Things are going to be a bit crazy for me in June.
Right now, I have the deadlines set for the next two that culminate at
June 10.
I might actually make that deadline just fine, but I equally might not.
Just an advance up-front warning.
This issue is more or less back on schedule, but I am still holding some
delayed material, regarding which you all have my mega-apologies, but
this issue is quite long enough now, thank you very much ;-)
Note that Arsenic and Old Friends in Pete Gaughan's subszine, Dead Poets Society, has ended with a victory for Mark Fassio as England. This further cements my view of Faz as one of the World's top couple of Diplomacy players. The pure magic of how he managed to maneuver to the victory still partly escapes me. Kathy Byrne Caruso as Austria and me as France were the eliminated players. Jim O'Kelley, the Turk, had two press items that failed to get printed that I will print here.
Press:
(TURKEY TURNED GERMANY to TURKEY TURNED GERMANY): Good luck in Round Two! Here's hoping we meet in the finals. ((referring to WorldMasters, of course))
(TURKEY to BOARD): I don't know about you guys, but I'm alarmed by the state I'll bet fewer than 20. Well, I've resolved to do something about it. In the past, I've tried with little success to recruit new players. Now I'm going to focus my efforts on rebuilding the hobby the hard way ... I'm going to grow new players one at a time. I'm pleased to report that this strategy appears to be working. My first little Chum is due November 10. Friends, I am but one man. And I'm also a Protestant. There's a limit to the number of players I can produce. So please join me. If you care about this hobby, go forth and procreate. Do it now!
(ONE SORRY FRENCHMAN): Comments from any other observers of the game will be cheerfully printed by me, in addition to whatever Pete does. I am late with my EndGame statement, so I may have to print it here. I want to thank Pete and Terry for running this game for us. It was definitely my favorite game of the past decade or so.
The postal sub price is a flat
$1.00 per issue in the US and Canada,
a bargain at twice the price.... but
you can double that for other foreign subbers (or $2.00 per
issue sent airmail).
Players in current games and standbys will
continue to get the issues for free, and future game starts
(except for Nuclear Yuppie Evil Empire Diplomacy, which is free) cost
$20.00 ($15.00 for a life of the
game subscription and $5 for the NMR Insurance).
After the current series of games, I probably won't
start another until the Modern game ends (then I will start
another Modern with the Wing rule).
But there are some other options.
Please consider joining Mark Kinney's regular Diplomacy
game start if you want to get going in one.
Let's help Mark get at least ONE regular Diplomacy gamestart.
We have to have it in us......
six players supposedly are signed up so far.
Check out the connections in the Diplomatic Pouch with all of the information you need to play Diplomacy on the Internet at:
/
Through Stephen Agar's (who is still in charge here) Postal portion of the Pouch:
/Postal/Zines/TAP/index.html
the szine resides in html format. Presently, issues from #190 to the current issue are there, and I will be updating the back issues gradually someday. Also, check out Stephen's more extensive efforts at (note the new address): http://www.diplomacy-archive.com
The most recent issue of TAP also can be accessed through Pete Sullivan's web page and occasionally David Wang's:
1) David has grabbed and reserved the HIGHLY prized name: www.szine.com!! David Wang's site also allows you to follow John Caruso's postal baseball league that I am in. John and Kathy Caruso are now up on E-Mail and if David doesn't get off his butt soon and start updating the page more frequently, John probably will go invent his own web page.
2) For the most recent issue of Pete Sullivan's subszine check out:
http://www.manorcon.demon.co.uk/octopus/index.html
Pete is looking for Railway Rivals standbys, but otherwise, he is full with games at the moment.
By electronic mail, through the Internet, subs are free and can be obtained automatically by sending the message: subscribe tap
to majordomo of diplom.org and messages can be sent to the entire electronic mailing list by mailing them to tap of diplom.org which will forward your message to all of the people currently on the list. The message:
unsubscribe tap
sent to majordomo of diplom.org gets you off the list. Please make careful note of that as well since you generally can get yourself off the list a lot easier than I can, and NOBODY likes to see unsubscribe messages sent to the entire list. A big, big thank you for David Kovar for setting this all up!!
The reward for resolving a certain mystery that currently exists in our hobby is still open. I continue to hear rumors that progress is being made. I won't be announcing another person to search for until Issue #235 while we allow time to search this mystery. Feel free to assist Brenton Ver Ploeg or others to solve it. I shall be saying nothing more about it.
Or spend the time looking for some of the backlog. Let's get Kevin, Al, and Jerry found too!!! Note that Brenton would love to find the woman that Jerry Lucas used as his front too. Does anyone know her name? This could be a way toward finding Jerry. This is a regular continuing feature of the szine and I will be introducing a new ``search for'' every five issues. Moreover, you can win a $25 prize for finding some previous target who went unfound in the original $50 period. That means that if Kevin Tighe or Jerry Lucas or Al Pearson is ``found'' from now on it is worth $25.
Winners will receive credit for Dip hobby activities that I will pay out as requested by the winner. Subscribe to szines here or abroad, run your own contests, publish a szine, finance a web page, or whatever. Spend it all right away or use me as a bank to cover hobby activities for years. What must you do to win? Get me a letter to the editor for TAP from the person we're searching for.
This is very important, just finding them doesn't do it. They have to write me a letter. The final judge as to the winner of any contest will be the target himself and I reserve the right to investigate the winning entry. When you find someone I'm looking for, you should ask him to send me a letter for print that includes a verification of who ``found'' him.
The British representative is the editor of Mission From God, John Harrington. John may be contacted at 1 Churchbury Close, Enfield, Middlesex EN1 3UW, UK.
E-Mail: fiendish of operamail.com or johnh of fiendishgames.demon.co.uk
Please include the full name and address of the foreign publisher with your order, if possible, as well as the szine title. Make your check in US dollars out to me personally or in GBP to John if you're doing things from that end. I will conduct business for Canadians as well, if I can, but prefer to deal in US dollars with them if possible, or Canadian dollars cash. To subscribe to American szines, the system works in reverse. There has been some interest in finding a new Australian representative. Should someone Down Under have an interest, or from anywhere else in the world, please contact me.
If you've had your head under a tree, the World's Largest Diplomacy Tournament is currently underway by E-Mail, featuring over 550 players from all around the world. TAP readers who are participating are ENCOURAGED to write in commentaries on games, or teams, or whatever. You can see the commentary on the games by logging in as a guest at this website:
http://webforum.cloud-nine.com/~ worldmasters99/login
The second round is off to a fitful start.... but there is lots of commentary from non-players. The player negotiations are rumored to be quite intense. Toby Harris negotiated the English player right out of his game even before Spring 1901 was adjudicated, so that game (also featuring our very own Jim O'Kelley) is running a bit slower than the others.
Obscure and not-so-obscure ramblings on the state of the hobby and its publications, custodians, events, and individuals with no guarantee of relevance from the fertile keyboard of Jim-Bob, the E-Mail Dip world, and the rest of the postal hobby. My comments are in italics and ((double quotation marks)) like this. Bold face is used to set off each individual speaker. I should also make a note that I do edit for syntax and spelling on occasion.
The game Diplomacy is a copyrighted product owned by Hasbro and all reproductions or other use of that material in this szine is intended to be personal use and not infringe on those rights in any way. All reproductions are done at a heavy financial loss to the editor and thus are without the remotest possibility of commercial intent, except to promote THE game, the Game of Diplomacy, which you all should purchase from Hasbro or other duly licensed distributors.
Robert Lesco would like to announce that he is taking over custodianship of the Marco Poll, the defacto poll of the North American hobby since the Runestone is pretty much officially dead. In more editorializing, let me say that from the point of view of this keyboard that is a great thing. I never liked the format of the Runestone (give every szine a rating) and always preferred that of the Marco (vote for your top five). So, support Robert and vote in this poll. We should have the General Hobby Award Poll printed next issue and up on the Web. This year, we are going to seriously solicit votes more widely and the nominees also are the most diverse ever. But more on that next issue.... Here are the particulars on the Marco Poll: Vote for your top five in each category and you can't vote (or at least it won't be tabulated) for Robert Lesco or his szine, which I don't see. I will send this to Robert and offer him a trade. You can vote for E-Mail only people and szines (like Tim Richardson and his excellent E-Szine for example). The deadline is September 1st and either send your ballot to marcopoll of yahoo.com or mail to Robert Lesco, 49 Parkside Drive, Brampton, Ontario, CANADA L6Y 2H1. For identification purposes, Robert would like you to identify yourself both by name and by affiliation (a game you play in or a szine you sub to). Here are the categories this year (I like some of the new ones!!):
1) Favourite ((Hey, what, he's Canadian, yeah.)) Zine ((What's a zine, shouldn't that be Szine???))
2) All Time Favourite Zine ((Szine))
3) Best Diplomacy Player
4) All Time Best Diplomacy Player
5) Best GM
6) Player Who Writes the Best Letters/E-Mails
7) Folded Zine ((Szine)) You Miss the Most
8) Favourite Variant
I got a lot of great commentary on last issue's editorials.
Let me say next that I think we are going to make some relatively quick
decisions about saving and transferring Diplomacy World to a new
publications team (hints of which are below) so if you want to be part of
it (and please think about it, talent is needed!!) please contact me ASAP.
Thanks.
Scott Morris (Thu, 20 Apr 2000 11:16:19 EDT)
Jim A BOOGIE ALL NIGHT!
Received TAP #231 in pristine condition. No bullet holes or machete marks this time. I read your remarks about Dip World with interest. I would love to see the zine back up and running. After what Doug has gone through I would doubt any funds would be left over from the coffers. Time to lay that pipe dream to rest. No offense to Doug intended, I am just trying to look at the situation realistically.
But to get things going I will send a check for $50 to whomever takes the bull by the horns to help out with start up costs. Also, I really don't expect my $10 in sub fees to still be lying around either. I will simply resubscribe with the new Editor.
Let the new guy send out the first issue to all the old subbers with donated funds. I will happily help hound as many people as possible to raise the rest of the start up cost. It costs me $170 an issue to print and mail TFES, so IT CAN'T be more than that. So we are 29.41% of the way there. Just out of curiosity what does it run you to get out TAP per issue? ((Undoubtedly more than that, but I don't like to account exactly. Postage alone usually runs about a hundred and printing about 150, but some of that is recouped by fees of course.))
BOOM - Funds available, first issue out, then everyone just subscribes with the new guy.
((See Doug's comments below, but we need to do something like that to get started.))
Stephen Agar (Sat, 29 Apr 2000 22:33:51)
Jim, Thanks for the latest TAP.
Nice to see something happening at last about DW.
For what it is worth, I think that DW is only worth resurrecting if there is a clear view as to how it should continue. To succeed I think:
- it needs to come out at least 4 times a year
- should be available world-wide as a printed publication, as a PDF download (in European and US paper sizes) and as a web-zine. Personally, I think that hardcopy will become less and less important - but it should still be there.
- should make the entire DW back-catalogue available on-line (and on CD) ((I agree here, but the technology/typing necessary to do so may be daunting - scribe volunteers would be accepted.))
- should provide healthy and friendly co-operation/competition to the Pouch
- should support and promote PBM and FTF as much as electronic
- should never feud with anyone under any circumstances
((I think those are first principles that I completely agree with. There may be some people (many of whom get this szine) who want to focus on a paper old style format, but I think with the Worldwide spread of the hobby this makes less and less sense. If someone would like to move in the traditional way, you will have to move quickly or it will be decided, but I sense that those who feel that way are mostly apathetic and semi-retired. The hobby is exploding in popularity and it all is very exciting right now. This szine represents a hideously small piece of the total. The relationship between the Pouch that really doesn't cover PBM or FTF and DW which would be more balanced can be quite mutually beneficial.))
I think the best way of achieving that is with at least 2 co-editors (maybe one from each side of the Atlantic) who have basically got to drum up or write the material. They should be prepared to print and mail hard copies to subscribers, and have the means to make DW succeed online as well. Ideally they would in turn twist some arms to get regular contributors.
Now that I no longer edit a zine I would be happy, indeed eager, to fill one half of the role described above. What I don't think I could do is take it on myself - I think the recent experience of DW is that one person alone is not enough to ensure that things happen. ((And I am committed to being part of the editorial team on some level as well. But I cannot be the point person, I know from my perspective [hell, just look at this ugly mess, paper and www] though, we need some design oriented people involved and I still have a big szine to run.))
Well, that's my 2p worth.
Doug Kent (Fri, 28 Apr 2000 10:48:30 -0400
Hi Jim. Hope all is well with you. I wouldn't say I am making moves back into the hobby yet, but I am at least to the point where I don't need to avoid it entirely.
As for Diplomacy World, the lack of response from Pitt explains why people such as Fred C. Davis Jr. keeps asking me if I would consider sending my material to a new publisher. Anyway, I am slowly getting back on my feet. In regards to sub funds, my best estimate is that there is about $260 in sub fees due the new publisher. The difference between that and the outstanding subscription credits on the mailing list I provided would be from ``free" issues earned by people who contributed articles. I never collected funds for those issues, so obviously there is no cash to cover that at this time, as I was supplying those issues out of my own pocket. Likewise the new publisher would have to consider the policy of a free subscription to all former editors and publishers, which I also continued out of my own pocket during my tenure as publisher.
I would be able to provide half of the funds due immediately, with the rest available within a month or so, to any new publisher. 6 months ago this would not have been possible, but at the moment it is. Also I have a number of copies of the issues I published which I could also supply to the publisher for him or her to sell as back issues without the cost of copying them.
As for PDORA, my records show approximately $240 in the kitty, although these records are somewhat spotty...I believe we had nearly $600 before the last disbursements of more than $350, which is where $240 came from. I will try to research this more, and I would like to get that money to someone if you could suggest who might be appropriate. Again, I could not send it immediately, but I could pay it over the course of a few months I believe, $50 at a time.
