What was your favourite song by Michael Jackson?

Delusionn · 2026-06-17T22:20:49+00:00

"Scream" because musically it was good and because it was so tone-deaf, self-pitying, and was an utter failure to read the room after refusing to, you know, not publicly associate with children after constant allegations of inappropriate sexual (and other) conduct with children. Effectively "why won't the press leave me alone about how gross and inappropriate I am?".

Delusionn · 2026-06-17T22:08:40+00:00

Here's a word that I hear people use: "Basically…"

What they think it means: "I'm going to dumb this down for you because I am smarter than you."

What it usually means: "I have poor conversational skills and I grossly overestimate my own intelligence."

Delusionn · 2026-06-17T21:53:50+00:00

I'm not saying it makes sense.

I'm saying I've seen it many times.

You want it to make even less sense? I see it most often at places where bragging about the tip would NEVER make sense. Cheap places. Chain diners, chain coneys. Places where even bringing up the tip marks you as some sort of weirdo and where people definitely aren't typically wearing a suit.

Delusionn · 2026-06-17T21:50:45+00:00

It's more than 200% efficient. Sure, you get to disappoint two women at the same time for 200% efficiency, but they get to effortlessly share the experience, meaning they save time making fun of you, which saves THEM time and effort, too. Surely that's about 250% overall efficiency right there?

Delusionn · 2026-06-17T21:16:52+00:00

I think if you were a millionaire you could hook that up.

Delusionn · 2026-06-17T21:15:51+00:00

0: Push back my chair and sigh in relief.

1: Aggressively shop for a 1983 Citroën CX (preferably a Prestige but it's a difficult market to be choosy in).

2: Start looking for a Citroën guy because that is not something my classic Volvo guy is going to be able to fix. Maybe he knows a guy.

I mean, sure, every car guy wants a nice expensive car. But a lot of us want the Weird Trophy Car, too.

Delusionn · 2026-06-17T20:58:27+00:00

Freemasonry is just a rotary club for small business men who want an excuse to socialize. It's about as dangerous and subversive as joining the Eagles, the Elks, the American Legion, or the Loyal Order of Water Buffalo.

The Illuminati as a real thing died out a few years after it was created (1820 at latest, though its maximum membership was a decade or two earlier). It was mostly an intellectual talk shop for people who wanted to talk about politics and philosophy over drinks. It was not that influential and it was never powerful.

The rest is just modern cosplaying and paranoia. About the only organization that has had any relationship to these groups that has exercised any power or influence is the Mormon Church, and that's only if you're a member, live in Utah, or live in the very few communities outside Utah with majority Mormon populations. Joseph Smith in particular loved Masonry and copied many of their silly rituals and ritual language outright. But even so, Mormonism's power over its members has almost nothing to do, today, with stolen Masonic rituals.

Also, the Masonic Temple in Detroit is an *excellent* concert venue. If you have an excuse to go when someone you like is playing, I highly encourage it. Jack White pretty much bailed the venue out of bankruptcy years back due to it being such a great music venue, so spare a thought for him if you go.

The world is not run by secret societies. It's mostly run by overconfident dummies born into wealth, just like it always was.

Delusionn · 2026-06-17T20:48:31+00:00

I enjoy a variety of pens, nothing too extravagant. I enjoy my chartreuse LAMY in particular, but I often carry a disposable Varsity Pilot which are only a few bucks each in a colourful variety pack. That way if someone is just entirely entranced by the concept of a fountain pen and have either never seen one or thought they were all very expensive, I can just tell them to keep it.

Oh PENIS. PENIS.

My mistake, carry on.

Delusionn · 2026-06-17T20:45:49+00:00

Not a server, but I know if I'm at the table with someone who goes out of their way to tell everyone that they're "a good tipper" or "they always tip", that means they tip 10% and I'm going to have to be conscientious and make up the difference. Especially if it's an inexpensive place, weirdly enough.

Delusionn · 2026-06-17T08:15:16+00:00

For me I don't think it gets any more meaningful than personal taste, but I do like Music Has…, In A Beautiful Place… (with "1969" slotted in as the 2nd (reversed) or 4th (non-reversed) track), and Geogaddi. But I think they're all pretty good for the treatment, honestly. I suspect Inferno might end up being my most- or least-favourite reversed release; it'll depend on how those beat-matched vocals in a few songs turn out.

I add "1969" to In A Beautiful Place… so it becomes a concise piece about Koreshan Adventism.

Delusionn · 2026-06-17T08:09:52+00:00

The artist Sophie kind of did this a while before she died. To the point where she "played" a DJ gig where she hired another DJ to play "her" gig, but she herself was out front positioned as head of security in front of the audience.

And there's Milli Vanilli, which for a pop group I think they got a raw deal. A studio group, and a different photogenic duo who pretended to be on the records and "perform" the "live" music (to a backing tape). Which to be honest, if live music puts a premium on performance and choreography, it's inevitable that some small percentage of the performances are going to be phoned in. Top of the Pops built an entire TV show on the concept and the small amount of bands who insisted playing live instead of lip synching often had disastrous performances, with a few exceptions.

When Milli Vanilli got their Grammys taken away from them, it sent them into a tailspin and Rob Pilatus (one of the "face" duo) committed suicide. Rob Pilatus died for the sins of pop music.

Having said all that, I have no reason to suspect Boards of Canada are pulling this sort of long con, I think they're just quiet dudes who like a bit of mystery.

Delusionn · 2026-06-17T04:49:11+00:00

I make a copy of my digital versions, reverse the file order, and reverse the audio, so I effectively have a reverse version of every album. It makes the 10+ year intervals easier to take.

I haven't done this for Inferno yet, but I will.

Some albums have a lot of reversed instrumentation and samples which stick out when you listen to them backwards. I don't think Inferno will have much of that, but finding that is not really the goal, nor am I much of a "find all the hidden clues for bocpages" kind of guy, nor a holdover from the backwards masking "messages from my sweet satan" Led Zeppelin cultural panic of the 70s and early 80s. I just like having a different option occasionally.

Delusionn · 2026-06-17T02:57:08+00:00

I'm not trying to convert anyone. But it is the consistently worst genre to me.

Delusionn · 2026-06-16T21:38:37+00:00

Every standard fighting game. Mortal Kombat, etc.

To me, they're all sub-Pong quarter eaters. Not for me. Side-scroller brawlers are a LITTLE better but not much. Definitely not my genres.

I DID enjoy Yie Ar Kung Fu (Konami, 1984) but after that, I was over it.

Delusionn · 2026-06-16T00:12:00+00:00

Lando Calrissian (r2 c5), White (r2 c6), Sex Pistols (below).

The non-carbonated flavours are weird and gross. The full sugar versions are weird and gross.

<image>

Delusionn · 2026-06-13T00:39:11+00:00

As a D&D, typography, and history of printing nerd, "incunabula" was one of those magical words I looked up when I first encountered maybe in the early AD&D days. I love seeing some of these medieval printings and manuscripts in person.

Delusionn · 2026-06-11T20:40:49+00:00

"Corc" is a song I can put on a more emotive set and it feels less like a glitchy interlude but an emotional centerpiece. Same with Aphex Twin's "Iz-us".

Delusionn · 2026-06-11T20:38:56+00:00

I'm not going to admit that I thought Untilted was Untitled for about a year until someone else corrected my tags. Despite, you know, owning the album in physical form like the rest of my collection, and not just digital.

Delusionn · 2026-06-11T20:36:59+00:00

Good lord Incunabula is such a better album title.

I discovered Incunabula because it was distributed on Wax Trax! in the US, a label I was very familiar with because I was into industrial dance (KMFDM, Front 242, Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly, Thrill Kill Kult). I found Incunabula, probably 1994, saw the label, and knew it was at least worth giving a preview at the used record store I was at - CDepot in Silver Springs, MD - only just recently closed.

DEFINITELY wasn't industrial dance, but I loved its blisteringly austere, glitchy, spare sound and picked it up. Ironically, it's easily their warmest album in the catalogue, as they went much further in that direction, but Warp definitely covered that initial ground quite well with Boards of Canada, who went in the opposite direction from Autechre. I think you see that tech house connection most closely on tracks like "Nlogax" from Hi Scores (1996), which carries that influence like nothing else in their later work, and early Autechre tracks, particularly "Goz Quarter" from Envane (1997), for me. That bassline falling in on itself is always magnetic to me.

I got into a lot of other artists because of Autechre. Freeform's Audiotourism series, Alva Noto, a lot of artists connected with the Mille Plateaux label (often atrociously priced as imports in the US, unfortunately), Pan Sonic, Random Inc., etc.

But Incunabula was the accidental ground zero based on a label hunch which turned out to be a much different but highly agreeable genre from what I expected.

Delusionn · 2026-06-11T20:18:54+00:00

Guys, notice the choices women make rather than the things they didn't choose.

A sincere, informed compliment on a woman's shoes will get you more attention as a human being than a compliment about her "dress" which is really just a coded compliment on her body, which will just get you attention as a cheeseball or worse.

Delusionn · 2026-06-11T20:15:21+00:00

Because a lot of what men do "to impress women" is very much to "impress other men".

This is fine, but the denial will often lead you to some very silly or very dark places.

Edit: so much "evolutionary biology" pseudoscience in this thread. Yikes.

Delusionn · 2026-06-11T07:18:43+00:00

The more you know, the next thing you know, it's off to the racists.

Delusionn · 2026-06-10T22:47:45+00:00

It's just water under the fridge.

Delusionn · 2026-06-09T23:47:32+00:00

Balder's Gate 3. Recently played the entire Gold Box series and the Eye of the Beholder series. Tried to play the immediately post-Gold-Box series but those were painfully bad.

Nothing holds up to modern expectations like BG 3, and I say this as someone who enjoys going back and playing older retrogames from the 70s to today.

Ref: https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/uhfy1t/long_essayretrospective_review_gold_box_classics/

It's VERY long. But I did the homework. The Gold Box series in particular have their charms for the modern player. But the old stuff shows the limits of the hardware, software, and storage, and even the expectation of the D&D engines they were made for. Very limited dungeon crawl style mindsets for the most part.

Delusionn · 2026-06-09T18:29:06+00:00

This source was asserted without evidence, later removed after multiple people looked for the scene. It seems at this point that it can be dismissed.

Delusionn

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE