Continuing our recent pattern of stealing ideas, we now “borrow” from Tam, this gem got caught in the scraper and was too good not to share.
What a data of un-ambiguity and preserveness of valuable familiarity on the topic of unexpected emotions.
I’ve always aspie-ired to have a data on unexpected emotions. I almost expected the next line to be something about sharing Sharon’s outlook on the topic of disease.
Who knew you’d turn out to be our very own not-crazy Richard Dawkins?
Man, pants feel kinda weird now.
…are here.
Three.
Fucking.
Dollars.
Right. More importantly, thank you all for every last cent of your donations. I know everything sucks big rocks off the ground for everybody right now money-wise, and that the blatherings of a semi-anonymous goober in New Mexico* were able to convince you all to part with that much money awes me. Awes me and makes me think I should finally get around to using my Powers for actual evil.**
The various promised rewards of dubious value will go up as soon as I’m able to get them. I’m sorry I can’t have everything ready the second Blogorado is over or whatnot, but the pressures from my work and social lives at this point have me honestly grateful that the drive is over for the year, so maybe I can have time in the day to do the little things like eat or acknowledge LabRat. It’ll be at least a week though, probably a bit more. I will actually have time to go through the song raffle before then, since most of you had the good sense to stay way the hell away from that offer, and I’ll let the two unlucky folks know on Wednesday, but the actual mp3s won’t be ready until… yeah, you get the idea. If you’re demented and still want in on that but just didn’t get around to sending in the receipt, I’ll still take them right up to that point. Just throw raffle somewhere in the subject.
Those of you going to Blogorado, I suspect there won’t be any shortage of recording devices, but if you have something with particularly decent audio pickup, I’d be obliged if you’d bring it along.
Just on the push from the one month, we raised very nearly double what it took the better part of 2011 and part of 2012 to raise. I suspect the final number will creep up some, but so far just for 30 days we took in $22,475.55, and we did it without global megacorporations kicking in x% of however much a roll of paper towels the guys in accounting decided would buy good advertising. Suck it, Komen (and, y’know, keep saving the boobies and all. But still, suck it.).
Thank you all.
*Hey, Kelly? Y’think since I was the third highest fundraiser we can get New Mexico colored in on that coverage map now? 
**Actually most of you would probably approve of the ends I’ve in mind. We’ll talk later. Somewhere private.
Idly wasting my afternoon, my inbox announced the arrival of a new email. On inspection, it was from our pet gunsmith, Spear. This is a person to whom I speak on the internet quite literally every day. He has been, and remains a welcome guest here at the Nerd Ranch. The relationship is not exactly the sort of professional level arrangement you would find between two opposing lawyers. Thus, when I read:
Mr. S. Ray
This email is just to double check and confirm the work I have to do for you.
First will be a complete refinish on the previously duracoated CZ-75.
Secondly will be installing a new safety and a complete trigger/action job on the springfield 1911.
If there is something I omitted or if there is something else you’d like done, please let me know.
Thank you
Spear
…I was a tad curious. Obviously, there is only one appropriate way to respond. So I did.
Sr. Percival Jose Chucklenuts Jr., esq.,
Your lurid prose inducing quite profound tumescence in certain portions of the anatomy notwithstanding, I find your catalog of charges accurate and correct.
After some period of omphaloskepsis while considering your missive (that I assure you most certainly did at no point involve any quantity of lubricating solution or absorbent paper products), I have reached the conclusion that I do indeed wish to press further upon your talents and impose addendums in the pursuit of ensuring my role as baddest motherfucker with two swinging nuts and a hog like a length of pipe.
Primarily, with regards to the 1911, provenanced of the fine Springfield Manufacturing Concern, I desire most thoroughly that the nether regions of the device receive chamfering in order to facilitate the insertion of magazines- verily, bevel the magazine well so I can mag-fuck the donkeypiss of the device.
Additionally, I would have you ramp the barrel to encourage the proper feeding of ammunition of more modern design, such as bullets with what is called a “hollow point.” My desire is that should a gentleman of differing morality engage in a debate with such bawdiness as is common in Those People, that I should be capable of punching as many fist sized fuckholes in the shitheel as fast as I can pull the trigger on that bitch.
My sincere thanks for your communication are of course included.
Sincerely,
Monsignor Commissioner Herr Jinglehopper the 13th
Some people you really don’t expect to see playing Mario Kart Wii. Let alone being that damn good at it that quickly.
…though it’s gratifying to see that some phenomenon are universal.
Warning: Jargon heavy modernized psychological “fiction” follows below the break.
(more…)
1. Obtain skates. You can either borrow them from someone close-ish enough for government work to your shoe size, rent them from an appropriate establishment (for some strange reason the local Methodist church is that establishment here), or if you’re really insane you can just buy them. Skates are not as cheap as you will remember them being when you were a kid.
