Following through on Wednesday’s post … today, sixty-five years ago, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany following the invasion of Poland.

In 1863, Confederate General Polk and his troops entered Kentucky. In response, Kentucky said “screw this neutrality shit” and sided with the Union.

In 1991, Frank Capra died.

I mentioned earlier that I like LEGO. I do. It’s the fault of that damn Toys “R” Us commercial - I never grew up! I have *thousands* of Lego pieces - they overflow five of those huge 18 gal bins, and I have an 8-foot folding table set up with stacks of containers from a failed attempt to organize my collection.

If you’re a fan of Lego, there are quite a few websites to peruse. Lugnet, where AFOLs show off their creations; Brickshelf where anyone can upload pictures of what they’ve made; and Bricklink, where you can buy Lego in BULK!

For a long time I’ve wanted to construct a big starship made of Lego. Well, I finally got off my ass and started building. In large part, I was inspired by this, a WW-II submarine. But, see, aren’t starships essentially subs in space?

So, a few hours work last weekend resulted in a fairly decent hull for a “sub in space.” But it was WAAAAY too small, and I found some huge 8 peg by 16 peg dark gray bricks, so I destroyed the first one I’d made and rebuilt another. Yet again, I determined it was too small, so again I caused great destruction (while watching the only submarine movie in my DVD collection, Hunt for Red October as I did so), and once again rebuilt.

Finally! Not too long, not too short. Not quite as wide as I might have liked it, but I’ll be dammed if I’m ripping this thing apart again. Right now, this creation - which in honor of Hornblower shall be named “Indefatigable” - is over 150 pegs long, and currently has a maximum width of 12 pegs. This little obsession of mine features crew-bunks, a medical bay, fore- and aft- torpedo launchers, engineering compartment, a control room, and a cargo bay with working airlock. I’m quite happy with the details, and I’m going to build some “hinge doors” into the hull so that a person can take a look into the toy - er, I mean, model.

I already have plans in my head for bigger, more awesome creations. Maybe a nice big Hogwarts Castle …

I don’t care how “just” your cause might be, and certainly the Muslims in Chechnya have more than a few legitimate reasons to hate the Russians, but taking CHILDREN hostage? The terrorists deserve what they’re going to get - in this life and in (if there is one) the afterlife.

Snay read your email, then look here:

bold text

italics test

Underline test

URL Test

… of the hints I found under “Help.”

This should be in italics.

This should be bold, and this underlined.

This here should be a link: www.malnurturedsnay.net

Over at Piquant rants & sassy impudence, Rachel writes:

“The Kerry “girls” get booed at the MTV awards last night. I bet it sucks to spend months forgetting that at least half the country thinks your dad’s a dillwad, and to be forced to remember that on live television in a humiliating and embarrassing manner. Ha, ha, ha. Welcome back to reality.”

I wonder what she would say if those giggling spoiled brats of George W. Bush got booed at a public event. Probably something about mean spirited people are, and how they shouldn’t take out their political leanings on the innocent daughters of the incumbant.

I think Rachel is just jealous that the Kerry daughters are hotter (and, uh, smarter) than the Bush daughters.

Oh, since inbedded HTML *still* isn’t working (Tim?), here’s a link to Rachel’s site: http://www.rachellucas.com/. Notice that she turned off her comments.

I don’t work a glamerous job, and I’m pretty sure I just mispelled that word.

I’m the guy who shows up at your office with your lunch, or at your front porch with your kid’s pizza. I work at this job about sixty hours a week, and to tell you the truth, I have a GREAT time doing it! I get to drive around all day and night, listen to music, and bring food to a diverse group of (mostly) great customers.

Sure the job has its downsides. There’s only so many times you can be run off the road by a dumptruck before you just want to beat the absolute living crap out of someone. And in the middle of a hot-July, during a busy afternoon in a shop with two 600 degree ovens and no air-conditioning, the urge to strangle the bitch who has commented “My, it is hot in here” is almost impossible to overcome. And when you’ve driven five miles to bring someone a hot pizza, getting a handful of pennies for a tip results in smacking your head solidly across the steering wheel in frustration.

I work at two shops, my favorite is a small independently owned place in Hunt Valley. The working atmosphere, I feel, is better than that I experienced when working at Papa John’s or Domino’s. I spent most of the night tonight making fun of Gary, the owner. On Saturday, he was at a barbeque, had a bit too much to drink, and spent the night in a poison ivy bush. So today, his first day back, he was working in slacks and a long-sleeved shirt, slapping out pizzas in a shop with no air conditioning. Well, he deserved a friendly ribbing. My point being, at a corporate store, that never would’ve been tolerated - I would’ve been beaten senseless and hauled into the dumpster. Asses.

The biggest benefit of the indy shop is that my tip average is quite a bit higher than what it was when I drove for the Papa John’s down the street. The second benefit is - NO UNIFORMS! Hoorah! I don’t have to look like I’m a tool …

… even though I suppose I am a tool. A tool of The Man. The poison-ivy covered Man. Hah. The Man is a moron. See? I make fun of him on the internet.

Oh, so much for my raise … :(

I apologize. I think I had a point to make in this post and then I went and got all side-tracked and didn’t make it. Um. Dogs suck.

In order to promote this blog, I was considering having some custom bottle-openers made up which would read “MalnurturedSnay.net”. Maybe I’m getting (slightly) ahead of myself and should first work on making a blog that people want to read.

I’m going to go for the latter … ooooh, but custom bottle openers!

Someone hit me.

So the younger cat - Tippy - has been howling all night. She’s five, the older cat, Guy, is (I’m guesstimating) seven. I’ve had them both about five years. Tippy was like six weeks old when I got her (six or sixteen, I forget, she was so tiny she could curl up in my hand and go to sleep). Anyway, this whole night she’s been walking into my den, sitting at my feet, looking up at me, and going “Meeee-ow!”

Usually, she does this when I’ve failed to meet one of her many needs. So I checked the kitchen: plenty of food, and water. Then I checked the bathroom - nope, litter box was clean.

So I have no idea what she wants, and here she comes again …