“‘A loaf of bread,’ the Walrus said, ‘is what we chiefly need….’” —Lewis Carroll
sourdough wheat by SPMy grandmother, whom I’ve talked about here before, made every loaf of bread her family ever consumed. She was 96 when she died and still baking bread right up until the last couple months of her life. Being the grandchild most like her, and the lucky student of much of her practical homesteading knowledge, I’ve been baking bread since I was a child of about five1.
jesse.in.mb and I regularly chat about bread. We aren’t crazy-obsessed bread bakers, but we’re both always experimenting and sharing our tasty results with the other Founders lucky enough to reside near (or with) us2.
sourdough twosome by jesse.in.mbRecently, sourdough has been enjoying a bit of a renaissance. The New York Times3 did a nice article a couple years ago, which includes several recipes.
Sourdough starter can be used for so many things! Bread, of course, but also pancakes, waffles, crepes, muffins, cookies, cakes, tortillas, hushpuppies, pizza dough, crackers, and even noodles.
While baking multiple loaves of bread this past weekend, I started wondering if anyone else among the Glibertariat is a sourdough baker4. As each starter is unique depending on composition and kitchen of origin, I’d love to start a sourdough starter exchange sometime. Any takers?
sourdough wheat by SP
sourdough white sandwich loaf by SP
sourdough what-in-the-name-of-all-that-is-holy-is-this-abomination by jesse.in.mb
sourdough something made by jesse.in.mb who used to be a friend of mine
1. So almost 4 years now!
2. We also share our baking photos with those far away, just to torment them a little.
3. Sometimes the NYT isn’t completely evil.
4. And also why so few of the Glibs are submitting recipes. Link at top of page!
Yesrerday’s UCL games in one word: boring. Liverpool had an insurmountable lead and cruised to a 0-0 draw ahead of their match with ManUre this weekend while PSG had an insurmountable task and pretty much sat down against Real Madrid. Hopefully today’s matches will bring a little more excitement.
I’ll tell you what is exciting though: the NCAA conference championships. Gonzaga won the WCC for what seems like the umpteenth time in a row. SoDak State beat SoDak and will head to the dance with them. Also punching their ticket are Charleston, who came back from a ton to beat Northeastern, who ch-, ch-, choked big as shit. LIU-Brooklyn made it in as did the Raiders from Wright State University. Which means Dayton will represent this year even if the Flyers did manage to completely shit the bed. More finals on tap today and the big conferences, with the exception of the Bg Ten, are getting their tournaments ramped up.
Nine games on the ice last night. Here’s your recap: Red Wings fall in OT to the Bruins. Devils top Les Canadiens. Blue Jackets beat Army/Vegas. The Jets top the Rangers. The Lightning strike the Panthers. The Predators shut out the Stars. The Blackhawks get a rare (lately) win in OT. The Hurricanes were beaten by the MINNESOOOOOOOOOOOOODA WIIIIIIIIIIIIIILD! And the Anaheim Mighty Ducks blanked the Crapitals. Congrats to the winners.
And today is the birthday of Scottish rabble-rouser Rob Roy, the composer Ravel (whose music I quite enjoy), Willard Scott, Tammy Faye Bakker, Peter Wolf of the J Giels Band, Bryan Cranston from Malcolm In The Middle, Wanda Sykes, the lovely Rachel Weisz, Flipper Anderson and one of my favorite authors Brett Easton Ellis.
I’ll work on the delivery of that new segment. Give me a little time to work it out. Meanwhile, enjoy…the links!
This is what I think about giving up my nukes!
Remember when I said yesterday that we should probably discount what Kim said about getting rid of his nukes? Well here’s why. That crazy bastard could have at least sucked some sweet dough out of those European pussies if he’d have just kept his mouth shut. Now he might get nothing.
As the DOJ sues California for its sanctuary state policy, details start to emerge about some of the illegal immigrants that evaded capture due to the warning given by the Oakland mayor. If one of those felons committees another crime coupled with the Kate Steinle debacle, I could see the tide turning on them. (Just kidding. The “if it saves just one life” slogans only work when the left is trying to take a fundamental right away from somebody, not when it comes to removing someone with multiple felonies who happens to also be here illegally.)
