THE ABYSSINIAN PRINCE #283

August 24, 2004

Produced by Jim Burgess, 664 Smith Street, Providence, RI 02908-4327 USA, (401)351-0287

Accessible through Internet at burgess of world.std.com (all E-Mail addresses are reported in this format, replace the " of " with "@"; if you bounce try sending to me from another account or FAX to (401) 277-9904. For Faxing, most of the time you have to call me to tell me it's coming so I can set up the FAX.

Web Page Address: /Postal/Zines/TAP/index.html

"Honesty is the best policy, and spinach is the best vegetable." Popeye ((Courtesy of Bob Holt, see his nice long letter below.))

It's time for another Jim-Bob plea.... you all know that John Caruso continues to run his baseball league for all of us who REALLY hate Rotisserie style Baseball Leagues because they don't actually PLAY any games, but really like the competition and comradery of that type of league. Also, for all of you who are United fans, this league has some similar characteristics. Finally, the actual PLAYERS are the real players in baseball, and they stay in our league until they are out of baseball, then they retire. This also makes it fun that as you plan your team, you have to plan how long players in baseball will remain active. We are short SIX players and John says no one cares about him or his style of league any more. While this is just John being John, prove him wrong, join up. I think we will need to get ALL six willing to join since John is going to put one ünowned" team in each division and he wants it to be fair. We're entirely an E-Mail league now, so there are not the high game fees that scared people off in the past. I know some former league members are out there, and I'm also sure that new league members are out there. Just ask me, and I'll E-Mail you the kind of information you get during the season to track your teams. Please, we must have SIX people out there who are interested!! I can threaten to shut down TAP if people don't volunteer. That usually wakes people up.

The postal sub price is still $1.50 per issue in the US and Canada, with double that for other foreign subbers(or $3.00 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. Or you can play in subszines for free and just jack up the issue page count. See the revised game start announcements below!

Check out the connections in the Diplomatic Pouch with all of the information you need to play Diplomacy on the Internet at: /

I also have taken over the Postal portion of the Pouch: /Postal/

and TAP on the web is there at: /Postal/Zines/TAP/index.html

where 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 Agar's more extensive efforts at: http://www.diplomacy-archive.com and http://www.diplomacy.co.uk

David Wang still has the HIGHLY prized name: www.szine.com!! BUT, the site has not been updated in recent times. If you want to follow me and others in John Caruso's Baseball League, THE place to follow the league now is DICKIE-P Martin's website: http://www.phantomempire.com where in the "files" section, "baseball" sub-section, you can see all of the individual and team level stats. Use the Telnet button in the upper left corner, that's the easiest way to do it these days. You need to sign up as a "member" to see all of the files. You, too, can chat with John Caruso there, especially on Saturday and Sunday mornings, once he gets back from the vacation that he's on right now. Really, you can. And Dick himself is lonely and he hangs out there even more than John does, make Dick Martin's day, go to phantomempire! John's E-Mail address also is commishjohn of att.net if you want to send him E-Mail after all that. John still has openings, you can start RIGHT NOW to pick up one of the unclaimed teams and play it this year! My team is still heading toward the playoffs, continuing to lead my division over the likes of Dicko's Baltimore Oriole team. Contact John at commishjohn of att.net if you're interested in joining us or ask me for more details, this REALLY IS THE most fun thing I do in the hobby at the moment, find out why!!! See the new announcement for next year's teams up top.

Peter Sullivan's subszine remains "in stasis", although all the back issues can be accessed via :

http://www.burdonvale.co.uk/octopus/index.html.

Peter was saying that he would be unlikely to be starting any new games in the Octopus until "at least the start of 2002." He is now hereby declared to be in official indeterminate stasis and that date is now a "whenever". In the meantime, Rip Gooch and Dave Partridge are picking up the choo-choo game slack in TAP. Contact Rip at xyropedes of canada.com or Dave at rebhuhn of rocketmail.com for more info.

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 SEARCH FOR SYLVAIN LAROSE

Sylvain played a LOT of FTF all up and down the East Coast back in the late 1990's and then disappeared, I think he lived in Montreal at that time. John Quarto in particular keeps bugging me about finding Sylvain, so I thought I'd toss him in here. He shouldn't be THAT hard to find, but I've looked and failed. Now it's up to you. You have until issue 285 to do it for the fifty buck prize.

Feel free to spend the time looking for some of the backlog. Let's get Steve, Ed, Tom, Bill, Gregory, and ESPECIALLY Kevin found too!!! 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 Steve Heinowski, Ed Henry or Tom Hurst or Bill Quinn or Gregory Stewart or Kevin Tighe 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, GO TO A DIPLOMACY CONVENTION 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.

INTERNATIONAL SUBSCRIPTION EXCHANGE NEWS

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, John.Harrington of tfeurope.com

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.

We have added a European continental representative, most of this traffic likely will occur between Ronald Camstra (in the Netherlands) and John Harrington, but if anyone here in the US wants to get money into Euros, we'll try to help you out. Ronald Camstra can be contacted at siedler of zonnet.nl and his home address is: Wielingenplein 48, 3522 PE Utrecht, the Netherlands. But in Holland it is most common not to send checks but to transfer money by bank. Dutch people can pay directly to Postbankaccount 4652247 of Ronald Camstra in Utrecht. Since he can see the name and address of the sender in his bankreceipt, people only have to mention the name of the zine and the editorial address along with their bank order. Ronald is obviously a huge Settlers of Catan fan. If you're interested in playing that game internationally by mail, I think Ronald can help you out.

We also have reopened a branch office of the International Subscription Exchange in Australia!! Brendan Whyte, the publisher of the excellent szine Damn the Consequences will be doing the honors, taking over in some sense from John Cain, who was the Australian rep for many years. You can contact Brendan to sub to Australian szines from the US or to sub to US szines from Australia, converting Australian dollars into American ones. We are now maneuvering deals to Europe from the other reps as well. You can find Brendan Whyte at bwhyte of unimelb.edu.au (note that this is a new E-Mail address for Brendan) or by mail to send checks at: Map Collection, ERC Library, University of Melbourne, Vic 3010, AUSTRALIA. That's a relatively new address adjustment.

WORLDMASTERS02 SECTION

WorldMasters 2002 Email Diplomacy Tournament Semi-Finals are on-going. Adam Silverman is looking for a chance to win Game 1, Ray Setzer is playing an interesting risky game as Germany in Game 3, Steve Emmert is getting crunched in Game 5, and Toby Harris is continuing his passionate shrinking defense in Game 7, among prominent Americans and subbers to this szine. This Final Board game always is VERY exciting to watch. I'll let you all know where you can find it when the group is set.

See http://www.worldmasters.net/portal/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=28 for full details. Since I didn't get sufficient interest to get a team in, I am back on the WorldMasters Tournament Management Committee again, not much is going on there, only a rollback issue or two.

DIPDOM NEWS SECTION (with letters)

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.

Stephen Agar has matched the Hasbro rule lists and more with some of the even older rulebooks. Check these out if you like:

http://www.hasbro.com/default.asp?xcc_gameandtoyinstructions

http://www.hasbro.com/instruct/Diplomacy.PDF

http://www.hasbro.com/instruct/Diplomacy(OlderVers).PDF

Nice of them to make BOTH of these available. And all seven different US rulebooks for Diplomacy can now be found here courtesy of Stephen Agar (relatively new address for this):

http://www.diplomacy-archive.com/diplomacy_rules.htm

Check out back issues of Diplomacy World - www.diplomacyworld.org

We are back, Tim Haffey has agreed to be the Production Editor that I needed. We always need more articles, Issue #90 is out NOW and #91 will be out in a week or so. If you think you should have been on that list and weren't, let me or Dave Partridge know. Help us out, write an article for a future issue!

Upcoming Diplomacy World Issue Deadlines:

Deadline Fall 2004, Issue #91: September 1, 2004

Deadline Winter 2004, Issue #92: December 1, 2004

Editorial Board for Diplomacy World:

Jim Burgess, 664 Smith Street, Providence, RI 02908-4327, USA; burgess of world.std.com - Co-Editor

Tim Haffey, 810 53rd Ave., Oakland, CA 94601 USA; trhaffey of aol.com - Co-Editor, Demo Game GM, and Publisher

Stephen Agar, 4 Cedars Gardens, Brighton, UNITED KINGDOM BN1 6YD; stephen of stephenagar.com - Webmaster and Non-US Postal

Rick Desper, 5440 Marinelli Road, #204, Rockville, MD 20852, USA; rick_desper of yahoo.com - Demo Games

Dave Partridge, 15 Woodland Drive, Brookline, NH 03033, USA; rebhuhn of rocketmail.com - US Postal

Doug Kent, former Diplomacy World Editor (08-05-04)

Dear Jim, Dave Partridge was kind enough to send me copies of DW #89 and #90. Please, if you could, thank him for me. ((Here we are, thanks, Dave!!!)) It motivated me to write this LOC, and perhaps in the next month or so an article or two (but it'll have to be in handwritten form). ((No problem, I decided to print your LOC here in TAP for a number of reasons, first because this next issue #91 coming out in the next few days is going to be huge already. Plus, then I can provide my comments here and I can do the typing and then Tim can respond if he wants to. Also, I think the audience for your comments is the postal people who are more prevalent here, than with the current readership of DW. I'll provide some input from Tim Haffey at points that I've already received from our discussions below as well.))

So let me see what comments I can make on these issues. Do you remember what issues I published? I think #72 to #81 or #82? ((That's about right... something like that.)) There's an obvious barometer of the postal hobby - only 7 or 8 issues published since my last in 1998. ((Yes, but we will get all four issues published in 2004, so I think we're back on a roll....)) It's sad, because I don't see how the various web factions will ever build the kind of community feeling the postal hobby had... which is the part I really miss. ((Wrongo, Flap Jack breath. The community feeling has been building over the last half decade and it is starting to feel like that of earlier times. Across the country in the US, and also elsewhere in the world (especially France, as you'll read in #91), there has been an explosion of FTF get-togethers. And some of the web sites, listserves, and discussion groups are getting a lot of that old time community feel. I will agree that it isn't there yet, but the possibility is there. And a lot of people (many of whom are reading these words) are working to help make it happen. What is more exciting to me is the worldwide nature of that community feel. I feel much closer to dippers in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Germany, France, Belgium, Ireland, the UK, Canada, and so on than I ever did going back 25 years. Disappointingly, the NZ-Aussie hobby seems to be in a bit of a slump, but that's the only downer I see.))

General comments on the printed version: I don't know what kind of circulation it still has. ((Well, there are about 300 web/E-Mail subscribers and others who read it on the web from general announcements. But, the postal version is pretty limited, I think Dave is sending it to somewhere between 10-20 people, mostly old time postal types and former editors like yourself.)) I wouldn't mind seeing a tighter layout, smaller print, and less pages. I don't know what copy costs are these days, but pages could be saved. Of course, part of the complexity seems to be that the zine is now designed as a web zine, with a print version adapted from that. My issues were developed in the opposite way, because of my personal hobby focus. ((Well, sort of. It really is that no one on the editorial board currently is spending much time trying to improve the layout. I've always been much more of a content over form guy myself (you all know that reading this szine) and Tim Haffey is adjusting to how he wants to do the layout. I would expect further adjustments in the next two issues or so. But it is NOT a web szine in the sense of The Diplomatic Pouch which is composed in html from the beginning. So there is nothing preventing the page layout from improving along the lines you suggest. Tim may want to respond further, but he didn't seem that concerned when I mentioned it, and I'm not that concerned either. Dave Partridge may want to complain.... ;-) But thanks for the comment.))

I'm out of touch with a lot of the things discussed. I know what Judge is, although I've never used it. Things like NADF Masterpoints are meaningless to me. ((You SURELY must remember Buz Eddy, and he is working the North American Diplomacy Federation Masterpoints deal.)) Diplo is, I assume, an automated adjudication program. ((Correct.)) I prefer to do that manually, so I can "feel" how the results are built from the moves. Even the occasional error is more than made up for by the extra enjoyment adjudication gives me. ((Amen. This to me, is the only reason to GM games and is the only way you can REALLY follow them. There is still a pretty fair following for manual adjudication around, even on E-Mail games. I also argue that it is the best way to keep your tactical chops up.))

The biggest problem with DW remains as it always has been - lack of contributors. That will never change. When the zine was postal, you could coax articles a little easier by offering a free issue for each submission used. Plus when I was publishing, the combination of my zine, a barrage of emails, posts to Compuserve and AOL forums, plus a post to rec.games.diplomacy would usually generate enough material. Then ads to those same areas would result in some new subscribers. When I could, I offered a free sample to newcomers. Nowadays, with the web, what can you offer as a reward to writers? There is also a thrill to seeing your name in print, one which I don't find equalled when your name is on a web page. At any rate, I'll do my best to provide an article here or there. ((Thanks, I'm not sure I have an answer for you, I basically agree with you. We've probably not been as aggressive as we might in publicizing the DW rebirth. But I think we're doing OK, given that. The reward issue is difficult. One's name is in print, of course, this way, but I agree that it isn't the same.))

Are my old issues still available on the web? Perhaps each issue of DW could contain a single "old" article, from DW days gone by, not necessarily from my period either. Some would have to be retyped, but I feel that providing a sense of hobby history helps develop more of the commonality feeling. Just a thought. Or maybe the modern-day Diplomacy player doesn't much care about that kind of thing. I don't have a real basis to judge. ((Most of your original old issue material is still available on the web, yes. What we are PLANNING to do is to put up ALL of the old DW's eventually on the web. If I were more organized, and I don't even have all of MY old issues on the web yet, I'd do it myself. I do not think it's such a good idea to publish old articles, and we wouldn't have to retype most of them, I think we should keep producing new material. But I do think we should encourage the looks to the past, and I always do that. There may be something in all this that is usable, but I think putting the former issues up on the web should be first. Stephen Agar volunteered to do that, and I think he will, someday.))

Okay, I'll run through each issue and offer my own brief thoughts. Issue 89. I think the "Message from Jim Burgess" might be a little bit better used if cut into two parts - the personal message/comment section, and a Hobby News section, and listed as such. ((You're absolutely right, of course, I really meant it to be the two pieces and Tim just put it together that way. We can do better with titles than "Message from" in any case.)) I enjoyed Tim's editorial, and all three S&T articles that followed. Fishburne's article in particular I might write a response to, although I'm not sure how many issues you want to publish Austria articles in. ((Oh, go for it. In my view, way too many people in the current hobby are anti-Austria or anti-Italy since they think these powers can't win, or are too disadvantaged by their location. I completely disagree, of course, so articles in that direction would be welcome, I think. You wouldn't be saying that Austria is an impossible country to play, would you??))

I'm forever partial to interview articles with hobby figures, so of course I devoured the Agar interview. I would have preferred smaller type and, in exchange, two more pages! Maybe that's my personal viewpoint solely. ((Nah, the smaller type is really a general issue that eventually we might get a handle on, we probably still need a good final copyeditor, perhaps when you get active again we can prevail on you to do that final organization. It's kinda thankless, as you know.... in general, of course, I intend to keep doing an interview in each issue. I've got many, many, many people left to interview. Any volunteers?))

As I know nothing about "Age of Imperialism" I found Fred Davis' article a little hard going. And the typos made it more difficult to follow. A diagram of the map might have helped, because without it the last three pages of the review were useless for me.... I'm not very good at visualization. ((Well, as you saw from the next issue, that whole thing was a bit of a fiasco. It just didn't work so well, sorry Fred!! This was part of incomplete communication between writers, editors, and layout that I think we're trying to fix.))

I suppose the fact that I wasn't going didn't help, but 15 pages on Dipcon scoring systems, rules, and schedules was tedious reading. This looks to me to be a good example of the difficulties in adapting a web zine to printed format. It's probably not necessary to include every word from one in the other. In fact, perhaps there are ways to encourage the printed format a bit by including an article here and there which doesn't initially appear in the web version. I like the print version because it can be given away, left at a local game store, etc. when you're done with it. ((OK, let's see, lots of points here. Yes, I think we got some tedious stuff in there, I think this will work out, but this is NOT a webszine in the classic sense. A webszine has a TOC, and then you link to each page, and you try to make sure every article fits on no more than about two screens. Each article is in some sense a "standalone". But we mean this to continue to be an individual whole, it isn't quite there yet, but it may be soon. I don't want to (up to Tim if he wants to) separate web/print editions. First of all, web distribution of the document is going to be the primary way the szine is distributed. Second, it really doesn't make any sense, except as a gimmick, to have the print version "lead" any articles over the web. As the entire publishing industry moves in this direction it is ALWAYS the reverse, that a web/E-Mail edition leads the print version. I do think leaving print editions lying around is a good idea though.))

#90. I enjoyed both the Dipcon report and the Demo game. I love Demo games! Who is writing the commentary for this game? ((I think that's Tim Haffey, isn't it?? I'm playing in this game, so in an editorial sense I'm trying to be VERY hands off, not always successfully.)) The formation of a Yahoo group is a good idea. The face-to-face game report later in the issue was also a fun read. I've never seen Edi's "Teaching Diplomacy" before, but I think it's a useful tool. ((As do I, that needs to be spread around freely and separately.))

It sounds like part of the problem Tim is having attracting articles, askide from the normal trouble we've all encountered, is he has no stable of contacts to call on. That isn't his fault, not at all. It's just the situation. If DW is still around when I get home (late next year) I'll do what I can to help the cause. ((I think it is very important to see that the ONE thing that Tim is doing that is the best thing in the long run, is to JUST PUBLISH IT. This next issue will continue a smooth upward improvement in quality. As long as it's improving that will attract more readership and more articles.))

A few ideas or things I miss. One is a more discussion-oriented column a-la Foolhardy - write up an interesting question, collect the responses, and edit them down some if necessary. Second is something Avalon Hill's The General always did, and Jack McHugh tried to do in one issue - a "rate the issue" section, where people mail in or email a rating of each portion of the zine. Finally, I always found the "international/report" stuff fascinating - try to get one person from any country that has a Dip hobby to write a paragraph on their hobby news for each issue. That took work, a lot of badgering, but when it came off, I enjoyed it. ((Good ideas all, if someone wants to pick one or more of them up, I'm sure Tim would be overjoyed. I'm most likely to pick up the last one myself, but I'd rather interview people from other countries. We have a French interview coming up in the latest #91 that I just finished, really good stuff!!!))

I know the multi-editor cooperation can be cumbersome, a case in point all the problems with format discussed by Jim in the letter column of #90, but I see no solution if one person doesn't want to do the whole thing themselves. I know proofreading, format, etc. all suffered when Jack and I did two issues together. It wasn't until the whole thing became my sole responsibility that it took shape. ((Which is why I'm trying to let Tim have that responsibility and run with it.... I just want to write and proofread.)) Also with multiple editors it's harder to have a personal flavor. Again this is just an observation, because there is no way to solve the problem unless there is one person who wants to do the zine all by themselves, which right now seems to be a luxury the hobby cannot afford.

I'm glad DW continues even despite all these difficulties, and I'll do my best to contribute how and when I can, now and in the future. Keep up the good work!

Best, Doug, #30694-177, Federal Prison Camp Allenwood, PO Box 1000, Montgomery, PA 17752

Tim Richardson (Fri, 20 Aug 2004 16:42:21 -0400)

The Potomac Tea & Knife Society (PTKS), like many gamers, was affected by the decision of the Boardgame Players Association (BPA), to move its largest event, the World Boardgaming Championships (WBC), from Hunt Valley, Maryland just outside Baltimore to Lancaster County in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch Country. However, as the PTKS is the host of the Fifteenth Annual World Diplomacy Championships (WDC XV) in 2005 an event that was planned in conjunction with WBC, this affects Diplomacy players much more than other gamers.

Diplomacy has always been a part of WBC and its predecessor AvalonCon. For many years, WBC was masterfully run by Hobby legend Jim Yerkey, who served as the Tournament Director for the Tenth World Diplomacy Championship (WDC X) in 2000, one of the best attended WDC's in the event's fourteen year history. Last year, Jim Yerkey stepped down as Director of the WBC Diplomacy tournament and turned responsibility for the event over to the PTKS, which moved its Tempest in a Teapot event from Washington, D.C. in October to Hunt Valley, MD in August.

When the Hobby awarded WDC XV to the PTKS at the 2003 meeting of the World DipCon Society in Denver, Colorado, it did so with the understanding that the PTKS would host the event in late July/early August 2005 in conjunction with WBC at the same location that played host to WDC X. The venue was known to most of the Hobbyists that attended that meeting of the World DipCon Society, and, more specifically, to the overseas players. The decision of the BPA-upon which the PTKS had no input or notice-to move their largest event to a venue which is not as accessible to players traveling internationally was of great concern to the PTKS. So much so that the PTKS Executive Board has decided to separate WDC XV from WBC because we strongly believe that the venue change will have an adverse effect on the decision of overseas players and because we presented a bid to the Hobby to host the World Diplomacy Championships in the greater Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area.

This does not reflect any anger or disagreement with the decision of BPA to change its venue. Most PTKSers and many Diplomacy players are members of BPA and look forward to attending WBC in its new home. The PTKS values its relationship with BPA and WBC-and we will continue to run the Diplomacy tournament at that event. But we did not feel that we could host the kind of event that the Hobby expects unless we moved WDC to a different venue.

At this time, the PTKS Executive Board is actively reviewing specific options for WDC XV. We are committed to holding this event in July 2005 in the greater Washington, D.C. area. It is our hope that we will be able to plan our event for a weekend when our international travelers will also be able to plan to attend another North American Diplomacy or other gaming event on the following or preceding weekend of WDC XV. We expect that a decision will be made in a very short time frame, as we have already reviewed some very attractive venues for the event.

We expect to be able to make an announcement in a very short period of time. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the PTKS Captain-elect Ike Porter (ike of manor.org), Director of Tournaments Andy Marshall (landruajm of yahoo.com), or me, Tim Richardson (timrich of diplom.org).

Until then, keep your knives sharp for WDC XV!!!

-The Potomac Tea & Knife Society, timrich of diplom.org

MUSIC AND MOVIES SECTION (WITH COMMENTS ON OTHER ARTS AND SOCIETY)

Tell me anything you like about the recent past in music. List a top two, a top ten, or a top 100, I don't care, just tell me something!!

