Done Fucked Up

I noticed right away that Chief Hagen had not read an important part of 870.044.  That'd be the reference, "pursuant to s. 870.043.

He quotes most of 870.044...

Title XLVI CRIMES

Chapter 870 AFFRAYS; RIOTS; ROUTS; UNLAWFUL ASSEMBLIES

SECTION 044Automatic emergency measures.

---

870.044 Automatic emergency measures.—Whenever the public official declares that a state of emergency exists, pursuant to s. 870.043, the following acts shall be prohibited during the period of said emergency throughout the jurisdiction:

(1) The sale of, or offer to sell, with or without consideration, any ammunition or gun or other firearm of any size or description.

(2) The intentional display, after the emergency is declared, by or in any store or shop of any ammunition or gun or other firearm of any size or description.

(3) The intentional possession in a public place of a firearm by any person, except a duly authorized law enforcement official or person in military service acting in the official performance of her or his duty.

Nothing contained in this chapter shall be construed to authorize the seizure, taking, or confiscation of firearms that are lawfully possessed, unless a person is engaged in a criminal act.

History.—ss. 4, 5, ch. 70-990; s. 1401, ch. 97-102; s. 2, ch. 2006-100.

That part I've highlighted is important (h/t Erin).  But far more important is what 870.043 says about WHEN you can evoke 870.044!

Title XLVI CRIMES

Chapter 870 AFFRAYS; RIOTS; ROUTS; UNLAWFUL ASSEMBLIES

SECTION 043Declaration of emergency.

---

870.043 Declaration of emergency.—Whenever the sheriff or designated city official determines that there has been an act of violence or a flagrant and substantial defiance of, or resistance to, a lawful exercise of public authority and that, on account thereof, there is reason to believe that there exists a clear and present danger of a riot or other general public disorder, widespread disobedience of the law, and substantial injury to persons or to property, all of which constitute an imminent threat to public peace or order and to the general welfare of the jurisdiction affected or a part or parts thereof, he or she may declare that a state of emergency exists within that jurisdiction or any part or parts thereof.

History.—s. 3, ch. 70-990; s. 1400, ch. 97-102.

Where's the riot, Chief?  870.044 isn't for just any emergency, it's for a specific kind of emergency.  More along the lines of reining in the KKK or "mostly peaceful" protesting.

I think Donald has stepped in it here.  GOA-Florida is on it and we have a statute that lets us sue government busybodies who get gun stuff wrong.  They don't even get to hide behind their office.

FFS, I'm not even a lawyer and I keep discovering just how ignorant cops and elected officials are about the law. 

Mystery Prepping

There are things we do to get ready for hurricanes that confuse my father in law.

I, belatedly, bought 100 lb. of ice for our two big coolers.

He was all, "what do we need that for?" when we had Marv's generator charging up the fridges.

He's not getting that the point of laying in this stuff is to have it when you need it.

Getting it before you need it is how you have it when you need it, because everyone else will be realizing they need it at about the same time.

So we get ice.

So we stock up on insulin.

So we have several days of shelf stable grub.

So we have jugs and bottles of potable water.

So we have ammo and loaded magazines.

So we top up all the fuel containers.

You might not get the luxury of getting more indefinitely.

But father in law's disconnect really hit when we tossed the ice, unused.

"Why did you buy all that if you weren't going to use it?"

Well, cooler #1 all melted because you didn't check to see if the lid was secure.

Cooler #2 didn't get cleaned before ice got put into it because my helper just started dumping ice...

I would have used the ice in those coolers to mix drinks if some simple precautions were taken!

Like A Scorpion It's My Nature

I did it again...

A female friend was venting and I was trying to fix the problem.

Ladies.

Don't bring us a problem you don't want solved.

Solving problems is what men do.

We wait for the opportunity, it's the main thing we bring to the partnership.

Don't get mad at us.

Don't say shit like, "now do you see why we're angry all the time from keeping shit bottled up?"

Because I'm going to reply with something like, "I figured you'd be happy getting the problem fixed!"

We are baffled by the idea that you just want to vent about a problem and leave it unresolved as long as someone will listen to the complaint and be sympathetic.

We're showing sympathy, we're offering to fix it.

I know you know how I respond to hearing about the problems of people I dislike.

It's isn't an offer to fix it, is it?

Neat!

I don't shotgun much so this innovation slipped past me.

Interia action:

Nifty.

Simple and elegant.

The place that introduced me to the idea was complaining about the price of such guns, so they must be expensive too.

Another Old West Gunwriter Passes

Phil Spangenberger has left the chat.

2024 has been rough on the people who wrote about cowboy guns.

Mike Venturino was just a bit ago, back in June.

You Can Tell A Democrat Is In Office

Information is trickling out about how bad Helene hit Eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina.

Here's some footage from Erwin, TN.

That's pretty bad.

This storm and its effects would be 24/7 front page on all the news web sites if a Republican was president.

I remember Katrina coverage and lack of Ian coverage and now, lack of Helene coverage.

Well, I guess the less the press covers it the faster and more fully the area recovers.

You Only Get Points If It's An Actual Problem

 The GURPS Basic Set Vol 1: Characters, on page 144 says:

Missing Digit  

-2 or -5 points

You are missing a finger or thumb.

Missing Finger: Gives -1 DX with that hand (only). -2 points.

Missing Thumb: Gives -5 DX with that hand (only). -5 points.

I know a couple of people missing a finger who don't appear to be affected by it at all.

Some races are depicted with fewer fingers than humans and aren't given this disad.

It hit me that if it's not affecting you, you don't rate the points even if you don't have a finger where it should be!

Take the -1 for the quirk and make note your left pinky is gone.  No DX penalty, but you might get some social stuff from people going, "where's your pinky?"

I've met a couple of people who are REALLY freaked out by a missing digit too.  They were physically sick from the person who was missing that right ring finger.  <-- That missing finger is a warning about lathes and jewelry, by the way.

Prep Odds

No, we did not have a generator.  Harvey has lived her for 39 years and I for 27, we've never needed one.

We've wanted one, but the odds of NEEDING one were still quite low.

Prolly going to buy my buddy's so he can upgrade though.

I've never owned a rain gauge.  I just never had even idle curiosity about how much it rained.  Plus I'd probably forget to check/reset it making it useless.

We forgot to load up on ice this round, that was a mistake.  Colored by the lack of likely direct effect (accurate forecast) and a history of the power staying on; we got complacent.

Harvey thinks she was awakened by someone trying the front door at 0430 Friday.

