English Perspective on German Bombs

My grandad grew up in England and was there for World War II. After showing me The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for the first time, Mom emailed him to ask for some information on the bombings. This was his reply.

“Here are some comments on German bombing during World War II.

“Where I lived in the north of England, we had no serious bombing. There were plenty of bigger targets, much closer to Germany or the French airports from which they sent their planes. One night a plane dropped a lot of fire bombs, but they all fell in the playing field of a girls’ high school about four blocks from our home. We suspect that a plane returning from a raid on Newcastle, a much bigger town to our north, wanted to get rid of its load.

“London was the biggest target, and from the beginning of September 1940, an average of 200 planes a night bombed London every night for two months. Bombing continued after that but not so regularly and on a smaller scale.

“Many children were evacuated to small towns and villages in the west of England, which were safe because there was no point in bombing them. A lot of these children did not see their parents for three or four years!

“Since most of the bombing was at night, many people slept in bomb shelters, and also in the stations of the London Underground railway after it closed down for the night.

“I moved to London five years after the war, and I lived and worked in the East End, which was the area most heavily damaged. I worked near the docks, which were an obvious target. In that area whole blocks of houses had been wiped off the map, and when they rebuilt after the war, they sometimes relocated the streets and gave them new names. Other streets of brick houses would have many gaps, with perhaps half the houses gone.

“The German plan was simply to try to make London uninhabitable, but they did not succeed. It was a matter of luck what was hit and what wasn’t. The House of Commons was badly damaged, but Westminster Abbey, just across the street, was untouched. Fire bombs fell on the roof of St. Paul’s Cathedral, but the firewatchers were able to put them out before they did much damage.

“Air attacks on London declined when the Germans invaded Russia and were also heavily involved in fighting in North Africa. But in June, 1944, just after the allied invasion in the north of France, a new kind of attack came. The Germans launched flying bombs (the V1), which were pilotless and had jet engines set to fly just the distance to reach the London area and then turn off and fall to the ground. Over the next few months they sent several thousand of them, and there was no telling where they would land. My older brother was a member of an anti-aircraft battery stationed on the south-east coast, whose job was to try to shoot them down before they crossed the coast.

“Three months later they began sending asupersonic rockets (the V2), which flew in a very high arch and arrived without warning. Again, since the aiming could only be approximate, the target was London. Their range was about 200 miles. They sent about 1,300 in the seven months from then until March 1945, when we were able to eliminate the last launching sites.”

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

A Bit Puzzling, Isn’t It?

One of the most overlooked entertainment sources: the puzzle. I love puzzles — everything just clicks right into place, cleanly and perfectly to create the bigger picture. All you have to do is find where what goes. It’s a nice contrast to real life, which is messy and things usually don’t fit into place without adjustments or trimming, leaving part of the picture incomplete. And even worse, in real life you have no idea what it’s supposed to look like, so you’re trying to put pieces together without knowing what you’re supposed to put where.

I also like the idea behind the pieces versus the whole. When you look at a piece, you might just see black with some light grey in it, but once it’s in place it makes sense, and moreover, that one piece may not seem like much in the whole picture, but if it weren’t there the image wouldn’t seem right. It would be incomplete, something that irks me unendingly. I doubt I’m the only one.

Beyond the fact that the picture looks nice, and the puzzle has nice metaphorical value, I can think of two other main reasons why I like puzzles so much. The first is that it provides a sense of satisfaction, to have figured it out on your own and to have created something nice by doing so (the same satisfaction applies to LEGOs). The second is that it can be a relatively mindless activity (or at least, doesn’t require total focus), since it’s very much a visual connection or attempting to put the piece in various places. This leaves the mind open for wandering, which, for a writer like myself, is a wondrous thing. This is especially beneficial for me, because, as much as I love contemplating plots and characters and the perfect wording for some sentence or another, I have trouble focusing to do so. It’s the issue I run into when watching YouTube or television or listening to music: I can’t sit still. I want to be doing something with my hands, to feel like I’m doing something productive. The same goes for mental writing exercises: I want to do them, I enjoy doing them, but I have to be doing something with my hands. And puzzles are the perfect candidate for that, because they don’t detract much attention from the story, while giving me something fulfilling to do.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

I can’t get through! There’s a Bearicade!

No, that isn’t misspelled. I really did mean “Bearicade,” not “barricade.” That’s because Mom and I recently played a wonderful card game called Bearicades, about forests and scared prey, and big, scary lumberjacks and equally big and scary predators, but they happen to be playing defense and trying to protect the prey, so they count as the good guys. You know something’s gone really bad to get the predators and the prey to team up!

Bearicades

So there are these cute animals, all innocent and stuff (yeah right, like that snake wasn’t just waiting for a lumberjack to bite!) that are specially grouped into forests. You can choose whether you want to play beginner style by color, or by ring numbers. Each has a special ability, which will be activated as specified on the card (sometimes it’s when the animal runs away, when you Flip the card, or some, like the Salmon, can just be activated whenever).

Then there are the lumberjacks. The active player for the turn (designated by the Frog) draws the top lumberjack and places him in the middle. But of course, no lumberjack lumberjacks by himself, so each lumberjack card lists a certain amount of friends of his who also get drawn. The active player then gets to distribute the lumberjacks between the forests in whatever manner they like, the only rule being that each has to have one.

Then comes the predator phase. There are some really cool predators in the deck, like Cougars, Bats, Foxes, and Angry Bees, but most of the predators are Bearicades. No, not “bears,” “Bearicades,” named as such because they can block a lumberjack, leaving both in play but, at least for the time being, neutralizing the threat. Bearicades also have abilities that can be utilized if they are discarded, depending on the species of Bearicades, including Flipping an animal, forcing lumberjacks to Run Away, or allowing a trade of themselves for another Bearicade in the discard. Other predators can do similar to the latter two, though some allow a switch for any predator in the discard, instead of just Bearicades.

In the sad event that a lumberjack is unstoppable and reaches your forest, you must choose one of your four animals to Run Away as a result. The good news is, the lumberjack follows it over to the discard pile. Some animals also have effects centered around running away, making them the strategic choice, depending on the situation. The bad news is, that animal is out of the game for good, and you only have four of them, so you have to be careful!

Once all of the lumberjacks have been taken care of in some way or another, whether they’re staring down a Bearicade or the back of another lumberjack in the discard, it becomes Night. The player with the Frog draws one Predator for each player still in the game, getting first pick as to which one they want. Each player gets one Predator to add to their hand, and then the Frog passes and the next long day of fighting off the evil forces of humanity begins.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

“The Tale of my Sweet Cat Brother”

Some friends and I were fooling around on our school Chromebooks (a way I find many an interesting thing online, like 2048) when one of them introduced me to a random generator, for stories, songs, poems, names, letters and more. Standardly, I’m unimpressed with random generators, but it was good for a laugh. I decided to write a ballad using their system, as an homage to one of the cats I grew up with, MungoJerry (named after the character from Cats). The result was good enough for me to share it here.

It began on an Old Spring Afternoon:
I was the most Smart Writer around,
He was the most Sweet Cat. 
He was my Brother, 
 My Sweet Brother,
 My Cat.
 
We used to Eat so well together,
 Back then.
 We wanted to Yowl together, around the world,
 We wanted it all.
 
But one Afternoon, one Old Afternoon,
 We decided to Yowl too much.
 Together we Yelled at a Vet.
 It was Lethargic, so Lethargic.
 
From that moment our relationship changed.
He grew so Stationary.
And then it happened:
Oh no! Oh no!
He Cried to God.
 Alas, God!
 My Brother Cried to God.
 It was Dying, so Dying.
 
The next day I thought my whiskers had broken,
 I thought my tail had burst into flames,
 (But I was actually overreacting a little.)
 
But still, he is in my thoughts.
 I think about how it all changed that Afternoon,
 That Old Spring Afternoon.
 
My tail... ouch!
 When I think of that Sweet Cat,
 That Sweet Cat and me.

We miss you, Mungo.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

Dandelion

This is a story I wrote based off of a picture of someone staring horrified at a lump in the carpet. Enjoy!

    “What were you thinking?” my father yelled, waving my wish list in the air. “You are not getting a dog! I want you to rewrite this letter, and I don’t want to see it even mention a dog!”

    Yep, that’s my father for you. Once he makes up his mind, there’s no changing it. Unfortunately for him, I may have inherited some of his stubbornness. So when my father told me I had to rewrite my letter, and I couldn’t mention ‘a dog’, I erased ‘a dog’ from my number 1 ‘want it’ space and replaced it with ‘a puppy’.

    Needless to say (though I’m going to say it anyways), my father was not pleased. He said I was grounded until I had rewritten the letter. I was fine with that. If I wasn’t allowed to leave my room, I didn’t have to go to school, right?

