Yarrr! Avast landlubbers.

I like a good pirate as much as the next man, but pirates are receiving dangerous levels of over exposure these days. Every Tom, Dick and Harry has an ironic pirate joke to tell, a funny ha ha blog post about pirates, or pirate themed party he has hosted. All this talk of "shiver me timbers", peg legs, and jolly rogers makes it easy to forget that there are real pirates out there. Men and women just like you and me who put in an honest days work for an honest day's pay. These pirates could be your next door neighbor, your sister, or your old college roomate. Well, unless you live in a small island shanty-town in southeast asia, maybe not, But that's not th point. The point is pirates are out there and they are tough. 50-Cent may have ripped off a car or two and gotten shot in the face, but did he ever hijack a 700 foot freighter, get it repainted, and sell it on the black market? I don't think so.

Companies turn to private navies to combat pirates of the Malacca Strait

Waterway is now so dangerous, Lloyd’s classifies it as a warzone.

Read more:

http://www.sundayherald.com/51057

Weekend Bacon

How are we eating our bacon today you ask?

Well today it was a 3:30 in the morning as the bottom layer in a Dunkin' Donuts bacon, egg and cheese croissant. The bacon was sub par, and only two strips! The eggs were powdery and tasted reconstituted. Cheese: passable. Don't get me started on the croissant. Overall, terrible. Plus, at half three in the monring after only 3 hours sleep, the last thing you want to deal with is a sub-par breakfast sandwich. Shame on you Dunkin' Donuts, shame on you. As Marie Curie once said, "one cannot live on Boston creme donuts alone."

Mitigating factor:

The coffe was quite good.

Bigfoot and a Half: Part 1 of 6

Every week here at BackgammonMotherfucker/Your Prayers Make the Real Gods Angry we'll be posting a new installment of Bigfoot and a Half: The Enigma of the Northwest. After years of wondering what the gay lumberjack scene's connection was with the Yeti, we've found something which finally shows there is a deep relationship and understanding.

We are proud to announce Chapter One in our saga...







Sure, it all looks like the lumberjack's life is peaches and cream now, but stay tuned till next week when BIGFOOT and a half startles our young heros from their reveries.

Blogs I hate

http://seankhiggins.blogspot.com/

I managed to read this far on this stupid git's blog:
"As many of you know, I started to read and preach from the English Standard Version over a year ago."

Ugh.
Wanker.

New Feature: Friday Fantasy Art

I believe this one is titled "Naked chick kisses naked monster chick".

Something's rotten at NPR

good lord: looks like David Brown on Marketplace was a long haried hippie.

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2005/07/29/PM200507291.html

What on earth would this counter-culture nitwit know of equity markets. I can't believe I put any faith in his words. Bring back David Broncachio you hippies.

The 60s are over Lebowski! Your side lost. My advice to you sir, is Get a Job!

God punishes yet more Boy Scouts with firey bolts from the sky

Lightning Strike Kills Two in Scout Troop
By JULIANA BARBASSA

Lightning struck a group of Boy Scouts taking shelter from a summer storm, killing the troop leader and a 13-year-old scout, according to a ranger and the boy's parents.

At least one of the injured was kept alive only because the troop managed to administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation for an hour after Thursday's strike in Sequoia National Park, park ranger Alex Picavet said Friday.

"That's amazing," she said. "It's very difficult. It's probably because of their Boy Scout training."

The deaths come just days after four men were electrocuted while putting up a tent at the National Scout Jamboree in Virginia.

Ryan Collins, 13, died Friday morning, according to his parents, Sue and Peter Collins. "We just lost our son," said Sue Collins after rushing to the hospital in Fresno where some of the scouts were airlifted.

The assistant scoutmaster, Steve McCullagh, 29, was killed instantly when the bolt struck at about 4 p.m. Thursday, the Tulare County coroner's office said.

"He didn't even make it off the mountain," Sue Collins said, crying along with her husband and younger son at the hospital. "It's horrible. It's a fluke."

The scout group from St. Helena, which Picavet said included five adults and seven teenage scouts, was hit when a lightning bolt made a direct strike on one of the two tarps they had set up in a meadow. The man was killed instantly, Picavet said.

Your prayers make the real gods angry

Freak accident kills Westmoreland man

By ERIC FOSSELL - The Herald-Dispatch

HUNTINGTON - An elderly Westmoreland man died Monday evening in a "freak" accident that even baffled police.

Pedro Pastor Escobar-Gonzalez, 73, of 3024 Piedmont Road appeared to have been killed by a window that blew outward from an adjacent building, according to Huntington Police Detective Chris Sperry.

