Automotif CCCXXXI...

Some crisp closeup glamor shots of the local 1953 Chevrolet 210 2-door sedan. Shot with the Nikon D3 & 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6G zoom. That's a handy little lens. It lacks an internal focusing motor (so it only works on higher-end Nikon DSLRs) and doesn't have Nikon's Vibration Reduction, but that makes it tiny. It's roughly the size of an 85mm prime. It'd make a great walking around lens at the State Fair.

 

Fallacy of the Excluded Middle

There's a piece over at GAT Daily that discusses how "knife" in the gun world has come to be synonymous with "tactical folder", which is to say aggro-looking things with textured scales in Tactical Dirt Colored G10 and meat-eating 3"+ blades.

I certainly have several knives that fit this description, but I don't generally carry them anymore. The closest thing is probably the rather understated-looking Bestech Kendo I'll bring to SHOT, because I like the way it looks and if it disappears over the week's travels I won't be crushed by its absence.

It may be slim and understated looking, but a 3.75" blade makes for a noticeable pocket anchor.

For day-to-day use, I've even retreated from the waved Spyderco Endura I used to carry to the smaller waved Delica.

Even these middlin'-sized Spydercos can be a little startling to people uncomfortable around anything weaponlike, what with the way they deploy instantly with an audible *snap* on being yanked from a pocket.

This socially-acceptable angle is what caused the author of the GAT piece to wax eloquent about grandpa's slip joint pocket knife.

I’m talking about the gentleman’s pocket knife. If your dad didn’t carry one of these, your granddad almost certainly did. These are the smaller, slimmer 2-3 in bladed knives from Buck, Case, and Great Eastern Cutlery.

Most of the folks from Gen-Z forward will likely be most familiar with this knife format once I say “Swiss Army Knife”

These are far from tactical. You need both hands to open the knife, there’s no pocket clip, the blades are relatively thin, and the knife doesn’t lock open. But they carry a lot of advantages as well.

Firstly, one of the biggest benefits is the fact that they’re not tactical. Pulling out one of these in mixed company is more likely to spark a conversation than it is to make someone uncomfortable.

I get that in certain quarters of the Manliness Movement, it's fashionable to cosplay an imaginary version of the Fifties, and that Old Spice has staged a comeback alongside the fedora, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with LARPing as grandpa, but it is possible to have a small, elegant gent's folder that looks like it was designed in this millennium. You don't have to go retro for a nice looking bit of pocket jewelry.

Benchmade has been making attractive small gent's folders for decades, but you don't have to spend a bunch on a pre-prodution McHenry & Williams Benchmite or 1st Production Terzuola Park Avenue to get a sleek little pocket knife. The current CRKT catalog, for instance, has the slick-looking but inexpensive Dually, with a sub-2" blade (legal in even Chicago and Boston). It even has a built-in bottle opener, in case you aren't far enough into the grandpa-LARP for twist-off tops.

Just because you need a small, classy knife, it doesn't mean you have to start wearing white socks and sandals and pulling your trousers up to your armpits.

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Automotif CCCXXX...

Here's a 1967 Buick Skylark convertible out for a Sunday cruise on College Avenue.

For '67, Buick offered two different whites: Riviera White, which was a very white shade of white, and the Arctic White you can see on this Skylark. On Pontiacs it was called Cameo Ivory.

The four-door sedan version of the '67 Skylark had the 225cid Buick V6 as a base motor, but this convertible would have come with a 2bbl 300 cubic inch V8 as standard equipment, with a couple 4bbl 300- and 340cid performance options above it.

These were shot with the 36MP Nikon D800 and should embiggenate quite nicely, even with Blogger's compression.

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The kind of photography I'll never do.

This is just all kinds of NOPE right here...

It's interesting to see from a technical standpoint, but it makes sphincter clench and my hair stand on end.

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"It's only a model!"

We've got a couple of real MG TD's you can occasionally spot flitting around the neighborhood on nice sunny days.

This isn't one of them.

The dead giveaway, other than the contours of the boot being slightly off, lurks underneath the rear bumper...

The lateral muffler and dual exhausts are dead giveaways of the Beetle chassis lurking under the roadster bodywork.

Other cars of the type don't require as much sleuthing.

