A while back the works of H.P. Lovecraft were selected for the Library of America.  Here's an article about it, and him, from The New York Review of Books:

In other words, he was a nerd. He was a nerd on a grand scale, though— a heroic nerd, a pallid, translucent, Mallarméan nerd, a nerd who suffered for his art. His art consisted exclusively of conveying horror, and in this his range was encyclopedic. As a setting for his horror he built a whole world—a whole universe, with a time-span measured in eons—which others could happily continue furnishing indefinitely. His horrors themselves are, with a few unhappy exceptions, described loosely and suggestively enough that in effect they present a blank screen on which the reader can pro-ject whatever visual imagery is most personally unsettling. This explains the seeming paradox of an exceedingly bookish writer enjoying a legacy that is to a very large degree extraliterary. As a supplier of instruments for the cultivation of horror he was custom-tailored for the suggestible fourteen-year-old boy, and the number of fourteen-year-old boys—some of them chronologically rather older, a few of them even female—is continually on the increase.

Received by email from James Rummel, who was tipped by Alashiya.

Even though it won't show up until Sunday.  As seen at Hammer's blog.

LIST FOUR SENTENCES YOU'VE NEVER SAID BEFORE:
(I'm having a hard time thinking of this one.)
1.  Extra guacamole, please.
2. 
3.
4.

LIST ANY NUMBER OF SONG TITLES THAT DESCRIBE HOW YOU'VE FELT THIS WEEK:
1.  Take This Job And Shove It
2.  I Don't Like Mondays

IMAGINE YOU'RE HAVING THE IDEAL PERFECT DAY. WHAT FOUR THINGS WOULD YOU BE DOING?
1.  Shooting
2.  Barbecuing
3.  Listening to some of my favorite music
4.  Being informed that I now have infinite bandwidth

MAKE UP FIVE CREATIVE NAMES FOR A NEW ROCK BAND:
1.  The Cats of Ulthar
2.  Felonious Monks
3.  Bloody Muse
4.  The Fnordettes
5.  The Anderson Council (obscure, maybe, but I've always thought it would be clever)
Thinking up names for bands is something I actually do from time to time just for fun.

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU GET TO GO BACK IN TIME AND ENSURE THAT THREE SONGS WERE NEVER WRITTEN, THUS SPARING HUMANITY FROM EVER HAVING TO HEAR THEM. WHAT THREE SONGS WOULD GET THE AXE?
1.  She Blinded Me With Science -- Thomas Dolby (just too annoying)
2.  Rock Me Amadeus -- Falco (even more annoying)
3.  All those bastardized disco versions of classical pieces (what the heck, as long as I have a time machine, let's just wipe disco out entirely)
4.  From a Distance (a truly horrific song)
5.  All Muzak-type noise.
I could probably just keep going on this one.  There are so many travesties of tonality that have actually made me feel physically ill.

Check out these Top 15 Unintentionally Funny Comic Book Panels at YesButNoButYes.  A great demonstration of how language changes over time.  It's funny, too.  Be sure and scroll down for the last one.  I think it's the funniest.

Via Wondermark.

John McCain’s MySpace Page gets pranked for hotlinking.

Via Malkin.

Hotlinking is evil, immoral, and fattening.  Doing this kind of thing to hotlinkers has become one of my minor hobbies.

Some are saying that his myspace page was "hacked."  It was not hacked.  He was linking to a graphic hosted on another site which he did not have permission to link to.  Therefore, he was stealing bandwidth.  This is hotlinking.  The graphic was replaced with a different graphic that was given the same name.  All action took place on the other site that he was improperly linked to.  Nothing happened to his own site, so it is not "hacking."

This is the proper way to deal with bandwidth thieves.

Today I got a hit for "can a pregnant woman eat too much hot sauce or pepper hot food."

I'm not a doctor, so you can take my anecdote on this, or leave it.

But when my wife was pregnant with our daughter, she had a craving for hot food all the time, and she ate plenty of hot food.  It didn't seem to have any adverse effect on our daughter.  In fact, when she was about 2 years old, I discovered her eating nacho-sliced jalapenos straight out of the can one time.  She now puts hot sauce on her eggs all the time, and she loves my habanero jerky.

So like I said, take it or leave it.

This rifle in .243 Winchester has seen a lot of use in my family.  Deer, coyotes, and occasional other odd varmints.

Information here.

Thanks to A Keyboard and a .45 for the heads-up.

As usual, I'll be going offline due to bandwidth.  I'm just right on the edge of the package I'm paying for, and it would be such a large increase in price to step up to the next level that I don't think it would be worth it.

