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PART I
MARCH, 1780
ATLANTIC OCEAN, TRADE ROUTE
THE SOFT KNOCK on his cabin door awoke him from his doze. “Come,” he rasped.
It opened slowly and a slightly sunburnt face with a black stripe painted across the nose and under whisky eyes peeked around its edge. “Judas?” she murmured.
“Ah, Fury, I was just dreaming of you. Come join me.”
Clothed in buff breeches and a ruffled white shirt open to her navel, she entered and closed the door behind her. Her peachy-pink hair was free and swinging about her hips. Her feet were bare, as he would expect. He had learned to enjoy going barefoot about his ship instead of being confined in boots. Instead of layers of proper Navy uniforms and stiff overcoats heavy with embellishment, he now only wore breeches. Even in the winter, when the sun shone he could doff his coat. He had never had that. The newfound freedom of piracy was thoroughly unfamiliar to him.
“Have I driven you to boredom already?” she asked lightly, but he had sisters and nieces aplenty and was wise in the ways of women. She feared that very thing.
“Nay. I am old. And weary. You, Madam Youth, suck what little life I have left right out of me. And very well, I might add.” He palmed his cotton-covered crotch and began to unbutton the flap. “I beg you suck some more.”
She grinned and plopped down beside him on his bunk. “You are vile.”
“So you insist. What have you there?”
“Games. And rum. Have you finished tending your log?”
“My hand wearied long ago, so for the nonce, you have sole charge of my log. Speaking of vile, what are your tastes that you must visit an exclusive house of ill repute to get your satisfaction?”
“Two men,” she said promptly. “I could not understand why, if a man can bed two women, a woman could not bed two men.” She gave him a significant glance. “At once.”
Elliott stared at her, aghast. He didn’t know whether to laugh or rage. “Ah, Madam, I hope that is not a taste you expect me to indulge you in.”
She waved a hand. “Oh, no. That is not for my lovers. Besides,” she said airily, “there are ways to mimic that, if you are willing.”
His eyebrow rose. “Oh? You expect me to bugger you, then?”
“At some point.”
Elliott released an incredulous laugh.
“Judas, honestly. A man whose cockstand responds so well to pain and practically asks to be tied up and whipped cannot judge a woman for her own peccadilloes.”
“That is not a peccadillo, Madam. That is a perversion.”
“Yours or mine?”
Elliott cast her a broad grin.
She sniffed. “Says he who also requested viewing privileges should I tup a woman.”
“That is right and proper, two women. And then I would join.”
“Where is your birch? I am beginning to feel a need to punish you for your mockery.”
“Whilst you suck me.”
Fury’s grin was everything that was wicked. “Thus we can be vile and perverted together.”
“That was my thought. In fact, there is a game I want to play with you, one I’ll wager you’ve never played before.”
She granted him a mocking scowl. “I have either played all the games or declined to. I doubt you have one I’ve yet to encounter.”
Judas’s eyebrows rose even as his grin widened. “It involves your stays.”
Her fake scowl turned into genuine confusion. “My stays?”
His wicked laugh came from deep in his chest. “Ah, so you haven’t. No matter. I shall teach you.”
“Or perhaps we could simply play chess for now.”
Elliott studied her, marveling that he had the interest of a woman such as this, cursing Fate’s whimsy. “One hand giveth and the other taketh away.”
Her brow wrinkled. “What?”
“Nothing. Why have you put tar across your face?”
“’Tis not tar. It is kohl. A cosmetic from Egypt.”
“Ah. And its purpose?”
“It reduces the glare of the sun and water, which a hat alone cannot do. Is this also something you never learned? Like the cats, who do the work of a half dozen men and feed themselves, making it possible to sail with that many fewer men to feed and house? You remarked upon the fact that I look young for a sailor. This one reason why. And Papa has always had some sort of ointment he puts on his face. We both burn badly, you see. He does not care for unnecessary pain, and I am vain enough to want to preserve what little beauty I possess.”
“I find you beautiful and I refuse to revisit that no matter how you beg further compliments.” She smiled, delighted. He would compliment her endlessly to see that smile. “As to the kohl, the Navy would never allow something so vulgar to tarnish an officer’s uniform.”
