De-Domesticating the Modern Male

Natasha

2012-02-11T04:14:00.002-05:00

Alright, I know I've been gone awhile. But I'd like to introduce someone...say hello, Natasha.

Natasha is a Remington 870 in ATACs I got for 570 at LeBaron this winter. I grabbed a cheapo flashlight and mount off of Amazon, same with a Bushnell Trophy red dot. I snagged a Mesa Tactical side saddle and some dummy rounds online to go with it. So, now that introductions are out of the way, I'd like to explain my choice of very first firearm.

1. Why get a shotgun?

Well, it's reliable, and inside my budget. The ammunition is readily available, and it's multipurpose. It'll always be legal in my jurisdiction.

2. Why get it in ATACS?

It's pretty.

3. Why tart it up like that?

Well, I like having more rounds. And I like an easily-usable aiming device. And I like having a light so I can see what I'm shooting at.

What do you think?

2012-01-03T10:20:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year's, everyone. I'm in the mountains with the woman, enjoying the snow and the company. It's a skiing town, and I've been looking around. The first thing I noticed was how many people are dressed inappropriately. No headgear, no gloves even on the slopes. Sure, it's not terribly cold yet, but it is brisk, and night's coming. Honestly, I'm just baffled. There's snow coming down, the blowers are going full tilt to try and get a good layer on before the next warm snap (global warming is killing this town). When it's winter, do you walk around without headgear and a set of gloves in your pocket, people? I sure as hell don't. But that's the way I think. I've been out without both for long periods, and I know how stupid that is. I've done frostbite, and it sucks the big one.

The next big thing I noticed is all the purpose-driven, high end civvie gear. A fair amount of people are wearing a high-end North Face or Columbia jackets, pants, and have neoprene gloves on. Well, not neoprene, but nice gloves at any rate. My experience with civvie kit is that while nice, it tends not to hold up well to prolonged abuse. Innovative, yes. Effective for its purpose, yes. But wearing a ski jacket hiking is not the best idea. Sure, it'll be comfortable and regulate your temperature well, it will be lightweight...but should you catch a thorn or branch the wrong way, it can rip. Likewise, the North Face backpack my girlfriend loaned me for the day is well designed and quite comfortable, but I wouldn't fill it with rocks and AR mags and take it for a spin. One of my main kit requirements is its ability to be abused- I may not need it all the time, but when I do need it, I need it in the absolute worst way. For instance, my hydration bag has a drag handle, and it stood up to my buddy using it on me during a simulation in the summer. Awesome. Would I drag someone using a civvie bag's straps? No, that's asking for trouble.

And I just saw someone walking through two inches of snow in flip flops. The stupidity of others never fails to amaze me.

Anyways, the point of all this is to bring the subject up for civvie kit. I'd like to hear some opinions. I'm definitely picking up a smartwool underlayer, and I've scored an MSR Reactor.

It's not that I don't have love for the canteen cup, but sometimes it just isn't suited to he task at hand. Now, of course, you're asking yourselves, why have such a big kit? Well, one of the thing I've been thinking about more and more is the idea of 'strays'. People who, while good, didn't prepare. Now, some of you are probably thinking to yourselves 'Fuck 'em, and everyone who looks like 'em'. I say you're dead wrong. Are you gonna turn away some kid? Friends? Family members? Might as well build some give into your preparedness plans for unexpected, because you never know who's going to show up. That's another post, of course, but it's still one of those things I feel everyone should prepare for. Well, unless you're some variety of hermetic, friendless orphan born of orphans.

Not that I hold that against you.

Perceptions

2011-12-28T13:25:00.002-05:00

I keep thinking...a lot of prepping is perception. In my last post, one person commented on stockpiling versus preparation. Well, what does it look like when we stockpile cases and cases of MREs? It looks like stockpiling to the average person. We know it's not because hey, the government isn't coming to save us. You would think that Katrina's response would have shown them that they are monstrously incompetent, but here we are. Maybe it's the perception that nothing bad can ever happen to them that makes it worse. Why prepare if it won't happen, and even if it does, the government will save us?

I remember at school, it was the worst. I actually confronted a teacher about whether he walked the walk and prepared, and he turned it around on me. I said yeah, I have my month or two or supplies, water, and plans if something happens goes sideways. He said his plan was to visit me, and I didn't take kindly to that. I suggested that I had plans for that, a whole case of them. I bluffed, sure, but it really got to me. The attitude in the class, the indoctrination is 'if someone has something you need, take it. We call it seconding'. So hey, if I have the food you need because you, as a professional in the emergency management field didn't prepare, you will try to take it by force?

I think that's when I got much more serious about preparing.

Trying to get people past the perception is like pulling nails. Some can't legitimately afford it. I mean, they live hand to mouth. Alright, cool, do your best even if it's a can of spam or some ramen noodles in the closet. But the rest? I mean, even Costco sells a bucket of food-like substances you can jam into a closet. And I know there are other priorities, like car payments and bills, but still. It's not hard to budget a little here or there.

Now, why is that important?

I believe that in a WROL situation, most people will be driven by hunger, entitlement, or malice. If you can get most people to not be hungry, then that's one less element on the street. And, come to think of it, one of the more dangerous. What would you do to feed your kids during an extended period of WROL if you didn't prepare or stockpile?

My Random Thoughts on Preppers, Part One

2011-12-26T14:10:00.002-05:00

I've been thinking a lot about this lately, and as such this is sort of a train of thought experiment than something well-constructed.

Firstly, why are some people preparing, and others not?

I'm going to make a broad statement here: We are almost all A+ personalities. We are independent minded people who when presented with a problem, they confront it. When there may be a problem, we try to prevent it. I have yet to hear a prepper say 'it won't/can't happen to me'. That, I think, is our greatest strength. We are stubborn, we have foresight, and we act. That's the important one, we act. We don't just let things happen.

This also a list of our greatest weaknesses. We're independent and stubborn, which means we don't exactly get along too often. We think we can go it alone, and we tend not to listen to others unless provoked. This is really prevalent in the less desirable elements of survivalism and prepping. The odds of a Red Dawn survival situation are limited, and even then, what would retreating to the mountains do? Why stockpile firearms and not food?

The more I think about it, the more I tend to reject retreat-based ideology. Having a retreat won't make things better if the economy collapses. In fact, that is the number one thing we should be preparing for. A global economic collapse will definitely mean riots and shortages, but more so, a period of scarcity. Your everyday problems will involve feeding your family and friends, keeping them out of trouble, not Soviets in the street. Preppers need to go back to their roots and figure out what they should be worried about all over. For me, I'm worried about economic collapse and flu pandemics, and the problems stemming from that.

EDC and Man Purse

2011-12-22T14:17:00.005-05:00

Alright, let me preface this by saying I'm in a Canadian suburb. There's two glaring omissions from my kit- a lighter, and a knife. The lighter is easy in my AO: if I need fire for a reason other than light or making sure some hot girl can have a smoke, what I actually need is a full assault rig and a flak. I'm in the burbs. I travel to more densely urban areas. When I head towards the woods, I bring it, sure. But there's no reason to start fires in an urban area.

The second is a knife. Quite frankly, the Canadian laws regarding carrying a knife are so vaguely, poorly written that it's largely up to the officer who catches you with one as to whether your folding knife is a weapon or a tool. I don't feel comfortable carrying one, and the public reaction is almost the same as brandishing a handgun.

I've broken my EDC down to two levels: All day, every day, and daytrip. And I'm going to skip the picture of my wallet and cell, and just show the interesting stuff:

Sorry for the poor quality, it was taken using my cell. Anyways, that is one nightmarish keychain. It has a pen, a flathead and Phillips screwdriver, bottle opener, the original key fob from a Corvair, and all of my keys. Beside it, there's a stainless steel Embassy Pen. In addition to being an absolutely excellent and elegant writing tool that makes me look more stylish, it definitely has some weight. Getting wonked in the head with it would certainly be unpleasant, and it can be used ot load a punch. In either case, it's a non-obvious self defense tool with other uses, so it rides where my knife used to.

As it stands, when I know I'm going to be out for the day, I'm trying to get back in the habit of bringing the Man Purse. People snicker and laugh periodically, but they stop considering it has all of this in it with room to spare:

So, let's start with tools. It has my multitool, duct tape, paracord, battered notebook, fine point screwdriver, medical shears, two flashlights (the little orange LED fob and the 6P LED), and a sharpie. Everything you need to fix most problems are breakdowns you encounter day to day.

There's the emergency stuff: a set of nitrile gloves, a CPR mask, a SOF-TQ, and an Oales bandage. Basically, everything you need in an OH SHIT scenario to save a life, yours or another's.

There's the boo boo kit: Bandaids, Asprin, Pepto, Reactine, alcohol swabs and a warrior wipe.

Finally, there's my Android tablet. It mostly fits in pant pockets, but sometimes it prints real bad. Anyways, it fits in there like a dream.

Finally, what it needs is a Cliff bar or something, and one of those Gatorade Accel Gels. Something to make your body work. So basically, everything you'd need during an average day. That was the aim here, a really nondescript bag to get you through most inconveniences and some pretty serious situations. Where does it need improvement? I'm not sure. It works pretty well most days, and I have a lot of bases covered from heart attack to serious injury. I mean, in an active shooter scenario, I'll have to make do, but concealed carry is illegal here (functionally, at any rate). Here's what it looks like all packed up:

Anyways, opinions?

Des

From the Ashes...

2011-12-21T06:09:00.002-05:00

Had a long downtime. I'm sorry, folks. One part, I've become embittered with the survivalist movement, even the preppers. It's largely a part of the whole A+ personality aspect. There's no co-operation. Or, rather, between sane ones, there isn't much. And I'm not talking insane like By The Sword, he's just odd. I'm talking the guys who if you ever got pneumonia and laid up in camp, they found it and you, they'd stand over you fixing bayonets and asking "Y'all love Jesus, don'tcha?"

I've slacked. I went from bearing the Man Purse of Utility to just what's on my keychain, not so much as a multitool and lighter. I've gotten fat and lazy, and I've been stupid. So be it. Well, I'm starting over, re-approaching things. Thinking about disasters again beyond the large-scale. Back to basics. What do I need every time I walk out the door? What do I need if I'm out all day? What do I need for an overnight, three nights at the woman's?

I bought my first gun.

That should be big news. It's an 870 Tactical in ATACs, all tarted up with a sidesaddle, red dot, single point sling, flashlight. Got some buck for it. It's a start, I suppose. I've been re-examining the idea of prepping as a whole, but the idea of this post is I'm back. Like Volrath said...I stepped out. I did not step down.

Des

In Case of Emergency...

2011-04-13T00:48:00.002-04:00

Pound your smartphone button.

I've been cruising the internet lately, and I came across this:

http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Panic Button!

I like the idea. Set the options up. "Are you sure you want to wipe your phone? Send mass text/email? I like it as a concept- I can send out a text to all the people in my life if things go truly sideways, wipe my contacts if I need to, etc.

Des

A Pop Culture Moment

2011-04-04T01:57:00.003-04:00

So, I was tooling across Youtube, and I saw this video:

Now, I kind of like Rise Against's sound. Their politics can eat my ass, but they are entitled to their opinions just like everyone else. They lionize 'revolutionaries', violent fanatics bent on a vague leftist uprising. And they paint them as the young, the everyday. The tattooed hot girl who usually serves you coffee at Starbucks is brewing and packing pipebombs. The douchebag with the funny hat who you see at HMV is putting bombs into backpacks. Everyday people rising up against...what?

They lionize revolutionaries of every stripe, but they omit the important parts.

They omit that a lot of them get caught, and instead of being working-class heroes, they die with a pistol screwed into the base of their skull in an alley.

They omit the interrogations. The late nights. The constant fear.

And for what? Vaguely anti-Bush, pro PETA, and globalization ideals? They make heroes out of the people who busted up my Goddamn downtown last year, and burnt up my Goddamn tax dollars by the barrel and the bowlful with frivolous lawsuits against the police. I really hope that these kids grow out of the Che-worshipping asshattery someday soon. This protester culture fad has got to die.

Des

Another Election Year

2011-03-31T14:04:00.002-04:00

I suppose it happens often enough...Canada has had federal elections every other year for almost the last decade. It's hardly a surprise that a country this size is divided. Different regions have different needs. On the East Coast, the collapse of the fisheries and traditionally strong unions have made it the traditional grounds of the far-left NDP. Quebec's distinct society-within-society have created the basis of a party based solely on looking out for number one, the Bloc Quebecois. The hyper-left Green party has its stronghold in BC, and the Conservatives the West. It's all a patchwork. Mostly, it's Liberals and Conservatives as the big dogs.

The Liberals have never really been anything but a 'I guess it's better than nothing' choice since Trudeau left them. And lately, the Conservatives have been doing very little, trying to toe the line as the inevitable upsurge of leftist new voters (produced by left-leaning educational institutions) start to stop throwing rocks and use their votes. I wonder how much longer it will take for the idiots who were smashing up downtown last summer to realize that it's easier to change the country using a ballot than a ball-peen hammer.

At any rate, I've been thinking about the election. Will it be more of the same? Another minority government constantly doing nothing for fear of an inevitable no-confidence motion? I'm still voting Conservative, because frankly there's no other party which even vaguely lines up with my ideals.

Des

On Horror: Lessons from Dead Space 2

2011-01-29T03:10:00.004-05:00

Well, sorry I've been gone so long. I recently got Dead Space 2, the sequel to the game that really got me started on writing horror. More than being a fun, scary-as-hell game, I find that dissecting the game is actually very worthwhile for understanding it works. Well, why it scares, and applying that to writing.

1. Force People to Pay Attention to Detail

Dead Space isn't an especially easy game, which is where we get the 'survival' part of survival-horror. You're an engineer with a motley assembly of mining equipment taking on hordes of mutant zombies that require dismemberment due to the their distributed nervous system. Since this series is set on space stations/ships, there's a lot of fans and ductwork around so people can breathe and whatnot. Of course, this is also a popular avenue for the smaller zombies (children, babies, skinnier ones) to travel in. It doesn't take long before you start regarding every fan and ceiling duct with suspicion on principle. This isn't helped by the spectacular audio, which features everything from muffled speech to skittering sounds and taps that could be either an off-time fan, or a monstrosity lying in wait. Any sound could be a warning- there are plenty of enemies, some who sneak, some who flank, some who howl to summon others. At least two kinds actively communicate with other zombies.

Speaking of dismemberment, the game also punishes you for not paying attention to detail by having some of the wounded monsters lie doggo once wounded, or simply when you arrive. Other humans have been fighting them as well, so you never know if a dead one you roll up up on is REALLY dead. You learn to check carefully, since there isn't exactly a dearth of supplies around. You learn to be careful, so I'm going to try to figure out a way to work that into my story.

2. Familiarity Breeds Horror

Necromorphs (the primary antagonists in Dead Space) aren't scary because they have claws or teeth or are particularly murderous. They're scary because they're familiar. You can tell that they were human at some point. Their heads are largely intact, minus lower jaws. vestigial arms hang from their fronts. They wear clothing. The smaller ones look like deformed children. Some look like skeletonized dogs. You can tell what they were by looking at them.

Likewise, even on a starship, an elementary school and hospital look like they do today. Washbasins. Beds. Flowers. There's one particular scene where you walk into the lobby of the doctor's office, and it looks just like one. There are balloons. A gift shop soaked in blood. Discarded magazines and cards. An abandoned wheelchair. It could be any doctor's office anywhere, minus the body parts and blood.

Those are the two big lessons I took away so far. Suspect everything, and the more familiar and comforting something seems, the easier it is to subvert that feeling.

Des

Memejack!

2010-10-27T16:38:00.002-04:00

Alright, jacked from Sigboy's blog: What song would you be, if you could be a song?

Fire and Fury, from the Starcraft soundtrack. Ohhhhhhhh yeah.

Des

Cratering

2010-10-19T21:48:00.002-04:00

I've been writing a lot more recently, but instead of writing in a straight line, I've been using a technique called 'cratering'. You pick a major plot point, or series of them. Expand them a bit, then fill in the space. It's turning out to be much easier to write something that you've had a recent idea about than try to force it.

Well, it's working for me. I hope m story doesn't come out, for a lack of a better word, soupy.

Des

To License, or Not to License?

2010-10-01T14:59:00.002-04:00

So, I know I've been absent. I did a brief foray into the world of security work again, and it sucked. So, there I was, catching up on my blogs, when I saw Lawdog's series of gun control posts. I looked over the suggestions in his Background Checks post. As I did so, I thought to myself...this sounds a lot like a basic licensing program. It functions to separate those who can and can't own a firearm. Of course, it shouldn't tell you what kind you should have, but that's a different subject. So, back to the licensing idea, the people the state declares unfit fall into roughly two categories:

1. Criminals who have committed crimes sufficient for them to be barred the basic human right of self defense.

2. Those deemed mentally deficient by the state.

Some people wonder why those in category one are still alive or out of prison. What happens if they were simply deemed 'negligent with a firearm' or something similar? I mean, not like 'popping off rounds in suburbia for teh lulz', but how about something like 'I accidentally carried into a post office'. That might be grounds for other sanctions, but is it the sort of thing that should remove a person's right to firearms forever? I endorse it in cases of 'terminal stupidity', such as the case of people shooting friends while they wear bulletproof vests. That kind of idiocy should merit the penalty for both parties, should they survive.

Now, the second part is where things get tricky. People will scream bloody murder about suicide rates among gun owners, as if they couldn't be trusted. I read somewhere that almost everyone goes through a 'severe depressive episode' at least once in life. Really, it's understandable. Heartbreak, loss of a parent...but if you seek help for it, does this mean you should have your guns taken away? I don't think so. I mean, I had a real rough time in August once I got dumped. Spending ten days with Sigboy and getting my recoil therapy on was something that helped me a lot. But, back to the question, does being depressed at some point mean that you no longer have the right to self-defense? I definitely think people on the Mental Health Express (schizophrenics, etc who do the six months out of the hospital, six months in) shouldn't have access to firearms. But where do you draw the line? Does someone with a long term, chronic depression problem not have the right to self-defense?

In Canada, the recent dealbreaker on the death of the long gun registry was the fact that the brother of one of the MP's voting killed himself with a rifle two days before the vote. How do people expect to use a licensing system or the registry to prevent that? Sometimes, it just happens. Even if you roundly violate someone's right to medical privacy, sometimes you just can't prevent it. Case in point- a couple of years ago, a buddy of mine from the army got a medical discharge from the army. He's living free, fat stack from the government. Two weeks later, word comes back that one day, he walked into the back yard, and blew his brains out with his shotgun. No warning. No history of substance abuse or depression. Just walked outside and offed himself. No note, nothing. I'm not sure how common that is, but still. How in the name of God would this have been prevented by even the most invasive legislature?

Since I've mostly come up with a fistful of questions, I'm going to propose something of a solution that will, no doubt, be attacked as unconstitutional. Do a basic license, a lot like a driver's license. Hell, attach it to the driver's license, as a little 'G for gun-safe!' symbol on the back. You renew it whenever you renew your driver's license. Basic check: Violent criminal or deemed mentally unfit? No? Alright, go buy some guns! Declared unfit? Turn over your driver's license, because if I don't want you to have something that makes little pieces of metal go fast, I certainly don't want you to have something that makes a tonne of metal go fast. As far as faking a driver's license goes, have potential purchasers show two pieces of ID.

How's that for a slice of fried gold?

Des

On Cop Hate, or Des Shits on Some Douche in a Systematic Manner

2010-09-03T01:16:00.003-04:00

Why Some Douche Hates Cops

Let us break this shit down henceforth:

1. I hate cops because they don't do anything for me, and have a slim chance of doing so!

Well, that nice, Fat Douchebag Hipster. It's likely that most crimes against you wil be minor, or that you will be one of the lucky few who go their lives without being victimized by the criminal element. It's also likely you're not poor, so you don't live in a high crime area, so your crib don't get broke into every other month. You lack a vagina, so your likelihood outside of jail of being raped is almost nil. You are, in fact, one of the least likely persons to be victimized in society. What about everyone else? Or can you not comprehend the concept of 'good for people who aren't you'?

2. Cops jacked my weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed! I done bought it fair and square!

It's weed. Your misuse of your money is not their concern. Two points: Caveat Emptor, and Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

3. Ignorance is no excuse for criminal activity!

That's right, it's not. Be a responsible citizen, how's about?

4. The cops are the private army of the Establishment, maaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!

Firstly, the Establishment is not out to get you. Secondly, it is not the police's job to be your personal advocate in whatever opinion you happen to hold. They aren't the arbiter of your personal beliefs. If you have a bone to pick with the Establishment...well, welcome to humanity. No one likes the way things are. Get your cope on. And another thing! Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Don't bust up yo hood, and your protest won't get cracked down on.

5. The Poh works for the government, which is corrupt, which means THEY'RE corrupt!

Welcome to the real world, douche fag. There's graft in everything you do. Nothing's fair. Time to look beyond yourself and to the greater good. You don't like it? Then vote. Vote with your wallet and the ballot. Don't bitch on youtube because the cops jacked yo weed. Suck it up like a man, and carry on. Or, don't do stupid shit. Police are a fact of life, they're not going away. So limit the stupid shit you do, you self-entitled asshat.

Des

Why the Ground Zero Mosque is a Bad Idea

2010-08-31T17:42:00.002-04:00

How did anyone ever think this was a good idea? Seriously, I wonder about the soft heart (and headed) liberals some days. Let's go over this once again:

1) You are building a soft target in what some can arguably call an insulting place.

While everyone loves tolerance, I don't see a huge rush to put up a Serb embassy in Srebrenica. Or a statue of Stalin in Katyn. People are understandably upset about the murder of their loved ones. So, can someone please explain to me how putting up a symbol of the cause that butchered them next to the site of the massacre can be construed as anything but insulting or submissive?

2. You are building a soft target in a nest of very angry people.

As previously mentioned, this mosque is not only an affront to the memory of the people who died, but placed in the middle full of their friends and family. Do you really think that's a bright idea? Don't you get the concept that your parishioners and property will likely be subject to daily harassment and abuse?

3. You have made your mosque a very clear target for extremists.

Every Cletus, Jim Bob and Billy Bob Thorton in the continental US will want to see this mosque destroyed. It will be under constant threat. This may, of course, be what higher leadership wants, but the fact remains that peaceful Muslim Americans are still both civilians and Americans. Lack of sense aside, they deserve the same protections everyone else is afforded.

All in all, I oppose the mosque based on common sense- it'll be a punching bag for the city, will worsen relations between Muslims and New Yorkers, and quite frankly the downtown doesn't really need another crater.

Des

Long Gun Registry Madness

2010-08-30T15:50:00.002-04:00

The Tories are, apparently, hiding the 'facts' on the gun registry. Well, not really. The Liberals are claiming that the Conservatives aren't releasing any 'positive' reports on the Long Gun Registry. This is a horrible symptom of mind poisoning- they assume that such reports exist. They are taking their opinions, and trying to make the facts fit them.

A major House of Commons vote to scrap the long gun registry is coming up close, and the Liberal Media is attempting to whip the legions of douchebag hipsters, bleeding hearts and greens in and effort to stop it. For instance, the Liberal Party recently secured the endorsement of the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians to keep the registry, claiming that "As front-line physicians in emergency departments, we regularly witness the horrific injuries and deaths that result from firearms." So, is there an epidemic of rifle fights across the country? Did I miss something? Did Winnipeg suddenly become Fallujah Far North? Perhaps, while I wasn't looking, these physicians have become professionals in justice and common sense as well as medicine. They claim that "We treat patients on a regular basis who are suicidal and who are victims of domestic assault. We know that a long gun in the home puts both types of patients at a significantly higher risk of being killed" and that three quarters of spousal murders were committed with rifles and shotguns.

We'll pause a second and look at this before I continue. I'll put the obvious point out there: if you have a domestic violence charge, you are unable to obtain a firearms license. You get a domestic violence charge, your license should be revoked in theory. Apparently, this doesn't always happen. Point the second: if you are sufficiently enraged with your spouse that you go, unlock your gun cabinet, unlock your ammo cabinet, load and make ready your weapon and go shoot him/her/it to death, odds are you were sufficiently enraged to grab a knife from the kitchen, a bat from the den, or simply use your fists to get your murder on. Hell, grabbing the knife or bat would take about half the time. The tool used for murder should be immaterial. Which brings me to point the third: how can a doctor tell the difference between a shot fired from a non-restricted rifle from a restricted rifle? There are restricted rifles, like what few ARs we're allowed, and restricted shotguns. Do these ER docs have some sort of magic ray which determines which is which? And even if it does, how does a registry prevent some asshole from the criminal use of a legitimately owned and obtained firearm?

Fact is, it doesn't.

This is all straight up bullshit. As it is, we don't see too many bolt-action drive-bies. Registering a firearm does not magically prevent it from being used in crime. A registry doesn't affect the fact that we share the biggest unprotected border in the world with the country with one of (if not the highest) percentage of privately owned firearms in the world. No, I am not blaming America for being awesome. What I am saying is that illegal firearms are basically impossible to stop from getting into the country. Illegal firearms are available, and quite a cash cow for criminal groups.

If a criminal will act in a criminal manner, no registry will stop this.

Deschain

Family History

2010-08-04T23:46:00.002-04:00

Alas, brigands to a man, I am decended from. It's not quite surprising, though. My father's generation on both sides of teh family has made gret efforts to unravel the secrets, and here is what we know so far:

The Polish side of my family, through my dad's father, left Poland rather abruptly midway through the Russian Civil War. Apparently, they had made quite a profit helping smuggle Jews, intelligensia, and anyone else targetted by the NKVD or its predesessor from their side of the Russian border into Poland proper, and on to Europe proper. Obviously, this was not looked kindly upon by some of the worst torturers and butchers that the world has ever known. So, when a neighbor knocked in a panic one night, they rushed to the door. He explained as quickly as he could that said parties has politely questioned him at gunpoint as to his whereabouts. He had sent them two farms in the wrong direction, but they didn't have much time. They grabbed their ill gotten gains, the children, and loaded up the car. They dashed to the nearest port, and took off for the first place they saw: America. Now, between the ruination the Great Patriotic War brought and whatever means my great-grandfather used to dodge the secret police, the facts are shrouded in time. My dad grew up in Long Beach, CA, speaking Polish as a second language.

The French side of my family, through my mother's mother, was kicking it in the New World since the 1760's, maybe earlier. Parish records indicate that the first member of my family we can trace our lineage back to came over as a soldier in the service of the monarch. Essentially, from then up to the 1920s, my family was dirt-poor. As in, literally barely owning the dirt they lived in. However, all this rather abruptly changed in 1920s. My great-aunts and uncles recall tales of a 'Forbidden Barn' that smelt funny. My great-grandfather suddenly received a job in the local automobile licensing bureau, run by the local Liberal party member. Now, this may not seem odd...but it should, knowing the town numbered 200 odd souls. Suddenly, of a family of seventeen, all the girls under thirteen could afford to go to school. A few others were married off to an Irish family that shall remain nameless...and also basically runs the Montreal underground. My great-uncle Florian and a few others still repeat a a phrase that makes no sense without context whenever someone loses a game of cinq cent , the local version of bridge: "Awh, t'en va tu a CHICAGO!" For those of us who don't speak French, 'Looks like you're going to Chicago!'. Now, why would a hick from a place you can't find on a map say something like that? I mean, sure, they made regular trips down the St Lawrence weekly. And the year that Prohibition ended, somehow the local licensing place closed down.

Interesting the little facts that add up, isn't it?

Des

In Exile

2010-07-31T21:29:00.002-04:00

After having my heart broken again, I find myself in self-imposed exile in Northern Quebec. Hard labour around the ancient family estate brings perspective, I find. It helps. I am, of course, headed to Texas in eleven days. Texas is my home away from home, filled with persons attempting to lure me to settle in such a place. It may, insh'Allah, one day become my home. I'm trying to track down jobs in Corrections there, and I hope I can get a work visa to turn into a green card there.

Des

Finally, a G20 Aftermath

2010-07-10T19:23:00.002-04:00

After everything is said and done, I have only the following words to describe it: play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

And now, MTV is making heroes of these idiots. People bitching that they were marked as 'medics' and got arrested. Really? So, which organization were you with, Anarchists United Against Everything? Maybe EcoTerrorists Against Human Existence? Everyone on the show is either a scapegoat or professional protester. Hell, I have no problem with peaceful protesters. I have problems with people who support the violent ones.

People are complaining that they got arrested for 'nothing'. Really? Why were you at a riot?

One person actually said that staying home and having no one show up, or having a lot less lookey-lous, would prove that the massive police protest would be pointless. It's true. And then she got booed offstage, because people seem to thin that standing around waving signs that say 'shame' or yelling at police is a better way to get their message across.

Before I repost some of my forum spiels, I'm going to give people a piece of wage advice: If you don't want an ass kicking and an arrest on your jacket, DON'T GO TO A RIOT. Don't go to a G-series summit or any other places where there is a reasonable expectation of a riot. Don't go where people are being arrested with cars full of Molotov cocktails.

And here we go:

"It started out that the majority of police on the protests were actually 52, 31, Halton and Durham cops. For those outside the area, Halton and Durham are smaller suburbs of Toronto, 31 Division is the Finch Corridor, and 52 is Metro Toronto. It's pretty rare to hear anything besides the usual 'all cops are pigs and need to die' shit that you hear at most protests about them. They were the bike cops you saw early on, guiding the peaceful protesters along and stuff.

However, there were a number of rather hardline shops in town as well. Montreal PD, Surete de Quebec, Peel Region and the Mounties have a well-deserved reputation for getting rough when people don't listen. The SQ in particular has a bad habit of asking only once before they drop the hammer. They ask you disperse, and you don't, they won't ask again. And they're the ones who came out at Queen's Park and down Bloor.

I'm some limited way, I feel bad for the legitimate, peaceful protesters. I know that the majority of them didn't cause trouble. Onlookers and opportunists mixed into legitimate and peaceful gatherings soured a lot of them. A lot of people got upset when people got arrested for not obeying the police, and that soured more crowds, too.

You know there's going to be riot cops, riot cavalry, plainclothes, etc. When the police tell you to move, Goddamn well move!. Straight up, argue the legality of your protest in court. If you try to argue it to a nice cop, you're going to get arrested. If you argue with an SQ cop, you're going to be savagely beaten, then arrested. Once the Riot Act is on the table, GTFO. Hell, any sane person would book it in the opposite direction once you even sighted riot cavalry."

I'm not impressed with the media for portraying the professional protesters as heroes and great philanthropists, instead of zealots who use the media and the law to push their personal crusades. There's a civilian inquiry being pushed... but are they going to be told about proper riot tactics? People are complaining that the police didn't act fast enough, but then again, if they did swoop down and quash the window-smashers, it would have incited people with accusations of 'police brutality'.

Christ, they stocked the audience with more of those hyper-activist people who hate reason. Watching this is just getting me riled up.

Deschain

Day 2, first impressions and such.

2010-06-23T22:52:00.004-04:00

Alright, so the local media is all up ins this, so I have some pretty fancy links for you now:

Organizations in Attendance. Note the wide variety of groups, from hardcore Marxists to unions to environmentalists to lunatics like the Zeitgeist Movement. hell, even Palestinian support groups are out there for some reason.

Global News Interactive Map. Shows the downtown zone. Look at how close the Eaton's Center (one of the largest malls in Canada) is to the security zone. If anything happens, police will have to fight their way there. As well, note that the area in front of Provincial Legislature (Queen's Park) is a protest zone. Not bright, folks.

Watching the news, I'm getting the impression that a lot of the protesters are young, impressionable kids. All they know is G20 R BAD, and when the bike police ride past, they scream about a police state and intimidation . I'm going to refer everyone back to my post on the subject of protesters. However, after the Battle of Seattle and the riots during the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, I am concerned. We have a lot of angry people and a bunch of colossal strategic fuckups. I really hope the riot cavalry is ready.

Deschain

G20 Briefing, Day 1

2010-06-22T18:42:00.001-04:00

Alright, so a quick overview: As it stands, there are currently a lot of pissed off people in Toronto. The citizenry is pissed because the subway and light rail hubs are cut off, so they have to fight the traffic to get into town. The businesses are pissed because they're under threat, police had to deal with shots fired last night and angry people. The anarchists are just pissed at everything. I mean, all these 'peaceful protesters' are awful short tempered. Today, they seized Queen's Part, vandalized a war memorial, protested in the rain. Luckily, I think most of the lookey-lous and and softcore types were driven off by the shitty weather. There's plenty more of the same forecast.

Whoever planned the security zone should be fired. They didn't secure all the way to the lake, so you basically have this citadel in the middle of town that's under siege. To the northeast and northwest are universities well known for their far-left sentiments. A major shopping center -an obvious looting target- is well outside the security zone. All the thousands of security guards hired are NOT riot troops. They are luckless people offered 10$/hr to provide a visual deterrent. If things go all Seattle this week, they will turn tail or get badly beaten. This is a disaster in the makings.

Deschain

2010-06-19T17:42:00.003-04:00

So, lately I've been expanding my social circle. It's a nice change. I don't really make new friends easily, and for the last couple of weeks I've been meeting people. It's been good. Sorry I haven't been around.

So, one of the things I've been noticing is the lack of middle ground up here on the gun issue. After a couple of drunk talks with a girl at a party, I found that she believes in comin' strapped. That is to say, she believes in the ownership and use of firearms in self defense when and where legal, which is a refreshing change from GUNZ R BAD. She had been in some rough relationships, and as a result of personal experience, she's come around. Sometimes, it's the hard lessons, unfortunately. But New Friend made her chops with me. We traded stories and drinks awhile, got to know each other. Good to meet new people with roughly the same ideals as me.

