Minifigus Rex

Captain Rex is one of my favorite characters from Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

He's made appearances in Rebels and The Bad Batch as well.

More fun is the fans decided for LucasWorks that the old rebel soldier in Return of the Jedi is Rex too!  Look that fan theory up, it's kinda neat.

Lego has been very stingy with their depictions of Rex.  He's appeared in very few kits and all of them are expensive now.

But where there's a will, there's a way.

The Phase I and Phase II Rex's are aftermarket custom prints.  With BrickArms DC-17 blasters.  The next two are official Lego.  From the Rebel's Rex's AT-Te and the Endor Rebel battlepack.

Rex from Rebels is a $100 minifig.  I got him essentially for free because I had a much rarer minifig in my collection that I didn't want.  The first release of Jango Fett.

Felon Voting

Normally when one mentions felony and voting, you're talking about letting a felon vote.

Now we're in new territory for me and considering voting FOR a felon.

Not that I think that Mr Trump's conviction is going to stand through the appeals process.  There was a lot of impropriety on display for the world in that trial.

To the point that Australia is demanding we stop impugning the good reputation of kangaroos and their justice system.

The big thing from this is how this will affect the generally more corrupt Democrat politicians.

You wanted railroaded show trials?

Two can play that game.

Review

Widner's, who's done this blog a good turn or two in the past, has asked me to relay a review of the IWI Carmel they've done.

It's cool looking!

Looks like it scratches the same itch as an MCX-Spear, SCAR or Masada ACR.

At $1,800 it's a lot cheaper than the FN offering and cheaper than SIG as well.  Plus, still being made, unlike the Masada ACR.

Read the article and tell them I sent you, if they ask.

Truth

 

Unanimous

Sotomayor wrote the decision.

That was something of a surprise, but the liberal side is often good with the 1st Amendment even if they suck at the 2nd. 

Turns out, as many said, it's illegal for government to threaten the people they regulate with negative attention if they do business with someone they disagree with.

What The Cloud Really Means

I even have the t-shirt, "The Cloud" is just another way to say, "someone else's computer."

A company recently found that out. h/t Derek Ward.

My computer friends have been saying for years that if you don't have it, physically, in your clutches then you don't have it at all.

I've watched this happen to people who thought they'd purchased a movie for viewing on their computer to find that the place they'd "bought" it from no longer offered it for viewing.

I saw it again with the consolidation in the market of the Anime streaming services.

Makes me feel less foolish to have a big pile of DVD's and all of my photos on three separate drives.

Life Support Restored?

Put in the call to the professionals, and it fired up like nothing was wrong all on its own.

Starting to sound like something simple like a starter capacitor or relay.

I'm betting on relay because I've never seen a cap recover and work again, I have seen relays do it.

We're still having them come out, because even if it is the relay being intermittent, those don't trend to "get better" in any way shape or form.

What I do know is that we won't die while we wait for the tech.

Update:

It was the starter capacitor.

Life Support Fail

Woke up just a bit ago thinking, "it's a bit stuffy in here."

It was a bit stuffy.

The AC wasn't blowing cold despite the current and desired temperatures disagreeing by 3 degrees.

The fan on the compressor is spinning.  That means the starter capacitor is prolly good.

The fan on the air handler is blowing.

All of the fuses check out.

We're in year 4 of a ten year warranty, so we just have to wait for the place to open at 8.

We might be spending some time at the inlaws.

Mad Dogs And Angus McThags

Work on cars in the midday sun.

Found the culprit that was causing the ABS, Stabilitrak and AWD to be disabled on Moxie.

RR speed sensor.  $19.

It's from an installation error I made when I'd replaced the wheel hub two and half years ago.

The wire was very tightly bunched up against the back of the grommet in the hub mounting flange and that, apparently, broke one of the wires inside the outer sheath.  There's a nice pinch in the sheath.

 

It's been an intermittent problem for about two years that seemed to be temperature related.

Now that I've seen the damage, I think it gets warm and pulls the wires apart far enough to lose contact.

On a really cold day, it wouldn't fail at all.

On a moderately cold day it would fail once the brakes had heated up the hub some.

All the while it'd "fix" itself and the warning lights would all go out.

Chasing the issue took more time than it should have because I'd get home on a cool day and it'd cool off just enough that the built in self test would say "GO" and I'd have no code to chase down the failure.  There's too many things to check to just pick a starting point and dig in.

Last couple of trips it's had the good manners to stay broken long enough to scan and get the C0050 code.

Right Rear speed sensor fault.  The internet agreed that the speed sensor is the #1 cause of that code, followed by a bad hub then the ABS controller then a bad wire.  Intermittent underscored #1 or #2 likelihood.

That the warning lights went out when I unplugged the still mounted old sensor and plugged in the new one was a good sign.

It's done and I'm very sweated through.

It's Right In The Name

At the local comic/game shop I was marveling at how much better looking the D&D miniatures are.

Then I saw it.

A figure in a wheelchair.

A CLERIC in a wheelchair.

If there's any character class that shouldn't be disabled, it's a gorram cleric.  Healing is their forte and they, literally, have the power of Gods at their beck and call.

If a God cannot heal their own cleric, what good is worshiping them?

I know why there's a cleric in a wheelchair.

Some stupid DEI shit so that a player in a wheelchair can have a character that looks like them.

"Here, you get to be crippled in your fantasy too!"  Gee, thanks?

Better make sure there's an analog of the Klan and Nazis so that Blacks and Jews can feel included too!

For Fuck's sake!  A huge selling point of table-top roleplaying is to take on the role of someone not like you in every way.

I sure don't want to have to put my bad leg on the character sheet.  I want to play a character that's younger, toner and better looking than me!

D&D is supposed to be a fantasy setting.

PS: Nevermind that a wheelchair is anachronistic tech that doesn't go with the feel of such a setting.

Adding Members To The Tribe

Do you know someone who has not yet purchased an AR and wants to buy one?

Do they have a somewhat limited budget?

Erin and Blue Collar Prepping have spotted a Memorial Day bundle at PSA.

Everything you need except ammo.

Offer expires while you wait, operators are standing by.

Mostly In Jest

That bleg below, somewhat in jest.

It's probable that I could come up with $1,000 for the trip on my own.

If this blog was a paying gig, I'd do so.

But since I selected to pay the bills and keep the cars and house in good repair...

Not to mention doing normal "keep Thag sane" activities...

There's no spare fund to let me go and report on things that would probably interest you to read about.

Note that.

READ.

Something you can do at your own pace rather than a video dragging you at their pace, whether fast or slow.

And except for the occasional bleg, there's no ads at the Abode of McThag.

So, while it'd be fun to go, I'm not too serious about it.

If all y'all put up the funding, though, I will GET serious about it.

If not, we'll "struggle" by with our normal content.

Send McThag To GunCon

I do not have the near $1,000 it would take to travel to Montezuma, Iowa and back to attend GunCon at Brownell's.

