Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader meant to post yesterday. As you can tell by the unaltered timestamp on this post, he did not. August 2011 was not a particularly good month for your Maximum Leader. But September should turn things around.

Since your Maximum Leader seems to be suffering from a short attention span, lets give some Twitter-esque commentary here on ye olde blogge.

By the way, you can follow your Maximum Leader on Twitter at: @maximumleader.

Your Maximum Leader didn’t think it was possible for a President to screw up getting to speak in front of a joint session of Congress. Our incumbent President apparently has.

Your Maximum Leader’s favorite primate is the orangutan. (Your Maximum Leader was always a fan of Dr Zaius.)

Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure how he feels about the CIA CTC killing terrorists. To be more specific, he worries about accountablility. (He doesn’t really mind killing bad guys.)

It is getting hard to remember who the Prime Minister of Japan is at any given moment. They are on their 6th PM in 5 years.

Your Maximum Leader must agree with both Dr. Krauthammer and Robbo. Those Washington Natnals are going places. FYI - Your Maximum Leader often sees Krauthammer next to the Dippin Dots near Section 128. (Your Maximum Leader often mooches tix from a friend in Section 127. At a recent game in addition to Krauthammer, your Maximum Leader enjoyed a game in the company of George Will and Ben Bernake.)

Your Maximum Leader loved this little interplay between counter-agent and customer over at Ellison’s.

Your Maximum Leader wishes there was a person running for the office of President of the United States that could elicit more of a reaction than “hummmm” paired with a heavy exasperated sigh.

You know, if all you read was the Washington Post and NY Times you wouldn’t get much of a feeling of outrage at the recent debacle over at BATF known as “Fast & Furious.” This long piece from the WaPo is about as outraged as you would get.

Has your Maximum Leader mentioned how much he loves Doctor Who now? He does. He didn’t like it as much when he was younger (in the 1970s and 1980s). But now it is very cool. Very cool indeed.

Oh…

And… One day late…

Rabbit!

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was trying to read a few blogs he likes before moving on to some other things. He caught this piece by his friend FLG. In it, FLG dissects the recent donation by travel personality Rick Steves to a local arts center. You should clicky the linky and read FLG’s point. It is one with which your Maximum Leader completely agrees.

By the way, your Maximum Leader runs hot and cold on Rick Steves. He’s never read one of Steves’ travel guides, but he has watched his show on PBS. Sometimes he likes the way Steves approaches a place and creates a tour itnerary. Other times, Steves seems like a complete moron. When Steves seems moronic, your Maximum Leader often will turn off (or way down) the volume on the TV and just watch the images on the screen and make up his own commentary.

Anyhoo… Read FLG’s piece…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is not dead. He is not an undead revenant. He was not a casualty of today’s 5.9 magnitude earthquake in Virginia.

No… Your Maximum Leader has been busier over the past few weeks than he can ever remember being. He’s barely had time to eat and sleep (two of his favorite activities). Blogging, which has been sparse over the past year or so, was waaaay down on the list.

Anyhoo…

Don’t you fret. Your Maximum Leader is lurking out in the ether.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader yells out “Rabbit” at you all. (Since it is the first of the month.)

Your Maximum Leader is a bachelor this week. His lovely wife and kids are at the beach, and he is alone in the Villainschloss. He will be consuming the finest meats and cheeses in all the land! He assures you since he went to Wegmans a few hours ago and purchased himself (modest) quantities of the finest victuals for himself…

Sadly, while unloading the meats and cheeses from the car, he hit his knee on a corner and fears it is swelling badly. He is beginning to hobble some. He’s got ice, but the pain is really something…

Speaking of pain…

Your Maximum Leader was introduced to a new drink (new to him at any rate) this weekend. It is a Painkiller. Ingredients: 1 part pineapple juice, 1 part orange juice, 1 measure coconut cream, 1 part rum. Mix with ice in cocktail shaker. Garnish with nutmeg. It is very very tasty. He has now made himself one (and served it in a tiki mug from the official supplier of tiki mugs for the MWO - Tiki Farm).

And while we are speaking of alcohol… A person found this blog due to a post from a few years back concerning alcohol and an old and dearly departed friend and mentor of your Maximum Leader, Professor Richard T. Couture. The post was about parties and Fish House Punch. NB to Linda: Your Maximum Leader will be sending you an email soon.

Your Maximum Leader was going to write more… But he is going to make himself another painkiller and slink off to bed.

Carry on.

The old man sat on the river bank. Fishing.

Across the river, an impatient bearded man kept reeling his in line and recasting it.

Then the bearded man walked across the surface of the deep river.

“Hello brother,” the bearded man said. “I’m late… Um, you caught anything?”

“There’s one in the basket.”

The bearded man looked in the basket. “Amazing! Now there are ten! Can I take five? The boys are waiting for dinner.”

The old man nodded.

“Thanks a lot. Never been much of a fisher of fishes. More a fisher of men type ‘o guy.”

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader must be channeling FLG today on the blog.

Readers of FLG’s blog will know that he (FLG that is) has a category labeled “Object Sex.” In the object sex department this little bit from the Huffington Post (via Jonah Goldberg): Hitler Gave Nazi Soldiers Blow-up Sex Dolls to Combat Syphillus. The money quote (ahem): “…the project was reportedly canned when soldiers refused to carry the dolls in fear of embarrassment if captured.”

This little tidbit comes from a book entitled “Mussolini’s Barber.”

Interesting.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader gets piles of enjoyment from reading FLG when his dander is up about Plato or Alexander.

Like this post for example.

Enjoy.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wishes all his Francophile readers (and any French readers he may have) a happy Bastille Day. May you day be filled with liberty, equality and brotherhood.

Of course, looking at his own blog, your Maximum Leader feels like something of a jack-hole for not wishing his own countrymen a happy 4th of July… He has no excuse. He was out celebrating himself and didn’t think about blogging. As atonement, your Maximum Leader will light off some leftover fireworks in honor of the taking of the Bastille. He’ll also swill some French wine too. He might even think about Mélissa Theuriau, Carla Bruni, Sophie Marceau, and a bevy of French women…

That will be punishment…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader recently celebrated a birthday. His best buddy Kevin procured for him a Blu Ray copy of the classic “Evil Dead II” with Bruce Campbell. Your Maximum Leader loves the Evil Dead movies. He is specially fond of “Army of Darkness” (which he’s watched many times over the years on his ole DVD/Blu Ray player).

Well, imagine your Maximum Leader’s surprise when he saw on Pajiba this morning that there is going to be an Evil Dead remake. (Clicky the linky to see the Pajiba piece - as well as read the wonderful Evil Dead lines as rewritten by Diablo Cody.)

He wonders who will star in the remake. Will there be a cameo or a significant part for the fabulous Bruce Campbell? So many questions…

He’ll likely go out and see the film when it comes out…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has been blogging for 8 years now.

Admittedly he blogged more in years 1 - 6 than he has in 7-8. But he is still at it.

Your Maximum Leader thinks his output would increase if he got more computer time… Which is to say another computer for the ole Villainschloss… He has to chase his older progeny off the computer every time he wants to use it…

Anyway… It’s been eight years…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader mused the other night, on Twitter (@maximumleader if you care to follow him) that he felt like he should own himself a sword.

Now, it is likely that this sudden urge to own a sword stems from two elements in your Maximum Leader’s person. The first is that for the past month or so he’s been reading George R.R. Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire.” (NB: He is now starting book four, “A Feast for Crows.”) There are lots of swords in those books…

The second is that swords are cool. Your Maximum Leader has always loved swords. (NB: He also thinks that a sword is a handy back-up weapon to have during a zombie apocalypse.) He, at one time long past, had a cheesy replica cavalry sabre. He doesn’t know what came of it (but it is likely that it wound up being sold or given away to someone). But he has, from time to time, wanted a sword.

He doesn’t want any sword mind you, he wants a sword with character.

For a long time your Maximum Leader has been torn two ways when it comes to swords. The first way is towards Japan. Like so many others, Quentin Tarantino for example, he believes that the Japanese samurai sword is about a great as you can get in a sword. Your Maximum Leader isn’t talking about a katana that is stamped out of pot metal, chromed, and sold in a Spencer’s Gifts in a mall somewhere. He is talking about a legitimate sword, crafted by hand by folding heated metal upon itself over and over again, then hand polished. Of course a sword like that is a work of art and, sadly, way out of your Maximum Leader’s current budget.

But there is another problem with an authentic katana. (Which is the only type he’d want.) It is Japanese. Your Maximum Leader is not Japanese. He feels a little weird about investing himself in a Japanese sword…

Your Maximum Leader is of good Scottish stock. So the likely sword for him would be the claymore. Now when your Maximum Leader says “claymore” he’s thinking about a full-out medieval two-handed great sword. That is a sword that befits a Maximum Leader. The very idea of a claymore stirs the Scottish blood in your Maximum Leader.

Then again, your Maximum Leader is American. And like America, we have got to make badass stuff that is our own.

That is where your Maximum Leader’s interweb acquaintance the Amazing Ben comes in. You may know the Amazing Ben from his kick-ass blog (Badass of the Week) or either of his two fabulous books (here and here). Ben also tweets at @badassoftheweek

If you know anything at all about the Amazing Ben Thompson, you know that he knows badass forwards and back. Ben, upon reading that your Maximum Leader was thinking of swords, and was thinking about how a sword would come in handy during the zombie apocalypse, suggested that your Maximum Leader check out a website that might satisfy his yen for a sword as well as be handy to have in the zombie apocalypse.

Your Maximum Leader now suggests you go on over and check out Zombie Tools.

Your Maximum Leader is not prone to cursing on his blog… But oh fuck yeah. This is what he’s talking about. Check out the blades they sell. (Here if you need a linky to clicky).

Your Maximum Leader is completely captivated by the Apokatana. (He is also pretty psyched by the d’Capitan, but the Apokatana seems to speak to him.) See the Apokatana in action (NB: they drop the f-bomb a few times - so be careful who is listening):

Need more?

How about the guys testing out their wares on Earl the zombie cow:

Well… Now your Maximum Leader is going to have to squirrel away money to save up and get an Apokatana for himself… There just ain’t no two ways about it. He’s going to have to have one…

Unless the guys at Zombie Tools decide to make a claymore style great-sword…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader seems to explain to Mrs Villain (and now his villainous progeny) a few times a year that “Not Guilty” is not the same as “Innocent.”

From what your Maximum Leader can tell, Casey Anthony is “Not Guilty” of any crimes other than lying to investigators. That doesn’t mean she didn’t do it. What it means is that the state didn’t prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Your Maximum Leader is okay with the outcome of the case. If the state doesn’t prove the case, the accused goes free. That is the way it should be.

Your Maximum Leader will now set the over/under for Casey Anthony appearing in a strip club/nudie mag/soft-core porn near you at 10 months. (After she serves whatever time to which she’ll be sentenced for the crimes of which she was convicted.)

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has been away. He’d say he’s sorry about that, but it would be a lie. He’s taken a little vacation and then has been rather busy. So there it is.

By the way… Since it is the first of the month… Rabbit!

Since it is the first of July, Happy Canada Day to those of you in the great white north.

Your Maximum Leader might post some photos of his vacation here when he gets them all of his camera and phone…

And of course, we Americans will be celebrating the Glorious Fourth of July this weekend. It remains your Maximum Leader’s favorite holiday of all. This year he’ll be celebrating with some fireworks he bought while on vacation in Tennessee. And let us say that some of these fireworks are “difficult” to “obtain” in the great Commonwealth of Virginia. We’re watering the area around the launch site as a precaution starting today…

A friend of your Maximum Leader send him a little message containing some interesting tidbits. Your Maximum Leader can’t vouch for the accuracy of any of these items, but if they are true - or nearly true - they are fun.

There’s a 1-in-6 chance the beef on your backyard grill came from Texas. (The Lone Star State is the leader in the production of cattle and calves)
More than 155 million hot dogs will be consumed
68.3 million cases of beer will be sold this weekend (4th of July is the top holiday for beer sales)
There’s a 1-in-3 chance that your side dish of baked beans originated from North Dakota.
$111 million will be spent on popsicles alone this weekend

Your Maximum Leader is willing to accept the truthfulness of all of those except the popsicles one. That seems like an astronomical number for popscles. But it may well be true.

Your Maximum Leader may post more over the weekend if he gets a chance…

Carry on.

42.

Just like your Maximum Leader. Tomorrow that is.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader spend some money on iTunes last night. He purchases songs from artists that had been recommended to him by friends. In all cases, he’d never heard the songs before purchasing them. He normally is a little more judicious and curious before buying. But something felt right about these purchases. (And if he didn’t like them he was only out $10.)

Of all the songs he bought there are two that really stand out and he loves a lot. The first one is “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley. Your Maximum Leader heard of Gnarls a few years ago, but doesn’t ever recall hearing any songs of theirs. He now owns three songs and does like “Crazy.”

The other song is one your Maximum Leader doubts many (any) of you have heard of. It is “El Camino” by Elizabeth Cook. Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be an “official” video or high quality performance video of her performing the song. Your Maximum Leader liked this vid, so he presents it for your listening and viewing pleasure:

Here is a link to another video of her singing the song. The audio is better so you can hear all the lyrics.

Love it.

Carry on.