You don't get my support just because you like guns.

Among other things, this is a gun blog. I like guns. I am a member of Gun Culture (X iteration). I demand that my rights to keep and bear be arms be respected as a citizen.

Because so many famous people are outspokenly against gun culture, it can be refreshing to find some who are not. We gun people often embrace them, saying "One of us! One of us!!!" 

Ted Nugent, the rock star from the 1970s who has experienced a resurgence in popularity, has banked quite a bit on being a supporter of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution. He likes guns a lot, and has never in the last twenty years shied away from that fact. He wears camouflage most of the time, and features firearms in his concerts. He has managed to attain a position on the NRA board. Well and good, right?

Except that he is perpetually an ass, of an uncommon variety.
He threatened to use any means necessary, including illegal means, to prevent a sitting President from being POTUS again. He in the past supported Apartheid. He referred to our former President, a man of mixed race, as a "subhuman mongrel." Back in 1978, the 30 year-old arranged to become the legal guardian of his 17 year-old girlfriend. After a mass-shooting at the Stoneman-Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida, the man said, of children who had survived an ordeal involving 17 deaths and 17 injuries, that the kids who spoke out "have no soul."

This past week, the man posted:

A glorious moment of clarity truth logic commonsense American hallelujah amen from a good friend of mine! All together now-No Shit!Okay, I've had about enough of this immigration bullshit going on. So I've come up with my own plan... let me know if this gets the Uncle Ted seal of approval!If you come here you must speak the language, you must be a professional, we don't want any more unskilled workers; there's no special classes in school for bilingual students, there's no special ballots for voting, there's no government business done in any language but English; you do not have a right to vote or hold any office as a foreigner; you're not allowed to be a burden to the taxpayers, we don't want any welfare going out to illegals Or any able bodied human beings; if you come here we want you to invest but it has to be at least 40,000 times our daily minimum wage and if you buy land, you must relinquish all the rights to that property and you can never own waterfront property!
You're not allowed to protest politically, there is no flag waving from any other country; you're not allowed to badmouth our President, you're a foreigner, if you don't like living here, get out! If you come here illegally, you go to jail!
Now, if you don't like my harsh immigration policy, then you need to complain to the Mexican Government because this is the laws on their books currently!
Go to Mexico and protest and see how long you last!
God bless America everybody else can kiss my free ass!You're not allowed to protest politically, there is no flag waving from any other country; you're not allowed to badmouth our President, you're a foreigner, if you don't like living here, get out! If you come here illegally, you go to jail!Now, if you don't like my harsh immigration policy, then you need to complain to the Mexican Government because this is the laws on their books currently! Go to Mexico and protest and see how long you last!God bless America everybody else can kiss my free ass!

Reading Nugent's original post, I had to re-read it.
I honestly originally thought that it was satire.
Why do we suffer this asshole to be associated with us in any way?
What, exactly, would it take for him to say, before we as a movement would divorce him completely? Does he have to literally and specifically call for lynchings? Would pedophilia be enough?

 SAYING "I LIKE GUNS" SHOULD NOT BE OLLIE OLLIE OXEN FREE FOR BEING A DICK, NO MATTER HOW FAMOUS YOU ARE.SAYING "I LIKE GUNS" SHOULD NOT BE OLLIE OLLIE OXEN FREE FOR BEING A DICK, NO MATTER HOW FAMOUS YOU ARE.

And, yes, I'm thinking about others as well. 

This and that.

--I got a minor promotion the other day. No big deal.


--I am suffering greatly from trees and grasses and ragweed having sex. The quantity and distribution of phlegm is suboptimal. (Not quite enough to kill me. Too much to be at all comfortable with.)

--I went with my dad last night to Cabella's to pick up a new set of electronic earmuffs. I had a first generation set of Peltors from 16 years ago, which gave up the ghost. It's stupid not to have a set or three, given the importance of being aware of your surroundings when shooting. My preference is for using the thinner electronic muffs, turned to high volume, over foam earplugs. I note that this pair came with a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, so that I can jump my phone or iPod or whatnot to it. More importantly, though, I can jump my 2-way radio mic to it while responding to an active shooter on duty. I'm going to keep in with my go-bag at work. I probably need to get a second set.

--I haven't been to the gym in two weeks. Not good.

--Our okra plants are tall and beautifully-leafed, and very green... and are bearing almost NO okra. Anyone have a suggestion for what nutrient we're missing?

--The temperature finally broke this week, and we finally have highs under 90 degrees. It's glorious.

