#cogitator log

[primarchslut]

i love making gifs bc wtf do you mean out of all the boys marazhai and heinrix have "matching" idles. the fact that mar has way more movement compared to mr stick up his ass interrogator.

that and the both of them have stupid ones too. and their colors contrast. the height difference goes crazy. in this essay i will-

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Melon Bug (again)

Debut: Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island

(I wanted to write some more about Melon Bug, and I liked the original post just fine, so this post will be a continuation since that one was so short!)

An isopod! Oh, joyous day! It may not look like one at all with that big ol’ nose, but when it’s rolled up, there is no mistaking it! Here’s a very fun fact: when an isopod curls into a ball, it’s called conglobation! Use that in your everyday lives.

Melon Bug technically isn’t an enemy, you know the drill, weird Mario friends, that usual thing. When curled up, Yoshi can lick them up and spit them out, defeating enemies they hit! Could this be the first instance of weaponized isopods?

The Player's Guide says "These feisty hoppers transform from bug to melon and back again." Feisty? They're only slightly more feisty than a real pill bug! And a real pill bug has a negative Feistiness Level. I don't think whoever wrote this has played the game, since Melon Bug is harmless! I also don't think they know about real pill bugs, because they clearly can't cogitate conglobation. A bug transforming into a melon? How unrealistic! What do they think this is, Trip World?

I think "Melon Bug" is a very good name. An incredible name, even! When Melon Bug curls up, it, obviously, resembles a melon, what with both being round with stripes. While real pill bugs don't really have "stripes", their tergites (armor plates) do give a "lined" appearance. If you ask me, Melon Bug could be a good name even for real terrestrial isopods!

What do YOU call pill bugs? I've always called them roly-polies, but they have so many wacky names. Woodlouse? Yeah sure, a bug that lives under wood, why not! Butchy-boy? I don't get it, but it's funny. Then there are all the names comparing them to pigs which I just do not get, but groundhogs also get compared to pigs in common names a lot, so maybe people just don't know pigs as well as they like to think. And THEN! England gave them a bunch of CHEESE-related names. What is happening over there? Are British people somehow making cheese from isopod secretions? Why would you call this creature a CHEESELOG? That's a straight up food! I kind of love this name for them for being so ridiculous! Anyway, my point with all this is that Melon Bug would be more actually fitting than the majority of the common names these have been given, but sometimes it is more fun to be unfitting!

Isn't it weird how Melon Bug's art doesn't quite look like the sprite? Such bulging eyes in the art, but little dots in-game... well, we now know the reason!

Remember Super Donkey, from the 2020 gigaleak? I feel like it's been far too forgotten for how interesting it is! Anyway, as I mentioned when talking about that game, Melon Bug was originally designed for it! It seems like the Yoshi's Island art was drawn before they decided to shrink its sclerae, and lighten its colors, but after they decided to give it little red shoes.

If you grew up calling roly-polies something else, or if you know fun names from other languages, I would love to hear them! And I hope you love and appreciate these creatures! They are so common and easy to observe, so rather than get jaded to their presence, celebrate them, and you will be able to find delight whenever you turn over a log!

[does-this-please-the-omnissiah]

initializing… internal cogitators successfully booted… internal cogitators connected to the noosphere… connection secure… running helloworld.txt

I am a lexmechanic of the Adeptus Mechanicus, tasked with archiving "Noosphere: type=([tumblr] posts)" and ranking how pleasing they are to the Omnissiah by logging them in my databases under the tags {#pleasing to the Omnissiah} or {#not pleasing to the Omnissiah}.

Potentially serious heresies will also be noted and filed in a secondary cogitator under {#POTENTIAL HERESY DETECTED}. //Ima be honest with you, if it’s not pleasing to the Omnissiah it’s probably a heresy of some sort. The tech-inquisitors understand that laymen cannot be held to the same standards and grant some leniency

According to the dogma of the Tech-Priests, toasters are a holy relic and therefore will get their own special tag {#Behold! A toaster} in addition to automatically being considered pleasing to the Omnissiah by default

Anything that I find especially good gets logged under {#Omnissiah be praised!}

If I am tagged and cannot get to it right away, I’ll use {#requires future archiving} and {#data successfully archived} once resolved.

[practicingtechpriest]

Titan Project LOG_0000000

BEGIN LOG_00000000

Forge world acknowledging request for Warlord Titan production.

Processing…

DATA_SOURCE_0000 RECEIVED

Multiple data sources detected…

DATA_SOURCE_0001 RECEIVED

Processing…

DATA_SOURCE_0000: DATA INCOMPLETE

DATA_SOURCE_0001: DATA DEGRADED

Error detected with schematics. Consulting cogitators…

Active data source found, designating.

DATA_SOURCE_0002: ACTIVE

Processing…

DATA_SOURCE_0002 NO_MATCH

Alternative data source requested…

Active data source found, designating.

DATA_SOURCE_0003: ACTIVE

Processing…

DATA_SOURCE_0003 DATA_MATCH DATA_SOURCE_0000

Alternative data source requested…

Data archive found, designating.

DATA_SOURCE_0004: ACTIVE

DATA_SOURCE_0004 DATA_MATCH DATA_SOURCE_0000

DATA_SOURCE_0005: ACTIVE

DATA_SOURCE_0005 DATA_MATCH DATA_SOURCE_0000

DATA_SOURCE_0006: ACTIVE

Decoding…

DATA_SOURCE_0006 DATA_MATCH DATA_SOURCE_0000

Processing data…

END LOG

Ok so a bit of an explanation is needed, I’ve recently reached the end of my warhammer project (a 3000 point Lizardmen army) so I was looking of a new project probably a 3D printed Skaven army, or Adeptus Mechanicus (Obviously) but I am not interested in playing Admech at the moment I just love the lore and enjoy making the minis. Anyway a person at the club i play at has printed a titan and it came up in conversation so i asked for the files and ive got them now!

The problem is that the files were missing or a bad quality upload so I had to do some digging. I found some files but they were also low quality so I did more digging. Basically the problem is that no one is making the it obvious what the file that Games Workshop hasn’t found is called or even what site its on, so I asked around and to my delight I was pointed in the right direction (thank you, you know who you are) and i also reached out to a small YouTube channel that had printed the “gold standard” titan about 2 years ago, and there was a note in the description saying email me if you want the files and i did and to my surprise a got a response the next day. And I was given a link to a google drive with so many files!

So the next step, I want to make a program to print out these logs like an old school mainframe (or get it printing on my BBC Master, yeah I have one! But I would need to learn BBC Basic and get the drives working) to make this a bit more appealing. Speaking of “this” I'm planning to print a Mars Pattern Warlord Titan and paint it Legio Ignatum, and document the process with the flavor of a forge world producing it. So track all the stats like volume of parts, time to print, failures, actual runtime ect. 

