Beer Run

One of the local breweries has an annual run where they make a beer with a Hockey theme for the local skating club.

Yesterday I went to every single one of the breweries who do can distribution looking for a couple 4-packs of this beer.

For the record it's "High Boltage" from Cigar City Brewing.

It was not a Big Storm or Tampa Bay Brewing Company; though they've done similar runs in the past.

It would have been easier to remember which brewery if I could have convinced Facebook to show me the pic that a friend had posted of their can they were enjoying during a game.

Alas.

However it was a fun drive with Marv tagging along and chatting.

Not For Me Thanks

A long time ago, I realized I was different.

I see things that I'm not into, and I don't care if others are into it.

Like a .460 Magnum revolver.

Like a 2,000 horsepower streetable car.

I don't want either.  I certainly don't need any, but I'm delighted that things like that can exist and are out there with people enjoying them.

I Am Actually Surprised

Ten RINOS have agreed in principle with the Democrats to pass gun control in the Senate.

I am not surprised that there are RINOS selling us out.

What shocks me is Rick "Lurch" Scott is missing from this list.  The kinds of restrictions listed are exactly the kind of thing he signed as governor.

Perhaps he's learned?

Not holding my breath.

But I Just Fixed That!

We have an ancient Presto electric griddle that The Lovely Harvey's mom has had forever.

The plastic handles and the drip tray were falling apart.

This particular plastic doesn't take glue well, so there was no fixing the plastic parts.

Happily! there are still replacements available from Presto!

So I ordered a set and did the R&R.

And the griddle promptly fell of the work bench and onto the concrete garage floor while I was reaching for a tool to tighten the sliders for the drip tray.

"MOTHERFUCKER!" I calmly screamed.

One of the new handles is shattered.

A second replacement is on its way.  Dammit.

This is why I can't have nice things.

Good For One Good For The Other

If stuffing your pistol down the front of your pants is safe for "reasons" then those same "reasons" are applicable for a shoulder holster.

Why is the connection between the "reasons" not clearer to advocates of appendix carriers?

Obvious In Hindsight

In reading about some Democrats and Governor DeSantis sparring over whether to have a special session to push for more restrictions on firearm ownership something obvious hit me.

Something that had been obvious for a long time but I'd never seen it discretely before.  How often does a fish notice the water, after all?

When the anti-gun people say their proposals will not infringe on anyone's second amendment rights, they are telling the truth from their perspective.

Because they believe there are no second amendment rights at all, therefore it is impossible to infringe on those non-existent rights.

I think I might just have found a little wedge item to use on the few people I still have to talk to whom aren't total lefties; but are still kinda anti-gun.

Missed Opportunity

The McDonald's in Russia have reopened under a new name.

And it ISN'T McDowell's.

This is why you will never be as great as the USSR was.

Victim Zone

It's not surprising that these mass shootings happen in gun-free-zones.

We make note of it each time.

The assholes seek them out.

But how are they so certain that they will be free to act?

Because we people who might otherwise shoot back are obeying the damn law and we're not there.

We mention our avoidance of such places often, in fact.

I've noticed that there places marked gun-free, but in Florida these don't have the force of law.  The worst the business can do is to trespass you.

The way most people packing in Florida deal with these jerks is "concealed means concealed" and nobody is the wiser; assuming we patronize the place in the first place.

It's interesting that while Florida has had it's share of mass shootings, we have yet to have one in a place where carry is not banned by law.  The sign on the door to the mall is meaningless and the assholes know it.

The sign on the door of the school...  Shoot all you want, it's not like the cops are going to stop you.  Not any more than the sign.

I Have Plans

 

Hmmmmmm, beer!

I've Got One Of These!

 

Mine's in 1/35 scale... but I have one!

Will I Be Remembered

Doing the reading about the time period that Sabers and... is set in often reminds me of The Civil War Diaries.

We know about the authors of those letters because they wrote them.

In most cases, that's about all we know about those authors, but we remember them because they wrote that letter.

