And so it ends….not with a bang, but with a whimper.
Although it impacted me far less than many people, it was still a long year. To my uninformed, cynical mind 2021 portends worse.
The polite and socially-acceptable thing for me to do is to wish all of you a happy New Year and wish you good luck for 2021. I say ‘screw that’. Luck is for rabbits. If you’re reading this then you’ve the mind to be the one who makes your own luck. Laissez les bons temps rouler.
Well, I’m not really a Christmas kinda guy..what with being a nonbeliever an all, but I recognize that a lot of folks get into the holiday so I’ll go ahead and cover my bases and wish everyone a merry Chrismahanukwanzika.
I’d also like to take a moment to thank a couple people who sent me Amazon gift cards as Christmas presents .Very thoughtful, guys…thank you very much.
2020 goes into the history books in another week and then we face 2021 with all of the unknowns arrayed before us. It should be an extremely interesting year.
BUT…thats a week away. In the meantime, have a nice holiday and let me know if you got any cool gifties.
Hit it, Placido….
The holiday season approaches. Whats on my list for Christmahanukwanzakah? Not much, actually. Oh, sure, a Barrett will always be on the list but other than that….I think I’m set.
Usually I give out 10/22 mags as gifts since I got into them so cheaply but, unfortunately, the Current Situation has me thinking that I’m better off holding onto them since in about two years they’ll be worth at least $50 each (give or take the $200 tax stamp).
Tell you what, doing holiday shopping for anyone who is into guns must be quite a challenge right now since virtually anything gun related is outta stock at most stores. On the other hand, give someone a 20-rd box of Winchester white box .223 and it’d be almost like handing out crisp $50 bills.
What are you asking Santa/Hanukah Harry/Voodoo Man for this year?
I’ll just go with a repost:
Ok, so we’re in the post-Thanksgiving stage now. Now is the run-up to Christmas and then…the new year of 2021.
Media says that folks are staying home for the most part and that any Friday of Color of serious quantity is being done online. Works for me. I love online shopping. You youngsters may not remember it, but in the dark days before Al Gore invented the internet, if you wanted to shop through the mail you had to get a catalog. And the only way you even knew that there was a company you wanted a catalog from was to see their ad in a magazine or something. Then you’d send them a letter asking for a catalog, wait for them to receive the letter, they sent you a catalog, you waited to receive the catalog, you ordered from the catalog by sending them your order in the mail, wait for them to receive it, they ship it to you, wait for it to arrive, and then…finally…you got your cool survivalist geegaw. And then you’d find out it’s the wrong size/color/yield and have to send it back and the whole process would start over. Broadly, it could be a month from when you saw the company’s ad in the back of Soldier of Fortune to when you actually got your goodies.
Nowadays, I can literally….literally…have a plate and plate carrier on my doorstep in three days or less with one-click of my mouse. You kids have no idea how spoiled you are in terms of amazing choices and accessibility to quality survival gear. No idea.
I can be sitting at my desk watching YouTube and someone says “Hey, I bought a [Item] and have been testing it. Its awesome, you should get one!” and I can have one on order in less than a minute. How utterly amazing is that? There are people on this planet who have to walk five miles with a bucket on their head to get drinking water and I can order up a hundred pounds of ammo to be delivered to my door and I don’t even have to get out of my chair. I love this country!
Of course, there’s a drawback to all this – it’s easy…really, really easy…to spend money quickly and carelessly. I won’t say I have never had buyers remorse, but I’m much better at resource management than I used to be. Still..sometimes it’s an enormous relief when I go to order something and find hat I can’t because it’s out of stock.
So…while you’re doing your FOC shopping today think back to those dark days of survivalism where you actually had to slap a stamp on an envelope to order up your LL Baston underbarrel Mossberg 500 mount for your AR15. You kids have it so easy today.
“We’re all gonna buy.” No lie, this was an Actual Thing back in the ’80’s.
Today is Thanksgiving, which is, nominally, a day to give thanks. For me its a day to eat turkey. My life is a swirling dumpster fire of rage and pain, so I tend to not be thankful as much as I am vengeful. Nonetheless, I realize I’m in the minority on that sort of thing…so, for those of you who engage in the Norman-Rockwell-esque version of Thanksgiving, I say ‘enjoy’.
Following the holiday are the Black Friday Friday Of Color sales. I cannot imagine any vendor needs a holiday sale to get product moving in this Current Situation. Why would you mark your guns and ammo down for a holiday sale when you can double the price and have it fly out the door seven days a week? Still, I’ll go through the motions anyway because I’m always looking for a deal. Lemme know if you guys find any good deals that are actually in stock.
