Lurking Rhythmically

Unknown Ponies: Questions, Addenda, and Advanced Rules

2012-01-26T15:36:00.000-05:00

1) Unknown Ponies: Failure is Awesome is up to version 1.5. Most of the changes are grammatical in nature, with a few bits added for additional clarity. The link is the same, as every time I update the version I overwrite the old one.

2) Would people be interested if I added stats of the Mane 6, Cutie Mark Crusaders, and other NPCs (Big Macintosh, Derpy Hooves, Mayor Mare etc)? Would you prefer them either appended to the PDF or as a separate download?

3) Advanced Rules: Names and the Cute-ceañera
While many players of Unknown Ponies will have a firm notion in mind of their PC's eventual cutie mark and will name him or her accordingly, there are some players who will find it more interesting and challenging to leave their cutie marks up to chance and role-playing. This however presents a problem when it comes to names.

While some ponies have names which are unrelated to their cutie marks (Pinkie Pie), many more of them do. This is not a problem on the show, as the writers have the ability to decide ahead of time what a pony's cutie mark will be and name that pony accordingly. For a player who wants to role-play the discovery of a cutie mark, this is not possible, and as characters need to be named something, they are forced to either take a generic name or risk choosing a name which will potentially clash once their special talent is discovered.

Correcting this is simple: we take the concept of the cute-ceañera -- a party held for colts and fillies upon gaining a cutie mark, and combine it with the Japanese coming-of-age ceremony known as the genpuku. When a pony comes of age, she may choose a new adult name (usually related to her cutie mark) at her cute-ceañera, or she may choose to keep her childhood name. Neither is more socially-acceptable than the other; it is entirely a personal choice of that pony.

Silly Guns

2012-01-25T15:17:00.000-05:00

This is somewhere between a Monday Gunday and a Wednesday Night Wackiness post. Logically, I should have posted this on Tuesday, but yesterday I was squee-ing my fool head off because of all the hits I was getting on my Unknown Ponies post.

Pretty much like this:

Nota bene: I am fully aware that many of you are annoyed by my constant posting of pony pictures, memes and videos. What you need to realize is that I feel that exact same annoyance every time you go on about sports, wrestling, NASCAR, or "arrow to the knee" jokes that stopped being funny eight seconds after Skyrim came out. So deal with it.

Okay, so: guns. As some of you may know, the 2012 SHOT Show was last weekend in Las Vegas, and for those of you who don't, suffice it to say that it's a trade show for gun manufacturers. Anyway, one of the biggest splashes made this year were two rifle offerings by Mossberg, one in .30-30 and one in .22LR:

Now those of you who have known me for a while know my tastes.I am a geardo, a compulsive accessorizer, and have an appreciation for the aesthetically funky. But these... oh, but these...

I am torn. One the one hand, these are AWFUL, because no one needs a tactical lever-action anything. On the other hand, they are so resplendently awful they actually back into awesome by way of absurdity, and they do look a lot like the kinds of rifles you'd see on Firefly. So I can appreciate them as silly, over-the-top jokes, and most of the time no one really gets my humor anyway so I'm okay with that.

But still, two things keep nagging at me. For one, that .22LR is slowly growing on me like a fungus. "Hmm, six-position stock," I say, "perfect for those of us with short arms. Those rails are great for mounting bipods or lasers for precision shooting. And by having plastic furniture instead of wood, it's both lighter and weatherproof. And lever-action means my left-handed mother can shoot it without difficulty. And I am quite fond of a tube-feed."

Really, the only thing stopping me is the black color (and the price, of course). Not that I have anything against black; I am quite pro-black, what with my goth tendencies. But tactical black simply does not suit a .22 of any kind. If, however, it were to be Duracoated in a nice camouflage scheme...

The other thing which nags at me is that this is possibly a case of fridge brilliance on the part of Mossberg. Both of these rifles have fixed ammo capacity and cannot, it any way, be made semi-auto. They are the perfect definition of "California Compliant", up to not having a pistol grip. Yet they look tactical, therefore "scary." I wouldn't be surprised if these models were made expressly to screw with California legislators, who will no doubt want to ban them because they're "evil black rifles"... and yet they're 100% compliant, which means that California is basically scared of the color black.

Which would be racist.

The more I think about these rifles, the more I like them, despite them being hideous. And that's just wacky.

WNW: The Growing Dead

2012-01-25T13:57:00.000-05:00

"The departure of Frank Darabont has seen The Walking Dead go in a whole new direction. This new intro for season 2.5 seems to shine a light on the character dynamics of this ragtag group of zombie survivors and the impending daddy issues that Laurie's pregnancy is sure to bring."