Ok actual next step needed is I need to check all the files I have and cross compare them, so I'm probably going to write something to do STL comparisons… 

Anyway wish me luck, the flesh is weak but the spirit is willing, praise the Omnissiah blessed be his servants, may he grant them the motive force to fulfill his will.

PS. I plan to tag things titan_log, and if it actually has titan content ill add titan. If i'm missing tags let me know, oh and i need to name my forge world… I’ll make a separate post about it…

[pennstateuniversitypress]

Q&A with Monica Chiu

The author of Show Me Where It Hurts: Manifesting Illness and Impairment in Graphic Pathography discusses the growing field of graphic pathography, its benefits, and more.

Why is graphic pathography such a fast-growing field, and how does it "work" for the drawing subject?

Graphic pathography allows subjects who have fallen ill or experienced a medical or clinical challenge to have their say—or rather, to draw their own representations. If the internal workings of the body disappear from consciousness when we are in good health, according to Drew Leder, their appearance as aches and pains during illness, I argue, invites artists to reenvision or revise Leder’s “recessed body.” Graphic pathography illustrates the experiences of illness, sometimes to critique a subject’s care and caregivers, other times to offer fresh perspectives on the effects of receiving chemotherapy, living with clinical depression, or struggling against anorexia, among many other experiences. Because the artists are freed from confining clinical representations to express themselves through the graphic line—one with infinite possibilities of showing what sometimes telling cannot achieve��graphic pathography invites aesthetic and personal responses by which others can learn and empathize. That medical schools increasingly are incorporating courses in graphic medicine, in addition to existing courses in narrative medicine (writing about one’s experiences of illness or impairment), teachers, students, and medical practitioners alike find that art can assist in healing.

What subjects do artists of graphic pathography pursue and why? Artists attend to illnesses and diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, depression, dementia, anorexia, COVID—every experience is different depending on a multitude of factors, including support, race, economic class, gender, community ideology, and sexual orientation. Artists also address sexual reassignment surgery to offer needed information for those uninformed of the procedures, to dispel fictions about trans subjects, and to highlight their challenges. Others draw comics about caring for the old and infirm—assuring their readers that no one correct way exists by which to provide comfort—or tending to the very young who die young, in illustrations of grief. Health care providers cogitate, by reading or creating comics, on how to be a compassionate doctor, nurse, or other caregiver by highlighting the pressures and pleasures as well as the challenges and victories of their professions. Medical students illustrate how their exhaustion and sometimes lack of thoughtful pedagogy leads to self-critique and self-doubt.

What benefits accrue in creating graphic pathography for artists, readers, and healthcare providers?

Artists bestow agency on their cartoon selves through thoughtful depictions of their corporeality drawn against disciplining representations created for them under health care and within health care spaces. We might usefully remind ourselves that the Latin-derived term “patient” is defined (by the Online Etymology Dictionary) as the “quality of being willing to bear adversities; a calm endurance of misfortune; bearing of suffering.” Where do we see the unpatients (the nonpatient subjects) of graphic pathography, those characters who unwillingly bear adversity? Through comics artists’ self-representations, traces of the imputations of illness and impairment, or of medicine’s sometimes cold and categorizing gaze, are slowly chipped away, and sometimes completely demolished, in the artist’s manifestation. The term manifestation references showing by illustration, the man of the drawing “hand,” and that of keeping a log, like a ship’s manifest.

Why do so many graphic pathographies by and about white subjects exist in relation to the paucity of works by artists of color?

This is the question that concludes my study, among related inquiries that invite other scholars in the field to participate in writing about graphic medicine’s many representations beyond those by and about white subjects: if predominantly white bodies self-represent, what does this glaring omission portend for the larger field of graphic medicine and its readers? To whom does medicine cater? Historically, black men and women unknowingly served as experimental bodies for medical science; meanwhile, Asian immigrant bodies were grounded in cultural narratives of both disease and palliation, the former playing out currently during the COVID pandemic, the latter in the conception of them as model minorities. In what unfortunate ways do images of black, yellow, and brown bodies intersect with illness and disability? I ask us to inquire: how is an academic focus on comics by white subjects consciously exposing or unconsciously contributing to a historical convergence among race, disease, and/or disability?

Show Me Where It Hurts: Manifesting Illness and Impairment in Graphic Pathography is now available from Penn State University Press. Learn more and order the book here: https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-09682-7.html. Save 30% w/ discount code NR23.

[turbobyakuren]

PLEASE share your Doremy dream, if you haven't already, and the events leading to it

VERY LATE ANSWER but i shall answer thee with the best of my memory.

I have no precise memory of when the dream happened. All I remember was that Doremy Sweet was Here at the time, and that I was cogitating a lot about her. I forgot if that dream happened when LoLK's demo just released (and Doremy with it!) or if it was after LoLK's full release. All i can say is that it was WAY BEFORE Doremy appeared in AoCF. This detail is important.

I remember that i woke up in the dream with the impression of like abruptly falling, except i wasn't. The background: the dream world.

Imagine being in this... void. This empty space. Floating around. Confused as all hells. Knowing that you're in a dream and being ignorant of that, at the same time.

And then Doremy arrived, floating around me, observing me and being smug at me. It's like she was conscious that I was in a "half-awake" state, as it is the norm in dreams. And then she started monologuing. She monologued for what felt like both 1 hour and 5 minutes at the same time. I couldn't move or reply to her, so all I could do was listen.

Most of the details i wrote are unfortunately gone (unless i can by some miracle pull them off of an old discord log) but i precisely remember she was telling me about the Baku species' way of life, the nature of her "job", and MOST IMPORTANTLY: the way dreams work. That dreams were a figment of my brain's capacity to conceptualize and imagine scenes from elements I already know or have yet to know. The way she was talking felt like she was trying to reassure me AND a villain doing his "here is my master plan!" speech. I felt increasingly uncomfortable at her presence and I felt she was super ambiguous in her ways.

I want to mention: she constantly had a ":3" face. Which was very notable to me because holy shit, in AoCF she kept having THAT EXACT :3 FACE

And then she was like "oopsie human, my time is up in here. I'll have to drop you off in a random dream. You probably will forget everything when you wake up but hey! Have fun! That's what matters. Hope we meet again!"

And then she violently slam dunked me with her book and i sunk into the space like it was, idk, you know when they pull off the plug in a bathtub in a cartoon? That happened. I sunk into the space, and abruptly fell into another dream.

I will not detail that part, though. Because, well, it was the most personal nightmare I ever had. It was visceral to a point that remains with me up to this day. It was truly terrifying.

AND I woke up.

And to this day. I still think that it was the actual legit Doremy Sweet who came to my dream and decided to mess with me and give me a monologue and the most horrible "TARGETED FOR YOU!" nightmare ever.

What the hell is wrong with her. I love her. She should do it again.

[primarchslut]

okay i finally sorted through 3.9k .wav files and have uploaded most of them to my google drive. pasqal, ulfar, and yrliet are still uploading but overall:

DRIVE LINK. / MEDIAFIRE LINK.

this 5.92 GB folder features every non combat/non exploration dialogue in rogue trader. only argenta and abelard have full transcriptions of their dialogue right now since i injured my thumb doing this lol but eventually everyones dialogue will be labelled. later on when i have a proper internet connection i will also add a mediafire link to the post + a link to a google spreadsheet which will feature all the dialogue as well.

combat and exploration dialogue is coming as well, but they are mashed together with all of the player character dialogue, and each companion has multiple variations of every single combat/exploration line which results in having to sort through 8.9k unlabelled files so it might take a bit.

[brendamariesmith]

What TO Stock for An APOCALYPSE, PART FIVE (Updated)

KNOWLEDGE and a set of OLD-FASHIONED SURVIVAL SKILLS will probably serve you better after a cataclysm than almost anything else.

 If you spend time ruminating on all the things that happen in America and the rest of the modern world, things that keep us alive and generally healthy, you will notice a nearly unfathomable list of occurrences in the background of our lives—goods and services we consider essential but never stop to think about. (Though COVID-19 has forced us to think about many of them now.)

 Aside from water, food, and electricity, there are sewers, healthcare systems (such as they are), public health departments, libraries, roads, transportation, infrastructure, law and order, government, police and fire departments, medicines, education, art, music, news from near and far, the internet, an endless array of things to buy if we can afford them, innumerable places to travel, and gobs of stuff competing for our time. Much or even all of this would break down and be gone in a true apocalypse. The people who survive will be those who know how to handle much of this stuff themselves.

 Since this list is so endless, and because my purpose is not to bore you to death with details, my exhortation to you readers is to please do your best to learn how to survive and prepare on your own. Given the rapid pace of climate change, even if we don’t fall all the way into apocalypse, we are likely to be forced to scale way the hell back. We should scale back. We need to scale back. We all know that the Earth cannot sustain our pre-pandemic lifestyles.

 For the record, I am not a prepper. I do not go around freaking out about the coming End of Days. But I do cogitate on these things from time to time, and I write novels about possible scenarios. In my novels, I took a different route than the standard apocalyptic tale. My assumption is that it would take a great deal of time for civilization to fully collapse. At least initially, much human morality and compassion will remain. If people try hard to work together, and if the situation allows, they can keep the deterioration from becoming complete.

So, become men, women, and children of the New Renaissance and learn how things work and alternative ways to do them, practice old skills and learn new ones, stretch your brains and your imaginations. Toward that end, here are some of the areas that we all need to bone up on, aside from what I have already discussed in earlier posts:

·         Learn and practice old-fashioned skills like: soap-making; candle-making; laundry without electricity or plumbing; knitting; sock-darning; fire-building; quilting; basketry; rope-making; carpentry; gravity-fed plumbing; hair cutting; butter churning; cheese making; chair caning; furniture building; cabinetry; glass-making; log-splitting; barn building; shoe-making; the creation of eyeglasses; dentistry; the making, patching, and mending of clothes; spinning and weaving; undertaking; nutrition; sanitation; the making of acoustical music and natural art.

·         Study outhouses and ways of keeping them sanitary. They can spread deadly disease if they aren’t well-managed. Composting toilets are a great way to go, but they still have to be clean, preferably with something that actually kills germs. And you have to know where to dig an outhouse if you want to keep your groundwater clean. I once lived on a commune. Before I got there, dozens of people got hepatitis from drinking water downstream from a neighbor’s outhouse. Don’t repeat that mistake.

 ·         While I am neither a gun owner nor a fan of guns, and I’m not an alarmist or someone who wants to see more guns stockpiled in this world, you may need a means of protecting yourself. You’ll want to learn self-defense.

 ·         You will need bicycles, wagons, carts, dollies, wheelbarrows, skateboards, roller skates, buggies with horses and food to feed them—ways to get around and to haul heavy stuff: Ropes, chains, skids, etc.

·         If you can, start stocking critical supplies: soaps, matches, toilet paper, pens, pencils, paper, pulleys, candles, needles and thread, yarn, ladders, toothbrushes and toothpaste, tools, knives, woodstoves, grills, firewood, water and food storage containers, charcoal, clothing, shoes, kerosene, bleach, lime, wind-up radios (which will charge cell phones, if the phones still work), wind-up flashlights, washing tubs, buckets and bins, clotheslines and clothespins, washboards, boots, shoes, long underwear, batteries, lighters, good jackets, and socks—lots and lots of socks.

  ·         You will need to know about medical care, including the standard Western medicine we practice now, plus Eastern medicine and folk medicine. You’ll want to know how to grow medicinal plants and herbs, and you should stockpile basics: whatever meds you personally need to stay alive, as well as aspirin, antibiotics, antacids, anti-diarrheals, Tylenol, beaucoup asthma inhalers, insulin and other diabetic meds, blood pressure meds, first-aid supplies, splints, crutches, wheelchairs, IV equipment and fluids, scalpels, pump respirators, stethoscopes, otoscopes, blood pressure cuffs, tweezers, vitamins, minerals, skin creams, sunscreen, antibiotic and cortisone ointments, CBD oil, on and on and on.

·         You’ll need the means to educate your children and to continue learning yourselves.

·         You’ll want things to help you pass the time—especially the long winter nights with poor lighting: board games, card games, dice games, jacks, paddle balls, outdoor sports equipment, hobby stuff, acoustic musical instruments, art supplies, those balls you roll around in your hands when you’re tense, and BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS.

More than anything, you’ll need quick wits, unbending determination, and people to love.

Here are many of my reasons to stay alive and to NEVER, EVER GIVE UP:

And whatever you do, DO NOT forget the duct tape!

  To see how my unlikely apocalyptic hero, seventy-year-old Bea Crenshaw, shepherds her grandkids and neighbors through the aftermath of a solar pulse, check out IF DARKNESS TAKES US on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Darkness-Takes-Brenda-Marie-Smith-ebook/dp/B07WK9BQHN or order it from your favorite indie bookstore:

The sequel, IF THE LIGHT SHOULD COME, will be out June 2021 from SFK Press.

 STAY TUNED FOR THE FINAL INSTALLMENT OF “WHAT TO STOCK FOR AN APOCALYPSE.”

NEXT: SUMMING UP

[catachan-jungle-fighter]

The Cypher

(REDACTED ON ORDER OF THE OLD WOLF/ ALL ACCESS LOCKED TO OUTPOST HEAD AND HQ TIER COMMAND CODES)

Passcode: The dead Rise

Access Granted: John Geist

File: The Cypher

Description: The key to all the coded and encrypted information that is traded among the Wolves in the hidden communications net of the Mad Wolves, the Cypher is a integral part of both the Comms Net and the Encryption we send. To truly ask "what is the Cypher?" One must ask themselves "How do we communicate out of system?" The Answer to that question? Astropath's, the men and women of the Astropathic Choir's.

The Cypher is a 'linked' Astropathic net of Psyker's hidden on all worlds of the Wolves, these brain dead men and women having their minds linked to cogitators in such a way to understand the massive bursts of data that are sent from another station, these data bursts being encrypted using the dialect of the Wolves which act as the Encryption and as a means of passing on more than the message could carry without the major fault with the system coming to note.

These 'hubs' are watched closely for any signs of Daemonic possession or influence, the larger the messages passed between 'hubs' drawing more attention to them.

To lose even a single one of these linked 'hubs' could mean that men and women lose their lives, so the Wolves continue to stand watch over the brain dead Psyker's, their charges replaced when possible so the bodies aren't worn out from the constant stress they are put through.

Only once has a Hub been found and it was immediately scuttled, the only saving grace having been that the demolition of the Hub having caught the investigation head in the blast, because if this was found out that the Wolves held their own communications net across the stars they would be heavily scrutinized compared to the light gaze due to their 'cleaning' actions the Wolves have undertaken to ensure they wouldn't be looked at too closely.

(LOGGING OUT: John Geist)

------

(Access File: John 'Old Wolf' Geist)

(John 'Old Wolf' Geist Not Found)

(Access File: The Bloody Beast)

(Bloody Beast Found, Requires Passcode: Remember the Oath)

(PRINT ALL) (Failed)

( Unknown User attempting to print document: Alerting to improper usage of Cogitator)

(PRINT ALL) (Failed)

Audio Recording:

(HAIL THE TRUE WOLF!)

*Explosion is heard*

(Dumb Frakker blew his ass up... too bad the stupid frakker tried to print off of this shitty cogitator, only two in the entire camp that can do that.)

[elastigirl72]

Day 21: Shkoder>Lizbahd

620km to go...I’m finally in the mountains!

7 May: Shkoder 07:27am

Given I am a certified and ex practicing sports and rehab massage therapist who still actively promotes stretching and regular massage for active people, lying in my €35 spa having the massage of my life, I was alarmed to fail to recall without some effort my last similar session. It was well over a year ago. Also apparent was my failure on good, regular stretching. I’d been on a cycling yoga week last year, trying to will myself into better self-care with the lovely Sinead, cycling yoga star in Ireland. I am proud to have kept a few of hers, which should only be done in the confines of privacy as they could be taken as some sort of lap dance in the wrong setting. I have my own MASH stretch which I have to say is pretty damn awesome 😊. This young lady, who combined this job with school was one of the best therapists I’ve stumbled across, including myofascial release as part of her treatment. Weirdly, even knowing I was a cyclist, time ran out before she got to my quads. I paid her extra and she spent a good 15 minutes on each, each stroke reminding me how much abuse my legs had taken, largely over the last few weeks. I didn’t train hard for my adventure, and this was by design. Looking at my training log, you could be forgiven in thinking that I might have retired completely from cycling in November, only seeing an ember burning almost undetectable in January. Then, one dark, wet, typical Forest Saturday morning, making Kalamata olive ciabatta toast, I wondered “Where exactly is Kalamata?”. About an hour later, I not only knew where, I’d booked a return flight, and figured out a 2,200 mile route there in April, how long I’d ride each day, and about 1000 permutations of getting there. This was it. It was set. Only it wasn’t. Work threw in the possibility of a work event a day after I was due to fly back...and 3 days before setting off, it was confirmed as Istanbul.

Flying home from Kalamata on 11 May and back to Istanbul a day later would have meant a minimum of 16 hours travel doors to doors. The options I considered were to fly home, cycle to Istanbul, charter a yacht (yes, seriously, I did look into this!), get a bus from Athens to Istanbul (no pre-booking possible for the bike). After much deliberation, cogitation and planning, Athens won, with my bike case and work clothes being shipped to a hotel I booked on hotel rewords points. It seemed fitting too, as I’d never made it to the Athens Olympics as an athlete, but I got close, and next to qualifying, this trip is the biggest sporting conquest I’d attempted. It would be great to finish my ride at the Acropolis, but let’s see...thinking about how close I got to being an Olympian still is a bittersweet memory. Less than two minutes, a toilet stop in fact, and just a little bit faster and I’d have been there. But what I take from trying is that even though I ran my first marathon when I was 18, and didn’t think I was any good at running (this left it in the past until the months after my mum died in 1998, and from that event and to this day, sport has been my Lynch pin in coping with and celebrating life’s rollercoaster), I qualified as a mum o two young children, who to this day, probably still don’t see what hard work went in, and may well believe if you dream it, you can do it. It’s not a bad philosophy to have! That and blessed with good genes 😊.

And yet all so laughable! Here I sit, waiting for breakfast, the barista chuckling at my need for a third cappuccino (they’re tiny really, but delicious, and I giggle too, explaining I’m very tired 😆). I need it, it’s a big day today.

I’ve decided to cycle into the mountains, towards Pogradec, a village or town by a mountain lake. To check the route, I’ve planted in Athens a billion times and plotted by car (avoiding motorways, ferries and tolls) and by foot, put a pin in what looks like a country lane or a busy road to check the road conditions, and loosely made a plan: get past Tirana and head South East. It looks like I’ll spend another two nights before hitting Greece. Dare I say it, but the weather forecast and maps look fairly decent, but for now, the gear stays stuck on my back...

May 9: Librazhd - 05:19

Well, so much to digest from the last 40 or so hours in Albania. There’s still around 120km here to cover, and if my bike and body survive, we will make Greece today and my bed in Kastoria in around 100 miles...another big day - in the mountains.

In just 120 miles in this country, I have seen so much. The good, the bad, and yes, the ugly. Hearing that this is one country my pioneering explorer dad has not visited (I think this is a lifetime first between his coverage of the globe and mine) because its borders were closed when he ran is Overlander business, and learning from a Roman Empire history documentation that whilst the Roman Empire ruled all of the Mediterranean, except Albania, leads me to believe this country has an incredible past, and I need to investigate.

I learnt that Albanians have an industry built on roadside trade, most notably, car washes, petrol stations and attached to every petrol station, a hotel. Most of the people visible in daylight appear to be men; I barely saw a woman, either in the villages or city, and as a woman, this felt quite overwhelming, for no other reason than the imbalance. It meant that whilst the multitude of coffee shops were on offer, I didn’t want to stop. Already looking like an alien dropped from space, putting myself directly amongst gangs of rugged men who seemed to have nowhere to go and nothing to do was too much. That’s just me! But cycling past the many who stood at the side of the road and had stopped doing whatever they were doing, if in fact they were doing anything at all, they stood frozen, eyes and mouth agape. In no other country have I passed through have I had so many positive shouts and I guess, encouraging comments (for all I know they could have been shouting “loser!”). The contrast between those that have and have not was huge.

The road surfaces were very curious. In most places I’d visited, as you entered a town or city, the roads in Europe would be pothole free and markings better than the surrounding country roads. But in Albania, any town or city, the roads dissolved. A network of potholes you could disappear into and a patchwork of concrete “plasters”, and for no apparent reason, countless and pointless road jumps, unmarked, without any warning, which all cars, bling or ancient, rolled over so slowly, as if dampners and suspension were extinct and they had to maintain what they had.

Tirana, Albania’s capital, brought all my observations to a massive climax. Any Highway Code had not been introduced, and for a long time I decided they needed traffic lights at the very least (they did eventually appear). I saw the most insane driving I’ve ever seen in my life, making the film Ronin look like a police training video on how to drive safely around a city. At no other point during this trip had I felt as petrified for my safety as here. Checking my options at the worst point, I stopped at an intersection where coaches pulled up and double parked, a large verge, covered in mud, waste and men, sitting between and on it, police standing close, travellers trying to wheel suitcases over uneven verges, and me needing to make a decision on how the hell to get it out with my life. Google suggested what looked like the motorway, which started at this same junction. I confirmed with the police standing close by and they confirmed I could ride my bike on this road, and stopped the traffic to let me go. It was Russian roulette, but as soon as I hit the ring road’s massive hard shoulder, I felt my life had been saved and escape was nigh.

7km later, and I had reached the mountain road, SH3, the old Elbasan Road, replaced by the recently completed A3 that ran parallel. Order restored, the road started to climb. Given this was recently a major thoroughfare to the mountains, I wondered what would happen to the many restaurants and hotels that flowed with the road, through villages up towards the sky. It was quite haunting, and the stray dogs began to reveal themselves again. Children waved and one even raced me up a section, whilst another shouted “Hallo! Have an enjoyable day!” The climb was amazing, good road, and it felt like I owned it. I saw three cyclists in all, all heavily laden with panniers. I past cheerily one octogenarian going up and two coming the other way going down. It’s easy to see why they built a tunnel to take cars through the mountain, but it was their loss and my gain.

Here, in the land where I have seen more people walking their cow than their dogs, who in turn, run free , civic pride does not exist for what I have seen of Albania so far. It contrasts the most breathtaking landscapes, and shows diversity to the rest of Europe, yet fly-tipping is common, expected even, and mounds of wrecked cars are all to frequent. There are many ruined buildings and near Lehze, I passed what can only be described as a ghost town and factory, which was really sinister. Is this down to a poor state and government? Clearly there are people here who have wealth but the overriding feeling is this country is poor. It wants to be western but can’t quite bridge the gap. I feel very keen to explore its history.

Approaching the top of the mountain, which seemed like the top of the world, I happened upon the most cunning canine skullduggery I’ve ever witnessed. The mountaintop restaurant invited guests to it for 6km, and it was a real possibility that I might drop in. But as it appeared, there appeared to be a dead dog lying in the road directly in front of it, with two more dogs lying in wait to the side. Feeling both sad, but also danger, I pedalled slowly and quietly, not wanting to alarm the dogs to my side, and hoping to pass the dead dog without seeing too much gore. Then, just as I ran parallel, BOOM! he was up, his mates joining him in charging for me, up the remaining mountain! Luckily, I’d anticipated this ambush, and put down the biggest power of my life, as if being chased by a bear. I escaped, but my god! How brilliant of these stray masters of terror? Please, no more like this!

The climb was the day’s highlight, and telling myself that whatever hotel arrived at 100 miles, that’s where I was staying. As if my magic, a petrol station and a Swiss chalet looking hotel.

There’s not much to say about this place, except a stark contrast from the same priced oasis I had stayed at near Shkoder. Here, the food was bland and sparse, and the staff didn’t care as much as my last hotel. At Launi-A, seeing how much food I had put away the night before, at breakfast, they just kept bringing basket after basket of food! That hotel and its staff will keep me going for many years to come as the nicest surprise, and a great introduction to Albania.

And now, breakfast. A lovely Albanian who speaks good English and has lit the fire me and I have amazing coffee. It will be a good day! Ξεκίνα 😃 Even here, this far south, there’s snow on the mountains ahead! Titanium by David Gueta and Sia playing on the empty restaurant speakers...bring on the day 🌈

[kellancallic]

Unexpected Guest (Closed RP)

There tended to be very few visitors to Kellan’s quarters that he didn’t know about. There was usually more warning ahead of time or an appointment had been scheduled. In this case, there had been neither. He had arrived to his rooms after a shift on the bridge to find a tall, dark stranger awaiting him. Torth and Yvonne had dutifully played host in his absence.

“And who is she?” Kellan asked Torth in Konndar. Better that his guest be unaware of his conversation.

“She calls herself Urbosa, my Lord. She’s a native of the planet that you’re currently inspecting. She caught wind of your scouts and asked to speak with their leader. We’ve been entertaining her since she was brought here.” Torth answered.

“Thank you, Torth. Is she a xenos?” Kellan asked.

“Not as far as we can tell. You might want to have the medicae inspect her, or at least one of her kind, before making any judgement. She could be useful to you.”

“Very well. Get me some recaf.” Kellan ordered before going to take a seat at his desk.

“Sorry to have kept you waiting,” Kellan began. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Lord Kellan Macharius Callic. I have a variety of titles that come with that name but they are likely meaningless in this part of the galaxy, so I’ll keep it brief. I am a Rogue Trader and thus come on behalf of the Imperium of Man and the God Emperor of Mankind. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Kellan turned on his cogitator as he spoke, waiting for it to start and then logging in. It was best to keep some notes on this meeting and see what he could learn about this world.

@thegerudochampion

[sunny-satellites]

I guess after last night maybe keeping a separate log from my dream journal for nightmares is a good idea. Might help me gather illogical thoughts and ptsd intrusions together to cogitate on things with some distance from the contemporary mindset.

Last night's horrible ptsd nightmare was the worst I've had in years, ugh, and I had a similar experience less than a week before. I'm used to horrible nightmares being common but not this intense or real feeling.

