WNW: ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG

Exclusive: 'Weird Al' Yankovic graces 'My Little Pony'

LOOK YOU GUYS HIS CUTIE MARK IS AN ACCORDION

Not gonna lie, you guys: I peed myself with joy when I saw this. I also jumped up and down, clapped my hands, and squeeed to high heaven. This is the best thing to happen to MLP since John "Q" DeLancie voiced Discord. I know lots and lots and lots of folks who are Weird Al fans who are going to watch this episode just because he's in it. And then you know what will happen?

We are the Herd. 

We will add your friendship and magical distinctiveness to our own. 

Resistance is futile.  

You will be Bronified.

Ahem. Moving right along, I've got a funny pony video here to round out the evening... If you've seen the episode "Pinkie Apple Pie," then you will realize just how hilarious this video is. If not, watch the original first.



ZOMG WEIRD AL ON MLP YOU GUYS! FEBRUARY CAN'T COME SOON ENOUGH!

How did this happen?

It started innocently enough, with the purchase of a couple of Allen wrench sets -- one in metric and one in imperial, because I'd just gotten into guns and I couldn't tell which one to use for securing my bipod to my .22 rifle, so I got both.

Then I got my Mosin-Nagant, and I needed one of those tools to adjust the windage of the front globe sight.

I knew things were getting serious when I acquired a Dremel tool for fitting the Tinmey trigger into my ATI stock. After that, it just kind of snowballed:  a six-piece punch set. A universal bench block. A 5-in-1 dual interchangeable head hammer. A sillcock key.

Now I find myself cruising Amazon and shopping for calipers with a depth gauge, and I find myself wondering, How did this happen?

How did I, of all people, become... a tool owner?

Boosting the Signal

I'm echoing a post from Evelyn Hively, the lovely lady who donated the Jayne hats for my Squeak or Treat raffle, as she has some family members who are in financial trouble and she's trying to raise money by selling pre-orders of her stuff:

Okay folks so I got handed a challenge by the Universe in the form of my big brother and big sister. They fell on hard times recently, complete with a job loss and the need to pay for their storage unit (which has a large chunk probably 80% of their belongings) by Febraury 1st. I am going to try to come with 800 by the 28th of this month in order to get it to them by 31st hopefully.

Here's what I'm doing as part of what will be hopefully a mutiple pronged attack.

I am offering Dr. Who Scarves (there's a 100 dollar version and a 425 version which is a very accurate one, as per several hours of research), they are both full sized but take 2.5 months to make. I am offering Ma Cobb hats (these are usually 30), Tardis themed hats (30), dolls, shawls, bags, afghans, normal scarves, baby gift sets, custom coats etc.

This is not a donation, but a loan that I am paying you back with knit and crocheted goods as fast as I can make them. There's two ways to get ahold of me:

1) On Facebook I am Jade Rose Zen.
2) Etsy located here.

I can whip up a custom order listing in under a few minutes. Please and thank you.

Please consider buying something from her, she's really quite talented.

Traveller Tuesday: the Turbo-Encabulator

The Turbo-Encabulator is a highly experimental device created by Dr. Danbir Amuummaga of the Lunion Polytechnical Institute as a way to increase the range of conventional jump drives.

It does this by intentionally triggering a misjump.

Did I mention it was highly experimental?

The science behind the Turbo-Encabulator is solid, albeit untested:  Dr. Danbir (UPP: 596DF8)  is a respected theoretical physicist who claims he has found a way to aim a misjump such that the ship will safely exit at the the intended destination, and he can prove it using using high-order math.

There are, however, some drawbacks to this plan:

• "Increasing range via deliberate misjump" ranks right up there in the category of Words Which Do Not Belong Together alongside "The first step in making this ship faster than light is to make it explode."
• In theory, the math is sound. However, in theory, an elephant is a sphere. 
• Dr. Danbir has working on this project for 15 years. However, being a theoretical physicist instead of an engineer, he has no practical experience in this sort of thing. This is rather like driving in a car designed by a sculptor. 
• Because of this, the T-E has been the product of a decade and a half of grad students trying to get project credit for their degrees. This means that the entire crew (with the exception of Danbir) has changed out at least three times. 
• Documentation of all the systems is... messy at best. The actual systems are somewhere between "jury rigged" and "a Rube Goldberg device". 
• The T-E device is 30 displacement tons in size, and needs physical (not virtual) access to the power plant, jump drive, and astrogation systems. 
• In other words, attaching this to a ship is a bad idea, and all sensible spacers should reject it without reservation. 

Why does everyone I try to hire say, "You're doing what now?" -- D. Amuunnaga, PhD.

The Scout Service knows about Dr. Danbir and has been covertly funding this project for years -- this is how he has managed to retain lab space without having anything to show for it. Scouts have occasionally cycled through his course under the guise of students, reporting their findings back to their superiors. The IISS Special Ops file on Danbir says, in essence, "This guy is crazy but he might be on to something. Under no circumstance should you let him use his devices on your ship, but we will continue to give him funding on the off chance that he will stumble onto something brilliant."

Naturally, this means that any PC group with a ship capable of carrying 30 dtons of cargo is likely to be contacted by Dr. Danbir promising them wealth, fame and glory if they will agree to let him attach his device to their ship for its maiden jump. As proof that he believes in his design, he will travel alongside it.

Closer inspection of the message will show that the good doctor has mass-mailed every starship at the downport between 200 and 1,000 tons in hull displacement.  If they reply to his email, they will be (surprise!) the only ones to have done so. It's almost as if all the other captains think his idea is insane...

Danbir is enthusiastic and glad-handing when meeting with the crew. He speaks of his invention with utter confidence, and is full of reassurances that "all precautions will be taken" and "it's perfectly safe -- if it wasn't, would I be willing to risk my life by coming along?"   While he is willing to pay for middle passage, he will wrangle for working passage by offering to constantly monitor the device. This will be done, he says, to reassure the crew of the ship that everything will go according to plan.

If the PCs agree to this foolish plan (and any decent GM should give multiple indications that this is not a wise course of action), then the doctor will have several trucks full of equipment and grad students show up early the next day and begin installation. (See above regarding the rat's nest of machinery and the confusion regarding hooking everything up.) Throughout it all, Danbir watches and gives direction like a cross between a foreman and a proud papa.

Suspicious players may wish to scan the machine or get an idea of how it works. Overt scans will be discouraged by the doctor, although it will be easy to get covert readings during the confusion of assembly. Alternately, one of the TAs may be bribed with food, coffee cigarettes or promises of sexual favors to get him to talk about the device. The first piece of information divulged should be something like "You guys are braver than I am... no way in hell would I take a ride with this beast."  He will then ramble about specifics of a certain system while admitting ignorance of all other parts -- Danbir likes to keep information highly compartmentalized and only he knows the big picture.

It is a point of mild interest that all of his students are human. While he tries to keep his prejudices quiet, Danbir is a racist in the old Vilani manner (think of stereotypical Colonial Britain and their "Bringing civilisation to the wogs, eh wot?" attitude) and because of this he looks down on all non-humans.

The T-E contains at its core several "black boxes" of many tons in displacement. These boxes are heavily shielded against scanning and all connections (power, data input/output, etc) use a sophisticated "airlock" of sorts. In other words, the interior is never ever exposed to the outside by any means. If investigated by someone with Engineering skills, a Difficult skill roll will reveal one of these devices as a kludge between a food dispenser and an autodoc.

Upon being hooked up and powered on, Dr. Danbir will immediately begin performing diagnostics and prepping all systems for jump. While he can be approached for details as to what he is doing, it will all come out as gibberish to any characters without a high skill level (5 or 6) in  Science: Mathematics and Science: Physics. Anyone who can understand him should become very uneasy as they realize the doctor is proposing a jump drive version of dynamic instability (which is where an aircraft, by nature of its engineering, wants to fly apart at high speed, but is kept in one piece through complex computerization that essentially encourages the aircraft to fall apart in one direction -- the direction that the nose is pointing. This results in a very nimble and responsive craft, but one fault in the system could spell mid-air disintegration.)

Danbir will have his device plot a jump to a system normally out of reach of the player's ship, e.g. a J-3 or J-4 for a jump-2 rated drive. He will not plot anything higher than a J-6 of his own accord, although he will be open to persuasion by someone who professes confidence in his design.

Any ship registering a flight plan with a T-E enhanced jump  will receive a solemn "Fare well and good luck, you poor doomed bastards" from ground control. All traffic, from the surface to the 100 diameter jump point, will be routed as far away from the PC's ship as is physically possible.

A Leap of Faith
Before they jump, make sure to ask your players if they really want to do this, because this is their last chance to back out. If they do not, then consult the following steps:

1. Make a show of rolling for the astrogation behind your GM screen, but ignore the result. 
2. Have the doctor make the engineering roll for the jump. He rolls 2d6+6, but as this is a Formidable task, the penalty cancels his bonus, making it a flat 2d6. He cannot take extra time on this task.
3. Roll 2d6 to see if the jump is accurate, if you want to give the players a chance at getting through this unscathed. If it succeeds, they safely arrive at their destination after the requisite time in jumpspace.
4. Alternately, you can realize that this is a deliberate misjump and there's no such thing as one which is both safe AND accurate. Assuming you don't want to kill all the PCs, you can assume that the doctor has chosen safety over accuracy. 
5. Consult the starting hex and roll 1d12. Starting from the top, like a clock, straight up is 12 and straight down is 6.  All flat sides of the hex are even numbers; all odd numbers are the corners. This is their actual departure vector. If it differs from the course which was plotted (likely), then the effect total of Danbir's roll (if successful) may be used to adjust the course. Example: the ship's original course heading was at 9:00, but you rolled a 5. However, Danbir rolled a 9. This is an effect total of one, meaning that the adjusted heading is now 6:00. 
6. Determine actual distance of the jump via the 1d6 times 1d6 method. Again, the doctor's effect may be used to modify this distance by reducing the total of each die up or down per effect total, in order to arrive at a a planetary system rather than deep space. 
7. Roll 1d12 again to see how many days are spent in jump. Their ship DOES carry the requisite 2 weeks of reserve fuel for the power plant, doesn't it? If not, it's going to be a bumpy exit as the ship is booted from jump space with all the grace of a hard drive crash. 
8. If you're feeling cruel, you can roll for damage on the System Degradation chart, with preference given to Power Plant, Jump Drive, and Bridge systems. 

If you like, you can play up the tension and paranoia involved in an experimental system triggering a deliberate misjump with the following ideas:

• Entry into jumpspace should be difficult and uncomfortable. Endurance rolls to resist jump sickness, or damage from the increased energy state of a higher jump level than their ship is rated, are possibilities.
• If you subscribe to the notion of jump space being psionic in nature, all sorts of weirdness is possible, including but not limited to:  madness; random psionic effects performed by/on the crew; poltergeist phenomena. 
• If one of the PCs is psionic, this is a perfect opportunity to mess with his mind, sanity, and power levels. 
• Put the two together and you have a Traveller version of Event Horizon. Pleasant dreams...
• The doctor has grossly underestimated the amount of tinkering he needs to do to keep the dynamically unstable jump field from collapsing prematurely or uncovering parts of the ship. This is a full-time job that requires nearly constant supervision. PCs may try to help out, but this is again a Formidable roll. If they try and fail, let Danbir lunge in at the last moment with a "DEAR GOD NO!" and a last-minute correction. (If they try again, and fail again, cruelty is encouraged.) Have them realize that the best course of action is to keep the doctor hyped up on stims for the duration of the voyage. 
• Are there other passengers or NPC crew aboard?  Now might be a good time for a hijacking or a mutiny. 
• Are they carrying livestock, or cargo which is reactive, perishable, or otherwise susceptible to the effects of crossing into a dimension which is hostile to life? If you want to run a version of Alien in Traveller, now would be a good time. 

The Maddest of Mad Science

How does the Turbo-Encabulator work?  Dr. Danbir is reticent to discuss this, but with enough sleep deprivation (or high on enough stimulants) he will reveal that hidden inside the "black boxes" are vat-grown primate brains which were genetically engineered for psionic potential*. Using a combination of Clairvoyance and Teleportation, they are somehow guiding the ship through jump space and keeping the field in one piece, with Danbir performing only minor adjustments to enhance their performance. After revealing this, he will giddily describe the improvements on performance he can achieve if he could somehow get hold of psionic human brains -- preferably taken from those filthy Zhodani. His descriptions of sentient minds being pressed into eternal slavery as an engine really ought to horrify most players. A lifetime of being a screaming brain in a hot box qualifies as "hellish" for all non-sociopaths. 

* How he got his hands on psionically engineered primate brains is a very good question but is not within the scope of this adventure. The GM can assume that the Special Ops branch of the Scout Service acquired them for him; alternately, perhaps he in in contact with an illegal Psionic Institute. 

Monday Gunday: Why Everyone Should Own a Gun

Phoning this one in because of my big whining post previous.

Video link

The 11th Commandment

No, isn't Ronald Reagan's "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican."

It's not even "Thou shalt not get caught."  At least not where I live.

No, living in my parent's house, the 11th Commandment was "Thou shalt not whine", which later morphed into "Thou shalt be responsible" as we grew older. Note how the latter contains the provisions of "If you're whining, you aren't being responsible for your situation or feelings -- if you hate things so much, fix them instead of whining about it"  as well as "Be self sufficient."

I'm trying very hard not to break the 11th any more than it's already been broken. (The self-sufficiency thing went out the window almost a decade ago.) I'm trying to suck it up and be a good soldier, but between the weather (and the allergies/headaches that go along with that), my chronic mid-month depressive cycle, and my #&$!*ing family, it's becoming increasingly difficult to stay motivated and on-target.

My parents have started fighting about television now. The goddamn boob tube. Apparently there isn't enough stress and misery in their lives, so now they're going to bitch and fight and have temper tantrums over who gets to watch what, and when. Because apparently it's important to argue over entertainment now.

Honestly,  they should have gotten a divorce about 20 years ago, but by the time I was out of the house and in college they had gotten to the point where it was less work just to become fractious roommates where dad brought in money and mom kept the house than it was to get divorced and move out. This way, they get to keep the illusion of being a "proper" family. Oh, the shit I could tell you about my parents...

If I'm being totally honest, these people never should have gotten married in the first place. And yes, I realize this means that the "me" who I am today wouldn't exist. At this point, I'm fine with that, as I think that theoretical me would be a lot healthier and happier.

Dad's never forgiven me for not being his perfect little clone, going into the military, and being an officer with a house, a spouse, 2.5 kids and at least one combat deployment. "Disappointment" is pretty much the order of the day. I've talked about him before, and there's no love lost anymore on either side things. We basically have a working relationship and that's it.

Mom... well, when she isn't over-reacting by screaming and yelling and saying vile shit over rather inconsequential shit, she's basically clinging to me for companionship because I at least talk to her and treat her as a person rather than a live-in maid and cook. Which is not too bad, because despite all her flaws I still love her, but this kind of emotional manipulation (whether it be intentional or not) makes it difficult, if not impossible, for me to get away.

And then there's me. I'm too smart for my own good, in that I see busywork for what it is, and I refuse to tolerate bullshit or play office politics. I also have a smart mouth, a quick temper and no real self-censorship when I get riled up. As a result, I've been fired from every job I've ever held.

I don't do well with roommates for the same reason (look, I admit it, I am a difficult bitch to live with, being moody and territorial), but on the few occasions I've lived alone my depression has gotten the better of me and I've gone from living alone to feeling alone to "nobody loves me" to "why should anyone love me" to "I don't deserve love anyway" and by that point I'm sick and malnourished because I haven't been taking care of myself -- after all, why should I care about myself when no one else does? -- and that's when things get so bad I have to move back in with my family, because for all their fucking faults I know that they, at least, are obligated by biological imperative to take care of me when I can't (or won't) take care of myself.

To quote Gravity Kills, "I've built this perfect little hellhole." I hate my situation, but I am financially and emotionally unable to leave. I'm fully appreciative of the irony involved in putting myself in a place that I can't leave yet don't want to be in.

If you've ever wondered why I've often seemed so desperate to find someone to love and who would love me back... well, now you know. I'm looking for emotional rescue, hoping that someone will want me and love me enough to choose me to be with them forever. Not because they have to, not because they're obligated to, but because they want me. And then that makes me feel like a pathetic loser, because instead of fixing my situation, I'm waiting to be rescued like a dog in a kennel.

I'm tired of being caught between two warring factions.

I'm tired of not having the courage to improve my situation.

I'm tired of playing the go-between and peacemaker.

But I don't have the strength to change any of this. I feel like I have no options for self-rescue.

Some days, I just want to leave loaded pistols within arms reach of them when they're yelling at each other.

And then I realize what I just thought, and I hate myself for wishing them dead just because I'm weak.


Well, that pretty much obliterates my "no whining" goal. Some days, I can't even be strong enough to shut up and soldier on.

Comments of sympathy, while welcome, aren't required. I think I wrote this just so that I would have something to show for today, and to forestall the usual  "I didn't write yesterday, no need to write today, whoops there goes a week of not writing anything" pattern. And, of course, to get it off my chest in the hopes of some cathartic relief.

Welcome to my brain. It's dark in here, and you may be eaten by a grue.

Set Condition One throughout the base

Instead of making a joke about global warming, or ribbing the folks who were caught in the Polar Vortex earlier this week, I'm just going to say "I think there's a reason why this kind of weather is synonymous with 'battle stations'" when I post this video.