Recon

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Codex Kalachnikova Preview: Shadow of the Walking Demon


Chapter 4

The Order of the Knife did not pray, exactly, yet they revered St. Marx the Trinity-Karl, Groucho and Harpo, great physicians from before the Age of Rust who wandered the earth performing miracles.  Yet they were not worshipped, per se, merely studied and revered as paragons of the Codex Hippocratis, to which all the Priestesses and Acolytes of the temple strove to live by.  It cautioned temperance; the very first words of the Codex were “Do no more harm than you need.”

Marne did not feel particularly temperate as she rode ahead of the Scum Lord.  Her Mother Superior had cautioned her as she appointed her to First Knife, “Remember that the Knifeborn are our charge, from the days of TEOTWAWKI onward.  Whatever they are, it is because we made them so.  Do what they ask and be what they need.” 

She wanted to think that the Mother Superior had not known what this task would entail, that she was sending her newly appointed First Knife to a certainty of rape and deviant abuse from a pack of jaded little subterranean vermin from a degenerate age, likely followed by death at the hands of a trained killer she had known from boyhood.  But she found it unlikely.  What the Scum Lord did not know in the depths of his fury was this: the hook was in the Priestess as well, and she had no choice but to be strung along.  They were two flopping stingfish on the same rusted stringer in a pond choked with thick green corruption; each conspired to hate the other.

And the ugly truth is, even if Mother Superior does know what I have faced, and am facing, it would not change our need.  That was another tenet of the Codex Hippocratis-“Greatest good to the greatest number.”  Without the miraculous potions and needles and other sundries from the Knifeborn’s great storage vaults, the magic of the Knife Sisterhood would crumble to dust.  With that would go the goodwill of the holdfast lords, and with that, their power.  So they did what they must.  I did not mind so much when it was just keeping records and sending foreskins, though.

She stilled her mind without so much as a whimper; there was much to do.  The air was still cold, but the bitter howling winds had died, and it was in silence that the two doomed fools rode through the Necropolis, seeking the Way of the Belt.  The horses were nervous, and itched to bolt, so a steady hand was required to keep them in order.  Marne was grateful for this; it was something to focus on.  She thought, perhaps almost prayed let this ride be the last.  I can betray him if I can do it in silence.  I will armor my heart in stillness, and he will not hear falsehood in my voice.  For that was what terrified her; the man missed so little that she feared he would smell out her treachery immediately.  And the galling fact was that she did not know what value his life was to the Knifeborn when they already had his seed.

For his part, the Scum Lord seemed content to ride in silence, both hands on the reins with the kalach slung low across his lap.  He looked pleased with himself, even though his own Codex cautioned against such a sensation.  An ugly confrontation with the Knifeborn vaqueros at the end of the temple mouth had nearly gotten them killed, though he knew it not.  The god-blind morons had tried to tell him that his kalach had gone missing, whereupon he had seized the man’s balls and twisted.  After a surprisingly short amount of time, the kalach and the lord’s other gear had all re appeared, as if by magic.  And yet even that affront was not enough for the Scum Lord; in the course of manhandling the gunslinger he had taken the fool’s automatic pistol and tucked it away.  None of the sullen looking vaqueros had even troubled him for it as he walked away.  Perhaps he had a right to look pleased; it had been obvious even then that no man among them was his match.  Yet it would have spelled his death, had that conclusion not already been forgone.

The sun was rising higher in the sky as they reached an on ramp to the Way of the Belt.  Her staff, with its tiny surges of magnetism, had already cleared the decrepit hulks from their path on the way in, but she flicked the controls of the weapon to ready it anyway.  The gleaming steel staff, five feet long with solid metal at both ends, had even been returned to her with a full charge-a surprising courtesy.  But the package slung across her horses’ rump was far more important, a massive bag almost five feet long and marked with the cross of the torture victim god of the ancients.  It contained vials and pills and needles all marked with words of power-PENICILLIN AMBIEN V VANKOMYCIN ZYDRATE.  By your name I summon you, she thought bitterly.  These will save more lives than I take this day.  Greatest good, greatest number.  I must remember that.  They rode between the shattered wrecks in silence.

Then, putting a cruel end to her nascent hopes of survival, the Scum Lord spoke.  His voice, with that barbaric Tex Arcane accent that spoke of cunnilingus and home (the priestess did not know it, but the two were mixed in her head) was rough with the hard travel.  “That song, m’lady,” he said, uncharacteristic politeness in his tone.  For a moment he groped for words.  “The Rising of the Moon.  It is a traditional nursery song in my lands.  A relic of the Ancients, I am told.”  They reached the top of the elevated road, and began picking and weaving their way among the fire carriages while mummies stared out at them with gaping eye sockets.  “I have never heard it sung anywhere else.”

In her heart, she cursed and railed.  The song, why did he have to bring up the stinking song?  And why did you have to sing it?  To keep from screaming, she focused on the path before them, nudging her mare away from a twisted pile of jagged metal.  She did not turn to look at him; too much sincerity in a lie, she had found, was the same as not enough.  “I have spent many years serving your holdfast, my lord.  I hear many songs sung in the fields and stables by your get.”

“Aye,’ he said, and she heard a match being struck behind her.  There was the smell of sulphur and then tobacco.  “Yet it is unusual, to hear a song of one’s childhood so far from childhood joys.  And rarer still from a Priestess who can pick up the words so well.” 

Her back prickled in anticipation of a storm of bullets from the man’s chattering weapon.  She almost fancied she could taste the blood in the back of her throat already.  One misstep here, and this man will kill me.  They are all killers in the Tex Arcane, and he rose to his lordship by being the greatest of them.  I must never forget that.  Not even allowing herself a deep breath, she lied boldly.  “Music is one of the hidden blessings of the Sisterhood, my lord.  Not all of our records are of births and deaths and chopped foreskins.”  There was an edge of frost in her voice; hopefully it served to mask her terror.

Apparently he had no answer to that.  They rode in silence again, a blessed relief.  Occasionally she stopped to brush her charged staff against an obstacle, sending it squealing and grinding out of her path in a cloud of bitter rust.  But the dead city made little noise, and it appeared to her that…

“Something up ahead,” said the man behind her suddenly, and she reigned her horse in too sharply.  The well trained beast did not rear, though it shuddered, and she lowered her free hand to stroke the animal’s neck.  “Something cracking.  Sounds like rock, or…”  The lord fell silent.  Then she heard the cold snap-chunk of a kalach bolt being racked.  “Stay down, m’lady,” the lord said, and she thought this is it, he already hears his doom approaching.  She lowered her head on instinct-a holdfast instinct for survival that was ingrained even deeper than her training as an Acolyte of the Knife.  Peering out past the wrecks, she strained for a look at the horror she had unleashed, but saw nothing.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Ground Report: Bloomington Day of Resistance


So I took a couple of the tribe and my daughter to the Bloomington Indiana Day of Resistance pro gun rally today down at the courthouse.  It was surprisingly large-about 50 people overall.  It got cut short early, before I had a chance to give the speech I had prepared and, of course, plug my book.  Other than that, it turned out pretty well.  We showed up with some donuts for the war effort which I think everyone appreciated.  None of us were open carrying but there were a few people that were, mostly pistols although one guy had a bitchin' tac'ed out shotgun.

The speakers were OK; it was hard to hear some of it because the mic went dead early on and it was mostly just talking loud over the ambient noise.  I got to meet the libertarian candidate Andrew Horning, who is a pretty decent guy.  I think everybody speaking was passionate and most of them had some good messages, but nobody really wowed the crowd with their oration the way I would have...but that's to be expected.

The police did not show up until almost forty five minutes after the rally itself started and they remained discretely positioned about twenty yards away.  To me, this signifies that they didn't know about the event in advance or I feel there would have been both more police presence and they would have been there the whole time.  Still, they were polite and non confrontational, and the crowd was the same.  In general I have no complaints about the local police; if this had been the Indianapolis rally, God knows they would have been drinking, but Monroe County Sheriff's Dept and BPD both are pretty competent.

