THE ABYSSINIAN PRINCE #303

July 13, 2006

Produced by Jim Burgess, 664 Smith Street, Providence, RI 02908-4327 USA, (401)351-0287

Accessible through Internet at burgess of world.std.com (all E-Mail addresses are reported in this format, replace the " of " with "@"; if you bounce try sending to me from another account. Some of you have been getting bounced messages from my ISP's spam protection, if that happens to you, USE my backup E-Mail at jfburgess of gmail.com!!! Don't complain that my E-Mail keeps bouncing without forwarding the bounced message to that address. Then I can forward it to the ISP help to get it dealt with.

Web Page Address: http://www.diplom.org/DipPouch/Postal/Zines/TAP/index.html

I expect ALL players to be signed up on the E-Mail notification list for the szine, see below. Some of you have been complaining about this, but it is up to you to get on this list, it's easy, come ask me if you have trouble. On that list, I notified everyone of the last issue's delay. We had an issue with the web page, Edi Birsan and Bill Blackmer are helping to engineer a long awaited purging and rebirth of the Diplomatic Pouch website. I couldn't do updates, but I think we're OK updating things now. So everything should be back where you expect to see it. We have issues of Tinamou and By the Way in this issue if everything is going as planned. We're making progress on starting new games, help fill things up, see below for more.

The postal sub price is still $1.50 per issue in the US and Canada, with double that for other foreign subbers(or $3.00 per issue sent airmail). Players in current games and standbys will continue to get the issues for free, and future game starts (except for Nuclear Yuppie Evil Empire Diplomacy, which is free) cost $20.00 ($15.00 for a life of the game subscription and $5 for the NMR Insurance. Anyone may play in subszines for free and just jack up the issue page count. See the revised game start announcements below!

Check out the connections in the Diplomatic Pouch with all of the information you need to play Diplomacy on the Internet at: http://www.diplom.org/DipPouch/

I also have taken over the Postal port/DipPouch/Postal

and TAP on the web is there at: http://www.diplom.org/DipPouch/Postal/Zines/TAP/index.html

where the szine resides in html format. Presently, issues from #190 to the current issue are there, and I will be updating the back issues gradually someday. Also, check out Stephen Agar's more extensive efforts at: http://www.diplomacy-archive.com and http://www.diplomacy.co.uk

Peter Sullivan's subszine is out of stasis, and all the back issues can be accessed via :

http://www.burdonvale.co.uk/octopus/index.html.

Peter is now clearly back and appears in most issues! Rip Gooch and Dave Partridge had been picking up the choo-choo game slack, but Rip also has been missing in action lately, I don't have an update but he and Dave Partridge communicate. Contact Rip at xyropedes of canada.com or Dave at rebhuhn of rocketmail.com for more info on getting into choo-choo games.

The TAP mailing list has moved! It now is even BETTER protected than it was. I even have a bit of trouble posting to it. To post to this list, send your email to: tap of diplom.org. But this is completely moderated, it won't go out to the list unless I approve it. In general, I intend to keep traffic down to just the szine, as we've been doing and I'll put your LOCs in here. I EXPECT all players to be on this list, especially those of you who are from foreign countries!!! You need this to find out when the szine is up on the web to check in on results.

General information about the mailing list is at: http://www.diplom.org/mailman/listinfo/tap

You can sign up from there, or send E-Mails to: Tap-request of diplom.org; with the word `help' in the subject or body (don't include the quotes), and you will get back a message with instructions. You must know your password to change your options (including changing the password, itself) or to unsubscribe. Normally, Mailman will remind you of your diplom.org mailing list passwords once every month, although you can disable this if you prefer. This reminder will also include instructions on how to unsubscribe or change your account options. There is also a button on your options page that will email your current password to you. A big, big thank you for Millis Miller for setting this all up!!

THE SEARCH FOR JEFF KEY

I've been planning to put Jeff Key up here many times in the past, but someone else always made it to the list. Since we have the aborted John Beshara search, this is the time to find Jeff. I met Jeff that I remember just once, I think it was at Paul Gardner's house and one of those wild spread out cons that he used to have at his house in Vermont. But I've not heard from Jeff now in many, many years. So let's go find him! As always it is worth fifty bucks if you locate him and get him to write to me. Jeff, of course, is most famous for devising and naming the Key Lepanto game opening alliance between Austria and Italy against Turkey. For some reason, I've been seeing LOTS of Key Lepantos or aborted Key Lepantos lately. It's about time that we find Jeff and see what he's been up to.

Feel free to spend the time looking for some of the backlog. Let's get Derek, Sylvain, Steve, Ed, Tom, Bill, Gregory, and ESPECIALLY Kevin found too!!! This is a regular continuing feature of the szine and I will be introducing a new "search for" every five issues. Moreover, you can win a $25 prize for finding some previous target who went unfound in the original $50 period. That means that if Steve Heinowski or Ed Henry or Tom Hurst or Bill Quinn or Gregory Stewart or Derek Nelson or Sylvain LaRose or John Smythe is "found" from now on it is worth $25.

Winners will receive credit for Dip hobby activities that I will pay out as requested by the winner. Subscribe to szines here or abroad, run your own contests, publish a szine, finance a web page, GO TO A DIPLOMACY CONVENTION or whatever. Spend it all right away or use me as a bank to cover hobby activities for years. What must you do to win? Get me a letter to the editor for TAP from the person we're searching for.

This is very important, just finding them doesn't do it. They have to write me a letter. The final judge as to the winner of any contest will be the target himself and I reserve the right to investigate the winning entry. When you find someone I'm looking for, you should ask him to send me a letter for print that includes a verification of who "found" him.

INTERNATIONAL SUBSCRIPTION EXCHANGE NEWS

The British representative is the editor of Mission From God, John Harrington. John may be contacted at 1 Churchbury Close, Enfield, Middlesex EN1 3UW, UK.

E-Mail: fiendish of operamail.com, John.Harrington of tfeurope.com

Please include the full name and address of the foreign publisher with your order, if possible, as well as the szine title. Make your check in US dollars out to me personally or in GBP to John if you're doing things from that end. I will conduct business for Canadians as well, if I can, but prefer to deal in US dollars with them if possible, or Canadian dollars cash. To subscribe to American szines, the system works in reverse.

We have closed the European continental branch, as I think most of you had figured out.

And the ISE in Australia hadn't had much real action in recent years, and Brendan Whyte has moved on to Jerusalem!!! Brendan still produces what I find to be the most readable small szine in the worldwide hobby. Did you all realize that? Write to Brendan at his new Jerusalem address and ask him about subscribing, I'm not sure what the new deal will be. Department of Geography, Faculty of Social Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, ISRAEL. His travelogues are wonderful, I particularly enjoyed the recent one describing his trip to Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius and the areas around and in-between. You all know what countries those are right? He also had a wonderful experience in a few hours on Belarussian soil stuck in a border crossing.

WORLDMASTERS04 SECTION

See http://www.worldmasters.net/wm04/ for details on progress on the WORLDMASTERS04, the Semifinals have now begun. Some semifinal notables include: Egg Ferreira, Buffalo Bartalone, Lee Simpson, Joe Janbu, Sebastian Beer, Jerry Fest, Twerg O'Donnchu, Tim Sweeney, Dave Partridge, Glenn Ledder, Adam Silverman, Toby Harris, and Thomas Franke. This is one of the deepest semifinal fields for this great tournament that I've seen, with representatives from nearly all of the world's hobby communities.

It is helping now that I've joined the Yahoogroup WM04-Chat where this discussion is happening. You can join too! However, this forum has been very, very quiet, I hope it picks up with semis, maybe I'll have to start some discussion. But most of the talk that there has been has about Yann Clouet and the French Hobby's new "World Palmares Evaluation" of FTF Diplomacy Play. Of course, Yann Clouet comes out #1, further backing up winning the John Koning award, and I am 1442nd (in a tie with Mark Nelson and Tony Dickinson, among others!). This uses lots of tournament results, more than 750 of them, and really is quite comprehensive. See those rankings at: http://www.18centres.com/SPIP3/article.php3?id_article=199

DIPDOM NEWS SECTION (with letters)

Obscure and not-so-obscure ramblings on the state of the hobby and its publications, custodians, events, and individuals with no guarantee of relevance from the fertile keyboard of Jim-Bob, the E-Mail Dip world, and the rest of the postal hobby. My comments are in italics and ((double quotation marks)) like this. Bold face is used to set off each individual speaker. I should also make a note that I do edit for syntax and spelling on occasion.

The game Diplomacy is a copyrighted product owned by Hasbro and all reproductions or other use of that material in this szine is intended to be personal use and not infringe on those rights in any way. All reproductions are done at a heavy financial loss to the editor and thus are without the remotest possibility of commercial intent, except to promote THE game, the Game of Diplomacy, which you all should purchase from Hasbro or other duly licensed distributors.

Stephen Agar has matched the Hasbro rule lists and more with some of the even older rulebooks. Check these out if you like:

http://www.hasbro.com/default.asp?xcc_gameandtoyinstructions

http://www.hasbro.com/instruct/Diplomacy.PDF

http://www.hasbro.com/instruct/Diplomacy(OlderVers).PDF

Nice of them to make BOTH of these available. And all seven different US rulebooks for Diplomacy can now be found here courtesy of Stephen Agar (relatively new address for this):

http://www.diplomacy-archive.com/diplomacy_rules.htm

Check out current and back issues of Diplomacy World - Yahoogroup diplomacyworld

Also, I need any Hobby Award Nominations NOW (!!!) for:

The 2005 Don Miller Award for Meritorious Service;

The 2005 Rod Walker Award for Literature;

The 2005 John Koning Award for Player Performance;

The 2005 Fred Hyatt Award for GM Performance;

A 2005 Kathy Byrne Caruso Award for Lifetime Achievement (if warranted).

The Hobby Awards Committee is Jim Burgess (Chair and Treasurer), Fred Davis, Jr., Melinda Holley, Gary Behnen, Jamie Dreier, Paul Kenny, Mark Stretch, and Robert Lesco. I was going to publish the award ballot for this year in this issue, but I realized that I really just had to get this out first and then do that....

Diplomacy World Issue Deadlines:

Deadline Spring 2006, Issue #97: March 1, 2006

Deadline Summer 2006, Issue #98: June 1, 2006

Note that Andrew Neumann has taken over the lead editorship from Tim Haffey. Get us articles NOW!!! The March issue has been delayed but should be out shortly. That probably means that Issue #98 will be delayed until Fall.

Editorial Board for Diplomacy World:

Andrew Neumann, andrewneum of gmail.com - New Lead Executive Editor!

Tim Haffey, 810 53rd Ave., Oakland, CA 94601 USA; trhaffey of aol.com - Ex-Lead Editor and Archives Editor

Jim Burgess, 664 Smith Street, Providence, RI 02908-4327, USA; burgess of world.std.com - Co-Editor and Publisher

Stephen Agar, 4 Cedars Gardens, Brighton, UNITED KINGDOM BN1 6YD; stephen of stephenagar.com - Webmaster and Non-US Postal

Rick Desper, 5440 Marinelli Road, #204, Rockville, MD 20852, USA; rick_desper of yahoo.com - Demo Games

Dave Partridge, 15 Woodland Drive, Brookline, NH 03033, USA; rebhuhn of rocketmail.com - US Postal

ATTENTION: There is a new company doing a new PC Diplomacy game:

http://www.paradoxplaza.com/news.asp?ArticleID=239&Page=News

This game is out and available. You all should read the interview in the Spring 2005 movement issue of the Diplomatic Pouch (and I mean ALL!!!!!!! of you!!!!!) that I think you can find at:

http://www.diplom.org/Zine/S2005M/

Contact Susana Meza, pr of paradoxplaza.com, the PR Director for more info or if you want demos or help with a Diplomacy convention! To find out more general information on DIPLOMACY please visit www.diplomacy-pcgame.com or contact pr of paradoxplaza.com

Mark Berch (Sun, 9 Jul 2006 17:08:53 -0400)

Congrats on reaching 300, and I do really appreciate your running Peery's wonderful piece on Beshara. I enjoyed it not only because he brought Beshara "alive" before our very eyes, but because it shows that Peery's writing hasn't missed a step. I also enjoyed the color fotos, especially the one of Smythe, who I corresponded with so many times but never met.

On the other hand, I certainly did meet Eric Ozog sometime in the mid or late 80s, and I don't remember him looking anything like that.....

- Mark L. Berch mberch of mac.com

((Thanks much. Of course, I also should have caught the Eric Ozog mistake since I've met Eric in person as much or more than most all of you. It just shows me that I need to look at my own szine more carefully. Luckily I can ;-) blame Doug Beyerlein since he produced this for me. We're still waiting to see who can identify just who that really was! You don't know? I think it's a West Coaster.))

Mark Berch (Mon, 10 Jul 2006 16:57:59 -0400)

It might be Mark Larzelere in a pensive move, perhaps contemplating a double pin......

- Mark L. Berch mberch of mac.com

((OK, let's go with that, hey Mark, did you look carefully at the pictures on the TAP web site?
http://diplom.org/DipPouch/Postal/Zines/TAP/Beyerlein.pdf
Note the picture at the very bottom of the second page between Edi Birsan and John McCallum. When I published it (straight from Doug Beyerlein) I didn't look carefully at that one. As it really is NOT anywhere close to Eric Ozog, especially back then when he was quite blond. If that is you, or someone you recognize, I would greatly appreciate it if you would fess up!))

Mark Larzelere (Tue, 11 Jul 2006 20:02:32 EDT)

Nope, that's definitely not either me or Eric Ozog. I have no idea who that is.

Mark, Mlarz of aol.com

((OK, all of you deadwood out there, SOMEONE must know who that is!!! See the link above, click it, look and check in with me any of you who were active in the early 1980's part of the hobby. That's an order!!!))

Tom Howell (Wed, 28 Jun 2006 22:42:03 -0700)

Jim, I have the Ishkibibble games recorded as dov. (Died on the Vine) ((Gotcha! In essence they never really got started, which is why they were so hard to restart.))

Thanks for printing Fred's movie list. We don't have a TV, therefore, no VCR either. Barb does bring home a combination VCR player/screen on occasion and we watch videos from the local library or rental store. I'll see if I can get her interested in seeing movies from Fred's list that we haven't both seen.

((Great, that's what Fred would want. Fred is a bit under the weather at the moment with continuing difficulties with various aging comorbidities. He wanted to guest GM a variant here, and may still do that in the near future. But in the meantime, we send him our best and some of you may want to do that personally as well!))

Thanks!

Best wishes, Tom, off-the-shelf of olympus.net

((And now, recall the exchange last issue on Jonathan's szine collection, well being in Eastern Washington, he is kinda close to you, Tom, so....))

Tom Howell (Wed, 28 Jun 2006 22:27:35 -0700)

Jonathan and Jim: I saw your exchange regarding old 'zines. My two cents worth follows. If there are better ideas, no hurt feelings here.

I recently told Tim Haffey that if we could figure out how to get Larry Peery's Dip Archives from Tim's place (in the Bay area of CA) to mine (near Port Angeles, WA), say later this year, before it gets wet, I could store them in my new garage until I have time to go through them. If they did end up here, eventually I would go through them cataloging and indexing. My ultimate goal would be to compare what I then had to Bowling Green's Popular Culture Library's Dip holdings and send them what they don't already have.

"Eventually", means, after I finish the garage and a house which currently exists only an paper and as concrete footings.

If this makes any sense to you and you don't get a better offer, we should talk further. As for transportation, do you ever come over to the wet side? If you were to visit the Seattle or Tacoma area later this summer or early in the fall, I could meet you some where for a transfer.

What are the dimensions on your "Banana Boxes"?

Best wishes, Tom, off-the-shelf of olympus.net

((Jonathan and Tom are making progress off line, but this exchange between me and Tom also is relevant to all of you.... Yes, Tom, I did think of you first, as Jonathan is somewhat physically near you, at least close enough that perhaps the two of you would be able to work out some mutually agreeable meeting place to save the effort and expense of "mailing" banana boxes.))

Tom Howell (Thu, 29 Jun 2006 22:22:55 -0700)

Jim, The effort will be transferring them from storage location to car to car to new storage location. The expense will be in the additional gas to cart them to or from the transfer point. I'm willing to pay my half! However, if someone else wants them more than I do, they'd be welcome to them.

((I'll bet this will work. You two don't have to include me in further discussions if you don't want to.))

I think I will, just FYI. You do seem to be a good clearing house for this kind of information.

((Yeah, well, I'm in touch with a whole lot of projects in a whole lot of corners of the Diplomacy hobby, too many actually, I don't have time to actually do anything, although I am playing in quite a few games in various places at the moment... Also, just FYI, Edi Birsan and Bill Blackmer are working out a deal about what to do with Tim's archives. Edi and Bill have this dream of scanning them all into PDFs. I think they dramatically underestimate the effort, but wish them luck....))

I did offer to take Tim's (Larry's) collection, but if they want to do the scanning and corrections, more power to them. Sounds very time consuming. Personally, I'm not a fan of pdf files, as they bloat up much larger than the information content. But then, if I wasn't still on dial-up, I probably wouldn't mind downloading them quite so much... ;)

((Well, you know, there are lots of variations in how you can get a scanned file to a PDF from a scanner, with VERY different implications for file size. I'm no expert, but you can save lots and lots of space by opening Adobe Acrobat first and then scanning FROM that software as opposed to using your scanner's software and then converting to Adobe. In extreme cases, I've seen a factor difference of more than 100 (that's 100 times, not 100 per cent!) in the size of the resulting file. A simple page with text can be as small as 15-20 KB (and that's tiny) when scanned in directly from Adobe, but easily can be over 1000 KB scanned any other way.))

Can you send me Edi's and Bill's e-addresses? I'd like to keep updated on their project and if they eventually decide to throw it over, I'd probably still be interested in taking the collection and sorting it with the intention of merging it into the Popular Culture Library's collection.

((Edi Birsan can be found at EdiBirsan of astound.net and Bill Blackmer can be found at bill of bbccd.org.))

I have some discussion of this in the overdue issue of o-t-s. Don't know when it'll be out - I'm in summer work mode. I suppose I should take a weekend off and just do it, but I took last weekend off and went to Deadwood con at Eric Ozog's. Terry, Daf, and John Biehl showed up, as well as Barb and I. Joan Extrom was going to come, but cancelled at the last minute. We played a lot of Carcassonne and a game of Lord of the Rings RISK! Eric won all the Carcassonne and the Good side won the Risk game.

