Author: hsoi

Obviously a terrorist

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

Zachary Christie. He’s obviously a terrorist.

How do I know this?

Why, he ran afoul of the Newark, Delaware school district’s zero tolerance policy.

What did he do?

He brought a utensil to school.

You see, 6 year old Zachary just joined the Cub Scouts. He received a folding utensil that can be used as a knife, fork, and spoon. He was so excited at receiving it, he wanted to use it to eat his school lunch.

Obviously a terrorist. Spoons… soon we won’t be able to take those on airplanes either.

As the result of this, the boy faces 45 days in the district’s reform school.

Obviously a troublemaker. Thank God those school officials acted now. Who knows what could have happened if this sort of behavior went unchecked. I mean, the boy takes karate… obviously demonstration of violent tendencies. Then he joins the Cub Scouts, with all their uniforms and handshakes and oaths, learning about camping and the outdoors, maybe even how to shoot a BB gun… what sort of paramilitary training is this?!?! I’ll say it again, thank God for those school officials.

So, what is the mother doing? Homeschooling him, at least while this whole ridiculousness is going on.

Frankly, I hope Mom makes it a permanent setup. Zero-tolerance for public school lunacy, I say.

But you know, easier to hide behind stupid policies that don’t work (in fact, they tend to make things worse) than use your brain. Wither education.

Three holsters compared

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

There are three holsters that are frequently recommended for IWB carry: CrossBreed SuperTuck Deluxe, Comp-Tac Minotaur MTAC, and Tucker Gun Leather’s The Answer. The thing about these three holsters is they are all of basically the same design, but of course have their differences. When you search t3h int3rw3bz for information or comparisons on these three designs, often you don’t get a complete enough picture: the poster owns one of the holsters and loves it or maybe they owned two of them.

Foo.c happens to be one of the few people that have owned all three of the holsters, and he provides his review and comparison of them.

Me? I love my MTAC, but I admit to not owning the other two. SuperTuck always seemed to be “no frills” which includes things like a lack of adjustability. Granted once you get the holster set for your body you’re unlikely to adjust it, but the lack of adjustment assumes that everyone is built the same and wears in the same way. The Answer always seemed to be “all the frills” which isn’t bad either, but it seemed like paying a lot more for little details that I didn’t need. That said, Tucker does some gorgeous leatherwork.

Productive

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

I’ve been fairly quiet today since I’ve been away from the computer most of the day.

The garage has been bugging me lately. Junk has been piling up, hard to get around, and I can’t do things in there. Biggest thing? All that reloading equipment from exodus still sitting there, unused. It’s been getting to me. I took the Speer Reloading manual into the house a few weeks ago and have been reading it. And I think with hunting season upon me I have lofty dreams of my own hunting load. So… before I went to bed last night I decided I was going to revamp the garage.

Off to Home Depot. Buying wood screws, brackets, wood, sundry other things. I also picked up a new Makita cordless drill and circular saw. Some years ago I had a Porter-Cable cordless drill but when it died a couple years back and I couldn’t get replacement batteries I opted to get a corded drill. I made the wrong decision to save a little money and the drill I got lacked important things like a brake and a clutch. So while I was happy with the corded drill the rest of the drill sucked. So the Makita was a great purchase and is very cool, but the battery didn’t seem to last very long. Supposedly it’s a fast recharge tho, but when I put the battery on the charger it flashed the “bad battery” lights at me. Hrm. Not good. I’ll contact Makita in the morning. Never owned a circular saw, but it’s one of those things that the past some whiles I’ve had enough times when it would have been nice if I had one (always managed to get by), so I figured now was as good a time as any to finally buy one.

My ceilings are high so I put the shelves up high all around the perimeter of the garage interior. Just simple brackets, plywood, and wood screws. I was then able to store all the boxes of holiday decorations, coolers, and various other things up high. Threw away a bunch of crap, rearranged a bunch of stuff, and then I was able to give the reloading table a proper home. Ahhhh… 🙂

The garage looks good. Motorcycle looks happy in there (tho it’d look happier out on the road of course). There’s room to move, better organization, and again… a place to reload. That’s the important thing. 🙂

Quirkology

/ hsoi

Quirkology. A term coined by author Richard Wiseman to refer to psychological research that is quirky. Much of this work uses mainstream methods to investigate unusual topics, or unusual methods to investigate mainstream topics. Read more about it here.

What got me about it was this video on the color-changing card trick.

Just watch it. I don’t want to spoil the trick. After you watch it, go read about the trick and see another interesting video that supports the original.

