Things I hate, #6,821...

I hate being stuck in "Adult Signature Required" hell.

UPS is very sorry they missed me yesterday (I was sorry I missed them, since I had no idea they were coming) so now I'm sitting here with only the vague promise that I will be released from bondage some time between 1130 and 1500hrs, EDT.

Ugh.

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You Are The Product, Example #3732

People are beginning to notice that Amazon's getting more frustrating to use.

"Lately, though, shopping on Amazon has become an exercise in frustration. My purple-wig search started with sponsored listings from unfamiliar brands with just a small disclosure noting that they’re advertisements. The organic results eventually do show up, offering hairpieces from brands with names such as DAOTS, MorvallyDirect, and eNilecor. Scroll only a little deeper into the sea of indigo fibers, and the sponsored items resume.

What happened to Amazon? The company no longer excels at the thing it’s supposed to be best at: shopping. Its unparalleled convenience and cost helped turn it into an e-commerce juggernaut, one that now faces an antitrust lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission over alleged anticompetitive practices. Now around every corner lies a brand you’ve never heard of, selling a product you’re not sure about. Good deals on name brands are harder to come by. Amazon’s dominance has also transformed it into a different kind of company. Along the way, the famously customer-obsessed company has lost track of what its customers actually want.

Start with the ads. At the top of the results for purple wig, I hit a block of stand-alone results, a sponsored storefront from an unfamiliar brand named BERON. That’s followed by four paid results from unidentified companies, followed by, finally, organic results. Even then, those recommendations are based in part on customer reviews, which vendors have notoriously gamed."

This is yet another example of the process Cory Doctorow termed "enshittification":

"Here is how platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a "two-sided market," where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, hold each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them."

Amazon is practically Patient Zero of enshittification, or maybe Google is. The economics of the internet practically demand it.

Facebook is another classic example. 

I see people bitching about their FB posts with outgoing links getting buried by the algorithm, and thinking it's some conspiracy because they're links to gun stuff or conservative political sites, when the fact of the matter is that Facebook flattens all outgoing links. 

Zuck ain't in the business of sending traffic to non-Meta websites, so unless you have a mess of organic readership on the Bookface, nobody's gonna notice your outgoing links regardless of whether they're going to sites about firearms or flower arranging, because they're going to pop up in hardly anybody's feed.

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The Ackshyually Game

Pedantry is a turnoff, especially when used to gatekeep or flex on n00bs.

"The tone and tenor of constructive and educational conversations involving firearms need to consider both the appreciable understanding of the audience and the best way to orient that audience to new learning. The overplayed bits of esoteric knowledge that is ‘technically more correct’ than the audiences’ general understanding can often hamper learning and turn people off of continued education."

Every year they keep moving it up.

We are solidly in the dog days of summer here. It's the sticky middle of August. Back in the day, this was when Louis Awerbuck would show up in Boone County and you could melt in the sun while getting your learning on. I've still got a week of State Fair left; three more weekdays of lemon shake-ups and fried meat on a stick and feeding baby goats and such.

And on the televisor in the next room I just heard one of the talking heads on the TODAY show say that we're a couple weeks out from Dunkin' Spice coffee hitting store shelves.

Which means we'll be hearing Christmas music shortly after Labor Day, mark my words.

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Pegging my BS meter.

Either Laura is dumb as a stump or she thinks you are.
How replacing anti-2A Breyer with anti-2A Jackson is going to "turn your 2nd Amendment rights upside down" on the 6-3 SCOTUS is an exercise best left to those skilled at DoubleThink or the feeble-minded. https://t.co/DFyfmoaxi1

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) March 30, 2022

I can think of plenty of legitimate reasons to oppose the nominee, but that isn't one of 'em, you manipulative cretin. That's just bullshit kneejerk manipulation of the gun vote the way the Sharptons of the world do to the Black vote. 

That is literally the gun rights equivalent of "George Bush will take away your right to vote and put you back on the plantation"; trying to frighten people into supporting you with nonsense scenarios. 