That aside, a lot of the people I met have more or less the same attitudes I did at 17. Capitalism bad, guns bad, drugs good, etc. Listening to some of that shit made me realize how spoonfed it all was. The Communists lost the economic Cold War, but they kicked the ever-loving shit out of us culturally. The shit they spouted when the G20 came up...well, needless to say about half of the people I met won't be getting no Christmas cards from me. It's all a part of the system. The education system is canted towards being liberal, and if you disagree with that viewpoint, well gee, you must not be learning because the course material says that if you don't embrace the liberal views, you must not be getting the rest fo the content either. But shit, that's how things roll. You separate the chaff from the wheat. So, new friends in. When I get a place and settle in, I'ma take her shooting. That might rub an old friend the wrong way, but shit. My new friend is a big girl, she can make her own decisions. I'm really quite glad I met her, I feel less awkward with her.

Speaking of which, turns out my old friend is all anti-gun, unreasonable fear, Brady-Campaign supportin' crazy. Which is unfortunate, because that really kills any potential for a lot of stuff. She freaked out when her brother brought home his very first target. Hell, she'd flip if I took New Friend shooting. But hey. Like I said, she's a grown woman, and Old Friend needs to cowboy the fuck up and accept that she can make decisions.

Couple of days from the G20, I'll give updates when things start going down. Keep your chins up and heads down, everyone.

Deschain

Getting Ready for a Ruckus

2010-06-09T15:57:00.002-04:00

Well, both the G8 and G20 summits are coming to town soon. Which means a security lockdown you wouldn't believe, and a conflux of such raw capitalism that hippies from across the continent are drawn to attack it. And this year, we have the full spread. We have anarchists coming in fresh from firebombing in Ottawa , labour unions pissed off because the economy's gone to shit, Pro-Palestine activists angry because they were caught trying to beat Israeli soldiers to death...the whole gamut. There's a lot of potential for this to go wrong, but what can you do? The people have a right to protest (PEACEFULLY, may I note). But there's a lot of anger out there, and a lot of grumbling, inconvenienced people.

More to follow.

Des

Scenarios, Part Two

2010-05-18T00:07:00.002-04:00

So we have the scenario set up in the last post. I wanted to expand on it a little more. When you have a lot of unemployed persons, especially young men, they tend to drift one of three ways when you strip any reasonable hope of employment from them:

1. Momma's basement with the Xbox.
2. Politics
3. Crime

So, between the idealogues and the sudden upsurge of crime and gangs in your hood, you have quite an array of people you have to step careful around. Not only do yo have to be wary of the gangs running protection, but the ones robbing folk and selling drugs. They'll know you, and you'll probably know them at least in passing. They'll likely know you have a job, which means you have stuff, which makes you a solid target for outright theft or 'protection fees'. You have to be careful of any sympathies to political groups, as should to have a job, whatever side you're not on may decide to take a shot at you just for being employed when they ain't. Then you gotta step careful around the cops, because when the danger skyrockets and the pay plummets, they tend to get a little more vicious.

The world I see is a lot like the one in Children of Men, like I said- except with more gangs, more violence, more pollution. Anyways, thinking about it, after a certain point, the authorities won't be able to respond, or willing to in the face of a shooting war between two or more of the elements listed. And you'll probably know the parties as a fact of daily life. You'll know them either on a personal level, maybe as people to avoid. Point is, at some point when things get ugly, they'll come for you. And sure, you might be able to fight them off.

I'm just wondering if I'm wildly offbase. I'm also wondering why preppers aren't grouping up in a more practical way. It's one thing to fight off eight or ten bangers by yourself, but a couple of families of preppers on in the same complex at least gives you a decent chance of response. I mean, even if you fight them off somehow, you have to GTFO or get ready for a second wave. I don't think anyone will continuously throw bodies at you. Eventually, courage will wither.

Of course, this relies on you actually being successful on A) throwing back the gangs, and B) not dying or being crippled in the process.

So, after all that rambling, the big question I'm coming up with is...why are preppers so scattered? Why aren't we all glomming together in small knots and such?

Deschain

Scenarios, Part One

2010-05-16T19:39:00.003-04:00

I'd like to preface this by saying that I don't like Rawles. Him and his acolytes are the kind of people who, if they found you wounded on the side of the road one day, would lean over you, bayonet extended, and ask quietly "Y'all love Jesus?" And no matter what you answer, they'd prolly bayonet you anyways for not believing in his specific version of Jesus. I mean he hates on Mormons often enough...okay. Back on topic. But yes, his ideas about an economic end to the world seem valid enough. I'll give him that.

So, my thinking has revised about the end of civilization as we know it. While flu pandemics are certainly possible, an economic collapse is certainly looking equally likely at the moment. And that shit doesn't just fall out of the sky. Alright, so the way I see it, even during an economic disaster like postwar Germany there was a part of the populace with jobs and livelihoods left. As a general rule, when things go south, the first to go are the young single males. And when you get a lot of young single males angry, unemployed, and unable to get jobs, there's often large spikes in crime. The way I see it, once they get sick of looking for jobs that aren't there, they'll turn to theft and drugs to support themselves. As things get worse, they'll form into gangs or fold into political organizations.

So, when I imagine looters now, I imagine small roving gangs taking what they want by force and not a monster, angry mob. Which means that you have more options if you find yourself in their crosshairs. I need to sleep on this one, I think.

Des

And upon this rock...

2010-05-11T00:17:00.002-04:00

Oh, yea, for the nineties were a bleak time for music. The CD was the dominant form of media, and after many years of wild successes, once-great musicians began to exploit their fans. For Metallica, the Great Betrayers, begat the art of the Filler CD. Musicians felt no need, no drive to create, for a few good songs would cause the masses to buy their exorbitantly priced CDs. For there was no other media which could compete, and no ability for consumers to pay for what they wished alone. Yea, they gnashed their teeth and cursed the music gods!

Then, from the depths of Server, from the womb of the Machine Mother, came Napster. The people, once restrained by the music industry monopolies, shattered their fetters. Persons could obtain digital versions of songs their owned, or from bands that freely offered them on the Great Network. Many, in a great and terrible wrath, began the theft of music from those who had sold them CDs of mostly filler.

But then, the Great Betrayers reared their heads and roared. They thrashed about, screaming of their monetary losses, their livelihoods. But instead of supporting the great Napster, securing a major market share in the greatest advent in music since the radio, they struck down the blessed Napster in an act of the greatest spite. They turned on their fans, bringing upon them the litigation!

And yea, that is how Metallica set back the music industry a decade, and gave unto the people the rage and ability to steal their music. For had their wrath been turned, had they embraced the future, who would have resisted?

Deschain

2010-04-30T12:47:00.003-04:00

Hamilton, as a whole, has a pretty shitty reputation in the Greater Toronto area. If I had to compare it to a city, I'd say it's a Canadian Philly. Not as built-up, though, but the same idea: steel town with crime issues and infrastructure that hasn't been touched since the 60's. There's two areas, essentially- Down the Mountain, and On the Mountain. The city is split in two, with the better parts of town up on the Niagara Escarpment, and the pollution and poor folk down below. My buddy just moved to Hamilton, and he did not move into the nice section.

So I spent yesterday cleaning out the basement of this low-rise that my hombre became the super of. He's doing his best to make it seem like a decent place for people to live- most of the crackheads are gone now, and there's a decent set of doors on the place. However, all the mailboxes are jimmied open and there's plenty of vandalism and old shit to deal with. He might be offering me subcontract work to help him.

So, anyways, to get to the point of this story, me and him and his woman were sitting outside the building after excavating the boiler room (who keeps 130 burnt out halogen bulbs?). She had bought some beer for us, and we were relaxing in the afternoon sun. So I'm looking around the 'hood. It's not nice...but I can see the argument for it 'just being old'. So I'm sitting there and I start looking around. Well what do you know...next building over has three apartments with the windows covered. Not blinds-covered, but cardboard and tinfoil. Then we started finding the stem pipes.

Stay classy, Hamilton. By the end of the day, we had found kitchen knives stashed all over, dime baggies, stem pipes, actual pipes, at least three Improvised Bong Mk Is, and a box of 8-tracks. I have to continue helping moving them in on Monday, but yeah. I'm starting to really wish I could carry, because it's not an area I'd want to be out after dark in. So all you Americans, give your pieces a little extra CLP tonight. Not all of us are so lucky as to be able to have tools for self defense on our persons.

Des

Atlas Shrugged (but only out of indifference)

2010-04-29T20:16:00.002-04:00

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." -seen on ZS

Honestly, I tried. I tried to like Ayn Rand. I like her ideals, but like Heinlein, she is a much better essayist than fiction author. Nothing against Heinlein, but his stories were as much oratories as anything else. It was so brutal, I just couldn't keep reading it. The closest I've come to finishing the titular book is beating Bioshock twice.

At least Bioshock is fun.

Deschain

And now what?

2010-04-28T12:29:00.002-04:00

Well. I've been punting my resume all over, but it's like dropping it into a black hole. So I'm working out now, more than just the odd jog. I mean, I might as well get healthy, right? So I've been talking to folks, and I've gone over to the dark side.

Supplements.

No, not the illegal kind. A monster multivitamin laced with MSM and glucosamine for my joints, mostly. Like always, I'm using science to help me along. My main goal right now is to lose little baby Johnnie Walker. Yeah, I've got enough gut to warrant a name for it. And, when you think about it, all that shit around my middle is what, 30 pounds? More? That's like wearing a full-to-the-tits battle rattle everywhere. No wonder I'm so slack. So I'm chipping away at it with two runs a day and swimming every other day. I figure, might as well do something constructive with my time right now.

Deschain

Drop in the Bucket

2010-04-26T13:51:00.002-04:00

I was reading Scumfuck in Babylon, and I was thinking...the modern household is a drop in the pollution bucket. You can live the maximum-green lifestyle, off the grid, etc. but in the end, it's not going to be the average consumer that makes a difference. Combined, even- you take every household in America, in Canada, etc. and add it all together, and their combined waste and pollution, and you have like five days of operation of China's industrial sector.

That's it.

Seen the Yangtze lately? It looks like a post-apocalyptic nightmare! Beijing has worse air quality than Cairo. I'm not saying don't go green; I'm saying that if you're expecting serious results, what environmentalists SHOULD be doing is not buying products from companies that base production in China and India and other places where pollution laws are so lax. They should be drawing attention to ship-breaking in India, the rivers of China, things like that.

Wait, no, no one cares.

Industry is killing the planet. Maybe it's already mortally wounded. While self-reliance and stuff helps, does it help enough? Christ, I don't know. I'm still of the mindset that it's all coming to an end sometime. A new Dark Age, maybe.

Deschain

Finally!

2010-04-24T20:24:00.002-04:00

Well, I'm done school, at last. I'll be posting more that I'm done, between working out and looking for a career (as compared to a job). If I haven't found one by September...well, I have to seriously consider going back to the army. My buddy wants to change regiments, and wants to take me with him. It honestly sounds like a decent go, but yeah.

We'll see how everything goes.

Des

Role Models

2010-04-14T03:21:00.002-04:00

This man is brilliant. Period. You know what? I think that in addition to lack of cause, kids these days simply don't have role models. Who do they look up to? Is it Fitty, or Doc Tyson? Is it Weezy, or Rodger Young? You got no cause, you got no role models, you got a life as a cog in a corporate machine to look forwards to...well, why am I not surprised then that young people look to protest leaders and Greenpeace idiots for leadership? It's not like there's a ton of people presented to them. Ask a high school student if there's bee any Medal of Honour winners in the last ten years, and odds are the question you get back is "What's a Medal of Honour?"

Shit in, shit out.

Deschain

PS- Oi! You! Get back to work on Last Call, Last Stand! It's the best thing I've read since Neuromancer!

Kyrgyzstan In The News

2010-04-07T19:23:00.002-04:00

Once again, Kyrgyzstan is in the news. You have to admit- when you hear about revolutionary activity, you think of the French rising up against autocrats, not people rising up over utility bills. But, apparently, that's what it's come up. Only a couple of years ago the current president rode a coup into power, and now he's being chased out again. Depending on who you believe, either the government is crumbling due to massive police casualties and the death of the Interior Minister, or there's a brutal crackdown occurring where endless waves of protesters are being mowed down in the streets. It could be both, it could be neither. Still bears watching.

Des

Further Rumination Has Revealed...

2010-04-03T01:22:00.002-04:00

Opportunity.

Me and a classmate were considering establishing a consultant business in the Emergency Management field. Part of it is, as always, putting yourself in the right place at the right time. Certain markets are ripe for consultant work. This province is not one of them- private buildings are running to the McDonald's version of EM- security companies using students for 13$/hr, working them to the bone till they quit, or tossing them once the flow of contracts (necessitated by changes in legislation) dries up.

Like any good capitalist, the wheels are turning in my head. I mean, sure, they're helped along by an energy drink and a healthy dose of slivovitz, but the wheels are a turnin'. I can feel the Great Chain of Industry in my hands, almost.

I think anyone who reads this blog would do themselves a favour if they played Bioshock awhile. How's Mr. Ryan put it?

Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?

Deschain

Aneurysm in 3...2...

2010-03-25T17:49:00.002-04:00

Did I miss something? While I was in Texas last week, my absence apparently threw the left into revolt. First, Ann Coulter got jumped at the University of Ottawa. I mean, I have no love for her. And picking a university in a liberal country to speak at certainly doesn't say anything about her ability to use common sense. But seriously? Setting off fire alarms and trying to break in? Passing ridiculous resolutions such as, and I quote:

"Whereas Ann Coulter is a hateful woman;

"Whereas she has made hateful comments against GLBTQ, Muslims, Jews and women;

"Whereas she violates an unwritten code of 'positive-space';

"Be it resolved that the SFUO express its disapproval of having Ann Coulter speak at the University of Ottawa."

Idiots. So, I laugh it off, knowing that universities only acknowledge free speech when it falls into line with their twisted views of the world. Alright. So I'm cruising Teh Interwebz when this pops up:

Professors slam scholarships for children of dead soldiers

Let me get this straight: these soldiers, the best people Canada has to offer, volunteer to go to Douchebaggistan to try and help people who don't have pots to piss in, don't have the technological base to create pots to piss in, and try to maintain a fragile peace, right? They're behaving in the same ways that the troops who fought their way up Juno beach did, the same way your precious peacekeepers have for generations...and you essentially want to punish their kids. Lord knows the military life is pretty rough. You move around a lot, lots of unstable schedules and long absences, lousy pay and mediocre benefits. The government decides to make a fund to pay for the schooling of its honoured dead's children, and you object? Why?

“We think this program is a glorification of Canadian imperialism in Afghanistan,” said Jeffrey Webber, one of 16 professors who drafted an open letter to university president Vianne Timmons.

Let's break this down. Imperialism implies that we're getting something out of this war. So, what are we getting? I haven't got a crate of heroin yet. No one's selling that shit to me. Oil? Doesn't have any, despite the idiot protester's slogans. Land? Shit, you couldn't pay the average Canadian to visit, much less colonize the damn place. No metal, no decent farmland. Control or authority? Over what, a small part of a Central Asian country where the literacy rate is 10% that exports nothing but terrorists? Oh, and if IS that, we share it with the rest of NATO.

Do these people think we invaded to dump money and lives into the country for profit? It's a monster loss just building basic infrastructure like ROADS! To call the war imperialism shows either a dangerous lack of understanding of the term, or a dangerous schism with reality.

Deschain

Reactions

2010-03-22T23:33:00.002-04:00

So, I spent last week in Texas, home of awesome. I was in Houston near the tail end of my trip, and we were walking through a mall talking politics. Things eventually got around to knives. I said I no longer carried a pocket knife, because I've had people jump when I pulled it for a mundane task (specifically, removing packaging). My buddy Chuck suddenly pulls a knife out of his pocket, displaying it to me. It's a nice knife, to boot.

I react.

I don't react with horror. I don't react with alarm. I like Chuck. I know Chuck wouldn't cut me. What did I say?

"Shit, man."

I looked around, and I expected people to be scrambling, staring at him with horror for openly displaying a pocket knife. No one so much as spared a second glance. I expected security to lob themselves bodily at him, cops to come running. None did. I didn't fear the knife, I feared the reactions of the people around him. It came as an honest and genuine surprise to me that we didn't attract a single glance askew.

Man, that socialist shit is ingrained in me deeper than I thought.

Deschain

Decisions, Decisions

2010-03-10T15:10:00.002-05:00

It's getting to the end of the school year, so I'm gearing up my resume to be sent off to various organizations. The vultures are circling, seeing who's prime for recruitment, and who's not. Now, due to my habit of speaking my mind, telling the truth, and being competent, I'm pretty sure that BOMA and the other corporate slugs have no interest in me. So I've been trying to penetrate the Old Boy's club and get into public sector work.

