Reborn as a Vending Machine, episode 1

He’s a nerdy vending-machine otaku reborn as a vending machine equipped with status screens and skill points.

She’s a super-strong cutie wearing slightly more clothing than the Dirty Pair.

Together, they fight crime hunger!

Verdict: this is exactly what I signed up for.

(combat food-service provider is unrelated)

Zelda Without Zelda

Pixiv would like you to know that Purah has a lot of new fans…

(story-wise, I find it quite interesting that Link keeps getting told about the things that Zelda has been up to for the past several years, yet in almost all cases (setting aside the spoiler), he should have been by her side for all of it; that is his job, after all, and he even gave her his house and let her replace his weapon racks with horse pictures, although it’s not clear which one of them ordered the larger bed)

Honest Headlines

Crazy BLM-activist tranny murders five, demands gun control. He must have been pissed off that he missed out on the global-warming arson spree that recently set Canada ablaze.

(Riju has a solution for this problem… in each hand)

Sorry, Pete, but…

…I gave up trying to make sense of jpop lyrics years ago. Best guess, they’re advising girls to put out early and often, which is aligned with their fan’s desires. 😁

(I didn’t know the “rolling stone gathers no moss” idiom (転がる石には 苔は付かない) existed in Japan, but since it’s a literal translation, perhaps it was a Meiji-era import)

Today I Learned…

…that a Sig P322 .22LR fits perfectly in a holster for a Ruger American 9mm. Actually, it fit better than the Ruger did. First range impression: the magazines are fussy to load, and the gun is very finicky about ammo. Fun fact: if you try to load the magazines with a .22 double-stack UpLula, the spring doesn’t compress correctly and the magazine body swells slightly.

On the bright side, if you manage to correctly load ammo it likes, it’s a very fun pistol to shoot. And it comes in a decent little case with a second magazine and a basic loading tool. Pity they skimped a bit by not including a printed manual, just a QR code to download one.

(Miss Paizuri’s tight-fitting holster is unrelated)

Reddit won?

The only subreddit I follow that’s still locked down and claiming “we’ve moved to the fediverse” is r/functionalprint (~1,500 people out of ~400,000 have signed up for kbin.social, which has no defined terms of service, so good luck out there). The rest have all gone back to normal.

Atelier Thighza, episode 1

Our Heroine is a slacker born to a pair of hard-working farmers, whose first mistake was letting her dress like a streetwalker instead of an actual farm-girl. Their second mistake was not beating her enough at an early age so she’d respect her parents and do at least a few chores.

But no, Our Bored Slacker Teen bullies Her Childhood Boy-toys into running off to play adventurer-for-a-day. Meanwhile, Our Merchant And His Wandering Poster Girl arrive in town accompanied by Mister Research Alchemist and Miss Paizuri (seriously, the outfit restraining her massive breasts has a pair of arrows that shout “insert cock here”). Then there’s an unrelated younger girl trying to sneak off, the town guards who catch her, the random guy who sees Our Slackers running around causing trouble, and holy fuck is this cast getting big and we’re only 16 minutes into a 48-minute double episode.

Worse, apart from the exposed skin that the camera zooms in on, I’m not finding Our Barely-Restrained Airhead very likeable. They keep giving her heroic camera shots as if she’s making profound statements and achieving great deeds, when the only thing she’d actually win if the writers weren’t on her side is a Darwin Award.

Verdict: I stopped watching less than halfway through. I don’t know if I’ll finish this mass of vomitous exposition and unfounded optimism, much less watch more episodes.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episodes 1-3

First up, everyone but the two leads gets to go on a comic-book side adventure, about half of which was spoiled in the trailer. I have no idea why the medical team shoots up and beats up; that’s not the fan-service I’m looking for.

Second, Our Lead Characters return for a courtroom drama that is heavy on the 21st-century race/lgbtqroflmao allegory and light on, well, anything else. Hopefully they can now stop writing about Illyrian Pride Month for the rest of the series.

Third, beings with superior genetics should sleep nude; is that too much to ask for, especially now that Paramount+ is merging with Showtime, the network that put boobs into Stargate? That aside, the brief La’angirie-service helped… distract from… her partner’s lack of… experience at playing James T. Kirk (his performance is fine if you just treat him as Some Guy Named Jim, and much better than he was in the previous season). I’d say this was the best of the three.

Verdict: other than the promised crossover with the animated Trek series, I’m looking forward to this show.

(Llenn-service is unrelated)

Tears Of The Kingdom, playthrough 2

Before I knew it, I’d run out of shrines and lightroots, and the only major thing left to do was go fight the Big Bad. Instead, I started over on a different user profile (“hi, Drew!”), and took advantage of things I’d learned, like how to quickly get the Hylian Shield and Master Sword, and most importantly, how to really use the new powers, which at first glance look less useful than the ones in BotW, but in fact are much subtler and synergistic. I also knew where to look for the Glide armor, although I ended up doing the challenges in reverse order.

