Ironhold

The other day people were circulating what they claimed was a screen capture of someone from an "anti-fascist" group putting out a bounty for information on the personal activities of the justices in the hopes of getting their people together to publicly harass them. I was never able to fact-check the image, but I get a sinking feeling that it was more than likely real.

Individual politicians have made statements indicating that private firearms are worthless against the might of the US military, so there's no point in people having them anyway. The *way* they've worded these statements is often such that people are left guessing whether or not these politicians are referring to the possibility of martial law being imposed at some nebulous point and the military being employed to confiscate private weapons. Even if we presume that the politicians didn't mean it that way, a lot of the more, shall we say, excitable types have indeed taken it to mean as such.

In both the UK and Australia, the confiscation of private firearms came in the wake of a mass shooting incident. Canada's recent attempts at firearm confiscation come in the wake of widespread protests against the current prime minister. Things like this are why gun rights activists fear that the government will try to confiscate by force so that the people can't stand up to the government.

https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Megatron_(G1)/toys#Masterpiece About that... When the Transformers line was first launched in 1984, the mold for the Megatron character was recycled from the Japanese "Micro Quick Change" toy line, where he was a working cap gun made to resemble a Walther P38. Hasbro gutted the cap gun mechanisms, but didn't alter the physical appearance. In 2007, the decision was made to do a "Masterpiece" - grade version of the figure, a high-end collector's item whose robot and alternate modes would closely resemble the character model used in the 1980s cartoon. Numerous reports from Australian collectors claimed that when they attempted to import him from Japan their shipments were almost uniformly seized by Australian customs on the basis of his being a "replica gun", with everyone who had their figure seized never being able to get them. Things were so bad that a group of Australian Transformers fans actually talked about registering as an official gun club and obtaining licenses that way so that they could hopefully legally import him. https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Megatron_(G1)/toys#Classics Hasbro themselves had just released a version of Megatron the previous year that turned into something resembling a Nerf gun, and so fans had been excited about the prospect of a release of the Masterpiece figure outside of Australia. Instead, Hasbro *cancelled* the figure's release outside of Japan (long-time corporate partner Takara-Tomy controls the franchise in Japan), and various gun rights groups used the incident as a talking point for some time thereafter. https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Megatron_(G1)/toys#Transformers_.282010.29 Hasbro made one last try to release Megatron as a gun, this time a tiny little number about the size of a lighter, but even then they had to go through a lot of complications to make it happen. Between the Australia incident and various toy safety regulations, they've confirmed that they will never again attempt a release of him - or certain other characters - that resemble actual firearms.

Marc Almond is actually still doing festivals and flashback events, at least in the UK. Not sure if he's been doing shows outside of the UK though.

https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Blast_Off_(G1)/toys Fun fact: the US and Soviet space shuttle designs are so similar that there's actually a mild dispute as to which craft the Transformers character Blast-Off transforms into. Some fan sites list the NASA vehicle, others list the Buran, and a few just treat him as a generic design.

Could be that he gravely misspoke, something that seems to be a massive problem with this administration. But at the same time, over the last few years there have been a flood of stories and purported photos circulating online claiming to represent incidents of women confessing to elective abortions for reasons well beyond what the mainstream in society - even those that support abortion - are willing to get behind. For example, one fairly recent one I've seen, but was never able to fact-check, claims that a woman publicly confessed to aborting her first child because the child was a boy and she *that* strongly objected to more male children being born, only for her husband to confront her with the fact that she told him it was a miscarriage. That Daily Wire bit, if true, is going to feed right into it.

Let's face it: whoever the church has doing IT can't update the main church website without breaking more than they fix. I've been online since 2000, and in that time whenever a major update's been rolled out to the official church website it's taken about six months for the bugs, errors, and glitches to be found and patched. Would having them run a message board really be that great an idea? There's also the "plausible deniability" angle that you and other posters have referenced, with any negative consequences of a given platform being the responsibility of whoever is hosting it.

For those who have the Library app on their phone or tablet, there was a major update this morning. I'd suggest taking some time to poke through and see what's what.

