@jonahnro I just Kant understand Hegel jokes. Maybe I should Goethe the back of the class...*rimshot*
— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) January 31, 2013
Couldn't get a chuckle out of my corner of Twitter from riffing off the typo. #Mark6:4
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Thursday, January 31, 2013
Try the veal...
Couldn't get a chuckle out of my corner of Twitter from riffing off the typo. #Mark6:4
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The part on Twitter where I crack myself up...
Money. @brownellsinc "What is your most commonly used gunsmithing tool?"
— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) January 31, 2013
Things I don't like.
- Romance films. Unless they're funny. I like to laugh in real life with people I like, so why would I want to watch unfunny people fall in love?
- Great big vehicles. The Forester is pushing the limits of the amount of sheet metal I care to herd around on a daily basis, any more than that and driving starts to get a little too close to work for me to really enjoy it. Plus, you can't convince me that big, tall stilty vehicles don't just tip over occasionally for no reason whatsoever, like, while they're sitting in parking lots and stuff.
- ______ versus ______ consumer goods arguments on the internet. Apparently there are people who roam the internet picking fights with people who have made different purchasing decisions than they have. Seriously? Like, if you find out that somebody bought an iPhone, you must publicly crush them or you'll look like a fool for buying a Droid? Or vice versa?
- Rice and legumes. Sure, they turn up in some decent dishes, but just by themselves? Not a fan.
- While we're on the topic of food: Green peppers on pizza. Keep that crap off my pie.
- '70s Hanna-Barbera kiddie cartoons. Even at that tender age I knew something was very wrong with Scooby Dum. And whoever did that Disco Era reincarnation of Tom and Jerry where Tom and Jerry were non-violent BFFs should be staked out on an anthill and set on fire, then run over with a tank.
I'm so sorry...
Day Two of emptyhead.
This is killing me.
I haven't even had any really good dreams I could blog about.
Well, there was that one two nights ago, where I was driving around Terlingua, TX in a '73 Plymouth Road Runner, and I was a bionic secret agent who had been ambushed by ninjas from the bad guys' team who had totally beat me up and then wiped my memories of the attack, and we wouldn't have even known what had happened if the enemy ninjas hadn't pried out my cyborg eye and written threatening messages to the head of my organization on the retina that were discovered when the doctors examined me under a giant microscope...
You know, normal boring dreams like that.
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This is killing me.
I haven't even had any really good dreams I could blog about.
Well, there was that one two nights ago, where I was driving around Terlingua, TX in a '73 Plymouth Road Runner, and I was a bionic secret agent who had been ambushed by ninjas from the bad guys' team who had totally beat me up and then wiped my memories of the attack, and we wouldn't have even known what had happened if the enemy ninjas hadn't pried out my cyborg eye and written threatening messages to the head of my organization on the retina that were discovered when the doctors examined me under a giant microscope...
You know, normal boring dreams like that.
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Wednesday, January 30, 2013
For a good cause...
Need an AR-15? Local dealers' shelves bare? Don't want to wait in line outside the local Big Box store for their next shipment like it was a Mossy Oak-wearing Copenhagen-scented version of Black Friday?
Want to help a good cause?
Andrew at Vuurwapen Blog is auctioning off one of his own AR-15s, with the proceeds to go to Rogue Corps, helping wounded veterans enjoy outdoor activities.
Want to help a good cause?
Andrew at Vuurwapen Blog is auctioning off one of his own AR-15s, with the proceeds to go to Rogue Corps, helping wounded veterans enjoy outdoor activities.
In the heat of the night...
The jet stream must have cracked like a bullwhip.
After being buried under an arctic air mass that had daily highs twenty degrees below normal for days on end and the black dirt frozen hard as concrete, a bulge of warm air passed through the middle of America like a pig through a python, bringing warm rain and fog and unseasonable weather, reaching a tropical-feeling 65 degrees at 0100 today, toppling the previous record of 64 set in 1947.
Unfortunately, that 65 degree temp was also the day's high temp, because the cold front that crashed through in the wee hours brought January back with a vengeance in its tree-toppling wind gusts, and they're calling for snow tonight.
No wonder Al Gore was rolling around on top of that pile of Qatari oil money, finger-wagging and chortling like a wild-eyed animatronic Buddha on the fritz despite getting a playful love-bite during that leg-humping by Matt Lauer on the Today show yesterday: His weather machine is obviously working properly.
After being buried under an arctic air mass that had daily highs twenty degrees below normal for days on end and the black dirt frozen hard as concrete, a bulge of warm air passed through the middle of America like a pig through a python, bringing warm rain and fog and unseasonable weather, reaching a tropical-feeling 65 degrees at 0100 today, toppling the previous record of 64 set in 1947.
Unfortunately, that 65 degree temp was also the day's high temp, because the cold front that crashed through in the wee hours brought January back with a vengeance in its tree-toppling wind gusts, and they're calling for snow tonight.
No wonder Al Gore was rolling around on top of that pile of Qatari oil money, finger-wagging and chortling like a wild-eyed animatronic Buddha on the fritz despite getting a playful love-bite during that leg-humping by Matt Lauer on the Today show yesterday: His weather machine is obviously working properly.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Monkey-Incinerating Reentry Vehicle
IRNA said the monkey was sent into space on a Kavoshgar rocket. The rocket reached a height of more than 120 km (75 miles) and "returned its shipment intact", IRNA reported.Iran insists that the monkey launch was a demonstration that proved its space program was focused on purely peaceful goals, and has nothing to do with western accusations that it is trying to develop an intercontinental nuclear arsenal.
Iranian space scientists say their next test will demonstrate the ability to launch several monkey reentry vehicles in a single payload, each of which will be independently and peacefully steered to a separate landing point.
No word on whether the monkeys are of the face-eating, feces-flinging variety, which could be a violation of several international treaties on biological warfare, as well as Leviticus 11:27.
I has a sad.
I am really sad that I accidentally zorched my little clutch of spam comments. They were sure-fire post generators on a morning when I'm suffering from a bad case of emptyhead, like today.
I had four or five that had long chains of text, each of which read as though someone had downloaded the consciousness of the love child of Sylvia Plath and Thomas Pynchon into an AI and then subjected it to random voltage spikes that made it blurt out "drdrebeats" and "cialis online" between paragraphs of soulfully-tortured word salad.
Alas, art on the internet is the very definition of ephemeral, and my ghost in the machine hasn't turned back up to replace what was accidentally lost.
I had four or five that had long chains of text, each of which read as though someone had downloaded the consciousness of the love child of Sylvia Plath and Thomas Pynchon into an AI and then subjected it to random voltage spikes that made it blurt out "drdrebeats" and "cialis online" between paragraphs of soulfully-tortured word salad.
Alas, art on the internet is the very definition of ephemeral, and my ghost in the machine hasn't turned back up to replace what was accidentally lost.
Monday, January 28, 2013
It's like a gun, only smaller.
I'd been carrying a J-frame as a backup gun and in the outside breast pocket of my winter coat for many years. While I liked the idea of some of the small .380 autos that hit the market, they were either such little bricks (NAA) or so much of a crapshoot in the reliability department (P3AT) that I just didn't see the need to move off my tried-and-true wheelgun.
My winter coat finally reached the point where it was time to be replaced, and though I selected the new coat specifically for having a breast pocket to fit the J-frame, in practice it turned out to be a little snug for fumble-free access.
This sent me looking at the inexpensive little .380s again, and I decided to give S&W's offering a try. After living with it for a few months, some thoughts:
Given that the Bodyguard is a true DAO, I see no real need to use the safety on mine. It's completely redundant. It's stiff and awkward and as useful as a kickstand on a tank; the trigger is difficult enough to pull on purpose, let alone by accident. Like the double-action-only J-frame before it, I carry the double-action-only Bodyguard in an el-cheapo Uncle Mike's pocket holster, which keeps the trigger covered and the gun oriented in the pocket.
The trigger on my Bodyguard was buck wretched out of the box, like pulling the proverbial piano across a gravel road with your index finger, but after a hundred rounds or so it smoothed out to be a usable, if still heavy, trigger*. If you can shoot a double-action trigger well, you'll be able to manage it; if, on the other hand, you're one of those people, the ones who thumb cock their double-action revolvers for every shot and refer to DA/SA autopistols as "crunchentickers", then a long, heavy trigger pull on a light, tiny pistol is going to be a recipe for yanking the sights off-target.
The laser activation buttons on the integral laser are ambidextrous, but might as well be located in Albania for all the chance you'll have of activating them in a hurry as you yank the gun out of pocket or purse. I'm assuming that Crimson Trace holds some sort of patent on a grip-activation button for lasers.
Unlike the P3AT, I can shoot the Bodyguard one-handed without it short-cycling. It has thus far been 100% reliable with FMJ, Hornady Critical Defense, and Winchester PDX1.
.380 Auto is a completely unsatisfactory round from a self-defense standpoint, but it beats a handful of nothing and it's replacing a .32 H&R Mag in my pocket, which wasn't exactly the Hammer of Thor, either.
For the niche for which I need it, to fit in the outside breast pocket of my winter coat where I can access it with the coat zipped up or while seated in my car, it's dandy. In warmer weather it will do for a pocket-carried BUG. Unlike the J-frame, it will fit in the pocket of my mom jeans.
*I have not yet put weights on it, and I would not be surprised to find out that its actual weight is less than I would guess, but the popsicle-stick grip dimensions don't give grownup-sized hands the best leverage on the trigger.The trigger itself is reasonably wide and smooth-faced, and if you do not have Truckasaurus mitts, you might actually find it less objectionable.
My winter coat finally reached the point where it was time to be replaced, and though I selected the new coat specifically for having a breast pocket to fit the J-frame, in practice it turned out to be a little snug for fumble-free access.
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| Excuse the lousy cell phone picture. It's a placeholder 'til I can get some daylight. |
Given that the Bodyguard is a true DAO, I see no real need to use the safety on mine. It's completely redundant. It's stiff and awkward and as useful as a kickstand on a tank; the trigger is difficult enough to pull on purpose, let alone by accident. Like the double-action-only J-frame before it, I carry the double-action-only Bodyguard in an el-cheapo Uncle Mike's pocket holster, which keeps the trigger covered and the gun oriented in the pocket.
The trigger on my Bodyguard was buck wretched out of the box, like pulling the proverbial piano across a gravel road with your index finger, but after a hundred rounds or so it smoothed out to be a usable, if still heavy, trigger*. If you can shoot a double-action trigger well, you'll be able to manage it; if, on the other hand, you're one of those people, the ones who thumb cock their double-action revolvers for every shot and refer to DA/SA autopistols as "crunchentickers", then a long, heavy trigger pull on a light, tiny pistol is going to be a recipe for yanking the sights off-target.
The laser activation buttons on the integral laser are ambidextrous, but might as well be located in Albania for all the chance you'll have of activating them in a hurry as you yank the gun out of pocket or purse. I'm assuming that Crimson Trace holds some sort of patent on a grip-activation button for lasers.
Unlike the P3AT, I can shoot the Bodyguard one-handed without it short-cycling. It has thus far been 100% reliable with FMJ, Hornady Critical Defense, and Winchester PDX1.
.380 Auto is a completely unsatisfactory round from a self-defense standpoint, but it beats a handful of nothing and it's replacing a .32 H&R Mag in my pocket, which wasn't exactly the Hammer of Thor, either.
