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The Precious died.
The Lovely Harvey broke her shoulder and got a near fatal infection.
Derpy Dingus McGee died. He was a great cat.
Numerous home disasters ruined all the finances.
The red wave never materialized.
2023 shouldn't be worse, but I will not say it cannot.
I said that about 2020 and 2022 sure proved my dumb ass wrong.
First, the M&P 9 2.0 Compact isn't properly called an M&P 9C.
Mostly because the true 9C was a 12-round gun with the matching shorter grip.
I point this out because if you tell the counter person 9C they will bring you a too short 12 round magazine when you want a 15-rounder.
Now to answer the question Slow Joe Crow asked:
My gun shoots 115gr Critical Defense FTX rounds no problem. Slightly tighter groups than Winchester White Box.
Harvey's doesn't appear to like anything FTX. Lots of fail to feed.
Happily Yee Olde Hydra-Shok appears to work fine, and so does Speer Gold-Dot.
We're hoping it's a break-in issue and will clear up as we use the pistol.
Willard's granddaughter is on leave from The Navy and wanted to go shooting.
Who are we to say no to that?
To date, she's fired an M9 in boot camp, but was told that they'd never be issued one because M17/18 is coming.
So we rented an M18 at the range for her to try out!
Me too...
I prefer the grip frame of the M18 to the one that came with my Pro Carry.
I think I will wander over to one of the bigger gun stores and see if they have any in my size.
I shot the M18 a bit better than my Pro Carry. Marv did as well.
If it's a better grip that improved my shooting, then it's $50 well spent.
If not... It will be pretty in two-tone black and tan!
I have to admit, it shoots.
Winchester white box 115gr is definitely it's favorite food at 7 yards.
Firing as fast as I could get a sight picture sure spreads out the group though. I need more practice, but I'm much tighter with the Goldilocks 9 Compact.
The 90gr Critical Defense Lite worked pretty well despite failing to feed in the S&W.
The Kasarda Drill ain't got nothing on physical therapy when it comes to inducing accuracy degrading muscle fatigue.
Even so, The Lovely Harvey still managed this group at 7 yards even with a person on each side spraying and praying with a muzzle-braked AR.
She's upset at her group, but she's coming back from a long stretch of not shooting and recovering from a major injury and attendant surgery.
I am telling her that this group would have killed that motherfucker, so good shoot!
I ain't kiddin' about therapy degrading your accuracy. She was struggling after a couple of magazines, but she's a trooper.
We also discovered that her M&P 9 Compact doesn't like Hornady 90gr 100gr FTX Critical Defense Lite. It almost chambers, a slap on the slide gets it into battery, but... Unacceptable for carry!
The SIG P320 ate the remaining supply like it was nothing.
Fixed the bullet weight!
Yes, the SIG-Sauer P320 Pro Carry can mount a Laserlyte pistol bayonet.
I knew my readers were afraid to ask.
Related, the S&W M&P 2.0 9mm Compact cannot mount this bayonet because the pommel hits the trigger guard before the latch gets to a slot. The same thing keeps the Smith from mounting my X300 light.
Whoppie, while Judaism IS a religion, Jews are a defacto race.
Why?
Because if your parents were Jews, so are you to a depressing number of assholes.
In the context you're trying to draw that because being Jewish is religion, it cannot be a race and dismissing what the National Socialists say because Nazi...
It becomes racial when someone hunts you down, tosses you into a concentration camp and systematically murders you because your grandma was Jewish.
But it's not just that. This is the important part. Grandma being Jewish was all that mattered about getting tossed in the camp. You not practicing the religion at all did not matter one little bit.
Not even if you had openly and often condemned her for being a Jew!
There was no getting away from being a blood relative and so off to the ovens you go!
That, Ms Goldberg, is why the Shoah is racist and about race.
The same death camps give us a confirmation too.
Jehova's Witnesses could walk out any time they wanted if they just renounced their religion and recanted their Faith.
That none did was remarkable, but no Jew or distant relative of a Jew was given the choice.
The local Tire Plus did not cover itself in glory.
The manager told us their 3 o'clock was a no-show so I could slip into that slot.
"Shouldn't take long."
But they took my car off the alignment rack at 4 when the 5 o'clock appointment showed early.
That's not how you do this.
What you're doing is telling a walk in that they're the lowest priority and to find a different shop.
Which I will do next time.
There's about twenty places that can do an alignment on a walk in basis around here.
I chose the place I did because it was close and I could relay my destination to Marv simply and quickly.
Mom and pop are getting the next alignment and tire-mounting.
On the plus side, the guy doing the work actually did do a good job even if what he was telling the manager about why it was taking so long didn't make any sense to her.
The PPV has an odd system to get all four wheels aligned and it takes a lot of jiggering to even get an initial reading. Especially when it's totally out of whack, like The Beast was.
Changes to toe, change the camber and caster and you have to reset a couple of times.
It'd be easier if Holden had made allowance for camber adjustment.
Eventually they got it aligned and recommended that I change my brake fluid, coolant and wiper blades.
I can do that!
Yesterday, while waiting for The Beast to get an alignment after we did the tie rods; Marv and I bummed around the local gun shops.
I have now beheld and held an M&P Metal.
While it felt good in the hand, it didn't feel $200 better than the plastic version.
The trigger had a LONG span of nothing before it started to behave like a trigger too. Even the counter guy commented on it.
The proof could be in the shooting, but they don't have one for rent yet.
I'll grind a gear here.
Satanism has something in common with Libertarianism.
Most of the people who say they're one aren't accomplishing what they think they are.
The militant versions most especially.
I should include Atheists here too. Which grinds my gears because as someone who merely believes there is no God, the people who wanna force that view onto others pisses me right the fuck off!
I've known a few people of all three stripes and once you talk to them for a while you find that the real goal is for someone to pay attention to them and being vocally different was the only thing they could come up with.
They also get mad at you when you disengage once you've made this discovery.
Yes, I am aware that blogging is seeking attention by being vocally different... Would you like a black fly with your chardonnay?
This does not mean that:
There are no people who deeply believe in and worship Satan.
There are no people who fervently adhere to the idea of self ownership and the non-aggression principle.
There are no people who simply don't believe in a non-corporeal entity guiding our lives.
There are no people who write on the internet who do so to clear their own minds.
It's just that the people who you KNOW are Satanists/Libertarians/Atheists just don't seem to ever talk about anything else or do much of anything to change the world.
Aside: If you're into freedom and liberty, it's hard to reconcile with the idea that there's a God who is your Master in the same vein as a feudal lord whom you owe birthright fealty. At best. At worst He is Master and you are His slave. I know that this idea pisses Christians off. I've been, repeatedly, told so by angry Christians.
The number one religion for changing the world and getting shit done has been Christianity.
It's a matter of fact.
The number one driver of freedom and liberty was a group of Christians (who cheerfully let a couple of Atheists in their midst while making the rules). These people even warned that what they were doing required a moral people to do it.
