Rantings Diversified

There are three shootists walking down the Viale range at Camp Perry.
There is an Highpower Rifle competitor, a Bullseye Pistol competitor and a Smallbore Rifle competitor.
They come upon a mud puddle.
The Smallbore shootist immediately sits down and starts writing a letter of protest.
The Bullseye Pistol shootist walks around and around the puddle bitching and complaining to anyone who’ll listen.
The Highpower Rifle competitor walks out into the middle of the puddle and lays down because he thinks it’s his firing point.

Yuk, yuk yuk, Hehehehehe, snorf’, yuk, yuk, chuckle, hehehe, snorf’, guffaw, snorf’, yuk, chuckle…….

Now go check out my web site at…..Brianf and figure out what my sport of choice is.

I’m not a big TV watching kinda’ guy. Oh yes I do have some shows I like to watch though. I like the local 6 O’clock news. I like The Simpsons. I like Criag Fergusons late night talk show. Now I don’t have cable, satellite, HDTV or anything all high tech like that. Nope, I just have 6 channels to choose from. NBCCWCBSABCPBSFOX is the network I get here at, “The Thistle and Shamrock Suburban Resort, hunting preserve, golf course, baseball field, basketball court, gun range, dance club, unrepentant fenian bastard hideout, beer hall, deer and elk butchering parlor, motorcycle repair shop, football pitch..not completely unlike Old Trafford except it’s much smaller and people don’t really play soccer here, spa, bodega and overall cocooning plaza for yours truly”.
For the past three weeks I’ve been watching this TV show called 24. So I came to this show about 5 years late. Now that’s what I call fashionably late! The first two shows were pretty cool. They were two hours long and despite the lefty diversity crap they were alright. Now I’ve watched the regular show for the past two weeks. It is, in my opinion, just another network TV show. Oh yea, the character, Jack Bauer, kicks some ass and I do like when the normal patriot who happens to be a muslim guy yells at the lefty anti-American lawyer girl. You can check my post entitled 24 for my review of the season opener. I prefer to watch a movie when I turn my TV on. Oh hell, the local used CD and DVD store know me by name. Now I have to admit that a couple of years ago I watched the first version of survivor religiously from beginning to end. Yea, the one that the fat gay guy won. Then the next year I sat down to watch it and I barely made it through 10 minutes. I think the last sitcom show I watched on a regular basis was either Hogans Heros, Get Smart or maybe All in the Family. Now that was good TV.

Well next Sunday I shall turn my TV on and watch the Super Bowl. See, there are a few things good on TV like Football, Baseball and Hockey or as I like to put it, Eagles, Phillies and Flyers.

So many folks have asked me about the picture I use as my header that I decided to let you all know the story behind that car.

It started like any other lazy Sunday. I got up and just kinda’ putzed around the house. It was one of those days where it was trying to rain all day but just couldn’t muster enough to actually form real rain drops. The call came around 1130. I hadn’t spoken to him since returning from Dallas. He said he was on his way over. Cool beans we’ll do some web surfing and hopefully he’ll show me some new and wonderful piece of software or maybe even intro me to a new band.
He shows up a little after noon. I offer him a beer. He accepts so I say WTF I’ll have one too. We spent the early afternoon going over the new version of Paragon Hard Drive Manager. I guess it was about 2ish when we decided to GTFO and head over towards his place. I wanted to go eat at “Lagerville”, the local American Legion by his house. It has a great kitchen. I had visions of a wimpy burger basket. Imagine a bunch of white castle sized burgers served on top of a basket of fries. The burgers and fries are home made. Good eats. So we get to his place have a beer or two and we decide to drive over to his Xgirlfriends’ house to pickup some more of his stuff. In hindsight….bad idea.
We hop into the ’04 Mazda 3 5-door. Nice car, fast and it handles incredibly well since he got his go fast tires, vented brakes and new wheels. We start heading down those back country farm roads in Northern York County. I’m guessing it was about 1630. Well Alkaline Trio is on the stereo and we are carving up those twisty back roads when we came upon a tight turn. He throws it into it and sort of slides into a field. Oops! Hey time to chill dude, I said laughingly. He did. Then we came upon that turn. Well apparently he had not chilled as much as I thought he did because we went into that left hand turn who knows how fast.
I remember seeing the telephone pole coming straight at us quickly and thinking to myself, it’s not wavering. It’s not moving out of the way. I vividly remember that the telephone pole was coming straight at us. I leaned down to my left and then the world went all higgledy piggledy. At one point I opened my eyes just in time to see the cigarette lighter launch itself out of its home in the dashboard and fly right past my head. The whole world had a glittery feel to it. I can only figure that was broken glass flying through the air. I heard a lot of crashing and crunching noises and could feel that we were no longer going straight. I closed my eyes again. The next thing I knew I could feel that we were no longer moving and I opened my eyes. I couldn’t breathe. This concerned me. It took a second or two to realize that I had the wind knocked out of me. He was outside of the car asking me if I was alright. He looked very concerned. It took me a few very long seconds to regain my breath. I was finally able to tell him that I was OK. By this time he was on the passenger side trying to open the door and I was trying from the inside. It didn’t work. I crawled out the driver side door and got myself to my feet. Holy Shit! As I surveyed the scene I noticed that there was a telephone pole chopped off about three feet off the ground down the road and it appeared to me that there was no motor in the car any more. The car came to rest in a horse field about 50 yards from the chopped off telephone pole and there was two sections of fence broken and generally missing between the pole and where we ended up. He and I walked around checking out what happened and there was a man there who told us he had called 911. The EMTs and the police showed up and went to the car to look for bodies. They were all amazed that we walked away from that crash. We did. I basically just got all banged up. I was wearing the bruises of where the seatbelt was for three weeks afterwards. The bumps on my head went away in a few days. The only thing I can figure from this crash is that I am one of the luckiest people on the earth. Either that or I am immortal.

The weather guy on the radio tells me it’s 19 degrees outside right now.  The thermometer on my porch tells me it’s 12 degrees.  It’s such a sunny day too.  I want to go ride my motorcycle.  I hate winter.  What’s up with this it’s gotta’ be cold for half the year crap.  It snowed yesterday evening.  It was those great big flakes kinda’ snow so I knew it wasn’t going to last very long.  It was enough to cover the grass and windshields and of course since our township hasn’t needed to use any of their plows and salt they just had to run them up and down the streets all last night and there is so much salt on my road that it looks white.  When I got up this morning I looked outside and thought the street was covered with snow.  Twelve degrees!!!  It’s too cold to go riding.  Last weekend I went to an antique motorcycle show and in two weeks I’m going to go to the Big Motorcycle Show in Timonium.  Why do they have most of the big deal bike shows and whatnot during the winter?  Triumph Come Home and Bike Week at Carlisle are held during the summer.  Ya’ know, like when you can ride there.
Yes, I have a bad case of Bike Fever.

Ok, so I couldn’t come up with any hyper-inspired, clever kinda’ post today so please accept this one.

Giant Super Market (That’s it’s name it is not a grocery for REALLY big people)
Cheese 4:
1 block pepper jack
1 block swiss
1lb sliced american
1 block brie
Bread Wheat 2
Crackers Premium Saltines
B&M Baked Beans 2
Mustard
Catsup – Hunts
Wishyoucouldsayit sauce
Brown sugar 5lb
File 1/2lb
Burritos 20
Salsa 4
Albacore 3
Sweet Relish 2
Vermicelli 2lb
Extra Virgin Olive Oil 1lb
Parm cheese 1lb
Butter 2lb
Munchy Crunchy Yummies – Caramel rice cake things
Spuds 5lb
Fresh Garlic cloves 3
Jalapenos 2lb

Parises’ Butcher Shop
Ground-up dead cow muscle(no binders) 10lb
Italian HOT sausage   5lb

Did I miss anything?

OK, here they are the 2007 Irish Blog Awards!
Now, you all have to go to THIS WEB SITE and vote for me! Yes, me.
You see the criteria states that nominations don’t have to be a blog from Ireland or even an Irish person but since my Grandparents hailed from Ireland and my last name is Fitzgerald, it’s OK, you can vote for me.
Now, please, don’t go all crazy and vote me for best blog or anything like that. I’m hunting for the
Best Newcomer nomination.
Oh yea, the other thing is if I make it to the final five, then you guys have to come up with the plane ticket to Dublin, hotel room, food money and some WAM cash also.
Here is a list of the blogs I voted for……..

LTA
Wayne Ordinary American
An tImeall
Jefferson Davis
Me

1. Bring a gun. Preferably, bring at least two guns. Bring all of your friends who have guns.
2. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Life is expensive.
3. Only hits count. The only thing worse than a miss is a slow miss.
4. If your shooting stance is good, you’re probably not moving fast enough nor using cover correctly.
5. Move away from your attacker. Distance is your friend. (Lateral and diagonal movements are preferred.)
6. If you can choose what to bring to a gunfight, bring a long gun and a friend with a long gun.
7. In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance, or tactics. They will only remember who lived.
8. If you are not shooting, you should be communicating, reloading, and running.
9. Accuracy is relative: most combat shooting standards will be more dependent on “pucker factor” than the inherent accuracy of the gun.
10. Use a gun that works EVERY TIME.
11. Someday someone may kill you with your own gun, but they should have to beat you to death with it because it is empty.
12. Always cheat; always win. The only unfair fight is the one you lose.
13. Have a plan.
14. Have a back-up plan, because the first one won’t work.
15. Use cover or concealment as much as possible.
16. Flank your adversary when possible. Protect yours.
17. Don’t drop your guard.
18. Always tactical load and threat scan 360 degrees.
19. Watch their hands. Hands kill. (In God we trust. Everyone else, keep your hands where I can see them).
20. Decide to be aggressive ENOUGH, quickly ENOUGH.
21. The faster you finish the fight, the less shot up you will get.
22. Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
23. Be courteous to everyone, friendly to no one.
24. Do not attend a gunfight with a handgun, the caliber of which does not start with a “4.”

Also, don’t forget: “The wind is your friend”.
It conceals movement and, on the range,
has already beaten most of your opponents
before they fire a shot.  (They are too busy
cranking on their windage!)
Truly, “The wind is your friend!”.
(Author Unknown)

You can click the pic to embiggyalize it.(It’s my word so I can spell it anyway I want to)
Today I spent almost two hours of my life writing a brilliant, I mean the post to end all posts, I mean the single greatest piece of literature ever put down on the interwebs. It was pretty fuckin’ good
Anyways good ol’ wordpress didn’t think much of it because when I clicked PUBLISH it just went away, poof, gone, history.
Well, from now on I’m gonna’ write EVERYTHING in MSWORD first, just to piss them off!!

So you guys lose. Everybody together now…….Thanks wordpress! I appreaciate it. Quality service. eh?
Here’s the cliff notes version of todays post. Fireplace works. WooHoo. I’m happy. Clever use of anectodes, adjectives, imagery and a phenominal use and understanding of English grammer.
Hehehehe!
1851EDT, 22 January 2007
Wordpress is pissing me off more and more as we speak.  Just now I went ot edit my post to correct some puctuation mistakes and once again….poof!…..half my post dissappears.
So here goes one last time.  Go check out THIS online quiz.  I found it on The West Virginia Surf Report, my favorite online journal.  When I took the quiz I got 43% Yankee.  Let me know how you did.  Use the comments to let me know.

HEY YOU!!!
I was promised food from a tube
A high-rise apartment in the stratosphere
Dick Tracy watches
And anti-gravity pods
To get around in
Phazers, lasers and ray guns
On my hip
You know

Mr. Piper said we would all
Fly to work in the morning

Neil Armstrong bounced around like the super ball from hell
He raised the flag

They told me I wouldn’t have to clean my oven
My waste would just go away

Use the new plastic bag
Save a tree

It’ll break down in a landfill
Poly-vinyl chloride is new and exciting
They want us to think Georgia-Pacific is bad
ADM is the real enemy
Monsanto
Better living through chemistry
We bring good things to life

I think Mr. Archer and Mr. Daniels no longer hunt pheasant in their fields
Anymore
They’re not there

Anthracite?
They told me to use oil
It’s more efficient
My uncle once told me that natural gas is dirt-cheap

Hey Dad, what’s an ash can?
The Lehigh & Nanticoke don’t stop here anymore, boy

G.M.O. was not in the lexicon then
But ya’ know….neither was
Email
Sarah Brady
Fiber optics
Ramsey Yousef
Kevlar
Waco
Elian Gonzales and Hyundai

For those of you in the know I recently bought a house and one of the things that sold me on it is the fact it has old fashioned kinda’ radiators.  They are the ones that can burn the hell out of you if you lean against them on a snowy February night.  You know the type.  They populate your house under all the windows, sitting there all fancy-like cast iron with raised scroll work all over them.  A girl I dated many moons ago had a really nice scroll work brand on her leg from when she was a kid.
Well, it has been a bit chilly here in the past few days.  Yesterdays high temp was right around freezing, last nights low temp was hovering dangerously close to R.F.C. and my heating system has been doing its job.  I evicted all the pipe dragons by going around and bleeding the system.  This did not include using leeches, odd looking medical tools and chanting in Latin, I instead used a screwdriver and a big plastic cup.
This morning I drag my lazy ass outta’ bed and I walk into the bathroom and BAM!!!  I’m tellin’ ya’ it was 90DEGF in there.  I was in bathroom heaven.  The little baby sized radiator is right behind the door so I keep the door closed.  Well let me tell you, it was downright comfy in there.  I took care of the three S’s in sheer summertimey bliss.
Man, I love it when something goes right first thing in the morning.  It puts such a positive spin on the whole day.