For the niche for which I need it, to fit in the outside breast pocket of my winter coat where I can access it with the coat zipped up or while seated in my car, it's dandy. In warmer weather it will do for a pocket-carried BUG. Unlike the J-frame, it will fit in the pocket of my mom jeans.
*I have not yet put weights on it, and I would not be surprised to find out that its actual weight is less than I would guess, but the popsicle-stick grip dimensions don't give grownup-sized hands the best leverage on the trigger.The trigger itself is reasonably wide and smooth-faced, and if you do not have Truckasaurus mitts, you might actually find it less objectionable.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
"At Camp David, we go skeet shooting all the time."
When asked if he has ever fired a gun, the President goes all Canadian girlfriend, claims he shoots "all the time" at Camp David.
Yeah, sure, he was busting clays with Lennay Kekua.
Pics or it didn’t happen, Urkel.
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Yeah, sure, he was busting clays with Lennay Kekua.
Pics or it didn’t happen, Urkel.
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Overheard in the Office...
Me: "Should I Tweet that the guy who hosts that 'Inside INdiana Business' show looks like Morbo?"
RX: "I think it would be mean."
Me: "Look who you're talking to."
RX: "Would it be libelous, Tamara?"
Me: "The truth can't be libel; dude looks like Morbo. Now, if I said 'Dude looks like Morbo AND he wants to devour our brains,' then that would be libel."
Save Bambi, go to jail...
I guess they had all the regular crimes solved out in eastern Indiana...
Connersville IN police officer and his wife face jail time for saving injured baby deer: wthr.com/story/20711538…
— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) January 27, 2013
Lines, lines, everywhere lines...
New Mexicans line up outside Sportsman's Warehouse on the rumor of a shipment of AR15s.
Meanwhile, in the Palmetto State, the Myrtle Beach Bass Pro Shops has a line pretty much every morning in hopes of getting ammunition.
I don't think people are buying this stuff just in hopes that they'll have more to turn in.
All this queuing and panic-buying makes me feel like the Boston Brahmin in the old joke who, when asked by a friend from New York where she bought her hats, replied "Buy our hats? My dear, we have our hats."
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Meanwhile, in the Palmetto State, the Myrtle Beach Bass Pro Shops has a line pretty much every morning in hopes of getting ammunition.
I don't think people are buying this stuff just in hopes that they'll have more to turn in.
All this queuing and panic-buying makes me feel like the Boston Brahmin in the old joke who, when asked by a friend from New York where she bought her hats, replied "Buy our hats? My dear, we have our hats."
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Saturday, January 26, 2013
Everything's relative...
That crazy free solo rock-climbing stuff? That's crazy. You could get yourself hurt!
This, on the other hand, looks like big, dirty fun:
This, on the other hand, looks like big, dirty fun:
I don't know how I missed it...
...but Biden's comment regarding a driving reason behind gun control is too revealing to not note it:
Not only do they have socialised medicine and workers' pension programmes to die for, and paternity leave and, and, and well, everything, but on top of it, they're just so... European! Everything Europeans eat is artisanal and all their beer and wine is imported! And their accents make them sound so smart!
And if you can't be arsed to learn a foreign language so that you can move to someplace civilised like Amsterdam or Copenhagen, then you can try to bring the mountain to Mohammed, as it were.
Believe me, I live among them. If they were riding their city bike on the bridge over the canal in Broad Ripple and looked down and saw a real gondolier among the ducks, they'd decorate their cupcakes right there.
I know, I know, you're going to tell me something about the Second Amendment in the Constitution, like it's quoting holy scripture or something. Don't you realize it's just a tool written by rich old white men to keep rich old white men in power?
Look at all the more modern constitutions, like they have in Europe! They all include important rights, like the right to housing, food, a job, and health care, and don't include atavistic throwbacks about the right to hunt deer with muskets. What importance does any sane person in modern society place on the right to hunt ducks compared to the right to a job and a roof over your head?
(If you're going to beat these people, you have to know how they think. Not cartoon assumptions that they're all Junior Pol Pots who lie awake at night dreaming of death camps; that's just the flip side of the cousin-humping redneck stereotype they have of you.)
*Bear with me here, I'm trying to help you get in his headspace and facts would only be a distraction.
“We will not be able to stop every act of senseless gun violence or any other gun violence, we know that, in the future. That’s no excuse to do nothing. It is not an excuse to do nothing. As the president said, if we can save even one it’s worth it. And I think we can begin, again, not because of guns alone, but I think we can begin an endeavor that stops the coarsity of American culture and society.”Guns are icky and coarse. You know where they don't have guns? Europe*. And part and parcel of modern liberalism is to have a sort of fawning, leg-humping infatuation with western Europe.
Not only do they have socialised medicine and workers' pension programmes to die for, and paternity leave and, and, and well, everything, but on top of it, they're just so... European! Everything Europeans eat is artisanal and all their beer and wine is imported! And their accents make them sound so smart!
And if you can't be arsed to learn a foreign language so that you can move to someplace civilised like Amsterdam or Copenhagen, then you can try to bring the mountain to Mohammed, as it were.
Believe me, I live among them. If they were riding their city bike on the bridge over the canal in Broad Ripple and looked down and saw a real gondolier among the ducks, they'd decorate their cupcakes right there.
I know, I know, you're going to tell me something about the Second Amendment in the Constitution, like it's quoting holy scripture or something. Don't you realize it's just a tool written by rich old white men to keep rich old white men in power?
Look at all the more modern constitutions, like they have in Europe! They all include important rights, like the right to housing, food, a job, and health care, and don't include atavistic throwbacks about the right to hunt deer with muskets. What importance does any sane person in modern society place on the right to hunt ducks compared to the right to a job and a roof over your head?
(If you're going to beat these people, you have to know how they think. Not cartoon assumptions that they're all Junior Pol Pots who lie awake at night dreaming of death camps; that's just the flip side of the cousin-humping redneck stereotype they have of you.)
*Bear with me here, I'm trying to help you get in his headspace and facts would only be a distraction.
Spam.
Every few hours during the day, I go clean out the blog's spam trap of the fifteen or twenty comments that will be lodged in it. The big spam storms come at night; first thing in the morning these days I'm scraping 150 to 300 or more comments out of the filters. It doesn't take that long to scroll through them and check for comments from real people, so I'm not going to turn on the word verification again, at least for now.
They seem to have stopped sending the ones with random chains of text that made such lovely found object art. I accidentally erased the dozen I had saved that I was planning on hammering into a 'James Joyce or HAL9000?' post, and now almost all the spam is simple crass chains of naked links hawking cheap copies of everything from designer handbags to Viagra, while infesting your computer with every sort of malware under the sun. Going to one of those sites would be like tying your yacht up at the docks in Mogadishu with your wallet hanging out of your pocket and a blinfold over your eyes.
The really most despicable spam is the stuff that's written to sound like it's from an actual blog commenter. "Hi! I just wanted to say how much I really love your site! Did you do the theme yourself? Your writing is so good!" This stuff is tailor made to hit Aunt Edna who's been posting recipes and pics of the grandkids into the ether for a while to no feedback, only to get suckered by some spam farm in Shanghai who pretends to be an actual reader... That's just extra scummy.
They seem to have stopped sending the ones with random chains of text that made such lovely found object art. I accidentally erased the dozen I had saved that I was planning on hammering into a 'James Joyce or HAL9000?' post, and now almost all the spam is simple crass chains of naked links hawking cheap copies of everything from designer handbags to Viagra, while infesting your computer with every sort of malware under the sun. Going to one of those sites would be like tying your yacht up at the docks in Mogadishu with your wallet hanging out of your pocket and a blinfold over your eyes.
The really most despicable spam is the stuff that's written to sound like it's from an actual blog commenter. "Hi! I just wanted to say how much I really love your site! Did you do the theme yourself? Your writing is so good!" This stuff is tailor made to hit Aunt Edna who's been posting recipes and pics of the grandkids into the ether for a while to no feedback, only to get suckered by some spam farm in Shanghai who pretends to be an actual reader... That's just extra scummy.
I feel bad...
...when I don't get something up on the intertubenets by 8AM or so. Like I'm late or something.
This morning, roomie woke up at around 0615 and fed the cats and then went back to bed, and that's about a thousand times more productive than I've been so far this morning.
Well, I made a pot of coffee, so that's something.
And I've taken my vitamins and stuff.
And I've made a couple Tweets, and a post or two over at P-F.com.
But other than that, yeah, it's been a pretty lame morning.
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This morning, roomie woke up at around 0615 and fed the cats and then went back to bed, and that's about a thousand times more productive than I've been so far this morning.
Well, I made a pot of coffee, so that's something.
And I've taken my vitamins and stuff.
And I've made a couple Tweets, and a post or two over at P-F.com.
But other than that, yeah, it's been a pretty lame morning.
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Friday, January 25, 2013
OMIGOD IF UR AN ACROPHOBE DO NOT WATCH
Sweet. Zombie. Jesus. My palms broke into a sweat just watching this on my cell phone...
The raw physical fitness on display is mind-boggling.
Overheard in the Office...
The TeeWee down the hall in roomie's bedroom is playing That Citi Commercial, the one with the earworm:
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Me: "♫ Somebody mashed potatoes! ♫"The lyric, of course, is actually "Somebody left the gate open," from LP's song "Into The Wild".
RX: "I heard 'Somebody kissed a gay old man.'"
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From Twitter...
Notre Dame chess club member files bullying complaint; claims jock beat him up and stole his imaginary dying girlfriend.
— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) January 25, 2013
Speaking of the Subie and the Safelite dude...
The pre-surgery vehicle inspection on which he wanted me to sign off was so cute. You know, where they have to note dings and dents so people don't try to hoodoo them and get preexisting conditions corrected on their dime. He had done so industriously.
"Dude, it's over a dozen years old and has, like, almost 200,000 miles on it. It's been hit everyplace but the ashtray; if it'd give you a giggle to put another little dimple in the fender, knock yourself out."
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"Dude, it's over a dozen years old and has, like, almost 200,000 miles on it. It's been hit everyplace but the ashtray; if it'd give you a giggle to put another little dimple in the fender, knock yourself out."
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Another trope demolished.
So the poor Safelite guy came out and replaced the windshield Wednesday afternoon, all Carhartted up against the 18°F weather. The operation took a little longer than normal because whoever had replaced the windshield last time had used glue up the vertical edges and now glue will be used there forevermore.
Since the vehicle had to sit unmolestered for a bit, I walked to Twenty Tap for a late lunch. (Pressed brisket sandwich and a pint of Flat 12's Nunmoere.)
Yesterday morning dawned sunny and clear, if still bitterly cold. I rolled the car out for the new windshield's inaugural trip and, passing under a tree on Guilford, just shy of my destination at Kroger, something large and incontinent dropped a present on the squeaky clean new glass. Right. In front. Of my eyes.
Did you read headlines yesterday that screamed
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Since the vehicle had to sit unmolestered for a bit, I walked to Twenty Tap for a late lunch. (Pressed brisket sandwich and a pint of Flat 12's Nunmoere.)
Yesterday morning dawned sunny and clear, if still bitterly cold. I rolled the car out for the new windshield's inaugural trip and, passing under a tree on Guilford, just shy of my destination at Kroger, something large and incontinent dropped a present on the squeaky clean new glass. Right. In front. Of my eyes.
