Chateau Lloyd

Over the past few weeks I've been doing some housecleaning and that's involved reviewing my game collection.

This in turn has caused me to pull out a few venerable designs and re-examine them.

Those of a certain age will recall that during the 1980s, Milton Bradley made a concerted push into the burgeoning wargaming market with their Game Master series, which combined high production values and plastic army men with a design philosophy that was closer to Risk or Stratego than Advanced Squad Leader.

The most prolific offspring of this project was Axis and Allies, which has spawned endless variants, both official and player-driven.   However, that was not the first offering, and earlier this week I dug into a battered copy of it's predecessor: Conquest of the Empire.

This was a multi-player strategy game of the Roman Empire at its height.  The players are rival claimants for the imperial purple, and they fight out their contest on an excellent map of the Empire.

I bought my copy from a classmate, and it was already well-used and missing all the money tokens.  That didn't bother me because I had no interest in the game as written, but instead used it as a test bed for various alternative mechanics.

Thus my first actual playing of the game was only a few days ago.  It kind of sucks.

I was warned about this from my classmate, and I now see that it was true.  I won't go into detail, but if you are expecting the classical design excellence of the peerless Shogun (since renamed Samurai Swords and maybe renamed again), you're in for a huge disappointment.  Combat consists of single die rolls to eliminate individual units, which is a grossly inefficient way of fighting battles.  Apparently this was before MB figured out that hurling fist-fulls of dice is not only faster, but much more satisfying.

There's also an inexplicable rule for inflation that I won't go into, but essentially it punishes players for capturing too much territory.

All that being said, the game still looks beautiful, and a single page of updates should suffice to make this the high-quality social experience it was meant to be.  I'll post it once I get a chance to try them out.

If you've read my ongoing discussion of the Spanish Civil War, you know one of my favorite authors is Stanley G. Payne.

He now has a article up at First Things which provides an excellent and concise account of Spain's slide into civil war.

It is a serious read, but well worth your time.

It also dovetails with the misgivings I expressed in November, which have not in any way been assuaged. 

In one sense, it is comforting that a historian with Payne's stature seems to share my sense of deja vu, but it is also deeply alarming.  I don't know Payne's politics, but his work has always been scrupulously neutral, carefully noting the excesses of the Spanish Right but also providing appropriate context within the environment and balancing them with the behavior of the Spanish Left.

This isn't false equivalence, but necessary information.  Similarly, his article offers no analogies, draws no modern parallels because it doesn't have to.  The modern left is purposefully using the exact same slogans and tactics.  To merely quote them is to expose this.

Maybe my book was driven by a premonition or subconsciously intended as a warning.  In any event, it's uncomfortably relevant.

Things being the way they are, I'm staying away from the news and digging into some long-term reading projects.  At the top of my list is reading straight through Livy's History of Rome.  I got the books in high school and college and they were a bit tough going.  I'm making much faster progress than last time.

Even though Livy is prone to airbrushing history and highlighting Rome's virtuous past, there's plenty of skullduggery, treachery, mayhem going on.

One element that stands out is the almost constant efforts of people to turn the rules to their advantage.  For each champion of honor, there are ten examples of people twisting the rules to their advantage - and often getting lavish praise for their cleverness.

It stands in stark contrast with the teachings of the Bible, particularly the New Testament.  I've written before that Game of Thrones was a wonderful (if unintentional) advertisement for Christian civilization.  Livy's work is another.

Last week I watched the original Death Wish, which is currently streaming on Amazon.  I may do a bigger write-up on it for Bleedingfool.com, but one of my big takeaways from the film is that it was uniquely suited to a specific time and place.  While it may still have applicability in other settings, it cannot have the same impact.

This is because many of the questions the film raises about public order and personal vengeance have to a certain extent been answered since 1974.

People may speak of a "Great Reset" but it's devilishly difficult to get toothpaste back into the tube.

In a sense, it's like watching the original Red Dawn: that particular possible future is now impossible.  The Soviet Union is gone.  Perhaps the US will fall under some other form of foreign domination, but it won't be led by the Warsaw Pact.

People of every political persuasion are susceptible to appeals for a lost "golden age," and pushing policies that will get there, but there is no going back.  Any push "forward to the past" has to acknowledge the changes in societal composition, moral values, and public expectations.

Back to Death Wish, one of the most interesting aspects of it was how much it cut against the cultural/political grain of the time.  Hollywood was overwhelmingly liberal even in 1974.  The studio system was in ruins and the Golden Age stars were fading into retirement or the grave. 

Even so, there was a surprising diversity of voices seeking to spur discussion.  I doubt such a strident film could be made today.

Hitherto, I've been content to link my various articles over at Bleedingfool.com on an individual, named basis.

Last week I broke down and created a Geek Guns page.  This in turn led me to think:  "Gosh, if only there was a way to link all of my items there at once..."

Which I've now done on the main page.  You'll likely have seen that before you get to this, but if you've visited here before, you might have missed it.

So I'm pointing it out to you.  Enjoy!

Winter in Michigan is often a gloomy, depressing affair.  In the last few years we actually went an entire month without more than a passing gleam of sunlight.

Another year saw a 'snow drought' that lasted into January.  There's nothing enjoyable about a cold, brown landscape.

However, right now we are fortunate enough to have truly magical weather - a wet, clingy snow that has coated every branch and turned dreary cities into enchanted forests.  A thick carpet of snow covers dormant grass and fading leaves.  The Christmas lights are peeping through the snow, throwing their light onto the pale surface like paint on a white wall.