Finally, please mention that I do plan SOMEDAY to get subscription balances out to my old MP subbers, or to offer them credits against any new zine I might ever start...that may take me more time, not until after the summer before I start contacting them I imagine but in the end I will have refunds or credits out to everyone. I think by outstanding MP subs were about $200 also, in case you're interested. Even if it takes a while I will get that out to people; a number of times publishers can't do that but I should be able to swing it and if I can I think I should. Don't you?
((Absolutely, as you can imagine, though, to expect that has not been popular in the circles I hang around in lately, given your situations. I intend to continue to spearhead an effort to find a new DW publisher but if you have a suggestion or want to do so yourself, please feel free to do so. Pitt has been having medical problems pretty continuously since he agreed to take on DW. I believe he seriously intended to do it, but his health has gotten in the way. I know we all wish that he would feel better soon. I will still hope he would have a role in a revived DW, but not as head man.))
I was certain that his intention to take it over was sincere, and obviously I know as well as anyone else that personal stuff can get in the way. I would be happy to help the new pubber out, possibly write some articles, etc plus as I mentioned I have back issues...I can't exactly help look for a new publisher since I don't really talk to anyone in the hobby right now, though.
((I was thinking of taking over the PDORA role myself and forming a new committee. Given some other things going on, I thought I would announce that at World DipCon in Baltimore in August (if you are amenable to turning it over to me).))
Of course, if you want it...I have a few items I can contribute to any auction, you know the workings of the committee so if you want it go ahead. It really isn't too much work, just doing the auction takes some time, etc... I would again be happy to assist or serve on the committee, I do plan to get involved in the hobby again in some capacity but in what capacity I have no idea.
((Well, I guess it is announced now. I would very much like you to be on the committee. Would other former members of the PDORA committee also contact me about your interest in picking this up again? Also any new people who would like to be involved. I'd like to run the auction on a web page like a low tech version of e-BAY, if someone would like to help with that. Paul Kenny has come to call me Hobby Alpha Male lately, but I just want to make things work at a time when the total worldwide hobby is exploding in size.))
Let me know if you got this and what you think
- reply here AND please to dougkent of foundersequity.com.
((I'm glad to hear that life is treating you at least a little bit better and I don't think there is any great need for money quickly as much as there is for money eventually.))
Ken Peel (Mon, 3 Apr 2000 21:34:07 -0400)
Bruce, Good to see you still kicking around (and kicking ass) in TAP#230, the final repository of all deadwood. Boy, it's been a long time that anything has roused me from my nearly complete state of (hobby) stupor. What is next, Dick Martin? Ed Wrobel? Even Bernie Oaklyn didn't quite lead me to stir (not shaken). I remember when I first came in, round about 1983-84, with my return address of Silver Spring, I ran into a serious case of skepticism. Then I actually met the fellow at some of our local WARTHOG events, and found him to be an expert on Tilex and other household cleaners. Ya wanta know what works on chrome, and what works on tile? He was your man. Finally, when I took over as pubber of Politesse, the WARTHOG 'zine, he sent in a sub check with the printed name of Tretick and signed Bernie Oaklyn, and it cashed. Can't remember if I kept that piece of hobby memorabilia ... outta look someday. Naa...
Bruce, you had the best good, best bad, worst self-consciously narcissistic zine, and most amazingly spectacular flame out - in rapid order - ever.
Final trivia question. This is really for Jim-Bob, because I am sure that you, Bruce, couldn't care less. Hell, I wouldn't, if I didn't already know the answer. Who published the first known 'zine ever to violate the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Immunity? And what was the 'zine's name?
((Answers please..... and accompanying it will be some interaction on a very special opportunity for the hobby that warm the cockles of the hearts of the Larry Peery's of the world.... yes, he REALLY has one!))
Richard Weiss (Mon, 17 Apr 2000 15:26:09 -0400)
Jim; Another pulsating issue, not quite as exciting as the IHEA to me, ((He is referring to the professional newsletter that I co-edit... you can't take the pubber out of publishing... Richard came across it since we both work in the health field.)) but, pulsating.
I'm glad Garret was found. He was one of my first encounters in the game as both competitor (with wonderful press) and GM/editor. I'm glad he made it out of his ``basement" address. All the way to Mass apparently.
The Master's tourney, I did end up 1-2 SC's behind those who got into the semis. Luckily for me. I do not mind that board-toppers did not get into the semis, I think it was all about gaming the tournament, admittedly a team affair. I just can't believe how many total dunces/noncaring people (I have little other option to consider the following) who let someone solo in this tournament. No-one got any other points in that circumstance. Couldn't there be leader stoppers?
((As one who ``permitted a win" but didn't WANT to, I found some of the negotiations on these points positively wacky! Every time I tried to form a stop-the-leader, people tried to turn it into a ``wipe Jim-Bob out of the game" deal. To me, the difference between 1 point (wiped out of the game) and 0 points (for allowing a win) was inconsequential. But you were talking about the late game negotiating leading up to the enforced 1912 deadline. I know in the game I GM'ed, they didn't allow a win, but there was a LOT of laying down for the leader. I suspect (and I predicted it before the tournament started) that the wide variety of common ground and broad styles of play that were crashing together in this tournament threw a lot of people off. I counted on this and used it heavily in my game, but ultimately it played into Toby Harris' hands more than mine. I am still far too good at being a Kingmaker and far too poor at being a King.))
Given what I know now, I'd try for a very early alliance that drove beyond a normal draw line and go from there, i.e. F/G that drove for VEN or Russian and somebody with Russia opening for MUN.
((Precisely what I did try to do as I completely agree. Having a viper as that ally trying to keep you hanging on the stalemate line knife edge was my fate though.))
Mark Stretch (Wed, 26 Apr 2000 20:48:06)
I read in TAP that you & TurboNick are talking about randomised game ends at conventions. Of course what Nick forgets to tell you is that in the year he ran OxCon with a randomised ending it wasn't randomised. He actually drew the year end as 1912 (as I remember) but realised that I would be doing too well by then (& might have won the tournament) so he finished it earlier, to give the event to Luke Ellis. Not that I'd accuse the tournament director of favouritism or anything - perhaps he had a a hot date that evening and wanted to get away early. It was a long time ago now, so I forget the exact circumstances.
However, that is the problem with randomised game ends. What's wrong with an unlimited finish? Let them play to 1945 if they want to - one postal game in Dolchstoss got about that far if my memory's correct!
((More comments on all of the thoughts in this section are quite welcome. I shall refrain from grabbing substantive last words since there are oodles of conversation starters to pick up on. Thanks to all of the writers, especially Doug, from whom I did not expect to receive such news. Next up, Fred Davis has a note on the new Dip set, though as Fred himself suggests, Jonadab's summary was excellent and way more complete.... I have some brief notes attached as a PS from Fred that I received just as deadline was hitting. I hope Fred will be supportive of taking DW to the next level...))
Fred C. Davis, Jr. (April 2000)
Here at home, the new Diplomacy sets have finally reached the market, at the end of March. The retail price is $49. Somewhat exhorbitant, but you do get about 140 metal pieces with each set. These are battleships and cannons from the Monopoly sets. I like the battleships, as they're pre-Dreadnoughts from the WW I era, but it's too bad they couldn't have supplied something more interesting for Armies. I would still prefer the wooden blocks from the older sets. ((I like the look and feel of the cannon, so I disagree here, though admittedly a WW I era machine gun would have been more historically apt.)) The map is rather poor. It's smaller and is too dark. Whoever designed it forgot that when you play Dip, you get up from the table and walk around, so you need to be able to see the provinces (spaces) better from a distance. Seated at a table they're O.K. ((Personal opinion: the Games Research map is the best all-round, even though it makes the box huge.))
At least, they've corrected all the errors from the past maps, and properly named all the relevant spaces. The ``Gulf of Lyons'' has not been corrected to ``Gulf of Lions," as it should be. The Rulebook has been rewritten in the Hasbro style, with no numbering of the various Rules. This is going to be a problem for novices. I suspect the Old Timers may wish to write the pertinent numbers alongside of the paragraphs. The Rules are written in a friendly way. perhaps more attractive than the legalistic format used by Avalon Hill. At the end, the Rules are summed up with 22 numbered points to remember, all on one page. Maybe that is sufficient, providing there are some experienced players to provide guidance in face-to-face games.
Too bad that the new Diplomacy sets didn't hit the market before Christmas. We'll just have to see now if sales will start jumping up in the Fall.
PS Perhaps you could make your comments, plus those of ``Jonadab,'' available as a flyer to interested people for, say, 50 cents including postage. ((Heck, I'd send that issue as a sample to anyone who asked for it. More to the point, it's also up on the WWW. Fred, I still see postal szines as being VERY important as things come out as current, but the WWW is SUCH a better medium for archiving and allowing people to seek and receive historical information on their OWN schedule. This is how I see the future of DW and hope you can come to see it.)) BTW, the price of the set, is now reported as $44.95 by the GamesKeeper shop. Not quite so bad. ((Yes, I don't think it is too expensive considering today's markets at all. This seems a good place to stick one more item in here: Conrad von Metzke continues his annoying ;-) habit of self-immolation as I just received Costaguana #283, the first issue after he officially ``cut'' all trades because he wasn't going to produce anything but a warehouse. I sent an insistent note that if he cut our trade it was going to have to be ONE way only (his way, as I was still sending my szine to him regardless). Well, as could be expected, this issue had more reading material for the general passing Dipper than most issues of my szine and was at the usual length of 16 pages for Conrad's recent past. Nothing to get upset over from this reader's perspective. He still lists 36 readers, there easily could be more - for which Conrad will undoubtedly have me shot at dawn, but it is just this friendly editor's opinion. Hi Conrad!))
Comments on the 1999 year in music are still welcome.
The tape thing is still going very slowly. I need some uninterrupted time to do it.... I need to figure out some timings and get together to actually make a master tape. Then I'll either find a commercial service or perhaps buy some new equipment to get the copying done. Once I find the cost of that, I will let people know the cost. I am leaning toward a five dollar fee, so the people I've chosen below for five dollar awards automatically get them for free. There are a few other selected individuals who've been sending me tapes and CD's and things who also will get them for free. For now, I'm going to stop reprinting all the rest of the header stuff each issue. The way I do things, I was sticking it in my face so I noticed it and kept it on my to-do list, but obviously it was way too repetitive. On to letters, first getting caught up from delays:
Eoghan Barry (3/20/2000)
Dear Jim, To give you a few biographical details, I married my girlfriend in January. She is why I moved over here in the first place. As such, I'm entitled to a temporary work permit while I go through the lengthy process of applying for a green card (I understand that these days green cards are junk, but what can you do?). However, just to spice the process up a little, the immigration officer at the airport gave me paperwork that was several years out of date. None of the material elements of the application had changed, but the fee had been kicked up about $30, allowing the INS to (a) laugh fiendishly and (b) reject my application. Having rejected my application they then held onto it for another four weeks to let it mature slightly before sending it back to me. So I reapplied and at this point they have even admitted that they have received the application, but it will be some sixty to ninety working days before they actually issue the permit. I've been here for three months now, unable to work and alas the funds accumulated in my last job as a messenger boy are long since disappeared and it will probably be at least another month before I can work. Bear in mind that this is how that INS deals with you when you actually follow their pinheadedly bureaucratic procedures - how they treat you when there's something irregular about your arrival in the US doesn't bear thinking about. I look forward to the day when we move back to Europe and my long-suffering wife has to put up with our version of this trial by tedium.
But I thought that since I was new in the US, away from distractions like friends and pubs that a sane well-balanced person would want to drink in. I might reactivate my dormant interest in postal gaming. In this respect, TAP is the perfect zine for me - plenty of writing, but no actual game openings so I won't be tempted to start playing games again. I actually did the whole thing properly - scrounged a bunch of freebies from Michael Lowrey, wrote off for a stack of samples, resisted the temptation to pass myself off under some ludicrous pseudonym.... ((When you are in DC, your real name could make people suspect it is a pseudonym, at least until they met you and discovered you weren't black....)) In all honesty, not too many of the current US zines float my boat but I think I'll sub to TAP, Ishkibble (in part because Phil was the first editor to get back to me), and Vertigo, maybe one or two others.
Your toadying in the letter column notwithstanding (and believe me, such egoboo never goes amiss) I'm going to hold off on writing about music for the moment, at least until I've written my zine for Frank's APA (still running - up to #56 now, and as snot-ridden as ever) though I will confess that I'm shocked that you're putting together a party tape without a single Replacements song on it, and Leif Bergman has thoroughly excellent taste, but I don't know if I want him soundtracking any party I throw.
Are you still the US agent for Breaking Away? ((Yes, John and I run this as a sub-deal of the International Subscription Exchange. It keeps the level of transactions up to a reasonable level and holds our attention (especially John's). Any US people who want to PURCHASE Breaking Away can send US checks to me. E-Mail John for current charges and rates.)) The bike messenger in me demands that I check this out - watched the movie again only a couple of weeks ago.
((Yeah, man, wow! It seems VERY appropriate to follow you up with a letter from Ian Moore, wouldn't you say???))
Ian Moore (11 March 2000)
Dear Jim, Ah-ha! You're tracked me down again. Curses. Do you win a prize? ((I get to keep sending you issues....)) Sorry about moving and leaving no forwarding address. It was only after I scarpered ((I actually looked up that word and found it in the dictionary - learn a new word every day - from the same Italian/Latin derivative as escape.)) from that hell-hole in Ranelagh that I realised the only address I have for you is in issues of tAP, all of which I had cleverly left behind.
