Hangin' with Friends and Some Gaming Stuff

 Hi everyone.

The first thing that I'd like to say is that I've had so much fun hanging with and talking to my friends Victoria and Colton recently.  I haven't been able to show them the Bird Sanctuary yet, but it's on our list of things to do before winter.  Also, some sight seeing around Columbus is also something we're looking into.  

I'm also hoping to get some info soon on Best Buddies.  Victoria and one of our other friends Sara is working on that with some others.  Hopefully in a few days there'll be something concrete.

As for gaming, I'm about to move on to Gran Turismo 4 after literally nearly a year away, but first I'm trying to finish up a few things on Hitman 2: Silent Assassin.  I do have a few things to note about the game, though.  

One, is the AI in the game--or, maybe, lack there of.  It's something that certainly incentivizes stealth for sure.  However, I don't play it stealthfully, and the idiot AI is a mixed blessing.  The AI sometimes will behave as if they have no sense of self-preservation, or maybe they have a death wish.  

What I mean by that, is that the unarmed NPCs will run or walk (or stand or crouch) between you and an armed enemy NPC (usually a target's bodyguards or enforcers), which is an invitation to get shot by someone.  If you're trying to lay waste to a map, that's OK.  But when you're only trying to take down the armed NPCs, it can be very frustrating.  It also results at times in the armed NPCs accidentally shooting and killing the innocent NPCs.  Which means that I can "retaliate" against them for their act of manslaughter.  It is however sometimes comical seeing the armed NPCs have to pussyfoot around the idiot AI like you have to, though.

Maybe now's a time to bring up you can't spell "assassin" without using a certain word twice...?

And now, a word on the arms of Silent Assassin.  One is a rather mundane pistol that has a legendary (but somewhat erroneous) reputation, and the other is a weapon that's not at all common as it is in the game.

First of all, the PSM pistol (identified as the 5.45mm Pistol) in the game.  It only appears twice, and both times in the hands of Russian operatives, one being a FSB agent (accurate) and a Spetsnaz officer (less accurate).  In the case of the FSB, the PSM is fairly commonly in use in Russian (and some other former Soviet countries') law enforcement, as it's popular with plain clothes police officers and detectives.  And it is sometimes used by the Spetsnaz, basically Russian Armed Forces/Soviet Armed Forces spec ops.  

This, of course gave rise to it being alleged to be a popular assassin's weapon, due to it's small size and alleged formidable capabilities against certain types of light cover, and light body armor (such as flak jackets and bulletproof vests).  The latter is mostly true because of it using jacketed ball (aka hardball) bullets instead of unjacketed lead bullets of similar caliber (5.45mm is roughly .22 caliber).  That said, it's not an impressive round.

Ballistically, it's actually fairly similar or slightly more powerful than .22 Long Rifle.  However, that suits the PSM's actual purpose.  It was originally designed for Soviet Army and Air Force generals and Soviet Navy admirals as a compact pistol to be hidden in a special holster under their uniform blazers.  Basically it is to the 9x18mm Makarov PM pistol as the .32 and .380 Colt M1903 pocket pistols were to the Colt M1911 .45 pistol back in the day for the US Army. Smaller caliber weapon was issued to generals not expected to see serious combat.  Larger caliber pistol was issued to officers, NCOs and rank and file troops expected to see serious combat.  

In terms of the initialism, PSM is an abbreviation of the Russian phrase meaning "small self-loading/semiautomatic pistol".

But the PSM does have a legend to it, though one mostly perpetulated by films and video games rather than real life.

Also in Silent Assassin, in the Afghanistan levels, the Russian AKSU-74 compact carbine (or submachine gun as the Russians tended to term it until about 15 or so years ago) is insanely common.  Again, this runs counter to real life.  

It's inclusion was probably inspired by films and video games like Goldeneye where the AKSU featured prominently.  Let alone the fact that infamous terrorist Osama Bin Laden frequently was pictured with one in photos and videos.  The latter goes along with the US/NATO invasion of Afghanistan following the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks (the Hitman game franchise was developed by IO Interactive, a Danish software/gaming company.  And Denmark was a founding member of NATO and has been active in Afghanistan against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda).

However, the AKSU-74 (AK stands for Avtomat Kalashnikova, literally Kalashnikov Automatic Rifle, S for folding stock, and U for shortened, 74 for 1974 model year) is a relatively rare weapon in real life, and in fact is being phased out of the Russian Armed Forces in favor of a more advanced replacement.

Also, most AKSUs weren't made by Izhmash (now Kalashnikov Group), the majority being made at the Tula Arsenal from 1979 to 1993, when mass production ended.  Which means that among AK-47 based weapons, the AKSU is a literal drop in the ocean, and hasn't even really been produced since the likes of Victoria Justice, Ariana Grande and Liz Gillies were babies.  

It also wasn't particularly popular with the Soviet/Russian Army.  Only the Spetsnaz seemed to like it.  Between that and being out of production for over 25 years, it's being replaced by the AM-17, a Kalashnikov Group modernization of the rediscovered Dragunov MA.  The latter was designed by Yevgeny Dragunov, a gunsmith better known for the SVD sniper rifle.  It was originally a test bed for polymer materials being used in rifles by the Russians back in the 1970s.

So that's it for Silent Assassin.  I'm planning on buying a "new" PS2 off Amazon soon and a 256GB memory stick on Tuesday, and I'm looking into getting a 14 inch laptop whenever I can get the money.  

And of course, I'm looking forward to more adventures with Victoria, Colton, and others, too.

Eating and Gaming

 Hi everyone.

This is going to be a fairly mundane blog post about a couple of things I've been up to.  Mostly what I've been eating for dinner lately and some gaming stuff.

Basically, I've become addicted to pasta and slow cooker beef and onion dishes.  I've been eating a ton of Pasta Roni boxed pasta meals.  Basically, I've had just about everyone of them that was inspired by traditional Italian pasta dishes.  Namely butter and herb, Parmesan cheese, fettuccine Alfredo, broccoli and chicken, and chicken fettuccine.  All of which are pretty good, and all of which are pretty cheap.  Almost every place that sells them retails them for about a dollar.

I've also taken a liking to slow cooker beef and vegetables.  Be it pot roast or my upcoming attempt at beef and French onion soup.  I have onions, will be getting beef broth and steaks, so why not?

And for desert, well, I usually eat cereal like Crispex or Chex, or ice cream.  Meijer has Hudsonville brand ice cream, while Walmart has started to carry Turkey Hill (which Kroger already was).

Now to shift to gaming.  So far, as far as actual games, it's been the same old, same old.  Mostly Hitman 2: Silent Assassin.  However, I'll be doing some racing games soon since Le Mans is coming up next month.  However, I bought a Pound HDMI adapter for my PS2.  And it's a huge improvement over AV composite (or whatever the Yellow/Red/White wires are), or the RCA to HDMI adapted I used previously.  Text especially is do much sharper and easier to read, and color and such is pretty good as well.

Previously, I felt I was taking an eye exam with how blurry some images were.  Granted, my eyesight isn't the greatest to begin with.  But now at least I can read text in my PS2 games without excessive blurriness and such.  Not to mention if my next TV only has HDMI, no worries there, either.

So, that's what I have for now.  I'll probably make a more history oriented post next time within the next few days.

Everyone have a good one :)

Hi--What I've Been Up To the Past 6 Months

Hi everyone.  I know that the last time I posted something here was about 6 months ago.  In that time between Covid, social unrest, and other things that were depressing and upsetting to me, I battled a lot of off and on depression and tried to focus on keeping occupied since I was stuck at home so much.

Over the past few weeks, however, some wonderful things have actually happened to me.  A couple of Saturdays ago, my friend Angie had me over to her new apartment in Columbus.  I wasn't able to stay the whole day, because neither of us was feeling that good, but it was a start.

Last Friday, I got to hang out with my friend Victoria and her friend Colton, and I got to make a new friend as a result.  I've been talking to more friends and such recently, too.  That's good from my POV, given that for a while I felt like I was getting oddly misanthropic.   For a while, I was feeling so socially shut off, I was wondering what the point of reaching out was.  But at least the last few weeks have changed that.

It's also changed my attitude towards this blog.  I neglected it because either I thought no one would want to read about me being pissed off at the world and seeing either red (anger) or blue (depression), or just being freakin' boring.

Now I actually have a wide range of topics I'd like to write about that I've developed in recent weeks.  Things such as items concerning owls, weather, cars/racing and history/armed forces tech, and even video gaming (casual retro-gamer, nothing big, though).

Hence, I'd actually like to know what you guys would like for me to talk about.  You can post comments here or on my Facebook post where I'll be posting a link.

Near future blogs will likely concern owls and a project involving an armed forces service rifle that's a general showing of how not to engineer anything that you intend to work right.  The latter started out pretty well, but progressively went down the tubes until, at the lowest point, outsiders who knew how to engineer the device properly, quickly reversed the project's fortunes seemingly overnight just by the proper attention to detail.

I hope that you guys will enjoy what I have coming up.