RIFLEMAN'S JOURNAL - DECEMBER 2007

Washougal show! Still not sure what I'm looking for in a sporting rifle, and not in a po$ition to buy yet anyway. For some reason I'm leaning toward 7mm-08 for a cartridge. But while waiting for the AVG scan to finish so I can go online and check email before leaving, slogging through the backed-up photos on the damaged camera's undamaged memory card. Here are some of the Lone Oak club outside Longview, particularly the rifle range where the 200y CMP matches are held. Here are the targets from the firing line:

The benches, showing the gravel area in front where match shooters lay their prone mats:

A few Jovian thunderbolts (the Queen is in front, second from left):

The retractable targets and spotter disks in action; the red disk's position indicates the score of each shot, while the contrasting black or white disk shows the POI:

The target pit:

A standard SR target, showing the scoring indicator positions (back on the firing line, each shooter has a little card showing the pattern):

And now, here's a couple of TowerZilla, which came with six fans, a bazillion LEDs, wireless, USB 2.0, CD/DVD R/W, and loads of other stuff - note the jet-engine-looking CPU fan; it has a flashing white LED in front and a steady red one in the exhaust, though that doesn't show in these photos:

The generosity of my readers and the Gun Culture continues to astonish me. And here are the trophies I had made for the Plate Match - one for each division, then a slightly larger one for overall - I'll be getting 2008's trophies soon, so I can have them on display during next year's matches:

Withdrew cash first but bought nothing - still a small show, though they're going monthly starting in March and have plans to expand. Spent the money on fuel and groceries instead.

Recently I had an opportunity to watch the first season of Jericho. Which is pretty darn good, amazingly so for broadcast TV and astonishingly for one of the Old Media networks; I'm surprised they allowed such content, never mind actually generating it. So naturally, like Firefly, it's cancelled....

Shopping for a replacement digital camera. The FinePix A345 still works except for the display, which as stated would cost more to repair than a whole new (and more advanced) camera. (Now don't nobody go buying me one! Sportsman's Warehouse gift certificates would be perfect, that's where I buy most of my reloading components....) Ideally I'll find one for $150 or less that uses xD cards and takes decent video, like the clips Yuri put on his site after the last Plate Match. Still looking, suggestions welcome. -Okay, Extra-Special-SF-Geek-No-Prize to the first person who identifies the source of the word "doid" being used as a verb!

A bit of snow today, not sticking but the mere sight of it is enough to drive some of these useless cityfolk into full hysterics. I got (the correct size...) $20 cable chains for my $500 front-wheel-drive Corolla beater months ago, thinking bloody ahead dammit. And another thing! Great big effing signs a mile before your exit and you JUST NOW realize you have to change lanes! Of course the people that's directed toward aren't likely to be reading this site....

As a recovering comicoholic I never completely quit following the comic-book world, and I've heard of the Civil War in the Marvel universe - and the inevitable comparisons to civilian disarmament and cultural warfare. Now RH Junior is taking his own swipe at it. Interesting.

1679 - Sunday, 2 December 2007: Zzz!

On the show and in chat, the Heller (DC ban) case in SCOTUS.

New bumper sticker:

In the news, Venezuelan communist Hugo Chavez becoming President for Life. Where's the Committee for Aesthetic Deletions?

Okay, I'm looking for a digital camera for $150 or less, with a $200 maximum. Ideally it will take the xD cards I've already invested in. And, it will take 640x480 video in some useful format, meaning not .AVI. Ain't found one yet. No great hurry; there's a chance I'll get a good clearance price after the holidays anyway, and the A345 does still work; I'll be using it at the club Turkey Shoot this Saturday, the old-fashioned viewfinder still works including zoom.

