so these past few weeks, just in time for baseball season, pirates are all over the news. unfortunately for the pittsburgh pirates, the news isn't about them, meaning that they're once again (see 2003, 2006 & 2007) playing second fiddle to some other pirates. this year, those some other pirates are affecting governmental policy. all the pittsburgh pirates are doing is fielding another mediocre team & trying to avoid being the first professional sports franchise to have a losing record 17 years in a row. roberto clemente is probably spinning in his grave over some of the chumps they field these days.
the pirates that have been receiving the most attention these days are the somali pirates who hijacked the maersk alabama, a denmark-owned ship, back on the 8th. those pirates created an international incident that eventually brought the u.s. into the picture & eventually led to the dramatic rescue of the captain, a new england resident. has he been on leno or the today show yet? as a result, hillary clinton has come up with an initiative to fight the pirates, although she did have this awkward moment regarding them...way to name drop morroco, hillary.
then today, out of sweden, four men from thepiratebay.org, a torrent site, were sentenced to a year in jail & fined a total of $3.6 million for facilitating illegal downloading & therefore, violating copyright law. despite the ruling, the site is still up, there are tons of torrent sites all around the web & artists like nine inch nails are starting to turn to torrent sites to release music. so yeah...the swedish courts hate interweb piracy. btw, pirate bay founder gottfrid svartholm warg...sweet beard, dude. the hipster grifter would love you!
meanwhile, the pittsburgh pirates are currently a perfectly average 5-5 team, but every single game that they've won has been started by one of two starting pitchers--26-year old paul maholm or soon-to-be 26-year old (on sunday!) zach duke. that means that the other three starting pitchers haven't even been good enough to win a single, solitary game. you can't win a world series with inconsistency like that. i mean really...the steelers just won the super bowl & the penguins are in the playoffs. does anybody in pittsburgh actually care about the pittsburgh pirates right now?
#84 - arrr.
snack: pirate's booty
drink: captain morgan's spiced rum & coca cola cherry
in honor of pirates, tonight's snack is obviously pirate's booty, which we all know is named after one of the pirate's alternate phrases for "salty wenches." what'd you think i was gonna eat to keep up with the pirate theme, fish heads or something? think again, buckaroo. i'm going for the pirate's booty. it's at least one hundred times better tasting & one hundred times better for you than fish heads. also, the booty pieces are shaped like slightly curly, fat lil off-white worms & i love putting worms in my mouth.
so yeah, when i said that the booty is one hundred times tastier than fish heads, i meant it. while i assume that fish heads taste like the ass end of a rhino, the booty at least has some flavor. still, it's made with rice & that leads to a light, airy taste that is a little too subtle. luckily, while it's ultimately unsatisfying for me, the cheesiness is tasty enough that i don't feel the need to go hijack anything to get my kicks.
if there's one thing that i know about pirates, it's that they truly love grog--a mixture of rum, water, lime juice & a bit of cane sugar. i however, don't so much care for hard alcohol & refuse to suffer for my art, so rather than attempt to suck down a cup of homemade grog, i'm mixing some captain morgan's spiced rum & coca cola cherry. i even added a few squirts of lime juice to ward off scurvy. no cane sugar though. that probably wouldn't go very well with all the high fructose corn syrup in my cherry coke.
holy crap! check out the captain morgan's website. there's a "morganette" greeting you on the home page. she has a sexy cop outfit on, which means you have to enter an over-21 birth date to enter the site. twelve-year olds take note. type in 12-25-25 & you're in like flynn. it's all good. you're 83 and interested in rum! the marketing team at captain morgan's will get a kick out of your contribution to that demographic...& when you're done, pirates won't be the only ones who love sexy cops. way to keep the kids out, captain! lockdown!
side note: is it a coincidence that two of the three morganettes have the same name as ex-girlfriends of mine?... & if it's not a coincidence, does that mean that i'm destined to be with someone named caitlyn?