Category: Health

No Fun Anymore

Health, The Gun Thing

I used to play golf, a long time ago, and I quite enjoyed it because while I wasn’t that good, at least I was good enough not to make a fool of myself at company golf days, or playing with clients — a competent social golfer, in other words, with some really good shots and not too many abysmal failures.

The problem was that I had to play a lot of golf (at least three rounds a week) to keep that standard up.  And as time went on and I moved into upper management, there was less and less time to play.  Three times a week turned into every other week, then once a month… and my game went to shit.  So eventually I stopped playing, because the most frustrating thing is to know what shot to play, but no longer being able to play it;  and I was just making a damn fool of myself by even trying.

I’ve reached that point with shooting.

People sometimes say that a bad day at the range is still better than a good day at the office, which is total bullshit, of course:  I’ve had days at the range where equipment broke, where I’ve arrived at the range but forgotten my ammo at home — you all know what I’m talking about here.  And I’ve had some days at the office which were pretty spectacular, both from a career perspective and just feeling the satisfaction of having done a really good job that day.

But in my whole life, I’ve only done things until they stopped being fun anymore;  and I’ve reached that point with shooting.  I’ve always been a competent handgun shooter, and a little better than average with a rifle, but I’m no longer either.  My eyes are absolute shit — despite several surgeries, I have advancing glaucoma (which is incurable, and can only be arrested with prescription eyedrops) and even worse, my always-severe astigmatism  seems to be getting worse with advancing age.  Crosshairs in a scope now appear to be two overlapping sets of crosshairs:

 

and a red-dot sight looks like a Mastercard symbol:

 

When trying to place a shot into a 1″ target at 100 yards, it’s almost impossible to shoot consistently because sometimes the left-hand image is in focus, and other times the right-hand one seems to be the one to use.

Frankly, after squinting and refocusing for what seems like minutes, I sometimes just pull the trigger to get it over with.  With predictable — i.e. shit — results.

It’s no good using the best equipment either, because no matter how good, the results are going to be terrible because I just can’t shoot for shit anymore.  And I get no joy out of shooting the good stuff anymore either.

I’m not looking forward to this year’s Boomershoot, where the ranges start at 400 yards, and go out to 900.  If I hit one Boomer over two days, it’ll be a miracle.  And that’s no fun at all, especially when I’m not some newbie shooter — not after sixty-odd years of shooting — even though my targets look like one.

And I’ll be trying like hell not to have to drive at night to get up to Idaho, because:

Last Thursday I was at the range, doing some final adjustments to both Boomershoot rifles — the .308 Win CZ 557 Varmint (this year’s ULD raffle prize) and my 6.5×55 Swede 550.  When I finally gave up, checked out and the counter guy asked me if I’d enjoyed the session, I replied, “No.”  Then I added, “I think my shooting from now on is going to be Coke cans at 25 yards.”  And as I said that, I realized that this really is going to be the case.

I’m done with the Gun Thing.  This will be my last Boomershoot, I won’t be hunting deer in Scotland or birds in Devon with Mr. Free Market, and most probably not even sporting clays.  My only shooting will be to keep in training with my self-defense guns, and a little plinking with .22 rifles at large targets (cans, oranges, that kind of thing) at close range.

I will probably be selling most of my guns — details to be announced later — keeping only a very few that I’m comfortable shooting.

It’s just not fun anymore, so shooting is going to go the way of golf.

A Fastball For Fauci

Health, Sports

As Longtime Readers know, I have little time for professional sports right now, as their controlling organizations have succumbed to Wokeness.  Nevertheless, recent events here in Cuidad Tejas have come to my attention, and I need to highlight just one;  but first, a little background is necessary.

The Texas Rangers baseball team sucks.  It’s not quite as bad as the 1920-2002 Chicago Cubs in its depth of suckitude, but it’s never been that far off either.  Opening Day of each season, therefore, has seldom been a gala affair, sometimes approaching a half-full stadium but more often than not, not even close.

Last Monday’s opening game, therefore, did not bode well, especially as it was against the Toronto Blue Jays, in which team Texas interest ranks somewhere around zero.  And not many Canuckis are going to fly all the way down to Dallas for their team, even if it means an escape from their frigid city.  (It may be spring here, but in Toronto spring still has a couple months to go before putting in a timid appearance.)

So:  an empty stadium at The Ballpark In Arlington*?  Ummm, nope:

That’s more spectators than I’ve ever seen on Opening Day here.  And yes, there were people wearing masks, just like Dr. Fauci ordered — but a hell of a lot of others weren’t:

…because wearing a mask in the open air is senseless, even in a stadium packed almost to capacity.

Clearly, the good people of Texas are fed up with all this mask bullshit, and as I noticed a couple weeks back, it’s starting to show itself all over the place.  And yes, despite having 20 million more residents than Gauleiter  Gretchen Whitmer’s Michigan, Texas has far fewer Chinkvirus cases not just on a per capita  basis, but in absolute numbers.

So fuck off, Fauci.

Oh, and by the way, the Rangers lost, 6-4.  Sic semper ludi.

*I know, it’s now Globe Life Field or some bullshit, who cares.

Not That Kind

Food & Drink, Health

I’ve seen crap like this so often in the past that it just causes me a MEGO* nowadays:

This particular article, however, was accompanied by this pic:

…and I felt better about my chances immediately.

You see, I think the “sausages” to which they refer are the processed (“hot dog” or pork) kind such as made by Oscar Meyer, Ball Park, Armour et al., full of chemicals and preservatives and such.

My daily breakfast of a piece of boerewors doesn’t fall into this category at all.  Made by a butcher, it contains nothing but actual meats (exact point of origin, so to speak, anonymous), and no additional chemicals at all.  It’s a 6″-long piece of this stuff:

…plus a boiled egg, and that’s it.  (Maybe a couple of cheese curds, when we have them, for a little additional flavor.)

I actually can’t stomach processed sausages because after eating boerewors, they taste like nothing more than pulped sorta-meat.  Anyway, according to similar “studies” in the past, I should have croaked thirty years ago, as I eat a piece of boerewors almost every day;  and yet here I am.

Remember:  if you want to roll your own, there’s a Boerewors Prep link down the right-hand side of the page.  I accept no responsibility for any sudden addiction thereto.

*MEGO:  my eyes glaze over;  a sudden and acute attack of boredom.

By Any Other Name

Health, Mocking Furriners

So this, apparently, is Britain’s roadmap to reality as they emerge from the horrors of Teh Chinkvirus:

To me, all this simply spells

C-O-N-T-R-O-L–F-R-E-A-K-S

…and about a dozen different ways* for the Filth to harass and / or arrest people.  But I could be wrong.

Also note that in the Blue panel, football matches (20,000-plus crowds) are A-okay, but apparently weddings are “super-spreader events” because they’re still limited to 15 guests only.

WTF?

*Examples of control-freakery:

  • have 16 guests at your wedding, not 15
  • 7 people over for Easter lunch, not 6 — even if said lunch is an outdoor buffet
  • Grandad’s funeral has 31 mourners, not 30
  • somebody drives 50 miles to visit a sick relative (that’s not “local”, you see)
  • etc.

Note that commonsense would allow some leniency in terms of the numbers — but it doesn’t have to, because in the main the Filth are a bunch of rule-bound control freaks themselves, and because they can do fuck-all about Britain’s actual crime (muggings, stabbings, robberies etc.);  but by God let some granny have one too many guests at her late husband’s funeral, and it’s to jail she’ll be going.

Fuckers.