Grouse gun?  Check.  Pipe?  Check.  Toupee?  Check.

Meet Nimrod, the indefatigably rosy-cheeked epitome of 1930's southern California high society.  He made his parents Rob and Babs very proud.  Unfortunately, this portrait was made only minutes before the chauffeur fragged him, allegedly mistaking him for "an unusually large red-cheeked grouse."

I think this was a label from a lemon crate.  I don't actually know which decade this belongs to.  I'm just making a ballpark guess based on the "art."

But seriously, once again I must ask:  Can you imagine a modern produce company using someone carrying a gun on their label?  Or smoking a pipe, for that matter?

For the benefit of anyone not entirely familiar with the Bible, the connection between the Nimrod brand name and the gun is a man mentioned briefly in the Old Testament:  "And he was called Nimrod, for he was a mighty hunter before the Lord."  I don't know when "Nimrod" became an insult, but it was something that happened relatively recently.  Maybe this label had something to do with it.

I also remember seeing "Nimrod" as a brand name of ammunition.  My dad had some old shotshells of that brand when I was a kid.

We don't need no stinkin' Miller.


From the little brewery in Shiner, Texas.

And my junior high English teacher said reading H.P. Lovecraft was a waste of time.

Ha!  I guess I showed her!

From Aero-News Network:

NASA workers and their affiliates around the world have been quietly looking for hi-resolution films from the Apollo moon landings more than 30 years ago. To date, what we've seen on television were pictures taken by cameras shooting a video monitor... if you will, pictures of grainy pictures. But the original hi-res videos are still out there... somewhere... lost in the maze of government storage facilities.

What's more, time is running out. Those magnetic tapes degrade over time and the playback equipment used to display their images is about to be mothballed. So NASA has launched a formal investigation... and perhaps a key in that probe rests with Australian music video producer Peter Clifton.

And Peter Clifton was working on a Pink Floyd video to accompany the album Dark Side of the Moon, so he wrote to the Smithsonian asking if they had any moon footage/pictures he could use.

He wanted some footage of Neil Armstrong's first step on the moon... so he sent away $180 and got back a half-hour reel of 16-millimeter film from the Smithsonian.

And it's just possible that if he can find this canister of old film in his own vault, it might provide evidence as to what happened to all the original film that NASA is trying to find.

Interesting.

Hm, my shoulder is a little sore from yesterday's session with the muzzle loader.

But it's a good kind of sore.

A German pipe discussion forum has linked to my series of pipe smokers.  I'm in the process right now of getting a sort of pipe-lanche.

During the weekend a Danish firearms forum linked to my article about the Dardick gun, and I got a lot of traffic from that, too.

(There goes the bandwidth.  I might have to just go an upgrade again, if this keeps up).

Read this wonderful (yeah, I don't use that word much, but it fits) post about a kid and a shotgun at Big White Hat.

Just helping to spread the word that Matthew Bracken, author of Domestic Enemies:  The Reconquista will be conducting an on-line interview at The War on Guns today, September 5.

UPDATE:  Here's the link to the post where the interview is taking place.  The interview will be conducted by people asking questions in the comments and Mr. Bracken leaving answers also in the comments.  Domestic Enemies:  An Interview with Matthew Bracken.

UPDATE:  I think Batch #2 is an improvement.  Backing off on the Perique let the maduro come out more.  Still haven't tried Batch #3.

I just finished mixing up three more experimental batches.

Batch #1 duplicates my previous attempt:
3/4 Gray Ghost, 1/4 Perique.

Batch #2 is slightly different:
7/8 Gray Ghost, 1/8 Perique.

Batch #3 introduces a new element:
5/8 Gray Ghost, 1/4 Perique, 1/8 Latakia.

Where did I get the straight Latakia?  I dumped out some Yale Mixture and used a tweezer to pluck out half a gram of Latakia leaves.  You can do all kinds of things if you are obsessed enough and there are no small kids around to hound you constantly.

Four grams of pipe tobacco appears to be enough for two full bowls on most of my pipes, plus a little extra left over.

I might try more variations on Batch #3 later on.  I liked my Batch #1 experiment the other day, but there was a slight "flatness" to it, sort of like good food that just needs a dash of salt.  So my two other batches today are attempts to ameliorate this flatness.  If I get really obsessed, I might pluck half a gram of deer's tongue out of my sample of Crooner and try that.

The long term attempts could take months.  Once I settle on what I think are the best blends, I will have to vacuum-seal them and let them age for a few months.  The vacuum-sealing has multiple purposes.  One thing it does is preserve the tobacco so it doesn't dry out.  Another side effect is that when the bag gets smashed down from the vacuum, it crushes the leaves together and has a "pressing" effect.  This helps to meld the flavors of the different varieties, and most pipe smokers are of the opinion--myself included--that this melding improves the flavor.

I have my three small batches smushed into ziplock baggies and stashed in a plastic container, since they won't last long anyway.  I'll start trying them later, after they've had several hours to get to know each other.

SayUncle and Appalachian Gun Trash reminds us that it’s time.

Today is the beginning of the 60 day “grace” period of the McCain-Feingold bill that makes it illegal for any organization to do a TV or radio spot about a candidate for Federal office.

Which leads me to announce the new component at the top of the right sidebar.

As I said before, I can't vote for him because I don't live there.  But name recognition is everything, so I'll do my small part to help him get some.

District 22 is Tom Delay's old district.  Texas law stipulates that he must live in his district on election day to be eligible for the position.  He obviously is not going to be living there on election day, so his Democrat opposition has used this as an excuse to force him to remain on the ballot.  Some goofball court upheld their twisted interpretation of this state law.  If he wins the vote anyway, he will be disqualified because he isn't living there.  The Democrat candidate wins by default, even if he doesn't get a majority vote.

There is another option for voters in District 22 who find this distasteful.  Bob Smither, Libertarian.  Mr. Smither's blog is at Bob's Campaign.  In addition to the sidebar ad, his blog will be in my main blogroll at least until election day.

The sidebar ad will also remain there through election day.

I haven't posted any of these for a few days, so here's one from Harrington & Richardson, November 1955.

From the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise:

After breaking into the home at 798 Renee St. at 5:20 a.m., the man made his way down the hallway to the homeowners’ bedroom, where the husband and wife awoke. The male homeowner physically struggled with the burglar, who had armed himself with a wooden club-like object he found inside the home, police said.

The homeowner retrieved a gun from his bedroom and yelled for the man to leave. When the burglar charged, the homeowner shot the man at least once in the upper torso with a .40 caliber handgun, said Police Chief Luis Collazo.

“He shot from 10 feet or less,” Collazo said. “It’s point and shoot.”

The man staggered out the back door and fell to the ground. He was pronounced dead at the scene by Justice of the Peace Darrell Hunter.

I presently live near and previously worked in Seguin for several years, and am quite familiar with it because my job there was delivering pizzas.  Renee St. is in a small dead-end neighborhood close to the river, which isn't meant derogatorily.  I mean there's no outlet to the neighborhood it's in, and no one can just "pass through."  When something like this happens there, it's like this intruder invaded the whole neighborhood.

It's good to read about the .40 having such a decisive effect on the intruder.

Someone here is really clueless, though.  They didn't disclose the identity of the homeowners, yet they publish their exact address.

By the way, J.P. Darrel Hunter's grandmother was my kindergarten teacher.  She's the person who taught me to read.

The homeowners were not visibly injured in the incident, said Lt. Mike Watts. No charges will be filed against the homeowner, Collazo said.

I love a happy ending.  There are still places in the world, like small towns in Texas, where when some brute breaks into your house at night and you drop him in his tracks, you are lauded rather than punished.

This editorial points to a new website from a pro-crime, anti-human rights group that should be checked out.  I'm sure this site will receive numerous smackdowns in the coming weeks from those who are better at writing such smackdowns than I.

What?  You didn't know self defense is a human right?  Yes, that's why the site is anti-human right.  I won't link to them.  Follow the link above if you want.

The editorial itself is pro-self defense, by the way.

UPDATE:  The site appears to be a production of the notorious Freedom States Alliance and our old friends, the Gun Guys.

UPDATE 2:  Thanks to ScottG for letting me know the link was wrong.  Apparently since I posted it this morning, they moved it from their "news" subdirectory to their "opinion" subdirectory.  That's why the link had gone bad.