Seanachai
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Posts posted by Seanachai
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I leave this Saturday to kayak the headwaters of the Mississippi, Itasca Lake. It will be an epic journey. From my strategic position at the very top of America, I will send a shower down upon all the rest of the country. Film at 11.
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Yet another sign of the Apocalypso? Seanachai is the designated driver.
That bugger Papa Khann only had two margaritas, no beer. And I didn't drive him home, I booted him towards his car and went off to have burgers and a beer with a friend of mine.
The thing about people like Papa is, they can drink enough liquor to remain under the legal limit, and still behave like goofballs. I don't know whether to admire him, or pity him.
Now, myself, I need to drink a very great amount of liquor to act like a goofball. Of course, when I do, I only briefly visit the 'goofball' stage, before moving on to the 'get the tazer, crucifix and stake!' stage. If Papa Khann was to attempt to dance in step with me, we would need to have a priest on hand, either for an exorcism, or the last rites.
Lars needn't be smug, either, as the result of the whole thing was we're going to his house on Sunday, the 9th. At least, that seems to be the gist of what Papa was telling me. He also called up Dalem to tell him the same thing, but by that point the strange bar we were in was doing their Karaoke Night, and it was difficult, at best, to make him understand what Papa was gibbering about while a 65 year old woman in the background was singing 'Mr. Sandman'.
I do not recommend it.
A friend of mine, also from northern Ohio, once told me 'I figure Karaoke is Japan's revenge on us for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.'
Which makes me wonder about Anime. I mean, what could we possibly have done since then to justify it? It's simply possible that we didn't bomb them enough...
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I demand that someone bring me...
A SAMPO!
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Yeah right, like you need a cute child's dance for that to happen.
Well, I don't. But it was a really good dance.
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... one wants squid. Giant squid. Squid with a temper and lashing tentacles. Not some half-bloated, shrunken penguin with an phobia for pilchards...
True. Too true.
And the next time you come to MY fecking town and you don't call me up so we can have breakfast, or a drink, or both, I will hunt you down and kill you like a duck, stuff you with apples and kraut, and send you back to England wrapped in tin foil shaped like a swan for the natives to marvel at.
The stupid bastards will say: Look at that! It's like a donkey made out of al-loo-min-ee-um.
When are you lot of oiks going to learn the language you bequeathed to us? When are you going to stop pretending that speaking like a Dicken's play, while giving us Victoria fecking Beckham, means you still have a culture? Bloody English.
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As for dancing for the Senile Chai's entertainment, I give you this vignette:
A flatulent elephant, knee high boots and bloodstains on the floor.
The Gnome giggling on his throne, his tonsure misplaced and his eyes bloodshot.
Vassals and chain pullers wringing their hands as they try to take the whip from their master, a miasma of fear wafting from their persons and threatening to engulf the dancers.
Sword wielding dervishes enter - they begin to carve up the dancers.
The elephant scents the fear of the slaves, smells the taste of the whip.
Trumpets, pirouettes and reaches.
The chain is pulled: the Gnome transmogrifies into a busted flush.
Can't see it at all, lad. It's all very well to go on about privy humour, but it's not the same as a good taunt. Also, there's too much blood in your vignette, and, as we all know, I'm not a violent man. You seem to be channeling one of the less memorable scenes from 'The 300'.
Vile bad movie, that was. Even less sense of History than most of you lot seem to have.
Cotard, I was dangerously close to bolding your name. Now you have make-up work to do. Come on out of the ****ter, lad, and talk to us like a man, instead of a little boy who's soiled himself.
You have clearly made the foolish mistake of thinking that when I asked you to 'dance for me', that I was somehow belittling you. Dance, lad. Dance like Kali.
My Small Friend Emma did TWO dances for me the other day. One was 'The Sleeping Princess'. It was very silly, with lots of fake ballet moves that little girls think look like ballet moves. The other dance was 'Dinosaur Rock', and that dance STOMPED UPON THE TERRA! She put on the music that most of us associate with 'the Can-Can Dance', and then she jumped about the room like a a little lunatic. I damn near pissed myself. It was that good.
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/ Walks into room, looks around, is this the restroom?, noone answers, urinates on the carpet, walks out of room /
Lad, just so you know, you probably pissed the rug at your Mom's place. Again. We don't have carpet here. The right thing to do is call her up, apologize, and tell her you thought you were in the Peng Challenge Thread.
