In the early 1990s, I bought a pretty fancy home stereo. And in the mid 1990s I bought a big screen TeeVee. All this stuff now resides in The Play Room. Upstairs in the living room, I have a plasma TeeVee. Anyway, the receiver on my downstairs stereo blew up. And whenever I replace the offending fuse, it blows up again. I figured it’s toast. So, I went to Best Buy (wherein, I got a ticket) to check out getting a new one. Well, this home entertainment stuff is now absolutely and completely different than when I last bought any thing. I mean, I stared at the offerings with literally dumbfounded amazement and had no idea what I was even looking at. I’m guessing in the next bit, I’ll have to upgrade in addition to buying a new receiver. So, I figured I’d go ahead and get something compatible with potential future upgrades because my downstairs TeeVee (while quite nice) is old.

So, is there any sort of Post 1990s Home Entertainment For Dummies? I mean, what should I get? How much should I expect to shell out? Anything that’s a waste of money? I really am clueless.

Update: Oops. Apparently, I closed comments by mistake.

Ask, and ye shall receive.

I’ve mentioned before that a number of years ago, I played in a band. I was inspired when Rich posted videos of Barry‘s band. With youtube, bandwidth is infinite and free. So, here’s a song we did a number of years ago (2001ish, IIRC) complete with a static picture of a bunny with a pancake on its head. And who doesn’t like bunnies and pancakes? The bunny doesn’t actually do anything. Just listen. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Sharon and David (kinda heavy metalish):

Feel free to offer accolades or tell them they suck. Just tell them why. Enjoy. Or not.

Making the stock look pretty.

Jake Drew:

How does a gun make anyone feel safer? Please – I dare anyone out there to explain it to me.

They don’t make me feel safer. The actually do make me safer. Feelings have nothing to do with it.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation says California’s microstamping scheme is Tantamount to Gun Ban. Yeah, it is. That’s why they’re doing it.

Various carry weapons from HL.

In light of all the talk résumés about Bitter emails this:

“Résumé,” by the way, is a French word with both “Es” accented, and literally means “summary.” In English one often sees it without the accents, or with only the second accent, neither of which is a serious error. But if you’re trying to show how multilingual you are, remember the first accent.

Kinda sad when police officers parrot Brady talking points.

I guess we’re all immigrants. Even the trees. Via Chris.

The universe continues to piss me off.

The Mrs. called to inform me that:

At Target, Code Yellow means lost child.

Dr. Helen:

For those of you who don’t know me, I am a psychologist specializing in forensic issues, with a private practice in Knoxville, Tennessee and a blogger at drhelen.blogspot.com. My main interests are men’s issues, the influence of pop culture on society, forensic psychology, teens and kids who are violent, podcasting and filmmaking.

“Ask Dr.Helen” will be an interactive column with a question and answer format—you may ask me questions that have been haunting you or that you are just plain curious about that are relevant to your life, your thoughts, your love life, or about pop culture or society in general. I will answer some of the questions in this column as space provides. I would also welcome comments from readers that may add to, or expand upon my answers or you can just tell me how wrong you think I am and why – politely, please! This column is for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not purport to replace therapy or psychological treatment.

I’ll start: So, Dr. Helen, as a gun owner, am I a psycho?

I wrote before that:

I hop on YouTube on occasion to watch old music videos and the like. And I search for songs for which I have never seen the video.

One of my favorite bands is Machine Head. I never knew that they had videos for their first album. But they did. However, the reason that I did not know that was because in the mid-90s, MTV wouldn’t play their video because the song was called Davidian and contained the lyrics Let freedom ring with a shotgun blast. So says Wikipedia. The singer, though, says the song is not about Waco.

Any way, here’s the video.

Sad, but true.

Tom nails it. The impact of TeeVee on culture is strong, particularly when subtle.

Seems the Incumbent Protection Act took a bit of hit. Seems four judges never heard of the first amendment. And three judges say the prior case is crap.

Good.

I’m only one generation away from what is basically poor white trash. And sometimes it shows. To wit:

So, Sunday, with the Mrs. gone, the kids were playing in the kiddie pool. We wrapped up, went inside for a bit. Then both kids wanted to go back to the pool. I’d already cleaned up swim wear and towels and stuff. And my backyard is pretty private. So, I just took the kids’ clothes off and let them splash around naked. In a kiddie pool. While I drank beer. And I thought to myself Self, this is pretty white trashy. But at least my beer was Stella Artois and not Natural Light.

Also, the Second had a big weekend. Among his firsts: can get up stairs, can high five, and I retired the bath seat.

Seems the state of Tennessee will soon require ID for all alcoholic beverage purchases. Wow. Isn’t it already illegal to sell to underage people?

Via Robb, how much fat it takes to stop a bullet.

Ricky hangs it up.

Own guns, you’re a psycho.

Tennis anyone?

The press, that is. Seems a law firm is requesting information through the Freedom of Information Act on Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Gun group. So, there must be an evil gun lobby conspiracy lead by those extremists at the NRA. Oh, wait. No evidence the NRA is involved? Well, let’s run with it any way.

And even if the NRA is involved, who cares? Transparency and all that, right?

So, I got this Windows Movie Maker. It only saves files as .wma, which sucks. Any way to change that? If not, any other good (preferably downloadable) video editing software that you recommend?

This time, in Ohio.

Update: Meanwhile, some journalists ponder the ethics of such a decision:

I’m trying to think of a scenario where I would approve such a list being published. I’ll get back to you if one comes to mind.

and

I could only see doing it if there were a controversy over who was receiving gun permits. For instance, only political favorites. Similarly, we might run a list of people receiving bowhunting licenses, or dock permits or chiropractic licenses or whatever. But I don’t see a reason for running the list gratuitiously without a news peg.

Over at the Brady Blog, Paul Helmke notes a particularly nasty comment he received:

Paul you are a Hypocrite and a Liar, Why don’t you face facts. The Brady Bunch is little more than a Mouth Piece for the ACLU, and the Ultra liberal Wing of the Democratic Party. That the Brady Bunch is a thinly veiled “Hate group” that advocates the methods of the brown shirts, of Nazi Germany in 1933.

This is a prime example of how not to win. When you pull a Godwin, any point you may have made or wanted to make is lost by the utter stupidity of your statement. I’ve referenced this type of rhetoric before (see here and here). You’re not helping. So knock it off. But, Mr. Helmke, here’s the deal: Your side is guilty of abandoning reasoned discourse. For example, when you reference the NRA as the extremist gun lobby, you are being patently dishonest. There has been no federal gun law passed in this country that the NRA did not allow. The NRA supports the pending NICS improvement bill. The NRA supports background checks. The NRA supports registration of NFA weapons. The NRA allowed the ban on weapons that look like assault weapons to pass because it wanted the instant check system more. The NRA is not extremist. I, however, am. And referring to those who engage in lawful commerce as rogue is quite disingenuous as well.

Now, while I do not advocate calling them Nazis, liar is spot on. If we’re going to have reasoned discourse, great. But lying is also not acceptable in reasoned discourse, Mr. Helmke. You know, like the time your organization lied about an Al Qaeda training manual mentioning lax US gun control. Or the time you lied and said the NRA was pushing handgun carry at colleges. Or when you’re lying when you make reference to cop killer bullets, assault weapons, blood in the street, gun show loophole. Or the time you lied about Jim Zumbo and Ceasefire Maryland’s bogus study. Or the time you lied about trace data and endorsed law-breaking. Or lied about how the assault weapons ban banned AK-47s. Or lied about how you don’t want to ban guns but want merely want reasonable restrictions. Or how you lied about how more guns increase crime. Or the time you lied about Florida’s castle doctrine bill. And the time you lied about police officers supporting gun control by adding their name to a letter without their permission. Note: I could go on but that’s just the first three pages of my archives.

It’s either lying or the most prolonged case of willful ignorance I’ve ever seen.

Any way, you guys stop lying and maybe then we can talk about reasoned discourse. And I promise not to call you a Nazi.

Update: Haha: At Least We Don’t Have to Pay Our Bozos

Update 2: Seems the commentators over there are having trouble locating the particular comment that Helmke is referring to. Could be that it doesn’t exist but the more likely explanation is that they cull their comments.

At gunbloggers.com, a gun round up.

Alleged civil rights leaders not so fond of civil rights:

Two of the city’s best-known activists wound up in police custody Saturday after a protest against gun violence outside a suburban gun store.

Revs. Jesse Jackson and Michael Pfleger, a South Side priest, were arrested about 1:30 p.m. for trespassing outside Chuck’s Gun Shop in south suburban Riverdale, authorities said.

You’ll recall that Michael Pfleger was the one who said we should kill gun shop owners and is very likely violating the laws pertaining to the tax status of his church. And Jesse Jackson is supposedly a civil rights leader, which is odd because he agrees that blacks should be disarmed and disarming blacks was the reason for the earliest gun control laws in this country.

Joe says It’s a start: I think they should be charged with 18 USC 241

Update: Don’t tell Jesse about these guys.

People often say to me Hey, Uncle, what’s your problem with a lot of these gun laws people are trying to pass these days? And I say Well, anymore, all these laws do are target the law-abiding, who are, despite the claims of some, not inclined to go shooting people. So, they’re rather pointless. To illustrate:

Gov. M. Jodi Rell has approved a new law that will penalize gun owners if they fail to report lost or stolen firearms to police within 72 hours. …

Under the new law, a first-time failure to report a lost or stolen gun within 72 hours of discovering it is missing is an infraction, punishable by a fine up to $90. Any subsequent, unintentional failure to report a lost or stolen gun is a felony that carries a prison sentence of up to five years and a fine of up to $5,000.

If gun owners intentionally fail to report lost or stolen guns, they could be sent to prison for up to 10 years.

Wow. Punishing lawful gun owners. That’s real smart. What if Joe Gun Owner is out of town and someone breaks in?

Punishing the otherwise law-abiding is easy. After all, they don’t shoot back. And going after people who do shoot back is hard.

Now that’s funny.

Two mounted together.