Seanachai

Joe, if I mail you a noose, do you promise to hang yourself with it as soon as you get it? I know you would prefer to tie it yourself but knots are too complicated a skill for you to have mastered yet. Michael </font>

When it comes to discussing anything other than slaughtering wildlife and eating it, you show yourself to be a bumpkin. Everyone these days knows that all but the stodgiest and most backwards of vineyards are switching over, in droves, to screw-cap wines. Why? Because of a better, tighter seal, less oxidation, and greater flexibility in storage. Christ, even the FRENCH are reappraising and starting to cave. Time moves on, and needs must follow. But I'm pleased to see that, in your muddled and desperately half-witted state, you've at least arrived at the same point viniculture was at 10 years ago. How much wine do you want, Oh Half Wit Prince? And are you bringing meat for everyone?

You know, Famine, there are so few out there who feel the need to do more than posture and scratch. The gods gave us the gift of language so that we could use a turn of phrase like cracking a whip to lay down a welt on the souls of our opponents. Most of this lot fling insults like so much fecal matter tossed by apes, that leaves the hand that threw it as dirty as the one it landed upon. Soft, clinging, unpleasant but doing no real damage Others use insults like clubs, battering away at their opponents like angry primitives, depending on their brutishness to make an impact. A few, here and there, use insults like rapiers, their wit flicking out to draw blood so surely and subtly that the victim isn't even sure they've been cut, until the loss of esteem becomes so apparent that they grow dizzy, and fall. May I just say: You don't flex your wit enough when you deliver a thrust, and sometimes make a sloppy cut. But I still enjoy watching.

If the weather holds out for Monday, we're going to do another 16 mile stretch of the Rum River. On Sunday, of course, I will be pounding Papa Khann's arse into a small, easily disposed cube of human effluvium. After which, I will destroy Dalem. Lars, I will utterly destroy and humiliate you last. That is because you are a Minnesotan, and understand about the racial imperative of water and boating. So you are my favourite. I see that Boo hates Shandorf. I delight in the fact that this means we can let him wear pants with a zippered fly, instead of the extra-wide velcro closers, because he's mentally competent enough to manage to close up the front of his pants without a paid attendant. Hating Shandorf is like admitting you're opposed to being covered with leeches, or expressing a desire not to contract Lyme's disease from a deer tick. Hating something like Shandorf is simply the first step in becoming human. Oh, and Boo? Hate Shandorf less energetically. Hating him 'a whole lot' gives him a significance he isn't yet worthy of.

Hey, that's a nice paddle. Good fishing too. Try the Crow next. Some good rivers around here that nobody ever even bothers with. </font>

Today I did something that has been a part of my own 'personal' mythology since I was 8 years old. When I was 8 years old, my Dad started taking me up to Lake of the Woods every summer for a camping/fishing trip. It was always a father/son sort of thing, with guys who were good friends of his, and their kids. He'd gone up to Lake of the Woods with his own Dad when he was young. In those days, the roads in at the northern end of the corridor were 'corduroy' roads: logs laid into the the mud and bog, side by side, for miles. The first leg of our journey on those Father & Son weekend trips was up MN 169, from the north side of the Twin Cities to the south end of Lake Milacs. And on that route we encountered the 'Rum River' multiple times, which wove back and forth across the landscape. When I was a really little kid, I remember pointing out how the river appeared again and again on our route. As I got older, I remember my Dad joking about how 'the Rum River' must be called that because it staggered all over the place. As I got older, we made the trip more often, because we'd built a cabin on Lake of the Woods by then, and it was no longer a 'Father and Son' trip, it was a whole family trip. And as I got older, I started to notice what a pretty river the Rum was. How it was a river made for paddling. How it turned, and twisted, and how intriguing it looked. Today, I kayaked a 19 mile stretch of the Rum River from Cambridge to St. Francis, Minnesota. Since I was 8 years old, I knew that one day I would paddle a boat down that river. Today, I did that. It took 42 fecking years to make that understanding come true. I wish I'd done it decades ago. But it was still worth the wait. Hey, George W: Mission Accomplished. I had a dream, and a goal, and a strategy, and logistics, and planning, and everything. Also, an exit plan. When I got to the goal I'd set, I got off the river, deflated and broke down my kayak, packed it up, and drove back to Cambridge to where my friend Alison's car was sitting. We shared the last salami sandwich in celebration. It was a trip 42 years in the making. Salami never tasted so sweet. Could have done with a little mustard, of course. But then, most things could.

Hey, Leeo's not dead. Man, that makes me feel good. Him not dead, and NG Cavscout back home. It's a bit like "The Field of Cormallen" at the end of the 'Return of the King'. I know I didn't make a point of welcoming Cavscout back, before. That was because I was overcome with emotion to find him back home again, safe and sound, with his family (his one daughter, the little climbing freak blonde one is WAY cute). Either that, or I was dead drunk. Perhaps both. But not neither. Actually, the main thing is, I owed the laptop smashing halfwit a turn. I didn't like to get too gushy and 'hail fellow well met' until I could dig out the file and send it back to him. I figure that will happen in the next few days. I mean, I figure in another week, the wife will get tired of being told how beautiful and amazing she is, and she'll get bored with telling him how good it is to have him home, and he'll have time to process those turns that haven't been dealt with because he was a ruddy pillock who decided to attach his laptop to a kite during a windstorm in the desert. The one thing I DO know is: his kids won't yet be tired of playing with Daddy. And he'll only be tired of playing with them in a 'relative' sort of way. As in: everyone needs to sleep. I bet it's way weird to be back here, guy. We're glad you made it. I think we're all Bozos on this bus.

Do you know what I love? I love it when little children take the things that we adults tell them, say to them, and teach them, and turn them back on us. The beauty of it is that they do it without irony, without mockery and without any particular agenda. My friend, Small Emma, does this to me all the time. Mind you, she is almost never feeding me back my own Adultspeak, because I do not usually deal with her as an Adult. I deal with her as a large, odd, and rather ungainly child. So, when she asks me to 'Sit down here by me, Grandma Steve', and pats a patch of floor between couch, coffee table, end table and chair that you might be able to shoe-horn an anorexic super-model into, and I tell her 'Oh, Emma, I cannot sit there, because I am too large', she tells me: "You can do it, Grandma Steve! I know you can!" Well, I displace hips joints, knees, and seriously affront my ancient arse to somehow attempt to squat next to her. But that, of course, is not enough. "No, Grandma Steve! Sit on your bottom!" And then, in a wonderfully sadistic replay of what They tell her at Day Care, she pats the rug and says 'Criss-cross, Applesauce'. This means, of course, that I not only have to wedge my creaky old self into a space barely big enough for someone who isn't fat and broken down, but I have to cross my fecking legs and assume the posture of the Buddha!!! So I do it. Or at least, I did it tonight. Of course, when she jumps up onto her twinkly little feet and speeds out of the room shouting 'Follow me, Grandma Steve! We have to go fight with Medusa!', I need to ask her Dad to give me an arm up, and every joint cracks when he hauls me up on to my feet. Also, I usually knock over some glasses. I get dirty looks from her Mom. Then we go fight Medusa. I know, I know. You're asking yourself: Medusa? Look, the kid saw "Clash of the Titans" one night on cable with her folks, and she loved it. So I went out and bought her the DVD. For her recent birthday, I gave her a copy of "Jason and the Argonauts". I told her real grandparents "I skip right past the kid's movies and get them invested in Greek Mythology". So she and I then go off to battle Medusa. Recently, this took a particularly demeaning turn. She had decided that we should play 'Dress up'. She had an entire box filled with 'kids dress up stuff'. I was forced to put on a frilly purple headband, a woven red hat that looked like something Julie Andrews wore as Maria in the 'Sound of Music' when she went to be a governess, and I had to carry a very, very small purple purse. So, when we went into the living room, and were confronted with a 'naughty, mean Medusa', she asked me "Grandma Steve, what should we do?" Without thinking about it, and relying upon my extensive knowledge of Classical Mythology, I told her: 'Well, we need to avoid her gaze, and then cut her head off!' So, this tiny, blonde-haired little cherub looks up at me, raptly, then turns to the 'Medusa' (actually, a vase filled with dried flowers sitting on a pedestal which, oddly, does look a bit 'medusa' like), and wildly waves her arm shouting "Cut, cut, Medusa, we've cut your head off!" And I have a 'Bad Grandma Steve' moment. I realize that, whatever the literary roots of what we're doing, teaching a three year old to cut off the heads of her enemies may not be the best message. As Firesign Theater said: "And after all, eating the heart of a dead Indian isn't the sort of thing that Christ would have done." So I went into the kitchen and told her Mom the situation. And her Mom told me "No. That is not a good lesson. You should say 'No thank you, please, Medusa'. But I am a vile and unrepentant Grandma Steve. This did not strike me as the proper approach to dealing with a vicious mythological creature with snakes for hair that turned people into stone. But I tried. Small Emma and I went back into the living room, and once again confronted a 'naughty, bad Medusa'. And I tried. I said: "No, no, naughty Medusa! We do not want you to be mean to us. No thank you, please!" And then I asked Emma: "Is she being good, now?" And Emma, with a sudden gasping intake of breath (this kid is one dramatic little bugger) told me: "NO! She is being even WORSE now! Should we cut off her head?" And I compromised. I told her: "No, Emma. We will...we will WHACK HER WITH OUR PURPLE PURSE! NO, NO, NAUGHTY MEDUSA! IF YOU ARE BAD, WE WILL FIGHT YOU! WE WILL WHACK YOU WITH OUR PURSE!" And then I pretended to whack the 'dried flowers in a vase on a pedestal representation of Medusa' with my small purple purse. This was, without question, the Best Thing I Had Ever Done, as far as Small Emma was concerned. She laughed, she giggled, she went ape-****. We had to do it something like 37 more times. I will never be remembered as Perseus was. I would like to be a Warriour Hero, decapitating monsters left and right with a magical sword. Instead, I will be remembered as Grandma Steve: Wearing the oddments of children's 'dress up' clothes, and whacking mythological monsters with a small purple purse. But I can't complain. There's not a one of you feckers that could slay a snake-haired mythological monster with an AK-47, let alone a small purple purse. Before I go home, I get hugs. You lot are lucky to to avoid a case of crabs. -Grandma Seanachai, Chastiser of Monsters

