What does the strategy consist of, other than remembering what cards people might have in their hands? Especially in a game of three. If you think someone has a card that you also have, ask them.
Maybe they were strategizing about how they could play a better card game?
1: They were going for cards they didn't have in hopes of prolonging the game to give them time for more matches. We're bored here, but, hey, 60 Minutes is on now, so yay.
It's been a mercifully long time since I've played Go Fish, but I don't think you're allowed to ask for a card you don't have.
Have they considered playing War? Now there's a rich vein of strategy.
I suggested War, but they declined. I kind of hate card games, so I'm just an observer here.
Man, I'd hate card games too if it was Go Fish, War or nothing.
If there's four of you, you ought to help them salvage their dignity and play Setback or Hearts or Spades or something.
Egyptian Rat Screw was invented for just such situations.
Seriously,Hearts or Spades=trash talk; and that's just about the best way I know to kill time without involving drugs or sex.
On point two, is your complaint that they were playing a kids' card game and enjoying it, which is somehow unseemly, or that they were playing cards at all, rather than massaging their blackberries or what have you. I guess I don't get the complaint about refusing to act like adults, but I don't get that complaint generally.
Knowing how to turn a basic game into Calvinball is a wonderful skill. I approve of your co-workers' efforts. Especially if there's trashtalking.
9: I was more or less kidding about people who make that second complaint, which I admit may not have been abundantly clear if you weren't here to observe my wry grin.
I always picture Stanley with a wry grin.
I picture him with a wry cooter.
2: I did that once and got viciously yelled at by a girl who is now a woman who runs a bank. I'd asked for threes (or something) and then she asked me for threes and would not take "Go Fish" for an answer*. In my defense, I wasn't trying to prolong the game. I was being an ass for its own sake.
*Apparently, there's a rule against what I did.
I played a card game growing up that's simpler than Go Fish, to the point of being mindless, and my family discovered converting it from two-player to three-player made it much more strategic.
I used to enjoy playing pitch and euchre. Does nobody play that anymore?
Oh, hey, boarding! I'll report in from Chicago if we get there.
We can still comment without you around, you know. You're not the dad of us.
Just wait until Stanley lands, k-sky. I'm telling!
High-Stakes Candyland and other modified games.
I learned to play pitch a couple of years ago from a VERY COMMITTED card player. The rules aren't difficult, but of course I've already forgotten them.
A bunch of people have promised to teach me to play euchre. It's related to bridge and whist and so forth, right? I've always associated it with the Upper Midwest.
Maybe? I learned euchre in Nebraska.
Go Fish is arguably a rummy-based game, except that there's no actual playing involved. Everyone should know how to play at least one rummy-based based game. Gin rummy is perfect for desultory time-wasting.
Euchre is like bridge without all the bullshit. The upper midwest has many card cultures. My wife's WI familly plays Go, which is like rummy on steroids, and Sheephead, which is like spades with a lot of extra nonsense.
Stanley, I'll never doubt your wry smile again.
Euchre is way easier than bridge and other bidding games. Euchre is only hard because it has a million ritualistic rules. What makes Euchre the perfect game is that:
1) Each hand is only 5 cards long
2) One look at your cards, and you know basically exactly how you should play it, and so
3) you can chat, drink, be rip-roaringly drunk and still play a decent game of Euchre, meaning that
4) It's not actually anti-social at a party. It's more like smoking - just something to do with your hands while you drink and chat.
23: A big game in my NE Ohio childhood. We played many different card games, and I've forgotten the rules to most.
you can chat, drink, be rip-roaringly drunk and still play a decent game of Euchre
That is why we were playing Euchre. We were too sophisticated for Quarters and Beer Pong was unknown to us.
I learned to play Euchre in Indiana. I am pretty much always up for a game of Euchre.
I understand that pitch is the same as setback. Setback is the official card game of my extended family, to the point that my father always lectures you on how you could have played your hand better.
Trick taking games are by far my favorite, with rummy-style games being number 2. There is a Russian game called durak that I very much enjoy. Unfortunately, it is different enough from most card games played in new england that is very difficult to teach or find players.
I'm curious: how does one go through Wichita on the way to Chicago? Or were you actually in Wichita for some other reason? I guess that would make more sense.
There must be something on the far side of Wichita, facing Chicago. Start there?
34: Maybe Stanley is really Del Griffith.
In high school trips always involved playing Egyptian Ratscrew or Mao or ridiculous shit like that. College involved almost only card games in the trick-taking family like euchre and hearts and spades and Tarot and Rook. But I never learned bridge because those bridge players were serious to the point of being fucking scary and intimidating.
There must be something on the far side of Wichita, facing Chicago.
