Starting My Christmas List

Saw this on Cheezburger, but I can't seem to find them on sale anywhere!

Guess I will just have to console myself with a Tetris Stackable LED Desk Lamp:

Meanwhile, I would love to get da goils their own Tardis, but I would prefer to find one in wood, rather than cardboard...

Dusty In Here

Well done, gentlemen.  Well done.

They provide some background on the event, as well:

This year our Christmas ad has been produced in partnership with The Royal British Legion. It’s called ‘Christmas is for sharing’ and it commemorates an extraordinary event which took place during the First World War, one hundred years ago: the Christmas Truce.

'Ello

Why, yes, Ello is Yet Another Social Network.  Let's give 'er a spin and see how she pans out. 

If you're at all interested at looking for me over there, let me know. I still have a handful of beta invitations I can hand out.

The War Was In Color

There are a lot of different presentations of this song out there. I happen to think this one is the best. Others may have slightly better editing, or better audio; but this version, I think, captures the real heart of the song.

 

I see you've found a box of my things -

Infantries, tanks and smoldering airplane wings.

These old pictures are cool. Tell me some stories

Was it like the old war movies?

Sit down son. Let me fill you in

Where to begin? Let's start with the end

This black and white photo don't capture the skin

From the flash of a gun to a soldier who's done

Trust me grandson

The war was in color

From shipyard to sea, From factory to sky

From rivet to rifle, from boot camp to battle cry

I wore the mask up high on a daylight run

That held my face in its clammy hand

Crawled over coconut logs and corpses in the coral sand

Where to begin? Let's start with the end

This black and white photo don't capture the skin

From the shock of a shell or the memory of smell

If red is for Hell

The war was in color

I held the canvas bag over the railing

The dead released, with the ship still sailing,

Out of our hands and into the swallowing sea

I felt the crossfire stitching up soldiers

Into a blanket of dead, and as the night grows colder

In a window back home, a Blue Star is traded for Gold.

Where to begin? Let's start with the end

This black and white photo don't capture the skin

When metal is churned. And bodies are burned

Victory earned

The War was in color

Now I lay in my grave at age 21

Long before you were born

Before I bore a son

What good did it do?

Well hopefully for you

A world without war

A life full of color

Where to begin? Let's start with the end

This black and white photo never captured my skin

Once it was torn from an enemy thorn

Straight through the core

The war was in color

A Few Remarks

On peace through strength. from President Ronald Reagan on November 11th, 1985:

Perhaps we can start by remembering this: that all of those who died for us and our country were, in one way or another, victims of a peace process that failed; victims of a decision to forget certain things; to forget, for instance, that the surest way to keep a peace going is to stay strong. Weakness, after all, is a temptation -- it tempts the pugnacious to assert themselves -- but strength is a declaration that cannot be misunderstood. Strength is a condition that declares actions have consequences. Strength is a prudent warning to the belligerent that aggression need not go unanswered.

Peace fails when we forget what we stand for. It fails when we forget that our Republic is based on firm principles, principles that have real meaning, that with them, we are the last, best hope of man on Earth; without them, we're little more than the crust of a continent. Peace also fails when we forget to bring to the bargaining table God’s first intellectual gift to man: common sense. Common sense gives us a realistic knowledge of human beings and how they think, how they live in the world, what motivates them. Common sense tells us that man has magic in him, but also clay. Common sense can tell the difference between right and wrong. Common sense forgives error, but it always recognizes it to be error first. 

We endanger the peace and confuse all issues when we obscure the truth; when we refuse to name an act for what it is; when we refuse to see the obvious and seek safety in Almighty. Peace is only maintained and won by those who have clear eyes and brave minds. Peace is imperiled when we forget to try for agreements and settlements and treaties; when we forget to hold out our hands and strive; when we forget that God gave us talents to use in securing the ends He desires. Peace fails when we forget that agreements, once made, cannot be broken without a price. 

This is the funniest thing on teh intarwebs today.

Larry Correia talks about the current SJW Cannibal Feeding Frenzy, which is, of course, amusing. By all means, RTWT!  The penultimate paragraph is what really made me laugh out loud, though (emphasis mine):

This is one reason I’ve been enjoying the hell out of GamerGate. First, it has been awesome having a great big group of people witness the same bullshit that my industry has been dealing with for years. Second, SF/F people tend to be squishy and polite, with a handful of outspoken outliers like me and the rest of the Evil League of Evil, so SJWs have run roughshod over my industry… But gamers? Holy shit. You really think you can pick a fight with people whose brains are programmed to win? Gamers will outlast, outthink, and outfight the SJWs. Tell a Gamer that there is loot or XP in it, and he’ll grind SJWs to the grave.

Kind of puts it into perspective, I think.

The Last Seven Months, In Pictures And A Few Words

First, we were like:

Then... stuff happened, and we were like:

Everyone was OK - even the pets were fine - but... our home?

Not so much.

Which gave us teh sads.

On top of that, we had to do this...

... which left us with this...

... which gave us eben moar sads.

But we have a really good insurance company!

So while we still had teh sads, we started thinking about:

We were very excited to talk to builders about our Glorious Farmhouse! Unfortunately, they told us that we would need:

... and while our insurance company is really good, we still had to pay off our old mortgage and stuff.  So after all was said and done, what we actually had was more like:

Well... maybe a little more than that.  Certainly not what we needed, though.

So we did some of this:

... and some of that:

... and a lot of:

Which made us think that something simpler would be just fine.  Which is great, because the lovely Mrs. Robb and I both agreed that we were kind of tired of sending a honking big chunk of our paycheck off to a mortgage company every month.

So the past couple of months we have spent a lot of time doing some of this:

And even more of that:

All so we could take this:

... and start to turn it into something like this:

The first real step of which was, of course, making a big ol' mess!

Part of which was putting in a new driveway!

So work is finally in progress.  We are hoping and praying that we will be done, and into the new house, by mid-April.

I have the feeling that it is going to be a busy few months.

QOTD

From Larry Correia on Facebook, on the differences between Republicans and Democrats:

I love how the day after the election the Libertarian Unicorn Calvary rides in to explain how the two parties are EXACTLY THE SAME and NOTHING HAS CHANGED.

Yeah, I can totally see your point, except for the Republicans being better on economics, business, foreign policy, taxes, entitlements, welfare (both individual and corporate), national defense, healthcare, guns, framing any policy disagreement as racism, reading your mail, tapping your phones, using the IRS to attack opponents, running illegal guns to Mexico to frame American gun owners, and basic !@#$%^& math, they're totally the same. Yes, you want an ice cream cone RIGHT NOW and the republicans didn't give it to you, so they're totally the same.

Yes, the republicans suck. But they are a far more manageable form of suck.

Go, RTWT.