Because I'm a geek,

I'll link you here to the climax of a great movie, which was only the SECOND show that I saw this week, involving a main character named "Pris," and which involved rogue androids being hunted and killed.*

The other one was a series, and something of a guilty pleasure from when I used to room with another geek, in my twenties. Of course it was anime.

Well, that's out of my system.

Moving on.



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* If you're not worried about cybernetic critters rising up and killing people in the future, then you don't know Dick.

Repackaging.

My wife and I sometimes talk about "the best ________ in the world." She has been known to go on at length about "the best Coke in the world," after getting over-heated in Cozomel, once. I have always liked real Coca Cola, but had pretty much given up on the stuff in favor of un-sugared drinks about 20 years ago, in deference to my waistline, the fact that diabetes runs in my family, and the fact that spilling is not a maybe thing for me: it just happens. Spilt diet drinks are a lot less of a hassle to clean up.

But sometimes, just a quick little taste of real* Coke really hits the spot.

Coke has started marketing their flagship soft drink in eight-packs of 7.5 ounce cans. I've got to say, they hit me right where I live. At 90 calories, I ain't skeered of the hit to the diet. Individually sealed, you'll never get a flat sip of beverage. And with that massive can-to beverage surface area ratio, they chill in minutes. Though I've not tried them as such, I would imagine that they'd be the bee's knees for bar mixing, too. One of these and a shot of Bacardi in a tall glass of ice would make a perfect rum Coke.

It's a smart thing, managing to get a bit more market share by just changing the package. My hat's off to the guys in Atlanta. Now, one wonders if they'll keep it, or if this is just a test marketing thing that they'll decide is not panning out?

In the meantime, they're a lot more fun to play "imagine that I'm a giant" with than are Brussels sprouts.

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*Yes, I know it's corn syruped, and has no cocaine. But you know.

Pocket pistol.

My friend Marko, who some years back pared back to just 3" K frame revolvers for main carry duty, decided to get himself a Ruger LCP pocket pistol. He even includes a photograph of it in his hand.

Hm. He claims that it's as small as the KelTec, but when I pulled my P3AT out of my pocket, my gun seemed a bit smaller in comparison.

Maybe it's just personal perception.

Heh.

It's Istanbul Not Constantinople.

What do we call Burma now? Myanmar.
What do we call Pretoria, South Africa now? Tshwane

I can't keep up with them all. I grant that new African countries would have new names, or re-use old ones. I get that Yugoslavian subdivisions got renamed. That figures. Likewise with the former USSR districts, regions, and states.

Recent events in India underscored that some of their better-known towns just flat changed their names without asking us:
Calcutta to Kolkata.
Madras to Chennai.
Bombay to Mumbai.

Lots of geographic geekery to be found here about name changes.

But here's a question I've had for a while, which I've never had a satisfactory answer to:
Why do we still call Bangkok "Bankok," when everyone in Siam Thailand calls it Krung Thep?

8 million residents there call it that. It's short for "Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Yuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit," which could really cost you to utter, when the meter's running on the cab you just hailed. ______________________________________________________

Click above to embiggen.[ate.][(ify.)]

Speaking of a practical use for knowledge of geographic name changes, my wife picked up a Replogle 12 Inch Starlight Globe fairly recently, at an auction. She seemed surprised at how happy this little $5 purchase made me, and said "I'm sure that it's not anywhere near current." Almost 11 years of marriage, and this woman still doesn't really know me fully. Of course it's not current! That's its charm! I was tickled to find that it didn't have a visible copyright date near the legend in the S. Pacific (where they put pretty much all the legends on globes, right?). Finding out when the map or the globe was made is half the fun of an old globe. Usually the answer is most easily found in Africa, specifically toward the south of that continent. But I started with the Middle East:

Click to embiggen.

See that place where Oman should be? It's listed as Muscat & Oman. That puts it as being prior to 1975, and probably earlier. See that pink area where Yemen should be? That's the Aden Protectorate. See the orange area listed as "Yemen"? That's North Yemen, which declared itself a republic in 1962. The Brits withdrew from the Aden Protectorate in 1967. Aha! We're getting closer. Let's see... does it help that Abu Dhabi isn't listed? Nah-- we wouldn't have seen it before '68 or the U.A.E. creation in '71. The Somali Republic had gained its independence from Britain in 1960, and Djibouti (French Somalia) didn't gain independence from France until 1977, so that's no help.

Let's check west Africa-- Western Sahara was still Spanish Sahara. Guinea-Basseu was still Portuguese Guinea. These do nothing to help me-- they still went by those old names in the early 1970s. Togo was no longer French Togoland, which put it later than mid-1960. Benin was still humorously named Dahomey, but that would last until 1970. Equitorial Guinea was still called Spanish Guinea. The Gambia got indepenence in 1965, but never changed its name.
Well, it's time to cheat, and go down to south Africa:
South West Africa hadn't yet re-invented itself Namibia, which they did in 1968. Aha! South Rhodesia hadn't yet changed its name to Zimbabwe in 1964.

And the clencher: Northern Rhodesia was a British protectorate from 1963 to 1964, when it became Zambia. (Well, it was also a British protectorate from 1924 to 1953, but we've already established that this globe's not that old.)

So, neat globe from the early Johnson administration. 1963. The world was really changing back then.

As I noted up above, it still changes even now, as well. Hour by hour.

But back then, the changes came so fast and furious, they would make you dizzy:

Webleys.

1. I want my old college roommate Bill to shoot a plate match, or even an IDPA match, with his Webley .380 2Z (.38 S&W) revolver. It was his first firearm, which he bought from my father back in the early 1990s. It has a beautiful polished blue finish, because it was a civilian police model. Bill got just plain stupid-fast in his reloads with that old break-top, using Colt speed-loaders and Ishapore FMJ. The .38 S&W rounds that he shot through it gave no major recoil for that good-sized revolver, and it was always a pleasure to shoot. But I was forever chastising him to leave the damned crossbolt safety off.

At about nearly the same time, I had purchased for my future wife an ancient old Iver Johnson with no finish on it, and I loaded up a bunch of swaged 148g HBWC loads over a little too much Unique powder for them both to have as manstopper loads. I loaded a lot of them backwards, and found that they would begin to keyhole at about 26 to 28 yards, but gave amazingly good accuracy at 20 yards. All of this came to mind the other day when I found a (forward-loaded) .38 S&W handload in my sock drawer the other day. I had found a box of pre-primed copper Western cases and loaded them up, making the high-sitting full wadcutter round in the red metal case look very distinctive. It took me back.

The .38 S&W is, compared to the .38 Special, kind of a pipsqueak round. But loaded with a soft lead bullet with a full-caliber meplat, it would not be inconsiderable as a self-defense round, and certainly blows the .380 acp right out of the water. I have a somewhat silly affection for the old round.

2. I have decided that my next gun purchase will be a Webley revolver, preferably but not exclusively a .455 of a mark prior to IV. I will probably have to accept one that has had its cylinder faced off to accept .45 Auto Rim cases.

I mentioned that the house was just about ready, right?

Well, some people had requested some pictures of what we've done to the house.

I took a few, at the request of my sister in-law. I absolutely would not expect you to be interested, but it's been a while since I posted some pictures on this blog, and I've spent a fair bit of change getting a ghetto house to this condition, so here you go:

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Here you see busy workers fixing the foundation of the house when we first bought it. Note the red cap of the guy in the hole in the garage floor. Note sexy busted garage door (now replaced.)

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Here you can see the slate floor, granite countertops, tumbled-stone tile backsplash, and green walls of the kitchen, which actually work together. Also one can see the bamboo floor of the living room. See that dark gray tile in front of the dishwashing machine? About 4 feet below there, I found a really big slab leak, which I repaired.

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My wife gussied up the step-down from the kitchen.

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Ah, the expense expanse of bamboo flooring, in the living room.

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More of the living room floor, from the vantage point of the old back porch new sun room.

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I had questioned my wife's choice of the green she used in the kitchen. Matt, learn not to meddle in the affairs of the art major.

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Front hallway, prominently displaying the door on which I need to install a new doorsweep.

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First view upon entering. Boring. I need to put a pair of crossed muskets over the fireplace. Or the scalps of mine enemies on the mantlepiece. Something.

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Hall bath. Yawn.

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Master bedroom featuring little more than shag carpet, and two itty-bitty little closets.

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Master bath featuring granite countertop, countertop basin sink with stem faucet, handicapped toilet (so one doesn't have to sit 10" off the floor!), and the ugliest shower curtain evar. Also in pic: the cement floor which my lovely and talented (seriously) wife is going to put a tile mosaic on, very soon.

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Utility/laundry room, featuring built-in table (under the clutter), new 16" ceramic tiles (easy to keep clean), the tiny pantry, and my inclusion of a fold-out built-in ironing board.

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The sun room. This was formerly the back porch. It features an open arched entryway, 16" ceramic tiles, central heat and air outlets, twin ceiling fans which should be flush-mounted bunt aren't, and a LOT of room not visible to the right, behind the fireplace.

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Ah yes-- the fireplace. I plan to put a facecap on it, so that I can really get some heat out of it like a proper stove. It features quartz in the hearthstones, and natural gas outlets, and a heavy cedar mantle, with a sun room behind it.

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Not shown is the new studio that we installed in the garage, the large storage building out back, or the painted trim and newly power-washed brick around the house. Hey, even I have limits.

I just wanted y'all to know that Don Gwinn ain't the only one to be able to post housing upgrade blog posts.

Oh, and dig the cheesey old double oven we just pulled from the kitchen.

It had a matching ceramic sink.

Hammer Bite.

You have GOT to be kidding me.

I've been shooting the 1911 or 1911A1 type firearm for a long time. Simple fact. I know how to use the pistol, and it's my preferred main duty gun.

Dad introduced me to it (as he had 40 years ago introduced it to a certain now-famous gun writer). I learned to shoot it the way Dad taught me, which was largely influenced by his personal instruction from Jeff Cooper in 1980, and in Dad's nationally-ranked participation in IPSC during that time.

