Three felonies a day? I believe it.

Good morning all!  My apologies for skimping on yesterday’s post; it was a miss-the-alarm, oversleep, panic-about-missing-the-train kind of day!  I’m equally sleepy today, but the coffee was ready and the cat was obnoxiously scratching the side of the bed, so I hauled myself out.  Besides, I’m indignant, and a good dose of umbrage is helpful for yanking one’s sleepy butt out of bed.

Why am I indignant?  Because I’m surrounded by felons. Yep, that’s right!  Thousands upon thousands of them.

According to Harvey Silvergate, the average adults commits roughly three felonies a day — not rapes, murders or theft, usually, but breaking small stupid little rules.  Seeing as how I believe almost every student on a Massachusetts campus is a felon, three per DAY seems a little high, but not undoable.

Don’t believe me?  See for yourself.  These are the kind of weapons prohibited at all colleges and universities in Massachusetts:

1 Sec. 53-206: “slung [sic] shot, air rifle, BB gun, black jack, sand bag, metal or brass knuckles, or any dirk knife, or any switch knife having an automatic spring release device by which a blade is released from the handle, having a blade of over one and one half inches in length, or stiletto, or any knife the edged portion of which is four inches or over in length, or any martial arts weapon or electronic defense weapon, as defined in section 53a-3, or any other dangerous or deadly weapon or instrument.” Sec. 53a-3(6): “any weapon, whether loaded or unloaded, from which a shot may be discharged, or a switchblade knife, gravity knife, bill, blackjack, bludgeon, or metal knuckles.”

No blade that opens with a spring over one and a half inches.  Geez, even Boston’s knife laws aren’t that strict!  And no knife with an edge longer than four inches?  Do they think no one ever cooks at any Massachusetts college?

Now, the quote above might be inaccurate.  I wasn’t able to easily find the law itself; a search for “mass.gov 1 Sec. 53-206″ turned up bupkis.  “MA law 1 Sec. 53-206″ got me links from pepper spray, self-defense and blog sites, but nothing officially mass.gov.

And that’s the point. The good lawmakers of Massachusetts (apparently) passed this ridiculous regulation (which won’t be followed by thousands of students who like to be able to slice open a frickin’ cantaloupe), don’t make it easily available for research, and have no way of enforcing it.

The happy result?  I’m forced to leave myself defenseless when I go a-campusing.

Thanks a lot, Massachusetts.

Fun with foil-cutters

I could have more accurately titled this post, “F*** foil-cutters,” but that would be vulgar (she said primly).

Dear my god, but it’s cold outside.  The alarm started going off at 5 AM, I reached out to whack snooze and drew back a paw covered in icicles.  The cat had abandoned his usual sleeping spot between my legs and migrated to my chest.  The implicit trade-off — more warmth for him, but more difficulty breathing for me — bothered him not a whit.  (Yes, yes, he would be both appropriately punished and warmer if he were wearing an elf hat and booties  Soon, Breda, I promise!)

Anyway, regarding foil-cutters – I don’t like them.  The ones with little blades quickly wear out; the blades go dull, or the doohickey just breaks in half.  Slicing about the neck of the bottle with a tiny knife has always seemed silly to me, and I rarely get a clean cut anyway.  My preferred methods have therefore been to A) stab the top of the foil with a corkscrew then rip it up with my fingers, or B) ignore the foil altogether and draw the cork up through it.

Mike hates this.  He has to pretend not to watch while I mangle the foil.  I don’t taunt him or anything.  Of course not.

But — thank you, B! — the problem is now solved.  Ta-da!!!!!

That’s right!  If the foil is loose enough to turn on the bottle, it’s usually loose enough for you to grab in your fist and pull directly off the bottle.

Plus, you get a fun little foil cylinder to play with!  (No, dear, it’s not a shot glass.  Put down the Jack Daniels.)

So there’s your happy tip for the weekend.  Forget foil-cutters, and just use your fist.  (And don’t forget to make appropriate grunting sounds while removing it, and a roar of triumph when it comes off.  Duh.)

Happy Friday, all!  Stay warm!

“Wait, why do I get the girl gun?”

Well, because I *like* the girl gun, actually

Meet Sigmund (top) and Siguette!  Siguito the Mosquito is pouting because he didn’t get pictured, but I’ll take care of that some other time.

As you can see from the pic, Siguette shoots smaller, more slender bullets with a domed top rather than a flat top.  The shorter barrel makes it a little harder to shoot accurately (compared to Sigmund), but in addition to its enhanced concealability, I prefer the “girl gun” for two reasons:

1) .40 ammo is a BITCH.  I *REALLY* dislike it.  We were shooting some sort of aluminum-jacketed super-fast rounds (Mike?  Help please!) and I made it through exactly one magazine.  I was literally jarred backwards with every shot, clenching my teeth to keep from biting my tongue.  Boo!  I *MUCH* prefer my one experience shooting .45, with Jay G.

2) The grip is just too wide for me.  Apparently I need to stick to single-stack guns.  With Sigmund, I have to adjust my grip, sliding my right hand around to the side until the gun no longer lines up with my forearm (in order to get my finger-pad on the trigger), and that’s just in single-action.

I was surprised by how my hands felt too small for Sigmund.  After all, I’ve always thought that I have very large hands for my size — and perhaps I do.  But my size is still 5′3″, and I’m guessing the average size of the average pistol-shooter is just a tad above that   On the other hand, Siguette is a little small for Mike, and when I took a 6′4″ friend to the range he found it difficult to get a good grip on her.

Of course, Sigmund has other advantage, like having an accessory rail.  And having a .22 conversion kit and CrimsonTrace grips, both of which Mike bought from his allowance.  (That’s why he has lasers and I don’t.  YET.)  Anyway, even though I had to make a concerted effort to grip in such a way as to get the lasers to light off, I had a blast shooting .22 with the laser aiming for me.

In Soviet Russia, SIGHTS aim YOU!

Happy Thursday, all!

In honor of Calvin and Hobbes

Like everyone else, I was and am a huge Calvin & Hobbes fan.  I admire Bill Waterson for going out when the getting was good, instead of milking the franchise until it died.  In his honor:

(Like the entire C&H collection, if someone ever gives it to me.  I’ll put it away for my kids, after reading it ten or fifteen times.  Swear!!)

(I believe I first saw this at Cranky’s, but I can’t find the post.  Laugh at this one instead.)

Today’s must-read

A window into a life very different than mine, and a damn-fine tribute to two great dogs.  Read #1.  Then read #2.  Go on, now.

When blog persona meets life persona

For the most part, my LookingForLissa life and Actual Lissa Life are fairly separate.

Oh sure, when we meet up for bloggershoots or bloggerdinners, I see people in real life.  I don’t hide my ID.  A bunch of the folks on my sidebar know the true name of Lissaville.  Shoothouse Barbie’s known me forever (or since high school, which is the same thing).  And, of course, Mike both shares my Actual Lissa Life and does occasional guest posts for me.  (He’s really looking forward to this summer’s bloggershoot, BTW.  As are we all!)  And when I occasionally meet up with someone who reads my blog and recognizes me at the range, it’s weird and flattering at the same time.

What’s weird to me is when an old acquaintance from my Actual Lissa Life stumbles on my blog.

I don’t deny that my views on politics and economics and life in general have changed a lot in the last ten years.  (Two of my most popular posts deal with this very subject.)  I try not to take things TOO seriously; after all, I was 1000% convinced back then that I Was Right.  I’m pretty sure that my current views have more grounding in reality, statistics and How Things Actually Work, Not The Way I Would Like Them To Work than they were back in college, but hell — I was wrong before when I was SURE I was right.  For all I know, I’m still wrong, and all my views are crazy as hell.

But there’s no denying that I feel a sense of . . . unease . . . almost shame . . . at the idea of someone from Ye Olde Liberal Arts College coming here and being shocked at the change.  I imagine that, to them, it would be as if they met me in the street and suddenly I had shaved my head and put some bolts in my ears and pierced my lip and perhaps gotten a really stupid facial tattoo.  (Of course, in such a situation, my real friends would love me anyway!)

Whereas in my perception, it’s more like the opposite — like realizing that my hair looks better long, that having my lip pierced makes no sense, and recognizing that a stupid facial tattoo leads people to judge me in ways I don’t like.

Part of the appeal of having a blog is the freedom of your readers to go elsewhere.  If they think you’re batsh*t-crazy and living in bizarro land, they feel free to go read something else.  I don’t know if that applies to people from Actual Lissa Life, and that makes me a little uncomfortable.

Also . . . the vast majority of my readership found me online, one way or another.  I write for them, and for me.  And I forget sometimes that there is a handful of people who know me from Actual Lissa Life.

Is that bad?  I don’t know.  Potentially, I guess. When I wrote Meditations on Self Defense, I was trying to explain in a logical manner why someone would choose to own a gun.  In certain parts of the country, folks would think you’re nuts for having to explain something everyone takes for granted.  That’s not the case where I live.  I was trying to explain in a logical manner why gun ownership makes sense to me.