I do wish to attend and report back to my loyal reader what went on there.

Like PBS, The Abode of McThag, is funded by viewers like you!

Unlike PBS, The Abode of McThag, is not funded by government largess.

I am sure you're clever enough to figure out my email address to contact me to arrange the transfer of funds for this journalistic adventure.

Top Men

Trump promised the Libertarian Convention, if elected, that he'd appoint a libertarian to his cabinet.

No.

Put a libertarian in charge of BATFE.

Why?

Burn 35 minutes of your life watching the current apparatchik flailing under questioning.

A Smaller Change

Dettelbach keeps pounding on the idea that someone needs to be an FFL to sell a gun and justifying by pounding on private sales not going through background checks.

There have been many proposals for background checks that would allow us unwashed non-licensees to check to see if we're selling a gun to someone who's on a verboten list.

Nearly all of these proposals, likewise, don't do anything to create a registry of guns or gun owners.

Not one of these proposals ever gets past committee, in fact they rarely get to committee.

Why would that be?

Because the reasons for background checks are lies.

These proposals show they are lies when someone tries to get them through a legislature to make them law.  The lies are so big, these proposals die before they're submitted to committees.

The entire point of a background check is to create a RECORD of a firearm sale.  A record that contains the name of the seller, buyer and the firearm being sold.

These proposals don't make such a record.  These proposals will address the false reasons they claim they want background checks.

That they kill them rather than consider them says all that needs be said.

They never even bring up that background checks are a violation of all manner of our rights in the first place.  Privacy being foremost.

Rationalized!

GunCon is happening at Brownell's on June 29th.

$400 in gas alone to get up there for me.  Plus three nights in a hotel and the $50 admission fee.  Prolly not going on such short notice.

Marv was worried that being at Brownell's would be too expensive, but I reminded him that we'd prolly stop in Memphis for burgers at Dyer's.

Deep.

Fried.

Hamburger.

He commented that he'd have a heart attack shortly after eating that.

So I mentioned the good news:  Think of all the money he'd save by not shopping at Brownell's!

Mullet

 

Business in front, party in the back!

Fourth Time's The Charm

I've purchased an editor suite for The Beast.

This will let me turn on the domelights, enable the manual shift display, change the thresholds for the TPMS etc...

The vendor recommended that I download the software portion while waiting on the hardware portion to familiarize myself with it.

Good thing.

Version 1.2 did not run on my Win10 Pro laptop.

Typical software rollout.

Version 1.3 works and I was able to authorize the credits I bought.  I needed 3 for the instrument cluster module and 4 for the body control module.

There was a moment of frustration when I got the I/1 confusion going, but I figured it out.

Now I just have to stare at the mailbox until the cables get here from Australia.

It's Like They've Never Mixed A Drink

Dear Global Warming Panic Mongers;

Take a glass of water.  Add salt until it matches the salinity of sea water.  (Look it up for yourself, you keep telling me how much smarter you are than me.)

Add two ice cubes to your glass.

Note the water level.

Let ice melt.

Note the water level.

You might notice that it's not much different.

I've done this experiment.

This is why I am not scared that a "Florida sized" chunk of ice has broken away from Antarctica.

It's not going to make the sea level go up, it's already floating.

Near Identical

I was idly thinking about dwarves and the blow up about having non-human races have the same ethnicity as us humans.

A thing that we had in Traveller, and it's been so long I can't even remember if it was official canon, was the "homogeneous humaniti" project.

The goal of Homogeneous Humaniti was to keep breeding unlike bloodlines until there were no longer any physical distinctions like skin, eye or hair color.  They were a splinter group that wasn't going to get near their goals.

But what if the Dwarf God believed that His (Her?) people should not be different because of blood?

What if They decided that Their people would distinguish themselves from one another in a different way?

Add in Niven's K'zinti and Chmeee losing his scars thanks to the Hindmost's kitty boosterspice...

An idea pops.

Dwarves look so very much like each other that they need to do something to stand out or be different.

Like scars, length of beard and the things woven into them.

Cutting off their beard is like stealing their ID.

The lowest social standings WOULD be made to wear the same clothes and cut their hair and beards the same.

More social rank means more freedom in the style of beard and hair decorations.

That Was Close

If someone in one my games had tried to buy a Merwin Hulbert revolver, I'd forgotten to give weight and cost per shot information on my table.

That oversight has been corrected.

Took care of some other oddities like .276 Pederson and .280 British while I was under the hood.

For The Fallen

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children, England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.


Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.


They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.


They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.


They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.


But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;


As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,

To the end, to the end, they remain.

-- Laurence Binyon

Today is not about sales. It is not about summer starting. It is not about grandma.

It's is about those who served and have passed beyond the vale.

I want them all back.

To:

Bernie Canniff (Korea, in a car club together).

Standing Bear aka William Dawkins (WW2 and Korea, who taught me gaming).

Fred Gabow (we served together, his wife hired someone to murder him).

Ian Gates (Comrade in arms to Willard).

Jason Kruzic (a fellow gamer from high school.  He came to an odd end.)

Carol LeFon aka Neptunus Lex (patiently explained both real world and flight sim military aviation to this tanker).

Davy McGuire (COB USS Whale, originally a friend of my Dad's, later me).

Kevin O'Brian aka Hognose (our beloved Weaponsman).

Jerry Pournelle (you do read, don't you? Willing to be wrong and listened to my correction!).

Rabbi (Uncle Ben, another friend of Dad who got me a ride in an F-14A).

Rich Sickels (brother of my Father in law).

Robert Smith (uncle by marriage to Mom's sister).

 

The world is better that you were in it and worse that you have left.

 

Life Support Fail

It felt a little stuffy in here, but it's been hotter outside, so I didn't think anything of it.

Until I saw the thermostat read 78 when 76 is selected.

This could be bad!

But the most common reason for this is the water drain line from the air handler getting clogged with slime mold.

I blew out the line and function returned to the system.

Huzzah!

We get too much condensation in the air handler because we're too nice to our masters, the cats, and leave the back door open a crack so they may enjoy the screened in porch.  That lets humidity into the house and...

Some bleach down the drain line and we're good for a while.

Guzzler

Started yesterday's trip at the local WaWa getting E0 gas.

Waved at the people at the Tesla station.

Drove to Orlando, shopped Lego, had dinner, drove back.

Stopped at WaWa to get some E0 gas.

Waved at the same people at the Tesla station.

Trip Observations

First, Mascotte is still a speed trap.

Second, I still hate to see emergency vehicles all gathered around a crashed motorcycle.

No car nearby, single vehicle crashes and bikes are common around here.

Oddly, twice in a row I've seen a wrecked bike and lots of law enforcement less than a mile away...

Makes you wonder if it's related to someone fleeing the scene.

Road Trip

Joined up with a buddy in Orlando today to look at Lego and grab dinner.  Got some store credit for trading in a rare minifig that doesn't match the tone of my collection.

243.1 miles, 4 hours 40 minutes driving, 23.8 mpg indicated.

I am not unhappy!

I'm OK with it.

The car is a cruiser now that the rims and tires are sorted out.

Set the cruise, dial up the tunes, chill.

The only problem is the people who see that spotlight and match speeds in my blindspot.

PS: I am glad I put a good coat of wax on The Beast the other day, it made scraping off all the bugs on the bumper that much easier.

No Apostrophe

Dear Hawaii,

It is not Hawai'i no matter how bad you want it to be.

It is not Hawai'i even if that's how to properly spell it in your dialect of Polynesian.

When your state was admitted to the union, the spelling lacked the apostrophe and now it's locked in and official.

As petty as the courts can be, I'd be appealing any ruling from a judge who spelled it Hawai'i because there's no legal jurisdiction by that name.  There's a Hawaii, but no Hawai'i.

It'd be like saying Kansas when you mean Arkansas because most of the letters are the same...

Also, Hawaiians, fuck off.  Your former royal family sold your asses out.  You weren't conquered.

Stop acting like it happened at gun point.

As The Years Wear On

I find that I get increasingly touchy over Memorial Day as I get older and the list of veterans of my acquaintance gets longer.

Too many people think it's just another day off and don't reflect on the meaning.

Alan C Wright on Facebook had the right of it:

Public service announcement, in preparation for next weekend:  The correct phrase is, "To absent friends."

NOT! "Happy Memorial Day."

Memorial Day is a somber occasion, not a joyous one.

You may laugh at the memories of those who've left us.  You might even joke (the color of military humor makes a black hole a sun).  But those laughs are ours.  Private.  Exclusive to club membership.

Remember them.

Shed a tear.

Crack a smile.

But don't forget.

Willard Has Opened This Box

 

Like A D'eagle But...

Saw Demolition Ranch's YouTube on the Auto Mag Corp's Auto Mag pistol.

In a nutshell, it's like a really unreliable Desert Eagle with really expensive magazines and expensive ammo.

Oh, and it's heavier than a D'eagle too.

Dead sexy looking, though.

I made GURPS stats, just in case someone gets stupid and wants to reinact Sudden Impact or Beverly Hills Cop 2.

Losing Demographic Groups

Am I the only one who noticed that the latest student loan forgiveness was nearly entirely for public employees, teachers and cops?

People who already have generous student loan forgiveness programs.

Why would Brandon feel he has to pander to these groups now?

I'm wondering if they're not screaming total support to the Democrats as good public union members are supposed.

I know two teachers who are both saying, "we got forgiveness for being employed as a teacher for two years, we have no idea who this is for."

One of them would have taken the bribe and voted against Brandon...  And they aren't even remotely conservative.

There's liberals who're not happy about things too.

Bitch Please

A Song of Ice and Fire fans, "It's been 13 years!"

War Against Chtorr fans, "Newbs."

I Feel LIke A Car Guy Again

It truly is the little things.

The new rims are so much smoother than the old ones that I felt like I could hang with Marv's '96 Vette on a local twisty-turny road.

It was a spirited jaunt, not a balls out run.

I am also sure he could have left me in the dust whenever he wanted.

But it was fun!

The sport shift mode is alarming, though.

It does firmer shifts, which is good.

It also does some serious engine braking and holds in a lower gear to keep the RPM's up after such braking.  Not used to that.

But it does what it's supposed and lets me keep up with a casual Marv.

That I could make this little jaunt makes me feel good about the car and like a hot rodder again.

I also reconnected with the remnants of the old Impala SS club.

I was welcomed back!

Happy day.

A Light Dawns

If this is how most people that the cops deal with are, I totally understand their attitude towards the rest of us. 

WARNING: This is 16 minutes and 50 seconds of your life that will be gone and won't ever come back.

Holy shit.

At least three times with mom I'd have been, "fine, she's going to jail; buh bye!"

Trivia

The 18x8.5" rims I have on The Beast were the base rims in 2016 on the Camaro LT.

They remained the base rims for LS and LT in 2017 and 2018.

Then the LS got its own wheel in 2019 and my wheel was the base LT wheel from 2019 until 2024.

It was a standard rim the entire run of the 6th generation Camaro.

DOT Compliant

I got yellow LED for the parking lights too.

It only takes a moment to change from stark functionality to whimsical fun.

Marv says that you can't even see the purple until I'm about a house away from him standing in his driveway.

Whimsy

In anticipation of getting the domelights to come on when the doors open, I bought some LED bulbs.

168 for the dome lights and 6418 for the ticket light.

Out of pure silliness I got some purple 194 LED bulbs for the parking lights.  As long as they're not red nor blue, it's legal in Florida.

If the silly wears off, I have amber LED bulbs too.  The original incandescent 194 bulbs were so dim that JT asked if I'd always had lights there.

How To Knock 49 Pounds Off Your Car With One Simple Trick

The 18x8 2012 Caprice PPV steel rims, with 235-50/18 tire, are 62 lb. 12 oz.

The 18x8.5 2016 Camaro rims, with the same tire, are 50 lb. 8 oz.

That shaves 12 lb. 4 oz. off each corner for a total savings of 49 lb.

That's like adding four and a quarter horsepower!

That's as much as adding a(n) (insert snake-oil power adder here).

An unrelated benchmark is a 17x8.5 1995 Impala SS rim and 255-50/17 tire is 58 lb. 13 oz.

7d pi Is (Still) 7d pi

Very interesting stuff.

Link to InRange mud test.

Kromm Speaks

I put the warhammer armor piercing question to the SJ Games Forum and got a response from the line editor.

Basically this. I'd prefer a simple "add (2) and call it a day," but I can't retcon decades of precedent and hundreds of supplements at will. Reducing penalties is an alternative. Doing so doesn't say, "This is a precision instrument," but rather, "This is how the thing is meant to be used." Sort of the difference between getting +2 for using a high-quality item – say, with very fine (balance), if that even exists – and getting a +2 task difficulty modifier for using the right tool for the job.

Or, as I said, just add (2) and call it a day. Extending the rules for bodkin points for arrows (p. B277) to picks and tucks isn't total craziness, since the idea in all cases is that of a hardened, rigid, narrow beak. (Yes, technically this makes the attack piercing rather than impaling, so be sure to target the vitals or skull.)

My house rule appears to have unofficial official approval!

Shiny

This is mostly playing with the camera.

I noticed how well the car was reflecting the rest of the garage at this angle and NEEDED a picture of it.

Default exposure didn't capture what my eyes were seeing, but I have adjustments for that!

I'll Take CFIT For $1,000

Iran just lost the butcher of Tehran in a helicopter crash.

Looks like a Kobe Bryant deal to me.

This is the Occam's razor answer, at present, for what probably happened.

