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Month: January 2019
Winter Gets Going
Old Friends Are Not Forgotten
My abbreviated honeymoon last weekend had one additional benefit: it brought three old friends back into my life.
During the Great Poverty Gun Sell-Off (when I was forced to sell guns to pay medical bills), several kind and generous buddies came to my aid, buying several of my guns from me — with the caveat that should they ever decide to sell them, I would get right of first refusal. (There was a hidden danger, of course: that they would fall in love with the damn guns and refuse to sell them back to me, which actually came close to happening with one.) Recently I had a small windfall which made their buyback possible, so…
Anyway, here’s one of them, which I managed to persuade Longtime Friend Mark C. to sell back to me. This is my prized Browning High Power 9mm, which had been on permanent loan to Connie. Sadly, as her health deteriorated, she was no longer able to operate it and, well, there were doctors which needed paying, so onto the block it went. But now it’s home again. This was how it first arrived in the house:
…and this is how it looked when Reader Mark took possession:
I will soon (very soon) be reacquainting myself with this beauty at the range, maybe even this afternoon or tomorrow. If I love it as much as I remember doing, it may well replace my 1911 as a primary carry piece. (I know, I know, 9mm Europellet! Say it ain’t so, Kim!!! But as Loyal Readers will recall, the 1911’s .45ACP ammo has been beating up my old wrists badly… and anyway, pistol cartridges have come a long way since 2004. Right now it’s loaded with this new offering from SIG, which seems to be all the rage with the 9mm Smart Set.)
…and my bulk ammo order from the ammo dealers on my sidebar will follow shortly. One problem: I only have one mag for it, the original issue. But a visit to the next Evil Loophole Gun Show (ELGS™) should provide me with some of those doubleplusungood 13-rounder magazines — you know, the ones which give the gun-controllers fits. Five or six should do the trick, yes?
Welcome home, old buddy. Range report to follow.
And Another Old Friend
I see that Toyota has brought back the Supra, and all I can say is, it’s about damn time.
It’s pretty. isn’t it? The Mail compares it to a Porsche Boxster, and I think it kicks the Krautcar’s ass in the looks department.
I’ve only ever driven one Supra, back in the early 1980s:
..and what I discovered was that it was a beauty: nimble, quick and best of all, it started every time (I’d just come off a Fiat 124 and an Alfa Romeo Giulietta).
Sadly, I’m out of the Supra / sporty car market now — I can’t handle hauling my fat old ass out of these low-slung numbers anymore — but let me tell you…
Sounds Familiar
It appears that the Royal Ginger is into meditation (through the efforts of his Hollywood strumpet consort, of course).
So am I, and always have been.
However, I don’t do it by way of yoga or Buddhism or any of that mystical bullshit. I just call it “thought and reflection”, and I do it when I wake up — in that delicious period of time when my mind can wander freely — or else when I’m otherwise alone (e.g. in the car or on a long flight). During that wonderful break, I think about life, my life, my priorities in life and my goals and ambitions. I also reflect on my problems, my faults, and the hindrances which prevent me from living properly.
See, I always thought that everybody did this stuff. But apparently not. Maybe it’s because everyone is too caught up in the here-and-now, or is being enslaved by technology, or is entangled in the machinations of others.
And in today’s world, it’s so difficult to cut oneself off, even for just a half an hour; and even if one does, there’s a real need to empty the mind of the clutter before turning inwards for those Deep Thoughts.
Myself, I think a little range time is the perfect way to clear the mind — there’s no time to think about life’s minutiae when you’re trying to slow your heartbeat, concentrate on the sight picture and drop each round into the X-ring. And in that wonderful aftermath of a range session when the adrenaline levels drop and you reach that calm state we all know so well, you’ll find that this is a good time for quiet contemplation and reflection.
So there you have it: shooting helps with meditation, not that airy-fairy yoga bullshit.
The King Is Dead
One wonders what King Gillette would think of his company’s current manifestation of anti-masculinity:
A new short film released by the shaving brand dedicates itself to tackling toxic masculinity in a video that relies more on berating men for not living up to the standards of feminists than selling razors.
Knowing but a little of what King Gillette was like, and knowing how many years of toil and financial hardship he endured to get his disposable razor blade to the market, I think he’d probably burn the whole fucking thing to the ground, and I’d be handing him the cans of gasoline.
In the grand scheme of things, I’d be one of the men refusing to buy Gillette products in protest at their foolishness. But the truth of the matter is that I haven’t used a Gillette product in well over a quarter of a century, simply because I refuse to spend about $5 for a blade which lasts me less than a week*. (Good old safety singles or bargain-priced Trac II blades for me; and if I run out, I use a straight, or “cutthroat” razor without a qualm.)
As for Gillette’s parent company, Proctor & Gamble: I have suffered untold toiletry privations at their hands, the miserable Cincinnati MFCS bastards: brand “extensions” which end up replacing much-loved products, only to see said extensions later withdrawn, meaning that I have to find replacements for products I’ve used sometimes for decades. Try to find, in supermarkets or drugstores anywhere, Old Spice Original Fresh Stick deodorant with the the light blue label — not the anti-perspirant variant, which smells like cat piss. I’ve been using Old Spice Fresh sticks for well over fifty years, and now I’m forced to buy them online in packs of 24 because they are nowhere to be found otherwise. And if that supply dries up, I’ll stop using deodorant altogether, because every other male deodorant on the market nowadays smells like an attractant for homosexual prostitutes during Fleet Week.)
To use Gillette’s line on P&G: 50 years of unswerving loyalty is “the best a man can get”, you incompetent fuckers. Too bad it means nothing to you.
A pox on all of them. I can’t wait for “woke” to become “choke”, and may they burn in the fires of toiletry hell.
*En passant: I once tried one of those 5-blade things — a disposable — just for the hell of it, and it felt like someone was dragging the hair out of my face with sandpaper.