Gonzalez had been sitting outside on his second-floor apartment landing, where he had been reading a Bible, said Don Spence. Spence explained that Gonzalez was the father of his sister-in-law.

Spence described Gonzalez, a native of Colombia, South America, as a "very religious" and "very friendly" man who worked part time for J.C. Spence Co. in Huntington.

Scores of onlookers gathered at the scene - located just west of the intersection of Piedmont and Camden roads - as police cordoned off Gonzalez’s apartment building with crime-scene tape. There was no initial indication of foul play, according to Huntington Police Sgt. Dan Underwood.

"There’s a lot we don’t know," he said. "We’re still trying to sort it all out."

The incident was reported about 6:45 p.m., according to a Cabell County 911 dispatcher.

Sperry said he intended to contact meteorologists to determine if a high wind gust could have blown the window outward.

"The preliminary investigation shows that the window came out of its frame and dropped onto (Gonzalez)," Sperry said. "It looks like one of those freak things."

things that make the cart I buy lunch from less appetizing

1. Pigeons consuming scraps under the vendor's feet.
2. Uncooked chicken sitting at room temperature all day.
3. Guy selling food has very bad teeth and may be a terrorist.

mitigating facor:

I can get chicken, lamb, and rice covered in hot sauce, tahini sauce, and bbq sauce for $5

Breakfast

cookies: 10
cups of coffee: 3

Today in bacon

Today I had my bacon in a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich. The roll was fresh and soft, but had poppy seeds which I am not crazy about. Since the bacon and egg were very hot the cheese was nicely melted. Only three strips of bacon however. The cart on 68th street where I ususally buy my breakfast sandwiches often shorts you on bacon. This is not a problem with the sausage, egg, and cheese sanwich however, as the sausage comes in patty form. Still, overall a good sandwich.

Perry Bible Fellowship

My Grandfather

Highlights of my grandfather's life:

His father having a stroke and his mother being forced to take in lodgers at their house in London.

Playing soccer with the heads of Japanese soldiers in World War II.

Shooting a leopard in Burma.

Owning a mica mine.

Living in the house currently occupied by David Beckham (who bought it from Rod Stewart).

Running a horse racing track in Tehran.

Smuggling Scotch into the US in 2L soda bottles labled "horse linament".

Leaving his wife for a younger woman who spent all his money.

Wearing a bowler hat.

Being buried in a cardboard coffin.

Manifesto

"I think I could turn and live with animals. They are so placid and self-contained. They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins. They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God. Not one of them kneels to another or to his own kind that lived thousands of years ago. Not one of them is respectable or unhappy, all over the earth." -Lord Summerisle

How You Eating Your Bacon?

AN ONGOING SERIES:

Yesterday I started with a traditional bacon, egg and cheese biscuit from McDonald's. The bacon wasn't as crisp as it usually is from this location. It had one of those strings of gristle that just can't be chewed or bitten off the sandwich.

For lunch I went to Quizno's for a salad. Every salad at Quizon's comes with bacon. I don't know how the NY Quizno's people make a bacon salad, but the LA Quizno's people make it this way:

With lots of bacon.

This really made up for the slightly disappointing bacon I got at McDonald's earlier in the day. Also nice about the Quizon's salad is that the bacon rests on slices of yello-orange cheese, and then i dip it all into honey mustard dressing.

And that's how we're eating our bacon today.

Hobo Extraordinaire on Hollywood Blvd.

So I'm coming up on a guy in a wheelchair. Normal size: thin, full head of hair, etc. As I pass him, my brain has a hard time reconciling what I see and it literally takes me a few seconds of staring to figure out this guy. He's wearing shorts. One leg is very very large. I can't think of something that would equate the girth and width of his thigh. A medium sized log I guess. Then we get to the knee: As wide as his thigh was, his knee is even more bloated/ballooned. It's at least the equivalent zie of the guy's head, probably larger, and certainly rounder. Kind of like a basketball. Then we go down to the shin. It's just a slightly narrower log than his thigh.

Then I realized he didn't have a foot. The leg just sort of ended. Nope - look again. There is a foot. But it's normal sized. As such it's been completely absorbed by his leg and ankle.

Only then did I realize that he didn't even have a second leg. That was gone entirely. I was a little distracted of course, taking all of this in, becuawse he had two large aluminum food trays that he was slamming together like a pair of cymbals.

He also had a new looking and rolled up poster - about three feet long. He used it like a pirate used a - what are those called? - he was looking at it down the street. When someone walked by, he'd wait for them to pass, and then jab them in the side with his poster. He had short hair, but still used a jaunty light blue sweatband - or thick piece of string wrapped around his head. I hope I see him again before the other leg falls off.