{"id":8907,"date":"2026-01-31T03:07:52","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T03:07:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/?p=8907"},"modified":"2026-01-31T03:07:52","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T03:07:52","slug":"strange-times-indeed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/31\/strange-times-indeed\/","title":{"rendered":"Strange Times INDEED!!!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Greetings and Salutations!<br>&lt;Le Sigh><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I asked Grok to evaluate these two images.<br><br>First image is Malkia Gross, an IDF soldier who was killed in Gaza on 23 October 2024. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/bPriPNwo7S\">https:\/\/t.co\/bPriPNwo7S<\/a><br><br>The second image is Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse who was shot and killed on January 24, 2026, in Minneapolis during\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/w4ak8OzO8B\">pic.twitter.com\/w4ak8OzO8B<\/a><\/p>&mdash; John B Wells (@JohnBWellsCTM) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JohnBWellsCTM\/status\/2017306692157952081?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 30, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">It&#8217;s all so tiresome<br>Now the mole I&#8217;ve heard isn&#8217;t on old boy&#8217;s noggin anymore&#8230; it&#8217;s not visible in that pic.  Hard call to a point&#8230;<br><strong>However<\/strong><br>The fake and gheyness of this timeline sucks.<br><br>And then Silver and Gold dropping precipitously<br><br>Which is why I&#8217;m just staying &#8216;locked in&#8217; cos I&#8217;m sure the volatility will remain.  The market got hammered across the board, with only one of my stonks making any headway. <br><br>That was a mining stonk BTW<br><br>Everything else got hammered.  I&#8217;m down about $30+\/-<br>Not a biggie.<br>There&#8217;s also a <strong>lot<\/strong> of talk out there saying that 48-72 hours Iran is going to get nuked by the Izzies.  I got nothing on that, but I just thought I&#8217;d mention it.  FAR too many mentions IMO which generally means the &#8220;Hivemind&#8221; knows something&#8230;  Personally I&#8217;m ambivalent.  As long as McDill doesn&#8217;t take a live round I&#8217;m a happy MF&#8217;er.  And IF something like that should happen?  Well HOPEFULLY they&#8217;re a wee off target and drops closer to me than away.  I&#8217;m in the &#8216;not immediately smoked&#8217; circle if say the Ivans or Joe Chink drop a BIG ONE on SOCOM\/CENTCOM.  Rather it hit RTF on top of meself and go out in a flash.<br><br>Strange Times\/Strange Days.<br><br>DeadDad used to joke about it back in the 80s.  In Hampton we were well within the &#8220;GIANT SMOKING CRATER ZONES&#8221; of both Pease Air Force base, and Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.  Said that Ivan&#8217;s missile tech (back then) was so bad we might see a SS-21 land in the backyard right before it goes Kaboom!<br><br>I still laugh at the imagery<br>Speaking of which<br>WiscoDave sent this to our email group this AM.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"552\" src=\"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/remington-1024x552.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8908\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/remington-1024x552.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/remington-300x162.jpg 300w, https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/remington-768x414.jpg 768w, https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/remington.jpg 1063w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 1362px) 62vw, 840px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Sapper and I lost our shit.<br>Like howling w\/laughter.<br><br>My God&#8230; my sides till hurt and I&#8217;m giggling at the image of just a pair of legs left of sumdood who the rest of is a fine, pink mist ALLLLL over the room in which he was standing.<br>And it appears to be a real thing link <a href=\"https:\/\/www.remington.com\/industrial\/masterblaster.html\">HERE<\/a><br><br>Sweet Jeebus&#8230; a suppressed 8 Gauge Shotty<br>That right there is some Mad Max Levels of Retarded Firepower.<br><br>Last time I saw something like that was a fren in High School who had his great-grandads &#8220;Flock Gun&#8221;also called a &#8220;Punt Gun&#8221;: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"960\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/punt.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8909\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/punt.jpg 960w, https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/punt-300x240.jpg 300w, https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/punt-768x614.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 1362px) 62vw, 840px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Something stupid like a 4 gauge? boat mounted artillery piece&#8230; <br><br>They used to use them to take out like up to 50+ birds at once, hence the &#8220;Flock Gun&#8221; name.  Some measurements say that it could fire up to one POUND of shot.  To make the comparison, a standard shotty birdshot round <em>usually<\/em> uses about 1.5oz of shot.<br><br>My fren blew the front end off the ancient rowboat he had his mount to when he &#8220;max elevated&#8221; it and fired it&#8230;  the wood just shattered all to bits and the boat sunk in the marsh.<br><br>We recovered the cannon but man that was some nasty dirty muddy work&#8230;  the boat?  Not so much&#8230; I think it&#8217;s still in the marsh if it hasn&#8217;t rotted completely away&#8230;<br><br>So lots of weirdness out there<br>And it&#8217;s getting <strong>fucking cold<\/strong> here again man&#8230;<br>WTF Over?<br>And breathing when I&#8217;m walking the doggos?<br>Hurts like Hell man.<br>I got an appointment w\/the toofus doc&#8230; going to get the evaluation THEN decide on a course of action.  I might be taking some of y&#8217;all up on offers to get me into Mex-hee-co if that&#8217;s the best route financially.<br>I can catch a Frontiers overnight layover for about $250, with the hotel at the airport being $90.  Like I said, I have to see what I&#8217;m dealing with.  If a yank and pull is cheapest, then fuck it&#8230; already got like 3 chompers pulled&#8230; maybe get something down the road in Mexico?  We&#8217;ll see.<br><br>So More Later<br>Big Country<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"615\" src=\"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/washington.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8910\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/washington.jpeg 500w, https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/washington-244x300.jpeg 244w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 85vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><br><br><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Greetings and Salutations!&lt;Le Sigh> It&#8217;s all so tiresomeNow the mole I&#8217;ve heard isn&#8217;t on old boy&#8217;s noggin anymore&#8230; it&#8217;s not visible in that pic. Hard call to a point&#8230;HoweverThe fake and gheyness of this timeline sucks. And then Silver and Gold dropping precipitously Which is why I&#8217;m just staying &#8216;locked in&#8217; cos I&#8217;m sure the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/31\/strange-times-indeed\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Strange Times INDEED!!!&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8907"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8911,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8907\/revisions\/8911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}