Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader will probably be doing very little posting between now and after Labor Day. Lots of back-to-school stuff going on which requires his attention. (So Mrs Villain tells him.) Of course, every time your Maximum Leader warns you all that posting will be light, he winds up posting a lot. Then when he posts nothing… Well… He posts nothing…

What to write about now?

Your Maximum Leader had some people over to the house for dinner yesterday night. He anticipated preparing some fancy appetizers. He’d thought of serrano ham and marchengo cheese and proscuitto with melon as two ham-based dishes. (With a mix of olives stuffed with feta, almonds, sun-dried tomatos, and garlic. To be clear, each olive was not stuffed with all of those items. There was a variety of 4 different olives each stuffed with a different item.)

Well… What did the great Muse of Scotland once say about the best laid plans? The ham based appetizers never made it to the table.

Gosh… Your Maximum Leader is so (SO!) torn up inside thinking that he might have Serrano ham and proscuitto just laying about in the icebox. What ever will he do with that wonderful, tasty, succulent cured pork goodness just sitting around? Sadly he is too busy to invite people with whom he’d share the ham.

He’ll just have to eat it himself…

The horror… Oh the horror…

In other news…

Your Maximum Leader is sad to admit that he watches “True Blood” on HBO. He has come very close to giving up on the show on a number of occasions starting last season. This season has a bunch of storylines going on. Most of the storylines don’t do a damn thing for him. While enduring the storylines he doesn’t care for he keeps thinking that he’ll just stop watching. But then the vampire characters just draw him back in. Specifically he is speaking about Denis O’Hare’s performance as Russell Edgington. Damn that man can work magic in that role. If it weren’t for the Russell story-line your Maximum Leader would have just stopped watching earlier this season.

Moving along…

Hey! Is it too early to shill for Christmas (or back to school)? You know that you are looking for a new t-shirt in which to knock about the house or wear on a quick trip to the mall. Have you considered a Naked Villainy T-shirt? If you are particularly stunning woman have you considered a Naked Villainy Tank-top and Thong combo? Your Maximum Leader will keep shilling this particular combination until he gets photos in his mailbox one day of some sultry lass clad only in the tank and thong combo. If that day ever comes your Maximum Leader let you all know. If you want to check out the store the link is here. Your Maximum Leader is probably going to update the store soon with a new t-shirt or two. (Not like lots of people are knocking down the doors to buy the old stuff…)

Anyhoo…

Your Maximum Leader has been re-reading books he’s got on the shelf. He realizes that he’s looking at the books on the shelf and not remembering their contents any more. So he’ll both conserve money and do a little re-education for himself. Like FLG, your Maximum Leader might revisit Hume’s “Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.”

That is about all from the Villainschloss now…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, while not considering himself an environmentalist exactly, does believe in sensible stewardship of our natural resources. Normally he wouldn’t find himself encouraging something as villainous as fishing a particular species to extinction. But these are extreme times my friends.

Apparently the lionfish is destroying reefs and fish populations all the way from Florida to Maine. The lionfish is not native to our Atlantic coast. Now environmentalists, chefs and foodies are going to try and do their part to eradicate the lionfish. According to the Washington Post there is a full-fledged movement afoot to get people to eat the little buggers and remove them from our coasts.

Apparently the major hurdle to widespread ingestion of the lionfish is availability. This is to say availability for purchase. The little buggers are out in the water if you want them, it takes some work to catch them. Did your Maximum Leader say catch them. He is wrong, they need to be speared. Spearfishing is the only way to get the lionfish to market.

Here is a solution to this problem. Take many of the unemployed Americans out there and give them some snorkeling lessons and a spear and see how many lionfish they can take in a day. If people were paid by the fish you could likely put a serious dent in the lionfish population in no time. (How many unemployed former autoworkers from Michigan would enjoy relocating for a summer to the warm and sunny south and get to spend some time snorkling and killing lionfish? It is like a fishing vacation that you get paid for…)

Your Maximum Leader will look around for places where he can get lionfish. He’s all for eating a species to extinction…

This species at least…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is something of a sucker for the light news in newspapers. This isn’t to say that he likes the myriad “fluff” pieces you see on TV news (stuff like surfing dogs, and squirrels that “sing” or anything like that), he doesn’t like those pieces on TV. But you find cool articles in newspapers that are worth reading and are light compared to straight news.

