A Lost Fish Always Looks Big

I spent a few hours yesterday afternoon salvaging what I could of this blog's previous iteration from archive.org.  All told I've lost eleven posts, all from 2021... everything between January 5th and September 30th.

I'm not too broken up about it, as I really couldn't tell you what many of those posts were about.  Knowing me, they were probably music videos, promises of things to come "for real this time", making fun of people I perceive to be of substandard intelligence, updates about my family, and so on.  Might have even complained about my job at some point.  No big loss.

Well, I shouldn't say that... there were two posts I regret losing - the first was a memorial post I wrote to mourn the passing of Jim Jaworska, an acquaintance whom I knew from the old New Winnipeg forum, also from my brief time in the TRUWinnipeg urbanist/subway advocacy group (I left when they got really nasty).  The second post was a play-by-play of a Car Wars gaming session I'd recapped in a TV sports commentary format... similar to the more recent one on my gaming blog.  I still have the rough draft in my Joplin journal, but I've lost all the embellishments I added after the fact.  I could rewrite it, but meh... the moment has passed.

Of the resurrected posts, I'm happy to have recovered the final two posts in my Never Let Your Magazine Run Dry series.  I'm only just getting back into my magazines again, and the topic couldn't be more timely, as I'll explain in a later post.

Until then...

Now a Waste of Time AND Money!

While rooting around in the darkest, dampest part of our basement this morning, I came across a moldy, forgotten old box sitting in a puddle of cat pee in the corner.

Believing its contents forever ruin'd, I opened the box to see if anything was salvageable.

Inside, I found my old blog and vanity domain.

Wow, that brought back memories!

I pulled them both out of the box and set them on a paper towel to dry.  The last few years of the blog were stuck together and ruined (and kinda smelled), but I was able to salvage the rest after a little wipe-down and disinfecting.

They cleaned up easily and looked as good as they ever did.  After admiring my handiwork for a few minutes, I asked myself, "CJ, what are you gonna do now?  Put it on a shelf as a curio with your Sega Saturn and martini glasses?  Put it in another box and forget about it again?  Or are you going to do something with it?"

As usual, I had a point.  

After five whole seconds of deliberation, I made the decision to do something with the old blog.  Several (dollars * 1.35) and twenty minutes of fiddling later, I am once again in control of my blog, my domain, and my creativity.

Welcome back to Conceit and Sociopathy. 

---

I'm going to (partially) thank/blame John Dobbin for this.  

I loved his recent blog post on magazines, which reminded me of my own writings about magazines (a subject near and dear to my heart)... which reminded me about blogging, which reminded me that I have a metric shitload of writing and creative projects I've been putting off for a decade or more.

I was inspired enough to renew my old domain (now that the squatter let it lapse), start a new blog, and upload the last backup I'd done of the original blog, sometime in 2019.  Thankfully archive.org has everything up until October 2021, which will give me all but the last few posts I'd done.  These last few were thematic posts about music with embedded links to music videos on YouTube, so no great loss there.

I have a bit of work to do, but I expect to have the remaining content up in the next day or two.

It's good to be back.

Kiss Candies, Hallowe'en in Winnipeg

 IT'S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIIIIIIIIME OF THE YEEEEAAAARRRRR!

I loved Hallowe'en as a kid.  I mean, when else can you get free candy without resorting to petty theft or being enticed into a stranger's van?  Never, that's when... and nothing says Hallowe'en to me quite like Kiss Candies!

 

You know what I mean... the orange-wrappered molasses candy everyone seems to hate.  Kiss Candies are my fondest memory of Hallowe'en.  They were the first thing I ate once all the little chocolate bars were gone, well before I dug into the suckers and weird European candies the people down the block gave out.

Seriously, I loved these things.  I used to squeeze a handful of them together and roll 'em into a big ball of molasses flavoured death, then take a huge bite out of the thing.  I found it was a great way to free loose baby teeth, second only to Mackintosh Toffee!

I really don't understand the hatred people hold for Kiss Candies.  If you're one of those godless heathens folks, I'm curious to know why you hate them so much.  Feel free to let me know in the comments (you'll need a Google account to do so).

