Seanachai

I imagine that, if any of the gang of 'pants-around-the-ankles' posters that currently dominate the 'Shock Force' forum were to bother to come in here and read what you've written, you'd be denounced for advocating that BFC place a greater emphasis on allowing Arab insurgent troops, rather than the all-too easily disposed of 'Regular Forces'. I am glad you are returned. Currently, the Forum is seething with energy and roiling with processes. Not unlike a compost heap, which is appropriate given the Game We Got, rather than the Game We Deserved. But I'm sure it will all come out right in the end. I will reply to your email -- when I think it is appropriate. And that decision...has been left up to me!

Do you know, Speedy, there are times, such as when I read one of your posts, when I wish it was possible to send an overnight, direct-delivery Tasering. Seriously, I would pay to have two big blokes show up at your door, and taser you into a puddle. It's not really punishment, Speedy. It would simply make me happy, and clearly wouldn't do you any harm at all.

Why not just buy a pet? There's a lot of good to be said about owning a pet. You can order it around, and care about it, and name it, and everything. And it's real, you know, so you still remain somewhat connected to the Real World.

When we got back from running the stupid-ass errand that sent us onto the darkened, rain-swept streets to begin with (feeding some married couple's fecking cats), Dalem moved from 'slightly bemused', to 'getting ****-faced'. By 2 AM, we were watching 'Aliens', and he was staggering around shouting 'Seanachai! You know how you are!' On my drive home, I had two drunk buggers suddenly decide, from the lane next to me 'Oh, hell, I want to be over there! Screw you.' Fortunately, my experience with Dalem had turned me into Master Ninja Driving Home Guy, Hai! Neither managed to connect. "HAIL TO THEE, DALEM! YOU KEPT ME SAFE ON THE DRIVE BACK TO SOUTH MINNEAPOLIS!" Ever notice how God created more fecking stupid swine than there would seem to be a need for? Intelligent Design my baby-smooth arse.

This is true, I was there. He even shouted 'Watch it!' just before we slid under the ass-end of the 18 year old's car. It was a delightful touch. I seldom have that much fore-warning that I'm about to be involved in an accident. It gave me a wonderful perspective that I wouldn't otherwise have had. It was raining, dark, and the roads were ****e. When he yelled his equivalent of 'Ye Doome Is Ye Come True!' it gave me the opportunity to sit up, brace, and take notice of the fact that the car in front of us had stopped moving. Completely. Ever notice how, once the adrenalin starts pumping, everything seems to become like television? I mean, we seemed to barely glide forward after he put on the brakes (bloody wet pavement; no catch in at all), and when we sodomized the car in front of us, it seemed like we'd given it a playful slap. He got the brakes on well enough, though, because the sodding airbags didn't deploy. But when we got out, the front end of his car was fecked. One headlight assembly gone completely, hood buggered, bumper screwed, passenger side front panel crumpled. But no fluid leaks, and the car was still drive-able. Sad to say that the complete waste of human sperm that actually CAUSED the accident by suddenly deciding 'Oh, I want the 694 exit' and cutting off the chick in front of Dalem simply hesitated briefly when he realized he'd caused two cars to slam into each other, then accelerated up the ramp and on to the next bar. Probably whistling a merry tune. Say it with me, now: Goddamn Asshole. Dalem was great. First, he asked me if I was alright. When I told him that I was, he punched me in the face so that I was bleeding from the nose, and told me to tell the cops that we'd been shot at. Then he bounced out of the freaking car into traffic in the dark and rain, barely looking around, and went to make sure the chick we'd rear-ended was okay. She was all a-flutter. She'd never been in an accident before. She kept apologizing. Dalem finally told her: Look, you're not at fault. I ran into you. Hell, I rear-ended you. And she said "But it wasn't YOUR fault! It was that guy who cut me off!" He spent a lot of time calming her down. But here's the humourous back story to the story. When I got to Dalem's that night, I wandered in, got a drink, and sat down for a moment to sip rum&coke and chat. His big ass screen TV was on in the background, and an episode of 'Cops' was on (can hardly wait for the day we get the notice that they're doing Beloit, and NG Cavscout is going to be on...). So, we're chatting away, and I'm telling Dalem, you know, there's only two times this stupid show is worth watching. One is when they pull over drunks, and the other is when some waterhead decides to run from the cops, and they catch up with him, and it turns out the idjit just panicked and had no more sense than a goddamn house pet, and had no good reason to run. So that's what we see. The cops walk over to talk to two guys, and one guy bolts, and has to be run to ground. Turns out he had some outstanding minor traffic warrants. The cop told him "I wouldn't have even hassled you about it. I would have simply told you to take care of them. Now you've got a felony 'evading' charge'." After the cop that Dalem called on his cell phone shows up to make the report on the accident, and we're driving away, Dalem begins laughing like a loon. I thought it was maybe delayed shock, and then he tells me: "Man, I blew it! When the cop showed up, I should have run for it!" It was true. It would have been...Art.

