Bring me the head of Diego Garcia...and the Mayor of Addu Atoll too!

[Chickenboy]

Outstanding show, Simon! Well done. [&o]

I assume that POW and Repulse will make port-doesn't look like their wounds are mortal.

How many of his Imperial majesty's (not that one, the other one) screaming SNLF squads / regular army went into the drink?

ETA: Why is your escort TF routing back towards Darwin? Surely Sydney, Adelaide or Brisbane would be more appropo with this sort of battle damage, neh?

[sprior]

I have an AR in Darwin that can put the elastoplast on before they attempt the longer trip.

The only fly in the ointment is the carriers just to to the NW...

[Mynok]

Seems more like an elephant in the soup than a little fly in the ointment.

[Cap Mandrake]

That screen shot of a DD and a couple of subchasers taking on Force Z reminds me of a joke.



*********07:45, 1805, somewhere off the coast of Spain*********

The captain of a French frigate surveys the waters to his West. As the fog clears, there are revealed three frigates flying the Union Jack.

Lt.: Mon capitan! We are ougunned! We must flee.

Cpt.: Non! Zey have ze posishun. We must fight zem. Bwing me ze red shirt. <a groomsman complies and returns promptly with an ornate red shirt, which the captain quickly dons. A terrible battle enuses, with heavy casualties on both sides but the Cpt. never wavers, instead standing calmly in the smoke, the shot, the splinters and the sniper fire. Against all odds, the French prevail, sinking one ship and driving off the other two. After the battle the Lt. approaches the Cpt. reverentially.>

Lt.: Mon capitan! Zat was brillaint! Ze red shirt, is eet a family heirloom?

Cpt.: Non, Lt., you do not understand. It ees my zhob to eenpsire ze men. If I have ze wound and ze bleeding zey will loose ze courAGE, eh? Zees is why I wear ze red shirt, so zey will not see ze blood. <well, naturally, the Lt. is now in awe of his captain and makes a committment to model the captain's behavior. The next morning, again the fog clears but this time it is Nelson's entire fleet. Arayed agaisnt the small frigate are 27 ships of the line, including 3 first raters.>

Lt.: <The Lt. feels the blood drain from his head but he remembers his vow from the day before. He barely croaks out the words.> Shall we bring ze red shirt, mon Capitan?

Cpt.: <The Cpt. does not avert his gaze from his foe. He stands stoicly for several seconds.> Non, today bwing me ze brown pants.

[Cap Mandrake]

..

[Onime No Kyo]

Way to keep the British end up, Simon. [:D]

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: Onime No Kyo

Way to keep the British end up, Simon. [:D]

Wait a minute. Your comments fail to give appropriate recognition to the USN for offering themselves up as targets to distribute the torpedoes. [:'(]

[Kwik E Mart]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

ORIGINAL: Kwik E Mart

is it just me, the angle of the photo, or some other anomoly, or does this dude have some freakishly small hands? [X(]

edit: just realized it could also be a freakishly large noggin...

Looking funny is an asset for a comedian.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtZTIwSIuGw

good god, man...you have solved the mysterious Sarah Silverman/Phyllis Diller conumdrum with one sentence!...Kudo's! and Kudo's again, sir! [;)]

[sprior]

First reports seem to indicate that the allied surface units are still steaming away from Koepang with no further attacks. Sadly Koepang fell.

[sprior]

Your comments fail to give appropriate recognition to the USN for offering themselves up as targets to distribute the torpedoes

We appreciate it. Drink-poos all round in Darwin tonight. And I'm sure the wardrobes of Repulse and Renown will hold a few c*** and a*** parties to which all their fellow grunters are invited. But not the ratimgs of course, they'll be too busy actually doing the repair work.

[Onime No Kyo]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

ORIGINAL: Onime No Kyo

Way to keep the British end up, Simon. [:D]

Wait a minute. Your comments fail to give appropriate recognition to the USN for offering themselves up as targets to distribute the torpedoes. [:'(]

Yes. Yes they do. [:'(]

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Onime No Kyo

Way to keep the British end up, Simon. [:D]

Wasn't that a line from a 007 movie whilest he was...ah, never mind.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: sprior

Your comments fail to give appropriate recognition to the USN for offering themselves up as targets to distribute the torpedoes

We appreciate it. Drink-poos all round in Darwin tonight. And I'm sure the wardrobes of Repulse and Renown will hold a few c*** and a*** parties to which all their fellow grunters are invited. But not the ratimgs of course, they'll be too busy actually doing the repair work.

Sprior: I'm not sure what's going on in the RN these days, but all this talk of c*** and a***, wardrobe parties, liberal poo-based libations and grunters is making me a bit uncomfortable. [:o]

Cap'n: Just make sure the Prince stays *ahead* of you in the battleline.

[Cap Mandrake]

Well...that was quite a turn. I was convinced they would pursue our wounded ships with Kaga and Zuiho or at least park them North of Timor and pound them from a distance. Evidently the air threat from Ambon (an illusory threat as there are only 3 Banshees and a couple of Uglofortresses there) and Darwin (which must look intimidating by air recon now) combined with their lack of awareness on the position of the US carriers caused them to be cautious....not to mention that nasty business of the surface battle with Akagi near Ambon.

Chicago and one DD are the last stragglers from Kopeang, having stopped to refuel each other in some kind of bizarre conjugal thing. PoW is making only 14 kts but should make it safely to Darwin air cover this turn. Repulse ans Pensacola should make port this turn. HMS Thanet is buring heavily and is in trouble.

Koepang fell on the first attack but there are no support troops and the airfield is wrecked. Some B-17's from Darwin will rearrange the rubble today. Surely this is not the outcome the Japs intended. Their chief mistake was not having the Surface escort force with two BB's more closely guarding the landing TF. Instead they were tasked with bombardment, a task which they did well but now they have a wrecked airfield. They will now need to get in support troops to Koepang and repair the airfield. We can probably make thnings difficult for them with surface bombardments and LBA. I would favor reinforcing Lautem and building to a level 2 but that is Lord Admiral Sprior's call. If they take all of Timor, then Ambon is vulnerable. I think we have already succeeded in making Darwin invulnerable to capture.

Warpsite just arrived in Sydney after repair time in Washington. Maybe she and the RAN crusiers can come up north?

As for New "Scotland"...the Japs aren't going to land there right away it seems. Instead they turned Left (SE) again and appear headed to Espirtu Santo. I have a single field artillery unit there and no airfield. I pulled out the seaplane tender.

I realize it seems odd to base an artillery unit there alone but that is all I had at the start and I had to scrub a plan to put an Infantry Regt. there when the KB showed up in the Coral Sea. Maybe they can rough up the landing ships. They will take Luganville but I will try to put some troops ashore at Efate and build up the airfield there if they dont beat me to it. The construction of the airfield at Noumea is taking forever even with a few thousand engieers.

[Cap Mandrake]

One of our opponents was so traumatized from his brush with Force Z that he was ordered to a re-education camp in Nazi occupied France. [;)] A few visits to the spa, maybe a trip to Lourdes and everything should be OK.

No turn yet today.

[Cap Mandrake]

Remember how I was asking about resource points and supply in Manila?
Well, that's not what I am asking about now. I have a question about Cosmopolitan magazine.

So here is the deal. Everytime Stalker Girl buys a new copy of Cosmo, I know she is going to try some experiment...and I don't mean a trial of a new lipid-lowering drug either. So, anyway, I get the AE turn in the email at work that includes the big fight at Timor. I can read the text file but I can't look at the game turn yet (if I had AE at work I would crash something AND not be able to get any work done). So I have to pick up the Mayan housekeeper after work and, as ususal, she is on Mayan time, which, as far as I can tell, is really good at predicting the Winter Solstice and that kind of thing but seriously deficient on the hour and minute thing. So, naturally, she is late, so that ticks me off a bit. Anyway, where was I..ah yes.. so I am listening to National Peoples Radio on the way home and, of course, that ticks me off a bit too, so I turn it off and try to listen to the Cubansimo CD, but I have heard it 18 times and it is Spanish anyway so I turn it off and try to have a converstion with the Mayan housekeeper in a combination of Mayan-Spanish medley and Spanglish. She tells me again it was a mistake to marry Stalker Girl but I can tell she has softened her stance somewhat. None if this is really front and center because all I really want to do is see what happened to Chicago and Pensacola and where the Japs are going to land in New Scotland.

When I get home I have to feed and walk the four-legged friends and help help cook dinner and clean up...but while I am loading the dishwasher I spy a new copy of Cosmo with an article on "Twenty secret spots" or something like that [X(]. I try to slink off to the office to fire up AE...it's already like 8:30..my bedtime is like 9:30 and by 10:00 I will be drooling on the keyboard so I am trying to type really quietly as I enter the turn password.

And then I hear from upstairs...."Cap, are you coming upstairs???"

So, finally, here is the question. How do you guys balance AE and the rest of your lives?

[witpqs]

What is "balance"?

PS: If we get the answer right, will you tell us the twenty secret spots? I'm guessing the first few are Pago Pago, Noumea, Port Moresby...

[sprior]

PS: If we get the answer right, will you tell us the twenty secret spots? I'm guessing the first few are Pago Pago, Noumea, Port Moresby...

That made me laugh.

[khyberbill]

So, finally, here is the question. How do you guys balance AE and the rest of your lives?

I bought my wife a subscription to Oprah. Whenever she starts on one of the "Oprah" things, I remark, has Oprah gained more weight? That seems to divert attention for a while. Perhaps having Cosmopolitan in the house is a bit like chumming shark infested waters and having Oprah instead is akin to adding some oil to the raging sea? As for balancing...what life?

[Chickenboy]

Rigid (ahem) adherence to a checklist, much like running AE turns. Everything in ordinal heirarchy.

1. Screaming children / sibling bloodletting? If not, move on to #2
2. Standing offer / invitation for sex?
3. AE turns
4. Sustenance (feed self, drink water, use lavoratory PRN)
5. Time with wife, children not related to #2
6. Time with other family
7. Time with other friends
8. TV / pleasure reading (usually about AE-related topics)
9. Miscellaneous

On the serious side, PBEM has helped to keep me gainfully employed and moderately balanced. I'm pretty much limited to one turn a day on most days, so I can get my 'fix' and get on with life.

Also on the not-so-serious side, I hope that you 'kept the American end up' in your decision making process last night?