She sighed. “’Twould seem to me you Englishmen continually sacrifice practicality for some arbitrary and ineffective propriety. Your army fights in rigid lines, marches through forests clothed in bright red along the most obvious paths, and has not paid its men in months. Your navy gangs press hundreds of unwilling men, leaving their wives and children to starve, which foments rebellion and mutiny, then denies you adequate sustenance and pay. Why do you think we could run the blockade so easily? The watch did not sound the call because it did not care. And we knew that.”
Elliott shrugged. There were many things he would have done as commander had he had the freedom to do so. “If you are expecting a denial, you’ll not hear one from me. That said, you Americans are naught but primitive barbarians.”
She laughed and nudged his body with hers. Even that little bit spoke of comfort he had yet to experience outside his family. “Because aristocratic sophistication wins wars with barbarians, no? Genghis Khan conquered every land he stepped foot upon. Why should we not follow suit if it works?”
“By the bye, is your bo’sun … ?”
“Aye. A distant granddaughter. She is as fierce as any man I have ever fought alongside. I believe Genghis would be proud of her. Now tell me of this young widow who corrupted you at some tender age.”
“Barely sixteen,” he drawled. “’Twas the most wonderful interlude of my existence until now.”
“Were you in love with her?”
Her question brought him up short. Was she jealous? “I am not certain,” he finally said. “How does one measure such a thing at such an age? And now, from such a distance, one thinks, ‘Oh, it could not have possibly been love.’”
She shrugged. “Longevity?”
“When does longevity become simple habit?” he countered. “I would have wed her, had I the opportunity, but then what? What does a landless sixteen-year-old boy have to offer a twenty-two-year-old woman and her child? I am so far from that boy now he may as well be dead and gone.” He paused. “He is, actually, to be frank.”
Fury was quiet for some time and, unlikely though it was, he relished their silence together. It was comforting.
“Habit,” she mused. “Does longevity always disintegrate into habit?”
“I might think so, but how would I know for a certainty? My affaire with the widow lasted the whole of one spring before I was sent to university. I thought I was in love with her and mourned when she wed a man far older than I who had some wealth. Then I met a merchant’s daughter of whom I became quite fond. I looked forward to the marriage bed and teaching her what I had learned.”
She sat up, interested. “Oh? Did she return your affection?”
“Aye, she did indeed. Her father approved, too.”
“What happened then?”
“I was sent to sea.”
Then she slumped a bit. “Oh.”
“You are sad for me?”
She smiled somewhat wryly. “For her, rather.”
That was telling, but Elliott would rather not dwell on that, as he was about to lose a third woman to circumstance just when he had found her.
“And Covarrubias? You said you were younger than George.”
“Fourteen.” She waved a hand. “Every girl falls in love with the first man to seduce her. ’Tis a womanly rite.”
“Have you fallen out of love with him?”
She said nothing for a second or two. “Fall out of love?” she said thoughtfully. “I would not have thought such a thing possible. We are … ” Her lips pursed, then said absently, “I … know not what we are, to be truthful. Mayhap … a habit, now.”
“If he is just a habit, why do you continue with him?”
She slid him a glance. “I told you. He was my first.”
“Women who go on to have seconds, thirds, and fourths do not remain loyal to their firsts.”
“He made me who I am every bit as much as Dunham did,” she said with a sad chuckle, then tipped the bottle of rum. Elliott watched her throat bob and wondered if that was how she looked when she swallowed him. He took the bottle when she offered it, then she leaned toward him and spoke earnestly as if to impart great wisdom. “Mayhap more.”
“You are not fourteen anymore, Madam,” he said softly, looking into those burnt-sugar eyes, raising his hand and stroking her cheek. “Perhaps ’tis time to put away your girlish infatuations bound up in gratitude.”
An odd expression swept across her face in a blink and she sat up straight. “You have no knowledge of the situation, so pray keep your thoughts on that to yourself.”
Elliott did not argue the point. “And number two?”
She bit her bottom lip and, to his shock, her eyes began to glisten. “Ah, he … perished,” she murmured.
