Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader will probably be doing very little posting between now and after Labor Day. Lots of back-to-school stuff going on which requires his attention. (So Mrs Villain tells him.) Of course, every time your Maximum Leader warns you all that posting will be light, he winds up posting a lot. Then when he posts nothing… Well… He posts nothing…

What to write about now?

Your Maximum Leader had some people over to the house for dinner yesterday night. He anticipated preparing some fancy appetizers. He’d thought of serrano ham and marchengo cheese and proscuitto with melon as two ham-based dishes. (With a mix of olives stuffed with feta, almonds, sun-dried tomatos, and garlic. To be clear, each olive was not stuffed with all of those items. There was a variety of 4 different olives each stuffed with a different item.)

Well… What did the great Muse of Scotland once say about the best laid plans? The ham based appetizers never made it to the table.

Gosh… Your Maximum Leader is so (SO!) torn up inside thinking that he might have Serrano ham and proscuitto just laying about in the icebox. What ever will he do with that wonderful, tasty, succulent cured pork goodness just sitting around? Sadly he is too busy to invite people with whom he’d share the ham.

He’ll just have to eat it himself…

The horror… Oh the horror…

In other news…

Your Maximum Leader is sad to admit that he watches “True Blood” on HBO. He has come very close to giving up on the show on a number of occasions starting last season. This season has a bunch of storylines going on. Most of the storylines don’t do a damn thing for him. While enduring the storylines he doesn’t care for he keeps thinking that he’ll just stop watching. But then the vampire characters just draw him back in. Specifically he is speaking about Denis O’Hare’s performance as Russell Edgington. Damn that man can work magic in that role. If it weren’t for the Russell story-line your Maximum Leader would have just stopped watching earlier this season.

Moving along…

Hey! Is it too early to shill for Christmas (or back to school)? You know that you are looking for a new t-shirt in which to knock about the house or wear on a quick trip to the mall. Have you considered a Naked Villainy T-shirt? If you are particularly stunning woman have you considered a Naked Villainy Tank-top and Thong combo? Your Maximum Leader will keep shilling this particular combination until he gets photos in his mailbox one day of some sultry lass clad only in the tank and thong combo. If that day ever comes your Maximum Leader let you all know. If you want to check out the store the link is here. Your Maximum Leader is probably going to update the store soon with a new t-shirt or two. (Not like lots of people are knocking down the doors to buy the old stuff…)

Anyhoo…

Your Maximum Leader has been re-reading books he’s got on the shelf. He realizes that he’s looking at the books on the shelf and not remembering their contents any more. So he’ll both conserve money and do a little re-education for himself. Like FLG, your Maximum Leader might revisit Hume’s “Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.”

That is about all from the Villainschloss now…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader isn’t running for political office. He isn’t planning on running for political office. Indeed, some of the things he’s written in this space (including what is coming in this post) would likely keep sensible people from voting for him. Lucky for your Maximum Leader that he is not seeking to represent the people of Virginia (or Kentucky let’s say) in the United States Senate. Pseudo-benevolent Dictators can have more skeletons in the closet than can someone running for US Senate.

But here is a hypothetical question for you… Let us say that one night in college your Maximum Leader happened to have a little problem with self-retraint and decided to enlist the help of Smallholder and go out and knock on the door of a particularly hot girl we knew. When she opened the door we blindfolded here and tied up up and then took her to our sooper seekret hideout. Upon arriving at our sooper seekret hideout we unblindfolded her and told her that she’d have to pound shots with us and and then we’d initiate her into our cruel cult of personality…

No biggie right?

Just another wacky Friday night at college with nothing better to do…

Now, your Maximum Leader isn’t saying that he ever did anything like this in college. Nor is saying that Smallholder did anything like this. On thinking back, it is likely between the two of us we could have found a few girls we knew who would gladly have volunteered for such an outing. (Kinky eh?)

Then again… Neither your Maximum Leader nor Smallholder are running for the US Senate… Unlike someone else you may have heard of.

By the way, on the Villain-o-meter this type of behaviour deserves 4 marks (out of 10). If the “abducted girl” developed some sort of Stockholm Syndrome like attachment to her “abductors” and became their somewhat willing love-slave this would get 6 marks (out of 10).

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is pleased to report that he can now see clearly again. As he reported earlier in the week his glasses got screwed up. We think that they got exposed to some heat somehow and got tempered. This tempering caused very small “waves” to form on the lens. When your Maximum Leader put the glasses on, he got the feeling like he was looking constantly through those heat waves you see coming up off asphalt during the summer. It made him sick to his stomach after a few minutes.

So your Maximum Leader tried to trot out his old prescription and get a new set of glasses. Sadly, since the prescription was three years old no one wanted to fill it. So, your Maximum Leader went over to his eye doctor and got a check up. He was clear. No signs of bad deseases of the eye. No deterioration of his vision either. In fact his eyes were unchanged in 3 years. That is a good thing.

Anyhoo…

Your Maximum Leader has new glasses and can see just fine now.

Your Maximum Leader hasn’t blogged much this week because of the glasses issue (which really wasn’t resolved until Wednesday) and a desire to get some of the books off his nightstand. You see your Maximum Leader can read without his glasses. In fact his vision at book-reading distance is quite good. So he read a lot. He is nearly done with two baseball books he recently received as gifts. The books are George Will’s “Men at Work” and Jason Turbow’s “Baseball Codes”. Your Maximum Leader highly recommends Will’s book to any baseball fan. It is certainly one of the best baseball books out there. Turbow’s book is a fun read. Your Maximum Leader can’t say that he learned much from the Turbow book, but it is filled with so many entertaining baseball yarns that it was a quick read.

Now your Maximum Leader is going to try and knock out Lord Norwich’s “Travellers Companion to Venice” and Christopher Moore’s “Lamb” before too long.

Your Maximum Leader is also going to try and get rid of all the old programming on his DVR and free up some space on that hard drive. Last night your Maximum Leader and Villainette #1 finished the last two episodes of Joss Whedon’s ill-fated series “Dollhouse.” The penultimate episode was okay, but would have been better if it had been the last episode. The final episode was disappointing from the perspective of the story. It seemed rushed, badly edited (in fact it felt like it was 3 hrs long when shot and only 1 hr long when it aired), and just thrown together. The best thing about the final episode was the Whedon was able to throw in a few of his favorite actors from previous outings (like Felicia Day from “Dr Horrible” and many members of the “Firefly” series).

For your intellectual curiosity, you should go and read one of the latest installments of FLG’s posts on time-horizons and their connections to politics/economics/world-view. FLG is probably on to something with this line of thinking.

That is all for now.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader isn’t in a particularly good mood right now. Where oh where to begin?

First off, your Maximum Leader is having a tough time seeing straight. That isn’t really true. He’s having a hard time seeing. Something happened to his glasses yesterday and they are causing him to have headaches if he wears them for more than a few minutes (as opposed to every waking minute - like normal). He went by the eye doctor to check up on his prescription and perhaps get some new lenses, but the eye doctor reminded your Maximum Leader that it has been 3 years since his last visit. It hardly seemed possible. Normally your Maximum Leader goes to for an eye exam every two years, but apparently the doctor’s office forgot to call and set up an appointment. Anyhoo… Your Maximum Leader will have to muddle through tomorrow without proper corrected vision. This is a pain in the arse.

When his eyes weren’t bothering him, his beloved Washington Nationals were bothering him. Sadly, they were bothering him right in front of his very own eyes (which were seeing just fine at the time).

Your Maximum Leader stopped blogging about the Nationals a few weeks ago. Around the same time he determined that he also would not view games on TV as religiously has he had from April on. He was going to try and be more casual about his fan-dom. Guess what happened then. The Nats actually would win games that your Maximum Leader wasn’t watching on TV, and they would lose games he was watching on TV.