Me, I've always known I was never going to be a person of note.

I am not a groundbreaking inventor or scientist.

I am not (yet) a famous author.  I probably won't be a famous author except as infamous because I picked a rather divisive group of subjects to cast as characters in the book(s) I'm plugging away on.

I'm not a starring actor.

I'm not a politician.

I'm a nobody.

Except...  17 years and counting of putting my thoughts on the internet.

With Weaponsman and Lex, I see how ephemeral the contents of a blog can be.

Google could shut down Blogger tomorrow and it could all be gone forever.

I download backups, but don't have the wherewithal to get it back up on my own should Blogger go away.

Of course, those letter writers in the civil war never expected their mail to be saved and read by third parties either.

Why Am I Not Surprised

The Washington Post is saying that Gov DeSantis' veto of handing millions of dollars to the Tampa Rays is suppressing free speech?

What about denying them the $35 million prevents them from saying anything they want?

They're still free to talk, they have the Washington Post printing their side eagerly, how is their speech being suppressed?

Well, it appears that WaPo is as bad at 1st Amendment as they've been at 2nd Amendment.

Speaking of 2A, it was the Rays donating to anti-gun organizations and pandering to the anti-rights crowd that got them their money taken away.

DeSantis has been pretty clear about how Tallahassee feels about companies getting into politics that have nothing to do with their business.  Ask Disney.

He's also long been outspoken against government funding of sports.  While football is the biggest offender, baseball isn't far behind in the "taxpayers pay all the expenses and the owners keep all of the receipts" game.

Professional sports make millions and millions and the cost of having them always outweighs the benefits.  The trickle down to other businesses never really materializes and the costs to the tax payer in extra police, crime and traffic irritation just add to the down-side.

I'd have been happy about this veto even if the Rays had been silent on guns.

But baseball has nothing to do with firearms and when any business decides that it has to express an opinion on any right, then they're volunteering to go without taxpayer funding.

Fewer Users?

Google has been warning me for months that they were going to make things "more secure" and make it more difficult (read impossible) for third party apps to access your Google accounts with just your user name and password.

The email program was simple, just clicked a different protocol box.

Trillian, though, was actually accessing the ancient Google Talk servers, not Hangouts or Chat which replaces them both.

Talk is finally dead.

Now I have to use the web based version to communicate with my dwindling number of friends.

But I have noticed something else since the big change.

I've gotten many fewer emails in my gmail inbox.

If this managed to purge bots from their base, it's good.

But what if they simply managed to run off actual users by making their services just irritating enough to not bother?

I know my thoughts, when I enter my user name and password, and get a "please enter the code we just email/texted" is NOT: "It's great how they're protecting me from hackers!" but "Where the fuck is my fucking phone! All I wanted to do was pay the fucking bills!"

The thing is, while I understand why they're doing this.  Users pick bad passwords and use the same bad password everywhere.  That makes it simple for their accounts to be hacked.

BUT!

What makes Google think those same people's email account isn't compromised and that second factor authentication isn't being sucked up by the same bad actors they're trying to lock out in the first place?

I predict that, someday, us old fuckers will talk to youngsters and say, "I remember when the internet was something useful and everyone had a phone that connected to it."

They will roll their eyes and say something like, "Next he's going to tell us about how useful computers were if they could connect to the internet too!"

This Should Go Well

Looks like Florida's state preemption on firearms laws is going to the state supreme court.

This law was not controversial until the state congress gave it teeth by levying fines on the politicians who passed ordinances, regulations and rules which violated the preemption law.

Fines that they cannot pass on to their constituents.

It also forbids them from using their political subdivision's funds to defend themselves, sparing the local taxpayers of the burden.

Gods forbid that politicians who violate our rights be held accountable!

Accountability is for little people.

I think the law will stand.

All subdivisions in Florida are creations of the state.  So the state has the authority to tell them what to do.

There is no assumed sovereignty at any level below the state already, and limited autonomy.

So that's where the state can say they can order the preemption.

There's no doubt that the state can specify a punishment for breaking the law.

Fingers crossed anyway.

It Needed To Be Said

"I think what we need to understand is that these legacy D.C. and New York outlets – we don’t care what you think anymore. We know you peddle narratives. We know you lie. We know you don’t care about the facts."

Ron DeSantis

Rewrite?

I am sure I am the only person who's considering rewriting the background of Twilight: 2000 to take into account how miserably the Russian army performed in Ukraine.

Given that there was a nuclear war, it's not too hard to get a post-apocalypse setting with this new information, but the Battle of Kalisz might happen a bit further east... and obviously not in a Polish city.  Donetsk, perhaps?

Free City of Krakow Stalingrad?

Pirates of the Vistula Volga?

Ruins of Warsaw Moscow?

Changes things a bunch, actually.

Especially since the real theme of T2K is reestablishing civilization and rebuilding, not continuing the war.

Could be lots of fun!

Whom Should Have Them Again

While it hasn't happened locally recently, the meme that reminded me of it isn't exactly fresh either.

While the local press is all about criminals getting their guns from unlocked cars right now, that meme reminded me of a rash of reports of guns being found in restaurant bathrooms a few years back.

Wait.  Did I say "found"?

I mean to say, "The sheriff's department would like the gun the deputy left in the shitter back because it wasn't there when they realized they'd dropped more than a deuce."

Someone had found the pistol.  Probably didn't even call in a background check on themselves before deciding to keep it.

During this rash of five or six lost deputy guns, the press only talked about recovering two.

Happily, our sheriff is proactive about this.  The deputies in question are suspended without pay until their gun is recovered.  He even beat the union on that one.

Sadly, we're still getting lectured on being responsible with our privately held guns while at the same time being told that government should have all the guns because they're more responsible.

But, in this case they're right.  Don't store your guns in your car.

While I hold the thief responsible, their responsibility doesn't change that you're out a gun and a criminal now has it.

PS: Car makers: You are partially to blame for so many unlocked cars with your "innovative" methods intended to make it impossible to lock your keys in the car.  A 1970's car would be locked, a 2000's+ car isn't.  Still a lot of muscle memory out there from learning how to lock those old cars.

Tasted Good

I pressure cooked some chicken we had in the freezer to make buffalo wraps on Sunday.

We had lots of chicken left over and we figured it was perfect for chicken salad, and we were right!

Gods, it's so much better than canned.

PS: we don't add the hot-sauce to the meat until we're rolling the wrap so it wasn't buffalo chicken salad.

We Can Rebuild Her

The Lovely Harvey is scheduled for reverse shoulder replacement!

Better, stronger, faster!

Not Anymore

I'm trying to get a few phrases in Dakota for this slowly progressing novel I'm making.

I'm in contact with a very nice former cav-scout who speaks it and we're talking history.

And being honest.

I've said that I wanted to get things right with the culture and to not be offensive towards the Sioux.

He's like, "tell the truth, our peoples did what they did."

The line that really sticks is, "We're not really those people any more."  He's indicating that he's more different from the people he's descended from than he's different from me.  Distinct from my culture in many ways, but more American than Indian anymore.

Wow!

It makes me look at the people Americans were in this time period and the same thing has happened.

The past truly is another country.

Mexican Safety

Mexican safety, you know, Manuel.

Manual.

I'm here all night, tip your waitress.

If you've been paying close attention to the plastic M&P's you'll have noticed that I have a thumb safety on all of them.

You can't see it on the Sheild Plus in this pic, but it's lurking on the other side.

I started out as a Glock fan until Harvey and Marv decided that Glocks didn't fit their hands and we'd agreed to standardize on a single gun for Hurricane times.

Harvey doesn't have a manual safety.  Marv added one later.

My full-size M&P9 came with one and I got a little taken off the pawn shop's price by noting that it was an undesirable feature.

Why do I insist?

It's a great thumb rest!  I shoot these pistols better with it than without it and we proved it when Marv went to a lot of effort installing the full Apex kit in his.

I didn't shoot his better trigger any better than my stock gun.

But when I added the Apex, it was much better.

There's a bit of added peace of mind while holstering too, which I like.  I'm not alone there, someone developed a replacement slide backing plate for Glock so you can tell if the trigger is caught for the same peace of mind.

Chirp

I promise to say goodbye if I decide to quit this blog.

If this blog stops updating for more than, say, a week; something has happened to me.

I've never hid that I'm a gun owner and have been pretty darned open about what guns I own, so if there's a confiscation and arrests, I'm prolly one of the easy, low-hanging fruits.

I'm the canary in the coal mine!

D+ 28,487

Cue Bethoven for the longest day.

The T-62M

You can read the Wikipedia article on them here.

Something to remember about obsolete tanks is they're really only "bad" if the enemy is completely up to date.

Even so, a "recently" obsolete tank might still put up a decent fight against a top of the line tank.

It should be noted that the M4 Sherman was able to win against nominally superior tanks in WW2, and the same holds true today if you were using smart tactics and hitting where the armor is thinner.

Something the Russians and Ukrainians have against each other is knowing exactly how thick the armor is and where it's thinnest of each other's designs because they are, for the most part, using the same tanks.

But tank-v-tank isn't really what a T-62M is for nowadays.

Tanks are wonderful armored bunkers with a machine gun which is protected against most everything being tossed around an infantry battle.

If they employed intelligently, then they will be in mutual support with infantry.

The 115mm gun on the T-62 is adequate for any infantry support role, and is only found wanting against more modern tank armor.

The engine is generally regarded as reliable and while not fast it's mobile enough.

It's perfect for conditions where "we need A tank" perhaps even "we need a GOOD tank" but not for "we need a MODERN tank", though the T-62M has a lot of modernizations on it.

Not least of which is an ATGM fired through the main gun.

It might even do better against top attack missiles because it's ammo isn't directly under the turret ring where those missiles tend to hit most often.  Though "better" might be a technical term for "everyone in the turret is dead, but at least it didn't catch fire!"

Or it could be a desperation move by the Russians as everything is running out and all their men are dying in the triumphant victory of the Ukrainian Nazi Warlord Master Race (©2022 The Abode of McThag, all rights reserved, you heard it here first, no take-backs).

It's probably not a desperation move.  It's probably simple attrition and the T-62M is available in numbers and adequate.

The More I Read

The more history of the Indian wars I read the more upset I am about Dances With Wolves.

The Lakota Sioux are presented as friendly and the Pawnee as hostile.

That's an inversion of which tribe was what at the time the movie is set.

Even worse, the Pawnee got friendlier as time went on and they, along with the Crow, aligned their fates with the US.

Interestingly, there's a deleted scene from the movie where the "friendly" band that Lt. Dunbar is familiar with attacks and massacres white settlers.  Try finding that online!

Also the more I read about the time period the more convinced I am that there were no good-guys involved.  Both sides were intent on fucking the other side over and one side simply had a bigger cock, though they repeatedly used lube.

Kherson Oblast

 I recall that people were saying with certainty that the T-62M on that train could not possibly have been going to Ukraine.

Well, Kherson isn't in Syria.

I wonder who is crewing them.

The List

Going from memory here...

Software Janitor's list.

1. If it's not American, it's not mine.
2. If it's a Ford, it's not mine.
3. If it's not rear wheel drive, it's not mine.
4. If it's not a V-8, it's not mine.
5. If it's a four-door, it's not mine.
6. If it's green, it's not mine.

For, literally, decades, we've been trying to find a car that breaks all of those rules that's also worth owning as a hot-rod.

The front-wheel drive portion almost always kills the plan.

A modular V-10 in a green Australian Falcon breaks five; but the correct wheels still push the car.

I intend to break three with The Beast.

It's not American, or a 2-door and I plan on painting it green.

