Post Bugout AAR #2: Gearwhore Edition

So if you are wondering how I held up, well, not that great.  I need more cardio, which has been the mantra of every past bugout for every member every time.  I'm starting couch to 5k tomorrow (finally got my knee braces) so that should help out a bit.

However, that isn't what you came here for, is it?  You came here for the gear reviews.  (And if you come here for the Disney Sex, be sure to check back for Femslash Friday...ya fuckin' pervs, you know I love you.)

Item #1: My Ninja Pants.  The pants themselves are Tru Spec 24/7 Series tactikewl pants.  I got my first pair about two months ago and wore them every day until the day of the bugout as the first part of the test; they held up well to the everyday abuses, particularly with regard to spills and hot bong ashes.  This is actually pretty normal as far as how I wear my pants; I hate doing laundry and changing shit out of my pockets so I tend to wear the same pants for long periods.  On the bugout itself, they performed up to spec in every way.  The poly/cotton ripstop material is thick and the stitching is damn near bomb proof; I didn't have a single stitch come loose during daily wear or the stress of the bugout.  I'm not going back to BDU's or regular pants; I'll be that dude wearing tac pants all the time, I don't give a fuck.  Coincidentally, they are on sale @ USCAV for dirt cheap; I ended up ordering five more pairs and several of the other guys are buying them on my endorsement.
The Verdict: The Motherfuckin' tits.  Plenty of pocket space, rugged as fuck, comfortable, sturdy design.  A+

Item #2: The Woodman's Pal.  Not that the Woodman's pal needs my endorsement, but let me tell you-we put that fucker through it's paces this time.  It chops like something twice as large as it is, and after two bugouts including this one where it was my only chopping tool, there isn't even a mark on the finish.  I wish there was a way to pad the handle a little bit; I was numb to the shoulder after some of the chopping, but basically the thing goes on and on and doesn't quit until long after I do.  I will say, upon ordering the leather sheath, that it blows the cheapie nylon sheath out of the water.  I don't even know why that thing ships with the nylon sheath; it is a piece of shit and detracts from the otherwise sterling quality of the product.
The Verdict: Great tool, lovely old school design.  Much more secure with the leather sheath.  Also, purely sexy.  A- because the stock sheath is terrible.

Item #3: East German Surplus Poncho & 80's era surplus USGI Liner.  These are the only dedicated prep items I bought for the bugout.  As I've said before, I'm trying to avoid buying cheap shit, but I make exceptions for items like ponchos that are basically impossible to fuck up.  It never rained, so I can't speak to the waterproofing qualities.  But they rolled up together in a nice tight bedroll, the poncho liner is nice and warm and probably good for about 3 seasons in indiana with a good fire, and they were about fifteen bucks apiece so the price was right.  They weighed in a little on the heavy side compared to the latest and greatest woobie, but they were certainly adequate for my purposes.  The snaps and grommets on the poncho held up well to the high winds when I built my shelter, and made building it a breeze.  And that poncho liner actually made a pretty good sleeping pad; I was pretty comfortable the whole time with it.
The Verdict: Cheap, heavy but built tough and packs up pretty small.  Adequately comfortable for bugout camping.  B, mostly because I just hate that East German baby puke green; it doesn't work with Indiana foliage that well.

Well, that's about all I've got with regard to my gear.  The final bugout AAR will be a matter of philosophy.  Stay tuned.

Post Bugout AAR #1

Whew.

My ass is kicked.

Our Hero & his band of Merry Assholes took a two day bugout to the Charles C. Deem wilderness area with minimal kit and no food to practice our bushcraft and foraging skills.  A side note: most of the foraging was highly illegal, but then again, most of the dope smoking and sodomy probably was as well.

Spring is here and we've been itching to get into woods for at least an overnight.  On the whole, we hiked about 23-24 miles, with about 6 miles of it being backbreaking off trail hikes up and down those karst formation hills.  We had a GPS as backup but we were mostly navigating by compass; on the whole, we managed to navigate both on trail and overland with few problems.  The GPS went haywire on the last day and was trying to dump us in the lake so we were glad for the compasses.  Quick Protip: If you suspect your GPS or your compass is haywire, you will need two compasses to verify whether the compass or GPS is off.

We had meant for the whole thing to be quasi-competetive, but we ended up working together a lot.  It's just the way we're wired I suppose; all of our gaming is co-op too.  Anyway, I do want to make this point: solo survival in the woods is a goddamn fantasy.  If your plan is to bug out by yourself to the middle of nowhere and "live off the land" then enjoy the sublime pleasure of starving to death, you stupid motherfucker.  Living off the land is a staggering amount of work, and even if you are the 2nd incarnation of Baden Powell you can still slip a disc and starve with your arm stretched out towards a mushroom right in front of you.

Speaking of mushrooms, we did not find a single goddamn mushroom the entire time.  Either the locals have already been through and picked them clean well ahead of season, or I've just lost the eye (far more likely) but we combed the ground for hours without finding a single morel.  I'm a quasi experienced mushroom hunter, but all my experience is when I was a kid so it woudln't surprise me to learn I trampled a hundred tasty mushrooms...but it also wouldn't surprise me that the locals picked everything clean.  When we were scouting for this bugout, #2 and I went out to the trails and saw a bunch of furtive people hiding their breadsacks (this was well ahead of legal mushroom season) so it is possible that it was just too late.  Either way, though, I need to practice-and apparently get out earlier.

The first night we set up "Camp Ron Swanson" down at the far eastern end after a jaunty 13 mile hike.  We found a good spot with a water source and plenty of dry firewood, but the surrounding area was dead-seriously.  No squirrels, no deer sign, no birds-the entire area was dead silent except for us and this random stray dog that had been following us the whole time.  I set up a squirrel pole or two, but was at a loss for where to put them-there were no signs of squirrel activity for a five hundred yard radius around the campsite.  There weren't even any mosquitos, grubs or waterbugs-It was some kind of creepy Pet Semetary kind of deal and we kept making jokes about how if you see the floating green head, you shouldn't talk to it.  Anyway, that left us well hydrated and warm, but hungry.

The second night we set up "Camp John Rambo" and that was down by the lake after a short 4 miles, mostly on trail.  It was a much better prospect even though firewood was not as easy to get; over the course of the day we managed to catch a small snapper and a big catfish and that meant we had enough energy for our hike back; I was seriously worried that if we had no food we wouldn't be able to make it back.  Incidentally, running a trot line is a complicated job-but highly rewarding.  I'm pretty much of the opinion that in a survival situation, pole fishing is a waste of time and I want a pole that you don't have to man.  We also stalked some ducks and a beaver, but they escaped our hungry grasp.  Planning on heading back in the morning, we also made sure we had some water purified for the trip and filled our canteens.

Finally on the morning of the third day we packed up our shit and hiked out, about five miles, both on and off trail as well as along the road.  Breaking camp is a lot easier when you have a minimal kit.  The hike back, though, was brutal-we had eaten very little and camping by the lake and going to the fire tower meant we had to go from the lowest point to the highest.  We made it back about 10:30 on the 20th, smoked a victory bowl, and went to the Log Cabin Inn & Resturaunt to RZ with the girls for a tearful and greasy reunion.

I'll post a "Lessons Learned" post as per usual about the bugout, but I want to say this first and foremost-if you don't eat enough, all your physical and mental abilities go to hell.  There were some stupid and dangerous decisions made on that second day with no food in our bellies.  I am a pretty strong guy but I was having trouble unscrewing the lid to my nalgene by the end of the 2nd day.

Still, my worst day starving in the woods is better than the best day at work, so fuck it.  I'm glad we went.

Can't Talk, Bugged Out

Going on our bushcraft bugout with the Tribe.

Good solid group of 4 going, including a stray we picked up recently. Minimal kit-buttpack, water bottle, one large blade. Forecast is cool with scattered showers.

At the end of a 14 day stretch at work with no days off. No sleep. (And my #2 is coming off a 7 day stretch of 12 hour shifts, and the new guy just got back from drill in the USMC.) Using the stress and exhaustion to simulate real conditions. Leaving bright and early after taking the Spawn to school in the morning.

I should return on the 20th with all kinds of new stories and maybe some gear reviews for my new shit. So look forward to that, America.

Don't let the whole fucking thing collapse while I'm gone, OK?

Yeah, I got nothin...

In case you were wondering what I can't get out of my head lately.

If you haven't checked out the Pine Box Boys, you probably should. They are a sort of prog-bluegrass outfit that tell fucked up stories and dress like old west undertakers.

