Random Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread

Posts: 2504 · Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 9:17 am

killjoy32 wrote:

i see Seattle are losing their basketball team...

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,12993_3769739,00.html

Yep....Clay Bennett, the owner of the Sonics, is a complete dirtbag (at least according to just about every morning radio show host that I listen to). He has been planning to move the Sonics ever since he bought the team, although he denies it. I just cant see OK City being able to support an NBA franchise long term. I guess if Portland can do it.... Wink

Posts: 7604 · Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 9:22 am

well i am sure they will get another franchise there before long.

Posts: 3151 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 6:23 am

Belated Happy 4th of July

May not be work safe, especially in the UK Very Happy

ShaneG.

Posts: 2504 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 8:41 am

Plaag wrote:

Belated Happy 4th of July

May not be work safe, especially in the UK Very Happy

ShaneG.

"Freedom Bag Water".....

That was pretty funny. Cool

Posts: 342 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 9:03 am

Kingofpain89 wrote:

I think my problem there is I really dont like pistols, especially semi-automatics. I am comfortable with a rifle. But if I am going to have a gun for home defense I really need a shotgun. Kind of hard to accidentally kill a neighbor with a shotgun. Razz

I'd recommended a 20gauge short barrel pistol grip mossberg pump shotgun. You can also get non-lethal shot, but if you need to use a gun I feel it is best to have something with some lethality.

There is a 20 and 12 gauge mossberg that comes with a long and short barrel and a pistol grip and shoulder stock so that you can use it for hunting or home defense.

The best things about a shotgun sre that you are less concerned with accuracy, it's intimidation factor is very high, and depending on the type of shot, its penetration factor is low so you don't have to worry about hitting someone in the next room, or house. With the pistol grip and short barrel it is perfect for room to room. It is one of the three firearms that everyone should own.

Shotgun. Assault Rifle. A rifle designed for long range and a decent scope.

Posts: 1193 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 9:09 am

Plaag wrote:

Belated Happy 4th of July

May not be work safe, especially in the UK Very Happy

"Freedom bag water", that's great... I'm going to call it that from now on instead of Earl Grey hot...

Posts: 2504 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 9:35 am

JZavoda wrote:

I'd recommended a 20gauge short barrel pistol grip mossberg pump shotgun. You can also get non-lethal shot, but if you need to use a gun I feel it is best to have something with some lethality.

There is a 20 and 12 gauge mossberg that comes with a long and short barrel and a pistol grip and shoulder stock so that you can use it for hunting or home defense.

The best things about a shotgun sre that you are less concerned with accuracy, it's intimidation factor is very high, and depending on the type of shot, its penetration factor is low so you don't have to worry about hitting someone in the next room, or house. With the pistol grip and short barrel it is perfect for room to room. It is one of the three firearms that everyone should own.

Shotgun. Assault Rifle. A rifle designed for long range and a decent scope.

Definitely nothing wrong with Mossberg. I was looking at a Benelli model due to the fantastic reviews they get. A friend of mine that is a gun collector and hunter asked me "Why in the world would you buy a Benelli for home defense?" He told me to just buy a cheapo if that was all I was going to use it for. So Mossberg may be the brand I eventually buy. Half the price of the cheapest Benelli.

But man those Benelli's sure are nice.

Posts: 342 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 10:00 am

It amazes me how people making TV and movies seem to have no idea about the USA, such as the size of the country, what 'millions' really means, or how freaken well-armed the population is. This can be seen most readily in Zombie Movies.

One of the comments in Diary of the Dead was that there were more Zombies than bullets. I was reading that there are over 2 billion registered weapons in the USA. When they remade Dawn of the Dead they made it seem like no one had guns. One guy in the beginning of the picture with a handgun. Of course guns and cell phones make for poor horror movies, so they get rid of them, but I think it is a real misunderstanding of what the USA is truly like. What these rich filmakers see and what people outside the USA see is some strange distortion of what really exists. A country made of of New York, Texas and California, with a ghetto section and upper class suberbs, and nothing else.

Good zombie flicks need to be filmed in England. (though the sequel to 28 days later made no sense, heavy machine guns/unarmed crowds, the machine guns will always win). An unarmed population, a mostly unarmed police force, and a small military, perfect zombie fodder.

Posts: 342 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 10:13 am

Kingofpain89 wrote:

Definitely nothing wrong with Mossberg. I was looking at a Benelli model due to the fantastic reviews they get. A friend of mine that is a gun collector and hunter asked me "Why in the world would you buy a Benelli for home defense?" He told me to just buy a cheapo if that was all I was going to use it for. So Mossberg may be the brand I eventually buy. Half the price of the cheapest Benelli.

But man those Benelli's sure are nice.

