games

96 posts

Total Novice’s Guide to Australian Rules Football

I will start with the cheap grab for the attention of my straight female and gay male audience:

I will continue with the cheap grab for the attention of the straight males and lesbians:

(She’s married to a footballer, so the picture is relevant)

Finally, I will start with a short video encapsulating modern Australian Rules Football (or “AFL” as it is usually called now after the main league, imaginatively titled the Australian Football League).

AFL is a game played by two teams with an oval ball (like rugby and American football) on a field with a goal at either end (like rugby and American football). It is generally believed to have arisen out of Gaelic Football (like an Irish cross between rugby and soccer) and the Aboriginal game Marn Grook. The earliest games were played on fields a mile long and teams of hundreds, as a way to keep fit in winter, but these days the field is normal stadium-sized and the teams are 18 a side (plus 3 on the interchange bench, who can substitute on and off for other players as often as they like).

Teams score by kicking the ball through the two central posts of the goal (6 points), or by kicking the ball between a central post and a side post (1 point) or putting the ball through the goals by a means other than kicking (1 point).

Unlike most modern sports, AFL has no rules limiting where people can run or move the ball within the field of play. No offside, no rule against forward passes or backpasses, no icing, no time limit on standing in the paint, nothing. This can lead to extremely free-flowing high-scoring games or to highly defensive games where teams emphasise retaining possession over advancing the ball.

Players may run with the ball, kick the ball or “handball” the ball. A handball is holding the ball in one hand and punching it away with the other. You’ll have seen a few of them in the video at the top of the article.

AFL is a contact sport and tackling is the main way to stop someone. A player who is tackled and can’t get rid of the ball, having had “prior opportunity” to get rid of the ball (you can just put the ball in someone’s hands and pin it to them!) gives away a free kick. It is this free kick, imaginatively titled “holding the ball”, which leads to AFL crowds yelling “BAAAAAAALLLLLLLL” for every tackle, no matter how good.

The signature skill of AFL is the “mark”. A “mark” is a clean catch of the ball from a kick travelling over 10 meters, and the player who does it gets a free kick. A mark within range of goal is one of the few moments an AFL game will stop, as everyone waits for the guy who took the mark to catch his breath and line up the free shot. A pack attempting to mark the ball will inevitably form under any high ball, leading to amazing acrobatics and also moments of indomitable courage.

Don’t hit people and don’t tackle players who don’t have the ball. Any other rule, your guess is probably as good as the umpire’s anyway.

AFL is currently on ESPN3 three times a week in the USA, and I understand on TSN in Canada once a week. Check your local guides etc etc. If one of the games involves the Gold Coast Suns, be warned—they are a new team this year, full of rookie players, and they are being mercilessly flogged by everyone who plays them. Not the best example of the game, sadly.

Crasstalk Music Share

Hello gang.  We talk a lot about music here and I found some real gems through the members of the Crasstalk community. We are a diverse bunch and that is reflected in the kinds of music we like. So today let’s do a little sharing (or oversharing, as is our way). What are your recommendations? What can’t you stop listening to? I’ll start off with a couple old school suggestions from a former rocker girl.

This is Visqueen a pop-punk, super band that formed from the members of Hafacat and The Fastbacks in 2001. Rachel Flotard, the lead singer is still rocking it out although the rest of the band line-up has changed over the years. This is pure, happy, music sugar and this song always makes me feel a little better about life. I defy you to listen to it and not smile.

This is Kinski. A sort of art/hard rock/punk band. They are all amazing musicians and they rarely clutter up their shit with lyrics about getting dumped or whatever. They frequently also do multi-media projects with other kinds of artists that are inevitably really cool. Also, Barrett Wilke is the best drummer, ever. I’m totally serious.

All right, that is enough to start us off. Show us your good stuff gang.

Confessions of a Farmville Addict

Hi.   Wow  — I can’t believe I’m here.  I never thought it would get this bad.  But I’m here.  I have to admit it.

