...By Then The Entire Glee Club Had Died

Early bird, worm, and all that.

Called the Social Security Administration to set up an appointment to get The Boy enrolled in Medicare promptly at 0800 EDT.

When I told the robot what I wanted, it (female voice) told me the phone number for Medicare and stopped doing anything but repeating that number. 

Call Medicare and their robot, male voice this time, keeps asking me for The Boy's Medicare number.  It, helpfully, informs me that I can find this number on the red-white-and-blue Medicare card I don't have because The Boy is not yet enrolled.

After doing this loop for a bit, Live Person® gets on the line and says I should call SSA.

DEEP MEANINGFUL SIGH

Call SSA with the same number as before and tell the fembot the exact same thing as before, but (somehow) this time it works and I get Live Person®!

She asks questions, I answer them.  She gets the account information up and informs me that I cannot do anything because everything is set up for Harvey to administer.

Luckily, she's right there to step in!

They ask her a barrage of questions and she answers.

NOW I can talk to them about the account and getting him signed up.

Live Person® tells me he's not enrolled and isn't automatically enrolled because he's on SSI instead of SSDI.  Well, he was supposed to be...

Now I have a phone appointment for tomorrow afternoon to set things up correctly. 

Sealed For Your Protection

This two-factor authentication bullshit is bullshit.

We're trying to get The Boy's Medicare started.  He's been on SSI well past the requisite period.

"Just log in!" everyone says.

How?

Apparently we already had a login.gov account made for him, but we're damned if we can figure out the authentication app for it so the code they're sending as the second factor is disappearing into the aether.

We don't remember setting up any authentication apps.  For all I know you have to have your app downloaded and ready to go and almost anything will convince the setup daemon you're good to go... and it sends the code to the account you didn't realize you'd specified and didn't have ready because they don't really explain the process when they tell you all you need is their name, SSN, place of birth and Medicaid number to get it all done.

They cheerfully explain that you can delete the account and start over if you've lost access to the authentication app.

We might just have to do that.

I'm going to try calling the phone number to make an appointment and see if we can't get this done in person.  Joy!

That'll be another fight with Harvey.  I don't know everything and the information is not kept so that I can find or use it.

Worth Your 31 Minutes

He echoes some things I've said.

 Why am I not shocked that two of his cited examples originate with white women?  He doesn't say liberal, but I suspect.

Equinox

It is officially fall! 

Tested!

The “universal” in the designation indicated that it held 2x M14 rifle 20-rd magazines, 4x M16 rifle 20-rd magazines, 4x M2 carbine 30-rd magazines, a bandoleer of 6x 8-rd M1 rifle clips, 8x M1 clips without bandoleer, 2x BAR or Australian L1A1 rifle 20-rd magazines (tight fit), 24x 12-gauge shotgun shells, 3x 40mm grenades (two nose down, one horizontally on top), or 3x hand grenades internally. M16 magazines were too short to conveniently withdraw, so soldiers inserted a field dressing or folded sock underneath to raise them. Some pouches were too tight and held only three magazines.

M16 20-rounders are irritating if you forget or forgo a sock or dressing in the bottom of the pouch, and are real pain if you stuff the requisite 4 magazines in there.  Don't forget to stagger them so there's something to grab!  Two of my pouches fit them easily, one is very tight.

The carbine clips magazines were easy.

In most of these alternate uses of the universal small arms ammunition pouch, access is kind of an issue.

For the Garand clips, the four clips in the bottom are kinda fiddly to reach.

Twenty four 12-gauge shotgun shells.

Three 40x46mm grenades

Three hand-grenades.

One!

Two!

Three! BWAH HA HA HA HA

This is addition to the two that hang from the dedicated loops for grenades on the side of the pouch.

I know that M14 (not shown) fit, metric FAL and G3 magazines also fit no problem two at a time.

2x Metric FAL

2x Steel G3

You can even stuff 3 in if your try.

Not tested, so far, are BAR magazines.  Accepting donations...

The Cops Aren't Coming

I said it during the defund the police campaigns.

I'm saying it again with the local politicians talking about the potential effects of Florida's proposed Amendment 3.

If the cops aren't coming, then the cops aren't coming.

That means that the normal people are free to act against criminals in a way unremembered since we delegated our police power to the people doing it for a living.

Criminals, you REALLY want the cops to come because the average person has no way to jail you and no motivation at all to hold a trial after catching you red handed.

Essentially it's a judge, jury and (literal) executioner situation without worries of the cops second guessing the decision.

Bring it, you tax fattened hyenas. 

Satire Site

The satire site that fooled me was able to do so because they are hewing close to the truth with regards to the attitudes and expressions of the local politicians they are satirizing.

They've another one about how the people of St Pete are demanding high-rise apartments on the water, green spaces, elimination of car access, blah blah blah with an interview of a "local person" who says they just want to be able to afford their rent.

This is because St Pete has been tone deaf over the issues of housing and traffic.

The best satire always has a kernel of truth to it! 

For Photographic Purposes

Anyone got two M14 and two BAR magazines they'd like to loan me so that I can take some pictures of them in an M1956 ammo pouch?

Except for 40mm grenades that's all I'm lacking; and air-soft dummy versions of those are on the way from Amazon. 

Further Confirmation

Further referencing this post:

Yes, you can fit 4x 30-round M1 carbine magazines into an M1956 Universal Ammunition Small Arms Pouch.

Hell, you can fit FIVE 30-round M1 carbine magazines in one!  It's not even a tight fit like four 20-round M16 magazines.

But Not YOU Peasant (Updated)

UPDATE: THIS WAS A SATIRE POST AND I FELL FOR IT HOOK, LINE AND SINKER. 

Found this on Facebook:

What is it they keep telling us?  If we have nothing to hide, we have nothing to worry about? 

ST. PETERSBURG — A leak involving the city's automated license plate reader network has allegedly exposed an extramarital affair between two high-ranking St. Pete officials after records documenting months of late-night travel were obtained by TMZ.

According to the leaked data, one official's vehicle made at least 17 late-night visits to the home of the other, frequently arriving after 11 p.m. and departing before sunrise.

Neither official has been publicly identified yet.

City officials responded to the apparent breach by ordering an emergency review of the Flock system and the privacy risks associated with storing vehicle-location data.

The review reportedly concluded that additional protections are needed for elected officials, senior administrators and other designated personnel. Under the proposed safeguards, registered vehicles belonging to qualifying officials would be automatically excluded from the system, with detections neither logged nor stored.

"No public servant should have to wonder whether their movements are being recorded, stored or potentially accessed by people they don't know," a city spokesperson said. "Elected leaders deserve a reasonable expectation of privacy as they go about their daily lives."

Officials stressed that the proposal would not affect the collection of data belonging to ordinary residents.

Local development advocate Graham Whitmore praised the distinction.

"There's an enormous difference between tracking ordinary citizens and tracking the people responsible for tracking ordinary citizens," Whitmore explained. "One is an important public-safety tool. The other is an alarming invasion of privacy."

Whitmore also rejected criticism that the policy would create a two-tiered privacy system, noting that officials are exploring a program that would allow residents to apply for similar protections starting at $420 per month, following a $69 application fee and background check.

"Nobody is being denied privacy," Whitmore said. "We're simply asking people who value it to help pay for it."

Officials declined to identify the individuals involved in the alleged affair, citing their ongoing commitment to personal privacy.

$420 a month to get the tier one privacy?

I have one.  Every single public official's address, all their phone numbers, all their email addresses and all their license plates published in a searchable database.

Why them?

Because they, literally, fight tooth and nail to get and keep the jobs they are elected for.

You wanna be in public and wield that kind of power?

Fuck your privacy.

Don't like being exposed like the unwashed?

I'm sure you have a degree to fall back on, or some work experience you can put on your resume, and get a job in the PRIVATE sector.

You suck on the Gubmint Tit, you let us know where you are at all times.

Fuck all y'all.

PS: Please enjoy the budget haircut coming with Amendment 3 you tax fattened hyenas! 

And I'm A Primary Source!

I watched a video about how bad primary sources are and remembered about how bad eye-witnesses can be...

And I'm sitting here seeing it from the inside.

