Hemingways_Shotgun

So this is half on me, and half on my father. (I inherited my “stupid idea” gene.

When I was 16 my dad was building a greenhouse on our small acreage. Frame was up, everything was ready and it became time to lay down the heavy clear plastic sheeting that would form the surface.

As he was up in the top nailing down each corner, it was my job to hold each corner down as tight as I could from the ground by using a rope attached to the corner of the sheet. (I don’t know if i’m describing this properly).

Any way, my father’s fault in the story is this: The only “rope” we could find was baler twine. It’s thin, coarse, and can easily slice like a saw. We secured a long piece of it to the corner of the sheeting and my job was to basically “tug of war” the corner in order to keep it taut for my father to secure.

Anyone raised in the country already sees exactly where I’m going with this…

MY stupid part in this story is this…

In an attempt to get a better purchase on the baler twine, I wrapped it a few times around my hand, through my fingers, etc…

Did I mention it was a bit windy that day? So a guest of wind took the corner and ripped it out of my hands, with the twine literally zipping through my fingers, slicing them nearly to the bone because friction + baler twine = weirdly effective saw.

Four fingers on my right hand were left with ring scars from where the twine zipped through them and my right hand was out of action for about a week

That is essentially the vibe I got from that argument. We didn’t last much longer after that.

The moment I knew that I had to break it off with my ex was when a comment about tea-cup saucers turned into an accusation that I “always had to be right”.

We were having cake for dessert:

Her: “Can you grab plates?”

Me: Grabs a couple of small plates.

Her: “No, those aren’t for cake. It’s the really small ones.”

Me: “Okay, but FYI the small ones are actually teacup saucers. You can tell the difference because they have the indent in the middle so the teacup doesn’t slip around.”

Her: “You just always have to be right, don’t you?”

What followed was a truly bonkers argument where I found myself accused of “lording my intelligence” and told that I had to be right in everything.

For the record, I told her I literally didn’t give a shit what she wants to eat cake off of. I’m the guy that would happily use a Tupperware lid as a plate if it was the closest thing to hand. I was just pointing out an “interesting fact” (in my mind at least).

You don’t need to kill sentient beings in order to do population control

Ummmm…yeah…you kind of do. What other option would you have in mind? Sterilization of x percent of every herd in Canada in order to keep birthrates down? Do you have any idea how cost ineffective that is and how much that would add to the tax payers burden?

Please do stay in your little bubble of non-reality.

No. Just…no.

It’s not that I disagree with you per se. I personally would never use one and I personally feel that there needs to be strict registration requirements for owning one. But banning all guns is like using a sledge hammer on a thumb tack; it’s a far more delicate issue than you want it to be.

For starters, who determines what constitutes a “remote area”? There are plenty of hunters who may not need to hunt to survive, still enjoy hunting and eating wild game when it’s in season. Who gets to decide that they aren’t allowed to?

Secondly, what do you then propose we do about wildlife overpopulation? Hunters play a critical role in keeping wildlife under control. Every year there are rules about how many of each sex and how many of each breed you are allowed to hunt because it:

• Keeps the populations under control. And,

• Functions as a health measure for those very animals, since overpopulation can lead to not only starvation as much of their land has already been taken over by us humans, but also a number of wildlife diseases that can run unchecked in an overcrowded population (some of which CAN and HAVE crossed over to humans…ie. Rabies, bird flu, ebola, and dozens more.)

So you say “people don’t need guns”? Hunting and gun ownership make up one half of a very important system in rural areas. NOT just remote areas with no “access to alternative food sources”.

You’re entire premise reads like spoiled city folk who like to open their high-and-mighty mouths before knowing a damn thing about what they want to say.

Maybe use those arms for more than just finger-wagging.

So look…as a sometime writer, I’m all for using 12 words when 5 will do sometimes.

But this entire article is just a dozen paragraphs to say “Elder Scrolls doesn’t isn’t different enough from other fantasy series to standout, unlike Fallout, which was a fresh world on television.”

I haven’t tried the 60s yet, but I’ve heard good things about Westlake. My entire reading world changed when I discovered the original hard-boiled works of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.

Moved my youtube habits away from doom and gloom news channels and instead to history documentaries and old episodes of Best of the Worst.

Similar to that, spend more time on Pluto TV/Roku/Tubi watching terrible low budget sci-fi and old comfort episodes of Quantum Leap and TNG.

At the risk of sounding insensitive, I’d argue that the average Black American is generationally so far removed from the African continent that their knowledge of post-colonial african politics is about the same as the average white dude. They’re not granted any special insight on account of their anscestors came from there.

There is no “ethical debate” anymore. You’re system is broken to the core and I don’t blame Biden at all for saying “fuck it”.

Hell, if I were him I’d use my so-called “Presidential Immunity” to do whatever he can to fuck up the MAGA agenda before he leaves.

“I’m putting 6 new judges on the supreme court, all democract. Why? Because fuck you, that’s why.”

“I’m giving two of our nukes because fuck Putin”

Why does my country have to come out and be the fucking bootlicker?