Large Fierce Mammal

Never fear dear readers. More wit, wisdom, and well deserved attitude adjustment is coming your way. Right now my mind is on Diana and dogs, and little else. Most of my written creative output of late has been going to our Golden Mountain Dog Solutions blog. Give that a read if you miss me. The latest post starts with a press release on sex toys for dogs, the most fucking idiotic idea I’ve seen in at least a couple of days.

Keep checking back here. You won’t be languishing in your desperate need for enlightenment much longer.

Welcome to the new and more highly evolved Large Fierce Mammal blog. While I take most of the blame for the written content, I can never take credit for how well this site works or how sexy it looks. All of that comes from the fact that I had the good sense and skills at seduction that allowed me to lure a beautiful and passionate genius into marriage.

If you’ve arrived here by following the link provided in my 27 July 2009 article on the old Blogspot LFM blog then you already know what this is about. If you’ve arrived here on your own, then here’s the scoop: As of today, all new posts to Large Fierce Mammal will be made on this new site and only the archive will remain available on Blogspot. No need to refer back there though because the entire archive of posts, comments, as well as the links list has been packed up, along with our troubles, in our old kit bag and dragged along too so they exist in both places, at least for now.

Everyone who follows this blog, and/or has it bookmarked should reset your direction finding equipment to bring you here.

As a last note, Diana also advises that some of the articles came over from Blogspot with font and formatting issues that are being fixed as I write this. So never fear, she will be making me look better with each passing day.

The real “Air 1” serves lower mainland British Columbia in the traffic patrol role.

I happen to have a client; D. H.; now retired from a career as a pilot with RCMP Air Services, who shares with me an interest in virtual aviation using various computer based flight simulation platforms. We both agree it’s both cheaper and harder to die that way. This mutual interest has led me to the current matter, particularly since I keep promising to provide copies of my efforts to him but so far never have.

I happen to be reasonably skilled at repainting aircraft modelled in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 so I’ve embarked on a project intended to find, and if not found then to create RCMP Air Services textures for freeware FS2004 aircraft.

The first in the series wasn’t created by me. It’s the freeware Eurocopter EC120B Colibri modelled by Nemeth Designs and downloadable from their website here. The RCMP Air 1 textures are the beautiful work of Lou Waldman and can be found at the Hovercontrol website here.

I’m providing D. H. with a packaged version of all this, but anyone else who has difficulty finding and installing the goodies described is welcome to get in contact with me.

First, here are some screen shots of the simulator helicopter. Clicking on the pictures will expand them for a better view.

Air 1 at the airport in Scar Creek, B. C.; scenery is from Hovercontrol and available here

Another shot of Air 1 on a helipad at Vancouver International Airport.

Lastly, here’s the short film I made demonstrating this bird in all her glory. Grab some popcorn and enjoy!

This past weekend, we received an interesting e-mail that came in via the customer contact form on our Whynacht Security & Survival website. It was from an ADT security customer in New Brunswick that I will refer to only as “J”.

J had been on our website and was particularly interested by the detailed information we provide for owners of seasonal properties who want to go over to the seasonal telephone rate during the down period, but who still need a working phone line to support alarm communications. I won’t quote the article in detail because I already wrote it once, but you can read it by clicking here.

Our correspondent wrote:

Your page about the Aliant TSS service and keeping our alarm system working was very helpful. I have a security system with ADT and have been calling them in vain trying to get the number – no one there seems to know what I am talking about. They either give me my own phone number or tell me I have to pay for a service tech to come to the house and get the number from the panel. Would you have any advice as to how and where I could track down this number?

Thanks very much, J

My reply:

Dear J,

If you are like most ADT customers, your security system uses your premises telephone line for the purpose of transmitting signals to the monitoring station. When it does this, it seizes the line and then dials a telephone number which will be one of a group of numbers ADT uses to route signals through its alarm receiving equipment. This will be an 800 number which will probably be specific to your geographic area or account group. The number your system dials will have been programmed by the installing technician at the time your system was configured for monitoring service. It will certainly be a matter of record on your file and is certainly something you are entitled to know. Under no circumstances should it be necessary for a technician to actually come to your house to retrieve the information but you may need to speak to someone in technical support to get your point across. It’s unlikely that a cubicle gnome in their call centre will be able to do anything more than their screen prompts permit.

