Walt's Corner

Few authors hold enough power over me to get me to stop reading a book, especially at 90% finished, just to start another book. Jeff Strand is one of them authors. Bloodsucker County was released earlier this week, forcing me to slap a bookmark in Interview with the Devil: Epoch for the time being. Sadly, I finished Bloodsucker County within a few days. I’m sad because I was hoping to spend at least a couple weeks within the apocryphal world of Strand’s latest book.

This is not your typical vampire novel. In fact, one could argue these monsters only share fleeting glimpse of one of the world’s oldest monster legends. Society as we know it has fallen in the wake of these vile monsters that have severely reduced the human population. There is one county that has managed to survive by laying low and keeping out of the way. That is until a stranger shows up one day and becomes the subject of one’s just come-of-age teen’s empathy. Bill arrives in the county barely alive, and Lance, our protagonist, takes him in to the ever-fading safety and security of their small community. As the family takes in this wounded man, thus begins the roller coaster journey of survival filled with horror, gore and the edgy Strandian humor we all crave.

What is different about this particular novel for me is that my name gets to be a character in the book, thanks to my joining Jeff’s Patreon page. Jeff warned us who qualified that our plight would not be great. In fact, he seemed to take pleasure in telling us that we would probably die. Horribly.

My character is described as being “emaciated and covered with sores and bruises. His greasy hair hung to his knees, and his beard was so long that it almost reached his exposed…” You’ll have to read it for yourself to find out exactly what was exposed. Lance didn’t want to “fight back against a man in such poor physical shape.”

By the way, if you are a big Strand fan, and would like more of him, be sure to check out his Patreon page. He provides us with daily insights and short stories you just won’t get elsewhere including a story that gets a chapter released every Wednesday called Catch and Release. This is a new story about George and Lou from his Wolf Hunt trilogy.

Have to say that I was appropriately entertained by the latest movie in the Star Trek Universe, Section 31. It was not the dark drama sci-fi thriller I was hoping it would be – but entertaining. It held our attention until the end. In my opinion, Section 31 is to Star Trek what Skeleton Crew is to Star Wars. Not really the same thing, but enjoyable in its own right.

If you don’t want any spoilers, I suggest you stop reading now. You have been warned.

It had a little bit of everything built into it. If you have enjoyed the recent additions in the vein of Discovery, Strange New Worlds, and Picard, you probably liked this one too.

Jeff Russo’s score brought the ominous sounds reminiscent of Picard, Discovery, and Legion while seemingly borrowing from Goldsmith’s First Contact. I give it a 5/5.

Starship battles rate a bit lower though. 1/5. There was a small one at the end. There wasn’t an inkling of our traditional Starfleet vessels. One could argue that since the action occurred outside of Federation space, we shouldn’t expect any of the traditional ships we are accustomed to.

Fights/action sequences were pretty good. 4/5. Plenty of fighting from beginning to end but inconsistent. Having a device that puts the wearer of said device out of phase with everyone else was pretty cool. This way others couldn’t land a punch, kick, or phaser blast on target because target was out of phase. But how did Georgiou manage to dodge said attacks effortlessly and with the ability to walk through walls with same agility not manage to fall through the floor? When she dropped the Godsend weapon (which was wearing its own out-of-phase device) why did it not fall through the floor but it could get kicked into the next room and pass through those walls without any issues?

Section 31 features a young LT Garrett who will eventually become Captain of the Enterprise C, plus a nod to the original series inhabitants of the planet Cheron.

There was no real Section 31 darkness going on, but there was the origin story of Georgiou that was revealed where she ended up poisoning her family as teen in a final test to become emperor. You also see her betray her teen main crush at the time who will later be revealed as her nemesis for the movie. Very dark, so I give it a 3/4 for darkness.

As I stated earlier, I enjoyed it. Not what I thought it would be, but enjoyable nonetheless. The ending, while giving us closure, provided an opening to a continuing saga of Section 31’s origin story. I look forward to see what comes next out of this.

This cold therapy machine was the best collateral benefit of Carol’s knee replacement in January of 2024. The new knee, of course, being the actual benefit. At the that time, it cost over $200. Today this device still garnishes a high price tag at $169 and up depending on the accessories supplied. We call it, The Ice Machine.

It’s a cooler that you fill with water and ice. It has a pump that transfers the icy water to a cooling pad that you place over the recovering part of your body and deposits the used water back into the cooler. Instant cold. No need to store pads in your freezer. A trick we learned at the hospital was to place 4 frozen water bottles inside instead of ice cubes. Lasts much longer. We keep 8 bottles of water in the freezer. This way, we have plenty of bottles to use as the others are freezing again and placed into rotation.

A year later, almost to the day, Carol had the other knee replaced. Knowing what to expect this time around, she set up her little corner in the living room with items we knew would make her quality of life recovery a smidge better than last time. A 3-foot tong-like reaching/grabbing bar. A 3-tier shelf on wheels. Small physical therapy equipment/accessories. Crutches. Walker. The Ice Machine.

Just like last year, Carol spent the night in the hospital and was released the following afternoon. Nestled into her recovery corner of the house, I prepared The Ice Machine. Frozen water bottles – check. Fill to the line with water – check. Snap the pad into the water tubing – check. Plug in the power to the pump – no dice. Unplug. Plug back in. Nothing. Fuck me. Guess we are using the old-fashioned ice packs for now.

Turns out the pump died. And a quick internet search provided me with results I did not like. I could not purchase the pump separately. I would have to buy the cooler at a minimum for over $100. The pump unit is sealed. Taking it apart would permanently break it. Plus, it was not a submersible pump. I then turned to other types of pumps – submersibles. Fish aquarium water pumps would fit the bill. I found one on Amazon that offered delivery in the wee hours of the night. Perfect.

The pump arrived on time. I took the old pump out and made some minor adjustments to the piece that brings the tubing and power inside the cooler to accommodate the larger power cord/plug. The tubing was a perfect fit to the pump. My $11 solution worked perfectly. The pump contains a warning: do not use in water over 35ºC. I don’t think that will be an issue.

I have been using the Leaf Twig razor for over a week, and I can confirm, like many other satisfied users, that this is a worthy razor to have in your shaving arsenal. Leaf offers two razors in this configuration – the Twig and the Thorn. Leaf offers the Thorn for those who prefer a more aggressive cut than the Twig.

Twig/Thorn razors utilize a single edge blade (or a double edge snapped in half). I used one single edge blade all week long, shaving every day without feeling as though the blade was diminished in any way. The blade I used was a snapped in half RK Stainless. A pack of 100 double edge blades costs less than $15 from Amazon as of the time I was writing this. When used in this application, snapped in half, that gives me 200 blades for $15. Assuming I can use one blade per week or two, that is over 2 years’ worth of blades for $15. You cannot get that out of the disposable plastic cartridge blades going for $20 for pack of 5 at Walmart, or even the likes of Dollar Shave Club whose cartridges run from $6/6 pack of their Humble Twin to $10/4-pack of their Club series 4/6.

Changing the blade out is accomplished by twisting the stem clockwise, raising and twisting the blade catch out of the way. The small length and weight of the handle promotes effortless control of your blade. I was able to shave every day for a week without any noticeable razor burn. Whether you have not made the jump to a safety razor yet and are looking for a great starter or are seasoned pro looking for your next razor, you will not regret getting this.

Side note: my shaving brush is a Vikings Blades Dark Stallion comprised of synthetic Silvertip Badger hair, stainless steel, and acrylic obsidian. It weighs in at 126 grams. I have used this brush almost daily since June of 2019. Shaving soap of choice is Arko. It’s economic, super-lathery, and smells of a clean soap with a hint of citrus.

Have you ever come across one of those words where you are not sure how to spell it? You spell it out, but it does not seem right. Autocorrect throws some weird shit at you and you accept, but then there is some other color line under it now. Something is amiss. Great. Now I must perform a google search on fucking marshmallows. So, I did. And I learned something.

Before I even finished typing in the word “marshmallow,” the responses start auto populating on my screen. The first one of which was from WebMD and read “MARSHMALLOW: Overview, Uses, Side Effects, Precautions…” Um… NO. Not at all what I am looking for. The scrumptious candy should not be popping up on WebMB. I must have the wrong spelling. I keep scrolling down until I find the type of results I was looking for. Marshmallow. Marshmallow root. Marshmallow in Spanish. Marshmallow fluff. There it is. Wikipedia Marshmallow is a confectionary made from…” and that’s all I needed. I had the correct spelling.

But wait. What was all that stuff about marshmallow root? And WebMB? This required further investigating. The rabbit hole had opened. Also from WebMD: “Marshmallow is sometimes used to form a protective layer on the skin and lining of the digestive tract. It also contains chemicals that might decrease cough and fight infections. Don’t confuse marshmallow with the mallow (Malva sylvestris) flower and leaf.”

Holy shit. Do my s’mores marshmallows have an origin story? Turns out, they do. Here is what I learned from Wikipedia. Check it out if, like Paul Harvey, you want the rest of the story. My generic overview follows. The word marshmallow comes from the name of the mallow plant species Althaea officinalis. It grows in wetlands or marshes. Marshmallow. It appears the use of this plant for medicinal purposes goes back as far as ancient Egypt, 2000 BCE. The Egyptians would prepare this mallow root pulp  by boiling it with honey, straining, cooling and then using it for sore throats and healing wounds. My guess would to be to make it more palatable. But who knows their original line of thought. Certainly not this guy.

Fast forward to to the mid 19^th century and you’ve got the French adding sugar, water, and egg whites to it and whipping it up into a fluffy candy called Pâte de Guimauve. And that is the basic recipe still in use today with egg whites or gelatin used to hold the foamy structure of what you and I know as the lowly marshmallow. Minus the mallow.

In summary, today’s marshmallow is an ancient medicinal delivery system, minus the medicine. And now you know.