Caption This!

Zazzle caused me to change the way I take pictures.

Normally, if I'm going to take an animal portrait, I want a vertical ("portrait") shot, as opposed to the horizontal, "landscape," one.  But I changed that from a rule to a general guideline when I realized that Zazzle allows you to add captions on the fly, as you're setting the picture up for sale--and again, when you're purchasing your item.

So my "rule" for framing shots kinda went out the window, and I often found myself shooting animal portraits with space around them--specifically to leave room for a caption on a Zazzle product.

Please feel free to suggest more captions for these images in the comments below, or head on over to Zazzle and caption some stuff yourself!

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Spots and Shadow

Zazzle

I Could TELL You...But THEN...

Zazzle

If I Want Your Opinion, I'll Rattle Your Cage!
I Could Tell You, But Then I'd Have To Kill You.
What Do You Mean You Voted AGAINST Ron Paul?
Tyranny Defined
Sic Semper Tyrannis

Find Your Happy Place! 

We Are ALL Mad Here...  --Cheshire Cat 

Bird...with Attitude!

Zazzle

The Fed:  Turning Nest Eggs Into Chicken Feed Since 1913!
There's No Saving Throw Against Stupidity.

By Any Other Name

Zazzle

If You Want To Bloom, You Have To Brave The Rain!

I Survived The 80s!

I Survived the 80s! 

Zazzle

It's Not An Attitude!

Zazzle

It's NOT An Attitude...It's Just The Way I Am!

Don't Give Me Attitude!  I Have Enough Of My Own! 

Flutter On By

Zazzle

 The Best Things In Life...Are Not Things.

Did You See THAT?!?

Zazzle

Who's Afraid Of Mencken Hobgoblins?
Sic Semper Idiota!

Becoming Roadkill Is Not A Valid Career Option

The Other White Meat...?

Don't Even Think It.

Zazzle

Smile!  Pass It On!

Would You BEE Mine...?

Zazzle

Would You BEE mine...?

Perchance to Scream

Today is the 14th of October.  We are a hair over two weeks from Halloween, one of the spookiest days of the year; and one day past that is the start of Nano, which is an even scarier prospect, but we will save that for another post.

Today is also the day that a brand-new ebook appears on bookshelves, called Perchance to Scream, which contains 13 stories and one poem--which, by some strange and unusual cosmic coincidence, also add up to 14.  Yes, fourteen spooky items, presented for your enjoyment, on the 14th.

It's got a haunted house, bloodsucking feathers, ancient evil entities with unpronounceable names, cybernetically enhanced zombies, mutant human-dragonfly hybrids, and a particularly nasty breed of psychic eel.  Being scared has never been so much fun!

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You can trust the government...

...right...?

I mean...Presidents lie.  Wilson promised not to send soldiers into WWI.  Roosevelt made similar promises, while trying to get Japan to throw the first punch.  "I am not a crook."  "Read my lips."  "WMD."  "I didn't inhale."  "You can keep your insurance."

...but you can trust the rest of the government, right?

The military lies.  Tonkin, My Lai, Abu Ghraib, Pearl Harbor..."truth is the first casualty of war."

...but you can trust the rest of the government, right...?

The IRS lied ("we would never audit political opponents.").

The NSA lied ("we would never spy on American citizens.").

Now we find out even the CDC lies ("we would never cover up negative vaccination data.").

So, I guess you can trust the government, right?  Except for any agent or agency that's been caught lying in the past, that is...which sure seems to me to be...well...ALL of them.

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In a Decade...

...quite a lot can happen...

See, I met this girl...well, online, anyway.  Virtual Reality, you might say.

When two writers get to know each other by email and chat before ever meeting in person, you'd be amazed how well they get to know each other.

After weeks...maybe even months...of emailing and chatting, we finally agreed to meet and go on a "first date."

I totally and completely screwed up that first date by not being able to find her in a crowd.  (That raises an interesting question--can you still call it a "first date" if you didn't actually speak to each other...?)

(I won't even mention how badly I screwed up the "second" date...)

By the "third" date, though, things were--finally--starting to look up...and after that somewhat rocky start--and probably thanks to the literally millions of words exchanged by email before she managed to get a glimpse of the size of my nose--we seemed to hit it off pretty well.

Yes...here we are, sixteen jobs, two states, five thousand miles of relocation, and ten years later.

Yes...it was exactly ten years ago, today, that I blew that "first" date.

Maybe it's a weird anniversary to celebrate, but, then again, *I* am weird, so...

...happy anniversary, Babe.

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World War I Voiceover Work

I am happy to announce that two more of my voiceovers are now available:

World War One and the End of the Bourgeois Century by Ryan McMaken

The State’s Worst Atrocity by Lew Rockwell

For a complete list of all of my voice projects to date, check out the last section in my Online Resume, and please check out all of the latest additions to the Mises audio and video library.  And, as always, comments, critiques, and criticisms are definitely welcome.

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It's Not Easy Being Libertarian

Young White Tiger

Excellent article by Sheldon Richman over at FFF:  "I Can't Help That I'm A Libertarian."

He makes several excellent points.  Libertarians--especially Ron Paul fans--are often accused of "drinking the Kool-Aid" and being brainwashed into believing things that just can't work.

But libertarian thought is about analyzing, and logical thinking, and most importantly challenging assumptions.

Instead of debating which is better--that the government spend half a gazillion dollars this year instead of the full gazillion--shouldn't we take a step back and ask if the government is already bigger than it should be?

Instead of blowing the #$)((&^%&!! out of buildings and people overseas, shouldn't we be asking "why the #$)((&^%&!! are we all paying for this?"

Instead of just blindly pulling the lever because of a capital letter following a person's name, shouldn't we first be asking "what is this person going to do to give me BACK some of the freedom that's been taken from me?"

Question authority...even if it's for no other reason than "they hate when you do that."

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Gold...Is Gold

I'm working on my Master's Degree, and I had to give a presentation on "the history of a chosen resource."  My professor knows some of my libertarian outlook, and where I work, and practically dared me to pick gold.  

Challenge accepted.

This was the final slide in my class presentation last night.  It shows the price of gold since 1800.

I humorously and facetiously pointed out the "huge spike" caused by the Civil War, and the equally huge one caused by the Great Depression, before focusing on the real spike.  Something profound and basic had to have happened to change this otherwise flat graph to an exponential progression; I jokingly asked what could possibly have happened around the time of the Nixon administration to have caused it?

"Gold is gold," I said.  "Gold doesn't double in power every eighteen months.  Gold doesn't release a new model with sunroof and bucket seats.  Gold doesn't crash the asking price by getting caught taking the secretary to Jamaica instead of the wife.

"Gold is the baseline against which other things are measured.  If something changed, and caused the measure of gold to skyrocket like this...it's not the gold that's different."

No clue yet what kind of grade I got...

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