Donald Trump's Hollywood Walk of Fame star vandalized

It's also extremely rude – whoever did this is attempting to silence somebody else's freedom of speech.

And it isn't as if Trump has to pay to replace it.

So a bit of backstory: I'm the proud owner of a 1980s vintage Oster Regency Kitchen Center; y'know, the one that starts as a standing mixer, but you can swap the mixer head for all sorts of other bits like a blender, ice cream maker, and in our particular case, a food shredder. I bought it and the attachments second hand, knowing that it's effectively a tank I'd have to work at deliberately to kill, and it's a pretty good jack of all trades.

A couple of months back, the pin in the food shredder that pushes the center of the blade hub down into the motor gear hub - basically the SAFETY to keep one from operating it with the lid off -  snapped off. I finally repaired it last week by running basically a metal pin through the broken area to rejoin the plastic pin with the upper housing it snapped off of.

I could buy another food processor/shredder attachment for the setup, but I'm also acknowledging this: the replacement would likely also be in the range of 35 years old, with the usual problem that comes with the plastics attending in terms of the pin may be weakened with age and use. But we also do shred a fair amount of cheese in this house (I don't care for the things the added cellulose does to pre-shredded cheese). And I like my automated methods a little too much.

So, I suppose the recommendations I'm looking for is something (and it can be a dedicated unit, rather than the jack of all trades master of a few, since it is a regular use item) to replace the shredder/processor that's a dedicated unit, brand new, and built like a tank so that I don't have to worry about purchasing a replacement for 30+ years.

Had a power failure and have been finishing a lot of old Fenspace Ideas I've had floating around.


----
The MD Program

It’s been no secret that the old Hornblowers have been getting on in years for a long time, but any replacement was mired in the Quagmire that is the Politics of the Crystal Millenium, torn between a mix of pacifism, protectionism and parochialism.

It took 5 years for Atropos and Hotspur to even be completed, by which time the spaceframe had already begun to show its age. The enforced retirement of HMS Lydia only increased the strain on the remaining ships.

Two simple rules held up replacing them.

• The SAM is required by law to purchase all ships it flies from Takeuchi yards.

• Takeuchi Yards is forbidden by law from manufacturing ‘new’ combat vessels.

Thus far, this deadlock has forced the SAM to rely on increasingly aging equipment, or on increasingly clever loopholes for lighter vessels.

== Spasatel, The Rescuers ==

The second Lun-class Ekranoplan, Spasatel had remained in a hanger, incomplete, for nearly thirty years. Compared to the original Lun, she had been constructed as a dedicated search and rescue craft in an attempt to gain foreign sales.

The Crystal Millennium completed the purchase of the hull and lifted her to Takeuchi Yards, where she was patterned, then reconstructed. Some of the experience gained from the initial reconstruction of the original Lun was applied to accelerate the process.

The completed Spasatel was launched in February 2025, commencing detailed space trials after being fitted out for the search, rescue and research role.

[]Spasatel[/i] differs from her more combat-orientated sister in that she lacks the primary armament – her upper deck being given over to additional crew spaces, along with dedicated reconfigurable equipment spaces.

5 additional hulls were laid down – known by their Hull numbers. MD-162, 163, 164, 165 and 166. The process of actually naming the ships with proper themed name is on hold while the appropriate Parliamentary working group drafts recommendations on appropriate themes and their memetic consequences.

Competing submissions have been requested from a number of specialised consulting firms which are due to be placed before a neutral board of represenativies.

Currently, the leading proposals include naming them after famous lifeboats (Helen Blake, Mona…), yet another Age of Sail epic series, something more fitting their Soviet design heritage, or whatever the internet can agree on as a good idea. (Spacey McSpaceface)

For the time being the Rescuers remain unnamed.



== Excelion. The Boomer ==

The seventh Rescuer is anything but.

She was built on the special orders of Queen Serenity II herself, to the original Lun class designs, including all six “Drone Shuttlecraft launch tubes”.

To evade the restrictions on Takeuchi Yards building combat capable spaceraft, she was completed elsewhere at an undisclosed location and entered service with little to no public fanfare. Her exact capabilities, armaments and purpose are considered Crown secrets but it is thought that she is equipped with some form of guided interplanetary missile system.

Excelion’s existence and true nature as a combat vessel was made public following a heated questions session in the Tokyo Diet. The resulting controversy led to her being pulled from deep space patrol, and ordered to remain in Venus orbit while what to do with her was figured out.

There have been calls for her decommissioning, dismantlement, reconstruction and for more of her class to be built quick before the Boskone come back goddammit.

Whatever the answer will be, Excelion remains parked in orbit, fully crewed and technically still in active service.

A persistent rumour suggests that she doesn’t need to leave Venus space to be fully combat effective.

----

Previous thread is here.

Quote:Just edited Feghoot: s/{{trope}}/{{trope|wppage=Feghoot}}/ The Wikipedia tab did not appear. Is this a bug or a feature?

OOC: A short-short, just because.

Quote:Welcome to Master PC
Welcome to the Master Command Center...
where the Master allows you to become a virtual god to the people around you...
Now, you possess the power to bend their reality to your specifications.
You are the Master's representative

The Fleet Museum at Port Phobos was opened in December 2023, after years of interfactional negotiations. The Museum had been on the agenda for the Convention's business meeting since the very first Convention after the end of the Boskone War.

However, for years, funding of the museum took a back foot to more pressing necessities.

Until HMS Athena was retired from SAM service and slatted for scrapping. On checking her serial number, it was found that she had originally been a ship of the Osaka City Guard.

