Mornings and Linky-Love

Mom? Be warned. I'm about to say things here I wouldn't say in front of you. I love you. Think of kittens.

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Last night, I think I came closer than I've ever come to discharging a firearm within city limits.

Fuckin birds...

I was minding my own business, asleep, at around 0300 when some bird's biological clock got all out-of-whack. He - I'm assuming it's a he; I like to think female birds aren't that stupid, much like I think female humans aren't as dumb as male humans - felt appropriate at that early hour, when the sun was nowhere to be found, to start singing his rendition of the timeless classic, "I'm Awake At 3 In The Morning So Everyone Else Must Be, Too!" Unfortunately, despite his obvious passion to the words in that song and nearly to his demise, no one else was actually awake.

At least not when he started.

I lay there for a couple minutes thinking that, at any moment, this moron would sober up enough to realize that is was, in fact, still fucking nighttime and shut the fuck up. This did not occur after said couple of minutes. Five minutes later, when I had shifted towards getting used to it and falling asleep, he was still going. Ten minutes after that, when I was filling my heart with the blackest hate imaginable in preparation for the most violence any bird in any dimension has ever seen, the stupid bird was still singing away.

I have guns. Lots and lots of guns. I have a wee little revolver for engaging targets at sexual distances. I have battle rifles for engaging targets too far away to shout at and be heard. I do not, however, have anything of the .177 caliber air-powered variety. This may be changing soon, because if that fucking bird comes back for another round of that shit tonight, I'm gonna kill that motherfucker graveyard dead, and I'm gonna do it in such a spectacular fashion that no other bird anywhere will ever sing a song at any time other than High Noon for fear of waking me from my peaceful slumber and bringing down the coldest and most calculated violence any bird has seen since the last time a bird woke me up.

I now know exactly how this feels, only on a normal person's schedule.

And on that note, if you have never read Allie Brosh's blog, go read it now. The whole thing, from start to finish. You will notice a couple of things. First, the woman can write stuff - in a style entirely reserved for borderline psychosis - that will make you laugh in the most uncomfortable fashion imaginable. Secondly, after reading my post today (which you had to do to get to this link, which I refused to provide at the beginning of this post because you would have gone to her blog and left mine behind because hers is WAAAAAAAAYYY better) you might see some similarities between her writing style and the one I used today. That would be for a simple (to me) reason: her words hit the page like she sliced open her brain and let fall what may. I meticulously check myself as I go to make sure I don't ramble on and on, destroy the English language with terrible spelling and/or punctuation, and occasionally end up changing the entire meaning of what I say with over-revising.

I like how she writes, and I will be writing like that from time to time from now on. It actually
feels pretty good to just let it fall out of my head like that. Oh, and Allie? Just in case you make it to my little corner of the blogosphere and wonder if I'm plagiarizing you, please do not think that. Because I am a big fan, because I know exactly how you feel, and because I'm afraid of you, are all good reasons not to sick The Copyright Monster on me.



tweaker

Testing

Taking Blogger for a test drive on the iPhone. Don't think I'll be doing anything crazy with links and stuff, but I like the idea so far. An app would be nice!



tweaker

Great Saturday

Yesterday was a great Saturday.

First, we took The Dog to The Little Girl's riding lesson. It was funny to see him around horses. Right out of the truck, we went into the stables. I went through my normal paces, which always start with saying hi to Hercules, the black Clydesdale. The Dog immediately stood up against the stall and found himself nose-to-nose with what can only be described as a Big Damn Horse. Naturally, The Dog quickly realized that he was far from being the largest thing on four legs. After that, it was all curiosity about horse legs and horse tails. He was no longer curious about their heads. In the meantime, The Little Girl had a fantastic lesson. She's really taking to this riding thing.

After that, back to the house. Lunch, a little catnap, then got notified by the next-door neighbor that the grocery store had pork baby-back ribs on sale for 2.99/lb, and trimmed briskets were about the same. We picked up two good-sized racks of ribs and a five-pound brisket, as the next-door neighbor has ridiculous skills on a smoker. We had fall-off-the-bone-tender dry ribs, bacon-wrapped stuffed jalepenos (try those on the smoker next time instead of the grill; you'll thank me), chile con queso, grilled zucchini and squash, baked beans, and pasta salad. Followed it all with some Oreo Icebox Pie (The Wifey is worthy of worship for that alone) and kept cool all day with some cold amber lagers.

Yep. Yesterday was a great Saturday.



tweaker

Airline Safety at its Finest

So I'm perusing iGoogle yesterday evening for some blogfodder, and am gifted with this little tidbit about a woman getting shafted by United Express and their tag-team partner in this little gang-bang, the Transportation Safety Administration.

Sayeth the article:

The complaint outlines a series of delays that led up to McGuire falling asleep on the airplane. McGuire was originally scheduled to leave Detroit, Michigan, at 6 a.m.Monday with a brief layover in the Washington area before continuing to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She didn't leave Washington for Philadelphia until 11:40 p.m.

United Express Flight 8080 arrived in Philadelphia just before 12:30 a.m. Tuesday. McGuire was asleep when the plane landed and passengers and crew disembarked, the complaint said.

When a cleaning crew discovered McGuire four hours later, it alerted the Transportation Security Administration and McGuire was "wrongfully detained and interrogated," the complaint alleges.

So let me get this straight. The poor lady was shafted:

• First when her layover went from brief to around 14 hours
• Second when she was abandoned on the plane by passengers and crew
• Third when she woke up terrified on an empty, locked plane, and
• Fourth, when the cleaning crew found her and promptly turned her ass in to the TSA, where she was detained and interrogated.

And she's supposed to be alright with all that? Yeah, I'm thinking not. And, believe it or not, this isn't an anti-TSA rant in the making, either. I'd say the cleaning crew, having just discovered a person on what was supposed to be a locked plane, was right to think that finding a person on an "empty" aircraft Just Ain't Quite Right.

(I'll also say that I wouldn't be surprised if they did keep her well past the time it should have taken to verify her boarding pass and identification, but that's purely cynical speculative editorial.)

At least she's not going stark-raving mad. She's got a legitimate gripe, and she had good reason to be pissed already. They're lucky she's not going for a seven-figure payout. I'd say she's being a good sport, and the airline(s) would be smart to pony up the $75K and send this woman a few thousand frequent flyer miles with Northwest Airlines a nice fruit basket on her merry way.

And yes, I'm having fun with strikeout. I noes teh HTMLz. LOL!



tweaker

Decisions, Decisions

Gunnies? Got a question for ya.

You know that spent round that comes with new handguns? For those that don't, those rounds are put there by the factory to comply with states that have a ballistic fingerprinting requirement at the time of retail sale of a handgun. The retailer takes the package with the shell and projectile in it, sends it in to the state, and the state records it in their worthless database for future non-use.

Anyway.

So, while it's not required by law in most states, many manufacturers just do it across the board with all their handguns, rather than sort out which ones need the spent round and which ones do not. The Buckmark came with one.

I'm torn. On one hand, I want to throw it away to kind of spit in the face of states with ballistic fingerprinting requirements. On the other, I have the original boxes, paperwork, and everything else on every new gun I've ever purchased. I don't intend to ever sell or trade any gun I own, so I'm not so much worried about increased value (I keep boxes and stuff like that because it will be cool years down the road. For me).

What do y'all think? Keep it with the other stuff, or give my own personal one-finger-wave to ballistic fingerprinting?



tweaker

More Reading

After many months of wanting to, followed by two failed attempts, I have finally had a successful start of reading J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

For Christmas last year, I was gifted with a single-volume copy of all three books that I found in Barnes and Noble's for around $60 ($80, but with discounts). It's huge, it's heavy, and it's like a zillion pages long.