Try to explain to her why this would make things alright. Dance and shuffle like the stupid drunkard you undoubtedly are, and, to her heartbreak, she also knows you to be. Freely throw about how awful this place is, how you were only trying to show your disdain for us, and how none of it is your fault.
It's almost certain that she will tell you she 'understands', thereby enabling you yet again, and putting off for another year the moment when your family finally has to confront you about your problems with drugs/alcohol.
We continue to put on a serious look, nod and smile for the benefit of stupid drunkards like yourself, who piss in public places, and try and blame society and their familial problems for their drunken incontinence.
Try not to catch yourself in your zipper when you stagger back into the rest of the Forum. Tell all your friends how you 'pissed in the Peng Challenge Thread'.
Don't tell them about the zipper bite at the base of your member, and remember to buy your Mum some flowers.
Hose off your shoes. We don't much mind incontinent drunkards, but we like them to leave here looking better than when they came in.
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Joe Shaw, as free as the wind blows
As free as the grass grows,
For you, to follow your heart!
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grumble grumble...this bugger 'cotard'. What is the general impression? I rather liked his response to me. Wordy, long-winded, and not without some merit. But I don't know. Hardly been here, lately. Anyone have a reason why we shouldn't simply put him to death? Anyone danced the Justicar dance and taken him to squire, or whatever the hell we're doing here nowadays? I hate to even ask.
Boo? Is he an arsehole, or one of us? Grumble. You go away, you come back. I don't know. Has he shown the proper sense of... well, has he... I mean...
Feck. Here, 'cotard'. Dance for me, a bit. Make me understand why I shouldn't just assume you're a fecking idjit.
I'm getting too old to even wonder about these people. I should be after having grapes fed to me by busty, red-haired maidens with self esteem issues and a fear of priests.
That's where I could do some good. Because I like fruit, and I haven't any use for priests...
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And when you do cross the river Styx into Hades, I suspect you will be standing near the boatman, boring the bejeezus out of him with tales of your earthly daring-doo.
I on the other hand will be wakeboarding behind the boatman, trying to get your attention to get him to go faster. But you will pretend to ignore me, you bastage....
Actually, Stuka, you silly sod, I will be cheering you on. I can't imagine a better way to enter the afterlife.
Of course, when you get there, I will kick you soundly in the fork, as Berli would say.
Why? Because, Stuka, if I have learned nothing else from life, it's that when goofy Aussie bastards show up in the next world, you kick them in the fork.
And that will make me happy, and serve you right.
Afterwards, you will have to pay for the beer, and cigars. Or I'll kick you in the fork again, you daft Aussie swine.
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D'ya know, tumpty tumpty fecking years ago when I began the Peng Challenge Thread, there were only two putative humans I wanted to acknowledge my presence on this forum. One was Peng, who I figured was an easy sell. After all, I'd specifically addressed him, and he was the kind of bugger that would talk to anyone.
And the other was Berli, who I figured was a harder sell, because he was a vicious bastard. He didn't like anyone except Peng, and he didn't like Peng all that much.
But I can candidly state today, that for the last...what the hell is it, now? Six years? More? I have spoken with Berli nearly every goddamn day of my life. I've had him at my house, and I've been to his place. The bugger has called me, when the mood struck him, at almost every goddamn hour of the day.
He still does.
The phone rings. I discover it, and say 'Hello'. And I hear 'Eh.'
And then the basso voice on the other end of the line says 'There's a book, a movie, a program I think you should read/see'.
It is oddly comforting, to be stalked by Satan. It tells me that I am still alive. It tells me that there are Powers that think I should be introduced to things. It tells me that, I am never alone.
And I am never alone. Berli calls me almost every goddamn day.
It is an Ancient Truth that everyone dies alone. Not me. When I die, it will be on the phone with Berli, telling me about the latest movie/book/music that he's heard about/seen.
And when I arrive in the Afterlife, I will kick the fecking snot out of Berli. Because someone should.
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The therapy didn't take and he still suffers from delusions of grandeur.
Michael
He? Who, prithee? I was posting to 'Every Cesspooler', with that remark.
If we're talking about... what the hell's his handle... 'cotard'? I know him not.