Best wishes, Tom, off-the-shelf of olympus.net

((Ah, well, speaking of Bruce Linsey..... no, I guess you didn't, but you did mention Joan Extrom AND Carcassonne, Bruce has a number of things to chime in on about each of these issues in the last few letters, plus he had his own recent LabCon from which I excerpt part of the report. Since my brother and two nephews always go, I need to find some way to get to one of these soon, probably the "President's Day weekend" event next year.))

Bruce Linsey (Mon, 26 Jun 2006 15:57:31 EDT)

Hi ya Jim, "Jonathan K" is Jonathan Kelley - it was nice to see his letter in TAP #302. I've been in touch with him sporadically over the past few years.

I nearly died the night UCLA lost the NCAA basketball final to Florida. I've rooted for the Bruins for over thirty years now; they're my favorite team in all of sports. ((You know, I'm a huge UCLA fan too, but I'm also a huge Billy Donovan fan, and I had my prediction to protect where I actually did NAIL who was going to win. Of course, I also grew up as and still am a huge John Wooden worshipper. You will then also remember (being in the Capital District area) when there used to be late night Saturday night UCLA Bruins games telecast on.... I think it was Channel 10 in Albany in the 1970's when I was in high school. David was too young.... right Dave?... but I used to sit up late at night watching those games, those were the Bill Walton years. I had a tough time rooting for the Bruins with Jim Harrick, watching the whole Harrick thing (up close here for awhile at University of Rhode Island! and then off to Georgia with the famous Jim Harrick, Jr. "basketball final exam" that included the famous question, "how many points is a three point shot worth?" for college credit). But things are looking much better now as Ben Howland is a great coach and I'm reigniting my Bruins passion. It's always good to hear from John Wooden, possibly the kindest great man in all of sports.))

Was Jeff Key really at one of Paul Gardner's cons? I have no recollection of ever having met him! ((Yes!!! He didn't stay for the whole time as I recall, but I distinctly remember meeting him just once, and I thought it was at Paul Gardner's. I could be confusing my cons, that's always possible.....))

Nice to see that John Caruso is doing better. I'd like to get back in touch with him one of these days, as friends. ((We all hope so too....))

You are correct to say that my house cons aren't really Diplomacy cons - we play lots of different games (there are 1200 in our collection, and it's growing), but I can only recall one Diplomacy game here in the past eight years. Typically our house cons draw anywhere from 30 to 50 people - we set a record last summer with 63! (Good thing we have a house big enough to hold 'em all!) For the most part, we play the new German-style games (Settlers of Catan, Princes of Florence, et al) which didn't even exist back in postal Diplomacy's heyday. I keep a list of what's played and the winner of each game; at our last con, we played 140 different games. Several old-time Diplomacy folks still attend all or some of our cons, including Mike Barno, Dave Lincoln, Paul Gardner, Eric Brosius, Joan Extrom, Nelson Heintzman, and, of course, your brother Dave (he counts, right?). Alan Moon also shows up occasionally, when he's not too busy. Alan, of course, is widely known now as the best game designer in the U.S., with his latest success being Ticket to Ride and its offshoots.

Lab Con (our annual Fourth of July house con) starts in two days, and we're expecting about 50 people this time. We're psyched! I'll stop now, but I could talk all night about games and game cons...Diplomacy was just my start!

Bruce, GonzoHQ of aol.com

Bruce Linsey (Thu, 6 Jul 2006 16:28:35 EDT)

The ninth annual Lab Con was an enjoyable event as usual. Here are the 54 people who attended ((excerpted list of TAP/Dip related persons, just so you know "who's out there" if you want to connect up with old pals)): Donna Balkan, Mike Barno, Claire Brosius, Eric Brosius, Jo Brosius, Sam Brosius, Adam Burgess, Dave Burgess, Evan Burgess, Paul Gardner, Dave Lincoln, John Lincoln, Sue Lincoln, Bruce Linsey, Gary Linsey, Janet Linsey, Kevin Linsey, Krissi Linsey, Sandy Linsey, Shannon Linsey, Sugar Linsey, Jim McCarthy.... A very nice mix of people, I felt. As a group, we played 252 games overall, including 126 different games. Here are the games we played this time around.

((Get the list from Bruce if you want to see it.... no Diplomacy again, ;-) but lots of Carcassonne....))

Although other less substantial games were played more, I felt that the hits of this con were Thurn und Taxis, Tonga Bonga, and Indonesia. This is the third straight Lab Con at which Puerto Rico hasn't been played!

My personal stats: I played 50 games overall (all different), winning 11 1/6 times (the 1/6 of a win was in Shadows Over Camelot), and learned 23 games which were new to me. As usual, by playing so many new games, I discovered several good ones. To me, the best finds this time turned out to be: Tahiti, Shadows Over Camelot, Square Mile, Dawn Under, Tombouctou, Spree!, Cabale, and Bridges of Shangri-La. Some oldies-but-goodies that I had fun with included: St. Petersburg, El Grande, Tonga Bonga, Medici, Zendo, Royal Turf, Settlers Historical: Great Wall, Turfmaster, and several others.

I'm now within one good con of reducing my Games-Owned-But-Not-Yet-Played list down to below 200, which is where I'll want it to stay. Once I do, I will become much less interested in playing new games all the time, and able to concentrate more on enjoying old favorites.

The following changes have taken place to the Board of Champions:

Anne Norton added Thurn und Taxis (new), and St. Petersburg (taken from Eric Brosius). Eric Brosius added Outpost (new) and Tonga Bonga (new). Tom DeMarco added Caylus (new). Tim DeMarco added Magic: The Gathering (new). Andy Latto added Diamant (taken from Mike Barno). Dave Lincoln added Niagara (new). Larry Chong added Spinball (new). John Lincoln added Pit (new). This means that Eric is still the overall champ with 12 games to Anne's 11. Tom DeMarco and Dave Lincoln have five games each, while no one else has more than two.

As for future cons: We think (but are not yet sure) that we will have another themed con of some sort over New Year's weekend, just before we take off for Hawaii. We are fairly sure we will have KinderKon over Presidents Day weekend in mid-February. Lab Con next year will likely fall on the weekend before July 4 (the Fourth is on a Wednesday) and perhaps go through the holiday.

Thank you all again for attending. Bruce, GonzoHQ of aol.com

Robert Skynner (Thu, 22 Jun 2006 14:01:07 -0400 (EDT))

Dear Jim, I'm a member of the BT and Post office Board games Club, I enclose a copy of our Zines. I was wondering if you'd please be able to put an ad in your own zine or website for our club which is now so small that it's almost moribund. Even if people don't want to play in our games (Diplomacy and Railway Rivals) which are never more than one game of each at a time, at least they can subscribe to the zine by e-mail. Oh yes, we also run an occasional game called Brawl, it's a cowboy game set in a saloon and the last player standing is the winner.

You might be interested to know that the BGC is the second oldest in Europe and has been going for well over 30 years. If you can help in any way i'd be most grateful. I did try to contact Stephen Agar to update his information on the UK Diplomacy Page about the BGC, however my e-mail was returned to me as a bad address!!!

thanks, Robert Skynner, thebagge of yahoo.co.uk

((Hi Robert, Yes, Stephen has been going through lots of personal issues: divorce, job changes/difficulties and the like. He's pretty much separated at the moment. I'd be most pleased to run your ad. Does the Cowboy Fight game run postally, by E-Mail, or both? That in particular sounds really cool. It probably is similar to Snowball Fighting which is what we usually run over here in North America. But I love to play Snowball Fighting. PS Could we trade? What's your postal address..... even if you don't mail postally.....))

Ad: The British Telecom and Post Office Board Games Club (BGC) which is the second oldest diplomacy is now almost moribund and is desperately in need of new members. Our left-leaning Zine (The Bleeder) as well as it's hated right wing rival (The Tory Bleeder) are available from peter.r.williams of bt.com. You don't need to play any games to join the BGC club. However, we do offer occasional Railway Rivals games as well as Diplomacy (by e-mail only) and a vicious cowboy fight game set in a wild west saloon, where the last man standing in the saloon wins the game. This game is very quick, it takes 30 seconds to write your orders and you can shoot, kick, punch your hated rivals or even thrust a broken bottle into his face �- it�s fantastic but only if if you�re a sadist, just plain slick or a games fanatic!

Robert Skynner (Fri, 23 Jun 2006 08:54:28 0100 (BST))

Jim, The cowboy game is very simple and orders which are very basic and quick can be given over the phone (WE ARE THE BT Board Games Club) or via e-mail the normal way, or I guess by post. All other games are normally run by e-mail but phone is acceptable. Thanks for running the ad. My suggestion is that you e-mail peter.r.williams of bt.com and ask to receive the club magazine and to go onto the waiting list for Brawl.

Did I send you copies of the latest club magazines? I'll recheck my sent box and if I didn't, I'll send you a copy of each magazine. Peter who edits the Bleeder (I edit the Tory Bleeder) is always after press, so a brief low down on your club with contact details just in case any of our members wish to join your club would be greatly appreciated and we can also advertise your club for you.

thanks, Robert Skynner, thebagge of yahoo.co.uk

MUSIC AND MOVIES SECTION (WITH COMMENTS ON OTHER ARTS AND SOCIETY)

Tell me anything you like about the recent past in music. List a top two, a top ten, or a top 100, I don't care, just tell me something!! I've got my abbreviated best of 2005 below along with MANY other tidbits. Also, I have an all-time movie list from Fred Davis that REALLY will make it next issue.... sorry, Fred, for the even longer delay!