The two failed attempts at reading occured after the several forewords - this is like the Umpteen Millionth Edition, and apparently warrants a metric shit-ton of explanation as to why - and at the beginning of the elder Tolkien's actual prologue. Which is a bummer, because that's where the foundation of the story is laid and character development begins. Well, this time I pushed through, and got mesmerized in the prologue. Once I got to "Concerning Hobbits", Ian McKellen's voice took over and I was walking in a pub in Middle Earth.

I have made it to about the middle of Chapter Two. I'm not reading particularly fast - I usually can't, and I consider this an advanced read - but I'm soaking it in, big time.

I am also picking up many differences between the books and the screenplays. You really do have to make a movie for movie theaters; copying a book is nearly impossible. I respect Peter Jackson's work. As my brother put it, Peter did what he did by his passion for the story. But it isn't directly out of the books. And I'm fine with that.

So, I have set a goal. I intend to finish The Return of the King before Monster Hunter Vendetta hits the shelves. Which will be made of ultra-concentrated awesome. Of course, there will be a bit of transition shock going between Tolkien's elves and Correia's elves*.



tweaker

*if you haven't read Monster Hunter International, you must purchase it and read it immediately. You are required to do so. Quit staring at your monitor; get thee hence to Barnes and Noble!!!

Gun Pr0n: Birthday Boomstick

There's been a new addition to the Tweaker Armory, y'all! After much long-winded internal debate between my epic want for a 1911, and my epic need for a .22 pistol, the decision was made to forgo the .45 and fill a need instead.

The choices were between three pistols. First was the Ruger. My brother has a Mk.II 22/45 and I really love shooting that thing. Second was the Beretta Neos. The thing looks like a laser-tag gun - a plus to me; I think it's neater that kitten toes - and while I have never shot one, I have heard many good things about them. Last was a Browning Buckmark. I had never paid attention to that gun before, but anywhere that had Rugers always had Buckmarks. After a little asking around, it was generally accepted that a Buckmark will perform at least as well as a Ruger, and that's enough for me: after nuclear war, the only thing left will be roaches and Ruger .22s. They last forever.

Off to the gun stores. Bass Pro Shops is great for getting your hands on a lot of different guns in one store. They're historically overpriced on firearms - they're great on ammo, though - but they're friendly and don't mind talking to me. So The Wifey and I went to looky-loo at the three top contenders. She wasn't a fan of the Ruger. She did like the Beretta (she loves all things Beretta; our stainless 92 is actually hers). It wasn't until she got her hands around the grips of a Buckmark Camper that her eyes lit up. I was equally in love with the pistol: the grips are very comforable, the trigger is heavily rounded and feels more like it goes straight back - a la 1911 - than pivots from the top, and the trigger... *shudders* Oh, that trigger breaks like a glass rod after what cannot be more than 1/32". I. Love. That. Trigger.

And so, the decision was made. I am now the proud owner of a blued Browning Buckmark Camper. Enjoy some awful pictures of a beautiful gun! (click to make with the biggification)


Like I said. Awful pics, beautiful gun. Note the ergonomic, but not Gawd-Awful 3-finger grooved grips. I do love the way this thing feels in the hand.


Yessirree. .22LR, and made in the USA. Hooray guns!


There it is with my one magazine. My one and only magazine. It's all lonely, there by itself. It sure wishes it has some companions. Really, it does. And I have no shame. None. Ask my wife.



tweaker

Ur Doin It Rong

Gabriel Winant just doesn't get it.

The libertarian who insists that the state has no place beyond basic night-watchman duties is like a teenager who, having been given a car, promptly starts demanding the right to stay out all night. Sometimes, someone else really is looking out for your best interests by saying no.

Make no mistake on this: your comparison here makes We The People the teenagers and the .gov the parents.

Fuck that.

h/t to Uncle.



tweaker