You know you’re going to like a girl when she says, “You’d survive Jurassic Park because you’re good at UNIX” and then proceeds to watch a half-dozen episodes of The Venture Bros. with you.

I’m taking a little summer vacation from blogging. Of course, every time I decide to take a break something happens and I get inspired to write, so don’t take me off your RSS feed just yet…

If you just can’t get through the day without your TD fix, you should listen to this week’s Vicious Circle, wherein we discuss pacifism, my athletic balls, and dolphin sex. Yeah, it’s a weird one.

Hard to believe he’s been gone five years…

Iggy Pop to reform with the Stooges and play Raw Power for first time in 36 years

I really, REALLY hope they can pull this off. Scotty Asheton can do it. Mike Watt can do it. And Iggy, broken and battered as he is, can sure as hell still do it. The big question mark is James Williamson. He cleaned up, quit music, got a degree in electrical engineering, and became a VP at Sony Electronics. He hasn’t gigged in 30 years. I don’t know if ANYONE knows if he’s really up for it.

But if the Stooges are going to go on without Ron Asheton, this is the only way it should happen. And good god, do I want to see Raw Power performed live.

You may have noticed a bit of controversy today surrounding last weekend’s Vicious Circle. I’m here to tell you it’s all true.

When Sebastian and Bitter pulled a few snippets out of an hour-long podcast and presented them without context, absolutely NOTHING was twisted or outright tortured into an interpretation out of line with the spirit in which it was said.

No sir, when we talked about the crowded and loud conditions in the Happy Hour bar (which were no one’s fault), conditions that made it virtually impossible to move about the room or even hold a non-shouting conversation with someone directly next to you, that was a direct, personal shot at Bitter, Sebastian, and Michael Bane himself. In fact, the REAL reason we were angry about the crowding was that it kept us from marching over and spitting directly in Mr. Bane’s face! And there’s absolutely NO WAY that discussion could be interpreted as the sort of “constructive criticism” that Bitter and Sebastian want, such as “maybe someone should ask the bar ahead of time if their venue is suitable for a group of 50 people who want to be able to hold casual conversations.”

And when Alan described the press room conditions as being somewhat lacking (I personally found it a very nice place: free refreshments, wifi and power strips for bloggers with laptops, and none of the noise and crowding of the show floor) and I challenged him by asking if he expected bathrobes and blowjobs, that was definitely NOT my way of saying that he had unrealistic expectations. No, that was a straight-faced demand for fellatio from the NRA staff in the room. Really, I can’t see how it could be interpreted IN ANY OTHER WAY.

On another absolutely unambiguous point, when a group of socially awkward introverts who often spend upwards of 12 hours a day hanging out on IRC describe themselves as “the cool kids”, no reasonable person could detect a trace of irony in that. No, surely these folks stuck together out of pure elitism, and NOT because they already knew each other pretty well and preferred to keep a low profile rather than play social butterfly. That would just be preposterous.

I also should point out that Bitter absolutely did NOT reject out-of-hand my repeated suggestions that she actually TALK to Alan and the Atomic Nerds directly, as a way of resolving any disagreements or hurt feelings. No, that never happened at all. And CERTAINLY not 5 or 6 times.

Finally, I find it an absolutely BRILLIANT tactic to find a podcast offensive and insulting, and rather than talk directly to the people involved (see last paragraph), to instead bring it to the attention of hundreds or thousands of people, when it would ordinarily attract perhaps a dozen listeners and quickly be forgotten. I don’t see how this cunning plan could possibly fail!

And that’s my last word on the subject. I’m looking forward to Charlotte in 2010, even if I have to do it without a fancy badge and free hummers.

… but it usually hits me during the trip. This time I managed to catch a bug of some kind on the way home, which lead to me waking up this morning feeling like I was gargling napalm. Ah, another throat infection. I spent about 75% of my childhood with strep throat, so I’m almost feeling nostalgic about it.

Between that and the usual catch-up routine (laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning up the mess I left behind), I’m late in blogging about the show. What’s worse, I barely blogged while I was AT the show. So in this case HK is justified in hating me: I do indeed suck.

A few gun notes:

• I talked to a Ruger rep about new Nitro Express calibers in the No. 1, an idea made more feasible now that Hornady has factory ammo in .450, .470, and .500 Nitro. He claimed the .500 was impossible because it doesn’t fit in the No. 1 (which would probably come as a surprise to the gunsmiths who BUILD such rifles; the No. 1 can go all the way up to .577 Nitro) and there were no immediate plans for new Nitros. Disappointing but not unexpected.
• The Ruger LCR is light, comfortable and has a nice trigger pull. The problem is with the trigger return; it’s very easy to short-stroke the action and pull the trigger again before the sear resets. Cylinder rotates, no bang. Not good. You can, of course, do this with ANY double-action revolver, but with the LCR it’s easy to think that you’ve let the trigger out all the way when you really haven’t.
• The guys at Grizzly Custom Guns build a very, very nice Scout rifle. The integral pedestal scope mounts are fantastic and the whole gun is beautifully executed. It’s pricey, definitely, but I’d love to have one.
• Stoeger’s tactical coach gun is so ridiculous it’s actually kinda cool. I like coach guns quite a bit, but I’m more of a traditionalist about them. The nicest one I saw was the CZ/Huglu hammer coach gun.

And now it’s off to gargle more saltwater and get some sleep…

There’s some gun stuff upcoming, but aside from the SR-556 there’s very little new stuff that I’ve seen. And frankly, I’ve been spending much more time hanging out with Alan, Breda, Mike, and the Atomic Nerds than looking at guns. Which, for me, is really the point.

They’re not as cool as you’d expect; they’re much, much cooler and funnier and snarkier in real life. Especially after a few pitchers of margaritas and/or some beers.

It’s one of the wonderful and terrible things about the Internet: you get to meet all kinds of awesome people that you’d otherwise never encounter, but it’s only on rare, special occasions that you actually get to SEE your friends, sit around and chat, booze it up, and tear into each other (in a friendly way).

And that’s why I’m here.

By now you’ve probably seen the big news about Ruger’s SR-556 piston AR. I checked it out with Alan, Breda and Mike W. yesterday, and the consensus was a resounding “meh”. Nothing WRONG with it, per se, but it’s another late-to-the-party, me-too item like the SR-9 and LCP. Also, $2k MSRP. Ouch.

I haven’t spent too much time on the show floor yet, but I was happy to see that Winchester fixed the lousy Model 70 stocks that I bitched about last year. The S&W 396 is just as cool as I’d remembered it, but the folks at Smith continue to put an integral lock in it. I voiced my displeasure once again.

Back out to the floor now, looking for the new’n'cool. Updates to follow.

Or at least, one-little-corner-of-the-blogosphere-wide. You can listen to me on this week’s episode of Vicious Circle: The Hate Episode, in which we dump buckets of Hatorade on unsuspecting fellow bloggers and generally talk shit, all in the name of creating Blog Bash harmony and goodwill.

I also had a brief call-in at the tail end of last night’s Gun Nuts Radio, offering a bit of advice for folks who’ve never been to an NRA convention. Short version: expect to get a ton of literature and swag, and make plans for getting it all home afterward. I usually end up mailing it to myself to avoid the airlines’ insane overweight-luggage fees.

Next post will probably be from Phoenix, assuming I don’t immediately shrivel up and die in the expected 104-degree heat. Wish me luck!