Ann Coulter?!?!?

I never thought I'd be quoting Ann Coulter, but-

... as we know from the recent unpleasantness in Florida, Republicans are unalterably stupid.

Dang.
McCain?
Damn.
From humanevents.com

From The Smallest Minority via Mostly Cajun

Although, when I first saw bumper stickers like these in the '90's- they said "Why settle for the Lesser Evil".

In other news, I'm having a bout with Bell's Palsy, which has been giving me a bunch of trouble. I do get to wear a cool eye patch though!

Damn Skippy!

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt, "Citizenship in a Republic,"
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

(Stolen from The Lemon Stand)

Dang!

A little side project on the PC has turned into large, life sucking project from Hell, destined to be my death. I really do plan on blogging again... someday.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone! I've got a few posts percolating, and will be venting Christmas... vitriol soon.

Christmas Meme

1) Link to the person that tagged you (King Tiger) and post the rules on your blog.

2) Share Christmas facts about yourself.

3) Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs. Yeah, we'll see.

4) Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Here goes:

1. Wrapping or gift bags? I'm a wrapper, my wife a bagger.

2. Real or artificial tree? Faker. Easy cleanup, and it's all I've had since I was very young.

3. When do you put up the tree? After my wife has asked me twice to bring it up from the basement- usually the first or second week after Turkey Day.

4. When do you take the tree down? Sometime after New Year's. Probably after the BCS Championship game, this year.

5. Do you like eggnog? Eh. Rather have a Coke.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Sad to say, I can't think of one. I remember some disappointments, though... (someday, huge Grinch Doll, I will find you!) Maybe my Battlestar Galactica Viper that actually shot the red plastic bit across the room.

7. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes, but the figures have been replaced with my Hallmark Star Wars figures- Boba Fett, Stormtrooper, statue of Bob Marley, etc.

8. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Not getting the aforementioned Grinch Doll. It's 30 years later, and I'm still bitter. Maybe the year I sacrificed Birthday and Christmas gifts to get a bike- nothing special, just a regular old 10-speed.

9. Mail or email Christmas cards? Enclosed in the cookies I mailed this week. If you didn't get cookies, well, ya didn't make the cut!

10. Favorite Christmas movie? Die Hard.

11. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Sometime in December. I buy very few gifts, for my wife mainly.

12. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Wife's cookies and brownies. Dove Chocolates.

13. Clear lights or colored? Colored! What's the point of clear?

14. Favorite Christmas song? Little Drummer Boy, Vienna Boys Choir can make me cry. We Three Kings version by Book of Love is fun, as is Christmas Wrapping by the Waitresses- but I'd have to say my favorite is Fairytale of New York by the Pogues with Kristy MacColl.

5. Travel at Christmas or stay at home? STAY AT HOME. The greatest thing about finally being an adult and owning a home- people now come here!

16. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer? Um. Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Candi, Lari, Bunny Sexin? Rudolf?

17. Angel or star on the top of your tree? Angel.

18. Open your presents Christmas Eve or Christmas morning? Christmas morning.

19. Most annoying thing about this time of year? People.

20. What do you leave for Santa? A written warning about trespassing. Next year I won't be so nice.

21. Least favorite holiday song? That stupid shoes song.

22. Do you decorate your tree with any specific theme or color? No, but next year our tree will be only Hallmark ornaments. The side of the tree facing my chair in the living room has all my Hallmark Star Trek and Star Wars ornaments, as well as my scary freaky ornament collection- including the little zombie Amish Girl.

23. Favorite ornament? My Talking Darth Vader.

My “tags”

I'm punking out on the tags! The chain stops here, man!

New addition to blog roll; The Johnny Law Chronicles

and from him I found Another Day at the Hall-

Both are good, Law-Enforcement type blogs. I grew up around many LEO's,
and I have always had profound respect for them and the jobs they do. Cop's are always
10 feet tall and who you go to when you are in trouble- at least, they still are in my book.

