Fuck no, it can’t end here. He hasn’t told me his recipes yet.
And cards, you make a good point about doves. Skeet don’t cut.
Nah. I got it the first time. Thought it was funny too.
DaLovin’ Dj
what kind of beer?
Don’t fall for it, Scylla! If you say Coor’s Lite you’ll invalidate everything you’ve said! I’d make a joke about silver bullets, dead doves, and russian weapons, but I’m afraid I’d offend somebody.
Coors Lite is swill. We call it lake water around here cause that’s what a normal beer tastes like if you open it and dip it in a lake before drinking.
DaLovin’ Dj
Thanks for the insight into a hunters head, scylla. I have come around quite aways about hunting thanks to the folks who share their stories of real sportsmanship, I get a monthly magazine from Michigan United Conservation Club that is about hunting and with a strong emphasis on stewardship of Michigans’ natural resources. Still, I feel a bit angry about the others in your hunting party. I see the same gross greedy attitude in this area too.
BTW Doves are not a game bird in Michigan yet!
My father and my brother are both big-time hunters… and being the bookish one in the family, I felt somewhat left out. I like shooting guns (and, much to the ire of my father and brother, I have always been able to out shoot them. I inherited my grandfather’s shooting ability, it seems, and he was on the Army’s sharp-shooting team…), I like being out in nature, I like meat, and I like animals… for some reason, though, I never had the desire to combine all of these likes into what to some might seem to be the naturally occuring hobby of hunting.
But still, I felt left out.
So one autumn when I was in high school (was it autumn? I think it was… Not sure… it was a LONG time ago…), back when we lived in SE Pennsylvania, I decided to go along with dad and bro and take up hunting. For, you guessed it, doves. (As an aside, let me assure you, the reader, that this is in fact a true story. Not a parody, or anything else.) I took a hunter safety course, had a small disagreement with the instructor, but passed none-the-less.
So I went dove hunting.
Our father equipped us with a 12-gauge shotgun and a 20-gauge shotgun, and a box of birdshot each… my brother and I exited the house, and waded into the cornfields surrounding our house, looking for a likely spot for the soon to occur slaughter.
We happened upon a clearing amidst the corn stalks; an area perhaps 200 yards long, and 150 yards wide. Consulting, we decided that we could easily cover all four cardinal directions if we took position at opposing ends of this clearing and faced each other. We did so post-haste.
Once in position, we readied ourselves. I could see my bro, facing me about 200 yards away, loading up and getting ready to shoot. I followed his lead, and loaded my weapon.
Suddenly, as I was in the midst of loading my shotgun, I saw my brother bring his gun to his shoulder and track… he fired.
He missed! But a second or so later, I heard a soft pitter-patter amidst the corn behind me and to my left. What the hell?
After a moments contemplation, I realized that this pitter-patter was no naturally occurring rain… it was the lead shot from my brother’s shotgun falling into the corn behind me!
‘You DICKHEAD!’ I thought, and raised my weapon in answer. I judged most carefully, and calculated (guessed) the angle above my brother’s head which would result in him hearing the same pitter-patter of lead shot falling about him, and fired!
I must have come close, because he soon retaliated. I again heard lead shot falling into the corn…
Rinse and repeat several times, and we returned home perhaps 30 minutes later, having burned through 2 boxes of shotgun shells. Without a single dove.
I don’t recall what we told dad about the ammo… but that was the last time I went hunting. Apathy won out in the end.
There must be a lesson there somewhere; but frankly, I don’t really care what it is. Experience is its own reward.
“Let’s go kill stuff! Wheeeeee!”
I don’t get it. I don’t want to get it.
Sure wish the doves could shoot back.
It’s official. He’s in the middle of a meltdown. His next post will be 6000 words and be entitled ‘Of Time Cube and Vipers.’
I disagree esvee - this is not a melt down.
this is an acknowledgement that words on a screen can be taken in many ways, and that fact should always enter into the equation for all concerned.
I’ve been agitated by the Viper thread for awhile now, until I saw this. I had even contemplated starting my own thread, but did not fearing I couldn’t articulate myself well enough. I’m going to try now, here, because if you read the OP and understand it, at least how it relates to doves, then you might understand this.
The point of my ire are these little blue and white placards, or their fellow license plates. “Handicaped” is a phrase which has been abused worse than “minority” lately, and all in the name of good intentions. Lets look for a moment, and bear with me here, at these placards like affirimitive action. I’m sure many of you have opinions about affirmitive action, and they’ll fall all over the spectrum. The important thing is that I’ll bet the majority of you can agree that affirmitive action has to be handled very carefully (if at all), and that current politics aren’t doing it right.
I feel like, reading the recent threads, that handicaped people are being stamped “disabled” on the forehead and sent on their way. Some people are their champions, some feel disgruntled. Overall, I don’t feel it’s being fair to anyone who is “handicaped.” Break a leg, you can be issued a placard. Paraplegic? Here’s your placard. Can you really clasify these people the same way? Is deaf the same as blind? Temporary injury, permanent disability, congenital defect, all of these and more get lumped together as “handicaped.”
Whoever drove that viper, it’s not enough they drive that particular car for someone to assume anything about them as a person any more than a placard. Scylla, I think you understand this and I feel the error you made was in not understanding your audience when you posted the Viper thread. The reaction worries me even more. Righteous indignation from people with real disabilites, or their loved ones, is one thing (and what I refer to by misunderstanding one’s audience - I think the corollary made earlier about Scylla’s hands is a valid one), but the reaction of “you just can’t say that” really bothers me.
Once again, Scylla summed it up best. Is it OK to make these comments if one is handicapped? I feel “handicapped” is too much of a blanket statement, a badge some people are forced to wear. Making any sort of assumptions, like “they’ll be offended by this” or “if they can do this they’re not that” is being unfair. Being handicapped or disabled is unfair enough to begin with, let’s please not add to it by generalizing. It just leaves the bad taste of political correctness in my mouth.
inkblot
Lovely essay, Scylla, despite Word being annoying.
As for the Viper post, my opinion of it isn’t really important, but I took it in a spirit of self-deprecating gallows humor. Folks who blew up at you about it didn’t take it that way, but I think that’s a problem of miscommunication.
Daniel
Zette:
Thank you very much. I’m sorry my post offended you. I hope you will reconsider what you’ve decided about my posting abou the disabled, and read again if I do.
I guess one of the reasons I reacted as I did is because I am not insensitive about disabled issues, and I felt it cheapened to have to defend myself on that. My post was about a car and jealousy, and those base emotions that just jump up when you are not thinking.
But, I’ll tell you about my experience with disabilities if you’d like to here. Twenty years ago, I got burned and lost the complete use of my hands for six weeks, and lived in constant pain. I couldn’t scratch an itch, and needed somebody to hold my member while I peed. I couldn’t get dressed. It was a full year before it wasn’t a major issue to get through the daily activities of life.
But, I knew I would get better, and that was with me all of the time. That this will end, and I will be normal again. That made all the difference. It was also a very clear difference both in the burn unit and in rehab. The people who were going to get better were a different group from the people for whom every day from now on was going to be as bad as this one.
In the last year and a half I’ve donated a horse and time to a hippotherapy program at a nearby riding college. I’ve put these kids on horses who can’t walk or are severely retarded, or who live by dialysis and I’ve taught them to ride and control a half of animal.
And, I felt like to have to explain this, or to say how it somehow relates to me cheapens these things.
Sometimes I am a good person when I try hard. Most of the time I’m pretty much a selfish asshole, though.
But, I donated a horse in one context, and regarded that Viper in another. I felt pretty free to rag on the Viper thing, because, after all, it was a Viper. Ultimately it was only a car that I saw never a person, and I thought this kind of gave me some kind of exception.
(Apparently the Viper exception is not valid, as I’ve learned to my sorrow)
Anyway, my attitudes and my own worth or not defined by either of those contexts. The fact is that I have attitudes across the whole sprectrum. So, I would ask that that the next time I write or talk about something, that you look at it fresh again. Maybe if I do, you might like what I write.
Or maybe not.
But thanks for coming back and saying what you did.
Let’s see here, essvee muffin and maybe some others who are nasty:
Things can be said in many contexts, but I have a specific one in mind for you guys:
I’ve already offered you a dove.
Can you think of another way to put that particular phrase?
Reflect on the happy pun, and there’s your context.
<Delurk>
Totally off topic
The reason you get it?s instead of it’s (etc) is because of a wonderous M$ Word thingy called “smart quotes”. Instead of using the standard ANSI ’ symbol, they use some wonderous other critter, which comes out as a ? when an ANSI-only interface tries to interpret it. Turn off smartquotes (Tools>>autocorrect>>autoformat>>uncheck smart quotes), and presto zap problem solved.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming of Scylla flaming and/or praising and/or grovelling before.
<Relurk and vanis
Scylla, your propensity for shitting on others was more than adequately demonstrated in your viper thread. No need to continue in that vein. It is not becomming.
Sorry. I said “Pun.”
I think you’re attempting metaphor.
Scylla,
I get it.
I got it on the Viper thread, too.
Loved the doves.
Keep the rest of your handicapped stories way deep inside you, man, you deserve it. Far better that a bunch of internet yahoos think you are a jerk, than that you wear out the feelie parts of a treasure in your memory.
I won’t park in the handicapped space when I am driving a whole bus load of folks in wheelchairs. Too stinking proud, and I don’t need it.
Tris
Way to drop some knowledge, Plavacek. That’s what I love about this place. No matter what’s going on you learn something. I myself knew of the dreaded phenomenon that is MS-Word Autocorrect. It kills me sometimes. Got a question though.
When at the office I have had several occaisions were I went in to turn off autocorrect features. For example, I often type “Portfolio Manager” or “Portfolio Assistant” as the abbrievieted “PM” or "PA’. Word decides this should only have one capital letter and lowers the second case (the case of the second letter that is) until I tell it not to. So I end up with a page full of “Pa” and “Pm” errors. So I go in and turn this part of autocorrect off, finish the work for the day without this pain, logout and get back to my harem in Brooklyn. But when I come back in to work and log back in the damn feature is turned back on. Is there something I need to click along the lines of a “Save Settings on Close” type of box? Or is it because the network automatically updates files all over the PC at night (resulting in some random Word autocorrect settings file being reset)? If you know I’d appreciate it. It’s not like it takes a long time to fix, but it just bugs me. How many damn times do I have to tell it to knock that shit off?
Any way . . . nice delurk. Eliminated some ignorance and did so in a polite, informative, and helpful tone. I’lll be watching for your future posts!
DaLovin’ Dj
Apology accepted, and I appreciate that you read my post and understood my point of view.
So this is what it sounds like when doves cry.