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Today’s Earworm

 

Pictures of the Day

photo 3

I love my 10/22!

photo 2

Yeah, it’s full of holes from .30-06 and 7.62x54r, and most 5.56 will go through it, but it, but it does a great job going “ding” when hit with a .22. Knob Creek now lets steel targets come closer than 100 yards when you’re shooting .22, so I think this one will be used as a trainer for Girlie Bear.

 

Today’s Earworm

Thoughts on the Day

  • I think Crash wants to be a cowboy when he grows up.  At least, I hope that’s the reason he just rode Moonshine through the living room bareback.
    • Moonie is fine.  His tail was wagging the entire time.
    • If a cat could roll her eyes, Koshka would have done so at that exact moment.
  • It’s not often that I use the term “crack house” to describe the work of another human being, but today was one of those occasions.
    • “Crack House” is one notch worse than “Ghetto”, because you can still be somewhat proud of “Ghetto” if that’s the best you can do.  There’s no pride found in “Crack House”.
  • Irish Woman and I went to a fund raising breakfast for Boo’s school this morning.  I may be a soft touch, but mothers getting up and crying about how much the school has done for their kids was the perfect thing to get me to take out the checkbook.
    • It doesn’t help that Irish Woman is a sympathetic boo-hooer.
  • Asking my Russian waitress for more coffee in Russian this morning turned me into her favorite customer.
    • It’s a good thing the coffee was delicious, because I ended up drinking four cups in an hour.

Discarded Posts

Sorry for the light content the past week or so.  I’ve actually written quite a few things, but I deleted them, the digital version of tossing your half-assed attempt at a fantasy novel in the fireplace, because they went from semi-funny rant into bitter diatribe.  I got rid of them because, to be perfectly honest,  there are enough bitter diatribes out there already, and I don’t want to be part of the problem.  If I can’t say anything nice, or at least wittily sarcastic, then I don’t say anything at all.

Here’s what I spared you from:

  • Thoughts on the loss of Ken Cuccinelli and the victory of Chris Christie, and what this may mean for conservative candidates in 2014 and 2016.
  • The difference between a social conservative and a fiscal conservative, and why the Republican leadership seems to be terrified of either one.  The term “phony boloney jobs” kept going through my mind as I wrote it.
  • The opinions of a college professor from Maryland, and how I wish he would explain the irony of a descendant of African slaves complaining about the militarism of the nation that freed them from their chains through military force.
  • The ‘bullying’ behavior of a man paid millions to play a child’s game, and how it casts a bad light on football in general.
  • Obamacare in general, and the strange way that the media seems to be turning on him, at least a little.  Hint:  He doesn’t matter electorally anymore, so it’s safe to beat up on him a tad.  Plus, it paves the way for their next chosen candidate to distance herself from the administration.
  • Why radio program directors who change three of the six radio stations I have programmed into my truck’s radio over to 24 hour a day Christmas music almost two months before the fat man comes around with his sack of loot ought to be dragged through the streets and left to rot in the public square.
  • Life, the universe, and everything.

I’m going into my dark and bitter time of year, but  I’ll try to keep things light, or at least civil.

Quote of the Day

There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you. ~ Will Rogers

Thoughts on the Day

  • Every time I try to get out, I just get drug back in .
    • I only wish I had more time to seek out the dark forces and join their hellish crusade.” – Morticia Addams
  • Girlie Bear thought I was weird when I was singing the refrain to this song in Russian.
    • The things you figure out when you’re bored and surrounded by language geeks.  We used to sing REM songs in Russian too.
  • Crash has been removed from the cone of shame.  He spent about an hour getting his hair just right, then proceeded to lose his little mind for the rest of the day.
  • I took the plunge and put a new shotgun on layaway.
    • A basic Mossberg 590A1 will be joining the family shortly.
    • This may be the gun that forces me to get a second, larger gun safe.
  • Note to interface designers – changing the name and placement of a button or menu choice just because you can is going to cause unspeakable things to happen to you in the afterlife, and I hope I’m there to witness it.
  • Boo started sounding out words today.  I guess the days of spelling out things we don’t want him to understand will soon come to an end.
    • Time to teach Irish Woman another language.
    • Kentucky doesn’t count as another language, although that point may be arguable.
  • Boo announced yesterday that he is a Kentucky Wildcats fan.  His mother never looked so proud.
  • There’s a special kind of parental love that gets you out of the easy chair and out into the dark night to deliver cookie dough orders.

