The Kingdom

Got this movie for Christmas. I'd seen it twice in 2 days beforehand.

This may be one of the most important movies of the past five years. It opens with an absolutely stomach churning scene of Jihadists gunning down and blowing up innocent civilians in rather graphic fashion. Stuff like this needs to be thrown in people's faces on a daily basis - all we hear is the "it's OUR fault" chorus.

The scenes of the actual investigation are pretty boring, but again, what stands out is the repeated slamming home of the point that the Islamic culture, and especially the culture of the Islamofascists is as different from ours as night and day.

It "ends" on kind of a downer...they get a small cell, .gov calls it a victory and recalls them...and then on the way to the airport they're attacked. More bashing people over the head that Islamofascists are evil pigs - in the middle of a gunfight they take time out to try and behead Jason Bateman on film.

The real ending is much better. Jamie Foxx kicking some Islamofascist behind with a G3. And then an underfolding AK. Jennifer Garner greasing a guy with a folding knife. Everything a good movie needs, except perhaps a ten minute monologue on the evils of Communism and Hillary Clinton.

The End Of The Lightbulb As We Know It

http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/economy/2007/12/19/faq-the-end-of-the-light-bulb-as-we-know-it.html

Congress banned regular lightbulbs. As of 2014, you won't be able to choose, in a supposedly free market, what kind of lightbulbs you want to buy.

The reason we have to put up with this crap now is because we didn't line the people who started it in the 20s, 30s, and 40s up against a wall and shoot them.

It's not just lightbulbs. It's freedom to choose in an unrestricted market. I want my America back, dammit.

The Deer Hunter

Got The Deer Hunter from the library the other day. I've always heard what a fantastic movie it is, and figured I needed to see it.

De Niro did a decent job with the material he was given. Overall though, the movie sucked. They spent too much effort trying to make it "real life" that they completely forgot there was supposed to be a fantastic epic in there somewhere. It could've been a great movie, but everybody (excepting De Niro) phones in their performances, and there's very little drama in the writing.

Plus it was way, way too long. Exactly 3 hours. You could've cut the first 45 minutes and not missed a thing.

Too bad, this movie had a lot going for it on paper.

Frustration

I feel like I'm getting stabbed in the back at work. Often I'm the closing employee, which means I'm responsible for the department from 3 until 11pm, which encompasses our busiest time.

Saturday, 2 people called off sick, leaving me the only person in the department from 7:30 until close. This is the second to last Saturday before Christmas. It was BUSY. Instead of sending me a cashier to work the register, or someone who actually knows my department, they sent me a woman who's never even BEEN in my department as a customer, much less an employee. And then they pull her out, randomly.

Yesterday, the second to last Sunday before Christmas, the manager walks into the department, sees that we're between rushes and says "*redacted*, you can go home, we need to save on hours." This was at 3.

*Redacted* was supposed to be there until 6. Ok, so one quarter of our employees goes home. From 4 until 6 we did 60% of our business. We had 2 people from other departments working with us for 45 minutes, and we still weren't able to do effective customer service.

Because I am a man, I dealt with it. Didn't like it, but I did my best.

On a brighter note, I'm thinking about buying a stock of Nyquil, and handing it out free - with a measuring cup - to any parent with a child under ten, when they enter my department. It would cut down on my stress level.

Ammo Prices On The Drop

Dunhams dropped 7.62x39 to $4.19. Gander Mtn. dropped it to $4.99. Fleet Farm dropped 5.56x45 to $3.99.

It's not $2.50 per 20 like I saw 2 years ago, but it's not $7.99 per 20 like I saw 3 months ago.

