Shoplifting in the Marketplace of Ideas

Sent!

mauser — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 03:47:01 GMT

Just sent my story for Mad Science 2! 7063 words! It's got everything, Evil Monkeys, talking dogs, surgical peril, Axe murder, and explosions (well, one explosion, but it's a big one). And I don't care what spell check says, I prefer Axe to Ax, and it's a legit spelling.

Just ask Axe Cop.

My comment to an entry 'How'd you end up with your handle?' by cigarskunk2

mauser — Sun, 21 Sep 2025 07:23:55 GMT

Back in the BBS days (Mitch should remember them) I used "Deep Thought" on the Philadelphia area scene. Later, when I got my first Internet account (1991, my sister's unused student account at the University of Maryland) I needed 8 letters or less. I was torn between RussPost (from Those Annoying Post Brothers) or, my love for the Broomhandle Mauser, and Mauser it was. And for the longest time, I never ran into another Mauser on Usenet.

Eventually I did run into sites where it was taken, so I started using Mauser712 (DeviantArt is one of the few still using that) and after starting to write about a Mad Scientist, I started using Dr. Mauser (or Dr_Mauser) as necessary.

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My comment to an entry 'Liberals are crying crocodile tears over Alligator Alcatraz' by cigarskunk2

mauser — Sun, 06 Jul 2025 08:14:12 GMT

Alligator Alcatraz...

Gator Gitmo... That's a new one on me.

I coined "Crocodile Rock".

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Mad Science!

mauser — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 02:43:50 GMT

I've posted everywhere else, but in the unlikely event that anyone sees this here... I have good news! I sold my third story, this time to Raconteur Press for their "Mad Science" anthology. Editor Dave Freer liked it enough to make it the Anchor story (Last in the book, something to leave a good final impression on the reader).

Available here on Amazon.

Are you on the list?

mauser — Wed, 01 Jan 2025 12:03:45 GMT

My New Year's entry this year was pretty personal, so I made it friends only. If you're unable to see it, lemmie know and I'll make sure you're included. I know that friends can be asymmetrical on LJ.

Well...

mauser — Tue, 31 Dec 2024 14:46:09 GMT

Well, 59 laps around the sun, and what do I have to show for it?

Worth a read

mauser — Wed, 25 Dec 2024 04:15:23 GMT

This is mostly to bookmark some Substack articles that I think I need to read again and again, and that other people should as well.

This one about the nature of intelligence and consciousness, for example:
https://open.substack.com/pub/gaiusbaltar/p/is-consciousness-fading-in-modern?r=1658e5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

More later.

Drones and Chinese scammers on Amazon

mauser — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 00:50:22 GMT

So a co-worker convinced me to give quadcopters a try. If you mosey over to my Anime/Computer blog (mauser.mee.nu) you can read about the adventure so far, how I nearly got taken for $270 by a fake Chinese seller, and how I got a refund before waiting for it to not show on Christmas.

Big Fat Political Quote Meme collection

mauser — Thu, 28 Nov 2024 00:58:28 GMT

Big Fat Political Quote Memes collection On Substack

Rocket Man

mauser — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 09:18:54 GMT

Not an Elon post. Just one of my favorite out of continuity Dr. Mauser bits.

https://drmauser.substack.com/p/dr-mauser-short-rocket-man?r=1658e5

Dr. Mauser and the Guns of St. Mary's

mauser — Sat, 27 Jul 2024 23:02:08 GMT

In my previous substack, I talked about research. This is the story that benefited from a lot of that.

It was intended for one of Raconteur Press's Malta anthologies, but for various reasons, it didn't run there, so now it's freely available on my Substack. Nothing against the publisher.

The Importance of Research

mauser — Sat, 20 Jul 2024 18:34:54 GMT

Just posted a new article to my Substack. But it's also an excuse to use my second favorite Sam and Max reference.

https://drmauser.substack.com/p/the-importance-of-research

My comment to an entry 'PSA for millennials — an ellipsis is just an ellipsis' by cigarskunk2

mauser — Sun, 19 May 2024 00:44:06 GMT

Want to offend me with an ellipsis? Use the single glyph version. Seriously, that was only invented to make it easier for programmers to truncate file names, and should only be used for that purpose.

