Artificial Handicaps, Mozambique Drills, GURPS And You

What we've done by buying and using the 75% IDPA targets at seven yards is to simulate shooting at ten yards.

7 yards is -3 to hit.  10 yards is -4, so we've been giving ourselves a -1 penalty at the range vs "real life".

In the above photo, going for the Mozambique Drill, it's -3 for the vitals and -7 for the skull.  How to GURPS it is on page 15-16 of Tactical Shooting.

In total:

Vitals: -4 for range, -3 for location,+1 for all-out-attack (determined), +1 for no risk to self, +1 for no risk to others, +3 for well lit range, +3 for known distance.  +2 to hit vitals.

Skull: -4 for range, -7 for location,+1 for all-out-attack (determined), +1 for no risk to self, +1 for no risk to others, +3 for well lit range, +3 for known distance.  -2 to hit vitals.

If you're patting yourself on the back for how well you do on the range, notice the +8 for being at the nice, safe, comfortable firing range.

I've calculated my Guns/TL8 (Pistol) at 15 before, so I'd need a 17 or less to hit with one round at the vitals, 15 or less to hit with both in round 1.  Then I'd need a 15 or less to hit the skull in round 2.

I am definitely not running at the pace that requires using the Rapid Strike version of the drill!

In the real world, I'd need a 9 to land one shot and a 7 to land both in the vitals.  Rolling a 10 or 8 means hitting the torso instead.  To hit the skull in the next round I'd need to roll a 5 or less.  I don't feel super confident of that head shot.  Rolling a 6 means hitting the torso instead. 

In the real world I'd prolly not be ready to shoot until the person attacking me was a lot closer than 10 yards, more like three...  So -1 for range instead of -4 and then 12 for the vitals, 10 for both rounds (13 and 11 get the torso) then 8 or less for the skull shot.

Probably more doable. 

Also Today

Cinco de Mosin!

And Another Thing

If you're blaming me for someone else being a racist because I look like that racist...

You're a racist too.

Wasn't me, didn't do it.

Blaming the group for individual crimes is the core of bigotry.

It's a seductive trap and easy to fall into.

Interestingly, noticing that groups of people have something in common is not racist or sexist if the observation happens to be true.

You wouldn't be able to recognize them as a group otherwise.

And sometimes the differences between groups are insurmountable and they should live with some space between them.  But not as often as many bigots would have you believe. 

May The Fourth Be With You

Because today is May the Fourth Be With You and tomorrow is Cinco De Mayo...

I give you Obi Juan Kenobi!

Not A Comment On The Metric System

I object to the Universal Metric Cartridge Naming System because there are too many duplicates, not because it uses metric.

Using inches would have the same problems.

8x50mmR would still need to have "Lebel" or "Siamese" after 0.321x1.98"-R.

For the record, we went to the moon using the metric system.  Look it up.

Gauges and instruments were labeled in Imperial because of familiarity to the operators, but the math was done in metric. 

Hitting The Wall

Actually, hitting the paper.

Harvey has hit the proverbial wall in becoming a better pistol shot.

She is also frustrated by me being so much better than her in a casually effortless way.

I don't even think I'm that good, I'm OK.

And it took many long years to get to it.

She was very depressed and down on herself so I said, "let's sit here on the stools behind the range on the other side of the glass."

We sat for a while watching the other people shoot and I say, "you're already better than half the people here."

And she is.

She's getting all her shots on paper.  Nearly all of them in the -1 ring of a 75% sized IDPA target at 7 yards.

With an epic flinch while she jerks the trigger no less!

She tends to string vertically with a low bias.

We're working on it.  But it doesn't help that she cannot feel her pinkie on her right hand and often cannot feel her ring finger thanks to something pinching in her right elbow.

Her eyes/glasses combination isn't helping.  Our last trip to the eye doctor did NOT get us glasses we're happy with at all. 

Mutter Mutter

Posting pics has, once again, become unreliable at Blogger.

If they'd just stop breaking the "Insert Image by URL" feature, I'd be fine.