I have conflicting memories of the Berlin Wall falling and where I was and what I was doing.

Records show that I was being treated for breaking my legs after a fall from the turret into a ditch.

But I remember seeing some AFN footage in the company day room.

Which makes me think command dithered a while before sending us to the battalion maneuver area in the tanks to sit and do nothing until I broke my legs. 

Heck, I can't even remember for sure if we'd finished transitioning from the M1(IP) to the M1A1(HA).  I'm pretty sure we had.  I'm pretty sure we'd even gone to one gunnery with the new tanks.

But I don't know like I did before.

It'd help a great deal if there was any admission on the internet that 3-34 Armor was at Panzer Kaserne in Böblingen from 88-90 with the 1st Infantry Division (fwd).

We're on this chart anyway!

I think my memory is correct about the transition because I also found this:

1st Infantry Division (Forward), Göppingen (Germany)

• Headquarters and Headquarters Company
• 3rd Battalion, 34th Armor, Böblingen, (M1A1 Abrams)
• 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry, Böblingen, (M113) <-- They'd begun changing to M2A1 Bradley about the same time as 1/4 Cav.
• 4th Battalion, 16th Infantry, Göppingen (M113)
• 2nd Battalion, 5th Field Artillery, Neu-Ulm, (24 × M109A3)
• 299th Support Battalion
• Troop A, 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry, (19 × M3A1 Bradley CFV, 3 × M113, 3 × M106A2, 1 × M577)(Boeblingen)
• Aviation Detachment, Göppingen, (2 × UH-1H, 4 × OH-58A)
• Company D, 1st Engineer Battalion
• Company D, 101st Military Intelligence Battalion

 But I needed outside information to confirm my memories.

But my incorrect memories would be quoted as a primary source by a historian... 

Upsetting The Apple Cart

So many of the stats of published guns in GURPS don't match what Gun Stats generates that I am tempted to do the slog and make Gun Stats compatible versions of all of them.

Especially in light of finding that shotgun pellets do more damage when calculated by themselves as opposed to calculating a group in a shotshell.

What else do I have to do? 

Confirmed!

In the quote in this post it says that you can stuff 8x 8-round Garand clips into an M1956 universal ammunition small arms pouch.

Confirmed!

Nifty!  Especially since we were still issuing M1's well into the late 1960's to Guard Units.

Arrr?

 ወዳጆች፣ በእርግጥም ዛሬ "እንደ ባህር ላይ ዘራፊ (ፓይሬት) የመናገር ቀን" ነው!

ነገር ግን፣ እውነተኛዎቹ የባህር ላይ ዘራፊዎች "እንደ ባህር ላይ ዘራፊ የመናገር ቀን" በሚያዘው መልኩ አይናገሩም ነበር።

ያ አነጋገር፣ ለዲዝኒው "Treasure Island" (የሀብት ደሴት) ፊልም ባደረገው ትወና ላይ ልዩ ድምቀት ለመፍጠር የወሰነው ተዋናይ ሮበርት ኒውተን የፈጠረው ነበር።

ይሁን እንጂ፣ የኢትዮጵያ ባህር ላይ ዘራፊዎች የሚናገሩት በዚህ መልኩ ነው!

The Preferred AR

Harvey's preferred AR is Kevina.

She's had zero problems shooting it.

Which is why Cheyenne biting her was a surprise!

Repop

Remember when I mentioned that the M1956 pouch was not produced in large numbers?

 

The wide world of reproduction has got you covered! 

Prolly more repops made than the real thing. 

Back On The Horse

Harvey took Cheyenne, the Platoon carbine, to the range to prove that she could!

We paid extra attention to getting the stock in her shoulder pocket and making sure she had it pulled hard into her.

25 yards with irons.

She says it still hurts, but not a horrid stabbing pain; more like someone yelling, "slug-bug!" then wailing one on you.

So I had her try Dottie!

That went a lot better!

25 yards with Vortex Spitfire AR

Dottie is heavier (8.8 lb.) than Cheyenne (6.8 lb.) and has an A1 stock vs a metal carbine stock.  More mass over more surface area means less "impact" on the shoulder.

