New Year, Same Fear

Happy new year folks!

I’ve been working on a number of projects lately (should be ready to reveal one in a few weeks) and as such have been neglecting the Wyrmlog a bit. But I figured I should jump on and let people know I’m still alive.

So let’s see…

Trump has invaded Venezuela and kidnapped their president. I have reached the point where I am no longer surprised by anything the maniac in the Whitehouse does – each new atrocity just makes me feel even more tired and even more sad. Maybe the mid-terms will castrate the orange monstrosity, or maybe we’ll be stuck with him wielding absolute power until 2029, who knows?

The Bondi terrorist attack. Appalling. Just fucking appalling. And what’s worse is all sides of politics jumping on board to exploit the hell out of it. I think it’s fair to say that Albanese has made a major fumble by not calling a Royal Commission and has now been painted into a corner where the opposition can tear him to shreds for resisting a Commission, or tear him to shreds for ‘flip-flopping’ if he does call a Commission. Zionists and pro-Israel Fascists are jumping on the attack to label any criticism of Israel or support for Palestine as antisemitic, while the genuine antisemites are cackling with glee over dead kids and shattered families. And the Jewish population are caught in the middle and living in fear. The whole thing is utterly fucked, which is of course why the unspeakable scum that carried out the attack did it.

(For the record. Disliking Israel because they’re Jewish – antisemitism. Disliking Israel because they’re behaving like a bunch of cunts – not antisemitism.)

On less serious matters, a major storm swept through Perth (on the Sunday of the attack as it happens) and knocked out power to huge areas of the state, and the city, including my complex. I was standing at my window just after 4:00 in the afternoon watching the horizontal rain switch back and forth when the power went out. I didn’t mind so much at first as it had been a disgustingly hot day and the storm pulled the temperature right down. The initial estimate for restoration (checked on my phone) was only a few hours so I did some reading, then got the bus over to Morley (which still had power) and had dinner at Varsity. I then decided to kill even more time by walking home.

Walking through the suburbs as it got darker and darker, with fallen branches and occasional uprooted trees everywhere was distinctly eerie (I tried to capture the mood with some photos but my stupid phone lightened them all). The weirdest bit was when I passed a guy doing some work in his yard by the light of LED lamps mounted on his ute. I had a sudden, overwhelming urge to go and sit in the light to get relief from the oppressive darkness – a feeling I suspect dates back 2 million years to the African Savannah when we’d huddle around the fires to stay safe from the lions and hyenas.

By the time I got home they’d revised the time to restore power until the early hours of the morning, so I went to bed and without my fan and CPAP machine slept extremely poorly. I eventually crawled out of bed at around 5:00am, and on noting there was still no power had a cold sponge-bath and caught the bus into work.

Power was restored mid-morning, but my fridge had been off for about 18 hours, so I had to throw out a whole load of food I’d only just bought on Saturday. Thankfully I was able to claim $120 from the power company for it, so all’s well that ends more-or-less well.

Oh, and the rather lovely tree that the council spent so much money moving from the train station to the library to save it from redevelopment was snapped clean off at the base, so that’s sad.

On another matter it has come to my attention that the Wyrmlog has lost all styling. This is what happens when you modify a Theme directly rather than creating a child theme (because you have no idea what you’re doing) and then maybe ten years later absentmindedly turn on automatic Theme updates, causing your changes to be overwritten. I will get everything re-styled when I have a minute, which could be any time between today and the Unix Timestamp Epoch (did I mention that I have been semi-officially diagnosed with Inattentive ADHD?).

The second season of Fallout has dropped and I’m very much enjoying it. So far it’s not quite as good as the first season, but it would be insanely difficult for it to be (in my opinion the first season is just about the greatest TV series ever made). I can’t help wondering if the two Mr Houses are a way to keep Mr House alive after the events of New Vegas – the Courier may well have killed a Mr House but did they kill the Mr House? Time will tell…

I have voted in the Hottest 100. Expect a post about my choices soon.

That’s about it I guess. Go make your own entertainment!

