Review: Zombie Tools "The Mauler"

It arrived!



Yes, my latest Zombie Tool and the companion to my Tainto (a blade retired by the Zombie Tools folks), the Mauler is also a companion karambit to my Fox flipper (which I've managed to puncture my arm with. Whee!).

The Mauler is up to what I expect of Zombie Tools standards. It's a solid, mean-looking blade. Sharp and not a toy. It's got sharp edges on the outside and on the inner curve as well as a nasty rounded spike on the ring.


I opted for the leather sheath addition and I am damn happy I did.

Now the hard part will be not accidentally lopping off a body part as I try not to play with the lovely thing too much.

Review: Maratac SR-9015L and Mid Original Pilot Automatic Watches

Sometime last year, I needed a new wristwatch. It wasn't an urgent thing, but I was looking around. Then I got an advert from County Comm with a special for one of their automatic watches: the Maratc SR-9015L.

I'm not going to pretend I understand the name. I saw the price and thought, "hey, looks good". I'd met someone with a Maratac automatic watch and was given a lot of complimentary spiel, so I bought the watch without a thought.

For the last five months or so, the SR-9015L has been riding on my wrist. It's a bit of a beast, as watches go. It's big, with a large face and a crystal back so you can see the watch interior hard at work ticking away. As an automatic watch, it's something you kind of have to wear to keep it working. It apparently runs about 40 hours between the "indirect drive" getting its action on.

If I have a complaint over the SR-9015L, it's the bezel on the rim. A rotating bezel comes on the watch and I have to say it's not an addition I find any real use for.

Weirdly-enough, the bezel is actually kind of a distraction for me. So when the Mid Original Pilot Automatic Watch came on sale, I decided to get one.

The Pilot watch is pretty much the same as the SR-9015L, at least superficially. It's an automatic watch with glowing elements so you can read the watch in the dark. It runs about 40 hours between any movement of the "indirect drive" to get it to tick along. While the SR-9015L has a big, red second-hand that ticks the seconds away, the Pilot watch has a small sixty-second circle within the indicator for minutes to count the seconds down. Kind of a beast if you're farsighted.

The Pilot watch also doesn't have a bezel.

Overall, I'm quite happy with both watches. I'll admit I wish I'd gone for the large Pilot watch. It's a bit jarring to go from the large face of the SR-9015L to the smaller "Mid Original" pilot watch. Still, the Pilot watch is a bit more discrete, and I have no trouble reading it.

Both watches keep good time and ride well on my wrist. Definitely worth the price.

Review: "Altered Carbon" by Richard K Morgan

I jumped to sci-fi with "Altered Carbon", by Richard K. Morgan.

A recommendation from a friend, "Altered Carbon" is about life a few centuries down the line. Humanity has colonized the stars. Space travel is (as far as I can surmise) still limited to decades or centuries of travel. Through hand-wavy science, one can transmit broadcasts through "hyperpsace needlebeams", though. This combines well with the technology of digitizing the human consciousness to "stacks" so that you can download a consciousness to new bodies, or "sleeves" as they're known.

Takashi Kovacks of Harlan's Word is a former Envoy (think uber-spy, black-ops, super-badass and you come close). After a job goes awry on Harlan's World, resulting in his death and that of his lover, he finds himself waking up on Earth where he has to investigate the death of a super-wealthy individual to confirm it wasn't suicide.

And then things just get worse.

"Altered Carbon" was, to be concise: fucking brilliant!

A mix of sci-fi and noir, it's a brutal and bleak look at how humanity would evolve with immortality available. I understand there's two more novels in the series. I'll have to check them out. I have to say I had a really hard time putting Morgan's book down, so my expectations are a bit high. I may have to read something else for a while and recalibrate a bit.

"Karamibt Fever": a review of the Fox 479SW Folding Karambit Flipper

It's all the fault of Zombie Tools. I was perusing their site as I shopped for my Tainto sheath, and saw The Mauler. It fascinated me and next thing I knew, I was reading up on karambit blades.

One thing led to another and then I was on a site looking at the Fox 479SW Folding Karambit Flipper. I actually found it at Knife Center for a pretty penny or two. I had some tax refund money and... well, it's pretty obvious what followed.

The Fox 479SW is first and foremost sharp! It has a single edge, with the cutting bit in the inside of the curved blade. The steel looks to be high quality to my less-than-educated eyes. It's a flipper, so there's an extension you can press when the blade is folded to force it to flip open. It's not a spring-loaded blade, mind you! If you flip it open, you use inertia to flip it.

The blade also has a proprietary catch you can use to force the blade open when pulling it out of your pocket. Kind of a neat, if potentially-nasty, design. The grip has a rough feel to it that doesn't slip but is otherwise-comfortable. The karambit has a ring on the opposite end of the blade. When gripping, either your index finger (for the normal, blade-down grip) or your pinky-finger (for the blade-up grip) gets inserted into that ring, making it difficult for you to drop the blade or be disarmed.

Also makes for an impact tool when punching someone.

I've gone through a few YouTube videos to look at how karambits are used. There's a lot of experts out there with lots of advice. It's clear that carrying this is carrying a weapon and that's got potential consequences. It's potentially risky to one's own health to mess around with it without learning more, so I'm viewing some exercises so I don't cut myself flipping it around.

I'm not sure this is the sort of thing I'd normally carry. I like my main pocketknife fine and am not really the sort of person who ever wants to be in a knife-fight. My fight-or-flight reflexes very much run towards the latter of the two options.

Still, weapons fascinate me and this is the latest of what will doubtless be many more to get my attention. It's a great knife and certainly worth the price in my book.

Another crack appears

My gaming group has been going strong for... well... a long time. A very long time. Some of the players I've got in my group I've known for more than half my life.

And I'm "gettin' on in years" as Grandpa used to say. (He never actually used to say that, but I find it funny to attribute the saying to him all the same.)

In the last few years, we've started bleeding players. One-by-one, we've had players drop out of the game. Each had his own reasons and I respect them. We managed to get one player into our group for a time, but that didn't work out.

And so now our group is about half of what it once was. Maybe a shade less.

And it's making things hard.

One of my players just asked availability for the next month's game. The discussion began and we started to realize that our little group can't get together again until mid to late summer.

Ouch.

That's a bit of a blow, given we normally aim to play monthly.

I guess real life is finally catching up with us.

Fucking sucks.

Berry Cake Experiment

My mom makes an awesome berry cake.

She uses frozen blackberries and somehow makes it light, fluffy, sublime, and tasty. Not too sweet. Just perfect.

So I got the recipe from her last time I saw her. On a whim, I tried making it earlier (see my KHAAAAAANNN!!!! posts).

So... yeah. Some mishaps in putting it together. First of all, I didn't let the butter thaw enough, so when I used the mixer, chunks of sugar and butter went all over the goddamn kitchen. Then I decided to use frozen blueberries instead of blackberries. And the pan I used is a smidge bigger than what the recipe calls for.

Oh, and I forgot to add baking powder.

So the outcome:

• It's kinda flat. Forgetting the baking powder will do that. At least I didn't add baking soda. That's always a fun mistake to make.
• The berries didn't sink properly. I think the consistency is a bit off.
• I baked it for less time. Turned out to be a good call...
• Tastes good! I decided not to add all the sugar the recipe calls for and that was a good call.

All-in-all, not a bad first try. I'm glad I remembered to grease the pan. Cleanup was easy, though I dread the bits of sugar I missed and the ant issues that will ensue.

Epic KHAAAAAAAANNNN!!!!

That moment when you realize your previous "KHAAAAAAAANNNNN!!!" moments happened due to the same ill-advised activity.

And it's only Wednesday.

KHAAAAAANNN!!!!! (2)

That moment when you realize you have an ant problem and you've got sugar all over your kitchen thanks to a mixer mishap.

KHAAAAAAAAAANNNNN!!!!!!!!

That moment when you look in the oven and realize you forgot to put in baking powder...

Been a while

I've really let time slide by. Let's see, what can I add?

I got a sheath for my Tainto. It makes me happy and makes my now-discontinued Zombie Tools knife look all that more badass.

I got about halfway through Michael Wisehart's "The White Tower" before realizing I just couldn't get into it. It's not a bad book, all said. Wisehart's an okay writer. But the characters are all the sorts I've seen before. The plot is predictable. I just couldn't find myself all that interested and shelved it.

Spring has sprung. Allergies are gonna suck soon. They've already started to worm their way around my daily allergy meds a tiny bit.

Yeah, I got nuthin'. Life's kind of dull, which isn't entirely bad. When I turn on the news, I see just how exciting things can get and I'm kind of happy with dull for now.