Avast, ye scurvy dogs!

I don't know where you come down on the whole Pirates vs Ninjas thing but, if you're with the black pajamas crew, you're missing all the best parties.






Pirates rule, baby. You know it and I know and, most important, the pirates know it.

I've been a fan of pirates since I could toddle. Not the baseball team. Not the guys who fire rocket launchers at unsuspecting cruise ships. Not even the infamous Rackhams and Blighs who terrorized the high seas of yore. No. I love movie pirates.

I love the buckle and the swash. I love the maps and the cannons. I love the guys with the giant cleavers hacking away at each other with panache and grace.

Pirates, movie pirates, are freedom and adventure. They are unbridled avorice (remember what Gordon Gekko said about greed) and bravery and, if they get a little gold and a little lovin' in the process well, dammit, that's the pirate's life and dammit, it's for me.

We live in a world of satellites and google maps, of cell phones and gps. Every tiny blip on every map has been filled in. Every centimeter of dirt or water has been caught on film (whether our governments let us see them or not). Everyplace is Known.

So, once in a while, we like to long for the days when the edges weren't filled in, when Here there be Dragons actually meant something.

Keep your ninjas. Keep your elves and ring bearing Lords. Keep your giant gorillas and invaders from space. Keep your last sons of alien worlds. Keep 'em all.

We at The Dark fly the fictional Jolly Roger with pride and we want all of you out there with even a drop of pirate blood in you to set sail too. The 'net is our ocean and there are monsters here as well as treasure. The waters are dark and strange but it's a wide open sea.

Set sail, folks, set sail. Yo ho!