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Notes From The Streamside...
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Insomnia struck a little while ago, leading me to discover that Canadaammo.com just announced on CGN that they will be importing a semi-automatic, non-restricted (w00t!!!!!) version of the Norinco Type 97 into Canada for $849, shipping in. ETA is the end of this year. They're updating their website now and will be accepting pre-orders; $100 now gets you a free picatinny sight rail when the guns arrive.
This is a hell of a deal. Previously, Lever Arms out in Vancouver had them for $1400. For non-shooters, it's an export version of the People's Liberation Army's current issue assault rifle, the QBZ 95, albeit chambered in 5.56 NATO/.223 as opposed to the QBZ 95's proprietary 5.8X42mm cartridge.
I have to say that initially I was sorely, sorely tempted to snap to attention and present wallet on this one. Word on the street from the guys who bought them at Lever say that they're startlingly good for a semiauto civilian export version of a plastic Chinese-designed military bullpup; reasonably accurate, apparently reliable, and importantly for a bullpup, non-terrible on the ergonomic level. And the fact that their styling will, to borrow a phrase, induce a massive epidemic of outraged handwringing pants-wetting hysteria among the antis seems to be a major motivation for many. And they'll accept LAR-15 ten-round mags, thereby somewhat circumventing our moronic and infuriating magazine capacity restrictions.
But then I thought about it a while. Firstly, for $850, I could pick up another two M-14s or five SKSes, or drop a whole lot of upgrades and accessories into Vera and Jayne (USGI flash hiders, tritium sights, converting Jayne into a short barrelled carbine with scout mount). Also, I've pretty much joined the 7.62mm side of the Great 7.62mm versus 5.56mm Cartridge Debate; if it's not capable of flattening Bambi at the end of my driveway with one shot, I'm not all that interested. There are rumours that the Type 97 beats up brass on ejection, making reloading for it impossible. One of the reasons that I like the M-14 platform is that it doesn't look all that scary to the uninitiated or clueless, heh heh heh. And the Type 97's in Canada really haven't been around long enough for us to have an idea of their long-term reliability, not to mention a dearth of upgrade options.
So I doubt very much I'll be buying one anytime soon. But please don't let me stop the rest of you from running out, buying them, shooting them, and mailing pictures of you enjoying them to Wendy Cukier, and for my American friends, happy Fourth of July and play safe with the fireworks!
Back to sleep.
Didn't do much to celebrate. Worked for a while, and worked a bit in the garden, and went up to the range with my dad.
It was a beautiful day. If I were designing a new flag for the country, my first choice wouldn't be a Maple Leaf and Crossbones; it's be something in summer green, sky blue, and white. This time of year is probably the best to be living out here. And we've got perfect weather lined up for the weekend.
Fellow LMI
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subdermal has just discovered lolzombies on LJ. Oy. No, you can not has branez.Woke up this morning, rolled over, and found Rudy sitting on Carolyn's pillow, staring at me from a couple of inches away. Oh hai. Right now he's zooming around the bedroom bouncing off walls and furniture. He's doing well, and has about doubled in size since we got him; we think he's going to be a big cat. We're a little worried that he might have lost some hearing in one ear as a result of the infection, but since when do cats listen, anyway?
I packed a lot into it. High points included fishing and ninjing up on that beaver, putting twenty of my .308 handloads into a group I can cover with my hand at 100 meters, seeing a dead skunk in the middle of the road being eaten by a pair of vultures, seeing Jack listen to me and not getting sprayed by two different live skunks in the space of maybe five minutes, Graeme's happiness at catching what sounds to have been a really nice pike, on top of dinner for four's worth of bass, Carolyn in summer clothes, Stella getting all affectionate with my dad, a new John Gierach book, watching Amelie Poulain with Carolyn, scrambled eggs with thyme and basil and parmesan for breakfast, harvesting some really nice radishes, getting to fire a .577 Martini, watching catfish lurk under weedbeds, the mist rising off the grass after sunset, Tim Horton's hash browns, lots of driving down country roads en route to various good destinations, helping Carolyn cut wood for her shelves...
There's a quote from Gierach's latest to the fact that we're so used to the prepackaged and the artificial that even a small dose of reality is akin to a religious experience...
I love my life.
First, happy birthday to
bodhifox!Now, by way of explanation for yesterday's picture, yesterday I had a lunch in town with a couple of colleagues from the old firm, and stopped in to say hi to
langolier2408 on the way back to the office. He gave me a couple of Daniel Boone-style fur hats, made by his neighbour, a retired furrier. Of course it immediately occurred to me that if a pic of me with a furry thing on my head would have some amusement value, a pic of two furry things on my head would be even funnier. Luckily, my dad managed to capture Rudy in mid-yawn.The hats are really nice (and extremely warm), and Carolyn looks great in hers; she gives off this barbarian princess of the steppes vibe in it. It's probably her cheekbones. I'm thinkin' of wearin' one fer rabbit huntin' this fall. Regrettably, I am not allowed to wear one for deer hunting, because our stupid lame-assed hunting regulations require me to wear something orange on my head during big game season. There are days when the sheer overwhelming excess of law and regulation bearing down on us all and preventing me from doing whatever the hell I bloody well feel like whenever the whim strikes me just plain depresses me, and I wish I could just disappear up the Mekong River and hole up in an abandoned temple complex with the traditional demented following of crazed Green Beret deserters and hill tribesmen, and
On the other hand, getting high speed internet in an abandoned temple lost in the Cambodian jungle way up a river running through an active war zone would be easier than getting high speed out here. Bell Canada's customer service continues to be made of critical-mass quantities of enriched weapons-grade fail. After they determined that they'd sent my DSL modem to the wrong person, they promised to Purolator another one out to me. It arrived, by mail, on Friday. Upon opening it, I found a modem, a mounting bracket, a power cord, no DSL filters, no cabling to connect it to the computer, no documentation, no install CD, and a piece of paper instructing me on how to return my defective modem. Yup, instead of shipping me a new modem, Bell shipped me a DOA kit.
I'll be accepting applications for demented follower positions by comment to this entry, but right now I'm going fishing.
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Rules: Post 3 things you've done that you believe nobody else on your F-list has done. See if anybody else responds with "I've done that."
1) Climbed a mountain in China: I climbed Sunrise Peak on Lantau Island (one of Hong Kong's Out Islands) in 1996. Sadly, the fog was so bloody dense visibility was maybe twenty meters tops.
2) Fished for, and caught, catfish on a fly (a little black and yellow marabou confection with brass eyes). It's pretty straightforwards: find water with catfish in it, and muddy it up wading out to a rock in said water. Stand on the rock, so you get a high viewing angle and can see the catfish. The catfish get cranked up because you've stirred up a lot of nutrients, and will hit a fly if it's jigged in front of them.
3) Caught a Chinook salmon with my bare hands. Last fall, on the Salmon River near Pineville, NY.
verratanectu was there, and took pictures. It's actually pretty easy; just grab them by the wrist of their tail. It's getting to the point where you can do that takes a bit of ninjitude.
...if it doesn't, I will be annoyed. Dialup sucks. I'm tempted to tell Rudy that if he keeps on tilting his head like that, it's going to freeze that way. He's holding it straighter more of the time, though. And boy is the little monster frisky; he woke us up at 05:45 batting what sounded like metal-studded bowling balls around on the bedroom floor. It occurred to me last night that we should have called him "Huey".
Work was productive yesterday. The non-stop barrage of tiny annoying things that's characterized my workload for the past several months seems to have slowed to a trickle, allowing me to start in on a couple of larger, longer-term projects that require big blocks of uninterrupted processing time. And I've managed to get a couple of medium-sized projects more or less brutally stomped into bloody, throbbing, pulped completion. I'm pleased with this.
The Supreme Court of the United States is poised to hand down a landmark, once-in-a-lifetime civil rights decision in the case of DC v. Heller. My fingers are crossed for my American friends. If their Supremes decide to go the way they did with their recent habeas corpus decision (yes I am too lazy to cite properly this morning), it'll further roll back some of the unjustifiable restrictions of basic human rights that have been imposed on them (not, of course, that we have bragging rights in this area ourselves). ETA: the DC CA's decision in Heller was upheld by the SCOTUS. It's kind of reminiscent of the legalization of gay marriage up here in Canada: it'll be fun watching the dire predictions of ZOMG disaster and the collapse of all that's good and decent in the world utterly fail to materialize...
Much improved. Behaviour and mobility seem pretty normal, i.e. frisky, eating relentlessly, and scampering all over. The only sign of illness is the head tilt, which isn't as pronounced as yesterday. I'm upgrading my outlook to cautiously optimistic. And thanks to everybody for their good wishes.
I really shouldn't have let my self go all emo over a sick kitten. I'm almost tempted to post something all testosterone-y involving shooting things or killing dinner, but that would be compensating a little too obviously. Even if I am seriously jonesing for some quality time with Vera at the range, followed by a bit of bass fishing, then... oh, but wait, I wasn't going to do that. Maybe I should just go crush some beer cans against my forehead or something.
I called Bell today, seeing as how my DSL modem should have been here a week ago. Turns out they delivered it to the wrong damn address. I'm no fan of Bell, but their DSL is faster and more reliable than Xplornet's joke of a wif-fi service, and costs the same, so between dealing with an bloated corporate behemoth whose idea of improving customer service is adding another touchtone menu to their help line, and a startup who're growing faster than they should and who deliver 50% of promised speeds at best, I'll go with the behemoth.
Today was quiet at work. Did a bit of weeding this evening, and started thinning the salad greens. Made a salad with the resulting thinnings. It was a bit heavy on the arugula, but yum. Just yum. Salads don't taste like that in restaurants.
Alternate titles include "I forgot it was the Fete Nationale, so Im in ur offiz drawerz, lewting ur muncheez!"
It's June 24, which is a provincial holiday in Quebec, where my office is located. Living in Ontario, I tend to forget these details. I could run amok with ease, as I believe I may be the only person actually in the building, but that would be against our Safe, Respectful, and Cubicle Forager-Free Workplace Policy.