Lake Peigneur

In 1980 in sleepy Lake Peigneur, Louisiana, something odd happened. If you had been standing on the shore of the lake, you would have seen the oil rig that quietly dug up oil from the bottom of the shallow lake tilt and then suddenly vanish under the water.

Keep in mind that the lake was only a little deeper than three meters or eleven feet, and the oil rig was considerably taller, yet it vanished completely. Then a whirlpool showed up and became terrifyingly huge in no time at all. Barges, boats, trees, a large part of the island on the lake all vanished into the whirlpool.

This was followed by a massive geyser that was so large the local canal leading to the Gulf of Mexico reversed direction and pushed barges back out to sea.

So what happened? The oil rig had accidentally busted through into the local salt mine, a massive operation that also existed under the lake. This mine was no small operation, it was huge, and salt famously dissolves very well into water. All the supports in the mine were in fact salt which disappeared in no time, triggering a gigantic cave in. 

What is perhaps the most amazing thing about the Lake Peigneur disaster is that no one was hurt. No one died. Testimony to how important safety regulations are and how you really have to follow them.

There are many videos on the Lake Peigneur incident, I'll add one below for more information.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week! 

 

 

Time to tease that brain.

As both a way to teach critical thinking, a way to entertain and a way to make others think we're really smart, riddles are as old as humanity.

The oldest riddle we know of is Sumerian and is at least 4000 years old. 

1. "There is a house. One enters it blind and comes out seeing. What is it"?  

Other riddles have no answer like the famous one from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, that goes "How is a raven like a writing desk?" It doesn't have an answer frustrating as that is. The Mad Hatter is, as his name suggests mad, and the riddle has no answer. But readers bothered Carroll so much he eventually gave this response: "because it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front". Someone else suggested "because Poe wrote on both." Make of that what you want.   

Here are some classic riddles to tease your brain and the minds of others. The answers are below, including number one.

2. "Walk on the living, they don't even mumble. Walk on the dead, they mutter and grumble."

3. "I work when I play and play when I work."

4. What is in seasons, seconds, centuries, and minutes, but not in decades, years, or days? 

5. What is so delicate that saying its name breaks it? 

6. What has to be broken before you use it? 

7. What kind of room has no doors or windows? 

8. Which word in the dictionary is spelled incorrectly? 

9. What invention lets you look right through a wall? 

10. As I walked along the path I saw something with four fingers and one thumb, but it was not flesh, fish, bone or fowl.  

I hope you enjoyed these classic riddles. That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

 

 

 

Answers:

1. A school. 2. Leafs. 3. A musician. 4. The letter N. 5. Silence. 6. An egg. 7. A mushroom. 8. Incorrectly. 9. A window. 10. A glove.   

 

  

 

 

So that happened...

It's been a while since the last time we did weird trivia, so here we go:

In 1876, in Olympia Springs, Kentucky it rained strips of meat one day. There has never been a good explanation a to why it rained mystery meat, but some suspect a large flock of vultures may have gorged themselves and then vomited, which they do when they feel threatened. I don't know what is better, meat rain or vulture vomit...

Everyone knows that sport riots can cause huge damages both to people and buildings, but they are not a new phenomenon. In AD 532 a riot erupted in then Constantinople over a combination of politics and chariot racing which was super popular. This riot apparently claimed 30.000 lives and destroyed a large part of the city including the Hagia Sophia. Emperor Justinian had to deploy thousands of imperial soldiers to put a stop to the madness.

In 1932 during the Great Depression, Australian farmers grew more wheat to make ends meet, which had the unforeseen side effect of attracting hungry emus. The abundance of food made the emus breed more and soon there were huge flocks of these large birds roaming around attacking farms. An emu is pretty big and they can be dangerous. On top of that, their thick dense feathers are hard to penetrate with small arms, so the farmers asked the government for help. Soldiers were deployed and the Emu War had begun. A war Australia lost. Good thing they were emus and not cassowaries.

In July of 1518 a strange event started in Strasburg, Germany. People started dancing uncontrollably in the streets. They apparently could not stop and several died from stroke or exhaustion. Theories range from the infamous ergot poisoning to mass hysteria, but to this day no one knows why people danced themselves to death.

To be named Time Magazine Man of the Year, one has to do something that makes a huge impact. However this impact is essentially neutral, in that it doesn't have to be a positive or negative impact. This is why in 1938, Hitler was made Man of the Year. This in itself is well known, but did you know that in 1939 he was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize? The nomination was made by a Swedish member of parliament, and was intended as a satirical critique. Whether that was true or not, the nomination was canceled within a few days.

From dancing to laughing. In 1962 at the University of Tanganyika in Tanzania, three girls suddenly started laughing and they couldn't stop. This strange madness spread to over a thousand students and the university had to close for several months. The theory of mass hysteria was again suggested but no one knows for sure.

Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, conqueror of Europe was defeated not only by Wellington but also by rabbits. In 1807, Napoleon wanted to celebrate the peace between France and Russia with a massive rabbit hunt. He acquired 3000 rabbits which were set loose, but the hungry rabbits attacked the people and jumped all over them looking for food, leading to the desperate retreat of the Master of France.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time, and until then, have a great week!

 

Too many options.

When you decide to play a new game that has too many options, whether of the video or tabletop variety, you may run into the problem of analysis paralysis.

I'll give you a couple of examples. In Blood Bowl you have to pick a team. In Total War you have to pick a faction/nation. In Cyberpunk 2077 you have to pick a life path and a character build. These are the games currently spinning around in my head, but there are so many others. In Magic the Gathering you have to pick a color or colors for your deck, in Warmachine you pick an army, in chess you pick... no there are only two choices in chess. I'm sure you get the idea by now.

So how do you pick a side? This is my system.

Step 1. The Rule of Cool.

What looks the coolest to you? Which style speaks to you the most?

In Total War Warhammer, I went with the Vampire Counts first, because I like fantasy Gothic and the undead, simple as that. In Blood Bowl I went with Dark Elves. On my first Cyberpunk 2077 character I went with a nomad and stealth and pistols.

In these examples I had an idea that it would work, because I knew a little about the games, but my choices were based mostly on style.

Step 2. Playstyle.

What kind of playstyle speaks to you the most?

In Blood Bowl, some teams are slow, tough and hit hard, some are fast, agile and dodge trouble and some are a hybrid. In Total War Warhammer, some factions are masters of ranged combat (usually the elves), some are slow and “indestructible” (dwarves) and some do both (Empire). In Cyberpunk 2077, you can't spec your character into everything, so you need to choose the style you need. Fast brutal frontal assault or sneaky precise infiltration? Quick hacks or a time slowing sandevistan?

Before making a choice try to look at how the faction you like the looks of, actually plays in reality. 

 

Step 3. Try Again.

Never be afraid to start over and try another team.

Sometimes Step 1 and 2 don't fit together at all. You may really like the aesthetics of a faction but hate the way they play. This is when you have to re-evaluate. In video games that is easy enough, just grab the next team/faction etc. and try again, but in tabletop that is harder. After all, if you have just put a couple of hundred monies on an army and you don't like it you can't switch just like that.

This is when research becomes important. Read some guides and watch some games before you decide, and you'll be in a better position. If you are talking about video games like I am, then starting over is completely valid. There is no point in forcing yourself to finish a game with a team you don't like just to be stubborn. Re-roll and be happy.

Step 4. Research.

This final rule may seem like a bit of an obvious point to make, but watch some videos before you decide, particularly with strategy games. Story driven games like RPG's can be spoiled, but strategy games are all about the experience. Then again, you should probably do a bit of research before you put down your hard earned money on any game.

Hopefully this is of some help to someone, your method may be different, but this is how I like to do it.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

Too intimidated to try.

As a bit of a Christmas present to myself, I bought Total War: Warhammer One and Two together with some of the DLC. As an old school Warhammer Fantasy fan, I've been eyeing these games for years. So why haven't I gotten them before? A small part of the answer is money, huge games are expensive, and I hate paying a lot for something I'm not even sure I'll like, but the discounts on the Steam Winter Sale were really good.

The bigger part of the answer though, is intimidation. I'm not much of a strategy player to begin with, and the Total War games are in themselves a bit daunting. I did play Total War: Empire ten years ago, and it was fun but I never went back. Now I figured it was time to get back on the warhorse.

That is the topic for today, being too intimidated to try something you want. This can cover anything really, learning a new language, taking up sewing, joining a club etc, but I'm looking at it through the lens of gaming.

When I first fired up Cyberpunk 2077 it intimidated me in no time flat. Everything seemed threatening, and I had no idea what kind of consequences my actions would have. Then I did the tutorial which appears just before your first proper mission and wow that was a lot to take in! Sneaking, hacking, quickhacking, melee with parrying and dodging, cybernetics and so on and so on. I closed the game and it was over a year before I tried again, but now it is one of my all time favorite games. It is absolutely superb! What I came to eventually realize is that you can't do everything in Cyberpunk, you also don't need to even try to. Don't feel like melee? Stick to guns. Annoyed at hacking? Get a time slowing Sandevistan and kill your enemies in slow motion. Once I understood this, I was liberated and free to just have fun.

Back in 2010 I watched a Skyrim preview event and saw the hero dual wield weapons, sling spells and cause a storm that forced a dragon to land before killing said dragon. Epic stuff, but I wondered how I was ever going to manage all that. Turns out that none of it was difficult once you got a bit of practice, and certainly nothing you had to do immediately. I have over 1000 hours in Skyrim across several versions.

I have never been a Soulsborne player, in part because of the intimidation factor. FromSoft are geniuses at making their enemies terrifying. The most likely first boss in Bloodborne, The Cleric Beast is a perfect example. How it looks, how it moves and definitely how it sounds are all intended to scare you into screwing up and failing. But if you look at an experienced player you'll see that they are not intimidated. They know what they are doing and although you can never let down you guard in games like Bloodborne, they can kill The Cleric Beast with ease.

Getting over the intimidation factor isn't always easy, but at least in games you can ask “what do I have to loose?”. Time is the answer. Even if you screw up so badly that you have to restart the game, you have learned something, which is never a waste of time.

Applying this logic to other parts of our lives isn't an exact comparison. If you're learning to sew, the fabric can get ruined if you really mess up, but with all learning, you need to start small, start with raw materials you can sacrifice on the altar of knowledge and try. Theory and Practice are two different things.

This brings me back to Total War: Warhammer. I have watched a lot of lets play's from different creators. What they have in common is practice and lots of it which makes it looks so easy. Then I fire up the game and nothing works like what I saw, and of course it didn't. I haven't practiced yet, but I'm getting there.

I'm not sure I've made any sense today, this is just something I wanted to get off my chest. I guess I want to encourage you to do something you've wanted to, but haven't yet. Besides, if you mess up, you don't have to tell anyone.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time, and until then, have a great week!

 

Perspective and Psychology.

 Hello and welcome back for some more eccentricity!

I recently discovered a fascinating person called Rory Sutherland. This is how Wikipedia describes him: 

"Rory Sutherland is a British advertising executive. He is the vice chairman of the Ogilvy & Mather group of companies. He writes a fortnightly column in The Spectator and has written several books, including Alchemy: The Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense".

I want to link some videos about how we are manipulated by marketing, but also how we perceive the world around us. Things like how the key to McDonalds success is in being consistently not awful, how the biggest competitor to Coca-Cola is Redbull, despite its awful taste. How painkillers are more effective if the pills are red, and much much more. If you have any interest in such things, you need to hear what Rory has to say.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

 

 

Dead Man Walking

Today I want to talk about something a bit different.

Today we're talking about an extremely rare phenomena called Dead Man Walking. There are books, songs, albums and other idioms called Dead Man Walking, but we are only interested in the super rare tornadoes called Dead Man Walking.

From what I found out, these tornadoes are multi vortex tornadoes, that is a tornado that has more than one visible funnel. This is rare in itself, but if the conditions are right, or very wrong depending on your perspective, you can get a tornado that looks like it is walking across the land instead of gliding like they normally do.

These Dead Man Walking tornadoes seem to always be EF5 storms, or tornadoes that reach up to 200 mph / 320 kph winds. This is strong enough to cause severe damage to anything they come across, but the Dead Man Walking tornadoes can be even worse.

The name comes from Native American myths, and it is said that if you see one, you're going to die. Legends aside, being anywhere near a tornado is dangerous, but winds that strong can hurl tanker trucks long distances, and a small piece of debris traveling 300+ kph can easily kill you, so it's an understandable myth.

I'm linking a video about the Jarrel Tornado below. If you like storms watch it. It was a scary but fascinating video. Normal tornado is already scary, but seeing it slowly walk across the land, slowly destroying everything it touches is incredibly creepy. It's the kind of thing that can trigger more than one phobia, none of which I have, but it really creeped me out. I know you have to see it from the right perspective and all, but it is and always will be terrifying.

If you don't want to watch the whole video, go to about the 40 second mark and you can see the Dead Man Walking.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

Direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xRjHPusRC4

 

 

 

Who Killed the Genre?

Sometimes a movie comes along that changes the landscape of cinema for a long time, perhaps even forever. Today we're talking about Genre Killers.

Basically there are three types of genre killers and first up is the Bomb. A bomb is a movie that performs so abysmally at the box office that no studio wants to risk making another for at least ten years, maybe even longer. Some notable examples include:

Cleopatra (1963) and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) killed the Sword and Sandal epics and it wasn't until Gladiator (2000) that the genre was revived. It did survive on television with I Claudius and Masada but for 36 years, the genre was effectively dead.

Similarly, The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) hammered down the coffin lid on the religious epic. It had an all star cast (eight Oscar winners, ten nominees) and was horribly expensive but it still failed at the box office. This wasn't helped by the fact that some studios pushed the envelope on what was allowed to be shown in the vein of sex and violence with their religious epics, since they had the excuse of showing the vagaries of sin.

