Annoying kids from Lamplight

Last night I agreed to take this grownup kid, lets call him Keeky, hell I can't remember his name. We don't get 20 feet before he gets bored, and insists on telling me a story about a robot called Dynamo and on he went as we walked. I could not get him to shut up.
When are we going to get to Big Town he'd ask.
Big Town, Big Town.
Gawd, I was expecting something like Megaton instead of the dump that Big Town turned out to be.
Kicky kept telling his stupid stories all the way there.
Hey Ralph did you heat about that robot Dynamo as I am emptying my mini gun into a giant radscorpion
I'm bored, I know I will make up a story, once there was this superhero named Gronk, in the middle of a knife fight with three very pissed off Talon Company men
Are we there yet? In a shootout between 6 super muties and 9 raiders
I sure know how to pick em!


This is Ralph

Now where is that nailboard, that won't kill him right?

Deathclaw Stew

Here's how to make Deathclaw stew.
1. Make sure you take plenty of weapons.
Shotgun.....check
railroad gun....check
laser rifle....check
missile launcher...need to get it repaired
Fat Boy...check (don't ask- don't tell, just pull the trigger and run like hell)
2. take lots of ammo....preferably ammo for the shotgun, raliroad gun, laser rifle, missles, mini nukes

3. sufficient body armor.
a couple of things. a) make sure it's thick. b) make sure it's light or c) make sure you can run in it.

4. big knife or chainsaw.

5. sack

6. good shoes.

7. spices.

8. pot.

9. matches or flame thrower

10. Stim Packs, and drugs, lots of drugs.

Now then, since you are prepared.
Things to remember:

1. Deathclaws are faster than you are.

2. Take a friend who moves slower than you do.

3. don't be afraid to make a mess. blow that deathclaw to pieces if you can since it will save the effort of determining if it is really dead and takes less time to cut up.

4. make sure you have plenty of room.

Okay, Good Luck out there.

Let me know what it tastes like.

Ralph, Vault 103

ps. Don't eat raw.

Hacking Blues

Today I hacked into something called the NORAD mainframe. It claimed to  be able  to launch hundreds of Missiles and play something called chess.
For a computer it was  almost as  chatty as President Eden was before I convinced him that he was in fact redundant.
NORAD could not be convinced that it did not  need to relaunch the missiles even after I told it I wasn't plugging that cord back in.
After I left, I realized that when a computer starts  running lots of lines of text, that it might actually be screaming.

when the spit hits the man

Someone once said that the only good gook was a dead gook. I am still not sure what a gook was.
The same could be said about- well just about everyone you meet out here in the wasteland.

Yesterday, I was out walking with this dog that came along and adopted me. (another story) and these two guys game by on one of those motorcycles you see in a lot of places- mostly without wheels. One guy was girly and blond and the other had this wicked mohawk. They looked like raiders. I was trying to decide which weapon I would use today to blow them to kingdom come - I can chose from 8 without even digging through my gear. No I don't get how I can do that but they are there when i need them. I chose the 32 caliber pistol. I hadn't used it since I found it in that dead ghouls hand.
When I looked up, the two of them were sitting right next to me considering me. The blonde one flipped me off- except he had no middle finger. So maybe it was a fist instead.
Mohawk flapped his tongue at me then asked.
"Oy- you seen a truck go by filled with the black gold?"

"No."

"Crimey, of all the rotten luck." he said and spun the bike. "Must have taken the turnpike instead."

Then they were gone back the way they had just come.

What the hell is black gold anyway?

This is Ralph signing off

Misnomers and how to kill them

Someone once said: "If you don't understand it- get rid of it."

In the wasteland one rule stands above all others.
Shoot first and go loot the body later- usually when you are sure that you aren't about to get shot.

This is a good rule to live by. One afternoon, I spotted this Waste-wanderer find a small treasure trove of Nuka-Cola in a refrigerator out in a minefield. the Waste-wanderer did this happy dance around it and narrowly avoided getting shot by a clown faced raider. But as he diver for cover he forgot about the minefield. Pieces of him were everywhere. The raider gives and yell and runs for the fridge at full tilt.
Before he can reach it a Ghoul pops out of nowhere around the fridge and slams a sledgehammer into the raiders chest. The raider falls backwards back into the mine field and we get a rainfall of blood and goo.
The Ghoul cackles as he shoulders the red sledgehammer and leans in for a closer look when his head get shot off from his shoulders by a slaver with a 44 magnum.
The slaver walks over and spits on the new corpse. Pops open the fridge, hears something looks up in time for a cascade of bullets to slam into his blast master body armor and add him to the heap of bodies.
The scavenger carefully slips over to consider his find when he is incinerated by a flamer from a Super Mutant who strolls over the incinerated body. The super mutant starts to laugh when he is vaporized by this Enclave soldier who trots over to the fridge to see what the fuss is about.
The enclave soldier takes off his helmet and wipes the sweat from his brow and takes out a Nuka-Cola only to see his helmet fly up and away as a snipers bullet collects it from the fridge. He is whirling around with his laser rifle coming up when the next bullet rewrites his facial expression.
The Talon Company merc walks over looks down at the enclave soldier, then crouches down as the missile slams into the ground next to him effectively blowing him up and away from the fridge and out into the minefield where his body effectively sets off the rest of the mines.
The resulting explosion is deafening.
I wave at where Gary from Vault 111 has just set off this catastrophe with his missile launcher and shake my head as I go off in search of a less hot, melted, irradiated nuka-cola elsewhere.

Maybe I can grab one at Megaton instead and just sacrifice the caps instead of my own head.

This is Ralph signing off.

Dear Old Dad

You know one of the most disturbing things happened to me today. I was out in the Capitol Wasteland and came across this bar called the Pipboy Pitt. In it are about 5 other Vault exiles like myself. Yes, at first it was reassuring, after all there was Tracy from Vault 98. I guess she did finally get all that gear to Megaton. I bet Moira was ecstatic.
Anyway Tracy waves me over and introduces me to Henry from Vault 104, Peeta from Vault 72, Carl from Vault 106, Toni Ching from Vault 93, Kelsey Eight from Vault 90 and Mike from Vault 101. They are all pretty friendly and fair drunk. So I sit down among them and we have a drink.
Turns out we all have diffused the bomb at Megaton at one point or another. Someone apparently goes back in after a year or 2 and rearms it.
Turns out we all have had troubles with the Enclave hedging in on our business and trying to kill us in the process.
Getting snubbed by the Brotherhood as Wasteland rats, get dissed on by the Outcasts for about anything that comes to their minds at the time.
And we are all looking for our Dads.

Funny thing that came up and we all thought it was kind of weird at the time. All our dads have been called James at one time or another.

About an hour after we all headed back to our various residences around the wastes, I stop mid stride when it occurs to me that Dear Old Dad has been getting around a lot.

What is really weird about it is that None of us really look that much alike.

Ching is definitely Asian.
Kelsey 8 is definitely White.
Carl is definitely Black
and Mike might be one of those Indians.


I am betting Dad will probably be able to explains this when I do finally catch up with him.

Knowing Dear Old Dad though, he will find a way to avoid answering the question.

This is Ralph from Vault 103 signing off.