BASEBALL PREVIEW

This says about all that needs to be said. I'm sure I'll think of something else eventually, though...

QUICK FOLLOW-UP

Naturally, the Continental Congress changed its payment system once it saw the kind of financial chaos breaking out because of it...but it was stuck with the lingering aftereffects. I think it speaks well of the idealistic Revolutionary spirit that they thought it could work in the first place, though.

If you recognize my inspiration for that little dialogue between the Commissary and the Miller, you get ten bonus points. Good job!

FUN WITH LOGISTICS

A quote from a recent game I traded for, Wave of Terror: Battle of the Bulge (thanks again, Lt. Murnau!):

"What you have here is a game without a lot of chrome. There are no troublesome unit 'modes,' combined arms bonuses, tank-type comparisons, headquarters units and chains of command, complex logistical rules, and so on. After all, what are all those staff-weeny [sic] REMFs for if not to accomplish all that stuff for you--the commanding general?

There's a lot wrong with that statement. I say this not only as a budding young military historian, with a niche in logistics. For one thing, logistics and "real fighting" have a complex relationship, which is often hard to depict in games (particularly for the pre-gasoline era). Some campaigns are undone by logistical troubles; others press on despite them. A lot of that has to do with the commanding general. Some generals devised extremely intricate plans, which at the first sign of trouble lead to panic. Others were able to cope with failures in the plan, others preferred to fly by the seats of their pants. In this way, it's kind of like "traditional" campaign maneuvering and tactical fighting.

Logistics has a reputation for being boring. At a certain level, this is not entirely unmerited; sometimes researching logistics requires poring over spreadsheets. (They existed long before computers--actual long sheets that you spread out.) Of course, researching battles and leaders requires looking at a lot of boring things, too.

Logistics does offer its certain charms, however. Logistics is often where society, economics, politics and military affairs come together the most obviously (although there are other venues, of course). For one thing, it's something that goes on all through peacetime--you still have to feed, clothe, shelter, and arm the soldiers on base; you have to keep developing new weapons (or not, if you're conservative by nature, like many military armorers through history). That means engaging politics and the economy--and this only accelerates during wartime.

Strange things can happen, too. During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress hit upon a way to pay its procurement agents in the field: They'd get 10% of the money they spent. Thus, if you spent $1,000 in a month (of Congress's money, of course), you'd get $100. Note: Nobody cared what you bought. This led to many discussions like this:

COMMISSARY: I need three tons of flour.
MILLER: Well, I can get that for you for fifteen cents a pound.
COMMISSARY [enraged]: Fifteen cents?!?
MILLER: It's tough, I know; I could probably see my way clear to thirtee--
COMMISSARY: A quarter a pound! You scoundrel!
MILLER: Wait, what?
COMMISSARY: A dollar! Fine! You monster!
MILLER: What's going on?
COMMISSARY: Five dollars a pound! That's my final offer!

Naturally, I'm not excluding the opportunites for collusion, either (which was, it was said, one of Nathaniel Greene's issues).

There's some humor, too. The following is from a (satirical) (I hope) "manual" for British quartermasters of the eighteenth century:

If the soldiers complain of the bread, taste it, and say, better men have eat much worse. Talk of the bompernicle, or black rye bread of the Germans, and swear you have seen the time when you would have jumped at it. Call them a set of grumbling rascals, and threaten to confine them for mutiny. This, if it does not convince them of the goodness of the bread, will at least frighten them, and make them take it quietly. (Quoted in Charles Shrader, ed., United States Army Logistics 1775-1992: An Anthology, vol. 1.)

It's a many-colored thing, logistics...embrace it, I say! Connect with the REMF within!

FASCINATING DISCOVERY OF THE DAY

So, I logged into the Oxford English Dictionary, and discovered that one of the "Definitions of the Day" was for "pie-hole," the slang term for "mouth," and it apparently dates back to at least 1983. However! There's another meaning of "pie-hole," which dates back to the early eighteenth century, as a synonym of "eyelet," used mostly for boots.