“Tell me about him.”
She studied him warily, and he wondered why he’d asked. It was enough to know the man was dead and no threat to Elliott’s pursuit.
“His name was Talaat Khersis,” she said low, then rubbed the corner of her eye with a knuckle. Elliott waited. Not only did he not know the name, he had no idea what nationality it was. “I met him in Morocco,” she continued, either unaware or uncaring of his ignorance. “I married him there, too.”
Elliott’s jaw dropped, and he said the only thing he could think of. “You’re a widow?”
Fury barked a laugh and turned that smile upon him. “’Tis usually what a woman is called once her husband has died, Judas.”
“How old were you then?”
“Five and twenty. He was two score and one.”
Elliott cracked a self-deprecating smile. “You don’t care for young men, do you?”
She snorted. “Not for bedsport lasting beyond a night, no.” One peachy-pink eyebrow rose. “I like well-seasoned men who know how to please a woman and can then carry on a decent conversation afterward.”
“He was Arab?”
“No.”
Her tone indicated that she would not welcome questions in that direction. Now that he thought on it, perhaps he should simply assume that she was not particular about the nationality of the men she bedded. She had grown up in a land where Arab men took women of many lands and might not find such intermingling amiss. To his shock, he did not find that particularly bothersome.
“This was how long ago?”
“Four years now.”
“Isn’t that when you beheaded Skirrow?”
“Aye,” she purred.
Elliott could see how a woman might want to behead the man who’d killed her husband. “Condolences.” She inclined her head in acknowledgment of his offering. “How long were you married?”
“Five months.”
Elliott had to ask, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “Do you have any children?”
“Nay.”
Such a woman might dally, but never commit.
“Does Covarrubias know of your husband?” he asked slowly.
“Nay.”
Thank God. “Do you still love him, too?”
Fury’s whisky-colored eyes went cold and her expression was stony. Elliott knew he had gone too far.
“Tell me something,” she said smoothly. “If I loved you enough to leave the sea to wed you, spend the rest of my days with you, would you want to die knowing that my love for you expired when you did? Or that my love was a glamour of gratitude? Or that I was suffering from some … girlish infatuation … that would fade the minute I met the next fascinating man?”
Elliott looked away.
“Nay, I thought not. Clearly you did not love the widow or the merchant’s daughter, else you would not ask such questions.”
“Guilty,” he muttered.
“I have bedded a fair number of men in my time, Judas,” she said matter-of-factly, “both before my marriage and since. I have loved two of those men, and I wed the second a mere fortnight after we met. I will always love my husband. I still love Rafael. But I am not incapable of loving a third man, should I find him worthy of it. Furthermore, I know within hours of meeting and bedding a man that I will or will not fall in love with him. Think on that and then reflect upon why I did not toss you out my window two nights past.”
Elliott had no need to. He knew what she had said, but being the third did not appease him, especially when she was still fucking Covarrubias and grieving her husband.
But who was he to claim her? He was betrothed and had a duty to his family and title. There was no place for Fury in his life.
“To follow that reasoning, then,” he said slowly, “you must choose to fall in love and choose not to fall out of it.”
She was silent for a moment. “’Tis an odd way of looking at it, but aye, I think that is a fair conclusion.”
“And now?”
She granted him that slow smile he would have given his left arm to purchase.
“And now,” she murmured, her voice utter velvet, “I am allowing myself to fall in love with a man who is duty-bound to put me aside. I would rather spend what time I have with him in happier conversation.”
Falling in love with him. Would that he could put aside his duty. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, his chest aching. “More than you can know.”
“I must tell you,” she said matter-of-factly, sliding off the bunk and around his leg until she knelt on the floor between his legs. She took her time with a button on his falls. “You are quite possibly the most handsome man I have ever met. Big. Powerful. Intelligent. Well educated. My taste in men runs true.”
He laughed harshly, then groaned when her knuckles grazed his stiffening rod and tightening bollocks with every button she released. He could barely gather his thoughts. “You have so soon determined not to carry on with me after I wed, then?”
