Cost of War

No long diatribe here. Just a link showing the costs of this war in dollars. No one can put a monetary value on the over 1800 lives lost in the US and the thousands of civilians lost in Iraq.

Is this me in an alternate timeline?

I watched the trailer for the upcoming film 'Lord of War' starring Nicolas Cage. In the first 10 second of the trailer he says several sobering facts about about arms use in the world, and then says something so wrong that my mouth actually fell open. Then I giggled.

Go watch the trailer, then come back... I'll wait...


Ok. I know that rampant gun proliferation is not solving the worlds problems. I actually support gun control because too many stupid monkeys have access to guns and tend to use them in very bad, stupid ways. Getting a gun should be a very difficult process that involves careful training, psycological examinations and a test before getting a license. Of course, I also feel this way about breeding, but that's another matter.

But this film makes me smile. I worked selling swords and pole arms at the Ohio Ren for five years. And I loved it. There is a great sense of pride in providing a quality product to a customer at a decent price. I loved showing off what the swords could do. In short, I was an arms dealer. I should be shocked that Hollywood would take such a serious subject and trivialize it into a comedy. But I'm not. Because when I see Nick Cage up on that screen, its like looking at myself through a kind of funhouse mirror. The fact is, shooting guns is fun as hell. I love it. It's just the part where people point them at other people that kills my buzz.

5 star accomidations

5 star accomidations
Originally uploaded by stevepack.

Nothing but the best for us when we travel. Here we see the shower

house- er, spa, yeah that's it, at the luxurious hotel--- uh campground.

Reprieve

In short, today rocked. This is a good thing. The sales figures over the
last two weekends showed about a 40% drop from last year. That's pretty
serious. Lots of murmuring amongst the merchants. Bitter words and
rolled eyes at the ineptitude of management. People start wondering
aloud if maybe Pittsburgh would be a better use of time and resources.

And than a great day hits. It was like feeding time at the Pirhanna
tank. Several of us pulled about a pretty decent day. Enought that the
extra sort of balances out one of the earlier suck days. This
'correction' suddenly makes us forget all the bitching and moaning we've
been doing up to this point.

'Oh sure, attendance is down, but we had a correction. Sunshire and
rainbows can't be far around the bend now can they?'.

'Yesh, the patrons have contracted ebola and I myself am covered in
boils but we had a correction, so things are looking up.'

Its like we have the attention span of a flea. I'm hoping for another
great day tommorow, to further help balance out some of the previous
suck. That would be nice. And it would help with the boils...

Holy Batprops!

Ok, I'm not a huge fan of the TV series. It has some funny moments, but its camp. The best things about it were the Batmobile and appearences by Julie Newmar as Catwoman. But now I have a third item to add to that list. Some clever prop monkey has recreated the bust of Shakespere that Bruce Wayne used to open the secret entrance to the batcave. That's pretty cool. Maybe not $300 cool, but cool nonetheless.

Slow going

Last weekend was Celtic theme weekend at the fair. Typically this is the
busiest weekend of the show but once again attendance was down. It was
hot, sure, but we're starting to see a trend. This weekend is looking
the same sales-wise. Better weather yesterday and good attendance, but
the threat of rain today.

I am exhausted. We drove to the Michigan Ren site wednesday and painted
the booth that night and all next day. Gruelling work.the closer I look
the more repairs I see that need to be made. I somehow managed to catch
a cold despite the 87+ degree weather. There's a lot of murmurs among
the merchants at Great Lakes. I was invited to a secret meeting at a
time and place I shall not reveal but it conflicted with my schedule. I
politely bowed out. Plus, I'm not sure what they hope to achieve.
Everyones numbers are down. We all know that. is it managements fault?
Who can say for absolute sure. There are a number of small grievences
but no one giant thing anyone can point to as a cause. I'm grateful
that we have ok sales, others are far worse off. But there's no
corporate paycheck to fall back on now. This is it. In the end, it will
be mid october before we have a fairly clear idea about how good or bad
the season was.

Pennsic approaches. Totally unprepared. Looks like Lindsey will be
driving with us. That's got me a little excited. I'm hoping she falls in
love with Pennsic like Rossana and I did.

This complicates my plans...

