Janette Morgan

Mmm... great tips here, great tips. If I ever find m'self needing to distress some pirate garb, I'll make sure to take your suggestions... although folks at the dairy where I find m'self employed may look a little strangely upon that sort of clothes! (Also, I dun'believe Essence of Cow is exactly authentic pirate odour.) Interesting story with your coat, Ransom. Reminds me of a few articles of clothing I've had over the years; one that comes to mind is a pair of sandals I'm currently retiring into pirate footwear.

Piratey or not, that is a beautifully decorated room. I would love to stay somewhere with furniture like that! (Though, at the rate of 2,500 a night, I guess I'll have to settle for simulated aesthetics in The Sims.)

Crowsnest Kate: Oy. Wouldn't eyeliner tattooing be a bit... painful? It might be dangerous, too. I'm not sure. odorlesseye: Marvelous idea there. There's something quite dignified about pelicans on piers -- in fact, last year I bought such a sculpture for my aunt and later decided to keep it on account of it was so pretty. (It now lives in a potted plant.) I doubt you could hurt yourself too badly with black powder, though I wouldn't want to be injecting meself with it. Ate some when I was about two years old; that's as daring as I care to get. About that rat 'n' barrel thing -- do you have an image of such? Additionally, would it be required that a pirate have both objects on his footsies? (I'm leaning toward doubting this, knowing how pirates can be.) My sister was just saying that the protagonist of my novel should get a tattoo on his foot; this would be perfect.

That is extremely cute. Especially the bees! The miniature flour sack is a great touch. I do wonder, though, how that pirate ship got stuck in the wood... (looks like a transporter accident. This is why pirates and Star Trek do not mix.)

Ahh, there be some beautiful pieces of craftsmanship. And at such... lofty prices, too. I were afraid of that. Guess I'll have to find bearings to his headquarters and plunder me one.

You can get a book version of AWE from Amazon.com for 'round five dollars, less if pre-owned. Discovered that whilst searching for informative literature -- not sure how much it be at Disneyland, though.

How very, very cute! I like the yellow one. Probably because it looks somewhat more insane than the others.

Aye, them be some remarkable pieces of workmanship there. Say, 'Bess, how - hypothetically speaking - might a less-connected sort of person be getting a piece of custom jewelry like that? Be it possible? *is drooling muchly*

I think it's a rather cute hat. It reminds me of some of the things my mother makes for her Sims games... "Ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly hat!" "Where?" -Paraphrased from an ancient Mother Goose & Grimm.

Whew! That's a honkin' feller. What do they plan on doing with that bit o' shine?

Never been anywhere in a pirate costume, 'cept a Halloween party... if my sister ever gets me that tricorn, though, and I find m'self back in the venues of the Oregon Coast, I plan to milk it for all it's worth. (I wonder if I can smuggle my Captain Rottingham costume along for some Newport photographs... might get away with it, at that.) There were a couple of times, though -- the first one evening near Halloween, when on the way to a party we stopped in a Maverick to pick up a snack; my sister and I entered in full costume - mine a Beetlejuice-inspired nightmare complete with white makeup - and embarrassed our poor, dear dad half to death. He was utterly convinced that EVERYONE was staring at us and thinking of what horrible, freak children he'd raised. (Poor dad; can't seem to understand that nobody will blame him for my lack of social graces.) The other was when my mother, my siblings and I went to see The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- my sister and I brought our towels into the theatre, and Mother never noticed until just before the movie -- or perhaps it was while we were leaving, I'm not sure. She was very understanding about the matter, though; it's a mighty swell mother we've got in those regards. Great stories here from everyone; I feel rather sympathetic for the poor, confused firefighters. Good luck with the hair, Jacky.

I wasn't sure what to make of this at first, but it is terribly cute, although the pink-haired Violet Beauregarde-wannabe gave me a good case of jibblies. And there's something about the captain's prosthetic face that I find extremely cool, probably because of the "pirate wonderland" feel it lends the whole thing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLsJyfN0ICU (On a side note, does anyone know where this came from? It looks like a television special for the junior section.) And, for those utter romantics (though, like me, you may be a bit confused at the insinuated romance between Kevin Bishop and Keira Knightley):

Well, I admit we do keep the DVD around here... but only because my aunt 'n' uncle thought we ought to have it for Christmas -- and I haven't watched the film in its entirety since the theatre; it was truly that bad. Well, y'know, Elizabeth has to be the girl... unfortunately, she can't maintain a whit of awesomeness to it, either. I can think of some lady pirates who might be ashamed of ol' Lizzie's nancy behavior.

It would seem to me that Barbossa mutinied just because he wanted to, being as how he's a pirate and all. Honestly, men aren't all that complicated. As for the film, I shall find no bit of difficulty at all waiting for it to release to lower-cost theatre; though the costumes look interesting, the schizophrenic nature of the second has left me quite leery of the franchise. I may be lynched for this opinion, but I was mightily disappointed by DMC. Costumes look pretty, though -- and when Elizabeth slouches proper, you can scarcely tell she's an actual woman!

I'm in the midst of research for a book of piratical nature, and I've come upon a bit of a snag concerning conscription practices of the British navy. My mother has provided an age range, and I am familiar with the practice of gang-pressing (or press-ganging; whichever it is), but I'm not sure of very much beyond those simple basics and I could use a bit of mathematical assistance. My situation involves two boys, one of whom has no living parents and has been raised by his aunt, the other is the son of that aunt and somewhat older than his cousin. The nephew, being the more useless and generally irritating, was shipped to the Navy prompt at age twelve, and I am wondering whether it would be plausible for the son to remain at home for a year or two longer, to get in a bit more schooling and possibly make sure his mother will be all right on her own (she tends to suffer from athsmatic attacks). (All said and done, he would be between fourteen and sixteen by the time he left.)