"The Freemasons are poisoning the wells!"

As a collector of conspiracy theories, I have to confess that the vast majority of the Grand Unified Conspiracy Theories with which I'm familiar tend to have a rightward or at least libertarianish bent. So it was with some fascination that I read one from the other pole, one where the Vietnam War caused the modern White Nationalist underground.

I suppose I should have expected no less from The Nation. Watching The Nation and The New American get into it would be like watching Spock fight Spock-with-a-beard.
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Andrea Mitchell needs to shut up and sit down.

Yes, you most certainly do need to aim a #shotgun. Here are the actual facts: https://t.co/glUz08Gxrx#stayinyourlane pic.twitter.com/TFpzquxMYB

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) June 29, 2018

It's funny 'cause it's true...

Sale!

Tau Development Group has a discount code good only today for 20% off: "TAUDAY2018".

I finally got around to ordering my Glock 43 Striker Control Device. Yay!
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Automotif CXLVII...

International Harvester Scout II, spotted in the parking lot at The Gallery Pastry Shop during Sunday's brunch excursion with Bobbi.

Apparently the grille and headlight rings, much like the Dead Sea Scrolls or all those lines on the ice in hockey, convey a bunch of information if you know how to read them. I think they say this one's a '73, but it's hard to tell for sure.

Bonus picture of giant outdoor chess set from the same parking lot:

Ow.

The collarbone is only just sore if it somehow gets jostled, but the left elbow and shoulder have been held nearly immobile for over a month and are just fountains of colorful pain as I try and gradually get some range-of-motion back into them.
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Be careful, old people vote like crazy.

The Boomer pig in the demographic python is well and truly hitting the cloaca of retirement, and apparently it's going to be a hot mess.

You get enough broke retirees and enough kids trying to pay off the loans on their degree in Anthropological Studies of Sixteenth Century Tierra del Fuego by driving for Jimmy John's and Ubering in the evenings...well, that's a potent Free $#!+ Army just waiting for a general.
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The Name of the King

Worth the watch.

Of note near the beginning is the constant flicker of consul's names across Republican Rome.
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Unexpected regret...

Broad Ripple High School, alma mater of angry beard-o David Letterman, former Second Lady Marilyn Quayle, and current baller Paul George, is no more.

The remains are being squabbled over. Charter schools are interested in the property and would seem to have the law on their side, but developers are anxious to anchor the opposite end of The Strip by planting another ginormous "multi-use" office/retail/apartment space there. (What's Broad Ripple quality of life going to be worth in rent premiums when it takes you thirty minutes to negotiate the handful of blocks to College or Keystone Avenues on your daily commute?)

My big regret is that I never got around to getting up there to take in a football game by the Broad Ripple Rockets.

When the air turned crisp and smelled of fallen leaves and woodsmoke, you could just hear the crowd and a hint of the announcer's voice over the speakers from about a mile away to the north, maybe see a little skyglow from the stadium lights if there was a touch of overcast to reflect it...

Fretting...

Tomorrow is the appointment at the orthopedic doc when I find out whether I'm healing up normally or surgery will be required.

I'm more than a little nervous.
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Four Years

Sapping and Impurifying...

You obviously lied when answering the "DO YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER LIKED SOCCER*? (Y/N)" question on the INS forms anyway, so...

*(Other than the US Women's Olympic team; they're cool.)

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) June 24, 2018

Q-S1 + 06

 Local color, as seen on my walk to lunch yesterday.

Camera was the Q-S1 with the Pentax 06 15-45mm f/2.8 telephoto zoom. I ordered that lens from a dude in Japan a day or so before I broke my collarbone and it just got here the other day. I wish I'd thought to check Amazon for NOS lenses first.
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How not to internet market, part three...

So, you're obviously capable of doing enough research to get my phone number, but you couldn't do any research about who you were pestering for a holster review?

I've literally dissed better holster companies than yours, bro.

Next time you buy a list of gun blogs from Media Lodge or whoever, take some time to do a little background research. Or hire an actual, you know, professional marketing company.

Jesus, anything but this bush league nonsense...
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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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The Smallest Minority...

...will fit in a concentration camp about 6'x3'x2', unfortunately.

“The American revolution ennobled every man, whereas Jacobin revolutions ennobled Mankind. What chance does a man have against Mankind?”

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) June 21, 2018

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...

Attire...

I am indeed a hobbyist.

I tried to give Dark Star Gear money for this shirt when I first saw it, but they didn't let me. Next time I'm using a pseudonym.
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"Oh god, it reeks of murder... Mustn't panic..."

When your sleep buddy is a cozy guinea pig.. pic.twitter.com/taWhXKBdXS

— Land of cuteness (@landpsychology) June 21, 2018

QotD: Things Are Different Now Edition...

The late 1990s were only twenty years ago. Gas was less than a buck a gallon. Also, you could watch TV for days without hearing about our crumbling infrastructure. Some folks saw things looming on the horizon, though...

"In meetings at work during the run-up to Y2K, I made a number of suggestions about power conditioning and UPSes. They were pretty routine and most of them were implemented before the year 2000. In making them, I pointed out the power-distribution infrastructure was aging and there was a lot of construction around our two main sites, concluding, "we may be entering a time when commercial power is less reliable that we're used to." There was much harrumphing at that crazy notion. Now we're getting two or three glitches on the power every week, and ugly hits that take a fair amount of rebooting slam us a dozen times a year, despite a big UPS that carries the critical loads. I'm not happy about being proved right."