A concerted crowdfunding effort to save the last surviving ship from Crystal Osaka eventually led to the funding of the museum - based in hanger 17 - the original staging point for the Boskone 4 assault.

6 Vessels formed the core exhibits when the museum was opened. More have since been added.

Vessels added to the collection at the museum have been preserved either because of their uniqueness, their importance in Convention history, or the events which the vessel took part in.

----

HMS Athena:
Bolitho Class. Restored to her original markings of the Osaka City guard. She is one of the few remaining artifacts from the city, having been delivered to the city guard 2 weeks before the collapse of the city. She survived the collapse of the city and served alongside the Toikyo guard for years before coming up for retirement.

A concerted effort among multiple factions led to her being preserved as the signature exhibit for the museum, along with structural elements from the city itself to place her in her context.


USS Phoenix:
Federation research vessel. First Fenship to go FTL. Not flightworthy. She is suspended from the roof of the main atrium. She is currently on permanent loan from the Starfleet museum.

A simulator enables her historic flight to be re-enacted by visitors.

HMS Lydia:
Hornblower class cruiser of the Sailors Armed Militia. Retired from service due to structural damage caused during the rescue of a VTP research vessel that had become trapped at low altitude. Her Captain took her below the ship's calculated collapse depth to affect a rescue. The ship survived, and the rescue was succesful.

She is open to the public. Her propulsion systems have been permanently disabled.

SS Ciara:
Great Justice Star Destroyer - restored to her wartime configuration. She is permanently moored as an exhibit. Her propulsion systems are supposedly functional. Ciara occasionally hosts fenkinder overnight in her crew bunkrooms, and runs an amateur radio station. She's suspected to be haunted.

SS Destiny Nova:
One of two surviving Boskone vessels (White Stallion is the other). Restored to her wartime configuration, with a second exhibit of her time in Panzer Kunst Grupper service. She is widley believed by the museum's curators to be haunted.

SS Yeager
Blackbird Class Vessel. One of the original production run. Retired from military service shortly after the Boskone War - she served as a training and research vessel for the next 6 years before being flown to the museum and permanently moored.

She is the only exhibit that is still regularly flying on the Warbird circuit at air and space shows, drumming up support for the museum.

"Ti Kallisti" (part 1 of 4)
====================

Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Los Angeles International Airport

I was sitting in a brand new van, going nowhere.  I was intending to go somewhere, of course, but as so many other L.A. stories go, I was stuck in traffic on an overpass.  Leave it to L.A. to design an airport like a freeway, only fill it with too many cars.

The white van was decorated only with a single azure stripe which flowed into a wide elliptical hook shape on the front door, with a blue oval dotting the inside of the hook.  It was one of those so-called 15 passenger vans, though I was pretty sure you couldn't fit fifteen Americans in there.  Right now though, the van only had two passengers.

The van lurched to life, then came to a sudden stop ten seconds later.  I rolled forward in my seat.  "Athena," I chided, "You have to look at the cars in front of him, too.  He's got nowhere to go, so there's no reason to jerk forward."

"Sorry, Brent," she frowned.  I really wish that I had been able to teach Athena Glory to drive with a smaller car, but it was pretty clear we were going to need a big vehicle to transport all of the residents of our apartments for outings, even for something as simple as for shopping.

The choice to buy the van was proven right yesterday, when I was informed that we'd be getting seven new tenants to live in our complex.  And what tenants they would be -- Chiyo, Osaka, Sakaki, Tomo, Yomi, Kagura, and Kaorin.  Names that were already burned in my mind, as the students of Azumanga Daioh.

I was really excited to meet the characters of my favorite anime.  At least, that's how I was supposed to feel, right?  But I don't know though, I've never been much for fannish devotion.  I've met famous actors and and Congressmembers, and they all just seem like ordinary folks to me; maybe they just shine a little more brightly.

So honestly, I was anxious.  I wanted them to like me, and I wanted to like them.  Liking someone on TV is not the same as knowing the real person.  Real people have flaws and habits you don't see on-screen.  But honestly honestly, I just wanted them to be happy here -- and I wanted to make Yomi and Tomo laugh.

When the van finally inched forward to the international terminal, Athena hopped out, and I got into the driver's seat.  Someone had to wait for our new arrivals -- Athena was experienced at that, and not allowed to drive solo on a learner's permit.  I pulled the van around and began to circle the airport.  "Fun".

Athena, for her part, had shown pretty good aptitude for motor vehicles, so long as she could keep her concentration.  Having spent her youth piloting larger vehicles than this while dodging motorboats, the only thing that still tripped her up was the engine's sudden power.  

Athena carried a sign bearing the names of two of our passengers in large letters in two different scripts, lovingly written by our Japanese resident, Akari Mizunashi.

Quote:    水原 MIZUHARA
    榊 SAKAKI

Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere, or it is just a hoax, but just come across a report of a planned Buffy Reboot.

https://pagesix.com/2018/07/21/buffy-the...the-works/


Mark

78'er Klubben - A collection of digitized 78 rpm records from the 78'er Klubben in Denmark. 15,332 results as of this posting.

Yes, 78s, so there's nothing new... but in a very quick look, I see works by Bill Haley and the Comets, Glenn Miller, Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Vera Lynn, Ella Fitzgerald, Elvis Presley, and Bing Crosby - and that's just on the first page of results.

I am so glad it's legal to download music in Canada as long as you burn it to blank CDs you bought in Canada (and thus have paid the license fee).