Autumn Games - Eleven through Twenty

We started this series in early September, 2012, and now nearly five months later, we've played our twentieth game. Doesn't sound like a lot, actually, but that averages out to one a week, which isn't too bad.

The name of these ten games was definitely "Carol". After ten games, I was ahead seven wins to Carol's three. She made short work of that, winning games eleven through fourteen and tying it at seven each, and then winning three of the next four, taking a big lead. All in all, I managed to squeak out only three wins to her seven, tying the series at ten each. While most of my wins were close, Carol's wins tended to be blowouts.

Here's what we played and the winner.

• Blue Moon - Carol
• Jambo - Carol
• Settlers of Catan Card Game - Carol
• Tally Ho - Carol
• The Pillars of the Earth: Builders Duel - Ipecac
• Odin's Ravens - Carol
• Dracula - Carol
• Times Square - Carol
• Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation - Ipecac
• Perry Rhodan The Cosmic League - Ipecac

Half of this lot was new to us. Of the new, I especially enjoyed Blue Moon and Perry Rhodan, but I thought they were all good. Carol liked the new games Pillars of the Earth and Tally Ho. Jambo and Perry Rhodan had some similarities in the way you buy and sell goods and the game flow, but this was a pretty diverse group of games, most unlike any other in the series. The simplest ruleset was either Times Square or Tally Ho, but both had some subtlety of strategy that I enjoyed. Settlers took up the most table space by far, requiring a large table for two players, while Times Square took up the least.

Jambo

Blue Moon

Times Square

As we head into our final group of games, we still have a few new games and some classics we've saved till the end. We also have one game that Carol is dreading and one that's universally recognized as unplayable. Next up will be Gone Fishing!

Sounds like fun!

Okay, this is more fun than humanly possible.  Really.

Funswitcher

Just click the switches.

I have never felt as threatened as I do in church, someone apparently says

The Arkansas State Senate has passed a bill permitting churches to allow their parishioners to carry concealed firearms in church. Because that's what Jesus would do.

Christianity!  You're doing it wrong.

A (near) perfect evening

Last night, I built a fire and Carol and I caught up on some shows we had DVRed. After we finished, Carol went to do some computer stuff. Ben was up in his room so I had the TV to myself.

I was flipping channels at 9PM and found a Doctor Who special on BBCAmerica, the first episode in a monthly documentary series for the 50th anniversary year of Doctor Who called The Doctors Revisited. This episode traced the career of the First Doctor and had about 40 minutes of interviews with the likes of some of the surviving original cast, David Tenant, Steven Moffat and John Barrowman, followed by a complete Doctor Who serial from 1964, The Aztecs.

So I sat in front of the fire with hot chocolate on a Sunday evening and watched an old school series of Doctor Who I had never seen. It was awesome.

The only thing that marred the evening was that Rachel wasn't watching it with me.

The Future of Our Democracy - Michigan

In case you thought the article on Republicans changing the rules to rig future Presidential elections was overblown, here’s more evidence.

Michigan House Speaker Jase Bolger (R) said on Friday that he’s open to pursuing the strategy in his state. According to Gongwer (subscription required), Bolger believes a bill by state Rep. Pete Lund (R) — which has yet to be introduced — is worthy of strong consideration.

“I hear that more and more from our citizens in various parts of the state of Michigan that they don’t feel like their vote for president counts because another area of the state may dominate that or could sway their vote,” Bolger told Gongwer. “They feel closer to voting for their congressman or their congresswoman and if that vote coincided with their vote for president they would feel better about that.”

Notice the bolded part. That’s the part where the people who voted for the loser in the election complain that their vote didn’t count. See, that’s how elections work. One person wins the election by getting more votes and the person who gets less votes loses. If the person you voted for lost, that’s just the way it is. You don’t change the rules so that a minority of people select the winner. That’s completely undemocratic.

Michigan voters chose President Obama by 54% to 45% for Mitt Romney. Had this electoral scheme been in place, because of Republican gerrymandering in 2010, Mitt Romney would have won the state.

This is a critical issue facing our democracy; its importance cannot be overstated.

