Global Warming?

Coworker tells a school teacher customer that the horrible, cold weather we've been having makes him doubt global warming. She then lectures him on how cold weather is proof of global warming, since that means the glaciers are melting.

Now, I'm not the smartest guy on the planet, but ice has to remain at 32 degrees to be ice. You raise the temperature to 33 to melt it, that's a rise in temperature. As the water melts, the temperature is not going to decrease because there's more cold water around. The water's going to be 33 degrees, and it's going to have to stay 33 degrees to remain water. If anything, the temperature may go up.

Anyway, I explained to Dom that mankind accounts for 15% of the greenhouse gasses that contribute to global warming. Mother Gaia *snicker* accounts for the other 85%. The US accounts for roughly 5% total. So, knowing that manmade global warming is bunkum, that nothing we do is going to have any measureable impact on global warming, and that unless we turn off all electricity tomorrow and go back into the stoneage we're not going to manage more than a .5% total reduction (and that's being generous), does it make any sense to write all this bullcrap legislation and outlaw good lightbulbs and hi-flow toilets? Resoundingly, intelligently, NO.

Health Care Bill HR 3200

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.uscongress/legislation.111hr3200

I have been reading this, and it is intolerable. Here's a link to some real gems that have been Twittered:

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2009/07/whats-in-healthacre-bill.html

I hope whoever wrote this and votes for it burns in hell. And I hope they burn before too.

Daughtry - Leave This Town

Picked up Daughtry's new CD on my way to my grandma's funeral. I'd already heard all of the songs, but I wanted to give Chris my money, so I bought one of the special editions with the extra songs.

Good CD. Great CD actually. A lot of universal themes, excellent lyrics, Daughtry puts his whole heart and soul into his singing, bringing a lot of emotion and intensity to the CD. There are some missteps, a few boring songs, and he does have this annoying habit of singing a three line group like they're four lines, but that's not a huge problem.

Go out and get it, now. It's worth the money.

1.You Don't Belong. Not a fan of this song, I'm not sure what it's about honestly. I do like the voice changing in the song, it sounds like the band Live. REALLY sounds like Live.

2.No Surprise. A rather mature song about the destruction of a relationship. The extra verse at the end is a wonderful addition, it keeps amping up the intensity. Perfectly written, perfectly sung. A lot of fun, it does not grow old.

3.Every Time You Turn Around. Another misstep. Poorly written rock song, tries to be harder and more rock than it is. Well worth skipping.

4.Life After You. Easy to hear Chad Kroeger's influence, it sounds a lot like This Afternoon. Not a great song, but not a bad song either. Don't know why they're looking at it as a single.

5.What I Meant To Say. A nice angry rock song. One of the meaner breakup songs I've heard. Great stuff.

6.Open Up Your Eyes. Perfectly suited to driving to a funeral. It's about a woman who lays her husband to rest prematurely, then dies herself after waiting to join him for her entire life. Powerful imagery, well written.

7.September. A perfect end-of-the-summer song about all the confusion that people feel as one season (weather or life, either one) ends and another begins. A great song.

8.Ghost Of Me. Another good one. Bit of a different theme to it, it's about a former significant other who's having regrets, and he's reassuring her that she shouldn't. Again, a bit of a Live sound to it.

9.Learn My Lesson. One of my favorites. Typical "you'd think I'd learn not to get involved with these crazy women types" song, but pulled off well.

10.Supernatural. Another favorite. Great rock song describing a physical relationship in a non-raunchy manner, which is quite out of the ordinary for rock music these days. The intensity does not let up. Lots of fun.

11.Tennessee Line. I've covered that here before.

12.Call Your Name. Not sure what this one is about, and it's missing a couple of lines from the chorus. A proper guitar solo though. Wish it had've lasted longer.

13.Get Me Through. Boring. Might change my mind after listening to it a little more, but I doubt it.

Hie thee hence, and buy this CD.

1911 Frame

I'm now the owner of a 1911 frame, slide, and barrel, all from Rock Island Armory. Sure took enough aggravation getting them out of Sarco.

I've got $300 worth of pieces on order, and need to order another $100 or so. This is going to be an interesting project. And I may end up giving it as a gift to a friend of mine if/when it works.

Daughtry feat Vince Gill- Tennessee Line

Open my lungs
To breathe in forgiveness and love
Haunting me now
Reminders of how I used to be
On down the road
The troubles sure to follow
Looking out the window
Hell, I know where I will go
So I'll just keep on driving

On my way to L.A.
Looking into the rear-view
As the roads fade away
I swore off my past
The first and last bad call
That I ever made
Tell me how to make right
Every wrong turn that I've learned
So this could all end tonight
The Tennessee Line
Just changed my mind
It's my heart I'll follow this time

Who would've known
The pride is too hard to swallow
As I rest on the shoulder of a road growing colder
With the trouble I own
Should I just keep on driving?

On my way to L.A.
Looking into the rear-view
As the roads fade away
I swore off my past
The first and last bad call
That I ever made
Tell me how to make right
Every wrong turn that I've learned
So this could all end tonight
The Tennessee Line
Just changed my mind
It's my heart I'll follow this time

I know I must be doing something right
Head the other way back to where I started out
Ask myself if I can turn it all around tonight
And stop living with doubt
Yeah

On my way to L.A.
Looking into the rear-view
As the roads fade away
I swore off my past
The first and last bad call
That I ever made
Tell me how to make right
Every wrong turn that I've learned
So this could all end tonight
The Tennessee Line
Just changed my mind
It's my heart I'll follow this time
I swore off my past
The first and last bad call
That I ever made
It's my heart I'll follow this time
I swore off my past
The first and last bad call
That I ever made
Oh, gonna it all around tonight
Turn it all around tonight
Turn it all around tonight
I'm gonna turn it all around tonight
At the Tennessee line

Shooty Goodness

Looking into buying some bulk .45, so I had to buy a box of it and run it through all our .45 pistols. Of course I enlisted the help of a friend. Packed up Paul Nelson, my dad's Kimber, and my most recent acquisition, a nickel plated 1911 I'm tenatively calling The Winchester.

Due to rising costs of ammo, I'd forgotten how fun it is to go out and just shoot and shoot and shoot.

Each of the 1911's had a failure a piece. MecGar magazine wouldn't seat in the Kimber because of the magwell, and The Winchester had a hammer drop on a live round.

My friend and I were most accurate with the 1911s, and the Sig ran the best. No big surprise there.

As we were leaving, a grizzled old guy shows up with an M1 Garand and a Taurus 1911, with a small flashlight clamped below the barrel. It is clamped with SCOPE RINGS attached to the tac rail. Weird.

Anyhoo, we ooh and ah over the Garand, which he built (so he says) for $400. He let me take 2 shots with it, and my friend finished off the clip. I fired it with a bit of trepidation, I know how loud those things can be, I had to vacate a shooting bench because some guy next to me was doing timed drills with one.

First shot was seated, and I was surprised by the lack of recoil. Second shot was standing, and I was surprised by the weight.

Cool rifle. Once I finish building up my 1911 frame, I might just build a Garand.

Saliva - Cinco Diablo

1.Family Reunion. They took the best parts of Click Click Boom and Ladies And Gentlemen, mashed them together, and threw in some tempo changes for a very generic and forgettable "party" song. Boring.

2.My Own Worst Enemy. Lyrically, the singer is blaming someone else & himself for the way he's screwed up his life, which conflicts with the title. Seems they tried to mix just a few too many themes into the recipe for this one. Good song though.

3.Best Of Me. Forgettable. Seriously, I don't even remember what it's about, and I've listened to the CD 5-7 times in the past 24 hours.

4.How Could You? It's their new single, sounds like Always. Decent song. I like hearing this one on the radio as I'm driving home at midnight. Entertaining music, despite being so generic.

5.Hunt You Down. Embarrassingly bad. Tries to be macho. Fails.

6.Judgment Day. Now here's a good one. I thought it was inspired by the new Terminator movie, seems its a soldier tribute. Brings Terminator to mind a lot better. Good rock music, again generic. Entertains.

7.Forever And A Day. Good ballad. Forgettable, but not the worst. Probably better than How Could You?

8.I'm Coming Back. Another terrible macho song. I hit skip on my CD player every time.