Retail Hell, pt2

Christmas shopping season is killing me (aka we're busy, which is good). I hope to have a real post soon.

There's Hope Yet

A boy rode his bike up to my store today. I'd guess his age to be around 10 or 11. He came into the store alone, and barely acknowledged my greeting.

He turned to his right, and headed to the toy soldier section. I wandered over, to see if he needed any help finding what he needed- I knew some kids had a project for school, and had stocked Civil War soldier in anticipation.

I asked if he was looking for any type of soldiers in particular, he silently shook his head and stared intently at the bags of plastic warriors hanging. I walked back to the counter, leaving him to make his choice.

A few minutes later, he approached the counter with a bag of your classic Green Army Men.

"I'd like to buy these, please" - he said in a soft, quiet voice, the first words he had spoken since entering the store.

As rang up his purchase, I asked him if he liked army men and toy soldiers.

He nodded his head.

As I gave him his total, he pulled out a ziplock bag of loose change. He slowly counted his money, double checking his count many times, then slid exact change across the counter to me. I finished the sale, and put his army men in a bag, and thanked him.

As he went out the door, I called out "Take Care!" as I try to do with everyone as they leave the store. He said "Thanks", in a normal tone- his loudest yet. He got on his bike, and pedaled away.

As he rode away, I noticed he did not wear a helmet, or safety pads, or have a flashing warning light on his bike.

Man, there goes one lucky kid.

Another One

As seen on Michael Z Williamson's Blog (Read his books!)

I was ___ years old the first time I...

Fell in love: 11
Lost your virginity: 14
Lost someone close to you: 12
Smoked weed: 18
Got your heart broken: 11
Got arrested: Never
Smoked a cigarette: 16
Broken a bone: Never
Got cheated on: 17
Rode the city bus: 6
Went to a concert: 15 Ronnie James Dio- my ear still ring (I've had Tinnitus since)
Met someone famous: 15- President Reagan.
Dyed your hair: 16
Got your first cell phone: 32
Got a Myspace: Never
Snuck out of the house: 13
Got your own digital camera: 25
First time you got drunk: 15
Read Harry Potter: 28
Traveled across the ocean: 24
Wore a toga: 7
Traveled out of state/country: 19
Shopped at Abercrombie/M&S:Never
Went to Disney World: 11
Went on a date: 16
Saw a Broadway/West End play: Never
How old are you now: 37

Retail Hell

As we approach the holiday shopping season- and Black Friday looms- I want to ask you a question;

You are shopping, especially in a low-pressure, casual environment like a hobby shop. You ask the guy wandering around the shop, checking on customers, a question about a product. Do you want the clerk to lie, and tell you it's great no matter what, or validate your existence and confirm your thoughts, or do you want an honest opinion/appraisal.

If you say honest opinion/appraisal, what do you do when the retail wage-slave tells you something bad, or something you don't want to hear?

Also, would you return a plastic airplane model with a broken propeller, or just fix it with model glue? Hey, I just consider it an extra, undocumented step myself....

Fab 5

After witnessing the meme started by NRAhab, then Tam, then AD and finally from Parallax Adjustment ; well, I just had to put my foot in. The hard part is thinking of only 5 a/c, and 5 that no one else has- no matter how cool. One of my areas of personal interest is the Soviet War Machine, but I must limit the influence. Hrmmm.

I'm going to limit myself to jet powered a/c, and I guess I'll start with throwing the previous sentence out the window! Besides, this is my favorite aircraft, not the most important or world war changing or anything. AD already cornered the cool connection/story angle.

5) The TU-22M "Backfire". I love the two-tone Soviet Naval Aviation scheme, the sleek, predator look.


4) BAE/McD&D Harrier Family I had the distinct pleasure of flying the USMC simulator for this aircraft in a previous life. Not to use too many buzzwords, but it introduced a paradigm shift in aviation. Maggie showed us they worked as air-to-air combat aircraft.