For simplicity, be sure to address these simple facts:

1. The security system dials a telephone number in order to connect with the ADT monitoring system.
2. You want to know what that number is.

In addition, Diana here has done some digging, and according to ADT’s own website, they state:

“If you currently have an ADT system, arranging for monitoring can be incredibly easy and quick. In fact, we may not even have to visit your home. For a system in good condition, we can usually communicate with the system’s control panel right from our offices.”

(You can see the page in its entirety here.)

That being the case, they should be able to connect with your system and find out what dialer number your system is using to communicate with their receiver. Since that number is important to give to the phone company to keep your system working properly, they should certainly provide that to you free of charge. Otherwise you would be paying for monitoring service that you would not be receiving. We hope this helps. From our experience here in Nova Scotia, ADT seems more interested in obtaining new customers than in pleasing those they already have. You’ll no doubt have to dig in your heels.

We would appreciate your letting us know how this turns out.

Regards,

Randy

This morning we heard back from J:

Thanks very much for the very detailed and helpful reply, Randy. I’ll be sure to let you know what I find out. I have had five or so calls to ADT each time without success, I am going to try some of the local guys in the morning.

Still later this morning:

Hello again Randy & Diana,

I have finally gotten the number after a few more calls. My previous calls had been to the tech support department. This morning I called the local office (in Saint John) and they transferred me to the monitoring station. The monitoring station knew what I was talking about, unlike the other agents I had spoken to, but said they did not have the number on file, and redirected me back to the local office. They did give me a helpful piece of information – ADT calls this number the ‘receiver number’. When I recalled the local office, and told them I was looking for the “receiver number”, they were able to look it up and give it to me.

Thanks again for your advice,
J

We were only too happy to help J and I’m glad our efforts helped him along the path to a speedy resolution. At times like this it’s about being a sound and professional representative of the security industry.

Television has seen an interesting, but not altogether surprising, advertising event of late: promotion of Dos Equis beer by The World’s Most Interesting Man. For those who have yet to see the ads of which I speak, TWMIM is portrayed as a gentleman of years and experience, even more so when we include his beard.

While the accomplishments of TWMIM are over the top fiction, advertisers have long known that sex sells; and now, Dos Equis has latched onto a truth that every thinking person understands: experience and self-confidence are sexy, and these ingredients don’t usually come wrapped in a young package that conforms to 21st century self-serving standards of beauty. That old school manners are cool; most women find it attractive when a man not only knows which way the bill of his ball cap is supposed to point, but also when to take the fucking thing OFF; that poking a woman on Facebook is a poor substitute for growing the balls to tell her, in an irresistibly tasteful and mature fashion, that you’d love to poke her for real.

Manliness is not a lost art, and its greatest icons transcend youth. Consider: In 1989, at nearly 60 years of age, Sir Sean Connery was voted People Magazine’s sexiest man alive. In his mid-sixties, Ian McShane played what is arguably the most primally sexy role of his career as Al Swearengen in HBO’s Deadwood. Don’t take my word for it. Ask Mrs. LFM who, you will recall, decisively claimed and married a man 25 years her senior. I throw these out as illustrative examples of a Great Truth, often encapsulated in the time honoured adage: Never fight with an old man. If he’s too old to fight, he’ll just kill you.

Early advertising forays into this area were made by the people who bring you Old Spice aftershave and assorted other miscellaneous scented masculine products. These ads featured the inimitable Bruce Campbell, star of such films as Army of Darkness and Bubba Ho-Tep, author of If Chins Could Kill and Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way. Classics all.

Take a look:

Not bad. And now we have the World’s Most Interesting Man. Sit back and give these gems a screening.

It is said that not advertising is like winking at a woman in the dark. You know you’re doing it but she doesn’t. These totally hit the mark and I hope they continue to help me crave Canadian beer.

Stay thirsty my friends.

The Tuareg, so called “Blue Men of the Desert” are a nomadic herding people of the Sahara. They like their coffee:

Black as the Devil,
Strong as Death,
Sweet as Love,
And hot as Hell.

