The Not Happy Thread

Weird dude (the one with the wife, I mean).

 

Sounds a lot like my best mate. He comes across as racist, fascist, looks like he'd beat you to bloody pulp for even looking at him, and don't even get me started on what a sleazeball he can be. His idea of stimulating dinner conversation is to pose a question along the lines of: If you came across the corpse of a famous person and there was no one else around, would you cop a feel? Of course, him being him, he'd even bring up the decomp factor thinking it might sway our opinions.

That said. He's also the kindest, sweetest, most generous person I've ever met.

 

No, Forrest could say whatever he wanted to anybody, no matter how lewd it might be. People just loved him regardless.

 

That was just a very subjective observation. I've known couples who gladly discuss their sex lives in front of friends, strangers, even family, or talk about who else they'd like to fuck etc.
I've nothing against it and I don't find it offensive or anything, but it would feel weird for me to behave in the same way, as does the notion of sitting quietly or laughing along if I was in that dude's shoes.
Then again, I know I'm narrow-minded when it comes to this stuff and my friends and their friends know it too. Hence the observation.


As for the topic: why is it so damn hard to sharpen a kukri properly? I don't have the proper gear at home, so I did what I could, and got a bit of an edge to it, but looks like all I can do is to take it to a local specialist shop and pay almost the price of the kukri to get a decent edge on it, which just feels like a waste.

 

What kind of steel is it made from?

 

@Garball, high carbon. It's the Gurkha model by Windlass, so it's not quite as world-class as one by Himalayan Imports (the Ferrari of kukris), but for the price, it's a decent wood (or limb) chopper. Even completely dull, it ate through our old living room table's leg with one swing, but it'd still be nice to get it properly sharpened.

 

Do you have the chakmak or a small honing steel? I would have a professional edge put on it and maintain the edge with steel or chakmak. What most people don't understand about maintaining edges is that honing and sharpening are completely different. Honing 'combs' the metal into an edge and sharpening removes metal to create a new edge. The more you sharpen a blade the worse the edge becomes until you have to put a new bevel on the blade.
If there is not a knife smith in your neck of the woods, you can carefully do it at the hardware store where they might have an axe grinder.

 

Just finished with work and housework and washing hair and painting the nails, made a big mug full of milky, sweet coffee, reclined on my new leather sofa with the last fifty pages of Kafka on the Shore and whack! Swept the mug off the table with a pillow, sticky coffee everywhere...

 

@Garball, I do have... something; it came with two small knives, but the kukri is so dull, I can't see how I could sharpen it properly with either of those in less than a year, so I'm taking it to the knife shop as soon as I have enough money (they charge around 50e for sharpening a blade this big).
It would just be nice to be able to do that stuff yourself, but the kukri is a tricky beast for novices like me.

 

@jazzabel I did the same thing last week, only not only did I make a mess, I broke my favourite Scrabble 'T' mug. I know it's psychosomatic but now my coffee doesn't taste the same.

 

@obsidian_cicatrix : Having the mug is extremely important for coffee drinking, but, breaking a favourite mug brings a whole new opportunity of buying another one. I always have way more mugs and cups I want then I have space for, so I hope you can find a suitable and worthy replacement soon

 

Why do people insist on walking their dogs off leash in an on-leash only park? I'm sorry dog people but it sucks. And when it's my neighbor walking her very large, not under voice command, German Shepard, it sucks even more.

Get this, there are three women who live next door. A different one of them had one of her two dogs killed when it wandered into another's yard (not near here). And it wasn't pretty, the dog survived at first but eventually succumbed to infection. That woman still lets her other dog, also not under voice command, out in the yard and walking in the woods off leash.

My on-leash dog was attacked in the park (this park is adjacent to our backyards) by an off leash dog. My dog required a $4k surgery to repair the damage.

Both women know this.

What is wrong with them they won't put a leash on their dogs when they walk them in the park?


There are off-leash dog parks around here. It's gotten so I am afraid every time I walk my dogs in the wooded park.

 

@GingerCoffee, can you press charges against the owner of the dog that attacked your dog? I feel like you should receive some sort of compensation, especially considering the cost of surgery.

 

I don't think you can press charges at a park like that because they put up signs usually that says, "Use at your own risk."

 

It doesn't matter even if the attack had occurred at an off-leash park. Owners can't let their dogs go around hurting other dogs.

 

In that situation you would have to show intent by the owner and malice.

 

It doesn't have much to do with the intent of the owner but rather with how aggressive the dog's behavior is in general or whether or not it was an issue of self-defense. Owners are expected to be in control of their dogs, with or without a leash. If you can show that the dog is aggressive, the owner could be sued for negligent behavior (at the very least).

 

Exactly so you would have to prove a past history of bad behavior by the dog that the owner is aware of, and then the negligence of the owner.

 

Wow, what's the point of law and taxes if you can't even walk a park without worrying about unleashed dogs..... :\

 

I'm really not a fan of this compensation culture. Your dog bit my dog, I'm attributing that to your negligence, you must compensate me financially for my dog's distress.
Obviously every case is different and in some cases there may be negligence on the part of an owner but my guess is this is simply the law of nature. Dogs will be dogs.
The only winners with this sort of nonsense are the lawyers who are laughing all the way to the bank whilst everyone's insurance premiums sky rocket to cover the financial deficit from everyone suing and counter suing.

 

In Nature, sure. Dogs will be dogs, and some like making others know they're the big one in the pack. Still doesn't change the fact that in the owner's eyes, someone is willfully letting his/her dog run loose and biting whatever the hell it wants. Why do you think pit bulls had been a source of controversy over the years? In Nature, the pit bull is just doing what's natural, what's innate in all animals which is to go after the weak, but since when did we let the rules of Nature dictate how we run human society?

 

I said in some instances there would be a case to answer. Of course when an animal is being used as a weapon and deliberately set upon people this would be one such criterion.
I was making a comment on society's readiness to sue and and go for the jugular for compensation for what are trivial matters in the grand scheme of things, in my opinion.
Your over simplification of my example isn't particularly helpful.

 

Your view of pit bulls is skewed. If you look at the real data based on percentage of fatal attacks to the number of population, pit bulls are one of the less likely of the large breeds to attack someone.

http://dontbullymybreed.org/

 

Even in cases where the owner isn't using the dog as a weapon, I would seek compensation if I had to spend a ton of money on surgery, vet bills, etc. In Ginger's case, thousands of dollars were spent. She should be allowed to make the other dog's owner pay for the expenses.

 

Long story short, he lives a couple blocks away, his homeowners insurance paid in full, the jerk still walks his dog off leash.

While the police were empathetic and agreed they would more vigorously pursue someone who did $4K damage to a vehicle in the park parking lot, they had no budget to police off leash dogs. Since he paid and the dog wasn't really vicious, it was just instinctually going after a small barking dog I declined to press charges. I was concerned they might declare the dog to be dangerous and that wasn't the case. It was the owner who was dangerous.