Family Portrait #1: The Rockin' Sista'

Because one of my valued readers request family pics and I'm busy with work, going to see Serenity (Uber w00t!), and helping out at a wilderness survival campout, I'll do a brief piece on my rocker chick sister, Emily, instead of my usual monologue.

Emily is a little more than a year younger than I and is obsessed with music. She's played piano for 8 or so years, flute off and on for 4-5 yrs. and during the last couple years she's picked up the guitar.

She is absolutely the opposite of the stereotypical rocker. She's a methodical perfectionist who has acquired her considerable musical skill, not through any particular gifting or natural talent but rather through thousands of hours of practise and an uncompromising determination. She conservative, in dress and in action. Unlike the stereotype, her main non-musical pastimes are baking, and scrapbooking. Neat and tidy, she unleashes a foretaste of Hades on anyone who dares make a mess, forgets to put away their dishes, or irritates her in any other way.

That includes my brief and incomplete look at Emily. For those of you wondering, the reason I did her first was not due to any particular famialial hierrarchy but rather due to the fact that I knew where a picture of her was posted. As you can tell, like me, she isn't partiularly fond of having her face posted online for the world to see.

"Ton of Brain Power,"Brilliant Blog," "Creative, Logical"

Your Blogging Type is Confident and Insightful

You've got a ton of brain power, and you leverage it into brilliant blog. Both creative and logical, you come up with amazing ideas and insights. A total perfectionist, you find yourself revising and rewriting posts a lot of the time. You blog for yourself - and you don't care how popular (or unpopular) your blog is!

What's Your Blogging Personality?

My creative muse is currently working on finishing my BOB guide. Therefore I'm posting this personality test result instead of a normal post. It's a blogthings test which I found via Randi and Virtual Mindshare.

Just for the record, I do care how popular my blog is. I rather like getting feedback from my readers and getting different a glimpse from different view points.

National Preparedness Month Is BOB Time.

Randi of cheekymama2005.blogspot.com pointed out that September is National Preparedness Month.

As many of you may know I am Right Wing Survivalist Nut-Wing. I live in a bunker buried deep in the heart of Seattle, surrounded by barbed wire and minefields. I have enough food stored to feed my army of minions for fifty years and enough ammo holed away to shoot every person, animal and plant on the planet at least twice. I am ready to face a Class 5 hurricane, 9.8 R earthquake, 50 megaton nuclear missile and an economic collapse at the same time!

Okay, maybe not. Still, I am a little more preparedness conscious than the average American. I'm not even close to an expert though, so don't take my word for gospel on any of this stuff. I'm offering the following only as general guide to get you thinking.

As a special service to my valued readers I will reveal Uber Secret Plan For Dictatorial Survival 3.0.7d: Bug Out Bags. It involves creating a man portable survival kit that will sustain a person with basic knowledge of the outdoors and some common sense for a week or two in a moderate climate. The plan will require adjustment for your individual circumstances and locale. I used bob-oracle.com as my primary source for this article.

First lets cover the subject of motivation. The average person will look at what I am about to present and decry me as a survivalist nut. My response is that this is only true if surviving is nuts. I may be alone in my opinion but I would like to remain here on earth for little while longer. Most people have car insurance and fire insurance, I just want to go a little further and invest in survive-after-an-earthquake insurance, don't-get-looted insurance and car-stuck-in-a-blizzard insurance.

Now that we have that out of the way lets get into the meat of this material. How do I prepare a Bug Out Bag (BOB) and what do I put in it.

Please Note: I have broken this down into several posts so that you can comment on the individual sections with maximum ease and minimum confusion. I will be adding entries onto the end as I have get time so scroll down periodically to check for new material.

INDEX

Intro

1. The Bag for the Bug Out

2. I Like to Eat, Drinking is Okay Too

3. Humans are Tool Users

4. You Loot, I Shoot

5. Coming Soon - Clothing

6. Coming Soon - Planning for Survival

7. Coming Soon - Links

The Bag for the Bugout

There a wide variety of different ways of packaging your BOB depending on your circumstances and your desired level of preparedness. I will discuss a few of the options available to you but please do not feel limited to what I list.

Briefcase

The brief case has been a common accessory of the businessman for a long time. If you don't want your co-workers to identify you as nut a briefcase can serve you well as a container for storing a minimalist BOB. You may elect to devote an entire case to gear or you may want to tuck a few essentials like a Leatherman tool, mylar blanket, and a few Powerbars into the one you already carry everyday.

