Michael Hopcroft

The problem with the Davis is that he has gone from a great hitter and nightmarish defensive player to a great defensive player who is a nightmarish hitter. and it's hard to justify keeping a first baseman in the lineup for his glove.

The 1945 film And Then There Were None was the object yesterday. It has perhaps the classic setup for a mystery: ten strangers are lured to a lonely house of an otherwise uninhabited island, where a record is played accusing everyone of either committing direct murder or causing the deaths of others through neglect or ignorance. It seems like a sick practical joke -- until the "guests" start dying. what follows is an exercise in mounting paranoia; as their numbers dwindle, the survivors conclude it has to be one of them, and are trying to balance between trying to find the killer and trying not to be the next victim. As a racist nursery rhyme used in the film illustrates, the responsible party may well have intended to leave nobody alive. (the title of the original printing of Agatha Christie's novel was Ten Little N******, changed to Ten Little Indians in later printings until finally settling on the current title). Agatha Christies may have been capable of creating "puzzles", but what makes stand out among her many contemporaries is her arch observation and gift for satire. She understood that murder was not merely an intellectual exercise; that real passions and emotions were in play. She was particularly ruthless when it came to the idyllic country life that people who lived in cities so envied in the era between the wars and afterward -- Miss Jane Marple was able to observe the full depths of human depravity in her little village of St. Mary Mead.

Q: Why on Earth would you kill Beck? He wasn't REALLY asking you to! A: What a grand and intoxicating innocence!

Meanwhile, in Baltimore, slugger Chris Davis has opened the season on an 0-for-49 streak, which may not even have bottomed out yet. Davis is still owed $161 million or so in mostly guaranteed money, under a contract he signed after the best season of his career. Nobody expected his skills to deteriorate quite this badly, as he is following up a dismal 2018 with this truly impressive feat of futility. Both he and the O's have some decisions to make, as it looks like it may indeed be over for Davis as far as being an effective Major League hitter.

Q: What are you doing orbiting a nucleus? Wouldn't you rather be a free electron like me? A: And isn't it ironic, don't you think? A little too ionic? Yeah, I really do think...

Wargame publisher GMT Games has been involved in a controversy over how "Conflict simulation" publishers should deal with sensitive political and cultural issues, after canceling preorders for a game about the colonization of Africa in the mid-to-late 19th century. Scramble for Africa was well on its way to publication when the company decided it would be a bad look for them to take that particular side in a great historical tragedy/atrocity. In the game, the players would represent Europan powers (most notably Britain, France, Holland, and Belgium) competing to carve Africa into pieces among themselves. The Africans themselves are significant to the game only as obstacles. There have been several other games on the topic, most notably Avalon Hill's Search for the Nile (which was more about discovering what was there than about grabbing it) and Greg Costikyan's classic Pax Britannica. (The front page of that rulebook includes a reprint of Rudyard Kipling's infamous open "The White Man's Burden", which to the modern reader is either horrendously offensive or a subtle reading on the futility of the Imperial endeavor). But those two games were thirty years ago, and the world and the hobby have changed a lot since then. It mainly brought to mind the boardgame club I was in in Portland in the 1990's. The de-factor clubleader consistently and loudly refused to take the Russian side in games of Squad Leader (a classic WWII tactical game where the units are infantry squads and individual tanks and guns) because he hated what the Soviets represented. But he had no similar qualms about playing the Germans. But it didn't stop there. It gradually became more and more apparent that he was a dyed-in-the-wool White Supremacist, and what cinched it was when he bought a loaded semi-automatic to the club. It was very, very uncomfortable. Fortunately, most games and wargamers are not like that in the least. Most players can take up any side in any game without feeling they are embracing the ideology of the power they represent. They're competing and solving strategic and tactical puzzles, not role-playing Adolf Hitler. But this case, and the Facebook fracas it generated struck a nerve with me because of that past experience.

Remember the immortal motto of the Weasel Patrol: "Serve. Protect. Run Away."

Q: Say, Mr. Silicon-Based Lifeform from Somewhere Off the Coast of Andromeda Prime, what on Earth makes you want to involve time and time again? A: Much to the disappointment of Mrs. Ultraman.

I may have no children of my own, but I have two nieces and a nephew. And their future does worry me, a lot. Even though realistically, given what recent procedures found, I don't really expect to last much past sixty-five.

"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle."

I wonder what should worry me more -- the next generation dying in a global war, or the next generation not dying in a global war?

The Alliance of American Football has suspended operations and seems to have folded short only the final announcement. While TV ratings have been OK, the stands have been mostly empty in the seven weeks of games played so far. Plans to serve as a developmental league for the NFL also fell flat, with the players union balking at subjecting practice squad players to the possibility of in-game injuries that would derail what few hopes of sticking with an NFL club they have.

Q: So you love the concept of X-Men on Ice!, but you need to reduce the body count. What say we meet you half way? A: Do not provoke Squirrel Girl. Do not provoke Squirrel Girl.

Q: How do you know you're asking the right questions? (See above post for my current Answer.)

Q: What is Marketing's opinion of our new plastic-crafter Tyrannosaur robot? A: Of all the colors with which you could have painted a tank, this was a really bad choice.

Q: Is something wrong with my back? A: That's not a turtle. It's a tortoise.

Q: Why are you telling me not to wager my life's savings on the harp seal? A: This cloning of baseball players is getting way out of hand!

He is lip-syncing very badly, but the song is good and his voice is first-rate. an abridged version of this song was used in one of the Tom & Jerry shorts inspired by MGM's version of The Three Musketeers.

Q: Why are you leaving glasses on the floor for the Monster Underneath the Bed? A: I was raised on robbery.

Bump

Sherlock Holmes in The House of Fear, a 1944 secondary feature with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. Bruce's Watson is far too much a comic-relief character for my taste. The story involves a group of friends in an old house in Scotland who are being picked off one by one after they all took out large insurance policies naming the members of the group as the beneficiaries. If the story reminds you of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, that would not be surprising as this was filmed at the peak of Christie's influence on the mystery genre. I also saw an ITV (I think) documentary called Cat Wars, about the polarizing status of cats in England -- loved by many, but considered by others to be a menace to their gardens, local wildlife, and each other. Of particular note in a section where a cat is under siege from the cat of his neighbor, finally driving him out of his own home despite his humans buying him a special cat door that supposedly only he can open (only to find otherwise).

My mother and father married when she was 15 years old, back in 1959, with the enthusiastic approval of her family. I'm not sure it was even his idea. When I was born, she was 19. I suspect for poor Barbra it's just that things like that probably happened all the time when she was growing up in show business and nobody showed the modern degree of horror or any understanding that there was something fundamentally wrong with the picture. There were times when directors and [producers could get away with turning the competing pools of star-struck women seeking Hollywood fame into personal harems. Those days had better be gone soon.

Q: OK, back to Arkham you go, Joker! A: When we get to Heaven gonna put on our shoes,

Q: What if they gave a Jeopardy! match and nobody came? A: Your choice in headgear has removed all remaining doubt as to whether I would enjoy your company -- in the negative.

Sarah Palin has seen all sorts of things form her porc. I wouldn't be surprised if she's seen a Shoggoth or two.