big cliché

Which line, you ask? The line to bow down and pay homage to my mad pistolero skills, that's which line! Yeah, I said it. For those wondering, this is what a good day at the range looks like. 85 rounds through this particular target, 200 in total. The target you see here is the classic Score Keeper 25-yard pistol slow-fire target, available at just about every sporting good store in America. The goal was to shoot out the entire bullseye, or X-ring, within 100 rounds. I thought I had it all, but you can see a tiny bit left at about 1:30 on the target. Oh well, I ain't gonna compalin too much. And just so you know, you can see every single bullet hole in this target, even though the the scan didn't capture the entire thing. To give you an idea of scale, the part of the 9-ring you can see, is 2.75 inches in diameter, and I ran this target down somewhere between 15 and 20 yards. Doesn't sound like much? Remember: an average room these days is around 9'X12' which comes out to 3 yards by 4. So take that short side of your room and multiply it by 5. Well, I could go on and on about this, but I think I've made my point, so I'll go ahead and stop now.

In movie news, we tried to watch 3 movies this weekend, but only made it through 1. We started to watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but it Aimee wasn't feeling it. So we stopped and watched Spy Kids 3D: Game over. Stop laughing, Robert Rodriguez directed it so it was worth a shot. Neither of us was feeling that one, so we stopped it. Then, we finally settled on White Noise, and made it all the way through that one. It was alright, but they made waaaay to frequent use of the blaring, noisy screens to try to scare the audience. It worked twice. The funny part about that movie, to us anyway, is that Keaton's wife, played by Chandra West, can't seem to get a role where she lives to the end of the movie! The last thing we saw her in was The Salton Sea, and she gets offed in that one within the first 20 minutes too. Poor girl can't get a break. She's been typecast as the wife who always dies. Anyway, if you can get it for free go for it. If you can't save your money for lottery scratchers or something. Cause we all know the OK lottery is going to save education and you better be playing because it's for the children. And we all know, if you don't support endless pork spending on education then you hate children. So there.

Here's a little something Dave W. sent over last week. I thought it appropriate, timely and a good idea. So, here it is for your review.

Call it price gouging.... Call it energy policy....
Call it whatever you want....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051017/bs_nm/markets_oil_dc

You know that with this will come another price increase at the pump.... You know everyone talks about a grass roots movement for this or that....how about a grass roots movement to get congress to quit looking into which pro athlete is loading up on steroids and maybe look into why we are getting taken advantage of at the gas pump? What do you think... How about we take the time to let them know we are not happy... email your representative and then pass this message on to a friend and have them do it also.

http://www.house.gov/writerep/

http://www.senate.gov/

I know....I know.... you are saying to yourself that this is not going to make a difference...but here is where you are wrong. This country is run on opinion polls. If you take the time to let them know that it is broke then they start asking questions, but if no one is willing to step up and say anything then nothing will ever get done about this issue. Come on, if you are willing to pass on a chain letter about some get rich email that you forward to five people then you have the time to tell your US Representative and Senator that this is not right and that you work hard to support your family and this is not fair. There is no increase in demand...OPEC is pumping at full capacity and loving it at $60 plus dollars a barrel, but this isn't about OPEC, it is about an artificial shortage of refining capacity caused intentionally by oil & gas companies.

Take the time to make your voice heard constructively, with candor, about this issue, and pass this on!

Dave W.

I've just finished a post over at the ICR. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, but I would very much value your input on the topic, because it is a heavy.

One thing I would request, however, is that we all consider our posts very carefully. Yours Truly included.

