Back to Board Games: World at War '85

 

Back in 2014, I wrote a blog entry (on yet another one of my many, many blogs) about why I was retreating from PC gaming back into one of my first gaming hobbies: board gaming.  Flashforward eight years, and the reasons why are as germaine today as they were back then. Video games are not in a good place right now. The problems of 2014 still linger, but now with the added complications of COVID disrupting workplaces and a war - war! - in Europe adding to the chaos.  As ever, the indie game developer scene has best rolled with the punches while the bigger studios have floundered to one degree or another.  Be that as it may, now is not a good time to be into video games.  It is, however, a great time to be into board games because this hobby continues to thrive even if pricing is starting to get out of hand. 

From a Friend: Short Story Number 379

I am fortunate to have a very talented close friend who loves to write marvelous stories about all sorts of things.  I've always admired his ability to take the thinnest of premises and weave them into something that would rival the work of a Dickens, a Seuss, or a Carroll.  

Case in point: this wonderful - in the literal sense - short based on little more than the name of this blog and his insight into my personality!  As with all his works, it makes for a fun read!  And I have the starring role!  

I am honored to add it to the annals of the Order of the Inn.  Enjoy!

Battle Report from the 64-Square Battlefield

 

You might be wondering why I am using some Eve Online fleet battle art as a header image for a chess battle report.  Good question!  The answer is straightforward: I didn't know what image to use. 😀 However, seeing how I am in one of my autumn science fiction feeding frenzies, and also seeing how chess has a strong fleet warfare dynamic to it - perhaps no game outside of a dedicated naval wargame captures that spirit of line and support vessels as chess does - such an image tickled my fancy.  So...there.

The following correspondence game was probably one of the most enjoyable in quite some time.  My opponent was tough!

I had the black pieces.

1. e4 c5 

I went with the Sicilian Defense.  Just because.

Whither Thou Goest JazzRadio.com?

 

My First-World outrage of the day!  ClassicalRadio.com and JazzRadio.com are now both subscription-based services (they are part of the same streaming network) that, henceforth, will only offer a mere five randomly-chosen free stations per day.  I'm furious!  These are two of my favorite streaming services of all time!  And now I am expected to pay for the privilege of picking my stations?!  Never!

I'm kidding about my outrage, of course.  I understand that music services have to pay the bills just like anyone else.  And, honestly, the membership fee of $60 a year, one that unlocks all six music streaming stations - DI.FM, RadioTunes, ClassicalRadio.com, JazzRadio.com, RockRadio.com, and ZenRadio.com - that are part of Ari Shohat's music network, is not unreasonable; it comes out to $5 a month, which would make it one of the cheapest subscription services out there.  

But it comes down to this: I really enjoy JazzRadio.com, but would I pay to listen to it?  

Brief Review: Netflix's "High Score"

 

One of my favorite hobby horses is how video games, an industry that generates more revenue than the movie and music industries combined, is largely ignored by the old media.  To me, this has been a baffling exercise in willful blindness, something akin to when theater ignored the arrival of motion pictures, much to their long-term chagrin. The arrival of the video game industry has proven to be a watershed event, one that would transform the world of entertainment forevermore.  How did this happen?  At long last, someone has acknowledged the Donkey Kong gorilla in the room and attempted to answer that question by chronicling the rise of this new entertainment goliath.  Deposit a token to watch Netflix's new docu-series about the rise of video games, High Score.

Anti-Social Social Media

 

They call it "social media," but it really ain't!

(That's the extent of my daily allotment of folksy verbiage!)

Of course, that is not a new observation.  Contemporary media pundits have been making this observation for some time, so I am not saying anything new.  I guess you can consider this just my personal declaration of social media liberation.  

Well, that is my hope, anyway.  

Trump is No Nixon

There is no greater indicator of just how low President Donald Trump has sunk than to realize that he has, somehow, incredibly, made former President Richard Nixon seem like an admirable leader by comparison.   How did it come to this?

I refer, of course, to President Trump's dreadful handling of the civil unrest gripping American cities.  With the death of George Floyd at the hand of what were, at a minimum, callously stupid police officers, protests have erupted across the nation, and rightly so.  Unfortunately for the president, these protests are finding rich soil in the record unemployment rate the nation is experiencing in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.  People, without jobs, without schools, and even without basic entertainment venues such as movie theaters, have more than ample free time to take to the streets and engage in some civil activism, hence the massive crowds.  Of course, as with any mass movement, opportunists - thugs, anarchists, professional troublemakers - have attempted to capitalize on the disorder, resulting in those unfortunate accounts of looting, general hooliganism, and sadly, even assaults upon the police themselves.  

In this dangerously unstable situation that America is now facing, there is an urgent need for a steady hand at the tiller of government.  Sadly, this is not what we now have.