The Nashville mayor who was banging her head of security while he was bilking taxpayers out of tens of thousands of tax dollars, has finally decided to do the honorable thing and resign from office. She also pleaded guilty to felony theft, as did her lover/bodyguard. Both of them will be eligible to have their convictions expunged in a few years as part of a sweet plea deal. Convicted Chicago politicians, of which there are plenty, give a collective “WTF?!?!?!” to the arrangement.
Martin Shkreli: what crime did he commit again, other than piss off some politicians?
What do you do when you voluntarily agree to terms of employment tied to your education and you later don’t like them? Do you quit and go somewhere else? Do you continue to honor your agreement? Hell no, you don’t! You go on strike and occupy the office of the people you are “negotiating” with. I suspect the school will roll over, but I wish they’d call the state police and have them removed, expelled them and let every school in America know they’re not the kind of people you make an agreement with because they’ll simply ignore it when it doesn’t go their way.
A bloc of House Democrats is calling for an ethics investigation into the widespread practice of lawmakers sleeping in their offices, arguing it’s an abuse of taxpayer funds.
More than two dozen members of the Congressional Black Caucus signed on to a letter obtained by POLITICO to Ethics Committee Chairwoman Susan Brooks (R-Ind.) and ranking member Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) asking for a probe into the “legality and propriety” of such conduct by members of Congress.
“There’s something unsanitary about bringing people to your office who are talking about public policy where you spent the night, and that’s unhealthy, unsanitary — and some people would say it’s almost nasty,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee.
The CBC’s push targets a practice popular among conservatives triggered by former Rep. Dick Armey, an architect of the 1994 “Republican Revolution.” Lawmakers often sleep in their offices to showcase their thriftiness and their aversion to the Washington swamp.
But it may violate House rules or federal law, according to Democratic critics.
During the first stop, Lloyd asked Wilson twice if she had taken any prescription drugs, the report said.
Wilson said she takes a sleeping aid, the report said. Lloyd asked if it was Ambien. She said that was the one, but said she only takes it every other night.
“I don’t take any narcotics,” she reportedly said. Lloyd responded, “It is a narcotic.”
The paper pointed out that Ambien is not considered a narcotic under U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration guidelines.
The video shows Lloyd—who was hired by the department in 2015 and served with the 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq– ordering Wilson out of the truck, the report said. Wilson alleges that Lloyd put his hands inside her waistband and touched her buttocks and genital area.
Lloyd stopped Wilson a second time near her home over the tint on her truck windows, the lawsuit alleges, according to the paper. The lawsuit alleges that he told her, “We have to stop meeting like this.” Although the first interaction’s audio was recorded, Lloyd claimed the battery on his microphone died for the second, Effler’s review said.
Spoiler alert: She’s white, so survives the encounter. Also: NEVER TALK TO COPS MORE THAN YOU HAVE TO.
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – A man and woman have pleaded guilty following a nude photo shoot at a busy shopping center in Monroeville last year.
Michael Warnock, a self-proclaimed adult photographer, pleaded guilty to taking pictures of a nude model at the Miracle Mile Shopping Center.
“The result today was a $300 fine, which we feel is fair and appropriate. These were some decisions made by both people that were less than advisable,” defense attorney Ryan Tutera said.
Tutera says his client viewed his rendezvous with then 21-year-old nude model Chelsea Guerra as artwork
“Under certain sets of circumstances, some would call this art and under certain sets of circumstances it could be art. But, there are time and place restrictions on this type of behavior,” Tutera said.
Judge Jill Rangos scoffed at the idea saying that young families frequented the Monroeville shopping center, meaning kids could have seen Guerra while nude.
She called their decision foolish and compared it to streaking at a big football game
For every “manel”, there’s a bunch of smart women sitting in the background, being denied the opportunity to show their knowledge and raise their profile.
