Vikings

"Wake early if you want another man's life or land. No lamb for the lazy wolf. No battle's won in bed."
- The Havamal

I've known for some time that I missed my accurate historical era (this has caused a strange and certain amount of resentment sans source, and therefore much displaced anger, mostly in the direction of small dogs). I should have been a viking! I'm rude, crude, and do not do well with social convention. All of this sharing and getting along shit is for the birds! To the strong and victorious go the spoils. It's just really sad that you cannot fight your way to a living anymore. When I deal with the modern world, I must, as a matter of convention, actually be polite, hold my farts, wear pants, and generally answer conflicts with rapier whit and skull crushing arguments (words!). This pisses me off.

Between the years of about 800 AD - 1100AD the Vikings raided and looted Europe at will and here's a great story:

A story from chapter 46 of Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar illustrates this distinction. While raiding a coastal farm, Egill and his men were captured by the farmer and his family, who bound all of the raiders. In the night that followed, Egill was able to slip his bonds. He and his men grabbed their captors' treasure and headed back to the ship. But along the way, Egill realized he was acting like a thief, which was shameful. So, he returned to his captors' house, set it ablaze, and killed the occupants as they tried to escape the fire. He then returned to the ship with the treasure, this time as a hero. Because he had fought and won the battle, he could justly claim the booty.

Sweet.

Pilliage, rape, burn! And . . . in that order! Unfortunate things occur when the order is reversed or scrambled in any way. (Now I need to take a moment to address the "rape" referenced above. This is a blog. I'm using hyperbole and rhetoric, if you are unfamiliar with those terms please do yourself a favor and educate yourself here and here respectively [you may thank me later]. Those who will go onto argue that it's never funny or even useful as a device, in a blog about vikings, can go outside and play a game called: hide and go fuck yourself. In no way does this author endorse or condone the rape of anyone or anything, including dead deer)

The Vikings also discovered the Americas as well as Greenland and Iceland (during the medieval warm period - go suck on balls anthropogenic global warming idiots - where were the SUV's and coal plants circa 1000AD? - warming is naturally cyclical so quit being a bunch of guilty, self-hating liberals and drive somewhere). Yes! D-I-S-C-O-V-E-R-E-D. Before Colombus. And so what if there was already a bunch of natives living there! If they were so awesome they would have discovered Europe first. O'Doyle rules! (So do vikings)

It would be great. I know I'd have a HUGE battle axe! For sure!

No more cell phone bills. No more dependence on foreign oil. No more flushing toilets. And most importantly, if you pissed me off I would kick your ass.

Of course, Phish Food ice cream and cocaine would not have been invented yet . . . alas you cannot have it all . . .