Her laugh was shockingly bitter. “I have no intention of it.”
“It could be done—”
“Judas!” She stopped fussing with his breeches and looked up at him with amazement. “What good does it do me?” His gaze dropped to the creamy skin of her chin and throat, down her chest until the scars began, but it was unfocused. “Could you, confined to whatever protocols you are, wed me, at near nine and twenty, with fifteen years between me and my virginity, no children despite my licentiousness, and still fulfill your duty?”
He opened his mouth to say no, but instead, “I … know of a way—two or three, in fact—but it would require the consent of many people.”
People who were not likely to consent.
“Then the answer is no.” She tsked. His prick had lost all stiffness and her hands lightly gripped the tops of his thighs. “I may be many kinds of wicked,” she said softly, her lovely face turned up to him, “but carrying on an affaire with a man who weds out of duty is not a wickedness that attracts me, for either my own sake or hers.”
He grasped her arms, breaking her contact with his breeches, and leaned forward. “Fury—’tis how it is done all over the realm.”
She rolled her eyes and pried herself out of his hands. “Do not talk to me about how things are done, Judas,” she said with some humor. She stood, then took two steps to snatch one of his shirts off the floor. “I have spent my life doing things that are simply not done, and refusing to do things I’ve been ordered to do.”
“You’re a pirate,” he said, his elbows dropping to his knees. He was desperate for her acquiescence while she was calmly folding his shirt, then laying it on top of his chest. “And you just said you were in love with me.”
“Aye, I’m a pirate and thus, I am only interested in me,” she said flatly, finding another garment he had carelessly cast aside. “’Tis the very hallmark of a pirate.” She eyed him skeptically. “We are thieves and liars. Yet another way you betray yourself, thinking of duty rather than booty.”
He couldn’t muster a laugh for her quip. This moment, every sight, sound, and smell, etched itself upon his mind, branding him with pain. It was as great as he had known when his father had stared him down, daring Elliott to defy him and the path that had been set for him.
Then, Elliott had been a fourteen-year-old boy looking up into the face of a man he adored, fearing his disapproval. Now, he was a thirty-eight-year-old man looking at the woman he was quite sure he wanted for the rest of his days who could not be persuaded to follow her heart.
He was as helpless now as he had been then.
“Your interest in you and my interest in me are at odds.”
“Covarrubias is not true to you,” Elliott rasped.
She waved that off and began to tidy his bookshelves. “Aye, and so what. It is me he returns to, year after year. This,” she continued, looking around, gesturing leisurely with the sensuality of the most expensive courtesan, “with you. ’Tis but a whimsy. An idyll. ’Tis all it can be whilst you are not wed.”
“And after, all my time and attention would be yours.”
“Once you have gotten two sons on her.”
He had no answer for that.
“I have no reason to deny that I am falling in love with you—deliberately, by your logic—and no reason to keep it a secret. But I also have no reason to compete with a woman who has the clear advantage. She will have a contract, and I am unacceptable as a wife, for all I can have naught but your heart.”
“And my heart is not enough,” he growled.
Her eyes narrowed. “I rather hope you would not expect me to abandon my place in Rafael’s bed nor refrain from any perversions wherever I find myself.”
He sucked in an outraged breath, but what could he say in protest? He wanted who she was, and were she not that woman, she would not be with him.
“Aye, I have Rafael’s heart,” she said as she set about alphabetizing his books, “though every beautiful woman in the world has his yard when I am not about.”
“And you tolerate this.”
“How can I not, when he encourages my dalliances?” She swooped to pluck another two books off the floor and examined their spines. “You may ascribe it to girlish infatuation if you wish. But I have also been the wife of a man who showed me what ’tis like to love and have the love of a faithful man. I’ll not be any man’s mistress.” Her head slowly turned until her gaze bored into his. “Not—even—yours.”
“Thus you would deny yourself something you want.”
“Examine your premise, Judas. I will be amputating a limb to keep the gangrene from spreading.”
“My God, Madam!”
“I know what ’tis like to lose a beloved,” she murmured. “If you think the description horrible, ’tis only more proof you have no idea of love. And yet … I am willing to be your lover in spite of our inevitable separation when I know how much it will distress me.”
