Erik Geiger's Blog

Today is a perfect fall day in Wisconsin. The sky is blue and cloudless, the sun is bright and warm and the air has a cool snap to it as crisp as the skin of a Macintosh apple. As I was driving in this morning, I looked over my left shoulder and saw a pea souper of a fog bank hanging over Cherokee Marsh. Realizing that I still had Tsurasa's Digital camera, I snapped a couple of photos. At least, I thought I did.
In fact, I had left the camera in video mode the night before, so instead of the lovely hi-res photo I'd been hoping for, I got a few seconds of video. Here's a low-res still I grabbed that shows what I saw.

Click on the thumbnail to see the full size image.
It may have been a disappointment in terms of resolution, but it does show the vivid colors that are one of the things that make fall in Wisconsin my favorite set of coordinates in the space / time continuum.

A long time cow-orker of mine and Tsurasa's is departing this week. His LTE contract ran out, and was not renewed for budgetary reasons. He opted for a lunch outing to Hooters to commemorate his departure, so to Hooters we went.
The food was pretty good, the service was better.
Our waitress was working on us to buy the $12.95 Hooters calendar. She brought one over to the table and handed it to Tsurasa to look at. I think she singled him our by his age, and the lack of a ring on the third finger of his left hand. She pointed out the photo local woman who'd made the calendar. She leant on him, and called him "Honey" telling him to stop back any time to pick one up.
"I think she likes me" he said after she'd left.
I told him he should have made a move, but he demurred.
Later, back at the office, I asked him if he'd really been into "Cher", and he looked at me blankly, not recognizing the name. "Our waitress at Hooters", I prompted him.
"Oh", he replied, "I didn't notice her name tag."
At this point, our cube neighbor Reid started cracking up, having a pretty good idea of what he had noticed. It's not called "Hooters" for nothing, after all.

I got my free, signed copy of Cerebus last night. It was signed not just by Dave Sim, but also by his partner in art, Gerhard. Here's a picture of it, followed by one of the accompanying form letter. Click on the thumbnails to view the full sized images:

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I recently bought Tsurasa Sarake's Palm Tungsten C. I'm lovin' it. It was a huge upgrade from my venerable Handspring Visor. I bought the Visor in 1999, after a trip to France where I saw my co-workers entertaining themselves on a train trip, playing head-to-head games over and IrDA connection. About a year ago, I picked up an 8 meg Visor Deluxe motherboard and swapped the old 2 meg motherboard out, eking another year of use out of it. I got several years of good use out of it, and it is still in service, though with a new owner.
The Tungsten C has a very sharp hi-res screen, and, coolest of cool, built in WiFi. The WiFi may be marginal for web browsing, but it is so sweet to be able to hotsynch to my office desktop PC via WiFi. Also, the included Printboy software lets me print from my PDA to our office printers via WiFi.
I said above that the Palm is marginal for web browsing, and this is true for the Palm OS web browser, but Avantgo does a great job of rendering web sites for the Palm screen. All I have to do is set up a custom AG channel for a given web site, and it immediately becomes 50% more usable. And, AG synchs wirelessly!

I agree with Tim MacMurray and other authorities that the Crosman 600s are very well engineered pistols that are a great deal of fun. I have had mine for three of four months. I sent it off to Dave Gunter for a performance tune and got it back last week. Velocity is around 410 fps with RWS Hobby pellets, which feed very reliably.

Dave remarked that mine was one of the nicer ones he's seen, not only in terms of condition, but also in terms of factory production standards. Evidently the quality of the 600s varied pretty widely - the casting method used for the frames often resulted in warping. Dave valued mine at $200.00, without a box or other materials.

However, and I may be alone in this, I prefer my first model 38T, also rebuilt by Dave Gunter. This gun is worth about $60.00.

Its performance is much the same as the 600s in terms of velocity - the chrony tape that Dave sent me shows numbers in the high 300s or low 400s depending on the pellets used, but the 600 was chronied at 75 degrees, and the 38T at 70 degress, so the disparity would be even less at the same temperature, and may disappear entirely. I get 30 shots per cart from the 600 and 50-60 from the 38T.

While I am not personally capable of achieving this rate of fire, Ed McGivern and Jerry Miculek have shown us that a double action revolver is actuallly faster than a semi-auto. Anybody read Fast and Fancy Revolver Shooting by McGivern? He once fired 5 shots into a playing card in 2/5 of a second, at a range of 18 feet. That simply can't be done with a semi auto.

My 38T is more accurate than my 600. I don't know if this is typical, but my experience is that for my 600, 1 to 1.5 inch groups are the norm. My 38T's groups are less than half that size.

I realize that the 600 is capable of being tuned to better accuracy and higher velocities, which leads me to the area where the 600 really shines - after market modification. You simply can't easily mod the 38T to the degree that you can the 600.
There can be no high capacity, helical magazines for a 38T.
Bulking a 38T is possible, but not as easy as a 600. No dedicated bulk is possible because there is no gas tube on the 38T.
No factory should stocks exist for either, but the 1399 stock can be fitted to the 600.
A custom stock could be made for the 38T, but that's a lot more time and trouble.
The two are about even in terms of fitting after market optics, the 38T might even have an edge, since if you have one of the early models, you can use Smith and Wesson mounts on it without altering the pistol.

But taking two stock examples of these guns, ultimately for me the matter of a difference of a few FPS or a few fractions of an inch in groups is not the deciding factor. The repeating mechanism of the 38T is simpler, more robust and reliable than the 600. It is also insensitive to pellet type - pointed, domed flat head, they all feed equally well. My 600 will only feed domes and flats. Some only work with flats.
I guess my preference is based on the old revolver versus semi-auto arguments that have existed in centerfire shooting for a century. I don't expect anyone to agree with me, except maybe other revolver lovers, and I respect and understand the opinions of those who prefer the 600, but I prefer my 38T.

It's been years since I first read Frank Miller's graphic novel Sin City. But with all the news surrounding the forthcoming film, including the very cool looking Comic-Con promo trailer, I decided to revisit it. I'm happy to say that my view of it has not changed.
Sin City is an awesome fucking book. Miller tells a simple story in a stark and violent manner that complements the black and white art.
The illustrations are linear, so much so they resemble wood block prints, a comparision that calls to mind Ukiyoe.
It's no accident that Miller created Sin City after he did the cover art for the American reprint editions of Lone Wolf and Cub, a manga that owed a stylistic debt to Ukiyoe.
Characters are also rendered strongly and simply. Marv is nearly an elemental force. Goldie is a Goddess. Kevin and Roark are pure evil and corruption respectively.

If you haven't read Sin City, do it now. Walk away from the PC, go to Border's, your friendly neighborhood comic shop, the library, where-ever and get your sweaty mitts on a copy. Be sure to have at least an hour free, and don't read it in public lest your evil sounding cackles and whoops cause passers by to wonder about your sanity.

That Dave Sim is cool and funny, I've known for years. That he's also quite generous, I did not know, though it's no particular surprise, either.
He recently offered to send to all who requested one a free, autographed copy of one of the comics in his Sandman parody series from his own comic, Cerebus.
His original offer can be read on Neil Gaiman's blog entry from August 2, 2004
The only catch, and it wasn't much of one, is that the requests had to be submitted via the regular mail system, that is snail-mail, not e-mail. Evidently he was interested in seeing how many folks would respond if they to do more than click on a browser link. He's received over a thousand responses so far, and has been very generous in his replies. A few lucky folks have received not just a single issue, but an entire graphic novel, autographed not just by Sim, but by his partner in collaboration on much of the Cerebus series, Gerhard.
I am a long time fan of Cerebus, so I sent the following letter:

Erik Geiger

XXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXX



Aardvark Vanaheim, Inc

P.O. Box 1674 Station C

Kitchener, Ontario, Canada N2G 4R2



Dave,

I love Cerebus, especially Melmoth.



I read of your offer on Neil Gaiman's blog, to respond to a

snail mail request with a free signed copy of one of the 

Sandman parody issues of Cerebus.  Please, if you are willing, 

send me one.



I am also very fond of Neil Gaiman's work.  I realized recently 

that he has moved into a certain niche in my reading habits 

formerly occupied by Roger Zelazny.  I suspect it is simply that 

their works both satisfy my desire to read mythopoeic fiction 

with a strong narrative drive, well constructed plots, memorable 

characters and witty dialog.  

Now that I think about it, these are all things about Cerebus that

appeal to me as well.



In return, please accept my offer to buy you an apricot brandy and 

a raw potato, should you ever come to or near Madison, Wisconsin, USA.



Thanks in advance,

Erik Geiger





P.S. Did you know that "Tarim" is the name of a town in Yemen that known as

the ancient capital of the Hradamount Kingdom?

If I'm lucky, my letter will arrive on a slow day, when he has few other replies to make. Then I might get a personalized reply like this one, to "Manuscript" Winckelman.
Whatever response I get, I will post here.