Copy-pasting the image to the page as a work around started working erratically, and was making hot-links to the URL I wanted to insert anyway rather than actually dropping the image.  Those links die for some reason. 

Uploading the image to Blogger has never failed, but there's reasons to not use that; not least of which is the limited space provided.

I pay flickr for unlimited space, I'm not going to pay someone else too. 

Wait I've Heard This One Before

There's a video making the rounds of a Muslim woman complaining about the lack of Halal choices in Japan.

She, apparently, spent a month there and ended up eating...

Well the pics she posted looked yummy to me.

But Japan loves pork.

One would think you'd check that out before committing to a month there.

But I have seen this meme before there was a word, "meme."

The Ugly American.

You know the person, they go to a foreign and exotic land and demand that everything be made just like home for them.  It's an American stereotype.

So she went to Japan and is demanding they have Halal food at every eatery because SHE is there.

Yeah.

Well, I gotta love one response I found from someone in Japan, "So I can buta no shogayaki at every restaurant in Riyadh?"

I mean every place MUST conform to the ideals of their visitors, right?

I'm actually surprised there's been push back against her little rant.

The Case Against Universal Metric Cartridge Designation

The first example of how Universal Metric fails against simply naming the rounds is the number of 8x50mmR rounds where you end up naming them anyways.  Austrian, Lebel, Siamese...

But where it really rankles me is .22 Long and .22 Long Rifle.

UM is based on caliber x case length.

.22 Long and .22 Long Rifle are identical if you use UM.  5.6x16mmR.  This is because they use the exact same case.  .22LR uses a longer, heavier, bullet and more powder.  They're not the same.

Wrong Designation

While I was restricting myself to things that were plausible for Twilight, I'd missed that the hoary old M577 stopped being M577.

Neatly sidestepping becoming the Mobile Command Post of Theseus the M577A2 was extensively upgraded and modernized to become the M1068.

A similar upgrade makes the M577A3 into the M1068A3.

Still looks the same on the outside and you'd be forgiven if you mistook one for another.

The M1068 is due to be replaced by the Bradley based M1286.

I once had a player group in one of my first conversions of T2K to GURPS select the M577A1 CP because it had air conditioning. 

Just A Couple Years Late

Twilight: 2000 had a few variations of the M2 Bradley which were projected to enter service, but never did.

It was a logical progression that the Brad would be modified as the M113 had and would have as many specialized variants.

Well...  No.  Especially with the Berlin Wall falling and ruining the chances we'd have full on nuclear combat, toe to toe with the Ruskies.  It also makes T2K an alt-history instead of a speculative future.

Darn.

It does turn out that the M113 is obsolete and not viable for frontline operations any more and that we needed something to replace all of its numerous variations.

Which we started to do in 2018 with the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle program. 

T2K's M18 mortar carrier is the real world's M1287.

The world only took 32 years to catch up to a game... 

I'll Help!

There seems to be some confusion out there.

Here's a handy way of looking at things that will help.

If you do something because of race, it is racism.

If you increase the voting power of Black people because they are Black, you are doing a racist thing. 

If you increase the voting power of White people because they are White, you are doing a racist thing. 

If you increase the voting power of Asian people because they are Asian, you are doing a racist thing. 

If you increase the voting power of Hispanic people because they are Hispanic, you are doing a racist thing.

Update:* Swapping the races doesn't make it not racist.  If it's racist for White people to do it, it's racist for Black people to do it:  Regardless of how often or how long White people did it!  Two wrongs don't make a right. 

See how that works?

If the voting power of a given people is decreased because it increases the power of one political party over another it is not necessarily racist.

If the voting power of one political party is always increased when the voting power of a given race is increased it is racist.

If the voting power of a given race is disproportionate to their population, it is racist.

The majority will always have more voting power than the minority.  That there are more White people than Black people is incidental to argument. 

I hope this clear things up.  But it doesn't. 

Which brings us to Florida and how the new district map increases the power of Whitey™.

