Miscellany: Richard and Pat Johnson Palm Beach County History Museum

For decades, Palm Beach County dealt with its booming population by jury-rigging annexes, additions, and wraparounds onto the original 1916 courthouse. After the comparatively gigantic main courthouse opened across the street, the County tore down all that stuff and restored the old courthouse into a history museum.

The Johnson History Museum features a rotating themed exhibit room and some permanent exhibits showing what life was like in old PBC. There's also an interesting archive of newspapers and clippings from decades of local newspapers (which I've actually used for investigating a case).

The top floors are occupied by the ceremonial 1916 Courtroom, which is a fun place for mock trials and civic events. Newly enrobed judges typically have their investiture receptions there, connecting a century's worth of history to the present.

All in all, it's a fun place to spend an hour, it's a short walk from the main downtown drag, and it's totally free - well worth a stop.

Guns: NAA Ranger II review - Tiny Top-break .22

Introduction

North American Arms makes a variety of .22 mini-revolvers, but the Ranger II stands out from the pack. Unlike most of NAA's other guns, the Ranger II has a top-break action that allows easy loading and (theoretically) reloading, without the cumbersome manual extraction process I've had to resort to in other NAA revolvers I've owned. As I found out though, there is a difference between theory and practice...

Manual of Arms

If you're familiar with NAA's mini-revolvers, the Ranger II's grip, trigger, and sights won't blow your hair back.  It's the same single-action, five-shot gun you are used to, complete with safety notches between the charging holes that allow the gun to be carried safely while fully loaded.

Things change when you run dry. To extract the spent casings, you pull a hook-like lever located in front of the hammer and break open the action like an old S&W Schofield or Model 2. As you hinge the action open, the extractor rod and star automatically extracts and ejects the shells.  When the design works, it's exponentially faster than the process in other NAA guns, where you manually push the extractor rod through to pop each casing, one hole at a time.

The problem is that my gun rarely worked that way with .22 Magnum loads.  While the short, low-pressure .22 LR rounds extracted fine (and were a hoot to shoot), .22 Mag casings would get stuck in the cylinder, requiring me to remove it entirely and bang the front of the rod against a hard surface to extract. The process becomes just as finicky as NAA's other guns, which would be tolerable were it not for the Ranger II's relatively high price point (usually two to three hundred dollars more than an equivalent non-break-open NAA gun).

Range Report

On the plus side, the Ranger II was accurate at the range, delivering hand- or fist-sized 10-shot groups at 7 yards. One caveat - in my hands, the gun shot at least 4" higher than my point-of-aim.

CCI Maxi Mag TMJ:

Winchester Super X 40 gr. JHP:

Hornady Critical Defense:

Federal Champion (.22 LR):

Speer Short Barrel:

Conclusion

The usefulness of the NAA Ranger II will vary wildly depending on who you are and what you expect. If you just want a fun plinker, the Ranger's ability to quickly eject .22 LR casings makes it a lot more fun at the range than NAA's other offerings, and the action has an appealing Old West flair. If you're in the market for a deep cover pocket gun, the Ranger will serve just as well as anything else NAA makes.  But if you're thinking you're going to speedload this thing with spare .22 Magnum like Jerry Miculek, you're probably going to be disappointed.

Tech: The Quarry

Supermassive Games has carved a niche for itself as the world's leading purveyor of cinematic horror games. Its first big title, 2015's Until Dawn, was a hit with my friends and me, and we've also played a couple of the smaller-sized entries in the studio's "Dark Pictures Anthology," like Man of Medan.  But those were merely an amuse-bouche compared to Supermassive's latest full-length follow-up, The Quarry:

As you can tell from the setting, The Quarry is a love-letter to classic '80s horror, most notably the Friday the 13th series and The Howling. The premise is elemental - a group of counselors are spending their last night at camp after the kids leave. You can guess what comes next: alcohol will be poured, secrets will be shared...and blood will be spilled.

The Quarry's strength is its cast. You'll see some recognizable horror stars (David Arquette! Lance Henriksen! Lin Shaye!) and some younger actors (Ariel Winter, Justice Smith), and they do a good job of fleshing out the characters into people you can actually root for. On the negative side, the gameplay is identical to all the other Supermassive games you've played before, so people sick of QTEs and button-prompt-based narratives choices might find their interest waning.

Rating: 78/100 (88/100 when played in local co-op)

Music: Gamma Rays

I'm training for some half-marathons this year, and that means running in the early morning...a lot. Gliding along at oh-dark-thirty requires some upbeat tunes, like "Gamma Rays" by Temples, a Brighton-based indie pop rock band:

Soaking up the rays, gamma rays

Starlight falls in and out of phase

Soaking up the rays, gamma rays

We stand golden in the summer haze