A Testimonial

Nathan Tamayo

Looking for someone to post my junk on ebay and split the profit with me. Anyone down?

43 minutes ago via Twitter ·  ·  · @NathanTamayo on Twitter

• • 

    Erin Palette ‎... you're selling your penis? o_O

    12 minutes ago · Reply
  • 

    Nathan Tamayo This is why Erin Palette is one of my favorite people.

    5 minutes ago via  ·  ·  1 person Reply

Gunnie Bloggers doing Gunnie Things

This past Saturday I had the great pleasure of taking fellow blogger and good friend Chris Bridges out to my local range for some good old shooting fun, and he details his experience here. It's a good write-up, not only because Chris is a journalist and therefore good with the talky wordy things*, but also because he describes it from the perspective of a first time shooter.

This is important, because as I read his post I realized that I had neglected this side of things. Sure, I was talking about guns and marksmanship and suchlike, but it never occurred to me that some of you have never been to a shooting range and might like to know how they operate. I was so caught up in the procedure of things that I never detailed the amazing environment which is the range itself. Fortunately, Chris' post addresses that quite nicely, which is why I'm giving him a reciprocal Monday Gunday link (even if it is technically Tuesday.)

Some fun excepts (with annotations):

As I was pop-popping along, Erin was setting up her rifle which, as it turned out, did not go pop so much as BOOM. She grinned happily at my expression and turned back to blast away and have a merrily violent time.

One of the many things I love about Izzy, my Mosin-Nagant, is that he never ever fails to garner appreciative looks. I'm slightly baffled by this -- after all, the design is over a hundred years old and it's one of the most common rifles** in the world (accounts vary, but estimates are between 17 and 37 million rifles made since 1891) -- but perhaps it's not so much the age or the size or the design, but the fact that it's a large rifle shooting a large bullet with a large powder charge behind it. BOOM indeed. 

Erin let me fire her higher-powered rifle at her target (not pictured) while she worked on the other one, and I have to say I liked the Mosin-Nagan better. Much better scope, more accurate, a boom and kick that I admit I found highly satisfying in a purely atavistic way. Also, it has AVADA KEDAVRA painted on it.

True story: just after Chris left, some young men in their mid to late 20s were admiring my rifle and laughing. It turns out that one of the shooters had a girlfriend who is really into Harry Potter and he wanted to take a picture of it for her. Go ahead, I said, and after they'd done that I asked them if they'd like to shoot it. Boyfriend got very wide-eyed, like I'd asked if he wanted to see me topless, and eagerly took his place at the rifle.

"Be careful," I said. "He has a kick."

BOOM, went Izzy. 

Boyfriend stood up, rubbing his shoulder, and went "Wow!" 

"Want to go again?" I asked. 

"Nope, I'm good," he declared, slightly sheepishly.

I looked to his friends. "Anyone else?"

"Nope, we're all good here, thanks!" they declared, and went off to shoot their Ruger 10/22s.

In shooting, like with dating and produce selction, there's always something better out there. The guy next to Erin was firing his own weapon, a something-something with a polished wooden stock and, I assume, other cool stuff because she was openly eyeing it, and he let her fire a few rounds. It made an even louder boom, followed by her scream of "I want one!"

The nice fellow, whose name is Russell, was shooting a PSL, which is a Romanian variant of the Russian Dragunov sniper rifle. It fires the exact same cartridge as my Mosin, but the PSL is semi-auto and fed from a ten-round detachable magazine.

Being a semi-auto, it mitigates the substantial kick of the 7.62x54R round by using some of that recoil to shove the bolt back and load the next round. Which means that compared to the mule kick of the Mosin, this was practically light as a feather. And I could shoot it much, much faster as well. The casings were bouncing off the screen that separates shooting lanes and landing on top of my head (good thing I wore a hat!) and I only barely suppressed my desire to scream at the top of lungs while shooting as fast as possible.

Oh, and the scope on this thing was... complex, to say the least.

Per Wikipedia: The rangefinder is in the lower left, chevrons for bullet drop compensation are found in the middle, and stadia marks for windage to the left and right of the center reticule. This is a serious sniper scope for a serious sniper rifle. 

And yes, I do want one, but ye gods it's expensive. Something in the $500-$700 range, depending upon if you want the scope or not. Still, I got to fire it, which I wasn't at all expecting. Being allowed to shoot someone else's gun at the range is a rare privilege.


In conclusion, a fun and educational time was had by all, everyone got to shoot something new, and now Chris is slightly better prepared for a zombie apocalypse. Not bad for 2 hours on a Saturday afternoon!

What did you guys do, see a movie? ;)


* Even if he does misspell Mosin-Nagant.
** Rifles, not Assault Rifles. That honor goes to the AK-47, at approximately 75 million. 

Monday Gunday: Perhaps the Geekiest Thing I Have Ever Done

I am a big ol' geek, as I think you all know. Thus, I have done many, many geeky things in my life. But this is probably the geekiest thing I have ever done:

I almost wish this were an Avtomat Kalashnikova instead of a Mosin-Nagant. Then it could be an AK AK.

"You want to talk wands? This is my wand. 48 inches of Killing Curse. My Avada Kevadra comes chambered in 7.62x54R."

I am flattered and befuddled

... and I owe it all to ponies.

I have a habit of rather obsessively going over all referrals and trackbacks to my blog, because I want to know if anyone cool or interesting has noticed me. This is how I became aware that Equestria Daily had linked to me a few weeks back.

Well, today I can add two more notches to my belt. My MLP D&D series has been linked to by TV Tropes, and a nice person by the name of Newbiespud has made a screencap webcomic called Friendship is Dragons. It's just starting up but it looks really good. Take a look, everypony!

An open letter to CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

Dear CSI,

It's not me, it's you. You just aren't the same show any more.

From the moment I caught your first episode on a SPIKE TV marathon and I was instantly hooked. I would race home from work and watch 2-3 hours of you while I ate dinner and decompressed. I got caught up with 4 seasons of your show in a period of a few months, and then I watched your new episodes every Thursday.

But you changed. My first indication that you were moving on should have been when you took Greg out of the lab and put him in the field, but I liked the tow-headed little rascal and wanted to see him do well. I started to look askance at our relationship when George Eads was almost kicked out due to contract negotiations, because Nick Stokes is my boy, yo. And that's when things got abusive.

You put Catherine through such an emotional wringer that I almost wanted her to leave because every episode that focused on her was angst-ridden. You killed Warrick, who I admit was never my favorite character, but I liked the way he interacted with Nick and Grissom. You got rid of Sara -- a move of which I approved, thank you very much -- but then, in defiance of all logic and continuity, you brought her back.  Meanwhile, you allowed Grissom to leave. I understand that the actor wanted out and you didn't have much control over that, but Grissom was very much the soul of the show and when he went, the show stopped being an ensemble techno-mystery and became...

Well, it became lame, if not flat-out awful. I mean, just look at the vast majority of last season's episodes and you'll see what I mean. A shark, in a pool, in Vegas? Oh, a pool shark, how droll.

But I digress. I liked Gil's replacement, Ray Langston, quite a bit. Laurence Fishburne is an excellent actor, and he's married to Gina Torres, so that makes him a Browncoat as far as I'm concerned. I even enjoyed the arc with his nemesis, Nate Haskell. It's just that, well, sometime in the past few seasons the show stopped being about an ensemble and focused on Langston. I realize he is a big name actor, and you wanted to get the most out of what is probably an enormous salary, but he became the star of the show. Look, there is a reason I don't watch CSI: Miami or CSI: New York, and that reason is A) I don't want to watch a star vehicle (even though I have much love and respect for Gary Sinise as a person and as an actor), and B) I cannot stand David Caruso and I wish he'd die of cancer of the aids of the leukemia of the eye.

But you know what the final nail in the coffin of our relationship was? It was when you made that execrable David Hodges  into a full cast member. I cannot explain how much I hate that smarmy little toad of a man.

Still, I couldn't quite break away. There were characters I still cared about, and plotlines I wanted to follow. But at the end of last season, you gave me a perfect exit point when you wrapped up the Haskell/Langston arc while, at the same time, not ending on a cliffhanger. Add to that the fact that Fishburne wanted to leave the show, and that you were going to replace him with Ted Danson -- TED DANSON, for crissakes -- and my breakup with you could not be more perfect than if I had received an engraved invitation cordially inviting me to tell you to shove it.

