Another Xmas Bites the Dust

Up Periscope (a photo essay in which more ambitious readers are invited to supply their own text)

Beltsville


Sub Search Game


Wrong Deployment


Admiralty


Torpedoes Away!


Victory at Sea


Brownies


What the Sam Hell?


Push the Button

December Depth Charge!

First of all Red and Blame showed up and sat around waiting for the remaining players. Then the Doc showed and more waiting took place. Then 2 calls. One other player would be late and another was sick. More waiting. And in the bored interval an idle conversation began to fill the weary delay. That's when the dander began to rise and flush rose to cheek! Thank Chet Dennis showed when he did or surely things would have come to an ugly, scarring pass! And now on to the evenings entertainment!

Game One: "Sub Search"

Brrr ...Ping! Brrr ...Ping! Sub Search! A 1960's vintage game of two teams blindly groping a 3 level grid in search of enemy submersibles! Brrr ...Ping! Depth charge! Ker-whumpf! Torpedoes! Fire vun! Whoosh! Ka-Blooey!
Glub! At right we see the excited owner of this gem. Below Dr. K watches his team mate do a search and destroy on hapless enemy mariners.

At right (below) we see the results! Grim faced and weary with the fight the victors display the blank face of hollow victory.

Many brave souls are asleep in the deep! So beware!

Game Two: "Reflex"
This one was one of myriad early '80's electronic push button annoyances! Gleep! Urp! Zeep! BLAAAAAH! Dennis and the Doc nodded over a game or two of chase the blinking light before finally surrendering. Who won? No one cared. Dr Kirby was intrigued enough to try a solo outing. (see below left)

And did he win? Of course! In the end he turned the dang thing off and got back to what the game crew does best ...eat, drink and smart mouth merilly on topics they know little or nothing about! Happy Holidays to all and to all GOOD NIGHT!!! See ya' next year!

November Nonsense

Game One: "Outwit"

A game of deceptive simplicity. Checker like pieces are moved into opposite corners of the board. Hmm ..Doesn't seem like this sort of challenge offers much in the way of thrill a minute fun. The guys played as two teams and while the rules weren't too involved they may seem cryptic to any but the most hardened of gamers such as we. (see picture of box interior at lower left)

The game ended in a draw. Huh. Go figure!

Game Two: "Holly Hobby"

Grown women across the land may recall the "Hobby" craze of the 1980's but only half of the game crew did. Steady nerves were needed for this event and as we can see from the pic below a bolstering distillation wasn't out of order.

At lower right we see the winner. I can honestly say I'm glad I lost this one! And now without further embarrassment let us move on.

Game Three: "Survive!"

At last! A man's game! Vicious sharks, whales, sea serpents, a sinking island and life boats! Struggling swimmers adrift in the roiling sea! Back stabbing! Survival of the fittest! And best of all? The game ending in a titanic volcanic explosion of the island!!! Wow! What more can a MAN ask for in a game?

On the left we see Dr. Kirby gripped with the thrill of the contest! Below is our winner. This almost makes up for the game before this one (which I cannot bring myself to name again). Congrats!

Game Four: "Green Ghost"

At lower right is a disappointed Doc K, clutching his beloved and unplayed game. Time and interest ran out on this one. Thank goodness too! I've owned this game before and let's just say I think I'd rather play the "no longer mentioned" game above over again rather than be subjected to this pitiful pea colored poltergeist! Boo who?

Out Twit, Out Gay, Out Survive!

Behold the sterling selection of dark November’s diversions:



First up a sort of checkers, Outwit.



Not bad. Team West was able to force a stalemate where they were unable to win against Team East. Cheer up Colonel, stalemate is honorable.



Oh, oh, Team East is falling asleep.



Damn, it’s catching.
Time to move on to the Hollie Hobby Wishing Well. The girliest game ever to breach the Undisclosed Location.



“Do you have a Good Friend?” Say it as swishy as you can, Brother. No problem with that though as it broke my Game Night victory drought.
On to the Island of Dr. Moreau.



It is for such adventure that I brave the chill northern evenings. That and the grilled cheese sandwiches at Ye Olde Game Night Tavern.



A whale of a tale of shark infested waters and mythical sea critters. And guess what, matey?