But I have friends who don’t own guns.  Was this post aimed at them?  Was I trying to call them stupid for NOT owning guns?

No!!!

Do I need to add a disclaimer to all my posts — “This post is not aimed at anyone in particular that I know in real life, so please don’t take it that way”?

It’s really a tempest in a teapot, no doubt . . . I plan to keep trying to write in a way that entertains me, that hopefully entertains y’all, and that helps me make sense of my own thoughts.

I just wish it didn’t spill over into my real life occasionally.  That it didn’t make folks uncomfortable, shocked, disappointed or simply weirded-out.

That’s all.

Double Ow!

Owwwwwwww ow ow ow ow ow!

Long-time readers knows that I am not a fan of exercise for exercise’s sake.  I ran track and played soccer throughout high school and continued playing soccer casually through college and beyond.  I love being in shape, but I often get bored on the silly elliptical and since I’m naturally lazy, the couch and the book too often wins out over going to the gym.  Double that when my workout partner is in Charlotte!  I tend to go through periods of “being good” — i.e. exercising regularly at least three times a week — that will be alternated with long periods of not going at all.

I ended one of those long periods by going to the gym with Mike yesterday.

Holy cow I hurt.

I didn’t do that much — 35 minutes on the elliptical — and my legs and butt are fine, only a tiny bit sore.  It’s my arms that are killing me.  While I walk at a VERY brisk pace at least fifteen minutes a day (as brisk as I can possibly do, because, honey, it’s COLD out in Boston!!), apparently I don’t work my arms on a regular basis.  Combine that with a trip to the range yesterday afternoon, and I woke up this morning going OW OW OW.

*whimper*

The second ow?  Mike and I got our W-2’s this past week.

OW OW OW OW OW OW.

I’m not going to tell you how much was withheld for taxes, only that I felt a serious reaming in the direction of my backside.

Tell me, dear readers:

Happy Caturday: Addiction edition

Oh, poor Rajah!  He just can’t get that monkey off his back:

Even worse, he can’t get it off his head . . .

Poor little Rajah!!  Not only did I neuter him, but he regularly gets dominance-humped by a stuffed animal!

(With special thanks to Mike for going and fetching my camera while the Rajah had me firmly trapped in the chair)

Book Review: Kinfolk

Short review: Excellent!

Longer review:  Good morning, everyone!  How was your weekend?  I took a few days off from blogging to play hostess, but really, what was the news over the last few days anyway?  Did Darth Cheney return?  Did I want to blog about John Edwards?  Yeah, I didn’t think so.

I decided to do a quick review on Kinfolk when I learned that a friend of mine — who’s MUCH better read than I am — hadn’t read The Good Earth.  I think I first read Buck in eighth grade and never looked back; I can count up at least five of her books on my shelf.  In retrospect, I didn’t know how lucky I was; I used to go to a local library and grab Buck books, not knowing that half of them were out of print and unavailable elsewhere.

Pearl S. Buck was the child of Presbyterian missionaries who raised her in China; she grew up listening to stories from her amah and speaking Chinese*.  If I recall correctly, when she published The Good Earth she was raked over the coals by Chinese intellectuals.  They were horrified that she’d write about the peasants in China; they wanted Westerners to see Chinese culture purely from the view of the elites and the intellectuals, not the dirty commonfolk.

Such an intellectual heads up the family from Kinfolk.  Dr. Wen Hua Liang is a writer and lecturer living in New York City with his wife and four children.  The story follows the children as they fulfill their lifelong dream and, against their father’s wishes, return to China.  Nothing is as they expect; we follow them as they try to reconcile their American upbringing and their father’s glowing, ethereal views with the actual folks on the ground.

I find Buck to be a very entertaining writer.  Part of that stems purely from the fact that she’s an American who wrote a lot of books about China and I’m half-Chinese; not complicated!  But I also love her flow of words.  For example, describing a well into which a body has just been thrown:

Such old wells were deep.  They had been dug in the palace gardens, long ago, so that the Empress might have ample water with which to water her peonies.  Now they were foul with age and death and nobody drank their waters, and all the flowers were dead.

I find that imagery haunting.

My own personal favorite Buck book is out of print, but you can buy used copies from third-party vendors.  Likewise, her short stories are fabulous.  Pick up a book; you won’t be disappointed!

*Yes, I know “Chinese” is not a spoken language, but I don’t know what dialect she spoke and I don’t care enough to go a-Googling.  Knock yourself out.

Vacation!!

Taking some time off from work and blog to enjoy hosting two friends from college.  Enjoy your time off from me!  I’ll see you Thursday!