Nothing in particular as the crow flies, but from the way the highways run Oklahoma City would work.
Also, it's good to hear that Stanley got a reprieve from the card games when 60 Minutes came on. He loves that show.
Nothing in particular as the crow flies,
I guess. If you consider Medicine Lodge, Kansas to be nothing.
I never learned bridge because those bridge players were serious to the point of being fucking scary and intimidating.
It may be my life's mission to combat this impression.
High-Stakes Candyland and other modified games.
Reading this made me decide I was falling instantly in love with the mysterious Pastabagel, whoever s/he is, until I got to the inexplicable abuse of the name "top quark".
If you consider Medicine Lodge, Kansas to be nothing.
Ever been there?
If you start a bit further out, Amarillo works.
Ever been there?
Son, do you even have to ask?
Oh, so when Stanely said "flight delays", he meant the crow that was carrying them. It all makes more sense now.
28 is entirely correct. I had a group of three close friends after college where we regularly finished the evening playing euchre. We weren't butch enough to play something actually money involving like poker, but enjoyed the meaningless competion and the doing something while drinking and chatting.
In HS I played a lot of 500, which is like euchre with more cards, so there's more of a cushion for bidding.
Come to think of it, the only time I've been to Wichita was driving through it on the way to Chicago.
After that time we met up in Medicine Lodge?
When I was a kid, we used to drive through Wichita on the way to Dallas. That was a long day in the car.
I missed Medicine Lodge, but went through nearby Greensburg, Kansas and stopped at the World's Largest Hand-Dug Well. (The climb down is like a lighthouse in reverse.)
How much water is at the top of a lighthouse?
My parents' had friends who dug themselves a basement, entirely by hand, out from underneath their existing house that they lived in.
I got the impression that he started in the middle of the house and went through the floor, but that may have been Kid Heebie connecting faulty dots, since that's where the stairs to the basement were located.
My parents' had friends who dug themselves a basement, entirely by hand, out from underneath their existing house that they lived in.
In Florida? That sounds like a bad idea.
It would have indeed been a bad idea in Florida.
56.1: It would be more impressive if they somehow got a tiny backhoe for the job.
Like a hand-sized backhoe that you operated by making Yellow-Pages-style people fingers?
I guess I was more remarking that digging a basement by hand isn't so much amazing as required when you already have a house on top of where you want the basement.
No, they lived in Maryland.
Okay, that's more reasonable.
In some parts of Florida, basements dig themselves.
66: I've been to the Devil's Millhopper.
The climb down is like an upside-down millhopper in reverse.
I remember Crazy Eights, Uno, Hearts, and BS (or, when parents were around, I Doubt It), mainly. I think there was another game like Crazy Eights, only less forgiving, but I can't remember the name. Oh, and on one trip I played a lot of cribbage and really liked it but never played it again.
Some of my dad's relatives are really into cribbage.
Lately, I've been into cabbage. All my life, I've been wondering who eats cole slaw and now I realize that it is pretty good.
CA and I used to play a lot of cribbage.
I've never heard of a card game called "spoons."
Spoons is fun, but you need a bunch of people, and it helps if you're around ten. Pile of spoons in the middle of the table, one less than the number of players. First player to get fou of a kind grabs a spoon, everyone else grabs, and whoever fails to get a spoon gets a letter ("s", then "p",...). Play until someone spells "spoons".
74: N players, n-1 spoons in the middle. Pass cards one at a time to person on your left. When someone gets 4 of a kind they grab a spoon, last person to grab the spoon loses. Variant known as pig, you touch your nose.
Musical chairs with no chance of exercise or a cute girl sitting on your lap?
You might brush against her hand while grabbing for the spoons.
Childhood card games that I recall in rough order of popularity in our family: Hearts, 500 rummy, crazy 8s, oh hell, spades, euchre, casino, gin rummy, bridge, michigan rummy/tripoley, double solitaire*, cribbage, go fish, 7 up, I doubt it, pinochle, spoons, spike and malice, various pokers, blackjack, spit, war, canasta, crap on your neighbor (not sure what it is really called), others lost in the mists of time.
Surprised if my kids played 1/4 of these (and they added a few) or spent 1/10 the time playing cards that I did. Our favorite card game when our kids were young was The Great Dalmudi, which can be done with (multiple) regular card decks, but has its own set of cards. Highly recommended
*Tons of solitary solitaire as well. Kind of a waste.
78: Or you might have a big immature fight with someone about grabbing the spoons thereby not wasting any dating time in getting filtered the cute girl filtered out of your life.
Spoons is pretty fun. Cole slaw is awesome. Sauteed cabbage is my go-to dinner when I can't figure out what to make. Chop half a head of cabbage, stirfry with salt and pepper. Tasty.
