Month: July 2010

Detroit Iron Maiden Concert

Sorry I wasn’t here to post on Friday but I was busy flying out to Detroit for an Iron Maiden concert. And let me tell you it was worth the combination of flying and having to deal with the fact I was in the Detroit area (I was north of Detroit in a nicer section of town).

I’ve been a huge Maiden fan since I was in high school but never managed to make it to one of their concerts. Thankfully the combination of a full time job (hence real money) and too much vacation time allowed me to head out to this metal invasion of Michigan.

First I want to say that besides fellow gunnies fellow metal heads are my favorite group to hand out with. It’s amazing whenever you can have a group of diverse people come together for a common interest and get along so well. The group was very diverse ranging from old men in wheel chairs to you kids and every age range in between. There were people from California to New York (strangely enough not one person I talked to was actually from Detroit).

The show itself was just pure metal. Dream Theater played for the first hour. If you haven’t heard of them you should check them out, they’re pretty bloody good. But the real excitement came after Dream Theater left the stage and the roadies started moving off the band’s equipment. This tour is for Iron Maiden’s new album The Final Frontier which appears to have a science fiction theme to it (as many of their songs have). Iron Maiden came out to a song which I couldn’t quite recognized but knew it was from a science fiction movie (it was a song from Star Wars as I later remembered). The stage itself was setup as a spaceship landing site and looked absolutely awesome.

At this point every seat in this outdoor arena was filled as was the entire lawn behind the covered seating area. The energy from tens of thousands of screaming Maiden fans was indescribable. Maiden opened with the song Wicker Man which really is one of the best songs they could have possibly opened with. Once it started playing pretty much the entire venue started headbanging, pumping their fists into the air, or simply threw up the horns. The energy didn’t stop until Maiden left the stage and the show concluded.

What surprised me was Maiden played The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg, my personal favorite song of theirs. I didn’t expect it simply because the show would have been too awesome had they played it. Well they show was too awesome because they did play it and it was great to hear the song live. Most of the music they selected was from their newer albums although they did throw a few classics in there like Wrathchild, Iron Maiden (the song), and Number of the Beast. Maiden’s last tour focused on their best of titles so it was refreshing to know they were willing to focus on the new stuff and not fall into the trap many older bands do by sticking to playing their well established classics.

From what I estimate to be around the middle of the show (I didn’t look at my watch at any point during the show so I can’t be sure) Bruce Dickinson did a nice tribute of the late Ronny James Dio. In his memory Maiden played the song Blood Brothers which I thought was very appropriate. Everybody went crazy (Hell I think even the people in wheel chairs were jumping up and down) during this as most of us remember the contributions Dio made to the genre of metal.

Eddie also made an appearance of course. Instead of opting for a pure animatronic this time Eddie was done via a man in a suit. The guy in that suit was pretty articulate as he was able to throw up the horns and even pick up a guitar and pretend he was playing.

Those were the main highlights of the show. Needless to say it was probably one of the most metal events in history. I was glad to hear that Maiden’s recent tours have been the largest attended. It’s always good to hear a band as old as Maiden is still gaining in popularity. Most of this is thanks to the kids whom give me hope for the next generation. Yes a good chunk of the audience were teenagers who seemed to know the ropes well (they dressed and acted like true metal heads, obviously they had good parents). Usually when I hear the music younger kids listen to these days I become depressed but some hope has been restored in my mind after seeing this show.

I can honestly say this was the best damned show I’ve ever attended. If you ever get a chance to see Iron Maiden in concert do it.

No Updates Tomorrow

Yeah I know I just got back but I’m already taking a day off. I’m not going to have immediate access to my computer so I’ll be unable to provide any updates tomorrow. I’m sure you’ll survive one more day without my glorious writings of insanity.

Only in Russia

So I hit up the BBC to see what’s going around in the world and I come across the best headline ever in the European section:

Scores of Russians have died in the past few weeks amid a heatwave – many drowning after drinking too much vodka.

That’s a headline I would expect on the Onion. Anyways without context that’s hilarious but with context it seems Russians are going swimming in lakes and rivers due to the heat but drowning because they’re actually too drunk to swim. Now that I think about it it’s funny even with context.

A Ban by Any Other Name

McDonald vs. Chicago struck down the unconstitutional firearm ban in that forsaken city. Now that they’re little ban has been struck down the officials who run that prison city are looking at ways of banning firearms without actually banning them.

As Snowflakes in Hell points out they’re doing it using the same method they used to ban them in the first place, the city gun registration system.

In order to obtain a permit to purchase a firearm you must fill out five pages of unintelligible paperwork, have vision good enough to obtain a driver’s license (sorry those of you who are blind or otherwise have poor vision you don’t have any rights), show up between the hours of 8:30 and 15:30, and pay a $100 fee.

Yup it’s so easy! Well so long as you can fill out paperwork, have good eye vision, don’t have a day job, and have enough money! Obviously those who work during the day, have less than ideal vision, and the poor need not apply. Likewise if you are in any of the three mentioned categories of people please go kill yourself now as you have no right to self-defense should an attack chose to kill you later. You’ll be saving yourself, the attacker, and the police a lot of time.

Also as a person with horrible vision without my glasses I can tell you that you can see an attacker just fine unless you’re practically blind. Without my glasses I can’t read anything on my laptop screen when the laptop is on my lap with my right eye. With my left eye I can’t read the title of any book on my bookshelf which is no more than 10 feet away. Even with my horrible vision I can see people well enough to shoot them at self-defense ranges if they are attacking me.

Needless to say I know what it’s like having bad vision. So even if you’re vision isn’t correctable to a point you can drive there is absolutely no reason you shouldn’t be able to own a firearm.

Serves Them Right

You know what’s my favorite feature of my new Evo 4G? It’s the fact I can hold it in my left hand and still have a signal! If you’ve been watching any technology news lately you know Apple is having some problems with the newest version of their Jesus Phone. See if you hold the phone in a certain way which many people do when just normally talking on the device the Jesus Phone 4 loses signal and the call is dropped. Steve Job’s solution was to tell one upset customer to stop holding it that way. Yup it’s your fault for wanting to hold the phone in your left hand you stupid peasant.

The Jesus Phone 4 is also having problems with the proximity sensor which prevents random shit from being pressed when the phone’s screen is connected to your phone. This problem isn’t as big since in order to experience it you must be talking on the phone and that doesn’t seem to be a feature of the newest model.

Well Apple is now holding a special Jesus Phone 4 press conference tomorrow. There are two possibilities here; they are going to address the recent troubles with their new phone, or they’re going to unviel the new white version of their new phone. Hopefully it’s the latter.

As much as I like Apple’s computers I don’t really like anything else they produce (especially their fucking wireless access point, it can go die in a fire). In the case of the iPad I just don’t like Apple’s draconian control over it but in the case of their new phone I don’t like the idea of a phone that doesn’t work in my left hand. Either way all this karma serves them right.

The Apple Airport Extreme Sucks

How often do you read rants about wireless access points? Probably not too dreadfully often as they are usually pretty straight forward. It’s a pretty mature technology and everybody usually has a decent setup. Sure there are problems with various models but most of those are at least hardware related.

Well here is my official rant dealing with the Airport Extreme Base Station. The thing seriously sucks all kinds of monkey balls.

First of all the problems I experienced with the Airport Extreme are not hardware related. I’ve had this access point for a couple of years now and it’s always worked well enough on the hardware side of things. This problem is a software related issue. Namely Apple made some really boneheaded mistakes.

The main problem here is there are so many stupid fuck ups with this product I’m not sure where to begin. I guess I’ll start with the access point’s complete inability to route any traffic to an external network that doesn’t have an IP address that falls into the access point’s DHCP range. Let’s say you setup the Airport Extreme to dole out DHCP addressed between the ranges of 10.0.1.2 and 10.0.1.200, the default settings when using a 10.x.x.x address scheme for your network. Now let’s say you give a server the IP address of 10.1.0.1. You have effectively cut that server off from the Internet because the Airport Extreme won’t route any traffic to an external network unless said traffic originates from an IP address between 10.0.1.2 and 10.0.1.200. Yup it just flat out refuses to do it. This effectively means you must layout your network’s address scheme to fit what the access point wants instead of what you want. Brilliant! This little undocumented (as far as I could find) issue cost me a couple of hours when I was trying to get my VPN server running.

Did I mention you can’t change the second quad in the DHCP address range? Yup if you want a 10.x.x.x address it has to be 10.0.x.x and only 10.0.x.x. I wanted all computers that received a DHCP address to be in the range of 10.253.0.0. Well you can’t do that if you’re using an Airport Extreme to dole out DHCP addresses.

Well a simple enough solution would be to simple disable the DHCP functionality on the access point and setup a DHCP server on a computer, perhaps one that’s acting as a VPN server already. Good luck doing that if you still want to have NAT capabilities. Yes I actually want to use NAT for my network even though I despise NAT. Why? Because it allows me to forward different traffic to different computers without needing more static IP addresses (which I pay extra for). See the Airport Extreme has three operating modes; one that has DHCP enabled with NAT, one with only DHCP mode, and bridged mode which disabled DHCP. There is no way that I found to have DHCP disabled with NAT running. It’s a pretty simple concept and Apple doesn’t seem to be able to grasp it.

Seriously what the fuck? A cheap Linksys can do that! The rule of thumb should be if a cheap Linksys access point can do something your more expensive product should be able to do the exact same fucking thing and more.

If you’re looking for a nice wireless access point steer clear of the Apple Airport Extreme Base Station. The only positive thing I have to say about it is… well my Wii, which is finicky as all Hell, actually connects to the Airport Extreme. But that’s really it.

That’s Kind of Funny

NPR had a recent show dealing with a “phenomenon” where people who believe something incorrect will ignore facts showing their belief is in error. So I caroused through the transcript (because I’m not going to waste my time listening to NPR) to get the gist of the show. I was expecting a lot more examples of how “right-wingers” were incorrect for their beliefs once presented with “the facts.” Well it seemed the show didn’t quite devolve too far into that (for NPR at least). This is a call-in show apparently and one of the calls they received interested me greatly:

CONAN: Let’s go next to Chrissie(ph), Chrissie with us from San Francisco.

CHRISSIE (Caller): Yes, I’m just calling to say I changed my mind on two different issues, one about gun ownership. I was originally from Utah, and I didn’t think that people should be able to have guns, and I just thought people were crazy to actually have their own guns.

And then I started to talking to more people and kind of educated myself. And it turned out the man that I married, his father makes bullets, and I went out shooting, and I actually think that people should be able to own their guns. Of course, I think background checks, and, you know, there needs to be definitely some controls over that. But I changed my mind pretty dramatically just through, really through self-education.

And then I also changed my point of view on the death penalty. I really believe that people, if they were convicted, they were dead wrong, and they really should have, you know, should be killed.

And then I educated myself again, and I just don’t really believe in the death penalty at all. I just don’t think that everybody has the same upbringing, the same choices, the same monetary backgrounds, and so I’m really against the death penalty now.

So I’ve changed my point of view just really through, I think, self-education and actually really great programs like this that are offered to us through NPR.

CONAN: Well, Chrissie, that’s very kind of you to say. Thank you very much for that, appreciate it.

CHRISSIE: Thank you.

First of all I’m surprised somebody with that opinion got on the show but the funniest part was how quickly the hosts brushed the caller off and moved on to the next person (and e-mail in this case). Nothing to see hear folks just move along. I’m also glad to hear there are people out there with cognitive abilities in regard to guns, good on the caller.

Hell I’ll Do That for Free

Random Nuclear Strikes has another post showing how incompetence of our government when it comes to money management. It seems our government paid $92.86 to destroy a single firearm. The kick in the teeth is the fact that they paid to have 1.4 million firearms destroyed.

I have a proposition for our government. Should you come across another 1.4 million guns you no longer want (or more, or less) I’m offering my services to take them off of your hand for free. That’s right instead of having to waste $92.86 dollars per gun to dispose of them you can give me the firearms at no cost to you. It’s simple, it’s easy, and best of all it’s free! I’ll also ensure the firearms I do not want find good homes (don’t worry I’ll ensure background checks are completed and everything). Yup that’s right I’m going to be green on this and recycle those arms that I do not want.

So donate today to Christopher Burg’s Home for Wayward Guns.

That’s Quite a List

Here’s something funny found via Say Uncle. The Chicago Police Department has made a list of “unsafe” firearms [PDF] that can not be registered in the city of Chicago. It’s pretty long but alas with few exceptions (Smith and Wesson for instance) the list is of manufacturers not firearms.

There are some real WTFs on that list. For instance the Sig Sauer Mosquito is on the list because as we all know the .22LR is one bad ass mother fucker.

Seriously that is a city that just tries too hard at being complete ass hats.

Don’t Bother Calling the Police

Us gun bloggers have said it again and again but I’ll say it again; police are under no legal obligation to protect you. In fact according to Dvorak Uncensored the Oakdale Police Department has made a list of crimes they will no longer respond to should planned layoffs occur. I might add this isn’t even a short list:

  • burglary
  • theft
  • embezzlement
  • grand theft
  • grand theft:dog
  • identity theft
  • false information to peace officer
  • required to register as sex or arson offender
  • dump waste or offensive matter
  • discard appliance with lock
  • loud music
  • possess forged notes
  • pass fictitious check
  • obtain money by false voucher
  • fraudulent use of access cards
  • stolen license plate
  • embezzlement by an employee (over $ 400)
  • extortion
  • attempted extortion
  • false personification of other
  • injure telephone/ power line
  • interfere with power line
  • unauthorized cable tv connection
  • vandalism
  • administer/expose poison to another’s

Oh and this golden:

Chief Anthony Batts listed exactly 44 situations that his officers will no longer respond to and they include grand theft, burglary, car wrecks, identity theft and vandalism. He says if you live and Oakland and one of the above happens to you, you need to let police know on-line.

So if you get into a car wreck you better hope your phone has a data plan because you need to e-mail that situation.

This is a rather dirty thing by Mr. Batts to say. Why? Because it’s an underhanded threat. He’s pretty much saying give his department money or they’ll stop protecting you. This is the exact same scheme used by the mob (say you have a nice store there, it would be a shame if anything were to happen to it). Seriously it’s just dirty. I understand without the police officers who will be laid off the Oakdale Police Department will be unable to do as much as they currently do but to outright phrase it and give a list of things the department will no longer respond to is just plain fear mongering.