Friday Night thread - 16th December

[Cubster]

I do think the deadly little-toe-assaulting-doorframe is a much underrated weapon designed to cripple and force shocking expletives from its victim, especially on chilly nights and mornings as you shuffle blearily to the toilet.

[Parus Ater]

The three most painful things in human history are standing on a plug, standing on lego and kneeling on a countersunk flat head screw while DIYing.

[BigMike]

4, washing up kitchen knives without due care and attention!

[Cubster]

I mashed up my fingers once when using an electric plane. It must've hit a knot or something because it bucked into the air and for no good reason I can think of, I put my hand on the underside to steady it.

There's a horrible few moments of uncertainty between feeling the sharp snatch at your digits, scampering to the sink, shouting for the wife to bring plasters ... actually babe, have we got any bandages? ... and seeing the pasty white edges of the chewed up flesh begin to seep, then flow red under the running water.

Luckily I got away without cutting any tendons.

[Parus Ater]

Sounds more painful than Lego.

I built a computer the other week and during benchmarking I kept catching my knuckles in the fans. That was sore. Not up to planing myself but I am a wimp.

[grant]

Sorry all for the post about gone shooting. Did not mean to bein up the gun debate. Just had a fun day in lieu of painting. For the record, I am not a gun owner, mostly for fear of what some dingbat could do if they somehow got their hands on my gun. Regardless of safety precautions, there is always some doorknob out there.

I won't post about the range day again. Exeunt...

[Parus Ater]

You don't have to feel like that, mate. We're all interested and it wasn't you that brought it up.
Any idea on the year of the 1911?

[Invisible officer]

But Grant, apologising for having fun on a range, that's realy bad.

The life is risky, but modern people often want to get everything possibly risky forbidden. Those not wanting a car claim that private car owning should be forbidden because of the many many dead and those not wanting arms .... That's modern democracy. Someting I don't want must not be permitted to others. Be carefull friends, our miniatures are next.

No comment on that fleamarket law? Guess you think that was a joke, no friends. It is true. In the centre of Berlin there is a local ban in 2011 to sell Wargaming products on that one fleamarket. Because some well meaning people want to protect children from the bad influence of wargaming. You think that will never happen with shops or Internet selling?

Ask the smokers. They thought so too in 1980
Or ask the gaming clubs that get no public rooms to hire for shows in 2011. Not only on the continent, in UK that happened too.

[Cubster]

I won't post about the range day again. Exeunt...

Hey, I use to love the shooting range, popping away with the .303 Enfield, SA80, Sterling, 9mm Browning and various .22 rifles. Don't get me wrong, having firearms on a range is something very separate in my opinion, because they and the ammo are locked away in a very secure location. My opinions are very much coloured by the society - cultural and geographical - I have been brought up in.

For many people in the UK (especially rurally), owning a gun is necessary for their profession or for maintaining the land. A few of my mates owned guns in Wiltshire for shooting vermin, either because local farmers hired them or to go and get their lunch! I stayed in a ski lodge in Canada with a guy who was ex-SAS and worked as a ranger in and around Fernie. He would regularly go out hunting for food or (more rarely) to deal with a dangerous animal spotted too near the human population. When we were staying with him he warned us against going outside after dark because a cougar had been spotted in the area sat in trees watching the local schoolkids. I was very glad to have him and his various shooty things under the same roof.

But I am very much against the idea of gun ownership for fun (if kept in the home) or for home defence, especially in an urban setting. It is very difficult to try to transplant a idea from one society to another and make an accurate comparison, but if we look at the sort of violent crime we have in the UK compared to the US, for example, you can get an idea what the prevalence of guns does to death rates. We do have knife crime in the UK, but it is blessedly rare, mostly in gang related incidents and it is very rare for there to be more than a single victim from any one incident.

[Invisible officer]

Hope nobody got me wrong, arms control is necessary. I have a collectors licence and a safe with thick walls. And alert system. And no ammunition at home, not shooting the antiques anyway. Just collecting pre 1901 British arms a thief would have some problems to use them. Try to find .455 Webley amo here. But why are people comparing Britain or Germany with the USA, not Switzerland, another fully armed country?

The problem is that well meaning people start with a small new law, then another one and at last.... . Total ban. And our miniatures are thought a risk by some people too.

War"gaming". Just insane.

German model shows look funny as far as Nazi stuff is concerned. A tank with NS air recognition flag? Impossible. Imagin a plane with a paper bag on the tail to hide the NS symbol. Political condom. At Salute everbody smiles about that. Now.

To find a public room for a modelling show here, not simple. But for a wargaming show?