Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has been having a rough week. He hopes yours is going better…

In the spirit of the intellectual FLG, your Maximum Leader is listening to…

And…

You know the lyrics of The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald are pretty moving. Your Maximum Leader can’t recall ever hearing this song until about 1 year ago. (Not being a Gordon Lightfoot fan he supposes.) It happened to be on his iPod and it was dished out randomly. (NB: He gets treats that way. He’s got nearly 9,000 songs on the iPod and he doubts he’s actually listened to more than 3,000 of them.) It is a pretty powerful song all in all.

And…

And…

Given how his week is going… He wishes he were driving Route 66… And he doesn’t mean the new I-66 in Northern Virginia. (That would likely drive him over the edge.) He means the “real” Route 66 from Chicago to LA…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader had at least three potential blog posts to type out last night. But then he remembered… It was Monday night. Monday night is the one night he actually enjoys watching television. Although the DVR is recording the programs he likes, he still wants to sit and watch them. So last night it was “How I met your mother” followed by 30 minutes of laundry and housekeeping. Then “Two and a half men” and “The big bang theory.” Then your Maximum Leader switches over to ABC (from CBS) to watch “Castle.”

“Castle” is a great show. Your Maximum Leader has no idea how popular it is. He imagines that since he really likes it the show can’t be too popular. The dialouge is great. The stories are interesting. The acting is great. It is time well spent, in so much as tv can be time well spent.

Of course, your Maximum Leader has to swtich over from the programmed tv to Monday Night Football too. He thought that the Chargers would do justice to those beautiful power-blue uniforms and beat down the Broncos. While the game was close and good watching (at least what he saw last night an on highlights); the Chargers couldn’t pull it out. Perhaps the Broncos are an elite team that your Maximum Leader should watch more carefully…

Anyhoo… Perhaps tonight he’ll have a chance to discuss how fun his weekend was… And it was very very fun…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has been busy this week. He is entertaining a guest at the Villainschloss, attending some political fundraisers, and helping Mrs Villain shuttle the Villainettes and Wee Villain from one activity to another. He’s wanted to comment at length on a number of issues in the news, but is going to settle for short bullet points today…

Did you see that Somali pirates attacked the flagship of the French Navy in the Indian Ocean? Now your Maximum Leader was surprised by this headline. Then reading the piece caused him more surprise. The first surprise was that the French flagship in the region is a fueling vessel/command vessel. One would have thought that the flagship would be a destroyer/frigate/cruiser. You know, a friggin WARSHIP with big friggin GUNS and MISSLES! Alas, it apparently is not so. After that first surprise there was a second one in the piece. The second surprise is that the French vessel was attacked by two small boats - and one got away. This probably shouldn’t surprise your Maximum Leader, but it does. Afterall, if you don’t have a warship to blow things out of the water how exactly do you expect to get both pirate boats? Still, your Maximum Leader will chalk this encounter up as a win for the French navy.

Secondly… It looks like your Maximum Leader and his best buddy Kevin will have a boys-night out on Saturday and go and see Zombieland. Woo hoo!

Thirdly… It looks like your Maximum Leader will get another boys-night out later in the month and will visit Smallholder and Polymath. While visiting those two fine gentlemen, guess what he’ll do? He’ll go and see Zombieland again… Then he’ll get to go into the woods and use a shotgun to blow the heads off zombie targets. Then he’ll get to drink beer all night while stirring the apple butter being made for the town fair. Is that a cool weekend or what?

Next up… Thanks to you all who congratulated Mrs Villain on her new PC, or those who asked how the Acer laptop is working out for us. Well… After a week all seems to be going very well. Laptop runs fine. The only beef is that the bottom of the laptop seems to get a little hotter than did her Dell. But that is a minor quibble.

About all this David Letterman stuff going on… Your Maximum Leader doesn’t really care (in a broad sense) about Dave having multiple affairs over the past 20 years. His a little disturbed that no one seems to be focusing on the whole “Dave-having-affairs-with-people-who-work-for-him” part. These women are employees of Worldwide Pants. Dave is the owner of Worldwide Pants. That seems to be a problem from a sexual harassment point of view. At least that is what attorneys your Maximum Leader knows have always told him…

And finally… Your Maximum Leader has many readers who know about these things… If you receive an invitation to a Ball (as in a glittering dance that would make Cinderella proud) and the invitation notes that the ball is “Formal” should one automatically assume that suitable attire is tuxedos for men and evening gowns for women? Your Maximum Leader awaits your thoughts on this one.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wants to pass along a link pretty much without comment.

Badass of the Week.

Actually your Maximum Leader thought of FLG quite a bit while reading some of the entries on past Badasses of the Week. (You can clicky here to visit the Hall of Badassitude.) You’ll know why from this little taste of the entry on The First Duke of Wellington (a favorite badass of your Maximum Leader’s):

Of course, Arthur Wellesley represented the badass knightly virtues that the people of his country seem to hold so dear, and, as such, in addition to being a fucking ass-destroying ballsmasher on the battlefield he was also a noble and righteous motherfucker as well. When the British troops started sacking and plundering everything in India following their victory, Wellesley ordered the men responsible for this complete lack of discipline to be flogged, beaten, teabagged, and/or hanged, because they were being fucking jackasses to everybody. Since he was the man responsible for single-handedly rocking so many nutsacks, Wellesley was appointed Governor of Mysore, took up residence in the lavish palace of the Sultan he had just finished pwning, and spent his days annihilating rebels, stomping the colons of jackass mercenaries, and administering Charles Bronson-style justice to gangs of murderous brigands.

This prose is a bit more (ahem) colorful than FLG’s, but there is a certain style to it…

Your Maximum Leader will go ahead and apologize in advance to anyone offended by so many f-bombs and references to nutsacks… Your Maximum Leader’s purient side was amused.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has a purient side he admits. One of his favorite guilty pleasures is What Would Tyler Durden Do? A recent update over at WWTDD contained the funniest bit he’s read all day. For those of you who will not click through to read this funny post…

I dated a girl once and it took three weeks to get her into bed, and when I got down there it turns out she’s pierced. So I had to jump through hoops for almost a month but at one point she went to a strip mall and spread her legs for some ex-con with a spike through his nose so he could stab her in the clitoris. Fantastic.

That made me laugh and laugh and laugh.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader presents for your link reading pleasure some items he found over on the Art of Manliness site.

Theodore Roosevelt motivation posters.

Winston Churchill motivational posters.

Hunter S. Thompson motivational posters.

And finally… Ernest Hemmingway motivational posters.

Then after you feel all up and motivated… You can click here to see some de-motivational posters.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is hardly able to contain his laughter…

HELSINKI—Members of the Group of Eight, the forum for the world’s most powerful industrialized nations, held a special session Tuesday to discuss how best to prod the European microstates of Lichtenstein and Andorra into fighting.

The G8’s proposal, which seeks to pit the small, landlocked principalities against each other in military combat, was reportedly drafted after the leaders of the eight nations had grown bored with their recent negotiations over international energy tariffs.

“After much careful deliberation, we have come to the consensus that the nations of Liechtenstein and Andorra need to just man up and fight, ” said U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown during an afternoon recess. “All of the bigger countries want them to, and everyone agrees at this point that it would be quite lame if they didn’t. Therefore, I would advise Liechtenstein and Andorra to grow some balls already and get on with it.”

“Seriously,” Brown added. “Fight.”

According to French president Nicolas Sarkozy, the group has scheduled the Liechtenstein-Andorra military conflict for tomorrow afternoon at 4 p.m. sharp, provided that neither country “pusses out.” Sarkozy also assured reporters that, if Liechtenstein and Andorra were to engage each other in battle, they would almost certainly find themselves in improved diplomatic relations with members of the G8 for years to come

Via The Onion.

Your Maximum Leader is putting money on the Andorrans. Those wimps in Liechtenstein are soft.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader should know that in order to blog one needs to actually push the “publish” button down on the bottom of the post…

Taking a page from FLG and Ellison… Your Maximum Leader is currently listening to:

More by The Sundays

Your Maximum Leader once saw The Sundays at The Boathouse in Norfolk years ago with a good friend of his. This was the show where your Maximum Leader learned that people idiots would create a “mosh pit” to just about any type of music out there… He also learned that Harriet Wheeler, the lead singer, was much better looking than your Maximum Leader had assumed…

Be true to your school by The Beach Boys.

“Valentino” by Diane Birch. Your Maximum Leader highly recommends Diane Birch’s album. You should click that link and listen to Valentino. He would embed the video, but it is wider than his column for posting allows. Indeed, Birch’s album is filled with great songs…

“Noah’s Dove” by 10,000 Maniacs.
“All things dull and ugly” by Monty Python.
Personal Jesus by Johnny Cash.
“Caban La Ka Kratchie” by Georges Fondant.
“Manana (is good enough for me)” by Peggy Lee.

There you go…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader asks you to “stop him if you’ve heard this one.”

Q: Do you know what Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon and Michael Jackson are waiting for in heaven?

A: Patrick Swayze.

Okay… That is bad. But it made your Maximum Leader laugh.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader should thank Agent Bedhead for a neat little link to Premiere and their list of the Baddest Bad Guys. It is a list of well-known actors and their best villainous roles. Your Maximum Leader guessed a number of people on the list, but he didn’t guess who was number 1.

Let us just say he agrees completely with the list…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has completely forgotten to note a few things that he normally would note on his blog…

First off, he realized by looking at the draft post folder that he started to write a 4th of July post… But he didn’t finish it. So he didn’t mention anything on the Fourth of July… Damnation! Happy Birthday America. Depending on your outlook on things there might not be too much to be happy about right now in America. But the 4th of July remains the greatest holiday on the calendar for all Americans.

NB: In a patriotic fit, your Maximum Leader decided over the Fourth of July holiday to only consume alcohol produced in the United States (or our dependencies) for the balance of the year. Yes loyal minions… Your Maximum Leader has foresworn his favorite liquor (Scotch) for the rest of 2009. He moved his various bottles of Scotch to the back of the liquor closet and moved the bourbon and rum up towards the front… To be perfectly honest he did exempt the 4 bottles of Guinness he has in the beer fridge from this pledge. He doesn’t want them to go bad you know. (Although, if you happen to be passing near the Villainschloss and like Guinness, let your Maximum Leader know and he’ll save them for you…)

Secondly, your Maximum Leader forgot to mention the passing of Bastille Day yesterday. He had plans for some french cheese and perhaps beef burgundy for dinner last night… But he got shanghai’ed into going to a movie…

Your Maximum Leader was (somehow) convinced (against his better judgement) to join “the boyz” and go and see “Bruno.”

Dead Gawd! Let the burning in my eyes and ears stop now! Please!

Your Maximum Leader moderately enjoyed Sacha Baron Cohen’s last movie “Borat.” During “Borat” your Maximum Leader laughed for about a third of the movie, felt very uncomfortable with what he was seeing for about a third of the movie, and was bored for about a third of the movie.

Well… For pretty much all of “Bruno” your Maximum Leader squirmed and thought “okay, this is just too much.” On about three occasions he thought he’d just up and leave the cinema and go home. Alas, he didn’t. After the film “the boyz” all agreed that if any of us had mentioned during the film that we should get up and leave we all would have. Alas, we all sat and watched… And watched… Well… That is $9.75 and 90 minutes that your Maximum Leader will never get back.

Your Maximum Leader will now make certain that if he ever sees another Sacha Baron Cohen vehicle it will be on cable and by accident during channel surfing…

Ugh… Does a bad movie resonate for longer in your memory than a good movie? By this your Maximum Leader wonders if he’ll be thinking of “Bruno” for longer than he thought of “The Hangover?” The latter was great, the former was shit. But he thinks he might mentally come back to how bad “Bruno” was more over the next few days than he did mentally go back to “The Hangover” after seeing it…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t know if you happened to catch this article about travails of Dave Carroll and the Sons of Maxwell.

Apparently the baggage handlers at O’Hare played catch (poorly) with Dave’s guitar. United didn’t want to pay up for damages…

Dave is a musician… So he wrote a song about the ordeal.

They also made a video (that you can watch here as it is too wide to embed here).

Good on you Dave Carroll and the Sons of Maxwell… Way to stick it to the legacy carriers…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader directs you to America’s finest news source for this wonderful story: Baseball Fans Delighted by New Between Innings Fuck-Cams.

As you can probably tell from the link itself… The language is sort of saucy… So be aware if you have people reading over your shoulder…

Of course, one of the reasons for directing you to the link is that the ballpark used to roll-out the fuck-cam was your Maximum Leader’s own beloved National’s home field, Nationals Park.

While your Maximum Leader feels that the baseball product on the field in Washington ranges from “OMG they stink!” to “Nauseatingly incompetent” to “They just can’t catch a break can they?” he isn’t sure that pornography on the HD jumbo-tron is the answer…

It may be AN answer but it is not THE answer to the National’s woes…

THE answer would be a bullpen… And some better defensive players… And a one more guy with some speed… And…

Okay… Porn might be THE answer.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wonders if it is more common to say that one “tivo’ed” a program on TV or “DVR’ed” a program; regardless of the recording platform one owns. He says that he “tivos” programs, even though his recording device is a DVR… Curious… To use “tivo” as a verb is much more fluid sounding than the tongue-tied “setting the DVR to record.” But should we use the product-related invented verb even if we don’t own the product itself? Well… Your Maximum Leader does…

Anyhoo…

Your Maximum Leader must thank and curse FLG for a TV recommendation. FLG recommends “The Ascent of Money” on PBS. The thanks come because your Maximum Leader is something of a Niall Ferguson fan and is genuinely interested in the program.

The curses come because in order to make room on the DVR for the program your Maximum Leader is likely going to have to erase some older episodes of Two and a Half Men, How I Met your Mother and Burn Notice. He thinks that by erasing the sit-com’s he’ll be okay… He’s watched them all anyway…

Of course he could erase “Outland,” “Clerks,” “Charlie Wilson’s War,” and some episode of NOVA about butterflies that Mrs Villain recorded if he chose…

In fact… He might just erase all that stuff (except Burn Notice)… It is time to clean off the DVR…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was thinking about this clip all day today.

Craig Ferguson is one brilliant bastard.

Carry on.