Croyle Township

Do you remember when I moved to the fabulous land of New Germany?  Well, I think at some point I mentioned that it was a part of Croyle Township.  I have officially become the ruler of Croyle Township and have decided to secede from the United States to form my own kingdom.  That is right residents of Croyle Township, you need to stop paying your taxes to the government and bring them directly to me.  Also, there will be a slight increase.  Taxes will be raised to 60% of total income.  If you work outside of our nation, there will be an added right to leave the nation tax of $10 per day.  As of now, we will keep the dollar as our currency until our national mint is up and running.  Enough about the boring stuff.  Let us discuss the history of our glorious nation.

My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather, Lance Croyle, was a murderous brigand living in England.  He was wanted for murder, which caused him to flee to the newly independent America.  He moved to the area outside of Johnstown.  His brothers, Kyle and Stevie, also left England because they found out that they would have to stand trial in Lance's place.  That was one of the reasons we split from England:  shitty laws.

The Croyle brothers did what they were good at:  being outlaws.  Then, the entire village was attacked by Indians (I actually think they were from India, not Native Americans) and the Croyle family led the resistance, killing off the evil Indians.  The leader of the town forgave them for their earlier crimes and gave them some land outside of town, which they called Croyle Township.  Unfortunately, Lance was not content being a simple timber guy or whatever the hell people did back then.  He went to the bar and got into a fight and may have murdered someone.

The local constable (they had those back then instead of sheriffs) wanted to hang Lance, so he fled north towards the town of Philipsburg, where he lived in the woods and killed animals and the occasional person.  He met a young girl who was lost in the woods and he captured her and made her his bride.  That is how the Croyles ended up in Philipsburg.

You might be wondering what my plan is for my new found kingdom.  I plan on starting a war with the surrounding townships.  Once I have conquered a significant region, I will expand outward until all of Cambria County is under my rule.  After that, it should be no problem to take over Blair County. 

With two major counties fully under my control, I believe my next course of action would be to campaign north.  I figure Centre and Clearfield Counties would be nice additions to my kingdom.  Then, once those are completely subdued, I shall move my armies west.  Once I have Cranberry Township, I plan to strike at Pittsburgh, which I believe will be a tough challenge.

The rivers are going to cause problems.  If my enemies are smart, they will immediately destroy the bridges into the city.  Ferrying troops across the rivers will be dangerous, but doable.  Once the siege of Pittsburgh has ended, I plan to rest my armies for awhile.  Our first act will be to build a wall along the Ohio border.  I do not want any of those filthy Ohioans sneaking into my kingdom.

I expect at this point Philadelphia will begin moving their armies towards the Harrisburg area in order to monitor my eastward progress.  Little do they know though, I could care less about Philly, that place is worse than Cleveland.

I am not a greedy conqueror.  Once I have my little kingdom carved out, I plan on taking it easy and just living the good life.

So residents of Croyle Township, you need not fear, once the conquest is complete, you will receive a portion of the newly acquired taxes from my loyal subjects.  That is your reward for supporting me during the first few years of the secession.  Now bring me your taxes!

Girlfriend of the Week

This week's GOTW goes out to the very hot and very smart Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan.  She is not just some pretty face, she also is considered one of the most powerful women in the world.  She is a huge advocate for education and she uses twitter/facebook. 

Obviously there are no pictures of her in lingerie or spreads in Maxim, I doubt that she would ever pose for something like that.  However, she does not need to pose like that, she looks extremely hot in any picture.

I figured this would be a good change of pace from the normal GOTW.  Some fake-breasted floozy or a comic book chick.  This is definitely a woman that people can respect.  Also, I felt bad about not mentioning her when I wrote about Jordan the other day.

Nations of the World: Jordan

The country of Jordan is located over there.  You know, in the desert.  Actually, the country to the right is Iraq and to the south is Saudi Arabia.  On the left side is Israel.  Should help those of you lacking in any geographical knowledge.

As some of you know, I went to Jordan back in 2004 for an archaeological excavation.  That's right bitches, I used my degree, if only for six weeks.  It was probably one of the coolest experiences of my life.  I realize that I have never actually written much about it, so I figure this would be a good chance to do so.

That is my passport stamp, April 8th is the day we arrived in Amman, the capital of Jordan.  Just a way of proving I was actually there.  Also it helped me remember when we were there.

We stayed in the town of Madaba, which is the home of a Mosaic map, which is the oldest map with references to the Holy Land discovered.  The map is located at a church and while we were there, it was probably the best place in town to exchange money.  You see at that point, the rate was $20=14 Dinar, but if you went to a bank or any exchange place you only received about 13.75 Dinar.  So if you are ever there, head to the church to exchange your money.