Earlier this evening/morning we're just kickin' back, minding our bidness, watching the Monday shows. We get up to "How I Met Your Mother" and they are doing their halloween episode. Of course, most of the principal characters are in some type of costume so it wasn't too surprising that they had Neil Patrick Harris dressed up as Iceman from Top Gun (seems the sitcom writers must be somewhere around my age, because I'm seeing a lot of the goofy stuff from my teens and early twenties make its way to the small screen). Anyway, he is there with his green flight suit, carrying a pilot's helmet that looks strangely...familiar. Sure enough, when he set it on the table, I immediately recognized Rudy. Rudy Redcock, that is.I may have mentioned this before, but the squadron I was assigned to, in an unfortunate turn of linguistic events, was originally commissioned as The Fighting Redcocks in the 1940s. At that time, the word 'cock' referred to a game bird. These days...well you get the picture. When the squadron formed, they actually had a live Rhode Island Red rooster as the mascot. I'm not sure what the first bird's name really was, but I was always told his name was Rudy. So I'm all excited, but still curious as to how they came across that particular helmet, when I notice that the callsign on the back of the helmet is 'ODIE'. Or at least I'm 99% sure it read ODIE. There were several shots, but NPH's stupid had was always covering the E. The reason I'm 99% sure of this is because one of the pilots assigned to VFA-22 during my tour was, you guessed it, ODIE. However, I can't for the life of me remember his name. I just know he was a lieutenant, had huge ears and blonde hair. I checked the cruise book, but couldn't find him. (He must've been on the first cruise, not the second). So not only is he carrying a Rudy hat, but it has the name of one of the officers I served with back in tha day. But wait...the world gets smaller yet!

The longer I sat there thinking about it, the more it drove me nuts that I was unable to remember that guy's name. No problem, the internet knows everything, right? About 20 minutes later and several different google searches later, I still don't have Lt. Odie's real name. But I ran across THIS. Now, if your feeling frisky, hit that link, then scroll down to the VA-22 section and look for the VFA-22 Line Div. Patch. Yeah, I know, I said VA earlier, but we changed aircraft half-way through my hitch, so we had to change designations. Anyway, read the history on that 'rare' patch. I thought the name of the designer looked familiar, so I broke out the cruise book again. It was indeed designed by Airman Ray Pierce on the Lincoln west-pac in September 1991. Now even though Ray Pierce was assigned to the line shack and I was in avionics, we were both airmen at about the same time. This meant that any time we were deployed, we would be staying in the same barracks (which were assigned by rank) as was the case during the work-ups for that cruise. We were in Fallon, Nevada doing some group exercises with our sister squadron, and the barracks had that most feared and reviled feature of all: the common restroom! Rather than equip all the rooms with toilets, there was a communal facility in the middle of each floor. And that restroom, my friends, is where Airman Ray Pierce earned the unfortunate nickname that would haunt him for as long as I knew him. Now I know it isn't nice to say, but Ray was a bit of a goob. Sad, but true. Since he was new to the command, and even newer to the line shack, the rest of the guys decided to take him out and get him liquored up. And I ain't talking just mildly sauced. I'm talking about that full-on, "sailors and dogs stay off the lawn" kind of stinky drunk. Apparently, they got the poor kid so liquored up that he actually soiled himself. Now I ain't faulting Ray for that. Well, yeah, I guess I am, but the really uninspired part was when he tossed his not-so-tidy whities in the trashcan located in, that's right, the communal toilet. You see, folks, when you are in boot camp they make you stencil everything but your socks with your last name. Reason being that there is just no other way to identify your laundry when it is being washed with thousands of other squids' unmentionables. Skipping right over the gory details, I'll just say that one of the guys in my shop was the poor soul who found the source of the offensive odor. When it was discovered that Pierce was to blame, he was known, from that day forward, as The Mudman.

Sure, it may seem unruly of me to tell a poop story about a guy who I haven't seen in 15 years, and is not ever going to be able to defend himself, but look at it this way: now, he's not The Mudman. He's the guy who designed the Rudy Redcock Live Div patch for West-Pac 90-91. If that's not a step up in the world, I don't know what is!

France Orders Positive Spin on Colonialism - Yahoo! News

This is downright tasty. You should take a few mintues to read this and bask in the glorious glow of the French colonial empire, er, rather the national contribution of the French.

I have decided that Americans as a whole have a way-beyond-normal obsession with smell. Lest you think I'm joking, count the number of air freshener product commercials during the next break. Then, make note of the number of different types of air freshener products. We seem to have some freakishly OCD type of hangup with smell. You know what I do if I walk in to a house that reeks of "summer rain"? I automatically start looking for the litter box they are trying to hard to cover up with that fake, manufactured not-even-close to really real world smell.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the role smell plays in our daily lives. I know it is important. Without smell, how would you know that the milk's gone off? How would you know the Dr. Pepper from the Coke? How would you know that "something's burning" before your home actually went up in flames? And if it weren't for patchouli and sandalwood, how would you know where to find the hippies? Yes, people, smell is important, but trying to disguise the fact that you have 8 cats, 4 kids and your husband smokes 3 cigars a day with "dusky rose" just ain't fooling anyone. Get rid of the cats, bathe your kids and tell the old man he ain't getting any "special grown-up time" until he loses the stogies. That is far more believable than anything glade or airwick can sell you in a can. Or a puffer. Or yet another plug in module.