For your reading pleasure in the Washington Post: ‘Casablanca Rick’s Bar of Kabul’ serves up its last drink.

Money quote: “All non-muslims smell like this.”

Go thee and read.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has seen S.E. Cupp on Fox a few times. He tries to read her pieces over at the Daily Caller. He also gets her tweets. She is an interesting commentator and he’s enjoyed what he’s read.

Of course now she is doing her best to catapult herself into the stratosphere of sexy political commentators. How you may ask?

Please read: S.E. Cupp’s “Can bacon save the world?”

Keep the bacon coming S.E..

Also worthy of note about S.E. Cupp… She is a hunter, publish author, and rational atheist who doesn’t hate religion.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is sorry for silence here. He’s been quite busy of late. Kids getting out of school. Birthdays. Anniversaries. It has been a little crazy.

Your Maximum Leader celebrated over the past few days both his birthday and his wedding anniversary. He’d hoped to get away with Mrs Villain for a nice dinner in town to celebrate the “contract renewal” as he jokes about his wedding vows.

What is the joke you might ask?

Allow your Maximum Leader to explain… He has a friend who, in college, speculated that one of the reasons for rampant divorces in the world was that people were living longer. In olden tymes, when a couple got married it was until death did you part. But death came to people fairly soon. So being married 20-30 years was a pretty good run in this friend’s mind. This friend posited that since we (modern people) live so much longer we ought to change the way we view marriage. In the opinion of your Maximum Leader’s friend, marriage vows should expire after 7 years unless both parties agree to renew for another 7 years.

This year your Maximum Leader and Mrs Villain were married 14 years. In case you were wondering, your Maximum Leader and his lovely bride agreed to another 7 years of wedded bliss.

How did we celebrate this milestone? Did he get away for a nice dinner? Well… Since you ask… We went and got burgers from Five Guys. Because nothing says Happy Anniversary quite like bacon cheeseburgers.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is sad. Very very sad.

You’ll recall that a few weeks ago he went to Kentucky and visited a number of Bourbon distilleries. During those visits he tasted the “distillers beer” in the vats that was fermenting and aging and getting ready to be turned into moonshine…

It tasted like bad beer. It smelled like bad beer.

Well… For the first time since he’s returned from Kentucky, your Maximum Leader decided to have a beer last night.

Guess what? (NB: Chickenbutt!)

When your Maximum Leader brought the beer to his lips to drink and smelled the hoppy brew… All he could think about (and taste) was the distillers beer he’d sampled.

Your Maximum Leader couldn’t finish the beer. It was gross smelling. He had to switch to Bourbon…

Your Maximum Leader wonders if he’ll ever drink beer again…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wrote earlier of his acquisition of a new grill. One that is both a gas grill and a charcoal grill…

Remember how he said he’d likely never use the gas side…

Well… Your Maximum Leader is a liar.

Last night Mrs. Villain informed your Maximum Leader that she wanted “grilled chicken” for dinner. And she wanted it in about 30 minutes. So it was out to the gas grill…

The chicken turned out just fine actually… Your Maximum Leader missed the smoke that you get from charcoal…

Your Maximum Leader imagines that this will be a recurring theme in his life. He’ll have to draw the line somewhere… It it goes unchecked next thing you know Mrs Villain will want him to cook ribs on the gas side…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader fancies himself pretty handy on the grill. His grill of choice for about 15 years now has been a Professional Char-Griller grill/smoker. (Here is the newest model of the one your Maximum Leader has used for the past 15 years and will highly recommend to you.)

Well, your Maximum Leader’s grill/smoker has served him very well over one and a half decades. But recently its fallen on some hard times. Sadly it has been left out a few times without a cover to suffer the elements. The ash catcher has completed fallen apart. Two of the cooking grates have been broken. (Your Maximum Leader will not say whom exactly broke them while attempting to “clean” them - but know that he’s looking at Mrs Villain right now…) And finally, the original paint has peeled off in a number of spots and the metal is rusting badly. (NB: your Maximum Leader has carefully sanded and repainted the spots with a high temperature resistant special grill paint, but the spots continue to peel and rust.)

Your Maximum Leader suggested to Mrs Villain that it might be time to buy a new grill/smoker. He figures he’d gotten his $99 worth out of the first one. Mrs Villain suggested that your Maximum Leader purchase a gas grill for the Villainschloss.

