Greybeards Gripes

Ice on the river today.  20 inches at the deepest point drilled.   Didn’t have much luck though, no fish. 

New WII game:   Call of Duty, World at War.   Haven’t had a chance to jump in yet, so no game report.   I can report a bit on the Call of Duty, Reflex online play though.  I’ve test myself online a few times now,  and although the game itself looks good and responds well,  I’m not really happy with the online play.  Reason:   It seems that every game I get involved with is dominated by CHEATERS.   Ok,  I can except that there are people out there with far better skills than mine and for the first few times I dutifully served as cannon fodder.   When that got old,  and I couldn’t figure anyway to stay alive more that a minute or two,  I decide to play a little differently.  Arming up with the heavy machine gun,  I backed into a long blind alley and trained the weapon on the opening.   Ok,  I should be able to get a least one kill,  right?   NOT!   The first opponent that peared into the alley, got a long burst of automatic fire, right in the face.  You think that would do it, but no,  he runs toward me,  bullets spraying all over his body.   Maybe 2 or 300 hits later,  he kills me with his knife.    

Ok,  so I figure he’s cheating.   Set up again,  same alley.   Guy walks by alley,  looks in,  grenade go’s of at his feeting,  and full auto fire pummels his body as he charges toward me and again uses a knife to kill me.

Cheating confirmed,  connection broken.   I really don’t understand what kick these people get out of playing a game in this fashion.  I tend to think they just might have a few screws loose.  I wish someone was policing the online Wii games like they used to back when I played PC games online.  Cheat=get booted on the game server.

PS:  The Dlink seems to be working ok right now,   but then it hasn’t been on very long.  I had it shut down while I was installing a new 23 in. LCD monitor.  A ViewSonic VA2323wm.   I like this monitor!

From Josh Hodge,

“Attorney General Mike Cox filed a federal lawsuit on December 6, trying to force the Army Corps of Engineers and the city of Chicago to close the locks in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship canal. DNA from Asian Carp was found beyond the electric barrier in the canal, which has alarmed many enviromental groups, and suggeststhat the carp may be infecting the Great Lakes. The carp could serverely impact the Great Lakes by consuming large amounts of food that local species rely heavily on for survival. This would affect the  fishing industry in Michigan. The fishing industry brings in $7 billion  annually to the state.
            Barack Obama made it clear that he would be supporting Illinois in this matter and asked the Supreme Court not to close the locks in Chicago.
            Tuesday January 19, the Supreme Court refused to close the shipping locks near Chicago.”

 Michigan’s “Hooks and Bullets” magazine, online.

Sometime after midnite of Dec. 7th,  the Au Gres River froze solid.   I’m going to call this one “First Ice”,  because it’s now 2:30 PM,  and the ice is still solid.

And on a sadder note:  I received an email today pointing to,

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-45&tab=summary

HR 45 Blair Holt Firearm Licensing & Record of Sales Act of 2009

Apparently confirmed:

VERIFIED – TRUE by snopes.com

http://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/blairholt.asp

I’ve since had some indication that this information,  SNOPES INCLUDED,   isn’t 100% correct.

But, if this all plays out as this email indicates is planned,  it will with out a doubt,  be the beginning of the End of Life as we know it, here in these United States.  Talk about over crowded prisons, Loss of freedoms, Lack of understanding and respect for the Constitution?  Is this how freedom in the USA  will end? 

In horse shoes and hand grenades.   On this morning of Dec. 6th,  the river was frozen across, about a 100 yards downriver and frozen a little harder up town (Au Gres),  downriver of the US-23 bridge.   But–  here in our section it was still wide open.  :-)  Given, it was all just a skim of ice,  and is mostly gone now.   It doesn’t really count as “first ice”.   The low last night was 25 degrees,  and the high today 38.  Full ice get’s closer daily,  and we’ve still got a couple of weeks until the first day of winter.

  click photo to increase size 

I had a “Bass Pro Shops” gift card to use,  so I ordered a few of their “Double Take” lures.  I had never used them before, and in case you haven’t seen them:  They are a double hard bodied lure,  looking much like two lures.   The front lure is similar to a “floating minnow,  but has no connecting point,  just a thin tube running through it’s center.  The rear lure is a sinking lure,  with traditional attachment on it’s nose.  Note:  the front lure has one treble hook,  and the rear has two treble hooks.   You thread your line through the first (larger) lure,  then tie it to the attachment point on the second (smaller) lure,  leaving the first as a sliding lure.

When cast,  the two lures fly out as if connected,  but when they hit the water,  the rear lure starts sinking.  A short retrieve, momentarily takes the first lure under water,  and brings the second up to closely tail the first, imitating a wounded minnow, when you stop the retrieve and the second minnow flutters downward again.

The river is pretty much devoid of predator fish right now,  so I didn’t expect to get any bites,  and didn’t.   I thought the injured minnow action was pretty impressive,  but on steady straight retrieve,  neither lure has a lot of action.   Minnow one stays on the surface leaving a small bow wake,  and minnow two,  depth depending on retrieve speed,  follows under water, a foot or more behind and below the first.   I’d like to see a little more action from one or both of the lures,  but a real test will come when the Bass, Pike, and Walley return to hunt.   The combined lenght of the two lures is about 6.5 inches when hanging from a line.