I should have left long ago, when William Peterson left. I see that now. The weakness was mine. But I'm stronger now, and I need to end this. So, come next fall, I will no longer be watching you, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, on Thursday nights. I do sincerely wish you continued luck and happiness as we go our separate ways.

Although, if I may: get rid of that damned Sara Sidle. That little weasel-mouth smirk of hers disgusts me about as much as Hodges' ass-kissing.

Love and kisses,
Erin Palette

WNW: Flanks

Two tidbits of pony-related humor.


Pony or Porn Star
You have six minutes and 45 names. Is it the stage name of a porn actress, or the given name of a pony?  This is harder than it looks, because a good chunk of those names could go either way (ba-dump bump!) I scored 41 out of 45, which aptly demonstrates the convergence of my areas of expertise.

PS: Even though Paradise is totally a porn name, it's actually a pony. Now you have 1 point.



Baby Got Flank




Go now, and do likewise.

Monday Gunday: The 100 Yard Club

After another week of chronic lower back pain, I felt good enough this weekend to head out to the range -- my first time back since the disastrous May 8 outing -- and I decided that The Rev was just the gun to get me out of my funk.

Oh, right, quick status update on him. After I bitched out the gun store owner about how the bullets failed to feed, his son-in-law took my rifle out to whatever range he uses and told me that Rev seems to prefer PMC Sidewinder ammo. The whys and wherefores of this are the subject of another post, but the short version boils down to this:

1. Ammunition of the same caliber, from different companies, is never identical.
2. Guns are finicky little bitches. 
3. Given 1 and 2, your gun will develop a distinct appetite, preferring one brand and hating another.

It just so happens that the two types of ammo I was shooting May 8 were the kinds Rev didn't like (Lima Beans and Brussels Sprouts, basically) but when I switched to "Mac and Cheese" he gobbled them right up. So now I'd better buy some stock in PMC.

So after having my rifle manhandled twice, I figured that the scope had been knocked off of zero (meaning that it no longer pointed where the bullet would end up), so when I arrived at the range I went straight for the 25 yard lane and began dialing in. Two tubes later (about 30 rounds) I was close enough that I was ready for the 50 yard lane.

To my surprise, it didn't take much more tweaking -- I was getting nice tight groups within my first tube after only minimal adjustment. So I sad "What the hell" and went to the 100 yard range for the very first time.

For those of you who have never been to a shooting range, let me tell you that this is a big deal for new shooters. "The 100" is the deep end of the pool, the big boys' club, the place where only the serious shooters are. To give you an idea of what you're trying to hit on the 100, first you need to imagine a Compact Disc. This is basically your 7-10 ring, which is what separates "an actual hit" from "Well, you managed to shoot the paper." The center hole of the CD is the bullseye. Now have someone run that CD to the other end of a football field. That's your target.

Fun math: there's a thing known as Minute of Arc, which basically states that if you move the barrel of the gun 1/60th of a degree, then at 100 yards your shot will miss by an inch. What this boils down to is that, at that distance. a little movement on your part makes the sight picture wobble all over the place. It takes steady hands and patience to make these shots, neither of which are qualities I have in abundance. However, I am stubborn and hate to fail, and those cover a multitude of sins.

Another problem with shooting at a 100 yards, even with the highly visible "Dirty Bird" splatter targets, is that I had a hell of a time actually seeing where I was hitting (due to crappy eyes, a scope that only went up to 9x and a distressing inability to tell if the dots I was seeing were new or old). So I had to shoot a tube; wait for the range to go cold; and walk the length of a football field before I could see where I was on the target.

The first few times, I shot too low. Annoyed, I over-corrected the third time and shot too high, but at least I knew what my upper and lower bounds were and I was able to walk the scope in.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you photographic proof that I have joined the Hundred Yard Club:

BOOYAH.

Erin Palette: able to hit a target one inch across at 100 yards. I may have been griping about not seeing where my bullets were landing, but when that little red dot winked out, I actually yelled "I saw that! Hell yeah!"

There may have been a fist-pump involved.