A Few Brief Thoughts on a Series Close to My Heart.

     So, it's been a few weeks, the dust has had time to settle, and I think I've finally managed to gather up a few thoughts. Next week, maybe, a bit of guff about the anniversary shows, but this week maybe a reflection on why the relaunch series is dear to me. I have a very hard time remaining objective about Doctor Who, as it was my first immersion into Science Fiction. I lived overseas at a tender age, and that's what was on, and when I moved back to the states, it was *still* on, on PBS, at my uncle's house in Massachusetts, and on VHS tapes that I'd dig out of old boxes even years later. Even though I'd watch a Star Wars film, or stay up late to watch Star Treks TNG or DS9, it'd always be that block of PBS programming of Doctor Who and Red Dwarf that I'd look forward to the most.

   Now don't get me wrong, the classic series will always be important to me, and Sylvester McCoy will always be *my* Doctor, but the new series has resonated with me in a very personal way, and that's what I'd like to think about today. 

Image courtesy of BBC America

     The majority of fandom these days tends to overlook that rough first year of the relaunch. I don't want to think that it's because David Tennant was the first pretty Doctor of the new series, but let's face it, Tennant was the first pretty Doctor of the new series. Eccleston's wounded golem of a man appealed to me, though, as I was in the middle of a war that was near invisible to the people around me at the time, to, but took no less a toll on anyone that happened to be near enough to it. I identified with this broken, beat-up, shell of a man. Then he left.

     Tennant came in at a weird time for me, as I was still in the heart of my own personal war, but now my Doctor (my new one, at least) had left me, and been replaced by this cheerful twat (apologies, Erin, I know he's your fave) with sticky-uppy hair and pointy chin and big goofy grin. It wasn't until I'd gotten out of my bad, dark, painful place and gotten some distance that I could see that man was still hurting, he was just trying to forget it at the same time. Trying to move past what he'd been through and smile again, even if the hurt would forever be in his eyes.

     Then, just as Tennant was growing on me, his Doctor hit a wall. And I hit a wall. I spent a while pretending I was OK around the same time that Ten was out and Eleven was in. I look at Matt Smith's alien, unfamiliar face, and those ancient eyes buried in the misshapen skull of a younger man, and I see someone that's very old, very tired, but won't let the world know just how old and tired. You look around the walls of my apartment and you'll see Lego kits, action figures, posters, and electronic gadgets. Given how isolated I am from the world right now, I really do feel like I'm living in a cloud bank over olde London Towne, and I need a good mystery, but am unwilling to go look for one.

     Yeah, I definitely feel like maybe I can put some thoughts down about the anniversary shows, now that I've put some of the newer stuff in context with my own life. Be warned though, I kinda like Matt Smith better than David Tennant, I don't hate Moffat, and I'm really rather fond of River Song. More so than Captain Jack. But not by too much.

WNW: The problem with fiction is that it has to make sense

Yeah, I can't really top this headline, and if anything from the rest of 2014 can beat it I will be quite surprised:

Cormac McCarthy’s Ex-Wife Pulls Gun From Vagina

During Argument Over Aliens

The internet has been won. Go home.

(Hat tip to Robb Allen for finding this little jewel.)

Palette's Product Reviews: the GTUL

I sort of made a "Monday Gunday" post on Friday when I talked about the Remington R-51, but that was last week and therefore doesn't count for this week. Today I'm going to combine Gunday and Palette's Product Reviews to talk about a nifty accessory I just recently acquired:  the GTUL Mag & Brush Combo. ($21.95 for combo, s&h extra)

The one I bought was for 9mm/40 S&W magazines,
but they also make a 10mm/45 ACP version for exactly the same price.

Pronounced "G-Tool" (the G is for Glock), the GTUL does only one thing: it makes removing the floorplate of your Glock magazines ridiculously easy. The brush with its attached punch helps in this regard, and also makes it easy to clean the crud out of even the largest magazines.


Now before I go any further, I'm going to anticipate what you're going to say:

Q: "Oh, come on. Who takes the floorplates off their magazines anyway?"

A:  While I admit that I haven't met anyone who disassembled their magazines for cleaning (though I'm sure they exist), I can state with utter certainty that there are folks who do remove their magazine floorplates, because I'm one of them. When I got my G26 for concealed carry, one of the first things I did was buy Pearce Grip Extension for all three of the magazines which came with it. There are all sorts of other things you can put on the ends of your mags, from glass breakers to flashlight holders to decorative Punisher skull logos. So yes, people do this.


Q: "Why do you need this tool? Just use a vise or channellocks or something. 

A:  Now this is a valid point; you don't specifically *need* these, and can make do with hand tools. However, in my experience:

• It is awkward to use these tools for this purpose. 
• Maybe this isn't an issue for manly men, but I needed to squeeze REALLY HARD to get the plate off.
• It is VERY easy to apply too much pressure and mar the outer casing. I did this the first time I tried it. 
• I was worried that I might have actually dented/damaged the inner metal lining of the magazine. (This probably didn't happen, but it was still a concern.)
• Doing it that way is just awkward as hell. 

Now, compare how fast and easy it is to remove a magazine floorplate with the GTUL as demonstrated in this video:





See? Done in seconds.


Q:  "Is it really worth twenty-plus bucks?"

A:  Well, I pretty clearly think so. While I admit it's a very specialized tool for a very specialized problem, it does what it's supposed to do really, REALLY well, so I don't think you can call it "a solution in search of a problem."

 In addition:

• It doesn't take up a lot of space; 
• It's made of a very tough polymer;  
• The brush does double-duty as a disassembly punch;
• The brush can clean even 33-round magazines. 

Do you NEED this if you're a Glock owner?  Probably not. But if you've ever struggled with trying to take your magazines apart, you will want this tool. The price is reasonable, the quality is excellent (everything seems rugged, including the bristles on the brush), and the shipping was fast. 

My Recommendation:  A+ to all Glock owners. 

Obligatory middle finger to the FTC:  I bought this product with my own money. 

A thought on winter verbiage

My schedule is all screwed up now as we at Chateau Palette spent most of the day wrapping up plants to protect them from freezing temperatures (yes, Central Florida does freeze. We get about 1-2 hard freezes a year. They just don't last very long and don't result in snow) so now I'm behind on things. I wasn't even able to watch the recent episode of My Little Pony over the weekend! Oh, the horror.

Anyway, now that all the things are done and we're bundled against the cold - it's a sunny and bright 37* F right now - I figured I'd toss this off pre-lunch so that I could get the blogging ball rolling.

Have y'all noticed that the colder it gets, the shorter and pithier the comments become?

From warmest to coldest:

"You might want to take a coat."

"It's a bit chilly out there."

"Goddamn it's cold."

"Jesus Christ!"

"FUCK!"

I've concluded that wanting to bitch about the weather is just a human thing. We've come from outside, where it's miserable, to inside, where it's comfy, and we want to commiserate on how shitty it was outside and how glad we are to be inside.

You know how the Mythbusters (and other studies) have proven that you can endure pain/discomfort for longer if you swear? That's the point. Hence, "I shall make a declarative statement about the weather I've just left even though you know perfectly well what it's like outside."

In some deep and recessed part of our brain, we're still cave-dwellers afraid of the sky gods.

So, I might as well get in on this R-51 action

Lots and lots of gunbloggers are eagerly writing about Remington's new 9mm pistol, the R-51.

Now I'm going to preface this by saying "It's cool if you're excited by this. I'm not calling you stupid for liking this pistol."

But honestly?  I had an immediate and visceral dislike for this gun the moment I laid eyes upon it, and the last time I felt that strongly about something on first glance it was 2009 and it had been announced that Matt Smith was replacing David Tennant as the Doctor.

What’s weird, though, is that many folks think a Glock is ugly, while I appreciate that aesthetic. It’s not a pretty gun, mind you; but it looks functional and dangerous in that Teutonic way, so my brain goes “Looks like gun. Is gun. Is good.”