Isn't he something that women insert during a certain cycle of the moon, in anticipation of stained panties, otherwise? He seems to me less useful, because I don't believe him able to absorb even the simplest lesson, let alone the onrush of a woman's flow.
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I am a wicked old man. You see, I have a plan. I do not tell it in a Small Emma story, because I must copy every 'Small Emma, Smaller Nora' story to their Mom. And there are things that Moms need not know about, until that time has come.
So, my new project is, the next time I 'babysit', to work with little 'Nora the Destroya'.
Seriously, Nora is a little terror. Imagine the blondest, most pipingly small voiced angel in the Universe. Now, imagine that same small angel, cute to the point of heartache, who has decided to enact her will, and contend with God, even if it means the destruction of the World. Imagine her watching the world burn, with a small frown because maybe she wanted there to be more horror.
And yet, imagine her to still be the goofiest, smallest fiend in all of Satan's arsenal, and ultimately lovable. I love my Smaller Nora. But I've watched her turn one hand into a claw to rend her sister's hair, with a look of vengeance passing over her face that would make all of you lot go lock yourself into a quiet room and chant platitudes to yourselves, and maybe sing a soft song of childhood days.
'Michael Row the Boat Ashore', perhaps. Or 'Khumbaya, My Lord'.
One need not look any further than the face of an angry and frustrated 3 year old to understand the full course of human evil.
I never had to deal before with this aspect of 'children' with Small Emma. She was, at that point, the 'only child'; beloved and made much of, by both myself and everyone else in two families with few young children. She was, and remains, a little dancer, a 'Fairy Princess', a story-maker and listener, a thistledown of magic on the winds of life.
She's also a little rule-bound, bossy-boots elder child whose only outlet of 'control' is getting her little sister to do exactly what she wants. And her little sister is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed fallen angel who would have supported Satan in a New York minute if it meant she could put her small, stern heel onto the throat of anyone who opposed her, especially her older sister.
They are both, of course, almost indescribably delightful.
There is NO contradiction here. They are all of mankind, written smaller and cuter. This is why the greatest and most important duty of all mankind is not to Do Good Works, or Right Wrongs, nor even To Achieve Justice.
The main duty of mankind is to 'Raise Good Kids'. This is also the hardest goddamned duty anyone can be put to. Most people don't even know that's what the feck they're supposed to do. That's why it all goes wrong. If you raise good kids, they will Do Good Works, and Right Wrongs, and, with the help of all the gods, Achieve Justice.
People are stupid. They think that because they've had kids, and because they think all too well of themselves, and because they've passed on their own prejudices and foolishness to their children, they've done their lot by the world. In most cases, as we've seen in election after election in this country, alone, they've done nothing more than piss a weak stream of their own stupidity into the future.
Anyone can reproduce. Anyone can vomit their DNA into the future, and think that with the right amount of brag and abuse, or airy-fairy stupidity, they can carry their own foolishness into a new world.
There's not a single one of us now living that isn't almost too fecking stupid to live. We can argue blue state/red state until we all sh*t ourselves. We can make curse words of 'conservative/liberal' until the stupidity of labels makes the American Civil War look a meeting of minds. We can sit down and determine that 'no kid of mine is going to believe in that ****e', and we're never going to escape the fact that we're already The Past, and that when the Future arrives, we'd all better have sent the Best and the Brightest part of what we believe into the future with those who've looked into our eyes and hearts, listening to our words and beliefs, and will make a world that they will have to live in, not us.
We're going to die, and rightly so. No need to make our own stupidity live after us, nor let what we most value die. The trick is making sure that the anger and stupidity of our personal feuds with the world aren't carried over to make another generation go through the same foolishness.
The greatest of all Human Stupidities is the belief that we are on a constant, upward path to a better world. The second greatest stupidity is that we aren't. All that's needed is to dance the fine line between the two. And only those who believe in the future, without abandoning the past, can dance that dance. No one can dance that dance carrying all the foolishness of their parents. And no one can get there without the strengths and beliefs of their parents.
So, as you can see, QED, the hardest goddamn job in the world is to be a parent. Take it seriously. Because you're already dead. You are already dead. Do you want a better world? Or do just want to keep being stupid because you thought you were smart, and had children?
All you lot that are, like me, without children? Get behind a better world and push, or shut the hell up.
"And the Old Man said:
Her name, is Youth
And there's little enough any of you cared for her
While she was yours,
Until she was gone.