The mossberg is kind of like the AK47 of shotguns. It is very serviceable (especially if you maintain it), its cheap and it gets the job done. ( If you were going to be doing a lot of room to room fighting, then the Bernelli would be better. You don't want to skimp on that sort of thing Twisted Evil

)

With the long barrel and stock it is also a decent hunting shotgun, but I'd go with the Bernelli if you were hunting for something more challenging than squirels, rabbits, doves or pigeons. The mossberg is cheap, and replacement parts are cheap and plentiful (or they were, I haven''t looked around for any in years) so if it gets banged up you don't worry about it.

Posts: 4450 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 11:12 am

Kingofpain89 wrote:

Yep....Clay Bennett, the owner of the Sonics, is a complete dirtbag (at least according to just about every morning radio show host that I listen to). He has been planning to move the Sonics ever since he bought the team, although he denies it. I just cant see OK City being able to support an NBA franchise long term. I guess if Portland can do it.... Wink

I think Oak city will do very , very well. They have been dying for a professional team of some sort for decades. And remember, when the New Orleans Hornets moved there for a couple years after Hurricaine Katrina wiped out their venue in New Orleans, they had better attendance in Oak City than they every had in New Orleans...sellouts almost every date. I think the new team will do well. Not to mention it's not a typical expansion team, this one may go tothe playoffs this year, which will help the buzz.

Unfortunatley the Seattle fans get screwed, even though they have supported this team through decades of winningnothing. That sucks...but as for being a dirtbag, I think about 90% of professional owners fall into that category. They buy teams as an investment, not as an altrusitic venture, no matter what they may tell us.

Mike B.

Posts: 4450 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 11:20 am

JZavoda wrote:

I'd recommended a 20gauge short barrel pistol grip mossberg pump shotgun. You can also get non-lethal shot, but if you need to use a gun I feel it is best to have something with some lethality.

There is a 20 and 12 gauge mossberg that comes with a long and short barrel and a pistol grip and shoulder stock so that you can use it for hunting or home defense.

The best things about a shotgun sre that you are less concerned with accuracy, it's intimidation factor is very high, and depending on the type of shot, its penetration factor is low so you don't have to worry about hitting someone in the next room, or house. With the pistol grip and short barrel it is perfect for room to room. It is one of the three firearms that everyone should own.

Shotgun. Assault Rifle. A rifle designed for long range and a decent scope.

The Mossberg has intrigued me. I am worried about penetration factor if I had to blow away a punk, nowadays houses are so close and walls are so thin, I'd hate for a .38 shot to go through the bad guy and punch out my neighbor's window...or my neighbor, for that matter! I do use hollow point though so theoretically it should penetrate much past putting a gigantic hole in the perps back...but still....I'm going to give one of these a look.

Mike B.

Posts: 4450 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 11:34 am

JZavoda wrote:

It amazes me how people making TV and movies seem to have no idea about the USA, such as the size of the country, what 'millions' really means, or how freaken well-armed the population is. This can be seen most readily in Zombie Movies.

One of the comments in Diary of the Dead was that there were more Zombies than bullets. I was reading that there are over 2 billion registered weapons in the USA. When they remade Dawn of the Dead they made it seem like no one had guns. One guy in the beginning of the picture with a handgun. Of course guns and cell phones make for poor horror movies, so they get rid of them, but I think it is a real misunderstanding of what the USA is truly like. What these rich filmakers see and what people outside the USA see is some strange distortion of what really exists. A country made of of New York, Texas and California, with a ghetto section and upper class suberbs, and nothing else.

Good zombie flicks need to be filmed in England. (though the sequel to 28 days later made no sense, heavy machine guns/unarmed crowds, the machine guns will always win). An unarmed population, a mostly unarmed police force, and a small military, perfect zombie fodder.

Wow, amen Jason. Hate to beat on a dead zombie horse here, but most movie makers are left coast libs or East coast libs that don't own a gun, don't know anyone else that owns a gun, and can't understand WHY anyone else would own a gun. Ergo, their version of America is what would happen if zombies invaded Liberal America, where only the cops and bad guys have guns. Hell, I bet we have enough firepower in my small town alone to put down a zombie uprising in 24 hours....but then again, end of movie, nothing interesting about that.

I absolutely HATE the ridiculous brand of horror movies that showcase a helpless couple/party of people at the mercy of a knife wielding maniac. My personal game I play with myself is to wonder exactly how long the movie would last if I was there with a loaded gun. The fact NO ONE in these movies have weapons is, of course, a dynamic of the script because the movie would be over in minutes otherwise. But it suspends my belief so quickly and immediately that I am out on actually taking the movie seriously pretty soon in the procedings. Then again, a movie where a couple stops at a old scary motel and checks in, then the door is kicked down by an axe swinging psycho, and has the husband pulling his glock and pumping the surprised nut full of hollow points, then turns to his wife while standing over the body exclaiming "Wow, what the hell was that?", might not grab audiences for the full two hours.... Very Happy

But yeh you are right, movie makers don't have a CLUE to the say anyone lives their lives outside of California, New York, ski resorts, and beach getaways. I didn't say Texas because everytime I see something from Hollywood take place in Texas its just a joke, the characters are either poor but honest Mexican immigrants, racist hillbillies or J.R. Ewing type oil millionaires. Only the TV show "Friday Night Lights" gets it right, and even then that's only a picture of a small town Texas life.