But, by all means; Go for conspiracy theory.

Those will be great fun.

Another Reason

It started with Moxie, but it continues with The Beast.

140 ft-lb torque on the wheel lugs.

That has always seemed like too much, but, before I looked it up I tried to use the customary 100 ft-lb on Moxie and got the clunking sound of a wheel coming off.

Another 40 isn't too difficult.

You just dial the sleeve on the torque wrench a bit more.

But you have to use a torque wrench!

When I was showing the Camaro rims to Harvey, I really had to put my weight on the breaker bar to get the lug nuts to move.

This is because Mutual of Omaha's Tire Kingdom doesn't use a torque wrench, they use those torque sticks for their air-impact guns that are supposed to flex and keep the mechanic gorilla from over-torquing the lugs.

I was there when they asked the front about the torque.  I said 140.  They confirmed 140.  I got about 200-250!

For a torque stick to do its job, the gorilla has to release the damn trigger the moment the lug stops spinning, otherwise it will just let them keep tightening the lug.  Just like if I were to keep cranking once the torque wrench clicks.

I noticed that PowerTech Performance used a torque wrench.  They're more expensive, but...

This is all going to matter in a bit when I start pulling the wheels, one by one, to detail clean and wax them.  It makes it easier to get brake dust off them later.

Squeeked

A couple of astronomers are saying the recent coronal mass ejection might have been similar to the discharge from the Carrington Event.

I sure hope so.

Because that means we're ready for one and can stop freaking out every time the local main sequence variable star burps.

Wax On Wax Off

Damn, she's a fine 10-foot car!

Sure is a lot of car to get a good coat of wax onto.

Just a bit hot and humid in the garage too, but...

Waxing is something I historically neglect.  I have lots of products that go on much easier than regular wax and don't last near as long.

My drive on Saturday encountered a scourge of Thuh Suth.

Lovebugs.

Since I was going to be washing it, might as well finish the job.

Subtle Changes

The Beast has seen changes since I got her.

Willard pointed out, that they weren't really obvious to him.

Well, to be honest, nothing really boldly changed the appearance.

The biggest appearance change is the rims.

Changing the door handles from black to white is more subtle.

Changing the blank covers to functional foglights is more subtle.

Putting a black paint-protector behind the door handles is more subtle.

This is kind of what happens when you're, overall, happy with how a car looks.

Harvey, eventually wants to have her painted blue.  We even have a couple of shades picked out to consider.  Paint is a while in the future.

The next thing on the schedule won't even show.  Getting the editing software to make changes to the driving experience.

After that, most likely, a fight over the mufflers.  Picking an exhaust note hearing unheard is a pain.

I know what I want, but don't know what gets that for this car.  The easy solutions are kind of expensive and appear to be much louder than we really want.

The harder solutions involve someone who knows what they're doing with a welder to cut out the old mufflers and welding in replacements.  This is because GM can't just have any straight sections of pipe going into and coming out of the muffler to let you use exhaust clamps to insert a muffler once the old one is cut away.  Never mind the hangers need to be moved as well.

Sea Level

If you can't tell the sea level rise from the tide, it's not something to worry about.

There's numerous maps, paintings, photos, plans and surveys of Castillo de San Marcos in St Augustine that show the shore substantially the same as it is today.  It's more than 200 years older than Lady Liberty.

If global warming can't beat the tide in 352 years, I'm not buying that's it's gone up substantially in the past 20.

IGPCC is not a scientific organization.  It's a group of government officials.  Notice everything they advocate for benefits governments?  If you hadn't, best to look again.

Never mind that the people who are advocating loudest are consistently proven to be less than the sharpest knives in the drawer AT BEST; most often they're just common, self-serving liars.

The fuel that a private jet uses to get to the global warming conference makes more emissions and pollution than decades of my total household's emissions.

But they never propose eliminating THEIR luxury; just my necessities.

But It Helps

"You don't have to be a Nazi to vote for Joe Biden. You just have to decide that becoming an accomplice after the fact to the worst pogrom since the Holocaust isn't a deal breaker."

-FuzzyGeff

I Don't Even Subscribe

The star of the most recent iteration of Doctor Who tells us that we should shut off our TVs if we don't like him.

I am uncertain I can shut him off.

I don't think I am a subscriber to any streaming service that carries Dr Who.

I remember watching, and enjoying, the Tom Baker era.

I was fine with the next doctor, Peter Davidson and watched a spattering of his replacement, Colin Baker.

The next I heard about the show was when Christopher Eccleston took on the role.  I still didn't watch more than a couple episodes.

I think I'd grown past the premise.

I hear I missed some good stuff with David Tennant, but...

I'd grown past the premise.

It no longer appealed to me.

I had a couple of friends who enjoyed it and I tried mightily to let them.  I think I succeeded.

You don't need me to enjoy something to enjoy it yourself.  I don't need to you to not enjoy it if I don't.

I do worry that while explaining why I didn't care for it any more, I shit on the person enjoying it.  But I can't ask because they ejected from the friendship over my refusal to take proven liars word that catastrophicanthropogenicglobalclimatechange was absolutely real.

But...

Ncuti Gatwa is telling people to not watch if we don't like him.

Well, I wasn't planning on watching and I don't give two shits about him.

But he probably should have kept his trap shut.

I didn't bother with the live action version of Cowboy Bebop because the actors wouldn't shut up.

There's other examples of this shit that escape me, but it's recurring.

I will view your story and rate it against itself, but if you want to prejudice me by calling me a bigot before I can watch it...  well it's you not me.

Slow But Steady

Two years ago all I'd done was the door handles.

Things have progressed a bit.

She's getting there.  I've spent most of my efforts so far getting the suspension repaired from years of neglect by previous owners.

I Feel Dirty

The old laptop has Win10 on it.

This is so I can use the module editor for my car.

I am displeased.

There Is No Organization With Cats

I'm a fan of Lego and I like to display my collection.

Beeper and Shadow disagree with how they are displayed.

Shadow likes to take apart the Star Wars sets on the headboard.

Beeper thinks the Harry Potter minifigs are the best bed evah!

So I spend an hour a week looking for lost parts and figures.

I've been doing some rearranging to allow them to be on the flat spots where the Lego are.

Because it's not the presence of the Lego that's the problem.  It's that a cat naturally wants to perch on the spaces I keep the Lego.

Compound

I don't remember if it came up when I was detailing every damn muscle powered ranged weapon in GURPS, but High Tech gives stats for compound bows and crossbows.

They're simple.

They do damage and range at +2 to their ST rating.

Phrased another way, a ST 10 person with a ST 10 compound bow shoots like they had ST 12 and a like rated bow.

Tire Hop

Two of my tires are out of round.

I know this because the dynamic balancer at the shop that mounted my tires told me so.

My car is decidedly pedestrian compared to most of their customers.

The mostly deal in Corvettes and horsepower upgrades north of 500 horses.

Being out of round as much as my tires are at 200 miles an hour would be bad.

I can't even feel it at 100.  Turns out they're not out of round by very much, just enough for the machine to sense at the most sensitive setting.

On the drive to the casino for my father in law's birthday I noted that it was much smoother than with the steel rims.  Marv concurred.

Something that started as routine and ended up being amusing was the tire pressure light.

It's common for TPMS to panic about the tire pressure when you first start the car then calm down as it reads the sensors in turn after their absence.

For me the light started out as on and reading "TPMS Fault".  A couple miles later, that changes to four individual messages telling me each tire is low.

As they warmed up and the pressures rose, the fronts stopped complaining at 34 psi and one rear stopped at 38.

The shop is used to different cars and 32 psi is normal for a Vette or Camaro.

40 is what a Caprice PPV wants.  35 is fine, but I don't have the module edit to lower the threshholds and keep the light off.

New Shoes

As mentioned here, I snagged 4x 18x8.5 Camaro rims for about half what a single rim would go for.

Got them mounted and balanced at a VERY reputable shop today!

 

Better photos to come...

It really changes the look of the car in a good way.

I Think I Will Just Hide

The Lovely Harvey works from home.

Sometimes her employees make more work for her than they should.

At present she's unfucking, again, a simple spreadsheet they're using to track data.

I am constantly amazed at the basic mistakes her minions apply to things to make simple tasks complicated.

They're not even using complicated math on multiple sheets.

Wowsers.

Just Shut Up

There's two things that I'm sick of reading about because they pop up cyclically.

I mentioned the airplane on a treadmill problem.

The other is the Monty Hall Equation.

Yes, math nerds, changing your selection to the other box does mathematically increase your chances of winning.

It's provable in several variations pick one of three boxes, reveal one as empty, change your answer.

Here's the thing.

It doesn't fucking matter.

The only person playing this game more than the one time is Monty himself.

The chance of picking the correct door on your initial selection is 1 in 3.

Changing your answer ups that to 2 in 3.

Decent odds.

The Price is Right ran the "honest" version of the game.

The prize location was decided before the initial guess.  One door without a prize is shown after the guess.

2 in 3 odds if you change your answer.

Grab your d6 or d12.

Assign 1/3 of the faces to represent a loss.  2/3 for a win. (1 and 2 for the d6 loss and 1-4 for the d12 loss).

Roll.

Did you win?

You should have.

I just tried it out with a d12.  I rolled a 1, 3, 2 and 11.  I only won one game in four chances.

That's three more times than I would have been given on the show.

People use this equation as if changing your answer, which DOES double your odds of winning, guarantees a win.

It does not.

If the prize was behind door #1 and you change your answer to #3 after being shown nothing behind #2 means you still lose.

By all means, play the odds, but don't get mad if you lose; because the sure thing sometimes loses and the longshot sometimes wins.

TL9

I kinda wanna extend the TL project out to speculative TL from historical.

The problem is a dearth of worlds, though I could do TL9 and TL10 in just Transhuman Space.

Just like I ask the players, what do you want to do?

What do I want to do?

I've contemplated a Me for the world.

It presumes me getting rich, somehow, and surviving long enough to do the ghost thing and move into a robot body.

There are "waves" to the technological shocks in setting.

First Wave - labor-intensive agriculture.

Second Wave - industrial manufacturing.

Third Wave - digital computers and networks.

Fourth Wave - genetic engineering and biotechnology.

Fifth Wave - artificial sapience and nanotechnology.

It might help me understand the setting better if I made one each a character from the three waves.  3rd Wave is TL8 and near future.  4th Wave is TL9.  5th Wave is TL10 and set in the year 2100.  5th Wave is also the main setting.

It might even be interesting to make Me in each wave, documenting how I change.

That might be the way to do it.

It's a very interesting setting that I'm not very sure I'd wanna GM or play in because there's a lot there and I disagree with some of the decisions made by the authors about how things should be.  Though, there's a chance that they could be.

Yes I Cleaned It

 

Something that's irksome about owning an old patrol car, which was then owned by a less than fastidious friend, is you can clean it and embedded dirt will surface again without you actually doing anything to dirty it up.

I've been doing the seats a lot lately, it seems, and I keep thinking it's done and see how bad it is again when I take a pic to document the modding.

Inconstant Moon

I had just finished reading Niven's short story, "Inconstant Moon" when the first word of the coronal mass ejection was announced.

"That was odd," I said to myself.

I forgot to even check the moon...

Prolly better to be taken unawares by something like that.  Florida being very close to sea level and all.

Conflict

In the huge mess of "are you a dealer or not" that ATF just put out is a bit where keeping records of how much you paid for a gun is an indication of intent to profit from a future sale.

If you insure your guns, though, the insurance company is going to want to see how much you paid and track how much they are worth.

So anyone who insures their guns is a dealer?

Even more fun, Florida's statute to prevent government from making registration lists reads as if it bans individuals and companies from recording serial numbers on a spreadsheet.

Gotta love it!

Bad Shoot

If you ever wonder if it's a good shoot or a bad shoot, just ask yourself if you would be going to prison if you had done the shooting.

I say this, because except for qualified immunity, the cops operate under the same statutes as we do.

Airman Roger Fortson didn't even have his finger on the trigger of the pistol he had in hand pointed at the floor.

That got him ventilated by Deputy Triggerhappy.

Go find the bodycam, Airman Fortson didn't do anything to get shot.  No furtive movement.  He was simply at the door of his domicile with a firearm in his hand.  A prudent response to someone unexpectedly pounding on the door.

This is the kind of police shooting that gets me aligned with the defund the police because Deputy Triggerhappy has already claimed self defense, and I am certain the Okaloosa Sheriff's Department (of shots fired acorn fame) will soon affirm that all relevant training and procedures for the use of deadly force were adhered to.

I'm strongly of the opinion that your home should be sacrosanct from officer safety because, if no other place, you have the most right to be there.

I've also long held that as interchangeable representatives of The State that officers must actually receive fire before shooting, not just feel threatened.

The State came to Airman Fortson's door and had him killed because he was armed.

Be Careful Whom You Force To Care

I trend to supporting LGBT and associated stuff.

Once you're a person, you have rights and I demand that people get their rights.

I don't support one group or another getting more rights than anyone else.

Disclaimer out of the way:

Dear radical trans advocates,

When you sling your accusations at someone for being anti-trans or transphobic; are you sure they're not just responding to people like you being assholes about it?

Because a lot of you ARE being assholes about it.

A decent sized hunk of the "transphobic" aren't against you, per se, they simply don't give a fuck.  Apathy is not opposition or hatred.

Until you demand that they take a side, with the same sort of deal the anti-gun people give gun owners, "admit that you're wrong (and evil) and I'm right (and virtuous) and THEN we will discuss what level of punishment you will receive for being wrong (and evil) all this time."

