Alpo

He's the shortstop, isn't he?

I re-read all the time. And every time I re-read, seems like, I see something I missed the first time around. Don't really understand people that don't re-read. Unless you have a photographic memory and can call it up it anytime, re-reading is fun. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE WESTERN MOVIE? "The Magnificent Seven. I've got it on DVD, but still, whenever it comes on television I watch it again." I see stuff like that all the time on just about every board I'm on. People see nothing strange with watching a movie again and again, or watching television reruns. But reading a book more than once seems totally WRONG to many people.

If you get all of your previous firearms training from playing video games, where if the gun is shot empty you wiggle the gun and it immediately reloads, I can see this happening. He shoots 20 rounds. He wiggles the gun. It always worked with call of duty.

Used to be coupons on the backs of cereal boxes. "Send two box tops and 50¢ (no stamps) to..." For the longest time I thought they meant Savings Stamps. I couldn't understand why not. Five ten-cent stamps was the same thing as five dimes. Then somehow I found out they meant they didn't want $0.50 worth of postage stamps. Never did figure out why somebody would want to send postage stamps. Postage stamps weren't "money". But saving stamps were.

You take your water gun and shoot it at the sun. The water will help to cool the fire, especially since it will be ice because it's out in space. That's what he said, right? So if the water in my water gun is ice, how in the hell do I shoot it? The gun is designed to work with liquid. I can shoot water. I can shoot booze. I can shoot car antifreeze. I might even can shoot gasoline before it melts my plastic gun. But ice is a solid. I cannot shoot a solid in a gun that is designed to shoot a liquid. And this man is a scientist?

You was talkin' about them the other day, and I picked up a copy of MY BROTHER'S DESTROYER, which I believe is the second one? Haven't looked at it yet, but it's in the lineup.

Why yes. Yes he does. Alpo is what is known as a voracious reader. He finished the Alistair MacLean book that he was reading yesterday, and is now reading a Stephen Hunter book. When he finishes that - undoubtedly sometime early tomorrow - he will start to read something else. He is contemplating an Ellery Queen book, since he is not read any Ellery Queen in 3 or 4 years. Or maybe some Michael Crichton. Maybe some Elmore Leonard. Jesse Stone maybe. Anne McCaffrey. Lovejoy, Twain, maybe a little Stephen King or Robert Howard. He has a large library.

Just like a sugar glazed ham. People say nasty things about spam, and it ain't my favorite meat. But (to me) it tastes exactly like a canned ham. And I ain't never heard anybody complain about what they taste like.

Ferrari Owens

Not the grave - the coffin? The second Bob Lee Swagger book. He's exhuming his father. When they tried the first time it was the wrong grave. When they get the second one dug up, their forensic pathologist says that "at least this coffin looks like it was from the 50s" (previous one was cedar, from the war of 1861), and then he asked if Bob remember the name of the mortuary. He did and the pathologist, looking at the coffin, says "yes that matches, and your daddy's name was Earl?", so apparently the coffin had both the mortuary name on it and the deceased's.

He is a race car driver. A transporter is an 18-wheeler that carries race cars and spare parts and a portable garage from one track to the other. The head mechanic was smuggling heroin all over Europe. Hiding it in the transporter. He had already searched two other transporters. In those he had used red lights, and was sneaky, because they belonged to other racing teams. But in this case it was the transporter for his own team, so he just walked up and unlocked the door and went in. Now you don't have to read the book.

The Mayo Clinic says "several hours". https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/flu/expert-answers/infectious-disease/faq-20057907

Here there was no need for glowing red lights, stealth and secrecy: there was no one who was going to question Johnny Harlow’s right to be inside his own transporter. Nevertheless, he took the precaution of locking the door from the inside and leaving the key half-turned in the lock so that it couldn’t be opened from the outside. Then he used ply to mask the windows so that he couldn’t be seen from outside: only then did he make for the tool-rack on the side and select the implements he wanted.

"The troubles" refers to the problems between the Irish and the British. I didn't know it had ever ended.

The British thought similar. This was supposed to deter pirates. Make them reconsider their profession. Turn to the light side. I don't think it work real well.

When I first saw it, I thought it was like a hospital table. You could slide the feet under the edge of a bed and somebody that was sick had a table to eat off of. Too low. The tabletop is 18 and 1/2 inches off the floor. The top of my mattress is 22 inches off the floor. Then I thought - maybe you set it next to a chair. The feet go under the chair and the top is across your lap so you can do crosswords or needlepoint or something like that. Still too low. The chair seat is 20 inches off the floor. Anyone have a thought on its purpose?

A magnet picked up those aluminum AR-15 lowers and those plastic stocks?

In Florida, and I'm pretty sure in every other state in the country, if I were to put a setgun at the door of an unoccupied building, because I was worried about burglars, and a burglar actually got shot (or possibly even just shot at), I would be arrested. But how about if I had a high stone wall around the property, with broken glass embedded in the concrete in the top of the wall? That shows up in books frequently, although usually in Europe. Just wondering if it would be legal here in the good ol' US of A. If it would not be legal, then how about a chain link fence with concertina wire at the top? Just curious.

This?

You break into somebody's office, to search it, and you brought pieces of plywood along to cover the windows so no one can see you? No I don't think plywood is it.

What are Brits talking about when they use the word PLY? Alistair MacLean book, so of course they're speaking English, not American. He covers the windows with ply, so that no one can look in and see what he is doing. I kind of had the impression that ply was tape. But covering the windows with tape would take a hell of a lot of tape, so that's most likely not it.

What the heck are/were wingbacks? I know that term as applied to football players and to chairs. I know slingbacks, which are women's high heels. And I know Red Wing, who make boots. But never heard of wingback shoes.

Mr. Owl, how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop?

I like that story. But I think I like the one about Mr. Rogers being an ex Marine Corps sniper better. He always wore the sweaters to cover up the tattoos that covered both of his arms. https://www.liveabout.com/was-mr-rogers-a-navy-seal-or-marine-sniper-3299333 I read an interview with him many years back. He said that the sweaters and the tennis shoes came from his first job in radio. The station had lousy heating - it was cold in the winter. So he started wearing sweaters. He played the piano on that first show, but the piano was on the other side of the stage from the microphone, and when he ran back and forth from the mic to the piano you could hear his leather shoes going klop klop klop on the stage. So he started wearing tennis shoes so you couldn't hear him.

I just closed my browser and opened another one. UsingFirefox, the video is here in the Saloon (ACS). I did not have to follow a link.