Did you read headlines yesterday that screamed
"Enraged Indianapolis woman pulls car over to side of road, empties high-capacity murder clip of deadly assault weapon into tree, reloads, and does it again!"No. No, you did not. Because I didn't.
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Thursday, January 24, 2013
My Party, Wrong Or Right...
There are few things more annoying than the Republican who suddenly got
religion about the PATRIOT Act in 2009, but one of them might be the Democrat who
decided along about the same time that printing fake money to bail out
corporate fat cats maybe wasn't such a bad idea after all.
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Just so you know...
I observe John Moses Browning's birthday a day late so that it coincides with my own and I can therefore justify sleeping in. We'll get the free ice cream machine cranked up shortly.
As an aside, one of the more interesting artifacts of the internet age is that the most popular web forum software packages send out automated "Happy Birthday!" emails to registered members. Every year, therefore, if you're an internet nerd like me, you get presented with an inbox full of birthday greetings from every forum at which you have ever registered. "GoldfishBreedersChat.com? When was I there? And why?"
EDIT: A birthday shout-out at SurvivalBlog.com! That's pretty cool. :)
As an aside, one of the more interesting artifacts of the internet age is that the most popular web forum software packages send out automated "Happy Birthday!" emails to registered members. Every year, therefore, if you're an internet nerd like me, you get presented with an inbox full of birthday greetings from every forum at which you have ever registered. "GoldfishBreedersChat.com? When was I there? And why?"
EDIT: A birthday shout-out at SurvivalBlog.com! That's pretty cool. :)
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
The Doctor Gun...
About the only time I find my usual pistol carry method a hassle is when I go to my neighborhood polling place, which is in a school, or downtown to the City/County building, or to the almost-a-dentist or the doctor, and wish to remove my pistol and lock it in the car.
Getting the gun-and-holster combination off is never a problem, but putting it back on in the vehicle requires such time and contortions that it must look to any passers-by like I'm suffering some weird slow-motion seizure.
It's one reason that I liked the Glock 19/Raven VG2 combination, but with the Glock being used for another project right now, yesterday I tried a new option for me: An AIWB J-frame holster from Dark Star Gear. (FTC Notice: DSG said "Hey, want a J-frame holster?" and I said "Well, duh.")
It is surprisingly easy to get the gun and holster on and off, whether you use the pull-the-dot snap or just unbuckle your belt; since the holster is carried forward of any belt loops on my jeans, no complicated threading was required. It's also tuckable, although I haven't made use of that feature yet.
I like a bright color for an AIWB holster, since I'm looking the gun into the mouth of the holster, and the bright color provides a good visual index as well as making it extremely obvious if something is obstructing the holster opening.
Anyhow, I'm finding it a handy thing for filling a specialized need I had...
Getting the gun-and-holster combination off is never a problem, but putting it back on in the vehicle requires such time and contortions that it must look to any passers-by like I'm suffering some weird slow-motion seizure.
It's one reason that I liked the Glock 19/Raven VG2 combination, but with the Glock being used for another project right now, yesterday I tried a new option for me: An AIWB J-frame holster from Dark Star Gear. (FTC Notice: DSG said "Hey, want a J-frame holster?" and I said "Well, duh.")
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| Lasers and plastic holsters: What's this world coming to? |
I like a bright color for an AIWB holster, since I'm looking the gun into the mouth of the holster, and the bright color provides a good visual index as well as making it extremely obvious if something is obstructing the holster opening.
Anyhow, I'm finding it a handy thing for filling a specialized need I had...
Overheard in the Office...
Me: "So that missed drone strike in south Indianapolis that was supposed to cover up the evidence of the FEMA death camp* but hit the house instead? The Zionist Occupation Government covered it up by saying it was an 'insurance fraud gas explosion' and the sheeple believed it!"
RX: "You're on the dope, aren't you?"
Me: "No, I'm on the internet!"
Long pause...
Me: "I'm totally blogging this."
RX: "Okay, but if that rumor gets started, it's all your fault."
*I swear I read this someplace. Since all explosions are drone strikes, and the only thing Indianapolis is famous for in Reynolds Wrap yarmulke circles is the Beech Grove Amtrak repair yard, you can see how this surmise would occur. I also heard that it was a drone strike that was aimed at the Defense Finance and Accounting Center at Fort Ben to disrupt military pay for... well, some Underpants Gnome reason or another. Which is funny because while Greenwood and Lawrence could both be loosely referred to as "Indianapolis", they are some twenty-plus miles apart, which doesn't speak well to the accuracy of imaginary drones.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Trivial Pursuit...
In case you get in any conversations around the water cooler about gun registration these days and you want to lob a conversational grenade, you can point out to your co-workers that the Supreme Court held in its' 1968 Haynes decision that felons could not be required to register firearms, as doing so would be a violation of their Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination.
That's usually good for some slack-jawed befuddlement. Lotta people don't know that.
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That's usually good for some slack-jawed befuddlement. Lotta people don't know that.
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Cash for Clunkers!
Have you seen H.R. 226, the cleverly-backronymed "Support Assault Firearms Elimination and Reduction for our Streets Act"?
It proposes a $2k income tax credit for turning in an eeevil "assault weapon" OR (and here's the important part!) for turning in "A frame or receiver that is identical to, or based substantially on the frame or receiver of, a firearm described in any of subparagraphs..."
This is what comes of people who worry about "shoulder things that go up" writing firearms law. Were this to pass, longshot as it is, I see a flood of battered Hi-Point carbines, OlyArms stripped lowers, and un-finished Nodak Spud AK project receivers coming out of gun safes and being used to fund brand-spankin' new Daniel Defense and Arsenal carbines. Poor Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) might as well have labeled her proposal the "Milita Equipment Improvement Act of 2013".
Actually, given that Congress has the power to "provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia," it'd be a lot more constitutional than Cash For Clunkers, in that the government has a legitimate constitutional interest in ensuring that there's a properly-functioning AR-15 in every gun safe.
EDIT: Arma Borealis saw it Friday, and immediately noticed the profit potential. I'm thinking of the way it could revolutionize discussion on internet firearms forums: "Ah got me this here Hi-Point 'cause Ah cain't afford one o' them there fancypants Colt 6920s." My friend, does Uncle Sam have a deal for you!
It proposes a $2k income tax credit for turning in an eeevil "assault weapon" OR (and here's the important part!) for turning in "A frame or receiver that is identical to, or based substantially on the frame or receiver of, a firearm described in any of subparagraphs..."
This is what comes of people who worry about "shoulder things that go up" writing firearms law. Were this to pass, longshot as it is, I see a flood of battered Hi-Point carbines, OlyArms stripped lowers, and un-finished Nodak Spud AK project receivers coming out of gun safes and being used to fund brand-spankin' new Daniel Defense and Arsenal carbines. Poor Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) might as well have labeled her proposal the "Milita Equipment Improvement Act of 2013".
Actually, given that Congress has the power to "provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia," it'd be a lot more constitutional than Cash For Clunkers, in that the government has a legitimate constitutional interest in ensuring that there's a properly-functioning AR-15 in every gun safe.
EDIT: Arma Borealis saw it Friday, and immediately noticed the profit potential. I'm thinking of the way it could revolutionize discussion on internet firearms forums: "Ah got me this here Hi-Point 'cause Ah cain't afford one o' them there fancypants Colt 6920s." My friend, does Uncle Sam have a deal for you!
Starting the new year off with a *CRACK!*
Driving back from Tennessee after the BCS game, it seemed like the interstate in south Indiana had been liberally salted with pea gravel. Every couple miles would come a resounding "POK!" or "TAK!" as a stone would carom off the bluff North face of the Subie.
Eventually the inevitable happened: With a resounding "CRACK!" something whanged off the driver's side A-pillar, about six inches above dashboard level, and a tiny crack appeared. By the time I got home, it had wandered well out onto the windshield, stretching a couple inches out of "Repair" and into "Replace".
Just to put the cherry on the icing of the cake of the incident, I was sitting in downtown construction traffic last week, running late for an appointment with the almost-a-dentist, when the crack started propagating again at an easily visible pace. In the space of a block, it grew another 8 inches, and added insult to injury by taking a left turn to make sure that it was well within my lower field of view. You can imagine the way I turned the air blue while pounding my forehead on the steering wheel rim.
I scheduled a windshield replacement for yesterday morning, right on the street out in front of my house. It promptly started snowing yesterday morning. We're rescheduled for tomorrow afternoon, so if you have any outdoor plans in the Broad Ripple area, you might want to look into having an alternate ready...
Eventually the inevitable happened: With a resounding "CRACK!" something whanged off the driver's side A-pillar, about six inches above dashboard level, and a tiny crack appeared. By the time I got home, it had wandered well out onto the windshield, stretching a couple inches out of "Repair" and into "Replace".
Just to put the cherry on the icing of the cake of the incident, I was sitting in downtown construction traffic last week, running late for an appointment with the almost-a-dentist, when the crack started propagating again at an easily visible pace. In the space of a block, it grew another 8 inches, and added insult to injury by taking a left turn to make sure that it was well within my lower field of view. You can imagine the way I turned the air blue while pounding my forehead on the steering wheel rim.
I scheduled a windshield replacement for yesterday morning, right on the street out in front of my house. It promptly started snowing yesterday morning. We're rescheduled for tomorrow afternoon, so if you have any outdoor plans in the Broad Ripple area, you might want to look into having an alternate ready...
Monday, January 21, 2013
Heh.
Observing the presidential motorcade rolling by, NBC talking head Willie Geist just used the nickname for that huge new GMC-truck-cum-Caddy-limousine by saying "Yes, the Beast is passing right in front of us now."
I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of Freepers suddenly snorted coffee through their noses...
.
I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of Freepers suddenly snorted coffee through their noses...
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Neon lights, Nobel Prize...
It's been pretty much all-Messiah, all the time on the TeeWee and NPR all weekend.
Saturday after the fun show, Shootin' Buddy and I went to the Sushi Bar on Broad Ripple Ave, and the whole time I was eating lunch, the television over the bar was tuned to CNN, which was alternating between shots of the president and first lady making googly eyes at each other while painting a bookshelf on the "National Day of Service", montages of Michelle's hairdos, and a bunch of anchors sitting in folding chairs on a lawn in DC where, presumably, the anointed one would be re-anointed in 48 hours... no, 47 hours and 59 minutes... 58 minutes...
NPR had an hour-long talk show about Michelle's inaugural ball gown Friday and NBC had a fifteen-minute spot on the First Portuguese Water Dog yesterday.
Funny, I don't remember all this hooraw in January of '05...
Heck, by comparison, the media only kinda-sorta liked Clinton a little bit. They've got a boner for this guy and everything associated with him like he was JFK risen from the grave...
Sunday, January 20, 2013
The thing that surprised me most...
...at the gun show was the almost complete absence of .22LR.
The ND 1500 (Thanks for that bit of cleverness, Bobbi!) has a half-dozen or so large ammo sellers that set up every show, and despite the generator-after-a-hurricane pricing on deuce-deuce ammo, by today there wasn't anything left but specialty rounds: shorts, Super Colibris, Eley Tenex match stuff, and the like.
Another interesting feature was how obvious is was that gun safes were getting cleaned out. A lot of guys I visit at every show, collectors who normally have nothing but antique Smiths or rows of old military surplus turnbolts, had their usual content and then, looking incongruous among the Krags and Lugers and top-break S&Ws would be the odd TEC-9 or Green Label Colt AR ("Unfired In The Box!") or MAK-90 that had been gathering dust in the corner of a safe since the panic of the early '90s.
