Toilet Paper

There's a meme rattling around, "What reading matter is in your bathroom?"

Here's an actual photograph:

CNN Poll On McDonald Case

It's 50-50 right now. Click on the picture above to go to the page and then scroll down to the bottom for the poll.

Fifteen Manliest Smells

Very interesting and fun! From "The Art Of Manliness".

The first fifteen are from the article and the rest are from the comments section. I bolded the smells that really remind me of my dad or my grandfathers:

1. Hardware Store
2. Shoe Polish
3. Cut Grass
4. Sawdust
5. Scotch whiskey
6. Gunpowder and fireworks
7. Original Old Spice aftershave
8. Campfire
9. Barbershop
10. Pipe smoke
11. Leather
12. Your Grandpa's chair
13. Gun Cleaning solvent
14. Charcoal
15. Bowling Alley
16. A construction site
17. Hot solder and vacuum tubes
18. A warmed-up Lionel transformer
19. Burning autumn leaves
20. Bondo
21. Cement mixed in a wheelbarrow
22. Coffee
23. Outboard motor exhaust
24. Old books
25. Bacon
26. The interior of a wooden sailboat (rope, sail, varnish, stale air)
27. Grandpa's garage: gasoline, oil, mown grass and sawdust
28. Gunk (lanolin-scented hand degreaser)

h/t Better and Better.

Molon Lave!

That's Greek for "Come and wash me."

Freedom!

Find out Which Movie Hero Are You at LiquidGeneration.com!

Publicly disemboweled for freedom. Yep.

Thanks to Roberta X for the pointer.

Quote Of The Day

... comes to us today courtesy of the Total Survivalist Libertarian Rantfest:

"I just want all of my 2nd amendment rights. All of them."
- Marine83


Well put!

Pantless

From Sharp As A Marble (natch!)

Strip!

Bacon strip, that is. Cool bacon stuff.

h/t Breda.

International Spy Name

Your International Spy Name is Buck Turgidson

Your Code Name: CRM-114 You Reside in: Burpleson AFB Why You're a Good Spy: You've got a gammy leg

What's Your International Spy Name?

Things I've Done

THINGS I'VE DONE (in bold):

1. Started your own blog.
2. Slept under the stars.
3. Played in a band.
4. Visited Hawaii.
5. Watched a meteor shower.
6. Given more than you can afford to charity.
7. Been to Disneyland.
8. Climbed a mountain.
9. Held a praying mantis.
10. Sang a solo.
11. Bungee jumped.
12. Visited Paris.
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea. (From a tiny sailboat; I could feel the lightning strikes in the wet line. I was 14.)
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch.
15. Adopted a child.
16. Had food poisoning.
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty.

18. Grown your own vegetables.
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France.
20. Slept on an overnight train. (Auto-train to Florida.)
21. Had a pillow fight.
22. Hitch hiked.
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill.
24. Built a snow fort.
25. Held a lamb.
26. Gone skinny dipping.
27. Run a Marathon. (In 1978)
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice.
29. Seen a total eclipse.
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset.
31. Hit a home run.
32. Been on a cruise.
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person.
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors.
35. Seen an Amish community.
36. Taught yourself a new language.
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied.
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person.
39. Gone rock climbing.
40. Seen Michelangelo's David.
41. Sung karaoke.
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt.
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant.
44. Visited Africa.
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight.
46. Been transported in an ambulance.
47. Had your portrait painted.
48. Gone deep sea fishing.
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person.
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling.
52. Kissed in the rain.
53. Played in the mud.
54. Gone to a drive-in theater.
55. Been in a movie.
56. Visited the Great Wall of China.
57. Started a business.
58. Taken a martial arts class.
59. Visited Russia.
60. Served at a soup kitchen.
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies.
62. Gone whale watching.
63. Got flowers for no reason.
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma.
65. Gone sky diving.
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp.
67. Bounced a check.
68. Flown in a helicopter.
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy.
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial. (I work across the street.)
71. Eaten Caviar.
72. Pieced a quilt.
73. Stood in Times Square.
74. Toured the Everglades.
75. Been fired from a job.
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London.
77. Broken a bone.
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle.
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person.
80. Published a book.
81. Visited the Vatican.
82. Bought a brand new car.
83. Walked in Jerusalem.
84. Had your picture in the newspaper.
85. Read the entire Bible.
86. Visited the White House.
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating.
88. Had chickenpox.
89. Saved someone’s life.
90. Sat on a jury.
91. Met someone famous.
92. Joined a book club.
93. Lost a loved one.
94. Had a baby. (Two of 'em!)
95. Seen the Alamo in person.
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake.
97. Been involved in a law suit.
98. Owned a cell phone.
99. Been stung by a bee.
100. Read an entire book in one day. (Well, I suppose so; it must've been a short book.)

h/t Roberta X.

Mile Age

32 miles per gallon

Created by The Car Connection

Are You Lityrot?

Blogger has been coming up with the strangest Captcha words in the last month or so, but this one is downright weird.

Apologies to Roberta X for posting a screen-grab of her comments.

Captcha this! Part II

Captcha this!

Pop Quiz

Q: Other than being musicians, what do Franz Liszt and Prince have in common?

Answer here.

Why Do I Shoot?

Roberta X asked.

One of my early childhood memories is my first visit to the school library, in first grade. Most of us couldn't read, so we went right for the picture books.

Now, most of your guys, I guess, went right for the National Geographics. And, to tell the truth, as a six-year-old boy I had also taken comfort in the pages of those yellow-edged magazines. But on this particular occasion I was drawn to a book of high-speed photographs: balloons bursting, drops of milk spattering, and, most fascinating of all, bullets frozen in flight.