Florida was 51.5% White as of the 2020 census.  It was 14.5% Black and 26.5% Hispanic.

The distribution of race is not even in Florida.  There are no real concentrations of Black people where they're the majority unless you get really creative with drawing the lines and the map suddenly looks a lot like Illinois.  Essentially you'd have to pinpoint every Black person you can find, connect the dots and that's your district with a majority Black population.

This district will utterly disenfranchise anyone who is not Black and, historically, it was drawn across places that were, historically, majority Hispanic.  Oddly, never up along the Alabama border were it made more sense...

Yet, somehow, this increases White Power®?  Never mind there's a distinct population of "Black" people who'd say, "¡Soy cubano!"  Does moving the lines increase or decrease their voting power?

The final thought I leave you with: There is no way to draw the lines that is completely fair.  It is impossible.  The best you can do is to maximize fairness, but someone will always be left out. 

*Thanks SiGraybeard!

More Anarchotyranny

If you call the cops for the same thing too many times, you will be fined for it.

The most common version of this tale is a false alarm of your security system.

The cops come out when your alarm goes off, find nothing, and after a certain number of calls order you to fix your alarm or be fined.

So you call the alarm company and discover that there's nothing wrong with your system.

But the alarm keeps being triggered.

So the cops fine you.

This does not sit well with the average business owner at all.

What's happening?

The burglars know the police response time and how they operate.  They trigger the alarm and disappear.  They know that the most common end response of the business owner is to shut the alarm off rather than face the fine.

Then they can burgle at their own pace.

The crowning moment is when the place gets cleaned out and the owner calls the cops in the morning they say, "you should have had an alarm."  They will then proceed to do a cursory investigation and the crime will never be solved no matter how obvious it is to everyone in the neighborhood whom the criminals are.

Oh, and don't you dare figure out what the thieves are up to and sit inside your business waiting for them to break in.  There's no defending mere property allowed.

And THAT is how you end up with a law making it legal to shoot burglars.

And by the bye, if you don't make it legal to shoot burglars, you eventually get cops getting shot by citizens because the cops are only getting in the way of justice and things have progressed to the point where the only path to justice is unlawful.

Remember:  The deal is we give up the right to vendetta and The State catches and punishes criminals.  If The State reneges on this deal, we get our vendetta back.

We don't want our vendetta back.  It really is better if the professionals catch and punish criminals, it's one of the things that allows for a high-trust society. 

Still The Goldilocks

The center group is the M&P 2.0 9 Compact.  The other two groups are the Shield Plus.

I then decided to so some Mozambique drills with the Compact.

While I keep hearing about how great the Gen 6 Glocks are, they'd have to really be great to replace my Smith.

Mayday Mayday Mayday

 

Poproszę o przedmioty z byłego państwa komunistycznego – takie, których nie można było posiadać, gdy było ono jeszcze państwem komunistycznym – za 1000 dolarów.

Today is international fuck communism day.

The official food of today is "no food."

Half price helicopter rides if you show your Communist Party ID when checking in at the gate. 

Silly Magazines

A Marlin Camp Carbine in 9x19mm uses the same magazines as a S&W 59 series pistol.

10 (ick), 15, 17 and 20 round magazines are available from Mec-Gar, assuming you can get their web page to work, which it wasn't at the time I tried to check on this.

It seems silly that the 20 rounder is so much longer than the 17 and only holds three more rounds.

Looks like 5 more rounds, at least, would fit, no?

 

They're built very differently internally.

The 17 rounder has a shorter follower and the top of the spring is designed to telescope inside itself; that's how it gets 17 rounds where S&W designed 15 to go.

The 20 rounder reminds me more of the S&W 15 rounder they introduced with the 3rd gen.  Tall follower, normal spring geometry, it just eats the space up inside.

 

 

The original Model 59 magazines only held 14, but S&W changed the baseplate from metal to plastic and let it sit a little outside the gun giving just enough more space for a 15th round.  When the 59 was introduced, it was a selling point to have one more round than the competition, the Browning Hi-Power.  By the time the 3rd generation guns came out, the competition was the Beretta 92 and they needed to have at least as many rounds as them.