Even if there's no imaginary friend, following the Christian moral template doesn't lead you too far wrong in your dealings with other people.
Because of Christianity, those morals are the framework of Western Civ and it's accomplished a lot when allowed to function and we worry more about the morality than the source of the morals.
PS: Aesop, your deleted reply from the other thread is on topic here. Recreate it and it will stand.
I am sometimes too subtle.
I sometimes reference inside jokes from meatspace that my readers have never seen.
So I will ruin the joke by explaining it.
Christianity has committed more evil than Satanism.
That's because Satanism has done nothing.
That's the joke, cue Rainier Wolfcastle meme.
There's a lot of evil attributed to Satan, but it's never actually a Satanist. I do not deny it was evil, I only contest that it was Satanism.
The flip side is that Christianity has done a lot of good.
Sometimes inadvertently, but still on the good side of the ledger.
But there's a lot of Christians out there doing evil who're going to be shocked to find themselves in Hell come The Day if it pans out their imaginary friend isn't imaginary.
There's piles of examples of nominally Christian people using scripture to justify their misdeeds.
Satanism?
Satanists?
Not so much.
The few prominent Satanists really don't push the religion bit that much and go about their lives. And go about their lives not doing evil... One's a painter of nudie girls and takes pictures of nekkid wimmins that would be at home at Irish's.
So, in the future, don't get too wrapped around the axle when I make a sweeping hyperbole like that.
I feel like I've detailed the comment policy enough times.
I'm not repeating it again.
Either you're smart enough to notice, read and follow the rules or you aren't.
If you aren't then you're going to see your comment was removed by a blog admin.
If you don't understand why your comment's content was removed then... Well you weren't smart enough to notice, read or follow the rules.
The P320 Pro Carry appears to have been made from the factory with the upgrade to the trigger pack to keep it from firing when I drop it.
If you're curious, here's a YouTube video on the changes made:
I think that makes my P320 (thanks again Willard!) a post 2017 gun.
Scouring the internet for pictures to explain the flat trigger on the SIG P320 Carry brings me to the conclusion that it's actually a P320 Pro Carry.
It's a refinement of the X-Carry for duty use and was originally an LEO only deal.
I hate that distinction from gun companies.
I'm going to call SIG later and ask about the voluntary upgrade to fix the drop issue and its born on date.
The P320 Carry fits the same size niche as the Glock 45.
The SIG is just a little bit heavier.
Not sure if the higher bore-line will matter.
This is the serialized part of the P320.
From here I can make almost any gun in the P320 line-up.
How economical that is... That's an interesting question.
Changing the grip module and slide assembly is almost as expensive as buying a whole used gun.
But you don't have to visit an FFL to do it!
Feeling nostalgic, I dug out my arms room card and took a pic of Andrea.
This is also evidence that not everyone who makes a "ghost gun" skips the serial number portion of the event. Not shown is the required information for my trust in case I ever wanted to go NFA with this lower.
The SIG P320 Carry does fit in an M7/M9 tanker holster.
The standard USGI lanyard does NOT fit in the hole provided.
Marvyn bought me one of those Established Title deals and there's a square foot of Scotland reclaimed from the Sassenach in the name of McThag!
So I will now lord it over all y'all!
Every time I look at the framed certificate, I just laugh. It brings me great joy!
Thanks Marv!
Marv is a stalwart resistor to interrogation.
Water board... nothing.
Bamboo shoots... nothing.
Pulling finger nails out with pliers... nothing.
We ran out of time before Willard arrived and revealed the mystery gun!
It's a SIG P320! Carry model if I'm reading the intertubes correctly.
3.9" barrel and 17 shot grip-frame with an 'M' for medium on the back. Not sure of the exact SKU because the box that came with it isn't the box that it shipped from New Hampshire originally in.
I am wondering if the flat trigger is factory or Apex.
It's got a lot of the features of an X-Carry but doesn't have the X-Carry branding on the slide. Flat-trigger, X-Ray sights and the cut for an optic.
The grip is chunky and comfortable. Just outside the Goldilocks zone, however.
4 lb. 12 oz. trigger with a sharp, clean break and very tactile reset.
Definitely need some range time!
This was an LE turn-in and it was FILTHY.
I am happy to say it's no longer filthy.
If you discover that your LE trade-in SIG P320 has been set sinister...
Forget the instructions that come with the gun.
Use the X-Acto method in this video!
Especially if the department armorer put a nice burr on the magazine catch stop for you to overcome.
Wilson Combat offers some helpful advice in their grip module swap video too!
As soon as we didn't have to travel to make it to Christmas dinner with my grandparents, my mom started ordering Chinese take-out for Christmas Eve dinner.
In my sheltered upbringing, I was unaware that this is also a Jewish tradition.
Every once and a great while I wonder if Mom had secretly converted to Judaism.
But then I remember the pork-fried-rice and the BBQ...
Convergent evolution, again.
But then the imagination gets going.
The Gestapo knocks on the door, with receipts from the Chinese place using it to prove we're secret Jews...
My imagination is a surreal place.
The heat uses less juice than the air conditioner.
What this means for cold spells in Florida is our grid is robust enough to handle it when it gets cold.
I worry that we're adding people to the state far faster than we're adding capacity to that grid, though.
McDonald's has unveiled an automated store.
Don't worry, this is the same McDonalds that can't keep a shake machine running longer than a week,
When FuzzyGeff calls and says that he might delay his run from Iowa because of road conditions;
This is why we tell him no problem.
Because even if HE does everything right, the other idiots get a vote.
And there's times when everyone does the right thing and it does no good.
So better to be late, or cancel, than to end up all fucked up or worse.
FuzzyGeff reports that the Venezuelan "Strong" Bolivar might be a viable alternative to toilet paper based on price per sheet.
Sadly it will clog the sewer lines...
The Karl Kasarda drama brings another thing to light that needs mentioned.
I am an Atheist.
You have to convince me to use your moral values on their actual value and not because God Says.
Condemning someone for worshiping Satan carries no weight with me either.
Your invisible friends not liking each other doesn't matter to me.
The Satanist is just as crazy as a Christian from here.
Where I depart from many Atheists is having no desire to "cure" the Faithful.
If believing in God makes you happy, I can be happy that you are happy as long as you don't decide to make me unhappy by trying to force your invisible buddy's orders on me.
For the most part, this isn't a problem.
I have many friends who go to church on Sundays (and a couple to Temple on Saturday).
That rambling intro brings us to the main problem with the thread on Arfcom.
Karl definitely pulls off the edgelord contrarian schtick, and the Satanism thing really appears to be a LARP rather than a genuine spiritual belief.
But the reason that some of the most vehement objectors are in these long, rambling "we hate Karl" threads is because they think that God thinks they should be. It's religion rather than logic that drives them to speak up and condemn Karl for his actions.
And Karl can do no good in their perspective.
