Oh, Joe.

Here's our current Vice President saying that a shotgun will keep you safer than an "assault" rifle. *Maybe* so, depending on the ranges involved, the armor of your attackers, and how many there are. I can think of a lot more circumstances, however, where greater ammo capacity, shorter carry length, and ease of reloading can really save your hide.

Of course, I believe most proponents of civilian disarmament have no earthly idea what they are actually talking about, because my .22 Walther meets the criteria to be an "Assault" weapon. (Detachable magazine, and a barrel shroud? EVIL.)

However, let's not deviate. There's something else that made me start typing, and it's this quote from the above article right here:

“Guess what? A shotgun will keep you a lot safer, a double-barreled shotgun, than the assault weapon in somebody’s hands [who] doesn’t know how to use it, even one who does know how to use it,” the outspoken vice president, a shotgun owner himself, replied. “It’s harder to use an assault weapon to hit something than it is a shotgun. You want to keep people away in an earthquake? Buy some shotgun shells.”

The VP is betraying his true sentiments towards American Citizens in this statement, and the ultimate goals of civilian disarmament with this statement. He thinks that two rounds in a break-open double barrel is more than sufficient for us poor dumb schmucks who can't hit a humanoid target at close range with a rifle cartridge. Then again, Joe et al would probably be happier if civvies couldn't own weapons at all (see Australia's new push to ban single shot rifles). It seems that Joe also believes that we "civilians" are incapable of learning basic marksmanship, and that the folks with "Assault" weapons spend a lot of time wildly spraying rounds around, ineffectually.

Kind of like the police do, constantly, but that's an aside.

That's the thing; the only way for the them to win is to paint us (folk who carry for life and liberty) as irresponsible, ineffectual, and incapable of handling a firearm proficiently. The stats on the first two don't bear out.

The truth on the third front is far less convenient for the disarmament folks; people that buy guns typically know how to use them. Really well. I've seen the scores posted by the local PD at the range I used to frequent, and I know for an absolute fact that under slow and fast fire I score *well* above them at pistol ranges. And I'm not some gun wunderkind by any means; there are plenty of regular, non-uniformed folk out there who are better shots than I.

Folks; email your senator and tell them that you are firmly against any bill that limits the 2nd Amendment, and that your vote will reflect that at the next election. Most democrats aren't going to be swayed, but there are some Republicans out there that need to be kept in line.

Work!

Spent today doing odd jobs at my future in law's place, which mostly involved being dirty and climbing up onto high, dangerous places. The pitch of their roof approaches 40 degrees in some spots, making it hard to keep my footing. So, I did the butt scoot maneuver that I normally reserve for mountains with similar gradients. Looked silly, I suppose, but I didn't fall off the roof. Guess that means I win!

My better half was there the entire time, though we mostly worked on separate projects until the last few hours. We generally work well together, at least until one of us gets hungry, then its just a cranky fest.

Anyhoo. Glad to get some work done and make some money, though I'd be happier with a full time job. Regular paychecks have a way of making life easier, you know?

In the meantime, it's nice to have a little down time and to get some things done that have been on my list for a while. Next project, now that it's stopped raining buckets around here is to finish cleaning up the glorified woods in the back yard. Considering that it's after midnight, that's probably a job for tomorrow.

Snow?!

Snow in NC is kind of a rare thing. Most of the time, winter is really just rainy, muddy, and cold. Snow is a nice turn around, really, because everything gets a clean white coat and looks cheerful for a bit. What makes it rarer still is that we don't generally get *just* snow. It's typically associated with sleet, freezing rain, hail, and other unpleasantness that makes Yankees wonder why we make such a big deal of it until they find themselves sliding sideways off the road on a sheet of ice.

So, according to the weather folks portions of NC can expect an inch or three of just snow in the next few days, which would be fantastic! We could use a little dusting, make things look pretty for a bit. Got to remember to check the batteries in the flashlights and such, just in case.

Geez, Amazon, get it together.

Oddly enough, whenever I see this picture I hear Chris Tucker's voice going "The fuck is wrong with you!?" instead of Jackie Chan's.

I noticed the other day on my smartphone that the Kindle app is nowhere near as good as the normal Amazon app for shopping for new books. Well, due to an involuntary vow of poverty, I wasn't shopping per se, but I was looking for books to add to my wishlist.

Anyhoo. The Kindle app itself is actually pretty meager for shopping for new books; no ability to separate out large categories into smaller ones ("You just wanted Fiction, right? Who cares if you have to paw through ten pages of Romance novels to get to one or two Sci-Fi."), no ability to save books to a wishlist, no ability to view your wishlists...

