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(Board) Game Theory

There is a classic story in EP's family about an event he witnessed.  Coming down for a drink of water one night, he saw an aunt get frustrated with a board game, and fling it off the table and against a wall in a fit of game rage.  There is a part of me that sympathizes with this story thinking, "Yeah...I've felt that."  Another part though finds this to be anathema, since games are games and decorum and rules are to be observed lest one be cheating - and I have no truck with cheating.  I don't understand why you would want to play just to cheat.  Cheating is not for games and fun, it's something you do during a knife or gun fight, or when pitted against a supervillian.

I have often been characterized by others as "overly competitive" or hard to play games with.  I think sometimes that's true.  Playing games with my young son and the experiences of the past weekend's games have made me realize something else about myself that's the point of this blog entry.  I think that I am someone who goes along with the tone being set by others during gameplay.  Strange to think of myself as a follower, but bear with me.  It's not that the game is so important, or even that I want to win so badly; it's just that I don't know how to back down.  I don't want to, of course, but I also don't really have tools for it.  As a veteran of boxing and chess - two games that require you to psyche out your opponent and convince him that he's wrong, nothing, a bowl of spineless ooze whose losing was preordained before he ever entered this life - I have it wired in me now that, once smack is spoken, that's where we are.  And I will escalate, because that's what you do.  Keep the tone light and friendly, no arguments, you won't hear a peep out of me.  As soon as the game wades into the muck, though, you'll find me with hip boots on, waiting.

Having realized this, I hope to just stop it.  I suppose I could blame it on being raised during the Cold War when blinking was unAmerican, and brinksmanship was something in which even our mediocre politicos were capable of indulging - but that's not true.  I do like games, even when I don't win them, and wish there were more opportunities for them around.  I guess we'll see. 

The truly educated of you will be able to name the game featured at the top in the picture, there.  Of course, if you hover over it, I think it'll tell you anyway, but props to those who don't need that.

Running with the Schmucks

I've tried my share of manly pursuits, new endeavours, adventures, life-risking activities - I will never understand how running with the bulls is supposed to prove anything other than you're fast and have poor judgment.  I mean, of course it's a dick thing; bulls are huge fuckers with big horns on their heads and massive genitals, so little people fuck with them to prove they have big balls, too.  Matadors screw with and generally enrage a bull so they can amuse a crowd and then kill the bull; these idiots in Pamplona don't kill anything to wave their dicks around, they just fill the streets with running fools once a year, essentially proving that they don't have the goddamn good sense to avoid a pack of bulls in the first place, so they escape on foot instead.  In front of people.  The one positive thing that always comes out of this is a series of goring photos to which I always look forward, and sit grimly rooting for the bulls as I page through.  The example of this exhibited above is excellent, and somewhat non-typical, as many of these tend to be ass-goring photos.  Nothing's more macho than a gushing back wound, eh?

People do this in large part because of Ernest Hemingway, who also painted, fished, wrote stuff and fought in wars, eventually blowing his own head off with a shotgun after spiraling into depression, madness, and electroshock treatments.  People might want to examine their motives on this one a little better.

The Cheneys At Home

(With apologies to JB, C, and probably Bill Hicks.)

It begins in an undisclosed location, one that doesn't show up on any satellites, Google Earth, or Yahoo Maps.  It is likely in the woods outside of Delaware or Maryland - but it could be anywhere; Gitmo, a posh Georgetown split-level...next door to you and yours.  When the dog barks and barks and won't shut up?  Could be the Cheneys next door.  Vice-President "Blue-Veined" Dick Cheney gets out of the completely automated limo-like conveyance he now uses after killing several human drivers for their humors and fluids, and remotely sends it on its way.  Checking the surrounding area through his thick spectacles, he places his palm against what would to the untrained eye appear to be undifferentiated wall, but is in fact the most secure intrusion deterrent system in the world.  After his finger is pricked and the black ichor within tested and found to be a DNA match to file, he is allowed inside.

The furnishings are fairly innocuous, just some parlor furniture, tables and chairs - old books on the shelf, unread.  Always unread.  Dick puts his keys and briefcase on the writing table, and follows a trail of heat-blackened rose petals to a door.  Twisting the small brass knob engraved with the face of Allen Dulles, he steps into a brushed chrome security elevator.  It immediately descends to sub-basement level 23, where the Cheneys have plans this night to get it on.

