Author Archives: Joel

About Joel

You shouldn't ask these questions of a paranoid recluse, you know.

Shinies!

Looky here what I got, in three completely separate care packages! Larry Correia’s latest in hardback! “Yeah, who’s got something somebody wants to borrow now, huh?” Another book that…couldn’t possibly be different from Larry Correia’s latest. It appears to be … Continue reading

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This post is brought to you through the courtesy of tequila.

I was sitting in my chair, thinking about a particular thing involving a particular person I was once married to. The particular thing was not the most pleasant episode in my entire life. The boys wanted out, so I got … Continue reading

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Strange things you didn’t think you’d be doing when you entered a life of hermitage…

Exterior: Helicopter zooms toward a looming cliff of clay and fractured limestone. The scene fills with the rock and begins rising up the cliff, until revealing the lip of the cliff and the plain above, and with it a man … Continue reading

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Ian’s new toy TOOL

Hey, remember Ian’s fund raiser for Forgotten Weapons gear? Well, it’s bearing tangible fruit in the form of a shiteload of new photographic gear…including some that flies itself. The cool thing about all this stuff is that you actually do … Continue reading

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Identity groups I despise

Identity groups are an inescapable part of life. I don’t resist them all. I’m a gun owner, and we’re definitely an oppressed group – or at least a group some people would like to oppress – so I cheerfully identify … Continue reading

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Heh. Good one.

Remember when Democrats thought it was important to return Hispanic children to their parents? #Tcot #nerdland pic.twitter.com/Crg4Yw0F3b — Stuart (@Ringo6) July 6, 2014 H/T to Borepatch

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Oh, that smarts…

“Thousands of spirit limbs are haunting as many good soldiers, every now and then tormenting them.” Y’know, I was thinking just the other day that the phantom pain thing hasn’t been much of a problem lately. But I woke before … Continue reading

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Okay, here’s a plan…

I’ve got three vicious would-be murderers on my hands… Beautiful, aren’t they? They’re the sisters of Smithers, who went to meet Colonel Sanders a few weeks ago, and looking at them I’m glad I culled him when I did. Mature, … Continue reading

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More chicken drama

Whenever I see pictures and videos of flocks of happy cooperative chickens frolicking in fields of green grass, I feel judged and hostile. Why do our chickens always become psychotic? There’s a new refugee at the Secret Lair. I came … Continue reading

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Sometimes Weird Stuff Happens.

Thanks for all the suggestions, please do keep them coming. I can’t believe I forgot the Viking funeral of God-Emperor Kwai Chang Cain. (Which, btw, eventually morphed into this short story.) By way of thanks for the prompt help, here’s … Continue reading

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The first rule of Claire Club is…aw, you know the rest.

Some good suggestions coming on the thread I posted below. Can’t believe I forgot the viking funeral. Just because it’s not on the blog…I’m already working on a new chapter titled “Sometimes Weird Stuff Happens.” You know the jokey old … Continue reading

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Wait, wait. There are wi-fi lightbulbs?

Borepatch has a post up this morning concerning an apparently typical Internet security facepalm and to tell the truth I would have glanced at it and mooched on by because I don’t understand three words of what he linked to. … Continue reading

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#7 laid an egg!

After the pullets’ record-breaking effort of yesterday, I wondered if I’d get anything at all from them today and I didn’t. But there was an egg in the big nest box anyway: Big, longer than typical RIR: It could only … Continue reading

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Enter the Pullets

Either one of the Rhode Island Red pullets has been laying an egg a day for several days, or several of them have been doing it sporadically. I don’t know which. But there has never been a day when more … Continue reading

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Struggling for #5…

h/t I passed 33,000 words today, with a target of 50K and 150-200 formatted pages. That’s quite a mechanistic goal, but what can I say? The only way people ever actually paid me to sit at a keyboard all day … Continue reading

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Run, you coward, run!

This’ll make you smile. Put on your poet’s beret and go read this right now. In a world where I could drunkenly recite this at a picnic while my fellows banged tankards on the table and roared the chorus loud … Continue reading

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Manual Laundry Agitator Review

It’s kind of overcast to be doing this, but I do need clean stuff and anyway a little rain-soaking if it happens will just wash out some of the hard water residue so I went ahead and filled the clotheslines … Continue reading

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Oh, here comes Monsoon…

My second-least favorite time of the year. I confess I didn’t really mind it very much until last year, when it seemed like water management was all I did for three months. Today I’ll be out tending my ditches. It … Continue reading

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Christmas in July…

I (finally!) finished my painting gig this morning, which put a hundred bux in my pocket. And I was performing my favorite and also most painful mental exercise while driving away, which is deciding where the money is going to … Continue reading

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We here at TUAK don’t pay that much attention to holidays…

…and to tell the truth we’re not the most nationalistic creatures that ever lived. But Kevin makes a good point when he reminds us that maybe Independence Day should have at least a relatively warm place in the hearts of … Continue reading

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