How to put this delicately? What the ****?! Does the goddamn Australian Government simply PAY you sods to wander around drunk? Is this the POSITIVE side of Socialism?! I can't afford to drive to bloody Chicago, not to mention that, given my phone records and emails, I can't get government approval to drive out of state, but Australians just float about the fecking globe like travel costs nothing at all.

Man, I bought this incredible Clearance hat at REI for $9.83, that they are still selling (albeit not so beat up and left-over at the end of the season) for $35. It's the REI Explorer, and when I wear it, despite the fact that it looks like rhinos ran over it before I acquired it, I know that it makes every piece of headgear that will ever be worn by you lot of monkeys look like a used prophylactic pulled over the scalp of a baboon. It's the greatest hat, ever.

Bloody French with their Tech thrusting through the front of their Chinese knock-off fake jeans...

We could both go. </font>

It is true. I speak the way our ancestors did, in the before times, when we sat around a fire and wondered about where the lightening came from, and if it was going to run up our arse. Never fear, lad. We know how to get to Sarna's.

What other thing, you bugger? WHAT OTHER THING?! Fecking Aussies.

There's a sort of beauty, a sense of peacefulness, when you post here, in the Peng Challenge Thread, late at night, iTumes cranked up loud, an Onyx aglow in the ashtray... It's a cool night outside, down into the 50s tonight, cool for this time of the summer in Minnesota. Next week I go up North, up to our cabin on an island in Miles Bay, Lake of the Woods, Canadian side. I'm taking a friend up there who spent this year beating cancer, done with Chemo, in remission from Leukemia. She never got to go up there with me and our friends, before, for one reason or another. Hell, I never made it up there myself, last year. So I owe her, and although everyone else that was going to go up has dropped out, we're going up. We will kayak, and drink some beer, and maybe some wine with dinner, and eat well, and enjoy the fact that we are both still alive. I will smoke some truly massive and impressive cigars. She will be indulgent. We will talk, and maybe drink some more wine, and listen to the loons calling, that nest on Clyde's Island, across from our island. It's not officially 'Clyde's Island'. That's what our family and friends call it. Because my Dad always wanted to buy it, and build on it. But the Canadian Government shut off sales of land on the lake; first, to Americans, and then later, to everyone. When we get tired of watching a beautiful darkness on the lake, we will go inside, and watch Monty Python, and Boston Legal, and whatever else we bring up on DVD. And we will listen to music on the stereo. All courtesy of the fact that we have our own generator on this bay miles from civilization on Lake of the Woods. I helped build that generator shack when I was in college. Me and the son of my Dad's partner, who also has a cabin on the island. His son's name is Troy. He's a hunting and fishing guide in the Boundary Waters now, living in Ely. We ran an 18 foot fishing boat all over that goddamn bay, shoveling and screening sand off of the one or two sand beaches in a lake dominated by glacier-planed granite islands, hauling it in five gallon pails. We shoveled up hundreds of pounds of gravel/small stones from other beaches. And we hauled both, by hand, up from the dock to be mixed into concrete in an electric-powered rented mixer. And then we hauled the gorram concrete, in wheelbarrows, up to the site where the concrete and brick-layer foremans from my Dad's construction crew were building the footings and 6 foot long, by 3 foot wide, by 6 foot high pads for the 3 generators. It was back-breaking, hot, wet work. The best sand and gravel came from about 1-2 feet of water. And once the concrete was mixed, we wheeled it up to the footings and piers, along several hundred feet of rocky trail. It was the hardest I've ever worked in my life. We began at 6 AM, and we worked like dogs until 4 in the afternoon. Of course, there were the boat trips to gather sand and gravel, which were a break while we were in transit. We sang songs. We told stories. Two guys just busting their ass to feed a small, strange construction operation. Every evening we'd knock off, and the skilled guys, the concrete and brick-layers (two of each) would sit on the patio with my Dad, his partner, Craig, and Craig's wife, Lois (both family friends since I was fecking 4 years old), and they'd have cocktails and talk. But me and Troy, we'd go...fishing. That is, we'd go out and pursue his desire to catch a really big muskie, and I'd run the boat. And we'd drink Labatt's Blue. I will never not have a spot in my heart for Labatt's Blue. He'd cast, and I'd run the boat. We'd crack beers. And we'd sing a bit, and talk a lot, and we'd stay out every night until it was almost dark, after a hard day of hard work. And then we'd go in, and Lois, his Mom, would have prepared us all the best working man's dinner ever. Meat and potatoes. Baked beans. Salad. Fresh