Our house was actually a very old Byzantine home.  I do not have any pictures of the outside, which is disappointing because thinking back on it, I realize now that it was a pretty cool place to stay.  Also, I never took a picture of the shower, which felt like being in a Turkish prison.  Not that I would know anything about that...

The crazy thing about Madaba is that everywhere you go you see history.  Also, the town is majority Christian, but you still have plenty of Muslims.  So needless to say, you wake up everyday to the delightful sounds of Call to Prayer.  One of the highlights of Madaba was the one restaurant where a few of us would go to enjoy some good lamb, beer, and some sheesha.  Do not fear, sheesha is just flavored tobacco smoked out of a hookah. 

That short man with the fez beside me was our favorite waiter, who we called Smiley.  He was always smiling, obviously.  Actually, one night we were there (violating curfew) and enjoying some beers, and we got to hear a pretty good band singing in English. 

The Site

I do not believe I can say too much about the site or anything we really found.  If you want any information on that sort of thing, head to Gannon's website.  I guess I can show some pictures though, no harm in that, right?

Look at that sexy mo'fo'.  Shaving was definitely overrated.  Funny thing about the climate, it's really freakin' hot there.  But not Florida hot, more like Arizona hot.  Actually I have no clue what Arizona is like, but I have been told that it is very dry and very hot. 

Also, since most of you are pretty dumb, I am guessing you picture Jordan to look more like what you see in a desert movie.  All sand dunes and whatnot...well it's not.

This is what an archaeological site looks like.  Pretty cool, huh?  Basically, lots of digging in the dirt.  Who would have guessed?

This is starting to get a little long, so I am going to continue this after the jump...hopefully you will follow along to read about all the cool places we went to in Jordan.







Jerash

Jerash was a Roman city and pretty much completely intact.  It was very cool getting to see Greco-Roman ruins without having to head to Italy and Greece.

In all honesty, I really do not remember a ton of stuff from Jerash.  It was an awesome time.  There were hippodromes, temples, theaters, and just about everything you would expect to see at a site like this.

My favorite thing was probably the amphitheater, which as you can see was pretty damn big.  I cannot remember exactly how many it could hold (6000 seems like something I heard at one point), but the interesting thing to me was that no matter where you sat, the people on stage could be heard even if they spoke in a regular voice.  Yes, we tested the theory.  That is something you hear in an Art History class, but never get a chance to test it out.

Mount Nebo
For those of you with no knowledge of the Bible (that's that book with gods and stuff), Mount Nebo is the place where Moses saw the promised land and then was buried.   The funny thing about the site is that the one guy in our group told a story (he must have told it many times) which was not funny, unless you study this sort of thing.

"Moses asks God to let him see the promised land.  So God agrees and parts the clouds and fog, giving Moses a perfect view of....Switzerland."

The dramatic pause is the important thing.  Oh well, I still find it funny.  If I am not mistaken, this is the view old Moses got, does not look very promising to me.

The other cool thing about Mount Nebo is the cool sculpture.  It is the cross entwined with Moses' serpent.  Oh never mind, just pick up the Old Testament and read a few chapters.

Desert Castles
These were pretty cool.  We went to a bunch of them one day, basically they were castles that the Arabian folks used during Crusader times.

One of them was where they filmed some of the scenes from Lawrence of Arabia.  That is something I heard while I was there.  The majority of the time there, Drew and I discussed how cool it would be to play paintball or laser-tag there.  How you would try to defend certain areas and whatnot.  This was also one of the sites we visited where we did not have any kind of tour.  We were allowed to run free.

I think that dome would make a good place to set up as a sniper.  not that I thought about that kind of thing.

Petra
This is the place you have all been waiting for me to talk about.  It is the place we see in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Transformers:  Revenge of the Fallen.  In fact, you may remember my anger at Transformers for screwing up the geography of the region.  It was also featured in an episode of Destination Truth, although I have yet to watch it.

That is the gorge you have to walk through to get to the cool parts.  It builds up such a great feeling, you know you are in for an awesome sight.

I can tell you one thing though, make sure you are in good shape if you ever go there.  I am not talking marathon shape or anything, but to get to the top of the site, you have to go for a nice long hike.  I doubt I could make it nowadays.

Once you are up there though, this is the view you treated to.  I am not one for relaxing and meditating, but I sat up there by myself for like twenty minutes and it felt really cool.  Apparently this is also a spot where they performed human sacrifice, but I cannot for the life of me remember how they knew that or who told us that.

The above pictures are just some to show you how awesome Petra truly is.  The picture to the right though shows how amazing the Nabataeans were at carving this entire site from the rock.

After hanging out for the day at the site, we back to our hotel and a few of us got cleaned up (the first non-Turkish prison shower in weeks) and headed out to one of the bars.

Ended up having a great time, but no one thought to take pictures of the evening.

The next day before we left, we bought some candy bars from a gift shop.  There was nothing seemingly special about the candy bar, aside from the name:  Uranus bar.  I am guessing Uranus does not seem as funny in Arabic as it does to us.  Hell, maybe Mars bar translates funny in Arabic...

I think I should start wrapping this up before it becomes a book.  Needless to say, I had a great time in Jordan.  I highly recommend going there if you ever get the chance.

And see, you thought NOTW would be all stupid and ridiculous lies about random countries you never heard of, like Canada.

Nations of the World

Last week I posted something called Nations of the World:  Albania.  I figured I should explain what my plan is for this.  Since two of the shows I write about will be over soon and I will have nothing to write about (not true, but whatever), I figured I would write about every nation of the world (not a bloody chance). 

So each week or so (whenever I feel like it), I will choose a country at random and write about it.  Sometimes I will just make crap up and post pictures of hot girls.  Other times I will post real things about the country.  You will never know which it will be (depending on my mood, neither will I).

I would appreciate any thoughts or feedback the rest of you have out there.  I could continue to write sextails, but that means I will some more material.  So ladies, feel free to volunteer for research material.  And no, this does not mean I have only had sex like six times or something.  Just that the majority of them were not that funny.

Anyways for your enjoyment here is a nice article from Arrogant Atheist about arresting the Pope.  Sounds like a great idea to me...

Nations of the World: Albania

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When you think of Albania, what comes to mind?  Aside from a kick-ass flag, not a whole lot.  I know that it is a small country, probably about the size of Delaware.  The only thing I know about the country is that the villains from Taken came from Albania.  Apparently they are very good at sex slavery.

Their population probably ranges somewhere around 3,000,000.  They figured this out by having everyone gather in town squares and the census taker yelled out "everyone who is not a sex slave, please raise your hand."  Apparently they came up with that many people who were not owned by someone else.  Neat.

I imagine the land to be very dreary.  You know how in movies when they want to show a place as being desolate, they use a filter on the lens?  Not so much black and white, but it mutes all the color?  That is how I picture Albania.  Also, I see everyone digging in the mud, like in Monty Python and the Holy Grail "there is some lovely filth over here..."  In fact, I believe their number one export (aside from sex slaves) is filth.

History
The area known as Albania has been settled continually since the early 1320s CE (common era for those of you who have no clue what CE stands for, instead of using the Christian term AD).  Before then people realized the area sucked and avoided it like the plague.  Actually during plagues, people were sent there as a quarantine zone.

In the late 1700s their leader, Sergio Madras Flokktitty, tried to conquer the surrounding region.  He failed after three days when his wagon snapped an axle.  During the Great War, the Albanians fought with the Ottoman Empire.  Or rather, they were absorbed by the Ottomans, who never actually noticed any difference.

Their big moment to shine came in WWII, when they confused Italy with Greece.  Thinking they were striking at the evil Axis, they attacked Greece with a fervor not seen since the ancient Spartans.  Sadly though, the Albanian military was still on horseback.  A fierce cavalry charge is no match for a tank.

Since then, they have been a country.  End of the history lesson.

Famous People
Apparently there are plenty of famous Albanians, unfortunately I could not find one that is actually from Albania.  They are usually Albania-American, which is really not the same.  The most famous of those being Eliza Dushku.

A trait I have noticed in Albanian women though, they have nice racks.  Seriously, this is a picture of Masiela Lusha, some Albanian model.  Nice boobs.  At least the country has that going for them.

Do not fear ladies, I feel it would be unfair to just the sexy girls of the country and not give you a little eye candy as well.

Tie Domi is Albanian-Canadian, which I guess counts right?  You may remember him as the enforcer for the Maple Leafs.  He was pretty badass.  He once got into a fight with a Flyers fan, which he should have received an award for beating the crap out of the Flyer fan.

The video for the fight is below the picture.  Now I realize some of you ladies might not think of Domi as a sex symbol, so I guess I will include one more male with Albanian descent...

James Belushi is Albanian-American as well! You lucky ladies.

 Disclaimer:  The majority of this material was made up.  I have nothing, but the utmost respect for Albania and it's people.  This post was meant entirely as humor.  Please do not have me killed for trying to be marginally funny.  Who doesn't love James Belushi?