Yesterday

The day started off ungood, in that I woke up at 3.30am (no reason) and couldn’t get back to sleep.  So I got up, made coffee and a piece of toast, and read the papers (which only pushed my mood of morning irritation to anger).

Then it was time to get out of the chair to make New Wife her morning cup of tea and prepare her sack lunch (all stuff I do every day of the work week), only I first managed to knock the breadcrumb-loaded plate off the side table, which meant calling on Mr. Dust Bug to come out to play.

Did all the Wife Spoilage things, but dropped my second piece of toast onto the kitchen floor — and proved the Jam Side Law yet again.  Mopped up, made a fresh cup of coffee without further incident.

Saw Wife off to her day at the salt mines  school, went back to the news, which just kept the bad mood simmering.  However, what stopped me from rage, RCOB etc. was the prospect of range time looming at 10am (their opening hour).

It was going to be SHTF Rifle (AK and M1 Carbine) Day, so off I went to Rifle Gear Indoors.

You know how some people say that the worst day at the range is better than the best day of the office?  Well, “some people” are fucking morons.  To whit:

  • For some reason, the Carbine liketh not the expensive Hornady hollowpoints — won’t chamber the round out of the mag, won’t close the chamber even when I slam the bolt.  So I give up on that.  Had a dozen or so rounds of Korean mil-surp, which works fine in all the mags (I was also testing the mags to make sure they were still fit for purpose).
  • So I pull out a couple boxes of Wolf Black Box — beeeeep!  — range master informs me that the Wolf ammo is persona non grata  at their precious range because bimetallic boolets can spark and set fire to the backstop.  Range policy (which I know about — I just didn’t know that the Wolf .30 ammo was The Wrong Stuff).  So:  no more M1 Carbine practice for Kimmy, then.  (Longterm problem:  I have a shitload of Wolf .30 ammo because of a good deal some time ago;  not much other .30 boolets because I have so much Wolf — you all know the situation — which means I have to find non-Wolf replacement ammo, in this, the Time Of The Great Ammo Drought Of 2020.  Aaaaargh.)
  • “Never mind,” says I, “I have the AK in the car.  Let me fetch it,” and I do.  You know what’s coming, right?  Five mags and 200 extra rounds of… Wolf 7.62×39.
  • End of range session.

That’s not the end of it.  I’m driving home, and I always try to avoid taking the 121 toll road because of road-widening construction — the day they opened the 121 tollway it was two lanes too narrow, a rant for another time — and I’m chugging along surface streets.  This is no great hardship;  it’s a lovely day, I have David Allan Coe playing at 11, I’m starting to forget all about the range fiasco, when… orange cones in the road because MOAR ROAD REPAIRS, and the normally-ample three-lane Headquarters Drive is down to a single lane.

Which is when a fucking MAMIL (middle-aged man in Lycra) cyclist gets in front of me, on the uphill, which means I’m screaming along at 5mph, if that.  But I bite my tongue, and follow this two-wheeled twat as he crawls up the hill.  (There’s pretty much only one hill in the whole of Plano, and this is it.)  Fortunately, he turns right just before Legacy West where, surprise surprise, the road is still only one lane wide because there’s construction of yet another block of overpriced apartments/stores at the 80% completed stage.  Still, the lights at both intersections are green, so with Bike Boy gone, I accelerate…

…whereupon an oncoming car makes a left turn right across my lane.  Too late, he sees me and slams on the brakes, stopping halfway across the street.  Fortunately, there’s nobody coming up behind me on the right, so I can make a little jink around the stopped car and carry on.

I should probably say at this point that this being Plano, the car I nearly hit was a black Rolls Royce, which figures.  Only later do I realize that I should just have run into the moron, so as to get a new car from his insurance.

I’m still shaking when I get home.

Only one thing to fix that:  gin.

As I’m sucking it down, I think that the day is a total fuck-up of a day, and the only thing I need to do now is embark on a totally fruitless search for inexpensive .30 Carbine ammo, just to round things off, so to speak.

And wouldn’t you know it?  Two thousand rounds of cheap, clean-burning  Korean FMJ mil-surp at J&G Sales, at a bulk discount price, even.  (I know, I should have waited until National Ammo Day, but who the hell’s going to risk that, in these times?)

All I had to do for the rest of the day was try not to burn the apartment building down, or similar.  So I watched a combination of Jay Leno’s Garage, Jeremy Clarkson and Ian McCallum’s Forgotten Weapons.

I finished the day in something approaching a decent mood, in that I might only have winged a passing BLM rioter instead of blowing his fucking head off with my 16ga.

Anyone up here in N. Texas know of a decent outdoor range where I can shoot off all that verboten  ammo?

News Roundup

News snippets for them what couldn’t be bothered with the full catastrophe.


we know, Ted;  but thank you for the reminder.


and it looks like whole bunch of other people have figured it out, too.


I have mixed feelings about this.  Ordinarily I’d be getting upset, but seeing as it’s Califuckingfornia, the ballots are probably a) Democrat and/or b) fraudulent.


that’s because your criminal mother did her best to overturn his lawful election, so small wonder.


wait a minute:  now the Salvation Army is doing an Epstein on people?  Here, folks, is where we see the effects of illiteracy on headline writers.  And speaking of which:


what was the middle bit, again?


nice to know that I’m in the minority (as usual).


from two brats to seven in the space of a single hospital visit.  I’m going to have nightmares for a week.


hell, I can do this:  1) don’t call the Pope a Commie asshole (even though he is);  2) don’t spit in the chalice after getting Communion;  and 3) indict the Southern Poverty Law Center for a hate crime because they called the Knights Of Columbus a “hate group”.  Easy-peasy.


...looks like BA retired its 747s a little prematurely, there.


when people like this are murdered, the police usually have more suspects than they can handle.

But here’s a bride we can all get behind, so to speak:

Nice dimples.

Further Explanation Needed

In this little story, the question being asked is:  “How could this happen?”

“This” being this:

To me, the answer seems quite simple:  the Audi used the McLaren as a ramp — or a partial ramp, mounting it with only the right-hand wheels, which caused it to flip over onto its side.  (The low-profile front of the McLaren, by the way, seems to make for quite an effective ramp.)

The real question is:  what would make the Audi’s driver go so fast in a supermarket parking lot as to turn a simple collision into a flip-over?  Trying to get into the vacant spot next to the McLaren ahead of another car?  Hitting the throttle instead of the brake pedal?  Sexting on the iPhone?  All of the above?

Truly, some people should not be allowed to drive on public roads.

News Roundup

New reports which do not include Mazy Hirono or similar filth.


probably the same way we reacted when Obama won:  riots, demonstrations, burning buildings, mass protest marches, vitriol, death threats… oh, wait a moment.  That was the Left , when Trump wonNever mind.


I’ll take “Fuck off, Boris” for $400, Alex.


who are you and what have you done with Mitt Romney?


oh, there he is.  Never mind.


I’ll take “A Brick” for $5, Alex.


and for the win, I’ll take “Fuck Off, Doctor Doolittle” for $400, Alex.


sadly, it won’t be because most of them are dangling from trees and lamp posts.


and if you don’t laugh like a Darwin-drenched crazed hyena at the details, I don’t wanna talk to you no more.


loath as I normally am to follow the Euros’ lead, I’d make an exception here.


she must look better in a dimly-lit bedroom;  otherwise this is inexplicable, even for a horny 17-y/o.


wait a second, let me fix that quickly:


…there ya go.


well, it kinda depends on the choices, e.g.:

Finally, to end this on a happier note, and for those who wanted to see more Kelly Brook, here she is (link in pic):

Yer welcome.

No More Bill

I see with great regret that the peerless travel writer Bill Bryson is closing up his inkwell for good.

In an age when cheap airfares and package tours — not to mention online “visits” through media such as Gurgle maps and InstaGram — could have made travel writing about as relevant as toenail clippings, Bryson’s refreshing, no-nonsense style has defied the trend.

I first encountered the man through his Lost Continent: Travels In Small-Town America.   I found in Bryson a kindred soul because at the time, Longtime Buddy Trevor Romain and I were doing very much the same thing, albeit on a smaller scale:  once a year we would take a long weekend off work, pick a part of the U.S. that we’d never visited before, and fly in (he from Austin and I, at that time, from Chicago).  Then we’d rent a car and set off, destination unknown and only the return flight’s departure time as a deadline.  The Golden Rule:  No Interstate Highways.  Even major U.S. roads with only two digits (e.g. U.S. 30 or Route 66) were treated with suspicion, and we’d get off into the back country roads with alacrity.

We were often asked why we did this — and we did it for nearly a decade — and our reply was simple.  We did it to remind ourselves why we had both left our country of birth and settled in this new, this wonderful and this dauntingly-large and diverse land.

To say that we met interesting people would rank among the great understatements of the century:  in New Orleans, Queer Tom and Opera Kate (an out-of-work opera singer working as a barmaid);  the lady in a little town outside Portland who collected frogs of all descriptions (stuffed, porcelain, wooden, whatever) and displayed them all in her restaurant;  the huge guy in New Hampshire who, when we asked him if he’d ever played football lisped:  “Nope.  I got weak kneeth”;  and the slightly-batty breakfast diner owner in Rhode Island who wore the most eccentric earrings we’d ever seen, a different pair every single day;  these, and many, many others were encountered in our travels, and gave us both dinner-party conversation topics and “Remember when?” reminiscences that survive to this day.

And during every single trip, Trevor and I fell in love with America all over again.

So when reading Bill Bryson’s books, it was like reading about one of our own “Blue Highways” trips (the name taken from the title of William Least Heat Moon’s book of the same ilk).  And when Bryson settled in Britishland, it gave rise to works like the astonishing The Road To Little Dribbling  and Notes From A Small Island  — books which, because I’d been to the U.K. often myself, made me nod my head because I too had been to Little Dribbling, only it was called Upton-Under-Wold, Thirsk or Lesser Foldem.

I cannot recommend his work highly enough, because he is an extraordinary writer who sees everything through a pair of clear-sighted lenses and not rose-tinted ones.  Never one to suffer fools or stupid things, he still talks about them with affection covered by incredulity.  If you’re looking for a reading project for the winter, you could do a lot worse than read everything Bill Bryson has ever written.

And Bill:  good for you.  While I am distraught at your retirement, I am forever grateful to you and your wonderful works.

As to why he’s getting out:

“I would quite like to spend the part that is left to me doing all the things I’ve not been able to do. Like enjoying my family, I have masses of grandchildren and I would love to spend more time with them just down on the floor.”

I can think of no better reason.  Give them each a hug from me.

News Roundup

None of the news that’s fit to print.


welcome to our world, Limey bastards.


pretty much the same as you’d get if your taxes were super low, only you’d have more money in your pocket.


so in other words:  it’s just like influenza and the common cold, is it?


I have an abiding wish that we were actually as bad as they say we are.  Wouldn’t we have fun?  Instead, we’re law-abiding, vote and have jobs, which prevent us all from cutting their throats.


so theft is okay, as long as only a few people are affected?  Got it.


it’s called the “grasping at straws” tactic.


couldn’t happen to a nicer Socialist.


he could pick the Tooth Fairy as his AG:  still not gonna happen.


could we import a few of these judges into the U.S.?  They have a better idea of freedom than most of ours.  And they speak Spanish, and everything.


Mommy, why were all the boys following me around the playground?


it’s a strange way to say, “I haven’t had a man inside me for six months and I’m starting to ache”, but whatever.


somebody remind me of all those arguments against the death penalty.

And just to show that it’s not all bad news:

No need to thank me, it’s all part of the service etc. etc.