Mike B.

Posts: 342 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 11:51 am

Badmike wrote:

The Mossberg has intrigued me. I am worried about penetration factor if I had to blow away a punk, nowadays houses are so close and walls are so thin, I'd hate for a .38 shot to go through the bad guy and punch out my neighbor's window...or my neighbor, for that matter! I do use hollow point though so theoretically it should penetrate much past putting a gigantic hole in the perps back...but still....I'm going to give one of these a look.

Mike B.

With a shotgun you will have a choice in the load of the shell. As I said you can even go for non-lethal from bags to old fashioned rock salt. If you know how to or have access to somehow who loads their own shells you can have the charge cut down. The big problem is the scatter. At close range there isn't much, but across a room you will hit a number of targets. One pellet can wreck a TV or computer. You do not want to let loose with someone you care about within the scatter. With a .38 you can put one through someones eye, a shotgun, you are basicly going for the upper torso, but if you aren't a marksmen, or have never fired a shot in anger, go with the shotgun.

I had to use mine on an intruder once. Never had to fire. He looked at the shotgun and ran, but then all he had in his hand was a crowbar. IF you get one and have never fired a short barrel with a pistol grip make sure you practice (which I'd insist on for any firearm).

I was watching Jurassic Park II and they had the hunter leaver his elephant gun, and the guy switches his shells for empties, and the hunter comes back and just picks up his gun. I've seen the same kind of thing over and over. Someone who is trained always checks their weapon. They check the action, they check their cartridges, their safety, before using a gun they make sure it is going to fire. It is as basic as never pointing a weapon loaded, unloaded, real or replica, at anyone unless you mean to use it.

Posts: 107 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 11:52 am

Badmike wrote:

Hell, I bet we have enough firepower in my small town alone to put down a zombie uprising in 24 hours....but then again, end of movie, nothing interesting about that.

Give some credit to George Romero's original Dawn of the Dead (from 1978), which did have a scene where some Pennsylvania good ole boys were out in force taking down zombies, with some beer drinking mixed in. Zombies, guns and alcohol - that's the triangle of fun!

Posts: 342 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 11:57 am

Grug Greyskin wrote:

Give some credit to George Romero's original Dawn of the Dead (from 1978), which did have a scene where some Pennsylvania good ole boys were out in force taking down zombies, with some beer drinking mixed in. Zombies, guns and alcohol - that's the triangle of fun!

They had the same thing in the Night of the Living Dead remake where the redhead from B5 leaves the house and just calmly shoots the zombies in the head as they stagger up to her. At the end the bikers and good ole boys are having a zombie bullfight kind of thing.

Posts: 3999 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 1:33 pm

JZavoda wrote:

One of the comments in Diary of the Dead was that there were more Zombies than bullets.

In a movie, bullets are always extremely limited and characters throw down their guns if they jam or run out of shots.

Real gun owners generally have several hundred rounds of ammo on their shelves...often over 1000 if they own several calibers of gun. Even if all the neighbors on my street and the nearby streets were to go zombie in some sort of plague...we've got enough bullets of various calibers to handle them.

.22 long rifle ammo, for instance, comes in bricks of 500. .22 rounds would probably take down a zombie with headshot...and after-market box magazines can be loaded with 200 rounds.

No one throws away a gun when it is empty. They get more bullets.

In Jurrasic Park, the paleontologist guy throws down his shotgun because a shell stovepipes. Rather than just pull out the shell, his plan is to climb up into the false ceiling. Yeah. Right. Of course, this is the same movie where the big game hunter decides that the key thing to do when confronted by a velociraptor is to pull down the stock on his automatic shotgun. And, he chooses an automatic shotgun over an M16.

Jurrasic Park II is the movie where a platoon of soldiers, amed with assault rifles, screams and runs when confronted by a tyrranosaurus rex. Every soldier I know laughed at the ludicrous idea that soldiers wouldn't just light the T-rex up en mass.

And, by the way, a Mossberg 500 Persuader, loaded with 5 shells...even birdshot...is a truly frightening thing to carry. The lethal weight of such a weapon in my hands makes me nervous. It just screams, I am not a toy! I cannot see an intruder choosing to face one rather than just run away.

