Iron Maiden - A matter of life and death

I listen to a lot of music and have a rather wide musical taste. I hate radio-hits with no lyrics of any worth with just a catchy tune - these songs will last for as long as the melody festers in your head.
The music I still listen to and like are those with lyrics that I feel has a deeper meaning.

This doesn't mean that the lyrics must be complicated, just that they must convey a sense of what the writer(s) is trying to say. Of course this is rather arbitrary, except for the fact that all "hit-radio" stations keeps playing marketable duds (according to me at least, the music-hating masses still buys the crap). There are exceptions, but those are the cases where a song has proven to be very popular in another media to later be picked up by the radio stations. Radio stations are under pressure from sponsors and large music companies to keep playing the songs that are easily identifiable and "radio-appropriate" in attempts to market a new album by Paris Hilton or whatever.
Of course there are good radio stations, but they aren't nearly as big as the popular "music" stations.

One song I really like is Johnny Cash - Hurt, although it's very straight forward the music and the lyrics makes for an unforgettable masterpiece. Even the video is excellent. Sure, it's all arbitrary - but don't tell me you can't feel his pain. That song was not created to sell singles on the hit-list, this is a translation of the late Johnny Cash's feelings and thoughts without any consideration for marketability to the general public.
I can go on forever so lets just focus on the music at hand.

Metal juggernaut Iron Maiden has released a new album,
"A matter of life and death".
Iron Maiden has a rather loyal fan-base which probably would send the album soaring in the bestselling lists no matter the content on the CD, but the one thing you must learn if you love music is this - loyalty means nothing. Either you like the album or you don't, you cannot force yourself to like it just because it's [whatever band you like]. Dismiss the critics and listen for yourself. I really like most of Coheed & Cambria's work, but I've never heard one of their songs on radio (I don't listen to radio voluntarily - but it seems you can't escape it). I don't know any of my friends who's all that into Coheed & Cambria either, but that doesn't matter - their music speaks to me. Anyways, make no mistake, it's a very good album. The sound is definitely recognizable as Iron Maiden, so musically it's pretty much the same style. Although you should not let that deter you if you don't like their earlier work, listen to a few songs and form your own opinion. One song that really caught my attention was
"For the Greater Good of God".
I really like the lyrics and the way it's matched against the music.
"You know religion has a lot to answer for" - couldn't agree more.

The video of "The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg" has been available for download on the Internet for some time now. The sound is very familiar to their previous work before "A matter of life and death" and somehow the lyrics just didn't appeal to me. It's not a bad song, it just didn't provide anything new - same old Iron Maiden (which for some may not be a bad thing) - it's just that feeling of having heard that song way to often before.

So the bottom line is this; if you like Iron Maiden "A matter of life and death" is a must have album, but if you've listen too much to their previous work (if there is such a thing) some songs might seem to be repetitions of old songs. Anyways it's worth a shot.

Minor update: After listening to the album for a few day "The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg" definitely grew on me, it's still not as good as "For the Greater Good of God" and probably never will be. "The Legacy" is the only dud (actually more of a half-dud) of the album, although the 9 minutes long song shapes up in the end it hardly justifies the first 3 minutes. Top picks are "For the Greater Good of God", "Brighter than A Thousand Suns", "Lord of light" and "The longest day".

Recycling

Did you know that John Tierney wrote an article for The New York Times Magazine titled "Recyling is Garbage"? In the article he "...declared that the emperor had no clothes: 'Recycling may be the most wasteful activity in modern America: a waste of time and money, a waste of human and natural resources.'" quoth cato.org.


Here's some fact from pretty much paraphrased from
"Penn & Teller: Bullshit!";
Trees will not be saved by recycling, trees are grown for paper - the more paper consumed the more trees will be planted, it renewable.

Recycling aluminium cans are profitable, that's why we get payed to recycle them - almost any other recycling results in a mediocre product which would have been made of better quality and with less energy if it would've been made from scratch.

Landfills are plenty (fewer, yes - but also larger) and often made into parks and golf courses where the gas from the decomposing garbage is collected and used as fuel.
Transportation of all this garbage back and forth is also a mayor environmental flop and according to the New York Department of Sanitation 40% of the garbage you've already sorted through and recycled gets dumped in the same landfill.
These studies are done in America, but almost every modern country has followed suit in the recycling madness.

Fromager

Just got back from my first field shooting competition were I participated in class "R" (revolver) and "C" (.22LR automatic). Needless to say, shooting my .22 automatic was way easier then the borrowed Smith & Wesson .357/.38. With the Smith I scored 20 hits on 11 targets, with my IGI I shot 40 hits on 19 targets - all in all there were 19 targets for each class. The R and C-class are shot at same stations but the R-class has a few more seconds for each station. With my .22LR I maxed station 1, 2, 6 and 8.

Let's take a closer look at one of the stations. Station 6 was shot at 30 meters (66 feet) against two targets. For every station you have six shots with limitations on how many hits you may have per target. Station 6:s rules were; 6 shots in 6 seconds (C-class) with a maximum of 4 hits per target. That makes for a rather high rate of fire. There were similar stations were the targets were hidden until the timer started, you then had 6 seconds to shoot your 6 shots.

As for my R-class shooting, I can hardly be disappointed. Sure it's not a very high score, but I'd never even seen the revolver before until I stood at station 1 (4 hits, 2 misses). Field is definitely my type of competition, more dynamic, more speed and not just chasing millimeters on a bulls eye target. In field either you hit, or you don't.

On a completely different note, I'm still kind of pissed at the latest incarnation of this whole recycling fiasco - recycling organic (food) waste. The basic principle is to force people to leave their composable food waste in large containers which then are picked up and shipped to the nearest industrial-sized compose heap, which is at least 140 km (86 miles) away. And what could be better to transport this stinky load then diesel spewing trucks from the late 80's.
Good for the environment?
Bullshit.
Well here's something you may or may not know, a WAY to old fromager cheese is still considered "composable", even though it'll have to spend a few days in the bin before someone comes to empty it. This cheese smells the way I would imagine radioactive waste smells like, if radioactive waste does smell. Enjoy.

The moose that ran away

The operator of the running paper-moose thingie were occupied on Thursday (it's a private range), but we decided to shoot in our rifles anyways, moving targets be damned. After some initial tinkering I got the rifle zeroed in. At 80 meters (262 feet) my rig managed to punch two shots through the same hole in the target, unfortunately the third round hit high. Very high. We're talking just over 2 inches. Not good. At this time the rifle's barrel were fairly warm and presumably somewhat dirty.

Back home I cleaned the barrel with a "bore cleaner" and sprayed the barrel with Milfoam Forrest Bore cleaning foam (NATO approved) and let it sit for roughly 30 minutes. Forrest is a copper solvent which oxides the copper residue from copper jacketed rounds.

It gives cleaning patches a gentle blue color which indicates copper presence. Only my patches were more black then blue - which is rather interesting considering the fact that I've already cleaned the barrel with a bore cleaner. There were a lot of copper in that barrel. The Forrest foam were rather expensive, but I'll definitely buy it again - the foam spreads well and works wonders.

Everything is dangerous

Here's yet another throwback to "Diver Down", kind of.
Every activity has it's risks, and although it's rare - extreme failures happens every now and then.

These pictures are from an accident in Germany in 2001.
Apparently as the shooter fired his Blaser R93 rifle, the weapon failed to contain the expanding gases and sent the straight-pull bolt against the shooter. The shooter suffered severe damage to his face and right hand.

Pictures and information were taken from an article on www.djz.de but SOMEHOW neither article nor pictures has been available for some time. Maybe Blaser has corrected most of the R93:s problems (this is not the first accident involving Blasers R93:s) - but for me, it's a no-brainer, straight-pull mechanism are way more likely to fail due to their inherent constructions.


These accidents are rare, but if you're shooting an R93 and the doubt is in your head - your trigger finger will hesitate. Besides, I've never liked R93:s, to much plastic - but that's just me. If you're a happy owner of a R93 - then be happy, but you'll never see me with one. To each his own...

Shooting sports

Time to put the ol' .30-06 through it's paces, moving paper-moose target at 80 meters (262 feet).
Ought to be rather interesting since I haven't tried since I got my license in...Eh, '98?




