Hypothetical Easter Eggs

Because we are not together to make eggs this easter I generated what would have happened had we been together.

A short story...

Once upon a time there was a humongous python. There was also a brilliant scientist name Dr. Amadi. All of this was happening in Africa and not long ago. Dr. Amadi was professor of Hyperadvanced Robotics at the Botswana Institute of Technology and was out in the jungle testing his newest invention, the Slow Loris Bot. A slow loris is a sort of a little monkey lookin guy, sorta like a marmoset or a lemur, just a wee monkey fella.

A Slow Loris Bot is a robot made roughly in the shape of a slow loris and designed to emulate the remarkably sophisticated functionality that a slow loris exhibits on a regular basis while swinging through then jungle canopy on its hunt for delicious juicy bugs and nasty little fruits. If you want to, feel free to call the Slow Loris Bot "Slowlobo" for short. Robots have no emotions and so there's no chance that such a nickname will bother it.

Anyway, like I was saying, there was this python and it was slithering on a baobab tre saying, "Ssssssssssssss", which is snakese for "Ohhhhhh, I'm hungry." Well, no sooner had the words passed his non-existent lips than he spotted our little friend Slolobo scampering across some branches, without a care in the world. What the mighty python did not know was that very nearby at that moment Dr. Amadi was controlling Slolobo remotely and observing his surroundings via camera. Mr. Python felt that it was lunchtime and proceeded to slither at top slitherspeed over to the silver-gray monkey.

In his nearby scientific tent Dr. Amadi watched this unfold. Make no mistake, Mr. Python was well skilled st sneaking, and there can be little doubt that under normal circumsances a slow loris would never have seen the sly snake dripping down amongst the crooked bows of the baobab, but lil Slolobo was equipped with nothing less than state-of-the-art infra-red optics and stuff like that.

Intrigued by the possibility of scientific observation Dr. Amadi elected not to interfere. He reckoned that his small monkey robot would be invulnerable to the piles of crushing snakebody that would soon be heaped about it.

Dr. Amadi knew much of the natural world. What The doc did not know, however, was that this python, Mr. Python, was born on the oldest, sharpest, most craggy and dangerous rocken spur of the Tsodilo Hills or northwestern Botswana, where long ago earliest San shamans chanted rituals over images of the sacred python. He could not have known that this particular python was of an ancient and noble lineage of serpent kings, strong in body and keen of thought. Mr. Python, greatest of pythons, wisest and wiliest and cruelest of pythons.

Anyway, Mr. Python encircled his prey... He was ready to strike at a moments notice, but the monkey didn't move. Why not? Surely it knew of the danger it was in? Could the monkey be sick? Why was the monkey silver? He decided to constrict regardless, and so he did. He leapt into action, wrapping up Slolobo and tightening his coils into his customary death grip. Mr. Python now realized tha truly this was no ordinary monkey. It was hard and cold like a stone, and didn't fight back. Annoyed at this discrepancy, he tightened harder. The more he tightened the more angry he got and the more angry he got, the more he tightened. Soon Dr. Amadi saw that Slolobo's pressure sensors were now almost at their maximum breaking point! "Impossible!", he thought, but there was the data. Some quick calculations told him that this python was thrice as strong as any recorded before! No! Four times as strong! Now five! Six!

Suddenly, Dr. Amadi was blinded by a white flash.

To be continued.

Sitting

Sometimes i just sit all day
my feet are walking
my mouth is talking
my fingers flicking
my keyboard clicking
but all I'm doing
is self ungluing
just sitting, sitting all day

U Bend

A poem by C, recorded by B:

I bend

U bend

We all bend

for U bend.

This is my first intentional Cardboard Rhino post, but now that I know how, I will do more. I hope this card will be useful to those of you who like "birdwatching". I will try to draw a better "Cardinal" in the future, although I find that some of its aspects are fine as it is. The seagull is added as a note of humor.

Tortle

CBA's

Santa Frantic

I’m so distracted that I’m begging on my knees
I’m praying Santa, Santa, Santa, Santa Please
Don’t pass by my place I can tell you’re getting near
I hear those sleigh bells ring, ring, ringing in my ear

The kids are singing, singing, singing in the choir
The logs are burning, burning, burning on the fire
I’m feeling frantic like I’m dancing on the ceiling
Twelve months since last time that I had this crazy feeling

I feel so dancey, prancey, chancey in my soul
I want to party, party, party, rock and roll
The corn’s a pop, pop, pop, pop, popping in the pot
There’s jambalaya, and a pie a little hot

And soon the nifty, thrifty, gifties will be here
We’ll all be loving, gently shoving to get near
And then we’ll take, take, take our goodies from the tree
So we can rip, rip, rip, rip, rip the paper free

So let’s all give, give, give, give, give some gratitude
Have a delightful, mighty-rightful attitude
Cause it’s a wondrous, purely fundrous kind of day
So don’t stop shiv’ring, quiv’ring when it comes your way

A lil poem

Snowy day
Christmas lights.
Will it snow
Christmas night?
Sledding down
with my bro.
Will there be
Christmas snow?
Got a cold;
sniffy sniff.
Will it snow
the twenty-fifth?
Nighty night,
hushing sound.
Will the snow
come rushing down?
Chistmas morning
open lids.
Did it snow...?




The end.

Stupid Old Santa

Stupid old Santa
Stupid Christmas tree
Stupid red stocking
Prob’ly not for me

Make believe reindeer
Phony flying sleigh
Irritating carols
Hate it when they play

This time of year
I live in fear
Of holiday expressions

Yes I’m sorry to say
That Christmas day
Fills me with such depression

Those annoying tunes
Where some loser croons
“Santa’s oh so great”
They fill me with hate

Buying all those toys
That don’t spread no joy
Just a bunch of junk
For some little punk

There’ll be no elves
Filling up my shelves
With goodies of all description

No naughty list
No mistletoe-friend kissed
Just Valium by prescription

Keep your gift-wrapped garbage
Keep your tinseled tree
Keep your stupid Christmas
Far away from me

Just because it’s offered
I don’t have to take
On the other hand
I do love fruit cake

And as I reflect
Why should I reject
A gift or well-phrased greeting

Warming by the log
A little cup of nog
A candy cane for eating

Maybe this year
With a little cheer
I won’t find it so depressing

So my dear friend
My poetry will end
With a stupid-old Christmas blessing

Little Baby Fingers

Oh, yes.
I remember.
Your first Christmas presents were wrapped in tissue paper.
So your little baby fingers could tear it aside.
Surprise!
Something you have never seen before !

Christmas Poem

Fires give off glowing light,

Snow falls softy through the night,

Home and hearth are on my mind,

For Christmas is the finest time.

It all begins on thursday fourth,

When, usually, we head up north,

Dreaming, waiting, till we dine,

For one can’t wait for Christmas time.

The season long, and filled with merry,

With Mom-Dad-Conor, Tom and Barry,

Giftmas gifts run through my mind,

For it’s getting close to Christmas time.

Christmas eve can be quite tense,

We must converse with little sense,

With company we would decline,

If it were not for Christmas time.

Tomorrow morn, when first light breaks,

What joyful shouts and calls we make!

And after that, we soon align,

To see who’s first to Christmas time.

And greater are the joyous cries,

When Christmas hits our weary eyes,

Gifts removed from under pine,

With all caught up in Christmas time.

How grand it is to nap in paper,

Exchanging candies with one’s neighbor,

Yes, the pile has declined,

But still there’s joy in Christmas time.

We celebrate with all due mirth,

Both children’s story and their birth,

One for us and one divine,

This is why there’s Christmas time.

Now, to all, I mean to speak,

If you see this as something bleak,

Then take our joy and make it thine,

There’s room for all at Christmas time.

Barry & Diana

Conor & Ilaria

Shell Spelling for Love

Tom & Laura

Wormy Shell Spelling Project

It's never a good time not to be watching Barbie TV.

My holiday rap ya'll

Giftmasological
scientific chronicle
puttin it in focus for ya
like I was a monocle

i foresee snow,
some under tree prez
hi-res photos chouldn't show
all the happinezz

picture us
loungin on the couch
you can see up through the christmas tree
if ya crouch

my mad skills of rhymin
and mega timing
still cant define the divine kind
of fine dining we'll be finding
in our stockings
after santa comes knocking
block each other in the hall
as we go rocking
rocketing in slick socks super duper fast
last one there is still happy cuz its criss-mas

a blast of chieftans
some charlie brown and roches
what a tragedy
when its finally buenos noches...

Bad Holiday Poem

Startin it up

Good, it's not dead

Slide that defog

to the red

Purp Jug's rollin like

Santa's sled

pickin up Gifts for

Christmas

Barry's out in Rabbadabton

Rappin it up

getting things done

Tom's North West In Teaberburg

Workin' on seconds

Done with his third's

Conor's still in Serphimgrad

not quite sure about

Mom and Dad's

and Donald's up in Dinoland

Getting stoked for

Christmas

Black is in the big white chair

Blue is napping under there

Mum is raking in the back

Dad is sitting with the cat

Grump is haunting traffic lanes

Sonja's chasing aeroplanes

Gabby's still a bit too loud

Rosie's nappin in a cirrus cloud

4

5

0

9

Now

it's

night

time.

Pwom is stealin a big cookie

Cog is passed out on a book

Bowser's fighting with a wookie

Don wakes up to take a look

Snow is everywhere out there

Noone's driving anywhere

He don't remember when it is

Until he's up to do his biz

Remembers he can't cross the line

Until it's really christmastime

4

5

0

6

Now

It's

Chris

Mis!

- Show quoted text -

i smell santee

snoz is comin' early round this time of year
getting kinda chilly, air is crisp and clear
shouldn't be too long before ol' winter's here

flannely pajammies covrin' twitchy toes
fragrances of nutmeg waftin' up my nose
reachin' in the closets for the warmer clothes

whatcha think you're doin' sitting there alone
texting anna talking on a cheap cell phone
pack your bags, you're leavin' and your headin' home

good stuff'll be waiting so you betta fly
turkey an potatees and some apple pie
snuggied by a fireplace that is warm an dry

pappa's gotta a story and it don't make sense
fables 'bout a princess and some british gents
slime boys are in trouble, they ain't paid their rents

"X" it on your calendar it won't be long
santa says you been good and he can't be wrong
just to getya started you can sing this song

Bear & Crow Visit the Wise Man Comic

My Pumpkin

TOM

I picked an old spiral notebook that looked blank from the cabinet under where "the gerbil used to be" to take with me to Russia last summer. Somewhere midway through the trip I found a few doodles by Tom in a blue ballpoint pen on one of the last pages. Here they are. In case you can't tell, that card says "TOM" on it.

Sorrowful Halva

Wrote this in Russia during comics and tea. In picture see a pitiful reenactment with me and Lee.

(It's supposed to be funny yall)

Today I bought a piece of peanut halva at the market. We had it with dinner. Tonight conor is upstairs already for some reason, and I went into the fridge and took, as if from some long forgotten corner of the refrigerator of my memory, our old sesame halva, and as I did I imagined myself eating it and sobbing.

"Why are you crying?"

"It's just so good."

Bu then I thought - I think now that it was weeping for my memories of yesterday - when we didn't know today, when we didn't know the other halva. We only had sesame and were content, but today sesame has become one of two halvas, and in a way, we can never return to it again - not as it was, not as our only - not without knowing what's outside. And so now sesame halva - the same piece - is both itself and the pain of its memory.

Just as when we leave Vishny Volochok I will miss the flavor of these days - the way it feels to be stuck with nothing to do but sit around the table with a hot pot of tea carving a piece of halva, and drawing together until late. Today our life here comes closer to a sorrowful memory. Just as my memories of my brother change with each added year - each new separation from that first state - one of only one I knew, at home together as children.

