Tag: Toys

Guns, cars, tools, knives etc.

Grown-Up Sippy Cups

Guy Stuff

This is a silly topic to discuss, but whatever.  Even though I am by no means triskaidekaphobic, it’s nevertheless Friday the fucking 13th, so here we go.

Back when I worked in an office, I always used a coffee cup with a lid, because knocking an open cup over your PC keyboard was not one of life’s pleasantries, both in terms of the actual mess, and the hassle involved in cleaning the gunk out from under the keys.  Likewise soft drinks:  never a can, always a bottle with the screw-off top.

It’s a habit I’ve carried into my private life too, not only for all the spill containment, but also because these thermal cup thingies keep my coffee hot in case I forget to drink it quickly.  (I’ve talked about this topic before, under different auspices, but note the El Cheapo Magellan thermal cup I mention in passing.)

But it appears that this is no longer enough.  Advancing age has brought with it advancing clumsiness, and the problem with all these wretched thermal cup thingies (as you will see) is that very few of them have a screw-on lid — they all, even the nosebleed stuff like Yeti, have a simple press-in lid with a rubber gasket to hold the lids in place should the thing be knocked over.

And alas, with continuous use do the rubber gaskets deteriorate and loosen their grip, which means that if you do knock your adult sippycup over, the result is the same as if you’d just been using a regular plastic glass filled with the drink and (if necessary) ice:  a veritable flood of sticky liquid all over the floor.

Which is what happened to me the night before last, when in trying to move my tall Magellan sippycup over so I could see the beloved face of New Wife, I knocked the fucking thing off the side table and yea did the lid come off the cup, emptying the contents of ice and OJ all over the frigging carpet.

So yesterday was spent visiting various retail establishments, trying to find a container with a screw-on lid that wasn’t the size of a Thermos flask and resembled more a coffee cup, like the Magellan.

Total failure — and I went to Academy, Cabela’s and finally, Wally World, where I got what I was sorta-looking for, except that it’s tall and skinny rather than short and squat.

It’s also too capacious, at 16oz where I was looking for something in the 10-oz-12oz range.  But at some point one has to resign oneself to what the world actually provides rather than what the world should provide.

Earlier on I did find (and purchase) one such thing with acceptable dimensions and the proper screwtop from Cabela’s, but it’s so fugly that I was worried that New Wife would forbid its use in the public domain, and confine it to doing duty as my night-time cold-water source on the bedside table.  Surprisingly, she agreed that it’s kinda fugly, but likes its patriotic theme.  So she agreed to let me use it.

(Yes, she’ll be becoming a U.S. citizen as soon as the DHS/State Department/whoever gets their collective ass in gear.)

All this could have been avoided, of course, were I just to apply a leetle care in the handling of coffee cups — I could use actual china cups or ceramic mugs like civilized people do, and not have to look like an overgrown child with an expensive fucking metal sippycup.  But that’s the world I live in, and so it goes.

Anyway, having said all that, I’m off to make myself another cuppa in the tall black thing.  And by the way, it works really well at keeping its contents hot — actually, a little too well, as my scalded tongue will attest.  I might just go for the Patriotic Barrel instead… alert the media!

If I get too irritated by these two replacements, or if New Wife Puts Her Foot Down With A Heavy Hand© after all, they will be sent off in disgrace to live in our travel trunk, which we break out when heading for an open-road adventure and style is not a prerequisite.  They will join the regiment of other utensils which have been found wanting.

Whereupon the whole bloody search for the impossible sippycup dream will resume and my irritation, never far below the surface, will explode once more, to the consternation of New Wife and the chortles of my Readers.

You bastards.

Utility Over Beauty?

Good Stuff

In my Saturday post of Favorite Things (Part 1), Reader JC comments:

“With your well-known love for God’s Own Pistol, I’m surprised a custom 1911 was not on your list.”

Well, yes.  Except that I addressed the issue the previous week in my post about the Ed Brown 1911.

I dunno.  Maybe it’s that I regard a 1911 the same way as I do about a Land Rover Defender or a Toyota Hi-Lux pickup:  they are so utilitarian that fancying them up seems kinda pointless.

I wouldn’t add diamonds to a watch for the same reason, unless it was a present for a woman (because most women have an undeniable attraction for sparklies).

I love luxury, don’t get me wrong:  I am not a Puritan or neo-Amish type.  But as with all things, luxury has its place, and utilitarian tools ain’t one of them.

Here’s another example of what I’m talking about.

I would prefer an Estwing hammer over a bog-standard Lowes-type budget-rack hammer, any day of the week.

But would I gild the Estwing’s metal?  Of course not.  (I might, however, be seduced into buying an Estwing with a leather grip because ooooh.)

You see where I’m going with this?

Sometimes quality has a point to where improvement is not really worth it — especially if said improvement has a 4x multiple over the original, e.g. an Ed Brown 1911 over a Springfield 1911, or a Porsche 911S over a Porsche Cayman S.

And if the original product, so to speak, isn’t total shit and is already far up the quality curve, that’s always something to take into account.

Bucks

Toys, Weapons

Here’s a nice little tribute piece about the Buck 110 folder.

I’ve always loved Buck knives — pretty much of any type or description — and I sometimes wonder why I don’t own more than one, a Buck 500 Gent (now called the “Duke”), which has been a constant companion for over forty years.

That 110 is calling me — drop point blade, ebony grip plus brass caps… what’s not to like?

[Add to cart]

Bolt-Action Watches

Toys

I believe I’ve ranted a few times [hyperbole alert]  on this back porch against modernity, and quite often against things that operate automatically as opposed to being physically operated by the user.

I know that automation makes things easier;  it’s just that this ease comes at the expense of control, and I don’t like that.  Here are two examples:

Bolt-action over semi-auto rifles.  I know that it’s a lot of fun shooting an M1 Garand or M1 Carbine;  I’ve done it often, and love it.  But nothing gives me more satisfaction than working a fine bolt action, whether a Mauser turnbolt or a Schmidt-Rubin straight pull.  Yes, it’s a bigger hassle to rechamber a cartridge manually than to have a mechanical doodad do it for you — although I would suggest that reloading a 30-round magazine is an even bigger PITA, as all the mag-loading assist devices on the market would suggest.

Manual transmission over automatic gearboxes.  As with the above, there is a case to be made for the labor-saving nature of the auto gearbox — in stop-start traffic, for example — but with a stick shift, one is always in better control of the vehicle.  I know, I’ve suggested that one doesn’t drive an automatic car as much as just steer it, and I’m not altogether wrong, either.

Now I’m going to add yet another category to the manual/auto dichotomy.

Some time back I was given a watch as repayment for a favor — I hasten to add that said repayment was absolutely not requested nor even expected — and this is the watch, a Tissot Heritage:

Note the supreme simplicity of the watch face:  easy-to-read numerals, no date, and… a manual action.  It’s the first manual watch I’ve owned since I was a pre-teenager, and I love it with a passion.  I even wear it around the house, unlike all my other watches.

One of the things that has always bothered me about quartz (battery-powered)  watches is that the damn batteries have to be replaced about every year, requiring a trip to the watch-repair place or jeweler.  (I purchased a lifetime replacement policy which at least takes away the nagging cost of replacement — best $100 I ever spent — but it’s still a hassle to schlep my dormant quartz watches over to the mall, every damn year.)  I have two of these things, and I love them both, for different reasons.  They are the (l-r) Tissot 1853 and Dooney & Bourke Explorer:

  
(I know, the D&B is overly-complicated and a little bulky, but when I saw it back in 2003 I fell in love with it despite all that, and bought it on the turn.)

Neither of the above cost more than $300.

My only automatic watch is a Seiko Sports (about which I’ve ranted before):

The issue I have with this watch is that when the spring runs down (and it does that overnight), it is a huge PITA to reset the day and date.  To keep it going, I would have to buy one of those winding motor thingies, and… oy, they break, stop working (just read the 1-star comments) and that would irritate the living shit out of me.  En passant, they’re all made in China except for the German ones which can cost well over $500 (!!!).  So… no.

The Seiko is the only, and last automatic watch I will ever own.

I don’t mind winding the Heritage every morning — it’s like making the coffee, pouring the breakfast gin or brushing the teeth:  a simple daily maintenance chore, and the watch-winding can be done while I’m reading the newspaper.  But it keeps time well, it looks great on my wrist, and… well, that’s really all I need from a watch.

Of course, it doesn’t end there.  Having established that principle, I immediately went to Teh Intarwebz to see what other steam-powered watches I could get if Teh Lottery Gods were to ever get their shit together:

 

And if the lottery money was BIG:

 

As a rule, I don’t like gold watches… but Vacheron’s looks fantastic — and hey, everyone should have at least one gold dress watch, right?

And finally, this one because it’s a truly eccentric way of putting the date function onto a watch:

Needless to say, it is by far the most expensive watch ($25,000) on the list, but I did say a BIG lottery win, after all.

And every last one is a mechanical-wind action.

Where Are They Now?

Pussification Parade, Toys

Via Reader Old Texan in his Friday email, I see this lovely little thing:

…which leads me to ask:  whatever happened to cap guns? 

I grew up with the things — I mean, that one on the pic could have been the one I had as a kid, except my gun’s ur-nickel plating was long gone through much pocketing and abuse.  And my poor mother had to deal with my constant nagging each Saturday morning (when I got my paltry allowance) to take me to the hardware store or drugstore to get five rolls of those excellent caps (which would last me till, oh, Sunday afternoon;  I haven’t changed much).

I’d assumed that they’d been declared illegal because eeeevil guns, and caps ditto because EXPLOSIVE MATERIAL!!!!  but I see that plastic ones (eeewww!!!), die-cast revolvers and even cap roll guns are sold through Amazon.  Sadly, the first two of these use “ring caps” which are terrible because boys can’t create mini-explosive devices out of them, as we did with the cap rolls when I were a Lad Of Extreme Mischief.  (I should point out that my Dad showed me how to do this, which says it all, really.)

But can you buy ring caps or paper roll caps through Amazon?  Silly rabbit, of course you can’t, no doubt because you have to fill out ATF Form #4376-5-3 or some such bullshit before such a sale can be “allowed”.

I think you can still buy the cap rolls at Tractor Supply stores and ring caps at Big Lots! (note: they are out of stock in both outlets).  But wait:  what have we here?  Aaahhh, Tin Toy Arcade to the rescue:

 

I have to say, though, that relatively speaking, those guns are Colt Python-expensive, for toys.  Especially when you can get the Real Thing for a little more than three times the price:

 
…and the plainer .22 LR-only version for little more than double:

…as used by Daughter as her first gun.

But let’s not go there.

I suspect, by the way, that societal pressure is forcing these lovely cap guns to be disappearing fast because We Cannot Allow Children To Play With Violent Toys.

What a load of old bollocks.