There's three attitudes however towards emergency management and preparedness, however"

1. Do the bare minimum, because the government says so.

2. Fake up to or beyond the bare minimum.

3. Drag your feet and actually get yourselves squared away.

There are exceptions to this, of course. Most companies or departments dealing with hazardous materials are pretty good about safety, emergency preparedness and such. Then there are associations who will go unnamed, as they take the least-dim-witted security guard, give him a 5$/hr raise, and put him in charge of all their programs. Now, I'm not saying security guards are all dim. I was once one, for example. But it takes a special kind of stupid to take a small raise in order to take on that amount of responsibility.

At any rate, I'm preparing my shabby-seeming resume for applications to the Canadian federal government, provincial emergency management authority, and to FEMA and the Public Safety departments of both Washington and Texas. While I sort of want to move to someplace where I can defend myself without being charged with manslaughter, or someplace where I can own a firearm without everyone looking at me like I'm wearing a necklace of human eyes, ears, and fingers, I'm pretty nerved up about the idea. I have friends and family here. I like the snow. And quite frankly, living someplace new scares the ever-living fuck out of me. Anyone ever moved cross-country or anything like that? Any advice?

Deschain

Twisted

2010-02-28T12:31:00.002-05:00

So, I'm bumming around the local doctor's because my girlfriend has the pneumonia, right? There's not a ton to read, so I reach for the Toronto Star. I just about had a fucking aneurysm.

Toronto Star Article on Guns in America

By the time I finished the article, my blood pressure was through the roof. Here are some of the more interesting quotes:

"As a senior instructor with the grassroots, three-year-old U.S. rifle instruction program The Appleseed Project, Bries teaches shooting techniques usually encountered only in the police or military. He isn't paid for his trouble, but he doesn't care."

The tone suggests that it's bad to shoot like a soldier or cop. Why the hell is that? Clearly, this person has never been shooting. Shooting fundamentals are shooting fundamentals. It doesn't matter whether a hunter tucks the stock of his rifle deep, or a commando does it. The articles goes on to disparage people who have the audacity to DARE to prepare for disasters, and twist the words of Massad Ayoob.

This is the kind of thing that makes me want to head south. The best part- that wasn't in the opinions or editorials section of the newspaper. It's put forwards as something Canadians should be alarmed about.

Burns my fucking hash.

Deschain

Children of Men, and Liberia

2010-02-26T02:14:00.003-05:00

I was talking Sigboy, and I brought up Children of Men. He hadn't seen it. Fair enough- it's a bit obscure. I showed him the trailer, and I said to him:

"This is how I see the world in twenty years. Maybe not the infertility thing, maybe not Britain Stands Alone, but the world moving on. The world looking polluted, filthy and bleak."

It's a great flick, even with the ridiculous political subtexts. And it's not hard to see the world headed that way, either: the setting is two parts East Germany, one part Israel during the Intifada. Broad economic depression, despair, radicalization. Police brutality the norm, pollution out of control, terrorist acts a fact of life. Endless bureaucracy and random violence.

And then I came on this gem:

http://www.vbs.tv/watch/the-vice-guide-to-travel/the-vice-guide-to-liberia-1-of-8

Most definitely not safe for work. It's an eight part documentary on Liberia. Some people view it as a post-apocalyptic wasteland. It's not. It's hell on earth. I have to wonder...what sort of people could let this happen? What sort of people would do that to others, and why?

You have to wonder, sometimes, what kind of animal hides beneath the face of your next-door neighbor and stuff. People are capable of damn near anything.

Deschain

Ezra Levant is the New Trudeau

2010-02-23T15:18:00.001-05:00

It doesn't start getting good until about 2:10. Basically, this dude got called before the Alberta Human Rights Commission for publishing the old Mohamed cartoons in 2006. At the time of this interview, he was still being accosted by the government, over 800 days later.

Political correctness is a euphemism for censorship. So why do people want to enshrine it in law?

Deschain

Nuts, Bolts and Nuts

2010-02-17T18:35:00.002-05:00

My last semester of this Goddamn program is almost done, so I'm starting to gear up to look for work in the field. So far, by and large, it's been a top-down sort of experience. Lots of focus on the field as a whole, lots of focus on things from the top.

I'm not so good at that.

I don't play well with bureaucrats. I understand the need for them, but I have an objection to being buried in red tape. I have a firm belief that no one who's been elected to a position should be involved in disaster relief. Why? It's simple. Elected officials didn't get that way by a regime of clean living and honest dealings. Who do you think is going to get the majority of the dollars, people, etc if a mayor is running an emergency response? Their voters, the districts that didn't vote for them, or the slums? Too much graft in politics.

This, of course, does not go over well with local despots.

I like the nuts and bolts of this course: looking for vulnerabilities, potential disasters. I like planning a response to a flood or whatever. I like looking at current doctrine, and saying 'what's the next evolution?'. Here's an example: lockdowns. I understand it's the most effective response to an active shooter situation RIGHT NOW, but do you honestly think that potential spree shooters aren't seeing it? Hell, there's probably a whack growing up with the lockdown drills as a part of school life this instant. Do you think that won't factor into the plans of the next Harris and Klebold? So I was ignoring a discussion about how to mooch off of Uncle Sugar and thinking about this, right? And what I came up with was that if I was the devious, evil mofucker that would shoot up a school, I'd have noticed the lockdown placards everywhere. If I was the type to go postal, I'd have noticed the same thing at some workplaces. And I would ask myself, how can I break this? How can I exploit this? And then, how can I counter that?

The world is moving on, folks. If you think that this sort of thing won't happen, you're an idiot. School shooting have been going on forever. Hell, Canada's been documenting them since 1902. There's at least one a year- and I'm not talking about bangers blowing each other away at school. I'm talking about spree shooters. One a year, at least, at a school, every year. This doesn't take into account places like army bases, office places...

Can you see where I'm going? This is just an example. Everything up here is reactive, which grates. And people just aren't security conscious up here.

Well. Enough bitchin'. Back to my resume.

Des

On Open Carry

2010-02-16T00:59:00.000-05:00

I like any sort of carry. It's better than the alternative. I encourage people to carry in the home, around town, out in the wild. There's one thing I just don't get- urban open carry. I can understand open carry around the house. On your property, if you're out away from the burbs or the city. But what the hell do you expect the urban sheeple to do when they see you with a piece? Man, they will FLIP THEY SHIT. The Law doesn't appreciate it either, and I can understand that. You're scaring the herd, and if they're getting calls like "ZOMG MAN WIF GUNZ OMFG!" every fifty feet you walk, then of course you're opening yourself up to harassment.

And another thing...what's up with UOC? I mean...sure, it's an improvement over not carrying, but it's mostly in the city. In the city, it'll cause you a metric shit ton of problems, and since it's unloaded...yeah, limited help.

I can understand wanting to carry. But urban, unloaded open carry? You're asking for trouble.

Deschain

Only Slightly Better than Furries

2010-02-10T22:51:00.002-05:00

There are things you can't describe. You can't describe the utter shittiness of something. 'Infinite Twilight, Except Much Gayer' seems to be a good start, though. And no, I'm not hating on gays by saying that. Wait, let me back it up.

I associate with persons online who, while good people, have dark sides. They stare into the abyss daily. One recently linked me to...Fanfiction. Let me explain this to you: take a series, a book, comic, or more often movie or TV show. Now, take the worst, most juvenile writers in existence, and turn them loose on it.

No, that's not even close.

Think, the 4chan of writing. A site of such infinitely powerful shit, that it becomes a shit singularity. A shit black hole, from which nothing can escape. An alternate world of utter, incredible shittiness- one with its own rules, its own language. 95.9% of everything related to it is approximately of the quality of Twilight. In fact, most people who are serious about writing consider Twilight fanfiction in everything but flagrant copyright violations (but it's touch and go, anyways). The vast majority of writers of fanfiction fall into the following categories:

1) The Mary Sue: Insert a perfect character into the plot line, who magically whisks away the main romantic interest. This character is basically a perfected version of the author; they are vastly more powerful, more beautiful, more...whatever than everyone, and are written to be everyone's best friend/paramour.

2) The Hand Wringer: Take a perfectly good existing character- let's say, oh, Inara from Firefly- and then reduce them in emotional maturity to the level of a 13-year old girl. Angst, crying, starry-eyed infatuation. No, this is not restricted to female characters. Imagine endless stories of Jayne Cobb blubbering like a hungry, angry baby.

3) The Slasher: The less is said about this, the better. This has nothing to do with violence or torture, by the by, just astounding perversion. Imagine all the characters of Lord of the Rings, having sex with each other...and werewolves, orcs, etc...all the time. Not necessarily consensually either, and NEVER heterosexually.

These characteristics are by no means limiting. You can have a Hand Wringer with a Mary Sue who always manages to cheer up someone, and then...well, like I said. The horror. I'm lucky. I had a guide to this, someone to warn me of the many perils, sift through the shit singularity. There is an upswing to all of this endless horror. Oh, and it IS endless. Reams and reams and reams of it. As 4chan gave us 'All Your Base', Fanfiction has provided some small, marginal good. For instance, the new Battlestar had subtle acting put in it due to a piece. Watch Karl Agathon and Racetrack throughout the series. Of the remainder of Fanfiction, 1% of the remainder can actually be described as 'good'. Some people have, dare I say it, taken it upon themselves to expand on small, subtle points in series, or expand backstory, or continued series that died early like Firefly. They can fill in gaps or explain reactions or whatever.

It's not all bad. It's just 99% bad. Which still puts it just ahead of furries and 4chan.

PS- it was a fair-to-middlin' story about where Jayne's gun from Serenity came from. It was...eh. Also, I feel like I've been neglecting this blog, so here's something to make up for it.

Deschain

Healthcare 101, for the Retarded or Liberal

2010-02-08T18:52:00.002-05:00

Let me explain something the Canadian public has learned the hard way:

Doctors go where the money is. It really IS all about the Benjamins.

It's simple. Doctors spend up to a million skrillas to get their papers. They tend to be the best and brightest, and know their worth. The government takes over healthcare, they go on the payroll, right? And what happens when the government decided to cap their salaries?

They walk.

They go back to private industry, or move someplace where they can get paid commensurate to their skills. So, what happens is the number of doctors in country drops, their quality drops, and you get fucked. Seriously, it happened here. Some stupid number of our new doctors (I want to say like 50%) turn around, and walk across the border because a hospital in St. Louis or New York will pay them two or three times what they'd make at a clinic and half again what they'd make at a hospital here. It happened here, it'll happen to you.

Deschain

2010-02-03T00:46:00.003-05:00

Something I figured out, all jittery and coming down off a caffeine high. I'm still rushing through work, but once you get to the tail end of the buzz, you get unfocused. I was sitting there, thinking about what I might be working at. Thinking about almost everyone else I know who's gainfully employed. And I said to myself, how many people are at dead end jobs that they're miserable at? Why aren't they getting ahead?

Because they're chasing money. Nothing wrong with that, but it's not what they really want. They put it ahead of a few too many things, and as a result, they get paid to be depressed and frustrated. Nature of the game is you're going to have people suckered into being cubicle meat. Some people enjoy it. Some people won't have a choice. Like I said, nature of the game.

It all comes back to purpose.

You can have shitty, miserable, back-breaking labor. But if you feel it has purpose, you have purpose. And that will make it enjoyable, in a way. Not like playing your favourite game happy, or drinking every night happy. No, more like that burn in your arms from a good workout. Like looking at something you've built and having pride in it. Knowing you've done something right. The other (and more lucrative) option is to do something you're miserable at for more money. I know you, I've seen it enough. Been it once or twice. Sitting there, feeling like it's all a waste. Feeling underused, undervalued, a piece of a giant, faceless machine with alien aims. In the end, you end up paying. You pay with your misery, your emptiness, for all those nice pictures of dead presidents.

As my namesake put it, "To pay hell is one thing. But do you want to own it?"

Deschain

Culture Vultures

2010-02-02T17:52:00.003-05:00

I've been absent lately, trying to finish all the work I can before the strike begins. I don't want to scramble if they go on strike and try to cram our semester's work into whatever time is left.

But I've been thinking. I know, it happens a lot. I was thinking about the future. Things are going two ways:

Firstly, there's the general decrepitude of culture. The celebrity-stalking industry in North America pulls down more money per year than most of Africa does, combined. Kids are rolling up from high school, doing essays with emoticons. Putting out games about being a serial killer makes more money than California. People refuse to think critically any more- it's all reaction, reaction. Regurgitate what you're fed, don't analyzed. Doesn't matter from where, people accept what PETA tell them, or punk rockers, or whatever.

Secondly, I've noticed a few people are taking modern technology, and actually using it for something culturally valid. Some games nowadays are coming out with -dare I say it- story lines worthy of a novel. Some come with three novels of dialogue. Most of it isn't bad. I figure sooner or later, people will make the leap, and turn games and similar media from 'pop art' to 'actual, valid art, not like that post-modern crap'.

That is, providing people stop stalking Brad Pitt long enough to notice.

Deschain

Would you change?

2010-01-30T23:33:00.003-05:00

It's a pretty sad spiral that ends with you creeping towards the bottle of a bottle of vodka, yeh? Vodka has traditionally been the liquor of thoughtfulness, for me. It's what I reach for, when I want an accounting of what I've done. Vodka pries the truth out of you.

As a side note, I'm planning a trip to Texas. That aside, plenty of Mass Effect, a new girlfriend, and the usual drama.

Carry on.

Another Learning Experience

2010-01-21T04:56:00.002-05:00

Strike's not on yet. I say yet, because I suspect it's more a matter of time. Later on in the semester means more pressure.

Medicine, and the practice thereof, is a reminder to people of their own weaknesses. Their phobias. Their squeamishness. I was in class today, mooching medical supplies from the Old Soldier, Reservist, and the Failed Paramedic Student. It's one part single-minded obsessiveness as a kit weasel, one part it's a good idea to get as much medical training as possible. So, I roll up on my homies, and start mooching for anything they're not using. I offer coffees, beer for kit that's not being used, old, that sort of thing. They give suggestions- old WWII style triangle bandages, triangles, that sort of thing. I ask about SAM splints, and we get into a discussion about splinting the femur. Goes something like this:

Failed Medic: Why do you want SAM splints? They suck!

Me: What? Why?

FM: You can't splint a femur, for one thing.

(about here, Fat Chick leans in and starts listening)

Me: If I have to splint a femur, I'm so fucked. I'd need Death Pants.

FM: Death Pants?

Me: Those pneumatic pants.

FM: Get a Seager splint.

Me: Those are too big and heavy, plus the femur'll prolly move around. Hell, I don't even want the pants. What's are the stats for femur fractures going compound?

Fat Chick: Compound?

Me: When the fracture separates and comes out the skin.

FM: Pretty low.

Me: What about internal lacerations?

(fat chick starts turning a little green)

FM: Not sure.

Me: What about causing internal lacerations?

FM: Oh, good point.

Me: Me, I figure that if you end up with a broke femur, you're all kinds of fucked. Like, need an ER yesterday kinda fucked. Too many big arteries and nerves near that bitch.

FM: What do you expect to cause the break?

Me: Hey, I was good working with simple extremity breaks. I got a lot of hemorrhage stuff, and I wanna learn more before I start working the airways.

Fat Chick: Why do you want to learn about this stuff?

Me: Because some day, it might be someone I care about all lain out or perforated or something. And I'd rather do something to help than stand around and wring my hands.

FC: But you're not a doctor! I wouldn't trust you to help me.

Me: You're not in NASCAR, and somehow they let you on the road. I wouldn't trust you to drive.

About then, she just shook her head, rolled her eyes and turned away, and I asked whether or not there were spare Nasalpharangeal Airway Tubes lying around, because that's about all I know how to do. I woke up this morning, and I thought about it. This person is an emergency manager, or hopes to be. She is overweight, undermotivated, disinterested and sarcastic in far greater amounts than even I. She has no interest in saving lives. She is the person you are relying on to funnel beans, band-aids and bodies to you in a disaster. Remember that.

And make sure everyone you care about is prepared.

Deschain

Purpose.

2010-01-19T04:06:00.002-05:00

Purpose is the cornerstone of discipline. I'm pretty sure that a lack of purpose is why my generation is so absolutely fucked. A liberal upbringing has taught that working with your hands is something akin to slavery, and the purpose of warriors is to oppress or be expended in brushfire wars in Godforsaken countries that should, for all intents, be allowed to wallow in hellish conditions. We're brought up to chase cars, whores, materialism instead of purpose. Self-gratification over self-fulfillment. So what's left for most people? Hocking shit, or being a cog in some giant corporate machine? Hell, that's something to give your third-best at!