As you surely know, baseball is a game of rhythms and streaks and superstitions. Your Maximum Leader determined that perhaps HE was the cause of some of the Nationals’ distress on the field. If he stopped watching then they might be better. That worked for a few games here and there, but that little streak came to an end. Then came this past weekend. Your Maximum Leader loves his baseball, but he rarely goes to games on consecutive days. This past Saturday and Sunday were the first time, in a very very long time that your Maximum Leader went to games on consecutive days.

Of course the Nats lost both games against the Giants of San Francisco. (Your Maximum Leader pointed out to his children that the only World Championship of Baseball won in the City of Washington DC was won by the Washington Senators over the then-Giants of New York.) The Saturday game was a real hard one. The Nationals led for most of the game 5-0. Then they started playing sloppy and giving up hits and then runs and next thing you know, they lose 10-5. Yesterday’s game got out of hand early (with a run in the first) and it was no looking back for the Giants. The Nats lost 6-2.

Oh yeah… Not only did the Nats lose, but your Maximum Leader got a sunburn. You might have seen him getting a sunburn on the TV actually, he was sitting just a few rows beyond Ryan Zimmerman. Mrs Villain (who was not attending yesterday’s game) mentioned that she thought she saw your Maximum Leader and Villainette #2 on the TV.

So let us recap a little shall we?

Glasses have had something go wrong with them and your Maximum Leader is having trouble seeing.

Your Maximum Leader has a sunburn.

The Nationals keep losing.

That just about covers the weekend situation.

Oh yes… One more thing… Although he doesn’t know how he did it, apparently your Maximum Leader has pulled a muscle in his back and it is causing a dull, yet constant, aching.

He’ll stop bitching now and let you get back to whatever you were doing.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader must admit a slight interest in gossipy things. He enjoys a quick perusal of two dens of salacious anti-culture on the web and one on TV. (He visits WWTD and The Superficial in addition to watching Chelsea Lately from time to time.)

So… Because he’s been perusing the gossip pages he’s heard that Lindsay Lohan is going to jail for… well… for being eggregious in just about every way possible. Lindsay can serve up to 90 days in jail.

Lindsay Lohan is a sad case. She had (past tense) some real acting talent. Talent aside, she is so self-destructive that she seems to be unemployable in Hollywood. Not completely unemployable, she might still get a gig or two as a token “celebrity” at a party at a sorta-swanky nightclub for which she’ll collect some apperance fee. It is a little sad to see her squander her opportunities.

Just a little sad of course. Lohan’s decline and fall into the abyss of self-destructiveness may have opened the door to some other talented actress who might not have gotten another look. Your Maximum Leader can’t name who that lucky actress might be; but she is likely out there somewhere in some film your Maximum Leader’s not seen.

(NB: At what point does just reading Pajiba actually become as substitute for going to the movies? Your Maximum Leader thinks he’s at that point.)

Frankly, your Maximum Leader is happy that Lindsay is going to spend some time in the poke. Perhaps she’ll learn something and sober up a little bit. Then again she might become some large butch lesbian’s love-toy for her stint in the hosegow. Even if Lindsay doesn’t learn anything perhaps her situation could dissuade some other young star’s bad behaviour.

On second thought, there isn’t much to learn from Lindsay’s situation. She violated the laws of the land. She took every opportunity given her to avoid jail (and there were many) and still wound up in jail. There isn’t anything to learn from this, except to say that judges in Southern California must be pretty lax.

Your Maximum Leader wonders if Lindsay will ever do any serious acting again. He doubts it. He doesn’t think she’ll straighten herself out. The first step down her future path is behind bars. Then she’ll be released in 25-90 days. Upon getting out she’ll revert to her strung-out ways. Then he figures she’ll be in some Cinemax (Skinemax!) after-dark special within a year or two. After a year or two of the soft stuff, she’ll become too strung out and unemployable by soft-core porn she’ll eventually wind up in some inter-racial gang-bang video just to afford more cheap vodka and cigarettes.

