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

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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)

My house came with a flagpole mount by the front door, and filling it seemed like an obvious thing to do for Memorial Day. Except that the kit sold at Sam’s Club had a 1.25-inch pole and I had a 1-inch mount, so I had to take the old one off and install theirs.

Then I went to Home Depot, and discovered that every flag they sell comes with a 1-inch pole, so if this one ever wears out (and despite being “Made in the USA”, it’s built like Chinese junk), I may have to switch back.

(specifically, the plastic hooks that attach the flag to the pole don’t stay shut, and required a quick application of gaffer tape to keep my flag from ending up several blocks away; I’ll likely end up replacing them with wire)

Long pepper, extra organic

A cookbook I bought my mom recently touted the virtues of long pepper, so I bought some on Amazon, five-star rating, Prime shipping.

When I shook some out into my hand, a live insect was included in the mix. Despite shipping directly from Amazon, this product could not be returned, replaced, or refunded. And Amazon deleted my one-star review for including the “no return/replacement/refund” line.

(…then I ordered from The Spice House, which has never included live bugs in any order…)

Things that make me twitch…

I was at a public indoor pistol range the day before Memorial Day, and there was a grizzled old Marine vet precisely and accurately putting holes in paper with a pistol-caliber carbine. He was in (unofficial) camo covered with USMC and related patches, and he was in the lane to my left. Every once in a while he’d switch guns and fill the center of the target with a single ragged hole with his .22. The range officer was standing a few yards behind him, and the two were discussing their service records as he shot.

That’s the setup. The twitch came when I went to throw away an empty ammo box, and saw his carbine swinging freely from the sling, alternately pointing at his own thigh and the RO’s foot. The RO who was too busy chatting up a fellow vet to do his fucking job.

Usually I’d have made a loud-but-polite request to inform the fool and get the attention of the RO, who’s often at the other end of the range when this sort of thing happens, but given the specific holiday and the fact that the RO was right there, I just casually pointed out the two-for-one deal he had on offer. The carbine was quickly unslung and set down, muzzle downrange.

A spam comment? Here?

Someone spammed the previous post with a sentence that read like it was generated with one of the recent AI chatbots, in order to appear related. But it couldn’t disguise the “career coaching” web site it wanted to send people to…

Nothing says sexy like a woman packing a pair of 44’s… and a gun.

Summer anime

Holding at two shows to watch: Ryza and Vending Machine.

(amusingly, the official abbreviation of the typically ridiculously long isekai title is jihanki)

Unrelated, I have my differences with the NRA, but…

…I am now a certified Range Safety Officer.

Gun-service time!

Surprisingly SFW set; I guess the folks on Pixiv have trouble tagging guns when there are nipples on display.

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Heat wave!

“The reason your 10-month-old air conditioner stopped working is that the condenser fan crapped out, and it’s too late in the day for me to call the warehouse, so we probably won’t be able to install a new one until Monday Tuesday.”

So I spent a few days hiding in the cool, dry basement, with the 4 screened windows open at night to cool the place down. I have more than 4 windows, but to install the rest of the screens that have been sitting in boxes in the basement for 23 years, the blinds have to be taken down, and I was planning to replace them, until the Bidenhandler regime doubled down on destroying the country.

The repair was free under warranty, at least.

(speaking of warranties, I hope this “SF-like gun” comes with one…)

Best Airpods Pro earpads (so far)

I have a set of first-generation Airpods Pro. The Apple-supplied earpads were (like many Apple products, including the Airpod cases) slippery and prone to falling out, so I bought third-party replacements, which lasted for quite a while before breaking off with half of it left in my ear.

I grabbed another set at Target, and they didn’t stay on the pods, didn’t fit my ears well, and of course didn’t have very good sound. So I threw these into my latest order, and the M size fits firmly and gives terrific sound and noise isolation.

Perhaps by no coincidence, they’re not made in China like most of the competition; they’re made in South Korea for the Japanese market.

Don’t buy ammo from guns.com…

…no matter how attractive the price. Why? Because this is bait-and-switch. The SKU is 53880 (cleanfire), and the description matches that product, but what they actually send out is SKU 53652 (indoor target). It took over a month to get them to resolve the problem with a refund, after weeks of back-and-forth in which they alternately claimed that they’d sent the correct stuff and promised to find it in their warehouse.

Ten days ago, they sent me an RMA label to return the wrong stuff (pro tip: do not take ammo to “The UPS Store”; they’re not UPS). On Monday, they swore the warehouse had found the 53880 and would ship it out that day. On Wednesday they finally gave up and refunded my money, but the incorrect listing is still up and “in-stock”. At no point in this process did they ever reach out to contact me; I always had to call and spend 15 minutes listening to really terrible hold music.

(now I have to figure out which credit card it got refunded to, because neither their site nor their emails include even a partial number…)

(update: ah, the only place your credit-card info appears is on the "billing information" page, and only for the most recent transaction, so if you bought something else after the refund was processed, it would disappear)