When I joined the military, life became simple. Enjoyable? Maybe not in a conventional sense, but I felt I had a purpose. I was the Smart Guy. I had a role in my platoon. I had buddies who I would fight and kill for. Die for, if need be. My purpose was clear- give advice, and overall help those I could. If that meant killing bad guys, all the better. Now, I'm out in the world, going to school to learn how to deal with whiny and spineless politicians, beg for money in a budget, and deal with a media whose primary purpose is to entertain, not inform. I look around and all I see is wasted potential. One of my best buddies is lead vocal in an above-average metal band. He's not all that bright, but I suspect that has a lot to do with extensive weed abuse and quite a few blows to the head. I mean, the guy is a talented singer, decent lyricist. Better than decent, from what I can hear.

He bounces at night and drives a school bus by day. He's fucking Otto from the Simpsons.

If there was something worth working towards for him, he probably would have done it. He can run a warehouse (and more or less did at times, before he got owned at the beginning of the recession) without too much trouble. Problem is, there's no jobs for him and he doesn't see much point in looking. There a hundred dozen people with more experience and better records fighting him for a job that's more work at half the pay. I can see why he gives up before he even starts. And that's what it largely comes down to, across the board. People my age and bitter and purposeless. There's not a whole hell of a lot of jobs that don't involve paper hats for them. They're competing against older returning students for spots in colleges and universities.

I know the general attitude is 'sink or swim, bitches!' across the board. Hell, I don't have a lot of sympathy for the people who give up and slink back into mama's basement with the Xbox. I'm thinking, though, that once you get a certain concentration of disaffected youth, society as a whole starts to suffer. Once people lose purpose, discipline goes. Then goes drive, and so forth. People go from asking 'what the hell am I doing with my life?' to 'who the hell's fault is all this shit?'. And that's shitty all around.

Deschain

Drama for the loss.

2010-01-14T03:23:00.002-05:00

So, personal drama aside, I'm talking about something that really pisses me off: my college is striking. The numbers I got were as follows:

76% voting attendance
57% overall support for the strike
67% at my college specifically supporting the strike

Thank you for fucking your students, who are largely young (and therefore unemployable in the current market, with more than a third of people my age unemployed last time I checked). And thank you for fucking the older students who have been downsized out of the current economy. Both those groups are relying on their teachers and education to ensure their careers don't begin and end with 'Would you like fries with that?', and you're using them as bargaining chips against a province that is already out of money. They have none more to give. They're 25 billion dollars in debt already. We're the fucking California of Canada.

Great.

Well, good news, blog people. At least I'll be able to post more.

A Whiff of the Grapeshot

2010-01-07T15:18:00.002-05:00

It occurs to me that the children of the west are so spoiled with liberty, that they've perverted it. The word has traditionally meant 'freedoms and associated duties', but now apparently means 'I do what I want, when I want, and if you don't like it, or believe how I believe, you're a fascist!'

Little history lesson: Until about 1920, riots and other public disturbance were met with gunfire. And horsemen with truncheons, who would brain you. Hell, you could be singing 'God Save the Tsar' and asking for bread and they'd gun you down. Hell, they'd send men with sabers after you. Here in the West, we've broken away from the murder model of riot control, and there are still complaints. Let me break it down for you:

1. 'Freedom of speech' does not equate to 'burning down a Starbucks'. As soon as you start assaulting people or busting up property, your freedom of speech is revoked, because you forgot about the duty part of your civic liberties.

2. You do have the right to peaceful assembly. Emphasis on the 'peaceful'. As a general rule, the police could care less about peaceful protests. Hell, I once came across a marijuana legalization sit in. There were cops standing around, a bunch of very high people sitting there, and no problems. Hell, I even watched one hippie light a fat joint and OFFER IT TO A NEARBY OFFICER. Know what happened? The cop just smiled and said "No thank you, ma'am." She shrugged, smoked her joint. The cop stood there and watched and didn't care.

3. In just about any other place in the world, the cops would run you over (Iran), use machetes and riot shields (Africa), or burn down your slum (South America). You're complaining about having more freedom and less consequences for abusing it, because you want to smash up a store or knock down hydro towers? How selfish and spoiled are you, exactly?

I mean, in Napoleon's day he was considered a humanitarian for firing grapeshot over the heads of angry mobs, as compared to into them. It just boggles my mind when I see people saying we're not free, or calling the police Gestapo, or shit like that. We have more freedom than anyone, ever. You want change? Why not, umm, do something a reasonable and rational person won't call a riot?

Deschain

Arg, my lungs

2010-01-05T02:40:00.002-05:00

So, New Year's Day I saw my girlfriend's Cop Dad. We all went out, had Chinese buffet food, enjoyed ourselves. Her mother even restrained her glaring. We all had a good time, and by the time I got homes, I wasn't feeling great. By the time the ball dropped, I was too drunk to care, but the next couple of days had me coughing up a lung. So far, this year has started off nothing short of horrible. I've got the bronchitis, and oh, I forgot to mention, some asshole comprimised the local Wal-Mart and took all the money out of my chequings and savings. I mean, it wasn't much, but Goddamn it, I needed it! So, now you know why I've been a little...absent. Well, more so than usual. It's balls. Tomorrow, I head to the doctor and pay out some money for meds and hope that the bank refunds me the money in the next couple of weeks.

Happy shitty new year, folks.

Des

Anvils, revisited.

2009-12-27T18:32:00.001-05:00

Here is the final version of the story I posted in "For My Next Trick, Anvils" post. Thanks to Sigboy for all the help!

"You sure you want to do this?" Keith asked me. I nodded, more to myself than to him.

"Don't see any other way, to be honest."

He sighed, like an older brother watching his brother do something he didn't think was the brightest idea in the world. Leaning on the hood of his pickup, he stretched his shoulders a bit. My only gun and only holster were already hanging off my hip, and I was leaning against my idling Civic. The women were inside with a few other trusted friends, getting things ready for what looked like a long, rough haul. All those little things we put away for a rainy day got dusted off and dragged out of safes and closets.

"You're going whether or not I come, aren't you?"

"Yep."

He stared at me another moment as I loaded three speedloaders of .357 and dumped them in my left pocket. I could damn near hear the scales creak in his mind as he weighed everything out.

"Suppose you want help, too."

"Wouldn't mind it, homes," I said with a shrug. I had already made up my mind. I was going.

"She want to be rescued?"

I answered with a shrug.

"She didn't exactly ask for help, per se..."

Another sigh. He stared at the hood a moment. I flashed a cocky grin. I already knew the answer, before he reached for his Sig, made sure he had a round chambered.

"Alright, let's go save the girl who isn't your girl."

******************************************************************************

The streets were choked with cars heading the other direction. We could see black pillars of smoke rising into the sky. The first day the power had been out, nothing happened. The second, day, nothing. Third day, all hell had broken loose. The big Smith dangled in my hand as we drove past people running, screaming. I saw a coupla people who looked like they were sleeping, but it hardly seemed that they were napping in the middle of a suburb being looted. It all flashed by as we broke speed limits heading against the traffic. I felt a lot better about riding to the rescue with his truck compared to my little Civic.

"Call her."

I nodded, dialed her number. My thumb shook a little, not from heading towards what was at best rioting and chaos. Her phone rung and rung, and I prayed my cell battery held out.

"H-hullo?"

"Hey Jess, you alright? Still at home?"

"Yeah, I'm scared. They're lighting fires-"

"I'll be there in twenty, pack your bags."

"Alright, how-"

"Cell's going, I'll see you in twenty, Jess."

I hung up on her. I needed the battery to last as long as it could. I looked at Keith, but he was unreadable behind his Oakleys. I looked down at the 870 between my legs, holstered up the .357.

"What do you think, man?"

"This is dumb. Your girlfriend would kill us if she had any idea what you were doing."

"So? Never stopped us before."

"Yeah, I got the door, don't worry about it."

He lapsed into a stern silence. He didn't like coming along for this adventure- I could understand that. A wife and kids makes a man rethink that nonsense. But I was young enough to believe in it yet. He flipped on a CD, and I heard the beats pound. I grinned, thumbed shells into the shotgun- his competition gun, on loan just in case things went bad. Fat red three-inchers, all 0000. I heard the lyrics, smiled. He didn't. Nope, he was pumping himself up, drawing out that bit of him that wanted to murder rapists. That wanted mayhem. That wanted to be the righteous, gauntleted fist of justice.

"Forged in the fire lit long ago, stand next to me, you'll never stand alone!
I'm last to leave, but the first to go
Lord, make me dead before you make me old!
I feed on the fear from the devil inside..."

Oh, I was definitely nerved up. I could feel my heart beating faster, that seductive strength that adrenaline gives you. Keith's loaner shotty was appreciated, I'll give him that. But the song was worth of a dozen of them. I felt my heart beat faster, head nodding to the lyrics.

"Right at the lights," I said, seeing a familiar intersection.

"Not that we have much choice. Look about two blocks down."

I squinted, trying to see past the bumper to bumper cars. Just barely above the roof of a Windstar I saw the first lick of flame rising, then a puff of oily black smoke. A Third World roadblock. Great. He made the turn, dodging a stalled Prius. The windows were broke.

We pulled up in the parking lot of Jess's building. It was one of those apartments above a set of stores, overlooking the street. There were actually five or six apartments in the building, none of them particularly nice but particularly affordable to young folk who didn't mind the odd shady customer, the odd loud noise in the dead of night. Semi-gentrified, she called it. Better than the barrio, worse than your average place. There were only a couple of other cars in the lot, all smashed except two. The door was closed, didn't look to be damaged. We both scanned the lot as we picked a spot close to the door. He turned off the engine, took a deep breath.

"Destiny has brought us together, I wonder where fate will lead us?" Keith finally said, after a pause.

"Way to gay up some thrilling heroics, yo," I responded, my voice a little choked. We bumped fists, coming out of the car on the bounce. I scanned the area behind the strip, Keith the area we came from.

"Hey," he said, still watching his zone with his gun at the low ready, "get the kit out of the bed."

I dropped the gate, saw what he meant. There was an AR and two H-harnesses. I dragged it close to us, tapped him on the shoulder.

"Nice," I said as he turned away from the street, "Expecting a small war?"

He turned around, grabbed the rifle and the webbing with the mag pouches, slinging it on with practiced ease as I stood watch. Then, he charged the bolt, and let me struggle into my rig. Well, his rig. I had worn it shooting a couple of times, felt the weight settle onto my hips.

"Alright," he said, "Let's do this."

We took up positions on either side of the door, backs to the wall. It didn't seem like anyone was paying attention to us, which was nice. I took a deep breath as soon as he put his hand on the knob, looking at me for the cue for him to open it. I nodded, and he heaved it open. It was dark in there, with the power out. The only light came from a window up two flights of stairs, filtering down an off yellow dimness we could just barely see by. As soon as we burst in, I hear a door next to us slam shut. Keith flicked his muzzle towards it, but we heard the bolt slam home before he got there. We heard something else, too.

“Open up, bitch!” someone called mockingly from above. We started up the stairs quietly, listening. I flinched when I heard the first thump of impact, flesh on wood. Muffled female voice.

“We're gonna get in sometime, Jess!”

And after that, I don't remember much of what happened. Looking back in the car, I broke into a run. I came up, and saw two guys, big tattooed white guys with an axe and a baseball bat. The axe was up to the eye in Jess's door, the bearded idiot grinning with malicious glee. It was simple, just like the drills. I lined them up over the bright green front sight, and squeezed the trigger mechanically. One, rack, two, rack, three, rack, four, rack, scan. There was a ringing sound, and I heard Keith shout behind me.

“Room clear!”

Numbly, I got into position on the far side of Jess's door.

“Jess, it's Des!”

Ringing.

“Jess!”

I heard the clink of the chain, a little dragging noise, and then the deadbolt. The door opened a crack, and there she was. Long purple hair pulled back into a ponytail, pale skin stained with smeared mascara. Brown eyes, tears, beauty silhouetted between the door and the axe handle. Keith glanced at her, then at me. A smile ghosted across his face, and he turned to cover the hall. I smiled at her, and she opened the door some more. I walked in, shaking a little. I had never been in her new apartment- it was all thick paint, small pictures, bright and cheery. I smiled at her awkwardly, stepping carefully in blood-spattered boots.

I scanned the apartment, saw a tuft of black hair on the other side. The shotgun came up again, and Jess yelped.

“Hands on your head! Come out where I can see you!”

A raggedy man...boy...thing emerged from the kitchen, black bangs obscuring half his face. He trembled as he stood where he was, hands in the air.

“Des! That's Aaron!” she said to me, like I should know who he is. I imagine I looked pretty weird- a high school friend in a Team Realtree hat, World of Warcraft t-shirt, cargos and H-rig holding her boyfriend or whatever at gunpoint and rapidly turning red to boot. I lowered the shotgun, tried to look busy pulling shells from the rig and topping up the tube. I didn't look up.

“Keith's outside, ready to go. Got your stuff, Jess?”

“But Aaron...”

“He can come with.”

“But...”

“But we need to get moving.”

She sighed, rolled her eyes, went around back. I saw her cross my line of sight, and looked up. Aaron was leaning on her counter, looking at the floor.

“I don't have much...”

“Shut up.”

I walked over and halfheartedly covered the door for a few minutes while Jess grabbed her bag.

“Ready,” she announced, clearly a little unhappy with the situation. I looked back over my shoulder at her. She had an old knapsack over one shoulder, tight jeans and a baggy Misfits shirt on. Hardly what you're call practical, but I gave her half a smile anyways. Aaron stood off to the side, head down and hands jammed in pockets.

“Three comin' down.”

“Gotcha, come on down.”

It was just like drills, like I said. I didn't look down, just stepped over the bodies, covered the hall. Aaron apparently turned pale and ran down the stairs, while Jess retched. Not just retched, threw up violently at the sight of the two men who had probably wanted to rob and rape her. Buckshot does nasty stuff to a man, yeah. But it wasn't anything they didn't deserve. She still didn't need to see it.

“C'mon, keep moving!” Keith called from the bottom of the stairs, never taking his eyes off of his irons. I didn't even have to look. Me and Keith go way back, seen a lot of combat classes and competitive shooting together. Hell, you might as well say he's the one who got me into three-gun. I pulled back down the stairs in good order, looked at him briefly.

“Alright, let's go home.”

“You're gonna have a hell of a time 'splaining this one, man. I mean, I can see why you did it, she's gorgeous...”

“Don't I know it. Take Jess in the cab, I'm play trunk monkey with Captain Douchebag there.”

He nodded, and I covered the street as he walked back over to his truck, swung into the driver's seat and opened the door for her.

“So...like Brooks and Dunn?” I heard him rumble as I slung myself into the bed. I sat there a moment, fishing around before finding what I was looking for. The Wiley X sunglasses slid on easily. I turned to see Aaron just standing there, hands in pockets, not moving.

“Comin' or not?” I barked, with probably a little too much anger.

“Is that safe?”

“Hey, if you want to take your chances explaining those two bodies to the cops, or better yet, their hombres, be my guest.”

His eyes widened, and he scrambled inside, sitting close to the cab. I laid the shotgun across my lap, muzzle to the aft. I slapped the side of the truck twice, and wondered what in the hell I had been thinking riding the rescue of a girl who didn't see me as more than a passing acquaintance. I kept my eyes on the road behind us the rest of the way home, and tried not to think about it, or the girl in the cab.

It had worked a coupla years before, but like Georgia...she had always been on my mind. And I couldn't just leave her there, could I?

Merry Christmas, or 'Why won't the bleeding stop?'

2009-12-25T12:10:00.002-05:00

So, Merry Christmas. I'm taking the opportunity before I head over to the woman's to post this.

It was a Merry Christmas here at the Deschain household. Much beer was drunk. We watched The Hangover as a family (a very poor idea, may I note). I got some decent swag- new clothes, so good Scotch, a new water bottle, Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, and the real king here, a safety razor plus all accessories.

Now, normally I rock the hobo-student beard to fit in better amongst the unwashed masses at school. It's kind of a moot thing, really- the cargos and shined boots tend to give me away as a practical-minded evildoer. So, now that I have a proper razor, I think I'll rock the smooth face now.

Well, if I stop bleeding in the next twenty minutes. Otherwise, it might be a trip to Slab City for me.

The safety razor is an interesting little piece of history. Your father probably had one. Well, no. Probably your grandfather- they were first widely produced for World War One. They're the first innovation in shaving after the straight razor, so 'safety' is really a comparative term- they're considered much safer than using a monstrously sharp open blade and hoping the wife doesn't nudge you or something. That said, these blades hearken back to an age where shaving was still a proper art form, where a shave was expected to take a full five minutes and last you all day. You get a savagely close shave with them that lasts all day, which is more than I can say about the 3 o'clock shadow you get from disposables. It's one of those quaint old pieces of technology that I actually like to use.

Of course, I also managed to shave off some razor bumps, so I'm bleeding an awful lot. Might need more practice.