I still find your Search For People I Have Never Heard Of things fascinating. I am waiting for someone to send in some expletive ridden missive outlining precisely why the person dropped out of postal gaming and what he is going to do to you for setting people on his trail again after all these years. Yet they always seem to respond with some kind of friendly ``how's it going'' kind of mail. Lightweights. ((Careful, you'll inspire Bruce Geryk. We know he's capable of it.... seriously, I often wonder what kinds of reactions will come up and they surprise me a bit. I can pretty much guarantee that Al Pearson (who left the hobby because his traveling sales job was too stressful to keep up with mail but really wanted to stay), Jerry Lucas (whose heart was not in the hobby after his ``Judy Winsome'' persona was exposed by Brenton ver Ploeg, but always was the nicest guy), and especially Kevin Tighe (who I'm sure is still bouncing around the Pacific Northwest area working in kitchens and the like and is still one of THE most fascinating personalities I've ever run into in this hobby) would be very happy to be found. What I do get a lot of, is angry notes from people with the same names as our targets who get repeated notes from TAP subbers but are easy to find on the Internet. I'd print those for fun, except that they are pretty boring, actually. Some of the people, like Doug Beyerlein, who left to get away from old hobby feuds are pleased to be lightly connected through TAP now since we all have such a great time here. Anyway, I enjoy it and will undoubtedly keep doing it. Sometime soon, I need to print an address list, I think some people would be surprised to learn some names that are still on it. For example, I still keep sending the szine to Rod Walker (who still lives at the same old Encinitas address), even though I only hear from him with the shortest of notes once every five years or so and I am about due now.... hint, hint, Rod... And I have a few Brits on my mailing list that I think even my cousin Brit pubbers have lost track of.))
This Worldmasters99 section thing is interesting. Do you think there are several world e-mail Diplomacy tournaments knocking around, or would this be the one in which my pal Conor Kostick is captaining the Irish team in? ((No, that's it, I think Conor captained the Team Ireland that finished TWO points ahead of the TAP team in eighth place! The Irish have played VERY well and been very vocal in the discussion groups. For a side-bet, I am buying Fearghal O'Donnchu a beer at World DipCon in August (do you know him too - I think he is on the same team) and I think Brian Dennehy and Cormac Lane also are on Team Ireland, or one of the Irish teams.)) I think Conor was saying he is up to his old prank of pretending to be a newbie in order to stuff whoever has protectively taken him under their wing. The scamp.
I saw that ``Catastrophe'' book in a shop and thought it looked interesting, and then I saw a review of it in ``History Today'' (UK based history magazine) which said that while it was interesting enough essentially it amounted to unsubstantiated speculation and then went on to assert that in any case climate change has never had much real impact on human civilisation. I'm sure the many Vikings who live in sunny Greenland would agree with the last point. ((Indeed. As a professional academic myself (journal editor and the like...) I am very cognizant of the insider/outsider issues that I personally try to avoid. A good idea is a good idea regardless of who comes up with it. I saw the book as just that - some informed speculation linking issues around the world - giving a good picture of life around the world at that point in time. I've also been reading about the Vikings, as professional investigation is catching up with informed opinion. No, they likely didn't get as far south as Rhode Island, but the Greenland experiment was clear and they have been excavating one of the original sites there just recently. I suspect the ``Catastrophe'' issue will be similar as soon as the acknowledged experts do their own research on the matter.))
I did see someone on television once, possibly Mr. John Pilger, and he was talking about the Australians and their alleged fear of being over-run by immigrants from Indonesia and the rest of Asia. He reckoned this fear was driven by the map - as Indonesia is above Australia people subconsciously believe Indonesians are going to fall down on top of them. He reckoned that if the map was the other way round, Australians would live in terror of invasion by penguins. ((The academics that ``attempt'', and I use the term EXTREMELY loosely, to address these questions formally are called ``psycho-geographers" and they produce the most amusing wacko theories I've ever seen in academia. They are infamous for their central theory about the US state of Florida and its shape.... I'll pick this back up at a Clintonesquely appropriate point below...))
Ireland is going through a period of sustained immigration at the moment, which is a novel experience for us. What is interesting about it is that in the mid-1970s when there was another period of net-immigration it was driven by former emigrants returning home. Now we are getting people from Africa and Eastern Europe, and in the space of a few years Dublin has become far less culturally homogenous - you hear languages other than English spoken on the street now, and don't see pastie faced whiteys walking around. ((But no Gaelic, eh ;-).... too bad.)) This has led to some grumbling about foreigners coming and taking our jobs, which is a bit rich given the amount of foreigners' jobs Irish people have taken over the years.
I notice none of the songs I nominated or voted for are doing even remotely well in your party tape vote thing, which is a sad reflection on your readers. ((Eoghan completely agrees..... I'm not sure I don't agree too....)) Just so you can relive Y2K Rollover Irish style I must retrieve the two party tapes I did and post you copies of them. ((Please do, and send me - preferably E-Mail ;-) - comments on them so I can print them.)) I modestly entitled them ``The Best Music EVER'' vols. 1 & 2. Interestingly, very few of the songs I voted for in your ``bullpen'' appear on them either.
Bah, I notice you are at your comments on musical year 1999 thing again. ((Happens every year....)) For me, I think the big event of the year was the Bowlie Festival in England's Camber Sands, and the band of the year for me were Belle and Sebastian, the organisers of that festival. B&S are a neo-indie band, and to celebrate winning best newcomers at the Brit Awards they threw the Bowlie Festival. This featured various bands they liked, the ones I liked the most being Sleater-Kinney (spiky guitar music sung by women), Cornelius (loud music from Japan with lots of Planet of the Apes samples), ((Some Japanese guy that Marc Gascoigne put me in touch with keeps raving about this band in E-Mail he sends me. I've listened to samples on his web site and it does sound weird... but interesting.)) America's Mercury Rev (everyone loves them) and especially Godspeed You Black Emperor. GYBE are from Canada, there are seemingly a million of them, and they play fully instrumental music which has a kind of philosophical bleakness to it. I think they appeal to the old goth in me despite not being remotely gothic. ((Yeah, they keep reminding of the old Boston band Human Sexual Response, especially HSR's hauntingly beautiful ``Land of the Glass Pinecones'' which still wraps itself inside my head all too often even though I ***NEVER*** listen to it so as not to encourage anything. HSR also had the cast of thousands, but vocals too.))
I don't think festivals are really part of the US music scene, am I right? I know Wood$ tock keeps crawling from the grave every few years and Lollapollooza ((Something like that...)) is still embarrassing itself across the country, but you don't get proper festivals like you do in England. I have been wondering whether festivals have made much of a difference to the way music works over here, and I can't but think that it does. I reckon festivals democratise music to some extent, because they throw bands in front of an audience and give them a chance to win them over in ways that would never otherwise be possible in today's MTV strangled era. Certainly at Bowlie I came to see Mercury Rev and B&S and left completely enraptured by Godspeed You Black Emperor and Sleater-Kinney, not to mention the others above, and Flaming Lips, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and so on. ((Well, it is more complicated than that in the States. The Newport festivals (Folk, Blues, and the original Jazz) are semi-lame but decent approximations of the British style festival. Over here too, the summers are very hot and my taste in staying out all day watching music is more British dreary, though this definitely is not a shared preference. In general, all the various varieties of ``roots'' music like Cajun and Blues do a better job of having festivals that work this way over here. Of course, the present model is ALL Internet, which does NOT appeal to me - OK to collect info on bands you like, but TERRIBLE for searching for good music, way too impersonal. This eventually will be discovered, I believe, but for now everyone is Net Crazy.))
Listing off bands seen does not do music festivals justice, as is definitely the case with Bowlie. It was held in an out of season holiday camp which meant that all the fey indie kids present could spend time in between bands walking on the beach or trying to break into the nuclear power plant at Dungeness.
Belle and Sebastian are the great band of our times. They have somehow constructed a cult of personality around themselves by almost never giving interviews, and to join their following is to enter an all-enveloping world. Handily the music is completely brilliant as well. It's kind of a melange of Nick Drake, Brian Eno, and the Field Mice. Actually B&S are kind of the Field Mice for our times. They have three albums - Tigermilk, If You're Feeling Sinister, and The Boy With The Arab Strap - and they are all toptastic. Frankly no one writes or arranges songs like them and I advise your readers to seek out their music.
((Yes, I've heard a little bit from them, but not much. I was aware of the cult and you have nudged me to step a bit further.)) They also relive the 1980s indie dream by releasing singles no songs from which appear on the albums, and on these singles their very best songs appear. Mad stuff. ((But they don't appear on Movie Soundtracks, right?? The case you cite is common today, but those killer tracks are movie tracks.))
Apart from that I can't think of anything to do with music. ((That's great, though, we've been light on music and heavy on Dip lately.))
I notice you mention that Eoghan Barry is now one of your subbers, which is very exciting. In the interest of accuracy I must point out that your memory is surely deceiving you - Eoghan has never produced a Leif Bergman stream of consciousness style ramble in his life. As a long-time reader of Eoghan's prose in Frank's APA and other publications I can assure you that he is a serial purveyor of structured articles, an abhorer of all things streaming. ((Well, let's see.... I went back to look at Frank's APA 12, with Civilisation and Madness 6 and Memo from the National Affairs Desk 10. This is also the issue where I wrote about the Mekons brilliant November 1991 concert in Providence. This all reminded me what I both loved and hated about the APA. But, on point, some of what I was talking about can be seen in the latter contribution (mostly) where Eoghan was reading the APA and responding primarily to Brian Duguid - it actually was Duguid himself who I was more thinking of - but here's an example from Civilisation and Madness that otherwise is very structured... he's discussing Jon Spencer and Cream (raving over ``Disraeli Gears'') and then (boy is he going to be embarrassed....) he digressed into this: ``I'm sitting here and right now, no, not right now, but then, I'm looking at the rip in the seam of my jeans. It started out as a small hole but it got in the chain of my bicycle the odd time and it's bigger than my fist now. It's been a good day for listening to music but then every day is, I guess. Maybe not every day is do right for listening to Teenage Fanclub and Superchunk. I just went to the toilet and I was looking in the mirror as I undid my fly because I'd trimmed my beard and I wasn't sure if it looked okay. Then I thought, I know some people who piss in their sink the odd time which is a weird thing to do because some people are really appalled by the idea and other people just laugh and think about it and then laugh some more because they can't really see what the problem is.'' WARNING, WARNING: egregious commitment of grabbing paragraph out of context to prove point.... 10 demerits to the editor!))
I thought Leif Bergman's party stream was incredibly evocative and will probably try and recruit him into Frank's APA, the APA for people who like music.
I was thinking, do Americans ever get fed up with the fact that non-Americans know way more about America than they do about non-America? It's just that whenever I meet Americans I sooner or later start making fun of them for living in a country with an antediluvian approach to crime and punishment, and they retort with something about our antediluvian approach to leprechauns.
((Let's see, I'm not entirely sure I follow you here. Let's read back the tape. You are asking if Americans are upset that when they talk to foreigners, foreigners know about our National Rifle Association and our debates about DNA evidence on capital punishment death row inmates and the like (all of which I am on the same side of the argument as you are and pretty well disgusted with the likes of George Bush and the people who still think we need lots of guns and we need to kill people) BUT that Americans can't counter with equivalent knowledge of EU gun and prison policies? Basically, no. On average, Americans don't really care. And, yes, it is a huge problem. I am NOT your average American on this point since I try to keep up on issues at least broadly concerning foreign countries around the world. BUT, if I had my druthers, I'd rather get Americans to focus on the issues affecting them here first, I wouldn't convince Capital Punishment supporters of the insanity of our policies by comparing us to the EU, any more than making the argument that the US is now the ONLY industrialized country in the world without a comprehensive health care financing system convinces anyone here that we should get one. And I say that argument is right. Don't compare, convince.))
While I'm at my job of telling you how to run your oh-so-clever country, your election campaigns, they do go on a bit, don't they? ((Yeah, I figured we'd have Gore vs. Bush with 99% prob. last summer and decided (after considerable debate with and among my friends) that I was going with Gore then. While my positions have hardened considerably since then with only some slight waffling, I would rather have voted last November and been done with it.)) I suppose it's an unpleasant side effect of fixed election dates - here the Government says, ``Alright lads, let's have an auld election'' and around a month later bang! there it is. I remember reading someone saying that the reason why so few people in America vote is because the campaigns are covered so extensively for so long that they kind of feel they have already participated through a process of attrition and don't feel any need to actually apply a pen to a ballot paper... or pull a lever on a slot machine or whatever it is you do. ((Recently here in RI, they switched to a system where you fill in a line with a pen and run the ballot into an electronic reader. I would say that the structure of the US system does more or less what you say and you find out SO much about the candidates that it nearly always dumps into ``lesser of two evils'' decisions. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of votes I have ever cast with real positive conviction and strangely enough ONE of those was my vote for Bill Clinton and Al Gore in 1992.....))
And another thing, the Vice-President, what's that all about? He's not exactly a President in charge of vice - that's Clinton's job (as you can see I am the funniest man in the world). ((Hey, worry not, I LOVE bad punning. You'll never get criticized on that score in these here parts. And now for our deferred contest.... Yes, you bright people were way ahead of the game. Indeed, the State of Florida is shaped like a limp penis and this infects the psychological and reproductive capabilities of people who live in Florida. It couldn't be the average age of the population, could it? Naaahhhh.... back to Ian's Vice comments. That's Miami Vice!!!)) I suppose they created the Vice-Presidency back in the dawn of time when it was very important to make sure that someone could take over should someone stiff the president. Unfortunately in real life presidential election campaigns tend to pick their polar opposites or the clinically insane as their running mates in the interests of ``balancing the ticket'' or appealing for the retard vote. And then the President ups and dies and you end up with some unelected bozo in the White House. ((Perhaps.... some quick US history. The real deal with the VP was that the Constitution was designed without parties specifically in mind. The first VP's were the second most popular Presidential candidates. Thus, John Adams served under Washington and then moved up, while Jefferson served (badly) under Adams and then moved up, and THEN Jefferson and Burr tied as voting ran by party (they were of the same party and think of each voter voting for two people); then there was the XII Amendment which made things more like what we have today with separate elections for President and Vice-President and codification into party structures solidified after that. Burr, of course, got into other troubles rather than ascending to be President and since then the general rule until VERY recently had been that Vice-Presidents seldom ascended to the Presidency except by the death of the President. I don't quite see it the way you do on the rest of it, but surely it is related to the idea of the FIXED election periods. If Presidents are elected ONLY every four years, you have to have a set process for succession. At least the VPs do go before the voters with the Presidents.))