Doctor Dolittle, Camelot, and Hello, Dolly! (1967-1969) wrecked the big Hollywood musicals and the genre stayed dead until Cabaret (1972) managed to revive it a little. On top of that, Cabaret was called a musical for people who hated musicals. Paints a picture, doesn't it? The musical genre is still a shaky one to invest in.

The second type is the Smash Hit movie. These movies are so incredibly popular that there simply is no point in making another movie in the same vein, at least not for a very long time. Alternatively they out perform the competition and bury it in a shallow grave.

The archetype of this kind of movie is James Cameron's Titanic (1997). What is the point of even trying to make a serious film about the disaster after this one?

The Exorcist (1973) killed the Blaxploitation genre. Apparently it was so popular that black audiences traveled a long distance to see it above watching blaxploitation movies closer to home. This convinced studios to change the line ups in theaters in black neighborhoods. Star Wars (1977) and Jaws (1975) had a similar effect. Jaws also murdered and ate the low-budget summer movies by introducing the summer block buster.

The final entry is the Parody. Movies that lampoon a subject so well that any subsequent movies can't be taken seriously.

Airplane! (1980) took the airport/airplane disaster movies out back and shot them. Back in the 60's and 70's this genre was very popular but Airplane! spoofed it so well that it was impossible to make one afterwards.

While Austin Powers (1997) didn't kill the spy movie genre, it destroyed the lightheartedness in the genre, and it had to evolve and become darker in response to the super popular comedy.

Not Another Teen Movie (2001) and Mean Girls (2004) pretty much wrecked the teen rom-com genre. While it wasn't destroyed and it is possible that the old formula was outdated anyway, these two absolutely did serious damage.

There are of course so many other examples like Wild Wild West and the western/sci-fi crossover, Batman & Robin for the superhero genre although that has been revived with enormous success, Cutthroat Island whacked the pirate adventure until Pirates of the Caribbean and so on. There are also genre killers in all other kinds of media, but one at a time.

So if you suddenly wonder why X type of movies aren't made anymore, look and see if you can spot the genre killer that did the deed. For more reading go here:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/GenreKiller/Film

That's that and all that. Join me again next time, and until then, have a great and safe week!

 

Historical Facts as the year draws to an end.

This year was the tenth year of me writing this blog. As 2022 draws to an end, I thought some probably true historical facts could be amusing as the next entry will be on January 2^nd 2023. So thanks for reading, have a great new years eve, as well as a safe and great week, and I'll see you all next year!

-From 1912 to 1948, the Olympic Games held competitions in the fine arts and awarded medals.

-Napoleon Bonaparte was attacked by a horde of angry bunnies during a rabbit hunt.

-The owners of the Titanic never claimed the ship was unsinkable, despite what the press said.

-Mary actually existed and she owned a little lamb.

-Nixon was a skilled musician and could play the piano, saxophone, clarinet, accordion, and violin.

-In 1830 ketchup was sold as indigestion medicine.

-Abraham Lincoln is in the wrestling hall of fame and was a licensed bartender.

-No one was burned in Salem for being a witch. Most were jailed and a few were hanged, but no one burned.

-Walt Disney was cremated, not frozen.

-Before the drink Bloody Mary was called such, it was called Red Snapper and before that, A Bucket of Blood.

-In 1917, four years before women in the U.S. could vote, one woman was elected to Congress.

-Machu Picchu was built in 1450. The Tower of London was built in 1078.

-The shortest war in history is the Anglo-Zanzibar War which happened on August 27, 1896 and lasted 38 minutes.

-Tablecloths were originally designed to function as communal napkins to be used by all the dinner guests at once.

-100 million years ago, there were galloping crocodiles in what is now the Sahara Desert.

-Oliver Cromwell banned eating pie, claiming that is was too pagan.

-It is estimated that about 97% of history is lost in time.

-Even mentioning Genghis Khan in the Soviet union was illegal.

-The year 46 BC was 445 days long and included two leap months. Julius Caesar arranged this to make his new Julian calendar sync up.

-The worlds oldest still functioning parliament in the Islandic Althing which was started in 930.

 

The last post of the year.

Hello and welcome to the last Eccentric Sphere of 2021.

It's been a mixed year in many ways. Covid continues to bedevil us all but there has been many good things as well, at least for me.

I had a hard time getting my brain to formulate a thought on the subject, so I decided not to. There are enough retrospectives around if you like those, I just aim to entertain you a little bit.

So without all that much more ado, let me wish you a Happy New Year and a great and safe week. I'll see you in 2022 with more Eccentric Spheres!

 

  

 

Undecided

I had a hard time deciding what to talk about today.

I watched a poliziotteschi movie called The Big Racket (1976), but I didn't really like it very much. It's all about a police inspector who tries to take down a gang that runs a protection racket and commits horrible acts of violence against those they don't like. Parts, like a car rolling down a hill was superbly shot with the camera inside the car, and there were some nice action, but the main villain was lousy and the story as such made little sense. You could roll a car through the plot holes if you were so inclined. I realized that I can't really recommend it and if possible, I prefer to not blog about movies I don't enjoy.

Clearly this wasn't the topic for this week...

I also considered talking about how most of the AAA game company executives are keen to implement NFT (non fungible tokens) and block-chain technology in their upcoming games. In a nutshell, NFT's use the same technology that is used to farm cryptocurrency to create “unique” items in game, either for sale or to be earned through playing. These “unique” items can then be sold by the owner to other players for real money. The kicker is that the items don't need to be unique at all, just the code for this particular helmet makes it unique. It can look like every other helmet in-game. Sure, the items can be genuinely unique, but they still want to waste huge amounts of energy to create this market in order to cash in. It is incredibly bad for the environment and to top it off, they don't really seem to know what need or problem these NFT's would solve.

The backlash has been huge, with developers from the companies themselves like EA, Ubisoft and Take-Two asking their bosses what the point is, since microtransactions and in-game shops are already a thing. The bosses have no answers, they just mumble about “investments”, “metaverses” and other buzzwords. Ubisoft seems to be the keenest at the moment and are apparently planning on allowing players who own these items to transfer them from one game to another. Frankly, this is idiotic. Your fancy “property” is going to evaporate the second the game servers are shut down. Recently there was talk that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 would have NFT's until they realized the PR backlash and publicly stated that the game won't have them.

The NFT technology also raises serious questions about things like money laundering, capital gains tax, game companies holding valuable properties for players meaning that they might function like banks, etc. etc. Time will tell how this plays out, but they already had enough problems with children and loot-boxes. The defense then was that the boxes don't contain anything of real value, but the point of the NFT's is that they do have real value. Can children even earn them or what? Do they need to pay tax or does that get slapped on their parents? Some in-game items have sold for thousands of dollars already, so the potential is there. These are important questions that they don't seem to have asked themselves as they fall over each other to be first in a new gold rush.

Of course, this topic is a bit dull and negative, so I need to come up with something else. But now I'm running out of space so you'll have to settle for this comedy sketch.

Now it only remains to wish you Happy Holidays where ever you are, and I hope you will come back next time. Until then, have a great and safe week!

Fantastic or Realistic?

Fantasy is a great genre and the perhaps most defining feature of fantasy is that it doesn't have to be realistic. The clue is in the name after all. As long as the fantasy is immersive enough and consistent with its own internal rules, realism can go hang.

That said, I find it incredibly entertaining to poke holes in fantasy to see what is and isn't actually possible. Obviously magic isn't real nor are flying, fire-breathing dragons, but what about shooting a bow from the branches of a tree? What about the old trope of tying a rope to an arrow and shooting it in order to shimmy across a chasm? How much money can an adventurer really carry? I'm not the person to ask, but I know who is; Shadiversity on Youtube.

He has indeed tested these small but interesting tropes and I figured you might want to know the answers. So without further ado, I present to you three answers to three questions.

Arrow and rope:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv0a1m6gIAo

Shooting from a tree:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YCx9byRQKA

How many gold coins can you carry:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PmXf9oiNqU

I'll embed them below as well, for your convenience. That's that and all that. Until next time, have a great and safe week! 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Mudlarks and more

 

Today I want to talk about mudlarks.

Mudlarks were originally children and sometimes robust elderly scavengers in the 17^th and 18^th century combing through the mudflats of the Thames at low tide for things to sell. I suppose they existed elsewhere as well, but the typical mudlark worked the Thames.

As one can imagine, it was a grueling, dirty and dangerous job as the mud wasn't just mud but also raw sewage dotted with the carcasses of animals and even humans. This combined with the chance of getting cut on glass, ceramic shards and bits of metal made the risk of infection quite high. There was also the danger of getting stuck. What looks like somewhat solid ground could be a mud pit that can suck you down, trapping you until the tide comes back in. Unless you had a friend that could pull you loose, you would probably drown.

They did however make a living off it, even though it was a meager one. Interestingly enough, it was possible to state your legal occupation as mudlark as late as 1904 but in 1936 the term had fallen out of fashion.

Until modern times. Mudlarking has become a hobby for some people armed with metal detectors, magnets, radios and sometimes even hovercraft. Most mudlarks don't use anything fancier than metal detectors and magnets, crossing over into the hobby of magnet fishing.

So why do they do it? For fun mostly, but also profit and environmental reasons. When the Hertford Union canal was drained for repairs, the Authority in charge invited several mudlarks to help clean up the waterway by picking up litter. Most of the Victorian junk isn't really that bad for the environment anymore, as the organic stuff has broken down ages ago, and glass and ceramics aren't really a pollutant but they pulled out a lot of plastic as well.

So how do I know all this? A couple of months ago I found a Youtube channel called Si-finds Thames Mudlark. This guy and his friends are passionate mudlarks and he even sometimes dig up Victorian garbage dumps in search of antique glass bottles that he cleans up and sells. The broken ones are cut down, sanded and made into awesome drinking glasses. Check it out if it sounds interesting.

I do have something else to mention today. My wife has started streaming on Twitch, and I want to give her a shout-out. She streams World of Warcraft from the beginning (though she is a veteran) with a brand new account. Do come and check out the adventure at: Twitch.tv/Chelidda 

You can catch her live Mondays and Fridays at 10.30 and Wednesdays at 19.00 GMT. (6.30 am EST and 3.00 pm EST). Come by and check it out, and if you don't feel like chatting, you can always just watch.   

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!

Are you Pulling my leg?

 

Hello and welcome to the first Eccentric Sphere of 2021!

I was thinking about what to talk about today and finally came to the conclusion that the best way to go forward is to take a peak backwards. At least this sounds like a plausible excuse, right?

I was over on TV Tropes when I ran across an entry that lead me to the Pulling Report, which is sort of the topic for today.

Backstory: back in the 1980's different groups from fundamentalists to law enforcement to conservative politicians enjoyed whipping each other into a frenzy over Satanic Ritual Abuse. Multiple investigations were launched which found no evidence whatsoever that there were any Satanic groups operating anywhere in the U.S. or that there was any such abuse going on. This lack of evidence didn't bother the above mentioned groups in the slightest, and they wasted no time trying to get rid of things they thought were unpleasant and morally wrong. Things like metal music, horror movies and Dungeons & Dragons.

Eventually this panic died down, although it rears it's head every now and then. Back when Harry Potter was the hottest IP, lots of conservatives and fundamentalists refused to let their children read it from fear that they would learn witchcraft and become tools of Satan...

So onto Pat Pulling. Back in 1982, her son Irving suddenly committed suicide. He had previously been playing D&D at school and searching for some kind of explanation for the tragedy, Mrs. Pulling blamed D&D.

Now, it is worth pointing out that in an early interview, Pat Pulling expressed sadness that she hadn't seen the signs coming and that she had been unable to help her son. No joke, I absolutely respect that.

Then, for some reason she turned around and sued the principal of Irving's school for failing to stop the suicide and allowing D&D to be played at school. The suit was tossed out of court for obvious reasons. Now my sympathy for Mrs. Pulling is starting to wobble.

Later on, when she and her organization Bothered About D&D (B.A.D.D.) got famous and she started getting paid, she appeared on the talk show Geraldo where she claimed that her dead son used to behave like a lycanthrope and that he killed lots of small animals. Now I have no choice but to put her in the loony bin. All sympathy is gone.

Despite this, she became one of the top Cult Crime Investigators in the U.S. and traveled the nation giving talks and distributing guidebooks to law enforcement on how to recognize, interrogate and catch satanists, a.k.a. D&D players. This included instructions to ask if the suspect had played D&D, what level he was and so on. She also claimed that all satanists lie to cover up their crimes and to protect their coven members, so if the suspects claims not to be satanists or D&D players, they are lying. In other words, lack of evidence is evidence.

In 1990, author and game designer Michael A. Stackpole published The Pulling Report in which he completely tore apart Pulling and her cronies in a methodical and systematic way. It is an amazing read and I truly recommend you read it, despite its length. If you are interested in gaming or indeed just a look at how people like Mrs. Pulling operate, this report shines a bright spotlight straight at it. Shortly after the Pulling Report was distributed, most of the Satanic Panic died down. I'm certain that Mr. Stackpole's excellent report played a large part of it, but also that times had changed.

The Pulling Report: http://www.rpgstudies.net/stackpole/pulling_report.html

That is that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, stay safe and have an excellent week!

The end of 2020

 

The last post for 2020. Some good things, lots of bad things and a whole barrel full of seriously annoying things. I don't think anyone is sad to see 2020 go away. Here's hoping '21 is going to be better.

The world has seen mass protests against corrupt governments, and of course Covid-19 dominated everything everyone did and although vaccines are slowly being distributed we're not out of the woods yet, so keep using masks and washing your hands. One day it'll be over.

But that's enough real world stuff. The world of gaming has had it's share of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moments as well.

Looking back in this blog I was surprised to see that the failed launch of Warcraft III Refunded Reforged, was in February, this year. I could have sworn that it was last year, but no. Time has managed to both rush and crawl by at the same time.