I posted a few weeks ago about some rather clever monkeys who make the most delicious props. You can find their website here. Not only did said clever monkeys manage to create a complete suit of steel Ring Wraith Armor, accurate down to the subatomic level, they then decided to spread the joy by taking the costume to a local theater and scaring a feces out of several people by standing very still and looking like a well done movie promotion display. I giggled with wicked glee at the reactions of the unsuspecting rubes. A good time was had by all.


I returned from a hot and rainy weekend working the Great Lakes fair only to discover that my well intentioned spies had emailed me the following picture:




I can only surmise that my friends (who's identities must remain secret, though their initials are John and Debbie Prisel) were showing off their cool friends in an attempt to raise my ire. And raise it they have. How can I secretly plan on killing these people and taking all of their stuff if they know who the hell I am? I mean, I had the fucking element of surprise here and now my cover is blown. I will need to arrange a completely new and airtight alibi for my whereabouts when they disappear and that shit isn't cheap.

There is another possibility however. The people in the photo look slightly confused and/or scared. The message might be a code. They might just be promising to visit The Cool Report through the Internets, Oooooooor 'visiting thecoolreport.net' might mean that my faithful spies have liquidated their targets, disposed of the bodies and their swag is on its way to my secret storage facility in Lodi, Ohio. In which case... Good job chaps! You will be well rewarded....

Sweet Jeebus

How could this thing have been developed without my knowledge? My spies have failed me. They must be punnished. I love the fact that its listed as being street legal, although there is a 'noise issue'. Of course there's a noise issue! It's a mutherfucking JET CAR!!

Wonderfully cool

Go and look at this creation. You may need to download and install shockwave to view it. Do it, its worth the effort.

Handy

There are those who think that I some some nutter with delusions of grandeur. These people will be the first against the wall when I take command of this miserable mud ball of a planet.

But what kind of Evil Genius am I? What is my mission statement? What is my evil, grand design?

Thank god some clever monkey developed the 'Make your own evil plan' generator. This thing has saved me loads of time and really helped me focus my energies towards world domination.

Spreak gud Engrish

I am a big fan of the English language. And I encourage anyone, no everyone to learn to speak it as best they can. I attribute much of my limited success in life to my ability to clearly speak and comunicate. My writen grammer is far from perfect (as anyone who reads this blog can attest) and the widespread use of internet lingo isn't helping things. I was still pleased tro see that I still remember some of the basics. Go take the test for yourself. I know, it's kind of a flashback to High School, but in a good, non socially awkward way.

English Genius You scored 92% Beginner, 92% Intermediate, 93% Advanced, and 93% Expert!

You did so extremely well, even I can't find a word to describe your excellence! You have the uncommon intelligence necessary to understand things that most people don't. You have an extensive vocabulary, and you're not afraid to use it properly! Way to go! Thank you so much for taking my test. I hope you enjoyed it! For the complete Answer Key, visit my blog: http://shortredhead78.blogspot.com/.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 29% on Beginner You scored higher than 22% on Intermediate You scored higher than 33% on Advanced You scored higher than 89% on Expert

Link: The Commonly Confused Words Test written by shortredhead78 on OkCupid Free Online Dating

Weekend two - things slip

When we checked the books last sunday we found that our sales were
actually up from last year. But one weekend does not make a trend. Last
year our saturday was good and sunday sucked the sweat off a dead mans
balls.

Ahem.

Yesterdays attendance was down significantly. This was the Celtic themed
weekend, usually its packed. The weather was great, so what's the cause?
When things are slow you have all kinds of time to ask that question.
What gives? You talk to your neighbor "how's it going?" you ask "pretty
sucky" they reply. Where is everyone? Is there some other local event?
What's happening in Cleveland? The day drags on and on. There is a kind
of communal misery lightened by some gallows humor.

Eventually the crowds pick up though they're still not not at the level
you'd like. (The crowd can never be too big). With Lindsey and Jesse's
help I manage to pull the day out of a nosedive. There is a nice post
4pm, slightly drunk rush. Alcohol is a great wallet lubricant.

One woman is keen to get a corset but the husband is resistant. She goes
off and has a short conversation with him. I can sence her usuing her
feminine whiles on him the way Obi Won can sence disturbances in the
force. She comes back witha credit card, smiling. 'This corset's gonna
cost a blowjob'.

I look at the woman with a completely straight face and tell her that
although her husband seems like a nice enough fellow, I am happily
married and don't swing that way.

She laughs so hard we have to pick her up off the floor of the shop.

When I check the numbers at the end of the day I am suprised to find we
did pretty well. This is always a bit awkward. you don't want your
fellow merchants to feel bad. You never discuss actual numbers. Instead,
you resort to broad generalizations "pretty good" or "not bad" are
fairly non commital. We retire to the local restaurant for dinner with
fellow crafters and then off to camp Buccaneer to sleep. Tomorrow is
another day.

Terrorism sucks

London gets bombed. It was bound to happen. The tube is a tempting target. But they will track down the bombers because London has the most video cameras per person of ANY city in the world. And great counterterrorism units thanks to the IRA. Building a bomb is not hard, placing a bomb is not hard, getting away with this kind of thing IS hard. England has its shit straight.

America on the other hand is fucked. We are a huge country. We have thousands of miles of tracks, mass transit in most cities and massive coastlines. Protecting these assets is a massive undertaking. It will take billions. Now where could we get money like that? Of course! The federal budget! Oh wait, we're dumping 400 billion into a lie in Iraq. Our National Guard is there, our reserves are there. They are spending MY TAX DOLLARS to provide a fertile training ground for Al Qaida. Iraq is far better than Afghanistan. I man, what's in Afghanistan? Nothing. But Iraq had lots of big cities. Lots of places to hide, sympathetic citizens, lots of unemployed army folks. And you can get there on a number of airlines. Thanks George! You fucktard.

Kinda freakin out here

Okay, go take a look and tell me we're not moving a little bit towards the Taliban here. I filmly believe in separating Religion and the Military and keeping them as far apart from each other as possible. I know that 'there are no athiests in a foxhole' and that these people are not Jihadists. But it's a very small step to go from Spiritual Warfare to Actual Warfare.

You have probably never seen an army missile used in a church service or a pastor dressed in fatigues, but that is exactly what you'll find Sundays at New Born Fellowship Christian Center in Rochester, where church leaders have decided to conduct a new program called Spiritual Warfare.

Our military is already a little too 'Onward Christian Soldiers' for my tastes as it is. The Airforce Academy had some trouble with spouting off Bible teachings and every time BushCo thanks GOD(tm) for the strength to carry on this insane war I winge almost as much as I do when we ask for his almighty help in glorious victory against Wassamatta U in the big game this Friday.

I know that these people are just trying to shake things up a bit. It's theme Sunday and that always helps boost attendance. But they seem to be missing the point. The job of the military is to (in theory)defend our country. And to do that, they kill people. They don't do it through prayer or through calm negotiations. Warfare is not not a noble venture. It is a bloody, chaotic and ugly thing. In war, unspeakable attrocities are commited by both sides. The innocent suffer.

To the good people of this church; I recommend that you think of some other theme. Something with less horrific connotations. Maybe 'Battle Royal' or 'Holy Crusade'. Hmmm No, those don;t quite work do they. How about just wearing funny hats. God has a sense of humor. I'm sure he'd dig funny hats.

2005 season - day one

The frist official day is in the can and I am pretty pleased. The heat
wave that has plauged us for several weeks seems to have eased up. It
was a perfect day. So much can ride on the weather. Too cold and people
don't want to unbundle to try on clothes. Too hot and people don't want
to add layers. Rain is a tricky thing. Rain in the morning is a sales
killer but if a nice day turns to crap we still tend to keep the die
hards.

Every year is a bit of a crap shoot. You can't know what's really
happened with a show until you set up and can go talk/gossip with your
fellow rennies. Lots of changes this year. The human powered rides are
missing, several merchants are absent and the street character cast
comprised mostly of volunteers is almost half of last years numbers.
Attendance was a bit light but our sales were good. I don't think the
fair is in trouble but you're always keeping your eyes and ears open for
signs of trouble. We want to build a booth here and you hear stories
about folks building nice booths only to have the show fold the next
year.

Last years first Sunday was aweful. We're hoping to change that
situation this year. Wish us luck.