Jul 27, 2012

A Tramp Abroad

Mitt, you doofus, when you're a guest in another man's home you do not remark that the drapes need cleaning.

The proper answer to Fleet Street representatives is: "As a guest in your  country I am inspired by the achievements of the great British people and their leaders. Any nation which turned back Napoleon is capable of whatever is necessary to ensure a successful Olympic celebration."

Notes:

1.  It is acceptable to surreptitiously cross your fingers while delivering the statement.

2.  Do not mention Dunkirk.


Jul 26, 2012

Is blogger.com striving to become the new Detroit? Another long-timer deserted, and again I waited too long to note his forwarding address on the sidebar. It's fixed now, so you can get to Guffaw in AZ from here. When you do you'll find, among other good stuff::





Hee-Haw

Tam broke out her dissection kit and went to work on Bill O'Reilly* for an idiotic comment about ammunition stashes and the crack government anti-terrorist machine.

A commenter made the point that only Hulk Hogan could carry 6,000 rounds of ammunition, the hoard Aurora Red allegedly possessed. Good point.  (O'Reilly said it was 60,000 rounds. Never mind. Who depends on teevee personalities for facts anyway?)

Too lazy to do the arithmetic, I walked out to the shack and weighed a 20-round box of .257 Roberts, loaded with c. 70-grainers,  the closest thing I have to the usual AK47 rounds. One box equals a little more than one pound. Hence 6,000 rounds of 7.62x39 hefts out to quite a bit more than 300 pounds,

Even a better figure of a man than that scrawny-ass loser could handle an ammo load of, at best, 50 or 60 pounds in addition to the weapon itself, the gas mask, the grenades, the body armor, and the tactical Barlow.

If he wanted more at hand for extended mayhem he'd need a pack animal.

We must therefore rally behind common-sense laws to restrict deadly donkey trafficking . If this makes it more dififcult for law-abiding citizens to buy and sell Bill O'Reilly, remember: It's for the children.

 Even tighter restrictions are needed on small, easily concealed burros.


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*The facts force me to qualify this. I am speaking only metaphorically. More's the pity.

Elmer Fudd sells out

You can sometimes make very close guesses about a man from his auction bill, and you might enjoy peeking at the material side of one who has lived a  Heartland version of American dream.

He was hunter, fisherman, and handy home craftsman who bought good gear and kept it polished and running. Guns, rods, reels, tools, boat, pickup, ATV.

He was also quite good to Mrs. Fudd.   He bought her the nicest new appliances and a perfectly respectable Impala, red with a moon roof.  He permitted her to own and use carnival glass and even lawn figurines. If that isn't evidence of  saintly forbearance I don't know what is.

Over on his side of the property he kept his Fudd stuff, and he kept it well. A Winchester Model 70 in 7mm Remington Magnum. That's probably the tool involved in the moose antler mount although it  might have been bagged with his Remington 742 in .30-06 (a rifle in which interests me only  because three spare magazines have been rattling around in my junk box for years). A .22 and a 12 gauge round out his arsenal. It's modest by our standards, and it lacks the ninja  firepower most of us  worship. (What? No pistols? No hi-cap AK-47s?).  But it served his purposes, and it's reasonable to assume he correctly dismissed any stray thoughts about a serious zombie threat there on the outskirts of Elmore.

The home place is also under the hammer, a nice big house on four-plus acres of timber. That got my attention to the point of a careful inspection via Google maps.

In the end, "no."  I'm happy here even though I sometimes wish for a tad more land. The Fudd estate, at a little more than four acres,  qualifies on that score, but, like Camp J in Smugleye-on-Lake, it is inside a city  limit, meaning I couldn't pace off 100 yards and build a berm. Couldn't test new hand loads from a bench on the deck.

Besides, Fudd Acres is in Minnesota, and I have my pride.