Makes me happy, it does.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra - The Snow Came Down

A railway station
On a long forgotten line
No destination
But it always leaves on time
He buys his ticket
As the train prepares to leave
Don't want to miss it
On this night Christmas Eve

He stared into the night
No expectations
He watched the world go by
Without a sound
He saw the city lights
Arrive and fade away
While all that night
All that night
The Snow Came Down

No conversation
As the snow fell from the sky
His consolation
That the world is well disguised

He stared into the night
No expectations
He watched the world go by
Without a sound
He saw the city lights
Arrive and fade away
While all that night
All that night
The Snow Came Down

He stared into the night
No expectations
But in his heart he wanted to believe
That somehow someone would be waiting there
Upon this Christmas Eve

And when his train it pulled into that station
He saw there was a single pair of tracks
Within the snow and leading to that Station door
And he followed those steps back
And on this night of our salvation
Where dreams that have been lost
Can there be found
They walked away together
On that Christmas Eve
While all that night
All that night
The Snow Came Down
--------------------------------------------------
The song is about a lonely rich man who's been set up to meet his old girlfriend at a trainstation. He doesn't know this, he just knows to be there at a certain time. His train arrives at he sees her footprints in the snow, and they are reunited on Christmas Eve.

I love this song. The anguish with which the singer describes the man's journey is heart-wrenching. The instrumentation is incredible, little musical...I can only describe them as bookmarks...are hidden throughout the song, little repetitions that are so cool to find. And the writing is superb - I love how the end of the song is just the chorus rewritten multiple times. TSO has always had a way with words, going back to their Savatage days. They're some of the best wordsmiths in music.

December 10th has a very special meaning for me. Something that changed my life - sort of - happened on December 10th 2 years ago. This very day, 2 years ago. I've written it up, maybe someday I'll get around to telling y'all about it.

Last year, I believe it was on this date (but if it wasn't, I beg your forgiveness, I suck at remembering dates), a similar scene happened with me as described in the song. Falling snow, Christmas music, waiting to see Her.

Unlike the song though, She wasn't there.

I Love My Job

You know that scene in The 3 Musketeers where Porthos knocks a guy out with a Bolo from like a hundred yards away and then says "God, I love my job"?

Yeah. It's like that.

Moron in class today gives us a presentation on how we should have socialized healthcare. Then plays some of Sicko for us, which was entertaining only for the scene of Hillary being burned in effigy. You heard my "YES!" throughout the class.

Teacher asks at the end if we have any questions for the speaker.

I raise my hand.

"Vincent?"

"Please explain to me why it is you think you're entitled to have the government take my money?"

Stammers about socialized police forces, fire departments, prison systems.

"I can't incarcerate Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey in my home. I pay the government to remove them from society because we don't want to be around them. I can pay for my own healthcare. Why should I be forced to pay for yours?"

"I'll be forced to pay for yours as well, you'll be taking my money too."

"I don't want your money. I want MY money. I earned it. It's not yours."

Teacher breaks up the argument.

I figure he has a 5% chance of figuring out he's an imbecile. That's 5 percentage points more than he had this morning.

CSI: Miami...or...

...this crap kills brain cells faster than alcohol or asphyxiation.

Plot is thus: A private security firm filled w/ Blackwater types uses a prototype caseless rifle to kill three weapons smugglers. The head of the firm is then killed by his lieutenant and the previous head of the firm, and they sell this rifle to...unknown highest bidders.

The caseless rifle is actually based on real technology. It fires bullets electronically, and the weapon degrades during use. Not on TV. It's the size of a dog kennel, but at the beginning, it's employed by one person against three men in rapid succession. It "vaporizes" people...which was actually a funny animation. One moment they're here, the next they're jumping into a transition into a red stain.

The CSI team is able to track the firm's head's killer as he remotely erases the man's laptop. Looks like something from Star Trek.

Then there's the requisite showdown between Caine and the evildoer...Caine shows up right in time for the bad guy to make some ridiculously lame announcement about a suitable demonstration of the weapons power. Caine swerves his H2 and the back end explodes - it should've been shorn right off. The weapon is used again, and this time the Hummer is completely incinerated...Caine has escaped, and is now standing before this dog-kennel sized cannon. The badguy makes a lame quip about its power, and Caine shoots him in the head, then one-hit-kills a few other badguys at about fifty feet while holding his Sig 229 one-handed.

He then makes his own lame quip about using just one bullet, and the screen fades to black.

Watching CSI:Miami is like an intellectual I Am Legend. You feel like the last smart person on the planet. I've seen drooling Down-Syndrome patients with an insatiable lust for mashed potatoes who could pen better fiction.

I need to go watch some House clips on Youtube, get this bad taste out of my mouth.

The Greatest TV Quote Ever

Hello, sick people and their loved ones! In the interest of saving time and avoiding a lot of boring chitchat later, I'm Doctor Gregory House; you can call me "Greg." I'm one of three doctors staffing this clinic this morning.

This ray of sunshine is Doctor Lisa Cuddy. Doctor Cuddy runs this whole hospital, so unfortunately she's much too busy to deal with you. I am a bored... certified diagnostician with a double specialty of infectious disease and nephrology. I am also the only doctor currently employed at this hospital who is forced to be here against his will.

That is true, isn't it?

But not to worry, because for most of you, this job could be done by a monkey with a bottle of Motrin. Speaking of which, if you're particularly annoying, you may see me reach for this: this is Vicodin. It's mine! You can't have any! And no, I do not have a pain management problem, I have a pain problem... but who knows? Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm too stoned to tell. So, who wants me?

And who would rather wait for one of the other two guys?

Okay, well, I'll be in Exam Room One if you change your mind.

Edwards: Garnish Wages If Needed to Cover All

Edwards: Garnish Wages If Needed to Cover All

ABC News' Teddy Davis Reports: Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards is hoping to stand-out from rivals on health care by portraying the plan of rival Barack Obama as leaving 15 million uninsured and portraying Hillary Clinton as lacking the candor needed to get to universal coverage.

"Barack Obama's plan leaves out 15 million people," said Edwards. "The truth is that some people will choose not to buy insurance even though it's affordable, knowing that the rest of us will pay for their emergency room visits."Listen to this moron. Some people will CHOOSE NOT TO BUY INSURANCE. Paying for their emergency room visits is just the same as paying for their insurance. And who is he to say that people shouldn't be able to REFUSE insurance if they don't want it?

"But it is just as bad to say that everyone will have insurance without a plan to get there," he continued. "Hillary Clinton says her plan will cover everyone through a 'mandate' but does not provide even the most rudimentary idea much less a detailed plan of how this 'mandate' would work."

Like Clinton (and unlike Obama), Edwards' health-care plan would require every American to have health insurance. Require insurance. We're not talking about "giving" everyone insurance (which will ultimately be the same thing) we're now just coming out and saying "Every American is going to have insurance at gunpoint." Does it make me a bad man to want to drag Edwards into the street and kick him?

But unlike Clinton, Edwards is now detailing how he would enforce his mandate.
Under the Edwards plan, when Americans file their income taxes, they would be required to submit a letter from an insurance provider confirming coverage for themselves and their dependents. Once again, the IRS gets involved. Remember, they were only supposed to tax the upper 1-5%. Guess not anymore!

If someone did not submit proof of coverage, the Internal Revenue Service would notify a newly established regional or state-based health-care agency (which Edwards has dubbed a Health Care Market). Market. Market! A place where people buy and sell things. A market isn't a damned government agency you dip**** with delusions of adequacy!

Those regional agencies would then evaluate whether the uninsured individual was eligible for Medicare (which covers those over 65), Medicaid (which covers the indigent), or S-CHIP (the State Children's Health Insurance Program which targets the working poor).

If the individual was not eligible for either of those existing public programs, the regional-health care agency would enroll the individual into the lowest cost health-care plan available in that area. The lowest-cost option could be a new Medicare-like public option or a private insurance plan. Well thank God private insurance companies aren't going to be put out of business.

