Tag: Toys

Guns, cars, tools, knives etc.

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.

Both Desirable

Gratuitous Chick Pics, Toys

I see that Queen’s Gambit  hottie Anya Taylor-Joy is modeling Jaeger-LeCoultre watches now:

…but I have to say, her beauty is a strange one, because:

Anyway, here are a few more reference pics so you can make up your own mind:

And the more errr descriptive ones:

But that’s not really what I want to talk about here today.  Rather, I want to talk about Jaeger-LeCoultre watches, of which I’ve never owned a single one but I’d love to because they are just flat-out classy:

Of course, they do produce watches for more errr  modern tastes:

…and frankly, I think they’re both pig-ugly — aimed no doubt at the Russian Billionaire’s Son Set or else Arab sheiks, neither of which are known for their refined taste.

Hell, I’d take one of Jaeger’s second-hand and (very much-) older watches over either of those “modern” ones:

…just as I’d take Gina over Anya:

But you all knew that.

Want

Guy Stuff

I’m not often envious of what other people do or have, but I’ll make an exception for this guy and his toy:

We used to have a 30′ Scalextric track layout in the basement of our Chicago suburban home, but in subsequent homes we never had the space available to set it up again.  And unlike Our Hero, we only had a few cars, which we’d race against each other by class, so to speak:

 

 

Great fun.

Alternative Use

Good Stuff, Real Estate, The Gun Thing

Looks like this is a week for alternatives, but this one is a little less… contentious, shall we say, than the one from yesterday.

While looking at this article about Harry Redknapp’s little beach cottage, one of the pics got me thinking.  While I think the house in general is awful (like Alyssa Milano:  quite lovely from the outside;  inside, not so much), this room is excellent:

Now I have little use for a wine cellar, being that I don’t drink a lot of wine and have no interest in collecting it either.  But a temperature/humidity-controlled room, with very limited access… can we all say “Gun Room“, children?

If I ever same into something like this (assuming it was in the Land Of The Free and not Hoplophobic Britannia), I know that one of the first things I’d do is turn to the interior designer and say, “Lose all those faggy shelves and stuff, and put in some glassed gun display cases, with room for a couple-three safes on the side.”  All that’s left is to have a decent, robust table somewhere with several clamps for gun cleaning and -smithing, and there ya go.

The same is true of houses that have projection rooms — in-home cinemas, as it were — which I think are a total waste of space.  Here’s one, from some mega-mansion on the market here in Plano:

Once again, a room with no windows, a single door access… who the hell needs stupid Disney movies that much. when you could have a primo gun room?

I know, I’m so hopelessly out of touch.

Fair Warning

General

The new (okay reconditioned ) HP laptop arrived yesterday, and so far it seems to be blessedly free of extraneous crap — other than all the stupid Microsoft nonsense (which I’ve dropped like a hot rock, of course).

Still struggling a bit with the Thunderbird email POP3  / STML stuff because I think I can read / understand Latin more easily than all that kaka.

Bear with me while I get it all figured out — I can always go back to the old laptop to get things done if I get stuck.

But the Bookmarks are done, the pic folders are there, and next comes all the personal stuff like spreadsheets etc.  Which reminds me, I need to install Open Office.  Excuse me…

Quality Stuff

Good Stuff

I try to be sensible and logical and so on, but I will admit to a weakness for quality (“luxury”) items, across almost all categories of living.  Of course, I don’t have the wallet to afford any of them anymore, but I’d still prefer to drive, say, an Audi instead of a VW.

This philosophy does clash — frequently — with commonsense as I muse on such things, but the lure of quality still gets to me.  And as Longtime Reader Mike Of The Dueling Pistols so eloquently said when talking about watches:  “You know why I own a Bremont and an IWC? The same reason I own a Hammerli… I like it. My bills are paid, why not buy something I enjoy with the money?”

Amen.  In Daphne du Maurier’s novel The Progress Of Julius, the protagonist is a man who starts off as a street urchin in North Africa and ends up becoming enormously wealthy in Britain.  I don’t remember the exact words, but one night he thinks about the fact that he now wears silk shirts, and wonders if he could ever go back — and realizes that he couldn’t, because luxury is seductive.

And it is.  On the very few occasions when I’ve been able to afford a real quality item, I always felt good about it, and it always repaid my investment in spades.  An example:  back when I was a pro musician, I could have got by with playing a $400 Fender Precision bass guitar, but instead I bought a $1,200 Rickenbacker.

The very first time I played the Rick, I felt a rush of something — enjoyment and satisfaction, I suppose — because I was playing the best bass guitar in the world and good grief… it sounded fantastic.  That’s not a knock on the Fender, by the way:  the old P-bass has been played by bassists far better than I, it’s super-reliable and sounds just fine, and if for any reason the Rick hadn’t been an option, I’d have got the Fender and been quite happy with the thing.  But it wasn’t a Rickenbacker, and it became my (and the band’s) signature sound over the years.

I feel the same about lots of life’s little toys:  cars, watches and guns being the categories where I’m most prone to going for the spendy, so to speak, and which tendency will be well-known to Longtime Readers.

So just as an intellectual exercise, I’m going to do the same for them as I’ve done for bass guitars:  post a perfectly-good choice, against what I’d really like to own.  Note that I’m not going to post a “budget” item — I never even considered a cheap bass guitar like Epiphone or Squier, for example, even though I was quite poor at the time — but only something that’s of (very) acceptable quality.  So here goes:

1911s:  Springfield G.I. and  Ed Brown Kobra

There’s nothing at all wrong with the Springfield — there’s one on my belt as we speak — but the Kobra is exceptional, and I lust after it bigly.

Bolt-action rifles:   Ruger Hawkeye and  Mauser M12

Once again, there’s nothing wrong with the Ruger — I got one for Boomershoot, as you’ll recall — and it’s a perfectly good rifle… until you fire a Mauser M12.  (Both the above, by the way, are chambered in 6.5x55mm Swede.)

Side-by-side shotguns:  AyA No.2 and David McKay Brown Round Action (note:  as we all know, you can go nuts when it comes to fine shotguns — Purdey, Holland etc. — so I gave myself a price ceiling of merely “expensive”, and second-hand to boot)The kicker here is that you can get a new AyA for about $6,000, and a second-hand McKay Brown can run around seven times that, because machine-made vs. handmade.  Indulge me…

Watches:   Longines Flagship and Jaeger-LeCoultre Master

…and I didn’t even have to go super-pricey on this:  the Longines runs just under a grand, and the Jaeger just under five.  I’ve owned a Longines before, and I still regret getting rid of it (because poverty);  but Jaeger watches are both lovely and super-reliable.

Fountain Pens:  Sailor 1911 and  Pelikan Souveran 800

For when you want to sign that important contract, and the Bic just won’t cut it.  The Pelikan costs nearly three times the Sailor, but Pelikan… I don’t think they make a “regular” pen — all their models are excellent.  If you have big hands and need a thicker barrel, then try the Cross Peerless 125. (And Montblanc Meisterstuck pens are fine — they’re the Rolex of pens — for those who want to be seen using one.  My budget Pelikan writes better, in my hand.)

Classic Sports Cars:   1967 Corvette Stingray and  1957 Mercedes 300 Roadster

This one’s not even close.

Modern Saloon Cars:  Mercedes S560 (4-liter V8) and  Bentley Continental GT Speed (6-liter W12)

Y’all know that I’m holding my nose with this one, because modern cars are almost all fugly.  If I had  to own one, however… but I cheated.  Because while a new S560 costs around $130k at the above dealer, an extra 5 grand gets you a secondhand Bentley, with less than 10,000 miles on the clock.  As with the earlier car choice, this one isn’t close, either.

Feel free to list your “quality” options in Comments — they don’t have to be the most expensive you can buy, just better than the average or typical.  And please:  I’m not interested in hearing from people who are perfectly happy with their 1983 Dodge Whatever, Casio Digital and inherited Winchester 100, and see no reason to upgrade any of them, ever.  Play the game.