Loot-boxes spent a lot of time in the news this year, culminating in both The Netherlands and The UK declaring them as gambling. I still maintain that it is perfectly possible to make games that are fun, fair and capable of generating extra income for the developers/publishers without resorting to garbage gambling mechanics.

The new, big game debacle has of course been the dramatic launch of Cyberpunk 2077. From working okay-ish on PC to bad on console to not at all on last gen consoles, few have been entirely happy. CD Project Red are naturally working hard to fix the issues, like a bug where if you looted too much stuff, it corrupted your save file. It wasn't the triumphant launch CDPR and everyone else wanted, but I don't think it's a disaster either. From what I've seen it is going to become a fantastic game. One day.

In the mean time, there are multiple lawsuits flying around, the CDPR devs are claiming the company leaders are lying, Sony removed the game from the PS Store and... well it seems almost appropriate that the original pen-and-paper rpg was called Cyberpunk 2020, and seeing as how 2020 has treated everyone, well, I don't know. There is a sarcastic joke in there somewhere, find it if you want to.

If this year has taught me anything else gaming wise, it is don't pre-order, do your own research instead of relying on biased media, don't give in to FOMO (fear of missing out), don't buy unfinished games, and have patience.

It's going to be interesting to see what the new year brings and despite the previous one, and the perhaps somewhat bleak tone of this post, I am optimistic. So I hope you will continue to visit me here on Eccentric Spheres and share in what's to come.

That's that. Join me again next year, until then have a great week, stay safe and don't blow yourself up with fireworks! See you in 2021!

Gaming Quiz

 

Hello and welcome to Eccentric Spheres. Last week we did general trivia and this week it's gaming. I decided to go for multiple choice this time, as I think it'll fit better.

So without further ado:

1. Which was the original D&D setting created by Gary Gygax?

   1. Forgotten Realms

   2. Dragonlance

   3. Greyhawk

2. What is the green crystal the hovers over the Sims called?

   1. Plumbob

   2. Life Gem

   3. Spinner

3. In the Fallout Universe, what is the small computer worn on the left arm called?

   1. Infotron

   2. Pipboy

   3. Personal Communicator

4. Conan the Barbarian hails from which country?

   1. Cimmeria

   2. Aquilonia

   3. Hyrkania

5. What year was the Super Nintendo system released?

   1. 1990

   2. 1991

   3. 1992

6. Which game series features the evil Umbrella Corporation?

   1. Alone in the Dark

   2. Fallout

   3. Resident Evil

7. Which movie inspired The Silent Hill franchise greatly?

   1. Jacob's Ladder

   2. Videodrome

   3. Pan's Labyrinth

8. Which classic arcade game caused a coin shortage in Japan?

   1. Pac-Man

   2. Space Invaders

   3. Asteroids

9. In the Elder Scrolls setting, what race are Orcs?

   1. Dwarves

   2. Humans

   3. Elves

10. What is the name of the most common currency in the Zelda games?

    1. Coins

    2. Rupees

    3. Chunks

And there we have it. Look below for the answers and as last time, you win nothing by answering the questions except fun. Join me again next time, have a great week and stay safe!

 

Answers: C A B A B C A B C B

Quiz time

 

It is time to get your quiz on. I have selected a number of questions from the internet and thought I'd challenge you to answer them. I have not chosen any questions that I couldn't answer without looking up the answer, so there will be nothing too esoteric.

Why do this? Well, why not? Perhaps you can challenge family and friends or perhaps the questions will come up in some other quiz you might partake in, like a pub quiz. And no, you don't win anything for getting the answers right. Knowledge is its own reward and all that.

Here we go:

1. What was Eleanor Roosevelt's maiden name?

2. What is the world's smallest country?

3. Under which nickname was Edward Teach better known as?

4. Since 1945, what foodstuff can be made in all British tanks?

5. Which actor played Batman in the 60's TV show?

6. In which country is Machu Picchu located?

7. In which year was the Great Fire of London?

8. What country has the most vending machines per Capita?

9. What has a head and a tail, but no body?

10. Which one of the seven wonders of the ancient world is still standing?

11. What is the only food that never expires?

12. What is the largest country in the Caribbean?

13. In which unit is force measured?

14. 50-70% of a whale's weight consists of what?

15. What is molten rock beneath the surface of the earth called? 

    There we go. Fifteen questions for you to mull over. The answers are located below this video.
    

     

     

Answers:

1. Roosevelt.

2. The Vatican.

3. Blackbeard.

4. Tea.

5. Adam West.

6. Peru.

7. 1666.

8. Japan.

9. A coin.

10. The Great Pyramid of Giza.

11. Honey.

12. Cuba.

13. Newton.

14. Blubber.

15. Magma.

And that's that. Join me again next time, and until then have a great week and stay safe!

