Archive for the ‘Christmas’ Category

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Random gun (and other) crankery.

Saturday, January 10th, 2026

One of my Christmas presents to myself was to take a gun off layaway at my local dealer.

I’m not ready to show it off yet. I want Mike to see it first, and I’ve warned him that his eyes are going to roll so hard they may pop out of his head. Let me just say that this gun combines 1.5 of this blogger’s obsessions. More later on.

One of my other Christmas presents to myself was a replacement for Project e. While it was (and still is, to some extent) a fine machine, the CPU and memory are quite limited. You can’t even get an Ubuntu distro for it any longer, as far as I can tell. It still powers on, but I was getting a lot of fan noise out of it, too. I think it is time for it to go into retirement.

The new machine is a Lenovo ThinkPad P15S – I believe this is a gen 2, with an i7-10510U processor and a discrete NVIDA T500 GPU. It is a lot larger (I’d say about twice the size) than Proect e, but several times more powerful. This was a Discount Electronics purchase when they were looking to dump inventory a few weeks ago, and I upgraded the SSD and RAM when I ordered it. (I also got six months free financing.)

Other than replacing Project e, I wanted to get a personal computer for myself. I’ve been doing a lot (well, pretty much all) of my personal stuff on my work laptop, and that doesn’t seem like a good situation for obvious reasons. I want to start moving files and personal stuff off the work laptop and onto this one. Of course, that’s more difficult than you might think, because Cisco, as a security measure, has locked down all the corporate machines so you can no longer use any removable media. I think I can still copy stuff to the cloud.

Right now, the new device has Windows 11 Pro on it. I’m keeping it there for two reasons:

1) I also signed up, at the end of the year, for the Certified Ethical Hacker certification from Colorado State. They specify Mac or Windows for the coursework. I didn’t want to try running the courseware on my work Mac (and possibly running into infosec issues) so I figured I’d get a dedicated Windows laptop for the course, and once I finish the cert, install some flavor of LINUX on it.

2) I also need to do my taxes this year. I think there may be a LINUX tax software package, but I’ve never used it. I can get the H&R Block tax software, which I prefer, for Windows. The past few years, I’ve installed it on my work Mac, but I think I’m going to stop doing that this year.

Why not just get a new personal Mac instead? I’m waiting for the M5 Pro Max laptops. Once those come out, and as long as everything holds together, I plan to purchase a fully blown and stoked M5 Pro Max (or whatever Apple calls it) for personal use. Project L (the Lenovo) will then become a dedicated security research machine.

I’ve messed around a little with the Windows version of hashcat so far, and I think I’m getting pretty good performance with that. I also want to see how it performs ripping DVDs with Handbrake. I do expect performance improvements in both these areas when I move Project L to UNIX.

I also want to go back to messing around more with SDR. I have one of those TV tuner based SDR kits, but I haven’t done anything with it because I felt my existing machines were too slow. Now that I have something a bit more modern than 2009…

And speaking of SDR, I also want to pick back up experimenting with Bluetooth. Though, again, I think that’s going to have to wait for UNIX. It is also going to have to wait for me to figure out what the current state of Bluetooth probing devices is: the Ubertooth One is out of production and deprecated. Just based on a preliminary Google search it looks like the state of the art has shifted to higher-end SDR devices.

Going back to guns for a minute, I do have a “gun” coming from Amazon on Monday. I’ll blog that when I can, as it answers the question: what happens to a dream deferred?

And I have a huge backlog of gun books to blog, once I can get picture uploads to work again.

Busier than a one-armed man in a calf-milking contest, indeed. I’m just hoping to hold everything together.

Posted in Apple, Bluetooth, Books, Christmas, Geek, Guns, Project L, project_e, Radio, SDR | Comments Closed

Merry Christmas!

Thursday, December 25th, 2025

The great and good Pat Cadigan posts her favorite Christmas story every year (Merry Christmas, Pat!) so I’m going to post my favorite Christmas joke. This year’s version comes from the Straight Dope Message Board: my favorite joke is at the very top, but there are some other great ones in there too.

Mike and I were making a tour of gun stores over the past weekend. We went into the Gun Connection in Taylor (endorsed: this is the kind of funky store that I like) and they were playing this.

My kind of Christmas music.

Merry Christmas, one and all. Special regards to Jimmy McNulty, T Migratorious, Pigpen51, Lawrence, and Borepatch.

And I’m pretty sure I’ve used this song before, but not this version.

Posted in Christmas, Endorsements, Guns | 2 Comments »

The Spirit of Christmas 5.

Wednesday, December 24th, 2025

For all the issues I have with Gregg Easterbrook, I do think this is a pretty swell meditation on model trains and Christmas.

Adults who today are deep into model railroading – usually retired men from industrial careers, though including Rod Stewart and Michael Jordan – construct elaborate sets representing real locations in railroading. Jordan favors the tiny N gauge. Stewart likes HO. His diorama, which he says took 25 years to complete – I believe him! – suggests Pittsburgh in the 1940s.

While this is on the “All Predictions Wrong” substack, it is a re-run, so Easterbrook doesn’t have it paywalled.

Posted in Christmas, TMQ watch, Trains | Comments Closed

Obit watch: December 23, 2025.

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2025

This is a couple of days old, but it got past me because the weekend was busy: May Britt.

She had a career as an actress, including the original “Mission: Impossible” and the 1959 “The Blue Angel”. She married Sammy Davis Jr. in 1960.

The couple planned their wedding for that October but ended up pushing it back to November. It took place in Hollywood; Frank Sinatra served as best man, and several other members of the Rat Pack were in attendance — including Peter Lawford, who was married to Kennedy’s sister Patricia. (Mr. Davis was a core member of the group, known for performing in Las Vegas together.)

There was a lot of backlash at the time, and the marriage pretty much cost Ms. Britt her career.

Chris Rea, musician. I wouldn’t say I was a big fan of his work, but back in the day when I listened to the radio, KGSR would play “Texas”. I thought that was a pretty swell song.

And it is Christmas, right?

Posted in Christmas, Music, Obits | 2 Comments »

The Spirit of Christmas 4.

Monday, December 22nd, 2025

A 2025 RevolverGuy Christmas Story.

It isn’t required, and it isn’t a Christmas story, but it might help put some of the “theology” here in context if you also read “Homecoming Day” from earlier this year as well.

Posted in Christmas, Guns | Comments Closed

The Spirit of Christmas 3.

Friday, December 19th, 2025

Another good Christmas story, this one from Dr. Dabbs. And I’m not just saying that because the story features a F-4 Phantom II jet.

Also, LawDog is still writing about the Flickerfoxes.

Posted in Christmas, Planes | Comments Closed

The spirit of Christmas 2.

Wednesday, December 17th, 2025

Remember the other day, I linked to a swell Christmas meditation from LawDog?

Well, he’s expanded it some, with the intent of publishing a children’s book for Christmas next year.

Posted in Christmas | Comments Closed

Christmas car update.

Tuesday, December 16th, 2025

The car passed the state emissions inspection with no problem. Other than a little bit of confusion because I’d never been to this place before, it was mostly a smooth process.

With an inspection in hand, I can renew my car registration.

The State of Texas used to have a simple and straightforward website for registration renewal.

Not any more. Oh, no. Everything has shifted to something called “Texas By Texas”. So, first of all, you have to set up an account if you’ve never used “Texas by Texas” before. (I had not: I think TxT is new this year.)

Not only do they want your email address, they also want all kinds of other information. Including your physical address, your mailing address, your driver’s license number, the audit code off your driver’s license, etc. etc. et bloody cetra.

Then, once you have your TxT account set up…as far as I can tell, that’s just for your driver’s license. You have to go through a separate step to link your car registration to TxT.

At least, once I finished that, I didn’t have to fill in a lot of information to actually get the renewal done. It didn’t even ask me for proof of insurance or inspection: I think all this stuff is linked by computer statewide these days.

Of course, there were the donations. Literally half a page of donations you could make while renewing your registration:

  • “Support Texas Veterans”
  • Texas state parks (as I recall, they want at least $5 for that)
  • Organ donation
  • Special Olympics
  • “Ending Homelessness Fund”
  • “Evidence Testing Grant Program”
  • “Stop Human Trafficking”

And the registration itself is $78.25 before any donations. Including $10 for bridges, $1.50 for “child safety”, $7.50 for the “inspection replacement fee” (just because the state did away with safety inspections doesn’t mean that they don’t want their money), $2.75 for the “emissions inspection fee” (that’s over and above the $11.50 state fee for the emissions inspection, plus $7 for something, I’m not exactly sure what, plus 75 cents for using a credit card), and $4.75 for “processing and handling”. Tell you what, I’ll give you $2 for processing, and I’ll do the “handling” myself.

Nickels. Dimes. They add up, you know?

Posted in Cars, Christmas | Comments Closed

Christmas is coming.

Monday, December 15th, 2025

I am officially on vacation as of today.

You know what that means, right?

Yes, it’s just not Christmas until I see Hans Gruber fall from the Nakatomi Tower.

For what it’s worth, the tree is up (but the lights are not plugged in yet) and the inflatable Christmas Corgi is going in the front yard today.

I still have to get the car inspected. Yes, Texas did away with safety inspections at the first of this year. But I’m in an area that requires emissions testing prior to renewing your registration. And the shop I used to use for inspections no longer has an inspection technician: they redirected me to a quickie inspection place located behind a drive-through liquor and daiquiri stand up the road a piece. And that place is only open during the week…

Posted in Cars, Christmas | Comments Closed

The spirit of Christmas.

Friday, December 12th, 2025

A swell Christmas meditation from LawDog.

Posted in Christmas | 2 Comments »

Random crankery (mostly gun books, a little gun stuff, a little electronic stuff).

Thursday, January 16th, 2025

I didn’t manage to get everything done that I wanted to get done during my extended vacation from work. In particular, gun crankery and gun books kind of went by the wayside, for reasons of time and weather.

The gun crankery is still coming. And a thought occurred to me the other day: I can actually do some quick gun book crankery, because I have three new gun books in the stack and can just point folks to those books online. Don’t need to pull out the bibliographies or take pictures. Yes, it is lazy, and yes, there will be less lazy gun book crankery coming. Consider this a stopgap.

More seriously, I do think these new books are worth writing about and promoting to my readers.

In order to avoid disappointing my gun book buddies, I’m going to put the gun books up front. After those, I’m going to talk about one new gun-related item, and one new non-gun related item, so anyone who wants can skip over the non-book parts (or can skip to the non-book parts).

(more…)

Posted in Books, Christmas, Geek, Guns, Hoplobibilophilia, Smith and Wesson, TV | Comments Closed

Merry Christmas!

Wednesday, December 25th, 2024

I do like this version of the song, and (as far as I know) I’ve never used Maddy Prior before.

Don’t think I’ve used Dan Fogelberg, either.

Since it is Christmas, I’m going to put this here as a present for FotB RoadRich:

The great and good Pat Cadigan posts her favorite Christmas story every year (Merry Christmas, Pat!) so I think I’m going to start posting my favorite Christmas joke. This version comes by way of Bayou Renaissance Man and his weekly roundup of memes (click to embiggen):

Special Christmas best wishes to Borepatch. And to pigpen51 and Joe D: in the interest of preserving their OPSEC, I won’t reveal where the later two gentlemen are located, but I believe the temperature in their necks of the woods is somewhere around seven.

Posted in Cars, Christmas, Music | 2 Comments »

Have yourself a merry little…

Tuesday, December 24th, 2024

…Vincent Price Christmas.

Victoria Price told Fox News Digital that her father, the star of classic horror movies like “House on Haunted Hill” and “Edward Scissorhands,” had a “weakness for large jewelry that he loved buying his wives,” and after going to Poland in 1974 he gifted her stepmother a chunky bone butterfly necklace.
“My stepmother hated it,” Price said. “That wasn’t her cup of tea. And unlike us, she just said it. ‘I will never wear this. I hate it.’”

…

She continued, “My dad loved Christmas; he was like Father Christmas. Christmas was his favorite holiday. They were married for 18 years. Every year for the next 18 years, [her stepmother] would get in her thing of Christmas packages some beautiful Tiffany box or something, and there it was, every damn year that bone necklace, so that was my dad’s humor.”

…

She got one of her favorite gifts, a portable typewriter, while they were spending Christmas in England one year, but her favorite gift was one she got from her dad every Christmas – a $10 gift certificate to a bookstore in Beverly Hills where she was able to buy a stack of books. “My dad and I would go to Hunter’s Books after I got my certificate, and he would amuse himself for as long as it took. There was no time limit,” she remembered.

This also gives me a chance to vent mildly about one of my disappointments this year. Vincent Price’s cooking show, “Cooking Price-Wise” is being reissued on blu-ray…

…but it is a region B/2 blu-ray that won’t play in the US, and I don’t have a region-free blu-ray player, alas.