Sharpen your damn arguments and don't treat me like an imbecile, Laura.

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The Special Hell...

So by the time I registered for TacCon, all the discount rooms at the hotel the conference was using had been booked. Cool, cool, no problem, I'll just grab a room at the nearest Holiday Inn Express in Plano and save up some IHG reward points for a discount on my next trip to Alliance, Ohio.

The HIX in question had been remodeled, but it must have been at the start of the current remodeling cycle, because it was already looking down at the heels again.

Monday morning I got up bright and early to head home, had all my stuff packed up after a four-night stay, headed down to the lobby...and all three baggage carts were gone.

I loitered around the lobby for ten minutes or so before turning and asking an elderly couple sitting in the breakfast area with one of the three baggage carts pulled up next to their table if they were using it.

"Oh, oh yes!" said Peepaw, grabbing the cart and heading for the elevator, while Meemaw threw away their breakfast plates.

Five minutes after they left, I began to despair of any carts reappearing in a timely fashion, and so I started running up the stairs to my room and grabbing gear two bags at a time to transport to the car.

On my last trip, I ran into Meemaw & Peepaw in the elevator again, and he told me "Oh, we're almost done with the cart!"

I told him that I didn't need it anymore, but thanks anyway.

I've discovered a type of person I dislike more than the turdmuffins who leave shopping carts in the middle of the parking lot.

This was on the way there. I had one more camera bag on the way home.

Ugh.

Moto Twitter is annoying at the best of times, but on a drizzly, foggy midweek morning in October, it's unbearably chirpy.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life sentence! https://t.co/Q4cvxnYoaJ

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) October 13, 2021

Travel

 When Delta announced that it was issuing lifetime bans to passengers who got all snotty with the flight attendants about masks on the flight, I wasn't too upset about it.

I learned about it back when Robert O'Neill apparently caught a ban for mask-related offenses on a flight.

"Thank you for your service, sir. Now please cover your germhole." 

Look, dude, it's Delta's airplane. If they say you gotta sing "I'm a little teapot" to fly, then you sing "I'm a little teapot" or you don't fly and I don't care if you shot thirty seven Osama Bin Ladens or not. 

Now stow your bag and sit down, the rest of us kids have connecting flights we gotta catch. 

Jesus, my personalized version of Hell will be filled with all the "Special" people I've run into on airlines. "No, honey, don't worry; when they said 'all carry-on bags must fit in the overhead bin or under the seat in front of you', they didn't mean you."  

I know that 'being a sheeple and doing what you're told' does not come easily to some people, but the miracle of modern air travel only goes smoothly if everyone on the flying Greyhound does exactly that. Fricking swallow your dignity for twenty-nine minutes and do what the sky waitress tells you so we can get to Detroit on time and then you can go on a freedom tirade to the gate agent when we get there.

Sample of one and all, but I was in seat 2A of a Delta A320 from ATL-IND yesterday afternoon, and the Brylcreem'ed jackhole in seat 1A not only had to be asked to adjust his face-sock twice by the flight crew, but also used his cell phone until it lost signal on climbout from Hartsfield, and then along about Chattanooga he reclined his seat into my lap and kept it there until we deplaned in Indy, because all that bit about "returning your seatback to the upright position" didn't apply to him, apparently.

Can't wait until he gets banished from the Woolworths.

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My Annual Rant

So everybody's running around pushing that stupid "Cyber Monday" thing, which is a relic of the day when everyone had dialup at home and so saved their online shopping until they got back to the office on Monday and could mooch off the company's broadband. Now that we all have broadband in our pockets, this is practically horse-and-buggy levels of quaint.

That said, Surefire is selling their house-brand CR123 batteries in a 72-pack for $99. This is twenty bucks better than the best price at Amazon and, considering the 10-year shelf life of these things (and the fact that they have free shipping on orders over a hunnert bucks) means this might not be a bad buy.

FCC Disclaimer: I don't get anything from Surefire these days except spam email, but I'm an avid user of their products.