Read Armed Canadian's account of his first gun show after moving to the States.  Interesting, and a little amusing to me.  And reading it made me feel good.

Before me were about 30 odd tables. On two-thirds of them were guns of every description. Rifles, handguns, shotguns, military looking rifles. And people milling around, picking them up and handling them like it was the most normal thing in the world. After a moment, Tom and I went in and began walking the aisles.

I just looked around left and right. I was speechless. Then I started asking questions to Tom. How did you buy one? What were the rules? As we got to the tables of handguns and military looking rifles, it became "Who could own one of these?"

The answer stunned me: "Anyone who passed the background check."

Only $100 from Fiendish Curiosities.

"Each specimen is hand painted, and can appear as a museum quality skull, or as if just dug out of a peat bog."

A website I'll have to explore more extensively when I have the time.

Via Cryptomundo.

I ordered myself a birthday present yesterday.  Why?  I've always wanted one.  Made by Texan Tommy Goff.

Thanks to Jason Megill.

There's a problem with the way IE displays individual post pages for this blog, so that they are essentially not readable.  I don't know why.  The main page displays correctly under IE, and both main and post pages display correctly with Firefox and Opera.

Until I can figure out how to fix it, the only suggestion I have is to view the main page to read posts.

It appears that, for some reason, a huge space has suddenly been inserted between the center and right columns under IE.  I haven't done anything to my template lately, other than to add a few self-contained sidebar components.  I removed them temporarily just to be sure, and it made no difference.  I also reset the base template back to default, which also made no difference.  This isn't the first time I've had to kluge around with stuff just to get it to display correctly in IE, and I'm getting kind of tired of it.

UPDATE:  The problem is with the blockquote style that I put in, but I made that change about a month ago and only now it's causing a problem?  That's just nuts.

UPDATE 2:  Okay, I think it's fixed, and I still kept the different blockquote style.  Once again this fix was only by instinct and I have no idea why the change I made fixed the problem.

Must reading at The Libertarian Enterprise is this article:  Scorched Earth, by L. Neil Smith:

Strategically, tactically, we must confront our enemies without any thought of kindness or quarter. Up until now, we've always been too polite. But they created a world where it's unsafe to walk the streets of your own neighborhood at night. They created a world where 3000 people could be murdered by a handful of idiots with boxcutters. They wish to strip us of our means of self-defense, so that we can all enjoy even more of these dubious social benefits. So we must ask, publically and frequently, who they are, and why do they do what they do.

Understand this clearly: in order to make people believe they need more and more government, they want your home invaded by gangs of brutal thugs. They want you beaten, tied up, so you can watch your wife and daughter gang-raped and gutted, so you can be tortured and murdered and all you worked for all your life smashed and scattered in the street. That's the goal of their policy. That's what they strive to make happen. They want you and everything you love dead, dead, dead.

I agree with this viewpoint entirely.  I don't believe, and can't remember ever believing, that the disarmers are only misled but well-intentioned in their efforts to reduce crime.  It is ultimately a matter of domination and control.

Read the whole thing.

Thanks to Kent McManigal.

Ohioans for Concealed Carry reports on one man's experience in getting Elyria's Midway Mall to remove "No Guns" signs:

I have been asked to write an account about my experience in changing management’s opinion and policy on posting “No Guns” signs on the doors at Elyria's Midway Mall in Elyria, OH so others might learn from the way I handled the situation.

I was asked by Daniel White, OFCC Director-At-Large, to verify that the Midway Mall had indeed posted signs on the doors as reported by a member in the forums on the OFCC web site. He asked me if I would be willing to talk to someone about their policy if the doors were in fact posted.

I accepted his request on behalf of the members of OFCC and went to the mall that evening after work. I walked the perimeter of the mall to look at each door and indeed all but one was posted. I then went to the office of the mall but found it to be closed because it was after 5:00 PM.

I then decided this was a good thing because it gave me a chance to prepare what I wanted to say to the mall managers. I then went to the information booth where they rent the strollers and wheel chairs to ask who I might be able to talk to about the signs or someone in public relations. The lady handed me a business card for the assistant manager of the mall.

The article concludes with: "The facts are a powerful thing when delivered with respect."

Sometimes they are, but too many times I have seen the facts sneered at and derided.  Credit must go to the management of that mall for being intelligent and listening to reason.

Via John Lott.