For every all-male speaker lineup, there’s a bunch of hardworking women who will miss out on their next promotion or payrise because they haven’t demonstrated “thought leadership” in their field of expertise.
For every stage occupied solely by men, there are a host of amazing women who will never get a chance to shine.
Manels. Oh, Sweet Meteor of Death, we lift our voices in prayer that we might end this scourge of lame portmanteau portfemateau.
In my professional life as a scientist, we spend a lot of research effort on phenomena known as “phase transitions.” The most interesting of them are ones which are sudden and irreversible- for example, if you’ve ever had the experience of superheated water from a microwave oven, where it looks placid, but a small disturbance causes it to violently boil, almost exploding, you know what I’m talking about.
There have been lots of excellent movies about politics- Wag The Dog, In The Loop, Primary Colors, The Candidate… but the one I think is the greatest of all time deals with a phase transition in a social sense. The Last Hurrah was made in the late 1950s as television was really taking hold in American culture. And it was extremely prescient in that it perfectly captured the moment of political phase transition. Old school politics was relentlessly retail- as with the principal character in this film, a city mayor would have a true and deep love for his city, know anybody who was anybody (and that did not exclusively mean “the rich and powerful”), spend all his time taking the pulse of every community, and almost exclusively focus on what we now call “constituent services.” Campaigning was in person: appearances at funerals, weddings, bar mitzvahs, pancake breakfasts, lodge meetings, everywhere the mayor could be seen. And everyone knew exactly who he was and had stories to tell about how he helped them personally.
In this movie, Spencer Tracy played Frank Skeffington (a thinly disguised version of Boston mayor James Curley), a true old-school politician, who clashed with the social elite (rather than counting on them for funding) and was familiar to the ordinary folks. The film follows him (through the eyes of his nephew) during his last campaign, which he runs exactly like all of his other previously successful campaigns. But there’s a new element, a phase transition about to happen. The city elite find a telegenic young man, inexperienced and without any real ideas or principles, a tabula rasa made for TV. He runs a campaign that’s an early version of a modern political campaign, TV-oriented, all about image and appearance, and well-funded by the old-line old-money elite who hated Skeffington. The only thing missing is Frank Lutz doing a focus group.
And of course, Skeffington loses. The phase transition is irreversible. We have suddenly transitioned to modern politics.
So beyond this being an excuse for me to urge all of you to see this movie, and maybe tell me I’m full of shit for calling it the greatest movie about politics ever made, I wanted to reminisce a bit about my favorite politician, someone very much of that era. Mimi Dipietro was a city councilman for 25 years in Baltimore, a product of lower-middle-class ethnic white East Baltimore, and while not exactly the articulate and smooth Frank Skeffington, he embodied the virtue of truly being one of the people.
“I know how to do my job. I do it honestly, sincerely and I help everybody who needs help. Yes, I got a big mouth, and if you got it coming to you, I’ll give it to you. But I’ll help you. That’s one thing. I’ll represent you, and I’ll try to help you. “
And that he did. Have a problem? Mimi will fix it. Potholes, weeds, zoning issues, permits, Mimi was on your side and ready to use his power and influence to get it fixed. Despite his conversational abilities in English, Italian, German, and Polish, his battles with the English language were legendary, and the English language usually lost.
“I would never tell a lie. If I have to lie to you, I’ll deviate from you.”
“I have been to half a dozen political affairs lately, and each time I get a standing evasion.”
“The criminal justice system suffers from too much flea bargaining.”
Asked about why Baltimore was a great city (right after the Mount St. Helens eruption): “’Cause we ain’t got no volcanoes.”
My favorite Mimi story has, to my knowledge, never been printed. I know about it because a friend of mine was a witness. My friend was visiting Mimi’s office during the winter, when two of his constituents came in with a problem. “Our apartment ain’t got the heat workin’ and the landlord ain’t fixin’ it.” Mimi immediately got the city inspector’s office and the city custodian on the phone. “I got a coupla niggers in here that ain’t got heat! Ya gotta fix this for ’em!”
My friend, stunned, said, “Mimi, you can’t use language like that!”
The two constituents replied, “That’s OK, that’s just how he talks, we don’t care, we just want the heat.”
And two hours later, a city crew was at their building and they got the heat.
Well we made it through the beginning of the week unscathed. Most of us, anyway. St Mary’s College didn’t, as they got drilled by BYU in their conference semifinal. I remember not too long ago when that would be the death knell for a WCC school. Now they’ll probably go in as a 6 seed and BYU might have played themselves back into the tourney. They’ll face Gonzaga tonight, though. Iona punched their ticket. SoDak State beat NoDak State. They’ll face U SoDak in a winner-take-a-trip-to-the-NCAA-tourney game tonight. Lots of other games, but the finals mostly get started tonight, so that’s all the update you’re getting.
A quick note that Man United were lucky as hell yesterday. And then on to the hockey results: the Penguins extinguished the Flames in OT. The Sabres cut through the Maple Leafs to win 5-3. The Stars weren’t shining against the Senators. The Oilers were slick enough to down the Coyotes. And the Canucks beat the Islanders in a game where punny descriptions are hard to come by.
Is there anything else you guys are looking for a daily update on? If so, let me know in the comments and I’ll work on it (maybe). Until then, this is all you’re getting. I’ll get the March Madness thing rolling in a day or two, so tune in to the links every day for a chance to win (the equivalent of) 10,000 (Zimbabwean) dollars!!!!
And without any further delay, I now present to you…the links!
How to raise your child to not be a bully. Or how to get a busybody asshole to call CPS on you for being a big meanie. Either way, I think this guy is teaching his son a valuable lesson about actions and consequences. Or he’s training the next Steve Prefontaine. You decide.
Run for your lives! Its an inanimate object incapable of doing damage on its own a ghost gun!!!
Third verse, same as the first. Anybody taking this seriously hasn’t been around since that wacky family first came to power and started making promises and offers in order to get free shit from everyone around them only to renege every. single. time.
Jesus, what a bunch of pussies. Go get an aluminum bat and/or some steel-shafted 3 woods and you will solve your own problem…assuming its not against the law to get rid of nuisance animals on private property in California anymore.
Drew says the hospital has been working with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and with the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a year, taking suggestions from the agencies on how to humanely clear the birds, including using a turkey repellent recommended by Contra Costa County Animal Control. But the turkeys keep coming back.
“They’ve aggressively walked towards patients,” he added. “We’ve tried to deal with this, and we’re at the point where they need to be trapped and removed. We need to put our patients and staff first.”
NorCal has gone to the birds.
LOL…pussies.
So he basically stole $90,000. He’s one of the King’s Men. There’s probably nothing you can do about it. Bonus points for letting a municipal employee take five years off on a leave of absence to set up his private company. I know it typically doesn’t go over well when, in the private sector, you tell your boss you want to take several years off to set up a competing firm and that you’ll be back to your job at some point in time (which he never did even go back to) in case your venture fails. Ain’t pubsec unions grand?
Brett decided to celebrate his 60 Days Sober award by having a drink. Then celebrated that drink by having a drink. And those two drinks seemed so lonely that he needed another… anyway, as his sponsor, I guess you’re stuck with me for your afternoon entertainment.
The number of kids sent to pediatric intensive care units (PICUs) doubled between 2004 and 2015, a team at the University of Chicago Medicine Comer Children’s Hospital found.
Of course, the article doesn’t mention what that number actually is or how it fluctuates from year to year or how it relates to changes in overall PICU intake. Because that might make panic seem stupid, and we all know we’re having an opioid apocalypse.
To start, in the beginning there was a formless void. Then the Dacians created the world, and after it, wine. Moving in the realm of less fictional, but maybe somewhat so, based on serious archaeological evidence, we can estimate at least 4000 years of wine making round these parts. Getting to the 60s – BC that is – we have Dacian king Burebista – the first to unify the tribes in what is now Romania and parts of Ukraine and Hungary into something resembling a kingdom, or kingdom like tribal alliance. Wanting a better, stronger kingdom, military and economic, he ordered the burning of the vineyards, because the people drank too much wine. So wine around these parts goes back thousands of years. And drunkenness as well.