The Spey Bridge Disaster

A historic former railway bridge has been cordoned off by police after a section of it collapsed into the River Spey in Moray. The Spey Viaduct, an iron girder structure near Garmouth, was completed in 1886 and while no longer used for trains, was popular with cyclists and walkers.
— BBC News

Oh, the fair Railway Viaduct ‘tween Garmouth and Spey!
Has fallen in the river, I am very sad to say,
On the thirteenth of December in the year twenty twenty five
And any person caught on it would have been lucky to survive!
For many years it carried goods and persons on its rails,
And today it is part of many important trails,
But sadly done is all of that if some strong repairs,
Cannot be made swiftly, to ease the people’s cares,
Did the Moray Council carry out their duty,
To maintain the Garmouth Viaduct of such usefulness and beauty?
Propriety demands a full investigation,
And all I pray should join in righteous indignation,
Should signs be found of malfeasance or prestidigitation,
Or any other such things as would dismay the nation,
If necessary maintenance the Council did not carry out,
And let the noble viaduct fall into ruin and into rout,
They must resolve a remedy, for this we all do pray,
And quickly repair the viaduct without doubt or dismay,
For a bridge across a river that does not fully span,
Is of no use to beast and is neither of use to man,
And such a bridge, I’m sure that none would judge it petty,
Is much less like a bridge, and much more like a jetty,
So Moray Council hurry, to fix the broken span,
And restore the viaduct just as fast as you possibly can,
To rejoin the sundered communities of Garmouth and Spey,
So they can again communicate in their habitual way,
Oh, the fair Railway Viaduct ‘tween Garmouth and Spey!
Has fallen in the river, I am very sad to say,
On the thirteenth of December in the year twenty twenty five,
And any person caught on it would have been lucky to survive!

Operation Sunburst

The Fallout fan film Operation Sunburst is pretty good!

The dialogue probably needed another round of editing to handle exposition in a way that doesn’t have characters telling other characters things they should already know, calling rocket-launcher armed troops ‘sappers’ seems odd, the mutant qilin cavalry are a bit silly (and why are they using cavalry to attack a fortified building?), and it’s weird that the NCR don’t seem to have reinvented the mortar, but overall really well done! Highly recommended for any Fallout fan!

Roll on the 17th!

Bad Boys, Bad Boys…

Went to bed early last night because I’m tired as hell and wanted to try and catch up on some shuteye.

This plan was working tolerably well until just after 4:00am when the freaking police came knocking at my door to investigate a report of someone “screaming for help” from my apartment.

I had to hurriedly make myself presentable and give a couple of cops a tour of the place to prove that I didn’t have a body hidden in a cupboard, after which I was far too freaked out to get back to sleep.

As such I am still tired as hell, and am now wondering what sort of confusion of ideas could have resulted in such a situation.

Stumbling Into Greatness

Randomly remembering one of the most successful mistakes I ever made.

Back in the early 90s I heard an unfamiliar – but awesome – song on RTR FM’s letter request program Steregoround. I didn’t know who it was by, but guessed the name based on the lyrics, and included a request to play it again in my weekly correspondence. This got read out as follows…

Host 1: …please play The Mercy Seed by whoever sings it…

All Three hosts: NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEATS!! *dissolve into prolonged laughter*

Host 1: That’s really clever!

Host 2: Either that or this person is a fucking idiot…

I opted not to enlighten them.

Let a Smile be Your Companion

I’m a year late to the party but I’m so glad that not only has the Most Mysterious Song on the Internet been identified, but the guys responsible – FEX – are all still around and able to appreciate the love people have been directing at their work for the last 17 years.

For once it’s an internet fairy tale with a happy ending!

Kind of chilling to think that Darius S. probably captured the only ever time it was played on the radio (likely September 17th 1984) and without that such a fantastic song would have never been remembered at all!

Ozostium Aranthus Welcomes You

You may well accuse me of seeing Dagoth Ur everywhere, but you have to admit that the new Ozostium Aranthus model for Necromunda has serious Dagoth Ur energy.

Moon and Star I’m Ozostium Aranthus and I’m a god there’s no escape,
Ur, Dagoth Ur, Dagoth Ur, Dagoth Ur, Dagoth Ur, Dagoth Ur, Dagoth Ur, Dagoth Ur….

(‘serious Dagoth Ur energy’ is not a phrase anyone should ever have to type)