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Periodically I go through a wave of wants for something in 10mm ACP.
It usually passes quickly, but it keeps coming back.
There's surprisingly few complete Glock 20's out there on the used market.
There's also the, much more expensive, Colt Delta Elite.
For REAL cache, the S&W 1076 is what I should want.
Probably, eventually, end up with the Glock.
A criminal who personally harmed us has died.
Of old age, but he got to rot in prison for a few years too.
I read his obituary with great pleasure.
By the way, gun control people, I had just cause to end this motherfucker and I was able to restrain myself.
Despite all the highcapacityfullysemiautomaticweapons here.
Looks like China has joined the ranks of nations that adopted a bullpup then replaced it with a conventional rifle.
The QBZ-95, a bullpup, is being replaced with the QBZ-191.
Kept the 5.8x42mm.
My observation is still standing:
When the time comes to replace your bullpup you replace it with a conventional gun.
Unless you adopted the Steyr AUG. Then you replace it with a newer, upgraded, version of the AUG.
Did you know that the "pole" in "poleaxe" doesn't refer to the shaft.
Poll means a hammer face. "Pollaxe" is an historical, alternate, spelling.
The "pole" in "polearm" is unrelated.
WOTC and Lego should have released a "make your own character" minifig pack to coincide with both the release of AD&D 2024 and their 50th anniversary.
$20-$25 and include enough parts to mix and match yourself two or three characters of any race species or class.
It might just be a seller!
$20 accessory packs for different classes for further customization would be a winner too.
Missed chance.
Lego has two D&D themed sets out.
A Red Dragon castle for $350 and a series of Collectible minifigs for $5 each.
Of the 18 figures in these two series...
One human. A named character from Forgotten Realms. Wait, she's an archfey, she used to be human.
So, no humans.
SIGH.
The tempo of things finally slowed down so that Harvey and I could hit the range.
She knocked the rust off and I tried something new with the Colt Woodsman Challenger.
9 circles? 9 cartridges?
Seems like an exercise pre-made!
I went as fast as I could, but that wasn't really fast. Happy it went as well as it did. Definitely have to do more of this.
I have never paid to have tint applied to the windows of any car I've owned.
However, two cars have come tinted...
Becky's old '96 Caprice 9C1:
And The Beast:
Both are probably illegally dark here in Florida, but we don't have much, if any enforcement of those laws.
The tint on Harvey's car caused a problem for Technomad when we sold it to him and he found that Iowa does enforce their tint laws.
I've read that a couple of states will enforce their tint laws on a car that's legally tinted in its home state too. Most particularly New Jersey, but why would you ever go there?
The Australian radio upgrade to my radio includes digital storage to allow the owner to upload 15 audio CD's into its memory.
CDs you say? I can't remember when I last played a CD...
We have a drawer full.
So Harvey and I select 15 of some we like and uploaded them.
The eagle eyed will note that this pile only has 14 CDs in it. Slot #2 is filled with an album I purchased on iTunes and burned to an audio CD. It's in the pile, you just can't see it between cases.
I now have the choice of:
AM radio
FM radio
CD
Thumb drive
iPod
Stored music on my phone via Bluetooth
Sirius/XM via Bluetooth
The music I uploaded from CDs
A local brewery closed its doors tonight.
I was there for the soft-opening and the grand opening.
I was there Sunday for the going away party and tonight for the grand closing.
I did not frequent it as much of late as I had when they first opened.
There's a different brewery I prefer is all.
But they aren't going out of business. They're moving up the road and going from being a small business to a medium business and going from renting to owning their building.
Big steps.
I'll prolly swing in for the grand opening and keep going to the place I like better...
I said that I'd give it a miss because I was soured by the Wehraboos and their endless attempts to redeem the Waffen SS.
We know they're SS because the Heer had stopped using black leather by the time that camo smock
started being issued, to the Waffen SS... who retained the 1938 pattern
all the way to the end.
He speculated that the subject could be Finnish or Hungarian based on the helmet.
Well, no.
The Finns didn't go in for camouflage patterns. Nor did they use the 1938 pattern black leather web gear.
The finns stuck with Mosins too. The K.98k depicted isn't Finnish kit at all.
The grenade and Panzerfaust are OK.
The Hungarians used a lot more German kit, though. But they went their own way on the load bearing gear, using a conventional buckle instead of the clamshell style of the Germans. They also never issued a Waffen SS camo-pattern smock.
The Hungarians kept the 1916 helmet for the most part and didn't issue camo covers for their 1938 pattern. The one in the pic is a 40 or 42 pattern. Probably 40 by the brow's thickness.
I built a lot of 1/35 scale tanks and made several dioramas with friends.
You get to know the subtle variations quickly because when you enter your diorama into a contest the judges spot the anachronisms right damn quick.
These were the tools of my trade for the first five years I was a draftsman.
Not sure where my Ames lettering guide went.
I was good at manual drafting.
CAD killed that.
I was good at CAD too.
The market for skilled drafters has contracted severely.
I tried watching a video describing all the changes in the new version of the D&D Player's handbook from the 5th edition.
Yeah.
So many of the things he was talking about were unfamiliar from the last version of AD&D I actually played.
I kind of know what some of the new races species are.
A lot of what he described, though, sounded a lot like things that came with GURPS as far back as 1988.
Once again, there's hardly a thing you can do in your favorite system you cannot do in GURPS!
But I am a GURPS specialist, I don't really do other games because I don't play ANY RPG's any more.
So I don't really read the rules of other games I won't play.
It might be time to admit that I'm no longer part of this hobby and stop doing anything with it at all.
I heard a rumor that Mr Trump said us gun owners don't vote during an interview with Dr Phil.
A cursory search didn't give up the interview. I wasn't eager to sit through it anyways.
But, if true, I wonder where he got the idea that we don't vote.
I thought we were some of the most votingest people in the country.
I, for one, vote and I have the stickers to prove it!
Not sure how I can communicate to the Trump campaign that I'm not only voting, but paying attention to what he can do for me and my fellow gun owners.
After the bump stock ban, he's been on my shit list as a gun owner.
I dug out my old 5th Gen 80gb iPod and plugged it into The Beast.
17 years and it still works, though I've replaced the battery once.
I'd taken it out of service because it had failed in The Beast with a "USB Error" message that appeared at random and wouldn't clear until the car had given up on powering the USB port in the cubby. This is several minutes after the car is shut off.
That was 15 years of service at that point and I suspect some accumulated gurffle; so I did a complete reset on it.
A secondary goal was to get the search function on the car's radio working with THIS iPod; because it works with Marv's 1st Gen iPod Nano and Harvey's 4th Gen iPod Touch.
No joy on the search function after resetting with the Mac Pro.
So I reset it again, marrying it to Win7.
Still no joy on the search.
However, it appears to work without causing a USB error now. Time will tell. I seem to recall several problem free days from last time.
To get around the lack of search, I've made several playlists of artists I commonly want to hear.
Though...
Plugging an iPod into the USB port disables the ability to play music over the Bluetooth. This is a problem because when I use the navigation on the phone, it gives me instructions via the Bluetooth connection... I can still make and receive calls via that connection. It's odd that it disables the Bluetooth tab in the radio for music when an iPod is plugged in, but not a thumb drive.
My phone has all the same songs as the iPod, the only advantage the iPod gives is to display the name of the song that's playing on the display in the dash.
Do you remember?
Terry Schiavo has been dead for 7088 days. Still don't care.
Trayvon Martin has been dead for 4565 days. Still don't care.
But I remember when those two occupied the entire news cycle.
Trayvon coverage burned me out of fucks for later minority deaths because it demonstrated a common thread.
Longtime criminal finally fucked around with the wrong person and got dead from it.
It should be noted that when the cops shoot and kill someone who didn't have it coming, I'm protesting it alongside the race baiters.
Airman Fortson deserves justice.
George Floyd... I still think he OD'd and would be dead if the cops had just ignored the robbery call.
Mark Barden of Sandyhook Promise blames me for the death of his son, Daniel; while shilling on YouTube.
Fuck you Mark.
Why?
Aside from being a grifter, he's blaming ME for what happened.
"Wasn't there, didn't do it." is still a positive defense and I wasn't there and I didn't do it.
I am innocent.
Not guilty by reason of wasn't me.
Not that these fucks care.
So I wish him ill.
Update: I did a GURPS based rate of fire comparison to shots actually fired baack in 2013 and Mr Barden's assertion that the shooter having 30-round magazines was pivotal to the death toll is flat wrong. A single shot break-open shotgun could unload twice as many shots as were actually fired that day. The pivotal factor was law enforcement giving him 20 minutes to shoot, allowing him to anchor shoot every victim.
"I would never buy [insert make model car here] because it will never be worth what you put in to it."
I am not sure where the idea comes from that a hot-rod is an investment.
Hot rodding is a hobby and hobbies, almost by definition, are a way to turn money into fun.
Hobbies are not a way to make money, unless you're the person feeding the hobbyists their supplies.
Reading a half decent breakdown of how Harley Davidson became what they are today and why.
Something occured to me after reading this:
I wanted a Harley a few years ago and the folks at the local dealership made it more difficult than it needed to be, so I bought an Indian. Never regretted that move.I kinda noticed that this guy was on about watching Sons of Anarchy.
The problem with Harley is they became a corporation that thinks like a corporation. Historically they sold a bike that appealed to guys who marched to their own beat. At some point in the 90s yuppies started taking interest and kinda gentrified the market. Harley did what they thought made sense...they chased the money. Problem is, riding has always been a lifestyle for actual bikers, and it was a passing fad for IT software engineers. When the yuppies moved on to electric cars Harley was left trying to recapture their core market. Bad news is those guys weren't interest in girl-power or being gay.
