Be on notice that Jim at the AmericanMercenaryBlog is a proud father of a 7lb 11oz baby boy.
We here at RNS would like to congratualte him and his wife on their becoming first time parents and are sending them all the good wishes we can send their way.
If you would like to do so yourself, you should hit the above link and meander on over.
In contrast to the dreck below, I give you this:
The result here is a lot like the Smoking Popes’ one-hit wonder “I Need You Around,” below. I love that song. The first time I heard it, I thought somebody’d taken an old Sammy Davis, Jr. hit and backed the vocal with a quadruple-time driving punk guitar. Click “Play” below, close your eyes through the first minute, and when the vocal hits, tell me you don’t hear Sammy crooning! I’m still surprised nobody’s run with that idea. Remix a bunch of Sammy and Sinatra to sound like this, and I’d buy it and play ’em all day long. Maybe Microsoft Songsmith will make it happen.
Actually, this is pretty cool technology — input a vocal track, your own or somebody else’s — and Microsoft adds the backing tracks it thinks would be appropriate. The results are… interesting. You gotta admit they’re catchy.
Actually, that version of “Tom Sawyer” is growing on me.
h/t: Volokh. Click for some really interesting ruminations on copyright law in the light of this.
Per my conversation with the local store this afternoon, Costco apparently has discontinued their Kirkland “house brand” canned roast beef. It was excellent-quality lean Brazilian beef, and I like eating it straight from the can, or as a base for other meals. Plus, the price could not be beat: $10.99 for six 12.5-ounce cans. That’s $0.146 per ounce. (Bear in mind some of that, unavoidably, is water weight.)
Kirkland still has their canned chicken, but I’m guessing that’s going away soon too.
Looking around for replacements for the beef, I see my local Safeway has NOTHING comparable (corned beef is NOT the same). However, Hormel canned roast beef (with gravy, probably making it less useful as a generic base meat) is at my local Albertson’s for $4.99 per can (!!!) or $0.416 per ounce. No, thank you! Wal-Mart might have it cheaper, but of the many Wal-Marts in the nine-county SF Bay Area, none indicate that they have it in stock, and when I 
called Martinez’ store twice to ask if it was there I waited ten minutes on hold both times before giving up.
Sam’s Club? They’ve got Manco roast beef, which looks promising, but when you click on it it’s NOT AVAILABLE. Grrr….
Well, how about online sources? This site has a variety of nicely packaged canned meats, without gravy — and they’ve got both canned roast beef and canned ground beef! However, the price is $62.99 for 12 14-ounce cans, or $0.374 per ounce. Once shipping’s included I’d be better off buying it from Albertson’s. Grrrr….
Hmm, this looks like it might work! From MREDepot.com, Yoder’s canned beef, at $74.99 for 12
28-ounce cans. That’s $0.223 per ounce, the closest so far to Costco’s price. The larger cans aren’t as handy as the 12.5-ounce tins, but still a manageable size for a meal for a single person or two folks. (If you had to open a can in an emergency situation, I’m presuming no refrigeration would be available, so you’d have to eat it all right then.)
But wait…. let’s look at the label, shall we?
I’m always suspicious of something that has a gigantic percentage of calories from fat. In a 56-gram serving of Yoder’s, you get 8 grams of protein, and 82% of calories from fat.
Look at Kirkland’s label in comparison (below the fold): same serving size, 9 grams of protein, but only 20% of calories from fat. 2 grams of fat versus 15 for Yoder’s. Lean beef vs. fatty beef, I suppose.
OTOH, you need a source of fat in your diet anyway, especially in a survival situation where most of your diet’s naturally gonna be carbs.
Yoder’s seems to be a survival staple on lots of storage-food sites. I like that it’s made by Amish folks.
Anybody tried the Yoder’s meat? Like, dislike?
From William Shirer’s Berlin Diary. This entry was during the German invasion of Poland, shortly after war rationing had been implemented in Germany (to much grumbling among the Germans, Shirer noticed).
BERLIN, September 16 [1939]
… An American woman I know bought a tin of sardines today. The grocer insisted on opening the can in the shop. Reason: you can’t hoard tinned food if your grocer opens it first.
We restocked our seven-day car food kits today at Costco, but I was shocked to see that they didn’t have any of the excellent Kirkland canned beef on the shelves. This is disturbing; I’m completely out of that stuff and was intending to stock up over the next couple months.
I’m still working on my mancave garage library, but this fellow has got his work-from-home space done right:
All that in an attic, folks! Would be a good blueprint for a TEOTWAWKI tv/satellite/radio monitoring and comms station, too, come to think of it….
On the range. Where the Glocks and 1911’s they play. Where point and click happens and the paper targets we’re cappin’ and I brought enough ammo for all day!
I’m packing the range bag and ammo can for range day with the co-workers. We’ll be at Champion Arms when the doors open. If you’re near Kent and want to join us, feel free to do so. Just look for the Teamster lookin’ dudes and that’ll be us. If you’re not near Kent, you should go to the range you are near.
I have a new favorite beer that’ll sit very well right alongside my Oaked Arrogant Bastard Ale.
It is from Dick’s Brewery in Centralia, WA and it is his original Dick’s Danger Ale. I really liked his seasonal Double Diamond Winter Ale, but this Danger Ale is kicking my ass even harder.
I’ll be going to the gunshow at the SW Washington Fairgrounds, also in Centralia, on the 14th of March and I may just stop into Dick’s and grab me a case of this stuff while I’m in town.
Also found in my new hometown via Dick’s website was Tacoma Pipe and Tobacco and World Beers. I don’t normally venture into that part of town simply because it is inconvenient and overly busy. But I think I’m going to make an exception.
Those of y’all who are going to be visiting the area in the not too distant future (you know who you are) might do well to look into their selection and let me know ahead of time if there is something you’ll want me to pick up for you. Their product list section is currently under development, but give them a jingle about that which you are looking for.
You get a bunch of Boomershoot Pics at once today, because I missed a day or two being sick and dealing with some other stuff.
Of course, the legs from this bench are currently on the Boomershoot Shooting Desk, so I’ll have to head down to the local hardware store for some replacement parts. Neat thing, since Squeaky’s right-handed and I’m not, is that the benchtop just flips to become right-handed, and I’ll bolt the legs in from the other side.I’m honored
It’s times like this that remind me of the differences between “conservatives” and “libertarians”. Conservatives are, through no fault of their own, grim social maladroits incapable of thinking or drawing outside of the lines, constricted as they are by child-like notions of “that’s the way it always been”, “different = wrong”, and whatever religious hoodoo was drummed into their inelastic brains during their joyless and awkward adolescence.
Libertarians, on the other hand, are just assholes.
I surely feel the same way about “progressives”.
