All The Goodies

Finals are now (essentially) over for me, so I can crawl out from under my rock and actually write something.

I have a hard time coming up with places to start writing on this one. The NRA Annual Meeting is three days jam packed full of guns, gear, and great people. It is all but impossible to remember everything, and the photos taken are most all on Dad's camera in Chicago.

For now, some highlights.

Remington has all sorts of interesting stuff going on right now, to the point that they'll get a full post a bit later. For now, the R51 is neat, I like airguns, the Ultimate Muzzleloader intrigues and confuses me, and their commemorative 1911 won my drool-worthiest gun in show.

MGI's Hydra modular AR15 is both the most innovative thing I've seen in the AR platform in, well... ever, and just plain neat too. I'd love to play with one. Ambulance Driver has a good report here. Even though he stole the term JAARM from me.

Dan Coonan has come out with a commander length 1911 in .357. It's a truly beautiful piece of engineering, and is actually substantially different than the full size. Mr. Coonan was kind enough to give us a rundown of the pistol, and I feel safe in saying that in addition to doing really neat engineering, he's just a flat out nice guy.

Nemesis Arms has taken their standard Vanquish model and rendered it fully ambidextrous in the Valkyrie. It's a very simple change, but very interesting in a bolt action. The Ives' are interesting people and quite fun to talk to as well.

More specific guns and gear will follow. These are just the new things that caught my eye.

One of the best parts about NRA of course is the people. Both behind the booths and walking the floor with us, there are interesting, fun, and nice people. I got to reconnect with a number of faces from last year, as well as putting faces to some familiar names. Linoge of Walls of the City, Midwest Chick of Non-Original Rants, and Dennis of Dragon Leatherworks all stopped by to chat, and will be going onto the blogroll as soon as the editing tool works like it's supposed to. If I met you at NRA and I haven't noted it, please know it's me being forgetful, not you offending me! If your name should be up there, shoot me an email at scribblerscrawls (at) gmail (dot) com and I'll get that fixed.

That's all for now. More (with pictures!) in the next few weeks, largely being when I get hands on the pictures.

Post NRAzzzz

Well, that went well. Another NRAAM done, with many guns pawed at, vendors chatted up, friends reconnected with, new friends made, and good food eaten.

The trademark Panama hat seems to have worked out better even than anticipated.

I've got a whole world of stuff to write about, but for now, I'm utterly bushwhacked. More to come.

Chuck Norris' Phobia

Overheard at NRA. "Before he goes to bed at night, Chuck Norris checks under his bed for OldNFO."

-Ambulance Driver

Hoisted, I say

So, Bill Maher, who I am none too fond of on principle, has managed to redeem himself very slightly in my eyes after a perfect gotcha moment to his panel.

Go read and enjoy the video.

I think this pretty much speaks for itself. In a just world, this would be a crushing blow to anyone who lays false claim of racism against an opponent. Cries of "Racism!" would be met with cries of "Projection!" and we could forget that this ridiculous obsession with melanin content was ever a part of our national dialogue.

Unfortunately, we don't live in a just world so for now I'll jut laugh at Mr. Bell.

Monster Hunting

I came into the Monster Hunter craze late. By which I mean I started them the 16th of January. I've been hearing for a few years now how wonderful the Monster Hunter books are, but I hadn't gotten around to actually reading them. I suppose the fact that I finished the first book less than 36 hours after I got it is a fair indicator. The fact that I haven't paid full new price for a book in... I honestly can't remember now, but did for the next three is another indication.

I know most if not all my readers have at least heard of MHI before, and probably a hefty percentage of those have read them all, but for those of you who haven't, I cannot recommend them highly enough. Are they going to go down in history as great literature, to be shelved next to Shakespeare, Dumas, Austen and the like? No, but that's half the charm. Larry Correia doesn't seem to be worrying about keeping it 'capital L Literature', but is instead focusing on making a thrilling, fun, wild ride.

30 second version of what to expect. B movie monsters, mythological creatures, and occult legends are real, but secret. Private companies exist to fight them and protect the world, paid in bounties from governments around the world. Owen Zastava Pitt is shown the real world when his boss turns to a werewolf and tries to eat him. His survival nets him a job offer from the eponymous Monster Hunter International, the premier agency out there. He proceeds to kick monster behind for the next several books with a panoply of fantastic weaponry, all written as only a gun nut can write.

I was going to say something to the effect of the books being a touch formulaic, but I'm not really sure that they are. Beyond following a basic trend of "bad thing with hint of mystery leading to thrilling climactic final battle" the books are fairly varied in their structure, timing and tropes. There are themes that they share, from the straightforward literary to the more b-movie oriented, but each book feels like its own exploration of a really neat world, rather than a retread of a tired formula.

If you are not a fan of guns, I'd first ask what you're doing here, but then I'd say you might not really enjoy these as much. Not because the books are all about guns, but rather because they form a nice allegory for the gunny community and the mindsets common to it. There are major, neon flashing light type major, anti-authoritarian, anti-statist themes and tropes throughout, though I would certainly not say anarchic. They reflect the triumph of both individual and collective effort outside the mandates of government action.

Relatedly, I find that they don't seem to suffer from sequel syndrome much at all. All too often, an author will slave away for a decade perfecting their story before suddenly, the book goes bestseller and the publisher says "give us another one in 12 months" leading to rushed, 2d, lackluster, unpolished dross. The Hunger Games is rather an excellent example of this, with a smash hit first book that I view pretty favorably and sequels that I consider to be among the worst books I have ever read. MHI doesn't suffer this. The later books are a bit shorter, but they don't feel rushed or unpolished. In fact, it's moreso that the 700+ pages of the first book are long rather than the follow ups are short.

One last point that particularly pleases me about these books. The characters are all very much human. The hardened killing machines have real sides, without it being all macho quips. Julie Shackleford is simultaneously very female and one of the most effective hunters in the company. The government men are not just 2d statist thugs. (well, not all of them, but that reflects reality too). Even the main monsters are more interesting than "There is zombie. It is evil. Shoot it in the head." Those make good cannon fodder but are kinda crappy primary antagonists.

I highly recommend you hie off to your nearest purveyor of books and pick up Monster Hunter International. Find a day where staying up till 3AM won't ruin your tomorrow, grab a beverage of your choice, put on some rock music and get lost in some truly masterful storytelling.

AMAC

Many of the various mailing lists I have found my way onto are entirely appropriate. Various sundry gunny and conservative mailings make their way to me. This one though, is a bit odd.

I have no beef with the Association of Mature American Citizens, but telling me to "Tear up my AARP membership card" is perhaps a failure of targeted advertising.

Maybe I'm crazy, but I thought one had to enter the workforce before one could retire from it...

I dearly hope everyone's holiday of choice has been going well for them, and I wish you all a very merry Christmas.

A Case of the Dumbs

I've been having all sorts and flavors of insightful constitutional discussions and debates over the morality of bioluminescent humans and video games, but it never seems to come out right when I try to write it up here.

I seem to have a selective case of the Dumbs.

While I'm working on that though, Jennifer has managed quite a nice one two punch with her last two posts. Dang I wish I'd written those. Go read her free ice cream, and I might have some free frozen dairy dessert later.

Done with finals now, so hopefully that's gonna be sooner rather than later. I might even write up my Constitutional Law study guide, because dang that is interesting stuff.