If you don't accept their entire position as right and virtuous, you will be treated as if you were a mustache twirling villain Klansnazi bent (pun!) on the eradication of all but the cisnormative.

Lots of folks respond to this with, "Shiny, let's be bad guys," and lean into it.  If they're going to be punished for it, might as well commit the crime too.

I'm not talking about the people who were bigoted before you opened your gigantic "heads I win, tails you lose" narrative.

These are people who're nominally on your side, but don't feel they have to actively agitate all day, every day for your rights when you clearly don't give two shits about anyone else.

It's playing with a sleeping dragon's tail and it will be bad to wake it up.

There's lots of, "oh yeah, well fuck you too!" in American politics.  Especially in cases where someone should have taken the win and gone home to enjoy the fruits of their victory; but didn't.

Civil Rights, LGBT and women's rights are such cases.

There's going to be a lot of people who were satisfied with the progress made who might be very fucked if this presses too far.

PS: Phobia comes from the Greek for fear.  They don't fear you, they HATE you.  Transmisia is the word you're searching for.

PPS: I'm friends with several LGBT people who are very concerned with the effect the assholes are having on the everyday straights.

I Have A Wrench

I originally statted a 40mm combination wrench for an Interstellar Wars character.

4 lb., swing +2 cr Damage, Reach 1, Parry 0U, ST 12

I don't have a 40mm wrench myself.

My biggest combination wrench is a mere 32mm.

1.8 lb.  So, sw+1 cr Damage, Reach 1, Parry 0U, ST 8

I should probably reach for my 18" (450mm) pipe wrench if I need to bludgeon someone with a tool.

 

5.5 lb.  sw+2 cr Damage, Reach 1, Parry 0U, ST 12.  I think I'm a point short on ST for it, so -1 skill to my skill level of Axe/Mace; which is at default of DX-5.  I normally give myself a DX of 12, so my Axe/Mace skill is 7; 6 with the pipe wrench.

That's not very good at all.

With my normal ST of 11 I'd do 1d+2 cr with the combination wrench and 2d-1 cr with the pipe wrench.

Upgradin'

The center console in The Beast is from a company called Nenno.

For $250 you, too, can get a console made from particle board with two cup holders that are rarely useful.

The small one perfectly holds a 12oz can.

The large one perfectly holds one particular size of Gatorade bottle.

Nothing else fits well.

I'd mentioned my 3D print idea and someone of a Facebook group suggested getting the cup holder insert from an '07-'14 Silverado.  $12 from Amazon.

First I pried out the useless holders.

Then I removed about 100 staples and peeled back the pleather.

Then I cut away the offending wood and put the pleather back.

Then I had to do some trimming on the Silverado holder and used some RTV to secure it to the pleather.

Nice to have a cup holder that holds most anything I want to put in it again!

Fixin'

The left fog light had ceased to function, so I ordered new bulbs.

This is the bulb in question.

I'd ordered a set of LED bulbs to replace them, which arrived today.

They didn't want to fit in the capsules and I discovered why.  The melting bulbs had distorted the hole for the bulb from the heat!

Some light trimming later and I got the new bulbs in.

They're brighter!

Not yet melted all the way right side halogen bulb:

Spiffy new LED bulb:

Yes, you have to take off the wheels and pull back the fender liners to get at the bulbs.

A test drive to Marv's confirmed they're throwing a lot more light than the older bulbs.  I could drive with them if the headlights failed.

Huzzah!

Questionably Legality

Solid brass turtle defense tool.  The spike is to crack their shell.

For a change, it's heavier than the Basic Set thinks they should be.  0.8 lb. measured against 0.25 lb. in the book.

This gives your punch with Brawling a +1 to damage.

The legality of brass knuckles is, typically, silly in Florida.

You can have them.

You cannot make them or sell them.

You cannot conceal carry them.

They are subject to local ordinances because they are not part of the state preemption on weapons.

They do count as concealed dangerous weapons.

They are not mentioned at all with regards to use as paper weights or meat tenderizers.

The combination weapon that's the M1918 trench knife is more legal for carry.  We're not talking about making sense, we're talking about the law here.

100 Miles North Of Ames

 

FuzzyGeff took this image last night at a rest stop North of Ames.

He said there wasn't anything to see naked eye, but he took some pics anyways.

The Culprit

 

That big sunspot about 3 o'clock is where the impressive aurora came from.

I am actually quite happy to see sunspots, even with coronal mass ejections, because that means that Russian astrophysicist was wrong and we're not going into a Meander Minimum this cycle, at least.

Though an active sun bringing warmer climates will give the globull warmerists more ammunition in their steadfast attempt to reduce us to being envious of Mycenaean technology.

7d Furious

7d pi is 7d pi.

I'm still not seeing the advantage of .277 Fury over .308 Win.

And I say this as someone who likes .270 Win.

My choice of .270 had a lot more to do with it remaining in stock when thirty caliber rounds became unobtanium and my uncle's endless debates over .270 v .280 v .30-06 than any tangible advantage in range or penetration.

Treadmill Pride

Former friend, Anglave, was fascinated with the airplane on a treadmill problem.

Not the problem itself, but the need for people to chime in and stake out their argument; then digging in on their answer to the exclusion of all other things.

I remember when he tried to bring that up, it triggered me to passionately explain MY position.

Well, I would like to think that he'd be proud of me that the airplane on a treadmill problem is making the rounds again on Facebook, and that I am not even clicking on the link to read the comments, let alone making a comment of my own!

For the record, the problem was from a high school teacher attempting to teach the class about how forces work and was trying to show that the propeller didn't act on the ground, yet the plane would still move.

It snowballed from there.

Preliminary

The first draft of my cupholder is exported to .stl and off to JT for printing.

Prototype in PLA and test fitting, then the production model in black ABS.

I omitted the holes for switches and plugs in this iteration because I need to see how it fits against the dash and how much access I have to the cubby and trunk button.

She's Right You Know

I had a particular player, Doug, whose goal in character creation was to use all of the game rules and break the game and/or campaign.

She's also got advice for the GM.  Much of this I noticed on my own, but it's good to keep in mind.

It took me many years to stop treating the players like they were my enemies.  I have never run a session without at least one player treating me, personally, as their enemy.

This led to a realization that all of us were there to have fun.

This will give rise to the temptation to go more story driven and putting the players in the back seat while you spin your narrative with minimal input from them.

I've always been more of a "present the world and sit back while the players explore" style GM; but this can lead to them sitting around doing nothing because...  I don't know why they couldn't self motivate.

The scars from my more adversarial days led them to avoid most of the disadvantages and character traits that I could use to have the adventure come to them.

We were just coming out of it when I upped and moved to Florida.  That's a happier ending than it sounds because I would have become a suicide statistic if I'd stayed in Ames.

Now I have several campaign ideas and a dearth of players to play.

I know, now, to give them something to decide rather than a roll to make.  The dice are there for a reason, but sometimes it's better to play it out than to roll it out.  Role over roll is more satisfying.  I've seen that over and over.

I Wish I'd Said That

Bearing Arms and David Codrea are both concerned that "common use" is excluding a lot of guns because they were made illegal before they could be acquired in sufficient numbers to attain "common use" status.

Welcome to 2014, gentlemen.

But Is It Still 25 Years?

It's an old joke that we'll have fusion power in 25 years.

I've been hearing people say that for 40 years.

It's always 25 years away.  They've been as accurate as the globullwarmering people, actually.

But we keep chipping away at the engineering problem.

Six minutes is significant.

This test did not generate any power, but containment is a critical step if you're going to light a sun in your warehouse.

I'll Buy The Popcorn If This Passes

6 months community service in Gaza for illegal protesting at a college.

OMFG I wanna see those morons deal with Islam unfettered by Western norms and laws.

It will, of course, never pass.

It's also not constitutional at all.

It'd still be hilarious!

Can't Blog Drawing

I'm designing a 3D print to give myself better cup-holders, more charging options and a place to mount the switches for tap-shifting.

Gods I am rusty.

CAD and thinking in 3D takes a lot of smoke, so blogging might be light for a bit.

Related.  The 16 year old Mac Pro chugs along like it was new.  The only thing it can't do is get online and surf the web.

It's a lot like having a computer 30 years ago, actually.

Interesting Vid

 

LA Police Murder Black Man With Tree

Darwin never sleeps.  Unlike this driver at a light.

113 on surface streets and thrown so far from the car he could have been charged with fleeing the scene.

I also note that Lambo's are better at felling trees than Corvettes.

Isn't It Interesting

The FAA won't let you be a commercial pilot after age 65 because at such an advanced age it's not safe to trust their judgement any longer.

Isn't it odd that there's no such restriction on running for office, something that presumably is much more dangerous for someone with poor judgement to do...

Just sayin'.

Seems like some cognitive testing should be implemented.

Two Year Gap

I'm a bit sick of the constant narrative that the US lost in Vietnam.

We'd fought them to a standstill and Linebacker II had them at the table giving favorable terms.

In short, we'd won.  In 1973.

We did not win in such a way that North Vietnam would never try again, and they did so about two years later.  The South was woefully unequipped to deal with it, and never really had the will to resist successfully.

We weren't there any more.

Had we been, the North would have lost spectacularly.

They knew that, that's why they gave us terms, waited for us to leave and invaded at the height of FUCK FORD AND ANYTHING HE MIGHT SUPPORT!!!

But internet historians don't bother actually reading history, they just regurgitate the BS.

All Cylinder Drive Mileage

Back in February I had JT disable 4-cylinder mode.

I feared that it would have a massive, negative, effect on mileage.

It turns out I needn't have worried.

Running 87 octane E10 gas was getting 16.5 mpg before.

Running 89 octane ethanol-free gets 16.2 mpg now.  Running E-Free has a better seat of the pants feel and did before the DOD disable too.

The absolute best mileage I've ever eked out was 28.7 mpg with E-Free on a cold-dry day and sticking to back roads with 55 mph limits.  On average E10 regular would get 26.5 mpg.

E-free on all eight has been getting 25-26 mpg with just being careful with the throttle.

Considering the car is rated for 15/24, I'm not displeased.

You're In The Driver's Seat Dude

Hamas is begging for a ceasefire.

I've mentioned the solution to their problem before.

Hamas can surrender.

It's the only solution that makes sense for Israel.

They've tried all of the other solutions over the years and it always ends with a Groundhog's Day like repetition of hostilities to almost winning then letting Hamas/Hezbolah/PLO off the hook again.

I'm sorry, Hamas, but you've shown for decades that to stop short means Israel has to do it again in a few years.

Rest of the world: Israel has shown nearly insane levels of restraint dealing with this shit.

Look at what the US did after four airliners were hijacked and a few thousand people were killed.  There's an entire region that should be sighing in relief that we get bored easily and have forgotten how to win wars.

Eating Like The Poors

A friend of Harvey's gets a weekly basket of food from the food bank.

Being too good to eat half of it because...  They don't say it, but it's because a lot of the staples are (CENSORED) food.

So we get a weekly quarter basket of (CENSORED) food.

We then, promptly, don't eat any of it, but it's shelf stable and is great for the hurricane prep box.

We're cycling the stocks and I made the beans and rice today.

The flavor packet does nothing.

It's just beans and rice and completely vitamin enriched.  Bland as fuck.

Although it's nutritionally complete, I'd hate to subsist on it for long as it comes.

Happily, I have a cabinet of spices to throw at it!

With some Scezchan sauce and soy it's quite good.

What Day Is It?

 

I'm here all night, don't forget to tip your server.

I Should Test It

According to the default stats, the saber is better at delivering impaling damage than a the pick.

I'm betting that pick punches armor way better than a thrust from the sword.

It's making me think that changing the damage from sw imp to sw (2) pi one-handed.

I need a plausible plate to test on.

My buddies, Ray or Mike used to snag us those heavy duty baking sheets from the places they worked.

We calculated them to be DR 3 or 4 back in the day.

Fine

Medieval hand weapons made after TL7 are automatically upgraded to fine quality at no extra cost in GURPS.

 Everything here is from Cold Steel.

The cavalry saber is, in GURPS terms simply a broadsword with an open frame basket hilt.

It's too light.  2.1 lb. with scabbard instead of 3 lb.  But Damage should be sw +2 cut and thr +2 imp, Reach of 1, Parry 0, ST 10.

The martel de fer is far too light; 2.2 lb. when a combination pick/hammer should be coming in at 3.5 lb.  It's also a bit long, it can readily be wielded two handed.  So I compromised by using the pick stats and reducing damage by 1.

Damage one-handed is sw imp and sw +1 cr, Reach of 1, Parry 0U, ST 10.  Two-handed is sw +1 imp and sw +2 cr, Reach of 1, Parry 0U, ST 9†.

The tomahawk is, again, too light at 1.3 lb.  It's closest to the hatchet's 2 lb.

Damage is sw cut, Reach of 1, Parry 0, ST 8.  Can be thrown!  Damage sw cut, Acc 1, Range x1.5/x2.5, RoF 1, Shots T(1), ST 8, Bulk -2.

You DO have silly larp weapons of your own, don't you?

PS: If you happen to have an M1917 Cutlass sitting on your shelf:

Damage is sw+1 cut and thr +2 imp, Reach 1, Parry 0, ST 8.  It should be about 2 lb. with scabbard, but real world weights are missing the Low Tech stats consistently.

I Should Write About...

Sometimes the long silence is from my brain latching onto a topic I've already written about that I find when I search to make sure I haven't already written about it.

Brain then locks up and says, "I like Santa."

This, in turn, locks up the free ice cream machine for hours or days.