When I went to high school, the facility in question was physically dangerous. The head principal was a textbook-perfect example of "The Peter Principle", a football coach who kept getting kicked upstairs because he was too incompetent to be of use in his previous roles but couldn't be forced out for some reason or another. His incompetence and self-centeredness filtered down, and when mingled with the incompetence and self-centeredness of some of the other adults there - particularly the police officers provided by the city, as many of them had no business wearing a badge - created a general atmosphere of nihilism and apathy among the students. This atmosphere was such that fights were pretty much a daily occurrence, and many kids (myself included) had to actually avoid eating in the cafeteria if we didn't want to get in the middle of things. Making matters worse is that, for reasons I mentioned elsewhere, I couldn't get my parents to listen to me and so a great many problems I was facing spiraled out of control; by the time I *could* finally get them to notice, it was often too late and the damage had been done. Suffice to say that my time in high school was life-altering in all the wrong ways. My mom is only just now coming to realize what I went through, but even then she still doesn't want to hear all of the details because she "understands" what I went through as it is. For obvious reasons, if I ever do have children (highly unlikely at this point) I will be quite hesitant to leave them at the mercy of the system.

A bit back on YouTube there was a video that was ostensibly based on a real-life message exchange between two individuals. A woman called up a college friend of hers who was now working for a law firm. The woman said she was getting divorced, and wanted as much money as she could get from her husband. It turned out that the divorce was because of the *woman* cheating on her husband. The friend had to explain that in a situation like this, the woman would be the one paying her husband as the woman was the one whose actions caused the marriage to collapse. Not only that, her affair partner would likely have to pay as well. Cue the woman having a meltdown because she didn't have the money and her lover ghosted her the moment she told him what was going on.

The reality of my situation is that between my maternal grandmother requiring additional care due to being mentally ill, my incredible social awkwardness (it turns out that autism-spectrum conditions run on my dad's side; I'm going in on the 13th to try and get tested), and a variety of other issues like the bit about missions, I was functionally on my own through most of my teenage years and my early 20s. My family and various others were there physically, but it often took extraordinary circumstances to get them to actually pay attention when I tried to tell them that I was dealing with various situations. In particular, if I had a complaint about my health, but they couldn't actually see anything wrong with me, they just assumed I was either faking a situation or exaggerating a minor condition. Instead, I basically faced the world alone, with a few friends here and there for support. I paid the price. My health - both mental and physical - is terrible, and in fact I have a physical deformity because my scoliosis was allowed to set in; I got it later than normal, and so no one believed me about the various aches and pains I was feeling. I made a great many bad judgment calls that hurt a number of people, including myself. These decisions haunt me. I'm trying to get better, but it's been a slow trek. It's only within the last few years that people around me have finally started to realize that I did in fact need them there when I was younger, that I'm in a bad place now because of it, and it's going to take professional help for me to get sorted.

When I was a teen, the stake pushed everyone to adopt the mantra of "all young men must go on missions, and all young women must only consider returned missionaries as marriage partners". So when I didn't go on a formal mission, far too many people didn't bother asking why and instead jumped to conclusions.

It may not be that the person is themselves doing something wrong, but rather that they're in a situation which is largely beyond their control and that they're longing for the before times when things were better and they might have had time to alter the course of everything. Remember, a lot of what I'm dealing with in life is because I chose to stay back home and help care for a mentally ill relative. That led to a lot of doors being closed for me and a lot of social isolation at church.

I remember a few years ago there was a Dear Abby bit that had me livid. The letter was from a woman who was on her second marriage, this time to a wealthy man who was a widower. The woman wanted diamond jewelry, and was frustrated that while he bought her jewelry, none of it was diamond. She figured that because he was spending all sorts of money on his kids but wouldn't get her diamonds, it meant that she was in second place as far as his attentions went. Abby responded by telling her to purchase her own diamonds. The thing is? In the letter the woman listed some of the ways she tried to tell her husband she wanted diamonds. ...Such as "leaving jewelry catalogs open to the pages depicting the jewelry she wanted" and "having his sister talk to him". In other words, indirect methods of communication rather than simply asking for anything. What both Abby and the woman missed is that the husband clearly knew she wanted jewelry, but that her indirect methods meant that he didn't get that she specifically wanted diamonds. In other words, the heart of the problem was that the woman and her husband weren't communicating effectively. Telling the woman to just get her own diamonds merely kicked that can down the road, and could have easily led to the marriage imploding. Instead, what the woman needed to do was sit down, take a look at other areas where she and her husband were seemingly miscommunicating, and take a hard look at what was leading to it. If it was *just* the issue of the diamond jewelry, then she should count her blessings and likely not press the matter further. But if it was multiple areas in which they were not communicating right, then it might be time for her to get with a neutral third party and broach the issue with an eye towards getting counseling.