Well, there is something in what you say. Oftentimes I must make hard choices. Do I reply to emails, or post on the Peng Challenge Thread? Do I reply to X's post, or do I reply to Y? Do I JUMP UP ON A GODDAMN OVERTURNED PISS BUCKET LIKE A FECKING POODLE AND GO "ARF, ARF, OH, LOOK! STUKA'S BACK AGAIN AFTER ANOTHER 2 YEAR PERIOD OF PISSING HIMSELF IN THE WILDERNESS WITHOUT A THOUGHT TO ANYONE ON THE PENG CHALLENGE, HOW LOVELY THIS OPPORTUNITY TO BLOW KISSES AT HIM AND CALL HIM 'ME OLD CHINA' THE ROTTEN SON-OF-A-BITCH", or should I make a measured, thoughtful response to some complete and utter trouser piddler who could one day turn into a Tower Killer because his post begging for acceptance and understanding was pissed upon from a considerable height on the Peng Challenge Thread? Stuka, me Old China! It's good to see you back! Emrys, the most philosophical of the Horsemen, I never got that email about...whatever it was. Resend. For the rest of you...'I wish ah could quit you, Peng Challenge...'

And yet, you still owe me a kiss...

:mad: A cracking response from spunky, but anyone worth the spit they're made of knows HMS Pinafore is the genetalia pièce de jour. :mad: </font>

Errr... makes little circles in the dust with foot, head down, hands thrust into pockets.... I think I may have deleted the folder. </font>

Yes? You are never alone, Dalem. We are always with you.

Hemlock Stones: Ah! Canadian. 'Graphics Animation Inserts' are the last resort of people for whom the alternative, when trying to introduce themselves, is to pull out their genitals and attempt to perform a puppet show version of 'Macbeth'. J Ruddy? Do not do this again. Or, if you simply cannot let go of 'It', and look other people in the eye when speaking to them, then go post in the Cheery Waffle thread. You'll be simply another beige fiber in a carpet of mediocrity and shame, over there. Indistinguishably appropriate, and eminently forgettable.

I return! I have sought, in earnest, for the True Things I required of you all. There were a few True Things posted. Kudos to Noba, Dave H, Emrys and such. A few others took up the slack in Existence, and made it hum when it went taut. The Usual Lot of Tossers showed up and did the 'Zen Clown Dance of Acceptance and Mockery', which made me smile. Although not a lot, because I'm sure some of the material was recycled, and when I'm sad, I want some FAIRLY FREAKING GOOD GODDAMN ZEN CLOWN DANCING! Yeah, I'm looking at YOU, Boo! And Lars! Next time, I'm using the razor edge of my wit to cut off an entire arse cheek if you don't mug better than a fecking Disney animal/inanimate object/hopeless whack-job character. Great thanks to those who sent me Emails detailing their 'One True Thing'. You know who you are. For the rest of you, it's not like my Email address isn't in my fecking profile, for those of you who don't want to display your sensitivity and almost unspeakable wisdom to the the gap-toothed, slack-jawed, genital-fondling halfwits who show up here from time to time to remind the rest of us that humanity needs a larger breeding pool than a family barbecue in order to remain genetically healthy. Tomorrow night, or perhaps the next, I shall tell you of my very strange experience while kayaking tonight. Also: Small Emma is now 3 years old. All the world needs more 'Tales of Small Emma'.