Uf, finally home. Further flight delays in Chicago, but to answer the question of, "What? Wichita?" it was the closest airport to the shindig I was playing, and the nearest hub to get to Richmond, VA, was Chicago. Flying sucks.
Also, it's good to hear that Stanley got a reprieve from the card games when 60 Minutes came on. He loves that show.
Damn straight.
Dear 16-year-old self,
Right now you believe--so intensely that you can't seriously imagine any alternative, so it's less like a belief than a truth--that every community you belong to is stronger when each participant is at their best. In theater and music, in classes, at both your jobs, everyone seems to take this for granted. When you do well, your friends and coworkers are proud of you, and when you don't do well, they offer sincere advice for improvement.
In college, you will hear, for the first time in your life, the sentence, "I've got to look out for #1," from the first guy you've ever dated. You are not going to convince these people that they are wrong. You will be entering a series of Prisoner's Dilemmas in which you will pour your whole self into a relationship, a community, or a job, and the other person or persons will just walk away from it, laughing that they got the better of you. People will criticize you not to help you improve (seriously, stop trying to take everyone's advice) but to make you hate yourself so they will "win." They actually believe, like third-graders, that your failure implies their own success. Or maybe they actually get pleasure from seeing you in pain. It's still not clear to 30-year-old me.
In the long run, it turns out that you're right; you and your friends and colleagues will benefit from helping one another and forming strong intimacies. You will only be happy in this environment, so don't get all cynical and become a stock broker or something. You hate it when anyone has to lose. But you should watch people more carefully. The people who criticize you, who make great efforts to hurt you and change you, do not often have your best interests at heart. When every guy you date sits you down for a "You know what the problem with you is?" lecture, they are probably not doing it because they understand you so deeply and want you to be a happier, healthier person.
Because you are unwilling to abandon your communism, and your heart would actually shrivel into a miserable little turd if you became a cynical sadist, you can't retire from life altogether to avoid getting shanked. You're going to get hurt a lot, by a lot of people, in professional and personal situations alike, because they find your openness and vulnerability so desperately enticing. The important thing to remember is that you don't actually exist to them at all. They are not behaving out of cruelty--just solipsism. Yes, this is true even of your boyfriends.
The only advice I have is to get better at being hurt. Pay attention to how it feels, and stop acting tough. Let it hurt you, and learn how to predict it. It only becomes a pattern if you assume that each time is a fluke, some crazy circumstance that will never be repeated. If you try to discount it, you'll end up suddenly feeling like no one is to be trusted, and that's not true, either. Pay more attention to your reactions to things; just because people act like you're crazy doesn't mean you are, or that there's anything you could do about it if you were.
Sincerely,
Getting-Old-and-Misanthropic You.
Ha! Wrong thread for earnestness. Pretend I posted this in the one below.
Right now you believe--so intensely that you can't seriously imagine any alternative, so it's less like a belief than a truth--that every community you belong to is stronger when each participant is at their best. ...
In college, you will hear, for the first time in your life, the sentence, "I've got to look out for #1," from the first guy you've ever dated.
There really are a lot of good things to say about a conservative religious upbringing. It is amazing that you grew up in an environment where people support each other so much, and take it for granted that you should do this.
Caroline and Joey are at the stage where they like to play Uno and are capable of losing without having a temper tantrum. Playing Uno with them is much more enjoyable than trying to throw a game of Candyland.
I had no idea that Rook was designed for people who weren't allowed to play 'cards'. That's borderline insane. I was taught to play Rook when I was a kid by my obsessively Bridge-playing, not remotely puritan family, and we knew nothing of this.
In byegone days people played Contract Bridge for fun and penny stakes; now everybody plays Duplicate and nobody smiles any more. I do not regard this as progress.
85/86: I think maybe I would just let AWB write to 16-year-old me. But I'd deliver it myself to make sure it got to the right place...
AWB, you know what the problem with you is? You don't stab enough people in the throat. You need to stab one boyfriend in the throat pour encourager les autres.
74: N players, n-1 spoons in the middle. Pass cards one at a time to person on your left. When someone gets 4 of a kind they grab a spoon, last person to grab the spoon loses. Variant known as pig, you touch your nose.
We were just playing spoons yesterday! I tried to explain pig, but I could remember neither the name nor the specific gesture. I also played a version in Germany when I was a kid where instead of getting letters (p-i-g) you get a sooty-looking circle on your face made from the blackened end of a cork.
95: Ah yes, Old Maid--forgot that one. A game that apparently brought out the best in each society.
Snap is the One True Card Game for playing with kids.
Beggar my neighbour. Maybe slightly older kids.