Drew James (Thu, 29 Jun 2006 13:34:18 -0400)

Jim,

Thanks for the back issues. I especially enjoyed reading about your DIDs, etc. Glad to see that you still appreciate Joy Division. I think I essentially finished my quest to own every song (but not every single re-mix) ever legally released by JD, New Order, Electronic, Monaco, Revenge, and The Other Two. I also saw New Order in New York last year. Other than that, I don't pay as much attention to new music as I used to and just get disgusted that I can't get my teenage son to listen to much more than classic rock - although I have been able to get him to enjoy the Pistols and The Clash.

Thanks, Drew, kjames01 of twcny.rr.com

((Really, that's tough when our children are less adventurous than we are!!! And that's right, you actually like New Order better than Joy Division, though, don't you? That's what I recall. I clearly like Joy Division better than New Order/Electronic etc.))

Drew James (Thu, 29 Jun 2006 16:01:22 -0400)

I would never say that I like NO better than JD. I think they are both great. NO does have a small number of bad songs and JD has none, but NO has a much larger body of work. However, JD was a tad before my time, so I grew up waiting for the next NO album to be released, seeing them in concert, etc while I never had that opportunity for JD.

Drew, kjames01 of twcny.rr.com

David Partridge (Wed, 28 Jun 2006 07:15:32 -0700 (PDT))

The Cardinals have lost 8 games in a row. And they are still on top of their division! The White Sox have the second best record in baseball, and are second in their division.

Sadly, the biggest story at the World Cup has been the refs. Way too many bad calls, and especially game changing ones. Play has been less than spectacular.

Lots of intriguing possiblities in football. One can't really claim there's parity, the discrepancy during the season between the good teams and the bad ones is actually quite large, but it does really seem that picking which teams will be in which category each year is getting harder. Pats, barring injuries, are looking pretty good.

Dave, rebhuhn of rocketmail.com

Rick Desper (Wed, 28 Jun 2006 07:54:20 -0700 (PDT))

The Red Sox have won 10 in a row and have not caught the White Sox! And while I keep expected the Tigers to eventually falter, right now it looks like the wildcard will come frome the Central Division.

((I think that given how many games that the Eastern teams have to play against each other, it is nearly assured that the Wild Card will come from the Central Division. I also note how well Mauer and the Twins are playing.... but they still can't make up any ground. At the present time, the Yankees and the Blue Jays are in big trouble and need to find a lot of wins before the All Star Break or even the Twins will pass them.))

On the World Cup, there are some very tasty possibilities coming up, especially Germany/Argentina and Brazil/France. Will this be Zidane's last game? Or possibly Ronaldo's? (But I expect it will be Zidane's.) And yes, the refereeing has been atrocious.

((Isn't it interesting that when you have atrocious refereeing, that the "favored" teams tend to win.... specifically the Europeans?))

Yeah, it's almost as bad as the NBA!

((I think that you have it exactly right that Germany/Argentina and Brazil/France will be tasty, but they will cause extreme heartburn unless you're a European fan. I'll be shocked if France and Germany don't win. And I'll also be shocked if there isn't lots of crying afterward about atrocious refereeing. You heard it here first..... yes, another Jim-Bob prediction. I actually think that England or Germany will win it all, but that's not based on much serious analysis. The first is a true prediction.))

Pats have a nice soft schedule and should win at least 12 games and a 1st-round bye. And that makes a huge difference come playoff time. ((Yawn..... ;-) But I'm sure you're right.))

I'm thinking the Colts will decline starting this year. They hit the breaking point with Yet Another Playoff Collapse last year. They look like the Atlanta Hawks of the 'Nique years: very flashy in the regular season, completely outmatched when it comes to the playoffs.

Rick, rick_desper of yahoo.com

((Hi guys, yes, TAP is back and these will be in the szine more timely..... promise! So all this World Cup discussion will only be just slightly out of date. Speaking of basketball, everything is abuzz in Boston since the Celtics are trying to trade for Allen Iverson in exchange for their pick plus others. While I am not a fan of Iverson the person, I am a fan of Iverson the basketball player and the Celtics would make a huge run next year with Iverson/Pierce.))

Rick Desper (Fri, 30 Jun 2006 05:03:16 -0700 (PDT))

Just got my TAP this morning. Gotta get my World Cup picks in before the games start.

I have read the coverage of the draft, mostly by reading Bill Simmons. Should the C's simply have held onto Randy Foye? I know they needed a PG badly, but did they really want to get two?

((Danny is saying that he wants to "play two" point guards while counting Delonte West as a point guard now too - though he (like Iverson) was originally a two. The debate here is whether Danny is just blowing smoke and that Telfair or West is going to Philly in the trade for Iverson and the other plays alongside Iverson as a standard Point OR whether he's serious that he wants all his guards to be point/two's. Those views may not be mutually exclusive since Iverson's been playing the point. But Iverson definitely is being traded from all the buzz and the C's are in the running. Ainge didn't like Foye or any of the other two guards. We've not heard precisely why he and everyone else seemed to discount UConn players in the draft. Perhaps you have a view on that as a huge UConn fan? There also are a lot of "undrafted" guys who are garnering lots of interest, especially Pittsnogle.))

Rudy Gay is universally acclaimed as having tremendous talent and potential. And he was damnably invisible half the time for UConn. He was the best player on a team that was upset by George Mason because they never really played like a team. He seems to have a bad attitude and looks likely to be yet another talented swingman that doesn't work hard. Dime a dozen in the NBA.

Marcus Williams didn't have Gay's motivational issues. OTOH, he has a criminal record, having been arrested for theft last year. Red flags galore. As I understand it, Ainge prefers Telfair over any of the rookie point guards anyway.

I've been waiting for all these early draft picks to bear fruit, but it still looks like Paul Pierce has little real help.

I have found it very hard to watch the NBA in the post-Jordan era. And from what I've read, the latest Finals would not change my opinion much. It sounds like David Stern made sure he didn't have to give the trophy to Mark Cuban.

*tweet* And it's another two free throws for Dwayne Wade.

((I actually found the games kinda watchable. I didn't watch all of them, but they were better games than has passed for playoff play in the NBA in recent years.))

I would be stunned if England won it all. They have a good team, but not a championship team.

Predictions for the quarters, in decreasing order of confidence:

Brazil over France: Yes, France looked good against Spain, and they do appear to be playing better. Also, it will not be easy to knock Zidane out of his last World Cup. But Brazil has a lot of players as good as Zidane. Brazil should win. Their one weakness has been a tendency to play at the level of their opponents, but I don't think they'll take France lightly.

The Spanish team, while they dominated the game, was ripe for plucking. It seemed their only plan for defense was to get Thierry Henry whistled for offside repeatedly. (And he obliged!) After France tied the game right before halftime, Spain seemed to collapse psychologically. I expect Brazil to win.

Italy over Ukraine: Ukraine is lucky to still be around. They are here because they landed in a pathetically easy group and because the Swiss didn't really try to score at all in the 2nd round game. I think the vaunted Italian defense should be able to shut down Shevchenko and company.

England over Portugal: The papers are worried because Portugal's coach Scolari is 2-0 against England in recent years. Of course, one of those two games was when he was coaching Brazil in 2002. I would discard that. The other game came to penalty picks, so I would say it's a wash. England is playing moderately well, though nobody thinks they're really in top form. Portugal will be missing three of their best players to red cards and injury from the game against Holland. That's going to be a bit too much to overcome.

Germany over Argentina: This is very, very hard to pick. If the game were being played anywhere but in Germany, I would pick Argentina. And if Argentina hadn't played such an uninspiring game against Mexico, I would pick Argentina. Sadly, Argentina has not made any deep runs in the tournament since Maradona's days, and I fear that this rule will hold, esp. given the German talent for winning games in a manner that baffles prognosticators. They never really seem that good or talented. They just win. I don't even know how they'll win.

In any case, I take the winner of this game as the favorite for the Cup, with Brazil as runner-up.

Rick, rick_desper of yahoo.com

p.s. *tweet* Another free throw for Dwayne Wade. Oh, and Thierry Henry is offside again.

Rick Desper (Fri, 30 Jun 2006 05:54:31 -0700 (PDT))

This World Cup has been particularly good for nice goals. The goal Goz mentions, the 15-pass goal for Argentina against Serbia, the Beckham free kick against Ecuador, Joe Cole's volley, Zidane's goal against Spain, many of Brazil's goals....

I really think the biggest difference between the top teams and many of the competitive also rans is the ability to convert a goal-scoring opportunity into an actual goal. A lot of the lesser teams like the US, Australia, Ghana, South Korea, etc., are good enough in the middle 80 yards of play, but just do not score enough. (This is particularly true of the US team.) Time after time I see a player with an open shot panic and shoot wildly. That was one very impressive thing about Zidane's goal. He knew he was past the defense and only had to beat one defender and the goalkeeper. He patiently moved forward and beat the defender with a ball trick. And then he got the goalie wrongfooted and simply tapped the ball in. Ronaldo also has this ability to shoot quickly and accurately. This is my one concern about Argentina, who seemed to be pressing against Mexico. If they play with less than full confidence, Germany will smack them. If they can get all their players going at full speed, they are more talented than Germany, and should win. My pick is basically a coin toss.