Ballad of An Entwife

I hide in shadows
'neath withered limbs
the sky grows darker
the forest dims
I left the entmen
so far away
and now in sorrow
I'll soon decay

As a young entwife
I longed to run
through verdant pastures
so free and fun
but now uprooted
I'm doomed to fade
and die in autumn
no more to shade

So tell the entmen
I'll miss their might
their massive branches
their tow'ring height
their leaves so gentle
their roots so strong
their joyous voices
raised in entmen song

Condensation Drawin

Double Foldy

Fold-over Drawings

Birthday Telephone Pictionary

To play Telephone Pictionary:
Each player needs a long piece of paper. Sit in a circle. Start by writing a sentence at the top, then pass to one side. Illustrate the sentence you received, and then fold the paper so only your illustration is visible, then pass again. Write a sentence about the illustration you received, then fold the paper so only the sentence is visible, and repeat until you're out of room, or you've got your original sentence back.

At the end it can be funny to match up the original sentence with the final illustration.

Drawing Contest

Three dragons, three goblins and three ghosts - by Tom, Barry, and Laura (in that order). Click to make it big.






































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Fighting

I'm fighting

fighting
fighting
fighting
fighting
fighting
fighting
fighting

every attack
every attack
fighting back
fighting back

fighting
fighting
fighting
fighting

fighting back

Happy Snakesgiving!

Some years ago, I tired of the seemingly vacuous sentiment of Thanksgiving -- a holiday celebrated in much of the United States by demonstrations of excess. Excessive gorging, drinking, feasting on fattening foods and then, when the coma wears off, stampeding the malls to spend what little you don't have.

So I started to celebrate "Snakesgiving," a more irreverent holiday, and to greet people with a cheery "Happy Snakesgiving" and, if possible, a snake of some sort: rubber, wood, flesh....

HAPPY SNAKESGIVING!

This got me in a little hot water at airport security a couple Snakesgivings ago. I often travel with a thumb piano. It's an anti-stress device that helps melt away airport delays. Inside luggage, however, the metal tines look like Freddy Kruger fingerwraps, resulting in baggage examination. Fortunately, many security clerks are African Americans who recognize the cultural significance of this musical instrument and let me bypass the body cavity search.

So, anyway, it was Thanksgiving day and the thumb piano resulted in a search. When the officer opened my luggage, there was a three foot serpent on top. Wooden, of course -- I would never treat a live animal like that -- but realistic. The officer took a quick step back, looked up at me, and I smiled and said, "Happy Snakesgiving!"

Fortunately, this year I was traveling by fuel-efficient Ford Econoline van, and not generating any of those dropping-polar-bear-size carbon bombs like all you airplane travelers, or slowing down our nation's economic recovery, like those who walked this Snakesgiving and missed opportunities for productive work. The snakes were loaded in the back of the van.

SNAKES A LOT!

The snake is an interesting, egg-laying, skin-shedding, cold-blooded vertebrate with spooky eyes and a forked tongue. In religious lore, the snake is associated with temptation. He's right there with Adam and Eve at the beginning of everything and is pretty much associated with the end of all good things, the bliss of Eden, the joy of ignorance.

Bam, just like that, humanity is now doomed to suffer because a snake whispered in someone's ear, "You know, you could do better." The snake is associated with truth, with opening your spooky eyes to the difference between good and evil, waking up to reality.

The snake says, "take a cold, hard look around." The snake is one chill dude -- cooler than cool -- loose, slippery, hard to pin down: he speaks with forked tongue. He is associated with transformation because he sheds his old skin and gets a new suit any time he needs one.

Voodous worship the loa Damballah, the snake god, who is associated with the creation of the universe (the egg) and whose cycles can be used to divine fortune. When the Africans who originated voodou were forced to hide their religion in the new world, they used likenesses of St. Patrick for altars to the snake god, Damballah.

St. Patrick was the Catholic slave-turned-priest who is patron of Ireland. He is credited with driving the snakes out of Ireland. Therefore, it was not sacrilegious to Catholics to place snakes around icons of St. Patrick. In fact, the snakes are often built-into statues of St. Patrick and many other religious deities.

The shimmy of the snake is the definition of duality -- yin and yang, back and forth, side to side, rock and roll. The instrument of the snake is the rattle. The rattle is the egg. The egg has the seeds. The seeds are the origin of all life. Simple theosophy.

