MSR v SAR

A couple lawyerly types are advocating we stop calling AR and AK style guns "modern sporting rifles" and start calling them "semi-automatic rifles."

They are aware that the MSR appellation is a response to the "no sporting purposes" line of bullshit from the anti-gunners.

But an AR and an AK are semi-automatic rifles.  No different except in appearance from a Mini-14.

Modern sporting rifle was coined to embrace the military appearance and show that they were still sporty.

Entire sports were invented just to have sports for them to be part of!

Both terms are appropriate for the guns.

Where I think their reasoning is sound, though, is most of these, recent, bans and attempts to ban are aimed at anything semi-automatic that can take a magazine bigger than 1/3 normal capacity (or less).

I don't care what we call them as long as we defeat the anti-gunners.

If calling them explosive feather dusters is the magic phrase, then grab your EFD and meet me at the two-gun match!

Mutter Mutter Mutter

First off...  I did it wrong when I added some R134a to The Beast.

Dur moment.

When you open the valve to the can, the low pressure gauge is going to surge upwards.  I panicked and closed the valve and looked at the pressure, then lather rinsed and repeated until it looked like I was getting what I wanted.

What I should have done was to open the valve and leave it open until the low pressure side came back down and read correctly.  This will also cause the high pressure side to read correctly instead ever so slightly low.

Lesson learned.

Because I'd not actually added any R134a, it wasn't keeping up on Friday when I went to get Harvey her tobacco and take Bubba to the used book store.

Second.

The HP port appeared to be leaking at the valve.  It's not a regular Schrader valve.  It's a plunger with a rubber bumper on top.  I took the rubber bumper out, thinking it was something that'd gotten into the port by mistake and the leaking appeared to have stopped with it removed.

What bean counting EPA sycophant at GM changed the HP port from the tried and true, easily servicible, Schrader valve to a completely different kind of plunger valve that needs the entire port replaced instead of just the Schrader?

Rat fuck son of a bitch is what they are.

Oh, and good luck finding that port without a lot of community knowledge.  GM doesn't admit that the port CAN be replaced without replacing the entire high-pressure line.

For the record it is GM p/n 52458184, ACDelco p/n 15-5438 and Dorman p/n 800-955.

The Dorman has a replaceable Schrader valve and the ACDelco is rumored to have one.

Almost every GM vehicle since the change to R134 uses this HP port.  You're welcome!

Third.

Once I'd removed that hunk of rubber and properly added Freon R134a, the AC appears to be working correctly.  Pressures were right.  Pressures changed with the RPM correctly.  Temperatures looked good both at idle and on the road and matched what the service manual says I should get in "manual" and automatic modes.

Three days of it behaving!  Eyes crossed!

Voting

Got our sample ballots today.

Seven choices for President.

Five choices for US Senator.  One of which is Rick "Lurch" Scott, known gun banner.

I've only heard of two of each.

Thanks to term limits I get to vote for a new state Representative.  Actually happy about that, the previous one voted for the Lurch Scott gun control package.

Mostly the same idiots from the same pool of families that have dominated county politics for decades for the county commission and school board slots.

Six constitutional amendment referendums.  Abortion and marijuana are the two hot-button ones.  Both sides are blatantly lying.  Happily, I can live with the status quo and can vote no to both without qualms.

State Of The Alternates

Has it been a year already?

The availability of 6.8 Remington SPC, 6.5 Grendel and .300 Blackout based on what Midway USA carries.  Plus the ARCs!

6.8 SPC

14 loadings from 6 manufacturers.  2 available, 4 out of stock - backorder OK, 3 temporarily unavailable, 3 out of stock - no backorder, and 2 unavailable - limited production.

6.5 Grendel

17 loadings from 7 manufacturers.  7 available, 3 out of stock - backorder OK, 2 Coming Soon, 2 temporarily unavailable, 1 out of stock - no backorder, and 2 unavailable - limited production.

.300 Blackout

69 loadings from 20 manufacturers.  42 available, 9 out of stock - backorder OK, 2 temporarily unavailable, 9 out of stock - no backorder, 4 unavailable - limited production, and 3 coming soon.

22 ARC

2 loadings from 1 manufacturer.  2 coming soon.

6mm ARC

4 loadings from 1 manufacturer.  4 available. 

Update:

.30 AR

1 loading from 1 manufacturer.  1 temporarily unavailable.

6.8x43mm Surprise

Will it GURPS?