--October is my favorite month. It has my birthday, and the birthdays of some very nice friends of mine. It is the month when the weather is the best in North Texas. It is associated with Oktoberfest, which includes two of my favorite things-- malty beer and German sausages. Halloween's okay, but it shouldn't account for the whole of the month.  October is when I join up with my friends on the range in Colorado, and we shoot a bit by day, and gather around the campfire by night.

--I look forward to seeing my friends, next week.

--I caught the pilot of Blue Bloods on Netflix the other night, and have since binge-watched the entire first two seasons on Netflix. The show is ridiculous. It is over-the-top pulp fiction in its plots and procedures. We basically never see more than about 6 cops in a 36,000-man police department, and evidently one Manhattan ADA handles every major case in the city of New York. They mention paperwork after an officer-involved shooting, but seem to be back on the street faster than Crockett and Tubbs were.  Only one guy in the family (Donnie Wahlberg's character) speaks with a New York accent. The detectives cross the ethics line on a daily basis, with illegal searches yielding somehow useable evidence, warrantless arrests, physical intimidation and assault during interrogations, etc, etc, etc. Donnie Wahlberg's grip on his pistol is amazingly low, with an inch of space above the web of his hand. His partner, in true Hollywood style, wears her holster between 1:00 and 2:00 o'clock.
But the show is cast very well, with Tom Selleck playing the respectable patriarch of the cop family, who happens to be the second generation of police commissioner for the PD. The interaction between the family is very attractive, and tugs at the heart a bit. It is shot very well. It is silly [melo]drama which I'm going to end up watching every minute of.

--I got  to work and found a voicemail from a senior district attorney, the other day. He said that he was working intake, and had just reviewed a felony DWI case that I had submitted, and that he wanted to compliment me on the good work that he found there. That was it. He didn't have any questions, and didn't need me to provide him with any information; he just wanted to let me know how much he appreciated the quality of the report and the investigation. I've only gotten a few of these calls over my years, and I will tell you that they mean a lot to me. He certainly didn't need to do that, and DAs are busy people. But nothing motivates me more than praise. (Note to self: remember that with the guys you lead.)

--We're about to outfit me with a new patrol car. I've never driven a brand-new one, but my car is getting tired. We're looking at getting a Ford Police Interceptor Utility, which runs about $10k less than the Tahoes we've been getting lately. The Ford P.I. Utility is based on the Explorer, so of course I'll call it Dora. Interestingly enough, the Explorer now shares the same unibody base as the Taurus. When it started, the Explorer was based on the Ford Ranger pickup. I'd noticed that the Explorer has gotten a lot more car-like over the last few years, but I hadn't realized that they had gone that far.

--Seriously. It's gorgeous outside. My wife and I are about to go for a walk.

--My elder daughter is competing today for UIL choir. She lucked out that this was a bye week for the football team, so she didn't have to lead the band last night before leaving at 06:15 this morning (Saturday) to head out to the vocal competition. As of now, it's 17:49, and they're not back, yet. Hope they fed her.

--My younger daughter is enjoying school more than she ever has. I was worried when she dropped band (it had really been good for the elder daughter), but she took up art and choir. She was a point under the cut-off to get into Pre-AP Algebra, so she wrote an appeal, and got in. She's in honors English, and just signed up to do the Creative Writing competition. I had my misgivings about her schedule this summer, but 7 weeks into the school year, it's clear to me that, with good grades and a happy 13 year-old, it was the best decision. I'll give up quite a bit for a happy kid who doesn't dread school.

--Our kitchen cabinet project eeks along at a snail's pace.

--I bumped Skills Week for my EMT class to November. I need to study.

--I need to build a fence this month.

--We now have a boutique shop in our small town which sells a variety of coffee beans by the pound. The price is high, but I appreciate the local service, so I give them my patronage.

Thursday morning Randoms.

--While I agree that we should absolutely brook no foolishness, and should arrest judges and cops alike for DWI --as apparently has been happening in Broward County, FL to three (!) judges this year-- I am impressed at the foolishness of Public Defender Finklestein's comments:

Finkelstein said he doubted Judge Rosenthal’s claim of the Ambien CR affecting her. “I have a little bit of experience with drugs. That is not from an Ambien at 10 o’clock at night,” Finkelstein said. “The fact that she refused the urine and the blood test is gonna keep people wondering.”

Way to get all prosecutorial, Mr. Public Defender! Hope you don't find yourself on the judge's blacklist...

--While watching an old Magnum P.I. episode (Look, don't judge me.), I see Magnum checking his load in his Government model while in the middle of a gunfight in a dock warehouse. He drops the magazine, and we see that he has two rounds left in the magazine. More importantly, we see... that it's a 9mm!  No! Say it ain't so!

