perfidy

Begging to Differ was among the first to recognize our genius and link us. Their long and faithful support (through several cast changes) has been one of the nicest things about running a blog. We are often remiss in linking the fine writers over at BTD, but this occasion deserves recognition.

BTD has undergone a radical site redesign. Well, it's still a webpage; but the look is much different, and in this reader's opinion, a tremendous improvement. (Not that the old look was bad, mind you.) In addition, and as an added bonus, they went and added a forum. Now you can go over and whine and complain not just about their posts, but about whatever flits through your silly head.

So go over and talk to Steve and Greg and the gang, and fill up their forum with all the pent up blather you have been unable to release since our comments are turned off. But don't stay too long, because the Perfidy redesign and upgrade is well underway, and will be operational by week's end.

A friend of my wife's, an older woman who has figured out where she belongs and intends to stay there forever, has picked herself a really nice place to stay. She lives alone in a 200 year old house on the fringes of a salt marsh just up the coast from us in the old shipbuilding town of Essex, Massachusetts. One of the great attractions of living on the marsh is the abundance of wildlife she finds passing through her lawn on any given day. Newts, bullfrogs, turtles, rabbits, deer and the occasional coyote all make their appearances. But the strangest thing happens around Labor Day. Right around that time, the berries on the trees around her house (don't ask me what the trees are) ripen on the branch and begin to ferment.

Soon, the woodpeckers come. Pileated woodpeckers, to be exact. Lots of them; dozens. Rather more than are typically seen together in northern coastal Massachusetts.

Every year around Labor Day, when the berries get so ripe on the trees that they begin to ferment, dozens of pileated woodpeckers come to her house to have themselves a party. They perch on the trees, eat the berries, and get drunk on the juice. Dozens of woodpeckers come to her house and get drunk on the juice of berries, and then they hang upside down from the branches of the trees and call to each other all through the night.

True story.

Merry Christmas

...and a happy new year!

The end of the year is typically a summing-up time, a time to take stock of what you have done and where to go next. For bloggers, it's a time to expound windily about the best this and the worst of that, and what album really made the grade.

Well eff all that. Maybe I'll get to it later. It's December 22, I'm tired, I'm busy, and I got no time to weigh Kanye West off versus Loretta Lynn for my choice for record of the year (ok... it's Kanye West. No!... Loretta.)

Instead, here is a quick list of things I did this year for the first time. Onanism!

• Turned 30. Hopefully this has happened for the last time.
• Ran a mile without having to lie down afterward.
• Ran three miles, period.
• Bench pressed my body weight. This was the year Johno got fit. Turning 30 puts a scare inta ya.
• Baked French-style baguettes successfully. Nummies.
• Figured out what an index fund is and how it works.
• Moved without having been evicted or otherwise encourage to leave first.
• Tasted a wine that finally made me understand why some people get obsessed and spend fortunes acquiring the stuff. (Can I remember which wine?... well... it's written down somewhere, I'm sure of it.)
• Got my writing published in the online version of the Cleveland Scene, a paper I always dreamed of writing for growing up.
• Became a paid, published writer. Paid! For writing!
• Read and enjoyed military history. ... well, I see that's about it. Pretty thin actually. 

Compared to Buckethead's list, it's downright pathetic. With two items ("Heard son's first word," "Watched son take first step") his list blows mine away. Within the next eighteen hours you shall see a cessation in blogging from me as I head west to the Johno Homeland for Christmas. Have a pleasant holiday.

[wik] Since comments are turned off, I will use my powers as a Minister to insert my question here: what military history did you enjoy?

Gather 'round, children as the New York Times covers the true history of Festivus.

I'll go get the pole out of the crawlspace.

***Must Credit Dr. Rusty Shackleford*** Rusty asked me (and others, I hope) to guest blog on the Jawa Report (formerly hot lesbo star wars chick pundit) in his absence. I threw a little something up over there, so check it out. I will endeavor to increase the volume of posting both here, and there.

Also, if Minister Ross will actually send the software for expression engine to me, the site migration will go much faster. Infinitely faster, in fact.

Sick and tired of guns in our streets, performing horrible crimes and threatening the children, a group of concerned volunteers has formed the Coalition to Prevent Assault Weapon Violence.

Their site includes an informative FAQ and, most importantly, a bona-fide assault weapon monitor. With vigilance, we'll be able to see the warning signs in advance, before these instruments of slaughter can create more mayhem.

Doubleplus bonus points if someone can explain what an "assault weapon" is.

...which is a sorry excuse for a headline for an otherwise mundane and purposeless post. Wish me luck: tomorrow Mrs. Johno and I move into a new apartment. Only in New England can you move into a building almost two centuries newer than the one you vacate and still have the new one be nearly a century old. Well, in the US that is. Not much of a feat in Ing-a-lind.

Not much posting for the next short while. Not that you care. Buckethead, GeekLethal, and the infrequent but potent Ross will (will!) take up the slack, so in sum you will all get a few days without the weakest link. Advantage: readership!

Tonight is the big Target trip to stock up on shower curtain; waste basket; first aid supplies for tomorrow; etc. While I'm there, maybe I'll pick up one of these. I love Target, and evidently Target loves me back. Hat tip to Loyal Reader #0017 (EDog).

As Charles Bukowski once wrote, "One tends not to think clearly when one has been drinking." A regrettably common manifestation of this tendency is the "drunk dial." Ever done that? Ever consumed, say, three pint glasses (pint glasses) from a gallon jug of Carlo Rossi "Paisano" wine and picked up the phone? Ever called the last person in the world you should be calling, drunk or sober? Ever regretted being born afterward? Nothing just makes the hangover experience like trying to remember who you called, what you might have said, and how much you must now suffer in consequence.

Leave it to our good friends and andipodal neighbors the Aussies to come up with a solution to this serious and potentially humiliating problem. Virgin Mobile in Australia is now letting customers black out specific numbers from their phone before going out for the night as a guard against waking up single, fired or miserable. If I could give Australia a medal, I would. Nice one, mates!

Click here.

This is a beautiful idea, so long as we don't let it get into the hands of the robots. Then, it's a very, very bad idea.

This looks like a really fun paper airplane.

Via Andrew Sullivan, a great story about what happened in Sand Springs, Oklahoma when the execrable Fred Phelps came to visit. The story is a follow-on to a series the Washington Post ran a few weeks ago on being gay in America that featured an extended piece on Sand Springs resident Michael Shackleford. Shackleford is a teenager and high school student who recently came out of the closet, and the Post described Michael's efforts to cope with being out in a small, conservative, and conservatively religious town, as well as his mother's struggle with her own feelings against homosexuality.

As a result of the articles on Shackleford, Phelps and his crew of troglodytes decided to come to Sand Springs to protest the relative mildness of the town's feelings toward gays as revealed in the Post series-- the homophobia many residents do exhibit is especially mild compared to Phelps' plan to kill all gays for God. What happened next is a testament to the complexity of our nation's culture and people and a refutation of the red/blue state poison being sold to us daily.

A plethora of quick hits:

• Check out implosionworld.com, "the explosive demolition industry's worldwide source for news and information on building implosions, blowdowns and all other types of structural blasting projects." You can watch video of stuff asploding, which I think we can all agree is pretty freaking sweet.
• In a giant "suck it" to common sense, health, and all that is good and holy, the Hardees' chain of fast-food restaurants ("Hardees: Not Quite Huddle House, and Proud Of It!") now offers a 1400-calorie, 107-gram of fat concoction they call the "Thickburger." With fries and coke, that calorie count comes to 2,300. Gaaah! I am deeply reluctant to assign moral weight to eating choices (apart from cannibalism and other special cases). I have blogged before about my feelings on the assignment of the language of sin and transgression to food (sinfully delicious!). 
  
  But these reasoned and moderate thoughts can't stop my gorge from rising even thinking about 2/3 pound of grade-Z beef cooked to death and slathered in imitation mayonnaise. So we're clear: 2/3 pound of good quality chopped steak formed into a patty and served with as much real-deal mayo as you want: fine. Ridiculous, but fine. Hardees: an affront to everything I stand for. Not that it means anything, but I generally consume in the neighborhood of 1800 calories a day, and I'm a highly active male on a weight-training and running regimen. That 107 grams of fat plus the fat in the fries? That's me in a week. Gaah. I'm not claiming moral superiority here-- eat what the hell you want, but I'm just wondering. The Thickburger meal: disgusting monstrosity, or disgusting eat-for-two-days-for-$7 bargain?
  
  The best part? They offer a low-carb version.

• Loyal Reader #0017, EDog, is writing a novel this month as part of NaNoWriMo. Read it here. I've started it: fun! Sample graf:

  The bartender took a mug and went to an honest-to-God wooden keg sitting on the wall and filled it with the blackest beer Liza had ever seen. An odor reminiscent of fine coffee filled the air for a moment, and Liza's nostrils flared with the sharp scent. The barkeep swept a wand across the top of the mug, cutting the foam from the top. Then, almost in slow motion, he slid the mug down a well-polished groove in the bar. Liza watched the mug's progress, as if it were suddenly the most important event she had ever witnessed. The man reached out his hand and caught the mug just before it vanished off the edge of the bar into darkness. In a moment, another mug came sailing back up the path again, but this one was empty. The bartender caught it with practiced ease and took it back to the chipped ceramic sink where he began to flush it with great quantities of hot water.

[JARRING CHORD] [The door flies open and Cardinal Ximinez of Spain [Palin] enters, flanked by two junior cardinals. Cardinal Biggles [Jones] has goggles pushed over his forehead. Cardinal Fang [Gilliam] is just Cardinal Fang]

Ximinez: NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise....

Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency....

Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope....

Our *four*...no...

*Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise....

I'll come in again.

[The Inquisition exits]

Chapman: I didn't expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition.

[JARRING CHORD]

[The cardinals burst in]

Ximinez: NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red uniforms - Oh damn!

[To Cardinal Biggles] I can't say it - you'll have to say it.

Biggles: What?

Ximinez: You'll have to say the bit about 'Our chief weapons are ...'

Biggles: [rather horrified]: I couldn't do that...

