Category: Stuffs

Random views, opinions, and posts. These days, this sort of stuff may be better off posted on some social media app or gadget, but somehow these items found their way home to these humble pages.

Sunday Plinking

Editor’s Comment: This article was originally drafted March 18, 2018. It may have originally been intended to be posted in the old Straight Shooters Forum; who knows? Lost and found; posted for shits and giggles.

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After a 7-8 year hiatus (seriously – it’s a long story), I got out my some of my old friends 3 weeks ago and the rest today. A lot has changed in eight years – with SS, these forums and with me.

At any rate, my wife actually wanted to shoot today, so I decided that my R7 .177 was the best option for her, since it is my lightest air rifle. Unfortunately, it was really too heavy for her … but she was actually interested in plinking, so that was huge bonus / surprise. I’m going to have to get some sort of bench setup for her or maybe my first air pistol, which surprisingly, she was happy to support as long as she gets to use it! As I said; a lot has changed over the last few years.

I love the R7, but I have to admit that I still long for one in .20 caliber (or maybe a .20 HW30S). More stuff that has changed – I’m not sure that Beeman is still around. I also gather .20 is way out of favor, but I can still hold on to old dreams, right? At any rate, after my wife gave up, I quickly dispatched multiple cans and plastic bottles. Probably not instant ‘kill’ shots, but I was happy with my accuracy, considering I was a good 25 yards out from those pesky targets. If they were vermin, they would have been toast … just not nice and tidy.

I spent a good bit of time with my .22 Benjamin Marauder. I can’t believe what a pain it is to pump. Super happy that it doesn’t seem to leak (pumpped it all the way to 3000 psi yesterday); Hill pump still functions nicely. What a PITA those 10 shot cartridges are to load! At any rate, I went through 4 clips, and was seriously impressed with the accuracy. I didn’t remember how much fun it was to pull back the bolt, load a pellet … pfifft … ping … pfifft … such fun (hitting can after can, almost at the same time as each trigger pull). Wow; impressive!

The fact that my R7 and Marauder requires zero maint. before shooting, is a testament to their quality; not to mention the Hill pump functioned wonderfully. Three weeks ago, I had the same great experience with my R1s – my lovely .177 and my favorite.20 Carbine. Those are stories for another day.

I figured I would post because a) I haven’t in forever b) it is more or less theropudic c) I almost forgot how much I love my air guns.

Happy plinking!

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Calvert Games Re-Launch (Kicking and Dragging My Feet)

I am probably the last person this side of the Mississippi to actually use Facebook, Twitter and the whole sundry of social media tools, apps and gadgets. I could just care less; I’ll call friends and family if they need to know what I am up to at any given time.

Over the last few years I have experimented some with Twitter on my Vita, I posted random tidbits of info via google+, and as far back as 2010 I setup a CalvertGames Facebook (FB) account with the intentions of doing something exciting, dare I say glorious. Ultimately I disabled the page due to lack of interest at the time and privacy concerns.

Setting up the FB account was kind of a WTF moment – as in WTF is wrong with me for even considering social media? Whenever I would turn on my FB profile, I would get ‘friend’ requests … so I ultimately ignored the socialization of society (my derogatory term for my disdain of social media’s prevalence in our culture), and went my own way.

Times have changed. My sons are almost 17, days away from 13, and 8. My eight year old uses Instagram, among other apps. I can’t keep up, and honestly don’t intent too, but I also can’t do the head in the sand thing either.

While I’m still not a fan of media socialization, and I’m even less of a fan of FB, I am now reluctantly providing my own mea culpa moment. My FB account is active, my Twitter feed has a few tweets other than earning some PlayStation Trophy this or that and I am even enjoying pinning via Pinterest. One of these days, I may actually get around to turning on my calvertgames FB page (it is currently under construction), but that can wait for another time and place …

The irony is that my two older boys are not fans of FB; I guess it is not cool to use the same apps as your parents or in some cases grandparents! They go for super quick hit media apps like Instragram.

Most of these activities brought about the facelift to The Recycle Bin. After 19 months without a post, I recently spent some time overhauling the site, cleaning up the pages to have a more polished look, all the while making sure the site is responsive (apps galore render the site nicely thank you very much).

I plan to continue to evolve the site, adding new features here and there, and of course continuing to write about my passions – videogames, Atlanta Falcons, Georgia Bulldogs, and not necessarily in that order. As I have grown older, my gaming time has diminished; work and family life (two boys playing travel soccer) take top billing. My passions also wax and wane; Beeman urban squirrel posts may be a thing of the past, while Japanese Moe themed PVC figures may make an appearance. To that end, I collapsed every article prior to May 31, 2015 (all 2,480 of them) into a single archive, and made new categories for June 1, 2015 and onwards – videogames, sports and stuffs (for all the random crap that doesn’t fit anywhere else).

The point being I no longer have time to nitpick a game, write 2000+ word reviews, and concentrate on all that is good, wonderful and downright dreadful in the world of simulation based racing and sports games. Besides, the heyday for that sort of thing has passed; everyone wants their reviews and takes 140 characters at a time.

To that end, for the time being, I am growing old gaming …

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