Fanny Packs

Fanny Packs, popular among joggers and the are a handy way to store a few basics. They can also be used to store supplementary gear to a more complete BOB such as a medical kit.

Back Pack

Another option that provides more space and more comfort in the event that you have to carry it much is s standard book bag or day pack. These bags are commonly by students and others and are very inconspicuous.

Hiking Pack

Hiking Packs and military style packs offer even more space than standard book bags and are usually designed to be carried long distances with a heavy load. These work well for those wanting a very thorough kit. Unfortunately they are likely to draw odd glances when seen stored in the trunk of your Honda.

As I mentioned these are far from the only containers available. A few others might be: a box in your trunk or closet, a survival vest, surplus LBE load bearing suspenders, a toolbox or even a musical instrument case.

I Like to Eat, Drinking is Good Too

If you are caught away from home or forced to leave your home during an emergeny you will appreciate having something to eat and drink.

As with the packs there are lots of options available for food. You can pack canned veggies, chili or Spam. Canned goods are heavy and bulky but easy to prepare and if you pick the right ones, relatively tasty. Military MREs and backpacker style free dried meals are good options but expensive, Powerbars and other high protien energy bars contain lots of calories and nutrition and are compact, cheap and edible.

One thing to consider: many "experts" recommend purposely eating food that will make you constipated. This can be very helpful for short term sanitation.

Water is another primary concern. I recommend throwing a few water bottles into your BOB. You can also get “survival water” in tin packages but I think its a little silly when you can get 50 water bottles at Costco for a few bucks.

Since there is already loads of info out there on storing food and water for use in emergencies I won't flog a dead horse by adding my less experienced two cents. Instead I've provided a page of links at the end of this article that should point you in the right direction.

Remember to pack eating utensils. Eating with your hands is unsanitary.

Humans are Tool Users

Biologists tell us that our main difference from our monkey “cousins” is that we are more proficient with tools. While I disagree, I do agree that without tools our life style wouldn't be that different from that of monkeys.

There are people out there who dream of swinging through the trees in a loin cloth yodeling at the top of their lungs like Tarzan and living on a steady diet of bananas and nuts. Unfortunately for them, most of the U.S. is a little cool for year round loin cloths, people don't appreciate yodeling anymore and bananas mostly grow in South America.

The rest of us will want to have some tools available when the excrement collides with the rotary air impeller. Here is are some good things to have handy:

The Bag – It's nice to be able to carry all your gear around.

A Knife or Few – I recommend a Leatherman Supertool. These are things are like a regular swiss army knife on steroids. They normally have: a can opener, a blade or two, a file, a saw, an awl, pliers, wire cutter, a crimper, flathead and Phillips screwdrivers and a Metric/English ruler. The blade is a little small so you may want to carry a stand alone knife as well. A sharpening stone will be necessary in a drawn out emergency.

Fire Starter – A lighter works good. Matches work. If you want something that'll start thousands of fires before being expended get a magnesium metal match. Keeping some dry tinder and/or a couple candles handy is wise. Road Flares are great if you have the space.

Eergency Space Blanket – Mylar space blankets will run you a couple bucks and will keep you warm in a pinch. They're also water proof so pack a few to use as a

Trowel – It's good manners and and good sanitation not to leave your sewage laying out on the ground. Military Trenching shovels work good too.

Compass and Maps – It's good to know where you're going and how to get there.

Twine – There's lots of uses, I won't list them all here.

Duck Tape – Wrap a few feet of duck tape around an expended gift card or the like and you can have the Universal Adapter available in a compact package.

Water Treatment Tablets – These are much more compact than storing actual water and can serve to extend the viability of your kit for many days.

Filter Straw? - They have straws that will filter contaminated water. I have no idea how well they work. All I can say is don't swap ends of the straw between uses.

Printed Contact Info and Photos for Family and Friends – In the off chance you ever want to see your loved ones again.

Small Sewing Kit – If you can fix things when they break you don't have to do without.

Small Tarp – Keeping dry is nice if you aren't a duck.

Wire Saw – These don't take up much space and are great for cutting tree limbs for fire wood.

Pen and Paper – You may want to write something.

Toilet Paper – Wiping with pine cones is not cool. It hurts. Bad.

Heavy Duty Contractor Plastic Bags – To keep you and your stuff dry.

First Aid Kit – You might get hurt.

Spare Mags and Ammo for your Gun – I'll cover this more thoroughly later.

Battery Radio - In case you want to know what is going on.

That should be a good start. If you carry much more you'll need your BOB will be a Bug Out Bus instead of a bag.

You Loot, I Shoot

This post may get me into to trouble. Read it quick because I will pull it down if it gets a poor reception.

When the Cops went to my neighbors house their were several dozen of them. They all wore big, bulky tactical body armor. They carried shotguns and M-16 variants. They took the threat of my neighbors seriously (Apparently not too seriously since they were back selling brown paper bags for huge wads of cash within the week.). Needless, to say they cause I'm a little worried about what my neighborhood will be like if the cops can't come.ra

I don't think that the local drug dealers are prepared for a disaster. I don't think they would hesitate to take the supplies of those who are. I don't think that there will be anyone monitoring the Level 3 sex offenders who are out under house arrest with ankle bracelets in the event of a widespread disaster.

As the Bible says when talking about a disaster, “Let those in the city flee to the hills.” Unfortunately, it may be difficult to get out of the city after a disaster and the collapse of major infrastructure. In that case it may be necessary for a family to defend itself.

Firearms are the only practical method for personal defense. I'm not about to write a self defense guide but it might be prudent if you such information.

Firearms can be purchased for relatively little and would be invaluable in a crisis. I've been looking into them lately and have found that Yugoslavian made SKSs make very serviceable emergency guns and can be had for $80-$200 depending on quality. Ammo is also inexpensive at $.08 per round.

Linking to Survival

Here's a few links to get you started:

Information – Read up on all the subjects necessary to prepare proficiently

http://www.bob-oracle.com

http://members.1stconnect.com/anozira/SiteTops/kits/t_72hr_kit.htm

http://www.aussurvivalist.com/

http://www.frugalsquirrels.com/survival-lib.html

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/103-9528201-4379023

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?WRD=survivalist&userid=8775uBFCJ8&cds2Pid=9481

Link Pages – Lots of links compiled by others.

http://journals.aol.com/wsm311/WendyUsuallyWanders/entries/1997

http://members.1stconnect.com/anozira/SiteTops/kits/BOB.htm

http://www.logicsouth.com/~lcoble/password/survival.html

http://www.survivalist.com/

Forums – Discuss your plan with people who actually know what they're talking about..

black-rifles.com

AR15.com

The Claire Files Forums

Suppliers – Buy gear.

http://www.cabelas.com

http://www.actiongear.com/

http://www.alwaysbeprepared.com

http://www.colemans.com/

Watch Your Own Kids!

I am always working to develop skills that will help me to maximize my potential as an assistant dictator. Since amiability is a useful quality in any administrative assistant, I thought it would be a good idea to practice being responsive by posting my first article on request.

I would also like to take this opportunity to introduce a new feature to The Rabenstranger. If you direct your attention the right side bar you will see that there is now a large link allowing you to “Ask Rabenstrange.” I will answer almost any email regardless of subject. Please be aware that I may post your question and its response on The Rabenstranger's main page. Excessively rude or crude inquiries will be ignored.

Mama and Me of Crafty Girls asked me to provide my opinion on a recent CNN news story about Georgia parents protesting Governor Sonny Perdue asking for the closure of government schools for two days as a measure to help alleviate possible fuel shortages. (Read Full Article Here)

Apparently, Governor Perdue's decision put a lot of families in a tough spot because they use the public schools as a sort of tax-payer funded baby sitter.

I don't have near enough knowledge of Georgia or the events leading up to Hurricane Rita to critique the Governor's judgment but it seems on the surface to be a relatively reasonable request of parents to ask them to take care of their own kids for a couple days. I don't know how much keeping kids out of school would affect the states fuel supply but if there was a chance that it might help, changing the school schedule a little bit is a small price to pay.

Of course in hindsight we see that Rita wasn't nearly as devastating as she was predicted to be. Saving gas turned out to be a non-issue. Still that didn't eliminate the Governor's need to be prepared.

Anyhow, it seems to me that the main issue contained in the story is that parents don't seem to be taking responsibility for their own children. Randy David, an Atlanta mother is quoted in the CNN story as saying "It's certainly caused a lot of problems for working parents today, and it causes problems for these kids who need to be learning and not just hanging out, watching the Cartoon Network at home." I find her words revealing and sad. If her children need to learn what is stopping her from turning off Scooby Doo, getting out the books and teaching them herself.

I know that two days can be an eternity when you're trying to pound concepts into minds not your own. I have a little personal experience with this. As the oldest of six kids I am often called on to babysit and sometimes tutor my siblings. I was also an economics tutor and coached a special needs student at my college. It might not always easy but if a punk eighteen year old can do it, teaching one's own children shouldn't be beyond the capacity of today's parents.

People need to be less dependent on their government. If you look through out history you will find that the only things that governments have ever been good at are confiscating money, killing people and slipping the bounds that citizens try to place on them.

Contemplating a Template Change

Editing Note: I've fixed the links in this post. Apparently, blogger no longer likes stantard 'a href="http://sample.com"', "/a" tags. Using the little blogger "Link" button is now the way to go. Thank you to Mamma and Me and Virtual Mindshare for identifying the problem.

For awhile I've thought that using the most common template on blogger was rather dull. While I spruced it up by adding a few of my own fields in the sidebar, it still looks just like all the other blogs.

I have found an alternate, non-standard template and am thinking of changing to it, as it is used by only hundereds instead of thousands.

It really isn't very fancy and it won't be a dramatic change but I wanted to get some reader feed back before I made the jump.

You can see what it looks like Here.

Thank you to Virtual Mindshare for using it, so that I noticed it and to Blogger Templates for posting the code.

Is Diversity Really Strong?

"I will pick a person who can do the job. But I am mindful that diversity is one of the strengths of the country."

That is what President Bush recently said about his choice to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court.

This implies that his nominee will be a minority or a woman. Normally, this comment would make me very nervous. I don't think it's wise for the President to play race/gender games and posture for the public when he makes an appointment that is likely to shape this country for decades to come.

On the other hand, several well qualified nominees fit into the minority and/or female categories. Janice Rogers Brown for one is an excellent constitutional scholar who's ruling show support for our Second Amendment Rights and a strict-constructionist perspective on issues such as the so-called "privacy right" which is used to justify court legalization of abortion. Mel Martinez, a Cuban, would be the first Hispanic justice. He also displays solid conservative credidentials.

We still have to be vigilant. There are rumors that the President may choose Alberto Gonzalez, currently serving as Attourney Gerneral. This would be a disaster. Gonzales does not respect Americans rights to own firearms and has revealed that he is pro-choice.

Please pray for our country as it maneuvers this critical crossroad.

Bob and Larry are Fruits!

Bob and Larry are not vegetables. They are fruits. I know I am risking condemnation as a heretic for pointing this out but the truth must prevail. It seems people don't like their favorite characters being called fruits.

A fruit is the matured ovary of a flower, containing the seed. After fertilization takes place and the embryo (plantlet) has begun to develop, the surrounding ovule becomes the fruit. Tomatoes and Cucumbers both fit this definition.

A vegetable is an edible root, tuber, stem, leaf, or flower cluster. Bob and Larry fit into none of these categories.

I'm sorry to crush your faith in the scientific accuracy of the Big Idea team but I just couldn't allow people to continue being decieved.

A New President

The He-Man-Women-Haters Club of Myarea has appointed a new president. After our previous president, TBQelite, cruelly betrayed us by associating with females, we found it necessary to expel him from the club and appoint a new leader.

It took us a great deal of time to recover from our shock and horror. We had no indication of our turncoat leaders treachery beforehand and so were unable to prepare a replacement.

Our new President will be The Shadow Walker. While he does not desire the role, the members of our club have selected him. He is uniquely qualified to serve. He has reached the age of 21 without ever becoming entangled and shows great skill in avoiding unnecessary mingling between the genders*.

He recently offered some wise words of encouragement to club members during a recent online forum discussion of this affair which I would like to quote, in slightly edited form, here:

“In any event, for anyone who needs to keep females at bay, follow these guidelines:

-Always have an Aura of Hate/Stink/Shadow/Rage/Logic up. Any of these will work for most girls. But some tend to work better on different classes of female. It is often wise to specialize your aura to properly counteract the wiles of your opponent.

-Limit all interaction with females. Even through interactions that seem innocent, you may inadvertently level up your female relations skill.

-Never, never, never, never, ever give something to a female, no matter what it is, as a gift. Always make them work for it. Even if the charge is minimal it is critical not to appear generous or kind.

-Do not, under any circumstances, add points to your charisma attribute. Projecting excessive charisma attracts the Enemy and interrupts all attempts at stealth.”

Thank you very much President Walker. Congratulations and long may you preside.

Please note: This is all in good humor. I don't actually hate women. Believe it or not, my mother happens to be one.

*Before any of you correct my word usage, I want to say that yes, I know that gender refers to the masculinity or femininity of words and the proper vocabulary to use in this case would be “sex” which refers to the masculinity or femininity of a person. However, in this perverse culture I know that, when I say gender, my reader will think of male or female. If I say sex I open up all manner of roads down which I do not wish to travel. I've made enough embarrassing mistakes to conclude that misusing vocabulary is a lesser humiliation than implying things I do not intend.

My New Favorite Show

Last night, The Shadow Walker, AFineLookingYoungMan and I went over to TBQelite's stronghold to do a little binge watching.

My sisters had their birthday party yesterday evening. They invited over a large number of their very loud friends to sleep over and do all manner of girly things. I made a point of prepairing an escape plan.

TBQelite and I have been planning a binge watch for awhile. When I heard about my sisters' party I recognized an opportunity. We promptly scheduled our event for the same evening. It came off splendidly. The Shadow Walker picked me towards the end of the party. I was able to put in an appearance and avoid being rude by skipping it entirely.

The show we chose to watch was Firefly. We watched all 14 episodes, including the double length pilot, all the special features and the trailers for the new movie Serenity. The total length was well over 10 hours.

Firefly is the most awesome TV show I have ever seen. It is a Sci-Fi Western. It is so different than anything I have seen before that I can't accurately describe how wondeful Firefly is. While it did have its share of scenes that required fast-forwarding. The script was masterful. I laughed so hard, so often that I my sides ached and my throat became dry. The action was sweet. The charachters were vivid and every single one added an unforgettable element. My review really doesn't do justice to how good this show was.

Media Review: Ceiling Siege

Today was all fun and games at work. After a few hours of handfolding, machine folding, spiraling and paperwork, I got paid to play Ceiling Siege.

Ceiling Seige is a copy cat game that attempts to cash in on the thrills and popularity of the ever popular Tomb Raider franchise. Like the TR games CS stars a noble adventurer who climbs through dark cramped passages searching for clues and certain items that hold some intrinsic value to someone somewhere, while trying to avoid falling through trap doors, becoming impaled on sharp objects, or touching the rigged timber that will bring down the structure.

I must say that after playing CS I think it is unlikely to attract the similar amounts of fans or critical aclaim as the TR games. First, there is the rather obvious fact that the protagonist of CS, a skinny, bald, white guy, is not going to receive the appreciation that Lara Croft and her very... unlikely proportions get from the average, male, relationally-inept gamer. Additionally, the backstory of TR is a great deal more exciting than the rather bland CS. While TR stars a rich heiress who travels the world in search of priceless archeological artifacts and fights hordes of gun weilding thugs, CS stars an average guy who is crawling around in the overheads and false ceilings of his boss's printshop in an attempt to locate, extract and restring telephone wire while facing no bad guys of any kind. Instead he braves the usual dangers of falling through sheetrock, stabbing his hand with wires or falling off of ladders. The final and probably the most off-putting feature of the game was its user interface. CS uses a state of the art Real Life interface.

Okay, so maybe Ceiling Siege isn't a game. Heck, it's not even fun. Oh well.

Switchfoot Relegated to Hero Status

As most of you know Switchfoot is probably my favorite band of all time. I love their music. I listen to their CD's endlessly and I know the words to most of their songs. I am delighted to find that my adoration has not been misplaced.



Apparently, Switchfoot's latest CD, entitled "Nothing is Sound" contains copy protection on the disk. This made it more difficult for users to upload the music to their computer, MP3 player or set up a Torrent.

A week ago Switchfoot made their position on the matter clear. They posted a heartfelt apology to their fans in the Sony Music Forum and posted instructions for cracking the disc and circumventing the copy protection. (Read It)

Maybe their next CD will have an online release.

Salute! Way to stick a fork in the eye of the Recoding Industries and their stinking Association!

A Beautiful City?

Blogger seems to be having troubles. I lost this post and had to reconstitute it. Grrr.

Over the last few weeks we have been told over and over again how the beautiful city of New Orleans was flooded and how this disaster has destoyed such a wonderful place.

While I don't deny the hardships that the residents of this city are undoutedly facing it seems rather ridiculous to call New Orleans a "Beautiful City". An important city, definitely. A large city, indeed. But a beautiful city? I doubt it.

Most of New Orleans was a dirty slum. Since when does thousands upon thousands of units of public housing count as "beautiful".

I thought this point was made especially clear by a caller today on the Tony Snow Show (Yes, I am indeed a Talk Radio Junkie.). He was a trucker who descibed how he hated going to New Orleans and how he would lay down in his truck at night so that he would be sheilded in case of gunfire.

I hope I don't sound to insensitive but it irritates me how people go on and on about what a great place New Orleans was as if their misplaced praise will some how make the city better when it seems rather obvious that the place was corrupt, plagued by crime and generally quite unsavory.

Tagged by the Pickle and Christy Too

*NOTE: THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED FROM ITS ORIGINAL FORM*

I was tagged nearly simultaneously by the Pickle and Christy to do a meme thingies that were nearly the same. Being the efficent and ever so industrious fellow that I am, I smushed the memes together to come up with the following:


First the rules: Remove the blog at #1 from the following list and bump every one up one place; add your blog's name in the #5 spot. This should help promote cross pollination.

1. Mommy Brain
2. I Have to Say
3. Messages From Mama
4. PrairieDaisie & The Pickle
5. Rabenstrange

Next: select four new friends to add to the pollen count. I can't remember who's already done this, so ignore it if you did. And, as always, if you're too busy or you just don't want to, feel free to abstain. I tag the following friends:

1. lilyofthevalley
2. TBQelite
3. EJB
4. The Frazzled Sister

What were you doing 10 years ago? I was eight years old. Things were good. I had lots of friends, lots of play time and our family had just gotten our first computer, a Packard Bell with an original 75mhz Pentium processor.

What were you doing 5 years ago? I was 13. I was homeschooled didn't have a job and life was more care free and less complicated than it is now.

What were you doing 1 year ago? I was just finishing my Summer break and about to begin my second year of college.

What were you doing yesterday? After arriving home from church, I attempted to install Windows XP with a damaged CD and a misplaced key and generated a great deal of frustration.

5 songs I know all the words to: Softer to Me - Reliant K, His Cheeseburger - Mr. Lunt, Festival Song - Good Charlotte, Amish Paradise - Weird Al Yankovic, Mrs. Robinson - Simon & Garfunkle

5 Snacks I enjoy: Tortilla chips and salsa, icecream in nearly all of its many wonderful forms, hot cookies fresh from the oven, goldfish crackers, cheetos.

5 Things I'd do w/ $100 million dollars: Invest heavily in real estate. Replan my life to take advantage of greater financial security. Make generous donations to all of my favorite orginizations, the NRA, SA, ADF to name a few.

5 bad habits: Wasting prodigious amounts of time, performing "Smell Tests" to choose clothing so that I can push of the laundry for one more day, spending money unnecessarily (I may be accused of being miserly but I still spend more than I should), forgeting to tithe promptly, procrastination

5 places I would run away to: My Gulch (I wish!), Idaho, Russia, Mexico, the Caymans.

5 things I would never wear: A bikini, a Hillary '08 t-shirt, chains, any article of clothing that boasted about my anatomy, a miniskirt

5 favorite tv shows: (Like the Pickle, I don't have TV. I enjoy these shows nonetheless.) Babylon 5, the Red Green Show, Band of Brothers (actually it's a miniseries not a show), Home Improvement, Firefly

5 greatest joys: My family, books, computers, LAN Parties, and knowledge

5 favorite toys: The Internet, duct tape, knives, paintball gun, rifle.

I'm not Dead Yet

Greetings Fellow Citizens and Lowly Peons (I’ll let you decide which you are),

While I have acquired all of the new components necessary for my computer to rise again, I am having a great deal of difficulty getting things to load properly. As a result my posting is likely to continue in its sporadicity (Yes, I did indeed make that word up).

I am currently experiencing an extreme case of PC withdrawal. Symptoms include detachment, irritability, loss of attention and severe stomach pains. The last one probably isn’t from the withdrawal. I hope I’m not getting the flu.

This last week was eventful. On Monday I helped Dad on a job ripping up multiple layers of plywood with crowbars, as described in my previous post. Wednesday, I attempted and failed to get my computer running without all of my components, then that evening I began helping out with the Ranger Kids at church (For those of you who don’t know RK is kind of like a Christian version of Cub Scouts for K-2^nd graders.). Thursday and Friday, I worked at the Printery. Saturday, I painted the front office at the Shop. Yesterday, I went to church then did everything I could think of to cajole my computer into accepting an operating system. Today is Emily’s first day of class at BCC so I’m showing her around and making sure she finds her classes. In return I have appropriated her account in the Computer Lab to get a little screen time.

Brute force: if it doesn't work; you aren't using enough.

Progress

I think I have found my best bet for my new computer (a.k.a. prosthetic brain).

Using a combination of Tom's Hardware, Price Grabber and the local Fry's electronics store I have found most of the componenets I will need to construct a powerful new prosthetic brain.

I will be sticking to the Biostar NF4ul-A9 mobo, looking at several review sites and user commentaries I found that the board is very well though of as well as being the cheapest Nforce 4 board I could find. It has a good feature set including but not limited to, 10/100/1000 NIC, 7.1 onboard surround sond, more USB 2.0 slots than I have decices, some Firewire, and some other stuff I'm forgetting at the moment. Price = $84 USD - $5 USD Rebate, Vendor = New Egg.

The number cruncher for my new brain will be a Athlon 64 3500+. Procs are considerably more expensive than I expected them to be but I decided that if I was going to fork out a fist of dough for my machine I might as well make a worth while upgrade. Price = $195 USD - $5 USD Rebate, Vendor = Monarch Computer.

I decided to scap my idea to upgrade my RAM and instead pick up a new video card when I learned that Biostar's XGP slot causes a 30-50% performance loss. I found a relatively sweet card at a low price. My new XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB should pump up my gaming experience. Price = $106 USD - $5 USD, Vendor = NT-Micro.

I have already invested in a new Western Digital 160 GB with 8 MB cache hard drive at Fry's this after noon. It was pricy but I'm impatient as life without prosthetic digital enhancement for my cognitive functions is driving me quite batty. Cost $97 USD - $30 & $20 USD Rebates, Vendor = Fry's Electronics.

Pricegrabber.com apparently gives $5 rebates to customers who buy items with no or few reviews and review their purchases. This meets with my approval as it will save me $15 bucks.

If any of you have done any comp shopping lately and have found better deals stop me quick because I'm buying all the components tonight or tomorrow.

Note: All prices include shipping and taxes applicable to the 98178 zip code.

A Mobius Strip

A mobius strip (not moebius strip as I previously spelled it) is a one sided loop.




They have all kind of interesting properties. try cutting or drawing a line down the center.

A New Machine

After a little online searching it looks like I will be replacing my baby with:

Biostar NF4UL-A9 @ $84 from New Egg
AMD 3500+ 939 Pin Venice Core @ $219 also From New Egg.
A pair of generic 512 DDR 3200 sticks @ $80-90 from somewhere local
Whatever hardrive is currently on sale at Fry's
And a cheapo window case with included power supply.

I'll canabalize my optical drives, peripherals and video card out of the Corpse. I haven't had much access to do shopping so if there's any deals I'm missing let me know about them. The processor in particular looks awfully high.

The Unexpected Death of a Faithful Servant

My computer which has served me very well for the last two years has met an unfortunate demise.

I allowed my younger brother to use my machine to check his status on library holds. He came up to my room a few minutes later proclaiming that my computer was making funny noises and was frozen.

Naturally, I was horrified for my computer is by far my most valuable and valued possession. I use it several hours a day for everything from communication to gaming, from homework to my jobsearch. This problem has come at a very bad time, as I am currently looking for a job and have alot of time on my hands.

I rushed down to my baby to find the screen frozen. I attempted a restart but after shutting off the computer would not restart. It powers up but the screen does not come up at all. I thought the problem might lie with my video card or monitor, so I switched video cards and monitors. This did not fix the problem. At this point I believe the problem is with the motherboard, necessitating a complete replacement of my machine.

As a result,I am unlikely to have consistent computer access during the near future. Although I will try to keep my blog up to date (I am currently using a library computer), it is likely that posting will become less frequent.

The King's English

Your Linguistic Profile:

75% General American English

20% Upper Midwestern

5% Midwestern

0% Dixie

0% Yankee

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

I managed to get in a post after all. Sorry it's a cheapy.

NEWSFLASH!

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist died a few minutes ago of thyroid cancer at his home in Arlington.

Rehnquist's death has created an extremely rare double vacancy on the Supreme Court. Rehnquist was been a relatively strong strict constructionist during his time on the court. His death has created a hole that if unwisely filled could tilt the Court further towards the left and greatly accelerate the decay of our nation.

Hopefully, in the wake of Kelo vs. New London, care will be taken to affect positive change. I pray that God will give our President wisdom to bring the court back to its senses.

