1,081 thoughts on “Scroll in a Bucket

  1. Morning, Pan!

    Now, if only my Pan(dora) could just untangle her long, bony, intrusive legs from my own, I could get up and get ready for work.

    #SighthoundOwnerProblems

    • Just an observation.
      I think this article overlooks the fact (based on personal experience)that a large percentage of guys who gravitated to gaming in their teens/early 20’s, lack basic social interaction skills to begin with. Being uncomfortable around people/having a non-awkward conversation is only exacerbated and magnified when they are in the presence of the opposite sex. Some guys grow out of this some don’t. If a socially awkward guy then surrounds himself with other socially awkward guys … the chances of self improvement would seem to decrease. Is this “culture” or is it just dysfunction feedback loop?

      To be clear, not ALL guys who are into gaming are socially inept but then again not ALL guys who are into gaming are abusive and disrespectful towards women.

      So the question I would pose – Is there an actual “culture of disrespect towards women” in gaming/geekdom worlds … or is there simply a large percentage of that population who lack the basic ability to pull off “appropriate, public social interaction”.

      If the later is the case, what is the ratio of socially competent guys to Asperger’s like guys needed to pull off a “Pygmalion”?

      • The main takeaway for me is:

        This kind of debasement is really happening to women and girls, even if the perpetrators are a tiny minority, and the community needs to send a message to the creeps that their behaviors will never be tolerated or excused or overlooked.

        That can apply to every culture where this shit is happening – – not just gaming.

        • As popular culture makes previously male dominated hobbies like gaming and comics more mainstream, their will be certain cro-magnons who feel like they are loosing turf and give the average gamer a bad name. As a sign of hope, I’ve noticed locally the comic store’s patrons are split pretty evenly between men and women. The patrons at game stores are still mostly male, but more women are showing up every year. Eventually the cro-mags will die out, it’s a self correcting issue.

          • Here’s my two cents on the matter. Sexism pervades many aspects of geek and “normal” culture alike, from casting in movies/television, to female characters in literature, to comic book portrayals of female characters, etc. I think much of this is driven by the gender stereotypes that many of us learned as children. Many of us want it to go away, and we assume that it will work itself out as culture progresses. However, I was forced to observe a Nick Jr. show called Bubble Guppies just a few days ago and it occurred to me that even at the very youngest ages we are STILL weening our children on the kind of gender stereotypes that I was weaned on and that my parents were weaned on. If we continue to teach out kids that girls = butterflies and boys = puppy dogs with no grey area in between, how can we expect them to get any further than us in truly seeing gender differences as complex rather than stereotypes?

            Gets off soapbox.

    • Thank you for posting Jack. It’s an interesting read and I am familiar with a lot of what he is saying. As are my male friends who have played as female characters in MMORPG.

  2. Morning Pan

    Yesterday was a good news, bad news kind of day.

    Bad News: I had to get a new computer. This wasn’t totally unexpected as my system was dying a slow and painful death. I was just hoping I could put it off a little longer as we have other expences.

    Good News: I got a new computer! Obviously, the first thing I put in it was Steam.

  3. So I decided as I await the USB to SATA cable to arrive, to install the new SSD and install the 64 bit Windows 10 from scratch.

    Fingers crossed and all jazz..

  4. Finished the Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell BBC miniseries tonight.

    One of us liked it.

    I was pretty happy with most of it, even the drastic changes from the book. I’d compare the experience to the Hitchhikers Guide, where the book and the TV series are both very different, but both pretty good, and fans should do them both.

  5. Today’s movie is Breaking at the Edge.
    The PVR write up: A pregnant woman tries to avenge a supernatural entity to protect her unborn child

    The unborn child thing seems to be in vogue at the moment as this will her the third bad horror movie in a row with such shenanigans

  6. the movie uses a lot of symbolism. While that’s usually ok, in this case it’s sometimes hats to tell what’s symbolism and what’s “reality”

  7. Ok. Hubby is evil and creepy dead girl is trying to warn her of such. That’s what I think is happening between the symbolism, visions, and baffling scenes

  8. Well two good things come out of installing an SSD in the old netbook and going 64 bit:

    Battery life is a bit better due to the SSD using much less power than the previous HDD.

