Half off at Walmart

So...

The local Walmart has been clearing it's inventory of display electronics.  The electronics that are out there for the public to look at and touch?  Half off!

We wandered in on Sunday to look at shoes for Adorable Preciousness.  We picked up a Blu-ray player.  All they had left were some huge TV's and computer monitors.  Nice, but we don't need or want them.

I went by Walmart on Monday and they had their display out again, this time with another selection of TV's.  The guy stated that they found a whole pallet in the back with TV's on it.

Well, we picked up a 32" Vizio VO320E.  However, it did not come with a stand.  I know that I can buy a wall mount for it, but I've been looking for a replacement stand due to how we want to use the TV.

And they are all out of stock.  Oh well.

Getting sucked back into gaming.

OK, maybe the title of this post is not all that accurate.  I should not say that I'm getting "sucked" back in.  I must admit that I'm walking back in to online gaming with both eyes open.

A friend sent me a "Scroll of Resurrection" for World of Warcraft.  It allows you 7 free days of play plus you can transfer to a different realm plus you can level one alt to level 80.  I took advantage of it just to see what the game was still like.

The game still sucks.  My alt was one of three in Stormwind when I logged on.  I will admit that logging on May 15, the same day as the release of Diablo III, may have had something to do with the low realm population.  Or not.  I found that my old raiding guild had been deleted.  Oddly enough, my leveling guild that had "died" back in BC was still limping along with a handful of members.

While I was shopping with Adorable Preciousness, I swung by Best Buy and picked up a copy of Diablo III.  I still have not installed it.  I've been rather busy all day and I'm way behind on chores.  I never got around to upgrading my PC from XP to Windows 7.  I've had a copy of Windows 7 since December with the intention of buying some new hard drives to do a RAID set up but the money has not been there.  I've finally decided to just pop in a blank hard drive  yet I've had no time to actually do it.

Which reminds me, I need to pick up something in order to save my iTunes music.  Transferring iTunes is a pain in the tuckas.

Carrying Concealed with an empty chamber.

If you have been reading any gun boards or gun blogs for any amount of time, you will find an argument about the merits of an empty chamber or keeping a round in the chamber of a firearm that you carry.  I was recently on Sharp as a Marble and saw this.
Sharp as a Marble

For those of you not familiar, here is a quick rundown.  The argument for keeping the chamber empty is the safety issue.  If there is no round in the chamber, then you can not fire the handgun by accident.  The argument for keeping the chamber loaded is for self defense.  If the firearm is hot, then you can protect yourself quicker.

I can see the pro's and con's for each argument.  But, there are better arguments elsewhere online so I shall merely tell you what I did.

My first firearm was a Glock 17.  I had some basic training with firearms, but I was no where near an expert.  I bought my pistol and I quickly got a concealed weapons permit.

See, the Glock 17 has no external safety.  It has a very nice internal safety meaning you can bang around the pistol all day and night and it will not go off.  The safety release is on the trigger meaning you have to put your finger on the trigger in order to release the safety.  Does that make sense?

So...  as a new concealed carrier, I was a little nervous about carrying a loaded firearm with no external safety.  I did not fully trust my pistol at the time.  I just trusted that if I needed my pistol that I would be able to draw and rack the slide fast enough.

All of this changed when I purchased my second firearm.  It was a Smith & Wesson 642 revolver.  I carried it a few times and then it hit me.  Revolver = No External Safeties.  Glock is also = No External Safeties.

Wait a minute!

So, I only carried with an empty chamber for a few months before I became comfortable enough to carry hot.  But, as a new shooter I was more comfortable carrying with an empty chamber.  And despite all the arguments for and against, the biggest argument for carrying with an empty chamber was that it became a stepping stone to carrying concealed properly.  Had I been forced to carry hot out from the start, I probably would have declined and never gotten into firearms properly.

Plugs and Surge Protectors

I have a surge protector on my computer.  It's a nice one.  Not the top of the line but not super cheap either.  I think it came with a warranty in case it fails.  Not that I kept any paperwork involving such a thing.

It has eight outlets on it.  Five are side by side and two are actually off to the side.  It also has protection for coaxial cable and phone line, and a cable management system and other doo-dads but I'm not going to explore them right now.

The problem with such a set up on a surge protector is that most electronic devices now have an electronic box of some type attached to the end of their plug.  Therefore instead of a nice normal little plug they have this monstrosity of a box.  With that box the plug will then block several outlets.  My cell phone charger has a narrow box that would actually only block one slot if the outlets were horizontal instead of vertical.  Instead the bloc physically covers two outlets and the cord interferes with a third outlet.  My router has a monstrosity of a square box that can block the outlets on either side and from top to bottom.  However, my printer has a nice box that is actually in the middle of the cord so that the box will sit on the floor and it has a normal plug to fit in the surge protector.

Thus, with all of my computer equipment, I now need to purchase a second surge protector to protect everything.  Currently, my speakers and my cell phone charger are plugged in with no protection.  I wish that these companies would make smarter equipment and start adding a "normal" plug to everything.

Studio Gainex!

I find it quite odd that I have failed to post this video.  The music is "I Want You" and it is off of the OST that the anime is based on.

For those that are interested, the title of the anime is "Panty and Kneesocks with Garterbelt."  Yes, it is as absurd as the title suggests, but what else would you expect from the studio that also brought you FLCL?

Playing on the internet.

Between my normal work schedule, training, overtime, and Easter I've been very busy.  Adorable Preciousness woke up at 3am and wanted to play, then woke up again at 7.  I finally got her down for her nap and tried to work on transferring files to my wife's new laptop.  Going from Vista 32bit to Win7 64bit is... a lot more trouble than it's worth.  Unfortunately, I'm spending more time playing on the internet than I am researching how to properly transfer all of the files.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone!