Rick, rick_desper of yahoo.com

((Rick probably is more accurate in his assessments here than me, I'll admit, I have the least sense for how good Germany really is vs. how they've benefitted from the doubt of the referees, the opposing teams, and most importantly their cheering fans.))

Warren Goesle

Since I'm strapped for time just now, let me just say I agree with all of Rick's WC picks, except I think that even home cooking can't help Germany against Argentina.

And as a followup from my Indy 500 comment in the szine, if you can't appreciate the winning goal that Argentina had against Mexico, you're not a sports' fan.

Goz, [email protected]

((True enough.... sorry I missed both in real time.))

Dave Partridge (Fri, 30 Jun 2006 06:59:38 -0700 (PDT))

Pick wise I agree with Rick's rundown.

France did play well against Spain, although Spain looked uninspired, but I don't see the play they've been doing generating enough goals against Brazil. Brazil is playing (as always) where one just has to expect several break away opportunites each half, and their forwards can be counted on to maintain their calm and turn those chances into goals. I'm expecting at least two Brazilian goals and I don't see France getting three.

((I think this is the game that will have people screaming the most afterward about refereeing. If you think the discussions about the referees have been vehement thus far, you ain't seen nuttin yet. My prediction, hinted at previously but stated specifically now, is that France will win 2-1 or 1-0, probably in overtime, and on controversy from the referees - big time.))

Italy will most likely beat Ukraine, but I'm thoroughly unimpressed with Italian play. The game with the US was a refereeing fiasco, but still they should have won it if they are to be considered real contenders. Against the Aussies they were down a man for a lot true, but again their play didn't inspire me. I still expect them to win this round, but certainly not the next.

((I agree with this completely, Italy wins this round and then loses. And France/Italy will be THE most boring game of the entire World Cup. They will surely be nil-nil in regular time, and it probably comes down to a shootout. But France has ZERO chance in the final. AFTER THE END UPDATE: I got all confused about who was going to play whom in the Semis, I would still stick with this pick of France/Italy being the most boring game, although today some could argue that. And I did say that France had "Zero chance in the Final", so that's a good pick..... nah, I admit it, I didn't think Italy had a shot.))

I'm going with Germany over Argentina. Again, the Argentinian performance against Mexico did not look like what I was expecting from them. Yes, the goal against Mexico was a thing of beauty, but that's not going to be enough against Germany. If they play Germany like they played Mexico, they will lose.

((Germany will win pretty easily.))

England I think will prevail over Portugal, but again I think that's as far as they are going. So it's Brazil against Germany in the finals, which will be tight, but I give the disciplined German team the home field advantage over the individual heroes of Brazil.

Dave, rebhuhn of rocketmail.com

((England will beat Portugal and then England/Germany will be for the cup and will be the BEST game of the World Cup. I'll pick England here, but no real thought about how that will happen.))

Dave Partridge (Fri, 30 Jun 2006 08:01:28 -0700 (PDT))

Kickoff in one minute. Wish there was something better on the net than the livecast from fifaworldcup.yahoo.com. Live streaming video would be nice ( < :. I actually hauled an old TV and an antenna to my work but it's down between hills and I can't get either of the two spanish stations so I don't get to watch. Pity they didn't decide to prempt the daily soaps for the games so I could watch on the major network, but I'm very glad for the Spanish stations as they run ALL the games so I'm not shut out of any (not having cable).

Dave, rebhuhn of rocketmail.com

((Unfortunately, some of us have to work and can't do this. I also don't have cable of course and hope I can get some coverage over the weekend in Maine.....))

Dave Partridge (Fri, 30 Jun 2006 10:57:23 -0700 (PDT))

Game over, Germany wins 4-2 in penalty kicks. I gave in and went home for lunch (the advantage of living 3 miles from work and being a one man office ( < : ). A good game, tied 1-1 in regulation, no scoring in the overtimes. Argentina scored first with a very nice header and Germany responded with their own great header goal. The refs were a bit free with the yellow cards in my opinion, but they didn't make any game changing calls. Argentina played much better than against Mexico I think. Pity they had to meet this early.

Dave, rebhuhn of rocketmail.com

Dave Partridge (Fri, 30 Jun 2006 12:41:55 -0700 (PDT))

Hi Jim, Don't know how far up in Maine you are. In the Boston area, channel 27 is the Spanish station that carries everything.

Dave, rebhuhn of rocketmail.com

((Thanks! Yes, I know, I can pick up Channel 27 pretty well in Providence with my antenna booster. And even though I'm not TOO far up into Maine, and I can get some of the Boston radio stations at my camp, the TV signals just die. As I learned when I got my radio broadcast license in college, you can orient antennae to be directional in particular directions of interest and for Boston, Maine is not one of them, while your part of New Hampshire would be, I would think. I think there is some other Maine Spanish station that I can get from Portland. I'll try. Is there a second game today? LATE ADD ON: I was able to get nothing in Maine - they also don't have a Fox station so I can't watch Red Sox games when they're on Fox's Saturday Game of the Week - as they are about half the time it seems - so for visuals, I was pretty well shut out.))

Dave Partridge (Fri, 30 Jun 2006 12:50:21 -0700 (PDT))

Nice goal by Italy in the 6th minute. Very little else happening as far as I can tell (back at work so I only have the scrolling commentary). It's 1-0 at the half.

Dave, rebhuhn of rocketmail.com

((Well, my predictions are coming true so far..... the real one that is going to be surprising is if Brazil loses. I think they will. ;-) ))

Dave Partridge (Fri, 30 Jun 2006 13:21:00 -0700 (PDT))

Hi Jim, Now 2-0 Italy.

Dave, rebhuhn of rocketmail.com

Warren Goesle (Sat, 1 Jul 2006 22:22:30 -0500)

Wow. All-Europe Semis. Germany/Italy & Portugal/France. Too bad England crapped out and didn't make it an all-Diplomacy semis. I've got Germany beating Portugal in the Finals.

Goz, [email protected]

Rick Desper (Sun, 2 Jul 2006 04:42:10 -0700 (PDT))

England outplayed Portugal for most of the game. They just didn't score. And then Rooney got frustrated and drew the red card. Their penalty kicking was atroicious. You would think they'd learn how to do that at some point.

I think France will handle Portugal easily. Zidane is back into the form of five years ago, and I think he can keep it up for two more games. I still think I'll accept the idea that Germany will lose at home only when I see it. I think it'll be Germany over France in the Finals.

Rick, rick_desper of yahoo.com

Dave Partridge (Wed, 5 Jul 2006 08:29:35 -0700 (PDT))

Well, so much for our great predictive abilities ( < :.

Jim had it right with France, they deserved to win that game. I didn't get to see the finish of the German/Italian game, but through the first overtime I have to say that I thought Italy was playing better. Much as they've done in the past they seem to play much better in the later rounds.

Portugal/England was unimpressive all around, with the exception of the Portuguese goalie during the penalty shoot out. He guessed every single shot right, even getting a hand on the one that got in. Either the English really telgraphed their shots or he's very very good at penalty kick blocking.

I'm sure I'm just setting myself up for another failure, but I'll pick France over Portugal based on the play that I've seen from them so far.

Dave, rebhuhn of rocketmail.com

Warren Goesle (Wed, 5 Jul 2006 23:18:02 -0500)

I got into the ESPN pool on this one. Was doing real well until the Quarters (as in "top 3% of 100K"...now I'll be lucky to make the top half). Got Italy right in the first Quarter match and have missed everything since. So I'll take Germany in the 3rd place match and Italy as overall champ, ensuring that they'll both bite it.

Goz, [email protected]

((LATE UPDATE: Goz looked pretty prescient at the end of it all. He wins the TAP prize....))

Rick Desper (Thu, 6 Jul 2006 02:51:25 -0700 (PDT))

Germany over Portugal is a gimme. Portugal probably won't care, and they won't get any of their patented diving calls aganist the home team.

I'm hard-pressed to make my mind up about the final. I've already seen my favorites Argentina and Germany fall by the wayside, and I'm reluctant to make another prediction.

Italy has the stronger defense, but they don't really have any offensive weapons quite as good as the combination of Zidane, Henry, and Ribery. Zidane in particular is playing better than anybody else, and that's always a good reason to go with a team. OTOH, Barthez was miserable last night, and lucky to avoid any goals.

If I were a betting man, I would go with the "under" here, and possibly go with a prop bet that Zidane scored, combined with an insurance bet that Italy got a shutout. I won't pick a winner, but I think there's potential for a great final.

Watch out for the punk de Rossi. He'll be back from his 4-game suspension for elbowing Brian McBride. He had a firm grip on Most Loathsome for the tournament until last night, when Ronaldo's running dive put him firmly in the lead. I wonder if he realizes just how ridiculous he has made himself look on the world stage.

Rick, rick_desper of yahoo.com

((Yeah, I didn't see Italy winning at all. I had a question. I can see why you have shootouts in some games. But in THE final game, shouldn't you just play on until someone scores??? I know the answer always is that this is not a fair test of stamina, that's what the extra 30 minutes are about. OK, let's say we accept that (fair, I think), then, if you are going to have "kicks", I think doing it as trading corner kicks is more of a "team effort" than penalty kicks. Why not have five ten second timed corner kicks for each side instead? It might be a BIT tricky timing these, you could also have the corner kick go until the defending team knocks the ball back away from the goal, but this might also be hard to judge. Still, it would seem much preferable to the shootout. Arguably, the corner kick is the most exciting play in soccer.))

