Blog Stuff: It's not just action movies...

I walked into work yesterday, took off my coat, set down my lunch, and wandered smack into the middle of the most bizarre movie discussion I'd ever heard.

He had a point, though, but it's not just action movies...

Gladiator? Die Hard with togas and lush cinematography.

Jaws? Lethal Weapon on a boat and Gary Busey's part played by a robot fish.

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly is Die Hard, but with a psycho Lee Van Cleef instead of a psycho terrorist.

The Wizard of Oz is Lethal Weapon, with Ray Bolger in Danny Glover's role.

Blog Stuff: Notes from an (Extra!) day off.

I took advantage of being off on Sunday to do something I hadn't done since last Easter: Sunday brunch at Charlie Pepper's! Before working at CCA, the Sunday brunch at C. Pep's was a weekly ritual for me, so it was a great reunion of sorts.

I ordered (and I'm typing this just to make Kaylee jealous, 'cause it's her fave ;) ) the Sunrise Mesa Eggs. Picture this dish: Take two cornbread griddle cakes. Lay a slice of fried tomato coated with cajun spices on each. Top that with ham, then a couple of poached eggs, and finally slather a spicy Southwestern Florentine sauce over everything. Tex-Mex fusion eggs benedict! Yum!

Add a good friend or a good book or both, a cup of joe, and you have very nearly the perfect way to while away a Sunday morning.

This is the kind of thing that really grinds me to a halt...

So, the Illinois State Gendarmerie has put up a web page full of, erm... "helpful" advice for women in case we are attacked. Guns, of course, are a no-no because apparently (at least according to them) we're so flighty that half of the time we try to use a gun for self-defense, we wind up busting a cap in the wrong individual. I'd really love to see their data on that one. (Yeah, you're all the time reading about how some woman in a parking lot somewhere ran her Glock to slidelock in some guy because he pulled a wallet on her. This is me rolling my eyes.)

Instead of a handy, portable weapon that requires no great amount of strength to operate, we are instead advised to attempt to take on a 250lb rapist with a teasing brush or a handful of keys. Brilliant plan, that. "Well, sir, we couldn't revive her, but her assailant should be easy to spot in a lineup. Judging by what she had clenched in her hand in her last moments, his hair should look fantastic."

The worst part, the part that makes me want to scream and throw things at the monitor, is when they drag out the old primate appeasement behavior: "It may sound disgusting, but putting your fingers into you throat and making yourself vomit usually gets results." No. No way. Why should I worry about getting vomit stains out of my clothes when I have the means available to make my attacker worry about getting blood stains out of his? Sorry, ISP, but I'm sticking with the gun.

Anyone who wants more reasonable and realistic self-defense tips for women should go here, rather than listen to the distorted garbage on the ISP web site.

(UPDATE: More cool discussion going on here.)

(H/T to David, via Unc.)

Blog Stuff: zomg, that is teh seXXy!

I would murder people in their beds for this keyboard.

Politics: Libertarian Left?

The Alliance of the Libertarian Left? Where do they meet? The next broomcloset over from the Association of Free-Market Communists?

"The Alliance of the Libertarian Left is a multi-tendency coalition of mutualists, agorists,
voluntaryists, geolibertarians, left-Rothbardians, green libertarians, dialectical anarchists,
radical minarchists, and others on the libertarian left, united by an opposition to statism,
militarism, and the prevailing corporatist capitalism falsely called a free market, as well as
by an emphasis on education, direct action, and building alternative institutions, rather
than on electoral politics, as our chief strategy for achieving liberation."

Do you know why this isn't catching on, kids? It's seriously short on zazz. You need to zazz it up a bit. Nobody wants to sit around in a circle, unable to go take a crap without first debating whether it's a coercive, statist crap or not. What do y'all do for fun on Saturday nights, go get in verbal rumbles with Randian Objectivists? Sorta like a Jets versus Sharks thing? You should highlight that, then. Otherwise you'll continue looking as dully earnest as a Nader campaign volunteer.

Ahmadinejad still waiting for tat.

Having extended the "Tit" of returned captives, Iran is making noises about expecting some "Tat" from the UK.

