I am spending my Saturday cleaning up all the junk in my childhood room. Check out all this treasure:

This is a close approximation of what my child would look like if I was able to mate with my high-school self. For those of you who count, that’s one (1) strike against natural law.

• For those of you unfamiliar with natural law, here are two (2) links:
  • link 1
  • link 2
• For those of you who are familiar with natural law, here are two (2) links:
  • www.doctorshobbies.com
  • www.doctorstalents.com

From “Slang in America” by Walt Whitman (emphasis mine):

It is curiously in embryons and childhood, and among the illiterate, we always find the groundwork and start, of this great science [slang], and its noblest products. What a relief most people have in speaking of a man not by his true and formal name, with a “Mister” to it, but by some odd or homely appellative. The propensity to approach a meaning not directly and squarely, but by circuitous styles of expression, seems indeed a born quality of the common people everywhere, evidenced by nick-names, and the inveterate determination of the masses to bestow sub-titles, sometimes ridiculous, sometimes very apt. Always among the soldiers during the secession war, one heard of “Little Mac” (Gen. McClellan), or of “Uncle Billy” (Gen. Sherman.) “The old man” was, of course, very common. Among the rank and file, both armies, it was very general to speak of the different States they came from by their slang names. Those from Maine were call’d Foxes; New Hampshire, Granite Boys; Massachusetts, Bay Staters; Vermont, Green Mountain Boys; Rhode Island, Gun Flints; Connecticut, Wooden Nutmegs; New York, Knickerbockers; New Jersey, Clam Catchers; Pennsylvania, Logher Heads; Delaware, Muskrats; Maryland, Claw Thumpers; Virginia, Beagles; North Carolina, Tar Boilers; South Carolina, Weasels; Georgia, Buzzards; Louisiana, Creoles; Alabama, Lizards; Kentucky, Corn Crackers; Ohio, Buckeyes; Michigan, Wolverines; Indiana, Hoosiers; Illinois, Suckers; Missouri, Pukes; Mississippi, Tadpoles; Florida, Fly up the Creeks; Wisconsin, Badgers; Iowa, Hawkeyes; Oregon, Hard Cases.

Why didn’t all of these become the names of college  sport teams?

Thanks for all the great hat photos. As a final coup de chapeau, here are some photos of me in a funny hat talking to some other guys in funny hats. Also, in the first picture you can see the red guy in the background. It was driving me crazy the whole ceremony because he reminds me of some sort of food-product mascot (maple syrup, soy sauce, I can’t figure it out). If you have any tips please call the blacksnakesisabroad tip hotline / poison control.

Here’s a new song about blowing up / eating the moon, it’s rather ambiguous what’s going on. It was originally planned to be a new BS&K song that I had written a bass line for, but in order to figure out a melody/words, I started playing it as full chords and it sounds pretty funny now.

Get your face (from the nose up) on blacksnakesisabroad!

Contest Rules:

1. Send me an email with a picture of  you wearing a funny hat.
2. If you can, please cut your face out against a white background, I only have mspaint to work with here.
3. Please, don’t send any bottlecaps.

Here is a footnote from Sketch Seventh of Melville’s The Encantadas:

“The American Spaniards have long been in the habit of making presents of islands to deserving individuals. The pilot Juan Fernandez procured a deed of the isle named after him, and for some years resided there before Selkirk came. It is supposed, however, that he eventually contracted the blues upon his princely property, for after a time he returned to the main, and as the report goes, became a very garrulous barber in the city of Lima.”

The chapter originally intended to be Chapter 2 of the Benito saga has been shelved. A chapter lacking any sort of continuity with the previous has been submitted in its place. Enjoy the sauce. Share a hot toddy.

A: This is kind of interesting.

Dear Bike Shop Kids Babies,

Please build a Senster for Christmas. You can use a certain someone’s NASA badge to steal parts while he’s on vacation. Here’s the video of it in action back in the day. It seems some Germans already reverse-engineered it and build a working model, so you should probably start here, but instead of making it smaller, you should make it the size of an oil derrick and put it across from that stupid Sam Houston statue on 45.

The guy who built the original, Edward Ihnatowicz, seems pretty neat. I wonder if he invented those dancing-pieces-of-crap-with-big-sunglasses-glued-on-them from the 80’s. Also, I wish there was a video to accompany this picture, but it just gives a small description that the lever is able to judge the sex of the person holding it; I don’t know if the fact that the man holding it is wearing a skirt is supposed to be extra tricky for the computer to guess.

The blog is gasping its last breaths, but theres still a few things left to say. In fact, here is a song by my new band “Christian and the Gentiles” featuring me and my new roommate Christian. Our first song is tentatively titled “Oh Lord (That’s Rich).”

Love,

Tom Tuttertruck