Pastafarians

And one of my usual irrelevant off-topic tirades...

Tried my damnedest to find you guys the UNOFFICIAL crest of the US Navy missile destroyer USS KIDD (DDG-993). It was a great sketch of...guess who? A traditional pirate, complete with eye-patch, skull-and-crossbones hat, and gripping a knife in his teeth.

I worked on board that ship for a while, and the ship's store sold caps, baseball shirts, etc. with that cool pirate on them. Couldn't find a single one of those in searching. Only the boring "official" ships stuff. (I worked aboard the ship as a civilian, I hasten to add. I was in the Marine Corps, not the frigging Navy.)

Many people even thought the Kidd was named for the famous pirate captain. But it was actually named for Adm. Isaac Kidd, who died on board the USS Arizona during the Pearl Harbor attack.

The Kidd class were a pretty oddball bunch of ships. Known as the "Ayatollah Class" because they were built for Iran just before its Revolution. (A/k/a the "Dead Admiral Class," because that's how many Iranian admirals ended up after the Revolution.) The US Navy grudgingly bought them cheap. They were eventually sold on to Taiwan, where I think they still are today.