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Iran has urged Britain to respond with goodwill to the release of 15 British sailors and marines held captive in Tehran for 13 days.

The naval crew members were on Saturday beginning two weeks' leave with their families in Britain.

Ambassador Rasoul Movahedian told the Financial Times newspaper that Iran had "showed our goodwill" by freeing the sailors.

"Now it is up to the British government to proceed in a positive way," he was quoted as saying on Saturday.

"...or we'll activate the nanobot spiders coursing through their veins."

Blog Stuff: Some recent thoughts...

1) I will know that I am really cool when I get to carry an M4 carbine everywhere, like the grocery store & the mall, and I have a guy whose full-time job is to do nothing but follow me around all day with a boom box playing the "Imperial March" from Star Wars. Then, then I will truly be cool.

2) While the idea of Valhalla is groovy, what with the "warring all day and partying all night" aspect and all, I think an even better afterlife would be one where you spend eternity hot-lapping the Nürburgring in a Porsche 911 Turbo, while swilling Ruination from the bottle and shooting out the window at road signs with an MP5. Also, Chuck Schumer is wearing a little janitor's outfit like the mascot from Cracked, sweeping up busted bottles and spent brass on the side of the track. That would be a totally awesome final reward. I need to get to work on whipping up a sect where this is the payoff.

Boomsticks: Gratuitous Gun Pr0n No. 41

Here's my Delta Elite project, all... mostly... probably finished:


Stainless Colt Delta Elite. Ed Brown grip safety, mainspring housing, hammer, sear, and disconnector. Wilson Bulletproof slide stop and Wilson grip screws. Cylinder & Slide ambi thumb safeties. STI trigger. Novak night sights. Home Depot tape on the front strap. Big-ass fireballs by Double Tap Ammunition. All custom work done by Shannon and Bob at Coal Creek Armory. Unreasonable demands, fretting, and nagging done by me.

Blog Stuff: Why haven't I read her before today?

Abby with a slam-dunk post on the State of the War. Wish I'd written it.

Boomsticks: Download errors.

The Anarchangel takes on the fallacy of downloading magazines, and notes the two main exceptions: AR15 and Glock magazines. I can definitely concur on both of those (the only feed failures I ever had with my personally-owned Glocks, other than my G30's strong dislike for semiwadcutters, were caused by topping up full mags after chambering the first round.)

Add to the list the famous Wilson 47D eight round mag for the 1911. The combination of follower design and tube length will cause the spring to die a premature death if left loaded to its full eight-round capacity for any great length of time. Some folks rotate their mags; after several rebuilds, I just started using my 47Ds as seven rounders and haven't had to replace a spring for five years (although I probably should do so soon, if only on general principle)...

Let me add some tips for what to do with damaged mags, such as AR mags with spread feed lips or AK mags with feed-disrupting internal burrs: When I'm engaged in a practice session and I encounter a mag with issues, I set it aside in a pile. At the end of the session, I relocate the pile to the nearest trash receptacle after pounding the defective mags flat with a hammer, lest some penny-pinching fool rescue them in an attempt to potentially risk his life in the name of saving a few bucks. I consider it a public service.

(H/T to Unc.)

Politics: Quality of Life.

During the ongoing hoo-hah over a National Health Care (read: "Socialized Medicine") plan, much is made over 'average life expectancy' as an indicator of Quality of Life when it really indicates nothing of the sort. It merely measures Quantity of Life. Sure, Germany (to take one f'rinstance) sports an average life expectancy of 78.7 years, while the typical American can only be expected to dodder along for 77.7, but tell me this: Would you rather spend 78.7 years with a cradle-to-grave Nanny, or 77.7 years telling the government to go piss up a rope? Yeah, thought so.

Blog Stuff: The Actual View From The Porch

Look! Whitecaps on the lake! The wind is gusting from the west at up to 30mph, blowing the patio furniture around.

We had quite a front roll through last night. Tuesday's high was 81 degrees and right now the temp is 61 and falling. It's supposed to get down to 36 tonight and 28 on Saturday night. The barometer must be spinning like a stopwatch. Ow, my gimpy leg hurts.

I hope this doesn't kill all the pretty hygrangeums. Taking the backroads home from work the last few nights with the top down has been like driving through a darkened florist's shop with the A/C on the fritz.

Boomsticks: Paranoia will destroy ya...

A three page discussion is raging over at TFL on the thin line between preparedness and paranoia.

As best I can gather it resolves thusly:

She's naive.

I'm prepared.

You're paranoid.


Take off the ankle holster in the shower.

Baseball: Yay!

The good news? The Braves are tied for the NL East lead.

The bad news? There are 161 games left to go.

The other good news? There are 161 games left to go.

I don't actually have a functioning TeeWee in the house. Have any of y'all used MLB.TV? Does it unsuck?

Never has so little been said with so many words.

You know it's a slow news day when an AP reporter is paid to write the following copy:

NEW YORK (AP) -- Teen starlet Hilary Duff claims she's never had a problem with her weight, but feels pressure to be thin.

The 19-year-old actress and singer told People Magazine that she's either perceived as too fat or too thin in the media, which she says can be "judgmental and mean."

Amazing. Four more complete paragraphs follow, yet the piece manages to remain semantically null; a perfect, content-free void.

I'm going to work on developing that talent myself...

There's a blast from the past...

iTunes is playing the Cool World soundtrack. I haven't sat and listened to this one all the way through since, oh, like 1992. What a cool tune "Under", by Brian Eno, was. That takes a girl back...

Blog Stuff: Pardon the piccie...

Just toying with using a new profile pic and needed someplace Blogger-accessible to park this...

Photo by (as usual) The Volkmeister.

I just think I look so friendly and cheerful in this picture, even taking the scary rifle into account...


EDIT: F-'in Blogger won't let me internally link pics from my own blog. Bastiges. Suddenly I'm not so friendly and cheerful.

Blog Stuff: For the three or four of you who haven't seen it yet...

The 300 word review of 300.

It's not US for a change.

All through the '70s and '80s, American auto enthusiasts had to hang their heads in shame. After we had given the world the cheap and plentiful private auto, our government regulators were doing their best to screw it up for everyone. Starting in the late '60s, American laws began to demand cars be festooned with reflectors, side marker lights, gynormous bumpers worthy of a harbor tug, catalytic converters and all manner of other horsepower-sapping devices. Since the US market was the 800-lb gorilla of the global auto industry, this had a bit of a trickle-down effect on most every maker's cars, at least if they intended to offer them for sale in the 'States.

Fast forward to the present. Notice anything unusual happening to automotive styling? Maybe, oh, I don't know... like the "grille" making a comeback? What's up with that? I mean, for the last twenty years, engineers in search of aerodynamics had been smooshing the front end of cars down further and further until the last '90s iterations of the Ford Taurus and Dodge Intrepid had lower, snarkier front ends than a 1970's Ferrari; heck, even Hondas were sporting doorstop silhouettes, and now all of a sudden... bam! The radiator grille is back. Cars are rolling around sporting Cliffs-Of-Dover front end treatments, from the moderately exaggerated chrome bars on current Ford offerings to the almost cartoonish distortions of late-model Chrysler sedans. Ford even abandoned aerodynamics for the retro-60's look of a near-vertical front end in its latest Mustang .Why the sudden change?

It's not our fault. Not this time around. It's the Europeans this time 'round. That's right, the same people who carped and moaned when the Jaguar XKE was disfigured by 5 mph bumpers and the Countach's smooth flanks were tarted up with enough lights and reflectors to make it look like a disco ball are now responsible for BMW's that look like Toyotas and Ford 500s that look like bricks. All because the EU wants nerf cars that can hit a pedestrian and not kill them...

If they asked my advice, I'd say make the hoodlines low and sprinkle them liberally with spikes. That'd cut down on jaywalking; or at least the recidivism rate.

Boomsticks: Time for a change.

I think I'll dump all my Smiths and 1911s and stock up on Glocks. After all, the former two are low-capacity guns unlikely to be threatened by any renewed AWB. Mag capacity: that's where it's at.