    Bluetooth functionality is back, so I can stream music and videos to my TV.

  9. Going through the full-length “Tubular Bells, part 1,” which clocks in at about 30 minutes.

    It’s a little dated, and could probably have benefited from a drummer, but it’s still a pretty amazing piece of music. Got me thinking about other epic pieces of music that should really be experienced. . . To start the list:
    Pink Floyd The Wall
    Pink Floyd – Echoes
    Iron Maiden – Rime of the Ancient Mariner
    Spock’s Beard – Falling For Forever

    What else have you got?

  10. The people who made Cthulhu Fluxx know their Lovecraftian horrors. I thought I was fairly up on my Cthulhu Mythos, but I was schooled by many of the cards.

    Anyway, it was a fun variant on the game. We also recently added Fluxx Dice, which also adds a nice element to the game.

    • Also – I haven’t listened in decades but I seem to recall there was an extremely well produced, Alan Parson’s album that was pretty epic to listen all the way through. Can’t remember which one though. (“Project Pyramid”? “Turn of a Friendly Card”?

    • Oh, just the other night I was listening to Queen’s “Night at the Opera” all the way through and remarking on the depth and complexity of songs. The lyrics seemed chosen for their meter as well as meaning and the incidental instrumentation is brilliant. Not to mention the guitar work, harmonies and vocals! Almost every track has you tapping your toes and/or singing along whether you like it or not. All that effort for “Pop Music” ?

      Brilliance. Anyone know who produced that album? I wonder how much of that was Freddy Mercury?

      • I think the band were heavily involved in the production of their albums. I don’t know if they had one producer throughout their releases. Interesting research fodder.
        Each of the guys would write their own songs and bring them to the rest of the band (which is how you got Freddy Mercury professing Brian May’s love for fat-bottomed girls), but their vocal harmonies were so incredible and highly-developed. . . there must have been band collaboration on them.

    • I was leaving out collections of individual songs, unless they were somehow linked. So that qualifies multiple songs that are fused to each other in an intended order – – like a concept album or Dark Side of the Moon – – or just plain old individual epic songs.

      More additions:

      Pink Floyd – Shine On You Crazy Diamond
      Helloween – Keeper of the Seven Keys
      Mountains – Choral

  11. I’m also thinking of Sack Trick’s song “The Elder” which is a long montage of Kiss’ album “The Elder”. Good luck finding it though. I may have to post it.

    • I’m currently reading a book published in 2015 but has a very 50’s pulp fiction feel. It took me a bit to get into it because some of the writing is very dated but now I’m quite digging it. They talk to their computer using teletype machines. It’s so cute.

        • Ah right, I got that a few months back too. I should get to it this year.

          RE: Cyberpunk. I follow a Cyberpunk Culture FB group full of people who would cut you with their razor fingernails for suggesting that it was ever considered dead.

          (They’re not happy about the ScarJo Ghost in a Shell casting, as you can imagine.)

  12. Re: Fluxx- SlyB and I recently picked up Firefly Fluxx and it’s a blast. Gotta get the dice. We also just bought our second copy of Loonacy, and love it so much – Lo it’s one I’m looking forward to playing with your kids.

  13. Its amazing how many people are suddenly Prince’s biggest fan today. That being said, revisiting his catalog is NEVER a bad thing. Death or not. He’s amazing. I highly recommend PlectrumElectrum by Prince & 3RDETEGIRL from 2014. Amazing stuff

    • After his string of bland in the mid-late 90s, I stopped following him.

      Honestly, though, it’s rare that a 2-week period goes by without me listening to a Prince song – – either on my playlists or terrestrial radio. He has some great obscure songs, but his best-known are eternal. Kiss, Purple Rain, When Doves Cry, Darling Nikki, 1999, Sexy Motherfucker – – just to name a few.

      • Yes, I enjoyed late 80’s early 90s Prince. After that he slipped off my Radar. One of the things I liked about him though was that he DIDN’T continue to put it commercially successful, pop gludge. I didn’t like his mid-90’s stuff and he didn’t seem to care that I didn’t like it. He had made his money, gotten his “fame” and now he was going to do stuff that made him happy.
        At least that is how I saw it.

