Is there a fast & easy way to draw the outline of circles or ovals with Gimp?  Squares and rectangles are fairly easy with the straight line draw tool, but I'm having problems with circular outlines.  I wanted to put the pipe guy's thoughts in a bubble to make it more obvious he's not speaking aloud, but I just couldn't figure out how to wrap an oval around the text.

I have been trying to work on Gimping another photo, and was hoping to post it tonight, but it isn't turning out like I want, so I've given up on it for now.

So, since I don't have the graphic to post, here's another 20 from the big mp3 list.  I've been playing this thing all day and have knocked a bunch of songs from the top of the list, but here is the current first 20 that I started playing a few minutes ago.

Marillion - Going Under
Lorenna McKennitt - The Highwayman
Annie Lennox - The Gift
Beautiful World - The Silk Road
Crystal Gayle - Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue
Alex de Grassi - Western
Bela Fleck and the Flecktones - Vix 9
Enigma - Mea Culpa Part II (Fading Shades Mix)
Gabrielle Roth & The Mirrors - Zone VI
Macy Gray - I Try
Rush - The Camera Eye
Propaganda - Jewel
Michelle Shocked - When I Grow Up
J Geils Band - No Anchovies, Please
Don Edwards - Old Chisolm Trail
Kitaro - Cloud in the Sky
Bela Fleck and the Flecktones - Communication
Don Edwards - Miss Aledo
Alan Parsons Project - (The System Of) Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether
Dancing Fantasy - Daydreamer

Cthocolate.

Eat it before it melts.  You won't like it when it melts.

It's time to put another book on the sidebar.  I don't remember exactly how I got this one.  I think it was sort of an accident.  But it was good kind of accident.

The Island of Lost Maps is probably not for everyone.  If you read the comments at Amazon, you will see that it is sort of a love it or hate it kind of book.

It is the story of a map thief named George Bland.  He would go into libraries to examine rare books and rare maps.  Using a razor blade, he would deftly cut out the maps, roll them up under his clothes and abscond with them, to sell them on the black map market.  Bland was a "chameleon" who adopted several different identities and abandoned more than one family during his multi-year crime spree in which he stole maps worth a cumulative half a million dollars.

An unusual kind of crime, no doubt, and not particularly egregious when compared to other sorts of crimes.  Still, a bibliophile such as myself might feel some anger toward the way he casually and irreversibly damaged numerous antique books for money.  I would also say he is a colossal jerk for the way he left families behind for monetary gain.

The best thing about this book is that it gives insight into a sub-culture of which I was completely unaware and which I found quite interesting:  the world of map collectors.  As one reviewer said, "But he offers dry wit and a fine sense of the dark places in our contemporary landscape, and he successfully captures both the story of Bland's bizarre 'map crime spree' and the underexamined history and politics of contemporary cartography."

I had never even before given any thought to "the history and politics of contemporary cartography," and learning about it was...yeah, I guess I can say, fascinating.

The Gun Nut, a.k.a. David E. Petzal of Field & Stream magazine, has just posted a warning about the American Hunters & Shooters Association on his blog.  The AHSA--if you don't already know about for some reason--is a gun control group attempting to masquerade as a Second Amendment advocacy group.

This news has been buzzing around the gunblogger nichosphere^© for quite some time now.

I'm glad that awareness of this bogus group is not limited to gunbloggers, but seems to be seeping out into the world at large.  It's also good that these posts keep popping up so 1) we don't forget, and 2) newer readers will read about them even if they may have come in a little late.

To give credit where credit is due, I first heard of them from Triggerfinger in August of 2005.

That same month, I noted that the url to the AHSA website, "www.huntersandshooters.com" is suspiciously similar to the url of a real pro-RKBA website, "www.huntershooter.com," which is named Hunter's Shooting Association.  Triggerfinger noticed this, as well.  The War On Guns has also posted on them several times.

So if you've never heard of them before, follow all the links and read up.

Pro-Gun Progressive blows away the smoke and breaks all the mirrors in this study (*.pdf) of assualt weapons used in crime, published by CeaseFireMD (Maryland).

We see in this table that nationwide, rifles make up less than 5% of all firearm murders for 2001 (and years prior as far back as you care to look). They didn’t break it down by state, but there’s no reason to think that MD deviates from the norm very much. There were only 389 total rifle deaths that year, nationwide. Since Ceasefire is claiming about 180 rifle crimes a year in MD, it’s pretty clear that they can’t all be murders.

So what kinds of crimes are they including? Robberies? Shootings that aren’t fatal? Brandishing? Simple possession? We don’t have any way of knowing as they didn’t bother to tell us. But the rate of people who survive handgun shootings is much higher than those who survive shotgun and rifle shootings, for obvious reasons. The ratio of people killed by handgun vs. rifle vs. shotgun should give a fairly accurate rendition of how often each type of weapon is used–if anything, handgun use is underrepresented in the murder figures, as people are more likely to survive being shot by handguns.

But we can look at the FBI figures and see that rifles kill fewer people that shotguns. Rifles kill fewer people than hands, fists, feet, etc.

If anything, assault weapons are under-represented in violent crime.

Tnx to SayUncle.

Another story about a Glock that "went off" in a Walmart restroom in New Hampshire, putting a bullet into the ceiling.

A Walmart employee in the next stall apparently had the cr*p literally scared out of him.  Good thing he was using the toilet at the time (I must admit I think this part is kind of funny).  It's not so funny, however, if you think about the potential consequences.  This was New Hampshire, after all, where unless I'm mistaken a significant segment of the population carry.  I know if I were in the stall and a gun went off next to me, I would assume I was under the threat of deadly force.  The son of the man with the gun was in there as well.  This one act of stupidity could have turned very ugly.

The Glock carrier was released on a $25,000 personal recognizance bond.

Here's the outrageous part, from the Nashua Telegraph:

Sgt. Donna Briggs, the Hudson prosecutor, requested that Masterson’s apartment be searched as a condition of his bail. Masterson agreed to the search, which was to be conducted by Nashua police immediately after his release.

Any excuse to stick your nose in where it doesn't belong, Sergeant?  Just to show him who's boss, I guess.

Note where the Walmart employee lives.  It's no wonder he...well, nevermind.

I know there are a few people who check into this blog occasionally who are not as familiar with firearms as I am, and who most likely have never carried a handgun in public, or possibly even in private.  So the following is for you.

As I already mentioned, this one act of careless stupidity could have cost lives.  It most definitely did cost him time, trouble and a big chunk of money.

Carrying a concealed weapon takes planning and forethought.  It also takes a lot of experimentation and practice.  Wear the gun in your house, not just when you go to the store.  Wear it while you go to the bathroom and do all of your other daily activities.  Using a public restroom especially is a task that must be thought out and planned for.  This man had no excuse for an accidental discharge.  He could have easily wrapped his hand around the grips only and never put his finger inside the trigger guard.  There were probably other options for him.  Maybe he could have taken his belt and holster off and hung them on the coat hook that's usually on the inside of the door.  In any case, this is something he should have thought about, and practiced, before he ever left his home with a gun.

And yes, this is something I still practice, myself.