Mission

No...Porn stated in such terms is actually science! So we all learned something here today. (Something I would never in a million years have wanted to know.) Now we can all go about the business of talking about fluffy bunnies and continuing to speculate on what, exactly contributed to the make-up of Mae's psyche. Personally, I'm guessing that it has something to do with stoats, spider skeletons, bad TV show reruns, and rutabagas. Yep.

Huh? I'm only tree and a half years old.

The nice thing about wars is that you can pinpoint dates because they involve acts and declarations and similarly documented things. The very nature of piracy is vague. What exactly it means to be a pirate during this period is vague. From the Spanish POV, the buccaneers were pirates. So if you're writing in Spain, couldn't you say the GAoP started with the Buccaneers? (Except you might not refer to it as being 'Golden'...) Part of the reason that I read that the pirates sprung up was because there were a bunch of out of work seamen beginning after the 3rd Dutch-Franco-Anglo war which ended in 1678. The British hired (or impressed) seamen as they needed them for wars, but when the wars were over they let them go and it was up to the seamen to find their own work. (I wish I could remember which book that was in.) Still, that would suggest we should have a surfeit of pirates beginning in the late 1670s and either that isn't the case, or we don't have record of them. (It is very possible that there were a lot more pirates than we know about. The ones we have record of come mainly from Johnson and his info seems to come primarily from court records according to footnotes in the version of the General History that I am currently reading. A successful pirate or group of pirates could easily not have been recorded in this scenario unless they attacked a ship for which we have documented info on their travels.)

I should be relocated to PA by the end of this year. So it's not that far ;0) Wow, business must be really slow! You'd have to charge extra just for mileage!

Hmm...yes. Actually, the whole thing interests me considerably. I usually chose pictures that I think represent the people well, based on my meeting of them, and they never like them. Having said that, I sift through pictures of myself quite carefully and discard far more than I use (and sometimes don't even like the ones I use, but if the pic represents the event...ya gotta go with it.) So I figure we are super-critical of pictures of ourselves because we want to believe we look a certain way, but we have almost no regard for pictures of others. It's all rather fascinating IMO. If you wanted to make a lot of money as a photographer, you would try to take pictures of people so that they come out looking like they think they look. Having said that, I picked the most goofy-looking pic in Poppa's assortment that I could find of you without scouring the lot (to go along with the 'funny' line). I was looking for a one off pic of you rolling the cannonball (which you used to use as your avatar), but I didn't find it in the first three galleries I opened, so I grabbed another one. Trying to find particular pictures in Poppa's galleries is like trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack. Besides, I couldn't spend too much time looking for that; I had an undead Peep pic to find as well. "Come to the dark side...of my bathroom."

Do I have to wear the silly hat to get the whole effect?

"“Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained. A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind."

Why is it that no one likes the pictures I choose of them? First Silas, then Michael, then MorganDrake, then Stynky and now Chrispy. (I like the pictures I chose. That's all that matters.)

I believe that's a chocolate grave that they're rising from...

You know...you might have something there...

As funny as Chrispy seems to me... Undead peeps (seen here rising from the grave), seem funnier: At least that's the judgment of the almighty dog: Maybe after they sink the ship, Chrispy can lead the pirates on an alleged revenge scheme...with the real goal being Candy's...uh, candy.

After months of wrestling with battery problems with my iPod, I have decided to get a Zune. I cannot tell you how many problems I've had with that stupid iPod - between problems with the God-awful iTunes and it losing, ruining and otherwise confusing my library and the iPod itself crashing and ultimately having to be completely replaced under warranty by current (now dead) one. I have basically been (on and off) about 3 months without it because of battery-related problems. With the download of two shareware programs - one to upload everything from the iPod before it gave its last gasp (on its third battery) and another to convert the playlists into Zune format, I have managed to transfer everything into the Zune software. It was 10x simpler than working with retrieving the music files when iTunes lost them for me the first time and then wanted to overwrite things on the iPod through the automatic upload feature (which I then disabled - losing all my playlists from iTunes). Apple is not quite as user friendly as they think they are. So here's hoping that the Zune will prove to be what the iPod was most definitely not.

I agree with you in principle. I'm just giving my suggestion for why I think some people say the GAoP starts in the late 17th century and other say it started at the beginning of the 18th century.

That's not Mission.... Just his hat.... It's not the first time my (once Patrick's) hat has appeared in the strip. (Personally, I think Candy should join forces with the rabbit and start their own ship with an army of bloodthirsty Peeps. Then they can sink the pirate's ship. An army of violent bloodthirsty Peeps would be hilarious. Maybe they could be transformed into undead bloodthirsty Peeps as the strip goes along. There's just no end of fun to be had with this concept.)

Yeah, what Foxe said. I think it mostly has to do with Johnson's book. My (limited) understanding of the GAoP is that it is from 1700-1725 based primarily on what Johnson included, but other people want to include the Buccaneers from the other main account of piracy we have from that period by Esquemeling and so they start their timeline in the 1670s. Realistically, the buccaneers seem like a separate group entirely, but for my book on GAoP medicine I am actually using sources from 1580 - 1735. (For medicine I feel I can go backwards quite a ways since they relied on the writings of Galen and Hippocrates. It didn't change much from the 15th through middle 18th centuries from what I can tell.) Well that's my layman's perception of it.

“But if the Wound [of the head] be with so great Contusion, that it casts off Slough, and leaves the Cranium much naked; through it be not fouled either by the Matter or Air, yet it will then be necessary to rasp it: for the Bone is naturally smooth and slippery, as if it were polished, and Flesh difficultly groweth upon it. Wherefore to hasten the Cure, you ought, by the authority of Galen and the most practical men, to rasp the Bone thin, till you see the bloud ready to come out of it: the Bone will thereby be the sooner supplied with materials for generation of Flesh. But if your Patient will not admit of Raspatories, then you ought to keep your Dossils [plugs of lint] close to the Lips of the Wound, and make your Exfoliation [casting off their outer surfaces] from the edges, that the found part may thrust off the rotten Bone. For neither Crabs-eyes, nor any Medicine inwardly prescribed, or Wine outward applied with Lint, or other Medicaments to the middle of a Bone, will signifie any thing to the Exfoliation of it: nay, the while you are so trifling, the Matter from the edges will rot the Bone underneath, and in continuance pierce through the first Table [the outer compact layer of bone of the skull], and run down between the two [inner and outer] Tables [of bone], thereby doing much mischief, and so will put you upon the use of the Terebra [a saw for perforating the skull]. After the Bone is scraped, you may dress them with Pledgits [compresses of absorbent material, often lint] dipt in liniment. Arce hot. If it require Digestion otherwise, apply them prest out of spir. Vini [spirit of wine], either simply, or such wherein hath been infused pulv. radic. ireos, aristoloch. peucedan. &c. [powdered roots of Iris, Aristolochia & Hog’s Fennel. I think.]” (Wiseman, p. 379)

You know, if you weren't one of my twins, weren't married (and didn't want kids), you might be the perfect woman. (Jack, you lucky guy!)

They didn't seem to appreciate this over in the thread "The way to my heart..." in the Forum That Must Not Be Named, so I am putting it here where it will have a safe and happy home.

This discussion on shipping guns via the airline is fantastic, but it deserves the widest possible audience. (As much as I love the PiP forum, a lot of regulars do not read it because they don't go to PiP.) Does anyone mind if I split this out into its own topic and move it to the Cascabel's gun forum?

Thanks Ed. It would appear that the drawer pulls with the hoops were popular for sea item chests based on your pic and the one offered by Clowes. As the medicine chest must also have several small drawers in the body that is probably a good model.

Going by the title of this post (and not reading any of the text of a post in TWtaPR forum - which is against my religions):

I have lately been watching an old b&w western series from the late 50's called Have Gun Will Travel. I don't think I can recommend a show more highly. It is a most interesting adult western where this gunfighter hero (called 'Paladin') travels about the countryside around San Franciso and gets involved in all these people's complicated fights and moral dilemmas - for a price. Paladin is the kind of guy who quote Shakespeare and Cicero...how can you beat that for a gunfighter? Well made, well acted, well written and fascinating. Check it out!

I suspect you would be hard-pressed to accuse anyone who dresses up as a pirate of having "grown up."

Ah, it sort of appears that the thief is worried about others stealing his stuff, then! (Next time you have it, you should run away from him and ship it home UPS. I know where the UPS stores are in Key West.)