Randomization

As told in the annals of Pilot's World earlier this week, I was at the funeral for my grandfather on the weekend. While there, I picked up some sort of plague. Today is my first day working as I was dead the rest of the week. My nephew, Roch, pointed his finger at the Pilot's children, indicating that they may not have felt well that day. I don't know if this is true, but I'm going to blame them anyway. Our sister, Shanna, also came down with the sickness. So, I was at home watching lots of YouTube and Nebula videos. My feed on Youtube is completely full of AI generated content. Just a voice reading a script with some pictures in the background. I didn't really notice it at first but when they start saying one-thousand nine-hundred and forty-two instead of 1942 in a war video, it's obvious. When they say Gen-E-stealers instead of Genestealers in a Warhammer video, it's obvious. I don't mind AI generated stuff, to a point. This stuff is obviously ripped o...

Well, well, well. Aren't our southern neighbors doing a great job at continuing their spiral into BAD. Trump has been attacking free speech for some time now and is getting more and more brazen. In his defense, he's gotten away with everything so far so why wouldn't he keep pushing? But, I'm Canadian. Are we doing any better up here? I immediately say yes, though there are those that would try to control it in their own ways. I'm not a huge union guy, they have their uses, but sometimes overreach or protect lazy employees. In the case of the recent Air Canada flight attendant, the union proved it's worth. The government has forced union members back to work way too much in the last few years or so, which takes away all the power from the workers and basically tells them to shut up. Cupe called the governments bluff and said "Fuck you. Try to arrest us all." It was a good indicator that the government was going too far and it backed off. I wish this kin...

Ugh. As with most tools, it is both the greatest and worst thing to come from mankind. As you have no doubt heard, a few days ago, Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at a rally. It took awhile to pronounce him dead after the incident. I'm not going to say anything about my thoughts on Charlie Kirk or what happened. I don't think that's constructive and I leave it at the baseline that I don't think he should have been shot. But, I have some comments about the internet. I mentioned above that it took them awhile to pronounce him dead after the incident. I knew much sooner that he was going to live because a close up video was posted to Reddit showing blood pouring from his jugular and auto-played as I scrolled past. In the first second he lost more blood than a person gives at the blood bank. I have shut off auto-play. I hope the person who posted that video got the amount of upvotes they wanted, but I don't think that needed to be posted. Give it to the police and leav...

About a year ago, Humble Bundle put on a sale of over a hundred Battletech books for $45. As ridiculous as it is to have giant, walking machines as the best fighters in the galaxy, I still love the stories and universe. And that is one hell of a deal. I don't read as much as I should so over the last year only two or three had been read. Last week I read five. It's nice to just have them on your phone. It's also helping my mental health, not so much that I am reading more, but it's keeping me away from non-stop doom-scrolling and reading of the atrocities happening in the world. But the Battletech universe is also a very political one. It's all about the great houses fighting each other and the background politics involved in this. So, after the five books last week, I needed something a little different. That's when I found the Rama series for $13 on the apple store. These are books I've read before but I read them in the order of book 3, 2, 4 then 1. And i...

"Navigator!" I hear you call. "Did you get too busy sitting on your ass during vacation that you forgot to post yesterday?" Of course not, dear reader. I would never. Yesterday was no normal day. I would have posted but a crazy set of events happened of which I shall now pour onto this page. My family and I visited my sister in law over in Red Deer. Yesterday, I was sitting in the back yard, enjoying the weather, when who should appear out of the trees but a most unexpected visitor: the next door neighbor. "Hold this for me!" He said then rushed off after handing me a Samsung fold phone. Well I wasn't born yesterday so I immediately stripped down and hid it in the only hiding place I know of, nature's pocket. I then began to run due north (remember that direction, it appears later). So, there I am running east when the phone un-folds, edges ripping and tearing. Of course, I couldn't do anything with the cops after me so I kept running and juked...

My car is a little annoying. It doesn't automatically go to the last thing you were listening to, which for me is always Bluetooth, but just defaults to the radio. I have it set to 90.5 CFCR so I get to hear some stuff. Last night, when coming home from the dog park (pictures at the end) it came on and it was the weekly board game show. They were talking about some scandal so I listened in. The company that makes the Codenames games, CGE, announced a Harry Potter game which was met with some backlash due to J. K. Rowlings poor behavior. All said and done, the company didn't handle it overly well and has only indicated it will donate any proceeds to pro-2LGBTQIA+ groups. One of the comments made by a host was that this isn't a case of separating art from artist. Since J. K. Rowling gives money to Anti-2LGBTQIA+ groups, buying the art is doing harm. I get this and agree with it. Thumbs up all around on that take. Actually makes me glad I never got into Mr. Potter and the Gan...

Long time reader and part time televangelist, Pilot, and I have discussed band members previously. One thing was always, what is the original lineup. For instance, Lamb of God had many members, but when they finally settled on the name, they didn't change anyone until very recently. So, did they all count as original members? Or the case of Clutch who is all original members but had a keyboardist join for a couple albums and then leave. They didn't replace him. Or the case of Opeth where no members are original, but all albums were written primarily by Mikael Akerfeldt. The guy who came up with the name quit when he joined though. These are all Ship of Theseus type things though. Mainly, where do you draw a line. In the end it's each persons opinion and really doesn't matter. But, I'm currently listening to an album Between the Buried and Me put out in 2006 which is just a bunch of covers. Van Halen, Soundgarden, Queen, Pink Floyd, Pantera, etc. It got me thinking o...