All posts by Captain Gearhead

Non-Fiction/Documentary, Pet Peeves, Politics/Current Events

Throw a Rock and You’ll Hit a Parasite

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Buyer Beware

Recently I was searching the Internet for an image of a book cover. The book is Jules Feiffer’s The Great Comic Book Heroes. I have owned this book since I was nine years old and still have it, but it is a little worse for wear. I wanted the image of a pristine, legible cover.

I found one fairly easily, but I also saw a “for sale” price with one of the images…for below $7!

What?!?

Yeah, I already had  the book–but not in condition like that. And at that price? I’ve read all my life about guys who find optioned-out Hemi ‘Cudas sitting in barns for a couple hundred bucks, but I’ve never found such a deal. I would have been foolish not to buy it.

So I went to the store. The name of the site is “WOB” for “World of Books.” I ordered it and began getting emails just like when you buy anything online.

A week or so later, a package was delivered. I knew something was wrong before I even opened it. It was too thin to be Feiffer’s classic. Had the company advertised the complete, original book, but delivered the one with just the essay but the reprints removed? No, it was much worse. I would have been annoyed with that scenario, but just taken the “L.”

The Bait-&-Switch

Here is what they sent me.

Yup, with an incompetently-removed sticker on the back from some library in Virginia.

I contacted their customer service. Amazingly, they responded. I gave them all the info they requested, and somebody wrote me: “Blah blah blah I apologize blah blah blah I’d be happy to refund your order blah blah blah.”

To which I responded: “Thanks. Can you just send me the book I paid for, instead?”

Two days later I received the word: “This order has been refunded.”

And it was.

Pondering the Motive

So, what was the deal, here? Seems like it would be a disappointing prank, for a prankster. Some kind of grift? No–I got my $$ back. ID theft? I guess my info could be used by them for something–maybe forthcoming credit card fraud. Or maybe there’s some way this improves their SEO? I don’t know. I’m not interested in cheating anybody out of anything, never have been, and so never have wargamed out all the ways to take advantage of honest people online.

What I do know, beyond any reasonable doubt, is that nobody at WOB shipped me that children’s book thinking it was the same book they advertised and I ordered.

The Pervasion of Scam Culture

Scam culture is ubiquitous–and this has me thinking about it.

Know why this site is DOT NET and not DOT COM? Because a hosting company dropped the ball  while supposedly transferring us over from a different host, let the domain name expire and never told me until it was too late. When our domain name became available, apparently, somebody in Ukraine bought/secured the rights to it/whatever and then wanted thousands for me to get it back. They didn’t have any content or products to sell that related to the name in any way. They just wanted the name because somebody else had used it so must have figured it was in demand, and they could demand money for it.

Right now the world is full of people who can’t produce or conceive of anything useful, so they seek fortune by stealing or hijacking the intellectual property of others. The entertainment industry is full of such people, which is why there are so many movies about heists, glamorizing thieves, grifters and other scum who have never experienced an independent thought, but are lifted up to young people as heroes and role models because they figure out how to screw people over.

Our government is controlled by such scum. Back when elections were real, the scum were voted into power because they promised lower-caste scum to redistribute wealth from those who earned it to the Official Victim Class. You can probably name several Corporations that have grifted their way to power, backstabbing their way to the top. And of course we have entire countries like Ukraine whose primary function is parasitic, doubling down on an idiotic war and destroying its own young male population in the process, just so it can help the parasites in Washington bleed their host dry.

Parasitism is everywhere, today. There’s no escape from it. The American Dream was: build a better mousetrap that meets a need, and sell it at a competitive price; then use the profits to make a good life for your family. It has been replaced with the American Nightmare: screw over whatever decent people still exist and skate through life without ever doing an honest day’s work.

Action, Adventure, Reviews

Comic Books for the Mentally Healthy

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Plenty of people are fed up with how the self-righteous leftards at Marvel and DC have ruined pretty much every character they inherited from creators and writers who actually had talent and imagination. The good news is that they now have options–and so do you. If you like the medium but the GloboHomo Narrative isn’t your cup of tea, you can read some decent graphic literature…for free.

