Notes from LordDilly

LordDilly’s Musings

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.

For the traitor appears not traitor, he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their garments, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.

A murderer is less to be feared.”

- Cicero, 42 B.C.

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force you are ruined.”

—Patrick Henry

It appears we have appointed our worst generals to command forces, and our most gifted and brilliant to edit newspapers. In fact, I discovered by reading newspapers that these editor/geniuses plainly saw all my strategic defects from the start, yet failed to inform me until it was too late. Accordingly, I am readily willing to yield my command to these obviously superior intellects, and I will, in turn, do my best for the Cause by writing editorials – after the fact.

—GEN Robert E. Lee

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

— C.S. Lewis

The Second Coming

William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Greatest. Simpsons. Quote. Ever.

Sea Captain: Arr, this be the yarrest river-goin’ boat thar be.
(boat sinks)
Sea Captain: Arr … I don’t know what I’m doin.

On Love:

Love isn’t brains, children, it’s blood - blood screaming inside you to work it’s will. I may be love’s bitch, but at least I’m man enough to admit it._-Spike(Buffyverse) from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

On Being Me:

Occasionally, I’m callous and strange._—WillowRosenburg from Buffy

On Angry Posters:

The way he would heap abuse upon all and sundry…it’s like we mattered. He would probably have kicked the Baby Jesus in His manger.

On My Work Attire:

The cowboy boots and leather chaps I wear for recreation, and by leather chaps I mean ass-less leather chaps. GIDDY-YUP!

OmniNerd Public Service Announcement:

PLEASE DO NOT DRINK THE BONG WATER. Thank you.

On Evil Presidents:

…seeing as how Bush is a vampire ninja what secretly sneaks out of the White House at night and drains hapless victims of their blood and/or flips out and cuts people’s heads off. Well, Kim Jong Il might have him beat with the whole starving about 4 million of his own people to death thing, but not by much, I’m sure.

On Rejection:

So … you didn’t like it then? Not even a giggle? Maybe a titter? A smile? No? Well, I guess its suicide for me again…

On Languages:

I reckon I speak four, maybe five languages. Of course my native tongue is American, but I am fluent in British, Australian, can converse in New Zealand, and I can get by in Canadian in a pinch.

On Monkeys:

One thing is for certain, there is no stopping them; the monkey revolution will soon be here, and I, for one, welcome our new monkey overlords.

On Making Fun of Anonymous Trolls:

Thank you, anon, for helping to raise the level of discourse here in this forum to new intellectual heights. Your scintillating wit combined with an unprecedented mastery of the English language, not to mention the basics of capitalization and punctuation should immediately earn you a NerdRank 11!! Will Waddell, Brandon, PowerPoint Samurai, Vnut…morons!!

On Hetero Man- Love:

I found it quite liberating to hold hands with my best guy-friend whilst visiting Baghdad U. When in Rome…

On Apologizing:

Sounds like you are an idiot. I’m sorry, that was uncalled for, but I’ve had beer…

On Homosexuality:

Yes, there is a certain amount of fascination in watching two (or more) beautiful, nubile women tenderly, yet passionately kissing whilst their hands, gingerly at first, then ever more lustfully, explore the forbidden… uh… what were we talking about?

On Prisoner Abuse:

I was deployed to Iraq for like two months before Abu Ghraib, and even then I, as a lowly Corporal, knew enough not to make naked human pyramids and take pictures of fugly female specialists pointing at naked prisoner genitalia.

On Intelligence:

You people use words that I recognize, individually, but put together makes my head…hurty. Excuse me while I weep for my wasted education.

On Assimilation:

All of this talk of assimilation is racist. Just because the Collective takes over the entire planet, why should I be forced to learn their language, adapt to their culture, and have hoses where I’d rather not have hoses?

On The Old Hometown:

_Tunkhannock, a Native American word meaning Generally Nicer Than Scranton_, jewel of the Endless Mountains (of course, not to get too uppity, they are still a part of the Appalachians…) and site of the world famous… um… I think the Revolutionary War passed by once.