However, I fear that things are about to go very badly for our Nation. If Reagan could appoint Souter, than Bush could do us a very bad turn indeed.

Please, let their be a Scalia Court!

w00t! The LANage Approaches!

I am pleased to say that tomorrow I am unlikely to be posting because I will be attending a LAN party hosted by my good friend TBQelite.

For those of you unfamiliar with LAN parties, they consist of people bringing their computers to a centeral location and setting up a private network for the purpose of playing games.

LAN parties are a blast! (pun intended) Our group usually numbers between 6 and a dozen players who get together a every couple of weeks at one of our houses to binge on Mountaing Dew, demolish mountains of junk food, watch movies and play computer games.

We have created our own unique LAN customs and traditions including the hanging of a Disco ball at most of our parties and singing foreign songs, such as Rammstein's Amerika and Onhe Diche or O-'s Dragostea Din Tei, loudly and poorly.



I would like to apologize for neglecting my blog yesterday. Unfortunately, Dad screwed up the internet and didn't fix it in time for me to throw a post together.

Back to the Routine. Finally.

Back to the Routine. Finally.

For the last two days I have missed my swim and it messed up my evenings. Today I finally got back to the water and got in my daily mile. It was a greatly refreshing experience.

Not only did I get to go swimming I clocked my best time ever: 33 min. for a mile of not-quite-breaststroke. This may not be that great compared to what a swim teamer could do but it’s sure an improvement over my swimming a month ago.

Anyhow, as usual during swimming, I got somewhere between 15 and 57 great ideas for blog posts, almost all of which I forgot on the walk home. Unusually, I actually remembered a few. They don’t seem as great an idea as the did an hour ago but here are a few of the random ideas that popped into my head:

The narrative about me running a six-minute mile could be hilarious if I wanted it to be.

I could attempt to start a national campaign to boycott Earth Day. The campaign would consist of me and anyone I could convince to hold a protest sign on April 22nd and/or spam their friends and acquaintances. I figured out the design of my protest sign and decided that if I could get a group of buddies we could protest out side a post office or some other frequently frequented place.

I could create the Rabenstrange Foundation, which would then sponsor a scientific study to explore how becoming rich affected an average teen. I would selflessly offer up myself as a test subject, disregarding all danger and then try to get people to send me money as “research”.

Another idea was to start my own bi-millennial magazine. I would appoint myself as the sole editor and then have the “editing staff” elect me as the “Most Eligible Bachelor We Know” the award would be completed by a poster in the middle showing me laying on the couch reading a book. I would fill the mag with adds from the “Boycott Earth Day Campaign”, “The Rabenstrange Foundation” and articles about duck tape fashions, and my own rendition of Savage Gear. I would then put up a link to buy the magazine for a few bucks an issue. If I actually got enough buyers I would actually write the articles and take the pics, and print them off at work. Oh, the perks of employment at a print shop.

I could also start actively seeking applicants for my Dictatorial Assistance group.

Looking back, all of the ideas sound pretty silly instead of funny like I imagined them while swimming.

Media Review: Street Smart Survival

I have been reading Street Smart Survival. Thinking that it would contain current and useful information that would be useful for urban disaster planning, I filed a special interlibrary loan request and waited for a month to get the book. I was very disappointed when I began to read it.

I found most of the general information in the book to be so basic and obvious that it was completely useless. “You should keep a first aid kit in your home.” Gee! I never would have thought of that. Thanks for your brilliant insight. “You can store emergency water supplies in plastic milk jugs.” No way! I thought they’d explode if I put anything except milk in them! (Besides, from better-researched books I’ve learned that milk jugs are a poor choice as they have a tendency to leak and their poorly sealing lids allow for contamination.)

Additionally, the author seems to hate a lot of the people who could be very useful in a crisis. Primarily, police and doctors. He thinks that police are universally afflicted with megalomania and incompetence and will actively oppose efforts to provide for ones own defense. His beef with physicians stems from the fact that he believes doctors to be money grubbing punks who will prescribe unnecessary operations solely for their own profit and will kill and maim patients through their continual carelessness. Admittedly, isolated instances of what he describes have happened but I think he paints with a very broad brush when he condemns emergency responders.

I give this poorly researched, prejudiced book * and ½ out of ***** stars. I’d advise you to avoid it unless you happen to get bored while waiting in your fall out shelter during World War III (I which case survival books are probably too late anyways.).