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Post by wordweaver3 on Jan 2, 2017 19:51:45 GMT
Don't know if this qualifies as a "project".
I'm having a go at making corned venison. I've heard folks have done this before and had positive results so I found a corned beef recipe online and I'm hoping for the best. Boiled some brine and now I'm just waiting for it to cool so I can put the meat in it. The problem is it takes at least 5 days to cure, so I'm not gonna know if it was worth the effort til next week.
Last week I tried a dry rub and slow roasted a piece of back strap at 170 degrees (about 77 C) for about six hours. It turned out okay but the rub I used was a bit overpowering for the delicate venison. In order to prevent that from happening again I cut back a bit on the spices in the recipe.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jun 22, 2017 6:49:37 GMT
(Pardon the mess. I'm currently living in a house that my cousin and I have pretty much gutted and are rebuilding. The place is a catastrophe.) I was having lunch yesterday. Tuna fish. Love that stuff. While eating I started thinking about the can. I wondered if that would work as a small resonator for a guitar. So I beat it into shape to try and increase the tension on the bottom and drilled some holes in the sides. In a few hours I had cobbled together a one string, fretless diddley-bow with a tuna can resonator. The body is a hollowed out 2x6 scrap board sandwiched between some scrap 1/4 inch ply. The neck is what remains of a window ledge we ripped out of the house. So far this build cost me a couple cents for the screws I used. I tried to string it with some 15 lb fishing line, but, as expected, it snapped. I'm not sure if the resonator will work, but it should still function fine as a regular diddley-bow. It still needs a little more work. I tried to make a hand rest out of the can lid, but it wasn't quite big enough.
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Post by frostwolf on Jun 22, 2017 14:12:07 GMT
I'm still working on a novel I started about 4 years ago. Mainly just in editing (actually going to a writing group helps a lot).
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jun 24, 2017 6:30:35 GMT
Writing is rewarding, albeit painful sometimes. Keep at it.
I currently have 2 novelettes for sale that I did all the editing on my own. I'm worried that doing my own editing was a mistake. When you edit your own stuff it's easy to bypass what would be glaring mistakes to a professional. Of course, considering how poorly they're selling it would have taken forever to recoup the cost of an editor.
On the diddley bow: The resonator wasn't working out so I abandoned it. Might try it on a different design later on. I got some 50 lb mono fishing line that seems to be holding up pretty well as a string. It's a little twangy, and I think 100 lb would work better, but they didn't have anything that heavy at the store. I tried to go cheap on the tuning peg and use a nail, but it wouldn't stay in tune. I had to splurge a buck for a used peg.
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Post by Horsie on Jun 27, 2017 18:18:09 GMT
I've never heard of a diddly bow before, but I know I've heard it in some of the music I've listened to, probably bluegrass or something.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jun 28, 2017 3:32:18 GMT
The diddley bow has very deep roots in blues as it is the epitome of a poor man's instrument. It was the starting point for many aspiring artists before they could afford to move on to a real guitar. As such it influenced their play style throughout their lives. There are two major types of diddley bow, though any one stringed instrument might qualify. The board bow: Which is typically played as a percussion instrument, but can be strummed too. And the cigar box bow: Which is played much like a guitar. Now you might think you might be limited with one string, and you'd be right, but that's not to say you can't rock with one. Doesn't even have to be pretty.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jul 27, 2017 12:05:18 GMT
This seems as good a place as any to pitch this story idea.
I'm starting to work on a quasi mystery story. It starts off with a serial killer committing a gruesome murder. As the first part unfolds the reader begins to realize that this isn't our world. Or at least, this isn't our world as it has been for tens of thousands of years. Our serial killer is a resident of the stone age, long before the very concept of a "serial killer" was ever even spoken. I'm reasoning that serial killers aren't new, people who killed for perverse reasons have always existed, it's just that there wasn't any forensics back in the day. It would be easy to get away with 10,000 years BC.
But our killer has gotten a persistent hunter on his tail. A hunter who uses the limited resources he has to try and track down this prehistoric psychopath. A hunter who is willing to brave unfamiliar lands and dangerous tribes and is determined to find the killer. This hunter isn't looking for justice, as justice is likely a concept foreign to him. The hunter has come to believe that the killer has devoured the spirit of his victims, one of which was the hunter's own daughter. He wants to free her spirit so they will meet again in the sky.
The time period is extremely early agriculture era. The concept of planting seeds in order to get more seed later is just catching on. Domestication of animals is in it's infancy. People are starting to gather into groups larger than simple family units. They are becoming less nomadic. The killer is using the openness and the sedentary nature of the new society to move from settlement to settlement and find new victims. The hunter is following the local gossip and the very specific way the killer murders his victims to try and track down the killer, but find himself months, if not years behind him.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jul 28, 2017 15:06:15 GMT
You know what's annoying about prehistory? How little we know about it. I've been doing a lot of research and I'm getting tired of all the data that doesn't seem to fit the other data. You'd think someone woulda been thoughtful enough to write some shit down.
Take the last glacial maximum. It was theorized to have spread over the northern half of Europe and making a great deal of the continent uninhabitable for life. The problem is that we have physical evidence of hominid presence at and even under the theorized glacial borders that are dated at the same time that the glacier was there. That should be like finding a neanderthal in Antarctica. Even the parts not under ice should have been nearly devoid of life due to low precipitation and near constant cold temperatures. Regardless of what the theory is, there was obviously life there if the dating is to be believed.
So in my story I'm finding myself forced to ignore certain theories and, frankly, make shit up. Sorta like putting together a 100 piece puzzle based on only 3 pieces. Two of which may not even be from this particular puzzle.
The fun part is since my story pre dates any established religions I get to make up religions from scratch.
The religion that is considered most important, at least from our main character's standpoint, is the Cult of Murr. Murr is the moon goddess. She is the goddess of death. That's not to say that she's evil, just that she's the one who cares for the dead in the afterlife. The moon is considered the eye of Murr. It opens and closes to indicate when she is watching, when she is only partly watching, and when she isn't watching at all. It's considered unlucky to die during the new moon (when she isn't watching) as you will not make it into the afterlife. Someone who is certain they are soon to die may decide to take their life during the full moon to avoid this.
Su is the sun god and brother of Murr. According to Su worshipers he is the most important god, according to Murr worshipers he's second most important and is jealous of Murr. Su brings warmth in the summer but hordes his warmth in the winter just to spite humanity because they stole his fire that he hid away in the trees. He also wipes out the ancestors (stars being the visible evidence of the ancestors in the sky), forcing Murr to collect them again the next night.
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Post by Horsie on Jul 29, 2017 14:36:14 GMT
I know there's a margin of error when it comes to radiocarbon dating, that might be part of it, though historians rarely agree on anything, and I bet there's still a fair bit of speculation when it comes to exactly when the glaciers retreated and where.
Su sounds like a jackass.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jul 29, 2017 16:08:02 GMT
Su is a bit of a dick. He's still respected, but probably because if he wasn't he might take away his heat for the whole year.
I reasoned that prehistoric people wouldn't understand why the sun will sometimes be hot enough to burn the skin and sometimes appear to give off very little heat even though it's still clearly visible in the sky. The moon would appear to be more exciting, going through predictable changes and ruling over the mysterious night. The moon would even encroach into the sun's domain where the sun never encroaches into the moon's. Sometime Murr even eats Su. Presumably to put him in his place.
There are other gods too. Roan is the fertility goddess, planting the seeds into the women when they come of age. It's actually not widely known or even accepted that sex equals childbirth at this point. Children are given by Roan. It's just coincidence that they often occur after sexual activity. As such the concept of marriage is not established yet. A man may have a, or several, women that he claims. That's typically more of an ownership thing than a covenant. Any children that the women would have would be considered his (whether they are or are not biologically his), but if someone were to dispute the ownership (such as a club to the skull) the children would belong to the new owner.
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Post by Horsie on Jul 31, 2017 1:45:59 GMT
If that doesn't do it, nothing will.
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jul 31, 2017 2:22:47 GMT
Speaking of which there's going to be a total eclipse coming up next month. They are selling the shit out of eclipse glasses.
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Post by Harkovast on Jul 31, 2017 17:26:04 GMT
Wait wait...I haven't checked this for a bit so I need to back it up to check something. Did the tuna fish can based guitar work? I seriously need to know.
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Post by Horsie on Jul 31, 2017 19:14:43 GMT
So... eclipse glasses? They're just really dark sunglasses, correct? I've got some burning goggles that ought to do the trick, though we're only going to get a partial eclipse here (if that).
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Post by wordweaver3 on Jul 31, 2017 20:34:01 GMT
Did the tuna fish can based guitar work? I seriously need to know. The tuna can resonator didn't work out because I had built the box too deep and I couldn't get a snug connection between the can and the string. It had a horrible vibration issue. I'll probably give it another shot on a different build. The bow itself worked out pretty well. It's capable of very haunting warbling notes. It's also loud, sounding almost electric. Another neat thing is I found an excellent substitute for guitar string. Malin fishing leader has no stretch so it stays in tune. I tuned it up to G and it stayed there. The real benefit is that it's way cheaper than guitar string. 2.50 for over 40 feet of the stuff. Yep, you can barely see through them at all. We're gonna get the full eclipse, it's gonna pass directly over us (more or less).
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