They have a hard corps need to paint anyone whom associates with Karl as being in lockstep with his opinions and beliefs.
KE Arms has been drug into it because Sinistral Rifleman, aka Russel Phagan, the marketing director of KE Arms is also friends with Karl.
At issue is KE Arms being willing to sell firearms and parts to people who aren't far right Christians.
Something that Karl fucks up supporting is that the LGBT folks have every right to defend themselves and have recent history of being physically assaulted for merely being themselves.
Remember, edgelord... That translates handily into, "only speaks in hyperbole."
It alienates effectively people who might agree with him and drives a further wedge between someone like me supporting LGBT gun ownership and Christian who's still weirded out by "teh gheys".
Being opposed to our chowderheaded politicians in a manner which gives aid and comfort to Antifa is fucking stupid. But I really think he is simply opposed to our chowderheaded politicians... he's just so engaged in the expression of hyperbole he can't express it at a lower volume.
He's like the Libertarian who keeps demanding ANARCHY NOW who can't comprehend that anarchy is too simple to have never been tried and it's never survived long enough to make record of its existence.
I pity Karl far more than I hate him.
One down!
Who knows how many left to go.
I've a long string of guns that I thought were perfect CCW pieces that turned out to be almost right.
The time has come to unass them.
That doesn't really dent the collection much, but it does make space in the safes and some coin in my pocket... which will likely be going to replace the dear, beloved, Mac Pro.
The NAS box has replaced the Mac as a file server, and Harvey is happy because she can actually access it simply and not via a Rube Goldberg string of commands and rickety linkages.
It's time to move on.
I think the god-awful Sigma/SD hybrid will be next. I bought it on a whim and I will dispose of it the same way.
Karl at InRange appears to support AntiFa.
Much of this appearance comes from his own postings at various social media outlets.
But this is no surprise. He's been like this for years.
Oh, and he also appears to be a Satanist. Never you mind that more evil has been fomented on the world by Christians than Satanism.
I stopped bothering with his channel when he did the five minutes of silence for (Only) Black Lives Matter.
But the drama brigade at Arfcom is doing the witch-hunt guilty by association shit because Karl also associates with the LGBT community.
Some of whom are a bit "out there".
And since a goodly number of the religious right cannot see the difference between someone who's gay or trans and someone who's criminally trying to get into a child's pants...
So, anyone who associates with Karl must be of a like mind with the groomers and pederasts.
In the first place, they should really read the book they claim God gave their prophets. That whole line about gay being wrong is about pederasty and not buggery. Look it up!
Again, why does the Atheist know this and you don't?
Further, dressing in the opposite gender's clothes ≠ want to have sex with kids. It doesn't even mean they want to convince kids to bend their own genders.
That there ARE trans people who do, does not mean they all do.
Making the assumption that some do means that all do is, say it with me, bigotry.
That there are people who are trans who have no desire to sleep with kids or convince them to change their genders does NOT mean that pederasty or corrupting the youth is good.
The trick is to learn there's a difference.
You don't even have to LIKE LGBT people, but you are going to have to come to grips that there are LGBT people who will pay for the gasoline to burn groomers at the stake.
GURPS and healing do not match reality.
This is by design.
Combat is kinda deadly and recovering from some injuries are "make a new character" deal because you will be laid up for a good long time even with modern, TL8, medicine.
One area that it's most apparent is being gut shot.
By the rules, if you make your health rolls, you will heal up all better.
In reality, you're prolly going to die a slow, lingering, painful death from your gut bacteria having a party outside your guts, but still in your nice, toasty, inviting abdominal cavity.
It's one thing I have deliberately left alone.
Realistic death is not fun and gaming is supposed to be fun.
First off, in 1883 if you wanna go from coastal Texas to Oregon, you TAKE A MOTHERFUCKING TRAIN!
Next. By 1883 the Comanche were on the reservations.
So were most of the other tribes mentioned in the "reasons we can't" diatribe about something.
If this was 1853 all the objections and situation make a lot more sense.
Including not seeing Cavalry patrol one.
It's a good thing Canada has such strict gun control.
Otherwise, someone might have been killed.
Oh... wait...
I guess since this wasn't a gun death, it doesn't count.
It's happening right now!
Rush outside!
Observe it!
Also note that what's happening has more effect on how much daylight there is than daylight savings time.
I wanted to get the bookmarks off the Win7 side of The Mac and decided to try booting to the other side.
Success!
Not sure what was wrong that's working now, but...
JT is on task looking around for a replacement for the beloved Mac.
We're thinking two hard drives like on my laptop.
One with Win10 the other with Ubuntu.
Win10 will let me play some games, if I wanna. It'd even let me keep access to iTunes if I decide that I must.
I really need to thin the herd and get some liquidity to buy some parts.
In the miniseries 1883 Sam Elliot's buddy is wearing a blue Army blouse with cavalry sergeant's stripes.
He's also wearing officer's hat braids.
And a Pinkerton badge...
Costuming at random it seems.
Did you know that if you clean off your desk, you can still watch movies on the bigger screen with better sound from your obsolete Mac Pro and surf the net safely from your laptop?
Who knew?
On a more positive note...
I love how VLC puts a Santa hat on their traffic cone icon during Christmas.
It makes me smile.
I crutched it along as long as I could.
Alas.
Something is wrong with Win7 on the Bootcamp Win7 drive of the dear old Mac Pro.
I suspect the boot sector of the hard drive has finally given up the ghost.
The Mac can still see the files, but it's never been able to write to NTFS...
Bootcamp prevented virtually every attempt to move Win7 to a newer drive. Kludges like Bootcamp are like that.
I am tempted to put the XP drive back in the thing so I can play IL-2 again.
Ironically, except for the obsolete OSX 10.6.8, the Mac Pro runs as well as she did on the day I first fired her up.
That's important, I paid real money for some of the software and I still use it.
I just can't surf the internet with it.
Happily the laptop is happily running Ubuntu and is up to date.
I prefer the desktop experience when I'm watching a movie because I can have that on the left screen while I surf on the right. Setting up the laptop nearby isn't the same at all.
The SCIENCE! tag on the right there has a bit of a history.
First there's a 3e GURPS skill called "SCIENCE!" (Compendium I p.158) In 4e it's a "wildcard" skill (p.175).
We about squeed with joy when Alfred Molina as Doc Ock practically pronounced the ! when asking Peter Parker if he was majoring in SCIENCE!
In essence, it's the cinematic appeal to authority moment to ease your willing suspension of disbelief past the absurdity being shoved at you in technicolor. It's the skill that covers people like Frankenstein and Professor Anmarian.
So, when you see that tag, be assured that I'm aware that what I'm posting is bullshit, but it's meant to be amusing.
Marv replaced all the aiming bits on his KelTec KSG.
So he got it all zeroed for 20 yards because that's the longest range open today.
I spotted something neat on the target:
The rifling on the rifled slug is visible in the hole it punched!
Marv's Ruger LCP Max shoots Hornady Critical Defense low and left.
My 1926 made Colt Pocket Hammerless throws it low and left as well (aiming at the -0; 7-yards).
The SIG ammo also shoots low and left in Marv's gun. Just a little left for me when I aim at the -1.
For some reason I lobbed one round from each brand WAY low and left. Operator error, I think.
Pelvic girdle shots count, right?
Still, that 96 year old gun shoots pretty damn good all things considered.
While they're gone from the sidebar for being overtly racist, there were a couple of links to worthy articles.
Nevermind.
All gone.
Everything they wrote before 2020 is gone.
Pity that.
Before they succumbed to hate, they had a lot worth reading.
The Soviets didn't reinvent the wheel when they developed their GMPGs.
They just used the same non-disintegrating metal belt they were using in their Maxim guns.
That's probably why those Maxims are able to be used in Ukraine today.
It makes one wonder if the older cloth belts work in a PKM, don't it? I doubt it, but I've been surprised before.
Took The Lovely Harvey to the range!
She's frustrated that she's not as good as she used to be before she had her shoulder surgery, but elated that she's not as bad as many others at the range.
At least they're practicing and trying to get better.
My love affair with the 2.0 compact continues and has infected Harvey.
The Sheild Plus is retired and the spare 2.0 is in her holster.
We're also considering thinning the herd some.
There's more than a few here that I got just to Grok to their fullness and then set in the safe to gather dust.
Some of them even gained value while they sat.
Watching Brandon Herrera's YouTube channel and he has a "weird guns" of the Ukraine v Russia series going on.
Of note are the DP-27 and DPM machine guns.
Also Thompson submachineguns!
I already have GURPS stats for them, so getting them to the players in T2K is simple.
14.5mm anti-tank rifles are showing up as anti-material guns as well.
This is addition to Maxim guns showing up with red-dots!
I decided to retake a pic.
This time it's all M16 clones!
M16A1 (Tabitha) and an M7 bayonet.
M16A2 (Andrea) and an M9 bayonet.
M16A4 (Valentine) and an OKC 3S bayonet.
This also turned into a Photo Phun post using the external flash that Marv gave me.
That Canon Speedlite 270EX has a balky switch and needs to be massaged into working.
The above is the result of aiming the flash 90° away and snapping.
I like how it gives a warm color to the image and softens the shadows from the other lights in the room.
The Lovely Harvey is considering moving up from he Shield Plus to the Goldilocks Zone of the M&P 9 Compact 2.0.
I knew I shouldn't have let her handle it. ;)
She's concerned about her grip strength as she recovers from her shoulder replacement, and the larger grip of the bigger gun is easier for her to perceive she's holding it.
For an extra half a pound she's getting five more beans. Two more in her reload.
If she shoots it well, we're in business.
Doing a rewatch of Saving Private Ryan.
This always struck me as someone getting the props wrong:
That sure looks like the same flashlight I carried at the end of The Cold War.
For the first time since the movie came out, I had the internet at my fingertips to check to see if the otherwise excellent propmasters had fucked up or not.
Turns out, it's no fuck up.
The MX-991/U is a descendant of the TL-122 which was a development of the Eveready 2964 dating all the way back to 1927!
Captain Hamill's is most likely a TL-122-B or -C and the plastic would have been OD green Bakelite.
I learned a new phrase from the plaintiff's notice.
That's another technique that a couple of former friends kept doing to me.
It just underscores that Anglave never debated any topic in good faith.
Interesting brief by the plaintiff.
INTRODUCTION
Bruen’s embrace of the text-and-history test provides clear guideposts for how the constitutionality of these types of bans must now be assessed. In short, there is zero historical support from the Founding—or even the Reconstruction era—for banning commonly possessed arms; under the Bruen test, that is the end of the matter.
That should indeed be the end of the matter. But California refuses to respect the fundamental right to keep and bear arms, and rages against the confines of Bruen’s text-and-history test. The State knows there are no “well-established and representative analogues” for banning magazines that are commonly owned by millions of Americans for lawful purposes, including self-defense, hunting, target shooting, and competition
shooting. Certainly, historical predecessors to modern firearms equipped with magazines able to hold more than ten rounds did exist. What did not exist is a longstanding American tradition of banning them. Regular Americans could—and did—lawfully own these weapons in the 19th century.
And it keeps getting better from there!
Canadian Covid Science™ says that the unvaccinated had more car accidents than the vaccinated.
I did not get vaccinated.
I crashed The Precious.
Marv got vaccinated.
He did not crash any of his cars.
AMAZING!
OK, I didn't really do the research, but I certainly did more looking around and reading than a lot of folks whinging about AR magazines.
I learned a lot when I was just trying to make a timeline to be certain that there couldn't be PMAGs in Twilight:2000.
I read theories about why things failed.
I think that the old black follower USGI was sensitive to weak springs.
I think that because new springs brought several of my surplus magazines back to life.
I think that new followers were a good idea because some Magpul followers brought several other surplus magazines back to life.
But even springs and followers can't fix the silent failure of the feed lips going wrong. It takes special gauges to check, you can't really eyeball it.
It's a "feature" of metal magazines; the damage might not be visible. Aluminum magazines also get the special problem of work-hardening.
Then there's the PMAG haters.
Some can't get past the plastic.
Others claim that their PMAGs failed.
I've seen pictures, they can fail. No mechanical device is immune from failure.
What's nice about plastic is when it has deformed enough to cause the feed lips to go out of spec, it's past the elastic limit and you will SEE that they have become damaged.
But the issue of PMAG fails isn't as cut and dried when you're on the soapbox condemning the entire company.
There isn't A PMAG. There are PMAGs. Four (or five) generations.
There's a reason that OD, FDE and Foliage Green were discontinued.
There's a reason that Rev M became M2.
There's a reason that coyote brown isn't the same color as FDE.
So. Your PMAG failed? What generation and color was it? How did it fail? No details?
The people with actual failures took the pictures I talked about.
The people with actual failures can describe how it failed.
The S&W M&P 9 Compact 2.0 I'm happily carrying in my gun-bra is, as I have said before, sitting firmly in the Goldilock's zone.
I'm happy with it as I've not been before with other guns I've carried.
Yet...
We will blame Marv.
Unfairly, of course, because it was my idea to go to the gun store and there I finger-fucked my first SIG P320 M18.
It felt good in the hand. The trigger was verra nice.
That's a subjective analysis.
Objectively the M18 isn't as good.
With 17 rounds the M&P is lighter and smaller in every dimension except overall height which is identical.
I don't have a 21 round option with the M&P like with the M18, but... I don't even pack the 17-round option, opting for the shorter and lighter 15-rounders.
Condition is everything for vintage AR parts.
Because I got into the retro thing early on, the condition of my parts is generally excellent.
The condition of the parts kits going for $2k now is not so excellent.