[daily-klingon]

wotmey wej

mach be small v magh betray v maq proclaim v maS prefer v matlh be loyal v matlhHa' be disloyal v maw offend v maw' be crazy v may be fair v ma' accommodate v mech trade v mej leave, depart v meq reason v meQ burn v mer surprise v meS encrypt (slang) v meS knot v meSHa' decrypt (slang) v mev stop, cease v mIgh be evil v mIl be formerly honored (loss of honor is implied; an adjective to describe one who has fallen from grace; not applicable to 'utlh, which implies a voluntary, honorable retirement) v mIm delay v mIn yuq perform magic (referring to a stage magician) v mIp be rich v mIQ deep-fry v mIS be confused, mixed up v mISmoH confuse v mItlh forge (metal) v mIy brag v mI' dance, run in place, do calisthenics v mob be alone v moD hurry v mogh be frustrated v moH be ugly v moj become v mol bury v mon smile, grin, sneer v moq beat (something with an implement) v morgh protest v moS compromise v mot be stunned, be knocked out (in the sense of "rendered unconscious or into a dazed state as a result of being hit (by a fist or a projectile, etc.)". Like being hit by a "phaser set to stun") v motlh be usual, normal / standard v motlhbe' be unusual (abnormal, non-standard) v mub be legal v much perform (music) v much present v mugh translate v muH execute, put to death v muj be wrong v mul be stubborn v mum taste, sense flavours v mun intervene v mup impact, strike v muq have a volume of v muS hate, detest v mut be selfish v mutlh construct, assemble, manufacture, construct, put together v muv join v muvmoH recruit v nab plan v naD praise, commend, approve v naDHa' discommend, disapprove v naH be hostile, malicious, unfriendly, antagonistic v naj dream v nan gouge v nap be simple v naQ be full, whole, entire, complete v nargh appear v nargh escape v naS be vicious v natlh drain v natlh use up, consume, expend v naw' access v nay marry (wife does this) v na' be salty, be brackish v nech be lateral, move laterally v neH want v nej look for, seek, search for v nen be mature, be grownup, be an adult v nenchoH mature, grow up v nep lie, fib v nIb be identical v nID attempt, try v nIH steal v nIj leak v nIl be grassy v nIq weave, knit v nIS disrupt, hinder, interfere, interfere with v nIt be plain, be pure, be uncorrupted, be unsullied v nIv be superior v nI' be long, lengthy (duration) v nob give v nobHa' give back, return v noD retaliate v nogh writhe v noH judge, estimate v noj lend v non be rotten v nong be passionate v nop omit v noS eat in small mouthfuls, nibble v notlh be obsolete v nov be foreign, alien v noy be famous, well known v nub be suspect v nuD examine v nughI' twist knuckle into someone's forehead v num promote v nung precede v nup decrease v nuQ annoy, bother v nuS ridicule v ngab disappear, vanish v ngach debate v ngaD be stable, be steady, be balanced v ngaDmoH stabilise v ngagh mate with v ngaH squeeze (an object) v ngaj be short (in duration) v ngal be chewy v ngaQ be locked, be secured, be sealed, be fastened v ngaQHa'moH sign in, log in v ngaQmoH sign out, log out v ngaS contain (have inside) v nga'chuq sex (i.e., perform sex; "always subject" probably refers to the concept that all involved parties collectively make the subject of this verb.) v ngeb be counterfeit, false, fake v ngeD be easy v ngeH send v ngej infect v ngel attract, lure v ngep override v ngeQ bump into, run into, collide with v ngev sell v nge' take away v ngIj be rowdy, unruly v ngIl dare v ngIm be putrid v ngIng be negatively charged, have a negative charge v ngIp borrow v ngIv patrol v ngI' have a weight of, weigh v ngI' be pressurized v ngoH paint using fingers, smear v ngoj be restless v ngol move bat'leth from horizontal to vertical orientation v ngom be geeky (This describes someone who is "into" a subject and knows a lot about it, but does not necessarily participate in associated activities the way a qatru' does. It could be a less intense version of ven.) v ngon bubble (The verb ngon describes what water does when it's boiling: It's bubbling. Also, if you blow with a straw into a glass of water, then it's also bubbling. The person does not ngon, they ngonmoH the water.) v ngong experiment v ngor cheat v ngoS dissolve v ngotlh be fanatical v ngoy' be responsible v ngo' be old (not new) v ngun perch (if bird lands on land, use Saq, on water, use tlhot) v nguq be arrogant, haughty, conceited (an undesirable trait) v nguv be dyed, be stained, be tinted v nguvmoH dye, stain, tint v ngu' identify v pab follow (rules) v paj resign v pan spark, emit sparks v pang pluck (a stringed instrument) v paQ meditate, cogitate, reflect v par dislike v pargh be synthetic, artificial v parHa' like v paS be late v patlh be ranked, have a status, be graded v patlhmoH rank, assign status, compare, sort v pav be urgent v paw arrive v paw' butt heads (slang) v paw' collide v pay regret v peD snow, fall slowly (like snow) v pegh be secret v pegh keep something secret v pej demolish v pep raise v peq slaughter (connotes intention, targeting specific victims) v per label, ascertain, specify, designate v peS supply, furnish, provide, dispense v pet be welded (together) v pe' cut v pe''egh keep score v pIch blame v pID coat (food) with herbed mixture) v pIH be suspicious v pIH expect v pIjHa' infrequently, seldom adv pIl be inspired, be motivated, be stimulated v pIlmoH inspire, stimulate, motivate v pIm be different v pIQ be direct v pIQHa' be indirect, roundabout, devious v pIv be healthy v pI' be bold v pI' be fat v poch plant v poD be clipped v poDmoH clip v poH time v poj analyze v pol keep, save v polHa' discard v pon persuade, convince v pong name, call v poQ demand, require v poS be open, opened v poSmoH open v potlh be important v pov be excellent v po' be expert, skilled v pub boil v puj be weak v pujmoH weaken v pul be ground up v pum accuse v pum fall v pup be high resolution v pup be perfect, exact v pup kick v puQ be fed up v pur inhale v puS be few, be several, a handful v puS sight (with gunsight) v puv fly v puy wreck v

[primarchslut]

why the fuck does pasqals idle make him look like hes about to give me a quest in wow. stupid coghead.

[dashfirediaries]

On the Appropriate Form and Naturally Correct Method of Enacting The Feast of the Thanksgiving

By

Dr. Horace S. Browntrout

 Dear Friends, Thanksgiving is a Covent Garden theatre production of epic proportions, and no less important. Every act must be perfectly executed, every prop must consist of the finest materials. Every actor must know their mark, their role—and indeed the limitations of their role—their dialogue as well as the entire script if the Production is to be a successful one. There must be the harried chef, the fussy friend, the drunk uncle, the ingrate, the sanguine sister, the doddering, wizened and cantankerous cousins and their unruly spawn, the cracked curmudgeon, and the self-absorbed simpleton simmering with singular simian stories.

               There is to be no improvisation allowed, for each element of the Production serves a vital function, and if each person were to perform their role ad libitum, a single atonal note could cause disarray and discord to be the result.

               First, let us consider the matter of the victuals themselves. These are the raw materials from which we, the people, draw thankful succor, the caloric substance that will comprise our basal metabolic rates and the continued performance of certain organs and their attendant support systems. Indeed, gratitude is a higher-order cognitive function as is the ability to cogitate itself. In order that gratitude, be achieved one must have the benefit of lipids, tryptophan, and other amino acids. Indeed, nothing is so sublime than meditating on the denaturing of quaternary-structured proteins and considering them as one would a sphere of twine slowly disentangling from its threads by the Hand of Fate—one of the Fates at any rate—as it transmogrifies from an inert and inedible substance to that which can provision a man with thoughts that can pause to understand the firmament of time and the indelible forces that etch their names upon our naked, purified souls.

               In any Feast of the Thanksgiving there are seven core elements that act in concert, mashed potatoes, gravy, turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, baked yams, and cranberry sauce. These seven elements are like points of a star. They are the Inner Sanctum of the Thanksgiving. These seven elements are the original pantheon of gods on Mount Socially Sanctioned Gluttony. They are fixed points, as unchanging as the Earth itself. Not only must they be present at each Feast of the Thanksgiving, their constituent parts must never vary. Think carefully of our friend the potato, and how just one of these nutrient-Edens can feed a family of twelve, so long as it hasn’t been killed off by a wicked weevil or some other malicious animalcule. The potato is the shape-shifter of the vegetable world. It may be fried, sliced, smashed, poached, grilled, baked, boiled, parched, peached, poked, prodded, dehydrated, dilled, dipped, or chopped, and yet there is but one correct method of creating this famine-proof viscera liner on the Day of Thanksgiving: mashed. It must be boiled, drained, mashed, with salt, butter, and milk-like liquid product added to dampen it. It must be made moist, like a woman awaiting her lover’s kiss, but not sodden, like a soiled sponge lost in the rain without an umbrella, or a ponderous, rotund saturnine gentleman with edematous limbs due to sluggish lymphatic tissue. Stuffing must always include bread crumbs, broth, diced celery and onion. Green bean casserole must always be made with the freshest cream of mushroom soup available, coarse-cut fresh onions, garlic, French-cut green beans, and French-fried onion bits as a topping. The turkey must be a real turkey, not the monstrosity known as a “turducken,” (banned!). One must never defile a turkey by placing another whole fowl in its behind, even after it is deceased. On the manner of turkey preparation, carving, and presentation, you already know the proper methods and I shall not belabor the reader with their reiteration here.

Cranberry sauce must be refined to a fine jelly that one can readily consume even if one had no mouth, but simply a straw-like proboscis like a house fly or a wood tick. Consider those unfortunates that suffer from poverty of teeth and note their lonesome moanings. The aforenoted jelly must bear the ribbed imprint of its zinc-lined cannister. It must be removed from its cannister using a series of percussive “thumps” to its posterior end using the fleshy part of one’s palm. The entire, cylindrical mass should be birthed from the cannister in one motion and it should retain this form on your silver plate. Here, take a moment to remove your hat, bow your head and give thanks to God or some other deity of choice, not otherwise specified. Behold this sacred objet d’art. Observe how light enters it from one side and then exits, creating an amber-tinted glow. Like a many-faceted diamond in the rough, the unhewn canned cranberry log holds stories and delights as old as time. Find, if you will, its “voice.” Do not dare touch it until you can transcribe the words of the angel choirs that sing its odes! When you are ready, take a deep breath, for you must resign yourself to making an injury to the flesh of perfection. Next, grasp a sharp, sterile instrument and make a lateral, transverse incision perpendicular to the jelly body 20 millimeters inferior to the cephalic terminus. The incision should proceed from the lateral to the medial portion of the jelly body until the entire body has been bisected completely. Repeat the incision until the caudal terminus is reached. This tissue should be firm, yet globular and gelatinous, and it should easily yield to your surgical knife. Each layer will demonstrate a bit of wobble and sag as it is removed from the larger portion of the jelly body. Some degree of ptosis of the jelly is normal, and the novice clinician should not be alarmed by this observation. Once the jelly body has been completely processed in the previously described manner, it is now ready to be served.

Many foods in the Grand Production may take a turn at auditions. Many may even earn a hard-won, tentative place at the edge of the table, but no new members can ever be admitted to the Inner Circle. Replacements equal defilements and additions are subtractions—unless they are relegated to their proper, subordinate stations. One may welcome creamed corn, that humble, hard-working, plainspoken American fruit of the soil and sauce of the cow. If creamed corn appears, tattered hat in hand, crooked smile on its trembling lips, lowered eyes peering respectfully away from Her Majesty Meleagris gallopavo, fingerless gloves shivering as they clutch your door, do invite it to stand—not sit—at the edge of your table. Squash is another old friend and neighbor to the maize d’cremes. Served with butter and browned sugar, that refined kiss of the cane, it too, should be allowed a peripheral place at your ensemble of glory. Pumpkin and apple pie, should they decide to grace your presence, must be warm, served a’ la mode if any of your guests do not bear grudges against lactose. They are the sweets that our forebears set before us, and they serve important digestive functions by hastening the exit of unwanted extra calories. In this way, they tidy our flesh temples in readiness for Judgement.  Additionally, wheat rolls, those milled and ground Children of the Grain, must be allowed to bathe in the holy waters of commingled mashed potatoes and gravy, for this is a baptism of the Buds of Taste. But what of rabble like chunky, unseemly “homestyle” cranberry sauce, all tarted up from its Bog of Ill Fame? What of fruit “salad” and its tawdry, voluptuary beckonings? What of the slippery bivalve that hails from the gutters of the abysmal depths? Nay, one must never admit “Slick Silas” the Craven Clam to dinner at this feast unless forced by dint of dire necessity. Ultimately, while many may seek a place beside your Horn of Plenty, only a select few are preordained to blow it, and thus receive salvation from their heathen origins.

Whilst gratitude is a tertiary consideration of the Feast of the Thanksgiving, it is not wholly inappropriate for the host to compose some lines that add gravitas and evoke the grim solemnity of a typical, upstanding familial assemblage. Suggested topics include the importance of piety, the consequences of disobedience, a recitation of the diseases that no one at the table suffers from, the airing of unresolved grievances between both consanguineal and affinal relations, or an invocation to the Almighty to have mercy on any unsaved, damned souls present—and to provision said souls with an adequate supply of body butter or coconut oil with an SPF of 30 or higher for their one-way sojourn to the halls of Hades. Whatever one’s words, do make sure that they contribute to a funereal and austere atmosphere suitable to the occasion, and contain none of the impish frivolity marked by the undignified, impulsive and dysregulated lower classes. If any toast is to be made, cudgel anyone seen pouring libations to fallen idols, golden calves, or demonic demiurges. Be sure that the Almighty and the British Empire receive the bulk of your lionization, and that no indignant fiend quaffs their fermented grape squeezings until the termination of your circumlocutions—AND a lengthy, silent pause followed by the ominous tolling of a bell—even if they are parched and on the verge of death.  