I bought the .30-06 in 2000, and since then I put a new laminate stock on it and a 6,5-20x Leupold scope with "target knobs" and butler creek "flip-ups" on a b-square rail - boosting it's already quite stout weight to 5,6kg unloaded (12,3 pounds) according to my bathroom scale. Yet it doesn't really feel all that heavy, with it's original synthetic stock the weapon was seriously "barrel heavy" and required a fair amount of strength to aim properly while standing. With the new laminate stock all that went out the window - somehow that feels contradictory, but hey - I guess leverage really works even in practise huh?

The shoot-out was scheduled two days ago, but the equipment operating the paper target had mechanical difficulties. Hopefully we get a second chance today.



Also, I'm borrowing a .357 revolver for a local field competition this Saturday. Now THAT is going to be perhaps even more interesting. Competing with a revolver (or pistol) you've never even shot before is basically the same as trying to race with a car you've never driven. It will not improve your chances.
Field (or "fält") is a rather special type of competition. Basically you're walking around in the woods engaging targets with rules such as "use only left hand", "two hits on every blue target, max one hit per red target". Score is basically counted in "misses".
Misses are bad but inevitable.
After the .357 round I'm also competing with my .22LR automatic, also in field. That should be a heck of a lot easier. Should be. As a side note, in field .357 revolvers are loaded with .38 Special rounds which use a smaller amount of gunpowder to allow faster follow-up shots as opposed to so called full-house magnum rounds.

Fatal dive accident in lake Vättern, Sweden

If you've read the previous post about the book "Diver Down" this is yet another chilling reminder of the inherent dangers of diving - if proper protocol and procedures are not followed.

There are two articles, one in Aftonbladet and one in Expressen - between these two there are some minor inconsistencies. The articles are in swedish, so here's a recap in english; a man and his girlfriend were diving in lake Vättern. As the man surfaced he noticed that his dive buddy were no where to be found. The man summoned the other divers at the scene and they made a combined effort to searched for the missing diver. Rescue divers from Linköping and Ödeshög were called to the scene, but before they got to the lake the divers had already retrieved the lifeless body from the bottom at a depth of 9 meters (29 feet) and started CPR. The diver had been missing for 10-15 minutes before she were brought up to the surface. Paramedics later pronounced her dead at the scene. The couples children were waiting at the shore.

There is no further information at this point as to why the divers were separated while surfacing. This is a clear violation of dive protocol, you must always keep in close contact with your dive buddy. The decision to surface is made when either diver wants to surface and should always be performed as a joint operation and not "every man for himself". A lone diver stands little chance of survival on his/her own if something should happen - as dive buddies you are each others' life lines but all to few actually realise the dangers of acting alone. To do solo dives you need proper training and a lot of redundant equipment such as alternative air sources to handle situations without the need to surface immediately.

Diver Down

This book is called "Diver down - Real-world scuba accidents and how to avoid them" by Michael R.Ange. It's a dark factual review of cases where divers were lost or injured during underwater complications. Names have been changed and precautions has been taken to ensure that the persons involved and their families remain anonymous.


The first chapter is a short but rather informative introduction to diving and diving equipment in general. After "Introduction: Scuba 101" each chapter starts with a short introduction of the problem at hand - from the divers perspective, and then tells the story leading up to the incident. At the end of each chapter is a short list, "Strategies for Survival", which sets guidelines to avoid the problem described within the chapter. Most cases results in a fatality which could have easily been avoided. In 90% of the cases the fatal/near-fatal problem was caused by diver arrogance during dives for which the diver were not qualified to perform. In one case a diver drowned in water as shallow as a few feet while trying to perform a public safety dive, for which he was neither qualified nor equipped.

One of the stories that really got to me were an incident where one diver, "Gary", managed to convince his wife, "Julie", to swim into a wreck - which neither of them were equipped or qualified for. Here's the short story; she died, Gary got DCS but recovered, one rescuer - John - got DCS and will probably be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. It just makes me so angry, even now well after I read it the first time. That "Gary" and his ego has caused a lot of needless suffering. But don't get me wrong, I really liked the book and it should be mandatory reading for any diver - but it will get your blood boiling.

Another story that really gets me mad is where one diver, "Renee" repeatedly signals "I'm freezing, let's surface" only to be repeatedly ignored by her idiot boyfriend, "Allen". When they finally surfaced, Allen's failure to properly anchor his new yacht has caused it to drift away into highly trafficked commercial shipping lanes and were nowhere to be found for the two divers. Allen were convinced that the boat must have been stolen and rants on in anger as Renee tries to get him to realise just how serious the situation is, but he refuses to listen. Renee were freezing to death with no help at all from Allen. Renee managed to remove a fin and signal a boat far of in the distance, with no help what so ever from Allen. As the boat approached it became obvious to the crew that Renee could not swim towards the boat on her own and they quickly focused on getting her out of the water - only to have Allen force his way up on the boat and hijack the radio to call the coast guard on a emergency channel, demanding that they looked for his "stolen" yacht. The crew subdued Allen and got Renee out of her wetsuit. Her skin was blue, she was shivering uncontrollably and were unresponsive. She were rushed to the nearest hospital were she made a complete recovery. Allen were charged with a number of marine violations; misuse of VHF radio, reckless endangerment of the passengers aboard the vessel, and posing a hazard to navigation by setting his ship adrift in a commercial shipping lane.

If the crew on the boat wouldn't have spotted Renees brightly colored fin she would most likely have died of hypothermia within a very short period time, all because of her boyfriends obsession with the thought of his yacht being stolen - and the fact that he was, all in all, - utterly useless. He couldn't handle the boat, which became abundantly clear as he tried to maneuver the boat out of the harbour in the beginning of the story. He couldn't understand why he should surface just because Renee were cold. He couldn't be of any help to Renee what so ever, he even refused to hold the catch bag with lobsters collected during the dive so that she could drop her weight belt in order to gain a more positive buoyancy - with the comment that she was "ridiculous" and that he would not pay for a new weight belt.
If he would have done that to anyone I know I would have come to that "Allens" house and beat him to within an inch of his miserable life. The law be damned.

When the shit hits the proverbial fan, there's only one thing that matters - human life. When lives are in the balance one must accept the FACT that money and possessions mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING at that time in place. I don't own a boat, much less a yacht - but if I did and if it would save the life or improve the survival chances of my dive buddy, I'd gladly scuttle it myself. Everything I own is expendable, people are not. Everything I own, I can buy again. I'm a student so it will take me a while, but who cares.

I will never purposely perform dives that I'm not qualified for - no matter who's asking. It's not just my life that's at stake, my dive buddy and any diver that offers assistance will also be at risk of death or permanent injury. If I screw up and get myself killed, fine - that's my problem, but others should not have to suffer for my mistake.

Diving may be somewhat inherently dangerous but 99% of all fatalities are due to human error. Genuine equipment failures are extremely rare, and even then there is no one thing that will kill you - a single problem will escalate and cause either multiple failures or diver panic but this also means that you have a window of opportunity - take the necessary precautions to avoid escalation and abort the dive. One story in Diver Down tells of a rebreather diver who dies from what seems to be equipment failure. Apparently the diver took shortcuts in maintaining his equipment which caused the rebreather to deliver an inappropriate air mixture. Checking the quality of the air that the system delivers is SOP for rebreather divers, and would have saved the divers life.
Stupidity kills, shortcuts kills, arrogance kills, the list goes on. Just make damn sure you try your best to avoid the pitfalls you've heard before - and NEVER DIVE OVER YOUR ABILITIES OR CERTIFICATION AND NEVER MODIFY/REPAIR EQUIPMENT UNLESS PROPERLY EDUCATED TO DO SO.
Adhering to that one rule would have saved every life lost in the tales of "Diver Down".
"There are old divers, and there are bold divers, but there are no old bold divers".

As for the book I highly recommend it to anyone who has any interest in diving what so ever.
There will be a lot of new expressions and technical jargon for the uninitiated, but everything is explained either in the introduction or in grey "fact-pages" within each chapter.
If you're a diver you should without a doubt read this book, it may very well save your life.
It's always a good idea to learn from others mistakes.

"...list of points both likable and unlikable about yourself"

OK, lee. I like a challenge (first good point?) - you're on.

A hand full of (more or less) likable points, in no particular order;
1. I'm punctual
Most of the time anyway, but perhaps more to the point - if I'm late it's usually with something like 5 minutes.

2. I'm modest - to a point
I realize my accomplishments, but I don't get overly cocky.

3. I tend to bite the bullet
If I'm confronted with something that I just have to do, even if I don't want to I try to think up a alternative solution - and if that fails, I just do it.

4. I'm good natured
I try to avoid physical confrontation by verbally diffusing the situation, which has worked fine a couple of times - even though I have the practical training to put the confrontation to a speedy conclusion.

A hand full of unlikable points;
1. I can be perceived as insensitive
I tend to joke about pretty much anything, and I believe that you should be able to make jokes about anything. Some people may see it as insensitivity (pending the situation), but as long as it's not a joke at someones expense (unless it's a good natured joke amongst friends) I don't see the harm. Being politically correct is for chumps.

2. I tend to take a rather hostile stance towards religion and religious reasoning
Common sense and science is the norm, anything else is just guesses and *sigh* religion.
The religious can believe whatever they want to, but don't for one second believe that they have anything on science. Science is, by definition, theories. Gravity is a theory, and if you somehow can make a more convincing, scientific, argument as to why dropping a bowling ball on your toes hurt like crap - it will replace the old theory. You must be willing to replace theories that somehow becomes obsolete, not embrace religious dogma as universal truths.

3. I take a very hostile stance against overly cocky persons with no real perception of their abilities
I don't like people who brags or who are overly confident of their often limited abilities. These people are often to cocky to actually learn anything new - and believe themselves to be the absolute authority in whatever field they believe themselves to be in.

4. If properly provoked, I will go from 0-100 in no time at all
This usually results in a very aggressive, but still rational, discussion style which can be perceived as a threat.

OK, I think my work here is done. 4 of each will do for now, although I have a feeling I've missed something. I'll probably not update the list if someone thinks I've missed something because this list is a representation of how I see myself, and it doesn't really matter if it's true or not - just that I believe it to be true.

Make your own whisky

I bought this at the local supermarket, it's a bottle of Scotch whisky essence - finest blend. Finest blend of Glycerol E 422, that is. To make the "Whisky" you fill the bottle with an appropriate alcohol,


such as vodka, moonshine or equivalent, shake it - and you're done. For my mix I chose a very cheap Czech vodka substitute which filled the bottle to half. To up the ante I filled the other half of the bottle with a 60% alcohol by volume (about 120% proof) vodka.
By the way, and let me be perfectly clear on this, you cannot make a whisky by adding alcohol to essence - this little abomination will in no way come even close to even the cheapest blended whisky. With that said it's quite a nice alcoholic beverage though - MUCH to my surprise.
The nose is gentle and the taste is very fiery (no doubt due to it's high alcohol content).
In the taste there is a hint of whisky with a dominating taste of vanilla - in fact a little too much of it I might ad. The aftertaste is rather short with a long kiss of high octane - but high quality - vodka. Given the assumption that this is a alcoholic drink rather then a whisky, it's actually quite pleasant. What I like most is the fact that this is a drink that's low on added sugar which gives it a textured taste without the sugar-bomb feel.
The recommended alcohol content to use for this mix is 40% alcohol by volume, or about 80% proof, may be a little low. The essence seems to be of a rather mild taste and may become a bit weak if there isn't enough percentage to back it up.


And here is the result - a rather pale yellow alcohol mixture. I haven't calculated it's alcohol content but it burns quite nicely with a barely visible blue flame at room temperature so it's
well over 50% alcohol by
volume (100 proof).

Spam, spam, spam

Had to activate Word Verification on comments due to spam, sorry for any inconvenience.
I think I've removed all that crap ("I think you'll be interested in these links..." and/or whatever) from the blog.
Have a Strong Bad Email, or perhaps a short clarification on the middle east situation.

Johnny Cash - Hurt

"And you could have it all. My empire of dirt."

This video is hosted by YouTube.com

Words cannot express the insanity