I'm in a having cake or eating cake situation.
To reap the benefits of the appreciation of the parts, I would have to take my retro guns apart and sell said parts.
Then I would not have my retro AR's any more.
I like having them.
I've noticed that I have a lot of guns in this category.
I don't shoot them, but they get a good fondle from time to time. (I'm dusting, why not fondle while I'm there?)
Noticing this has a tremendous chilling effect on "the wants" for other guns.
It doesn't eliminate those wants, it just makes it easier to bear.
Things are getting strange out there in "retro" AR land.
That upper receiver is worth $400.
I paid $150 for it in 2008.
Apparently, nobody is making them any more.
The vintage uppers and furniture I got for $500 each for Roberta and Charlotte are running $2,000+ each now.
Wow.
I am so unused to things I buy becoming more valuable rather than depreciating.
Same damage, same max-range.
The Winchester reaches a bit farther before 1/2 damage range; is WAY lighter and a bit handier at the expense of magazine capacity, rate of fire and ease of reloading.
Oh, and it's readily available 65 years sooner and can be had without getting the law involved in the purchase in most gaming worlds.
Comparing four common thirty caliber hunting guns in GURPS.
It might get bigger if you click on it...
Lever guns get a slight edge in rate of fire.
They all weigh about the same and have similar capacities.
.30-30 lags in damage, but it's sufficient to snuff the white tailed hoof-rat. Or for social purposes.
We had a player who was a little slow and not making the transition from medieval fantasy to cliff-hangers pulp and only knew about one gun.
The AK-47.
We explained to him that the .30-30 was very similar in damage and range to the AK, just slower shooting and lower capacity.
He equipped every character from then on with a Winchester '94 if such was available.
It never failed him.
Of course, back then, I'd have never had made stats for a Savage 99 and .300 Savage.
Except for that one player, they'd have never taken a lever gun, or even a hunting rifle adventuring.
.30-06 was already done, as was 8mm Mauser. All I had to make for them were 7.65x53mm and 7x57mm Mauser, for resupply purposes in South America.
Fifty years ago this very minute, Gene Cernan removed his foot from the
surface of the moon and returned to the interior of Challenger.
He said:
I'm on the surface; and, as I take man's last step from the surface, back home for some time to come — but we believe not too long into the future — I'd like to just [say] what I believe history will record. That America's challenge of today has forged man's destiny of tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return: with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17.
Something that's interesting about doing historical research for gaming is what's popular as opposed to what's available.
Also, what's available versus what exists.
The fact that three players could take all three guns which appeared in single numbers in one SEAL team in Vietnam says a lot about what happens when the list makes no distinction between there being a con-ex full of M16's and a special order R607 carbine.
The .30-30 and .30-40 are very similar and were introduced at almost the same time.
But the .30-30 was far more popular and available for a long spell.
I think two things contributed to .30-30 getting ahead.
First the customer base was familiar with lever actions with tube magazines, the second was the price of a Krag.
The Winchester was cheaper and readily available. Guns in .30-40 just weren't.
.30-40 really only becomes popular when the US Government dumps all those Krags on the surplus market. Nearly free guns and ammo hit the market.
But, still, the .30-30 maintained the lead. Americans loved their lever guns!
Hardly anyone made new guns for the Krag cartridge. Because of that, you can't hardly find .30-40 ammo regularly.
Even .300 Savage is available more often (itself being the second most popular hunting round in the US until .308 Winchester knocked it under .30-06).
I once expressed that the Stabilitrak system on the Vette caused my accident.
I was firmly informed, sarcastically, that I must be so much smarter than GM's engineers.
Like most people, an engineer is smart, a group of engineers are dumb.
A problem with lots of performance cars appears to be the traction control and a pilot-induced-oscillation that suddenly whipsaws the rear back and forth until traction control "wins" and puts the car into a roadside obstacle.
Over and over, the driver describes doing what you're supposed to do when the rear fish-tails, then the sudden terror that it was getting worse, not better.
My theory is the average person has no rear wheel drive experience and, worse, will steer opposite of what you're supposed to do in a fish-tail.
Most of these accidents like mine are people who are familiar with rear wheel drive and engines with excessive power.
I didn't think I was in trouble for the first two swings. Didn't seem any different than losing the rear on my old Camaro.
What was different is my inputs were making the swings worse, not better.
Ultimately, it was my mistake that got me into a situation where I'd have to fight the Stabilitrak, but I think that GM (and other auto-makers) are going to have legal problems over it eventually.
I am continually astonished at the number of people who "don't watch TV" who are nonetheless completely up to date with regards to what's on TV.
Especially people who "don't watch the news" who, somehow, know the narrative to seventeen decimal places.
Kids, you're getting it from someplace.
Getting it and not even being aware of the source.
I shouldn't be surprised.
I remember a college level macroeconomics class where a 15 minute explanation of opportunity cost turned into a two week ordeal with both the professor and the students who weren't getting it just giving up and moving on.
Marv likes to tinker.
The SIG P320 series has all the hallmarks of something he can tinker with.
The goal of the trip to the gun shop yesterday was to look at all the choices available from SIG for the pistol.
In the course of this, I laid hands on an M17. The grip feels pretty damn good. The coon-finger display gun was busted, but the M18 next to it had a splendid trigger.
Bud's Gun Shop has them for a very tempting price... if I had any need whatsoever for another plastic striker fired gun.
But Marv, as I said, likes to tinker.
You don't even have to buy a single SIG part to make a P320 it appears. That's great news for the tinkerer.
It's even more options than the Not-A-Glock market.
Hopefully we'll get pictures of the project should it come to fruition.
We went to one of the gun stores yesterday and checked out the ammo selection.
Stocks seem to be recovering somewhat.
Even though .300 Blackout killed their chances at mainstream appeal, you can still get 6.8 SPC and 6.5 Grendel ammo, but the choices are severely truncated from years ago.
6.5 is only on the shelves in the Wolf brand.
6.8 has two loadings from Hornady and a third from... Uh... I don't remember.
Used to be five or six choices for each.
The FN MAG and M3 can use the DM1 belt and M13 links interchangeably.
The M60 and M240 cannot use the DM1 belt.
Why?
The DM1 puts the rounds farther apart and the feed pawls on the 60 and 240 don't doesn't move far enough.
You can put a MAG top-cover and feed tray onto an M240 to enable use of the DM1, though!
The MAG (and M240) need a different feed tray to use DM1 belts. A 240 tray can be modified to work.
Yes, it was important to know this answer because of Twilight:2000.
It still messes with me that game went from a plausible future to an alt-history while I lived through it.
Last night I got Marv to spill about the "secret" gun Willard bought.
H&K P7M7!
.45 ACP staple gun!
Now we know why Willard was keeping it a secret.
Marv also related that Willard has a secret H&K room in the house.
All this time...
You think you know someone!
The above is a lie.
Marv is doing a good job of keeping mum.
