The Other White Grease

Weird $h!t You Find Online!

There might have been a point to this post.

Nah, not really...

Already??

I Thought They'd Hold Out Until Monday...



(Click to embigginate, just don't spew coffee on your monitor!)

The Horror!!! The Horror!!!

Iä! Iä! Cthulhu Fhtagn!

I thought I'd read all the Tintin books.

Looks like I missed one!



(Click pic to embigginate, though you may lose your sanity!)

Talkin' Turkey

I Want More Stuffing!!!

Well, for a steak place, Texas Land & Cattle Co. had some pretty tasty smoked turkey. No sweet potato pie, however...

Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving!

See y'all after I get up from my turkey-induced coma.

Pre-Holiday Photoshop Phun

I Bet Penguins Really Hate To Goose Step!

Kinda slow here today, so here's a picture sure to please a certain couple in Tennessee!


(Click pic to embigginate!)

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Adventures In Woodworking

Here's a few pics taken here & there.

Mostly here...

THE GOOD!

The new fence:

Looks like a fence, but it's a hidden gate.


Behind the greenwood door... a hidey-hole for heavy trash awaiting pickup, wheelbarrows, dead bodies, etc.

It might be re-sodded, paving stone laid down, or maybe graveled. Maybe it'll just get painted green...


The back swings open to wheel the bins to the street.


Gonna have to till the soil and replant everything along the fenceline. No more %$#*&!*% cannas, though!!




THE BAD!!

Pic taken at an unnamed facility of The Man.

Some a-hole couldn't be bothered to relocate the bench to a more useful spot.
Can't stand sit in the way of progress! It's the Houston Way!!




THE UGLY!!

With the fence complete, the next project is the hall bathroom. The tub goes, in its place will be a tiled-in shower with a bench along the back wall.





It's gonna be one $%&*#(@ long Thanksgiving weekend...

Another Wubbulous Weekend

I Cannot Drink Like I Used To!

OK, in restrospect, perhaps the Jägermeister shots were a bit excessive...

I began the weekend with no real plans other than to run a few errands and maybe see a movie.

Moseyed down to Collector's Firearms to make a payment on the latest Project LOLA dividend, (which will be revealed when I pay it off and bring it home!), then wandered over to Cigar Towne to hang out and watch some college football. Had a tasty stick from Pinar Del Rio, and tried the new Macanudo Cru Royale. I don't usually select Macanudo cigars, but this one was pretty nice.

Got home in the late afternoon and fired up Facebook. Saw a post from my college buddy Connecticut Yankee reading "Downtown Houston, plenty of supplies, going to be a LONG night!"

OK, had to go see what whas going on. I showered and spiffed up a little. Met ConnYank in the Hotel Icon bar, and he had already been sampling the wares, so I endeavoured to catch up with some Johnny Walker Black.

ConnYank was in town for a wedding, and after chatting in the bar, we went upstairs and met the bride & groom, and people kept handing me bottles of beer and shots of Jäger.

What's a polite guest to do?? I drank them, of course...

The next few hours kinda blurred a little. We wandered down Main Street to the Flying Saucer, and more beer was consumed. The only downside to going drinking in mixed company is that sooner or later, the women will insist on going dancing. For me, that was the time to exit stage left. I'm fine with sitting and pounding down the beer. Me on the dance floor? Imagine an intoxicated palsied walrus galumphing around...

So, I went back to the hotel with ConnYank so he could get out of his car a shitload of empty .357 cases for me to reload, and then drove him over to Sambuca or some other dancing/drinking venue before heading back to West Houston.

Drinking curtails your judgment. How do I know this? I had a cigar fired up the entire way home. Now my truck smells like a cigar lounge...

Sunday started out kind of slow. I wandered up to the Cisco Kid's casa and reloaded some ammo. Once you get the process figured out, it goes pretty quick. Having pre-primed cases also helps immensely. Loaded up 100 rounds of 185 grain jacketed hollow points for the .45 revolver in about 30 minutes, then went to an Indian buffet for lunch. Mmmm... Mutton Biryani! Saag Paneer! Unidentified veggie curry! *Burp*

Visited Shiloh Shooting Center after lunch. Nice place, but indoor ranges always leave me coughing up powder smoke afterwards.

The ammo shot perfectly. 6.6 grains of Bullseye under the 185 gr. hollowpoint put 'em exactly where I aimed. Can't wait to try the 300 grain bullets!