BACK TO SNAKESGIVING

So I'm driving this van full of snakes across America headed for my brother's house in Frederick, Maryland, via my daughter's house in Nashville, Tennessee.

Along the way, I notice that about half the cars have a glowing blue device on the dash somewhere. This is strange. I've been driving these roads twice a year forever and this is the year of dashboard navigation.

In fact, once I got hip to the trend, I found a way to prop my iPhone onto my dash for stylish no-hands GPS updates. It's like watching the airplane tracking channel when they first put screens in seats. For the most part, though, I steered clear of any bluescreen drivers.

The other thing I noticed was about one fourth of all passenger vehicles had a rack of clothes in the back seat. I don't know if more Americans are living out of their cars or not, but they certainly are prepared to do so at a moment's notice.

By the time I got to my brother's house, I forgot I had a snake tucked inside my hoodie, and it just sort of popped out when I hit the front door. "Ooops. Happy Snakesgiving!" He was startled because I was startled because I'd forgotten about the snake. But the snake was plastic and my brother has hosted Snakesgiving before and is wise to my foolishness. He didn't even smack me.

TWO FOX

The next morning I did what I've done every Snakesgiving for a very long time. I went for a walk in the woods and picked enough "flowers" to make a respectable wildflower arrangement. This is easier at my brother's place; a brisk 20-minute walk through the neighborhood park and you are in farmland a.k.a. condos-in-waiting, where you are not likely to be arrested for snipping some solidago or liatrice or oak leaves.

My brother's dog, Alice, adores me. She's a border collie and a bit dainty but can be coaxed to investigate the manhole-sized boroughs we find dotting the creek. One of these years, we will run into Mr. Skunk and I will no longer be allowed to take Alice for walks at Snakesgiving. We rarely run into snakes.

This year, my oversize Bed, Bath, and Beyond Bag was stuffed with autumnal foliage and we were about ready to turn back for home when there was a great rustling in the woods along the creek.

The crashing and snapping was too heavy for squirrels. I thought deer maybe and realized Alice was off leash. Just then, a red-and-white fox jumped out of the brush and after him, another. Then then both stopped and looked us over and I laughed and said, "Happy Snakesgiving!"

Just then the two fox ran toward us, getting just a few feet away before darting on a rampage across plowed-over corn. Alice was tempted to follow (me, too) but she held her ground and we watched them zig and zag for acres as a vulture flew above.

My brother, Kelly, often tests me about how animal spirits can be used to divine advice. He only made fun of me once this Snakesgiving, when he accused me of "talking to animals" and I reminded him I also talk to trees. He wisely didn't take the bait.

FOX ONE

My brother, Barry, who hosts Thanksgiving with his wife, Donna, stays out of these discussions. His job is to talk to plants, more or less, for the National Cancer Institute. His recent work with red algae has led to promising results for sufferers of HIV, ebola, and other illnesses.

Barry's Ph.D. is in "psychopharmacognacy." That sounds exactly like what I studied in college, but it's completely different. It involves isolating medicinal uses from natural compounds, as opposed to synthetically manufacturing drugs in a lab. He does the sort of far-reaching research that sometimes hits gold, as opposed to what the drug companies specialize in, which is narrow modifications that steadily sell and steadily improve.

Barry teases secrets out of plants and his wife, Donna, is a plain, old-fashioned pharmacist who works at the hospital monitoring patient drug regimens. They are both scientists, but there is a crucifix in the entranceway and beneath it are the folded leaves of palms brought home, one suspects, from church the Sunday before Easter.

The origins of Voudoo are also in pharmacy. Voudou priests and priestesses were first and foremost root doctors. They understood, through apprenticeship, the medicinal uses of plants as handed down through generations. First came the healing, then came the religion.

Plants were described as being invested with spirits. In some ways, these ghost stories are shorthand formularies for treating illnesses, along with legends of their use. When you hear cooks speak lovingly of the way ginger dances with garlic, you are on the slippery slope of Voodou.

My brother, Barry, is a bit of a gourmand. One Snakesgiving, from which I was absent, turned into an Iron Chef competition. He will appreciate the analogy between cooking and gene splicing and backwoods catholicism.

FOX TWO

My brother, Kelly, is, in fact, red and white and has a good, bushy head of hair. He looks volpine in his publicity shots (that means "foxlike," Kelly). And he has a reputation for cleverness.

Kelly and his foxy wife, Cristy, trumped all the other gossip at Snakesgiving with news of their purchase of "a big spread with a creek in it." Fox habitat. At squirrel prices. In the outback of Virginia. A place we can all use, with notice, to rest our weary bones.

I've tried to explain to Kelly several times how to talk to animals. The secret is in listening, not talking. He doesn't have the patience to hear the animals, let alone talk to them. But he is a bird lover, so there is hope.

The day after Snakesgiving, Alice and I went even further in the early morning chill until we scared up a family of deer that were sheltered in a stand of woods between two cornfields. We watched them leap off, half with white tails raised high, the others smaller or immature. About a dozen in all. I hoped we didn't send them in the direction of hunters.

So this is how it works, Kelly. Animals represent archetypes, some of which is a result of collective knowledge about their behavior. A robin is often a harbinger of spring. Robin's egg blue is a shade that is widely understood and requested. The word "robin" itself is a collective archetype of color, sound, and behavior. What is interesting is not so much what I think seeing a robin "means" as the fact that you think the smudge that just passed you by is a robin. The fact that I saw a fox and not a field of corn means something.

And the fact that I saw two foxes playing on Snakesgiving Day means this: I can feel free to enjoy my time with my brothers without fearing the wolf or the vulture. As long as I am with my brother, neither are likely to strike.

And the herd of deer, the fragile food staple of the wild, said much the same: Your family protects you. Stay together as much as possible. And the fact that I "divine" this wisdom from these animal friends says something about me. And that's voodoo.

Happy Snakesgiving!

I'll Always Have Paris

DIPLOMACY

I learned a new game at my brothers' beach retreat this summer. It's called "Diplomacy." I think you'll like it. Here's how it goes.

My nephew, Tom, brought a crate of games with him, but was most keen to play one called "Diplomacy." The game had won a Nobel Prize, to hear him tell it. It was "Kennedy's favorite." There were "dozens of online discussion groups devoted to it." Books. Web sites. Entire universities, it seemed like. Students battling students for World Domination.

Well, (partial) World Domination, anyway. After the first turn, when I tried to move my troops, Risk-like, around the edge to the other side, Tom laughed. "You can't attack across the edge of the board."

"Why not," I asked. "They're next to each other."

"No they're not. North America is in between them," he said.

"But North America is not on the board," I protested.

"Precisely. It's not the whole world."

So onward we proceeded in our game of (partial) World Domination, in which, as is the case in the real world, none of us knew or understood the rules.

Tom had *read* the rules. He waved around a clutch of papers in 10-point type printed off the Internet -- sixty four pages, or something like that. We were all free to read them, too, which we declined. We preferred to squeeze the rules out of Tom as we needed them, and then berate him when we failed to ask the right questions or even understand what he said.

Playing the game, as in real life, is a lot different than reading the rules. So Tom didn't really understand the rules either until he saw them in motion, played out in a series of troop movements followed by resolution sessions.

Tom announced that it was okay if it took several days to play the game. We all groaned. Then we set aside a table that had been my dressing table and it became the Diplomacy Table around which our vacation would revolve.

RISK

Diplomacy is a lot like Risk. I don't know if you have ever played Risk. It is not like Monopoly. In Risk, the entire Earth is in play, you start with troops and territory, and you slowly add troops and territory or you die. When everyone is dead except one player, the game is over.

Risk can take hours to play. It would take days to play, except the game's inventors realized this pacing problem and added a trigger mechanism: cards that are exchanged for increasingly large sums of armies. In Risk, the world has a built-in destabilization plan. One player reaps a sudden, disproportionate windfall, then wipes out the others. Come to think of it, that is very similar to the real world of late. Risk is a study in globalization leading to destabilization.

Diplomacy has no such trigger. So impossible is it to accumulate enough strength to take over the world that they left two-thirds of the world off the board. The game was still too long, so they made it so you only have to hold eighteen "supply centers" and you win. There are 60-some countries in Diplomacy but only 30-some supply centers.

In Risk, the wheeling and dealing, bargaining, alliance-building, and double-crossing usually happens right in front of you. With a wink and a nod, two players agree not to attack each other, and to wipe you off the face of the Earth instead. Risk can lead to sore feelings.

The best Risk player I ever saw was Leo Drolshagen. Of course, he's German, as were the makers of Risk, most likely, and certainly the makers of Diplomacy. My nephew, Tom, who is a game aficionado, says that "all the best games are designed by Germans."

Drolshagen never lost. My brother, Mike, who was one of the best Risk players I ever saw, could not beat Leo. I had four brothers, and four sisters, and Drolshagen had a younger brother who played with us, too, and none of us could beat him.

That's frustrating, because it means first of all that Risk is not a game of chance -- it's a game of skill, like chess. Secondly, Leo Drolshagen has more skill than any of us. Period. That turned out to be true. He got some ungodly SAT scores, went to Vanderbilt (I think) and went on to become an M.D. and no doubt a nuclear physicist as well. He probably designed the European Economic Union.

Anyway, the worst Risk player I ever saw was my good friend, James Scranton. His stock in trade was unpredictability. No one could ever predict his moves because they were always stupid, and we knew he wasn't stupid, but he played like a complete moron. That was his strategy. Randomness. He would attack for no reason, without goal or strategy, and it irritated the hell out of whomever he attacked. He was the wild card in the game. I never saw him win. He never even lasted very long. But he always managed to put a monkey wrench into the game that left everyone else sore.

My ex-wife, Storme, was an excellent Risk player, which is not necessarily a good thing. Her strategy was to build slowly. She preferred to attack the least amount possible to get her card and gradually build strength. In my family, you do not let someone hold a continent in Risk. Ever. Period. To your dying last troop. You are socially obligated to break continents. Not so, Storme. She would let others hold their continents and took offense if you tried to break hers.

I am an attack player. I like David and Goliath odds, and the dice always give the edge to the attacker. I will go for as much territory as I can, as fast as I can, even at the expense of wearing myself thin. It's all conquer, conquer, conquer with me (and many of my eight siblings). Except that I will hew to the creed of self-sacrifice to break a continent.

Let's just say that if you play Risk, and your wife has a hold & build strategy and you have a lay-waste strategy, you are going to go to bed mad some nights, and that's just not healthy for the relationship. When Storme and I played with James Scranton, I was surprised there wasn't blood shed. We both wanted to kill him, whereas Storme and I were just furious with each other.

It was much the same with my siblings. I hated the way all of them played. I particularly hated games where I got rubbed out early, sacrificed to some scumbag alliance between siblings who were a little quicker than me. My nephew, Tom, says Risk has too much luck in it. I guess that means he doesn't win every time. But Diplomacy supposedly has all the luck taken out of it. There are no dice, no cards, no sudden windfalls. A better way to say it is that Diplomacy is all talk and very little action.

MORE DIPLOMACY

After a couple of rounds of all of us knocking up against the rules and trying to figure this game out, I could see my situation was hopeless. My nephew, Tom, who held most of Asia, had made an alliance with his fiance, Laura, who held Northern Europe. Under their mutual non-aggression pact -- sealed with a kiss, no doubt -- they agreed to leave their flanks open and take their troops forward to the front lines.

Tom and Laura have played enough games to know that it's best to align with your girlfriend or boyfriend or spouse -- for diplomatic reasons -- when playing any sort of game. What was he going to do, attack his future wife in front of his assembled family? Not a chance.

So Laura took me on in Europe and Tom took on Uncle Barry in the Middle East and my brother Kelly was rubbed out pretty fast in Turkey. That left my niece, Olivia, who was on my flank with nowhere to go except to attack me or her Dad. I cut a deal with Olivia.

