Hrothgar Addams

Anna Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day to all a ye. We be takin th' day easy. Maybe a little POTC, Maybe Blackbeard's Ghost. Nuttin too serious--We just got off Pirate Week at work. Well mebbe a little lootin'-n-pillagin'--Off to Th Mall Me Hearties!

Four hunnert bucks a pair?!?!?! Man, now thats what I call Piracy!

If'n ye loves Flogging Molly-- Ye gots ta like Dropkick Murphy's A Boston-based, Irish-American, Woikin-Class punk band. Technically, they're not a punk band (fulla poseurs), they're More of what the Brits call an Oi band. These guys bring their grandparents to the concerts, sing Union songs, songs supporting cops, and they do a wild rendition of Amazin' Grace, complete with bagpipes. An' one of their most famous logos is a skull wearin a hockey helmet, dagger in its teeth, over a pair of crossed hockey sticks.

Yar, I knew ye'd find out about Flogging Molly th' minute I seen the post. My fave is "Salty Dog"

As I was sayin' or tryin' ta say: when ye add it all up, it aint much of a difference, besides ye got to take 'er home witcha. NICE LOOKIN' Piece any way ye slice and/or dice it! Now I'm gonna be wantin' one (fer dressy occasions.) Ye done good any way ye look at it.

I found th' same sword in a coupla online stores fer less than a hundred. That's all well an good until ye include postage/shippin' and then it's about the same. I figured ye paid a few bucks more at th' maul and took it home with ye. Lessee--a few bucks more an take it with ye......Save some cash and wait seven to ten days. PLUS it called to you --that's good. Ye saw it, ye wanted it, and ye took it home witcha. In th' online stores whats it gonna do ? E-mail to ye? Looks like a good deal to me. :) :)

So- when yer done with this tale of the littlest pirate will ye share it With us? Hope so. Sounds interesting-- let us know how th' kiddos react to it too, ok?

Yarr! Ye gotta check this out. Dave Barry, popularizer pf TLAPD has added this contribution to the mass of pirate literature. www.peterandthestarcatchers.com. email this print this Posted on Sat, Aug. 28, 2004 I M A G E S KIDS' BOOKS Prequel to Peter Pan fills in blanks with fun By SUE CORBETT scorbett@herald.com Two years ago, the thriller writer Ridley Pearson read Peter Pan to his daughter, a few chapters each night until the end, at which point Paige looked up with wide-eyed wonder and asked, ''But, Dad, how did Peter meet Captain Hook in the first place?'' ''It was such an obvious question, my jaw dropped. I couldn't believe I'd never thought of it,'' Pearson recalled. ''Finally, I said, Paige, that's its own book. And I'm going to write it.'' But first Pearson was due in Miami to play with the Rockbottom Remainders, the band of writers that includes Stephen King, Amy Tan and other names from the bestseller list. Normally, a detour to a Remainders gig would not help a writer get going on a new, ambitious project like writing a prequel to a children's classic, but sitting at the breakfast table with fellow guitarist Dave Barry, the conversation turned to current projects. Pearson told Barry about Paige's question and they started riffing. How can Peter Pan fly? Why doesn't he get old? What is the story with his missing shadow? Barry remembers saying, ''That is a really cool idea,'' and being stunned when Ridley asked, ''You want to write it with me?'' Thus was cooked up an unlikely collaboration between two authors that has produced a thick, slick, compulsively readable yarn about how the Boy Who Never Grew Up came to stop growing. With swashbuckling action, constant peril and lots of fun-to-mimic pirate talk -- ''HEAVE TO ON THE STIZZENS! FURL THE YARDARM!'' -- Peter and the Starcatchers (Hyperion, $17.99, ages 10 and up) is just the kind of book parents would enjoy reading, a few chapters at a time, to their kid. Some of the humor is, in fact, pitched directly at the adult reader -- even young listeners who know what a brassiere is may not understand why it's funny that the sails of the villain's ship resemble a huge, black, wind-filled bra -- but this is a book chockablock with funny bits and derring-do. ''I think we both wanted to leave a book or two behind that our kids could actually read,'' said Pearson, whose daughter, Paige, is now 7 and a big sister to Storey, 5. (And, yes, he gave them middle names they could use if they got tired of being Paige and Storey.) ''I mean, the things I write, I practically have to lock my books away so my kids can't see them.'' The story takes place on board the ship, Never Land, bound for Rundoon with Peter, four fellow orphans from St. Norbert's Home for Wayward Boys, and a closely guarded trunk full of ''starstuff,'' a magical substance with the power to make people fly or stop aging. Naturally, the starstuff is stolen, first by a cretin named Slank, then by a nefarious pirate named Black Stache (named for his facial hair), then recovered by some vicious (but quite attractive) mermaids, and finally coveted by island natives who speak their own dialect, in addition to English and French. (Talking dolphins also play a crucial role in the plot. Hey, it's a fantasy.) It's up to Peter to help the secret society called the Starcatchers -- led by a comely teen named Molly -- get the starstuff back. Fans of J. M. Barrie's original (or the Disney movie) will recognize the mammoth reptile, here named ''Mister Grin,'' and learn the origins of Tinkerbell. Ridley and Barry sold the book to Hyperion, the publishing arm of Disney, based on an outline and a few chapters. They co-wrote it by swapping chapters via e-mail. ''It was like Ping-Pong,'' Barry said. ''One of us would write a chapter and send it to the other, and he'd rework it -- and we were not shy about reworking the other guy's stuff -- and send it back.'' 'We went back and forth four or five or six times until we both decided, 'OK, this chapter's ready,' '' Pearson said. Their editor, whose actual real first name is -- improbably -- Wendy, received the book in installments. ''I would distribute what I had around the office and people were begging me for the rest,'' said Wendy Lefkon, editorial director at Disney Editions. ''They would actually get angry at me because I didn't have the rest. When the whole thing finally came in, it was a great relief.'' Even readers familiar with each writer's style may have trouble divining who wrote what. Barry says the wind-blown brassiere was Pearson's idea. Pearson says he wrote all the pirate scenes, but the dialogue -- ''KEELHAUL THE SCUPPERS!'' and ''CAST OFF THE AFT BINNACLE!'' -- sounds positively Barryesque. ''We finished it about six months ago and it's gotten to the point now where, honestly, I have trouble remembering who wrote what,'' Barry said. Pearson says there's interest from both Hollywood and Broadway. (The original Peter Pan was a play, created for the London stage, before it became a book.) And there's a sequel to the prequel under way as well, which Pearson and Barry plan to write using the same e-mail swap method. First, however, there are 18 cities to visit, beginning Sept. 11 with an appearance at Books & Books in Coral Gables and including a stop in Washington state on Sept. 19, which is, of course, National Talk Like a Pirate Day. Barry is prepared for that. ''I bought eye patches for the book tour,'' Barry said. ON THE WEB For more about Peter and the Starcatchers, visit www.peterandthestarcatchers.com. MEET THE AUTHORS

Aye! That's the ideer! Plus there be a lotta purty pictures :)

This is gonna sound dumb, but what did you wish for when you were that little? Buccaneer Barbie with her Keelhaul Ken kit? A kid-sized Pirate ship? A chest full of gold coins (with chocolate inside!)? A little brother/sister? What did you want in Kindergarten or First grade? I dunno--I can't hardly remember last week, let alone 1960, but it seems to me most kids are at the mercy of anyone bigger than them. Is being the littlest a problem for this pirate? Is he/she feeling ignored by the bigger pirates? Does he/she want the respect if the other pirates? Or does he/she just want Capt Dad and First Mate Mom (or vice-versa) to let the littlest pirate steer the ship once in a while? Most kids like to be part of the action. See, I told ya it was gonna sound dumb.

Its what ya might be callin' a survey, providin' an overview of the general subject. Captain Kidd would be basic pirate information.. Ask a dozen land lubbers to name 5 Pirates, and I'll bet ya Kidd's name shows up more often than not. Surveys like the Time-Life books are good general works, but don't expect much depth or analysis from them. The main facts, names, dates, and events are usually right. The whys and wherefores are usually left to the deeper studies. Fer example, the latest study of William Kidd, called "Pirate Hunter," spent several hundred pages on his career . If all the pirates and subjects addressed in Mr Botting's book received as much attention, "The Pirates" ( or Zeerovers) would look like a full set of encyclopedias. Seriously, I think you've got a good book there. Just don't stop at that one--read everything ye can get yer mitts on!

Would that be Douglas Botting, the author of The Pirates, published by Time-Life Books? Like most Time-Life products, its full a purty pictures and fairly accurate but BASIC information. It'd be good for kids or someone new to the subject. Sorta like Pirates 101at the community college. Eventually ye'll want something deeper.

Well, some o' us Pirates in Spokane work in the plasma donation biz. That's right, we collect plasma from donors. Then its shipped off to make medicines. This be the third year we be celebratin' TLAPD. The first year was a blast. We even had a few dress ups. Last year, we had to keep it low key. Corporate auditors/inspectors don't have much of a sense of humor. This year it'll be different. Each center has donation promotion programs. Corporate HQ usually dictates the promo. This time we were left on our own and we decided to go whole hawg. Here's the plan. Lots of Piratical decorations for the week starting 9/13. Pirate music on the sound system Everthing from POTC and Muppets Treasure Island soundtracks to Capn' Boggs and Salty, tradional sea chanteys to Monty Python's "Crimson Permanent Assurance." For every visit donors receive a raffel ticket. We're closed Sunday 9/19 , so Saturday We have the big day. Employees will talk like pirates--they can dress up too. There will be a contest and prizes for for the best dressed and pirate talking employee, and prizes for any donors dressing up Then there is the drawing. Prizes include DVDs of POTC, Cutthroat Island, Treasure Island and Master and Commander (technically not pirate, but lots of ships and cutlasses) Plus gift cards, and lots of gold coins (chocolate inside!) After we close up for the day--well we'll see some of us are heading for the nearest pub and we'll be talkin' like Pirates the rest of the weekend.

As Oscar Wilde put it--There is one thing worse than being talked about; that is NOT being talked about. We want this movie talked about. I am assuming the CPTV showing is by some legal or contractural arrangement--Meaning they got first dibs on the first broadcast. Who holds the copyright, and is there any financial lien on the movie? If CPTV has first broadcast rights, we cannot do anything until after it is shown. Either way, it is a matter of getting a buzz started. Has this filmmaker made any plans to enter "Kidd's Gold "in any local film festivals or contests? What about showing it at RenFaires and/or Pirate festivals? I think we could work up a distribution network among the very Piraty types associated with this Pub. BTW If I could get a few specifics on this film, I might be able to pick the brains of a couple of small-time indy film makers I know.

There otta be a way ta market this movin' pitcher in the Pub. If we had the right info, we could lobby our local cable access and /or public TV outlets. Maybe even market it to yer fellow Pirates. Whatta ya think?

Unich--ain't that the competition fer Windows?