Neanderpundit

When I was eight or nine, Dad took me to a friend’s farm and threw clays for me until I got the hang of leading, until I began to shoot as if I meant it. I had a Sears 12 gauge, full choke, that think Dad paid $12 for, with a box of shells and a gun case thrown in to sweeten the deal. The shotgun worked fine, but it was so damned cheap the receiver was investment cast and painted black instead of blued. It was in perfect condition, which is to say, like new, in that even the new shotguns of this model tended to lose their forearm after a couple shots. Then you had to take a pair of pliers and flatten the little spring back out so it would work again. it had a little thumb catch instead of a beavertail, and all in all, it was a good working gun.

For a couple years I used that shotgun, wanting a rifle so bad I could taste it. When I hunted rabbits, I had to flush them, acquire them, follow them until the old full choke was going to spread them far enough that I wouldn’t just turn them to rabbit burgers, and shoot. Or shoot far enough above them so they’d take two pellets and not 400.

When I finally did get the rifle, it wasn’t at all what I wanted. being the ass that I was as a kid, I made no effort to conceal my disapointment. I wanted a 22!! Instead, I got a Sheridan Blue Streak.

You could get 22 velocity and muzzle energy (almost) out of this thing, but you sure had to work at it. It took eight pumps, and sometimes a little kid had trouble doing six. Anyway, while all the other kids were whacking away with their Red Ryders, I was confined to the not-so-tender ministrations of the Pump Action Pneumatic Air Rifle.

If yesterday’s lesson was Target Acquisition, todays is “make each shot count”. I learned that first summer as I took shot after shot at squirls that there was just too damned much work in pumping that rifle up to miss a shot. For weeks, I came home empty handed and worn out from pumping that rifle,until it slowly dawned on me i needed to make each shot count, or I was going to be worn out before bird season began.

Dad could have bought me that 22 for less than the cost of the air rifle, but he knew what he was doing,. Because I had to sacrifice for each shot, pumping until my arms were sore, I made a point of making the shots count. I didn’t waste ammo, I still don’t. I developed a habit, out of necessity, of making sure i was going to hit what i shot at. Only two generations previous, my grandfather as a kid used to (or so he said) only shoot when he could get a tree behind his target, so he could recover his lead. I got off pretty easy by comparison.

Youtube is your friend, but it won’t pick you up at the airport

A commenter over at Hog on ice who calls himself the Imam of Audio and Video makes the following comments at Steve’s site:

Og, based on your comments I thought you were a schoolgirl with a crush on Bill Gates, pocket-rocket in hand…
Um, no. THe only geek I hate worse than Gates is the original Xerox theif, Steve Jobs.
It’s very simple, really: you are wrong and I am right.
You and i can agree on that, of course, you ARE wrong, and I AM right. And not only can I say it, but unlike you, i can prove it.
No amount of BS you write about Windows will make it better, or more stable. (Hm. did I say it was better? No, I didn’t, I guess that must just be your inferiority complex showing. Or maybe you have trouble with reading comprehension.)Here’s a little quiz: what servers are used in Human Genome project? Macs. Don’t care. What is the predominant computer used in media? Mac.Commies. That’s a good reason to use a computer, because a bunch of liberal media pricks use it. Oh, and: Don’t care. What is the predonimant computer used in Video production? Macs. Don’t care.Graphic design? Macs. I told you, if you want to make pretty pictures or cute videos, have fun! And, Don’t care.Music production? Macs.More liberal commies. And Don’t care. Science? UNIX, Linux and Macs.Don’t care.Don’t care.Don’t care.
Windows may be on 90% percent of computers but that doesn’t mean they are better. There’s that inferiority complex again. I have never said windows was better, but you cannot STOP saying that mac is not worse. Methinks thou dost protest overmuch. Your logic is a little flawed. Why mess with logic when facts are all I need? If you like being a masochist, go right ahead. But keep that pocket-rocket handy the next time your Windows PC crashes for no reason at all. Wow, there’s that reading comprehension thing again.Maybe they offer a remedial reading class. Let me repeat for the slow witted: Windows 2000. Six years. Zero trouble. Ever. I bet you can even read that on a Mac.
You may have to entertain yourself while you clean up a virus or run some other rescure software to help you out. Nobody writes viruses for Commodore 64’s either. What would be the point?

Let’s look hard at facts. In every industry, in every machine, in every piece of industrial machinery that makes everything you see, all day, every day, everywhere, the machinery is run by PC’s. And they run with a level of reliability that MACs can never ever equal. Also: all of the software that’s made to network and talk to various pieces of industrial eqipment (presses. Mills. Lathes. Grinders. The list is huge) is made to run on PC’s and PC’s only. Hardened industrial PC’s have been in use now for so many years, that they have become the industry standard. From each piece of furniture you sit on, to every car you ride in, to every coffeemaker, to every blender to every refrigerator, from all the food producing plants to all the places that make rubber for your tires- in short, all of manufacturing has turned to the inexpensive, reliable, Windows based PC in either it’s normal configuration or embedded in a single board. Without Apple, a few people would have to go back to doing things by the old method- mostly, in the media. Without PC based computers, and their myriad offshoots, almost all of manufacturing would grind to a halt in short order.

And to clarify what I was saying to Limfoma Mbweebwee(GOD I love that name!!! I want to hear Mel Blanc saying that over and over) there are hundreds if not thousands of software suites in industry that will only run on PCs, and have never been written for and will never be written for a mac, because the industry standard is not Mac, the standard of industry is PC.
And I hate them both equally, like any sane man. No sane person wants to spend ten or more hours a day sitting in front of a computer, and the day I can never look at nor touch a computer again will be the happiest day of my life. mactards amuse me no end. Now, lest anyone think I’m being one sided about this, I’ll post this link, a short video by a diehard mac user who loves his mac. His name is Hunter Cressel and he wants to tell you how awesome his MAC experiences are. (I’m always amazed at this. Hunter is a serious mac user, who does excellent work, by the way, and the mactards beat him up like he was the antichrist.)

And just so I stay fair and balanced, and because Mac’s graphics and stuff are so much better, I’ll ask the guys who do a lot of gaming what they think:

And then there’s Apple’s new promotional campaign.

now, it is true, you can get a Mac to emulate Windows.

Pity you can’t have the last word, Imam. Oh, here’s a little quiz for you: In industry, (no, not the media industry, but the industry where people actually MAKE things) who uses apple computers? DINGDINGDING! Yes, Alex, that’s right! the businesses that are failing.
And Imam: what’s a pocket rocket? Is that an Itoy in the shape of His Almightyness Steve Job’s cock that you insert in your orifice of choice while you worship at the altar of the almighty Apple?

Steve is putting together recipes for the cooking impaired. I like to think of myself as handy in the itchen, but I do have a handful of simple recipes. One which I did last thursday foir the wife was such a success she demanded I do it agian, and write the recipe so she could do it.

Funky Chicken:
Two large chicken breasts, frozen
can pineapple chunks
small can mushrooms
4 airline packets of salted nuts
Soy sauce

Saute mushroomsin butter. Use a lot of butter. Cook to taste. Set aside on a paper plate.
Use a heavy knife to cut the frozen chicken breasts into small chunks since you forgot to thaw them out
I use a cleaver. AN axe probably works well.
Rinse the chicken breasts until they begin to thaw and sit on top of a plate in the sink in the sun until they thaw.
Open can of pineapple chunks and drain juice into bowl. Add liberal amounts of soy sauce. And some salt. If you want.
Soak thawed chicken breasts in soy sauce/pineapple mixture. Wait until the wife comes home.
In a 12″ cast iron skillet, greased with lard, or a 12″ stainless pan greased with olive oil, fry up the chicken hot and fast. When the largest chunks are done through add half the pineapple chunks.
Add musrooms

Put a heaping tablespoon of flour or cornstarch into the soy/pineapple marinade and stir until the chunks are gone

Add mixture to cooking chicken
Add peanuts
Take peanuts out of bags and add them again.
Simmer mixture until the sauce thickens.

Serve over rice

Pretty simple.