Once upon a time....

Once upon a time, I was a Dispatcher.  I worked the Emergency Call Center for a local county.  All Fire, Medical, and Law Enforcement calls went through us.  Also, as we were a county wide dispatch office (instead of just an emergency office) we handled calls for other county services:  Schools, Animal Control, Public Utilities, Et Al.

This lead to some interesting calls.

Our county was...  Growing.  When I was a kid, the county was considered poor but being on an interstate some interesting industries had opened up.  These industries gave the county a nice tax base and when I was in college the county was able to install a 911 system.  Shortly thereafter the low cost of property lead to a lot of people with money moving in.

It was actually quite common to drive around and see a McMansion constructed next to a hand build shack.

Hmm...  Let's find a story for me to tell about my adventures as a Dispatcher.  Let me preface it with the fact that the county had always been friendly to agriculture.  Plenty of farms.  This county was the only local area where exotic animal farms were legal.  Suddenly they were popping up everywhere.  Lions.  Tigers.  Monkeys.  Ostrich.  You name it, someone probably raised it.  With the exception of elephants.  I never saw any elephants.  Those things are pretty hard to miss.

I was taking calls and someone called in to the non-emergency number.

Caller:  "Sorry to bother you, but this is kind of odd."
Me:  "No problem, that is what we are here for.  What is going on?"
Caller:  "I'm not too sure, but I swear that there is an Emu in my back yard."
Me:  "No problem ma'am.  I'll notify Animal Control.  You are only about a mile from an exotic animal farm."

Actually, I do find it a little odd that someone can live so close to an exotic animal farm and not know it.

DyE - Fantasy

Here is an interesting music video by DyE titled "Fantasy."  Very interesting style and subject.

First lawn mowing of the season!

Spring has sprung early.  The weeds in the front yard are above my ankles.  I've got a day off.  Visiting MIL is playing with Adorable Preciousness.  I HAVE FREE TIME TO MOW THE LAWN!

Being the first time I've had the mower out this year, normally I would do some basic maintenance.  Change the oil and filter.  Maybe get the blades sharpened if they need it.  However, due to a handful of minor emergencies last week, I am dead broke!  (So broke that I have to break out my credit card to get gas until I get paid again.)  Therefore, I decided that I can forego the annual maintenance of my mower until I get paid.

This is not really a bad thing.  The mower is relatively new, being purchased last summer.  I did winterize it so I was not looking at any major issues.  I checked it out this morning.  Everything looked pretty good.  The oil still looked clean and it was at the appropriate level.

It took three pulls to start the mower and then she ran like a champ!  I made a few passes in the front lawn and then I noticed that the mower was smoking.  There also appeared to be mud on the deck.  My first impression was that I ran it too close to the mud puddle on the side of the driveway.  Then I notice that the oil fill cap was loose.

I apparently did not attach the cap properly.  When I put it on, it was snug and I could not pull it out but I did think that it went on oddly.  It's my fault for not checking it a third time.

So, the lawn care is on hold until I break out the credit card to buy oil and change it.  I should know better than to cut corners.  It never works out for me.

Time to pull out my pith helmet and machete so I can work my way to the car.

World of Warcraft - It keeps trying to drag me in!

I recently got an e-mail from Blizzard asking me to come back.  It is a "Scroll of Resurrection."  Apparently, if you accept the offer you can get a handful of benefits.  Quite interesting!  One benefit is to get an alt up to 80.  I was trying to level a Paladin as a Tank when I left WOW and I am somewhat interested in the proposition.

This also lead me to look at the videos for "Mists of Panderia."  I was very unenthused when I heard about the new expansion.  While it is very beautiful, it still strikes me as if the developers watched Kung Fu Panda one too many times.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Now go and enjoy all the green beer you want!  Me, I'm drinking Smithwick's.

Lack of posts

I'm ten days in to a twelve day stretch of working.  Plus, the wife and I are sharing one computer because tea was spilt on her laptop.  I'll post something when I have time.

STD's are a good thing?

I'm on Facebook and a friend posted that they were excited that the STD's arrived.

WTF?

Whom in their right mind would be excited about a Sexually Transmitted Disease?

Oh, wait.  They are getting married.  STD stands for Save The Date cards.  Brilliant.

Yes, they got some ribbing on Facebook for their choice of abbreviations.

Late 70's Music Videos

Floating around on the internet I found a list of 15 Weirdest Music Videos of all Time.  I found the following video a lot of fun, even though it was from 1978!  I'm just dissapointed that there was not much more of a Robert Heinlein reference to it.

There are apparently a handful of covers of this song.  Some are pretty catchy!

Field Training Officer

I've been training a new officer at my agency.  Seems OK, a little nervous but that is what training is for.

My only complaint?  Keys.  The key ring only has a limited amount of keys on it.  If you do not know which key opens a door, try all of them.  IN ORDER!  Don't pick one random key, then another random key, then on and on.  You will never find the key.  If you start with one key and work your way through then you will have tried all the keys.  And one will work!

Fireflies, with style!

Here is a nice techno version of "Fireflies."  The video was mashed with a lot of anime.  It's a very nice mix!

Aphex Twin - Flim

This here is an interesting song.  Light techno.  Very nice!  Apparently it was published in 1997 and I kind of wish I had heard it back then.

More music from YouTube

This is an interesting song.  "Never Alone" by Barlow Girl.  The uploader set the music to anime art.  Very nice!  

Derpy Quinn

"You got your My Little Pony in my Batman!" 

"You got your Batman in my Little Pony!"