Fighting Dirty

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=88508969

Following the career suicide of Jim "Terrorist rifles" Zumbo, it was noticed that the Brady Campaign *hack, spit* had latched on to it as proof of a hole in the armor of the gun-owning world. They had apparently uploaded an essay on it to the above Myspace page. Further essays were found on said page, waxing moronic on bolt-action rifles, shotguns, and .22s.

The internet was abuzz with the essays, and it copies of them were distributed far and wide, as proof that the Brady-ites did indeed want ALL private weapons made illegal. This very official looking site went along way towards mobilizing the online gunnies.

According to the good and kind folks at http://www.thehighroad.org, this page is a forgery, placed upon the internet by a former troll, booted from the site and now angry at the proprietor, Oleg Volk, who's name you might notice appears in my list of links.

However, it also appears that links to this Myspace page appear on the Brady website, and owner of the page even congratulated Oleg for reaching out to the victim-disarmament community when he alerted them to fact that their page may have been hacked.

Whether the page is real or not is up in the air right now.

I've not heard this sentiment echoed online before, but quite frankly: I don't care if it's real or not.

I'm not a reader of comic books, but I remember a quote from The Punisher, something about when you're fighting a losing battle, you don't fight dirty, you do things that make fighting dirty look good.

Another quote I read once stands out as well: "Sometimes in a fight you have to get dirty to win, the only real shame is to allow yourself to be beaten over false notions of honor." I don't know who said it, but bless their heart for saying it.

When you're fighting a war to preserve your culture against barbarians, and possibly even your life, is there ANYTHING you should not say?

Is there anything, short of harming truly innocent people, that you should not do?

I don't think so.

Their lies and dirty tactics get a free ride from the whole world, I kid you not. They have carte blanche to say or do anything they want to get their agenda across. Gunnies only write letters when new legislation to destroy our rights hits Congress.

Fighting is not about good or evil, right or wrong. It's not about being kind or just or fair or sporting or truthful.

It's about winning or dying.

Did My Part, The Third Of Many Parts

Wrote both my Senators today, along with every member of the House Judiciary Committee that would allow email from people out of state. Here's the text:

Hello:

My name is *edited*. Unfortunately I am not one of your constituents, being a resident of the state of *edited*, however, I write to you today, not as a resident of this state, but as a citizen of the United States of America.

I would like to bring to your attention a bill now in the House Judiciary Committee, HR1022, the reauthorization of federal Assault Weapons Ban, amended to contain new, more restrictive provisions. This bill is totally destructive to the fabric of this nation - it is a violation of multiple human rights enumerated in the Bill Of Rights. Its passage will make criminals out innocent free men and women, and do positively nothing to curb the actions of real, violent criminals.

We were promised in 2004, that the expiration of the federal assault weapons ban would mean soaring crime rates and blood flowing freely in the streets. Nothing of the sort happened, and numerous studies before and after the expiration, conducted by federal and state governments show that neither its passage nor expiration had effect on crime.

It is your duty as a member of the federal government, someone who swore an oath to uphold the United States Constitution, to do everything in your power to make sure this bill does not become law. Anything less would be a total violation of that oath. Please do your duty as an elected representative and as a human being: Defend the United States Constitution, the human right to keep and bear arms, and do not let this bill leave your committee.

Sincerely,

*edited*

---------------------------------

Congresscritters, doing their duty? Upholding the Constitution. Not bloody likely, but I'll see what kind of mail I get back from these people.

...that even a God-King can bleed...

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/300/trailers_player.php?IGNMediaID=1912040&playerType=playlist

As Lawdog would say, Hie Thee Hence and watch. Every single clip.

Yes, I know this is not an accurate representation of Spartan life, law, beliefs, morals, culture or battle-tactics. They'd all have rotten teeth too.

The point is the retelling of a story few people have heard, and possibly exposing millions to the concept of individual liberty and the rightful defense thereof.

Did My Part, The Second Of Many Parts

My Beretta and battlerifle mags arrived UPS this evening. I now need to buy a new rifle case to house A.My second battlerifle Nancy Pelosi, and B.The five 30rd mags that don't fit in the case occupied by John Kerry.

