Thumb Drive!

I was ordered by my Writing II teacher to get a thumb drive, so I went looking around for a suitable unit. I ended up with a Sandisk Cruzer Micro, because its cheap, but I really like this one:


Its stupid expensive at $90 (yeah, you read that right) but its cool. Sometimes cool is all you need.

Sun can hurt

Man, hot sucks. Hot and humid is even worse. Its no wonder nobody is out and about during the day this past week. Hot to the point of unpleasantness.

“Let’s check in the field now. Hi, can you help me? What’s your name?”
“My name is Roosevelt Lee Roosevelt.”
“Roosevelt, what town are you stationed in?”
“I’m stationed in Poon Tang.”
“Well… thank you, Roosevelt. What’s the weather like out there?”
“It’s HOT! DAMN hot. Real hot. Hot as things in my shorts, I could cook things in it, a little crotch pot cookin’.”
“Well, could you tell me what it feels like?”
“Fool, it’s hot, I told you again! Were you born on the SUN? It’s damn hot. You don’t believe me, I saw one of those little guys in an orange robe burst into flames. It’s that hot, you know what I’m talking about?”

Yeah, it was hot like that. And Top, Sarn't Henderson and I went to the range. I even applied some allegedly waterproof sunscreen. Turns out that not only did I sweat off at least some of the sunscreen, and not only did I get myself a case of heat frustration, and not only did I burn the sides of my neck and the tops of my ears, but I also shot very, very poorly. I guess the lesson learned is to hydrate more vigorously (or perhaps to lose my extra insulation), and to get to the range more often, because my carbine shooting was craptastic. I did OK with the Man Gun (my custom 1911), but my carbine shoosting...not good. More practice will be needed! Back to the range to suffer in the heat some more!

More reasons why Frankenguns choke

Top hipped me to some more info as to why TDP (Technical Data Package) guns work and parts guns don't when pushed hard. LAV (if you don't know who that is, you don't belong on my blog. Go away) is, as far as I know, the one who coined this term: tolerance stack.

Tolerance stack can probably be best defined in a comparison. Guns made to the TDP, or as close as can be, don't have it. The guns are made to the blueprints, so the parts are made to a specific spec and of specific materials. Parts guns don't have that. So, when you use a commercial spec receiever with a different brand of parts kit and whatever other parts, you're creating tolerance stack. Say your receiver doesn't exactly work completely and totally as it should with the parts kit. That's one little piece of the tolerance stack. Add the cheapest BCG you can get. Non-MPI'd bolt, unknown brand of pins. Every one of those CAN add to the tolerance stack. Eventually, all these things add up, and the result is the TS. Push the gun hard, as in a thousand rounds a day in a class over a few days, and you'll see failures. It happens with non-Mil Spec factory guns. Its definitely gonna happen with a parts gun made by somebody who doesn't build guns for a living. Its a statistical fact.

What can be done about it? Not much. Get a gun made with, or as close as can be, to the TDP. That means Colt, FN (good luck finding one) or LMT. That probably means Noveske and a few others, too. Fact is, the commercial tier three guns are probably going to fail when pushed hard. It may not, but tolerance stack is why they do. Check out what LAV, Pat Rogers, and others of that ilk have to say about how those guns perform. They'll almost all say that the Colt 6920 is where its at. When the gun has to run, they're just not all that expensive. If you can't float what the Colt costs, LMT can be had for a little less than a grand. Its pretty clear, with some study and research, that the commercial guns are OK for casual use, but aren't going to stand up to heavy use. I don't wanna hear it either, cuz I don't have $1300 to put into a rifle, but facts is facts.

Sumpin' gotsta give!

I'd like to apologize to both the readers of my blog for not having more to post here. School has kept me so busy that I pretty much come home from work and go right to doing school stuff...instead of vacuuming, doing my dishes and like that. I'm finishing up my Corporate Finance course, which is beating me like a Roman task master with a cat o nine tails, and I still have to get more done in my Metaphysics class. I'll hopefully finish up Metaphysics by the end of the month, at which time I'll be starting at Hopkinsville Community College to pick up my last three classes: pre-whenever American History, post-pre-whenever American History, and Writing II. Once those are done, I will have a degree in Binnis Manglement, as well as having spent almost all of 2007 in school. I'm looking forward to February, when I'll be in Vegas celebrating both my degree and my birthday at SHOT. I told some of the reg'lars at Lightfighter.net that I would be there, so the party may be epic. Ellis Island and Freakin' Frog, here I come!

Bear Grylls: the real deal superhero survivor dude

Oops! Apparently Bear Grylls, hard core survival specialist with a background part time in a territorial SAS unit (21 SAS, IIRC) and having something-but-not-really to do with Le Phrench Foreign Legion, wasn't real survivaling while doing stupid stuff like jumping off boulders he should have climbed off of if he really was in a survival situation. Its been widely held belief by people who know (ask a SERE instructor or graduate; they're out there) that at least some of what he's shown doing is dangerous and could prove to have adverse effects on one's physical well being. Come to find out, it wasn't all on the up and up. Nice going, Discovery Channel. You're supposed to do an integrity check before the first ep is filmed, not after the second season. At least they're doing something about it.

Well, lookee there.

I saw this rating thing posted over at Josh's place. Since his language is more...colorful than mine, I expected to rate more along the lines of a PG or PG-13. Lo and behold!

By the numbers, I guess I'm even more NC-17-ier than Josh is! More talk of guns, bro!

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

* gun (33x)
* shoot (7x)
* ass (5x)
* crap (3x)
* knife (2x)
* zombie (1x)

Can you believe I've referenced things as crap three different times???

Sen. Byrd blasts Vick. Glass houses, Senator.

Senator Byrd, who should probably be officially named "Doddering Fool of the US Senate", has done it again. I guess this guy never figured out the the old addage that "people in glass houses should not be throwing stones".

I will state up front that I find breeding dogs for fighting to be repugnant. I'm not defending Mike Vick for being involved. Still...it makes me wonder why they're going after him Federally with the over-used Interstate Commerce clause. That's going to be a post for another time.

DFOTUSS Byrd had this to say about this situation:

"I am confident that the hottest places in hell are reserved for the souls of sick and brutal people who hold God's creatures in such brutal and cruel contempt," he said.

So tell me, Senator: are those the same hottest places in hell reserved for Exalted Cyclops of the KKK, or do you guys get your own separate hottest places in hell? Glass houses, jackass. Nice going, making this a racial issue now. All in favor of calling for Byrd to shut his pie hole, vote "aye" with a flip of the bird for Byrd.

Words of Wisdom from The Top

One of my favorite customers has recently retired from the Army after 20 years and come to work for my employer. If you're on some of the tactical forums, his screen name is Matt E. That's not Eversmann, in case you were wondering. Matt E retired as a Company First Sergeant, and is a combat vet and Purple Heart recipient. He's also way squared away on shooting and similarly important things. He's just completed the 1911 Operator's Course with Larry Vickers. If you don't know who Larry Vickers is, you better find out or get the hell off my blog. Seriously; you don't know, get outa here. Go. Anyway, he's off to train on the M4 again this week, although I can't recall who its with. Its another high speed dude that lots of people wish they could train with.

All that to say, Top has a good base of information with which to work. A good base of knowledge gained from either being there or learning from the guys who were there. Because of this, he's got some interesting and poignant things to say about the defensive or combative use of firearms in the defense of self, loved ones, or one's country.

We recently had a very interesting discussion about carbines. My friend M4 Guru was there, too. Yeah, the name is not a fluke. He's an 18 Bravo and is a complete and total gun nut. Naturally, when the topic is AR-platform rifles, we get around to the oft-heard comment that "Colt is all name and no substance. My (insert third tier manufacturer or parts gun names here) is just as good as a Colt." Followed shortly by "My (Whatevergun) has shot 700 rounds without a problem." Well...experience tells different stories, and I've been asking a lot of people that go to a lot of classes and shoot for work (see the post below discussing Frankenguns), and those who train those guys what happens in those high round count classes. Trends become apparent. Certain manufacturers gain a track record of failure. That being the case, and it being documented all over the Intarweb, one thing becomes abundantly clear: "Just as good as"...isn't.

To put it into the words Top used: "You can have the 'as good as'...or you can have the 'as'." Think about that.

Independence Day

So I'm at work yesterday afternoon, in The Happy Time. The seamstresses work 7-3. I decided I'd rather work 8-4, which gives me an hour to work with no interuptions, no aggravations, and no machines that need to be repaired by me (unless they kill one right before the day's over, which I don't think has happened yet). I can turn the radio up as loud as it'll go (which isn't that loud, unfortunately) or play some very un-PC tunes on the sad little CD player. Lately, the hard rockin' station has been playin' some good stuff in the afternoon. Yesterday was not one of those days.

I won't bore you with the playlist, but they played a good song about every other track. In between the crap I hate, like AC/DC's same old same again, and the stuff I dig, like that classic Led Zeppelin experimental stuff. The thing that bugs me is that the DJ who thinks he's creative and funny plays some stupid bit from the movie Independence Day about the President (I like Bill Pullman as an actor, but I'd never vote for the guy. If it had been Fred Thompson, he woulda been so money and he don't even know it; gets my vote in a heartbeat) sharing Independence Day with the whole world. We're fighting back! We're taking over again! Even the middle east and Africa...never mind that they haven't stopped fighting each other long enough to take a look at the rest of the world. Because I know everybody's seen that flick (once was enough, really) I'll just refresh yer memory with this quote:

President Thomas Whitmore: Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. "Mankind." That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it's fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom... Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution... but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: "We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight!" We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!
[Crowd cheers]

Thanks to IMDB for the quote.

The DJ then goes to make some joke about how when the whole world needs to be saved, we call on the Fresh Prince of Bel Aire. Yeah, it was a bad joke; most of his are. He thinks he's hilarious. If he makes a funny, its usually an accident, but the sun shines on even a blind dog's ass once in a while. I'm not really sure what that means, but it has something to do with just gettin' lucky. His bad humor really wasn't the problem; the quote from the movie kinda bugged me, taken out of context.

The idea that July 4th is anyone's day of commemoration besides America's, at least in the context of America, is tremendously offensive to me. As with most holidays in America, this one seems to be another excuse to take a day off of work, with the added "bonus" of having fireworks involved, too. My jackass neighbors probably spent half their paychecks on what they lit off over the past couple nights. Nice of them to notice the time, but I digress. It seems like, for the most part, America has forgotten exactly what we're celebrating. Lemme break it down for ya.

We were founded as colonies of much larger (at the time) countries. Essentially, we were a new branch office of the homeland. That was cool until the homeland decided we had too much of a good thing goin' on, and they started seeing us as a source of income. That made our forefathers exceptionally mad, and we went to war with England to separate ourselves and gain our independence.

Now, America at that time did not have an Army. Didn't have a Navy. Marines didn't exist yet. They were ordinary citizens that risked their lives with no training for something they believed in. And they won.

About a decade later, they created the Constitution and founded the greatest country ever to grace the face of the earth. Click that hyperlink and read that Constitution. I bet its been a while for ya. Today's a good day to read it again. Every day's a good day to read it again.

Don't forget what it is that we're celebrating. Sure, its great to get together with friends and family and grillin' while hangin' out by the pool...I really miss the pool...but don't ever forget what today is all about. Its too important.

Something to keep you cool this summer

The Greatest Generation

This came through my network of e-mail forwarding intelligence gatherers. This gentleman appears to have it right. The 73 year old veteran was at a gathering where Ted "Ossifer, I'm not as think as you drunk I am" Kennedy and Hillary "I don't want socialized medicine, I just want your tax money to pay for it" Klinton were addressing Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Josh is down! Josh is down!

Well, I'm having a hard time these days, just getting through the hours till bedtime. My boy Josh, the South Park Pundit, has had some administrative issues, and his blog is offline right now.

Josh and I go back a ways; we used to work together at The Edge several years ago. Good times. He's one of those rare curious types who has a voracious appetite for information and learning, which means we got along right off the bat. Its all about the nomenclature, baby! He's young, but he's got a good, strong analytical mind, which is rare anymore. He's usually got something good to read up on posted on his brog, and most of the time I at least get a grin out of it, if not a real, live LOL.

Keep an eye out for his blog once he's back online. He's gotten his account settled up; matter of fact, he got it squared away several days ago. That means that rant that's coming is going to be epic. Keep an eye on it; it'll be worth it!

Its grillin' season!