      • Give PlectrumElectrum a try. Ill put in on dropbox if you want. The way I know its actually good (besides my ears) is that Pitchfork only gave it 3.8 out of 10.

  14. Morning Pan

    I was so happy yesterday. I finished all the royalty reports and was able to move on to stuff for the expo. I send them to my boss and she says, “Oh. I forgot to tell you the percentages are different for these three items.”

    *sigh* Back to spreadsheets I go. :ermm:

  15. Crap joke nicked from twitter:

    @OwnesDamien My wife says I remind her of James Bond. I’m bad at following orders, I’m emotionally dead, and she’d like to see the role go to Idris Elba.

  16. Heading back home after seeing Eye in the Sky at the flicks.

    It builds up tension nicely, but I seriously doubt the current crop of politicians would have any hesitation in killing a child to achieve objectives.

  17. My cat is a whore.
    When someone comes over, she rolls over and asked for a belly scrub.
    She has also discovered, if the laundry basket is empty, she can jump in it, crouch down and rub her butt against the little plastic holes. By the way she acts while doing thIs, I’m assuming it feels really good.

  18. Talking of board games, reminds me that as the youngest child most two (or more) players games involved me playing with my sisters who as we got older we less inclined to play (me being a spoilt brat at the time didn’t help).

    Playing single player games on an dedicated LED and LCD handhelds and later 8 bit computers was something of a revelation.

  19. “World Naked Gardening Day: Annual Holiday Celebrating Nudism in Nature to Be Held May 7”

    I have nothing further to add to this
    with the exception of “Bugspray. LOTS of bugspray.”

  20. So it’s morbidly interesting – – at least in the U.S. – – that Prince has “won” the most sympathy and tributes, of all the superstar musicians who’ve died this year.

    I’d assume that it’s because he was the youngest of the major ones, the most “pop” of them all, and that the peak of his fame came during our formative years. Bowie was already established – – and had possibly already peaked – – when we were coming into our cultural awareness.

  21. Normally, when I make fudge, it’s usually chocolate. Today I decided to try something different and made butterscotch fudge. It’s in the fridge setting now.

  22. It’s always nice to remind the Hilary haters on my FB feed (posting pictures of her shaking hands with Bin Laden) that Ron Reagan and his cronies cosied up to Saddam Hussein during the Iraq/Iran war.

  23. My dilemma today, should I support an author who accused a bunch of Syrians of being terrorists, who turned out to be innocent.

  24. So, remembering that Tiffany works in surgery. . . I received a text from her last night that said, “No sx tonight. They’re doing a bunch of tests in the morning.”

    I might not have been so alarmed by this if I’d known that “sx” was the abbreviation for “surgery.”

  25. So who thinks Martha’s going to get a bullet in ‘The Americans’ ?

    Did not like the look of that Russian women when she claimed to have a pilot.

  26. I did finally check out a few episodes of Rick & Morty. Plenty of stupid humor, but I definitely laughed.

    The use of Elliott Smith music to create existential angst in the teenage version of Rick was pure genius.

  27. Dealing with a magazine subscription with a small press is a bit surreal.

    On asking what issue my subscription will start, I had to email the editor, who was rather laid back and told it could start with any issue I wanted.

  28. Vanamonde: In answer to your question about testing out your VPN, here’s the breakdown of hits I’ve seen on my website so far:

    US – 75
    (not set) – 10
    Canada – 2
    UK – 2
    Australia – 1
    Norway – 1
    Russia – 1
    Turkey – 1

    Happy First of May, Deadpan! I’m enjoying my scone and large house blend. It’s chilly and drizzly here in Omaha, NE – not a great day for doing anything outside. Still, we have something else around here that also starts today – the annual Nebraska Passport Tour. My friends and I are driving to Lincoln, NE today (about an hour each way) to hit up our first few stops on the tour.

  29. OK, a bit of technical advice needed.

    Now my laptop is running the 64 bit version of Windows 10 I can actually upgrade from 3 to 8 gigs of RAM (32bit windows effectively topped out at 3.5 gig of max ram).

    Now this is a netbook with a low power AMD CPU+GPU chipset, would it actually be worth upgrading?

    I basically use it for web browsing, simple games on STEAM and emulation, so I’m guessing I’m not going to see a big improvement getting more ram (apart from leaving more tabs open on the web browser).

    • Windows 10 and its applications, from what I’ve seen, tend to use less memory than earlier versions. 3GB is running too low, imo. Running with less than 4GB can cause certain issues, but from what you say, you likely won’t run into them.

      I tend to stress out my systems since I don’t run a standard profile. I run a lot of personal and work applications at the same time. With Win 10, I’ve gotten close to exhausting my 16GB only a few times.

      You might not see much benefit from the additional memory, but it won’t hurt. Plus, nowadays, upgrading to 8GB isn’t expensive at all. I would also think the extra memory would let you take advantage of Win 10’s better virtual desktop support.

  30. OK. I’m going to call it. The 360 video stuff has gone overboard. Not everything is right for 360 video. Case in point, this video of a SpaceX Drone Barge Landing. There is really only one possible view in which this makes any sense at all. Being able to turn the camera to another angle cannot possibly add any value.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDK5TF2BOhQ

  31. Thanks for the Birthday wishes.

    Enjoyed the New Captain America film, but the MCU is in dire need of a scenery chewing villain, the one in the new film was very low key.

  32. There once was a bloke named Vanamonde,
    He lived far away across the pond.
    Around the Deadpan,
    We just call him Van,
    And of him we’re all very fond.

    Happy birthday!

  33. Don’t forget Van’s birthday bro:
    We love him as justa J0e.
    His life is mysterious,
    Though many are curious,
    His real name they’ll never know.

  34. There once was a Van from Great Britain
    Whose cough caused the girls to be smitten
    His crap jokes were ripe, about the innkeeper’s wife
    He’ll make sure the coat makers aren’t quitten

  35. Technology:

    The Bluetooth chipset on the iPad is more modern than the chipset in the netbook.

    Yet when I use my Bluetooth headphones and watch a video, the audio is lagged on the iPad but not on the netbook.

    What’s that all about?

  36. We had record breaking heat yesterday. If it’s not stupid hot today, I might go for a walk later this morning.

  37. Today is also MCA day. RIP.

    “Born and bred in Brooklyn the U.S.A. They call me Adam Yauch but I’m MCA. Like a lemon to a lime a lime to a lemon, I sip the def ale with all the fly women”

  38. One more before signing off…

    Some voices got treble, some voices got bass; we got the kind of voices that are in your face / Like the bun to the burger, like the burger to the bun / Like the cherry to the apple, to the peach to the plum

    See you on the flip.

  39. Not that I encourage Tequila at work, but today would be most likely for it to happen, even though historically today is a blip

  40. Crap joke for the day:

    I’ve just been house hunting.

    One place had mirrors covering the walls of every room.

    I thought, ‘I can see myself living here!’

  41. Happy Day to all!

    Our RSVP Deadline is fast-approaching for the MMMmmmeetup/Wedding Partay.

    If you have not already RSVP’ed or declined, please visit our website or email me or Jack.

    We look forward to hearing from those of you whom we have not heard from yet!

  42. One more thing changed over to the new computer. I forgot to put in my custom ringtones. When I hooked up my phone to the computer it erased them from my phone. I now have them back. I’m happy :happy:

  43. *sigh*. My mom is being herself again.

    I sent her flowers, which she received yesterday. She sent me a thank you email, which would be nice except she signed off, “I may not have been a very good mom, but I’m the only one you got.” Why couldn’t she just say thank you and leave it at that?

  44. Kitty both loves it and hates in when I make meat pies. She love it because I let her lick the plate I cut the meat on when I’m done. She hates it because that’s all she gets, I won’t give her any actual mead.

    • But bloody hell the plotting fails time travel 101 at times.

      Claire wants to change the future, but balks at slaying an ancestor of Frank, even though if she succeeded at changing the future Frank could be wiped out anyway.

      Come on!

  45. Hubby and I are probably going to move next year. It will feel weird, as we’ve been in this house for twenty years.

      • We’re old.

        Our current place has a stupidly huge back yard and no garage. We want to move into a condo where we don’t have to worry about yard maintenance. And we want either a garage or heated indoor parking.

