Although it has been a long time since I last did it, I occasionally sell refurbished pipes on ebay.  I don't do it to make money.  I do it in part simply to have lots of pipes pass through my hands.  It helps me to learn about different brands and shapes of pipes.  Another reason is that I can, in effect, get a free pipe now and then.  I purchase lots of old pipes from ebay, trying to carefully select lots that have at least one pipe in them that looks like something I'd want to keep.  I clean them all up and resell the rest, and that usually meant that the one pipe I kept would end up being free, and sometimes I'd make a few extra bucks from it.  The only way to get lots of bids is to get lots of viewers for any given auction.When you're selling something unremarkable like old, refurbished pipes that have no real collector value, this is a challenge.  So eventually I began writing descriptions that were an attempt to be entertaining.

I once sold an old Falcon pipe.  It had apparently been smoked only a couple of times, and spent most of its existence banging around in somebody's drawer unused.  There was nothing special about it, at all.  But the description I wrote for it drew lots of visitors, and I got $8 for it, which was about 1/4 of the cost of the whole lot of a dozen or so pipes.  So here is:  Falcon pipe, vintage, collectible, you know the routine...

It had been a slow day and a slower night. I locked up the office and in the chill of the sunset walked down the block to a low-slung bar, the kind where you have to duck your head to go through the door. The kind where drinking is mandatory and smoking is recommended. The kind that has every song the Texas Tornados ever recorded in their jukebox. That kind of bar.

I chose a stool near the back where a couple of old guys were playing backgammon and talking in Spanish. I tried eavesdropping, and understood just enough to know they weren't talking about much of anything in particular. So I gave up and stopped sipping a lukewarm whiskey long enough to pack my pipe. Like I said, it was a slow night, so I took my time, sizing it up, tapping the bowl to settle the leaves, anything to kill some time. I finally decided it was worth putting a match to, and after the smoke settled around me I realized I had company.

I had seen her around a few times, and seen her kind a million times. She had an off-black coat slung over a dress that once might have been red, and once had probably fit better. She had eyes as blue and faded as pipe smoke and hair of pale auburn, the color of a well-stained and well-worn briar.

"I like a man with a pipe," she said.

I don't know what brought her to my corner of the bar that night. Maybe it was the smell of my pipe. I puffed a wreath of smoke that smelled like some kind of antediluvian fruit fermenting on the bottom of a Louisiana bayou on a hot August night. Just the way I liked it.

"You should see my Kaywoodie," I said back.

"Oh," she touched the rim of my glass with a finger, "Is that what they're calling it these days?"

"So what brings you out on a night like this?" I asked. It was cold out there, cold enough to make the dogs sleep with the cows.

"Oh...you know." She touched my pipe with a fingertip and pulled back quick, but not too quick. "It's hot," she said.

Yeah, I knew what she was selling, but I wasn't buying. I offered to buy her a drink. Whatever you're having, she said.

So I bought her a straight bourbon in an old-fashioned, and she sipped it long and slow, making it last. We talked about the weather, we talked about whiskey, we talked about the latest war. We talked about nothing.

"So what's your name, anyway?" she finally said.

"Most folks just call me Falcon."

"Oh? Are you a hunter, Falcon?"

"Sometimes." I grinned. "But not tonight."

She finished her whiskey, polishing off the last drop without even tilting her head back. Just like a real lady. Or just like someone who had a lot of practice with finishing off glasses of whiskey.

"See you around, Falcon." She sidled across the room. I glanced at her once as she walked away, then shook my head. I was saving myself for a one-night-stand that wouldn't cost me anything in the morning.

She sat down in a booth with some other guy, another pipe smoker. I had never seen him before but I wasn't in the mood to pay attention anyway. A few minutes later they left. I saw the soft silvery glint of aluminum in front of his face as he ducked his head to go out the door. It was the last time I saw her alive.

* * * * *

McCloskey was an okay guy, for a cop. Now and then he'd steer a case my way. Now and then I'd get some information for him, the kind of information that's hard for cops to get, but not quite so hard for a P.I. who wasn't too particular about the rules. So when he called me before sunrise the next morning I listened instead of just hanging up.

"Meet me at the county morgue," he said, without much of an explanation.

"What's in it for me?" I wanted to know.

"Jailtime, maybe," he answered shortly. "Or maybe just something to keep you from getting too bored."

Jailtime, okay. I figured the morgue was as good a place as any to fight a hangover, so I said I'd be right there.

McCloskey didn't say much at the morgue. He never said much anywhere. He pulled open the drawer and flipped back the sheet. "You seen her before?"

There she was, more relaxed in death but yeah, I knew her. In the harsh florescent light of the morgue, and in spite of the bruises around her throat, I realized that once, a long time ago, she had probably been a real knock-out. And longer ago than that, she may have even been pretty.

"Yeah, I've seen her."

"We got a witness says you were with her at Cantina del Alamos last night."

"Yeah, we chatted," I answered. "Bought her a drink. So?"

"Just following the trail," he said. "Last person to see her alive, and all that."

I knew the routine. I also knew that I wasn't the last one to see her alive, and told him so.

"Can you describe him?"

"Sure. Average height. Average build. Wore a coat and hat."

"Gotcha. A real stand-out. Nothing else?"

"Only one thing," I added. "He smoked a Falcon."

