C-c-c-c-c-cold!

Mother nature is busy reminding me that there are no terrain features much larger than a breadbox between me and central Canuckistan this morning; 58mph gusts yesterday have slowed to a mild-but-steady 19 knot breeze, which makes the ambient 12° air temperature feel like -5°F. (This equals 0mig0ditsc0ld degrees Centigrade, for you people who use those fancy imported metric numbers.)

The snow largely stayed away, and what little did fall is the consistency of diamond chips and is being blown into little piles on the windward side of everything. On the upside, I'll be able to clear the sidewalk to the garage with a broom.

Porch activities will be curtailed today by the fact that the mercury is only supposed to climb to a balmy 18°, although we may see the far side of freezing by as much as a whole degree tomorrow.

Public Service Announcement:

For you Arizona types, Kevin says that this Saturday's Arizona Blogmeet/Blogshoot is Go.

Christmas shopping at Brownell's?

A little birdie has told me that Montezuma, IA is getting socked by global warming right now, and Brownell's is pretty short-handed today as a result. If you're doing last-minute gift shopping, using their website today will probably be more fruitful than the telephones...

Is that a pistol in your trousers..?

I tried that paddle holster experiment last Sunday, but it only lasted for a day. The butt of the pistol kept snagging on the bolster of the passenger seat when getting in and out of Shootin' Buddy's SUV, and the final straw was when I sat in the lawn chair on the porch and the muzzle of the pistol collided with the arm of the chair, driving the butt of the gun into my ribcage hard enough to leave a spectacular bruise. (The holster didn't shift, though, so props to G-Code there.)

Monday and Tuesday, then, saw me wearing a Smith 696 in a Galco Speed Master holster, which carries much closer to the body. By this morning, things felt good enough to go back to my usual IWB holster.

One thing that's interesting is how much you get used to things: People ask if carrying a full-size, all-steel 1911 inside the waistband is uncomfortable. It really isn't, given several caveats: I buy jeans a size large, and I use a stiff leather belt and a holster properly sized to it (in other words, the loops are such a snug fit that it takes a bit of force to slide the belt through them.) When you combine this with the fact that I've been carrying the same gun in the same way in the same place for so many years, I often don't notice it's there, and find myself giving it a pat as I leave the house to make sure I'm not forgetting it.

The paddle, on the other hand, is considered to be a very comfortable way to carry, and I couldn't stand it. I was constantly aware of having two pounds of steel flopping around outside my belt; even under a winter coat, it was snagging on things. It felt awkward.

It's all what you're used to, I guess.

At The Way Of The Multigun, there's an ongoing discussion about Appendix Carry. I know my friend Kathy carries her pistol this way, too. I can't figure out how it's done, but I'm probably doing it wrong.

"I'm a moron," says Reid, "but I'm not sorry."

"When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said slow down, it's too early, let's wait, things aren't bad enough," Reid said Monday in a Senate floor speech.

I guess you were too busy staring at the training bra of the girl sitting next to you in U.S. History 101 to take notes as to just who those heel-diggers were, Harry. (I'll give you a hint: "D_m_cr_t P_rty". Fill in the blanks. Ready? Go!)

"Well, I think the point is quite clear by this point," Reid told reporters on Capitol Hill.

Yes, Harry, it is, but your hair covers it nicely.

Happy Ending.

Marko reports a happy ending to the Ted Nugent/Major Caudill saga.

All's well as ends well.

Rimfire Glock?

The Firearms Blog alleges that Glock is on the verge of releasing a factory deuce-deuce.

If they stick to their numbering conventions and the rimfire is the next new model released, it will be the Glock 40.

So the Glock 40 will be a .22 and the Glock 22 is a .40. Hilarity ensues at gun shop counters across the country.

In other Glock news, the reason for the Fourth Gen Glock becomes apparent: Expired patents. (H/T to Unc.)

Time Sink.

It went like this: Mark David Chapman was briefly dissuaded from stalking Lennon by the movie Ordinary People, which won Robert Redford a Best Director Oscar over Martin Scorsese, who also directed Gangs of New York, which is set in the old Five Points neighborhood of Manhattan, which was home to the New York jail known as The Tombs, the early-20th Century version of which had a bridge connecting it to the Criminal Courts Building that was nicknamed after the famous "Bridge of Sighs" in Venice, which connects to the Doge's Palace, which is also the name of a track by Mike Oldfield, who played a Fender Telecaster on his best known album, which is the guitar George Harrison used during the studio sessions for Let It Be, which was the last Beatles album released before their breakup, which was exacerbated by Yoko Ono, who was there when Lennon was shot by Chapman.

I got to Venice purely by accident. Navigating from there back to my starting point by a different route was on purpose. (And interesting.)

Today In History: Wrong target.

Ah, Mark Chapman; three feet to the right and you could have been a hero.

Moral cripples with the ethics of syphilitic weasels...

Referring, of course, to the editorial staff of the Bloomington Daily Cat Box Liner.

Caleb has the current skinny.

Remember to contact your legislators to get the database protected. Then the guys at the Bloomington Puppy Trainer will have to go publish lists of other innocent people, like the residents of battered women's shelters, or Jews, or homosexuals.

Further, don't waste time contacting the staff of the Bloomington Pravda directly; contact their advertisers. Then the editors can do an in-depth investigative report on the state’s unemployment benefits system while they freeze in the dark.

Funny, and how!

Go watch this video. I very nearly peed myself.

Full Court Press.

