The SuperBowl of Airsoft Events

It's been a bit, sorry still recovering from last weekend. I was fortunate enough to be invited to participate in a Nationwide event up at Fort Knox in Kentucky called Operation: Irene V. What a freakin' blast that was!!! The event was held at the Zussman MOUT facility (for those unaware, MOUT stands for Military Operations Urban Terrain) and what a facility it is. It's a full size City with real buildings rigged with pyrotechnics and loud speakers for affect. My group was invited to be part of the Staff. Staff means you don't get paid, but you don't have to pay to get into the event (about 200 bucks....). Staff got to participate as Insurgents and Local Police and Local Militia. I was one of the Insurgent leaders.....which means I had a target on my back all day long. The teams are divided up into Charlie, wearing Desert Camo and being led by Col. Danny McKnight, ret (yes that Danny McKnight, he who was in the 1993 Mogadishu Operation depicted in the movie Black Hawk Down) against Delta, wearing Woodland Camo and being led by MSG Mad Max Mullen, ret a man who served in Korea and who used to train the Airborne Rangers. The experience was awesome with 400 folks playing. Too much fun. Edit: I've added a link to a gallery of pictures from the event. Some great shots. Click on the Blog title to go there and have a look.

Will They Ever Learn?

Okay, so how many school shootings exactly is it going to take for on-site administrators to take every single threat of harm to a school seriously???? If you read the The Discoursers Blog, he takes every single rumor, whisper, etc as the truth and investigates. So far he's been fortunate enough to stop crap and nip it in the bud before it took a deadly toll. So in Ohio last week there was another school shooting. This could have been avoided. This kid had threatened to blow up the school but apparently Administrators just shrugged their shoulders. Think the kid's just blowing off steam now???? He's dead. Then in Philly ( I think someone may want to look this up....) we have a kid busted with a crapload of guns. He's 14 and his Mom and Pops bought the guns for him. Pops lied about being convicted of a Felony (he's in the can presently on a separate charge) so he could purchase Junior a gun. At least the school he was going to took another Student's story of this Loser wanting to go Columbine seriously. Massacre avoided. This kid has winners for parents, so I can understand why he's got the hardware. I think we need to Foster Care this kid or get him the Hell away from his "loving" parents somehow. It's okay, he will be in the Psycho ward for a bit getting some well needed therapy I'm sure. Why are we so blind to the obvious. Sure, I bet there are a million kids a day who threaten to blow up the school or go get a gun and shoot someone, and true that some of these are just desperate attempts at attention. But, you can't just shrug them off. If they are attempts at attention, then the kid needs to be referred to a Counsler so he/she can get help before the kid has reached the point of no return. Simple. If it's a real threat, then LE can sweep in and take the situation under control before we get another Columbine. C'mon people, yeah it's a bit of work, but it's worth it.

What do you get when you cross Fisherman's Wharf with Tahoe?