New content is added multiple times a week at Arktoons, which now has a substantial amount of content. Arktoons is the online comic reading site built by Arkhaven Comics. We have reviewed Arkhaven titles Alt-Hero, Avalon, and Alt-Hero: Q here before. Those titles have been re-launced through Arktoons, plus a whole lot more.

First of all, there are  three “Classics” series, introduced by Chuck Dixon, reproducing some of the comedy, adventure, and war comics from the Silver Age. Chuck Dixon has some of his own, original work (in addition to Avalon and Q) available. Go Monster Go is a horror/Supernatural series about a ghost car that appeals to me because it’s about the teenage rebel hot rod milleu in the era before hot rodding diminished into a subculture (and then disappeared altogether). He’s also got Shade, a superhero series set in Europe.

There are some titles based on the literary work of Vox Day. Midnight’s War is set in a city controlled by vampires, where a small resistance cell is interfering with black market  blood plasma trafficking, and saving some would-be victims in the process. A Throne of Bones is a fantasy set in a Tolkienesque (?) world in which Roman legions (?) are at war, not with Huns or Goths, but with armies of goblins. I find the military perspective interesting, as I did with some of Howard’s Conan adventures. Quantum Mortis, so far, looks like military sci-fi set outside our solar system.  I’m interested to see where it’s going. Something I saw or read made me think it would be a sci-fi police drama, like American Flagg! (but without Howard Chaykin’s avante gard leftist crap).

There are a few series from Jon del Aroz, including Clockwork Dancer, a steampunk series about an inventor who gets in trouble for building robots; Flying Sparks features an aspiring superheroine who doesn’t know her boyfriend is a crook; and Deus Vult is about a knight on a quest through some sort of underworld populated by cat and frog people, on his way to match wits with the devil himself.

Swan Knight Saga is a fantasy based on John C. Wright’s YA novel, about a young man who can talk to animals, who finds out the world is secretly oppressed by elves. It’s better than it sounds.

Arktoons has several other series; but the one I have the highest expectations for is Hammer of Freedom, about a homeless veteran fighting the power in a GloboHomo police state (Sao Paulo, 2045).

Superheroes only make up a fraction of the lineup at Arktoons. There’s a pretty good chance there will be something for most comic fans (unless the comic fan prefers reading about transgender Norse gods or some such). I’ve found that, rather than read each snippet as they come out, I prefer waiting until those (often quite short) snippets accumulate to the point that I can absorb a significant portion of the plot line at one sitting.

The artwork varies. Some is very slick, while  some looks rushed and amateurish. The writing that I’ve seen runs from solid to perhaps brilliant.  Time will tell.

Again, it’s free, though you may want to subscribe just to support the creative teams making these comics available.

Non-Fiction/Documentary, Politics/Current Events

Texting With Grifters

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January 5, 2021

MONEY-GRUBBING SPAMBOT:

“Ted Cruz here. I’m leading the fight to reject electors from key states unless there is an emergency audit of the election results. Will you stand with me? (Link to site begging for contributions.)”

CAPTAIN GEARHEAD:

“Politicians have taken more than enough of what I earn. You are well-paid to defend our Constitution. I expect you to stop the theft of our election at no additional charge.”

January 21, 21021

HAPLESS HOPIUM HUSTLER:

“Quick question for ya…

Do you think President Trump is winning the trade war with China?

Hit reply and let me know your thoughts…”

CAPTAIN GEARHEAD:

“OK–you asked for it: What Trump thinks or doesn’t think is now irrelevant; and MAGA is a pipe dream. He snatched defeat from the jaws of victory–like every other ‘Republican.’

Wait, I know! Maybe we can hold an election to fix everything! Sounds legit.”

February 2, 2021

MONEY-GRUBBING SPAMBOT:

“Urgent policy alert! President Biden is expected to ban new oil and gas leasing of federal lands. This could blah blah blah (lost me at “President Biden”) blah blah blah call your representatives to tell them blah blah blah.”

CAPTAIN GEARHEAD:

“And what, exactly, are my “representatives” going to do? Listen to me because my vote counts? Stand up to the Democrats? Maybe appoint some judges who aren’t cowards or sellouts? Sounds legit.”

