January 03, 2004 - 10:34 a.m. The Keelhaul Synchronicity Or, Why My Head Is Spinning Like I’ve Been Keelhauled! Keelhaul: 1. Nautical. To discipline by dragging under the keel of a ship. 2. To rebuke harshly. Yesterday in my entry for Thirteen and a Half Things™… That I Hereby Resolve For 2004 I stated the following: I Resolve… 5. To Sneak The Word “keelhaul” Into At Least One Serious Conversation Daily. I then went on to read my email, part of which was a message from fellow Groopie Charles Klein, in part stating “I hope no one made any silly resolutions just because it's the beginning of a new year. Resolutions should be made when the time is right (Talk Like a Pirate Day) rather than a specific date (Yak Shaving Day). ” Now, we’d made a couple of joking references to Talk Like a Pirate Day during the year, a favorite non sequitur from Groo is when Drumm turns to his partner Pal and out of the blue goes “What Pirates? ” in response to a question from a previous issue. So I decided I would start a countdown, “Only so many days until Talk Like a Pirate Day! ” I Googled Talk Like a Pirate Day (finally, a link!!!) and was fish-slapped with the synchronicity of the following in the How To Talk Like A Pirate primer: Grog – An alcoholic drink, usually rum diluted with water, but …If some prissy pedant purses his lips and protests the word grog can only be used if drinking rum and water, not the Singapore Sling you’re holding, keelhaul him! What are the odds that I would pull the word keelhaul out of thin air and then end up reading the word again an hour later!!!? This is no “blue car syndrome” (a phrase I think I’m stealing from my pal Janet , although I can’t remember the context, but which basically means when you buy a blue car you suddenly start noticing blue cars everywhere). I mean, I used the word pretty randomly for humorous effect, and we haven’t mentioned Talk Like a Pirate Day since probably sometime in September! Oh, and by the way, Talk Like A Pirate Day is September 19, as any fool can plainly see, so there’s only 250 more days until Talk Like A Pirate Day! Add your own comments, I’d love to hear from you! Just v CLICK HERE v %%commentscount%% comments so far Ahoy, mateys! Only until Talk Like A Pirate Day! previous - next All content except as noted copyright 2003, 2004 Lawrence C. Steller, all rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without express written permission from Larry, ok? email: