Thursday Night Games

I know I've already posted today, but some new board games I got recently got some play tonight, and I wanted to brag not only that I have new games, but also that my friends have excellent taste in games and you should all get some friends like them.

First, my Thursday gaming group (spots are open, only eligibility criteria is being able to get to Aberfoyle Park, SA on Thursday nights, bringing snacks optional but recommended) opened one of my new games and played it while I cooked them dinner. There's nothing so good as listening to good people having fun in your house while you prepare good food for them to enjoy. It makes you feel all grown up and responsible, not feelings I get often.

Takenoko sounds like a good thing. And so PRETTY.

Then, they obligingly allowed me to whoop them at another new game. Friends is good.

Rolling natural 20s is how you win at King of Tokyo. Game is so hype.

I doubt if there's really anything I could say to review these games that the internet hasn't already done better than I possibly could, so let me just say that these games are pretty good and you should all play them with me some time.

And don't worry, there's more where these came from.

The Game that Ruins Friendships

There was movement in old Europe, for the word had passed around

that Diplomacy once more was up for play.

So they mustered up their forces, in for penny, in for pound,

'til all the hacks had gathered for the fray.

All the tried and noted stabbers from the nations near and far

had gathered round the game board for the fight.

For the rulers love hard talking, from the Archduke to the Tsar, 

and the Sultan snuffs the battle with delight.

There was Kaiser John, who wore with style his Pickelhaulbe hat.

King Max's knife was itching in the dark.

But few were nicer Archdukes than when Sam was titled that.

The Old Man was personified by Mark.

Then Hywel the newly-minted pope turned up to try his hand,

no sooner he than Nick the Frog, he came,

and numbers were completed by Kevin of Russian land.

As finer bunch as ever played the game.

...

Just when you thought that my horrible massacring of rhyme and meter over the year couldn't get any worse, I'm back at it, warming up for Raptember with a little take off of the Banjo to commemorate the new email Diplomacy game that I've just starting up with some fellow Blaugustines and other members of EVAC. If all goes to plan, I'll be running this game for the next three or four months, giving me lots of gaming content to fill up the always difficult Thursday slot and lots of opportunities to turn my hand to the making of ditties.

It should be a nice chance for me to share my love of diplomacy with others without feeling conflicted about wanting to destroy them in order to win the game for myself, so I'll greatly enjoy watching all the diplomacy take place from the safety of the sidelines. And of course, since this is Diplomacy we're talking about, I'll probably spend a lot of time trying to soften the blows to shattered egos and attempting to reduce the number of international conflicts being solved by assassination.

I don't have much more to say, so let me leave you with the opening lines of the textbook on the game, Richard Sharp's The Game of Diplomacy:

In a changing world, some things do not change. It may be fashionable to decry the simple Virtues, but we still like to find them in our friends. Loyalty, honesty, frankness, gratitude, chivalry, magnanimity - these are the hallmarks of the good friend, the good husband and father, the nice guy we all hope our daughters will marry.

In the amoral world of Diplomacy, however, they are the hallmarks of the born loser. If a fallen enemy reaches out a hand for assistance, the wise man lops it off. If a friend does you a good turn when you’re down, wait until he’s down, then beat him to death. If an ally asks for your help in planning the next season’s moves, give it freely and copiously, then do the reverse of what you agreed and let him take the counter-attack. Try to surround yourself with people who trust you, then let them down; find an ally who will gladly die for you and see that he does just that.

I love this game.

The Wednesday Quiz: Beat Poets

Welcome back to a new season of the Leaflocker Wednesday Quiz. The rules remain the same as from time immemorial, ten points for a starter question, and a further...No wait, hang on. That's not right... Participants have a week to post their answers in the comments, close answers may be given the benefit of the doubt based on the whims of the editorial staff, especially for those playing from overseas. Google and references of any kind are an affront to Gods old and new and there shall be a day of judgement. It's all very competitive and serious.

This week's quiz is a game of that old classic: "name that poet whose works have been mashed together", which could admittedly do with a snappier title. All you have to do is name these poets to win points for your team. Don't be scared to guess, and leave your working out, sometimes we give credit for trying.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
For then my thoughts--from far where I abide--
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see:
Thy love is better than high birth to me,
Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' cost,
Of more delight than hawks and horses be;
And having thee, of all men's pride I boast:
Came there for cure and this by that I prove,
Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.

As I was going to St Ives
I met a man with seven wives
Said he, 'I think it's much more fun
Than getting stuck with only one.'
Augustus Gloop! Augustus Gloop!
The great big greedy nincompoop!
How long could we allow this beast
To gorge and guzzle, feed and feast
Our class was full of one-eared boys. I'm certain there were eight.
Who'd had them twisted off because they didn't know a date.
So let us now praise teachers who today are all so fine
And yours in particular is totally divine.

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin'-race!
As fair art thou, my bonie lass, so deep in luve am I,
And I will luve thee still, my dear, till a' the seas gang dry.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne?
Whene'er to drink you are inclin'd,
Or cutty sarks rin in your mind,
Think! ye may buy the joys o'er dear:
Remember Tam o Shanter's mare.

I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all.
As a social institution 'twas a marvellous success,
For the members were distinguished by exclusiveness and dress.
They had natty little ponies that were nice, and smooth, and sleek,
For their cultivated owners only rode 'em once a week.
"Them barber chaps what keeps a tote, By George, I've had enough,
One tried to cut my bloomin' throat, but thank the Lord it's tough."
And whether he's believed or no, there's one thing to remark,
That flowing beards are all the go way up in Ironbark.

Man's timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say,
For the Woman that God gave him isn't his to give away;
But when hunter meets with husband, each confirms the others tale —
The female of the species is more deadly than the male.
Yet I despised not nor gloried; yet, as we wrenched them apart, 
I read in the razed foundations the heart of that builder’s heart. 
As he had written and pleaded, so did I understand 
The form of the dream he had followed in the face of the thing he had planned
Oppress not the cubs of the stranger, but hail them as Sister and Brother,
For though they are little and fubsy, it may be the Bear is their mother.
"There is none like to me!" says the Cub in the pride of his earliest kill;
But the Jungle is large and the Cub he is small. Let him think and be still.

He can pick any card from a pack,
He is equally cunning with dice;
He is always deceiving you into believing
That he's only hunting for mice.
For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
How can they use such names and be not humble?
I have sat silent; angry at what they uttered.
The dead bequeathed them life; the dead have said
What these can only memorise and mumble.
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,"—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Having a Conversation

So, if you're a regular visitor to the Leaflocker or just the kind of person that archive binges any blogs that you happen to come across, you'll know that I have a bit of a book problem. It's been in remission for a while, as my reading habits have been on the wane, but about a month ago the desire to read came back and hit me with a vengeance. I didn't have the opportunity at the time, but now that it's Blaugust and if I'm to keep to tradition I need to get posting book reviews anyway, this seems like as good a time as any to start a ridiculous project.

So, there's this guy on the internet reading the Great Books. Specifically, he's reading the Encyclopedia Britannica's Great Books of the Western World. Reading 100 pages a week, he thinks it'll take him about 7 years, and half way through he's well and truly on the way. I know what you're thinking: "Thom, crazy people do crazy things on the internet all the time. You don't need to get sucked into the crazy". But it's too late. I love this idea of the Great Conversation, of knowledge passed down, and assimilated and surpassed by through the generations, and I just want to be part of it. I want to read the classics, and I don't just mean Dickens and Austen. I want to read Sophocles, I want to read Cicero, I want to read philosophy and science and poetry and plays and I want to read them all, bu I have to stop somewhere. So I'm going to read along, three and a half years behind.

He's got this nice system where in the 100 or so pages of homework set each week there's excerpts from five or six different works. This should help to combat boredom and give us a little more variety. I find it hard to read books like this, too, preferring to consume a book whole in a single or a few sessions, so maybe I'll learn to read books this way, and hopefully it will teach me a little self-control and help me to actually stop and think about what I'm reading, and maybe even leave me a little time to share my thoughts with you guys here on the Leaflocker.

'Doctor J' is a classics nerd and lecturer, so he started his project with a level of base knowledge that I don't have, but I'm going to take advantage of his disciplined approach and see if I can't make it work for little old undisciplined me. Still, though, the whole project is a big ask, there's a whole book of Freud, a whole bunch of Aristotle, and there's the very fair criticism that this list is, on the whole, a list suffering from a surfeit of Dead White Males.

With that in mind, I'm going to make some changes while staying as close to his framework as possible, so that I can still crib from it mercilessly. First, I'm not reading anything on the 'Gateway' list, if it didn't make the first 59 volumes, I'm not interested. Second, I'm not reading anything that isn't acknowledged by at least two other authoritative lists of Great Books as complied helpfully here, to counter Mr. Adler's odder choices. I plan to re-read anything I've read before, given that I'm sure to become a wiser and more discerning reader having begun the Conversation. And finally, I reserve the right to get bored of an author and dump the rest of their stuff. These rules will dump out a lot of early 20th century psychology and some of the less popular works of the Greeks and Romans, but keep many of the history and development of the sciences books that I'd kind of like to read, if only for the giggles.

In order to plug the gaps I create by cutting almost 20% of the content off the bat, I'll supplement the list with the other high-ranking titles from GreaterBooks that Adler left off of his list, and we'll just read through these additions at whatever pace seems to fit in with Doctor J's plan best. This should help me combat Dead White Male syndrome as well as greatly supplementing my fiction reading, which should help me stay sane. I might also still read other books for fun, but as much as possible for the next seven years or until I get bored, I'm going to read 100 pages a week of the best books of all time.

So, what stands before us? 293 books. Some large, some small. No science fiction unless you count Gulliver. I hate to think how many pages. From across the gamut of fiction and verity, philosophy, poetry and the natural sciences. 104 were originally written in Ancient Greek. 20 were written in Latin. A stupidly large number of them are by some guy called Shakespeare. I've read nearly 10% of them before, but the rest are almost entirely new. And of course, I'll post the reading plan as we go so that you can play along, in whole or in part as you see fit, at home. Most of these books are available either free on the internet or from your local library in dead tree form, one of the advantages for reading things that are in large part millenia old.

WEEK ONE READINGS
Because Doctor J started off most of the first year with the Gateway series that I've refused to read, the first year is going to be very heavy in those books that make many other lists but that Mr. Adler didn't see fit to add to Great Books of the Western World. For the first three or four weeks, we don't touch the Great Books at all, this gives us a chance to start off relatively simply with a bit of more 'modern' fiction than we can expect to find throughout most of the project and ease ourselves into the Conversation. I've chosen three books to start with for the simple virtue of their being on my shelves already.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

#not_gbww #copyrighted #fiction #english

Part One, Ch. 1 - 9 (30 Pages)

I've tried Lolita before and gave up because the subject matter just creeped me out too much. Let's see how we go this time. This one is still in copyright here in Australia, so if you're not able to get your hands on it, you're excused.

Hard Times by Charles Dickens

#not_gbww #fiction #english

Book the First, Ch. 1 - 7 (43 pages)

I've read a bit of Dickins over the years and always had fun in a brainless kind of way. I'd expect the biggest difficulty not to be anything about Dickins' writing at all at all but more to do with the fact that my copy used to belong to a chain smoker. That said, this is reputed to be the toughest, least fun Dickens of them all, so let's not count our chickens.

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

#not_gbww #fiction #french

Book the First, Ch. 1 - 7 (24 pages)

I last attempted this one only a couple of years ago and got about 80% of the way through before getting distracted by other things. I was enjoying it though, even if Hugo is as distractable as I am, so I don't foresee any problems getting this one polished off.

Let's get reading!

The Language of the Birds

Portrayed today is a face that I hope is recognisable to you all as our current pontiff, Pope Francis, in all his chintacular glory (actually, I'm feeling like I've underdone the chin this time, but the fact remains that the man's facial features are a godsend to cartoonists). If you're new to the Leaflocker I guess this is my chance to let you know that despite a complete lack of artistic and technical ability I'm an aspiring cartoonist. This is a bit of a problem, as all my characters look the same and I can't convey emotion or draw scenery or much of anything else, but it's an interesting mental diversion, if nothing else.

Since Francis became pope I haven't talked all that much about the papacy. Partly, this is because I'm a bit of a hipster at heart and all these people talking about the pope was killing my vibe, and partly because I don't see the need to talk about it so much because the new pope is good at staying in the limelight. Francis' twitter account, @Pontifex, is one of the biggest out there, a level of popularity that poor old Benedict XVI could only dream of, and his PR people (though presumably he does his own stunts), apart from the occasional incidents with feral birdlife, do an excellent job getting his message out there.

This is a little comic riffing on that and quoting an under-appreciated Aussie poet. I didn't really have anything to say, it just seemed apt. As one of presumably not that many twitter people (am I a twitter person now?) capable of quoting Creeve Roe from memory, I figured I might as well Juxtapose the two ideas and see if it works for other people like it works for me.

Francis is a problem for my comic. I like the man, I like him far too much to leave him out of Habemus Papas, if I ever get around to writing it, and I think he makes a good counter to Benedict XVI (not since John XXIII and Paul VI has there ever been such a prime example of the old adage, after a fat pope, a thin pope), plus of course he's fun to draw; but he messes with my balance. 

Before Francis, my main cast consisted of Benedict and his counterpoint an predecessor John Paul II as the protagonists, JPI as the Green Ranger, and John and Paul as the odd couple comic relief characters. With Francis in he mix, the Benedict/Francis interplay is too good to pass up, and this relegates JP II to a more minor role, and in turn reduces the importance of JPI, and I love JPI. I mean, the guy wrote letters to fictional characters. It also removes my need to have 'Beautiful' Georg Ganswein as a major character, and I can't decide if I like that or not. Because even though he's not a pope he's still fun to play with.

Still, I've re-written the first eight pages (the sum total of the actual comic I've ever written) with Francis and Benedict instead of Benedict and Msgr. Ganswein, and I like it better this way. All I need to do now is learn to draw and then summon up the courage to actually post the thing before another pope dies or retires and I have to rewrite it all over again.

Then comes actually telling a real story instead of just introducing 'all' the characters, but let's not get ahead of ourselves...and let's not leave a post in which we mention St. Francis without linking to the always excellent Kate Beaton.

It Sneaks Up On You

So, since I have Parliament House to myself this afternoon and am still having fun with this gaming thing, I've gone ahead and recorded another session of Imperial Era Battle for Wesnoth. This one follows on from yesterday's post, so if you've seen that and are interested in seeing what comes next, fell free to check it out.

Since in theory I planned for my weekend posts to have something of a religious nature, I'll now take a leaf out of the book of many preachers I've known over the years and draw some very long bows in order to connect scripture and gaming, then run with that theme for a little while. The video is a straight let's play, but the text from this point is likely to get all Christiany,  so this is your final chance to go talk about the mechanics of grapplers in fighter games if you're going to find the idea of me preaching at you too offensive.

I had a couple of ideas for what I wanted to talk about today, but settled on the obvious one given that instead of posting what I was vaguely planning to do today I've been playing video games. Let's say it together...Idolatry. A fancy pants way of saying 'getting your priorities all stuffed up'. Biblically, the most obvious examples are back in Exodus (Ex. 32 for those of your playing along at home) after the Israelites have been delivered from slavery, they set up camp at Mount Sinai, Moses heads up the hill to meet with the big guy, and immediately by the time he's come back down, despite everything that they've just seen and experienced, they've set up a complicated gold-smithing rig, melted their remaining possessions to make a golden idol, and are worshipping that instead. Talk about fickle. I mean, dude.

They do this over and over again, substituting foreign religions or their own made up ones dozens, hundreds of times, and I know what that's like. The Israelites knew acutely what their God had done for them, knew that he demanded their loyalty, but still went running to the shinies whenever things got difficult. I know the habits that I should be propagating if I'm going to be the kind of person that I want to be. And maybe it should be easier for me that for my non-religious friends because I have a set of guidelines handed down on how I'm supposed to do it. But I don't do those things because that would cut down on my crucial sleeping, gaming and reading times.

It's easy to stuff up your priorities, but as a practicing Christian I'm very fortunate that I go along to church most weeks and along with some tasty bread and wine, and the fellowship of good people, I get regular reminders and time to think about where I should be, where I am, and what's gone wrong. Even if I completely neglect my own personal discipline in favour of playing Wesnoth, which has been known to happen on occasion, I have a fall-back. Still, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that because you have a fall back you don't need to spend time trying to get it right the first time, a trap I fall into with my spiritual life just as much as I do when I'm attempting to organise a video-games convention.

I know some of my non-Christian friends would be jumping up and down right now, saying, "But Ted, you're still a good guy, you just believe in this crackpot god that has unrealistic standards and is trying to guilt you into being a boring copy of your great-father. Why bother?" But the fact of the matter is no matter how real you might believe my version of the Christian God to be, I can't escape the apparent fact that when I'm practising my religion that I'm more attuned to the saviour that changed my life. I'm more understanding, less selfish, I feel stronger, and happier, and more capable, and I think every now and then I even take a good shot at wisdom. And I'd happily trade the person that I am most days for a person with those attributes. It's not about being a 'good Christian', it's about being a better version of myself, and I think that's a goal that everyone can aspire to.

I could go on, but those who get it don't need it, and those who don't get it are undoubtedly waiting for me to get to the point, so here it is. If I can find time to blog every day, if I can find time to read every day, I can can find time to play, record, and upload Wesnoth videos, even at the horrendous speeds of Australian internet connections, then I have the time, and I should use the time to take the tools I've been given, be they spiritual, or philosophical, or anything else, to try to become the better version of myself that I know that I can be.

My Christian teaching tells me that there's a better, more prefect version of everyone out there waiting to be found, and that there always will be no matter how hard we strive, since we were made as copies of a perfect creator. It's not pessimistic at all, it's honest. I know myself well enough to know that I'm not perfect and to have my doubts about other people too. I guess the argument falls down if you believe that you're already the best possible version of yourself, but if you don't, then work out what direction 'best' is for you, and try attaining it every once in a while.

For me, my best is found in my religion, in immersing myself in the bible, in prayer, and in conversations with godly people. In striving to meet the example of my saviour. And I see it often and acutely at the oddest moments, and live for those moments when I know I'm on the right path. For you? I don't presume to know, but I'd like to take this time to encourage you to find out if you don't know, and if you do, the practice your 'religion', whatever it is, for a bit too, and leave the idols alone for a little bit.

Which reminds me, I've got something I need to do now. Tune in tomorrow for something a little more light-hearted.

Leaflocker Goes 'New Media'

I got into blogging about 10 years after the cool kids stopped doing it, so YouTube has been going long enough and well enough now that it's about time I joined up for something else than re-runs of British quiz shows.

I'd planned to post a bit about the experience of maintaining a mod for Battle for Wesnoth, something I've been privileged to do for the last five years or so. Sadly, writer's block has set in early this August, and I couldn't write something today to save my life, so I made a gameplay video instead. Another cop out, but if I get a bit better at this YouTube thing, I can foresee some further use for it down the track.

The quality is terrible, I know, so if you have ideas on a way to do this better, I'd be very willing to take suggestions.

If low-quality videos of turn-based strategy games aren't your thing, you could head over to Michael's blog and watch his higher-resolution efforts to play Dark Souls. If games in general aren't your thing, why there's lots of other fare out there. Notably, Ale made some pretty drawings, and Mason wrote about Batman fanart.