Just to get you and me through the day

I love my job.  More specifically, I love the IT portion of my job.  However, another good portion of my time it moonlighting as an administrative assistant, which can get tiresome rather quickly.  So, I have to find ways that I can have my fun.  Like the following email string between me and our programming manager regarding the most simple of tasks:

From: StGrendel 

Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2013 10:52 AM
To: Boss Dude
Subject: You have been chosen

There comes a time in every man’s life that forces them to dig deep and find the true extent of their courage, bravery, resolve, determination, conviction, and dare I say, heroism.  You have events transpiring this month which may test your limits, and you may find yourself going above and beyond the call of duty. 

I hereby affirm that there are two assignments that have been issued to you, that you may find to be more than challenging.  First and foremost, is that there is a mission to commence revelry for the anniversary of your deployment into the mortal realm, and it falls upon you select a location to assault with said revelry, and plunder it’s edible components.  This will have an invigorating effect upon morale of the unit as a whole, and individually.

Secondly, and less glamorously (but no less important!), is the monthly duties of the fridge and microwave cleaning.  This mission is especially crucial to the operation of the company as a whole, and you have been trusted to ensure the destruction of any unauthorized mess associated with these areas of operation, so that others may live.

I cannot stress enough the importance of completing these objective in a timely manner.  Upon completion of these objectives, may you feel the accomplishment of making a difference and being an exceptional part of this great brotherhood, with the possibility of getting a freaking medal.  Thank you.

_______

From: Boss Dude
Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2013 10:55
To: StGrendel
Subject: RE: You have been chosen

What the hell?

Victims of Communism Day

Help make this date become a day for remembrance.

I am a very vocal person when it comes to my hatred of communism and socialism.  I think this rare outspoken tendency stems from the fact that I had/have a rabid fascination with history while growing up.  I was always taught year after year in history classes about how heinous the holocaust was, how terrible WWI was, and the horrible reality of FDR concentration camps for Japanese Americans.

These are all very important things to learn about, but when it comes to communism, there is barely any mention of it's crimes at all in any of my schooling.  The only reason I knew from a very early age about the greatness of the lie of communism, is because my lust for reading about history in general.  I was rather shocked that this wasn't taught in schools, considering communism has ended more lives than every other totalitarian regime combined since it's creation.

Hence why I could never understand the inexplicable amount of people either attending or working at school who idolize such people as che -a**hole- geuevara.  Because the only good commie....ah, you know the rest. Anyways, here's a couple links to some cool and learned people who make a much better point of it than I:

The Volokh Conspiracy: Victims of Communism Day

The Smallest Minority and his post on the topic

Window shopping

So, because I can't afford to even buy one gun a year, I consider myself to be one of the relatively poor people.  There are far too many somewhat affordable, high quality rifles that are just out of my reach.  I suppose if I wanted to own an AR, I could slowly build one, but I've never been inclined to own one, nor am I that patient.  So, the only thing I can do in this economy which prevents me from even making a casual purchase of ammo, is to sit and drool over everything I feel is mandatory for me to own at some point in the near future.

So, I figure I would compile a list of all the guns, that given a few less expenditures (or heaven forbid, a raise), that are just out of reach for the time being, and why I'd really want one.  I may have mentioned most of these ones individually on here before, but here's the definitive list of semi affordable options:

The PTR 32 - Okay, so this one isn't really that cheap at all, but I've always wanted an HK that doesn't think I suck or hate me. That, and ammo prices are almost always somewhat reasonable with 7.62x39mm.

Ruger Mk II - Everyone should own a semi-auto .22, and it's near inexcusable that I don't.  Yeah, I know there is a MkIII, but the 2 still seems to be the one I want.

Sumoi M31/KP31 - the semi-auto replicas of these suckers are just way too cool to pass up.  That, and I can pretend I'm a fat Max Manus if I had one.

any lever action carbine in .357 mag - have you seen the velocities from that round out of a 16 in barrel?  It's pretty darned impressive.

Mosin Nagant - Yeah, the cheapest, most powerful gun you can possibly own for under $100, and I still don't have one.  Pretty sad when I'm even more destitute than the communists.

an AK-74 type rifle - Couple cheap ammo prices, similar velocity and trajectory to 5.56, incredibly high ballistic coefficient, along with minor armor piercing qualities, and it makes a 5.45mm rifle a must.   Though, it is hard to find a high quality 5.45 rifle that isn't an AR, while still being affordable; since the largest purveyor of 5.45 AK knockoffs in America are the drunken retarded monkeys (a.k.a. century arms).   Dang, I miss my old AK.

Winchester 1897 - Let's face it, few shotguns are cooler than the original pump action.

Uberti 1858 New Army Conversion - I blame the spaghetti westerns for the initial interest, but the ammo shortage has proven that no matter how scarce ammo is, everyone always seems to have a just a little bit of .45 Long Colt laying around.

Smith & Wesson M1917 - Because it's God's own caliber in a revolver, and was used by Indiana Jones.

CZ-52  I am very intrigued by the capabilities of the round it fires, and it totally looks like it's straight out of a 1930's science fiction comic.

I'm like a disease

Being next to the only water cooler on this side of the building, I get a lot of people stopping by.  Being the cynical, pessimistic person I am, I hate people; this makes visits a bit more awkward.  Today, in particular, I had a visit from a woman who works in the department next door.  She is one of those stereotypically attractive, intelligent, charming and upbeat, young women who is a good amount of fun to talk to, because I counter balance those attributes pretty well.  I particularly love giving her a hard time, as she was under the delusion that I would be especially susceptible to her charm, that I may more easily assist her in circumventing the system.  So naturally, I have to make life more difficult for her.  

Today she came by the water cooler, and didn't even give me the usual courtesy greeting, which was rather surprising.  I asked what was up and she replied, "Oh nothing.  I'm just fed up with people."   

"Wait, what? You?" I asked

"Well, I think I just hate people now.  Every time I have people calling me asking why I don't do things with them anymore, and I just have to tell them it's because I don't like them anymore.  I'd rather just sit at home than be with people." 

To which I said, "Oh my gosh!  When did you become like me?  Now we can share everything!  We should really hang out more."

Yup.  People skills.  I have 'em.

Cartridge conundrums

It's a shame.  I absolutely love my Jericho, but it really -and I mean REALLY- hates steel cased ammunition.    Bad.  Naturally, the Roomie and my boss and their H und K-loving kind is laughing at this situation.

Being the cheap-shot that I am, steel cased TUL was the only thing I had off hand to shoot with when I first fired the gun.  I put about 200 rounds through the thing and just watched it jam and jam again.  Lots of different little failures were going on: failures to feed, stovepiping, slide not seating properly.  I thought forever, wondering if there was a problem with the magazines, the spring, if I overlooked something while cleaning, or if the extractor had issues.

However, after a second trip to the range just a few days later (without cleaning the gun either), I loaded up with about 250 rounds of cheap brass cased ammo of various brands, and I had almost no malfunctions at all.

Granted, this problem is solely my fault for not reading up on what food this baby likes before buying it, but I still find it a bit disappointing.  Now, I'm just curious though.  I'm wondering if I got a better extractor and an aftermarket barrel, if it would make my gun more agreeable to the steel stuff.  I'm gonna have to do a little research to see if there are any modifications I can do to make it more agreeable to the steel.  In the end, I'm still using nothing but the good stuff for defense, and have plenty of mags loaded with Hydra-Shok; but all I want is to be able to do some cheap target practice in the meantime.

Also, it would be nice if I could find some ammo to try out my CZ mags that I got for 'em.

yet another musical interlude

Taking a bit of a different approach with the tune of the week, because.....well, because I can.  That and it's Adventure Time!

ITs A+ living

There are times when I feel pretty good at my job, but then there are times like last week, where I'm messing up and feeling like I'm really terrible at it.  Thankfully, I had a bit of a pick me up throughout the week.  Three people in as many days told me that I was the only one in my department who seems like they want to help and actually does so in a timely manner.  That helped me feel a lot better.

In other news, it's a Friday, and Fridays are often so darn slow because my job revolves around solving other people's problems, but there's barely any people that show up on that day.  So, I expect the day is gonna be full of a whole lot of meetings, nothing, and meetings about nothing because our boss wants to make us look busy.  We usually end up following him around the company doing this.

Busy week o work

Tonight I'll be looking forward to seeing some of the most awesome episodes of The Next Generation with J and the roomie for the one night only screening at the theater.  Other than that, can't really say much about the day, due to nothing of interest really happening yet.

Because I'm having a really hard time coming up with subjects to blog about, allow me to cheat by referring you once again to someone who has leaned to speak only when it is full of teh awesome.  So go read these.  Pronto.  it's good for your soul.

There Is No Such Thing as 'Gun Rights'
There Is No Such Thing as 'Gun Control'

There's a vast list of blogs I regularly read which are almost daily haunts for me, but Jennifer is certainly one that is on the short list of people who I can say I'm a serious fanboy of.   This shortlist includes:

Tam - the queen of all snarkiness and nerd-dom
Brigid - wow...just...wow
Roberta - anyone who enjoys living with the queen of snark must be cool
Larry Corria - well established local who is successful for good reasons
Breda - heck, we even named the dog after her!
Rob Allen - never ceases to be quotable

Come to think of it, it's been a while since I've updated my links over there on the left-hand sidebar, and there's a bunch more people I need to add to it.  I should also get over my laziness and get them a bit more organized while I'm at it.  Oh well, maybe after some Star Trek.

convos at work

Talking with everyone in my department about the lack of availability in regards to ammunition, when Lance mentioned an acquaintance of his offered to buy a portion of his meager supply of ammo.  To which he said, "The only way anyone is leaving my house with my ammo is if it's inside them!"
I couldn't help but quip, "Okay, do you provide the balloon, or is it a BYOB thing?"

internet, meet your new favorite dish

Bacon wrapped, steak fajita chimichangas.  Yeah.  You heard right.  Did I just give you a mind explosion?  Nacho House.  Go.  Enjoy.  It's good for your soul.  Though, possibly not for your arteries.  Oh, and you can get chicken ones, too.

Covered in a white cheese sauce, too.  Sheer bliss.

After finishing our meal of epic quality, being IT guys, the topic quickly switched over to hacking.  J brought up specifically the multiple hackathons that are held at various venues every year.

J: "I think I just really like saying that word.  Hackathon.  It just sounds cool."
Me: "Sounds to me like what you'd describe a serial killer convention as."