Lynne meets him at the door to their love nest, clad in a patent leather stars-and-stripes corset and fishnet stockings.  Her gleaming golden chastity belt matches the glint in Dick's eyes, and he loosens his tie, teasing her with the key.  He will unlock her, but not yet.  First, the lights go down and the red candles flare as the first swellings of the Carmina Burana are heard.  Lynne licks her lips and shivers as her Dick grins crookedly, grunting a little.  It's a love grunt.  She's into him, and says, "Put me on the wheel, powerhouse."  He straps her lovingly to the Wheel of Pain, spinning it like an acolyte of Bob Barker.  Curtains part, and six Girl Scouts, ages 5 to 17, are revealed behind four inch thick glass.  As their innocence is driven from them by the sight, it is harvested in huge, lime-green containers, to be consumed later by the Vice-President.

As Lynne spins, writhing and moaning, and the music dips and soars, Dick disrobes, shedding his power suit like a snake outgrowing an immature skin.  His sex organ is like a six-headed robotic hydra, and it unfurls from it's wrapped position around his waist, snapping the six heads apart with a metallic high C note.  Overfiend-style, it rises up, appearing to sniff and sample the air, almost sentient.  Creating its own speed lines, it whizzes across the room, where it whips aside yet another curtain to reveal a bound and gagged enemy combatant, tied to a chair.  A pile of thousand dollar bills is lit, and a lock of Ron Reagan's hair is added to the fire.  The phallus tortures the enemy combatant as Lynne's moans synchronize with Dick's pacemaker rhythm, and they achieve orgasm simultaneously.  The earth cracks underfoot, dying a little.

And they never touch each other.  Not since 1968.  Too big a possibility of making more lesbians.  Wouldn't be prudent.

21st Century Land of Confusion

I just showed this to Jesse, and it occurs to me that some folks may not have seen it, so here it is.  This is a Todd MacFarlane thing, and it came out last year.  I love it.  I think it's a great cover of the song, and the video has just the right mix (for me) of comic book, melodrama, Anime, conspiracy, resistance; all the tastiest spices in the stew of entertainment.  It's not Phil Collins and the talking Reagan puppet underwater, but it's just as relevant now as that was then.

"The Best Party Ever"

This was my son Max's assessment of Diane and Eric's wedding reception, which happened this Saturday past, the 7th of July, and I must admit, it was a seriously kick-ass party.

Last Tuesday night - a week ago now - C & I stayed up until after 3am cleaning the apartment and packing the car, getting ready to leave.  On the 4th of July, we spent all day driving.  The one unique thing I could tell you about driving through Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois and Wisconsin on July 4th is that you will see small pieces of about 12 different fireworks shows, put on by various communities.  We hit Madtown at near 10pm, saw Josh and Amy (in their undies - snicker) and bunked down at Julia's house on Monroe, there to stay for the duration.  I would like to take this opportunity to thank all three denizens of the Monroe Street house - but especially Julia - for their kind hospitality, patience, conversation, fun, and understanding.  Our time there was made possible by a grant from the Monroe Street House, and friends like you.  Thank you, and a shockingly inappropriate butt pinch for Julia Mac.  Moo-HAH-ha.

Thursday was a good day, filled with grocery shopping and house viewing and grilling and hanging out.  We were introduced to EP & DLF's new place - and me to her dad - and we BBQ'd that evening with them, a bunch of the Monroevian friend posse, and JB.  Much was consumed and laughed at and enjoyed. Friday was the rehearsal day, so sprucing was called for, but we also managed to cram in a trip to the zoo and lunch at Maharani (Mmmm...mango lassi) before getting Jesse from the airport after minor confusion.  Then it was on to Warner Park for the first of the major sweating, and the meeting of Eric and Diane's other peeps, but especially Anita, who I had not met before, and who was my companion down the aisle.  She was tolerant of my jokes, nervous and otherwise, helped keep an eye out for goose crap.  Invaluable.  Dinner at (ITALIAN RESTAURANT PLACE NAME CURRENTLY ESCAPING ME) was delicious.

