Weekend Open Thread: We don’t deserve dogs and other musings

Hey all…

Another week ticks off the calendar, and we keep plugging along. It is the calm before the storm here in the Knife Magazine office, we are 2 weeks out from our next press deadline, and so I am trying to chip away at some knife reviews and the like. We just received a trio of new ZT’s, an 0707, 0235, and 0357.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CEK0Mi_jzCL/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

They are all very different knives, but I am having fun putting them through some light testing. Question for y’all – which of the 3 would you most like to see a full review of, possibly for print?

I am not sure what the final disposition of these will be. I am sure I will end up keeping whichever one I beat up doing a full review of. The others will be contest items I imagine. Maybe another crossword. Any ideas for themes?

Earlier this week, I posted a somewhat off topic article from Outdoor Life about training your dog for the upcoming hunting season. It triggered a bit of discussion, so I figured that I would bring the dog talk here to the Open Thread. Tell us about your 4 legged companions. That is Wahoo (18m month old lab) and Trixie (10 month old GSP).

As I write this, they are snoring next to me.

If you want to share a pic of your furballs, send it to clay(at)knifemagazine.com.  I will toss them up for folks to see. Note on the above picture: It is completely coincidental that I am wearing the shirt that Jason K. sent me. Is your brewery back up and running buddy?

One last avenue of inquiry, and that relates to our newsfeed. Hocky remarked that a lot of our posts are of a somewhat advertising nature. Frankly, new release information is one of the most common things I come across, both from the companies themselves, as well as from sites like KnifeNews (owned by KnivesShipFree). There are a lot of reviews as well, as there are countless blogs and YouTube channels reviewing knives. I have my favorites, all of whom I either know personally or have been following for a significant period of time. Obviously, breaking news sneaks in from time to time, and my absolute favorite things to share are “knife stories” and local media features on knifemakers.

So my questions are these:

How am I doing with regards to variety?

Is there something you see too much of, or not enough of?

How may YouTube videos are too many in a given day?

What YouTube channels, blogs, or websites would you suggest I add to my content trawl?

Any other thoughts, comments, or suggestions are appreciated.

Last week we offered up a copy of Ron Stewart’s Standard Guide to Knives and their values.

The Standard Knife Collectors Guide, 6th Edition by Ron Stewart

I drew Hocky as the winner. (if he doesn’t yet own the book). This week’s winner gets their choice of that book, Trzaska’s Military Knives Reference Book, or Goins Encyclopedia of Cutlery Markings.

Goins’ Encyclopedia of Cutlery Markings (Second Edition) by John and Charlotte Goins

Military Knives: A Reference Book by Trzaska, Silvey, Windrum, et al.

I gave you all plenty of topics to tee off on. Feel free to use those to kickstart the conversation, or come up with something of your own. Up to 5 comments/replies are eligible for entry.

Finally, here is a picture of my daughter and our last dog, Billie Holiday, taken about three months before she left us. She gave us 14 wonderful years. George Carlin said it best when he remarked “Life is a series of dogs”. Billie was our “practice kid” and then a wonderful nursemaid to our real ones. I miss her daily, it took two dogs to (not quite) replace her.