forbidden knowledge

Why is it that all the books I really yearn for are all the same?  As in, they are no longer in print and are rare enough that they cost (sometimes) hundreds of dollars.  I mean, yeah, I kind of have a very particular taste, and I have been accused of having a bit of an expensive one at that, but it's not like I'm trying to find something that costs an arm and a leg.

For example, I really wanted to get my hands on a comprehensive book on the F-14, and this is the one I've been eyeing for some time, but it costs nearly $180 for one in good condition.

Then, here's another one I'd like that is about the MiG-31, but that one runs at $220

The worst one by far though, is this book about the Su-27 family of fighters that I would reeeeaaaalllly like, but costs a whopping $800 for one that's not even in good condition.

Man, I really need to find more hobbies and interests that are cheaper.

What is wrong with me?

I think the single most depressing moment in my life happened just yesterday.  I was sitting in front of a huge stack of books, but had no desire to read any of them.  Pretty sad, aint it?

I tried to console myself by entertaining thoughts of mustering up some funding for ammunition.  This only made things worse, as I ended up concluding that I can probably purchase a new barrel for my gun for the same cost a modest amount of 9mm.

On a brighter and fatter note, we did try another new local eatery today.  Aloha Grindz has a pretty annoying name, and isn't really all that fancy, with an equally annoying website, but the food is amazing.  I'm not really a fan of 'island grill' type places, or their food, but I was more than pleasantly surprised by the quality of the consumables at this place.  In short, it's highly recommended.

Arms races

A cold war?  Well, it's very cold in space...

Because nothing screams "I'll die a lonely old man!" quite like a collection of Star Trek die cast models.

So, the roomie, J, and I have all found out about the die cast models by Hot Wheels of all the Star Trek ships that are available on Amazon.  So now we have all gone hog wild with buying as many of these things as possible, all in the spirit of one-upmanship in saying who is the bigger nerd.  So within a few short days, I'm quite sure that the entire systems portion of IT is going to be awash in tiny starships littered about the place.

report of doom

So, on Sunday I had a little bit of time to try Far Cry 3's co-op feature with my little bro, and so far, it sucks.  It's incredibly disappointing to be given a game who's very premise is this vast open world with so much freedom, only to have a horribly linear experience replace it in the co-op.  Bunch of bull crap.

When will developers understand that if the whole allure of your game is a vast open world, then the wants and desires of your customer base will be to have co-op take place in that same world, in the same format.  Not some crappy, tacked on linear campaign, that gives you no freedom of movement.

In other news, I managed to convert another hapless soul to the awesomeness that is Invader Zim, so now J and I will be doing nothing but spouting quotes from that all day long, everyday.

more tardy tunes

Since I was busy fiddling with all sorts of things that were going technically awry on Saturday and Sunday  here's some tunes for you.

a whole lotta nothing

Since my bounteous booty arrived from Amazon, I really haven't been doing much at all other than reading.  I haven't been out, not playing video games, not even keeping up with the news at all.  So obviously I'm happy with that.

Though as a consequence to this inactivity, my short story is also suffering.  I did manage to pump out about four pages of much needed content, but I feel it's not my best, nor even very interesting writing at all.  So, I'm torn between touching it up, or simply re-writing that entire section from scratch, which in turn demotivates me to really write anything at all.  It's something I would really want to see finished sooner rather than later, but this being the most difficult portion of the story, and my free time taken up by distractions, I think the whole thing may end up taking a back seat for the time being.

That's is.  That's the whole post.  Yeah, I know.  Kind of cheap one, I agree.  But it's over.  Done.  Finito.  So, go home.  

I was going to make a post

But then the brown-clad Santa Claus-like book fairy made a deposit on my porch.  Good riddance world, hello escapism!

just everything else

Other than the horrendous new developments with my ear infection deciding it wants to reenact a larval birth from Aliens, it was actually a pretty good weekend.

I mentioned not too long ago about me going to The Leonardo to gawk at some dead people, who ended up being absent.  Well, after verifying that the cadavers had finally arrived, I went on a return trip to evaluate the exhibit.  Pretty fascinating stuff they had there.  The displays were very visually appealing and informative, and the entire excursion was excellent date-fodder (if she's in to those morbid kinds of things).

Sooooo cool.

Okay, so not much other than that happened.  The biggest thing of note to happen around here was that the janitor spilled a fair amount of a still-unidentified substance that disintegrated a good portion of carpet near my desk.

Worse than head-pigeons

So, I came down with an ear infection the other day, and I'm not quite back to fully functional just yet.  So, enjoy more belated music that I was supposed to post yesterday, while I drain the fluids from my head.

yeah, it's kinda like that.

Clocking out

Okay, apparently, it's the day after Valentines Day that sucks.  Your regularly scheduled programming will resume after today.

Take cover!

While everyone else take evasive action and runs for cover while screaming "Incoming!" to avoid cupid's merciless barrage of arrows this year, I'll be sitting in a lounge chair out in the open while asking "What incoming rounds? Where?" since it appears his arrows are magnetically repelled from me anyways.  Perhaps I should follow in Brigid's example and simply return fire.

Counter-battery this, you clothes-weary, winged love-sniper!

Update: So, I wrote the above post earlier in the morning, thinking today would be the annual day of bitter, suppressed anger for me as it usually is, but it seems fate had a different idea for me today.

Fist off, I was practically hand-fed a bunch of fruit all day, like a was effing hedonism bot or something.  Grapes, oranges, apples, but the crown jewel of 'em was the chocolate-covered strawberry I got from one of our VP's.

I should have put something next to it, to give you an impression of the sheer size of this thing.  

How I felt afterwards

Top that off with being able to crack a higher than average ratio of good jokes than usual (which made everyone laugh), it was a pretty good day.  Then, after work, I got to wish my wonderful Grandmother a happy 83rd birthday today.  That's 83 years of us being privileged enough to know her.  What a cool Valentines Day.

Oh, and if you're still feeling forever alone, go read another awesome post by Jennifer, who knocks it outta the park as usual.  I swear, she's another one who's like Tam, she is my Oprah.

the blammo blues

Was talking with the roomie yesterday, and he mentioned how he got a deal alert for a 50rd box of 9mm ammo that was going for the "great" price of $19.99.  WTF?  I remember just a couple months ago I could get a box of quality (ie. more expensive) 9mm for $12-13, but now 19.99 is a screaming deal for the cheap crap.  I hate this insane price gouging and ammo grabbing.  All I wanna do is stay fresh with three or four boxes a month, but doesn't look like that's happening, cause I can't find any ammo, and if I do, my wallet will get raped.  Yeah, I haven't been shooting since December.  I bet by the time I can afford/find ammo again, I'll  be so out of practice that I'll shoot my eye out.

But all is not lost!
For my other addiction has recently been satisfied again by going on another book binge that will surely give me some kind of arbor poisoning by the time I'm done.  This is because I had forgotten about the feature on Amazon that lets me buy used books from other retailers.  So, I ended up basting away all my cash on a myriad of new (to me) books, most of them were still in very good condition and are hardbacks to boot!  The only problem now is the ever present shipping fees that are far more expensive than the books. Here's a snippet of my cart, that snapped me back to reality and I reduced my order to about $65.

Yeah, I got a bit carried away there.  After trimming down the list to an appropriate price (almost in half), here's the list of stuff I got (with abbreviated titles where appropriate):

"My Tank Is Fight" by Zach Parsons
"After The revolution: Profiles In American Culture" by Joseph Ellis
Soldiers Of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Robert D. Kaplan
"Starship Troopers" by Robert Heinlein (yup.  never read it before)
"Almost America: From the Colonists To Clinton: A What If history of the US" by Steve Tally
"Aftermath" by Charles Sheffield
"Grumman F-14 Tomcat" by Lindsay Peacock (I used to have this book, and I think I have everything else this guy has written)
"Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the US Army" by Kayla Williams
"Parliament of Whores" by P.J. O'Rourke
"The Charm School" by Nelson DeMille
"Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America" by Cullen Murphy
"He Who Dares" by Michael Kennedy
"The Action Hero's Handbook" by David Borgenicht
"American Spartans" By James Warren
"Leviathan on the Right" by Michael Tanner
"The Ends of the Earth" by Robert Kaplan

I also took recent notice that in conversations about Cormac McCarthy's "The Road", people have an understandably hard time with that novel's grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure, which by all accounts are horrible.  The story is an instant classic, very emotional, and engrossing, but difficult to get into for the average reader.  So, for those people, I medically recommend the film adaptation for your cinematic well being.

My wanton eyes

So, being the sad, and very poor gun-nut that I am, I regularly browse the selection of stuff scattered across gunbroker.com for anything that interests me.  Lo and behold, yesterday I stumbled upon the holy trinity of Gunbroker listings.  First in this trifecta of awesome, was the rarest of all the rare .50 cals:

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=328849727

Yeah, that's right.  A bullpup M82.  I knew these things existed, but I've never seen or even heard of one for sale, or even being on the civilian market for that matter.  Check out that cool sabot round he's got with it as well.

As amazing as that is, I don't think it holds a candle to the next thing I saw:  A .45 ACP MP5!  Yeah. You read that correctly.  Let those words seep in to give you the full mind explosion.  The listing isn't clear on what feeds this thing, because I'm really curious as to what kind of mags it takes.  I wouldn't be surprised if it was M3 grease gun mags that were modified, or something like that.

The best part is that it's a registered sear full auto submachine gun as well! 

Here's a closeup of the markings in case you don't believe me.

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=328829651

Last but nowhere near least is the ultimate in off road vehicular manslaughter (eat your heart out, Ford Earthf**ker!).  It's like having your own little piece of Red Dawn.

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=329184487

So somebody please, go out and buy these, so I'm not tempted to take out a back ally style mafia loan for these, or something like that.

Mummyless

Forgot to mention that on Saturday I finally managed to make my way downtown to visit The Leonardo for the first time.  I was privileged enough to take a nice young woman along and enjoy a good amount of time there.  From what I was told about the place I was always given the impression that it was like a mini-Exploratorium for Salt Lake, and well, it pretty much is (except it's in a building that's nowhere near as cool).  Overall it was pretty fun, with some interesting displays, though I will say that I was quite disappointed by a couple of somewhat minor things.

First off, the whole reason I went is that they were touting up and down on TV, radio, and billboards that they have a large new temporary exhibit on mummies.  Cool, right?  Well, I think it would have worked out better for them if they had the exhibit ready when their advertising said it was, so in the end , there were no mummies to be had.  However, I don't think this will stop me from going there again once they do have them on display.

Secondly, although there was some fun and interesting interactive displays, I think it could really benefit from a much larger number of them, as it seemed pretty sparse for such a large project.  As cool as those displays were, no only could they benefit from more of them, but almost all of them were focused on the arts, and I would have loved to see a lot more that are focused on science.  That, and it seemed a couple of the displays were unfinished or just weren't working.

To sum up, they are really on to something with this place, despite a few minor setbacks.  I think they really need to develop this place to include more interactive science exhibits, so that there are just as much of them as those that are focused on the arts.  I've already planned on going again next Saturday to see how the mummy exhibit goes down.

A long one

Ah, good 'ol Dvorak.  Can't wait to go to the concert.

Dvorak-Cello Concerto in b minor Op. 104 (Complete)

We have bacon flavor too!

Ah, I love my job.  I come in this morning, and what do I behold?  A pancake breakfast with bacon, sausage, hash browns, and homemade syrups!  So nice to know they are so accommodating to my stereotypical fat American lifestyle.

Not only that, but now we have a whole flavored syrup bar in the back to make Mountain Dew mixers with. So far my favorite is the blackberry flavored dew, though raspberry, strawberry, and cherry mixed with mango all make a pretty good case for themselves.  I swear this place is trying to fatten me up for the alien harvest of my internal organs.

As for the relative radio silence around here, it's because I've really been throwing myself into my new copy of "Hoser here...Shoot!".  I've only had a few short minutes to get into it, but I've already been rolling around laughing so hard that I'm in pain.  Pilot humor is the best humor, as it the most politically incorrect as you can get.  So, it's needless to say that I highly recommend this one.

Help, I'm stepping into the...

I love the fog.  Love it.  So, imagine the joy on face as I leave work yesterday, and I find that the road looks like this:

It was so nice, I had to drive around for a few minutes just to soak in the atmosphere of cruising around in the fog.  The whole time pretending when I take a glance in the rear view mirror, I can see Rod Serling staring back at me.

What's even better is that it got much thicker than that after I took the picture, but I couldn't get another shot of it, as my phone's battery was dying. 

awash in a sea of books

Oh, no.  It has finally happened.  What with all the political hang wringing and the fallout of impulse buying as of late, guns and ammo have practically tripled in price, and availability is at an all time low.  It comes at a rather frustrating time, since I still have two relatively new 9mm pistols, but I find myself completely out of any suitable practice ammo.  I still have 150 rounds of TUL ammo around, but it's not the premium with techron that my Jericho demands (well, I could shoot it, but I'll have a failure to eject every few rounds).

However, it appears that I do have a little more money floating around, just not enough to satisfy one of my loves, so now I've decided to start blowing it all on that other mistress of mine: books.  Just bought two of the nerdiest books I could possibly find last week; I've already finished one, and am now working on the other.

Yep, believe it or not, the Iranians have schooled us in Tomcat usage.

No, I haven't been watching The Final Countdown or Speed and Angels again....not at all.

After finishing the first book, I quickly started a wish list on Amazon.com for all the other books I'm really itching for.  I'll go ahead and admit right now that a vast majority of them were mentioned by Tam.  It seems she has almost the exact same taste in books that I do, since all the books she's mentioned that don't make it to my wish list are ones that I've either read or already own, so she is my Oprah, it seems.

So sleepy

Just kinda wiped out today.  Regular posting will resume in the near future.  Like, tomorrow.  I hope.

I think I see a plane over here with my name on it

Just re-watched one of my favorite aviation films, which also has one of my favorite soundtracks.  

Bill Conti - The Right Stuff Soundtrack - Yeager's Triumph

Used in one one of the most epic and manly scenes in any film.

Forget taking a bite of the Big Apple...

...it can bite me.

I never liked New York.  Never saw the appeal.  Went there once to conduct some business and see the sights, but that curiosity wore off so fast, I ended up spending most of my time in Jersey, which I don't regret.  As nice as Jersey was, I spent most of the days just washing off the layer of film off my body that accumulated while I was across the river.  So, of course I had to throw in my two cents after reading another all-star post by Tam.  Go read, then you'll get my comments.

I swear, every single time I read something that woman posts, I'm reminded that if I ever meet a woman like her, I'm gonna have to break record speeds to slap a ring on that, cause it'll totally be worth it.

Jeez, I need to dial the fanboy-stalker meter down a bit, don't I?