Contact.

I just got an email from instagram letting me know I have unread messages.

Of course I have unread messages. I'm only on instagram a couple times a week to post a picture of my lunch or a gun I'm shooting. I don't use the messages on Instagram. Similarly, I have no idea how many "DM's", or whatever they're called, I have unread on Twitter. And my blog's FB page? I don't check the messages there, either. I keep meaning to turn them off, because Facebook nags you if you don't immediately respond to every message sent to your page.

I have a phone number and an email address, both of which are perfectly cromulent ways to get in touch with me. If we're "friends" (god, I hate that Zuckerberg used that word to describe total strangers you barely interact with) on Facebook, Instant Messaging will get noticed, but if we're not, it won't. Instant Messages from people with whom you are not "friends" are hidden behind a tab I never go check.

Every goofy little social media platform tries to add its own little way of private one-on-one communication and it's annoying as dammit.
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What if I only point them out in my head?

"People Who Constantly Point Out Grammar Mistakes Are Pretty Much Jerks, Scientists Find"

Feeling personally attacked here, tbh fam.
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Pet Peeve...

You know what's a pet peeve of mine? People who use "smooth" to describe the way a handgun shoots. "I love my Beretta nine! It shoots so smooth!"

Dude, an explosion just went off in your hand. If you were to hand me a list of all the adjectives in the English language and ask me to put them in order from "Most describing a gunshot" to "Least describing a gunshot", then "smooth" would be way down there somewhere between "turgid" and "moist".
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#butthurt

From what I can tell, for the great mass of people, social media is made of assmad, envy, and an aggrieved sense of entitlement.

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) November 12, 2018

Travel Hassle

On longer trips, like the ones to New Mexico or New Hampshire, my carry-on bags are stuffed with my MacBook Air for work, my iPad for entertainment and light writing chores, and a heavy Dell gaming laptop. If it's just a short trip for work, I leave the gaming rig at home, but that's still two items I need to drag out of the carry-on at the Security Theater checkpoint.

Yeah, I'm that person who waves you around her as she struggles getting all the crap out of her bag and into the trays.

That's why this was good news:

The next time you fly, your bag may undergo a computed tomography, or CT, scan. 

Indianapolis International Airport is one of 15 airports using technology similar to a medical imaging scan to look inside your luggage.

It would be way more convenient to just toss the bags on the conveyor and scoop them up on the other side without having to unpack and repack them.

I've considered paying for one of those pre-probulating services, but I just don't fly frequently enough to make it worth it. I don't know where the tipping point is, but currently I'm only flying three or four times a year, and that ain't it.
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How not to internet market, part two...

When last we left the holster review, I'd been writing a pretty straightforward piece on why the holster was unsuited to be safely used for inside-the-waistband carry (appendix or otherwise) and fixing to leave it at that.

But I decided to look a little more into the dude who'd been hectoring me via email...

You know, the one who had escalated from wanting reply emails to wanting to talk to me on the phone...

Folks, I hate talking on the phone. There are, like, four people on the planet that I seem to be able to talk to on the phone for more than five minutes without wanting to open a vein, and one of them is blood kin.

So no, Luke the Feedback Guy at Craft Holsters, you may not have my phone number...

Does anybody else think a social-media dude for a company with five FB friends is sketchy af? Yeah? That's not just me?

Okay, so anyway, I'm fixing to write up this review the other morning when the landline here at Roseholme Cottage rings...

"Hello?"

"Is this Tamara?"

"Er, yes?"

"Of the booksbikeboomsticks?"

recordneedlescratch.wav

Okay, the landline number here at the house is not only unpublished, it's not even my phone line.

If you're going to be hawking holsters that are Tagua-grade hot garbage, not quite up to basic DeSantis quality even, despite nearly Galco-tier pricing, then maybe you want to make up for it by not being a pushy jerk with serious boundary issues? I'm just throwing that idea out there for free, run with it if you want.

Personally, I'd staple up some milk jug plastic and fashion belt loops out of duct tape before I'd purchase a holster from Craft.