And the name of the wee white goat
Is the World
And there's none can bind that, but me
And my name
Is Death."
Finn and the Old Man's House
-John Renbourn
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...and while I tend to doze off half way through the perilousness of your prose...
There, there, lad. Most of them here are such louts, these days, that they couldn't define 'prose' if given a dictionary, thesaurus and encyclopedia to work it out.
It's no wonder you doze off. At your time of life, the adventure of solid food must occupy most of your waking hours, the rest being devoted to wondering why your 'water wand' occasionally stirs sullenly when a handsome nurse strolls by...
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Did you guys have a cat fight?
We did indeed. I won, because Dalem simply won't kill a cat.
And, let me say now, and for the record, that Patchy, that is, Persephone, is a friend of mine.
Her Ex is one of my bestest buddies (gotta remind him of that, probably), and an Old One of the Peng Challenge Thread, also.
Others await our judgement, but she is free.
Life is too short to make much about anything save cannibalism and pederasty. Well, at least pederasty. What do you think the Argylls ate at Khartoum? Camels?!!
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Ah Michael, Michael.
When last I frequented these parts...
That's never after being Morse, is it?!
My stars and garters!
When I first went to Carleton College, I sat through a Freshman address when the Dean of School took as her text 'You cannot go home again; Yet you must go home again'.
Damn woman was erudite as hell. And now, 30 years later, she's a bloody beacon of prophecy.
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Someone is probing the Gnome.
You low and loathsome fellow. Take your soppy dreams of 'Mounting the Heights' elsewhere. I'm sure that in today's world of Web gratification you, and those who share your fetishistic dysfunction, can find a place to log in and fantasize endlessly about my person. But I can't be having with that here.
This is my house, and you vermin need to remember that nibbling just enough of the poisoned cheese to not die doesn't entitle you to strut about like you were buying the next round.
And now, one of the things I love about Small Friends.
My friend, Jen, the Mother of Small Emma, recently underwent a severe scare. A lump that turned out to be nothing, but which led them to discover another 'anomalous mass' that proved to be far more frightening, and which resulted in 'Grandma Steve' (for I have many names...) spending several days over time baby-sitting Small Friends while she and her husband Chris dealt with doctors and tests and the panoply of fright that attends upon growing old and confronting the reality of mortality.
However the biopsy came back 'benign', with no need for any particular follow-up, except the yearly 'shaking the bush here, boss', biznai of being healthy in America.
The relief was, as they say, palpable.
For those of you with enough of an education to recognize the joke, or pick up a dictionary, I know that you will remind the 'others' why I am the Bard of the Peng Challenge Thread. And, thereby, their Master.
It was, to say the least, an interesting few weeks. I was subjected, repeatedly, to the 'pocket hang'. This is where a laughing child grabs on to a pocket and takes her feet off the floor, dangling, and laughs like a merry sprite while you grab at your pants to keep: a) your pants from descending to your knees, and
the pocket from ripping off. When the 5 year old joins with the 3 year old, it's like being pantsed by extremely evil pixies. For a while there, in the mornings when I cinched up my belt, I (gloriously) thought I was losing weight. But then, upon reflection, I realized that the waistband of my jeans had simply been horribly stretched out.I learned to 'make breakfast' for children. Their Mother, inured to years of getting up early by way of having children, always made her doctor/medical appointments for the early morning, so that she could get on with her day, and her life, and her children. This involves giving the children 'cereal in milk'.
Although I have cooked over open campfires in all conditions for many, prepared meals for dinner parties of friends, and, in general, am one of the better male cooks that I know, it was determined that I was probably 'capable of giving the girls cereal in milk'. 'sTruth!
On the other hand, I had to cope with giving 'Puffins' to the one that wasn't allergic to peanuts, and 'Cheerios' to the one that wasn't allergic to tree nuts, and keeping which was which straight, so as not to kill either child, while wondering why a family with g*d-d*amned food allergies would have anything other than oatmeal on hand for anybody.
I needn't have worried about any of it. The five year old, Small Emma, told me, "I get Puffins. Nora can't have 'Puffins', because they have peanuts." (A small voice in the background shouts 'I don't have peanuts!'). But Nora can't have peanuts, because they'll make her sick. I can't have Cheerios because they might have almonds in them, but almonds don't really make me sick, but I like 'Puffins'." (in the background: 'I don't have peanuts!').
