2001-03-11 - 10:31am

Who's Who Cheat Sheet
Who I Read

On the internal soundtrack: "Two of Us", Beatles

Poindexter is downstairs playing on his computer, keeping an eye on the television. Every now and then he comes upstairs.

First time he came up to whine:

"But I was going to go into Toshi Station to pick up some power converters!"

Next time he came up, it was to say:

"Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways..."

At this point, we had a discussion over the fact that what Motti said was actually pretty accurate, which must be why Vader was pissed enough to choke him like that. "Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes, or given you clairvoyance enough to find the Rebel's hidden fort..."

Well? It's true, isn't it?!

Later on, in a Valley-Girl voice for some reason:

"Why, at the end of that Jedi flick, did they say about Luke, 'he's our last hope'? Well, they did say, 'there is another', 'cause there was that Princess Leia chick, but I mean, was that the end of the Jedi line? Weren't there going to be more people who would be born who would be strong in the force and could help everybody out?"

Most recently:

"BEEEYOoooooooooooo......"

Yes, Obi-Wan just turned off the tractor beam.

I am quite proud of myself. I've gone out for a walk for 4 of the last 5 days, I think, something of a record this winter. I really needed the exercise.

On Sunday I'm planning to go on my first group skate since I don't know when. I've fixed it so I HAVE to go -- I volunteered my spare helmets to some folks visiting from France. I hope the weather prediction holds.

I hope I can keep up, for that matter.

So I am excited, because tomorrow we are going gun shopping. I am going to talk to the guy and do some research. I am hoping that I will be able to try the gun out, although I don't know how likely that is. I don't particularly want to buy a gun without being able to try it out. Poindexter says it's extremely rare. I was spoiled by the fact that they sold guns at the gun range in Florida and let you test them.

I've been debating over the revolver versus semi-automatic thing. Poindexter tells me that people recommend revolvers for women because you can just pick them up and shoot -- you don't have to load the bullet into the chamber. It seems to me that IF I were going to keep a loaded gun handy for self-defense -- a decision I will not make until I've had extensive training -- I could just keep the chamber loaded and put the safety on. I'll have to look into how good a safety works in cases like the gun being dropped, etc.

Anyways, my favorite part of making a major purchase is doing the research, which is what we're doing tomorrow, so I'm excited.

Well, now it's tomorrow, and guess what?

We are one week away from exercising our right to keep and bear arms!

I found a gun that I really, really liked, and it was highly recommended by Justin (who is coming to visit next Saturday for a week), so I figured, what the heck. It was also a lot less expensive than I was expecting.

Gun shops are funny. They have a lot of melodramatic pro-gun propaganda on the walls. My particular favorite pro-gun poster was the one that said, "Raise your right hand if you support gun control!", and underneath was a drawing of Adolf Hitler doing his little "Heil me" thing.

Poindexter is getting a 9mm Glock 17. Glocks are funny looking -- they have a plastic coating and are very light, which makes them look fake. But they are extremely reliable, impervious to moisture, and easy to handle. Supposedly a lot of law enforcement folks have 'em. Poindexter hemmed and hawed for a while, because the Glock felt the best, but it was significantly more expensive than similar guns by other manufacturers. It felt good to me, too, and he really liked using Brent's Glock, so he decided to go with it.

I decided to go with the semi-auto, since right now I am buying it for fun at the shooting range, where all of my revolver vs. semi-auto issues are moot. If I decide to get into self-defense or concealed carry, I can get a more suitable gun for that at a later date and train with it.

Anyway, it's a .22 Ruger Mark II, and it looks like this. (It may in fact be that specific pistol but I don't have the gun yet with all the specs and such so I couldn't tell ya.) I like the balance of the gun -- it's not weighed too heavily in one end or the other. The thing I really liked was the way you open the chamber by hand. There's an easily-gripped pull mechanism on the back of it. In the other guns I tried at the store, plus the one I rented two weeks ago, there's an awkward ridged area on the top of the gun that I found difficult to grip.

So we had to fill out our background check form, and had to list all our addresses in the last 10 years. Ugh. We each have lived in about ten places for the last 10 years, and trying to remember them all, plus the exact dates we lived there, took forever.

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