What fresh hell is this? While I was sleeping off a hangover a new post appeared?
I forgot that Dr. Mingo has an account on my new site.
Get off my lawn!
There is something to be said for having a good chainsaw, even if you live in the suburbs. A good chainsaw will get you out of a bad situation or make for a comfy winter in front of the fireplace. A bad chainsaw on the other hand is a burden that sucks down gas, oil, and patience.
I own (owned) a Solo 640 with a 16 inch bar. The total output was about 1.97 Kw. A couple of months ago while building a dowel and post fence it crapped out on me. The secondary air filter had finally given its last while shaping a dowel for the fence rail. I had to build a fence between me and the next door “Bad” neighbors to impress upon them that this is my land and they need to fuckoff. They seem to think that we live in a covenant controlled community which gives them carte blanche to bitch about my trucks or the oil slick on my driveway. Code enforcement is their only outlet for grievances and crimes against humanity. I am their Stalin.
Since I live in the suburbs, cutting wood is not a daily chore as it is with AC. I won’t freeze to death if the wood isn’t cut. A face-cord in the backyard is a convenience not a blessing. But sometimes on those rare occasions, shit happens in the suburbs. We had a Christmas Day Blow.
Three days before Christmas, the weather forecast called for winds at 5 -10 miles per hour. Christmas day, at noon the wind was 25 – 35 with gusts to 75 mph. That was an understatement. During Christmas dinner with the folks, I received a call from my good neighbor across the street.
Good Neighbor: “I’ve got bad news for you. You know your favorite tree that you like to park your trucks under?
Dr. Mingo: “Yeah?”
Good Neighbor: “It just blew down.”
My good neighbor doesn’t mince words. He is always direct and to the point. I left Christmas dinner and headed home to find my beloved Scout II and my daughter’s Jeep smothered by 30 foot of Blue Spruce. Thankfully the tree fell is such a way that the trunk was between the vehicles and the tree was propped up by the lower branches and root ball. It had to be removed and soon. I was dreading the inevitable “anonymous “call to code enforcement from my BAD neighbors. After assessing the situation taking pictures and moving the trucks, we returned to our Christmas tri-tip.
The next morning I rented a Stihl 361 chainsaw with a 20 inch bar from the local equipment rental shop. I went with the biggest, baddest chainsaw they had because overkill is in my nature. After a short bit of instruction on the operation of the Stihl, I was ready to disassemble the tree.
At 8:00 am I ventured out to the tree with the chainsaw. I considered waiting an hour because I didn’t want to wake up my good neighbor. He is retired and his sleep cycle is hit-miss. On this morning however, my good neighbor was sitting on his porch waiting for the show. The Stihl started up settled into a whir of a finely tuned engine. I laid the chain into the first cut. I took off some smaller branches to expose the trunk and then I took of the top of the tree working my down. I got bonus points for waking up my bad neighbor. He came out in his pajamas, hair extending in impossible directions, and that disoriented look like a wake-up call from a drill instructor. I looked at him, he looked at me. He picked up his paper. Having no fucks to give, I continued on.
When I made that first cut into the trunk something happened which can only be described as Prometheus stealing fire from Mount Olympus and giving it mankind. Perhaps the modern version would be the hand of God extending from the heavens and bequeathing unto me a lightsaber from which I will go forward a vanquish trees and make firewood in His name. Amen.
This glorious implement of destruction I held in hands was certainly better than my Solo. In comparison to the Stihl, the Solo was a horse and buggy going up against a muscle car. I realized suddenly and quite forcefully that my Solo was, as my good friend AC had coined it, “A piece of shit!” The Stihl razed the tree to firewood and branches in less than two hours… taking my time. It cut through about 14 inches of trunk in about 8 seconds, perhaps less. It was damn quick! The Stihl transformed what I envisioned as a daunting labor into destructive ecstasy. There, I said it. It was two-stroke, single cylinder SEX! But this Stihl wasn’t mine. I was simply having an affair.
I knew had to have one, but which one? The Stihl website has a myriad of chainsaws with different power ranges, bar lengths, and power head weights. My first instinct is for overkill, but Stihl places their cost of Overkill far outside my price range. The Stihl website has a chainsaw selector which asks a few questions about how the chainsaw will be used, and how often you will use it. Are cutting an Aspen or a Sequoia? The best chainsaws are their pro- series for the lucky few who sodomize Gaia. They have plenty of power and light power heads. The chainsaws they selected for me didn’t quite feel right. I wasn’t going on a clear cutting rampage but I was looking for a version of Urban Overkill Lite. I needed more information.
I placed a call to my chainsaw consigliere, Adaptive Curmudgeon. He explained to me that while power does matter, the weight of the power head matters more. Cutting wood can get pretty tiring wielding a heavy power head. This leads to fatigue and accidents. Plenty of redneck jackasses where he lives go for the biggest saw to go with their bigger trucks. I also didn’t need a 20 inch bar. I shorter bar makes for easy handling. The important thing he said was to get the right size saw for the job. I still wanted a bit more power than a suburbanite should be allowed to have. We agreed that a Stihl MS 250 was the right saw for me.
I headed to the ranch supply store to pick up an MS250. The salesman tried to sell me the MS251 Wood Boss. I ask about the difference between the two saws, which at I already knew from my research. The Wood Boss has 0.2cc more displacement and is 0.7 lbs heavier with same power output as the MS250. The main difference between the two saws was price and emissions. Guess which one cost less? The MS 250 has no emissions and was $40 less. I bought the MS250 because saving a polar bear weighs on my soul like choosing between a chocolate or glazed doughnut.
Doctor Mingo
Epilogue: My new Stihl chainsaw is happily chewing through wood on the suburban homestead in a manner that would give a beaver an erection. I tried to fix my Solo chainsaw as a “weak Plan-B” alternative. I asked the Adaptive Curmudgeon for some advice on fixing it.
He said, “Take your Solo to the garage… And throw it in the trash.”
If Ash had to rely on a Solo chainsaw, the Deadites would have “swallowed his soul.”
The Specter Of Technology Bloat:
I keep technology on a short leash. I don’t suffer. I enjoy electricity, modern medicine, and refrigerated beer. I simply choose to avoid “improvements” with excessive drawbacks that sometimes get overlooked.
Word Processing Is Prone To Bloat:
Word processing long ago passed the “bullshit accretion event horizon”. Remember this asshole:
Kill it with fire!
Ignorant shitheads slathered their word processor with too much technology. It unleashed the abomination that is Clippy. Marketing told them to add more but they’d already added enough. The result infuriated everyone.
This isn’t a new thing. Clippy was from 1996. I still have similar complaints about word processing software. I occasionally use “advanced” features but 99% of what most of us do could be done easily with word processing software of the 1980’s or 1990’s.
The “Paperless Typewriter” / Word Processing Keyboards:
Suppose you want to type text and do nothing else? Your whole computer conspires against you. It has drawbacks we hardly notice. Ever try to compose simple text and waste an hour surfing? Maybe you futzed with printer settings, read 53 pointless e-mails, or hosed up the margins? You need a complicated boot up and login procedure even if you’re just typing text. Why? Because shut up that’s why! Your computer’s horsepower is trying to make itself useful but you don’t need it to type.
One solution is hardware that does basic word processing and nothing else. Such a tool is the Alphasmart Dana. Five years ago I bought one. I mentioned it here.
It’s not for everyone. There are pros and cons to a thing that doesn’t do jack shit but type. It’s not a laptop. It’s not a full fledged word processor. I won’t do Facebook. It’s weird. It looks like a toy. It creeps people out; people cling to their iPads and spill their frappuccino when they see it.
You’ve been warned. This is the word processor of someone who’s writing text. It’s not as clumsy or random as an office suite. An elegant option… for a more civilized age.
My Dana. Pictured with another tool of similar complexity, reliability, and utility.
Am I a freak for using an already obsolete $30 children’s toy instead of a laptop? Of course. But it works. It may work for you too… freak.
What have I learned after owning the device for 5 years? Well, it’s still just as damn good at its single purpose as it ever was. It will continue that way probably forever. Batteries (for practical purposes) last forever (and you can use AAs!). Boot up is instantaneous. Shut down is instantaneous. The keyboard “feel” is excellent. It’s dirt simple to operate. (I highly recommend it for technologically averse people like your 90 year old Grandma.) It’s nearly indestructible. Mine shows no sign of wear. It’ll keep working during the zombie apocalypse.
No matter how sophisticated your car gets, there’s still a time when the right tool is a $2 screwdriver. Computers missed this lesson.
Remember, there are drawbacks. This isn’t keeping up with Joneses. The screen is not huge and its not color. The touchscreen is superfluous. Screen position isn’t as ergonomic as a laptop.
It’s only for the rough draft. It’s simple but funky to dump text into a “real” computer. Do your editing/formatting there. Only generate text on this cheap little piece of shit; save the final stages for a laptop. Remember that nobody can tell the difference in a word typed on a $30 Dana and a $1,500 gaming powerhouse.
Did I mention that people notice it; a few are impressed but others assume you’re an imbecile.
It occurred to me these things were obsolete years ago. What if mine broke? Being properly paranoid, I decided to buy “a spare”. (They’re that cheap!) In case you’re interested in owning a a dedicated word processor I’m putting the links below.
Remember, this is not a laptop, don’t buy it expecting something it is not. Enjoy its bare-bones simplicity and remember you’re paying well under $50.
Alphasmart Dana: Right now I own an Alphasmart Dana. (They were discontinued a few years ago so you’ll have to buy used. Don’t be afraid, they’re cheap and tough. Caveat emptor but you’re not buying a Faberge Egg so your odds are good.) The image is a link and a used one will cost a little over $35. I love mine but you can’t have it. Buy your own.
This is an Alphasmart Dana. It runs the Palm OS.
Alphasmart Neo2: For my “backup” I decided to buy an Alphasmart Neo2. I’ve already placed my order. There are several sellers; pick one. (Be aware that one guy is selling Neo2’s for $25 with “numbers written on the face”. It was probably marked up by a school administator. This should have no impact whatsoever but I was vain enough to pay a few bucks more for an unblemished one.) Like all Alphasmarts, the Neo2 is discontinued. It’s modestly less sophisticated than the Dana. Apparently it lacks the Palm OS. Having seen the Dana in action I see no advantage to Palm. A Neo2 will cost just a few bucks more than the Dana.
This is an Alphasmart Neo2. It’s like a Dana without Palm and the touchscreen. I just ordered one.
The epic hipsterific Freewrite: Both devices I’ve bought are used, discontinued, and formerly circulated to schoolchildren. They’re just like me, uncool. Is there something similar that’s slightly less… old? Yes there is! It’s called the Freewrite and it just hit the market.
Impractical? Perhaps but it’s cool. (Sorta’.) It appears solid as a brick shithouse and I love e-ink. Sadly, it’s too expensive.
It has advantages over the Alphasmarts. It’s new. It has e-ink display that’s a bit larger. It has automatic wifi/cloud backup. It has flipper paddles to switch between folders and turn the wifi on/off. FLIPPER PADDLES! Be still my beating heart! It’s a little bigger than the Alphasmarts (which I see as an advantage) and the internals are said to be made of metal parts meant to last forever. Some folks get “into” keyboards (I do) and this keyboard is probably the best you’ll find. (The Alphasmarts are good keyboards too but slightly less awesome.) There is a kerfluffle about the lack of arrow keys, if you’re thinking of buying one read up on that first.
Now for that bad part. It costs $530. Let me repeat that because it about caused organ failure; the groovy Freewrite which is cooler than a Alphasmart but still a limited device, costs fifteen times more. What. The. Fuck!?!
If money were no object I’d get a Freewrite ’cause I think it looks cool and I like cloud synch. But it’s not fifteen times better than an Alphasmart NEO2 (that’s very close to the same thing). I can’t see where Freewrite is going with this. Either it’s going to drop in price with time or go extinct. Makes the cheap old toys I suggest seem like a lottery win eh?
A.C.
P.S. I’m aware of a zillion different word processors that are better than the abomination called MS Word. I use several and many are good. But that’s a different topic for another day.
P.S. Neo to Freewrite to comparisons abound. One, where the Freewrite took a beating, is here.
There are several head to head reviews of the $35 Neo2 versus the $500+ Freewrite. Here’s the one that had this image.
This is the seventh year (I forgot 2015… whoops.) of a my Festivus Christmas tradition where we gather around the warm glow of the laptop and watch A Very Zombie Holiday.
[Note: I discovered Rare Exports three years ago but it’s so good it bears repeating. It has become a tradition at Curmudgeon Compound. Keeping in mind that this is a horror movie that involves neither Linus nor Jimmy Stewart, it’s awesome!
I especially recommend it if you’ve got a herd of unenthusiastic teenagers (especially boys) hanging around. Lets face it, they’re gagging on the sweetness of the holiday and would rather be playing Assassin’s Creed than eating grandma’s lime jello. Park them in front of the tube and crank up Rare Exports. They’ll be riveted and leave the adults alone long enough for you to chill out and drink “eggnog” in peace. (Unless you’re like me and watch the movie.)]
I usually refrain from recommending movies. Partly because most movies are shit. Partly because my taste, so I’ve been told, is appalling.
I have a friend for whom I have recommended three movies; Brazil, The Road (in book or movie form: Reviewed here), and Idiocracy. He swears my advice left him baffled, depressed, and stupid. He implores me to never again suggest any movie to anyone ever again. I promised to add his caution. His exact words were “don’t do it.” You’ve been warned.
That said I’d like to recommend a “Christmas Horror” movie. It’s a Finnish “independent” movie called Rare Exports. It’s free on Netflix. (Update: it seemed to vanish from Netflix… get it on Amazon instead.)
Good points (no spoilers ensue):
Some caveats:
Here’s a trailer.
It’s best for people who like horror & suspense. There are no happy schmucks in malls learning the meaning of Christmas in this movie. You were warned. Here’s the link:
Migrating to a new web host caused me to Google “Adaptive Curmudgeon”. It showed up! (All hail the efficiency of the heartless, privacy violating, faceless, corporate overlords who run/crush “the cloud”.)
Unexpectedly, it also turned up a link to James Wesley Rawles. For the six people who don’t know the name, Rawles is a prime mover behind SurvivalBlog.com and he’s written a bunch of books. (“Bunch” means a hell of a lot more than me!) If you haven’t read SurvivalBlog.com you should. It’s a blast! Forget all about me and go there now.
SurvivalBlog.com is a wonderful rabbit hole into which one can fall. There’s just so much stuff to learn and do. From my point of view, SurvivalBlog and Rawles staked out a claim to the awesome end of the “spectrum of survivalism” and who wouldn’t be impressed with that?
Definition: The “survivalism spectrum” starts with its absence. Think of the hordes who’ll stampede onto cattle cars headed for a FEMA camp if you offer a free Obamaphone and a bottle of tapwater. From there it moves into people who don’t need FEMA’s shit: beginning with folks who own cars and have the wisdom to use them to get outta’ Dodge. Mixed in is the progression from folks who can fix their cars, to people who can fix their guns, to people who’ll hike across the desert buck naked and carrying a stick because by God they don’t need nothin’. (They also have a secret underground fortress. Which all men have wanted since they were age six and considered “Pirate” a reasonable career. Don’t lie to me… you all wanted to be Pirates… I know I did.) The site’s million zillion posts are leavened by readers who can (or at least aim to) do everything.
It’s awesome but a little overwhelming. Compared to the average peon in a shopping mall I’m a hard-core lunatic. Compared to the Bert Gummer types who sometimes inhabit SurvivalBlog.com, I’m sheeple. I’ll cop to that. My plans are full of flaws. I assure my own bacon supply but barely keep my lawnmower running. I travel everywhere but an EMP would put my Dodge’s computer into electronic “Death Wobble”. I have a HAM radio but don’t talk to anybody. I can skin a buck but I am not good at running a trot line. Etc…
I tend to think of Rawles as the unofficially official spokesman of uber prepared people who are far beyond my league. I inhabit the smaller and less impressive farm team system of guys with boring day jobs. Then again what the hell do I know? I never met the guy. Maybe he’d be able to teach a monkey like me how to fix my damn tractor’s timing; possibly while under attack by zombies… in a blizzard. (Maybe he’d put me in touch with a tinkerer with a Raspberry Pi based fuel injection system? Maybe he can plow a field with a stick and would call me a pussy? You can never tell.)