I did some shooting with Dottie too, but at 100 yards.

I, uh, well...

I'm out of practice.  Still this is a much smaller group than my last outing.  4" at widest if you ignore that flier over his left shoulder.

I knew I was getting that flier when I pulled the trigger too.

Still, Mr Bones is having a bad day.  So is zombie Todd, come to think on it.

We've decided that Magpul makes a much better stock than Colt did in 1969 and that while she loves the Retro gun she's made, she's fine admiring how it looks rather than shooting it.

I don't take my Retro guns out much either, come to think on it.

The Headline I'm Waiting For

"We easily gained access to the device because it lacked viable encryption.  We have corrected that oversight!"

I was reading about how someone stole a Flock camera and managed to download much of the data onboard.

They mentioned a lot of the data was still encrypted and they couldn't access it.

But what I wondered about is if someone could steal the camera and change things so it reported healthy and happy to the mothership, but was actually not doing a gorram thing.

Then I wondered if this same someone could encrypt what they'd done so fully so as to force Flock to buy new hardware to fix it. 

Which Is Exactly Why I Liked In The Grey

"Pitting together charismatic stars in an underpowered caper, Guy Ritchie's In the Grey is a slick action vehicle whose lack of fresh ideas ultimately put its entertainment value in the red."

-- Consensus at Rotten Tomatoes.

Rotten Tomatoes says 52% for critics and 82% for people.

I generally like Guy Ritchie as a director and enjoy his films.

This was no exception.

The plot is laughably thin.  They telegraph what's going to happen so even the most dense viewer will see it coming.

I have seen this movie before.  Dozens of times.

I don't care.  I liked this movie when they did it in the 1980's.  I liked this movie when they did it in the 1990's.  I liked this movie when they did it in the 2000's.  I liked this movie when they did it in the 2010's.

Why wouldn't I like this movie now? 

Gator Crossing

The picture Marv was calling, "camera camera camera!" for:

Honestly, we don't see a gator every day.

One of our friends who lives near where this was taking says its name is Henry. 

00 Buck Anomaly

By-The-Basic-Book and High Tech, a 2-3/4" 12ga 00 Buck round flings 9 round lead balls doing 1d+1 pi each out to 40/800.

Looking up a typical loading I get 9 lead balls at 1,325 feet per second and Gun Stats calculating a "shotshell" gets 1d pi each out to 40/800.

So far so good, just a little less damage.

Fire a single .33 caliber ball at 1,325 fps from a smoothbore and you get 2d pi out to 60/700.

Oops.

The calculation for the single ball is closer to what the magazines writing about shotguns says about performance because they equated .36 cap and ball pistols to 000 Buck. 

Using Your Martel de Fer

 

Interesting vid.

Well Said

In response to the clip going around with the African lady saying 'WHAT WHITE CULTURE!?!'

Because I can explain it in more detail than anyone else... here are the main things that create western civilisation.

The principle, the law of nature that is an adaptation to and what…

— The McMullan (@TheMcMullan) September 15, 2026

 Read the whole thing.

Maybe I Don't Need It

Facebook constantly suggests products I might want or need.

A repeat offender is 4Patriots.

They have a big battery with a solar panel they're selling.

"That'd be handy for hurricane season," I think. 

Do you know how much one costs?

It's not on the main page for the item.

They tell me why such a thing would be handy.  How much it can power and for how long.  How fast the solar panels can recharge it.

But no price.

To approach the price I have to "Start My Order".

Now I know that it's $1,500.

But I would have preferred not to click the order link to see the price. 

Frozen

You might notice that the blog-roll sidebar on the right is not updating with the latest post from their respective authors.

This is a Blogger-wide problem. 

Fifteen Volts

When I replaced the battery on The Beast, I turned on "engineering mode" which has a readout for the battery voltage and charge percentage.

For three short trips the, brand new, AGM battery showed 69.8% charge and 15.0 to 15.2 volts.

That's a little alarming, but the G8 forums say it's not out of the realm of possibility.

Today, on the way to the VA, the voltage was a far more sane 14.0 to 14.5 volts and the charge percentage crept up from 70.4% to 92.4% by the time I got home.