Well… This was something of a sore spot for your Maximum Leader. You see, he is an inveterate user of charcoal. He isn’t a gas grill type of guy. Grilling is something done over naturally created fire. And by definition when you smoke food (which your Maximum Leader does freqently) it must be using fire which produces heat and smoke.

Charcoal grilling isn’t for Mrs Villain. She doesn’t like the work involved. It annoys her that it takes 25-30 minutes to get coals ready to cook. It annoys her that heating is uneven. It annoys her that you have to watch for flame-ups. Basically, she loves the results, but can’t stand the process. This is to say she can’t stand the process if she has to do it herself. Most of the time, of course, she doesn’t even attempt to use the grill/smoker. It is the domain of your Maximum Leader.

That said, since Mrs Villain is home all summer (being a teacher and all) she likes to cook more over the summer. She would also like to grill more over the summer. But she doesn’t want to be a slave to your Maximum Leader’s schedule when it comes to eating dinner. So she wants a gas grill. One she feels she can control and use better and more often than a charcoal grill.

Well… Your Maximum Leader cannot ever forsee himself using a gas grill. It just isn’t him. But he loves his wife tremendously and wants her to be happy. He also doesn’t feel like coming home and grilling late into the evening during the summer. He also thinks it would be good for Mrs Villain to grill some on her own.

What to do? What to do?

Compromise of course.

The answer… A Professional Char-Griller Duo Model #5050 dual gas grill/smoker. Yes loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader got, what he hopes, is the best of both worlds. A gas grill (with side burner) for her; and a real charcoal grill/smoker for him. (Honestly, he might use both sides from time to time - and he can imagine that the side burner is really handy.)

You will get, from time to time, some updates on how the #5050 is working out. It will get used for the first time this coming weekend. Your Maximum Leader might need to smoke some bacon up since he is running low… He also plans on having some steaks on Saturday…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has been drinking quite a bit of bourbon over the weekend. He made his first Manhattan cocktail on Saturday. It was fine. He made it with Evan Williams bourbon, sweet vermouth and a dash of bitters. As he said, it was okay but nothing to write home about.

(NB to readers, especially the Air Marshal if he is lurking out there: Your Maximum Leader felt compelled to write the exact brand of bourbon he used in his Manhattan so that the Air Marshal would not wonder about which brand he used. You see, your Maximum Leader brought home a bottle of Wild Turkey Rare Breed from his recent bourbon weekend with the Air Marshal. And the Air Marshal emplored your Maximum Leader not to mix the Rare Breed into a cocktail, or mix it into ginger ale or coke (as he does sometimes). While your Maximum Leader can’t promise that he’ll never mix the Rare Breed into a cocktail or ginger ale or coke, he did want you all to know that he didn’t this time.)

(NB - again: By the way. Your Maximum Leader knows that a “true” Manhattan cocktail is made with Rye Whisky and not Bourbon.)

Your Maximum Leader did notice on the Maker’s Mark website that they mix a shot of bourbon into an Arnold Palmer. It sounded good. So he tried it. Frankly… It is really good. So he’s been drinking them all weekend.

Frankly, your Maximum Leader imagines Arnie Palmer himself (and John Daly for certain) would like their Arnold Palmer’s with a shot of bourbon in them.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is returned from a quick trip to Kentucky. The purpose, as he mentioned in a previous bleg, was to road trip with a good friend to visit Bourbon distilleries. Specifically the Maker’s Mark distillery.

By the way, my loyal minions… What the hell is up with you people? Have none of the 3,000 unique visitors per month to this site ever been to Lexington, Kentucky? None of you? He blegs for a restaurant suggestion… And nothing… On the one hand he is glad that no one made up a recommendation. On the other hand he now wonders if any of you get out…

(NB to you all… Your Maximum Leader read his site statistics for the first time in months in order to ascertain how many of you might be out there…)

Your Maximum Leader will not bore you with all the sundry details of the whole trip. He’ll say that he visited three distilleries. Four Roses, Wild Turkey, and Maker’s Mark. Of those three, if you were going to visit one… He’d tell you without hesitation or reservation that the only one worth your time was the Maker’s Mark distillery.

