Punchdrunkmonkeyman.com

I was wrong

I did manage to make it to the range in December, which makes a total of three trips for all of 2011 (not counting AAC's Silencer Shoot, which was pretty awesome, you guys). Not a great year, on multiple fronts.

I shot the Hi-Power, an AR I completed back in May, the 870 (purchased last January) and the Sterling carbine (re-received back in October). I had the CZ and Sig Mosquito packed, but they never got brought out. C'est la vie. I emptied the magazine in the Hi-Power, and fired the AR, 870, and Sterling for the first time. Everything worked! Huzzah!

Alas, I am way out of practice, and hardly hit anything.

I only have one magazine for the Sterling at the moment, but shooting it's a gas. There's almost no recoil, and very little noise or blast (pistol ammo through a 16" barrel: go figure). I couldn't tell how much of the problem with hitting with it was due to the sights and how much was me. (I wasn't impressed with the peep sight, though.) Still, fun.

Just FWIW: the Sterling carbine is a Wise Lite build purchased and worked over by the guys at Crusader Weaponry. Fun gun, and I've been pretty pleased with the customer service.

I'm blogrolled where?

I keep forgetting that I'm actually linked one or two places other than the RGSB list, which tends to contain people I have actually met. Just discovered I'm on a list of 'gun blogs', which, I guess, is as accurate a label as any other.

I expect I'll have some relevant content again, soonish. Before the end of the year, surely. Probably not before the end of the month.

So, that happened.

Actually, I did have a good time at homecoming last weekend, but I think my first instincts were right: I should probably have skipped the 10-year thing.

That's not to say I disliked seeing people, but it was too many people in too little space for my liking. I also saw pretty much everybody who came that I cared to see both before and after, anyway.

So, it was nice seeing everybody! But I'll probably pass on the 15- and 20-year gatherings in favor of doing something other than moping around in a room that is too warm and too loud.

(Oh, you think I'm kidding about the lamp? Nope.)

Seems like the thing to do.

Seen here, and here, and here in my RSS aggregator.

1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
3. Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card
4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert
5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin
6. 1984, by George Orwell
7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov (Only two of three, though)
9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan (Excepting New Spring and the last three volumes)
13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson
15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore
16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss
19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick
22. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King
24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
25. The Stand, by Stephen King
26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
28. Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman
30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams
33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey
34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein
35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller
36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells
37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne
38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys
39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells
40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny
41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings
42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson
44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven
45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin
46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien
47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. White
48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
49. Childhood’s End, by Arthur C. Clarke
50. Contact, by Carl Sagan
51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons
52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson
54. World War Z, by Max Brooks (Overrated.)
55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett
58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson
59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold
60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett
61. The Mote In God’s Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind
63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
64. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson
66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist
67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks
68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard
69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb
70. The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne
73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore
74. Old Man’s War, by John Scalzi
75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson
76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
77. The Kushiel’s Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey
78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin
79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire
81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson
82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde
83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks
84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart
85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson
86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher
87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe
88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn
89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan
90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock
91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury
92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley
93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge
94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov
95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson
96. Lucifer’s Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis
98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville
99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony
100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis

32 out of 100. Not giving myself credit for Verne, or Wells, which entries I've read, but only greatly abridged. Nor for one or two others I've only read excerpts of. Anathem I've got but haven't managed to sit down and read, yet.

Honestly, I found World War Z a bit tiresome. I didn't care for the format, but I also wasn't particularly persuaded by Brooks' ... interesting grasp of firearms. That aside, it's okay.

I think The Road is also fairly overrated, and I'm not sure it really qualifies for a list of science fiction. It sure was damned depressing, though.

Regarding the Foundation trilogy, I gave up early in Second Foundation. I think I was still in middle school at the time, so other than being bored, I couldn't tell you why.

Haven't felt like blogging much

I haven't even been up to much on Twitter. I have a Google Plus account, but haven't figured out what that's for, yet.

May be finally getting that ACR, though.

Fog of Shore

It is extraordinarily frustrating to spend two and a half hours cleaning up problems created by a developer not even on the same continent as yourself. Especially when there's a big pile of unit tests that exist for the sole purpose of letting people know when they broke something they didn't mean to break.

Especially when the thing you were actually in there to fix was two lines of code that disappeared when the same developer deleted them a couple months ago⁰.

Especially when I spent 4 hours last week cleaning up a big check-in he put together.

I'm pretty sure the bulk of this problem is caused by the communications problems that arise when part of your development staff isn't in the same room, especially when it isn't on the same continent, in the same timezone, or in the same hemisphere. But, I don't really care about the why.

So, it's fortunate I didn't have a lot going on this morning.

Footnotes
0. This release has gone on forever, it seems like.

I guess I missed the sign when we crossed the state line from Tennessee to Hell

I spent last weekend in West Memphis, Arkansas, volunteering at AAC's Silencer Shoot 2011. I was able to shoot a suppressed Remington ACR in full auto, and to shoot Remington's new gas piston AR upper in full auto, as well. I highly recommend the experience, if you can find a time and location when it's not quite so warm: highs starting at 99 Fahrenheit take a lot of the fun out of walking around and looking at things in the out of doors.

I also got to shoot a suppressed Glock 17. I'm pretty sure it was one of the 4th generation models, so that may have something to do with it, but I found the Glock less ergonomically awful than expected. Not half bad, in fact.

I had a blast, honestly, but I think if I go back, it may be as a paying customer and only one day (if they do a two-day thing again). And with more money. Fastest way to turn money into noise, indeed. Only, without so much noise.

Buckyballs!

This blog entry by Charlie Stross brings a couple of things to my mind.

The second, and shorter, was that I visited the Henry Ford museum ages and ages ago with my parents and sister. It's been more than two decades, but exactly how much more I'm not sure. All these years on, the things I remember are:

the museum is huge,
related to (1), by the end of the day, I was very tired and my feet hurt
it would be pretty neat to go back.

The first thing, though, is that I'm surprisingly pessimistic about the ability of technology to fundamentally change the human nature. Not to say that technology cannot (or has not) done great things to improve the human condition--personally, I love indoor plumbing and electricity--but people remain, well, people. It seems unlikely any amount of technology will ever change human nature from the venal, petty sort of thing it is. Which I suspect is a place where my opinions and Mr. Stross's part company. (One of many, I'm pretty sure.)

Buckminster Fuller certainly did some interesting things, though. Shame so little of it seemed to work out.

That was fast.

So, I have to go pick up my package from the people at SKD Tactical from the Post Office tomorrow. They'd have delivered it today, but I wasn't home.

I sprang for the cheap shipping option, too.

[Addendum: I've heard most stuff is out of stock there at the moment. FWIW.]

Levenger L-Tech Update

After finishing up the Mont Blanc blue-black I filled it with back in January, I refilled the pen with some Noodler's black. Much better. Very smooth, and very consistent as long as the bubble of air in the converter hadn't gotten caught on the feed end for too long (not many pens will write without ink).

Also, it looks like my practice of running the plunger down to flood the feed is probably a bad idea: forcing air out of the ink chamber that way seems to produce a vacuum on rear of the feed, which makes it difficult to run ink out to the page. Good to know.