Paul,

Swords aren't for waiving at burglars. Using a weapon to intimidate an evildoer has a high percentage of going wrong. If one feels justified in using countervailing force (hopefully your feelings are based on concrete evidence which may explained to a jury of your peers), it should be used to stop the situation from escalating. Making a force-threat display with one's sword is performing an escalation of violence and not actually dealing with the threat of imminent harm beyond hoping you can scare off one or more maurader hopped up on adrenaline and Lord knows what else. See Marc and Dianna's site for more details.

Swords may be used as weapons for several arts and one may enjoy the athleticism and discipline (and fun) and can be used for cutting all sorts of materials (the kenjutsu/iaido crowd cut fresh bamboo, tatami, and Funnooodles and the Fikes crowd cut dried bamboo and trees).

"When it's time to shoot - shoot! Don't talk!"

A machete/LARGE chopper. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> I bet due to its length, you could get some good leverage when chopping.

PK,

You sound like someone interrupted your bath.

Thom - Sounds like you remember "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly"! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

The ugliness of its theme song will haunt my dreams for the rest of my days.

I'd agree about not threatening an intruder with a weapon, I'd rather if it came to blows he never saw it (large heavy and blunt object) coming... A weapon is last resort and numerous cases have shown a weapon 'brandished' not used by a householder was then used on it's owner by the intruder. Why arm the sods???

As a personal thing I guess I'd go for a classic katana if I wanted to go into the Ai cutting fraternity. INFI is awesome but the AK styling is just too contempory, now a formal katana in INFI would be a thing...

Andy, I suppose it would function as a two-hand-grip parang but it didn't strike me as curved enough to really sabre cut well.

I am concerned about the eerie silence revolving around the actual sale date of the Bowie!!!

Well, they gotta name it first! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

I guess you're right! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

Ya. I would very much like to know when it is going to be released & a price. That would be nice.

Maybe they're watching our price predicting thread to see what we'd be willing to pay, then average everyones guesses to see the average price we're willing to pay. Everyone guess low!!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />