Author: Kim du Toit

Semi-Automatic Musings

Gratuitous Gun Pics, The Gun Thing

For some time now, I’ve been thinking about getting a shotgun as an accompaniment to my bedside revolver.  Now the advice is going to be predictable:  “12ga pump-action, Kim!”  followed by a host of brand recommendations/warnings.

I don’t want to do that.

I don’t want a 12ga, because my aging shoulder is going to hate me for the recoil, and I’d rather have a semi-auto bedside shotgun for the same reason I carry a semi-auto 1911:  one up the spout, cocked and locked — a flick of the finger and away we go.

I have fond memories of a semi-auto shotgun I once owned (and sold because Poverty, with lasting regret).  It was one of these:

Browning Gold Hunter (20ga)

…and it was an absolute joy to shoot, reliable as hell and featuring minuscule  recoil, so one might think that I should just get a new one.

Silly rabbit:  Browning no longer makes them (#Idiots) which means that because they are such good guns, the second-hand market thereof is priced at Ferrari levels, i.e. unattainable to one of Humble Means such as myself.

Oh well.  So off I hie to the various Merchants Of Death to see what’s on offer in the same chambering.

Franchi Fenice ~$2,500

Lovely, but way too spendy.  I’d have to sell at least two guns out of Ye Old Gunne Sayffe to be able to afford one of these, and I don’t want to do that.  Next?

CZ 1020 ~$750

Not bad, and I do like CZ guns as a rule, but these are Turkish-made pieces, and I’d rather buy Murkin.

The problem with both the above is those 28″ barrels.  That’s kinda long and ungainly for use inside a home, and one thing I liked about pump-action guns is that they have shorter (18″) barrels, which to my way of thinking is much better for close-quarters work of the anti-social persuasion.  So what else can I look at?

Remington 1100 Lt-20 ~$900
Okay, that’s much better, with its 21″ barrel.  But it’s listed as “New Production”, which means… “new” Remington quality?  I’m not so sure, and given the price of nearly a grand, I don’t really want to take the risk.

And would I really want to get, say, a CZ 1020, only to have to pay for my Friendly Local Gunsmith to give it a 9″-10″ circumcision?  (If the proposition gives you a bad taste in the mouth, it does that to me, too.)

All comments and suggestions are welcome.

Afterthought:  another reason why I’m set on something in 20ga is that during a recent inventory of Ye Olde Ammoe Locquere, I discovered two cases of sundry 20ga ammo:  buckshot, birdshot and slugs, all a legacy of the late-lamented Gold Hunter which I (fortunately) did not include in the sale of said gun.  So there’s no ammo cost involved, just the gun itself.

Random Totty

Gratuitous Chick Pics

Good grief, y’all:  at this rate, the Intarwebz is going to run out of MILF pics soon, thanks to your frequent beseechings / requests / threats.  Oh well. let’s go down [sic]  fighting…

I’m somewhat out of practice at this business, of course, but to my old eyes there may be a hell of a lot of good times promised in them portraits.

Quote Of The Day

QOTD

From The Divine Sarah:

“I am slowly coming to the conclusion that Heinlein was right during WWII to only read the papers two weeks late, when it was pointless to get angry about old news.”

Me, too.  I think that this has been at the heart of my current blogging malaise, of thinking that my writing is pointless and silly, not to mention (occasionally) harsh and anarchic.  Like Sarah, I find myself reading headlines and thinking, “Ah, the hell with it” — hence the sometime-appearance on these pages of a “news summary” including a headline and at best a short,  pissy  pithy comment.

Thus, I read about the election/voting shenanigans in California, wherein non-Democrat mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt was doing pretty well in the polls, until an (unexpected!) flood of mail-in ballots found their way into the counting-houses which resulted in (surprise!) the promotion of the third-place (Commie) candidate into the second place — which, in the “top two” election system in California, means that the runoff election will be between Thing 1 and Thing 2, both Commies and either quite likely to hasten the Golden Shower State’s steady progress into the abyss.

And I don’t actually care, and refuse to get all worked up about it.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for a little trip to the range.

10-Foot Pole

Men & Women

In the first few months after I moved to the U.S., I remember asking a girl out on a date.  When she agreed, I asked where I could pick her up.

“I’ll meet you there,” was her response.

Needless to say, I was a little mystified.  “No, I don’t mind picking you up,” I insisted.

“Well, I’d feel more comfortable just driving to wherever we’ll be meeting up.”  Then she added, “That way, if we’re not having a good time, we’re each just free to go.”

Wow.  That was interesting, and very enlightening.  Basically, what she was doing was hedging her bets — and from her body language, the unspoken message was that she was likewise uncomfortable in having me learn where she lived.

Culture shock, on my part.

Faced with that rudeness, I’m afraid I was rude in return.  “Tell you what:  let’s just go in three cars, to make it even more inconvenient.”

Needless to say, nothing ever came of the whole thing.  I later learned that at the time I asked her out, she was a couple months pregnant.  Bullet, dodged.

So you can imagine my surprise when I read this little story:

“One of my rules is, if a man doesn’t at least offer to send you a car for the date, whether you take it or not, no date!” said Savannah Pagnozzi, a Big Apple lifestyle influencer. “No. Absolutely not. We don’t do that.”

Look, I get it, when it comes to NYfC.  It’s not the easiest place to get around — I mean, forget about driving anywhere, whether it’s to pick up your date or even to get to the rendezvous.  And I could certainly see getting a car (Uber, cab, whatever) to take you to her place to pick her up.  That’s the gentlemanly thing to do.  But what this NYfC bint wants is to have a chauffeured drive to the place and  — no doubt — another carriage to take Princess home as well.

The sheer effrontery of this, from a woman who is at best marginally attractive (in Manhattan;  in L.A. or Dallas, she wouldn’t get a second look) just takes my breath away.  No doubt, she’ll probably want to see a personal financial statement from him during that first date as well.

Ladies, just remember:  if you’re not bringing much to the party, so to speak, you’re not really in any position to make demands of a first date.  To be blunt, you have no room to feel entitled just because you have a vagina — and especially so if it’s a well-trodden path, so to speak.

As for the guys:  take a hard pass when you’re confronted by this kind of attitude.

Good News

Food & Drink, Health

Here’s one side benefit from the emergence of Ozempic et al.:

For a very long time, bariatric surgery, in which doctors removed a portion of the stomach, was the standard procedure for helping patients lose weight and manage obesity, alongside metabolic disorders such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. However, ever since GLP-1 medications like Ozempic became available on the market, there has been a shift in how people seek to lose weight.

I just wish this stuff had been around all those years ago, before I had my bariatric (gastric band) surgery.  I don’t often regret my important decisions, mostly because I’ve given them a considerable amount of thought before making them;  but having a plastic sphincter installed at the top of my stomach — thus reducing the amount of food one can swallow — was easily the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.

Executive summary:  it took away one of my few pleasures in life.  And yes, I could probably have had the thing removed (probably not now, it’s been too long), but at the time I had no health insurance (and the removal probably wouldn’t have been covered anyway) so here I am, some eighteen years later, still stuck with the damn thing.

And still unable to swallow a decent mouthful of delicious food.

And yes, I’m back on Ozempic, because (as I discovered) it did change my attitude towards food and the quantities thereof while I was taking it.  I thought this attitude would persist after I stopped taking it, but it didn’t:  in the year after losing some fifty pounds, I put about ten pounds back on.  And so here I am, back to the weekly prick in the stomach, at about $50 a pop for the 0.25mg privilege.

Fach.

Just don’t expect me to feel any sympathy for the bariatric surgeons as they see their income shrink.