For instance, if you see a vintage Bugatti Grand Prix car tootling around in traffic...

...you don't really need to take the time to closely examine the front suspension or exhaust. It's a lot safer to bet on a kit car than someone taking their million-dollar baby to the grocery store.

Besides, the whimsical front license plate lets us all in on the game.

Time Machine

I've remarked before what a fan I am of MeTV, and it turns out that Tom Nichols is, too. He wrote a pretty decent essay about why he likes it over at The Atlantic.

"I sort of miss the clean, direct dialogue of the time before postmodern irony. Today, every line is a jaded observation or a tired smirk. I am reminded of a great moment in a 1996 episode of The Simpsons, in which two kids at a music festival are waiting for Homer to come on stage. “Oh, he’s cool,” one says in a deadpan. “Dude, are you being sarcastic?” the other asks. The first one hangs his head and says: “I don’t even know anymore.”

MeTV is television before all that. I love shows like The Boys and Stranger Things, but sometimes, it’s nice to visit a time when the characters just speak in completely ordinary sentences. “Peggy, get Lieutenant Tobias on the phone. Tell Adam I’m on my way.” “Be careful, Joe.” That’s all you need to know. It gives your brain a rest from peeling back layers of meaning. Joe’s going to meet Adam, and they’re going to do something dangerous, and Peggy is worried. That’s it."

It's worth a read and you should.

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Automotif CCCXXIX...

Here's an attractive mid-'80s Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce.

The North American smog motor version of the 2.0L Alfa Twin-Cam motor put out 115 SAE net horsepower, so the Spider was no bolt of lighting. It'd do zero-to-sixty in ten seconds or a bit less. It also had typical Alfa reliability issues... 

But it was fun to drive when it was running right, and when it wasn't, you had something gorgeous to look at while waiting for the tow truck to arrive.

Photographed with the Canon EOS 1D Mark III & EF 24-105mm f/4L IS.

Triggered by memories.

Remember those toy guns in the '70s-'80s that shot the little plastic discs? I swear HK straight-up copied that trigger for the VP70.

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) July 29, 2022

Not Great, But Not Terrible

I don't get the people who run around rating books or movies with all five star or one star reviews. 

I mean, to me, a five star review is for award-winning stuff: "This movie deserved its Best Picture Oscar!" or "This book is a future classic of its genre and will be on recommended reading lists in decades to come."

Conversely, a one star book better have hit the wall on the far side of the room at least once before I finished it...assuming I gritted it out 'til the end in the first place, and a one star movie should be too wretched even for MST3K to roast; utterly devoid of redeeming qualities.

Heck, in my personal rating system it's an unusually good author who can maintain four star quality across any kind of lengthy output. Staying in my genre-fiction bailiwick, even Pratchett or Bujold occasionally phoned in a three star contractual obligations novel. 

Three stars is where the bulk of entertainment lives anyway; the movie you watch or the book you read only once, feel you've gotten your money's worth, but don't really feel any need to revisit in the future. Two stars is the bad stuff that you steer people away from.

Meta-retconned

I mean, they dId retroactively edit an episode…to fix a continuity error.

— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) July 28, 2022

I mean, the Duffer Brothers did edit past episodes in order to fix a continuity error, as mentioned in the article. But the original Reddit feces-fest about a deleted scene? That was just the internet being the internet.

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"We can fix it in post..."

Like, way, wayyyy in post.

Specifically, the Duffer Brothers have been doing a bit of retrospective editing in earlier seasons of Stranger Things, and some on the internet are seething.

Apparently the only way to see an unedited Season 1 in its original form now is on DVD or Blu-Ray.

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Supermoto

Some riders are like "Are you taking my picture?"

Others get totally into it.

Canon EOS 1D MkIII & EF 24-105mm f/4L IS.

QotD: You're Only Human Edition

This Shay Khatiri quote is money.

“Those who claim to live with perfect moral and intellectual consistency either do not know their own hearts, or they have not lived enough to encounter their contradictions.”

— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) July 26, 2022

*taps toe impatiently*

We're about a month out from the latest episode of the Frontlines series*, Centers of Gravity, automagically showing up on my kindlemaschinen. Tapping my toe faster doesn't seem to be causing it to show up any sooner.

*My suggestion for a name for the series, "Plural Noun of an Abstract Noun", went over like a lead balloon.

Automotif CCCXXVIII...

I'd seen this classic roadster zipping around the neighborhood last October and got some photos of it tooling past on 54th, but when I saw it pull into the Fresh Market parking lot yesterday while I was eating lunch, I scooped up the Nikon D800 and jogged across the street.

You can see how tiny this thing is relative to the parking space. It's about the same length and height as an original Miata, but almost an entire foot narrower.

It's a dictionary-definition real roadster, too. My BMW Z3 may claim to be a roadster (it actually says as much on the scuff plates in the door sills) but it has a built-in folding top, which makes it a convertible by definition.

The TR3, on the other hand, is a true roadster: an open car with only rudimentary weather protection. Namely, it has a sort of pup-tent apparatus of bows and sheeting that can be erected and snapped down in order to, notionally at least, divide the world into the part where it's raining and the part where it's raining a little less...provided you don't drive too fast and have the whole thing blow off the car. 

The driver of this one made it out of Fresh Market and motored off just in time to not wind up wishing he hadn't left the top at home. Well, it might be stowed in the boot, I suppose.

Ah, the towel in the passenger seat! A standard roadster accessory, usually slightly redolent of mildew. It serves a variety of uses, from drying off the driver's seat after an unexpected sprinkling, to emergency backup windshield defogger, to privacy screen for stuff you leave in the passenger footwell while running into the store.

Note the driver snapping cell phone photos to the right!

These pictures, by the way, are all extremely embiggenateable, should you wish, since they were snapped with a 36MP DSLR...

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"Meaningless Increments of Precision"

Don't blame the ad copy writer; they have to put something in there...

[C]arrying a firearm for defense involves selecting a firearm and ammo, which generally involves a gunmaker and ammunition manufacturer having to sell you product. Selling you their product means having to convince you it’s better than the other guy’s, and that usually means numbers.

For handguns intended for concealed carry, this often involves measurements of weight or thickness. Everyone knows that a lighter gun is easier to carry, after all, and a thinner gun will “print” less through a cover garment. But, it’s definitely easy to get lost in the sauce of all the associated marketing hype.

“The Blastomatic 2000 is the slimmest 9 mm double-stack subcompact on the market!” or “The GatMaster Chihuahua is the lightest pocket magnum revolver you can buy!” These are things that make great ad copy—and good filler for a lazy reviewer in a hurry—but how much difference, really, do a couple tenths of an ounce make in a pistol’s concealability? Would you notice the difference .36 ounce makes on your belt or in your coat pocket over the course of a day? But, it’s a number that’s easy to quote and so people will use it to justify a choice.

Picking a carry load because the box flap says that Brand X is 30fps faster than Brand Y is kinda missing the point...

Automotif CCCXXVII...

Here's a 1977 Coupe DeVille in Sable Black.

'77 was the first year of the downsized DeVille, being ten inches shorter and a thousand pounds lighter than the gargantuan '76 models. Careful juggling of dimensions and raising the roofline meant that the smaller car actually had more head- and legroom and a larger trunk than its predecessor. You could still stuff three or four Hoffas back there if you packed right.

The engine was downsized, too, from the old 500cid V8 to a 425-cube motor that put out 180bhp, or 195 with optional fuel injection. The 500 had been so choked by reduced compression and restrictive exhausts that horsepower remained pretty much the same, anyway.

A hot mess.

"Not satisfied with forcing law abiding citizens to play “Am I A Felon yet?” hopscotch while walking down the street, the proposed legislation would also make any private business automatically off-limits for a concealed carrier, without a sign explicitly allowing such. Given the litigious state of the country, and the inherent potential risk of liability, one can easily conclude that this would be a blanket ban in all but name."

The hasty, spiteful legislative clapback rushed to Governor Hochul's desk in response to the Supremes dunking on New York in the Bruen decision is garbage. Fortunately big chunks of it are unlikely to hold up to any legal scrutiny. I guess the state of New York just likes blowing citizens' tax dollars on unnecessary legal fees.

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Bring the (statistical) Noise!

When reading poll data, remember that the Lizardman's Constant is 4%.

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Hey, look!

RECOILweb has my most recent piece from Concealment magazine up in its entirety...