I think Mec-Gar figured out the additional two rounds to have parity with Glock. 

Devil's Advocate

Is it possible that the reason that Illinois' map is gerrymandered so that every representative can have an office in Chicago and has nothing to do with race or party affiliation?

I'm here all night, try the veal and don't forget to tip your server.
 

Oh That's Why

There's so many creative people I've stopped watching since 2016...  November 2016 come to think of it.

Europeans really don't get us.

The more I see them explain my motives for things without asking me, I also understand why they don't understand.  They don't want to.

They think we're like them and when we, repeatedly, demonstrate different they get petulant.

Scandinavia vs the World is the first place it really hit home for me.

Lazer Pig is the most recent.

He really supports Ukraine.  Everything side tracks to how the US isn't doing our part to support what he wants.

Our part?  Why the fuck is any of this our problem?  And if it's our problem, then you're blaming the wrong president and political party, fucktard.

And if you don't support Ukraine he has a huge video that explains why you're wrong and evil and fell for propaganda...  But if you look hard at what he's saying and how he's saying it, then if you DO support Ukraine then you're wrong, and evil and fell for propaganda but it's OK this time because it's HIS propaganda.  FuzzyGeff was unable to finish the video.

I took a break from him, and History of Everything, about here. 

And he gets around to blaming the wrong president and political party by name in what is supposedly a video about the Challenger II tank.

The asides about Russia getting Trump elected by a supposed historian...  then I realized something.  Lazer Pig is a gay man.

Trump is literally Hitler to the LGBTQSS.

Click.

Got it.

Good News

The Firearms Policy Coalition has posted this list to their Facebook account.

FPC LEGAL ALERT
The ATF has posted summaries of the new regulations, which include:
1) Repeal Biden's pistol brace rule
2) Revising "engaged in the business" rule
3) Revising machine gun definition in response to Cargill decision
4) Remove requirement for FFLs to post info about Youth Handgun Safety Act
5) Revising 4473 form, including allowing electronic forms and increase the time NICS checks remain valid
6) Allow FFLs to keep electronic records
7) Replace indefinite retention of 4473s with definite time periods of 20 or 30 years
Allow “Non-Over-the-Counter” firearm sales by FFLs to residents of the same state
9) Repeal interstate NFA transport notice requirement for trips under 365 days, with all others no longer requiring approval before transport
10) Joint NFA registration for married couples
11) Remove NFA CLEO notification
12) Clarify that "common, reasonably necessary activities during travel" are covered by FOPA transportation protection
13) Allow import of dual-use frames, receivers, and barrels
14) Clarify that "training rounds" are not ammunition
15) Eliminate engraving requirement for people making NFA firearms out of existing serialized guns
16) "Clarify that a person receiving assistance in only one functional area (such as financial management) would not, on that basis alone, be considered prohibited" under mental health disqualifier
17) Requiring biological sex on ATF Forms
18) Clarify when a transaction is a straw purchase
19) Formally define "willfully" for firearms violations.
20) "Remove the list of former Soviet countries from which ATF currently denies applications to permanently import most firearms and ammunition, retaining only the Russian Federation"

Nearly all good as far as I can see.  The Devil will be in the details, of course.

Obviously, we want all their stupid shit deleted and the "The Lord giveth and the The Lord taketh away," nature of ATF regulation be eliminated; but we fucking marched to where we are since 1934; stopping and doing some baby steps backwards is a huge deal.

Lego Delivery

When the Death Star collapsed in Marv's back seat, we had thought we'd gotten it all in the back for Adam.

Marv, however, found a stray the other day.

Today, I ran up to Ocala to give Adam his parts.

The Beast is made for the open road!

The lack of AC is a bit tedious, but it wasn't too bad, really.  I grew up without AC at all and it was a bit nostalgic to drive with the windows down.

