Last Wednesday I discovered my first substantive complaint about my new Civic SI. I was on the way to the range, with my Glock 19 in a OWB Comp-tec holster on my hip at about 4 o’clock, when I climbed into the racing-inspired seats with their aggressive side bolstering, only to find the bolstering does not interact well with a holstered weapon. The bolstering pressed the holster firmly into my side and made for a most uncomfortable ride. A cross-country trip would be impossible with that particular holster.

This is, in the grand scheme of things, a minor complaint, as I’d need a cross-draw or more comfortable IWB holster for prolonged driving anyway, but it’s worth considering if you carry in a strong-side holster every day and find yourself doing alot of driving.

Two days ago I finally pulled the trigger on my first new car. I’ve been driving my parents old 1992 Accord LX for nearly ten years now, so I kind of have it coming.

Photos

The photos are up at here. Here’s a preview:

Experience

As expected, the car buying experience was not pleasant. I started looking a couple of weeks ago, and contacted at least half a dozen area dealerships for quotes. The responses (and dollar amounts) varied wildly. Some quotes, and some comments, follow:

Richard Pham, Landmark Honda, Alexandria VA

Best price: $22,000 out the door.

This is the first dealership I heard back from, and also by far the most pushy and unpleasant. I’ve received roughly ten emails from Mr. Pham, most of them frenetic and pushy.

Much as it pains me to admit it, my birthday is coming up soon, so I’ve put together a last-minute birthday wishlist for my family.

Shooting Stuff

• Range Bag — NB: Luci technically owes me this bag, seeing as how she put a few 5.56mm rounds through my old one
• Aerosol degreaser

Computer Stuff

• Canned Air
• A new mouse for my laptop. It needs to be small and portable. I prefer corded since there are no batteries to replace, and I further prefer the sort that coil up the cord with a spring, like the one I have, only not a fragile piece of shit. Optical only, of course.

Bike stuff

• A fender for my front tire so I can ride in the rain without getting a mudbath. I have a 26” mountain bike.

Most days during the spring and summer months I ride my bike to and from work each day, instead of driving my car. According to this calculator, assuming a savings of 1000 miles per year, that’s 0.305 tons of carbon I’m not spewing into the atmosphere. Sure, I can pay $15 and buy a plenary indulgence—I mean—carbon offset to counter that much carbon emission, but where’s the fun in that? By making the sacrifice myself instead of outsourcing it like some filthy capitalist pig, I can now don the hair shirt of environmental responsibility, with all the smug condescension and pompous bullshit to which I am now entitled.

In the spirit of pompous bullshit, for a limited time you can ease your troubled climatic conscience by paying me to NOT fuck up the Earth. It’s easy.

Look at the photo below and note which detail you notice first:

The correct answer for normal hetero males is “girl”. If you have an unhealthy fixation with firearms, you said “gun”. If you said “cat”, well, I don’t blame you, but you really need to re-evaluate your priorities. If your first thought was “that rug really ties the whole room together”, we have nothing in common.

My company, AppAssure Software, are looking for another senior level developer to join our development team. AppAssure is a funded startup with consistent revenue growth building cutting-edge Windows software products used by organizations of all sizes to protect their most mission-critical IT assets. The development team is lean and results-oriented. We’re looking to add another senior level, well-rounded generalist with impeccable software engineering skills.

Our development team is laid back, professional, easy to work with, and gets things done.

Every year for the last 13 years, the Virginia Citizen’s Defense League (VCDL) has worked with the Virginia General Assembly to pass legislation fixing Virginia’s ridiculous ban on concealed carry in restaurants that serve alcohol. Alot of the Virginia media completely misunderstand the issue and indulge in all manner of hyperbole and theatrics.

First, some background: In Virginia, there exists no law prohibiting a law-abiding citizen from carrying a gun openly, in public.

It seems the journalism profession allows itself a few exemptions to its self-imposed integrity requirement, such that journalists covering exempt subjects are free to misinterpret, misconstrue, and misinform without consequence. From my observation, two broad categories which enjoy this exemption are technology (computers, the Internet, hard science, mathematics, maybe to some extent medicine) and guns.

Back in 1995 I could understand the MSM’s inability to properly grok the Internet. However, it’s 2008 and they’re still getting it wrong. Don’t believe me?

There are few cliches more often repeated in the gun community than the British gun control experience. It’s as though the British gun bans are part of a fiendishly clever NRA plot to prove the fallacy of gun control. Just when you think the Brits can’t get more absurdly clueless about the nature of human violence, they do.

The latest bit of foolishness is years old by now, but it came up again recently and I couldn’t resist remarking upon it.