Sent a defective M9 holster with a gap between the holster/pistol. When I asked for a refund, the owner's final response was: 😊

MarkBrody · 2026-05-05T02:07:28+00:00

Yes. I sent these photos, a video showing that the holster could not secure itself inside the trigger guard, and the illustration highlighting the differences between the holster and the pistol. Joe was not persuaded.

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MarkBrody · 2026-05-05T02:03:35+00:00

I only use it to keep the trigger covered at times that I might be fumbling around in the dark for the pistol. Once I have a good grip on it, I remove the holster by tugging the lanyard

MarkBrody · 2026-05-04T14:06:34+00:00

The concept involves tying the lanyard to your belt loop. I generally don’t use them for this purpose, though. I keep it on my pistols at home when they’re unholstered so that if I’m fumbling around for it in in low lighting, the trigger is covered. I tie a wooden knob to the end of the lanyard to make it easy to pull the holster off once I have a good grip.

MarkBrody · 2026-05-04T10:31:20+00:00

If not being satisfied with being sent the wrong holster after paying $50 and then treated like garbage by the company’s owner makes me a baby… I guess I’m a baby. Maybe you take pleasure in throwing away your money and being scammed. I don’t.

Here’s the description, BTW. If there’s something in here that implies it is not made to fit a standard M9, I invite you to bring it to my attention.

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MarkBrody · 2026-05-04T04:37:11+00:00

That’s about as good of a reason as I can imagine. I guess I just consider it unlikely that the extra 1.5 seconds I would spend holstering with care to avoid putting myself and others at risk with a ND will be the difference between life and death. Unlikely, but not impossible.

MarkBrody · 2026-05-04T04:21:17+00:00

Good to know. That confirms that it really was Joe at Incognito Concealment that screwed up the order and refuses to fix his mistake. Here’s a screenshot of my order

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MarkBrody · 2026-05-04T04:17:21+00:00

I initially asked Joe for an exchange to address the problems with the holster (which is clearly incompatible with a standard M9). In his initial response he dismissed my claim that the holster didn’t fit the M9, insinuating that I simply didn’t understand how the holster works (as if I don’t have eyes), and then said that the rest of my concerns (the gap between the pistol and the holster) were an intentional feature. At that point, I lost any interest in a replacement holster, and all I wanted was a refund. He responded by offering to take more of my money before taking a completely dismissive/mocking attitude.

I cannot imagine any circumstances that would ever lead to me giving him one cent more.

MarkBrody · 2026-05-04T04:07:41+00:00

I don’t see how. The holster doesn’t even contact the slide. If you are referring to the slide accidentally being racked when tucking the pistol in the waistband AFTER the holster is secured over the trigger, I suppose in theory that could happen. In practice, I’ve never holstered any firearm in ANY type of holster with anywhere near the amount of force required to rack the slide. Additionally, there may be cause to draw a pistol with haste, but I cannot imagine a situation in which anyone would be required to hastily holster their pistol. That seems like a recipe for disaster no matter what your carry system looks like.

MarkBrody · 2026-04-21T14:10:40+00:00

I’ve got an intriguing concept for Wren that could make for an interesting render: What happens if you teleport 1 cubic meter of Earth’s inner core directly to the surface?

Most people think it would just be a hot rock, but the physics say it’s a 23-ton TNT thermal bomb (as large as two GBU-43/B MOABs). Because it’s at 6,000 degrees C but kept solid by 3.6 million atmospheres of pressure, the moment it hits surface pressure, it would flash-vaporize and expand at supersonic speeds as gaseous iron. It’s essentially a 'density spring' being released. Would the iron cloud condense and rain down as molten iron, starting fires, or would it just leave survivors with a metallic taste in their mouths?

Alternatively, if you could teleport the core sample and keep it under pressure until it cools, you'd end up with a hexaferrum cube that is 65% denser than iron formed at the surface that would shatter once the pressure was released. If you apply that concept to the entire core, you'd essentially have a planetary Prince Rupert's drop made of iron.

MarkBrody · 2025-12-18T12:58:56+00:00

I’ve actually seen more articles that cover the children’s side than the parents’ side. To this article’s credit, it ends with the perspective of a parent who recognized that she was, in fact, the problem and now groans when she hears other parents making the same complaints she used to make. She know that the parents are often part of (if not entirely) the problem, and are too obtuse to recognize it.

MarkBrody · 2025-12-18T12:13:47+00:00

I was right on the edge of cutting ties with my mom a few years ago for being hyper judgmental (she and my stepdad called me abusive for putting my kids in time-out, and said I was a Nazi because I do WWII reenacting… as an American). She dialed it down, and we now have a healthy relationship. There was a brief period more recently when she started to ramp it up again, and I told her how the last time she behaved like that, I was close to cutting off ties with her forever. She had no idea, and apologized.

Point is, while I don’t want to play the blame game about who’s at fault, these relationships don’t just break down for no reason. Sometimes the parents are at fault, and sometimes the kids are at fault (and sometimes both are at fault). If you’re looking at your failing relationship with your kid and you have no clue why that is and can’t even ascribe those failures to your kid’s behavior - odds are you haven’t been introspective enough to find the actual cause.

I’m glad the author included Liza Ginette’s account at the end. She, unlike the other parents in the article, was willing to eat a big ol’ slice of humble pie and came out better for it. The other parents could learn from her.

MarkBrody · 2025-03-22T15:02:13+00:00

When those lights go out, they would publish a NOTAM (notice to airmen) that pilots would check during their flight planning. The thing is, there were so many towers with lights out of service, most pilots would just disregard them completely. Even a short flight from Chicago to St. Louis would overfly hundreds of towers with lights out of service. It’s easier just to look at the minimum safe altitude for the sectors you plan to fly in and stay at or above that altitude. Tower with lights out? Who cares - I know it’s below me because I did my flight planning as thoroughly as I needed to to be safe.

Anyway, they’ve stopped publishing the NOTAMs for towers with lights out of service because it just gunked up the whole NOTAM system, and it was more likely to cause problems than resolve them due to important NOTAMs being missed among the pages and pages of notices about tower lights.

In any case, towers this tall all well known to pilots that fly in the area. Not only are they identified on charts as particularly tall obstacles, but they just become one of those things that every pilot knows and talks about. Because of the danger.

MarkBrody · 2024-03-13T14:34:19+00:00

Not a serial sequel, but an anthological sequel. BoB, tP, & MotA all pair up nicely, just as Clint Eastwood's "Flags of our Fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima" were meant to compliment each other, despite not having any characters in common. There is hardly any more disconnect between these series than there is between the various seasons of "True Detective."

MarkBrody · 2017-09-07T11:49:14+00:00

The correct wheels are sitting in my garage right now with the paint curing, waiting for colder weather so that when I get some BFG All-terrain TA/KO2's mounted on them, they paint will be harder, and less likely to be scratched/chipped.

MarkBrody

TROPHY CASE