Aaron's Area

A few days ago I read about a Harry Potter book that a bunch of hilarious writers generated with a predictive keyboard called “Botnik“. It appears that you can load any text into it you wish and it will generate a predictive keyboard based on that text. There’s all kinds of stuff there. The tutorial apparently features “The American Woman’s Cookbook” and selected works of H.P. Lovecraft. I decided it would be hilarious to generate recipes based on vintage cookbooks, old grimoires and short stories from old horror writers.

So I present to you The Cake of Neugebauer generated with the help of botnik, based on “Nyarlathotep” by H.P. Lovecraft, “Aunt Caroline’s Dixieland Recipes”, and a non-vodka singed version of “The Necronomicon”.

Please do not attempt to make any of this at home.

I have no idea what a tablespoonful of waters that have raised demons is but it can’t be good for you. Also ‘boiling syrup’ is probably pretty dangerous. Sumerian deity oats are probably just regular oats. Probably.

Cake Of Neugebauer

One cup brown custard
Two pints beaten eggs
One tablespoonful waters that which have raised demons
Two pounds boiling syrup
One cup powdered cinnamon toast
Oats of a Sumerian deity

Preheat oven to three hundred seventy five degrees.

Put all the ancient ones which have been creamed together until smooth into a baking dish. Chill until very little protection against the elder gods remains.

Mix egg slightly into the melted barrier that keeps vigil into the underworld. Add enough water to dissolve the first brown custard. Mix well.

Put together with the assistance of a sumerian deity and pour boiling syrup over toast.

Cream the mixture into oats.

Bake fifteen years or until tender. Serve with crushed olives and the hidden power which might precipitate.

Several years ago I got interested in the origin of Halloween and decided to write about it and Easter.  I had planned to do one on Christmas and had compiled all the notes, but at the same time my brother and I started a podcast that ran for two years so all my research efforts went into that. Then I realized I never posted any of that here. So I’m going to do that. But first some thoughts.

To be fair when I started this project I figured I’d find that all Christian holidays were a hundred percent pagan in origin. My working hypothesis was pretty standard. Either early non-Jewish Christians retained their traditions when they converted or the Catholic church just slapped a thin veneer of crosses and Jesus over existing cultural traditions and told people to carry on. When I was a teenager my young evangelical mind had a really hard time with this concept. If it was pagan, you shouldn’t really mix it with Christianity right? Well I’ve grown up and seen that things like the Eucharist and baptism didn’t originate inside the Judeo-Christian world, so we’d have to throw those things out too.

Now that I’ve researched a lot of this stuff, I’m finding that it was a more complex situation. Sometimes something seemed like it originated outside of Christianity but some things came about long after a population converted, or we may have no idea when something started.  There’s a carving of a giant footprint in Sri Lanka that at least four different religions have made up a different story about it to ‘depaganize’ it. The Buddhists, Christians and Muslims all claim it was one of their saints (Though I guess both Muslims and Christians hold Adam in the same regard, I do not know how Islam feels about St. Thomas) and the Hindus believe it to be that of Lord Shiva. It really means that the footprint is something sacred, maybe even holy, and they have all agreed to keep it around, and have constructed a story to legitimize their reasons for doing so. I think it’s the same thing with these holidays.

Christmas is far more complicated than Easter or Halloween. With those there are dates you can look at. There’s definite documentation for when Halloween started. Easter is the defining holiday of the faith so it’s relatively simple to sift through all that.

Since Christianity actually cares nothing about the birth of Jesus, only his death and resurrection, Christmas is harder to pin down in its origin. Halloween was definitely started because of a big church dedication, and Easter is just Passover. The day of Jesus birth was important, but it didn’t have enough importance while he was alive for anyone to ask him about it and write it down. Point is, no one even began to care until long after he was gone.

So in the next few articles I’m going to take apart a few of the claims about Christmas and see if there’s anything to the claim that it’s just a big ol’ pagan holiday meant to deceive you into worshipping the devil!

I was given my first pocket knife at six years old. I lost that pocket knife a few years later even though after getting a better one I kept it in a little cedar box which I still have. It’s a real shame too because I think that knife had been given to my father by his grandfather. I don’t remember. The moral of this story is, not all kids keep up with stuff.

Throughout my life my father, brother, sister and I have given each other various pocket knives to carry around for various reasons. I’ve always preferred the multi-use Swiss Army knives, my dad likes carving knives with more than one blade. My brother likes larger locking blade knives and my sister typically always had smaller pen knives, or more realistically our left overs.

A few solutions that worked for me

The Gerber Dime

The knife I’d been carrying for a couple of years has been the Gerber Dime. It’s a small multi-tool that’s helped me fix more than one computer. It has a box opening tool on it so you don’t get tape gunk on the regular blade, which is my favorite feature. The pliers are decent. The little ‘precision’ flat blade screwdriver works pretty well in some Phillips head screws without messing them up. It is not terribly heavy on a key chain. I have the black one and after a few years of carrying it, the paint has stayed on pretty well, and I’ve only touched up the knife edge once. The box opener has needed some help a little more often, but it gets used more.

At the end of the day I liked it but I decided after a few years and as I kept it on my key chain, it made my keys too heavy.

The Leatherman Skeletool

I got this multi-tool a while back and I used to carry it every day. To be honest I find it a bit heavy for my pocket. I like the changeable bits in the screwdriver function though so I tossed it in my pack, which I’ll talk about in another post. Again, I found it too heavy but it’s worth mentioning here.

In my opinion this is the best multi-tool you can buy. I’ve owned a classic Leatherman, and I have a Gerber multi-tool I really like as well, and this one just gets everything right. The two biggest problems I’ve had with other multi-tools (besides the fact that they are usually just toys) are they have too much useless, low quality crap in them, and when the handle opens it is hollow, square and can be uncomfortable to use. This one has some ergonomic design and doesn’t have an awl, four crappy flat bladed screwdrivers, a saw, file, can opener and a small pair of scissors. No disrespect to Tim Leatherman or his competitors but, less is more sometimes.

The Victorinox Mechanic

This is my favorite pocket knife ever. I’ve owned three or four of these and used them heavily. My coworkers have used my Mechanics heavily. I’ve had both the Wenger and Victorinox versions and I like them both, the former more than the latter. You can’t find the Wenger ones anymore, but the Victorinox version is just as good. I use the small knife blade, Phillips driver and pliers on these until something breaks. I know you can just write the company and get the parts replaced. When that happens they don’t get thrown away they get put in the kitchen drawer, bathroom cabinet, office, tool bag and I order a new one. The pliers aren’t especially heavy-duty but for the light duty stuff I normally do, they work great. I’ve built at least one computer using just this knife.

It wasn’t really the weight that eventually made me stop carrying this every day but the thickness. But, sometimes, depending on what I’m about to go, my current one will still get thrown in my pocket.

Gerber EAB Pocket Knife

There are two versions of this knife and it is what I actually carry now. I like this thing and will probably be getting a few of the ‘lite’ versions of it in the future if they are as good as the regular.

It is basically a small folding utility knife. It uses standard utility blades so you don’t ever really have to sharpen it. Just take out the old blade and put in a new one. This means the blade is razor-sharp every time, and more importantly you don’t ever mind using your ‘good knife’ on something awful. If you mess up the blade, forget to oil it, chip it, ding it, or anything like that, you just replace it. You can get 100 replacement blades for around $10 (sometimes $5 if you watch them). You can also use hooked blades and other styles that use the same utility blade format.

I have other knives for other uses, but the EAB is what I carry in my pocket every day now and it does what I need it to. The reason I now prefer this little knife  that it basically never needs sharpening. I do not mind sharpening my knives and have multiple ways to do so. It’s just easier to keep a spare blade or two in my toolkit or in my car than to worry about having to cut something with my good pocket knife that I probably shouldn’t then having to wait until I get home to work out the nicks. A five pack of blades at most hardware stores is a few dollars if I don’t have any with me and I need them. For $10 I got a package of a hundred and since they fit multiple other utility knives I own, there’s really no downside.

So I wrote two articles about my every day carry upgrades and the two significant things I changed over the last year or two. One thing I learned about myself was that I don’t like carrying a bunch of extra stuff on my person. Keys, wallet, cell phone, pocket knife, headset and I’m done. No smart watch, no pen, no field notes notebook, none of that stuff. The pen thing is a little inconvenient sometimes but I am usually in an office and there are thousands of pens.

So here’s a list of what I like to call “Semi-EDC”. It’s the stuff I typically carry every day but don’t usually have on my person. Since it isn’t on my person all the time every day, it’s Semi-EDC.

Surface 3

Regular old Surface 3. I don’t believe in laptops anymore. It pretty much does what I need though. I can run Aptana Studio on it, Office 365, remote into work, run Skype and since it actually charges with a microUSB port and not a proprietary cable I don’t have to carry a lot of weird cables around.

I also carry the Surface Pen too. I’ll post an article about why you should maybe consider a tablet over a laptop one of these days.

NiteCore LA10 Flashlight

I’ve got a big old school Maglite at home, but it’s not super practical carrying it everywhere. I was searching around for a smaller aluminum or steel bodied flashlight to carry with me that also didn’t use huge amounts of batteries. I found the LA10 on Amazon. It uses a single AA battery, and has three modes of operation. There is a bright setting, a super bright setting and a ‘beacon’ mode. The light also extends out like lipstick and can be used as a small lantern. This seemed ideal for server closets with no power as well as spontaneous camping trips and such.

The link above comes with an EdisonBright alkaline battery according to the description. I looked the batteries up and all I could find were relatively expensive rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. Mine came with a Duracell AA battery that looked like it is labeled for the Japanese market.

Leatherman Skeletool

I talked about this in my pocket knife article. I really like this multi-tool but I don’t like carrying it on my person all the time so it goes in the bag.

Moleskine Notebooks

I carry two in the bag. One of the 3.5″ by 5″ soft cover ones and one of the “large” 5.5″ by 8.5″ soft cover ones. The large one is set up to work with the “Getting Things Done” system and the smaller one is just for general note taking. Basically a fancier version of the “Field Notes” notebooks I make fun of in the EDC boards.

Amazonbasics 16100 mAh Power Bank

Figured out these are inexpensive, have two output ports and can charge both my surface and my phone no problem. There are companies that sell larger capacity batteries but this one isn’t any bigger than a smart phone in a good size OtterBox.

I highly suggest everyone carry one of these, or something like it. They are really useful little devices and can extend your working day from a couple of hours to all day pretty easily if you are somewhere that power isn’t easily accessible.

I like the 16100 mAh one for the value. I have several power banks and I’ll probably review them in a separate article.

Rav Power Charger

This is an upgrade from the little cheap dual port USB chargers I prefer. It’s also got some Qualcomm circuitry built-in so it can quickly charge certain kinds of devices. I don’t have any devices that are Qualcomm compatible yet, but it’s there when I need it. They make a smaller USB charger that just has the 2.4A ports on it that I like as well.

I thought it was prudent to get a higher quality charger. While I’ve never myself had a device die because of a cheap charger, I’ve heard the stories. The chargers from RAVpower advertise built-in surge protection, as well as overheating and high current protection. Something the little cheap ones just don’t have. The one I have also seems extremely durable. So while it was kind of expensive for what is basically a cell phone charger, I’d definitely recommend it.

Micro USB to Type C Adapter

You’ll read a lot of articles about how bad an idea these are. I haven’t had a problem with this specific brand though. I have two. One for the office and one for my bag. I will say that I have some pretty decent cables though and I don’t use the cables if the ends are bent up. I really suggest investing in some good cables and chargers if you go the Micro USB cable with these adapters. These look like they are engineered really well and the good cables I have fit in tightly. I have a few cheap cables that when I plug them in, they fit really loose and move around inside. I wouldn’t trust that loose connection with my phone.

These saved me a lot of money when I got my Nexus 5x. I like the Type C thing, but I really wish Google had gone with some other quick charge method.

Two Micro USB Cables

I have a retractable USB cable and a regular 10′ micro USB cable I carry as well. I got both off of AliExpress actually. I don’t seem to have a problem with either except the ends on the ten footer are a bit long.

Tactical Pen

I got a few of these on a flash deal for Christmas a few years ago. I keep one in the car too. They write pretty well and have a glass breaker tip if you need to break a window out or something. I guess this would be considered a decent self-defense item if you needed it. I like it because it’s extremely solid and has a good ink cartridge in it. So besides being a really good pen (most of them I’ve seen on Amazon have good reviews on the pen part) this one at least seems solid enough to be used for a lot of other purposes. Personally, I’ve wedged it into doors to hold them open and jammed my car’s break pedal down to work on the brake light switch.

Sharpie Pens

These are what I like to write with these days. Just a preference over ball point pens.

A Sharpie

For marking on things.

My first step in a better every day carry was my key chain. Here’s how I applied my two questions to my key chain. My first question is what do I need? The answer seemed pretty obvious. A key chain. I have to carry a key chain because I have several keys I need every day. I began thinking about what I needed, how to solve that need and if anything needed to change to do so.

Because need does not supersede want and they often are the same thing. I decided I wanted a key chain that was much less heavy and bulky in my pocket. Unfortunately huge keychains with lanyards were fashionable where I grew up and a lot of men and women my age still carry them. That was not the case with me, but I still had a lot of unnecessary junk I was carrying around.