In almost the next scene, he's firing, and you can clearly see the muzzle is not a .45.
So disillusioned. This of course is why he almost immediately gets shot and spends the rest of the episode in "Limbo".

--Wait-- Jeff MacKay is dead? But, he was the best sidekick!

--Wait-- Zsa Zsa Gabor is still alive? At 97, she's still ki-- er, ticking. (She lost a leg a couple of years back.)

--My patrol car suffered hail damage last month. The state insurance agency has totaled the car, for minor peens on the top surfaces, which didn't even crack the paint. Yeah, the car has some years on it, but it runs great! I understand the insurance company's math (the cost of refinishing the surfaces costs more than they reckon the car is worth), but this does NOT work out well for the department. The check that we get will nowhere nearly get us a new patrol car.  I wish we could take back the claim. But we can't. The insurance is dropped. That car will never run another patrol. Honestly, I'm thinking about following up on where the insurance company sells it; it's a good vehicle.

--I shot a police pistol match on Friday with my newly-issued Generation 4 Glock 31, shooting our new duty ammo, 147g Hornady XTP .357 Sig. It shot very well. I put the ski-jump big grip swell on the backstrap, and it felt good, so I'm leaving it on. I plan to purchase the Gen 3 Glock 31 that I carried for 7 and a half years. Interestingly, the Glock-branded steel tritium night sights were dead-on. As I have complained for years about the lack of quality of the Glock factory sights, let's hope that this kind of sight quality is the new standard. No scores from the match yet, but I didn't completely cover myself with shame. (At 30 seconds a miss, I shot slow.)

--I'm putting off taking my car in, now that I've cleaned it out to be turned in. Heck, I even threw a little Armor-All on the dash.

--Measles cases are at a 20 year high in the U.S. Jenny McCarthy and Andrew Wakefield can choke on a bowl of oversized phalli.

--You know that crazy woe-is-me narcissist who killed people at UCSB? Two observations:
1. When you show his videos and pictures and repeat his manifesto and say his name, you're putting out sugar for the ants (other people with issues who want to go out in a big enough blaze of glory that they reckon will make you HAVE to say their name.).
2. It was people with guns who stopped the rampage. Wouldn't it have been nice if someone had shot at him even earlier? Keep in mind that the shots at the bad guy don't have to kill him. This guy got hit in the hip, and then shot himself in the head.

--I finished The Watchmen, after having slowed my reading to about a chapter a night (well, maybe just a little faster). It was interesting. My brother was excited that we had something to talk about, and wants me to get into Daredevil. I don't see why not. But I'm not buying this over-priced thing.

--We are out of coffee. Except for that canned stuff, which doesn't count. Friday afternoon is payday, when I get more. (We've been paying huge surplus payments to our standing debt, to make it go away, which means that I suddenly long for Friday.)

--The weather is FAR better than what we usually get in late May. It's not even in the 90s. Blue skies with the odd fluffy white cloud for decoration.

--My daughter was inducted to the National Honor Society last night. Lots and lots of good and great kids are NOT so inducted. But I will say that of those NHS members on stage last night, none of them were regular "customers" of mine. Good kids all. I can be pretty glad that my kid is a member of their little local chapter.
 

The hell?

I woke up Friday before work, with the fresh memory of a dream that demonstrated a familiar old theme: I had just sighted in on my foe with my carry pistol (a 637 loaded with Buffalo Bore Plus P 158g SWCHPS) from short range, only to find that the strain of the 200+ pound trigger pull caused my aim to shake off target. As I thumbed back the hammer to single-action the brain pan of the giant man-eating hog, my sleep-time Airweight hammer spring showed so much resistance that I couldn't make the cocking notch. I finally woke up with the boar unshot, and me on a higher limb of the tree that I was in. MOST unsatisfactory, for a guy who just wanted to put dream bacon on the ground.

That super-heavy dream trigger has happened so often. I guess it's a "nightmare," but up until then, it was just exciting, not scary. With the heavy trigger, the dream grew very frustrating. I woke up right after.

But to be sure, I've had this happen in real nightmares.

So maybe, just maybe, that's the thinking behind a banner that I just found, advertising a new TV show called "Sleepy Hollow:"

I may have taken liberties with the graphic. 

But the woman with BOTH of her index fingers on the trigger of her Glock is supposed to be "Lt. Abbie Mills." 

I thought for a bit that perhaps it was a comedy, but the given genre is "Adventure / Drama / Fantasy." 

Hey, Hollywood? Let me explain something: to make fantasy work, you have to make every part of the show that is not fantastic be super-realistic. Please train your actors.