1 Of 57 Um 50

Tennessee did a solid for the law-abiding and passed a bill making it legal to defend property with deadly force.

While it might only be stuff, it's MY stuff.

It's not a case of me valuing my stuff over someone's life.  It's them not valuing their life over my stuff.

It wasn't that long ago we put the heads of thieves on pikes to warn others of the price of stealing.

That's extremely unsanitary, but it underscores that Western Civilization didn't always condemn the idea of defending hearth and home by any and all means at hand.

Perhaps if the police embraced Peelian principles more, it would not have come to this, but they appear to have reneged on the deal that they would handle thieves if we surrendered shooting them in the back when they were fleeing with our property.

Well, Officers, how many burglaries have you solved?

Does your state have a "good faith" clause that lets pawn shops out of being charged with dealing in stolen goods?

If the answer to that first question is, "not many," or, "a very small percentage of burglaries reported;" and the answer to the second question is, "yes." then it's time to let the honest citizen waste some criminals.

Remember, a dead criminal has a 0% recidivism rate.  Also, liberal judges and district attorneys can't release a dead criminal to commit more crimes while they fail to appear for trial, no matter how much money George Soros spends on electing them!

Being able to legally shoot criminals is a solid win for society!

Wanna know a secret?

I doubt we're going to see more than a handful of criminals shot stealing from a home.

For the same reasons that conceal carry liberalization had a chilling effect on assault, rape and robbery.

Thieves don't want to get shot committing crimes.

It Shoots

For some reason I'm better with the Gen 1 Classic than the P80 Classic.

Two mags at 7 yards.

The factory Glock sights still suck for me trying to go fast on a 3x3 set of rings though.  Lack of practice, I am sure.

The Gen 1 Classic's slide doesn't scrape the top of my hand like the P80 Classic.  Odd.

Retention

Lots of gunwriters extol the virtues of pistol retention and gush about holsters that will help with the task.

But I appear to be the only pro-gun advocate even talking about lanyards.

Strange

Facebook is far more likely to suggest someone I know in meatspace from long ago under my blog name than it is under my real name.

That's very odd.

Also interesting is a search for those suggested "friends" from my realname account often gives no results.  That means those folks have blocked me under my real name.

I didn't think they remembered me, but it seems that they regarded me poorly enough to preemptively make sure I wouldn't find them.

I guess I should feel bad about that, but it wasn't until Facebook recommended them to my blogname account that I even remembered them. 

Who Has To Die?

There was a story that went around the gun sphere a while ago where someone asked a Glock rep at a convention, "Who has to die to get a single stack Glock?"

The reply was, "Gaston."

IYKYK

Glock has recently recognized that metal magazines without a plastic sheath are durable enough for everyday use after... um... more than a century.

Apparently they have contracted with MecGar for new magazines for the 43x and 48 which ups the round count from 10 to 15.

I, for one, welcome our insect overlords.

Panzer Guy, in the comments, asked for my thoughts about it and I think that it's Glock finally admitting that the customers deserve a vote about what Glock should make because the customers decide what they are going to buy.

If Glock fails to make something they want to purchase, they will buy from a vendor that does.

Someone like S&W and their Shield Plus that packs 13 rounds in about the same profile as Glock pack 10...

The new all metal magazines pack 15 in the space that used to hold 10 and that's 2 more than Smith...  That's a good look.

I also think the Gen6 guns are a response to customer feedback that's been accumulating since Gen3.  I also note that Gaston Glock did, indeed, die between Gen3 and Gen6 (he died after Gen5 came out).

Personally I've felt that every generation of Glock has been a good progression since the beginning, except for the finger bulges on 3 and 4.  I have to admit wanting the bulges when they came out and later deciding they were for someone else's hand.

Not every generation has had a smooth rollout.  I remember when the 4th gen hit and people were wondering where the reliability had gone.  Quickly fixed, but a hiccup.

I've no hands-on experience with the Gen6, but have been hearing good things.

Marv needs a Gen6 Glock 19, I think. 

The Story ™ That's In The Regimental History

I keep telling this story and then losing where I put it so I can't link to it when I say, "I've told this story before!"

My unit had a bit of a hiccup in the supply lines.

We'd turned in our M1911A1's and all the .45 ACP and drawn 9mm in anticipation of being issued new M9's.  Except the M9 was having some sort of production stoppage and there were no pistols to issue us.

Normally that'd mean we'd just wait, without pistols, until it was sorted out.

We were scheduled to leave for the West German-Czech border, "any moment now," to cover a unit there that was going to Graf for training.

We got permission to hit the rod-and-gun club's gun shop and order, "anything that shoots 9mm," I remember that we were supposed to be compensated for the purchase up to some amount I don't recall.  I don't think we ever were.  We were also allowed to purchase if we were under 21 (like me) and accompanied by a senior NCO.  If you were under 21, you could only visit your purchase under the same conditions as an issue weapon.  Over 21 could sign them out almost at will.

I bought a Glock 17.  My first gun! 

I chose it because it held 17 rounds, that's more than a Beretta so better!

Someplace in here is where I learned 17+1 too.

Pistol qualification was hilarious with, seemingly, no two guns alike.  Thinking back, most of us snagged either a Beretta 92 or a S&W x39 or x59.  One guy even snagged an H&K94!

I was still 20 when I injured myself in a fall from a tank and had to sell the gun before returning home, had to be 21 to bring a handgun back with you from Germany in those days.  Technically I WAS 21 when I ETS'd, but there were painkillers and alcohol involved in my disorderly medical separation from service.

Just To Be Complete

Most of my service with tanks, I carried an M1911A1, not a Glock 17.

When we got back from the Czech border, we finally got our M9's to go with our 9x19mm ammo.

But I never carried my Beretta like this:

We had the Bianchi M13 shoulder holsters based on the UM-84.  Those things sucked.  Lots of guys used their old M7 holsters as I have pictured above.

It Makes A Slight Difference

A Glock 17 Gen 1 Classic loaded with 17 rounds of S&B 115gr FMJ weighs 1 lb. 15.9 oz.

A Glock 17 Gen 1 Classic loaded with 17 rounds of Hornady 135gr Critical Duty JHP weighs 2 lb. 0.6 oz.

Both of which round to 2 lb. for GURPS.

The loaded magazines are 9.8 oz. for the ball ammo and 10.5 oz. for the hollow-points.

0.6 lb. and 0.7 lb. when you get done rounding.

So you can take a 0.1 lb. heavier magazine and not change the weight of the pistol!

Remember pi is 3.00 in GURPS...

I tend to not bother accounting for the heavier ammo and just use the ammo table exemplar for all rounds; though I do have different weights listed for .223 Rem and 5.56x45mm NATO...  Because they have two listings on the ammo table!

They Keep Breaking This Feature

Blogger keeps breaking the post picture by URL feature and I have now idea what could be the cause.

It's not because the URL is broken, because if you manually enter the html for the hot linked pic, it appears correctly.

It's their interface that's busted and keeps getting busted after they fix it.

Feedback has been sent to whomever keeps track of such things and it will prolly start working again tomorrow for a few weeks. 

Nostalgia Rig

How I toted on the Czech-West German border.

If I had not disregarded the future collectors, this picture would be impossible for lack of a lanyard.

Hunting Over Bait

While entrapment is illegal, arresting people for breaking the law in response to someone else being arrested is not.

If we had a properly function justice system, any protests that fell to being a riot would result in scads and scads of people being arrested and the fomenters who changed it from a protest to a riot would suffer heavy charges.

Without bail.

Someone who (allegedly) instigates a riot is clearly a threat to the community and too dangerous to be at large while their innocence is proven.  Though if they're at the center of a second riot because of their arrest...  What a great piece of damning evidence!

For example, (Only) Black Lives Matter protests that turned to violence, destruction and arson because a career criminal's life long arc led to it's logical conclusion to police gun fire should be welcomed as probable cause to get professional agitators locked away for a good long time.