There were plenty of ARs, but pricing was pretty optimistic; most of the ones I saw there yesterday morning were still there this afternoon.
One of the most interesting things was the big dealer who sets up in the front corner of the exhibit hall, pretty much where everybody starts their wend through the aisles, who didn't bring any guns this time, but instead set big boxes of assorted magazines on his table and issued one of his employees a bullhorn, through which she steadily intoned "PMags, thirty-five dollars! Magpul PMags in stock, thirty-five dollars!" Deeper into the exhibit hall were one or two dealers who had stashes of PMags on their tables marked at forty or fifty dollars or even more, not stopping to think that the guy up in the front corner had effectively set the price ceiling for the show. (Conversely, when I saw some for thirty bucks, my subconscious immediately thought "Wow, that's a good price!" before I reminded it that I already have enough PMags to outfit an infantry company...)
As much as I hate the mandated coonfingering of carry guns before entering and after leaving, I also hate the fact that inside the show I get muzzled more times than the Chinese dissident press. As a further aside, when I unload on arrival or gas up my heater after leaving the show, I always go to a brick wall well away from the entrance with nobody else standing around to catch brick chips if I screw up. You would think that in all the gun shows I've been to over the years, I would have had to wait for someone using the same backstop, or turned around to find someone waiting for me to finish using it, and yet I never have...
The ND 1500 (Thanks for that bit of cleverness, Bobbi!) has a half-dozen or so large ammo sellers that set up every show, and despite the generator-after-a-hurricane pricing on deuce-deuce ammo, by today there wasn't anything left but specialty rounds: shorts, Super Colibris, Eley Tenex match stuff, and the like.
Another interesting feature was how obvious is was that gun safes were getting cleaned out. A lot of guys I visit at every show, collectors who normally have nothing but antique Smiths or rows of old military surplus turnbolts, had their usual content and then, looking incongruous among the Krags and Lugers and top-break S&Ws would be the odd TEC-9 or Green Label Colt AR ("Unfired In The Box!") or MAK-90 that had been gathering dust in the corner of a safe since the panic of the early '90s.
There were plenty of ARs, but pricing was pretty optimistic; most of the ones I saw there yesterday morning were still there this afternoon.
One of the most interesting things was the big dealer who sets up in the front corner of the exhibit hall, pretty much where everybody starts their wend through the aisles, who didn't bring any guns this time, but instead set big boxes of assorted magazines on his table and issued one of his employees a bullhorn, through which she steadily intoned "PMags, thirty-five dollars! Magpul PMags in stock, thirty-five dollars!" Deeper into the exhibit hall were one or two dealers who had stashes of PMags on their tables marked at forty or fifty dollars or even more, not stopping to think that the guy up in the front corner had effectively set the price ceiling for the show. (Conversely, when I saw some for thirty bucks, my subconscious immediately thought "Wow, that's a good price!" before I reminded it that I already have enough PMags to outfit an infantry company...)
As much as I hate the mandated coonfingering of carry guns before entering and after leaving, I also hate the fact that inside the show I get muzzled more times than the Chinese dissident press. As a further aside, when I unload on arrival or gas up my heater after leaving the show, I always go to a brick wall well away from the entrance with nobody else standing around to catch brick chips if I screw up. You would think that in all the gun shows I've been to over the years, I would have had to wait for someone using the same backstop, or turned around to find someone waiting for me to finish using it, and yet I never have...
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Fun Show.
This morning we showed up at Cafe Pretenchou shortly after 0800 for brekkie. I had an omelet with Smoking Goose jowl bacon, feta, and sun dried tomatoes.
From there, we drove down to the state fairgrounds down on 38th and got in line for the gun show, which wrapped around to the backside of the exhibition hall...
None of the people around us in line had ever been to an Indy 1500 gun show before. So much for the media myth of these all being repeat customers...
I didn't see any guns I couldn't live without. Magazines and centerfire ammo prices were borderline insane. I picked up a couple of boxes of Fiocchi .32 S&W Long wadcutters and some more 9mm 127gr +P+ Ranger-T, and the latest edition of the Standard Catalog of Military Firearms
, mostly to support my regular vendors and show willing.
These people weren't there buying stuff to turn in. See that line? All those people are about to spend $500-$1000 to become stakeholders in the Second Amendment.
...down the long side...
...and around to the entrance on the front side.
I didn't see any guns I couldn't live without. Magazines and centerfire ammo prices were borderline insane. I picked up a couple of boxes of Fiocchi .32 S&W Long wadcutters and some more 9mm 127gr +P+ Ranger-T, and the latest edition of the Standard Catalog of Military Firearms
, mostly to support my regular vendors and show willing.These people weren't there buying stuff to turn in. See that line? All those people are about to spend $500-$1000 to become stakeholders in the Second Amendment.
It's Fun Show Time!
Let's all sing the Fun Show Song!
As an aside, check the quislings they found to interview in line...
Look, the only way you can have mandatory background checks on private sales is to have a list of all the guns everybody owns so you know when they change hands, and you can't have a list of my guns because #@%$ you, that's why, so you might as well give up on the background check idea.
Flintlocks and Flop-topsAbout to go stand in line at the 1500, which promises to be like camping out for Aerosmith tickets this time around, since every time Barry open his mouth about guns another 1,000 Hoosiers go stand in line at the fairgrounds and he's been pretty much running his cakehole non-stop on the topic for a month.
And Number Three Russians
Black-powder Mausers
From jackbooted Prussians,
Shiny Smith PC's from limited runs
These are a few of my favorite guns.
Socketed bay'nets
On Zulu War rifles,
Engraved, iv'ried Lugers
That make quite an eyefull
Mosin tomato stakes sold by the ton
These are a few of my favorite guns.
Rusty top-breaks!
Smallbore Schuetzens!
And all of Browning's spawn
I just keep on browsing my favorite guns
Until all m... Oh my God! Does that line go all the way around the building?
As an aside, check the quislings they found to interview in line...
Look, the only way you can have mandatory background checks on private sales is to have a list of all the guns everybody owns so you know when they change hands, and you can't have a list of my guns because #@%$ you, that's why, so you might as well give up on the background check idea.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Would it have mattered?
GOP loyalists say that a President Romney wouldn't be taking long showers with anti-gun groups right now like the current administration is.
Romney skeptics say that he'd be making kissy-face with them to show that he was a bipartisan uniter in the wake of the shooting spree.
I say it really doesn't matter since, even had he won the election, Romney wouldn’t have been president right now, anyway.
Instead, there would have been a lame duck sore loser outgoing administration with only a month left on the shot clock, and they would have taken time out of prying the “R” keys off every computer in the White House to do something especially childish and petty to gun rights on the way out the door.
Romney skeptics say that he'd be making kissy-face with them to show that he was a bipartisan uniter in the wake of the shooting spree.
I say it really doesn't matter since, even had he won the election, Romney wouldn’t have been president right now, anyway.
Instead, there would have been a lame duck sore loser outgoing administration with only a month left on the shot clock, and they would have taken time out of prying the “R” keys off every computer in the White House to do something especially childish and petty to gun rights on the way out the door.
Flash hiders...
The "assault weapon*" banning crowd's obsession with 'flash hiders' is something I never understood. There's no real official difference between a "flash hider" and a "muzzle brake". During the ban era, it was common to silver solder a washer-thickness slice of rifle barrel into the end of an M16 bird cage flash hider, et voilà! She is now a muzzle brake!
For that matter, I'm pretty sure that the other team doesn't get what a flash hider does in the first place. Believe me, the guys with the guns pointed at them will still see some flash, at least briefly.
Every time some civvie-oriented site or magazine does a flash hider effectiveness comparison, I have to shake my head and wonder "How is this ever going to apply to anything I am likely to use my carbine for?" Why not rank them on important factors, like how cool they look on the end of my gun, which one comes with the coolest manufacturer's logo stickers, and which one is currently fashionable and will inspire the most approving nods and make me look 'switched on' to my fellow MOLLE-encrusted students at my next carbine class?
*Now there's a tautology: If you assault somebody with it, it's a weapon. If it's a weapon, it's more or less designed to be useful for assaulting people.
For that matter, I'm pretty sure that the other team doesn't get what a flash hider does in the first place. Believe me, the guys with the guns pointed at them will still see some flash, at least briefly.
Every time some civvie-oriented site or magazine does a flash hider effectiveness comparison, I have to shake my head and wonder "How is this ever going to apply to anything I am likely to use my carbine for?" Why not rank them on important factors, like how cool they look on the end of my gun, which one comes with the coolest manufacturer's logo stickers, and which one is currently fashionable and will inspire the most approving nods and make me look 'switched on' to my fellow MOLLE-encrusted students at my next carbine class?
*Now there's a tautology: If you assault somebody with it, it's a weapon. If it's a weapon, it's more or less designed to be useful for assaulting people.
News cycle...
We interrupt this programming to talk about a bicycle guy pumping himself full of enough hormones to grow tumors on a bowling ball and a college kid's imaginary girlfriend in Canada. We will return to our regularly-scheduled gun banning after these annou... Squirrel!
The tenacity with which the short-attention-span media has stuck to the gun control meme has been unnerving to say the least. The morning national news programs have added what amounted to an additional segment every morning for the last month: News, weather, sports, entertainment, and gun control. By comparison, they were only kinda interested in the death of Michael Jackson.
I'll say this much for the Dear Reader's dog-and-pony show the other day: It seems to have mollified his groupies somewhat, allowing them to chase off after other stories.
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The tenacity with which the short-attention-span media has stuck to the gun control meme has been unnerving to say the least. The morning national news programs have added what amounted to an additional segment every morning for the last month: News, weather, sports, entertainment, and gun control. By comparison, they were only kinda interested in the death of Michael Jackson.
I'll say this much for the Dear Reader's dog-and-pony show the other day: It seems to have mollified his groupies somewhat, allowing them to chase off after other stories.
.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Overheard in the Hallway...
Roomie's voice wafts into the hallway as I walk by, over the sound of the running shower:
RX: "Let me see if I have this right: A politician can exploit dead kids to make a political point and that's okay, and a politician can exploit live kids to make a political point and that's okay, but a private lobbying organization exploiting the politician's kids to make a point is Just Not Done and is reprehensible and beyond the pale?"
Me: "Yup, that's about the size of it."
RX: "Okay. Got it."
True to type...
On the Today show yesterday morning, right after the now-daily gun control segment and ritual Invoking of the Dead Kids, the anchorette immediately segued to "...and the latest news about Boeing's 787 so-called 'Dreamliner'," her scorn quotes almost palpable.
I'm wondering if she would also say "Ford's so-called 'Taurus'"? Like firearms and airplanes, it too is made in smoke-filled corporate boardrooms by fat white guys in top hats, holding bags of money and blowing dollar-sign-shaped smoke rings from their cigars. (While the newsreader's payroll checks for her seven figure salary get cut on 100% recycled hemp paper by the organic locavore neighborhood media co-op.)
I'm wondering if she would also say "Ford's so-called 'Taurus'"? Like firearms and airplanes, it too is made in smoke-filled corporate boardrooms by fat white guys in top hats, holding bags of money and blowing dollar-sign-shaped smoke rings from their cigars. (While the newsreader's payroll checks for her seven figure salary get cut on 100% recycled hemp paper by the organic locavore neighborhood media co-op.)
