So I've Been Watching Monty Python.....

Waterboy: We were in the nick of time. You were in great peril.
Res: I don't think I was.
Waterboy: Yes, you were. You were in terrible peril.
Res: Look, let me go back in there and face the peril.
Waterboy: No, it's too perilous.
Res: Look, it's my duty as a knight to sample as much peril as I can.
Waterboy: No, we've got to find the Holy Grail. Come on.
Res: Oh, let me have just a little bit of peril?
Waterboy: No. It's unhealthy.
Res: I bet you're gay.
Waterboy: Am not.


Gregg: Who goes there?
Nate: It is I, Nate, son of Peep Peepdragon, from the castle of Peepalot. King of the Peeps, defeater of the Saxons, Sovereign of all Peeps!
Gregg: Pull the other one!
Nate: I am, and this is my trusty servant Peepsy. We have ridden the length and breadth of the land in search of peeps who will join me in my court at Peepalot. I must speak with your lord and master.
Gregg: What? Ridden on a horse?
Nate: Yes!
Gregg: You're using coconuts!
Nate: What?
Gregg: You've got two empty halves of coconut and you're bangin' 'em together.
Nate: So? We have ridden since the snows of winter covered this land, through the kingdom of Mercia, through...
Gregg: Where'd you get the coconuts?
Nate: We found them.
Gregg: Found them? In Mercia? The coconut's tropical!
Nate: What do you mean?
Gregg: Well, this is a temperate zone
Nate: The swallow may fly south with the sun or the house martin or the plover may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are not strangers to our land?
Gregg: Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?
Nate: Not at all. They could be carried.
Gregg: What? A swallow carrying a coconut?
Nate: It could grip it by the husk!
Bill: It's not a question of where he grips it! It's a simple question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a one pound coconut.
Nate: Well, it doesn't matter. Will you go and tell your master that Nate from the Court of Peepalot is here?
Bill: Listen. In order to maintain air-speed velocity, a swallow needs to beat its wings forty-three times every second, right?
Nate: Please!
Bill: Am I right?



JACIII: There she is!
Welldigger: Where?
JACIII: There!
Welldigger: What? Behind the Spacebunny?
JACIII: It *is* the Spacebunny!
Welldigger: You silly sod!
JACIII: What?
Welldigger: You got us all worked up!
JACIII: Well, that's no ordinary Spacebunny.
Welldigger: Ohh.
JACIII: That's the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered female you ever set eyes on!
JamieR: You tit! I soiled my kilt I was so scared!
JACIII: Look, that Spacebunny's got a vicious streak a mile wide! It's a killer!
Whosyourhuckleberry: Get stuffed!
JACIII: She'll do you up a treat, mate.
Whosyourhuckleberry: Oh, yeah?
JamieR: You mangy Scots git!
JACIII: I'm warning you!
JamieR: What's she do? Nibble your arse?
JACIII: She's got huge, sharp... er... She can leap about. Look at the BONES!
Welldigger: Go on, BrandX. Chop his head off!
BrandX: Right! Silly little bleeder. One Spacebunny stew comin' right up!
[after BrandX is killed by the Spacebunny]
JACIII: I *warned* you, but did you listen to me? Oh, no, you *knew*, didn't you? Oh, it's just a harmless little *bunny*, isn't it?

Doom: DarlinJoy!
DrWho: No, I am DarlinJoy's identical twin sister, DrWho.
[He tried to get past her]
DrWho: Where are you going?
Doom: I seek the Grail! I have seen it, here in this castle!
DrWho: No, oh no! Bad, bad DarlinJoy!
Doom: What is it?
DrWho: She has been setting a light to our beacon, which, I've just remembered, is Grail shaped. It's not the first time we've had this problem.
Doom: It's not the real Grail?
DrWho: Oh, wicked, bad, naughty evil DarlinJoy! Oh, she is a bad person, and she must pay the penalty!
Blondage: You must spank her well, and after you are done with her, you may deal with her as you like... and then... spank me.
Nate: And me. And me too. And me.
Blondage: Yes. Yes, you must give us all a good spanking.