My friend R tried to teach us the rules for Sheepshead by a hotel swimming pool in East Lansing, Michigan on a youth orchestra tour of the dying cities of the Upper Midwest. It seemed like the rules for Sheepshead were very simple:
1) Gather several people near a hotel swimming pool, and
2) Start making up rules, like an insane number of rules, and see if people buy that this is an actual card game. Keep going until everyone emphatically leaves.
The worst part is we were all 17 with the kind of superego you probably have if your parents sent you on a youth orchestra tour, so there was no drinking.
(Also I want Jackmormon to teach me bridge because I feel like it's probably fun but I'm also terrified.)
99: It's called "bugger" in Ruprechtistan? That's no name for a kids game! What else do you play with kids? Rummy, Sodomy and the Lash?
99. In the circles I grew up in, 'bugger my neighbour' referred to playing with a double pack, which is pretty much guaranteed never to end (I've played inconclusively for over three hours).
I've heard the phrase "beggar my neighbor" to describe economic policies tons of times, but never to describe a kids' game.
On the basis of 88, Knecht and I may belong to the same large, extended family.
"Strip Jack naked" sounds more like tax policy.
100:
I was playing with my wife, M&FIL, and they had all either worked out their stories in advance or agreed to support each other unequivocally on these "rules." They even wrote down some portion of them for me and I still had only the faintest idea what was going on. There were three of them and one of me, and I kept playing the "game," so by your revelation of the true rules, I think that I may actually have "won" rather than "lost." Hooray?
There was no pool.
107: Oh that's one of the rules. If you're not in East Lansing, it doesn't have to be by a pool. Unless you were born on a Tuesday. Then it has to be by a pool again.
107: There was no pool.There was no time.
The mountain called Monkey had spoken.
There was only fire.
And then, nothing.
Oh that explains it. I'm Thursday-born, so kitchen table, of course. I believe there was also a fire in the next room, so that works out with Monkey.
I should probably make this a post of its own, but the thought of seeing it at the top of the page is too depressing. Anyhow, this is the best, most informative post I've seen yet about the attempts to seal the Deepwater Horizon well. The unfortunate conclusions that knowledgeable people appear to be arriving at are: 1) this well probably isn't sealable, and 2) the seafloor itself is beginning to rupture. If that's correct, then we're watching the worst environmental disaster in human history just beginning.
Obligatory kitten needs a stiff drink.
110: I'm Thursday Second Not-Tuesday-born
The unfortunate conclusions that knowledgeable people appear to be arriving at are: 1) this well probably isn't sealable, and 2) the seafloor itself is beginning to rupture.
I can't handle the truth.
I'm reading Wikipedia's writeup of the rules of Mao and still feeling as annoyed by the built-in unfairness of it as I was as a judgmental kid. ('93, Northern Indiana, girl nerd camp.)
I too thought of Euchre as an upper Midwest game, though I learned it here where the Midwest meets the South, and where the non-card game of choice at stupid parties is cornhole.
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No more masturbating to Jimmy Dean, the sausage king of Chicago the freezer.
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I think that might be apo's most disturbing link yet.
111: Worst case scenarios rarely come about. I'm willing to bet that the leak will be sealed by the end of August.
Something occurred to me over the weekend that I thought I might throw out to the legal eagles of the mineshaft. Would it be possible to go after BP by using civil forfeiture proceedings against all of the equipment involved in their 761 major violations of environmental safety rules? Like seize the rigs, the tools, the whole nine yards. It might serve as a deterrent against future offenses by others, and it'd raise lots of opposition to civil forfeiture from people with real money, both of which are desirable IMO.
111: It really is all down to the relief wells at this point. That is what it took to stop Ixtoc I.
I'm willing to bet that the leak will be sealed by the end of August.
This is actually a bit of a best case scenario - it assumes the relief well hits its target on the first attempt.
Also, I took Apo's link to mean that the relief well might not work because the whole earth was opening up, or something.
I suppose it just said "the well isn't sealable", which is something we've been long depressed about, and thus isn't too bad. It's been known for a long time that everything besides a relief well is just PR. Maybe I can handle the truth after all.
111: Apo, I know everyone's hungry for information and logic on this whole disaster, and understandably so.
But I hope everyone will remember, this guy is a commenter at TOD, not a contributor.
Until the logic and evidence are torn apart in typical TOD fashion (as it has been in yesterday's and today's threads--though there is still the small possibility that this guy is right because of all of the unknowns and lack of information, etc.), don't give it too much credence.
(On the other hand, if dude is right, then this is the cover-up of all cover-ups and a political wormsign the likes of which G-d has never seen.)
