Bayou Renaissance Man two-fer

Peter's site is a daily read for me. First this link to Military Shorthand:

Military shorthand
I was pleased to come across an 'Updated Glossary of Military Speak and Catchy Sayings' over at Sgt. Brandi's place. They're oriented towards the US Marine Corps, but will be familiar to members and former members of many other services and armed forces. Here are a few examples. (Language alert - the author isn't politically, linguistically or politely correct!)

Brain Grenade. Usually a beer, but anything capable of joyfully killing brain cells.
Chow Hall. The Gourmet Kitchen of Marines, serving only the finest of foods, and staffed by world renowned chefs.
Murphy. A being that waits for you to make a mistake, to make things worse. Usually flies on the back of a Great Eagle that s***s on your head.
Pain is Good, Now Feel the Goodness. A favorite saying of Drill Instructors about to make your body, feel the Goodness. You know, like in �drop down and give me a thousand!�

Second -- the Renaissance Man visits a local gun show:

Today's gun show - sheer bloody madness!
We don't have any of the really big gun shows in my home city, ones like the Indy 1500 about which Tam and Roberta have written. Ours tend to be medium-sized affairs by comparison. I've been to many of them. There's usually not much of a queue to get in - the most I've previously encountered is a few dozen people - and a few hundred folks inside, browsing the tables.

Not today.

The queue ran from the ticket stall, back between the first exhibition buildings, down the road past the parking lot, then did a ninety-degree turn around the base of the hill on which the County Fairgrounds have been built, and snaked back for at least another couple of hundred yards. I've no idea what its straight-line length was, but I guarantee it was somewhere between a quarter of a mile and half a mile. I heard some people complaining that it had taken them well over an hour to get from the back to the front of the line. (Since I'm partly disabled, the nice gentleman at the parking entry booth waived my parking fee, and told me to walk to the head of the line and wave my walking stick at the people there. I did, and they very kindly let me in - after asking to see what guns I had for sale!)

And the prices were 2X to 5X what 'normal' prices were six months ago.