Also, it's four dots at the end of a sentence. An ellipsis for missing text, and the terminating period. (Which can also be a ? or !)

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Le Red Jr. 1992-2024

mauser — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 22:20:56 GMT

Well, that's the end of an era. I donated Le Red Jr. to the local Volunteers of America (which turns into a charitable donation credit I can't really use). They actually just farmed it out to the local Pick a Part. I coulda taken the $350 instead.

When hooked up to a jump pack, the old Loyale very nearly started after sitting for 3-4 years in the driveway - the necessary period needed to let the nostalgia wear off. Probably would have with fresh gas.

Even the tow truck driver was an aficionado of Subarus of that era. Le Red had pretty much lost all of its clear coat by that time, but the body was still solid and in good shape. I even threw in the shop manuals, since I would have no further use for them.

I bought the car brand new in 1992 and put over 322,000 miles on it. I crossed the country in it and had a number of adventures. It only broke down on me twice (both timing belt issues, and one of those allowed me to limp to safety on half an engine because of the two-belt boxer design). The thing was unstoppable in the snow, even more so with cable chains on all four wheels, and got better mileage than its replacement. I became an absolute Stick convert in that car. And even with only 90 horsepower, it was light and nimble to drive with great road feel that newer cars soften to imperceptibility.

What finally brought it down was a leaking heater core. Parts were impossible to get and the labor alone would have been in excess of $800. I actually spliced out the heater hoses, which made it a summer-only car. Eventually though, that became impractical, and I bought my Impreza in 2019. I shifted almost all of my driving to the new car and finally let the registration lapse in 2021. In the back of my mind I always wanted to restore it, but it's not really practical. But through this sacrifice, many other Loyales may live.

Still, it is always weird to see your car moving from the outside.

And then the frigging state of Washington wants me to pay $14 to report the sale!

New Year's 2024

mauser — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 06:23:15 GMT

No new guns, no more shooting. I think I did a little reloading work when I was finally able to get some primers, but I stalled out on that.

Got through some of the comics I mentioned. By the time I got through the stack of Saga, I was wishing I'd been reading them as they came out so I could have dropped the series earlier. God that turned into trash. Maybe I can sell them on eBay, cheap.

I can't believe I got the office chair last year... I swear my sense of time has compressed. But I did order the Bush desks in time for Christmas. They were supposed to arrive after Christmas, but they came the Wednesday before so I had to burn a vacation day waiting for Delivery. It took some major clean-up and rearranging to clear the spaces to set them up (I got THREE 30" x 60" desks). I still haven't forced myself to get off the computer and move it to its new home. I got three so that one can become the home of the 3D printers. I previously planned on move them to the den, but the Comic Book infestation hasn't been dealt with yet.

One desk top was damaged in shipping, but I ordered a replacement the same day. It will get here eventually, and when I swap it out, it will still make a good work table or something in the future.

I don't think I mentioned a new computer in the last New Year's post, but I built a new machine, and it is SO nice to not be spontaneously bluescreening all the time. and it's got so much memory and it's so much faster (Especially with the internal SSD) that it's probably being wasted on me. I mean, it takes longer to log in to World of Warships than it does to actually load it. I could probably stand to upgrade the video card, but it's capable enough. (I do have fits of the screen going black for half a second. I'm not sure if that's cabling, the low end 4K TV I'm using for the monitor, or the card.)

Did not quite get back to my pre-mortgage payoff bank level, but damn close, like, I cracked 6 figures in savings again. And I came REAL close to grossing that much this year.

My weight has been a repeat of last time. It's been low, it's been high, this morning I was full of cake and 240.1 lbs.

Invisalign is FINALLY in the home stretch. The orthodontist kept going back for additional "Refinements" but this really should be the last round.

I haven't done any serious writing at all this past year. Getting screwed on the Malta story really put a crimp in my desire to write, along with all the other rejections.

So, plans for 2024:

Finish re-arranging the living room to migrate to the new desks.

Design and print Humidifier 2.0 and release it on Thingiverse.