There may be a commercial that interrupts the first few seconds. My apologies, but I can't do anything about that.

(In cause you couldn't recall, the theme music is from Growing Pains.)

This pleases me

2012-01-24T13:41:00.000-05:00

Today, my rules for Unknown Ponies: Failure is Awesome have been linked to by not only Friendship is Dragons, but also by Jeff Rients, one of the gods of the Old School Renaissance.

Unknown Ponies: Failure is Awesome

2012-01-23T18:34:00.003-05:00

Ever since I posted about the My Little Pony RPG I ran on New Years' Day, there has been a demand for the rules I used to run the game. It has taken me longer than I expected, but I have finished the first draft and am now putting this out for the Internet Hivemind to digest.

Please read it and tell me what you think. Or, even better, playtest it! Try and break the system (probably won't be difficult). I wholeheartedly welcome all constructive criticism.

The PDF of Unknown Ponies: Failure is Awesome may be found here.

Languages of Pellatarrum: Orcish

2012-01-19T16:28:00.001-05:00

Think of the vilest insult possible, one that would incite in the listener a murderous rage born of righteous indignation. This is how orcs say "hello".

As was stated earlier,

Every encounter with an orc must be treated like a battle, because it is. Even in a peaceful situation, an orc will use vile insults, belligerent language, threatening gestures and anything else that will cow the listener into accepting the subservient role.

For orcs, everything -- even conversation -- is a contest to see who can make the other flinch first. If you flinch, you prove yourself a weakling, and therefore must submit to the stronger without question.

This has resulted in a very direct form of diction and vocabulary. It is highly specific about what you are going to do to whom, and into which orifices you are going to shove which objects. As can be surmised, Orcish has a refined set of grammatical objects, and the passive voice is used only in the sense of "this person or people used to do these things, but they don't any more, because they are dead or enslaved."

Interestingly enough, Orcish lacks nearly all forms of pronouns*. Names are used exclusively; if needed to refer to a group, then the tribe name or species name is used. Therefore, when Grashnargh says "Orcs kill humans!" he really does mean ALL orcs (or at least those he can accurately speak for) will indeed kill ALL humans (that they can get their hands on). There isn't much room for conditionals among orcs, other than the classic "if you X, then I will Y" statement.

* Chief exceptions being demonstrative (This, these, that, those) and interrogative (who, which, what) in nature.

Grammar structure is very basic and is perfectly suited for the battlefield. It can be spoken quickly, with a minimum of effort (necessary when shouting commands), and is immediately understood by even the dimmest warrior. Very few words are polysyllabic, and these are mostly proper names. The words themselves are harsh-sounding, containing many hard consonants and spitting sounds -- if it sounds like something is burning, it's likely Orcish.

Imagine what it would sound like if a Samurai warrior were to shout in Swedish at the top of his lungs. The results would sound much like this, and be a good example of spoken Orcish:

There are two things a non-native speaker of Orcish must keep in mind. First, when negotiating with an orc, do so from a position of either superior strength or extreme psychosis. If you immediately submit, you declare yourself a weakling and therefore deserve to be dominated. If you debate vigorously but stoically, a fight will probably break out because neither of you will back down and the words are seen only as a pre-fight posturing. And if you attack, well, the conversation is over.

Your best approach is to think of it like two dogs trying to determine dominance, or two swordsmen in an iaijutsu duel before they strike. There is a brief moment between posturing and violence where one of the parties can potentially realize the other is capable of inflicting such a sound thrashing that it's preferable to surrender and deal with the loss of stature/honor. In short, it's all about presenting a strong enough first impression that it is immediately clear that violence is not likely to end well for anyone, so you might as well just talk.

The second thing to know is that there isn't a single Orcish language. Due to their mercurial nature and fractured society, their language mutates and shifts with each new group or tribal offshoot, until one tribe has difficulty understanding the other (the differences aren't quite as extreme as those between Mandarin and Cantonese, but close). Therefore, each time a new branch of Orcish dialect is encountered, the speaker needs to make a Linguistics skill roll in order to comprehend what is being spoken, and to speak in the new language. This applies to orcs and native Orcish speakers, which is another reason why so many orcish tribes go to war with each other.

Far left: One version of contemporary written Orcish. Far right: Old High Orcish.

This difficulty in communication also extends to the written word. Unlike other languages, Orcish is pictographic in nature, much like ancient Cuneiform. However, due to the shattering of their culture and the loss of much of their heritage, their written language has actually devolved from complex to crude. In addition to these devolutions being nearly incompatible between tribes, whatever information remains in Old High Orcish is incomprehensible to them (and in fact to most sages, barring either magical interpretation or consulting ancient elven or draconic sources).

