Monday, August 11, 2008

Amused.

Not in the sense of being entertained, but rather of being uninspired. I simply have nothing to say, but felt it necessary to say something if, for no other reason, than to break the awkward silence. I also wanted to avoid having my blog get egged with premature declarations of death or ambivalence and other malevelont things. Hence there is some necessity in not having too much time pass between posts.

Percussivity has finally found a way of getting me to read the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. The best line so far is definitely... "Rome wasn't burnt in a day." I'm saving that one for just the right occasion- likely a meeting at the City- as a sniper spends time sanding down a bullet meant for a special target.

Speaking of sniping, last weekend I got to play paintball for the first time in probably ten years. I had a terrible time with fog on the lenses but, nevertheless, it was an awesome time. My son is now hooked, too, which is even more awesome because it means I will get to revive that part of my life but now with my son. Freaking awesome!

9 comments:

Percussivity said...

Ford said that right? I am trying to recall the scene.

Glad you had fun with the paint ball... the last time I played paint ball was at Bob's last St. Joe church camp thingie... Bible retreat or whatever they called it. So it has been a while.

The Unabashed Blogger said...

Geez Coder! When are you going to blog something?! Oh wait..you did...Oops. I must be on auto-comment. I'm glad your not leaving us hanging.

Ever try anti-fog rain-x on the goggles? I keep meaning to try that on my sunglasses for cycling...

Side note- I had a hard time typing goggle and not google. I thought I misspelled it and had to redo it twice. Weird.

SQLFunkateer said...

Snipers sand their bullets???

Well, I suppose back in the days before the Hague Convention, British soldiers would take a .303 jacketed spitzer bullet, and saw two slits in the tip, exposing the lead underneath. They were called "dum-dums" and were some of the first expanding bullets (soon outlawed for military use in the aforementioned conventions).

I miss paintball. I've only played about four times, but there's something about painful welts, sweat, mosquitos, and poison ivy that...oh yeah, that's why I don't play much. And the cost. Where did you play?

The Angry Coder said...

In "the caves". I had always been apprehensive about playing there. My impression was that the games moved enormously fast and everyone got hit five times at close range. It was actually much more subdued and enjoyable.

The fog was on my glasses much more than on the goggles. I hated wearing glasses with goggles so much that, back in 'the day', I did not wear a face mask. Instead I bought high impact, low profile sport glasses and would wear facepaint. Sometimes I'd get tagged in the face, and of course that hurt, but it was worth it to be able to play unrestrained. It was bad getting shot in the throat; but the worst, by far was in the ear.

Jagers had this silicon paste to put on glasses to stop the fog which only worked marginally well, and with constant application. I think the proper solution is contacts and a high quality facemask.

SQLFunkateer said...

Jaegers was the first (and last) place I played. Recently I did their outside course. I say recently, but it was two years ago. But compared to 10 years ago, when I played in the caves.

The fog is the worst. I think the answer is just investing in a really nice facemask that you have fitted to your own head.

Brandon Briscoe said...

i have never paintballed. I've always wanted to but never have.

Unknown said...

Looks like you know what the next guys night out will be...

grk said...

I have never played paintball. The idea of welts all over my body isn't that attractive, but I guess I do like bloodying my hands climbing cracks in rocks.

Also, I was always scared of the ubiquitous viet nam veteran hanging in the trees. Maybe it's an urban myth, but I don't know if I could hang with that.

SQLFunkateer said...

It's not that guy you have to be wary of. It is the enthusiast, who is out every weekend, who uses thousands of dollars of equipment, freezes his paintballs to increase accuracy, and opens the CO2 valve to the point that the paintball marker will fire rock hard paintballs at sufficient velocity to penetrate 12 inches of ballistic gelatin.