LHG

I'm paying my penance for all the mischief I've
gotten into earlier in my life... when I feel I've
justified to myself that I've made up for earlier
miscues, I'll move on... like I said before,
self-flagellation. Everyone has their breaking
points. When I reach mine, I'll move on to
something more satisfying... I may even
become a Buddhist, who knows.

By Lordhobgoblin on Saturday, December 30, 2000 - 07:54 pm: Edit

Pikkle,

If you're having fun then don't knock it. I changed careers because I wasn't having fun. If you're a happy man then don't change your life, if you're not a happy man then you're a fool if you don't change it. You only live once.

Hobgoblin

By Pikkle on Saturday, December 30, 2000 - 04:29 am: Edit

Yeah, I'm going to have to make that transition
at some point, to doing something that
acutally let's me stay sane even though I'm
making less money... right now, I'm just
having too much fun though.

By Lordhobgoblin on Friday, December 29, 2000 - 09:07 pm: Edit

Pikkle,

Yeah the holidays are good but the pay is shit. Extra money would help but if someone's motivated primarily by money then they'd make a shit teacher anyway.

Bad teachers should get there asses kicked but our UK OFSTED school inspection system is only concerned with fault finding and is not remotely interested in the positive. The result is that all teachers , good and bad get tarred with the same brush, OFSTED roast them all and no surprise that there is a shortage of good teachers as they get pissed off and leave. Politicians are too keen to use education as a political football to score points against there opponents, this is of no benefit and harms children's education. Politicians don't know how to teach, they should let teachers teach, don't swamp them with form flling and bureaucracy.

Anyway I like what I do. For years I worked in industry getting paid good money for a job I disliked, I'm a happier (if somewhat poorer) man nowadays.

Hobgoblin

By Pikkle on Friday, December 29, 2000 - 04:34 am: Edit

Don... sorry about the formalities. You are
after all a business man... even if you're not a
golfer... perhaps you could hook me up with
the right generals and get me some good tee
times???

By Pikkle on Friday, December 29, 2000 - 04:31 am: Edit

Hmmm... I don't know, summers off for full
salary? I think if you got rid of the teachers
union and allowed merit based raises, regular
performance reviews and removal of
underperforming teachers, it might be a more
honorable position here. But it's as bad as
being in the UAW. Once you're in and you
pass your probationary period, you're in. I had
some really bad teachers from grade school
on up. I remember the parents getting
together on certain teachers and going to the
school board meetings and being told there
was nothing they could do about it. Of course I
had some really excellent teachers too, they
were my heros, they were the ones that
challenged me to use my under-utilized brain.
But i find it a hideous proposition that they
were making the same or less than the
teachers that passed out worksheets everyday
and then kicked back and read the paper for
the whole class period. If you un-equalized it,
paid the good teachers more, then it would be
an awesome job... still doesn't pay enough for
my tastes!

Hobblegoblin... Where I live, the university
here graduates mostly teachers so most of
my friends are teachers at some level or
another... so that's why i have an opinion, just
channeling it from them probably.

By _blackjack_ on Friday, December 29, 2000 - 02:36 am: Edit

---

Quote:

I teach nothing on such a grand scale as your ex-girlfriend. I teach children between the ages of 5 and 11, I try to teach them everything. The best job in the world, a bloody privilege.

---

By Lordhobgoblin on Thursday, December 28, 2000 - 09:58 pm: Edit

Pikkle,

I teach nothing on such a grand scale as your ex-girlfriend. I teach children between the ages of 5 and 11, I try to teach them everything. The best job in the world, a bloody privilege.

Hobgoblin

By Don_walsh on Thursday, December 28, 2000 - 08:24 pm: Edit

Pls, Pikkle, no formalities. Nobody calls me Mr Walsh on the forum except Betty (and Martin at first).

Golfing is allegendly great here. I did used to follow generals around on some very nice courses, notably the Army Club, periodically complimenting them on usually hideous shots. But I spent most of my time at the 19th hole.

My grandfather (on my mother's side) was a good golfer, and I caddied for him, but never took it up. Hit a few balls on driving ranges, that's all.

By Pikkle on Thursday, December 28, 2000 - 07:23 pm: Edit

Hobs...


I'm working the afternoon shift this week...
switch every two weeks... this week is 3pm to
11pm... not great for home life but makes for
an interesting social life indeed... been
drinking too much absinthe and I think i'm
getting a bit of a sinus infection tonight...
sucks. What do you teach if i may ask? My
ex-girlfriend is a professor at Illinois State
University...

By Lordhobgoblin on Thursday, December 28, 2000 - 07:19 pm: Edit

Don,

Its too early for my brain to be switched on yet (9am) it doesn't start to function properly before midday, (all jokes after midday please). Aren't I a dense humourless bastard? (gives himself a slap) and I thought someone else was like that ;-)

Hobgoblin

(Pikkle, it's 9am in London, I'm just about to get stuck into next terms curriculum plans, hell you do work late hours at that steel mill.)

By Pikkle on Thursday, December 28, 2000 - 07:15 pm: Edit

Mr. Walsh...

How is the golfing in Thailand? I've seen golf
packages advertised... is it worth it? Yes, I golf
and I drink absinthe... to be honest, i've always
wanted to visit there someday... love travelling,
no time...

By Don_walsh on Thursday, December 28, 2000 - 07:12 pm: Edit

Never mind, LH. It's not important. I misinterpreted your remark.

By Pikkle on Thursday, December 28, 2000 - 07:08 pm: Edit

Hobgobby

What are you doing up this late/early... ? Oh,
you're in a different time zone, never mind...

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet
desperation"

By Lordhobgoblin on Thursday, December 28, 2000 - 07:05 pm: Edit

Don,

I haven't seen it e-mail it to me.

Hobgoblin

By Don_walsh on Thursday, December 28, 2000 - 03:33 pm: Edit

"You mean you flagellate yourself? You cheap bastard. I pay good money for flagellation."

*cough*

Lord H, have you seen Absintheur's chain email about me? :)

By Pikkle on Thursday, December 28, 2000 - 03:23 pm: Edit

Yes... I do it and get paid for it! See all the fun
you're missing out on by being a man of
leisure? My absinthe at the end of the day
tastes just as good as yours, if not better...

By Lordhobgoblin on Thursday, December 28, 2000 - 05:52 am: Edit

Pikkle,

"Self flagellation is more like it"

You mean you flagellate yourself? You cheap bastard. I pay good money for flagellation.

Hobgoblin

By Pikkle on Thursday, December 28, 2000 - 03:51 am: Edit

Self flagellation is more like it... I work 7 days a
a week most of the time, often 12 and 16
hours and when the time comes for me to let
loose, I let loose because the rewards out
weigh the punishment in that case... I've
worked many a double with raging
hangovers... it seems like it sucks but it
doesn't the alternative is not being able to go
out on a mad drunk at all...

By Lordhobgoblin on Wednesday, December 27, 2000 - 09:13 pm: Edit

Don,

If your absinthe is as hangover free as you say then I do look forward to trying it.

Pikkle,

Variety is the Spice of Life but it can sure fuck you up when you're trying to work on Monday morning. Hangover's are one of lifes curses, who needs to be punished for having a good time?

Hobgoblin

By Pikkle on Wednesday, December 27, 2000 - 02:51 pm: Edit

Hmmm... no, variety is the spice of life and if
that is one's philosophy, one accepts the
consequences of such actions... I drink what I
feel like, smoke cigarettes... actually, that's
about it... gave up the drugs a long time ago...

By Don_walsh on Wednesday, December 27, 2000 - 01:55 pm: Edit

"If a good old drinking session like this was carried out sensibly, (i.e. mix the absinthe with 4 parts water, drank over a sensible time period (e.g 5 hours), no other type of booze, cigarettes or other stimuli consumed, and care was taken not to fall over on a hard surface and bang my head) would you have confidence that your Absinthe would result in a hangover-free experience?"

Affirmative! Been there, done that. I mean, what sort of fellow would I be if I wouldn't test drive the stuff myself?

(Answer: sober.)

By Pikkle on Wednesday, December 27, 2000 - 07:31 am: Edit

Yes, that's probably why I never progressed as
I needed to in rugby... my drinking skills just
weren't up to par... I was never successful in
the afters drinking games unfortunately as my
choice of libations was more spiritous and
less hoppy... actually, when I was in Nenagh,
my friends brother was the hooker for the club
there and made many futile attempts to
convince me to join in one of the games.
Much to fast for me as the European style
seems to be less physical and more speed
and grace... i was really amazed when I
watched them play, such flow there was...
we're conditioned here by American football
and tend to be a little rougher I think... more
like the Samoan and Tongan style of play...
nastiest little buggers I ever played.

By Lordhobgoblin on Wednesday, December 27, 2000 - 07:00 am: Edit

Pikkle,

A rugby club in every medium sized American town, and I thought you lot were afraid of full contact sports unless you were protected by full body armour.

You are a tough man indeed Pikkle, I find it hard to believe that you drink as sensibly as you claim to.

Hobgoblin

By Pikkle on Wednesday, December 27, 2000 - 06:22 am: Edit

His goblin-ess.