I’ll just say, it has interesting implications for eye-witness accounts.

He’s got a lot of other interesting videos and studies on the Quirkology website. Check it out.

M16 A1 vs. AK-74

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

I have no idea what they’re saying in this video. Sounds Japanese. Anyone translate?

Regardless, it’s a neat video with some interesting ballistics testing and a lot of cool slo-mo video. The clay at 1:28 is cool to watch.

Sunday Metal – Alabama Thunderpussy

/ hsoi

A band whose name you may not be able to utter in polite company, but then there’s nothing polite about the band.

Heavy southern stoner rock at its finest, you have Alabama Thunderpussy.

I like their older stuff:

I like their newer stuff. I think Kyle Thomas’ vocals were great.

It’s a shame the band wasn’t able to hold it together long term (tho 12 years is a great run), always rotating vocalists and other troubles. But they ended things on good terms and we’ve still got a lot of good albums and music to go on.

Glenn Danzig, martial artist

/ hsoi

I knew Glenn Danzig was a black belt in something or other but had no solid idea of what his training was in.

I guess he studied Jeet Kune Do, at least in part (don’t know if he’s ranked in that… Google isn’t turning up any real solid information on his martial arts background):

Then of course, there’s the whole North Side Kings incident. I think Danzig brought that on himself (at least, based upon what you see in the video). Goes to show that no matter how badass you are (or think you are), if you’re an asshole sooner or later you’re going to get your ass beat. 🙂

Looking for canes

/ hsoi / 19 Comments

I’m wanting to buy a cane… fighting cane.

The following is no endorsement. Just me Googling and listing what I find. I have no direct experience with any of these products… yet. I’m hoping to find someone to buy a good cane from.

There’s Cane Masters. There’s Goju-Shorei. But I want to find something else. Just because I want to see if there’s anyone else out there producing good product at perhaps a better price.

All I want is something simple. Wood cane, of a strong hard wood that can take a beating (e.g. oak). Crook neck/handle. I’d like the opening to be “straight” (no crook going inwards and closing the opening off). Keeping it very simple so it blends in; think: can I take this onto an airplane? That I can use as an actual walking cane, but can use for self-defense purposes as well.

I just found this website, simply enough: walking canes. Lots of great selection, but unsure of the fitness for the purpose.

And The Walking Cane Store.

I do see a lot of the same canes listed at the 3 above sites. Not 100% overlap, but a decent amount.

In the end, wood is wood. If it’s oak, it’ll be strong. It’s then a matter of diameter and things like the size of the opening to ensure it can properly hook onto things.

This looks like a small-time shop doing their own thing: Kentucky Walking Sticks.

Hrm…. most other things I find are crap like umbrella canes, sword canes, rattan canes (I like rattan for my staffs, but not for my cane… too much flex to support my weight). I guess my Google-Fu is weak.

If you have any good suggestions or outlets for quality canes, please comment and let me know.

Concealed Carry Responsibility

/ hsoi

Just two days ago I was writing about the importance of getting training. That to obtain your concealed handgun license was not an end, it was the key necessary to open the door to more and better training.

Over at the Nebraska CCW blog, they just posted a similar piece. The article does discuss how obtaining your license/permit is not the end but means you need more training, more practice (and if you can’t afford the training, everyone can afford dry fire practice). However, the main thrust of the article is about the responsibility of a permit/license holder. The article made an interesting observation:

[A] firearms Instructor I had in a course once stated, “Now that you have a CCW permit you have LESS rights and MORE responsibility”. Very true, think about it…… With a permit, now you no longer have the right to go into a restaurant and have a beer. You can no longer just go freely about your business without a care in the world. Being armed, you must be constantly aware of your surroundings at all time. If you are pulled over by a Police Officer, now you must disclose to them if you have a firearm in the vehicle. You cannot always dress the way you want to in order to carry concealed.

I hadn’t explicitly thought about it that way, but this is true. While there’s now one thing I can legally do, conversely there are many things I can no longer legally do. I have willingly entered into this state, and have willingly accepted this greater responsibility. Furthermore, it’s not just simple legal enumerations:

You no longer have the right to get angry or lose your temper since you are carrying a gun. If you have any sort of temper, then you must get rid of it before you carry a gun. There is ZERO room for CCW permit holders to have a temper. Somebody cuts you off in traffic? Smile and look the other way. Somebody tells you that your mother is ugly? Ignore them and walk away. Somebody looks at you funny? Ignore them. If you cannot keep a calm demeanor and blow off these types of petty things, then do us all a favor and don’t carry a gun.