Won that one too. My testosterone restored.
Finally, a peek at Game Nights yet to come:



Hold that pose Doc. See you in December.

Movie Night SUCKOLA!

Bad Movie Night! First Item: Frank Zappa on Saturday Night Live circa 1978:
Well ...the evening started out fine with Zappa and crew doing some lovely tune and a rather weak sketch. Unfortunately the weak sketch was the portent of things to come. From here we went into our first feature...






"Call of Cthulluh"
When the credits first ran I thought "Wow! This is going to be ultra-horrorshow!" HA! Dr Kirby kept apologizing (or maybe better, explaining) that this is what H.P.Lovecraft is like. A ton of build up and not a lot of delivery. Still, I figured it was OK. After all, I'd bought and brought the darn thing, kept it stored minty fresh sealed for nearly a year just waiting for the spooky month of October to haul it out for a view. And flop? Kinda but who cares when the next feature stars ***JULIE STRAIN*** pant-pant!





















Feature Three: "Morgana - Seduce! Conquer! Destroy!"
STARRING JULIE STRAIN!!!!! (see pic below)
Now ...an all American red blooded male such as myself would have to ask in all honesty how it would be possible to make an unwatchable film with the lady on the magazine cover below? Especially if she had even less clothes on in the movie!??? So awful we stopped watching after 20 minutes and went back to.....


















Final Feature: "Devo and Frank on Saturday night Live circa 1978"
Yep! Had to back down and sit through some pretty retarded comedy sketches from days of yore trying to salvage the evening.
The Apology:
I would like to take this space to apologize to the Dyced Crew for putting them through such a wretched eye dry misery crawl. The moral of the story for me is: "ALWAYS VIEW WHAT YOU'RE BRINGING BEFORE YOU EXPOSE OTHERS TO IT! TWIT!....ALWAYS!!!" Trying to come in with minty fresh sealed trash can just leave the entire place smelling like an outhouse. P-U!!!!!And now in my defense I'd like once more to show the pic of JULIE STRAIN!!!! For the love of structural female pulchritude! Can someone explain to me how anybody could make such a dog barkin' awful bore with a gal of these dimensions at their disposal?!?!?! Can anyone?!?!?! PLEASE?!?!?! Huh?!?!

Cthulhu fhtagn

They were not composed altogether of flesh and blood. They had shape...but that shape was not made of matter. When the stars were right, They could plunge from world to world through the sky; but when the stars were wrong, They could not live. But although They no longer lived, They would never really die. They all lay in stone houses in Their great city of R'lyeh, preserved by the spells of mighty Cthulhu for a glorious resurrection when the stars and the earth might once more be ready for Them.         Lovecraft, Howard P. "The Call of Cthulhu"

Well, Howard, what are we to make of this? Bad dreams? A harrowing ride on the subway crammed in with the savage hoards? Madness?

This is not someone who is overcome by fear. He would not dwell on such bad dreams if he could not face them. The alien terror that he is, after all, attempting to unleash on us, his readers, is rather a weapon which is his revenge for what has really overcome him, humiliation. Humiliation has been his lot whenever he has ventured outside of the family sanctuary. A sanctuary which has inevitably lost its guardian spirits: first his father, then mother, then grandfather, then aunts. It is incomprehensible to the boy how the Old Ones came to be stripped of their power and it is unknown to him what will summon their return. But it must be so that they will return for otherwise there will be no vindication for him against the inevitably hostile world outside.

Then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.

And, at last, little Howie Lovecraft will get off.

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

And that, my friends, is all I have to say about this Bad Movie Night. Duty Now for the Future!

Sacajawacky September

Game One: "Lionel's Double Crossing"
A fine example of where the term "Railroaded" came from. As the only member of the fearsome fivesome to have actually toiled on the steel snake it was fitting that I take home the win on this contest. See me gloat below! Players choose their choo-choo, pick up rolling stock and then try and drop it off for contracts. Six contracts delivered wins the game. A question arose as to how players were to get more money once theirs was expended. Hmm ... Didn't see that in the rules ...ah ... maybe next time. Poor Doc K didn't get a single delivery done. I guess he needs more "training"! Ha! Game Two: "Adlibs"
This game was a great grandaddy of the now infamous "Apples to Apples" game series (see earlier posts). Photos of odd people in strange situations are displayed and players match actual ad copy from cards they hold in their hands. Everyone votes for their favorite and points are awarded based on vote spread and ownership of the saying. Make sense? Yeah ...sort of. Fun enough that we played two rounds. I believe I won one and the other was ...uh one of the other guys! (This is a clear indication that Mr. Beam was a visitor) Another excuse for amnesiatic stupification may be the final offering of the evening..............











Game Three: "Hunch"
Below is the sad owner of this Chinese Checker variant, the sorrowful Dr. Kirby, hiding his embarrassment behind the pathetic container of this bad baby. He warned us even before we started that the stink potential of this one was extremely high. Would that the crew could have smelled it coming. It didn't totally peg the pong-o-meter but came close. Players struggle to move their marbles across the board at the whim of a color coded wheel, spun each turn and dictating whether a move forward, backward or movement at all will be allowed depending on a number from 1 to 10 picked at the outset. After being foiled of movement for several turns in a row one player began wheeling the spinner round and round in a desperate attempt to see if there was any possibilty of a certain marble moving at all. No! NO? Wha!? Huh? So ... you could play and play and play and never be allowed to move? Seems a bit fishy. But wait! The light shone forth!














Blame Game came to the mystic realization (see below) that there was nothing in the rules that said one player could not aid another player in their quest to win and thereby end this mad marbled marathon! YOU-REEK-AH!
And so it came to pass that everyone co-operated ala that other marble wonder "Yin-Yang" (see older posts) and an end came at long last. Mercifully! Below we see the relieved champion, his Michigan gold mini orbs rowed opposite him in the position of win. Congrats and may all his marbles be won and never lost!

Three on a Match

On a railroad train you should be careful not to assail the nostrils of fellow passengers with strong odors of any kind. An odor that may seem to you refreshing, may cause others who dislike it and are “poor travelers” to suffer really great distress. There is a combination of banana and the leather smell of a valise containing food, that is to many people an immediate emetic. The smell of a banana or an orange, is in fact to nearly all bad travelers the last straw. In America where there are “diners” on every Pullman train, the food odors are seldom encountered in parlor cars, but in Europe where railroad carriages are small, one fruit enthusiast can make his traveling companions more utterly wretched than perhaps he can imagine. The cigar which is smoldering has, on most women, the same effect. Certain perfumes that are particularly heavy, make others ill. To at least half of an average trainful of people, strong odors of one kind or another are disagreeable if not actually nauseating.


Sage advice from Emily Post


Another tip: While "Double Crossing" stick to the inside track until you've added a few cars. But, getting back to the issue of food on the train, what about cherry tomatoes? Mmmmm. And cocoa almonds? Passenger trains are a waste of money anyway. Boxcar me, baby! And pass the Beam, it's going to be a long night.

On the subject of long nights, let me just interject that the "September Trilogy" post below is evidence that the only way I can embed Game Night video from flickr herein is all by itself. And so it shall be. The unsuspecting should be made aware that the most truly pointless videos from this month as well as all videos from August (which were, every one, worth not a paper farthing) can and should be found on the World Renowned Game Night Flickr Set as follows: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23129636@N02/sets/72157603820898882/detail/?page=9

along with, as usual, the excruciatingly detailed versions of these pics. Readers who, for whatever reason, may wish to peruse the historic AHC Landlocked Film Festival Trek as well could do worse than to look here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23129636@N02/sets/72157622210293160/detail/

Come all you rounders that want to hear

The story of a brave engineer.

Casey Jones was the rounder's name,

On a six eight wheeler, boys, he won his fame.

Snazzy hat, Colonel!

Advertising, as Don Draper points out, is all about suggestive text and salacious visuals. Naturally there was no stopping me on this one, my first Game Night win since Groundhog Day. So nice we had to play it twice and the Col. tops out with the fruit. Don't be bringing that stuff on the train now!

Twice, I said. Now what else comes in pairs? Melons, it seems, come threes.

And two it should have stayed because three was certainly a crowd this night. A crowd of stupid extensions of Chinese Checkers. The normally disciplined game kings dissolve into cursing and, yes, covert and blatant cheating. Never seen the like. After more than any of us could endure without recourse to weapons or smelly fruit the match was awarded to Dennis on account of his being more out of focus by that point than anyone else.

You know what they say about three on a match!