Special request for Waterboy ----->

The Lizard Queen: Old woman.
Vox: Man.
The Lizard Queen: Man, sorry. What knight lives in that castle over there?
Vox: I'm 37.
The Lizard Queen: What?
Vox: I'm 37. I'm not old.
The Lizard Queen: Well I can't just call you "man".
Vox: Well you could say "Vox".
The Lizard Queen: I didn't know you were called Vox.
Vox: Well you didn't bother to find out did you?
The Lizard Queen: I did say sorry about the "old woman", but from behind you looked... [discreetly replaces artificial appendage behind mail]
Vox: What I object to is you automatically treat me like an inferior.
The Lizard Queen: Well I am queen.
Vox: Oh, queen eh? Very nice. And how'd you get that, eh? By exploiting the workers. By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society.
The Lizard Queen: I am your queen.
Astrosmith: Well I didn't vote for you.
The Lizard Queen: You don't vote for queens.
Astrosmith: Well how'd you become queen then?
[Angelic music plays... ]
The Lizard Queen: The Lady Under the Desk, her clad in the purest blue dress held forth Excalibur from her bosom, signifying by divine providence that I, The Lizard Queen, was to carry Excalibur. THAT is why I am your queen.
Vox: [interrupting] Listen, strange women kneelin' under desks distributin', ahem, “swords” is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical erotic ceremony.

Mr. Obvious

However in training you only set yourself back by letting body parts get removed because of stubborness.
Mutly

Now, that's funny. Don't ask me why.

Quote of the Day or Wisdom Where You Find It

I was working with a group in mixed company the other day when an acquaintance of us all was brought up for some lighthearted criticism. One of the older fellas says, "Oh, leave Randy alone; he's a good boy".
One of the women we were with pushed her hat down as she was turning to leave and said, almost to herself, " 'Not much call for good boys".

Nepostism

Even stipulating that little brothers are nothing more than what their elder siblings made of them sometimes the boy is just ON.

Check it out

Is There Anything Dumber Than Coed Wrestling?

My niece (not by blood) is involved in coed wrestling. Her father is normally a pretty level headed fella, but I think he has gone off his rocker completely here.

Let me get this straight. You transport your 14 year old daughter to practice and matches and encourage her to be pawed (excuse me grappled) by boys and encourage her to paw them in turn. I suspect there is no one tellin' the boys they may not use boobs for leverage and must not reach between the legs to turn their female opponent.

In the data turned up from the Google search there is always an aside about a girl "wrestler" being excited when a boy wrestler asks her out. Well, DUH! They just dryhumped themselves into a lather for six minutes.

Did they take the word "impropriety" out of the dictionary?

Comment of the Day

Re: Nate's Ridin' Suit

Boys are weird. Girls just don't do stuff like this..

Spacebunny

Riders Go Here

Nate, Welldigger, Gregg, BrandX, Bill and the rest of y'all (no one left out on purpose) go read the collected wisdom and foolishness of the Rounders.

Favorite cold weather riding tip - "There are gloves with fur on the index finger for the specific purpose of wiping your nose. After the snot freezes you just chip it off the fur and you have a fresh clean wiper again."

Let's see.....

Heated grips - check
barndoor fairing - check
one piece insulated riding suit - check
balaclava - check
toasty snot removal gloves - well....
Now, where did I put the rest of that teflon coated heater wire....

I thought I was a bad-ass rider but I only get a "Three Quarts" Rounder qualification.

Nate's Ridin' Suit

I was lookin' through my old pictures the other day and found this one from a few years back. We got caught out ridin' in worse than inclimate weather and improvised this for the poor boy so he could get to the next stop w/o expiring. Have duct tape will travel.

Off Target or Where does one find these imbeciles?

I was reading about the boycott of Target stores today because the word Christmas is banished from the place. So, I thought I would do a little web snooping to see if it was much ado about nothing or really some politically correct nazi rendering of the "holiday" pseudonym that is focus group friendly to not offend.

Check out their corporate "Philosophy".
Click here to play spot the fag on their "diversity" page.

Corporate lemmings. The folks running Target are paid good money to come up with this bullshit? Do they ever get out of NewYork or California, or wherever the hell they are holed (sorry) up in insular asskissing sessions?

