Getting Discouraged

Xbox Live is a pain. The connection regularly shits the bed when I try to log on to multi-player games. I know, complicated whatever, but I paid for this shit and expect it to work more often than not. Bah.

Screw Microsoft, I am going to buy an old SNES and never look back.

Yes, It Can

Be tacticlol despite wood furniture:

Now that I have the clamp loosened enough to stop crunching the mag tube, I just need to get it to the range to make sure the clamp won’t walk toward the receiver.

Shiny

My wife gave me a copy of Battlefield 3 the other day and it is pretty neat. It is also going to keep my posting light until I finish the single player campaign.

This comes at a particularly good time since extended outdoor treks are still on hold until my lungs stop being raspy.

I Am Confused

I filed my tax return and the nice tax lady promised me thousands of dollars, the totally legitimatenoreallylooktherearenumbersand… IRS representative notified me that I had to pay a ten thousand dollar fine for not filing my taxes on timeandbyontimeImeanmorethanamonthbeforethedeadline, and the tax lady called me this morning to say that the my return is in and I should pick it up.

What should I do?!

Order a new rifle? Okay!

Let’s Play A Game

Good day,

Here is a notice, that you are encouraged to pay a penalty for not filing the income tax return prior to January 31, 2012.

Please note, that IRS [Section 6038(b)(1)] rates a pecuniary penalty to the amount of $10,000 for each [Form 5471] that is submitted on the expiry of the deadline stipulated for filing the income tax return, or does not contain the comprehensive data defined in [Section 6038(a)].

The exemption from the penalty will be granted on condition that the taxpayer proves that the failure to meet the deadline for filing was due to reasonable cause.

Please use the link below to enter our official site and obtain more information.

Yours faithfully,
Internal Revenue Service United States
Department of the Treasury

What was the first clue that this e-mail in my spam box was not legitimate?

Feeling A Bit Better

Time to try this work thing, again.

I’m Just Going To Do It

I don’t like the 1911. Rather, I do not like what society has made of it.

The 38s we brought to the Philippines was underwhelming and left the military in a rush to switch back to its long-time 45. Bureaucratic manners progressing as they do, the decision was made to design a whole new cartridge out of a desire to go back to a proven old cartridge because of the failure of a new cartridge… Okay. The 45 ACP was born.

Mr. Browning submitted a new pistol design to the military with no safeties in a bid for new cavalry pistols. The most rapidly dying service in the military bidding for the newest pistols. O…kay. Concerns about the possibility of troopers shooting themselves and their mounts arose, so Mr. Browning was instructed to put a safety into his new design. The deed was done, and properly. Shortly after, the Army had its new pistol.

No one in command seemed to think that the new pistol should be loaded. The designer, himself, evidently agreed, having never bothered to put a safety in the original design. For the rest of the weapon’s tenure in active service, it was carried unloaded as any other SAO in world service has been. It bearers were given fairly decent pistol instruction for the age: draw, chamber a round, point the pistol at the Hun, and fire instinctively. It bears mention that Fairbairn and Sykes were cutting edge in their methods of pistol craft in this age: SEVERAL positions from which to point shoot, standardized methods for pointing consistently, regular and progressively more demanding qualification, improving visibility of front sights on the rare occasions they would be used,  and pinning the safety the Army so demanded.

What does this make of the 1911? A large-bore horse pistol pressed into general use as a general service sidearm. Its design and use were thoroughly average for the doctrines of the age. To be specific: single-stack, to be carried unloaded, given safeties as a backup to routine unloading, sights as a backup to instinctive pointing, and a grip meant to be held however the user felt comfortable. Not a high grip, that was still not a thing. It was unique in its design: the caliber was pretty large in an auto-loader, the feeding/extraction system was new and worked very well, and both of the safeties (despite being afterthoughts) were placed with care. In all, the 1911 was a very high-end SAO of the day and a prime example of early-century arms development.

The Army proceeded to train new servicemen in the use of the new pistol. As trainers must do, they touted its supremacy on the battlefield, the ability of its bullet to put the enemy down, and it reliability. These men were mostly introduced to the 1911 before any other handgun or at least auto-loader. They left service familiar and comfortable with it, desiring one of their own. All well and good, until they wanted to improve the system.

The hammer was an obstacle in developing a high grip. It had to be modified, and eventually the grip safety to insure success. The sights had to be improved, the feed system had to be tweaked to accept the hollow point coming into regular use. It was decided that a working pistol ought to be carried loaded and luckily, the shoe-horned safeties proved capable once enlarged.  Should it have a firing pin block? One mucks up the trigger? Pull it and try a lighter firing pin?

The introduction of a new, double-stack, small caliber, easy to take down, DA/SA pistol that was designed and intended to be carried loaded left an understandably bad taste in the mouths of the men who had grown up in training that taught them unloaded large caliber weapons were the way to go.

The 1911 is held as the finest combat arm ever devised to this day. An arm so beautiful in design that it can keep relevant in the modern world.

No. The  1911 is an old pistol that has been sporterized. It could not handle modern service and has been forcibly molded into something useful enough in it new life. And the standardization of a  tilting chamber during the loading cycle is its legacy. Its bearers are better armed than those one hundred years ago, but modern, they are not.

 

 

 

 

Air Pistols At 30 Yards

Great fun.

Oh, and my friend’s new 1911 was almost as nifty.

Dear Everyone,

Stop using the word “literally” at every chance you get. Stop using it properly, stop using it improperly, just stop using it. And if I hear one more person utter the words, “like, literally”, I am going to go apeshit.

With Dearest Regards,

Butch Cassidy

The Bug Has Pierced Our Curtain Of Mortar Support!

And over-run my position.

My wife could barely wake me up this morning and called my boss to let him know that I wouldn’t be coming in tonight. I’ve been blurry-minded all day, she made the correct call.

On the bright side, the little R&R (and honey in everything) has my coughing down. Now, off to send Amazon money for weird Chinese soup ingredients.