Ivory Towers

2009-12-13T17:10:00.003-05:00

Over the last coupla years, I've had a real hate-on for educational institutions. I went to university for a year before I realized I was paying tens of thousands of dollars for something with no real application whatsoever. The professors all (and even in college, too) had a sense of elitism around them. Questions were sneered down at. Dare question what you're being taught, and expect to lose a significant number of marks (again, this has been my personal experience this year). I've always hated dealing with academic institutions, not only for their snobbery and the reasons above, but because they think they're doing you a favour by taking your money to subject you to these people.

In what is now my fourth year of post-secondary education (I have a two-year Law and Security Administration diploma, thank God), I have seen but one professor who inspired me to learn, to apply my critical thinking skills. Dr. Micheal Persinger actually made school...enjoyable. I looked forward to his classes, instead of looking forward with a grim and sardonic attitude like I do now.

With all these experiences, I've had a chip on my shoulder against the whole university community, especially the social sciences- sociology, specifically. They tell us how to live, how to act, with no real experience in the community as a whole, lording over young men and women in high-stress situations. But I listened to the video above, and I thought about it. The real academics- scientists like Sagan- have a childlike wonder about them. They seek knowledge, not dispense it grudgingly. Yeah, see what I did there? I plugged what I'm saying into the video. Anyways, I was sitting there one morning listening to this song, and it struck me: sometimes, segregation of scientists like this from the rest of society is necessary. If Sagan was around today, I honestly think he'd be hitting the bottle, hard, knowing how society is running. He may have been outspoken about about nuclear war, but you know it took a toll on him.

Persinger was a brilliant professor, and here is one of his lectures. He is the best of what modern academic life can produce. And just think- in twenty years, the kids of today will be teaching the kids of tomorrow. That's gonna turn out GREAT.

Dr. Persinger's Psychotropic Drug Lecture

Deschain

Penny Arcade, a Capitalist Love Story

2009-12-11T20:25:00.002-05:00

Penny Arcade, for those unfamiliar, is a webcomic. It's more than a webcomic, though. It's a franchise, almost. They get commissioned for their art, mostly for big-name games. They have a convention and trade show (PAX), merch, an office and twelve workers.

But they came from nothing. They were just two assholes, sharing a room and working shitty minimum wage jobs who put up comics three times a week to comment on the games they played. Eventually, they got noticed for being smart and artistically talented. The writing was awesome. People started to advertise, and they went from being bums, to being able to sustain themselves, their families, twelve employees, and a yearly convention mostly on ad revenue. If that isn't a triumph of a free market...

I mean, these guys took raw talent, marketed it, used it to create something huge. No government assistance that I know of. No help. Just opportunity. They took opportunity and passion for games, and turned it into fat stacks. They took nothing but that. It's inspiring. I mean, if they can do it, I can.

Period.

Deschain

A random video, since I'm too tired to think.

2009-12-09T17:57:00.001-05:00

I believe this to be an accurate representation of the youth of today.

Deschain

Potential and Purpose

2009-12-08T03:59:00.002-05:00

"I see all this potential, and I see it squandered. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables — slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won't. We're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off." -Fight Club

I've been thinking tonight. It happens that I get reflective when I'm down and a little depressed. I had a rough day, with not near enough sleep, and a teacher determined to screw me.

I was thinking about dropping out, and I asked myself, "Why?"

Why drop out? Well, why go to school in the first place? I wanted to help people. Maybe it's sort of atonement for being a lousy human being. Maybe I can't stand to see folk suffer. Whatever. Throughout the course, all I've learned is tolerance for corporate BS and a toe-the-line attitude. Seriously, you wonder why kids are messed up? I'll tell you why. They got nothing to look forwards to. They go from the hell of high school to the self-inflicted hell of university. What do they get out of it? Not purpose. You walk out of university after grinding out thesis's and studying away the best years of your life, and you have a piece of paper that lands you a job with a tie and a collar and before you know it, you're not a human being, you're a consumer. You're a cog in a useless machine.

Now, I like capitalism. I like the free market. But when all you have to look forwards to is an endless sea of cubicles for thirty years and the kids you spoiled so they wouldn't have to suffer like you did cramming you and your wife into a cut-rate home...well, that affects you. No wonder living fast and dying young has such appeal to kids. At least then, if you're chasing the dollar, you're getting out of the cubicle.

Used to be, folks had pride. Folks had purpose. You talked to them, and the cop said "I keep the folks safe from criminals." The machinist spotted a Studabaker rattling down Main Street, he said "Hey, I built the axles on that!" The farmer smiled and said "You like that corn? I done grew it."

Now, it's all numbers and paper. It's "I'm a techie. I listen to people bitch all day and try not to go crazy." It's "I'm in marketing. I determine whether or not we use teal or cornflower blue on the brand spot."

I realized today that emergency management is solid bullshit. You try to pimp preparedness to an apathetic populace, plan for events that may or may not happen using a pretty standard template. As an actual Emergency Manager in Canada, you herd the idiots in the EOC, not actually go out and do something CONCRETE. You can't tell me that we do. No, we sit with the mayor and try to keep him from doing something dumb. And that's a real punt in the stones. But I'm sticking with the program, because cutting and running is just cowardly.

I can see why kids these days are messed up. They have just as much potential as the kids of the Greatest Generation, of the kids that took Suvorov from Moscow to Italy. They know it. And they know it's going to be squandered in brushfire wars, in cubicles, in endless red tape and fighting the endlessly entropy and hollowness that a solely consuming life gets you. They want to keep their kids from suffering as I said, make their kid's childhoods as awesome as possible. But guess what? When little Timmy wakes up one day in his teens and realizes that he's not going to make a difference and here's going to end up like his dad, slaving away joylessly- and he's suffering to do it- something'll snap. I've seen it enough times. In high school, I knew kids with ulcers from the stress and work to get into a decent university. Kids who after one year of working their asses off for something they realized they didn't want, had mental breaks.

I don't want to end up like them, or my younger brother. He drinks heavily, works at as a fry cook. No prospects. No desire to look. Life is at its best with a joint and an Old Mill and some delinquent buddies for him. It's all depressing to watch. From all this ranting, I can draw this:

Dark times are coming, friends- and they're coming on horseback.

Deschain

Caledonia: Kobyashi Maru for the Government

2009-12-03T16:34:00.004-05:00

Alright, so I know a lot of you don't follow Canadian...well, anything. But this is somewhat big news, and it's gotten a lot of people shaken out of their whacked out ideas about policing, like 'they have an obligation to save us' and 'the police are always effective'. Not to knock the cops...but yeah. Epic fail.

"Set some 400 metres behind a now-open barricade of downed hydro towers --in an area described as a "lawless oasis" and where the Ontario Provincial Police warn even now they cannot respond, even for 911 calls -- the two-storey house is the nerve centre for the protesters who brought the development to a standstill, neighbouring homeowners to tears and a police force to its knees."

Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2278373#ixzz0Yfc8u7Km

It's pretty lame. Essentially, law only applied to the townsfolks. Here's what happened:

In 1992, a construction firm buys a bunch of land from the government. The natives whine, sue, wheedle to get it back for the first time in 160 years, right? Even though the crown has a document saying "Hey, we 37 chiefs of the Six Nations agree that these lands are going to be sold to the government, under the assumption that money from their sale will be re-invested by the government for the people of the reserve." So, in 2006 when this company goes to develop the land, the natives from the reserve go and have a sit in protest. So, Henco (the developer) goes to the local government and goes "wtf?" A judge says GTFO to the natives, issuing a temporary order, which they burn. They burn it twice more before the judge says "WTF a'ight, that temporary order to GTFO just became permanent, and now you all have a contempt of court charge."

So, a couple of weeks later, the police show up and clear off the site. 21 arrests are made, but not before one of the natives squawks into a cell. Later, a couple hundred natives armed with bats, axes, and hockey sticks (welcome to Canada) show up, drive off the cops, set a couple of fires, and set up a Third World roadblock. Now, I don't know about you, but this is not the proper reaction to lawful orders. They then proceed to crash a truck into and burn a hydro transformer, damages over one million dollars. The fire captain shows up, looks at the Ontario Provincial Police just sitting on their hands and not even trying to stop this madness, and rolls his trucks the other way. He puts in a statement that the OPP was unwilling and unable to protect his firefighters from the protesters.

So, after a couple of days, some lawyers show up at the OPP offices with the documents proving the sale, plus a statement of the following:

"Please discharge your duty under Section 42 of The Police Services Act and the provisions of your Agreement with Haldimand County which requires you to provide adequate and effective police services in accordance with the needs of the municipality which you are not, and have not, been doing. Specifically, you are not enforcing or discharging your duties to prevent crimes and other offences. You are not enforcing the provisions of The Trespass to Property Act and The Criminal Code of Canada and, in particular, you are not enforcing a valid court order of the Superior Court of Justice."

That was three years ago. There's still no response, to my knowledge. Things got worse and worse- residents of the town started their own blockade, which they then took down. The natives blocked access to emergency vehicles, resulting in people hurt on the nearby highway to take a long-ass and potentially life-threatening detour. There were a lot of scuffles, and the natives burnt down another two transformers, and caused another two million dollars in damage while the OPP just sort of sat, stared, and oppressed the residents of Caledonia. Basically, since then, the natives have done what they want, intimidated people, caused massive economic hardship, assaulted people, etc. Residents say that the natives are armed, and I believe them.

So, we have a massive ongoing issue that was brought to light (well, the depth of all this) by a couple on the border of the 'restricted area'. Yeah, the protesters restricted an area. These people have been harassed, intimidated, threatened, assaulted, etc. for three years, and they finally started a lawsuit against the Ontario Provincial Police over it. Here's another awesome quote:

"Not far from him he saw men unloading long, rectangular wooden crates -- about four feet long and a foot wide and a foot deep with rope handles -- from a white Jeep and placing them inside two tents set up in the trees, he testified.

The boxes had "funky wording," as he said it, painted on the outside, like Cyrillic letters used in Russia and some other Eastern European countries. The crates were marked in a similar way as the wood he saw in the lumber yard where he worked whenever they received a shipment of "Baltic Birch" from Russia.

He reported what he saw to senior Ontario Provincial Police officers, he testified: "They said it is possible it could be AK-47s."

Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=2234246#ixzz0YfjklfNA

Honestly, I couldn't think of anything they could be but rifles. So, essentially what we had here was armed lawlessness, and the police did nothing. I brought this up in class, and a couple of people looked stumped. They couldn't understand why the police weren't helping the residents. One accused me of making it all up. I shrugged- this just worsened my opinion of 'police services'. If they're not policing, and they're not providing a service, what are they doing? I mean, they're not obligated to pull my ass out of the fire, but not being obligated to uphold the law? What the hell?

Anyways, I'm following this lawsuit like a hawk. There's two ways this ends:

1. The government pays these people off, starting a tidal wave of lawsuits and class-actions against the OPP, the Fed, and Indian Affairs.

2. The government says "The police have no obligation to do anything" and we have our foot in the door for Concealed Carry legislation.

Either way, the government loses. Right now, all they're doing is stalling and wringing their hands. Either they're failures, or they failed horribly.

Deschain

For my next trick, anvils.

2009-11-29T03:48:00.002-05:00

Alright, so I've been writing, yeh? And I wanted to run the first bit by everyone. Tell me what you think, I'd appreciate it.

******************************************************************************

"You sure you want to do this?" Keith asked me. I nodded, more to myself than to him.

"Don't see any other way, to be honest."

He sighed, like an older brother watching his brother do something he didn't think was the brightest idea in the world. Leaning on the hood of his pickup, he stretched his shoulders a bit. My only gun and only holster were already hanging off my hip, and I was leaning against my idling Civic. The women were inside with a few other trusted friends, getting things ready for what looked like a long, rough haul. All those little things we put away for a rainy day got dusted off and dragged out of safes and closets.

"You're going whether or not I come, aren't you?"

"Yep."

He stared at me another moment as I loaded three speedloaders of .357 and dumped them in my left pocket. I could damn near hear the scales creak in his mind as he weighed everything out.

"Suppose you want help, too."

"Wouldn't mind it, homes," I said with a shrug. I had already made up my mind. I was going.

"She want to be rescued?"

I answered with a shrug.

"She didn't exactly ask for help, per se..."

Another sigh. He stared at the hood a moment. I flashed a cocky grin. I already knew the answer, before he reached for his Sig, made sure he had a round chambered.

"Alright, let's go save the girl who isn't your girl."

******************************************************************************

There's more written, I'm just fiddling with it some. Not done, but a good start, eh?

Deschain

The Night

2009-11-24T03:38:00.002-05:00

I don't know why it is, but since I've been about seventeen, my body just clicks into high gear around 2200. Every night, I get a burst of energy around then. After that, my energy dips till 0200. That's MY hour. That's primo writing time for me, when I'm writing fiction. It's when I'm on the bounce, mentally and physically. I have no idea why that is. I'm superstitious as hell, like I said. Maybe it's one of those leftover instincts. Maybe it's one of those weird genes that you can't hardly help, like the one that tells you "Fat. Sugar. Good."

There's nothing wrong with being a night hawk. It's personal preference, I guess. When I was in college, I worked a lot of 1800-0600 shifts as a security guard. Gave me lots of time to think. And, honestly, what's the difference between a home invader and the Beings in the Dark? Both are out to spill your blood. Both are vicious, violent, and no matter what the police and the media tells you, they exist. I saw weird shit that I can't explain, but I saw a whole lot more human depravity than heard the bumps in the night. I saw the results of the combination of schizophrenia and substance abuse. I had a Vanguard (think Stormfront or Heritage Society) member try to recruit me. Yeah, I've seen what the night brings out in people. I think Jim Butcher said it best:

"There’s power in the night. There’s terror in the darkness. Despite all our accumulated history, learning, and experience, we remember. We remember times when we were too small to reach the light switch on the wall, and when the darkness itself was enough to make us cry out in fear. Get a good ways out from civilization-say, miles and miles away on a lightless lake-and the darkness is there, waiting. Twilight means more than just time to call the children in from playing outside. Fading light means more than just the end of another day. Night is when terrible things emerge from their sleep and seek soft flesh and hot blood. Night is when unseen beings with no regard for what our people have built and no place in what we have deemed the natural order look in at our world from outside, and think dark and alien thoughts. And sometimes, just sometimes, they do things. "- Jim Butcher, Turn Coat

And I don't think he's talking about just ghosts and vampires. So, do me a favour tonight, everyone. Give Mr. Shotty an extra pat before bed, make sure he's ready. I know my kukri gets a little extra pat before I rack out for the night, just on account of not being able to imagine any of those things that go 'bump' that don't fear cold, hand-forged steel.

Des

You can't hardly change a man.

2009-11-23T02:06:00.003-05:00

A List!

And I'm a gamer. Before soldiering, before wanting to help people, hell before I was even a soon-to-be-reformed liberal, I was a gamer. And, like a Jayne hat, I proudly flaunt my colours.

And like Wash says, "A man walks down the street with a hat like that, you know he's not afraid of anything!"

Ladies and gentlemen, lemme tell you something: I walk to class every week wearing my Horde T-shirt or shrunken, malformed Rogues Do It From Behind hoodie. Come what may, I will be a gamer till they put me in the ground.

Deschain

The Great and Terrible Mojo Goddess

2009-11-19T04:52:00.002-05:00

When I got out of the army, I worked for my uncle. Now, my uncle, aside from being extremely sketchy was a hard worker and strange man. He taught me how to mix and lay concrete, and drive a tractor. When we were working on contract, he told me of the superstition. Essentially, he believed that the Mojo Goddess was a watchful being, a saint of the workers. The Mojo Goddess was a deity that provided drive and initiative, and was not a terrible fan of overworking.

We regularly worked 14 hour days on contract, laying pneumatic tube three stories up. We ended up delirious from the exertion and lack of sleep. The Mojo was not with us, he said. There were two remedies to this situation:

1. Take a day off to rest, like cowards or possibly communists.

2. Make an offering to the Goddess.

Offerings varied from expensive rum (working hung over and three stories up was not particularly pleasant) to steak dinners and microbrewed beer. The Goddess, she is a being of excess. She sees you treat yourself well, or better yet, opulently, and she will reward you with renewed morale, vigor and energy.

Well, that's what he said. The theory was sound, even if the theology wasn't. Sleeping like the dead from the liquor, or the massive protein dump had something to do with it, I'm sure. The superstition works, all told, beyond what you would think. I've used offerings to the Mojo Goddess to kick the Muse awake from time to time, or to burn through school work. It's sort of a weird, family superstition I felt like sharing.

Des

Feeling Naked

2009-11-15T11:24:00.002-05:00

I've been feeling that way awhile now. It's more than not being able to carry, or not owning a gun. I've been aware and uncomfortable for awhile with the fact I can't carry. I shouldn't even carry a pocketknife, it's 'inadvisable'. But I put myself in Brigid's shoes this morning.

I have no hound.

I have no guns.

I have no recourse under the law.

