Cancer

Puerto Rico
My heart's devotion
Let it sink back in the ocean
Always the hurricanes blowing
Always the population growing
 
And the money owing
And the sunlight streaming
And the natives steaming
I like the island Manhattan
Smoke on your pipe
And put that in
 
I like to be in America
Okay by me in America
Everything free in America

For a small fee in America

Buying on credit is so nice

One look at us and they charge twice

I'll have my own washing machine

What will you have though to keep clean?

Skyscrapers bloom in America

Cadillacs zoom in America

Industry boom in America

Twelve in a room in America

Lots of new housing with more space

Lots of doors slamming in our face

I'll get a terrace apartment

Better get rid of your accent

Life can be bright in America

If you can fight in America

Life is all right in America

If you're all white in America

Here you are free and you have pride

Long as you stay on your own side

Free to be anything you choose

Free to wait tables and shine shoes

Everywhere grime in America
Organized crime in America
Terrible time in America

You forget I'm in America

I think I'll go back to San Juan

I know what boat you can get on

Everyone there will give big cheers

Everyone there will have moved here

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?
You been out ridin' fences for so long now
Oh, you're a hard one
I know that you got your reasons
These things that are pleasin' you
Can hurt you somehow

Don't you draw the queen of diamonds, boy
She'll beat you if she's able
You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet

Now it seems to me, some fine things
Have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones that you can't get

Desperado, oh, you ain't gettin' no younger
Your pain and your hunger, they're drivin' you home
And freedom, oh freedom well, that's just some people talkin'
Your prison is walking through this world all alone

Don't your feet get cold in the winter time?
The sky won't snow and the sun won't shine
It's hard to tell the night time from the day
You're losin' all your highs and lows
Ain't it funny how the feeling goes away?

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences, open the gate
It may be rainin', but there's a rainbow above you
You better let somebody love you (let somebody love you)
You better let somebody love you before it's too late

And this one has been done before
 
Why do you build me up (build me up) Buttercup, baby
Just to let me down (let me down) and mess me around
And then worst of all (worst of all) you never call, baby
When you say you will (say you will) but I love you still
I need you (I need you) more than anyone, darlin'
You know that I have from the start
So build me up (build me up) Buttercup, don't break my heart

"I'll be over at ten", you told me time and again
But you're late, I wait around and then (bah-dah-dah)
I went to the door, I can't take any more
It's not you, you let me down again

(Hey, hey, hey !) Baby, baby, try to find
(Hey, hey, hey !) A little time and I'll make you happy
(Hey, hey, hey !) I'll be home
I'll be beside the phone waiting for you
Ooo-oo-ooo, ooo-oo-ooo

Why do you build me up (build me up) Buttercup, baby
Just to let me down (let me down) and mess me around
And then worst of all (worst of all) you never call, baby
When you say you will (say you will) but I love you still
I need you (I need you) more than anyone, darlin'
You know that I have from the start
So build me up (build me up) Buttercup, don't break my heart

To you I'm a toy, but I could be the boy you adore
If you'd just let me know (bah-dah-dah)
Although you're untrue, I'm attracted to you all the more
Why do I need you so

(Hey, hey, hey !) Baby, baby, try to find
(Hey, hey, hey !) A little time and I'll make you happy
(Hey, hey, hey !) I'll be home
I'll be beside the phone waiting for you
Ooo-oo-ooo, ooo-oo-ooo

Why do you build me up (build me up) Buttercup, baby
Just to let me down (let me down) and mess me around
And then worst of all (worst of all) you never call, baby
When you say you will (say you will) but I love you still
I need you (I need you) more than anyone, darlin'
You know that I have from the start
So build me up (build me up) Buttercup, don't break my heart

I-I-I need you-oo-oo more than anyone, baby
You know that I have from the start
So build me up (build me up) Buttercup, don't break my heart

Of course not. Cancer can have that shade of yellow. I fear his duck butt yellow lightsaber. 

No, but Lex Luthor’s does. 

Telling students this is my favorite movie clip
 
 

Yes

And four years and a couple of days later, Lord Cornwallis surrendered himself and his army at Yorktown to the American and French forces under Washington and Rochambeau, the last major military action in the American Revolution, and led to the British government seeking negotiations to end the war.

I remember that event.  I was here in Seattle, had the TV on to watch the World Series, and the phone rang and a good friend (who was in Arizona) had called me in deep distress (she'd just learned she was pregnant, and this was in no way a happy event in this case).  The conversation lasted well over an hour, with me paying no attention to the TV.  Finally I got her over the immediate dismay ... there really wasn't anything I could do about the root issue, but emotional support I could ... and glancing at the muted TV, I slowly deduced that they were in "an earthquake just happened!" mode.
 
Also, my boss was in Berkeley at the time, but he reported the next day that he was ok.  I had relatives in Santa Cruz as well, and it took longer to hear from them, but they too came out OK.

On this day in 1777, English General Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga, a pivotal point in the American Revolution.  The victory was enough to draw a treaty of alliance with France, who declared war on Britain in March of 1778.

Wait, you said Peter, not Jimmy...
 
 

A defiant, maybe hopeful, maybe merely imploring anthem from the late 1960s:
 
 

... I'm with the cat.

... I'm with the cat.

I completely agree.
 
I'm surprised you haven't mentioned "I've Got a Brand New Combine Harvester" yet.
 
 
 
 
 

... I'm with the cat.

Had a demented idea for a draft.  From my scratchings of the initial concept:
 
There's more on my scribble pad, and it seems better attuned for an April Fool's draft than any other time of year, but I'm running it up the flagpole to see what people might say.
 
I may take Deadpool off the available candidate list from the outset and make everyone consider teams without him, to forestall screams of snipage, if this runs.

Pachelbel's Canon in D

The Token Alien Sidekick:  Marvin the Martian (Looney Tunes)
 

I don't know who is more scary, Hub or Garth. Probably Garth. 

Still getting mileage out of that whole worms thing, I see. Well done.

I really enjoyed the movie Sneakers (1992).  Starring Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, Dan Ackroyd, Ben Kingsley, David Strathairn, River Phoenix, Mary McDonnell, James Earl Jones... lots of major acting power there.  Redford heads a team of security consultants, often hired to break into places to identify security weaknesses, and they get involved in something way over their heads.  The tech is pretty outdated now, but the storyline is still good (at least IMO) and the characters are great.  Strathairn's blind sound expert is my personal favorite, but the interplay between former CIA agent Poitier and conspiracy nutcase Ackroyd is hilarious too.

Final Highlight:
 
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;  
Despite the words of the poet, the Sunless Sea is not truly lifeless, although it is not exactly teeming with a diversity of life forms. All sea life native here has transparent soft tissues, and those who shone a lantern beam into the water and spied what seemed mere skeletal fish swimming, assumed the Sea to be home to undead animated by some foul necromancy. Contrary to that superstition this is the Sunless Sea into which Alph the Sacred River runs, and water from here is Holy Water, useful to disrupt necromantic energies and damage undead.
 
 
Mythic Monster:
 
A damsel with a dulcimer    In a vision once I saw:    It was an Abyssinian maid    And on her dulcimer she played,    Singing of Mount Abora.    Could I revive within me    Her symphony and song,    To such a deep delight ’twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware!  
The final defense of the Ancestral Voices is called The Muse, or The Damsel with a Dulimer. Appearing as a lovely maiden the Muse will so enrapture an adventurer that they offer no resistance when led away to be fed on honeydew and milk, and installed as the latest Prophet of the Ancestral Voices.
 
The poem "Kubla Khan" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
 
Additional text by
 
Lucius Alexander
 
Assisted by a palindromedary