The R-51, though, looks too much like a toy for my tastes. I think it looks like a Makarov roofied a Walther PPK and this is their fugly, retarded spawn. So yes, I hate this gun.

Look, I'm sure that it will operate just fine; Remington is a reliable brand. And the price point of $389 is more than affordable. But it's an ugly gun with a low magazine capacity (7+1), and these flaws aren't redeemed by a low price tag.

In short, it seems like it's a 9mm built expressly for people who want to carry .380 sized pistols. And I suppose I can get behind that -- if all you can carry is a small .380, you want the most powerful round you can find, and so why not find a way to cram a 9mm into a .380 frame?

Of course, knowing how painfully snappy a lot of .380s are due to their size, I have to wonder how pleasant it would be to fire a larger cartridge through a similarly-sized gun. I suppose it being of all-metal construction will help mitigate the snap somewhat.

There really isn't any purpose to this post other than to act as a counterpoint to all the gunnies who seem to think this is awesome.

Meh. Bah humbug. Phooey!

I Need Some Real World Friends

     I often ironically (and sometimes unironically) throw the #GloriousPCGamingMasterRace tag around in my communications, and for good reason. I'm damn proud of being a PC Gamer. Games publishers like to give me broken titles, put intrusive DRM in my games, and deny me sequels to franchises I love, but I get such satisfaction out of playing on a system I built myself with my own money and my own effort, and having those games run twice as fast and look leagues better than their console counterparts. I like extending the time that a game is worth being played by hours and hours by adding mods and custom content to it. I like being able to play a game from 15 years ago, then quit out and play a game released just last month without changing machines.

     And yet, I still have a modicum of respect for games consoles. Well, OK, let me clarify.

     It's a running joke amongst the die-hard PC gaming crowd that "Nintendo makes the finest peasant-boxes around." And it's true. We like that Nintendo isn't afraid to innovate, to make new and bizarre things that sometimes frankly fall flat on their faces (Virtual Boy, Wii U) right out of the gate, or things that catch fire and leave everything else in the dust. Like the Wii, which ended up outselling both of its more powerful counterparts. Either way, Nintendo doesn't make underpowered computers that do the same thing my PC does, but weaker and with more restrictions.

     One other thing that Nintendo does that we respect is that it brings people together in the physical space. This is something that Microsoft tried to do with the Kinect, with laughable results. Let's face it, nobody likes the Kinect. Even now that it (allegedly) works, it's still a joke amongst the core gamer crowd. You get a Wii with Smash Brothers or an N64 with Mario Kart in a room, and you'll have a riot on your hands, and possibly some ended friendships depending on who gets the blue shell.

     I still have my Nintendo 64. I was briefly a console gamer, with three in a row Nintendo systems of the NES, SNES, and N64. I bought mine back when Wal-Mart still had layaway, and got the bundle with the "Atomic Purple" controller and Pokemon Stadium. The N64 was the birthplace of Smash Brothers, the point where Mario Kart and Mario Party really took off, and the home of Goldeneye. I've gone on record as saying the N64 was the last really great games console (even though if I'm pressed, I'll admit the Wii had more to offer) because I believe games consoles are built to do one thing better than PC, and that's catering to a crowd of real-life, in-person people-people.

     It used to be ritual that I would have friends over, and we'd all play Perfect Dark, the spiritual sequel to Goldeneye, with a crowd of MeatSims (dumb-as-bricks AI opponents). Hours would just vanish, and we'd all be hoarse from shouting. Even as recent as '09, 13 years after the console had been released, I had a hoard of drunk people in my apartment, playing Mario Kart until the sun came up.

     I still have the old soldier, and it still works. Still have a handful of games for it. Now I just need some willing participants to play it with me. Guess that means real-world friends again. For now, I'll leave you with the single-most beautiful piece of music ever composed, from one of the finest titles on the last great games console.

Happy New Year

http://joakaha.deviantart.com/art/MLP-FIM-Princess-Luna-Happy-New-Year-2014-423580596

Yeah, it's late. I was doing stuff.  Will go into greater detail next post.

Happy new year, everypony.