I suspect that when I go back to the original save, the final battle will be fairly trivial with maxed-out stats, fully-upgraded armor, and an inventory full of combat goodies, so I’m going to try to get to it a lot sooner on the second save.

Unrelated, Nintendo announced two upcoming amiibo, but people who data-mined the source already figured out the serial numbers, so you can burn your own and use them today. The Gerudo King amiibo is seriously OP, frequently dropping 41-damage Gloom Swords. Fuse them to any Gerudo weapon and you add double damage, which will one-shot most enemies early on.

(amiibo drops progress more easily than in BotW; you just need to finish the first Robbie quest in the Depths to unlock good weapons, bows, and shields, as well as plenty of buff/cash foods; getting the shrine sensor is actually more difficult, since you need to finish at least one of the temples to unlock that quest chain)

Witcher 3: Endgame, episodes 1-5

They’ve promised to replace the lead actor next season, which really drives home how much this show depends on One Man Who Gets It. Expect season four to be canceled before it airs.

I may binge these over the weekend; it depends on how the on-again-off-again thunderstorm predictions pan out. I got enough wind Thursday night to take down tree branches and scatter the landscaper’s seed-protecting straw matting a good distance, but not much in the way of actual rain. Every time I look at the weather forecast it’s different, but at least we didn’t get choked with Canadian Climate Arson fallout on Friday, so that’s progress.

(unrelated patriot is setting off fireworks)

First pass through this month’s archives knocked out 3/4 of the pics; eliminating another 2/3 in the second pass brought it down to a reasonable size.

Waifu Drop

I may try to watch “stuck at level 1 with amazing loot rolls” for minor amusement, mostly for the bunny-suited bunnygirl. Other than that, the primary (ludicrous) twist on the usual isekai formula is not how Our Hero exploits gamelike abilities in a generic fantasy world, it’s the fact that everything in that world comes directly from dungeon drops. Including the air they breathe.

Between this and Vending Machine, I may laugh this season. I may also laugh at Atelier Thighza if the fan-service in the actual show is as over-the-stocking-top as the trailer; I’ll find out Saturday.

(unrelated bunnygirl is unrelated, due to the near-total lack of fan-art of this series that has 7 novels and 10 manga volumes…)

TotK Hylian Shield

Forget the clickbait articles (and there are many, most filled with obnoxious ads and dubious Javascript) telling you how to get to the Hylian Shield early in the game. You don’t need to eat a ton of stamina boosts and glide to the Serutabomac shrine, and you don’t need to go in through the Docks and avoid/fight Baby’s First Gloom Hands.

Enter from the ground, work your way around the spoiler under the castle toward the Northeast corner until you reach a section of wall due south of the top of the waterfall, and look for a cobblestone path leading directly into the spoiler, at (-0137, 1089, 0079). If you walk off the ledge at that location, there’s a cave entrance directly behind you, and you can just walk down a short flight of stairs, light the bonfire, and grab the shield.

If you already visited the shrine, you can also easily glide to this location by going around to the back and jumping off the southeast corner.

Now, if you want to get the Master Sword early, you’ll need two full stamina wheels, a wing with two fans (and maybe a battery if you don’t have much power, or a nice rocket shield), and a whole lot of patience, because the best way to reach it is to go to the southern tip of the island you woke up on and look to the east. The spoiler will first appear to the right of Zonaite Forge Island, moving left. It will make a 180° turn, and as soon as you have a full starboard broadside view, launch your wing and head for the nearest point. Once you’re on board, pick up a few souvenirs as you head to the front, and then draw the sword.

You might have to wait as long as two full hours of real not-in-a-menu play time for it to appear, so bring along a good book.

(or a bad book, I won’t judge you…)

Stupid Moderator Tricks

“Hey, if we mark ‘our’ subreddit NSFW, those assholes can’t sell ad space, and we can go back to business as usual! Of course, we’re still blocking search engine traffic, and now we’re keeping kids from asking questions about the most popular Nintendo Switch game of the year, but you’ve got to break a few omelots to lay an egg!”

What could possibly go wrong?

ChatGPT + Blockchain = Magic!

Bikinichain beats blockchain

more...

Bitcoin in its natural habitat…

I guess there wasn’t room next to Barely Legal (which probably sold more copies).

Limited appeal…

Following…

My current twitter feed: ad, titty, kitty, snark, ad. Dear Elon, I could do with a bit more content between the ads.

Followers…

A few days ago, I helped a friend solve a problem with his new .45 ACP Smith & Wesson M&P 2.0. It comes with 10-round magazines, but it’s almost impossible to actually squeeze the 10th round in, especially if you use a magazine loader like an UpLula. The two most common recommendations are to leave the magazine fully loaded for a few weeks/months until the spring breaks in, or to snip a coil off the bottom of the spring, reducing the tension.

Neither of these actually works well, because the real problem is California. In order to sell any handguns in CA (and other states allergic to civil rights), magazines cannot hold more than 10 rounds. A good magazine will still have a bit of slack in the spring when the last round is loaded, so that it can be inserted into the gun without force when the slide is down, and that slack could allow a Sufficiently Motivated State Agent to squeeze an 11th round in, converting all owners to felons and banning sales of that model in that state.

So S&W deliberately made the magazine followers too tall. If it barely holds 10, then the manufacturer is safe, and only a consumer who deliberately modifies their magazines is at risk of prosecution.

Anyway, we took a quarter-inch off the bottom of his followers with 100-grit sandpaper, and they now comfortably hold 10 rounds. Then he went out and bought some 14-round extended magazines, which are much easier to load to full capacity, despite using the exact same followers.

(there are a number of videos out there documenting this process for the 10-round 9mm mags, but you don’t need a video to learn how to rub plastic against sandpaper)

(and if you screw up the process, Midwest Gun Works sells replacement S&W followers)

Unrelated proper setup

Ambi safety, long trigger, arched mainspring housing (grooved), tritium/fiber-optic sights, no frontstrap checkering, Wilson mags.

Inflatable Revenge!

Three men swept out to sea on giant inflatable duck

The only picture shows the rescuers, not the victims of this fowl attack, so I’ll just post a picture of Rena Moriya instead:

Related, my sister was recently in Amsterdam, and sent me a picture without realizing that it would make me a little sad:

How Reddit moderators prevent spoilers

…by shutting down.

Popcorn will be popped

I’m just going to leave this here for later reference:

Not the recommended shot placement, but…

Police in Centerville, Ohio were recently called to an apparent break-in in progress. Before they arrived, the 911 call recorded a single gunshot. They found the intruder face-down on the carpet, dead from a single shot to the head.

They also found an unconscious woman in the front yard, and recently confirmed that she arrived in the same suspicious vehicle that was parked on the street for over an hour before the incident.

No photos of either person have been released after several days. Could it be… aliens?

(pretty sure this airsoft revolver can’t use those magazines…)

On that note,

I’ve never owned a SIG pistol, because for a long time they were all built with right-hand-only thumb safeties, and they were a touch pricey. Now their prices are quite competitive, and if they have manual safeties at all they’re ambi, and I can get 25% off on pretty much their entire line, but I… don’t really have any openings they might fit.

(the P322 has some potential, with its 20 and 25-round magazines, but I like the longer barrel and target trigger on my Browning Buckmark; and I’d only buy an MPX if I had local far-left friends I needed to piss off, and I could do that with just a picture of this thing)

No Nearer To NieR

The much-delayed episodes 9+ of NieR remain in Covid limbo. Fortunately I have the new Zelda game.

(don’t read any forums if you plan to ever play Tears of the Kingdom; most people who got it early and played on emulators at least pretended to mark spoilers, but since the release date, every detail is constantly being spoiled)

Snap Caps that don’t Snap

The common blass&plastic snap-caps (Tipton, etc) have always worked well for me, until I tried to use the .45 ACP variety with moon clips (required to load them into a S&W 25-2 revolver). They don’t fit in the clips, which means they’re simply not dimensionally accurate. The A-zoom metal ones work fine.

(Purah is all grown up again, and people are wondering if she went to band camp…)

Shipped!

I see now why Amazon can’t be more specific about my latest order than “June 7-9”…

Wednesday, June 7  
   3:17 AM  Package arrived at a carrier facility.
   2:22 AM  Package left the carrier facility.  
   2:00 AM  Package left the carrier facility.  
  12:33 AM  Package arrived at a carrier facility.  
  12:24 AM  Package arrived at a carrier facility.  
  12:00 AM  Package left the carrier facility.  
Tuesday, June 6  
  11:45 PM  Package left the carrier facility.  
  11:43 PM  Package left the carrier facility.  
   8:07 PM  Package left the carrier facility.  
  12:02 PM  Package arrived at a carrier facility.  
  10:42 AM  Package arrived at a carrier facility.  
  10:13 AM  Package arrived at a carrier facility.  
   7:40 AM  Package left the carrier facility.  
   6:30 AM  Package arrived at a carrier facility.  
   5:45 AM  Package arrived at a carrier facility.  
   2:29 AM  Package left the carrier facility.  
   2:08 AM  Package left the carrier facility.  
  12:39 AM  Package arrived at a carrier facility.  
Monday, June 5  
  11:24 PM  Package arrived at a carrier facility.  
   2:56 PM  Carrier received the package.  
Sunday, June 4  
  Carrier picked up the package.  

(Riju has graduated from Queen Jailbait to Queen Barely Legal, and is the most useful of your companions, but whoever thought it was a good idea to have to chase your AoE attacker into melee to activate her power was… almost as dumb as the person who made the “activate companion power” button the same as the “pick up object” button)

(you’ll know what I mean the first time Tulin runs through while you’re picking up loot. Pro tip: once you get the fifth companion, use it for mining and looting, because then the A button won’t activate the other companions)