So there's your holster review. Good day, sir.
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Holster Review, Part One...

Thumbnail sketch of my morning yesterday...

I got an email a while back from some dude repping for a holster company asking me if I wanted a free holster to review.

I get a lot of emails like this. A lot. Like I usually do, I didn't answer it.

Dude emailed me again, wondering why I hadn't replied to his email. I binned that one without response, too.

Dude emailed me yet again, wondering why I hadn't replied to his email wondering why I hadn't replied to his email.

This happened maybe one or two more times (I am clearly ignoring you, can you not take a hint?) before I replied.

I told dude that I was fixing to do a 2000-round test on an HK P2000SK and asked if his company had any holsters they would specifically recommend for AIWB carry. He sent a straight-drop, tuckable single-belt-loop holster.

It had...issues...that made it less-than-suitable for the intended role, in my opinion.

Then the P2000SK displayed its cycling issues, causing the test to be called off, at least temporarily.

I explained to homie that there was, at the very minimum, going to be a delay because I'd need to send the gun off to get fixed. He replied that he understood, and that I should just contact him with a link to the review piece when I got it done.

In fairness, I haven't exactly been communicative over the last couple months, between other work projects and then benching myself for the summer with a busted collarbone.

The emails started up again, wondering where the holster review was.

And then this morning I get this...well, in context I can only describe it as passive-aggressive...email missive from the guy:

No, you may not have my phone number.

But you're right that I promised you a holster review and you obviously want it very badly, so here it comes:

This holster is absolutely unsatisfactory for the requested role of appendix inside-the-waistband carry (or any inside-the-waistband carry, really) for the following reasons:

• The holster mouth is completely unreinforced. The only thing keeping the holster from collapsing after the gun is drawn is the structure of the holster itself, which is a single layer of not-terribly-thick leather.
• The sweatguard is a single-thickness piece of the same leather, which means that unless the wearer has abs as flat as the Texas panhandle, that sweatguard is going to collapse faster than the Falcons' defense in Super Bowl LI. Of note, while the sweatguard lacks the rigidity to remain vertical after this, experimentation proved it was still rigid enough to pull the LEM trigger on the subcompact HK.
• The point of attachment is a single belt loop connected to the bottom of the holster via a single strut made of a stitched-together double layer of leather. Unfortunately two layers of this leather aren't much more rigid than one in this particular role; the holster was able to shift around rather more than I like. 

So, thank you for the opportunity to try your holster, but I would suggest the above areas be tended to in order to render the product suitable for carry.

Then comes this morning, to be discussed in Part II, to follow...

"Hi, $blogger! We're looking for reviewers!"

From elsewhere: "I love how the general blogging community has built the rep of being a bunch of panhandlers who will fellate anybody for some free shit and being treated like an Authoritative Source."

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) June 20, 2018

Frustration.

Ugh, getting FedEx to come pick up a call-tagged package is a nightmare. UPS was probably annoying, too, but seemed downright pleasant there on the heels of the FedEx call.

I got pretty frustrated trying to explain what was going on to C3P0, and the basic level human I transferred to was actually dumber than the computer, reducing me to literal tears of frustration. I had to escalate to a supervisor to arrange for a simple call tag pickup.
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Ouch, Inspirobot.

The Culture War Heats Up

Some of those magazines represent my livelihood.

My words, my name, are on their pages.

My first real job was bagging groceries in a Kroger. I rode my bicycle to the local Kroger to earn the money I used to buy my first car. I’ve retained a nostalgic fondness for the chain ever since. I have written often on this blog of our tiny neighborhood Kroger here in Broad Ripple and its convenience and friendly employees. I ride my bicycle there frequently in the nicer months to get groceries.

Forget abstractions like natural rights and constitutional protections, this is an outright attack by them on my livelihood. They are drawing a bead right on my wallet.

Kroger is dead to me. They’ll never again see one red cent of my money.

They probably wouldn’t want it anyway, since it came from those abhorrent gun magazines.
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