Finally found a reason to carry a Judge...

While I was helping my daughters cruise some educational websites earlier today, I happened across this terrifying article:

World's biggest insect is so huge it eats carrots.

Oh my Gosh...Take it AWAY!!!!!!!

Everyone has their 'thing' that gives them the heebi-geebies, and for me, it's bugs.  You couldn't have paid me enough to do that 'Sounds like fortune cookies' scene from The Temple of Doom...I'd have run out of the room screaming. 

picture borrowed from The Telegraph Website

If these things ever got off their island, it would be the perfect excuse to finally go buy that Taurus Judge.  I don't trust myself to hit a 6 or 7 inch bug every shot, but a cylinder full of 3" #4 or #6 .410 loads should put a hurting on a crowd of these things.

Ick. 

Not just an Indiana thing...

One of the things Tam likes to occasionally rant about is Police Officers doing silly things, in particular, getting caught doing stuff that would get you and me in serious trouble...like DUI. 

Proving these things can happen in the idealic Pacific Northwest, a Sherrif's Deputy was pulled over driving home from Tacoma on Thanksgiving Weekend. 

Stephen Argyle is a 30 YEAR Vetran of the Kitsap County Sherrif's Department, and was pulled over because he was "drifting in his lane," and had "grazed" the sides of his lane. 

It's unfortunate.  There is nothing to indicate that Deputy Argyle is anything other than a good cop...and I am not saying that you through the book at him just because he is a police officer that showed poor judgement driving home after drinking on a holiday weekend.  I am saying that you look really closely at whether or not he get's to continue his job as a Sherrif's Deputy. 

When I was in the Navy, I saw more than one guy have his career cut short because of a DUI.  You weren't necessarily bounced, but you knew your career path would be altered.  The Navy's Nuclear Power Program felt that drinking and driving showed poor judgement and made you a person of questionable integrity. 

I don't think it is too much to expect similar levels of judgement and integrity from our police officers. 

What price convienience?

Things have been busier than normal around here.  Not super busy, but, 'having to go to the storage unit to get our Christmas Decorations Out, and then leisurly decorating the apartment, until we got a phone call from a friend 'sorry about the late notice, but I need a break for the weekend and I was hoping I could come visit you guys' sure we would love that!(and we would!) but now we need to finish decorating and get things cleaned up again' busy.  Things haven't been winding down until past 9 in the evening, at which point I feel more like snuggling with my wife on the couch that ranting about all that is wrong with the world. 

Today is different though.  Today my wife has herself a doctors appointment at 10:30, and so rather than go in for a few hour on Friday, just to leave and then most certainly NOT go back in at 1 in the afternoon, it seemed the perfect justification to take the whole day off.   This 'every other Friday Off' schedule has spoiled me...now I'm taking using a 1 hour obligation where I need to ride herd over my kids as justification to take the whole day off.

Since we need to make a few dishes to bring to a Christmas/Bunko Party Saturday evening, I found myself at Win-Co bright and early this morning, and my thoughts turned to paying for convienience.

I am as guilty of this as everyone else, and often times it just comes down to what I've got going on with my life.  There have been times I have bought a few boneless 'In-Bag' Pork loins, and brought them home to slice them in to pork chops myself to save 50 cents a pound, and there have been times I have bought pre-cubed stew meat, because it just didn't feel worth my time to cube up a rump roast. 

One example of this 'paying for convienience' that I just don't get is this increasing fascination with 'K-Cups'.  For those of you who haven't seen these before, it's a little self-contained plastic cup, that you load into your single-shot brewing machine, and in a matter of seconds, it procudes a cup of coffee, or cocoa, or even tea or apple cider now. 

My mother-in-law had one of these one of the times we went to visit her in Connectiicut, and don't get me wrong, it is a DAMN convienient gadget...it produces a hot, tasty beverage lickity split.  But, it's not cheap...for an actual Keurig Brand Personal Mini-Brewer, you are talking $99 at Target right now, as opposed to under $30 for many different types of normal drip machines.

Then there is the price of the 'cartridges'  Today at Win-co I saw a 12-pack of Folgers Cartrdiges for $5.88, and a box of cocoa cartridges were 12 for $4.88  Conversely, a big can of Folgers was $11.71 for 240 servings, and then $5.72 for a 43 serving container of Swiss Miss Cocoa, with mini-Marshmellows. 

Before I do the math, I am going to apply a correction factor...the serving size on the Folgers is a 6oz cup, and the Swiss Miss an 8-ounce cup.  That's a tiny serving...I measured on of my coffee cups, and before cream and splenda, I'm putting about 10 ounces in each cup...so, correcting for that we get:

.49 for a K-Cup of Folgers, vs. .08 a cup of home brewed Folgers, and then .40 for a cup of cocoa(with NO mini-marshmellows) vs. .167 cents a cup of Swiss Miss. 

That's a pretty huge difference...but what really blows my mind about all this math is how expensive hot cocoa is...who knew that all that sugar was so expensive...

Just throw the first load of dirt on my coffin now...

I guess one sign of officially being 'Old' is that I have decided 10PM is entirely too damn late to stay up to watch the Victorias Secret Fashion Show on TV.

Especially when I've already got all the catalogues...

You say Protest, I say Riot.

Here in Washington, they are trying to hold a Special Session of The Legislature, so they can get a jump on the projected 1.4 BILLION dollar deficit we are looking at here in Washington State. 

I say 'trying to hold' because Monday's Special Session was interrupted by protesters...not just outside the building, but inside the Capitol, including fighting their way into the conference rooms where some of the Committees were meeting. 

In their effort to get protesters out of the Capitol once it closed, and then keep them out of the conference rooms where the committees were, several protesters were hit with stun guns, and 6 police officers were injured, two of them being bitten on the arm!  When people start getting bitten on the arm, things are going a bit beyond the 'peaceable protest' stage...you either need to start calling it a riot...

Or a Revolution. 

Christmas List!

SWMBO is losing patience waiting on my Christmas List, so I figured, why not do it here, where I can build my word count and post links for her, ALL while I put products I would be more than willing to test out there for different suppliers to look at! 

Machete: Not the movie...an actual tool.  I am wanting some kind of a hacking blade for my zombie/bug out kit.  For a while, I was leaning towards something in the tomahawk family, and then something like the Ontario SP-16, before finally settling on something machete like.  A Gerber Gator or  SOG SOGfari would make me happy indeed.

Les Miserable 25th Anniversary DVD: Nothing useful, firearms, or survival related here...I just like Les Miserables. 

First Aid Kit Stuff: Not the sexiest Christmas Present, but I wouldn't mind finding a few things of Celox, or even some of their pre-jimmied up gauze bandage under the tree.  So far I have always deferred to my wife in getting first aid stuff thrown together. 

Eton Scorpion: Earlier this year, I aquired an Eton Microlink 160, which was nice, but didn't blow me away.  The solar panel took A LONG time to charge the radio, and it lacked an A/C Adapter.  The Scorpion has a larger solar panel, AND you can get an A/C Adapter, so...yeah. 

Shotgun Stock: A few months back, Carteach did a write up on a new folding Knoxx Recoil Reducing Stock, and I have been jonesing one for my Mossberg 500 ever since.  I think, being the type of guy I am, I would prefer the collapsing version to the folding version...but either one would work. 

Grown Up Pellet Gun: Not a B.B. Gun...something like a Gamo Whisper.  Now we are getting into Dream World type gifts.  While up at hunting camp this year, one of my buddies sons put a hurting on a number squirrels with a Gamo Air Rifle...I was pretty impressed. 

Ummm...that's quite a list.  Not sure I will get more than 2 or 3 things on the list, because one thing I haven't talked about yet is a the new TV.  Currently, we have an 8 or 9 year old 25-inch Zenith in our living room(does Zenith even make TV's anymore?).  My wife and I agreed that the time had came to move up in the world, and get something in the 37-40" range for the living room using the latest technologym with 1080P resolution. 

What ever that means. 

Good, Clean, Wholesome fun.

A few days ago, while my mom and wife recovered from their 11PM-6:45AM Black Friday shopping experience, I packed the girls in the car, and took them to see The Muppet's Movie.  On an Arm Twisting Scale(1-10) this bit of Fatherly Heroics only rates about a 0.8, since I was more than 50% leaning towards seeing the newest Muppet Movie all by myself. 

Being a child of the Mid to Late 70's and early 80's, the Muppets are right in my wheel house.  I remember many an evening spent watching The Muppet Show(and yes, my mom and dad used to watch along with me.)  It never failed to entertain...to this day, I can kill LONG periods of time watching Pigs in Space and The Swedish Chef on youtube.  One of my favorite Christmas movies, Emmet Otters Jug-Band Christmas, is a Muppets spin off.

My Muppets 'street cred' firmly established, allow me to put every one's mind at ease...this movie is pretty good.  More important than it being good...it FEELS like the Muppets.

The plot isn't very important...we follow two brothers, one of the felt, and the other normal, Walter and Gary, both of whom are pretty big muppet fans.  Gary is going to Hollywood with his girlfriend of 10 years, Mary, and brings Walter along so they can tour Muppet Studio.

Big disappointment, and...what the heck...Walter finds out an evil guy is going to tear down the studio to put in an oil well in Hollywood(What zoning?).  They then go visit Kermit, to get all the gang together, so they can have a telethon, and raise 10 Million dollars to save the theater?

Any Questions?

In addition to Gary and Mary, there are really only about 3 or 4 other named human characters in movie...and most of them are cameo's.  Jack Black has a pretty big role, as Animal's 'Sponsor' and then as an involuntary host of the Telethon.  You also have Alan Arkin, Zach Galifi-whatsis, Sarah Silverman, Whoopi Goldberg, Micky Rooney, Judd Hirsch, Neil PATRICK HARRIS, Dave Grohl, and Selena Gomez, who gets to deliver one of the better lines in the movie.

Amy Adams, as the female lead is...well...sigh.  She's amazing.  With the 'dated' feel the movie is going for, she gets to spend the movie in cute little June Cleaver-type outfits, an advantage she doesn't need in her pursuit of being the worlds Most Adorable Woman. 

I'm not saying she can't do flat out sexy also, but in this movie, she is 100% Wholesome Take Her Home to Mom CUTE.  Dig it.

So yeah...there are a few cute songs in the show, and not nearly enough Swedish Chef...but there is some Beaker, and plenty of ANIMAL!!!!! 

If you have kids of your own, or just liked the muppets Back in The Day, I give it 18 out of 20...