Dogs

 A bit of a quick one today. Every now and then I find myself with extra things to do and those things like to congregate on Mondays. When I started this blog back in 2012 I should have chosen another day than Mondays to post on, but after all this time what is done is done. If I change now I don't know what'll happen.

So today I present you with a bit of stand up about dogs by Sarah Millican and Bill Burr. Join me again next time for more Eccentric Spheres and until then, have a great week, stay safe and wash your hands!

 Sarah: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBuKcwLh82s

Bill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQfnbHJ3MrQ

 

Culture!

Okay, it's culture time!

With the still ongoing lockdown, we have to keep being careful and so on...

To make the time pass a bit faster many play games or binge TV shows, read books etc. All good choices, but how about going to a museum?

Yeah, I know you can't actually go, but a few world class museums have virtual tours available for free!

All you need is the internet browser you are reading this on to visit:

The Smithsonian: https://naturalhistory.si.edu/visit/virtual-tour

The Anne Frank House: https://www.annefrank.org/en/anne-frank/secret-annex/

The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum: https://www.museothyssen.org/en/thyssenmultimedia/virtual-tours

The Vatican Museums: http://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/collezioni/musei/tour-virtuali-elenco.html

The National Gallery, London: https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/visiting/virtual-tours

There are probably many other museums around the world offering the same thing, but here is a small sample to get on with.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go see some art. Join me again next time and until then stay safe and have a great week!

The Remedy

This week we're taking a radical departure from our usual content. This week we're talking about flu remedies. Or a particular remedy to be precise.

DISCLAIMER:

1. The following information is based on my personal experience, yours may wary.
2. The remedy is not, not a medicine. If you are really sick, go to the doctor! Especially these days. If you suspect that you may have Covid-19, aka Corona virus, follow the guidelines set forth by your government. Let me repeat: This remedy may help you stave off a cold or get better faster, but it is not a medicine and I am not a doctor. See a doctor if you need to. I take no responsibility for your health. Thank you.

Story time. Back in the mists of time known as the early 2000's my wife’s boss gave her the recipe for this remedy, as my wife was getting the flu and she noticed that my wife was sounding a bit hoarse.

She came home and told me, and we tried it out. This was the original:

Squeeze the juice from ½ lemon. Add 1 crushed clove of garlic. Drink. (Serves 1-2 people)

It tasted pretty heinous, but it actually worked. Crushing garlic releases allicin, which is a powerful antioxidant and also helps reduce inflammations. Combined with the Vitamin C bomb from the lemon, it helps your immune system fight off the cold. But it sure ain't fun going down!

Then, a year ago or so, I was coming down with a cold and the wife went to the store to pick up lemon and garlic. But, to everyone's surprise, they were out of lemons. Being a resourceful woman, she got oranges and limes instead. This new version tasted so much better it was crazy. However, the limes here are pretty expensive, so we went back to lemons, but this time with orange included. Besides, lime has less Vitamin C, so oranges and lemons are preferable anyway. The sweetness from the orange balances out the incredible sourness from the lemon and even makes the raw garlic a bit more palatable. With the increased amount of liquid I have also increased the garlic. So the new recipe looks like this:

Squeeze the juice from 1 lemon and 1 orange. Add 1-3 crushed cloves of garlic depending on their size. Drink. (Serves 2 people)

Then recently, I was reading up on ginger, and how healthy that is. Yes, you can sort of see where this is going, but wait! There's more!

I'm a fan of several cooking shows on Youtube, and some info must have slowly fermented and combined in my brain. Our new recipe is this:

Peel a nub of ginger and grate it. Crush a roughly equal amount of garlic. Put both in a small jar and mix. Pour honey to cover and stir to mix. Add 1 teaspoon of the mix to the juice of 1 lemon and 1 orange. Drink. (Serves 2 people)

This new recipe is amazing! The honey and orange are pleasantly sweet while the garlic and ginger adds a nice heat. Honey and ginger are both very good for you and the mixture seems to stay fresh in the fridge a fairly long time. The honey stops air from getting to the garlic and ginger, and honey is essentially a preservative. Use you own judgment though.

A small warning. Fresh citrus juice goes bad pretty fast, so it's not recommendable that you make more than you can drink immediately. Also, I never take this more than once per day and never more than three days in a row, it's pretty strong stuff and you might want to be nice to your stomach.

I have told several people about this recipe and 95% go “Eeww, sounds nasty. I don't want to”. Yeah it's not cake, but every time in the last almost 20 years that I've felt a cold coming and I haven't taken a dose, I've gotten sick. It works, it really does. These days I chug a bit a couple of times a day just to boost the old immune system army. Again, it's not a medicine or a cure, but it helps. Try it out.

That is that. I hope you are all healthy and that you're careful. We are not out of this yet but it is getting better. Until next time, stay strong and have a great week!