Latest Posts

News Roundup

Bad News

…summarized for your convenience.


…nobody laugh, because we’re quite capable of doing the same here.  Remember these assholes?


…“We had to kill a few people to save them from spreading Covid.”  Now where have I heard something like that before?


…wouldn’t pay 300 cents for it, but that’s just me.


…and she looks pretty much as you’d expect her to look.


…because only socialists can be racist, you see.


…there he goes, trying to live up to everyone’s expectations of him.  Moron.


…you have to sympathize with the photographer: 


That’s Mayor Lightweight with ILGov Fatboi in the background.  No matter which one you choose to blur, the pic’s going to be a fucking nightmare.

As an aside, I want to dispel the rumor that if you look the Mayor in the eye, you’ll be turned to stone.  I can guarantee that upon looking at her, not a single part of your body will start to harden.  To continue:


…they mean “testing”, but we’ve been down this road before.  Try saying “Tesco’s trialling trollies” six times in a row after a couple cocktails, I dare ya.


…thus completely ignoring anyone who did anything actually, you know, athletic over the past year.  Like anyone gives a flying fuck what Sports Illustrated thinks or does anyway.


…I know where it is:  it’s been smuggled into China.  Prove me wrong.


…and never an errant daisycutter bomb when you need one.  You’d think the Russkis would have been all over this target of opportunity, but noooo.

And if you think out TV is bad in the U.S., try the U.K.:

Here’s something from our TV to cheer you up (no, it’s not “The Hanging Of George Soros”  on Bravo, sorry):

Her name is Bárbara Bermudo and yes, she’s on that Mex channel, Univision.

I’m trying to be “inclusive”, here.

Gratuitous Gun Pic: Carcano Model 91TS (6.5x52mm)

Gratuitous Gun Pics, The Gun Thing

While browsing through Collectors recently, I came upon this old girl:

I have often sung the praises of the Mosin-Nagant M44 as a short and handy carbine, but I have to say, the Carcano (often incorrectly called the Mannlicher-Carcano) Model 91TS as pictured would do pretty well in the same role.  I’ve shot quite a few in my time — one even back in South Africa — and what impressed me most is the pure handiness of the carbine.  One of the common complaints about battlefield carbines is their recoil — less mass means more recoil, because Sir Isaac Newton will not be denied — but the M91’s little 6.5x52mm cartridge is an absolute gem, and I have no idea why the Italian Army replaced it with the larger (and not much more effective) 7.35x51mm cartridge in the reworked Model 38.  (Maybe they thought that size mattered.)

Anyway, that long, thin 156gr boolet means excellent sectional density and therefore quite adequate penetration on humans:

…but as with all old cartridges, there’s always that availability problem.  And with the state the ammo industry is in now, it’s even more scarce than usual.  Graf & Sons, normally my go-to guys when it comes to old military ammo, doesn’t have any in stock (surprise, surprise) and even when they do, it runs about $2 per trigger pull — unless you go with the lighter Prvi Partizan variant at a very reasonable $0.83 per round.

Had I known then what I know now (back in the early- to mid-2000s a.k.a. The Happy Times), I’d have snapped up a decent M91 carbine for about $95, which is about what they cost back then compared to over $400 nowadays, and a few hundred rounds of ammo for less than half of what it costs now.

But that hindsight is a bugger, innit?  Here’s the much-longer M91 rifle, just for comparison’s sake:

Way Too Much

Drive Time, Technology

Insty posted a link to the Car & Driver  long-term road test of the Porsche Cayenne SUV, and while I am generally a fan of Porsche (other than their Germanic penchant for over-engineering and the fact that all their cars are pig-ugly), there were still a couple of things pointed out in the study which set my teeth on edge, to whit:

The perfect long-term car is one that delivers 40,000 happy miles, and our 2019 Cayenne is well on its way to achieving that platonic ideal. It’s never left us stranded, and so far all of our gripes have been handled by the dealer.

You know what?  That reliability is a given nowadays, thanks to manufacturers like Honda and Toyota,  In fact, after shelling out the ~$100K for a fucking SUV, I would demand that nothing breaks in the first 40,000 miles.  But that’s not the end of it.

While that 10K service and recall work didn’t come with an invoice, the 20,000-mile service reminded us that Porsche ownership is just as expensive as it sounds. It set us back $632. In addition to the work done at the 10K visit, the 20K visit calls for replacement of both the cabin and the engine air filters. The dealer also replaced some worn-out wipers for $82.

I know, I know:  if you can’t afford the maintenance, don’t buy the car.  Over six hundred for a lousy 20k service, and eighty-plus bucks for a pair of windshield wipers?   Ah don’ theenk so, Manfred.

But that’s not the worst of it.  Enter the most useless fucking technology ever inflicted on car owners, all for the sake of eco-consciousness:

An aggressive stop-start system often kills the engine too early, and the restart occasionally comes with a horrible driveline thud. Disabling stop-start eliminates the thud, but we can’t help but wonder if the occasional transmission stumble on cold mornings is related and a sign of something else going on with the ZF automatic.

I have said it before, and I’ll say it again:  if I buy any car, this stupid stop-start bullshit would be turned off before I left the dealership.  (And if it couldn’t be turned off permanently, it’s to a different car brand I’d be going.)  As for the Cayenne, any kind of “driveline thud” is a Bad Thing.  I can’t believe the C&D testers didn’t address the issue after the first hundred miles, let alone after forty thousand.  (Don’t even get me started on the engineering philosophy behind an “aggressive stop-start system, or we’ll be here all day.)

I seldom pay much attention to new-car tests because all new cars are going to be okay.  It’s the long-term tests that are interesting because that’s what exposes faulty materials, engineering or design.

And I’m sorry, but all the joys of “90mph cruising” (with the concomitant shitty fuel consumption) don’t  compensate for all the above.

Synchronized

Friends and Family

One of the things that always amazed me was that in any random group of more than a dozen people, the odds of at least two people sharing a birthday were so good it didn’t merit making book — it was almost a dead cert.

But on this 7th day of December, it still amazes that I have three people in my immediate circle of family / close friends who share a birthday today:  Longtime Friend Trevor, step-daughter-in-law Kerryn and step-nephew Mark — all South Africans, by the way.

And only one of them turned 21:

…although it was Mark, not Kerryn who reached that milestone.  She, however, gets this one:

…and lastly, Trevor’s:

I said he was one of my oldest friends…

Happy birthday to all of you !!!!