News about CF specifically, or about Mike or Joe. Another catchall category, really
I’m gonna ahead and work on getting good ol’ Scrooge Picard up and running, while I have a free minute here. Expect weirdness, that’s all I’m sayin’, for a little bit anyway.
Yeah, the old boy is visiting us early this year, but what the hell; I like him, and I think we could all use a little Christmas cheer at this stage. Just think of it as my own upraised middle finger in the direction of our goosestepping dimestore dictators and their sick little holiday clampdown attempt.
Barry mentioned in comments that he wasn’t all that enamored with black tee’s, which mystifying, irrational bigotry I will never pretend to comprehend. But as well as continuing the work on several other designs, I’m gonna do a version of the “Revolt” image that’s suitable for display on a lighter-colored shirt as well just in case anyone else out there shares Barry’s ugly prejudice. I’ll keep ya posted, natch.
So as I was mulling our current sorry pass over earlier today, out of the blue I was struck by visions of a cpl-three new T-shirt design ideas for Ye Olde CF Emporium, one of which I’ve already put together a first draft of:
DAMMIT, I only realized on the way home from work that I had completely spaced on activating the CF Halloween theme this year. And given the insane amount of tweaking that will be required to bring the tired old thing even nominally into line with the more recent WP versions, it ain’t likely it’s going to make an appearance this year, alas.
On the bright side, however, it’s a matter of a paltry few days now until our beloved Scrooge Picard rears his top-hatted pate once more around these parts—since I blew off Halloween, I’m gonna inaugurate CF’s traditional holiday makeover early than ever this annum to make up to the CF Faithful. No need to thank me, folks. While you’re waiting, enjoy yourselves some spooky TuneDamage.
Well, unless maybe it’s Chopin’s world-famous Funeral March, that is. Now let’s shift gears.
Back in my punk-rock halcyon days, I loved the Dead Kennedys all to pieces, and the lyrics of this one in particular spoke to my very soul. Why not every day/Are you so afraid/What will people say? indeed.
Sure, I could very easily have taken the easy way out and tossed up Boris and the Crypt Kicker Five’s classic “Monster Mash” to close things out, like any ordinary blogger certainly would have. But predictability and obviousness ain’t why you guys hang around here in the first place, I figger. Not that there’s anything at all wrong with “Monster Mash,” I hasten to add. But we’ve all heard it enough times, and Gene Simmons’ rollicking, lesser-known little finger-snapper sounds fresh and fun in comparison.
Now to get back to seeing if there’s anything I can do to fit the old Helloween theme into a fresh new WP framework. In case you haven’t seen it or don’t remember it, the theme’s feature image was done up special for me by the seriously amazing American artist Coop, so I’m gonna do my damnedest to make this thing work here.
Update! It occurred to me, in light of the H-ween theme’s shortcomings, that I maybe oughta check up on Scrooge Picard’s overall operability just as a precautionary measure. And wouldn’tcha know it, looks like that one’s gonna need some re-working also—thereby sending any chance of getting Coop’s Helloween masterpiece into usable condition this weekend a-swirling right down the ol’ drain, dammit.
Could I possibly pick a more inopportune time for a Fall Fundraiser? What with the on-purpose and with-malice-aforethought derailing of the Trump economic juggernaut via unnecessary lockdowns; widespread civil unrest and violence; open revolutionary maneuvering from the more treacherous of our two political parties, and such-like unprecedented national angst, mounting a successful fundraiser would seem to be an extremely dubious proposition at the very best. For anybody, much less me.
But needs must, alas. Among other calamitous modern problems currently dogging the Casa CF balance sheet, I have an automobile engine-swap that badly needs doing most ricky-tick, something I dasn’t tackle my own self—lacking as I do both the equipment and the upper-blody strength to pull the job off without ending up squished flatter than a Joe Biden speech, a Ford 2.0-liter i4 cuddling snugly atop my chest and/or skull. I’ll have to hire the job done, to my eternal shame and disgrace as a proud, lifelong gearhead.
On the brighter side, I’ve been checking the local salvage yards, and there are a few compatible junkyard-mills to be had for as little as three hundred bucks. These motors all come with the reassurance and peace of mind that only an ironclad thirty-day guarantee can bring, so assumedly aren’t cursed with any of the same broken timing chains, bent valves, and maybe even holed piston-domes that combined to leave me stranded and forlorn on northbound I-85’s Brookshire off-ramp just over a month ago.
So yeah, we’ll just plunge on ahead with Ye Olde CF Blogge’s Fall Begathon nonetheless, and be damned to omens heralding the possibility of a lackluster outing. I didn’t do a Spring fundie the last two years, an event that had been more or less of a regular thing in years previous. So what the heck, this one’s actually overdue when you really think about it, right?
The PayPal “Support” link over there in the right sidebar awaits whatever alms y’all generous souls might be able to scrounge up and toss into the battered ol’ hat, even the most miserly of which will be very humbly appreciated by Ye Olde Blogge Hoste. I’ll leave this announcement up top for the remainder of the week, and hope for the best. Thanks, gang!
I’m slowly but surely getting Ye Olde CF Shoppe populated with mercantile goods many and varied; getting ready to go to work on the female-oriented clothing now, with an eye towards casting as big a net as possible here. I mean, DUDE: license plate frames? Keychains? It appears the sky’s the limit with this stuff. I mean, SRSLY, people—how could anybody not love this?
Also looking to work the CFE image in the sidebar over a bit too, I think, maybe even try to find a way to offer a rotating set of product images along with it via javascript. That is to say, I know it can be done; what’s unclear is whether it can done by me.
A question, though: a couple of you folks have mentioned having already made a purchase from the CFE, but I have yet to find the place in the store CP that logs and tracks such things. If anybody out there has prior experience enough with CafePress to know about that, do feel free to clue me in, willya? That is all for now, thankee muchee.
Update! Hrmph. Already I can see I need to do more original designs here. LOTS more.
Okay, got the brand new Cold Fury Emporium up and running, more or less, although it’s quite sparsely populated at the moment. I need to put an image and link over in the right sidebar next, which will be happening anon. I’ll be adding more products over the next days and weeks as well, of course, after which will begin the long, arduous process of tweaking the shop’s appearance and layout until my compulsive fumble-fucking around has utterly ruined the thing’s ability to function forever.
Because hey, that’s what I am, it’s what I do. I’m famous amongst those who know me best for the ingrained inability to leave anything alone, I do admit it. Seems to be in my DNA.
Also, for those of y’all who have noticed a certain, shall we say, inconstancy in posting the new Donnybrook each week…well, see, there’s a reason for that. After the first few weeks, I noticed that comments were usually topping out around 35 or so for each installment, which number seemed to me to be a fine point to put the old, tired post to bed and crank up a new one. So I’ve decided to wait until each Donnybrook reaches around thirty to thirty-five comments, which I consider reasonable enough, and then replacing it. God help me should this hogwallow ever start to get into the frenetically stratospheric comment numbers some other sites out there do. I wouldn’t know whether to shit or go blind at that point, honestly, and would probably just collapse into a gibbering, catatonic heap.
So in our latest Donnybrook installment, SteveF suggests putting out some CF merch, with kenny and Barry offering their dittos in support. He but little realized I was way ahead of him, long years ago. As I replied:
Actually, I did have, but it got to be too much to keep up with, honestly. Sales started off pretty brisk–they WERE nice shirts and stickers, if I do say so myself–but that meant I was always late getting orders packed and shipped and such-like folderol. So some years back I set up a CafePress store, uploaded the designs and all that, put up a sidebar link, and…didn’t sell a one, or not that I know of. Now I’ve completely forgotten the login and pass to the damned thing, and…well, heck, you’re right, I need to start all over again with the whole merch thing, don’t I?
I then threatened to dig up the old designs (I was rather proud of of ’em, actually) and post them here because hey, why the hell not. I still have a box of the actual shirts stored someplace or other, but the stickers I had made were snapped up pretty quick, I’m afraid; I gots no clue where the P-shop files for them might have wandered off to, alas. But here are the shirt designs:
My own personal fave, on a light beige/off-white shirt.
Why yes, that DOES look an awful lot like I might’ve appropriated the H-D bar and shield just a wee mite for the front of this one, don’t it?
The black one was front-only, nothing on back.
There were three, count ’em, 3 shirt designs, with a small image on front and a bigger one on back. I still have one of ’em myself, a faded, threadbare example fit only for working on motorcycles, painting living rooms, puppy-training, and whatnot.
Actually, looking at these things now, they seem to be reconstructions of the originals; the “Anger management” shirt is the one I still have, and the font above isn’t the same at all. If you’ll notice, too, the orange color on the front design is way different than the “Anger management” side. Also, I don’t remember the black one having any kind of slogan on it at all, just Angry Guy, the CF logo, and the “Harshing your etc” motto. But I could easily be all wet on that one. I need to scrounge up that box of shirts and check one of these days, I reckon. Pretty sure I know where it is. Pretty sure.
I liked the CafePress store, I must say. It made the whole enterprise one hell of a lot easier on me, plus I could offer things like coffee mugs and mouse pads—items I would never have been able to afford having printed up and then only selling a handful of them. Yeah, the price was/is a lot higher with CP, and the profit margin slimmer. Maybe that’s the reason I never sold a damned thing with it.
If I can find that ol’ box of shirts, assuming they haven’t gone all moldy and mildewy or been gnawed by vermin over lo, these many years, maybe we could have some sort of CF contest with those as the prizes or something. Might be just the thing to help celebrate the imminent 19th (!!!) birthday (9/14/01, if I recall correctly) of this here den of internet iniquity, no?
Oh yeah, here’s the image for the sidebar link to Ye Olde CF Mercantile Shoppe, just for grins ‘n’ giggles:
Yes, I actually did have honest-to-goodness shopping cart software set up and functional, while it lasted. The CF Shop was the first online store I ever built—OSCommerce, I believe, is what I used for running the backend of the thing. In fact, I was happy enough with OSCommerce that I used it several times afterwards for other commercial sites I worked on as well. Kind of a steep learning curve initially, or seemed so to my dumb ass, anyway. But not too bad, and once you got it all sussed out it was easy-peasy.
All in all the OSC software worked great: almost astoundingly customizable and tweakable; completely reliable; and readily adaptable to most any kind of online store you might wish to use it for, from music or audiobook downloads to (probably) amateur Pr0n (I’m guessing). Plus, it was also, y’know, free. Lots of useful plugins available for it too, most of those also free. If you’re thinking of setting up an e-commerce site, you could do a lot worse than OSC. I endorse the heck out of it.
Update! DANG, those images are big! Need to get into P-shop and shrink ’em down a bit. Sorry for all that bandwidth wastage, peeps.
Well, I have no idea what the hell that was about, but over the weekend my brand-new Kipling sub-page seems to have got et somehow. Naturally, since I built the thing in the WP-native, server-based code editor instead of my usual third-party blogging software, I had no backup for it. So I just reconstructed it more or less from scratch, with a few modifications here and there.
And oddly enough, I now note that there are actually a good few recent posts that have gone missing, including the original Kipling notification. This all happened after I updated WordPress and a couple of plugins Friday, which must be the cause, although I can’t imagine why such a thing would happen, and it never has before. I’ll see about restoring them all, although I’ll bet anything the associated comments are gone for good. Very bizarre—and after last year’s mysterious and crippling Rooskie hack, damned alarming, too.
Update! Okay, last Thursday night’s posts restored, comments for said posts lost forever, just as I feared. Now I’m worried that this is an indication of some unwelcome malefactor skulking about inside my site CP, rather than merely some odd WP glitch. And I ain’t digging that thought at all.
The more astute among y’all miscreants, reprobates, and guttersnipes will no doubt have noticed a shiny, brand-new link up there in the masthead links bar called simply, “Kipling.” What the hell, you may have wondered, that seems…odd. Well, from the sub-page the link attaches to, here’s your explanation:
It would be no more than apt to call Rudyard Kipling the de facto poet laureate of the American warrior caste, along with their British cousins and a few others. Professional military men who are in the know revere him for his deep understanding of not only the eternal human condition, but of the human spirit as well. His writing is as sharp as a razor, as elegant as tulips in bloom, and as uncompromising as a punch in the mouth. Better still, the reasons soldiers so love his brilliant work—the reasons I do myself, and always have—are the self-same ones why shitlibs everywhere absolutely loathe him.
