Things that make you feel old

Back when I was in high school and college, in the early-to-mid 1990s, I checked out from the library what I thought was a stupid book about dumpster diving. It led me to a company called Loompanics, which sold all sorts of books about all kinds of weird shit. Some were political diatribes, some were more ... shall we say practical ... tomes. Like how-to manuals on building weapons, safe rooms, man traps, what to do if you wind up in prison, etc. Some were surplus army manuals, others were apparently written by mercenaries or survivalists looking to make an extra buck.

Just reading their catalogue was equal parts wonderment and terror.
One of the more memorable titles was "Breath of the Dragon: Homebuilt Flamethrowers." It was on the same page as books about razor fighting, building your own laser gun, and fighting with slings and blow guns.
The next page included "Rolling Thunder: Turning Junk Into Automobile Weaponry," which I have never put into practice but still have on my bookshelf along with the 1997 catalogue. No flamethrowers, but "Rolling Thunder" does include recipes for making napalm and some basic explosives. I bought it as a goof. A friend and I were going to turn his car into a tank but never got around to it.

The types of books Loompanics sold came under very heavy scrutiny after 9/11 and they went out of business in 2004. Kind of a pity. I always wanted a copy of "Ragnar's Ten Best Traps: And A Few Others That Are Damn Good Too"

 

An old high school classmate of mine went on to be a Rams cheerleader for a while. She still has "ewe" as part of her Instagram ID. She mostly uses that Instagram account to showcase her Multi Level Marketing crap.

She's 51.

 

Pro tip:

 

Ragnar wrote a shit ton of those books.

 

It came in very handy in a couple situations.

 

I'd ask for more details, but then I'm afraid you'd have to kill me. And with Ragnar's knowledge in your back pocket, we both know I wouldn't stand a chance.

 

Then there was the Anarchist's Cookbook, which had all sorts of various nastiness.

Any of you ever read "The Monkeywrench Gang", by Edward Abbey? Great writer, loved the deserts and canyons of the west. He wrote "Desert Solitaire", about hiking the desert, among other things. "Monkeywrench" was a novel about a group of people who came together as early eco-raiders, really before such a thing existed to speak of. To some degree he spawned them. One of the characters was an irascible ex-Army Ranger type named George Hayduke, and after the book was out for a while several books came out that were under the pen name "George Hayduke". I own one, called "Spite, Malice, and Revenge".

It has lots of short chapters that describe various sorts of nastiness that could be applied to someone who offended you, from kinda petty, to sly and mean, to outright nasty and possibly hurting someone or getting them in the position of trying to prove that they didn't do something to the law.

It might be taking a can of sardines and dumping them on the floor of the mark's car and putting the floor mat back over them, preferably in the summer. Or say you have a shitty landlord who wouldn't fix the AC, that gave you grief, and you want payback. When you move out, go find some nice fresh roadkill and shove it way back in one of the heating ducts in the hope that it will go unnoticed when the apartment is cleaned and freshened and discovered the hard way when the unit is shown. Or put a little roadkill in brownies you bake and leave for the right person to find. (Author liked roadkill - cheap, easy to find, and nasty). Two thirds of what was in there I could not imagine ever doing, simply because it was way too strong... but some of them made me laugh like hell.

 

But, you're Batman!

 

Read this Loompanics book years ago. Definitely worth reading. Out of print now, so it's a little pricey on Amazon.

 

I turned 5o years old today. That qualifies for the thread title by itself.

 

Happy birthday, youngster!

 

Nah. Not until you go for a fast food breakfast and they give you the Senior Discount on your coffee without you asking.