Ah well… Arrivederci Lindsay. It was fun. Okay, it really wasn’t, but you just go on thinking that it was.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is sorry for silence here. He’s been quite busy of late. Kids getting out of school. Birthdays. Anniversaries. It has been a little crazy.

Your Maximum Leader celebrated over the past few days both his birthday and his wedding anniversary. He’d hoped to get away with Mrs Villain for a nice dinner in town to celebrate the “contract renewal” as he jokes about his wedding vows.

What is the joke you might ask?

Allow your Maximum Leader to explain… He has a friend who, in college, speculated that one of the reasons for rampant divorces in the world was that people were living longer. In olden tymes, when a couple got married it was until death did you part. But death came to people fairly soon. So being married 20-30 years was a pretty good run in this friend’s mind. This friend posited that since we (modern people) live so much longer we ought to change the way we view marriage. In the opinion of your Maximum Leader’s friend, marriage vows should expire after 7 years unless both parties agree to renew for another 7 years.

This year your Maximum Leader and Mrs Villain were married 14 years. In case you were wondering, your Maximum Leader and his lovely bride agreed to another 7 years of wedded bliss.

How did we celebrate this milestone? Did he get away for a nice dinner? Well… Since you ask… We went and got burgers from Five Guys. Because nothing says Happy Anniversary quite like bacon cheeseburgers.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader will share another conversation in the style of FLG that was had at the Villainschloss over the long weekend.

[Scene - the dining room. The whole family is seated for dinner.]
Villainette #2 (looking sideways at her brother, the Wee Villain - aged 5, seated next to her): Don’t do that.
Mrs Villain: Don’t do what?
Villainette #2: He’s scratching himself. You know… THERE…
Villainette #1: Ewww… Gross… I’m trying to eat over here.
Mrs Villain (to Wee Villain): Stop it.

A moment later the Wee Villain stands up from his chair and stands next to the table in plain sight.

Max Ldr (to the Wee Villain): Are you okay? You’re holding yourself like you need to use the bathroom. Do you need to go to the bathroom.
Wee Villain: No. I am moving bochuk.
Mrs Villain: What? You’re moving what? Bochuk? What is bochuk?
Wee Villain: Not bochuk. Bob and Chuck.
Mrs Villain: Bob and Chuck? Who are Bob and Chuck.
Wee Villain: Come on mom! They are the names I gave my balls. Bob and Chuck.

Choking on food ensues as does laughter and groans.

Max Ldr: Son, you can’t play with Bob and Chuck at the dinner table.
Wee Villain: But they are really itchy. Please, can I go to my room and do it?
Max Ldr: Of course. But wash your hands before coming back to the table.

The Wee Villain leaves to go to his room and Mrs Villain, Villainette #1 and Villainette #2 are staring at your Maximum Leader.

Max Ldr: I don’t know why you’re staring at me. I’ve never named mine. I don’t know where he got that. Probably from some malcontent in school…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader will present to you a conversation which occured over the weekend at the Villainschloss. (Grace a FLG for the post style.)

Villainette #1: Daddy, why do your pants always look better when we take them off the drying rack?
Max Ldr: My pants look better than whose pants when the come off the drying rack?
Villainette #1: Well they look better than mine or mommy’s.
Max Ldr: If you look at the drying rack you will see I fold mine differently than you and mommy fold yours.
Villainette #1: So your way of folding is better than mine and mommy’s?
Max Ldr: I wouldn’t go so far as to say my way is better…
Villainette #1: But if your pants look better than ours when they come off the drying rack and the only thing you do differently is folding then wouldn’t your way be better?
Max Ldr: As I said, I wouldn’t go quite so far as to say mine is better. If you want to draw conclusions based on your own emprical observations far be it for me to try and tell you otherwise.
Villainette #1: You’re trying awfully hard not to say that mommy and I do it wrong.
Max Ldr: I’m not ascribing “rightness” or “wrongness” to a methodology of pant folding. You are drawing your own conclusions.
Villainette #1: You normally don’t wait to declare something right or wrong. I don’t understand why you don’t want to say that mommy’s way is wrong. Is something up?
Max Ldr: Yes.
Villainette #1: What?
Max Ldr: Your mother…
Villainette #1: She’s standing behind me isn’t she?
Max Ldr: Yes.
Villainette #1: Ah. I see.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t have a subject or theme to this post. So you’ll just have to bear with him.

Last night your Maximum Leader dreamnt that he (and Mrs Villain) were going to a party at the Hearst Castle. We were the guests of George Hamilton. Hamilton was taking us all around and introducing us to everyone. Somehow your Maximum Leader ended up in a huge Gothic library, in a smoking jacket, smoking cigars with George Hamilton, Peter Bogdanovich, Francis Ford Coppola, and Eddie Izzard (who was not wearing a smoking jacket, but instead a sequined evening gown). Conversation revolved around making a film version of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.” The “gimmick” of the film would be having it set in late 20th Century America and Caesar has overthrown the government. (Caesar would be killed on the floor of the old Senate Chamber in the Capitol.)

Your Maximum Leader played with an iPad yesterday for about an hour. We wants one now. We wants one…

Your Maximum Leader thought of Robbo when he learned that Brooks Brothers is running a seersucker suit sale. Go for it Robbo!

Your Maximum Leader doesn’t have too much planned for the weekend. If the weather holds he’ll take the family out for a little hike in the George Washington National Forest. We may see a waterfall if we are lucky.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is going to be heading off at the end of the week to Lexington, Kentucky and Bourbon Country. It will be a short trip with your Maximum Leader’s childhood friend (who used to blog here from time to time) known here as the Air Marshal. It seems that perhaps 10 years ago the Air Marshal put a down-payment on a bottle of special bourbon that was being aged by Makers Mark. The bourbon is done and he has to pick it up in person. Your Maximum Leader will accompany him on this trek.

Can you see how this might the cause of a story? Road Trip + Booze = Stories.

Anyhoo…

If you are familiar with the Greater Lexington, Kentucky area and could recommend two restaurants for dinner your Maximum Leader would appreciate it. He’s never been to Lexington before and will have to rely on guidebooks and restaurant review web sites without your help.

Please suggest in comments or shoot your Maximum Leader an email.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is, today, the Slayer of Wilde Things. (See how he added that “e” to wild to make it look all “olde tyme”-y?)

By his reckoning, he’s killed no fewer than 8 small wild creatures today. (And the day is still young.)

The first group of creatures he killed was sort of by accident. He disrupted not one, not two, but three bird nests this morning and this disruption lead to the deaths of 7 baby birds in those nests. (Some survived - so it wasn’t complete bird-o-cide.)

The eighth creature your Maximum Leader killed was quite intentional. It was a black snake.

Normally when it comes to snakes your Maximum Leader is something of a live and let live type of guy. Snake eat vermin that your Maximum Leader dislikes more than the snakes. He likes letting animals higher up the food chain live if he can. (He applies this to spiders too. Spiders eat other more numerous and annoying insects thus he tends to let them live.) Alas, this snake seemed to run afoul of your Maximum Leader’s sister-in-law and had to be dispatched. Sadly it was the shovel for the snake. The snake was quite lively and resisted quite a bit. But in the end your Maximum Leader proved he was the higher life form. Out of curiosity after the snake was done in your Maximum Leader determined to measure it to see just how big a snake it was… The snake (without head) measured 38 inches on a tape measure. The head was likely another 3 or 4 inches.

That was a healthy sized snake. Was being the operative term of course.

Your Maximum Leader feels a little badly about having to kill the snake. And he hopes that mice and other vermin aren’t going to flourish due to this act… Of course, if they do, your Maximum Leader can kill them too.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has had a heck of a few days. The biggest event was Thursday when Villainette #2 sustained a rather nasty toe injury during Karate class. The injury required 9 stitches to her left big toe and nearly 5 hrs in the local ER. She’s been hobbling along now on crutches since then, but will likely be walking with a boot on the left foot for another 10 days or so.

So what happened you might ask? Well, your Maximum Leader’s version of the story involves the brave Villainette #2 taking on a room full of Ninja coming at her. She faught them off but as they retreated and dragged off their dead one was able to stab at her toe slicing the skin open and causing a nasty bleeding wound.

The truth of the matter is that while doing lunging exercises she got her toe caught in a gap between the mats on the floor and fell forward. The stuck toe combined with the falling body caused the skin to tear around her toe.

Your Maximum Leader prefers his version of the story…

Friday your Maximum Leader went to Richmond to visit for a bit with Smallholder who was there chaperoning some students from the school where he teaches. It was good to see him and to chat about all manner of things. A sample of topics included Tea Parties, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and the flap about Confederate History month, farming, King Lear, parenting, charcuterie, volcanoes, and how young girls seem to be dressing more slutty with every passing year…

The Saturday and Sunday were spent at your Maximum Leader’s in-laws on the Chesapeake Bay. Sadly there was no fishing involved - as the boat was out of the water and in need of a little scraping and painting of the hull. But your Maximum Leader was able to nap and relax and get some stuff straightened out with his in-law’s computer. He normally doesn’t attempt to blog (or use the internet) at his in-laws. This is because their house is for fun and relaxation. And until about a week ago they didn’t have high speed internet (but a 48k dial-up connection). They now have high-speed internet and that is what was the cause of some of the PC issues your Maximum Leader helped fix.

Your Maximum Leader has been watching a lot of hockey of late. As some of you may know the hockey playoffs are underway. Your Maximum Leader, out of some silly supertitition he supposes, is not going to comment on his team, the Capitals. But if you are a hockey fan you know what is going on…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is out four bucks this morning. Yup. He has to pay up tonight. You see, he bet his family that they would not be going to school today. He didn’t see the people in Stafford County Schools buckling down and getting kids to school. Apparently your Maximum Leader is wrong. The schools are opening two hours late today.

Of course, they will be missing school a lot next week if the expected 10-20 inches of snow falls down here on Friday and Saturday.

Your Maximum Leader is growing weary of the snow. He thinks he’d be less weary of it if the state/county were a little better at clearing it away from the roads. We don’t get much snow here, so they don’t have lots of practice.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader had a few pithy thoughts he wanted to commit to blog yesterday, but his other computer is still not quite right. Apparently he has a variant of the virtumonde virus in the pc. It makes him want to go to Mac… He hopes to clear that up today…

He might not have a chance to post much today - and possibly tomorrow. He is going in for a minor (out-patient) procedure today to have a couple of (potentially) pre-cancerous growths removed. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but he’ll likely try and milk the cutting for all its worth and get some quality pamper time tonight from the family…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has said time and time again here that he isn’t sure what the question it, but Venice often comes up as the answer. He continues to have a hankering to go to Venice at Christmas time. Your Maximum Leader blogged last year about a peice he read in the Guardian a few years back that planted the seed of this idea in his mind. Sadly, such a trip is still not in the cards for your Maximum Leader.

Of course, for the past two years the acqua alta has hit Venice at Christmas time. The news wires have been reporting flooding in Venice as rain, snow, and high tides combine for high water over the past few days. Apparently 60% of the city’s streets are underwater. The acqua alta this year doesn’t seem to be as bad as it was last year at this time.

In the slideshow accompanying the article linked above were a number of pictures showing the high water and people going about life in the high water. But one photo caught your Maximum Leader’s eye. Before there was rain and high water, there was snow in Venice. Here is the photo that caught his eye:

It is a sculpture of the four tetrarchs on the corner of St Mark’s covered in snow. Your Maximum Leader knows this sounds strange, but he’s known of this sculpture for years and has seen photos of it before. But for some reason he made the incorrect assumption that the peice was inside St. Mark’s, not outside. He’s now been disabused of that misconception.

Anyhoo…

Your Maximum Leader would still jet off to Venice in a minute if circumstances allowed.

Carry on.