Yes, I play rugby, not much lately due to work
schedule and all but I'm a prop, sort of small
for a prop (5'10", 215 lbs), only play on the 'b'
squad as it wasn't bred into my bones like
some of my teammates... love the game
though, rare day in hell to catch any on the tv
but in almost any medium sized town in the
States, there's a rugby club tucked away
somewhere so when I travel, I bring my boots
just in case...

As for walking while drunk... if I'm careful,
which I usually am, I can make a lot go a long
way... I mix my absinthe usually 2 or 3 parts
water to one part absinthe... I like my drinks
strong, what can I say... but I can feel it when
I'm hitting my plateau and usually taper it off
after that... I'm too sensible to be a good
drunk...

By Lordhobgoblin on Wednesday, December 27, 2000 - 06:15 am: Edit

Pikkle,

You play Rugby!!! What sort an American are you?

Hobgoblin

By Lordhobgoblin on Wednesday, December 27, 2000 - 06:10 am: Edit

Pikkle & Don,

Pikkle,

"mind you, if you've had enough to drink to give you a hangover anyway, it's gonna be hard to remember to plug down two or three glasses of water, let alone the aspirin"

Exactly, if you're sober enough to be able to remember to do this then you're not properly drunk.

Don,

I wasn't talking about a civilised 3 or 4 glasses in an evening (which wouldn't result in a hangover from anything) I was thinking of more like a proper booze up, drink until you fall over.

If a good old drinking session like this was carried out sensibly, (i.e. mix the absinthe with 4 parts water, drank over a sensible time period (e.g 5 hours), no other type of booze, cigarettes or other stimuli consumed, and care was taken not to fall over on a hard surface and bang my head) would you have confidence that your Absinthe would result in a hangover-free experience?

Now there's a challenge for you.

Hobgoblin

By Pikkle on Wednesday, December 27, 2000 - 05:16 am: Edit

Oh yes, alcohol poisoning... never had it
myself but I'm sure I've promoted it before... I
was having a party one night and this fellow
who we called 'Earwhig' walks up to me and a
friend of mine, Buddha, who was a lineman
for U of M at the time and grabs about a 3/4 full
fifth of Absolut from my hands like a smart
ass... he's a small guy, maybe 5'7", 140 lbs...
so my buddy bets him ten dollars from each of
us that he can't down the rest of the Absolut
that's in the bottle... the little guy puts it to his
mouth and empties it in about 30 seconds...
well, we found out like the next day that after
he'd gone home that night, he wasn't able to
be awakened for two days... I'm sure glad he
didn't die but he probably came close... and to
boot, I never did give him the ten dollars
(Buddha did, nice guy!)
The moral of the story is, he should have been
drinking one of those finer sipping vodkas like
Belvedere or Grey Goose... he probably would
have only taken a day to sleep it off.

By _blackjack_ on Wednesday, December 27, 2000 - 05:05 am: Edit

I don't think I've ever had a hangover, per se. Alcohol poisoning I've had, but that involved a quart and a half of vodka in about twenty minutes...

...and half a can of butane...
...and about $200 in property damage...
...and a new shirt...

By Pikkle on Wednesday, December 27, 2000 - 04:54 am: Edit

I rarely get a hangover from drinking
absinthe... unless I've been doing so on an
empty stomach and don't take my usual
hangover precautions... two or three cold
glasses of water right before bed and a
couple of aspirin to boot... I usually feel about
90% in the morning after that if not better...
mind you, if you've had enough to drink to give
you a hangover anyway, it's gonna be hard to
remember to plug down two or three glasses
of water, let alone the aspirin... I do know that
with the better vodkas, the ones distilled 4 and
5 times like Grey Goose, I almost never get
hungover the next day...

Lordhobgoblin

I have family that came from Ireland, Co.
Wexford and up in Belfast... the Nenagh
connection is a friend of mine's family whom I
play rugby with.... I love Co. Tipperary and the
Midlands, beautiful countryside... hopefully I
plan on going back in the summer if work
permits. Gotta make that money!

By Don_walsh on Wednesday, December 27, 2000 - 03:21 am: Edit

Fair enough. However, don't test the propositiopn by having one absinthe and a six-pack, pls.

All I can tell you is: I drink what I make, and maybe a little more than I ought. And unless I mix with other booze (always a bad idead by conventional wisdom), I wake up just fine. If I do the evening with beer or whiskey I wake up with a hangover. The difference is NOT that the drink is absinthe; the difference is that I polish the spirits that go into the absinthe.

Cleaning the alcohol costs money. Brewers and whiskey makers are making cogeners; I am not. I buy potable alcohol, and I polish it, then I make absinthe with it. I ferment NOTHING. I mate very well cleansed alcohol with herbs abd I distill THAT. It is nearly cogener free.

Now I make no warrantee if you overindulge. This is 140 proof liqueur and if you drink like a fool you can hurt yourself (or die). But the usual absintheur's three or four a night and you won't be waking to a hangover.

By Lordhobgoblin on Wednesday, December 27, 2000 - 03:08 am: Edit

Don,

Well then it must be that every distiller of any sort whose produce I have consumed in large quanities must care nothing for me the drinker. I have yet to come across a spirit of any sort that doesn't give me a hangover (even when mixed with water, tonic, coke etc), vodka, gin, rum, whiskey (of the best quality), brandy, liquers of all descriptions, and absinthe, all have given me hangovers, no exceptions.

You can perhaps understand why I believe that hangover free booze is a myth. If you believe that Jade liquers will prove me wrong then best of luck to you Don and in time I hope I can look forward to you proving me wrong, but I won't believe it until I experience it.

Hobgoblin

By Don_walsh on Wednesday, December 27, 2000 - 01:16 am: Edit

If the alcohol used to make the absinthe is 'clean', then the absinthe will be as hangover free as if you drank the alcohol (suitably diluted) without the herbs. It isn't that the herbs cancel the hangover. It is that the clean alcohol lacks the toxins that cause the hangover: heads (methanol, ethyl acetate) and tails (amyl alcohol isomers commonly known as 'fusel oils'). All of these are fermentation byproducts.

Those amyl alcohols are the stuff that amyl nitrate inhalants are made out of. They REEK.

There are two main processes for cleaning up or 'polishing' typically dirty neutral spirits. One is fractional distillation and the other is activated carbon (activated charcoal). The first is fact and expensive, the second is cheap but painfully slow. Ask a vodka maker. A week over charcoal is better than nothing. A few weeks is better than a week. A few months, good. Six months, great.

Fractionation: the better the seperation the slower the process, and both heating and cooling consume absurd amounts of energy.

Giving the drinker no hangover is the art of the distiller, not the myth, any distiller who gives you a hangover-maker is a distiller who cares NOTHING for you, the drinker.

All the old directions about wine spirits (eau de vie) being superior to grain spirits for making absinthe, merely is a matter of different cogeners being present. Clean up any POTABLE ethanol made from ANY fermentable source, sufficiently, and the result is clean hangover free tasteless odorless ethanol. In modern times we need not rely on taste or smell, we have instrumentation to tell us when the alcohol is clean enough. And clean enough for Jade Liqueurs is a lot cleaner than it is for some makers.

By Black_rabbit on Wednesday, December 27, 2000 - 12:26 am: Edit

Worst hangover I (and most of the people I know who drink absinthe) have ever had was from absinthe. In each case, we had no cold water, and so used ice in the glass... and didn't let it melt out of impatience. Which meant we were drinking it almost straight... Save for my one friend, who killed a bottle of Sebor with his pal, straight, and swore off the stuff forever (which lasted about two weeks.)

Never had a hangover from watered absinthe though.

By Lordhobgoblin on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 11:00 pm: Edit

Martin,

Never tried the canned draft Beamish, must give it a go, but if canned draft Guinness is not chilled when you open it it goes everywhere. Also if you can get Boddington's Bitter (brewed in Manchester, England) as canned draft bitter it's also good stuff, its a bitter but it settles in the glass just like Guinness, tastes excellent.

Never had that strange hangover you had on Deva, but I had a real stinking hangover after a night of tucking into the entire Spirit's Corner range. Lasted 2 days, a real bastard, one of the worst hangovers I've experienced. Don't believe those on this forum who peddle the myth that Absinthe doesn't give you a hangover, (as much a myth as the myth that good quality Red Wine doesn't give you a hangover).

Hobgoblin

By Lordhobgoblin on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 11:00 pm: Edit

Martin,

Never tried the canned draft Beamish, must give it a go, but if canned draft Guinness is not chilled when you open it it goes everywhere. Also if you can get Boddington's Bitter (brewed in Manchester, England) as canned draft bitter it's also good stuff, its a bitter but it settles in the glass just like Guinness, tastes excellent.

Never had that strange hangover you had on Deva, but I had a real stinking hangover after a night of tucking into the entire Spirit's Corner range. Lasted 2 days, a real bastard, one of the worst hangovers I've experienced. Don't believe those on this forum who peddle the myth that Absinthe doesn't give you a hangover, (as much a myth as the myth that good quality Red Wine doesn't give you a hangover).

Hobgoblin

By Martin on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 09:25 pm: Edit

Here, they have these cans of Guiness you can get that have these gas-filled balls in them that "explode" when you open the can. It gives the beer the perfect head, like it just came off the tap. It seems to work pretty well. Beamish has their version of it too, but their's is much more powerful. You can feel the can exploding in your hand... you usually have to open it over the sink. It's alot of fun. Those are the only beers I enjoy from a can.

MM doesn't work on you? I'm suprised, it works on me great. It does seem a little milder than what I've experienced with Deva and Serpis. Actually, Deva did some scary things to me once. I was all shakey and twitchy and the next day I had the oddest hangover. I didn't feel sick or cruddy like a normal hangover, I just felt kinda "off".. it lasted about 4 or 5 days too.

Strange.

-Martin

By Lordhobgoblin on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 09:10 pm: Edit

Black Rabbit,

I think that thujone effects must depend very much on a person's metabolism. 3 glasses of Serpis is enough for me (my Serpis was bought from Spirits Corner 2 months ago) to get that mild light buzz but then 3 glasses of most absinthes usually has this effect on me, (Mari Mayans and Lassalla however don't work on me).

Pikkle,

Personally I'm not all that fussed on Segara, it's just a little bit too bitter for me, but it does have a nice sort of honey flavour in the background, perhaps it'll grow on me. Can't comment on American Guinness but English Guinness is not the same as Irish Guinness but things have improved over the past 12 years I've been living here. A lot of it has to do with how its poured, unfortunately there is a tendency for bar staff to rush the process. Does your family have a Nenagh connection? My father's family come from just outside Nenagh.

Martin,

Beamish is fine, a sort of smokey flavour. Murphy's is also an Irish stout worth trying.

Hobgoblin

By Martin on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 07:38 pm: Edit

How much did you drink? Three glasses was the perfect amount for me.

-Martin

By Black_rabbit on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 10:38 am: Edit

Martin and LH, I tried Serpis and got no secondaries whatsoever. I liked the taste, but it had the same effect pastis does on me. Perhaps a batch variation, or a metabolic one?

When did you both try it?

By Pikkle on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 09:26 am: Edit

I won't drink the Guiness here... not the same
as in Ireland unfortuantely, even on tap... we
have one half way decent Irish bar in Ann
Arbor which is kind of the 'place to be' and it's
still not as good as it was in Nenagh...

As for the Serpis, I couldn't go with it... it tastes
almost kind of musty to me... and when i first
tried the Segarra, it was reminiscent of Serpis
as well, but I quickly discovered the
distinctions as I became aware of the much
more complex nature of the Segarra... my first
choice amongst the 'commercial' brands.
Hopefully I can win over some converts at the
soiree I'll be attending this New Year's Eve...
lot's of granola types, hopefully they won't be
too stoned to appreciate this fine beverage...

By Martin on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 08:27 am: Edit

Yup, I've tried Serpis, and I loved it. It has a great bitter flavor to it, not too heavy on the anise. In fact, I finished off the bottle this past Halloween with that nice Japanese girl I mentioned in another thread. She loved it too. Yes, it does get good effects, and red color was perfect for Halloween!

There's alot of stout drinkers here! Guiness will always be my favorite, but I recently found a brand called Beamish (from County Cork, Ireland) that is also VERY good. I'm a big fan of Black & Tans too (either with Bass or with Harp).

-Martin

By Lordhobgoblin on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 08:03 am: Edit

Don,

That sarin testing at Porton Down. Was that where they got a load of British Soldiers to volunteer to test what they were told was a vaccine for the common cold or something then they got them to breathe in nerve gas? Nice to know the country repays its soldiers for years of loyal service, not to mention risking their lives in the service of their country. The MOD is still trying to insist it acted fairly.

Martin,

Good to see there are Stout drinkers in the Mid-west. Guinness is still the best, although I'm not overly keen on the Guinness Extra Cold, bit of a traditionalist myself. On absinthe, have you ever tried Serpis? Personally I think its great, the red colour looks wonderfully sacrilegious and the thujone effects are good, (for me anyway). I got it from Sprits Corner along with the rest of their range, never tried Herrings myself as Spirits Corner only stocked minature bottles of Herrings when I looked.

Have a Happy New Year and I hope you end up as drunk as I'll be.

Hobgoblin

By Black_rabbit on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 08:02 am: Edit

I am hoping my order gets in on time for new years... I am going to experiment with Absinthe and Cointreu (it tastes like orange peels and has a nice blue-white louche.)

and yes Don, I was kidding (but Pikkle's was way better.)

By Martin on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 07:12 am: Edit

oh.. and of course Guiness is always my first choice as far as beer is concerned. Has anyone here had Mackesson XXX? I may have spelled that wrong. Anyway, it's a really good beer with a beautiful deep red color. I love it, but unfortunately there's only one place around here I can get it.

-Martin

By Martin on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 07:08 am: Edit

For New Year's, I'm trying some new concoctions. Among them, I think Avalanche and Mari Mayans should prove interesting. Avalanche is a mint schnapps from Canada. It has alot of sugar in it and it is a very unnatural bright blue color. I think it will be interesting to see how that will look mixed with MM and seltzer or club soda. I'm also going to give the whole absinthe and champagne thing a shot. My dealer tried it the other day, and said it's pretty good, but it usually leaves you a wreck the next day.

I'm also going to try to get a bottle of Segarra to try. If I can't get Segarra, I'll probably get some Deva or Herring... both of which I've had before, so I'd really rather have the Segarra. I hope my dealer isn't sold out.

-Martin

By Don_walsh on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 05:39 am: Edit

I am happy to hear that sarin is not a feature in your life. It is safe enough as a drawing on paper, otherwise it is nasty indeed. There are worse things though. Sarin breaks down quickly in the environment by hydrolysis and is this a non-persistent agent. It is by the way a high boiling liquid not a gas at all, and it works quite precisely like bug spray. Only for higher mammals. A guy named Schrader invented it and its cousins tabun and soman about 63 years ago in Germany. Parallel work was done at Porton Down, but neither side elected to use it during WWII out of fear born of mutual experience in WWI. Both sides maintained ready stockpiles close at hand though. Even the Nazis feared to use it. Hitler was gassed in the first war and had no love of it.

(The Italians used some gas in Africa during the war but not against the allies. The Japanese used some in Manchuria and China and and also experimented extensively on Chinese with bio weapons. But never against the Allies.)

By Lordhobgoblin on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 05:34 am: Edit

Pikkle,

On New Years Eve, a few glasses of Deva and a few Irish Whiskies to warm up before going out. Then of out for a good feed of Red Wine and Guinness. Then wake up sick as a pig the next day. That's the plan anyway.

And anyway this nonsense about Absinthe not giving you a hangover, don't believe it. I tried getting totally poleaxed on Absinthe, made me puke up all round and gave me a 2 day hangover. Good fun though.

Hobgoblin

By Lordhobgoblin on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 05:27 am: Edit

Blackjack,

I can understand your opinion on firearms, even if I disagree. I was only being facetious.

I'd also fancy my chances outrunning a Machete wielding maniac rather than a speeding bullet. It's usually possible to run away from an assailant as long as he doesn't catch you by surprise, as their will to kill you isn't usually as strong as your will to live.

And Don apologies for mis-spelling sarin. As saren gas is not something that plays a part in my life, hence the mis-spelling of it...

Hobgoblin

By Pikkle on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 04:41 am: Edit

Okay... who's going to be drinking what on
New Years? I took a few of Mr. Breaux's SC
holiday suggestions and bought some of that
fig liquer, the ever so nasty advocaat bols and
some cuban rum... I'm toting everything to a
party down the street on the eve of the new
millenium where I'll also be attempting to gain
some new absinthe devotees with some
Segarra, Deva and La Bleue... too bad I don't
have any of your fine product yet Don, could be
growing your customer base... I know, all in
good time... I'll be in N.O. in March anyway.

By Pikkle on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 04:36 am: Edit

The machete has become one of the primary
weapons of terror in a few African nations... I
know what it does and I know what it was
intended to so. Personally, I'd rather get shot
with a high powered rifle than hacked to
pieces by a machete... my opinion. Yes... let's
talk about absinthe now... if I'm not going to be
generating a fifth octave harmonic doing so.

By _blackjack_ on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 04:29 am: Edit

Marc, I think we've found out why the women flee...

Anyway, machete's are designed to cut brush, not flesh and bone. Their harmonics and sectional geometry are all wrong. If you're looking at hacking into people, I'd recommend a falchion or a hefty kukhri.

Of course, you'd have to CATCH the people first. Bullets are harder to outrun. If I was looking to do a lot of damage in a crowd, I'd go with a pump-action shotgun. They put a lot of metal in the air and make that nice intimidating cha-chunk noise.

The largest mass-shooting in recent US history (George Hennard, Luby's Cafeteria in Texas, 1991, 22 people plus himself) was done with a Glock 9mm, so it's as much a matter of circumsance and determination as the weapon.

But nothing beats a high-powered rifle and a good-concealed sniping nest...