While nobody is ice skating on the frozen Thames anymore, neither are barelegged Romans tending their vineyards in Yorkshire, so anybody who says they know what temperature this place is supposed to be is emitting greenhouse gasses of the potent and smelly kind when they speak.

Remember: Science is never "settled". If it's settled, it ain't science.


EDIT: Climate-related slash'n'burn aggroculture from Michael Z. Williamson.

A whole new level of ugly.

Just think of the amount of engineering effort it took to make a real rifle that looked like a bad photochop done by a Counterstrike kiddie.

The bullpup flechette rifle with its oddball tandem magazine and repeating grenade launcher manages the almost impossible feat of making the H&K OICW look well-thought-out, svelte, and practical.

Cell Phone Error.

Newbius experienced a fairly exotic cell phone blooper.

Had his kinfolk been a bit more jittery, hijinks could have ensued.

Holiday Cheer.

Via Irons In The Fire, I got to read all about the Watermelon Express.

For 400 environmental activists, business leaders and government officials, the Climate Express was the place to be this weekend.

Passengers arrived to take a special train called the “Climate Express,” which brought special envoys to the world climate summit in Copenhagen, at a station in Brussels.

...

During the train’s odyssey of more than 13 hours, a magician did tricks, Indian dancers performed, and a discothèque beat with energy.

There's something that shoots clean past irony in the idea of a train full of eco-twits discoing their way across Europe all night long to beg heads of state to reduce carbon emissions when the best thing they could have done for their own cause would be to have stayed home and held their breath.

Meanwhile, SurvivalBlog managed to scare me out of my pyjamas yet again, this time with this link: High jobless rates could be the new normal.

Even with an economic revival, many U.S. jobs lost during the recession may be gone forever and a weak employment market could linger for years.

That could add up to a "new normal" of higher joblessness and lower standards of living for many Americans, some economists are suggesting.

MSNBC, the official propaganda arm of the White House, has been spouting Hopey Changey Everything's-Gonna-Be-Alright Green Shoots nonsense non-stop since Barry strode across the reflecting pool to claim his crown. When the Stuart Smalley of business news departments solemnly informs you that your brother-in-law may be crashing on your sofa for another five years, it's time to panic.

Itsy-Bitsy Snowflings!

We got about an inch. Folks have dutifully begun sliding off the roads, in compliance with the Full Employment For Weather & Traffic Reporters Act of 1969.

It's a mite strange that the USS Texas got snowed on before the USS Indianapolis Memorial this year.

Frozen Shooty Goodness, Part Two.

• It was 29 degrees on the firing line again today, although the mercury was nudging 31 by the time we left.
• Did I mention that the trigger on that 22/45 resets way the heck out by the berm?
• Lots of light strikes on the crappy Winchester bulk fodder by the time we split. I'm suspecting that the firing pin channel is filled with a ice-cold congealed sludge composed of equal parts powder residue and lube. I need to field strip my Ruger Mk.III. I'm scared. Hold me.
• I am very, very happy with my shooting with both 1911s in my range bag (the 9mm Para and the '66 Colt.)
• Back in '99, I locked the front wheel of my RF600R on the interstate at 65 in the rain. The front end tucked so briskly that when the handlebars whipped to the right, they snapped my right thumb like a breadstick. The hard plastic CTC lasergrips on my Airweight 432 were smacking right into that spot today when I was shooting it in the cold with no gloves on. Ouch. After 50 rounds of .32 S&W Long and 40 more of .32 H&R Magnum, the old fracture site was throbbing. Ouch.
  

Today In History: Kaputnik.

Oops.

Ow.

Last year I realized that I hadn't carried a 1911 in any fashion other than in an IWB holster for years. I had sold pretty much all of my outside-the-waistband holsters, except for a few kydex range-type holsters, a Galco Small-Of-the-Back that I was too embarrassed to list on Fleabay, and a Galco Concealable that I was using as a dress holster. Since a Milt Sparks VM-II with sharkskin trim made just as good a dress holster as the deluxe Galco, I went ahead and sold the latter too, and thought nothing of it... until this morning.

Apparently the nap I took on Friday afternoon had me lying on the gun in a funny fashion. My back, just above my right butt cheek, was so sore yesterday that I thought for sure that I must have a huge 1911-shaped bruise, but the mirror said otherwise. Bone bruise? Sciatica? Who knows. Whatever the cause, by last night, I was moving gingerly and groaning theatrically. Things felt a little better this morning, but as I pulled on my jeans and the holster nudged the spot, I knew that I'd only make things worse by carrying there again today.

No problem, just go with the Galco Concealable! Only not. Because I sold it, thinking I wouldn't be needing it again.

I was left with the following choices:

• The two ¡Blackhawk! rigs I picked up last summer. Except I haven't trained with the SERPA lock and don't entirely trust it. Meanwhile, the standard holster, while adjustable, is currently set up for a vertical carry and maximum drop and I don't have time to monkey with it, since Shootin' Buddy will be here by eight.
• A G-Code kydex paddle. It's set to ride high and at a slight cant, but I cordially dislike paddles. They may work for some people, but they just don't feel steady to me. I haven't used this one for CCW since... 2002?
• A Galco SOB. Even if worn correctly, offset to the right so as not to risk spinal injury if I fall down and go boom, this parks the gun right over the aforementioned tender spot. Now that I've confessed to owning it, anybody want to buy it?
• A GI flap holster and a Safariland thigh rig. Hahahahahahahaha!

The G-Code it is.

Note To Self: Acquire another leather OWB pancake type holster, just in case.

Metadissection.

LabRat dissects a study in which people who know doodly-squat about gaming try to dissect gamers.