Django: Hot Tub Time Machine.

My wife and I went to see Django Unchained last night. We liked Christoph Waltz. It took me forever to realize that I was looking at Samuel L. Jackson. Don Johnson added comedy that was the best part of the movie. I think that Jamie Foxx did okay with what he was told to work with. Not great, but okay.

But we didn't like it. First, the movie was WAY too long. 2:45 long. Every scene involved long, lingering camera pans that were unnecessary. I'm a Tarantino fan, but someone needs to edit the crap out of his stuff. Also, there was a logical ending, and yet the movie went on for another 15 minutes that should have been added in the director's cut DVD. Next, I get that Tarantino was trying to do a movie in the old spaghetti western-style (as even the name would tend to indicate), with a strong Peckinpah influence, but it really was over the top. Every single .36 caliber ball out of a Remington 1858 New Army or a Colt 1851 Navy revolver would cause sheets of blood to fly out of the recipient, coating the walls with blood.

And about those guns. The first gun we see in the movie is a double-barreled shotgun which was in keeping with the time, but is at the end of that scene referred to as a "rifle." The movie is set in 1858, and apparently Remington must have shipped cases and cases of their new revolvers down to Texas, Tennessee, and Mississippi for general distribution to every dirt farmer that year. These were very expensive pistols, and poor folk generally didn't have them. This would be like finding every convenience store clerk, gas station attendant, and parking lot attendant having a brand new HK or Springfield model fresh from SHOT, now. While not impossible, it's highly unlikely.

 There was a Colt Dragoon (Model 1848) visible, but it didn't play a big roll. We saw a pretty cool Remington Cattleman's Carbine (model of 1858), which would have been pretty damned rare to see.  The main character rides hard with it in his hand, but I don't recall him ever shooting it, even when he ambushes some baddies.

The rest of the guns were almost universally anachronistic. The derringer shown again and again was a modern replica of a Remington 1866 .41 rimfire tip-up derringer. I've fired a couple of dozen rounds out of one (using up a sizable portion of the world's supply of .41 rimfire at the time, too, I guess), and the round is anemic. If you shoot it at a hardwood tree, there's a decent chance that it will bounce back at you. It of course caused gouts of blood in this movie. Why not? It was being portrayed 8 years early. Anything could happen.

There was a Sharps rifle that played a significant role. They never showed him loading metallic cartridges into it, but it wasn't the slanting breech model of 1852. I don't know the 1848 model. I think that this was an 1859 rifle, and much of the movie took place in 1859.  The rich bounty hunter might have had newest kit. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on that one.

There's an iron-framed Henry that's a year or two too early.

We didn't mind the cussing. People cussed, then as now. Anyone who is offended by the use of the "N word" while complicit with the depiction of slavery by those uttering it is a confusing individual. There is reference to a gladiator-style culture of buying and selling slaves for the sole purpose of pitting them against each other for fighting, which is referred to as "Mandingo* fighting" in the movie.  My wife was surprised to hear me say after the movie that I'd never heard of such thing being popular. Oh, I've little doubt that it happened (Humans have always had a capacity for cruelty. And dogfighting has always been popular. So I'm sure that at times slave owners pit their laborers against each other.), but I've just never read of or prior to now heard of a real culture of slave fighting in the American South. Apparently, Tarantino just lifted the idea from a blacksploitation movie of the 1970's called Mandingo. He knows it's fiction.

The fact that this flick is a black man's fantasy about killing white slave owners doesn't bother me, any more than do the myriad of movies about getting revenge on the commies/men who murdered my family/enemy nation that attacked our country/etc, etc.

In an interesting reversal of movie styles, at no point is there any female nudity (beyond showing bare backs), yet there is a scene involving Jamie Foxx's taint, and his phallus. But that's not why the movie sucked.
_________________________________________________
*A few years ago, I helped out on a case involving a hebephile who had met his male victim online, using the name "Mandingo." I had at the time thought it strange to use such a nickname, but had not researched it. Apparently, there is a porn star (whom I won't link here, but can be found on a specialty database site for adult film stars) who goes by that name, and is also black. I don't think that the suspect was considering himself a fighter, but rather was identifying with the black porn star. He pled out.

Thursday random thoughts.

--When Marty McFly went thirty years into the future, he went to 21 October 2015. That's a little over two and a half years from now.

--I've got a friend turning in his gear to muster out of the US Army in Korea. I actually still can see a point in being there, unlike Afghanistan. But even then, the reason to be in Korea isn't good enough. Let's bring them home. This is less about me being a peacenik and more about me wondering how we're going to pay for this, and wondering what it is that we think we're buying with all those taxpayer's dollars?