Perhaps in these days of air travel and mass-communication they could get rid of the Vice President entirely. In the event of a President dying in office, the Electoral College could be reconvened to pick a new President, with the Speaker of the House of Representatives or someone like that sitting as interim President.
And so to your games section.... I find myself thinking it's been too long since I got stuffed out of it in a game of Diplomacy. How do I add myself to the waiting list in Mark Kinney's szine? Do I e-mail him or something? ((I would recommend that. See the call just a little bit further below at the beginning of the game opening list - well, after all of the subszines.)) And you'll have to help me with terminology... is ``szine'' your eccentric spelling of zine, or is it an abbreviation of sub-zine? ((The eccentric one would be closer to the right answer. A subszine is my abbreviation for a... well, a subszine, a short publication that appears in the pages of a larger publication. See immediately following...)) Actually, I can only really play if all the diplomacy and ordering can be done by e-mail as I am too lazy to write real letters at home, so I must query this with Mr. K. ((Well, you do pretty damn well with writing letters to me - this is a real letter boys and girls...))
One final thing, you know the way you live in Providence? ((Yes, I know how I live in Providence, but how do you know how I live in Providence....)) Have I ever asked you whether they make much of their famous son H.P. Lovecraft there, or is he seen as at best an embarrassment? ((I've discussed that question numerous times over the years in these pages. You must have missed it. There is no general answer to your question. There is a very active Lovecraft society that holds regular meetings at his gravesite in Swan Point Cemetery (I have visited the grave - nice place, not creepy like his horror books at all), but it doesn't have a huge following. I met one of the organizers of this group and she is about what you would expect if you've met any of the people who are science-fiction/horror/fantasy fans - a bit wacky but good-hearted. The press and general public in Providence give general due to the Lovecraft society meetings (not making fun of them or calling them a cult), but most people probably have never read his books and don't think a whit about it.))
Hey, that's enough for now. ((Indeed, gotta finish this thing up!!))
Scott Munson (Sat, 29 Apr 2000 19:01:09 PDT)
How ya doing Jim? Hope things are going well for you. Things are a bit better on this end. My PENS are putting the smack-down on Philly! I honestly never would have expected them to blank Philly in the first game, let alone win both games on the Flyers home ice. YES!!! I firmly believe that if the Pens can win the series with Philly without losing too many starters (or Jagr), then they can take the CUP. You are, no doubt, wrapped up in your baseball-fever, and could care less. (GRIN) To each their own, eh?
I like watching baseball after the Stanley Cup playoffs are over. Cubs games are good, and if it gets lop-sided, it's great background noise for cribbage at the bar. The Cubs are a favorite out here for some reason, probably because our cable gets a Chicago channel that shows most of their games. ( WGN maybe?) Well, enough rambling.
((Hey Scott, over here in New England land, EVERYONE is on the Colorado bandwagon, except those I know from Philadelphia. I was walking down the street last night (no, Thursday, the night of the first game) and ran into a friend from Philly coming out of the bar that my wife and I were going into. He was watching the Flyers there, but had abandoned the effort as hopeless at the end of the second period! But all us Ray Bourque fans are watching Colorado storm through the West. You're in trouble in the finals.....))
((Last second update..... the Flyers are back in the series, via the ``Game That Never Ended", a Five, count 'em FIVE overtime game!))
``So I called up George and he called up Jim, I said let's make a deal.
He said he'd talk to him. Gonna start a church where you can save yourself,
You can make some noise, When you've got no choice...
You told me useful things, what people think of me, I guess I should thank you.
It's true, then I agree... I'm all alone, I've got no choice,
I'm all alone, I've got no choice."
From ``Got No Choice" by the incomparable Mark Cutler, from the CD Mark Cutler and Useful Things.
If you want to submit orders, press, or letters by E-Mail, you can find me through the Internet system at ``burgess of world.std.com''. If anyone has an interest in having an E-Mail address listed so people can negotiate with you by computer, just let me know. FAX orders to (401) 277-9904.
Standby lists:
Mike Barno, Dick Martin, Brad Wilson, Jack McHugh, Glenn Petroski, Steve Emmert, Mark Kinney, Vince Lutterbie, Eric Brosius, Paul Rauterberg, Stan Johnson, Randy Ellis, Bob Acheson, Heath Gardner, Phil Reynolds, Paul Kenny, Dan Gorham, and John Schultz stand by for regular Diplomacy.
Phil Reynolds, Chris Trent, and Jim Sayers stand by for the Colonial Diplomacy game.
Brad Wilson, Jack McHugh, Phil Reynolds, Jim Sayers, and Kurt Ozog stand by for the Modern Diplomacy game.
Art Schleinkofer stands by for Colonia. Help, more are needed for this game, maps are provided for free by me.... just ask.
Let me know if you want on or off these lists, especially OFF. Standbies get the szine for free and receive my personal thanks.
Mark Kinney has finally filled his new game and his szine will restart momentarily. Mark is looking for standbys and players for a second game, I believe. Contact Mark NOW at 4820 Westmar Terrace #6, Louisville, KY 40222, (502) 412-3079; alberich of iglou.com and get on his subscription list. I'm in the game and you CAN'T miss watching ME play....
Also, from Eric Ozog: ``What do you say to me running Bernie Oaklyn's Air-Sea Diplomacy variant as a subzine in TAP? The Maricopa game is going to wind up pretty soon, and I'd still like to GM. I fit the profile: I'm a `not as young as I used to be somewhat old-timer burned-out dip-deadwood daddy,' so GMing a single game (preferably variant) in an orphanage zine (like TAP) of HOFs (Hobby Old Farts) seems to be the fashionable thing to do these days. It might help forestall alzheimer's, if anything. If you remember, Air-Sea is the variant Uncle Bernie designed, based on the standard map except it adds airplanes and submarines. Maybe even Bernie would play. I just need to clean up the rules a little bit and would like to run it as an email game, and you can print it in your zine. You can make the announcement in the next issue of TAP if you'd like, and shortly I'll edit the rules and send them to you for publication. What do you think?'' GO FOR IT, ERIC. You know that as one of my originals, you only have to ask. Send requests to join this game either to me or to Eric. Eric is probably not going to start this quickly, but write to him when you feel like it anyway. I'll publish the rules closer to a time when Eric wants it to start.
The only Diplomacy oriented opening left that I am GMing in this szine is an opening for a game of Star Trek Diplomacy! These will be the last Diplomacy game openings until more games end. See Stephen Agar's rules on his web page at (new location, and including that little typo on ``start trek''):
http://www.diplomacy-archive.com/resources/variants/rules/start_trek.htm
I decided how I will treat the Star systems and the ``revolving rings'' rule. I will keep the map as a ``code" and the real locations (which I will provide as names from Star Trek) will rotate through the coded spaces. This WILL make it easy to make up maps. The game start is open now, and since I want to STRONGLY encourage press, you can sign up and ``claim'' a race. Chris Trent claims the Ferengi, Stephen Agar claims the Borg, and Jody McCullough claims the Romulans. Buddy Tretick and Roland Sasseville, Jr., also are set to play. Chris Lockheardt has stepped out of the sixth spot, so we now need THREE more players. This game also has the $20 game fee ($5 of that refundable for NMR insurance).
Then, for NON-Diplomacy oriented types. John Harrington is offering to guest GM a game of Office Politics. Any interest in that?? Let me or John know! I have one person signed up, but I've forgotten just this instant who it is.
Also, I am going to design some postal rules for Devil Take the Hindmost, and Chris Lockheardt is pulling out of that opening too, so I need four players. Postal rules from me will be forthcoming shortly.
I suppose I have to admit that no one is requesting Pontevedria, the North American game opening flyer, from Conrad von Metzke any more. You can contact Conrad by E-Mail at metzke of san.rr.com if you want to ask him about it. I'd be pleased to help anyone find other game openings on a personal basis too. The longer run solution might come out of the efforts of the Brits, on which we might be able to piggyback. If you are interested, contact Stephen Agar at stephen of spoff.demon.co.uk who still heads up The Diplomatic Pouch postal section or or join the Brit hobby mailing list at (aw, you guessed it, another new address): http://www.diplomacy-archive.com/about_this_site.htm
THE DUE DATE FOR WINTER 1902 IS MAY 20TH, 2000
THE DUE DATE FOR SPRING 1903 IS JUNE 10TH, 2000
Fall 1902
AUSTRIA (Gorham): a VIE-tyo, a tri-VEN, f ADR S a tri-ven, a WAR-gal, a gre-SER.
ENGLAND (Biehl): f ENG S f bre, f BRE h, f NTH S a bel, a BEL S GERMAN a ruh-bur.
FRANCE (Davis): SEAN O'DONNELL RESIGNS, RICK DAVIS CALLED AS STANDBY; a PAR-bre,
a bur S ITALIAN a tyo-mun (nso, d r:mar,otb), f MID S a par-bre, a GAS S a bur.
GERMANY (Shreve): a ruh-BUR, a MUN S a ruh-bur, f DEN eats lots of lutefisk (h),
a PIC S ENGLISH f bre, a hol-RUH.
ITALY (Tallman): a ven S a tyo (d r:pie,tus,rom,apu,otb), f tyh-WES,
a TYO S a ven, a BOH-gal.
RUSSIA (Tretick): a MOS S a sev-ukr, f swe-NWY, a sev-UKR, a GAL-rum.
TURKEY (Ellis): a ARM S a rum-sev, a con-BUL, f BLA-rum, a rum-SEV, a ukr-mos (d ann).
Supply Center Chart
| AUSTRIA (Gorham): | bud,tri,vie,ser,war,ven | (has 5, bld 1) |
| ENGLAND (Biehl): | lon,lvp,edi,bel,bre | (has 4, bld 1) |
| FRANCE (Davis): | par,mar,spa,por | (has 3 or 4, bld 1(r:otb) or even) |
| GERMANY (Shreve): | ber,kie,mun,den,hol | (has 5, even) |
| ITALY (Tallman): | rom,nap,tun | (has 3 or 4, even(r:otb) or rem 1) |
| RUSSIA (Tretick): | mos,stp,swe,nwy | (has 4, even) |
| TURKEY (Ellis): | ank,smy,con,bul,rum,sev | (has 4, bld 2) |
| Neutral: | gre | (Total=34) |
Addresses of the Participants
AUSTRIA: Dan Gorham, PO Box 279, Belmopan, BELIZE, CENTRAL AMERICA ($5)
Frdan of BTL.NET
ENGLAND: John Biehl, 8809 Delwood Drive, Delta, BRITISH COLUMBIA, V4C 4A1 CANADA,
(604) 589-9124 ($10); jeen of telus.net
NEW FRANCE: Rick Davis, 1130 Hevrin Cr., Soledad, CA. 93960, (831) 678-4470
redavis914 of aol.com
GERMANY: Dwayne Shreve, 739 Union Church Road, Elkton, MD 21921 ($5)
dwayneshreve of yahoo.com
ITALY: Terry Tallman, 3805 SW Lake Flora Road, Port Orchard, WA 98367, (360) 874-0384 ($3)
terryt of sinclair.net
RUSSIA: Buddy Tretick, 9607 Conaty Circle, Spotsylvania, VA 22553, (540) 582-2356 (E-Mail)
batretick of mindspring.com
TURKEY: Randy Ellis, 3116 McGee, Apt. 1N, Kansas City, MO 64111, (816) 931-8406 ($10)
coming soon....
Game Notes:
1) Note Randy Ellis' new postal address. He is getting a new E-Mail address shortly too and may already have E-Mailed many of you.... I'll print it next time as soon as I know it works.
2) Sean is having trouble with staying in all his games, but he never seems to have made it actively into this one, so I am using GM powers to remove him immediately here. I feel sorry for Sean, but he simply has not been able to communicate and you can't play if you can't communicate - especially if you can't communicate with the GM. The last note I had said that removal of all computer E-Mail privileges was imminent and presumably has occurred now. Rick Davis wrote just after the game originally was filled and asked in, so I thought he was the logical replacement. For fairness, I allowed Rick to submit orders even though you were not able to negotiate with him. Under the circumstances, I didn't think it would matter much. I hope the quality of the game improves for everyone. At the least, we can't keep you guys quiet in the press..... hurray!
3) Leading off, I made the following comment to our German player after his ``creative'' order.... Lutefisk is really awful, have you ever tried it? I love haggis which is another of those weird northern dishes, but you can have your lutefisk!
Press:
(SHREVE REPLIES): My sister, Dianne, thinks that lutefisk is awful, but I theorize that she is a mutant in our family. My mother usually prepares it around Christmas. I like it with milk gravy and mashed potatoes, though on my own, I would add chives to the gravy to give the meal some color.
That would be considered heretical, as is my version of oyster stew, which has potatoes, chives and onions to give it some valid reason to be called a stew.
I haven't tried haggis, but I do like steak and kidney pie. Actually, I usually eat in pubs when in the UK, but have seen nothing in pub kitchens that I haven't liked. Perhaps, I need to get to Scotland to find haggis for a meal.
By the way, we loved mainland Greece and made it to Crete as well. The food could get tiresome, but the ruins are something else. We mostly took public transportation, but we did go on one tour, but it was only because it took us to both Mycenae and Epidaurus in one day. We did the major and some minor sites in Athens, including the abovementioned Mycenae, Delphi and Knossos in Crete. I learned the alphabet and maybe 100 words. When we return, I hope to know many more.
(THE GERMAN-GREEK BEER REPORT): No doubt, many of you have lost sleep in the past wondering just what beers are available in Greece. Worry no more; I have found out the answer to this perplexing question.
At first glance, on arrival in that country, it appeared that the beers are all from German companies operating in Greece. One sees the overrated Heineken along with the pleasant Amstel. I also managed to locate another tolerable one named Kaiser, but my favorite was Mythos beer. With just the right amount of hops and barley malt, this was the one I looked forward to for a cold one after hiking up and down the Acropolis or traipsing through Knossos.