"But I can't have cashews. Cashews, Grandma Steve," significant look, "are really bad for me. But there aren't any cashews in 'Puffins', which I like, but I don't eat 'Cheerios', and Nora can't have 'Puffins'" (in the background 'I don't like peanuts!')."
All this at 7:30 in the AM, which I normally only ever see coming from the wrong side, and then usually at Dalem's place, which, after all this, I explain to him 'I like rum. I don't have water!'.
But I get up in the early morning, so that my friend of many years, who is one of the dearest people imaginable, and who has put up with me for long before her little girls were born, can go to the doctor to make sure that She will be around long after old, and evil, and utterly vile people like myself are dead and gone.
And when She tells me, on a Tuesday, that the biopsy came back 'benign', I offer up a little prayer, to follow upon all the larger prayers, to the Goddess. Because this means she will be there, to raise her little girls, unhindered by disease or despair. And that means they will grow up to be good people. Because their Mother and Father are about the best people I know.
And better yet, they will grow up with wicked old Grandma Steve, unfettered by the need to 'make their mother proud'. I'm a bad old man. And a push-over. Their Mom told me today: "You give in to them too much, and they know it! You make Chamberlain look like Attila the Hun. Wiener!"
But that brings us back to one of the things I love about Small Friends. Because this morning, when I went over to their house to go out to breakfast with them, I let myself in (Grandma Steve cannot be kept out; nor can he be killed with bullets!), and after the dogs stopped barking (Freyja, be quiet! Siguna, shut-up!), and after my two Small Friends ran up to the front door, beaming, and I came in and we went to the sun porch to play.
And after we played for a while, there Mom came down, and offered me orange juice, and we talked about 'the girls' for a while, and then Small Emma said: 'Mommy, lets get going!'
And her Mom said: 'Let's go? Why do you think we're going anywhere?'
And Emma said: 'Well, why else did you get dressed?'
I fell over arm of the couch laughing. I will spend every day of the next few months giving her Mom crap about that. Three times I had to hear 'What? What?! Do you really think I only get out of my pajamas if we leave the house?!! What the hell are you laughing about, you swine?! Ask Chris if he's ever come home and found me still in my pajamas just because I'm home with the girls! You bastard! Stop laughing!'
This is why I love Small Friends; one reason amongst many. One innocent remark of silliness (I deal with their Mom all the time, me being unemployed; she does not lounge about in pajamas. The Wehrmacht would have employed her to drill troops) by a Small Friend, and I have a handle on mockery for weeks to come!
After going out to breakfast with her and the two Small Friends this morning, she said: "Let's thank Grandma Steve (for I have many names...) for coming out to breakfast with us this morning," as I picked up her youngest daughter, Smaller Nora, for the umpteenth time to carry her, and I told her "No, no, Jen. I'm just glad I could come over and get you all to come out, so that you had a reason to get out of your pajamas..."
Oh, Tra-la! And a small child will lead them to mockery.
I can't even begin to describe how much fun her husband and I had tonight, debating over how many days she spent slouching about in her pajamas...
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Poverty is not for the weak or the faint of heart.
Michael
Tell it, brother. Thank all the gods for friends and family. The poor, benighted bastards.
If reincarnation turns out to be on the up and up, I'll have to do something nice for them in the next life. At this point, doing anything worthwhile in this life is looking dicey.
Although I imagine the whole 'karmic burden' thing will see to their reward. And mine.
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Oh I think stirring the pot would liven things up! Gawd knows it's been a tad slow 'at the office' of late.
But not in the next 7 days. I'm off to Queensland for a holiday over the next 7 days.
**gives everyone a big group hug**
Holiday? That would be more Aussie slang for 'lock-up', right? Generally speaking, anyone who goes to County here for 7 days got into a tussle with the arresting officers. The Court tends to frown upon that sort of spirited response to being both criminal and stupid.
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Why else? Oh, well let's see... because some of you threatened to show up on my doorstep with cheap beer and wine coolers and not leave until I let the MBT return? My nearest neighbors might be 1/4 mile away, but I am confident that the carrying on which would result from such a caustic combination of elements would most definitely be heard. And if heard, result in various calls to law enforcement officials. I'd hate to use up all my favors with the Chief over THAT ruckus. Then again, I could call the police and tell them to use maximum force. They've got gallons of pepper spray and fully charged tazers which have never been used, so I'm sure they would jump at the chance.
Once again, apologies in advance. Elvis starting the thread has thrown me off my normal joyous mood regarding the MBT, therefore it is his fault.
Steve
Feck. If you EVER apologize again, I will by all the gods show up on your doorstep with a 3 liter jug of cheap red wine, and I will spin a Bob Dylan CD on one finger while I sing all the songs on it at the top of my voice, and I am here to tell you that pepper-spray just adds the necessary element of flavour to the wine. Haven't gone up against tazers, yet. I imagine it will be bad. But not as bad as me lying in your front yard screaming 'ATTICA! ATTICA!' and asking your wife to wash my underwear and write a letter home for me.
The day is going to come, Grammont, when I'm going to have the time and the money, and then the fact that you live in Baja Quebec will no longer be isolation enough...
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Anybody with half a brain knows there never has been, and never will be, anything cute about the MBT. Something that stinks this badly and attracts the kinds of miscreants we see here on a regular basis conjures up different images. Images that are now, thanks to various environmental regulations, only seen in real life in places like third world countries and New Jersey. And if any of you Jersey guys want to make a fuss about it, tell me what exit number you live off of and I'll use Google Earth to prove my point. And if I can't, then I'll just swap in a pic taken from Slumdog Millionaire and fake my case just like the Warren Commission did. And if Oliver Stone wants to make a fast paced, but still dull, film about it... he's welcome to it.
Steve
Bah! I wave my hand at you...
If we hadn't existed, you buggers would have had to create us. Good Game, Bad Game, love, hate, idjits, fan-boys, wisemen, fools, Fionn, women, arseholes, banning, neo-nazis, and the Whole Goddamn Universe: WE HAVE STOMPED UPON THE TERRA!
YOU lot post in here, the Other Lot post in here, the Wafflers, and every half-fecked waterhead on this Board posts in here, at one time or another.
There's damn few, no matter how capable, that haven't at least stuck their head in long enough to shake it and say 'what the hell?!'
We've seen more catfights than a hyper-competitive whorehouse in Tijuana that caters to the tourist crowd, and we've self-regulated for what amounts to our entire history.
If we aren't what we once were, well, what the hell is?!
We're still great. It's the games and the posters that got small...
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Too true, too true.
On the other hand, I'm feeling quite chipper. Went out paddling today on Pelican Lake in Wright county, just North and a bit West of the Twin Cities. Interesting bloody lake. Over 2,800 acres (which makes it a bloody huge lake), very shallow, and currently the subject of a DNR initiative to draw the water down by something like 11 feet, then return it to a level about 4 feet below where it's been for the last few years in order to reclaim it as a Waterfowl Production Area. It's an 8-10 year project, and I shall watch the progress with great interest.
Was a bit of a bear to paddle today, as there was about a 15 mph (gusting to over 20) wind from the North. Sailing down the West side of the lake was great, but the pull back up to the put-in was a bear.
But, as we all know, I am more like a god than a man when it involves the Life Aquatic.
While it has been a terrible Spring for employment, having enough money, etc., it has been a great year for paddling. Already been out 11 times this year, for 37 hours and over 77 miles.
And I do NOT piss on the floor. I go outside into the front or backyard, if I can't find the bathroom. You can have many interesting conversations with people's neighbours that way. At Dalem's the conversations are in Spanish, and so, rather hard to follow. At Lars's place, it's mainly small-talk involving which part of the lawn you like to piss on best. Out in Mound, where Lars lives, the only issue with pissing on the yard is making sure you don't drown a neighbour who has wandered off to sleep on the grass...
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and a partridge in a pear treeeee........
Stop that caterwauling, you Aussie feck! Now, on the count:
Up rode the squatter, mounted on his thoroughbred,
Down came the troopers, one, two, three,
"Where's that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?"
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me"
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Well Eve told Adam,
"Snakes, I've had 'em"
Let's get out of here;
Go raise this family someplace out of town.
They left the Garden just in time
With the Landlord cussin' right behind
They headed East and they finally settled down.