Sigh... Machine Voice: You have three - new - messages... beep first message, played back Hi, this is Joe, and I'm going to be in your neighbourhood today! I can bring you a complete new satellite dish system, including DVR unit that allows you to fast forward, rewind, and stop action LIVE television programs — BEEEEP Machine Voice: Message skipped Hi, this is Danielle, with your account department. There's nothing wrong with your account, but on the basis of your {Non-Existent} mortgage payments, we can get you a limited time 1% mortgage rate that will allow you to consolidate all your debt into one financial crematorium — BEEEEP Machine Voice: Message skipped Hi, Hunter. This is Libby. Just calling you...I'm not so happy. My little sister Kate...they're telling her she's got a terminal disease. I can't even pronounce it. It runs it's course in less than five years, and it's pretty awful. She's going to call me on Monday, when they have more to tell her. So...that's all. Give me a call, sometime. Machine Voice: End of final message. Machine Voice: Press 'erase' again, to erase all mes — All messages...erased Had things worked out differently, Kate would have been my sister-in-law for the last 25 years. When I met her, she was a cute, snub-nosed, busty 17 year old. I remember her sister saying 'Hey! Were you checking out my sister?! Because you looked like a guy who was working real hard to look like he was not checking out his fiancee's sister!" And I told her: "Darling, I was just marveling at the fact that both beauty and voluptuousness seem to be a hallmark of the women in your family." And then, a couple of years later, Libby and I (well, I was certainly there at least, when the decision was made) decided we weren't going to get married, after all, and went different ways. She went off to Latin America, at that time, to work with the families of the 'Disappeared' in El Salvador, often riding along with family members when they went out to follow up rumors and dig-up the bodies of their tortured and murdered relatives. We were still fighting Communism, back then. And the torture and brutal deaths of all those trade union leaders, journalists, village coop managers, school teachers, day-care providers and nuns must have worked, by God, because a few years later the Soviet Union collapsed in a welter of economic chaos that proved that all that's necessary to fight and defeat Evil is the willingness to brutalize and kill any number of people who were simply trying to make a living for themselves and their neighbours, and leave something better for their children. But that was El Salvador in the 1980s, of course. Back then, we simply trained and funded the torturers. Now we're in a position to reap the benefits, and establish 'torture franchises'. Ironically enough, some of them are in the former Soviet Bloc. I haven't seen little Katy in 20 years. She moved from Philadelphia to...what the hell's that hippy town in Arizona? Sedonia? Sedona? Yeah, Sedona, I think. She had gotten her degree in jewelry making, and finished her apprenticeship as a silversmith. She got married, and they moved out there. Her husband started out as a 'Performance Artist', and then, after a few years, got his license and a job as a Realtor. That kinda made me laugh. I never met him. I heard he was a nice guy. I think that was back when there was a hugely perceived need, amongst young people, for 'Performance Artists'. She was always very fit. Eventually worked as a Yoga and Fitness instructor. And now, apparently, she's going to die. Fairly young, too. I'm a little out of patience with the death of younger sisters. Tomorrow night, I need to make some phone calls. Tonight, I feel...lessened. Diminished. Not simply 'more mortal', but simply...less. Older, obviously. The people I knew when I was young, and crazy, and often criminal, are starting to go away. But it's more than that, when you get right down to it. How does that work? The death of any person that I have known takes away from me a little part of what I have known, what I have been. Once there was a snub-nosed, busty 17 year old with long, dark hair who smiled at me, and who made me smile, and, perhaps, have impure thoughts. That made me make a joke with the woman I intended to marry. Once upon a time, I thought we would all be together until we died, in one way or another. Because Life had brought us together. But I never married, and, until tonight, I never saw that snub-nosed, brown-haired 17 year old again, except in my memory, when I'd get the odd phone update on her life from the woman who was almost my wife. I saw her again, tonight, in my memory. She was just the same as she was 25 years ago. But my memory is only what she once was, and not what she is, nor all that she became. And the knowledge that, within the next year or two, she will pass, in pain, unalterably from the Universe makes me feel...less. And as I march (or rather skip, and caper, and sing odd songs) on toward my own removal from this planet, I reflect on the fact that I only ever knew her through her sister, who was to be my wife. And how that woman who was to be my wife left to help people whose loved ones were being tortured and killed in a political game between More Powerful Nations that had nothing to do with their jobs, their families, or their lives. And today, when I hear that Katy, who I once thought was a very cute girl and very sexy, is going to die in the next year or two, I'm left to reflect upon the fact that her death will take away a part of what is me. And I think that, now, I am old enough to understand that the death of every good person, whether they live in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Southern Lebanon, or Palestine, who simply wants to make a living for themselves and their neighbours, and leave something better for their children, lessens me. Oh...yes...'challenges' and all. After all, this Thread isn't simply a place for me to work out my issues, is it? Not some place for me to rave on about whatever takes my fancy? Not just a place where the Combat Mission Community (such as they are), comes to get weird? Of course not. Mind you, I'm rather in favour of a place where that sort of thing goes on. Let me see, let me see... Oh, I know: I Challenge each and every one of you feckers to tell me one, true thing about yourself. Joe, I'm too tired and too sad right now (and this after a good night) to fill out every form and observe every nuance. Please do me the very great favour of unleashing the vast, pointless, crushing power of the Justicariate on this issue. Make the bastards cough up something Real. I'm so tired of bad banter.

And then, after a long life given over to debauchery, vileness and foolishness, it suddenly struck me: "I am one with Peng. I, too, have drunk budweiser, and enjoyed it. Duty is as light as a feather; Drunkenness is as heavy as a Mountain."

I am always with you, Boo You are never alone. He is filled with deceit. He will tax you. He will cause you to question everything. He's a bastard. What fecking planet are you currently sniveling on? Oh, sorry! "Your whiny lament about not having any faster a connection than myself is extremely important to the Olde Ones of the Peng Challenge Thread. Without this information, I wouldn't even know where to begin to take a huge, loud, splashy piss. Please stay on the line until you feel a certain warm wetness begin to run down your face, then leave your message!" Here's a clue, lad. Peng's a horrible swine who will use every tool at his command to destroy you, be it tactics or sheer boredom. Do you want the truth? The truth is the fecker attaches meaningless bundles of neutral code to the file that simply registers as 'filler'. Four Megs of file transfer later, if you have the patience, you get the 75K turn file you're supposed to get. Oh, Boo. Almost everything is over your head. The least I can do is make it gentle. I love you, Boo. Now give me $3 you Ohio bastard. I'm not paying for that last beer. Man, I never drank so much Anheuser-Busch ****e in my life as I drank in Ohio. Hideous.

Yeah? You got it wrong too. Michael </font>

Sigh Sounds good, Joe. Daughters. Semper Fidelis. They don't go away. They bring new life into the family. Start thinking about what Leasehold Improvements you want the Son-in-Law to get started on...

It is a measure of the profound darkness in which you dwell that you fail to grasp that a mere mortal, a particularly insignificant mortal such as yourself, does not even dream of "raising" the God Emperor. </font>

You need to go lie down, or take some medication. Your language usage is beginning to cause me physical pain...

SOBER UP, YOU LIMEY GIT, AND USE YOUR HANGOVER DOWN TIME TO REVISIT 'SPELLING'...

Ah, here we go, then. Bah! The Cesspool is an all but crystalline pool of Wisdom compared to most of the postings on this Board. Seepage? Twist up your observations into a plug and insert them into your next post. Normally, I would go with blue icing myself. But my friend, Small Emma, would go with pink. I have argued this point with her, but she will have nothing but pink. Silly little bugger. Oh, I was simply pissing about. There could be no way, of course, that we could already know the Release Date. As everyone knows, the game is still under development. So how could there be a release date. What I meant, of course, is that everyone in the 'Pool will have seen the Game, played the Game, and been allowed to pre-order the Game long before you lot of lemmings are allowed to know that the Game requires your allegiance. Eh? Put your Analyst on 'danger money', bucky. They were destroyed. Conspiracy Theory lunatics will always be after having you believe that somehow the Ancient Enemies survived, in hiding. From what? The fact that it was an appallingly bad novel, written by a total hack, that America ate-up like a hideous trail-mix of awful writing, laughable characterization, and a plot device that is a weak recycling of well-estabished fatuousness from people with urine-stained shoes? Please! Never mention the complete puddle of ****e that is the "DaVinci Code" again in my presence. Untold millions of dollars later, you're left with the vague feeling that everyone who read the book would have been better off eating a bran muffin, donating $20 to a local charity, and demanding that the American Government step in and hold the Catholic Church to the same standard of accountability for pedophillia it requires of every other company, organization or citizen. A truly, truly terrible book. I despise you for even mentioning it.

What? Where the hell? Okay, I'll look it all over again. A man in my position simply cannot afford to overlook a well thought out, insulting reply. Why else the heck am I here, after all?