Special thanks to both Von and Mxyplk for their help and though-provoking questions.

CONTENT BLOCKED UNDER AUTHORITY GRANTED BY H.R. 3261 & S.968

2012-01-18T10:46:00.003-05:00

http://sopastrike.com/strike/

Monday Gunday: Accuracy is a Mounted Bayonet, Too

2012-01-17T16:31:00.000-05:00

You know what I really hate? Waking up with a spasming neck and a throbbing headache that ruins the entire day for me. I hate it even worse when I did absolutely nothing the day before (like, drinking or partying) to earn such pain in the first place.

Which is basically a long-winded way of saying "Monday's post is late because I felt like shit all day."

Following up on my previous bayonet-related post, the weather on Sunday was nice enough (neither too cold nor too hot) for me to take Izzy out to the range and see if the freshly-mounted bayonet would affect my accuracy. I was also curious to see if the rangemaster or his associates would hassle me for mounting a bayonet in the first place.

The answers to these pressing questions are "Yes, it did," and "No, they did not." I did get at least one incredulous "Is that a bayonet on your rifle?" asked by a fellow shooter, but when I explained how it acted as a counterweight to barrel whip he just nodded as if it all made sense. Honestly, I don't know if it really did make sense to him, or if he was just humoring the crazy chick with a rifle taller than she, but either way it doesn't matter.

I also find it very funny that whenever I offer to let people shoot Izzy, 90% of the time they say "Uh, no, thank you." You'd think I had asked them to shoot the .950 Nutpunch or something. Some days I worry for the state of modern American men.

(You want recoil? Apparently this gun broke that last shooter's second rib. Now that is recoil.)

But enough of this. You want a picture, I give you a picture.

The vital details:

Target was at 50 yards
7x scope
bipod & bayonet mounted

The first two shots I took were ranging shots, and those are covered by the 2 leftmost orange pasters. The addition of the bayonet altered the point of impact, but consistently so. I eyeballed it at "about eight clicks to the right," adjusted my scope and took a third shot. That one is the bottom hole in the 8 ring. I adjusted the scope up a bit, and you can see the results.

(The third orange paster is just a spoiler. Not sure if I flinched, or sneezed, or someone startled me.)

I'm confident that the scope is properly sighted-in for 50 yards and that everything else is dependent upon my technique. I say that because I learned an important lesson while sighting it in.

It's common knowledge among Mosinistas that the trigger on the Mosin-Nagant is not what you'd call "elegant" or "smooth." In fact, "crudely functional" is probably complimentary, as it takes a surprising amount of force to pull it back and make the bullet go boom (this is known as "trigger break").

Well, as I was squeezing the trigger, I noticed that my sight picture was actually shifting to the side. This is what we in the gun community call "not good" and so I stopped to analyze what was going on. It turns out that I was once again giving it "too much trigger," i.e. my finger was pulling the trigger, and therefore the rest of the rifle, to the right. This was making the barrel actually shift to the left, and would have completely screwed up my shot.

Realizing what was going on, I adjusted my grip by sliding my hand as far down as possible, so that only the tip of my finger was on the very tip of the trigger, as opposed to having the pad of my finger resting in the curve of the trigger. On the down side, this made each trigger pull even harder, and uncomfortable.

Picture taken from Art of the Rifle. Please go here to read the entire article. It's fascinating and well worth your time.

On the good side, each shot was practically a surprise to me, which I've been told is the hallmark of a good shot. If you anticipate it, your breathing or your tension could alter your aim, but if you don't quite know when it's coming then you can kind of "fake yourself out" into making a good shot.

As you can see, it worked splendidly. Now all I need to do work on improving my technique, and then I can move on to 100 yards!

Der Schwarzwaldenwirklichkeit (the truth of Schwarzwald)

2012-01-12T18:04:00.000-05:00

I was cruising the various three-digit cable channels when I came across this clip from The Big O late one night. I found it particularly relevant to certain current situations, and I wonder if the rest of you feel likewise or if I'm just crazy (which is a decided possibility).

The text, for those of you distracted by giant robots and loud explosions:

Even without the events of 40 years ago, I think man would still be a creature that fears the dark. He doesn't face that fear; he averts his eyes from it and acts as if he never had any memories of his history. But, 40 years can be both a brief time and yet, a long time. Man's fear has withered. And even time tries to wither the desire to know the truth.

Is it a crime to try and learn the truth? Is it a sin to search for those things which you fear? My purpose in this world is knowledge, and the dissemination of it. And it is I who is to restore the fruits of my labors to the entire world.

Fear... It is something vital to us puny creatures. The instant man stops fearing is the instant the species will reach a dead end, only to sink to pitable lows, only to sit and wait apathetically for extinction.

