Shields at 33%

There's also small boulders in the exploding consoles.

Dance now, for tomorrow you die

Neelix knew what was what. You could shake off this mortal coil in just a few moments, so dance while you can. Laugh while you can. Appreciate classic 90's sci-fi, if you can.

Pretty Fly

Awesome shirt, Pappy! That's some hippy shit, right there.

And for your daily moment of despair, try and imagine any current Republican in any way celebrating or even noting Earth Day. Go ahead, I'll wait....

That said, Pappy would stand zero chance of winning any national position in today's Republican party. Not isane enough, by far.

Music to

I have no idea what such music might sound like, and now I don't want to know. I'll fancy a world of the Night Pastor and his Seven Friends cooing and making... bread noises? Such strange imaginings. And to lure? Is the Good Pastor capturing these pigeons? For what nefarious and/or sonorous purpose, one wonders?

Speaking of nefarious,

It's a real thing, apparently. Look!

Surely, no internet wag went to the trouble of printing a CD label? More proof:

You start the CD the same moment the Windows 98 setup screen loads. Fucking mind blowing!

Bill Clinton Fan-o-Gram

I kinda bad mouthed Bill Clinton in the last post. I don't take it back, and there's more, but I also wanted to state for the record how much I like Bill Clinton as President and as former President, and as a person. For the following reasons:

1. He's self made - Daddy long gone, raised by his not rich Mom and Grandparents. Like Barack Obama, I'd add.

2. He's motivated and intelligent, personable and funny.

3. He's a lover. Check out this incredible shot of Bill and a young, hot Hill. What a couple - their relationship goes back all the way.

4. He's got great hair.

5. He worked his way to the top.

6. He knows history.

7. He's aged well.

Insert your own love (and internet macro) for William Jefferson Clinton if you would, or will. Some - plenty - won't. To them I say, c'mon! Dude's awesome, even if you don't agree with his policies. You're telling me you wouldn't want to have a beer with Bill Clinton?

LIAR! Or teetotaler.  Either way, pshaw!

Aquadogs (What a country!)

What a country! What a world. This guy gets an idea - hey! Dogs underwater are funny. People love their dogs. Maybe they'll pay me good money to take pictures of their dogs underwater. And verily it was so. FSM bless America. Enjoy.

Cute but terrifying in a "doll come to murderous life" kinda way.

Aw gosh aw gosh I'm in it now!

What are you thinking of?

Work like parachutes.

Like dogs in general, mostly cute and awesome but just below the surface, sometimes revealed, wild monsters of fang and claw.

Protip! No matter how well you know the dogs and how cool said dogs might be, never stick your hand in between two of their mouths when they're set on something. Only scars will result.
Also too, cuz it's cool and apropos:

This is the baby from Nirvana's "Nevermind" cover. All grown up! Time, man. It doth fly.

A memory of a dream remembered

Shamelessly stolen from l.e.s.t.e.r. Ex post facto OK, brah?

This was the dream I lived, twice. On a lake with a canoe and a keyboard, a hoe and boots for working and hiking. A dog - Kennedy (above) - by my side through the woods deep and wide, over beaver dam into the Wastelands, no where was off limits to a boy and his dog in the Summer of 99. Good times. But just a dream, and in that dream fashioned another dream, far off into the future, one day to build a castle of stone and wood high on a mountaintop. Lo! And so it has come to be, a sizable financial commitment to an idea birthed in the heat of fantasy lived, for a season or 4.

Check it: I used to canoe way out to the other side of the lake (a mile or so) where there was this sweet little island of cliff and pine. I made a soft seat of the fallen pine needles and spongy ground between three pines overlooking the lake and mountains, and read Joseph Campbell's "Hero with a Thousand Faces". From late spring to early fall almost every other weekday afternoon, weather permitting, of course. It was magic, and I reminded myself then to remember it, now. And so here it is. Thanks for the pics, l.e.s.t.e.r.

Paladins Suck

One of the early nerds, rocking a dot matrix printer. What a wonder! Has the world ever produced a person so magnificently useless? They dedicate a goodly portion of their lives sitting in front of a screen, typing at other nerds sitting in front of screens, arguing arcana of anime and the like. Such glorious sloth! Tis a Godly thing, as in this world of tooth and claw here we are, humans, fat and given to wasting lives on pointless minutia. Like Gods.

And so I give you the apex of humanity (for now): The Nerd. Totem to the wealth of our societies, the great luxury of our conquest of evolution. No longer are food and shelter and tigers the issues, but rather high scores and Boss Battles and quantity of soda on hand for the epic quest to capture the Fortress of Paladins.

Master of all he surveys. A Dark Power he wields in the keeping of it. Verily!

The Young Knight would have words for such Paladins.

This all is leading of course to the point where we humans shed our bodies and move on to more flexible forms. Without major interruption, it is inevitable. And the Nerds shall lead us.

Unleashed (Cry Havoc)

Remember those fun days? They're not that long gone, and by gum we're on the verge of bringing the political party responsible for all of it back into power of the US Government, Ruler of the World. You should be terrified, for they are not only Unrepentant, but even more insane, rapacious, bloodthirsty. The Republican Party is an active source of evil in this world, and we all suffer from their predations. And not just us, but our dogs.

Dogs trained to be aggressive, threatening. Wonder how their lives turned out? Wonder how everyone in this picture lives turned out. Badly for all, I hazard. But this is not new, of course. We've been waging war, and torturing, and ruining dog's lives for a long time.

 An Assryian relief, circa 650 BC. This relief was found in Nineveh, Iraq, and now probably lives in the British Museum like most everything else ever found from Assyria. If you ever have the chance to visit this museum, you must. And take more than one day. But anyways, know who else had a dog?

