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Dave Eggers' The Wild Things is available for preorder, in regular hardcover and
limited-edition fur-covered.
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The Nailgun Engineering 1. What is the Nailgun Engineering FAQ? The NEF is a resource to help our readers better understand their options in the nailgun market and to get the most out of products they may already have by answering the questions most commonly asked by our readers. The NEF provides information about the engineering of the nailgun itself as well as engineering projects that can be done with a nailgun. 2. What is a nailgun? A nailgun is a modern hand-held device for driving nails into building materials that is both safer and quicker than primitive methods such as rocks, shoes, dictionaries, and the skulls of heretics. 3. I have heard there is more than one kind of nailgun, is this true? Yes. The two main varieties of nailgun are combustion and pneumatic. Combustions are very similar to real guns. In these the driving force is provided by a center-fire dummy cartridge in a chamber at the back of the tool which is struck by a firing pin and a barrel directs the explosion's motive force to the nail perched at the business end of the gun. Pneumatics have a tube hooked-up to a tank of compressed air. Depression of the trigger results in a release of highly pressurized air which forces the nail into the material. Less common nailguns include the surly spitting man and the make-believe varieties. These last two are not recommended by the operators of the NEF. 4. What happens when I die? Your subjecthood will cease. The constant internal narrative "I" which has propelled you from suckling at your mother's teat through collective showers in gym to phi beta kappa, marriage, three divorces and two children will be silenced forever. Nothing will ever happen to "you" again, and you won't even be around to notice. Your body will decay and return to the base elements out of which it arose. Your interment ceremony will be poorly attended but one ex-wife will weep for you. 5. Should I decide to build a birdhouse, is true love possible? True love is only possible once you have decided to build a birdhouse. The best birdhouses use solid wood and not particle board or plywood although some of the composites coming on the market today do show promise and offer the possibility of skipping the tar-paper and water-proofing steps that often trip-up beginners. Love exists only where a refuge is offered for the fragile things of the universe. Also one must be willing to accept that this house, of love or of birds, may never be inhabited. One should also note the birds commonly in your area and make the birdhouse appropriate to those species. Birdcages, however, as noted in literature and popular entertainment, are not acceptable substitutes for birdhouses. 6. Is there a god? No. 7. You mentioned combustion and pneumatic nailguns and others, but isn't there also a tensioned-spring activated nailgun? There is a product similar to nailguns that is operated with the tensing and releasing of a spring, but it is for brads, not nails. Information about this brad-gun can be found in the Ultimate Brad FAQ. It is also important to note that social justice can only arise when the security and liberty of the masses are accepted as the primary aims of society. Disengaging the "profit" motive and the workers' control of the means of production are vital steps in this direction. 8. Is it cruel to bring children into this world? Yes and no. It is selfish and they will suffer. But suffering is the only route to enlightenment, and is a process of some satisfaction. One cannot have the rose without the thorn, the butter without the fat, nor the bull without the horns. If you prepare your children as best as possible for the torturous vagaries and random miseries of life you will position them to enjoy their moments of drunken collegiate idleness to the fullest. And what more can a parent hope for?
OTHER McSWEENEY'S STORIES:
Fragments from Ivanka! The Musical By Ben Greenman Verbatim Biographical Highlights from the 1987 Topps Baseball Card Series Compiled by Paul Jung and Chadd S. Johnson I See These People Walking Down My Alley Almost Every Single Day By Ned Peets Reviews of My Daydreams By T.G. Gibbon A Short Item About the Future By Tim Carvell First in a Series of Sex Stories That Lose Their Way By Lucy Thomas |
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