One of the really neat things about having a Federal Curio & Relic license is the ability to purchase historic firearms at low prices and have them delivered directly to my door. I’ve purchased about all the long guns I’m interested in for now, and have moved on to surplus hand guns. I have taken an interest in the two 7.62x25mm handguns that are prevalent in the C&R world, the Romanian TT-33 and the Czechoslovakian CZ-52. I purchased a CZ-52 from Southern Ohio Gun in early January. I followed up a month later with a purchase of two TT-33s from SOG. C&R handguns have to be overnighted, and before too long I had three pistols in my hot little hands.

The first things you should do when you purchase a new firearm are make sure it isn’t loaded, take it apart, and inspect it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a fifty year old Communist-bloc sidearm or a brand new German super-pistol. Following this simple procedure may have saved my life, or at least my hand.
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I learned about Iron Dukes thanks to a thread on Ars Technica’s forum (thanks, mojo-jojo!!). Iron Dukes part RPG, part shooter, and part arcade-like driver (well, “sailer” … is that even a fucking word?). It’s a nifty little Flash game so you can play it at home or at the office, should you dare to do such a thing. It’s not really a pirate-themed game, it’s not really a steampunk-themed game, it’s got a privateering bend to it where you’re out for blood but I just get the feeling that it’s not every man out for himself. The game’s them is sort of, well, pirate-y. You are the captain of a pirate-y type ship. You can command up to three crew members, whom you can hire at the Shop for free. You make money by diving for sunken treasure, fighting other pirate-y type duders, or navigatating OMG SCARY storms. You can spend your hard earned ducats on equipment or goodies for your crew. Each crew member has three equipment slots: head, hand, and body. Equipment raises one skill stat and health. Iron Dukes keeps things simple, and there are only three skills: fighting, diving, and being “salty,” which is a pirate-y word for “bad ass sailor.”
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My niece moved in with me about two months ago. She had finished her second year of college and wanted a change of scenery. Lack of localized family crazy brought her to me instead of my sister or back at home with my mother and stepfather. At any rate, it’s been great having her around, both as family and because I work from home and get lonely every now and then.

One thing I did not expect was that my sister’s ghost would be moving in along with her.
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Tonight will be the last total lunar eclipse until 2010. The good news for those of us in North and South America is that it’s early enough that you can see it. The bad news is that it’s overcast as fuck for most of us on the east coast today.

CNN has a pretty good write-up about the event. If you want the TL; DR version, you can catch the eclipse at 10PM Eastern, 7PM Pacific.

We all knew it, but my Gmail spam-box confirmed it. Spam is from Satan:

Less than three months ago I got back into Magic the Gathering, thanks to my friend Stilts. We’ve spent just about every weekend since playing in some way, shape, or form, whether it be casually playing with other friends or drafting against other players at a local comic book store. I’ve had a great time, but never managed to break into the top four in the weekly draft competitions.

Wizards of the Coast, the folks who publish Magic, run several tournaments throughout the year. The least competitive, and least important, is the Cities tournament. Cities starts off with a four-event qualifying session at preselected retailers. The top eight from the qualifiers play for in the store finals. Wizards sends a box of product (36 boosters at $5 retail apiece) to serve as prizes. First and second place move on to the Virginia City championships in April, held in Virginia Beach. The Cities champion gets an invitation to the national championship, with 2nd – 7th place finishers getting byes in the regional championship.

I went along with Stilts and bombed the first three qualifying rounds. I earned a pity point from each event for just showing up. Stilts had taken second place in the first event and was assured a place in the store finals. By the time the last event rolled around, I was pretty demoralized. Stilts talked me into going and suggested a deck online that concentrated on punching your opponent in the face. No fancy techniques, no crazy combos, just melting face. Those of you who know me in real life realize this fits me perfectly. It was so Hulk-Smash that I couldn’t not go. Even if I didn’t earn enough points to advance to the store finals, I’d hopefully ruin a better player’s day with my vastly less expensive deck.

Not only did I piss in some pro tour player’s Cheerios by beating him, I took second place. :) Thanks for the pep talk, Stilts!

I doubt I’ll make it to even the top four in the store finals, but who cares? I earned prizes for the first time in a sanctioned event, and had a good time doing it. I faced a few serious players who had been playing for over a decade. I was nervous at first, and they were very grim at first. But making chicken noises or “meep meep” honking sounds when I attacked them soothed my nerves and made them smile. There was a bit of controversy in my match for first and second place — someone had walked out with one of the other finalist’s cards. Technically he had to drop the first game of the match to me, but that seemed like a lame thing to do since we were both going to the store finals anyway. After finding out I could waive the technicality I shook his hand and said, “let’s play Magic.”

It’s just a goofy fucking card game, after all. Let’s have fun. And I did, even though he stomped me 2 – 0. :)

Happy birthday to Starbuck, Sweetest of Hearts. I met Starbuck while working at … well … Starbucks (there’s a Battlestar reference in there, too). It’s difficult trying to write about someone who helped change my life so much without it sounding cliche. But Starbuck really did save me as a person.

I didn’t realize how grim I was until I met Starbuck and watched her laugh with her entire soul. I didn’t realize how hardened my heart had become until Ghost Rider passed away, and witnessed how deeply his passing touched Starbuck. Her life has been punctuated by loss but it doesn’t stop her from reaching out to other people.

Meeting Starbuck renewed my drive to appreciate the moment: I started telling my friends and family I loved them more; I made time to be around the people I cared about, and I no longer accepted that I was a completely terrible person. Now I think I’m just mostly a bad person. ;) I realized my spirit had been sick for some time. Starbuck has made me a better person.

Happy birthday, Starbuck, and thank you.

As you know, I buy a lot of stuff. Stuff that comes in those damn “blister” packages. You know what I’m talking about: that heat-sealed, “theft-resistant,” hard-as-fuck-to-open packaging that will mangle a good pair of scissors in no time flat. My good man Stilts came to the rescue this holiday, and bought me the Open-X dual bladed EZ clam shell knife.

The Open-X concept is simple, but ingenious. You use your thumb to push a spring-loaded button down, which reveals the point of a small blade. This point pierces the adamantium armor of the blister pack. The front end of the tool looks like a crab claw, with a longer razor blade in the center. Work the bottom of the claw into the point you made with the first blade. Slide the Open-X along the package and WHAMMO, fuck blister packs!

Well, sort of. It works, mostly. But we’ll get into that in a second.
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I bought a Brother 5440 multifunction color printer scanner fax machine when I started working from home over three years ago. It was reasonably affordable, and my previous forays into inkjet printers explained why: the printer exists to get you to buy more ink cartridges. The 5440 didn’t come with fully-filled carts. I wasn’t insulted, I’d gotten over that little screwjob the last time I owned an HP inkjet years and years ago.

What particularly pissed me off about the 5440, and other Brother multi-function printers as I have come to find out, is that the unit periodically cleans itself by using a small amount of ink. Of every color. At regular intervals. I tried to fax an expense report, less than a year into owning the machine.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!!!

I jumped straight up in the air. What the fuck?

REFILL CYAN

I just wanted to fax something. Why did I need cyan ink? I really needed to fax my expense report in, so I drove to OfficeMax and got a replacement cyan cartridge. I snapped it in, reset the printer, and attempted to fax again.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!!!

What the fuck?

REFILL BLUE

Oh, for fuck’s sake. For about half the cost of my MFC I bought enough ink to shut the machine up long enough to fax my report in. I ordered a box of carts from eBay and pushed the issue aside.
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It probably seems odd that a guy who loves buying stuff so much wants to eventually move as far off-grid as possible, but it’s true. If I had a hojillion dollars I’d refinish a retired nuclear missile silo and make room for my bestest friends in case the Avian flu comes a-callin’ behind the wheel of a monster truck.

But I don’t have a hojillion dollars, so I have to think of less money-intensive ways to have a little patch of land to call my own.

Buying land and then building on it always seems extremely expensive. My father and his wife built their “dream house” in Colorado and drilling their well cost more than they budgeted for. Like, 200% more. Then they had to have their house built, a road cut, etc. etc. They wound up so jaded on their dream house that they sold it a few years later and moved to an even more remote location in Colorado. Their new home is a lot smaller, and they seem much happier. Dad has always been good at teaching me by example, so I started researching “start small” options.
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