I figure that the mystery will be revealed before too long because Willard appears to be getting recovered enough to go to the range with us soon.
We'll see his hidden love then.
FuzzyGeff remembered a reference to a book where someone predicted that, someday, hunting rifles wouldn't even have iron sights in preference to telescopic sights.
Turns out that prescient motherfucker was none other than Jack O'Connor, also known on this blog as the chief advocate for the .270 Winchester round.
Who knew?
If you don't want a 7/8 scale pistol grip:
Damage Industries is full sized.
Colt is full sized.
Brownell's retro line is full sized and lacks the finger rest.
Magpul is full sized.
Got the sewer bill today.
Same as last month, which means it's from pre-repair.
One more $400 water bill month before the reduced consumption from the repair kicks in.
UGH!
UN General Assembly votes that Israel should get rid of their nuclear weapons.
I am sure they are getting right on that.
But I am also sure they are looking at Ukraine and seeing that if Kyiv had kept their former-Soviet weapons that Russia would have been far more reluctant to invade.
I think it's interesting that Hollywood portrays things in movies as evil, but stands behind politicians who want to do those things in real life.
It's like they know what evil is, they just don't understand it.
The show that made me realize this was Star Wars: The Bad Batch when everyone's freedom of movement is curtailed by the necessity of having a "chain-code" or universal ID (which apparently includes DNA stuff).
No ID, no travel and that code has been shown to be detectable at considerable distances.
Conversely, they know what good is, and don't understand it when they show the hero toting a gun around which you or I would not readily be able to obtain because of the administrative burdens, let alone the price tag.
Not to mention how often they depict the hero stealing that gun from a government armory, underscoring that the good guy can't get a gun needed to take down bad-guys otherwise.
I wrote on this nine years ago.
I suspect that many people don't care for the M16A2 grip because they've never actually gotten one.
On the left is an "A2" from CMMG. On the right is one from Colt.
I don't like the 80% sized grips either.
Happily, Brownell's carries the Colt and the Damage Ind. grips are the Colt size.
Cavalry Mfg is the smaller size if I recall correctly and I only tolerate it on Linda for the color.
The pistol grip on an AR is a polarizing issue.
It's something I've grappled with myself.
I have loved and hated EVERY grip I've tried over the years, starting when I joined the Army.
The A2 grip was clearly superior to the original M16 grip then.
I tried to emulate it with my Mini-14 with one of those slide-over rubber finger rest thingies too.
The ACE grip for my Daewoo wasn't fish nor fowl for grips and I liked it just fine. It was sort of a meld of A1 and FAL.
But then I got into AR's, especially retro AR's.
But the modern guns were getting Magpul's MIAD grips. That gives an option for the finger rest, or not.
Suddenly the A1 grip was best. Then the MIAD... Then the A2...
Until I finally settled on the A2 because it was cheap and it works and... that's about it. Unless, of course, the gun is a clone which has a different grip.
YMMV!
Now, if the A2 don't work for you; by all means change it out and get something that does!
But don't think for a second that my (or your) grip choice is a moral crusade.
An interface's ergonomics are guaranteed to not work with some people even if they work for most people.
PS:
One thing steering my choice is using the M12 rack for added security. Most grips with extra material that climbs the back of the lower won't fit. The KP-15 lower doesn't and that bothers me some.
PPS:
7.62x51mm variants of the AR don't fit either, the extra receiver length interferes with the locking bar.
With the CRT advocate bigot professors talking about committing genocide openly it's time to point out that most genocides predate the word and were the norm for when two incompatible people started to butt heads.
Ask the Sioux how that works.
That we CAN ask the Sioux says a lot about the value of the Victorian mores espoused in the handling of the end of the Indian Wars.
But I suspect that the handling of the CRT wars will be more on the scale of Nazi Germany should these idiots finally light the candle. A fuse, I might add, that a good number of us are actively keeping damp!
They keep talking in terms which don't take a lot of rationalizing to see they mean to either murder or subjugate white people in a way that will demand a violent response from anyone wishing to remain free and alive.
Dammit!
I don't want this.
They don't want this, though they don't seem to know they don't want it.
81 years ago Imperial Japan dared to wake the sleeping giant.
Admiral Yamamoto warned against such an action and only survived the decision by less than a year and a half.
Once woken, the US invented an entirely new form of weapon and used it to end the war. In less than four years.
Since then we've not bothered to wake up for a war.
The Bell V-280 Valor appears to have won the contract to replace the UH-60 in Army service.
This will be the second tilt-rotor accepted into military service.
I expect to see more of this as time goes on.
I eagerly await the attack version as the utility birds outrun and outrange the Apache.
Commercial acceptance of the tilt-rotor concept is probably close, I've seen at least two proposals for executive tilt-rotor ideas.
The German MG3 and the Belgian MAG can use both M13 disintegrating links and the DM1 non-disintegrating belts.
Does anyone know if the old M60 can use the DM1 belts as well?
It looks like it should be able to, but I can't find a reference, including the FM, that admits to it.
While it might be perfectly legal for a private company to block speech it dislikes...
It is forbidden for the government to even request that a private company do so.
That's what the 1st Amendment is all about with regards to speech.
If the FBI and CIA demanded that Twitter suppress speech, we have a Constitutional crisis on our hands.
And it fucking sucks that nobody is going to do fuck all about it.
I remember getting fed up with a friend, Anglave, over his amazing ability to know nothing about a topic we were discussing, yet have all of the standard talking points at his fingertips.
Seeing how all I had was my own lying eyes against the power of Google and the mass media, I could never prove to his satisfaction that Google and the mass media were lying.
Now we have Elon Musk poking around under the hood of Twitter and we're finding that, yes, the places that I found to be biased and telling lies were biased and telling lies.
Well, Anglave, care to apologize?
Get ahead of the revelations that might be coming?
Like The Tea Party wasn't racist?
Like Global Warming Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Climate Change being a gigantic scam?
Like how the press buried dozens of stories about Obama and his terrorist buddy and racist friends?
Come, man up, admit you were misled and drove your friend away.
If your DR has a little * next to it, it's soft flexible armor.
What that means is that every 10pts of cutting, impaling or piercing (or 5pts of crushing) damage when the attack fails to penetrate will do 1 point of damage via blunt trauma. Basic Set: p.379.
ARfcom News tested it!
The Hornady 12ga SST Sabot flings a 300gr .50 cal hollow point at 2,000 FPS.
That's 6d(0.5) pi++
That doubles the effective DR of the panel to 24* which will keep the average hit of 21 from penetrating, but will let 2 points of crushing through.
That's actually a solid hit. Pretty close to being hit by a night-stick swung by the average person.
GURPS passes another reality check!
Some people do Elf on a Shelf, we do Hulk in a Tree!
We try to be creative with our Lego Hulk.
I also get to stretch my photography skills.
I'm a true believer that an armed society is a free society.
A place where an oppressor need worry about being killed for oppressing.
With that in mind I've taught lots of potential victims how to shoot and even given a few their first gun.
Black people. Women people. LGBTQ people.
Because the people part matters, not the preceding part that's simply a description of the person.
Because if Jim Crow had not systematically disarmed black people, there'd have been many fewer lynchings and fewer racist lynchers too.
Because if women were encouraged to own a gun and carry, there'd have been many fewer rapes.
Because armed fags don't get bashed!
Genocide has recently been added to the anti-gun repertoire.
Whom?
The American-Indian, of course.
Completely wiped out, they was.
Wait a second... Checks sources... There are more Indians in America today than when the shooting finally stopped a hundred plus years ago.
Worst. Genocide. Evah.
What happened happened because a racist, militant, violent and expansive people got shoved up against... white people.
Did you know that the three worst "massacres" were caused by the hatred the Crow had for the Sioux and the deliberate misidentification of a peaceful Sioux leader as a hostile one? I put massacres in quotes because the massacre barely qualifies as a decimation most of the time.
It seems to me that if you take 80% of the victims of an attack prisoner you've failed in your massacre.
And the numbers are small. They make it seem like thousands were killed in the massacre when it was 10-20 killed in an encampment of 100-200.
It's nearly universally ignored that the noble savages were eagerly at war with each other and perfectly fine with wiping another tribe completely off the face of the earth.
What caused them to be subjugated was that they didn't understand what war meant to this new tribe to the East.
It never gets mentioned that the US spent the better part of a century trying to come to a lasting peace with the Indians.
Everything was tried, and failed until they went Curtis LeMay on them, "I'll tell you what war is about, you've got to kill people, and when you've killed enough they stop fighting."
The fact was the Indians didn't want peace. They wanted more land. They wanted the neighbors dead so they could take their land. Well, maybe not all dead, they wanted slaves too.
Did we mention how sexist the American Indian was? Chattel wife doesn't begin to cover it.
My how noble. In a feudal way.
PS:
It needs be noted that most any Indian who gives up on the reservation, gets a job and acts like any other American is just a successful as the self-same any other American with the same skills and work ethic. Some more than others, as with everyone. But very few who've left the reservations are worse off than before.
PPS:
It's often forgotten that just shy of half of the Indians in America didn't take the Dawes deal and decided to become normal Americans. They live among you to this day (Hell, I married one!).
I find myself having the same arguments again and again in the few places outside the choir I still go.
There's a song lyric to go with it!
For the life of me, I cannot remember
What made us think that we were wise
And we'd never compromise?
Though the song isn't about being generally ignorant when you're young, it does touch on the idea that wisdom only comes with experience.
Every year we get a new crop of people who've just been taught THE TRUTH™ in college and are on their first long break from college and are spreading THE TRUTH™ on social media...
Where they encounter us ancient grognards of the gun control debate where they get told that not only is THE TRUTH™ a lie, but we have references that prove it.
Things like the prefatory clause being essentially meaningless to the effect the 2nd Amendment is supposed to have on Government.
That no study has ever been made on the association of gun ownership and the size of male genitalia. I looked that one up!
That gun ownership is a proxy for racism and genocide.
And so on.
I'm coming to believe that civics is no longer taught at any level and that English is being taught in such a way that even a lawyer is demanding clearer language to be able to say what they mean.
Spending a week on the meaning of 'is' probably warps your perspective.
Still the best part of these little fights is when they get exasperated and tell you that you're never going to change their mind and I get to reply, "I'm not trying to change YOUR mind. I'm showing the people who are reading us debate what a fool you are and convincing THEM to change THEIR minds."
That's also a Hawker Hurricane sold to Finland by Great Britain while engaged in a war with National Socialist Germany.
Finland's roundel was a blue swastika in a white field since their first plane took to the skies.
In 1918.
At the end of WW2 they changed the roundel on the planes to concentric blue and white rings, but the Air Force badges and crests kept the swastika until very recently.
They almost literally said that they were sick of explaining that it predated the National Socialist Worker's Party of Germany and never had an association with Fascism in Finland.
It's an outstanding example of one side getting to define the meaning of a symbol without bothering to ask the user of that symbol what they mean by it.
The Confederate Battle Flag is such a symbol too.
We've made the decision that what matters is how something is taken rather than how it was meant.
That simply won't work for very long, because if you cannot mean what you say, you cannot say what you mean.
But that's the intent.
It's to have a means to punish the "wrong" people regardless of what they meant to do or say by applying meaning to what they say or do after the fact as if it was their intention from the beginning.
And that brings us to Ye and his current ban on Twitter.
Is combining the Star of David and a swastika an incite to violence? Mr Musk appears to think so.
Is it just inflammatory speech? I tend to think so.
I've found, in the long run, letting racists spew their idiocy wins more opposition to them than suppressing them. They're idiots, so we've nothing to fear from their idiotic words.
I'd have let Ye keep digging his hole and self-marginalizing until he disappeared from public view forever.
I've been saying that the stabilizing brace on a pistol was a stock since SIG first got their permission letter from BATFE.
If it is a stock, then a braced pistol is a Short Barrel Rifle.
Check the legal definitions. Black letter law agrees.
Another BATFE exception which is in violation of the black letter law is allowing curio and relic guns with a period design stock to skip SBR registration.
The ATF giveth and the ATF taketh away.
Sadly, that there are many disabled people who benefit from the use of a brace is irrelevant to the law.
Ultimately, the solution is making short barreled rifles normal firearms by law.
With the current resident of The White House and composition of Congress, that ain't gonna happen.
I worry that the present fight to retain ATF's ruling is wasting political capitol for a temporary gain.
Should we get a favorable wind in DC again, I think we can point that all these people with braces mounted who are using them like stocks proves that short barreled rifles aren't a criminal issue.
Which we also know is true because if criminals were being arrested with braced pistols we'd be seeing it in every news report supporting gun control and the suppression of braces.
A complete repeal of the NFA and GCA would also solve the problem. More unlikely than a piecemeal dismantling of them, but acceptable.
The normies are scared of machine guns, and we'd get our asses reamed proposing making them available for sale just like normal guns.
BUT!
We can show the normies that what amounts to an SBR is already out there, in the wild, unregistered and only as restricted as a regular gun and causing additional problems. If we dig hard, I suspect we're going to see that braced pistols are less of a problem than normal handguns.
ArachnoThag's EVA thrusters are going to be powered by hydrazine.
While it's nasty shit, it's got a lot of utility.
Not least of which is an 800°C plume from one of the thrusters consisting of unfriendly byproducts.
Or you could just vent it.
It's a powerful self defense item if your body is made from something that's immune to the corrosive effects and doesn't need to breathe.
I appears that literally days after I last posted about Mt Soledad's cross that the Mt Soledad Memorial Association was successful in their attempt to purchase the land from the government.
That did not end the litigation.
That took another year.