        Going to talk to a mortgage adviser in the next week or so to see if we can buy first then sell. Our house is worth four times what we have left owing on it so it shouldn’t be a problem. We just have to do some maintenance on it before we can sell (including the work needed that’s stopping me from going to Arizona 🙁 ) so we want to buy and move and do (most) of the work on the empty house to make it more sellable.

  46. TEB’s post reminds me that I’ve lived in the same house for over 45 years.

    I suspect it’s a punishment for thinking an old woman was weird for living in an apartment for 60 years when I saw it on a news segment as a teenager.

    The universe never laughs with you, it always laughs at you.,,.

  47. A couple of weeks ago, I bought groceries and the chip reader in Safeway was acting up. The bank made me get a new credit card just in case. Now I have to remember all the places that have automatic withdrawals from our credit card and contact them all. It’s a bit of a pain.

  48. No one told me that there’s an 8th Harry Potter book coming out this summer!

    Although, judging from Rowling’s comments since the series ended, I’m little concerned that she’s going to pull George Lucas levels of tinkering.

    • As well acted as they are, I would like to take a break from the Walking Dead series. This many years without an avenue for closure is leaving me dissatisfied. But my life partner is hooked, so I’ll be watching anyways. *sigh*

  49. Essbee and Sly B….

    Im so sorry that you both are hurting right now. It sounds like Miss Gertrude will be at peace. Hugs.

  50. Morning Pan

    Car is in the shop getting some work done. Luckily, I’ve already paid for the part so it’s just going to be about a couple of hours in labour I’ll be paying for today. Some time in the future we will have to look at replacing my car, but not today.

  51. It occurred to me, the Vanster will be here in about six weeks. Hubby and I are very laid back people. I’m starting to worry Van is going to be bored in the evening, at home with us.

  52. Went to the Theatre and saw “Jungle Book” tonight.
    I predict this will be the most under appreciated film of the year.
    Given it doesn’t have a car chase, a transformer or love interest and the “teen date crowd” may think it as a kid’s film so they won’t give it a chance … it won’t sell nearly as many tickets as it should.

    It is really, really well done.

    The only spoiler-ish things I’ll add … there is a marvelous moment that is right out of “Apocalypse Now” … and I can think of worse ways to go than being swallowed alive by Scarlett Johansson.

  53. Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams was on offer on the kindle today.

    It’s been decades since I read it, I enjoyed it at the time, hopefully it will be as pleasurable as revisiting Neuromancer.

  54. One of my coworkers just brought up the hockey playoffs during downtime on a conference call. It made me miss our hockey betting. 🙂

    I went to Walt Disney World with my family from May 3-9! It was pretty dang awesome. If I don’t get around to writing a trip report: My favorite parts were the concert atmosphere at Fantasmic, sushi with my sister, seeing my dad interact with little kids, Tower of Terror, and live music at the hotel bar.

  55. Anyway, Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Experience is about as good as it will ever get from here on out for Zep fans. They don’t bother with costumes, just near-perfect renditions of some of the best songs of all time– featuring the guy who is technically the current drummer in LZ. Kashmir and The Rain Song were incredible.

    Jason also told lots of stories and showed home video footage of his dad, which was a nice, personal touch.

  56. What a chickenshit I am, watching the latest episode of the Americans and not be able to watch Elizabeth make on move on the husband of the her Korean ‘friend’.

    • Oh, good – we can still be friends. I definitely rate this one above Age of Ultron.

      Plus, for an “Age” it seems awfully short. What was it, maybe two weeks from the time Ultron came into being until he was taken out?

      • I liked Cap 3 better than Age as well. *Mildly spoiler (-y?)* The three things I appreciated about this film was: 1. The less epic, more personal tone. Nice to have some real dialog without an hour of buildings blowing up in the background continuously. 2. Ant Man – One of things I remember as a kid was reading an Avengers comic where Ant Man used his other power, I loved the fact that they did it here. 3. The absence of a real villain. There is some real original story telling going on beyond the typical superheroes fighting the mustache twirling bad guy.

      • On multiple levels. It destroys the “Oh cause we have to” kiss in Man of Steel. This was a movie and a half in the making

  57. SPOILERS FOR CAPTAIN AMERICA IS YOU HAVENT SEEN IT YET SORTA>>>>>

    Holy shit I didnt realize the villain of the piece was Baron Zemo! Oh and Van, you are WAYYYYY off of the scenery chewing villain comment. Thats all theyve had to this point and most havent worked. This….was perfect. AND to date he’s their most dangerous foil because he actually succeeds in his purpose. Beautiful.

