Wow, look at me...

...consistently forgetting to post good music every week.  Shame on me.  So, I've never seen this opera, but I do really enjoy this song.  I'll have to see if the USUO are planning a production at some point.

"Que te importa que no venga" from the zarzuela "Los claveles" by Jose Serrano

why no kosher?

I have been trying to share the love that is the two massive bags of BBQ pork jerky I bought at Costco with the rest of my coworkers today, but they all either refuse, or say they don't like it without even trying it.  Sheesh!  Come on, people!  It's BBQ, it's pork, and it's jerky; I mean what's not to like here?

I tried giving some to my coworker Lance, but he just told me that he doesn't even like pork.  My response was thus,  "Are you kidding me?!  This stuff is considered unclean in over seven cultures!  It's practically guaranteed to be good!" 

visitations

Looks like I'll be having company over this weekend, and I'll have to do the usual cleanup that at least makes it seem like I'm not a complete hobo slob of doom.  Thankfully, I did do a lot of cleaning over the last weekend, so now both my apartment and I smell like like an unholy combination of bleach and shame, while being much more presentable.

It's also the birthday of a friend of mine, I find myself woefully unprepared as I had totally forgotten about it until being reminded about it just last night.  Some friend I am.  Looks like I's have to make up for it by getting one heck of a late present.  The sad part is that this is the second friend of mine who's birthday I have completely missed and/or forgotten about in a short amount of time.  I am really terrible at remembering this kind of crap.

I am you from the future...

...there's no time to explain!

Okay, so despite not having enough of a grasp on my short term memory to even make sense of the present, I realize I've been making more and more plans for the near future.  The Roomie, J, and I all have recently bought IMAX tickets to the showings of Star Trek TNG, Iron Man 3, and the new Trek movie.  Then next month will be even busier, as I'll be with the family going on train rides, seeing the symphony, among many other activities.  So, yeah.  Lots on the horizon.

In the here and now, however, is still some good stuff.  Like I just got myself a copy of Freakonomics from the family after they perused my wishlist.  I can't wait to sink my bookworm's fangs into it, but I can't forget that I owe the family some songs of praises.

it's back on

Okay, sorry for the rant in my last post.  I just had to post something to get that off my chest, or I'd end up starting a genocide of politicians.  Well, then again, I don't think "genocide" is the right word, since that implies you're killing people, and innocent people at that.  Anyways, enough about Washington's vermin infestation.

As for me, well let me tell you.  Monday was one of those mornings when I woke up with the tail end of some food poisoning or some such, the kind where your stomach is doing flip-flops, and the rest of your body is refusing to believe that one part of it is not ready for the day.  Once I actually had a chance to be up and about in the late afternoon, I saw that it was cloudy and raining all day.  It's just my luck that I would wake up sick on one of the nicest days of the year.

Thankfully, I was feeling a bit more confident after downing half an economy sized bottle of pepto, and now it seems today is fairing much better.  That, and I can totally start my day off with hot coco with a shot of gingerbread syrup.  Yum!  I dunno what's better, the coco, or my Aperture Science mug.

Don't think I ever showed what was on the other side.

It's official

The government is no longer by or for the people anymore.  Now, I'm all for downsizing government, but every time they do it, they always cut the only bits I'm willing to pay taxes for.  Like the recent news that the Air Force will no longer be flying demonstrations by The Thunderbirds any longer.

Yeah, screw the people who paid for this stuff, because that's always a smart move.

Like I've already said, I'm all for shrinking government, but the one thing I'm willing to pay even exorbitant amounts of money for, is the defense of our nation.  More specifically, to maintain the readiness and training standard that so many have sacrificed to maintain and that history has proven valid time and time again.  Large budget weapon systems often give us an edge, but far more important is the training of our forces, and the relationship they have with the public, that their most valued resource (the people) is not lost in the future.  Public relations is what ensures that

What I find funny is that despite this "sequestration", some of the big-budget weapon systems (like the bull-crap money hole that is the F-35) are still being developed, but then all the training budgets have been slashed, making those same systems near-worthless in both the short and long term.

Worthwhile technologies squandered on a completely worthless airframe.

Here's an idea, why not cut the budget for the President's bi-monthly vacations that are often spent on the taxpayer's dime (and often cost more than some military training missions)?  Or, how about cutting the insanely bloated paychecks our congressmen are getting?  Or, better yet, actually place better oversight on procurement programs (see the recent boondoggles that are the tanker and light strike aircraft), and axe all the stupid worthless fluff like the TSA, ATF, the Border Patrol (something the military should be doing anyways), that POS healthcare bill that no one apparently read before passing, and crap like the federally funded studies by collage students that look at why men like boobs (cause we don't need a study done to know the answer to that one).

So, in short, eff you congress, the house, and the president.  While you give lip service to us about sacrifice, you still sit on exorbitant paychecks, and squander our money on programs nobody wants.  I hope you feel the consequences of your actions, and that you are not only left with no one to support you, but that you may feel nothing but hated and reviled for the rest of your lives.  Being spat upon should be nicest gesture anyone extends to you. 

The search for stuff (more money)

Well, thanks to a number of games I play, along with a bunch more I discovered because of Steam Greenlight, I am in the market for a much better joystick.  The logitech one I have now has served me quite well for more casual or arcade-ish type games like BF1942 and BF2 (heck, did pretty well in IL-2 as well), but it just doesn't cut it any more for the more detailed stuff like Strike fighters 2, LO:MAC, and the myriad of others I'm wanting to try in the near future.