Dave Partridge (Wed, 12 Jul 2006 07:47:13 -0700 (PDT))

I like that idea. How do we start the groundswell to adopt it?

Dave, rebhuhn of rocketmail.com

Warren Goesle (Wed, 12 Jul 2006 22:43:26 -0500)

While there may be a better way to decide ties, I still think that the game has a fundamental flaw. A statistic I saw today said that in the 64 games played in this years' WC, there were only 120 non-penalty-kick goals. Something has to be done to open up the flow of the game. I don't know if it's fewer players, more subs, more penalties for flopping, shorter fields, or something else.

Joke making the rounds: Why do so many people play soccer? So they don't have to watch.

Hockey opened up their game, and it was better than it had been for a long time. Even though Stanley Cup scoring wasn't up the game was continuously end-to-end, and looked like there were a lot more scoring chances than there had been. It was a lot better watching than, say, the years that the Devils won with their clutch-and-grab in the neutral zone style, and it gave both the better attackers and better goaltenders a chance to excell.

Soccer needs to do something along those lines. It's just too hard to mount an attack. FWIW.

In my next email I'll detail ways that the Cubs can improve enough to be contenders. Hopefully Jim-Bob will have 20 pages or so that he needs filled in TAP.

Goz, [email protected]

((My breath is so bated that it solidified and broke the table in front of me....))

David Partridge (Wed, 12 Jul 2006 20:47:54 -0700 (PDT))

Much as I hate to say it, the answer is more yellow cards. But hand them out for the dives. Way too much diving going on. Anybody who has to be pulled off the field on a stretcher shouldn't be up and running again a minute later. I applauded the English when they got so fed up with the Portuguese diving that they ignored the man "down" and kept on playing.

Other than that I'm not really sure what you'd do to increase scoring. Perhaps make the goals a bit wider? That would encourage more shooting from long distances.

Dave, rebhuhn of rocketmail.com

P.S. Go to bed, it's late!

Warren Goesle (Wed, 12 Jul 2006 22:59:50 -0500)

Last I checked, you were on Eastern, and I was on Central.

Goz, [email protected]

Rick Desper (Thu, 13 Jul 2006 03:24:13 -0700 (PDT))

I don't know if the game needs to be opened up for more scoring. But they really need to do something about the diving and bad sportsmanship. Diving is already a cardable offense - it's just hard to enforce. The solution is to have more enforcement via postgame scrutiny. Many of the dives that are not apparent to the referee are quite apparent to the TV camera. ((There is a little of this in basketball, but I don't know any other sport that is so enamored of flopping around and pretending you've been hit or hurt. Ideally, you would get it out by appealing to manliness or something, so that people who dove were immediately persona non grata in the sport.))

I hate the penalty shootout but it does resolve the game quickly. Ideally teams would continue to play until somebody scored, but that becomes increasingly unfeasible as all the players become more and more tired. The corner kick idea is interesting but it won't happen.

My post-tournament rankings, based on play in this tournament.

1) Italy - the most consistent, and the only team to beat either Germany or France. Best defense by far and one of the best goalkeepers. Could probably use a bit more scoring, though they didn't need it in this tournament.

2) Germany - by a smidgen over the #3 team. They were more consistent than France and actually beat Argentina, who were probably the best team. Germany had the most productive offense and a great goalie, but were a bit weak on defense.

3) Argentina - if the tournament were to start again tomorrow, Argentina would be the favorite. They need to play Messi more. In theory, they should have gotten at least two goals against Germany, even with Germany playing at home.

4) France - a bit inconsistent. When Zidane is on and Henry is playing well, they are as good as anyone. Defense is very good, but Barthez was not a top goalkeeper.

5) Brazil - considering the talent, this team was a huge disappointment. Their coach never demanded fitness from their team and never instituted a game plan to win games. Scolari would have won the Cup with the talent here. How did Ronaldinho, FIFA's player of the year, disappear AGAIN in a World Cup? He's running out of excuses. Even fat Ronaldo was more impressive.

6) Portugal - a hard pick for #5, as I almost put Portugal ahead of Brazil. Portugal has a solid defense and good scorers, but Crispino Ronaldo really needs to grow up. His habit of diving indicates a lack of confidence in his team's ability to win a fair game. Ricardo is a great goalkeeper.

7,8,9) England, Spain, and Holland. All talented teams, all perenially underachieving in major tournaments.

Other notables:

Ukraine: they got to the quarters mostly because they had a lucky draw. Shevchenko is a great player, and ultimately losing to Italy doesn't look so bad in retrospect. But Italy was a LOT better.

Ghana and Ivory Coast: very exciting teams that are still a bit too sloppy to beat the best teams. Sad for Ghana that they didn't have Michael Essien to play Brazil.

South Korea and Japan: both teams fell off a lot from their performance levels from their home matches in 2002. I expect them to be back.

US and Mexico: US was a major disappointment. I think Arena has run out his string, and that the team needs a new high-profile coach like Klinsman to bring them to the next level. A lot of players were no better in 2006 than they were in 2002. With Freddy Adu making his way through the pipeline, the US needs to work harder.

Mexico was very impressive in their game against Argentina. They seem to play poorly against European teams, though, compared to how they play the South American teams. Both Mexico and the US need to play more outside of CONCACAF.

Switzerland: great defense, but they really need to score a bit more.

Czechs: sad that they had to essentially play without their top two strikers. A great goalie in Cech and we saw in the first game the level they are capable of playing at. But they apparently took Ghana lightly and it was too late for them when they needed to beat a tough Italy squad to advance. They will be back.

Rick, rick_desper of yahoo.com

Dave Partridge (Fri, 14 Jul 2006 13:53:42 -0700 (PDT))

Hi Jim, I should be able to get Tinamou to you by Monday evening.

Regards, Dave, rebhuhn of rocketmail.com

((That will be just peachy.))

Dave Partridge (Fri, 14 Jul 2006 14:58:11 -0700 (PDT))

You know, for the first time, my peach tree has peaches! Lots of them. Hopefully some will even survive the birds/bugs/etc. Just thought you'd want to know (<:.

Regards, Dave, rebhuhn of rocketmail.com

((Dave's Tinamou immediately follows this page. In his editorial, he refers to some of the recent work by a number of economists to torpedo the "strict blue state/red state" characterization of the US. Let me briefly summarize some of the conclusions of that work, to set up what Dave's going to say, along with a few of my own comments. Like Dave, I think of myself primarily as a liberal Republican politically, in the flavor that you see today primarily in New England, but despite the debunking you're going to see below, I am convinced that (and this is a common enough suggestion that you can count on at least one more Democratic Senate seat in the fall if things keep going the way they're going in this state) I can't keep voting for Lincoln Chafee (our Rhode Island resident liberal Republican) and have to support the Democratic challenger. In 2000, I voted for Chafee thinking I was voting for a swing Republican voter. While Chafee really has influenced amazingly little in the last six years (one problem), the bigger problem is that the liberal Republican block as a whole just doesn't seem to be able to do much.))
((Anyway, what all this research is showing that I find interesting is that the variation that we call "polarized Red State/Blue State" really is a continuum of Purples. Gerrymandering of districts has made each individual Congressional district more Red or Blue, to be sure, but that really doesn't translate all that well to the state level, despite the Presidential election maps that people draw. Moreover, it also explains why the midterm election is going to hinge on debates about stem cell research and gay marriage. There is a bit of "polarization" in the country on moral issues, though not nearly as much as rhetoric might lead you to believe, but surprisingly little variation of thought on economic issues, and NO evidence at all of polarization on economics. Nearly all Americans are middle of the road, generally believing in the benefits of free market economics and free trade, but with concerns about the power of corporate America and even larger multinationals. In the areas where economics suggests free markets don't work that well, like health care, they see more need for government involvement. But this lack of polarization makes it difficult to define parties and raise money around economic issues. Raise money and fight about that which is polarized, that is the secret to raising enough money. And on economics, both parties are oriented toward big business almost equally. BUT, even there, the moral polarization that does exist if anything has been slightly shrinking, YET most people still vote on the economic issues, regardless of the rhetoric!!! And where that breaks down (voting on Economics) is in the rural areas that are very conservative morally. They vote on morals, against their economic interest, and it can be proven that they suffer still further economically for it. That hasn't been explained all that well. And there still is a whole lot of cultural diversity between Cambridge, MA and Fargo, ND, but it isn't a red state/blue state divide, but a cultural continuum that zigzags around between states and communities in a far from linear fashion. Like David, I do think all this is quite fascinating. If the way politics works is to be changed, we could remove the gerrymandering of Congressional districts (though I'm not sure how) or we could change the money, lobbying, revolving door between gov't and corporate America, both are nearly impossible to see happening, but they have to if the political game is to change.))

THE ABYSSINIAN PRINCE GAMES SECTION

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He said he'd talk to him. Gonna start a church where you can save yourself,

You can make some noise, When you've got no choice...

You told me useful things, what people think of me, I guess I should thank you.

It's true, then I agree... I'm all alone, I've got no choice,

I'm all alone, I've got no choice."

From "Got No Choice" by the incomparable Mark Cutler, from the CD Mark Cutler and Useful Things.

If you want to submit orders, press, or letters by E-Mail, you can find me through the Internet system at "burgess of world.std.com". If anyone has an interest in having an E-Mail address listed so people can negotiate with you by computer, just let me know. FAX orders to (401) 277-9904 if you let me know in advance to be sure the fax machine is set up.

I am continuing to note cut or failed support orders with a small "s" instead of a capital "S". This will make it easier on the E-Mailed version of the szine to see what happened, since the italics don't show there. The italics DO show on the web page just fine.

Standby lists:

Mike Barno, Dick Martin, Brad Wilson, Jack McHugh, Glenn Petroski, Steve Emmert, Mark Kinney, Vince Lutterbie, Eric Brosius, Paul Rauterberg, Bob Osuch, Doug Kent, Sean O'Donnell, Vern Parker, Heath Gardner, Paul Kenny, and Jeff O'Donnell stand by for regular Diplomacy.

Let me know if you want on or off these lists, especially OFF. Standbies get the szine for free and receive my personal thanks.

GAME OPENING INFORMATION

We've got lots of openings in the subszines, check them out!!! Especially, contact Rip Gooch for Railway Rivals, see Rip's subszine elsewhere in most issues of TAP. Contact Rip Gooch directly at xyropedes of canada.com and try to entice him to return. Rip has been a bit missing in action lately, but I am assured that he SHALL return.

I'm ready to start a new Breaking Away game, who's interested??? Challenge David Partridge again as he is in, so are Brendan Whyte and Alexander Woo. I also am giving a free spot to Eric Martin. Anyone else? Rick Desper is in too. That leaves us looking for ONE more spot, can I convince someone to take that now??? Please, please, I'd like to get toward starting that next issue!!!

I am willing to open another new game of REGULAR Diplomacy if there is enough interest!!! I have seven I'm putting in this game, and I think there was even more interest for another game (starting with Sean O'Donnell - Sean and Jeff both wanted into this game, but I decided to put Jeff in since Jeff gave me a preference list first. If you WANT me to use the preference lists I have, please send them in. I only have preference lists from three of you, and I still need some game fees. We have Marc Ellinger (pd), Drew James (pd),Don Williams, John Crow, Fred Wiedemeyer, David Burgess, and Jeff O'Donnell. For truth in advertising, David is my brother, but I will be scrupulously fair in GMing things and if in doubt, will call on an ombudsman... or just rule against Dave.... that's fair, right??? ;-)

Also, is there any interest in another game of Nuclear Yuppie Evil Empire 7x7 Dip? I know it may be getting tired, but I really like it. We have Karl Schmit and Sean O'Donnell on the list, let's get seven!! It's FREE!!!

I also am starting a game of the variant I designed, Spy Diplomacy. Signups for that are now open. I'll publish the rules shortly or you can look at them at www.variantbank.org. Bruce Edwards and Eric Ozog are signed up. I'll try to remember to punch in the rules in the next issue.

John Harrington is offering to guest GM a game of Office Politics. Any interest in that?? Let me or John know! Jody McCullough and Bruce Edwards are interested, anyone else?

And since Colonia is over, Harold Reynolds is looking to start something else.

Also, I am going to design some postal rules for Devil Take the Hindmost, and we have an opening here: Bruce Edwards, Mike Barno, and Eoghan Barry are signed up. Postal rules from me will be forthcoming shortly, on my never ending to-do list. I will get them in SOON! I'm more likely to get these things started if I see some interest..... I've GOT to do this now, Eoghan is getting tired of waiting....

Right now, the other thing going is the Modern Diplomacy game with Wings. Sean O'Donnell, Jeff O'Donnell, Steve Koehler, Art Schleinkofer, Bob Holt, Rick Desper, Alexander Woo, and Dave Partridge are signed up for that. I will start it when I get a full complement of players, we only need TWO more!

TAKING OVER ISHKIBIBBLE'S REGULAR DIPLOMACY GAMES ((NOT))

Last chance is gone here, these games never really got going all that far in the first place. And I really couldn't get back more than one player in each game and it seemed silly to get that many standbys. Any of you old Ishkibibbleites want to play in a new game start?? Or should I just drop the free subs I've been giving you all?? Your choice. Anyone who was a subber to Ishkibibble may join any new game for free, but this is a ONE TIME only offer, get your request in now. Marc Ellinger and Fred Wiedemeyer already have taken us up on this request. Come on, let me call by name who qualifies for this deal..... Karl Schmit, John Power, Tim Snyder, Dave Partridge, Graham Wilson, and Kevin Wilson. I especially would like to fill the Modern Diplomacy game that Dave Partridge already is in.

SPIRALS OF PARANOIA: 2005A, Regular Diplomacy

THE DUE DATE FOR SPRING 1904 IS AUGUST 5TH, 2006

Autumn and Winter 1903

AUSTRIA (Rauterberg): bld a bud; has a BUD, a VIE, a SER, a RUM, a BUL, a TRI, f GRE.

ENGLAND (Wiedemeyer): R a swe otb; has f LVP, a WAL, f ENG, f NWG.

FRANCE (Tretick): rem a gas; has f MID, f NAT, a CLY, f IRI.

GERMANY (Ozog for Tallman): bld a mun, a kie; has a MUN, a KIE, a SIL, a TYO, f SWE,

a MAR, a PIC, f DEN.

ITALY (O'Donnell): rem a tun; has f TUS, a VEN, a APU, f ION.

RUSSIA (Sundstrom): has a GAL, a SEV, a UKR, a STP.

TURKEY (Biehl): has f AEG, f CON, f SMY.

Addresses of the Participants

AUSTRIA: Paul Rauterberg, 3116 W. American Dr., Greenfield, WI 53221,

(414) 281-2339 (E-Mail) trauterberg of wi.rr.com

ENGLAND: Fred Wiedemeyer, Box 92010-Meadowbrook RPO, Edmonton, ALBERTA CANADA T6T 1N1,

(780) 465-6432, wiedem of planet.eon.net

FRANCE: Buddy Tretick, 5023 Sewell's Pointe Way, Fredericksburg, VA 22407, (540) 898-3386

cell (540) 226-5571 (E-Mail) berniebuddy32 of aol.com

GERMANY: Terry Tallman, PO Box 782, Clinton, WA 98236, (360) 331-5698 ($2)

terryt of whidbey.net

GERMANY: Temporary Standby is Eric Ozog, PO Box 1138, Granite Falls, WA 98252-1138,

(360) 691-4264, ElfEric of Juno.com

ITALY: Jeff O'Donnell, 402 Middle Ave., Elyria, OH 44035-5728,

(440) 322-2920 or (440) 225-9203 (cell, as late as midnight Eastern)

RUSSIA: Matt Sundstrom, 1760 Robincrest Lane South, Glenview, IL 60025, (847) 729-1882,

Matt.Sundstrom of bbdoch.com or mattandzoe of earthlink.net

TURKEY: John Biehl, #8 - 11530 84th Avenue, Delta, BRITISH COLUMBIA, V4C 2M1 CANADA,

(604) 591-1832(???) ($7); jrb of dccnet.com

Game Notes:

1) Terry is still having some medical problems, Eric Ozog is continuing to negotiate and submit orders for Terry. Eric originally brought Terry into the Diplomacy hobby all those many years ago, and so I'm glad he's agreed to do this.

2) Note that Buddy has finally completed his change of address, with the slow but steady tortoise move of the US Postal Service. I'm not sure the postal service is quite right yet, since I'm not sure he ever got the last issue that I sent to that address.

Press:

(7 OF 9'S LOG): Captain Pike has been relieved of duty, I am in temporary command. First Captain Pike marooned a troop transport on Deep Space One with no way to transport the men back to Vulcan. Then he used the Enterprise to help abandon Deep Space Two in anticipation of an obvious Cardassian attack. The thing is, the Enterprise could have held Deep Space Two had Pike chosen to fight. With the loss of DS 2, we will have to decommission DS 1's troop transport, leaving it defenseless. On top of that, the Ferengi, led by another holdover from my universe is about to attack to get revenge for the Federation takeover of Ferengar in that universe. This Federation is about to fall, partially because of my predecessor's one fatal mistake.... 7 out.

(BERNE[D]), DEC 31, 1903): The Center for Strategic Studies observes that Austria-Hungary has taken Rumania from the Russians, Bulgaria from the Turks and, now, Greece from the Italians. All three have lost traditional protectorates to the Austrian hegemonist. If they do not unite to extirpate the aggressor they each, in turn, shall fall.

(JEFF to PAUL): Nice stab! Not that I didn't see it coming.

(7 OF 9 to GUL DUKAT): Die! Cardassian scum!!

(ITALY to TURKEY): ... Help! ...

(JEFF to BUDDY): I should have listened, at least I would have gone down fighting. The best part is you will probably outlast me.

(JEFF to JIM): I'm glad you're not dead!... You might wish you were the first time you see Jason Johnson pitch!

(JIM-BOB to JEFF): Ohhhhhhh, the Red Sox sent Jason down, but they're actually talking about bringing him back to start in Wakefield's spot over the upcoming weekend. Talk about heartburn! I think I will wish I was dead if he starts another game..... the Yankees are right on our heels! At least the Rookie pitchers are all holding their own or better. Update, we got ANOTHER rookie pitcher up instead, a guy named Gabbard who manager Tito Francona keeps meeting and forgetting, but at least Jason Johnson stays down.

FLIP FLOP: 2003G, Regular Diplomacy

THE DUE DATE FOR FALL 1907 IS AUGUST 5TH, 2006

Summer 1907

AUSTRIA (Wiedemeyer): has f ADR, a BUD, a RUM, a NAP,

a ROM, a UKR, a MOS, a TRI.

ENGLAND (Schmit): R f bre-PIC, f nwy-NWG; has a BEL, a HOL, f ENG, f POR, a RUH,

f PIC, f NWG, f NTH, a STP.

FRANCE (Jeff O'Donnell): has a BRE, f SPA(SC), a GAS.

GERMANY (Sundstrom): has f HEL, f SWE, a DEN, a LVN, a MUN, f NWY.

TURKEY (Levinson): has a BUL, f ION, f TUS, a ALB, f TYH, f BLA, a SEV, a SER.

Addresses of the Participants

AUSTRIA: Fred Wiedemeyer, Box 92010-Meadowbrook RPO, Edmonton, ALBERTA CANADA T6T 1N1,

(780) 465-6432, wiedem of planet.eon.net

ENGLAND: Karl Schmit, 1509 O'Keefe Road, DePere, WI 54115, (920) 338-8402,

diplomacy of new.rr.com ($4)

FRANCE: Jeff O'Donnell, 402 Middle Ave., Elyria, OH 44035-5728,

(440) 322-2920 or (440) 225-9203 (cell, as late as midnight Eastern)

GERMANY: Matt Sundstrom, 1760 Robincrest Lane South, Glenview, IL 60025, (847) 729-1882,

Matt.Sundstrom of bbdoch.com or mattandzoe of earthlink.net

ITALY: Don Williams, 27505 Artine Drive, Saugus, CA 91350, (661) 297-3947,

wllmsfmly of earthlink.net or dwilliams of fontana.org

RUSSIA: Sean O'Donnell, 1044 Wellfleet Drive, Grafton, OH 44044, (440) 926-0230,

sean_o_donnell of hotmail.com

TURKEY: Alexandre Levinson, 1, allee des Marniquets, 78430 Louveciennes FRANCE, don't need phone,

levinson7 of hotmail.com ($5)

Game Notes:

1) Quiet summer season with Karl getting his retreats in. This fall should be interesting!

Press:

(THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE to BERLIN AND PARIS): We are not pleased with the outcome of this battle. Since we were unable to conquer France. We do not mind in the slightest that England conquers them. Besides, the leader of France we all know sucks. I mean come on this is obviously a petty dictator that needs overthrown. I apologize to the French people for being unable to do so.

(CAPTAIN'S LOG "UNREAL"): Against the advice of my senior staff, except Mr. Spock, I decided not to defend Earth and Mars, attack the Romulans at Vulcan, and abandon Deep Space One to the Romulan Neutral Zone to try to cut a Romulan Supply Line with no intelligence that when we arrived that there would even BE a Romulan Supply Line, all on a hunch..... And I was, to my surprise, right! ((You thought to doubt Mr. Spock??? Only thing that would have been more foolish would be allowing Mr. Spock's advice to go unheard!)) Not only have we liberated Vulcan, but we can temporarily hold it long enough to commission a troop transport to defend Earth. On top of that, we almost scuttled a front line Romulan warbird.... almost!... Damn!.... It gets better, the Romulans have moved some of their forces away from Earth toward Ferengar and our Ferengi allies have taken a Romulan space station and have a shot at a former Klingon planet if they can get a little help from the Andorians. We can only hope... I am ordering Lt. Uhura to compic a message to the Andorians to request their help in liberating a former Klingon planet from the Romulans for the Ferengi... We can only try...

I CAN'T FIND MY MONEY!: 2001F, Regular Diplomacy

THE DUE DATE FOR SUMMER 1913 IS AUGUST 5TH, 2006

THE DUE DATE FOR FALL 1913 IS AUGUST 26TH, 2006

Spring 1913

AUSTRIA (Parker): f tri-ADR, f ion-TUN, f TYH S f ion-tun, a gal-WAR, a war-LVN,

f EAS S a smy, a PIE h, a bul-CON, a VIE h, a VEN h, a sev-ARM, a SMY S a sev-arm,

a ser-TRI, a stp-MOS, f AEG S a bul-con.

FRANCE (Kent): f BRE S f eng-mid, a PAR-gas, a por-spa (d ann),

f eng-MID, f tun-WES.

GERMANY (Wilson): a kie-MUN, f nth-ENG, f pic-BEL, a mun-BUR, f cly-LVP, a SPA S f mid-por,

f mid-POR, a LON h, a nwy-STP, a MAR S a bur-gas, f NAO-mid, a bur-GAS.

TURKEY (Miller): a arm h (d r:syr,ank,otb), a con h (d r:ank,otb).

Addresses of the Participants

AUSTRIA: Vern Parker, 337 Winter Hill Place, Powell, OH 43065, (614) 402-5139

VernDip of aol.com is preferred

ENGLAND: Mark Kinney, 4830 Westport Road, Apt D, Louisville KY 40222

alberich of iglou.com

FRANCE: Doug Kent, 11111 Woodmeadow Pkwy #2327, Dallas, TX 75228

dougray30 of yahoo.com

GERMANY: Kevin Wilson, 18623 Santa Maria Drive, Baton Rouge, LA 70809, 225-751-3857,

ckevinw1 of cox.net

ITALY: Formerly was Heath Gardner, metaphorman of gmail.com

ITALY: Mike Barno, 634 Dawson Hill Road, Spencer, NY 14883

mpbarno of lightlink.com

RUSSIA: Rick Desper,

rick_desper of yahoo.com

TURKEY: Tim Miller, 258 New Mark Esplanade, Rockville, MD 20850,

tim of webjudge.net

GM: Jim-Bob Burgess, 664 Smith Street, Providence, RI 02908-4327, +1 401-351-0287

burgess of world.std.com

Game Notes:

1) The GA-GA draw is proposed again. We also have a new concession to Turkey proposal. Please vote with your Summer orders on the GA draw and the concession to Turkey. If you fail to vote, both are rejected. If both pass the concession to Turkey supercedes the draw vote.

2) Note that Doug has changed his postal address back again to the Woodmeadow address.

Press:

SECRETS: 1999D, Regular Diplomacy

THE NEW DUE DATE FOR SUMMER 1921 IS AUGUST 5TH, 2006

THE NEW DUE DATE FOR FALL 1921 IS AUGUST 26TH, 2006

Spring 1921

ENGLAND (Kent): f wal-ENG, a GAS S FRENCH f mar, f NAO S f mid, a KIE-ruh,

f MID S FRENCH f spa(sc), f eng-NTH, f HOL-kie, f POR S FRENCH f spa(sc).

FRANCE (Sasseville): f MAR s a bur-par (imp), f SPA(SC) s a bur-par (imp), a bur-PAR.

GERMANY (Barno): a con-BUL.

RUSSIA (Parker): f stp(nc)-NWY, a WAR h, a nwy-SWE, a BER-kie, f den-HEL,

a swe-DEN, a PRU-ber.

TURKEY (Linsey): a ank-ARM, f smy-AEG, a SEV-ukr, a GAL-boh, a SIL S a boh-mun, f WES S f gol,

a UKR-gal, f GOL S f pie-mar, a MUN-ruh, a vie-TRI, f NAF S f wes, f aeg-ION, a TYO S a boh-mun,

f PIE-mar, a BOH-mun.

Addresses of the Participants

ENGLAND: Doug Kent, 11111 Woodmeadow Pkwy #2327, Dallas, TX 75228

dougray30 of yahoo.com

FRANCE: Roland Sasseville, Jr., 38 Bucklin Street, Pawtucket, RI 02861, (401) 481-4280 ($0)

roland6 of cox.net and ICQ: 40565030

GERMANY: Mike Barno, 634 Dawson Hill Road, Spencer, NY 14883, (607) 589-4906

mpbarno of lightlink.com

RUSSIA: Vern Parker, 337 Winter Hill Place, Powell, OH 43065, (614) 402-5139

VernDip of aol.com is preferred

TURKEY: Bruce Linsey, PO Box 234, Kinderhook, NY 12106

GonzoHQ of aol.com

Game Notes:

1) Note that Doug Kent has moved back to the Woodmeadow address. And in doing so, Doug guessed right in moving to Ruh (wood meadow equals black forest.... well, ***I*** thought it was good....) and bouncing a large chunk of the Turkish attempted moves.....

2) We have a new proposal for the ET Phone Home draw. If you vote for this draw, you send ET home safe and sound, if you don't (you mean, nasty person) you make ET and everyone else continue to suffer with this game. Failure to vote is the same as consigning ET to this hell called Secrets for more time..... ;-)

Press:

FINDING THE COMMUNITY: Breaking Away, Designer's Rules

CONGRATULATIONS TO RICK DESPER WHO HUNG ON FOR THE VICTORY!!!

Game Notes:

1) The rules are on the TAP website in the Tinamou section. Ask if you have any questions. New game start in this, who wants to play again (or for the first time)??? We have five signed up so far, see the list in the game opening section. I want to start this up soon, so sign up!!! Can I twist arms on just ONE more of you to join???

Press:

Personal Note to You:

File translated from T_EX by T_TH, version 3.35.
On 22 Jul 2006, 18:10.