Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Final Results

 Have to re-hang the gate: it was done kinda half-assed like everything else the previous owner did, and it's not lining up properly (the big rock is to keep it closed for now).
 The deer had been at my strawberry leaves, and I was all set to stock my freezer with venison. Waited up for them early in the morning with my rifle, then saw that it was two does with fawns, and my soft-heartedness got the better of me.
I want to add a little white picket fence around the edge once the grass is fully established.

Friday, September 16, 2016

Beck - Ramona



I love this movie. And I love this song. The band in this movie is the best made-up fake Hollywood band since the Monkees.

Evidence for the above opinion:
Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
Exhibit C:
Exhibit D:
Verdict: Sex Bob-Omb Rocks.

Thursday, September 15, 2016

Free - Be My Friend

100 Years of of Armored Warfare

Today is the 100th anniversary of the first tank assault, at the battle of the Somme in France.

Try to imagine yourself as a German soldier in the trenches. You're exhausted, miserable, scared, cold, wet, and demoralized because the war has been stalemated for so long, and because of the enormous death toll on both sides. You're carrying a bolt-action rifle, and the new invention, the machine-gun, is the terrifying reason you're bogged down in these trenches. You grew up in a world of horses, carriages, woodstoves, and gas lights. Electricity and motor vehicles are novelties of the wealthy; your milk back home is still delivered by a horse and cart, the fields are plowed by horse-drawn plows, and both armies still have horse-mounted cavalry (although they've been rendered ineffective by machineguns and modern artillery). You may have seen a tractor once or twice in your life.

Then, early in the morning, after a heavy artillery barrage, you see rolling toward you with a deafening thunder of huge engines and the squeak and clank of steel tracks, thirty-two of these monstrosities:




You've never heard of, or imagined such a thing. Their development has been kept a total secret by the British government until this moment (in fact, that's why we still call them 'tanks' to this day: Tank was a code-name assigned to hide what they were really doing, making it seem like they were working on some kind of water-storage system. The original, official name was "land ships" and they were part of the Royal Navy).

My respects, both to the very first brave tankers who hazarded the inside of these experimental rolling beasts, filled with exhaust fumes, burning cordite, and deafening noise, and trying to do their duty while being thrown about the hard steel compartment by the movement of the vehicle over rough terrain, and to the infantrymen on the ground who had to face them.

Sunday, September 11, 2016

Victory

It's still sinking in, that the battle with my weight is over. My whole life. Since my parents' divorce, when I was six. And now I've finally won--all that's left now is taking captives and riding down fleeing peasants. And burying the dead.

Not that we can become complacent. There will come a time of feasting and revelry soon, but then we've got to build castles on the borderlands, and establish patrols to watch out for new invaders. We must remain vigilant.

But I need to be clear: this is not my victory.

Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomine Tuo da gloriam.

Wednesday, September 7, 2016