On the trip to one of the local breweries, voltage was down to a comfortable 13.6 to 13.9 and was reading 96.4% when I pulled into the garage.

I am thinking I'm good.

What's interesting is the best that percentage ever showed with the old batt was 74% and that's damn close to the difference between the 660 cca Group 48 and the 880 cca Group 94R.

Interesting Theory

 

Looking back, I realize that I've been doing this for a while.

Even stranger is some of the people I fogged over, I had thought had bailed on me when it was me walking away from them. 

Favorable Mention In Parliment

I have long maintained that I'm not a very enthusiastic Republican.

The problem I have is that I am emphatically not a Democrat on so many issues.

Put another way, I have more in common with R than D.

That leads to holding my nose and voting the lesser evil and knowing that I am still getting evil at a slower pace.

The Republicans take this as a shining endorsement of the things I most disagree with them about, and I complain about that.

Democrats take it the same way.

They think my opposition to their candidate as wholehearted support of the Republican I helped elect.   Like their candidate had nothing to do with it...

So I end up giving the Devil a favorable mention because Hitler invaded Hell.

This was especially so when W was president.

My liberal friends kept missing that Slick Willie only pissed me off on about three things.  His swing to the center didn't offend me at all.

I do notice that if there's an (R) behind a candidate's name then things they do that someone with a (D) behind their name did, it's unconscionable.

All the example you need for this is all the anti-immigration statements that Democrats issued for decades. 

That's Interesting

Well, Mr Punch said he wanted me to look up words...

Today's word is "Gypsy," which the Roma people complain is an exonym for them.

And it is.

But it originates as slang for Egyptian.

It spreads as both a term describing anyone of a swarthy complexion and to people who are thieving by nature.

The thief part comes from it being ever so stylish to have Egyptian servants and associating servant with minor thievery from the estate.

Roma are dark skinned compared to most of Europe, so one can see where it jumped to them.

Roma have a reputation for being less than honest with outsiders and generally not respecting property rights of the people they live amongst.

But did that come before or after they became associated with the household staff stealing the silverware?

Remember, it's not slander if it's true.

So far the elimination of the word gypsy from the Basic Set has been justified on the grounds that the Roma don't like to be called that, not that the accusations don't have merit.

I find that telling.

But also, IF it is true.  If it is not, then I'd be offended at being accused as well.

Western Civ DOES have a bad habit of falsely applying bad attributes to outsiders and has done it so often we're in a boy-who-cried-wolf situation when we find someone who actually HAS those bad attributes. 

I think, though, that the way to deal with an exonym is to embrace it, not reject it.  Kill its power to offend.  I'm 1/2 Dago WOP.  My grandfather on Mom's side experienced all that prejudice and bigotry, but here we are, not being offended by it because we decided that it had no power to hurt us.

Sticks and stones; you choose to be a victim of a slur or not.

For a recent example, look how conservatives embraced "deplorable." 

Chinks In Armor

Chink is a word to describe a gap in armor protection that dates back, at least, to the early 16th century.

It is also a word to describe a sharp, clear metallic sound, dating from the late 16th century.

It is ALSO a racial slur dating from the very beginning of the 20th century.

Which means you need some context when you say, "I'm targeting chinks in armor."

Is it an innocuous attempt at aiming for a gap in the protection, or a racist way of saying you're attacking the Chinese troops?

I remember this being an issue on a few fora.

Thankfully, the older word remains.  Even in GURPS 4eR.

I Was Mistaken

A long while ago I stated remembering that the Army kept us, arms and ammunition well separated unless we were actually on the range and going shooting.

I misremembered something.

The ammo racks of the tanks were loaded with war-shot ammo unless we were going to the range for gunnery.  I also recall, now, removing all that ammo from the tank before going to Graf and experiencing my first round of being responsible in the paperwork for anything at all thanks to my minty new stripes on one of those trips.

Literally nothing but discipline keeping us from loading up an APFSDSDU round and picking a target.

Come to think on it, literally nothing but self control keeping us from firing up a tank and rolling out the gate with it too.

The Army did make us dismount all three machine guns and keep them in the arms room.  Ammo for the MG's was kept in the bunkers a longish ways away.