The Beretta mags were a *edited* to load. New, factory mags, 20rd capacity, and I can feel every one of those 40 rounds in my hands right now. About 8:30PM I developed a blister on my left thumb the size and consistency of your average water balloon. Spent the rest of the night randomly poking holes in said thumb with a needle.

Oh happy evening.

Anyhoo, I've placed another Internet order for more goodies. New stock (and compliance parts *hack, spit*) and 2 mags for my BAG Day Gun. We'll see how those work. If they don't, I've got 90 days to mail 'em back.

Oh yeah and, I got my old job back, tenatively. I'd been transferred to a new department (read:dragged, kicking and screaming) because of a theft issue they resolved by switching out the old staff and putting in new people. My boss pulled some strings with his boss, traded out an employee who didn't like her job for me, so, I'm back...I think. It means working until midnight at least one night a week (not cool), but there should be 24 hours a week of work, and that's a not inconsiderable jump up from the 8 I'm getting now.

More money.

What do you think I'm going to do with it?

PS I'm writing pretty much every member of the House Judiciary committee tomorrow, and expressing to them that it would be treasonous to let HR1022 (the new AWB, basically the People's Republic Of California version, with some venomous stuff about registering standard-caps) out of committee.

Richard Marx - Someone Special

So here's the other song I was going to post to depress both my readers on That Accursed Holiday.

Richard Marx - Someone Special

I've lived my life in a single room
Hiding my scars from the moon
I dream my dreams in the light
Rehearse the lines I already know
Basking in the tvs glow
And pray that tonight is the night

Ooh, theres gotta be more than this
A future hanging on a strangers kiss
Could it be I'm not so alone

I'm Someone Special
I'm just in disguise
I may not be perfect
In everyone's eyes
It may not be tomorrow
But I still believe
There's Someone Special
Waiting out there for me

I guess the joke hasn't hit me yet
Cause I'm still waiting on my Juliet
She must be held up somewhere
Ooh, she will be the air I breathe
She'll come for good and never want to leave
And I'll love her only, I swear

People say there must be something wrong
For me to be all alone so long
And their words hit me like a stone

I'm Someone Special
I'm just in disguise
I may not be perfect
In everyone's eyes
It may not be tomorrow
But I still believe
There's Someone Special
Waiting out there for me

Lying in bed in a cold, cold sweat
Dreaming bout women I'll never get
I wont always be sleeping alone

I'm Someone Special
I'm just in disguise
I may not be perfect
In everyone's eyes
It may not be tomorrow
But I still believe
There's Someone Special
Waiting out there for me
-------------------------
As with most of Mr. Marx's work, I listen to it and I'm of half a mind to slap him and say "Be a man, Richard!" Lots about "my pain" and similar themes, and it draws the same reaction as when I listen to anything My Chemical Romance.

Ignore the verses, and the chorus really stand out. 8 lines, and it wraps up hope, loneliness, despair, love, a whole lot of emotions, and does so simply and with some very interesting phrasing. "I'm someone special/I'm just in disguise." That's twisting of a phrase right there.

Nickelback - Someone That You're With

I was gonna do this and the next one for Valentine's Day (otherwise known to me as That Accursed Holiday). Two songs that sum up my take on the whole festival of pink and red. So, here are my depressing picks.

Nickelback - Someone That You're With

I reside in 209, you're in 208
You moved in last Friday night
And I just couldn't wait
So I tried to call across the hall
To ask you out someday
But a lineup formed outside your door
And I was way too late

Well I'd rather start off slow
This whole thing's like some sort of race
Instead of winning what I want
I'm sitting here in second place

Because somewhere the one I wanna be with's with somebody else
Oh god, I wanna be that Someone That You're With
(I wanna be that Someone That You're With)
And I can talk about it all day long
'til I run out of breath
But I still wanna be that Someone That You're With
(I've got to be that Someone That You're With)
And I'm pacing by the phone
'Cause I hate to be alone
And if you're out there with him somewhere and just about to kiss
God I wanna be that Someone That You're With

Well I hear your favorite songs
You sing along with everyday
And I borrow things that I don't need
For conversation's sake
Last night I heard your key
It hit your lock at 4 AM
Instead of being out with me
You must be out with them

Because somewhere the one I wanna be with's with somebody else
Oh god, I wanna be that Someone That You're With
(I wanna be that Someone That You're With)
And I can talk about it all day long
'til I run out of breath
But I still wanna be that Someone That You're With
(I've got to be that Someone That You're With)
And I'm pacing by the phone
'Cause I hate to be alone
And if you're out there with him somewhere and just about to kiss
God, I wanna be that Someone That You're With

Well somewhere the one I wanna be with's with somebody else
Oh god, I wanna be that Someone That You're With
And I can talk about it all day long
'til I run out of breath
But I still wanna be that Someone That You're With
(I've got to be that Someone That You're With)
And I'm pacing by the phone
'Cause I hate to be alone
And if you're out there with him somewhere and just about to kiss
God, I've got to be that someone that
I wanna be that someone that
I've got to be that Someone That You're With
----------------------------------------------
Not something I'm posting FOR or about someone, but dang if that overused cliche "Story of my life" doesn't fit this.

It's almost a techno song, very fast, sort of throbbing beat. Not typical Nickelback fare, for either their entries into the ballad or rock genres, thought it fits both or either. A great song, one of those that you "feel" and then you hear it on CD, and say "So that's it..."

Tales From Retail Pt6

6.When last we left the good (or would he prefer “bad”) Rev, he was giving me grief for not processing his CD purchases for his Satanic church as tax exempt.

Fast forward. It is now January, and we have hours before been informed that we are going to be closing our gates forever in just a few weeks. Not only that, but our store is going to be occupied by a women’s clothing store, which sets everyone’s teeth on edge.

So. With a few days left before the clock strikes midnight, who should come waddling through the door, but the one man guaranteed to cause a few laughs…Rev.

He rolls his girth up to counter and demands that we refund the discount card that one of our staff forced upon him…back in September. A few words on his discount card. He’d used it between then and now. He’d benefited from it. He had renewed it of his own free will for the fourth year in a row back in September.

He doesn’t have a receipt. He has no transaction number, absolutely nothing to make our job of returning this discount card any easier. And he’s being a jerk about it besides – making repeated references to how we knew about closing long in advance (back in September, if he was to be believed), we forced him to take it, we lied about not closing the store, we’ve been lying to everyone who comes into the store, and isn’t it humiliating to be run out of the mall by a women’s clothing store.

I said no, I wouldn’t return it. I said I’d go get another manager. That manager said no, and laughed at this fat, little lisping ball of indignation. The assistant manager gets called, and after all three of us listen to Rev whine and carry on, she finally returns it to get him out of the store. She shouldn’t have.

The next day, he came in, grabbed a Texas Chainsaw Massacre DVD, and ran out with it. Aside from making me extremely mad, I find that quite funny - this little blob of Danny Devito shaped lard bobbling out of the store like a bat ouf heck with a DVD tucked under his arm like a running back. I wasn't there, but I can picture it greatly.

Oh yeah, and he tried to cast a spell on the store manager.

So I start work at my new job (the one after the cell phone gig), and according to the store manager (who had come over a few months before from my old job), Rev is now shopping there, complaining loudly and vociferously “I’m thick of thith. I’m thick of the way you treat me here.”

No matter what he’s doing when next I see him, I’m calling the managers and reporting that he stole something. Even if he didn’t.

Steven Avery Trial

I don't know if y'all remember this, but around Samhain 2005, a local feral predator by the name of Steven Avery abducted a photographer, and with the help of his 16yo nephew, tortured and murdered her.

Steven's on trial presently. Day one of the trial another nephew got up and told the jury Steven asked him to help hide a body. Defense asked for a mistrial, because they'd neglected to talk to the kid who'd given the testimony.

Denied. First rule of committing a crime is to NOT talk about it, or at least that's what I keep hearing.

I hope we never see Mr. Avery nor his feral nephew, Brendan Dassey on this side of the bars again. These two need to go away for the rest of their lives.

Did My Part, The First Of Many Parts

If the victim disarmament folks inhabiting Washington want to get guns out of our hands, they need to shut their fat yaps, 'cause every time they go about opening them, they sell more guns than if they'd kept quiet.

I didn't exactly go buying guns, but I put in an order this morning for 2 20rd mags for my Beretta 92, and 5 more mags for my battlerifle. Get this equalled out in the checking account with a check or 2, and then I'm converting my BAG Day gun into another battlerifle. Might pick up another one of the same kind for BAG day this year (with my tax return *hack, spit*), and then it's on to my Home Defense Rifle build.