Huzzah

A local tuner shop I've done business with before is willing to try swapping my tires from the steel rims to the Camaro rims.

They're also going to dig into the body control module and activate my domelights so they come on when the doors open.  This is known as a 7Y6 delete after the SPID code.

I'm going to have them check the boxes to shut off the daytime running lights and to activate the remote start option.  Remote start will take more work to get functioning, but the first step is the BCM.

GPMG

What the hell is a GPMG or General Purpose Machine Gun?

I'm reading a debate where they're making it sound like it's impossible to define.

I'd always thought it was a single gun that could be employed as a light and medium gun with light being from a bipod and medium from a tripod.

Light and medium being defined as roles rather than guns.

In this paradigm, a heavy machine gun is one that does sustained fire; which is just more volume than a medium gun is expected to do.

What makes a heavy gun gets blurred considerably by large caliber guns like Ma Deuce.  M2HB doesn't do a lot of volume, really.

In WW2 the US heavy MG was the water-cooled M1917, medium was the M1919A4 and the light role was filled by the BAR.  Notice they're all in .30-06?

That's because the role is caliber independent.

That's why an M60 or M240 at the squad level is an LMG, and so is an M249.

An M249 can be mounted on a tripod and employed as a medium gun too; yet it's in 5.56.

The M249 can be considered a GPMG because of this.

It's slippery.

$215 RDIAS

US vs Kittson is starting in the 9th Circus.

Prolly going nowhere, but it'd be kinda neat if SCOTUS got it and nuked the Hughes Amendment.

Quote from where I found it:

A guy with a felony for attempted murder and manslaughter tried to sell a PPSh-41 to the ATF, and is now appealing to the most liberal circuit in the US.  So this is going to go nowhere.

Since the entire NFA hinges on the conceit that it's legal under Congress' taxing power, refusing to accept the payment of the tax on MG's means they can't ban them.

So they're left with accepting taxes to keep them restricted or seeing them become the same as any other firearm.

With Bruen floating around out there, this could be interesting.

I Don't Feel Scary

The other night I was at a brewery, trying to enjoy my beer, when the sounds of obnoxious tween/teens playing some sort of loud popping clap game started getting on my nerves.

They were there because their parents had decided to have a birthday party in the brewery's tasting room.

They were nowhere near their parents making all this noise.

So I decided to, politely, ask one of the adults if they could, perhaps, get their crotch fruit to play somewhere else, like the outside area of the place.

One parent grabs their kids, says they're sorry, and drags them away.

Another is like, "what the fuck?!"

Marv tries to explain that I have hearing issues and his reply is, "I did two tours in Iraq when I was in the Marines and I'm fine!"

So I replied, "try stepping on a landmine."  Because the sound was reminding me of the pop of a bounder.  I think, now, that he thought I was inviting him to step on a mine immediately.

Mr Marine squares up and... visibly reconsiders.  Then he just leaves with his kid to elsewhere in the bar.

I'm thinking, "well, I'm going to get my ass kicked."  Then it doesn't happen.

This sort of thing has happened to me before and I wonder if I look a lot more frightening than I feel when such things are developing.

I am not actually frightening, but I appear to have mastered an effective defensive display.

You Have To Admit

While something belt fed and water cooled is the most appropriate tool to deal with protesting bigots...

The traditional weapon for use in campus protests is the Garand.

Whether or not using troops on students is appropriate or legal, I will leave up to scholars and historians to debate.

What you have to admit is there's no newsworthy Hamas support protests at Kent State.

Almost as if the lesson stuck.

Just sayin'.

Ship Design

The more I observe, the larger the bullshit flag gets when I look at Traveller deck plans.

The first place it really hit was watching The Caine Mutiny where, "The Caine is the inboard ship," when ensign Keith first arrives.

There are at least two destroyers tied up and they climb up to the deck of the outboard ship and pass over to the Caine.

I started paying attention and noticing that many ships have a passage about amidships that allows for traffic from a ship berthed outboard through ships inboard to the dock.

In Traveller terms that'd mean an airlock on both sides and a passage straight from one to the other to allow this kind of stacking.

One reason this is a design feature of American destroyers is because of our extensive use of destroyer tenders in the Pacific.  One tender would support several destroyers and they tied up alongside each other.

There's a lot of practical considerations that are not reflected on any Traveller deckplan.

Just look at access into the Type-S.  There's a down hatch from the avionics bay, but access from the avionics bay to the bridge is a maintenance hatch.  Maintenance hatches require tools to open and they only open from the inside.  To use this as the ships entrance means unbolting that maintenance hatch and leaving it open.  The aft bulkhead has two iris valves.  One leads into a multipurpose space, the other into the engine room.

There are zero airlocks, unless you count flooding the air-raft bay.

There's more than one design that doesn't keep the passengers separate from the crew with the attendant security problems inherent with such intermixing.

And the limited number of airlocks and hatches would be murdered by liability lawyers.  Though considering the black humor of the low-lottery, perhaps they've all been murdered for the good of humaniti.

At Least It's Not A GURPS Post

Rearranged the Lego to better prevent Shadow from rearranging them.

Not Once

There are no official GURPS stats for the AR-18.  Or the AR-180.

A couple of rifles based on it, like the L85, but not the actual McCoy.

The stats are simple enough.

Now I'm ready for Northern Ireland.

Panic Mode

Right after Harvey and The Boy had finished putting away the groceries, we noticed that we could not find Shadow.

We scoured the house and came to the conclusion she'd slipped out when the door was open from the haul-in from the car.

Much despair was evident.

Since we'd originally found her in the back yard, we tried to be philosophical that she'd visited over several nights before we brought her in and she'd eventually figure out how to get back to the back door.

So we turned on hockey to distract us and we waited.

Three hours after we noticed she was missing, Harvey looks up and sees her between the curtains and the sliding glass door.

She'd been under Harvey's roll-top desk the entire time!

A place we didn't think to check because we didn't know there was enough space under the drawers for her to fit.

We're just happy to have figured out where she'd gone and that's she was safe all along.

It's Like They Don't Want The Business

As feared, finding a place to swap the tires and TPMS from one set of rims to the other is turning into a quest.

The chains will happily sell me new tires and sensors for the Camaro rims.

While having a complete set of spare tires mounted is handy, I don't really have a place to store them.

Never mind the additional $750 for tires and $100 for sensors.  Tire store TPMS sensors are always more expensive than Rock Auto or even Amazon.

The hunt is on, because my tires have life left in them and I don't wanna kill them in storage with a false sense of security I have spares.

One particular chain store had empty bays and an empty parking lot when they turned my business away.

I looked hard at the lack of wealth generation going on and asked, "how's that turning away work doing for you?"  He stammered in reply.

MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY

It's international fucking communist day.

25% off helicopter rentals in Chile.

There is officially no food today...

Wait.

There is no official food for today.  Yes, that is correct Comrade.