That's right: Hitler Dog. Think the other NAZI dogs had to salute him and give up their bones and such? Probably not: Dogs are naturally socialistic as shit. But I digress.

This is a military medic treating a dog bite on an Iraqi prisoner, naked, as per the torture routine - handed down from on high, probably right from the tippity top - Cheney, Rummy, and the Gang. Everyone else on down to these folks is just following orders, but perhaps taking a bit too much glee in it.

And here is my Redshirt's Lament for today: That these destructive Republicans have released a wicked genie from its bottle for their short term political and financial gains - hate, torture, sadism, fear, distrust, etc, etc. They've unleashed havoc - and here, or rather there, in the early 1990's,  I had such high hopes that America was turning a corner. The PC Movement - arguably one of the most important movements in American history for it's wide ranging impact -  was at it's peak and changing everything, for the better. A New Era of Hippyism was rising - I refer you to The Spin Doctors, for example - and everything in the country and the world seemed to be getting awesome. Europe was free, dictatorships were crumbling across the world, with few bullets fired. Global co-operation was at an all time high, nations mostly working for each other's benefits (mostly)... ah. It was great. But then something horrible happened - an evil seed (Nixon) sprouted and unleashed insanity upon our nation. Newt Gingrich was in the lead and it led to the Impeachment of a popular president, the mass consolodation of corporate power across the board, including the media (Witness the banks merging, the oil companies merging, all the media merging, etc), and a stolen election. About which I still am in dumb shock that it happened, all orchestrated out of Fox HQ and the state government of Florida. And then 9/11 and it was like Manna from the Heavens for these psychos - this, OBL wisely knew, and thus the brilliance of his terrible plot - as they could indulge every one of their long held lusts, for war and death and bombs and torture and a cowering domestic population giving them whatever they want - gladly, with a vicious spite in it. We, as a nation, have been thoroughly poisoned by these people, and this is but one of the results.

Once we go down this road too far, we'll never come back - perhaps it is already too late, but I have hope in Obama, still. So we'll see. If anyone can roll back the tides of hate, repression, bigotry, and sheer evil, it's Barack Hussein Obama.

Anyways, all this was just a setup to post this awesome pic, the artist of which I have sadly forgotten.

Other fictional ships of my youth

My first fictional love. I had all kinds of wild daydreams about sailing off into deep space, visiting strange planet after bizarre anomaly. When my last Grandmother - Gen - died, my Aunt (her Daughter) sent me a bunch of stuff from my youth she had collected. One piece was an 8 by 11 drawing of the Enterprise in battle, fighting off the Klingons. It was rather elaborate, and remarkable, for it was signed, Redshirt, Age 4. I've been a Trekkie a long time, though I have given up practicing, the last 3-5 years of Trek so terrible I just couldn't stand it anymore. Sigh! I wasn't the biggest fan of the latest movie, though it was alright, and leagues better than the atrocious Trek of the years before.

I remember drawing space battle after space battle throughout my youth, featuring not just the Enterprise, but other ships. The Yamato:

An awesome show. At least as I remember it. Though I now question why anyone would have a spaceship look like a navy Destroyer.

From the truly excellent "Space:1999". Which, LOL! Yeah, right, in 1999 we were still talking about Slick Willie's Willy. And to be honest, I don't think we really partied like it was 1999 either. We failed you, Prince!
Also?

Next time you watch the original, and best, Star Wars, note the discrepancy between Luke and Leia's behavior. Leia watched her homeworld get incinerated, everyone upon it dying. Luke watched a guy he met a few days earlier disappear. And yet the entire second half of SW is spent focusing on Luke's loss and how he deals with it - and not the loss of Owen and Beru, either, his adoptive parents for his entire life. Just the old hermit dude. Whereas Leia's loss is not mentioned again.

I blame the Force.  For this too:

We only got to see one Ewok die in ROTJ, and here's his action figure. Realistically, a shitload of Ewoks should have bit it that glorious day. But the movie would have you believe it was cuddly teddy bears defeating the finest legion of the Emperor's Guard, with but one loss. Lucas! I posit he'd already lost his "vision" by ROTJ. For any complaint you would level against the second trilogy, and there are many (though I enjoy it overall), look back to ROTJ and see if the same complaint doesn't stand. I bet it does.

Thus, the lesson: Success breeds complacency. Therefore, never be successful.

Posse's in effect

He's got a Posse, don't you know? I hope you do. A cool sticker meme from the early 90's, continuing today.

I saw my first one in Albuquerque, I think. Long time ago. I later went to a party at the artist's - Shepard Fairey - awesome loft in Providence RI, but got stranded, then there was a big snowstorm, and I had no money, and it was a long time getting back to Boston.

The meme has mutated, of course, as they always will, and has become much bigger than the humble sticker above.

But anyway, few could stand against Andre, being such a giant and all, and with said posse. Even The Greatest quakes in fear:

Eyes on the Enterprise

I know now I'm getting old. As if by magic, suddenly everything from the 70's, 80's, and even the 90's looks beautiful to me. I mean, look at those suits! Look at Roddenberry - big Trek pimpin'. Bones is all "Far out, cat". And surely, a sudden fondness for things you once loathed is a sign of advancing years. It's biochemical, no doubt.

Also, too: Pour one out for the shuttle Enterprise. It never flew in space, and was indeed named the Enterprise due to Trekkies writing letters to President Ford. The power of Trekkies was once potent, but has now been dispersed across the great Internet. 

Also, also:

It's on my Registry.

Egads. Back boob tattoo (album name?), and since I doubt you'll ever guess who these representations are, let me tell you: Data, and two nobodies (Trip and Reed!). I pity the fool who got this on his back - the LASER removal must have been very painful.