Yes. The “Stainless Steel Rat” books by Harry Harrison. Intergalactic con-man is blackmailed into working for the government…but continues to pick up more than a little on the side. It is a series: my personal favorite is “The Stainless Steel Rat For President. I think you can read them out of sequence without losing the thread.
I think I’ve posted this quote from the first book here before, but I can’t find it. I suspect it might resonate with some people here.
“We are the rats in the wainscoting of society – we operate outside of their barriers and outside of their rules. Society had more rats when the rules were looser, just as the old wooden buildings had more rats than the concrete buildings that came later. But they still had rats. Now that society is all ferroconcrete and stainless steel there are fewer gaps between the joints, and it takes a smart rat to find them. A stainless steel rat is right at home in this environment. It is a proud and lonely thing to be a stainless steel rat – and it is the greatest experience in the galaxy if you can get away with it. The sociological experts can’t seem to agree why we exist, some even doubt that we do. The most widely accepted theory says that we are victims of delayed psychological disturbance that shows no evidence in child-hood when it can be detected and corrected and only appears later in life. I have naturally given a lot of thought to the topic and I don’t hold with that idea at all. A few years back I wrote a small book on the subject – under a nom de plume of course – that was rather well received. My theory is that the aberration is a philosophical one, not a psychological one. At a certain stage the realisation striked through that one must either live outside of society’s bonds or die of absolute boredom. There is no future or freedom in the circumscribed life and the only other life is complete rejection of the rules. There is no longer room for the soldier of fortune or the gentleman adventurer who can live both within and outside of society. Today it is all or nothing. To save my own sanity I chose the nothing.”
Yes!
At one point in my misspent younger days, CBS was running it really late at night. I taped all the episodes I could (it got kind of hinky when NCAA basketball was on). Later on, I bought the blu-rays…
My own personal favorite is “Hammer Into Anvil”, which is episode 10, so you haven’t seen it yet.
It is great. It wouldn’t make my top ten, but just barely. Top 15 for sure.
I saw it fairly recently. The tranny stuff didn’t bother me, and I felt it served to show how messed up Pachino’s character was. Also, it is part of the true story the movie is based on.
Personally, I think it’s a solid piece of entertainment, but it’s not great. I wouldn’t compare it to “Citizen Kane”, “All That Jazz”, or even “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”.
Isn’t Pharrell Williams a black rapper?
“ The human mind is never better disposed to gratitude and attachment than when softened by fear.” —Sir Charles James Napier
I know, current year, disadvantaged yutes, but:
Doesn’t GoFundMe officially ban fundraising for people accused of a crime?
A blogger I used to follow (he retired from blogging and his blog is now offline) bought a Remington 700 several years ago (this was pre-COVID)…
…that was rusted right out of the factory.
I know you know this, but for the girls out there:
Honey, the guy who plans to rape you or traffic you doesn’t care if you’re lesbo or not. He’s going to do whatever he wants to you and with you.
The only way you have any say is through the instant injection of high velocity lead as soon as you have legal justification.
Are we sure she committed suicide because she was doing porn, and not because…she was living in Cleveland?
(I have family up there. I can say that.)
The Nebula is voted on by SF writers (members of the Science Fiction Writers of America) and from what I’ve heard through friends is probably even more compromised than the Hugo awards.
“ What ever happened to the whole "Free Tibet" thing?”
You mean “Free Tibet! With purchase of a Tibet of equal or greater value. Please allow six to eight years to arrive. Offer prohibited where void. Professional Dali Lama on closed course: do not attempt.” That “Free Tibet”?
I think offer expired right before I saved up enough Ovaltine labels. You know, that stuff wasn’t good.
Of course he knows. He made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.
I’ve been thinking about the etiquette of this.
I’m sorry, and this is entirely hypothetical, but I sure don’t want to open the fridge to get a Coke or some eggs for an omelette and be confronted by a pair of testicles.
Do you keep a separate fridge, like a mini-fridge, for the nuts? Do you just store them in some sort of opaque container?
Do you maybe preserve them in Lucite, right next to your eighteen inches of intestine? Use it as a paperweight?
What’s the polite thing to do with a pair of severed testicles?
“Beer For My Horses” is a fun song.
With the stupidest music video I’ve ever seen.
If you’re baking a pie, I can loan you a cup.
Yeah. That’s pretty much the story of salvation history: God does stuff for humanity, people don’t listen, God punishes them, wash rinse repeat.
The most recent book I finished was The Dictionary People by Sarah Ogilvie, about the various contributors to the Oxford English Dictionary. It’s a little woke, but not too awfully so.
The one before that was The M1911 Complete Owner's Guide by Walt Kuleck.
I’m between books right now, and trying to decide between The Rifle by Andrew Biggio and The Guns of John Moses Browning: The Remarkable Story of the Inventor Whose Firearms Changed the World by Nathan Gorenstein.
I got my Garand from CMP a couple of weeks ago. And today would have been JMB’s 169th birthday. So both seem appropriate.
Admiral Cloudberg recently covered the Qantas 32 incident (also an uncontained disc failure, but on an Airbus A380):
I don’t know the entire history of 747 production, but I do know they officially delivered the final 747 off the production line January 31st of 2023. It got some coverage in the aviation press at the time.
The article I have says that, as of 2020, they were only producing half a plane a month. And the last one went to Atlas Air.
Isn’t it interesting that there’s a school shooting…
…the same day the Epstein documents hit the press?
Just sayin’.
One of my Christmas presents was “A Disturbance in the Force”, the documentary about the “Star Wars Holiday Special”.
I am looking forward to watching this with my Saturday Night Movie Group.
I would like to subscribe to your newsletter, please.
Well, I do oppose arrogance, lying, adultery, and unnecessary working on Sundays.
As for bacon and shrimp cocktail, Acts 10:13-15 is instructive.
ESPN’s article names the woman.