Disregard...

[thegreatwent]

Actually I learned to abandon my Minnesotan accent and adopt a southern inflection as camouflage. It worked while I was in the Army also. Occasionally I would let a Keillorism pass my lips or walk around in shorts while it was in the 40's. Kinda gives me sympathy for that kid in Europa Europa, always afraid you'll be found out [;)].


Plus playing Avalon Hill games I always wanted to be the Union[:D]

[pasternakski]

ORIGINAL: thegreatwent

Actually I learned to abandon my Minnesotan accent and adopt a southern inflection as camouflage. It worked while I was in the Army also. Occasionally I would let a Keillorism pass my lips or walk around in shorts while it was in the 40's. Kinda gives me sympathy for that kid in Europa Europa, always afraid you'll be found out [;)].

Yah, you gotta watch out for the effect of the anti-freeze in your veins.

Plus playing Avalon Hill games I always wanted to be the Union[:D]

Or the blue side, like the Germans in Stalingrad or the British in Bismarck. I was that way, too, until Afrika Korps came out and I fell in love with the 21/5 panzer regiment (is god any better than a 7-7-10?).

The first game of Gettysburg I played was against my good high school pal Mike. This was the earliest version where the terrain was divided up into rectangles. I was the Union. I was doing all right until Mike executed an attack diagonally that killed Meade's HQ (which I thought was safely placed, but I neglected the possibility of diagonal rather than up-down or sideways attacks). He then pointed out to me the rule that stated all units subordinate to an HQ are eliminated if that HQ is eliminated.

I have hated Mike ever since. I also love hexagons.

[thegreatwent]

My first Gettysburg was the hex version from '61 (if I remember right). It was pretty good except for the stacking limits. Trying uphill assaults with a maximum of 4 units could be tough.

[Anthropoid]

ORIGINAL: pasternakski
. . . I was the Union. I was doing all right until Mike executed an attack diagonally that killed Meade's HQ (which I thought was safely placed, but I neglected the possibility of diagonal rather than up-down or sideways attacks). He then pointed out to me the rule that stated all units subordinate to an HQ are eliminated if that HQ is eliminated.

I have hated Mike ever since. I also love hexagons.

Spock soon notes that Khan is inexperienced and his pattern indicates a two-dimensional thinking.





Happy, Kirk soon makes the move, by ordering the helmsman to drop Z-plus 10,000 degrees.





He orders Chekov to disregard the photon-torpedoes.

[TheElf]

ORIGINAL: pasternakski

I swear, there's a layer of stupid in Texas practically unknown anywhere else. The times it has been my misfortune to be there, I have seen many people - some in positions of responsibility - who must have a public servant who walks up behind them from time to time and whacks them between the shoulder blades with the flat side of a shovel to remind them that they have to breathe in and out...

Then there's my sister. She was born and raised in the upper Midwest, then moved to Texas after marrying a truck driver. Within six months, she was talking with that godawful accent and even using their colloquialisms.

I come from such refined stock, you see.

Great I am moving to Texas in the next 3 months. I had hoped to escape stupid...

[thegreatwent]

Everywhere I go there is a large amount of stupid... ummm, wait. Please disregard.

[pasternakski]

ORIGINAL: TheElf
Great I am moving to Texas in the next 3 months. I had hoped to escape stupid...

Well, to be fair, I found a lot to like about Tejas, but some of 'em...

What? Leaving the land of Mussolini behind?

[pasternakski]

ORIGINAL: thegreatwent

Everywhere I go there is a large amount of stupid... ummm, wait. Please disregard.

I feel the same way, and even think that occasionally I was part of it, but who cares?

[pasternakski]

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid
Spock soon notes that Khan is inexperienced and his pattern indicates a two-dimensional thinking.

[thegreatwent]

Ah, Moby Dick. One of the best novels of all time. Every time I read it I come away with different impressions, very few other books have that depth.

