A Tasty Addition

I was at the supermarket today and noticed an interesting offering.

I really, really wanted to do a VS post on this "Hot & Spicy" Spam, but I couldn't think of anything to compare it with other than... well, other varieties of Spam.  But that didn't seem like all that interesting of a battle, though I have to say I was surprised at the wide variety of Spam products offered.  Especially in Hawaii, it seems there's a version for every taste.

So, I picked up a can of my trial product.  I sliced it up and fried it.  It looked exactly the same as regular Spam only with a reddish tint.  However, I was very surprised at the difference when I tried a bite.

This stuff is not bad at all.  I'm not a particular fan of Spam, it's a little too "generic meat product" for my taste, but this surprised me at how a little Tabasco sauce changed the flavor.

 It's almost like going from a cheap hot dog to a spicy sausage.  The quality of the meat and the content are obviously the same between the regular Spam and the spicy stuff, but the difference between the tastes is pretty dramatic.  And I don't just mean the spice, it only has a little kick to it, but it totally changes the taste.  I'm not sure if it's there's some chemical change when they added the tabasco or if it just adds flavor to an otherwise bland product, but this stuff was actually pretty good.

I chopped some up and mixed it in with some chili over some rice and was very pleased with the results.  

It cost the same as the regular Spam.  I didn't see any bulk packages of the stuff, it's probably not very cost effective to prep one can of Spam at a time, but I'm sure it's out there.  It might take a little more searching than the generic stuff, but it might be worth the effort.

So, if you're looking to add a little variety to your preps, something to spice up an otherwise boring meal, this stuff might be just what you're looking for.

Best Zombie Rifle Ever?

So, I was reading this good Zombie novel, "Still Alive..." by A. C. Thorne.

"Still Alive..." by A.C. Thorne

I love a good Zombie book and "Still Alive..." is definitely one of the better ones.  There are a couple of sappy chapters but overall it's one of my current favorites.  It's one of the few zombie books with a strong female main character (written by a woman, I'm thinking), that is action packed, surprising, and very well written.  Several times it caused flash backs to the novel "I am Legend" by Richard Matheson, a classic, which I'm sure was intended by the author.  Over all "Still Alive..." is a very good read and I hope that the series continues soon.

One of the things that caught my attention in the book is the main character's main weapon.  She stumbles onto a "tactical" .22lr semi auto rifle and uses it very effectively.  From the description in the book I'm thinking it was an AR style .22lr, like the Smith and Wesson M&P-15/22.  At one point she is critical of another survivor that didn't make it, who used larger calibers.  She thought that the semi-auto .22lr with hi-cap magazines was far more effective than a hunting style rifle in a larger caliber.  Able to shoot rapidly, can carry lots of ammo, low recoil, accurate, and with high capacity...

Ok, interesting idea... normally I would have forgotten about it and moved on, however, a buddy of mine had just purchased an M&P-15/22 ($500) and was taking it to the range this weekend.  I invited myself along to see if maybe it might actually be the perfect zombie killing rifle.

A couple of things I should mention first; I'm not a fan of semi-auto in general (they just aren't as much fun at the range), I'm not a fan of "Black Rifles" (I don't like the look of military-style rifles), and the idea of having an AR in the .22lr caliber seemed really idiotic.  If you're getting an AR, why not go for a real one in 5.56?   Or, If you want a semi-auto .22lr, why not get a 10/22?  Cheaper and less ugly.  But I decided to try it out and make an attempt at keeping an open mind.

I had a f***ing blast.

I had so much fun that the M&P-15/22 is now high on my wish list.  Seriously, I want one.  Bad.

My buddy had no idea what he was buying, he just thought it would be fun toy.  So, before we went to the range I helped him get the sights set up, got the rifle cleaned, and range ready.  It was incredibly easy to clean, easy to set up, came with nice iron sights (it has a two size flip-up ghost-ring sight, easily adjustable).  It was mostly plastic, extremely light weight, and I was a little worried how it would hold up at the range.

There was no reason to worry, this thing was a freakin' tank.  After I got it sighted in, this thing was a tack driver out to 100 yards.  That would have been cool, but what amazed me was how light the kick was, which meant extremely fast follow up shots.  I mean, keep both eyes open and you could acquire targets, fire, and be back on target in a fraction of a second.  It cycled flawlessly (only one misfeed, which I think was probably a fluke) over 300 rounds.

We were at the silhouette range and the semi-auto was addictive.  There were two lines, 50 yards and another at 100 yards.  The iron silhouettes were about 1ft by 1ft.  At 50 yards I could hit the targets faster than 1 per second, going down the line either direction.  And it's so quiet, so quick handling, so little recoil, it almost feels like it's a toy.

Bang, Ping, Bang, Ping, Bang, Ping, Bang, Ping... as fast as you could acquire the target and pull the trigger.  It was almost video game easy, too easy.  Reload the magazine, back to work.

I thought a .22lr AR was stupid, but even if you just look at the cost vs range time ratio it's worth picking up.  I typically spent at least $50 in ammo for some decent time at the range.  I mean, cheap pistol rounds are 25-35 cents, most rifle rounds are between 50 cents and a dollar.  .308 for my Scout Rifle is almost a dollar a round.  Rifle shooting gets expensive fast.

However, you can buy 500 rounds .22lr for 20 bucks.  You just can't beat .22lr for cost and weight.  It's easy on the wallet, easy to stockpile, and you can easily carry hundreds of rounds.  Maybe you want to train, get used to an AR, or a cheap plinker for the range, or have a fun rifle for the youngsters, then this would be a fairly inexpensive way to do it.  Or maybe you should keep one in the closet, just in case there is a zombie apocalypse.

This rifle is so easy to use, so accurate, so simple, that it is freakin' awesome.  Defend against zombies, fun at the range, easy to use... this thing is awesome.

I've seen a lot of arguments about whether the .22lr is powerful enough to take down zombies.  The round is so small and low powered that it really limits the ability to get through a skull.  I'm not a ballistics or forensic expert, but I'll give a quick opinion on it.  .22lr in a pistol would probably be effective out to 20-30 feet, depending on your accuracy (any further than that and I think you'd have to be an exceptionally accurate shot).  Out of a rifle though, I think you could extend that range out to around 50 yards, again depending on your accuracy.  Accuracy is such a huge factor because the .22lr is such a small round it's far more susceptible than other rounds to glance off the skull rather than punching through.  The shot would need to be a direct, straight-on shot.

I hesitated to think that a .22lr would be a good zombie killer, with accuracy and speed being so vitally important.  However, this M&P-15/22 has me seriously considering it.  I think you'd be hard pressed to find a rifle that can shoot as quickly and accurately.

So, I think I'm going to have to pick up one for myself.  It'll be cheap fun at the range and when the zombie apocalypse happens I'll let you know how effective it is.  Now I just need to talk Hornady into making these in .22lr...

Tom Cruise is not Jack Reacher

I'm a huge fan of Lee Child's Jack Reacher series.  I would call them the modern day version of the James Bond books.  They're a little more graphic, a lot more violent... Ok, they're like modern James Bond movies in novel format.  The main character, Reacher, is a what you would get if you combined the genetics of  James Bond with a caveman, John Wayne, and Rambo.

If you are into well written novels that are action packed, the Reacher series is simply the best you'll find. I have the entire series, love them, and even reread them occasionally (this is a huge compliment coming from me, I almost never reread novels because I remember so much of what I read). Seriously, they are some of my all time favorites... So you can imagine my consternation when I found out Tom Cruise got the role.

Here's a description from the new Jack Reacher novel, where Reacher is trying to hitch hike at night (his normal mode of transportation):

"...he stuck out his thumb and smiled and tried to look friendly.
       Which was not easy.  Reacher was a big man, six feet five inches tall, heavily built, and that night as always he looked a little ragged and unkempt.  Lonely drivers wanted pleasant and unthreatening company, and Reacher knew from long experience that visually he was no one's first choice of companion.  Too intimidating.  And right then he was further handicapped by a freshly broken nose.  He had patched the injury with a length of silver duct tape, which he knew must make him look even more grotesque."
       ---Excerpt from Lee Child's novel, A Wanted Man: A Jack Reacher Novel

Jack Reacher is huge, implacable, violent, and yet extremely clever.  He's intimidating, scary, and that's why his enemies tend to underestimate his intelligence.

I don't get any of that from Cruise.

Yes, Cruise is a great actor, but you can't act your way into the part of a lumbering force of nature (unless you're paying to make the movie).  This is one of those few roles that requires very little acting ability; look big and scary, somewhat dark and foreboding, and dead pan the occasional clever line.  No acting required!  Big, scary, deadpan... easy!  The problem is that of those three vital traits Cruise can only get deadpan, which means having to compensate for the rest.  I'm scared of how this is going to turn out.

I was going to encourage everyone to boycott the movie but that's not fair to the author.  Lee Child deserves to get a blockbuster movie under his belt.  So, go see the movie... then go buy one of his books.  Just don't read the book first, it'll probably ruin the movie for you.

Originally, I wasn't even going to go see the movie, I didn't want Tom Cruise's face plastered on one of my favorite fictional characters.  But I've since decided that, while this might not be the Jack Reacher movie that I was looking for, it might still be entertaining in it's own right.  Kind of like the Red Dawn remake, it might not be exactly what we wanted but it might still be a decent movie if the viewer can keep out their preconceived ideas.

Even if the movie turns out alright, Tom Cruise is NOT Jack Reacher

Couple more book reviews

I love survivalist/prepper/zombie books, I've mentioned that before.  Since my last book review post I've read a few good books, so I figured it was time to share again.

• Apocalypse Law 1-3, John Grit.  A devastating plague wipes out a large portion of the world's population.  Nate Williams, a decorated war vet, must keep his son safe as the world around him and his remote farm gets worse and worse.  There are some good survival tips for those planning on home steading, the main character lives on a farm and does his best to keep it going to feed his son.  There is also a lot of combat, which keeps the tension and excitement up.  The third book finishes nicely but left it open to a fourth book.   I really liked these books and hope that the John Grit keeps putting them out (he has a couple of short fiction books that are also worth a read, especially Fierce Blood).
• Joshua, John Wilson.  The economy collapses and leads to a rapid deterioration of society.  In this bad situation a young man stumbles upon a two year old boy, Joshua.  He decides to take care of the boy, despite how difficult that makes his own situation.  This is now one of my all-time favorite survival books.  Seriously, it's that good.  It's extremely well written, interesting, and with enough emotional themes to surprise and entrance even the most hardened survivalist.  The only thing that really bothered me about this story was how the main character is never named, he's just "the man", and how we know next to nothing about him.  It takes half the book to even find out what his profession was before SHTF (despite the frequent mentioning of "his training").  Honestly though, I think the author did this deliberately, taking attention away from the man to put it on the relationship with Joshua.  While mildly annoying, it does not detract much from this otherwise awesome book.
• Path of Survival (Passion Killers, Blood Beyond the Abyss, A Dark Wind of Vengeance), David Maudlin.  During a terrible economic down turn, two hurricanes strike, and a terrorist attack damages the world's supply of oil, causing a rapid collapse of societies across the world.  These books are about several different people and their different paths to the relative 'safety' of the mountains.  There are lots of characters with intertwined story lines, a good mix of family values, action, survival, and the different ways that people deal with these stressful situations.  These are light, easy reads that are entertaining, with enough action to keep everyone on the edge of their seats.  I hope the author keeps this series going.

Those are a few of my recent reads that were good enough to pass on as recommendations.  These are all available in the kindle store and are relatively inexpensive.  Any of these would make a good addition to your reading list.

Movie Review: Red Dawn Remake

I don't normally do movie reviews, but there was so much hoopla around this one that I figured I would put in my two cents.

The first and most important thing I have to say is that if you are a big fan of the original and want a tribute movie, this movie isn't for you.  However, if you like modern action movies than you'll probably get a kick out of it.  It keeps some of the themes and ideas from the original movie but puts a new, modern, spin on the classic.  This movie is big action, over the top, lots of explosions... not real big on plot or dialogue.  So, yeah, it's another hollywood action movie.  Think "Transformers" with teenagers instead of robots.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie.  I knew it wasn't going to be as good as the original, but it was entertaining in a cheesy, explosive kind of way.

Alright, here are a few things I picked up watching the movie.  Here's a couple things that bugged me, later on I'll list a few things I liked.

I'm going to try not to spoil it too much, but if you're seeing it soon you might want to skip this:

• There were a couple things that bugged me when it came to the time line.  There is absolutely no sense of the time that passes between the start and finish of the movie.  Is it two weeks or two months or two years?  There is a training montage, a la "Rocky" style, where the kids go from ordinary to trained killers.  Did that take two weeks or two months?  Then, when they pick up new people there is no apparent break-in period, they seemlessly join the experienced Wolverines.
• Chris Hemsworth is too tall.  Yeah, I said it.  He's like two feet taller than everyone else in the movie.  Most people probably didn't notice or care, but he looks like a giant in several scenes.
• Hemsworth's character gets shot too many times.  Like most modern action movies, the main character shakes off the same damage that drops his enemies in their tracks.
• In the beginning, their old Dodge truck is apparently invincible.  It soaks up a TON of damage and keeps ticking, despite the fact that it destroys military grade trucks when it rams them.
• At one point they jump from one building to the roof of another, about two stories down from their window.  Who does that and doesn't break anything major?  Why would you even try it?
• At one point, the Daryl character is aiming his AK-47 at some enemies on a podium with his flip-up scope cover down.  I probably wouldn't have noticed this but they kept going to a close up of his face behind the scope, cover clearly down, multiple times.
• Most movies I don't notice the musical score, but every time there was a speaking moment the music was really obvious.  Music during an action scene?  Cool.  But when there's an inspirational speech  with loud, inspirational music... it's just over the top.  Every time something was going on, it was obvious by the music what we were supposed to "feel".  Loud sad music?  I guess it's a sad scene.  Maybe the director didn't think the actors could pull off the scenes and over did the music to compensate.
• The lack of opposing military technology.  They partially cover this by saying that there is an EMP style weapon that was used, so maybe that played a part in limiting the Korean's technological capabilities.  However, when everything else seems to be working; tanks, phones, trucks, aircraft... it's hard to believe that the Koreans didn't have any tech advantages up their sleeve.  Mostly there was the obvious lack of air support, especially ones with with infrared cameras.  Granted, when the Wolverines were in town than infrared wouldn't have been very useful, but when they were being hunted in the wilderness (the Koreans used dogs) one high altitude plane/helo/UAV with infrared cameras would have ended the Wolverine's streak really quickly.  Hell, one satellite and they could have tracked the Wolverines without ever tipping them off.  There was none of that.  
• There was no examination or character development on the Korean side.  They were all pretty generic bad guys.  That's kind of expected in most big budget hollywood action movies, they don't want you to feel bad when the bad guys get torn up with .50 cal fire, or exploded.  However, it would have added some depth to the movie if there had been a bad guy glancing at a picture of his girl friend thousands of miles away, or one who felt bad about invading another country, something.

Ok, there were some good points too:

• I liked that none of the main characters were perfect.  In fact, the main characters weren't even all that likeable.  It wasn't a case of hollywood creating the 'perfect' good guy with no character flaws, these characters all made mistakes, had temper tantrums, and were honestly annoying at times.  Those traits made the movie better than most modern action movies.
• The actors were all pretty good.  I mean, there isn't a heavy acting burden in modern action flicks, but they got the job done without being distracting.  It was all pretty straight forward.  I was honestly surprised that Hemsworth did so well, he had probably the most nuanced role and played it well.
• There's lots of action.  LOTS.  They rush through the non-action scenes, which might bother some people (ie. the training montage), but the action scenes were exciting and frequent.
• There were some tribute moments where they directly or indirectly tipped their hat to the original.  I'm sure you'll recognize them when you see them (if it's been a while, it might not be a bad idea to watch the original before you see the remake just so you can appreciate them).
• It puts a modern spin on Red Dawn: one of the main characters is an Iraq war vet (gives the whole teenagers successfully fighting trained soldiers slightly more credibility), it does a decent version of modern guerilla warfare, and it has far more urban combat than the original (I consider that points toward realism since so much of the population lives in cities these days).  It stuck to the ideas and themes while managing to update the time frame.
• It has a couple good twists, if you're expecting it to strictly follow the original storyline you will be in for a few surprises.
• I liked the how the movies ends.  It felt like it wrapped up well and I liked the last scenes (the music was annoying, but I already mentioned that).  Die hard fans of the original will probably hate this ending since it's wrapped up with a pretty bow compared to the original, but I've already said that you have to go into this one with an open mind.  The original will always be a classic, this movie won't be, but it does have some good moments on it's own.

So, if you managed your way through all of that, it was a decent movie as long as you weren't expecting the original.  There were a couple of things I didn't like, but I could say that about any movie these days.  On it's own Red Dawn was entertaining in a big budget hollywood kind of way.  If you liked movies like Transformers and GI Joe (the style, not the quality), fast paced, lots of action, and explosions, than you'll probably get a kick out of the new Red Dawn.