I picked myself up a small gas grill over the weekend (I know you purists say its all about the charcoal, but its a pain in the ass and I like the heat control of gas much better) and have started back to grilling. When I was in San Diego, I grilled regularly. How could I not? Its grill weather 359 days a year there. That kind of great weather means friends getting together all the time, and gettin' some meat on the Wagon Queen Family Grillster was a required event. Lemme tell ya: my friends can cook and party like pros. I have to coin a phrase: gargantuan awesomeicality. I miss it. Bad. Even with the new grill, I still miss it. Bad. Bad as in lots. Lots and lots. Good times.

So I got this new little grill that's perfect for a couple steaks. Being out of practice, I forgot to grab the garlic bread. I don't remember the brand; its Mama-soemthinerother. Wrap it in foil, throw it on the grill for a few minutes, and mack deeply of its buttery garlic gargantuan awesomeicality. That'll be for next time. Now, being a new toy, I was getting out of control in what I wanted to do with it. After a while, I decided that it really wouldn't pay to spend $30 on dinner without having draft brews to go with it. Being devoid of a keg, I finally realized that I would be better served by going simple. I'm very, very glad I did.

Part of going simple is getting your hands into the work; getting dirty, so to speak. For a decent piece of steak, all you really need is some fresh ground sea salt (I used garlic sea salt for this, but I like using cloves of garlic from time to time, too), some fresh ground pepper, and a good extree viriginical olive oil; I very much prefer the first press EVOO's. They're worth the slight extra cost. Give the steak a good coat of EVOO, being sure to get the edges of the steak, too. Give it a bit of a rub to work the oil into the meat a little. Bust out the salt and pepper, and give it a good coat; you'll end up with a bit of a crust if your grill is hot enough. Once nice thing about the oil is that you don't have to oil the grill grate. You'll get minimal sticking, as well as great flavor.

Fire up your grill while the oil and seasoning gets happy on your steak and soaks in a little. Get the grill hot, and place your steak in the middle. Close the lid. Let it sear for a minute. Literally a minute; don't go much more than that or you'll rough up your meat, and so far its done nothing bad to you. Flip it over, and let it sear another minute. Now, here's where I really prefer gas: turn the heat down to between medium and low, depending on your grill. That's hard to do with charkle brickits; ya gotta wait 'em out. So you've got that thing on low heat. Don't leave it on more than a couple minutes or you're over cook it. Take that bad boy off the grill with tongs. Don't go pokin' holes in the steak with the fork; that's counter-meatative. Trust me on this: the less damage you do to the meat, the better it is. The best part of grill tongs is that they're nice and wide (most of the time; if yours aren't, invest in some quality tools!) so that you can pick the steak up in one go and set it on the plate. The less you bend it, the more juice it'll hold in. That's important. If you don't, the steak police will come beat you with tongs and barbecue sauce brushes. Don't risk it.

Let the steak rest. That means leave it on the plate and leave it be. Resist the temptation to molest your meat. Now's the time for the side dishes. I made two side dishes: salty buttered corn and Haji's Heart Stopping Baked Tater. Take a good sized spud and wash it good. Dirt is not tasty, so be rid of it. Take a knife and score it end to end. Make a couple X's on the ends, too. Now its time to get messy again. Take either butter or margarine (your choice; I actually prefer margarine, believe it or not) and rub that bad boy with it. The tater, foo'. Get a good coat on it, and dust that beastie with garlic salt. You can either wrap it in foil and grill or bake it, or throw it in the microwave. Both ways work; the micro is faster. If you bake it or grill it, add some onions in the foil with it. If you do it in the micro, put it in a micro-safe bowl. You'll see why shortly.

OK, so the tater is done cookin'. Throw it in a bowl, slice that thing up and spread it out. Add a good bit of butter, and top it with a handful of sharp cheddar. Other cheeses work, but the charp cheddar is my favorite. Throw it back in the micro and melt the cheese. Take it back out, and throw a fat blob of sour cream on top. Try not to faint from its gargantuan awesomeicality.

The corn is easy, but damn tasty. Cook it, drain it, butter it, salt the heck out of it. Try not to faint from its gargantuan awesomeicality. I'm tellin' ya, its simple but its so money and it don't even know it.

Like I said, its really, really simple, but simple is key here. Simple is not just good; its great. Now that grillin' season is here, I think I'm gonna have a lot more to add here. And I realize this post is useless without pics. ;)

Nazis? I hate Illinois Nazis!

So I'm watching The History Channel, AKA the War and Destruction Channel, AKA Among the Very Best Channels on TV, when The Secret History of the KKK comes on. Like everything on THC, production value was excellent, and it was very well done. I'm sure the snotzie's didn't like it, but it seemed to me that it was a solid depiction of the events of history. Sure, it had an anti-hate slant to it, but that's OK with me. It made more sense that way. I used to watch that encephalitic moron Tom Metzker's cable access show "Race and Reason" back in the day. That seems to be about the best the neo nazis can do, which was equal parts comedy, relief, and dismay for me. I'd have loved to see some choice bits of "Race and Reason" to have made it into the History Channel; anything that helps the skinhead movement look as ridiculous as they are is a good thing.

The show brought up a couple questions in my mind, though. First and foremost, how is it that the snotzies were called the National Socialist German Workers' Party, and yet their ideology was anti-communist? I can see them hating Russians, I guess, but communism is just socialism without the intellectual honesty. There is no way to get to commie-ism without going through the Democratic Party...I mean...socialism. The Third Reich was clearly a socialist state, with a dicktaster...uh...dictator as its head. And yet the snotzis proclaimed that communism was not their friend. Current snotzies look at Hitler's administration at a model. Its no wonder it only worked one time in one particular place in the world: even the snotzies didn't have a grasp on what their ideology really was. Nice job picking your role models, guys. Great choice.

The second question that came to mind is this: what happens when you get your way? Say we end up segregated, Whites over here, Blacks over there, Hispanics over there someplace, and the Orientals happily living where they already do for the most part. The Orientals may have it right: islands have that whole beach thing going on, and I suspect that rum would be available ;). So there's this perfect separation of races; Cletus doesn't have to have niggers, kikes, zipperheads, or anyone other than his airian brothers in his neighborhood. The perfect race utopia, right? I guess so; since I'm white and I'll be living there, theoretically, I'm gonna need somebody to sweep the streets, wash my truck when I don't want to, and fill all those undesirable positions that are shown on Dirty Jobs. See where this is going yet? My education, skills, and talents will put me further up the ladder than ol' Cletus will be, and he'll be in the same position he always was.

