A Hello to Arms

We Furdells are now back from Vegas. As the person who probably lost the least, I am the winner. Hooray!

As it turns out, I did place in one tournament (6th place out of 70-odd players), and netted a total poker tournament profit of $23. I think I'll retire. Well, it was actually a lot better than I expected, and much fun.

But that's not the highlight of my trip, oh no. I won't tell you the story of how, at the final table of the tournament in which I placed, several players vocalized their opinion that I am completely obnoxious. (Tee hee.) No, today I shall talk about my new affinity...for guns!!! GUNS!!! GUNS GUNS GUNSSS!!!!!

Ahem. On the last day of our trip, Liaps and I visited The Gun Store, a, er, gun store that also has a firing range with machine guns. Apparently machine gun rental is frowned on in other parts of the U.S., so Vegas is the place to do it if you're gonna.

I just referred to someone I know by their blog name. Kill me.

Anyway, being as we are wealthy educated honkeys, neither Liaps nor I had ever fired, held, or possibly even seen a gun outside of an Officer Friendly context. So, it was time.

When we entered the store, we were approached by a college student who was making some kind of photo essay. We gave him permission to take our photos during our first shooting experience. After it was done, he offered to email photos to us -- if he follows through, perhaps I'll share.

We started with handguns, sharing ammo for a Baretta and a Magnum .45 (playfully referred to by the Gun Store guy as "the Dirty Harry gun). Firing a Magnum, as it turns out, feels a lot like being punched in the face. It was awesome. Even better: as I suspected, I'm a natural marksman with these things. After I unloaded the Magnum into my target, Liaps commented: "Remind me to never fuck with you." Consider yourself reminded, BITCH!

However, the Magnum led to Embarrassment #1: both Liaps and I were "bit" by the gun (which means, apparently, that a jagged metal piece of the weapon cut us during the recoil). It didn't hurt, but it did cause us to bleed on the gun -- oops. That's not too embarrassing by itself, except that the gun safety training guy insisted on putting band-aids on us himself, and Photo Kid was snapping away the whole time. Great. I'm the guy in the shooting range who gets a band-aid put on his boo-boo. Fantastic.

Next it was time to move on to bigger and better things. I chose a Chinese AK-47, while Liaps (who took some convincing to go through with Phase 2 of our plan) chose the more badass-looking M80. Whereas with the handguns my aim was uncanny, with the AK I barely managed to hit the target. Liaps fared much better with the AK, but actually didn't hit the target with the M-16. Then it was my turn with that gun, and time for Embarrassment #2.

Our instructor cautioned us to just hold down the trigger for a few seconds and then let go. However, my performance with the AK had been so poor that I decided it would be more fun to just unload the whole clip. I squared my shoulders, leaned forward, took aim, and fired. It was all kind of a blur, but as I recall, the gun quickly went from being pointed straight ahead to being pointed up and to the right. Whereas I failed to hit my own target, I did manage to hit the target of the guy next to me, and the strings holding up both of our targets. They tell me I took out three lanes. And they didn't seem happy.

Hey, tell me what you think about this: there's 8 lanes in the machine gun range, and I'm at lane #7. So this kid comes in and they put him at lane #8!! What the hell? Do you go up to the urinal right next to mine in the bathroom? And, when you do, can I really be blamed for peeing all over you, especially if this is my first time?

So that's my big Vegas adventure story. Do with it what you will. I plan to fire more guns soon. More guns. GUNS. GUNS!!!!!!