Florida has a good example of doing it right, actually.

Saint Petersburg had a race riot in 1996.

"What do we do next time?" loomed big in everyone's mind.

That the cops came up with was:

1. Identify the leaders.

2. Swiftly arrest them.

3. Hold them incommunicado for as long as the law allows.  24 hours.

4. Hold them for the maximum amount of time allowed without charging them.  30 days, 40 with good cause.

5.Turn them loose, uncharged.

Number three derails the third parties who provide bail money.  In 24 hours the momentum for most riots dissipates without these leaders.

Number four, once a threat to the community is expressed by the arresting department, means they get to stew and be ineffective at foment.

Number 5 kills their ability to use their incarceration as a form of martyrdom.

It works!

It worked in St Pete while Minneapolis burned.

Easy Fix

The Father In Law's tailgate refused to open today.

Troubleshooting was complicated by a tonneau cover.

We could tell that the passenger side was unlatching, but the driver's wasn't.

Happily we figured out how to get past the cover and get it out the way without breaking anything.

Four screws to get the latch plate off and get at the guts.

What had failed was the little plastic retainer that holds the latch-rod to the latch, allowing said rod to fall off and not be actuated by the latch.

Marv had donated a spare latch back when he had the same model truck, so we swiped a retainer from that latch to replace the broken one and all is now well.

Half the time working with The FiL's truck I come back in cussing and Harvey was very confused that I was back in the house ten minutes after starting the project and all done without even screaming.

I think you can buy the little plastic retainers at AutoZone, but I've tasked Bubba to do it.

Détente

I keep Shadow and Beeper separated because Beeper is VERY aggressive towards Shadow and Shadow is very meek.

Today they showed no signs of wanting to swap out of the bedroom, but Beeper had zonked out in a sunbeam on the back porch.

So I, gently, grabbed Shadow and took her back there.

She was tense when she spotted Beeper, but stayed in my lap for a while, slowly relaxing.

Then she hopped down and did her normal rounds of exploring the porch while Beeper continued to sleep.

Eventually, though, Beeper became aware of Shadow and she started to try to start something, which I prevented by blocking her.

Shadow walked back into the house instead of slinking and Beeper did a fairly prompt, "out of sight, out of mind," bit and went back to her sunbeam.

It's progress.

In the past once Shadow had become aware that Beeper had spotted her would have been hours under the bed in the bedroom.

Today she was in the bedroom window watching the birds.

That's progress too!

At Every Brewery

The mouth breathing morons were standing in rapt attention watching the National Felon League select their newest players this evening.

That this "needed" to be televised is extremely confusing to me.

Hockey manages to have a draft every year and you can read about it on the NHL web page if you care, without forcing anyone who doesn't to endure it.

Hockey is so much better than Football in so many ways.

By the way, the NHL is currently running their playoffs, it's more important than who might be playing football months from now and I am getting sick of the NFL stepping on other sports.

That Was A Near Thing

The Boy has a stuffed animal, Mr Sloth.

Mr Sloth is his constant companion and he helps keep The Boy calm.

The special needs kids group did a sunset cruise to see the dolphins...

Mr Sloth went overboard while The Boy was helping him dance to the music they were piping in.

Happily, "SLOTH OVERBOARD!" is a valid cry to the crew of the boat (who had warned people that they would NOT be turning back for lost glasses or hats).

Mr Sloth was recovered, soaked through and smelling of The Sea®.

What he required is what we call a "Spa Day."

A spa day could be as simple as tossing him in the washer and treating him like laundry.

Often it means gutting him and replacing his stuffing.

Occasionally, we replace him with a different Mr Sloth.  This time he's been replaced with a spare from the attic.

If The Boy is aware we're doing this, he isn't letting on.

They were originally available from Wal Mart, and we bought several.  We bought all we could find one year.  We still have a few.

You can find them on ebay.  LINK TO AN EXAMPLE.

