Don’t Forget the Budweiser Mirror

If, like me, you were confused by the cheesy corduroy couches and vinyl-covered coffee table Obama put in the Oval Office, you may have a better understanding once you view this video Robert Gibbs made.

Send Gibbs out for Plastic Lawn Flamingos

Tonight I heard Michael Savage (a guilty pleasure) foaming at the mouth over the new Oval Office furniture. Then I took a look at some photos. He’s right! Obama just put two cheap corduroy sofas in the Oval Office! You really have to see it to believe it. And the coffee table looks like it came from Sam’s Club. I am not exaggerating. It’s repulsive.

It’s Motel 6! All it needs is Magic Fingers!

Where did we find this guy? Honestly, Billy Carter had more class.

Who Will Fill Those Loafers Now?

Ken Mehlman says he’s gay. I am floored. This is nearly as shocking as the Liberace thing.

Close the Blinds, Mr. Belvedere

I’m so distraught. My world has come to an end. Lawrence Taylor has been charged with rape! It’s all over Drudge!

I wonder who Lawrence Taylor is.

Oxymoron of Oxymorons

Greenie: a person who throws a spastic fit over discarding a plastic bag that weighs four grams, without worrying about the fifteen pounds of garbage inside it.

I Can Hit Very Fat Prairie Dogs up to 20 Feet Away

I feel like I have been oil-wrestling leopards all day.

My DPMS .308 rifle arrived yesterday. I was not all that excited when I ordered it, but when it arrived, I got a little spastic, and I could not wait to shoot it. Today I took it to the range, with a 6-14x40mm scope borrowed from my .17 HMR rifle. I used Radway Green .308 surplus ammo, which is British and supposedly very good. I have two cans of this stuff. Classic Arms sells it.

The hours at the range are always a matter of mystery and conjecture. They change them all the time, and you never know if the sign is correct. Today I got there 45 minutes before the place opened, thinking it had been open for three hours. To kill time I drove to a nearby truck stop to see if they sold towels.

It could happen.

I wanted a towel because I had left mine at home. Ford Prefect would sneer at my foolishness. When I shoot big-bore rifles, the recoil tears up my right elbow, so I wanted something to put under it. They did not have towels, but they did have really nice carpeted mats for ten bucks. For FOUR.

How can you turn that down? Everyone can use four carpeted mats. Even if you don’t know it, you have uses for them. I bought them. They also advertised smoked alligator, but I didn’t see any, so I didn’t buy any.

They had a whole bunch of dried alligator heads. That was comforting, in an odd way. It reminded me of traveling with my family when I was a kid. We used to stop at horrible tourist restaurant/gift shops called Horne’s and Stuckey’s. They always had lots of dried alligators for sale. They probably sold live ones, too. I can’t remember. This was back in the time when you could buy dynamite at 7-11.

Eventually, I got into the range. And I opened my ammo can of surplus .308, and I tried taking a round out of one of the little four-round clumps that were chained together…and I could not do it. I knew this ammunition came chained up, but I figured you could just slip the rounds out. Oh, no. You have to suffer. Luckily I had a Victorinox multi-tool in my shooting box. I had to remove every round from the others with pliers. And they were covered with some kind of lube. By the end of the day, my hands felt like they had been chewed on by angry pigs.

On the advice of a DPMS guy, I picked up some jags and a proper cleaning kit, but I could not get the jag to work at the range. You’re not allowed to point a gun upward or downward at the range, so it can be hard, cleaning one. I finally decided to do this: wire brush with Break-Free, followed by the Boresnake. That’s the best I could do. It nearly killed me, doing that about thirty times today. If the gun explodes from improper breaking in, so be it. There is a limit to what a human being can do.

I put some Hoppe’s in it from time to time, but I don’t know if I achieved anything by doing that.

Here are the results. The first target is funny, which is why I’m posting it. I shot the first 25 rounds at 25 yards. You know how it is when you’re zeroing a scope. You don’t want to start too far away. As you can see, the bullets crept inward as I adjusted the scope, and they finally settled in a nice satisfying hole southwest of the center of the target.

I enjoyed that.

I moved the scope forward, because I still do not understand eye relief very well, and I moved to 100 yards. Here is the first target. I had to do the zeroing stuff all over again. Part of the error is due to me moving the scope knobs in my typical fearless fashion.