Man, it just seems like only a few weeks ago I was sending out Paratus gifts and cards. But…it’s seven weeks to Paratus…the holiday of, for, and by survivalists. This year is the fifth year of Paratus. If you’re new to this blog, I have a lovely little FAQ for you to tell you everything you need to know about the holiday that Hallmark still hasn’t made a card for.
I’ve got this years cards on order, and a few gifts lined up. How does the gift giving part work? Heck man, thats the best part of the whole darn holiday! Read the FAQ! Paratus is September 18th this year. Get your shopping done early! Ask your favorite gun, freeze dried, ammo, or gear vendor if they have any Paratus holiday sales! Remember kids, any idiot can just make up a holiday…..and any idiot actually did! It’s the holiday that says “Yeah, I’m a paranoid survivalist…so what?”
As always, I’ll be giving you a couple more headsup as the date approaches but let’s get out there and share the joyous news of Paratus!
I don’t want to be pedantic but….we celebrate Independence Day, not the fourth of July.
Now, having irritated many of you, I suggest you take that irritation to the range and go shoot some guns. Independence…whether its from other nations, people, ideas, or paradigms…does not come peacefully and without incident*. Be ready… emotionally ready, mentally ready, and physically ready.
“The price of freedom is the willingness to do sudden battle anywhere, any time and with utter recklessness.” ―
* = I cannot hear the phrase ‘without incident’ without thinking of this incident.
Another year come and gone and…no apocalypse. Well, no apocalypse in the sense of some great run-for-your-lives-we’re-all-gonna-die sort of thing. As individuals, we all have plenty of horrific catastrophes that hit us. But, as a group, no….no big apocalypse this year. But you never know. No boom today, but tomorrow…boom.
2019 was, sadly, another gun-heavy year. Just off the top of my head I can think of at least three shotguns, two or three ARs, at least a half dozen pistols, etc, etc. It really seems to be getting out of hand. However, I still resolutely believe that at some point things will hit a stage where the ability to purchase an ‘evil features’ gun with a ‘high capacity feeding device’ will be curtailed…at which point I will sit back on my armored butt and smile to myself.
Broadly 2019 was a quiet year, which is how I like it. As I get older my goal is security, predictability, and routine. I want to wake up every morning to a warm house, running water, food in the fridge, money in the bank, and all my organs functioning at acceptable level (and one organ in particular operating at its normal superhuman level). This is not to say I dislike new things or excitement, but I want those things because I wanted them..not because Fate decided to throw me a curve ball. I’ve been told, more than once, that I am a person who hates change. Not true. I hate unwanted change. Let me give you an example: someone gets cancer and they complain about it. Would you accuse them of hating change? After all, having cancer is a change for them, isn’t it? No, you would sympathize with them. Cancer is an unwanted change. However, short-sighted narcissists who lack self-awareness will only look at the broad strokes and say ‘you hate change’. Well, duh…find me someone who doesn’t hate change that hurts them. And before you get all Nietzsche on me, yes, that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger…but usually it just kills you.
2020, unfortunately, will be a year full of change…mostly because it’s an election year. Yes, I voted for him. And I’ll do it again. But I cannot say whether his re-election or loss is a sure thing. And because there is that level of uncertainty, I foresee 2020 being a bit of a chaotic year in terms of markets, legislation, and a few other things. Every year, it seems, I keep beating the drum of ‘buy guns and mags’. And, thus far, every year nothing substantial occurs that prevents our ownership of those things. But…just because something hasn’t happened doesn’t mean it won’t. Make of that what you will.
I hope 2020 is as peaceful and relatively quiet as 2019 was. I hope I’m sitting down at my desk a year from now writing a very similar post about how it was a somewhat uneventful year, and we all grew older and a bit wealthier. But despite the motto of failed Democrats, hope is not a plan. Hoping for a positive result is not how you get that positive result. So, while I hope 2020 is quiet and does me no harm, I will continue to take steps to mitigate the damage just in case.
It’s easy to slack off on being a good survivalist when the lights are on and your job is steady. But thats exactly the time you want to be in high gear getting stuff done and making plans. Learn to swim before the boat sinks.
So, enjoy the New Years holiday, relax and reflect on whats gone past and what is to come. And then cowboy up, grit your teeth, get out there, and make stuff happen for you.
I suppose that if a person digs deep enough, no matter how wretched their circumstance, they can find something to be grateful for.
Tomorrow is Friday Of Color. Let the games begin!