The 75gr bullet from the 22 ARC at 2953.4 fps will do 6d-1 pi.  20 avg.

The 108gr bullet from the 6mm ARC at 2626.7 fps will do 6d pi.  21 avg.

The 123gr bullet from the 6.5 Grendel at 2485.6 fps will do 6d pi.  21 avg.

The 120gr bullet from the 6.8 SPC at 2648.6 fps will do 6d+1 pi.  22 avg. <-- This is more than the normal 6d pi from a 16" barrel.

6" of wood is DR 6*

1.57" of concrete is DR 12*

The 1/2" mild steel plate backing the first two tests is DR 28.  None of them should penetrate the steel after the frangible materials.  All of them go through the wood.  All of them should exceed the HP of the concrete paver.

I'm ignoring the water test.

1/4" of mild steel is DR 14, they should all penetrate and they all do.

3/8" of mild steel is DR 21, 6.8 should penetrate and the others should not.  By ONE FREAKING POINT OF DAMAGE!!!  I guess this is what a single point of damage looks like.

I am not sure it really GURPS, but its a marginal case.  That 6.8 round went through with more than a point left over.  There's a ±10% fudge factor built into the rules that might help account for it.  Adding 10% to the 6d+1 brings us to 7d-1 and that averages 23 points of damage...  It still seems like it's carrying more through than 2 points.

It's not really a difference in bullet construction, they're all plastic tip rounds.  If anything the DR of everything should be doubled because they're all (0.5) pi+ rounds because expanding ammo!

I'd say it almost GURPS.

35% Raises

I did the math.  Harvey got a 17% increase in pay over the past four years.

I see that the IAMAW is demanding about twice that from Boeing over the next four years.

I will admit, they're demanding their pay keeps up with inflation and, unlike Harvey, can extort it from their employer.

But, over and over, with unions in manufacturing: their salary increase has to come from somewhere and it inevitably comes from the white collar side.

You know, the high salary, experienced, engineers; leaving cheaper and less experienced engineers to do the job.

And people are actually surprised when quality drops.

With Boeing, the IAMAW might be learning what Caterpillar workers did.  The minimum wage is $0 an hour when your company either dramatically contracts or goes under altogether.  Boeing appears to be aiming at the latter from a lack of wins lately.

Survival Is Inefficient

Reading this I am reminded of study after study talking about how big, nuclear carriers are more efficient than smaller ones.

Those studies are correct.  A big CVN like Ford is more efficient than resurrecting something like an SCB-125 Essex class.

The total number of aircraft carried is similar, but the super carriers carried larger and more capable planes.

Oriskany carried five squadrons of 12 planes each.  2x F-8 Crusader and 3x A-4 Skyhawk squadrons.

Forrestal carried five squadrons too.  2x F-4 Phantoms, 2x A-4 Skyhawk and 1x A-6 Intruder.  A lot more capable.

That's as close to apples and apples comparison as I can get with CV v CVL.

The modernized Essex boats were getting long in the tooth when the decision to go all CVN super carriers was made.  They were more expensive to operate than conventionally powered super carriers at the time.

I wonder if the math is different now.

Admitting we lose efficiency, but gain survivability with three lighter carriers with 2/3 the aircraft each as a Ford for the same shipbuilding cost might be worth it in a real fight.  If nothing else, the enemy has to get 3x as lucky to get rid of all the carriers.

Yes, I understand that 3 ships for only twice the planes is less efficient.  It's a given.

But I've always wondered if we took a Wasp or America class LHD/LHA and put an angled deck on it if we'd have a winner.

An America is $3.4b.  A Ford is $13b.

It's worth thinking about.  If they MUST be nuclear powered, steal the reactor from a Virginia class sub and get some benefit of standardization!  Don't forget you're going to need two...

What I am reminded of is an old GDW game set in Traveller: Trillion Credit Squadron.

What worked for me, over and over, was a larger fleet of mid-range ships over a small fleet of expensive ones.  It would often overcome a TL advantage from my opponent.

I am not reassured that China appears to be using my strategy...

Ch Ch Ch Changes

Technomancer's Merlin-1 is an alternate history.

It specifically states that unless they mention it, history runs as it did in our world.

I've made an alt of an alt...  Where the chimera veterans of Vietnam decide that, rather than return home to where they're subject to bigotry, they sign on in significant numbers to help keep the filthy Commies from taking over in Rhodesia.  They win here too.

Merlin-4?

It's my my world and I can change it if I want to...

And it's a small change.