Hm, 'puter problems persist. Programs running slowly, mouse cursor moving jerkily, sound playing Max-Headroom-y. Investigating. Grisoft AVG not finding anything. The last significant thing I did was try to install my old copy of Descent I; I tried to test the sound card and got garbled noise out. Pretty sure that's when it started. I've removed that whole directory - it was a DOS-style installation and shouldn't have made any changes in XP - and restarted several times, along with the usual Disk Cleanup and Defrag, but that's not fixing it. In the worst case, with the SP2 CD now in hand, reinstalling XP isn't as big a nightmare as previously. Backing up some files to CD this time.

1680 - Monday, 3 December 2007: Vista sux. Don't get it.

Really Very Wet. Localized flooding, or at least standing water, including the call center parking lot, though the Corolla was unaffected. One of the major freeways (US217) (which traditionally sux in its own right) on the west side temporarily closed, though not one I take for this job.

Laundromat after work, then finally back to hovel. At least it doesn't leak. Message from DA: my property still being held, now indefinitely, as another suspect will soon be indicted but is presently at large and that will be a whole other trial. New estimate April. At least this DA is expressing sympathy and coming up with a plausible explanation. And returning my calls. I'll check in monthly I guess.

Still, my skin crawls every time I have to interact with law enforcement....

The HP tower - which has been done and redone so many times by this point the only HP thing about it is the logo on the chassis - is still not running as nicely as it was just a few days ago, but doesn't seem to be getting worse. Turkey Shoot this Saturday, then recovering from it this Sunday; next weekend, no Pin Shoot, I think I'll try another backup-and-wipe. BTW, someone at work believes that the OEM XP CD can be Activated only three times without being locked, but says it's a simple matter to then call MicroSnot and explain "my machine had a virus and I wiped it" - which is essentially true even.

Oh, and I'm likely working Christmas (I already expected to work the 26th, when people open their gifts (and won't that be interesting in the sense of the ancient Chinese curse?)), but that will be after my 90 days and I should get the functional equivalent of double pay for those eight hours.

Trying to finish 1634: The Bavarian Crisis by tomorrow, when it's due, 'cause no book in a series this popular will be renewable this soon after it's release. Next in the stack is Kratman's A Desert Called Peace, first of at least three in what appears to be an inverse-Jihad series - and I might get interrupted reading those for the same reason.

Oh, and the news was that Chavez failed to become President for Life. This time. Expect a new round of Disappearances.

Recently, to the detriment of my productivity and MSOE Inbox, I discovered Abandonia, whereat I discovered, available for free download, scads of games I haven't played for years, if-ever-but-wanted-to. I was up way too late last night with Ultima V. Now someone at work points out The Underdogs. I hardly dare look at this point.

1681 - Tuesday, 4 December 2007: Vista still sux.

Sitting in my car outside the library I finally finished 1634: TBC, all 670-odd pages of it. Gods, what a rat's nest! Plots, counterplots, subplots, elopements, betrayals, adventures mis- and otherwise, politiks real and otherwise, descents into madness and occasional deeds of derring-do - made my head hurt. Yet still compelling as the entire series has been. Now starting Kratman's ADCP, which I expect to be faster-paced.

Email backed up again.

1682 - Wednesday, 5 December 2007: You know what should be done? Find an infant descendant of JMB, abduct him or her, and raise the kid to be a software engineer. For the greater good of humanity.

Kratman is maturing as a writer. I actually took one writing course during my mostly-wasted college years and one of the things that stuck with me was, "write what you know." Col. Kratman has Seen and Been and Done and knows what he writes (and good gods for how many centuries will historians be re-re-re-dissecting the Battle of Midway? Not that there's anything wrong with that; I might go back and finish Shattered Sword someday after all; it was the decisive point of the war in the Pacific, which I myself have compared to Lee at Antietam, I know that much history). Anyone who's visited his site can see he's using his own family as a template for the protagonist's but there's nothing wrong with that either; George Lucas, moonbat though he may be, pointed out that having actual people in the droid suits added an "enormous package of reality" to his story.

1683 - Thursday, 6 December 2007: I just had a favorable 90-day review and got a raise. I was called a "team player". First time that's happened. (I often lean over and help my cubemates with stuff. In the names of Efficiency and Competence. One or two even leave their cubes and walk over to mine for help.) Perfect attendance too, which apparently is Unusual in this degenerate age.

Hmm.

Between 'puter problems and poopedness, email still way backed up.

1684 - Friday, Pearl Harbor Day, 7 December 2007: Honestly, some of the products I'm called upon to "support" are simply crap. And, it's beginning to look like one or two of the new ones may be as well. Or in the latter case it could just be that Vista sux. Last call of the day, a simple install I'm thinking - first there's a language barrier, then the person claims to be a software engineer but gets lost on a Windows desktop (and Vista isn't that different from XP or even Win2K or Win98). Some fumbling with cables, the Crappily Written Installation Software, and the setup poster which I find decipherable but... that's a separate rant, and I end up an hour past the end of my shift. Then, I try a simple thing: send a replacement consumable. And it DOESN'TBLOODYWORKDAMMIT. Because, as was theorized after another quarter-hour after I got off the phone, the new product is so new it hasn't been put properly into the system yet.

And then Friday traffic and packs of subliterate third-worlders wasting my tax money at the supermarket and the 'puter still isn't right.

Gah. Don't expect me to catch up on email until Monday or so - I'm getting up early tomorrow too, to help set up the Turkey Shoot.

...Other products aren't crap but the installation software is, as are the skimpy instructions. Hence the other day's JMB Descendant Abduction Plot. Grump. At least I'm not bored at work.

1685 - Saturday, 8 December 2007: I did not win a turkey at the 2nd annual club Turkey Shoot.

Why?

Because I didn't fire a round all day.

Why?

Because, first, I chose to not take a rifle, even the Queen, for the rifle competition - which turned out to be a wise conservation of ammunition as that event was full of scoped Remchesters and the occasional Eee-Vill Black Tacti-Sniper and there was no metallic-sight division:

The Queen might have been able to compete - she's shown evidence of it - but I wouldn't have. Second, I was kind of leaning toward competing in the 2x4 action handgun section in the afternoon - I even thought of taking the Witness, to make bigger holes, though I decided against it until I've had more practice with it - but halfway to the club I realized I had forgotten to pack the GP100's ammunition! D'oh. But that turned out to be just as well too - not so much for the competition, though it was stiff, with a couple Bullseye shooters scaring the heck out of everyone else until they were somehow defeated in the final round, but rather because it was a bigger and more time-consuming event than the Plate Match I run every month, with four shooters live-firing on the line at the same time instead of just two - and since I do run Plates I was the natural draftee to run 2x4s, not that I minded. The former Plates director and a couple Plates regulars helped immensely. I'm getting lots of handgun competition now, my own Plate Match all year and the Pin Shoot most months; my skills won't atrophy (and I won't have to spend as much on ammunition) if I skip the 2x4s. I'll probably do the same next year, though by that time I might have acquired a scoped rifle of my own, who knows.

So I didn't win a turkey. However, in the door prize drawing after, I scored a $25 Sportsman's Warehouse gift certificate (that's a brick of primers!) and a Sportsman's Warehouse cap (one of the Plate regulars - John Goss, who whups most people most months and took the Rimfire trophy for this year - single-handedly scored SW sponsorship for this club generally and his own Sharpshooter precision rifle event particularly). I usually wear a wide-brimmed hat, but I can't use my electronic muffs with it because of the crosspiece design. Now I have a range hat I can wear muffs over. Everyone who attended got an additional $10 SW certificate too, and furthermore, during cleanup, I scored ¾ of a Macaroon Fudge Torte not quite a foot in diameter. :-9 And, no one seemed to get ticked at how I ran 2x4s; everyone got to shoot at least twice using much the same double-elimination format I use for Plates (my fine-tuning of which over the past year or so is another reason I was picked to run this event). Pretty good day at the club, considering I didn't fire a single round.

On the way up I almost forgot about the Barberton show - it's very slightly out of the way to the club so I swung in for a quick look, but nothing leapt out at me. I did see a Ruger M77 all-weather model, stainless/synthetic/scoped/no sights, no price marked by the time I left (vendors were still setting up); it was in 7.62x39mm according to the barrel stamp. (And what bore diameter is that in this instance?) Not that it was what I was looking for in a sporter, quite; for some reason I'm really interested in a 7mm-08, and the only two likely candidates for a platform are the Remington Model Seven and the Savage. The latter, a year or three ago, was offering what they called a Scout model, with a desirable aperture receiver sight for maximum sight radius, in that chambering as well as the expected .308, and with the forward scope mount. That might be exactly the rifle I'm looking for (the only things missing are a charger guide and a bayonet lug (and a 22mm NATO grenade-launching flash-hider but that would reduce sight radius or increase overall length...)) but I expect a heck of a time finding one, and then affording it. Could take months, while I'm also trying (really!) to raise a $afety fund, not least for pre-emptive Corolla replacement.

Along those lines though, I received my "kicker" check today, $171.12, a fraction of what bloated and wasteful state government stole from me during 2006 but not insignificant to the usual state of my finances. So I might actually be getting ahead on money, a little. Now watch one of those commuter turboprops wipe out the hovelplex while I'm at work next week. Or I'll get robbed at badgepoint. Or something. A Pessimist Can Only Be Pleasantly Surprised.

Oh, let me show you a Sighting:

That's a (pre-Sellout of course) S&W M29, with 8(& 3/8?)" barrel with what appear to be factory Weaver spots milled in the barrel and rib. ...Want (though I'd want mine 6(& ½?)" I think). Anyone ever heard of such a thing before?

Obviously the camera still works fine except it's not as convenient without a functioning LCD. So no hurry to get a new camera.

Kratman's A Desert Called Peace strikes me as... thoroughly considered. And that makes it interesting.

1686 - Sunday, 9 December 2007: What a week! Zzz.

Email! Some. From CMP, physical conditioning for highpower rifle competition; sling use.

From Tucson Tom, border skirmishes (1, 2, 3).

Reader sends: Brits Rebel Against Revenuers (a little - even though generations of socialism have neutered and declawed the British Lion, they're getting tired of being robbed at badgepoint too).

From the lists, chocolate ammunition; commentary on unarmed victim zones; eyewitness interview on a recent incident in one. "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, twenty-seven times is enemy action." One begins to wonder if Ted Turner is recruiting these creatures to prop up CNN's ratings. -On the show is an unconfirmed report that the "NO GUNS" signs have been removed at that mall, hmm.

1687 - Monday, 10 December 2007: Now the other software tool, the one to actually send and track replacement products, goes down corporation-wide. Maybe someone installed Vista on it....

Pecking at email.

1688 - Wednesday, 12 December 2007: Work. Tired.

Quote o' the Day: "Government allocation of resources enhances the potential for human conflict, while market allocation reduces it. That also applies to contentious national issues such as Social Security and health care. You take care of your retirement and health care as you please, and I'll take care of mine as I please. If you prefer socialized retirement and health care, that's fine if you don't force others to participate. I'm afraid most Americans view such a liberty-oriented solution with hostility. They believe they have a right to enlist the brute forces of government to impose their preferences on others." - Walter Williams

Col. Kratman spins an interesting tale of war as it is, and as it should be. Recommended.

Email this weekend maybe. Busy and pooped.

1689 - Saturday, Bill of Rights Day, 15 December 2007: Zzzzz! First weekend more or less to myself in a while.

Not doing much Christmas shopping; therefore I'm done already. Gift cards.

'Puter slowly getting slower. Jump online, get latest AVG update, disconnect, full scan - nothing found. Hmm. It was running relatively well until I tried to install Descent I and tested the sound card. So, first I'll peck at email a bit, then I'll try just reinstalling Windows XP, now that I have the SP2 CD.

Reader sends, Pro-Abortion Cop Fired for Harrassment. Note: "He had a whole series of other disciplines, and this was it. He crossed the line." Uh huh. And if he didn't have the Magic Badge how long would he have lasted?

Yes, Virginia, there is media bias. Anyone who doesn't believe that shouldn't be allowed loose in public unsupervised.

Reader sends this product review:

Gun Folks are just the coolest people on the planet, y'know?

Sent by a reader, I'm not sure what to make of this. The LE response is certainly chilling where the 1st Amendment is concerned though.

Tucson Tom sends Gestapo wannabe caught in the act. I might have to get one of those recorder thingies....

Reader sends Savage Scout page. More study is required but I'm beginning to see some desirable design features in the Savage action, like the separable bolt head, replaceable bolt handle, and easier-change barrel.

Reader sends Gun-Free Zone Liability Act. Way too logical.

Oleg Volk of course. And again, as in Never.

Tucson Tom sends border outrage and activism.

Yuri sends... whoa. Worth the bandwidth.

Thought: if armed citizens on Flight 93 had prevented the hijacking and the crash, most people today would not be aware there were four planes hijacked on 11 September 2001. Even so one can see that because of true heroes like Beamer and Glick, MSM wishes the whole thing would Just Go Away....

Thought: Hornady One-Shot case lube as a direct firearm lube?

Finished A Desert Called Peace, including afterword rant from a fully-qualified ranter who has been and done, immediately starting next volume, Carnifex. 3rd volume (of a possible eight), Caliphate, already in my hold queue. This is good stuff, especially if you're frustrated at how the war in this world is going.

Beginning Windows XP/SP2 reinstall....

My Home Edition v2002 CD refused to reinstall, citing a later version (i.e. SP2) already installed. So, I tried just the SP2 CD, and that did... something, though if anything the machine runs slower now. Looks like another backup and wipe after all, phooey. Now if I can get some more files burned to CD I'll have fewer to transfer... doing that, slowly. Lots of .PDFs.

New thought: rather than wipe and restore the 75Gb drive currently in the HP, take the (de-?)wormed 120Gb from TowerZilla, wipe that, and do a truly fresh install of XP Home 2002 & SP2, hmm. -The HP should run adequately for tomorrow's chat session though. And I am mostly caught up with email.

1690 - Sunday, 16 December 2007: O precious zzzzz.

Continuing to burn .PDFs to CD. At least that's working, mostly. This wipe-and-reinstall will take longer than I thought. -Or I'm procrastinating. Either way I have accumulated a lot of .PDFs; firearm and other product manuals, some activism stuff, club newsletters going back a couple years, heaps of Wowio ebooks, etc. Soon I'll reach a point where my USB devices can take over - my 2GB drive and the 1GB xD card in my card reader. (I've also got the USB 2.0 card transferred from TowerZilla to the less-current-hungry HP box, and working.)

Oh darn! I forgot the OAC show this morning! Shrug, I needed sleep anyway.

Vin rants.

Now that I have income, contemplating modularness for the Witness. I can order entire kits to convert the large-frame Witness to any of six cartridges and three lengths, hmm. A 9x19mm compact conversion would give me 18 rounds in approximately a Commander size, which would be a lot cheaper to feed besides having better balance. Doing some holster drill with the .45 Witness as it stands, with long slide and integral compensator, indicates that the pistol I now have is front-heavy and slower to draw. Hmm.

1691 - Monday, 17 December 2007: A significant portion of this work day was spent cleaning up other people's electronic messes. *&^% incompetents.

You may have seen the SCA bumper sticker, "If they outlaw guns can we use swords?" Reader sends that they'll just outlaw those too.

The Founders' Intent.

1692 - Wendesday, 19 December 2007: Yesterday I didn't 'blog 'cause I was pooped. Today I'm not 'blogging 'cause the HP box is getting worse and I'm backing up to the NEC again.

1693 - Friday, 21 December 2007: Looks like I'm about done re-re-re-nuking the HP box and re-re-reinstalling applications.

Sucky Friday Christmas Traffic.

Backed up email this weekend-ish.

1694 - Saturday, Winter Solstice, 22 December 2007: 1st Revolver yet again, and again whupped by Breen in the final. 26 entries though, pretty good field for bad weather and a holiday weekend. I was worried about the heavier pin load affecting my shot-to-shot recovery but judging by the reactions of the gallery during my qualifying runs that wasn't an issue. Dig Cool Accidental Action Photo:

After, went to a show but bought nothing despite having a significant chunk of freshly-withdrawn cash in my wallet (direct deposit comes on Saturday and it looks like my raise has taken effect). Eh, a little more Christmas shopping (prepaid gasoline cards (there was a run on those, I had to hit three different stations in two states to get enough)).

And tomorrow I sleep in!

1695 - Sunday, 23 December 2007: Zzz. [wake up, roll over] Zzzz. Late for the show, which was a rerun anyway. Ordered the book. It'll probably give me indigestion.

Global Warming My Ass.

Williamson Rants. (Thanks Yuri!)

Tucson Tom sends border update.

Reader sends bungling badgeboys. These junior-JBT tactics are going to get a lot of people killed, on both sides.

Re-reconstructing MSOE address book.

At the show I examined some Remchesters. There was a Remington 600(?) (Mohawk?) bolt-action in .308, near what I was looking for, but while it had sights they weren't what I wanted. Barring lottery winnings to order a Savage Scout, my plan is to find a short-action Savage in the .308 family (for the right boltface and magazine size), then swap barrels if necessary and install sights and so on.

Also, I got to fondle a .45 EAA Witness with the standard-length slide & barrel, just like I'm thinking of getting for my Long Slide/extended Witness, and the balance was indeed better. Now I have to consider whether I want the Compact (~Commander) size, and whether I want to stick with expensive .45 or go to cheap 9x19mm or maybe get .38 Super, or even 10x25mm, just to be different. (I'm already fully tooled to load .40/10mm.) A .22LR kit is a separate desire. Counting shipping, probably ~$250 each, that might take a while. Nice to have income for a change though....

Quote o' the Day:

Once again, the plan is to give them housing for $30 per month to pacify the liberal politicians. I'd rather them just give those people fixed up older homes and let them sink or swim. It would be cheaper in the long run and would force them to go back to working and paying taxes. The plan is an improvement over what we had though....

1696 - Monday, Christmas Eve, 24 December 2007: Aaand I'm working.

Finished Carnifex, second volume in Kratman's Carrera saga, some days ago - ruthless. Now more than half through Williamson's Better to Beg Forgiveness, another in his Freehold of Grainne universe (and I still haven't read Freehold) (coincidentally one of my favorite webcomic artists 'blogs the same book); Baen generally threatens to wear out the term "opinionated romp". Not that there's anything wrong with that, or rather with these particular romping opinions. An appropriate theme for this work (as with Williamson's, and most Baen authors', others) is Competence vs. the lack thereof. Recommended. This volume appears to work well enough as a standalone but others in the series (i.e. The Weapon) will add flavor, just as Branagh spliced some bits of Henry IV into his version of Henry V.

Oh hey, just noticed that Oleg Volk took the jacket-flap photo of Williamson.

As stated, I was worried about recoil with the pin load. The 7.3gr W231 .357 load for pins does kick harder than the 5.6gr I've been using for plates, leading to longer shot-to-shot recovery. If I can get more, suitable, projectiles, I'll probably make a batch at 6.0gr. Still some first-round ignition problems at that level, noted in previous testing, but it won't beat me up unnecessarily, and I'll save the heavy loads for pins. -Also thinking of the Witness, which I haven't fired for months. More load development, I want more testing of my last load there, which IIRC was 6.0gr W231 under 230gr plated LRN - Pro 1000 #2 ready to produce, but without practice and load development I'll stick with my GP100 for now. The problem in both cases is availability of projectiles to load. It used to be, I could go to Sportsman's Warehouse and grab 500 Xtreme plated bullets right off the shelf, but it seems everyone else has discovered these lovely projectiles and they're always out.

Cubefarm rumor: the Market is Adjusting, as markets should when government stays out of the way. The Large Technology Company who contracts the company I actually work for is reportedly shutting down or phasing out their India or Pakistan call centers and causing more people to be hired in the American and Canadian centers, because India Tech Support Sucks and Customers Have Been Complaining. For my part, every 2nd or 3rd customer I've had complains about India or wherever they've been directed before they got me. Hey, market forces! Jest like God and Ludwig von Mises intended!

Now I'm Christmas shopping for myself, placing a Rather Large (relatively) Midway order including a Lee hand press (with a carbide sizer .357 Magnum or .45ACP should be entirely feasible), a couple more shellplates for the Pro 1000s, and the big hit, a box of 500 Hornady #3037, among other things. Alas Midway doesn't stock exactly the handgun projectiles I want- oh darn, they do, but probably ju$t as well I didn't noti¢e.

'Puter running decent.

Still some backed-up email of course. Reader sends 1, 2 articles on US military rifle testing. Same reader also sends this, commenting, "Want. Totally Completely Want. Want Two."

CMP article on trigger control.

1697 - Tuesday, Christmas Day, 25 December 2007: Merry Christmas!

I think I had four calls all day. Tomorrow I'll probably have forty.

Finished BtBF, romping. Reader informs me that Freehold is now available from the Baen Free Library! Blocked at work, and last time I tried accessing it from home Opera didn't like it (that may have been the system issues at that time), but a web search turned up a .PDF which I downloaded to my work machine, then emailed to myself. Meanwhile, briefly continuing Dalmas' Soldiers in .RTF, not sucking, though I'll soon put that aside again for Ringo & Cochrane's Sister Time, latest in the Alldenata saga. I'll read Freehold next time I have nothing else from the library, then eventually go back to Soldiers.

1698 - Wednesday, 26 December 2007: Call volume not as heavy as expected.

*&^% Californian cretins can't drive in a little snow and rain. GET OFF MY ROAD!

Email behind. I'm workin' here!

1699 - Thursday, 27 December 2007: Work shrug.

Having at the email. From the lists, new handgun cartridge, hm. Interesting ballistics on paper, and downward-compatible with other .32s, but one wonders about real-world terminal performance with the smaller hole and necessarily lighter throw-weight. But then one should consider what, and who, it's for; not everyone can handle a .357 110 or 125gr JHP at 1,200-odd fps.

From rec.guns, NOLA confiscation lawsuit update.

Reader sends interesting trend re: illegal immigrants. May it be so. -Hey, izzat market forces again? Sort of?

Reader sends 1, 2, 3 articles on Chicago badgeboys being sued for false arrest in a child-murder case. And we're supposed to trust them with guns?

Reader points out that getting a 9x19mm upper for the Witness would be somewhat dim, seeing as I already have a decent 9x19mm pistol and I bought a .45 because I wanted a .45. (And then I'd have to buy more magazines too.) So I'll (eventually) be ordering a standard-length .45 upper. Haven't decided on fixed or adjustable sights yet, leaning toward latter. I'd get fixed if I were getting compact. More data: the standard-size .45 Witness I saw at the show had conventional rifling, meaning I could use bullets I could cast, saving more money, as opposed to the polygonal bore I have now. However that Witness was older and EAA might be going polygonal altogether, dunno. Polygonal is mentioned in the EAA 2007 print catalog, but AFAICT only with the high-end limited-production versions - which is what I have at present. When I get the money saved up I think I'll just phone them and ask.

Reader sends another amphibian sport vehicle.

And I think I'm caught up on email!

1700 - Friday, 28 December 2007: #$%^&* India.

Got Sister Time from library, stopping Soldiers again about ¾ through. Decent stuff, the latter, though.

Up late last night finishing Ultima V, now starting VI. Yay abandonware. I have Empire Deluxe too, highly addictive. Just... one more... turn....

1701 - Saturday, 29 December 2007: Zzz....

[ramble]

Reading ancient Steve Canyon comics from Wowio. Ya know, it's hard not to be arrogant, when you're an American. 'Cause we're just so good. At everything. We can do anything better than anyone. If we need to. Or it we feel like it. Or if there's something in it for us. Think about it: most foreign nations are smaller than most of our individual states. Even the poorest segments of our society have, the vast majority, indoor plumbing, hot water, electricity, refrigerators - color TV, sometimes a beater automobile and maybe even an old PII running Win98. (And they're fat while in North Korea they're eating each other....) Then there's society itself - no one else has ever come close to our Bill of Rights, which most heads-of-state would view with outright terror but ours invented the thing, on purpose. Eh? What other nation can even pretend to be anywhere near our standard of living? Just this spring I hopped into a privately-owned automobile, rode a thousand-odd miles recreationally with my sister, crossing numerous territorial boundaries without identification checks - I even had my battle rifle and ammunition along, and furthermore bought another rifle on the way. Where else? In the world? Can anyone do EVEN PART of that without getting arrested and/or summarily executed by their own government? (Okay, we didn't visit California and we stayed the heck away from Denver....)

What, Britain? We kicked their redcoated backsides off our continent, twice. Then we pulled those same backsides out of the fire on their continent, twice (three times if you count the Cold War). That's oh-and-five for the Union Jack. And now they're getting overrun with Islamists and other third-worlders, while, psychotically, punishing their own people if they try to defend themselves. Next to America, EVERYWHERE is the third world. We're the best there is or ever was.

-Just... something about a 1949 comic strip making me go all nationalist.

[/ramble]

Got The Great New Orleans Gun Grab, just thumbing through is infuriating. Never trust a cop of any kind.

In the news, Spider-Man Joins UN. That will go a long way toward curing my comicoholism. >:-[

Freudian slip from a Dem anti's wife.

Gorgeous rifle giveaway to support our troops.

1702 - Sunday, 30 December 2007: Zzz....

Sis sends article on converting a conventional digital camera or webcam to IR.

Reader sends ebook on beginning reloading, $4.95.

A while back I got a Brigade Quartermaster catalog in the mail and I finally started flipping through it. There is rather a lot of brow-lowering JBT stuff in it, but there's also this entry which I sent to my techno-geeky reader who keeps sending me entire computers. In response I got: "I don't know if you've grokked this, but that USB drive is a continuation of your Steve Canyon rant. Not only do we do things better, we add a couple of pounds of Cool to stuff, too." That's like the internet joke about how we haven't played Cowboys and Arabs yet (or more accurately, haven't yet finished the game) - if there is anything that anyone does better than us it's because we just haven't got around to it.

Chat and show. Remington buys Marlin(H&R(NEF)). Remington in turn is owned by Cerberus, which also owns DPMS, Bushmaster I think, and maybe others. ...I'm starting to worry about this. Could it be some kind of back-door plan to kill the domestic arms industry?

Radio news: today is the anniversary of the hanging of Saddam Hussein! :)

Want.

New club newsletter & calendar - I intend five rifle matches at my regular club this year (three Garand, PIG, AvA), maybe more as details become available, and probably a couple-three Garand matches at Lone Oak too.

1703 - Monday, new Year's Eve, 31 December 2007: Znrk work.

Make a comment

Return to the weblog

Return to Jeffersonian's Page