He let me go then, with the standard warnings not to leave town and so forth. Right. Like I had anywhere else to go.

On my way back to the office I stopped at the tobacconist and spent my lunch money on a tin of Escudo. I needed cheering up.

There is a chapter 2 to this story, which I wrote in preparation for a future auction that might need extra traffic.  But I never used it.  Maybe I'll post it sometime.

I keep thinking I should already know this, but I can't think of the right term.  What are the individual cartridge chambers in a revolver's cylinder called?  I don't think "chamber" is right, so what is the right term?

It can be ordered online like from here:  Sontava Habanero XXX Hot Sauce.  If you live in Texas, you can get it at HEB, sometimes.  This morning's grocery trip by my wife (who went the other direction than I tried to go, and therefore didn't run into any really bad weather), resulted in her finding the last bottle on the shelf.  It is imported from Belize.

It has great flavor, and plenty of heat.  The heat keeps things interesting but doesn't blast away the flavor like some other hot sauces.  The habanero flavor is there, but is not overwhelming of the other ingredients.

For another good one that has more habanero flavor, I like Butt Twister.  More flavor, more heat.  It's more of a habanero-only kind of flavor.  But great if you like that sort of thing.  Not so hot that you can't just pour a little on a corn chip and eat it straight (for me, anyway).

I can't have a hot sauce post without mentioning Vicious Viper.  For previous posts about this sauce, just do a search for it in the search box.

She also brought home a bottle of El Pato hot sauce.  I've never heard of it before, and it was so cheap it's kind of scary.  I'll try it but I'm not getting my hopes up.  (And what does a duck have to do with hot sauce, anyway?)

Where is all this leading to?  I've been out of Sontava for a long time, and tonight I'm making some nachos slathered with Sontava.  Yee ha!

It has come to my attention that I have neglected to portray any female gunslingers in my header graphic.  So to rectify this situation, I have updated the header to include:

Riza Hawkeye (Fullmetal Alchemist), and

"Derringer" Meryl Stryfe (Trigun).

And I thought it was fitting okay but now it appears not to.  I'll have to work on it.

UPDATE:  Oh, it's the picture of the Fatman that's throwing things off.  Well, it'll scroll off in a day or two.

UPDATE II:  Okay, everything fits now at 1024x768.  For those 18% of you who have 800x600 or less, I'm sorry.  Can't please everyone.

My son and I left home at 8:00 to go to the gun show.  I got just past the county line and decided it wasn't worth it.  Fifteen minutes to the county line, 30 minutes back.  Intense rain, zero visibility, and hail.  I will be surprised if a tornado doesn't form out of this somewhere.  The worst is past us now, but you can see there's another one forming northwest of Bexar County, following right in the path of the first one.

I was only going to buy a few boxes of ammo anyway.  They can wait for another time.

The what, now?:

A Norfolk High School student won't be prosecuted after bringing a gun to school.

19-year-old Corey Benton is a senior at Lake Taylor High School. He brought a rifle to school Monday.

The stalk had been cut off the gun. Benton was arrested.

Did they let one of the students write this?

But...:

PC gamers will once again get a chance to delve into the world inspired by the twisted imagination of H.P. Lovecraft when Call of Cthulhu – Dark Corners of the Earth is released this week.

The first-person horror game takes players on an adventure like no other. Players will be able to explore, investigate and battle evil along the way in a 1920s setting fully inspired by Lovecraft’s terrifying works.

Developed by Fishtank Interactive and published by Bethesda this title looks dark, bleak and truly terrifying and twisted – just as a Lovecraft title should. The warning label has it at an M rating due to blood, gore, intense violence and more.

Everyone who's not gibbering helplessly on the floor, start shooting.  He's not gonna listen to reason.  (Looks like a deep one--tough but killable.  As long as there aren't very many of them.  And as long as they aren't backed up by...something else).

This one has a slightly different ring than most older reports.

From The Seattle Times:

Of the seven people wounded by 20-year-old Dominick Maldonado, McKown was the most seriously injured by far. He was shot five times, with one bullet severing his spine. He was initially told he might never walk again.

Since then, intensive physical therapy has restored the use of his right leg, but he says his left leg remains essentially "dead." He uses a wheelchair and wears a colostomy bag. He suspects these are not temporary inconveniences.

The man who aspires to be a stand-up comedian cannot stand. But he tries to put a positive spin on his situation, sprinkling his routine with jokes about the shooting:

"So then I said, 'Young man, I think you need to put down your weapon,' which apparently translates in street lingo to 'Shoot me right now.' "

But there's no mistaking the impact the shooting has had on the 38-year-old's psyche. His decision to put the gun away hurt him as much as the bullets that slammed into his body that Nov. 20 afternoon.

He wrestles with feelings of failure and bouts of depression. He's grappling with the idea that he is now, and may always be, disabled. His faith in a Christian God has remained intact, he said, but his faith in some people has been shaken.

"I feel grateful, but it angers me when people say I will walk again. I'm trying to accept the possibility of not walking. I'm trying to accept that God might want me in this chair," he says.

The article also mentions that he does still carry a concealed handgun.

I think one lesson here is:  If someone walks into a place where there are lots of people and starts shooting them, he isn't going to listen to reason, even if it's over the barrel of a gun.