Tuesday, April 30, 2013

No wonder 90% of TrekContent is lame and stupid: it's built on a foundation of finger-wagging

As early as 1964, Gene Roddenberry drafted a proposal for the science fiction series that would become Star Trek. Although he publicly marketed it as a Western in outer space—a so-called "Wagon Train to the Stars" (like the popular Western TV series)[2]—he privately told friends that he was modeling it on Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, intending each episode to act on two levels: as a suspenseful adventure story and as a morality tale. 
Suddenly a light dawns: Roddenberry was lecturing without the intelligence of a Rod Serling or the wit of a Jonathan Swift.





Saturday, April 27, 2013

Don't Marry a Soldier

48. If you train a soldier to shoot a five year old without batting an eye, on the grounds the child might be concealing a grenade, you have to expect him to be somewhat callous when he returns to family life. He will think nothing of dashing his infant son against a wall or threatening his wife with a handgun if she fails to do the dishes. 

Man. I cannot tell you the number of times after a tense night with an ear cracked for incoming and then I rise at 0530 for my early-morning PT and there is a dirty dish in the sink and CHARLIE IN THE WIRE FIRE FOR EFFECT DANGER CLOSE DANGER-CLOSE SMOKEY THIS IS NOT 'NAM, THIS IS BOWLING THERE ARE RULES and suddenly I'm waving my handgun around like a nitwad's wet dream.

On the one hand, having to deal with social services and the kids crying and the cops and all is a bummer.  On the other, a good flashback really gets the ol' blood moving.

Semper Fi.


Tuesday, April 23, 2013

M1 Garand

I do not, not, not, like firearms for their own sake. They're tools, is all. Tools with a singular purpose, granted. But: tools.

 But I got to hold an M1 Garand last weekend, ran through the manual of arms ... 


  • That is a well-made, solid, machine, brother. 
  • I want one. 
  • The difference between my M16 (7 pounds unloaded) and an M1 ( 9 1/2 pounds unloaded ) was surprising. As in 'whoa, that sucker is heavy'. 
  • I get the Baby Boom, now. 


After lugging an M1 all over the damned world, over beaches, up the hilly willies and down the hilly willies ... GI Joe was a buff mother-f*cker.

Mary Jane from back on the block just couldn't help herself.


Wednesday, April 17, 2013

All Dogs All The Time - I'd Watch It

In the last two days we've been told there were three bombs, a fire, one unexploded bomb, cell phones were cut off, there were only two bombs, and no fire, a guy was under arrest, cell phone coverage was not cut off, a guy wasn't under arrest, another guy was arrested, except now he isn't but any minute now someone could be. Stay tuned!  Eleventy!

If CNN and company care to get actual, factual, news published they might as well take a deep breath, research their stories, put out an hourly news cast, once a day, fill the rest of the time with Puppy Channel.

Ratings would go through the roof, I bet.


Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Dream

A man exits a diner, trying to be inconspicuous.  A string of balloons and a flying saucer crash next to him.

Then things get weird.

The US Navy circa 1930 fights off an alien armada in New York harbor.  Iowa launches a nuclear shell right _up_ the spout of a _HUGE_ alien battleship's cannon, detonating _INSIDE_ the dreadnaught and it was beautiful.  I had an aerial view for that one.

There are close-ups of plucky resistance fighters potting individual alien soldiers with wee little nukes, at a marina. Most of the aliens die, but almost none of the resistance fighters do, and then we're all on a bus high-fiving.




Friday, April 05, 2013

We have met the enemy and he is us

He [Obama] said that such worries would just feed “into fears about government. You hear some of these folks: ‘I need a gun to protect myself from the government. We can’t do background checks because the government’s going to come take my guns away.’ The government’s us. These officials are elected by you … I am constrained as they are constrained by the system that our founders put in place.

This would be the same guy that executes American citizens without a trial.

Related: 'Stop hitting yourself!  Stop hitting yourself!' said every grade school bully, ever.