Drunken Pumpkin

Die my dear? Why that’s the last thing I’ll do.

b. October 2, 1890 – d. August 19, 1977

We were asked to exchange links with a website that would in no way, shape, form, or fashion suggest exchanging links with us if they had in fact looked at our material at all.

From: Jessica Date: Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 11:15 AM
Subject: Link Exchange Request from Manchesterclinic.com
To: pyrophage:at:drunken-pumpkin.com

Hello,

I came across your website drunken-pumpkin.com, and would like to propose a link exchange between your site and ManchesterClinic.com. The Manchester Clinic of Plastic Surgery has seen over 70,000 patients and performed nineteen thousand surgeries since opening. Dr. Manchester’s before and after photos have been selected to be featured on The Consumer Guide to Cosmetic Surgery, a website providing comprehensive Cosmetic Procedure information.

Please consider adding our link to your site on your page: http://www.drunken-pumpkin.com/2008/06/in-our-ongoing-efforts-to-provide-useful-resources-here-is-a-printable-copy-of-form-a-001/

Here is our linking information:

Title: San Diego Cosmetic Surgery
Description: Cosmetic surgery using both non-surgical and surgical techniques, in a first class clinic in year round beautiful San Diego.
URL: http://www.ManchesterClinic.com

HTML Code
<a href=”http://www.ManchesterClinic.com” target=”_blank”><b>San Diego Cosmetic Surgery</b></a> Cosmetic surgery using both non-surgical and surgical techniques, in a first class clinic in year round beautiful San Diego.

Let us know when our link is placed and we will post your link in the proper category of the resources page listed here: http://www.manchesterclinic.com/resources/index.html

Please be sure to include your desired title and description. Your link will be posted within hours, however, in some rare cases it may take longer. Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you for your consideration,

Jessica
linkmanager@manchesterclinic.com
9831 E. Bell Road Suite 110
Scottsdale, AZ 85260

Now, if she had asked to have their link posted on the “Ode To The Colorectal Surgeon” page, I could understand.

Most people seem to think that all of the really innovative or peculiar stuff comes from one of the coasts. The more I listen to modern music the more I tend to disagree.

I recently started listening to Mushroomhead, much to my wife’s distress. (I tend to listen to it a lot, and very loud.) They were really the band that sort of tipped my perception of my little chunk of the world. I’ve been listening to Slipknot and Mudvayne for years, but it never really occured to me that these people were all from the same arbitrarily lumped together area.

For those of you that don’t know Slipknot is from Iowa, Mudvayne is from Illinois, and Mushroomhead is from Ohio. (As a side note, the former sing from SOiL and current singer for Drowning Pool is from Indiana.) Just look at that crowd of folks from the Midwest. Seriously disturbed individuals all making music. Some of it pretty generic sounding at this point, but if you put it in context these guys all revived a little theatricallity that was missing from a live performance. Pyro only really takes you so far (crap, did I just say that?)

If we go back a little further from these folks we end up with the likes of Iggy Pop from Detroit, and that’s a guy that’s just not in his right mind.

I think one of the guys from Slipknot really explained the phenomenon fairly well once. In the midwest there really isn’t much to do. You can do drugs, have sex, read your bible, and get a factory job. Or, you can go out and make your own entertainment. With latex, make-up and fake blood.

Just remember that next time you’re driving across the country. Certainly, lots of innovation comes from the coasts and the midwest is filled with cover bands, but some of those cover bands are just saving up for a 40 foot steel tower that fires flaming drummers into the audience.

Tune in next time for the release of my new album, Attack of the Flaming Drummer.

With special guest, Bill Clinton.

I found a reference to a strange Martial Art from the Edwardian era in Shonen Jump some time ago. Bartitsu is probably best described as Edwardian Jeet Kune Do. I was curious about this odd stuff and dropped some cash on the Bartitsu Compendium. The book is mostly history about the art’s founder, Edward Barton-Wright, but also has some of his canonical syllabi for instruction.
Now, I’m not some random schnook that grabbed a book and thinks he can teach himself a useful martial art. I’m actually a Black Belt Candidate in Kuk Sool Won, so a fair chunk of the stuff in the book was stuff I’m largely familiar with. As Bruce Lee said, there are only so many ways to make a body move. However, some of the more anachronistic stuff really caught my eye. It’s downright hilarious to see a man in a three piece suit and skimmer in a deep horse-stance holding a stick over his head.

Somehow I convinced Jeff that we should learn some of the drills and techniques from Bartitsu. Partially for the oddity factor, partially as good exercise, and partially as a form of self-defense. So, training sessions are a little odd, because I try to keep some of the odd stances that are useless in a fight for part of the training and then ditch them when dealing with practical matters.

Below is one of the pics from our first training session. It took a little while to find a good one, as I wanted something that looked a little silly without making either of us look like outright idiots. I’m the one that looks like he might know what he’s doing. Jeff is the one that will no doubt cause me injury when he loosens up and gets used to that stick in his hand.

Injuries will be posted in due time, I’m sure.

Tune in next time. No reason, just do it.

I don’t know what I was doing when I found this, but it’s really too funny not to share here.

I vaguely remember “Duckman: Private Dick”, but I don’t think I ever actually watched. Most a pity.

I don’t have any pics to go along with this, but I’ll explain why here in a second.

My father-in-law is a private pilot, and flies a tiny plane called Piper Tripacer. If you have no experience with single engine planes I suggest you listen to Henry Rollins piece “Eric the Pilot”. Rollins goes into a great deal of detail of the experience of being in one of these tiny little machines that he aptly calls a “canoe with a plank.”

I was in the canoe with a plank, holding on for dear life, while we pitched around the sky of midwestern farm country when I spotted what looked a lot like crop circles. Now, the fact that I was afraid for my life deterred me from asking for the camera to take a picture of this phenomenon. Alas, I don regret that because they were so peculiar.

We’ve all seen pictures of crop circles before. They are stunning if only for their peculiar precision and geometric form. But what happens to those that are a little less than perfect? Surely they don’t all turn out so pristine the first time out? And it isn’t like you can erase an error in a field. What I saw looked an awful lot like a young alien working out the controls of his crop circle-omatic.

Instead of clean geometry the field was filled with strange loops and odd scribbles. It looked a little like someone decided to frame the field with the drawing of a confused five year old. Honestly, it was really quite striking for its lack of symmetry.

Either that or it was a strange pattern of crops that had been washed out. Who knows?

Tune in next time for Bartitsu! With pictures!

For instance, I’m certain that this man thought the t-shirt he’s wearing was hilarious in the store…

Really, what could I possibly call this post that would be better than the material provided?