Capn Bob

Got me a new little game for Christmas. I must admit that, after taking a couple of cruises, I've got me a liking for slot machines, and there's plenty of computer games to that effect. I got one for Xmas, called "Blackbeard's Revenge". Many of the slots on it are pirate oriented...how can you go wrong with "Blackbeard's Pirate Gameshow"? For those curious, here's a link... http://www.phantomefx.com/games/view/7 A downside to the game is that any doubloons ye win are only virtual doubloons, which will buy ye virtually...nothing. Scupper me hide!

Just picked up Terry Pratchett's latest, called "Snuff". Also started on Benerson Little's "How History's Greatest Pirates Pillaged, Plundered, and Got Away With It"

Ah, there be many what would give a treasure fleet to know the answer to the fickleness question. It be as mysterious as why women go to restroom in company. Anyway, ye be welcome here... Did ye bring any rum? And in unwashed throngs at that. Welcome aboard, Eric and the LandlubbersAnonymous. Jas. Hook Thanks very much. (I'll make sure this gets passed along to our washer woman.) Incidentally, we're still in the early stages of getting our kit together and I anticipate an uphill battle with the whole garb business. For example, I found what I thought was a nice period throng at the local thrift store a couple weeks ago but when I got it home, the missus seemed appalled by the bloody thing. Why are women so fickle?

Picked meself up a little light reading in the form of "Why Socrates Died: Dispelling the Myths", by Robin Waterfield, at the library where I work like a bloody lubber.

We won't tell her, mate...for a decent bottle of rum, that is...

Currently reading "The sinner's grand tour : a journey through the historic underbelly of Europe", by Tony Perrottet. Just finished reading "The Pun Also Rises", by John Pollack. Will be reading Benerson Little's "How History's Greatest Pirates Pillaged, Plundered, and Got Away With It: The Stories, Techniques, and Tactics of the Most Feared Sea Rovers from 1500-1800"

Aye, that be true...but our director, lubber that he is, seems to frown on that sort o' thing. Why, he won't even let me install slot machines here at the library, scupper his hide! That sort o' thinkin' should be belayed...

I need to revise some of me clothing, and footwear is at the top of me list. I saw the late period latchett shoes being offered by Reconstructing History, and while I shudder at the price, I'm scraping up whatever coinage I can find. Even to the point of checking in the coin machines that operate the photocopier and public printers at work.

I've seen that product elsewhere...thought about it, but the idea of fishing around for canned bacon swimming in grease...well, not sure I'm that hungry. Bacon Spam? Never heard of it, have to take a look in the stores here. As an Army brat living in Germany, end of the month, just before paycheck, meals tended to be spam and rice-a-roni. Good, healthy food...

And I got them both layin' about. The Henry Every bio is truly excellent...altho I blame it for making me walk out to Hog Island (now called "Paradise" Island) in Nassau last year, just to be able to say I done it...

I got my copy...last week, I think it was. I haven't watched it yet, cuz I be savin' it for when I'm on ship. Aye, this 'ere pyrate be going on a cruise, and I'll be needin' something...suitable...to watch. Inspirational material, that's the ticket!

Right now, I'm reading "The German Army at Ypres", Jack Sheldon, and I just got in, thru inter-library loan, "The Mons Myth", Terence Zuber. For laughs, it's Maskerade, Terry Pratchett. Also reading a lot of posts on Cruise Critic, because I'll be getting a deck under me feet in 18 days.

Not at all Pyrate, and the article is very sparse on detail, such as wear and tear of the sailors life on the skeletal remains, but I nonetheless found this of some interest: Children as young as 11 were exposed to the health hazards of serving in Lord Nelson's navy, scientists have found. Archaeologists and bone experts have looked at 340 skeletons from three mid-18th to early 19th-century Royal Navy graveyards. At one cemetery in Plymouth, almost a fifth of the 170 skeletons were of teenagers, many of whom are believed to have died from diseases such as malaria or dysentery. One of the key individuals studied by the scientists is an 11-year-old boy who may have been a "powder monkey" supplying explosive charges to gunners. Osteologist Ceri Boston, of Oxford University's School of Archaeology, has been examining bones from the cemeteries in Plymouth, Gosport and Greenwich. She said: "They are the only major collections of Royal Navy skeletal material from Britain for this period which have ever been excavated. "The thousands of pieces of data we've been able to extract through our analysis is dramatically enriching our understanding of naval life in the Nelsonian era." The findings will be broadcast in a documentary called Nelson's Navy: Back From the Dead tomorrow at 8pm on Channel Four. Read more: http://www.mirror.co.../#ixzz1XCdjkAXP [/left]

Aye, Sir Henry, he were hard on his ships, so he were...seems he lost some off Panama...everyone looked, but couldn't find 'em at all... http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/08/04/7245795-capt-morgans-lost-fleet-found

Currently making my way thru the library's copy of "Starman : the truth behind the legend of Yuri Gagarin" , by Jamie Doran, and on my Coby, reading an epub version of Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett. Oh yes...88 days to go til me cruise...

And for some reason, I've entered a "Soviet" phase...which means I'm currently reading Lenin lives! : the Lenin cult in Soviet Russia / Nina Tumarkin, *and* Lenin Lives by Gregory O'Brien, a rather strange little work of fiction, that.

The classic 1990 version of Treasure Island, considered by many to be the best pirate movie ever, with Charlton Heston and Christian Bale, will be released on Sept 27, 2011. I have already pre-ordered my copy through Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Treasure-Island-Charlton-Heston/dp/B0057FGCR8/ref=sr_1_4?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1309549151&sr=1-4 What's more, I should get mine in time for me Oct 23 cruise...save it to watch on the Byg Bus going to Baltimore The rejoicing may now begin.

Hey, I got that one!

Aye, I've heard of the "Private Life"...never read it, tho. Just did a catalog search at the library where I work (since I'm working there today), and we don't have it...altho I could get it thru SearchOhio or Interlibrary Loan... Indeed. Ever read Li Zhisui's The Private Life of Chairman Mao? It paints a pretty nasty picture of the famine too, and how indifferent Mao was to what he was doing. And Mao's wife Jiang Qing is in some ways even scarier than Mao is. Believe it or not, in the '80s you could still find American college textbooks that tried to blame the famine on the bad weather. Leftist apologetics at its worst. Personally, given the choice, I'd much rather try to survive the Cultural Revolution than the great famine. If you kept your head down, parroted the party line, and jumped whenever the Red Brigades said "Frog," you could live through the Cultural Revolution not much worse than at any other time in China before the 1980s. And even if you were unlucky enough to get singled out for "re-education," it most often meant that you were very, very miserable on a remote farm for several years, rather than being murdered outright. The worst risk, of course, was to fall into the hands of the peasant "doctors" brought down from the countryside. Not a pleasant time to live, but much easier to withstand than simply starving to death as millions did in the Great Leap Forward.