Category: Side Notes

What Wussies

Seriously everybody is going on about the horrible snow storm that hit the east coast, even other countries are commenting. I don’t know about the rest of the country but here in the northern part of the midwest we call these massive snow storms “winter.” And to prepare for this “winter” we do a few common sense things like ensuring we have a supply of food, have needed snow gear in our vehicles, and wear heavy coats. You guys in the new global warming sector should look into those items.

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

Well it’s a another week which means there is another hot topic for bloggers. This week is the military’s “don’t ask don’t tell” policy. Since it’s a slow news day I figured this is a good way to get the daily post count above two.

Anybody who has read this blog or listened to Truth About Guns (New episode is in the works by the way) knows I’m a libertarian. That’s libertarian with a lower case “l” by the way. This puts me square under the belief that peoples’ rights have the utmost importance. On of those rights is to ability to do as you please so long as you don’t violate another person’s rights.

I see no reason gays can’t join the military and server along sight straights. Yes it may make some of the straight service men and woman awkward but frankly that’s just too bad. Is somebody’s life making you feel uncomfortable? If so feel free to cry me a river and toss your complaint into it.

I have gay friends. They are every bit as capable as anybody else. None of them have an inability to control their sex drive. All this bull shit about gay people serving ruining our military is hogwash. There are already gay people serving, they just can’t openly state they’re gay.

Of course people are mentioning the fact they won’t want to shower with other people of the same sex who are gay. My response, don’t complement yourself so highly. Gay people don’t go around ogling people of the same sex any more than straight people ogle people of the opposite sex. That means a majority of gay people are going to be checking out your ugly ass any longer than you check out an ugly person of the opposite sex. I’m sorry to be the one to inform you that you’re just not that attractive to everybody of the same sex who is gay. If they do check you out who cares? Really what does it matter? Does it make you uncomfortable? Maybe you should remember that the next time your ogling a member of the opposite sex.

I know there are a ton of people who disagree with me and that’s OK to, I respect your right to have a differing opinion. Hell I’m even willing to debate the subject so long as your argument doesn’t involve simply being homophobic. But in the end this thing is an entire non-issue. We already have gays serving in the military and the only thing abolishing “don’t ask, don’t tell” is going to do is let this people be open about it. All “don’t ask, don’t tell” accomplishes is forcing a subset of the military population to lie.

I’ve Been Waiting on This Forever

I’m going to go way off into side note country here but I’ve got some awesomely good news. Sam Raimi’s next project is looking to be The Shadow. Yup the original playboy millionaire turned vigilante who stalks the night

I’m a pretty big fan of the old Shadow pulp fiction novels and the radio drama from the 1930s (Which are available for free via the podcast section in the iTunes music store). Sadly every movie made on this franchise has ended up being shit (Although the most recent one was fairly decent in my book, just too cheesy). But I think Raimi can pull it off since when he first got outbid for The Shadow movie he created Dark Man which was a sort of tribute to the Shadow and that film (The first one) was great.

Yeah this is probably the only “super hero” movie I’m going to be more pumped about than Iron Man.

It Just Dawned On Me

As I’m sitting here something just dawned on me. As I’m typing this I have the following applications open on my laptop:

  • Google Chrome
  • NewNewsWire
  • Apple Mail
  • Quicksilver
  • Safari
  • Eclipse
  • iCal
  • VMWare Fusion
  • Terminal
  • Activity Monitor
  • System Preferences
  • KisMAC
  • Scrivener
  • Preview

And the system is running flawlessly. Boy how far we’ve come in computer. Although I’m used to stable multi-tasking I’m now remembering, not fondly, the days of Windows 3.11, Windows 9x, and Mac OS Classic where having multiple applications running at the same time was a risky proposition. Man thing have certainly improved.

Hell the sleep mode on my laptop works which was also a risky thing back in the days of my machines that run older operating systems. The number of kernel panics (UNIX version of Blue Screens of Death for you Windows folks) I get in a year can be measured on one hand as opposed to the old days where system crashes weren’t a matter of if but when (And When usually mean sometime that week).

Yes our computer operating systems are far more complex than they were just a mear 10 years ago (My God it’s been a long time since Windows 9x was in use). Yes modern operating systems take up gigabytes of space instead of kilobytes of spaces. But you know what our systems are far more stable nowadays then ever before. I love the advancement of technology.

Merry Christmas

Well it’s Christmas Eve here and I thought I’d get ahead of my duty to wish everybody a merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays, or whatever the fuck you want me to say and not get all offended for wishing you well).

I’ll be bunkering down in south eastern Minnesota where Mother Nature is reminding us that Al Gore is full of shit.

Gun Show Report

This weekend there was a gun show at the River Center in St. Paul. It was done by the Minnesota Weapons Collectors Association who generally put on pretty good shows. And it was a pretty good show overall.

I was able to control myself so I didn’t walk away with a new gun but I did walk away with 1,000 pieces of .45 auto brass for a pretty reasonable price. When I go to the range I have no problem finding 9mm and .40 S&W brass but rarely do I find enough .45 auto brass to make much of a difference, hence I still have to buy a supply once in a while.

Handguns are obviously one of the big ticket items yet as I would estimate at least 60% of the guns there were handguns. There were the usual slew of Glocks, XDs, M&Ps, and snubby revolvers. As for rifles there was a ton of AR-15s. You couldn’t throw an anti-gunner without him hitting a rack of evil black rifles. Although I declared the AR-15 drought over before I can now officially say the drought turned into a flood.

Surprisingly there weren’t many AK-47s. There were plenty of M1 carbines but since those appear to be rather popular at the moment the price is high and the ammunition is non-existant. I will get an M1 carbine some day but I think it will wait until after my C&R license shows up and I can just nab one from the CMP.

I actually saw somebody selling primers. You must realize I showed up an hour after opening so seeing any primers remaining was rather shocking. The price tag of $40.00 per 1,000 didn’t surprise me at all but even at that price I know local shops have a hard time keeping stock. It’s nice to see things are starting to lighten up.

There were the usual assortment of space guns going for exorbitantly high prices. It still amazes me that guns made mostly of space plastic cost more than guns made of Earthly materials like metal cost so much more. I guess if you’re part of an elite space marines unit price isn’t an object when fighting off the denizens of alien worlds and parallel dimensions.

Overall it was a good show. It’s nice to finally realize I have a good enough assortment of firearms now that when I go to one of these large shows I don’t find much that trips my trigger. I was seriously considering a CZ 75B that somebody had for a good price but the fact I’d need to get reloading dies allowed my laziness to prevail over my want of a new gun.