Rusty And Company.

I'm a big fan of webcomics.  Quick wit, lots of laughs, and often something to think about.

One of the webcomics that I like to read is Rusty and Co.  I'm not providing a link to it because it has been taken down by it's creator.  Apparently, the creator ran a Kickstarter campaign in order to make some stuffed animals of it's namesake, Rusty the Rust Monster.

And then Wizards of the Coast stepped in.

There is an argument that WotC may or may not have a legal leg to stand on.  Whom actually owns a trademark on a rust monster?  I'm not a lawyer so I'm not throwing my hat into the fight.

But I'm just sad that WotC could not come up with a better solution to the problem than "let's sue!"  They could have been smart and used it as a promotion.  I mean, they have to do something because Dungeons and Dragons does not appear to be selling.

No ammo at Wal Mart

I made a mistake.

I went to buy some ammo.

Horrible mistake.

I'm not going to lie.  I like to go to Wal Mart and buy their "Winchester White Box."  Generally I can get 100 rounds of plinking ammo for just a little more than 50 rounds of the same at my local gun store.  It's just the facts, and I have to be frugal with my money.  Also, the fact that someone had given me a Wal Mart Gift card helped with my decision.

So, I went to...  well, I traveled to several Wal Marts and I found bupkiss.  If I needed shotgun shells or rifle rounds, I'd have been good.  But they were wiped clean of all pistol caliber rounds with the exception of .40 cal.

Well, I had planned to go to a "steel match" this weekend and obviously I had let my plinking rounds run low.  But no dice at Wal Mart.  Therefore I decided to pay a bit more out of pocket and pick up some rounds from my local gun dealers.

Once again, bupkiss.

I was rather shocked to see that one of my "slower" local dealers to nearly have a line out the door!  I've yet to be in there when there were more than three people in there.  But, there they were.

And they were out of pistol ammo too.

I had no better luck at any of the other local dealers.  Suffice it to say I skipped the steel match.

Konrad Mueller killed a man... in the 14th Century

Apparently, an eternal lamp has been lit since 1357 in a church in Switzerland.  This was done as restitution for a murder.  Apparently the current owner of the farm sued in order to stop the practice, and won.

Swiss Court Wipes Clean an Ancient Farm Debt - Yahoo News.

Interesting

Slightly morbid, but somewhat interesting info I found on the internet.

Top five worst gun massacres.

Top 5 worst US gun massacres.

Top 5 worst school shootings.

OK, enough of the morbid wanderings.  Time to get back to presents and Christmas music!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!

My thoughts on "I am Adam Lanza's Mother"

I'm a few days behind the curve, between a sick family and work.  I just read the post by Liza Long here - I am Adam Lanza's Mother 

There is a lot that I agree with here.  First, there appears to be very little help for those with mental health issues.  At my agency, we have housed many  misdemeanor inmates who have not had the mental facilities or family to get help.  The deputies will arrest person's with mental issues as opposed to getting them a Temporary Detainment Order.  Once they are incarcerated, mental health will take their sweet time to get to them because, as an inmate, they are no longer a threat to the public and we won't allow them to be a threat to themselves.

We have a handful of transients that we see on a regular basis.  They get arrested. We get them and they are unable to take care of themselves.  We get them medicated and they "return to our world."  By the time they are able to go to court, they are found time served.  And then, on their own, either they can't afford their medication or they feel that they don't need their medication and the vicious cycle starts all over again.

PaperHeart

Here's an interesting video I found, listed as an AMV.  It's called "PaperHeart AMV."

Quite an interesting video.  It's not an "AMV" because it is all original artwork.  Very beautiful.

I'm not all that happy with YouTube's new home page.  It no longer gives me suggestions.  I don't have too many subscriptions ..  yet it keeps all the "recent" videos on top.  It has a few "because you watched X we give you Y" videos...  but they won't change.  They stay the same every time I log on.  The old YouTube made for some fun browsing.  The new set up is rather bad.

Who's sick this time?

Sick kid, sick me, sick wife.  Then the kid get's sick again.  And I don't feel so hot myself.  Again.

Gotta love illness.

A random foreign music video.

I figured I'd link another random music video.  I remember seeing this one a while back. It was one of those "WTF" videos.  The direction does not make sense and obviously I don't speak the language.

But it's fun to watch.

The video is "Ponponpon," sung by Kyary Pamyu Pamyu.  I  had not thought about it in a while but YouTube brought up a similar video on their suggestions page.  When it would not properly play, I followed their link to this one.

YouTube.  It can be as random as Wikipedia.

Travelling with an 18 month old.

Travelling with an 18 month old.

It's interesting.

On our first day of our trip, we often travel in the evening.  Normally this entails us leaving after my wife gets off of work.  I can normally get that day off thus I will be packing and cleaning.  In order to facilitate this I will take my daughter to child care.  See, if she is at home she will try to "help" me.

And that is not really helpful.  Much faster to pack without her "assistance."

The drawback to traveling late is that it gets dark.  And Adorable Preciousness does not like to ride in the child seat "in the dark."  It is very hard to get her to calm down.  She will sleep some, but often things wake her up.  Such as high beams from the big honking vehicle tailgating us.

Crying makes a long trip even longer.

We've found that Adorable Preciousness travels much better in daylight... With one exception.  I can see her in the mirror and she is looking left and right while we are driving, and sometimes her head will follow as if she is looking for something.  Also, she can see me in the mirror and sometimes that will turn into a small game.  However, she can get upset when the sun is in her eyes.  It does not make her happy at all.  When I travel I often have at least one shirt on a hanger, which I try to hang on the window facing the sun.  This often does not work.  I may need to purchase some type of sun shade for her.  When she was just in a "bassinet" style car seat, it was easy enough to leave the handle up and to throw a blanket over her.  That does not work too well with her now.

No post. Nothing to see.

I've been working on a post all day.  Trying to make it read well, even though I have a lack of readers.

I've been getting interrupted all day.

The last straw was that one of my cats  jumped on my computer, stepping on the power button and turning it off.

I think that is the worlds way of saying "give up!"

I'm done.  Nothing to see here.

Made a few changes. No one noticed.

I've not really done much with my blog.  I have no readers, few good ideas, and very little time to post.

Today I was flitting around a lot of blogs that had "died."  Pretty much, they don't get updated any more and no one ever closed them out or made a re-direct.  I was bouncing through several of them and then I opened mine.

And I came to a realization.

They all looked the same.  Same color, same typeface, same layout.

I got to playing around and found that Blogger will let you change the layout of your blog.

I went with the basic "Picture Window" style.  There were only three pictures to choose from but I could also change some of the colors.  I could have changed the typeface but I decided to keep it.  Arial is fairly easy to read.  No need to change type color or the width of the layout or what not.

Hmm... It's the day after the election and all I can post about is changing up my blog.  Probably shows my apathy.  Oh well.

What to do, what to do.

Sometimes, I'm just not motivated.

Like today.

There is a lot that I need to get done.  But I can't figure out what I want to do or in which order I want to do it.  I took Adorable Preciousness in to Day Care in order to have a day to myself to get stuff done.  And I have a process of doing stuff.  My Step 1 of any process is to make a list of what I will be doing.

I'm still making my list.

I know that I need to take down the Halloween decorations.  But I need to see what my wife wants to keep and what she wants to throw away.  My wife sees herself as thrifty but we seriously don't need to keep everything.

I need to get a haircut...  but I've been playing around with growing my hair out.

I thought about Early Voting but I get off at 6pm and I should be able to get to the voting booth before 7.  (As long as nothing happens.)

At least I can wash clothes.  I just don't want to go through all of my daughter's stuff to stain treat it.  Plus since we are making the transition from summer clothes to winter clothes, I need to pack the old stuff up.

It's an hour after lunch, and I'm still playing on the computer.

Music for Halloween IV: Saltatio Mortis by Arany Zoltán

Another video stolen from Chris Ex Machina.  This video is Saltatio mortis by Arany Zoltán.  I love the historic imagery of the video.  Plus I'm a big Hurdy Gurdy fan myself.