MONOPOLY

When I was about Tom's age and in college, I had the pleasure of teaching Monopoly to an Israeli who had never played the game. That he was a Socialist at the time, and I a Libertarian, made the experience even more delightful. We started this lesson one night in a pub in East Lansing.

As the other players were explaining the game, the Israeli asked, "How do you win?"

And my friends said you won by getting all the property. And I said that's not true. And they said getting all the money. And I said, "No."

"You win by being the last player in the game," I said.

And they looked at me very oddly and huffed, "And you do that by getting all the property or all the money."

And I said, "We'll see."

And so we went on explaining the rules and then playing the game and no one thought anymore of it -- except me. I decided then and there to try to win Monopoly without having the most money or the most property. I made deals to exchange the property I bought for free rent on other players' properties, or for a percentage of the take, such as 15%, for a color-coded set-maker.

After about two hours of play, I was out of property. I looked for every opportunity to go to jail and hang there, because that was the safest place for me. Between GO money, free rent, and my cut of other players' rents, I could handle any Chance or Community Chest setback. I proceeded around the board, loop after loop, just scraping enough money to pay rents due.

Houses went up, hotels went up, players lost everything, but no one could get me out of the game. We had been playing for five hours. I was safely in jail, when finally my Israeli friend said, "I give up. I cannot play any longer. You have won."

Then everyone agreed I had won. They also agreed that I had ruined Monopoly for them forever and that what I had done was contrary to the whole spirit of the game. That was maybe my happiest moment on planet Earth.

FINAL DIPLOMACY

So here we were on Tomahawk Island, on the outer banks of North Carolina, indoors, playing a game of (partial) World Domination that did not even include North Carolina, and everyone is mouthing off about not knowing the rules and hating this game, and no one is mouthing off more than me.

But I calmed down when I finally saw what a sweet little setup the fates handed me. I made an alliance with my niece, Olivia, that she could rummage through my flank and take countries at will while I held off the female half of the Tom & Laura lovebirds up in Europe. That was okay with Olivia.

Laura was not too happy with my strategy, since it meant battling her to a standstill while giving Olivia a free pass but, hey, by that time I had zero interest in the game. I could see I was between a fiance and a niece and I had no chance, so I fell on my sword. That's diplomacy.

As my pieces left the board, however, a new reality settled in. I held one country: Paris. It is a supply center. I can stay alive as long as I can hold Paris. I would lose to any attack from two armies. However, I had a pact with Olivia. She agreed to never attack Paris. She further agreed to support me against attacks on Paris from Laura. Since Laura could only attack with two armies, she would never be able to take Paris as long as Olivia supported me.

And so it came to pass, my friends, that in the game Diplomacy I outlasted everyone. Once Olivia had consumed the territory around Paris, I was safe from attack. I was in the game, but I never attacked nor was attacked. I neither had to move or defend myself. I stood, motionless, in Paris, while around me great battles were fought and won and lost.

Because someone can win in Diplomacy by taking only 18 supply centers, the game could come to an end without me ever having to relinquish Paris. In fact, the game ended when everyone got tired of playing. I wonder if that is how the real world will come to an end one day -- everyone decides to stop fighting?

While some will say Tom won Diplomacy, because he was the most likely to capture 18 supply centers -- or because he achieved his victories without having to attack his fiance -- I feel as though I won. Any game for (partial) World Domination where I can spend the entire time peacefully in Paris is my kind of game.

# # #

iam

i am the deertalker
the napsnagger
the toetwitcher
the pupchucker
the mental noggin
the monkey monger
the social hider
the cardboard riner

seer of sepia
slicer of earthworms
speaker of stories
doctor of nocturn

fever slapper
party napper
giftmas wrapper
snowcone mapper

corndog
redbeard
crawdad
scootslide

smell the power
ice the lightning
steer the bob-lo
fear the shagha

know me and be loved, be smacked, be healed

Comic about temperature.

Here's a comic I wrote about temperature. I wrote the first panel first, and everything else bloated outwards like a disgusting fungus.

Comic about acting.

So, this comic started with just the first three panels, but then I decided I had to take it to the limit.