  58. It feels strange to be into my 5th decade and only this year did I subscribe to a science fiction magazine.

    Issue #264 of Interzone arrived today.

  59. And only for the purpose of pissing on my friend’s opinions. Here is my ranking of the Marvel films from best to no so best.

    1. Cap 2
    2. Iron Man 3
    3. Ant Man
    4. Avengers
    5. Cap 3
    6. Iron Man
    7. Thor 2
    8. Cap
    9. Thor
    10. Avengers 2
    11. The Incredible Hulk
    12. Iron Man 2
    13. Hulk

  60. Facebook is abuzz about the Buckaroo Banzai news. Dan Shaurette even posted about it on the Deadpan FB page.

    If you haven’t heard: Kevin Smith is set to make a new Buckaroo Banzai TV(?) series.

  61. So I’ve just finished my re-read of Hardwired.

    Was still a fun read, dated (of course) but I would still reccomend checking it out.

    People using fancy phone booths to make calls and the only mobiles being fixed and installed in cars was quaint though..,

    • Have we ever talked “Islands in the Net” by Bruce Sterling? If you’re going through classic Cyberpunk, then it’s a must.

      And yes, there’s the same stuff with phone booths – – and even people huddling around a fax machine for the latest news off the wire. . . but that doesn’t diminish anything.

      • I remember reading the Sterling book in the 80’s and being unimpressed, the female protagonist was far too passive for my tastes.

  62. We saw one of those previews tonight , but I signed a waiver saying that I’d owe one MILLION dollars :drevil: if I talk about it. I will say that it was a terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible movie. I hadn’t seen the first, and now I never will.

  63. It occurs to me, I haven’t done a PbP in a while. I think part of the reason is there hasn’t been any to record. Maybe tomorrow I’ll hit Netflix and see if I can find something truly awful…Maybe the movie Jack was talking about 😉

  64. Ok, life. I get it…

    Holy cow there are some terrible shows on tv. I’m watching one now with my mom called Heartbeat that is SO bad.

  65. I know nobody needs any further evidence there are some douchebags in the world, but tweeting that the loss of life on that Egyptian flight is a good thing is a new low.

    Some idiot actually tweeted that the fact the plane had empty seats was a bad thing.

  66. There are a couple (I’m not going to add links as WP doesn’t seem to like multiple links

    1). The Taking. This is actually semi-well received on IMDB. The main thing against it, in my opinion is it is a “found footage” film. I never could get into those.

    2). It Follows. This looks really bad

    3). Sinister. This one sound familiar. I can’t decide it it’s because of cliches, or if I’ve actually seen it before.

    Those are the three choices. Back in half an hour or so with a PBP

  67. I’m back. I’ve decided to go with option two. So without further ado, I give you…

    It Follows.

    The PVR write-up: A teenager finds out that sex can be deadly. And her only escape is to infect another unfortunate soul

    • That’s because men are obscene and woman are works of art. At least that’s what a lifetime of watching movies has taught me.

      • *shrug* Who knows. The bank pre-approved us for a mortgage, we see the realtor on Monday. We already have three houses picked out to look at (including the one I linked to above). So, if they are still available, we do the tour next weekend (the realtor thinks they will be as it’s a buyer’s market right now). It looks like we may be moving as early as mid-July.

  68. we currently have a tankless hot water heater. Hubby and I are wondering how long it will take before we’re tired of running out of hot water and replace the tank in whatever new place we get

  69. UGh! Why cant the X-Men franchises ever get the third film right? While not getting completely panned, Apocalypse’s reviews are a far cry from the first two excellent films. Course the fact that Olivia Munn is my beloved Psylocke makes we want to never see the film ever in the history of ever.

  70. I guess the one good thing about getting old is my hearing frequency range is so degraded I cannot tell the difference between CD audio and a vinyl record.

    So get off my lawn!

    • Holy shit I always thought that that was just a gag on their part. Truly rad.

      My favorite Nick Menza moment is the entire Rust in Peace album. Talk about a drummer nailing his debut.

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