segment, Make A Movie/Song/etc tasks, and Draw/Sculpt/etc With Extreme Limitations tasks. Don’t care about points/who wins, I’m just sort of a lateral-thinking junkie. Also, no one needs the Eat This Quickly tasks. We had that with Fear Factor (The Show Where The Factor: Is Fear), then Amazing Race tried to horn in on that scene as well. These are thankfully rare in the original series but seem to crop up a little more in the international versions.

Some countries are obviously subtitled, about 10% of the cultural references go completely nowhere in my brain. “Ha ha, that’s exactly like a fish underneath a cracker!” Yes. What you said about the fish. But 90% of the unexplained/unfathomable references are during the “banter between tasks” segments which I also zip through half the time.

Participants in the international versions seems more willing/ready to pick apart a competitor’s performance/etc. Even if good-natured, these bits of the show have become sort of cringey to me.

Of the four countries I’ve seen, Atle Antonsen, the Taskmaster of Kongen Befaler (Taskmaster Norway), seems to embody the closest resemblance to Original Taskmaster Greg Davies. This is an important cornerstone of Taskmaster culture: the Taskmaster’s word is law, and the Taskmaster brooks no dissent. Artle is quippy but is also ready to put the hammer down when required and calls out bullshit. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Jeremy Wells, the Taskmaster for Taskmaster New Zealand. A certain contestant in NZ Series 1 would fail or cheat at every single task but then argue their way into points. “Sneeze. Fastest time wins.” [two quick fake sneezes from clown] “I’m done.” I’m only at episode four, but as far as I can tell, they’ve done this for every single task except one.

In the assistant category, David Sundin from Bäst i Test (Taskmaster Sweden) really seems to lock it in. Very strict, never cracks, keeps knowing glances to the camera very subtle. It doesn’t hurt that he has a little mini-desk attached to the Taskmaster’s regular-sized desk.

Another international thing ‒ there are people who keep saying “I’m a genius,” etc., sometimes accompanied by fist-pumping/jumping/whatever. Maybe that sort of thing is more noticeable when there are subtitles. “I’m a genius, and you’re all awful/stupid.” Literally, participants will say this. It’s odd: young people, old people, bragging hard. Sure, the show will capitalize on this and show clips of them all doing the same thing while declaring that no one else would think of something so clever. At some point I started to wonder if it was some weird time-filler stage-managing direction, but then four people came up with the brilliant idea of moving something via car and said “I’m brilliant, and no one will think of this.” So I went from stage-managing to no, people really are that basic. New Zealand also has The Most Boisterous Guy. Every time he completes a task, he stands up out of his chair with a guttural YEAH! accompanied w/arm-hand motions begging the audience for applause. If Your Personality Is Actually A Surface-Level Bit And You Do The Same Bit Every Time You Have The Camera On You, It Becomes Incredibly Annoying. It turns out I do not find yelly egotists entertaining still lo these many decades later after being exposed to too much US television/reality. Greg Davies apparently makes an appearance in episode seven of the first series, and I’m sort of half-dragging my feet to get there because it just means more Most Boisterous Guy. Update: quit NZ.

Ruunachu: What a scary place

The Gävle goat. I am recruiting everyone to PROTECT the goat:

Gachapon selections. I have not Gachaponned lately. Here are some more Gachapon. There are a lot of Gachapon.

Caleb Gamman ‒ Cybergunk SERIES