I could be sharper

But I am not. I grew up in a house that had two antique Spanish swords hanging on the living room wall. I love those swords. They were interesting, unique and led to many childhood imaginations. Taking them down every so often to clean them and clean the wooden sword holder was always quite a treat. (even if cleaning the carved wood was not).

Now that I have children, hanging such a thing on the wall seems ridiculous. After all, the threat of instant death if their parents found out that they had played with them doesn't seem to hold the weight it did when I was a child. I have my father's swords. They are put away in a very safe place and I doubt the children are even aware that they are in the house. The swords are in rough shape, not receiving the TLC that they did for years but still they are special to me.

My son and I recently started playing a game called Runescape. It is a MMORPG that does include swords of all sorts. You can make them. You can buy them. You can earn them through quests. Now, I am not particularly interested in the sword fighting aspect of the game. I much prefer the making of things, questing and interacting. But, I have to admit, owning swords in the game and working my way up to the more exclusive sorts is fun. The fantasy swords are particularly interesting to me. Now, in order to earn and wield such a thing, I would have to cause the respawn of a lot more goblins and other creatures than I really have the interest to do, but I still like seeing them, just like I enjoy seeing them at Extremely Sharp.

If you have a household where having such objects to look and not touch (or if you belong to a group where having such things is a given...medieval re-enactment or the like) you should definitely go take a look. For now, I will stick with my online swords.