(UNTITLED, UNKNOWN): Bjarney Buddy was stepping on the back of a fallen comrade, one Shrevey, who lay there at the bottom of the bar, head stuck in the spittoon, bubbles blowing out of his ear. Bjarney was trying to get up on that tall stool, wondering all the while why, just why, everything had to be taller than he. In his heart of hearts, Bjarney knew that to be just another Turkish Government conspiracy against his personage. Bjarney called down to Shrevey, saying, ``Hey, Shrevey! Why don't we dance with those guys a bit?" Shrevey muttered something like, ``I was always partial to the side step!" Bjarney thought for a few minutes, which was the usual time for Bjarney to think of something to say, and retorted, ``Don't you mean the two-step?" ``No, side step, as in step aside!" ``Oh!" replied Bjarney. Wondering what all of that meant, and wondering when it all started, Bjarney continued his attempt to climb onto the stool, slipping, screaming - man you could hear those screams all the way down inside of Shrevey's ear drum. Bjarney exited Shrevey's head through the nasal passage, right into the filth of the spittoon. Of course, Bjarney could not escape the spittoon since Shrevey's head blocked the only way out. So, Bjarney crawled back up the nasal passage, finally exiting Shrevey's body most violently with jet assist. The bar sells tickets to the two-dimensional picture of Bjarney that is on the walls still to this day.
(FLANDERS FIELDS, OCT31, 1902): General Hyde, commander of the 1st (and, maybe, last) English Field Army, recalled Prime Minister John Beale's parting words, ``Hyde, for god's sake, don't hide." Hyde surveyed the map. There was a German army to the west, there was one to the north and there was one to the east. He muttered to his staff, ``Gentlemen, the Germans have us almost completely surrounded. One might think we were the enemy and not the French!" Hyde wanted to hide.
(VIENNA): What, why and how? The questions being pondered by the freedom loving nations of the world, as they face such warmongers (how do you like that word?) as Italy and Russia. But then they don't even trust each other.
(RUSSIA to AUSTRIA): Now, just where do you think all of those Turkish armies are going to move after they hit the Barents Sea without a paddle? Make your peace with Italy. The two of you can still take Turkey out, especially since Turkey has but a single landlocked fleet. Besides, if my side step worked, Turkey will not have anyplace to move except westward.
(CHERKASS, A RATHER SMALL VILLAGE DUE SOUTH BY WEST FROM KIEV): Butternut Squash and Toenail Press: The Tzar walked in circles without getting his feet wet, muttering and sputtering, ``How rude of the Sultanlessness! Who the harem does he think he is, anyway?" No, we here do not believe he is ``anyway", and he might not remain ``anything" either. With that thought, the Tzar stealthily and very quietly too, snuck into the Sultan's Harem and took several luscious babes. The Tzar dumped those ladies of the day and of the night into the lap of the Austrian leaders and said, ``Okay, you want booty, you got booty!" The Tzar then went back to his castle to continue his water walk.
(A PITHY ANONYMOUS NOTE): The day Turkey is out of the game, as in, down to zero units on the gameboard, one would be able to sing, ``You'll wonder where the yellow went!"
(SPOTSYLVANIA, VIRGINIA): Official Boredom Press: I went into the Sheriff's Office [no, not in cuffs] the other day, and while I was waiting for some paperwork [no, not a warrant for my arrest!], I noted some activity in the room across the hallway. An officer was screening [no, not screaming!] some applicants. He was giving an aptitude test by holding up a picture of a known perf for two seconds, and then asking the applicant to tell the officer what features could be used to identify the perf.
The first applicant said, ``Oh, that's easy! He only has one eye!"
The officer retorted, ``Sir, that was a profile view!" "Next!"
The second applicant said, ``Oh, that's easy! He only has one ear!" ``Next!"
The third applicant, a fine specimen of a woman, answered the test by saying, ``Sir, he is wearing contact lenses!"
The officer was amazed, and took another look, himself, of the picture of the perf. The officer then went to the file cabinet and took out the folder on that particular perf and exclaimed, ``Mam, I don't know how you did that. This guy does wear contact lenses! You are hired! I just don't see how you could tell this guy is wearing contact lenses.''
The lady answered rather smartly, ``Oh, that's easy. He surely can not wear eye glasses since he only has one ear and one eye!"
(LOST IN BOHEMIA NOV11, 1902): The General was bewildered. Everywhere he looked he saw trees. He looked at his map. He turned it one way and then another. Still he could not make sense of it. Finally, he laid it out over the nearest object to hand, a field cannon. ``Colonel, your compass, please." The General placed the offered compass on the map. However, this didn't help as the compass needle spun around continuously. ``Colonel, your compass is faulty, get me another one." The Colonel did but the result was the same. The General called for another and, again, the compass needle failed to settle. ``Get me all the compasses you can find, surely one will work." A call to the troops produced dozens of compasses which the Colonel placed on the map. Not one worked properly. ``Where did we get these?" scowled the General, ``whoever supplied these should be shot!" ``Well, sir" replied the Colonel, ``they come in these cardboard boxes, perhaps we can find who the manufacturer was." The Colonel looked inside a box. ``Ah, there is a card here." He offered it to the General who read, `For the buyer interested in the unusual and the exceptionally rare. This is no ordinary compass but one which may change the course of the bearer' (made in the Bazaar, Constantinople, by Mustaffa Stuffa, purveyor of fine merchandise). ``Damned Turkish junk!" snarled the General, ``We must do something. The King demands action. Colonel, get the army ready to march!" ``Which way, General?" Folding up the map the General glanced at the barrel of the field cannon and pointing in the same direction shouted, ``That way!"
(OSLO DEC1, 1902): King Oscar II and his royal family have been forced to flee Norway for the sanctuary of London following a socialist rebellion. Insurrectionists have murdered some industrialists, members of the national assembly and also some landowners. To avert a civil war the King appealed for assistance from both England and Russia. The Imperial Russian northern fleet has moved to occupy Oslo and to suppress the rebels.
(LONDON DEC5, 1902): King Edward VII prclaimed, ``I, Edward and my cousin, the Czar, are united in our desire to see Oscar return to Norway to rule over his loyal subjects once our British and Russian forces have quelled the socialist rebellion and brought the traitors to trial."
(DOWN AT THE BARROOM WITH SHREEVY): It was one of those mild Spring evenings, the sort where many people think of romance or dream of better days. So it was with Shreve at the Doo Drop Inn as he watched a broadcast of a women's soccer match.
``Would ya look at the smokestacks on that one?" Shreve asked of us with a grin.
``Yeah, those are sorta like Winnebagoes," noted Crazy Henry, but I only nodded.
``How come the rest of the players don't have her attri-beauts? Even if they was as good looking, they wear too much for a guy to know for sure."
At this point, I wasn't yet sure whether he meant butte or beaut, but I got the gist and suggested that a letter writing campaign might be appropriate to improve the sport and broaden its appeal.
``Yeah, you just keep thinking, Bernie. Me, I was thinking of calling them up right now and telling them what I think. Anybody got a quarter?"
It was at that point that the barroom door opened and a disheveled young fellow teetered in. He paused to pick his nose and chase away some flies that had followed him in.
``Anybody seen Shreevy?", asked the spector.
``Not Sean again," muttered Shreve, right before he took a long pull to finish his beer. Then he motioned for another. After a brief pause, he spoke.
``I seen him a half hour ago," responded Shreve. probably referring to a recent trip to the restroom and a glance into the mirror.
``Guy's after me. Name's John. Worse than Shreevy."
``Wow, that's pretty awful, damned awful, but why do you want Shreevy?"
``I can BEAT Shreevy."
Later, Shreve told me he felt a little sorry for the fellow being so misguided and that may be true. However, I think that if he had any notion of sympathy at all Shreve would have kept silent, but he did not.
``Well, I heered that he sometimes goes to Skinny's Tap," he continued.
Shreve has probably been there a few times, but no one who wants to live a long full life would go there at all. At this bit of advice, the young apparition looked very suspicious and asked, ``This not like that biker bar?"
``Nope, bikers don't go there..."
I heard him quietly add, ``and live."
``Thanks. Gotta go. Gotta get that Shreevy guy."
(POPE to ALL): Ok, confused enough? Me too.
THE DUE DATE FOR WINTER 1753 IS MAY 20TH, 2000
THE DUE DATE FOR SPRING 1754 IS JUNE 10TH, 2000
Summer 1753 - revisited
AUSTRIA (Prosnitz): R a burgundy otb.
Fall 1753
AUSTRIA (Prosnitz): a manaus-AMAZON, a BAVARIA S a swisse, a GALICIA S OTTOMAN
f bulgaria(ec)-romania, f south pacific-FIJI, a SILESIA S a bavaria, f ADRIATIC SEA S
f papal states(wc), a venezuela-MANAUS, f bismarck sea-NEW ZEALAND, a SAVOY S a swisse,
a SWISSE S a savoy, a COLOMBIA S f ecuador, f PAPAL STATES(WC) S a savoy, f ECUADOR h.
CHINA (Acheson): a chinghai-SINKIANG, a wuhan-TIBET, f EAST CHINA SEA-korea,
a JEHOL S f yellow sea-manchuria, f yellow sea-MANCHURIA, a GOBI DESERT S a sinkiang-mongolia,
a SZECHUAN S ENGLISH f andaman sea-burma (nso), a nepal-bengal (d r:bhutan,otb),
a sinkiang-MONGOLIA, f JAPAN-sea of japan.
ENGLAND (Power): a KAMERON-congo, a PERU S a bolivia, f ANDAMAN SEA-bay of bengal,
f north atlantic ocean-WEST ATLANTIC OCEAN, f ENGLISH CHANNEL S f north sea-antwerp,
f NORTH SEA-antwerp (imp), f timor sea-ANTARCTIC OCEAN, a amazon-matto grosso (d ann),
a CONGO-uganda, a BOLIVIA S a amazon-matto grosso, a GABON S RUSSIAN f kalahari-angola,
f EAST INDIAN OCEAN-ceylon, f helgoland-HAGUE,
f EAST ATLANTIC OCEAN S SPANISH a leon-lisbon.
FRANCE (Alme): a paris-FLANDERS, a BURGUNDY-savoy, f HUDSON BAY S a yukon-alaska,
f bay of biscay-BRITTANY, f LIGURIAN SEA S a burgundy-savoy, a MASSACHUSETTS-ohio,
f GHANA-dakar, a TOULON S a burgundy-savoy, a SAHARA-dakar, a yukon-ALASKA,
a bordeaux-PARIS.
NETHERLANDS (O'Donnell): NMR, ART SCHLEINKOFER CALLED AS STANDBY; f CORAL SEA h,
f SARGASSO SEA h, a KATANGA h, a RHINE h, f TASMAN SEA h, a ANTWERP h,
a VIRGINIA h, a UGANDA h, f SAMOA h.
OTTOMAN (Johnson): a IZMIR-armenia, a SUEZ h, f PERSIAN GULF-arabian sea,
f BLACK SEA S f bulgaria(ec)-romania, f north pacific ocean-SIBERIA, a persia-UZBEK,
a EGYPT S a libya-sudan, f RED SEA-ethiopia, f BULGARIA(EC)-romania,
f central pacific ocean-TARAWA, a KAZAKSTAN S a omsk, a libya-SUDAN,
a OMSK S f north pacific ocean-siberia, f GREECE-ionian sea, f SOLOMON SEA-coral sea.
PORTUGAL (Stimmel): f lisbon S f lagos-canaries (d ann), f lagos-CANARIES,
a MATTO GROSSO S AUSTRIAN a manaus-amazon, f BAY OF BENGAL-ceylon,
a khandesh-MAHRATTA, f bahia-RICEFE, f AZORES-central atlantic ocean, a VANCOUVER-oregon,
a MISSOURI-ohio, a BENGAL S RUSSIAN a kashmir-nepal, a ARGENTINA-bolivia,
f MID-ATLANTIC OCEAN-central atlantic ocean.
RUSSIA (Rauterberg): a CRIMEA S a romania, a LITHUANIA S a romania, f kalahari-ANGOLA,
f SEA OF JAPAN-east china sea, f WEST INDIAN OCEAN-arabian sea,
f baltic sea-POLAND, f KOREA S a mongolia-manchuria, a URAL-omsk, a CAUCASUS-armenia,
a mongolia-manchuria (d r:turkestan,otb), a ROMANIA h, a HANOVER S ENGLISH
f helgoland-antwerp (nso), a kashmir-NEPAL, a ZAMBIA S f kalahari-angola, f DENMARK S a hanover,
f manchuria-yellow sea (d ann).
SPAIN (Partridge): a uganda S ENGLISH a congo-uganda (nsu), a KENYA h (uno),
f subic bay-PHILIPPINE SEA, f CALIFORNIA-oregon, a leon-LISBON, f GIBRALTAR S a hue-lagos,
f gulf of siam-CAMBODIA, a ETHIOPIA S a sudan, a mexico-TEXAS, a tunis-LIBYA, a hue-LAGOS,
a louisiana-FLORIDA, a sudan S a tunis-libya (d r:nubia,fezan,otb),
f WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN-ionian, f philippine sea-RABOUL.
Supply Center Chart
| AUSTRIA (Prosnitz): | BUD,VIE,SUR,TRI,TAH,ven,bav, | (has 13, bld 3) |
| bel,NAP,vza,col,nwz,pps,fij,sav,ecu |
| CHINA (Acheson): | PEK,WUH,XIA,AMO,tib,tai, | (has 9 or 10, bld 2(r:otb) or 1) |
| NAN,sin,jap,manch,mon |
| ENGLAND (Power): | NIG,MLA,EDI,LON,kam,peru, | (has 13, bld 2(S r:fez) or 3) |
| sia,nwy,ire,jav,gab,sum,bol,con,hag,fez?(SPAIN r) |
| FRANCE (Alme): | PAR,DAK,TOU,QUE,BDX,tau,ohi, | (has 11, even) |
| gha,mas,ont,ala |
| NETHERLANDS (O'Donnell): | ANT,MEL,lou,vir,uga,sam | (has 9, rem 3) |
| OTTOMAN (Johnson): | IZM,JER,BAG,IST,HAW,persia, | (has 15, bld 2) |
| egy,afg,bul,gua,yem,wak,gre,iwo,tar,sud,oms |
| PORTUGAL (Stimmel): | GOA,BRA,manit,mah,arg,azo, | (has 11, even) |
| kha,bah,van,ben,ric |
| RUSSIA (Rauterberg): | MOS,KIE,CAP,STP,VLA,CRI, | (has 14 or 15, bld 3(r:otb) or 2) |
| pol,moz,swe,mal,kor,zam,den,ang,rom,han,nep |
| SPAIN (Partridge): | MAD,MEX,SOM,VAL,MAN,cal, | (has 13 or 14, bld 5(r:fez,otb) or 4) |
| tun,rab,bor,eth,hon,tex,nwg,cam,ken,lis,lag,flo,fez? |
| Neutral: | bur,cey,cub,die,ifn,mor,nat, | (Total=136) |
| niz,num,ore,tim,togo,vol |
Addresses of the Participants
AUSTRIA: Gene Prosnitz, 2600 Netherland Ave., Apt. 1116, Riverdale, NY 10463, (718) 601-8131 ($5)
ProsnitzE of aol.com
CHINA: Bob Acheson, 807-556 Laurier Ave., Ottawa, ONTARIO K1R 7X2, CANADA ($5)
racheson of intranet.ca
ENGLAND: John Power, 5043 Lymbar Dr., Houston, TX 77096, (713) 283-8962 ($5)
nat-john of swbell.net
FRANCE: Hank Alme, 506 Paige Loop, Los Alamos, NM 87544
almehj of swcp.com
NETHERLANDS: Sean O'Donnell, 2219 Grafton Road, Grafton, OH 44044
sean_o_donnell of hotmail.com, seanside of snap.com
NETHERLANDS: Standby is Art Schleinkofer, 3120 Holly Road, Philadelphia, PA 19154-1708
OTTOMAN: Stan Johnson, 2401 W. Southern Ave. #56, Tempe, AZ 85282, (602) 454-9356 ($5)
PORTUGAL: Robert Stimmel, Apt. #57, Casa de Sherry Apts., 2462 North Sycamore Blvd.,
Tucson, AZ 85712-2541, (520) 326-8369 ($5)
RUSSIA: Paul Rauterberg, 3116 W. American Dr., Greenfield, WI 53221, (414) 281-2339 (E-Mail)
prosit of execpc.com
SPAIN: Dave Partridge, 15 Woodland Drive, Brookline, NH 03033
rebhuhn of rocketmail.com
Game Notes:
1) Players already were notified, but Gene Prosnitz's army actually was removed from the board.
2) Sean O'Donnell has been having serious communication problems and now I am cut off from him. I am replacing him in the Regular Dip game immediately, calling a standby here, and hoping he can stay in the Modern game. He says he doesn't have enough money for stamps unless he gets a job and I believe that is accurate. Sean will be replaced officially if he doesn't submit Winter orders. Bad luck from the attackers in two places (errors, I think) helped Sean's position from not suffering too badly. Thanks in advance to Art for standing by.
3) As usual, let me know ASAP if you find any adjudication problems. Remember that the centers in CAPS are the ones in which you may build. Also let me know if that list is wrong for some reason.
Press:
(SPAIN - CHINA): I hope our truce still holds. Despite your Ottoman ally's perfidy, I have no desire for a fight with you.
(SPAIN - NETHERLANDS): My apologies, but it was the price of cooperation, and others had more to offer than you did.
THE DUE DATE FOR SPRING 1904 IS MAY 20TH, 2000
Winter 1903
AUSTRIA (Zarr): rem f ion, a boh; has a SER.
ENGLAND (Sayers): bld f lon; has f LON, f BRE, f NTH, f MID.
FRANCE (Sasseville): R a bur otb; has f GOL, f TYH, a PIC, a PIE.
GERMANY (Johnson): rem f ska; has f DEN, a SIL, a MUN, f HOL, a BUR, a BEL.
ITALY (Schultz): R f tyh-TUN, bld f nap; has f NAP, a VEN, f WES, a VIE, f TUN,
a TRI, a BUD.
RUSSIA (Trent): bld f stp(nc); has f STP(NC), a WAR, a PRU, f SWE, a FIN, a SEV.
TURKEY (Munson): bld f smy; has f SMY, f GRE, a ALB, f BLA, a RUM, a BUL.
Addresses of the Participants
AUSTRIA: Harold Zarr, 215 Glen Drive, Iowa Falls, IA 50126-1957, (515) 648-2821 ($5)
hdzarr of dmacc.cc.ia.us
ENGLAND: Jim Sayers, 15 Holdsworth Street, Woollahra 2025, AUSTRALIA ($10)
100233.513 of compuserve.com
FRANCE: Roland Sasseville, Jr., 38 Bucklin Street, Pawtucket, RI 02861, (401) 722-4029 ($5)
roland6 of home.com and ICQ: 40565030
GERMANY: Stan Johnson, 2401 W. Southern Ave. #56, Tempe, AZ 85282, (602) 454-9356
ITALY: John Schultz, PO Box 1322, Valparaiso, IN 46384
RUSSIA: Chris Trent, 8553 Banff Vista Dr., Elk Grove, CA 95624-1746, (916) 685-7772 ($5)
chrisimaus98 of hotmail.com
TURKEY: Scott Munson, P.O. Box 1042, Gardiner, MT 59030 ($5)
samunson71 of hotmail.com
Game Notes:
1) Note John Schultz's new address and phone number! Oops, I can't seem to locate said phone number.... help!! Anyway, he looks forward to hearing from everyone in his new situation.
2) Reminders to everyone on some rules: (1) You cannot make orders conditional on other people's moves in the same phase. Here you could have made builds or removals conditional on the Italian or French retreats, but NOT on their builds or removals; (2) It is always a good idea when submitting conditional orders to use the phrase ``otherwise'' or ``under all other cases''. This phrase always will indicate the default orders and saves you if you make a mistake in asking for conditionals.
Press:
(TURKEY to RUSSIA): Sorry about that little bump in SEV. It's been a long time since we last spoke, and I really couldn't afford to lose that RUM dot right now. Once again, sorry. No harm meant.
(ITALY-FRANCE): As a liberated man, I know how the people of Brest must feel.
(TURKEY to ITALY): OK stranger, I've written you twice now with no reply. I'll assume that you were busy getting shuffled about, but we still need to talk. As an aside, congrats on your new found freedom. I hope things are going smoothly for you and that the transition isn't too big a shock.
(ITALY-ENGLAND): Congratulations!
(T > F):The Sultan is sending his favorite Ambassador to France in the hopes of gaining an audience with your Prime Minister, Head of Foreign Affairs, Demi-God of Love and Trust or what ever his title may be. Much needs to be discussed...
(TURKEY to ENGLAND): ``HI ENGLAND!"
(FRANCE-GERMANY): If a Kraut gets mushed to bits under the heels of the French Foreign Legion, will anyone hear his cries for help? Or better yet, will anyone really care?
(GERMANY to FRANCE): mmmmm! Fresh Frog for dinner! Taste like chicken, don'tcha know!!!
THE DUE DATE FOR FALL 1905 IS MAY 20TH, 2000
Summer 1905
AUSTRIA (Reichert): has a GAL, a SER; and nuked BRE, MAR(2),
PAR(2), POR, SPA.
ENGLAND (Schultz): has f NTH, a YOR, f NWG; and nuked
BER, KIE, MUN(2), ROM(2), VEN(3).
FRANCE (Gardner): has none; and nukes withheld.
GERMANY (Barno): has f HEL, a SIL, a RUH; and nuked
GM, INDIANA DOC OFFICES, TUN, RUM, ENG.
ITALY (S. Kenny): has f APU, a PIE; and nuked
TYH, ION, GOL, MAR(2), SEV.
RUSSIA (McCullough): has f FIN, a UKR, a PRU; and nuked VEN(3), TUS, ROM(2), NAP.
TURKEY (Weiss): has f CON, a BUL, a ARM; and nuked MUN(2), VIE, VEN(3), PAR(2), WAR.
Addresses of the Participants
Sandy Kenny, 23 East Coulter Avenue, Collingswood, NJ 08108-1208
Jody McCullough, 1071 Brown Avenue, Lafayette, CA 94549-3153
jodymc of home.com
Richard Weiss, 2777 Northtowne Lane, Apt V 1105, Reno, NV 89512
rcw23 of hotmail.com or diplomat of higherquality.com
Sara Reichert, 20805 Margaret, Carson, CA 90745-1224
sarareichert of aol.com
John Schultz, PO Box 1322, Valparaiso, IN 46384
Heath Gardner, 3017 Mayview Road, Raleigh, NC 27607, (919) 834-4832
hgardner of prodigy.net
Mike Barno, 634 Dawson Hill Road, Spencer, NY 14883
mpbarno of lightlink.com
| 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | TOTAL |
| SANDY KENNY | 4 | 3 | 0 | 5 | 12 |
| JODY MCCULLOUGH | 3 | 1 | 6 | 1 | 11 |
| RICHARD WEISS | 4 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 10 |
| SARA REICHERT | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 9 |
| JOHN SCHULTZ | 0 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 10 |
| HEATH GARDNER | 5 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 8 |
| MIKE BARNO | 0 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 12 |
| Black Holed | 15 | 15 | 16 | 11 | 16 | 73 |
| Neutral | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 7 |
| Total | 34 | 34 | 34 | 34 | 16 | 152 |
| Times GM Nuked | 1 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 11 |
| Ind. Prison Off. | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Greenland | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Iceland | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Kurt Ozog | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Beale St., SF | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Game Notes:
1) Note John Schultz's new address. We can stop nuking the Indiana Department of Corrections Offices now.
2) I mistakenly left Jody's old E-Mail address up there in addition to his new one. Everything should be correct now, please let me know if it isn't.
Press:
(TURKEY-ALL): While I shower thanks on each of you for not black holing me and not even holing a way that anyone can get to me (Sara, what is the longest path this time?) I am getting nervous that I could be so close to the leader that y'all will annihilate me next year. It is not good to be ahead near the end.
(SARA-GM): Both Italian armies can traverse 11 black holes: Venice-Tuscany-Rome-Naples-Ionian Sea-Tunis-Tyrrhenian Sea-Gulf of Lyons-Marseilles-Spain-Portugal and wind up facing the Atlantic Ocean.
(CALCUTTA-SADDAM HUSSEIN): The Lord-Governor of Calcutta, former member of the untouchables and now the Elliott Ness of the majority parliament party, and as such the ``ruling class" hereby informs you that Calcutta has long since copyrighted the use of the term ``Black Hole," and if you do not stop using this title, we will black hole you. ((Tough noogies!!! GO AHEAD AND TRY!!! I control the access to the nukes around here. You have just had your technology revoked.))
(AUSTRIA-ALL): For Fall 1905 I plan to acquire Austria's traditional builds of Serbia and Greece. I trust we understand that attempts to hinder me, or grab for Vienna or Budapest, may require me to re-think my dedication to nuking Heath Gardner to oblivion every year?
(SARA-JOHN): I hope the good news about you that I received from our esteemed GM is true. If this causes you to NMR and drop out of the hobby, I can understand that. Whatever happens, and for what it may be worth, you have my best wishes.
(TINY TIM, KING OF ENGLAND to ALL): God Bless You, Every One!
(SADDAM-MILK AND COOKIES): Get the f. . . ing cross-press out of this game. Or the next nuke will be filled with yellow snow!
THE DUE DATE FOR FALL 1905 IS MAY 20TH, 2000
Summer 1905
AUSTRIA (Pollard): has a GAL, a UKR, a SER, a BUD, f BUL(SC), a WAR, a RUM.
ENGLAND (Tallman): has f KIE, f SWE, f NWY.
FRANCE (Morris): has f MID, a MUN, f LON, a BEL, f NTH, a BUR, a PIC.
GERMANY (Sayers): R a mun-BER; has f HEL, a RUH, a BER, a HOL.
ITALY (Munson): has f EAS, f GRE, f NWG, f CLY, a TYO, a BOH.
RUSSIA (Reynolds): has f EDI, a MOS, a STP.
TURKEY (Barno): has f SMY, a CON, f BLA, a SEV.
Addresses of the Participants
AUSTRIA: Kent Pollard, P.O. box 5726, Fresno, CA 93755-5726 ($4)
ENGLAND: Terry Tallman, 3805 SW Lake Flora Road, Port Orchard, WA 98367, (360) 874-0384 ($4)
terryt of sinclair.net
FRANCE: Scott Morris, 12110 Shelbyville Rd., Louisville, KY 40243, (502) 893-8260 ($5)
Scottm221 of aol.com
GERMANY: Jim Sayers, 15 Holdsworth Street, Woollahra 2025, AUSTRALIA ($10)
100233.513 of compuserve.com
ITALY: Scott Munson, P.O. Box 1042, Gardiner, MT 59030 ($5)
samunson71 of hotmail.com
RUSSIA: Phil Reynolds, 2896 Oak Street, Sarasota, FL 34237, (813) 953-6952
preyno of yahoo.com
TURKEY: Mike Barno, 634 Dawson Hill Road, Spencer, NY 14883 ($5)
mpbarno of lightlink.com
Game Notes:
1) All quiet on the front.... except for some press.
Press:
(ITALY to RUSSIA): Ok, that Ruble went pretty far... Now where do we go from here?
(ITALY to ENGLAND): Let's talk.
(IN ROME...): Speedicut was displeased... Sitting in his chambers, tapping out `shave and a hair cut' for over an hour had done little to solidify his resolve. The hang-over was still thumping in his head and he was still embarrassed by the fiasco of the previous week. Flashman got him beastly drunk and then turned him loose on the masses, only to cut ranks and join the Austrians. The Turk was pretty honest in his appraisal of the European Theatre, even with that olive branch hanging out of his ass... Something needed to be done, and Speedicut was the one to do it...