That's not counting ammo buys.

See what happens when you talk about banning guns?

Random Reflections Pt19

81. The worst thing in the world is wanting something to or not to happen, and not being able to do a damn thing to cause or forestall it. I think that’s why I have a somewhat irascible and anarchic personality – I hate not being in control at all times.

82. A bill proposed in Wisconsin would have any citizen fined $250 dollars for asking publicly nursing mothers (even on private property) to be a little more demure in their exposure of themselves. No matter the language, no matter the tone, no matter nothing, ask a woman to cover up some while she shares a Close Moment™ with her child, and you’re a criminal.

No one’s yet addressed how this would be enforced, or what to do with all the maliciously false “complaints” that will undoubtedly arise.

The ugly part of this is, there ain’t a person talking about it who’s not in favor of it.

Has the whole world gone crazy as an outhouse rat?

83. It is humbling and awe-inspiring to see in others the values and virtues you always hoped and believed you possessed. Especially when this other or others are reputed to have very little in the way of values, virtues, common sense, and responsibility in the first place.

84. It is horrifying to learn that those you trust deeply can be completely and absolutely wrong about something. Equally horrifying is seeing how those same people can use their power capriciously, over that which they are wrong about.

85. Riffing on Q-Tips.Seen on a box of Q-Tips: “Satisfaction guaranteed. Return for refund or exchange.” How can you not be satisfied with the performance of a Q-Tip, and if you’re not satisfied, why would you exchange it for exactly the same product? How do you prove you weren’t satisfied?

Why are they called Q-Tips? Aren’t they tipped with cotton? If it’s based on shape, shouldn’t it be called an I-Tip? That sounds like an invention by Apple Computers.

Fun Times Pt3

The Fun Times series is dedicated to those little family crisises that get everybody all angry and frantic for a while, and just generally disrupt life. So far they have all had good outcomes, which is why I can ironically call them Fun Times™.

The very first "Fun Time" involved an intruder alarm that morphed from scaring away a burglar to chasing a flying squirrel out of the house with a spatula.

The second "Fun Time" was actually kind of scary - my mom was home alone and thought someone broke in, and my brother later performed his house-clearing duties admirably.

Last night was the third "Fun Time." I'm sitting downstairs, watching Deep Space Nine, when all of a sudden, thing seem...off...and not in any way that I can fully describe. The air has changed in some way. I ignore it and keep watching. After a few minutes, I'm sniffing the air...this is really weird...it smells like sulfur. Like really, badly rotten eggs. But just a hint of it.

Perplexed, I shut off DS9, and head for the stairs at the end of the long "family" room. WTH? It smells horrible over by the stairs. I run upstairs and tell my mom it smells awful downstairs. She heads down and just about chokes at the stench. We walk into the laundry room, and the smell is stronger, much stronger. We turn left into my brother's bedroom, and now the smell could knock a buzzard off a gut-wagon. This is, like, a panic situation. Something really bad's going down here.

My brother is not, ahem, the most...clean...person in the world, so the possibility of him leaving a meal under his bed and then having it decompose is not exactly an alien thought. We go back upstairs, and wake him up from where he's sleeping on the sofa.

And here is where the situation veers off into the absurd. Slightly peeved that one of her children may have just fumigated the house through carelessness, my mom tells my brother to open up the freezer and take a deep breath so he has a suitable control with which to appreciate the full awesomeness of the stench he is about to behold. Not in so many words though. "Stick your head in the freezer and breathe," is closer to the original wording.

He refuses, and asks what's going on. "Just stick your head in the freezer." This goes on a for a minute and we all finally troop downstairs. My brother can sniff this just as soon as he heads downstairs. Once in his room, we realize the smell has gotten exponentially worse. It is unholy on a thousand different levels. This is something that no decent human being should be exposed to.

Definitely not something of my brother's creation.We have an upright freezer in the basement, and my thought is maybe it came unplugged, the...meat...inside going rancid with time. But my musings on this are quickly derailed...my mom sends me to go get the carbon monoxide detector from upstairs. My protests that carbon monoxide is odorless fall on deaf ears, and I go get the thing and plug it in in my brother's room. It reads 0 to no ones surprise.