What is with the "holiday" pseudonym? Can these people not do math? Hmm.... We don't want to offend the 354 wiccan women's studies professors so we'll piss off the 250 million Christians to keep from doing it. Smart! Give that man a raise. Oops! Diversity is one of Target's core values; make that "give that ethnic person a raise".

I See

One of these in Bill's future...

Just lookin' at the news...

Can the world get any more fucked up? Folks in power are passin' out favors and suckin' up to their commie rat bastard socalled competition like there is a fire sale goin' on. Folks wanting back in power are making it quite clear they'd as soon tear the whole place down if we don't give them their ball back so they can make the rules again.

It is amazing to me to watch filthy rich folks acting empathetic with the unwashed masses and the masses falling for it. A fella the other day remarked to me that he didn't understand why politicians did not seem nearly concerned as they should be about $3/gallon gas and record fuel prices. I told him because those pols were of a different class than him to such an extent that a $3/gal tank of gas was a trifling sum to them on the order of the change in the bottom of his pocket. He blinked as if awaking and said, "Yeah, I guess you're right." And then, I could tell, went promptly back to la-la land. Democrat, of course.

Look! A Convert! In the Minnesota Territory!

GPB, is the revisionist history their mother teaching them any worse or more dangerous than the lies that are taught about Lincoln and the Civil war? Why or why not?
Spacebunny | 11.14.05 - 2:31 pm |

******* Statement that SB was a Florida girl (I guess I was thinking Beach Bunny) redacted by author*******


This is from a discussion at SB's hubby's blog about his most recent column on the indoctrinal purposes of government school. I agree with the premise, but the last time I went to an 'assembley" at our local government elementary school they were singing hymns.
I guess the exception proves the rule? But I have to wonder that with home schooling prevalent in this area perhaps the local schools are influenced by many taking the decision to remove their children from them. Free market ya'll!

Skill

skill (skĭl)
n.

1. Proficiency, facility, or dexterity that is acquired or developed through training or experience. See synonyms at ability.
2.
1. An art, trade, or technique, particularly one requiring use of the hands or body.
2. A developed talent or ability: writing skills.

Isn't That Nice.....

All this from a comment that holy "diversity" was being used to mainstream deviance:

I tried my best but I can keep quiet no longer. I am
tired of being assaulted by the kind of racist,
insulting diatribe that has reached its nadir in
recent days on this list.
If diversity is "deviance" Don then I am a "deviant".
I am BLACK and proud of it!
And I will tell you what diversity brings to a nation.
It brings greatness and richness of the type that the
US achieved. The US stands as living proof of what a
nation that is willing to give shelter and
opportunities to all who are willing to work hard
towards a common goal, no matter what their origins,
no matter what their culture or race, can achieve.
Conversely, that is why France is a wimp.
May I remind you that WE ARE ALL IMMIGRANTS, ALL
FOREIGNERS.
The only authenitic Americans are the Native Americans
whose land our founding fathers stole and grabbed,
much as the war in Iraq is about grabbing resources
that belong to others.
May I remind you that our superiority in space
exploration and science during the fifties resulted in
large part from our diversifying by grabbing the
Werner von Brauns and other surplus scientists that
were spirited out of Nazi Germany; that we are barely
maintaining our edge in modern technology thanks to
the thousands of Asians, Africans, Latinos, etc., who
are some of the best brains of their natiive
countries, and who initially came as foreign grad
students and have settled and integrated into our
society .... because we were smart enough to open our
arms to them. France marginalized her contingent.
As for her problems, France is just reaping the fruits
of her centuries of colonial exploitation and
depredations, when she ravaged and plundered a good
third of the surface of the globe.
As for Veterans Day, we Blacks remember many things:
the Buffalo Soldiers, the Black Regiments who fought
with valor and distinction both during the Great War
and in all theatres from Anzio to Berlin during WWII,
the Tuskeegee Airmen, etc
Do you know what all the above shared in common?
Besides willlingness to pay the ultimate price for our
freedoms? for our country?
They were all abused because of their race, some were
spat upon on their return from their wars and beaten
EVEN WHILE IN UNIFORM riding back down to their homes
in the South in segregated rail cars. Our fathers
tell of German POWs being treated better than Black US
soldiers.
And I, personally, on Veterans Day, think about my
nephew who has just completed a tour in Iraq and who
through the "Back Door Draft" has to do another in
Afghanistan, and I pray for him and all our young
brave soldiers who are dying and being IEDed into
mangled flesh in a war into which this nation was
cynically conned by a totally ruthless band of
arrogant men who abused the great patriotism of the
kind displayed on this list and exploited the strong
religious fervor of the kind that Dondiego has in his
heart, (I don't agree with your views, Don, but I
respect your right to hold them, and even admire your
certitude) while Dick Cheney and Halliburton and
Bush's Big Oil bretheren laugh all the way to the
bank.
This may be my last communication to this list because
I fully expect to be kicked off it!
If so, it was great knowing you guys.