I could hardly believe what I was seeing: bullets, the fastest thing on earth, stopped midway through cutting a playing card in half. I had to find out more about those things.

Another influence was a now-long-forgotten TV show called "Yancy Derringer". This was in the late 1950's, I believe. The title character was an 1880's Mississippi Riverboat gambler, who was actually an undercover policeman. And whenever there was trouble, it seemed that a derringer just materialized in this guy's hand like magic. He must have had half a dozen miniature pistols hidden on him, and it's a wonder that he didn't "clank" when he walked. I thought that he was the epitome of cool. Explains my fascination with small, concealable handguns.

My dad had a little .32 pistol; I think it was Spanish. But I was forbidden to touch it. He let me watch him clean it and that's where I first encountered the ambrosia-like fragrance of Hoppe's #5 Nitro Solvent. It still brings back good memories. And got me interested in the beautiful inner workings of guns.

I was 13 years old when I fired a gun for the first time. It was at summer camp. My parents sent me to sailing camp in North Carolina for a month and they had a rifle range and a dozen .22 bolt-action rifles. I spent hours there and earned an NRA Marksmanship badge. I loved it.

When I got home I begged and pestered my parents unmercifully to get me a .22. I went over the Sears catalog again and again, drooling over their rifles. Finally they caved and bought me a nice little used Savage 20-gauge shotgun. Dad thought I might enjoy it more than a .22 rifle. Well, we went to the hardware store and bought a box of clay pigeons and a spring-loaded gadget to throw them with.

We went clay pigeon shooting a dozen times or so, but most of the utility from that gun was just the responsibility of owning it. I put a hasp on the lower shelf of my bureau and locked the disassembled gun in there. So I was a fourteen-year-old boy with a gun in my room. That was in 1965.

But clay pigeons had to compete with school, football and ham radio, and then college. The little 20-gauge stayed locked up for decades.

In 1990 a co-worker asked me, out of the blue, if I wanted to go skeet shooting. And I remembered the little shotgun. So I took it out into the light again and cleaned it. And when I shot it, I realized one of the reasons I had put it away: it doubled! It had two triggers, but pulling the first trigger fired both barrels; apparently the recoil released the sear and the second barrel fired within a millisecond of the first, virtually simultaneously.

But I adored skeet shooting and I made up my mind to get a gun that was appropriate for skeet. I ultimately bought a new Beretta 686, a 12-gauge over-under with 3-1/2 inch chambers. I got some custom chokes for it, and started shooting twice a week; I worked nights so I could go mid-week. There was just me and this guy who was training for Olympic skeet; he was amazing to watch. In spite of all of my practice I never shot better than 19 out of 25 and I felt that my vision just was not acute enough for moving targets. By that time I had accumulated several other shotguns, including a Benelli Super Black Eagle, a Parker Repro, two old A.H. Foxes and a Beretta 687 20-gauge O/U with a nickel-plated receiver and .410 tubes from Briley. I really miss shooting .410 at skeet; THAT was fun! You GOTTA reload if you shoot .410; you can save a fortune - 12 gauge, not so much.

I sold all of the guns in 2002 to pay my divorce lawyer. *sigh* Oh, well. In the years since I have accumulated a dozen new guns and not one of them is a shotgun! Go figure. I really miss the 687, though; THAT was a pretty gun!

Oh, WHY do I shoot? Sorry if I am rambling. When I was 25 I read Atlas Shrugged. That really spun me around. I became a libertarian and have remained one.

Many years later I read Boston's Gun Bible by Boston T. Party. That introduced me to the concept of an armed libertarian, and got me interested in the civic duty of gun ownership in a free society.

I carry concealed whenever I can; been licensed in Virginia since 1999. I'm a member of VCDL and I support their efforts to make open carry more accepted in Virginia, but open carry is not for me. Part of the protection from carrying a handgun is the ability to surprise a goblin by suddenly producing a gun from concealment. The surprise factor alone is probably enough to end most dangerous confrontations without a shot being fired.

So my interest in shooting is for individual self-defense, as an impediment to government tyranny, and the Swiss concept of a citizenry trained at arms. I also have this annoying streak of resistance to authority; I want to do whatever will annoy my masters. And owning guns, particularly handguns, does that quite well!

Here are the answers from:
Roberta X
Brigid
Hell In A Handbasket
Maddened Fowl
Rustmeister
Sharp As A Marble
William The Coroner
A Keyboard And A .45

Which LOLCat R U?

Your result for The Which Lolcat Are You? Test...

Lion Warning Cat

51% Affectionate, 55% Excitable, 36% Hungry

You are the good Samaritan of the lolcat world. Protecting others from danger by shouting observations and guidance in cases of imminent threat, you believe in the well-being of everyone.



To see all possible results, checka dis.

Take The Which Lolcat Are You? Test at HelloQuizzy

Gracias a Clue Meter.

Leading-Man Test

Your result for The Classic Leading Man Test...

Jimmy Stewart

You are the fun and friendly boy next door, the classic nice guy who still manages to get the girl most of the time. You're every nice girl's dreamboat, open and kind, nutty and charming, even a little mischievous at times, but always a real stand up guy. You're dependable and forthright, and women are drawn to your reliability, even as they're dazzled by your sense of adventure and fun. You try to be tough when you need to be, and will gladly stand up for any damsel in distress, but you'd rather catch a girl with a little bit of flair. Your leading ladies include Jean Arthur and Donna Reed, those sweet girl-next-door types.

Find out what kind of classic dame you'd make by taking the
Classic Dames Test.

Take The Classic Leading Man Test at HelloQuizzy

Young Turk

Chesapeake Ferry, about 1960.

The meme's from Breda.

How Libertarian Can You Be?

Not more than 100%, I'll wager.