The newly covered individual would not only have access to health benefits but would also be responsible for making monthly payments with the help of a tax credit.Let me get this straight. They're going to put a gun to his head and take his money, force him to pay for insurance upon threat of going to jail, and then they're going to give him a tax break. In what kind of crazy, screwed up moonbat world does that even begin to approach making sense?

The exact size of the financial obligation would vary according to a person's income (lower-income Americans would receive larger tax credits). Yet more punish the industrious economics. The nerve of those fellows...working!...and expecting to keep the fruit of their labor. I seriously question their compassion.

If a person did not meet his or her monthly financial obligation for a set period of time (perhaps a year, perhaps longer) the Edwards plan would empower the federal government to garnish an individual's wages for purposes of collecting "back premiums with interest and collection costs."More gunplay by the feds. If a person doesn't want health care and refuses to play ball, the federal government is simply going to rip their money away, reaching into their future paychecks to take payments for health care they didn't receive. And just how IN THE HELL is that going to affect their ability to pay for healthcare and other necessities in the present?

The process, according to the Edwards campaign, would resemble the process used to collect money from Americans who are delinquent on federal student loans or child support payments.
The Edwards campaign has not put a dollar figure on the amount that would be garnished from wages because the cost of the lowest-priced plan in that region could vary and is not yet known.

While raising the specter of wage garnishment could expose Edwards to the criticism that he favors a bigger, more intrusive government, he is hoping that Democrats will reward him for offering a plan that is bolder than Obama's and more candid than Clinton's.Reward him for proposing theft. For those who didn't catch it the first time, he thinks they'll reward him for THEFT! Man walks into my place of work, mouthing off about what he wants to steal, I'm going to call the POLICE!

"To get fundamental change in our health care system, we need a fundamental change in our politics," said Edwards. "That starts with being clear and direct about what we are going to do and how we are going to do it."Sure is a fundamental change you arrogant ****, and it's not a change for the better.

I read this and for some reason I think of Neil McCauly and Waingro in a hotel room. It's like a Rorshach ink-blot test.

...And They're Home!

The Barak Huessein Osama and Rudy Guiliani Commemorative Assault Rifles followed me home tonight. I broke them down (I love being able to do adjustments with a hammer!) and they're sitting in pieces on my workbench waiting for me to come downstairs tomorrow with a CD player and clean them for 5 hours.

Lessee here, assault rifle cleaning music...it'll either be:

~Scott Stapp
~Creed
~Nickelback/Hinder
~Theory Of A Deadman

Only in a free country do you have to make such choices.

Layaway Is A Wonderful Thing

The Rudy Guiliani and Barak Huessein Obama Commemorative Assault Rifles are sitting in the Dunham's lockup, awaiting the Black Friday morning sale. They are of a type I already own multiple examples of, and I look forward to ripping them apart and putting them back together, modifying them into even more awesome, liberal-scaring weapons.

Why not the Hillary Clinton Commmemorative Assault Rifle, you ask, when Hillary is a so much bigger threat to my way of life?

The Hillary Clinton Commemorative Battle-Rifle will be purchased on the next election day. I figure the bigger the b*tch, the bigger the rifle, the better the symbolism. It will be a JLD PTR-91, in the .308 caliber. I plan on buying 2000 rounds and a metric ton of magazines between here and there. My present EBRs are not slouches in the caliber department, but the big G3 clone is a terrifyingly powerful hitter at close and long ranges. It is specifically designed to excel in battle with military troops. That is the reason it was conceived, and the reason its existance has continued in the years since World War 2. I will train with it, and I will become proficient with it, and in doing so, I will demonstrate to the world that I am not a subject, I am a citizen. I am an American.

Somebody Please...

remind me that when I see the light at the end of the tunnel, it's usually a train, and it usually runs my *** over.

I seem to be in the process of forgetting that. Of losing my objectivity. That ain't a good thing.

Presidential Candidate News

Ron Paul raised 4.3 mil on Guy Fawkes day. Most of any candidate in one day, ever. 225k per hour, roughly.