When I went off to be a ranch hand for a summer at age 17, I took a Series 70 Mk IV 1911 of Dad's, and carried it and shot it enough to remove almost all of the parkerized finish from it. I got pretty familiar with its trappings.

As I grew into my manly size, I found that my orangutan-like hands wrapped all the way around a big pistol. While I can shoot a big double-stack pistol, I still prefer the single stack 1911. But that big hand comes with a large web between thumb and forefinger. When I grip a 1911 in its original configuration, I have to take care to roll my hand into the grip safety so that the tang will cover the top of the webbing of my gripping hand, lest the skin of the web of my hand overlap the tang and receive the dreaded Hammer Bite.

Hammer Bite is caused when the spur on the back of the hammer on an exposed hammer design firearm bites the bit of flesh between the tang --in this case the top of the grip safety-- and the back of the hammer. For many years it was a common modification to put shorter Commander hammers on Government Model 1911s and later to put custom "ski jump" extended-tang grip safeties onto them.

In the early to mid 1990's, Kimber revolutionized the handgun world by marketing quality 1911 firearms with custom features for reasonable prices. While this seems like old hat today, it is a simple fact that "custom guns" came at custom prices before Kimber created this market that others (especially Springfield Armory) hurried to get into.

I've been hearing some (admittedly anecdotal) unfavorable reviews of some of the newer Kimbers, these days. If quality has slipped, that's a sorrowful thing, but Tamara spoke correctly when she said that 1911 owners owe a debt to Kimber, for what it did to the industry of affordable "off the shelf custom" fighting handguns.

When I bought my Kimber Stainless Classic new in 2001, I specifically went looking for an older Series I (they were at that time in transition, and both Series I and Series II were in stock). I did not want a firing pin interlock device, though Kimber's grip safety technique is novel and reportedly reliable. I wanted a stainless version of the Series 70 I had been carrying on duty, that was easy to disassemble and reassemble.

The pistol came stock with a slightly extended safety, a loop hammer spur (not a true Commander style, because it's too long), and an oversize grip safety/tang. It came with a flat mainspring housing that I discarded for an arched knurled mainspring housing (with loop, of course), and a full-length recoil spring guide rod that I gave away in favor of a proper short guide rod. Other than that, I did nothing to it, besides attempting to wear it out.

This pistol immediately became my go-to pistol. I carried it on duty. I carried it a lot off-duty. I carried it hunting. I carried it to pistol matches. I shot it in turkey shoots (and won turkeys). I pretty much quit carrying my beautiful old Gold Cup except for weddings. My early Kimber Series I feeds everything I put in it, and is more accurate than I am. I actually had to add weight to the trigger, which broke the scales at 2.25 lbs from the factory. It's now a perfect 2.75 lbs or so, and loves semi-wadcutters.

Then I went to an agency that issued and mandated Glocks for duty. I focused on the Glock because, frankly, I needed to. I've gotten fairly decent with it, but still have some work to do to improve my skills with it. It's just not my preferred piece. So even my trigger time with my beloved Kimber 1911 was diminished.

I went by my Dad's today to chat and do a little reloading. We eventually (after coffee and tacos and gorditas) loaded a couple of hundred rounds of .45 acp. While in Dad's reloading room, he handed me a decent-looking 1911 and asked "What's wrong with this picture?" I looked at it. It had a nice black parkerized-style refinish, and fresh import marks. It was a Sistema, complete with knurled trigger, short tang, original style 1911 beaver-tail type hammer spur, tiny blade front sight and...

"It's missing its rear sight," I responded. Nope. Can't get one past me. Trained observer.

Dad said that he'd picked it up last month for a decent price, and hadn't even shot it, seeing no point until he had a rear sight on it.

"I wonder how the trigger is," I muttered as I racked the slide to check the chamber, feel the action, and cock the hammer.

Ow. OW! That hurt.

What the hell?!?

Oh, good Gawd.

Remember how I said that I had had to learn how to carefully roll a 1911 into my huge hands to keep them from getting hammer bite?

And remember how I related that I've been kinda spoiled by using my Kimber, with its extended grip safety?

And remember how I've been focusing more on my duty Glock, lately?

Well, I have managed to achieve an injury from Hammer Bite, from a single cycling of a pistol, without even firing it.

I put the pistol down, lest I get blood on it.

Crap .

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Gripping my Kimber (loosely). Note extended tang on the grip safety, protecting the web of the hand.

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Top view of my hand holding my Kimber Stainless Classic. Even with the ski-jump grip safety, one can see how the webbing bunches behind the tang.

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Oblique view of my hand holding the Kimber, with good view of the extended grip safety guarding against Hammer Bite.

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The injury. My hand is basically in a shooting grip here... but the lower fingers aren't curled in, so really, it's just a really mutant-looking picture.

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See? I'm not really a freak. This picure shows a normal hand. Not a great pic, though, because you can't see the dead piece of skin that was initially pinched by the the Sistema. Okay, maybe I'm just a baby.

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Okay. Maybe I am a freak. My... my hand doesn't really look like that. That picture is a lie.