Ron's Info-Closet Annex
The online extension of Ron's Info-Closet.
Book links are usually to my Powell's affiliate program; game links are usually to Funagain Games, and benefit the Games to the Rescue Project.
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Ron Hale-Evans
rwhe@ludism.org
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If you grew up on the East Coast during the late 70s or early 80s, you may remember ice cream tycoon Tom Carvel's decision to do his own commercials for his ice cream chain, anticipating Dave Thomas's Wendy's commercials by 15 or 20 years. Unfortunately, unlike Dave Thomas's voice, Tom Carvel's was a guttural monotone that seemed to indicate the intelligence behind it was ravaged by age and perhaps didn't have too much to work with in the first place. One of the stellar business decisions made by Tom (or whoever made his mouth move) was to use a single mold for all Carvel ice cream cakes, so that Cookie Puss (an attempt to cash in on the movie E.T., whose TV voice sounded like a chipmunk in an echo chamber) looked suspiciously like Fudgie the Whale upside-down. Then there was the amnemonic advertising slogan "Wednesday is Sundae at Carvel's", which attempted to convey that you got two-for-one ice cream sundaes every Wednesday at Carvel's, but ended up conveying to viewers that Thursday was Sundae, or perhaps Tuesday was Sundae, or maybe Tuesday was Thursday... Why bother?
Tom Carvel is probably long dead, and I don't care whether Carvel's is still a going concern on the East Coast enough to Google for it, which is saying something, I think. In any case, since I'm doing my Friday Five on Sunday, I just wanted to announce that Sunday is now Friday.
Friday, 20 February 2004
Kickass new cellphone: Because I was stupid enough to lose my old cellphone but smart enough to have signed up for the replacement program with Sprint, for some reason when I ponied up my $35 deductible, they did not send me a reconditioned phone of the same model, but a brand new phone that is much, much better. It's a ruggedised Sanyo RL2000. It has a colour screen almost as big as your average PDA, and besides doing ordinary cellphone things with it, I can surf the web, read and send email, and if anyone I know ever gets a similar phone, I can use it as a sort of walkie-talkie. The customer service dudelet told me, "Man! I wish I could afford one of those! Your new phone can run circles around your old phone without even moving. Why did they send you one of those, anyway?"
Games magazine: On a day when I wasn't expecting any particularly good snailmail, the April 2004 Games magazine arrived. The cover story, "The New Oldest Game in the World", by R.H. Wei, tells the story of the discovery by Vincent Hughes, the "real-life Indiana Jones", of an ancient Egyptian board game called "The Game of Flying Obelisks". The game is extremely complex for one of that period; it more closely resembles a modern Chess variant than anything else known to exist at that time.
Yes, it's the April 2004 Games magazine. Geddit? I didn't buy the article as a whole for a minute, but I thought at least that Vincent Hughes might exist, since the article says he studied at Yale, and I recall reading about a "real-life Indiana Jones" etc. etc. in the Yale alumni magazine. However, relevant Google searches return nothing on the great man.
The Game of Flying Obelisks looks like fun, though, and receives a much more in-depth treatment than Games usually gives games it publishes, even if half of the coverage is fiction.
Nonestica: OK, a couple of weeks ago I talked about receiving a "current" or "spark" of inspiration from a friend, and said that I was collaborating on a project around this inspiration with him. Now I can tell you. My friend and I were working on a piecepack game based on the 14 Oz (as in Wizard) books by L. Frank Baum. The collaboration has fallen through; my friend had never collaborated on a game before and was uncomfortable doing so. Oh well; at least I can now blather about Oz (or Nonestica, as the continent of which Oz forms a part is commonly (?) known), without outing myself and spoiling my anonymity for the latest piecepack game design contest. More later; meanwhile, check out this collection of Ozzy/Nonestican links I've collected. I don't have many at the moment, but they are all key resources.
Game design: So it looks as if Marty and I will be entering at least one game in the new piecepack contest. I like it so far, and that's all I'm going to say.
Great EGG meeting: We had another great meeting of EGG, our local game design group. Kisa Griffin had a new piecepack game for us to playtest, and AlphaTim Schutz had a new Alpha Playing Cards game. I always come out of these meetings high off my friends' brilliance, and thankful (when I'm demonstrating a game) that I have a community to support me. As much as I love Seattle Cosmic, and as unfinished as the games brought to EGG tend to be, I have to say I usually have more fun at EGG meetings, because the games I'm playing were not designed by someone I don't know in Europe (say), but by someone I know and sometimes even love -- and if I don't like something about the game, I can suggest a fix and the fix may be incorporated into the rules on the spot. EGG meetings are so intense, though, that it's probably good they're only once a month rather than once a week.
Have a fine week, everyone, and remember: Fudgie the Whale makes a great gift!
Entered 18:43 [/personal/friday5] permalink
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