So now you know.

(It's been a slow few weeks on the gaming front. I'll see what I can do about that. Until then, the folderol continues. Speaking of: Arm and Hammer is sending me a check. I do not expect to retire off it.)

(I like the word "folderol." According to the OED, it dates back to 1701 as "Fal, al, deral!", as a nonsense verse in a song. I love the OED...)

GATHERING ANTICIPATION

Any other Gathering fans out there? No, not Alan Moon's game convention, where the fate of the game world is decided by the Elect--I mean the Dutch metal(esque) act. I only discovered them recently (via the ever-wonderful Pandora, of course), but I've about gotten to the point where I can hear if_then_else playing in my head when I'm in a quiet room. I'm almost that way with Mandylion. I'm catching up as quickly as I can.

It goes without saying, then, that I'm eagerly awaiting the US release of their new album, Home. (Any Austinites out there make their SXSW show last week, by the way?) The opening track, "Shortest Day," is available for a listen here. I like it.

DETERGENT UPDATE

So there I was, in the supermarket, idly scratching myself while inspecting the detergent lineup. As always, a wide array of "fresh" scents, and the false-friend "odor free" in its occasional appearances (most "odor free" products really do have fragrances, designed to mask the smell of the other ingredients and thereby approximate "neutral" odor). The only "fragrance-free" item was, once again, the Arm & Hammer stuff. Bah.

But wait! It looks like new packaging...

Indeed. I flip over the bottle, and discover (to my delight) that the final items on the old ingredients list--"perfume and colorant"--are no longer on there. Huzzah!

I'm guessing I'm not the only itchy person they heard from when the "original formula" hit the market; it just took me longer to get to it.

Rest assured that we shall not speak of my dermatological ailments again.

THAT'S JUST NOT COOL

(Warning! Medical content ahead!)

So. I have an allergy to some unknown fragrance out there which causes outbreak after outbreak of dermatitis if I contact it for long. Solution: Seek out things--detergent, deodorant, other de-things--that advertise that they are fragrance-free. (Some stuff I can get away with. I'm only allergic to some, but if I can avoid all of them, great.)

So, I started having outbreaks again recently. Mm-mm itching. Anyway, I'm looking around, trying to find the culprit. I have Arm and Hammer Baking Soda detergent, advertised right on the container that it's "Dermatologist-tested for sensitive skin" and (note) "Free of Perfume and Dye." Spiffy. Just what I look for. It is, in fact, why I bought the stuff.

On the back, it lists the ingredients:

"Cleaning agents, Baking soda, water softener, soil anti-redeposition agent (!), optical brightener..."

annnnd (drum roll, please):

"...perfume and colorant."

Um...

Well, if you'll excuse me I have to make friends with the Cortaid tube. And then issue a strongly-worded statement to the Church & Dwight Co., the parent of Arm & Hammer.

TRISTRAM SHANDY

This week is MSU's spring break; I have Things to Do at the end of it, so I just went home to St. Louis for a few days. Did some sleeping-in, some catching-up, and happily Spring Break coincided with the opening of Tristram Shandy in St. Louis.

Ordinarily, I see only one movie in a movie theater every year. Generally, I just hope that it's OK. I've been on kind of a roll: Last year it was Kung Fu Hustle (how it managed to not win--or even be nominated for--Best Picture is beyond me); the year before it was The Fast Runner. Both pretty excellent.

I'm a big Shandy fan. My freshman year at UT, my philosophy professor--the beloved Louis Mackey--asked (in what context I can't recall) whether anyone had read Tristram Shandy. No hands. He shook his head sadly, and went on with the lecture. Intrigued, I picked up a copy at Half-Price for a couple of bucks.

I still have it. Every now and then, I pull it down and start reading from a random spot. It's...it's just so delightfully strange. Every scene is just a jewel. I just now opened it up to the excommunication of Obadaiah--with facing text in Latin--which, I should toss in right here, is in the movie. It's just great. Find a copy.

Anyway, the movie.

Briefly, it's a riot from start to finish. It catches the spirit of the book nicely, and although it attempts to actually film the plot only occasionally--really, it's a movie about the making of a movie of Tristram Shandy; sort-of a mockumentary including a dream sequence, it's an odd thing--the parts it does show are great. The model...goodness gracious sakes alive, the Siege of Namur has never been depicted so truly. Stephen Fry is in the movie for about two minutes, first as a tweedy English professor and later as Parson Yorick, but he's pure gold (of course).

The problem with the movie is that...well, it has too much of a plot. I know: it's weird. The whole thing is "wrapped up" in about ten seconds, very unsatisfactorily. I wanted it to be about a half-hour longer.

That said: The ninety minutes you do get is pretty hysterical. It was eight bucks well-spent.

Interesting note--everyone in the theater was, so far as my friend John and I could tell, between twenty and thirty years of age. About half of them were Wash U graduate students of my slight acquaintance from when I was taking classes there (and one worked under me at the Bookstore). So there's your demographic: Kinda nerdy twentysomething grad students and their ilk.

This movie, like most games, is not! for everybody. It's got, like, bad words 'n' stuff. It's bawdy, like the book it takes its inspiration from. Also: If you're looking for an actual movie treatment of TS, this is not it. It's about the making of such a movie, and although you see "clips" from it, it's not really about the book. Except, in a strange way, it kind of is. There are some shared themes, but I won't get into them since they're best discovered by the cognoscenti and can be successfully passed over by those who don't know Uncle Toby from Toby Keith.

Steve Coogan: Awesome. Rob Brydon: Also awesome.

Could have been better, but still quite entertaining. A fine movie for Calendar Year 2006.

TAKING MY ACCOLADES WHERE I CAN FIND THEM

Hey! I'm Fairplay's Gamer of the Week! Who knew? (Do I need any games?)

BEGORRAH

Just got back from a long day on the road. I decided today would be a fine time to drive up to Kansas City. They had some stuff in the archives I wanted to look at, and I'd never been to the Nelson-Atkins, and besides: It's home to the only Half-Price Books in the state.

So, briefly, I did not have my A-game going, navigationally speaking. I had to get off highway 71 fairly early on in the game and make my slow way north to the downtown library by surface streets. Now...you look at a map of KC, and it appears to be fundamentally gridlike. Granted, each "number street" has about nine instantiations (427th Street, 427th Terrace, 427th Avenue, 427th Drive, 427th Court...) but still: Not a big deal. So I'm not exactly sure what happened, but the result was making at least two complete loops of a nine-block area en route to the Library District. Found some funky parts of town, though, so that's cool.

Twenty minutes' work in the library confirms my suspicions that the papers they have of this one Civil War general are irrelevant to my purposes, so off I go to my next stop, the museum. I turn on the car, and am informed that the parade is about to get underway.

Parade?

Riiiight, it's Green Beer Day. Forgot. Also: Part of Main is under construction, which incredibly is not pointed out on my map. Back to ad-libbing!

Puttering through downtown in my own little parade--mostly composed of SUVs, trying to get out at 7 MPH through hordes of jaywalking, green-clad pedestrians--was "fun." What was kind of humorous was when we were going over this bridge where people were parking. I counted five traffic cops writing tickets--apparently getting a parking citation is part of KC's St. Patrick's Day tradition; I dunno.

Having emerged from downtown, I then made a series of loops looking for the museum. It shouldn't be that hard; the thing's huge. Still, I got turned around in a warren of one-way streets, no-left-turn intersections, and by the time I finally stumbled on the thing I was pretty PO'd at myself, other drivers, and the Kansas City Traffic and Zoning Commission.

It's worth it, though.