My current setup.  Reliable, but pretty basic.

The problem is that there is a serious dirth of good, mid-range control sticks out there.  There's simply cheap ones for under $50 (like my current one), an then there are the mega-expensive pro models that are $300-500 a pop.  As far as mid range models (the $100-150 range, that includes a throttle control) goes, there are only two choices, and they are both made by the same company (saitek/mad catz) and are simply different variants of each other.  Though they seem to be of a high quality, I am rather frustrated by their styling and button layout.

I really like the throttle control on it, but I hate the ergo and button layout of the  actual control stick.

Why in the world is there no mid-range priced options that have a simple, realistic looking type control stick?  I mean, I'm not looking for one made of aircraft grade aluminum or carbon fiber, or officially licensed by the air force or anything like that.  I just want something affordable ($100-200), that has a rudder axis, a dual throttle piece to go with it, and the styling and button layout like so:

Actual control stick for the AV-8B+

Ha! Last laugh!

For me, it's the pointless things in life.

Now that enough time has passed to have most of the bugs patched out of it, I recently bought Strike Fighters 2 North Atlantic.  Mostly just because I've really been dying to try a carrier landing in the game.  Since I had plenty of practice landing at airfields, the basics were plenty easy, but the game certainly captures the nerve wracking aspects of the approach: nothing but water as far as the eye can see, hand constantly on the throttle to make adjustments, or pour on the power in case of a bolter, the carrier barely visible until you're right on top of it, all while approaching at ridiculous speeds.  Quite the situation, but I still managed to land a nice number two wire right on my first try!  Cool.

while I was gone

So, over the weekend I forgot to mention that I made a quick trip to the local zoo with the roomie, J and his kid.  It's been a while since I had been there, and we picked perhaps the worst time to go, as most of the place was undergoing renovations.  Still had a great time, but like the unprepared fool I am, I forgot to take a camera with me, so no snapshots of that.

One thing that shocks me when I go there, is just how close tigers and wolves are to their domesticated counterparts.  On reflection of this fact, we practically kicked ourselves for not bringing a laser pointer there.  Just imagine a giant 200 lb feline death machine tearing around it's cage like a house cat while trying chase after one of those!

I imagine it to be a lot like this

In other news, I'm finally stopping my nearly two and a half month hiatus from writing that cursed short story that I was having trouble with.  I really needed a fresh pair of eyes going into it, and that wasn't going to happen with my mind consumed with all the stuff I had already written.

The only bad part of this, was that when I tried to go back to proofread what I'd written, I found that over half of my story was somehow deleted, which sent me into a near blood-rage mode for a minute, until I remembered where I had saved another copy.  I'm still a bit jaded by it, considering that I know I've made improvements and added more to that portion of the story after I had saved that particular backup, so I'm sure those bits will forever be lost to the non-functioning parts of my memory.

In the meantime, I'm rediscovering the joy of simultaneously writing the last bits of the story while fine tuning the grammar and sentence structure of the existing parts to enhance readability (wow, maybe I should try that with the blog sometime?).  It proved so hard to write the portion right before the climax of the story, as I really didn't want a whole lot to happen in the world around my character.  I was hoping for more to be going on in his mind as opposed to around him, but due to a lack of imagination on my part, it's not going to end up that way, which I found a bit disappointing  but kind of inevitable.  We'll see how it turns out.

What am I doing here?

So, a few months back, my Mom got in touch with me saying that an acquaintance of hers was thinking of buying a gun for concealed carry.  From what I recall the woman wasn't completely new to shooting, but was still a new-er shooter, as she was asking for help on what kind of gun to buy.  She contacted my Mom for help, who in turn asked for my input (kind of redundant since my Mom's advice was nearly the same).  I remember throwing all the usual advice out there, such as:

- Feel free to take other's advice, but ultimately it's your choice, get what feels right to you.
- Don't take anyone's word for it, always try it before you buy it.
- If you're looking for a gun to keep around the house, just get a rifle.  If you're truly going to be concealing, get something compact and above all, lightweight.
- Also, if you're concealing, make sure you get a proper holster for the job, that completely covers the trigger and guard.
- Remember: snub nose revolvers kick much more, making them less pleasant to practice with, they don't carry as many rounds as most automatics, and for most people, they're harder to be proficient with.

So, a while later my Mom got in touch with me, and mentioned what her friend had chosen, and said to buckle up for some disappointing news.  Against all input, she chose a snub nose, featherweight .38 revolver.  Never even test fired it as far as I know.  Total facepalm moment.

Now, I will say that a revolver isn't a bad option, but why would you go for one of those when you could get something that has a larger magazine, is faster to reload (for the average shooter), has much more pleasant and tolerable recoil, and costs about the same?  I just don't get it.

To me it's like shelling out $400 for an Apple iphone 64GB, when you could have gotten a Samsung Galaxy SII (that already has better hardware) for $100, then simply get a 64GB memory card for $50.  Just wasting money because of ignorance.

Perhaps there is much more to the story than what met my ear, so maybe I'm just being overly sensitive and perhaps she does love practicing with those annoying little revolvers.  Perhaps I was totally in the wrong (which I would be happy to hear that), but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit disappointed when I initially heard it.