My house came with a flagpole mount by the front door, and filling it seemed like an obvious thing to do for Memorial Day. Except that the kit sold at Sam’s Club had a 1.25-inch pole and I had a 1-inch mount, so I had to take the old one off and install theirs.

Then I went to Home Depot, and discovered that every flag they sell comes with a 1-inch pole, so if this one ever wears out (and despite being “Made in the USA”, it’s built like Chinese junk), I may have to switch back.

(specifically, the plastic hooks that attach the flag to the pole don’t stay shut, and required a quick application of gaffer tape to keep my flag from ending up several blocks away; I’ll likely end up replacing them with wire)

Long pepper, extra organic

A cookbook I bought my mom recently touted the virtues of long pepper, so I bought some on Amazon, five-star rating, Prime shipping.

When I shook some out into my hand, a live insect was included in the mix. Despite shipping directly from Amazon, this product could not be returned, replaced, or refunded. And Amazon deleted my one-star review for including the “no return/replacement/refund” line.

(…then I ordered from The Spice House, which has never included live bugs in any order…)

Things that make me twitch…

I was at a public indoor pistol range the day before Memorial Day, and there was a grizzled old Marine vet precisely and accurately putting holes in paper with a pistol-caliber carbine. He was in (unofficial) camo covered with USMC and related patches, and he was in the lane to my left. Every once in a while he’d switch guns and fill the center of the target with a single ragged hole with his .22. The range officer was standing a few yards behind him, and the two were discussing their service records as he shot.

That’s the setup. The twitch came when I went to throw away an empty ammo box, and saw his carbine swinging freely from the sling, alternately pointing at his own thigh and the RO’s foot. The RO who was too busy chatting up a fellow vet to do his fucking job.

Usually I’d have made a loud-but-polite request to inform the fool and get the attention of the RO, who’s often at the other end of the range when this sort of thing happens, but given the specific holiday and the fact that the RO was right there, I just casually pointed out the two-for-one deal he had on offer. The carbine was quickly unslung and set down, muzzle downrange.

A spam comment? Here?

Someone spammed the previous post with a sentence that read like it was generated with one of the recent AI chatbots, in order to appear related. But it couldn’t disguise the “career coaching” web site it wanted to send people to…

Comments via Isso

Markdown formatting and simple HTML accepted.

Sometimes you have to double-click to enter text in the form (interaction between Isso and Bootstrap?). Tab is more reliable.