After skimming it sounded like the worry is that there are leaks from lower in the pipeline that, with erosion, are likely to expand.
119: On your point about the relief wells, here's a statistical analysis of relief well success probability...
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6573
(tl;dr: drill a third well, please.)
Thanks for the info, PG. Just as well I didn't make a post of it, then.
125: Thanks for the link! Follow up question - I heard (but have a poor understanding) that BP barely had the technology - or flat-out did not have the technology - to attempt the DeepWater rig in the first place, safety-wise.
Is there any reason to believe they've got the technology to be able to carry out the relief well?
111:Yeah, I read that last night. From the quiet responses of the regulars like rockdrum dougr's analysis is probably close, maybe 70% probable. Whether the relief wells work depends on how deep the shaft damage goes and how fast it erodes. I don't know that the the shaft can't collapse upon itself. Whatever, the threads at oildrum are worth skimming.
In other cheery news from that thread, the longest and most studied oil spill occurred in Massachusetts in 1973. As of this year, there is still no decrease in the amount of oil in the marshes. How do you clean up a wetland? You don't. Ever. You can only destroy it, by burning it or with a million kids with q-tips trampling it down.
120: My understanding of that scenario is that the integrity of the well casing system might become compromised deep in the well beneath where the relief wells would hit it, so even if they do intersect, they will not be able to plug it. I have no idea on how plausible that would be.
127: Relief wells are less difficult to drill than exploration/production wells--you have a target, you just have to hit it and be correct in your engineering guesses about relieving the pressure in the well so as to kill it.
If that other analysis is correct (link posted above in 111 by Apo), relief wells won't matter anyway because the wellbore is compromised, etc. It will just leak. and leak. and leak. &c.
as it has been in yesterday's and today's threads
Prof. Goose, if you're still around, could you point me toward some of that?
127:Heebie, we really don't have enough information, and BP and the gov't can't be trusted. They may be just going through the motions.
I have read that the pressure from the reservoir is off the charts and unprecedented and that is why it blew, and why the topkill filling shaft with heavy mud failed. Even if there are breaks in the shaft, heavy enough mud might be able to get down.
But they would know that now, and adjust for the relief wells, which i am pretty sure involves mud followed by concrete. If possible.
But they aren't telling us everything, and the relief wells may be to get explosives down to the source.
128: Yep, Bob. It is one of the saddest things I have ever considered--worst cast scenario (unlikely, yes, but still) the entire GOM (and sooner or later Atlantic) coast with tarmats. :(
131: Here you go Apo.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6594 (probably largest discussion--scroll to comments).
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6599 (later in the day)
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6595 (today--hasn't really gotten started yet).
If that other analysis is correct (link posted above in 111 by Apo), relief wells won't matter anyway because the wellbore is compromised, etc. It will just leak. and leak. and leak. &c.
Now I'm back to thinking I can't handle the truth.
Prof. Goose, thanks for spelling some of this stuff out for me.
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If you're finding the oil story too depressing, perhaps this article about the return of debtors' prison will cheer you up.
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perhaps this article about the return of debtors' prison will cheer you up
I think the children of these miscreants should be held in prison along with their feckless and fiscally irresponsible parents. How else will they learn that it's a crime for a person to owe money, unless that person is a corporation? The kids can be let out by day, of course, in order to work in factories (if there are no factories, which there probably aren't anymore, they can be trained to work the phones at credit card call centres, and perhaps even to work off some of their parents' debt as indentured servants to Citibank). That'll teach 'em.
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Since everyone is flirting in the other thread I'll troll here.
"The force. The lap. The fur. Mother is checking the other passengers on he train."
Wonders! A Guy Maddin film festival. My Winnipeg
Also:"Eset" (Isis) is the ancient Egyptian word for seat, chair, throne. Eset (Usat) is often portrayed as seated and nursing Horus and wears a throne on her head. It is unlikely that ordinaries had many chairs in AE and likely sat on mats in something like a lotus position. There are many pictures, of scribes for instance. Still.
The idea I'm am working with is that the Egyptians lived inside the divine, in that every door was the western horizon and entry to the underworld (and a specific goddess) and every chair (place of sitting?) was Isis. Every single sitting was in the lap of Eset
Also "Ren" the part of the soul that is represented by contained in a written word, name, or image.
This Bloomsday is getting me excited.
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1. contract bridge really isn't as hard as all that, and it's hella fun.
2. CRIBBAGE!! my dad has a scrimshaw cribbage board carved from a walrus tusk. we use matches for pegs.
I think my granddad had a scrimshaw walrus-tusk cribbage set, too!
(Also I want Jackmormon to teach me bridge because I feel like it's probably fun but I'm also terrified.)
Ha! Now you're mine!
Huh. I've never seen that game. It's good to know a game that works well for three people; that's an awkward number for a lot of games. Three works decently for gin or Dawson rummy, but not everyone likes those games.
Three works okay for hearts if you're willing to have your counting all fucked up and with the proviso that the queen of spades will be in the kitty every. fucking. time.
Ahh, what would I have done freshman and sophomore years of high school, without Hearts?
Oh, right, gone to class.
143: Three's okay for euchre -- I used to play with Newt and Sally, until Sally decided she wasn't a cards person. It'd take you about ninety seconds to learn euchre: it's a stripped-down toy bridge/spades with a couple of arbitrary rules.
the queen of spades will be in the kitty every. fucking. time.
Skirt up, Sifu. Anybody can shoot the moon if they know the queen's in play.
146: when your whole strategy is to load up on clubs, trade away hearts, take the early tricks and then hide in the corner and hope nobody notices you or shoots the moon, it really messes with your game.
Now I want a scrimshaw cribbage board. I played crazy amounts of cribbage in college, but haven't played much since.
147: Suddenly, I want to play hearts with you. For money.
If this were the movies, he'd be playing dumb and planning to win all your money. If he starts cutting the deck one-handed absentmindedly, worry.
136: Also adultery laws are being enforced again. It's time to party like it's 1699!
Holy shit that was fucking awesome.
As dad said, the Australians are shite, the English keeper fucked it, and NZ have got a point. What could be better?
152: Oh, foolish rest-of-the-world. The Real Heroes of American Exceptionalism reject the World Cup just like they do Obamunism:
In an extensive rant on the June 11 Glenn Beck Program, Beck purported to explain how President Obama's policies "are the World Cup" of "political thought." Beck stated, "It doesn't matter how you try to sell it to us, it doesn't matter how many celebrities you get, it doesn't matter how many bars open early, it doesn't matter how many beer commercials they run, we don't want the World Cup, we don't like the World Cup, we don't like soccer, we want nothing to do with it." Beck stated that likewise, "the rest of the world likes Barack Obama's policies, we do not."
Beck added "those who like the World Cup ... they're the most likely to riot," commenting that by contrast, "I haven't seen the baseball riots." He later said of soccer, "I hate it so much, probably because the rest of the world likes it so much, and they riot over it, and they continually try to jam it down our throat."
It's hard to fathom how fucking nuts Glenn Beck really is.
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Okay, so I find out that JP Morgan Chase "holds" 28% of BP shares. Obama talks with David Cameron for a half-hour and Dave says "Don't you dare kill our oil company, our pensions are in it." and this morning I wake up to read:
Obama ready to seize claims process
1) The differences in the ways the corruption is managed between this WH and the last...I don't know which is more insulting, Bushies not bothering with scams or Obama thinking he can get the people to believe anything.
2) More TBTF. It probably all started with the 401ls in the 70s, when our retirements and economy became dependent on the stock market. They own us now, short of violent revolution.
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I haven't seen the baseball riots.
Try Google, you dumb motherfucker. I do find it interesting just how often the right wing has things jammed down their throats.
Good game there, Keir. Slovakia are never going to get any silverware, but they're not trivial.
Best rearguard action in South Africa since the siege of Mafiking (sic) according to the Dominion Post.
When the journos aren't even pretending they're anything but fans with typewriters, you know you've done well.
Yeah. Couldn't watch the game of course, work time. But that was an amazing cross, well hit. Why don't your footballers play in black, like the rest of your teams?
re: 161
Historic reasons? To do with referees formerly being in all-black?
Partly (and here I reveal my Scottishness) because the only football team that can wear black/dark blue is Scotland: on account of Scotland being grandfathered in against the refs.
Also because football has always enjoyed a slightly antagonistic attitude toward rugby here. It isn't just `sheilas, wogs, and poofters', but there's a definite sense in which the All Whites define themselves as not the All Blacks. It's sarcasm and irony in sport, in some ways. It's also humour, and I think that's one of the All Whites' greatest strengths, the emphasis on fun and playing the game as part of the game.
This is where I get all snooty about NZ playing real, actual amateurs at the World Cup. But seriously, there's something romantic about seeing Vicelich, who played in front of a few thousand as Auckland FC captain, step up and play in front of the world, and I think it is connected to the All Whites' resilience --- but enough nationalistic puff.
152: Nice result. Can't stream at work, but yesterday for the last half-hour of the Italy contest, went into a small conference room, put in my air card and watched. Bad precedent.
Partly (and here I reveal my Scottishness) because the only football team that can wear black/dark blue is Scotland: on account of Scotland being grandfathered in against the refs.
Heh. I always felt there should be some sort of clearinghouse for rugby jerseys that function like medieval heralds. Watzamatta U. in red and black horizontal stripes vs. Altered State in black and red is not on.
It isn't just `sheilas, wogs, and poofters', but there's a definite sense in which the All Whites define themselves as not the All Blacks.
I would like to know what this sentence means. Is soccer also associated with gayness/latino foreigners/women in New Zealand?
Well, sort of. In some circles. The line's from Australia.
It isn't really true any more, and football fans are rugby fans and vice versa, but.
(Generic European foreign; Slovaks and Hungarians are wogs by the standards of 1950's NZ.)
(Oh god rugby jerseys are scary.)
A dead-thread bleg: can anyone recommend a book that would make a good gift for someone who isn't generally a reader, but who recently by chance read John Grisham's "The Associate" and liked it very much, and who wants another similar book to read? The obvious choice would, I know, be one of Grisham's 80,000 other novels, although I wouldn't have any idea which one (does anyone here read those and could recommend?), and of course I'd also be happy (possibly even more happy) with any recommendations for books by other authors that a generally-nonreading fan of "The Associate" might like.
169: With the caveat that I've never read anything by Grisham, The Firm might work.
170: Thanks. I should have noted that as an additional constraint: if it's been made into a movie*, the incipient reader in question has probably seen the movie and would have little interest in reading the book. (I know that's true for "The Firm", and believe it's true for most other legal-thriller movies.)
*Indie/art/foreign exempted.
Brock, The Emperor of Ocean Park is sort of Grishamesque in that it's about law and ridiculous thriller action featuring lawyers, but it's also got lots of interesting stuff about race relations and high-level politics and chess. I'd recommend it, but it might be long and is more complex than Grisham (whom I haven't read since middle school).
I was wondering if something by John le Carre might work, but I've never read any of his books.
I'm going to guess that Brock wants to avoid politics and race relations with this gift.
172 sounds promising, and definitely along the right lines. I'd heard of that book but don't know much about it--I'll take a look.
Hmm, I think The Emperor of Ocean Park may be out on page count alone. And might also be a touch too complex, I'm not sure.
The politics are about crooked judges and whatnot, but I think it's probably as long as two Grishams. I'll keep thinking; that was just the first thing that sprang to mind.
Thorn, to be clear, The Emperor of Ocean Park is the winning nomination at the moment, and isn't something I'd have thought of on my own, so I appreciate it. If no one suggests anything that seems better, that's what he's getting.
re: 173
Le Carré can be fairly dark, and his books are much more character orientated than Grisham, even if they are about spies. His more recent books are quite strongly political, although there was always an undercurrent of that in his work. That said, they are very good, and he's much underrated as a literary writer, imho. Some of them speed along quite well as thrillers, but some are much more melancholy character studies of small tragic men forced to make difficult choices against the backdrop of the Cold War, etc etc.
Alan Furst might also be a good choice.
I really liked The Fourth Procedure, by Stanley Potter, back when I sometimes read Grisham novels. The writing is similarly wooden and terrible like Grisham's, but the plot was really good.
My mother just read it, and was sniffy about its lack of depth and complexity. She's a snob and a half about that sort of thing, but on that basis it's probably okay for a Grisham reader.
Ford County is also promising, maybe.
My mother just read it
Which "it"?
Some of them speed along quite well as thrillers
Possible to be more specific?
182 to 181?
182 to the Emperor of Ocean Park. I wouldn't sell LeCarre to anyone for whom complexity is an issue -- if you're not really engaged in the character development, they're confusing and dull. I've liked the ones I've read (haven't gotten around to his last few) very much, but they're for people who read books.
There's loads of good British crime writers, but not sure if that would appeal to the Grisham reader. But if they might, there's always Ian Rankin as a nice start.
I think I'm going to steer away from a "fierce debate about abortion."
188: I am more curious how he escaped from a motorcycle gang on a bulldozer.
re: 185
I have vague memories that the earlier novels, pre-1970s, are shorter and more plot driven - so that would A Murder of Quality, The Spy who Came in from the Cold, The Looking Glass War, etc.. It's been a very long time since I read those, though. I re-read some of the Smiley/Karla books and A Perfect Spy recently, and I think those would probably be too literary and character driven to fit as an alternative to Grisham.
Do we have no Grisham readers resident here? The man's sold 300 million books...
If Goose is still about, has there been some kind of massive moderator counterinsurgency operation at TOD? Those threads seem remarkably calm, intelligent, informed, and basically noncrazy compared to some I remember before I stopped reading it in 2006 or thereabouts. The change is almost as impressive as that at LGF.
