Country Life

Living in the country can be weird.

When I came home last night I noticed our mailbox had been vandalized, the door was off and a corner of the body shattered. My first assumption was that it had fallen victim to some mailbox baseball, but then I took a closer look:

Trashed Mailbox

Apparently someone knocked it clean from its post, but decided to correct the situation by re-attaching it with a generous helping of electrical tape. I have to wonder how long someone was standing at the end of my driveway frantically winding the black roll round and round, just trying to get the thing relatively sturdy.

Frankly, I would have preferred a note of apology – or maybe a  twenty.

Functional Friday

Been a while since I’ve done one of these, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been getting things done.

My major focus, Lukas & Nan, is currently at 8.5% for the first draft. I’m pretty pleased with that. Serial 2.0 is currently in the most gooey of embryonic phases, but the broad creative work at the beginning of a project can be the most exciting. The gag comic has sort of stalled, mostly due to a series of funerals which really shook out the funny around here. Hopefully we should be able to get back to work on that in the next week.

Titles

The ColonelI’m under the weather and over-medicated, so please pardon me if I take a ramble:

Back in the late ’90s the internet was a bit of a wild frontier. People hadn’t really figured out what they were and weren’t allowed to get up to, and nothing that happened online seemed quite real in the classic sense.

At the time I was an impressionable youth who felt he needed more respect, so I joined the clergy. It wasn’t an easy thing to do back then, it involved some emailing back and forth as I recall, but I’m glad to see these days the process is more automated.

I’ve never performed a marriage, but I rest better knowing that I legally could. (In case of emergency.)

The discovery that the system had been simplified got me thinking about expanding my proper title. If I can scrape a few hundred dollars together I should be able to get my doctorate, making me The Reverend Doctor Skinner.

If I can then rescue a Southern Belle and get myself a Kentucky Colonelcy – Reverend Colonel Doctor Skinner –  it should be a short leap to British Knighthood – Sir Reverend Colonel Doctor Skinner*.

(As a side note: I was unaware until recently that esquire was a title bestowed on people who weren’t quite Knights, but who were also better than your average Gentleman. So says wikipedia.)

*or maybe The Reverend Doctor Colonel, Sir Skinner? Hmm.

Jim Bridger, Mountain Man

I’m sick, so I thought I’d follow up on some notes I’d left myself to check out.

Maybe the most interesting:

Bridger had a remarkable sense of humor and he especially loved to shock tenderfeet and easterners with his tall tales. He would tell of glass mountains, “peetrified” birds singing “peetrified” songs, and reminisce about the days when Pikes Peak was just a hole in the ground. These stories were related in such a serious manner as to fool even skeptics into believing them, making Jim’s laughter all the louder when his ruse was revealed.

All of these attributes served Bridger well, and made him adaptable to just about every situation he found himself in. By the end of his lifetime, Bridger could claim the titles of trapper, trader, guide, merchant, Indian interpreter and army officer. –Mountain Men

At first I wasn’t sure if Bridger was a real fellow, I picked up his name from a brief mention by LT. Aldo Raine in Inglourious Basterds. Although Bridger had impressive true stories to tell, I find his tall tales pretty brilliant:

Supposedly one of Bridger’s favorite yarns to tell to greenhornswas about being pursued by one hundred Cheyenne warriors. After being chased for several miles, Bridger found himself at the end of a box canyon, with the Indians bearing down on him. At this point, Bridger would go silent, prompting his listener to ask, “What happened then, Mr. Bridger?” Bridger would reply, “They kilt me.” – Wikipedia

Human Targets

It seems to me there’s been a lot of commercial time dedicated to the new Fox Human Target series.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg7Yv3aWc8w]

I’ll be frank, it looks quite a bit like a standard contemporary spy-thriller TV show.

You know what was way better? Human Target (1992).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b7JrOj6HAc]

He had a flying wing!
He had a machine that could give him any face!
He was Rick “Jessie’s Girl” Springfield!

Ke$ha on Conan

I was introduced to Ke$ha by last night’s Conan O’Brien. In case you missed it:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbMWaNKWrN4]

Of course I was outraged, it’s obvious that the entire setup is a rip off of a famous act from the late 1980s.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMKT0gGEBJQ]

Georges Cuvier, Devil Fighter

Cuvier, Georges (1769-1832) – French comparative anatomist who is considered the founder of functional anatomy, which maintains that the knowledge of structure acquires meaning only when the purpose is known. His study of comparative anatomy allowed him to draw conclusions about one part of an organism from investigating other parts. A famous story tells how his students dressed up in a devil’s costume and woke up Cuvier in the middle of the night, chanting “Cuvier, Cuvier, I have come to eat you.” Reportedly, Cuvier opened his eyes, remarked “All creatures with horns and hooves are herbivores. You can’t eat me,” and went back to sleep.  – more

I need to get me a nifty legend.