Song From Dollar Shave Club

Reblogged from Writing Bareback:

I'm not Dr. Tom, so take my opinion on this tune for what it's worth, but I am diggin' it. BTW, if you haven't been paying attention to the Dr. Tom anthology that's been building over the last couple of months, it's pretty impressive. Here's what he's thrown up in 6 posts (with my opinion on best to worst):

• Grouplove (3)

Read more… 306 more words

Weird song but it's got a beat...

Opinion on Marijuana Legalization

I watched an episode of Penn & Teller’s Bullshit today on Marijuana and thought I’d post my thoughts.
I agree there is substantial evidence that is being ignored by the Government and hard-line Medical community that Marijuana has medical benefits. Medical Marijuana should be available at any Pharmacy with a Doctors prescription for side effects from Chemo, etc. that help alleviate Nausea where all other treatments have failed. And guys, I’m sorry – IF ALL ELSE HAS FAILED, I DON’T GIVE A FLYING MOTHER FUCKING FUCK – PAIN IS THE MOST MOTHER FUCKING HORRIBLE THING – AND NAUSEA AINT MUCH LESS – IF IT STOPS PAIN AND NAUSEA, I DON’T GIVE A FUCK WHAT IT IS – GIVE IT TO THEM TO STOP THEIR SUFFERING!. Cannabis seems to do it for those conditions. So as far as I’m concerned, end of argument there.

On the area of total legalization, I am still torn, but heavily leaning for it. For years I have been totally against Marijuana. Never liked it. As I have gotten older and wiser, when I look at Marijuana compared to Tobacco and Alcohol, I see something that is basically in the same realm. It’s not creating dangerous or unruly behavior as Alcohol or PCP, for example, can. The behavior it creates seems to be almost non-dangerous – just like one drink or a cigarette. Even when used in excess, compared to Alcohol, which IS legal, the person’s behavior continues to be non-violent. If you can put Alcohol or Nicotine into your body, why not Marijuana? What makes it so damn bad compared to Alcohol or Tobacco?

We have those that say crime will go up if we do, people will be stoned everywhere, etc.

I’m sorry, but I don’t find that argument very persuading. People drive drunk despite the law. People smoke Marijuana despite the law. Furthermore, Alcohol use isn’t tolerated by employers, and Marijuana use would (and does) face the same stigma. You don’t go into Work drunk, so you don’t go into work Stoned. Nothing changes except it’s now legal.

And for the issue of more kids will be interested in it – hogwash. All parents have to do is dissuade their children from trying it or using it just like they do now – and Alcohol and Tobacco – again as they also do now. The more and more you look at it, in a way, nothing changes with legalization…

I also feel we are throwing too many users of Marijuana into Jail & Prison, or ruining their lives with a criminal record because they chose to toke a bowl in the privacy of their own home, and forgot they kept the extra in their pocket or something and get pulled over & searched. Unfortunately, what the Government want us to believe is the typical marijuana user is a pothead without a life. I’ve found this to be the exact opposite – many professional people, people with kids and working a white collar job – everyone who’s your average Joe – is the majority who use Marijuana.

Still, I don’t like the way Marijuana makes me feel (only tried it twice when I was younger). I personally could care less if others smoke it, as long as it’s not TOO strong around me (i.e. Clamming). And regardless of my opinion, I still respect the law – and what the law says at this time is it’s illegal. Hopefully as time progresses, and newer doctors and politicians come on the scene, we might see the law change.

ADDENDUM 1/3/13:
I’ve gotten some emails on whether I would report smoking since I still respect the law.

I have friends that smoke weed regardless of the legality. I don’t care. I’m not going to report them. Period.
I drink. If they want to toke a bowl, fuck if I care. Let them chill. Like I said, I’m starting to see it ain’t no worse than Tobacco.

Recipe Book: Mushroom Garlic Pork Chops

I got some great emails liking my Beef Bake post, so here’s another one I have pulled out of the quick and cheap meals section that’s also another household favorite: Mushroom Garlic Pork Chops. This recipe is courtesy of Campbell’s.

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
4 boneless pork chops, thin cut (about 1 1/2 pounds or 4 Chops)
1 can (10 3/4 ounces) Campbell’s Condensed Cream of Mushroom with Roasted Garlic Soup
1/2 cup milk
OPTIONAL (We don’t use): 1/2 of a 12-ounce package medium egg noodles (about 4 cups), cooked and drained
OPTIONAL: Add more sautéed (must be done separately) mushrooms

Heat the oil in a 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Add the pork and cook for 6 minutes or until browned on both sides. Remove the pork from the skillet. Stir the soup and milk in the skillet and heat to a boil. Return the pork to the skillet and reduce the heat to low. Cover and cook for 5 minutes or until the pork is cooked through. Serve the pork and soup mixture (with or without the noodles)

Serves 2

Suggested accompaniment:

Fresh Steamed Green Beans
Garlic Butter & Onion Roasted Red Potatoes (available from Birdseye Frozen)

Of course, feel free to experiment!

Bon Appetite!

Review – Corner Store Fresh Choices Beef Jerky

I saw a free coupon for Valero’s Corner Store “Fresh Choices” Beef Jerky in my mail. Because I buy gas usually from their station (although I prefer Chevron), I decided to give it a try.

I’m a very fair minded person and usually give a lot of leeway to things. I picked it up hoping to enjoy a good package of their “Peppered” variety – cost without the free coupon for 3.5oz: $4.99 + tax.

I cracked it open when getting home. First piece: Shoe leather. Second: same. Third: same. The rest – well, we’ve been over that.

I don’t expect Jerky to be soft as meat. But I don’t expect it to hurt my teeth trying to chew it, either. I also don’t understand why it costs 5 bucks for that tiny 3.5oz amount of meat..for that price, I can get a giant fucking 5 pound log of the same cheap full of fat shit they use to make it in the grocery store – ground up – which adds even more cost – for not much more than the cost of their 3.5oz package.

PROFIT GREED…again. (Here I go off on a tangent…) All companies need profit to expand and survive – but near EVERY company today is destroying product quality to squeeze every last penny out…what is wrong with a decent profit/decent product? Why does it have to be MORE, MORE, MORE MONEY/SHITTIEST PRODUCT?

We need a GUI Wikipedia editor like MS Word!

Sometimes I edit Wikipedia articles to correct spelling, format, grammar, flow, etc. in articles.

While I love Wikipedia, the editing is confusing as HELL.

There are more tags, change operators, this that and the kitchen sink too that I can’t figure out. Some you can get used to quickly, but there is so many – not to mention the help pages are either:

• Buried;
• Buried under more buried pages;
• Non-existant;
• With so much stuff only a programmer could understand

  or

• Just plain unhelpful,

It’s just not worth the time investing in doing some real good for Wikipedia. It seems whoever created Wikipedia was a mad-scientist type programmer who required everything to be in cryptic syntax for formatting with poor help pages. Seriously – it’s like having to learn a programming language to edit text articles. As it’s use by the public has grown, noone has done anything to make it more user friendly over the years. I don’t have time nor the interest to sit down for hours per day to figure out how to make a info box with all it’s ~~~’s and {{ }} for formatting when all I want to do is add a small section or a new basic page.

I’ve looked for some GUI editors, and none seem to exist. I was dumbfounded. There’s a addin for Word that doesn’t seem to do anything useful except convert the page and save it (howabout just some C&P code for the editor box?), an addin for Firefox that just inserts the tags but you don’t know how they will appear without going thru more steps…sigh.

It would be nice to have just a simple GUI editor that shows you what it will look like – WYSIWYG. You can see the code for yourself, and can click a button for it to copy all the code for you – or better yet, let’s get rid of the code and just go to rich text with a few special formatting switches. It’ll make all our lives easier.

Opinion on recent Mass shootings and Guns

Today, December 14th, was a dark day in Amercia. Some nutjob asshole decided to kill 18+ kids in an Elementary school for no good reason. Innocent kids for christs sake…only a disturbed madman could do such a thing. This is a shooting that actually made me shed a few tears.

Of course, the first thing everyone starts yelling is “more gun control”. The fact of the matter is that this guy STOLE the guns from his mother. No law is going to stop someone hell bent on stealing or getting a gun and killing people, and no gun law can identify what a person is thinking of doing with a otherwise lawfully obtained firearm. I’d like to know why, though, knowing that she had a mentally deficient child in her home, why the guns were not secured in a safe or such.

We continue seeing these mass shootings being committed by individuals who have severe mental illness that was never treated or recognized. In the 1960’s and before, mental illness was dealt with properly. If someone was suspected of being even the slightest bit off their rocker – off for evaluation they went (and typically treated – not just given a revolving door) In the 1970’s a huge deinstitutionalization push was in place, and many patients ended out on the streets. Instead of receiving care in a hospital for their illness, they now became the problem of the police and prisons – because of the crimes they were committing. This sad state of affairs is the same today.

There are tons of individuals who show signs of mental illness – whether it be very mild to full-blown psychotic – who never receive treatment. Families, friends, etc. don’t recommend treatment for a variety of reasons – from fear of offending the person, being wrong, etc., and 99% of the time IF they do recommend help, the person refuses it believing there is nothing wrong with them. A sick mind can’t tell it’s sick. In these cases, we need to start doing involuntary mental health treatment – including up to commitment. We also need to get family and friends to start getting more forcefully involved in notifying authorites of possible dangerous mental health behavior (and at the same time authorities more forceful of investigating these allegations) – before it comes to their attention in tragedies such as these mass shootings.

However, at least one thing that can be done is to start adding these people in-mass to a deny list if they have been involved in ANY kind of mental health treatment. While this certainly will get in to a murky area with rights and what could constitute a danger, I think that’s the way to go. A person can petition the court or other authority to allow his right to purchase to be restored, but it has to be supported by doctors that they are not a threat to public safety.

Outside of that, please pray for the families this Holiday season. I can only fathom how much grief these parents are dealing with and the trauma the kids & adults experienced and are going to go thru in the aftermath. May God bless them and hopefully ease some of the suffering.

Proper time for Stouffers French Bread Pizza in the Microwave

For those of you who love those great slices of pizza goodness, you know Stouffer’s doesn’t give straight Microwave directions. There’s nothing wrong with cooking it in the Microwave, but (here’s your warning) you are definitely not going to get the crispy-crust you would from the oven – it’s more like soft French bread (which I prefer), and it’s not going to be cooked the same way like in the oven, but it’s still very good.

But if you still want to (I always do) cook it in the Microwave, just hit it for 3:10 on HIGH. You might need to adjust up or down depending on your Microwave, but in mine that cooks it just right.

Enjoy!

Fix Sharepoint Designer “World Wide Web browser” required message

Some people who are using alternative browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Opera, etc. are receiving the following message when they try and Administrate their site from the menus, or other actions:

"A World Wide Web browser, such as Windows Internet Explorer, is required to use this feature"

There are plenty of posts on the subject, but the recommended solution for me did not work.

Here’s the fix:

1. Open the Registry Editor
2. Locate the “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.html” key
3. Delete that key

Walla – no more error message. However, it does do something unwanted, though not serious, it’s the fix you’ll need. IE should recreate the value if needed.

“Beef Bake”–a great, filling dish!

Here’s a good old classic that I dug up from our Receipe book. It’s called Beef Noodle Casserole, but me and my father love to call it “Beef Bake”. It’s delicous and filling. Serves 4.

Here’s the receipe – give it a try sometime!

3 3/4 cups Wide noodles, uncooked
1 lb. Ground Beef
1/2 cup chopped onion (we substitute dried, minced onion)
1/2 teaspoon dried minced thyme
3/4 cup (4-oz. can) sliced mushrooms, drained
1 3/4 cups (14-1/2oz. can) whole tomatoes, undrained and chopped into quarters
1/2 cup sour cream (we add a little more to make it more creamy)
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat oven to 350F. Cook noodles according to package directions for 4 minutes, drain. Meanwhile, in large skillet, cook meat and onion, drain. Stir in thyme, salt and pepper, place in large bowel. Add mushrooms, tomatoes, sour cream and noodles. Spoon mixture into greased 2-quart casserole bowel. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake, uncovered, 30 minutes or until hot and bubbly. 4 Servings.

Enjoy and bon apatite!

John Masen 1911 Parts–just say NO…

In the world of 1911 parts, you have many choices for aftermarket replacements and upgrades. For the budget-minded and those who want certain styles, John Masen (www.johnmasen.com) produces parts almost exclusively for the 1911.

Originally, I got a wide-spur hammer for my 1911 from them. The part seemed OK, but over the course of a month the black oxide finish they are using wore quite readily and badly. After contacting them, they did replace it, although, which is a good thing.

However, I’ve read all over the web that their parts are considered junk. Recently, my grip safety’s finish was wearing so I decided to replace it. Colt was out of stock on it, and Brownell’s only had a Masen part. So I ordered one, and what I received reinforced why they are considered junk.

The part had a very noticeable casting line right down the middle all the way, not only could you see it but you could FEEL it. Not good. Did I forget to mention the finish on the part too? Fine scratches everywhere on the finish that made it look like crap.

Needless to say, it went right back to Brownells, and I purchased a genuine Colt part off eBay.

I don’t understand how this company stays around with the absolutely asinine quality control of their parts…sure, you don’t expect polished bluing and such on a low cost part, but casting lines that just scream at you? Severely scratched finishing? Someone needs to kick the guy in charge of quality control in the balls…

Anyways – a warning for those of you who might come across them. There may be a few good examples – but only get the part if you can see it and feel it. If you have to order it, skip it.

Keep shooting and stay safe!