Country Roads

Bluesun at Dead Man Dance is out up in the High Country on a job interview, so I thought I'd put up my favorite John Denver song, it's sung by a legendary Hawaiian and a little bit different than the snowy continental-divide. :-)


UPDATE: corrected title. :-)

Leather Wedding

Whilst some far-off funny-talkers share elevated nuptial blandishments across an ocean of who-cares(?), closer to home regular folks are in a terrible hurt put on them by powerful twisting winds that shredded their lives and towns and left corpses in their wake and funerals instead of weddings -- but here the Brown Truck of Happiness has delivered the richly scented non-vegan goods.

Franco-Italian CONFLICT!

From Zendo Deb at  TFS Magnum, we get this nugget of Euro-continental discord.

European Press Review: Is Border Despute a Betrayal of EU Values? - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International.

 Rome's recent decision to grant temporary residence permits to migrants from North Africa, allowing them to travel within the Schengen area, has pushed Paris to restore border controls with Italy to block those attempting to join friends or parents in France, sparking a diplomatic mini-crisis that French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi are trying to defuse.
But the damage has already been done: Incapable of finding their balance faced with the consequences of the ongoing revolution in the Arab world or of resisting pressure from domestic anti-immigrant parties, European Union leaders are succumbing to the temptation to retrench. The development could have serious consequences for the 25 countries that have implemented the Schengen Agreement, which removes internal border checks between those lands.

So, the way I see it, Socialist Italifornia wants cheap workers but Sherriff Le Aparo-Sarkozy in Francizonia has put up a wall - maybe they should settle the border dispute the traditional European way, with artillery! As the French daily La Tribune writes: Certainly, illegal immigration is a real problem: The arrival of illegal migrants penalizes the societies that have to absorb them, starting with those immigrants who have already obtained legal status.
Ya think??? And then you have to buy oil from Libya...

Elvis vs. The Beatles

Cultural hyperbole inspired by The Fabulous Tam: What was the difference between 1961 and 1968 - Skinny Elvis vs. The Beatles? What made Smith and Wesson get all chunky?

No Rails Old School Naked and Covered

The sun's shining and birds chirping and I got nuthin' while the kewl kidz are at the NRA-something in Pennsywhatchamacallit way-back East.
But with the goober holster collection now comes this old K-frame wearing a beater Galco "Fletch" eBay holster - in and out of leather. It's a step up from the G&G nylon holster anyhow.


Clickit to embignify.

Happy Easter to my Peeps

This is a re-run but it's buried in archives so I get to drag it out again.

Have a great weekend and stay safe.

Kanji Answers - I think maybe...

弥 - MI ・ BI ・ iya ・ ya ・ amaneshi ・ iyoiyo ・ tooi ・ hisashi ・ hisashii ・ wataru - all the more; increasingly

吉 - kichi ・ kitsu  - good fortune; good luck





The thing about all this is there so much more data packed-into a single byte of language than a computer can hold - the mind of man can grasp way-beyond the on/off mechanics and see into the past as well as the future.

The first glyph: 弥 - MI or BI, originates from the ancient Namu Amida Butsu, a prayer to Amida Buddha for a peaceful death - which on a GUN intimates a whole bunch of things, but in Japanese also means, "I worship Amida Buddha and follow his doctrine." - or it means Maitreya (a bodhisattva) - and in a vulgar meaning it is a verb to jeer (at); to hoot; to boo; to catcall; to heckle - something a GUN can also do, so to speak.

The second glyph, 吉 - KICHI or KITSU can bit-flip depending on it's position - it can be good luck or ill-omened, ominous, unlucky, black as night, sinister, bad luck, ill omen, inauspiciousness - which again, in the context of a GUN intimates even more... And in another location is a part Paladin: a man of incorruptible character.

Or it could be a family-name: Yayoshi  弥吉 

UPDATE: And the winner is BornLib - for Yayoshi! Turns out it is a family name. I returned to the gun-shop and gave them the translation I had collected. The owner was there and thanked me, confimnring the seller of the gun was a Japanese-dude (or of that ancestry) with such a family name... At least now the new owner can be happily confident in his purchase of the, "Always Increasing Fortune" gun! Or whatever. :-)

And it's still a price I can't afford in a caliber I don't already have.

What's it mean, Kanji?

Had to go back and have a closer look at this sweet Series-70 Stainless Colt.  The scrollwork is small and fairly tastefully done, it's not all-over like a full sleeve.

The stainless steel is pretty too, a soft luster glows from the gun, even under fluorescent lights the green cast is warm.


The Colt Commander is a 9mm too, unusual I think? The serial number starts with a 70 then has two letters and three more digits - is it a Series-70 then?

Seven little bits of deeply cut scroll-work - two fore and aft on each side, and on the top.

And finally back by the hammer on the right-side there's this Chinese or Japanese Kanji (or (hànzi) glyph:

Nobody knew what it meant - I said, "That's kinda important, tadpole." There's a couple of different websites dedicated to improper or mis-attributed Asian characters... "Picnic Table" and "Buff Chick" indeed, "Naive American" or simply gibberish.

It's the first time I've really been attracted to a 9mm, apart from The Man From U.N.C.L.E. P-38 gun.

Spring Cleaning

The drooling-dribbling carpet muncher at rest.  The heavy old uncomfortable futon is gone, but the mattress roll remains.