I’ve closed comments on posts older than 90 days in attempt to keep up with spam.
My blog is nowhere near as popular (or good) as Popehat, where I got the idea, but I was still dealing with upwards of 300+ spam messages a day in the filter. Comments on posts older than 90 days have been closed since Monday, and I’ve seen about a 2/3rds decrease.
If you do want to leave a comment on an older post, you’re more than welcome to use the “Contact the proprietor” link and drop me an email.
So that this isn’t a total waste, I’ll throw in a bonus link by way of Borepatch: The Children’s Illustrated Clausewitz.
I didn’t have to use my AK. All in all, I’d have to say, it was a good day weekend.
I got up bright and early (by Saturday standards) and staggered down to the Saxet Gun Show, where I met up with the legendary Borepatch and some other folks. (I am leaving their names out because I want to protect their privacy. Yeah, yeah, that’s the ticket. It has nothing to do with me being a bad and evil person and forgetting their names. It is all about privacy protection. Just ask my wife, Morgan Fairchild.)
I don’t have much to add to Borepatch’s report. I only found one gun I really liked at the show (a Savage model 24, .22 LR over 20 gauge) and the owner was asking just $250, but I didn’t have that much cash on me, didn’t want to leave and find a bank, and…well, if it is there next month, maybe. This would be a good survival gun for the car.
Also, Borepatch is right about the number of approving comments that Sean Sorrentino’s Gunwalker t-shirt received. Borepatch and I discussed the idea of trying to sell them at gun shows, which is a very tempting idea indeed.
(While I was there, I met another gentleman who recognized me from my statement in Borepatch’s comments that I’d be wearing that shirt. It turns out he’s a regular reader of Borepatch’s blog, my blog, and the Saturday Dining Conspiracy pages. Personally, I thought reading both my blog and the SDC pages was an approved method of “enhanced interrogation” for prisoners at Gitmo, but hey, whatever gets you through the night. I was going to introduce him around, but I was on my way to see a man about a racehorse at the time, and when I came back, he was gone. Feel free to leave a comment, Mr. I’m Not Identifying You Here For “Privacy” Reasons.)
(I also saw one of the H&K .22 rimfire MP5 clones. It was going for around $600, as I predicted.)
After the gun show, I went down and paid off my layway at Tex-Guns, official purveyors of fine weapons to WCD. I now have a very nice Marlin 336 lever gun in .30-30: once I get some logistics worked out, and September 1st rolls around, this is going to sit in my car as my equivalent of a “patrol rifle”.
And then I went and had dinner with my mother and some friends at the Vivo on 620 at Lake Creek Parkway. The current chef, Paul Petersen, ran a place called the Little Texas Bistro in Buda; we ate there once, and it was one of the best meals I’ve ever had. Then he moved out to Marathon and worked at the Gage Hotel there for a while. Now he’s working at that Vivo, and hasn’t lost his touch. I had the”surf and turf”: one crabmeat enchilada and one brisket enchilada. It was one of the best meals I’ve had this year, and very reasonably priced.
(I did have some problems with Vivo, but none of them were with the cooking. They all stem from the current management’s decision to encourage an active singles/pick-up scene at Vivo. We were in a semi-private room, and towards the end of the meal, the music was loud enough that some of our party had to leave. Also, I’m not a prude, but when you’re taking your mother someplace, and there’s paintings of topless women everywhere, and a photo collage on the wall of the semi-private room featuring butts and other body parts, that’s a bit disconcerting.)
Today, of course, was the long threatened trip to the Snake Farm. I’m happy to say that everyone who went also came back, they all enjoyed themselves (from what I hear), and everyone who wanted one got a t-shirt. Or, as we like to say around here…
And much progress has been made on getting the Saturday Dining Conspiracy logs up to date. Which is comforting.
And Lawrence has put up some good photos from Worldcon, including a few of friends of mine I haven’t seen in a long time.
So, yeah, it has been a good weekend. How was yours?
(For those of you who don’t understand the “didn’t have to use my AK” reference, which is probably 99+% of my audience because you’re not fans, I suggest you go to your refrigerator and look at some Ice Cubes. (Warning! Adult subject matter!) Actually, I’m not a huge fan, either, but “It Was a Good Day” tickles my funny bone for some odd reason.)
Added May, June, and July 2011.
There’s only been one SDC in August, and I need to get some information before I post that. Also, I need to back fill some information for one of the May conspiracies, and add Lawrence’s comments when he gets them to me. (This isn’t badmouthing him; he’s tied up and will get them to me as soon as he can.)
I’m thinking about converting the SDC to a more standard blog format, but I haven’t made up my mind if and how I’m going to do that yet.
Me get up early and travel most of day.
Me spend much of rest of day driving around getting me Vegas legs back.
Me tired.
Me talk like Thag from “Far Side” due to travel and being tired.
Me sincerely hope Gary Larson having a wonderful life wherever he may be.
You come back tomorrow. Maybe some blog for you than.
Today is the second anniversary of Whipped Cream Difficulties.
You would think that, by now, I would have worked out the whipped cream issues. Sadly, no. The problem is more complex than you might think.
Seriously, though, I’d like to thank everyone who’s made this web log the small success it is. The last time I tried to list everyone, I failed miserably. This time, I’m not even going to try; you guys know who you are, and I’ve thanked many of you privately.
Here’s to another few years of blogging before the heat death of the universe, and here’s to whipped cream and other delights.
I feel bad about this, especially since some folks like South Texas Pistolero apparently think I’m worth reading. (Thank you, sir.) But there’s just not a lot going on right now that’s worth blogging about. I blame the heat. And the vertical integration of the broiler industry.
I guess I could point to yet another reason to carry your damn guns, people!
Or yet another example of the police being indistinguishable from armed thugs.
Or I could put up a nifty photo of myself in one of Sean Sorrentino’s “Project Gunwalker” shirts, which he’s reopened orders for (and which you can now get with a pocket, even) but I haven’t picked up mine from the PO Box yet.
I could also ask what kind of fascist country we’re living in, when a judge expresses doubts about the credibility of an accused murderer.
I suppose I could also ask if it’s actually legal for mariachi bands to collude over the fees they charge; doesn’t that strike folks as being a violation of anti-trust law?
I’ve got a post I’m working on about the egg roll problem, but I’m still doing research on that.
The good news is, we’re only a week away from DEFCON 19, which I do plan on blogging. In that vein, if anyone has recommendations for places to eat in Las Vegas, please drop me an email or leave them in the comments. A trip to Lotus of Siam is required, of course, but I’m looking for something to eat on the other four nights I’ll be there.
Edited to add: Hey, while I’m thinking of it, I do want to point folks to this discussion at Battleswarm. I haven’t had a lot to say about Breivik, mostly because other smarter bloggers are saying it all. But for some reason I’m awfully darn curious about his weaponry; I think maybe because the gun in that photo is so blinged up I wouldn’t be shocked to find out that it’s identical to the ones carried by Food Court Team Six.
I’m home, but still trying to get caught up. Expect blogging to be catch as catch can for the next day or two.
Yesterday was a travel day: I’m in an undisclosed location, doing stuff I can’t talk about right now. Blogging is uncertain; it depends on schedules and what-not.
However, I did want to note the following:
We have previously made note of Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking
Now, also by way of the NYT, we have coverage of the book’s errata. Wouldn’t want to overcook those scrambled eggs there, Bob.
Also, we’ll toss up a link for our great and good friend Glen, who is a big Negroni fan.
Things have been kind of slow this week, and we have also been coming off either a cold or an allergic reaction to all the crap floating around in the air. We are aware TMQ has a new column up (his annual “mock draft”) and plan to blog that in the TMQ Watch, perhaps as early as tonight.
The staff of WCD met up with the legendary Borepatch, along with bloggers Josh and Matthew, last night at Green Mesquite BBQ.
Borepatch his ownself notes the irony of us using Al Gore’s Internets to plan this meetup, since we spent much of our dinner discussing ways to smash the state (along with how to fix the educational system, where we could go shooting, downtown apartments, SF books, and a whole bunch of other random crap).
We are encouraged by Borepatch’s suggestion that we might be doing this again next time he’s out, and are hopeful that we can get at least a couple of other folks to join us. The honorable Borepatch is a charming and gregarious dining companion; dinner with him is indeed a treat. (Edited to add: We just realized that might be read as slighting Josh and Matthew, so let us make it clear that they’re pretty good guys, too.)
We are experiencing some issues both computational (our primary bombe had to visit the repair shop) and personal (a family member’s health issue, which we will not detail here) that are keeping us from running at 100% of our rated capacity.
Blogging will be catch as catch can for a bit.
This is a general administrative reminder that purchases made through Amazon links on Whipped Cream Difficulties, such as this one
You can also use the new Amazon search box on the sidebar to get the same effect, just by searching for products on Amazon. (I’ll leave that box near the top for now, but I’ll probably move it lower after the holiday season ends.)
To repeat what I said last year, “Think of it as like a PBS or NPR pledge drive, but without all the annoying program interruptions, and not so much Three Tenors or Wayne Dyer.”
This came up in a previous thread, but I’m promoting it to a post of its own:
Personal friends of the proprietor are always welcome to pimp things here, within reasonable limits.
The proprietor has an expansive definition of “personal friends” and “reasonable limits”. Basically, follow the Wheaton rule and you should be okay. If you have any questions, drop me an email. (The preferred addresses are on the “Contact the proprietor” page.)
Spammers continue to be cordially invited to die in a fire.
I’m ending the “instead of content” musical series with this link that Lawrence sent me, which I rather like.
I think I’ve made it through the worst of the chaos; things should be getting back to normal over the next day or so, modulo a few outstanding bits of business.
I also wanted to throw a link Lawrence’s way for his “A Short, Incomplete, and Somewhat Random List of People Who Have Had Their Heads Impailed on a Spike on London Bridge“. This is the kind of link you don’t know you need until you need it, and once you do need it, you’re happy to have it. I find it rather unfortunate that heads on spikes have gone out of style, as I have a little list of society’s offenders who would benefit from that treatment.