Caraccioli

Like you need to be wrapped up in a warm, fuzzy blanket. You silly Florida-living person, you. Puppies do have that neat puppy smell, don't they? I wonder what it actually is?

Great idea for a thread, Patrick! Reading, reading. I'm always reading at least two books and usually three. One of them is sort of a cheat; it's my statistics textbook (Just the Essentials: Elementary Statistics by Johnson L. Kuby. This is an absolutely horrible Stats textbook, incidentally. Avoid it at all costs. The other is a more popular press style book called Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists by Joel Best. Best is a university prof at U of Delaware or some such. He has a pretty conservative view of things (so I am enjoying that) but if you are not so conservative, you might want to avoid this one. To balance my viewpoint, I'm planning to take up Darrell Huff's How to Lie With Statistics when I finish this one as I understand it's examples are a bit more balanced. Why all this statistics? I was arguing with some people on the internet a few months ago and the discussion turned to how people mangle, abuse and misuse statistics. Despite having taken Stats three times (once for undergrad, a required refresher for grad studies and Business Stats for my Masters), I was getting the worst of it. So I decided to school myself. Ironically, I have since left that site. Still, never hurts to learn. I may go after a doctorate in Psych (mostly for fun and to keep learning) and statistics is very important there. The last book is The Big Bounce by Elmore Leonard. It's a pretty decent book. I got it because I saw the movie (the one with Owen Wilson) and fell in love with the soundtrack. (The movie is mediocre at best.) Now just how does that lead me to the book? I have no flippin' clue... (Hey I recently reviewed the soundtrack over at Amazon! Check it out here. It's the review on top right now.)

Ok, I'm putting together this big diorama using three of the old 70's POTC skeleton models. The diorama will include Dead Man's Raft, Fate of the Mutineers and Dead Men Tell No Tales (repositioned to be holding a spyglass looking at a brass mermaid I'm hoping to have a girl I met recently make for me.) They're all going to be setting on a piece of glass painted greyish-blue to represent water which will be sitting on a brown plank shelf in my pirate-themed living room. Now, the question is...what color should I make the clothing? Bright cheesy Disney colors? Or more earthy POTC movie colors? Any particular suggestions? (Any particular model paints?) Each skeleton is wearing two pieces of ragged clothing (except the one in the wood box in Dead Man's Raft, and the one sinking in the muck in Fate of the Mutineers, neither of whose lower halves exist at all.) I'm almost set on making the captain with the spy glass have on either a dark red or dark blue coat with black or dark brown pants. The rest of them...well, I'm fishing (heh) for ideas.

I was surprised to find that Blue Crush was not nearly as bad a movie as I'd thought it was going to be. It wasn't Casablanca, but it wasn't that bad either. I can't say that I ever named any of my cars. Not even the Delorean. I did glue one of those plastic pirate medallions (the ones that came with some of the old 70's MPC POTC skeleton models) to the center of my steering wheel in my Ford Fairmont, though. (Somewhere I may have a picture of that. I'll have to see if I can find it.)

Okay...onions and mushrooms are great for the tummy but the above....? Bringing you all back around what the topic was... Well, the topic title reads differently. The best smell on a woman is...clean woman. No artificial scents. Or maybe orange peels. Possibly garlic from a shared meal.

Ooh, those are good ones! Mushrooms and onions cooking in butter. Heavenly...

I don't know about other guys, but I tend to prefer women not to wear artificial scents for the most part. (As for those women who bathe in the goop...that's me running in the other direction, roadrunner style.) Patrick's girls in the orient rubbing orange peels on their wrists sounds a bit more interesting. My ex- always said she liked the way I smelled - Johnson's Baby Shampoo and Ivory soap. (Yep, baby shampoo. Nope, I never did grow up, either.)

I was surfing around eBay looking for a small brass mermaid for a project I'm contemplating (using my old POTC skeleton models) and I found this. THAT would definitely be something to have hanging in in your dining room. (I can't help but wonder about the original target market was.)

Yep, one of my initial thoughts as well. You can get all sorts of icky things by visiting some random link and downloading stuff when you don't know the original poster.

Victor MacLaughlin in that role reminded me of Robert Shaw in The Sting for some reason. (Actually, it should be the other way 'round since The Sting came long after The Quiet Man.) It was pretty funny when they took a break in the middle of the brawl to have a beer.

Cool. As I said, it's one of my favorite Duke movies. (I should pick it up off Amazon.) Lee Marvin with his Lionel train! What a hoot!

Hum. Maybe you should participate around here a bit more and build up your rep. People would probably be more interested in joining your virtual gaming gang if they knew who you were and liked you. Just my 2¢.

I know that antiques smell...it reminds me of another smell I like. The smell of haunted house. It's fresh sawdust, paint, latex masks, wet wood and honest sweat all mixed together. What a scent! (It's probably better than it sounds.)

Ah, The Quiet Man! What a fun movie. My favorite "fun" John Wayne movie is still Donavan's Reef. Lee Marvin, Maureen O'Hara, Cesar Romero (Now there's a character actor for you.)

Ehn, possibly. Maybe even probably. (The page he refers you to is not that great anyhow. It's got this alleged "game" thing about American Civics.) The topic has taken on something of a life of its own, though. I remember at TF.N (The Force.net) someone started this absolute idiot post titled "Hi" and then inside put the word "hi" or something like that. Completely worthless and useless. Yet it took on life of its own and become one of the largest threads on the forum. It became a "introduce yourself" thread and then morphed into a chat thread if I remember it correctly. Note, I am not recommending that people go around starting silly, pointless threads on the forum - my delete thread finger might get itchy if'n y'all try that too often. (<- This reminds me of Iron Bess.) It's just an example of how mighty oaks from tiny acorns grow. Or maybe it's not.

I was just reading about Ronald Reagan in my Investor's Business Daily newspaper this morn' and they/he said something I found really interesting (as "small l" libertarian). Reagan went around CA talking about how he had saved all this money by making various cuts. He would usually receive polite applause when he explained that something his administration had done had saved 200 million dollars or whatever. However, when he told a group in San Francisco that the state had saved $200,000 by mailing out some license renewals before the postage rate changed, the people stood up and cheered. Reagan apparently later said something like, "I discovered that the average person cannot easily comprehend saving $200 million dollars, but they can understand saving $200,000." (That is not a direct quote, it's paraphrased. I don't have the article handy.) It's sort of sad, really. It's as if we're wired in such a way that we can't truly appreciate reducing government.

Sure. I know there is a historical pirate site at www.piratesinfo.com. (Last I was there, they were even stricter than we are here.) They don't talk about re-enacting much. It seems to me that NQG has forums on their site, but I've never visited there. Or - here's a really radical thought - you could try this: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=of...rum&btnG=Searchhttp://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=of...rum&btnG=Search I must say that it's been my experience that sites with no moderation where anything goes tend to be so chaotic and attack-oriented that they're not quite the panacea that many folks think they will be. But that's just been my experience. (If you find such a site, all I can tell you is that you better sharpen your wits...)

Yep. (What a fun movie.) Your turn to pick a quote.

No one? Here's a (pretty decent) hint: it's a Billy Wilder movie.

Uh huh. Unless someone who personally has it gives out my phone number, no one will find my direct #, however. (That's on purpose. :) I hate giving my phone number out as a general rule.) (You and Duchess are the only two pyrates that I can think of who have it for certain (please don't give it out) - maybe Hurricane does - I don't recall. Possibly Ed Foxe and Blackjohn, but I don't think so.)

I want to sing along to my iPod at the gym...but the people on the treadmills around me might be alittle weirded out. I imagine it's hard to keep a straight face working out next to someone singing "Holla Back Girl". So listen to instrumental music. (My current favorite for my daily morning brisk sojourns into the winter wonderland that is Michigan is the instrumental soundtrack for the undeniably, extraordinarily mediocre movie The Big Bounce. Great Hawaiian/Tropical bouncy (heh) music. Good for brisk walking. Also good for visualizing warmer climes.)

Yeah, there are (at least) two ways to look at this story. One is to examine the potential for psychological damage to the person receiving charity and the other is to look at the actions of the people providing charity. I would venture to say that it is unusual for boys to behave in this manner toward other boys their age in almost any circumstance. (I know I was passed over several times when picking teams... ) So it could also be viewed as being quite a giving act on the part of the boys - especially a group of boys. If you discourage or scold such behavior...well, you've done a different sort of psychological (and even societal) damage, haven't you? In fact, if you pull back your POV far enough, you could say that all charity is damaging in a similar way to the receiving party. Should we all stop being charitable? It really depends on how you choose to perceive the story. As for charitable acts of compassion - well, I see one going on in this forum right now. I also work with the Jaycees and Rotary and I see them happening all the time. It depends on where you look.

Not to take away from your points (some of which are echoed in the link below), but it is supposedly a true story. The version above has some of the details edited out. http://www.snopes.com/glurge/chush.htm

I love that emoticon! It reminds me of Calvin. I looked for philosophy and I found this thread. ! Patrick's last post is kind of cool. It reminds me of the beginning of an interesting novel... "When I was stationed in Korea, some of the girls wouuld rub orange peal on thier wrist...simple, but it smelled nice. Boy, that sounds good! I wish someone would finish writing it.

Oops! It started out as a few lines and then I kept editing it. Soon it grew into something monsterous and you answered while I was editing to make the problem with the philosophy thread make sense. I'm babbling. I think the philosophy thread is long gone - took a dirt nap. Never to be seen again. (Maybe I should go look instead of sitting here typing about it.)