Showing posts with label board games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label board games. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

10 Unknown Facts about Dave Arneson

Ladies and Gentlemen, wow what a hiatus that I didn't mean to take. The day of my last post two weeks ago, I found out Dave Arneson, co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons died, and I wanted to do a tribute that wasn't just a ten unknown facts list. I couldn't think of anything, but I wanted that to be my next post. Time passed. I still couldn't think of anything. Then I got caught up in job interviews and wedding plans and work and writing (I've started a novel) and so many other things. So today, two weeks later, I say enough is enough. It's time I get this truth train back on track with something I didn't want to do but if I had, I'd have never derailed in the Andes in the first place...

So, to start my big game of catch-up...

10 Unknown Facts about Dave Arneson:
  1. Dave Arneson was once a member of Flight of the Conchords, but his fear of heights made the band's name hypothetically terrifying and he was forced to quit for anxiety reasons.
  2. Dave Arneson taught John Constantine everything he knows about doing magic and making tea.
  3. Dave Arneson could make eggless quiche.
  4. Dave Arneson was the first Settler of Catan.
  5. It is grammatically correct for DaVe aRNEsON to capitalize any letters in his name that he pleases.
  6. Dave Arneson once genetically crossed a bee and dog so when they played fetch, if the stick accidentally landed on the roof, the dog could get it. Plus, Dog Honey is super tastey. Plus, it was just super adorable.
  7. During the Cold War, Dave Arneson was on the side of Luke Warm.
  8. Dave Arneson was genetically incapable of being a jerk to anyone due to a mutation in his amygdala.
  9. Dave ARneson had an impressive chin bust collection, including busts of the chins of Jay Leno, Bruce Cambell, and Carl Sandberg--who didn't have an impressive chin himself but did write a poem about people with proud chins.
  10. Dave Arneson knew the secret ending to Lost, but took the secret to his grave (believe me, I tried to get it out of him).
It's not much. I wanted to do something more, but I couldn't think of anything, so here's a list for you, Dave. Thanks for helping to provide me with some of my favorite times growing up.

You have been informed.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Women Love Men Who Lose

Ladies and Gentlemen, I apologize for my absence yesterday. It was very busy, and by the time I was done doing all I needed to do, I was exhausted and my fiancee was angry with me, so I could not post. I did, at least, learn something valuable.

Women love men who lose.

Yes, I know that's the subject of the post, but I figured it was important enough to bear repeating. Last night, my fiancee and I and another couple were playing a game of Descent (with the Road to Legend expansion for those who care) and they decided it would be a good idea to take on a certain major bad guy and his minions that I control. I cautioned them. All day, I had been telling them, "If you do this now, you guys will lose, and here is how it will happen." I showed them his stats. I showed them the stats of the minions he would have. I emphasized that they weren't ready to take him on yet. The male in the party who was on the heroes' side convinced the two women playing (his girlfriend and my fiancee) that they should take him on. So take him on they did. And they all died really horribly. In exactly the way I said it would happen. And everyone hated me and no one blamed the guy who said they should do it.

What this tells me is that women love men who lose. (See? There it is again.) After all, after a guy gets beat up by a bully, who gets the attention? The victim. Who gets the cold shoulder? The winner. After a tough game of (insert sport here), sure afterward, women may be excited when their men win, but they are affectionate and caring when the guy loses. When I play a game of Settlers of Catan and I win, who gets the cold shoulder? I do. And who is she suddenly chummy with as they complain about me? Whoever lost.

There are many possible explanations. Perhaps losers appeal to the genetically hardwired nurturing caregiver role. Perhaps it's a result of the Feminist movement, in which winning gives women a sense of smug superiority and men who win challenge their faith in equality. I don't think this is the case. After all, they lost as well last night, so they wouldn't have that sense of superiority over the losing man. I suspect women are planning a coup and things like this are all shadowy information gathering practices. When a man loses, they say kind words like, "It's ok if you lose. It happens to everyone." Then they report back to their secret female headquarters and inform their leader that one more male has been neutralized. He was found not to be a threat to the cause and was made less dangerous by being convinced that when the time comes, it's ok to be defeated by women so he won't try as hard. And when men win against them, women get angry, they give cold shoulders and otherwise make things unpleasant so that the winning men begin to think that perhaps life would be easier if they allowed their girlfriends to win. Another threat neutralized.

And who is this leader? Gloria Steinem, the American feminist icon? Hardly. The real leader of the revolution is someone almost every woman on the planet looks up to, turns to for advice, and otherwise lets dictate their lives and opinions. I'm talking about Oprah Winfrey. She has her daily propaganda hour for the Cult of Oprah (or CoO). Don't think we don't know your book club is really all about subversive literature with subliminal messages and secret codes. Why did everyone in your audience get a car that day? Blitzkrieg, baby. You needed your army mobile and figured any man in your audience was already on your side. You teach men that it's okay to deny our instincts and not fight when we feel threatened so that when the OLA (Oprah Liberation Army) rolls through, we'll sit idly by reading The Color Purple, drinking our chamomille tea, and talking about our feelings. We'll be unable to react to your CoO Coup ways.

