Gossip Trounce - Extended Intermissive
Taking a break
time is duckstack
I have been pondering the correct evolution of The Duckstack, or whether it is even correct to continue it at all. As life has progressed I have been feeling increasingly strongly some aspects needs to change. I need to recallibrate. At a minimum, I believe I am going to phase out the History section, at least as a regular feature.
Kids are an endless source of delight and wit, precisely due to their innocence before the pressures of the world, but this also means they are exceptionally vulnerable, and The Duckstack is a public publication. You never know who you’re inviting into your living room. The vital service of providing a journal of my kids lives that I can share with them later needs to be counterbalanced with shielding them from prying, mocking eyes, since people on the internet are freaks
Perhaps a smaller more intimate newsletter, just for friends and family on that subject. I haven’t decided. But my kids didn’t ask for their lives to be public and I can’t predict how their social landscapes will evolve. Sometimes people I have never talked to will pop up on social media to yell at me over things I posted years prior, which they had been holding a grudge on for all this time.. I have even had people do this in real life. My friends with greater readerships have this happen constantly, so if I want to keep writing, its time to start being more careful, at least about the people in my family who didn’t ask to be famous. Even if those intimate details would brighten lives. For this I am sorry.
Furthermore, I have other projects, and don’t have the energy to juggle them and my family’s needs and a weekly writing schedule in the near future. There is still lots to write, but I’m not writing as well as I used to. I can tell, reading old issues of my newsletter, that my quality has just tanked. This is partially because twitter’s algorithm has stopped showing me smart people and instead just shows engagement bait and “news” so my media diet has gone to trash, partly a lack of social stimulus because I don’t have a lot of friends, and a whole host of other environmental and who knows what else factors. In any case The Duckstack has grown beyond quick 3 minute reads. Maybe to start I will try to crunch back to that, but I won’t do it weekly. This will also give me more time to refine my thoughts and improve their quality and will almost certainly make writing more fun for me.
Pardon Our Mess
Greetings private. Welcome aboard. Don’t know how to sail? That’s fine, we’re going to teach you. Actually I changed my mind. We’re going to make you walk the plank. Why would you sign up to be a sailor when you don’t even know how to sail? Prepare to be fish chum. What’s that? You didn’t sign up to be a sailor, you signed up for a religious comedy newsletter? That’s fine, we’ll teach you to sail. Then we’ll make you walk the plank. No regrets. You won’t die wishing you knew how to sail, we won’t send you off knowing we didn’t do our due diligence. That’s what we call a win/win. You’re not sure you want to walk a plank? How do you know you won’t like it if you haven’t tried it? There’s no time like the present to start preparing to walk the plank. Well, lets get started. But first, read this:
Co-Ruption
it is so over for you once I post this
It is a universal trait of all normies that they love to hear about scandal. In fact, possibly the most defining trait of the normie is their desire to listen to gossip, especially gossip that the virtuous and respected are flawed and full of vices. Mix that itch with some conspiratorial thinking and virtue signaling for reputation gain, and you can lead along the masses as though with catnip. People love to tear down anyone that’s idolized, because it makes them feel powerful and righteous, when normally they are weak minded and lazy and small. Our society does not punish this behavior, and thus leaves free virtue (or the opportunity to be perceived as virtuous) on the table, and whenever you leave free stuff on the table you are going to create a haven for parasitic freeloaders, and you are also going to turn people who are otherwise productive into parasitic freeloaders, since that’s where the status is at.
For the really low class, this gossip doesn’t even need to be about respectable people- celebrity gossip magazines are a multimillion dollar industry, and none of those celebrities are virtuous or respectable, and for many of them scandal is their only claim to fame in the first place, being otherwise wholly uninteresting people. You and I, being higher order beings, prefer to launder this ear for gossip through an abstraction layer, but you and I certainly have things and people we love feeling “in the know” about despite having zero experience whatsoever.
Of course my faith is the target of this incessantly but you’ll see it everywhere. There was a scandal about the Catholic church protecting child offenders or something, and I actually know very little about this because I try not to know or care or be informed about anything that feels like salacious gossip, but for many this scandal encompasses the entire religion. In actual fact pedophilia is actually extremely rare in Catholicism, at least compared to atheism or comparative professions such as schoolteachers. But since Catholicism is a church, and churches are supposed to be virtuous, the people latch onto the petty gossip, and it gets incessantly repeated to the point it basically defines the church for a lot of people. I don’t like to see people bringing it up- its never productive, it almost always drags conversation to a lower and more bad faith level, and it isn’t particularly honest, even though the scandal was real and bad.
Besides Catholic, you constantly see this happen with any cults of personality that pop up as they grasp for an edge against the targets of their hatred, especially sexual impropriety but the media just coordinated a lynching of one of Utah’s conservative house members because he did like $80 of check fraud against one of his employers when he was 19 (he had already paid it back years before the story broke).
One should always be cautious when stepping into the realm of gossip and myths, because rhetoric has a truth and false value that is quite divorced from fact, and among the swirling half presentations it is far too easy to lose your soul, getting lost in projected desires and shortcuts. We all have to extrapolate and make guesses from a small dataset of facts and an even smaller dataset of facts that you’re able to hold in your mind at once, and the only thing that can possibly protect you is your own commitment to fidelity and honesty. Herein lies the very judgement of God.
And yet this soul-mill wherein such vulnerability is exposed, this cloying mire of beckoning gossip is always so mundane. The Secret Lives of Moron Wives, “soaking”, some guy in American fork selling Legos that he wasn’t supposed to. These are the stories we like telling ourselves? You must develop a disgust for this. Those who aspire to be called Saints of the latter days must strive for a higher plane. You must develop a reflex against self-righteousness, a reflex against catastrophic generalizations, a reflex against magical thinking.
One of the marks of civilization is a sense of honor in combat. Taking proverbial women and children hostage is a very effective tactic, and so is just kicking someone in the groin, but its generally understood that these practices are not good manners. The extreme nature of them functions as an auto-escalation just like pulling a gun on someone does, but it feels powerful, which is a heady feeling if you feel powerless all the time. In a similar manner, people latch onto “silver bullets” against various people and factions and then revel in their potential for unmatched asymmetrical violence. You’re just a kid dude. Put the gun down.
BOBDADUCK’S INFERNO
I went to hell and nobody knew you <3
I went to hell and there’s even more circles than Dante even knew about, he’s probably just bad at dream exploring or maybe a liar1. Anyway here’s the story:
Circle Ten: People who make video game remakes. These people are forced to play their own games as punishment. It is by far the worst circle of hell.
Circle 11: This one is not a circle of hell, its actually a trapezoid and its for people who use the wrong shapes like square wheels on cars and stuff. Its a giant salt shaker and you get bounced around in there as giant people salt their food with the people inside’s sweat and tears. If you get shaken out you can yell “base” and an angel will appear to take you back to heaven
Circle 12: This one is where circle of Hell tourists go, they force you to watch circle of hell torture snuff videos for hours as punishment for your crimes.
Circle pi: Mathematicians go here and they don’t even know it.
Circle 14: There isn’t one, you go right to circle 15.
Circle 15: This circle is for people who cannot count and for people who never installed adblock on their browser, which both turned out to be mortal sins. Who knew2.
Circle 16: This circle is for people who misunderstood theology and got heaven and hell wrong. This circle wraps back around to heaven as per horse shoe theory, allowing them to perceive themselves to be in heaven, even though its technically a circle of hell.
Circle 17: Dave from accounting
Circle 18: This is the animal circle, for black widows, snails, earwigs, mice, racoons, pit bulls, and so forth. Its sort of like “the petting zoo of hell” and anyone in hell can go there whenever they want and get bitten or poisoned or whatever before going back to their regular circle, if they want.
There’s more circles but honestly I got scared after Dave from Accounting and turned back after I saw the petting zoo. As far as I know 18 circles is a new hell record, so I’ll be submitting today’s Duckstack to Guinness. Just try to beat me… if you dare.
History
History… Again?
I told my kids that the grape+cracker meal we were feeding them was a “grapewich”. My wife objected because that implies regular sandwiches are made of sand. I told her bread is a type of sand. They’re both… Grainy.
When the toddler gets into trouble and I take dangerous things from her or put her in time out she goes straight to my wife and says “Mama… Papa!” in this “can you believe him?” tone of voice
A thoughtful question: “is the poop in the yard that is not chicken poop… Dandilion poop?”
I didn't know witchcraft was innate for girls but the toddler has started running around with a broom between her legs
Conversation between our son and the toddler: “That’s only for adults, and you're not an adult.” “baja ja jabaju.” “No! You're only two years old!”
“I want a jubcup I want a jubcup.” “I don’t know what that is.” “it doesn’t mean anything, I just made it up to be cute.”
baby’s new hobby: Watching mama spread cream cheese on crackers
Our son tells us he can “say all of the things.” He can “say words”, and “not words.” I guess that just about covers it
Kids went on a ferris wheel while I watched. “Look, we’re going so high!” “high papa, hi papa”
from the other room: “Can someone get dad’s note out of this?” “What?” “Dad’s note, out of this?” CRASH nevermind, I can do it, myself
Race Science
A time honored tradition
Studying running is a delicate subject because you have to be pretty fast yourself to get any good measurements. Like to get the height of a racer you have to be at least as fast as him with a tape measure, but thankfully we’ve graduated past having to do it on foot like the ancient Greeks did during the Olympics. We’ve got formula 1 cars and you can just have the intern lean out the window.
Now, are all races the same? They are not. Science has proven it. Some races are fast, and some races are slow, depending on their style, but the defining trait of races is that they are the human race. No extraterrestrials have ever been part of our race, because we are racist.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE UTAH REPUBLICAN PRIMARY
Every single person who won in every single race, statewide, was a democrat who changed parties 6 months ago. Not a single delegate selected candidate won anything, to my knowledge.
Horoscopes
what is this, some sort of star personality test? I don’t have time for this. Okay fine I’ll think of something. Its straightforward, right?
Aries: You’re airy. Take a flight.
Taurus: That’s sort of like Taurine, right? Drink an energy drink.
Gemini: Like, the google product? Use it I guess
Cancer: Well that’s just rude. I’m going to change this one. Your new horoscope is… Camper. That sounds better. Take a hike.
Leo: I have no idea what this is. Some sort of tech entrepreneur widget? A jangling toy for babies? Work hard, I guess.
Virgo: Sprout fur and go. Werewolf time
Libra: Bookworms should go to the library!
Scorpio: get a big tail and shoot it at people. I think I’m getting the hang of this.
Sagittarius: Uh… Nevermind. Sage-ee-tarry-us? This means, uh, go meditate with some sages?
Capricorn: if you get hot you might explode and turn inside out. Eat popcorn
Aquarius: You have an affinity to mermaids. Tie yourself to a mast
Pisces: Tape and glue yourself.
Ducksnax
Alice
He now resides in the 8.4th circle, the one for liars about hell.
Not Dante