The Maximum Leader has discovered that, like me, he is in fact the Spanish Inquisition.

This will come in handy when the Republican party starts calling for volunteers to staff the new fundamentalist inquisition here in America. I wonder if they will give us jackboots? Jackboots are sexy. Chicks dig the jackboots.

Find out what Monty Python character you are here at quizilla. Thanks to Robert the Lamabutcher. No wait, llamabuthcher. I mean llamabutcher. Anyway, this guy, of whom I have no reason to suspect a deep and abiding hatred for lamas. Isn't the Dalai Lama cute?

Via the glass-lined tanks of old Jesse Walker, Virginia Postrel, tenders some very fine advice. Don't confuse "51%" with "98%."

My last post for the near future (?). Big changes, very busy, much to do, much to do...

Can any of my readers tell me something about Belgian beer?

I'm a big beer guy. Hell, I'm a big rot guy in general. I want nothing in this world more than a big house with a big basement where I can brew the beer, keep the sourdough starter, pickle the homegrown vegetables, keep the sauerkraut crock, ferment the wine, and age the cheese. If it can rot and taste delicious, I'm a maniac for it (except nuoc mam and related putrid-fish sauce-type affairs. I need to work on that).

Which brings me to Belgian beer. Having never visited the land of paperwork and hovercraft, I've never tasted a Belgian beer in its natural habitat. All the Bb's I can find in the USA, from the decently reputed Duvel up to the made-by-blind-monks-in-secret $10/bottle treasures, as well as Belgian-style dark American made beers, taste funny to me. I don't think it's a function of the spicing (I can tell my coriander from my nutmeg from my burnt barley) or of the yeasting, but of the malting. All Belgian beers I've tried, apart from the light summer wheat stuff, are incredibly malty, almost syrupy. This is kind of gross and throws the whole flavor profile out of balance, unless I'm trying to taste for the wrong things.

The question is this: are imported Belgians just not good examples of the genre, much like Guinness in those old-style squat bottles tastes horrid next to even a widget can of the same stuff, or do I just not get Belgian beer?

Recently Lady Lethal and I went to a "full auto shoot", an event where bona-fide machine guns were made available to the public.

The atmosphere was perfect: light fog, misty with occasional drizzle, low cloud cover, no sun, and about 50F. Good training weather! As we approached the site I heard the first burst- something lighter, maybe Chinese or East Bloc. I started grinning and looked over at the fairer Lethal, one eyebrow raised and the sounds of full auto mayhem growing as the range heated up. Oh yes. Within minutes we signed a release, paid our dough, put on our hearing protection, and went into the site.

There were actually three ranges going. The heaviest stuff was at the range closest to the entrance: several 30 cals were about, one 50 cal ("ma deuce"), at least 2 of these miniguns, and literally dozens of lighter weapons, in US, German, and Commie flavors.

The targets were primarily pumpkins, empty propane tanks, pumpkins, a couple of cars (some sort of Chrysler product by the look of them) and someone's old boat thrown in- well, thrown OUT, I guess- and pumpkins for good measure. Within about, oh 30 seconds there was pumpkin mush spattered and smeared downrange. If the idea were to send an unsubtle warning to the pumpkin-American community, I think it worked.

As for the crowd, most were men. All of the owners of the weapons were men, but many had their wives there and helping. All told, there were more women and fewer creepy militia types around than I expected to see. Two good points there.

Anyway, it was kinda cool- some pics beneath the fold.

[wik] Forgot to mention that while it sounded like sick, sustained end of the world firefights far and wide as these ranges were rocking, every minute or so was this huge BOOM that drowned out everything else and I could feel in my nuts. Took me a minute to figger it out, but soon found there was a lane for Buckethead's varmint rifle of choice.

Firepower demo: local police chief empties a reproduction commie PPsH into level II vest. I recommend the level III vest.

Firearms instructor and "Tales of the Gun" commentator demonstrates a suppressed Sten with subsonic, anti-pumpkin munition:

Lady Lethal holds fast in a hasty fighting position, throwing lead into a charging line of gourdish infantry:

Random shot of a dude with a Thompson and something Germanic on the tripod. Maybe an MG42 or MG3 on the blue tarp:

One lone Pinzgauer in the rain:

In an effort to stave off the combined effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder (which hits me every autumn like a slaughterhouse mattock to the brainstem), Red Sox doomsaying, and sheer fatigue, I have taken up t'ai chi. Soon, I will be able to kick ass v e r y s l o w l y, which is cool, and it has the ancillary effect (some would argue this is the true benefit of the basic for-public-consumption art) of helping me achieve balance, serenity, and poise. After a cool five hours of sleep last night, my second lesson ever in is 25 minutes.

So I'll let you all know how that goes with the serenity and stuff.

[wik] Turns out it goes great. Right now I'm so mel-low. So mel-low. Mel-low, oh oh.
(a prize to whomever pegs the foregoing obscure indie-rock lyrical reference. It's a toughie, kids!)

Maureen runs a nifty little interweb doodad that places bloggers in the DC area in their proper location on a map of the DC metro system. Since half of the Ministry team lives here, she was kind enough to add us to her most excellent map.