Trick or Tree!

Get Carving!

Hayride!

Pistol-Caliber Crappiness

Jon kicked my ass in Pistol Caliber Carbine, naturally. No video because we were the last two left on the range for three of the stages; not gonna waste your time on the one stage we did film... it was interrupted by a catastrophic bad jam* that took more brains (Braaaaainsssss!) and muscles than mine to clear. (*Update: I now know what "catastrophic" really is.)

The Rock River conversion gun is a fun, accurate little toy, but I won't be taking it to next month's ACTS match as I'd planned. Something about having a round get stuck back in the receiver really degrades my trust in the weapon.

Willie and Joe Revisited

Monday Memery

Serr8d at The Cutting Edge suggested a meme to try now that I'm back under the watchful eye of G00gle:

"I’d like to suggest a meme, where the premise is that you will attempt to find 5 statements, which if you were to type into G00gle (preferably G00gle.com, but we’ll take the other country specific ones if need be), you’ll find that you are returned with your blog as the number one hit."

(Above edited to prevent G00gle from G00gling G00gle.) The first five I tried worked well enough:

Gunly Goodness
Fertography
Halloween 3-Gun
Goddess of Acceleration
4ria 6iovanni (heh)

Cactus Halloween: Vampires, Zombies, and Werewolves, Oh My!

MINIMUM ROUNDS: 33 (20 CARBINE AND 12 PISTOL) AND 2 STAKES

TARGETS: SIXTEEN (16) USPSA PAPER TARGETS AND ONE (1) RIFLE PLATE

START POSITION: SEATED ON CHAIR, BOTH KNEES UNDERNEATH TABLE, HANDS ON TABLE HOLDING STAKES AND MALLET. CARBINE IS LOADED AND STAGED IN COFFIN NEXT TO V1, AND PISTOL IS LOADED AND STAGED IN COFFIN NEXT TO V2.

PROCEDURE: ON SIGNAL, MOVE TO V1 AND NEUTRALIZE BY POUNDING STAKE INTO V1 WITH MALLET. VAMPIRE IS NEUTRALIZED WHEN STAKE IS POUNDED UP TO MARK ON THE STAKE. RECOVER CARBINE AND ENGAGE T1 – T10 AND RP1 FROM BEHIND FAULT LINE. SAFELY GROUND CARBINE ON TABLE AND THEN MOVE TO V2 AND NEUTRALIZE VAMPIRE WITH SECOND STAKE USING THE SAME PROCEDURE AS USED FOR V1. RECOVER PISTOL FROM COFFIN NEXT TO V2 AND ENGAGE T11 – T16 FROM BEHIND FAULT LINE. PAPER REQUIRES TWO (2) HITS TO NEUTRALIZE.


Usually I can count on Jon when I want to keep a stage video short. He cruised through this one, save for a painful encounter with a stage prop.

Cactus Halloween: Bad Candy

MINIMUM ROUNDS: 36 (26 CARBINE AND 10 PISTOL)

TARGETS: SIXTEEN (16) USPSA PAPER TARGETS AND FOUR (4) HEAD AND SHOULDER PLATES

START POSITION: STANDING BEHIND CONE “A,” WEARING “STAGE” EYE PROTECTION AND HOLDING THE CANDY BOWL, STRONG HAND IN BOWL AS IF SAMPLING THE CANDY. CARBINE IS LOADED, WITH SAFETY ON AT TABLE “B,” PISTOL IS LOADED IN HOLSTER.

PROCEDURE: ON SIGNAL, MOVE TO BOX “B” AND ENGAGE TARGETS T1 - T4, R1, AND P1 – P4 WITH CARBINE. THEN MOVE TO TABLE “C” AND ENGAGE TARGETS T5 – T7 AND R2 – R4 WITH CARBINE. SAFELY GROUND CARBINE ON TABLE “C” AND MOVE TO BOX “D” AND ENGAGE TARGETS T8 – T12 WITH PISTOL. PAPER REQUIRES TWO HITS TO NEUTRALIZE AND ALL STEEL MUST FALL.

Sorry for all the caps...I c&p'd this out of the PowerPoint file that Jon used to publish the match. I'm too lazy to retype it all. I was almost too lazy to shoot the pistol portion since I had so much fun shooting the rifle. The smutzed up eye protection had dripping "blood" painted on the upper half of the lenses and was "effective" enough to induce me to miss twice. I creamed that 100-yard steel, though.

Cactus Halloween: Save the Children

MINIMUM ROUNDS: 27 (16 pistol & 11 shotgun)
TARGETS:
Eight (8) USPSA paper targets, three (3) pepper poppers, and eight (8) plates

START SIGNAL: AUDIBLE STOP SIGNAL: LAST SHOT FIRED
START POSITION: NORMAL READY IN BOX “A." Shotgun is loaded, safety on at table “B” and pistol is loaded in holster.

PROCEDURE: ON SIGNAL, ENGAGE T1 - 8. MOVE TO BOX “B,” SAFELY GROUND PISTOL AND RETRIEVE SHOTGUN. ENGAGE PP1 – 3 AND P1 – 8. PAPER REQUIRES TWO HITS AND ALL STEEL MUST FALL TO SCORE.

Round paper no-shoot targets are paper plates.


Jon put in a good performance For the Children(TM).

He also captured one of my oopsies (left)... by all the white tape on it already, that kid was destined for a bad Halloween.

Cactus Halloween: Escape from the Lab

Escape from the Lab (Shades of The Deer Hunter)

MINIMUM ROUNDS: (Multigun) 22 (1 stage revolver, 11 shotgun, 10 competitor’s pistol)
TARGETS:
One (1) pepper popper, eleven (11) plates, and five (5) USPSA PAPER TARGETS

START POSITION: Sitting at TABLE “A”, facing uprange, wrist joints above shoulders. Competitor’s pistol and shotgun are loaded and staged at TABLE “B”. RO will then load SP101 with one (1) round only (ammunition is provided), spin cylinder to randomly situate live round, and place SP101 on table.

PROCEDURE: ON START SIGNAL
Engage PP1 with provided SP101 revolver. Ground SP101 on TABLE “A,” move to TABLE“B” and engage P1 – P11 with shotgun. If PP1 is not successfully engaged with SP101, shooter will retrieve spear and use it to successfully engage PP1 before moving to TABLE “B.” After engaging P1 – P11, ground shotgun in a safe configuration and retrieve talisman and pistol from table. Move to BOX “C” and engage T1 – T5 with pistol using strong hand only, holding talisman in weak hand. Shooter may not use talisman as a support while engaging T1 – T5. Paper requires two hits and all steel must fall to score.


We shot this stage first and were mildly disappointed in the lack of oomph the Blazer 158 grain .357 Magnums produced in the little SP-101. Adrenaline may have had something to do with that. That didn't stop a lot of shooters from flinching as they dry fired the snubby searching for the loaded cylinder. I did my best DeNiro impersonation asking for two bullets, but the RO was steadfast. Jon added a lot of imagination to this perennial favorite; I did have a lot of input in replacing the cross talisman with something more worthy of zombie repulsion.

Bob had the most eventful outing on this stage, so he wins the YouTube spotlight.

Coinky-Dink?

I end up in the Top 100 Blogs in Carnegie-Mellon's study and suddenly today, I get my first non-image G00gle hits in years?

Well dip me in curry and feed me to the Indians!

Whoops! Is that gonna get me banned again?

Maybe Just a Metaphor

F'shizzle in da Daddy Hood

Friday Fertography

Tiff's ferocious Bear.

Ha-chew!

Opened up my rear sliding glass door tonight to let in some cool air... and launched into a sneezing fit. Since I've had my backjungle mostly defoliated for a few weeks now, I finger it must be all the junk the winds have picked up. Or I'm allergic to my screen door.

Meanwhile, Lenny and Squiggy are pissed that the base commissary is out of Loratidine. I've done the Benadryl thing a couple nights in a row this week to fight the eye itchies (actually, they were almost pasted shut), thinking it was the ferrets, when I realized I'd had the back door open at night. So now I just run the ceiling fan, door closed, ferrets unhugged, but not ignored. Yogurt-covered raisins are a poor substitute for weasel-squeezin', but I'm sure they know I love 'em. Okay, Squig, I'll change the papers tomorrow!

Deer Cam!

I gotta get Mom to put up one of these!

h/t ACTS Forum

Balance

I've been remiss in visiting some of the blogs on the Saloon's Blog Roll, so today I found out that Villainous Company has stopped blogging and Vern Gill's blog is nowhere to be found.

VC was a thoughtful voice in the Dextrosphere and Vern was the only committed Lefty on my blog roll. Neither can be easily replaced, though I imagine it'll be a lot harder to fight another Liberal blog I can stomach.

Screw it

I guess either my face or The Hebrewm is too scary for Jeff Soyer's People of the Gun tribe.

At least Kevin Baker's shown holding my Yugoslav SKS!

No, Thanks

Giddy Laughter Here

Something is muy gefukt in Der Blogosphere.

Via Rough Type, and some late night Sitemeter hits, I learn my if-not-humble-quaint blog is 55th on a list of 100 blogs on this criteria:

A recent Carnegie Mellon study used higher mathematics to answer the question: if you want to be informed about what the entire blogospohere is talking about, but you can only read 100 blogs (out of the millions available), which blogs should you read?

Holy Cow! Sure, they called me "Cowboy Blog," but I can forgive that. Check out the blogs above and below mine! Something's really wrong with their formula... but should I complain?

H'ween Flash for the Gunnies

An important lesson.

From Newgrounds.com

Speak of the Dog!

Report: 68 Namibia Villagers Sickened After Eating Dead Dog

Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Associated Press

WINDHOEK, Namibia - Sixty-eight villagers in northern Namibia were hospitalized last week after eating a dog that had been killed by disease, the local daily The Namibian reported Wednesday.

The paper said the dog's owner had killed it after it contracted an unknown skin disease and ordered it to be burned. Instead, the inhabitants of Oikokola village insisted on eating the meat, which was also shared with people from the nearby Onepandaulo village.

Naftali Hamata, the director of health for northern Namibia, said the villagers were treated at two of the area's major hospitals and that most had recovered. He warned against eating dog meat or the carcass of any sick animal.

Dog meat is considered a delicacy among tribes in northern Namibia, and calls by animal rights organizations to end the practice are ignored.

My Email buddies were amazed at the number of people affected:

"They spread that dog pretty thin!"

Naw, only the first 12 got sick eating dog... the rest got sick eating what they thought was dog chowder.

Great Caption

Halloween Genius

Who doesn't like a box o' wine?

Get Some

For the neighbor kids.

Buttmunch

I thought this was timed why are these guys moving so slow. oh ya except for the old guy.

-- Commenter on YouTube match video

Grr... Santa Ana Winds

I hope no fires spring up in the Sonoran. Sucky thing is: we've never been rained out at a Cactus League match, but we've had several called due to high winds. I've been looking forward to this coming weekend all year...it's the Halloween 3-Gun! No special prizes or anything, but we always inject just a little more fun into the match and our competitors usually respond favorably to the stages.

We'd originally intended to make this a big 3-Gun prize match, but that has been moved to early next year. This week's match will test/preview some of those stages, albeit in our traditional 2-Gun stage mode... the big match will expand to exercise all three guns on every stage. Jon's and my own fiendishness in stage design has been augmented by some top talent. Some old favorites will return; I've resolved to re-run a version of Escape from the Lab until Jon's brother can shoot it without capping a no-shoot in the head. :) (Check out the video in my archives!) Jon's added a nasty surprise to it that'll curl your toes, if not the fingers on your shooting hand!

Nice Bag

Weekend Caption/Photoshop Contest

Sticky until Monday

Got a caption or photoshop for this unsourced picture? You could win a coveted Blog Ad on my side bar!

Leave a caption or photo link in comments, or Email a pic to me at the address in my profile. If you're sending a large animation, please provide a hot-linkable URL.

You need not own a blog to win! I'll advertise your favorite charity, web site, or even your old dog-eared Cliff Notes!

Judging begins Monday PM.

Winner!

Serr8d at The Cutting Edge wins with a Photoshop!


Other Contests:

Gone Rick Motel (1st Place last week!)
Bullwinkle Blog (1st Place last week!)
Wyatt Earp (SYLG)












Outside the Beltway
Right Pundits
Public Pondering
Texas Fred
Wizbang

Oh, Nice, Barry!

Senator Barack Obama, Governor Bill Richardson, Senator Hillary Clinton, and Ruth Harkin stand during the National Anthem.

h/t to the ACTS Forum

Jon's Twenty-Hour Beans

Three large cans (not the soup-sized ones) of Bush's Spicey Beans.
Pile (around a pound) of diced/cubed ham
One package of good bacon (center cut)
Three pinches of Italian spice
Rum

Sometime in the evening around 9 - 10 pm, grab crockpot, place on favorite cooking spot and turn crockpot to low setting. Pour in one can of beans. Add 1/3 of the bacon and ham, splash some rum on it and throw in a pinch of spice.