UPDATE:  Back when Texas passed the CHL law, as many Texans will remember, there was panic in the streets at the thought of mere law-abiding citizens suddenly being able to defend themselves.  Signs immediately went up at my place of employment.  Since I didn't get a CHL until about 5 years after the law was passed, I don't know if the regulatory 30.06 sign was part of the original law, but these were not 30.06 signs.  These were just the generic "our employees are forbidden from carrying arms, so please try not to kill us" signs.

I wrote a very cogent and well-thought-out (I thought, anyway) letter to our general manager.  Although we didn't have as much supporting data back then as we do know, I pointed out that if someone was going to come in and start murdering people, why would they be suddenly stopped by a sign on the door?  There were other points than that, too.  I even made the point that if it were to become company policy, it should be made known in a form that would be easily available only to employees, such as the employee handbook.  That way the average mass-murderer-on-the-street wouldn't automatically know that this was policy because we were advertising it on the front door.  I did use more diplomatic language than this, but that was the point.  I didn't expect good results.  As usual, my expectations were fulfilled.  She came by my workstation one day and simply said, "Alan, the signs are not coming down."  I just told her, "I believe you have made a bad decision based on an irrational fear, and not on sound reasoning."  She pretty much hated me after that, but then I didn't care much for her, either.

Oh, I forgot to mention, we had an unarmed "security guard" at this place.  His main reason for being there was to try and stop the technicians from stealing things.  The only problem was, the technicians weren't doing the stealing.  It was happening out the back door at shipping & receiving.  So anyway...

The signs were up for a couple of months, when one night during third shift, when I wasn't there, a disgruntled ex-employee came by and fired a few shots through the breakroom door, which also served as the main employee entrance.  Fortunately it was not during break time, so the only person in there was the "security guard."  He was sitting at his desk off to the side.  No one was injured.

The next day the security guard became armed.  And the signs came down.  It took a potentially murderous situation to get through to the the general manager that those signs were worse than worthless.  So if I sometimes seem extremely cynical about this kind of thing, now you know why.

There was never an announcement made about the signs.  They just disappeared.  It seemed that management was determined to pretend they had never been there.

Gun Owners of America has compiled this very informative list of 2008 Presidential Candidates and the Second Amendment.

Thanks to A Keyboard and a .45.

The post What If You Had To Walk Home at Reactuate has had me thinking about it since I read it.  Now that I have brought the computer back from near death I can get back to blogging again.

I don't know for sure how fast I walk, but as I said in comments over there, I have a job that frequently requires that I walk quickly for several hours per day.  This isn't just nice, polite walking on sidewalks or down streets.  It involves slogging through alleys and occasionally beating my way through brush.  So I'm not boasting, but simply stating my opinion, when I say that I'm probably in better walking condition than the average person.

But like I said, I'm not sure what my actual rate of speed would be.  So my s.w.a.g. would be that my walk home would take somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-20 hours.  I would almost certainly have to camp somewhere at least once.

I already carry several items on my person or in my truck that could be useful in such a situation:

Small Igloo ice chest (my lunchbox)
32-ounce plastic bottle of water (in the lunchbox)
Small flashlight
Zippo lighter
Extra lighter fluid
Extra flints
Trench coat
Cold weather hat
Hot weather hat
Basic multi-tool
Swiss Army "Tinker" model pocket knife
Medium-sized lockblade pocket knife
Dog stick
Toilet paper (yes, but I use it for blowing my nose)
Basic first-aid kit (but it would be hard to carry without a backpack)

Now of course, I don't carry the trench coat on me all the time, but it is rolled up and stashed in my toolbox.  It could be useful during bad weather.  My hot weather hat is a simple booney hat with a ventilated crown.  When you work outside during the summer around here you have to wear a suitable hat; this is not an option.

The problem is, I drive a company truck while I'm working, and in the proposed scenario I could well be miles away from my personal truck when disaster strikes.  However, I think I could probably throw together a small backpack or fanny pack with some items that I could easily transfer between trucks every day.

How likely is this to happen?  Probably not very likely, but I've still been considering it.  I think a few more items could be added to such a backpack without causing too much encumbrance.  Items like:

Electrolyte tablets and/or single-serve Gatorade packets
Water purification tablets
A few protein bars and/or carb bars

I also have a couple of traditional canteens which I can hang on my belt, which would be easier than carrying a plastic bottle or a small ice chest.  I could easily stash them in the truck and forget about them until needed.

A few comments:

The dog stick is something I use while working.  Although its primary purpose is to fend off vicious dogs, it also serves as a walking stick and I've even used it to sort of pole-vault across water-filled ditches a few times.  It's also useful for jimmying certain kinds of gate latches and even works as a back-scratcher.