I'm sorry, but for a dedicated app that's just plain rubbish.

If you look at the Amazon app though, all of those issues are gone. It works *much* better for shopping for ebooks than the native Kindle app. Hell, using the shopping feature on my damned Kindle 4 works better than shopping on the Kindle app.

Poor form, Amazon. Poor form.

Book Review; Lucifer's Hammer

If you run a Google search for some iteration of "best survival fiction", Lucifer's Hammer by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven is bound to show up somewhere on whatever list you dig up. That means that at some point, my path had to cross with this book because I think I'm on a trajectory to ultimately read every survival fiction book in existence. (That statement may be somewhat composed of hyperbole, but it's close.)

Speaking of trajectories; nice to read a book about the TEOTWAWKI being brought about by something as quaint as an asteroid strike. Nice to see a throwback to simpler, non-biologic end times. Maybe I'm just getting nostalgic for the late 80's, though. 

As nostalgic as I'm getting, this book is truly a throwback. It's set in the late 70's, way before the space shuttle missions, the Challenger disaster, lots of world events etc. This book still holds as being a pretty good bit of fiction, but it's in desperate need of an update to make it viable. It was kind of silly to read about cold-war politics, IBM punch cards, and other errata that have been abandoned well within my life-time. The characters make the black astronaut out to be a big deal! Please, the damned president is black, but that's not impressive to me because race just isn't an issue anymore. (It is to some, but that breed is dying out.) The engineers are proud of their pocket calculators, for pete's sake! This book would jump up 5% in my final review, easy, if it was simply updated.

Perhaps I'm being unfair. We don't ask editors to update Shakespeare, right? True enough, but Shakespeare this ain't, and if we're trying to make a story about how mankind adapts to a global tragedy through reason and scientific endeavor, perhaps it would be best (if you want to make loads more money), to make it relevant to current technology.

The book was otherwise written well, both technically and figuratively. It was nice to see a complex cast of characters with interweaving story lines, and wondering when it was that each character's line would intersect with another's. I do wish that Nivan and Pournelle had a better outlook on marriage, though. The way they describe it, it sounds like a trap.. The type of trap that you might expect to see gnawed limbs still hanging in, from desperate attempts to escape. Not having been married myself, I can't say for sure that this is true, but from my vicarious experiences it sure doesn't seem like it.

Still, it's a good read. I think I liked several other books better than this one, "The Old Man and the Wasteland" is an immediate example, though really only because I read it rather recently. Keeping that in mind, I think that Lucifer's Hammer gets a well deserved 70% on my scale. 

Speaking of Hatchets... Kobalt Sucks!

Normally I wouldn't feel a need to review a Hatchet, but in this case, the hatchet kind of forced my hand.

$%#@^% Hatchet

Whilst working on clearing the land today, my hatchet decided it would be a good time to give up the ghost, by snapping off just below the head. Shucks and other comments were allowed, though I think the neighbor's dog might have taken offense. Luckily, it snapped immediately after embedding in some peach wood, so there wasn't a hatchet head flying around. That could have been slightly dangerous. This really and truly sucks, as I hate to break good tools. Then again, this was a Kobalt brand hatchet, so I wasn't really expecting much out of it.

Note the circular wedge and the thick blade profile.

Not sure if I can replace the handle, since they used this circular wedge that's a royal pain in the butt to take out. Even if I did remove it, the hatchet profile isn't exactly ideal. It should be taper to near edge thinness immediately after the handle slot, to make it better for chopping. Cheap metal too, it chips on the edge a lot, even on soft-woods. Probably 420. Hmmm.

Folks, with the lifetime warranty on Kobalt I'm kind of locked in here.. I could go spend more money on a hatchet (which I'll probably do eventually anyway), or I can just get the free replacement, and if I don't, I'm leaving money on the table. And since my Scottish ancestors would haunt me if I wasn't frugal, I'll go get the replacement. But dammit, I wish I had spent more money to begin with on a better hatchet!

Damnit, Facebook

Really thinking of just getting rid of my damn profile. Seems like every time I get the thing tweaked so that my information stays as private as it can, get for being on the internet, Facebook cooks up a way to make sure that the general public can still get to it.

The main issue here is that if I like or comment on something, it shows up on my wall, even if that post originated on someone else's wall. Everyone that is my "friend" on Facebook is automatically suscribed to see all comments and likes I make, because it'll show on my wall. It's pretty asinine. The kicker here is that this is not something that I have control over; the other person has to go through a somewhat complicated series of steps in order to remove that access themselves. I went and looked, and I can't find a universal "off" switch for that.

Well, there is an "off" switch, and it's called getting rid of my Facebook profile. I'm very seriously considering it too, since I don't exactly need the thing and anyone that wants to get a hold of me can call or email me. These points of information aren't exactly stored in a Top Secret dossier, you know?

With Hatchet and Saw

Been spending some time over the past few days cleaning out a thin wood line behind the house that's been rather overgrown since I came here. I always felt like it was a sure enough haven for no-shoulders and varmints that I'd rather not have in the yard. Same for the overgrown grape arbor, and monstrous bushes. Every time I get close to one of them, I expect to hear a snake rattle or a raccoon hiss at me.

I'd much rather do the work, than have my better half or myself go to the hospital for snakebite or rabies treatment. No thank you, sweat on my brow for me!

It's been going pretty well, but the downside is I've got a brush pile going that could conceivably get as high as the house if I don't do a better job spreading it about. Aside from the obvious fire risk that it poses, I'm really just substituting one habitat for another, so after all the cutting is said and done I'm going to have to do something about that pile too.

Some of the drier stuff can go on a second pallet next to the split wood to be used for fire. I've got a couple of stakes from my dad's land that I'll use as retention poles to keep things from rolling off the edge. That's still a lot of green wood left, though, that's going to have to season for at least half a year before it burns worth a damn.

Right now my plan is to drag some of the green stuff out before every fire I make so that it can be chucked on after the burn is going good and hot. Not sure how well that will work out... Green wood doesn't burn worth a damn, but without a chipper I can't think of a better way to get rid of the stuff. There's always a good chance that we might need to be moving soon... ish. Probably better to not have a big brush pile taking up a significant chunk of real estate.

I will say that it's nice to get outside and do some real work, though. Been cooped up in offices too long, it's a damn pleasant change of pace to be out in the sun.

Book Review: The Old Man and the Wasteland

Let's be honest with each other for a second.. The selection of amateur novelists on Amazon goes kinda like this; Horrible, Smut, Meh, and Shockingly Good. To be blunt, when you pick up a cheap ebook for the kindle you're rolling dice that are loaded for snake eyes.

That's why I was surprised that I liked The Old Man and the Wasteland, by Nick Cole as much as I did. I didn't have high hopes; I let that particular title season on my kindle for about a year before I decided to risk a  couple hours of reading on it. I'm actually pretty glad that I did, and it's helped to give me some clarity about how to cherry pick good books on Amazon without touching the dice. (Pro tip: If it's got less than 10 reviews, let it season. If it's got more than that but only two stars, let it go. If it's got three stars or better, give the sample a shake. If you like the sample, spring for the cheap book.)

I'm pretty well versed in survival fiction, and I've read enough to know that the destruction of society can come on in Baskin Robbins style, with 31 flavors guaranteed! Fire, Ice, Meteors, Nukes, Floods, Pandemics, Loss of Technology, Invasion, Aliens, Economic Collapse, Active Rebellion.. I could go on for days. Cole decided to throw it down old school with ending the world with Nukes, which is a nice throwback to my earlier days of reading books that were written mostly in the seventies, during the height of the cold war, when kids were taught that desks could protect them from the A-Bomb.

I digress.

The Old Man and the Wasteland is written in the style of the Old Man and the Sea, which is fine in and of itself but I do wish that the title wasn't so on the nose. I like to be a little surprised by books, not bludgeoned with the obvious.

The book is basically about an old man going out for salvage after a long dry spell of coming back with nothing. He talks to himself, which is not a big deal for me since I do that too. He encounters environmental hardships and faces foes, and during all of this he displays some goddamn adaptability, survival knowledge, tactical thinking, and uses his head. All good traits for a heroic character. Damned good.

The writing was technically good, and the plot moved along with good action from multiple perspectives. I was actually quite pleased with the plot in and of itself, since it didn't take the course I quite expected it to (bonus points!). Okay, so some of the plot points were utter nonsense, but it was good fun anyway so I let it slide. Mostly because I was in an apocalyptic sort of mood. I thought the ending was a little.. much. Not horrible, but he was trying to make a point out of a five foot diameter oak tree, when a limb would have sufficed.

Given all of that, I've give The Old Man and the Wasteland perhaps a 76 out of 100, which is really good on my scale (if 50 is neutral, 1 is horrible, and 100 is astoundingly good). I do recommend this book.. if you're in a mood for