I hadn’t noticed the Pixiv tag 安産型 (literally “easy-childbirth type”, idiomatically “child-bearing hips”), until I added the pic of the BotW version of Zelda to my recent musing on the topic of reintegrating into society after life as a deranged murderhobo. (related: 1, 2)

The challenge with this set is not just linking to Houtengeki. 😄

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My town is in the news again, for a sadly familiar reason:

Do not eat any romaine lettuce from Salinas, California

I can’t wait to see if they blame this on wild boar pooping in the lettuce fields again. Because that was hilarious.

Finally you get one right!

[Unrelated, file under “baffling” the person in India who manually posted three link-stuffed (and I mean “every character is a different link, all to the same site”) spam comments to two recent entries. Pro tip: javascript-based comments don’t get indexed by search engines, so no one saw this except me, and it took one click to make them go away. Looks like it’s a WordPress site, so with luck it will be hijacked by other crooks soon…]

I was looking over the shop list at Shibuya Parco (note: I really hate sites that give a “language option” button that just forwards the page through an automatic translator), and noticed a pub with an interesting name: 真さか, which can be read as both “real booze” and “as if!”.

Sadly, clicking on the link reveals the ugly truth:

レモンサワーとVEGAN餃子VEGAN唐揚げのお店

“This is a lemon sour, vegan gyoza, and vegan kara-age shop.”

Not only no, but hell no.

I was also sad to discover that the Candy Stripper shop is not for men.

On the bright side, they’ve got a Condomania, which is always good for tourist pictures.

Not bothering to read this one, just snarking the obvious:

Apple’s Hour of Code plans include coding labs for 3-year-olds

I had to stop rolling my eyes at the whole pointless “hour of code” nonsense a few years ago, fearing they might get stuck that way. Most kids don’t need to “learn to code”. Neither do most adults. All of them need some basic math, statistics, home-ec, problem-solving, and logic skills, but then there’d be no Democrats, so that can’t happen.

It’s a pity that when you beat the Big Bad in Breath of the Wild, you don’t get to live in the world you’ve made (unless you count the sequel that’s coming next year…). Like all soldiers returning from war, Link has picked up some behaviors that don’t translate well to peacetime, and mastered many skills that there would no longer be much use for. I figure Zelda will quickly become so exasperated with him that she’ll welcome the next catastrophe:

Habit Is A Cable

“Link, no! I just bought that vase!”

“It might have rupees in it.”

“Link, stop! Those crates are filled with supplies!”

“I certainly hope so.”

“Link, that belongs to someone! And you already have four of them.”

“I need five.”

“Link, those apples are offerings to the guardian deities!”

“​…and darn tasty.”

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Whoever approved licensing Munchkin to the company that produced Munchkin Quacked Quest should be fired. Out of a cannon. Repeatedly.

It came out for the Switch this week, and based on the franchise, I was willing to overlook the fact that the gameplay trailer was light on details and voiced by someone who on a scale of RandomYoutuber to VoiceActor was around a 2.

Launching the game, the first warning sign was the prominent “Version 0.70”. This ain’t a Steam early-access game, kids; don’t just shove it out the door as soon as it stops crashing.

The second warning sign was that the spinning “loading” cursor was choppy as hell. Not just on the initial load, but loading the actual (tiny) dungeons, too.

The third seal was broken by the “DM” voice, which constantly repeated a small handful of lines that weren’t funny, with all the talent and wit of a third-string politician misreading a teleprompter.

Turning that off, however, simply highlighted the fact that the game isn’t any fun. And is to Munchkin the card game as the film Starship Troopers is to the novel it swiped a few paragraphs and character names from.

“🎶 One of these books is not like the others, one of these books really does belong. Can you tell which book is not like the others, before I finish my song. 🎶”

Clicking on the tile reveals several “Catholic Action Horror” novels, Simak’s Project Pope, Stasheff’s Wizard novels, Neil Boyd’s Bless Me Father novels, pretty much every novel by Andrew M. Greeley (no relation), and books on embroidery, aikido, ninjutsu, play therapy, and a Martha Stewart how-to manual. Oh, and some books on religion, evenly divided between Catholic and non-Christian.