The day of the wedding was spent basically working up to the thing itself, tying together last minute things.  We dressed and got to the park, and it was fun and an honor to be a part of the light blue airborne electric excitement preceding the union of two people I love.  The ceremony itself was beautiful and personal and handcrafted by them and the cool PA from the local U.U.  After this, it was on to the reception, and much friendship, food & drinking, kissing, drinking, dancing, drinking, good music, drinking, fun and drinking.  I haven't had that good a time cutting loose in a long time.  (All emailed pictures of my chopsticked samurai topknot will be posted here without embarrassment.)  I was so happy to see Eric and Diane that happy, and also cheered by the joy and lack of restraint exhibited by my friends, some of whom can be pretty restrained sometimes.  I was the soul of decorum, of course.  I especially enjoyed our impromptu ersatz Jewish chair dance (Mattman's idea) and Eric's wedding Wall mix was solid with many good favorites.  Diane wore her mom's dress and was beautiful in it, never more so than when chugging sparkling champagne wine from the bottle and dancing.  I also got to hang out with EP's brother Mark extensively, and enjoyed the hell out of that.  We stole him and got him back to Julia's after the reception, BSing and playing Uno, well, not quite until the break of dawn.

Sunday was C's birthday, so she slept in, and we had a more or less chill day of stuff culminating in EP & Diane's housewarming and a birthday BBQ at Josh & Amy's.  We picked raspberries and ate brats and drank a little, and saw good friends again.  Also, there was ice cream cake.  It was a shame when we had to leave, as the vacation drew slowly to a close, mostly because I had had so much fun, and Nora was really snuggly right there at the end.  We capped it off with a breakfast with Julia, Jesse, EP and Diane at Ella's and drove the long way home, arriving late last night.

I wouldn't have missed it for anything.  I wish I had had more time to see Basford and maybe Megin, and spend more time with people I sort of barely saw, but that's the nature of trips like this one.  Congrats again to the happy couple - I love you guys and wish you all the best, and am hoping for a finger brought back from Pompeii!

Government Experimentation

Possibly it's just me, (since it usually is) but has anyone else ever suspected the US Military of experimenting on the crowd during air shows?  This will be especially crucial to my Pensacola readers (assuming of course, that I still have any besides Lyla - Hi Lyla!), but you know how when you go to a demonstration - particularly of the Blue Angels, (what about that website, huh?) but really just any air show will do - there's a bunch of stuff before the guys you came there to see do their thing, and a lot of it involves smoke.  Different colors of smoke.  So why not drop chemicals and shit on the crowd (ducking the whole civil rights/inherent freedoms thing, of course) in the smoke, and see who you can mutate, infect, kill with weird sentient cancers, whatever. 

That's a fairly decent cross-section of humanity down there (not getting into the potential genetic similarities possibly extant among the crowd at an air show) and it seems like kind of a waste not to go Tuskeegee/Area 51 on them whilst you have the chance.  I don't know how you'd follow up on the results or scientifically correct for variables, but you have to assume that sometimes government scientists spray us with shit just for the fun of it, yeah?

"Ya, und ve vill blacken the skies vit smoke from her burning kapitals, ya?"

Happy July 4th!

Star Spangled Banner |Funny Jokes at JibJab

From JibJab, of course - not their usual fare, but excellent, nonetheless.

No Prison for Scooter

This July 4th, as you settle back with an adult beverage and some low-bang explosive material, contemplating the freedom that you cherish, and that is enshrined in the twin documents that make up the foundation of our country, the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, and as you reflect on the wars fought - past and present - supposedly to maintain and preserve our freedom and independence, I want you to momentarily cast your thoughts to the biggest abuser of the rule of law, our Chief Executive, Dubya Monkeyface Bush, and one of the people least deserving currently of freedom and independence, former Vice-Presidential Chief of Staff "Scooter" Libby.  In a time when we are concerned as a nation that justice does not work - and indeed, may not really even apply - to the famous, like Paris Hilton, why is it we do not cast a cold and stony eye on Scooter, he of the embarrassing sex stories, and most germane to the issue at hand, he of the treasonous activities during wartime.  Here is a man employed by Dick Cheney who could actually be said to have aided the terrorists during the War on Terror, who was key in leaking the identity of an undercover American operative because of some petty political vengeance trip, and who now will serve no prison time, despite an ironclad conviction of lying to the Government of the United States under oath, because the President has decided - despite protests from the judge in the case, who apparently never really had any authorityat all - that 2.5 years locked up is "excessive."  Really, Dubya.  You're a punk and a hypocritical tyrant, Dubya.  I sincerely hope that this is your legacy.

And he's not ruling out a full pardon, either.  Punk.

The Weekend As It Should Be

This was a good weekend.

Friday, I left work feeling tired and sweaty and unmotivated, but we turned it around and went down to the Frist Museum (yes, that Frist) to see Webb Wilder do his thing.  The man and the band, possibly my favorite touring band on the face of this planet, making me happy that we went, and probably annoying everyone within six feet of me in every direction because I smelled like I had been working outside and I knew the lyrics to absolutely everything.  Well, not everything.  But pretty fucking close.  We consumed free food and water, and had a grand old time, even after sleepiness and boredom set in on the kids.

Saturday we went back to the Frist at about 1pm, so C could look at art and so Max & I could make fortune boxes.  We painted our wooden chunks gold and lettered them in Chinese, and decorated boxes.  We then grabbed a quick lunch on our way to pick up Abby's new big girl seat at our storage unit, and I got to take a short nap.  We then hooked up with Shannon and went to the Grand Ole Opry, on the tickets Max won with his drawing that so many of you voted for.  I enjoyed Montgomery Gentry, and though I thought they depended a bit much on jingoist symbol-slinging, their music rocked much harder than anything else we heard that night.  Dale Watson is most like the other country music guys I like, so I would listen to him again.  I liked Jennifer Hanson's song "1973," too, even if it made me wonder how her folks feel about her getting a song out of their divorce.  We left after two hours and a free T-shirt and headed home for spaghetti, hard cider and cookies.

This morning, Max & I got up about three hours before anyone else in the house, and went out to see Ratatouille at 10:15.  He loved it, of course, and I thought it was great; kind of like Big Night meets Pixar.  The short before it was hilarious, too, in a strictly non-intellectual way.  After that, I did some last minute (kind of, I guess, shut up) stuff gathering for EP & DLF's hitching, and put some money in the bank.  I came home and we hung out with the kids, C is out doing laundry currently, and we've been getting the 1st season of Deadwood in when we can.  The major effect of this last thing is that I feel inclined to talk all time in the strange anachronistic old west town style that the characters in the show use.  It's also very good.

And now, the kids are in bed, and I have some time to myself to tidy the apartment.  Tomorrow, I begin my two-day workweek, then on to Madtown for wedding joy.  I would like to leave you with the Webb Wilder Credo, because I think it's important:

WORK HARD
ROCK HARD
EAT HARD
SLEEP HARD
GROW BIG
WEAR GLASSES IF YOU NEED 'EM

The Webb Wilder Credo, since one Easter weekend in Jackson, Mississippi.

Isaiah Washington's Full of Shit

Isaiah Washington, who was fired off the show Grey's Anatomy for spouting a homophobic epithet (I believe "faggot" is the word in question - they never tell you these things) in regards to T.R. Knight, has decided that no, it wasn't his own intolerance that got him shitcanned - it was the racism of everyone else associated with the show.  To explain this, he has stated that he thinks it was the big, "booming voice of a black man" that had everyone intimidated, so they fired him.  No, Isaiah - that wasn't it.  You're upset because you apologized and they fired you anyway, apparently not realizing that sometimes you do shit an apology won't fix.  That's how it works out here in the real world.  Of course, no one can blame you playing the race card - that happens so often nowadays that it's the name of the new game from the makers of Uno - "RACE CARD, fun for mixed groups of 6, 10 and 18 - it's a race to the bottom as we hammer on the differences between us!" - but your race card is ridiculous, bigger than the other cards in the deck, an obvious forgery that gets you shot at the end of the game when there's five aces on the table, and Hickok holding the Dead Man's Hand.  For those of you still with me, Mr. Washington's comments bear repeating, as they are nothing but him pissing fire from his strictly hetero cock on the flames of bigotry he himself inflamed. 

"My mistake was believing that I would get the support from my network and all of my cast mates across the board. My mistake was believing I could correct a wrong with honesty and sincerity.  My mistake was thinking black people get second chances. I was wrong on all fronts...it didn't help me on the set that I was a black man who wasn't a mush-mouth Negro walking around with his head in his hands all the time. I didn't speak like I'd just left the plantation and that can be a problem for people sometime."

Three mistakes he mentions, and not a one them is 'hating on gay people,' 'using slurs,' or 'being intolerant.'  You can smell the lack of perspective here.  Isaiah, black people often get second chances, as do many other kinds of people - black assholes, on the other hand, like all colors of assholes, often have a harder time.  And finally: Does he really imagine that he can act the prick as long he pretends to be dumb and subservient and that will make his prick-acting easier to take somehow?  In addition to being full of shit, Isaiah may also be a dumb motherfucker. 

Which makes him a good actor, at least.  Having watched the show, I hadn't noticed that about him before.