Job titles of the future: "Online Community Remediation Specialist". We come in, we filter the spam and duplicate posts, identify the key contributors and install them as self-policing agents, marginalise and kill the trolls, deliver the property to the new owners in working order. I should write the book.
Crap, there was a Dean Koontz book named (I forget) which was far, far better than the rest of his books. It led me to read way too many of the terrible books trying to find another one like it. Let me see if I can rummage it up.
re: 193
I've read a couple. I really quite liked The Rainmaker and The Pelican Brief. I don't think I've read anything more recent of his than that, though.
Duh. What about Dan Brown? They appeal to the same audience.
Lightning. That was the good one.
Do we have no Grisham readers resident here?
Like Thorn, I read them in middle school. Of the ones I read, from my vague memories I'd recommend A Time to Kill, but there was a movie.
Also, I liked earlier Michael Crichton - Sphere, Disclosure, Rising Sun, A Case Of Need (more abortion here, though), etc.
I would say that a less literary, less confusing, still somewhat smart alternative to John Le Carre is Daniel Silva.
a Dean Koontz book
In high school, my grandma led a tireless summer-long campaign to convince me that I clearly must like Dean Koontz as much as she did. At the time, I was on Crichton and Vonnegut kicks, and she was just absolutely convinced that Koontz was the medicine I needed. Funny in hindsight, if mildly annoying at the time.
Job titles of the future: "Online Community Remediation Specialist". We come in, we filter the spam and duplicate posts, identify the key contributors and install them as self-policing agents, marginalise and kill the trolls, deliver the property to the new owners in working order. I should write the book.
Man, I could do that in my sleep. I wonder if I could find anyone to pay me for it.
Oh yeah. Presumed Innocent is a great choice, unless the friend has seen the movie.
I don't know, Mr. Blandings--you tell me. Scott Turow?
Second on the Scott Turow as a Grisham-equivalent.
Is The Emperor of Ocean Park appropriate for a racist tea partier?
Hmm, the core characters in the mystery are conservatives and aren't corrupt BECAUSE they're conservatives (maybe) but it might not be appealing. It sure seemed to me like there was a lot of conservative blah blah blah in it, but I was also reading it in the car on the way home from my grandfather's funeral, as I recall, so I wasn't in any mood to be charitable. It definitely stars wealthy black people, which could be a problem.
Googling also led me to Scott Turow, whom I haven't read. That might well be your best bet.
Autobiography of Malcolm X, maybe? That's entertaining with a strong narrative, might appeal to a Grisham fan.
LizardBreath, sure, there are a few paid commmunity moderators -- cf. disemvoweling -- it is not a position that earns love. Nor, yet, much money, AFAIK.
What about Bill Pronzini's Nameless Detective series? The only one I've read is Shackles, but it seems like about the right level of complexity, not too much politics (but maybe just enough to edge the Nameless Recipient a little leftward) and it was definitely a page turner. And there's 36 of them, so you could basically give this person a lifetime of reading options.
it is not a position that earns love
Is it the position that's the problem, here, or the moderator?
193: I read The Firm in jr. high or HS, right after my mother read it, but after that I figured I knew about as much as Grisham could learn me.
212:Not a lifetime, since I have read them all, and they were a tiny percentage of the mysteries/detective novels I read, in some decade of the last century.
I have also forgotten them all.
Autobiography of Malcolm X, maybe? That's entertaining with a strong narrative, might appeal to a Grisham fan.
I thought we were looking for gift ideas for a right-wing extremist. Maybe one of those books about the inspiring life of Aimee Semple McPherson would be better.
215: My point was that the recipient "is not generally a reader" per Brock, so 36 novels might be all they would need for the rest of their life.
"When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon."
But it is so boring to extol the best, even if they are under appreciated. I spent much of my life supporting the mid-list, the proles of literature.
Pronzini was fine. Short precise classical PI work, great to kill an hour. Stephen Greenleaf was very good until he lost his publisher, which I think damaged him. Margaret Maron was good for a while.
Actually I was thinking of Marcia Muller, although Maron wrote fun cozies I think. Sharyn McCrumb. John Lutz. Hefferman. Grimes. DeAndrea. Estleman. There was a jewish detective series that was good with LA. Miles Aschenbach?
Stuart Kaminsky is still beloved.
I liked Michael Conelly's Harry Bosch novels. Plus, ya know, named for a freaky medieval artist, so ya got that goin' fer ya.
I actually think the position of paid moderator is doomed: it combines the trust relation with a host or parent with the filthy lucre and the struggle against a ... parent, so. Doomed.
We prefer to be, as in a field, a silken tent.
Just for the record, I went with TEOOP. We'll see if it's a hit. Thanks again for all the recommendations.