Bob Holt (July 4-6, 2004)

Jim,

Well I figured it was even money that the post office was closed today on July 5. The answer is yes, it was. As a result you get a longer, yet probably more coherent letter. ((But that doesn't mean I can get it into the szine with my disorganized mail pile.... sorry about the delay, but here we are, finally.))

First of all, before I get too involved with the music side, I checked out some of the variant rules, and I'm most interested in playing in the Modern game you're thinking about starting, so please sign me up. Now on to the more/less important stuff:

I was looking back through some of your older issues (190-209 at this point), and it got me thinking about some of the music I've been listening to lately. I don't know what you or your general readership would think about this stuff, but I like it, and that's what matters, right? ((Absopositivelutely!)) I would have written you an email, but I figured a letter would actually get to your house before the next time I'm online. ((This was not helped by my long delay in publishing it.... sigh. Sorry, again.)) Now, whether or not you're also there is a different matter. The really handy part is that I even have a couple of days to edit and add to my letter before the mail gets picked up again. I didn't start this intending to send it to you for print in TAP, but after getting this all down and looking at some of your more recent issues, it looks like you're begging for music reviews. ((That's right, I want more of them, it also gets me going. I want to review the two new Los Lobos records and the freshness of the band Enter the Haggis (neat name, too!) but without other people writing, I don't have the push.)) Additionally, as a new subber, I guess I should get used to fulfilling my duty of being an active contributor. Feel free to break it up/print this as you see fit. I've got a copy on the ol' hard-drive if you want a soft version. ((I did request and get that, but it was hardly an excuse for the long delay.... everyone bored by the mea culpa's yet??)) I don't know if any of my musical favorites have shown up in your letters/reviews/whatever prior to now. I did a cursory search through some of the more recent issues (nothing more than ctrl-F, looking for artists) and didn't find some of what I'm recommending. ((No problem, you can mention things we've mentioned. I'll let you know if something in here has been talked about before...))

Having never done any kind of music review, I've had actually come up with an interesting twist on the "Top XX" list (if I don't say so, myself). I am, at least, fairly confident that I haven't intentionally stolen this idea from anybody. This is mostly a reaction to the fact that I haven't been buying much current music in the past couple of years. I've been mostly filling up on my "required" backlog, lately springing for some Otis Redding. Anyway, here begins my "Top XX of 20XX" (i.e. Top 03 of 2003, or top 10 of 2010. ((Nope, I've not seen the idea yet, so go for it!!!)) I'm really not expecting to get to any number too ridiculous as time wears on, since I've got more than a two decade head start on the list.) So, as this is the first place I've compiled this list, here goes:

2000 (And I'm already cheating, giving you a recommendation when I should give you nothing! Let's pretend it came out in 2001, since I don't have a recommendation there.): Although I generally remember 2000 as being a musical wasteland, I can't just let this year go by without a mention of a beautifully tormented album: Twilight Singers, Twilight, 2000 (Columbia/Sony). The album features the sweet smoothness of Greg Dulli's (Afghan Whigs) vocals, which seems like a sick joke designed to get us to ignore the searing pain of heartbreaking loss the entire album depicts with lyrics that can hardly be portrayed as subtle. The overall sound is so gentle, relaxing, and dare-I-say seductive, that it's easy to pop this in as background/mood music without considering the subconscious turmoil you're probably putting yourself through. Dulli wrote or co-wrote every track, co-produced, and mixed the album, which certainly adds to the sense that the music is going straight from his soul to your ears. I've been a big fan of the very little Afghan Whigs stuff I've listened to (pretty much a single, "Lost in the Supermarket," ((You go, I know this song of course, but nothing else of the Afghan Whigs, and have not heard anything of Dulli....)) and their 1998 release 1965.), and would definitely not be averse to picking up more of their stuff. Also, the Twilight Singers have a 2003 (I think) release that I haven't picked up yet. I'll probably rectify that tomorrow.

2001: Just one, and I can't begin to figure it out. I may have to cheat and look back at some of your TAP back issues for reminders. I may not even have an album from 2001 in my possession. Maybe that was one of those years where I did nothing but buy older stuff. ((You can talk about older stuff, you know. I buy and listen to a lot of older stuff too, and sometimes (frequently) look forward to comeback albums by people who should be... almost anyway... dead. The record in that class I'm currently awaiting (and I don't care about the groans from the peanut gallery) is the new Chad and Jeremy record that might come out late this year. Now THAT goes back. Everyone who doesn't even remember who Chad and Jeremy were may go back in their hole and return to Bob's recommendations....))

2002: I think I'm going to slip Mark Knopfler, The Ragpicker's Dream, (Warner Bros.) in here. I really don't even know where to begin here. It's just a great listenable album from the awesome Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits). Knopfler's guitar stylings and eerie voice on the opening track "Why Aye Man" could easily have been slipped onto Dire Straits' Brothers In Arms with nobody noticing. The feel continues through the rest of the album with guitar-work that is both agile and ephemeral and Knopfler's unmistakable lilting baritone. "A Place Where We Used to Live" is a sweet jazz shuffle (bossa nova? - I'm not really up on my jazz styles) that highlights Knopfler's preferred vocal range. My senior-citizen uncle actually introduced me to this album before I had a chance to pick it up, which embarrasses me slightly, but not too much. All I can really say is that this makes great background music, but Knopfler's lyrics stand up to the burden of an in-depth analysis, which I will avoid here. I understand that Knopfler has been concentrating more on film scores and such in recent years. This is a wonderful solo offering that should be in anybody's collection. ((There's nothing necessarily wrong with moving over into film scores. The late, great Michael Kamen was one of my favorite film score producers, and I first adored him in my youth from his work with the NY Rock and Roll Ensemble, whose music really does stand the test of time. Also, Michael's memory is being saluted through a foundation started from the movie Mr. Holland's Opus that he worked on with Richard Dreyfuss. It is a crime of major proportions that music in our schools is dying a horrific death. We are raising generations of children without even a rudimentary musical grounding, let alone the access to singing and instruments that will make them healthy artistic adults. I think you can get more information at www.michaelkamen.com. Also, pick up one of the old NY Rock and Roll Ensemble records if you get a chance.... oh, yeah, we've never talked about THAT Knopfler record, but we've talked about him before here.))

On a side note, I was in Strawberries yesterday and listened to portions of Richard Thompson's 2003 release The Old Kit Bag, which I only checked out based on what I read about him in TAP, and although I made the difficult decision to put it down in favor of Must I Paint You A Picture?: The Essential Billy Bragg (another artist I first heard about in TAP), I intend to pick it up in the near future, and based on my preview, I think I'll like that in much the same way I like Mark Knopfler. ((Well, OK, Billy Bragg is a lot of fun, but he really isn't in the same class as Ghod....))

A3 (a.k.a. Alabama 3 in the U.K.), Power In The Blood, (One Little Indian). You'll find Alabama 3 mentioned again in my favorite albums of the 1990's (found later in this letter). Their 1997 release, Exile on Coldharbour Lane, went largely unnoticed in the United States (and in the UK, for all I know). ((I think that's fair, I admit I've never heard of them. This is undoubtedly my failing...)) Their largest stateside hit is of course, "Woke Up This Morning," the ubiquitous title theme of HBO's The Sopranos. ((Hmmm, who or what are they?? No, I am dimly aware, and I've seen part of two or three episodes, but they really bored me. I don't know what the fuss is about. And as such, I can't visualize (audialize) the theme.)) A3 plays a genre they identify as "Country-Acidhouse." ((Ah, THAT sounds interesting, as the Mekons have had "country" leanings at times, as have some other very interesting bands to me over time.)) The whole idea is a gimmick with the vocalists (Larry Love and The Very Rev. D. Wayne Love) putting on overly exaggerated rural southern accents, and singing over techno tracks filled with plenty of harmonica and fiddle. Amazingly enough, they pull the gimmick off, and have done so for at least 3 albums and a couple of movie-soundtrack singles. From top to bottom, Power In The Blood is a consistently well-done album with very few (if any) low points. A3 is at their best when either describing either the seedy underbelly of their environment or subtly calling for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, and the tracks dealing with the troubles of the unfortunate, loss, or drugs ("Lord Have Mercy," "The Moon Has Lost The Sun," and "The Devil Went Down to Ibiza," respectively) tend to be their best tracks. ((Ah, well then I can't possibly imagine they aren't treading in the tracks of the Mekons, then. Nope, can't be possible.)) The other standout tracks on this album are the title track, "Power In The Blood," and "Woody Guthrie," a song reflecting discontent with the governments of both the U.S. and U.K.

Biggest disappointment of 2002: Audioslave, Audioslave, (Epic/Interscope). How dare Rick Rubin let this out of the studio? The promise of hearing Rage Against the Machine's band with Chris Cornell's (Soundgarden) vocals probably set the bar WAY too high to ever be reached. I would have just let it slide, though, if the opening track/first single, "Cochise" didn't show so much promise. That track was exactly I was looking for from this merging of two great 90's alt-rap-rock-whatever sounds. ((Since I was not much of a fan of the originals, I wouldn't have had any real expectations, but that's just me.....)) Like four proverbial horsemen, they arrived with a sound completely recognizable yet wholly unheard-of-before. Unfortunately, as the album played on, this turned into an unholy alliance, which effectively watered down the potential the band brought to the studio.

2003: Okay, here it's easy. Kenna, New Sacred Cow, (Columbia); Outkast, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, (Arista), Evanescence, Fallen, (Wind-up). I know I may suck at life for recommending those last two, but hear me out. ((I'm easy, so I'll give you a chance, but I hadn't heard of the first one until just now and really like it as a new find due to you, and can't stand the latter two..... but go for it!!!)) First though, Kenna: This may be the best post-1976 album ever. EVER. It is unlike anything I have ever heard, but then again, I may not get out much. I first got turned on to this around last July/August at the Avalon in Boston, where Kenna opened for Dave Gahan (lead singer of Depeche Mode, of whom/which I'm not a fan, but you go where the (now ex) girl says to go). This was the biggest and best surprise that I have ever had at a live show, and consequently my vote for best show of 2003. ((Oh yes, that sparks a bit of a memory, I DID hear someone else say something like that about Kenna... but I'd forgotten until you mentioned it and sent along the CD!!!)) Imagine, if you will, highly rhythmic electronic music that still retains a sense of melody. Add on to this, smooth soul vocals coming out of a skinny black man wearing Chuck Taylor All-Stars and ceaselessly doing variations of the Robot on stage. His backup band, of course, are two kids who look like they came straight out of the film version of The Neverending Story, went to RISD, and dropped out to join Kenna's road band. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just that I'm hoping that conjures up some kind of mental image. ((Yup, and the band is as utterly original as about anything else I've heard this millennium; however, there were LOTS of people in the late 1980's sounding like parts of this. What I really like is the rhythmic synthesizer effects mixed with what had better be an acoustic piano and some really interesting vocals that show that it is possible to have inventive lyrical structures.)) On the album, Kenna plays all of the parts and fills in all of the vocals, much like Seal (at least in the early days. Is he still a one-man recording machine?). In fact, now that I mention it, it's a lot like a highly electronic and more upbeat Seal. The album is produced by Chase Chad of the Neptunes, which should mean something more to me, but it unfortunately doesn't. A video or two got some play on MTV2, and you've actually probably heard snippets in TV promos for whatever. My recommendation would be to go buy this album NOW (except for the fact that I've included one with this letter on the feeling that you hadn't heard it. If you have, please send it back so that I can share it with someone else!). ((I awarded you lots and lots of free issues for it....)) I actually saw 2 copies on the used shelf at Strawberries on Rt. 2 in Warwick and had to rescue them. I've got one for you and one for Dave Maletsky, to whom I also recommended the album. As a side-note, I'm listening to the album right now. Definitely either turn it way up, or wear headphones, because after a year of having this in heavy rotation, I'm still hearing new things as I type. ((Some of the music didn't really grab me entirely, especially after only two or three listenings, but "Hell Bent" and the "War in Me" are scary in a not lightly mentioned Ian Curtis sort of way. There is more than a bit of "I've Lost Control Again" in here. But there also is a new agey sort of psychology in this too, where "A Better Control" is one of my favorites, a triple entendre - and a economist/psych dream. You have ALMOST made up for what follows, almost....))

Outkast. I'd like to pretend that this double solo album will convince people that don't like rap/hip-hop because it's not "real music" that they're wrong, but it won't. It should, but it won't. ((So you say, it hasn't convinced me. Even within rap/hip-hop Outkast still comes across as hopelessly derivative and uninteresting.)) I know everybody has jumped on the bandwagon, but I can't help but like these guys. I DID live in Atlanta (the A-T-L) for over six years, and you were pretty much issued their albums in the mail with little boxes of Tide (I know, I stole the joke (which previously referred to Frampton Comes Alive), so sue me). ((No thanks, Frampton is/was hopelessly derivative and uninteresting too.)) Anyway, I know the commercial FM/UHF/VHF/Cable/Satellite waves have been saturated with the popular singles "Hey Ya!", and "The Way You Move." While I whole-heartedly recommend a top-to-bottom listen of both discs, I'll honestly say that if you didn't like the singles, don't even bother (unless you just thought they were too poppy), because they are some of the lighter highlights of both Andre and Big Boi's offerings. ((Good, I didn't, so I won't.... I don't mean to be hard on you, you should keep going, I just think that rap/hip-hop outlived its usefulness at least a decade ago.)) Outkast has always drawn from hip-hop's roots, but this album outdoes everything they have ever pressed. Andre3000's The Love Below opens with a jazzy intro with the tracks "The Love Below" and "Love Hater," and is rich with jazz and Motown cues throughout. Big Boi, on the other hand, draws more from influences ranging from Motown to funk, especially on "Bowtie" in which if I don't hear some George-Clinton-esque reference to Sir Nose D'Void of Funk, then there should be one. Other highlights (or at least my favorites) on this disc are "Church" and "Flip Flop Rock," and "Last Call." Of course, both discs get harder as they go on, with Big Boi starting earlier and venturing farther down the path of "gangsta' rap," while still avoiding the typical. The usual cast of supporting characters is here, including longtime collaborator Killer Mike, Ludacris, Jay-Z, Sleepy Brown, Cee-Lo, Lil' Jon (What! Ye-ah! Okay!). Honestly, Big Boi needs the help in keeping a whole album moving, but taken together the entire double-album trumps anything Outkast has put on the market to date. Casual listeners of hip-hop will certainly appreciate The Love Below much more than Speakerboxxx, but that's part of why this album has such a wide following: there's a sound somewhere that appeals to you.

Evanescence. I'm not even going to justify this. ((Good.... ;-) At least you started this off really well!!!)) It's pop disguised as hard rock/metal, but I can't help but be moved by Amy Lee's voice - so much so that I can listen to this album ad infinitum. ((Well, that's OK, when you do fall in love with a female vocalist, you fall in love with a female vocalist.)) I typically am not a fan of female vocalists, but there are a few notable exceptions, including Shirley Manson (Garbage), Sarah McLachlan, and Amy Lee. The instrumentals are actually pretty darn good, but it's WAY overproduced, so it leaves a taste like processed cheese in your mouth, but I happen to like processed cheese, and will continue to eat it as long as I do, especially grilled between two lovely slices of bread with mayonnaise� where was I? ((Stuck on Amy Lee....))

The biggest disappointment of 2003 was Metallica's St. Anger. I will now cease to recognize its existence. ((Join the club with those who.... let's just say I am not and never have been a metal fan, except for "joke metal" bands.)) Okay, so maybe I should have had a few more albums in the collection before attempting this list, but I do what I can. I guess college really cut back on my album purchasing. You'll get the Top 4 of '04 at the end of the year, but as it stands, until yesterday, I hadn't bought anything that wasn't from a previous year/era. My trip to Strawberries and Newbury Comics yesterday rectified that. I'm working my way through Rush, Feedback, (Atlantic), Velvet Revolver, Contraband, (RCA), and Modest Mouse, Good News For People Who Love Bad News, (Epic). The Rush album is an 8-track disc of covers of 60's rock that influenced them. They put it out as a commemorative of their 30th anniversary this year. While it's really not too much to write home (or you) about, their cover of Cream's cover of Robert Johnson's "Crossroads" is well worth the purchase price by itself. ((OK, but I do prefer Robert Johnson's original and it was MUCH more fun to listen to it when no one knew who Robert Johnson was. I have him on vinyl, just to show you how far back that goes....)) Also included on the disc are covers of Blue Cheer's "Summertime Blues," the Who's "The Seeker," as well as "Heart Full of Soul," "For What It's Worth," "Mr. Soul," "Seven and Seven Is," and "Shapes of Things." ((Hmmmm, does sound like a fun disc though, especially for car listening!)) I started listening to Modest Mouse, and I like it, but I'm still working on getting into it. Velvet Revolver is the Audioslave-like merging of vocalist Scott Weiland (Stone Temple Pilots) with Slash, Duff, and Matt Sorum (Guns 'n' Roses) and Dave Kushner. ((Oh gosh, you're gonna wake up a few of my music fans I've not heard from in awhile.... go ahead, why not?)) I had decided to pick this album up after hearing some preview tracks and before I knew who the lineup was. I picked this up because it was the only pure hard rock I heard in my search. I'm sick and tired of the whiny junk that passes as new rock (i.e. Linkin Park, pretty much everything else consisting of young bands). ((Oh yeah, I've NEVER been so discouraged by the lack of really interesting new bands, I keep thinking I'm getting older, but then I go back and listen to something like original Joy Division, or EVEN, dare I say it, Mott the Hoople, and realize that the whole rock genre is completely moribund. Mott was derivative in its time from the Rolling Stones and Beatles, yet it still had some amazing sparks of inventiveness... then you had the punk/new wave genre.... and even house was interesting at first until it and ska and rap mostly degenerated....)) I haven't heard the whole Velvet Revolver album yet, but in contrast to most albums, the best tracks seem to be placed at the end instead of the first 5 songs.

I previewed Los Lonely Boys and The Cure's new albums. Los Lonely Boys had a couple of promising tracks, especially "Heaven," ((Yeah, I've heard that one on the radio, and it's OK, but really... nothing to write home about.)) and one later in the album that was very Santana-y. Most of the album was too sappy for me, though. ((Seems to make it for radio play at the moment, though.)) The Cure was just too Cure-ish for me. ((And just WHAT, pray tell, is wrong with that??? You do see that we have some VERY different tastes. But that's OK, don't stop....)) Oh, and I tried Phish's new release, but it really didn't do much for me either. ((Being up here in the Northeast, it was interesting to follow the fiasco of the "farewell concert". Since Cher is currently on her (I believe) sixth farewell tour, and knowing what kind of band Phish is, I will be shocked if they don't come out again with more "farewell concerts". For those that didn't follow it, Phish had a farewell breakup concert up in Northern Vermont a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, in our summer of coolness and rain, it rained a whole lot before the concert, and they didn't really have enough places to park in the first place, so it became a giant traffic jam and they tried to close it down. Lots and lots of people parked on the Interstate highway and hoofed it ten (?) miles to the concert. Still, Phish is OK, but nothing to develop Grateful Dead fanaticism about. Even though I'm not a Dead fan, at least I understand its attraction.))

Some of my other favorite albums of the 1990's, which I won't elaborate on now, but maybe later: Johnny Cash, Unchained, 1994 (American); Steve Vai, Fire Garden, 1996 (Sony); A3, Exile on Coldharbour Lane, 1997 (Elemental/Geffen); Afghan Whigs, 1965, 1998 (Columbia); Outkast, Aquemini, 1998 (LaFace/Arista); and Reel Big Fish, Why Do They Rock So Hard?, 1998 (Mojo). ((To show how and where our tastes differ, I only own the last one on this list.)) Well, now it's July 5, so I should probably wrap this up and get it in the mail. I had included a few quotes relating to Diplomacy (however tenuously), but I have too many to spring on you at once, so here are two: "Will no one tell me what she sings? Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow for old, unhappy, far-off things, and Battles long ago." Wordsworth: The Solitary Reaper. "Honesty is the best policy, and spinach is the best vegetable." Popeye

Later, eh? Bob Holt, 301 MAIN ST., APT. 4 EAST GREENWICH, RI 02818

((Note I expropriated the last one for a masthead quote.... not making a relative value judgment, Popeye is just, well, more to-the-point. Now to the "egregious error" column, yes, I've made another one!!! I look forward with glee to the opportunity to grovel in wrongness.))

Mike Barno (Fri, 06 Aug 2004 21:14:04 -0400)

Hey, Boob, when you make an ordinary assertion in print, it would be nice to be right every time but an error might be allowed to slide every now and then. However, when you make a point of making a correction, you need to be correct... or I get to rip you a new anal pore, just for emphasis on accuracy. You were one out of two this issue. Yeah, "mayonnaise" has two N's and one S, not the reverse. But "whisky" with no E is not merely a misspelling introduced in the "wild west", "the only place they use that spelling." You got a lobby-prestige paper at work? Or a magazine that carries liquor ads at home? Open up the NY Times or Wall Street Journal and find an ad for The Balvenie; there's one every day with a cartoon man with a bowtie. Look at the bottle photo, read the label, look at the bottom. "MALT SCOTCH WHISKY." Look at other fermented products from Scotland. The old-school stuff, the single-malt original article, uses no E. The spelling you think of as the only valid Standard English is actually the decayed version. It belongs on lowest-common-denominator USA bottles, most of which are as inferior as "American cheese" or our major brands of beer.

Fifty percent good won't get the Red Sox in the playoffs and it doesn't get you credit for your overwrought overemphasized attempt to call me wrong. You will grovel in abasement, sir, which I will consider merely appropriate.

Don't forget the extra writhing for calling my spelling "egregious grammatical errors."

- Mike, mpbarno of lightlink.com

((First of all, let me say that I was wrong not once, not twice, but THREE separate times on this issue!!! This sets new standards of three strikes and you're out. I'm down for the count, under water long enough to be drowned rat. First, of course, whisky is NOT a misspelling, it is completely legitimate. SECOND, it wasn't introduced in the wild west BUT in Scotland and thus of course it is NOT the only place that uses this spelling. THIRD, and finally, for THIS egregious error, the whiskey with an `e' is the decayed version. I'm just completely wrong. In an effort to redeem myself, I went to the Oxford English Dictionary, which offered me no hope, but at least the opportunity to be correct. They, of course, have no interest whatsoever in the wild west, if they even know where it is relative to Wales. But they do note that �in modern trade usage, Scotch Whisky and Irish Whiskey are thus distinguished in spelling� so that the Whisky spelling applies to Scotland, while the Whiskey spelling applies to Ireland. I got some more business from Mike, so let's go there next. Enough of Scotch, let's drink some! Now for the topic that EVERYONE has something to say about, but few are cogent about it.... operating systems....))

Mike Barno (Mon, 16 Aug 2004 21:36:31 -0400)

Do you read Groklaw?

((No, not until you sent me the link below....))

Mark, Jim, this is the most interesting and maybe most useful single-issue website I've seen. www dot groklaw dot net . I've been reading bits on it for months. Consistently up-to-date, fact-based, providing original sources. Topic is the SCO copyright attack on Linux and the resulting lawsuits. Groklaw's creator described the site thus in a 14-August posting:

"Groklaw's Purpose

Groklaw is not a discussion board, although it's enjoyable and sometimes useful to have discussions along the way, or a blog or entertainment, though I try to make it funny and a pleasant experience. It's as complete a record as I can make it of this historic case, with all significant details recorded for history. That is why we have SCO Archives, a chronological listing of what happened by date. We have the IBM Timeline and one for Novell and Red Hat too, with all the legal documents and the dates they were filed, and we have the Legal Docs page also, which is currently in process of being updated and rearranged. All the legal documents filed are available as PDFs and as text, for the visually-impaired, who can have difficulty with PDFs, I've been told, and so that they can be searched by keywords using our Search utility. All that work is done by volunteers, some of whom go to the court to pick up documents and exhibits, some scan, some transfer from PDF to plain text, some do the HTML, some research, some send me links to stories worth covering, some attend court hearings and give us reports.

Groklaw is also an anti-FUD site. And I hope it's a place to grok enough of the law, so if anyone has any information that could be useful, they know where to bring it. That is the purpose of the Legal Links page, to show you where you can find legal information, and that is where you will find links to all the relevant courts too. We also have the Quote Database, so you can find specific quotations by the principals in the SCO story, which is updated by volunteers. Also, we offer transcripts of the hearings, teleconferences, of media interviews and public appearances, when we are able to obtain necessary permission.

Groklaw isn't Slashdot and it isn't the New York Times or the Drudge Report. It's a working site, thousands of people - more than 7,000 now - working together as volunteers, applying open source principles to chronicling the SCO legal assault on the FOSS community and trying to help to defeat what we believe is a wrongful attack. Groklaw is a non-commercial site. I am a volunteer too. I can tell you I've never worked so hard in my life, because I work for a living and do this in my free time afterward. Mathfox is a volunteer too. We are all volunteers. It's our way of saying thank you for software that the community wrote and gave as a gift to the world.

My concept was this: Many of Groklaw's readers know the history of UNIX and the SCO/Caldera history too, because they were there. They lived it. So my idea was that if I explained what would help, they would know where to find historical evidence that could make a difference. And it has happened just that way. Groklaw is not like any other site. It's sui generis, unique in its goals and purposes. So far as I know, it's never been done before, which is the creative fun of it.

I am explaining all this, and showing all that we do and offer, because we have hundreds of new members since SCOForum and a lot of new visitors, too, and many of you may not know all that is available here. Enjoy our hard work. And feel free to participate. "

- Mike, mpbarno of lightlink.com

((I sent you a reply (including the idea that I had not heard about it, and was probably less interested in the site than he was, though it WAS very cool to run around in for an hour or two) but I've deleted it, I ended with... "I also don't mind spam or even (mostly) viruses and worms." And that's all Mike quoted back to me as he got THIS discussion going....))

Mike Barno (Tue, 17 Aug 2004 21:11:24 -0400)

Jeezus. I'm tempted to get back into an avocation I swore off twenty years ago, before the general public had heard of such things, just to penalize you for that statement. Perhaps I could shock you into recognizing how you sound like the people who imagined in 2001 that terrorists could never strike on US turf. ((Well, definitely not on that one, as I was on record after the Cole bombing as saying that Al Qaeda definitely would strike at the US itself, in a big way. I didn't directly see airplanes, but I was not surprised and the instant it happened, sitting in the airport in Chicago downed on the ground stop, I knew it was Al Qaeda. I spent that evening stuck in a trucker motel bar explaining who Osama Bin Laden was to those long distance truckers.)) The temptation isn't enough to get me to risk facing Homeland Security forces, though.

Two weeks ago, you were getting e-mails (and probably port scans) every day from Edi's computer (although not labeled as such). Once he noticed, he asked me for help and I had him run Spybot. It removed "over 45 files" of infection. ((Yeah, I thought it was from Peery's computer since my spam checker shut Peery down, but it probably was masked that it was coming from Edi. I did notice.))

I hope I don't hear about TAP being delayed because you didn't have stuff backed up and had to reinstall your OS. It happens to thousands of Windows users each day, and one or two Linux users.

- Mike, mpbarno of lightlink.com

((You may recall that I did have a slight problem earlier this year, but I have Black Ice on my machine, you may have heard about what happened to Black Ice where Witty Worm targeted Black Ice computers like mine (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=14859)? Well, I was vigilant and stopped the worm manually, so I did NOT have to actually reinstall my OS. And I maintain the repaired Black Ice on my machine as one level of guard against what happened to Edi. But still, after doing proper checking I choose not to waste much time worrying about these things, and it is my ISP that is blocking so many of your E-Mails with its advanced spam detectors.))
((You should know better.... you cut off my message... ;-) [[above where I lost the beginning of what I originally said]]))
((Let me try an analogy, apparently there are still 1 million households leasing telephone equipment from AT&T, a failed monopoly in all other respects, and in fact an unwillingness to get away from these failed models caused their current plight. In the future, one could see Microsoft in that same situation, with a million hangers on. As competition for leasing with purchase came in, there was no need for anyone to "sabotage" leased phones, or create a religion around purchased phones. We can laugh about the stupidity of continuing leasers, but all I'm saying (not with judgment, a fact) is that the nature of the competition between the "stupid monopoly" and the new technology affects the development of markets, labor markets, for sabotage. Economists actually have studied this "in general".))
((I'm not going to defend Microsoft, or criticize open source defenders, I'm just going to say that the current "war" environment is engendered by the nature of the ground on which the battle is being fought. And no one is completely right. The Red/Blue battle has the same characteristics too. Money and attention is greater the shriller the field of battle. To be a bit more specific, the "real" differences between the Democrats and Republicans probably are as small as Ralph Nader asserts that they are. Both sides have realized (the Republicans first, the Democrats later) that the best way to raise the most money is to create and push hot button issues. The rhetoric around this money raising is SO strong now that I think people are serious when they can't see why John McCain is being honest about the political issues in standing behind his party. I just wish he would, at the same time, decry the trivial radicalization of all the issues. This is what McCain was trying to stop with the Campaign Financing Reform that ended up failing dismally. I think if we're ever going to free our political campaigns from cheap radicalization and annoying polarization it has to come from lessening the incentives to engage in it. I'm not entirely sure how to do that, but just legislating against it will never work. More fundamentally I remain scared and fascinated by the flip flop of the parties on fiscal responsibility. Remember in 1960 and 1964 that the Democrats were the ones running on tax cuts and deficit spending while the Republicans were against it. My colleague Larry Kotlikoff here at Boston University has written a book "The Coming Intergenerational Storm" that all financially conversant Americans should be familiar with. Larry, unfortunately, falls over that radicalization line himself just a bit, but the kinds of solutions he offers for our current and coming fiscal crises have the same style as that which should be applied to campaign finance reform.))
((Anyway, enough of the digression, but as for the attitude toward the radicalization of OS's, I continue to try to figure out how to keep my bile levels down, down, down. But I'm possibly very, very weird....))

Mike Barno (Tue, 17 Aug 2004 21:12:46 -0400)

Nothing wrong with that. The universe is very, very weird. Might as well fit in.

Mike Barno (Wed, 18 Aug 2004 01:01:56 -0400)

By the way, I wrote the earlier message with a grin, not with a snarl.

But read this parody white paper on "total cost of 0wnership" (with a zero; that spelling refers to a computer being under an outsider's control) : http://www.immunitysec.com/downloads/tc0.pdf

So here's a question for your role as editor in healthcare economics. How much cost is placed on hospitals and clinics as a result of worms and viruses? Extra tech staff time; wasted medical and support staff time; even patient lives lost due to failures of computer-controlled systems. Try this experiment, for which you might need your brother's help: Get a new computer bought off-the-shelf with Windows XP, or if you can't, then get a surplus PC or laptop and wipe it clean and reinstall XP. Assume you know about Service Pack 2 and try to download it first thing - but without doing anything extra, like adding a hardware firewall (such as Linksys' router) or turning on XP's software firewall or installing ZoneAlarm. So you expose your new system to the internet via a hospital's intranet, if you're in a healthcare worker's environment, or via your journal's intranet if your employer has one. See how long it takes for your guinea pig to start sending outgoing packets, or freeze up, or hijack your browser and open a bunch of pop-ups and pop-unders. Most worms try to spread to the subnet first before trying elsewhere on the Internet; if you had one vector get in (perhaps somebody used a VPN connection from an infected laptop, VPN gets passed right through the company net's firewall), then any machines with the RPC vulnerability unpatched will be sending signals all around the intranet, and you'll be 0wn3d in minutes. Almost certainly before you can get the computer fully patched and get defenses set up such as configuring XP's firewall, downloading an antivirus program and updating its definitions, downloading a malware scanner like Spybot-S&D and updating its definitions, configuring your browser's cookie manager and various other security settings, and so forth.

((No question it is huge, so huge that the continual battle is having real effects, not just on the health economy, but the economy as a whole in lost productivity. Some of my economist colleagues are studying these things, but I must admit to not being fully conversant with the results. I could look around if you really want to know.))

You'll find why this in fact *is* a matter of substantial concern affecting healthcare economics. You don't have to care, but I'm inclined to argue that you "should" care either professionally or personally. What if "the terrorists' next strike" (some terrorists' next strike) is a really hellacious exploit that thoroughly trashes every NT/2000/XP Windows desktop PC and laptop and webserver and mailserver and laser-microsurgery controller and MRI analyzer? What if evry machine still works but the networking is rendered unusable, which would knock computers of all operating systems offline? That alone would shut down credit-card billing and insurance verification - nontrivial elements of healthcare economics.

((I think, fortunately or unfortunately, businesses have to be very diligent to prevent just the kind of exploitation you're talking about. And personally, I do the malware protections, am diligent, and then I don't worry much after that.))

I'd say that's healthy, as a general approach. Once you've taken the precautions you can, and implemented the safest practices you reasonably can, then "worry" won't do any good, and becomes erosive. A certain amount of responsibility actually frees you to enjoy relaxed time without fearing negligence. I was just reacting to your earlier phrasing; I knew it was more likely that your actual attitude is more like the phrasing above.

((I'm not against the open source movement, but the downside of that is that it encourages those who are targeting Microsoft because they are Microsoft.))

I don't understand that at all. Do you mean the F/OSS community itself promotes that, or its mere existence somehow promotes an us-against-them mentality that wouldn't exist if all software were proprietary? Either way, I am quite unpersuaded, after reading such debates (and Microsoft-funded FUD) for years.

"White hat" independent researchers and "black hat" crackers find vulnerabilities all the time in OSes and middleware and application programs. Some of the problems are unique to IE or a particular Windows server version, others are in common implementations of protocols where Windows and UNIX and Linux share the vulnerability. The difference is, when a Linux vuln is found, it gets verified and posted, people work on it based on its urgency, somebody proposes a solution, the community peer-reviews the fix, and it's in the development sourcecode tree within days for anyone to use. When a Windows or IE vuln is found, it gets posted to a public buglist, but not acknowledged by MS; then we wait months for MS to notice it and develop and test a patch, and eventually the fix might show up in Windows Update, and might or might not work correctly without introducing a new vuln. If the fix breaks previous patches, you might have to go through multiple download/install/reboot cycles to get it working at all. Meanwhile the exploit has been running thousands of zombies for months.

How does this, or any part of the F/OSS model, encourage crackers (as compared to legitimate hackers - Ashcroft doesn't know the difference) to target Microsoft products or to go after the company's websites? If all programmers worked to closed standards, would vulnerabilities stop being discovered? Would crackers say "Microsoft is swell, IBM is the big evil monopolist so let's all write worms for OS/2"? Or would they all become cooks and barmaids because they saw no dualism without the open-source model?

I'm stumped on the logic here, Jim.

- Mike, mpbarno of lightlink.com

((I'll admit that maybe I just have some weak thinking here. I'm going to stop at this point. Perhaps some readers want to jump in.))

Steve Emmert (Sat, 14 Aug 2004 18:39:52 -0400)

Unbelievable!!! The eye wall of this tropical storm, formerly a hurricane, just passed over my house about seven or eight minutes ago; it was like someone turned off a faucet. The drenching rain that had beset us for half an hour suddenly tapered off, leaving an odd calm; no wind, little if any rain. I am literally typing this from the eye of a storm. How I still have electricity is beyond me.

Steve, steve.emmert of cox.net

((Glad to see and hear that you've survived yet another storm.... next, another type of storm, as I asked Steve Hutton for some more details about his movies. If you get out to see it in a film festival near you, write a report here!!!))

Steve Hutton (Tue, 17 Aug 2004 07:08:21 -0400)

Since you ask, The Night Life has been accepted by gay/lesbian film festivals in Miami, Toronto, Fort Worth, Philadelphia, North Carolina, Manila, Austin, Lisbon, Las Vegas, Montreal, Seattle, Pittsburgh, Brno, and Prague with more to come. For more information, see:

http://www.greekchorus.com/night/screen.php

We also just finished shooting my third film, an ensemble comedy about gay and straight dating called Most Guys Today. I'll let you know when it hits the festival circuit in a year or so.

Steve, stevehutton of rogers.com

Doug Kent (08-09-04)

Dear Jim, My Texas Rangers just dropped four straight to Baltimore, and they're starting to take on water. Surprisingly it isn't the pitching so much (although this rookie Rigilio!? is a wheels off whip) as a lack of hitting. Oh well, I asked for above .500 ball, and we're still in the playoff hunt which is a miracle. Next up - a three-game homestand against the hated Yankees. If we take two out of three I'll be ecstatic. ((Yeah, well, as of THIS writing, they're still hanging in there, though playing .700 ball the last two weeks falls behind the .900 ball that the Red Sox and the Angels have been playing. I think at this point the Red Sox and Angels will make it, A's and Rangers won't. But they'll keep you hanging until the last week of the season! In the NL, watch out for the Astros gaining on the Giants and Cubs for that wild card slot. Of course, I keep rooting for the Giants, but their pitching really is atrocious.))

The big news here is the Bureau of Prisons has decided not to offer the Residential Drug and Alcohol Program (RDAP) here at Allenwood Camp any longer. This means that inmates such as myself who are waiting for our turn to enter RDAP will have to be transferred. Any inmate who has already started the program will be allowed to stay here and finish it. I'm supposed to begin RDAP in December or January.

The decision to cut the program here is financial more than anything. Because this is an old camp, the union contracts are different. We spend maybe a million dollars a year more to staff Allenwood than other camps in Pennsylvania with similar inmate population levels. The desire is to cut the population here down to between 150 and 175 inmates (from the current almost 300) through attrition (inmates completing their sentences or graduating RDAP) and transfers. Then a number of staff positions will be eliminated.

I'd prefer to stay but I have no choice if I am to participate in the program. However, here is where BOP wisdom seems to enter normal government idiocy. Rather than leave me here for 4 to 6 weeks and then transfer me to another RDAP facility, I'm told I will be transferred very soon (possibly this week) 15 miles away to a camp in Lewisburg. Then, a month or so from now, they'll transfer me AGAIN to an RDAP facility. I'm working on getting that changed, but success is doubtful. ((Unfortunately, you know really why this is, since you are being viewed as a chit in a queue. And they are stacking up the queue for RDAP elsewhere so that they can quickly bring your facility down closer to the goal quicker. This saves them money and probably earns some administrator somewhere a bonus. It is really hard to design incentive schemes in government organizations to keep the situation for the clients at the top of the agenda. I know, since I've spent so much of career doing it. It isn't as easy as just "write a directive to do it" although a lot of these Bush political appointees think it is.))

I'll write as soon as I have a new address, although mail is supposed to follow me for 30 days. Perhaps you'll be able to e-mail the ICFMM players when you hear the news. ((No news yet, but yes, I will do that.))

Not much else to report. I'm waiting for my next doctor appointment to have a few more lesions biopsied. It's supposed to be early September, so I assume this transfer fiasco will screw that up. Believe me, I'll make it a priority no matter where I am at the time. I can't afford not to make waves.

Football preseason starts tonight. Go Packers, go New York Football Giants... and I hope Dallas goes winless.... ((Living in the Dallas area, being exposed to those Dallas fans, really does get one's dander up, doesn't. I was SOOOO turned off by Dallas Cowboys fans in my year in Dallas that I've never watched a football game again since, and I moved to Dallas as a Cowboys fan (though I always preferred Craig Morton to Roger Staubach). One might say I overreact, but I really discovered that I just didn't like football that much anyway. They seem to have some kind of football team near where I live, but I don't pay attention.)) and finally I hope Philly fails to get to the big game AGAIN! Teee, heeee! Stay in touch!

Best to you and yours, Doug, #30694-177, Federal Prison Camp Allenwood, PO Box 1000, Montgomery, PA 17752

PS My fianceé Heather's birthday was Aug. 3. No excuses allowed by any of you non-incarcerated husbands and boyfriends. If I can make her feel like a Goddess by sending Heather a 26 page list of "500 Reasons I Love You" (plus a few extra in case of duplicates) y'all can at least spring for a card, flowers, and a dinner for your women! Yes, I'm a romantic sap. ((And I'll bet you're way out there compared to the rest of us. Maybe you've even convinced Jack McHugh to be more romantic, I doubt it, but maybe. Anyway, no problem with that, that's a good way to end the letter section....))

THE ABYSSINIAN PRINCE GAMES SECTION

"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 if you let me know in advance to be sure the fax machine is set up.

I am continuing to note cut or failed support orders with a small "s" instead of a capital "S". This will make it easier on the E-Mailed version of the szine to see what happened, since the italics don't show there. The italics DO show on the web page just fine.

Standby lists:

Mike Barno, Dick Martin, Brad Wilson, Jack McHugh, Glenn Petroski, Steve Emmert, Mark Kinney, Vince Lutterbie, Eric Brosius, Paul Rauterberg, Bob Osuch, Doug Kent, Sean O'Donnell, Vern Parker, Heath Gardner, Phil Reynolds, Paul Kenny, and Dan Gorham stand by for regular Diplomacy.

Brad Wilson and Jack McHugh stand by for the Modern Diplomacy game.

Let me know if you want on or off these lists, especially OFF. Standbies get the szine for free and receive my personal thanks.

GAME OPENING INFORMATION

We've got lots of openings in the subszines, check them out!!! Especially, contact Rip Gooch for Railway Rivals, see Rip's subszine elsewhere in most issues of TAP. Come on, help me out!!! Contact Rip Gooch directly at xyropedes of canada.com.

A NEW game of regular Diplomacy. The original, the best, play it here! Buddy Tretick, Fred Wiedemeyer, and Matt Sundstrom for sure already are signed up, I think a couple more of you requested in for this one. Please remind me. I am willing to open TWO new games if there is enough interest!!! Also, is there any interest in another game of Nuclear Yuppie Evil Empire 7x7 Dip? I know it may be getting tired, but I really like it.

I also am starting a game of the variant I designed, Spy Diplomacy. Signups for that are now open. I'll publish the rules shortly or you can look at them at www.variantbank.com. Bruce Edwards is signed up.

John Harrington is offering to guest GM a game of Office Politics. Any interest in that?? Let me or John know! Jody McCullough and Bruce Edwards are interested, anyone else?

Harold Reynolds is running the game of Colonia (see elsewhere in this issue) and is interested in guest-GMing a game of Aberration. Sean O'Donnell and Brendan Whyte are interested in Aberration. Brendan and Sean BOTH need rules from Harold Reynolds.

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 two more players. Bruce Edwards and Eoghan Barry are signed up. Postal rules from me will be forthcoming shortly, on my never ending to-do list. I will get them in SOON! I'm more likely to get these things started if I see some interest..... it takes four and Eoghan is getting tired of waiting....

Right now, the other thing going is the Modern Diplomacy game with Wings. Bob Holt, Rick Desper, Alexander Woo, Dave Partridge, and Eric Ozog are signed up for that. I will start it when I get a full complement of players, the other Modern game is now done!

Mike Barno and Edi Birsan run a great web site at http://www.diplomaticcorps.org! Please check it out as they prepare to pass it along to the Germans and Sascha Hingst/Frank Bacher this fall. We're going to try to get everything updated on that site soon. Get ready for German World DipCon...... it should be fun. World DipCon will be going to Berlin after it goes to the Baltimore/DC area next summer. This fall the German team is running EuroDipCon at Darmstadt, Germany from Sept. 23 to Sept. 26 to practice running a big con. Get out there and support them if you can. E-Mail Frank Bacher for more info at: bacchusno1 of web.de

FLIP FLOP: 2003G, Regular Diplomacy

THE DUE DATE FOR FALL 1902 IS SEPTEMBER 11TH, 2004

Summer 1902

AUSTRIA (Wiedemeyer): has a TRI, a BUD, a VIE, a SER, f GRE.

ENGLAND (Schmit): has f ENG, f STP(NC), f NTH, a NWY.

FRANCE (Jeff O'Donnell): has f BRE, f BEL, a BUR, a SPA.

GERMANY (Sundstrom): has a BER, a HOL, a RUH, f DEN.

ITALY (Williams): has f TUN, a VEN, a MUN.

RUSSIA (Sean O'Donnell): has a FIN, f GOB, f RUM, a SIL, a MOS.

TURKEY (Levinson): has f EAS, f CON, a SMY, a BUL.