Wake up! Don't be afraid of knowledge! Humans who lose the capacity to think become creatures whose existence has no value. Think, you humans who are split into two worlds, unless you want the gulf between humans to expand into oblivion, you must think!

Signed, Schwarzwald.

So what think you? Relevant to our current condition, or just the ravings of a fictional madman taken out of context?

Weltanschauung

2012-01-12T14:45:00.000-05:00

This snippet of actual conversation with Benjamin Worley happened a few days ago:

Ben: "Magic as an element of friendship? What does that even mean? Twilight, getting A-pluses is not a personality trait!"

Me: "Well, what you need to realize is Twilight Sparkle represents the Friendship Gestalt. It says so right in the series: "When the five elements of harmony are present, the sixth will make itself known." Therefore Twilight is actually the sum of friendship -- which is totally in keeping with her personality of being a good student."

Ben: "Gestalt? What does that mean?"

Me, resisting the urge to tell him to Google it: "A gestalt is something which is greater than the sum of its parts. Voltron is the gestalt of the Lion Force."

Yes, I used Voltron to explain a German psychological term while talking about My Little Pony. I am an uber-nerd.

WNW: Bree-Yark!

2012-01-11T16:17:00.000-05:00

Behold the Dungeon Bastard.

The Face of Liberty

2012-01-10T15:11:00.000-05:00

Courtesy of Anne Terres, talented artist and close friend of mine, is a beautiful rendition of the All-American Golem Girl, Silence Do-Good.

She's lovely, Anne! Thank you so much. :D

Thank you!

2012-01-09T23:55:00.000-05:00

Jennifer just made my day by becoming my 100th follower via Google Friend Connect! Thank you!

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't also thank RobertM, North, and Girl (with gun), because if they also hadn't followed me then Jennifer wouldn't be that nice round triple-digit.

So thank you, gunnie bloggers! I hope I entertain you, and you don't get too exasperated with me when I write about other nerdy things.

And of course as I write this, mike Brendan has to go and be #101. Thanks Mike! :)

Light a Candle

2012-01-08T12:00:00.001-05:00

"One bleeding-heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not agree that 'violence begets violence.' I told him that it is my earnest endeavor to see that it does. I would like very much to ensure (and in some cases I have) that any man who offers violence to his fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy."

Col. Jeff Cooper, "Cooper vs. Terrorism", Guns & Ammo Annual, 1975

Candles are nice, but self-defense is better. Thanks to Weerd Beard for the notion (and also some really pretty photographs which make mine seem half-assed in comparison!)

For more in-depth analysis of why a candle, why a gun, and why today, I recommend the following blogs which are more experienced than I at explaining the politics of firearms and self-defense:

Candles... with Fire Support by Linoge
I Light My Candle For... by Miguel
Light a Candle Against the Dark by Brigid

To summarize my feelings on the issue (and because I am more than a little bit nerdy) I shall paraphrase from one of the great sci-fi epics of our time, Babylon 5:

We are the sheepdogs. We stand between the predator and its prey.

MLP RPG: Unknown Ponies

2012-01-05T23:58:00.000-05:00

On January 1st, 2012, four ponies crossed the Everfree Forest to investigate disturbing reports of attacks and disappearances within the town of White Stable. This is their story...

On New Years' Day, I ran a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic role-playing game over Skype. The players were as follows:

Jennifer Paradis as Pinkie Pie
Will Sweet as Rainbow Dash
Benjamin Worley as Rarity
and Mxyzplk as Twilight Sparkle.

I'd like to state again, just for the record, that I had three male players in a game based upon a girls' cartoon, and none of them were self-conscious about playing magical pastel ponies. We all had a fantastic (dare I say fabulous?) time playing, and there were several instances in which the entire group was reduced to howling laughter and/or tears.

Despite all the work I did last year talking about MLP:FiM is a Dungeons & Dragons game, I didn't use D&D or Pathfinder for the system. I figured that since this was a game based upon a cartoon, the system should be streamlined and fast-moving. To that end, I used Unknown Armies, which I further simplified because, again, this was a game about cartoon characters and I felt it didn't really matter if, say, I delineated the exact mechanical differences between Applejack's ability to perform farm games and her skill at rodeo. Therefore, if a pony had a skill, she had it at the rating of the appropriate stat.

Here are the character sheets:

Spike the baby dragon was an NPC and therefore had no sheet.

For those who haven't played Unknown Armies, the mechanics are pretty simple: roll under your score on percentile dice. 01 is a critical success, 00 a critical failure, and doubles are either extra-good or extra-bad depending on success or failure. If something is marked as an obsession skill, then you can flip-flop the roll; this makes a disastrous 91 into an amazing 19.