On Giving My Peeps Props For Their Mad Skillz:

That is exactly what I’ve been trying to say- although better said and fully realized. Hooray for people smarter than me…or smarter than I- whichever.

Stuff What LordDilly Likes A Lot

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

If you hadn’t figured that out by now…(shakes head.)

Favorite Lines From Buffy:

From Anne

Buffy: Hey, Ken! Want to see my impression of Ghandi? [she smashes his head]
Lily: Ghandi?
Buffy: Well, he was really pissed off.

From Buffy vs. Dracula

Xander: Where is he?? Where’s the creep that turned me into his spider-eating man-bitch? Buffy: He’s gone. Xander: Dammit! You know what? I’m sick of this crap. I’m sick of being the guy who eats insects and gets the funny syphilis. As of this moment, it’s over. I’m finished being everybody’s butt-monkey! Buffy: _Check. No more butt-monkey. _

FireflySerenity

Another Joss Whedon creation, this short lived TV show (cancelled by FOX for Joe Millionaire — soulless bastards) was basically a western in space, but far better than anything that was on TV at the time, with the exception of Buffy and Angel. Go thee out and get the damn DVD set.

Serenity was the feature length film Joss made that debuted in 2005 and was the follow up to Firefly. Awesome move, go thee out and get the damn DVD after you’ve finished Firefly.

Favorite Lines From Firefly/Serenity:

From the Pilot Serenity:

Wash: _Everything looks good from here… _(beat…playing with plastic dinosaurs over his console) Yes. Yes, this is a fertile land, and we will thrive.

(as Stegosaurus) We will rule over all this land, and we will call it… ‘This Land’.

(as T-Rex) I think we should call it…your grave!

(Stegosaurus) Ah, curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!

(T-Rex) Ha ha HA! Mine is an evil laugh…now die!

From The Train Job:

Jayne: Do you know what the chain of command is here? It’s the chain I go get and beat you with to show you who’s in command.

From Shindig:

Harrow: You have to finish it, lad. You have to finish it. For a man to lay beaten… and yet breathing? It makes him a coward.

Inara: It’s humiliation.

Mal: _Sure. It would be humiliating. Having to lie there while the better man refuses to spill your blood. Mercy is the mark of a great man. _(lightly stabs Atherton with the sword) Guess I’m just a good man. (stabs him again) Well, I’m all right.

From The Message:

Mal: Oh! That was bracing. They don’t like it when you shoot at them. I worked that out myself.

From Heart of Gold:

Zoe: No one’s gonna force you to go, Jayne. As has been stated — this job’s strictly speculative.

Jayne: Good. ‘Cause I don’t know these folks, don’t much care to.

Mal: They’re whores.

Jayne: I’m in.

From Objects in Space:

Mal: But she does have an oddness to her. And I ain’t just talking about her proficiency with firearms. Girl knows things. Things she shouldn’t. Things she couldn’t.

Jayne: Wha-…are you-are you sayin’ she’s a witch?

Wash: (sarcastically) Yes, Jayne. She’s a witch. She has had congress with the beast.

Jayne: She’s in Congress?

From Serenity:

Mal: (kneeling at altar, in disguise) Dear Buddha: please bring me a pony, and a plastic rocket-

Inara: Mal, what are you doing here?!

Mal: Well, you invited me.

Inara: I never thought for a second you’d be stupid enough to come!

Mal: Well that makes you kind of a tease, doesn’t it?

---

Operative: Do you really believe that?

Mal: I do.

Operative: You willing to die for that belief?

Mal: I am. (pulls out his gun and shoots at the Operative repeatedly) Course, that ain’t exactly Plan A.