baked bread. We'd have red wine with dinner, because when you're a goddamn working man up North, you have red wine with dinner. They'd wait for me and Troy to come in, every night, before putting dinner on. Usually we'd eat at 9 or 10 at night. After dinner, we'd stay up and listen to music, stuff like Gordon Lightfoot and Bob Dylan. And we'd play cards, and drink more beer, and talk. We'd go to bed at midnight, when it was finally fully dark, because we had to get up and work hard the next day. And that generator shack took shape. When it was almost complete, me and Troy got a day off, and we decided to go to 'Lost Lake'. He knew, roughly, where it was. It wasn't on the maps, at that time. It was a ways back in the Aulneau Peninsula. We gathered up our fishing gear, and a minnow bucket, and we struck off through the woods. We knew, kind of, that the closest resort had, supposedly, some fiberglass boats back there. When we got there, we found two row-boats about as big as bathtub floats. One was so badly holed that it was clearly unusable. The other seemed okay. Until we got it into the water, when it was clear that there was a a huge crack in the fiberglass in the front of the boat. But we found that, if we sat in the back, side by side, and didn't move around too much, the front end remained elevated and we didn't take on water. And that there was a coffee can with the boat, that could be used for bailing. So we loaded ourselves, our gear, our minnow bucket, and we headed out on to a lake that probably wasn't fished more than once a year since Time ****ing Immemorial. We paddled out about 50 feet from shore, and, since we couldn't troll, we dropped bobbers. We found that the damn lake was fairly deep, and we had to set the bobber with about 20 feet of line out. We were using live bait. Almost immediately, we got strikes. Imagine Peng Challenge Thread members at an Open Bar. We had walleyes and large mouth bass hitting the lines so constantly that we could barely believe it. The walleyes were all in the 3-4 pound range, the bass were in the 2-3 pound range. We'd hook one, and try to reel it in, whooping and hollering, and groping after the net. Since we were both getting constant hits, we were fumbling after the net, and while we were trying to boat the fish, the front end kept going down, and the cockleshell boat kept filling with water. So one of us had to be bailing with one hand, while reeling in a fish with the other, and screaming at each other not to make the front end go down too much. Add to this the fact that, because the water was so deep that the bobber was far up the line, we could only reel in the fish a few feet, and then we were pulling the line in hand over hand, and boating fisht that were larger than anything we would normally catch on 'the Big Lake'. It was a complete fecking howl, that went on for two hours, and we caught our limit of fish that probably weighed 50 pounds. We were whooping, laughing, screaming, bailing, almost sinking, pulling lines in hand over hand. We only kept the walleyes, we threw back all the bass, in keeping with the dictates of our upbringing. When we finally bailed from the lake, we loaded the fish onto a stringer strung between two paddles, and headed out. It was late enough at night that the Vampire Mosquitoes were out, and we actually RAN along the path to where our boat was, slapping with one hand, cursing and laughing, and then went home. I think I lost about 2 pints of blood. No one believed the amount of fish we brought back. It was a fecking Marvel. The last night we were there, the work all done, me and Troy went down, as you always have to do, at night, on Lake of the Woods, to double check the boats, check the skies, and see what's going to happen. And when we got out there, we were presented with the most spectacular display I've ever seen. We ran back to the cabin to get everyone else. And then we stood there, on the dock, drinking Labatt's Blue Label, and slapping mosquitoes. Because what we had was this weird front, moving in over Miles Island, so that the whole Eastern sky was filled with thunderheads, big, white and weird, with an almost constant flash-flash-flash of heat lightening, no sound, with at any given moment 3-5 flashes of lightening occurring at once. And as the sky darkened, we had a 360 degree around the center of the sky display of the Northern Lights, so that at any given moment you had that going on overhead, and the weird lightening show on the eastern horizon. It was one of the most beautiful natural displays I've ever seen. It was almost 30 years ago, and I remember it as vividly as when it occurred. I'm pretty sure I retell this story every year or two. I hope I did a good job with it this time. It bears constant re-telling On Thursday, I will go back up to that most perfect of settings. I simply can't imagine a more beautiful place than Lake of the Woods. My sister's ashes are there. I want mine to be there, as well. It would be way cool if mine were scattered, and the goddman gulls swooped in to eat them off the surface of the water. That would truly freak out my Mom, and make my sisters laugh.