Musical Interlude: Runaway

 I love Ladytron.  Heard Seventeen on Frequence Banane fifteen years ago and have been hooked ever since.

I was originally going to post a video of their song Deep Blue (one of my favourites), until I heard it was used as the theme song for some shitty show based on a comic book.  Thus Runaway, my second favourite song off their album, Velocifero, is our interlude today.

Enjoy!

Mira (the lady not singing in the video) is my favourite band member.

Subscription Box of the Month Club

 

I really have to stop educating the young 'uns.

We were bantering as usual, and someone brought up this new Subscription Box they'd, er, subscribed to.  Everyone gushed how it was such a cool, novel, innovative new idea.  Imagine, choosing a theme and getting random crap delivered to your home every month!  Imported and specially curated crap from around the world!

Being a bit of a jerk, and thus the (self-)designated bubble-burster, I told the assembled company that the "Subscription Box" was not a new idea.  Back when I was a kid in the late 70s/early 80s, we called them "of the Month Clubs", and it was an old idea even then.  The venerable Book of the Month Club, for example, began in 1926.  There may be older of the Month clubs, however I can't be bothered to research any further than I have... I'm a jerk, not an anti-vaxxer.

I never joined the Book of the Month club myself, although I was a member of Columbia House for a few years, and received music cassettes (and later, CDs) in the mail every month.  It was a positive experience for the most part, and I was exposed to music I wouldn't have otherwise heard... especially when I forgot to mail in my reply card to opt out of their curated monthly selection in favour of another tape or CD I did want...

 The first nine were only a penny, then they jacked up the price!

 

There were several, probably dozens of of the Month Clubs over the years, such as the Jelly of the Month Club, Wine of the Month Club, Assassination of the Month Club, Fruit of the Month Club, and so forth.

So, anyway, once the bubble was burst and they learned how often ideas and concepts are revived and given gritty reboots (how many fucking Batman or Spider-man movies do we need?!), I figured my job was done and smugly went back to my office to watch Russian car accidents on Youtube.

As one does.

Speaking of revivals and reboots, I'm not the first to riff on this concept.  Mad Magazine poked fun at of the Month Clubs way back in 1958, in Issue #40, an article I remember well from my collection of Mad paperbacks.

I could go on but, mercifully, I won't.  I have to finish queueing up the Musical Interludes for the rest of the year, then get back to work planning our GURPS Action: Autoduel! test session this weekend.

CJ's Note:  The preceding post was a revival in and of itself, a throwback to my old personality and posting style.  Don't worry, it's not going to stick around.  Just needed to have a little fun.

 

[RPGs] GURPS Action 6: Tricked-Out Rides Released

FINALLY!

GURPS Action 6: Tricked-Out Rides has been released to the general public!  It was originally one of the PDFs offered in last year's 2020 GURPS PDF Challenge Kickstarter, and then offered as an add-on for subsequent GURPS Kickstarters.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to contribute to any of the Kickstarters, and so I had to wait until today to get my grubby little paws on it.

 

Image copyright Steve Jackson Games

I'll happily take it down if SJG asks

 This is pretty important to me, as it gives me a cheap way to introduce GURPS to my Car Wars buddies.  Granted, the supplement is designed to add a bit of flavour to GURPS Action car chases and not meant to be an update of GURPS Autoduel to 4th Edition rules... but a bit of tweaking on my part and it'll be the next best thing.

Pretty excited about this!

 

I did find it odd, though, that the other ten PDFs from the 2020 Kickstarter were not also released.  Perhaps the release of GURPS Action 6 was meant to coincide with the newest edition of Car Wars that was also recently released..?  Hmmm...

CJ's note: Look at that, two updates on the same day!

 

 

Musical Interlude: Boulevard of Broken Dreams

I've often said that my martini years were an interesting time in my life.  My favourite cocktail turned my life upside down and took me down the dark, despicable paths of lounge music, Mid-Century Modern (and Space Age) decor, and led me to buy what can only be described as the most God-forsaken credenza known to man.

But it also turned me on to Esquivel, so that's something.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, here is Juan Garcia Esquivel and Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

 

Not that shitty Green Day song