Same same for our pistols and the tank's M16. 

This Has Happened Before

Florida is experiencing a bad drought.

It's either the worst in 15 years or the worst ever.  Sources are stepping on each other.

I was trying to find a picture of a pet and ended up finding a picture of my, mostly dead, grass in my back yard from 2004.

I did a bit of Googling and found Florida was experiencing a drought in 2004.

My lawn looks better now than it did then, so my particular patch of grass is not seeing a worse drought than 22 years ago.  It is clear, though, that we are still in drought conditions.

Five years ago my grass was LUSH!

That photo also proves that all we need is some rain and the grass will get lush again.

Until the next drought. 

Message For YouTubers

Tell me what you're going to say.

Say it.

Tell me what you just said.

That's normal, everyday, stuff we've seemed to have lost.

Yes, this is do as I say, not as I do because I'm not placing myself as someone who's trying to keep my readers informed.

But over and over the people who are trying to place themselves as information sources keep forgetting to tell me why they're explaining something for such a long time that I can't tell what their point is.

And if YouTube inserts an ad into your explanation before you reach that point, I'm stabbing the back button.

Let us also be honest.

The reason you're rambling like you are is to make the video long enough that the algorithm moves it up past the point where you get paid for putting it up there.

But cramming a few seconds of content into several minutes of video just means most of the video could be skipped and after a few of them, I know that's how you work and I will seek other sources for information on the topic.

Clues that your youtuber will waste your time:

Recites their resume and lists their awards at the beginning of every video.

Explains why you'd be watching a how-to video about how-to repair something.

Begins by answering a question not yet stated. 

Relief

I was sitting here, being bummed, about friends that had left my life.

Abruptly from my perspective.

I realized that I am extremely happy they are gone because I remember the W. Bush years.

I don't think I'd have wanted to deal with them in the Trump era.

We Can Argue About Anything

There's a thread on arfcom that's, no shit, debating which flip-up back-up-iron-sight is best.

Optics have gotten to the point that back-up irons are nugatory.

And I say that as a GM who really WANTS to fuck over a player counting on that optic!

We're to the point where the best BUIS is the one that weighs the least and takes up the least space.

All the rear sights put the same little hole in the same place it would be if the AR had a carry handle.

The front sights literally use an M16A2 front sight post and put it where it'd be if there was a normal front sight base.

Nugatory!

A case can be made for skipping them altogether.

I can't, quite, bring myself to skip having irons on a "fighting" rifle. 

Ackshually

Lindsey Clancy is not a triple murderer.

She's a triple killer.

Murder is a legal term and she has not yet been convicted.

She has admitted, and so stipulated for the court, that she did kill her kids.

I remain hopeful she will get her comeuppances. 

Or....

It wasn't a draw problem.

It was a dead battery.

New 94R/H7 (the correct battery) replaces the 48/H6 the previous owner had in it.

Can't bitch too loud, it ran for 4.5 years with me and about 2 with the previous owner. 

Nine Years

Nine years ago we were digging out from Hurricane Irma.

This year we haven't even gotten much rain. 

Menu

Dear Restaurant Chains;

I want to see what food you have on the menu without entering into the ordering section.

Especially since you lock the ordering section when you are closed most of the time.

Is it really so hard?

Local places manage to have their menus online, separate from the ordering system.

Thanks! 

Still Not Done Being Mad

Even though it's been 25 years since 9/11 I am not done being angry about it.

I still feel that since it was done in the name of Islam that Islam should have done a lot more to show it didn't represent their feelings.

To the point that the next time someone does something in the name of Islam we just make Mecca the new land of the midnight sun with a Beatles soundtrack.

Then carpet bomb anyone who gets upset about it.

Because I am done.

I have noticed, however that much of the middle east has been a lot more taciturn about "Death to America" of late.

Even heard rumors that the current management of Saudi is a lot more moderate than their grandparents and there's a good chance that the Wahhabism wing will get a lot smaller.

One can hope.

To any and all Muslims in the US:  Tomorrow is not your day, so lay the fuck low; we're still licking our wounds and you aren't going to talk us down next time.