Berli's asleep (Goodnight, Berli!), Peng is AWOL (Goodnight, Peng!), and Joe Shaw won't reply to my emails (Goodnight, Joe!) Hey, Bugged, I went to the iTunes store and bought that tune you shared with me...seems like a long time ago. I hate it when I have insomnia, and all you cocksu-- when all you guys are asleep. Job is coming to an end. It happens, yes it does. It happens. Me Old Da' always told me (drinking, up North in the Canada cabin, with his partner, my godfather), that if I'd gone into business with them, I'd have been a millionaire by 30. It wasn't talk. I would have been. Hell, they had to shuffle every three years between millionaire and desperate fecks scrounging to make payroll. But they always came right side up, and did the dance so well that guys in the industry still come up to me, 15 years after his death from cancer, and tell me 'I knew your Dad. He was a great man.' Just figure I never had the aptitude, or desire. Not to mention that me Ol' Da' and I spent my early adult years snarling at each other like junkyard dogs looking for a throat-hold. And that I wouldn't have worked for him if God the Father had stooped down from on High and tried to sort us out. Now, of course, I kind of wish I'd gone with the whole 'You'll be a millionaire' thing. Then I'd have the money to travel pointlessly around the country pissing in the yards of you lot. If I'd known wealth could bring a sense of satisfaction with it, I'd have gone for it.

