Showing posts with label USA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label USA. Show all posts

Monday, September 26, 2016

Hillary/Trump Debate Drinking Game


Donald vs Hillary! Debate time!

Will the former First Lady bury Donald in a blizzard of Wonk? Will Donald's world-swallowing charisma be too much to overcome?

Either way, this website encourages you to view this as a playoff game. You should be heavily into the firewater well before the opening salvo is fired.

You'll need that booze, because it's time to play the Debate Drinking Game!

I used to play Love Boat when I was in high school. Everyone gets a character, and you drink every time your character is on the screen. Everyone drinks if either A) they show the boat, or B) Issac is on the screen. This game, as awesome as it is, won't work for a two person debate.

The debate drinking game is ideally played between two ideological opposites. Both the liberal and the conservative should be able to drink as much as the other. However, you can play it with two libbers, or two rednecks.

Simply put, you each choose a side, and you have to drink when certain keywords come up, or when certain conditions are met, or when certain incidents occur. It might actually be fun for the liberal to choose Donald Trump or vice versa with the conservative and Killary.

I'm using beers and shots, with the shots reserved for special conditions. If you don't drink and favor THC, you can use bong hits and dabs, saving the dabs for the more serious transgressions. If you're a straight-edge fan of this column, try some BDSM thing with cuffs, whips and the strapper.

Either way, we're going to score it with alcohol. Here are the criteria:

* Hillary comes out in a pantsuit, one sip for the liberal

* Donald's tie is red, white or blue, one sip for the con

* Donald declines on saying "Madame Secretary," and refers to her by her first name... one sip, con

* Hillary says "The Donald.".. one sip for the lib.

* Hill'ry suffers a Katniss-style fall as she walks out... one shot for the lib

* Donald declines a pre-debate handshake.... one shot for the con

* Bill Clinton is attending, and he's sitting with a young woman who isn't Chelsea... one sip, lib

* Donald's wife is shown, and her dress shows cleavage... one sip for the con

* Donald dodges a tough question by insulting the moderator... one sip, con

* Hillary tries a joke, and it bombs like the Enola Gay... one sip, lib

* Which comes first, a "Crooked Hillary" or a "Deplorable?"... CH, one sip con, D, one sip lib

* Who gets brought up first, George Bush II or Monica Lewinsky? GB/lib, ML/con

* Donald slips and utters a racial slur.. one shot, con

* Hillary faints on stage... one shot. lib

* Who gets heckled by someone in the crowd first? Trump, one shot lib... Hillary, one shot con

* You see a black Trump supporter in the crowd... one sip, con

* You see a woman in Islamic dress with a Hillary sign. one sip, lib

* Trump throws a joke at Hillary, and she bests it with a comeback... one sip, Con

* Hillary infers that Trump is wearing a wig... one sip, lib

* Someone in the crowd is dressed as a wall... one shot, con

* Donald says "You're not even your husband's first choice"... one shot, lib

* Hillary points out that Donald has 5 kids from 3 wives... one shot, con

* Donald makes a cigar reference... one shot, lib

* Hillary dodges an email question... one shot, lib

* Donald shows that he's not 100% sure where Syria is... one shot, con

* Hillary has a coughing fit... one shot, lib

* Donald claims that managing a wrestler at Wrestlemania makes him qualified to lead our military... one shot, con

* Donald makes the moderator laugh... one sip, lib

* Donald has to be corrected by the moderator... one shot, con

* Who interrupts who first? Trump, one sip con... HC, one sip lib

* Hillary claims credit for killing Osama bin Laden... one sip, lib

* Hillary utters the words "game show"... one sip, con

* Hillary mentions Liz Warren... one sip, con

* Donald answers it with a Fake Indian line... one sip, lib

* What comes up first, Hillary's email or Trump University? Email, one sip lib,,, scam U, one sip con

* Donald infers that Hillary is killing people who get in her way... one sip, con

* Hillary says Donald's tie is made in China, Trump turns it over, and it says MADE IN USA.. one sip, lib

* Hillary bombs with a Donald Duck reference... one sip, lib

* Trump says "Killary."... one sip, con

* Hillary does a Trump impression, one sip, con

* Trump does a Bill Clinton impression... one sip, lib

* Hillary promises free college for all... one shot, lib

* Donald talks about his dick... one shot, con

* What comes up first, Trump Steaks or Vince Foster? TS, one shot con, VF, one shot, lib

* Hillary promises a minimum wage hike...one shot, lib

* Donald promises a land war in Asia... one shot, con

* Who gets called a rapist first... Bill Clinton or Julian Assange? BC, one shot lib, JA, one shot con

* First celebrity reference? HC, one sip lib.. Trump, one sip con

* Who gets booed first? HC, lib, DT, con

* Anytime the flag is shown full-screen, both opponents drink to the health of the other.




Tuesday, July 5, 2016

The 2016 Bourne On The 4th Of July Parade!


I thought that this was Johnny Quahog, but he's just the leadoff hitter for the Bourne In The 4th Of July holiday parade.


No expense was spared, we rolled hard on the Americana.... and a good time was had by all.


Much like a Fort Sumter neighbor, I was shooting at every Old Glory that I saw... of course, I'm using a camera.

Bourne's parade is pretty much what Red Dawn would have looked like had the people financing it insisted upon a less ambiguous ending... a parade of miltary vehicles rolling through a tiny village with gallons of 'Merica poured on top.
See?


One of the two shots I took today where I felt creepy.... but someone banging down Bloody Marys on the patio at Buzzards Bay  at 10 AM as a parade rolls by rules pretty hard, and deserves media attention.

I actually met this dog while researching an article that I wrote like 6 years ago. He's the Coast Guard's "water safety dog," and- in one of those faux pas scenarios that go down when people who specialize at working with boats dabble in public relations- he bears a name that might need some work. I think his name is "Drown," or "Riptide," or "Hypothermia" or some other nautically terrifying name. Either way, as you can see, Drown floats- at least when he's on a float. It's just like they said in Apocalypse Now... Never get out of the boat, kids.


Ladies and gentlemen... I present to you a Seabee... I'd make a joke about that French Tickler mustache or the dog food bowl on his head, but that is a machine gun he's holding. It looks like it was crafted for Al Capone to shoot, but I'd bet it could punch a rush hole in me pretty easily.


You say that you want a picture of a guy on a lawnmower doing donuts in the middle of the parade? Why, I just happen to have one right here! 


If that's a toy gun, I want to write the advertising copy for it.... "Watch your classmates cower in fear!"


You can't have a parade without the bagpipe corps, player!


Bourne Braves in the howwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwse...



Onset works their way over the border and into the Bourne parade with a fat red ladder truck.


Hot cars always get love in any parade articles I write.


More pics to come when I figure out the kid's tablet....








Monday, July 4, 2016

July 3rd On Duxbury Beach

'Merica!


Cranberry County Magazine's photographers engage in a little camera fight before the fire gets lit.


Because there was a 9 PM high tide, they had to either light the fire at 7:30 PM or light it at 1:30 AM. This also led to smaller fires. Remember, kids... always give the bonfire enough time to burn itself down to ash before the tide hits it.... otherwise, you get a beach full of charred wood for the rest of July until the tide pushes the debris down to the uninhabited parts of Duxbury Beach.


One thing that stood out... only Duxbury had fires. This was one of the more southernmost fires, and there were no fires north of Killian's (a locally notorious Duxbury Beach party family) on the Duxbury/Marshfield line. Marsh Vegas has put their foot down on bonfires, it seems. They were a Loyalist town during the Revolution, so July 3rd parties must seem like doing tequila shots off of the casket of a loved one. Still, someone should have put a fire up.... shame on you, Green Harbor!


Poorly-timed high tides can't stop the fireworks, babe. Duxbury Beach spends a lot of money on personal-use fireworks. Several people I know there had enough gunpowder to defend Little Round Top if they had to. The whole place on July 3rd sounds like films I used to watch of Beirut during urban battles. It was bad enough that I thought I had PTSD for a little while, but I figured out it was just regular psychopathology.


A different vantage point....


Here's me butchering a shot where God had already spotted me the dusk's early light, the flag, the cute kids, several neighboring bonfires and even the rocket's red glare. I later dropped my camera on the beach somewhere, which- judgng by the quality of my shots- was probably a good thing. Shed no tears for Cranberry County Magazine, though... it was a $27 camera that I had owned for a year.

HAPPY JULY 4TH!

Saturday, August 15, 2015

The Battle Of Wareham

On June 13-14th, 1814, war came to the South Coast...
Coastal towns in colonial/post-colonial America tended to be centers of piracy, which we called privateering back then. As near as I can tell, the difference is that a privateer has a letter from the Queen or the President, while the pirate is in business for himself.

It was a pretty good deal. You could get a letter of marque from the government and go hunting for British shipping. 300 British ships were seized in the Revolution, and I'll get the 1812 number later (251 registered privateers, they got 1500 British ships). Them's righteous bucks, real J-Lo style booty.
New England represented hard back in the pirate days, for several reasons. New England is home to numerous ports, harbors, coves, lonely beaches, sneaky little islands, hidden inlets and course-dictating currents. All of these aid the piracy effort. The coastlines of New England in general and Cape Cod in particular are nothing but all of the above. Wareham is even worse.
We're also a nautical people- you tend to not notice it while you're living here, but if you go inland a bit, you realize how unusual it is in America to have been on a boat that has, say, pulled up a lobster trap.