I think if I were to put this kit together I would include a half-ounce or so of pipe tobacco (vacuum-sealed).  If I'm going to have to hole up somewhere along the way, there's no sense in being too miserable about it.  It would have to be something that didn't contain much latakia, because that stuff always makes me thirsty.

Possibly a larger fixed-blade knife or small saw would be a good addition.  Although I have one of those portable pistol boxes in my truck, I've never been comfortable with leaving a gun locked in there all day while I'm not there.  Even in the company truck, I have to leave it parked on the street somewhere all day while I'm walking around and it would be more likely to be broken into than my own truck left back at the office.

Another tool that I use while working is a small 8x10 monocular.  I don't know if it would be of any use, but it's always on my belt.

Besides lighting pipes, the Zippo would of course be very useful to start a fire.  Extra lighter fluid might also be vital to getting a fire going if things are a little damp.  The stimulant effects of smoking a pipe might also be beneficial.

Oh yeah, I forgot.  I always have 3 or 4 pipes in my truck, plus a couple ounces of whatever tobacco I happen to be enjoying at the time.

I think this is going to work.

UPDATE:  As a service for others on Eponym who want to use ScribeFire, yes you can.  Just google "scribefire eponym api" or something like that and you will find what you need.

The computer rejuvenation went very well.  The actual restore took only about 10 minutes, but then getting everything transferred back took over 2 hours.  It's zipping along right now just fine.

I was going to try the Opera browser, but when I started trying to make this post I got a warning that it was incompatible with Eponym's RTF blog poster.  So I'll have to go back to Firefox.

Still alive.  We have been going through the time of the month during which the work is very hard, at least for some of us who are willing to do the hard work for a miniscule increase in pay.  I don't say much about my job on this blog because that's not the point of this blog, and most of what I'd like to say would be inappropriate for such a publication as this.  But here are a few observations.

This week has been especially brutal.  I narrowly escaped another severe mauling on Wednesday.  Fortunately, I was carrying a clip board and I was able to use it to whack the dog in the face a couple of times so he got discouraged and gave me a few seconds to get out.  His friend, an even bigger dog, was either too slow or too stupid to respond as quickly, so I luckily had to deal with only one dog at a time.  The gate was unlocked and there were no dog warning signs.

As usual, after spending a day in the area I was in today, I am covered with scratches and bruises that I don't remember getting.  Except one.  Some idiot designed their flowerbed so that the sharp corner of a brick stuck right out into the sidewalk.  I caught it with my knee.  I managed not to fall down, but probably should have.  Then about 30 minutes later I hit that same spot again on some other pointy object.  Maybe I should just pass out for a minute or two, I thought.  It's swollen and getting stiff, now.  I probably should have reported it as an injury just to cover myself.

A couple of days ago I was in someone's back yard for no more than 10 seconds.  His gate was already pushed wide open so I just walked in, as usual, and then right back out.  The bastard (sorry folks, but that's how it is) met me on the way out, whining that I should knock on the door of every house before I go in to read the meters.  "I'm sorry, sir, but we can't do that.  It would slow us down too much."  I have lost all tolerance for idiots like this a long time ago, and I can barely remain polite when accosted like this.  He muttered something as he walked away, but I didn't understand him.  I was muttering, too.

We went out to eat at the Bill Miller's in Floresville after I got home today, and I was so exhausted that the poor cashier girl had to explain the meal to me several times before I figured out what she was talking about.  I just couldn't focus.

It probably wouldn't be so bad if I had started this job as a younger man.  But, I didn't get into it until I was 40 or so, and sometimes I wonder if I'm getting too old.  I still outpace lots of 19- and 20-year old kids, though.  Their problem is, they never had to work hard before.  I think everyone should spend a few days hauling watermelons so they know what hard work really is.  A new guy was hired this week who has been spending time doing drills on the computer.  I dread the inevitable day when I have to once again see the look of shocked horror on his face when he realizes that doing computer drills and busting your way through bamboo thickets with a dog hanging on your butt in a 110-degree heat index are two competely different things.

The weather was relatively nice and cool this week, which was a blessing.  Next month it will be much worse, and after that it will be hell-time once again.  The contract is up at the end of this year, and our general consensus is that it won't be renewed.  I'm almost looking forward to being out of a job.

Does anyone have any theories as to why this blog received 110 hits yesterday from the Blogger main page (www.blogger.com)?

Because I'm stumped.

Today is my birthday.  I thought I might order something for myself, so I've been browsing Smokey Mountain Knife Works.  I ran across a glaive!

I'm not going to order it, I just thought it was funny.  They don't call it a glaive (they call it a very unimaginative "6-point rollerblade throwing star"), but anyone who remembers The Stupidest Fantasy Movie of All Time knows what I'm talking about.

Because if you have true love, you can shoot fire out of your index finger tip and kill giant demons, no problem.

As for what I'm going to order, I'm in the mood for something big and fixed-bladed, but not expensive, because I don't have that kind of money.  I kind of like this.

Lighter than usual because I keep going over preparations for the impending computer rejuvenation.  I plan on starting Saturday morning, or maybe Friday night.  I think I might download a couple more installation files today, so I won't have to go download them afterward.

Meanwhile, be sure and read Why We Do It at Shooting the Messenger:

But it's far easier to rally around a great man than to go it alone. There is no Ronald Reagan to follow to and past the gates of hell, no Washington or Jefferson to invigorate our spirits when the going gets tough. And that is where the Founders had it all over us. They were surrounded by other great men to share the load, and we, we have Julie Annie. This doesn't mean our battle is destined to end in failure and disgrace, but what it does mean is that each and every one of us must find some measure of the great man within so that the sum of the parts is equal to the task.

In the last week or two when I signed that "poll" at the Brady Campaign, I gave them my real email address, since I thought it would be a good way to keep track of their propaganda.  Here's an excerpt of the latest:

Last week, a Federal Appeals Court overturned Washington D.C.’s long-standing restrictions on handguns — a decision that endangers all of America’s gun laws.

This case is most likely headed to the U.S. Supreme Court and we have a tidal wave of work to do before it gets there.

This battle — to its very core — is the most important battle we have ever waged. We need your help today to build a strong Brady Gun Law Defense Fund to save America’s gun laws.

This fight is so critical to the safety and sanity of our nation that an anonymous donor has extended his challenge and will match dollar for dollar all gifts to this Brady Gun Law Defense Fund. Your gift will be fully tax deductible.

The threat to all our gun laws is truly unprecedented. The hypocrisy of the ruling is astounding.

What is at stake for you and your community? An emboldened gun lobby will use the ruling to challenge strong local, state and federal gun laws.

We must prepare for an onslaught of lawsuits in which gun laws will be challenged under this new reading of the Second Amendment — a strategy the gun lobby rarely used because of past legal decisions … until now. And, if the U.S. Supreme Court reverses itself and adopts the “individual right to bear arms” view approved by the Federal Appeals Court, all good gun laws everywhere could be at risk …

... from the long-standing machine gun ban … to the 1968 Gun Control Act … to the Brady Background Check Law.

… to your local and state laws … like the ones in California and New Jersey banning Assault Weapons … and many more.

Here's hoping!

I wanted to leave a brief comment on this post at Hammer's.  But I can't, so here's the comment.

I wear purple shirts.  But they are royal purple, not lavendar or (shudder) mauve.  My grandmother once remarked, in regard to a purple shirt, "Oh, you look good in that shirt.  I wouldn't be caught dead wearing it, though."

And on haircuts, I've been cutting my own hair for about 20 years.

The computer continues to deteriorate.  Last night Firefox took another hit for no apparent reason, and won't display web pages correctly now.  Back to using IE, which is now actually working better than Firefox.  So if I disappear for a while...

UPDATE:  Newest problem this morning is I can't log in to Google, therefore can't leave comments on blogspot blogs.  Last night I did some backups, transfers, and gathered up all the necessary installation files, wrote down a list of stuff I'll need to download, and of course, passwords.  Looks like format time.  I've been down this road before.

"A hunter uses his gun as a horn to gather hunters in a forest near the village of Selishche, north of Minsk."

Now online at Handguns magazine is The 9x18mm Makarov by Leroy Thompson.  A fairly extensive article (5 pages on the website), with plenty of pictures and a survey of many of the firearms that have been chambered for this cartridge.

I know in the past thomas.gov liked to move its stuff around, so this link may not last.  However, it looks like the most quickly-updated source of info on proposed bills is thomas, so we shall see.

Click on H.R. 1022 to access the full text of the bill, the list of cosponsors and congressional actions on this bill so far.

Plenty has already been said about this abomination.  If you haven't read the full text, do so.

Just a couple of things that leaped out at me: 

1.  The Hi-Point carbine would be banned.  I don't know how Kel-Tec's sub-gun managed to not be explicitly mentioned, but they were sure to include to the phrase "copies or duplicates thereof" so I'm sure it's covered as well.  (It is listed.  I must have read that thing 5 times and missed it every time).  The Hi-Point is an ideal home defense weapon for those with a limited income, in my opinion.  Easier to control and theoretically more accurate than a pistol, yet the pistol ammunition it uses would be far less likely to cause the extreme overpenetration at short ranges that is characteristic of any centerfire rifle cartridge.  And of course, we can't people of lesser means going around defending their own homes, now can we?

2.  "A conversion kit."  What does this mean?  It's so ambiguous that I'm sure it just means whatever they say it means.  So much for your M1911 Ciener conversion kit.

These are just a tiny sample of the atrocious infringements included in this bill.  It would essentially ban all semi-automatic firearms as well as any firearm with additional options that make it easier to control and therefore safer to operate.

So far this unconstitutional law has 30 cosponsors.

Hunting With An AR-15, and article by Dick Metcalf, is now online at Guns & Ammo.

Virtually every type of centerfire sporting rifle in existence started off as a military weapon. The classic lever-action deer gun, long the most popular type of hunting rifle in America, began as the Henry Rifle of the Civil War era, designed to bring rapid fire against the enemy. The lever-action was succeeded in universal popularity by the bolt-action--the standard hunting rifle of today--which we owe to Paul Mauser's classic battle-rifle design.

You-know-who might have saved himself a world of grief if he'd been able to read this a couple of months ago.

A spoken song, really.  A background of music with spoken words.  The music was performed on a shamisen, I think, or possibly a koto.  One of those things I managed to memorize long ago but failed to remember the person who wrote or performed it.  I haven't been able to google anything about it.

---

Well, there was Gemini Jim and Scorpio Sal,
And they were living by the Golden Gate.
Freezing their nose
And wearing leather clothes
And dealing every way but straight.
They had a Leo dog and a Capricorn cat,
And everything was going fine.
Until, into their life,
On a moonless night,
Come the man
Who got no sign.

He roared right in
Like some evil wind
And he rolled himself a righteous smoke.
And as the thunder crashed,
And the lightning flashed
He took a toke
And spoke...
He said he was born in an astrological warp,
When the stars refused to shine.
On the cusp of nowhere and nevermore:
He's the man that got no sign.

So he told a story of an endless search
To find his missing part.
But Scorpio Sal, she just smiled at him, and
Tried to do his chart.
But Pisces Ben, who was Jim's best friend,
Said, "Man...you must be blind.
You better grab your knife,
And take the life
Of that man
What got no sign."

And so, it happened...
And his blood ran...
Soaked the ground...

The arrest was made by Sheriff Slade,
An Aquarius through and through.
But the jailer was a Sagittarius
And he beat Jim black and blue,
And as they dragged him up the courthouse stairs,
They said, "Jim, how do you plead?"
Jim said, "Man, the moon's in Virgo, so
Blame no fault on me!"

Well, the jury all was Libras,
So you know they were more than fair,
But his lawyer was Aries,
And an Aries just don't care.
And the judge, he was a Cancer,
And a Cancer's got no friends.
But the hangman
Was a Taurus,
And that's where
The circle
Ends...

For Cowboy Blob's weekly contest.

The machine has been acting a little wonky lately.  It feels like something is sucking up resources.  But I can't find any unknown processes running, I run spyware and virus scans weekly, and this morning finally resorted to a scandisk.  Several problems were found and fixed, but the sluggishness is still there.  I tried a system restore, which I was very loath to do because I was about 85% certain it would only screw things up worse.  Surprise, surprise, I was right.  It took a while, but it's back to working fairly well now, except for some minor sluggishness, most noticeable in occasionally having choppy sound when playing sound files (both mp3 and Windows wav files).

It takes a while to start up stuff, too.  My most commonly used programs are Thunderbird, Firefox, Excel and Winamp.  Winamp seems to start okay but it's taking way too long just to open a very simple spreadsheet.  The Mozilla applications are taking a lot longer to open than they did just four or five days ago.  The system says a defrag isn't necessary, and I did one about a month ago anyway.

I use Spybot, Adaware and Avast Anti-Virus.  I also run ZoneAlarm.

Another problem that cropped up in the last couple of days is that when I click on a hyperlink in Thunderbird, it no longer opens a Firefox window.  I have to do a manual right-click copy and paste to view a web page.

Something is going on, I just can't figure out what.

UPDATE:  I can't rip CDs anymore, either.  Well, I can, but the result isn't anything I'd ever want to listen to.

Norman Rockwell is another very famous pipe smoker who I won't be able to say anything new about.  So here's some stuff you probably already know.

He became art editor of Boy's Life magazine when he was only 19.  He painted several covers for the magazine and went on to illustrate numerous Boy Scout calendars throughout his life.

During World War I he tried to enlist, but was turned down for being underweight (6 feet tall, 140 pounds).  He went home and gorged himself, then went back the next day and made the cut.  However, he was assigned as a military artist and did not see combat during his tour.

He successfully submitted his first illustration to Saturday Evening Post in 1916.  He is perhaps most famous for his numerous cover illustrations for this magazine.  Other magazines for which he painted covers are Literary Digest, The Country Gentleman, Leslie's Weekly, Judge, Peoples Popular Monthly and Life.

His paintings are famous both for realism and for their portrayal of American life.  Many of his works are set in rural and small town settings.  Later in life, he turned his attention to the civil rights struggle.

The above graphic is Rockwell's "Triple Self Portrait."  Pipe smoking was featured in many of his works such as:



And my favorite:

Scholar Claims Key Error In Jesus Documentary:

The scholars who analyzed the Greek inscription on one of the ossuaries after its discovery read it as "Mariamene e Mara," meaning "Mary the teacher" or "Mary the master."

Before the movie was screened, Jacobovici said that particular inscription provided crucial support for his claim. The name Mariamene is rare, and in some early Christian texts it is believed to refer to Mary Magdalene.

But having analyzed the inscription, Pfann published a detailed article on his university's Web site asserting that it doesn't read "Mariamene" at all.

The inscription, Pfann said, is made up of two names inscribed by two different hands: the first, "Mariame," was inscribed in a formal Greek script, and later, when the bones of another woman were added to the box, another scribe using a different cursive script added the words "kai Mara," meaning "and Mara." Mara is a different form of the name Martha.

According to Pfann's reading, the ossuary did not house the bones of "Mary the teacher," but rather of two women, "Mary and Martha."

"In view of the above, there is no longer any reason to be tempted to link this ossuary ... to Mary Magdalene or any other person in biblical, non-biblical or church tradition," Pfann wrote.

In the interest of telling a good story, Pfann said, the documentary engaged in some "fudging" of the facts.

"James Cameron is a great guru of science fiction, and he's taking it to a new level with Simcha Jacobovici. You take a little bit of science, spin a good yarn out of it and you get another 'Terminator' or 'Life of Brian,"' said Pfann, who briefly appeared as an ossuary expert in the documentary.

In Israel on Tuesday for a screening of the film, the Toronto-based Jacobovici welcomed Pfann's criticism, saying "every inscription should be re-examined."

But Jacobovici said scholars who researched the ossuary in the past agreed with the film's reading. "Anyone who looks at it can see that the script was written by the same hand," he added.

Jacobovici has faced criticism much tougher than Pfann's academic critique. The film has been termed "archaeo-porn," and Jacobovici has been accused of "pimping the Bible." Jacobovici attributes most of the criticism to scholars' discomfort with journalists "casting light into their ossuary monopoly."

"What we're doing is democratizing this knowledge, and this is driving some people crazy," he said.

I haven't said anything about this movie before because, honestly, it just doesn't matter to me.  I only mention it now because here we have another case of a professional propagandist filmmaker perhaps fudging the truth, but certainly not telling both sides of the debate because doing so would damage his agenda.

I especially like that last line about "democratizing this knowledge."  How dare we ignorant plebs insist on hearing both sides of an argument.  We should just take the words of our elite Hollywood betters for granted, and otherwise shut the **** up.

Got a hit for the search, "eye injury with public restroom coat hooks."

I can't think of a way one could do that, but it's still funny.

I'm #2 on the list of links.

No trackback spam last night.

Everybody else is doing it, so I checked this site.  It is blocked.  I didn't get too excited about it because I figured it was just due to glitches in the system.  But then I checked my old blog, and it is not blocked.  So maybe this one really is.

This blog still turns up in searches on google.cn.

It's kind of hard to find their banner, but it's a corner ribbon thingy you can find here.

The American Spectator works over this hysterical editorial from the Washington Post.

It seems to me that those who genuinely believe that laws banning gun ownership will reduce crime have given very little thought to the nature of criminals. Why should we expect people who have no compunction about violating laws against murder, rape and theft would be inclined to obey a law against owning a handgun? Of course, posing that question to the political left will do little good. They'll just respond with hysteria.

The question we all ask, over and over, and they never give us a reasonable answer.  This question is the biggest reason for my belief that they are not well-intentioned by misled in their attempts to reduce crime.  They are interested only in domination, and care nothing for real crime control.

St. Louis, MO:

"He had his gun aimed at my face," the robbery victim said in an interview granted on the condition that his name and hometown not be used. "I definitely thought he was going to shoot me, so I started firing."

Crossland's weapon turned out to be a pellet gun that resembled a .45-caliber handgun, police said. The victim had a real .45 in his waistband.

Stupid punk.

"The one guy started to pat me down, and I didn't want him to find my gun, so I was handing them over everything I could," the victim said. "I was just waiting for the right opportunity to get my gun."

The robbers then started to depart with the man's wallet, necklace, ring and cash.

"The guy with the gun was walking away with the gun at his side, but then he turned around and aimed it at my face," the victim said. "I definitely thought he was going to shoot me, so I pulled my gun out and started firing."

He fired seven shots and the pair fled.

Sounds like he emptied his 1911, to me. Heh.

The victim said he had the concealed-carry permit for two years but had never used the weapon. Missouri has no tracking system for cases in which people with concealed-carry permits use their weapons.

Ain't that a shame.

Just thought I might add:  I had the opportunity to eat antelope once.  "You like deer meat, right?" he said.  "Well, this is way, way better than deer meat!"

Boy, was I pumped.  Better than deer meat?  It must be like ambrosia or something.

I was terribly disappointed.  Not only was it not better than venison, it was just about the worst-tasting meat I ever ate.

Since it was a wild animal, it could have just been ruined by the way it was prepared.  Maybe he didn't gut it soon enough, or get it frozen soon enough, or something.

I'd try it again, if I had the chance, but the one time I did eat it didn't impress me.

Antelope are not part of the deer family.  They are actually related to sheep, if I recall correctly.  I didn't know this relation at the time, and I had never eaten mutton before at the time that I ate the antelope.  Years later I did try some mutton, and I didn't like it, either.  So maybe that's why I didn't like the antelope.

I got linked by the American Gun Association.

Looks like a pro-2A website out of Florida.  Just about every gunblogger on my blogroll is on their links page.

But this has always amused me and now that I have a camera phone, I can take a picture of it.

No, I'm talking about certain politicians, I'm talking about this:


Or if you want to see a really terrifying version, check out this painting by Johann Heinrich Fussli.

I guess everyone knows about this sleep phenomenon, when you are partially awake and paralyzed, with the feeling of some thing pinning you down.  I often wonder how often this happens to people, because I have suffered from it my entire life.  Although I wouldn't go so far as to say it happens on average once per month, I can say it easily happens several times per year.

The last one was last night.  I'm lucky now.  Since I got married, as soon as I start freaking out and screaming it wakes up my wife and she speaks or pokes me so I become fully awake and am able to snap out of it.  Back when I slept alone, it was just a terrifying experience that left me nerve-wracked and exhausted.

Most times I can't make out any details of the dream-beast.  I know it isn't real, but in this semi-sleep state, the dreams become hallucinations.  It isn't pleasant.

When I am able to make something out, it often looks only like a vaguely human shape that somehow manages to shine blackly in the darkness.


Back when I used to play Doom a lot, I once semi-awakened and in my sleep paralysis hallucinated a bunch of lost souls coming at me.  They floated across the room slowly, just like in the game, then spotted me and rushed toward me.  This time the fear was so intense that it awakened me fully and I jumped out of bed with a scream.  Sounds stupid, but when you're lying with your eyes open and unable to move and you see a bunch of these guys floating into your bedroom, it's no fun.

I wish I could figure out what triggers this, if anything.  I wish I could look forward to it never happening again.   But I know in a few weeks more it will.

So why am I writing about it?  I don't know.  Maybe this will make it go away, but I doubt it.

It's raining outside
But that's not unusual
But the way that I'm feeling
Is becoming usual
I guess you could say
The clouds are moving away
Away from your days
And into mine

We've had nearly four inches of rain since yesterday.  It's a good thing it's supposed to slack off tonight, or there would be some serious flooding.

Give yourself some bonus points if you know the song.

UPDATE:  Wednesday 5:15 AM.  More than 5 inches all total, but it stopped raining last night.

Blame it on Cowboy Blob.


Special powers?  Why, any red-blooded villain worth his salt--and probably some female villains, too--would pay to get smacked down by such a one as her.

I'd like to see what I could come up with if I had the paid-for version.

That was a fun way to waste an hour.

Created at Hero Machine.

Strange animals, or strange news, take your pick.  Since I'm already sort of on that topic, I noticed several odd bits of news regarding animals this week.

In Sudbury, PA, an apparently mentally disturbed woman brandished several