--South Korea is mighty industrialized, now, and China has little or no truck with North Korea, now.

--I've been watching old episodes of Barney Miller, lately. As a kid, I remember that show coming on, and wondering why anyone would want to watch it. What kind of a cop show was it, where mostly people just stood around and talked, and a laugh track ran? Why didn't anyone ever fire a gun, or chase somebody?? 

Now, I'm fascinated again at the anthropology of police work. The detectives' squad room, for instance: no computers. Hell, even the typewriters are manual. The cops wear Detective Specials and 2" Model 10's, and maybe the odd Agent or something. Apparently the detectives routinely get called out to hot calls in-progress. Nobody has a portable radio. Very, very rarely is a female cop seen, and it's a big deal. Come to think of it, it's a big deal that one is black, and one is Polish, and one is Chinese, and one is Puerto Rican, too. Then there's the character Deitrich, who's just weird. I like his character the best. Sadly, Steve Landesberg and Jack Soo and Ron Carey and James Gregory are all dead. Ironically, the actor who portrayed the sick and burnt-out Phil Fish (Abe Vigoda) is still quite active as an actor at 91.

It took me a while to realize that Detective Harris is Shepard Book from Firefly.

--Watching the 30 minute cop comedy that spanned from 1974 to 1982, you become very aware of that tendency of television shows from that time period to attempt to grapple with social issues. I've seen ones on Vietnam, and the aftermath of violence, and on racial relations, and civil rights ("In a very special Barney Miller: Deitrich gets arrested, standing up for what he believes in.").  I just watched one about Agent Orange that had an investigation less plausible than that purportedly presented in J.F.K.

--The captain has a couch in his office. I've had a boss with a couch in his office. I want, someday, to have a couch in my office.

--The dicks wore their guns right in the show, though, for the most part-- behind the strong side hip. Modern cop shows are terrible about putting that pistol at 2:00 or even 1:45, just so that you can see it even when a cover garment on. The show's main character carries it too far, with Hal Linden deciding that the good captain would have his snubbie at about 4:30 or even 5:00 o'clock.

--That reminds me: I need a new couch at home. We've shredded the leather. I've stitched it back. My daughter's stitched it. It's time. We got our $1300 out of it. (What? That was 10 years ago. We'd gotten an insurance check, and needed a couch.)

--Remember when you would occasionally see benches in men's rooms? My wife tells me that there's a couch in the lady's room at her office. I seem to recall, as a little kid getting dragged into ladies' rooms, that couches were rife in womens' restrooms.

--I had someone question some point of my manhood recently. I pulled out my pink cell phone, pointed to it and my ring, and said, "I've got almost 15 years of marriage to the woman that I've had two kids with. I quit caring about having to prove my masculinity to anyone a long time ago."

--Apparently, the SCOTUS just heard arguments about whether states can do mandatory blood draws without a warrant. I've been kind of uneasy about our new "If it's a felony, you have to give blood" law, from the outset. I'm absolutely fine taking an involuntary blood draw after having a sworn warrant. I've got a sneaking suspicion that we're going to see a lot of specimens thrown out for violation of 4th Amendment. I can deal with losing the admittedly useful investigative tool.  I'd rather live in a free[r] country, even though I promise you that some intoxicated drivers will walk because of this, and will cause some deaths.

--I've had some felony DWI arrestees voluntarily provide me with a blood sample, so that their license wouldn't be immediately suspended for refusing, stating that they knew that I could take their blood against their will, anyway. Tough break for them if the mandatory blood draw gets thrown out.

--I bought a new dishwasher for Mom for Christmas. I got delivered today. The delivery guy knocked off some insulation, said, "Uh oh," and left it. I tried to stick it back on. Maybe I've got it right? I found that Whirlpool dishwashers need a special adaptor that you have to buy separately, to hook 'em to your water supply. They salesman that us the washer forgot to mention that. The salesman at the store when I went in to get the adaptor was shocked, and said that it should have been mentioned. The manager gave me a $25 gift card, so I'm basically happy. 

--But now I have to finish installing a dishwasher. Which I hate doing. Uninstalling the old one was two tons of fun, too. It's been sitting full of stagnant dirty water for about half a year. Ew. It made a mess.

--I went to a Council of Governments class on grant-writing yesterday. That was kind of a beating. I'm hoping that I win us a grant, and that it becomes worth it. As the coordinator for our city, it's going to be like herding cats.

--This looks like an interesting integrated rifle system. The misuse of the term "bullet" is frustrating, though.

