Minifigus Rex

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Felon Voting

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

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

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

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

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

You wanted railroaded show trials?

Two can play that game.

Review

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

It's cool looking!

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

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

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

Truth

 

Unanimous

Sotomayor wrote the decision.

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

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

What The Cloud Really Means

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

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

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

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

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

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

Life Support Restored?

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

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

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

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

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

Update:

It was the starter capacitor.

Life Support Fail

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

It was a bit stuffy.

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

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

The fan on the air handler is blowing.

All of the fuses check out.

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

We might be spending some time at the inlaws.

Mad Dogs And Angus McThags

Work on cars in the midday sun.

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

RR speed sensor.  $19.

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's Right In The Name

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

Then I saw it.

A figure in a wheelchair.

A CLERIC in a wheelchair.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

D&D is supposed to be a fantasy setting.

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

Adding Members To The Tribe

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

Do they have a somewhat limited budget?

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

Everything you need except ammo.

Offer expires while you wait, operators are standing by.

Mostly In Jest

That bleg below, somewhat in jest.

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

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

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

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

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

Note that.

READ.

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

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

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

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

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

Send McThag To GunCon

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

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

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

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

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

Top Men

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

No.

Put a libertarian in charge of BATFE.

Why?

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

A Smaller Change

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

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

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

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

Why would that be?

Because the reasons for background checks are lies.

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

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

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

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

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

Rationalized!

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

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

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

Deep.

Fried.

Hamburger.

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

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

Mullet

 

Business in front, party in the back!

Fourth Time's The Charm

I've purchased an editor suite for The Beast.

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

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

Good thing.

Version 1.2 did not run on my Win10 Pro laptop.

Typical software rollout.

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

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

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

It's Like They've Never Mixed A Drink

Dear Global Warming Panic Mongers;

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

Add two ice cubes to your glass.

Note the water level.

Let ice melt.

Note the water level.

You might notice that it's not much different.

I've done this experiment.

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

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

Near Identical

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

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

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

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

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

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

An idea pops.

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

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

Cutting off their beard is like stealing their ID.

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

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

That Was Close

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

That oversight has been corrected.

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

For The Fallen

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


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


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


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


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


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


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

To the end, to the end, they remain.

-- Laurence Binyon

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

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

I want them all back.

To:

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

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

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

Ian Gates (Comrade in arms to Willard).

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rich Sickels (brother of my Father in law).

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

 

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

 

Life Support Fail

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

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

This could be bad!

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

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

Huzzah!

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

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

Guzzler

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

Waved at the people at the Tesla station.

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

Stopped at WaWa to get some E0 gas.

Waved at the same people at the Tesla station.

Trip Observations

First, Mascotte is still a speed trap.

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

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

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

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

Road Trip

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

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

I am not unhappy!

I'm OK with it.

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

Set the cruise, dial up the tunes, chill.

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

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

No Apostrophe

Dear Hawaii,

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stop acting like it happened at gun point.

As The Years Wear On

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

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

Alan C Wright on Facebook had the right of it:

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

NOT! "Happy Memorial Day."

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

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

Remember them.

Shed a tear.

Crack a smile.

But don't forget.

Willard Has Opened This Box

 

Like A D'eagle But...

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

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

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

Dead sexy looking, though.

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

Losing Demographic Groups

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

People who already have generous student loan forgiveness programs.

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

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

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

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

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

Bitch Please

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

War Against Chtorr fans, "Newbs."

I Feel LIke A Car Guy Again

It truly is the little things.

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

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

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

But it was fun!

The sport shift mode is alarming, though.

It does firmer shifts, which is good.

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

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

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

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

I was welcomed back!

Happy day.

A Light Dawns

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

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

Holy shit.

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

Trivia

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

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

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

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

DOT Compliant

I got yellow LED for the parking lights too.

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

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

Whimsy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's like adding four and a quarter horsepower!

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

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

7d pi Is (Still) 7d pi

Very interesting stuff.

Link to InRange mud test.

Kromm Speaks

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

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

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

My house rule appears to have unofficial official approval!