Old Ironsides

Since Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., passed away many years ago, I can, without fear of legal action reprint in whole perhaps his most famous poem. This is a wonderful poem. As a youth, the actions of America's nascent navy featured prominently in my military history reading. Names like John Paul Jones, Stephen Decatur and Oliver Hazard Perry still hold a special place in my heart, a love that will soon be renewed when I have the chance to take a look at this book (which looks quite promising indeed).

To commemorate a lifelong passion for our fighting sailors and the imminent renewal of that intimate friendship, I offer "Old Ironsides," by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

--Note: due to my lack of technical skills, I have to resort to ridiculous measures to keep formatting for poems. As a result, the poem appears above the post, when it ought to appear below...so sorry.

--Contest note: Name your favorite nautical poem...

LL#1: Papers Shtink

Alrighty, new feature here at the Doughty Traveler..."Life Lessons" from yours truly. Todays special should have arrived eight years ago:

Putting your papers off will make you hate your life.

At the very least, they'll make your emotional status an emotional rollercoaster.

You can add to that, as a bonus Life Lesson and no extra charge, vino (or any type of alcohol) will never make you less likely to actually finish a paper. Never. Ever. My current state (it just having passed midnight) is example enough, but this masterpiece from freshman year smashes the point home:

...

Oh hell, looks like we're having technical difficulties (read: I'm smashing my face into the wall until it's a bloody pulp because I've just discovered that my freshman year of college has disappeared from my computer which akin to having it erased from my memory). Suffice to say, an essay composed with the aid of extreme sleepiness and a dumpling of scotch produced two full pages of incoherent babble as I wandered in and out of consciousness, including the memorable phrase, "Trip...glider...hop." Taken independently, it seems innocent enough, just the insertion of "glider" between the common musical genre of "triphop." In the context of the two pages of nonsense that preceded it (which hung on the wall of my room for the remainder of that year), it was the metaphorical exclamation point at the conclusion of an all-caps, bolded sentence.

Admission of Guilt

Okay, I'll admit it. I'm a thief.

In more ways than one. As reader(s) will learn in the near future, I have conspired routinely to defraud federal, state, and municipal governments out of tax dollars. More importantly...I have downloaded software via BitTorrent.

Yes, yes, I admit, it's a sin. But wait! In my defense, I have largely employed the service to restore software that was otherwise lost. In the circles I frequent (aka, the places I live), things like system CDs or copies of recently purchased software have a nasty habit of disappearing into that great, invisible black hole that also swallows things like Pauley Shore's career or Bill Murray's ability to be unsarcastic or Michael S. Malone's capacity for reasonable writing (look, the only one of those that deserves a link is Malone, and if you really want to know why he should be spent the rest of his career writing reviews of the latest Veggie-Tales collection, just Google his name and Macsturbators...he's vile).

Right, so, now that we've cleared that up, I'd like to get to the news. Methuselah's ghost, the Pirate Bay wants to become a nation!

No, I do not jest:

The Pirate Bay to Get a Bay (kind of), Wants to Buy Nation of Sealand

To stop the international copyright laws that have been plaguing The Pirate Bay, they are looking to purchase the micronation of Sealand. This nation is really just a British naval platform in the North Sea. Donating to the cause will guarantee you citizenship at Sealand.

Oooo, too wild to be believed. It's like that dude who invented the Segway who seceded from the US and A, signing a nonagression pact with Clinton even, and now has his own island-nation somewhere off of Jersey (Seriously, the Google legwork on this one has gotta be cake).

Someday, when I grow up, I'm going to secede. Without slaves...mostly.