I houseruled what I call the Cutie Mark Critical: if you roll a 01 or successful double on your obsession skill, or on anything which is related to your Element of Harmony, you get a super-fantastic amazing success that results in such things as Sonic Rainbooms or intimidating a dragon into submission.

The emotional triggers are used mostly for role-playing purposes, although with UA's rules about mental disorders it would be fairly easy to bolt on a system to replicate how Cutie Mark Critical Fumbles can result in emotional breakdowns and ponies going crazy.

Things I learned from last night's My Little Pony RPG:

A better (read: more entertaining) word for unicorn telekinesis is "Ponykinesis". Please update your lexicons accordingly.
When I say "It's quiet... too quiet," a cat will jump out. Of course, in this case it was Nyan Cat because one of the players had opened another tab and didn't realize it would be audible across his microphone. It totally wrecked the tense atmosphere but we all laughed.
Twilight Sparkle has a morbid sense of humor ("Everypony knows that there's no such thing as a vampony! They're actually mis-identified Chupacabra.") and, in a pinch, is willing to resort to Necromancy. (This was due mostly to Mxyzplk's interpretation of the character which could best be summarized as "Twilight Sparkle by means of H.P. Lovecraft." Strangely, it fit the adventure.)
Vamponies are attracted to bright colors and sudden movement, and they drain color from whatever they feed upon.
Anyone who plays as Pinkie Pie has at least one actual, ready-to-perform song up her sleeve.
I do an excellent Diamond Dog impression, even if it's hard on my throat.
Speaking like GLaDOS is both fun and habit-forming.
Even in the midst of nearly certain death, Rarity takes the time to look fabulous, dahling.
Sonic Rainbooms are lethal to the undead.

If I had to do it over again...

I'd revisit the stats as I think some of them need re-balancing
Certain skills (like Pinkie Pie's Create Wacky Contraptions) need some sort of "X times per session" limit to them
I'd find a way to more fully integrate the Element of Harmony into the character as a kind of mechanical benefit -- perhaps when acting according to their Element, they can roll 2 sets of percentile dice and take the better number? Not sure how best to replicate this.
I'd record the session because we spent at least half of the 5 hour session howling with laughter.

A good time was had by all, and I suspect this won't be my last time running a game in Equestria. If you'd like to give pony role-playing a try, leave a comment below and I'll see about setting something up.

WNW: My Christmas in Summary

2012-01-04T16:03:00.000-05:00

It went almost exactly like this:

First it started on a wrong note. Then things turned sour. Then there was lots of headdesking. And then, finally, it all ended anticlimactically.

I hope your Christmas was much better than mine.

Monday Gunday: Happiness is a Mounted Bayonet

2012-01-02T16:26:00.001-05:00

I took my brother to the range with me this past Christmas Eve, which was a nice bonding experience as he and I have such dissimilar tastes and experiences that we have precious little in common. I also gained some richly-deserved respect in his estimation of me, though I'm not certain if it's because his flighty little sister now has a "grown-up" hobby or if it's because I managed to finally beat him at something. Either way, I'm not complaining.


I shot some, he shot some, then I shot some again. I claim most of the good ones, including the two pasted-over bullseyes.

However, as I was shooting my Mosin I noticed that the muzzle had a tendency to jump and buck. This probably isn't a recent development; I likely didn't notice it until now because up until this point I was still getting used to the recoil. But when the rifle's bipod leaves the shooting bench, though, that's something to take note of and worry about. Not that I think the rifle will break (Ha! I could throw this thing off the roof and the only damage would be to the scope), but because it was messing with my sight picture. I can hit targets at 25 yards with no problem, but at 50 I have to re-seat the rifle into my shoulder each time.

So I talked to my comrades from the Mosin Militia about how to remedy this situation. Fellow blogger Linoge informed me that

Apparently sporterized Mosins have a horrible tendency towards "barrel whip", in that the barrel is absurdly long and narrow when not supported by the wooden stock. When you fire, there are all kinds of torsional forces at play, and harmonics build up and down the barrel as the bullet twists its way down.

Barrel whip! This is a marvelous term which perfectly describes what I have been experiencing. But how to fix it? I wanted to avoid the expense of shortening or recrowning the barrel, and I was unable to mount a recommended anti-vibration device because I can't remove the front globe sight. I had heard about muzzle brakes/recoil compensators for the 91/30, but everything I've read about them suggests they are cheaply made junk with a dangerous tendency to fly off downrange after a few rounds.