I started looking around for ideas.

My dad always had, for as long as I can remember anyway, the best key chain. It has this massive set of key rings with these cool brass quick release things on it that are likely older than me so he could clip on and off the sets of keys he needed for that day. On his work days he might have fifty keys, but on the weekend he just had his house and car keys. Modular components appeal to me. His are the heavy-duty old school version of these:

He gave me one of his when I was a kid but they never really worked for me and I probably lost it a decade or two ago. I always preferred a carabiner so I could also attach a few small tools. I ended up with this one back in 2014 and really loved it, at least for a while.

I figured out the problem with carabiners is, your keys will slip off somehow. Some have a screw cap that goes over the clip that will prevent this, but they end up being bulky. This particular model seems like it might have some of that worked out, however.

I ended up also carrying around a Gerber Dime pocket knife, which is great, on my key chain but it made it unnecessarily heavy. It is great for the most common knife related task I have, opening boxes, but when a corrections officer asked me if I wanted a real knife I decided it was time for a change. That was embarrassing.

The Better Key Chain For Every Day Carry

I ended up looking a those key ‘organizers’ that make your key chain into a device resembling a pocket knife. The KeyDisk is the one I ended up getting.

It runs about $20 and can hold up to ten keys which. It also has a little bottle opener attachment in it that has a loop on it that I attached my car key and remote fob to. After careful consideration I figured out that I really only need three keys for my daily life and other keys can just be on separate rings hanging in my house or office.

The result is I have way less stuff in my pocket now. The design does not make it awkward to use the keys as I suspected. I would not put a car key inside the device because it can stick straight out from the ignition and in some cars, it may even prevent you from putting your keys in the ignition at all. Many new cars don’t really use keys anymore so this really isn’t a problem.

The image above shows the blanks with the teeth of the key facing out. I set mine up like this to start with and it seems like a bad idea. There’s no reason I can see that you can’t have the teeth facing inwards to protect both your keys and the stuff in your pocket.

The great thing is, the company that makes these sells other designs so there’s something for everyone. This is the design I almost got but it would have actually made my key chain more bulky than it was before.

This KeyKlip combines the KeyDisk with a carabiner to get the best of both worlds. I don’t have one of these to talk about. I suspect the carabiner would get stuck on pockets a lot though. It does say you can use it as a bottle opener though, and that notch looks like it might have a few uses as well.

I’ve used the regular KeyDisk for about a month now and I really like it. You can click on any of the images above to check them out in detail.

Whether you’re out in the dry desert of Arizona or, in many people’s view the similar desolation of downtown New York you can find yourself in a crappy situation. What you have on you right then can sometimes mean the difference between easily getting out of that situation or just managing to make it back home. That’s why every day carry is important.

Over the last year or so I’ve looked over a lot of sites are dedicated to the idea of EDC and taken it from ‘the stuff you carry in your pockets every day’ to something a lot more advanced. Honestly, it’s pretty intimidating looking at what a lot of the guys on these blogs and forums carry around. I’ve seen posts where guys in my field carry, no joke, two handguns, at least three pocket knives, and a slew of other survivalist gear in addition to two laptops, a tablet and their IT toolkit (ITS Tactical has a satirical picture of this on one of their articles. You can tell it’s satirical only because of the hand grenade.).  Other posts have a bit more minimalistic approach, wallet, pocket knife, cell phone, and maybe an iPad mini.

Personally? After a year of looking at all the gadgets and stuff I started asking myself questions about what I was doing and what I wanted. I came up with two questions for everything I carry. Call it my every day carry test.

First question is, in no particular order or importance, “What do I need to carry?”

The second is, “What do I want to carry?”

Need does not trump want, even though it would seem that it does. If you need to carry something every day, there is no way to get around it. You have to carry it by default, so it is there regardless of desire. Depending on what that object is, how you carry it may be entirely up to you. For instance you may need to carry your house keys, but the only reason you carry them on a key ring is because you want to do so.  You may have never thought about other options, but they do exist, you just haven’t ever used them.

I’ve got a few articles in the tube about the stuff I’ve encountered over the last year and what I’ve ended up with. I hope you all like it.

So you’re at Wal-Mart on Black Friday getting your high quality, Chinese made presents for your kids, pondering the hilarity of a store built on the principles of only selling American made products, a “fact” which old naive stupid people still cite to this day while eating their green peas imported from Thailand. You’re still feeling pretty good from Thanksgiving dinner and not too many relatives pissed you off this year by trying to convert to you the evils of liberalism, or set you back fifty years with conservatism. Depending on which side of the dichotomy you fall on.

You’re behind one of those ladies who’s obviously in her fifties, but is trying too hard to look thirty-five. She’s managed, probably either through screaming, guile or just being here early and trampling a child to death to get one of those shitty off brand Wal-Mart TV’s that they had on “sale” but your grandfather totally got for cheaper at Sam’s three weeks ago. She looks awfully smug about it. The lady in the burka checking everyone out looks exasperated, mostly because its 5:15 in the morning and she’s had to mop up a puddle of toddler blood already.

Suddenly you hear the two words known to set off Republicans and Fox News fans from sea to shining sea from the poor muslim woman at the register, “Happy Holidays.” Then shit hits the fan. The lady in front of you yells, “Back in my day it was CHRISTMAS!” then pulls a red white and blue AR-15 out of her handbag and screams, “Lock and load bitches!” Four other gray hairs whip out AR’s and take cover behind end caps and open fire on the cashier who’s already ducked behind her register.

You hide in the women’s clothing department hoping not to get caught in the crossfire, skirmishes like this have broken out all over the country. A flashbang is lobbed out from behind the register and you manage to close your eyes and plug your ears just before it goes off. You see the cashier stand up and spray the dazed old women down with an Uzi as she retreats into the customer service department where her coworkers have already started laying down cover fire.

A few of the old women aren’t as dazed as you thought. They must have had a hard life, dealing screaming children to recover so quickly. One manages to drop a few Wal-Mart employees before she’s taken out by a frag grenade. A stray bullet incapacitates one of the other grannies.

Just when you think it’s about to be over, a few rednecks wearing bald eagle shirts come charging out of the back, unloading shotgun rounds into the Customer Service department. The Wal-Mart employees are professionals and no amount of flag waving bravado can make up for nine months working retail at $8.50 an hour. It’s over when management flanks the old ladies and forces them to surrender.

One of the old women, bloody from a piece of shrapnel from a Vizio television spits on the manager, “You may have won this battle, but the War for Christmas is far from over.”

“Ma’am, it’s Black Friday, we’ve just begun,” he replies, “By this time next year no one will even remember what your politically incorrect holiday even was.” They lead them to a back room, never to be seen again.

A few “wet floor” signs are put out and the area is taped off. The registers open again and you stagger to the front of the line. The burka wearing lady rings up your remote controlled helicopter and Sesame Street toy you had to stab a dude for.  You nod, smile and make your way back to your vehicle. It’s five thirty, you might can make it to Best Buy and get that sweet deal on that external hard drive and that crappy blu-ray movie for seventy-five cents before it gets too crazy. You sit back, exhale, and take your Glock from the glove compartment and put it in the back of your pants.

This is a work of parody and satire and in no way reflects any actual events, at least I hope not. Any resemblance to actual people real or imagined is completely coincidental and this work in no way reflects the author’s actual opinions about the organizations depicted herein.  

I posted a fairly in-depth set of articles on the origins of Halloween back in 2013. Hopefully that convinced a few people the holiday is not a Satanic holiday but a Christian one and most the stuff you read about it is anti-Catholic propaganda that has nothing to do with reality.

During that time I learned about a tradition called “Devil’s Night” that’s celebrated on October 30th. I had thought this was a plot device for the comic “The Crow”, or possibly just the movie. Found out this was in fact a real thing.

Origin

According to Wikipedia, Devil’s Night has its origins in the 1930’s in the United States and is typically when teenagers go out do minor acts of vandalism. Mostly this was limited to throwing eggs at houses, leaving flaming bags of animal crap on the porch, toilet papering and the like.

Some parts of the US call it Mischief Night, which I’d never heard before. I did some looking around because I’d seen this term being used in the United Kingdom. Apparently that day is November 4th, which is right before Guy Fawkes Day. In Germany they have Mischief Night on May 1st.

It looks like Mischief Night was the original name for the day in Europe and it had something do with May Day at least as far back as 1790. It’s not much of a surprise that in England they moved it to the day before Guy Fawkes Day and Germany, having nothing much like that they left it right where it was.

Whether it’s the 18th century or the 21st century the idea is the same. Children and adolescents go out on Mischief night and play tricks on their neighbors and basically get away with it.

Detroit

Devil’s Night is particularly meaningful to the people of Detroit. Since the 70’s the city would be plagued by ridiculous amounts of arson every October 30th until 1995. The mayor announced arson would not be tolerated. They made efforts to reclaim Devil’s Night and turn it into “Angel’s Night” instead.

“The Crow”, and other works of fiction, music and various types of contemporary fantasy set in Detroit often use Devil’s Night as a backdrop due to its significance to the city.

Elsewhere in the US

I vaguely remember someone telling me that the 30th of October was “The Devil’s Night” when I was in fifth grade. I’d always assumed that “Devil’s Night” was what some people called Halloween though. I never heard the term “Mischief Night” either, or the word mischief much in general. I grew up in the Texas Panhandle so this isn’t terribly surprising.

Some places in the US call it “Cabbage Night” or “Gate Night”. This is most common in the Northeast.

Is Devil’s Night Satanic?

In my opinion, not really. It looks like some people started calling it that because of all the awful things people started getting up to on the 30th. For the most part it was a celebration of mostly harmless pranks that children got up to and devolved into something darker in some parts of the world. Or perhaps, considering the holiness of Allhallows, they figured the day before much be particularly unholy. Once you start calling a thing something, people figure they can get away with almost anything, including burning Detroit to the ground on a yearly basis.

I’ve been thinking about Every Day Carry lately as it relates to this idea of what I’m calling Techno Survivalism. So I started going through what I carry around every day and what I need to do every day so I can adjust my “EDC”. I know many IT guys carry a lot of crap around in a backpack every day but I’ve turned more towards the minimalist approach to everything. I don’t carry a backpack, I just have my four pockets.

The last couple of jobs I’ve had required a lot of travel to various parts of the Panhandle and I know a lot of places have policies about having some kind of hands free system in their car. Lots of cubicle work requires that you have earphones because you can’t play a radio at your cube either. Most cell phones these days include a pair of ear buds so you may ask why I’m even writing this article. Well here are a few reasons why you should ditch the stock ear buds you get with your phone and get the two products I’m about to tell you about now.

The stock, cheap ear buds you get with your phone usually suck for the following reasons:

• They have plastic cords that tangle up really easily.
• They have cords.
• The sound quality is abysmal.
• They break easily.
• They’re generic looking.
• The cords get caught on things.
• The cords are never long enough.
• Did I mention they have cords?
• No volume control (unless you have an iPhone).
• No track skip features.
• Basically all they do is start/stop what you’re listening to and answer calls.

Why even carry a headset as part of your EDC? In this day and age, audio is how you keep yourself informed, educated and entertained. For most people, a smartphone is as essential in day to day life as a stone knife was to a cave man in the paleolithic era. The headset is part of the connection to the phone. You listen to audio on the phone with it, talk on the actual phone feature with it, and can input data and receive information through the voice command system with it. Having a good one is crucial. I want to break you away from carrying a dinky corded headset, and get you to carry a stereo Bluetooth headset as your main audio interface. It will free you up, and add a new level of interaction to your smartphone.

Bluetooth Headset and Why You Should Have One All The Time

The first product I want to talk about is the LG Tone+ HBS 730 Stereo Bluetooth Headset . I’ve had one of these since March of 2013 and as of this writing is has not failed me. The biggest reason I got this was because I like to listen to podcasts and I got tired of breaking regular ear buds. The cable would get caught on something and break, or they’d just wear out. I didn’t want a regular Bluetooth headset because people can’t tell when you’re listening to one, and they generally make you look like a jerk. This headset can be hidden under a shirt, lets you control your music, answer calls, control the voice commands on your phone, has volume control, and track skipping functionality. With newer phones all the functions work. On my Galaxy S2 the track skipping didn’t work, but everything else did just fine.  On an iPhone, or my HTC One, everything works flawlessly. The battery life on this thing, even after almost two years as of this writing is well over eight hours of listening time, when it was new it was well over the ten they promise. The audio quality is great, I can tell the difference when I have to use a regular set of ear buds.

The biggest advantage is I don’t have to have my phone on me and I can still use the headset for most things. I can make and receive calls, and listen to audio and leave the phone on the charger in another room if I need to. This makes long road trips a lot more pleasant.

There aren’t really that many drawbacks to this headset and I can’t say enough good about them, but the best reasons to have them are pretty self-evident. One is they work exactly like a regular set of corded ear buds without the cord, and a lot more features. Another is that since there isn’t a cord to get caught on anything, you won’t have the problem of the cord dragging the phone out of your pocket and then the phone breaking because it drops to the ground. Since the ear buds on this pull out more like a head set, people can see that you have them in, as opposed to a normal Bluetooth headset, which most people just think you’re being rude when you use one.

A couple of drawbacks are that the buttons can be pressed accidentally. You can’t charge it while using it, and you just get too dependent on the darn thing after a while.  It will also turn around on your neck sometimes, but I’ve found this doesn’t really happen that much unless the headphone cables get twisted up around the device.

The best part is that these hardly cost more than a really good set of regular earphones. They run about $65 on Amazon. I got mine for less than that watching the sales. I highly suggest getting the 730, every knock off company tries to imitate these and sell theirs for less and those knock-offs are utter garbage. That’s an indicator of a quality product, when people copy it.

LG also makes a few more models with different button layouts that might work better for different people for about the same price ranges. Here they are:

LG Electronics Tone Pro Bluetooth Stereo Headset – I think this is the HBS-750. I’ve seen a couple of reviews from golfers who like this one. The main difference is the buttons are on the side and not the top.

LG Electronics Tone Ultra (HBS-800) Bluetooth Stereo Headset  – This one has more Google voice commands integrated than the other models. The buttons look like they might be more flush with the headset.

LG Electronics TONE INFINIM Bluetooth Stereo Headset – This one is a lot more expensive. The ear buds are retractable which solves one tiny issue with the other headsets, but honestly the reviews on this one don’t look good for the price compared to the 730, 750 and 800 which are the ones most people seem to prefer the most.

These all charge up with USB so that portable battery pack you should be carrying will charge up all of them!

Corded Ear Buds For Your Spares

For your EDC I am a strong proponent of the Bluetooth headset for your cellphone. It just makes life easier. However, you do still need at least two good pair of corded ear buds for spares, though not necessarily for carrying on you. You want two with the control button, and microphone, if not the volume control if you have an iPhone (this feature won’t work on Androids as of this writing). There are a lot of good sturdy corded sets out there, usually with flat cables and stuff like that. I don’t particularly like those. Mostly because they don’t work well with ScotteVest coats and hoodies. The ones I recommend, just because I’ve had really good luck with this kind are the sort with the braided cloth shell over the cable. They aren’t QUITE as tangle resistant as their flat cable counterpart, but they’re just as sturdy, if not more so. They’re also cheaper in most instances and work with the cable management features in a lot of those fancy coats.

What got me hooked on these was a freebie I got with a Newegg order. They weren’t the best ear buds, but I still have them and they take a lot of abuse. Unfortunately, they don’t have the microphone or the button for smart phones, so I just tossed them in my bug out bag for the radio.

Having a couple of these around where you can get to them gets you a couple of things. Personally I keep one in my ScotteVest hoodie in the winter all the time, I look kind of stupid with two headsets but when I’m on an airplane I can’t really use the Bluetooth.

1. A spare if your Bluetooth breaks, forget to charge the battery, or need to conserve power.
2. Many smart phones have a radio built-in now and need a headset to act as an antenna.

Here’s a few links to some I would suggest. The ones pictures above are the basic Altec Lansing MZX736MIC Bliss Headphones  in black and silver. Their equipment is pretty good, pretty generic and those will run you about $20. That set is Prime eligible so you can get them in about two days.

M.M Braided Cord In-ear Earphones with Microphone – These are about $9. I found identical ones for about $18. They supposedly have a microphone, don’t see it pictured. These should be half decent. A couple of these work in a pinch until better ones could be bought.

Obviously these are just spares, if you want quality ones there are plenty of good options to choose from. I’d get a couple of the Altec Lansing ones and throw them in the bug out bag. I’ve got a set very much like them on my hoodie permanently. I’ve got a couple generic stock ear buds thrown different places like my car bag, and my desk drawer just in case something breaks or someone needs a pair (I keep all the extra ear pieces, because yeah that’s gross sharing).

So now that I’ve gotten some traditions and history of Halloween out of the way I think we can get into some of the propaganda and garbage that is inevitably floating around about Halloween.

Is Halloween/Hallowmas “The Devil’s Holiday?”

Certainly not. This is ridiculous. It does not now, nor has it ever had anything to do with the devil, demons or hell. As from my last three articles you can see that the current traditions surrounding October 31st to November 2nd are almost entirely Christian in origin. What pagan traditions happen to surround that time of year aren’t about human sacrifice, worshiping the devil or any of that nonsense. The Celtic Samhain was about making sure you were prepared for winter, moving livestock, and celebrating the end of summer, and the beginning of their new year. While the Roman Lemuria was about appeasing the dead, it took place during a totally different time of year, and Hallowmas may or may not have anything to do with it.

The devil, demon and witch costumes are, oddly enough entirely Christian conceptions of devils, demons and witches. I would find it odd if actual evil ancient pagan cults bore any semblance at all to them. There are hardly any evil pagans, pagan religions and any pagan religions that might have been evil were probably wiped out by their pagan neighbors a long, long time ago. They probably didn’t worship anything remotely like a Christian concept of the devil, much less have anything much like a pointy hat wearing old crone.

If you are a Christian and that sort of thing makes you uncomfortable, remember, all the silliness is fairly new. Most of it isn’t ancient tradition, it goes back to the late renaissance at best, some of it is even new world tradition that goes back to the middle ages. If you want to “Take back Halloween” go back to 609 and remember what Hallowmas was supposed to be. Take back those real thousand year old traditions. Light candles, put them out on your porch and hold the vigil for the dead. Tell your children stories about their dead ancestors. Take them to the cemeteries on All Souls day. Remember the dead, this is the time for it. That’s what the early Christians did.

Do the spirits of the dead really roam the world during Halloween?

I was surprised to find out that this was in fact a Christian belief. It seems to not have been borrowed from pagan traditions at all. There seems to be a lot of thought that it was the other way around, somewhat like the jack-o-lanterns and candles might have been borrowed from Christians by Pagans.

However, this could be a holdover from Lemuria. Though, again, it’s possible that this is a legitimate early Catholic, or early Christian belief, that at certain times the saints might be able to communicate with or be seen by the living. For my fellow Protestants consider the dead rising during the crucifixion and the idea of Lazarus talking to Abraham from hell. While I’m not a believer in this idea, I find it interesting that this is not in fact a borrowed belief. I think most Christians, Catholic or not have probably forgone this idea today though.

Do Satanists practice human sacrifices on Halloween?

I tend to think not. Your basic modern Satanist is either a teenager wanting attention, or a humanist. Either way they aren’t likely practicing human sacrifice. The great “Satanic Panic” of the 80’s and 90’s was a huge load of horse crap. You can check out some resources here and see for yourself.  Even if it were true, why even worry about it? Do you know any hardcore devil worshiping cultists that sacrifice people, and animals? That sort of thing tends to draw attention.  If so please tell local law enforcement immediately. Human sacrifice is murder, period. Fortunately it’s almost unheard of.

Do pagans practice weirdo rituals on Halloween?

Probably. Some neo-pagans, and practitioners of your western non-mainstream organized religions (I’m referring to the big ones and their variants: Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism) might have some things they do during the season. Lots of Wiccans, and other neo-pagans, and shamanistic practitioners will have some ceremonies and stuff they do during the season. Don’t bother them unless they’re doing something illegal in your particular jurisdiction.

I’ve heard of people doing animal sacrifices and stuff during different parts of the year. This is not typical. I would contact law enforcement if you see this sort of thing going on. It depends on your region, and whether it’s on private property. It might fall under animal abuse, or it might not. Again, for most neo-pagan groups, this isn’t normal and they don’t do this, and you’d have to be pretty brazen to sacrifice chickens or whatever right in the open. I’m all for religious expression, but there are some lines you really shouldn’t cross, at least in public.

Frankly, Christians do weirdo ceremonies this time of year what with masses, church services, candle vigils and prayer groups. The Wiccans doing a circle or whatever in the park or around their home isn’t any different. Go watch, sometimes it’s pretty interesting.

Did that small girl/teenager/hooker get eaten by that axe murderer/snake/wolf/dog/rabbit on Halloween back in ’34 in the haunted house?

Every town has these awesome urban legends. My own town has this amusement park called “Wonderland” that has one of those scary house rides called the “Fantastic Journey” that was built by the original owner (By hand! He bent the rails himself!). When I was a kid the story was that someone’s pet python once had gotten lose in the ride and you could see it slithering around in bottom of the ride, and it would occasionally kill people and eat them during the ride, especially on Halloween night. Occasionally someone would say they saw two people go into the ride and one come out, or there’d be an empty cart come out of the ride. The same story would be told as a murderer or even “Jason” from the Friday the 13th movie series.

Now while the snake story is totally true in our case, it’s never true anywhere else. The Jason thing is made up, but I swear I saw that snake once. People tend to associate scary things with  Halloween, because it’s a scary night.

Check out my other articles on Halloween debunking some of the other nonsense:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4