In other happenings, there just haven't been any! The only thing I actually recall accomplishing this weekend was cooking, and I didn't even do any of that Saturday. I know we got up yesterday and went to the mall to return a pair of jeans, ate some chick-fil-a and came home. OH! Now I remember: we watched two movies Saturday night, which explains the complete lack of doing anything else. We watched Mean Girls and then without even making any popcorn immediately popped in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. And before you even say one single word about Mean Girls, you should know that we got it because A: there were nothing else even remotely funny looking on the shelves and B: it was written by Tina Fey, and that girl is funny. Overall, it was alright and even very funny in some places, but I'm thinking you should probably wait for it to hit the HBO or skinemax. Hitchhiker's Guide was quite good. That is, if you were ever a fan of the book or the old BBC series of the same name. I tried to watch all the old epi's on OETA back in the day. Needless to say, I never did catch all of them, so finding out that there was indeed a happy ending to the rather ominous beginning was kind of like finishing a painting you started years ago.

Finally, according to Mesonet.org, the ambient air temperature here in Norman is 33F with a wind chill of 30F. It would seem, winter has landed. I was hoping for a gradual decline so we might actually have some fall color here in the big town, but it seems that's about to fall through.

Yeah, I said it.

So here they are:

Maria Full Of Grace: This movie was good. Seek it out. Rent it, borrow it, steal cable if you have to, but see it. Then I double-dog dare you to tell me your job sucks with a straight face. Everything about this movie was muy bueno.

Alien vs. Predator: I guess I have to eat my words on this one. It did not suck nearly as bad as I had envisioned. Don't get me wrong, the cheese abounds, but at least the Predators didn't look as bad as the initial reports over at AICN indicated. It was, dare I say, watchable. If this one comes on cable, you should probably check it out. If you are at all a fan of either franchise, that is.

Cold Mountain: Also far and away better than I had anticipated. I particularly enjoyed Jude Law's very understated Inman. Surprisingly, Renée Zellweger, was every bit as good as they said she was. This movie was also super-tight and well done. The casting of Jack White as Georgia was a nice touch too. I can heartilyrecommendd this one too.

Just two quick pics to brighten your Tuesday. Take a closer look at that Tabasco packaging. That's right kids, the ubiquitous red pepper sauce is even enjoyed in the Czech Republic. Home of, that's right, CZ manufacturing. This particular bottle was subimitted by Paul J. It was gifted to him by some friends returning from missionary work abroad. This other is the goods bestowed on me by The Team. That's right: MY peeps are better than YOUR peeps! Muahahahahaha!

you get to work and the first v-mail you listen to is to let you know there are flowers for you at the receptionist's desk. (They are from my peeps for boss' day).

Then, you are presented with Godiva chocolate truffles.

Finally, the aroma of fresh-brewed Starbucks coffee fills the room.

At this exact moment, life is good. (Well, life is usually pretty good, but everything is better with chocolate). And it is all due to the outstanding crew I am honored to work with every day. You guys are indeed the what-up.

ARTICLE: PETA workers face 25 felony counts in North Carolina (The Virginian-Pilot - HamptonRoads.com/PilotOnline.com)

I'll let you draw your own conclusions, but you KNOW what old Wayne thinks.

Thanks to Justin H. (TN9P contributor) for the link.

So here's the deal: last week I tried to do a post, but the stupid blogger thingy just spins and spins and stays at 0%. So I tried publishing to a different directory, but that didn't help. Then I tried using a regular FTP client to put some stuff on the same web directories and it took forever to get done, which means only one thing: the cox space is hosed up. This is bad for two reasons. First off, if cox's tech support is on par with their cable tv support, I ain't even trying. Second, I went to the cox space to get away from the blogger snafus. Seriously though, at this point in the whole experiment, I really don't know if I feel like fighting "the man" to get this thing worked out. I think I may just move back to blogger and be done with it. That would free up a buttload of space to be used for pics and such, but does it really matter?

This morning I took The New 9 to the range and it finally fired more than 50 rounds without a jam. (I know, Kelly, I should've went with the CZ, right?) Turns out all this cursing I've been doing was due to a bad or maybe incorrect recoil spring. You may remember way back when I was talking about the sights moving all around after the slide got a little heat on it from the barrel. Or you may not. Anyway, after the second time it went back to Exeter, they got that right. They even installed a new rear sight for me since the other wouldn't stay put. I took it to the range (at the end of September) to make sure the sights were going to be solid and aligned properly, but the stupid thing wouldn't fire more than 10 rounds without some type of failure. It was throwing brass all over the place, it seemed like every other round would jam or every other case wouldn't eject--it was downright embarrassing. I even bought some of H and H's waaaaay overpriced ammo to make sure I didnt' get a bad lot at the satancenter. Unbelievably, it got worse! I couldn't fire more than two rounds without a stoppage of some type. Seriously, two rounds. At that point, I decided I was just wasting ammo and left. The following Monday I called Sig to ask for an RMA number for a warranty repair. The guy on the other end, Ed, suggested after listening to my woes that he send me a new recoil spring first. That way, he said, I wouldn't have to pay for shipping or be without the gun. (Like it was working anyway.) I agreed and waited for it to arrive, which it did after about a week. I thoroughly cleaned and lubed the gun and mags while I waited. So today, after almost 4 months, the thing ran like it should without a single jam in about 100 rounds--that's what I had left after the last range trip, so I just finished those rather than giving even more money to the satancenter. You want to know the ironic punch line to the situation? When Ed shipped me the spring, he included in the package a big, fat SigArms sticker with their slogan "To hell and back reliability" proudly emblazoned across the bottom. Rather optimistic, I think.

Now, just for comparison, let's talk about the 92FS for a second. I bought it used at a gunshow with no warranty whatsoever. (The Sig was a factory refurb with a 1 year warranty--thank God for that). The Beretta ran exactly as advertised from round 1 with any magazine I could find and never burped, farted or hiccupped in the process. It is going to take a lot of rounds down range before I'll have that same warm, fuzzy feeling about the Sig that I have for the Beretta. The only reason I have put up with it for this log is because I know deep in my heart that this weapon is supposed to be the absolute what up. The SEALs chose it over the 92FS for Pete's sake. And to be honest, there is only one group whose opinion I would value more when it comes to weapon selection.

So that's it. Even if the dang thing has a class 1-A kaboom, I'm done wanking about it. I'm boring myself at this point, so it's done.

Next post: movie reviews from the sectional.

BTW, Jefe, that was indeed me who left the note on your front door calling you a "naughty hippy". I was in da hood so I thought I'd do a 'pop-in'. Your neighbors were nice enough to hook me up with the paper and pen.

FOXNews.com - Foxlife - FOX Cancels 'The Simple Life'

You see, folks? Prayers are answered every day. By the way--every time this show is aired, a kitten dies, so don't watch the show. The sooner we get it off the air, the more kittens we can save.

I finally get the PC fixed up, and then cox decides it doesn't want to play nice with blogger anymore. Or at least for me. I tried publishing this blog to two different URLs and neither one works. It times out then tells me there is a pipe error.

Wonderful.

I had some stuff I wanted to post, but I've been fighting this stupid thing for so long now I'm ready to delete the whole thing. But I probably won't.

Warning tourists about dangerous Floridians is cheap shot by Brady group

Here' a bit to go along with an earlier post.

PETA on Yahoo! News Photos

Is it just me, or is anyone else getting the idea tha peta is really an acronym for people exhibiting their asses?

I just finished watching the channel 9 news while on lunch. Tamara Pratt is reporting that Joel Hinrich may have been spotted trying to enter the stadium Saturday night. Their 'source'? A student security guard who spoke with another security guard who thinks he may have seen Hinrich at gate 6, but he ran when they asked to search his backpack. Tamara also stated that in the weeks before the bombing, he was spending a lot of time at a mosque just off campus. The stoopid part of this? Their on-line partner/affiliate, www.newsok.com, is reporting that the "FBI has found no evidence so far that a University of Oklahoma student who died in a bombing Saturday night tried to get inside the football stadium or had any ties to terrorist organization".

I think I'll just start making up news too.

NEWSFLASH! Media morons think viewers will believe anything they say! Oh, wait a sec. That's not really made up. Or news for that matter.

Most of you have probably heard about the OU student, Joel Hinrichs III, who was killed in an explosion last Saturday. By now, we all know that it was by his own design and not an accident. But at this piont we don't have any evidence to indicate that he had any intentions of taking out anyone other than himself. That is unless you are a member of the "if it bleeds it leads" Oklahoma Dimwit Media Squad. Just for a second, let's examine what we do know: the guy was at a point in his life where blowing himself up was the only option he saw. (It should be noted at this point that I am NOT in any way, shape or form condoning suicide. I'm sure we've all been personally effected by suicide, and as far as I'm concerned it is never an option). He did so in a secluded place, instead of his apartment building, and he was the only one to die in the blast. All reports indiacate that this guy wasn't stupid--actually they are all to the contrary. Perhaps the dumbest thing he did was try to purchase ammonium nitrate fertilizer at Ellison Feed & Seed here in town. And that, along with the obvious bomb building supplies found in his apartment, is what has stuck in the feeble little minds of the Dimwit Squad. This is why the phrase "OU suicide bomber" is now being thrown around. We already know he built a bomb. For the media to be all freaked out by the ammonium nitrate link to the '95 Murrah building bombimg is asinine. He wasn't able to get the a.n. so he built an acetone peroxide device. Now at that point, if he was going to go all Hamas on us, he had a bomb. And what did he do with it? He killed himself on a park bench. I'm inclined to believe, being an engineering major and a National Merit scholar, that if he would've wanted to attack the 84K football fans just 100 yards away, he could've found a way. Sure, that's a bit o' speculation on my part, but just look at the situation and tell me if you can reasonably come up with anything more ominous. Finally, the part of this that disgusts me the most: you know as well as I that if one of their precious football gods had been the one who checked out, there would've been a state-wide day of mourning declared and classes would've been suspended for at least 2 days while everyone came to grips with tragic loss of a rising star. But since this guy was just an engineering geek, it's business as usual. But that's the way of the world, isn't it?

In other news, Aimee and I were shopping Saturday for some new winter duds, and witnessed firsthand, one of the cheesiest clichés ever. That's right folks, a couple getting their freak on in the dressing room next to mine! I was minding my own bidness, trying on some new cargos and a few shirts for winter when I heard couple prance right in to the handicap dressing room, which was next to the stall I had chosen. This in and of itself isn't too unusual. Aimee sometimes joins me so she can review my clothing selections. But something just didn't seem right about the noises coming from that stall. No, not those noises, pervs. Stuff like TWO zippers going down at the same time, little phrases whispered like "are you sure?" and then the distinct sound of tonsil hockey. This was of course interrupted twice by the guy's cell. AND HE ANSWERED! Can you imagine how that must've gone down? "Oh sorry, honey! Even though you've finally, albeit reluctantly, agreed to help me live out my sick little fantasy of getting crazy in a dressing room at a second-rate shopping mall on game day, I really need to take this call from Jimbo. Can you stay just like that for one second?" And from the part I could hear, they weren't very important calls. But are they ever really important calls any more? Yeah, right. Now I know what you're thinking: I should've jumped over the divider and yelled BUSTED! Or perhaps Jason's idea of bustin' down the door and stealing their clothes is more your style but I'll tell you when it was actually going down (no pun intended) all I could think was "are they really doing that in a dressing room? Now that's respect for your woman."

And lastly for this evening, the shed is for all intents and purposes finished. You can view a nice pic here which should be enough to satisfy your curiosity for at least 30 minutes. No. Really. I'll get a little something put together for you, but just not tonight. It's 4a.m. righ now and that's at least another hour's work, which means it's work for another day.

According to Lance West of News Channel 4, some dimwit set off some type of IED after the OU/K State game tonight, but I'll be danged if I can figure out anything from listening to WNPD on the scanner. All I got so far is that NPD is crazy with the overtime today and they are assisting at some shadowy, clandestine command center somewhere in the vicinity of campus corner.

Anybody have the freq's for BATF in OKC?