The future of our Democracy

There's an important article you should read about the Republican party going after voting rights in America, undermining the very foundation of our Democracy. In short, Republicans are trying to rig the system so that they cannot lose. Had the Republican scheme been in place during the 2012 election, President Obama would have lost, despite winning the popular vote by close to 5 million votes.

Republicans can't win national elections anymore, having lost the popular vote in five of the last six, and with demographics shifts moving solidly against them, rather than try to better represent the will of the American electorate, they're instead going to try to break the system so that the will of the American electorate no longer matters. And it would be perfectly legal, because we choose our presidents through the Electoral College, and there are very few rules about how the electors are allocated. Make no mistake: This is a war on the very concept of democracy and republic. This is a war on the very nature of our system of governance. If it succeeds, it will tear this country apart. 

Last week, while much of the country was focused on President Obama's second inauguration, or was distracted by a three-day weekend, a quiet coup by Virginia state Senate Republicans disappeared a Democratic state Senate seat. Virginia's upper house is evenly split, but with Sen. Henry L. Marsh III in Washington for the presidential inauguration, the Republicans used his absence and a party line vote to approve a new redistricting plan that eliminates a Democratic Senate seat, thus giving themselves a likely more permanent majority, beginning in 2015. But that was only the beginning of what they want to do. Virginia's Republicans have an even more cynical plan for 2016 . . .

This is a must read article.

Suspended!

Our XBOX Live account is suspended this week by Microsoft. Ben put a "dirty word" (rhymes with witches) in his XBOX bio motto and they suspended our account for violation of the code of conduct. I suppose Ben got the quote from a song or Family Guy (ugh) as he doesn't use the word. Ben was gone for most of the weekend so I wasn't able to play Black Ops II online. The suspension also cuts us off from Netflix on our TV.

On the scale of conduct violations, this was pretty minor. I'm somewhat annoyed that XBOX would suspend our PAID account without a warning or prior contact. But in the scope of human problems, this is pretty minor.

Autumn games - Perry Rhodan The Cosmic League

Our twentieth game was a new one for both us us, Perry Rhodan: The Cosmic League by Heinrich Glumpler.  Perry Rhodan is a popular science fiction book serial in Germany.

In Perry Rhodan, each player is a trader, moving his ship among the six planets of a solar system, picking up and delivering goods and passengers. Each delivery gets a player the currency of the galaxy, the Megagalax, and the first player to 70 Megagalax wins. At the start of the game each player has five cards in hand, one container for holding goods, and may replenish his hand by one card at the end of his turn.

On your turn, you may execute up to two Planetary Actions, one Flight, and may play up to two Intervention cards. Planetary Actions are (1) load a container, (2) unload a container, or (3) buy a technology. Loading and unloading is pretty straightforward. You take all of the cards on your current planet that have the same destination and put them on your container card. Containers can only be loaded once until they reach their destination and are unloaded, at which point the container can be reloaded with goods destined for another planet. When you unload goods, you get paid the value of the cards in Megagalax and flip the cards over to reveal the next destination on the other side. If you flip two cards that have the same destination, they are removed from the game, meaning that the goods available for shipping is constantly dwindling.

Buying a technology requires you to pay Megagalax to play a card from your hand to the table in front of you. Technology includes things like additional Containers for shipping goods, additional replenishment actions so you can redraw more cards at the end of your turn, and cards that let your ship move faster, farther, or execute Planetary Actions from orbit. The first technology card you play cost 1 Megagalax, the second 2, and so forth.

Taking one Flight on your turn means moving your ship from planet to planet. At the start of your turn you roll a die and may move that far. If you roll a one, you get to roll again and add the new number. What's interesting is that traveling towards the star is more efficient than traveling away from it (gravity and all) so it's faster to travel inwards.

Intervention cards can be played out of your hand. They let you do things like steal goods from the other player, execute an additional flight, switch the positions of the two ships, load goods from another planet, and deliver a passenger for 3 Megagalax. They can be cancelled by the other player playing an identical card.

Carol and I stayed pretty close during the game. There's a similarity to Jambo in that you constantly gain victory points and then must spend some to increase your abilities. I really enjoyed the planning that went into efficiently picking up and delivering goods and the way that clever card play cold foil your opponent. We both added technology and moved cards quickly. As we approached the goal of seventy points, we were almost out of goods to ship. I managed to secure the last couple of valuable lots and made it to seventy just ahead of Carol.

Final scores:

  Ipecac  70
  Carol    64

And with twenty games down, the series is tied 10 to 10.

Virginia Republicans pull a fast one

This should offend any lover of actual Democracy, not the kind being practiced in Virginia.

The Colbert Report
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Because if you can't win, cheat.

Get to Know Me! Coin Flips

Whenever I’m asked to call a coin flip, I invariably choose tails because picking heads seems cliché and conformist.

Inasmuch as anyone should be in combat . . .

Great news!

In a surprise move, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta removed the military ban on women in combat on Wednesday. Lifting the ban will open service on the front lines to thousands of women.

According to the Associated Press, the move was recommended by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and overturns a 1994 rule banning women from being assigned to smaller ground combat units. Smaller exemptions to the rule were passed in 2012, but the new decision opens up 238,000 positions where women were formerly banned. Link

If women want to defend this country in combat (and clearly thousands do) then they should be given the chance. They are as capable as men and we should stop letting pre-21st century paternalistic attitudes drive policy.

Maybe his hair contains the blast

At what point does a Republican Congressman says something so stupid that his head just up and explodes? Just “blah, blah, blah” then Kablooey!

“I think my role is to uphold support and defend our Constitution,” he said. “…The Constitution I uphold and defend is the one I carry in my pocket all the time, the U.S. Constitution. I don’t know what Constitution that other members of Congress uphold, but it’s not this one. I think the only Constitution that Barack Obama upholds is the Soviet constitution, not this one. He has no concept of this one, though he claimed to be a constitutional lawyer.” Link

Yes, that makes a lot of sense. The President upholds a non-existent Soviet constitution. Uh-huh. The Republicans have got to be pushing the line on this whole head-explody thing. I think Rep. Paul Broun (R Tea Party-GA) is lucky to be alive after the above bit of wisdom.

Autumn Games - Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation

Now that the holidays are past and our household is back to normal, Carol and I have resumed our Autumn Games (although it's no longer Autumn, I'm keeping the name.) Our 19th game was Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation by Reiner Knizia.

As you might guess, Confrontation is based on the Lord of the Rings books and films and features artwork by John Howe who did artwork for the movies. One player plays the Fellowship whose goal is to get Frodo and the One Ring to Mordor while the other plays the forces of Sauron trying to either kill Frodo or get three evil minions into the Shire. If any of these goals is met, the game ends with a win for that player.

The Fellowship is ready to move out.

The board represents Middle Earth with sixteen areas such as Moria, Eregion, Gondor and Dagorlad The Shire and Mordor can hold four pieces, the Mountain spaces in the center can hold only one piece, while all others can hold two pieces. There are a few other geographical features which affect movement, including a tunnel through Moria which is great for the Fellowship unless the Balrog stands guard.

Each player has nine pieces in the game, each with a unique power and each representing a member of the Fellowship or an individual or group working for Sauron, such as Saruman, the Witch King, Orcs, or Shelob. On your turn, you move one of your pieces one space forward (a couple pieces can move more than this or move in different directions). If there's an enemy piece in that space, you fight. Since you can't identify the enemy piece from the back, there is some risk involved in attacking. (If this sounds familiar, it is similar to the game Stratego, although Confrontation requires a LOT more thought and strategy.)

The powers of the characters are mostly thematic and add to the fun of the game. For example, Aragorn has flexibility of movement and can attack in any direction, not just forward. The Flying Nazgul can attack any single Fellowship piece anywhere on the board. Gimli automatically defeats the Orcs if he encounters them while Legolas automatically defeats the Flying Nazgul. Sam's strength is only 2, but if he's in a space with Frodo and they're attacked, he takes Frodo's place and his strength becomes 5.

Combat is a simple affair. Each piece has a combat value ranging from 0 to 9. Each player plays a card to add to his value and the highest total value wins. The losing piece is removed from the board, while ties result in mutual annihilation. Each player also has Magic cards which can be played instead of a number card. These allow you to retreat, ignore the other player's number card, automatically kill both pieces, etc. The Dark player's cards have higher number values and the Fellowship player has an extra Magic card.

The Honored Dead await the next game.

What's remarkable about the game is how well balanced it is. Despite having eighteen game pieces, each with a different power and different goals, the two sides are evenly matched. I've played dozens, maybe hundreds of times, and it all comes down to strategy. There is no luck involved.

To make sure we both had an equal chance, Carol and I agreed to play the best out of three games. For the first game, I randomly drew the Fellowship. While Frodo managed to move towards Mordor and avoided death, he moved a little too slowly and before he could evade the last of Sauron's minions, Carol moved three pieces, the Black Rider, the Flying Nazgul, and the Orcs, into the Shire for the victory.

We switched sides and Carol took over the Fellowship to nearly identical results. Frodo evaded capture but I was able to get the same three pieces, the Black Rider, the Flying Nazgul, and the Orcs, into the Shire. This was a bit unusual because games usually end with the death of Frodo or the dunking of the One Ring.

Mid-Game.

For the final game, we randomly drew and I was once again the Fellowship, which had lost both previous games. I was more careful this time not to let Carol get any three pieces too near the Shire and combat took a huge toll on our pieces. But I gave as good as I got, resulting in my last four pieces being the four Hobbits which I thought was cool. Sam, Merry and Pippin gave their lives to save Frodo and soon it was the lone Hobbit against three Dark pieces.  Carol did get one into the Shire, but seeing that her remaining two pieces were too far away, I slipped Frodo past them to Mordor to destroy the One Ring and Sauron.

Frodo in Mordor for the win.

Ipecac wins Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation, two to one, and moves one behind Carol in the series.

U.S. Senate - Pass filibuster reform now!

The single most important thing that can happen to fix the ridiculously dysfunctional Senate is to pass filibuster reform. The Republicans have used the filibuster at historic levels in order to stop any forward progress in America. They don't care that they hurt the economy. They don't care that they hurt people. They just want to stop the President and will trample everything in their path to do so.

They've done this for four years and it's time that it stopped. It's time for majority rule to return to the Senate.

Unfortunately, reform depends on the spines of the top Democrats in the Senate and too many of them are wavering. They want a "bipartisan" solution, even though the current Republicans are never bipartisan. They're worried that one day they'll be back in the minority and they'll want to filibuster. They're worried that they'll look partisan and that the Republicans will scream bloody murder.

I say, so what? Grow the hell up and do what needs to be done. The Republicans will scream bloody murder whatever you do. Haven't you figured that out yet? And if you actually govern and help the country, the Republicans will never be back in the majority. So stop the madness now.

This will all come to a head in the next 36 hours. We'll know if we'll have a functional government body capable of leading or more of the same crap we've had for the last four years.

Reform the filibuster NOW!

Alternate Inauguration

I must admit I was just a little disappointed yesterday that Mitt Romney didn’t give the inaugural speech. Only because I am absolutely sure that he would have closed the speech by saying, “Release the hounds.”

Words for America

It is now our generation’s task to carry on what those pioneers began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote. Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity; until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country. Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm.  -- Two term President, Barack Obama

Are you guys paying attention at all?

Here's a helpful hint for Republicans as they desperately try to repair the tarnished image they have with almost every demographic group except older, white males.

If you're going to have a seminar for Republican legislators on "Communication with Minorities and Women," DON'T hold the retreat at a PLANTATION.

You guys are making this too easy.

Who would Jesus shoot?

Only the mind of someone who has no understanding of what Christianity is supposed to be could say something this stupid. This is California Republican Assemblyman Tim Donnelly:

“Guns are used an average of 3 million times a year according to the Clinton Justice Department,” Assemblyman Tim Donnelly told the Christian talk radio show The Bottom Line on Wednesday. “That’s like 6,900 times a day. That’s the high end of the statistics, other people say it’s only 200 times a day.”

“Whatever that number is, they are used to defend human life,” he explained. “They are used to defend our property and our families and our faith and our freedom, and they are absolutely essential to living the way God intended for us to live.”[..]

“All [Obama's] plan will do is make it more costly and more difficult for law-abiding citizens to exercise their Constitutional right,” the assemblyman said. “We must hold criminals, not inanimate steel objects, accountable for their actions.

I’m pretty sure of two things. One, the majority of guns fired in America every day are not being fired to defend human life. And two, if god actually exists, he’d rather you not be shooting other people. Even if you’re trying to defend your awesome property.

Christianity! You're doing it wrong.

Hurricane Sandy Relief

Ten weeks after hurricane Sandy devastated lives along the East Coast, Congress today finally passed a relief bill, allocating approximately $50 billion in aid.  The two measures passed the House by 241 to 180 and 228 to 192.  That means that 180 and then 192 Congress folk voted against helping people rebuild their lives after a hurricane devastated their communities.

It should be noted that ALL of the No votes but one were by Republicans.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

Carol and I watched last year's Mission Impossible movie (directed by Brad Bird and produced by J.J. Abrams) on streaming Netflix last night.

We both really enjoyed it. The direction was great, the action sequences well done and unusual, and the script was very clever. I also enjoyed Brad Bird's usual Pixar easter eggs, including that the voice on the phone that gives Tom Cruise his mission was the same voice as Syndrome's computer in The Incredibles.

Definitely an excellent reboot of an old franchise, something Abrams excels at.

I really don't think you know how money works

In response to the $1 trillion coin, some conservatives are making a strange argument.

In case you've never actually used money before, it works like this. You mint a coin or print a bill and you write the value on the coin or bill. For example, $20. Then, because we all agree it has value, it does. You don't have to actually make a $20 bill worth $20 of paper. Likewise, a quarter doesn't actually contain 25 cents worth of metal.

But then, that's in reality.

The key part of the plan: "Hey, look over there!"

So if you don't know about the idea for the government to mint a coin worth one trillion dollars to avoid the stupid debt ceiling, you can read about it here. It's a clever idea and, apart from seeming silly, has no real downside.

But it will never succeed.

Because if they do mint the coin, I am already prepared. I have been working for weeks on the details of an elaborate heist.

I plan to steal the $1 trillion coin!

(Unless Nicolas Cage beats me to it.)

Once I have the coin, my friends will be amply rewarded and my enemies punished. Once I get change for the coin, that is. Of course, I can't go to a bank because they'll be looking for it, so I'll probably just go to a McDonald's or Wal-Mart, buy something cheap and get the change there. And no one will be the wiser.

[Insert maniacal laughter here]

Gave their lives for a lie?

One of the main arguments that Christians use to "prove" that the Bible, and more specifically Jesus as God, is true is that the Disciples were martyred and wouldn't have given up their lives if the story of Jesus wasn't true. "People don't give up their lives based on a lie," they say. I have a friend who is a Catholic priest and this was his first cited reason for why he believed that the events in the New Testament were true.

Now, aside from the fact that we don't have proof that all of the disciples even existed and that fictional characters dying for an idea doesn't prove anything, the underlying contention that people don't give up their lives for a lie is ridiculous. People of different faiths and causes give up their lives all the time. There are martyrs for every religion and certainly they can't all be right. Christians contradict themselves when they make this argument while recognizing that Muslims sacrifice their lives quite often.

So, to provide a few examples, the following groups are full of individuals who gave their lives through suicide or martyrdom for what was an obvious lie:

Branch Davidians
The People's Temple
Order of the Solar Temple
Nazis
9/11 Hijackers
Jehova's Witnesses
Heaven's Gate Cult

In fact, there are even atheists who gave up their lives for their non-belief.  Kazimierz Łyszczyński.  The fact that this guy was killed is irrelevant to whether or not he was right.

It should be self-evident. The willingness of a person to sacrifice his life for his beliefs is not evidence of the truth of those beliefs.

Subway DOESN'T have ketchup, dammit!

My family and I have a long-standing joke about my hatred of the sandwich store Subway for not carrying ketchup.  (These days some stores do carry ketchup, others do not.) Turns out, some of the employees are way too overprotective of the "no ketchup" policy.

"He wants ketchup on the Philly cheese steak and I have never put -- we don't even have ketchup at Subway -- I've never put ketchup on anybody's sandwich," said [Subway employee] Ordone.
...
"That's when I flew off the handle," said Ordone.
"He shoved a chair to the side, like knocked it down to come at me, and I said, 'This is going to be serious,'" said [customer] Martinez.
"I said, 'Let's go, fight me like a man,'" said Ordone.

The employee has been fired.

For the record, my preference for cheese steak is provolone, not Cheez Wiz, and mayonnaise, not ketchup. When I was in college I ate my cheese steaks with ketchup but once I tried mayo, I never went back.

Big Bang Theory

I've never been a fan of the number one comedy on TV, The Big Bang Theory, and so have only watched a few episodes. Something has always bugged me about it and if asked, I'd say that while I appreciate that they get the genre references right, the show is more a parody of "nerds and geeks" than actually representative of what they really are. It also bugs me that most of the "jokes" on the show are merely recited pop culture references rather than actual jokes, the reason I actively disliked Murphy Brown and Family Guy.

Shouting into the Void gets that. Check out his post below, which includes a comparison to my favorite show, which just happens to be in the same timeslot opposite BBT, Community.

The Problem with the Big Bang Theory

Pretty much nails it for me.

Fun with law enforcement

Rachel Update - End of first college break

Rachel's going back to James Madison University tomorrow. It's been great having her back home for a few weeks.

Today, we're ending the break as we began as we go see the High Frame Rate version of The Hobbit.

Prediction FAIL

E-mail to members from the American Family Association:

What will religion look like in the year 2060?

Conservative Christians will be treated as second class citizens, much like African Americans were prior to civil rights legislation in the 1960s.

Family as we know it will be drastically changed with the state taking charge of the children beginning at birth.

Marriage will include two, three, four or any number of participants. Marriage will not be important, with individuals moving in and out of a “family” group at will.

Churchbuildings will be little used, with many sold to secular buyers and the money received going to the government.

Churches will not be allowed to discuss any political issues, even if it affects the church directly.
Tax credit given to churches and non-profit organizations will cease.

Christian broadcasting will be declared illegal based on the separation of church and state. The airwaves belong to the government, therefore they cannot be used for any religious purpose.

We will have, or have had, a Muslim president.

Cities with a name from the Bible such as St. Petersburg, Bethlehem, etc. will be forced to change their name due to separation of church and state.

Groups connected to any religious affiliation will be forced out of health care. Health centers get tax money from the state, making it a violation of church and state.

Get involved! Sign THE STATEMENT.

Sincerely,
Donald E. Wildmon

This is, of course, simply more paranoid fear-mongering from this hate group. Some of these predictions are just stupid, some are non-sequitors (who cares if we have a Muslim President besides these twerps), while perhaps one might come true. That one is that tax credit to churches might be revoked. It’s extremely unlikely, but if churches don’t stay out of politics, then under law they could lose their tax exempt status. Over the past few decades, as they’ve gotten coopted by the Republican party, they’ve been straying closer and closer to the line and in many cases have actually crossed it. So that one’s on the churches themselves.

Given that they’ve been wrong about the end of the world since forever, I guess it’s not too surprising they’re so awful at other predictions.

Gerrymandering the future

House Republicans fought for their extreme, unpopular economic and social positions during the fiscal cliff negotiations by claiming a mandate because they held the House in the 2012 election. So what about that mandate?

As of this writing, every single state except Hawai’i has finalized its vote totals for the 2012 House elections, and Democrats currently lead Republicans by 1,362,351 votes in the overall popular vote total. Democratic House candidates earned 49.15 percent of the popular vote, while Republicans earned only 48.03 percent — meaning that the American people preferred a unified Democratic Congress over the divided Congress it actually got by more than a full percentage point. Nevertheless, thanks largely to partisan gerrymandering, Republicans have a solid House majority in the incoming 113th Congress. Link

Because of the census and redistricting, the 2010 election was far more important that the typical midterm election and the country lost a great deal thanks to the Republican victories. The Republicans may be approaching permanent minority status, but because of this one election, we’ll be feeling their contemptible influence for the rest of this decade.