If someone kicked in my door for some reason, I'm well and truly fucked. I an either leave myself, my mom, my sister and my dad to the devices of said home invader, or I can try to fight him, or I can try to get my hands on some sort of weapon. Should I fight bare handed, odds are I'll lose, especially if there's more than one of them. I can go for a weapon, come back and try to fight. I win, and when the law gets there, I go to jail. Period. While I may be found innocent of any wrongdoing, that means my college goes down the tubes while I sit in jail. A lot of things go down the tubes while I rot in prison for defending myself.

Awhile back there was a case where everything was illegal. A man in my hometown illegally stored a firearm, and when the police served an illegal warrant, dressed in civvies and NOT announcing themselves as police, he shot one to death and they shot his wife. A sad case all around, doubly so because the man may or may not have been a drug dealer. I'm not entirely sure. Depending on what source you read, he had unregistered/prohibited firearms, a key of coke, and 17 cell phones- mix and match what you will. Some sources say there was only a tiny amount of drugs recovered, etc. Whatever. Cock ups all around. But this man got off all of his charges. There may be hope that should I act in self defense, I won't end up in federal prison. Well, maybe. It's a different province.

Well, except for that kid from Waterloo (or Kitchener), who defended his younger brother from home invaders, is on trial for murder 2, and I can't find a thing about anymore. I hope he got off. The police here are zealously anti-gun.

Deschain

Weighing In on the Registry, and Toronto's Gun Problems

2009-11-10T15:32:00.003-05:00

Alright, I'm gonna do a lengthy post on the registry, so people can understand the situation here. Personally, if this goes through, it'll be a major victory for gun owners, but the instant the Liberals get back into power, they'll try to put it back it. Hell, last election, they ran on the platform that they would ban private handgun ownership. So, we have to be on the bounce to keep them from doing that should they return to power.

Alright, here's how it works in Toronto, which affects the rest of Canada:

1. Canada has pretty uniformly low violent crime rates, as well as ND death rates. Most gun deaths are suicides.

2. The main source of gun control legislation is the braying sheep packed into places like Toronto who want to bubble wrap every corner in the country. Toronto especially has had large outbreaks of gun crime, which meant that whining for gun control (instead of, say, more effective policing, social programs, better hospitals, etc) became an occupation for the mothers of the ghetto slime shooting one another.

I'll be the first to admit that the wrong people die in some of these shootouts. But the public seems to be of the opinion that only 'good kids' get shot in what are clearly targeted killings. Three guys hop out of a parked SUV with Glocks, walk up to a guy, and shoot him to death? That's called 'staking out your prey' not 'random attack'. Bangers have little interest in shooting someone for teh lulz. Nope, they have things to do, dope to sling, small businesses to 'protect'. Again, one of the more shocking scenes of gunplay happened in Toronto on Boxing Day in 2005. So, the streets were packed, and there's a Foot Locker on the main strip known for being shady, right? Well, two mobs of gangstas were loitering in front of it, and they started shooting at one another. 15 year old Jane Creba bought the farm that day, and a bunch of others were wounded including an off duty cop. As a side note, cops aren't allowed to carry off duty here. It's about the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

3. One of the main reasons why gunplay is causing problems in Toronto especially is suffering from gun crime (even though our worst year for murders was a shocking 82 in a city of 2.5 million) is the Club District. Let me break this down: you have an area that's just clubs, that draws in people from as far as Niagara every weekend. This club district results in a huge demand for drugs from the young people going clubbing. This results in large profits for dealers, which results in gunplay as they 'compete'.

4. Ridiculous gun control in the city of Toronto has not slowed the flow of guns into the city, just made it much for lucrative for black market elements.

5. Having little or no protection under law, and no access to firearms with which to defend themselves, people go a little crazy. I can understand that. There's a coupla clips from The Real Toronto, where bangers basically intimidate a person who tried to help their community so badly he barricaded his door.

This is an example of what the justice system does. Multiple felony counts, and this guy is still walking around. I don't feel sorry for him. He made the choices, why should we live with them?

Finally, you have the competing need for safety, with the need to making everything 'alright'. Sympathy for the bad guy and stuff. Like you saw in the video, they make him out to be a kid in rough circumstances, for whom everything isn't his fault. So what's a sheeple to do? He can't imprison poor little Chuckie because he's a violent felon, that's not his fault! I know, gun control, because Chuckie will listen to that, even though his charges are all for prohibited weapons that are banned for sale to the public and entirely unavailable unless smuggled in via the black market!

Finally, there are apologists. People who are so out of touch with reality that they think that hall monitors will stop shootings and rapes in high school ( )and that criminals will actually listen to laws. There was a recent vote by the community of the Jane Finch area (the armpit of Toronto) to actually kick police out of problem schools in the area. Want to hear something astounding?

Apparently, being asked questions by cops is 'harassment'. And patrols in schools where multiple gang rapes occur is 'oppression'. I'm starting to think that collaborators is a better term than apologists.

Now, why the registry got put in in the first place: take all of the above. This has been an ongoing situation. Now, put a dozen voting districts into a city like Toronto. Put another dozen in the burbs who will follow the rest of the city. Put one or two out anywhere else that doesn't have these problems, where hunting is still acceptable or gun ownership is a non-issue.

The final reason for the registry is, in my mind, the concept that Canadians have segregated protection of person and property as something that is the police's responsibility. It's a psychological issue. Their expectation is that they will be safe, and should that change, it's the police's problem. Therefore, if the police say a registry will save them, they'll vote for it.

Me? I hate them damn thing, but it's a nice start. It was a billion dollar bureaucratic mistakes, riddled with error and incompetence that didn't solve a single crime. Once it's dealt with, we have bigger fish to fry- magazine caps, having to sign for ammunition, and various other arbitrary and ineffective laws.

Deschain

Storytelling

2009-11-09T18:43:00.002-05:00

I used to love to write. I mean, I still do...I just don't write much anymore. I was always told I wasn't bad at it. Something that needed more practice, but that could be turned into something. But for me, it was always a lightning bolt in the dark- a huge blast of inspiration that burnt out quickly with impressive results. I haven't gotten one of those in awhile.

But you know what? Dragon Age has sufficiently good storytelling that it makes me want to do it again.

My opinion begins are 'displeased'

2009-11-04T10:45:00.002-05:00

A lot of people know I'm a gamer. Not just a gamer, a game connoisseur. I don't buy games often, but I tend to buy the very best. My personal fetishes seems to trend towards games with moral choices and RPG elements.

First, a bit of backstory. Since highschool I've been a fanatic for a certain game company: Bioware. They ensnared me with the original Baldur's Gate, and from then on if they made a game, I purchased it or at least played it through. Have I been disappointed? Not really. Bioware makes the best role-playing games, period. Even if I hate Star Wars, I played Knights of the Old Republic. Know why? The games they make aren't for kids. They have romantic subplots, dark and realistic elements. Mature ideas, to be honest. You will be forced to 'shake hands with the Devil', even as a scrupulously good character. You will be faced with bureaucratic failures, good decisions that cost lives. Most of the characters in every game will be scrupulously realistic- down to political opinions, personal objectives (you aren't the hypercharismatic leader- these people follow you because doing so gets THEIR job done).

So, naturally when I saw that Bioware was putting out a new RPG in the same style as Baldur's Gate and it's sequel (which ate up hundreds of hours of my life which I can see now would not have been better spent), I jumped at the opportunity and pre-ordered Dragon Age Online, the Collector's Edition. I got all the DLC and stuff, I got the soundtrack, and the best part, I got it on the cheap because I ordered through a game system I trusted. I got the collector's edition for the price of the regular box edition because I got it via direct download through Impulse.

Now, the last game that Bioware put out was under the EA umbrella. EA is the villain of the game world. Worst of every world- rushed games, destroying venerable franchises through mismanagement, and horrible tech support. They make some lousy games, work their employees damn near to death (100 hours a week, apparently), and otherwise act in ways you would expect from Sierra Leone and not a game company. So, when I bought said game (Mass Effect, a fantastic game...once I got it to run), I was a little leery. Then it didn't work for six months. Then it worked, I played it, and I was happy. The game itself was brilliant. But the tech support was abysmal. All I ended up needing was a patch from Nvidia.

Back to the present- I bought Dragon Age awhile back, and yesterday I spent a nervous four hours getting it downloaded and installed. First thing I did was put my codes into my Bioware account. After that, I registered my game with Impulse so I could get DECENT tech support, and then I started it up. It asked me to register again...and then said my code had been used already. Now, I didn't use it yet with the main EA registry. If it was in there, it should have been under the same email address as my Bioware account...since EA owns Bioware. And there's more than 11 pages of complaints of a similar nature in the Bioware forums.

WTF. I pay 50$ for a game and it's screwed already?

Deschain

So I was thinking...

2009-11-02T17:23:00.000-05:00

So, I ended up seeing Paranormal Activity last night. Scared the ever-loving shit out of me at the end. 75% of the movie barely rates as 'creepy'. The last half hour, though, pretty creepy. I don't know why it got to me. Maybe it's one of those primal, hardwired fears- fear of something that has your number, that you can't fight, that you can't outrun. One of those pieces of flotsam that stuck with me through the years was a piece of narration from a not-scary book called Idlewild. To paraphrase Nick Sagan, the three most universal fears break down as follows:

1. The Beast Like Us: Vampires were never scary just because they drank our blood. Vampires were scary (y'know, before they became angsty teens) because they were a predator that looked like us, acted like us, that we could understand. They violated ancient taboos regarding sex, cannibalism, etc. Though they were like us, they weren't. Anyone could be one. Your sister, your brother, your uncle, your cousin- any of them could be turned into a vampire and you wouldn't know until it was too late. They were wolves in sheep's clothing that didn't prey on the weak.

2. The Beast Inside of Us: Werewolves, on the other hand, are the epitome of loss of control. It's not your fault you ended up as one, and you can't control it. You can't fight it. There's something terminally wrong with you, that if anyone ever found out, would kill you for. Werewolves are animals in the most basic sense, the kind of animal we stopped being when we started using tools and hiding in caves. It's a primal fear- regression, loss of control. The idea that you could be a monster yourself, and not be able to do a thing about it.

3. The Beast In the Dark: As soon as man had fire, he had somewhere to hide, somewhere that was safe. If you lived anytime before about 1500, if your home fires burned out it was considered a serious emergency. The home fires kept back the dark, and by extension, all the predators you couldn't see. Night was something to be feared. You never knew what could be lurking out of sight. Part of this is hardwired into our sense of hearing, too. That 'bump in the night' meant a lot more in prehistory than it does now- anything from sabertoothed tigers to other men with ill intent could be out there. We've stopped believing in monsters, and maybe that's a bit naive- there's still plenty out there, even if they wear a human face.

The book then posits that Lovecraft came along and broke the mold. Instead of something you could understand, the protagonists faced unknowable horrors that had no reason to destroy them. But that skips over the old ghost story. Ghost stories are, like the above, more or less universal in every culture and every corner of the earth. Unseeable, unknowable demons that have nothing but malice for the living. I guess Paranormal Activity falls partially into the last category. It takes place mostly at night, where befuddled protagonists try to fight off an invisible enemy. The more they try to fight it, the more it fights back.

Fear doesn't have to be rational. In fact, fear is largely irrational. And I mean Fear, capital eff. Not 'I'm afraid of failure' or 'I'm afraid of commitment'. I mean that feeling of icy water in your guts, the feeling of your body struggling to make up its mind as adrenaline dumps into your blood and your hackles go straight up. And like my previous post said, there's more than splatter to that. A good horror movie should trip those instinctive, baseline fears leftover from when our ancestors still huddled in caves and struggled with the concept of tools. That's real fear, good fear. Natural fear.

Des

Horror and Terror

2009-10-31T11:23:00.002-04:00

Lately, I haven't been going to theaters much because the budget's thin. But when I have gone, I've noticed something: We no longer have scary movies. We have splatter flicks.

Y'know what? It's really depressing when in a lot of cases the primary motivation of a movie is to show the deliberate infliction of pain on people. Stuff like Saw, Hostel, and Touristas comes immediately to mind. Are we so twisted that watching teens be tortured, literally- digits cut off, drills driven through cheekbones, nothing but the deliberate and malicious infliction of pain- is now entertainment?

I mean, it explains why the kids aren't right these days. Let me break it down: if it is made, they can find it. If they can find it, they can obtain it. And you'd better believe that as soon as they're 12, they're better than you with technology, so they can hide it, and they can hide the evidence. I know that's exactly how I was. They were going to get into porn, you can't stop that. But really, torture flicks? S'bad enough millions of sick fuckers enjoy the things, but now, they have access to them. And if you think that watching someone get taken apart, piece by piece, isn't going to affect a 12 year old's mind, then you're dead wrong.

So, tonight I'm going to see Paranormal, which is more of a 'terror' flick. A good horror movie should be about fear, the unknown, that sort of thing. It should flip those switches in the back of your head that have been there since we were hunting mammoths. What it breaks down to is fear should be more than watching other people suffer.

Deschain

Getting That First Date, A Supplement to "Don't believe everything you read"

2009-10-27T08:32:00.002-04:00

I was reading Mausers and Muffins this morning when I realized that there mysterious, carefully hidden, jewels in the world- women who actually enjoy shooting. These treasured, nigh-mythical beings will never, ever have trouble finding menfolk for themselves, just like the equally rare 'hot nerdy girl'. So, to supplement Brigid's list of what works and doesn't, I present the following advice that I often learned the hard way:

1. Don't yell from your car. This one should be obvious: only the most ghetto-slime, trailer park men yell at women from their car. Not only is it an utterly classless and crass thing to do, how far do you expect to get? I mean, honestly, what the hell? I know the latest trend is for guys to be emotional, effeminate, whiney bitches- but being an asshole doesn't equate to being masculine. As a side note- I never did this, but I watched it happen enough to realize that it doesn't matter what you're driving, women won't want a thing to do with you.

2. Smile. This works. I don't mean a huge, shit-eating grin, but smile. I've found that women generally respond well to being made to feel as if they make a man happy by just being there. You smile at them, give them good eye contact, they feel good. And if they feel good being around you, they'll do it more.

3. Don't care or try. Women come and go (mostly go, in my accounting of things...) and that's the way of things. So, don't make it seem like you're trying, or that you care on the first coupla dates. Seriously, chicks dig independent, confident guys. Turn the tables- instead of chasing her, try to make her chase you. The thickness of your stacks only matters to one kinda girl, ye ken?

4. No Man's Land is for pussies. Engage her on her terms- somewhere she feel comfortable going on the first date. If she's never been shooting, don't take her to the range. I mean, this runs contrary to a lot of advice, but put it like this: make her comfortable with you before you hand her a loaded weapon. Shooting is definitely a third-date sorta thing.

5. That said, women also generally don't appreciate being bothered by men in a lot of cases. The bus for example, is a poor place to meet women, unless you see them every day. Pick your battles.

6. Having the skills to like independently is a huge plus to women. If you can sew, cook, iron, etc on your own, she knows you're looking for a mate, not a mother or maid. Sure, other guys might have fat stacks, a fancy ride, and ooze charm, but without the skills to live on their own, they're just overgrown boys.

Now, I have a story about pubtrans and dating. When I was in college last (before the army), I was coming back from the range one night. I got on the train, slumped into my seat and tried to work out the kinks from a couple of hours of drills. I smelled like cordite and sweat, was exhausted and happy. As I sit down, I notice that there's an exhausted, sweaty girl sitting not far from me. She was actually pretty cute- black hair, nice eyes, runner's body. So, I give her a smile, she gives me one back and goes back to her sudoku puzzle. I whip out my iPod and try to zone out for the half hour ride back home, and I see a guy come into our train car from the next one over, right? He's dialing his cell, and he starts talking loudly. Me and her, we glance at each other, then him, go back to studiously ignoring each other.

"Hey babe, how's it going? Got dinner ready?"

Christ, what an obnoxious asshole.

"Wh-what?"

He made a gurgling, strangled noise. Me and the girl look up at one another, at him.

"My brother?"

We have no idea what he's on about, but it sounds serious. She tosses me a note saying something like 'wtf', I toss it back quickly with 'TRAINWRECK' scratched onto it with my keys, because I didn't have a pen on me.

"So you're taking the kids, the car...how much? TIMMONS?"

Now we're paying attention, he starts sniveling.

"But...but baby..."

She stifled a giggle. I hid a smile.

"But baby, I'm so...so SENSITIVE!"

There was a stop about then, and he all but dives off the train, and we burst out laughing. What a douche. I walk over, introduce myself. Her name was Val, and we dated for a year, until I decided to join the army. Ah well, it was a good run, and we were so similarly twisted that after the fact, we talk twice a year. We both played WoW, and she met another guy who got her into shooting. We just didn't click, so whatever. I like to think I was a different person back then.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to...

2009-10-21T02:51:00.002-04:00

...Tim Horton's. It's like the Forum, except the coffee is better and the donuts worse. Anyways, so I'm with a classmate, right? I'm wearing my Realtree hat, and he comes up besides me and asks in almost a furtive whisper,

"Hey, Des. Do you...hunt?"

"Nawp, J. But I want to."

He looked around, making sure no one was listening as we walked.

"Oh, I bowhunt. I just thought-"

"Cool, what for?"

And he started stammering. See, I wasn't being aggressive, or questioning, just interested. His reaction was something else, though. He looked around again as we got in line, made sure no other classmates were within earshot.

"Well, I think it's a sustainable practice allowed by-"

"J, stop. I was asking what you hunt for. Turkey? Elk?"

He looked skeptical.

"Black bear and deer."

"Cool, man. You got big brass ones to bowhunt bear. You got tags for this year?"

He relaxed a bit, and we talked kit for a few. I said I'd like to come along if he went that year...I was just astounded that he was so secretive, so...ashamed of hunting. Honestly, I didn't think it was a big deal, but I can see why people get worked up. We WERE at college, the very nexus of young, well meaning idiocy. Sure, in concept, a lot of the ideals held by students are all fine and good. Well, until subjected to reason and logic. That's what happened to me. I sat with a bottle of Glenfiddich in my 18th year, and actually thought instead of felt. I argued and debated with many a man and woman, and one by one, they broke things down. The big one was gun control- I used to be all about it. I was healed of my ignorance the hard way.

I realized I was wrong. I admitted it. I made a plan, and corrected the issues that I had.

It bothers me a lot that J feels so ashamed of something that's a natural part of the order of things. I mean, it's not like he's torturing these animals. He eats what he kills. But people make him feel like he needs to hide hunting from everyone.

Welcome to the locus of liberal hypocrisy- free speech, so long as you agree with them.

Deschain

Paradise to the Right, Hell to the Left, and the Angel of Death Behind...

2009-10-20T03:58:00.003-04:00

...but school has had me by the short hairs lately. But, right now, I'm up and feeling lousy and thinking. I know, that in and of itself is dangerous.

So here's my train of thought, folks:

Due to my injury, I've been given a bit of a 'reset' by life. No one's hiring, because the job market it glutted with people healthier and more qualified than I am. So I'm back at school, because as Heinlein said, "Doing something constructive right away is better than doing the best thing hours later." I'm still in physio, unfit for hard labour, so this is something constructive.

Honestly, it's like being sixteen again: no ride, no cash (well, not after my laser eye surgery, anyways), and slim prospects for the immediate future.

So I got thinking about starting over again. I mean, once people start on their life paths, that's pretty much it. After ten years in marketing, are you gonna turn around and start over again when you're all comfortable? Nawp. What's gonna happen if you're not doing something you enjoy, at least from time to time? It affects you. You may not see it, but it does. And as I'm sitting there in class, watching a combination video and powerpoint lecture on 'facilitating interaction and the business cycle during an emergency', I realized something: While I may be able to do this, I'm more likely to choke out the mayor and take charge if he starts fucking around during an emergency than sit there and pat his ego till he shuts up.

I got figure out some way to make this education into somewhere where I get to be near the front actually helping people, or so help me God, I'm gonna LOSE it. I didn't pick Emergency Management because I'm pretty, I picked it because I want to help people. It's the same reason I joined the army- because by me acting directly, I could help people directly. I wasn't some sack of hammers sitting 500 miles from where he's needed hasslin' folk over forms, or advising some bigwig doing lines off the ass of his or her intern. Same reason I wanted to be a cop- it's where the metal meets the meat that you can do the most good.

So I was thinking that maybe, if I get better (much better), I could do something again. Part time as an EMS or fireman. Become a reservist MP or medtech (our closest analogue to combat medics- we don't have any, just a TCCC dude who's actually an infantryman, and medtechs), or a police reservist.

Then I remembered that women hate that, especially mine.

She's the daughter of a cop, right? So she watched her mom fret and worry about whether or not her husband would come home at the end of the night, whether or not she'd have to raise her children alone, etc. All reasonable stuff, that I can understand. I mean, it's a shitty deal. So, she jacks me up if I even bring up the concept of, you know, doing something useful in the future. Now, I can understand being upset at a loved one risking their lives recklessly. But, honestly? C'mon, folks. Being a cop or firefighter isn't Russian roulette or sleeping with hookers. It's risky, I won't argue that, but it's a job where the risk comes with a fighting chance. And that's all you can ask for in this life- a fighting chance. You mitigate that risk with your skill, your courage, your abilities. The risk is never gone, just like it's never gone every time you step in a plane or boat or car. But if you're at the wheel, at least you can fight for yourself, ya ken? The woman is protective of me, and I can understand that, but still...she's in for a rough ride if she thinks I'm going to stay away from doing what's right. And she may dump me over it- a lady's already dumped me once for joining the military.

So I'm presented with two roads. On one hand, I can walk the civvie life, be the best civilian sheepdog I can, and hope I don't end up some fat old guy with a chip on his shoulder. Aim for accumulating wealth and skills on the side and living the safe, comfortable life. Or I can try to get back in the field, help with my hands even as a civvie and a sheepdog. If I can't be a reservist, be an auxiliary cop. If I can't do that, volunteer firefighter.

I think that two things can sum up my mindset right now in two sentences:

Firstly, my girlfriend is going to be pissed.

Secondly is a quote from the Unit: Rangers, did you sign up just to get out of the house, or do you want to come help me kick the door down?

I need to start setting objectives for myself. Specific stuff, not just 'get into shape, fatass!' or 'volunteer' or 'write'. That's been my one of my main problems lately- I've been bumming around, putting stuff off. Even when there's assignments due, I'm better off putting a half hour aside for a run and clearing my head than not. A half hour run, once a day. There. It's up here for all the world to see.

And, to end this painfully long post, here's an awesome video with absolutely not relevance what so ever to this post:

Des

Clothe yourself in righteousness...

2009-10-15T02:47:00.003-04:00

...for that is armour enough.

One of my favourite fictional characters said that. It's true, to a degree. You do right by people, and by and large they'll do right by you. But there's always that element. That Element. That Element, that would rather jack your wallet or your car than work a day. That Element, with baggy clothes, hats with stickers and tags, a cold smile and leering eyes. You've seen 'em. You've seen them in spades at the mall or the bus terminal or where ever, slinging dope for booze money and watching. Always watching. Know what they're watching for? Soft folk. Soft folk all by their lonesome. They know them pretty well. They're not predators. Predators implies that there is a stalking element, a deliberate application of a skill

No, gentle readers, these people are more like vultures.

They hunt the weak without skill, and only by opportunity. Lazy enough to let a young, fit man pass by, someone who looks like they could run. Not even defend themselves, just leg it. That's too much trouble for That Element. Well, at least alone. Numbers give them bravado, not courage- courage is a redeeming trait. Bravado is what lets them take on the healthy. In an unarmed society, they are a real and credible threat. I see them every time I go to school, from bus terminal to campus. I know they're there, just like they smell something funny off of me and let me be.

And coming out of the army, knowing I have a ruined shoulder, seeing them waiting there- laughing, joking, never taking their eyes off the crowd- that's what really got me rethinking my opinions of concealed carry.

Des

Thanksgiving with the Maybe Soon-To-Be-In-Laws

2009-10-10T15:42:00.002-04:00

So, it's that magical time again. I get to have a dinner with the girlfriend's parents and grandmother. The father is a cop, the mother hates me, and the grandmother seems to like me, so it's always interesting. That's why I bring bribes. A bottle of wine and some flowers for the matron, and we're good to go. They tend to interrogate me, so that's fun. But, I gotta learn to take it on the chin.

Depending on how well it goes, there may be an AAR.

Des

Caffeine, a Vice I Can Get Behind

2009-10-03T01:10:00.002-04:00

It's the vice of of choice in my generation of nerds. I'm not talking coffee...no. Much more powerful stuff. Red Bull, NOS, Amp, Rockstar, Bawls. It's a litany of heart racing, consciousness-expanding liquid. You wake up in the morning after five hours of sleep, and you feel like someone just scraped you off the road. You're groggy, running on autopilot until you hit that first Bawls with Breakfast...

Oh yeah. Hell yeah. You're a born again predator, baby. You rip through your morning, shrugging off paperwork. You think on your feet, and you ride the rush until the next dose. It's awesome. But ti does come with a downside. Plenty of crashes, the stuff's expensive...but if you need to write, or you need a pick me up, you know what to reach for- an extra strength caffeine drink.

2009-09-28T04:46:00.000-04:00

That is all.

Nothing like it...

2009-09-26T19:20:00.002-04:00

Had laser eye survey Friday, so I'll be brief. Today I had, for the first time since I left Turkey, Turkish coffee and baklava. A combination made in heaven, that. Say what you will- it's better than espresso. Yeah, yeah, you'rve had it here at Harbucks or whatever...but once you have it in a little sidestreet in Jerusalem, or at a cafe looking over the Hagia Sofia, then you can give a valid opinion, yeh?

I actually had to strongarm the owner of the local Lebanese restaurant to get some. But oh man...was it worth it. Actual Turkish coffee, with the pistachios, in a plastic beer cup. But it was awesome. Gave me something to do while I sit here and recover, not really being able to game or work out or watch TV or read.

Happy trails, yo.

Des

And in fun-time news...

2009-09-24T02:54:00.003-04:00

Toronto seizes 400+ unlicensed firearms from people legally able to own them.

Wow. I'm sure all of my American friends' jaws are dropping at this one... the reason is, they're dangerous if stolen. That's right, the entire sweep, because these guns MAY be stolen. You all know how common that 10/22 is in the barrio, and all those gunfights between gangstas with SKSes have been making the news...

Objectives

2009-09-24T02:46:00.000-04:00

This whole transition isn't easy. It started awhile ago, but still. All through elementary, all through high school, university, college, I was indoctrinated as a liberal. The police's job is to protect us. The government is gonna help us in a disaster. Guns are bad, and only for highly trained professionals. Being taxed all to hell (not that I was, as a student) didn't seem all that bad, after all I have 'free' healthcare! What would I have to do to fulfill my end of the social contract except shell out the cashy monies, not sling dope and not punch anyone else? What could go wrong?

Yeah. I'm glad I've changed. It took a team of great DIs to pound sense into my skull and begin the process. I guess it might have started at Katrina, I guess. It was a huge deal to my pre-police-academy class in school. I was just so sickened by humanity, watching the reports of medical choppers taking fire, that padre getting gutshot. It actually occurred to me that if the shit hits the fan, I'm on my own. I thought I'd be okay at first...till I realized the first criminal with a gun would just shoot me. I was never a fighter, though. I was the nerdy kid everyone broke down, who thought that he could outrun every bully and mugger he ever met. Yeah...I've grown some. Realized that's not what it's like in the real world. In the real world, there are muggers who are faster than me. That once I start making an income that'll sustain me out in the world, I'll be taxed obscenely. That should any of the stuff that keeps modern society going suddenly disappear, even for a couple of days, I'd screwed. I'm like a dog that ends up dumped in the woods- yeah, I got all kinds of stuff buried in me, but I'm so domesticated, I wouldn't know what the hell to do, and the only way I would survive would be for me to become a brute that needs to be put down. I don't wanna be like that anymore. I don't want to rely on convenience or anyone else. The end objective of this is to become a fully independent MAN, not a boy who works in a cubicle nine to five and whose only contribution to society is being an economic cog.

So here I am, rambling. Time to get some progress done. So, right now, I'm a little ahead of your average kid my age- I can cook for myself, I have some self-discipline. But I have a long, long way to go before I become independent manfolk. I've divided objectives into two categories: skills I want to obtain, and stuff I need to become independent of all that modern crap that's churning out a generation of milk-fed, dependent overgrown boys who can barely fend for themselves.

The Short List of Skills:

1. Hunting. I've never been hunting. I don't know what to do. I can shoot straight enough, but even if I hit something delicious and kill it, what then? I don't know how to skin, gut, or carve anything up.

2. More and better shooting skills. I have my trigger time with the AR, the Browning, and a little bit of time with whatever guns my American friends have been able to loan me. I have nowhere to practice since Toronto's mayor has essentially shut down every range in Toronto by refusing to lease municipal land in the city, and failing to renew the leases of existing shooting ranges and clubs, there are no ranges in the Greater Toronto area. There's a couple a ways out of the city I can investigate, but owning no firearms...yeah, going and watching would be a tad creepy.

3. Better first aid skills. In evolving to the 'civilian sheepdog' mentality, I've come to the conclusion that it means more than packing a gun. It is, at its core, about helping people. And your job doesn't stop after all the brass is on the ground.

The Short List of Stuff:

1. A car. Toronto is blessed with a fantastic public transit system, which has more or less negated my need for one. But then again, these things are fickle, and if I'm gonna hit a range, I'm gonna need wheels.

2. Restricted-level gun license. My current papers only really allow me to have some long guns (but nothing I'd really want to bring to a firefight, unless I had a lot of armed friends or it happened in 1942). I want access to ARs, not because I really like them, but because they're functionally the only EBR I can get my hands on, and one of very few semi-automatic firearms that can legally have a ten round mag. It'll also get me access to a sidearm...which I can't carry.

3. Firearms. If you can't keep what you got, you got nothing. The current list of prospects is as follows:

-Lee Enfield Mk IV
-Remington 870
-Tavor (well, I can dream...it's 3000$ CND)
-Lever Action .357
-Mosin
-Maybe an SKS, but it would only legally be allowed a five round magazine
-Mauser 98k for a 'sniper rifle'

That's about all I have to say for tonight...now back to work on my paper.

2009-09-23T12:20:00.001-04:00

Here's the problem with just about every Goddamn thing I see on commercials: it's all form. The way I think, I say "What does it do, and how well does it do it?" This is the whole basis of my attitude towards buying stuff. The modern man, it's all about your style, your popped collar, your bling, your fuckin' crackberry. I mean, there's nothing wrong with form, but in the long run, would you rather have something that works well, or that looks good? It also almost guarantees problems with my girlfriend.

"Des, why don't you get a suit?"

Do I wear a suit, day to day? No, I go to college across a number of bus routes. I'm not going there to look pretty. I'm going to learn, and to carry my kit, I want a decent set of pants that I can put everything I want in. Therefore, is a suit going to fulfill my purposes? No, it's going to make me stand out and make me a target for the criminal element.

"But Des, you'll need it when you enter the real world!"

Uh huh. I didn't need my DEUs (dress uniform) terrible often the last time I was in the 'real world'. What I need right now are pants that fit, that are comfortable and rugged. I need shirts that are comfortable, rugged, and don't scream OH HEY LOOK A NARC/COP! Now, let's look at my options:

1. Common, stylish pants: Not rugged. Not comfortable. Since I'm doing more than sitting in a cafe smoking cloves, anything that could possibly be called stylish can go pound sand.

2. El Cheapo Bonanza pants: comfortable, but will shred like, as my buddy Jeriah put it, your cock after a week at a Thai brothel.

3. Suit Pants: Do I have to say much?

That's just an example, I suppose. I don't think it's such a massive paradigm shift that I wear cargos to school. Or a decent set of jeans. The way I see it, I already give off a bit of cop vibe. I wear cargos and boots, and I keep my hair short. This of course makes me a Bad Man to the dope-smoking philosophy majors. I usually wear what can only be described as a nerd shirt (something with a game design or pop culture reference), so that helps mitigate the appearance that I DARE to wear clothing that's practical. On a tangent- when did it become weird to wear clothing that works? Deviant to wear easy-going, comfortable pants instead of jeans that require a jar of Vaseline to get on? Or criminal to have a pocketknife?

And another thing! Since when did looking good trump being warm in the winter? I mean, I wear a big ol' Soviet Afghanka coat, have a toque and leather gloves in the winter. Hell, if it's blustry enough, I'll even grab a scarf. This makes me deviant- just look at the kids standing around outside with puffy jackets and ballcaps when it's twenty below out. Hell, that's if they have headgear.

Christ Jesus, I'm a dying breed at 24.

A first step or two...

2009-09-22T19:15:00.004-04:00

I've been on this road awhile, now. So, firstly, a briefing about me:

I'm a twenty four year old Canadian, who grew up in a liberal household. How liberal? Well, not NDP-commie liberal, but hardcore Trudeau supporter. At least he was a badass, right?

Until university, I was the kind of guy the liberals would have dreamed of. Bright, driven, dedicated to leftist/socialistic ideals. And then, after a long argument with an American friend about gun control, it hit me. He was right. I was wrong. I spent the year more or less challenging the things I had dear, and lo and behold, liberalism crumbled before the might of reality.

The truth is, the police are there to protect you, in theory. In reality, you're on your own until they show up. And if the bad guy is armed, and you're not, well, you're fucked. I realized it, and a whole mess of things came crumbling down. Canada DOES need a strong military. The United States, while not always right, IS our best friend and we DO need to support them. Personal responsibility is something EVERYONE needs to take.

So here I am. I'm out of a short term in the military, and I was hoping that you guys would be willing to see what happens when you try to make the modern male do a complete 180 in viewpoints.

Wanna go for a ride?