Repeat above procedure two more times.

When you wake up in the morning, stir the contents of crockpot and admire the wonderful aroma. Peer impatiently at crockpot for another 4-5 hours and then stir the contents again. Peer impatiently at crockpot for a few more hours, stirring contents if it makes you feel better. Serve Twenty-Hour Beans around 5-6 pm to impatient, hungry guests and family. In the case of confirmed bachelors who are fixing them for themselves, be prepared to feed off beans for a week. Ensure all ignition sources in house are extinguished to prevent methane explosions.

Fell out of the Ugly Tree

and hit every branch on the way down.

That's news? Sheesh.

Yeehaw!

Scores were finalized and I came out in Third Place, not Fourth!

Sure, it was only a field of 10....

Friday Fertography

Ferrets are not friends to close-up photography.

Mmmm

Chili Hot beans... it's what's for breakfast! This is what I started making around 2 am when I realized I wasn't going to sleep any time soon.

Based on my friend Jon's 20-Hour Bean recipe, it features Hormel Chili, Bush's Boston-recipe Beans, turkey sausage, three slices of bacon, half an onion, one habanero pepper, and assorted spices. Cooked for only 4 hours. I don't have Jon's patience.

Price Check on Vagisil Please

Oh, great... Mister Big ACTS has sand in his vagina over my posting a lower-resolution photoshop of his copyrighted pictures -- in the same public forum he'd just posted them.

Pics from the ACTS Forum and Glamguns.com

Probably copyrighted too.

More ACTS pics

Big Salim got a new POF-USA fun-gun! He crushed me on every stage except the one with all the zombie head-shots... only three of us shot that one cleanly, the match winner Aaron, 2nd place Karl (below) and myself. He should have won the match, but over 100 secs in penalties on one stage dropped him below the slow fat guy with the little Korean carbine.








Karl blasted off the rest of his ammo in hopes HKFreak's camera could capture the fireball his Bulgarian SBR generated. That sucker was loud! Karl lost an earplug during a stage and reported that it was loud for only one shot. (BANG! Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!). Don't want to let that happen too often!

Karl reported on the event at TucsonShooting.com

Photos from HKFreak (at Arizonashooting.com)

So Soft

The Michiganders are giving us Tucson shooters a hard time in the ACTS forum because our Match Director put carpeting down for the prone shooting boxes. Well, if we had a fluffy green lawn like their range has... or fluffy white snow and/or soothing ice-water, we wouldn't need carpeting either. Of course, they're all gear whores who, while wearing tons of tactical gear themselves, mewl that that carpet won't be there when the SHTF. Well, probably my kneepads won't be either. Our match director is a gear whore too, but he's considerate enough to realize that not many of the local shooters are too.

One Mittenstater even poo-pooed our grounding the pistol in the home invasion stage. The range recently reversed its permission to allow us to reholster a hot pistol on the clock... besides, who sleeps wearing a holster?

One of their CRC class winners was showing of his AR build with the prize ACTS Logo receiver and someone else suggested he get her daughter to model it... and a photoshop was born.

Those Wacky Croats

Some Space reporting.

h/t to the ACTS Forum

I Like Balloons, but....

Weekend Caption/Photoshop Contest

Sticky until Monday

Got a caption or photoshop for his Reuters picture? You could win a coveted Blog Ad on my side bar!

Leave a caption or photo link in comments, or Email a pic to me at the address in my profile. If you're sending a large animation, please provide a hot-linkable URL.

You need not own a blog to win! I'll advertise your favorite charity, web site, or even your tacky Korean knick-knacks!

Judging begins Monday PM.

Winner!

Almost missed Lil Bro's Blazing Saddles reference:

"It's Mongol! San-ta Mar-i-a!"

Other Contests:

Outside the Beltway (2nd Place last week!)
Gone Rick Motel
Public Pondering
Right Pundits

Photoshops:

Serr8d

Doh!

I guess I over-medicated this weekend. I not only missed linking and participating in Wyatt's Caption Contest, I never noticed his Saloon Contest Blog Ad hadn't displayed in my side bar. I'll keep it posted for an extra week...Sorry, Wyatt!

Hospitality

Looks like Desert Cat isn't the only one to see the inside of a hospital lately. Russ at TacJammer got the poke and prod treatment too!

GooGhoul

Big hat tip to the Lil Sis for this one, a finder for all things Halloween in your neighborhood.

So, I might not have to drink myself to sleep before all the trick-or-treaters show up this year!

October ACTS Too

Oh, my achin' dogs...it's a good thing I'm just sittin' around watchin' football and massaging my feet today.

Finally U-Tubed the video so you can behold my semi-suckiness. My big boo-boo was on the stage pictured. Scott RO'ing me was counting shots, so when he said "IF you are finished...," I should have gone back and re-engaged IF I could recall what target I skipped. My brain didn't recall anything, so I just cleared my weapons.

The first stage we shot was in the long-range bay, but it was shortened a bit. My shoot that made it to video didn't count since nobody wrote down my time... reshooting suited me just fine since I got to adjust my point of aim for the mandatory pistol headshots and rediscover my Woo sights. Remember, I hadn't shot either of these weapons in a month of Sundays! I still had one missed headshot, but my scores greatly improved over my first run. Also, I succumbed to the conventional wisdom of going prone. Sure, from the kneeling position, I had no cover... but from the prone position, you're hiding behind your head. What kind of cover is that?

It was a great day to shoot. I eschewed the sunscreen and got a nice October tan thanks to those swarthy Eastern European genes (yeah, I'll check closely for skin cancer, but I figured I need the Vitamin D for a change).

On the down side, I'm gonna have to browbeat Scott again. Every. single. cardboard. target. was. on. a. separate. f*cking. steel. target. stand. And there were SCADS of targets...and only 10 shooters. So... guess who takes down the match? The ACTS fairy? No... that fraction of those 10, plus Kelly the HK Freak (God bless 'im), who can be arsed to help. You'll note on my Cactus Match stages that I love to use the "helicopters," a target stand that has three cardboard targets spread out upon the stick above. Lotsa shooting and not-so-much humping steel for the take-down crew.

I found out Saturday that now that Scott has affiliated our ACTS group with the Pima Pistol Club, I no longer get an ACTS discount to shoot a match since I'm not a PPC member (I used this discount only once). This is f*cked up. If Scott expects me to submit stages AND hump steel, wood, and cardboard after the match, he better think again. Next year, I won't be renewing my ACTS membership and I'll THINK about getting a PPC membership. Or maybe I'll just shoot elsewhere.

Video here.

October ACTS

Oh, my aching feet! Only two blisters but ay, carumba!, I'm medicating with rum and lemonade and Kurt Schilling...heck, if he could pitch through with that bloody sock, I shouldn't whine so much.

Only 10 shooters showed up (glares at Desert Cat's link) and the foursome I joined made an interesting discovery: Nobody in our group was shooting an AR... in fact, there were no American long guns on our squad at all! MD Scott and I made up the Woo Crew, although I was pure Woo (K1 and DP51, top left) while he backed up his K2 with a Brazilian Springfield .45. The Glock and XD were the only American-made handguns; it was so cool to see a Walther P-38 out there! (But not enough to make me want to bring mine out for a match...)

(Update: The XD was made in Bosnia! Glad to make that slobodno!)

Scott's EOTech went poopy right before the first stage we shot, so he joined the rest of us in the Service Rifle category. The only Enhanced gunner (AR guy too) was on the other squad and apparently DQ'd with an negligent discharge. The match winner (my nemesis Aaron) pretty much crushed the field while I placed 4th 3rd just ahead of Deadeye Salim (who reportedly had a super-sucky Stage 6).

The match was great fun, despite the super-long day (needed a lot more help setting up and tearing down than was present). I foresee myself trotting out some more safe queens this year (hadn't shot the Woo competitively since the late 90s nor dirtied the Lil Woo since my first camping trip to Arizona in the early 90s). I'm thinking 9-mm AR next month and Chinese AK in December. Haven't decided whether I'm going to YouTube my video or not (it's just fat ole me waddling around)... does anybody care one way or another?

Update: Wah! Desert Cat is claiming cardiac pains kept him from showing up. Grrr. Fine...I'll pray for you this time. That excuse won't be acceptable next time!

Breast Cancer Awareness

My favorite Flash site is supporting Breast Cancer Awareness Month. One contributor posted something to spread the message.

Click PLAY THIS MOVIE.

Got yer costume picked out yet?