This pronouncement has always spoken to me because pretty much everything I appreciate in life fits into one or more of those four categories. I first encountered it while watching a National Geographic Special so long ago that, as I recall, the Dead Sea had only just been diagnosed as sick; and now, to help you eradicate the ear worm that is Elmer Bernstein’s National Geographic theme music, I’ll pause to let you get it out of your system …

So now, moving on to the point of today’s post, I would like to thank Markksr for his post last evening on the “Whine & Cheese” forum of Bladeforums.com, the content of which appears below. Click on the picture to view it in larger, more readable sizing.

I’ve been looking for a pointed bit of artwork to introduce a post aimed at all the sheeple out there who are starving our pig farmers out of fear that they can contract the latest flavour of influenza from eating pork. There’s lots of crap you have always been able to get from eating improperly cooked pork products, but influenza isn’t one of them. Now if you sleep with your pigs you have other issues and probably don’t read this blog anyway.

The weekend is almost here. Get out there, buy a few slabs of pig and fucking barbecue it. Mrs. LFM and I will be doing just that.

As unrepentant carnivores, Mrs. Large Fierce Mammal and I have small tolerance for those among the Great Unwashed who see nothing wrong with eating meat while at the same time idiotically attempting to expunge their “sin” by repeatedly reminding everyone in earshot of how bad or guilty they feel about it. We have the utmost respect for anyone who makes the choice to go vegetarian or vegan, provided that they have done so for reasons they honestly believe to be sound, that aren’t motivated by a need to follow trends, and extend in turn the same degree of respect in our direction while they watch us eagerly savage our leg of lamb. Word of advice: all carnivores can, do, and will bite if provoked, particularly when feeding.

I have personally met a woman, parent of an elementary school aged daughter, who disclosed to me that she fed her child meat in the interests of good nutrition, while at the same time hiding its dark origins from her. She thought it was fine to encourage her daughter in the belief that meat was something made at the grocery store, and then packaged on white foam trays; all to protect her from the evil reality governing most life on this planet – that for one thing to live, something else must die. In addition to all this bullshit about farm raised meat we have the furor over hunting. It isn’t necessary to look far before finding someone who will buy farm raised meat at the grocery store while condemning the practice of hunting for food as barbaric. At least in these parts, this attitude is most often directed at the hunting of deer that are seen as cute, beautiful, peaceful forest creatures intended by God to be enjoyed rather than killed. Bullshit. The deer is a herbivore that exists in Nature as part of an ecosystem. Among the biological imperatives that govern its existence are two biggies:

1. Reproduce with the most prime specimens of your kind that you can find; and
2. Be aware that you and yours are not at the top of the food chain.

Best efforts to accomplish item 1 will not always result in offspring that are fit to survive long enough to pass their weakness on to future generations. Good news though. They are the ones closest to the grim realities of item 2; specifically, if you aren’t at the top of the food chain, there is something in your environment that can and will kill and eat you if you aren’t vigilant, fast, strong, or lucky enough. So contrary to non-hunters who like to claim that the “poor deer” is no match for the human hunter with his rifle, the fact is that the hunter is pitting himself against a quarry that evolution has imbued with an absolute oneness with its place in the scheme of things. It lives its life not in the expectation of being hunted, but in the absolute certainty that it is being hunted at every moment. This is a far cry from the mass production farm cattle that live their lives viewing people as a source of food and care, only one day to find themselves herded onto trucks or train cars to arrive at a place that smells of fear and death. However humane the method of killing, the animal is still killed. As a predator I have no moral objection to swift, humane slaughter, but killing a large animal is not pretty, and regardless of the method used, carries a violence in its essence that will shake the weak minded. So tell me now; is it nobler to eat the meat you had the balls to kill with your own hands or to essentially take out a contract on some animal you’ve never personally engaged by having someone else do the killing for you so you can persist in posturing that you have personally evolved beyond all that? Buy meat at the market, but do it with your eyes open, and take unflinching responsibility for being the animal that you are.

The absolute and, without reservation best food and cooking show on television at the moment is the UK television series The F Word. featuring Chef Gordon Ramsay. Foul mouthed, and with a face like a boot, Ramsay is an incredible talent with a professional drive that at times approaches being a force of nature. Mrs. LFM has come to regard him as hot in the extreme, an opinion I’m inclined to share, attracted as I am by capable passionate people.

Among other entertaining segments, the show never fails to educate in the realities of food acquisition, whether it be hunting deer, raising lambs for slaughter; following them from birth, through raising, to slaughter, and ultimately to the plate in Ramsay’s F Word Restaurant; to scuba diving for king crab. A father of four young children; Megan, twins Jack and Holly, and Matilda; segments illustrate his efforts to bring them up with an intimate knowledge of where food comes from by doing such things as intimately involving them in raising turkeys for Christmas dinner. This is a show that comes highly recommended with complete endorsement from the Large Fierce Mammals.

But it’s not all education. I’ll close today’s post with a segment of The F Word featuring British journalist James May that has to be our all time favourite to date. No controversy. Just fucking hilarious. If you don’t follow the show, get off your ass and do it.

Robert E. Howard
1906-1936

Most people are familiar with the character Conan the Barbarian, created in literature for the pulp fiction market by Robert E. Howard, and later popularized by the films of varying quality starring the current Governor of California. Howard was a prolific writer who delved heavily into a number of genres including westerns, boxing, and what has come to be known, mostly due to his efforts, as sword and sorcery fantasy fiction. To this day Howard is still one of the most read authors in fantasy, and his work is never hard to find as it continues to be reprinted.

Howard was a brooding soul who balanced a brilliant talent with suicidal tendencies that, along with untreated bouts of chronic depression, had haunted him from an early age. His light was snuffed out when he took his own life on the morning of 11 June 1936, but ironically and sadly, it is this dark side that gives his work an allure shared by few others.

My personal favourite among Howard’s characters is Solomon Kane, a fanatical puritan driven to travel to the most vile shitholes of the 17th century world, snuffing out evil wherever he finds it. A fundamentalist of the most radical sort, Kane is compelled by a head splitting combination of righteous spite and self-loathing, and now he’s coming to a movie theatre near you in a film adaptation directed by Michael J. Bassett starring British actor James Purefoy Purefoy is an excellent choice for the role of Kane, having more than amply exhibited his ability to project all the required traits playing Mark Antony in twenty-two episodes of the late HBO miniseries “Rome“.

The film has long since gone from rumour to announced reality. Little snippets of information, from spoiler alerts, to concept art, to previews of promotional posters, are appearing all over the internet like crocus blossoms peeking through the snow. I’m hoping for a good treatment of the work here so the crystal ball is staying warmed up. I’ll leave you with an early release poster that’s making the rounds. As usual, click on the picture for a better view.

Each of the axes in the following shots started life as a small hand axe pretty much identical to the one held by the kid above. A commonly encountered hand tool, they were often forged by local blacksmiths by hammering a flat plate of steel around a mandrel that created the eye for the handle, and then forging on a hard steel edge.

This one was made by my friend Peter Thompson from an axe he happened upon at a yard sale. If memory serves, he bought it for $2.00. As you can see, he ground off the kid, and everything else that didn’t look like the effect he was going for, reshaped the strike face at the back, and welded on a striking head. The finish is cold bluing, although the piece wore a simple patination for a number of years.

A couple years ago I found another specimen hanging rusting on the wall of an old barn and sent it along to Thompson with my own vision of what should happen. The spectacular result appears below.

I specifically wanted to retain the rough from the forge appearance and as much of the original maker’s markings as I could. The finish is also cold bluing. All in all, a very lively and handy version of a four lugged chopping axe that I will be field testing during the 2009 hiking, camping, fishing, hunting, and all things woodsie season!

I’ll finish with a shot of the two together with Thompson’s bush knife, all sitting atop a whale skull that was a gift from Hurricane Juan. Once again, click the picture for a better view.

Installing a new computer mouse isn’t exactly rocket science, but should it be life threatening?

The mouse on my computer went to shit a few days ago, giving me a double click effect for single clicks with increasing frequency, so I installed a new one today. Imagine my amazement as I read the first sentence on the installation documents that came with it: “WARNING! Failure to properly set up, use, and care for this product can increase the risk of serious injury or death, or damage to the device or devices.”

Coming as they did in the wake of such an ominous pronouncement, the installation instructions were a bit anticlimactic, essentially consisting of:

1. Connect the mouse to your computer.
2. Use.
3. There is no step 3.

Nevertheless, we’re taking no chances here so everyone’s on high alert until further notice.