Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader apologizes for his dearth of posting. Sadly, he’s been caught up in life. He determined this afternoon to jot down a few thoughts to see if anyone out there is still reading…

Your Maximum Leader did book hotels for his trip to Tennessee later this month. On the agenda for family sight-seeing are: The Hermitage, the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Grand Ole Opry, and Graceland. Yes, your Maximum Leader is going to make sure to take the whole family on the pilgrimage to the home of Elvis. (NB to all readers: If you don’t know already… When the Mike World Order comes, your Maximum Leader will “lean” on the Pope to have Elvis Presley made a Saint. It will happen…) So he is looking forward to that. (Both the vacation and making Elvis a Saint.)

Oh yes… It is the first of the month… Rabbit!

Your Maximum Leader has found himself completely engrossed in HBO’s “Game of Thrones.” Although many people have commended the books to him over the years, your Maximum Leader has never read them. Now thanks to the magic of television, he’s been prompted to go to the devil’s own website (term tm’ed by Robbo) and bought the first 4 books of George R.R. Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire.” (NB: Your Maximum Leader wonders - but is too lazy to google it to get some closure on the issue - if the “R.R.” in George R.R. Martin stand for “Robert” and “Reuhl.” Mmmmmm….) Anyhoo… Your Maximum Leader is particularly partial to the characters of Tyrion Lannister, the dwarf son of the powerful Lannister family, and Daenerys Targaryen, the last princess of her line and the wife of the Horse Lord Khal Drogo. He has invested himself in the story and now feels the need to learn the whole story. So when the books arrive he’ll get started on learning all there is about this world that Martin has created.

There is an element of “Game of Thrones” that reminds your Maximum Leader of Stephen R. Donaldson’s books called “Mordant’s Need.” The similarity is likely superficial. But the similarities have prompted your Maximum Leader to find his copies of the Mordant’s Need books and re-read them.

BTW, with this purchase from Amazon, your Maximum Leader has broken his promise to himself to not purchase a new book in all of 2011 and only re-read books he owns… He doesn’t think he’d mentioned this promise to himself before on the blog. But he was very good in keeping it - until now of course…

Your Maximum Leader is going through baseball DT’s. This is not to say that he’s not been watching baseball on TV. In fact he’s watched quite a bit of it. He has missed going to a game. It is now June and in all past seasons he would have been to at least one and normally two Nationals games by now. He has been to precisely zero. He has time to go this weekend. But the Nationals are going on an 11 day road trip tomorrow. Your Maximum Leader’s Nats were able to steal two away from the dreaded Phillies, and now they sit in the cellar of the NL East and only 7 games under .500.

Your Maximum Leader is likely going to end this little missive now, as the heavens are about to open with water and electricity in a few minutes. He’ll hope the passing storms does something to minimize the heat that has been affecting his area over the past few days. Odds are rain will only add to the humidity… Mother Nature must like saunas…

Carry on.