AR Bleg.

I need an AR upper. I know I want a 16" flat-top with a midlength handguard and a fixed front sight, and I want something that's not going to puke if I stuff a case of ammo through it in one weekend. But other than that, I don't have many hard-and-fast specs in mind.

I'd love me a DD or BCM, but I'm torn between that and screwing one together using good parts on my own. Thoughts? Suggestions? Sources for good deals?

Also, I'm debating a .300BLK or 6.8SPC carbine barrel assembly (or barrel & BCG in the case of the latter) for my MGA switch-barrel upper, but that could be another thread.


(In accordance with all requests for firearms input on the intertubes, somebody please remember to say "Get a Glock" within the first eight posts.)

Airsoft: school me.

I'm most familiar with airsoft long guns that are battery operated. I am dimly aware that airsoft handguns come in two flavors: spring-piston and 'green gas'-powered. All I know about the two is the former are cheap and the latter are... let's say "somewhat fussy".

I've thought that an airsoft clone of my actual CCW gun might be handy for certain uses, but all the airsoft 1911s that I’ve run into are either GI clones for kids that want to play Saving Private Ryan or double-stack STI 2011 knockoffs for kids that want to play IPSC superstar. I’ve yet to find a single-stack airsoft 1911 with a beavertail, extended thumb safety, and three-dot sights at the local gun show. (Of course, all the guns there looked a little chintzy anyway...)

For you game geeks out there...

I'm looking for two things for my Nintendo DS:

1. A classic RPG. (The kind with elves and dwarves and fighters and clerics, and not the kind with manga characters with spiky hair and Margaret Keane eyes.)
2. A turn-based strategy game of the classic 4X variety.

All suggestions appreciated.

Help me, LazyWebz! You're my only hope!

Building the perfect beast.

Over time, I have accumulated a few things here and there... A Rock River 1911 frame, a set of Cylinder & Slide lockwork, a Videcki trigger, odds and sods like that.

I've got to the point where I have the whole bottom end of a 1911, in pieces, and all I need is the top end. I figured I'd leave it with the folks at CCA on this visit, to be assembled into a complete pistol.

I know I'm going to go with a Kart barrel.

Thing is, they're fresh out of slides at the moment. I know I'm going to have to order one, so which one should I get? This whole gun is going to be pretty top shelf, and I don't really want to go with Caspian...

Poll

Help settle a Roseholme Cottage argument:

Suzanne Vega's "Tom's Diner" is the most insidious earworm ever, and can only be exorcised by singing the Oscar Meyer wiener commercial jingle three times. Yes or no?

The short list:

I need something handier for schlepping long guns on road trips, so the 30mpg Zed Drei is slated to be traded here in the next few weeks while car sellers are still desperate and while 30mpg is still a big selling point.

Vehicles around which I am currently sniffing on used car lots:

1) A full-size domestic truck of some sort.
2) A recent RWD domestic sedan (Chrysler 300/Caddy CTS/Lincoln Zephyr).
3) One of Mopar's "Shooting Brake" crossovers (Dodge Magnum/Chrysler Pacifica).
4) An '01-'03 low-end FWD Eurosedan (Audi A4/Saab 9-3).

Comments? Owner experiences? Suggestions? (Unless someone out there in readerland has a sub-100,000mi Lexus SC400, SC300, or Infiniti Q45 with which they're dying to part.)


EDIT: While I appreciate all kinds of suggestions, this is going to need to be a used car in the $6k-$10k price range, so a new Mini Clubman or Bimmer X3/X5 is right out.

X-Files fans:

I have Season 6 on DVD. What season should I get next? Season 5 has "Bad Blood", "Post-Modern Prometheus", and "Unusual Suspects", but Season 4 has "Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man", and Season 3 has "Jose Chung's From Outer Space".

For that matter, what's your favorite episode? (Mine's "The Unnatural".)

The changing of the car?

So, I have spent my adult life in warm climes within a stone's throw of the southern end of the Appalachians. Roads have always been smoothly paved and curvy, snow and ice were things that made the news when they happened, and dwelling in the 'burbs made long commutes a fact of life. No more.

Now I'm living in a city in the middle of a state with the topography of a billiard table. The frost-heaved and potholed roads are only a shell crater away from those in downtown Beirut. Everyplace I need to go is within a mile or two of the house, via flat, straight roads on which my car is unlikely to need fourth gear. With its stiff suspension and low-profile tires on butter-soft alloy rims, the Z3 is something of a fish out of water here in my new neighborhood, despite its Sunday-afternoon top-down poseur potential on Broad Ripple Avenue. I'm seriously thinking about cashing it out while it's still got a fair bit of trade-in mojo.

You may have noticed that despite this blog being tagged with the moniker "booksBIKESboomsticks", I haven't done a lot of writing about bikes since the sale of the Zephyr last year. I've noticed it, too. I'm starting to feel the itch. RobertaX is nice enough to offer to let me use her spare scooter, a little Chinese-built 50cc number, but I'd feel a little silly in my Mighty Morphin Power Rangers riding gear on the thing, plus the fact that I'd need to re-learn the whole shift/brake thing on a scooter. Also I want my own bike.

Suzuki's super-motard style DR-Z400SM is calling my name; I think it would be a perfect around-the-neighborhood Urban Assault Vehicle. It's narrow, light, flickable, reasonably priced, and its 400cc single is insanely good on gas if your don't wring its little neck. That leaves the more challenging part: Picking a 4-wheeled vehicle.

I'm looking for something comfy enough for roadtrips, decent on gas, with at least the pretense of being fun-to-drive, and front-wheel drive for the icky season. It should be able to lope to Tennessee, Texas, or Georgia with room enough for long guns. I'd also prefer something with a rep for longevity. It would need to be fairly reasonably priced, with good used examples available in the $3k-$5k range. Perhaps a Saab 9000S? Volvo? Maxima? Who can say?

Anyhow, anybody want to buy a Bimmer?

Quandary.

Which one more effectively delivers the "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" message: Voting for already-bailed Thompson or for not-a-snowball's-chance-in-hell Paul?

Normality question:

Does anyone else religiously separate the pre-'82 pennies from the rest of their change and hoard them? Or am I weird?

Bleg: Pratchett suggestions...

Okay, I've read Monstrous Regiment, Going Postal, Small Gods, Night Watch, Guards! Guards!, I'm working on Jingo, and Men at Arms is in the on-deck circle...

Suggestions for more? I'm loving this stuff!

Dear Lazyweb: Help me cope.

The one thing I miss, getting older, is the boundless energy I used to have. Strolling out of a nightclub at 7:30AM to pull on my Ray-Bans and mutter "My God, are those people jogging?" I thrived on my bad girl image; hopping out of the Porsche and bouncing into the office three hours later, still wearing the Wayfarers, my co-worker's whispers of "How does she do it?" were worth four hours of sleep right there. As recently as seven years ago I was working a full-time job at night, another part-time job during the day, and commuting 100 miles a day round trip on a sportbike year 'round, and loving it.

It's not like I've become narcoleptic as I've gotten older; I still get by just fine on five or six hours' sleep, but it seems like a certain... regularity has become a necessity. These days my body likes to know that it's going to be put to bed and woken up at or near the same time most days, and it gets cranky if it's not, and now my brain seems to have joined the revolt. And there's the rub: For the first time in my life, I find I have to deal with swing shifts.

The closing on Mo/Tu/We isn't bad at all; given my natural rhythms and left to my own devices, I'd go to bed at three or four and wake up at nine or ten anyway. It's the opening on the weekends that's going to be the death of me: 0400 on a Saturday is no time for an alarm clock to be going off. I compound it by trying to force myself to wake up early on weekdays because the Blog Monster must be fed, and you need to have content up... something, anything... in time for folks to sneak their reading in when they get to work (Check your SiteMeters, fellow bloggers; I'll bet 20-25% of your daily hits come between 0900-1200EST...)

The end result after a month is a surly, apathetic Tamara... Okay, an even surlier and more apathetic than usual Tamara ...who just sits and stares sullenly at her monitor on weekdays, bereft of creative spark, and types bupkis until she finally gets dressed and goes to work at 3:00PM. This can't go on. There has got to be an optimum way to build a schedule around this that will allow me to return to my perky, snarky self of yore.

I'm all ears.

It's Buy A Gun Day!

I don't own a Magic 8-Ball, so I'm going to use you guys instead. I was recently reminded that today is Buy A Gun Day. Do I:

A) Go ahead and buy the Surefire M900 that I was planning on buying anyway. (It's not a gun, but it's as expensive as one, and it goes on a gun. I'm going to put it on the 6.8 carbine. This will allow me to move the Pentagonlight and GG&G grip back over to my brown carbine and return it to housegun duty.)

B) Buy a used Springfield Armory Lightweight Loaded that we got in on trade at work. It needs a cleanin' something fierce (the previous owner was apparently unaware that stainless is just that: stainless, not stainnot, and doesn't mean you can store the gun at the bottom of your saltwater aquarium) but I can probably just barely swing it, and I sure do miss my old Lightweight Loaded.

C) Buy the cheaper (thumbscrew instead of ARMS throw-lever) M900, and put the difference down on a sweet little 18" 20ga Remington 870. The rationale here? Bonnie and Clyde stole my shotgun, at least for another week or so, so that should be plenty of reason to buy a stand-in.


I'm feeling pretty much obligated towards "B)", and, frankly that's the way my heart leans as well (Q: "Should you buy another 1911?" A: "Whattarya? Stupid? Yes.")