Classic Glock 17

The P80 Classic did not fill the void.

So I've kept hunting for either a real steal on an actual Gen1 or a decent deal on a Gen 1 Classic.

I found the Classic because the seller listed it as a real Gen1 and that wouldn't attract someone who wanted a Classic.

Without regards to future collectors, I decided to make it a clone of my actual first Glock 17.

This means I can put the lanyard on it!

The hole for the lanyard is not on the initial issue of the P80 or G17, and it appears erratically in production until all guns after a certain point have it.  The one I bought at the Patch Rod and Gun Club had the hole, as did the one I bought later at Jacobson's Gun Center.  The gun I bought stateside also had adjustable sights for ATF import points.

Here's what's wrong with the P80:

And here's why the Gen 1 Classic is acceptable:

And except for the serial number range, that's all the differences between them!

 I think I, very quietly, crossed the line to being a Glock collector without noticing.

FedExSux

In my locale, there is no worse shipper than FedEx.

Especially if it's gun stuff.

Even DHL is better around here.

Read that again.

I've even had to threaten to call ATF on them because they claimed it was delivered on the web page and the driver had not even gotten within a mile of my house yet.

That was a fun call while they claimed they couldn't contact the driver and had no way of knowing exactly where he was.  Yet, ten minutes after issuing my threat the driver screeched to a halt in front of my house and a driver with a "I just got my ass chewed but good," look on their face delivered my return from S&W. 

Today I am watching a tracking number that left Tampa at 0720 with an expected delivery between 1045 and 1445.

It is now 1530 and expected delivery has changed to "before 1700" to a business that closes at 1700...

I loathe FedEx so much. 

Progressive

The road from high-trust to low-trust societies follows a predictable path.

One of the first steps is the entities that have been entrusted with keeping order, refusing to do so or being selective about what order they keep.

Anarchotyranny is the result.

The classic example is a homeowner who has suffered through repeated thefts and burglaries and receiving no justice who decides enough is enough and administers some on their own.

The people who are supposed to be investigating the crimes that led to this, enforcing the law and meting out punishment...  Come down hard on the homeowner.

The homeowner did, assuredly, break the law; but the motives matter.

What was the government doing to keep them from losing their property?

Had they arrested anyone?

Had they secured a conviction?

Did they even bother to actually investigate past taking a vague description or logging the video of the crime?

The government and police have failed in their duties and since they are given powers delegated from The People, it is the right of The People to reclaim those powers from the government and police.

But there's a simple solution:  Just make it legal to shoot burglars and thieves in the act of stealing AND/OR running from the scene of the crime.

Fuck 'em.

Because if the cops don't start arresting people and the district attorney doesn't start getting convictions:  People are going to start killing criminals on their own and will shortly thereafter start shooting the police who try to stop them.

It's a place we, as a society, do not want to be; but the first step back from the brink is the hardest and it's on Leviathan to make it. 

Signal Strength

We've been watching hockey via one of the secondary broadcast channels on the back porch.

Which is fine as long as the weather cooperates.

Lately, though, reception has been a bit choppy and we have neighbors who turn up their music too loud.

So I ordered a bigger antenna!

I clamped it to the mount that used to hold our abandoned in place Dish Network dish.

There was some bother with aiming because my phone's compass wasn't calibrated properly.  I was off like 13° south of where the transmitters were!

Bonus: since we were using abandoned Dish Network stuff anyways, we now have broadcast TV in the living room too!

It just took me a bit to find which of the coax cables in the attic led to the wall-jack nearest to the TV.

I owe Marv dinner for his help.
 

Good Timing

Remember a couple days back when I talked about replacing the Amazon Basics UPS with a unit I'd put a new battery in?

Yesterday the clock on the microwave said 0:00 for the time and the garage clock was short a few hours.

The power had gone out while I was sleeping and there was nothing else to make us notice.

It cannot have been out for very long because the coffee pot's clock was still right.  It'll recover after a short outage because unplugging it briefly is how you reset the "clean the pot" notice.