Willisburg.org

Thanks to commenter Kilroy over at The Comics Curmudgeon for being on the same wavelength as me this morning on today’s For Better or For Worse.

So very much to say, and yet I’ll be keeping most of it to myself. Instead, I’m opting for a fluff piece on moustaches.

Sometime over the weekend, Mel and I wound up talking about moustaches… again. More specifically, the manliness of some, and the downright unmanliness of others. Sam Elliott’s moustache is a whiskered god amongst us mere mortals, and we have both mentioned this before and had discussions about it. Tom Selleck’s soup strainer is also legendary in nature in our house. How we got started on the whole manly moustache thing lo these many years ago has become lost to time. However, the years have helped refine the scale. Today I present to you, my genteel readers, the Nazlan-McClintock Moustache Quality Scale.

You will find our baselines are as follows for scale calibration:
Sam Elliott (a solid 5 on the MMS)
Ron Jeremy (our 0 baseline using the traditional porn ’stache cliche)
Freddie Mercury (a solid 5 on the GMS)

Using these three moustache types, we’ve been able to develop a finite measurement called the MiniRon (mR) calculated off of the PWQ, or Perceived Weenis Quotient. This measurement has no real basis on actual weenis size or preference, but instead is the perceived weenis dynamic based off of moustache fullness, body, grooming, overall shape, great amounts of rocket science, and nothing else. The persons themselves usually never reflect accurately to their PWQ.*

Additionally, this measurement scale is not metric but imperial. Suck it, Europe.

Normally, I would show the math formulas needed to properly calculate PWQ and mR, but the Intertron does not support math notation. Let’s just say that you take the value of whisker stiffness multiplied by the cube root of whisker length, plus the quality of grooming level, divided by visible upper lip. Once you have this value, the value’s co-tangent is calculated off of the number derived from the price of assless chaps in California without sales tax in 1977, and finally multiplied out again by the weight of a Wahl instructional beard trimming VHS hosted by Richard Karn. This number provides the MMS value. The MMS value is then inverted, and the file size of a png compressed picture of a mannequin head is subtracted from it, resulting in the GMS value and the two numbers are then averaged out to get the final value in MiniRons for the appropriate scale. Although this is a fairly complete description of how the calculations are made, it does not truly detail the subtle nuances to the formula itself. It’s a shame I can’t show it to you.

Instead, I’ll just show you the MQS scale itself with a few reference points:

Points of Interest:

1) You’ll find that the traditional cop ’stache is a low .4mR on the GMS. It’s kinda fruity, but it’s nowhere near assless chaps territory.
2) The Hulkster shows up at a low .75mR on the MMS. This style would quickly go towards GMS territory if it wasn’t bleached white.
3) At a 1.8mR GMS, your traditional fuzzy teen ’stache is somewhat less manly than the cop ’stache, but still more manly than Hitler.
4) Peter Sellers moustache is manly-neutral at 2.0mR MMS.
5) Both tyrannical dictators hit near their respected midpoints… and as an interesting twist, Hussein nearly tied with Burt Reynolds for midpoint manliness at 3.1mR MMS.
6) The pencil moustache is less manly than Hitler’s at a 3.7mR GMS rating.
7) As awesome as Orson Welles and his beard of doom was, his youthful solo moustache is downright immasculating at a 4.1mR GMS.
Tom Selleck’s moustache owns, but as you can tell, it’s still .5mR shy of uber moustacheness.

You’ll also notice that giant sculpted moustaches were not shown on the MQS scale. Although impressive by nature due to the sheer amounts of testosterone needed for the growth, they’re also intensely gay. As such, they are the only moustache style that scores a full 5mR on both the GMS and MMS rating scales, despite the impossibility of arriving at those numbers by our own formula. As with all other calcuations, the final value is normally arrived at by averaging these two values. Not true with this special form of moustache. Although you’d expect the two calculated values to cancel each other out and place it firmly into porn ’stache territory, when the averaging algorithms are run, our Calcutron 5000 gets stuck in a logic loop until a tiny tear opens up in the Universe. Due to the massive quantum instability of trying to rate giant sculpted moustaches, they are simply listed as impossible non-entities in the Newtonian Universe. You may argue that due to the overwhelming amount of proof from U.S. Civil War photos that they must in fact exist, but you’d be wrong. Much like the overwhelming evidence of the existence of a creator in the details of how our Universe works, due to the skilled and meticulous practices of modern science we must in fact conclude that the more evidence provided to us that proves the existence of these supernatural forces, the more likely that these forces (like the sculpted moustache) are a hoax and based on mythology like Ken Burns documentaries.

So there you have it, the Nazlan-McClintock Moustache Quality Scale. Use this new knowledge and power you’ve received for good and not evil. Additionally, for the record: If I were to wear only a moustache, I’d rank at a 3.2mR GMS.

*GIANT DISCLAIMER: This is done solely in jest and is an attempt at humor. Please don’t sue me for slander because your moustache looks gay, just accept the fact and either grow a beard or shave it off.

In other news, I’m still here. Gnu-HALO is progressing, the restoration is finished, and my stomach is still in need of medical care. Aren’t you glad that I padded these two sentences with something worth reading for a change instead of technical ramblings or various screeds? That’s what I thought.

Random update regarding the stencil restoration work at the mansion.

I’ve finally assembled a 300dpi, 1:1 composite of the three scanned corners of the ceiling. I’m still missing a couple smaller chunks, but I’ve got about 95% of the pattern now. You can see a larger (yet infinitely smaller than the original) version if the image here.

Next step is going to be bringing out the curves and redrawing the pattern. Should be fun.

I did discover some rather interesting things during the assembly process, however.

1) Definitely correct about segmented stencils, as sections aren’t consistent in layout from corner to corner and side to side.

2) The stencils actually weren’t flipped for painting the mirrored side, there appears to be a distinct set for each side.

3) The best I can do is try and authentically recreate the stencil segments, the quirks and inconsitencies in layout from corner to corner and side to side need human error as the original artist apparently didn’t use many (if any) guidelines during the original job.

I’ll have to see how the head curator is going to want to proceed as I go on, but other than that, it’s finally going smoothly. More updates as the job progresses.