In 1956 the United States Army adopts the S&W model 39 (X100 to get technical) as the Pistol, 9mm M4. 

Funny New Guys

GURPS came up with a world called Merlin.  It's the centerpiece of GURPS: Technomancer.

Technomancer was set in the same year it was published, 1998.

One divergence from our home timeline, in addition to magic coming from the Trinity Event, is the US winning the Vietnam war.

A small supplement for Merlin covering playing in 'Nam, Funny New Guys, came out in 2004 and is set in 1962 through 1975.

A staple, to me, of Technomancer was the chimera.  Partially human, partially animal to some degree.

Full chimara are more animal looking than human.  Half-chimera are more human with animal traits.

The animals listed are Cats, Coyote, Foxes, Hawks, Snakes, and Spiders.

The cat is a mountain lion or puma.

The coyote is what it seems.

The fox is a gray fox.

Hawks are likely red tail hawks.

Snakes are diamond back rattlers.

Spiders are red-leg tarantulas. 

You might notice that cats, coyotes, and foxes have fur.  Hawks have feathers.  Spiders are hairy.

Humans aren't furry.

Vietnam is wet and muddy.

Bare skin is unpleasant enough with mud and wet; but FUR?

I have made several full-snake chimera characters for this setting, but never a furry one.

I've considered a spider.

Because They're The Canaries In The Coal Mine

I've been asked why I'm so concerned about Jews and people hating on Jews when I am not, in fact, Jewish.

Because the people who hate and murder Jews have no compunctions about killing other groups.

The Holocaust is a great example.

Jews were the majority of the people killed in the death camps, but they were not the only people killed in the death camps.

In all likelihood, when the last Jew is up the chimney, the people who killed them will begin to look for others to keep the camps in business.

Radical Islam, for example, has a long list of non-Jews they wanna whack.  That list will not get shorter once they've done for Israel.

Not that I expect them to manage the task.

Of course, it sure looks like a large chunk of the Islamic world is fine with Israel ending the Iran problem, and if that takes the radical Islam problem with it...

Analysis True

They're BAAAAAAAACK

It would appear that the Snowbirds have returned to Florida early this year.

US19 was choked with them today.

It distresses me that I have to increase the level of driving aggression so that I can get to clear air and set the cruise at the speed limit.

It's that or suffer at ten under and try to interpret the random engagement of brake lights on the car in front of me with the New York/Virginia/Massachusetts plates.

Someones Clearance Needs Revoked

Apparently, Israel's entire battle plan with regards to Iran was leaked from the US.

I remember when leaking classified materials was a crime.

The problem I have about getting too upset about this is how often we used to catch Israel doing espionage here and against our interests.  Look it up!

I generally support their right to exist and I don't think that Iran having the detailed plans will help them much.

It's like Mike Tyson walking up to you and saying, "I am going to hit you in the face with my right fist."

There's fuck all you can do about it unless you are a heavyweight boxer in your own right.

Obligatory

Today is 10-22, so we post the obligatory 10-22.

You've Got Your French In My German

I don't know where I came up with "hue and drang" but it appears that I'm combining stock phrases.

The hue comes from hue and cry.

The drang comes from sturm und drang.

I went looking for the etymology of hue and drang and discovered that it's found only on an obscure blog originating from Florida.

In other words, ME.

They're not even remotely related phrases in meaning!

The thing is, I am pretty sure I'm repeating someone else who said it enough for it to stick in my memory and become part of my vernacular.

Arthritis

Did some saber drills today.

My wrist hurts.

No surprise.  I'm old and arthritic.

A familiar burn is in my forearm.  Exercise is good, right?

Two Weeks

It seems strange that after four eight solid years of the press shitting on Trump that we're just two weeks from four more years of the press shitting on Trump.

It doesn't even matter if he's president-elect on November 6, 2024.

After all the sturm und drang about Trump for the past eight years, I am perfectly willing to accept literally Hitler just to get them to shut up.

I'm a party member, after all, and we get sent to the camps last.

A Quibble

In The Three Musketeers Planchet is not a squire.

Planchet is a lackey.

Despite the modern usage of the term as a toady, in the 1600's it's an honorable profession.

The amusing thing is that this came up during gaming once.

A player was looking for a way to make his character fit in and I suggested the job of lackey.

He initially balked, but I got to explain that it was much sought after position.

A noble gentleman without a lackey is less than whole.

Batman and valet are equivalent.

5.56 For Home Defence And General Looter Repellent

There's been a flurry of YouTube vids that have been suggested for my perusal about what is the best 5.56x45mm for home defense.

They're mostly focused on how the very affordable M855 isn't really all that good for social use.

It always mentions that M193 isn't ideal either.

I feel like I need to remind some of these pundits that 55gr M193 has killed more people than every other version of 5.56x45mm combined.

Both rounds work at social distances.  Even a barrel so short you have to call your AR a pistol or pay for a stamp will with either at the ranges you're going to see inside your house.

The main problem with SS109 and M855 rounds is indifferent quality control and the steel portion of the round not being precisely located inside the jacket.  That affects accuracy.

Many range forbid M855 rounds because they tend to chew up the back-stop or are a spark and fire hazard.

That sucks because it's affordable.

I prefer 69gr Sierra Match King for social purposes.

I would not, however, feel unarmed if I had to resort to one of the 1:12 twist retro guns firing M193.

PS: If one of the aforementioned looters makes me use my heavier-than-an-FAL M16A4 clone to repel them, they are going to die.  Even if I have to beat them to death with a flip-flop.  Gods I dislike that thing.  Even if it IS an accurate rifle, it's too gorram heavy.

Fair Weather Fans

It's no secret that I'm a Hockey fan.

The local team is having a bad couple games.

This had led to cries for the coach and goalie to be fired by people that I don't consider fans.

Players have bad days.

Coaches have bad days.

Teams have bad runs.

It's the nature of sports.

NIMBY

We have a "low barrier" homeless shelter near here.

It's on the grounds of a defunct assisted care living facility.

It's a bunch of one-room mini-houses and what I'd call FEMA trailers.

Joy.

What low barrier means is homeless people who are ineligible for normal shelters because of their criminal and/or drug histories.

It has a decidedly temporary appearance, and I hope that it is.

The people it's intended for are NOT good neighbors.

I am not sure if it's a coincidence, or not, that we had someone riding our doorbell at 0430 this morning.

That stopped when both Harvey and I lit up the window in the front door with our weapon lights.

I don't want that to become a regular occurrence.  Someone is liable to get shot.

Life Support

The AC was cycling off and on last night on The Beast.

Plenty cold, but at the desired temperature, it was alternating warm and cold.  Full cold would stay cold.

With the over computerized climate control system, that's a symptom of being a little low on Freon R134a.

So I hooked up my gauges and put my thermometer in the vent.

Running about 50psi low on the high side, 25psi low on the low side and 8 degrees warm at the vent.

So I added a little R134a and now the pressures and temperature are perfect!

I wonder how much this would have cost to take to a shop.

She Handles

We've a local road that's good and twisty.

I've long been the kind of hot-rodder that builds the car to handle rather than for the 1/4 mile.

Although all I've done handling wise to The Beast is fix the suspension, it's shown itself to be wonderfully sure footed.

The gigantic Brembo brakes from the previous owner's mods are a bonus to handling too.

Tonight I left a C6 Z06 in the dust on this twisty road.

He's a friend and he doesn't DO twisty roads from what I've seen.  He's modded his Vette to be very quick in a straight line and ignores the handling potential.

It means that I can get ahead and stay ahead despite fewer horses and more mass.

Once I'd gotten back on normal roads and set the cruise to 5 over, it took him 6 miles to catch up.

Bwahahahahaha!

For Entertainment Purposes Only?

Colion Noir tries to put a game face on it and insist on complete coverage.

But Donald really did say that guns are for entertainment purposes when he mentions the more important reasons.

Ooops.  That's a soundbite that we're going to be hearing a lot.

The thing is, he didn't really answer the question.

Explain his policies to the parents of the victims of school shootings.

I can explain it.

The reason your kids are dead is because people like the questioner demanded that schools be gun free victim zones where the criminal could shoot as many children as he wanted while the police impotently stand a safe distance away, in effect facilitating the murders.

That millions of Americans own guns that are identical to these murderous criminals is irrelevant to school shootings.  Millions of Americans don't shoot anyone every day.

Yes, I am getting fucking cold blooded about this.

It comes from being continually blamed for the failings of others.

High Middle And Low

Fantasy role-playing often has trouble with feudalism.

The games were written by egalitarian informed authors for an egalitarian audience.

Fantasy is right in the name of the genre.

Traveller is where I first noticed some of what I later learned.

Nobles in a feudal society can mete out justice without consulting a higher authority.  All the way up to and including the death penalty.

Only under very specific circumstances will their decision even be questioned, let alone challenged.  Judge, jury and executioner is the noble who can give justice high and low.

You get a lot for a simple dice roll in Traveller.  Your points can go a long way in GURPS, depending on if the GM has considered something I pondered a while ago.

The implications always hit me when watching The Four Musketeers when Athos, as the Comte de la Fere, sentences Milady to death without a trial.  He's empowered by his title to do so.

It's not really so clear cut in real life, there are, of course, rules for when a count can sentence someone to death.  Milady de Winter is a very clear cut case of someone, whom once caught by someone with the powers to do so, can be executed without trial because she's had her trial and condemnation years ago.

But in gaming...

A GM will have to spend a lot of time and effort figuring out the checks and balances of the society they've created and communicating it to the players.

I've played in several worlds where I understood the feudal power structure better than my GM and where they ended up deferring to MY judgement about it when they should have been telling be how their world differed from medieval France.

Beautiful Mess

The new, French, version of The Three Musketeers is beautifully shot, wonderfully acted, gorgeous camera work.

And it's a jumbled mess.

The divide the party and hopping back and forth needs more connecting tissue.

I found myself constantly focusing on remembering who is who and where they are and not paying attention to the closed-captions and having to rewind sections.

Reading a movie sucks, but this one is worse.

Worth the slog, but not twice.

Never mind the costuming and weaponry are about 100 years more recent than the setting...

Traveller vs Ogre

I've had a vision, in my head that an Ogre cybertank was the ultimate, invincible armored vehicle.

Without nukes they cannot penetrate the armor of a Third Imperium grav tank.

The fusion gun of the grav tank needs a lucky hit to penetrate the frontal armor of an Ogre mkVI, but it can.

If the Imperium uses proper combined arms tactics, and the Imperial Army normally does, then the most effective weapons the Ogre have will be nullified.

A battlefield nuclear damper field will put a... um... damper on the effectiveness of the normal nuclear projectiles from the primary and secondary guns.  Even without this protection, the VRF gauss gun on point defense mode is prolly sufficient to keep nukes from being effective.  The point defense X-Ray laser is even better at the job.

We'll just ignore the meson gunned artillery units that even the thickest bi-phased carbide armor can't stop.  A perfectly intact Ogre without a mark on it and no brain...

This assumes the Imperium wishes to land troops.

They could drop things from orbit.

Lots of rocks out there to drop from orbit.

The Emperor doesn't LIKE dangerously radioactive glass balls in Their Imperium.

Dangerously radioactive glass balls don't pay much in the way of taxes and are hardly a reward when you create a new noble and grant them a fief.

Again?

The Army is looking to find a replacement for the venerable Chinook.

Does SIG make helicopters?

They've been trying to replace the CH-47 since I was in the Army.  It never ends well.

Should Have Kept His Head Down

Apparently a criminal who hacked the Securities and Exchange Commission's X account got hissef caught by searching for, "How Can I Know for Sure If I Am Being Investigated by the FBI?"

Ooops.

It probably wasn't the Google search that got him.  They prolly were on to him and we know about the search from their monitoring.

A rare case of the FBI doing what we think we're paying them to do!

I Have A Better Plan

Failed Presidential Candidate John "Three Purple Hearts" Kerry considers the 1st Amendment a problem in combating "disinformation."

First off, WOW!

Saying the quiet part out loud that loudly is amazing.

Remember when Democrats were the staunch defenders of the 1st Amendment and the Republicans were the theocratic censors?

Me too.

But I have a 1st Amendment friendly solution to "disinformation."

Critical thinking.

I know we don't teach that in school anymore because people who are even passable with critical thinking are difficult to dupe.

Our current form of government simply cannot have a population that's difficult to dupe!

I'd love to see our public schools teach the Three R's for the first few years, with rigid pass-fail no-advancement grading; then progress to teaching personal finance, critical thinking and civics.

You want all that squishy, touchy-feely social studies crap: Go to college and pay for it yourself.

The public teat should only be dispensing useful citizens.

Beeep Weeeeet Booop Weet

I wonder how many times R2-D2 tried to warn people that Darth Vader was actually Anakin Skywalker before just giving up because only C-3P0 could translate and Threepio kept getting his memory wiped.

Why Do We Do It

It's been a topic of much conversation lately why do we Floridians live in a state that keeps getting hit with hurricanes?

That's why!

A perfect day.

We get a lot of them, actually.  Starting about this time of year and running into late spring, Florida has gorgeous weather.

In my 27 years of living here we've only had three storms that were noteworthy; here on the Sun Coast.  The typical named storm isn't as bad as a line of thunderstorms in the Midwest.  The Midwest gets one of those, at least, once a week.  Most of the named storms that hit Florida aren't above Cat 1, and people don't realize just how localized the damage is from bigger storms.

Ian devastated where it hit.  We didn't even lose power.  Milton was bad in Sarasota, but not so much here a mere 60 miles away.  Helene was far worse for North Carolina than here, despite being much further inland than I am!

In those same 27 years, the Midwest has gotten 27 winters.  The fun parts of winter are far exceeded by the bad parts and I am sick of the bad parts.  Yet I still own an ice scraper for my car...

Bleeding Hearts And Artists

I, sometimes, wonder if the accusations of fascism towards Starship Troopers is the thundering realization on the accuser's part that they would be excluded from citizenship.

Not many veterans in the Hollywoodland landscape or press rooms.

WE wouldn't get to vote or have any direct say in how the government was run?  But we're the highly educated (HA!  Not actors!) elite!  Any system that keeps US from being an actual elite must be fascist!

Even I would be excluded from the franchise, I took a medical before my term was completed.  I think, though, that if my vote was on the line I would have demanded alternate service for that last year (as is my right under the system shown).

I don't let it worry me.

I am constantly amused and worried that the things that are often cited in Starship Troopers as being fascist are present in our current mode of government, and the critic cannot see what they're doing.

So much for highly educated.

"Like most intellectuals, he's intensely stupid." -- Marquise de Merteuil

Stupid Idea

I am fascinated with the idea of an overhead cam, underhead valve engine.

And I don't know why!

Such an engine would suck.

It's still an interesting engineering exercise though.

ONE MORE TIME!

In my never ending quest to explain that the government in Starship Troopers isn't any more fascist than our very own...

Fascism is:

Any program for setting up a centralized autocratic national regime with severely nationalistic policies, exercising regimentation of industry, commerce, and finance, rigid censorship and forcible suppression of opposition.

First!  It's not an autocracy.  It's a representative democracy with a different eligibility requirements for both the candidates and the voters.  Not enough information is given in the text to determine how centralized government power is, but we can infer that it's not too different from 1959 USA.

No evidence is given showing that the federation is any more (or less) nationalistic than 1959 USA.

We have Juan Rico's own father as an example that the regimentation of industry, commerce and finance are decidedly not following fascism.

Emilio isn't a citizen.  He cannot vote.  He's, therefore, not a Party member.  Yet he owns a company that manufactures something.  He mentions, in passing, that his business is not on a war footing in a way that says that it's his decision.  He makes his own arrangements to leave the business to Juan should he not survive his eventual decision to join the Army; he even got to choose his own caretaker while he was away.

Free speech is mentioned in little different terms than we would in regards to censorship.

By the standards of the people attributing fascism to Starship Troopers, Stripes is also fascist!

Racism

The TLDW on this is the perpetrator blames the victims and police because they were racists.

Never mind the lengthy criminal histories of the siblings and extensive history of speeding, reckless driving and street racing.

The lack of remorse is a direct result of the race card working too well for too long.

There are racists in this case, and it's not the dead white people.

Scam

I've been reading in several places that the tank exchange places only give you 15lb in a 20lb tank of propane.

The local Home Depot wants $23 for an exchange and 3.6 gallons.

The local U-Haul sold me 4.5 gallons (18.5 lb.) for less than $17.

Because It Never Ends

It just hit me that we're three weeks from Election Day.

Almost snuck up on me.

Considering that it's been full campaign for...

For fuck's sake they've been in campaign mode since W was elected.

We used to get a couple of years off after every presidential election and the mid-presidential term House elections barely made the news.

Now it's all in all the time.

I want my peaceable years back.

Double Hurricane Reset

Going a couple days without the internet had the effect of making me remember there's lots of entertainment that doesn't involve being connected to it.

Despite using a computer to play the music, I've been sitting here doing pretty much what I was doing 40 years ago...

Listening to a playlist and reading a book.

The main difference is not having to have pre-made the mix-tape first.

Which means I need to actually get up, walk across the room, and remember what I wanted to blog about...

I find I've got a lot less material to blog when I'm not ramming my head against THE STUPID like I would be if I was scouring the intertubes.

Kinda relaxing.

Cover And Merge

Someone named Sable did a metalized version of "Just Dance" by Lady Gaga.

Someone else blended them together.

I rather like the result.