Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: beet1e on December 23, 2002, 05:32:35 AM
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Many thanks to those who actually did respond to my rather uninteresting microwave thread. We’ve had threads about various pieces of hardware, and I picked the microwave oven as just another piece of hardware – another tool. Not surprisingly, nobody added photographs of their microwave. After all, a microwave oven has a limited number of uses, these being to cook or otherwise heat up food, warming dishes or cups, drying socks etc.
If, instead of “My new microwave”, this thread had been called “My new hole punch”, I might have received even fewer replies, as a hole punch has even fewer uses than a microwave oven, its only use to make holes in paper! It’s just another piece of hardware or office equipment that spends its life in a desk drawer. But suppose I’d called the thread “My new gun”? No need to speculate as to what would have happened. Our good friend GTO has already started a thread called that. It resulted in more than 50 replies and 13 photographs of a total of 15 guns! And yet, the only purpose for many of these guns is, like the lowly hole punch, to put holes in pieces of paper. As GTO himself put it: “I would have bought it eventually anyway, I just love guns, I like taking them apart to see how they work, like Laz says the are a mechanical Marvel. I have taken every gun I own apart, almost all the way to clean them and see what makes them tick, the only one I didn't was the 1911 my dad built and had a custom trigger job done on it. He told me NEVER take it apart and I respect that since I may not be able to get it back together as well as the pistol smith did. The gun was built for one thing, putting .45 inch holes in paper. Their are two primary reasons I own guns, one they interest me and I like seeing how they work. The second is to shoot for fun, both my Girlfriend and I enjoy shooting allot, and when I was doing it all the time I was shooting close to 400 rounds a week, just for fun.”
Well, that’s fair enough. Some of us might be fascinated by how a microwave oven works – it is a mechanical marvel - but if I wrote about removing the magnetron from my own oven, and marvelling at how it worked, I don’t think I would have got many replies. So why then do we have guys falling over themselves to post pics of their particular piece of hardware, when that happens to be a gun? Not a complicated piece of equipment, not many controls, and the overall design dates back several centuries. Is cooking more interesting than shooting? Depends who you ask. In a typical women’s magazine like Good Housekeeping, you’d probably find 3-4 articles about cooking/recipes, but none about guns. And yet we are led by the gun lobby to believe that women are more defenceless than men and need the most protection, and that a gun is not something to be feared but is just another tool...
Nope. It’s all about power, and all about ego. The other subject that might get folks going is cars, and for the same reasons. Start up a thread about cars, as our friend BUG_EAF did about his cherished VW Bug, and after the initial replies to the post, the subject quickly moves on to who’s got the fastest car, whose car can get to 70mph in the shortest time. The photographs will be piling in, and the latest photograph is likely to be bigger than the one that went before. As Dowding has observed, so many threads in the O’Club take the form of My schlong is bigger than yours, so then someone ups the ante by having TWO schlongs. And the thread about guns will go something like this: Got a gun? I’ve got a bigger gun. Well mine has more bullets than yours. Well mine can fire its bullets faster than yours. Oh well I’ve got an automatic weapon that can fire 30 rounds with one squeeze of the trigger. Oh, well I’ve got TWO automatic weapons!
Of course, most private gun owners are in the US. I am fascinated by Americans’ needs to outdo eachother. My American geography teacher told us about the rivalry between Alaska and Texas – Americas two largest states. The Alaskan might say ”There’s enough gold in Alaska to build a three foot wall all around Texas”. And the Texan would reply ”You go and build that wall, and if I like it, I’ll buy it!” LOL! Don’t you just love the Yanks. :)
Yep, give a gun-Yank half a chance to show off how much power he’s got, and he just can’t get the words out fast enough. The BBS will be awash with people exhibiting their own portfolio of machismo hardware.
Oh, almost forgot! My microwave is a 750 watt “Category D” and is programmable with a grill and turntable. :D
I’m just off to do the last of my Xmas shopping. I’ll use the Beetle now that the weather has warmed up to a searing 10°. 0-60mph on the same day – lol.
Hehe! Merry freaking Christmas :)
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A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
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Back to shrink school for you.
We also have dog threads, movies threads, music threads, etc., that run much longer than that one.
Toodle-pip.
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Yes.. and for every thread where American's try to show who's is bigger, there's always a handfull of Brits trying to show they have none at all.
AKDejaVu
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The most ridiculous, badly thought out comparison I've seen in quite some time.
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Dowding-
I know you're out there. Your fellow Brit here just keeps asking for it. What's a Yank to do? :D
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Originally posted by Innominate
The most ridiculous, badly thought out comparison I've seen in quite some time.
Noo, then you must have missed MT's analogy on the suffering of black people.
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200 armed Bobbies can't be wrong!
How the UK is proving America right about gun control (http://agw.warbirdsiii.com/bbs/showthread.php?s=&postid=161971#post161971)
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Originally posted by Kieran
200 armed Bobbies can't be wrong!
but "rizla" is right..........
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Yet another strong argument for birth control.
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Don't kid yourself, Tilt. Bacteria enters the body through a cut, and pretty soon multiplies and spreads throughout the body. We'll see soon enough what drugs do to your country's crime rate and gun homicide stats. The fact your government is arming your police should tell you something, at any rate.