Posted in Books, Christmas, Food, Movies | 3 Comments »

Things you may have wondered about. (#7 in a series)

Thursday, December 19th, 2024

This is another one of those “okay, maybe not”: I certainly wasn’t wondering. But in case someone else was:

How much would the Griswolds have spent lighting up their house in “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”?

Spoiler:

Hypothetically, Mr. [Gil} Quiniones [president and chief executive of ComEd] said if the lights worked and the power stayed on for at least eight hours a day, using C9 incandescent bulbs, it would have cost the family $287 a day or $8,885 per month, based on what ComEd charges customers in 2024.

This is assuming that they used standard incandescent lights, and that the lights worked:

Most electricity experts and dedicated fans who have tried to calculate how much power and money all those lights would have required 35 years ago have come to a similar, sobering conclusion.
There’s no way a typical 1989 home could have powered 25,000 incandescent lightbulbs.
One Reddit user laid out a theory, solved through various equations and simulations on a spreadsheet, that determined if Clark bypassed the home’s circuit breaker, the house’s copper wires would vaporize and “every wire in the house will immediately ignite.”

…

A blogger used the spinning power meter depicted in the film to estimate that the lights would have caused a 25 percent load increase on the Chicago power grid.

Also, just for the record, there is no “auxilliary nuclear” switch. Though if I was a president with ComEd, I’d have my people wire one up…that does absolutely nothing. Except maybe light an LED. It’d have to be one of those giant knife switches, though, like something out of “Frankenstein”.

Speaking of LEDs…

If the Griswolds used modern LED lights, popularized in the past two decades and about 90 percent more energy efficient, he said it would still cost the family about $34 a day or $1,054 a month. That final bill would not include the rest of the home’s power usage.

…

About 360 miles east of Chicago, a family in Wadsworth, Ohio, has been lighting up their home in almost the exact Clark Griswold-fashion — without breaking the bank each year, causing brownouts or bothering their neighbors.
For over a decade, Greg and Rachel Osterland, along with their two children, have decorated their home with 25,000 lightbulbs (not one more or less, according to Mr. Osterland) to raise money for cystic fibrosis research. Hundreds of people went to watch the house’s lighting this year, complete with audience drumrolls and a rendition of “Joy to the World,” just like Clark sings in the movie.

…

As a lifelong fan of the movie, Mr. Osterland has done the math quite a few times. He determined that if the Griswolds lived in his area in 2024 and used the C9 incandescent bulbs, they would have paid about $4,656 a month for 175,000 watts of electricity. Although, like others, Mr. Osterland realized that there’s no way a regular house could have taken on that much power without some kind of a boost.
So instead of Clark’s imported Italian twinkle lights that are likely incandescent bulbs, Mr. Osterland uses LED lights that all plug into one outlet. After buying their home in 2008 the couple saved up for years to buy the lights to replicate the Griswold house, which cost them about $12,500.

…

Powering the light display for about six hours a day for 30 days costs the Osterlands about $25 a month. Mr. Osterland estimates that the lights use about 600 watts of electricity in a month, much less than the hundreds of thousands of watts used by the Griswolds.

Posted in Christmas, Movies, Wondering | 1 Comment »

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

Tuesday, December 10th, 2024

For another year, Daddy didn’t spend the Christmas money on brakes or other car repairs. Daddy actually got his car inspected with no trouble, and his registration sticker is on the way.

Daddy also got a Christmas tree up this year. Granted, it looks and feels a lot like a toilet bowl brush, but it is the sentiment that counts. Heck, we even have lights on the tree. We also got the mailing labels for our Christmas cards printed without very much trouble, for once.

And Daddy got an early Christmas present this year. Somebody saved us a bit of trouble by putting a bunch of stuff in one place…

“The Guns of ‘Die Hard'” by Will Dabbs, MD.

Because it’s just not Christmas until I see Hans Gruber fall from the Nakatomi Tower.

(While we’re on the subject of Christmas movies, I’d like to put in a plug for another good Christmas movie: “Invasion U.S.A.”. Yes, the one with Chuck Norris. Yes, it is a Christmas movie. Yes, it is kind of silly and stupid and cheesy. But I thought it was a lot of fun.)

Posted in Christmas, Guns, Movies | Comments Closed

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