Not my property
Romania does have a history of wine and does have several famous wine regions, suitable from a geographical and climate point of view. Wine from areas like Cotnari, Odobesti, Drăgășani, Dealu Mare had its moments of being considered among the good European wines and are mentioned by foreign sources since the 1500s.
The present situation is… complicated, with good and bad. Much of the bad, as I said in my previous post, was due to communism – bad, cheap mass produced wine to export for low prices. Usually semi-sweet with added flavor. The vines and facilities were not maintained, a lot of knowledge was lost. The 90s were a bit of a dark age, as government agricultural cooperatives were dismantled, some vines being given to former owners or their heirs, others to dysfunctional government enterprises.
New owners did not maintain vineyards any better, and most of the wine was mass produced and of very dubious quality. At least in my view. Many Romanians like to claim they enjoy “natural clean country wine”, not that commercial stuff. Natural and clean meaning not polluted with the things that stabilize and clear the wine of impurities, thus making it drinkable. The resulting liquid is sometime – rarely – quite decent if not great, but more often brown and murky, reminding one of a muddy river. I feel the home made wines in Italy or Portugal are of significant better quality because people actually bother to have some skill.
But some of the… roots is the proper word… of the problem predate communism. Even before, quality wine was but a fraction of the total wine production. Most of it was made, then and now, for personal consumption on very small lots – basically each peasant’s garden. A lot of trade in the 1800s in Romania was still barter and did not involve money, which rural populations did not always have, so there was no developed market in wine, like in, say, France.
Story time: as I said in my very first post on Glibertarians, my great-grandparents were from the Pitești region, grew plum trees for țuica and owned a pub in Pitești. Back in those days, the pubs sold mainly țuica and wine, so they made extra țuica, loaded up some wagons and traveled over several days to a wine producing region and traded for wine.
Ox cart, common theme in Romanian painting
Transport was bad in Romania back then, mostly by wagon and dirt road, so it made sense that most of the people made wine themselves, it was hard to buy from a distance. So each town or village had some vines surrounding it. The quality of the wine varied greatly. Some people respected the craft and themselves and made quite decent, if rustic, wine. Clear, somewhat stabilized micro-biologically – the barrels were sort of fumigated with sulfur providing the sulfites, wine was sometimes filtered using egg whites – something still done in modern times, although now artificial gelatin is favored. Others, not so much. It was just plain bad, or mixed with water, made with added sugar or with certain additives to make it seem better.
Now a little break for fun with etymology! Șmecher is a quite common Romanian word –which mean crafty, cunning, shrewd and difficult to trick. An assumption is that the etymology is from the German word like “schmeck” or schmecken, which means to taste. The legend goes that German merchants came to the Drăgășani region of Romania to buy wine. The locals gave them a bit of the good stuff, and then a bit more, and the merchant got a bit drunk, and then they sold him some bad wine as well, but for the price of good. Now, say what you will of German merchants, they were not stupid. Fool me once, as the saying goes. So the next time they brought tasters which did not get drunk and made sure to get the good stuff. These schmeckers or tasters were people who were hard to trick, who did not buy bad wine for the price of good. Hence the Romanian word.
Wine is the nectar of the vines, if we want to be pseudo poetical about it. And why would we not want to be? But wait; there are plenty of crawling plants, so which ones? Vitis vinifera is responsible for all that which most humans with a discerning palate consider good wine. So plant that shit and drink up! Well, that is what people did. A lot. So up to this point, all is well, everyone was all happy and drunk – as happy as semi-starving peasants can be that is – until you bloody Americans had to screw things up, with you interventionist policies and such. In the year 1884, enter phylloxera stage right. And things got considerably worse.