An hour or so lounging on the porch with a cigar capped off the afternoon. All in all, it was a nice preview of the upcoming 4 day weekend!

Friday Is Finito

Last Minute Posts Usually Suck Balls...

Damn, almost midnight and I'm just getting around to posting something.

I'd planned on doing a Phriday Photoshop, but decided to take a long lunch instead and hiked across downtown to McCoy's cigar shop and spent my time with a gigantimous La Flor Dominicana. Time well spent, IMHO.

So, here's a funny I found on the web. Should help you with your übêr-l33t dog identification skillz.

Boot-Scootin' Boo-Boo

Where The Hell Are The Epsom Salts?

It's hard to describe the relationship between a Texan and his boots...

I dropped some serious cash back in the early 1990's on a pair of black bullhide Noconas. Wore the soles out twice doin' some serious moseying around the country.

Didn't always do the smartest things in 'em. Had to show off my Texas twang in Noo Yark Schitty. Ended up walking in the boots from Chinatown to Times Square one afternoon. Damn, talk about some sore feet...

The boots got shelved sometime in 2001. One of the side effects of gaining serious weight is reduced circulation leading to edema and swelling of the lower legs and feet. I just couldn't squeeze into them anymore.

A few months ago I dusted them off and tried to get into 'em. No dice. Even tried thin boot socks, but they weren't going on my feet.

This morning I tried again, and damned if they didn't slide on. OK, squeeze on...

Naturally, I let my ego dictate my footwear. Decided to wear 'em to work. Completely forgot I had to do some walking around downtown.

Ladies? Ever go from 9 years of wearing flats into some high heel shoes for a day?

I thought it was gonna take the Jaws of Life to get 'em off this evening. Gotdamn, but my feet are killing me!

Gotta take these things in small doses until I get re-acclimated!

They looked like these when new. Now, they're still shiny, but a bit down at the heel and frayed around the edges. They've got some serious mileage!

Around Town

Always Carry Your Camera!

Here's some pics shot in & around Houston:

Garrison Keillor must be in town...


The Houston Medical Center on a gloomy day.


Why'd the horse cross the bayou?
To get to the donut shop!



That's some serious okra!



Queen Sheila strikes again!
(If there's a TV camera, she'll be there...)


One too many stadiums. (Stadia?)



Looks pretty, but the water will strip the skin from your bones!

Fly The Friendly Skies!

Perhaps A Bit TOO Friendly...

Via Oleg Volk's site

The Big Mother Shucker

Beats The Heck Out Of Pressed Duck!!

Noticed this, and thought of Bou and her recent experience with guacamole-stuffed lobster.

This way, Bou, you'll see everything up front! No surprises!!


From Wired.com:

At a former golf-shoe factory 13 miles from the Atlantic, workers at Shucks Maine Lobster drop up to 150 pounds of live lobsters into a perforated metal basket and sink them in the Avure 215L, a water-filled compression chamber affectionately known as the Big Mother Shucker. A pump pressurizes the water to 40,000 pounds per square inch—almost 2,700 times the pressure of the air around us, 60 times that of the deepest known lobster habitat, and more than twice the force at the bottom of the Pacific’s Mariana Trench.

At such extreme pressure, cellular activities cease, causing instant death, and the flesh disconnects from the exoskeleton. When the lobsters emerge six to eight minutes later, the succulent meat slips right out of the shell. The meat is then resubmerged in a bag, and the pressure is cranked up to 87,000 psi, destroying listeria and other food-borne bacteria. Because the force is uniform at all points, the flesh remains perfectly intact.

Before and After:

(Click pic for nekkid lobster embiggification!)

One Giant Pile O' Suck

At Least I Didn't Pay Full Price!

Went to the flicks this afternoon. Bad idea...

For the record, 'Skyline' may be the most pointless movie I've seen in years. I don't even feel it's worth the time to give a write-up.

See it at your own risk.

Pray For Rain!!

Chain-Link Would Be SO Much Easier.

It's supposed to pour down buckets tomorrow. I sure hope it does.

Otherwise, I've got some work ahead of me...

Pulling Bullets

Fun Ways To Spend Veteran's Day

If at first you f&*# it up, yank 'em out and try again...

The first go-round with the reloading press, Cisco Kid & I fired up the press and got things mostly figured out.

Then, we took a break for dinner.