Lemme spell it out for the thicker ones amongst us: your hate is nothing but a crutch. You complain about the Jews taking over everything and suppressing you, the proud white man that can only get a job where he has his name on his shirt. You complain about the black man getting preferential treatment through affirmative action and getting ahead of you. All you've done is let your hate get in the way of your progress. Ever wonder why the depictions of race haters are generally done with teeth missing, bad haircuts, and stained T-shirts? Because there's truth to it. Sure, you have that "uniform" of the tight jeans and suspenders that we all suspect was borrowed from Steve Urkel. Its obvious that there's not an educated person among you.

So you have hate. How has any of that made your life better? How has the quality of your life improved from this? What's been made better by all this? You spend so much time whining about other races not giving you your due that you've become exactly the same as generations of people on welfare. You spend all your time worrying about everybody else when you should be worrying about making yourself better. And ya know what? It works exactly the same with haters from every other race, too. You'll never amount to much of anything believing what you do. You'll never get over, never have more than you do. That's sad; you're so worried about somebody else that you're sacrificing your life to it.

What's worst of all? For most haters, nothing will change. That being said, I guess that gives me license to use you guys as a source of comedy whenever it suits my purposes.

The NRA

I've been a member of the NRA for quite a long time, probably more than 20 years. In that time, I've seen a lot of both good and bad happen to gun owners. Clinton's gun ban, as well as the town of Kennesaw GA passing an ordinance that every home must have a gun in it. We all know that nothing happened to the crime rate while my AR was illegal. Care to take a guess at what the crime rate in Kennesaw has been since that ordinance was passed?

In that time, and in light of current pending legislation where the NRA and the Dumbocrats have agreed in principle, I wonder if the NRA is the best choice to invest in the defense of our gun rights. The Assault Weapon Ban was passed on their watch. Lots of other minor things have happened in the past 20+ years as well, and that fact has many gun owners, especially the ones who take the purpose of the 2nd Amendmentseriously, wondering if the NRA has their best interests at heart. They wonder if the NRA is worth the investment in defense of own rights. They wonder if the NRA is looking out for them, since they don't shoot an expensive side by side shotgun or a blued steel and walnut Pre-64 Winchester Model 70 in .30-06 or .270. It has appeared in the past that the shooters of military-style weapons, which are what the 2nd Amendment was meant specifically for, are sacrificial lambs in terms of legislative politics. I'm not sure that's true.

Let's face it: up until gun owners got out and voted the bums out, and really made the Dumbocrats bleed about a dozen years ago, the NRA was fighting a defensive fight. They took the offensive from time to time, but most of their time and money got spent fighting the restrictions that the legislature that the Dumbocrats controlled for about 30 years came up with. It was rare that there was pro gun legislation to get behind, and by the time it got through the process, there were so many other riders attached that most of the time they couldn't continue to back the law.

The NRA is the big dog of the gun lobby. There are over 3 million members, which gives the NRA quite a lot of political clout. Now that some of the most anti-gun legislators have been voted out, primarily by gun owners, the rest of congress and the senate are listening to what the NRA lobbyists have to say. They may not do what gun owners want all the time, but they may refrain from doing what we don't want them to do. Out of respect or fear...who cares. Get 'em doing what we want.

So the question now is, does the NRA have all gun owner's rights equally in mind? I'm not sure I'm completely sold on the NRA being the standard bearer for all weapons equally. I can't point to anything off the top of my head that makes me say that, but its a gun feeling that I can't shake. Perhaps its because the hunting arms are easier to defend, or at least they were. Now that the hunting groups are coming under increased fire as well, things may be evening out. That said, now that the NRA can go on the offensive on occasion, so they should have the chance to try to get some good black rifle legislation passed. I'll back 'em all the way and back if they make that happen.

Are they the best choice for defending your rights with your hard earned ducats? I'd like to examine that a little bit. The implied question here is "are there better choices to give your money to?". Wow...I finally get to use something I learned in College: opportunity cost. Since you do not have unlimited funds to spread evenly amongst all the possible choices, you as the individual donator (donateist?) must choose where your funds are going to be spent. That's opportunity cost: doing one thing with your money means the opportunity cost of that action is that you can't use that same money somewhere else. There are lots of other gun groups to join, in national, state, and local forms. Here's the thing, though: none of them come close to rivaling the NRA in membership. There may be a couple of them that have a few million members, but the NRA is the beast. They're also one of the oldest, if not the oldest, which means they have their lobbying efforts down to a science.

If you have the funds to join several groups, then by all means, do so. If you're a gun owner and you're not doing something to defend your rights, then you're being a tick on the rest of the gun owners that are. I'm not saying you must be a member, but with membership fees at a paltry $35 a year, there's not much reason not to join up. As long as the NRA is the big dog on the porch, I see little reason to avoid being a member. While other groups will surely be working hard to preserve your rights, being a member of the biggest organization going really makes the most sense and puts the most effort out.

I have worked for a couple companies that have made a similar mistake: they have a disagreement with a vendor, and decide to drop them. The question that doesn't get answered is "Great. Now what? What are we going to replace the hole you just put in the inventory with?" Ya gotta bring something in, because you just caused a headache for yourself. If you haven't, you probably didn't need to carry that line in the first place. That's not the case here: ya gotta replace the nothing with something. I suppose the bottom line is, if you're a gun owner, join the NRA. If you can't do that for whatever reason, give your support to another group. Now is the time for gun owners to stand tall. Things are not likely to get better without a lot of work, but they can get worse in a heart beat. Do something.

Sometimes I miss the old days

Sometimes there's a reason to feel nostalgic. In many ways, technology and the like are far better now than they've ever been. Advancements have been made in many of my favorite areas: food, beer, electronics (can't afford it, but I think its cool), gear, and firearms, among others. There's even a Coke Zero now, and it doesn't taste like ass. There are cars out there now that can be had new for $15,000 (I know it won't have much on it, but it'll have wheels and a seat) that can go 30 miles on a tank of gas. The art of the carne asada burrito with sour cream and cheese added has been perfected for less than a fiver. Not here, mind you, because Messican food doesn't exist here, but they have 'em in California. I've had 'em, I know its true. 'Course, here we've mastered the $15 half rack of ribs to go. Its not the same, but it must do. The gas piston AR can be had for about what a high end DI gun goes for (I know, HK uppers sell for between $2500 and $5000, but since they'll never sell them on the civi market it doesn't count).

