Blacksmithing

Meeting again…

Hiroshi: You were the one who always wanted a stable office job.
Ryū: Well, here it’s hot flames and cool water, steel glowing red, then hissing as it quenches. Watching metal change shape when you hammer it.
Hiroshi: Like a pre-digital age. Real handwork. Real craft. No logins, no updates.
Ryū: Exactly. And who knows, if the digital world ever falters, people like me might suddenly be useful again.
Hiroshi: You already are. This place feels alive with purpose. 
Ryū: And charcoal. And it’s sooty. Want to try making a knife from an iron bar?
Hiroshi: Me? Make a knife? Seriously?
Ryū: Sure. Not so hard. First we heat the bar until it’s red. Then we hammer it into shape. After that comes forging, quenching, grinding, sharpening, and polishing. Each step changes the metal’s soul.
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Voice-over
Ryū goes on to explain that there are different materials ranging from carbon steel which sharpens beautifully but rusts easily and stainless steel which is low maintenance but harder to hone.

Oil at 1000 dollars a barrel

Max, who tends to overreact, indulges in a little crystal ball gazing, to the ever-optimistic Ray.

…
Max: Well, maybe we won't have to put up with long flights much longer. Back of a Fortune magazine Stanley Bing makes a prediction we are headed for oil at $1000 per barrel. None of this wimpy $200 a barrel stuff. Air travel at $25,000 per ticket will only be for seriously wealthy business people. Hybrid vehicles will putter around really slowly but the police will be allowed to go at 16 kilometers per hour to catch criminals. Most of us will be hanging out of windows or onto the roofs of buses and trains to do any distance. Food will be locally grown.

Ray: Is Bing a bit of an alarmist?

Max: Alarmist? Heck, that was normal only a hundred years ago.

Ray: OK, but how does this affect us?

Max: We’ll have to move. Reposition ourselves. Geographically. Cold country with wind and rain but possibility of Vegetable Wars? Warm country with possibility of Water Wars? New Zealand where all the crims join the police force? Japan where you'll only be exempt from joining the army if you are over 97 years old?

Ray: All countries will have their problems. Something will be worked out.

Max: Peru with 2,500 varieties of potato looks increasingly attractive. I'm sending off an application to join the Shining Path.

Ray: I thought you liked lasagna better.

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Voiceover

Ray has three attempts to ween Max off his dire projections. First he questions whether the original writer was “alarmist.” Second, he has a try at calming Max down with a generalization “All countries…” Finally, he uses a diversion, “lasagna,” but since they disappear out of earshot, we don't know what conversational road they went down after that.

…