Sunday, January 22, 2012

Miscellenia...

  • It's been three months now of get-dressed 'til go-to-bed wear with the Raven holster worn IWB. Couldn't be happier.


  • I don't like "reality TV". I've watched a few episodes of Top Shot, most all in Season 1, but other than that, I can't say as I've ever sat through a single complete episode of Sons of West Coast Pawn Survivor the Bounty Hunter. (Specifically, that pawn shop show makes me want to explode in violent fury. I can't put my finger on exactly why, but there's only one member of that cast that doesn't give me the instant desire to give them a facial using a sock full of nickels.) While strolling down the long plastic hallway dodging thieves and pimps yesterday, I became enthralled with this show called Oddities on the Science Channel and actually sat through, like, two episodes.

    Incidentally, with the History Channel being nothing but shows about the sex lives of alien Nazi bigfoot ghosts and how they built the pyramids, and SyFy having gone to the flying piranha dogs, the Science Channel seems to be my new destination for when I'm not yelling at news/political programming.


  • While I'm sure that the Super Route and the Bowl Route were clear and dry, the streets of Broad Ripple were a mess yesterday. Us lowly voters are being assured that our residential snow clearance is not being hampered at all by the need to impress corporate donors and visiting media with all the industrious plowing and salting downtown, but I am dubious. I haven't seen an inch and a half of accumulated precip tie Broad Ripple up like this since I moved here.

22 comments:

Bubblehead Les. said...

? 1.5 inches of Global Warming ties up a Main Thoroughfare like Broad Ripple in Indianapolis? On the weekend? Gee, you'd think the Unionized Street Dept. would LOVE to get their Triple Time Pay driving a Snow Plow over and over and over down the same street they cleared off 2 hours ago, just like Cleveland does.

Tam said...

Bubblehead Les,

Broad Ripple Ave was okay. Smaller streets around here are done by contractors.

Matt said...

The History Channel has left me so disappointed. I'm still trying to figure out why they thought it was a good idea to change it into the "National Enquirer History Channel". I'm fully expecting an extensive expose on Bat-Boy sometime in the near future.

The Science Channel and the Military Channel are pretty much my main stops on the dial theses days. Unless of course the Mil Channel is broadcasting the show starring Mac, master of the Tactical Whisper.

Knotthead said...

The History Channel, once a favorite, has gone the way of The Discover Channel, or whatever it was.

Science Channel bonus: frequent Firefly marathons.

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

I was on the north side and the south side yesterday. City snow clearing was abysmal.

On the other hand, the interstate was clear and practically dry.

John A said...

Nathan, the interstates get lots of high-speed traffic.

A number of years ago, I was in Rochester MN for a class given at IBM there, and was amused by the way they cleared the highway. See, it gets so cold there that the snow is still "powder" (no sticking) no matter how much there is. So they positioned a cop at the on-ramps, and held everyone until there were at least six cars. That was enough to blow the snow off to the sides...

John A said...

Oops, forgot - "ossities" is on my watch-this list. A wierd nut intriguing place, with occasional tidbits of information. It had never occured to me that strychnine, in very small dosages, could be so useful as to be sold as sugar-coated pills in pharmacies. Heroin/Laudanum I knew about, but not strychnine.

Les Jones said...

To each his own. I like Pawn Stars. I don't care for American Pickers. Too penny ante to be interesting and I can't figure out how two people could pay for gas, food, and lodging on those measly profits.

NatGeo has a higher caliber of reality show with less contrived drama. I like their Alaska State Troopers. It's like Cops, but with a better class of cops, gats, cars, scenery, wildlife, and cameramen.

I'm also liking their Drugs, Inc. documentary series.

Ancient Woodsman said...

Shouldn't it have been, "Sons of West Coast Monster Pawn Jersey Alien Survivor the Bounty Axe Trucker Picker"? That seems to be the complete listing of what is on the "history" channel these days. Used to be a fine, mostly black & white refuge for the presently-ungifted; now simply a home for all the programs the other stations were even not yet uncouth enough to run.

Just wondering.

Anonymous said...

I can't watch any of those pawn shows, Sons of Guns or Pickers. My eyes start watering, my colon starts spasming and brain matter shoots out of my ears. Has something to do with all of those shows being mindless husks.

Ken O said...

Tam, what are you carrying in the Raven- looking for new leather

Drang said...

Top Gear (the original, on BBC America) is always enjoyable, even as the "unscripted" situations get more and more contrived. ("Oh, dear, a grand piano just fell from 1000 feet onto the Morris Marina...")

Other than that... I've watched a few episodes of Sons of Guns, usually while waiting for Mythbusters or Dirty Jobs to come on, and wound up wondering how much footage gets deleted waiting for something interesting to happen, and how much they pay people to show them being ignorant or anti-social...

Fred said...

I like my Raven stuff, but they're starting to get too "rock star" on their facebook. Massive amount of whining about their newest "holster" being copied less than 48 hours after being announced at SHOT, and all I could think was "well, maybe if you'd deliver a product at a competitive price in less than a year..."

I'll go put on my nomex jumpsuit now...

Anonymous said...

1vote for the Food channel. Diners, Drive-ins and Dives is a hoot....

azmountaintroll said...

Re: Raven holsters

Sorry, my heart belongs to Crossbreed.

"I need a left-handed IWB for a Polish P-64. Can you do that?"

"Well, we're a little behind schedule here. Is three weeks good enough?"

Fred said...

Exactly. The last time I ordered something from Raven, my order was placed in October, and I finally got my gear in April.

Anonymous said...

Poor Canal Histoire and H2. It's a fact that reality shows have the lowest production costs...even lower than recycled BBC war docs. (BTW Woodsman, ja forgot swamps and various kinds of dangerous fishin')
With Netflix we WILL survive.

Anonymous said...

"reality shows have the lowest production costs..." I suppose this may fall under the category of "free ice cream" But really, is free ice cream mixed with princess feces really much of a gift? Or does it begin to create a new category that offends, authentically, for people who pay $50 bucks per month for a promise of a cornucopia of choices?

Tam said...

Anon 7:26,

Speak English, please.

the pawnbroker said...

Main thing I learned from Pawn Stars is that I was doing it way wrong for those thirty years.

While I had my share of big-ticket transactions, mostly I wasted my time loaning a couple hundred at a pop to working stiffs trying to cover the power bill, while apparently all the fame and fortune was in pretending to buy airplanes, cannon, and Super Bowl rings.

That, and my list of "experts" who were at my beck and call to provide authentication and appraisal only had three listings; me, myself, and I.

I'd say it's a joke, but they're on TV getting rich, and we're all watching the silly shit and talking about it, so I guess the joke's on us.

And Tam, anon above might be speaking a whole 'nother language; if he's pitching a new series, he might be onto something...a reality show focused on reality show addicts would reflect reality more than most, and would probably be a hit.

the pawnbroker said...

Good Lord...just flipped through the channels and landed on National Geographic's Alaska State Troopers...better than most if only for the scenery, etc.

But then ran the promo for coming attractions: something called Doomsday Preppers. From what I saw of the gunplay, this can't be good.

Anonymous said...

You know they were thinking it would all melt by Sunday anyway, and why spend the money if they could balance the budget easier without!