He saw clearly the obvious superiority of Western thinking, of the culture wrought by it. He was an unapologetic colonialist; the seemingly eternal sorriness of the state of affairs in most of their colonies long years after the Brits granted them their independence would seem to validate those views somewhat, to say the least. The professorial Left, in their reflexive hatred for not only Kipling but for all things colonial, has led them to almost entirely write him out of the canon of English literature; when they’re forced to mention him at all, it is only ever in the most bitterly disparaging and contemptuous of terms.
Which, as far as I’m concerned, is as robust a recommendation for him as I can possibly imagine. If you haven’t read Kipling yet, prepare yourself for a real treat, a total delight. If you have read him, but not lately, enjoy renewing your acquaintance with one of the finest writers ever gifted to the world by English-language poesy. I confess to being somewhat embarrassed that, after nineteen years toiling away in the blogging saltmines here, it only just now occurred to me how richly he merits a place on this websty. I can only beg that y’all accept my shamefaced apologies for such a grievous oversight.
A complete listing of Kipling’s poetry can be found here. Enjoy, folks.
My title above is a common ice-breaker question among military men, at least according to John Ringo, who oughta know. The page is now live, but without any poems on it at the moment. I’m gonna be working on that tonight, and probably for some little time to come yet too, I imagine, as I dive into the great man’s copious archive and remember some old treasures that I’d forgotten. Not sure how many I’m gonna post on the Kipling subpage as of yet; it’s gonna be one of those deals where I’ll find it hard to leave anything out. With Kipling, too much is never enough. Like I said: enjoy.
I’ve noticed of late a sudden influx of what appear to be spurious user registrations hereabouts. My suspicions were aroused by 1) bizarre-looking usernames with a bunch of numbers in ’em, which almost nobody does in my long experience, and 2) a crap-ton of email addresses from questionable locales like thepartyzone.org, or viodehead.info and such-like.
Not at all wanting to put up with a repeat of the crippling hack that totally hosed the site for a couple of months last winter, a total catastrophe that rendered fucking 19 years’ worth of archives radioactive—ie, too hot to risk reinstating them without spending a mind-boggling amount of time sifting through the databases to remove any sinister-looking code still lurking about, time I simply do not have—I’m taking the simpler route of dumping the shady users before they can find a way to exceed their user-limitations and bring this place crashing down again.
That said, it’s entirely possible (if not damned likely) that in the course of this precautionary housekeeping I’ll delete a legit user or three that hasn’t caused any problems and harbors no ill intent. So if that sounds like you and you should find yourself 86’d unjustly, please do shoot me an email and I’ll cheerfully reinstate you, with my humblest apologies for the error.
Update! Hrmm. Wonder who this “Ferrous Ursine” character might be? Sure sounds like a miscreant to me…
Light posting will likely continue through the rest of the week, due to the onset of one damned thing after another that seems to constitute life at Totleigh Towers. Which is too bad, really, because at the moment I have about thirty open tabs in the Brave browser, just sitting there waiting for me to unleash my wrathful attention on ’em. This sudden tsunami of truly historical events of late threatens to drown Ye Olde Blogghoste in neglected blog-fodder here, I admit.
After a couple of days to mull it over, I’m thinking the best way to handle our new Daily Donnybrook open thread is to refresh it a couple times a week—putting up a new one, say, every Tuesday and Friday or Saturday. I’m definitely grateful to the folks who recommended doing it, if only for the sudden influx of BBQ recipes and the like in the comments; from that, it’s easy to envision this thing turning into something very damned useful indeed around this place.
Anyways, back when I can, as I can, folks. Oh, and here’s a neat little bit of arcana about that London Calling album cover some of y’all might not have heard about before:
It all began on the 20th September 1979. On that day, in Palladium club in New York took place the concert of a British rock group, The Clash. During the concert, the upset bassist wrecked his guitar on the scene, and the moment was captured on photography by Pennie Smith. Thanks to this photo, one of the most famous album covers in the history of rock came to existence.
The final version of the cover was designed by Ray Lowry. Pennie Smith at first didn’t want to allow the use of her photo, arguing that it’s blurry. Lowry convinced her that the lack of focus was in this case a good thing, as it made it more authentic and spontaneous.
London Calling cover quickly became famous all over the world. It was a pastiche, meaning a conscious reference to another piece. Lowry used composition and lettering similar to Elvis Presley’s earlier (RCA debut) album. It was a bit provocative, as Elvis was acclaimed back then as the king of rock and the less famous band The Clash was only about to begin another revolution in rock music, but in a way more hardcore version.
There’s a pic of the Simenon P-bass aftermath, too. It wound up in about the condition you’d expect, alas.
It tickles me no end to inform you that, after years of threatening bodily injury most dire to be visited upon himself, his wife, his children, and even his doggehs, our bosom chum Ironbear has at last cheerfully relented and agreed to grace us all hereabouts with an occasional post as and when the fancy may strike him. I couldn’t be happier about that, and I know you folks will feel the same way. Welcome aboard, my friend.
Update! As a few of you have recommended, I’m also going to be implementing a new open comments thread here, for the many topics I don’t get a chance to cover or just whatever comes to mind for the participants. I’d like to make it a daily thing the way Reynolds does, rather than weekly a la Bill Quick; it’s my thought that such a thing would be much easier to manage on a daily basis. Problem being, there are plenty of days I don’t even sit down at the trusty ol’ iMac at all, so realistically speaking it will probably end up being more of a three or four day a week affair.
Aside to SteveF: somewhere between the phone and the ‘puter your email vanished into the ether, which is why I never did give you a shout back. But as you can see, your lovingly-administered kick in the pants has yielded the desired result, shall we say. Ahem.
Barry mentioned in comments last night that he hadn’t seen Silverado yet, whereupon I responded that the movie starts kicking ass right from the opening credits and goes all the way through without letup. That whetted my appetite for a rewatching of the opener, which in turn made me think of some other personal favorite scenes from the movie, which…well, you begin to get the idea. So, for the CF crew’s Friday-night viewing pleasure, a few of my favorite scenes from one of my all-time favorite flicks. Because I care, I’ll embed ’em all below the fold so they don’t clutter up the main page.
Enjoy, y’all. Continue reading “More Silverado“
Got the comments weirdness all sorted out—I think—but some if not most of you will probably need to re-register yourselves and possibly change your password. For Barry: the like/dislike option is back in business too as well. I forgot to reactivate the plugin for it, that’s all. Feel free to notify me of any further dysfunction, as always. And with that, have at it, gang!
NOTE: In order to comment, you must be registered and approved as a CF user. Since so many user-registrations are attempted by spam-bots for their own nefarious purposes, YOUR REGISTRATION MAY BE ERRONEOUSLY DENIED.
If you are in fact a legit hooman bean desirous of registering yourself a CF user name so as to be able to comment only to find yourself caught up as collateral damage in one of my irregularly (un)scheduled sweeps for hinky registration attempts, please shoot me a kite at the email addy over in the right sidebar and let me know so’s I can get ya fixed up manually.
ALSO NOTE: You MUST use a valid, legit email address in order to successfully register, the new anti-spam software I installed last night requires it. My thanks to Barry for all his help sorting this mess out last night.
Comments appear entirely at the whim of the guy who pays the bills for this site and may be deleted, ridiculed, maliciously edited for purposes of mockery, or otherwise pissed over as he in his capricious fancy sees fit. The CF comments section is pretty free-form and rough and tumble; tolerance level for rowdiness and misbehavior is fairly high here, but is NOT without limit.
Management is under no obligation whatever to allow the comments section to be taken over and ruined by trolls, Leftists, and/or other oxygen thieves, and will take any measures deemed necessary to prevent such. Conduct yourself with the merest modicum of decorum, courtesy, and respect and you'll be fine. Pick pointless squabbles with other commenters, fling provocative personal insults, issue threats, or annoy the host (me) and...you won't.
Should you find yourself sanctioned after running afoul of the CF comments policy as stated and feel you have been wronged, please download and complete the Butthurt Report form below in quadruplicate; retain one copy for your personal records and send the others to the email address posted in the right sidebar.
Please refrain from whining, sniveling, and/or bursting into tears and waving your chubby fists around in frustrated rage, lest you suffer an aneurysm or stroke unnecessarily. Your completed form will be reviewed and your complaint addressed whenever management feels like getting around to it. Thank you.
"Mike Hendrix is, without a doubt, the greatest one-legged blogger in the world." ‐Henry Chinaski
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