Two movies, two disappointments-

The BSU and I have been to 2 movies over the past 2 weeks, 2 movies that are nominated for Academy Awards, including best picture and I can tell you I haven't been more disappointed by 2 movies in a long time. Last weekend we saw Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, this weekend it was Warhorse. Both of these movies are (obviously) intended to be tear jerkers yet I found both of them to be emotionally flat- ran-over, squashed armadillo flat! Really, I pretty much hated both of them!

EL&IC was full of logic holes and reality flaws and the main character, the little boy who is perhaps dealing with Asbergers Sydrome just doesn't make me believe him. I thought it was predictable and lame.

Warhorse this weekend was equally bad. Sure, it's supposed to be a tearjerker and a big tale of a boy and his horse, bonding as a colt and a child, being lost to each other due to a World War and finding each other in the darkness of of trench warfare and chemical gassing. There were some scenes of trench fighting and soldiers dieing but it just didn't have any emotion in it. At least for me it didn't. This story might have been a very good read in a book where one's mind could fill in the emotion and substance but as a movie I did not like it.

Next week I get to pick the movie!

I am a freakin genius!

This afternoon when I turned on the Toshiba it completely refused to reach out to the internet! And the problem seemed to be with the machine itiself- the wireless on/off switch on the face of the machine would not turn the connectivity on or off... This did not look good and I tried a few things to get it going to no avail. I even called the Toshiba tech support but because my machine is out of warranty, any work they attempted over the phone was going to cost me 50 bucks- not good!

So I left it and the BSU and I went to a movie. When I got home, I started Google searching for solutions and in a few minutes I found a forum that offered a couple solutions. The 2nd solution offered up actually worked! Sweet! I just saved myself 50 dollars! I have to admit I was pretty surprised to be able to resolve this by myself but I'm tickled by my results.

If only every problem in life could be solved with a Google search...

Maybe the luckiest guy ever!

Not only did CarteachO get to handle and shoot an ultra-rare Liberator FP-45 pistol, he was gifted a M1 Garand by one of his readers! Talk about firearm nirvana! The Liberator was a gun devised by the US to be dropped into occupied France during World War II to arm Resistance members. Many thousands of these guns were produced but most were never deployed and then destroyed. Most people interested in guns have read the stories about these rare pistols but Carteacho got to shoot one in his back yard!

Go read the stories!

If anybody wants to buy me a gift-

I'd love a copy of this book- Shooting Back, The right and Duty of Self Defense. It is written by a South African that defended himself and fellow parishoners when armed terrorists stormed into the church where he was worshiping.

Which reminds me, I need to get my concealed carry permit renewed this week!

Milestones- I've had a couple recently

So it's nearly the end of January already which means that this humble blog is more than 9 years old. That's ancient in blog years! I started this bit of electronic drivel on a whim and because I was submitting interesting, ( hey, I thought so) bits to the very world famous publisher of Possumblog. Terry recommended that I start my own blog to keep from cluttering up his and thanks to the (now) very reliable and (still) free Blogger, I did just that.

So Wasted Electrons keeps on going even if I don't publish things as often as I used to. I've shared my simple thoughts about love and life, guns, politics, wives, kids, cats, scooters, fish I've caught and the ones that got away. It's still fun and I still like sharing my thoughts with those (few) of you that continue to stop by to read my humble ramblings.

I do appreciate you sticking around and being regular readers- both of you!

Another interesting milestone went by this month- my F250 truck is 12 years old! It also just passed by the 200,000 mile mark in the past week or two. This truck is the very first brand new vehicle I've ever owned and it has served me very well. It still looks good- there's a bent corner on the bed that I'd love to get repaired but it doesn't show much and except for a few cracks in the driver's seat leather, the interior is like new. So even though it has lots of miles on it, it isn't going to be replaced any time soon. The truck has been a faithful companion and workhorse. It pulls our camper to Oregon and Fish Slayer to fishing spots and has space more more people than I have friends. Heck, it may turn out to be the only brand new vehicle I ever get!

So there's my milestones for January! And very soon I'll be celebrating another (hopefully) successful trip around the sun. But that's next month!

Who knew hummingbirds could do barrel rolls?

Well they can and if you sit back and watch this amazing video you'll see the acrobatics in beautiful, slow motion and high definition. It's a YouTube video but I can't seem to figure out how to embed it so you'll just have to click the link and enjoy the beauty and the fabulous camera work.

This makes me VERY happy!

Obama's Florida Freefall I hope I get to read many more reports like this between now and November!

Somehing is wrong wih my oshiba...

For some reason, ye undiscovered, I am having rouble making the T button work on my laptop today. here's probably a ca hair stuck under i or somehing. I hough it was jus my poor yping skills acing up bu i is more han ha...

I can actually make it work but the key needs a little more effort on the downstoke than all the other keys. So I suppose I need a can of compressed air to see it the offending obstruction can be removed.

Getting the New Year off on the right foot-

During my extended unemployment season of the past many many months, I had to clear some guns out of my locker to make ends meet. It was truly an ugly time saying goodbye to some of the guns I really treasured. Now that I'm back to work, I'm feeling just a mite more flush and so last week I decided to stop by a local pawn shop on my way home from work. And they had this little gem in the rough-





It's a Rossi Gallery Carbine in 22LR and a replica of a Winchester 62 which, (significantly) is also a John Moses Browning design. I didn't buy it right away but went home and spent he evening doing research and then went back and bought it for just 75% of the asking price the next day. It was grubby! The shiny little rifle looked as if it had never seen a Hoppes soaked swab! It had a nail in a place where a roll pin was supposed to be!

But I took it apart and gave it a very good scrubbing and it cleaned up nicely. I'm still going to re-blue some of the parts that aren't nickel plated and I have already installed the correct pin to hold the magazine tube in place. I might have to replace the magazine tube sometime down the road as it isn' perfect but for now I'm just anxiously awaiting an opportunity to take it out and see if it shoots.

It's also kind of neat that I already have a Taurus replica of the Winchester Model 63- the gun that followed this little pump from the Winchester lineup that is also a John Moses Browning design. Both of these guns designs originated here in my adoped home town!

I'm still alive-

and I haven't quit blogging. I've just been incredibly busy and haven't taken the time to share my thoughts with you here. The new job, the holiday season, a large dog living at my house= the reasons the dog is living here, spousal illness and injuries have all kept me away from writing.

And I see that I will be coming up on the 9th anniversary of this blog next week, which except for child rearing and marriage the longest effort I've ever undertaken. I've got some ideas about what how to direct Wasted Electrons over the coming months so I will be getting back into the writing and sharing in the very near future.

I promise.