--My elder daughter refused to let me pull her out of AP honors geometry to put her in the regular class. She's been struggling, and feeling some stress. (First B in years.)  I'm really proud of her for not taking the easy way out, when I was giving her that option.

Remember, monkeys, your first job? Is to dance.

Michael Moore's stop-down over Ice T's comments about the Second Amendment's place in history is kind of interesting, but it's of no real worth.

Moore* is a producer of fake documentaries, who managed to cop an Oscar for a movie with pieced-together speeches, inaccurate time lines, and personal assertions about things that didn't happen from his own point of view. If he'd been a journalist, his credentials would have been yanked decades ago. Instead, as a producer, he's award-winning.

Michael Moore is not a spokesman for my nation, or even a part of it. Even if you agree with him, no one made him your spokesman. He's just a famous name, and happily gets in front of cameras to push his agenda, on things that he's not expert in.

And, though I may to an extent agree with Ice T, he's just an entertainer, too. (And a confessed thief and felon, whose most notorious hit was called Cop Killer.)  He doesn't represent me.

Y'all claim to make social commentary through your art?  Then do your art.

Dance, monkeys!

And you all who are looking for a soundbite for your talk shows? Dig deeper. This is beneath what you claim to stand for, if you claim to actually provide informative discourse and news.

______________________________
*I've more respect for Roger than Michael, and that's damning Roger Moore with mighty faint praise.

Vultures.

CNN and Slate are both putting up the name of the coward who walked through a Connecticut school, murdering children. They're linking to his Facebook page. They're putting up his picture.

And they do this because they know that people will wonder what the face of such a monster looks like.

I'll tell you what he looks like: he looks like you and me. He just lost his grasp on humanity, and turned evil.

I beg you, friends: don't go look.

Every time someone clicks to go to these sites, then the vultures who linked to the stories, with Tweets and stories and teasers of his name and what he did-- they feel validated. The end justifies the means. Their job is to get people to come to their site. They did it. Good job!

Ever think of the cost, though? 

It would be an unusual reader here who didn't know the names of the murderers at Columbine.   In the months that followed that massacre, the names and pictures of K. and H. were splashed across the media like so much blood. That's notoriety. To a demented mind considering going out in a blaze of... something... that's star power, right there. Who remembers the names of the victims, though?

Enough of this. End this.

Condemn those who spread the names of the murderers for the salacious sake of "news." Don't visit the sites with these stories. Refuse to breathe their names on your blog, or in public.

Stop feeding the monsters.

It really doesn't hold up.

When I was 5, I would get out of kindergarten and go to a lady's house for after-school daycare. She kept a lot of kids, and liked to plunk us down in front of a television set. Sometimes, I got to see my favorite show, the "Banana Splits." Now, the main part of that show was terrible. Adults in plushy animal costumes, making dumb jokes. The reason that I wanted to watch it, though, was because of the serial melodrama that the Banana Splits showed, called "Danger Island."

Danger Island was great stuff. Guys punched bad guys in the nose! The good guys fought with pirates and head-hunters. There was a doctor and his lovely niece. There was some speechless wildman named Chongo, who was summoned by the call of "Uh-Oh, Chongo)

Watching this episode, tough, I may not have been a very good motion picture critic.

And why does the good doctor not employ his Remington 600 to good effect, when confronted with savage headhunters with tomahawks?

23 years gives some new perspective.

Back in 1989, John Cusack starred in a movie called Say Anything...
It is largely remembered for its scene with Cusack's character Lloyd Dobler serenading Ione Skye's character (Diane Court) with a boom box held over his head playing "In Your Eyes". It's also remembered for this scene, when the father of his valedictorian, fellowship-winning girlfriend asks him what he wants to do with his life.

The father (John Mahoney as Jim Court) has an incredibly open relationship with his daughter, and when he expresses his concerns about her underachiever boyfriend, Diane breaks up with Lloyd Dobler to be around her dad more before she goes to her fellowship in England. This breakup is trumped by the serenading by Dobler, and Diane and Lloyd somehow work their relationship out, in spite of everything.

My 14 year-old honors student daughter was watching that movie in her bedroom last night when I came home for lunch. I watched a few minutes of it with her. And man, has that movie changed.

First, I seem to have misremembered that it was called a "romantic comedy." No. There is nothing funny about this movie. It is a tragedy of epic proportions. The real hero of the story, the father Jim Court? He gets locked up for tax evasion. The sweet valedictorian ends up with the villain of the tale, that shiftless Lloyd Dobler.

At least, that's how it looked to me, now.

Bad casting, in my mind.

Johnny Depp is being cast for a new Lone Ranger movie.