What was the topic? (I drifted a bit didn’t I?)
Oh yes, it all leads to a question:
“Why should a Google search of Adaptive Curmudgeon turn up the testosterone soaked awesomeness of Rawles?”
It comes down to this book:
It’s a good book. Buy it and be at one with shovels and such.
I’m in the book. No shit! Google was aware of this even as I wasn’t.
Just to be sure, I bought the book. There it is, heading to Chapter 10, page 140; the words of yours truly:
I was so excited!
It’s a good book. I heartily recommend it. I’m not just saying that because 50 words out of 100,000 are from my pointy little head. The other 99,950 words are good too. You should buy six copies and give them to everyone for Christmas; especially for your lunkhead friends who borrow tools and return them messed up. They’ll get the hint. (Or you can hit them with the book.)
Full disclosure. I get a haypenny from Amazon if you buy the book (or anything) from the link but I don’t have anything to do with the book. Also I’m hoping Rawles, whom I’ve never met, has a sense of humor about some idiot demanding a free beer for 50 words of bullshit. Otherwise I’m in deep shit over the post’s title! Mrs. Curmudgeon figures I’ll get my ass kicked, my dog is a solid no comment, and I’m assuming Ralwes is too cool to notice me. In the meantime I’ve got a nice book to read for the Christmas season.
A.C.
P.S. Plus my words are in print! In a real book; with paper and binding and everything. How cool is that? If you’re reading this Rawles, thanks and sorry for being a wiseass, I’ll gladly buy the first round if we ever meet.
Every year Dave Barry writes an article called “The Year in Review”. I always look forward to it and, since 2016 was a tsunami of stupid, I expect this year’s article will be excellent.
Unfortunately, he hasn’t written it yet. Instead, I wound up reading “Dave Barry’s 2016 Holiday Gift Guide”. Barry lists several “stupid and useless gifts” that he has selected as being exceptionally weird and pointless. It’s a great list and you should definitely read it if only to verify for yourself that there is an item called “Poop like a Champion Cereal” (number one on his list!).
But there is something even more amazing than that, number 11 on his list is an item I not only purchased but blogged about. I’m referring, of course, to “Squirrel Buster Squirrel Call”. Barry recommends it as “the perfect gift for the person who lacks a dog but would still for some insane reason like to come into closer contact with squirrels” and follows up with “we highly recommend this product, which, in addition to calling squirrels, makes a terrific icebreaker at cocktail parties”.
What more can I say? The man is a genius!
You know who is even more of a genius than Dave Barry? Me!
Back in September I wrote “Squirrel Call: My Dog Hates Me Now”. Squirrel hunting apparently isn’t my forte because I wasn’t bagging many of them. I wrote:
“Recently I wound up sitting on a log thinking “there’s got to be a better way”. Turns out there is. It’s called a squirrel call. Being a relatively novice/inept hunter, this is something I haven’t considered. That they exist is not necessarily news, but I’d never thought of getting one. Amazon, as always, came to my rescue. Amazon baby I love you; you crazy bitch! I ordered up a squirrel call (this link goes to the item on Amazon and so does the photo).”
I want the record to reflect the truth: “I bought my Squirrel Buster Squirrel Call before Dave Barry bought his Squirrel Buster Squirrel Call”. That’s important! You gotta’ enjoy life’s victories.
A.C.
P.S. I actually did a couple field trials with the call; trying, non-ironically and in all seriousness, to call squirrels. Either I’m doing it wrong, the call doesn’t work, or squirrels are too smart for me. So far the only successful use of this item has been to drive my dog completely ape. That’s my final analysis of this product: it’s not gonna’ help you make squirrel stew but it’s incredibly good for someone who wants to drive their dog completely berserk.