This kinda segues into "what is a hot-rodder?"

There's lots of aspects and camps in the car culture.

There's people who're into fancy paint, appearance, interiors and bone-stock performance.

There's people who are into performance and damn how it looks.

There's fucking morons people whose real interest is in stereos, but they make their stereo look like a car.

But are they rodders?

To me a hot-rodder is someone who's looking to make their car perform better than stock and whom is doing their own work as much as possible.  That last qualifier is why there's so many "damn the looks" cars.  Body and paint need more skills and equipment than most people are willing to invest in.

If you're paying someone else to do all the work, you are NOT a hot-rodder.  Sorry.  You can be a member of the car culture, but you've done nothing more than someone buying a Ferrari has done.  You paid for someone else to do it.

It's why the guy with the slower car is looking down his nose at your rich ass.

Is the kid with a 13 sec Civic a hot-rodder?  Yes!

I think us V-8 rear wheel people should acknowledge that and welcome them.

As long as they don't bring the stereomobiles.

Moar Tank On Train Pics

The Facebook Tanker Community posted a series.

They appear to be T-80BV and the claim is they were spotted near St Petersburg.

Russia is taking losses, and moving these out of storage for refurbishment would definitely be quicker than building a whole new tank from scratch.

Who knows how stripped for parts or how out of date these particular vehicles are though.

Bringing these tanks out of storage isn't an indication that Russia is losing the war!  Just that they're taking losses and need to replace those lost vehicles.

Unrelated: In 1988 we would have freely given testicles for these pics.

Cerakote All The Things

Applied the Cerakote headlight kit to The Lovely Harvey's headlights today.

She sat outside and chatted with me while I did it and she got to see the transformation as it was happening.

She's very impressed!

I recommend this kit if you have yellowed headlights.

It's been lasting better than the next best thing we tried on Flossie.  That Civic fought and rejected every attempt to keep the lights clear.  The one that worked best came with a clear-coat and lasted almost a year.

Cerakote is claiming it will last as long as I own the car.

If we get two years, I will be happy and impressed.

I also changed the oil in The Beast!

Eight quarts takes exactly as long to drain as you think it does.

The previous owner's oil change place had some sort of gorilla put the filter on, it was stuck good.  On top of that Fram filters have a textured paint portion on the bottom making it difficult to get the proper sized filter socket on.

Rubber hammer to the rescue!

Some Asshole Origin

Everyone agrees that this comic is where the "Some Asshole" response was first presented.

Comic repeated below, but all credit belongs to the original artist.  Hit their site and give them some clicks.

Called It

The shooter in Ames had recently broken up with one of the deceased.

Normal everyday murder, not a "mass shooting" at all.

Link to local news.

You Keep Telling Me That I Cannot Yell Fire In A Crowded Theater

Dear media and politicians,

You are screaming, "FIRE!" at the top of your lungs every time you give publicity to a mass shooter.

And we get another high profile shooting in my former home town moments after President Mumbles granted the Uvalde shooter their fondest desire.

Recognition.

It's time the media became good citizens and adopted the "Some Asshole" protocol to mass shooting.

In a nut shell they don't report the name or the motive; just "some asshole did something for some reason."  And leave it there.

It gives the copycat nothing to emulate.  It give the perpetrator no recognition for their malfeasance.  It robs them of their very reason for doing their act of violence.

I am not suggesting there be a law forcing the media to do so.  I am asking them to do the right thing and do this voluntarily.

What's the worst that could happen?

Well, this idea being effective is the worst thing that could happen to the media and politicians, it robs them of a bully pulpit to excoriate innocent gun owners.

PS: I did not come up with the "Some Asshole" theory of reporting, but I cannot find where I first bumped into it.  If you know where it came from, leave me a comment and I will add a link!

PPS: I am going to predict that the shooting in Ames was a run of the mill murder because the shooter shot two women and then themselves.  I'm guessing a crime of passion deal and spurned advances rather than something we're going to see a manifesto and FBI assistance for.

A Correction

The autoloader in the T-72 series is electric, not hydraulic.

The T-64 and T-80 use hydraulics.

The T-90 appears to use a variation on the T-72's, so it's likely electric as well.

This would appear to take hydraulic fires lighting the ammo off the list of why Russian tanks pop their top so readily; because the T-72 and T-90 eject the turret as readily as the T-80.

I'm inclined to believe that the rounds are simply not shielded from hot spalling and the combustible portion of the case is a bit too volatile.

This is good for not leaving smouldering debris in the bore, bad for preventing fires from battle damage.

Well That Sucks

Hognose's old domain got bought and is in use by someone doing gun reviews.

Probably has no idea of the legacy of their domain name.

Loose Rounds, who'd hosted an archive of Weapon Man's blog has sold his domain too, and the archive is now gone.

The internet is this odd combination of eternal and ephemeral.

Depth Of Field

With the big lens on, in program mode I could focus on the turtle's head or its shell.

250mm, f/5.6, 1/400", ISO500

Remembering how depth of field works, I changed to aperture priority and cranked the f-stop.

250mm, f/32, 1/400", ISO 12800

I'm kind of proud of myself for remembering this.

When You See It

 

Deadly Attack Turtle

Saved this little guy from getting hit by a car yesterday:

We think it's a river cooter.

It patrolled the fence for a bit and then wandered away.

It was prolly driven out of its normal home by the heavy rains Sunday and was having trouble navigating back.

Reminded Myself

If you think that the cannon used in The Revolutionary War looks like the guns from the US Civil War, you're wrong.

Portable guns were in the 4-lb. range.

The stereotypical Civil War gun is a 12-lb. gun.

Once again it is GURPS that taught me this, well gaming led me to learn this.

I looked up what the British would be using on the ground if they attacked the pirate stronghold overland from the rear and was very disappointed in the size of the guns.  Barely larger than a ship's-rail mounted swivel gun!

So Tired

I have been The Lovely Harvey's right hand for over a month now.

She cannot drive, so I've been doing all the transportation.

The Boy has taken it upon himself to crank up being a shit to twelve, twisting the knob past the traditional eleven.

I'm worn to a nub mentally and not far behind physically.

It's a major scheduling undertaking to get out of the house for even an hour to make sure the local brewery's tasting room has not burned down.

I am mush brained and looking back at some recent posts...  Yeah.

About my only saving grace on one is Mr Fleetwood has not said, "American colonists widely owned cannon, because cannon were not in any way regulated by The Crown."  He kind of accumulates information like that and has an irritating habit of telling me when I'm wrong.

I need some range time.  Marv has an unfired (by him) Garand to test.  I have a pile of .45's from The Chomps Collection to shoot as well.

Open Letter To Disney-LucasFilm

Dear LucasFilm,

I'm getting tired of being called a racist misogynist when you create bad characters with bad dialog then cast them with minority women.

I'm not the one making shitty characters that deserve complaining about.

I'm not even calling the minority women actors bad actors.

I've seen far too many of the actors and actresses in Star Wars movies doing fine work in other films.  The problem is directors and writers in most cases, not the actors.

And the only actors who can be counted on to get good dialog and characters are the ones who could quit and still be financially OK.

Unlike your minority woman who's a virtual unknown before she was cast in Star Wars.

Do a better job of writing and directing and we won't care if your character is CGI and voiced by Hatsune Miku! 

I think the fact that you're getting ahead of the complaints with accusations of racism says you know her character sucks and is going to get complaints.

Rose Tico wasn't a good character.  Kelly Marie Tran, isn't a poor actress.  But there was a fake campaign to make it look like the fans were attacking her for her shitty character when we all realized that it was the idiot director.

Speaking of that idiot director.  He's done excellent work with other films, which makes me think that the problem is even higher up the food chain than the people actually making the films.

Hey, Disney, you want to make a decent Han Solo prequel series?  Buy the rights to the Brian Daley trilogy.