Finally haul all the old monitors to e-recycling (there's like, 5 now, including my previous flatscreen).

Get the underground gutter drainage problem fixed and FINALLY get a patio poured. Plus fix the mess that is my front yard.

Space Hookers Must Die!

mauser — Sun, 16 Jul 2023 08:35:52 GMT

New Blog post on my Wordpress Blog.

Twitter still needs a rewrite

mauser — Sun, 16 Jul 2023 05:28:56 GMT

If you call someone a Moron on Twitter, you get a warning when you try to post but you can post it anyway.
If you call someone a Cretin on Twitter, you get no warning until they demand you delete it and go to Twitter Jail.

Ugh, updated my LJ Email, now I can't reply and they can't seem to send a validation email....

mauser — Sat, 03 Jun 2023 23:05:24 GMT

Nobody at My ISP can figure out why the emails aren't arriving. I finally had to use an old Yahoo email address to get access to my account again, because when you change your address your account gets invalidated completely.

Free story

mauser — Sat, 29 Apr 2023 19:59:39 GMT

Originally written for the series of Malta anthologies (All pretty good stuff), it was supposed to be in the upcoming 4th volume, but got bumped, and there won't be a fifth. So I'm free to give it away.

It was written to be both the latest in my Dr. Mauser stories that have been running on Deviant Art, but also an introduction, so it includes a lot of backstory. And of course it had to be related to Malta, so I did a lot of historical and geographic research (Which was really frustrating, I had to change major plot points several times, but I think it ended up a little better).

I think my favorite comment of all time was when I showed it to Martin Shoemaker (fantastic writer), and he said, "Your worldbuilding is twisted."

If you're curious about the Malta anthologies: Ghosts of Malta, Knights of Malta, Saints of Malta.The fourth volume will be called Falcons of Malta. (Amazon Affiliate links)

So allow me to present Dr. Mauser and the Guns of St. Mary's. (Deviant Art)

Taxes

mauser — Sun, 09 Apr 2023 03:38:08 GMT

Huh, I thought I used to post annually about my taxes, but it's been a while. Not much point in continuing that.
BUT, if you want to e-file for free, are smart enough (or your taxes are simple enough) that Turbotax is a waste, but you make too much to do the Free File program, there is still a way.

https://www.freefilefillableforms.com/

It does the basic math. You have to decide which forms you need to fill out (but it has ALL of them, with instructions.) and punch in your own data (even copying it from the tax table - that really should be automatic, but no). But it's free for any income. You create a new account every year because the data gets purged every November. You can save as a PDF from the print button. And when you're done, free e-file.

Probably a bit late for most of you, but save this for next year.

New Year's 2023

mauser — Mon, 02 Jan 2023 05:57:15 GMT

The great thing about doing my resolutions on LiveJournal, I don't have to read too far back to find last year's.

2022 saw at least one more gun but still no range trips. (I got another Rossi R92, but in .357 magnum). Washington is planning some ridiculous new anti-gun laws, which is why the interest in lever guns and ridiculously large revolvers (Haven't been able to get the one I have my eye on yet though).

Not much progress on dealing with my comics, but I have been catching up on some series. (Got a stack of 60 issues of Saga that I'm finally getting to). But nothing about the den. Which I'd like to deal with and move the printers into so I can have a Dining Room table again.

Financially I have been God-like. Expenses to income is so low I have been banking about 32K a year. So I predict that by the end of 2023 I will be back at my pre-mortgage-payoff level. I will splurge a little on myself and get a couple of big Bush desks and set them up in the Living Room. I got a nice office chair and mat a few days ago, but working from a old school desktop perched on a TV tray table is kinda lame, and I've been doing that for years.

Weight. I have spent most of the year stuck in the low to mid 240's, but lately I've been able to get into the upper 230's. The low point over the Christmas break was 235.6, although the introduction of my birthday cake into the mix has me at 237.6 this New Year's morning.

On the down side, my BP has been soaring lately. And I'm not sure what the current state is, but my health insurance and the Everett Clinic have gone to war and they might be out of the network this year.

I also started Invisalign back in April, and the main series is already completed. Last month we did a re-scan and there will be a second set for final positioning. The process is pretty cool, since instead of taking impressions they use Photogrammetry. A tooth-brush like camera is run all over your teeth and the computer turns all of the images into a detailed 3D model.

I've been learning a lot with FreeCad, and the biggest (literally, it filled the print volume of the Ender 3) and latest project of mine was a whole-house humidifier that fits over a 5 gallon bucket. I put the final touches on the first version just before Christmas, and the sucker puts a good 3 gallons of water into the air a day. The house has gone from sub 20% humidity to 38-40% since I started running it (except the master bedroom for some reason.). It's not ready to release, but I wanna put some more run time on it before I tweak it too much more.

I wonder where all that water goes....

Writing: I haven't been overly productive, but I have sold a story to LawDog for the last volume of the Malta anthologies. (Well, Sold in that the contract should be forthcoming soon.) This would be the first Dr. Mauser story to see actual print rather than being on DeviantArt. I was toying around with a third CASPer History story for the 4HU but I've heard nothing about any additional anthologies coming out.

My Wordpress blog has been severely neglected. I need to address that.

My comment to an entry 'How stupid are Democrats? This stupid.' by cigarskunk2

mauser — Sun, 05 Jun 2022 03:40:43 GMT

The AR-15 is not a weapon of war... yet. Once you start sending government goons out to pick them up, it will be.

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Boat of fuckit.

mauser — Mon, 03 Jan 2022 00:59:49 GMT

Oh, and back in January of 2020, I wrote the PhotoBucket relented on their image hosting? They switched back to demanding that they be paid, AND reduced their free capacity to 250 images, I deleted a bunch of garden pictures from 2008 which nobody was looking at anyway, and then realized, why bother?

New Year's 2022

mauser — Mon, 03 Jan 2022 00:43:21 GMT

(Backdated for consistency)
Going over the resolutions:

Write more: Sold another story to Chris Kennedy for "In the Wings", but I didn't get too far on my own projects. I made some more entries on my Wordpress blog, including a Euloge for my dad and a recent one about how even the dictionary is being corrupted for political purposes, and I noticed I failed to link them here on LJ.

Get my comic collection under control: Negative progress. I moved some stacks into the bedroom to make a point of reading them, and finished one title. Got a few issues through a couple more.

Shoot more: Didn't go shooting at all. One new gun, which is still a virgin.

My BP was doing okay until I got Covid at the end of August, and was forced to get a Vax in October (at which point they punted the deadline a couple of times and now it's in the air.). Now I almost never see a reading below 140, and have even hit 175 a couple of times (I immediately took extra meds). Should have a cardiologist appointment soon. Weight hasn't been very good either. I've been stuck in the low 240's for months, which is higher than last year. I was 241.4 on the morning of the 1st.

Financially: I killed my mortgage in September. A small settlement from a life insurance policy nobody knew my father had (~$11,000) put me over the top early. Single largest transaction in my life, just shy of 6 figures. I have no major debts now, so my savings are recovering faster than they did from the car. Between the house, the car, and the exterior work in 2016, it blows my mind how much money has gone out. But I'm still okay. Of course, with no debt, my credit rating has finally started moving off of 850.

Clean up the whole damned house: yeah, no major changes there. A smaller goal is to get the comics off the orange desk in the den and into boxes in the other storage room, and moves the 3D printers there to get them off the dining room table.

As for printing: I haven't done anything on the Marble pump, but I'm slowly learning the ins and outs of FreeCad, and have designed a number of my own prints, including a magnetic water bottle holder for my locker at work and a bracket that holds the heater in my car so I don't have to keep moving it off of my armrest. So the goal is to keep learning, and eventually take another crack at the marble pump, since my initial stab at it is now kinda sad.

My comment to an entry 'If so, then criticizing Trump was a danger to democracy too' by cigarskunk2

mauser — Fri, 24 Dec 2021 03:55:13 GMT

You know how the left likes to redefine words. They've redefined "Democracy" to mean "Rule by Democrats". (Much like Kleptocracy means rule by thieves — same thing, really). Knowing this makes all their whining about something being "a threat to our Democracy" much more understandable.

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