On the Death of IRC RP

Damn, this has been a SRUS blog for the past couple of updates, hasn't it? Not even a Femslash Friday this week. Anyway, today I'm gonna post on a non heavy subject-the Death of IRC Roleplaying.

IRC RP is where I really cut my WoD chops; I played in #vampirepub on DAL and later #vampire'stouch on Sorcery. Neither was an exceptionally awesome place to play, but I met some exceptionally awesome people and had a reliable cadre built up of good players. I've dropped out of the medium some time ago, but every once in awhile I peek in and see what is going on in the IRC RP world.

IRC RP has always been a quasi shameful business; even among gamers, you won't find many that will admit to playing on IRC, and the reason is that it has always been a thinly veiled road to kinky cybersex. That doesn't bother me; given what I admit to doing IRL, talking about cybersex is pretty tame. But I've never been in the "Get to the fucking" camp; I played a character and ran storylines, goddamnit. Still, that factor has always been present and I want you to be aware of that while I talk about the channel I moseyed into last night.

Anyway, in the past three or four years the medium has really died down; popular channels used to range towards 25+ players and most of them are down to a dedicated camp of 3 or 4 now, when they exist at all. The trend, based on what I can glean from lurking, appears to be towards crunchy dice based channels rather than loose freeform channels. But I found a large channel on Sorcery last night, one with 15+ players and a freeform setting, so I thought I'd try my hand at it. I didn't quite realize that it was a fucking only channel at first, but even so I figured that I could make it work with some good storytelling and a nice loose environment to work my will on. Hell, even the setting was loose-some kind of Honest Jon's inn at the end of all worlds.

So yeah. My Nephandi, that loveable rogue, wanders in...and for two days watches people fuck in various gender combinations with varying levels of actual RP ability. I mean seriously, there wasn't even a conversation involved-just piles of people fucking. Some of them were supernatural WoD type characters, but those details were side notes-it was really about the fucking. Multiple bubbles of side by side RP with various people and groups fucking. A setting with the potential for awesome multiverse storylines, with all the associated questions of paradigm and sanity, and all anyone ever did was swap corpse DNA.

By the time I was done and washed my hands of the whole business, my nephandi was convinced that he had wandered into some sticky, vag scented hell where no one would acknowledge his presence or understood his questions or really did anything other than pile on.

This isn't a new problem; to some people RP has always been a thin justification for cybersex. But holy freaking god, do I miss the old days, or at least the old people. Sure, sometimes the stories involved fucking, maybe there was even some one handed typing involved, but for fuck's sake, there were stories and people cared about them.

I wonder if old porn stars feel this way about new porn?

In any case, life isn't all bad here in Babylon-Amanda found a quarter of shrooms while cleaning and my Ninja Pants are on sale at USCAV. On the whole-can't complain.

I'm not normally an image guy...

...but I couldn't resist this one.

Hat Tip to this ol' boy I found in the sitemeter. Thanks homie.


Created by: OnlineCriminalJusticeDegree.com

TV Crimes

No, I'm not talking about the cancellation of Firefly in the first season. I'm referring to that thing that is buzzing all over the Blogosphere, the Trayvon Martin Case. I just want to point out what we are seeing here.

What we are seeing here is the Propaganda Division of OPFOR testing once more their ability to convict a man before he ever sees the inside of a courtroom. The complicity of mainstream news media in the distortions surrounding this case has been sickening, but no more so than other cases in the past. Remember the Hutaree? Their asses were in a sling long before they ever graced the inside of a courtroom, and even now that principal charges against them have been dropped, the popular mental picture of them is too pervasive; the damage is already done. And if Zimmerman slips the conviction, the damage is already done there too, the popular image has beaten the facts of the case.

What we are seeing here, then, is the very mechanisms of our own eventual conviction. It is magnificent in a way; there are so many forms of media output that the bare truth is bound to escape in one form or another, but because so many of their target audience are already conditioned to blame white racism for any setback, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that eyewitness reports place Zimmerman was on the ground being punched, or that NBC edited the footage to make his statements appear racist, or that he was well known to be active in black community charities, or even that he is a Hispanic Democrat. And the vast majority of people are going to confirmation bias that town into charred rubble.

Be grateful for this case, Mr. & Mrs. FREEFOR. It will show you who your enemies are...and how they will convict you, when the time comes.

Black Sabbath - Tv crimes by metal-addiction