Yahtzee: Rules of Engagement...

Last year I taught littleb how to play Yahtzee.  He's since become a master Yahtzee strategist.  He has also developed some interesting rules.

1.  If you are just one die away from getting Yahtzee you may have an extra turn.

2.  When one of the dice rolls off the playing table, all the dice must be shaken again.

3.  Unless you had a pretty good roll going.  And then you can just shake the one die

4.  Unless, of course, the one that rolled on the floor lands on the number you needed.   Then it counts and  no further dice rolling is required.

5.  If you are shaking the dice and someone offers an alternative strategy, the proper response is to continue on your chosen course.  If the result is not the one you were seeking, you may take your turn over in pursuit of the suggested strategy.  This is because the speaker should have spoken up before you started shaking the dice, in which case you would most certainly have followed their advice.

5.5  If someone starts to offer an alternative strategy before you start shaking the dice, you should immediately pick up the cup and start shaking it vigorously, pretending you never heard anything.  If things don't work out, you should inquire, "Did you say something?  I couldn't hear you over the dice."  This auditory loop hole entitles you to one do over.

6.  If the new strategy also fails, you get an extra turn because the person advising you was obviously steering you in the wrong direction for his/her own benefit, which is cheating and very unattractive, not to mention disappointing.

7.  If you are shaking the dice and there is any interference at all from another player-a hand, a jostle, a sneeze-you may take another turn.  If necessary.

8.  Blowing on the dice helps you get the numbers you want and having everyone blow on your dice is extra good luck.

9.  Unless it is not, in which case you get an extra turn because it is not your fault that someone else's halitosis breath ruined your roll.

10.  The rules above only apply to one player per game who shall be the youngest player.

11.  Everyone must be a very good sport and not cheat!

Chicken out

borrowed from:  http://ghiblicon.blogspot.com/2012/02/ghibli-blog-comix-lets-play-yahtzee.html
 For the record, littleb does not condone eating anyone's dog

Time Thief

So wait a second.  You're telling me that if I swim out to the middle of the pond and then dive under the water, I'll see a rock formation.

Yes.

And if I swim down to the rock formation and touch one of the stones and then swim back up to the surface, I'll be in another dimension.

Yes.

You're full of shit.

What does that mean?

What do you mean, "What does that mean?"?  It means you're full of shit. You're a liar.

I'm not.  It's true.

How do you know?

Because I did it.

When?

This morning.  Just before I met you.

So shouldn't you be somewhere else?

I am somewhere else.  I'm here.

No shit, Sherlock.  So you're saying you're not from here?

No.  You've been calling me "fucking weird" all day.  Why do you think that is?

You are fucking weird.  And you're full of shit.

I'm not.

Ok, where are you from?  Mars?

No, I'm not an alien.  I just arrived from a different time zone.  2218.

So you expect me to believe that this pond still exists two hunnert and forty somethin' years from now?  And that you went swimming and ended up here?

No.  There wasn't a pond.  Just the rocks.  When I went into the rocks, I became dizzy and fainted.  When I came to, I was in water. Then I stumbled into your camp and you told me it was 1972.

You're shittin' me.

I'm not.  If you don't believe me, try it.  

I'm not tryin' it.

Why not?  What have you got to lose?  Do you want to go back to jail?

No, I don't want to go back to jail, but I sure as shit don't want to go to 2218 either.  Not that I would because you're full of shit, but even if you weren't, I wouldn't want to go.

Chicken.

I'm not.

Yes you are.  You're afraid

Listen, asshole, I'm about to beat you into next week and I won't need any pond stones to do it, so shut your trap.

Come on.  Try it.  I'll go with you.

I'm not go.....did you hear that?

The barking?  Yes.  I heard it.

Shit, they're using the dogs.  Shit shit shit.

You like this word, "shit".

It's just a fucking word.  Jesus, you're so fucking weird.  Let's go.

Where are we going?

Swimming.

If I Hadn't Been So Focused on Becoming the First Taylor Swift, I Might Have Invented the Internet

When I was 13 and firmly in the clutches of that ultimate mean girl, puberty, I discovered poetry. Months were spent producing emo ballads exploring my obsessive crushes on various high school seniors, pop stars, and, bewilderingly, MacGyver.  It eventually occurred to me, probably during a lucid dream also involving a Maxfield Parrish painting and a unicorn, that these poems should be set to music and shared with the world.  That's how good they were.

But how to do that? How does one reach out to the Titans of the Music Industry when one does not know who those Titans might be, nor their mailing addresses?

If only I had focused on that problem and invented the internet, this tale might be very different.  For one thing, I would be writing it from a much warmer locale while my good friend, Richard Branson, orders another round of tropical rum beverages with a mere twitch of one blond hairy eyebrow.

I decided to shelve the accessibility issue for the time being and set myself immediately to writing a hit song,  The  lyrics roughly matched the rhythm and word structure of, "Leaving on a Jet Plane".  This  song was, to me, the ultimate in romantic sophistication.  In my imagination I was at times the leaver and at times the left, depending on my erratic emotional state.  Mostly I was the leaver because I had never flown in an airplane and badly wanted to, plus I liked the idea of someone keening over me, for a change; someone handsome, resourceful and mature who always had an extra stick of gum to share.

After a few late nights, fueled by root beer and Hershey bars, I finished my masterpiece. My song focused on a lover reminiscing over trips to the zoo and holding hands on the train.  How could that once colorful love-filled world have become this barren, lonely landscape with only one sad-eyed gorilla and some screeching monkeys to bear witness to his brokenness, asked my MacGyver, as he walked along singing softly to himself while a solitary tear rolled down his stubbly cheek and into his popcorn.

And here we have yet another shining example of how the right focus-connecting music to video-could have landed me in an exclusive gated community saying things into my phone like, "Get me Bono!", instead of the more pedestrian, "Yes, half cheese, half pepperoni, please.  Yes.  I'll hold."

Now that my  hit song was ready for delivery, I began my search for Titans.   I remembered that in the back of my mother's True Confessions magazines there were ads inviting people to get rich submitting their stories for publication.  I pilfered an old copy and found what I was looking for; a company looking for people who wrote lyrics, music or both.  I submitted my song and waited.

Now, you might be thinking, "Oh God, how good could it have been?  The kid was thirteen!", and I wouldn't blame you, although I might remind you that Taylor Swift got her start at around the same age.  A few weeks after I sent out my inquiry I received a response from Nashville.  They wanted to publish my song!  Truth be told, I was a little surprised. I didn't know things worked that fast in Nashville. You can't blame me for assuming that they must really be in a hurry to sign me on.  There was just one teeny problem-Nashville needed a hundred dollars in up front money.  There were logistics, you see.  They needed to find someone to write the music, find a top notch vocalist to record it, and circulate copies to all the radio stations to get the word out.  If I would just send them $100, they would take care of all this for me and then forward a copy of my record for personal use.  Once the radio stations started playing my record, the dough would  start rolling in and we would have to move to Nashville, probably, so that I could be closer to my people.

I'm not sure exactly how this happened-I believe there may have been a lot of back room negotiations to which I was not privy-but my step mom and father actually pulled together $100 dollars and sent it to Nashville on my behalf.

Thankfully, my parents were not taken advantage of and just one month later my record arrived in the mail. We put it on the record player in the living room and listened.  I was disappointed in the music.  It wasn't what I would have chosen. The clarity seemed a little off, too. Maybe they actually recorded it at the zoo for authenticity?

Once I heard my song, or Nashville's version of it, rather, my ever objective inner voice said, "No one is going to pay for this record except your mother", so I gave Vi my copy to save her the expense and decided to become an artist.  I began creating complicated wall-size murals, copying the style of Maxfield Parrish but adding unicorns.

It wasn't the first time my parents supported one of my dreams nor would it be the last.  I may not have become the first Taylor Swift or the inventor of the internet but I have been lucky in love.

MacGyver aside.

Chicken out

A real hit song:  Little Feat singing Dixie Chicken