Elliott stared at her, still appalled by the comparison.
She pointed to the door. “Shall I leave, Captain? If you cannot enjoy the rest of our time together whilst you are not wed, I’d rather not be here at all. We can be uncoupled within the hour.”
It was a challenge. The commander in him would order her out, then order the grappling hooks retrieved. But the duty-bound aristocrat could see the years ahead. If she stayed, he would live with his heartache. If she left, he would live with his heartache and regret the time wasted.
“We have been together little more than a day,” he said low, rubbing his chin, scratching his jaw. He had not shaved yet. “I would we had not had this discussion now.”
Her eyebrow rose. “I would rather have it now and seize what time we have together than be slapped with it when we make port. Tell me now, Judas.”
He dropped his head in his hands. “I can’t,” he muttered. “If you will not agree to— I must have something to take with me into the future. One moment in time that I was truly happy.”
Her brow wrinkled. “You have had so little of it, then?”
“I cannot recall one moment since I went to sea at nineteen.”
“Mm … that is quite sad,” she murmured. He heard her move toward him, then felt her fingers in his hair, running through it gently, tucking it behind his ear, fondling his ear. He shivered. “None?”
“None. I have also never met a woman who— Nay, I should say that I have never had the opportunity to find a woman with whom I could speak so plainly, with so much common knowledge, and so much in sympathy. After the merchant’s daughter, my only female companionship was bought, briefly and cheaply at that. I am happy with my family, I think, but my time with them may count as three years in the last twenty, if I were generous. I believe that if I could never fuck you again, I would still be happy if you are near.”
Her hand stilled in his hair. “I make you happy?”
“Aye.”
“Oh,” she whispered again with what seemed like wonder.
He gazed at her rounded belly riven with scars, up her body to the curve of those pert, lovely, scarred breasts with the nipples that could not pucker and had no feeling, and determined that she would remember him as the man who had made them feel again. Somehow.
Fury’s fingers left his hair and skimmed down his cheek to his jaw. She cupped his chin gently and tilted his head up to look at her, her caramel eyes filled with tears. “Let us set up the chess board, Judas, and I will allow you to describe your peccadilloes whilst I pummel you into the deck.”
She leaned down. He met her mouth, opening it, meeting her tongue, tasting her flavors: lemon and cinnamon and rum. Feeling against his lips the hum in her throat.
“Do not be sure of your advantage, Madam,” he growled as he stood, palming her arse and pressing her body against his as they kissed.
“What shall we wager?” she breathed.
“Anything but our names.”
If you don’t want to wait 2 years to get to the end, you can buy it here.
Everybody out in Lenten debauchery and gluttony?
I got a shipment of banker’s boxes. I’ve been organizing my clutter to make it stuff instead of clutter.
Get a wife. Then all of your stuff can be turned into piles of shit.
Lamenting on poor leadership from both union rep and management. That at least requires another bourbon
Savoring this episode.
Drinking and watching X-Files.
I’m willing. Is this a good time to meet Catholic girls?
I’m told they start way too late.
I’m just drunk, no special occasion required.
Get a load of this cunt screwing up the threading. Hey, guy, the comment you wanted to reply to is right up there!
Working on it.
🫡
So says we all
alphabetizing his books
A little OCD to relieve some sexual tension eh?
What is a Moriah Jovan main character without some mental illness?
I have ONE main character with no trauma, no issues, no mental illnesses, no red flags, no unresolved grief, no temper, and generally a happy, well-adjusted dude.
generally a happy, well-adjusted dude
How ever did you make him interesting?
I order some of my books by topic and height. 🫤
What an astute question! It was, quite frankly, quite difficult. He had PROBLEMS, but they’re what I consider just normal everyday human problems everybody has to figure out.
Thank goodness, Moj: What I need to know is which of my married neighbors I should gift your books who would be yielding, like, into my arms with her supple body
I’ve maybe been reading too much Flashman.
Wait, you have more than one supple-bodied married neighbor?
RIP! RIHP! RɪP!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Wayne_Wiggins
You can New Jack swing on my nuts!