All these advancements were shown to pale in comparison to one Ol' Skoo' way of doing things: the epic summer blockbuster at a single screen theater. I remember seeing Hunt for Red October at a BIG single screen theatre in La Mesa. That place is a Good Guys stereo store now, and it hurts to see it. That old theatre had the ginormous screen, the Voice of the Theatre audio system...it was a great experience. The seats were like the first class seats on a cross country flight. I don't think they had cup holders-its been a while-but the seats were thick, wide and had legroom in spades. I will grant that stadium seating is pretty cool, but the seats are smaller, closer together, and its easier to hear the bung hole behind you on his stupid cell phone.

Back in the day, that screen was about a story tall. If you were in the front row, the screen was so large that all you saw was Sean Connery's nostrils. Not even the plural; just one, really. I'd have loved to see POTC: The End of the World on that screen. I saw it last weekend at our local theatre. Its a nice place; well cared for, nicely decorated, fairly comfortable, and supremely expensive. But its just not the same with that little screen. The sound is probably even better, but it all pales in comparison to that huge single screen. What a pity.

The fact is movies have gotten so expensive to make that single screen theatres are just not efficient enough anymore. That's why there's a 4567-plex theatre in the malls now, with chairs smaller than a bucket and screens the size of a piece of paper turned sideways. The ticket is $15 and a bag of popcorn and a drink is $157...plus tax. And, because of those exorbitant costs, we end up with stuff like The Hills Have Eyes 2. That means that the summer blockbuster and the single screen theatre will never happen again. That is, unfortunately, technology costing us one of the greater experiences that used to be available. And that truely is a pity.

Dragon Skin: more marketing than fact

I've been skeptical of Dragon Skin armor for quite some time, mainly, that only one company was doing it. Armor has been around long enough that pretty much everything has been tried, excepting new materials that haven't been invented yet. What that means, basically, is that if Dragon Skin worked like TV like Future Weapons (which should be called Current Weapons, but that's another post) shows claim it does, there would be other companies making a similar product. What about patents, I hear you say? Have you looked into how much money Armor Holdings brings in per year? If this stuff worked, they'd own DS. Believe me, they have enough capital to buy any armor company in the world. Matter of fact, I would wager that the ones you've heard of are Armor Holdings companies.

Of course you don't believe me because you've called DS "The Greatest Thing in Armor Since Excalibur Was Forged" on a forum somewhere, and this is your Scared Cow...uh...Sacred Cow. Now that the testing info is coming out, you don't have to believe me. Believe an expert instead!

Flexible Rifle Resistant Armor Vs. Monolith Hard Plate Inserts


There is a raging debate as to which is superior against high powered rifle rounds, the flexible Dragon Skin (DS) body armor, or

the Interceptor Body Armor (IBA). There have been claims that the military has purposely failed DS because they didn't invent it,

and there are also numerous videos on the Pinnacle Armor web site and other places as well demonstrating the amazing performance of DS.

The debate has heated to the point where a major news media show "NBC Dateline" has seen fit to get involved , and that has caused Congress to call for a hearing on the matter all to make sure that our troops are getting the best equipment available especially as it relates to life saving equipment.

This is a very complicated subject and for the most part it boils down to testing to determine superior performance, but what kind of testing and how should it be performed to ascertain side by side comparative data? We have seen the demonstrations on Pinnacle's website, some video clips on the Army testing, and we have seen NBC's Dateline arrange what appeared to be independent testing. So what does it all mean?

In our view not a lot has been determined other than the DS Level 4 armor hasn't passed First Article Testing required by the Army.

We have constructed an analysis of the various tests people have seen, and why they are not conclusive in determining which armor system is best for the Army.

Beginning with Pinnacle Armor's website please draw your attention to the video titled, The History Channel Test Lab. It's located in the lower left corner of the page.

Dragon Skin Videos

When you view this video there are two separate tests. Referring to the first one where the Fresno Police take their shots against Dragon Skin using 7.62mm x 39mm ammunition allegedly brought in from Iraq. There were no identifying marks on the ammunition to prove they were armor piercing, no shrapnel recovered to prove it either, just a mention that it was steel cased and that it was real military ammunition. The ammunition was then referred to as military ball rounds, which indicates a soft core of lead. Nevertheless even if it was a mild steel core 7.62mm x 39mm rifle round with a steel jacket it would be representative of one of the most common threats, and it travels at about 2300 Ft./Sec., and represents some of the easiest military rifle rounds to defeat. With a full coverage DS vest it's easy to stop that many rounds, and I would say that with equal coverage using a hard plate version the performance would be relatively similar and at a lighter weight. The rest of the test involves 9mm ammunition being fired into ceramic rubble, previously defeated rounds, and the final backing material representative of a typical soft armor vest . Plus the test was conducted on a moving fixture at only a 90 degree angle to the target (this is important as we will show later in this analysis). This test really looks impressive, but in reality it's not, it's typical of today's armor, with the only real advantages being flexibility, and increased square area of coverage without gaps, which we agree are great features, but at a weight penalty that may or may not be acceptable to the various end users that would consider DS.

The second part of the test discusses the biggest threat to American troops called IED's, and the havoc these threats have caused in Iraq. The Hollywood stunt fabricators were called in to devise a method of creating a "realistic" IED threat using a fabricated air gun, launching manufactured shrapnel at about 900 Ft./Sec.. This was the worst test of all. The manufacturer was quoted by the narrator as not knowing what would happen, when in fact it was a known commodity the whole time. Any ballistic expert would have no problem predicting that steel shrapnel traveling at 900 Ft./Sec. would never get through a level 3 or 4 DS armor or hard plate armor like the IBA system, and in no way was the air gun even close to representing what a real IED can do in the battle field. Some of these IED's in fact have been known to penetrate Abram's tanks as quoted by numerous sources within the military.

The problem here is that these "testing shows" are designed to show Dragon Skin off in a positively amazing light to those who don't know the facts about ballistic testing.

In the video titled Discovery Channel Future Weapons the narrator and the hairless man firing the weapons made numerous comments about how awesome the AK-47 was, and how much punch it possesses, but in fact again there is no actual qualification of the round. Even if it were an API version (the worst of the AK-47 threats), which travels around 2500 - 2600 Ft./Sec. it doesn't matter, clearly plate technology is on par if the sizes were the same at a fraction of the cost. Once again the only real advantage proven is the flexibility and square area coverage, which we all agree is a fantastic thing, but says nothing as to whether or not it's a superior body armor. Another suspect issue is the distance at which they fire the rifles rounds, in almost every instance that we can see it's from about 20 feet. Typically it takes a rifle round nearly 50 feet to achieve a true spin, and up until that point it tends to wobble, and this very much plays into showing off performance you wont see at the ballistic testing laboratory.