I had a pretty big smile on my face by the end of my tour. It has a Caravaggio! It has a De Chrico! If they had a Chardin, I'd have completed my "set" of favorite artists. (If they have a Chardin and I missed it, don't tell me for at least a month. I'd head back immediately, and I can't take it.) Lots of Thomas Hart Bentons, too, and a fun Bingham. And let's not forget the ancient art collection...such a great museum.

A character flaw of mine I sometimes have to beat down is the tendency to look down on people whom I feel aren't sufficiently awed by what I consider awesome. It's the same kind of reaction some gamers have when they hear of someone who "really likes Risk, Clue, games like that." I can't figure out what makes someone walk by a huge Monet "Water Lilies" canvas and not stop and wonder at it, just drink it all in. Or how can someone walk into a room that has that Caravaggio in it and somehhow walk right out without even a glance at the light and brilliant red? Or walk down a hall of Benton's series on American history without even stopping? So I wrinkle my nose sometimes at this behavior--which is, of course, entirely self-defeating (for one thing) since it distracts me from the art. There's no reason these "lesser patrons" should distract me; I let myself get worked up in it and lessen my own enjoyment on top of being uncharitable, which is its own punishment. Besides, who's to say they don't have their own favorite rooms? One of my bad habits, as I said.

Definitely worth a stop if you're in the KC area. And I have to say it's the first art museum bookstore I've seen with a remainder rack of discounted books. (Didn't get anything.)

Last stop: Half-Price. I brought a bag of books I was looking to trade in. (I'm trying to not spend very much at all on books and games; trading, though, I consider within bounds.) It wasn't much of a bag, but I still got $22 for my trouble, which I traded in for two chess books ($14) and a copy of Can't Stop ($8). Interesting thing about that Can't Stop: It was shrinkwrapped! Did I just get the very last shrinkwrapped copy? It wasn't shrinked at Half-Price, either, I don't think; the pieces were all sealed in the original bag, as well.

Even though it was a frustrating day of driving, and didn't find squat for my paper, it was well-spent in the end. Half-Price and Nelson-Atkins: Good. Navigating downtown KC and the Westport area: Not so good. Overall, a definite positive.

(...annnnd, when I came back, I discovered that Bucknell took a match to my NCAA bracket. Ah well...)

FUN WITH SEARCH ENGINES

While we here at MR&TLU Industries welcome all visitors, we do wonder what this gentleman (?) was really looking for when he had Google search for:

Turn-based strategy settlers classic Book Fair Medieval

...although I'm not surprised he got here with that, I doubt I provided the information required.

HOW TO WRITE

Evelyn Waugh...one of my favorites. Lately I've been reading Waugh Abroad, a new edition of his travel writing. If you've read (or seen, in the great TV adaptation from about a decade ago) Scoop, you should read Waugh in Abyssinia, which produced much of the material for Scoop.

Right now I'm working through Ninety-Two Days, his story of his travels through British Guiana. Great, as always. I especially liked the opening paragraphs, since they model almost exactly the way I--and many others--write academic papers. It's set after he returned from the bush, and has to actually turn his notes into something saleable:

At last, restlessly, inevitably, the lugubrious morning has dawned; day of wrath which I have been postponing week by week for five months.

Late last evening I arrived at the house I have borrowed and established myself in absolute solitude in the deserted nurseries; this morning immediately after breakfast I arranged the writing-table with a pile of foolscap, clean blotting paper, a full inkpot, folded maps, a battered journal and a heap of photographs; then in very low spirits I smoked a pipe and read two newspapers, walked to the village post office in search of Relief nibs, returned and brooded with disgust over the writing-table, smoked another pipe, and wrote two letters, walked into the paddock and looked at a fat pony; then back to the writing-table. It was the end of the tether. There was nothing for it but to start writing this book.

It's only when one has run out of ways to procrastinate that the real work gets done in the world.

STRONG!

Ahh...it had been too long since I'd gotten some face-to-face gaming in. Luckily, Susan and Gary stepped up and hosted a great game night at their lovely home tonight. It was a bigger crowd than usual; along with me, there were also George and Terttu, a trio of Gary's coworkers at the (amazing, incredible, glorious, etc) Andy's and, bringing us to nine, Susan and Gary's houseguest from Minnesota, whose name has managed to entirely escape me (sorry!). Actually, just about everyone's name escaped me for the Andy's crowd, too. (Or, rather, I have the names...and the faces...but not the connections! I'm just horrible that way.)

The original idea was to play a six-player game of Alhambra followed by an eight-player game of RoboRally. (Gulp.) With more people around than expected, though, plans had to change, and we spent most of the night split between two tables.

First up, a four-player game of Can't Stop, which by the end of the first turn had become a six-player game. For the other two colors, we used glass drops, and played to two "caps." I did not-so-well, spending the first three or four turns off the board entirely. Hard to win from there.

By the end of the game we had seven, I think, so we split up to play games on two tables. I went with Gary and an Andy's guy to play Basari, which I think I played years ago but had long since forgotten. Fun game! I was in first after the first round, which I spent the second round discovering was a very bad place to be. This is a good game for stalking-horses like me. Having to start the negotiation...not a good thing, if you ask me, most of the time. (The rest of the time I'd say it's OK.) By the end of the second round, I was in dead last--I didn't score a single gem the second round. Upside: I didn't have to pitch any gems, which meant I was in great shape going into the last round. And, verily, I managed to finish with a clear lead in all four colors and raced ahead for a glorious victory.

Supposedly the new edition sucks for components? I dunno; it worked fine for us, I think. The "American valley" was suboptimal, but we managed to cinch up our belts and survive the harrowing ordeal. I'd like to play this more often. I give it a seven.

Up next: a five-player game of For Sale, one of my favorite Knizias Dorras, against the Basari trio and a new pair of Andy's custard-slingers. I got a good hand of houses, but I didn't play so hot selling them for checks. Second-to-last. It was frustrating to see my houses go for so little; I didn't have a good read on what was going on. Plus I had only the vaguest notion what everyone else had. Count! The! Cards! It's a skill I have, but actually employ extremely rarely. Gary won on another player's misplay the last round of house-buying, where the other guy (God almighty I need to learn names, write them down, anything) spent one dollar too much...and ended up losing on the tiebreaker at the end! The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune...

By this time, a five-player game of RoboRally was starting up. I didn't feel totally up to RoboRally right then, so I begged off along with Susan, George and Terttu and went off to the children's table in the living room. RoboRally was a big hit among the five in the dining room--all new players, but an easy course so there wasn't undue strain. I really like the game, although my desire to play depends on my mood for chaos.

Meanwhile, we got a four-player game of Web of Power going. We had all played before, although some brushing-up was required from time to time. As I've mentioned previously, this is a game where I came in DFL the first bazillion times I played, and then miraculously something clicked and I've had a darned good winning percentage since. I kind of walked away with this one. I like playing cloister-and-advisor combos early, and had quite a few of those. I managed to share a fair number of advisor circles--something I'm totally OK with as long as I get the biggest share...I also managed, for cloisters, to be number one, with a chain, in a totally-full France. That's a big help for winning the game, let me tell you.

Still haven't managed to play China. I'll have to drag that one along next time.

George and Terttu had to leave soon, but we managed to pack in a quick game of High Society. It's good...but I still think For Sale is better. I don't like the variable ending--in this game, the fourth red card came out really early, after just four treasure cards. I won with a "Wilson" (fourteen points...sorry).

Susan and I were left, as George and Terttu made their goodbyes and the RoboRally game was still going strong. We pulled out Lost Cities...which I chose, vs. Odin's Ravens, since...well, since I'm pretty good at it. I won, by a reasonably hefty margin. I kinda wish I'd called for Odin's Ravens instead, because it's one I haven't played as often.

Is it strange to feel slightly uncomfortable asking to play a game you're good at? The opposite is acceptable, of course--asking to not play a game because you stink.

Well, I'll get over it. It's the rare night I go 4-2.

WHODAT?

During last year's Gathering of One, I pulled out By Force of Arms, which I thought had interesting mechanics but the scenario I tried--Alexander--was something less than enthralling.

I knew nothing about the company ("bitterly obscure," I think I called it), and didn't think it was still a going concern.

Turns out I'm wrong. Thanks to the latest Interview by an Optimist, I got to learn all about TGC, its owner/designer/one-man-band, and what's fermenting in the new game design bin. One of the more educational IBaOs, at least for me. I, for one, look foward to Triumph's next entry.

(Interestingly, I still get a hit once in a while for that Gathering of One entry. Some business website noticed the flowchart, and used it as a way to make fun of gamers (and flowcharts). It was horrible. I don't want to link to it, and I've forgotten where it was, anyway...it'll send me another hit in a week or two.)

(I also mentioned that they had a "strange card game" pitting historical figures against each other. Little did I know that this would soon become a major game idea.)

QUICK BASEBALL NOTE

RIP, Mr. Puckett. You and your team broke my heart in '87, and with a smile. Godspeed.

MY NEW FAVORITE TOY

...is Pandora, the artificial-intelligence driven personal radio station. It's a great idea. It has a ho-jillion songs, albums, and bands in its database. You start a radio station by telling it one of your favorite bands or songs, and then it finds other songs kinda like that. You can give it feedback for each song it comes up with, thus honing in the AI. And the sound quality is great! (I think.) I have several stations going, for each of the main streams of my musical taste: Indie pop, Angry Women, Stuff Kinda Like Cocteau Twins, Hard Trance, Industrial, Bebop, etc etc etc.

It doesn't have everything. I tried to have it find Baltimora, just to see what it would do. Sadly (?), "Tarzan Boy" isn't in their database just yet. It and the iTunes database are similar, but not the same, if that's any indication.

(Hang on. I gotta tell it to stop playing "I'm the Cat." BRB.)

The beautiful thing is when it comes up with a great song I've never heard of, which is frequent once it really knows where to look. For the lazy music fan, who learns of new things only haphazardly, it's a wonder. It'll also explain its "thought process," which is neat.

(Tip o' the hat to the Lord of Flea Manor.)

QUICK HITS

The local store is having a Blokus tournament! I might actually be talked into that one, especially since the store seems to draw a pretty easygoing crowd. They're also taking trade-in games again; I may have to round up a pile of the ones that don't draw much on eBay.

Most recent poet discovery: Dafydd ap Gwilym. Medieval Welsh poet; I'm idly teaching myself Middle Welsh by going through Reading Middle Welsh, the materials developed by the late, great Gareth Morgan (of U. Texas). So far, I'm only reading Dafydd in translation, but he's good stuff. More info here; if I find a particularly striking example I'll be sure to post one (in proper review-oriented context, of course). Thus far, I haven't found that one poem that encapsulates why I like his stuff; it's more of a general atmosphere from his body of work.

Alfred's one-step method to improve one's health, mood, and general apartment atmosphere:

1. Make gumbo

Works every time.

I've been recently struck by what I've just now christened the "Meeple Phenomenon." Not that anthropomorphic pieces of wood are being used in games--that's not surprising--but their "fan base" among gamers. They have a life (and, sometimes, death) of their own. What other game piece has ever captured the gamer's imagination?

Of all new-minted BGG users, how many sign up to ask about the name of a nearly-forgotten children's game they had back in 1970 ("It had a blue piece, and dice"), find the answer, respond ("thx") and then disappear forever? I'm thinking 87%. Another 10% are offshore gambling spammers, I think, leaving a Gideonesque 3%. And God love 'em.

I'm on the hunt for a wargame that has a reasonably in-depth supply/logistics system--something more than "if you're five hexes from a road that goes off the map, you're OK" but less than, you know, Campaign for North Africa. It's a tricky one, but a lot of campaigns hinged on logistical considerations--often made before the campaign started...

More later, p'raps, later--but I've now killed the last twenty minutes of my shift, so I'm off...