Oprah's plans don't end there though. Once Overlord Oprah has proclaimed herself Dictator for Life, she'll ship men off to sensitivity camps where we'll stitch blankets for sixteen hours a day while watching Thelma and Louis and How Stella Got Her Groove Back. It seems innocent enough I suppose. Not pleasant, but at least not physically dangerous. But the plot spreads even wider, for she broadcasts her show via uninhibited VHF airwaves. That's why she isn't on cable tv. It limits her audience. It only goes where the hardwired cable goes. If she broadcasts on a non-premium  analog-and-antenna network, the signal for her show goes everywhere. Even into space. Aliens get her show. Suddenly, femaliens tell maliens to take their feet off the coffee table because it's not an ottoman. Intergalactic workshops all across the galaxy are turned into intergalactic crafts and scrapbooking rooms. Now, extra-terrestrial cultures are no longer technologically or psychologically prepared for an Oprah attack. They'll just want to cuddle up with each other and share their hopes and dreams. And what will they cuddle up under? Blankets. Blankets made by Earth males.

Flash back to Earth. The men in the Quilting Camps will be watching sad movies ALL. DAY. LONG. That's a lot of tears, and more importantly, a lot of sniffling. So at the end of Beaches when she sings "Wind Beneath My Wings," the men will need someplace to blow their noses from all of the sad, sad sniffling. Our blankets are now filled with disease. Oprah then takes these diseased blankets into space and gives them to the (now) peaceful aliens who just want to cuddle and snuggle. They get sick. They get weak. They get taken over by Oprah, intergalactic reinventor of the colonists' conqueror's oldest trick.

Oprah wants to be Queen of the Universe.

And that's why women love men who lose.

You have been informed.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Board Games Attract Women

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have to make this quick. I had a rollickin' party that ran until five a.m., woke up at ten to clean, and now I have more Christmas shindigs to go to very shortly. Clearly I'm a very busy man so I don't have time to read whole articles, but if the headlines are any indication (and they should be, headlines are meant to be interpreted literally), but men seeking mates should carry around board games. The headline was "Guys may flirt with risk more to score a mate." Some of you may think that the word "risk" is not applying to the board game, because it isn't capitalized or it doesn't make sense. Let me tell you something, every word except articles and prepositions, except when at the beginning of a title, are supposed to be capitalized. Therefore, failure to capitalize Risk is a mark of laziness, not a sign that it's not referring to the board game. Secondly, it uses the word "score" in regards to mate. Not secure. Not attract. Score. As in games. The technique then, as I am forced to assume due to time constraints, is to carry around a copy of risk. When an attractive female comes by, flirt with Risk. Give it all of your attention. The woman will then become jealous of the board game and fight for your affections. It makes sense to me. Everyone knows jealousy and denying attention is the best way to attract a mate. Make them prove they're worth the effort, that the domination they're proposing is more fun than the game of global domination.


You have been informed.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Vampires and Plagues.

Ladies and Gentlemen, there are strange things afoot. From time to time, I go undercover and try to figure out what the vampires of my area are up to. Mostly it's just burning down buildings and writing bad poetry and killing each other. And dancing. Some vampires really like to dance. But the vampires in Fort Worth, Texas are particularly heinous I'm told. I don't know if that means their poetry is worse or their dancing more pretentious, but I don't want to find out. What I do know, is that there's been talk among the vampires about a killer virus. Granted it killed vampires and not people, but that's beside the point. So what does any of this mean?

Recently, I ordered a board game called Pandemic. In this board game, a number of viruses are spreading all over the world and the players must work together to stop the outbreaks before all of humanity is destroyed. While shipping the board game to me, Fed Ex stopped its travel for the night at Fort Worth. The vampires surely know I'm in their midst even if they don't know who exactly I am. They've read my blog, cyberstalked me, and have intercepted my package. It can be no coincidence that a game about a humanity killing plague stopped in Fort Worth of all places.

I think these evil vampires have a deadly virus or two and are using my board game to determine how, where, and when to best release the virus(es). If they lose the game enough times in a row, they'll determine the outbreak pattern is sufficient to kill us all.

Tomorrow, I go undercover among the vampires again. I must learn more about what they want with my board game and try to stop them. I'd do it tonight, but tonight, I'm hunting zombies in New Orleans.

You have been informed.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Ladies and Gentlemen, Happy Thank the Native Americans for Sharing Their Food so the Pilgrims Wouldn't Die Day!

Ordinarily, on this day, I make a post saying I'm thankful for my friends and family and freedoms and education and stuff, but that's an every year thing, and I think by this point, it goes without saying. Likewise, I've already shared ten facts about this holiday, so further illuminating you on the subject would only give me less to say next year. So today, I'm going to express gratitude for the more unlikely things in my life that helped me get here.

Thank you, Pen-and-Paper RPGs, for introducing me to so many friends and for helping me develop my creativity and social skills growing up.

Thank you, Theatre for letting me be someone else for a while and for introducing me to my fiancee.

Thank you, Calvin and Hobbes, for telling me as I was growing up that it's ok to be smart and a little different.

Thank you, Good Books, for finally breaking me of the habit of literally walking around crying as a small child saying, "I'm bored. There's nothing to do!"

Thank you, Internet, for making it easy to keep in touch with old friends, learn more about new things, and watch amusing videos like this.

Thank you, Movie Theater Job, for giving me so much time to design board games on the clock when business was slow.

Thank you, Readers, for giving me a reason to keep researching.

I think that'll about do it for now. I have cooking to pretend to help with. Now go out, be thankful, eat food, spend time with your family and friends, andget to bed early in a combination of tryptophan overdose and getting ready for the Black Friday sales tomorrow. (except for readers abroad. I'm sorry. I don't think you guys have Black Friday sales tomorrow unless you shop from online American retailers.)

Happy Holidays.

You have been thanked.