As longtime readers of this spot know, your Maximum Leader is a Scotch whisky type of fellow. He comes from a long line of Scotch whisky drinkers. But over the past few years a combination of patriotism, changing taste, and the economy have started a love affair with Bourbon whisky. (Great Bourbon is a hell of a lot cheaper than great Scotch by the by. And times are tough you know…)

Your Maximum Leader’s favorite Bourbon is Maker’s Mark. He does like the Wild Turkey “Rare Breed” and Wild Turkey “101″ as well; but Maker’s is his favorite. He suspects this is due to the lack of rye in making Maker’s Mark. This is not to say that he doesn’t like Rye whisky. In fact he does. But if he is going to go down that taste path, he’d just as soon have Scotch.

In case you need photographic evidence of the trip…

Here is your Maximum Leader posing with the Maker’s Mark sign:

As many readers surely know, Maker’s Mark is famous for the wax seals on their bottles. The distinctive red wax is applied by hand to every bottle. If you happen to visit the distillery and want to pony-up the cash, you too can dip a bottle of Maker’s in the red wax yourself. Needless to say, if you are making the trip you really have to do the dipping too. So here are just two shots (from the sequence of shots taken) showing your Maximum Leader dipping his bottle of Maker’s.

The Maker’s Mark distillery is really worth the trip if you are in the area. (Of course, your Maximum Leader made the 470 mile - each way - trip for no other reason but to go.) The grounds are fabulously kept. The facilities are great and the people are terrific. Everyone we encountered was so wonderful. Your Maximum Leader was particularly pleased with Betty and Susan (who gave him his tour and who greeted us upon our arrival, respectively). In addition, the man who was mixing the mash in the fermentation barrel was very happy to answer some questions while he worked. Even the fellow doing the weed-whacking near the parking lot was a cordial guy.

Your Maximum Leader was not as pleased with Four Roses or Wild Turkey. To be honest he’d never heard of Four Roses. Apparently much of the Bourbon produced by Four Roses is for export only. The Four Roses distillery was okay. In many ways it was about half-way between the Maker’s distillery and the Wild Turkey distillery experience. Maker’s Mark was almost a high-end theme park dedicated to Bourbon. Wild Turkey’s distillery was more like walking through a factory. Four Roses was somewhere in the middle.

To be fair to Wild Turkey, they need to be more factory-like. They are producing in a month as much product as does Maker’s Mark in a year. Where the Maker’s facility was characterized by manicured green lawns, nice sidewalks, beautiful shade trees, and well-tended buildings; the Wild Turkey facility was characterized by paved streets, rail road sidings and the constant hum of machinery.

Oh yeah… Did your Maximum Leader mention that Wild Turkey’s visitor center doesn’t have a serve permit? So while your Maximum Leader was getting small samples at Maker’s and Four Roses, they can’t let you try the goods at Wild Turkey. That was a little sad.

Anyhoo…

Your Maximum Leader might, at some point in the future, return to Bourbon country USA. He was rather charmed by Lexington and the surrounding horse country. He can see himself going (with Mrs Villain) to Lexington and taking in some horse racing, fine dining, and another visit to Maker’s Mark…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader recalls reading that during the age of Caesar (Julius and Augustus) roman legionnaires almost always had access to pork or other meats. But the legionnaires always wanted a ration of bread every day. The citizens of Rome depended on a free bread ration for hundreds of years.

These people liked their bread.

When your Maximum Leader thinks of modern cultures that like their bread his mind first goes to an idealized France. He knows that the culture of bread in France has been dramatically on the decline for many years. But in his mind he likes the idea of going to the bakery in the morning and getting fresh baguettes every morning…

We aren’t big bread eaters in the US of A. Not like other cultures.

Your Maximum Leader likes his bread. He prefers crusty bread that is roughly torn from a loaf. Or just a bread with a good tasty crust. He doesn’t like his bread too doughy in the middle.

Last night your Maximum Leader craved bread with dinner. So he stopped at the local Giant and bought a fresh baguette on his way home for dinner last night…

Well, he needs to report that in slightly less than 24 hours he’s now eaten the entire baguette himself. He cut peices for dinner to sop up juices from dinner. He ate some with honey as a snack last night. He toasted a little this morning with jam for breakfast. And he just finished off the loaf as a sandwich and some slices eaten with onion and brie.

He feels sort of piggy today. But it is piggy in a reasonably good way.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is returned from a few days down in beautiful Key West. You want to know something? Your Maximum Leader might be the only normal person to go to Key West for 4 days, experience beautiful sunny 80 degree weather; and return home just as pasty and fish-belly white as he left.

Your Maximum Leader might recount more of his trip in a later post. Let us give a quick summary for you if you are so inclinded…

High points: friends’ wedding, “Little White House” visit, Hemmingway house visit, eating fish caught by friends at Eat it Raw (fish was cooked), drinking so many cuba libres that your Maximum Leader figured he might just go and try to libre the island of Cuba.

(NB to all: Your Maximum Leader takes his cuba libres in his own form. He likes white rum, coke, splash of lime juice, crushed lime wedge, and a float of 151 proof rum. He found that the bartenders at Eat It Raw thought his variation on the popular drink was particularly good.)

Low points: listening to a mediocre piano bar singer at hotel for longer than he wanted, waking up early due to cruise ship horns sounding at dawn, blister on heel from shoes

Regrets: not going deep sea fishing when friends did go with Captain Keith on the Lucky Strike.

There might be a photo of your Maximum Leader and a more detailed post coming… Or not…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has had a shortage of quality blog time for you all. This situation isn’t going to change over the next few days. He admits that he could have blogged some last night, but he got distracted by the Akira Kurosawa film extravaganza on TMC last night. (BTW, Happy Birthday Kurosawa-san. You would have been 100 years old yesterday.) After putting his villainous offspring to bed he spied “Rashomon” on the tv. Next thing you know, the “Seven Samurai” was on. Then your Maximum Leader fell asleep. He’s such a wuss that way.

What to blog? What to blog?

Well… First of he should congratulate the President, but most of all Speaker Pelosi for getting the damned health care bill passed. It was tremendous work on their parts. Your Maximum Leader gives most of the credit to the Speaker who must have used every bit of parliamentary/political/personal knowledge she knew to twist all the arms to make the deal happen. Your Maximum Leader wasn’t sure that she would pull it off. He wasn’t sure that is until she saw Steny Hoyer and the Speaker announce a vote would be held on Sunday. Once they actually gave a day for the vote and were adamant that it would happen your Maximum Leader knew they had the votes. So… Congrats to them. It was a tough slog, but they got the job done.

Is your Maximum Leader happy about the bill? Of course not. It sucks. But you have to give credit where it is due. And it is due in this case.

So what next? Well… One hopes that the Republicans can run an effective campaign this year and take the House or Senate back and work on serious modification of the bill. Your Maximum Leader thinks Fishersville Mike is right on with a slogan of “Change - the right kind this time.” Why does your Maximum Leader say serious modification and not outright repeal? Let’s be honest. Even after a few months there is inertia that sets in on any legislation. There isn’t going to be an outright repeal. Major modifications is the best course. It is the way the system works. Why did you think they were pushing so hard to pass something? Once it gets on the books it is there… Some portions of the law just enacted will remain no matter how hard one tries to remove them.

Ah well… One hopes that Republicans (for lack of a better alternative) can get their acts together and run a tight campaign and put themselves into a position where they actually have some institutional power in Congress…

Did you Wagnerians out there see that Wolfgang Wagner died this week? The grandson of Richard Wagner and longtime Bayreuth Festival director passed away at age 90. His daughter (and teutonic hottie) Katharina Wagner is currently the festival director.

Your Maximum Leader may, or may not, post again this week. He is off to Key West, Florida for a few days of sun, fun, and marriage. A good friend of his is getting married in Key West on Friday night. It should be fun. It has been a long time since your Maximum Leader was last in Key West. If you have any suggestions of things for him to see or do, leave a comment. (No need to comment that he should leer at drunken spring-break co-eds. Please accept that as read…)

This good friend getting married is the owner of Key West Key Lime pies. If you want to get yourself get best key lime pie EVAH (EVAH!!!) feel free to clicky on the linky and buy…

Later gators… Perhaps your Maximum Leader will get some sun…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, although having no Irish ancestry, does enjoy partaking in a little corned beef & cabbage and Guinness beer on St. Patrick’s day. Yesterday evening he found himself singing along to the refrain of this song (which was playing on his iPod)…

While your Maximum Leader greatly enjoyed himself, his family was not as impressed with the singer or the song.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader must remember that this list of alcohol spirits of which he can consume heroic quantities does not contain sake. The list does contain scotch and bourbon.

Sake is dangerous because you drink it in those little cups. You never figure that 15 or 16 cups later you might have a problem.

That is all.

Carry on.