Gatlinburg, TN is what. Myself, Cathy and Liv just got back from a great Family weekend up in the Smokies. For my friends back home that would be the Smokey Mountains. Gatlinburg is Tennessee's Tahoe during the winter. It's where you go to go skiing. During the Summer it's like Tahoe as well in the fact that there are numerous trails and a beautiful State Park plus rivers full of fish. No lakes, but lot's of rivers. The Fisherman's Wharf part is in the form of cheesy Tourist stuff. You know the places I'm talking about. Discount Souveniers...3 T-Shirts for 10 Bucks!!!, crappy keychains, snowglobes.....of course since this is in Tenneessee, there are lots of Western Shops as well. It appears that the Ripley's people have quite a stake in Gatlinburg. (oh as a side note: Gatlinburg refers to the whole area but it really is a separate City. The actual Smokies resort area is made up of Sevierville, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg). There is a Ripley's Believe it or Not museum (the Fisherman's Wharf part..see....) a Ripley's Haunted Mine ride or some crap like that, and numerous Mini Golf Courses with varying themes with the Ripley's name plastered on them. Oh, by the way, this area has the most Mini Golf Courses I've seen in my life!!! Indoor golf courses, indoor Black Lite Golf Courses, outdoor courses carved in tiers on a hillside, outdoor courses on flat ground with Octopi, Mermaids, Flying Pigs...etc etc.....the cheesier the better. The one's we played on we loved. Although I must bash one of the facilities on this blog. One of the courses is called Hillbilly Golf...yeah I know.....and the gimmick of this course is that it's way up on the side of a hill. To get there you get in this little tram thing that takes you up to the top, then you play your way down the hill to a halfway point where the same tram thing picks you up and takes you the rest of the way down the hill. Sounds fun so far right? Well the course is fun, but the rejects running don't take credit cards. Ummm....it's the 21rst Century right???? Aside from parking garages (some do but most don't) everyone takes credit cards. It seems bad business as far as I'm concerned to not take credit cards in a resort area. Ever wonder why you don't see travelers check commercials anymore? No one uses them because everyone has a credit card or a debit card. Why carry lots of cash that can be stolen and not recovered when you can carry you checking account in the form of a plastic card. A plastic card that if it's stolen you can call the bank and in a matter of minutes have that card cancelled and in some cases have a new one delivered to you. So why carry cash. Idiots I say. If I ran a business in a resort town you bet your sweet patootie I'd take credit cards. In a heartbeat!!! Gatlinburg is also the Go-Kart capital of the world....or so it seems. There were some awesome tracks. I thought of the Perfect Line and Super Goober when I was driving on one of the 3 tracks offered at the place we went to. They would have loved this track. The first track you drive up four circular ramps....the track is wood at this point.....when you get to the top you hit a hill that reminds me of many of the hills in SF back home. You are cautioned to use the brakes going back down it.....then it's up the ramps again. Whew that was fun. The second track had steep hills too, but you could hit them full speed, then you come out of it and hit a rising up hill left banking turn......niiiiccceee..... We of course had to take in a show while we were there. In the tradition of Medievil Times they have several shows that are Dinner shows. We picked Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede. Why you ask? Because the entire show revolves around horses and my 13 year-old StepDaughter Liv loves horses. When I was making reservations I chose to sit on the North side....hee hee.....sorry I can't cheer for the South in something Civil War related. Besides, we got front row seats doing it that way. Think about it. This is a resort in Eastern Tennessee....a ways past Knoxville the home of UT. It's also the South.....so most of the natives will want to sit on the Southern side....that whole Southern Pride thing.... The show was great. They let a whole Herd of Buffalo run around the stadium to start with (fairly impressive animals actually) then it was covered wagons and buckboards and lots of horses. I personally loved the Ostrich Races....yes they had women riding on saddles strapped to the backs of real live Ostriches. Pretty cool beasts. They had a piglet race....it was pretty funny watching future slabs of bacon run in a half circle. It all ended with a Patriotic number and a lesson of how our divided Nation put aside it's differences and became one (actually it was because the South had their asses handed to them but I digress.....what did they expect? Farmers taking on the US Army...c'mon!!). Liv of course got some Horse Back Riding in....she had to. We also went into this Haunted House off the beaten path. It's in an old 3 storey Victorian looking building. The cool part about it; you have to find your way through it. You start in an entry room and are told by some cheesy animatronics skeleton that the secret passage is behind the fireplace. So the three of us pulled the candlesticks, pushed the woodwork etc...to no avail. Then a disembodied voice (the girl at the front cash booth who you buy tickets from) said "you have to touch the fireplace walls". We touched...nothing happened. Same voice comes back "you have to push on the fireplace". We pushed....nothing. Same voice "you're not pushing hard enough". We pushed harder, and we got into the next room...laughing because we were so lame and had to have someone give us a big hint. So my brave and independent StepDaughter decided she didn't really want to go first and my lovely Wife decided she didn't either so I got stuck in front with Cathy clinging to my shirt and Liv to her belt. Oy Vay!! So we felt our way through the dark and came to a room o' doors. Two guys in robes and masks came bursting out of the walls yelling "pick a door". I started pushing on doors....none were opening. Liv knocked on one and I went and pushed it open just as one of the "ghouls" came out saying "why are you still here??" I answered with "because we are going this way" and through the door we went. We got to another part of the house with an obvious squeaky door (the cue for the worker in robe and mask to get ready to scare the crap out of you) and were greeted by another "ghoul" who grabbed a jumper cable attached to a battery and ran it across a metal grate making sparks while he was banging doors, etc. As we neared the end, we looked up and there was a guy wearing a "Scream" mask clinging to the ceiling. I have to give this "ghoul" props for great upper body strength as he was clinging to the ceiling spread eagle. I told him he couldn't get me because I wasn't a babysitter and Cathy warned him not to fall on her. He jumped down behind Liv as we passed by and made her jump. She turned around and said "Can I help you?" then later she said "Stop following me" as the scream dude was following us out of the haunted house. Lot's of fun and we were laughing about it all the way home. Cathy and I plan to go up by ourselves in Spring when Liv has Spring Break. We never really had a Honeymoon (our Reception was at Fresh Choice and our Honeymoon was at Chuck-E-Cheese) so we figured we'd go up there to do some fishing and other things that Liv wouldn't like.