By Don_walsh on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 04:27 am: Edit

Damn. Isn't there a rule against mentioning absinthe on this forum or something? So few people seem to be doing it.

How about some uncivil disobedience? Let's talk absinthe.

By Pikkle on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 04:22 am: Edit

I don't know if he was but I am... all this we
speak as the radio once again bleats out a
report of workplace violence, 7 dead, maybe
more... Happy Holidays, drink much good
absinthe in the New Year!

By Don_walsh on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 04:19 am: Edit

BR, I know nothing of strolling through a campus slaughtering innocents, nor am I interested in advising anyone on the best way to do so.

I suppose you are being facetious.

By Pikkle on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 03:50 am: Edit

I don't know, I think if I were going to really put
the shocker into a group of people I was
walking through, I'd want them to know who I
am as I hack them to pieces with a machete.
An assault style weapon is just so impersonal
and very inaccurate when shooting from the
hip in those crowd assualt situations and
once the first couple of 'pops' go off, people
usually tend to spread like melted butter so all
of your targets quickly disappear. On the other
hand, a machete is more gruesome, less
noisy, it won't jam, you don't need to reload it
and if properly cared for, will last through the
whole days carnage. And when you're all
done, you can go home and trim the hedges
with it! Do that with an SKS!

By Black_rabbit on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 03:29 am: Edit

On the subject of the 'power' of a weapon, I think that depends on your purpose.

For example, if you are trying to kill someone, one someone, a big powerful bullet is best. But if you are trying to walk through a crowded area like a campus and cause as much damage and loss of life as possible, IMVHO something semi automatic, black and scary would probably actually be better- being alone, and facing almost certain return fire from multiple sources at some point, you would want to be able to lay your own suppressive fire. I wouldn't want to try to keep several people completely under cover (and therefore not shooting at me as much) with a hunting rifle. I would rather have a clip with a lot of bullets. An 'assault rifle' would be OK, but a submachine gun like an MP3 would be much nicer.

Don, you know about this sort of thing- am I right, or am I an idiot?

Not that I plan out such things in real life, you understand... but I do think about them sometimes (I play geeky role-playing games like Shadowrun and Star Wars, and the tactical planning generally falls to me.)

BR

By Don_walsh on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 03:12 am: Edit

Sarin is not spelled with an 'e'.

By _blackjack_ on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 03:03 am: Edit

---

Quote:

Hell, Blackjack, I might just buy me a few kilos of Semtex and a couple of canisters of Saren Gas, just on the off chance that the government starts to repress me.

---

By Lordhobgoblin on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 03:02 am: Edit

Don

"A plague on them all."

We can agree on this at least.

Hobgoblin

By Don_walsh on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 03:00 am: Edit

Pardon me, Lord H, but guns are designed to expel a projectile by the ignition of propellant. Where a gun is pointed and whether or not the person behind the gun is right or wrong, is not determined by the gun, is it?

As to Irish history I wouldn't presume any continuity from past to present; I doubt if many of the Feinians would much approve of bombing of civilian targets. I am not arguing the cause of the Provos, nor of the Red hand of Ulster. A plague on them all.

By Lordhobgoblin on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 02:50 am: Edit

Don,

Unfortunately as an Irishman from County Down I have seen at first hand what guns can do. Guns are designed to cause death, paralysis, pain and suffering and they are used to these ends. Guns are not "Big Boy's Toys". I have no time at all for the men (and women) who hide their bigotry behind the masks of Nationalism or Unionism, they are all murderous scum.

No offence Don but history can appear romantic but it seldom was. History is only one person's prejudiced view of how he'd like a period in time to be remembered (and usually he wasn't there to know what really happened). It pains me when Irish history is painted as a glorious struggle with a continous line from the past to the present, that is just not the reality. As far as Ireland goes the past is dead, let's bury it (rather than bury more people) and move on.

Hobgoblin

By Don_walsh on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 02:18 am: Edit

Lord H, it has to do with our self-view as citizen-soldiers. A view that dates to pre-revolutionary times when conditions were harsh.

It is no accident that the world's finest rifle marksmen are the Americans and the Swiss. Every adult Swiss male is a member of the armed forces and keeps his SIG selective fire battle-rifle at home. It is the same mentality.

In the US, it was until very recently government policy to promote rifle markmanship among the civilian population, as an element of national military preparadness. The Pentagon's Director if Civilian Marksmanship sold many millions of surplus US Military small arms, and huge quantities of ammunition, at very low costs, to civilians for target practice. These included .45 Colt M-1911 series autoamtic pistols, .30 M1 Carbines in semiautomatic, .30 M1 Garand rifles, Springfield bolt action rifles, etc. A very limited number of M14 rifles with the selective fire capability removed were sold this way, and the M16's civilian model, the AR-15, was available until very recently on the commercial market. It still may be, subject to some magazine capacity limits.

All that someone had to do to buy these was to join a gun club and apply for purchase through the National Rifle Association, and participate in organized target shooting competition.

Only a tiny number of these weapons -- out of many millions -- have ever been stolen or diverted into criminal hands.

Also, shooting at paper, or informally plinking at tin cans, is FUN.

You say you can't comprehend our fascination.

Here's what Americans can't comprehend:

When the Germans were preparing to invade England, the government appealed to the American PEOPLE for help and not only did FDR create Lend-Lease, but milliosn of Americans gave their privately owned firearms to Britain to arm the Home Guard.

At the conclusion of the war, the UK did not retain these weapons for future contingencies, nor did they returen them to theiur benefactors with the thanks of a grateful nation.

No, they dumped them all in the sea, the graceless bastards.

So I am afraid we simply have to agree to disagree about this one.

I would have thought an Irishman from Co.Down would understand. While the Brits always covertly armed the Orangemen (or created the old paramilitary units like the B-specials), the Greens had to rely on Wolf Tone (a Protestant Irish Nationalist leader) and later Sir Roger Casement (a Peer and member of the House of Lords) to arrange for smuggled arms from the continent, usually Germany. Some of this is immortalized in song ("Me Old Howth Gun")

Anyway it was always too little too late, so Michael Collins preferred to knock over RIC armories, get the latest and best, while de Valera fell back on his Yank connections and got smuggled weapons or cash to pay for them. de valera was a US citizen, only thing that saved him from a firing party after the Post Office debacle.

By Lordhobgoblin on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 02:17 am: Edit

Blackjack,

Hell, Blackjack, I might just buy me a few kilos of Semtex and a couple of canisters of Saren Gas, just on the off chance that the government starts to repress me. I'd advise all you good folks to do the same ;-)

Hobgoblin
(If anybody needs me you'll find me in the underground concrete bunker I've built at the bottom of my garden)

By _blackjack_ on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 02:06 am: Edit

---

Quote:

Ownership of hunting rifles and farmers with shotguns I can understand, but what's the point in the others?

---

By Lordhobgoblin on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 01:42 am: Edit

Perruche Verte,

Velvet Underground may have given Andy Warhol the boot, (as they did Nico) not long after their first album but if it hadn't have been for Andy Warhol their first album, Velvet Underground & Nico would not have happened. It was the whole mix of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, Nico and Velvet Underground that caused this album to happen. Without Andy Warhol this would not have occurred and Velvet Underground would have remained an unknown, obscure but talented underground band.

The Velvet Underground & Nico album was Velvet Underground's defining moment and the subsequent albums are nowhere even remotely in the same league as this truly exceptional album, the subsequent albums are at best reasonable album with a couple of very good tracks on each.

Without Andy Warhol very few people would ever have heard of the Velvet Underground and they would not have had the influence they have had.

Hobgoblin

(Sorry you missed the Punk thread thing. You could always start one of your own, there's probably enough interest to keep it going a bit. You're not by any chance another 30 something ex-punk are you?)

By Lordhobgoblin on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 - 01:41 am: Edit

Without meaning to cause offence can I ask just why so many people in the USA are obsessed with owning bits of military hardware they're never going to use?

Surely the only purpose these weapons are designed for is to cause death and injury to other human beings.

As someone who lives in a country where even most of the police aren't armed I find this motivation to own such weapons a bit hard to understand.

Ownership of hunting rifles and farmers with shotguns I can understand, but what's the point in the others?

Just a question, no value judgements intended in the above.

Hobgoblin

By Don_walsh on Monday, December 25, 2000 - 07:16 pm: Edit

Nice riff and very pc, Marc, but, what do you suggest?

We all sit around and talk about textures and fabrics?

Or cry a lot and display our sensitivity?

Personally I'd ba happy to talk about absinthe, that is what we are supposed to be here for, not guns, nor hi-fi, nor antimatter, not de Sade, nor proportions of putative genitalia.

Martin apparently has discovered that he was not blazing any new trails and is now comparing pre-amps. I must admit, it's a welcome change from his earlier tack, but. But. Absinthe is better.

By Marc on Monday, December 25, 2000 - 06:48 pm: Edit

I think this thread pretty much sums up why so few women spend time here. We've gone from "shit-eating" and "sex is boring hippie shit" to rocket launchers and bolt action rifles. The forum has all the appeal of a men's locker room. The smell of sweat socks and Right Guard is making me nauseus.