The market for cruisers is straight men who refuse to accept the societal norms that are propagated by the entertainment industry. It's not chicks....it's not soy boys...it's not woke fundamentalists....it's men who want to hang out with like-minded men and ride bikes they bought from folks who act the same way. When I buy a bike I'm not interested in talking with some girl sales associate who has never ridden and has never owned a bike. I want to work with a guy who has 100k miles and some stories to tell under his belt.
Realistically, at the prices being charged, I think most serious bike guys are buying used and turning wrenches to build their optimal bikes. That will work for a while, but eventually, guys like that will go the way of the dinosaur.
Being a capitalist, I say, let the market decide the future of bikes. That said, I hope that when I'm long gone, there are still guys who want the wind in their face, loud pipes, and 100+ HP under their ass.
Did you notice that they all had the exact same model bike with the exact same accessories on them after a certain point in the show?
I was once a biker. Son and Grandson of a bikers.
Something I noticed about real motorcycle clubs was there was very rarely two of any kind of bike that matched. Individualism.
Even if it was as small as a sticker on the tank. No two were identical.
It was simple to make a bike your own. Somehow, HD fucked that up to while at the same time offering MORE choices in customization. HOW THE FUCK DO YOU OFFER MORE CHOICES YET EVERYONE IS RIDING THE SAME BIKE?
The mind reels.
Because I am resetting my ancient 5th Gen 80gb iPod in the hopes that it gets full function back in The Beast I am posting from the Mac Pro!
But the flashback is about Glocks and which one is best...
Personally, I've liked Gen2 best, but my single Gen5 example has been excellent.
WAAAAAY back in 1989 I owned a Gen1, which I had to sell because Army.
Then I got another Gen1 when I got back to The World in 1990 and stupidly traded it for something I wanted more at the time.
The Gen2 I got to replace it went to Aunt The Bat and she still has it.
I've managed to hang onto the Model 21 (which despite being the first iteration of the 21, is still a Gen2) I got new the first time I saw one for sale.
I got another 17.2 (all the cool kids put the generation after a decimal place, and my Mom says I'm cool!) that I like a lot and didn't add another Glock to the safe until I tested out the Blue Label for veterans discount and got a Model 45 (which despite being the first iteration of the 45, is still a Gen5).
I skipped all things Gen3 and Gen4 on purpose. I never got along with the finger grooves.
Despite limiting myself to just .45 ACP and 9x19mm, I didn't actively avoid other calibers, I just didn't need a gun in them. Especially once the number of 9mm guns ballooned around here.
I've occasionally thought I should have a .40 S&W or a 10mm to round out the pack.
Occasionally...
A used-to-be-common affectation of magazine and newspaper writers was to take the third person.
Rather than say, "I saw this," they wrote, "The author observed that."
Mike "Duke" Venturino might have been among the last of the gun writers who was still using this affectation in his writing.
I have complained about it before.
But I need to concede that his work was solid and his wife was an excellent photographer. They made a good team.
I never once caught him being wrong about a topic I knew well, which is more than I can say about younger and more recent authors whose writing style I prefer.
He was an author I'd grit my teeth and endure because his facts were straight even if he impressed himself with his own gun collection. He wrote so far in the third person he named himself and said he was impressed with his own gun collection!
You can take the conceit too far.
Mr Venturino is no longer among us, but his body of work survives.
Former Deputy Eddie "Triggerhappy" Duran has been arrested in connection with the shooting death of Airman Roger Fortson.
Good!
Even with Crump's involvement, this is good news.
Manslaughter seems light. I'm in favor of laws that up the charge for an agent of the state by at least one level when they break the law.
A 30-round flintlock repeater.
This is the kind of gun that a PC will have in a world that has magic and Dwarves.
With Dwarven involvement, it might even stop being fiddly and unreliable.
The thing that rankles me about the trans-female athletes isn't the trans part.
It's that they're all mid-range athletes as men and dominant as women.
Not one has discovered competitive sports after transition.
Which makes me think that they're not trans at all, but simple gaming the system to be the best at something where they just middlin' good before.
Which makes me theorize that if you created a third sex category for trans-wimmins alongside men's and women's in sports you'd see a dramatic drop in the number of men transitioning because they won't be dominant, they'll be on a level playing field with others of their ability.
That this is so contentious screams to me that many LGBTQ advocates are still in "any overlap on the Venn diagram is an ally" mode that, admittedly, worked well in the past; but is losing its efficacy as the ever fringer groups are exposed to the mainstream light.
I think they need to start asking themselves if they want opportunists like trans athletes to be their spokespeople.
First you pick the artist folder.
Then you pick the album folder:
Then you pick the song you want to hear. The current song playing is marked with an asterisk. It also shows in the window at the top center.
Once it's playing the main screen shows the song, album and artist.
PS: The best part of this little mod is it didn't cost anything. I'd paid for this functionality two years ago.
Put some music on a thumb drive and tested the USB tab of the Media section of The Beast's radio.
Works fine.
The age of the system is really showing.
The drive must be formatted in FAT32.
You can have a max of 256 folders. Folder 257 and higher don't show when you stab "browse". I am not sure how it decides which folder is #1 and which is #256 but there we are.
You can have a max of 999 playable mp3 or wma files. Again, I don't know how it assigns the number to the song, but songs 1,000+ will show up on the folder lists, they just won't play.
Paring things down so that everything shows takes up 5.07gb, so I didn't need the 32gb drive I found in the drawer. An 8gb drive from the same drawer works just as well.
This silly little experiment is 99% moot because I can play Sirius and mp3's, via Bluetooth, from my phone. The phone's stored music has no song or folder limits. You just don't get to see what song is playing on the car's screen.
US v Morgan has been dismissed on 2nd Amendment grounds.
Looks like they used the Bruen precedent.
At least in the Kansas District Court.
Prolly going to be overturned by the 10th Circuit once it wends its way up there; the Feds can't afford to let this ruling sit and not appeal.
I'm half eager for it to go all the way.
I've been waiting for some pro-second attorney to realize that the 1934 Miller ruling specifically protects military arms and there's NO doubt that machine guns are military arms.
With a combination of several of these rulings we have no prohibitions on small arms perfect storm.
Eyes crossed.
The 1948 Chess Records version of "I Can't Be Satisfied" by Muddy Waters is different from the 1977 release on the album "Hard Again."
In 1948 version contains:
Well I feel like snappin'
Pistol in your face
I'm gonna let some graveyard
Lord be your resting place
Woman I'm troubled, I be all worried in mind
Well baby I can never be satisfied
And I just can't keep from cryin'
The 1977 version ain't got that.
I think Muddy chilled in the intervening 29 years.
I know about the Fire Bee.
It's not a missile.
This awareness is why I am questioning the new terminology for missiles.
At the root of it, there's not a lot of technical difference between a missile that is intended to ram the target and something that will fly past and take a picture then return home.
But the mission is all.
I don't like letting language slip like this because the Air Force has made a habit about of calling attack planes fighters for a long time and planes like the F-111 and F-117 are emphatically not fighters.
I remember there used to a term, "missile."
It meant anything you sent on its way to, hopefully, hit a target.
Now we have some specific, and strange to me variations on it.
Suicide drone. We called this a guided missile or a cruise missile in my day.
One way cruise missile. Were there, ever, round trip cruise missiles?
YouTube is making sure I see presumed Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris in living color and full motion.
Did I say full?
I'm calling uncanny valley on how she moves.
Head doesn't move independently from her torso.
Upper arms are clamped against her ribs.
Lower arms are animated and motile.
It's like she's wearing a back brace.
It's creepy and once you see it, you can't unsee it.
They sell you a pic of your car on the track. I cropped the heck out of it!
Last year they did one long shot and one tight shot. This year is two long shots.
John Stossel is pissing me off lately.
It's a failing of many libertarians that's got me angry too.
When they're talking about tariffs being bad they focus on how that brings the price of goods up and that protectionist policies are bad.
In short, they're promoting globalism as a good thing.
The problem is not every nation participating in the global economy is our friend; even if we're trading with them.
Tariffs on goods from a potential foe encourage domestic production and while that might make those goods more expensive, it also tends to increase the real wages of the domestic workers.
Notice how, despite so many things getting cheaper, wages have stagnated in the US?
Yes, a tariff and domestic production might mean making something at a comparative disadvantage, but being able to make something when potential foe becomes actual foe is well worth the losses.
It's a matter of national security.
But libertarians reject the, functional and proven, nation-state model while blithely forgetting that war is the killer app of the nation-state.
A nation-state should be looking to the welfare and happiness of all of its citizens and not just catering to a very small percentage who get a slightly bigger profit from offshoring jobs to the cheapest possible location.
By just maintaining my position while politics shifts around me I've managed to piss off the Trump side of things by AGREEING with someone who's pro Trump.
Damn!
I feel like I really accomplished something there.
Or not.
Trumpers have REALLY thin skins and sarcasm is completely lost on them.
Needs are the absolute enemy of freedom.
"What an odd thing to say," I hear you thinking.
Think about this, how many times have you heard a politician talking about fulfilling someone's needs or rejecting something you want because you don't need it?
Do I need an M1A1(HA)? Not at present, no. I want one (and the attendant machine guns) just for nostalgia's sake.
If we let them, politicians would pare down what we're allowed to have to just our bare needs.
And nothing more.
This is part and parcel of "you will own nothing and be happy."
No I won't. I want more than I need.
Unlike a lot of politicians, and liberal advocates, I lived at or below my needs a couple of times.
Mere existence is not a worthy goal. Nobody should be forced to subsist on just their bare needs.
Never mind the unintended consequences, because all of these politicians are carving out "safe" places for the favored first class citizens to have far more than the second class citizens and third class subjects living on the provided basic requirements.
The lower classes will raid the uppers with the obvious conflict resolutions this will entail.
I have acquaintances who claim they're fine with Socialism and "poo poo" the likes of me when I mention the worst case scenarios.
Nazi Germany, Cambodia, China, Soviet Union, Venezuela...
They counter with best case scenarios which aren't actually Socialism but socialized nations who retain many features of laissez-faire capitalism which the local branches of socialism in the US wish to eliminate for "justice" or "equity".
We're not getting to Sweden or Denmark's system with what Bernie or Kamala propose.
Bernie, with the right opposition Congress, might get modern Germany; but Americans are not Germans it wouldn't function the same, if at all.
Americans are not British either.
Kamala is aiming at Venezuela, and that's not going to work. It's not working in Venezuela.
If you're rich enough you can afford lots of social programs, but there's a tipping point where the programs consume more than the wealth generating side can compensate for.
We might already be past that point.
In my quest to have The Boy's portable DVD player play over The Beast's speakers I've gotten the wrong pins for the radio plug twice.
A great person in Australia sent me two complete radio plugs to harvest pins from.
I have the factory colored wire in those pins for the aux-RCA input now!
Now I just need some female RCA plugs to attach to them and to get them installed.
Except for the fascia, this is the last stereo mod I intend to do.
The more that comes out about the failed assassination of former president Trump the more I think that it's not incompetence but complacency.
They often lead to the same results, but have different causes and require different routes to fix what's wrong.
If it was complacency, then a wake up call of almost failing in their mission is exactly what they needed to get things right.
If it was incompetence...
Why, oh God, why?
They only want $160 for that... that... that...
I had wondered what the downside of winning the stabilizer brace case was.
Now we know.
I tend to buy flip-up caps for my optics to prevent this from happening.
They're not available for my Primary Arms SLx 1x Microprism.
A couple of spurts of canned air and a lens cloth later and it's clean and clear again.
Just like pocket lint, you have to check on this stuff from time to time.
Harvey won some caramel syrup in a gift basket from some event that The Boy attended.
Tonight I put some with a bit of vodka.
I'm having caramel flavored vodka.
We installed a seemingly innocuous app that lets us track The Boy's phone.
Turns out it's tracking all our phones.
Turns out that information is being shared to third parties.
I'm out.
If I need it to track The Boy I can reinstall it.
Can we talk about acronyms?
It's hit me several times that I don't know what one means, or I'm getting the wrong one several times.
When Black Lives Matter was gaining steam, I was trying to figure out what the Bureau of Land Management had to do with it.
It didn't help that the Federal BLM had just been in the news over some protest over land rights out West.
It's hitting me again with the local news reporting on arrests.
They use PCSO and HCSO quite often. The five local counties are Hernando, Hillsborough, Pasco, Pinellas and Polk.
Which sheriff's office is which from the initials?
Something that bothers me is I've used acronyms without explanation too. Especially with car shit.
BCM, PCM... Body Control Module, Powertrain Control Module.
ABS... Anti-lock Brake System.
Lots of that.
There's some gun shit too, but I don't have a specific example in mind.
Oh, the title of today's post is from asking Pat Rogers to explain why the Bureau of Land Management was protesting the death of a black criminal. His contemptuous reply got me snark back, "LEO could mean 'Lions Eating Ostriches' for all the explanation given in the posts."
He told me to choke myself.
HA!
The first home my mother purchased, after divorcing my father, was a double-wide trailer.
It was not lifestyles of the rich and famous, to be sure; but it was ours and we had our own rooms.
It was a step up from renting.
In a thread where people are trying to figure out why millennials are having trouble buying homes my mention of that double-wide has gotten a lot of contemptuous comments.
I don't find any shame in coming from humble beginnings.
Especially since we had come down a lot from where we were before dad relocated us from the Chicago to Minneapolis area and selling our much larger home in the process.
Mom started from almost zero.
She worked hard and got a better house after paying off that trailer.
She had a home made to order that she retired to.
Hers is not a story deserving contempt. It should be admired.
She stayed within her means and stripped out non-essentials to get her goals accomplished.
It's a model I'm following with my far more modest home than most of my relatives.
I'm not ashamed of my little house. I am not envious of my cousin's much larger homes.
I'm not built that way.
The Boy expressed, by attributing it to Mr Sloth, fear of being on the track at Daytona.
He's seen Days of Thunder and he knows that there's always a wreck every race!
We barely broke 80 on the last pass over the start-finish line.
Yet he wanted to go again as soon as we got off the track. We almost dropped another $50 to do so.
He's raring to go next time they offer this event, we think January.
Contrasting his fear on the track is the, "WOO HOO!" in the far more dangerous conditions of I-4 when I punched it to get into a gap in traffic while merging or when I passed a dumptruck on a surface road.
He also likes twisty turny roads.
A phenomenon of being an adult is the periodic discovery of keys that go to nothing.
Sometimes you figure out what they used to unlock.
Occasionally you find you'd just forgotten where they go.
Most times, they just don't unlock anything you have.
Stupid cheap lug nuts.
The White Knight brand lugs I got from Amazon are not right for The Beast.
Starting about 60 and running until about 80 there's a cyclic vibration in the steering wheel that comes and goes on about a minute cycle at 75.
I was concerned it was a tire or tires.
I reminded myself that this seemed to start when I put the aftermarket lug nuts on, though it was much milder. Also I didn't have this vibration when we ran down to Miami to pick up Marv's 9C3.
Today I did the cheap check of seeing if the OEM lug nuts had the vibration.
They don't appear to on a short run.
Not sure why the aftermarket lugs are wrong, but they appear to be the problem.
I did note that they didn't seem to have the same resistance coming off, like some of them weren't torqued correctly anymore. If they were slowly backing off, that would have been bad!
I'll be putting pretty lugs on her again, someday, but I'll hold out for a more reputable brand.
The Beast and Family McThag arriving!
Waiting to get in:
The view from Marv's C4:
Pic from my seat:
The Lovely Harvey took some footage too!
She went hand-held with her camera to catch the bank angles better.
The participants (Less Harvey, our photographer).
Marv and I are meeting our buddy, Adam, in Daytona.
Going to get two laps of the track at a pace-car governed 55 miles per hour.
It's silly fun, but it's for charity.
Going to pay them for another professional picture of The Beast on the track too.
A few months ago I found a small Lego assembly on the floor.
At the time I was unable to find where it had come from.
Today, I found a gap in the model where it must have come from.
Then tore up the garage trying to find where I put the assembly.
Happily, I am a creature of habit and only put such things in about three places.
Automakers are talking about adding fake engine sounds to their electric vehicles.
Ugh.
The Beast sounds too much like a Tesla already with it's massive mufflers.
It's ironic that I've got something in common with a Tesla owner and that's a desire to hear some rumble and burble.
At least mine will come from the engine.
Harley Davidson went woke?
I had no idea, I wasn't paying any fucking attention to them.
It's been decades now since I owned a motorcycle, even longer since I was a biker.
Looks like the boycott is in full effect and they're being shunned at Sturgis of all fucking places.
Sturgis is like Mecca for Harley riders and it's like them saying, "Nah, we don't need to see The Black Mosque, just visiting the airport is a fine Hajj."
I wonder if they have Bud Light...
PFC Luther "Woody" Bagley was returned to his family and laid to rest Friday.
His widow and son were present.
I learned that this is the correct thing to do from Heinlein.
You don't spare any expense to make sure everyone is accounted for and given proper burials.
Everyone.
No matter how long it takes and how much we have to spend.
Even if we don't know exactly who they are. We have a tomb for that too.
The Route 66 Diner in Hudson had a "drive-in" movie night.
They were playing Grease. It's been decades since I last saw it and I still have the damn thing memorized.
My sister was OBSESSED with John Travolta at the time, so I saw it every time it was on and many times once we got a VCR.
The Boy learned to sing and dance to Greased Lightning, so I saw the movie many more times when he was practicing.
Proving Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Climate Change is all about picking a start date.
If you start in 1970, there are more days over 90° today.
If you start in 1900, there are many fewer days over 90° today.
Global warming is a scam. Maybe the biggest ever.
Democrats love gun control.
Democrats, lately, openly hate Jews.
That sounds a lot like an obscure German political party you probably never heard of.
The National Socialist German Worker's Party.
Oh, wait, you have heard of them.
Nazis.
Corollary: Don't start fights. You never know if you're starting a gun fight.
It has been 79 years since an atomic device has been used in anger.
I think that number should keep getting larger.
Does a Panther tank have disc brakes or drums?
Turns out, yes.
Also, no.
A disc brake runs between the pads on a caliper that pushes the pads together into the rotor.
A drum brake runs around the shoes that push outward against the wall of the drum.
The brakes on a Panther do neither.
The "disc" is a drum... The pads are inside it and press outward against the faces, rather than the wall, of the drum. It's kind of a combination of the two ideas.
The brake levers push the outer pad ring out and into contact with the spinning drum. They're set on springs and they rotate a little bit when they come into contact with the drum, this forces ball bearings into channels between the pad rings to force the inner pad ring into contact with the drum's other side.
Huge mechanical advantage.
I cannot find a single picture that clearly shows it, or a clearer description than I just gave.
I've long held that if you're going to play GURPS on the standard 1" hex map, you should be using Lego Minifigs as your marker.
This is Musush Dahveeie, an NPC from my Traveller: Interstellar Wars campaign.
Fresh pic of Robert Jenkins from a Rhodesian campaign set in GURPS: Technmancer.
All hail Brick Arms, by the way.
The KE-Arms KP-15 lower famously has the same stock length as an M16A1.
Gene picked the right length, in my opinion. I'm not alone in that thinking.
Finding a quality A1 length stock can be troublesome.
The part number for a terminated lead in both my service manual and the dealers computer gives the wrong terminal for the hole I need to populate.
Time to hit the junkyards... Yay!
I can now navigate the entire North American continent of 2015 with the onboard navigation system in The Beast's dash!
I just have to swap the SD card depending on which side of the Mississippi river I'm on.
It's crude and awkward, but it's workable.
Probably won't get used that often. The phone has far better navigation.
Tim Walz lied about his rank was when he left service?
This shatters my expectations of the honesty of Democrat politicians.
I don't know how I will ever recover from a shock this big.
A politician, a Democrat politician, lying?
Never been done before.
The smoking hole in the ground that used to be Two Uncles Book Store could not be reached for comment about its opinion of Tim Walz's governance.
The roofing company sent the owner to check our roof out.
It was some loose shingles lifting in the wind and water that was forced under following the nails through the planking.
He glued the loose shingles back down with some tar and all is well.
This is literally the best case scenario for a leaky roof in Florida.
He didn't even charge us for this!
When asked he stated, "A little good will goes a long way."
I'd say!
He said our roof is in amazing shape for 20 years too. That's always nice to hear.
He guesstimated about the same price another place gave us for replacing the roof too.
This small amount of good will puts him at the top of places we'd consider hiring to replace our 20-year old shingles.
The Roofing Company if you're in the area.
Am I the only one who's sick of dipsticks that you cannot read because modern oils are so clear and thin?
This has become very important since I'm using a box of oil instead of premeasured jugs.
Even worse, the dipstick on The Beast is in the path of the oil dripping down from the head, so you don't really get a reading for about half an hour after filling it.
I remember when they had holes punched through the stick so you could see if there was a film of oil there instead of depressions.
It's frustrating.
It's that time of year that GenCon is going on...
I'm old enough to remember when it was in Geneva, Wisconsin. Thus the GEN in GenCon.
Not that I ever went when it was actually there.
I'm pretty sure it was in Milwaukee the two times I went.
It just seems wrong to be in Indiana.
I do understand why it's better to be in Indy, but... it still feels wrong.
I'm saving money hand over fist doing it myself, but damn. I got too fat to do this without hurting, maybe all the working on the car will help with the fat.
Wal Mart sells my oil in 12 quart boxes. Like wine!
The Beast uses 8 quarts and the Equinoxes use 5.
You'd think that'd be simple, no?
Go on. Measure out 8 quarts of oil.
Did you make a giant mess?
Well, I did!
I think I'm going to go back to buying the 5qt jug and 3 singles for The Beast and jug for 'Noxi.
79 years since we dropped the first atomic weapon used in anger.
Don't touch the boats!
The 4-piston V-6 1LE brakes I have on the front of The Beast were available as a dealer-add kit.
In fact, the previous owner found the part number of the kit and ordered it for what is now my car.
He got a screaming deal on the CTS-V rear brakes.
But the 1LE calipers are red and the V calipers are gray.
Until recently this was bugging me.
I've started noticing that hardly anyone with a Camaro who did the dealer-add bothered to get the matching rear brakes.
Red on front, gray in back is the norm!
Huzzah!
It matters a lot more on the Camaro rims than it did with the steelies.
The Olympic pommel horse is an event that is derived from cavalry troopers trying to get all their gear settled after mounting up.
Debby came and went.
Not quite unscathed. We had three teeny drips in the garage that stopped on their own while the rain continued today.
Got a roofer coming out to see what it takes to keep them from coming back.
Not sure if we should make an insurance claim or not.
I, for one, am doing a dramatic change in my lifestyle to as to not present so much parasitic drag on the home finances.
I have what is purported to be the updated maps for the nav system.
5.2gb total size.
You extract the files to your FAT-32 formatted SD card Robert is your mother's brother.
The snag is the write speed of the ancient card that the radio can read...
One gig an hour.
Gonna be a while before I can test it.
There's a thread on a forum where I mentioned that, despite shooting it better than the worn out M1911A1, that the Beretta M9 didn't fit my hand well and I didn't like shooting it.
And that I have come to like it in my dotage.
Several people have chimed in with the same feeling.
I thought I was alone.
We didn't care for it when it was issued, but have come to like it now.
How very odd.
Happy Birthday Coasties!
The oft forgotten fifth branch of the service.
In order, Army, Navy, Coastal Artillery, Lighthouse Service, Coast Guard.
The driver's side rear door has had a small leak for a while.
It's hard to track down, but the speaker adventure got me inside the door when it was freshly wet.
It was the goop that holds the moisture barrier to the door.
This is one of the most common causes of leaks at the doors in my car.
So I got some 3M Strip-Caulk, and laid some fresh lines of goop.
While I was in there, I made the speaker mounting match what I did last night.
Bass sounds a bit better in the back now that there's no gaps between the mounting ring and the speaker from the screws that mounted the ring. The revised mounting also allows me to reuse the factory mounting screws and two of the factory mounting points. Only one new hole!
Update: The Beast sat in the rain outside the local brewery for several hours and showed nary a leak! Huzzah!
Tore open the rear passenger door, again, to adjust where I had the speaker.
I'm a lot happier about how it's sitting.
The previous arrangement had the speaker sitting on one of the screws holding the mounting ring to the door. I rearranged the ring so that everything sits flat now.
I'm going to do the driver's side tomorrow.
We don't need you to report on which dancing monkey supports the current Democrat.
It's not news.
What would be news is a dancing monkey who supports Trump.
Or a dancing monkey that owns more guns than I do.
You know, a non-typical dancing monkey where it's a surprise that they're different from the vast majority of them.
I made a table of all the armors from GURPS: Low Tech.
As expected, the best DR per pound is nearly always the highest G$ per DR.
But it's a useful tool anyways.
It shows if you're wasting your money on a false economy by taking a flawed version of "better" armor instead of getting an upgraded version of "lesser" armor.
Jimmy Carter says he's hanging on to vote for Kamala.
He doesn't need to do that!
Everyone knows that he'll still get to vote from beyond the grave.
Something about living in Iowa when I did was the State Fair Report that was on late night after the talk shows.
The opening music was the Main Title theme from How the West Was Won.
They showed scenes from various state fair events, but one part sticks.
A tractor at a tractor pull with its engine eating itself during one of the bombastic parts of the music.
It was so damned fitting.
Most AD&D players my age know this picture.
What I'm thinking of doing is making a GURPS version of that paladin.
The cost of the armor would be substantial, but it occurred to me that he's got a sponsor in the form of a Patron advantage.
Paladins are associated with a particular religion and that church would likely provide gear to advance the word of their gods.
Should be a fun conversion. I cannot recall ever making or playing a paladin while I was still playing AD&D.
I went through all the armor options in Low Tech and made a spreadsheet so I can min max armor design.
This included calculating the ultimate breastplate you can make with just TL4 tools.
Heavy plate torso with fluting, duplex hardening and masterful tailoring gets you DR 10 and 16 lb. for a mere $168,000.
Taking that corslet to the enchanter will set you back another $139,450 and up the DR to 15 and drop the weight to 8 lb.
$307,450 out the door...
That's a purely utilitarian piece, decorations would be another $36,000 for a +3 reaction roll.
$343,450 for the torso. That's not even half a full suit...
Arms will come to $143,085; DR 15, 5.2 lb.
Gauntlets are $23,095; DR 12, 0.5 lb.
Legs are $286,170; DR 15, 8 lb.
Sabatons are $20,767.50; Dr 12, 0.5 lb.
We're needing a helmet when we're wearing $816,567.50 worth of gorgeous plate weighing just 22.2 lb. In a normal or higher mana zone...
A fluted, duplex, master fitted heavy plate full helm, decorated and enchanted like the rest is $68,590; DR 15, 6.4 lb.
$885,157.50, 28.6 lb. on the kingdom's dime. The king had better watch his weight, it's THAT fitted!
Looks like a tropical storm this Sunday.
Meh.
The panic will probably set in soon for the newbies.
We're already prepped. We maintain that prep all year.
The only variable is whether to brace, hunker or run.
If we brace, we need beer.
If we hunker we need ice.
Israel managed to plant an explosive in the building to take out Mr Haniyeh.
That's a lot more impressive than an airstrike, actually.
That means boots on the ground in the center of what should be the safest place in Iran for a Hamas leader.
And it's NOT safe for him.
Dayum.
I am trying to get the correct terminated lead for The Beast's radio so that I can run inputs from The Boy's portable DVD player.
The plug has two different size pins in the connector.
I have managed to find the large size three times.
Only three part numbers left for the small size.
The dealership pulled their diagram for ordering parts and it's clearly wrong.
Pins 1-16 use the large terminal.
Pins 17-40 use the small.
Their diagram says 1-8 use a "Type I", pins 11-15 "Type II" and 16-40 "Type III". With different part numbers for each type. 13587506, 13587522 and 13587523 respectively.
I found out today that 13587524 is the larger terminal. I have 5 of them if you need one.
One site shows a photo of 13587523 and it's got the large terminal. I'll see in a few days, I guess.
36% of Americans avoiding public spaces over mass shooting fears.
I don't avoid public spaces, I avoid gun-free zones. Most of which happen to be public spaces.
I am at a loss to recall a mass shooting (a real one, not the stupid two people involved definition) which happened outside a gun-free zone.
Not that I overthink things... but...
I took the passenger side door apart to rotate the speaker 90° because that's how have the one in the driver's door aligned.
I'd put the driver's speaker with the wiring facing into the cup of the basket and the passenger's with the wires facing down.
I feel more comfortable with them pointing at an empty space than just barely clearing the inner door.
All they need to do is clear at all.
