Wednesday 15 June 2005

Pic of the day: Now if only I could find out how to string this, it would be a deadly weapon... "All technology, no matter how simple, is magic to those who don't understand it." (Florence Ambrose, the Bowman's Wolf.)

Taking a bow...

In today's installment of "living each day as if it is not the last", I went off and bought a bow. You know, archery. Deadly weapon, longer range than a handgun but harder to conceal.

I walked right into the shop (Pedersen's Vaabenlager in Kristiansand) and chatted with the elderly man who worked there. He told me that they would get in some junior bows soon, but already had some in my size. These were 3-part recurve bows, with a light wooden middle part and white plastic recurves. (For some reason this pale object is called "Black Flash".) Some assembly required, but 3 arrows included. The bow set me back NOK 2000, or around $300. I could have paid it in cash and walked out with a deadly weapon without even giving my name, but I paid it with my VISA card instead. Hopefully there will be no corpses with arrow wounds nearby causing my arrest and the discontinuation of my journal. I certainly intend to do my best to not cause any such corpses, but I suppose the art of archery is still so uncommon around here that the guy who writes about it on the Net would be the prime suspect. I have even in the past played medieval role playing games on the Net. Perhaps I should consider setting up a webcam after all?

For now, however, I am kinda safe. Because although I have managed to put together most of the parts, I have still not managed to string the bow. To do this you are supposed to use a temporary string that you pull with your foot so your bow gets the right shape for you to string it. But such a temporary string was not part of the package. I will have to buy it separately if I want to use my bow, I guess. And I do plan to do that.

The logic is that all my current exercise is for my legs. With all due respect for my legs, this leaves the arms and the entire upper body in its usual office mouse state. Archery, on the other hand, is largely upper-body work. And while more expensive than exercise springs or weights, it also strikes me as more meaningful. If I manage to string it at some future time!

And besides, although this was not a consideration at all, I am pretty sure that my relatives will gladly take over the bow when I die. In fact, I suspect it is very nearly the only material object that they won't throw away if they actually show up after my passing. Of course, since I don't know what time that will be I also don't know who "they" will be, but being my relatives it is almost certain that they will have a keen interest in deadly weapons. That's just the kind of guys we are. Nice, friendly and with a keen interest in deadly weapons. Think of it as Itland "family values".