By Don_walsh on Monday, December 25, 2000 - 06:36 pm: Edit

Anatomist, a typical bolt action hunting rifle is a .308 or .30-'06 or 8mm Mauser. Those are all standard military full powered rifle and MG chamberings of the 20th century, and the rifles are a LOT more accurate than a SKS or AKM, HK91 or whatever.

Thus, the probability of hitting a target with one of these is higher not lower than with an assault rifle.

And as they are also substantially more powerful, per round, having both heavier projectiles and substantially higher velocities, the terminal effects are much greater and thus, probability of hit and kill is much greater. KE goes up first order (linearly) with projectile mass and second order with projectile velocity -- i.e., exponentially. Power of 2 in this case.

In short, I can work the bolt on a Remington 700 faster than I can aim, and anything I hit with a .30-'06 is going to be a lot worse off than anything I hit with a SKS. By about a factor of 4.

1 round that hits is more powerful than x-number of rounds that do not.

The military has rediscovered this because they have re-invented sniping in the last 20 years.

We played with all sorts of mathematical models for improved probability of hit and kill, leading to all sorts of experimental infantry weapons from Salvo Squeezebore to Flechettes to SPIW to serial this and that to caseless. DARPA was in the game, so were BRL, Springfield, Rodman labs, The ORO at Johns Hopkins, Picatinny Arsenal, Aberdeen, the whole RDT&E community for the last 55 years, and the only things to emerge have been the 5.56mm M16 series and the 40mm thump-gun grenade. The first because someone noticed that the .222 Remington was hell on squirrels, and the other because someone decided a golf ball shaped warhead would be feasible (it was called Project NIBLICK).

What I am saying is, if you want to argue the meaning of powerful with me, I hope you know more than martin does about antimatter.

However, I don't think that's your intent or focus. You want to argue gun control, and I don't. So let's drop it and talk about absinthe. TALK ABOUT ABSINTHE on the Absinthe Forum, what a novel idea.

By Don_walsh on Monday, December 25, 2000 - 06:08 pm: Edit

No one is talking about rocket launchers, weapons of mass destruction, sarin gas, or explosives here.

The whole 'assault weapon' flap and ban was bogus. The term 'assault weapon'
was an artifice coined by a few after-market accessory manufacturers to
dress up civilian firearms to make them look 'black and mean' as someone
else on the forum commented. It was a cosmetic matter.

The media picked up on the term 'assault weapon' and used it wildly.

There is no military small arms terminology that equates. 'Assault rifle'
had a very specific meaning for the German Army in WWII as they were
experimenting with the Stg-44/MP-44 class of weapon which fired a much less
powerful 7.92x33 'intermediate' cartridge than their standard 7.92x57
Mauser. This was later copied more or less wholesale by the Soviets as the
Svtomat Kalashnikova-47 (AK-47) firing a very similar 7.62x39 intermediate
round. In both cases the intent was to trade off range and power for lots of
shorter range firepower, principally for mechanized infantry supporting armor.

The comparable American weapon in WWII was M1 Carbine, 7.62x33mm, but a lot
less potent than either the German or Russian, being really in the pistol
caliber class. It had and has a really bad reputation for stopping power.

The SKS carbine was introduced by the Russians during WWII and fires the
same intermediate cartridge as the later AK47. However it is stripper-fed
from the top like a bolt action, has a fixed magazine of 10 rds only, and a
wooden stock. It is NOT an assult rifle.

Any objective survey of crimes in the USA in the decade leading up to the
ban, or earlier, shows that most crimes involving firearms are committed
with neither handguns nor military style rifles but with hunting shotguns
and .22 rimfire hunting rifles, i.e., the weapon at hand. However, the
anti-gun lobby has never been one to be confused with the facts. Shamefully
some elements in the firearms industry colluded in this and thus you now
have all the asinine laws about magazine capacity etc.

There was a time and not so long ago when law abiding people simply took
pleasure in shooting at paper targets with weapons they found interesting,
and these included military style firearms, often these were war trophies or
souvenirs.

There is ZERO correlation between firepower and use in crime. FULLY
automatic weapons, of which more than 200,000 are lawfully in private hands
still in the USA, are the least involved in crime -- that is, registered
machine guns. These have been federally registered since 1934 and in those
66 years only ONE registered automatic weapon has been used in a crime.

Almost all of the UNregistered fully automatic weapons in circulation have
been stolen from the US military.

As crime continues to spiral out of control, politicians look for easy high
profile scapegoats and ways to pretend that they, the politicians,
individually are doing something about crime. Irrelevant gun laws are a
favorite hobby horse. RELEVANT solutions such as mandatory sentencing for
use of a firearm in a crime -- something LONG advocated by the NRA and every
other firearms owners organization -- are out of favor with the ACLU and the
left, because they are bloody EFFECTIVE at putting criminals in jail and
keeping them there, and this is frowned upon by ethnic minorities whose
membership includes 98% of violent criminals. (I do not celebrate that fact,
I am not a racist, I am just making an observation.) This is just more
bullshit. Anyway now I life in Thailand and here guns are easy to own,
although not cheap. And crime is NOT a problem here.

Guns are inanimate objects. It is easy to make a totem out of guns and point at it and say BAD! and pass laws and pretent the laws are magical incantations that will banish the bad spirits that bother the people. However, the problem is a rot deep in American society, or in some parts of society, and no amount of shamanism is going to deal with that. Deal with the criminals and the causes of crime, and maybe you will do something about crime. Stripping the American people of a constitutional right, one regarded by the framers of the constitution as second only in importance to the right of free speech, is not the way to go. And don't give me the old argument about the meaning of 'a well regulated militia' -- the militia was every man between the early teens and dotage, it was the able bodied citizenry pure and simple, and 'well regulated' just meant they had to know how to shoot. And hit! not that there needed to be a big umbrella of rules and restrictions. It meant skilled and orderly.

By Perruche_verte on Monday, December 25, 2000 - 05:55 pm: Edit

Wow, head out of town for a couple days and I miss the whole punk rock thread.

Saying that punk "was" Situationism, and that McLaren and Rhodes (as opposed to Lydon/Jones and Strummer/Jones, respectively) invented it, seems a bit contrived, the sort of thing one might say after an overdose of Greil Marcus. Forgive me - as a musician, I shudder at critical theories that take responsibility away from the musicians themselves and give it to managers and handlers. Lydon at any rate was extremely dismissive of any such idea later in life (his autobiography is an entertaining read).

For anyone who doesn't know, Lydon stopped calling himself Johnny Rotten for a while because Malcolm McLaren was claiming legal rights to the damned *name*, as well as that of the Sex Pistols. Sounds very Situationist to me, not to mention anti-authoritarian. He did lose eventually.

His next managership/Svengali relationship was with Bow Wow Wow, featuring the lovely Annabella. Being teenagers, they were more reliant on him and more amenable to having their career and image controlled -- I recall reading a quote by him to that effect. Yuck.

BTW, as to the VU, Cale's autobiography deals with Warhol's role -- mostly a generous and somewhat absentminded father figure, not at all a controller. Reed and Cale both acknowledge that he did a lot for them at first -- getting them invited to parties, introducing Nico (whom they hated at first), getting their first album produced and providing rehearsal space, but eventually he seemed to lose interest and stopped putting out much effort. Then Reed fired him, which made him angry but didn't result in any lawsuits or other unpleasantness.

By Anatomist1 on Monday, December 25, 2000 - 05:50 pm: Edit

First it was antimatter, now we're going to debate the meaning of the word powerful? I guess I wasn't speaking that precisely, but a weapon that you can kill or injure around 10 or more times as many people with in a given time span as you could with a quality, bolt-action hunting rifle is, at least in some sense, a more powerful weapon.

Pikkle:

Damn! That's profound. I never thought of it that way. I guess, then, you could just substitute 'rocket launchers', 'canisters of Sarin gas', or 'portable nuclear explosive devices' for the word 'guns' in that sentence, and it would make just as much sense. I'm going to lobby my congressman immediately to try and get these things available to the public at really cheap prices.

K.

By _blackjack_ on Monday, December 25, 2000 - 04:30 pm: Edit

---

Quote:

but the fact that he could get a weapon that powerful, that cheaply and easily seems like a problem to me.

---

By Pikkle on Monday, December 25, 2000 - 04:14 pm: Edit

Guns don't kill people... people kill people.

And on that note, some more Deva!

Merry Christmas!!!

By Anatomist1 on Monday, December 25, 2000 - 09:07 am: Edit

Practically any legislation becomes a ridiculous mess by the time it is passed. I can't say that I'm opposed to restrictions on assault-style weapons in theory, though. It's hard to get around the fact that they're weapons of war, and not civilian self-defense or recreation.

A kid went psycho with an assault rifle at the small college I used to attend. He bought a used chinese SKS at a sporting goods store for $100, then he ordered 500 rounds of ammo and a bunch of high-capacity clips through mail order. He slowly walked through campus and fired away, killing a security guard, a prof. and several students, and injured others. Fortunately, the rifle was so cheap that he couldn't load the clips properly, and only got a few rounds from each before it jammed. Otherwise, he probably would have killed over 100 people and put the college out of business forever. A large portion of the blame rests with campus security and faculty fuck ups, but the fact that he could get a weapon that powerful, that cheaply and easily seems like a problem to me. Of course, how any specific law would make a difference, I have no idea.

K.

By Martin on Sunday, December 24, 2000 - 06:31 pm: Edit

Segarra sounds good. That's the brand I'm going to try next. How would you compare it to Deva?

-Martin

By Pikkle on Sunday, December 24, 2000 - 06:21 pm: Edit

Anything that was remotely semi-automatic
and had no specific hunting purpose got
banned... you can still get them but they have
to be manufactured to post-ban standards...
no flash supressor, bayonet lug, Drugonov
style stock (i.e. no pistol grip), 10 round fixed
magazine, etc. Stupid shit really. How many
people go on shooting rampages late at night
moe than a hundred yards from anyone's
view? Who can say they've heard of someone
getting stuck with a bayonet during an assault
or drive-by shooting? It was a big show for the
government to say they were doing something
about rising crime while not pissing on the
NRA too badly... a joke. Now back to my
Segarra... which is also stupidly outlawed.

By Anatomist1 on Sunday, December 24, 2000 - 03:22 pm: Edit

As far as scary goes, my favorite was that semi-auto shotgun with the tommy-gun-style ammo cylinder. Did that one get banned?

K.

By _blackjack_ on Sunday, December 24, 2000 - 02:35 pm: Edit

But, but, they're black and scary!

By Pikkle on Sunday, December 24, 2000 - 11:49 am: Edit

Don

I see it didn't take an email to get you going
about your career again... never the less, i
agree with you a hundred percent about the
press... Things like the '89 assault weapons
import ban were a big show. Statistics even at
that time showed less than 1% of all
homicides using a firearm involved an assault
type weapon. I guess it was a slow year for
news...
BTW When was the last time you've heard of
anyone getting bayonetted in the commission
of a felony?

Okay, back to snow shoveling...

pikkle

By Don_walsh on Sunday, December 24, 2000 - 05:21 am: Edit

Oh, I see. you are a Luddite and a Know-Nothing.

That suits you.

By Martin on Sunday, December 24, 2000 - 12:54 am: Edit

As you may have seen in my previous posts, I'm not just Scottish. I'm such a diverse mix of European blood that it would be foolish for me to claim allegiance to any one of them above another. And even more importantly, I wasn't born in Europe, I was born in Milwaukee. I am an American, from a family that has been in America since the beginning. I am as American as any American can be. I could care less about any shit that went on in Europe. Should I hate Germans because I'm French? Oh wait, I'm German too, so should I hate the French? Should I hate Danes and Swedes because I'm Norwegian? No, because I'm a FUCKING AMERICAN!!!

Stop pining over things that happened hundreds of years before you were born and stop making vague allusions to whatever cryptic gnostic enlightenment you may have. "If only you had seen what I've seen..."

No one cares.

I don't care if you know all about how J. Edgar Hoover used to fuck JFK in the back seat of a 1960 Buick. What difference does any of that make?

-Martin

By Don_walsh on Sunday, December 24, 2000 - 12:36 am: Edit

For a Scot to criticize a weaponsmith is an amazing thing. To quote van Vogt: The right to own a weapon is the right to be free.

After the bastard English crushed Scottisn freedom and independence, with the help of the traitorous Campbells to whom you claim allegience by blood (sorry, Marc! I can but pray that had you lived at those time you would have stood with the just Scottish cause against the treasonous elements within your own clan) the first things the English bastards did was outlaw the Scottish claymore broadsword, both symbol and instrument of freedom in the lands of your forebears.

Weapons are nothing more than tools. Tools have no karmic value. It is how they are used that determines the virtue or evil of their wielder. The myth of the evil arms dealer is a cunningly crafted thing. 99+% of arms sales are government to government. Private arms dealers scramble over the scraps. The gutter press plays up the whole thing. If you don't like the traffic in arms complain to your government. They are the real arms dealers (and the British and French and Germans and so on.) The private arms dealers are the equivalent of algae eaters in an aquarium. Bottom dwellers, all. I quit that racket in disgust after too many years. Your contempt is based on ignorance; mine is based on intimate knowledge. But trust me, Martin, I envy you your ignorance because I know lots of things I wish I could forget.

By Lordhobgoblin on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 08:55 pm: Edit

Pataphysician,

Who would we believe on this, Andy Warhol or Lou Reed? Both very talented men with vastly over-sized egos.

An interesting book is "Pop-ism" by Andy Warhol & Pat Hackett. A reflective auto-biography of Warhol in the 60's, a large section covering the Velvet Underground. A very interesting book (ISBN 0-7126-7443-8)

Hobgoblin

By _blackjack_ on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 08:39 pm: Edit

Heh...at my other favorite online forum (swordforum.com) the dialogue often degrades into arcane discussion of metalugy. I almost forgot where I was.

By Martin on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 12:13 pm: Edit

Walsh,

I thought you were going to keep the family insults out of it. You prove yourself more of an asshole every day.

I would expect nothing less from someone who based his career on mankind's self-destructive nature. I bet its fun coming up with better ways to destroy the Earth.

-Martin

By Pataphysician on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 06:59 am: Edit

Hobgob:

I'll defer to you on the Warhol/VU thing. All I really know about it were some comments by Lou Reed who described Warhol's involvement as him showing up for their first studio session, sitting in the corner of the booth silently and afterwards never returning. Maybe Lou was just asserting his primacy in VU, but he seemed to be suggesting that Warhol was clueless about the whole music scene. But, yeah, Warhol probably was integral in other aspects.

By Don_walsh on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 05:54 am: Edit

Pikkle

Email me privately, I'll be happy to rant about my career till I foam at the mouth and fall over backwards like Prof.Gumby.

However the poor Forum has been hard pressed with all this nonsense from martin.

So I'd just as soon keep my reminiscinces of the arms trade private.

Yours in martinsite

Don

By Don_walsh on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 05:47 am: Edit

Hot rolled or cold rolled?

Doing any forging? Any steel casting? (Now that's tricky. Ask Krupp.)

Sounds like sheet steel to me. 1018 and relatives?

My work was mostly with Cr-Mo-V alloys in the 4100 series and Al-Ti stuff in the 7500s. Pretty mundane. Buddies were doing depleted uranium alloys with titanium, and tungsten machineable refractory products, for tank projectiles APDS-FS-T. That's Armor Piercing Fin Stabilized -- Discarding Sabot -Tracer. Remember the Gulf War? "We couldn't see the American tanks, and then our tanks blew up" Better killing through metallurgy my friends.

Thank you Kennemetal and Nuclear Metals Inc. !

By Pikkle on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 05:40 am: Edit

Well, I'm off to my cold mill... it was 2 degrees
F yesterday outside, about 12 degrees
inside... have a good Christmas all.


pikkle

By Pikkle on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 05:37 am: Edit

A gun designer? What sort of arms did you
deal with? I'm not a collecter really but I do
own a few... Glock 30, Taurus 92 and a
SAR-48... just plinking mostly, home defense,
wild New Years outbursts...

By Pikkle on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 05:35 am: Edit

We don't roll stainless, carbon flat rolled only.
We service the auto industry mostly as well as
service centers. As for the term 'mild' steel,
perhaps you are speaking of the hardness. It
all depends on the metallurgy. More carbon
usually means more hardness. There are
many other factors involved such as melt
temp, percentage of scrap, sulfur, boron,
magnesium, chromium, yadayada. I don't
deal much with the melt side of the business
as I'm on the finishing side.
As for Gordon Lightfoot, he's a Canuck, but
he's all right with me. And yes, i have been to
the Mariner's church in Detroit. Small but nice.
Atheists don't spend much time in places like
those unfortunately...

By Don_walsh on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 05:34 am: Edit

Mild steel is low carbon, 1000 series steel.

Stainless steel is a totally different animal.
303,304,316. Usually Austentitic non magentic. Got to sulphurize it to work and machine it, like 304L, otherwise hell on tools.

If you don't need the high corrosion resistance, go for a good chrome moly, 4130, 4140.

You get into HSS you are talking a lot of tungsten, then you get to stellite and pretty soon you are in refractory metals. All the way to nichrome, hastelloy atc.

Pikkle, I used to be a gun designer and I know steels, heat treats, carburizing, nitriding, cyaniding, salts baths, the works. Never worked the mill end but, I like steel. My hat's off to you but -- not inside the mill OK?

By Don_walsh on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 05:26 am: Edit

"With a load of iron ore 26,000 tons more
Than the Edmond Fitzgerald weighed empty,
That good ship and crew
was a bone to be chewed
When the witch of November came early!"

You gonna tell us all about the Besemer process?
You're not still runnign open hearth are you?
What grade o' coal? Anthracite? Bituminous?

"In a musty old hall in Detro-it they sang
at the Maritime Sailors Cathedral
The churchbell it chimed,
it rang twnety nune times,
for each man on the Edmond Fitzgerald"

By Lordhobgoblin on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 05:25 am: Edit

Pikkle,

Some serious questions which you no doubt can answer easily.