My name is Eddie L, and I have a problem.  I can’t turn away from Farmville.  It calls to me.   My herd of black sheep.   The penguins I keep in a pen with my turkeys, even though I know that’s ecologically unsound.  I ignore logic and believe I can grow both pomegranate and potato, even though they require opposite climates.  I reap, reap, reap Nature’s digital bounty, even though I never rotate my crops and I know I am creating another Dust Bowl.  I have abandoned logic!

So, I have come to you, Farmville Addicts Anonymous, for help.

Shall we begin?

I admit I am powerless over my addiction – that my life has become unmanageable

Like I said, my name is Eddie L., and I wish to acknowledge I am a Farmville Addict.  I am powerless over the demon call of Farmville.  I admit my life is unmanageable, because my life consists only of selling off my pen of pigs in Farmville.

I believe a power greater than myself can return me to sanity

Spock.  It must be Spock.  Spock was always the creature I turned to for guidance in this wacky world – before my motley collection of cows and horses and reindeer and ducks took over my life.  I used to be a Classic Dork – not a Farm-obsessed freak.   What would Spock, that pointy-eared lover of all that is orderly – say about Farmville?   He would say it is not logical.  I bow to you, Spock.

I am making a decision to turn my life over to a higher power

I am all yours, Spock.

I will make a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself

The only question here is what character flaw led me down the path into Farmville, a delightful place with a no-place-like-home farmhouse and a well-cared for chicken coop of happy hens.  Why do I so desire to grow apple trees, yet have no desire to dirty my hands or actually sweat?

I must admit to a higher power, myself, and another human the exact nature of my wrongs

Spock, there is no doubt.  I have behaved terribly.  If I can say that to Spock, I can say it myself.   I am doing so here.  I would like to confess my sins to my wife, but I don’t remember what she looks like.   Perhaps if I leave the Man-Room, where the computer is kept, I can find some wedding pictures to refresh my memory.

I must be ready to ask a higher power to remove these defects of character.

I am ready for my Mind Meld, Mr. Spock.

I must make a list of all those I have harmed, and be willing to make amends to them. I must make said amends

First off, there is the wife.  I understand she lives, still, somewhere in this home.  I’ve been told, via text message, that she wears earplugs all day long to block out the sound of  Farmville music, which grates upon her very soul.  Darling, the music will stop.   And I will take you out!  Perhaps to a — those places where they sell already cooked food for human consumption?  I can’t remember what they’re called.

I also wish to make amends to your cat, Eleanor Roosevelt Rigby.   I’ve been so obsessed with faux animals that I forgot we have a real living furry creature here at home!   How exotic!  I think it’s the poo.   The Farmville animals don’t poo.  Eleanor does.  I don’t like poo.  But I will learn to live with it.  Poo is the price of love.

I will continue to examine my shortcomings and admit when I’m wrong.

Honey, you are always right.  Always.

I will seek through meditation the peace and guidance that comes from a higher power

Spock, I beg of you to not abandon me.  Perhaps Captain Jean-Luc Picard can offer some guidance.   Please, make it so.

Having had a Dork Awakening through these dozen steps, I will spread the word to other addicts, and tell them there is help.

Spock will help you, too.  Or perhaps your Spock are the Golden Girls.  Hello Kitty?  Or Curious George.    It matters not.  Take off the overalls.  Turn away from Farmville.  There are real, living creatures out there.   You may be married to one of them!  There is hope.

My name is Eddie L, and I am powerless over the lure of Farmville.

Romance Novel Improv For Beginners

This odd improvisational experiment began as a dialogue in the comments between me and Mothergooch, and has grown into… something else.  After you read the beginnings of our improvisational romance novel, feel free to add your own input to the story in the comments. Don’t worry about consistency, just try to stay true to who you perceive the characters to be.  We’ll see where — and in how many different directions — it winds up, but this is how it began:

Mothergooch: Sinner or saint, we can never be sure which Salome we are going to get.

Salome Valentine: This sounds like the opening to a deliciously trashy romance novel.


MG: His body was hard — not hard like Milosevic, the Serbian strongman, but hard like the marble on your shower floor, when you fall and bang your knee.

SV: His member was hard: not hard like marble, but hard like he’d taken a fistful of blue pills roughly four hours earlier.

MG: He tore open her blouse like a Publisher’s Clearing House letter in which he and some guy named Steven Bouber from Stockton, California, were potential finalists for the ten-million-dollar prize.

SV: She felt no self-consciousness when he tore open her blouse, because her plastic surgeon had assured her that the implants she recently purchased could withstand a direct fall onto a marble floor, or the hardness of a Serbian strongman.

MG: He awakened her slumbering womanhood with his double tall loin latte. “Starbuck!” she cried.

SV: “No, my name is Santiago,” he replied in an irresistible and nearly incomprehensible accent as he moved her to operatic ululations with his manly thrusts.

MG: Claire felt swept away by this dark stranger, a helpless dust bunny in the roaring cacophony of his gas-powered leaf blower.

SV: Internal explosions like really bad gas – but far more pleasurable – coursed through her body as Santiago played her body like a master playing a cheap violin.

JohnDoeche: Sated like pensioners at a cheap Chinese buffet, they lay and stared into each others’ eyes wondering who would go to the bathroom first.

ChipsRafferty: As Santiago took the cigarette from his lips, its glow was reflected in his gold teeth making him look like an Inca deity.

MG: He gently doubled her entendre like a powerful and mildly awkward simile.

CR: Claire moved closer but Santiago moved away.  She slid in closer still, only to find he was just giving up the wet spot.

CR: As they drifted off to a sated slumber, Santiago heard Claire whisper in her last semi-waking moment.  It was the name of a long lost lover, or perhaps the man who drove her to despair.  It sounded like…. El Goooche. Santiago turned over, disappointed, and ever so gently farted, while thinking, “Man, I gotta lighten up on the Mexican caviar.”

Alluson: Claire, uncomfortable by the growing dampness against her hip, started awake as she imagined the distinct aroma of dead fish eggs. She stared at the soft outline of Santiago’s hairy moob and began to ponder if she had in fact made a grave mistake.

SV: Santiago’s moob was, in fact, a carefully sculpted pectoral muscle, but Claire was too inebriated from orgasms to recognize this fact.  Eventually, he knew that she would succumb to his charms, stay with him even without the restraints, and allow him to make sweet love to her again, once the effects of the chloroform wore off.

Enlightenment Wordplay

Simple to present yet not so easy to solve, this elegant exchange between Voltaire and his friend and patron Frederick the Great of Prussia is one of the cleverest surviving puzzles borne of a playful and philosophical friendship between a King and a commoner.

Wikipedia asserts that

“Frederick also aspired to be a Platonic philosopher king like the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius.

Frederick the Great
Frederick the Great of Prussia who admired above all the Enlightenment's greatest thinker, Voltaire.

… At Sanssouci Frederick entertained his most privileged guests, especially the French philosopher Voltaire, whom he asked in 1750 to come to live with him. The correspondence between Frederick and Voltaire, which spanned almost 50 years, was marked by mutual intellectual fascination. In person, however, their friendship was often contentious, as Voltaire abhorred Frederick’s militarism. Voltaire’s angry attack on Maupertuis, the President of Frederick’s academy, provoked Frederick to burn the pamphlet publicly and put Voltaire under house arrest. Voltaire was accused by some of anonymously publishing The Private Life of the King of Prussia, wittily claiming Frederick’s homosexuality and parade of male lovers, after he’d left Prussia. Frederick neither admitted nor denied the contents of the book, nor ever accused Voltaire of having written it. Some years later, Voltaire and Frederick resumed their correspondence and eventually aired their mutual recriminations, to end as friends once more.”

Adds BookRags:

“There is no proof that Voltaire ever had a homosexual experience. Most of the evidence for his occasional homosexuality in the four-volume biography by Roger Peyrefitte is fabricated. The story that Voltaire once had sexual relations with a Prussian soldier as an experiment, only to decline a second experience with the quip ‘Once a philosopher, twice a sodomite,’ is certainly apocryphal. He attended the Jesuit college of Louis-le-Grand as a boy, and while visiting England years later reportedly remarked, ‘Oh! those damned Jesuits… ar**d me to such a degree that I shall never get over it as long as I live,’ but he was probably being facetious.”

 

In any case, getting back to our puzzle, der Grosse Freddy and his philosophically-minded homey exchanged quips, puns, and invitation frequently—unless they were squabbling—and this is one of the cleverer among them.

In the first box, Frederick’s invitation:

In the second, Voltaire’s reply:

 

So have at it, my friends and commenters. It remains unclear what the winner, if there is a winner, will win. But it will be somehow appropriate.

The Ultimate Dinner Party

“In the well-planned dinner for ten, there should be (taking out the host and hostess): two sparklies from different fields, four solid listeners and contributors from assorted professions, one charity case and one mystery guest whose classification will not be clear until after being auditioned at this dinner.” Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior by Judith Martin

As usual, Miss Manners’ prescription is firmly delivered, but is it definitive?? Many experts on entertaining suggest that six rather than eight guests is the ideal number for a perfect dinner party. Some assert that the number of men and women should be balanced (and seated boy-girl-boy-girl); a subset of this group even continues to assume that all the guests are actually couples.

Others have a more free-form approach, encompassing, say, singleton invitees (of whom, clearly, there must be two unless you include a ménage a trois among your guests as well) or gay couples (who make the boy-girl alternation infinitely more complicated to carry off). In short, who knows? Well, for purposes of this post, you do. Six guests or eight guests, it’s up to you.

A “mystery guest”? Your choice. Do you dare make every guest an A-list “sparkly” who is used to being the center of attention? Can you pick a group whose conversation will sizzle and pop without turning your dining room into an inferno of disagreement and angry discord?

This little game is your chance to show off your party-planning skillz and indulge your own Inner Miss Manners. Your task is to pick a guest list of six (or eight, but no more) whom you believe would make for an unforgettable dinner party. You may select anyone, real or fictional, from any period in history. Mixing the real and the imaginary is allowed, although true purists will pick one or the other.

If you’re a stickler for the proprieties you can further increase the degree of difficulty by balancing the female/male ratio, specifying a seating chart, or applying Miss Manners’ rules to the letter. More to the point is your brief explanation of: why this person? As a foil for another guest, or a gadfly whose inclusion will liven things up, or just because you personally would like to ask him or her a particular question (and if so, what is that question)? Is your goal to solve the problems of the world by putting Socrates and Thomas Jefferson on either side of Jane Austen, or would you rather foment World War 3 by setting a place for Michael Moore between Jan Brewer and Sarah Palin?? The possibilities are endless.

I’ll begin (though, full disclosure, this is not my Be-All-End-All guest list but simply an example.

1. Alexander the Great – Did Aristotle grade on a curve?

2. Pamela Churchill Hayward Harriman – “Greatest courtesan of the century” (W. Paley).

3. Giacomo Casanova – Will he prefer to romance Pam or Betty?

4. Betty Boop – A toss-up between her and Daria Morgendorffer.

5. Marquis de Sade – Will he prefer to torture Betty or Mary.

6. The Virgin Mary — Well, was she?? And what does she make of the Marquis?

7. Daffy Duck – Exactly when will he blow his top?

8. Emily Dickinson – What will she say at dinner? What will she write afterward?

Over to you, Crassies.

Light Rock Wars!

1 comment

Well happy Friday gang. Today we are playing a game that is only for the strongest and bravest of Crasstalkers. Welcome to Light Rock Wars, I hope you all make it out alive.

The rules are simple. Post the most teeth-grindingly bad light rock videos you can find. Your peers and fellow competitors will vote (by fonzing) for the most awful videos.Bonus points for home-made videos that add an extra layer of fail.

The tool of victory

At the end of the day the video with the most fonz points wins all of the internet gold and bad taste bragging rights. Here are a couple videos to get you started.

WARNING: Light Rock Wars is not for the weak. Only the ruthless will triumph.

Tuesday Daytime Open Thread

Hello Crasstalk! Hope you are having a wonderful day and are ready for more exciting happenings in our little corner of the web.
Quick announcement. Lady_E would like to pass on that she picked a winner for this weekend’s bookshelf contest. The lucky contestant was Mr. P_Mouse with this amazing description of his collection:

As with my dog, if you take issue with my choice/juxtaposition of books, you will at best be suffered in silence, at worst given the bum’s rush and never invited back.

Also, as we have something on the order of 10,000 books and no discernable capacity for logical organization, nearly every provocative grouping is purest random chance.

That said, I do occasionally amuse myself with groupings (although no one else has ever noticed, as far as I know)

For example, there’s “Elaine’s corner.”,

Elaine herself, of course, is at the so-called “Late” table now : she’s there next to Sinatra and Jackie O; nearby, Truman Capote and Bill Styron sneer and snicker at a rakishly tilted Mailer who’s trying to look up Germaine Greer’s skirt before stabbing her. (Mailer’s a nightmare: none of the other books want to be shelved anywhere near him.)

Woody’s over there (Without Feathers), and also without Soon-Yi; tonight he’s got Lolita on his arm — the real one — while Nabokov’s sardonic ghost looks on with the amused disdain of a true aristo before turning again to Candace Bushnell and Jimmy Breslin.

Tom Wolfe is making the rounds, but the others are flinching away a bit; it’s the glare of that damn jacket — these days Tom is regarded as you might a fluorescent bulb about to burn out, casting rather a harsh light that falters and flashes in the MOST annoying way, and buzzing now and then, randomly. But he’s a fixture, after all.

I am not sure what he wins besides bragging rights, but since we are talking about reading and Crasstalk, bragging rights are kind of a big deal. Thanks to everyone who shared their book habits.

Here’s a little sunshine to get you going today.

Have a great day and don’t fight the funk.

-=Message from Bens=-
Hi guys. A lot of people have said “hey, I can’t see the Amazon.com link! What is this you speak of? Well, you need to turn off Adblock Plus, for Crasstalk. We promise we won’t run cheeto ads. Please, please, turn it off. Here’s how!
1. See the red stop sign on the top right of your toolbar? It says “ABP” on it. Left click on it.
2. There’s an option that will say “disable for crasstalk.com” – check it.
3. The sign should now turn green for Crasstalk.com

ALSO! Adobe has fixed some MAJOR bugs in FlashPlayer. Unless you’re super l33t like Dogz, you’ll need to update. Easy method: go over to Browsercheck.qualys.com and let it search for updates. It works on Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. You’ll be happy when you don’t look at your credit card statement and see mysterious charges coming from a Belarussian strip club. Have a nice day!

Word Game – Famous Name Chain

I like word games, do you? Here’s one I invented years ago that we can all play called Famous Name Chain which is very simple and a lot of fun. You simply chain together names of famous people so that you can separate any two names at any point and they still are a famous name. The names can be factual or fictional and the people must be known by two names, not three (a la Sally Jesse Raphael or Martin Luther King) Confused? Here’s a very simple one:

Jerry Lewis Black

That’s a three-name chain which can be separated into the names of comedians Jerry Lewis and Lewis Black.

Here are a few more in increasing complexity:

4-Name Chain: Spencer Tracy Morgan Fairchild

(Spencer Tracy – Actor, Tracy Morgan – Actor/Comedian, Morgan Fairchild – Actor)

5-Name Chain: Ayn Rand Paul Simon Cowell

(Ayn Rand – Writer, Rand Paul – Politician, Paul Simon – Singer/Songwriter, Simon Cowell – Professional Asshole)

6-Name Chain: Raggedy Ann Frank James Joyce Brothers

(Raggedy Ann – Doll, Ann Frank – Holocaust Victim/Diarist, Frank James – Outlaw, James Joyce – Writer, Joyce Brothers – Columnist/Psychiatrist)

7-Name Chain: Jessica Walter Scott Walker Percy Shelley Long

(Jessica Walter – Actress, Walter Scott – Poet, Scott Walker – Governor, Walker Percy – Writer, Percy Shelley – Poet, Shelley Long – Actress)

9-Name Chain: Lionel Richie Rich Little Richard Benjamin Franklin Pierce Brosnan

(Lionel Richie – Singer, Richie Rich – Cartoon Character, Little Richard – Singer, Richard Benjamin – Actor, Benjamin Franklin – Founding Father, Franklin Pierce – President, Pierce Brosnan – Actor)

How long can you make a chain?