New TV Season Review

Heroes Heroes Heroes.....I can write a whole blog on this...oh wait, I have...let's just say that this new season is starting off well.  What I like about the writing in this show is they don't leave mysteries hanging too long.  They answer just enough questions to move the story along but still leave you asking more.  That's good writing.  By the way, Hollywood, can we please for the love of God in Heaven above stop with the freaking "reimaging" of old shows and movies.  Stop it now.  If you think the idea is good, do a sequel or continuation of the story.....don't go back and hit "reset" and start again.  Battlestar Galactica was like this.  The only season I saw of it was the last one (3rd) and frankly it sucked.  I don't understand this need to re-do old stuff.  We have a new Bionic Woman...I haven't even bothered to turn it on.  I don't care if it's the best show on TV I simply will not watch it.  Get another idea guys...there are a crapload of writers out there with ideas....stop the rehashing.  I watched the first episode of the show following Heroes called Journeyman.  It was meh......could have done it as a mini-series or a movie because the premise of it can really be wrapped up without having to run a whole season of hour long shows.  The guy has this mysterious lapses where he ends up back and forth in time.  He runs into his Ex-Girlfriend who he still loves in the past, and she seems to be a traveler too.....but we don't know how or why he travels, he just does.  He runs into folks that he ends up helping.  Quantum Leap did it better.  A time experiment went screwy and he keeps leaping into other people's bodies in time and fixing things.  Works.  Purpose, method, solution.  Journeyman is kind of blah.  Wasn't even interested in the 2nd episode or any others.  Just don't care about the character or why this is happening to him.  Blame the writers.  I'm also getting upset with all these series set in San Francisco that do nothing to depict the real San Francisco.  Journeyman and Monk do this.  There are only a few areas in San Francisco that have little suburban like neighborhoods with manicured lawns, and white picket fences.  To live in one of these areas you need to be disgustingly wealthy.  The people portrayed in these series that live in these houses wouldn't be able to afford living in these houses.  My Grandmother's 2 Bedroom w/bonus room downstairs off the garage 1 bath house sold for 850,000 about 2-3 years ago.  It didn't have the manicured lawn in the front...it was a typical San Francisco house.  All stacked side by side with no side yards.  Two story because of lack of space (garage below the house).  It has a decent size back yard but that's it.  Oh yea, and Cable Cars only run on two lines in only one area of the City, not on EVERY SINGLE FREAKING STREET!!!!!!!  The only show that got SF right was Midnight Caller.  The Pursuit of Happyness got it right as well.  When he went to Chinatown to drop his son off, that was Chinatown.  I'm sure Law and Order get's New York wrong too.  If you are going to base it in a City, portray the City correctly...please.  Cane is good so far.  It's like a Cuban Sopranos that's rated PG-13.  I like Jimmy Smits acting and Hector Alezando (probably got that wrong) is awesome too.  Oh and it's great to see Rita Moreno on TV again.  It's good stuff.  Have the 2nd episode taped but haven't watched it yet.  Chuck is just lame.  Moonlight has the worst acting I've seen on TV in a long time.  They have basically remade Angel but not it that cool, cheesy Joss Whedon style.  Now I was never into Buffy or Angel, but I do respect Joss' writing and directing (loved Serenity but haven't caught an episode of Firefly yet).  Reaper is fun, but I didn't watch the second episode because I was taping the Unit because I knew we would be out and not able to watch it.  Still loving Damages.  Intense show and it looks to be wrapping up soon.  The new Numbers was good as well as Criminal Minds (just really bummed that Mandy "hello my name is Inigo Montoya you killed my father..." Patinikin left the show.).  Out of all the new shows being offered, I'm sticking with two.  That's bad.  ABC ran Cavemen and Carpoolers the other night; didn't even bother.  I mean c'mon.  The Geico Caveman commercials are good for a chuckle, but that's 30 seconds worth of material.  They are seriously expecting that to be funny for 22 minutes????  Carpoolers looked even dumber.  A sitcom who's main setting is a car, in traffic, during morning rush hour.  There's nothing funny about sitting in a car during the morning commute...anywhere. 

The Paw of Doom

Click the blog title to see the original entry entitled Wanted: for the Murder of a Goldfish.

See I have proof of Panther's murderous ways. As you can see in the picture, the Paw of Doom is raised and waiting to strike. The fish is hiding in the lower right hand corner of the bowl. Even protected by the three Chinese Wise Men the fish isn't safe. I guess Panther doesn't qualify as an "Evil Fury".