Gracie had a good time regardless; she kept wanting them to start up the chant and sing the national anthem again, she had a lot of fun with that.  She ate donuts and played in the mud and charmed everyone there to the point where they will probably remember "The Creepy Longhair with the Cute Kid" rather than "Chris By-The-Throat, author of the upcoming novel Codex Kalachnikova."  C'est la vie.

Anyway, I just wanted to drop some ground truths from my AO.  Did anyone else attend one of these events?

Making The Cut


So apparently they are going to cut wrestling from the summer olympics.  I'm more than a little offended, and not just because I am a wrestling afficianado.  It is humanity's oldest sport, part of the Olympics since the Golden Age of Greece, and is, in a tangible way, the purest form of competition.  My coach used to say "There's no hedging in wrestling.  No excuses.  The only person out there is you and the enemy.  You lose, it's on you.  You win, it's all on you too."

Anyway, I thought I'd compile a list of some of the stupid ass sports that should have been cut from the summer olympics before wrestling.  As a side note, none of this should give you the impression that I give a shit about the fucking olympics.

Synchronized Swimming - Seriously, fucking water ballet?
Beach Volleyball \ Indoor Volleyball - So the same game played on a different surface requires 2 events?
Handball - Stupid bullshit
Table Tennis - This one might offend me most of all.  Fucking ping pong deserves a slot, but not wrestling?  It boggles the mind.

Oh, and they are adding Golf.  Because wrestling wasn't getting the ratings, wasn't interesting enough to watch, but somehow people are going to sit through a perfectly good walk in the country spoiled by some jerkoff game for racists?

Friday, February 22, 2013

Kind of Femslash Friday: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Edition

Sometimes, you find a fan fiction that is either beautifully awful or brilliant troll.  This particular fic is an example of one or the other. It's called Rand Loves WEEEEEEEEEEEEED and it is exactly what it says on the tin, with bonus lesbian action.

 Here is the first chapter...and yes, there's more than one.


Rand loves weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed So I was like walking and talking to my voices when I saw it. The most beautiful bong EVER. I piked it up lit it and puffed on it till I couldn't fucking breathe.  Oh then I puffed some more the things going through my mind were insane so natrually I acted upon my emotions. My first genious idea was to puff a little more then I had another idea. I would conquer TEAR no wait I already did that.Then I thought oh I know I will go lead the aiel out of the waste. no done that. eventually I had no more thoughts so I puffed some more here were wy thoughts FUCK YEAH SMOKE SMOKE SMOKE SMOKE. then I thought of something I had never done before I would throw eggs at Moraine and get into a battle of the Power (we do those a lot) "Oh Moraine come out to play Moraine come out to play Moraine come out to play ." I shouted at her house. "What Rand "I"'m trying to fuck in here!!" she shouted back without a comeback I trew an egg at her.It pissed her off so she cast lightning on me then I cast a ball of fire. She hates it when I do that. But then a thought accured to me. "Moraine who are you fucking in there?" I asked. I was really disturbed when Ahvienda said "Hey sugar. Moraine come finish licking my pussy"I had no way to answer but "Holy shit Moraine and Ahvienda are fucking!" The factor that realy disturbed me is when Mat stood up and said "Is someone gonna finish sucking me off"Just then I realized that Moraine and Ahvienda are both BI. "One minute Matty and we can finish this fuck fest." Next thing I knew I was naked tied to a wooden bed next to Mat with both women carrying whips."AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"TO BE CONTINUED


I...really have no words. Just go here.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Take a Walk on the Practical Side


So I've been hounding my lovely wife about doing some guest columns on this blog.  I'm pestering her to do a full review of the Excalibur dehydrator we purchased for some time.  She keeps waffling because she thinks she isn't creative, but you don't have to be that effin' creative to do a product review and I'm pretty sure she'll cave eventually.  I think her reasonable, practical perspective will create a valuable counterpunch to my adderall-and-mushroom fueled rabies rants.

I'm also going to harass her to do a weekly feature where she finds and posts links to bug out gear deals.  She is, of course, a Master-class bargain hunter, with an ear to the ground for the sweet bulk deal.  That would be a valuable feature in and of itself, but it also means she doesn't have to try to be creative, just post links to sweet deals that she may find while rummaging around the interweb.

Finally, I think a female perspective would be valuable on this blog because it would make me seem less like a violent misogynist nutjob.  The whole blog is (and will continue to be) written in locker room language, so I think she would provide a good contrast.  Hopefully I won't embarrass her too much talking blatantly about our sex life, but then again, she has better blackmail material on me than I have on her, so I don't anticipate it being a problem.

What do you all think?

Monday, February 18, 2013

Because I'm seeing a lot of this lately...


Little straw man on his little straw knees
wasting my time with mediocrities.

Shot him in the middle of his little straw face, 
got his little straw brains all over the place.

Shoved him in a grave, just a little straw pit,
filled it with six feet of my fucking bullshit.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

You jerks need to tell me....

when there is no music on my front page.

Because I will always by God inflict my taste in music on you.

Saturday, February 16, 2013

School Spirit


I was never much for school spirit in high school.  Being firmly on the "geek" side of the social spectrum, back when that wasn't cool, meant that sports and sporting events and pep rallies and GO REBELS FIGHT WIN HURR DURR was more or less an archaic religious ritual wherein we glorified the stupid cocksuckers that made my life difficult every day.  I'm not here to whine, but my high school experiences left me with a sort of low grade PTSD according to my string of court ordered therapists...and I couldn't (and still can't) fathom the brazen idols we made out of these mouth breathing reprobates.  When our high school basketball team went to state, I bet against them in every game despite my lack of interest in gambling, just because fuck those fucking fucks.

The effect stuck around with me through my abortive attempt at college.  My family were all big cradle-to-the-grave IU fans, and me going to IU was a crowning achievement for most of them.  But I wasted it; I was too turned off of school spirit as a concept and I spent the entire time in college avoiding the collective insanity this town suffers during basketball season by cowering in my dorm room.  Oddly enough, this was regarded as kind of cool by the shady characters I was running with at the time, a collection of pseudo intellectuals and limosine liberals who thought I was just the tits. They had pretty well soured me on academia and liberalism by the time I dropped out and I left college without ever having gone to one sporting event.  Oddly, I regret that now-but probably only because I was never smooshed together in a class project with a sports hero.

As an adult, over 30 and disillusioned, I've come to appreciate sports in the tribal sense.  I root for the Colts and for the Hoosiers, for Notre Dame in football even though that has been massively disappointing lately, and I sort of understand what I didn't understand then-that athletics has a sort of primal appeal.  After all, the home team is "Us" and the away team is "Them" and all else being equal, I am much happier if 'We" are beating "Their" asses into a bloody pulp.  I enjoy the collective madness even if my participation is limited, I enjoy the easy pussy flowing like a river across the whole town, and I enjoy especially the fall from grace that comes from sports scandals busting open wide on the internet.

It has taken me a long time to overcome my instinctive loathing towards those who have done nothing to me, who merely share some vague characteristics with the retard monkeys that my high school class was begging to perform abasements for.  I enjoy sports spectatorship and I even enjoy playing sports.  But my favorite position in modern sports is still "Grand Federal Prosector" so maybe my cynicism hasn't retreated too far.

Go Hoosiers.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Contact Drills & Junior D&D


Gracie and I have been taking our hikes along the train tracks with backpacks on and doing some impromptu "Zombie Training."  We've been taking long walks for as long as she could walk; with a pack on she can walk five or six miles without stopping.  How many adults do you know that can do the same?  All bragging aside though, I wanted to discuss how our adventures tie in to our preps and overall training methods.  It is more relevant than you think.

When we go out walking, we sometimes "play zombies" which to hear means she listens to me narrate a spooky zombie story and then we participate in it.  It has a lot in common with LARPing; we physically take the actions we would take in the story.  What that comes down to is that we sneak, hide, break and shoot when necessary.  Basically, we'll be walking along and I'll make a zombie groan; if she hears one, she knows to look at me right away.  Then we go into our decision tree.

Zombies present but unseen: we sneak.  I encourage her to make as little noise as possible; I've taught her how to avoid noisy surfaces, step slowly and quietly, and stop and listen after every fourth or fifth pace. We never sneak without setting a break point; more on that later.

Zombies incoming that haven't seen us: we hide.  With the theoretical direction of the zombies in mind, we rush to get behind something or around a corner.  More sophisticated camoflage techniques will have to wait.

Zombies incoming that have seen us: we break.  "Break" is a command I have internalized in her when sneaking or just walking.  Whenever we sneak or hide, we set a break point so we know where to rush to, and on  daddy's "break" command, we rush to the chosen break point and hide there.  We also break if there are too many zombies to shoot.  From the break point, we hide, resume sneaking, shoot, or break again as needed.

Zombies incoming that have seen us: Shoot.  We "shoot them away" (She has a little toy AK that matches daddy's closely enough that I use it for house clearing drills) and then break.  This is to simulate the group's standard response to hostiles-suppress to break contact.  I teach her to get low, preferably prone, and take shots at zombies while I simulate shooting over her; this is mostly to get her out of the way during a real firefight.  However, in a few years, she can add her .22 to the verdict if strictly necessary.

How does this apply to training?  Well, on a foot bugout, my kid knows to listen for Daddy's command first and foremost; it is extremely important that I don't have to hold her hand as much if shit breaks down because I can give her orders and expect a predictable response.  Each of those orders has a purpose.  "Sneak" as our default mode means that she is gaining a workable understanding of noise discipline and she can sneak for about 500 yards without making a sound before she gets bored; this is an acceptable limit for now.  Again, how many adults could do the same?   "Break" and "Hide" means that she knows to run and hide if told to.  Although in a real scenario I'd grab her hand anyway, it is nice to know that she doesn't necessarily need it, as daddy may be grappling with a tango at the time that we break contact.  Finally, if there is no choice but to slug it out, with the "shoot" command, I can get her prone and out of the way while the adults engage over her head.

Anyway, I just wanted to describe my methods to the internets at large to get them thinking: How am I training my kids to survive?  Groups that don't do that are limited to strictly one generation.  I've been doing it and having fun with it, especially when she admonishes me that I'm stepping too loud.

Congratultions (and simultaneous condolences) Gracie: You have me as the Dungeon Master of your life.  It may drive you crazy-but you'll outlive your peers getting there.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Wherein Our Hero Acts the Pompous Jackass


So in the absence of Codex to work on (although the work of revision is apparently endless) I have been dabbling in other realms of fiction, just to keep my brain lubricated for when I start the second book.  I've been tooling around with creepypasta just because I want to work on my overwriting and the bare bones medium forces me to make every word count.  It sucks on the one hand, when all I want to do is gamble about tossing flowery phrases over my shoulder like some sort of syphillis addled satyr, but on the other hand it is a medium that is literally designed for nothing more than a flesh crawl, the horror equivalent of a cheap nut.

I've also been reading but not writing fan fiction for a project I am contemplating where I write the most atrocious troll fiction ever written for all the various fandoms I have a Hate-On for.  Fan fiction is a medium I've dabbled in before, God Forgive Me, but I really think it is the best method to skewer certain types of fiction and I think I am going to savagely enjoy it if I decide to develop it.

All of this has had my Lovecraft story suffering badly.  The problem with TCM is that I don't really have a central plot and so the whole thing suffers from lack of focus.  (Well, that and I have no idea how real detective work goes, which is why it resembles a sexy summer blockbuster more than anything by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.)  Of course, all I want to do with it is establish the Chris By-The-Throat Lovecraftverse in my head; the actual story I am writing for that universe is another project involving coyotes but some of the settings and tropes are being tested out with Everyone's Favorite Unicorn Hunters.  I'll finish the story-I just can't promise the ending will make sense or even resolve any issues; it's just psycho fluff.

Anyway, that is the story of the Dread Scumfuck's Quill and what he has been doing with it.  I'll have a section of Codex up on this blog again as a preview in honor of submitting it to the fourth publisher so far.  I'm not quite on the verge of swallowing my pride and self publishing, but I can see it without a telescope.

Goodnight, heathens.