There is also one video running around that shows off the newest level 5 plate, and a demostration that is supposed to show how it compares to steel plate and level 3 or 4 ceramic hard plates. There is no direct comparison of a level 5 Dragon Skin flexible insert and a Level 5 hard ceramic insert.

This is the theme in all the videos; moving test fixtures, unqualified rounds, distances that are an advantage to the armor performing better, comparative testing for fragments and other threats that really aren't comparative. No one is saying that DS isn't a great idea, and in the level 3 threat DS has probably proven all it needs to in order to be adopted by the police, SWAT, and "special ops" missions, but what about the big Army?


Military Testing

Go here to see video footage of Dragon Skin being tested in a real laboratory with a stationary test fixture with armor clearly being

tested in the areas where the Interceptor Body Armor would be tested against the APM2, the Army's projectile of choice. There were reportedly

many penetrations on various environmentally conditioned vest units. Clearly the video showed Mr. Murray Neal witnessing a clean hole in DS right in front of him with no excuses.

The Pinnacle Armor representative was probably afforded the opportunity to examine the bullet before it was hand loaded. The military tests differently than the NIJ for police body armor and for good reason, armor and other types of military equipment are subjected to grueling conditions in the field, and need to be either easily repaired or maintained and/or proven not to be susceptible to failure under the toughest conditions. This part of the market development can't be faked or jazzed up by movie or TV guys, this is real, and the laboratory only touched the surface of some of the weaknesses of the current model of DS with respect to facing level 4 threats.

Let me explain what I mean. The NIJ has developed a whole different test protocol for testing scalar armor. The reason is simple, the tiles pivot and move as armor bends around the body, and are adhered into place with adhesive coated fabrics. The tiles tend to open a bit as it makes the bend around the body, and this has led the NIJ to test at high angles of incidence. Soft body armor is tested twice on each panel at a 30 degree angle, and scalar armor in order to pass the standard must defeat additional rounds at extreme angles i.e. 30, 45, and even 60 degrees. They also are allowed to position the armor so you don't impact an area where the tiles overlap. This NIJ protocol should include a curvolinear clay filled torso box so that the armor is tested in the manner that it is worn, and precise positioning so the weakest point is impacted on every shot. Scalar armor systems are only as strong as the weakest link.

The Level 3 threat is typically less problematic than the level 4 APM2, and that's why we have seen a level 3 pass and a First Article Test (FAT) failure. The Army knows the weak spots, and they are going to test them. Review the illustration below to see our point:




Ray Segment "A" represents the path of a bullet at a test laboratory that is perpendicular to the backing box. The Dragon Skin armor is sitting flat, and we are illustrating a side view of how each tile is overlapped, and the fact that these tiles do not sit flat. They are angled against the 90 degree strike represented in ray segment "A". This angle gives a great advantage to the armor.

Ray segment "B" represents the corrected angle of attack with respect to the angle the tile actually sits when flat as depicted by angle "C".

Angle D is a reference point depicting a 90 degree angle to the backing box and parallel to ray segment "A".

Understanding the above pictorial representation lends an understanding of why you don't test this type of armor flat, and why you don't shoot at a 90 degree angle with respect to the backing box if you want to see how the armor performs at a true 0 degree obliquity at the weakest point.

When you flex the armor around the body the tile angles are exacerbated, and thus the importance of determining real 90 degree angles with respect to the test specifications is paramount. This means that you must adjust the backing box so that the tile is at the true angle of incidence called for in the specification with respect to the test barrel, and aimed at the exact weakest spots on every shot. Failure to do this will eliminate the possibility of evaluating a scalar armor design's efficacy. The Army wants to know this, and they will test scalar like this, it's that simple. If it can't pass at the weakest point, or after tough environmental conditioning tests that the Army requires then why should it be adopted as the best the armor for the Army?

NBC Testing

We have reviewed the date line testing in Germany, and could not see any testing that addressed the issues above with respect to how the tiles sit on a flat block of clay. It all appeared to be 90 degrees to the test box. To do a side by side test you would mount the interceptor body armor and then swivel the clay box to a 30 degree angle on every shot, but honestly since it is DS that has the weak points, all shots should have hit the weakest point, and at the best angle to create real 90 degree perpendicular shots with respect to the tile instead of the test box. So in effect this was not side by side testing unless they did some of the shot sequences as described above, but didn't actually show them on the broadcast.

The Bottom Line

At the end of the day this isn't a debate for the military and Congress to resolve, nor is it a an issue of which is better IBA or DS.

IBA in it's current form has passed First Article Testing, DS hasn't.

DS costs about 1800.00 dollars to manufacturer and is on sale for 5000.00 USD. If DS passes First Article Testing there are other consideration; Second Article Testing, weight, competitive bidding, and setting a manufacturer up to meet strict defense contractor QC guidelines and specifications. This takes a lot of time, and in the interim the question has been posed, "are the troops receiving inferior body armor"? They are receiving armor that has passed very tough testing, is serviceable in the field, and saves lives, and has passed (FAT). I agree that DS and other armors in the pipeline will replace IBA, as IBA is definitely coming to the end of it's generational life, but if we had adopted DS when Mr. Neal thought it was ready, we wouldn't be looking at some of the improvements he has made as a direct result of failures, and I would imagine that there will be more improvements as well before this controversy is decided.

One more point that I think is worthy of consideration. Hypothetically if a group of contractors collaborated and came up with a plane that met Air Force standards according to them, and if Congress bought them and delivered them to the Air Force, and they were told this is your airplane for the next ten years to defend this country without consulted or allowing the Air Force to test the plane during development, what do you think the Air Force would say, of course this wouldn't happen. So why should the Army have no say in what they are going to adopt as their infantry armor concept for the next 10 - 20 years. It is unrealistic to say the Army shouldn't have a big voice in what is going to be worn by the troops they train. The "video shows" and media hype has really undermined the effort to develop and procure new armor for our soldiers, and has caused a loss of confidence for the purpose of one manufacturer to try and land the richest body armor tender in military history, and that's very sad.

We are in the process of arranging testing of some of our designs with the military this summer and the one thing I want to leave all the readers with is a simple fact, "we are not a body armor manufacturer"; we sell components and arrange manufacturing, we are consultants, and intellectual property developers. So in theory Pinnacle Armor could actual be a customer of ours, although I doubt that the circumstances would come about to cause this to happen, but in theory any manufacturer of armor is potentially our customer for our new flexible rifle resistant armor. So although we have a look of a competitor, we are more about , consulting, and material & component sales. We are not as biased on this issue as some people involved.

Congress needs to look proactive or they lose votes, and an office that pays very well, NBC needs to sell advertising, Pinnacle wants to win the most lucrative military body armor contract ever tendered, and me, well I just want to make a good living doing what I have been doing since 1983, designing and developing armor systems and successfully bringing new concepts to market. The manufacturing part is no longer in our purview, but I did it for 12 years and invented the whole concept behind Dragon Skin, and that's a fact all backed by records you can't fake.

I invite anyone who has questions to contact me at your convenience.

Allan D. Bain

More articles regarding the politics of Dragon Skin can be found here.

The problem with Frankenguns: why parts guns fail under hard use

I recently had an online conversation with a very experienced shooter regarding his thoughts as to why "parts guns" fail in tactical carbine classes. This individual shoots 2-5 classes a year on his own dime. That doesn't count SWAT training, instructor classes, patrol rifle classes, in services, and other training he gets from his job in law enforcement. He shoots A LOT, under pressure. I trust his opinion. Here's the gist of what he theorized is the reason that parts guns, and factory guns from "tier two" manufacturers ( the commercial AR's on the market that are widely distributed) fail in hard use.

There are people all over the net arguing that their Bushmaster/Rock River/DPMS/stripped lower parts gun is "just as good" as the Kool Aid Brands. Here's why they're not: Mil Spec doesn't just mean parts interchangeability. It means "as spec'd by the government". Only suppliers to the government (Colt, LMT and FN) get a very expensive document called the Technical Data Package (TDP). These are the exact blue prints for a given model. What is suspected to happen with other brands is that they have obtained a gun that they believe to be in spec, and they reverse engineer the rifle to make their version. They're not making the guns off of the TDP; if they were, there'd be no such thing as a commercial spec receiver extension (buffer tube).

Its entirely possible for a rifle that's been built from parts from many different sources to run like a champ. That's unusual, in terms of hard use. A rifle may be able to shoot five thousand rounds per year with no problems. However, take that same rifle and subject it to a five day carbine course where you may shoot a thousand rounds a day, and you're subjecting it to much, much more stress. This is where rifles fail, and the parts breakage can't be narrowed to just one part or set of parts. Everything has been seen to break in classes if you've seen enough of them. This is exactly what the more high volume trainers will tell you; they've been saying it in classes, interviews, and magazine articles for years. For whatever reason, shooters have not been listening. They keep saying "My Brand Whatever rifle is every bit as good as" or "just as good as" or "the same thing cheaper as" the true Mil Spec guns are. The simple fact is, there is no proof for this. How many times do you need to see different pictures of "Brand Whatever" bolts that are broken before its enough? How many spring sets or pins or hammers or gas tubes and carrier keys coming loose have to be shown before the truth becomes obvious?

Here's the bottom line: if you really want a gun to stand up and run, you increase your chances DRAMATICALLY by going with a true Mil Spec gun. Sure, a Colt is hard to find and expensive. They seem to run at least $1200. LMT's are typically a bit more...but oh, so worth it. If I had an LMT to put up against Schwaggie, the difference would be striking. Cycle the bolt on an LMT. Then do the same thing to a commercial AR. You'll feel a very, very big difference in smoothness. Why is that? Blueprints. Yeah, it matters.

Happy Birthday, Duke!

Today would have been John Wayne's 100th birthday. A century later, he's still got unbelievable charisma and staying power. I'm still a huge, huge fan. The man was one of the originators of cool. The embodiment of the warrior spirit. A man's man. Would that I could have met him. There's not much about John Wayne that hasn't already been said, so I won't blather on about it with stuff that's already been covered. I will quote a line from one of my favorite Duke movies, The Quiet Man. I love this line because it encompasses how the Duke lived his life, standing up for what he believed in. As Sean Thornton, former boxer who killed a man in the ring, who's moved back to his ancestral home in Ireland:

'If you say "three," mister, you'll never hear the man count "ten." '

Update on Jim Zumbo

Pat Rogers posted an AAR re: his latest tactical carbine operator's course over on the Lightfighter forum. This was the class that Jim Zumbo is going to do an article for SWAT Magazine on. Pat had this to say about him:

This class had in it Jim Zumbo, whose comments on 16Feb set off a firestorm in the gun world.
I’ll let Jim state what he saw/ learned in the Aug SWAT.
My observations were that he was not the elitist/ pompous person that he was made out to be. He was genuine, sincere and humbled. He accepted the challenge to attend the course and did so in grand style.
He is a shooter, no doubt about that. He is not a fighter, and most of what we teach was alien to his lifestyle.
He never complained, never quit and maintained a terrific sense of humor. Jim shot one of my SLR’s with an Aimpoint as well as one of my 1911’s- another gun that he was unfamiliar with.
He learned a lot. He spoke candidly with the shooters, and they did the same.
His view on Wed was surely different then his view on Monday.
I’ll allow him to speak further about this in his article, and won’t entertain any questions about him, his performance or any other related subject.
I will say that I- we- had a great time, learned a lot, and hopefully see a way to unite the factions, sub factions and individuals that are destroying what we love from within.
There is an enemy out there, but it isn’t among us who own and use guns legally.

I'd like to offer my congradulations to Pat, Jim, and SWAT Magazine for making this happen. I'm really looking forward to getting Jim's take on something he's not familiar with. Should be very enlightening, and I expect I'll learn some useful things from that article.

Pat went on to say this:

I'm also looking forward to his story.
We can continue to mutilate his corpse, or have him as a friend in the fight against the socialists.
Having him with us denies his use to Brady bunch, and that is a very good thing.
It was a fun class - especially after we broke out the MK18, MP5, G18 and M249....

Now we know Jim's been "ruined" for life! There's nothing like a belt fed machine gun to make a pre-64 model 70 look less interesting. ;)

I for one, welcome Jim Zumbo into the realm of shooters as well as hunters, and I'm glad he's on our side.