What exactly is mild steel?
How does it differ from "ordinary" steel?
What makes stainless steel stainless?
Is it possible to get mild stanless steel?

I have a mild steel fetish.

Hobgoblin

By Pikkle on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 05:13 am: Edit

I don't eat turkey Hobgoblin. And I usually
don't have time to eat at work, too busy kicking
people like you in the ass to get anything done
at all. And one does not mine steel, one
mines taconite if one were so inclined and for
you laymen out there, taconite is simply iron
pellets and I do not mine taconite, I make
steel from that. If you would like a more
detailed explanation of the steel making
process, feel free to ask. But don't start
bitching when your Renault starts rusting after
two years if you don't.

By Lordhobgoblin on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 05:00 am: Edit

Pataphysician & Pikkle,

Pataphysician,

I'd have to disagree with you about what Warhol did for VU. Granted he didn't invent them like McLaren did the Sex Pistols, however their relationship was essential and certainly symbiotic. Warhol used VU and Nico to raise the profile of his art, but on the other hand without Warhol there would never have been the Exploding Plastic Inevitable with VU as an integral part. As a result we would not have had "the Velvet Underground & Nico" album, what a sad loss that would be, that album was undoubtedly their major contribution to us all. Without Warhol VU would have probably remained as a small but talented underground band, like so many others.

Pikkle,

Your Steel Mine sounds so inviting, I wouldn't be at all surprised if you'll be spending Christmas day down there. A quick 5 minute break to wolf down a turkey sandwich while you sit like a Dickensian figure amongst the acid fumes and oil mist, your face covered in graphite dust. Your idea of Heaven I'm sure.

Hobgoblin

By Don_walsh on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 04:56 am: Edit

Ah, but my blood runs true. I'm much better when I am drinking.

And what you must recall is that the Wallaces prevailed, you gutter Campbell scum.

By Martin on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 04:51 am: Edit

I knew there was a reason..... yup it's fate, I am absolutely Campbell. I probably fought you in a past life and those ancient memories are reappearing in my brain.

I wouldn't advise making any more threats on my life. That's not smart. It only makes you look really bad. Which is what I want of course.

You remind me of an alcoholic uncle I had. He'd go into these illogical rages.... he'd get all liquored up and call up my grandma telling her he was going to cut her throat and all this scary stuff. But he got help, he's much better now. He's really a nice guy when he's not drinking.

-Martin

By Don_walsh on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 04:43 am: Edit

Well, either this is a)fate , b) a matter of you knowing your history of the Scots and twisting to suite, or c) coincidence, but: The Campbells ans the Wallaces/Walshs/Breathnach have had a proper blood feud going for a jolly long time. So, retire, loonie, or I will shuffle off your mortal coil for you.

"Am I being threatened?"

By Martin on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 04:29 am: Edit

My blood is about as mixed European as you can get. If you include both my father's and mother's sides I'm: English, Scottish, Welsh, Norwegian, Italian, German, French, and (a little bit) NORTHERN Irish.

From what I remember the English in me is Chittum, the Scottish is Campbell and Royal Stewart, the Italian is Valentino and Petrucci, and the German is Kramer. Those are the only ones I know for sure. It is believed that the Chittums immigrated to England from the Mediterranean around the time of the first Crusade.

As far as appearance is concerned, there's lots of blue-eyed blondes, but years of intermarriage have made it pretty much pot-luck as to what anyone comes out looking like. If you look at my picture, you see that I came out very Norwegian looking, even though that's only a small part of my blood, but I actually can look very Northern English or German at times as well. My hair is mostly brown normally and my beard is dark with many shocks of red in it (my grandfather had a bright red beard and blonde hair/blue eyes, there's the Norwegian!).

Genealogy is fun. Too bad I hate you so much.

-Martin

By Pikkle on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 04:09 am: Edit

Lordhobgoblin - When you've been spending
all of your time inhaling graphite dust, acid
fumes and rolling oil mist, almost anything
smells good... I did say almost anything.

By Pikkle on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 04:05 am: Edit

Don't you guys ever sleep?

By Don_walsh on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 04:01 am: Edit

Ah, you are not too slow, you picked up on the difference between a personal row and a proper feud. Mind you, the Walshs and the Wallaces are the same Scots sept. Braveheart (William Wallace) is a distant cousin. We are Cambro-Norman Vikings and not Celts at all save my intermarriage and (800 years of) rape. We sport blue eyes mostly, brown hair and red/ginger beards. All my life Scandinavians have been approaching me on aircraft and trying to speak to me in one sort of Norse or another.

Some of my uncles did turn out with black hair and brown eyes like true Celts. But they all became Jesuits. No progeny.

Generally the Walshs in my line who become breeders all were US Marines first. I'm a reject. No kids. I did fight, though.

Martin, I respect you for not pushing things beyond the personal.

By Martin on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 03:40 am: Edit

You got part of that right.. most of us are in Virginia and West Virginia (my dad was born in Morgantown), but you got one teensy part wrong, while we are quite a bit Scottish, we are not even the tiniest bit (except by many generations of marriage perhaps) Irish. The first American Chittum, a guy named John, moved here from England, but he was from a part of northern England that was, at times (due to wars and things like that), part of Scotland.

Look in pretty much ANY copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls and go to the index in the back. You WILL find the name Kittum and you will find several entries for it. Scholars believe it was a name given to the Romans. It is also related to the name Kbris which is very common on the isle of Cyprus.

Don't worry, I have no reason to attack your family. I may seem low, but I'm not normally THAT low. Besides, I don't hate people I've never met or had any contact with.

Strange, I'm actually a really mellow guy who hardly fights with people at all. I guess you just bring out the worst in me. You should be proud.

-Martin

By Pataphysician on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 03:03 am: Edit

Hobgob:

The Warhol/VU comparison to McLaren/Pistols is a good one. But, I think in reality Warhol didn't have much to do with VU. Just lent his name and support.

By Pataphysician on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 02:58 am: Edit

Anatomist1:

I'd bet there is a "Contemporary Art for Dummies" but I wouldn't go quoting it at gallery receptions.

He's a little too conservative, but Robert Hughes' "Shock of the New" gives a good overview of Modern art. There are some anthologies of artist's writings that I like a lot, like "Art in Theory".

Duchamp IS a good place to start. Look for an old Time/Life book (stop snickering) called "The World of Marcel Duchamp" by Calvin Tompkins. It's actually pretty good and very accessible reading. It's about 20 years old, but I see it all the time in used bookstores. That whole series of "Time/Life Library of Art" was pretty well done.

In fact, Duchamp may be all you need. Just study him backwards and forwards and when confronted by anything say stuff like: "I think she's using the same stategy that Duchamp used with his 'Fountain' of 1917...", or "Well, as Duchamp said: 'Any masterpiece is called that by the spectator as a last resort. It is the onlooker who makes the museum.'" And you're in like Flynn.

None of the above is really "contemporary" but no new ideas have been developed in a couple of decades, anyway.

PS: The Motherwell "Dada Painters and Poets" is great, but flawed. It was an early attempt and got skewed by internal politics. A good place to start with Dada is "Dada Art and Anti-Art" by Hans Richter. [BTW, I studied at the International Dada Archive and wrote my Master's thesis on "Anarchist Philosophy in Dada"]

By Don_walsh on Saturday, December 23, 2000 - 12:19 am: Edit

I make no pretense to be of the direct de Serrant bloodline. But I'd have a better shot at it than you do at the Dead Sea Scrolls. Or did you mean the Dweab Sea Scrolls?

No, I'm just another Walsh, there are millions of us. I enjoy the 'family' history rather vicariously.

The Chittums as best I can gather are Scots-Irish Virginians and W.Viginians moved on into Ohio and worse. I will not denigrate your family name, you have done an excellent job. I expect you to not depersonalize your attack on me, to my family name, else I will have to take further offense. Doubtless you think this is a small matter because you are young and stupid. You are wrong.

By Lordhobgoblin on Friday, December 22, 2000 - 11:59 pm: Edit

Don,

A descendant of The Wild Geese and a French nobleman to boot. No wonder your interest in weapons and warfare, its in your genes.

Also on another point I met an old freind of mine recently who now lives in Cambodia of all places, I thought this was probably one of the most dangerous places on Earth to live but he reckons its great. Odd.

Hobgoblin

By Martin on Friday, December 22, 2000 - 11:49 pm: Edit

oooooo... now your royalty. Good for you. Anyone who studies my family history will find that we've been in America since before the Revolution. And if you look REALLY hard, you'll even find my family name (the ancient Semetic version of it) mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Early Jews were apparently quite fearful of the "Kittum".

-Martin

By Don_walsh on Friday, December 22, 2000 - 11:43 pm: Edit

Also, Lord H., I have only today discovered that my putative relatives the Walsh de Serrant in France, had their own regiment of Irish infantry in the French army (The Irish Regiment, The Comte Walsh de Serrant Regiment) for more than a century, and these were THE famous Wild Geese of Legend. The Jacobite descendants who opposed the British on every possible battlefield. And now I learn that not only were we among them, we were their leaders and comanders. Arghh!

And it was troops of this regiment who were loaned to John Paul Jones of the Bonhomme Richard, three of the officers accepting commissions in the Continental marines (now US Marine Corps) and who played a pivotal role in Jones' attack on a british port, in which his cry "We have only just begun to fight!" went down in history along with his victory.

It seems that Louis XIV described the Anjou wine of my family's Chateau de Serrant as 'a drop of gold', that Empress Josephine, closest friend of the Comtes Walsh de Serrant, was also enamoured of our estate wine, and that perhaps I need to be less anglocentric...Napoleon I's chamberlain was a Walsh de Serrant. I have a French MOD promotion list from 2000 and a Walsh de Serrant is present and promoted, our French line is not died out after all. Although the vineyards have changed hands (but are renowned!) and the chateau de Serrant at Anjou in the Val Loire is now state property.

As my mother's ancestors are also of a famous winemaking estate in Sicily, Salaparuta, 'The House of Paruta', home of the Duca di Paruta -- it seems I have purple feet on both sides of the family.

Bardouin will doubtless gnash his teeth at my connection to French nobility, but, hey, c'est la guerre. As for myself, noblesse oblige.

PS sources: US official military histories online, URL's available on request. Want a pic of the Walsh chateau? Slightly more attractive than Blenheim Palace, home of the Duke of Marlborough.

By Don_walsh on Friday, December 22, 2000 - 11:13 pm: Edit

Lord H.,

One of the nicest and tastiest Thai girls (Thai Khmer from Surin on the Cambodian border) was actually named Patchouli. Well, Patcharee, anyway transliteration is a bitch. She got away, unfortunately, and now lives in Gloucester Mass. married to a fisherman who feeds her lobster lobster lobster and lobster, she dreams of beef.

By Midas on Friday, December 22, 2000 - 11:09 pm: Edit

Anatomist, try "Movements In Art Since 1945" by Edward Lucie-Smith. It's published by Thames and Hudson. It's part of the "World of Art" series, so it's fairly generic, but informative nonetheless, and not overly verbose either. Also, I have a fabulous text called "The Dada Patinters and Poets" by Robert Motherwell through The Bellknap Press. Taking one step back, "The Futurist Manifestos'" by Umbro Apollonio is a good source book to get your hands on as well. Futurism was arguably the seed of the tree that is modern art today.
-Robert.

By Lordhobgoblin on Friday, December 22, 2000 - 11:08 pm: Edit

Pataphysician & Pikkle,

Pataphysician - Never heard of Greil Marcus but I might look up "Lipstick Traces", would do no harm anyway. As I've grown into an old, boring, sensible, late-thirty-something, I'm quite partial to the odd book or two.

Do you reckon any similarities can be drawn between Andy Warhol and the VU against Malcolm McLaren and the Sex Pistols. They've always struck me as sort of comparable, although I'm the first to admit I have no knowledge whatsoever of Art or Music.

Pikkle - As for finding decent smelling Hippy-Chicks, you've just got to train your nose to pick out that underlying sweet scent of patchouili oil, detectable in the minutest concentrations. Spend less time in your Steel-Mill and you might develop such skills.

Hobgoblin

By Martin on Friday, December 22, 2000 - 09:33 pm: Edit

Yeah, my dad's got the Nuggets box set. It's pretty cool. I made myself a little comp of my favorite tunes from it. I think I'm going to record a cover of Talk Talk, I love that song.

Jesus was a punk... right on! You totally know what I was talkin' about. I was hoping you'd pick up on my vibe (at least someone did).

Later,

Martin

By Marc on Friday, December 22, 2000 - 04:34 pm: Edit

martin,

Rhino Records has re-released a great garage band compilation called NUGGETS. It was put together by Lenny Kaye, Patti Smith's lead guitarist. It contains alot of the essential 60's punk bands:
The Seeds, Music Machine, Standells, The Sonics, Thirteen Floor Elevators and The Electric Prunes.

By the way, in addition to wearing all black, the Music Machine's members each wore one black glove.

Most people think punk started with The Ramones, Pistols and The Clash in the mid-70's. It actually started much earlier. The Velvet Underground, The Stooges and The Fugs were all 60's bands. Even some of the 50's rockabilly singers had a punk vibe: Eddie Cochran, Charlie Feathers, Billy Lee Riley.

Here's a list of writers who were punks:
Arthur Rimbaud, Antonin Artaud, William Burroughs, Charles Bukowski, Alden Van Buskirk,
Hunter Thompson...

I agree with you that punk is a state of mind
that has existed for a long, long time. It involves a sense of alienation and frustration with the state of society. It's a call to arms against the apathy of the status quo. It's a declaration of freedom: the freedom to be who you wanna be and not what society tells you to be.
It's the freedom to speak out when you just can't take being fed anymore shit by your school, government, parents or religious leaders. It's the freedom to follow your own path when everybody else is taking marching orders from the powers that be. Lenny Bruce was a punk, John Lennon was a punk, Malcolm X was a punk and Jesus
was punk. Gabba gabba hey!

By Pikkle on Friday, December 22, 2000 - 03:31 pm: Edit

Lordhobgoblin... pray tell, where do you find
these decent smelling hippy chicks? My sister
is a pseudo neo hippy wannabe, been to all
the rainbow gatherings in the world, followed
this trail and that trail and has the smelliest
friends in the world... if you ask me, no smell,
ain't no hippy.

By Martin on Friday, December 22, 2000 - 01:34 pm: Edit

Here's my take on punk (for what its worth)... it has always existed and always will exist. They just keep giving it different names. It's anyone who's fed up with the homogenized world, sick of everyone trying to "fit in" with each other and follow the crowd. Of course, punk has had it's share of hypocrisy... but I'm not going to comment much more about the whole 70's punk thing because I wasn't around then, and therefore really don't know a whole lot about it. All I can talk about is what I'm into now. I don't consider myself punk at all, but I live in a rotting factory town, full of young people fed up with the bullshit this country (and world) has turned into. Wherever you find people who are alienated and disillusioned, you will find punk. Punk as a state of mind, not a fashion or music lifestyle. I don't even like calling it punk, because that's not really what punk is... it's more like.. the state of mind from which punk was spawned.

I had never heard of Situationism before seeing it posted here, and I think it goes pretty far to back up my idea that the "punk" state of mind is by far a deeper thing than just being punk. It's that whole rebellious non-conformity thing, it's always existed in art, music, and everything else.

I've heard American bands from the mid-sixties that were totally punk rock. Anyone heard the band Music Machine? Their song "Talk Talk" was totally punk rock in every way and it was way before any Ramones stuff. Plus, they wore all black and dyed their hair black too. This is when everyone else was wearing tie-dyes and dirty hair. There are literally hundreds of other bands that were like that too, except it wasn't called "punk", at the time they called it "garage". I know I'm too young to really be given much credit for talking about underground 60's music, but give me the benefit of the doubt okay. My dad was totally into all of that when it was new and underground and he played in a bunch of bands, including ones you would totally classify as "punk" nowadays. He hated the whole Grunge/Seattle/Nirvana thing. All he could say was, "I've heard this all before. This is nothing new. I was doing that when I was his age. I want to hear NEW music!" My knowledge of all that stuff comes from someone with first-hand experience, so I think I know at least a little about it. I'm sure some of you could teach me even more.

Yeah, and my mom was totally into the whole 60's Peace Movement thing. She could go on for hours about the "weekend hippies".. those people you'd see on the streetcorners begging for money and dirty as shit, who could go home to their parent's mansion anytime they wanted.

The same can be said about alot of the "gutter punks" you see these days. Of course, some people really are homeless and destitute, but many many of them are just "weekend hippies".

Later,

Martin

By Anatomist1 on Friday, December 22, 2000 - 12:50 pm: Edit

P. -- Actually, I'm trying to find a way to avoid an ulcer, and avoid filling my head up with too much crap, yet have a reasonable idea of what's going on when I go to contemporary art museums/exhibits/critiques. I'm hoping there's a way that I can find such activities at least mildly amusing (like say, a game of monopoly) as opposed to alternately boring and painful (like say, a trip to the dentist). Do you know of any books along the lines of "Contemporary Art for Dummies", that cut to the chase, are easy to read, and avoid waxing eloquent at length?

K.

By Pataphysician on Friday, December 22, 2000 - 08:58 am: Edit

Anatomist1:

I have to agree with just about everything you've said, and I make my living off the stuff.

Reminds me of a Punk song: "He fills his head with culture, he gives himself an ulcer."

By Pataphysician on Friday, December 22, 2000 - 08:47 am: Edit

Lordhobgoblin:

Have you ever read Greil Marcus's "Lipstick Traces"? He tries to connect the dots between Punk, Situationism and a whole lotta other stuff. I don't think he does a very good job of it, it's kind of a mess, and his style can be infuriating, but I think he was on the right track. It's not so much that the Situationists caused Punk, but they came from the same impulse, one that Marcus traces back hundreds of years.

By Anatomist1 on Friday, December 22, 2000 - 06:32 am: