07:35 – There was an article on page two of the paper this morning about using blackface in Halloween costumes. There was, of course, a shot of Al Jolson wearing blackface in The Jazz Singer.
Just to set the record straight… Although Al Jolson is invariably portrayed nowadays as a vicious racist, that couldn’t be further from the truth. From the 1910’s until his death, Jolson was at the forefront in the struggle against bigotry and racism. He was a hero to American blacks and did more than anyone to help break down the barriers that kept blacks out of Hollywood and mainstream music. Jolson was a hero in the struggle for racial equality, and that’s how he should be remembered.
I saw something the other day where “real” geeks consider The Big Bang Theory to essentially be “geek black face.”
Last night I fully disassembled my 10/22 into its constituent parts for cleaning. A few hundred rounds of Remington Thunderbolts really gunked it up. As I had all the parts spread out on the kitchen table I thought of a phrase I have heard on this forum; “Dishwasher Darwinism”. Although tempted to experiment (I am a scientist, ya know) I stuck with Hoppe’s, CLP and some rags. My first thought is that dishwasher soap is probably too harsh. So have any of you guys ever cleaned gun parts in the dishwasher?
I think I would want 2 dishwashers—one for food-use items, one for guns, etc.—if I were to do that. Then there is the woman who washes her toilet bowl brush in the dishwasher. With the dishes!
Word is being spread around that Medicare paid for Lou Reed’s liver transplant, which kept him alive for only another 6 months. At over a million for such a transplant and the next guy on the list probably not surviving, since Lou got that liver, one guy is questioning why we should object to death panels. Reed claimed he was alcohol free since the ’80’s, but plenty of sources say he certainly abused himself before that. This guy says Reed’s behavior should be the mark that put him as #2 or lower on the list.
I would not put any gun parts in a dishwasher, no; you can clean computer keyboards in them but even then you want the gentle cycle and take them out to air-dry for a couple of days. Not metal and wood gun parts. Stick with the Number 9 and the rags.
40 today and overcast; supposedly gonna hit 50s and 60s again tomorrow through Saturday.
Agreed, particularly if there are any parts that aren’t stainless steel.
I remember witnessing something similar back in the 70’s. One of the guys had picked up a dozen mil-surplus M1 Garand rifles, still in the cosmoline, along with 12,000 rounds of WWII-era .30-06 ball. With corrosive primers, yet, and in en bloc clips.
He was puzzling about how best to get the cosmoline cleaned off without making it a lifetime career when one of the other guys suggested he take them to a mechanic friend of his, who kept a 55-gallon drum filled with grease solvent. He soaked them in the drum overnight (stockless, of course) and they came out clean as new. Not even any rust.
The senior range instructor at my handgun camp earlier this year told us that he threw his Glock 22 into the dishwasher once per year whether it needed it or not.
http://www.frontsight.com/
I may have bought myself a Glock 22 gen 4 at Academy the other day for $580 plus TTL (tax, title and license). It may have come with three mags. The wife may have caught me bringing it in and I may have had to hurriedly state, “this is your Christmas present to me”. That may have not gone over so well.
http://www.academy.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10151_10051_474205_-1
And, they had a sweet Ruger .38 special LCR for $399.
And that caper may have cost you any further firearms purchases in the great Lone Star State unless you can be more clever about smuggling suchlike into the house. I may have bought similar items in the past up here and they may have got in without being intercepted, and when months or years later they may have got noticed, my stock reply may have been “I’ve always had that.”
I suspect that she is considering inventorying my gun safe. Not just firearms but ammo too.
Lynn:
I also may own a Glock 22, .40 caliber, though an earlier generation, and am a big fan of the pistol and caliber. I had “some” experience with firearms in a former civilian career.
Well, if I had a firearms safe and suspected other parties would be doing unwanted inventories, I might take steps to insure that not everything would appear in that safe and furthermore, that I might “salt” that item with irrelevant stuff.
No Glocks here but next-younger brother may have had one during his tenure as an auxiliary police officer in Maffachufetts fairly recently. He may have also had a hi-cap mag for it, which comes under some onerous laws down there I believe.
I keep telling the siblings to move up here but for various reasons they can’t or won’t; I note that distaff family members are violently opposed. Why? Not as many shopping opportunities and stores, not as much entertainment available, and of course, too cold. They’re in for a rude awakening in the not-too-distant future.
I’m trying to remember if I’ve ever fired a Glock. I think not. I am turned off completely by the idea of a DA-only autopistol. The only thing worse, as I can attest from personal experience is one of those bastardized pistols like the P-38, in which there’s a long, heavy trigger pull to fire the first round and then a standard short, light trigger pull for subsequent rounds. I can’t imagine how anyone could keep both the first and second rounds on target if fired quickly.
Oh, well. I like my old, obsolete Colt Combat Commander in .45 ACP. I’d be nervous depending on a minor caliber like the .40. I think it was John Wesley Hardin who, when asked why he carried a Colt .45 replied, “Because they don’t make a Colt .46”.
That’s a new one on me, but I can probably match it: on a recipe website I used to work on, someone put up a recipe for kitty litter cake or something similar. It’s a Halloween “treat” of granola-type cereal, tootsie rolls, and such, served in a (new) kitty litter pan. Yum yum. But that’s not the gross part. Someone commented on the recipe that she didn’t see why you couldn’t use a used kitty litter pan, so long as you wrap it in plastic before you put the food in. Good thing for my (extremely limited) faith in humanity, the comments on that comment were universally negative, with the mildest being “Remind me never to eat anything you cook”.
Well, the Cincinnati Mata Hari denied everything in court today. She basically claims the baby-sitter for her 7 year-old daughter made up the sex activities and texted that fiction to friends, while she, herself, was too drunk to drive the 2 teen boys home, and thus they stayed overnight. She said they pressed her for sex, but she rebuffed them.
This is going to be interesting.
The toilet brush in the dishwasher was from Dear Abby a couple years ago. Last item in this Dear Abby link:
http://azstarnet.com/lifestyles/relationships-and-special-occasions/dear-abby/article_39d66630-7681-536c-be53-a4558a58b82f.html
Then there is the follow-up, showing a lot of people were not grossed out by it, including a doctor.
http://articles.philly.com/2011-07-05/entertainment/29739153_1_dishwasher-toilet-brush
I’m trying to remember if I’ve ever fired a Glock. I think not. I am turned off completely by the idea of a DA-only autopistol.
From
http://www.f-r-i.com/glock/misc/overview.htm :
“The topic of endless debate, ridicule, and confusion, the Glock Safe-Action system is neither single-action (SA) nor double-action (DA).”
“The Glock, unlike most centerfire handguns, does not have a hammer which is dropped to push a firing pin when the trigger is pulled. Instead, the Glock has a striker which is completely enclosed within the slide. Whenever a round is in the chamber, the striker is partially retracted under tension. There isn’t enough tension to fire the gun if for some reason the striker were forced forward from this position.”
Now on the XDM .40 that I used to have before I lost it in the Brazos river, it had an internal hammer that pushed out the back in a little 1/8″ knob so you could tell if it was cocked or not. No safety though. And the trigger was the decocker.
Have you seen a .40 S&W cartridge yet? Not much smaller or shorter than a .45. But I can get 16 in my XDM or 15 in the Glock. The most .45 I have seen in a 1911 is 8. Of course, my shooting partner carried about 6 mags in his belt.
Why do good semi autos cost way less than good revolvers? A 629 is $850 or more using gun trader.com. A Ruger .357 is $650 or more.
There are .45 ACP mags available now for more than eight rounds; I think I’ve seen 14-round mags advertised, but it makes a bigger profile under your clothes of course.
In other nooz our son is sitting above the bullpen at Fenway right now in Game Six of the World Series; our daughter was studying earlier at the Islamic Studies Library at McGill, unless she was joking, and Mrs. OFD is in Fort Myers, FL with MIL and her work colleague and said colleague’s “partner” watching said game. OFD himself has been watching “Homeland,” Season Two, Episode Four.
OFD also heard from Floriduh recruiter today that a certain huge DOD contractor up here has reopened that job I missed out on over the summuh and they’re looking at me again now. Background check was basically done, so this shouldn’t take as long now; Windoze shop, but WTF, a job is a job. They’re running Server 2008, Exchange 2010, LANDesk, Oracle, and XP and 7. Typical. They wanna move into cloud stuff and probably migrate to Server 2012 this next year. They’re also big on security, so I’m their boy, maybe. 2.8 miles from the front door. Damn. Light a joss stick for me, guys.
Guess she wasn’t joking: http://www.mcgill.ca/library/branches/islamic
Hope she was all burka’d up there. But it would look pretty weird; six-foot-tall infidel with blue eyes and 44DD and about 200 pounds.
Lynn wrote:
“I suspect that she is considering inventorying my gun safe. Not just firearms but ammo too.”
Tell her to get her own gun safe… 🙂
Glocks no good? The cops here have, or used to have them, and I’ve read a lot of nice things about them. If I lived over there I think I’d want a slabsides and xdm .40.
@OFD: Here’s hoping – thought you were in before, so hopefully it’ll work out this time.
Fortunately for me, my wife is nearly as hermit-like as I am. We both enjoy living as far as possible from any city. We’ve already bought the land we plan to retire to, in a town of – count em – 19 people. The only problem will be food shopping in the winter; the nearest shopping is a few miles away, either down a steep winding road, or in the other direction along a more-or-less level forestry road. I was only half-joking when I suggested that we needed a horse, not that I’ve ridden since I was a kid.
You must be expecting a zombie apocalypse. I wrote about that here:
http://www.ttgnet.com/daynotes/2011/2011-21.html#Thu
Ya reckon Barbara’s .357 would stop a zombie? Perhaps with garlic anointed silver bullets it would… 🙂
Zombies are apparently easy to kill. I think the Black Talons will work fine.
Although, once I get around to buying a good 3D printer, I’m thinking about building a .22 rimfire Gatling gun. I figure if I drive it with an electric motor 100 rounds/second should be doable. That’s more lead than my Atchison full-auto 12-gauge shotgun puts out. Bring on the zombies.
How long until there are 3D printers for metal? It ought to be possible – not easy, but possible – to melt a droplet of metal (microwaves? laser?) and deposit it just the same as a melted droplet of plastic. Controlling tempering might be difficult, but even that might be surmountable, if one can controlling the cooling rate.
That would make your gatling gun actually possible!
3D Printers for metal already exist. A bunch of UCSD students designed a rocket engine that they had 3D printed and then test fired. Cost to have it printed was $6800.
http://www.gizmag.com/3d-printed-rocket-seds/29306/
I think FOSS templates for 3D printers will be huge. I can imagine a day not too far off when most middle- and upper-class homes will have a 3D printer and use it frequently to produce all kinds of household items.
Well I got one of these about a week ago
http://www.cereconline.com/
My dentist is pretty proud of it. Took me back to look at the milling machine at work, Five minutes to cut and mill.
All of my crowns are milled. The dentist takes 4 pics and 10 minutes later the crown is milled. They have different hardness types, I always get the best. I’m worth it. lol
Wow, I had no idea that metal 3D printing already existed!
Bob is right, this will be the end of entire industries – there’s just no reason to buy a widget when you can print it off yourself. Kitchen gadgets, simple tools. Heck, given the ability add detailed color, most of the toy industry is doomed.
I can see the copyright piracy battles on a new field: suing people for downloading 3D plans for Mickey Mouse, Barbie, Batman, or (god forbid) Sponge Bob will be the new source of riches for greedy IP lawyers.
Here is your 10-22 gatling gun trigger:
http://www.cabelas.com/product/BMF-Activator/707343.uts
Here is your 10-22 double barrel gatling gun assembly:
http://www.cabelas.com/product/Gatling-Gun-Kit/741483.uts