Some great pics

These photos were taken by a friend of mine, Brad Nelson. These knives are both going to find their way to Ebay, hopefully bringing in a good sum of money. Both are moderately rare, and one is signed by Chuck Buck, the man who took Buck Knives from a well known American company to a really well known international company. These are going away to fund a tanto to be made by my friend Bill Harsey. Anyway! Check out these slick photos:

One of my all time favorite bass players

This is a clip of a solo by Billy Sheehan when touring with Mr. Big. Previous gigs include Talas and the David Lee Roth band with Steve Vai. Billy can also be heard with Niacin, which is a very different jazz group. He's with Dennis Chambers and a keyboard player who's name I can't remember. Its good stuff. Check it out; its not very much like this!

Terry Bozzio and Chad Wackermann

Here's something a little different for ya. Terry Bozzio played with Frank Zappa at age 18, and was in Missing Persons in the '80's. He's one of the best drummers you never heard of. Chad Wackermann's bio also reads like a who's who. Copied from his website: "He has also recorded 6 albums and toured with guitar legend Allan Holdsworth, played on the 'One Voice' album and video with Barbra Streisand, and recorded albums and toured with artists as diverse as Steve Vai, Andy Summers, Men At Work, Ed Mann, Albert Lee, Colin Hay, Dweezil Zappa and Tom Grant.

Chad has also toured with James Taylor, John Patitucci , Joe Sample, Banned From Utopia and The World Drummers Ensemble (Bill Bruford, Luis Conte, Dou Dou Ndiaye Rose and Chad Wackerman) and most recently toured the USA with another ex Zappa drummer - Terry Bozzio.

What's so hard about making a good show?

I'm flabbergasted at how quickly shows come and go on TV these days. Smith, which had a ginormous push before it went to air, only lasted something like five episodes. It had Ray Liota in it, and a pretty interesting story line. Its gone. There have been shows that were on and off TV so fast that I never saw them. Its amazing. It probably also explains why there's so much junk on TV. Ya can't spend that much money on a show and not have it hit, which explains the continual march of new reality shows (which are nothing of the sort) that get run out every time its the season for new shows.

I miss some programs that should have lasted and didn't. The problem is, in some cases, that the producers of said shows are too PC to take any criticism, even if the show was a great big fat hit. Case in point: Combat Missions. The only "reality" show I ever watched, and I never missed an episode. I watched the re-runs. If it was on, I was in front of the TV for it. The premise was to get martial professionals from several different jobs and have them compete. There were Special Forces, SeALs, Marine Force Recon, big city SWAT dudes, and even a guy from the CIA's Operations Directorate. They had tactical problems to solve, were given time to formulate a plan, and then the teams would execute the plan. At the time, it was a great big fat hit for USA Networks, and the producer of Slurvivor, Mark What'sisface. However, since 9/11, ol' Mark seems to think that nobody wants to see this kind of stuff. Oh, how wrong you are, Mark. It could be the feel good story hit of the year; hell, the decade. But he's afraid to do it again, and instead we're stuck with Dancing with the Has-Beens, and American Idle, and controversies about Mangina's (or whatever his name is) hair.

I was thinking recently about some of my favorite shows that aren't with us anymore. Sadly, there aren't that many that were just great and didn't catch on. There were a few:
The first season of Soldier of Fortune, Inc. That show was great. Actual weapons handling, actual tactics used, strong characters for the most part, and decent story lines. What it lacked was a sizable enough budget to pull it off as it shoulda been. It couldn't find an audience because of its weird time slots, and they screwed it all up in the second season. The concept was awesome, though. Even in the second season, with Dennis Rodman on the show, I never missed one. Firefly was obviously ahead of its time, and there are still a heck of a lot of viewers out there that want it back. That the movie ever got made speaks volumes regarding its popularity.

There is no new Miami Vice. There is no new Tour of Duty. There is no new SWAT, although they made a mildly entertaining movie loosely based on the characters from the series. I guess the bottom line is that its just to expensive to give the people what they want. By all means, lets run another cheap piece of crap "reality" show out there. Who cares if nobody is watching Big Brother. Its cheap. We'll keep making them.

Is this just a conspiracy to keep action off of TV?

What would happen if Carrie Underwood really did

Carrie Underwood has this real catchy tune out called "before he cheats". I kinda like the song; the hook is strong and her performance on that track is very solid, and emotionally powerful. The thing is, and this is what drives the people that work with me a little nutty, is that I pay attention to lyrics. In "Big Black Horse and a Cherry Tree", by KT Tunstall, I was the one who realized that the horse was the one who was doing the proposing, which freaked out my coworkers and caused them to dislike what we've come to call "the woo-hoo song". Besides how goofy the lyrics are, hearing it five times a day, 40 + hours a week is too much anyway.

So, when Officer Timmy came over to the shop today, I asked him what Carrie would be looking at for charges if she were to do what was claimed in the chorus. So you don't have to go look it up, being the kind and benevolent dictator of this blog that I am, I'm going to quote it for you:

That I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped up 4 wheel drive,
carved my name into his leather seats...
I took a Louisville slugger to both headlights,
slashed a hole in all 4 tires...

Turns out that in Kentucky, that's called Felony Criminal Mischief. OT said that's what's typically charged when stuff like vandalism of more than a thousand dollars is involved. What you're looking at is five years in Federal Pound You in the Ass Prison. Typically, what happens is the charge will get plead down, and would normally end up with a couple years probation, and she'd have to either pay the deductible and and difference in the coverage to get the truck repaired, or she'd have to go out of pocket for the whole thing. If she fought it and lost, she'd be looking at max penalties, because her response was so far out of proportion to what he did to her.

I'm not in any way advocating cheating on your significant other. Doing that makes you pretty much a dirtbag, and there's no two ways about it, whether you cheat on her, or she cheats on you. If you're gonna cheat on 'em, just man up and break up with the chick. Sure its difficult, but it beats having to deal with a bunny boiler. I know some dudes on the Intarweb-not to name Wild Mustang's name, though-that have been there. Its endlessly entertaining for us, but its unnecessarily...griefy for you, and her.

Still, we all know what really happened in the story that the song presents: she goes to jail overnight (at least; that's assuming somebody makes bail for her) he knows she's gone for at least the night, and he ends up doing the horizontal mambo with her best friend and her other best friend, while her other best friend mans the video camera. We all know Carrie's best friend in this scenario is a hose beast who couldn't be trusted to stay out of anybody's pants. I'm sure she's a bleached blonde, too. We know how they are.

Leave the truck alone and just leave. How hard is that?