My Pit to Hiss In

As it has been quite some time to my own thoughts rattling around in my head - my wife's tired of them - I have decided to blog about a thing or two. For this first one, blame Mark; he got me all riled up with the story of the deranged Colorado pervert that stormed a class room to hand pick his sex slaves and ended up murdering one of them before taking his own life. From my understanding of this tragedy, he was shot "multiple" times - just how multiple remains to be seen, though I want to say that I've heard somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 times.

A couple of intemperate thoughts on this:

• As Mark pointed out, there was a four hour wait before this guy was ventilated. Now I don't wish to sharpshoot this poor sheriff any more than he already has been, but what happened in those four hours that made him think this was going to turn out well? For those that believe more negotiating should have taken place, Al-Qaeda has an opening for you in their PR department.
• I remember a story from a few years ago where a man in my home town had done some terrible things to his stepdaughter and when the police came to talk to him about it, he shot one of them and ran. When the police finally caught up with him, he was hiding in a closet and shot one time through the closet door in an attempt to scare the police. It worked so well, that the 4 officers in the room emptied the mags in their weapon - for those of you scoring at home (or even if you're alone), that's 4 x 15 = 60. So just why was our Colorado man shot only 6? Last I heard, revolvers were only used for backup...

My next set of musings I blame on Cam Edwards, a talk show host for NRAnews.com. He brought to my attention a story out of Wisconsin - a robber fell through the ceiling of a doctor's home in what appeared to be a robbery attempt. The good doctor called out to his wife to dial 911; he then went to his bedroom and retrieved his weapon, released the trigger lock*, came back to the hallway and told the dumb bad guy to leave several times. The bad guy didn't, so the doc shot our gravity challenged DuMasse, critically injuring him. Said burglar is now suing the doctor claiming...

"[Dr.] Rainiero negligently fired a shot and accidentally hit the plaintiff in the back, severing the plaintiff's spinal cord."

The lawsuit alleges Rainiero's negligent use of excessive force "in dealing with the intruder/plaintiff" harmed [the burglar] Prochaska by causing "severe and permanent injuries, severe and relentless pain" and medical expenses, loss of earning ability and diminished quality of life.

Someone tell Kurt "the sky is falling" Prochaska that if he wasn't breaking and entering with intent to rob, "Doc Holliday" Rainiero wouldn't have felt the need to perform spinal surgery. The only thing Rainiero "accidentally" did was allow this menace to society to continue breathing on the taxpayer's dime. Get thee to a range at once!

*This whole trigger lock thing just chaps my furry hide. Look, if you're that worried about a negligent discharge of your firearm, then unload it; if you're worried about little hands getting on it, get a safe (there are several quick release models available that can put your weapon in your hand in less than a few seconds). A trigger lock was a device sold by the firearm industry to keep there fat out of the frier with the lawyers of the sheeple industry. Think about it this way - in this scenario, had the robber been armed with even just a knife, do you think he would have waited patiently for the homeowner to unlock his gun? A locked/unloaded gun can kill you.

Hat tips: Cam and Mark

Burnout

No, this isn't a review of the super-coolest, most awesomest racing game ever. It's the best word to describe me right now. I'm up to my eyeballs in schoolwork right now and have nearly convinced myself that I no longer have any original thoughts that don't include vectors, bit rates, or 1's and 0's. For that matter, I feel like I've been doing this stuff in my sleep now for the past two weeks. Hopefully some blessed relief will come by next Monday when my project is due. If not, my wife will have to learn to speak binary.

I'll be around...

Do those come in a small?

Now my fellow Star Wars geeks get... errrr, something, with the introduction of Femtroopers:

If you want to check out a very welcome new trend in science fiction fandom (assuming you're a huge geek), then Google the word "Femtroopers." This is perhaps the most celebratory development for horny Star Wars fans since Princess Leia became Jabba the Hutt's barge ho.

May the force be with them, always.

Grand Master of Grades

I do not wish to turn my blog in to a constant gripe session about all things college. I know most of you have already done the college thing and know that many of this is already true and don't need any further reminder. So hopefully this will be my last school rant for a while.

Today's topic - teachers.

Like Baskin Robbins, teachers come in about 31 different flavors. Personally, I like hardasses - they put the bar up there and say, "this is where you gotta be" and then it's your responsibility to get there. However, they're not just going to draw that line and not give you some way to achieve it - they're not being hard just for the sake of being hard (though there are some of those out there, too). They encourage independent thought and usually answer a question with a question that makes you think a little more about how to do what needs doing. I generally do the most learning under these types of teachers, mostly b/c I know that once I leave the friendly confines of college (best 11 years of my life), this is the way the real world works - there is no partial credit for semi-functioning projects turned in. In the words of Tuck and Roll, "You fire!"

A wonderful side effect to this type of teacher is that it weeds out the slackers. I thoroughly enjoy hearing the moans and groans just outside the door after class - "Dude, this is going to be too much work for this semester... Yeah, man, I know. This is like Spring semester stuff... Nah, man, we can't take this in the spring - we got Spring break then..." That's right, hippies, you'll have to figure how to graduate without this major related course!

Without a doubt, the worst type of teacher is the one that starts out portraying themselves as a drill sargent and come off more like a hospice nurse. Nothing chaps my hide more than when I have busted my hump to get a project or paper done, depriving myself of sleep and my wife of sanity, to turn it in next to some pimply faced jackass giving his sob story of why he couldn't put down Halo 2 for a couple of hours to turn in a sad sack rendition of a paper on time and if he could just have one more day (without penalty, or course) then he would have something to turn in. And then I watch in unbelievable horror as the head donkey behind the desk, the Grand Master of Grades, says "Ok."

Apparently, I'm the only one that believes the syllabus handed out at the beginning of the semester (that very plainly states LATE WORK WILL BE PENALIZED OR NOT ACCEPTED AT ALL!!!) actually applies to me.

I will add this addendum. There may be one other teacher that is worse than the one covered above. That would be the one that just doesn't care at all. While I can sometimes make a case for other bad teachers, the ones that lack spirit are the sorriest losers of all.

Steve Irwin: 1962 - 2006

This is how I will remember Steve Irwin.