Below is a video review of the Spyderco Paramilitary 2.
This is a Spyderco Paramilitary 2 knifecenter exclusive with CPM-CruWear black plain blade and G10 handles. I purchased it from http://www.knifecenter.com for $175.
Below is an additional video demonstrating that I can indeed learn how to spider flick with a little practice.
Below is a video review of the Benchmade Mini Adamas
This is a Benchmade Mini Adamas 2022 exclusive CPM-CruWear black plain drop point blade with Red/black micarta handles. I purchased it from www.knifecenter.com for $175.
Below is a video review of the Kershaw Ken Onion Blur.
This is a Kershaw Blur Tanto Black Serrated Pocket Knife. It has a 3.4 inch Cerakote finish blade with Sandvik 14C28N steel, a partially serrated blade, with SpeedSafe Opening and a reversible pocketclip. I purchased this via a reseller on Amazon for $85
I’m a big fan of Miles Davis, jazz trumpeter. On any given warm, sunny, Sunday, I’ll sit out on the poach with Miles on the Bose speaker and a craft beer or two or three to chase away the Sunday scaries.
So I post an appreciative tweet declaring my good mood for some cool music.
And I’m assaulted with this quote tweet. Obviously a fellow stoolie who follows me and uses a reference to a BigCat bit. But what the F#@$ does this have to do with listening with music and why bother with this?
My chill mood is interrupted. I engage in a combative mode that I choose to use very rarely these days. The response receives a “Oh Snap!” meme from another follower. A playful response that should have been the end where we both go off smiling and enjoy the rest of our Sunday.
The response to my tweet from the poor person who ruined my mood? A meme about “Who’s listening”? Again, what the F#@$?
Sorry, but I can’t let it go. My response. Maybe it’s to judgy? But I think I’ve been around a bit and can always lend a fellow twitter user a hand with improving the reply game. Reviewing the person’s tweets for a couple of days, they are filled with a ton of single sentence responses.
The response was to peel out an untappd beer tweet posted prior to the start of this little interaction, not entirely read it, and try to beer shame me. First, never, ever, use “respectfully” in a response. It’s such a trigger that everything you say after that will just be an attempted attack. And never, ever, ever, try to beer shame me. My tweets on the weekends are filled with check-ins on untappd. Stop following me if you can’t handle beer tweets on the weekend. I like and appreciate good craft beer.
Of course I didn’t let that go and it was obvious the person tweeting couldn’t take the heat. When you change the topic or try to point to ‘look over there’, you’re done. You’ve lost. Go home!
Don’t mess with me when I’m listening to Miles.
I’ve been thinking about wanting a new pocket knife recently.
I currently have a GerberGear @gerbergear pictured here that I enjoy because it fits on my keyring and is useful for small knife things like cutting open amazon boxes. This model is discontinued and you can see from years of use how worn away the original black finish is.
I purchased a number of Gerber Gear knives in quick succession from Amazon
GERBER GDC Zip Blade [31-001742], Gray for $15.00
This is now sitting on my keyring along with my discontinued Gerber Gear keyring knife. I was able to sharpen my existing knife a little and will continue to keep it on my keyring.
Gerber Paraframe Mini Knife, Serrated Edge, Stainless Steel for $19.34
Gerber Gear 22-48445N Paraframe I Folding Pocket Knife, Serrated Edge, Grey for $18.78
Gerber Ripstop I Knife, Serrated Edge for $21.00
I really was disappointed that these 3 Gerber Gear knives did not have a hole anywhere that could be used for a keyring, lanyard, or fob.
I really wanted this Gerber Gear 30-000433 Remix Folding Pocket Knife, Serrated Edge, Black for $35.90 but simply did not like the fit and finish and sent it back. In the first picture you can see it against the other Gerber knives and it rests partly open unintentionally. I at first thought the rough cut of the metal at the pivot point was caused by a drop during delivery and I sent it back. After receiving another one with the exact same rough cut I saw in the Amazon reviews this is actually part of the design. I can’t agree with that choice and the portion of the pivot sticking out from the ring so I returned it.
At this point I realized I needed to spend some research time and learn more about the world of pocket knives.
I found that the YouTube channels of KnifeCenter https://www.youtube.com/@knifecenter and Best Damn EDC [Taylor Martin] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK5R1BsMtGd4DtI5uGQRHIg to provide a ton of valuable information and possible selections.
I’ve added a number of knives I’d like to own to my Amazon wish list including:
Spyderco Para 3 Signature Folding Utility Pocket Knife with 2.95″ Stainless Steel Blade and G-10 Handle – Everyday Carry – CombinationEdge $155
Benchmade Pardue Mini-griptilian 530v Steel Blade Knife – 555-s30v Satin Plain E $182.98
Kershaw Cryo BlackWash (1555BW); Rick Hinderer Design Drop Point Pocket Knife; SpeedSafe Assisted Opening with Flipper or Thumbstud; 4-Position Deep-Carry Pocketclip; Lanyard Hole; Frame Lock; 4.1 oz $48.76
Spyderco Delica 4 Lightweight Signature Knife with 2.90″ Saber-Ground Black Steel Blade and FRN Handle – CombinationEdge – C11PSBBK $99.40
Gerber Fastball Wharncliffe Blade Folding Knife, Urban Grey $123.49
CIVIVI Baby Banter Pocket Folding Knife for EDC, 2.34″ Blade Small Knife with Titanium Thumb Stud Opener C19068S-2 $59.50
Today I received what I believe for me is one of the best knives I’ve ever touched.
Kershaw Blur Tanto Black Serrated Pocket Knife (1670TBLKST); 3.4 inch Cerakote Finish Blade, Sandvik 14C28N Steel, Partially Serrated Blade; SpeedSafe Opening, Reversible Pocketclip $76.11
I am simply floored by how nice this @kershawknives knife looks and feels
Next steps: lanyards and fobs. I’ve purchased a couple of brass stone grain lanyard beads and some leather latigo lace to tie some snake knots
I use https://www.instagram.com/timhitchings/ to post some of my exercise and weight loss info. The below is a timeline so far.
For diet I’ve gone to primarily a dinner of salad with chicken as the protein. The salad has a light dressing some carrots, nuts, cheese, raisins, dried cranberry’s. Water for drink. A cup of coffee in the morning. Water all day. A single slice of whole grain buttered toast with some cheese for lunch after my morning walk. I should be looking at dropping the slice of toast also. I may have a handful of organic trail mix in the afternoon before dinner. Weekend is often similar. Anytime I’ve ordered burgers I always skip the bread. No pasta. I WILL have beers Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I’m sure that’s the primary reason I see a slight weight gain over the weekend and I’m ok with that.
Below is some data on what I’m doing exercise/weight wise.
I’m currently using three different walking routes. The one hour 30 minute walk is typically on Saturday and Sunday and the only walk of the day. I mix the 30 minute and 1 hour walks for two walks a day. I’m likely to start doing two one hour walks day. Any problems with recovery and I’ll drop back down to a combination of a one hour and a 30 minute per day.
I’m using 30 minute YouTube video for exercise. https://youtu.be/L08vWPkMftQ Every element is done with no resistance band attachment needed. I’ve had to scale back my walking to once a day at the lower mileage as I’m dealing with some sort of hamstring upper calf strain. The bands were inexpensive and seem a better choice then some sort of combination dumbbells. The routines are challenging and I’m still working to try to get thru the whole 30 minute routine at the lowest band level.
Both shoes were Sketchers. The ones on the left weren’t likely meant for daily walks but the were slip-ons and a size larger than my last shoes and I never had any issues as with previous shoes with the heal cup wearing out early. The once one the right were highly rated for walking.
I had researched Amazon for something to add to my walks as I really need to work on my upper body beyond just walking
I’m pleased with the first monthly loss report of a total of 16.2 lbs. I know that it will likely be getter harder to lose that much weight each month. It’s apparent that looking at the graph that weekends are where I see a 3lb weight gain. I’m ok with that as I’m using the week to kill that gain and drive the weight down further.
metformin is prescribed. Type 2 diabetes is possible. This was an eye opener. I’m hopeful with my upcoming visit in September with a new set of blood tests that my significant changes in weight, eating habits, and exercise will get me off this asap.
I’m using the KoreHealth KoreScale which I purchased from Amazon for $99. With an app running on my phone I weigh myself every morning and quickly see a tracking graph showing my progress.
My world reset happens at 7/8PM New Jersey
In UCA I have a lvl 26 hall and a lvl 23 hall.
I have an active monthly Value Card, $7.45 after taxes and fees, that provides 300 gold every day and other benefits on my lvl 26 hall.
My layout has six of every rss farm. I try to have these at max level. My steel output is 1.1k+1.0/h and steel capacity 11.6k+10.2k in my 26.
Fleet Army = 681,651 units. As my fleet size is 134,111, I don’t need to spend time dividing my units by 4. I always divide my units into equal amounts for my 4 fleet queues.
I always have all vehicle research completed.
VIP lvl 8, Sergeant
Prosperity Level 13
I time this to complete just after the daily reset. I believe you can use the completion for the Daily Reward points so it’s prudent to time it to complete one minute after the reset.
Director: I. Medici (lvl 20 mastery 356) & F. Medici (lvl 17 mastery 274)
Strategy: Major Morgan (lvl 20 mastery 324) & Loreline (lvl 14 mastery 212)
Warfare: Kingsley (lvl 14 mastery 256) & Tifa (lvl 15 mastery 232) & Panda Jack (lvl 11 mastery 180) & Alexandria (lvl 8 mastery 178) & Aeon (lvl 8 mastery 150)
Going to replace Alexandria with Storm Bow once I have enough
I have a number of skills attached to the officers including steel expert and steel gathering speed. Will be adding minerals when officer slots open.
I use the free resource sale and always choose steel and minerals
I focus on increasing resources research to increase abilities to collect rss faster. Second I focus on Military to get additional max troops in armies.
Perform merges after the daily reset as part of the daily reward.
Sell all 4 RSS at beginning of daily reset. I buy gas to be used for one of the phase events. I buy turret Parts to be able to upgrade wall defenses. I buy Leader Badge so I can use the Dispatch Center and upgrade my Max Rally. I also like to by the 1 day mineral and steel speed ups.
Be sure to sell off all your basic officer fragments. Buy advanced officer fragments when possible.
In the treatment room which you can use 4 times a reset I always choose the supplies that take the longest to explore. Sometimes I will focus on the supplies that produce Elite Teleport Fragments. I use the hospital after any event involving armies to heal army members. I use the Biochemical Workshop and create additional troops.
Always perform Alliance Help. Log on frequently to clear this.
Review this when anyone is battling. You can click to go to the hall that your team member is attacking. If the hall is within your range that you could attack, I go after lvl 17 and higher as I would like to plunder steel, bookmark the location by clicking below the enemy hall. I never attack any city with an alliance. I never attack any city that is already burning as they will have low resources. I only attack once a day as that way the next day the available rss is typically high again. I also will keep the msg’s produced by the action and remove yesterday’s msg’s. If you run out of bookmarks to store this msg saving is helpful to track and make sure you hit them all in a reset session.
Harvest
Press the Commander Skill icon on the right side of the screen.
If you have advanced your Development Commander Skills to include Harvest you should be able to click the far left Harvest icon and get 6 hours of rss from all your buildings. Try to do this first thing in the morning so 12 hours from now you can press the button for your second harvest of the day.
Check Daily Reward Progress
Confirm that City Hall Daily Reward has completed and all chests have been opened.
If not complete then review what is available. Often just collect created overnight armies or collect overnight RSS.
Important to always complete the Daily Reward.
Collect all from the hall. Start more army building. Make sure they will complete before the daily reset or within a few minutes after the reset. That way I can start the armies and get reset points when complete. I always have all armies building. I have all of my army factories at max level.
Army building
I always build either front or back troops. Never middle troops. Front troops will slow the monsters enough so the back row can kill. I always time my number of recruits to finish just after the daily reset. That way I can start my armies after the reset and have them complete for the Daily Reward.
City Resource Collection
Log on often and shake. If your rss building reaches your farm max you stop rss generation.
Embassy Collection:
Log on often and collect.
Read all mail and collect.
Check bag and use anything in other except fuel and detector. On the resources tab in the the bag. Do not collect anything here. Leave it for when you need an upgrade and you are short.
Save health heals for events. Don’t use them just to speed up healing without a purpose.
Save transport speed ups for events and attacks.
Check Manage Alliance/Contribution Ranking. If under 200 for daily, donate to Alliance Technology and Alliance Institute.
Make sure both builder icons are active and building. I believe it is worth it to spend the gold to always have the second builder going.
Attack my bookmarks. Provides rss.
Attack monsters until all fuel is used. The benefit is collecting crates for your bag.
Send all armies out to collect RSS. I focus on steel and minerals as they are most difficult to collect. Use elite mines if available. Never use elite mines that have a shared alliance tax. Use the radar for other mine locations. I like to use lvl 3’s and not go for mines that are far away. Check often to make sure they haven’t finished collecting and repeat as necessary.
Check Manage Alliance/Contribution Ranking. If under my personal goal of 200 for daily, donate to Alliance Technology and Alliance Institute. Tech chips are usually in your bag if you participate in any of the shared events or rallys. Donate the Tech chips to the Alliance Institute to hit your daily or weekly goal.
Check that RSS collection is going on all of your queues
Check that armies are being created.
Check Manage Alliance/Contribution Ranking. If under 200 for daily, donate to Alliance Technology and Alliance Institute.
I use this order: Black Market Trade, Start a quick research that will complete before the next refresh, Equipment Facility meld, Distribution Exchange Store purchase, collect all created armies and restart them (make sure they will finish before the next refresh), collect and start a new Troop Promotion that will complete by the next refresh. Try to have a building upgrade going. Go to the world screen and reinforce your nearest neighbor and then withdraw. Go to the world screen and perform a rss assistance with your nearest neighbor. Then City Ruins Exploration 3 times. Perform enough Slay Monsters to complete goal. Go to the Alliance screen and donate max to Alliance Technology and Alliance Institute. Challenge Elite Zombie 2 times. Click the Gather Power Ore and set some of your army to collect 1500 power ore by next reset. Fun fact: Gather Power ore does not count as one of your vehicle queues. So you can have 5 fleets running overnight. Set to collect the other required rss that is needed. Divide your army so you can run all of your fleets up to 5 if you are a level 19. Don’t forget your Biochemical lab to be exploring for the night.
Make sure all troops are out gathering while you sleep. Same for generating armies.
This is a tracking sheet that I like to keep to help determine my progress and upgrades. Once in a while I go and survey my bag and update the numbers. The same for the current counts.
In the Giant Wyrm Invasion the alliance goal is to kill as many wyrms as possible. The alliance method is to use a timed attack. This attack when properly executed will result in multiple armies arriving at the same time and dealing the maximum damage to kill the wyrm. Each trip uses gas which will deplete and takes time to replenish. The best results are achieved by killing the wyrm in one trip.
One member will call out a wrym location in the alliance public chat and then respond with a number. That number represents the time that it will take for the member to attack. The member calling the attack found a wrym, called up the attack on their screen, found the attack time on the screen and then did not start the attack.
All members who wish to help will then click on the coordinates provided by the leading member and perform the same task. Open the attack screen, find the time, close the attack screen, report the number on the alliance chat.
The member who started the attack will tell the member with the highest time to start the attack.
All members will go to the Alliance Battles Event area of the app. All members will watch the countdown for the attack that has been started. Typically give yourself +5 seconds of your reported attack time and join the battle with your army. Actions in this area when done well result in all of the members armies arriving at the same time.
Always have a full size army for this event. There are many other techniques on how to arrange a full army to have the most effective types.
I’ll update this with screen shots the next time we have a wyrm event.
I hope this helps.
The Phase Event is a five part event that appears to currently occur every two weeks. The events are Attack Monsters, Gather RSS, Build, Create Soldiers , Kill Event. Note that these change order randomly.
Information on attacking monsters to complete the phase.
Research Fuel Up in the Development area of the Academy to improve fuel recovery time.
Under Commander Skills in the Development section you can work to use points to both improve fuel recovery speed and get an instant 50 fuel recovery commander skill.
If you have been spending money in the black market buying gas you should have some in your bag.
Attack monsters as soon as the reset takes place. You should hopefully have a full tank (100) of gas as displayed at the top of the screen by the tire. Each trip to attack a monster is 10 points. It’s very important to pick monsters that you can beat. If you attack monsters every day you should be familiar with your limits. Some players will arrange their army to achieve a higher battle point (bp) level. I don’t bother with this area. I use all of my gas and then from my bag I used a Fuel and then exhausted that before ending the night. Either save a Fuel in your bag for this event or purchase one from the black market.
In the morning after my Fuel was restored to 100 I complete the event and I’m able to collect all the rewards.
Information on gathering RSS to complete the phase. This phase starts after the Monday reset and ends at the Tuesday reset.
Time your gathering during the day to complete just after the nightly reset. That way if this phase starts you collect points before needing to start more gathering. Use a 1 day gather speed bonus. Use a VIP if it will increase your number of fleets and you have armies not gathering. Try to collect minerals for 1 point and steel for .5 points versus oil for .1 points. But as Food and Oil gather faster it is sometimes better to gather them. Check your remaining points needed and make sure you withdraw to collect. Check the gathering armies often. If the amount gathered has stopped, withdraw to collect the rss and then start more gathering. I like to gather gold overnight because it takes so long and you get 900 points per piece gathered. As an experiment I sent out 4 fleets to gather gold timed to end just after the reset to see what happens. These days you have to guess what phase is next. Currently trying this on phase 2 which is Create Solders so we will see if I guessed well.
Your alliance can activate the Alliance Gather Skill which will grant a gather bonus for 12 hours. Your Alliance can also choose to activate a Mine Reset and instantly reset one type of Elite Mine in the Alliance Territory.
Information on building to complete the phase. This phase last 24 hours and typically runs from the Monday reset to Tuesday reset.
I’m rarely able to complete this phase as I typically have a long term build going on that doesn’t complete during the phase. Ideally you would need to time your builds so you can use your two builds during this phase and work on your lowest level buildings that could complete in 24 hours. Researching Architecture in the Development area of the Academy can help to improve speed. You can also chose to use building speed ups to decrease time if you have saved them. Ideally start a multi-day build which is worth more points on the first day of the phase event and time it to complete on the Build phase day.
Here is a lvl 22 city completion reward:
Here is a lvl 25 completion reward:
Information on creating soldiers to complete the phase. This phase starts after the Wednesday reset and ends at the Thursday reset.
Time your soldiers creation during the day to finish just after the nightly reset. That way you collect points if the Create Soldiers phase is beginning Make sure that you have max upgraded your training grounds buildings so you can create the largest number of armies at the quickest recruitment time. Hold your speed ups for this part of the event so you can use them to complete recruitment faster and start another set of soldiers. Make sure you set the total time of completion to less than when the event ends.
Your alliance can activate the Alliance Recruitment Skill which will increase recruitment speed for 12 hours.
Level 22 completion reward:
Level 25 completion reward:
Information on surviving the Phase 5 Kill Event. This phase starts after the Thursday reset and ends at the Sunday reset.
Try to have your hospital at max level. Also max your medic stations. Review your Garage/Fleet Army to understand your max wounded units. If you don’t wish to lose any of your army, never go over this number.
Bubble/shield if you don’t want to lose rss or armies from attacks. You can support your fellow alliance members by reinforcing when an attack is imminent. Best technique is to reinforce after an enemy starts to travel for an attack and you arrive with your forces before the attack starts. If you reinforce as soon as a scout is sent you risk the enemy scouting a second time and calculating if their force if bigger than yours in order to decide the attack. You get points for defending. Even when you lose armies you get points.
Level 22 city reward:
Void Portal is a Nation to Nation battle. The duration is 1 day. There is an e-mail announcement published at the beginning of the Phase event week if this is occurring. The event occurs Saturday to Sunday reset. You port into the other world and explore and battle. The objective is to kill armies. Your city is protected while you are away. Take direction from your Alliance leadership. If the other nation is to strong then you will be directed to put up a shield for the duration of the event. Also armies must not gather rss as they are also at risk to be attacked.
Battle Frenzy is a 24 hour event where no armies are permanently lost and no rss is lost or gained. This event is about attack/defend points.
Based on your hall level you can work towards the below examples for points goals.
So I’m a big fan of Q-Games the developers of the PixelJunk Monsters game. I’ve played the various versions over the last 10 years. I decided to purchase some 3D printed miniatures from their store https://shop.q-games.com/ . I chose the Chibi and the Tikiman to try to learn how to paint. Below are a few lessons learned as I explored the process of miniatures painting.
The miniatures arrive from Japan with a nice thank you note and a card detailing the suggested colors for painting.
I noted at the bottom of the card that Citadel Colors were used. My first challenge was buying the paints. I found through my research that Citadel sometimes changes the paint color names. Here is a chart I used to convert some of the colors. https://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Paint_Range_Compatibility_Chart
Here are the PixelJunk Monsters suggested colors I needed to change:
|
new citadel color name
|
|
| Blood Red | Evil Sunz Scarlet |
| Mournfang brown | |
| averland sunset | |
| knarloc green | loren forest |
| sunburst yellow | Flash Gitz Yellow |
| abaddon black | |
| ceranite white |
Naturally I used Amazon to buy my paints.
Games Workshop for one of the colors: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007SBBNB4
And Born to play games for 6 colors and a brush: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07F6XGZQD
I also purchased this magnifier with light: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0775K3XKS
It’s a great addition for the close up detail of miniature painting.
Before I started painting I went back to the Q-Games store and printed out these full page color samples:
The larger print-outs were helpful when understanding the mix of colors on the miniatures. One image I wished I had was the back of each miniature. Especially with Tikiman deciding hair color and shield color.
To learn a little about miniature painting, I used this free kindle book How to Improve Your Hobby Skills: Build, Paint, and Showcase Better Miniatures
A couple of items that I found useful. A jar with water with a straw for dispensing. A bottle cap to use for mixing and watering down the paint. Additional straws to draw paint out of containers and drop into the bottle cap for mixing. I didn’t want to dip my paint brush back into the paint and mix other colors in by mistake. Use a paper towel to always ‘unload’ your brush so it has less paint before you touch the miniature. I’ve found that starting with the larger areas of color first and then progressing to the smaller areas later is working best for me. I do have to go back to the larger areas and re-paint where my brush with another color overran.
Current progress:
I’ll likely buy more PixelJunk miniatures now that I think I have the hang of painting. I have my eye on the 3 piece classic tower set for $100. When I first saw the prices I was a little surprised at the cost. But then I took a look as some of the WarHammer miniatures where you have sheets of pieces that you have to assemble and I now understand the pricing as being fair for the quality and detail that PixelJunk is delivering.
I need to buy more brushes as I think different size brushes which are recommended may enable me to do a better job with some of the detail work.
I’ll add a final image or two here as I progress:
The final mini’s:
Tim Hitchings 