Linoge's final answer was the solution: just put the bayonet where it is supposed to be, and I would imagine all your ills will be cured.*

I liked this idea. I've wanted to mount the bayonet for some time, but I was unable to get it more than halfway down the barrel. This prevented me from locking it into place. So I went to fellow Brosin** Doug Parkhurst with my dilemma and asked if there was a way short of a Dremel tool to loosen it up. He replied,

Aye, those things are pretty damn snug - out of my 5, I could only fix the bayonet on 2 of them without some sort of grinding, and one of those 2 was only after about a week or two of persistence. Before resorting to a Dremel, you can try a good scrub with Break-Free CLP and a stiff gun brush. Sometimes just trying it over and over will eventually loosen it to the point where you can get it on and off without tools. But if it's especially stubborn, a Dremel used sparingly on the inside of the socket will work. Try to avoid hitting the spring latch; if you grind off too much of that, it won't lock onto the front sight post. FYI, the teardrop-shaped hole in the wide end of the combo tool in the cleaning kit can be used as a handy wrench to aid in removing it if it gets stuck. Hope this helps!

It did indeed help. If nothing else, this gave me permission to be as rough as necessary. This is one thing I've noticed about my Mosin: at times it practically requires manhandling, which is why I have a rubber mallet in my tool kit for when the bolt is feeling frisky.***

So I went it at with a will, using Break-Free and a bronze brush. That only amused the bayonet, as the brush left little bronze residue everywhere. Then I got serious with some steel wool, which I think maybe removed some of the bluing.

By this point I had lost patience and was ready to introduce power tools to the mix, so I went to Home Depot to look at Dremels. Sadly, they're too expensive for me (the cheapest was $80) but I did find a nice set of medium-coarse files for about $6. Choosing the round file, I sat down in front of the TV with it, the bayonet, and a bottle of CLP, and went at that sucker like it was a marital aid.

A couple of hours later, the bluing had come off and I was looking at the shiny steel underneath. Sure enough, it went down over the barrel, but I couldn't twist it to lock into place. Sure, I could get it to move with application of the rubber mallet, but that would be inconvenient (not to mention conspicuous) at the range. I took the flat file to the sides of the front sight and worked on them until -- FINALLY -- I was able to mount the bayonet.

This is the fruit of my labor. Izzy is now suitable to act as a boar spear, and if I pull the trigger I can make instant bacon.

Long gun is long.

And now I can, in the words of Doug Parkhurt, "twirl gaily through the house with [my] 65" pointy bang stick of doom (but watch out for the ceiling fans)."

* This has to do with the aforementioned barrel harmonics and torsional forces. The short simple answer is that the bayonet acts like a counterweight and the barrel thinks it's a foot longer than it really is.

** A brony who also likes Mosins, naturally.

*** "Yob tvoyu mat! And you'll get more of the same until you decide to work!"

Happy New Year, Everypony!

2012-01-01T18:51:00.000-05:00

Merry Bronymas to everypony, and to everypony a good Heart's Warming Eve

2011-12-24T17:43:00.000-05:00

Have a very pony Christmas

2011-12-20T15:35:00.000-05:00

My blog is going silent for a while, because the holiday chores (and stress) are increasing exponentially. Frequent readers know that this time of year is always difficult for me; this one will be worse because both of my siblings are coming to visit this year, and I figure it's about time for them to gang up on me and tell me what a loser I am.

Not sure when I'll come back... might be next week, might be next year (the week after next). It will depend on my stress level. Until then, I'm going to rely upon ponies, RPGs, and going to the range to help me with my stress.

Merry Christmas, everypony. See you on the flipside.

We've been conquered

2011-12-15T16:18:00.001-05:00

As my faithful readers know, I try to keep my political feelings off of this blog, because I hate it when a writer or actor I enjoy endorses a position I oppose -- mostly because I think being an entertainer does not qualify anyone to be a political pundit.

However, dark and dismal things have been developing in Washington D.C., and it's reached the point where I am now actively afraid OF my country. Examples:

President Obama has now declared that he will sign the NDAA into law -- a bill which authorizes the indefinite detention of anyone suspected of being a terrorist. What's the definition of "terrorist"? Why, it's anyone who has guns and ammunition, or has more than 7 days of food and water in their home, or who is missing fingers:

So when this passes, you can say goodbye to the 4th Amendment, and probably the 5th, 6th and 8th as well. And isn't it curious how the major media outlets (that includes FOX, btw, because my father watches Fox News every goddamn night) haven't said a peep about this?

Not really, because we're losing our 1st Amendment rights as well. The Stop Online Piracy Act essentially hands over control of the Internet to the entertainment industry (because they have your best interests at heart, after all) and threatens to bring China-style censorship to the United States. The news media is in on the act.

And finally, the botched "Fast and Furious" operation by the BATF is looking more and more like a backdoor operation to institute more gun control. I'm not even going to go into the details here -- for those who are interested, I advise you to read this -- but what I'm taking away from it is that the BATF deliberately encouraged bulk sales of guns (mainly semi-auto rifles like AK-47s) in order to make the statistics on gun sales and gang violence that much scarier, so that the Federal Goverment could say "We're here to help" and leap in with more restrictive laws on ownership. And it would have worked, if a Border Patrol agent hadn't been killed by one of these walked guns.

In short: I feel like our Bill of Rights is being rendered invalid, and even speaking out against it can be seen as having "terrorist sympathies." So at this point, I feel like I have three options:

Be a good little sheep and remain placid as my rights are trampled, until they finally come for me;
Leave the country;
Advocate the systematic dismantling of Congress, a la an Etch-a-Sketch reboot.

I know which one I'm going to choose. My suggestion to each of you is that if you plan to leave, get your passports in order NOW, because the right to travel is already under siege by the TSA and it's only going to get worse.

WNW: FUS RO yay

2011-12-14T21:00:00.001-05:00

Following in the footsteps (hoofprints?) of yesterday's image (reprinted here for completeness' sake)...

... I now present not one but two related videos of questionable humor.

But hell, they made me laugh.

and

Enjoy.

My Little Pellatarrum

2011-12-13T14:22:00.000-05:00

As I said a while back on Facebook, my Cutie Mark would be a Venn Diagram. This is because I am passionate about many different things, some of which my seem incongruent, but all of them link up in some way or another. Also, I dearly love explaining things to people. (See?)

In fact, this is my Cutie Mark right here:

The fact that it looks like a pastel Elder Sign is just extra additional win.

I'm fighting the urge to define all of the parts, but I know I will cave in eventually. (Okay, I love guns and fantasy and role-playing games. Do RPGs exist at the intersection of Weapons and Fantasy, or are they at different locations? This will take me an afternoon at least, and I'm saving it for a day when I'm bored.)

So anyway, I bring all of this up because I have some stuff here which exists at the intersection of two of my passions: My Little Pony and Fantasy RPGs.

First up is a a piece of artwork from Arkhein over at Rather Gamey that is just so incredibly wonderful I... I just don't even know what to say!

The second is a lovely bit of wallpaper from DeviantArtist MCWhopper which is full of FUS RO yay!

Now I have an urge to include some kind of non-silly but still recognizable version of magical ponies in Pellatarrum....

Monday Gunday: Rangin'

2011-12-12T16:14:00.000-05:00

It's been ages since I've done a Monday Gunday post (mostly because I was observing NaPelWriMo), but that doesn't mean I haven't been to the range. In fact, I've been several times, and I'm going to post some photographic evidence (read: bragging) that my skills haven't atrophied.

Back in October, I acquired a Kel-Tec Sub-2000, and since then I've put several hundred rounds through it. I realize this is not a proper sample size (it really should be closer to a thousand), but I'm on a budget here. Still, I have some thoughts you might find interesting.

Recoil is negligible, due to the buffer spring and the stock. Even my 72-year-old mother could handle it, though her shoulder started to get a bit sore after 30+ rounds.
The bolt tube cover from Tacticool Products is really comfortable.
The fiber-optic sight is held in place with a screw and nut. Some time during the first 100 rounds, the screw came loose, and the sight shifted downward. This is easily remedied by a trip to the hardware store for a #4 screw, lock washer, and nut.
This may just be the way I hold it, but with my cheek welded to the stock my nose is so close to the ejection port that I get a snout full of gunsmoke every time it fires. This is a case where mouth-breathing is healthier than nose-breathing.

And now let's see the results of the shooting. (Mom has requested that I not show her target, because it was a mess. I later found out this was because she was holding it all wrong and couldn't make the front and rear sights line up. This flaw in her technique has since been fixed.)

This is me at 7.5 yards, the shortest of the pistol ranges. The initial downward holes are the result of the fiber-optic blade sight having come loose while my mother was shooting, but I was able to correct for it.

This is me at 15 yards, which my mother didn't even attempt. Again, it took me a bit to account for the sight being off.

And this is me being ambitious and seeing how accurate I could be at 25 yards, with nothing more than the (now fixed) fiber-optic sight. I only brought a single 33-round magazine because I didn't want to waste ammo in case I couldn't hit the target.

Verdict: pretty good, all things considered, although I wouldn't want to engage anything at more than 25 yards without some kind of optic. Still, this is a limitation of my eyes, and not the carbine itself.

And now, the best for last. Some of you will recall how proud I was a while back when I scored a bullseye at 100 yards with my .22LR rifle. I am pleased to announce that I have leveled-up in firearms skill once again:

SIX BULLSEYES BITCHES.

This is the same target with all of the pasters removed. You can see that I was all over the place at first, but soon I was able to settle in to the target. I seem to have gotten over my "up and to the left" problem only to overcompensate and develop a "down and to the right" problem. I'm told that either I'm using too much finger on the trigger, or I'm tightening my grip as I squeeze. Either way, it's something I need to work on.

But still... six bullsyes and a crapload of shots inside the 7 ring. That's awesome.

Pellatarrum: My Orcs are Different

2011-12-02T15:10:00.006-05:00

Mea Culpa: HUGE thanks to Demonic Bunny, without whom this article would not have been possible!

With special thanks to Nathan Tamayo for his insights into orc psychology

Orcs in Pellatarrum do not have green skin, nor do they have square jaws or porcine faces. They do, however, have tusks. And thick hairy bodies. And horns. And red skin. In fact, they look like this:

Pellatarran orcs look like red oni rather than the stereotypically thuggish "Neanderthal with green skin and teeth" because they are ferocious warriors originating from the Plane of Elemental Fire, not some atavistic fear of genetic intermixing.

Just like fire, orcs cannot be controlled, only diminished. For them, everything -- even conversation -- is a contest to see who can make the other flinch first. If you flinch, you prove yourself a weakling, and therefore must submit to the stronger without question. This practice of ritual dominance has served the orc race well throughout the eons as a method of preserving tribal peace through (generally) nonviolent means and keeping the rate of casual murders to a manageable level.

Every encounter with an orc must be treated like a battle, because it is. Even in a peaceful situation, an orc will use vile insults, belligerent language, threatening gestures and anything else that will cow the listener into accepting the subservient role.

As a result of this, an orc warrior is nearly impossible to taunt or goad by any other race, save possibly the dwarves*. By showing his staunch and unflinching nature, an orc demonstrates to everyone that he is the best leader and least likely to make rash decisions -- an important quality in a race prone to fits of berserker rage. Of course, when two warriors are jockeying for position and neither is cowed by the other's threats, then it frequently comes to blows anyway. Most of the time such "debate" ends in bruises and unconsciousness rather than bloodshed and death, but such things are known to happen. To orcs, politics is a full-contact sport.

Problems arise when orcs deal with other races who don't grasp this key facet of orc psychology, because what they assume to be imminent violence is actually just orcish posturing. Feeling threatened, they either attack (in which case words have failed and it is time for "diplomacy by other means", as Von Clausewitz would say) or they flinch but do not submit. Failing to acknowledge the dominant position of the orcs only proves to them that other races are degenerates and cowards, unworthy of trust and deserving only to be conquered.

Orcs do not, as a rule, maintain livestock larger than pigs. They lack the patience for sustained animal husbandry beyond "pen it up until we eat it" and they lack the grazing grounds necessary for cattle and horses. However, orcs know how to "domesticate" fire elementals and keep them from dissolution -- it is believed they have rituals wherein they dance around the fire elemental, engage in mock combat, and generally indulge in various forms of passion in order to sacrifice some of their "hearts' fire" to feed their pets. These fire elementals are kept as a combination status symbol and trained warbeast.

Ritual scarification, tattooing, and piercing are common throughout all strata of orcish society, even the children. It takes a trained eye to determine which scars are for beautification, which denote status, and which are for bravery.

Pellatarran orcs are a bit like Mongols and a bit like Klingons in their current state. Prior to the shattering of their civilization by the other Elder Races, they were more like Babylonians or Pharaonic Egyptians: still warlike, but far less savage and far more educated.

Orcs are not stupid; they are ignorant. They are not savages by choice; they are survivors of a cultural holocaust. And while they are creatures of passion, that does not mean only violence; passion can also mean love, and joy, and exultation. Orcs feel emotions perhaps more keenly than any other race on Pellatarrum. Pleasure is a feeling, as is pain; both serve to remind you that as long as you feel, you are alive. Orcs savor every moment, every feeling, because while their lives are short they seek to fill them with meaning and sensation.

Other races choose to reject feelings of pain, and anguish, and sorrow as something bad to be avoided. Orcs feel this is akin to removing one of your eyes because you don't like what you see, or stabbing yourself in the stomach because you are hungry. Denial (or worse, repression) of feelings is rejecting a part of life.

Other races merely exist. Orcs live.

* Who, when they get really worked up, start pledging eternal atrocity upon everyone even slightly related to the orc in question. Threats of genocide get an orc's attention quite nicely, thank you.