Mission

As far as general forum behavior goes, I've usually found post counts cause more bad than good. Some folks fall easily for the "quantity" trap and you wind up getting what you measure - reams of pointless posts (including some posts which complain about reams of pointless posts). Although the jawless skull icon you get when your post count reaches Mail Order Surgeon is cool. I believe a lot of the old posts were in Beyond which got purged... In fact, if I recall correctly (which I may not) I once raised what I then perceived to be the first post to the top of the forum - it was a kind of introductory "So we're here...now what should we do?" post. It was cool. *sniff* Grrr. (Girrrrr...)

Well...you do live in the People's Republic of California... http://www.californiagasprices.com/tax_info.aspx Worst...gas tax...ever!

There'd be more flailing. For as much as they trained us what to do when we ran out of air...I'd never want to try it. He does look like a scuba diver, doesn't he?

Now sneakiness makes the most sense, but he doesn't look so much sneaky to me as he does stunned. See what I mean? I also like the tongue-sticking-out-guy much better than the ambiguous animated one we used to have. You know exactly what this means: But this one? I just don't know. I named it Fydo in another post on emoticons as it sort of looks like a dog panting to me when it's animated. I did like all the other pirate smilies, though.

Yes, and I sing, too. (Remember those singing fish that came out around Christmas one year? Perhaps it's better that you don't.) For the record, I did not put that label upon myself. I asked Stynky about it and he told me he had no idea what I was talking about. Must be ninjas or ghosts. Or the alleged likeness of Jesus in a canvas bag sitting by a lantern.

You know, I really like the ninja guy. I can't for the life of me figure out what emotion he represents, but I think he's cool. (Given the inexplicable enmity that seems to exist between ninja and pirate fanciers, it's sort of an odd thing to even have around here. Yet I still like him. That's what you call ironic.)

As far as lingo goes...it all depends. I had several conversations with people about trying to "sound" period correct - or at least pirate correct. (There's a big difference.) Basically it came down to - do whatever you feel comfortable doing. I tried to adopt an English accent at times (which surely would have made most Brits wince, if not slyly reach for their cudgels), but most of the time I just spoke as I normally do. As Mary Diamond told me last year before my first trip to PiP, any effort you make is appreciated (and it turned out to be perfectly true). My favorite site was Boo's camp. It was actually quite simple. You can see pics of it at the top of one of my '07 PiP webpages: http://www.markck.com/images/Piracy/PiP_20...al_Ch_Fifth.htm (Which, in all fairness, were also taken by William Redwake. Thanks William! I am going to miss your camera this year! )

It depends on which medium I'm playing around in. ● A fishing tackle box full of oil-based model paints, brushes, model glue etc. ● A drawer full of watercolor colored pencils. (I much prefer the smearable pencils. You can do some really neat blending things when you draw.) ● A box full supplies for haunted house props that looks like a junk kit - paint brushes, giant rubber bands, tape, toilet paper (my favorite haunted house medium), paper mache embedded linen, fabric stiffener, various knives & chisels, air brushes and equipment as well as many other curious odds and ends for making props. ● A sister box full of cables, pulleys, eyehooks, ropes, tensioners and whatnot. (Lots of whatnot.) ● A storage container full of water-based paints, brushes and so forth. And I don't even want to start to explain all the woodworking junk I've got strewn about the house and garage for cabinet-making and similar things. There's probably more that I'm not thinking of. It depends on what hobby is taking my fancy.

And so... (now you can finish the sentence. It has something to do with the Ottoman empire).

We should form a pirate think tank. Oh, wait, I'm violating my own stipulations... That is a good point about income. I have always thought the best "job" would be one you couldn't discern from play. Although it's an odd thing...when you attach a salary to an activity, we tend to psychologically regard it as being different from an enjoyable activity. I think most, if not all, of this is an arbitrary (and learned) differentiation. Money is nothing more than a representation of "value" and it's mostly conceptual (What the hell is a small piece of paper really worth?). So why should being paid in pieces of paper or some other value exchange media reduce enjoyment more than being paid in some perceived form of psychic enjoyment? When it comes down to it, I think a key to how much you enjoy your daily structured achievement activity (or "job") is how willing you are to put up with the parts you don't like. If the psychic reward provided by the stuff you "like" makes you willing (or even eager) to get through the parts you "don't like", you have an enjoyable "job." ("Laser.") Job is a loaded word, isn't it? Career? Calling? Life's work? Path?

What?! You're not worried about your post counts? (Welcome to the club. Have one on me.)

floccinaucinihilipilification (FLOK-si-NO-si-NY-HIL-i-PIL-i-fi-KAY-shuhn) noun - Estimating something as worthless. The Oxford English Dictionary shows the first use of the word by William Shetstone in 1777: "I loved him for nothing so much as his flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication of money."

Yes, but that's not what Blackjohn said. I actually met a woman who worked in a think tank when I was in San Francisco last year. I talked about it in this thread, post #28.

Pass me the Cheetos.

This agrees with a quote from the book I originally mentioned, which includes the Pepys/pumice reference. "Male middling sorts and professionals usually displayed a smooth beard-free face. [samuel] Pepys used a pumice to remove facial hair in 1662." (Cockayne, p. 66)

Pepys says he shaved with pumice in his diary. (Think how much fun that would have been.) Still, if you can stand that, you would probably be conditioned to handle more wear on your face than we're used to. I have been trying to find a good reference for shaving implements from the period, but have not been satisfied with what I've come across so far. Still, I have two tortoiseshell handled straight razors in my barber-surgeon's kit. They are both flat handled, which I understand is period correct, but they also have thumb latches, which I understand may not be. (There are some websites on shaving instruments, but I've found most of them lacking in either the sort of information I want or proper authority to back them up. I am very wary of websites without proper footnotes. Note, my comments on websites are not directed at Lady Casandra, who has given us an overwhelming number of references to websites which I have not fully explored. Also note that Cockayne is restricting the subject of her book to 16th and (I believe) early/mid 17th century England and thus info on foreign soaps may not be applicable to the quotes.)

Some of these jobs, while they would be neat, have no income-generating component to them. Why would anyone pay you to do them? (I wish someone would pay me to sit and watch DVDs and eat Cheetos, but that's not a very realistic job goal.)

Hurricane suggested this fascinating book to me called Hubbub: Filth, Noise & Stench in England by Emily Cockayne. She took her doctorate thesis on noise during the 17th and 18th centuries and expanded into a book on all the irritations of that period. If you really want to create a period-correct campsite, here are some notes from her book for your consideration. “The skin of seventeenth and eighteenth century citizens was irritated by disease and infestations and chafed by coarse fabrics and dirty linen.” (Cockayne, p. 83) “Many conditions would have caused itching, including eczema, impetigo, ‘psorophthalmy’ (eyebrow dandruff), scabies, chilblains, chapped and rough skin, ‘tetters’ (spots and sores), ‘black morphew’ (leprous or scurvy skin) and ringworm. Few citizens enjoyed smooth unblemished skin. Cuts and grazes could lead to ugly and uncomfortable scabbing and unattractive scarring. In this pre-antibiotic era, skin eruptions in the forms of bulging pustules, lesions, acne and gout-induced ulcers could all have become infected, causing chronic wounds.’” (Cockayne, p. 54) “Venereal disease was the secret epidemic that blighted the entire period. In addition to weeping sores on the lips, venereal diseases necessitated scratching in embarrassing places. Prostitutes and their clients were most frequently exposed to sexually transmitted diseases, and whores, strumpets, harlots and lechers were often given the sobriquets of ‘itchy’ and ‘pocky’.” (Cockayne, p. 55) “Many bottoms would have itched with discomfort thanks to the presence of thread and tape worms in the digestive system. According to the numbers contemporary adverts, worms created a myriad of physical discomforts, including ‘pinching Pain in the Belly, when hungry, a stinking Breath’, vomiting, nightmares, pallidness, fever and teeth gnashing.” (Cockayne, p. 55) “Fleas proliferated in sea ports. While lodging at the White Swan in Gravesend, William Schellinks discovered that ‘the English fleas are very aggressive’. Indeed, they were so aggressive that he forsook his bed for a hard bench.” (Cockayne, p. 56-7) “[Thomas] Muffet remarked that fleas, whole troublesome to all, do not stink like ‘wall-lice’ (bed-bugs), and added that it is no ‘disgrace...to be troubled with them, as it is to be lowsie [lousy]’.” (Cockayne, p. 57) “[Keith] Thomas acknowledges that full body immersion was rare, a fact partly attributable to the relative shortage of appropriate facilities. However, Thomas argues that body parts were cleaned, even if the whole body was rarely immersed. Cleaning was more often a dry process, with a rub down using a brush of pig’s hair to dislodge the lice. ‘Rub the Hair with a Napkin is to dry it from its swettiness and filth in the head’ was included among the descriptions of the barber’s work in Randle Holme’s The Academy of Amory (1688).” “It is unlikely that soap featured much in the cleansing routine. Made from rancid fats and alkaline matter such as ashes, most cakes of soap would have been quite greasy and would have irritated the skin. The finest soaps were crafted from olive oil, and were kinder to the skin, but these were expensive and would not have been used widely.” (Cockayne, p. 60) I'll post more of this as I get to entering it into my notes.

This is quite sad. I really wanted there to be a statue. Is the myth a myth too? No, the myth appears to be real, although you could easily argue that my proof is specious. I found an illustrated kids book at a gift store called "The Maiden of the Mists" featuring an Indian girl in a canoe on the cover. (I didn't buy it because it was in Niagra Falls Tourist Sucker Prices and I couldn't abide that on general principle.)

Destiny is sort of vague...merely a cog in the mechanics that produce action.

Eh"

"I wanna sing. I wanna dance. I wanna ha-cha-ha." "Oh, why can’t we break away from all this, just you and I, and lodge with my fleas in the hills? I mean flee to my lodge in the hills."

I see your MS and raise you an MBA. (Raise. ) I dare you to come on one of my forums...

What, by increasing the the server load by re-linking to all those pictures on my website? I'm not sure I'm following this any more...is the problem that Frisky Puppy isn't black and white? (I was trying to capture the moment where Claude the Cat just leapt into the air after Frisky Puppy barked at him, but then I saw something yellow and lost interest.) Ooh, a warning! Tricky. "If there were a degree for trickery, I'd be a master trickster!"

Now where's the little tongue emoticon with his thumbs in his ears and his hands waving about?