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.