9.Southern Girls. A retread of a lot of raunchy rock-about-girls songs lately, without the raunch. Could possibly achieve some level of success on pop radio if they'd give it a shot. It sure is a lot better than that Kid Rock song from last summer.

10.So Long. Here's a song I can relate to. Confusion, attraction, difficulty, all very well presented in a nice melodic package. It's not Savatage, but Saliva shines on the lyrics with this one. Best of the CD.

There are a couple of songs worthy of download on this CD. Buy Blood Stained Love Story first. Or instead.

Killshot

Interesting history to this movie.

My place of employment got in a couple dozen copies of the book, all with Diane Lane on the cover. I read the back, thought "Hurm, similarities to The Brave One and Death Sentence" and went online looking for info. Supposedly it was going to be released to theaters, but I never heard that it made it there. That was a year ago, maybe 2.

Released to DVD a few weeks ago, and I just rented it last night. Spectacularly average, but some good writing. The dissolving marriage that is featured in the movie seems by turns natural and forced. Mickey Rourke plays a terrifyingly cool and collected hitman. Tom Jane is as likeable as always.

And finally, it's good to see a positive portrayal of civilian firearms ownership in film. Very rare thing these days.

The Contract

Terrible movie. I don't know who wrote the dialogue, but it was a mix of unreality and cliches.

I can only imagine that real, professional hitmen would not behave like the ones in the movie.

Computer Business

2 different computer jobs for me today.

First I clean off (and out) a coworkers computer. I picked chunks of dust-bunny out of her CPU fan that were large as cotton balls. There was dust extruding from the air intake on the back of the tower. A good job, got paid too.

Next I met with a prospective client, the manager of a food pantry/thrift shop. BAAAAAAD part of town. I wanted a trunk monkey and an AR15, minimum. And I wanted to take the rifle with me into the store.

Manager was a nice guy. Needs some networking done, some computer cleanup, which seems to be my specialty these days. 'cause nobody has a clue how to download and run basic virus protection. And get this, bad part of town, the guy's running an unsecured wireless network. I said that in the interest of a future business relationship, I'd secure the network for free. That and the idea of an unsecured network makes me itch.

Did that, talked about our respective businesses, and said I'd send him a quote for the stuff he wants done.

I need to do this stuff more often. I LIKE my chosen field. And I LOVE providing tech support for people who can't figure it out on their own. Small businesses, families, this is what fulfills me.

You Recognize Me Now?

'cause I recognize you

It's a line from a crappy movie called "3000 Miles To Graceland" about a bunch of crooks who team up at an Elvis impersonator convention and steal some serious cash. Kein Costner utters the line when as he's shot up, holding a SAW, and staring in a mirror, waiting for the cops to come and kill him.

In the last week I lied to a man respect so that he would send me confidential information submitted by a friend who would neither expect nor want me to have it.

A few days later I got absolutely smashed just to see what it felt like. It felt like hell. Didn't think I'd ever do that honestly. Don't see a problem with it, I'm not some tea-totalling moralistic jerk, I just didn't think I'd do that.

Worst part of the two is, I don't care. I do no regret my actions not one bit.

I pulled myself up from sitting on the bathroom floor where I'd been shivering so hard I could barely stand, washed my mouth out, looked in the mirror and had a "You recognize me now?" moment.

It's 1:11 in the morning, I'm feeling philosophical, and probably shouldn't post this. But I will anyway.

Shooty Goodness

Headed out to the range this morning with a friend, a 1911, and 2 battlerifles.

Shot the scoped battlerifle unsupported at 50 yards and scored nearly 100% rounds-on-target with a man-sized target. No one-hole groups, but I wouldn't want to be shot at by me. Friend loved the scope, actually did better with the gun than I did.

Next up was the the unscoped battlerifle, first supported, then unsupported. Did a darn good job with that too.

1911 had 3 malfunctions in 32 rounds. One failure to feed, 2 hammer drops on a live round. I'm gonna count the hammer drops as hard primers on the Wolf crap I shoot. And the failure to feed is a known defect of this gun that we once thought gone. Hopefully when I get my 1911 next week (fingers crossed) it'll be better.

Met a couple of college students at the range, got to exchanging tricks, tips, and info re: shooty things. I've now got a new friend on Facebook.