Overheard on the Phone:
I'm paraphrasing a bit, but...
Shootin' Buddy: "You know, after all the hype and buildup, the only thing to come out of those 23 executive orders is James Yeager getting his carry permit yanked."
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
I don't get it...
Wayne LaPierre goes and says we need to worry about crazy people with guns, fund better school security, and enforce existing laws & prosecute the people who break them, and the Anti-Gun crowd mocks him as a disconnected pro-gun zealot tool of the firearms industry.
Barack Obama commissions a study group headed by the vice president, and then holds a press conference stating that we need to worry about crazy people with guns, fund better school security, and enforce existing laws & prosecute the people who break them, and the Anti-Gun crowd acclaims him as a charismatic visionary taking a bold and sweeping step forward.
Uh... run that by me again?
Barack Obama commissions a study group headed by the vice president, and then holds a press conference stating that we need to worry about crazy people with guns, fund better school security, and enforce existing laws & prosecute the people who break them, and the Anti-Gun crowd acclaims him as a charismatic visionary taking a bold and sweeping step forward.
Uh... run that by me again?
From Twitter...
You'd think that before they waved the bloody shirt, they'd have the decency to take it off the dead kid first.
— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) January 16, 2013
Sen. Manchin (D-WV) is more "dog" than "blue".
Senator Manchin, in a meeting with a WVCDL representative, cheerfully defends selling his constituency down the river, and perhaps inadvertently drops a clue as to why he doesn't fear the political repercussions...
...and that's not even how you spell "viper" anyway.
It's hard to decide what would win the prize as the single dumbest artifact of the Global War on a Noun.
The knee-jerk response would be the way everybody has to take their shoes off at the airport like it's a teppanyaki restaurant and not a flying bus station, all because some guy tried to set off a "shoe bomb" a decade ago and got the crap pummeled out of him by his fellow passengers (which seems to be the standard penalty for Allahu akhbar-ing while flying these days anyway.) I'd gladly sacrifice the occasional planeful of strangers to not have to shuffle through everybody's foot funk any time I wish to avail myself of the marvels of Twentieth Century transportation.
But no, the winner of the prize by far is the "VIPR" team, headed up by the same TSA that brought you the goofy shoe thing above.
Taken off guard when the events of Summer '04 in Spain showed that bombs could be placed in conveyances other than airplanes and seized by the governmental imperative to Do Something (and, more importantly in a nominally democratic society, to Be Seen Doing Something) they came up with the idea of random mobile checkpoints made up of transit cops, federal poultry truck inspectors, Coast Guardsmen, anyone else who fell in the loose catch-all bailiwick of the TSA, and local po-po.
Said clusters of Keystone Kops would descend upon some "intermodal transit point" (bus or train station, truck weigh station, or wherever) and Look Busy, protecting us from terr'rists and "Never you mind about the Fourth Amendment, little Missy, this is for your own good. Are you with us or with the terr'rists? [Cue Lee Greenwood.]"
Fourth Amendment issues aside, this is akin to pulling over to the side of the highway and everybody running out into the field and tearing apart a random haystack because you heard there might be a needle in one, then billing the farmer for keeping him safe from needles.
It'd be nice to think that there was a malevolent plan behind this, meant to accustom Americans to probulation, but sadly that's probably just an unintended side effect. The whole thing doesn't really have that "plan" vibe about it at all, "lack of planning" having become practically the thumbprint of the TSA. No, the TSA is the Maginot Line of federal agencies, always reacting, ever-vigilant against the previous tactic.
It'd also be nice to think that at some point we'll declare victory on the terr'rists and disband the TSA like it was Pershing's AEF, but... Hahahahahahaha! Eliminating federal jobs! That's a funny one! No, the TSA and its VIPR teams aren't going away like the World War I army; they'll linger on like the Korean War-era mohair subsidies that made sure Mark Clark's boys had warm wool trenchcoats to wear in the trenches along the 38th Parallel (where they still squat today, with nary a stitch of wool in sight.) A federal bureaucrat is the only thing known to dig in tighter than an Alabama tick.
As a bonus? The catchy acronym intended to make a bunch of glorified federal meter maids sound sexy and dangerous to those evil jihadists also makes it easy to come up with conspiracy theories, like this Euro website that is to our own domestic Reynold's Wrap yarmulkes what a Bentley is to a Buick when it points the finger at Obama's VIPER death squads.
The knee-jerk response would be the way everybody has to take their shoes off at the airport like it's a teppanyaki restaurant and not a flying bus station, all because some guy tried to set off a "shoe bomb" a decade ago and got the crap pummeled out of him by his fellow passengers (which seems to be the standard penalty for Allahu akhbar-ing while flying these days anyway.) I'd gladly sacrifice the occasional planeful of strangers to not have to shuffle through everybody's foot funk any time I wish to avail myself of the marvels of Twentieth Century transportation.
But no, the winner of the prize by far is the "VIPR" team, headed up by the same TSA that brought you the goofy shoe thing above.
Taken off guard when the events of Summer '04 in Spain showed that bombs could be placed in conveyances other than airplanes and seized by the governmental imperative to Do Something (and, more importantly in a nominally democratic society, to Be Seen Doing Something) they came up with the idea of random mobile checkpoints made up of transit cops, federal poultry truck inspectors, Coast Guardsmen, anyone else who fell in the loose catch-all bailiwick of the TSA, and local po-po.
Said clusters of Keystone Kops would descend upon some "intermodal transit point" (bus or train station, truck weigh station, or wherever) and Look Busy, protecting us from terr'rists and "Never you mind about the Fourth Amendment, little Missy, this is for your own good. Are you with us or with the terr'rists? [Cue Lee Greenwood.]"
Fourth Amendment issues aside, this is akin to pulling over to the side of the highway and everybody running out into the field and tearing apart a random haystack because you heard there might be a needle in one, then billing the farmer for keeping him safe from needles.
It'd be nice to think that there was a malevolent plan behind this, meant to accustom Americans to probulation, but sadly that's probably just an unintended side effect. The whole thing doesn't really have that "plan" vibe about it at all, "lack of planning" having become practically the thumbprint of the TSA. No, the TSA is the Maginot Line of federal agencies, always reacting, ever-vigilant against the previous tactic.
It'd also be nice to think that at some point we'll declare victory on the terr'rists and disband the TSA like it was Pershing's AEF, but... Hahahahahahaha! Eliminating federal jobs! That's a funny one! No, the TSA and its VIPR teams aren't going away like the World War I army; they'll linger on like the Korean War-era mohair subsidies that made sure Mark Clark's boys had warm wool trenchcoats to wear in the trenches along the 38th Parallel (where they still squat today, with nary a stitch of wool in sight.) A federal bureaucrat is the only thing known to dig in tighter than an Alabama tick.
As a bonus? The catchy acronym intended to make a bunch of glorified federal meter maids sound sexy and dangerous to those evil jihadists also makes it easy to come up with conspiracy theories, like this Euro website that is to our own domestic Reynold's Wrap yarmulkes what a Bentley is to a Buick when it points the finger at Obama's VIPER death squads.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Panic is so unbecoming...
A commenter at Sebastian's place reports that Numrich is out of magazines for No.1 Mk.III SMLE rifle.
I'm dubious that they ever really had them. It is a well-established fact that the Brits made, like, 10,000,000 SMLEs and 10,000,001 magazines.
The lone spare SMLE magazine in the world gets sold from one cranky old gun show dealer to another, who slathers it in fresh cosmoline and what appears to be tobacco juice, and marks it up another $5 before burying it under a bunch of rusty Turkish bayonets on the back corner of his table, next to a cigar box full of uniform buttons, an overpriced FN 1910 that someone has chromed like a Studebaker bumper, and a small stack of dog-eared Chick tracts.
Meanwhile, wizardpc reports sighting an $800 Mosin at a fun show.
McThag correctly points out that Mosin collecting has passed the collecting of H&R top-break revolvers in popularity and respectability and is rapidly closing in on collecting Latin American Mauser variants as the thirty-seventh most popular field of firearms curating, and therefore $800 might not be out of line for some of the more obscure Finnish variants.
Meanwhile, I will point out a basic bit of Capitalism 101: If Seller Sam asks $100 for a 50rd box of Remchester .22LR, and Buyer Bob gives him $100 for it, then the price of a 50rd box of Remchester .22LR in that place, at that time, is $100.
I'm dubious that they ever really had them. It is a well-established fact that the Brits made, like, 10,000,000 SMLEs and 10,000,001 magazines.
The lone spare SMLE magazine in the world gets sold from one cranky old gun show dealer to another, who slathers it in fresh cosmoline and what appears to be tobacco juice, and marks it up another $5 before burying it under a bunch of rusty Turkish bayonets on the back corner of his table, next to a cigar box full of uniform buttons, an overpriced FN 1910 that someone has chromed like a Studebaker bumper, and a small stack of dog-eared Chick tracts.
Meanwhile, wizardpc reports sighting an $800 Mosin at a fun show.
McThag correctly points out that Mosin collecting has passed the collecting of H&R top-break revolvers in popularity and respectability and is rapidly closing in on collecting Latin American Mauser variants as the thirty-seventh most popular field of firearms curating, and therefore $800 might not be out of line for some of the more obscure Finnish variants.
Meanwhile, I will point out a basic bit of Capitalism 101: If Seller Sam asks $100 for a 50rd box of Remchester .22LR, and Buyer Bob gives him $100 for it, then the price of a 50rd box of Remchester .22LR in that place, at that time, is $100.
This is how rumors get started...
So, some goldbug site reports that his sister's cousin's mother's boyfriend went to Wal-Mart and tried to buy some .22, and the computer told the cashier that they were out of ammo and wouldn't be ordering any more. And the cashier called the CEO right there from the register, and it was totally true!
And this story got picked up by CNS.com, which as a verifiably true source generally ranks somewhere between PrisonPlanet.com and Debka Files. And then Rush Limbaugh, demonstrating by his many layers of oversight that he is as Main Stream as any other Media, repeated it on the air...
...and my inbox, as well as every gun forum on the internet, blew up. zomg! WALMART ISN'T SELLING AMMO ANYMORE!!1!eleventy!
And it took World Net Daily, of all outlets, to actually pick up the phone and, you know, call Wal-Mart to find out if it was true.
Does nobody think that if the administration had arm-twisted Wal-Mart into discontinuing ammo sales, the first person you'd hear it from wouldn't be a cashier in the sporting goods department, but rather Barry O. himself, doing some nerdy student government brainiac version of a sack dance behind the podium in the White House Briefing Room?
And this story got picked up by CNS.com, which as a verifiably true source generally ranks somewhere between PrisonPlanet.com and Debka Files. And then Rush Limbaugh, demonstrating by his many layers of oversight that he is as Main Stream as any other Media, repeated it on the air...
...and my inbox, as well as every gun forum on the internet, blew up. zomg! WALMART ISN'T SELLING AMMO ANYMORE!!1!eleventy!
And it took World Net Daily, of all outlets, to actually pick up the phone and, you know, call Wal-Mart to find out if it was true.
Does nobody think that if the administration had arm-twisted Wal-Mart into discontinuing ammo sales, the first person you'd hear it from wouldn't be a cashier in the sporting goods department, but rather Barry O. himself, doing some nerdy student government brainiac version of a sack dance behind the podium in the White House Briefing Room?
Mutual of Omaha's Sleeping Kingdom...
Weird dreams filled with strange fauna last night, some of it positively Seussian.