I and others have had remarkably sane discourse with this person in the past. Who new Louis Farrakahn was so close to the surface?

Why Harley Guys Don't Wave

Another victim of The Dragon at Deal's Gap.

What a Man Can Do

What I saw a man do made me question the professed causes and benefits of the industrial revolution, the wholesale replacement of skilled craftsmen with autonomic machines. Many of you are familiar with todays industrial robots, metalworking machinery, the synthesis of the two, and their inherent precision capabilities. Consider how really specialized those devices are and how limited in what each can produce relative to programming and setup time. Now, consider this:

Y'all know I am a practicianer of the manly arts of Horseshoeing and Blacksmithing and if you are like I was, you're pretty sure the old ways of fashioning metal are fairly crude and imprecise. One of the tasks I was given to perform at horseshoeing school was to fashion a punch that would impress the exact precise shape of a certain type (there are many) of horseshoe nail head into an piece of red hot steel. I chose to make an "E" head punch for a #5 nail. An "E" head nail has roughly the shape listed as 'countersunk'.

I took measurements of angles, dimensions, used a caliper to measure the cross section of the shank, drew it up and roughed it out with hammer, fire, and anvil, then went to the grinder with my drawings and calipers and protractor to finish it up. Two hours later I was not satisfied. Disgusted I went to the head instructor and proprietor of the school and expressed my frustration.
- Let me see that.
I presented my work. He glanced at my handful of tools and drawings, smirked, arose from his desk and without a word went to the workshop to my anvil, started the forge and placed my work into it.

- What's this supposed to be.
JACIII - "E" five.
- OK. Watch.
He opened the forge door and removed the glowing steel. Placing it on the anvil at an angle, he spat into his palm, hefted my hammer and obliterated what I had so painstakingly wrought in three "Thor"-like blows. I stood in shock! Two hours of work gone, and this ham handed SOB squashed it in three blows and 5 seconds. Then...
He rotated the piece, so... WHAM! (full on hammer-stroke brought from above his head).. WHAM!WHAM!. Rotated it again, WHAM!.. WHAM!WHAM! .... eyballed it WHAM! fliped it over, spat. tap-tap-tap..tap, eyballed it rotated itWHAM!.... WHAM!

- See?

And departed the workshop. Total working time elapsed - less than 15 seconds.
I thought 'Bullshit!' and got out my measuring instruments. No bullshit. I tried the punch on a piece of steel and dropped a #5 E-head into it resulting cavity. perfect.

P E R F E C T

Not close, not good enough. perfect. As if you had used the nail itself to make a mold into playdoh and dropped the nail back into it.
"How can he do that?", you ask.
Answer - Because he is a master and student of an old-world craft and, most importantly, because nobody ever told him he couldn't. He has no formal education in modern methods of machining and is largely ignorant of and precision machinery beyond a common drill press.

The Monolithic Dome

I've always had a problem with these and Bill points to a valid concern about expansion causing cracks, but the stress that concerns me is from the temperature gradient from the outside surface to the inside surface of the concrete structure.

This is the primary mode of natural failure of most crystaline ware and it should also apply here. As the outside surface is warmed it wants to expand but the inside surface, being cooler resists that expansion. This places the outer surface in compression and the inner surface into tension. This is not a bad thing as it toughens the outer shell, but when the sun goes down the outside will be under tension which means it's lookin' for a flaw, stress riser, or any other excuse to crack. Given the thickness of the typical wall these forces could become quite large.