It is around this time that my dad ventures downstairs, just having noticed that there is A Fuss on under his roof, and he asks what the matter is. Very unflappable. My mom asks if he notices the smell, and he says yes, it's his bathroom.

Last summer we had a problem with plugged pipes. Varying brands of Drano wouldn't clear out the problem, wire pipe-snakes didn't do it...so my dad bought some industrial drain cleaner. Whereas most drain-cleaners are bases, this stuff was full-on sulphuric acid, diluted to the point where it didn't eat through the pipes (be very careful about not getting on the tub though, pour it straight down the drain). Half a bottle of that later, some very unpleasant odors started wafting out of the various drains in the house, as the sulphuric acid dissolved the biological growths that every household pipe system has. These odors were so strong that after opening all the windows, our house stood as the epicenter of a kind of funk that could be sniffed for dozens of yards in every direction.

Now let your mind wander, and grasp if it can, the full horror of unleashing such a pungent menace inside a house in the winter. With all the doors and windows closed.

YEAH.

My dad had poured some more of this industrial cleaner down his shower's drainpipe.By this time the stench has flooded the living area of the upstairs, and my mom's worried about our two pet rats and our two birds, one of which is a ten-year-old finch (finches are only supposed to live four to six years). They get hastily relocated to the bedrooms at the far end of the house, and we start turning on every fan in the house.

After fifteen minutes, the god-awful stench has not depreciated, and we start wondering what to do to render the air suitable for sleeping in. My brother sprays three cans of AXE in his room, lights a candle, and sets a fan to blow air out of his room - which results in mixing the heavy smell of AXE with the smell of rotten eggs.

We finally hit upon a solution - open all the doors and windows! I should comment that this is Wisconsin, and it is winter, and our median temps for the past few days have been 10 degrees in the sun. It is nine at night. It is damned cold outside. Soon it is damned cold inside. We watched Lost, made hot drinks, and wore hats and gloves.

Around ten we finally closed the house up. Despite cranking the heat to 90 to offset the cold air, the ambient temperature had dropped seven degrees. We ran a propane space heater for a couple of minutes to warm up the living room before going to bed.

BAG Day Gun Goodness

So, before this moon-battery with the 2 McCarthy started, I was considering converting my decent BAG Day gun into an Honest-To-God battlerifle. This would entail replacing the stock and getting some decent detachable hi-caps.

Figured $150 for the stock and 2 mags. I could buy another rifle just like it for that much, but this'll give what I've got some utility. I start poking around the internet, and what do I find?

In order to stay a few steps ahead of breaking importation laws, I have to replace some of the internals with US made parts. See, AFAIK, it works like this:

@I've got a Curio & Relic gun. As such, I can ignore that parts-count game.
@I replace the stock with something more useful, I've just assembled a non-sporting, foreign assault rifle and voided C&R status. This is a Bad Thing, they'd have us believe.
@In order to avoid doing this Bad Thing, I must replace some of the foreign-made internals with identical US-made pieces.
@I will then have a US-made sporting rifle.

This is a *edited* joke. I've got to budget an extra $40 (on a college budget, getting 8 hours a week) to buy US parts that look and work identically to the foreign parts already in my rifle. Whoever came up with this should be tossed in jail, for life.

With a sign that says "Cop" or "Snitch" around their neck.

And so it begins...

The 2 (remember the swearing code), Carolyn McCarthy (isn't she up for a lung-cancer scheduled vacation to the great shooting range in the sky sometime soon?) introduced a bill to reauthorize the Assault Weapons Ban.

Because, the pump action shotgun and .38 revolver used by the Utah mall shooter were covered in the bill, you see.

As teenagers would say: NOT.

Time to go read Unintended Consequences again, and wish there was someone out there with nothing to lose and the backbone and smarts to, at the very least, exact some appropriate vengence upon those who would deprive us of our God-given rights.

Maybe it won't make it out of committee. We can hope. In the interregnum, I'm going to be buying magazines, and maybe another battle-rifle.

Random Gun Stuff

So I decided I needed to make some purchases yesterday. I've stocked my checking account for the past few months, so I didn't feel horrible about taking a hundred out of the last paycheck to deal with some of the purchases I've been needing/wanting to make.

First up was a prepaid phone card. I'll restock my phone when I go back to school.

Then I got 2 30-round mags for my battlerifles. I was horrified when I brought them home and the follower on one was too depressed due to a rust spot. Despite scrubbing at the mag with paper towel, gun patches, WD40, and the most caustic chemical I've ever handled CopperKleenz gun-cleaner (it chaps my hands every time I clean a gun, and I take maybe 10 minutes per gun...nasty stuff), the follower was still stuck on the rust spot. I begin to think it's a spring problem, so I took it back, got a new one that worked perfectly.

Finally, out to Sportsman's Warehouse where I pick up Hogue Grips for Paul Nelson, my Sig P220. VERY nice. They were a pain to put on, but they're nice and slim and increase my ability to grip the gun well. I wonder how well they'll aid my shooting, since the only problem I have with the gun is the muzzle-flip provided by the 4in barrel. On top of that, the pistol looks really nice now.

What do you say?

On what may have been the last night at my regular job, a late-middle-aged woman comes in, looking for a CD with the Metallica song "Am I Evil?" without the lyrics.

We joke about how few kareoke CDs Metallica put out, and I eventually just hand her Garage Inc. and tell her this is the best I can do. Nope, she's looking for the backing track, so someone could play guitar over it.

I make a few recommendations for places to look online, and let her know that getting someone to record the guitar part for her is going to be expensive and time consuming. She tells me her son used to play it, and she wants to hear it again.

A couple of years ago in my fair city, a couple of Hmong kids pitched a white youth off a five story parking garage for the crime of not being Hmong. It wasn't a hate crime, like the recent shooting of a Hmong hunter by a white guy, so it didn't get much press.

That was her son that got tossed off the roof.

She's a wreck now. We talked for half an hour. She moved into her son's empty apartment. She destroyed her family connections in the way she divided up his possessions. She goes to grief counseling. She's on more medications than the local cancer ward.

She simply cannot, and will not move forward with her life. The life that she created was horrifically taken from this earth, and that's why she spends all her time listening to his CDs and looking at boxes of his crayons from when he was eight.

It's not every day you get to speak with someone who's loved one was the victim of homicide. It's not every day you get to see how the mind can destroy a person.

What do you say to them?

What CAN you say to them?

House

Funny episode (at times) tonight. I'll paraphrase.

*House pulls a microscope out of a man's nose*
H."Very nice. If my lawn looked like that, pigeons wouldn't dare poop on it."
Patient"First impressions do count. For example, I noticed that your shirt isn't pressed, and you obviously haven't shaved in many days."
H."You use a toenail clippers to trim your nose hairs?"
P."They give me more...reach."
H."I haven't combed my hair and my shirt is rumpled. You have athlete's foot in your nose. I'm ready to be judged."

When The Crowds Are Gone

Yeah, I've threatened to post songs...here's the first one. One of my favorites of all time, Savatage's When The Crowds Are Gone.

I don't know where the years have gone
Memories can only last so long
Like faded photographs, forgotten songs
And the things I never knew
When the skin is thin, the heart shows through
Please believe me what I tell you is true

Where's the lights, turn 'em on again
One more night to believe and then
Another note for my requiem
A memory to carry on
The story's over
When The Crowds Are Gone

All my friends have been crucified
Made life a long suicide true
Guess we never figured out the rules
But I'm still alive, my fingers feel
Gonna play on till the final reel's through
And read the credits from a different view

Where's the lights, turn 'em on again
One more night to believe and then
Another note for my requiem
A memory to carry on
The story's over
When The Crowds Are Gone

When The Crowds Are Gone

When The Crowds Are Gone
And I'm all alone
Playing the saddest song
Now that the lights are gone
Turn them on again
One more time for me my friend
Turn 'em on again

I never wanted to know
Never wanted to see
I wasted my time
Till time wasted me
Never wanted to go
Always wanted to stay
'Cause the persons I am
Are the parts that I play
So I plot and I plan
Hope and I scheme
To the lure of a night
Filled with unfinished dreams
I'm holding on tight
To a world gone astray
As they charge me for years
I can no longer pay

Turn 'em on again (repeat)

I never wanted to know
Never wanted to see
I wasted my time
Till time wasted me
I Never wanted to go
Always wanted to stay
'Cause the persons I am
Are the parts that I play
The parts I play

And the lights
Turn them off my friend
And the ghosts
We'll just let them in
Cause in the dark
It's easier to see
---------------------------------------------
The Savatage website says it's about a master composer who...wastes...his life trying to publish his masterpiece, only to have it played for the first time at his funeral.

I see in it more a musician (or maybe just a person) looking back on his life (maybe at his last show, I see it at his deathbed), seeing the things he's sacrificed for his music, his interest, his obsession. He's obviously begging, hoping, for one more moment, fighting the inevitable. In the end, he accepts his fate.

You can see the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8WWiJ6TU4s
I'm pretty certain it's standard 80s fare. Like the song, it gets far better around "I never wanted..." It's quite enjoyable watching Jon and Criss Oliva with their seperate parts, one beating a piano to death with his guitar, the other finishing the song on his knees, screaming about the parts that we play.

I never wanted to know
Never wanted to see
I wasted my time
Till time wasted me

Fun Times Pt2

Before I move on to the meat of the entry, let me just apologize in advance for the lack of content. My life the last few weeks has looked something like this:

Work, 11-7:30 Sunday & Monday
School, Tuesday 10-4:30
School, homework, and all the stuff I can't do after 7:30 at night, Wednesday & Thursday
Work, 11-7:30 Friday & Saturday

Anyhoo, onto the story.

I call for a ride home from school Thursday afternoon, and my mom sounds weird. On the verge of crying. It's easy to tell in the car that's she's freaked out. While I was at programming class, and my brother was at the Y, another set of voices started talking in the house, over the radio. She'd been out feeding squirrels and left the back door open, then went down to the opposite end of the house... and after turning off the radio, the voices persisted. She went from room to room, making sure all noise-making appliances were off.

They were.

The voices were still talking. Mom went to the top of the basement stairs. The voices were coming from downstairs. Someone had turned the TV on, while she was upstairs. No one else was home.

This is the very definition of A Bad Thing(TM).

She couldn't leave, because my brother was coming home, and she didn't want him walking in on a burglary in progress. Not only that, but I'd be calling soon. So, she went and retrieved my dad's newly restored 1911, and stood by the back door for 15 minutes. She didn't know how to make it operational, but the impulse to get a gun was the right one.

15 minutes later, my brother gets back from the Y. In his words, "there are few things scarier than being greeted at the door by your mother, who's holding a gun and going 'ssshhhh.'"

Brother doesn't know how to operate a 1911. Nevertheless, he takes it, stands at the head of the stairs, and tells mom to retrieve my CX4 (which he does know how to operate) from my room. She does, and he ventures into the basement.

A note aforehand. My brother's not quite the gunny I am. He has no interest in self-defense theory, doesn't read or watch tapes, or constantly surround himself with people who talk guns and survival more than they eat (slight exaggeration), like yours truly does.

Our basement is divided up into a long room running parallel under the front of the house, and a bedroom (my brother's), a laundry room, a bathroom, and a workroom running parallel to long room, under the back of the house. The stairs lead down to one end of the long room.

My brother sprinted down the stairs, got to the end of the long room, put the wall to his back, and evaluated. The lights had been turned on, and the TV was on. He quickly checks visible hiding places, and sprints to the laundry room, which is an intersection for the basement. From there, he moves fast to his bedroom, and trades the 9mm carbine for Nancy Pelosi, the battlerifle that he practically owns, and keeps in his closet. From there, he runs back upstairs.

I'd called by then, and he tells mom, in her words "Go get 'Vincent.' He's the safe one, he'll know what to do." My mom says it's a measure of the respect my brother has for me, that he'd rather rely on my judgement in a crisis than his own.

Let me tell you, there's nothing quite like coming home, and finding your brother sitting on the sofa with a battlerifle over his knees.

I jack a round into the 1911, and we go downstairs, check room to room. Nobody. Empty. Having thoroughly cleared the basement of all hiding places, we return our various weaponry to the places from whence it came, go upstairs, and begin the Monday Morning Quarterbacking.

My mom has since handled every gun I own, and does not possess the physical strength to draw back a bolt or slide. She just can't, and it's our practice to leave chambers empty around the house. So, I'm looking into a revolver. It'll cost as much as a battlerifle probably, and it won't have near the utility.

The reason I write this is to show my respect for my brother. It just keeps climbing. I've observed him and his actions now for quite a while, and I'm hard-pressed to come up with a better, more practical person, and not just when it comes to handling the household weaponry. I can't go into it here, but I find it humbling to see in someone else the qualities I WISH to see in myself, especially in someone who I've been told doesn't possess them. But let's look at what he did right in this situation:

Traded up from a handgun to a carbine.
Moved through a big empty space fast, and only stopped when he had his back to something.
Cleared the hiding places and intersection fast.
Traded up from a carbine to a rifle when the opportunity presented itself.
Waited for backup before going any deeper into an unknown situation.

I doubt he'll read this, but for someone who's spent zip for time around the gun culture, that's pretty damn good for a first try, and deserves a slap on the back.

Oh and, we have no idea how the lights or TV came on. My mom hadn't been downstairs for about half an hour before they turned themselves on. It's a mystery.

Gander Mtn. will be getting a visit from me this week, and I'm definitely coming back better schooled in wheelguns than when I left.

Happy New Year

So here I am, 12 days after the new year. Busy as heck with a full-time job and school that's described as equal to a full-time job. Brief updates follow, but I'm not sure how much I'm going to be updating here. I gotta find some equilibrium between school and work before I can say "I'm going to write x essays and y posts a month."
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Got Miami Vice for Christmas. Love that movie. Not as good as Heat, or Collateral, but better than 95% of the movies I've seen in my life.

I'm buying up the DS9 box-sets. It's my treat to myself for when school kicks in in full swing and there's nothing much else to enjoy in my day.

That giddily happy post I made a couple months ago? "Time is luck." "Luck ran out." That's from Miami Vice, and uttered in almost the same context.

I put a collapsible stock on Nancy Pelosi, my Election Day Assault Rifle. Lovin' it. Thinking of getting another one and outfitting it with a folding stock. I think 3 assault rifles and a couple companion rifles (go find the meaning of that term), should be enough. Now I want to get a taste of shotgunning. And go shooting more. BTW, my dad's 1911 works flawlessly. Apparently the smiths at Gander Mtn aren't complete morons.

I watched Blood Diamond on New Years Eve. Decent movie. I like seeing USPs featured so prominently, and characters that chamber-check their guns when appropriate. Of course it was a bleeding-heart liberal ending, but what else is one to expect.

Also went bowling on NYE, and enjoyed it once I'd pulled myself out of my funk. After bowling, my brother got pulled over for pausing at a red light instead of stopping. It's his own fault, but I still don't like it.

I've got roughly half of my New Years resolutions taken care of already, but monetarily, I still have to account for about two thirds.
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I'm thinking I'll start posting song lyrics here - songs that I like or that I have running through my head.

Random Reflections Pt18

76. Apologies to the THR’er that I’m about to steal this from. A minister said as he handed in a bunch of .22 rifles at a gun buyback “I don’t believe in violence, I have faith.”

Whereupon the THR’er posted “Not believing in violence is like not believing in gravity. Don’t believe in it all you want, but don’t take away my parachute.” Dang straight.

77. I think humans have certain programming built in. There’s one set of hardcoded instructions I’d like to reference, and that’s fear of the dark.

There is no logical reason for humans to fear what darkness conceals. But we do. Our steps get tentative. Our breathing goes quick. We tense up. Our eyes move about more. I can’t think of a logical reason for this except for some sort of basic operating instructions printed on our genes.

78. I can’t figure out why people have such a problem with Myspace. I think it’s a generational thing. Elvis, The Beatles, Nirvana, violent video games, Myspace…every generation’s parents need something to hate.

Name me one thing that can be done on Myspace that can’t be done on your standard bulletin board, or by someone with a passing knowledge of Geocities. You can’t!

Myspace is representative of the internet. It is a place that people meet. It will be used for good or ill. It is a parents’ job to make sure that their child uses it responsibly – no one else’s.

79. The best way not to do something wrong or stupid is to not place yourself into situations where you could choose to do something wrong or stupid. Better to remove temptation as much as possible than find out the hard way your willpower ain’t up to the task.

80. Expanding on the “things I learned from programming” RR above, the only thing that matters is What IS. Wasting time living on What Isn’t or What Should Be is a state of delusion and a waste of life.