The most interesting were these little critters, about the size and shape of pudgy, plush-bottomed woodchucks, only with curling tusks like wooly mammoths. They lived in colonies like prairie dogs, and the females would gather these balls of nesting material, rolling them along like big tumbleweeds with their noses. My guide demonstrated that these were not the brightest animals in the bestiary, and if you got down on your hands and knees and pushed a tumbleweed along in front of you, they didn't pay you any mind at all and you could get right up among 'em.
Later, we were crossing a river by jumping from one slumbering, mud-covered, school-bus-sized crocodile to another.
Lots of giant caves, each with their own ecosystem, including one containing a giant tiger. We didn't go in that one.
The most interesting were these little critters, about the size and shape of pudgy, plush-bottomed woodchucks, only with curling tusks like wooly mammoths. They lived in colonies like prairie dogs, and the females would gather these balls of nesting material, rolling them along like big tumbleweeds with their noses. My guide demonstrated that these were not the brightest animals in the bestiary, and if you got down on your hands and knees and pushed a tumbleweed along in front of you, they didn't pay you any mind at all and you could get right up among 'em.
Later, we were crossing a river by jumping from one slumbering, mud-covered, school-bus-sized crocodile to another.
Lots of giant caves, each with their own ecosystem, including one containing a giant tiger. We didn't go in that one.
Monday, January 14, 2013
Rant #351,792
I am going to take apart all the phones in the house and find the one that has the sensor in it that detects that I'm either on the loo or on the complete opposite end of the house, on the wrong floor, with my hands full of laundry and with closed doors between me and the nearest phone, and then causes the line to ring.
I'm going to find that sensor, remove it, and use the patent information printed thereon to discover whoever invented it. And when I find that fiend, I am going to make them eat it, one bite at a time, without salt.
I'm going to find that sensor, remove it, and use the patent information printed thereon to discover whoever invented it. And when I find that fiend, I am going to make them eat it, one bite at a time, without salt.
Jumping in puddles.
The snow is gone in Broad Ripple. It was over sixty degrees on Saturday, and the evening brought rain.
And rain.
And more rain.
Almost four inches of rain between Saturday afternoon and Sunday evening.
I was chained to the keyboard for a deadline, but had to make a grocery run in the early afternoon. All the usual low-lying areas were awash, and I approached the first low spot in the road with the ingrained trepidation of a person who drives a car with steamroller tires and a pavement-scraping cow-catcher, which combine for an effect in deep puddles not unlike Col. Stapp's sled hitting the water brakes at the end of the run.
Of course the Subie, on its tall, skinny tires, puttered right through with no real feedback through the controls to announce we had just motored through a body of water large enough to stock with game fish. If the two or three inches that had been under the tires weren't splashed up past the fenders, I'd've never known.
Because I'm a responsible adult, I did not start driving about, looking for more puddles in which to jump.
Now, on Monday morning, I couldn't jump in them anyway, as this morning's low was fifty degrees fondly Fahrenheit lower than Saturday afternoon's high, and the puddles that were splashy at 66°F are all skatey at 17°F.
And rain.
And more rain.
Almost four inches of rain between Saturday afternoon and Sunday evening.
I was chained to the keyboard for a deadline, but had to make a grocery run in the early afternoon. All the usual low-lying areas were awash, and I approached the first low spot in the road with the ingrained trepidation of a person who drives a car with steamroller tires and a pavement-scraping cow-catcher, which combine for an effect in deep puddles not unlike Col. Stapp's sled hitting the water brakes at the end of the run.
 |
| One of our local low spots, broadly rippling back in August of '11. The one on 54th yesterday wasn't quite this deep... at least, not if you straddled the double yellow, it wasn't. |
Because I'm a responsible adult, I did not start driving about, looking for more puddles in which to jump.
Now, on Monday morning, I couldn't jump in them anyway, as this morning's low was fifty degrees fondly Fahrenheit lower than Saturday afternoon's high, and the puddles that were splashy at 66°F are all skatey at 17°F.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
The Honey Boo Boo of the firearms industry.
I call it Elvis Syndrome.
Surrounded by groupies and acolytes and yes-men, it can be easy to lose perspective. When your every utterance is treated as a pearl of wisdom, when there's nobody who tells you "no", you can start to buy into your own hype.
James Yeager has long been known for being willing to embrace controversy within the firearms industry, most recently by threatening to beat up the internet for calling him a coward, but largely remained a cipher to mainstream media and the outside world.
And then, in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting and right smack in the middle of a raging national debate about guns in the hands of the mentally unstable, he put up a red-faced and spittle-flecked YouTube video in which he threatened to "start killing people".
The outside world noticed.
Mainstream media noticed.
The unblinking eye turned on his background. They haven't discovered the "duel contract" yet, but they will. His toter's permit got yanked.
He deleted the original video, put out an edited one, and has now appeared in a third video with a man who seems to be his lawyer (put that man on danger pay, James!), walking back his earlier statements but the internet, like rock and roll, never forgets.
Here's my question: In his entire entourage of uncritical nuthuggers, was there not one single person willing to play Smithers to Yeager's Mr. Burns? Nobody to say "Uh, sir, maybe going on camera all bug-eyed and threatening to kill people isn't such a good idea when bug-eyed people have been running around killing people."
And no matter how much you don't want him on your team, he is on your team anyway. He is getting so much attention at HuffPo and DailyKos because to them, he confirms every stereotype they have of gun owners the way Limbaugh listeners think that all Democrat voters are dreadlocked hippies in #OCCUPY_DRUM_CIRCLE. James Yeager has sent the entire gun rights movement downrange with a camera.
Thanks a lot, James. Before you score another Own Goal, how about hiring somebody whose only job is to follow you around and say "No."? You need a Smithers in your life.
Surrounded by groupies and acolytes and yes-men, it can be easy to lose perspective. When your every utterance is treated as a pearl of wisdom, when there's nobody who tells you "no", you can start to buy into your own hype.
James Yeager has long been known for being willing to embrace controversy within the firearms industry, most recently by threatening to beat up the internet for calling him a coward, but largely remained a cipher to mainstream media and the outside world.
And then, in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting and right smack in the middle of a raging national debate about guns in the hands of the mentally unstable, he put up a red-faced and spittle-flecked YouTube video in which he threatened to "start killing people".
The outside world noticed.
Mainstream media noticed.
The unblinking eye turned on his background. They haven't discovered the "duel contract" yet, but they will. His toter's permit got yanked.
He deleted the original video, put out an edited one, and has now appeared in a third video with a man who seems to be his lawyer (put that man on danger pay, James!), walking back his earlier statements but the internet, like rock and roll, never forgets.
Here's my question: In his entire entourage of uncritical nuthuggers, was there not one single person willing to play Smithers to Yeager's Mr. Burns? Nobody to say "Uh, sir, maybe going on camera all bug-eyed and threatening to kill people isn't such a good idea when bug-eyed people have been running around killing people."
And no matter how much you don't want him on your team, he is on your team anyway. He is getting so much attention at HuffPo and DailyKos because to them, he confirms every stereotype they have of gun owners the way Limbaugh listeners think that all Democrat voters are dreadlocked hippies in #OCCUPY_DRUM_CIRCLE. James Yeager has sent the entire gun rights movement downrange with a camera.
Thanks a lot, James. Before you score another Own Goal, how about hiring somebody whose only job is to follow you around and say "No."? You need a Smithers in your life.
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Tommy Atkins rocks out with his Glock out...
So the Brits have inked a deal with the purveyors of Austria's Drastic Plastic and the Glock 17 will become the standard service sidearm of the UK milit'ree, replacing a stock of increasingly decrepit Browning High Powers (which UK SOF had already ditched for the SIG P-226 some time back.)
It's a pretty big feather in Gaston's cap. Sure, the Glock is a common cop handgun, the closest thing to a universal police sidearm in the US since the K-frame Smith, but it hasn't made huge inroads as a standard service sidearm, which is what it was designed to be in the first place. Austria, a couple of smaller NATO armies, some various special ops units, and a bunch of non-aligned countries and Third World places run by guys dressed like train conductors, but never adopted as a standard issue sidearm by one of the Big Boys.
I'm surprised that an order for a tri-service general issue sidearm from the UK MOD is only 25k units, though. That wouldn't equip the whole New York City Police Department.I guess now that the sun's set on the empire, it doesn't take nearly as many pistols to man the mealy bag walls.
It's a pretty big feather in Gaston's cap. Sure, the Glock is a common cop handgun, the closest thing to a universal police sidearm in the US since the K-frame Smith, but it hasn't made huge inroads as a standard service sidearm, which is what it was designed to be in the first place. Austria, a couple of smaller NATO armies, some various special ops units, and a bunch of non-aligned countries and Third World places run by guys dressed like train conductors, but never adopted as a standard issue sidearm by one of the Big Boys.
I'm surprised that an order for a tri-service general issue sidearm from the UK MOD is only 25k units, though. That wouldn't equip the whole New York City Police Department.I guess now that the sun's set on the empire, it doesn't take nearly as many pistols to man the mealy bag walls.
Friday, January 11, 2013
I don't care who you are, that's funny right there...
Strike anyone else funny that Eric Holder is in group suggesting we do a better job of tracking guns? #FastFurious
— Dave Ramsey (@DaveRamsey) January 11, 2013
Pictures from an exhibition...
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| Quatre fromages quiche at Mimi's in K-town for brekkie with staghounds Tuesday morning before driving back to Indy. |
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| Back in Indy, the Goose The Market truck is spotted! I did not give chase, alas. |
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| The Team INGO mural on the wall at Beech Grove Firearms has little strips of bacon in the strip along the ceiling. Because bacon. |
QotD: You've Got That Backwards Edition...
So the "smart guns" idea, like zombies, vampires, the Charter Arms corporation, and other things that won't stay in the grave, has resurfaced, this time with a boneheaded CNN op-ed by someone who thinks that location-enabled "smart guns" could consult Google Maps, realize they were in a church or a day care center, and not allow the maniac too dumb to root his phone or download "SpreeKiller 1.0" from Android Marketplace to launch his killin' spree. (Of course the po-po's guns wouldn't have this feature)
A commenter on a firearms forum quipped:
A commenter on a firearms forum quipped:
I want a cellphone with the reliability and durability of my Kalashnikov.Wish to heck I'd wrote that.
Not the other way around.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Overheard in the Office...
RX: "'Bull testicle beer to be sold nationwide later this month'..."
Me: "To someone other than me."
RX: "You're not going to get any bull testicle beer?"
Me: "No. I'll drink weasel poo beer, but you gotta draw the line someplace."
So...
Went to the Mohs surgeon yesterday.
He was a nice guy, very confident. I like confidence in a man who's going to be taking a knife to my face.
He spent the time alternately assuring me that I had nothing to worry about, that his goal was that there not be any visible scarring, and scaring my pants off by telling me that there was no telling how deep or widespread the roots of this carcinoma had gone, but if too much tissue had to be removed, then there was always the option of a good ENT...
I'm not at all good with the whole Lon Chaney, Sr. Phantom of the Opera look.
Surgery's scheduled for next month.
He was a lot better at scaring than he was at reassuring, or maybe I'm just a lot better at being scared than reassured.
He was a nice guy, very confident. I like confidence in a man who's going to be taking a knife to my face.
He spent the time alternately assuring me that I had nothing to worry about, that his goal was that there not be any visible scarring, and scaring my pants off by telling me that there was no telling how deep or widespread the roots of this carcinoma had gone, but if too much tissue had to be removed, then there was always the option of a good ENT...
I'm not at all good with the whole Lon Chaney, Sr. Phantom of the Opera look.
Surgery's scheduled for next month.
He was a lot better at scaring than he was at reassuring, or maybe I'm just a lot better at being scared than reassured.
Wednesday, January 09, 2013
Unified Field Theory...
While down in Tennessee, I was riding in the car en route to Wal-Mart with Gunsmith Bob when we passed what looked to be Stephen Hawking's redneck cousin, lolling down the road in his motorized wheelchair, wearing a Mossy Oak jacket. His wheelchair had large knobby tires covered in mud. I had no idea that wheelchairs were available with a Z71 off-road package.
If I had driven down to K-town just to see that and then got back in the car and drove back to Indy, it would have been worth the trip.
This triggers thoughts of Hawking visiting his American cousin, and being told "I don't know why you're still goin' on with this 'strang theory', when ever'body knows my 'bent coathanger and duct tape theory' is both simpler an' more predictive."
Somewhere on the road in southeastern Kentucky yesterday, I was listening to NPR and discovered that it was the birthday of both Elvis Presley and Steven Hawking, which seemed fittingly coincidental.
If I had driven down to K-town just to see that and then got back in the car and drove back to Indy, it would have been worth the trip.
This triggers thoughts of Hawking visiting his American cousin, and being told "I don't know why you're still goin' on with this 'strang theory', when ever'body knows my 'bent coathanger and duct tape theory' is both simpler an' more predictive."
Somewhere on the road in southeastern Kentucky yesterday, I was listening to NPR and discovered that it was the birthday of both Elvis Presley and Steven Hawking, which seemed fittingly coincidental.
Long drive yesterday...
Driving home from Knoxville yesterday, on I-75 in the hills south of Corbin, Kentucky, I saw what appeared to be a... was that a hawk? A buzzard?
Instead, it grew rapidly in size and turned out to be a little higher above the treetops than I'd initially thought: An OH-58 Kiowa Warrior, looking like a black*-painted traffic chopper with stubby, hardpoint-studded gunship wings and a bulbous growth atop the rotor mast.
It was blasting south-southwest at about yeehaw feet AGL, following the asphalt compass just high enough to clear ridge lines and high-tension wires.
After a decent interval, another trio of dots resolved into the Kiowa's wingman, trailing him astern at a distance, in turn being closely followed by a pair of what looked like MH-60 Blackhawks. Given where I was at the time, I reckon they were headed in a generally Fort Campbell-ward direction.
It was kinda cool.
*Yeah, I know it's really very dark green.
Instead, it grew rapidly in size and turned out to be a little higher above the treetops than I'd initially thought: An OH-58 Kiowa Warrior, looking like a black*-painted traffic chopper with stubby, hardpoint-studded gunship wings and a bulbous growth atop the rotor mast.
It was blasting south-southwest at about yeehaw feet AGL, following the asphalt compass just high enough to clear ridge lines and high-tension wires.
After a decent interval, another trio of dots resolved into the Kiowa's wingman, trailing him astern at a distance, in turn being closely followed by a pair of what looked like MH-60 Blackhawks. Given where I was at the time, I reckon they were headed in a generally Fort Campbell-ward direction.
It was kinda cool.
*Yeah, I know it's really very dark green.
Tuesday, January 08, 2013
Political calculus:
On Friday, Harry Reid said
But that's not the important point, here. The important point is that now we know that in the Inside-The-Beltway mind, Sandy was far more devastating than Katrina, despite the latter killing 1833* to the former's 113.
This provides us a handy metric for future use: If you live in flyover country, you're right around 1/16th of a real person to the bicoastal power elite.
*Well, 1833ish. Some parts of the Gulf Coast were so thoroughly annihilated that we're really kinda spitballing, here.
"When we had that devastating Katrina, we were there within days taking care of Mississippi, Alabama, and especially Louisiana. Within days," Reid said. "We are now past two months with the people of New York. And the people of New Orleans and that area - they were hurt, but nothing in comparison to what has happened to the people of New England."...which is funny, because all I remember Democrats talking about back then was how slow the response was because George Bush hates black people.
But that's not the important point, here. The important point is that now we know that in the Inside-The-Beltway mind, Sandy was far more devastating than Katrina, despite the latter killing 1833* to the former's 113.
This provides us a handy metric for future use: If you live in flyover country, you're right around 1/16th of a real person to the bicoastal power elite.
*Well, 1833ish. Some parts of the Gulf Coast were so thoroughly annihilated that we're really kinda spitballing, here.
Halftime pep talk in the Notre Dame locker room...
And the last thing he said to me -- "Rock," he said - "sometime, when the team is up against it -- and the breaks are beating the boys -- tell them to go out there with all they got and please just get somewhere even close to the point spread for the Gipper..."To steal a line from a Tweet I saw scroll past last night: "World's Largest Religion: 14, Alabama's Largest Religion: 42" (My other favorite? Whoever Tweeted "They should change their name to Notre Ame, because they have no D.")
I thought it was right classy of Nick Saban to give the water boys some playing time there at the end...
Monday, January 07, 2013
Things I never thought I'd miss.
Most of my life, my vehicles were pretty spartan. In addition to the years riding motorcycles, where weather protection is something you wear and grocery shopping is limited to what you can squeeze under a bungee net on the pillion, I have driven beaters that needed to be exited through the passenger door and once had a daily driver with no carpeting, no radio, five-point harnesses by way of seatbelts, and a fire extinguisher between the seats where most cars have cup holders.
It's not like the Z3 is exactly a plush-bottomed luxobarge, but it does have a few creature comforts which I wasn't used to and which I therefore pooh-poohed as excessive fripperies when I bought it. Now, having driven the Forester for a week while the Zed sits in the garage waiting for climate change to have an effect on the Broad Ripple glacier sliding down the alley, I find myself missing things I never thought I'd miss...
Remote door locks, for example. Before I had the Z3, I used to mock the little *beeps* and *bwoops* you'd hear in parking lots, yet it only took a month or two before I found myself standing outside my apartment door with an armload of groceries, unconsciously thumbing the remote as though it would unlock the deadbolt, too. The Subie has power locks, but no remote, and I'm constantly getting ten steps across the parking lot and having to go back and do that thing with the key in the door. Funny, I don't remember locking and unlocking a car being this much of a pain in the ass.
Cruise control? I can hold a speed on the highway +/- 5mph without tying up too many processor cycles, but what am I supposed to do if my right foot gets a little owie and sore after a couple hours? Coast to the shoulder while trying to flex some life into my tootsies and the stiffness out of my ankle? I can't remember... I know I took roadtrips before 2001, and so I must have known the answer and just forgot it.
The roadster has a pretty truncated version of BMW's trip computer: Pushing in on the turn signal stalk will toggle the clock through telling you the outside air temp, average speed, average mileage, and range remaining on this tank. The Subie will tell me what time it is, but only because the clock in the Alpine head unit is still soldiering on after the integral one in the overhead console has gone to wherever it is that little LED clocks go after a long and happy life. Being the 'satiably curious sort, I find myself scanning the horizon for bank thermometers because what's the temperature, dammit? I have to know! I used to know and now I don't!
Perhaps surprisingly, I am surviving without the heated seats just fine. The Forester's heater makes with the toasty air in a hurry and the cloth seats warm fast, too, and if you don't dial the temp setting back, it'll run you out of the car in a sweat in a surprisingly short time.
I feel like such a tenderfoot for missing cruise control, though...
It's not like the Z3 is exactly a plush-bottomed luxobarge, but it does have a few creature comforts which I wasn't used to and which I therefore pooh-poohed as excessive fripperies when I bought it. Now, having driven the Forester for a week while the Zed sits in the garage waiting for climate change to have an effect on the Broad Ripple glacier sliding down the alley, I find myself missing things I never thought I'd miss...
Remote door locks, for example. Before I had the Z3, I used to mock the little *beeps* and *bwoops* you'd hear in parking lots, yet it only took a month or two before I found myself standing outside my apartment door with an armload of groceries, unconsciously thumbing the remote as though it would unlock the deadbolt, too. The Subie has power locks, but no remote, and I'm constantly getting ten steps across the parking lot and having to go back and do that thing with the key in the door. Funny, I don't remember locking and unlocking a car being this much of a pain in the ass.
Cruise control? I can hold a speed on the highway +/- 5mph without tying up too many processor cycles, but what am I supposed to do if my right foot gets a little owie and sore after a couple hours? Coast to the shoulder while trying to flex some life into my tootsies and the stiffness out of my ankle? I can't remember... I know I took roadtrips before 2001, and so I must have known the answer and just forgot it.
The roadster has a pretty truncated version of BMW's trip computer: Pushing in on the turn signal stalk will toggle the clock through telling you the outside air temp, average speed, average mileage, and range remaining on this tank. The Subie will tell me what time it is, but only because the clock in the Alpine head unit is still soldiering on after the integral one in the overhead console has gone to wherever it is that little LED clocks go after a long and happy life. Being the 'satiably curious sort, I find myself scanning the horizon for bank thermometers because what's the temperature, dammit? I have to know! I used to know and now I don't!
Perhaps surprisingly, I am surviving without the heated seats just fine. The Forester's heater makes with the toasty air in a hurry and the cloth seats warm fast, too, and if you don't dial the temp setting back, it'll run you out of the car in a sweat in a surprisingly short time.
I feel like such a tenderfoot for missing cruise control, though...
Sunday, January 06, 2013
I hate Connecticut Nazis...
Thinking further on CT bigot Stephen Dargan's proposal to make public the names of handgun carry permit holders in his state, I've been pondering other steps that he could take to address the right of people to feel safe after the media has gotten done scaring their pants off like a James Wan film festival.
For example, to allow normal people to ride public transit without having to fear that the person next to them is carrying a hidden gun, perhaps they could put a special section for gun owners in the back of city buses?
For example, to allow normal people to ride public transit without having to fear that the person next to them is carrying a hidden gun, perhaps they could put a special section for gun owners in the back of city buses?
Links, zwo, drei, vier...
- Connecticut state lawmaker proposes making public the handgun carry permit holder database in the Nutmeg State. I don't mean to go all Godwin here, but I was moderately surprised when his rhetoric didn't close with "demonstrations against gun owners should not be prepared or organized by the party, but insofar as they erupt spontaneously, they are not to be hampered."
- Sebastian breaks down the WaPo article on the forthcoming Administration assault on your Second Amendment rights.
- AGirlAndHerGun posted some family range time pics. That looks like fun! I need to shoot long guns more.
- Remember that 'world without guns' post I wrote the other day? Well, Tim at Gun Nuts Media took the ball and ran with that sucker. Expect to find this essay in your email inbox within the next six months, credited to a "Maj. Caudill, USMC".
Lazy Sunday.
I didn't oversleep.
I woke up at the regular time, looked around, thought "Sod this," and went back to bed.
World still here, I assume?
.
I woke up at the regular time, looked around, thought "Sod this," and went back to bed.
World still here, I assume?
.
Saturday, January 05, 2013
How's that work, again?
So the German government has decided to centralize and nationalize its firearms registry, rather than leave it in the hands of the states. Not even the control freaks who were running the place in the '30s did that.
If I write down my name and address and my gun's serial number on a 3x5" index card and hand it to you, how can you use that index card to keep me from shooting somebody, other than maybe waving it in my face in an attempt to throw off my aim?
Gun registration does nothing... can do nothing... to curb gun violence. All it can do is tell you who the gun belonged to at some point in in the past, should you happen to find it dropped at the murder scene, next to the cooling body.
At best it's a placebo to the perpetually fearful, while at worst (and historically it's nearly always been worst) it's a prelude to confiscation.
Germany has compiled a national register of firearms for the first time. Figures previously held by a multitude of local authorities have been centrally pooled as part of efforts to curb gun violence.I'm sure we've been over this before, but maybe there have been new developments of which I'm unaware, so tell me something: How does gun registration do a single thing to curb gun violence?
If I write down my name and address and my gun's serial number on a 3x5" index card and hand it to you, how can you use that index card to keep me from shooting somebody, other than maybe waving it in my face in an attempt to throw off my aim?
Gun registration does nothing... can do nothing... to curb gun violence. All it can do is tell you who the gun belonged to at some point in in the past, should you happen to find it dropped at the murder scene, next to the cooling body.
At best it's a placebo to the perpetually fearful, while at worst (and historically it's nearly always been worst) it's a prelude to confiscation.
Friday, January 04, 2013
Moar Subie!
The circumnavigation of I-465 went well, without any bits falling off or the car overheating.
Steep curves at on- and off-ramps resulted in me getting all squeamish, afraid that the Forester would tip over, since it has, relative to the Zed Drei at least, approximately the proportions of a wheeled telephone booth*.
Steering took some getting used to: A lot more power assist, plus tall and flexy front tire sidewalls, plus the age of the vehicle equaled a numb on-center feel compared to what I'm used to. Combined with the increased body roll, it's going to be a while before I get comfortable with the idea of making like Tommi Mäkinen in the thing.
Pulls good up to freeway speeds, but runs out of breath a lot sooner than I'm used to. At ~70 mph, both the Forester and the Zed Drei are turning right around 3k rpm, but if you flatten the throttle at that speed, the Bimmer will still shove you back in your seat, while the Subie just sighs and grudgingly, slowly, picks up more speed. This is to be expected from an object that weighs 500 pounds more, has 25hp less, and is the size and shape of a small garden shed.
Today I'll be changing the earl in the car, despite the sticker that says it was done 2k ago, because just because.
*Ask your parents what a "telephone booth" is, kids. Basically, back when telephones had to be connected to buildings with a wire, we put up tiny glass buildings on the street in which to attach phones that anybody could use and get their nasty germs all over. The next time that old movie The Matrix comes on the classic movie channel, look for the scene where Trinity nearly gets squooshed by the truck. That thing she's standing in is a telephone booth.
Steep curves at on- and off-ramps resulted in me getting all squeamish, afraid that the Forester would tip over, since it has, relative to the Zed Drei at least, approximately the proportions of a wheeled telephone booth*.
Steering took some getting used to: A lot more power assist, plus tall and flexy front tire sidewalls, plus the age of the vehicle equaled a numb on-center feel compared to what I'm used to. Combined with the increased body roll, it's going to be a while before I get comfortable with the idea of making like Tommi Mäkinen in the thing.
Pulls good up to freeway speeds, but runs out of breath a lot sooner than I'm used to. At ~70 mph, both the Forester and the Zed Drei are turning right around 3k rpm, but if you flatten the throttle at that speed, the Bimmer will still shove you back in your seat, while the Subie just sighs and grudgingly, slowly, picks up more speed. This is to be expected from an object that weighs 500 pounds more, has 25hp less, and is the size and shape of a small garden shed.
Today I'll be changing the earl in the car, despite the sticker that says it was done 2k ago, because just because.
*Ask your parents what a "telephone booth" is, kids. Basically, back when telephones had to be connected to buildings with a wire, we put up tiny glass buildings on the street in which to attach phones that anybody could use and get their nasty germs all over. The next time that old movie The Matrix comes on the classic movie channel, look for the scene where Trinity nearly gets squooshed by the truck. That thing she's standing in is a telephone booth.
Imagine there's no stupid; it's easy if you try...
I am sick and tired of being told "But if criminals didn't have guns, then you wouldn't need them either, right? Wouldn't you rather live in a world without guns?"
Putting aside the pie in the sky impracticality of this, I like to point out to these people that we already had a world without guns; it was called the Middle Ages. It was a peaceful utopia where the lion lay down with the lamb... any time it wanted to, and the lamb just shut up and took it, if the lamb knew what was good for it.
No, thank you. I do not want to live in a world without guns.
Putting aside the pie in the sky impracticality of this, I like to point out to these people that we already had a world without guns; it was called the Middle Ages. It was a peaceful utopia where the lion lay down with the lamb... any time it wanted to, and the lamb just shut up and took it, if the lamb knew what was good for it.
No, thank you. I do not want to live in a world without guns.
Thursday, January 03, 2013
Initial Subie thoughts...
I had some time behind the wheel of Robin's Forester last time I was up in New Hamster, and was impressed with its performance on sloppy dirt roads, so I wasn't coming into this car totally cold.
There are some notable differences, though, between the two: The newer Forester I had driven around Upper Cryogenica sits higher, more like an SUV, while the old '99 model is a lot closer to its "tall wagon" Outback roots. The low seat height and high roofline make for an almost bizarre amount of headroom, as C&D noted:
The lower seating position and manual transmission make for an altogether more car-like driving experience than the newer Foresters, although all that car in the rearview is going to take some getting used to, considering I'm used to being able to just about reach back and pop the trunk latch by hand if the top's down.
Even on the sleazy department-store tires it's currently wearing, this thing is amazingly dogged on the skating rinks we have by way of side streets here in Broad Ripple right now. I'll bet on a good set of winter tires you could put it in first and putter up a frozen waterfall.
I'll be taking it for a highway shakedown cruise some time today, doing a lap around I-465, seeing how it does at freeway speeds for an hour or so straight. I think this is a prudent thing to do before taking a high-mileage vehicle on any roadtrips....
There are some notable differences, though, between the two: The newer Forester I had driven around Upper Cryogenica sits higher, more like an SUV, while the old '99 model is a lot closer to its "tall wagon" Outback roots. The low seat height and high roofline make for an almost bizarre amount of headroom, as C&D noted:
The Forester fits in this group like a silk slipper at a clogging match. Yes, it has the foul-weather agility of a full-time all-wheel-driver and the roofline towers over most cars'. But you sit down low, eyeball to eyeball with all the other auto pilots, with lots of air overhead, perfect for the chef who wants to dress and then drive to work. What we have here is a Subaru sedan with a backward choptop: Height was added.Of course, compared to the Zed Drei which has been my sole ride for the last decade, even the older Subie feels tall and wobbly, but so does my neighbor's Accord coupe.
The lower seating position and manual transmission make for an altogether more car-like driving experience than the newer Foresters, although all that car in the rearview is going to take some getting used to, considering I'm used to being able to just about reach back and pop the trunk latch by hand if the top's down.
Even on the sleazy department-store tires it's currently wearing, this thing is amazingly dogged on the skating rinks we have by way of side streets here in Broad Ripple right now. I'll bet on a good set of winter tires you could put it in first and putter up a frozen waterfall.
I'll be taking it for a highway shakedown cruise some time today, doing a lap around I-465, seeing how it does at freeway speeds for an hour or so straight. I think this is a prudent thing to do before taking a high-mileage vehicle on any roadtrips....
Brrr...
My WeatherChannel.com window tracks the temps and WX at Roseholme Cottage, Nerd Ranch, and Castle Frostbite.
Despite the first two turning in current temps of 14°F and 262.6°K, respectively, Castle Frostbite manages to live up to its name, with a current outdoor thermometer reading of -24.4°C. Marko doesn't call it Upper Cryogenica for nothing...
Despite the first two turning in current temps of 14°F and 262.6°K, respectively, Castle Frostbite manages to live up to its name, with a current outdoor thermometer reading of -24.4°C. Marko doesn't call it Upper Cryogenica for nothing...
Wednesday, January 02, 2013
Miscellaneous images from the holiday weekend...
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| En route to lunch at Yat's, the crosswalk signal at 54th & College attempts to distract me. |
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| Turk's brekkie at Taste on Sunday: A BELT. (Bacon, egg, lettuce, & tomato.) |
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| My brekkie at ditto: Sausage gravy on cheesy biscuits with three eggs and a drizzle of Sriracha. There was bacon on the side. |
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| Shootin' Buddy maintains that a well-ordered world has three things: 1) Hooks in bathrooms, 2) Pants on monkeys, and 3) Slings on long guns. He used the provided crayons to illustrate the problems with Zest's bathrooms on the paper tablecloth Saturday morning. No pantsless monkeys were observed, so we were good there. |
We are now all experts on dural blood clots.
I have seen more 3-D cutaways of the outgoing Secretary of State's grape in the last 48 hours than I have goofy cartoons of a baby wearing a sash reading "2013".
The ghoulish obsession with the internal bits of ailing politicians, especially during the hours when normal people are trying to eat breakfast or dinner, is annoying and gross. At least this wasn't another encounter with presidential polyps. (Although, come to think of it, I'm not sure which is the more unappetizing place to find oneself: Up Reagan's ass or inside Hillary's head?)
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The ghoulish obsession with the internal bits of ailing politicians, especially during the hours when normal people are trying to eat breakfast or dinner, is annoying and gross. At least this wasn't another encounter with presidential polyps. (Although, come to think of it, I'm not sure which is the more unappetizing place to find oneself: Up Reagan's ass or inside Hillary's head?)
.
Better?
Bobbi asked if I would be joining her for brekkie this morning, but I demurred, grabbing a cup of yogurt* from the fridge, instead.
The smell of bacon was too enticing, and unlike yesterday, when I had to force myself to nibble three or four teeny bites off a Chik-fil-A sammich for lunch, I was ravenous.
I ate slowly and carefully.
So far, so good.
Meanwhile, it's 9°F out there! (That's almost thirteen below in metric degrees!) That's the coldest recorded temperature of the year so far!
Actually, it's going to wind up the lowest temp since February of '11, what with the winter of '11-'12 being such a wet firecracker.
*Dreaming Cow vanilla-agave flavor. Recommend. I mean, if you're into yogurt, which roomie definitely is not. "When milk does that, we throw it out!" she says.
The smell of bacon was too enticing, and unlike yesterday, when I had to force myself to nibble three or four teeny bites off a Chik-fil-A sammich for lunch, I was ravenous.
I ate slowly and carefully.
So far, so good.
Meanwhile, it's 9°F out there! (That's almost thirteen below in metric degrees!) That's the coldest recorded temperature of the year so far!
Actually, it's going to wind up the lowest temp since February of '11, what with the winter of '11-'12 being such a wet firecracker.
*Dreaming Cow vanilla-agave flavor. Recommend. I mean, if you're into yogurt, which roomie definitely is not. "When milk does that, we throw it out!" she says.
Tuesday, January 01, 2013
Uh, Happy New Year?
Sorry about the absolute lack of posts.
Haven't kept any food down today. There is no way that this is a hangover from two tiny cordial glasses of champagne. Stomach bug? Who knows.
Here's hoping everyone's new year is off to a better start than mine.
Haven't kept any food down today. There is no way that this is a hangover from two tiny cordial glasses of champagne. Stomach bug? Who knows.
Here's hoping everyone's new year is off to a better start than mine.
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