Yes. This is what you think/hope it is.



And what makes it better? 3/4th of the music is AC/DC. I'll say it again. Hell. Yeah.

I've been slowly collecting a few good questions, and since khyros has gotten the ball rolling, well, lets do this thing. (as always, a nod should go to lumi21 for starting this trend so long ago.)

1. Who was the last king of England to lead his troops into battle?
2. Who was the last English king to die in battle? (hint: these two questions do not have the same answer)
3. Iron Man II's Whiplash actually incorporates elements of 2 Iron Man villains, who are they?
4. What famous Spartan cry has been co-opted for use by the pro-gun lobby and its grass roots movement?
5. What did Xerxes order done to the Hellespont when it had the temerity to break his pontoon bridge?

Bonus: Identify these 5 men by their nicknames
The Peer
The Iron Chancellor
The Sage of Monticello
The Rail-splitter
The Sphinx of Toulouse

"The consequences of things are not always proportionate to the apparent magnitude of those events that have produced them. Thus the American Revolution, from which little was expected, produced much; but the French Revolution, from which much was expected, produced little."

So, as awesome as Iron Man 2 is, a lot of people wanted men's wear, not armour...

This seems a good compromise:



I posted this over a year ago on here, but I have a lot of new people on here who would enjoy them, and it seems time to repost them.

What's your favourite obscure soundtrack that no one's ever heard of?

I have two - Paul Chihara's score from the miniseries adaptation of James Clavell's Noble House:

And Michel Legrand's score from the 1973 adaptation of The Three Musketeers:

Both of these are so rare I ended up buying them on LP and then converting them to MP3.

So come on, what're yours?

So, Assassin's Creed II is set in Venice and other assorted Renaissance Italian city states.

Wouldn't it be awesome if someone spent an enormous amount of time programming a mod that turned Venice into... oh I don't know... Camorr?

Who wouldn't want to freerun across the Shifting Revel, prowl the roofs of Coin-Kissers Row, or even scale Amberglass and Raven's Reach?

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate...we can not consecrate...we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

On November 11, 1918, at 11 AM, exactly 91 years ago, a remarkable thing happened:

The guns stopped.

For four years they had fired near constantly, and under and around them, the great nations of Europe (and eventually the US) had fought and near destroyed each other. Roughly ten million men fell on the fields of Flanders and northern France, the battlefields of Russia, the Ukraine, and Galicia, Gallipoli on the Turkish Straits, Arabia, and on nearly every sea and ocean on the globe.

Those deaths were, to oversimplify it,  caused by the industrialization of war - the complete dedication of the resources, industry, and technology that had been developed over the past century to military aims - while the tactics of the generals remained outdated and stuck in entirely different philosophical mindset. It can be argued that the First World War was more responsible for technical advances than almost any other conflict - the tank, the airplane, the machine gun and the submarine were all either born or perfected in those four years - but what the First World War is truly remembered for is the loss of a generation; that ten million dead, another twenty-one million wounded, and eight million missing.

It is to honour those dead, missing and wounded, as well as all those in future wars who, in the words of President Lincoln "gave the last full measure of devotion" that in 1919, the British and American governments declared November 11th to be Remembrance Day and Veterans Day respectively. It's also still known as Armistice Day.

The day is to honour and celebrate service and sacrifice, but it is also to remind of that sacrifice, and to make sure that we do not, in forgetting the trauma and horror of war, become eager once more to engage in it. In this it fulfills the dual duty set out on epitaphs and remembrances everywhere:

Go tell the Spartans, thou who passest by,
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate...we can not consecrate...we can not hallow this ground.
The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.
The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England.

It is summed up best, however, by three words of Rudyard Kipling, penned as the last line of his poem "Recessional" in 1897, and then adopted for remembrance the world over:

Lest we forget.

This is the second year in a row this is being posted the evening of a fantastic day - last year, Obama won, this year, the Yankees won.

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I can think of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent
To blow up the King and Parli'ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England's overthrow;
By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

A penny loaf to feed the Pope
A farthing o' cheese to choke him.
A pint of beer to rinse it down.
A fagot of sticks to burn him.
Burn him in a tub of tar.
Burn him like a blazing star.
Burn his body from his head.
Then we'll say ol' Pope is dead.
Hip hip hoorah!
Hip hip hoorah hoorah!

You guys know I love Castle, and usually that love extends to watching it and ocasionally telling you guys you should watch it, but every once in a while, I must show it, because...

LOOK AT WHAT HE'S WEARING

...when he must chase a blond down a track for what he believes in.

The latest by the incomparable G.D. Falksen.

It opens here on the 16th, who's in?

Let gay Paree boast of her famous museums
her bridges, cathedrals, and wide avenues
and the women so fair that you'd faint just to see them
walking down streets and lanes, and cobbled mews

New York's five boroughs fair where car alarms fill the air
at all hours of the morning are dearer by far
Wall Street and Times Square, Subways with no compare
Greenwich Village, Prospect and Central Park

Enthroned on an isle in New York's broad harbor
the statue of Liberty shall stand evermore
with ships passing by on both port and on starboard
lifting her lamp by the golden door

Here in my boroughs five, I've seen them grow and thrive
and rise 'bove the problems the world had in store
firm as Manhattan Schist, we've marched boldly through the midst
of drug lords, of white flight, Al Qaeda, and more

But see how quickly her schools are improving
new neighborhoods rising, (rich and secure)
and back to the city suburbanites moving
(falling once more to the Big Apple's lure)

See how into the skies newly-built towers rise
the reflecting pool marking the three thousand graves
They may cast it down, but then New York will rise again
Capital of all the world, New York the Brave

See how into the skies newly-built towers rise
the reflecting pool marking the three thousand graves
They may cast it down, but then New York will rise again
Capital of all the world, New York the Brave
Capital of all the world, New York the Brave

-Luke Reynolds & JC Ravage
To the tune of "Scotland the Brave"

The New York Times remembers the day after: A tribute to this city's resilience.

Who wants to see him live?

Max Raabe will be at Carnegie Hall on March 4th at 8pm.

Claire and I already have tickets, but I wanted to let people know that he is coming.

Tickets through Carnegie Hall's website here.

For those who have been wondering, the Renn Fair light, aka the Fort Tryon Park Mediaeval festival is going to be held October 4.

Now, who's interested?