2. Obtain protective gear. Do not skip this step. At the very least* you want kneepads and wristguards, being the most likely points beside your ass you’re going to fall on. Your ass is probably well padded already. (Except for one particular point, which you may- excitingly- discover.)
3. Locate a good place to attempt skating. The sidewalk is not a good place, as you will rapidly discover if you try it. Yes, that is probably where you learned to when you were eight. You aren’t eight anymore, you are much further off the ground, and the amount of mass you have to interact with gravity has increased greatly. Even if it looks fine to you, taking a broom and clearing the chosen space, if outdoors, of gravel will do you lots of favors. Skate wheels aren’t designed for offroading even a little bit.
4. Put on protective gear. Put on skates.
5. Stand up.
6. Attempt to move forward.
7. From your new position on the ground, assess yourself for injuries, and determine if they are serious enough to justify taking the damn skates straight back off again. Common options include groin pull and bruised tailbone.
8. Try to find either a friendly person to literally hold your hand, or a vertical surface that can be slightly leaned upon. Try to do this somewhere with walls. When you come back, if you can come back with a baby stroller or shopping cart, these tools will help enormously.
9. Practice skating in a straight line from wall to wall. Now is a good time to quietly explore and discover every single tiny stabilizer muscle you don’t use at all in any non-skating capacities.
10. Because you will be doing it whether you call it practice or not, practice falling. You want to fall onto the bits of yourself that are actually well protected, which in most cases if you bought remotely adequate kneepads will be your knees. Although you may be wearing wristguards, never rely on them; wristguards suck and they will only help you a little. Even if you don’t break your wrists, falling onto your hands is a good way to break your thumb. You are not supposed to fall backwards, but this will happen anyway; attempt to fall on one side of your ass or the other. Falling on it straight back and center will bring you naught but woe. If falling at speed and knees are not an option, try to fall on your hip and roll. Again, it is likely to be already well padded. If you are female, falling on your chest is undignified but also a well padded area. Try to keep your limbs pointed in roughly the same direction and not to sprawl.
11. When you are walking, running, or carrying something, the best way to stabilize yourself when you feel you are losing your balance is to lean your weight back on your heels. When wearing skates, this will have wacky results. The correct answer in skates is always to bend your knees and lean slightly forward. This will either stabilize you or lead the fall the way it’s supposed to go.
12. Your toe stops are not for stopping, unless you are rolling very slowly indeed. Your toe stops are for ninja tricks you may learn later. Also, if your skates are rental or stock, they are probably also mostly decorative. If you want to stop without the aid of something vertical, you have to learn to make friction work for you while wearing a device mostly designed to reduce friction.
13. Do all of this for many hours. Learn to do it on one leg, which is a surprisingly useful base skill when learning ninja tricks.
It helps to have a small, perpetually perky woman shouting at you the whole way, mostly in the sense that if you do learn, you will eventually be allowed to hit her as hard as you can. Good luck.
*At the very least for just absolutely green starting out. If you keep doing it long enough to be capable of any real speed at all, you NEED a helmet and you SHOULD also get elbow pads.
(Actually we did, it’s just not worth posting about.)
*Crossing the Texas/NM border, and thus time zone, at 88 mph: Stand back; you’re gonna see some serious shit.
*It’s funny the way the cops just vanish once you’re clear of Texas and are not on an Indian Reservation. I mean, 300 miles and not a single roller. This may have affected our travel time just a skosh.
*”No, the angsty Oasis song!” “…You wanna vague that up a bit?”
*”Cowboy Up Energy Drink Non-Alcoholic Apple Brew” - smells like week-old Budweiser. Tastes about the same. Somehow is non-alcoholic but contains the words “fermented,” and “malted barley.” If you have one of these in the car and get pulled over, expect the DUI test whether you’ve been drinking or not.
*I may still be in time to be first to post the Tackiest Kitsch Ever on the internet, if I can finish un-assing from the trip and getting my phone’s shit together before Jennifer can.
*Slow motorists (I suspect you probably know who you are. If not, I’ll be happy to drive behind you for a while and critique.): After you overtake something in the slow lane, be it road barrels, a semi, that obvious pothead who is driving through the great state of oblivion, or whatever, you do not need to leave a full mile before you return to the fucking slow lane. If you do insist on taking distances normally measured in terms of the speed of light before doing so, QUIT ACTING SO GODDAMN SURPRISED WHEN THE 9000 PEOPLE BEHIND YOU TRY TO GO INSIDE AND JUST HOLD YOUR FUCKING LANE.
*”Wild Weasel to Mother Hen. Be advised, home safe.” “MH received. Brooding will now STAND DOWN.”
*Any and all threats and/or vows of revenge from our hosts should be routed to the standard target. Y’know. ‘Cause it’s SOP and all.
*Texas needs research. Either the road signs indicating distance are deliberately wrong, or the History Monks are using it instead of the oceans as a time dump. There is no damn reason for it to take the same amount of time for the distance signs to tick off 3 miles to target as to tick off 20.
That is all.
