Zephaniah W Nash

A follow-up question along the same lines would be how prevalent tattooing was among folks on land during the same time period...? If that were more common, then you might find at least a few people who came to sea a bit later in life with ink. Still not enough to make it in any way common, I would think, but possibly enough to at least give the modern mythology at least a bit of reality. Plus, I've seen at least two movies in which treasure maps had been tattooed onto scalps, so it's gotta be true!

I know I've seen some references to some total hauls and annual amounts of loot taken - and compared to equivalent modern monetary amounts - but can't seem to find them anywhere now. Likely in the books that got waterlogged... Anyone have any of these sources handy? Was asked recently about how much pyrates "earned," either on a general level or for some specific historical figures or ships. Thanks for any help that's forthcoming.

He Who Must Not be Named only really needs to be a concern when Aldebaran is in the sky, or when dealing with Tcho-Tcho's. That is, of course, except when the byakhee are about...

What I have found useful at Wiki is some of the links provided in some articles/entries - but of course, if they link to sites as misinforming as the article itself, then you're no better off. The few times I've actually used the site, I haven't found any glaring inaccuracies, but I admit I haven't used it much, and always go with a skeptical eye...

Sorry to resurrect an old-ish thread, but I've been looking a bit for a non-firing wheel lock as well. The Swordsofhonor site listed theirs as discontinued, but I found the following: Wheel lock reproduction - A Squared Armory The same piece - Silvermane Again, the same piece - Midieval Collectibles I've listed the same thing three times, the same price (a dollar difference on one, I believe) to see if anyone has ordered from any of these particular companies/sites, and may have a review or recommendation for 'em...

Got our own internet access back, and we're in the new apartment here at the same complex for a bit, 'til the while house thing comes about. I'm all for keelhaulin' and giving those folks a taste o' the cat, but I seen 'em a time or two. No interest in ravishin' a one of 'em. And where we're putting the house, the only way we'd flood is if Horseshoe Bend Dam breaks, and then most of the county is going too, so we won't be so worried about our stuff getting damp. And, now that I'm on the DSL again, a couple of pics of our old apartment:

Thanks to all for the good wishes. We're going to take any and all legal measures we can, for what good it does. Against the neighbors and maybe the apartment complex too, as it seems they should have some responsibility for renting to people like that and not keeping an eye on 'em after evicting 'em. As for extra-legal measures, well, the swords are fine after some polishing... We've pretty much gotten what we brought with us here picked through and either cleaned up or tossed, if it won't survive. Don't know about electronics yet for the most part, although the good desktop computer made it - which is good, considering how much of our lives is on that thing. The one good thing about it all is that we've gotten the works for our very own real-life house going now - going to build on the family place and the nearest neighbors to worry about will be family. And we actually get along with them. Maybe by next Spring - Summer at the latest - we'll be country folk again. A hundred acres right on the Brazos River... And that means we can have visitors, too, so feel free to contact us for a map.

I’ll be out of pocket for a few days. The upstairs neighbor got evicted, and decided to take the parting shot of turning on all her water taps and stop up all the drains, as well as running the washer hookups. Pretty much everything we owned was soaked. Clothes and kitchen stuff will wash, swords and guns will clean up, some of the furniture will survive - more won’t. Doubt any of the electronics will survive, but we haven’t even tried turning any of it on - still trying to get it dried out, but have access to a friend’s computer for the evening, so I can at least drop a few messages here and there. Don’t even ask about many, many books. We’ve got plenty of places to stay - they got us into another apartment here, but it wasn’t really ready for a move-in yet, so it still needs some work, and we are mostly crashing at my parent’s for a while. Long drive, but good food. Oh, the fun of drying stuff out and moving…

Ah, thankeez, thankeez. Much appreciated.

Some of my wife's co-workers - having seen us now in garb - have wondered if we would come into the bookstore they work in to do a reading for kids, capitalizing, no doubt, on the upcoming POTC2. Any suggestions out there for a good pyrate-themed kids book? I know there are quite a few out there aimed at kids, was just wondering if anyone here might have direct experience with some good titles, maybe through their own kids. Thanks for any help...

Thanks to all- And she's the one with the pistol, so she can be as angry as she likes, sez I.

I ran into Miss Tempest my ownself a week or three back at Scarborough...