First Hand Report from France

Alex from the GPz e-mail list provided an unsolicited european account of the 'troubles' in france.

Here's the link for Alex' blog.

In case anybody of you is wondering about the ongoings in France: It's a
mess.

Two youths died after - presumably - fleeing the Police in Paris, for an
identity control. Now you can argue whether random identity controls are
abusive and wrong, but at least they are not worth to die for not being
subject to them.

This took place in the "village before the village", which is called
"banlieu" in French, for which "banned place" is the literal
translation. The inhabitants of those villages are to a part citizens
who came from the former French colonies or "areas of power". They are
legally French citizens, they speak the language, but for the last
decades (since ever they came over) they have been subject to discreet
and sometimes not-so-discreet negative discrimination. It's hard to find
a job if you live in the wrong area, have the wrong name and the wrong
look. The bit of that which I can feel is that you'd better prepare for
a control if you have a dark complexion and cross the borders. I see
this happening in front of me often enough.

Out of frustration some kids (we speak of youths, 11..15) started to put
cars to fire in Clichy in the night after the death of the two youths
and this was obviously a big show - since then, mostly kids all over the
country think that it's really big fun to set cars on fire and play hide
and seek with the Police. There is no coordination, no leader, no real
motivation except the "fun" of making riots happen - and apparently it's
very funny to even burn the very schools and kindergardens which
actually are in those areas, thus limiting chances for education and
integration even further.

Not to speak of the people whose cars were burning - these are not the
places where they sell a lot of all-risks-included insurances.

But politics are not sleeping and the French interior minister had
nothing better to do than to insult the people, thus pushing the riots
even further. And to announce that the police will act with "full
force". They do not, and it's a wise decision - any further dead people
on any side would start an avalanche.

In the meantime, local leaders and religious leaders, the parents of the
kids who died in the beginning, asked everyone to let things calm down.

This night, the first curfews are in place.

I'm living pretty much on the countryside, around 30 min away from the
next cities - there have been some events, but at least a few days ago
the Gendarmes (MP) were not upset. I'll see one of them tomorrow and
will know more (or not ;)).

cheers
Alex

Thanks for the heads up Alex. You stay safe in the countryside and shoot all trespassers like we do here.


It's a different world over there and Alex's view is going to be a bit different than ours. No flames toward Alex, please, as he has done us the favor of providing a firsthand account.

You gotta love the frogs:

"Fire and blood in France -- at least that's what some foreign media claim is going on," Le Parisien wrote. "Paris is burning, civil war, war zone, race riots -- the headlines, especially on TV, often have no nuance."

Nuance he says! You can't make shit like that up.They are running wild burning the place down and he's upset about the lack of nuance in headlines. Ha!

Tornado Defense

Photo credit to http://www.karinya.com

Bill asks:

What would it take to build a tornado proof house? I'm guessing the roof would be the tough part, but folks make houses that can take a cat 5 hurricane, why not tornado proof? As I type, I'm thinking that with a wind load of a few hundred pounds per square yard, and having to put up with airborne cows and such,

I have heard of aerated-concrete dome houses that are supposed to be able to take massive wind loads, but there is no telling where a load spike might locate on a structure or how massive the spike might be since we really don't seem to know that much about how the darned things function.

"Were you prepared for this?"

This was the question the CNN reporter asked the deputy fire chief in Newburg, Indiana. Like they had three days to prepare? Ditzy bitch. The Emergency Broadcast System failed as did the 911 system prior to the tornado. The government will take care of you. Don't you fret.

I reckon y'all have heard about this tornado in Southern Indiana and North-Western KY Saturday night. We put in a quick call to the inlaws this morning as MrsJAC has an aunt with a farm next to Ellis Park (the horse track that got hit. Bless 'em, their all OK. This country lets a twister run wild, as you can see.

Don on the GPz list just checked in and he's worried that he hasn't heard from his baby sister who lives in one of the areas hit. Prayers are appreciated on his behalf, and all those injured or suffering a loss.

Some of you boys out west may think the country in the linked pics looks familiar; It just goes on forever so flat a teaspoon of water will cover an acre. I miss it still and these rolling hills in central Kentucky make me feel plumb claustrophobic.


The work of one ugly critter.