Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader reads on the news wires that Prince Albert is assuming the duties of Regent for his father, Prince Ranier III of Monaco.

This must mean that Prince Ranier is not doing well at all. Your Maximum Leader - a monarchist at heart - will keep the Prince in his thoughts.

You know something my minions… Being Prince of Monaco doesn’t seem to be a bad gig. Frankly, if your Maximum Leader’s sights weren’t set a little higher (it is the Mike WORLD Order after all) he doesn’t think he’d mind being the pseudo-benevolent autocrat of a tiny European or tropically located nation-lette. A small island to rule… A few square miles of prime beach-front nation-dom… The ancient and historic enclave in a major city… Or even a free and independent cty-state…

No not a bad gig at all…

Indeed. Perhaps your Maximum Leader should find some obsure claim in his ancestry to be the last Paleologus alive and claim the throne of Byzantium. (Highly unlikely as his ancestry is actually Anglo-Scottish… But Anna Anderson somehow made it stick for years.) Hell, your Maximum Leader bets that with enough cajoling he could convince the Turks and the EU to allow him to set up Istanbul/Constantinople/Byzantium as his own little Empire. He’d declare himself Emperor Michael IX. Sure he’d have to become an Orthodox Christian and all - but, like the Stuarts and their closet Catholicism, it would be a small price to pay for the throne. He might also have to learn Turkish and Greek. Humm… That might complicate matters somewhat…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader hasn’t seen these in stores yet. But he will pick up some “Darth Mix” M&M’s as soon as he does.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions.

Terry Schiavo has died.

May she rest in peace. And may God have mercy on us all.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader doffs his bejeweled floppy hat in the direction of the crack young staff (let’s call him “Chip”) at the Hatemongers Quarterly. Today, is their one year anniversary.

Your Maximum Leader hopes that the crack young staff has a baccinalian fest of epic proportions tonight. Perhaps they could have a themed party? A theme like “Being Snarky while Civilization Burns.”

And you know… The crack young staff says that they “started ugly” and “stayed ugly.” Actually, the hate is, well, beautiful.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, a lover of all things Churchill, was interested to read this blog entry at BookofJoe concerning the impending sale of Winston Churchill’s flat at Morpeth Mansions.

Your Maximum Leader would have been more interested if the interior hadn’t been redecorated.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, as you may have guessed, loves food. He loves the eating of food, the preparing of food, and the presentation of food. He loves watching people cook. He loves to think about cooking. He loves understanding what is happening chemcially during cooking.

With all these loves, you can reasonably assume a few things.

1) Your Maximum Leader watches quite a lot of programming on the Food Network.

2) Your Maximum Leader is too lazy to participate in the Carnival of the Recipes. (Also, your Maximum Leader doesn’t always follow a recipe. He doesn’t always measure things out. He “measures” many ingredients by sight, texture, or smell.)

3) Your Maximum Leader still owes Brian a review of his recipe.

Okay… Perhaps you couldn’t assume (or even infer) all those things…

Anyho…

Today while looking over some software at Amazon, the good minders of that site suggested that your Maximum Leader rush out to purchase Giada De Laurentiis’ book “Everyday Italian: 125 Simple and Delicious Recipes.”

Now. Your Maximum Leader does enjoy watching Everyday Italian on Food Network. He has even made a few dishes that Giada has featured on her show. They are not bad. And on the balance, he thinks that if you don’t have your head around basic southern italian cooking; you would pick up some easy to follow tips from watching Giada. (There is one negative comment your Maximum Leader will make about this program. Not everyone has access to a good Italian Butcher or Cheese Monger. That can often put the kibbash on some items Giada would have you do.)

But, of course, your Maximum Leader isn’t just hear to regale you with tales of TV. He is here to pass judgement on Ms. De Laurentiis’ physical appearance.

How shallow of him.

Allow him to enter into evidence the following photos. Here. And here (scroll down). (Also check out the cover of the book at Amazon.)

First item. It is incredible how much of a resemblance Giada has to Natalie Portman. (Indeed here is a site saying the two - Giada and Natalie - will be morphing together.)

Second item. If your Maximum Leader were to meet Giada in person he thinks that he would find her very “stringy” and unhealthy looking. Her arms just look like skin and bone. Not good.

Third item. Your Maximum Leader wonders if her boobs are real. They seem so arge compared to the rest of her. (Which as previously mentioned, has no fat.)

Well, your Maximum Leader will continue to watch Giada’s show. But he wishes she would eat a little more.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader loves it when some smart fellow comes along and looks at something in a new way and has an epiphany. Of course, oftentimes these people have some compulsive or neurotic aspects to their personality as well, but that just makes them more interesting.

Well, your Maximum Leader was captivated by a story from the LA Times today. It is out on the wire too. It is: Ptolemy Tilted Off His Axis.

The name Hipparchus sounded familiar to your Maximum Leader, but he wouldn’t have placed it without the short explanation in the piece. But what a facinating article. He hopes that some longer peice will appear in either Smithsonian or National Geographic (to which he subscribes). Go and read about how a modern astronomer has used a Roman statue to confirm an ancient star map. One thought lost in the burning of the Library of Alexandria. (Thanks Saint Cyril!)

As an interesting aside… If you go and visit the Hoover Dam, you will see a large statue on the Arizona side (he believes). It is commemerating the dedication and opening of the dam. The sculptor who made the peice carved the exact position of the stars in the night sky on the day of the dedication into the statue. He did this to assure that one day, if no one could read the inscription on the statue, they could use the position of the stars to date the dam.

Sort of an interesting little bit of serindipity.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leaders sees that his fellow citizens of the great Commonwealth of Virginia are “growing” at a faster rate than any other Americans. What does he mean by “growing?” Why growing obese of course.

Now your Maximum Leader admits he has some “love handles.” But he doesn’t believe he qualifies as “obese” by generally accepted medical guidelines. He has held his 6′3″ frame at about 16.78 stone for quite a while now. So he could stand to lose a stone or a stone and a half.

Not sure of what a stone is? Check out this great site discussing units of measurement.

Anyho… Your Maximum Leader has noticed a great many of his fellow Virginians are hauling heavier loads than they should… We should all eat better and exercise more.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has had dining experiences that were diminshed, or outright ruined, by the behaviour of the other clientele in a restaurant. (And frankly, he has probably caused others to say the same once or twice.) But to read the lastest from the crack young staff at The Hatemonger’s Quarterly makes one appreciate staying home.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, due to time contraints and family commitments, wasn’t able to blog as he would have liked yesterday. So here are some items off the news wire that he wanted to comment upon.

First off. Korean Bullfighting? What the hell? No matadors. Just angry bulls going at it? In a country with limited grazing space and thus small cattle herds this seems odd. Your Maximum Leader supposes it would be a way of disposing of excess bulls. But in another way it just seems like a glorified cock-fight. Perhaps some of our Korean readers (or Korea-based readers) could comment on this “pastime.”

It was first done in California. Now Oregon is up. Pretty soon it will be New York. About what is your Maximum Leader speaking… Outlawing traditional methods of making Foie Gras. Yes, yes. Your Maximum Leader knows that many people think that sticking a goose in a small box and force feeding it until it’s liver swells up, then killing the goose, extracting the liver, and curing it in wine/brandy/other tasty alcohol is cruel - but it makes for mighty good eatin’. Indeed, your Maximum Leader agrees to an extent that the treatment is unseemly. But in order for it to be cruel your Maximum Leader would have to ascribe some attributes of a moral agent to the goose. And he is, frankly, unwilling to do so. Perhaps the Smallholder should investigate becoming a premier supplier of foie gras to the finer restaurants of the mid-atlantic region. Since it is only a matter of time before the PETA people start working on the New York Legislature. (BTW, New York farms are the largest producers of US foie gras.) Your Maximum Leader doesn’t want to become dependent on French geese livers…

A recent poll showed that most Harvard students are unhappy. This saddens your Maximum Leader. Perhaps they would feel better if they went to Yale? Or maybe Dupont?

And finally, your Maximum Leader sees that some of the western counties of Ireland have decided to remove the English language from road signs and make their roadside navigational aids Gaelic only. In most cases your Maximum Leader is all for native languages. And he supposes he is in this case as well. It just seems as though it is something of a scam. A scam to increase the number of “native guides” for hapless English speakers from other parts of the anglophone world. And, as you might imagine, a scam by map makers to make old maps obsolete and require you to buy new ones in Gaelic AND English. (Or even worse, require that you have two maps - and compare them!)

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees on the news wires that Jerry Falwell is in critical condition at the Lynchburg (VA) General Hospital.

Do we have to add another person in our race to the finish line?

Your Maximum Leader doesn’t wish ill upon Mr. Falwell, but if he is quite bad off he might suggest it would be better to finish before the Pope. When the Pope finishes the race the bar may very well be raised for others…

And sadly, it appears as though celebrity lawyer Johnnie Cochran has finished the race. To the surprise of many, your Maximum Leader has always respected Johnnie Cochran. Sure he played the race card with such frequency as to be sometimes laughable, but you can’t win all the cases he did with the race card alone. He was a talented lawyer, and by all accounts a gentleman. While your Maximum Leader doubts that he and Mr. Cochran would have agreed on many things, that doesn’t preclude your Maximum Leader from giving credit where it was due. Requiscat en pace, Johnnie Cochran.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was out reading his daily blog reads and he discovered a lovely little gem from Jeff at Beautiful Atrocities. It is The Jane Wiedlin Story.

Your Maximum Leader must make a confession. He LOVES the Go-Go’s. He has the “Return to the Valley of the Go-Go’s.” And he has even played it recently, much to the dismay of Villainette Number One. You see, in the eyes of Villainette Number One, the only person ever to have sung “Our Lips Are Sealed” is Hilllary Duff. Upon hearing the robust Belinda Carlisle sing the song Villainette Number One declared, “She is okay. But Hillary is much better. Plus, she has her own show on Disney. I’ve never heard of that other girl.”

Anyho… Go read Jeff’s post…

Then settle into your easy chair, turn “Surreal Life” on the TV. But mute the sound. Then put on your “Return to the Valley of the Go-Go’s” CD and relax. That is good televsion.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t wait for a moment of inspiration to write a blog post. He often just cranks something out for the sake of writing and the theraputic effect it has on his pysche.

Sometimes he feels inspired to comment, opine, or make witty observations about life.

Sometimes he is jealous of people who seem to write a great post. Take for example our friend Brian at Memento Moron and his wonderful post on the Blues.

As Browning wrote, “Gr-r-r– you swine!” Okay, your Maximum Leader isn’t really that jealous. But it does give him a reason to quote Browning…

Carry on.

UPDATE FROM YOUR MAXIMUM LEADER: Brian insists on giving credit where it is due. (Which is always a good policy.) His blues post was actually lifted from Wicked Thoughts. So your Maximum Leader directs his Browning-esque “Gr-r-r” towards Bussorah…

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was enjoying his Easter Lamb dinner yesterday with his immediate family and his wonderful in-laws. After the main meal was completed, and the children dismissed from the table, we all started to talk about “grown-up” stuff. Conversation meandered to the Schiavo situation, living wills, advanced medical directives, and medical powers of attorney.

Then the conversation stalled. It wasn’t one of those awkward pauses in conversaton such as one might have at a dinner party or a date. Just a pause in which no one at the table had anything to add. Since it was all family, this pause was used by most of us to take a drink or dab at some congealing gravy with a leftover forkfull of lamb.

At this point your Maximum Leader’s sainted father-in-law said, “Well, I suppose the Pope and Prince Ranier are both racing for the finish line. Any guesses on who will make it first?” Well that just cracked up your Maximum Leader. “Racing towards the finish line.” Very droll.

In case any of you are wondering, the consensus was that Prince Ranier would cross the finish line before the Holy Father. We thought this was a good thing too. You wouldn’t want to have to convince Saint Peter that you were just as deserving as the Pope, assuming that the Pope went through the pearly gates first.

But Prince Ranier did not beat Paul Hester across the finish line.

Your Maximum Leader supposes that Paul Hester doesn’t really count. Since he seems to have decided for himself when to cross the line.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has forgotten to check a special “spam” account he set up. You know the type. The account you have just in case you want to sign up for something on-line, but are afraid that the e-mail address you give will be broadcast to every semi-sentient spammer in the world. Well, your Maximum Leader hasn’t checked his since he left for Vegas. He checked it today. And in response to some of what resided in that mailbox, he writes this open letter:

THE MAXIMUM LEADER
THE VILLAINSCHLOSS

To: Melinda, Scott, Alberto, Armand, Clare, et. al.
From: Your Maximum Leader
Date: March 28, 2005
RE: Your recent message

Your Maximum Leader would like to thank each of you for your recent message. Although it is doubtful that we have ever met, your Maximum Leader is heartened to learn that he is among your “best and closest friends” - as your message points out. It is hard to find such subservient and obsequious minions as yourselves, he appreciates your dedication.

Additionally, your Maximum Leader thanks you for writing such a clear subject line to your message. He knew exactly what to expect when he read the words: “SEXUALLY EXPLICIT watch dumb european women work hard for cash.” He appreciates your candor.

Feel free to e-mail your Maximum Leader any time with similarly labeled messages. So long as he knows what to expect from you before he opens your e-mail he is happy.

Cordially,

Your Maximum Leader

If only all spammers were so forthcoming in their messages.

Carry on.