Fred Thompson wants to raise a million man fighting force. Makes me nervous. Is also looking for donors to be on a Second Amendment advisory committee. Makes me happy.

Hillary Clinton is taking flak for planting people to ask easy questions in the crowd, and dodging tough questions. Also, it appears that pesky gay rumor has gone away, even if the source of said rumor hasn't (the woman's still on the Clinton team). Dang. Anything to torpedo her, true or false.

Just When You Think You've Hit Bottom

...someone throws you a shovel.

The nightly news just ran a piece on the horrors of a new drug, known on "the street" as Jimson Weed, or just plain Jimson. Seems one kid in our little township picked a random plant in the woods, dried it, and smoked it. And now it's a crisis!

How you can say the words "the street" and Jimson Weed in the same sentence without giggling hysterically is beyond me, but the newscaster did just that.

And for crying out loud, carpet's got more chemicals in it than Jimson Weed...you can probably get high smoking carpet fibers! Or the new trend in prisons...fermenting sewage. What are we going to do, make forgetting to flush a felony?

God forbid someone wants to chemically alter their conciousness. And God forbid a parent takes some responsibility for snookums's stupidity instead of expecting the government to waltz in and ban Jimson Weed.

Criminal

I committed a crime tonight.

My mom's studying to become a photographer. This week the assignment was night shots. So, she wants to get downtown pictures. River shots.

Downtown. At night. Walking around with a $1500 camera. Not smart.

I carried my dad's Walther PPK/S for the hour and a half we were downtown. Small gun, inside the waistband holster, t-shirt, hooded sweatshirt, and leather corsair jacket. I could've carried my big Sig 45 and nobody would've noticed.

It's weird. I just broke the law. On the list of crimes, it isn't a traffic violation. I feel no guilt. Nothing. I'd do it again, and I probably will. I do not respect this law, and the only consideration I will give it is how I can thwart it and not get caught.

I guess this is what Ayn Rand meant when she said you can't rule free men.

I'll break the law again, if I feel the benefits outweigh the risks.

Crysis - I Love This Game!

Just what it says. I've been playing the demo for the past 2 days, and I dig it.

Far Cry was the epitome of awesome. But it looked cartoony. And a lot of the action was cartoony. It was fun as all get-out, but it wasn't realistic.

Crysis is like Far Cry crossed with Half-Life 2. You get Far Cry with realism.

The environment is beautiful, the day-change is subtle but amazing. I love the draw-distance, and being able to shred trees is fun. Reloading an empty rifle nets you a mag's worth of ammo, but reload halfway through a mag, and you get a mag+1, just like in real life. Using a vehicle as a bomb is cool, and the ability to destroy your enviroment is quite unique.

I've got 2 complaints only.
1.I realize it forces me to go for the headshot, but nobody's body armor stands up to 10 7.62x39 slugs. My bullets should do more damage.
2.The powersuit (or whatever) feels like a gimmick. And unless it's upgradable, it is. Cloak and speed don't last for nothing, and I can't detect anything that armor does. Strength is useful only for mega jumps, and the incredibly satisflying upclose enemy grab.

Other than those 2 points, the game is perfect. Congrats, Crytek, you just got $60 of mine.

House Passes Thought-Crime Bill

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-1955

Scary. Just plain scary. We now know for absolutely-damn-certain that the Founding Fathers would be rotting in gaol were they here today.

And then people wonder why I want an arsenal to match Venezuala's, and cash & handguns buried around the nation...

House Passes Thought-Crime Bill

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-1955

Scary. Just plain scary. We now know for absolutely-damn-certain that the Founding Fathers would be rotting in gaol were they here today.

And then people wonder why I want an arsenal to match Venezuala's, and cash & handguns buried around the nation...

USPC Update

I've been carrying my USPC in an Uncle Mike's Sidekick since Sunday (I think). Carries beautifully, and I don't have to worry about the darn thing falling down my pants leg. I'd tell y'all where I've gone with it, but that'd be copping to a misdemeanor. :-)