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Category: Real Men Of Genius

Gimme A Phased Plasma Rifle In The 40-Watt Range

Gimme A Phased Plasma Rifle In The 40-Watt Range


You know, some people don’t think much of the Second Amendment. They try to torture the syntax into a ban on anything but bolt-action .22 deer rifles, which you must admit would at least inconvenience the deer, and rusty shotguns you display over your mantelpiece.

Personally, I think we should expand the Second Amendment. Tweak it a bit. Bring it up to date. We should add on a coda or suffix or postscript or sequel or whatever you want to call it — and it should read that anyone that can make a weapon like this one should be able to own it, and wave it around, and carry it on the bus, and use it on anyone that looks at him funny. Demonstrated greatness in the service of mankind needs a grand gesture in return, I always say.

We also need to raise the bag limit on old laptops, and extend the hunting season on them.

(Thanks to Jonathan Frost-Johnson for shooting that one our way)

Here’s To You, Mr. Home Depot Projects Gone Mad

Here’s To You, Mr. Home Depot Projects Gone Mad

Our intrepid narrator and tinkerer, sounding like he just downed three Seconals with a bourbon chaser, gives us a tour of his various “Honeydew List” projects. In the past, I used to make a joke about building a house and then slipping the foundation under it later when impatient prospective homeowners wondered aloud why we had to wait until spring to pour a foundation for their house, but this wildman seems to actually done it with his shed. He’s a better man than me, that’s for sure.

He also seems to have a PHD in Simpson angle brackets, those L-shaped pieces of metal that he uses to hold his entire world together. He’s like the Michelangelo of angle brackets. But of course, no tour around his home-cum-bunker would be complete without showing you his homebrew airplane. His narration of the structure of his spruce goose is magnificent:

… you take these pieces of metal like this, and install them, every so often, on the wing…

Now that’s aviation engineering at the bleeding edge of innovation, isn’t it? You know John Denver would buy that thing from him. If he was still alive, I mean.

If I were his neighbors, I’d be heading on out to Lowes, and buying all the angle brackets they have, and beefing up my roof with them. It’s useless to go to Home Depot for the brackets. He’s cleaned them out. 

The Manliest Workshop In The World

The Manliest Workshop In The World

What do you have in the half of your garage your wife lets you putter in? A table saw? Coupla hammers? Forty screw-top jars full of wood screws, and a handsaw?

Whatever it is, I doubt it’s a centuries-old drop hammer and an open forge. You’re not wandering around in your basement, shirtless and dirty, hiding your beer when anyone’s looking, and mashing red hot iron things all day, are you? No, you’re still trying to put your wife’s Dyson vacuum back together after you tried (and failed) to repair the cord retractor.

Perhaps this is just a ruse; a multi-century dodge. Maybe these guys aren’t actually making anything. They just turn that bad boy on, and any womenfolk present immediately leave to escape the noise and heat, and then they just stand around in there drinking beer and watching NASCAR the whole time. Maybe he’s a genius, besides owning The Manliest Workshop In The World.

(Thanks to Charles Schneider for sending that one along)