Sad Brady Panda...

Days of our Trailers has a little retrospective look at the Brady Bunch. Oh how I love laughing at them.

A Tale of Two Toks.

Well, a picture anyway.

Mind*%&$

In Russia, helicopters are apparently fixed wing aircraft.  And most of the noise on a chopper comes from the tail rotor anyway...  Still, even though I fully understand what's going on, it still messes with the head.

(H/T Sharp as a Marble)

Tuesday

As is their way, the Angels of Vengeance brutally destroyed the enemies of the Imperium, in this case the green Xenos scum known as Orks.  Annihilation, final score 10:5.  I love my Drop Pods when things go right.

As always, there was plenty of talk of the silliness of grown men playing with toys, and I did mention that despite the Imperium's various tank designs' absurdity and horrible lack of suspension, they still look pretty cool.

Angels of Vengeance Land Raider Crusader "Mortis Angelis"

The Inquisitorial party, on the other hand, continued the suck.  Sometimes I wonder how the Inquisition continues to let us live, let alone pay us.

hellinahandbasket posted some Necrons from Iraq the other day, which is cool.  I couldn't find any current players or drum up enough interest in 40k when I was in Afghanistan, but I did get a few Imperial Guardsmen painted in my downtime.

Come & Gone

Boob quake 2010 has, more or less, and the only earthquake of significant magnitude was a 6.5  off the Coast of Taiwan.  Had to goto the USGS site to find it, so I assume it didn't do much.

Pic

Can you tell I like my newest shotgun?

A cause I can get behind

Although apparently news didn't make it around campus (sadly).  Today is "Boobquake," an event purely to annoy backwards Islamic Clerics*.  We should make it an annual event, if not a monthly one.

*I have nothing against Islamic Clerics as a whole, just backwards rights suppressing ones, especially if they speak out against one(two?) of my favorite things.

Unpossible!

Chicago's murder rate so high lawmakers call for the Governor to deploy the National Guard.  Funny how some of the highest violent crime locations have the most stringent gun laws.

I don't think it's answer either, National Guard soldiers don't train for domestic law enforcement, and unleashing a death blossom in downtown Chicago would probably be frowned upon.  (I'm not saying that Nat. Guardsmen are loose cannons, hell, I am one, but it's hard to override certain learned responses...)  But really, I don't see how imposing borderline martial law on the city would help fight crime rates.

Maybe they just need to hurry up the court decision and allow the law abiding citizens of Chicago to defend themselves and take their town back... crazy talk, I know.

(ETA: at least the police agree about the "Guard Solution" (H/T Say Uncle)

B.A.G. Day

I didn't slack, Dad just reads the blog on occasion, and I couldn't ruin his birthday surprise. Henry .22lr lever action.

His very first rifle ever was an old Ithica lever action .22, but it hasn't worked for a while (problem with the shell lifter that is apparently quite common) so us kids all chipped in and got him a up to date, functional .22.

Beats the snot out of my belt-fed Nerf gun.

h/t Soldier Systems

Mmm... Coffee...

Despite the efforts of the Brady Bunch, Starbucks reports a 7% increase in sales.  This does not help the daydreams of my blog's title one day becoming the name of a store...


(h/t SayUncle)

Local Hippiness

The big local news this last week was a bunch of hippies (mainly college students) attempting to "reclaim" a vacant lot owned by the city and trying to establish a community garden, if you came down and broke a sweat, you'd be able to take some of the vegetables home.  Seems like a pretty cool idea, although they were trying to set it up without city approval, and the city hopes to find investors willing to build small business and possibly apartments on the site, giving downtown a much needed economic boost.  I swung by a little while ago to try to get some pictures, but apparently the police beat me to it.

The evolving story was pretty entertaining, especially in a quiet little mid-west college town (for comparison, we had the first "drive by shooting" I can think of Wednesday night... and oh is the whole event great for a laugh) originally the mayor had stated that there were no plans to do much about it, then the other day the police cited a couple of the hippies and posted no trespassing signs around the lot, which were quickly taken down by the hippies.  Apparently the city got tired of it (if I had to guess, due to their setting up tents and sleeping on the site) and arrested them all early this morning and tore everything down.

I kind of enjoyed following the whole debacle, and really found the whole thing pretty funny.  You see, there's a reason that the city's been sitting on a vacant lot in the heart of downtown Stevens Point.  The site was once upon a time the location of the Lullaby Furniture Factory, which closed around 1996, and the building was later torn down.  It is now believed that the ground has been heavily contaminated with lead.  So if somebody really wanted to build a house on the property, you would be advised not to put in a vegetable garden.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership

Stole that title from Say Uncle.  It made me laugh.

Anyway, fresh off their laughable Anti-Starbucks kick, the Brady bunch is trying their hardest to attack the Open Carry movement once again.

Given other articles and polls on the subject, I don't see this going to far for them, and as Sebastian notes, it's still sitting at a whopping $20 donation.  Plus, as I've noted before, that video is far from the ZOMG!!1! GUNS!!! effect that you'd think they're trying for.  Far from "compelling," at least as to the point they're trying to make.

I also haven't heard of any of the gun lobbies fighting for Nation-wide OC either, and that has in fact been one of my complaints about the NRA as of late.  If anybody knows of this actually happening, I'd love to know who and what exactly the deal is.

There's Still Some Hope

1st of Three SEALS cleared in assault case.

Light Postage...

Combination of real life and college pilling up on me.  ArcMap decided to crash and then refuse to load my project, and I'm still completely lost in my stats class.  I hate stats.

Anyway, hopefully I can get some content up relatively soon, especially since the weather refuses to stay warm enough for more than two days.  Don't want to dump a kayak in 40 degree water...

Small guns...

One area I haven't really had a chance to venture into.  I mean really small guns.  The smallest centerfire handgun I own is my CZ-82, and it is far from what I would consider a sub-compact.  I have always liked the look of tiny guns though, and I would love to own an old Colt vest pocket pistol.  But living in Wisconsin, I haven't had enough of an excuse to get something in that size group.

Over the weekend though, I had the chance to run a few rounds through a Taurus Millennium Pro chambered in .45acp.

The double stack 10 round mag filled up my hands pretty well (granted I've got large-ish hands...) and the little dimple on the frame just ahead of the trigger was perfectly placed for my offhand thumb.  The trigger was surprisingly pretty decent, and overall the fit and finished seemed pretty nice, even for a used pistol like the example my friend has.  The Hienie Straight 8 sights are a very nice touch as well.  Overall it was pretty controllable, and seemingly accurate enough for such a stumpy little barrel.  I didn't bring any .45, so I didn't want to shoot up too much of his ammo though, so I only put a few rounds downrange.

Overall though, it's definitely going on the list for possible CCW options if that ever comes to be 'round here.

Is the NRA Losing Relevance?

The Wall Street Journal takes a look.

Sights work!

On the Anschutz.  Ignore the crap-tastic quality of the cheap cell phone pic, but that's a 1inch dot at 25 yards, with 5 rounds in it (two each in the lower two holes.)  I had an even better group earlier in the day, but I didn't get a pic of it.  Not bad for being seriously rusty with globe and peeps, let alone bullseye shooting, and winds gusting in excess of 30mph.  Just got to figure out what ammo it likes best.

Open Carry editorial and poll

At US News & World Report. Point/counterpoint style.  In my humble opinion, the OC advocate, John Pierce, Cofounder of OpenCarry.org, comes through with a well written and reasoned short essay; and Carolyn McCarthy, Seven-term congressional Democrat serving New York's 4th District, runs with the old stand-by "we're turning into the wild west!!!1!ZOMG!!" defense, complete with unsupported claims of possible shootouts in Starbucks over incorrectly brewed lattes.


The poll, on the other hand, just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside... here's where it stands as of 11am today:

Victory in Colorado

Colorado Court of Appeals: CU gun ban violates state laws.

More on .22lr for Training

Say Uncle and Tam both mentioned their newly found appreciation of the concept.  I've mentioned I've been a proponent off and on before as well, and "Smith & Wesson M&P15-22" (or some variation) is the second most common search subject that hits my blog, right behind the Sig E2 series (why that is the most common I'm still not sure...)

Both of them are using a conversion bolt in a standard AR, which is probably the quickest and cheapest route to go.  I haven't had any personal experience with that particular setup, but Tam does bring up one of the various reasons I didn't go that route myself, in that the .22lr's habit of leading up your barrel is a bit of a problem with a barrel with a gas port inside of it.  She does try to use copper washed bullets as much as she can to fight that, which is really the only thing you can do, other than bringing along a bore snake to run through every few mags (something I tend to do with .22lrs anyway.)  This also caused her to buy a box of Remington Gold Bullets, which in my experience, is the least reliable bulk .22lr ever made, and is still dirty as hell, despite the copper washed rounds.

Another option out there is a dedicated .22lr upper, such as the Spikes Tactical units. I was originally going to go that route until I found out about S&W's military discount program.  They do have some sweet rigs available, and you can deck them out with all sorts of goodies.  This month's SWAT magazine has a sweet suppressed SBR one with a 5" or so barrel and a YHM can almost completely covered by the handguard. It is a seriously sweet looking (but quite expensive) gun.  They also generally use Lothar Walther barrels, so even that stubby little one is pretty dang accurate.

But in the end, between the price of the Smith, even without the discount, and the ability to use the bolt release, I'm pretty happy with the little plastic popper.  Still need to get a decent sight setup on it though.

Well over 24 hours and I'm still breathing...

So that's a good sign. Robb Allen mentioned that he ate one, so he's due to keel over at any moment too.  I had one after doing some cartography work last night, because I was hungry, I like bacon, and I'm trying to cut down on carbs (heh).  Overall it didn't strike me as anything too exciting, really more like some lazy person just slapped some stuff together, figured it's different enough to sell, and threw it up on the menu.  I wouldn't say you should avoid it due to the potential "health hazards," but the price is, in my mind, not worth it.  It's like $5 and is quite bland for a fast food product at that price level.  Maybe I'm just spoiled by all the $1 value menus...

Doctors Remove Live Ordinance from Soldiers Head

We never dealt with any UXO in the ER part of Bagram Hospital while I did my EMT-B clinicals there.  Hell, we didn't even have a CT scanner, just regular old X-rays.  From the picture of the actual round on the video it looks to be a 20mm projectile of some sort (or whatever the Soviet equivalent is,) I'd guess with an impact fuse.  The soldier is apparently fine (well, aside from a bit of a nasty cut, cracked skull, and more than a little concussed...) That Purple Heart's coming with a pretty cool story though.

I give it a month before something like this is on House or the like.

National Parks Fee-Free Week

Apparently starts Saturday.  I wish I had known beforehand, I would have planned something for this weekend.

New Sights on the Anschutz

Hopefully they work out, but the front sight seems a bit low, and I don't know how I can fix that if if's the case. Guess we'll find out this weekend.

Daily Show on OC

Yeah, there's a couple points where they push it, but it is a comedy news show, so it'll happen.  But we're not all middle aged and mildly overweight.  I'm only 26...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Open Carrier Discrimination
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Overall it's not too bad though.  I've definitely seen worse reporting on the subject.

(h/t Snowflakes in Hell)

Long day.

Woke up late, lecture, exam, get some coffee, join the Army, go play games...

Yeah, somewhere in that mess I raised my right hand again.  Days of carefree civilian life are no more, and the amazing beard will have to go.  (Ok, it's National Guard, so once a month and the assorted deployments will cut into the carefree civilianness.)

Primarily the biggest thing that'll change will be my facial comfort in the winter months though.  Naked faces are cold faces.  Otherwise, it's a great way to convince somebody else to pay for ammo and training, right?

Pic-ness

Did I mention that I love the sights on this rifle?  Because I totally love the sights on this rifle.

Post 200.

And I'm using it for a Pic of the Day (or so)

I know it comes up like every six months...

But the Secretary of the Army thinks it'll be a whole new carbine, not the supposed upgrades or retrofit of the M4.  I'm not saying I agree or disagree, but he does have quite a bit of weight to throw around.