I am not exactly disappointed. Various chores are piling up thanks to my spending Monday and Tuesday on Katawa Shoujo, and this means I'll have more time to get at them today.
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I finally broke down and turned the thermostat up to 70. I've been really good about keeping it at 68--except for one or two times when I was chilly at the same time I needed to shower--but yesterday afternoon, sitting in my rocking chair in sweats and a hoodie, I was freezing. My nose was cold, my legs were cold, and I had to put a blanket over myself and put the hoodie's hood up to get myself warm again.
Then, about the time the sun went down yesterday, I got the gas bill. It's lower than it has been for four months. So when I got up this morning and was chilly, I thought, Intercourse it! and turned up the thermostat.
It won't last, of course; I'll be turning it down again--but WTF, it only costs a little more to go first class.
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Democrat wants to lower the voting age to 16. I will agree with this idea on one, and only one, extremely simple condition:
The voting age must be the new age of majority.
In other words, if you can vote, you can:
SmokeThat last includes being considered "adult" for purposes of sex-related offenses and/or statutory limits on the ability to consent to sex.
Buy and consume alcohol
Own property
Drive
Serve in the armed forces and/or BE DRAFTED UNDER THE SELECTIVE SERVICE ACT
Pay taxes
Leave school
Work
Be tried as an adult for whatever crimes you commit
"But!" You say. "That would mean we'd have 16-year-olds drinking and smoking and going to war! And what about their education?? You can't allow 16-year-olds to leave the compulsory educational system!"
Look: if they're old enough to vote--if we think they are developed enough to make such serious decisions--then they for damned sure are capable of being responsible enough with the other things. Aren't they?
And if they are not reponsible and mature enough to handle those other things they've got no business voting, either.
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Weer'd comments on a federal DEA agent who accidentally shot himself and was fired after the video went viral.
The guy was talking to high schoolers about gun safety and said, "I’m the only one in this room professional enough, that I know of, to carry this Glock 40." Then he quite literally shot himself in the foot.
That's got to be divine punishment, right there.
Weer'd reiterates the four rules for handling firearms, so I don't need to; instead I'm going to comment on negligent discharges (NDs).
A modern firearm--which I'm sure the Glock 40 counts as--is not going to go off unless you pull the trigger. (Some guns, yes, will go off if dropped. In general, those who know guns won't carry that sort of weapon. I don't believe the Glock 40 is such a gun. In any case, this guy didn't drop his weapon.) In order to pull the trigger, your finger must be on the trigger.
The only time you put your finger on the trigger is when you wish to fire the weapon. Being in a classroom with 40 kids is not a place to fire the weapon.
Now: it appears to me that when he's showing the gun to the kids he has it out of battery, with the slide locked back; going by the sound--the video is too grainy to see clearly--during his discussion he appears to release the slide, thus putting the gun into battery.
I suppose he probably pulled the trigger intending to "dry fire" it, releasing tension on the hammer spring...only there was a bullet in the chamber. He didn't check the chamber before pulling the trigger.
With a semiauto pistol like the Glock 40, if it's already cocked, it doesn't do anything if you rack the slide to triple-check the chamber. When the guy had locked the gun out of battery, that cocked the hammer; releasing the slide let it feed and chamber a round. (Why he was parading the gun around with a loaded magazine in it is anyone's guess.)
Rule one is "assume every gun is always loaded". If you're not in the process of shooting a target you must ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS make sure that gun is NOT LOADED before you pull the trigger, especially if you're intending to clear the weapon. If that means racking the slide three or four times and looking in the chamber each time, you do it. He didn't do that. So much for "professional".
So the guy got himself an ND and ended up in the ER with a gunshot wound. If the average non-police person did that, he'd lose his guns. A civilian ND ends up with all kinds of legal bullshit and the cops end up confiscating your papers, your firearms--all of them--and your ammo. What did Mr. Professional lose, before he lost his job?
The article that Weer'd links to says "accidental discharge" but there's no such damned thing. That guy could have killed someone; he doesn't have any business lecturing anyone on gun safety.
Sorry, pal. Be more careful next time.
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John Stossel mentions a Florida law that requires owners of vending machines to place the following notice on their machines:
NOTICE TO CUSTOMER:In other words:
FLORIDA LAW REQUIRES THIS NOTICE TO BE POSTED ON ALL FOOD AND BEVERAGE VENDING MACHINES. Report any machine without a notice to 1-800-352-9273. You may be eligible for a cash reward. DO NOT USE THIS NUMBER TO REPORT PROBLEMS WITH THE VENDING MACHINE SUCH AS LOST MONEY OR OUT-OF-DATE PRODUCTS.
THIS SIGN REQUIRED BY LAW...
REPORT NONCOMPLIANCE TO THE AUTHORITIES!
Only a government could do something this asinine.
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Yep, it's union labor costs that's sinking Hostess.
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DOOM!
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Eps 76 and 77 of Yawara! have hit the torrents, so I'm firing up El-Hazard long enough to grab 'em.
In order to make the wireless mouse work better, so I could play/watch Katawa Shoujo on the blab slab from the comfort of my rocking chair, I moved El-Hazard's keyboard behind the stereo amp. The wireless mouse/keyboard have been a bit flaky since I moved Cephiro to the other side of the desk.
The BakaBT tracker is down for the day (for the SOPA/PIPA protest blackout thingy) so I won't be doing a lot of uploading. There's no way in hell I could possibly use up 40 GB of bandwidth in a 24 hour period anyway, not with my upload speed at 768 kbps. (96 kBps.)
I have, in fact, been thinking of how (or if) I could move my Katawa Shoujo game to El-Hazard. The graphics are not exactly demanding and it would mean that Cephiro could be in sleep mode during the interminably long play times this game requires.
It would mean losing the comfy and convenient wireless mouse, but playing in auto mode means I don't need to have the mouse in hand all the time anyway. I'd just have to lean forward when I wanted to pause the game or review the text history or save or WTF-ever.
Well, once the two Yawara! eps finish downloading I think I'll fiddle with that...before playing WoW or doing something other than playing KS. Today's my day off from that game.
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...and while we're on the subject, how the hell did it get to be Wednesday, anyway? Shit.