Of course even these brief interactions are a waste of time–just not as big a waste as it would be to take the solicitations seriously. Also, I need to vent and whoever’s at the other end of these messages are begging me to do it. Request granted.

Crime, Non-Fiction/Documentary, Politics/Current Events

Spiritual Forces Behind the Insurrection

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There was at least one time when Barack Hussein Obama spoke the truth. That was when he announced his intention to “fundamentally transform the United States of America.” To be fair, that transformation didn’t begin with his occupation of the Oval Office, and it didn’t end with him, either.

The anarchy sweeping American cities right now is just one phase of that transformation from a constitutional republic into a 3rd world communist dictatorship.  It’s one of the later phases, but fits the pattern quite well. The pattern can be predicted from history, as well as by Saul Allinsky, Leon Trotsky, and Adolph Hitler, just to name a few sources.

We can see human beings carrying out a lot of what’s happening to this country, but it’s important to remember what the Bible tells us:

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” – Epesians 6:12 (ESV)

The theft,  bloodshed and destruction is being characterized as a response to “white supremacy.” Why, then, are monuments to Abraham Lincoln, and all-black regiments, not safe from the “black activists”?

Here’s a more important question: Why is the statue of Baphomet (Satan) unmolested in this history-erasing orgy? This is a clue about who/what is really behind all this.

Years ago, Chick Fil-A was the only big-name company not bowing to the Sodomite Mafia. Since then, they have kneeled to Mamon and this is reflected in their finances. They stopped supporting organizations that don’t bow to Mamon, and have diverted their contributions to organizations like the SLPC (Southern Poverty Law Center), ironically itself a racist organization in the business of slandering/libeling their political targets as racist and terrorist. Now, the CEO of Chick-Fil-A says all people born Caucasian are guilty of racism and need to bow at the feet of blacks to beg forgiveness.

That’s right: if you were born a certain skin color, you are inherently racist, regardless of what you’ve actually done and said in your life. If you were born a different skin color, you not only aren’t “sinful” (regardless of what you’ve actually done and said in your life), but the inferior races must bow before you and grovel for your absolution.

BTW: do you assume it was just some goofy coincidence that leftist governors and mayors tried to prevent people from going to church during the quarantine, while deeming abortion clinics “essential”?

Now more evidence is accumulating that Bill Clinton didn’t just rape women, but young boys, too. While the likes of Jeffery Epstein was pimping out children to the likes of Bill Clinton, those children were also subjected to Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA). We’ve been conditioned to believe that SRA is just an invention of the “religious right” and doesn’t really exist.

A more credible assertion is that the “religious right” doesn’t really exist.

We’ve written here at Virtual Pulp that America’s ultimate problem is a spiritual one before.  If we don’t fix that, then we’ll never fix any of the secular problems we can see  and admit to. The proliferation of perversion; the “government is God” attitude; and the irrational race-hatred on multiple sides are all just symptoms of a diseased culture being handed over to a depraved mind.

Our Lord never promised us that America would survive until He returned. That’s really up to us. Even if the Storm is real and the Qanon Hail Mary is successful,  we’ll be right back to the brink of judgment in very short order if we don’t purge our spiritual cancer.

I have my doubts whether enough of my countrymen have the stomach and integrity to do that.

For God’s faithful in my country, I’ll just remind you: you have been blessed by living in America, but America didn’t, and can’t, save your soul. Trust in the One who can.

Action, Historical, Sports

Ford vs. Ferrari – a Review

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Once upon a time, Henry Ford II (“the Deuce”) decided he wanted to get into Grand Prix racing.  Back then there was some truth to the motto “win on Sunday/sell on Monday.” Ford had enjoyed success in NASCAR (truly “stock car” racing back in those days), but didn’t have a foothold in the sports car market, despite once building a sporty two-seater Thunderbird. The simple solution was to just buy Ferrari, which had been dominating the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the GT Class for some time.

Long story short: Enzo Ferrari led Henry II on for a while, then pulled out of the deal at the last minute. This chapped Ford’s hiney. The Deuce made the decision that Ford would enter its own GT cars in Le Mans, and beat the Europeans at their own game, on their own turf. Trouble was, Ford didn’t have a platform, and would have to build their GT cars almost from scratch. Ford would first use their existing 289 V8, but later upgrade to big block overkill.

What happened was truly astounding. Within a couple years from the Deuce’s command, Ford fielded a team of GT40s (incredible machines for their time, and still no slouchers 60 years later) that dethroned Ferrari for good, and dominated Le Mans for years–even once Ford pulled the plug on the GT program after making their point).

The real-life story is fascinating, with real-life drama and excitement. What a natural mine for a dramatic movie. The  true story is one of several personalities in multiple teams. The filmmakers chose to focus on just two men in one team–the most colorful and well-known (Carol Shelby) and the most tragic (Ken Miles). I like the Shelby America team best, partly because it was composed of hot-rodders instead of college-educated engineers.

Ken Miles himself was a great fit for a team like that. He was Old School. Professional race drivers today know less about cars than a cashier at Auto Zone, but Miles was a mechanic as well as a driver. An especially talented driver, I would add.

The acting and direction in the movie is top-notch. Plenty of creative license was taken, as you can imagine, but the pacing is adequate and the racing scenes are visually gratifying. In my personal director’s cut, there would be a little more racing and a little less personal drama…but then I’m a gearhead.

The film glosses over a lot of details in this real-life saga, like losing early skirmishes with Ferrari due to problems like an Italian-built transmission that couldn’t handle the torque of the American V8. Other details were tweaked or fabricated to increase the tension, to placate the women in the audience who got dragged to the theater by husbands or boyfriends, and to take typical Hollywood cheap shots at capitalists and American mass production. But if you’ve watched anything else made by Commiewood in the last 20 years, then you probably won’t even notice any of that, so subtle is it by comparison

I strongly recommend this movie. Once you see it, if you’d like to know the more complete story of this slice of motorsports history, read Go Like Hell by A.J. Baime.

Non-Fiction/Documentary, Politics/Current Events

A Letter to Our Nominal Representatives

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Below is a letter that I will be sending to Congress and the White House, as a wise citizen suggested we do. I advise everyone who doesn’t want the USA to become a third-world police state to tell them something similar. You can use this as a template, or even copy-paste it. I don’t mind.

I can guarantee you that if we don’t at least try, then nothing will change. Evil prospers when good men do nothing.

Dear Politician:

I want a stop to foreign aid to China. In fact, stop giving it to all nations that hate us.

I want a roll-back of the regulations and taxes that make it impossible for American manufacturers to compete with China’s slave labor sweatshops.

I want a wall on our southern border and a stop to all handouts to illegal aliens. I want you to put Americans first for a change.

I want you to quit letting big tech firms have their cake and eat it too: either they are utilities and are not allowed to censor anybody; or they are private companies that can censor, and can therefore be held accountable for what they don’t censor.

I want the law upheld–and not just the laws that you personally approve of. Punish criminals; quit trying to punish citizens who have done nothing wrong, but only exercised their rights, which you swore to protect.

I am keeping this message short because public servants obviously have a problem with reading comprehension–otherwise they would understand the phrase “shall not be infringed.”

Politics/Current Events

“McCarthyism” and Projection

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Have you noticed how the Swamp Media and their Deep State fellow travelers in Washington like to accuse people who disagree with them of being Russian agents? President Trump, Tucker Carlson, Roger Stone and everyone in between have been slandered this way.

These same projecting partisans used to love denouncing their political opposition as “McCarthyists.”

You know what the problem with that is?

Senator Joseph McCarthy’s accusations were accurate, and have been proven so.

Historical

Pearl Harbor and Triggering Coincidence Theorists

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Look at maps of Europe and Asia before and after WWII, to understand ultimately what was accomplished by it on a geopolitical scope. That will help you understand why FDR was so desperate to get America involved and insure that the correct ideology prevailed.

While no one can excuse Japan’s belligerence in those days, it is also true that our government provoked that country in various ways — freezing her assets in America; closing the Panama Canal to her shipping; progressively halting vital exports to Japan until we finally joined Britain in an all-out embargo; sending a hostile note to the Japanese ambassador implying military threats if Tokyo did not alter its Pacific policies; and on November 26th — just 11 days before the Japanese attack — delivering an ultimatum that demanded, as prerequisites to resumed trade, that Japan withdraw all troops from China and Indochina, and in effect abrogate her Tripartite Treaty with Germany and Italy.

…The bait offered Japan was our Pacific Fleet. In 1940, Admiral J.O. Richardson, the fleet’s commander, flew to Washington to protest FDR’s decision to permanently base the fleet in Hawaii instead of its normal berthing on the U.S. West Coast. The admiral had sound reasons: Pearl Harbor was vulnerable to attack, being approachable from any direction; it could not be effectively rigged with nets and baffles to defend against torpedo planes; and in Hawaii it would be hard to supply and train crews for his undermanned vessels. Pearl Harbor also lacked adequate fuel supplies and dry docks, and keeping men far from their families would create morale problems. The argument became heated. Said Richardson: “I came away with the impression that, despite his spoken word, the President was fully determined to put the United States into the war if Great Britain could hold out until he was reelected.”

Non-Fiction/Documentary, Pet Peeves, Satire

Auto Parts Store Employees and More Signs of the Impending Idiocracy

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I remember when I used to be able to walk into Car Quest (or better yet: Supershops) and approach the dude behind the counter.
Me: I need a fuel pump for a small-block Mopar.
Car Guy: Stock or high-performance?
Me: Hi-po, please. Whatcha’ got?
Car Guy: Gimme a sec–I’ll grab what we have in stock and let you look at ’em and read the specs. Anything else while I’m in the back?
Me: Yeah–timing gear and chain.
Car Guy: You want a double-roller?
Me: Yeah, might as well.
Car Guy: Be right back.
Fast forward to today. I walk up to the parts counter…
Millennial Retail Zombie: Hi. How can I help you?
Me: I need a fuel pump for a small-block Mopar.
Millennial Retail Zombie: (Deer caught in the headlights expression.) Huh? Um, what kind of vehicle?
Me: Mopar. You know–Dodge, Chrysler, Plymouth…even DeSoto back in the old days.
Millennial Retail Zombie: So it’s a Chrysler?
Me: Any of the above. The same fuel pump fits the 273, the 318, the 340 and the 360, regardless of the car or truck model.
Millennial Retail Zombie: Um, I need to know the vehicle, sir.
Me: Okay. ’71 Duster.
Millennial Retail Zombie: (Tapping at the keyboard.) A what? What make is that?
Me: Plymouth.
Millennial Retail Zombie: We don’t have any such vehicle in our database.
Me: (sighing) Fine. Let’s say it’s a 1990 Dodge Dakota.
Millennial Retail Zombie: (Tapping keyboard.) What engine?
Me: 360.
Millennial Retail Zombie: That engine’s not listed.
Me: Okay. A 318. It’s the five-point-whatever liter. A V-8.
Millennial Retail Zombie: Is it two-wheel drive or four-wheel drive?
Me: It makes no difference.
Millennial Retail Zombie: I have to choose one or the other.
Me: (Another sigh.) Four-wheel drive.
Millennial Retail Zombie: Is it an extended cab?
Me: (Rolling eyes.) Yes. Fine. It’s an extended cab.
Millennial Retail Zombie: Manual or automatic transmission?
Me: Dude, it doesn’t friggin’ matter!
Millennial Retail Zombie: (Gives me that I-may-have-to-call-the-manager look.) Um…
Me: Standard! It’s a friggin’ standard!
Millennial Retail Zombie: What?
Me: Standard transmission! Manual! “Stick shift” if you prefer. Row-your-own. You have to shift it yourself.
Millennial Retail Zombie: Eww! Why would anyone want to do that?
Me: Do you have the pump?
Millennial Retail Zombie: Just a few more questions. Does it have the cassette or CD player; manual or power windows, and where is the ash tray located?
Me: I don’t care. Make something up.
Millennial Retail Zombie: (Tapping keyboard.) Um, we don’t currently have it in stock here or our warehouse, but we’re expecting the next shipment from China to come in any day now.