Friday, February 8, 2013

Femslash Friday - MOAR TINKERBELLE

Just when I was about to give up on prayer, some sweet deity gives me this.
Obviously Tink is my favorite Disney character to ship.  I tried hard to nail down the source for this image but couldn't find anything to link to; it appears to be some kind of Google Images Mary Celeste.

I'll see you next week Scumfucketeers.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Get Your Squick On


Some people ask me why I have to bring up my various sexual deviancies on this blog that is, at least ostensibly, a gun blog.  You've heard a lot about it and you'll hear a lot more, especially if things heat up with a charming unicorn in our future sometime.  Part of the reason is that I like making people uncomfortable; I view it as a calling and, let's face it, that is more or less the only thing I'm any good at.

But the real answer of "Why here?  Why on your gun blog?"  That one is generally "Because I'm the libertarian you have to live with."

Do you believe in personal freedom or not?  (And personal freedom in the closet isn't freedom at all.)  I can live with you expressing your aversion to my lifestyle, but can you live with me living that lifestyle and not covering it up?  If not, despite any concurrent views we might have on the gun issue, we are on opposite sides of the culture wars.

In the end, it has become my way to preemptively weed out those that wouldn't be comfortable around me, and get a few cheap shock laughs along the way.  Nothing about that is inconsistent or hypocritical and I have made that point before.  And honestly, no one has ever come here to give me any shit about it-but maybe that is because I've made it clear from the beginning.

I'm not breaking your leg or picking your pocket-so what's the fucking problem?

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Where We Need To Focus

So where do gun owners need to focus now, in this little legal battle of the bulge?

Strategically, we are and have been winning.  The facts (well, the peer reviewed ones anyway) are consistently on our side.  The court decisions have been in our favor.  State governments are getting the picture and expanding gun ownership.  This is a desperate cheap shot, the cheapest shot of all, and they were prepared for it the second there was an opening with a dog and pony show the likes of which I hope to never see again.

Final nail in the coffin for gun control?  It could be, if we make the push.  What do we need to do? I have taken the liberty of compiling a bullet list.

1. The modern debate is defined by sound bites.  The infographic and the snarky parody facebook picture, along with twitter, means that you need to fit more content into less space.  The gun banners are rallying on tumblr and twitter and trying to appear larger than they are.  We know, from every comment thread on every news article, from every six month waiting period for ATF paperwork, for every long ass line outside the sheriff's office for CCW paperwork, that we outnumber then en masse, and every echo chamber they build is one we can overwhelm them in-if we are willing to go there.

2. Internal witch hunt.  We need to either educate or publicly shame the Gun Owner Butts.  You know, the ones that will let them take your semi auto rifle as long as they can keep their precious shotgun and why do you crazies need an assault weapon anyhow?  We crucified Zumbo and that other guy that Zumboed when they stepped out of line and we need to continue doing so at every opportunity.  Let them know "Need" has nothing to do with it.

3. Full court press on the local front.  The absolute best thing we can do right now to safeguard our rights is to push our state legislature to assert their own rights.  Do you know the name of your local State Senator?  What about your Sheriff?  Make them say in public that they will stick to the various Firearms Freedom acts that have been passed.  If they won't, elect yourself a firebrand.  A libertarian president might be a pipe dream, but a libertarian sheriff could make your life a lot easier as a gun owner.

4. While I'm on the subject of party-FOR GOD'S SAKE ABANDON THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.  Even if Family Guy hadn't Godwined the Republican Party into irrelevance already, the Heffalumps no longer represent small government OR gun rights.   Every crowing establishment republican that is gleefully going "This wouldn't have happened with My Guy, but you jerks had to go off into Wookieland..."  Shake him by his wise old head and scream in his face "GUN OWNERS HAVE CARRIED THE TORCH FOR YOU CRAPSACK HEFFALUMPS FOR TOO LONG AND YOU SERVE UP MITT "ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN" ROMMNEY?"  They fucking deserved to lose and you know it, so wipe that partisan grin off your face and make it happen.

5. Continue networking and training as if you are going to fight a war.  I can't promise you one won't come, whether I like it or not.  But these cowards-not so much in government but as in media-need to see that the big stick is there and what the big stick is for.