Chronicling the depravities of the State.
Holy shit! Check out this dangerous and terrible knife! Obviously it’s far sharper than any hunting knife needs to be. The only thing this knife is good for is kill people! People simply don’t need a knife this sharp. We need to ban it now!
See how stupid that sounds? Well it sounds equally dumb when that is said about firearms. Seriously though that blade in the video is sharp, I want one.
I’m by nature a meat eater. If it wasn’t for the fact that I often have something along with my steak, burger, pork chop, bacon, or other form of dead animal I’d be a complete carnivore.
The other side of the camp are vegans who eat no product derived from animals (which means milk for instance) and vegetarians who simply don’t eat meat. I have no problem with either of these groups what you eat is your choice just don’t try to force it upon me. Of course not I’ve noticed new terms popping up; flexatarian and inflexatarian.
Who are these groups? Apparently they’re people who don’t have the will to be vegetarians but want to hipster creds of not eating meat. Well because of these people I’ve decided to write a little mini-rant on terminology.
I have news for those who label themselves as flexatarians and inflexatarians, you’re omnivores. As an example an inflexatarian will say they’ll only eat meat three times a week. You know what that means? I means you’re still eating fucking meat. That makes you a carnivore. Being you also eat plant material that makes you an omnivore. You shouldn’t feel bad about that fact though since our species has evolved to be exactly that. Some our our teeth are made for grinding down plant material while other teeth are made for ripping into tasty animals.
Here’s the thing, your desire to make up new terminology to gain hipster creds is pointless. Hell I’ll go a step further, it’s fucking stupid. Vegans have a reason for a new term as they are distinctly different from vegetarians. Vegetarians have a reason for a new term as they are distinctly different from us meat eaters. But you little twits on the fence are not distinctly different than us meat eaters you just eat less meat. But hey in the spirit of things I’m making up a new term, fucking awesome!
What is the fucking awesome group? Well we are the group that ensures we eat more dead animal than plant material. We only eat plant material three times a week, tops. Beyond that everything we eat must be derived from a formerly living creature. At least two of those meals each week must come from a disgustingly cute animal to boot.
Today is the day, the U.S. release of Iron Maiden’s newest album The Final Frontier (not an affiliate link).
Go and get it!
One thing that is true about me is the fact I never delete files. OK I delete applications I’ve downloaded from the Internet once the versions I’ve obtained are outdated, and maybe a few other little files here and there. But in general I do delete files and that’s because storage is cheap.
I just picked up another 2TB 7200RPM hard drive for about $129.00. With space at that price level there really is no reason not to keep everything you’ve ever created, purchased, or downloaded.
I believe I mentioned that my trip to Defcon and my time out there were pretty good but my flight back was shit. So here’s my rant on the Las Vegas Airport.
I was flying Sun Country (big mistake, never fly them) which meant I got to stand in the baggage check line for three quarters of an hour. Although I’m at a loss as to why, Sun Country only has two baggage check lanes at Las Vegas meaning you get to stand there for a while. To stop this amazing revelation off the gaggle of women in front of me must not have understood how checked baggage works because it took them 20 minutes of that three quarters of an hour to check their bags. Alas this is not a story about them but about me and my trip through the airport.
I arrived at the airport two hours before my boarding time. Usually when I arrive this early it means I’ll have a good hour and a half to kill. Thankfully I did arrive early though as I got to my gate only 10 minutes before boarding. When I finally got to the baggage check counter I did the usual hoopla and say I have firearms in my locked case to declare. This apparently activated the lady’s moron mode. It took her a good 20 minutes to find a manager because she had no clue what she was supposed to do. In the meantime I filled out the little declaration of firearms form that also stated the firearms were unloaded. When the manager arrived she told the lady working the counter what needed to be done and walked off.
At this point I’m asked to open my case which I do. I point out there are four handguns in separate cloth cases and point to the cases. This is where I got to wait for another 10 or so minutes while she called her manager to check if four handguns was too many (it’s not, I checked their website and Sun Country allows up to five in a case but she wouldn’t listen to me). Finally I get to close and lock my case up and this is where my confusion begins.
You have to understand I get really upset when things that I thought I knew my entire life are no longer true. Take the laws of gravity for instance. Your weight is a measure of the force exerted by gravity. The formula for which is W = mg where m is mass and g is gravitational acceleration. The value for g is approximately constant no matter where you stand on the planet. This means an object that weighs 43 pounds in Minneapolis should weigh 43 pounds in Las Vegas so long as the mass is constant. Likewise according to this formula if the mass is reduced the weight should be less.
Apparently the laws of physics don’t work the same in Las Vegas. My case with guns and ammunition weighed 43 pounds when I left Minneapolis. After the Defcon shoot there was far less ammunition in my case and I didn’t put any additional items in it so the mass was reduced. The above mentioned formula would seem to indicate the weight of the case should be less. When the baggage check lady weighed my case is somehow came up weighing 63 pounds. This not only confused me but qualified me for the overweight charge of $75.00. A no they refused to weigh it on another scale or even entertain the fact that something was up. They simply said Minneapolis’s scale must be incorrect. This is a cheap way of saying they wanted to charge me additional money to fly because they knew I had no other options.
With my understanding of physics shattered I’ve become quite upset and irritable. And the fun and excitement only continues from there. The case was sent on the conveyor belt down the line which I thought was odd because Minneapolis had me walk down to the TSA baggage check line in case they needed to open the case. When flying with firearms only you are allowed to have the key that opens your case, TSA approved locks are a no-go. In fact according to the TSA’s website:
The container must be locked. A locked container is defined as one that completely secures the firearm from access by anyone other than you. Cases that can be pulled open with little effort do not meet this criterion.
This means you need to stick around until your checked baggage is checked. The lady working the counter told me to walk all the way to the end of the airport and wait for a TSA agent. I looked down the long line of baggage check-in desks and asked her if she meant the end of the counter or the end to the wall and she verified to the wall. So I make my journey there and sit around for five minutes only to be paged back to the check-in desk. I’m sure you already guessed why I was paged, the dumb bitch sent me to the wrong location. I storm back up there and she’s looks at me and asks where I went trying to hold back her laughter (which she was failing to do). Words were exchanged about how she told me to head down there and she claimed she did no such thing. I asked for a manager whom sided with her and pretty much called me an idiot without stating it directly (I may have said something with the words fuck and you but I’m not sure what words came before, between, and after).
The TSA agent comes out and asks for me key. Now part of the reason people fly with firearms is so they case can only be opened with their key. I explained to the TSA agent that I was told at Minneapolis that I must be physically present at watch the entire time a TSA agent opens and checks the case. Las Vegas isn’t setup to accommodate that but I must say this TSA agent was a damn good man as he brought my case out, opened it, and checked it there. He also mentioned a couple of good shooting ranges in Las Vegas. If anybody from TSA is reading this site please note you need more people like him (sadly I didn’t get his name).
So roughly an hour and fifteen minutes after arriving my bag is checked and I can finally go through the rights elimination zone known as the security checkpoint. I make it through that no problem and proceed to my gate. Due to the long walk between the baggage check-in counter and the gate I needed to be at I arrived at the departure gate with only 10 minutes to spare. During boarding I hand my declaration of firearms to the check-in person who rips off a copy and send me on my way. If you though the story was annoying so far you’ll love the conclusion.
The check-in guy comes back towards me now that the plane is full and the aisle is cleared. He asked me form my form to which I inquire what form. I’m not sure if this guy is a complete fucking moron or just simply lacks an understanding of the meaning of certain words in the English language but he said, “The form that says you’re carrying a firearm on board.” Yup… really good wording. The dumb ass grabbed the wrong copy of the firearm declaration form. You can imagine peoples’ reaction at this point which is why I brought up the fact that he should ask for the form that declares I have firearms in checked baggage which is securely stored underneath the plane in an inaccessible compartment. Judging by the smile on his face he chose the words he wanted to use carefully and knew the reaction it would get. I hand him the form, he walks away, and the two people next to me tell a stewardess they want to move to a different seat. Apparently if you believe there is a guy with a gun on a plane moving to a further seat will make you safer. Ultimately that benefited me as I had all three seats to myself which allowed me to prop my feet up during the trip.
So yeah the moral of the story is don’t fly Sun Country out of fucking Las Vegas with firearms. Seriously fuck that airport and fuck that airline. Hell fuck everybody who works there with the exception of that one really awesome TSA agent.
OK everybody I’m back from Defcon 18. I’ll have regular posting return tomorrow with some sporadic posting today while I get back into the swing of things.
Here’s one quick pro tip though; don’t fly Sun Country Airlines. I’ll explain more in a later post but those guys are total fucking assholes.
OK this is going to serve as a heads up to everybody reading this site. I’m heading out to Defcom 18 in Las Vegas. Due to the fact I’m not really willing to touch any network within 50 miles for a hacker conference updates are going to be extremely sporadic if they show up at all. Defcon prides itself on have the most hostile network in the world and I’m staying in the same hotel as the conference is being held in meaning the entire network will be flooded with script kiddies as well as people who know what they’re doing. The bottom line is even cell phone calls aren’t safe (granted my phone is CDMA and therefore not threatened by that event but still I bet somebody has a means of spying on CDMA calls there as well). It should be a ton of fun though and yes this is what I consider a vacation.
Also it’s in Las Vegas meaning I’ll have 4G coverage. I’ll make sure to test the speeds on my Evo 4G and report on my findings. Then I can finally write up a conclusive review of the phone.
Either way I’ll try to get some stuff up on here during my vacation but I’m not promising anything.
So the Glock Sports Shooting Foundation (GSSF) match was this weekend. Although I was planning on attending Sunday I ended up going on Saturday instead. That proved to be a mistake honestly. I ended up sitting around way too much because of the number of people in attendance. I literally sat at one stage for over an hour which is well beyond my attention span (Wait is that something shiny!). The bottom line is if you plan on attending this event next year go on Saturday. That way there will be less people on Sunday so people showing up that day can just speed on through.
Now on to what I thought of the match itself. I started USPSA this year and have found it a lot of fun. I like the running and gunning aspect of the sport. Compared to that the GSSF match was very subdued. Of course the goal of GSSF is to setup a competition where everybody can compete on fairly equal ground. The only way to accomplish this is to remove aspects that most people don’t practice a lot such as reloads and movement. There is nothing wrong with that as it fits the goal of the sport. Basically I can compare GSSF to Bulls eye competition with Glocks. Accuracy is far more important in GSSF than time is (which really screwed me because I didn’t take the time for good accuracy and instead went for speed).
I got pretty bored due to the long waits (once again that was probably self-inflicted for not going Sunday). In USPSA while you’re waiting your turn to shoot you watch the other competitors run through the course. It’s fun to watch because each person can run the course in a completely different manner. Everything can change such as how fast they move, the order they take out the targets, when they will reload, when they will fall flat on their face, when their gun will jam up causing them to either perform a clearance drill or curse Loki for his trickery, etc. GSSF is much more subdued and I have a hard time watching people standing still and shooting targets. Almost all the variables are removed except how well the targets are hit.
The bottom line is I thought the competition was so-so. But I’m also a very impatient man who needs a lot of things happening to be entertained. I need sports with a lot going on to keep me interested. If you’re more into bulls eye competitions I think you’d love a GSSF match. Likewise if you like target shooting at the range but really want sometime more interesting than a single paper target I highly recommend GSSF. On the other hand if you’re into sports such as USPSA, IDPA, and three gun you may find GSSF a bit slow moving. Also there isn’t going to be a whole lot of conversation about different guns there because everybody has a Glock on them (yeah I like seeing all sorts of different guns at competitions, it’s interesting to see what people are using).
Now there is a good case to say I’m bitter because I did poorly in the event. I counter that by pointing out I do poorly in USPSA as well but thoroughly enjoy it. Yeah I did pretty bad at GSSF. Part of that can be attributed to my head simply not being in the game. As I said I got bored due to the long wait times. When I become bored an event becomes more about getting it done as quickly as humanly possible without regard to score. It’s not a good state of mind to be in to shoot a match.
So yeah GSSF wasn’t really my cup of tea but I recommend if you haven’t shot a match you should do it. You may absolutely love it, most people there did. And it is time on the range which can never be a bad thing.
Just a heads up there is a GSSF match at the Oakdale Gun Club this Saturday and Sunday. Registration both days starts at 9:00 and new shooters stop being taken at 14:00. Hopefully I’ll see some of you guys there.
Breda posted a link to a page that analyzes your writings and tells you who you write like. I decided to plug in several of my posts over the last several months and see who I write like. Apparently I’m schizophrenic in my writings.
My post about the recent Detroit Iron Maiden concert nabbed me this:
Apparently when I write about the Second Amendment Foundation my style takes on a slightly scarier fashion:
And I had a few other random authors pop up but Corey Doctorow was certainly the most popular author brought up by my writings by a wide margin.