“To the last, I grapple with thee; From Hell's heart, I stab at thee; For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee” -- Herman Melville

Another quote I like from him, considering he made so many classical references and allusions is

“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”

[thegreatwent]

Now I've done it, just dug out my copy of Moby Dick and immediately run into another great line.

“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.”

[Gem35]

I liked the movie, with Gregory peck as Cap'n Ahab.[:D]

[pasternakski]

ORIGINAL: Gem35

I liked the movie, with Gregory peck as Cap'n Ahab.[:D]

No, dude, moby dick is not a venereal disease.

You know, I have wondered from time to time who was the bigger scenery chewer - Charlie Heston in Ten Commandments or Peck in this movie - "Die, dam NED WHALE!" Great stuff.

Of course, it probably set Melville spinning in his grave like a supermarket rotisserie chicken.

[pasternakski]

ORIGINAL: thegreatwent

Now I've done it, just dug out my copy of Moby Dick and immediately run into another great line.

I think Melville must have spent all those dreary days and gloomy nights trying to top himself, one liner after one liner. The book reads like the inside of a mausoleum decorated by Michelangelo.

The agony is pretty ecstatic...

[thegreatwent]

You know, I have wondered from time to time who was the bigger scenery chewer - Charlie Heston in Ten Commandments or Peck in this movie - "Die, dam NED WHALE!" Great stuff.

Of course, it probably set Melville spinning in his grave like a supermarket rotisserie chicken.

Yeah, I think is one book that should never have been put on a screen. There is to much that just can't be displayed and is just cheapened by a visual medium.

[pasternakski]

ORIGINAL: thegreatwent
Yeah, I think is one book that should never have been put on a screen. There is to much that just can't be displayed and is just cheapened by a visual medium.

Well, it's pretty campy when you're in the mood for that kind of thing. The scene where the big model whale bites the little model whaleboat is a real hoot.

Special effects worthy of "In Harm's Way," which gets my vote for the "best use of plastic PT boats and toy soldier machinegunners all in a row" Oscar.

And didja see the size of the guns they put on the pseudoYamato for the closeup? Man, you talk about caliber envy...

[thegreatwent]

Hmm... haven't seen In Harm's Way. Maybe worth a rental.

[thegreatwent]

As a film adaptation that does work check "The Sand Pebbles". A Steve McQueen film in which he actually acts[:D].

[pasternakski]

ORIGINAL: thegreatwent

Hmm... haven't seen In Harm's Way. Maybe worth a rental.

There's a lot about this film to like, and a lot to laugh off if you don't like it.

It's Otto Preminger's effort at a World War II Pacific epic tale that starts with Pearl Harbor and ends with the Duke in a hospital ship recovering from injuries suffered when his cruiser sank at the hands of the Yamato.

The backdrop is purely fictional, but tries to draw from various elements of the Pacific campaign, casting John Wayne as a brave, competent U.S. Navy captain who gets caught in the backdraft of the Pearl Harbor debacle, shunted to a desk job, romantically involved with a Navy nurse played by Patricia Neal, re-acquainted on not-good terms with his estranged son now in the Navy, but playing buttkisser to a Congressional social climber, finally promoted to admiral, put in charge of an offensive meant to resemble Guadalcanal, and validated in the end with a "shoestring" victory over the Japanese.

Very turgid. Kirk Douglas phones in a role as the Duke's exec on the cruiser he commands at the time of Pearl Harbor, then gets drunk a lot over his unfaithful blonde wife (who gets killed in a head-on crash after a night on the beach with Hugh O'Brian the morning of the Pearl Harbor attack).

The special effects are just plain silly. The screenwriters' understanding of military reality at the time is nearly nonexistent (quoth the Duke: "If we can get a flock o' B-17s in there, we can control everything for 1,000 miles in every direction"). Naval air power doesn't even figure into the equation.

And on and on and on. You might like it. I used to, for about 20 viewings, but I've been disregarding it for a long time now.

[thegreatwent]

Yikes, the Olympic coverage this year is so bad by NBC that it should be disregarded. Perhaps I should check BBC or DW for less histrionic reporting.[8|]