Strange, he sent me a letter and used that same term about me for getting you to take me to breakfast when you weren't on patrol. Now that you're back from serving our country without getting your ass killed, I can finally tell you the Truth: You're a Horrible Little Man, and if it wasn't for your wonderfully cute kids I would drive to fecking Beloit and lay a trap of donuts near your favourite place to sleep on duty, and run your arse over when you got out of your squad car, looking around like a nervous goddamn ferret, to brush the road-dirt off them and eat them. So, whatever became of that game that you destroyed 6 different, Army paid-for laptops in order to stop losing to me? I'll tell you what happened. I've got still got it. But I wouldn't want to drag your vile carcass back through the puddle of piss you'd made of that one, so why don't you just send me something new? Something you think you can handle. Something you think you can do. Something that, if God were to actually reach his hand down and slap you on the back of your wooden head, you could actually win. Oh, and by the by, you know that 'Beloit' is the sound that a quarter makes as it drops into a toilet, don't you? No real surprise there. I mean, I've been to Beloit. Typical European arrogance and pretension. It's that Old World sense of craftsmanship and delight in experience that's made them into a bunch of feather-boa clad female impersonators who have to jabber at each other about 'union' and 'cooperation' in the vain hope that they can somehow tighten their failing grasp on Relevance long enough to somehow make 'History' equate to 'Power'. At the same time that America, through it's un-rivaled industrial know-how and unbelievable alcoholism, has managed to produce a profusion of local breweries creating excellent beers, Europe has either destroyed their best breweries by attempted over-production, or simply sold their best and brightest off to franchising and 'remote production under license'. The production of unique, quality alcohol products of superiour craftsmanship was one of the final bastions of European culture. Their grasp on that brass ring is but the sound of fingernails sliding off the prize. Where we could not surpass them, we have compromised and destroyed them. A bit like Microsoft. Seriously. When I buy a bottle of Pilsner Urquell, and it's brewed in CANADA? Europe: Get stuffed. Your time is past. America's ability to surpass and/or destroy Europe's Alcohol superiority has shrunk it to a very narrow margin. Scotland and the Champagne region of France may be amongst the last hold-outs. What's the line from that old Leonard Cohen song? First we take Manhattan Then we take Berlin... I say First we take Berlin Then we take Australia... You're next, Australia. What we can't better, duplicate, or seize... We'll destroy. Pretty soon you bastards aren't only going to know how to spell 'XXXX', but you're going to have to pay us royalties for the right to sound it out, dead drunk, in a goddamn men's room in Melbourne, while people piss on your shoes. [ August 17, 2007, 10:20 PM: Message edited by: Seanachai ]

You might want to consider that my current job ends August 29th, you swine, and that the people I was working for were paying me like a prince. This means I will suddenly be at loose ends, with money in hand, and a powerful need to enact rage on everyone who has angered me. Let's face it, Boo. I could make the worst day ever spent next to your West Virginian, Trailer Trash neighbours look like high tea with the Queen Mum, if I decide to get liquored up and head for Northern Ohio. And I've gotten liquored up and driven to Northern Ohio on a whim before. Well, Central Ohio, but that just involves a minor course correction that Sulu is fully capable of, while 'LA Woman' by the Doors blasts out of every speaker. So you better get right, and tell me that you revere me. The turn is already in your in-box. I'm waiting.

I look forward to it. In a truly free society, the free interchange of beer and cigars, albeit with some level of violence, is the currency of a society without fear of State repression. And it's good that you look forward to savaging me with the very enjoyments you've provided me. It's a lot like my posts to you lot.

HELP! ISN'T THERE SUPPOSED TO BE SOME FORM OF FORUM CONTROL THAT STOPS YOUR BROWSER FROM GOING MAD?!!

Bloody double posts

Bloody double posts

That's right. So was the German Army, right before Normandy. A lot of them were moved back to France, to try and recover from the endless, grinding strain of the Eastern Front. You know, where so many of them had served deployment after deployment, for the Good of the Fatherland? In that poorly thought out, badly executed invasion of Russia based on political insanity that was rewarded with sweeping victories that appeared completely total, and then, somehow, went completely wrong? Of course, in Russia the German's main problem was that they didn't have enough troops to commit for victory, didn't properly supply their troops for the long haul, and, although originally welcomed as liberators, didn't have any long-term political solution for governing the territory they had taken. You know, Abbott? I feel safer, too. Nothing makes Democracy look more appealing than the failures of Totalitarian Regimes. Dude, I'm sorry. I was busy not excusing the stupidities of history by failing to repeat them. Damn, Abbott! How 'bout you post us one of those fabulous truck pictures?! At least there, you have some expertise! I mean, no one can post a better picture of an amazing piece of automotive machinery than you can! And when you show me that truck, I can look at it and say: Son of a bitch. That is truly a truck. Unlike when you just talk about lots of other stuff, which makes you look like a guy who's left his zipper down on purpose, just so that people will know he's not wearing any underwear. This is a great country. It's good that you feel free enough to leave your zipper down. But I think a lot of us will want to talk about something other than pickle relish and cocktail weenies while you're standing bow-legged and thrusting out your hips.

Stop trying to stifle the child, you fascist. What are you going to do next, teach her the various idiocies of the Tribal Monotheisms? Instruct her in the fact that a Good Republican asks not what she can do for her country, but rather what entitlements she can take advantage of, while denying them to anyone else? Are you going to teach her that Service to The Country is a promotional slogan that you trot out only when the lives of other people's children are on the line? I say, if she wants to completely whack out on stolen caffeine beans to the point of near psychosis, it's your duty as a parent to talk her down, maybe get her some more water, put on some soothing music, read her a story, gently massage her forehead and shoulders while telling her that she's loved and valued, and perhaps get some more rice into her diet for the next few days. Once she's calm, and centered, and in-tune with the problems of chemical use, I want you to lay out for her a comprehensive plan of political repression, torture and assassination that will, through a selective program of pseudo-patriotism and idealism prime her for an eventual role in the brutal, surgical slayings of noted Neo-Cons and their whorish supporters. Oh, and I'd like you to make sure she minors in 'Literature', which I never had the time to devote myself to when I was young. I think that a thorough grounding in good reading enriches the life of any young person, and a child that doesn't read is a child that will grow up to be an arrogant, entitled piece of pseudo-conservative ****e that will eventually have to be taken out by assassination. You can see, I think, the conflict in goals. Also, it's important to remember that the ability to actually read and understand history, embiggens us all. Also, I just want to say, as an aside, that after a relatively long life that I hope will continue for quite a while longer, that I've decided that pretty much everyone is going to repeat history, whether they understand it or not. It's a fecking pain in the arse that the only people who have read enough history to actually understand it, and learn from it, aren't in a position to do a goddamn thing about it, and that the vast majority of mankind, even if they've understood it, are going to have history rammed up their asses. History is all too seldom made by people who give a rat's arse about it, even if they understand it completely. History is made by people who want to kick ****e all over other people, and have worked very, very hard to make sure that those who understand history have been rounded up, put into camps, and re-educated to the point where they are compost. So, NG Cavscout! I want to be there for you, and your family! I want to teach them...history. My understanding is, it's good to have a weird uncle who taught you all about things like 'history'. Even if he did, on occasion, drive you to the jump-off point where Carl Rove was executed. Because, after it was over, he held your hand while you cried, and taught you a lot of cool stuff about Taoism, and Karma. And History. And bought you ice cream. Who doesn't love ice cream? And do you know, it's about time that we put that whole 'Liberal Pussy' myth to rest, and started taking some ears. Because nothing says 'sod that for a game of tin soldiers' like a mono-filament line full of arrogant, entitled, neo-con whore ears. Did you know that, 8 times out of 10, you can raise a muskie jigging with a Neo-Con whore ear on a hook? Don't play them too strong. Let them swallow the bait. It makes the meat all that much sweeter.

I'm waiting for a return from you, piss-artist! Bloody hell, do you Ohioans bother to sober up even between election years?!

FOR NOBA! And then he mercifully passed out...

This from a bleary eyed, drunken Yank. Thank gawd. My standards arn't that low. The come hither look and the batting of the decrepid mascara ridden tufts of fluff you call eyelashes... wait one! They could be your eyebrows you know... Ah, go chase Stoat. He's a newly risen Knight, you know. Not broken in - yet. You could be the first. You know how you like to be "The First". Noba. </font>