               Many roads lead to the Promised Land of Venerated Yet Obscene Consumption. Many other roads are but dead-end paths or worse yet—will take you directly to perdition’s flames. Fly not, to the place of brimstone and conflagration! Heed ye, my warnings. Harken to my good news of salvation! Follow the Seven Points Star. Let its light guide you to the Table of Life, and check ye carefully its table of contents. While one may cook a turkey in manifold ways, one must always arrive at the same or roughly similar place or failure is the result, and death and ignobility, the final harvest.

All rights reserved. Copyright 2018 by Horace S. Browntrout. No part of this post may be duplicated in any form except by written permission of the copyright holder.

[brendamariesmith]

What TO Stock for An APOCALYPSE, Part Five of Six

KNOWLEDGE and a set of OLD-FASHIONED SURVIVAL SKILLS will probably serve you better after a cataclysm than almost anything else you could have accumulated.

In honor of the novel IF DARKNESS TAKES US, coming out October 15th from SFK Press. Order here: https://www.amazon.com/Darkness-Takes-Brenda-Marie-Smith-ebook/dp/B07WK9BQHN/ref=sr_1_1?

 If you spend time ruminating on all the things that happen in America and the rest of the modern world, things that keep us alive and generally healthy, you will notice a nearly unfathomable list of occurrences in the background of our lives—goods and services we consider essential but never stop to think about.

Aside from water, food, and electricity, there are sewers, healthcare systems (such as they are), public health departments, libraries, roads, transportation, infrastructure, law and order, government, police and fire departments, charities, medicines, education, art, music, news from near and far, the internet, an endless array of things to buy if we can afford them, innumerable places to travel, and gobs of stuff competing for our time. Much or even all of this would break down and be gone in a true apocalypse. The people who survive will be those who know how to handle many of these functions themselves.

 Since this list could be endless, and because my purpose is not to bore you to death with details, my exhortation to you readers is to please do your best to learn how to survive and prepare on your own. Given the rapid pace of climate change, even if we don’t fall all the way into apocalypse, we are likely to be forced to scale way the hell back. We should scale back. We need to scale back. We all know that the Earth cannot sustain our current lifestyles.

 For the record, I am not a prepper. I do not go around freaking out about the coming End of Days. But I do cogitate on these things from time to time, and I write novels about possible scenarios. In my novels, I take a different route than the standard apocalyptic tale. My assumption is that it would take a great deal of time for civilization to fully collapse. At least initially, much human morality and compassion will remain. If people try hard to work together, and if the situation allows, they can keep the deterioration from becoming complete.

So, become men and women and children of the New Renaissance and learn how things work and alternative ways to do them, practice old skills and learn new ones, stretch your brains and your imaginations. Toward that end, here are some of the areas that we all need to bone up on, aside from what I have already discussed in earlier posts:

·         Learn and practice old-fashioned skills like: soap-making; candle-making; laundry without electricity or plumbing; knitting; sock-darning; fire-building; quilting; basketry; rope-making; carpentry; gravity-fed plumbing; hair plaiting; butter churning; cheese making; chair caning; furniture building; cabinetry; glass-making; log-splitting; barn building; shoe-making; the creation of eyeglasses; dentistry; the making, patching, and mending of clothes; spinning and weaving; undertaking for the dead; nutrition; sanitation; the making of acoustical music and natural art.

·         Study outhouses and ways of keeping them sanitary. They can spread deadly disease if they aren’t well-managed. Composting toilets are a great way to go, but they still have to be clean, preferably with something that actually kills germs dead. And you have to know where to dig an outhouse if you want to keep your groundwater clean and drinkable.

I once lived on a commune. Before I got there, dozens of people got hepatitis from drinking water and/or eating wild watercress downstream from a neighbor’s outhouse. Don’t repeat that mistake.

  ·         

           While I am neither a gun owner nor a fan of guns, and I am not an alarmist or someone who wants to see more guns stockpiled in this world, you may need a means of protecting yourself. You’ll want to learn self-defense.

·         

            You will need bicycles, wagons, carts, dollies, wheelbarrows, skateboards, roller skates, buggies with horses and food to feed them—ways to get around and to haul heavy stuff. Ropes, chains, skids, etc.

·         If you can, start stocking critical supplies: soaps, matches, toilet paper, pens, pencils, paper, pulleys, candles, needles and thread, yarn, ladders, toothbrushes and toothpaste, tools, knives, wood-stoves and wood-fired grills, firewood, water and food storage containers, charcoal, clothing, shoes, kerosene, bleach, lime for the outhouses, wind-up radios (which will charge cell phones, if the phones still work), wind-up flashlights, washing tubs, buckets and bins, clotheslines and clothespins, washboards, boots, shoes, long underwear, batteries, lighters, hats, scarves, gloves, good  jackets, and socks—lots and lots of socks.

 ·         You will need to know about medical care, including the standard Western medicine we practice now, plus Eastern medicine and folk medicine. You’ll want to know how to grow medicinal plants and herbs, and you should stockpile basics: whatever meds you personally need to stay alive, as well as aspirin, antibiotics, antacids, antidiarrheals, Tylenol, asthma inhalers, insulin and other diabetic meds, blood pressure stabilizers, first-aid supplies, splints, crutches, wheelchairs, IV equipment and fluids, scalpels, pump respirators, stethoscopes, otoscopes, blood pressure cuffs, tweezers, vitamins, minerals, skin creams, sunscreen, antibiotic and cortisone ointments, CBD oil, on and on and on.

·         You’ll need the means to educate your children and to continue learning yourselves.

·         You’ll want things to help you pass the time—especially the long winter nights with poor lighting: board games, cards, dice, jacks, paddle balls, outdoor sports equipment, hobby stuff, acoustic musical instruments, art supplies, those balls you roll around in your hands when you’re tense, and BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS.

More than anything, you will need quick wits, unbending determination, and people to love.

Here are many of my reasons to stay alive and to NEVER, EVER GIVE UP:

And, whatever you do, DO NOT forget the duct tape!

STAY TUNED FOR THE FINAL INSTALLMENT OF “WHAT TO STOCK FOR AN APOCALYPSE.”

NEXT: SUMMING UP