Feeding the Blog-Beast

In a comment to my most recent post, drew458 wondered if this blog had died. No it’s not dead, although it’s a little crippled right now. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a crippled blog personified. It’s not a pretty sight. It just lies there in our living room and groans. It’s covered with purplish-green scales with red spots (a truly horrendous color scheme by the way). Every now and again it opens its yellow eyes and balefully stares at us and croaks, "FEED ME." I finally decided to listen and feed the crippled blog-beast.

I’ve been on a vacation from blogging for two primary reasons. The first is that I've said so much already here. I have to rack my brains for new ideas. The second is that my new job involves a lot of writing. When I come home I battle between the thought of writing still more versus the ability to sink into the mind-numbing lethargy of sweet, sweet TV; and oh what a TV--42" of high-def goodness with detail so rich it’s almost disturbing. Who knew that actors don’t have perfect skin even under thick layers of make-up. Whoops, back to blogging, the blog-beast wants more food.

This has been an interesting month for us gunnies with big ups and downs. A big up was the Heller hearing. Although predicting the Supreme Court is never certain, it looks like oral arguments went our way. Of course, some gunnies made the usual complaints, valid as they may be, that Heller will not go far enough in stopping infringements on our rights. Still, if we come out on top, I will cherish the victory and hope we can build on it.

One of the downs was the death of Charlton Heston. I read comments to his obituary in the New York Times. Too many commenters were glad he died and cited his support for gun rights. They have so much hate and yet they believe they're the tolerant, the progressive ones. They can’t even see how bitter they are. They also couldn’t recognize that Heston was continuing a life-long support of civil rights. But, the day that "progressives" recognize firearm ownership as a civil right will be the day the Earth stops spinning.

I had a personal disappointment this month involving guns. I shot Mr. Completely’s e-postal match. I haven’t practiced shooting much recently. I blame two things; the move and that blasted TV set--but oh the colors are so rich and the sound is so good. Sorry, I’m back. Because I’m out of practice, I didn’t shoot that well in the match. While I didn’t screw up badly, I know I’m capable of better. It proves that shooting well is a fragile skill. I need to get to the range more and maybe join a gun club in this area.

Now a word about living in Maryland. The gun laws are not as onerous as I feared, but they could be much better. I haven’t tried to get a carry permit or buy a handgun. My opinion may change should I do either of those things. There’s a lot of room for improvement in the laws and maybe a good result from Heller will lead to that end, unfortunately one lawsuit at a time.

Yosemite Sam and I are looking forward to the NRA convention in mid-May. We plan to attend the Blogger Bash and have registered and got banquet tickets. In order to hold my head high when I get there, I better start feeding the blog-beast more. For right now, it seems to be sated. The colors on its scales have turned to a pretty shade of purple and the red spots are gone. It’s sleeping easily now. No promises, but I hope to start feeding the beast more often.