We still depend on the sea now, but we REALLY depended upon it back then. New Englanders sailed instinctively, rowed like a motherlover (when fleeing New York, George Washington made sure that Massachusetts guys were doing the rowing), and more than one of our Captains sailed rings around more than one of their Admirals. I should add that, for some reason I have no theory on, our coastal people sail better than, say, Carolina's coastal people.
Finally, we're centrally located. If New York City is a mall and London is a very nice trophy home, Cape Cod is the nasty neighborhood you have to carry your goods home through. There are a hundred places to attack from around here, and a million places to escape to afterwards. Cape Codders are not afraid of a little dirty money now and then, even if we have to cut the government in on it.
The Brits were doing it to us, too, so it's not as Somali as it sounds. Even if it is, Cape Cod fattened itself quite nicely on British shipping during the times of trouble. It was all good until John Bull came to town to get some payback.
The British became aware of a ship with a letter of marquee being present at Wareham. Wareham had dodged trouble in the Revolution, but she had a fine privateering history. The sloop Hancock came from Wareham, Capt. John Kendrick of Wareham was the boss on the Fanny and the Count d'Estaigne and Capt. David Nye was the Head Sailor In Charge aboard the Sea Flower.
The squadron centered around HMS Superb off of New London dispatched HMS Nimrod with several smaller ships to burn the pirate ships... and perhaps the town around them. Nimrod was a frequent foe of American privateers operating off Cape Cod, and had bombarded Falmouth the December before.
On June 13th, Nimrod came within sight of Fort Phoenix in Fairhaven. Residents of New Bedford and Fairhaven began to flee to the countryside as the militia began to gather. This may have been a feint meant to send militia to the wrong place.  A sizable militia gathered and Fort Phoenix let off some shots (more to summon militia than to sink Nimrod), but the British moved past it. Militia headed to Mattapoisett as well, but the British kept heading up Buzzards Bay to Wareham.
The Nimrod then dispatched barges carrying 225 soldiers up the Wareham River, and they landed where the Narrows Bridge (pictured above) is now, near Tobey Hospital. Risking gunfire from both sides of the river, they came ashore and invaded Wareham.
They sent sentries to inhabit the high ground, and then fired a Cosgreve rocket (a British incendiary weapon, known for it's songworthy Red Glare) into a cotton factory that had been built by a consortium of 60 Boston businesses. The locals managed to put the fire out, but much damage was done.
The Brits took a Captain Bumpus (who may have been the Bumpas kidnapped from Westport, most likely set up by the spy who relayed the news of a privateer at Wareham) to his home, where they destroyed/confiscated military supplies.
A party of Wareham man arrived to see how we could get out of this, and the Brits said they were here to find men and ships related to privateering, and that they would not fire on inhabitants or destroy private property. They were very interested in ships belonging to Falmouth, which they had attacked 6 months before.
We lost a lot of good boats that day. The Fair Trader, 44 tons and able to hold 18 guns, was burned down to the hull. The brig Independent suffered the same fate at 300 tons. She was in the stocks, ready to launch. We also lost brand new schooners Fancy, Elizabeth, and Nancy. All told, a total of four schooners, five sloops, a ship, a brig, and a brig-under-assembly at William Fearing's shipyard were put to flame.
Wareham scrambled up what militia they could get (a dozen or so men under Issac Fearing), and marched forward to fight 225 British marines. The Brits were leaving by then, after having done $1 million (an incalcuable amount today) in damages, half of it being suffered by the cotton factory. The Brits fired more rockets into the town, which they threatened to burn upon their return.
On June 20th, two unidentified young men were sent to the Circuit Court in Boston under charges of Treason for aiding the British in their attack on Wareham.
The Nimrod then, at some disputed point, ran aground at Quick's Hole (a strait between Presque and Nashawena in the Elizabeth Islands, both islands are currently owned by the Forbes family) and had to ditch their cannon to get afloat. Nimrod survived until 1827, when she was heavily damaged off- ironically- Plymouth, England.
Wareham was down but not out, and the nation they live in eventually became so powerful as to eclipse England. Issac Fearing has a Wareham street named for him, and Brits are considerably more polite when they come here now.


Ironically, Wareham's own Geena Davis is said to have personally killed the pirate-film genre with her film Cutthroat Island. Johnny Depp eventually revived the genre, but I don't think that Geena has worked since. 

This film was notoriously bad. Matthew Modine was the male lead, and was reportedly the 10th man offered the role. Geena was married to the director, always a good thing. One character was sacked after trying to expose himself to Davis. The production company that made the film ceased to exist afterwards. "I could watch everyone in this movie be skinned," Gene Siskel once didn't say.

Despite the bombing it underwent, Cutthroat Island eventually made well over a million dollars in the UK once it went to video. One million dollars was about how much damage the British dd in 1813.

Say what you will about Geena Davis, but she took up the sword and got Wareham some reparations. That's my kind of girl. I ought to invite her to the Buzzards Bay Compound...