Addresses of the Participants

AUSTRIA: Fred Wiedemeyer, Box 92010-Meadowbrook RPO, Edmonton, ALBERTA CANADA T6T 1N1,

(780) 465-6432, wiedem of planet.eon.net

ENGLAND: Karl Schmit, 1452 Seville Dr. #3, Green Bay, WI 54302-5559, (920) 469-5981,

diplomacy of new.rr.com ($5)

FRANCE: Jeff O'Donnell, 402 Middle Ave., Elyria, OH 44035-5728,

(440) 322-2920 or (440) 225-9203 (cell)

GERMANY: Matt Sundstrom, 1760 Robincrest Lane South, Glenview, IL 60025, (847) 729-1882,

Matt.Sundstrom of bbdoch.com or mattandzoe of earthlink.net

ITALY: Don Williams, 27505 Artine Drive, Saugus, CA 91350, (661) 297-3947,

wllmsfmly of earthlink.net or dwilliams of fontana.org

RUSSIA: Sean O'Donnell, 1044 Wellfleet Drive, Grafton, OH 44044, (440) 926-0230,

sean_o_donnell of hotmail.com

TURKEY: Alexandre Levinson, 1, allee des Marniquets, 78430 Louveciennes FRANCE, don't need phone,

levinson7 of hotmail.com ($5)

Game Notes:

1) Thanks to Paul for unneeded standby orders, Fred is back, note his phone number above now, so I can call him on NMR insurance, should he need it. Also, we have Karl's phone number too.

2) So, for that notification, and the press below, THAT's what we're doing this Summer season for. Fall is due SOON, so get your orders in now if I don't have them already.

Press:

(ENGLAND to RUSSIA): I see St. Petersburg twice!

(FLIP FLOP): Ivan Istavich looked at his generals as if they were scared little children in the wind, though his generals are afraid. The risk of shooting the messenger is always risky within the government and Ivan had no problem purging anyone who couldn't atone for their failures.

"Czar Istavich, I regret to inform you that our Northern port has been overrun." General Neriak said with trembling lips.

"Defense Minister, Stalin, what do you think of the loss of Stp to the British?" Ivan asked.

"May I speak freely?" Stalin asked biting his tongue.

"Yes, you may." Ivan said staring at Stalin.

"I have mixed feelings. On one hand we've lost a port that we may never be able to get back no matter what despite our armed forces within the area. We have them out numbered and flanked we could potentially retake Stp at whim. My other thought is that perhaps upon gaining Stp the British will halt their attack." Stalin said.

"Noted," Ivan said, "Admiral Istev what is your opinion?"

"I think we should retake Stp and give the British a good kick in the balls." Istev said looking Ivan square in the eye.

"I will consider this and have our Foreign Minister check on what can be arranged so that I can make a better decision. Either way." Ivan said turning off the light.

BANG! A gun shot rang loudly inside the small command conference room.

(BOOB to FLIP FLOP): Ooooh, who got shot, who got shot....

I CAN'T FIND MY MONEY!: 2001F, Regular Diplomacy

THE DUE DATE FOR SUMMER 1908 IS SEPTEMBER 11TH, 2004

Spring 1908

AUSTRIA (Parker): f tri-ADR, a vie-TYO, a SEV-arm, a ven-TUS, a tyo-PIE,

a MOS h, a SER-gre, a RUM-bul, a STP S GERMAN f swe-nwy, f ALB S f tri-adr.

ENGLAND (Kinney): a LON h, a EDI h, f NTH s FRENCH a pic-bel (nso).

FRANCE (Kent): a MAR S a par-bur, a par-BUR, a PIC S a par-bur, f ENG-bel, f mid-GAS.

GERMANY (Wilson): f HOL S a bel, a BEL s a mun-bur, a DEN h, a MUN-bur,

f swe-NWY, a RUH S a bel, a bur-mar (d ann).

ITALY (Gardner): a ROM S a apu-ven, f ION S f gre, f GRE s TURKISH f bul(sc), a apu-VEN.

RUSSIA (Desper): a nwy h (d r:fin,otb).

TURKEY (Miller): f AEG S f bul(sc), a ARM-sev, a CON S f bul(sc), f BUL(SC) s a con.

Addresses of the Participants

AUSTRIA: Vern Parker, 337 Winter Hill Place, Powell, OH 43065, (614) 402-5139

VernDip of aol.com is preferred

ENGLAND: Mark Kinney, 4830 Westport Road, Apt D, Louisville KY 40222

alberich of iglou.com

FRANCE: Douglas Kent, #30694-177, Federal Prison Camp Allenwood, PO Box 1000, Montgomery,

PA 17752

GERMANY: Kevin Wilson, 7250 Perkins Rd., #838, Baton Rouge, LA 70808, 225-751-3857,

ckevinw of aol.com

ITALY: Heath Gardner, 1510 W. Friendly Ave., Greensboro, NC 27403-1207

metaphorman of gmail.com

RUSSIA: Rick Desper, 5440 Marinelli Road, #204, Rockville, MD 20852

(301) 977-7691, rick_desper of yahoo.com

TURKEY: Tim Miller, 258 New Mark Esplanade, Rockville, MD 20850,

tim of webjudge.net

GM: Jim-Bob Burgess, 664 Smith Street, Providence, RI 02908-4327, +1 401-351-0287

burgess of world.std.com

Game Notes:

1) The RAG draw is proposed, if you want the RAGging that will come if you approve it, vote yes and the game will end. If you don't vote or vote no, we continue. OR we have the ultimate kissin' your sister AEFGIRT seven way draw proposal. You also can vote on that one with your Summer orders, if you want it.

2) Note Heath Gardner's new postal address!!

Press:

(ITALY - AUSTRIA): I know it's probably too late now, but I'm all moved in and settled at my new place and have more time for diplomacy. I'll be in touch after the moves to see if we can patch things up, but you'll probably just end up eating me alive. Oh well, I'm just a replacement.

SOMETHING TO BE SCARED OF: 2001D, Regular Diplomacy

THE GAME IS OVER - EFG DRAW AGREED TO BY ALL PARTIES

THE DUE DATE FOR ENDGAME STATEMENTS IS SEPTEMBER 11TH, 2004

Addresses of the Participants

AUSTRIA: Doug Kent

ENGLAND: Matt Sundstrom, 1760 Robincrest Lane South, Glenview, IL 60025, (847) 729-1882 ($5)

Matt.Sundstrom of bbdoch.com or mattandzoe of earthlink.net

FRANCE: James Alan (Jim) Tretick, 1383 Canterbury Way Potomac, MD 20854, (301) 279-0803 ($4)

jatretick of comcast.net

GERMANY: Don Williams, 27505 Artine Drive, Saugus, CA 91350, (661) 297-3947 ($3)

wllmsfmly of earthlink.net or dwilliams of fontana.org

ITALY: Mike Barno, 634 Dawson Hill Road, Spencer, NY 14883

mpbarno of lightlink.com

RUSSIA: Paul Rauterberg, 3116 W. American Dr., Greenfield, WI 53221,

(414) 281-2339 (E-Mail) trauterberg of wi.rr.com

TURKEY: Sean O'Donnell, 1044 Wellfleet Drive, Grafton, OH 44044, (440) 926-0230

sean_o_donnell of hotmail.com or seanfodonnell of yahoo.com

Game Notes:

End Game Statements:

Turkey recap (Sean O'Donnell, Standby Turkey): Well, obviously the civil war that had erupted in Turkey led to my rising to power, unfortunately for the Turkish ppl I was a really long emplaced English spy. My parents had long since had been emplaced in Turkey till I was born, and they had taught me everything that I knew though that is neither there nor here.

Once I had taken power the only option I saw for Turkey's survival was to keep the Italian Turkish alliance that had struck me to be the alliance that my predecessor had. I then had thought of my treason as a way out of English rule, but Prime Minister Jody had been overthrown from his leadership and Mike had taken his place had put a real dampener with my original plans of giving Italy the win while I merely survived and with the overthrow of Italy it had derailed my plans as well since I had felt that I'll bring Jody to a win by being the ever loyal ally.

I then sought to bring Don into the game by giving him War and by showing my resolve I attacked Mike on a whim based on false information that I had later found out that they weren't so false. I couldn't allow someone who had planned on attacking my newly gotten power a win and since at the time I had thought it was false and it wouldn't happen and I had made a brutal mistake. I found out it was indeed the strategy being used. (Sorry Mike the information was you'd attack after my naval defenses was thinned out which would be in the future, but I couldn't take the chance hence and it made sense within how we were coordinating. Too many consistancies while I had tried numerous times to get Italy to spearhead the invasion.) Because of the information I had decided to continue my acts of Sabotage. Once the proposal came out of EFG I saw my chance to give the game to my parents' homeland and thus took it.

Yeah I know probably not as good as the Star Trek press, but I decided to be creative with this if that's cool?? ((Sure, Sean, thanks for stepping in and being such a good standby. You have to play your game once you're in. And you did. Thanks!))

FANTASTIC VOYAGE: 1999K, Regular Diplomacy

THE DUE DATE FOR END GAME STATEMENTS EXTENDED TO SEPTEMBER 11TH, 2004

Five Way AEGRT Draw Declared!

Addresses of the Participants

AUSTRIA: Paul Rauterberg, 3116 W. American Dr., Greenfield, WI 53221, (414) 281-2339 (E-Mail)

trauterberg of wi.rr.com

ENGLAND: John Biehl, #8 - 11530 84th Avenue, Delta, BRITISH COLUMBIA, V4C 2M1 CANADA,

(604) 591-1832 ($7); jrb of dccnet.com

FRANCE: Rick Davis, 2420 West Avenue, Santa Rosa, CA 95407, (707) 544-5201,

redavis914 of aol.com

GERMANY: Bob Osuch, 19137 Midland Avenue, Mokena, IL 60448, (708) 478-3885

ROsuch4082 of aol.com

ITALY: Terry Tallman, PO Box 782, Clinton, WA 98236, (360) 710 9613, cell (360) 710-9613 ($2)

terryt of whidbey.net

RUSSIA: Buddy Tretick, 9607 Conaty Circle, Spotsylvania, VA 22553, (540) 582-2356 (E-Mail)

batretick of earthlink.net

TURKEY: Vince Lutterbie, 1021 Stonehaven, Marshall, MO 65340-2837, (660) 886-7354

melvin4852 of sbcglobal.net

Game Notes:

End Game Statements:

SECRETS: 1999D, Regular Diplomacy

THE DUE DATE FOR SPRING 1917 IS SEPTEMBER 11TH, 2004

Winter 1916

ENGLAND (Brosius): has f LON, a GAS, f NAO, a KIE, f MID, f ENG, f HOL, f POR.

FRANCE (Sasseville): has f MAR, f SPA(SC), a MUN, a BUR.

GERMANY (Barno): has a CON.

RUSSIA (Reynolds): has a MOS, a LVN, a BER, f BAL, a STP, a PRU.

TURKEY (Linsey): rem f ion; has a SMY, a UKR, a WAR, f WES, a SEV, f GOL,

a SIL, a GAL, f NAF, f AEG, a TYO, f PIE, a BUL, a BOH.

Addresses of the Participants

ENGLAND: Eric Brosius, 53 Bird Street, Needham, MA 02492

eric.brosius of comcast.net

FRANCE: Roland Sasseville, Jr., 38 Bucklin Street, Pawtucket, RI 02861, (401) 481-4280 ($0)

roland6 of cox.net and ICQ: 40565030

GERMANY: Mike Barno, 634 Dawson Hill Road, Spencer, NY 14883

mpbarno of lightlink.com

RUSSIA: Phil Reynolds, 2896 Oak Street, Sarasota, FL 34237, (813) 953-6952

preyno of yahoo.com

TURKEY: Bruce Linsey, PO Box 234, Kinderhook, NY 12106

GonzoHQ of aol.com

Game Notes:

1) The FREGT draw is rejected and then reproposed. I had no complaint, so I've granted a request that we go back to where we were on the voting, which was this: (1) Some of you have "perpetual draw votes on this proposal on file", those are still in force; (2) Some of you do not and have been voting every season, for you if you FAIL to vote it counts as a yes vote for this proposal. If we get to a situation where no centers change hands for three game years, then we can go to the next step, which will require everyone to vote every season, no perpetual draw votes. And failure to vote would be a yes. Fall 1916 was two game years by that measure. If Turkey is missing TWO of its home centers in Winter 1917, I think we are still going to advance to the next level of voting, which is that perpetual draw votes will no longer be allowed with failure to vote equalling a yes. If any other significant movement or centers change hands then that will be another story, of course. This does NOT mean the game will just be ended by the GM, it just means someone must veto the draw every turn.

Press:

DR. EDWARD TELLER: 2002?rn42, Nuclear Yuppie Evil Empire Diplomacy - Black Hole Variant

GAME OVER - PAUL RAUTERBERG RUNS AWAY WITH IT!!!

Fall 1907

AUSTRIA (Rauterberg): a rum-BUL, f TRI-rum (imp); and nuked EDI, LON, NTH, NWG, ENG;

owns tri,bul; WINS!!!

ENGLAND (Muller): a LVP h; and 5 nukes unfired;

owns lvp; finishes FIFTH!!!

FRANCE (Andruschak): f BRE h, a PAR h, a MAR h; and 5 nukes unfired;

owns bre,par,mar; finishes tied for THIRD!!!

GERMANY (Kendter): a MUN h; and 5 nukes unfired;

owns mun; finishes tied for THIRD!!!

ITALY (McHugh): a VEN h, a ROM h, f NAP h; and 5 nukes unfired;

owns ven,rom,nap; finishes tied for LAST!!!

RUSSIA (Kenny): f STP(SC) h, a MOS h, a WAR h, f SEV h; and nuked BER, KIE, VIE, BUD;

owns stp,mos,war,sev; finishes tied for LAST!!!

TURKEY (Schultz): has f ANK, a CON, a SMY; and 5 nukes in their silos;

owns ank,con,smy; finishes SECOND!!!

Current Standings

TOTAL

JOHN SCHULTZ

PAUL RAUTERBERG

KARL MULLER

HARRY ANDRUSCHAK

LEE KENDTER, JR.

JACK MCHUGH

SANDY KENNY

Black Holed

Neutral

Totals(eventually)

238

Times GM Nuked

Whole Frelling Game

Addresses of the Participants

John Schultz plays on in our memories....

Paul Rauterberg, 3116 W. American Dr., Greenfield, WI 53221, (414) 281-2339

trauterberg of wi.rr.com

Karl Muller, 3154 East Lydius Street, Schenectady, NY 12303-5035

karlmuller of alumni.lemoyne.edu or pegandkarl of mindspring.com

Harry Andruschak, 734 West 214th Street, Apartment 12-A Torrance, CA 90502-1907

(310) 533-8945, harryandruschak of aol.com

Lee Kendter, Jr., 1503 Pilgrim Lane, Quakertown, PA 18951

lkendter of speakeasy.net

Jack McHugh, P.O. Box 427, Claymont, DE 19703, (302) 792-1998

flapjack of comcast.net

Sandy Kenny, 23 East Coulter Avenue, Collingswood, NJ 08108-1208 (609) 869-3160

KennyShire of aol.com or possibly sakenny of net-gate.com

Game Notes:

1) A couple of adjudication notes.... when you guys nuke the same province more than once, I put in parentheses the number of nukes that hit that spot. Also, if your move to a space succeeds and THEN you are annihilated, I capitalize the first letter of that space where you are annihilated. The reverse happens if your move bounces where I capitalize the first letter of the place you started.

2) The rules I have been using for this game have been that there are no replacements or standbies. Nukes for the positions John has will remain unfired in their silos. None of his units will move or support anything. They can be attacked and dislodged and his centers can be nuked. John could win the game this way, conceivably, but likely would not. He did, of course, finish second, congratulations to Paul who won through persistence. I think we'll probably retire this game for a bit, unless their is a swell tide to run another one. It is EASY to play!!! All you have to do is write orders.

Press:

FINDING THE COMMUNITY: Breaking Away, Designer's Rules

THE DUE DATE FOR TURN 7 IS SEPTEMBER 11TH, 2004

Turn 6

65 (replenish with a 16)

Lisa (Breaking Away!!!)

64 (no replenishment)

Empty

63 (no replenishment)

Empty

62 (no replenishment)

Empty

61 (no replenishment)

Empty

60 (no replenishment)

Empty

59 (no replenishment)

Empty

58 (no replenishment)

Empty

57 (no replenishment)

Empty

56 (no replenishment)

Empty

55 (no replenishment)

Empty

54 (no replenishment)

Empty

53 (no replenishment)

Empty

52 (no replenishment)

Empty

51 (no replenishment)

Empty

50 (no replenishment)

Empty

49 (replenish with a 3)

Homer

48 (replenish with a 4)

Marge

47 (no replenishment)

Empty

46 (no replenishment)

Empty

45 (no replenishment)

Empty

44 (no replenishment)

Empty

43 (replenish with a 3)

Carl Sagan(2), Franklin, Zedd

42 (replenish with a 6)

Bart(5), Clubs(4), Edmond, Frederick

41 (replenish with a 10)

Diamonds(3), El Vez(1), Geri Lee Lewis, Wade

-S-P-R-I-N-T- -F-I-N-I-S-H- -L-I-N-E-

40 (no replenishment)

Empty

39 (replenish with a 3)

Omega

38 (replenish with a 4)

Pebble, Johnny Peso, James

37 (no replenishment)

Empty

36 (no replenishment)

Empty

35 (replenish with a 3)

Hearts, Paige

34 (replenish with a 5)

Spades

33 (no replenishment)

Empty

32 (no replenishment)

Empty

31 (no replenishment)

Empty

30 (no replenishment)

Empty

29 (replenish with a 3)

Silt, Clay, Sand

Addresses of the Participants - Their Team and Their Cards

TEAM 1 (Rick Desper): rick_desper of yahoo.com (29 points)

Team Name: Team Springfield

A: Homer Simpson

(3) 8 3 3 3

B: Marge Simpson

(4) 8 5 4

C: Bart Simpson

(3) 9 3 6

D: Lisa Simpson

(20) 3 4 16

Total Replenishments: 22+63+46+13+15+29 = 188

TEAM 2 (Bruce Edwards): kactusjak of ntlworld.com (0 points)

Team Name: Last Again

A: Zedd

(15) 3 3 3

B: Omega

(13) 9 3 3

C: Paige

(15) 10 3 3

D: James

(16) 21 3 4

Total Replenishments: 16+37+29+25+12+13 = 132

TEAM 3 (Tom Howell): off-the-shelf of olympus.net (0 points)

Team Name: The Soils; Manager: Boulder

A: Clay

(3) 15 16 15 3

B: Silt

(3) 13 9 3

C: Sand

(3) 16 20 3

D: Pebble

(3) 21 20 4

Total Replenishments: 17+62+63+25+12+13 = 192

TEAM 4 (Dennis Menear): dmenear of wirefire.com (0 points)

Team Name: The Firm

A: Edmond

(9) 9 3 16 6

B: Franklin

(12) 15 4 3

C: Frederick

(10) 6 3 6

D: Wade

(7) 5 7 10

Total Replenishments: 12+28+32+35+38+25 = 170

TEAM 5 (David Partridge): rebhuhn of rocketmail.com (7 points)

Team Name: It's In The Cards; Manager: The Joker

A: Spades

(3) 15 9 12 5

B: Hearts

(3) 13 10 3

C: Diamonds

(3) 16 5 10

D: Clubs

(3) 21 16 6

Total Replenishments: 17+55+51+25+30+24 = 202

TEAM 6 (Karl Schmit): diplomacy of new.rr.com (3 points)

Team Name: 25 Dollar Quartet

A: Carl Sagan

(8) 15 3 3 3

B: El Vez

(6) 3 3 10

C: Geri Lee Lewis

(7) 6 9 10

D: Johnny Peso

(3) 1 16 4

Total Replenishments: 12+37+22+44+16+27 = 158

Game Notes:

1) The rules are on the TAP website in the Tinamou section. Ask if you have any questions. Press is VERY welcome!!!

2) Up above in parentheses is the card you played to get to where you are in the field. The replenishment card is the last card in your list. Be careful to note that the card you played (the one in parentheses) is not available for you, for next turn. Just for fun, I'm going to keep track of total replenishment, by turn, which is a rough measure of how the teams are doing. Of course, it is lining up to get across the sprint and final lines in the right places that really counts. (As we can see, Tom and David are neck and neck for the lead in this, but Rick is sweeping up all the points.) I'm not setting up a separate scoring method. BUT..... we can calculate an "efficiency score" later, which will be the ratio of scoring points per replenishment. If I'm predicting how the future of this will come out, a 10% score will be really tremendous for this measure (note that Rick already is way ahead of this pace and picked up the most replenishment again, plus more points).

3) Note that Bruce Edwards has a new E-Mail address...... you can all guess what that means!

Press:

(JOKER to BOOB): Yeehaa, second in point count! Now we're cookin'.

(DAVE to JIM): What I find most impressive is that Tom still has the highest replacement count, and he got a 12, the lowest possible, last turn! Guess everyone's allowed to nod off now and then.

(BOOB to DAVE): Yeah, he may be noddin' a bit this time too, wish him luck, I think he's having computer problems!!!

FEAR AND WHISKEY: 1998Ers31, Modern Diplomacy

CONCESSION TO UKRAINE PASSES - CONGRATULATIONS TO DAVE!!!

Addresses of the Participants

BRITAIN: Kurt Ozog, 391 Wilmington Drive, Bartlett, IL 60103, (630) 837-2813

ozricozog of yahoo.com

EGYPT: Jeff O'Donnell, 402 Middle Ave., Elyri, OH 44035-5728, (440) 322-2920

or (440) 225-9203 (cell) ($2)

FRANCE: Harry Andruschak ($5) Tapmdfrance of aol.com

GERMANY: Paul Rauterberg, 3116 W. American Dr., Greenfield, WI 53221, (414) 281-2339 (E-Mail)

trauterberg of wi.rr.com

ITALY: Eric Ozog, PO Box 1138, Granite Falls, WA 98252-1138, (360) 691-4264 ($3)

ElfEric of Juno.com

POLAND: Roland Sasseville, Jr., 38 Bucklin Street, Pawtucket, RI 02861, (401) 481-4280 ($5)

roland6 of home.com and ICQ: 40565030

RUSSIA: Randy Ellis

SPAIN: Sean O'Donnell, 1044 Wellfleet Drive, Grafton, OH 44044, (440) 926-0230 ($3)

sean_o_donnell of hotmail.com or seanfodonnell of yahoo.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) You all voted for the concession, so we're done. I've now got three games to summarize, and we'll do all of those next time! REAALLY!!!!

Press:

Personal Note to You:

File translated from T_EX by T_TH, version 3.35.
On 31 Aug 2004, 18:58.