Recent content by Dannyalcatraz

THH, it really did sound like it had a stroke. I’ve paid using this company’s system before, and it sounded the same last time.

You mean MäĞįç: ťħĘ ĠatĦęřİņg?

Right. What’s weird is that it was perfectly fine & normal-sounding when rattling off the codes for my ID and CC info. But when it transitioned to giving me my transaction confirmation code, its pronunciation suddenly sounded like a Dean Martin/Foster Brooks impersonation.

And Terry Brooks’ Shanarra series.

I’ve always been big on buying merch to display my fandom. And with the Rangers, their team colors (red, white & blue) lend some additional seasonal wearability.😁 But both of my Rangers caps come from an era when they were red, with the team logo- “T”- in navy & white. So I haven’t worn it...

Definitely some interesting choices.

I just paid my insurance premium over the phone. For the most part, their phone AI is pretty clear and articulate, even as it recites sequences of individual numbers or letters. But when it gives you the payment confirmation code, its diction becomes less distinct. It almost sounds like it’s...

Just a note on a pet peeve: Diamond is (still, possibly) the hardest known natural substance*, but it is brittle. As such, it probably wouldn’t be great for teeth, unless the creature were constantly replacing them like a shark. * pure Lonsdaleite (“hexagonal diamond”) and certain compressed...

I’m in D/FW, home of the Texas Rangers. For most of my time here, Rangers games were watchable on broadcast TV or on basic cable channels. But at some point, they went to a premium channel that I wasn’t going to pay for.* Well…that company went bankrupt in 2024-25. Right now, the team is...

Just had one of those Mondays. Start: Upset old dog got stuck, and her resultant barking woke me up early; dishwasher died. Middle: Dog still grumpy & getting herself stuck repeatedly; shopping for new dishwasher completed, but took HOURS. End: Dog took forever to settle down for the evening...

Kara Braxton has died. https://www.yahoo.com/sports/wnba/article/former-detroit-shock-kara-braxton-dies-in-a-car-crash-at-43-033839252.html

And it’s like someone knocked down a murder hornet hive down there right now.

I occasionally look myself up- real name and all of my (very few ) online aliases- on the Internet to see what might turn up in a background check by a potential employer or law enforcement. Forewarned is forearmed. Most of what I’ve found was pretty innocuous, but there’s a couple things I’m...

Just because one genre evolves out of another doesn’t necessarily make it derivative. Punk was reactionary to prior genres, especially things like prog. While it shares some superficial characteristics with Metal, they have different musical foundations. And notably, punk is usually ascribed...

Attempting to. IMHO, it’s not being so much being creative as it is recycling. I’ll be (even) more concerned if/when tech creates a new genre of music, literature or visual expression not easily described as being derivative of another, preexisting one. That said, most people probably...