Category Archives: Uncategorized

Not happy with the Kindles.

The Amazon Kindle Reader.  We’ve got 3 of them at Ogre Ranch.  All three of them are DOA.  Floating belly up.  Circling the drain.  They are Late Kindles.  The Spark of Kindle Life is extinguished.

Each one was working fine… and then just stopped powering on, waking up, or whatever the thing does – it’s not doing it anymore.  No blunt force trauma to them.  No immersion in fluids.  Nothing was done to them… they just stopped working.

Anyone know what we can do with these Dead Kindles?

When I buy one for myself… I think I’m going to have to go with the B&N Nook.

Round Count

Let me start by saying this… Round count doesn’t matter.  When you bring in a gun to trade in, the store doesn’t need the full Biography of the gun.  We don’t need to hear the round count.  I don’t care that you only had 1 magazine fired through it.  You only fired 1 box so it’s practically brand new.  That’s all meaningless.  I had a guy that swore he only fired 3 rounds out of his Ruger revolver.  Doesn’t matter.  A.  People lie about that big time… and B.  Firearms don’t have Odometers on them.  Unlike the value of a Car, the value of a gun doesn’t factor the number of rounds fired.  Not at all.

What we do care about is CONDITION.  In fact, that’s practically all that matters.  Unless you have a gun that was NEVER fired and is in PERFECT and FLAWLESS condition, then maybe.  But that almost never happens, so it’s moot.    On just about any gun, firing some rounds is going to effect the condition a little.  Most guns go from 100% to 98% almost instantly.  After that, they could stay there for awhile at 98 for good long time of careful handling.  Most guns tend to be 95%.  This effects the value more drastically.

Now when you bring in a gun, and it’s 95%, say it’s worth X amount of dollars according to the book.  That’s the Max we could sell it for.  We have to make some money on that gun, so we are going to give you less than that.  About half, because we have to mark it up, but keep it less than a brand new gun by a margin that would still let the gun move instead of people saying “Well, I’d just buy the gun new.”  Don’t be offended if your baby doesn’t bring the big bucks you wanted.  It’s nothing personal.  And your beautifully crafted, bitter-sweet story isn’t going to raise the value either.  Come on, if the gun meant so much to you, why the hell are you trading it in?  Don’t be thick. If your Baby is worth so much – then sell it yourself.   You know you are going to take a hit on value if you trade it.  If we gave people what they wanted for a trade in gun – Used guns would cost double what New guns would cost.  We can’t sell a used gun that’s priced outside of it’s Book Value.  The store ends up sitting on them for years until they are finally marked down to Give Away prices just to get rid of the things.

So no, Sir.  I’m not going to give you twelve hundred bucks for your late Grandfather’s WWI Ruger Mini-14 with a Simmons scope on top.

The Bosnian Embassy Attack

The big Embassy attack that has people up in arms…. WTF was that?  Guy with an AK rattles off some rounds at the Embassy then just walks around for half an hour waiting for someone to shoot him.

With all those cops around there… it took half an hour to engage the guy with an AK.  Are they serious?

Buck 110 Ecolite

Remember me talking about this knife… like back in the Spring?  Well the order I put in for one never showed up so I did a One Click order on Amazon.com and bam.  I finally have it in my ogerish paws.

The Buck 110 Folding Hunter is the lock-blade knife that legitimized folding knives for any serious use.  It wasn’t the first, but it was at the time the best.  Good sized clip point blade, good steel, and a solid lock that just flat out works.  It was the Folder to have for years.

Now the Buck 110 is still popular among the Outdoorsmen, but the Tactical community looks askance at it. It is heavy.  It is shiny.  It doesn’t have a pocket clip, assisted opening mechanism, or any gadget or do-dad to make it tacticool.  It’s simply a knife.  And that’s what I like about it.

The Ecolite version (I got the green one – don’t be shocked) fixes two of the 110’s major complaints from the Tactical Guys.  It’s not shiny and its not heavy.  I do wish it had a pocket clip, but I can live without it.  I mean, don’t we have enough pockets and pouches and things we can carry it in?  If not, it comes with its own.  It’s nylon and black and can be worn vertically or horizontally.   It’s a little off the beaten path for those that want to be Contractor Cool, but it’s worth looking at.  Why?  I’m seeing the Buck 110 as being the edged equivalent of the 1911.  It’s a pioneer and its still every bit as good now as it was back in the day.  In fact, the day is far from over for both of these classics.

The 110 Ecolite is sporting handles made of what Buck is called Paperstone.  It’s a strong compound material that looks handsome, and really does keep the knife light.  It might, I dare say, it even makes the knife more useful, as one is going to be less prone to leave the at home and use something else.  And don’t think it’s too large. That’s crap. Your cell phone is probably the size of four of these knives.

I really like the knife.  Wish I had it a lot sooner.

 

Higher Capacity, Lighter Recoil

The biggest arguments for the 9mm are that the guns have higher capacity and they have less recoil, and this lets shooters hit more and faster.  Okay.  Let’s take that at face value.  So if that’s good, let’s take it to the next step.

Super High Capacity .32 Autos.

Why the hell not?  Even less felt recoil with even higher capacity!   I mean, hell, why shoot a zombie 5 times when you can hit him 9 times!  Imagine your Aim Fast Hit Fast scores!  Come on, don’t be a wuss… it’s all about SHOT PLACEMENT man.  You know that.

Game of Thrones

I’ve been reading George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones series.  As far as High Fantasy goes… I have to tell you, it is the best I’ve ever read.
The characters are well developed, believeable, and will do unexpected things. Trying to predict what will happen next is an unsuccessful effort.   What happens to the characters will have you shocked, cheering, or saying “you can’t do that!”
I understand its. TV series on HBO. I look forward to getting it on DVD dome day.

Chromed out

Since the early days of Mozilla, I had always been a supporter.  To the point of donating over 200 dollars to the foundation for further development.  I used to use the Mozzila suite, and finally converted to Firefox after that became the big thing…. And I faithfully used it… Until recently.
I found myself growing tired of Firefoxes bloat and memory issues and sudden tantrums and crashes.  So I once again looked at Chrome, and I looked at it hard.   No bloat. No memory leaks. No crashing. It just worked.
I found myself using Chrome more and more, and Firefox less and less… Then I realized that I don’t use Firefox anymore.
Looking foreward to Chrome for the Android.

The Gun Dudes and Goatees

I think the Gun Dudes are just awesome… But they don’t have Goatees.  It’s a well known fact that Goatees make a man shoot better.  At the MAG-40 Class, Carl was trying to grow one out.  But he started too late so he only had a Proto-Goatee.  Which wasn’t enough to help him.  We hope he continues to grow it out.  He’d had out-shot Gail if he had a full power Goat going on.

Check out the latest Gun Dudes Podcast here:
http://www.gundudes.com/Home_Page_ETY8.html
What’s awesome about this one, is that they have a great interview with Joe Chetwood, aka “Gundoc”, and the head honcho of CRUSADER WEAPONRY. These guys are having too much fun, you can hear it. Listen to this show, you wont be disappointed!

The Best SciFi Flicks

Sunshine.
Alien/Aliens.
Event Horizon.
Pitch Black.
The Matrix.
Dune.
Blade Runner.
Serenity.
Cowboy Bebop.
These are my favorite SciFi flix, all for the same reasons. They all have something in common.  They each create a new universe… Some, like Sunshine, do it in a very subtle manner… Others like Dune, do it overtly and hit you over the head with it.  I think if I was going to teach a class on Science Fiction, these movies would be foundational on “World Building”.
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t the end all of a movie list… These are just my favorites… And in my opinion, must see movies.  If you haven’t seen one of these movies, you are indeed wrong.  Clarification on Dune… It needs to be the Alan Smithee version.  The original director cut too much out. Aliens, has to be the extended version. And with Blade Runner, don’t get the Director’s Cut, get the Original, with Harrison Ford’s voiceovers.
I like the darker stories… That’s just me. Bright shiney ones, like the new Star Trek film… Just fine. But I prefer darker stuff.
I also like the SciFi to leave some things unexplained.  Like future technologies… Show them, but don’t try to explain it to the audience. Characters wouldn’t explain things to each other… Unless the tech was brand new to that universe and it being paramount to the telling of the story.
Give the technology some limitation.  See, SciFi has technology like Fantasy has magic.  I don’t want to see tech or magic being the answer for everything.  The future tech and universe is just the setting and framework a good story is written upon.