Movies

I like a lot of movies, actually, so instead of listing them all, I figger I’ll talk about the ones that moved me in some way, whether they made me cry (in a manly way, of course), made me fall over in hysterics, made me pump my fist and scream "yeah!," scream in terror like a little girl, or made me want to stick my head in the oven.

The Sixth Sense/Unbreakable/Signs/The Village/Lady in the Water

I lumped the M. Night Shyamalan flicks together… ‘cause they’re M. Night Shyamalan flicks. Of the five, the first four made me do something I rarely do when watching movies as an adult- nearly crap myself. There is something about the way M. Night frames certain scenes that are truly creepy/scary. Take The Village— in the first act, when one of the characters is in a watch tower, and the camera is pointing down towards the ground, one of the creatures strolls by, very naturally, and you catch a glimpse of it— and you go "what the hell was that?!?" The same goes for Signs— when Joachim Phoenix is watching the news and they show an alien strolling by— freaky. It’s been a while since I’ve seen The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, but Sixth Sense was very creepy, and while Unbreakable wasn’t creepy, there where a few scenes towards the end that made me go "sonuvabitch!"

Lady wasn’t scary or creepy, but it was moving. The film felt like a fairy tale, like we would feel if suddenly our "real" world was touched by something otherworldly and magic.

Heartbreak Ridge/Pale Rider/Unforgiven

Heartbreak Ridge is the movie that made me want to be a Marine— well, for a minute, anyway. The movie is a little dated by some of the very ’80’s feel to some parts- pretty much all the scenes with Mario Van Peebles in it, but Clint Eastwood has never seemed more badass. Laugh-out loud funny as well as "Oo-Rah!" inspiring, Heartbreak Ridge is also one of the first movies where Clint explores the twilight of certain archetype characters— in this case, the grizzled war vet.

Another Eastwood movie of a similar vein is of course Unforgiven, which takes us to the end of the road for the Eastwood "Man With No Name" gunfighter archetype. I actually consider Unforgiven and Pale Rider to be bookends of that same archetype. Both films show us that character (in Pale Rider literally a "Man With No Name", known only "Preacher") having given up their guns for a peaceful life, in Pale Rider as a preacher, in Unforgiven as a widower, father, and pig farmer. Pale Rider shows us the gunfighter, who having renounced his violent past, seeks redemption as a man of the cloth, but is forced to wield his guns one last time to protect the helpless. Unforgiven, however, tells the story of a man who picks up his guns again for monetary gain, as an assassin. He tries to justify it as avenging the mutilation of a whore, but in the end it is about money, and in the end he cannot escape the fact that he is, at heart, a stone killer.

More to come

Music

I’m not going to crib Brandon’s shtick by making a comprehensive list, but I’ll throw out some examples to illustrate my diverse taste.

• Allison Krauss and Union Station
• And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead (best name ever!)
• Breaking Benjamin
• Bruce Hornsby
• Clutch
• The Donnas
• The Doors
• Flyleaf
• George Jones
• Gordon Lightfoot
• Hank Williams
• Loreena McKennit
• Richard Thompson

Comic Books

Also something I have diverse taste in, from your typical superhero stuff like X-Men (Astonishing X-Men is currently written by none other than Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy and Firefly_, who is also my master now) to more mature fare such as Preacher and Y the Last Manman.

Guinness

Probably the Irish in me, but not only do I find Guinness tasty and refreshing, but I can also drink a lot of it and not get too polluted. So far, I’ve drank half a case in one sitting, with four of those being Irish Car Bombs, yet I was as sober as a judge – or at least a slightly tipsy judge.

God

I really dig that Jesus guy. The kids love him.

LordDilly’s Parting Thoughts:

Know ye, O Nerds, that in the time between the birth of the Internet and the rise of the sons of McBride, there was an age undreamt of. Hither came OmniNerd, blindingly sweet, Intellectual WMD, of gigantic intellect and gigantic mirth, to trod the pedantic content of other websites beneath it’s awesome metaphorical feet.

Prayer of St. Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love; for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life. Amen.