Dang, this is hard deciding on only 5!

3) The ME-262. First real fightin' jet. 'Nuff said- even if it is a Kraut plane.


2) SAAB JAS-39 Gripen I'm been obsessing about this aircraft for since high school. Followed the slow developement via Aviation Week & Space Technology through the '80's and '90's.


1) Sukhoi SU-34 "Fullback" I had no previous knowledge of this aircraft before I saw the prototype when my previously mentioned previous life took me to the Paris Air Show in 1995. I've loved this ugly beast ever since.




Maybe we should do tanks/armor next?

Eh, it's only money.

Anyone who build models for a hobby can tell you, kits are getting more and more expensive. I was just remarking today that the latest models from Dragon (DML) have crept above the $50.00 mark. Granted, most of their kits don't require much in aftermarket parts- but similar kits were $35.00 or so earlier this year.

Of course, a good kit and the fixin's still cost less than a good meal or a night's drinkin'. Not that my customers care. Daily, I get regaled with tales of $0.25 kits and how glorious those days were. None of them remember the horrible fit of those kits, or how the amorphous blobs barely resembled the appropriate subject matter- but those were the days! Apparently there was free beer flowing from taps marked "Testors" as well. Dang my luck!

And when did DML become the King-All-Importer of all Asian models not Tamiya or Trumpeter?

One last thing- because I can feel my rant getting on, and it's late. What's the constant fascination with German equipment? It's gotta be more than just the variety of subjects. I swear, I could fill a jar with feces, slap a swastika on it, and sell it.

BTW-are either one of my readers model builders/kit collectors?

Proof the Blog Readability Test has a... sub-optimum ability to grade blogs-



Or, I ar s-mart!

Comments!

As per the urging of both my readers, I have installed Haloscan comments. Let's see how this woiks out....

Are you excited?

I am.

Of course, now I have to figure out how to port the old comments over.

Blogger Code?

Anybody Understand Blogger enough to tell me how I can make this
<---->
section bigger? Not that I plan on embedding lots of movies, but I hate that hidden section.

Comments Redux

In case you don't read the comments sections;

A King Tiger double feature;

OK Guys
Here is something fascinating.
What if TF 34 had been waiting on Kurita?

http://www.chuckhawks.com/task_force_34.htm

Dirty Little Secrets

One of my favorite bands is the British rock-folk band Steeleye Span.

Trying to figure out all these cool Blogger things- like images and stuff.

Where's the "Launch Alert Vipers" button?

Whoops.

David over at Random Nuclear Strikes brings up a good point, one maybe I should touch upon.

One of my aims is to try and tell some of the fun and bizarre stories from the shop in a humerous light. Now, I'd be lying if I said I didn't scowl at the lady with the paint bottle return mentioned earlier; but, as I said in my comment over at Random Nuclear Strikes, I get very upset with my guys if they don't greet every customer that comes through the door, and do it with a smile. Nothing irks me more than entering a retail store and no one says boo.

Also, is it so much trouble to actually clean the floors and straighten the shelves in a hobby shop? Not in mine- but some of them... (shudder!)

It goes with what I was saying the post below; it's tough being a hobby shop today, and customer service is one of the few things we have over the Internet and the chain stores. The old style, surly attitude of the grizzled hobby shop guy just won't cut it anymore. You have to get off your damn stool, come out from behind the counter and interact with people- and hopefully in a pleasant manner. And you've got to be nice to the kids- they're future customers!

We do get some real characters in the hobby shop- given that we carry everything from wargames/miniatures, scale plastic models, model railroading, radio control vehicles, rockets... well, you get the idea. Like the homeless guy, who was designing an airplane for NASA that would travel at hypersonic speeds due to the gases he would vent along the leading edge- and he needed our help (!?the hobby shop guys???)to design it.

Wow.

Anyway, David- if you're ever in my store, you'll be greeted, and greeted with a smile!

(PS: I don't own the store, I just run it)