Posts: 342 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 1:52 pm

FormCritic wrote:

In a movie, bullets are always extremely limited and characters throw down their guns if they jam or run out of shots.

Real gun owners generally have several hundred rounds of ammo on their shelves...often over 1000 if they own several calibers of gun. Even if all the neighbors on my street and the nearby streets were to go zombie in some sort of plague...we've got enough bullets of various calibers to handle them.

.22 long rifle ammo, for instance, comes in bricks of 500. .22 rounds would probably take down a zombie with headshot...and after-market box magazines can be loaded with 200 rounds.

No one throws away a gun when it is empty. They get more bullets.

In Jurrasic Park, the paleontologist guy throws down his shotgun because a shell stovepipes. Rather than just pull out the shell, his plan is to climb up into the false ceiling. Yeah. Right. Of course, this is the same movie where the big game hunter decides that the key thing to do when confronted by a velociraptor is to pull down the stock on his automatic shotgun. And, he chooses an automatic shotgun over an M16.

Jurrasic Park II is the movie where a platoon of soldiers, amed with assault rifles, screams and runs when confronted by a tyrranosaurus rex. Every soldier I know laughed at the ludicrous idea that soldiers wouldn't just light the T-rex up en mass.

And, by the way, a Mossberg 500 Persuader, loaded with 5 shells...even birdshot...is a truly frightening thing to carry. The lethal weight of such a weapon in my hands makes me nervous. It just screams, I am not a toy! I cannot see an intruder choosing to face one rather than just run away.

There is also the basic anatomy that is ignored in movies of all types. From the old westerns and war movies with a guy taking a bullet in the shoulder and shrugging it off ( the shoulder, a cripple or lethal wound) to modern movies like Resident Evil where they put a round through a kneecap and the zombie keeps walking. The body is a puppet, cut the strings and it doesn't work.

Humans tend to be either incredibly resiliant or incredibly fragile. People have died from the shock of a broken bone and survived such horrifying wounds that make zombie movies seem tame, but sever muscles and limbs don't work, shatter bones and the muscles have no frame to work on.

Posts: 226 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 2:13 pm

Quote:

a guy taking a bullet in the shoulder and shrugging it off

In D&D 4 they call it a healing surge Wink

Posts: 4450 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 3:00 pm

FormCritic wrote:

In a movie, bullets are always extremely limited and characters throw down their guns if they jam or run out of shots.

Real gun owners generally have several hundred rounds of ammo on their shelves...often over 1000 if they own several calibers of gun. Even if all the neighbors on my street and the nearby streets were to go zombie in some sort of plague...we've got enough bullets of various calibers to handle them.

.22 long rifle ammo, for instance, comes in bricks of 500. .22 rounds would probably take down a zombie with headshot...and after-market box magazines can be loaded with 200 rounds.

No one throws away a gun when it is empty. They get more bullets.

In Jurrasic Park, the paleontologist guy throws down his shotgun because a shell stovepipes. Rather than just pull out the shell, his plan is to climb up into the false ceiling. Yeah. Right. Of course, this is the same movie where the big game hunter decides that the key thing to do when confronted by a velociraptor is to pull down the stock on his automatic shotgun. And, he chooses an automatic shotgun over an M16.

Jurrasic Park II is the movie where a platoon of soldiers, amed with assault rifles, screams and runs when confronted by a tyrranosaurus rex. Every soldier I know laughed at the ludicrous idea that soldiers wouldn't just light the T-rex up en mass.

Well, it's a message from gun-hating Hollywood "Guns can't protect you!" So they deliberately show this, making it a self-fufilling prophecy. Meanwhile those of us in the real world just roll our eyes.... Rolling Eyes

I may be the only one that thinks the Jurassic Park movies, the entire bunch of them, are crap. I feel like I'm watching an "A-Team" episode or something, the way these bumbling humans seemingly can't kill a SINGLE dino in the entire trilogy except by accident. By that logic, a bunch of cavemen with clubs suddenly appearing in our midst would destroy modern society because their ferocity and savagery would be superior to our intelligence and technology.....

Mike B.

Posts: 342 · Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 3:16 pm

Badmike wrote:

Well, it's a message from gun-hating Hollywood "Guns can't protect you!" So they deliberately show this, making it a self-fufilling prophecy. Meanwhile those of us in the real world just roll our eyes.... Rolling Eyes

I may be the only one that thinks the Jurassic Park movies, the entire bunch of them, are crap. I feel like I'm watching an "A-Team" episode or something, the way these bumbling humans seemingly can't kill a SINGLE dino in the entire trilogy except by accident. By that logic, a bunch of cavemen with clubs suddenly appearing in our midst would destroy modern society because their ferocity and savagery would be superior to our intelligence and technology.....

Mike B.

What about Starship Troopers.

In the future tactics involve running around in large closely packed groups and firing at short range.