Rest in power, king.
Love NJS.
Kayo-new jack?
WTF would a guy who made decent money live in Oakland?
Born and raised?
Still, look around good sir. Your city is crime infested and in terrible disrepair.
There’s a strange corner of the world in which you were a teenager when Bob Dylan’s son was making music, and you weren’t a cynical asshole who despised this (what was oneday going to be called a) nepo baby cunt. You enjoyed The Wallflowers. You enjoyed not just One Headlight, but their entire album, Breach. And you’re not ashamed of that. Even if he is a dimestore Adam Duritz nobody.
Wallflowers are a bit of my brush-with-fame – the bassist (Greg) was my good friend’s college roommate, so we hung out with them on the bus & in the hotel after a show in Boston. Save, Jacob, of course, who was much too sensitive to hang with the rest of the band and their douchebag friends.
The keyboardist was particularly cool (Ravi? – *checks* – Rami).
I promptly spilled a Guinness on the white rug in Greg’s hotel room. I was that asshole (I got way too drunk on margaritas before the show).
Hah! And I just this minute found out that Rami is the keyboardist for the Foo Fighters. Good for him, quite the step-up.
I brushed with lots of musical talent but none of them went anywhere.
But all of them were better than that crap, LOL.
I think I’d rather listen to The Wallflowers than Foo Fighters. But I’ll bet his pay is better.
What the hell is wrong with you?
/JK
🤘 🤘
I had to look all of that up and yeah, no.
We all have music we love or hate. Enjoy whatever you like. I used to be embarrassed I enjoy a lot of hair metal. It ain’t Mozart and so what? Go live your life.
I would have a hard time choosing the most embarrassing music I like.
OK, maybe not.
At least it’s not Blue System…
Modern Talking was actually on the jukebox at my favorite East Village gay bar in the aughts.
But I never heard of that outfit. My knowledge of cheesy German pop music is severely constrained to 1986 and the previous several years – I left there in 1986.
You said “Mozart,” so this is where my mind went:
On the Zooms, someone called Douglas Adams a “one-hit wonder” (counting the whole Hitchhiker’s Guide series as one).
Straffinrun said, “That’s like calling Vivaldi a ‘one-hit wonder.'”
Well.
I mean.
He kinda was.
Shit. I think I’m going to enter a 1986 vortex.
Except Douglas Adams also wrote for Doctor Who.
I don’t think Vivaldi wrote for Doctor Who.
At least a four hit wonder…
1988
Another Bohlen production.
I regret even reading Mostly Harmless.
Apparently Highlander was released OTD in 1986. Not sure if that affects your travels down the rabbit hole
I remember her name but TBH a chick version of Modern Talking didn’t catch my ear I can’t imagine why lol
Nope. Never saw it.
OTOH, this chick not only had a fantastic hit in 1985 but she went on to do some cool shit with her husband later in Enigma.
I like Sandra.
I believe the director of the first Highlander movie is the same man who did Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” video.
🙋♂️
Also, have gone to a counting crows concert. They were playing in Boise at an outdoor venue. We parked in a lot next to it and thanks to usual concert excessively amplified sound, could hear them quite clearly.
That’s how you get your money’s worth.
Nope, you should be paid for going to a Counting Crows gig.
I was too polite to say it.
Say what you will about Adam Duritz, that dude was a master swordsman. Serious body count.
It’s true. It makes me regret never being in a band. No matter how bad you are, there is some woman out there who will be your groupie.
Oh, and I forgot, he is talentless.
/wikipedia
Speechless. I always found them so objectionably awful I could not even.
Good grief. Let me give y’all a hint. Some things are better left where they belong – in the grave. The cultural wasteland of the ’80’s is gone.
You misspelled 70’s but fair enough.
*puts on Doctor Who again and pours another finger*
lol seriously
The ‘70s were awesome: Wide collars, polyester suits, Led Zeppelin, Billy Beer, and key parties with the lonely Valiumed up housewives in your subdivision…you people are nuts.
Yeah; I think a lot of the 80s hate is down to the decade being a rejection of 60s activist shibboleths.
Hell, the Kennedys as a family are still thought of as some sort of moral authority by the chartering classes. Look at the hate for RFK Jr. becoming an apostate.
Mornin’ y’all.
Today marks the start of morning shifts for at least a week, so from 9-6 yesterday to 5-2 today. I actually slept really well, for once. (Trazadone will do that.)
Thank all that’s good, DST didn’t start tonight. Kick ass, everyone.
Get to it and kick ass
suh’ fam
whats goody yo
Sup buddy. How things going
Coming to see you soon. Got a boiler project in Louisville in a month or so.
So sad an pathetic is my life Im actually excited about a coal boiler. Anymore, everyone has went to gas except for utilities.
Better than being excited about a bunny boiler.
Oh, I’ve dealt with one of those. DeniseRN.
Nurses are crazy.
Mrs OBE never heard of bunny boiler until about a year ago. She agrees it is an accurate term given
The orbit that this test bed was in, is insane. Im thinking beyond Hubble?
https://www.zerohedge.com/military/classified-x-37-spaceplane-returns-earth
“Images posted on X by the space agency show military personnel in laboratory protective suits, like NBC and/or BSL-4 suits, approaching the X-37 after touchdown at Vandenberg.”
What the hell was it doing up there that they need hazmat suits after it lands? Between the vacuum and the radiation, you’d think it would be completely sterilized.
The fuel it uses is crazy toxic. They are worried any kind of leakage.
Sean is vary late.
Just like my girlfriend’s period.
Oh my
Hey y’all!
😉🕰️
Don’t forget to set your clocks ahead tonight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTuD8k3JvxQ
🎶🎶
Good morning Sean, Ted’S., homey, Teh Hype, RCD, and OBE!
Not fond of losing the hour, but if I’m feeling easily amused, I can always stay up until 2 a.m. and watch the atomic traditional-face (i.e. not digital) wall clock spin around to reset itself. (Not quite as much fun as in the fall when it spins around 11 hours’ worth.)
🤣😂
Too local news:
https://www.mcall.com/2025/03/05/gap-theatre-reopens-indiana-jones/
I hope they do well.
Paywalled.
https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/lehighvalley/northampton-county/slate-belt/its-exciting-that-its-opening-back-up-moviegoers-line-the-block-to-see-reopening-of/article_ee2f9f06-fbb3-11ef-b57e-a74ed352f964.html
They’re showing films in 35mm
We are currently living in a cultural wasteland.
Madonna’s 80’s music > Taylor Swift music.
You still had one hit wonder bands in the eighties (“Come on, Eileen”, “I’m on a Mexican Radio”, “Thriller”).
Now, all popular music sounds the same. Also, it’s all hip hop, anymore.
Some of the best movies were released in the eighties. Now, it’s all reboots of eighties movies.
Have some brand new Volbeat:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTUPgEse6_A
I often think of this as well.
I was thinking – maybe because of my age in the ‘80s (essentially, my 20s), but there were sure a lot of movies that decade that I really enjoyed. Seemed like just about every weekend in the summers there was something worth going to see.
Some of the eighties movies may have been derivative from prior decades (Indiana Jones), and there were some reboots (The Thing), but there was a lot of new, creative stuff going on (Back to the Future).
In the seventies, women sang songs like “These boots are going to walk all over you”, “I am woman”, and “we are family”; songs about empowered women making decisions for themselves.
Male bands sang songs like “Baby Come Back”, “What a Fool Believes”, and “Don’t Go”. Songs about blubbering men begging their strong independent girlfriend/wife to not leave.
In the eighties, male bands sang about ditching their girlfriend (“Billie Jean”), about telling women what to do (“Get out of my dreams, and into my car”), while women sang songs about begging some guy to pay attention to them (“Open Your Heart”) or remembering with regret the guy they lost (“Only in my dreams”). Women also sang songs about wanting to have fun, and songs that encourage people to walk like Egyptians, so it wasn’t all angst and fury.
Kids these days, amirite?
One of these things is not like the others… 🤔
I noticed that too…..
🤣
I was wondering if anyone would notice