I only today realized I had gotten the e-mail, hotmail dumped it into the junk folder, so it was no big deal to do away with it. Used the computer at work, just to be safe.

Next month (June 28, to be specific) marks ten years of wedded bliss, and we got each other our presents a bit early - just couldn't resist. Made by Baltimore Knife and Steel - bought from Legacy Forge here in Texas. Mine is the one on top, hers is on bottom. And the happy couple:

Capt. Grey- Except maybe when it comes to boots... Kidding, kidding. I even enjoyed that debate. And on my serious comment to your post - I mostly agree with you about "new" religions replacing older ones, but would just like to add that, not only do they seem to replace them, they seem to assimilate them. Many of the major points of more recent religious beliefs have taken in and somewhat re-written bits of older ones: the Flood, the Garden of Eden, the parting of a sea, all of these stories existed with different characters well before they were concieved as being part of the Christian mythos. Additionally, the Roman Catholic Church was, in its' heyday, known for creating holy days on top of the already existing holy days of other cultures, to make them easier to convert to Christianity.

Well, I can play jazz on a CD player. Close enough...?

What I enjoy are the PayPal notifications regarding a problem with my account - when I've never had any account whatsoever with PayPal or E-Bay. I'd say that's a weak point in the scam...

Christine- Well, I look at it one of two ways, depending upon my mood at the time. I'm with you on that the univers is big. Really big. I mean, you think it's a long way to go down the street to the duggists, but that's peanuts on space. Okay, enough with the bad Adams paraphrasing, you get my point... I'm fairly convinced that there has to be life out there. The probability is with it. On the one hand, of all the different living creatures on Earth, human beings are the only ones worrying about religion. The seems to indicate that it could be a vanishingly small phenomenon. On the other hand, if one subscribes to any of the versions of the anthropic principle (all of which, for one reason or another, state that intelligent life elsewhere will resemble life here to a greater or lesser degree), it seems like other "intelligent" beings, if they resemble us at all - or we resemble them - will be somewhat similar psychologically as well, and will likely argue about religion in bars.

Jib- If you mean the "1860 Naval Cutlass," the picture on their online catalog looks identical to the Windlass one I referred to earlier. If even says high-carbon steel blade. If it is the same, I have used mine in a very limited way in some stage combat work. It seemed to hold up just fine, and apart from a few scratches, it held up well. It did get a bit of a dent in the bell guard when someone dropped it on a sidewalk, but nothing major. I'm not sure that I would want to use it extensively, though. The blade on mine doesn't seem to have much flex to it, fairly rigid, so I'm thinking snapping or splintering would not be horribly unlikely.

It seems like prety much every religion, philosophy, credo, whatever I've ever read anything about has some variation of the so-called "golden rule" (treat others have you would have them treat you), it just seems like they have different exceptions for when you don't have to follow that... Or perhaps it's just that people - no matter what their beliefs - can usually find their own way around it, if they choose to do so.

Dorian asks: That depends entirely upon the religion of the person you're speaking to. Whatever religion one happens to be from, it is their own holy book(s) that is(are) the true word of whomever/whatever they hold sacred.

Well, of course, all of this debate is rendered moot to those who are still waiting for any proof of Jesus' actual existence in the first place, much less what he might have done while alive. Just sayin'...

Personally, I'm kinda hacked off that Maverick isn't coming out - as far as I can tell - in whole season sets, just some random "best of" stuff. Who is it that gets to choose which are best of, dangit?!?

Add me to the list of Stooge-o-philes, with my real (short version) name. Now, I really dig the Stooges, but turned on...? Not so sure on that... Full name: Presidential Speeches. Wow. I mean... just... wow. How wrong can a quiz be? I don't care who the President is or was, I've never seen one give a speech that didn't either put me to sleep or piss me off. Pub name: Fish scales. Maybe in China they're used as an aphrodisiac...?

I'll be waiting for the disc, but I almost always do wait for the disc these days. I'm in real stage-type theatres enough that I don't even like to go to the screen kind, unless it's a real special effects thing that the big screen really helps. The controversy doesn't interest me in any way. It's fiction. I don't think anybody worked on this movie to change anyone's religion, but the Church is getting a bit too worked up over it. The last religiously-themed movie I saw that I really liked was "Dogma," if that tells you anything about me...