Self-medicating: It's the pirate way!

If you're anything like Captain Jack, then you've got plenty of experience with the wonder drug known as penicillin, or its modern cousin, amoxicillin.  How that experience was gained is not the issue (nor will it ever be -- what happens in the Caribbean stays in the Caribbean, am I right, mateys?!)  Our topic tonight is the practical application of that knowledge, for the triple purposes of helpin' your loyal crew, savin' your doubloons, and stickin' it to The Man... noble goals, all of them!

You see, Mad Bess and myself sail with a motley but lovable band of misfits... Maine Coons, Siameses, tabbies, torties, Russian Blues, and every kind of halfbreed you can think of... they're a good and faithful crew, and Captain Jack would gladly walk the plank or stand the drop of York for any man-jack of them, no messin'.  Occasionally though, even the best of them falls ill to ailments such as upper respiratory infections, toothaches, and what have you -- piratin' is a stressful business, you see!  And these landlubber veterinarians want a hook-hand, a peg-leg, and a glass eye in exchange for a prescription for antibiotics... the lily-livered shysters.  Well, as Mad Bess would say in her native Yorkshire tongue, "Sod that for a game of soldiers!"

What's to be done, you may ask?  Two words, mateys:  "FishMox" and "gelcaps."  FishMox is merely amoxicillin for fishies... you can buy it online without a prescription, and one capsule provides four cat doses.  "But how do I split it into four cat doses, Captain Jack?"  Simple.  Either go to Amazon or your local health food store and buy a bag of size-0 gelcaps, and divide a FishMox capsule equally into four gelcaps (don't feed your crewmate the original FishMox capsule... it will, ahem, pass right through him/her without dissolving... don't ask Captain Jack how he knows this...)  This method also allows you to add any other medication your fellow sailor may need, all in one convenient beef-flavoured gelcap... with no $55 "office visit" fee to deplete your rum fund!  You're welcome!!!

The delightful Indonesian House Gecko

Ah, the world of Nature... those of you unfortunate enough to live outside the Tropics may not be familiar with this benevolent yet idiotic little reptile... he does his best to rid Captain Jack's windows of those pesky moths (ZOOM... CHOMP!!!  "Moth?  What moth?") but Mad Bess and myself have to make a great show of bashing away at the door every time we want to go outdoors after dark, so he runs away and doesn't accidentally get himself crushed in the door frame when we shut the door behind us... there has been some unpleasantness in the past, and that's enough said about that... :(  Any road up, we love you, little gecko... you're way more awesome than that stupid Geico gecko on TV! 

"Hi there!"

Tropical Storm Debby

Furl the mains'ls, batten down the hatches, and deploy the sea anchor, bosun Sidney... there be squalls ahead!  Aye, mateys, we've got a tropical storm right offshore... and if you're a pirate like me then you know what that means:  Break out the rum, crisps, and dip, because it's hurricane-party time!  (Yes, Captain Jack knows that a tropical storm is technically not QUITE a hurricane, but that could change at any moment, so it's best to be prepared just in case... it's known as preemptive partying... a classic pirate tactic!)

Stickin' it to The Man!

If you're anything like Captain Jack, then you get great satisfaction from victories (small as they may be) against the powers that be.  Well, this evening Mad Bess and myself feasted upon two Veggie Delite sandwiches from Subway... FREE OF CHARGE!!!  T'was all thanks to your Captain's finding an inappropriate metallic casting in his sandwich a few weeks back... Subway's southeastern US regional manager said, "Give that pirate captain and his wench a free footlong sub each, and be quick about it!"  And by gods and by damn, that is exactly what they did!  Nom nom nom nom nom...

Eduard "Mister Trololo" Khil dead at 77

They called him the Perry Como of the Soviet Union, and now he is crooning in Heaven ... but as long as Captain Jack has breath in his lungs, his blog will have a link to the immortal Trololo Man...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1orMXD_Ijbs

Stray Cat Helps Little Autistic Boy

Not that Captain Jack is a sentimental old softie or anything... gods forbid!  It's just that... aww, just click on the link, me hearties!

http://www.lifewithcats.tv/2012/06/16/billy-the-stray-cat-changes-the-life-of-an-autistic-boy-with-the-healing-power-of-love/

Head Trauma

Just a shout-out to thank Mad Bess for openin' Captain Jack's ears to the existence of Status Quo... Bess, you're goin' to owe your man a new pair of glasses at this rate because they go flyin' off across the deck whenever I start head-bangin'... which realistically can't be avoided with these fellows' brand of music!  Good stuff!  :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHM9HqCLqB8&ob=av3n

Pictured:  A recipe for mild concussions and broken reading glasses



Happy birthday, Mr. Les Paul

A number of noteworthy people are celebratin' their birthday today on the ninth of June... Princess Amidala is 31... Fake Captain Jack (a.k.a. Edward Scissorhands) is 49... Marty McFly is 51... Jackie Mason is 76... and Cole Porter would be 121.  Most importantly though, Les Paul would be 97, had he not passed away in 2009.  If you love rock-&-roll as much as I do, then by gods and by damn, you owe this man a huge debt... he pretty much invented the tools that make it possible.  The solid-body electric guitar, the 8-track tape recorder, just about everything else that makes rock sound like it does... he invented that.  Ever hear of the Gibson Les Paul guitar?  Yep... named after him.  His chording sequences and fretting techniques still inspire guitarists today.  Would you like to know more?  Check Wikipedia... I don't have time to list all his accomplishments... suffice to say that he was for all intents and purposes the Nikola Tesla of rock... he basically laid the groundwork for it all.  Not only that, but in 1948 he was in a car crash and the doctors told him he would have to either have his right arm amputated or set in a frozen position; he told them to set it at just off 90 degrees so he could keep playing guitar if nothing else!  Ladies and gents, that is hardcore, and we are all so very much the better for it!  Thank you, Mr. Paul... I would say "Rest in peace" but I'm sure you'd rather just keep on rockin'...!

Captain, we've sighted pancakes!

Mad Bess and myself had a bit of a summit conference this evening with some pirate associates of ours.  In the days of your captain's youth, this would have involved swordplay, prodigious amounts of rum, and at least one or two hacked-off or poked-out body parts (all in good fun, you understand!)  In these politically correct times, however, swordplay was replaced with conversation, rum was replaced with hot tea, and the most violent act committed was when we took our knives and savagely attacked our delicious delicious pancakes and then attempted to drown their remains in whipped butter and blueberry syrup... did I not mention that this summit meeting took place at International House of Pirates Pancakes?  T'is a new age of piratin'... adapt or die, mateys, adapt or die!

Pancakes:  The new doubloons!

Happy Birthday, Libby Belle!

T'was nearly a half-score years astern that Captain Jack heard a commotion out in back of our hideout here at Feral Cove, one fine summer's morn.  Cato, a homeless canine of the chow-chow persuasion who we'd hired on as a sentry, had cornered something in the compost heap.  Could it be a crocodile? Or perhaps a soldier of fortune, come to collect Captain Jack's head for the bounty upon it?  (Captain Jack is a pirate after all... he must have a bounty on his head, right?  Right?)  With flintlocks loaded and drawn, your captain warily approached the compost heap, and found...

...a tiny blue-eyed white kitten no bigger than a BK Veggie.  Said kitten was valiantly hissing, spitting, and slashing at Cato, who was a hundred times her size and frothing at the mouth in an hysterical rage (as your average chow-chow sentries are wont to do.)  Warding off the over-enthusiastic Cato with one hand, your captain scooped up the stout-hearted little feline with the other and made his way back to the ramshackle shanty that he and Mad Bess call home, taking care to hold the lilliputian castaway up and out of the leaping chow-chow's reach.

Since this day happened to be the 4th of July, Bess and I decided to call the little one Liberty Belle, or Libby for short.  We fed her KMR from a baby bottle (which she adorably referred to as her "bok-bok") and she grew up to be big and strong (i.e., fat) and a total princess besides!  To this day we have no clue how a four-week-old kitten made her way over a six-foot privacy fence and successfully held off a rampaging 55-pound sentry dog for however many minutes it took for me to reach her... we have to just assume she was an angel who fell from Heaven... and landed in our compost heap.

Why am I telling you all this, me hearties?  Because this Wednesday past was Libby's tenth birthday.  She's not white anymore; as the years pass, her flame-point Siamese colours become more and more evident, but she's every bit the blue-eyed princess she always was!

Pirate therapy

After yesterday's unpleasantness, Captain Jack needed something to lift his spirits, and by Neptune's trident, today he got it!  After a surprise raid upon Last Chance Thrift Store, your Captain came away with a very nice golf shirt for casual Friday, a manly muscle shirt for those lawless weekends of pillaging and debauchery, and a couple of feeding dishes for his faithful feline crew.  Mad Bess got herself some fetching tops, a nice cardie, and a framed picture whose matte she plans to use for artistic purposes yet unknown... she's a mystery sometimes, is Bess, and Captain Jack wouldn't have her any other way!  :)

Moving right along... Once we'd laid waste to Last Chance, our next target was Bawarchi Indian Restaurant, where we successfully made off with enough grub to last us at least four days at sea:  Dal makhani, aloo gobi, samosas, basmati rice, and two kinds of chutney... heck, that's all your basic food groups right there, matey (apart from rum of course, but being pirates we already had plenty of that on board!  Arrr!!!)

After all this plundering, once we reached safe harbour Mad Bess and myself decided to relax by watching Glengarry Glen Ross whilst enjoying the spoils of our victories.  Now, that there is a film that takes your Captain back to his soul-destroying days at Sun Toyota, trying desperately to lure suckers into buying overpriced automobiles that they can't afford... t'is no wonder he turned to a life of piracy... Captain Jack is just too honourable to be a car salesman!  Great movie though, with an all-star cast and surely some kind of record for total number of f-words packed into 100 minutes!

Monsoon season

In this godforsaken corner of the globe that your Captain and Mad Bess call home, the first of June normally marks the beginning of monsoon season, and this year was no exception.  Torrential rains most of the day, some of the fiercest that we've ever weathered in fact.  And for his own sake I hope those selfsame rains drowned the filthy bilge rat who saw fit to pilfer the halogen docking lamps from the stern of the S.S. Magnum whilst Captain Jack's back was turned... them lamps were a birthday gift from me sainted mother-in-law Iron Milly, so if you've survived the monsoons, boyo, ye'd best pray that our paths never cross, or the kiss of Captain Jack's cutlass will be the last kiss you receive before shuffling off to Davy Jones' Locker (if he'll even have a lowlife piece of lubberly scum like you, that is!)  Captain Jack is not best pleased with this turn of events, to say the least.