What is phylloxera ? It’s an insect, a bug, a parasite, vermin. You mean like socialists? Yes, precisely like socialists. Phylloxera is a pale yellow insect native to North America, which, instead of doing productive work, sucks the sap from good, honest grapevine roots. Americans have evolved some natural defenses against parasites such as these, which Europeans did not. But Americans lack the sophistication needed to make a good wine. And speaking of Americans, as a side note, just to avoid all sorts of silly comments, a hectare is 2.5 acres.
No nasty sulphites
In 1884, Romania, not yet including Transylvania, had at least 200.000 hectares of grapevines – mostly local versions of vitis vinifera. Most villages and towns had their own vines, due to the difficulty of transporting things on dirt roads. Then the disease devastated the vines, and by 1905, 90 thousand hectares were left.
By the time the bug was in full swing round these parts, Western Europe, which was hit first, had found the solution. After many trials and errors with pesticide, insecticides, fumigating vineyards and such, the new vines were planted grafted on American root stock – vines that did not give good wine but resisted phylloxera. Romanians, red blooded and proud as the mighty oak that grows in the forests, said, naturally, we ain’t gonna let a bunch of foreigners tell us what to do. So instead, they started experimenting with pesticides, insecticide and fumigating vineyards. This failed miserably and in the end they turned to, you guessed it, planting vines grafted on American root stock.
Being a poor country, money was tight. As such, by 1910 Only 70 thousand hectares were left, out of which 20 thousand hectares had been replanted, and the others managed to hang on. The majority of the country, used to growing and making their own wine, and not being able to afford the new solution, settled on a not great but inebriation enabling intermediary solution. Direct producing hybrid vines. Hybrids of European and American vines, which were resistant to phylloxera and created a drinkable, if bad wine, were planted. They grew, they were maybe more productive than the “noble vines,” as they came to be called, and made a drink that got you buzzed. Good enough.
Sap sucking parasites
By 1935, after gaining Transylvania with a lot of vineyards, Romania had some 160 thousand hectares of European vines and 160 thousand of hybrids. By the end of communism in 1990, there were 160 thousand hectares of European vines and just 60 thousand of hybrids – results of collectivization and elimination of some of the hybrid vines. Sadly, things did not get better immediately, as many people who land from the old state cooperatives sometimes took out noble vines and replaced them with easier to maintain hybrids. So in 1997, the numbers were 80 thousand good vines versus 120 thousand hybrids. Right now, officially at least, it is illegal in the European Union to plant hybrid vines for wine making. This was, I assume, a standard protectionist method for established agriculture, although the pretext was the poor quality of the wine and the higher possibility of methanol in wine from hybrid vines.
Now, more than 100 years later, according to the national statistics institute, there are 180 thousand hectares of vines in Romania, out of which about half, 90, are grafted vitis vinifera. So 150 years after phylloxera, the country has half the vines capable of producing good wine. And the current territory also includes Transylvania. Sadly, many people who make wine for their own consumption still plant hybrids which create a good natural country wine. Because swill does not have the same ring to it.
I had a pretty rough weekend. Hope yours was better.
Well we’re down to Championship Week in college basketball, prepared to run through two of the greatest weeks in a single sport. Unfortunately it got off to a horrible start as Michigan won the Big Ten tournament after running through Michigan State and Purdue in back-to-back days. Congratulations…we still own you in football. (As evidenced by the skunk weasels latest recruiting strategy.) Pathetic.
Michigan’s new recruiting strategy: list Ohio State rookie NFL starters.
Elsewhere, Cincy took care of Wichita State. Duke put a beat down on UNC. Auburn won the SEC season crown. And Xavier and Villanova are headed toward a Big East collision. Enjoy the week and next one as well. Perhaps we will be resurrecting the March Madness Pick-em for the Glibs. And by “perhaps”, I mean we absolutely will. Anonymity guaranteed, except for me knowing emails when you register for it. I’ll have the link up in the next couple of days to get registered. A good time will be had bye all, and you could win a little sweet Glibs swag.
On the ice, the winners were the Panthers, Predators, Army/Vegas, the Mighty Ducks (sorry Blackhawks, its over), Winnepeg, Columbus and the MINNESOOOOOOOOOOODA WIIIIIIIILD! And if you’re wondering why I do that, I have no idea. Perhaps because the Minnesodan contingent here is so passionate about hockey, I want to give them a little extra love. Who knows.
In the EPL, Burnley beat Everton (lol), Leicester drew Bournemouth, Stoke did the same with Southampton, Swansea rolled over West Ham, Spurs won, Watford won, Liverpool wore out Newcastle and beat Rafa for the first time since he left. And then on Sunday, Brighton beat Arsenal (and the world laughed and laughed and laughed), and Man City pretty much embarrassed Chelski. Manure play today and will hopefully lose and Liverpool will sit in second, even though they should be there anyway after the refs stole two points from them vs Spurs.
No Bundesliga or Spanish results. But a special nod to Florence, where the captain of Fiorentina, Davide Astori, died suddenly from cardiac arrest over the weekend ahead of their match. Totally shocking and extremely sad. The city have declared a day of mourning.
I’m sure there’s other stuff to talk about, with the combine and all that. But we only have so much space and I only have so much time to get it all in before the natives (you) start getting restless. So I’m moving on into…the links!
Patel and the 16-year old Maroney
Even for Democrat politician wannabes, what you write on the internet lasts forever. You’ve got to reach the top before you can effectively memory-hole (or ignore) what was written int he past. Also, they should say he wrote them to a female “friend” rather than friend. Because a real friend wouldn’t sell him out for a little political expediency.
Well, he’s persistent. There are so many government benefit scammers out there on both sides of the immigration debate. Perhaps we need to revamp the whole system to weed out the fraud* so this kind of shit doesn’t happen.
*I know it should be abolished completely, but I’m being realistic here.
Eric Holder, who was held in contempt of congress for obstructing justice by refusing to hand over evidence in their oversight investigation of the gun running into Mexico plan he helmed, predicts that Trump will be charged with obstruction of justice by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The obstruction? Firing a couple of appointee-level positions which he’s free to fire someone from for any or no reason at all according to precedent.
One off the last fiscally sane Democrats speaks some sense in Chicago. Obviously it didn’t go over well. I mean, how can a fiscal conservative and foe of abortion have a place in today’s Democrat party? Well, he is about to be drummed out anyway, if there Team Blue brass has anything to say about it.
Something-something…put your daughter to the test.
ZARDOZ SPEAKS TO YOU, HIS CHOSEN ONES. MR. WHISKERS HAS ENRAGED FRIEND STEVE SMITH. ZARDOZ KNOWS WHAT FRIEND STEVE SMITH IS CAPABLE OF WHEN ROUSED TO FURY. THE TABERNACLE SENT ZARDOZ A REFERENCE FILE. EVEN THE ALMOST INVULNERABLE AND MIGHTY WARTY HUGEMAN HAD DIFFICULTY WITH ENRAGED STEVE SMITH. SO ZARDOZ MUST LEAVE YOU THE GIFT OF THE LINK, IN HAST AND FLY!
BRUTALS DOING THE WORK FOR ZARDOZ. KEEP IT UP! SEE IF YOU CAN GET TO CHOLERA AND DYSENTERY NEXT.
THIS IS A PITY. ZARDOZ COULD USE HIS ADVICE ON SPEED RIGHT NOW!
ZARDOZ CAN ONLY HOPE THIS ENDS UP WITH A MACEDONIAN PHALANX VERSUS GREEK HOPLITES.
NOT QUITE A BUNGA BUNGA PARTY – EVEN IF THE ITALIAN BRUTAL HAS A TOPLESS FEMALE BRUTAL JUMP UP AT HIM.
As mentioned in a couple of threads, the girlfriend and I (not pictured) went down to Ravenwood Castle to take part in Hoop and Stick Con, a gaming convention put on by the castle that raises funds for Extra Life (previously, the fundraiser was for Child’s Play… both are worthy charities). This year’s goal was $9,500 of which $50 from each $75 ticket was donated, as well as half of all room rental costs for the weekend (room rentals included convention tickets). So it’s a bunch of geeks getting together to play board games, role playing games, eat, drink, and have fun… all while raising money to help sick children. This is the sixth year of this convention, and the first one I have attended. Below, I’ve got some pictures and comments on some of the games I was able to get in.
Thursday night:
Arrived after watching the girlfriend freak out after driving on country roads. It was raining (this was a common theme to the weekend). We were told our cabins were a short hike to the castle, which while true, did not include the fact that the hike was uphill, on a poorly marked trail that was nearly washed out. We did not attempt to walk up the path again. Since we were walking up, we just brought a couple of games. After dinner we got a ride back to our cabin and drove back up, allowing us to bring up more games. I managed to teach Topiary to several people, as well as Mexica:
Both games I taught have simple rules, with some deep strategy. Both also allow some cruel blocking of other players in the game. Topiary is a light filler, taking about 20 minutes to play, while Mexica takes about 60-90 minutes to play and has a deeper strategy with less randomness..
Friday:
Woke up to rain. Got cleaned up and drove up to the castle, after a light breakfast we looked around to decide what to play. More people had arrived, and there seemed to be about a 60/40 split between roleplayers and boardgamers. The items for the silent auction had been set up, and the girlfriend and I looked over the options.
She decided she wanted the B. Nektar basket, while I went for the Bell’s basket, the Jackie-O’s basket, and the Heavy Seas basket. After writing down some bids, we then got some games in. Today I got to teach Torres:
Another action point based area control game that the girlfriend had never opened or learned to play that I enjoy. It plays in about 60 minutes, and has gone through many printings with different variations on the rules. I also got to teach a game of Isle of Skye, a nice tile placement game with an interesting auction mechanic. I learned a game called Dragon’s Delta which was an action programming game that had a very mild dexterity element to it. I played more games of Mexica (I really like this game, and the Iello version is a beautiful printing). Then I played an Ameritrash game called Fate of the Elder Gods:
This one I wasn’t too big of a fan of, it seemed to overstay its welcome, and I don’t know how well the elder gods powers are balanced. But that’s an initial impression after several days being low on sleep, and playing with a bunch of new players. I’m more than willing to give the game another shot.
Saturday:
The rain continues… today after breakfast, I got into a big heavy worker placement game by Uwe Rosenberg: A Feast for Odin:
This is not a short game, as it took 4 new players about 3 hours to play through. Surprising (to us players at least), we all managed positive scores in the end (you start with -86 points). I won with the lowest winning score in the history of the included score pad at 55. More games were played, and beer consumed. For a size of the scale of the castle, this is the main room:
There were at least three other gaming rooms in the basement, split up between the main pub and two side rooms. The downstairs area was mostly running RPG’s through the weekend. Although they did have a Crokinole board in the pub:
That finally made me realize how big this game is. Looking at most of the pictures, it looks to be about the size of your standard Monopoly game. This is shockingly wrong. The playing area of the board is over two feet across. I got to learn how to play this while waiting for dinner to be ready, and am now looking for a board for my basement. This is the day that the silent auction completed, and the girlfriend and I won three of the items we had bid on (the B. Nektar basket, the Bells basket, and the Jackie-O’s basket). During dinner, we found out that the convention had raised $11,587 for the Extra Life charity:
After this, we played a couple of quick fillers (Topiary again, which I failed to take any pictures of at the convention) while waiting to pay for the silent auction, then went back to the cabin to deplete the alcohol stores we had brought down with us.
Sunday:
Today was a slacker day. Wake up, clean up, pack everything up, and then head up to the castle for breakfast. No real gaming today, just saying goodbye to the people we met, and watch the girlfriend exchange Facebook information with others. I then convinced the girlfriend that we should go to Athens, were I saw this appropriation of Libertarian culture:
And had to find solace in the beers of Jackie-O’s:
