Freezing ninja snow shoveling job.

So... It's winter up here in the cold northern wastes of Caro, MI, and we just got hit by a blizzard.  This means I have to dig out one of the most boring blades possible, and go shovel the walks.  Over and over.  The morning of the blizzard, I woke up to this message, essentially:  "Happy holidays everyone!  Now go shovel some snow!"  So, I've been shoveling, scraping, cursing, and salting the sidewalks.  Thank goodness I've got my brother to help, or this might take even longer.

The Hunger Games

This book, put simply; is gripping, slightly disturbing, and totally awesome.  It's about a society in the future, where North America has sunk beneath the sea, leaving only the highest points as a small nation.  The nation is divided into districts and a central Capitol.  With superior technology and tactics, the Capitol has subjugated the Districts and forced them to provide all it's manual labor.

As one of several reminders of it's superiority, the Capitol forces each district to send two contestants each year.  If the district has no volunteers, these 12-18 year old contestants are selected randomly.  There are almost never any volunteers.  In fact, it is usually a death sentence.  The 24 contestants are placed in a huge outdoor arena, usually miles in diameter, and left there until only one is left alive.  The contest is brutal.  And the book doesn't shy away from the violence.  Kids impaling each other on spears, beating each other to death, burning, slashing, crushing, poisoning, etc. etc.  And the Capitol treats it as a game-- broadcasting it for the entertainment of it's citizens.  Of course, the motivation for the players is there as well:  The districts are kept in poverty, except for the winner's district and the winner himself.  In fact, winning the Hunger Games usually means that a district can actually eat regularly for the year.

The book focuses on a sixteen year old girl who volunteers, to keep her younger sister out of the games. Unexpectedly, she encounters love on the battlefield, and then the story goes from there: they work together, knowing only one of them will survive, etc.  I won't spoil the ending.

Finally, a decent sharpener

It's in the title.  I finally found a decent sharpening device for my swords.  For those of you who don't know, or think you know, but you don't;  You can't simply take a grinder to a blade.  You see, a (real) sword has a temper from being heat treated.  This keeps the blade strong while still flexible, to a point.  And if you just grind away at the blade with a spinning grinding stone, you'll ruin the temper, making your sword really really crappy.  So... this might give you an inkling of how long it took me to find a device that won't take three weeks to get the job done, but won't overheat your sword either.  And of all places, it was in Meijer.  How crazy is that?

NaNoWriMo

Well, I'm gonna say this now, while the month is still young.  It's National Novel Writing Month, so... I'm gonna be writing a lot.  This means more posts here, as there'll be lots of story to share with 'yall.  So check back every so often if you want to read it.  Also, I'm going to be LARPing this weekend, so I'll have a post about how that goes.  Umm.... let's see, is there anything else to tell ya?   Nope.  Guess I'll just post the intro to my new story then.  Sorry if the text is a little small.

In the year 2023 AD, the advent of Aetholin changed the course of mankind forever.  instantly rendering all fossil fuels obsolete almost literally overnight.  Refined at the Aetholin plants all over the world, this miraculous substance fuels all of our vehicles, provides electricity to our homes, and is even used as an explosive.  It’s distinctive yellow color was often confused with gasoline in it’s early years, leading to many vehicular explosions, due to their rough design.

Aetholin does not pollute the atmosphere, as some people might claim.  Due to it’s nature as raw condensed energy, it only releases heat, light, and kinetic when burned.  However, this also makes it toxic to all known life forms, often causing victims to age at an accelerated rate, and even to decompose within a few seconds of their death.  It is undoubtedly the greatest creation of our era, thanks to the contributions from scientists around the world, although the final breakthrough is accredited to the genius Klaus Scienfeld, who was unfortunately killed in a terrorist attack shortly after his findings were completed.

So say the textbooks.  But I know that they’re wrong.  And the government leaders know they’re wrong.  But they decided that the average person couldn’t accept the truth, and I’m fine by that.  It means there are less people to come knocking on my door trying to figure out how to make Aetholin.  But I still like to remind them who’s really in charge here, lest any of the human governments try something stupid, like that idiot Scienfeld.  The idiot tried to make Sirithim and got Vampyres instead.  Which is why I’m recording this.  Can’t have the government’s lies as the only recorded history of the events surrounding the Aetholin Advent.  I am Malachi Silver, creator of Aetholin, Patriarch of the Sirithim, and living Scion

How I got my butt kicked in a board game 2000 years old.

So... I recently joined a group of Viking re-enactors at our local ren-fest, and during my first day as a Viking, I went from being in the queen's guard to being the guy in charge of the ancient board games.  I immediately realized that, unlike popular opinion, the vikings were not dumb giants with axes and boats.  They played strategy games that rival chess in complex strategy & difficulty, and this has led me to conclude that they were actually quite clever.  Anyways... I spent about 5 hours teaching the patrons these viking games.  And I lost just about every game.  By the end of the day, I had only won a grand total of 5 games.

Woop-dee-doo, I suck at strategy games.
See ya 'round.

So now we buy a not-crappy sword.

So yeah.  I found a quality sword, and I think I'm gonna go for it.  It's a Windlass, which is one of the oldest sword companies still manufacturing.  The steel is something like 1060 springsteel, although it could be carbon steel.  not sure which yet.  The only problem I've heard pertaining to this sword is that Windlass blades tend to be a tad whippy, meaning it acts less like a bar of steel, and more like a pool noodle.  But I'm not too concerned about that.

On a side note, I'm this [            ] close to fixing my previous attempt at a sword.  You remember... that crappy one that broke in my last post.  Well, I've almost got it presentable again.  And then it will go on display in my room and will have it's own personal "do not touch" sign.

So... until next time, Thanks for reading etc etc.

Never buy a crappy sword.

EVER.  I mean that.  Just today, I went and bought a nice looking sword at a local ren-fest, but in my excitement, (buying swords is exciting) I forgot to treat this certain wallhanger like a wallhanger.

Note for those of you unfamiliar with sword terminology:  Wallhanger means any sword that looks really cool, but if you try and swing it, it falls apart in your hands.

Thus, half an hour after getting home with my newly bought shiny sword... it came apart and I discovered that it was designed in such a way that it couldn't be repaired.  So... I am now faced with the problem of constructing a brand new hilt to attach to the still-shiny blade.

And the moral of this story is this:  Never, ever, ever, evereverevereverever, ∞, buy a crappy sword, unless it's going straight into an air-conditioned, vacuum-sealed, anti-rust display case.