There are people who feel that women are saintly, men are evil, and that's just the way it is. These people tend to be rather divorced from reality. It's a big part of why the whole Depp / Heard legal battle has gotten so many people freaked out, as it showed that Heard was as violent and abusive as she claimed Depp was and so destroyed a whole host of narratives, including "Listen and Believe".

I have a history of head trauma, and as part of it I have trouble remembering names. I've had to do a lot of apologizing to people because of it. Pronouns on top of names? Not happening unless I start keeping flash cards or note books.

My county is allowing people to claim exemptions if they have conditions that would make them more vulnerable to Covid. I'm heavy-set and have high blood pressure (my *resting* BP is 140 / 92), and so if I do get called up I can try to claim an exemption on this basis.

I've read Gene's 2001 autobiography "KISS and Make-Up". I bought Paul's autobiography at one point, but when I went to go looking for it I couldn't find it; best guess is that it must be one of the books that went to storage to make room when some family decided to come up for the holidays one year. I have some medical bills I need to square (I'm finally getting some checkups done after years of drama with my insurance provider) and so I'm going to have to hold off on getting Ace's autobiography. I don't think Peter has written one yet, and I doubt Vinnie would have been able to convince anyone to publish his after his rather massive fall from grace. Other recent autobiographies I've read include one from Bruce Campbell and one from NBC CEO Grant Tinker. I've got Kari Byron's autobiography that I'm working through, and I have a book written by Lee Iacoca to get to as well.

Generally speaking, every year there's at least one inductee who is seemingly selected because of their name and its potential ability to get people watching the actual induction ceremony. This year it's Dolly Parton, who actually *refused* to accept the nomination but was inducted anyway as she'd legitimately gotten enough votes. Actual figures in the world of rock and roll have been quite critical of this, ranging from classic acts like Chubby Checker whose admission is long overdue to modern figures like radio host Lou Brutus ("Hard Drive with Lou Brutus" and "Hard Drive XL") who have been in the industry long enough to see it happen time and time again. ** If I could select a full year's inductees all on my own? Non-Performer: Casey Kasem Early Influencer: Chubby Checker Sideman: Rudy Sarzo Inductees: The Runaways (putting Joan Jett in the Hall twice), Montrose (putting Sammy Hagar in the Hall twice), The Scorpions, Chic, Rainbow (putting Richie Blackmore in the Hall twice), UFO, Judas Priest I'd also introduce the "Significant Member" rule, where members who weren't in the "classic" or "famous" line-up but who made a significant contribution to the group and/or achieved fame in their own right would be inducted as well, especially retroactively. Under this rule, my above proposals would also mean that Ronnie James Dio (Black Sabbath, Rainbow) and Michael Schenker (Scorpions, UFO) would be in the Hall twice.

I'm an entertainment writer IRL. It's *literally* my job to know these things.

Founding line-up: Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley, Peter Criss. Ace and Peter both fell pretty hard into substance abuse. Musician Anton Fig, who you might recall as being part of David Letterman's house band, actually ghosted for him on much of the "Dynasty" album because Peter's ability to perform had deteriorated that badly. Peter eventually quit after Gene and Paul made him re-audition, and he was replaced by Eric Carr. Carr adopted the "Fox" gimmick and costume. Ace eventually quit the group in frustration a few years later, a consequence of his substance abuse issues and the resulting clash of egos. Vinnie Vincent had been working with the band as a studio musician, so he was chosen to be Ace's replacement. He adopted the "Warlock" gimmick and costume. However, Vinnie's character didn't get over with fans, and with MTV already making their brand of stage theatrics redundant the decision was made to drop the make-up. Vinnie was fired after a single album due to murky behind-the-scenes matters that nobody is really all that keen on talking about but likely involved some sort of royalty disputes. He was replaced by Mark St. John, who only performed with the group for a single album before he had to seek treatment for a rare form of arthritis. Bruce Kulick came in to replace St. John. Eric Carr developed stomach cancer, and the band members ordered him to bed rest, not realizing that the cancer was already at such a state that Eric was *literally* living for the band; he wasn't long for the world after that, something Paul has expressed deep regrets about. Eric Singer, who had worked with some of the band members before on side projects, was called in. Vinnie came back for one album pleading severe financial distress, only to be fired a second time over the same murky issues. It would later be discovered that Vinnie owed another record label a large sum of money after he'd abused his corporate line of credit. Ace and Peter worked their way back into the group for a few years, only to be shown the door again due to a series of personal disputes and arguments over compensation. Eric Singer would come back as drummer, but both St. John and Kulick were busy with side projects. Thus, former Black & Blue guitarist Tommy Thayer, who had been working as Gene's assistant and who had been involved with famous KISS cover group Cold Gin was tapped to round out the roster. Eric Singer has actually been behind the drums longer than Peter Criss ever was, while Thayer is coming up on outlasting Ace Frehley.

*Chubby Checker* is still waiting to get in, yet acts like Green Day, Nine Inch Nails, Tupac, and Biggie got in on their first years of eligibility. Meanwhile, many acts who do get in find out that only select members are being inducted, regardless of overall contribution. For example, KISS refused to attend the ceremony because only the founding four members were inducted, as they felt that every member of the group should be in the Hall; this is a pretty big deal, as Gene Simmons & Vinnie Vincent hate each other yet Gene essentially stood up for Vinnie in this regards. It'd probably take several years at this point for the Hall to get back on track regarding bands and non-performers who have long since earned their spot yet have been forced to wait.

Front man for pseudo-punk group Green Day. Green Day was popular in the late 1990s, and their song "Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)" was an anthem at high school graduations in the early 2000s despite it being a break-up song. However, the band belly-flopped into politics in the mid-2000s with their "American Idiot" album, which included the vomitous "Wake Me Up When September Ends", a song so bad that most old-school punk rock fans officially excommunicated them from the punk scene. Despite this, Green Day was voted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on their very first year of eligibility to a great many protests. The band hasn't been relevant to the scene in almost a decade, there are maybe five songs from their entire catalog that classic and active rock stations will still bother to play, and few fans of actual punk will admit to owning anything newer than their early 2000s releases.

In late 1988 / early 1989, Orion Pictures contacted Al about having his own theatrical release. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UHF_(film) The film, a slapstick comedy known as "UHF", opened during the infamous Summer of 1989, alongside such movies as: Tim Burton's "Batman" "Lethal Weapon 2" "Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade" "Dead Poet's Society" "Robocop 2" "James Bond: License To Kill" Et cetra. Vanity projects like "UHF" and Hulk Hogan's "No Holds Barred" were absolutely crushed at the box office. Al's 1988 "Even Worse" album and his rendition of "Peter and the Wolf" had been massively popular, but the lukewarm reception to his first Greatest Hits album and now "UHF" being a flop cost him his forward momentum. He would take a few months to collect himself, and then began work on what would be his 1992 comeback album "Off The Deep End". The album was such a success that Al was under pressure from his label to quickly produce a follow-up. A greatest hits album and "The Food Album", both hastily-done compilations of existing songs, were shoved out the door so that Al could put together "Alapalooza": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alapalooza . The album was very obviously done in haste, much as 1986's "Polka Party" had been, and so it met with mixed reactions from critics and fans alike. The same financial pressures that led to his label throwing so much material out the door in the wake of "Off The Deep End" led to them throwing even more out the door between 1993 and 1996, including an anthology boxed set, a second official greatest hits album, and "The TV Album" compilation. This sheer amount of product, combined with the smash success of "Bad Hair Day", caused "Alapalooza" to be quickly forgotten.