The results are not great. I still have a hard time finding the right place to put my eye, and as soon as I start to squeeze the trigger, the image of the target disappears. I’m getting better, but I think the scope is still too far back. I also had problems with my elbow. It got sore after the first 25 rounds, and it was really annoying. I started to anticipate the pain, and that was not good for my concentration.

I started doing better when I remembered that this gun had a pistol grip. When pistol shooting, I get better results when I squeeze hard with my fourth and fifth fingers. I tried that with the LR-308, and things improved a lot. There is a hole in the target which, I suspect, is where all the bullets would go if I were consistent. Maybe I’m expecting too much of this surplus ammunition, but I think most of the error is me, not the gun or ammunition.

The gun grouped better in the second 100-yard target, but a high percentage of the rounds in this photo are in the center ring, and I think that reflects my increased confidence in my shooting, which was the result of improving my grip. Maybe I’m wrong. It’s impossible to count the rounds accurately now.

The gun’s trigger is a horror straight from hell. It felt okay at first, but later, I almost found myself yanking on it to make it fire. Exasperating. It’s just like the trigger on my Desert Eagle, and that is a tremendous insult. If anyone wants to recommend a drop-in, I am all ears. And credit card. I can’t put up with this.

The other day I was amazed to see how nice the trigger on my Vz 58 was. It’s a dream come true. Even though I didn’t shoot the gun all that well, and I did not apply myself, the target shows that the bullet hits are related to each other. I sort of wandered around in a four-inch circle. I didn’t shoot random flyers I could not explain. Maybe the sweet trigger is the reason. I never have to vary the pull, and the gun always goes off exactly when I expect it to. With the LR-308, I can’t tell when I’m going to fire, and the pull is extremely inconsistent.

Things got better on the last target. By that time, I was fed up with separating surplus from sheet metal chain link things, and I was ready to leave.

Easier Than Regular Pie Crust

Try this pie crust. It’s from a few years back. For some reason, I abandoned it.

INGREDIENTS

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp. salt
1 1/2 sticks butter
1 1/2 packages (12 oz.) cream cheese
1/2 cup sour cream

Make sure the dairy stuff is cold. Cut the cheese and butter in pieces (1/4″ slices of butter, cheese package cut in quarters). Dump everything in a food processor with a regular blade. Process until it forms a glob. Make sure it’s blended pretty well, and then stop. Roll on a floured counter (1/4″ thick). Make a pie with it! I’m doing 400 degrees, and it seems right.

This stuff is the flakiest pie crust I’ve ever seen. Super easy to handle, too. It’s like leather when it’s cold.

You could make cookies from this stuff. Put a glob of fruit in the middle and scatter turbinado sugar on the dough. Then bake. Should probably sweeten the dough, too.

May need more salt.

More

This recipe originally had one other ingredient: 3/4 cup of lard. I forgot to put it in today, and it seems like the crust is better than it used to be.

Here is the pie. I have to wait for it to cool:

More

This pie is incredible. Easier to make than a conventional crust, flakier, tastier, and it even slices better. Look!

I know what it needs. More sugar and a wash. Other than that, it’s ready for prime time.

Get Off my Screen

Facebook ads want to know if I want to date “active seniors” and “women over 50.”

Think I’ll pass.

I are a Historian

Today I had a moment of boredom and decided to create a Blogspot blog documenting the evil things George Bush continues to do. I predict this will last about three weeks, but I am enjoying it so far. Feel free to send submissions.

I know Blame Bush does something similar, but they never update, and they wander off on non-Bush tangents.

Check out Stuff Bush Did.

In Your Own Row

Let me make myself even less popular among conservatives by announcing that I side with Mitt Romney’s “attacker” in the runway seat-back incident.

When I pay for an airline seat, I pay for space, and that includes the space it takes to recline my seat. If you’re behind me, you may think that space belongs to you, but it doesn’t. So when I recline in order to prevent myself from having back spasms later, you have nothing to say about it. If you’re claustrophobic, or if you’re fat, or if you just don’t like people who recline their seats, you should have flown first class instead of expecting me to screw up my back and fly in pain so you could get first-class comfort for a coach price. You don’t let your fat spill over the armrest onto me. You don’t put your stuff under the seat in front of me. You don’t tell me to turn off my reading light or the air nozzle. If you want to control your row, buy it.

Touching another person without permission is battery. This is what Mitt Romney did, if he put his hands on the guy in the reclined seat. Romney’s spokesperson appears to have omitted this detail, but the other guy’s story is completely credible. Romney’s version–that he merely spoke to the man, who then threw a fist at him–sounds absurd. I don’t buy it.

Battery is a tort, and it’s also a crime. You don’t put your hands on other people in a civilized society, unless they give you the legal right to do so. That brings me to the third issue.

When the rapper in the reclined seat smacked Romney’s hand, he did not commit a battery. He had the legal right to slap Romney away. In fact, I think he would have been justified in punching Romney in the mouth. Romney waived his right to refuse to be touched, if he battered the other passenger.

On top of all this, reports say Romney was rude at the outset of the encounter, ordering the other passenger to move his seat to an upright position. Former Governor of Massachusetts is not the same thing as Governor of the Coach Seating Area. When you want people to do you favors, which describes Romney’s situation, you ask. You don’t demand.

People have noted that the plane was on the runway, and there seems to be a notion out there that this made reclining the seat some kind of felony. I’ve traveled by air, and I’ve noticed something. They don’t order you to straighten your seat back until it’s time to take off. Until then, you can do what you want. Regardless, Mitt Romney isn’t in charge of airline seat backs, and it’s not his place to enforce FAA policy.

I’d love it if people sitting in front of me didn’t recline their seats. But they have the right to recline. They can do anything they want with the space they paid for. I respect their right, and I keep my mouth shut, and I recline my own seat as much as I need to in order to be comfortable.

Romney is supposedly worth tens of millions of dollars, and he’s not young. He doesn’t have fifty years of flying in front of him. Maybe the wise thing is to live a little and buy better seats. To him, the price of a first class seat is like the cost of a Whopper for the rest of us, and he doesn’t have enough flights left in him to make it a major expense over the remainder of his life. If it runs him an extra hundred thousand a year, he’ll never miss it. Incidents like this are the reason many wealthy public figures always fly first class. It’s not a luxury. It’s the cost of doing business.

If you’re ever in an airline seat in front of me, recline all you want. It’s your right.

Jackals Can’t Resist Palin Flesh

My take on the Down Syndrome/Family Guy/Sarah Palin ambush, as posted in comments at Sondra’s:

This shows why the word “retarded” needs to be preserved. Not all people with Down Syndrome are retarded. It looks like Andrea Friedman is one of the lucky ones.

That being said, Trig is probably not as fortunate, and if Ms. Friedman is not retarded, she is one of US, not one of THEM, Down Syndrome notwithstanding. If her intelligence is even close to normal, it’s not okay for her to make fun of mentally impaired people.

If she is impaired, then she does not have the capacity to understand the evil that was done in this episode, and it’s disgraceful that people who are not impaired would put her up to this.

“Plunder”?

RE the Men at Work story, I always thought it was “women blow and men thunder.” Seriously.

I never thought that made any sense, but then I never understood “repped up like a dution of the runner in the night” either.

And music critics admit no one really knows the words to “Louie, Louie.”

FAIL

Today I got an annoying letter from the Republican National Committee. They put it in an envelope that looked like the ones the government uses, and they put the word “audit” on the outside of it.

They do this to scare people, so they’ll notice their junk mail and take it seriously. It must seem like a pretty good joke to their marketing people. I didn’t think it was all that funny. Audits are not very pleasant, and in these times, a lot of people are getting real audit letters, and the IRS is proceeding to ruin their lives. Why not put “FORECLOSURE” on the envelope while you’re at it?

I sent them an email demanding they remove me from their mailing list and informing them that I was all done sending money. They can pull their jokes on someone else. I supported them, and they rewarded me with a juvenile postal prank.

This is the kind of marketing that cost us Congress and the White House. It is astounding that they would do something this crass, tactless, and counterproductive. Terry McAuliffe and James Carville must be their fundraising advisors. The Democrats should send letters like this out, pretending to be the RNC. It would win them a lot of new voters.

Great News

I just looked at Osama bin Laden’s latest video, and I saw something really encouraging. I made a still capture. See if you can figure out what I spotted.

I considered calling this entry “51.”

Inevitable

Obama bin Laden, Dalai Obama, Obama Cass…

Can I just say something that will offend people?

I just saw an Internet link to a story about how Obama thinks Osama bin Laden’s latest video shows weakness.

I had to read it twice to figure out which one was the terrorist.

Can’t we just call him “Barry”?

You’ve Done it Again!

Last month I got a piece of aluminum swarf in my eye, and I went to see the eye doctor. Stupidly, I let him talk me into an old-age “comprehensive” eye exam, so that’s on my schedule today.

I get to confront my mortality by determining exactly how blind I’ve gotten over the last 20 years. I won’t complain. I am not nearsighted enough to need glasses for driving, and I’m not farsighted enough to be totally dependent on reading glasses. Things could be a lot worse.

On my last visit, the doctor said my vision was “fantastic,” which means other people my age must be in sad shape. I thank God I’m not in their shoes.

I hate going to the doctor, but I’m glad I get to go. Needing to go and not being able would be a whole lot worse.

Who put Mannitol in my Mucinex?

I am still sick. Not very sick, but a little. I got sick on Christmas Day. That was almost 20 days ago. How long can a virus last? At this rate, people who broke their arms hanging Christmas lights will get well before I do.

I’m only taking two medications now. Nyquil and Hall’s cough drops. At first, I took the drops because they seemed to soothe my dry throat. Now I’m not sure why I’m taking them. But I don’t know if I can stop. The packages says to use one drop every two hours. I read that after establishing a regimen of one drop every ten minutes. Now I’m wondering…what are the long-term health effects of overdosing on menthol and eucalyptus oil? You could hang me in a taxi to freshen the air. It’s like I’ve been using Lestoil for aftershave.

Marv likes Hall’s, too. I was lying in bed with him the other day, listening to a CD, when I noticed that he was obsessed with my mouth. Something in that region was driving him crazy. He was standing on my chest with his eyes wide, squeaking frantically and trying to put his beak in my mouth. I figured it had to be the cough drop I was working on, so I gave him one of his very own. He chomped it up while shaking his head to dissipate the minty fumes. It apparently caused him some discomfort, but that didn’t slow him down at all. It was like me, eating curry.

Maynard just eats the wrappers.

I guess I’m going to have to go cold turkey when the drops run out. At least I still have Nyquil. Although it doesn’t seem to do anything any more, except for helping with congestion. I miss that Nyquil high. Ten minutes after a dose, I was as happy as Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet. They ought to make Nyquil in a convenient inhaler mask. I could chase it with PABST…BLUE…RIBBON.

Obscure references. They are what I live for.

I still think Kyle Maclachlan is K.D. Lang. No one has proven otherwise.

I never watched Twin Peaks, but if you feel like making references in the comments, knock yourself out. I thought it was very dull. I remember something about pie, and a scene with a lady in a clear plastic laundry bag. I think.

I think I can actually DO things now. That would be a good idea. Doing things. Lying in a recliner refreshing The Drudge Report and waiting for death is not much of a lifestyle.

The Internet has gotten really boring. I used to read lots of blogs, and I wrote several blogs, and I had a big time. Now it’s pretty much me, Weather Underground, Sondra K., Day by Day, and Drudge. Moxie quit blogging. Agent Bedhead keeps writing about celebrities I have never heard of because I’m old. Dennis doesn’t have much going on now that Pajamas Media is on life support. The Hampsterdance is gone. Is it any wonder I have felt compelled to venture into the real world more and more, and that I spend more time dealing with actual human beings? Some are born with a life, some achieve a life, and some have a life thrust upon them. That’s how I see it.

Pie…that would be good. Yes. Pie.

I will make a list of actual things to do. Then I may conceivably do some of them. This is my plan. I like it.

I can always leave Drudge open while I work.

Don’t Shop at Mohammed’s Secret

Wheeeee my brain is still floating in a viral mist. I may go back to the doctor today to see if he has better drugs to help me breathe while I sleep. The virus is doing what they so often do. It’s touring my body, with a different stop every day. First, the throat. Then the bones. Then the sinuses. Then the lungs. I suppose I’ll get well when it runs out of new places to go.

I have to wonder if I’m one of the lucky people who get the flu in spite of being vaccinated. I don’t think so. I haven’t had much of a fever. But this is no cold.

I think I made a mistake yesterday, getting up and fooling with tools. Maybe doctors really mean it when they prescribe rest. I thought they just said that so they could feel like they were helping.

I’ve looked at the news, and it appears that we will all have to expose our genitals to airport screeners from now on. For some this will be a degrading nuisance. Others will think, “Finally, I have an excuse.”

No one ever listens to me. I solved the screening problem a long time ago. We need an express line for people willing to eat a slice of ham in front of airport employees. People who eat pork don’t blow up airplanes. And it’s not racial profiling. Oh, no. It’s DIETARY profiling. Totally different.

I know I’m eccentric, but I can’t shake this mysterious hunch that says terrorism is somehow connected to Islam.

It’s disturbing how underwear has evolved into an offensive weapon. First, the Unabomber tried to kill himself with his underwear. That wasn’t so bad. Now underwear is going tactical, and they’re using it to kill other people. Do you know what this means? We’re all carrying concealed weapons now. Except for hippies who don’t wear underwear.

Sensible underwear laws NOW! Where is Sarah Brady when you need her? We need an advocate to take a stand before people start going to underwear shows and using loopholes to buy armor-piercing cop-killer underwear. Studies show that over 99% of violent crime victims have underwear in their homes. Even more disturbing, very few of them store their underwear properly, in underwear safes.

Don’t make me connect the dots.

I posted my new terrorism remedy on Twitter. Are you ready for it? Here’s how we punish terrorists from now on: exploding underwear activated by calls from Dick Cheney’s cell phone.

We’re going to have to refine our jargon. From now on, going without underwear will have to be referred to as “NOT going commando.”

We’re going to have to ban assault underwear. That much is clear. And we’ll have to come up with classifications, such as automatic and semi-automatic underwear.

I estimate it will be about three days before we hear about an anonymous porn message board featuring backscatter photos of attractive tourists. It would be wise to prepare. The next time I fly, I plan to sell ad space on my belly. For the right sum, I’ll get glue and sequins and spell out “This Bud’s for You” or “Palin 2012.” How about, “Ask me About Herbalife”?

I’m trying to figure out what Muslims could to to humiliate us further, but I’m drawing a blank. Well, that’s not true. I forgot about the butt bomber. Remember him? He hid his bomb in a very unfortunate location. When his specialty gets popular, we’ll have privacy invasions that make backscatter scans seem about as offensive as passport photos.

Here’s a theological question. If a Muslim wears exploding underwear on a plane, but he sits next to Mitt Romney, who is wearing magical Mormon underwear, which underwear wins? Will the magic underwear prevail? I hope Mormons never get into terrorism (beyond producing Harry Reid). Their underwear is so big, one pair could take out a city block.

I foresee a day when no American will be able to go anywhere, for any reason. When that happens, Muslims will walk to your house and blow their underpants up when you open the door.

You know who must be embarrassed today? The guy who made the Flight 253 underwear bomb. His pal trusted him to give him a nice clean blast, and instead, the terrorist is now basically a lady. Fat lot of good 72 virgins will do him now. How do you apologize for a thing like that? I’ve had friends let me down, but generally it involved things like failing to repay small loans. When a buddy char-broils your entire crotch, de-friending him on Facebook doesn’t really express the extent of your hurt feelings.

Stay in on New Year’s Eve. I think it’s safe to assume there will be an exploding-underpants flash mob at every celebration in the United States. I’m glad Dick Clark isn’t alive to see this. Oh, wait. He is alive. Hope he has ear plugs and a polycarbonate face shield. As the premiere rock and roll impresario of the Fifties, he is very familiar with the sight of flying underwear, but in the past, it usually contained hotel keys and love notes, not homemade napalm.

Hey, I just realized who we need to call to fix this crisis. Tom Jones! If anyone knows how to deal with airborne underpants, it’s Tom.

I’m eagerly waiting to see what fanatical Islam can do to make air travel more disgusting and ridiculous.

Stand Upwind

My throat feels funny and I have a fever of 99.4°. You are advised to shun me until further notice. If you are female and therefore already shunning me, you may disregard this message.

What’s a good cocktail based on Nyquil? Can I make a frozen daiquiri from it?

Flea Confrontation

Give me your opinions on a vital issue.

You have a dog. You find flea bites on the dog’s butt. The dog’s butt is sore.

You have a flea-killing product called Advantix, but you have not been using it. It works like this: you put a drop on the dog once in a while, and it kills the fleas.

Would you:

A) Take your dog to the veterinarian and ask if medical science can cure his butt, regardless of cost?

B) Give the dog a flea dip, put Advantix on him, and see how his butt looks in a couple of days?

I think you will be able to predict my answer. I have a spider bite on my back, and it’s a big boily knot of a thing. I probably have a low-grade fever, and it may be the reason I got a kidney stone yesterday. I am not going to the doctor. God healed me of the kidney stone before I could get treatment, and I don’t care about the spider bite.

If I’m not deserving of a trip to the ICU, neither is a dog. That’s how I see it.