When he left home he told his mother, "Don't worry, Ma, I'm going to go out there and make my fortune."
"That's very nice, dear," she said to him. "What are you going to be?"
And Rupert said with engaging candor and honesty that was going to get him into a lot of trouble, "I'm going to be a pirate. See you in a year or two, Ma. I'll be home, and we'll buy that little castle in Ireland you've always been wanting."
"Aw, that's such a good boy, isn't it, George?" she said to her husband, who as usual wasn't listing.
If George Haversack had been listening, he might have grabbed young Rupert by the scruff of the neck and said words along the lines of, "Now listen here, you idiot. You can't run off to the Caribbean and be a pirate just like that. They'll eat you alive!"
This might (or might not) have given Rupert pause. Probably not. Being 19 years old, he knew he was immortal, indestructible, and he knew he knew far better than his elders. When you're 19, you always do, so it stands to reason.
But he never expected this. What happens? He lands in Port Royal day one, for cripesakes -- day one! He gets invited to a beachparty. So far, so good. He gets hammered on rum (well, fair's fair: everybody else was getting hammered, so why should he be goody two-shoes?) and when he wakes up, somebody's stolen his britches.
Not his boots, you understand. Just his britches. And it's not fair. It just is -- not -- fair. And when Rupert B. Haversack gets over this damned hangover, and gets a new pair of pants, there is going to be hell to pay!
*****
A little pirate humor, reflecting the trailers I've been watching for Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides, in which Johnny Depp is going to be amazing. My mother (age 81) is JD's #1 fan, and I collect promotional stuff from the web, YouTube and so forth, and burn it all to DVDs for her ... so I probably know more about Johnny Depp than most people. Not that I mind tracking all this stuff down. He's, uh, not exactly hard on the eyeballs...
Anyway -- a little pirate humor. And two of them (the joke book cover, and the last render of all) were raytraced. This is well worth seeing at full size:
The face and bod were designed by me; the hair is the Akaste Hair, set to a sort of golden blond. The boots are from the Leon Clothes, and the skinmap is Raphael -- the facial maps have the option of a moustache, which looks good on this guy. The backdrop is a photo of someplace in the tropics -- one of those free wallpapers, where you pay for the privilege of downloading it by watching 204 commercials before you can get anywhere close to the picture. The sand is just the usual OBJ with an image of the beach slapped onto it as a texture. The lighting, now, was something else. I have seven lights on this guy. Nice!
Jade, March 3