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Originally posted by SOB
I bet you give a lot of speeches to your pets.
SOB
eskimo
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beetle.. considering your height and weight... The best thing that your nannies at the (LOL) "home office" could do for you is to ban microwaves and other cooking utensils.. the temptation of instant access to food is just too much. The stats of death by overeating are staggering...
lazs
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Don't quit your day job.
Charon
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ok, you asked for it.
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A microwave is a great appliance. If you really need to use one but do not have one handly... Tough.
If you really need a gun but you do not have one handly...
miko
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Originally posted by Hortlund
Noo, then you must have missed MT's analogy on the suffering of black people.
Sheesh Hortlund.
If you need me to explain it to ya, just ask.
:p
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maybe it's because microwaves are just a damn tool. it doesn't matter if you buy a spendy one (do they even make those anymore) or the $45 k-mart special. all it does is cook a bag of pop-corn in about 2min 15 sec. nothing really to talk about.
guns on the other hand vary widely in power, acuracy, handling, and dependability based on caliber, action, brand, and model.
by the same token if your thread would have been- "here's a pic of my new screwdriver" it would have got about as many replies as the microwave, maybe less.
but if I where to start one- "here's a pic of my new 'Dewalt, 24-volt, cordless, saws-all' you'd see pictures roll in.
we like guns we find them interesting, and we all have personal preferences. the are fairly expensive for decent ones so we don't just impulse buy them. once you find out exactly what you want many times you have to search long and hard to find the exact model and caliber you want at a price you can afford (my father has been looking for over 10 years for a good condition, reasonably priced, pre-64, ruger black-hawk, .41 mag) so you feel proud of yourself when you work, save, and search, then finally get what you want.
it's a goal atained thing not a 'mines bigger than yours' thing.
so stop trying to psycho-analyze everything. just because we like or own something you can't(or are afraid to) own doesn't mean we are crazy. maybe you have real trust issues with the people you are around.
maybe brits are terrified to let others own guns 'cause most of the people they meet aren't stable enough to give a gun to. I don't know, never been there. so maybe you can help me out. what is it about your average brit that his neibors don't want him armed.
btw to save some time on future posts. "here's my new left sock" and other such posts won't get much responce either.
remember- an armed society is a polite society
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I want a flamethrower. Combo gun and microwave!!!
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Great replies, guys :D I love it!
Capt. Apathy - remember- an armed society is a polite society
Erm... the most polite people I have ever met are the Japanese, and theirs is an unarmed society.
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it's a height thing:eek:
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You don't have to fear that the person you are socialising with has a weapon, in order to be polite to them.
A polite society is a polite society.
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beet1e: Capt. Apathy - Erm... the most polite people I have ever met are the Japanese, and theirs is an unarmed society.
It's the tradition that was established when it was not so unarmed. It needs a few generations to gradually disappear. Of course their process of desintegration is slower because they lack diversity - all kinds of it. But they will get there eventually, given a chance.
miko
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And you have to ask as well what "force" drove them to become so polite.
Perhaps it was the incredibly small amount of time it took to have an impolite person's head rolling off his shoulders after insulting an armed person?
;)
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You mean Beatle was just kidding about buying a new microwave oven? Given the state of the British economy, coupled with the 25 year lag in technology, I thought a microwave oven was as pricey as an electric toothbrush in Great Britain- and just as rare. LOL Good one, Beatle, ya fooled me. :)
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LOL
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Capt.Apathy!
just because we like or own something you can't(or are afraid to) own doesn't mean we are crazy.
Afraid? Me, afraid? I go out of my house every day, unarmed. Something that some people over there can't or won't do. Maybe I'm not the one who's afraid. ;)
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You're confused about "fear".
I'm certain I don't ever worry about violent crime; that's probably even less than you do. :p
I doubt you understand what I'm saying though.
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Mr. Toad, you talking to me? (NOT in Travis Bickle voice - lol! - as I'm not the only one here)
Oh well, it's too late now. I'm out of here till the 28th or 29th. :)
Talk amongst yourselves :D:D
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cant believe nobody has put in that "their" microwave is the gun from Beverly Hills Cop III (yes i watched it LOL)
you know .. the gun/microwave/boom box/TV/net launcher/grenade launcher thing that "Surge" was selling in the booth @ the rich people weapon event :D
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Heh, well he's got one point at least.
Americans are more prone to the "I got this. OH YEAH? Well I got THIS!" than any other culture I know of. Sort of like big kids with toys. Like me. It's both very annoying and extremely likeable.
:)
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When my first daughter was 4, she'd make up jokes only she got, and she'd laugh hysterically once she told the punch line. We'd laugh politely and glance at one another and shrug.
Get it, Beetle? :o
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Brits rule.
Y'all just jealous.
We're not so unarmed, ton of shotguns in display cases around my area and the ones that dont have them just dont care about guns anyway. Nice and normal then.
Did anyone else notice that the best advice for the next world war is to dig a hole in your garden and bury yourself in your own private crypt ?
Little Boy's for AH... Little Boy's for AH... Little Boy's for AH...
maybe next patch ?