Music for Halloween III: Lothlorian - "The Black Cat"

The band Lothlorian out of New Zealand put out a CD a few years ago by the title of "Greenwood Side."  Their CD is available from CD Baby.  I first heard this song while listening to WDVR's "Mists of Avalon" hosted by Walt Haake.

Music for Halloween II: Garmana - "Brun"

This is a creepy tune from the northern reaches.  (IE: From Sweden.)  I had first heard their tune from Chris Ex Machina.  Which lead me to purchase a CD of the band.  (Yes, I still buy CD's which I then rip on to my media player.)

The song is played slow.  It is not in English, but the link I provided offers a translation.

Time for Halloween Videos!

This is a parody of "I'm Sexy and I Know It," by LMFAO.

It was produced by the crew of "Nightmare on 13th" according to the YouTube comments.

"Earning Respect" is not what you think it is.

I work in Corrections.  I've been at my agency for a pretty long time.  I've been involved in a lot of the operations at my facility and I'm cross trained in just about everything.

Suffice it to say, I get transferred around a lot.  A lot of the supervisors want me in their section.  I work hard and I try to not push stuff up the chain of command unless it warrants it.  I have a good reputation at my agency and I do my best to uphold it.  

However, the down side of being transferred all over is that I don't normally get much time in a section.  I stay in each section for approximately a period of two years, so I'm often the "new guy" in the group.  

What irritates me is that there seems to always be a group of people with whom I have to "prove" myself to.  I have to show them that "I've got it."  

Guys, I've got a message for you.  I was dealing with drunks and 10-96's before you were out of high school.  I've dealt with some variation of just about every issue that we could have at our facility.  (I will admit that I've not experienced everything that could happen, and for that I am thankful.)  

But there are those that think everyone needs to "earn their respect."  Nothing I do is good enough to satisfy their ego.  If I'm working with an officer, I give them time to prove themselves.  If they make mistakes I work with them and help them improve.  

Recently we had a situation where an inmate had a shank.  (A shank is slang for an improvised knife.)  Two of the officers who demanded that I earn their respect and I were on scene dealing directly with said inmate.  They rushed on in and were hopping about and shouting, just out of arms reach of the inmate.  I'm behind them and I'm taking note of the scene.  I direct other responding officers into locking the other inmates on the unit down and I directed my focus on the inmate with the shank.  

The inmate had the shank in their hand, but their body language was not threatening.  As a matter of fact, the inmate was not saying anything at all, while my two irritants of an officers were gesturing and babbling like baboons.  

First lesson to take from this.  Concise verbal commands help greatly.  If you are shouting and panicking and talking over someone else, no one knows what you are talking about.  I pulled the first officer behind me and stopped the second officer from talking.  I addressed the inmate quite simply.  "Sir, it's not a good idea to have a weapon in the unit.  Do me a favor, please turn around and place your hands on the wall."  Voila!  Compliance.  The baboons did not realize that the inmate had gotten in over his head and wanted an easy way out.  

Second lesson.  There is the "21 foot rule" for edged weapons.  It's the reaction time against an attack.  My fellow officers had gotten just outside of arms length   They did not even position themselves with the tables between them and the inmate.  I had to put myself in a disadvantaged position just to protect two morons.  

Third lesson?  I'll write more up later, as it's getting late.  

After the incident, my to co-workers come up to me and let me know that I've earned their respect.  Really?  I'm so happy that I now have the respect of two fools who put me in danger.  

I tried to explain to them what they did wrong...  but they would not listen.  They didn't care.  I was hoping that our supervisors would light in to them...  but it was all grins and handshakes.  

I don't need your respect.  Do you think that was awesome?  I've had worse shank encounters the first year I was working!  I've got the scars to prove it!  OK, the scars are really tiny and only show up if I've got a deep tan...  but you get my point.  

Supercell "Odds & Ends" w/Hatsune Miku.

Supercell has a new music video out.  "Odds & Ends" featuring Hatsune Miku.

Oddly enough, the digital pop star gets more video time than the artists themselves.

Holding off on posting.

Posts will be sporadic.  My PC went bust and until I can fix it, I'm stuck with borrowing laptops and using computers at the library.