Yeah, the roads are a bit more challenging, but the crews are doing their work, and at least one can enjoy the view for a change.

After all 2020's drama, 2021 is at least off to a scenic start.

Happy New Year!  As the song says, it's been a long December but there's reason to believe that this year will be better than the last.

Taken as a whole, 2020 has not been without its joys.  The publication of Vampires of Michigan and the subsequent writing of Long Live Death and its success was not something I contemplated a year ago.   The COVID lockdown has put our family under great strain, but we also celebrated the birth of our first grandchild, who has been a source of unceasing wonderment and happiness.

In many ways, how we approach life determines how we perceive it.  What makes a "very good" year versus a bad one?  Folks used to advise people to "count their blessings" and I think it's good advice - though not something sad people want to hear.

That's my other observation this year, something I'd noted before but I've now seen it spread on a far wider basis: misery loves company.  Online places I used to visit have become so unrelentingly negative that I can't even stomach them.  If you bring in good cheer, they boo you right off the network.

I'm not a big fan of New Year's Resolutions but I am going to enhance my efforts this winter to push aside complaints and try to hold onto moments of joy that might otherwise have been lost.

Over the past couple of months I've been doing a new feature at Bleedingfood.com on firearms featured in various pop culture media like comics, movies and television.

Unlike the Internet Movie Firearms Database, I also provide a review of the firearm in question - what it's like to shoot as well as how much they run for people who want one of their own.

This post will be my ongoing archive of those articles and updated as they appear.

Geek Guns Part I: Han Solo’s Blaster

Geek Guns Part 2: El Mariachi’s Twin Ruger KP90s in Desperado

Geek Guns Part 3: The Desert Eagle

Geek Guns Part 4: Deckard’s Blaster from Blade Runner

Geek Guns Part 5: Hellboy’s Hand Cannon

Geek Guns Part 6: Sean Connery’s Guns – Walther PPK, Webley-Fosbery

Geek Guns Part 7: Battlestar Galactica’s Beretta CX4 Storm

Geek Guns Part 8: Army of Darkness – Ash’s Double-Barreled “Boomstick”

Geek Guns Part 9: “Welcome to the Party Pal!” John McClane’s Beretta 92F

Geek Guns Part 10: The Rollerball “Incinerator”

While I'm not the college football obsessive I used to be, I do find it a welcome respite from the increasingly dark news that surrounds us.

This week's news that the University of Michigan had fired one of its assistant coaches caused me to go back and watch Amazon Prime's documentary on the Wolverine football team from 2017.

Their All or Nothing series follows a sports team through the course of a season.   To date, the only college football team to be featured was U of M, though several professional football teams have been filmed.

While 2017 isn't that long ago, in the COVID era it already seems a lost world of packed stadiums and casual dining out.  I'm a Michigan State grad, so I disdain the Wolverines, but the images of fall football in the Good Old Days were painfully tantalizing.

In any event, I found it interesting and recommend it to anyone who watches the sport.  For those who know Michigan Football, the show provides a lot of context to the current controversy in Ann Arbor.  The astute viewer will note how many coaching assistants are no longer there, part of the chronic instability that has marked Head Coach Jim Harbaugh's tenure.

One of the major 'plot lines' of the season was the rotation among starting quarterbacks.  It's easy to look up, but I won't give any spoilers since even knowing how things turned out, I forgot the exact way things happened and found it gripping drama.

What I wish to emphasize is that beyond the disappointments of that fateful year, a series of other disappointments were waiting.  The show focuses on the then-current three quarterbacks, but in the background are others who will also in good time leave the program as well.  The season was not unique in that respect.

The University of Michigan demanded to have the final cut of the series, so the finished product is officially endorsed.  I find it fascinating to see how perceptions differ.  What one person thinks makes them look good may come across as completely obnoxious to everyone else.  That is certainly the case here.

Here are two examples of that.

The first is that during the games, the film crew was able to catch audio from featured players on the field.  This allows the audience to hear the taunts and bragging they hurled at opposing players.  I think this is supposed to humanize them, or make us enjoy their swagger, but I found that it made them less sympathetic.  Taunting a lesser opponent is cruel.  Taunting one who ultimately beats you is poetic justice.  Neither is a good look, but for whatever reason, Michigan Football wants people to see this.

The other item was the fundamental darkness of Jim Harbaugh's mind and his mentality.  He seems to be following the Darth Vader Dark Side school of motivation.  From his first pep talk in Episode 1, Harbaugh emphasizes using anger and rage to fuel excellence.  His white board diagrams and quotes are all about channeling hate.

One white board in the final episode has "addition by subtraction' prominently featured, which he's definitely followed in years since.

Coaches often resort to shouting and hyperbole to obtain motivation, but is "changing anxiety to aggression" really good life advice?

Having watched the show, I now have a better understanding of what's happening within Michigan's troubled football program.  It may come as a surprise to some, but I also developed sympathy for the players and fans.  Conversely, the show also confirmed that my dislike of both is not merely a rivalry, but rooted in their attitude and actions.

I intend the title of this post to be taken unironically.  Despite the ongoing nonsense by the various Grinches in trying to snuff out the Christmas spirit with lockdowns and fear, Mass was at (diminished) capacity last night and our spirits are high.

What is more, a light blanket of snow arrived just in time to give us a White Christmas, just like the ones we used to know.

Last night I finished a re-reading of The Silmarillion, and Tolkien's extended mythology appropriately concludes with the rising of a new star, a symbol of hope and a promise of mercy and pardon.

2020 has been a crazy year, but through it all, faith has always been a solace.  May you and yours have a blessed holiday.  Merry Christmas!