The French parliament is open for negotiations every Tuesday and Wednesday. I am at work from 9 am till 8 pm EST. My toll free number is 1-800-380-4536. That's right baby. FREE! You have no reason not to call to work out a deal. NONE, zip, NADA! You know who you are. I'M TALKING TO YOU. Call so we can work this out. < sniff > please, PRETTY please. Call. The voices in my head......THE VOICES! They keep TAP, TAP TAPPING in my brain.
((Just out of curiosity, I wonder what we SHOULD be calling you at that number about?))
Jim BO shama lama ding dong! I run the day to day operations of Bob Morris Auto Sales. check us out at:
http://members.aol.com/BMASCARS
yeah buddy. Needless to say since I practicly live at the car lot I have lots of free time to contemplate my world domination plans.
It's all good. Derby is almost here and things are slow in Louisville. I lucked into Finish line tickets for the big race. Much joy and rapture!
((Ah, ha, so I can ask you about buying a car if I call you!! Do you deliver?? Steverino Emmert will have your head about those tickets....))
It's kind of weird. I had a buddy of mine make our web page up, much to the ridicule of my brother (who runs the operation with me but travels and buys while I sell) and then BOOM, I sold a car to New York and several cars to Ohio. I definitely won that war.
The internet is a strange and wonderous thing. Not only has it improved my gaming but has increased my market as well. I believe the internet revolution is bigger than the industrial revolution when it's all said and done. And all of this to simple KY boy!
I have few skills in life so I freely share the ones I have. If you ever are going to buy a car I will give you tips on how to screw the dealer down!! :)
I take it Steve is not a horse fan?? MY GAWD! How can a man not be a fan of the races. Southern gals, mint julips, gambling, all on a sunny Sat afternoon. < sigh > only 8 days to go.
((Quite the opposite, actually, he's your kinda mint julep guy.... he will be killing you to acquire your tickets and go to the Derby himself.))))
THE DUE DATE FOR WINTER 1905 IS MAY 20TH, 2000
THE DUE DATE FOR SPRING 1906 IS JUNE 10TH, 2000
Fall 1905
AUSTRIA (K. Ozog): a SER S a bul-gre, a BUD S a ukr-rum, a ukr-RUM, a VIE S GERMAN a mun-tyo,
f con-BUL(SC), a ROM h, a bul-GRE.
ENGLAND (James): a BRE-par, f eng-MID, f spa(sc)-WES, f STP(NC) S f swe-nwy,
f gol-TYH, f mid-NAF, f swe-NWY, a por-SPA.
FRANCE (Kinney): a GAS-par.
GERMANY (Goesle): a mun-TYO, a ber-MUN, a VEN S AUSTRIAN a rom, f pru-BAL,
f nwy h (d r:bar,nwg,nth,ska,otb), a bur-BEL, a mar-BUR.
ITALY (Rauterberg): f TUS-rom, a BOH-tyo, f ION-gre, a NAP S f tus-rom.
RUSSIA (Rusnak): a arm-SMY, a war-UKR, f bla-SEV, a ANK S a arm-smy.
TURKEY (Emmert): f AEG S RUSSIAN f bla-bul(ec) (nso), f smy-CON.
Supply Center Chart
| AUSTRIA (K. Ozog): | vie,bud,tri,ser,bul,rum,rom, | (has 7, bld 1) |
| gre |
| ENGLAND (James): | lon,lvp,edi,nwy,bre,spa,stp | (has 8, rem 1) |
| FRANCE (Kinney): | mar,por | (has 1, bld 1) |
| GERMANY (Goesle): | ber,kie,mun,den,hol,par,swe, | (has 6 or 7, bld 2) |
| ven,bel |
| ITALY (Rauterberg): | nap,tun | (has 4, rem 2) |
| RUSSIA (Rusnak): | mos,war,sev,ank,smy | (has 4, bld 1) |
| TURKEY (Emmert): | con | (has 2, rem 1) |
| Neutral: | none | (Total=34) |
Addresses of the Participants
AUSTRIA: Kurt Ozog, 391 Wilmington Drive, Bartlett, IL 60103, (630) 837-2813
heyday6 of yahoo.com
ENGLAND: Drew James, 8356 Radian Path, Baldwinsville, NY 13027-9357, (315) 652-1956 ($5)
dkbn of msn.com
FRANCE: Mark Kinney, 4820 Westmar Terrace #6, Louisville, KY 40222, (502) 412-3079
alberich of iglou.com
GERMANY: Warren Goesle, 3907 Cedar Ridge, #1B, Indianapolis, IN 46235 ($5)
gozcorp of iquest.net
ITALY: Paul Rauterberg, 3116 W. American Dr., Greenfield, WI 53221, (414) 281-2339 ($5)
prosit of execpc.com
RUSSIA: Russ Rusnak, 1551 Highridge Avenue, Westchester, IL 60154-3428 ($5)
RRRRRUSNAK of aol.com
TURKEY: Steve Emmert, 1752 Grey Friars Chase, Virginia Beach, VA 23456-5436, (757) 471-1842 ($4)
Lse of SykesCarnes.com or semmert of mindspring.com
Game Notes:
1) We'll have to declare this officially the baseball game.... although there is plenty of Diplomacy game action as well.
Press:
(GERMANY to ENGLAND): If you didn't stab me this turn, you should have. You had me all set up for it. If you did stab me, it's gonna be a helluva fight.
(JAMES to BOOB): You sounded so confused in the Spring. Get it? ((Oh, I get it now, but the question is: did you??? Another confused player also believed that there were clear alliances that clearly weren't clear. Get it?))
(KING - TSAR): You were right, I can't be trusted.
(GERMANY to ITALY): There. Happy now?
(BOOB to GERMANY): Sure, I'll bet Paul is REALLY pleased that Kurt has proven himself untrustworthy.....
(KING - KAISER): I tried to follow through with your request regarding my good neighbor to the east, but I felt it was already too late.
(TURKEY to DJ): Do you take requests? I'd like to hear a nice dirge. It will go well with my obituary, which I'm reading now. ((You either guessed right, or were permitted to survive. At least you regained your key Bosporus city... now let's go into the group of English messages that your friendly GM couldn't help but pile on....))
(ENGLAND to TURKEY): I sense that there might be new life for you. If there isn't, then Russia has blown it. ((If you consider one center new life, then perhaps.... but it gets better, much better.))
(ENGLAND to FRANCE): Nice job, I think you lasted as long as anyone could have in the circumstances. Maybe in another game... ((Wrong thing to say to a country that actually is growing.... I think he still has something to say in THIS game.))
(LONDON to ROME): Three countries fighting over control of the boot is not good for you. Anyone care to make it four? ((Do you mean France??? I think we had better switch to sports PDQ....))
(JAMES to WORLD): Oh well, SU made it to the Sweet 16 and gave Michigan State a good scare before collapsing late in the second half. No shame in that. Is there anyone out there that had more than 1 Final Four picked correctly? ((I sincerely doubt it! After that first weekend, I thought that Florida had a great shot, but I was still picking MSU to fall to UCLA. After reflection, we have learned three important semi-new things about the tournament. (1) If any of the top teams actually kept their key star players until they are now seniors, bet on them heavily!!! (2) Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight and Final Four teams that WON'T win it all will tend to have key sophomore players who NEED the big run to get out of school and go into the NBA draft with some buzz. (3) The rest of the high seeds, especially the ones with star players who are looking to bolt early to the NBA and DON'T need the big run to be drafted high, will lose to teams who play rugged team defense without any stars who barely got into the tournament playing in the tough conferences.))
(JAMES to EMMERT): Did you read the article in Time magazine several weeks ago that basically said that ML baseball doesn't matter anymore. Interesting.
(STEVE to BOARD): I tried this prediction last year, and it didn't work, so I'll try it again: Manny Ramirez wins the AL MVP. And I say Erubiel Durazo of the D'backs wins a batting title by 2004. As for my team: Mediocrity, thy name is the Dodgers. They are, as I type this 4-3, gloriously over .500, but show signs of wearing down already. I mean, check out their off-season acquisitions (other than Shawn Green) - they're a bunch of old guys. Kevin Elster was friggin' retired all of last year. Mike Fetters? I think he's got a younger brother who's sitting in a rocking chair, collecting a pension already. Orel Hershiser? I loved the guy in 1988, but I was also thirty years old then. F. P. Santangelo? Give us a break, Malone, and just write off this season, trade for some kids, and build for 2003. That will be more fun than watching this slow death.
(GOZ to BOOB): Hey, you can't have it both ways. Either you're gonna pick the Sox or you're gonna pick the Yankees. I'm going out on a limb with my picks, how 'bout you? To review: AL: Yankees, Rangers, Indians, Red Sox get the wild card. NL: Braves, Cardinals, Diamondbacks, Mets get the wild card. Yankees over the Diamondbacks in 5. Then what happens next year? It looks like they're going to re-align the leagues, with Tampa Bay going to the NL and Arizona (NL league champ?!?) going to the AL West. The NL will have 4 divisions, which only guarantees that the Mets and the Braves make the playoffs every year, since they'll be in the NL ``Northeast" and NL ``Southeast" respectively. The AL will still have 3 divisions and a wild card, but since no one wants to go to the AL East the AL Central will have 6 teams and the East and West 4 each. At least the Indians will have to beat the Rangers every year to make the playoffs. Yuk! Get me Selig on the phone! Stop the insanity! ((Did I not go out on a limb, where, where..... I actually am not even sure that the Red Sox will make the playoffs this year, nor am I sure the Yankees will. It all looks very uncertain to me as even the Orioles are playing better under Hargrove. And Toronto has a great team with great young pitchers who can go on a run. I will be rooting for the Red Sox to win the division, but I don't think they will. What's wrong with that? It's the fan reaction. And this is with Pedro going 25-2 or something like that. Amazing.))
In issue #230, in response to my press about running for commissioner, you wrote: ``The Yankees are goin' down. Watch out for my Red Sox!" In issue #231, in response to my predictions about MLB 2000, you wrote: ``Me, I think it is too early to tell, I honestly suspect the Yankees will still win, but I'll be rootin' for my Sox!" So either you're hedging on making a prediction and you're just being a Red Sox fan, or you're hedging on what your prediction is. So are you going out on a limb with picks for the year or not? ((Oh, hell, sure, why not. Here are MY picks: AL is Mariners, Indians, Red Sox and Yankees (with a super tight four way Eastern race and the Yankees winning the division - White Sox and Royals keep things interesting with the Indians until late August - Rangers go in the tank and Angels finish second well back). NL is Giants, Diamondbacks, Cardinals, and Braves (with the Mets not doing well and Valentine fired in a runaway - no one close in the Central either - and a great race in the West where my head says the Giants finish second to get the wild card, but I actually think they can take the pennant). Playoffs: I am sure that the Cardinals are most likely to get out the NL easily since the Braves always find a way to blow it, but I am scared by the SI Jinx to actually pick the Red Sox to make the Series from the AL. Perhaps the Mariners will surprise everyone and hang onto Rodriguez in the bargain? In any case, the Cards win the Series in six. Is that out on a limb enough for you? And I did NOT change my picks after the season started, the only surprise I saw early was the Giants getting that terrible start, but they are rising to compete now. Oh, and the Royals have been hitting, but not winning as many games as I thought they would.))
THE DUE DATE FOR TURN 6 IS MAY 20TH, 2000
| 45 (replenish with a 3): | Matthew(6), White Rabbit(5), Darrell A(4) |
| 44 (replenish with a 6): | Sir Isaac Newton(10) |
| 43 (replenish with a 7): | Darrell B(3), John(2) |
| 42 (replenish with a 9): | Mark(1) |
| 41 (replenish with a 10): | Mock Turtle(8), Will Shakespeare |
-S-P-R-I-N-T- -F-I-N-I-S-H- -L-I-N-E-
| 40 (replenish with a 11): | Luke |
| 39 (replenish with a 12): | Darrell C |
| 38 (replenish with a 13): | Mad Hatter, John Logie-Baird, Alfred the Great |
| 37 (no replenishment): | None |
| 36 (replenish with a 3): | March Hare, War |
| 35 (replenish with a 5): | Pollution |
| 34 (replenish with a 6): | Pestilence, Buhrt, Shane the Chain |
| 33 (replenish with a 9): | Chasin' Jason |
| 32 (no replenishment): | None |
| 31 (replenish with a 3): | Broke Leg Meg, Famine, Barkin' Larkin' |
Addresses of the Participants - Their Team and Their Cards
(x) is played card this turn
TEAM 1 (The Wrecking Crew): Harry Andruschak, PO Box 5309, Torrance, CA 90510-5309, (310) 835-9202
(0 points) Tapmdfrance of aol.com
| Team Leader: Thanatos |
| A: War | 15 15 3 (10) |
| B: Pollution | 9 5 13 (8) |
| C: Pestilence | 7 6 14 (3) |
| D: Famine | 15 3 12 (8) |
TEAM 2 (The Evangelists): Eric Brosius, 53 Bird Street, Needham MA 02492
(9 points) 72060.1540 of CompuServe.COM
| A: Matthew | 3 3 3 6 (15) |
| B: Mark | 9 13 15 (15) |
| C: Luke | 11 4 15 (15) |
| D: John | 11 7 3 (15) |
TEAM 3 (Brit Pack): John Harrington, 1 Churchbury Close, Enfield, Middlesex, EN1 3UW UK
(10 points) johnh of fiendishgames.demon.co.uk, fiendish of operamail.com
| A: Alfred the Great | 3 13 11 4 (15) |
| B: Sir Isaac Newton | 6 6 3 (7) |
| C: Will Shakespeare | 10 3 11 (15) |
| D: John Logie-Baird | 13 4 11 (15) |
TEAM 4 (Amateur League Inciting Cycle Exchange): Tom Howell, 1011 West 18th Street #1,
(13 points) Port Angeles, WA 98363-7413; off-the-shelf of olympus.net
| A: White Rabbit | 14 7 3 6 (15) |
| B: March Hare | 15 3 11 (8) |
| C: Mad Hatter | 13 14 9 (9) |
| D: Mock Turtle | 10 8 3 (10) |
TEAM 5 (The Mainiacs): David Partridge, 15 Woodland Drive, Brookline, NH 03033
(7 points) rebhuhn of rocketmail.com
| A: Darrell A | 3 6 3 3 (15) |
| B: Darrell B | 7 12 9 (14) |
| C: Darrell C | 12 15 3 (15) |
| D: Buhrt | 6 3 4 (3) |
TEAM 6 (The Flat Wheel Society): John Schultz, PO Box 1322, Valparaiso, IN 46384
(0 points)
| A: Broke Leg Meg | 15 3 10 14 (8) |
| B: Shane the Chain | 15 12 6 (9) |
| C: Barkin' Larkin' | 15 15 3 (8) |
| D: Chasin' Jason | 15 9 3 (10) |
Game Notes:
1) John Schultz has a new address! Hurray!!
2) And I have had more than one comment noting the relative lack of press here. This is SUPPOSED to be a press game..... we shouldn't have to rely on non-players like Rick Desper to fill a page....
3) All the Sprint points are scored on this turn. A few surprises.... three teams had their A riders on 30, playing 15's, just as they did the previous turn. To break the tie, I had to go back two turns, but I did have them lined up correctly originally. I'm sure you will let me know if I made any errors. Tight race with two teams going for cards instead of Sprint points and none of the other five teams getting a commanding number of points.
Press:
(TFWS - > BOOB): You might just be the bestest, most finest, most generous - BOOB - in this whole fine, fine, dandy world. Thank you!
(BOOB to TFWS): Well, congratulations, of course, but please, you'll make me blush.
(ERIC - BOOB): It would also be helpful if after each rider's name you were to state the space that rider is on.
(BOOB - ERIC): If you've lost your own bike and rider then heaven help you. We have enough intermediaries with God in this race that you should be fine. In fact, of course, you have four of them on your team....
(ERIC - BOOB): Give us an inch and we take a mile!
(BOOB - ERIC): There will be no miles taken on my watch!! Hyork, hyork...
(WHITE RABBIT): I'm late! Hay! How'd that turtle get here before me?
(BOOB to WHITE RABBIT): One pill makes you larger, BUT one pill makes you smaller....
(HATTER - HARE): eat my dust!
(HARE - HATTER): bad fumes!
(HARE - SHAKESPEARE): Here, you suck on his fumes for a space.
(BOOB - HARE): It is no longer March and you ain't suckin' nothin', in fact, you just suckin'. I'd say Will did you in on purpose if I were you....
(MAD HATTER - RACE DIRECTOR): So, who picked up the one point? ((Well, it was Mark, of course, but you coulda had TWO points if you wanted them. Time will tell if that lucky 13 card was worth laying up.))
(MANIACS to ALICE): Trailing the pack has never been my problem. Leading too early is what did me in last time. I've avoided that pitfall at least ( < :.
(DESPERate COMMENTS): Played the board game with three German friends. I think it really needs more than 4 players, as it can take quite a while with only four. My riders dominated the first stage and then got left behind for the rest of the race, just like the Stooges did in the last race. I think maybe it's not great to do really well in the first stage. Anyway, I like the board game.
(MORE DESPERate COMMENTS): Gratz to Mr. Schultz for returning to the land of the free. Freedom really is a wonderful thing, isn't it? So many people in the world do not have the kinds of freedom we all take for granted in the U.S. And many of us don't know what to do with it. Enjoy it - it is quite a challenge. (And you might try putting round tires on the bikes for a change.) ((John still needs to light some serious fires under his riders. He just HAS to get a point some time!!!))
THE DUE DATE FOR SUMMER 2002 IS MAY 20TH, 2000
THE DUE DATE FOR FALL 2002 IS JUNE 10TH, 2000
Spring 2002
BRITAIN (Schultz): f NTH-hel, f ska-NOR, a MUR S a stp, f NWG-nth, f STP h,
f ENG S f mao, f MAO h.
EGYPT (J. O'Donnell): f ara-RED, a syr-ADA, a ALG h, f GOL S SPANISH a bor-auv, a BOS-ser,
a IRN S a syr-ada, f SAO S SPANISH a por, a URA S BRITISH a mur-gor (nso), f AEG-ist.
GERMANY (Rauterberg): f ber-BHM, f HOL-nth, a MUN S a pie-swi, a ruh-BEL, a bel-PIC,
f DEN S f swe-ska, a LIT h, a CZE S a kra, a WAR S a lit, a SLO S a kra, a PAR S a bel-pic,
a pie-SWI, f HAM-hel, a LYO S a par, f swe-SKA, a KRA S a slo.
ITALY (Ozog): f rom-TYH, f nap-MAL, a tus-ROM, a ven-CRO, a AUS S a ven-cro,
f LIG S f rom-tys, a MIL S a mar-pie, f adr-ION, a MON S f auv-mar, f auv-MAR,
a mar-PIE, f ist-aeg (d r:bul,gre,izm,otb).
RUSSIA (Ellis): a gor S UKRAINIAN a mos-stp (d ann).
SPAIN (S. O'Donnell): f SVE h, a BAR h, a POR h, a bor-AUV, f sog-WME,
a bri-BOR, a NAV S a bor-auv.
UKRAINE (Partridge): a ANK S f wbs-ist, a VOL S a mos-gor, a bie-MOS, a POD S a kie-bie,
a LAT S a kie-bie, f ebs-WBS, a mos-GOR, a kie-BIE, f wbs-IST, a GEO h, a rum-SER,
a HUN S a rum-ser.
Addresses of the Participants
BRITAIN: John Schultz, PO Box 1322, Valparaiso, IN 46384
EGYPT: Jeff O'Donnell, 402 Middle Ave., Elyria, OH 44035-5728, (440) 322-2920 ($4)
FRANCE: Harry Andruschak, PO Box 5309, Torrance, CA 90510-5309, (310) 835-9202 ($5)
Tapmdfrance of aol.com
GERMANY: Paul Rauterberg, 3116 W. American Dr., Greenfield, WI 53221, (414) 281-2339 (E-Mail)
prosit of execpc.com
ITALY: Eric Ozog, PO Box 1138, Granite Falls, WA 98252-1138, (360) 691-4264 ($4)
ElfEric of Juno.com
POLAND: Roland Sasseville, Jr., 38 Bucklin Street, Pawtucket, RI 02861, (401) 722-4029 ($5)
roland6 of home.com and ICQ: 40565030
RUSSIA: Randy Ellis, 9501 W 89th, Apt 201, Overland Pk, KS 66212
Changing his E-Mail address to ???
SPAIN: Sean O'Donnell, 2219 Grafton Road, Grafton, OH 44044 ($5)
sean_o_donnell of hotmail.com, seanside of snap.com
TURKEY: Kent Pollard, 1541 W. San Jose, Fresno, CA 93711, (209) 225-0957 ($10)
UKRAINE: Dave Partridge, 15 Woodland Drive, Brookline, NH 03033 ($8)
rebhuhn of rocketmail.com
Game Notes:
1) Check out the Modern Dip web page at: http://www.modernhof.webprovider.com/
2) Note John Schultz's new address and phone number! Oops, I seem to have mis-placed it, but he does have one - help!! He is a little easier to reach and has an easier time responding now.
3) Thanks to Randy for playing out the Russian position!
4) I hope Jeff can help Sean stay in this game (perhaps by giving him some stamps), so I'm not calling a standby yet, BUT if I don't hear from Sean by next deadline (the Summer one), I will call a standby then. Any volunteers from the peanut gallery??
Press:
(THE MEKONS QUOTE OF THE MONTH): ``Calling Earth on the telephone, Slurred speech and unfinished phrases, Curly heads are turning, It's getting very hazy.'' From ``I'm Not Here 1967'' off of So Good It Hurts. This one just spoke to me somehow today....
(UKRAINE - RUSSIA): Sorry my friend, but the war machine needs its raw materials and we've got plenty of factory workers of our own. Thanks for playing out the position (and I hope I'm not speaking too soon *smile*).
(ORCZOG-O'DONNELL'S): Release the Dogs of War!
(ERIC-UNCA JEFFREY): Sorry I didn't call back, but the 3 hour time difference made me very forgetful and I couldn't make myself lie over the phone, so I figured that silence might at least tell you something (as well as having built the two fleets).
(EGYPT-ITALY): Like you said, it's a pirate's life...
(ROME-KIEV): Yes, I do like torturing myself in this game-I have to stab everyone at least once.
(BRITAIN-ALL): As of the 25th, I still hadn't heard from anyone so this is what ya' get. Of course, now I can call in an order, but let's get those letters out. And - you can call me now. Yeah!
(ITALY-SPAIN): Auv is all yours, Big Guy!
(FLOATING BRAIN-FLYING BRAIN): The Dark Side is very enjoyable!
(UKRAINE - ITALY): Don't you know by now that as the Kaiser invites you to stick your knife in your ally's back he's inviting another ally to do the same to you? Another twist on your corkscrew path through this game, but I don't think this one is going to pay off.
(BOOB LAUGHS AT INTRIGUE): I think Eric the Black Hearted and Paul the Rapier both are well aware of each other's knife skills, having known each other for twenty years..... as for what's next, tune in two issues from now. Next issue, we just have that Italian retreat into one of three SCs.
THE DUE DATE FOR SUMMER 1909 IS MAY 20TH, 2000
THE DUE DATE FOR FALL 1909 IS JUNE 10TH, 2000
Spring 1909
BRITAIN (York): a DEL-nag, a hyd-MAD, f ADEN S DUTCH f rs,
f ERI-sud, f HK S DUTCH f scs, f ban(ec)-CAM, f ARA(NC)-bag, a PUN-raj.
FRANCE (Sasseville): a TON S f coc-ann, a ben-HYD, f coc-ann (d ann),
f CAN-scs, a MAY S a n.sam-ran, a n.sam-RAN, a mad S a ben-hyd (d r:mys,otb), a ass-U.BUR.
HOLLAND (Desper): a bor-SAR, f SUL.S-scs, f WIO S BRITISH a hyd-mad, f ann-COC,
f as-BOB, f FOR S f sul.s-scs, f RS h, f MP S f for, a ran-n.sam (d r:ban,otb),
f GOS S f ann-coc, f SCS-ton.
JAPAN (K. Ozog): f os-VLA, a SHA S a mac-pek, a lan-mon (d ann), a IRK S a lan-mon,
f ECS S f up, f NAN h, a mac-PEK, f UP S f ecs, f P.ART S a vla-mac, f soj-YS, a vla-MAC.
RUSSIA (Williams): a omsk-AKM, f ode-BS, a KRA-irk, a AFG-pun, a KAR-raj,
a MON S a pek-lan, a kag-KAM, a NAG S a kar-raj, a uru-SIK, a PER-kar,
f EGY S TURKISH f sud, a MEC-ara, a sik-YUN, a SHI h, a pek-LAN,
a TIB S a kag-kam, a CHU S a pek-lan.
TURKEY (Tallman): a BAG-ara, f SUD S f egy-rs (nso).
Addresses of the Participants
BRITAIN: Andy York, PO Box 201117, Austin, TX 78720-1117
wandrew of compuserve.com
CHINA: Rich Goranson, 4351 Chestnut Ridge Road, #7 Amherst, NY, 14228-3227 ($5)
ForlornH of aol.com
FRANCE: Roland Sasseville, Jr., 38 Bucklin Street, Pawtucket, RI 02861, (401) 722-4029 ($5)
roland6 of home.com and ICQ: 40565030
HOLLAND: Rick Desper, Bergheimer Strasse 114, 69115 Heidelberg, GERMANY (E-Mail)
rick_desper of yahoo.com or desper of math.rutgers.edu
JAPAN: Kurt Ozog, 391 Wilmington Drive, Bartlett, IL 60103, 630-837-2813
heyday6 of yahoo.com
RUSSIA: Don Williams, 27505 Artine Drive, Saugus, CA 91350, (661) 297-3947 ($4)
wllmsfmly of earthlink.net
TURKEY: Terry Tallman, 3805 SW Lake Flora Road, Port Orchard, WA 98367, (360) 874-0384 ($0)
terryt of sinclair.net
GM: Jim-Bob Burgess, 664 Smith Street, Providence, RI 02908-4327, (401) 351-0287
Game Notes:
1) Someone (not Holland) has standing orders to vote for any draw that includes Chef. Anyone else want to join the club? In any case, there are no new proposals this time.
Press:
(TOAD to DUCK): Speak to me buckwheat.
(F-T): Go Turkey!
(BOOB to FRANCE): I don't think it was YOU that he was referring to....
(CHEF - READERS): I'm pleased to announce the successful conclusion of a trip to the homeland of Emperor Ozog-San. 10 days in the land of the Rising Sun. Truly fantastic. Hint for others who might go there: tell everybody you're German.
Got to see Kyoto at the height of the cherry blossom season. Really wonderful. Tokyo is phenomenally crowded - among American cities only New York comes close. L.A. is a desert in comparison. (Actually, L.A. is just a desert, but that's another problem.)
Speaking of L.A. got to experience my first earthquake! (In Tokyo, that is.) Bed shaking and everything. (And without geishas, in spite of Goranson's encouragement, they were not to be found. Did see a few in Kyoto, but I don't think I would be able to afford their company.)
Eric's got a special deal for everybody. Hit it, Eric!
(CARTMAN - READERS): Step right up and get your ``Fisherman in a Closet" companion for the evening! Straight from the expatriate community in Little Havana, our Fisherman in a Closet will tell you stories, help you tell your daddy you don't want to go back to Cuba, will entertain your ``objective" AP photographer, and generally provide companionship and comfort while you hide from INS stormtroopers. What would you pay for such a privilege? Fifty dollars a night? No siree! Forty dollars? You might think so, but if you call our 24-hour hotline, you can get your own Fisherman in a Closet for the Low Special Price of Twenty-Nine Ninety-Five. Yes, folks, that's $29.95 for the Fisherman in a Closet. And for an extra $4.99 per night, we can provide a hysterical ``cousin" and a ``great uncle" to enjoy the evenings playing Scrabble and building human chains.
Personal Note to You: