History of English Language

I thought this video interesting, but not gun related.



My quibbles, 'Merger' with an etymology in the 1980s?  I knew that was wrong and used historically with railroad companies over 100 years ago, so I looked it up.  Huh.  1926 for common usage.  I guess that was why I double noticed it in a short story written in 1930s.  Detective fiction, naturally.  Maybe merger only came to England's shores in the 80's 

The same story used 'bozo'.  I had thought that was based on the clown famous on television so it couldn't predate TV, so... 50's at the earliest?  Nope, the clown predates TV in the 40s, and the word predates both back to the teens.

Novel

Well, the National Novel Writing month wasn't a complete bust for me, but I didn't hit 50,000 words.  Close to half that, sadly.

Things I learned:

Major video game manufacturers release new stuff in November.  Skyrim was no help at all.

It is really a novella.  Comes from reading short stories of pulp detective novel for a couple months before November.  The kernel of a story idea that jumped into a 1 page 20 bullet outline practically fully formed and started me on this madness by serendipity was really short form fiction. 

It's not about finishing in 30 days.  It's about writing with abandon with no internal editor and no deletions.  Save that for rewrite.  It's about getting a big chunk down.  So you finish 50k in February or something, in my, and others', case.  November gave you the impetus.  Markos lamented on Twitter the other day about the author that opens a scifi novel on a faraway planet with a harvest festival chapter among the colonists and then spends 67 pages describing the menu of the feast.  The problem isn't really the writing of those 67 pages, it's the publishing of the 67 pages when it should have been pared down to 167 words, in rewrite, methinks.

Big breaks in writing makes you lose the narrative a little bit.  Write every day.  Just like blogging.  Even half an hour.  I need to work on this.  Easier without video games.  August through October nothing was distracting me, why couldn't this month have been then?

Shoulda introduced the zombies sooner.

The flow is better than I expected, but a little off.  The first chapter flew off my fingers and somehow was chockablock with sexual tension.  Wasn't expecting THAT.

Planned pair of chapters can combine into one, sadly.  Turning 20 chapters into 10.  More of that short form 'disease'.

Keep plugging, it’s amazing what you think up while doing so.

Getting it all down in a stream is a good way to remember past details and not step all over them.  Pausing and thinking out the problems of motivations and fleshing out details is good too, but they can slow you down and hurt the stream.  Hard to find the middle road here for the pace of the rough draft.

Prewar and postwar detective pulp stories have a distinctive style and flair and differentiates.  Mine is set prewar, but I am amalgamating or muddling with postwar.

At Chapter 10 already.  But I feel there is another place this novel might take me for 10 more I hadn’t even considered yet.  Holy crap I can see how these things can get a mind of their own.

I picture this, what I have, as a Rough Rough draft.  It won't be ready to share until it is a Polished Rough draft, where I try to hit the typos, misspellings, tense shifts and what not.  Then I'd wait a bit and come back to it later.  Then a First Rewrite where you fill in the holes in the story.  Then Second Rewrite where you cut unmercifully and align the pacing.  Eventually a Final will come out.

New Stock

I bought the 10/22 for a possible Appleseed shoot months ago.  Why not?  It's dirt cheap.  Three bills for the gun, a Tech-Sight peep sight, and a coupla 25 round Ruger factory mags.  Ooo, and some sling swivels.  I never intended to tart it up beyond that, desiring to keep the expenditure low.

But MBtGE prefers the M4gery style adjustable butt stocks on his numerous 10/22s and just gave me a folding Choate stock, so what the heck.  Now my 10/22 is backpack size.

Here is one issue:  The swivels I mounted on the original wooden stock, and the Choate's are narrower than full size .mil swivels.  The only sling that fits it is a knock off .mil-standard leather job I have that is pretty tired, and even that is still pretty wide.  I want to be able to sling up properly.  What are my options for old school slings in a new school narrow offerings?  Maybe an M1 Carbine style is narrower, but not having one in my hands to compare to...  Plus I don't know if you can sling up with those.  The ones you can sling up look either too slick or too wide.  Anyone out there solve this problem?

If I give up on slinging up then the sling is pretty much just a way to tote the rifle and there are plenty of options out there for that.

The only disadvantage is a pretty tight fit in the mag well.  It makes removing the empty, flush-mounted 10 round mags problematic.  Not an issue with larger mags. 

Shooter at Denny's

Apparently a customer at a Denny's didn't want to see what happened after the armed robbers got the cash out of the til.  Maybe they didn't want to leave any witnesses, who knows?

I don't know if I approve that 'chasing after them into the parking lot, firing as he went' thing.  That shouldn't be the instinct, and I think it is asking for trouble, but I wasn't there.  And neither was the reporter, so who knows what really happened.  Plus there is all the adrenalin going on when you exchange shots and the whole, "How DARE they try to rob my neighborhood restaurant.  How DARE they shoot back at me trying to enjoy my Grand Slam brefass at 6AM."  So I can understand the impulse, if the details are accurate, but can sit in my chair here, calm, and think of maybe a more perfect way to handle it all.

I do know that if CCW comes to Maryland, I shouldn't trust the authorities to treat the customer in this situation as well as the authorities in Texas probably will for this kind of situation, so that colors my judgement.

Right choice or not, the bad guys in this scenario did a poor job of victim selection and had a good scare to maybe make them reflect on their career choice.

Spammer

Some spammer called 'name brand faucets' keeps hitting my old posts with comments and an add for an ammo.  It's not the link I hate, it the not actually saying anything related to the post other than "Cool story bro!  Here's a link that will get me paid."

Blogshoot at Berkely

Don't RUN Hippies!  This is an M1A.  I'm not the best shot with a rifle, but I'm good enough.  You'll only die tired!  With a .308, when you get hit, you tend to fall down.  And lie still.

Ok. It's not the World's Most Dangerous Game.  And it's Berkely Springs West Virginia, not California .  I'm gonna try to make it out there with MBtGE to a blog shoot on the 3rd.  It's only about an hour or so from MBtGE's house, so...  Easy Peasy.  I'm thinking I'll bring the Appleseed 10/22 to it.

Update:  I probably shouldn't joke about shooting hippies, since they tried to come off the endangered species list with the #OWS thing and all.  But, like releasing the first group of endangered marmots into the wild, only to see a few hawks swoop down and carry off Stinky and Mister Fluffers, (the respective matriarch and patriarchs of the group), and then the remainder set upon each other in a lethal battle of dominance to fill the power vacuum, even the optimistic handlers faces fell in despair at the futility of their charges survival skills in the real world.  They're just not able to make it in the real world, and it is someting to be pitied rather that guffawed at in Schadenfreude.  What they thought was a Woodstock was more an Altamont.

Buy Ammo Day

I bought 50 rounds or .45ACP and 50 rounds of .40S&W.  A week late.  Better safe than sorry.  No, no:  Better late than never.

Oh Crud

Well, I am stuck at MBtGE's and out of pocket blog-wise. I thought I had 2 more posts queued up.  I was wrong. So...

The only new firearm is his ancestral shotgun.  It needa a lotta solvent and polishing to get it's innards all smooth.  I showed MBtGE how to punch out a pin he would have found anyway, and he taught me how to field strip a double barrel shot gun.  You grab the double barrel forend and pull 'back and down' assuming the gun is shouldered.  But put it on the banch, I just described it that way to relate the relative position.

So at least I learnt sumthin'.  I had no idear how to do that before.

Airlines clueless...

"Airlines worry frustrations with security procedures contributing to decline in travel..."

You THINK so, Slick?!

I know I haven't flown, purposefully, on 2 occasions in the past couple years because of the TSA overreach.  Dump the TSA and the only thing I will consider is how cramped the damn seating is.  THAT's a big enough worry for the airlines, right there, and may dissuade me on occasion.  Yes, ticket price is less a concern for me.  I'll pay extra fro the luxury of not jamming the knees on the seat in front of me and having more than 11 inches of seat width for my but to squeeze into.  Airline flights have become the cross country bus trip of the 21st Century without the luxury and comfort.

Add the TSA tomfoolery and I'd rather walk to Florida.  I get more angry at the government AND the airlines every day the current civil rights violating system remains in place.  But the decision whether to fly is very easy at this point.  The decision is 'never.'

Wrong

This story is making the rounds, but I first saw it here.  Or was it here? Guy offs himself carrying a Glock in his waistband.  Saving money on a holster leads to a bad end result.

I've encouraged many people to try, or take back up, pistol shooting, and some then go on to purchase a firearm and ask me for input on what to spend their chunk of change on.  The first thing I tell someone is to buy a gun safe.  Something that holds one of 2 pistols if that's all they are looking to get.  Especially if there are kids on the house.  These little locking metal boxes aren't proof against burglars or even completely childproof, but it IS a layer of protection.  A barrier from quick access from idle hands.

I have, even before the Negligent Discharge linked to above, been also recommending folks get a holster.  Preferably a decent one, but at least something.   They inform me that this is Maryland and they never intend to CCW anyway.  I tell them to get a holster anyway.  Store the gun in the holster when you store it in the locking case.  You never know when you might need to tote a pistol, even without a CCW, and that need might be time sensitive, precluding getting out to the holster store to buy one right then.  And with the trigger guard covered in your gun safe your won't have a ND in there reaching for it that time you don't unload it.

I think I will emphasize the gunsafe AND holster purchase now and in the future.  Every pistol of mine is loaded in the safe.  Everyone but one is in a holster, too, or a seperate gun rug and unloaded.  The two exceptions is the 686 revolver which lives alone in it's own gun safe with not holster, and the 640 snubbie that lives in just a holster in my pocket when I am home.  No kids in my house, either, or more precautions would be made for the 640 while I sleep.

Don't Make Me Shoot You!

CROOOOOOOOOOOOWE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

10/22

MBtGE bought some extra normal capacity Ruger mags for my Appleseed .22.  Note, those aren't Maryland capacity.  Good thing MBtGE lives in Virginia.  Think I'll pick them up over the Holidaygiving weekend.

Now all I need is the sight adjustment tool from tech-sights.  Dangit, I meant to get that some time ago.  My sights are set for elevation but I wasn't succeeding in working the windage at the range

And one of these things is not like the others in the lefty section of Ruger's firearm offerings.  A lefty Scout.  Thanks for the tip Bubblehead Les.

Inevitible Mitt

Conventional wisdom says Romney is the inevitible nominee.  I'm not so sure, and won't be voting for him regardless, but let's assume he's it.

The good:  He's more competent than the current guy.  And Barry has had 4 years to practice.  The only thing Barry has done right, that a Kleenex box also couldn't have done right, I'll concede, is this recent Asia Pacific Rim thingy.   Oh sure, he flubbed some teleprompter lines, but that's immaterial to the foreign policy.  (and:  "Hey, Kleenex box?  Should we take out Bin Laden?" "Ehhhhhh, ok."  See, even a Kleenex box can make the call.)  Mitt will do better at all the aspects of a Presidential day, methinks.

The bad:  His policies are pretty much the same the current guy.  OK, let's give Romney the benefit of the doubt again.  He did those things because of the State he was governor of.  Better to shape the issue than to bobble it and let it shape itself.  Ride the liberal Massachusetts tiger because not riding it means it eats you.  In charge of a more center-right country means his center right principles can come mroe to the fore.  This concession is a big stretch for me.  Plus it does nothing to assuage that this talented and effective gov't man won't try to solve the nations problems with gov't solutions, rather than reeling in the gov't that IS our problem of late.  Or a big part of our problems.

I am concerned that he won't repeal Obamacare, but will merely radically transform it into Romneycare II, Electric Boogaloo.  Just as bad, if not worse at its core.      

Plus there will be a perfect storm of troubles in 2013 for whoever gets elected.  Tax cuts inspiring, planned tax increases enacting...

But back to Romney.  His record on the 2nd Amendment.  JayG spits on his living room carpet every time someone mentions Romney and guns.  It's a big put off for many readers of this blog, certainly.  So how does Romney polish this bonifide and get the gunnies into his corner?

Standard thing is to go duck hunting.  This hasn't worked for some time.  It appeals to Fudds when the candidate pulls it off, but it's not the panacea it might have been a couple decades ago. Plus, it'd look disengenuous.  Like Senator Kerry, pretending. 

Romney could shoot a coyote threatening his dog while out jogging with his CCW weapon.  Or he could go to an IDPA and do a halfway decent job.  This would also backfire on him, even if he could arrange it.   I don't think he knows how to shoot or is good enough at it to pull off an IDPA demo.  He'd end up looking like Dukakis in his tank.  And I doubt he has a CCW to even be ready to put down an attacking wild beast. 

I guess his best bet is to be honest.  Admit that he's not that familiar with guns.  Secretly go to a few pistol training sessions to 'get to know better about the issue, plus it's fun'.  Let it leak out that he secretly did such a thing.  Expound on the issue when questioned about it later with all the right pro-freedom tunes.  Gunnies are a cynical lot, but it'd help with a good number of us.  Faux self-defense education is better than faux hunting.  Instead of faux we need more GOP types to be less Metrocon and more like Cheney and Perry.  At least a little bit.

It'd take a lot more than that to get me to vote for Mitt, though.   

Ammo Day

So I've been kinda discombobulated of late and didn't think of Buy Ammo Day until MBtGE reminded me.  So I went ahead and planned to go out a day late and bought some rounds.  Store closed.  Will do it this afternoon or tomorrow.  He may be closed on Mondays too. 

Same trip as the busted ammo quest, stopped into Home Depot and got a snow shovel.  Nothing forecast, but why get stuck in the rush?   The old shovel has seen a lotta winters and I don't want to be without if it gives up the ghost.

The NaNoWriMo novel moves along slowly.  Blame Bethesda Software.  Gonna have to set aside at least a half hour a day.  That's not much, and it will instill SOME discipline.  I know I won't finish this novel in November, but the story will be done.

Stupid Hummingbirds

Everyone's against us!  Even the zombie hummingbirds.

We've been fighting Mother Nature since we crawled out of the swamp.  Now that we finally have the upper hand Tree-Huggers want us to back off?  I say, HARD CHEESE!

Let's Pretend

Let's pretend that HR822 flies through the Senate.  Let's also pretend that Obama decides to plant his gun control flag on another hill and signs it into law.


On that day, me and my Utah CCW have done an end around on the State of Maryland.  Time to celebrate?  How should we?  We're gunnies!  Go outside and shoot your guns into the air!





Proverbially, of course. It's not as socially acceptable a practice in the DC suburbs as elsewhere.

Still Running Low

On blog fodder. 

How bout this...  A buddy asks, "Are Stoeger semi-auto shotguns any good?"

My answer?  "I have no idea.  I've seen the name before.  But that's the extent of my knowledge."

So, are they Hi-Point shotties, or do they edge Mossbergs in quality? 

Remember

The Occupy Flea Baggers think there was no justification for their deportation from Wall Street adjacent private property and the arrests to get them off of said private land.  To them, the police restoring a bit of order is illegitimate.  The lesson they are learning, when THEY get power and control a police force, and some future Tea Party they won't need to use their Socialist Sturmtruppen to intimidate or attack a peaceful Tea Party type event.  They can order their cops to on a trumped up reason even they, the leftist, think is illegitimate.  Because they think rule of man is how it works.  So they will have no qualms ordering police to tear gas Tea Party types.

This might not work well for the confused leftists.  In the eyes of the general public, at a minimum.

Tea Party! Get HIM!

If a Tea Party person had shot at the Whitehouse with an AK47, Janet Napolitano would have declared the movement ALL domestic Terrorists and there would have been a few thousand arrests to root out the 'threat' to the United States.  Sarah Palin would still be in Gitmo.  No thoughts of a crazed lone gunmen.  Guilt by association.

#OWS soap-dodgers get a pass.

Hard Sale

You know it's kinda hard to buy guns in Maryland.  The State puts up more roadblocks on top of the ones the Feds have up that everyone is familiar with.

But it's harder to sell a gun.

Let's say you have one revolver too many, and you cull it from the herd.  Trot on down to the store you bought it to sell to them?  Naw.  Quite a number of gunstores won't buy your used gun.  Or buy back.  Lots have a 'all sales final' clause and once you walk out the door with it, you can't return it to get your money back 5 minutes later.

Which is a decent policy.  Otherwise crime guns could be sold or returned to the gunstore, sold to someone else.  I can see the reasoning of the dealer.

You can sell your surplus item to a buddy that wants.  Yeah, the name's T-Bolt.  My friends call me T... only I ain't got not friends.

And if I did, I'd have to drag that friend to a gun dealer, both of us get probulated by forms, NICS checks done, then the pistol is left in the dealer's safe for a month until the friend can come pick it up.  Dealer collects a fee for all this.

Under the table sales?  Man to man with a handshake to another state resident?  Illegal.  That revolver I want to sell if kinda rare and Tam wants it?  She lives in Indiana and that state has more sane gun laws.  I can just trot it up to her the next blogshoot in the Midwest and sell it to her, lickity splickity, right?  No, that's illegal, too, is my understanding.  The Feds require all sales to be in state or through a dealer.  It's Maryland that makes it a no no to really sell it IN state.  At least Maryland cares a little less about many long guns.  But a handgun is a restricted item.  And difficult to sell.

I don't go to pawn shops much, but when I do I rarely see one selling guns in this state.


So how DO you sell them?  Well, befriend an FFL til he trusts you and knows you're not a dirtbag and maybe he'll be laxer on the buying of used guns policy.  Also.  Look for gun dealers with large used gun counters.  If the dealer isn't buying guns he might take your gun and put it up on consignement and display it in his case.  For a fee.  There your prized gatt can linguish for a short or a long time waiting for a new owner to pick YOUR puppy in the window.

It's like the state wants to make it a hassle that no one will bother with.  Imagine that.