I was just settling for bed, so hopefully she was hearing me.

When I was sitting out in Moxie charging phones and USB battery packs between 1200 and 0400 I did see a lot of people walking around the neighborhood.  It didn't look nefarious, mostly looking curious about how the area had fared.

Yes, I had a gun on me.  No, it was not a pistol.

Bless You Mr Carrier!

At 2:30p we had the generator my buddy graciously loaned me hooked up and running the fridge.

At 5:30p we got a notice from the power company to not expect restoration of service until 11:59 Sunday evening.

There had been trucks in our neighborhood all day, so I figured that we wouldn't have to wait that long, but Harvey decided to plan for the worst and knowing that another day of this without power would kill Harvey's mom...  We started looking for hotels that still had vacancies.  None.

We immediately started moving Harvey's mom down here where the power is and moved the unused window AC unit with her.

A couple extra fans and the window unit in the kitchen window made a huge difference in comfort, even if it was small in measurable temperature.  Humidity reduction, YO!

Pretty much the moment we got her situated...  The power came back on.

7:30p today, you will note, is literally days before the expected restoration.

27-1/2 hours without power.

I know people who've gone much longer, but this is our personal record.

It's verra nice to have the electrons flowing again.

The Waiting Is All

Got a buddy coming down from Ocala with his generator! 

Except for the power being out, we're doing great. 

Power will prolly be restored the second he pulls into the driveway.

We got off light. 

I wish I'd thought of throwing my air mattress into the back of Moxie last night instead of this morning!  Would've been a lot cooler.

Sitting In The Dark

Something that comes to mind, sitting here in the dark is how few lumens you really need on your weapon light when your eyes are acclimated to the dark. 

Gunwriters keep telling us we need more, but they're going from a well lit space to dark and back in short order at their gun schools.

I don't think they've really thought this through while listening to law enforcement biased trainers.

This Sucks

It could, of course, be much worse.

Power has been off since 4pm and they have a message about conditions being unsafe for the linemen.

I'll wait, I want them to go home safe.

But it sucks to sit in the dark without so many amenities.

Everyone Knows It's Windy

 

It's kinda brisk out there.  Got a good gust a bit ago and the power cut out for about a minute.

A lot like Irma, in fact.

Huge

 

We're under it already.

Waves of off and on rain until the winds get here tomorrow morning.

That House Rule Is Looking Better.

A while back I decided to change the damage of .40 S&W from 2d+2 pi+ to 2d pi+ because .40 S&W just didn't seem to outperform 9x19 or .45 at all.

Running the numbers for 10mm underscores my wisdom.

3d-1 pi+ of 10mm ACP ball will do 2-17 raw damage with an average of 9 which will become 3-26 points (avg 14) to the target's hit points.  Hollow points get upped to 3d-1(0.5) pi++ which takes the same raw damage to 2-32 points delivered (17 average).

As written, .40 S&W ball does 4-14 raw (avg 9) doing 6-21 (avg 13) once the bullet size mod is applied.  Hollow points up that to 2d+2(0.5) pi++ for 6-26 (avg 16).

As I've modified .40 S&W 2d pi+ does 2-12 raw (avg 7) with ball ammo delivering 3-18 (avg 10) after size mod.  Hollow points do 2d(0.5) pi++ for 2-22 (avg 12).  <-- This is identical to .45 ACP, which is how the ballistics gel and FBI testing looks.

Stalking Turtle

Our favorite local weather personality, Dennis Phillips, calls hurricanes "stalking turtles" because of how slow they come on.

Track is a bit West of last post, which is good for me in SW Pasco.

To show how large this thing is, though, the first rain band just whipped over us.

Helene is going to cover the entire Eastern Gulf and be messing with all of West coast Florida.

Rain predictions are fairly light for this system, which is excellent news because the storm surge is expected to be atrocious.  Going to be a lot of flooding in lower areas than me.  West of US19 is going to be hurting.

When I moved down here... 27 years ago almost to the day, West of 19 was called "the wrong side of 19" because of the flooding issue.  And they let it get built up.

We'll see how they fared in 48 hours.

1700 Update:

I'm Curious

I'm not sure I'm $100 curious, but what's a Pelican case running nowadays?

2nd Amendment Bourbon.

I've never heard of this brand, but the box caught my eye.

Tracking

We're going to get strong tropical storm level gusts most likely.

The local weather guy is going all in on the doom and gloom of losing electricity.

I hope not.  We've been very lucky in that regard with storms, so eyes crossed that it continues.

Non-Subjective

We can quote numbers all day, but they're meaningless unless we have them in GURPS terms!

1911 in .45 ACP does 2d pi+, out to 150/1,600 weighing 2.8/0.5 lb. with 7+1 shots and Rcl 3.

In 10mm it does 3d-1 pi+, out to 290/2,300 weighing 2.8/0.4 lb. with 8+1 shots and Rcl 4.

2d pi+ will do an average of 7 points of raw damage and deal 10 points of damage to the torso.

3d-1 pi+ will average 9 points of raw damage and deal 13 points of damage.

More damage, more range, lighter magazines, more shots... WIN!

But...

Skill 15 shooter, Acc 2, 7 yards.  No aim, so I don't know why I mentioned the acc...

-3 for the range so 12 or less to hit.  Average roll of 10 gives 1 shot hitting out of three for both guns.  10mm still in the lead.

A 9 gives 2 hits with .45 and a 6 gives 3 hits.

10mm needs an 8 for two hits and a 4 for three.

That recoil number be serious, yo.

Both have a 74.07% chance to land the first round.

So a 1911, in this case has a 9.25% chance at all three rounds, and a 37.5% chance for 2.

10mm has 1.38% for all three and just 25.92% for 2.

Three hits with .45 does more damage (30 average) than two hits of 10mm (26 average).

But wait!  There's MORE!

.40 S&W does 2d pi+ too.  It's recoil number is 2.

It's going to hit with one round on a 12 or less (same 74.07%), two rounds on a 10 (50%) or less and all three on an 8 or less (25.92%).  10mm Kurz gets all three rounds for the same die roll as .40 S&W Long gets just two.  3x2d pi+ > 2x3d-1 pi+  Oh, the .40 S&W gun is going to be lighter, usually with the same capacity.

Still more!

9x19mm does 2d+2 pi.  Average hit is 9 raw points and 9 damage.  It's recoil is also 2, so the same chances to hit as .40 S&W but a bit less damage.  9, 18 and 27 for one, two and three rounds respectively.  3x 2d+2 pi > 2x 3d-1 pi+.  9mm guns are even lighter than .40 S&W and usually carry more shots.

And this, at the end of the day, is why 10mm languished while 9mm is in just about everyone's holsters.  The slight edge in damage from .40 S&W is somewhat nullified by the extra number of shots the 9mm gets.

Then there's 9mm being a lot cheaper per shot.

I still WANT a 10mm ACP though.  Just gotta decide how long I wanna save for one and how sexy a beast it will be.  Colt Delta Elite and S&W 1076 lead the pack for sexy.  Rock Island and Glock lead on affordability.  Real insanity happens with finding a SIG P220 in 10mm.  But that way lies madness because I'd want to have a P220 in .38 Super too.  Peak insanity is finding a Bren 10.

I kind of am leaning at a 1911 in 10mm so I can have all three rounds that are "native" to the 1911.

Inducements

"We get the CIB!"

I get to drive the tank.

"We get to wear an infantry blue shoulder cord."

I get to fire the gun.

"We get our branch color in a surround of our branch insignia."

I don't have to walk anywhere.

Just sayin'...

Oh, and we finally got black berets like every other tanker.  Y'all just ticked off the Rangers.

The Paul Harrell Analysis

I believe this is the first of Paul's videos I ever watched and it was searching about the FBI shooting that lead me to it.

His absence is felt every day.

 

 

 

Knowing Exactly What I Want To Do

Making a Sergeant of Mages for Sabers and Sorcerers...

Christopher Harrington.

He's a movement college only mage.

I have to decide if I want to keep going with requiring a soul-jar athame to be a mage or not.

It makes the character a lot more complex using GURPS to keep track of my characters.

In many ways making a complete new system for "Old Magic" was easier than doing what I have in my head.

I have a clear vision.

Just writing it is easy, I want it to work in GURPS too.

I'll figure it out.

A mistake I made with the athame is it might require you to have on your person to keep your magery.  Need to double check and fix that, if so.

Mixed Blessing

We're now outside the cone of confusion now!

But the storm is supposed to be a lot bigger.

Going to be sporty West of US 19 in my AO.  I don't live there...

Already Paid For

The made for TV movie about the FBI shootout in Miami, "In the Line of Duty: The FBI Murders," is available for streaming on Amazon.

At no additional cost because we plunk down for Prime.

It's not a great movie, but might show that shootout as accurately as can be expected from actors and the restrictions of the media.

They, at least, got the FBI's guns right.

Preps Laid In

The only decision left is to buy plywood or not.

Father in law is still new at this, he'll prolly get a couple sheets and grab some for us too.

The current predictions put it off shore from here, so we get some wind and rain, but not too bad.

Fingers crossed that holds.

It Keeps Coming Up

The ammunition used by the FBI in Miami and how it affected ammo development keeps inspiring. 

I love how one of his conclusions mirrors something I've said to Willard.  The new stuff is slightly better than the old stuff.  If you have old stuff, there's no reason to throw it away.

I've mentioned the FBI's ammo selection myself. 

I also realized in this that I was supposed to have deferred to my "better" when they confronted me.

They don't read here any more, I don't think.

PS: Ogive really is pronounced oh-jive.  French loaner word.

Falling Down

I agree with the Graybeard.

It's still fucking Summer here on the Gulf Coast.

Though, once the sun goes down we can tolerate sitting on the back porch under the ceiling fan.  I cannot say we could do that in July.

Maybe once the stalking turtle in The Gulf gets done next week we'll see a real cold front and some cooler temps.

THEY Get To Have Nuke Plants?

Microsoft is going to get to use all of the output from Three Mile Island, but we scumbag unwashed normies have to use wind and solar to recharge our government mandated electric cars?

Why can't we all use nuclear power?

Oh, the same fucking morons who are forcing us to abandon perfectly functional technologies for unreliable boondoggles.

There's nothing wrong with internal combustion cars.

There's nothing wrong with burning coal or natural gas to make steam to spin turbines.

There's never been anything wrong with using fission to boil water to spin turbines.

I cannot shake the idea that the entire impetus behind EV's is control and keeping us within a small circle around where we live.

Even worse, you can disable EV charging remotely where you can't stop someone with a fossil fueled vehicle from storing a meaningful quantity of fuel to escape that small radius.

I stopped feeling paranoid about this watching one paranoid conspiracy theory after another turn out to be valid in 2020.

Have I Mentioned Postmodern Jukebox?

It's hit or miss, but the hit really HITS.

When Americans Get Serious

I love videos of the Sprint missile.

But something that hit me watching these vids...

It's almost getting kinetic kills.  In 1975.

A high-explosive warhead with annular blast fragmentation would suffice.

NOPE!

W-66 nuke warhead!  2kt of airburst hate.

Radar and guidance didn't get worse since 1975.

Every time the Sprint comes back into my consciousnesses I am struck with the conviction that the whole idea of Reagan's "Star Wars" strategic defense initiative was wholly valid and within our technological grasp.

It was treaties, not capability, that killed most of this stuff.

Capabilities which have risen from the ashes of state department interference of late...

Where Do They All Come From?

FuzzyGeff and I speculated about where some "off list" magic items could come from in GURPS.

We started speculating from my wondering how someone without magical aptitude would go about learning a spell.

If you can't cast it, how do you know you learned it?

Learning by rote apparently works, but you've no way to test it.  I can also see people who are learning this way wasting a lot of time as the casting is "telephoned" to death.

Well, you CAN test it.  A high mana zone.  Anyone who knows a spell can cast it in a high mana zone as long as the spell itself doesn't require magery as a prerequisite.

This jogged my memory about very-high mana zones.  In a very high mana zone you don't get charged fatigue for your casting.  It would seem ideal for enchanting as the energy expended is replenished as fast as it is used.  Quick and dirty enchanting for large items for the win!

Except...

A normal failure in a very high mana zone is treated as a critical failure and a critical failure is much, much worse.

Which brings us back to strange and unusual magic items you add to your character sheet with points rather that G$.

They're a by product of these failures, occasionally.

"Where'd you get that neat item?"

"From the magic shop, in a basket labeled, 'contents of crater,' why?

Post Not Found

I came up with a witticism.

It was way funnier in my head than it was in text.

Somethings don't survive translation to words.

And you know it's bad if it doesn't live up to MY standards.

Doing Wrong Because It's Legal

What is it with the left side of the aisle?

Over and over when talking to them about politics I keep bumping into the excuse, "it's not illegal."

 

If whether it's illegal is your only social compass, it's no wonder you cannot understand right and wrong.

 

Unethical and immoral don't always overlap illegal on the Venn diagram.

 

If you won't do right unless someone threatens you with violence, then you aren't a very good member of society. And don't kid yourself, arrest is violence.

 

The worst part is abdicating your morals and ethics to The State to decide. The State is the least trustworthy arbiter of right and wrong ever created!

 

But, just to bring it to Full Godwin levels, no laws were broken when Germany rounded up millions of people and murdered them.

 

No laws were broken when Stalin starved millions of people.

 

No laws were broken when Mao did away with millions of his people.

 

No laws were broken when the Khemer Rouge ran the killing fields.

 

Honestly, if you don't have a healthy mistrust and fear of the government, you're a fool.

 

Don't be a fool.

 

PS: A reason that many people who study the atrocities I listed have a somewhat adversarial relationship with the cops is when push comes to shove: The cops enforce the laws that say to load the box cars to the death camps. This has happened with only one, possible, exception. Denmark.

I Want To See A Comparison

Watching Banana Ballistics and thinking...

I want to see a cost and performance comparison between the new 6.8x51mm XM1186 and old fashioned 7.62x51mm M80A1 and M1158.

The reason I ask is if the $16 a shot round isn't the general issue round, it's not going to be what the troops are going to have in their belts and magazines should war be declared.  It'll be the whatever the ball round is.  I asked around to see how many of my buddies who were still in, or recently got out if they'd seen any M1158 and none of them had.  M80A1 was getting to be common over the older M80.

Everyday .277 Fury (the civilian 6.8x51mm) doesn't really show much, if any, improvement over .308 (civilian 7.62x51mm) in the same way that .270 Winchester doesn't show much over .30-06.

If the ball version of the new round is the everyday issue then we'd have been better off with the exact same rifle using the ammo that's already in the inventory and stocked deep.

Serial Disasters Plus Successes

Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a patty-melt after 2pm in and around my AO?

Thursday turned into a three hour ordeal involving places closed for emergencies, fucking karaoke and bingo callers at 95 dB!

Success was ashes in our mouth because the acquired patty melt was merely "meh."  Worse, there was a place blocks from here that has one on their menu.

By the way, restaurants, if you have burgers and a reuben on your menu, you have all the ingredients you need to make a patty melt.  Put one on your menu!

We finally got the Halloween/Christmas LED strings hung and wired.  They look great!  Thanks to a great degree to Marv for the wiring even if I did the mindless labor of hanging the strings.

The Honey-Do's sure cut into blogging time.

It's Funny Because It's True

 X video.

Every Gun

Finally got some reading about the latest on the guy who was staking out Trump's golf course.

The media, as usual, called it an AK.

Sure looks like an SKS in a polymer stock with one of those atrocious 30-round magazines.

Gee, another Democrat supporter with an SKS?

That reminds me to mention the Bernie Bro who shot Representative Scalise with an SKS.

I know the media wants us to forget that the only people using violence for political gain are from the Blue team.  So they want us to forget that it was a Bernie Bro who did the shooting.

Git Er Done

Re-doing our LED Halloween/Christmas light strips.

Hanging them in a better position than last time and making the installation pretty instead of just pragmatic.

82 and humid is still draining.

Doing it one strip at a time.  Using a lot more clips and screws than I originally estimated.

6.8x51mm Special Purpose Is Expensive

$15.70 for the special purpose whiz-bang armor piercing round.

$2.73 for the more conventional ball round.

Uckfay!

By way of comparison 5.56x45mm M866A1 is $0.47 a round.

Prices on 6.8x51mm is expected to get lower as economies of scale kick in.

I'd also like to point out that 113gr at 3,000 fps is NOT 2,700 ft-lb.  It's 2,261.

A1 Reversion

I was looking at the dates and noticed that BAE should not have been able to buy H&K in the T2K timeline because H&K was going gangbusters in that timeline.

Even with the BAE buyout, the L85A2 and L86A2 dont' happen until 2000 or so.

Too late for T2K.

So the Brits go to war with the A1 version.

C'est la guerre.

Who Had 'Felon In Possession - AGAIN' On Their Bingo Card

The would be assassin of former President Trump was a felon?

Felons aren't allowed to possess firerarms.

I was assured by Sarah Brady on down that all we needed to do was pass laws and the criminal behavior would instantly stop.

Therefore Ryan Wesley Routh must be innocent!

It's impossible for him to have possessed the gun because it was illegal.

The magical aura of illegality should have prevented him from touching the gun, and burned his hands if he persisted.  Sarah promised!

Unless...

Laws really only affect the law abiding who weren't a problem without the law already.

PS: It appears that his felony was even a gun charge.  Man, I feel safer.

Missed It

Friday was an important day.

It was the 20th anniversary of the expiration of the Federal ban on cosmetic features in firearms.

It was also the 30th anniversary of the implementation of that ban.

This Could Be Good

I am cautiously optimistic.

But I doubt it will head where I want.

An Honorable Alternative To Military Service

When I say the USAF is not the military, I cite today.

15Sep47 is the Air Force's ETS date.

After your exit the service date, you are no longer in the military.

I have to admit, their NFA collection is way more impressive than mine.

Happy Birthday, Zoomies!

108

Today marks the 108th anniversary of the first use of tanks on the battlefield at The Somme.

Death before dismount!

UAW And Caterpillar Part Two

The minimum wage is always $0 an hour.

It doesn't matter if your contract says you get $70 an hour plus benefits if you get zero hours because the plant is closed.

Title reference:  Back when Caterpillar was almost the entire construction equipment market, the UAW demanded a big raise.  The company said they could offer a raise, but only about a third of what was demanded.

So the union went on strike.

Caterpillar said to them, we can't afford what you're demanding, we'd go out of business.

So they started shutting down plants and letting orders go.

Pretty soon customers started buying imported construction equipment and once those companies got a toehold, Caterpillar's market share contracted dramatically.

The workers decided they'd starved long enough and accepted the 1/3 as big raise.

Caterpillar pointed out that market share contraction and offered them jobs at all at much lower rates than before the strike.  With fewer hours and some plants would remain closed.

Bravo, UAW.  Bravo!

Bonus: Try finding any information about this strike on the internet!  I remember it happening because my step mother's brother was a union worker at Caterpillar.

On Strike For A Bad Look

When the company you work for is under a microscope about the quality of your workmanship, it's not a good time to demand a 25% raise.

IAMAW voted to strike at Boeing because they didn't get a 25% raise.

No word if the union is at loggerheads about the inclusion of "how to secure a plug door" class.

Quality control at Boeing is in miserable shape and that's the fault of the people on the production line who just decided to go on strike.

They don't deserve a raise.  Honestly, I'll bet Boeing wishes they could fire a bunch of them, but once you're unionized the NRLB decides if you can shit can the dead wood.

"I'd do my job better if I got paid better," is bullshit.  It's what they're saying.

I Have The Powah

I like to read Instapundit.

Apparently, I don't read it fast enough for their web designer, so about mid-page it auto-refreshes.

This reload would not be a problem if, once it had reloaded, I could keep scrolling down the page.

What it does is keep skipping around and jumping right where it refreshed and I'm trying to read.

Well, it turns out that I can disable auto-refresh.

That I have to do so means they need to fire their web designer.

Such A Clever Kitten

 

Shadow has managed to activate sticky keys on the desktop and has discovered all manner of keyboard shortcuts on the laptop just by laying on the keyboards.

Sigh.

Sticky keys, now that I know what it is, is a stupid design.  You get it active and the keyboard just makes a clicking noise through the speakers.  A reboot fixes it, but there's no on screen indication that it's active and there's nothing to click to disable it and return function to the keyboard.  Good job M$!

Nerd!

I just made a spreadsheet for keeping track of all my GURPS characters.

Since there's a "date created" line on many of them, I can even sort them chronologically.

My first, ever, GURPS character was a Car Wars character.  December 26, 1986 for 1e.

I never played that character.

The first character I ever played was an elf when I cajoled FuzzyGeff to run the recently published Yrth (then GURPS: Fantasy).

Never looked back, honestly.

Even as early as 2e, GURPS solved problems I'd been having with made for the setting games.  The one that really sticks out is getting a genuine sword in T2K.

LBB Traveller was an awesome setting with a mediocre system.

Generally, we simply liked the feel of the GURPS magic system over AD&D and there wasn't really anything special about the D&D rules to keep us using them with the worlds we were making ourselves.

The World of Greyhawk was the only published setting I knew anything about and we weren't dropping our hard earned on that when we could make up our own shit for free!

No Tides Today

25 years ago, today, a massive explosion blasted the moon out of orbit with Earth.

Sigh.

No moon base.

No flying cars.

But we got smart phones!

Well That's An Interesting Take

Arfcom often gives us philosophical gems.

Is it better to starve under a communist dictator who's the same race/tribe as you than to live under a racist "democracy" and be well fed?

It's Rhodesia, again!

The argument being put forward by one poster is that a racist nation that keeps its people fed is worse than a non-racist dictatorship that doesn't.

They're not saying it exactly that way, of course.

They're arguing that since the government in Salisbury wasn't perfect, and could not be made perfect in a very short period of time then it needed to be completely discarded instantly.

Which is kind of what did happen.

What he's avoiding looking at is what was waiting to fill the power vacuum when the Salisbury government was discarded.

One man, one vote, one time.

He also avoids looking at things from a white perspective with regards to what happened in other African nations when majority rule was implemented without any kind of preparatory education of that majority.

The kind of massacres that wikipedia doesn't make note of because white people did the dying.

It can be debated if Rhodesia was going to actually educate the majority and, eventually, let them have proportionate electoral power.  We don't know if they were just mouthing the words or not because they ceased to be the government before it could play out.

And majority rule of unprepared and uneducated people with no tradition of republican democracy got a choice between communist candidates; USSR supported on one side and West Taiwan on the other.  Once.

Then what the whites feared was going to happen, pretty much did.

Forced upon them by decisions made by the US and UK while mouthing the words about stopping the spread of communism...

Slow clap.  Just fucking walk into the gorram light already Jimmah.

Matched Set

I had money left over on the character sheet and realized that a ronin isn't going to have a lot of coin in his sleeve.

So I upgraded the wakazashi to very fine and both swords to +1 styled.

Then I made a note that they are a matched pair.

Omi used to be from a wealthy house, to be sure.

The swords were inherited.

I almost went with a tachi for the main sidearm until I decided to go with the matched daisho.

Then I reconsidered, he's a mounted archer after all, and changed the katana back to being a tachi.  Tachi use the same stats as katana, so I don't even have to change them!

I even looked up a famous sword maker for them.  Sadamune Hikoshiro.  That makes the blades about 240 years old in 1570 where Omi is from.

Anxious

Well, the anxiety is not getting better.

It's affecting my enjoyment of going out for a beer and that, in turn, is affecting the enjoyment of the people I'm out with.

The depressing solution is two birds with one stone and remove myself from the situation before I ram into it.

I'll prolly be missed... at least I hope I am... but it might be best for everyone.

I'm not quite to agoraphobia levels.  I feel like I'm a long ways from THAT.

But I'm unhappy about it and very worried it's dragging friends down with me.

They deserve better.

For Tat

President McThag, around noon on 11Sep01 would have been talking to a boomer captain and targeting a couple reentry vehicles to 21°25′21.0″N 39°49′34.2″E.

Then I would direct The State Department to ORDER the Saudi ambassador's ass to my office.

Whereupon I would inform him that he and his family had exactly 72 hours to gather up everyone involved or I would begin using my expansive nuclear arsenal on Islam's holy sites until there weren't any.

I checked, the oil is far enough below the surface that it will not be affected by radiation from the blasts, especially air-bursts.

I'd then have taken to TV and informed the rest of the world that, no shit, you're with us or against us.

The least support I would accept is staying out of the way.

Since the experiment of letting these places run themselves has spectacularly failed, every nation involved in this bullshit, who doesn't immediately get VERY cooperative, gets to be a province of the USA and once enough time and education is applied, perhaps their great grand kids could earn second class citizenship.

Lots of places would hate this, but I'm OK with hate, so long as they fear.

But that's just me.

I'm a vindictive cuss.

Didja Know

Back in 1980 a court ruled that the Black Hills were illegally taken from the Sioux in violation of the Fort Laramie treaty.

The Sioux, having won, refused the money granted them from the case because they wanted and demand the actual land in question.

So a trust was established and it's waiting for them to come get it.  It's up to something like $1.3 billion now. 

This is a fascinating legal moment.

You don't really get an appeal if you win.  And they did win.

So their choices are sit there like it had never happened, or take the money.

Well, they didn't take the money and are holding their breathes until the turn blue waiting for...

A different legal system to come along?

Having studied this little piece of history and geography in moderate detail, I think the 1980 court is wrong and the Fort Laramie treaty was invalidated by the actions of the Sioux themselves long before settlement of the area by whites began in earnest and before gold was discovered.

Picking at this thread and demanding a better settlement might just get them facing a historian who will detail their unforced violations of the treaty they signed and invalidating the deal they'd made by not abiding by their side of the terms.

Plus, if they chose to go back to court they will be risking what they've already won.

That they don't makes me think they DO understand this and not getting everything they wanted and refusing what the did win is a badge they can wear and use to get sympathy from people who can't read this far in my posts, let alone more than one dry ass history book on it.

Even more fun.  Let's say they get what they want.

It will establish precedent for the Cheyenne and Crow to sue THEM to regain the Black Hills!

Remember, the Sioux are originally from what's now Minnesota, they're not from the Black Hills.

Ever wonder why the Crow were such keen allies of the Army and why they constantly identified peaceful Sioux encampments as hostile when "scouting"?  The Black Hills are at the core of the feud.

I Stopped

I stopped commemorating 9/11 when it became obvious that we were fundamentally unserious about keeping it from happening again or seeking retribution on the people who were responsible.

It simply pissed me off all over again to note the date and that leads to seditious thoughts along the lines of, "if they won't fix it, maybe we should..." then a list of illegal thoughts that lead nowhere good as I quote Martius, "O, me, alone?" when I start the rebellion and nobody follows.

It's not like I can follow someone else!

So we do nothing about any of it and I get to be bitter about that.

Worse, we've squandered the ability to do anything about it most places now.

My Local Tattoo Shop Is WAY Different

Watching the 2024 Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo...

My local tattoo shop plays totally different music and doesn't have dancers.

Just sayin'.

Woof!

Were doggies the killer app of cro-magnon man?

It's strange to think of dogs as a technological development, but domestication is a technology.

There's evidence that suggests that a neanderthal did about 10% more calorie burn than we do.

If we're burning fewer calories doing the same things and dogs make it easier for us to get more calories...

Neanderthal gets out competed.

Then there's the interbreeding...

I've sometimes wondered if hybrid vigor is going on and the cro-magnon appearance is a REALLY dominate gene leaving us with a magnathal who looks a lot like a cro-magnon but out competed them all.

I'm A Gunowner But... ULTIMATE LEVEL

Kamala Harris (a known liar) has said she owns a gun.

First off, any politician must own more guns than me for that to matter.

Second, she keeps talking about bans and severe restrictions on ownership and purchase; so the fact that she owns a gun is irrelevant.  Those bans and restrictions never apply to the politically connected.

Third, Donald was a gun owner too.  So was George Bush Sr.  It doesn't matter for us if a politician owns A gun.

Like I said, a politician cannot be reliably considered to be pro-gun unless they own more guns than I do and they MUST be used for something besides hunting.

Wax On Wax Off

The Beast is now clean.

 

I'm just making note to remind me to do this every week instead of every other month.

It will mean less than a 1/4" of brake dust on the front wheels.

Trying out a new to me product to attack that accumulation.  Adam's Wheel and Tire Cleaner.

It works, but there's a learning curve I haven't mastered.

I'm too wiped from the heat right now to hit them again.

Bury My Heart In Bullshit

"There is no Sioux word for that.  For owning the earth."

I don't speak Sioux.

It might be that they don't have a word for land ownership, but they certainly do have the concept in their culture.

All of the plains Indians understood territory and the idea of excluding others from theirs.

That's ownership of the earth, with or without a word for it.

Real Inflation

You can measure it yourself.

Example:

If there's a 4% annual inflation rate then something that cost a dollar will cost $1.04 next year and $1.17 after 4 years.

If there's a 19% annual inflation rate then something that cost a dollar will cost $1.19 next year and $2.01 after 4 years.

Which of these inflation rates better corresponds to the prices you're seeing at the store?

Economy

There's two good things from converting Omi from 3e to 4e.

First is knowing that Sengoku Japan is TL4.  That ups the starting wealth to G$2,000.

This is a good thing because they changed the cost of many things upward, I can still afford them.

That very fine Katana is G$13,000.

If he'd stayed the original TL3, with the G$1,000 starting wealth, my Very Wealthy would only have given me $20k to spend.

I'd have been about G$10k short for the character as written.

GURPS Japan's armor was already a bit more complicated than the basic set, but it went from five lines on the character sheet to 13!

This brings us to the second good thing.

The increase in wealth also let me take armor that was more appropriate to the time period I'd selected.

Lamellar armor has some issues that period writers made note of:

When soaked with water the armor becomes very heavy and cannot be quickly dried; so that in summer it is oppressive and in winter liable to freeze. Moreover, no amount of washing will completely free the lacing from any mud or blood which may have penetrated it, and on long and distant campaigns it becomes evil-smelling and overrun by ants and lice, with consequent ill effects on the health of the wearer.

– Sakakibara Kozan, Chukokatchu Seisakuben

-- Taken from GURPS Loadouts Low-Tech Armor p.32

Different kinds of armor started to replace it by the Sengoku.  More protection for less mass.

But, also, for more G$.

The armor I pieced together comes to G$4,220 and 52.4 lb.  Protection is the same, or better than the 12th to 13th century ensemble from Loadouts which is G$3,615 and 81.2 lb.  Protection is slightly better than the 14th to 15th century set at G$2,539 and 62.8 lb.  Oh, and I remembered my mempo!  The example sets don't have one.

I might have ditched lamellar altogether for mail and plates, but the example photo I was using still had it.

RIP Mr Jones

I'm late, but we'll miss you.

James Earl Jones has departed the chat.

Haramaki Do Dame

Although lamellar armor looks so very Japanese...

By the Sengoku period, plates were starting to come into vogue.

So Omi's haramaki-do has been replaced with a hotoke-do.  This is the benefit of being a medieval Japan nerd.

Going from DR4 medium lamellar that's DR3 vs crushing to DR 6 medium plate that's DR6 all the time.

I saved over six pounds doing so and got better protection.  For almost four times the money...

I realized that I inserted a joke into the character.  The very-fine quality Katana is the least likely weapon to be employed.  It's almost half of what I spent on equipment.

But having a real heirloom item is something this character would have, even if the naginata is every bit as effective in combat and FAR cheaper.

Watanabe Ieyasu noh Omi

Art by Christopher Rich-McKelvey

Omi is a retread of a 3eR character.

I'm accustomed to characters not being too different in 4e, but a Sengoku era Ronin...

There's been some changes from the old Japan book and the new rules.

The Katana is no longer a two-handed fencing weapon.

The Teppo is a much lighter gun.  Though a tanegashima is more apt.  I'm not sure I want to keep it, it's more of an ashigaru weapon.

All the special arrows have different names.

A couple of skills have been replaced with techniques.

Armor...  Armor was expected to be difficult.  But I have it figured out, the character drawing has always been wrong.

Tunage

While Marv was wet sanding the headlight lenses, I suggested some music.

We're both Pink Floyd fans so I fired up The Beast's radio, cranked it to 45 and played Wish You Were Here off the thumb drive.

45 is the max volume.

It was sufficiently loud too.

Very loud inside the car when I played with some of the audio settings.

By the way, if you don't know where to set the volume to be audible outside the car, Shine On You Crazy Diamond Part 1 is a bad choice because it starts so quiet and takes a bit to build to where you can set the overall volume.  That's why I was cranked to the max!

Max output from the head unit is incapable of causing distortion in my speakers.  Woot!  Though the dynamic distortion limiter indicator did flicker on the screen a couple of times.

We've All Kinda Been There

I am more down on the Wehraboos than a normal person might be because I dealt with different flavors.

First was making 1/35 scale models.

German armor is very popular.  I've made my fair share.  Panzer IV and Panther are my favorite tank subjects and the early sdkfz 232 8-rad armored car with the big cage radio antenna being my wheeled fave.

Boy howdy do you get to hear about how great the Tiger was.  Mostly from the spectators who come to model shows.  And if you, yourself, have German tanks on display, you get to hear why the Tiger was better than Panther and why Panther is better than T-34 and so on...

Then there's TTRPGs.

There's a couple of WW2 German guns that are ahead of their time.  The MG.34 and MG.42 are modern GPMG's.  The 42 is still in service and production as the MG3.

The FG.42 is an FAL eleven years early in most game systems stats.

The StG.44 is an AK six years early, with a weight penalty.

Clever players grab this "too soon" kit if you let them.

But you get subjected to the "as good or better than the..."

No.  No they were not.  Even the milled AK is better than an StG.44 (aka MP.43, aka MP.44).

The FG.42 is nowhere near as good as the FAL and is much more fragile.

Most games don't account for the fragility factor.

I've taken an FG.42 on a couple of characters to get something like an FAL too soon, but the truth is the first of any class of gun tends to suck but hard especially when compared with what comes after it.

Absolutely Green With Envy

Marv's garage/shed/workshop has air conditioning.

It makes doing things like sanding on headlights far more pleasant than doing it in the driveway.

If you have the means to climate control your work area, I highly recommend it.

Marv Is Better At This

Marv had great success at getting his headlights clear, so I asked him his secret and he volunteered to do mine.

How they started:

This is after a year and a half of the Cerakote kit.

The mistake I made was following the directions to the letter and only sanding for 3 minutes per sanding pad.

Marv didn't even use the sanding pads that came with, he used his own supply of various grits (240, 600, 1000, 2000, 3200, 4000 then 6000) and kept going until it stopped making slurry.

Sanding done:

Cerakote clear coat applied:

I'd say the results speak for themselves.

Mea Culpa

Yes, the Wannsee Conference happens in 1942.

It codifies and serves as documentation of the goals.

The atrocity that it is codifying did begin far earlier, as early as 1933, and there's even more documentation showing that.

I cited the Wanness Conference because it's easily accessible to people who don't know any of this history and its a great example of how deliberate The Holocaust was.  I used wikipedia because it has links to supporting material that anyone who can read the blog can access.

It might even be the truth that gives the lie power.  Some of the topics on hand at Wannsee was the pace at which the eliminations were proceeding and deciding on more efficient means of providing that eradication.

Prior efforts were hitting logistic walls, but it wasn't an accident they were murdering people.

People in the camps didn't just die.  They were being killed, on purpose.

That the intake of the condemned was bigger than planned was incidental, not causal.

Are all you history fiends happy now?

Decreased Value

Journalists trying to figure out why restaurants are having troubles and talking to someone who's more politician than economist.

Everything boils down to supply and demand.

In the US there is an abundant supply of restaurants.  Lots of choices.

Lots of supply.

Abundant supply should lead to lower prices, yet prices are going up.

Prices went up from many factors, but the biggest ones were artificially induced.  Increasing minimum wage on top of the stupidity of the CDC are still moving through the industry.

The prices went up more than the wages of the customers.

That reduced demand...

Reduced demand and high supply SHOULD cause prices to fall.

But the restaurants can't reduce labor costs very far legally.  They have no control of the costs of food, and the government has that market thoroughly muddied from vast culls to prevent the spread of disease... which might not even be effective.

Labor costs are up.  Food costs are up.  Real estate is up, and that always makes rent go up (most franchisees don't own the land their custom building sits on).

So, prices cannot go down without going negative on the balance sheet.

There's also a threshhold price on going out.  A customer might happily pay $25 a plate but not $25.01.  Prices jumped a lot farther than a penny per plate.

Inelastic costs, elastic demand in a high supply/low demand environment...  Means places go out of business.

I Beg To Differ

Here's the money quote from this article:

“Nazi Germany,” Cooper said, “launched a war where they were completely unprepared to deal with the millions and millions of prisoners of war, of local political prisoners. [They] went in with no plan for that, and they just threw these people into camps, and millions of people ended up dead.”

Don't know much about history, I see.

There very much was a plan.

A plan to round people up.

A plan to kill them off.

They didn't accidentally end up there.

The Wannsee conference is how we know that. 

The National Socialists, being Germans, documented everything.  Almost all of it survived.  I dare say most of it survives.

We know they did it deliberately from their words and deeds.

He Went There

Cue Jan Hammer!

Bren Ten!

Dwight Brown mentions the Bren Ten to make one feel better about the $200 magazines for the S&W 1076.

He's right!  At least you can GET magazines for a 1076!

If you've got $12k you can get yourself a Bren Ten magazine.  *PLUS* it comes with a FREE GUN!

I'm only exaggerating a little...

Prolly Not Bidenomics

As I expected, the S&W 1076 runs about $1,500 give or take.

What I did not expect is the magazines to be running $200!

It makes the Delta Elite look downright affordable at $1,200.  Genuine Colt mags are under $42.  Springfield runs $20ish.

Bad USB Port

One of the USB ports on my laptop causes the trackball to act like it can't see the ball.

It's fine on the other two.

Odd.

Wish I'd noticed before ordering a new trackball.

Well, one is none, I guess.

Color Me Jealous

They wouldn't even issue us a 1/2" drive ratchet for doing the track.  We had a breaker bar for that.

I Did Not Know That

A friend of mine is trying some home brewing.

He said he was writing down recipes and I decided to be facetious and quote the ingredients from the Bavarian Reinheitsgebot of 1516.

Water

Barley

Hops

You need yeast too, but I guess Zie Bavarians assumed it would happen on its own, brett style beers use whatever yeast is flying around the kettle after all.

To make sure I got that list right I looked up the law and I discovered that the 1516 law had less to do with the purity of the beer and a lot more to do with keeping brewers from competing with bakers for grain for bread and thus to keep the price of bread down to something the normal folk could afford.

I didn't know that!

Essentially In The Clear

I just double checked and the statute of limitations for what I was charged with ended in 2022.

They cannot change their minds and proceed with the prosecution now.

Though it was vanishingly unlikely they'd have done so after dropping the charge, it was possible until the five year time limit expired.

I didn't even mark the date when it happened.

One nice thing about being actually innocent is you tend to not worry that your lies get discovered or hidden evidence unearthed... because there isn't anything!

Thanks again to those who supported the cause morally and financially!

I am sure the lawyer like their boat too.

On The Brain

I've been watching videos about the newest D&D edition talking about things I only half understand because I ejected from D&D at 2e.

But, apparently, Warlocks get their powers from a deal made with some shadowy entity.

It occurs to me, if I were writing this game that such a deal might seal you off from clerical intervention.

I end up GURPSing the ideas that come to my head about making non-wizard magic users and when clerics come up it gets different.

A cleric's spells are granted by their deity.  There will be people that god will refuse aid to.  It might even be temporary.  Hera would certainly deny a follower of Zeus assistance during her anger at finding him fooling around on her... again.

And that's just within a pantheon.

A cleric of Hermes is probably unable to lend aid to some Godless Persian, regardless of if Zeus has been busted humping mortal women.

I know that players are going to rebel at being forced to obey the strictures of their character's religion.

Even more so, long time players of D&D are going to be confused at how the spells work out.  In D&D a cleric is a healer.  Most polytheistic religions have a god of healing, so you'd have to be a cleric of THAT god to get healing spells.  The god of war prolly doesn't have much to offer for healing...

The spell set will be greatly limited compared to a wizard.

But, depending on the rules I pick, a cleric might not use fatigue to cast their miracles, it being granted by the power of a god.

I often stop world design at the gods and clerical magic because it's a lot of work and limited reward.  But if I keep picking at a list of quasi-Greek gods and their spell lists and effects...  Eventually I will have it done and ready to play in the ACLF Harvey puts me in.

Sticker Not-Mod

A sticker mod is when you put on a sticker that alludes to something your car doesn't have.

My car does have a six liter engine.

I also noticed that the E in my Caprice badge is damaged.  Time to get the expensive Australian Caprice-V badge!

Still A Pet Peeve

Anon comments are going to be deleted unless signed unless I recognize the commenter's style.  And sometimes even then.

I might let it fester in the cache to give you a chance to say, "that was me -name".

Even if you DO sign it, I'm nuking a comment telling me to do something I've already declined to do.

I do not care for Springfield's XD, regardless of caliber.

It's ineffable.  I've even said so in reply to another comment.  The Anon commenter should have bothered to read those comments before advocating for the XD.

It just doesn't fit me.

Never has.

That's my opinion.

For facts I've had two friends with one who managed to get it thoroughly locked up putting it back together.  I don't like guns that get fiddly during maintenance.

But if it's working for you, go for it!

If everyone liked the same gun, it'd be damned boring writing about them.

Well Fuck

Paul Harrell has departed the chat.

Job Requirement

A tedious thing I have to stab the skip button for on YouTube is the fundraising ads.

With a kitten on my chest, sometimes I can't reach the mouse and resign myself to watching the ad.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden are smooth.  One take.  Done.  Let's get ice cream!

Kamala Harris?  At least four OBVIOUS cuts, one mid-sentence.  In a 30-second ad.

She did at least five takes to get this in the can, and one wonders how many didn't get used.

Being able to, smoothly, beg for money is a fucking job requirement for politicians!

This alone disqualifies her for the post!

Perhaps Cat Proof

 

 

Displaying your Lego minifigs is a challenge when you have furry assistance.

Hopefully, this cheap Chinese display case will keep them from scattering them to the wind.

10mm The Other Kind

I wrench.

That means that I'm missing a few 10mm sockets.

What's interesting is that I have not lost a 10mm socket since I moved to Florida.

I felt like I was single handedly keeping the Sears at North Grand Mall in Ames open with my constant replacing of a 1/4 drive 10mm 6-point.

I suspect it was the people I was wrenching with causing the loses and not simple misplacement.

I've dropped a 10mm or three down here and knew the moment it fell.

In Iowa, I noticed it was missing the next time I went to wrench.  That makes me think it was lifted from the box rather than fell into the engine bay.

Fucking thieves who claim to be buddies.  GRRRRRR

I Don't Need To GET One

An anonymous commenter, remember we don't allow that here, suggested I get me a Glock 21 and convert it to 10mm.

The short answer is: I don't wanna.

If I'm going to have a 10mm gun, I want a complete one and not a pile of parts I need to swap back and forth.  It's the same reason I don't have a .22 conversion for the AR's or 1911's.

An additional wrinkle is my Glock is from the very first batch made.  Not sure of the parts compatibility with the, more common 3rd gen guns.

Pay Attention

Hit Bass Pro for some 9x19mm.

200 round box: $64.99.

100 round box:$29.99.

50 round box: $15.99.

That's $0.32495, $0.2999 and $0.3198 per round respectively.

You just have to think to do the math while you're in the aisle.

Complete

At the overlap of Lego and D&D on the Venn diagram, we find...

Four named characters from Forgotten Realms, one monster and seven non-human PCs.

JT and I hit the Lego store in Brandon right at opening to make sure I could snag a complete set.

It's also Harry Potter day, so there was quite a line formed behind us when they unlocked the door.

Going to the Lego store and getting an unmolested case is the fastest, cheapest and best way to get all of them without duplicates.  Lego packs the case in groups of three, once you know the packing order, you can get them without scanning the QR code.

I do want to get two dupes.  I want another pseudo-dragon from the Tiefling and Harvey wants her own witch.