Today’s Earworm

News Roundup

  • From the “PSH” Department – A college and the area around it in Connecticut were put on lock down when a student committed the cardinal sin of walking across campus to his dorm room dressed as a ninja, complete with plastic sword.  Apparently Captain Braincramp spent three days at a party dressed up for Halloween, then walked home in costume, including wearing the mask.  Yeah, he’s probably not the sharpest pencil in the box.  In response, the campus police locked down the college, telling people to stay inside and away from windows, and to be on the lookout for a man dressed in camouflage and carrying a sword, or maybe a gun, or maybe a dwarven battle-axe with +2 advantage against the undead.  The young dumbass was arrested for breaching the peace, so I guess being stupid is indeed against the law in Connecticut.
  • Also from the “PSH” Department – A mother in Georgia has been banned from her daughter’s school and threatened with a trespassing citation after the principal was frightened of an image of her concealed carry permit on FaceBook.  Apparently being a veteran, owning guns, and going through the training and background check necessary to get a concealed carry permit makes you a dangerous person who shouldn’t be around children.  I’d say the same thing applies to those who don’t understand the law, are fearful of digital images of pieces of plastic-encased paper, and are panty-wetting bigots who live in fear.  Someone in a position of power over her needs to explain to her who is and who isn’t a danger to her and her students.  I’m not the litigious sort, but I hope that by the time is done, McBean Elementary school in Richmond County, Georgia is renamed “The Tanya Mount Veterans Memorial Firearms Safety Training Academy for Little Sprogs”.
  • From the “Enforcing Existing Laws” Department – Two men have been sentenced to federal prison after they pled guilty to trying to sell firearms to people they thought were part of a Canadian motorcycle gang.  In reality, the buyers were Canadian Mounties and agents of the Department of Homeland Security.  One of the men has alleged that he was browbeaten into the deal by what he believed to be criminals, but I don’t buy it.  Here’s the deal:  If someone tries to coerce you into breaking the law, you go to law enforcement.  If it happens that the people trying to make you commit a felony turn out to be cops, no harm, no foul.  If not, then you’ve done a service to your community.  Either way, you don’t become a felon.  And remember kids, the guy who tries to get you to smuggle drugs or guns, harm government officials, or plant IED’s is probably a fed.  Act accordingly.
  • From the “Never Disarmed” Department – A woman in California proved the adage that you may not always have a gun, but you are never disarmed when she chased a burglar out of her home with a throwing axe.  The miscreant was found a short distance away from her home with some of her property and a pair of underwear that he no longer wished to wear.  No word yet on whether or not the woman will be sued by the burglar for the psychological harm he realized that his victim was going to try to vivisect him with an axe.
  • From the “Close One” Department – A Wisconsin couple, who had gone missing after leaving Yellowstone National Park, were found after a local rancher went looking for them up a closed road.  The hero who found them went as far as his truck could go, then went another few miles on his snowmobile, which will tell you just how far up Shit Creek this couple was.  Apparently they went up the road at the behest of their GPS’s directions, got stuck, and had very little food for their multi-day adventure in the mountains. This is why I still carry paper maps and have a “go-to-hell” kit in our vehicles.  Yeah, they’re a pain to fold up, but doing a sanity check against a map when your GPS tells you to go up Deadman’s Lane, as well as having a few days worth of food, water, and toilet paper, might make the difference between having a pleasant drive in the country and becoming a statistic.
  • From the “Own It” Department – President Obama, under fire because people who bought minimum coverage health insurance prior to enactment of his signature health insurance law have started losing that coverage or having their rates jacked up to cover mandatory add-ons, has responded to criticism of his pledge of “If you like your insurance, you can keep it.”  His protestations that rates were already on the way up, that bare-bones coverage was a bad deal, and that the new minimum standards are better for consumers seems to miss the point:  Americans don’t like being told what to do, don’t like being misled, including being misled through fine print in a Byzantine law or regulation, and don’t like having to pay for things they don’t want or need.  Now, I’m not going to argue that it’s not a good idea to have insurance to cover some of the things that Obamacare made mandatory, because I believe that at least some of them are really good ideas.  It’s the “mandatory” part that sticks in my craw.  If all you want is coverage that makes sure that you don’t lose your house in the event that you get dreadfully ill or badly hurt, that’s your business, not mine, and certainly not President Obama’s.  How sad that a political promise that was trumpeted by the President and his minions has come back to bite him in the ass.  Here’s a hint to politicians everywhere:  That big squishy middle of the political spectrum that you all fight over isn’t stupid, has a long memory, and really hates it when blatant lies hurt them in the pocket-book.  Learn from this, and you will go far.  Ignore it at your own peril.

Quote of the Day

Thanks again, suckers. Now get off my lawn. – Kurt Schlichter, “Maybe Pain Will Teach You Millenials Not To Vote For Your Own Serfdom”