Lesson #1 - Never take a break.

See, we shut off the powder feed supply before we left. After dinner, I started loading rounds, and it took several minutes before I figured out that there probably wasn't any more powder entering the hopper, and God knows how many primed but powderless rounds were mixed in with the good ammo.

Ooops...

I tried measuring the weight of the rounds, but variations in the case weight (about 6 different manufacturers) led to having no clue which might or might not have powder.

Firing a squib round is a Very Bad Thing. If you don't notice that bullet has lodged somewhere in the barrel due to being propelled by the primer, the next one usually bursts the barrel and gives you interesting shrapnel patterns in your face.

So, I had 100 rounds of suspect ammo laying around, and the 100 rounds I mentioned last week that had to be scrapped.

So, today's project was yanking the bastards apart, one at a time.

The good news is that with a kinetic bullet-puller, you can re-use everything.

The bad news is that it takes all frikkin' afternoon.

The better news is that I've now got 200 primed cases ready to load, and 200 bullets to stuff in 'em. Should go pretty quickly this go-round. I hope...

The worst news? Only 4 rounds had no powder in 'em! 96 pulled "just in case"

Tools of the trade: A bullet puller, cinder block, and chunk of 4x4. You put the bullet in the gizmo, tighten the cap, then smack the shit out of it until the bullet pops loose. Very easy to do on the copper-jacketed rounds. A complete PITA on the lead bullets, 'cause the softer metal holds a deeper crimp.



A mixed bowl of Trail Boss powder and bullets. Note: Do NOT use Trail Boss powder with jacketed bullets! I bought a pound of Bullseye powder for those.



The end result:

Rocket Report

42 Dozen More Reasons To Like Tennessee

There were rockets this year on the Tennessee trip, but they didn't join the party until I was on the road home...

Behold:


(Click pic to embigginate!)

On the way out of the state, I dropped in on the gigantimous fireworks store on I-75 and loaded up on a bunch of contraband.

Mostly, they're bottle rockets. Fun, inexpensive, and oh so illegal here in Texas!

I was amazed how little money it takes to buy a bucketload of pyrotechnic fun. I suppose having them legal year-round increases the supply and drops the price.

Those orange doohickeys in the plastic bags are called "Whistling Chasers". They were known by another name in my youth, which I won't repeat here. I haven't seen these in 20 years at any Texas fireworks stand.

I couldn't resist sampling the wares last night. The "Zips" on the bottom right I took to be those little spinning jumping jacks. The warning label says "Emits sparks and spins on ground".

Heh. As if... More like "Shoots out green flames, & rockets up 40 feet in the air with a warbling shriek!" If I'd known how cool those were, I'd have bought many more than five bucks worth...

It's gonna be a whiz-bang New Year!!

Hysterics Pics

You Can't Make This Shit Up...

Some of my photos from the 2010 Hysterics at Eric's:

What's that, Jack? You hear another bottle of Scotch being opened??



Cuttin' a rug on the hardwood floor!



Post-Breakfast Rodeo!



Please!! Just One Piece Of Smoked Chicken!!!



Amazingly, No Toes Were Lost Building The Fire...



Infernal Elisson



The Poetry Recital, Sponsored By Macallan Scotch



Food P0rn



I *TOLD* Y'all That Giant Log Would Burn!!

Back From Tennessee...

My Butt Is Numb!

Got in last night at 2:30 a.m. after 16 hours on the road.

Meant to stop in Louisiana for the night, but got to Baton Rouge by 8 p.m., and with no traffic jams along the route, was making pretty good time.

The last hour was pretty surreal. Pretty sure I was hallucinating little highway gnomes at every mile marker...

Back to bed. Just got up to feed the cats and check email.

Go East, Young Man!!

The Long & Winding Road...

I really ought to be getting some sleep. Who scheduled an election the night before I leave on a road trip???

Off to Tennessee, y'all. I'll be back next Monday. I might post something if someone leaves their laptop unattended for a few minutes.

Keep your fingers crossed and think happy thoughts! It's 900 miles each way!!

6 Years Of Baboon Pirates!!

I Knew I'd Skipped Something...

D'OH!!!

I'm gonna be late to my own funeral.

This past Tuesday was the 6th anniversary of this little hole in the web.

I completely forgot it. Can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

No "Best of Baboon Pirates - Year Six" this time. I'll let y'all pick out your own.

Thanks for stopping by!!