As of September 7, 2016 the 9th Circuit court ruled the matter moot since the land and cross were no longer owned by a government.
I tend to agree that the government shouldn't own religious symbols, but the decision about the meaning of a symbol should not be left to the people who hate religion.
That they hate the symbol was made evident in their repeated blocking of the sale to a private party who intended to keep that cross.
If the issue was actually that the government owned the site, then selling the site would have fixed the problem for everyone.
The problem for the anti-religious bigots was, and is, the fact that such symbols exist at all where they can see them.
Once someone stepped forward to make the site private and to retain the memorial, they demanded the site be sold to THEM so they could destroy it. Destroying the memorial was their preferred option in 28 years of litigation.
So, although I support the separation of Church and State, I also oppose fanatics on both sides of the religion in public debate.
When the anti-religion bigots can explain how their goals differ from State Atheism I will consider their bigotry cured. Do look at them hard and pay attention and see if you can tell the difference between what they ultimately want and the state religion being Atheism.
Another reason to hate them is they would not say a fucking peep if that giant cross on Mt Soledad was a giant crescent.
Bearing Arms mentions that several mass shooters had been subject to harassment or bullying.
They don't excuse their behavior in any way, they don't let being bullied be the justification.
Neither do I.
Bullied? Harassed?
Bitches, please.
I was bullied and harassed from my freshman through junior years of high school.
I had access to weapons.
I engaged in fisticuffs a couple of times in reply to fisticuffs and that ended the bullying.
There's nothing so awkward than sitting in detention with bully you'd just fought.
There's nothing so rewarding as sitting there in detention with him giving you the stink-eye and asking, "you wanna go again?" and having them find something else to stare at.
I've managed to put my bullied years behind me and, despite, having far more guns than everyone I know save one... I'm not out there murdering anyone.
The problem isn't me.
The problem isn't people getting bullied.
Being bullied might be a factor to keep an eye on, but it would be stupid and unjust to treat the victims of bullying as if they were sure to be the next mass murderer and truncate their rights somehow.
There are other indications which a bullied person will present which are more reliable. We should watch for that. I know we record them, because we've seen them in hindsight with a few of these shooters.
While I was supervising the bug bombing, Marv hit the range (full report coming).
He mentioned that the rifle range at the place is closed indefinitely.
They've gone from five lanes at 100 yards to just one and the person at the sign-in counter said there were literal fights over who got the lane.
All because the equipment keeps failing.
One time while we were there they had the covers off and it's a Rube Goldberg mess of stuff in there. Lots of circuit boards.
All to get a cardboard panel hanging from a wire out to a given distance.
We both looked at it and came up with several much simpler ways to do what the electronics were doing and our way of doing it would have been serviceable by the staff.
Keeping the mechanism from being serviced by the staff was the goal here, I think.
I am thinking a simple electromechanical deal with a stepper motor. If you know the diameter of your pulley, you know how far the target moves per step. An Arduino chip could handle this. Have a mechanical stop for setting the zero end and you're good to go.
The Lovely Harvey is presently doing the post-bomb cleanup.
As expected, the little fuckers were everywhere.
That's why we bomb, so they don't have a place to hide!
And, once they are dead, they can't scurry away at your approach so you don't see them.
I think we're doing Marv's place soon.
His is a little more awkward because he doesn't have a place to stash Trouble like we do. His is less awkward because he doesn't have to coordinate with two other people living with him.
If the cast of Harry Potter really wanted to show they believed their condemnations of JK Rowlings, they'd stop acting and distribute all of their wealth from the fame they accumulated by portraying Ms Rowlings' characters.
You either have to have the cake or eat the cake.
I'd say to hit the tip jar, but... Ain't one any more thanks to PayPal's intransigence.
The leak was in the same area as it's been the last four times we had one.
This plumber dug in from the side and replaced everything from the outside shut-off to the previous repair; tossing the first two repairs in the process.
None of the actual repairs failed, but copper that was installed with the foundations.
I dunno what it is about that corner of the house.
Looking forward to a few years without a leak!
I tell you, it must be nice to be independently wealthy.
Like plumbers in my area appear to be.
I'm on my third month of paying $200 extra for water I don't get to use because I cannot get a fucking plumber to call me back.
I'm about ready to pound on their office doors.
I've spent as much on the wasted water as the repair will probably cost so far.
Update:
The third place I called today (15th overall) showed up!
He promptly found the leak, about an inch from where it'd been repaired before.
That's good because we don't have to rip up the slab to get at it.
Even more fun is two other plumbers called after he got here. One said he understood first come first serve.
The other started to yell at me.
Once he'd run down a little bit I said, "You've had since September to call. I've been waiting that long."
"Oh."
No, shit, "oh."
"Let's pay the bills," I says.
Why is the internet bill suddenly so much larger than last month?
Because I'd managed to forget to pay it for two months!
How the fuck did I do that?
I don't know.
Caught up now.
I just found out...
Atlanta Dragway in Commerce, Georgia closed in May 2021 and they're tearing it down.
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Marv used to head up there every November to do the Southern Super Heavy Shootout.
Alas, it is no more!
Transhuman Space has corpsicles.
That means if you've the means, you can bridge the time difference from today to be alive in 2100.
I'd be a "mere" 131 years old!
My scenario is that I win the lottery big time then invest in the Apple of the next hundred years to become ludicrously wealthy.
This gives me access to the advances in medicine that lets me live long enough to take advantage of other advances and... be woken up when what might have killed you has a cure.
But something I've mentioned before about being me is an allergy to mushrooms.
Much of the food stuffs off Earth is based around fungus.
What good is it to be stupid rich if I can't go have a Mk.1 eyeball look at The Great Red Spot or that ridiculous bauble of Saturn?
This ghost is going to get a new shell!
I'm thinking something like a giant mechanical spider with a complete set of EVA gear built in!
I could be a belter! Definitely need a bright purple synthetic hair mohawk glued to the top of my "head".
This is probably too expensive a concept to actually play, and if I'm the GM it'd be the most literal Mary Sue ever played by a Gamemaster.
Honest Outlaw left his M&P 9 2.0 Compact outside for a bit more than three months.
It doesn't appear to have hurt it functionally.
The only "real" pistol I've bought that approached a Hi-Point in price was my Sigma SW9V.
Just a whiff more than $200 out the door.
It promptly broke.
Ultimately, it didn't cost me anything to get it fixed, because S&W went way beyond what I'd have expected for warranty care on a second hand gun.
None of this is new news. I detailed this on this very blog as it was happening.
I got this gun on a whim.
What if I'd bought it and needed it to actually work?
That's the risk of used guns.
It's also why you should shoot your new purchase a bit before betting your life on it!
Something about this particular gun comes to mind.
Is it a rare collectable now that the SW9V slide has been factory replaced with one from an SD9VE?
I will give Palmetto State Armory props for including enough magazines with their Dagger pistol.
At an impressive price too.