One thing led to another
A bunch of sons, one killed his brother
And they kicked him out with nothing but his clothes
And the human race survived,
'Cause all those brothers, found wives
But where they came from, there ain't nobody knows
Then came the Flood go figure
Just like New Orleans only bigger
No one who couldn't swim would make it through
The lucky ones, were on a boat
Think 'Circus', and then make if float
And hope nobody pulls the plug on you
How they fed that crowd's a mystery
It ain't down in the history
But it's a cinch they didn't live on cakes and jam
Lions don't eat cabbage
And in spite of that old adage
I ain't never seen one lie down with a lamb
Well Charlie Darwin
Looked so far in
To the way things are,
He caught a glimpse of God's unfolding plan.
God said 'I'll make some DNA
They can use it anyway they want
From paramecium, right up to man'
They'll have sex, and mix up sections
Of their code, they'll have mutations
The whole thing works like clockwork over time
I'll just sit back in the shade,
While everyone gets laid
That's what I call 'Intelligent Design'
Yeah, you and your cat named felix
Both wrapped up in that double-helix
That's what we call intelligent design..
"Origin of Species"
-Chris Smither
the pocket from ripping off. When the 5 year old joins with the 3 year old, it's like being pantsed by extremely evil pixies. For a while there, in the mornings when I cinched up my belt, I (gloriously) thought I was losing weight. But then, upon reflection, I realized that the waistband of my jeans had simply been horribly stretched out.
Joe Shaw will so be upset when he sees I started a new Peng Challenge thread
in Combat Mission Shock Force 1
Posted
Tomorrow I leave for my rendezvous with destiny: Paddling the lake that is the headwater of North America's longest and largest river.
Unless, of course, you're one of those heretics that wants to point out that, looked at from another angle, it would make almost as much sense to trace the Mississippi back up to the headwaters of what we consider to be the Missouri River, which is huge, and runs even further West and at least as far North.
But, of course, anyone who would even pause to consider the 'alternative geography' of regarding the Missouri as the source of the Mississippi is one the lowest and vilest forms of life on this or any other planet. I invite you all to spit upon such a person, repeatedly, until they are covered with spittle. And then put the boot in.
The Mississippi, as all right thinking people know, begins at Lake Itasca in Northern Minnesota. Where I will be by Sunday, paddle in hand.
It will be my long awaited return to this spot. I was first there when I was in Junior High, with my family. I did the obligatory act of 'walking across the Mississippi' on the stepping stones, awash in the stream that flows out of Lake Itasca, marking the 'official' beginning of the Mississippi River. It isn't, of course. The dam and stepping stones bit was put in in the 1930s. The actual beginning of the river is in the swampy land nearby, where the actual outlet from the lake begins. But image is everything.
When I was last at Itasca State Park, some 40 years ago, I bought a hinged pinewood box/gameboard, probably 6" by 6", the upper surface of which was the traditional checkerboard, with holes drilled in each square. Inside, there was storage space for plastic game pieces, both checkers and chess, with plastic pegs that fit into the holes in the gameboard.
It was a treasured possession of many years; a travel game set that officially came from 'Itasca State Park', the beginning of the Mississippi. And back then, it may actually have been made in Northern Minnesota, rather than some Totalitarian Dictatorship, Massive Human Rights Violator, Unrepentant Communist Holdout, Most Favoured Nation Trading Partner like China.
It's all very odd. Cuba is still under embargo, even though they're as poor as dirt and less of a threat than an aging prize-fighter with alzheimers and diabetes, simply because they're a Communist Nation. But China, a brutal totalitarian dictatorship, unrepentantly Communist, and vile in the extreme, has been granted every concession and free pass in the books.
Does that seem right to you?
I guess the whole 'Ideology' bit only matters if you're not a huge market for Western goods. But I digress.
The charming 'Travel Checkers/Chess' set has, like youth, beauty and good health, long since passed from my life. Pieces were lost, pegs were snapped-off, the clasp was lost, the game itself...faded into memory.
When I return, this visit, I plan to go to the 'Gift Shop'. And there I will purchase a new keepsake for my declining years. But now, grown to manhood, yay, verily, even descending into dotage, I no longer play checkers, or chess. I have put childish things behind me. But there is no question in my mind that, somewhere within the Itasca State Park Gift Shop, I will be able to purchase an official 'Itasca State Park' cribbage board. And, as the gods will no doubt will it, it will be a folding, 'travel' cribbage board. Possibly with an interior storage place for a deck of cards.
And the circle will be complete.