Yeah, this guy;

They couldn't find someone who looked a little less comfortable in mascara and eyeliner?

Apparently, someone in Disney had second thoughts about it, but it's back on.

I'll never under understand Hollywood thinking.

Sports. Really?

And so yet again we have another example of sports fans* behaving badly. In today's story, some drunken supporters of the Kansas City Chiefs football team beat hell out of a guy wearing a New York Jets football jersey, after he (a firefighter and son of a FDNY firefighter) expressed concern when they yelled at him that New Yorkers got what they deserved on 9/11.

The lifelong Jet fan suffered a fractured jaw, cheekbone and eye socket, and also has bleeding on the brain.

I like to watch a good game of professional football or baseball or basketball, on occasion. I just don't kid myself that the team matters much, beyond college, or even high school. Players are swapped around like interchangeable pieces, and the guy who played hard for your team may play harder for the avowed team nemesis, next year. Most players at the professional level don't play for the town that they grew up in, except by accident. When it happens, it's a noteworthy rarity.  Heck, even the move from city to city, on occasion. So it is that the fan is usually rooting for a uniform. Like the Dallas Cowboys? You're rooting for silver and blue and white laundry.

So  never have really gotten the whole sports rabidity thing. It is my understanding from Cowboys fans that one is risking injury to wear a Dallas Cowboys-branded piece of apparel into a Philadelphia Eagles home game. What the hell?!? Israel and Jordan can play each other at the Olympics with less strife.

I've pointed out my dismay over such things in the past, and I understand that most sports fans aren't like this. But ask yourself, sports fan: why does this matter so much to you?

But we excuse such behavior on and off the field of play by the players, and permit them to keep their multi-million dollar jobs, so I guess that it's expected, by some Associative Property, that followers would do so, too. Most of us would be fired from our jobs for intentionally assaulting another co-worker.

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*"Fan" being short for "fanatic."

Tuesday Afternoon Random Thoughts

• --If you're going to try to kill yourself, don't do it in a way that will take out people that you've never met before, such as driving the wrong way down the highway.  And if your car's been involved in a minor accident on a highway, do everything you can to stop that minor accident from becoming a major accident. Get your hazard lights on immediately. Get the vehicle well off the road. Don't stand in traffic or between vehicles if you're on the side of the road. Recognize that just because you can see the cars, they don't necessarily see you.
• --I wonder if that guy Brooks is going to be regretful of giving a full interview to the Fort Worth Star Telegram later, once lawyers are involved. I hope not; he's a victim in this.
• --Active gunwriter and retired Texas lawman Jim Wilson (a longtime friend of my father's) was collecting input from people's experiences with full-length guide rods, to include in a piece that he was writing for Shooting Illustrated's blog.  I sent him a link to my thoughts on the subject, written... can it be three years ago, now?!? I think he'd pretty much finished his post before he saw my post, though. :)
• --Speaking of gun stuff, I've yet to ask my .32-obsessed friend if she's played with any of the new Buffalo Bore .327 Federal loads, yet. Given the sectional density and the velocity, that load actually has some promise. Sadly, most don't seem to appreciate this interesting concept, writing it off as "just another .32."
• --I wonder if the pressures are low enough for a 6-shot airweight J-frame in .327 Federal? There's room enough for 6 rounds of .32 H&R Mag, but I wonder if the chamber walls are too thin at the .327 pressures? Increasing your capacity by 20% would certainly create a viable argument for the round. Come to think of it, I'd be in the market. Carry with the .327 rounds in it, shoot matches with .32 S&W Longs in it. Carry in my existing J Frame holsters.
• --I just got off the phone with a DA who, along with me, cannot understand what would be going through the mind of a person who would take a solid DWI case to court, when there's good video of the infractions leading to the stop, good video of the roadside investigation, and a warrant issued for the driver's blood, with high BAC results. Generally, the rule is, "If she bleeds, she pleads."If I were such a driver, I'd be afraid of a year in jail, in a jury trial.  You just never know.
• --Due to a portable greenhouse that my wife erected over a garden plot in our yard, we've got good-sized tomatoes ripening on the vine, despite a couple of hard frosts that we've had here. We just brought in the squash and okra and zucchini that was outside of the greenhouse. Their time is done.
• --My daughter has a rabbit, now, for FFA. As it is a "show rabbit," it came with a lineage printed out. Don't think that didn't cost me.
• --Until the outside hutch is built, the rabbit is in an indoor cage, with a slide-out tray with kitty litter in it. This is in direct violation of the "no litter boxes in my house" rule. That hutch needs to go up, in a hurry.
• --If you're keeping track at home, that means that the G household now has: Three chickens scratching (only one laying), two cats a-lounging, one rabbit pooping, and a five year-old goldfish named Alice.
• --I just got fitted yesterday for bunker gear, and now have a shiny new pager. We'll see how this goes.
• --I went to a class yesterday put on by a prosecutor on juvenile legal procedure. I wish all such in-service classes were as genuinely useful to my job as this one was.
• --I also wish that haters of the criminal justice system could have seen that room full of professional men and women of various corners of the CJS, who all were trying to get it right, rather than just to get the conviction. The prosecutors talked a lot about fairness, and giving the juvenile offenders their due rights, and the cops nodded to that, a lot. But the stereotype persists, of the cop who cares about nothing more than the arrest and the prosecutor who cares about nothing more than the conviction. I don't think that I saw anything out of the ordinary, but it's not talked about a lot.
• --I watched the live-action version of my childhood favorite cartoon Star Blazers on YouTube the other night. When I first had heard of the Japanese live-action movie Space Battleship Yamato, I was excited. They have no plans of making an American version, and are contractually forbidden from dubbing it into English. So subtitles in English are as good as you'll get. Derek Wildstar Susumu Kodai is cast as darker than the American take of the cartoon. Nova Yuki Mori is at the same time less the token female (she's a fighter pilot), and more so (she's predictably Kodai's love interest) in this version. There's some cheesey stuff going on there. For all that, I liked it, and my wife caught me walking around humming or even singing the old theme to Star Blazers, which was used throughout this movie.  (The music, not the words. And Steven Tyler of Aerosmith did the closing theme. Odd.)

Livin' the dream.

Okay, I have to admit that the latest news accounts on Chuck Sheen A.K.A. Carlos Estevez have been kind of entertaining. Who can't watch as this train-wreck-in-progress declares that he's so awesome, he's tired of hiding his light under a bushel, and hires porn stars for house help and part-time nanny work, along with mixing him up the perfect speedball on the side?

Comes now the quote generator. I hope these guys make some money off of this; it's made of guilty win. "WINNING."*

I'm in for July 22, 2013, on his Death Pool. Anyone with any other squares? The board's open...


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* There is evidence that Sheen has decided that the word "gnarly" needs taking back.

More crazy.

This is a compilation of "best" Black Friday rush vids.

I think one definition of insanity would be to desire to be part of a mindless mob.




Note the woman at 2:12 who, after falling down just inside the doorway of a WalMart, chooses to stay down, risking trampling while she puts back on her wig.

Outsourcing media.

Evvvvvvveryone's a reporter. Evvvvvveryone's the star of their own movie.

The local Fox 4 TeeVee station gets it just about right.

Isn't it always a pleasure...

...when you found out that your new friend is not just a pretty face?

Jennifer puts an entire industry in its place with a few choice words.

Not to categorize or anything,

but if this girl couldn't detect the odor of vinegar and water from this d-bag just from the way he wore his hat, it's unlikely that this incident will drive her away.

Not a fan.

I'm going to do a little hatin', here.

Look, I'm not against sports. I'm not against American football.

I'm just not a fan. Oh, the athleticism can be fun to watch, especially when you know the players. But I don't get the obsession.

I understand the ritualistic warfare aspect of it. I understand that something has to be popular, and if it's not feetball, it's soccer, or baseball, or basketball or... whatever.

But I resent that my mandatorily-contributed school tax dollars, which make up the larger portion of my property taxes, go toward this over-wrought spectacle. I resent that my daughters will benefit, from what I can see, not one whit from this spectacle.

I resent that the same school district that refuses to hold any kind of educational camps or tutoring over the summer has a football spectacle in the first week of frickin' August, when it's 93 degrees at 11PM, according to the sign at the friendly small town bank. Said football spectacle is complete with over-loud P.A., over-bright stadium lights, and rambunctious teens drinking in the parking lot while their more-rambunctious parents cheer themselves hoarse over the exploits of Little Johnny, sweating on the pitch in full pads.

My best friend Scott and some others insist that this is a money-maker for the school, and that my daughters' education will benefit. Bollocks. Show me the figures. I ain't buying it until I see them, broken down.

About as good as we'll probably get.

I suppose we've got as good of a deal as we're going to get on the Polanski situation. He's served some time, and the warrant in the US is still extant, meaning that he'll not come to the U.S.

But most of that time was in house arrest, in Switzerland, not especially known for their horrific prisons.

Best would be if we as a nation would quit buying the product of a felon. But so long as the felon's product is bought and sold and produced in a land of insanity, this pretty much amounts to trying to buy things not manufactured by slave labor.