    Well, so much for that idea. My father made me go to the bus stop, so I sat down next to Donna, my best friend. “What’s wrong?” she asked, only briefly glancing at my face before returning to reading. I explained my problem.

    “Why don’t you start with something small like, say, a hamster?” she suggested.

    The reason I didn’t try to get a hamster was I didn’t want a hamster. I wanted a dog, and that was final. In reading, we learned about figurative language. That gave me a great idea.

    When I got home, I rewrote my list. This time, it didn’t mention a dog. Instead, my wish list included a “Servant-bot 3.0”. I said I wanted it because I was ‘lonely’.

    I showed the list to my father and then I put it in my backpack. Hopefully, the person who recieved my list would see the word ‘lonely’ and get the clue.

    All I could do was wait, so I went to my room. There I found my toy food bowl. I gently placed it on my nightstand. The next day I couldn’t pay attention in class. My mind kept drifting to my list. If this didn’t work, what would?

    When I got home, I went to my room. I turned on my lamp and gasped. My little food dish was gone!

    I immediately stormed downstairs and into my father’s office. “Where is it?” I demanded, tears in my eyes. “Where is my little food dish?”

    “I thought it was in your room.” my father nonchalantly replied, not looking away from his paperwork.

    I stomped out of the room, fuming. I immediately ran straight to my room, searching furiously through my stuff. I stomped back down to my father’s office.

    “It’s not there!” I complained.

    “Why don’t you check the garage?” he suggested.

    “Oh no you don’t!” my mother exclaimed, entering the office. “You’re going to go wash up for dinner.”

    The next day, after school, I stepped into my father’s office. “Can I have the keys so I can check the garage for my bowl?”

    He thought for a moment, then replied, “No. I’ll come with you, though.” With that we set out for the garage door. My father slid the key into the hole and opened the door, revealing a vast, dark opening.

    “After you,” my father said, gesturing towards the garage. I took a deep breath and plunged into the darkness.

    A moment or two later, a lamp flickered on. I saw my father change the settings on the dimmer, and suddenly I could see the other side of the garage.

    I turned back to my father. He grinned and did a mock bow like a stage performer. As he straightened up, he froze. The look on his face was clear. I turned very slowly to see where he was pointing.

    “Wha-What’s that?” my father stammered, his eyes wide. I cautiously approached the lump. I reached down, grabbed the end of the carpet, and yanked it back. My eyes widened for a moment, then I burst into hysterical laughter.

    There on the floor was my food bowl. But that wasn’t all! There was also a small, adorable yellow puppy! “Happy Birthday, son.” my father said, stepping over and patting me on the back. And that’s the story of how I got Dandelion.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

Shakespeare’s Obituary

In my English class, we did a biography unit on authors, and, as an introduction, we had to research William Shakespeare (if you don’t know who that is, just wait, you will). We were to accumulate our information into an obituary for him. The following is mine:

William Shakespeare, a man of many words and unparalleled imagination, a man who wrote over three dozen plays and inspired millions, has tragically died on this April 23, 1616, in his hometown of Stratford-Upon-Avon.

On April 23, 1564, the 6th year of Queen Elizabeth I’s rule, Mary and John Shakespeare gave birth to a son. When young William was but 5, his father, who was both a glove maker and a produce trader, was elected as the mayor of their little town, Stratford, which lay upon the Avon River.

Whilst we don’t know all that much about Shakespeare’s school years, since no surviving records of his report cards and the like have been discovered, we can discern a few facts from his work. Studies show that his school experiences may have influenced The Merry Wives of Windsor, and thanks to the era, we know that he studied Latin, since much of the schoolwork of the day was actually in Latin.

At age 12, his father’s financial situation went downhill, never to recover. It is also agreed that he may have discontinued his education when he was roughly 13 to help his father in the shop, quite possibly because of their sinking financial position. For William himself, however, probably the most interesting parts of his teen years were his marriage at 18 and the birth of his first child, Suzanna, at 19. Shakespeare went on to have 2 more kids, twins, just two years after Suzanna’s birth.

We aren’t entirely certain what he did in these first years of his adulthood, but within a decade he had started writing. The young poet made a name for himself in the capital, and when King James I inherited the crown in 1603, he officially made Shakespeare one of the “King’s Men,” a great honor.

Over the course of his career, he wrote many plays, including:

  • Romeo and Juliet (produced 1591-96?)
  • King John (produced 1594-96?)
  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream (produced 1596?)
  • The Merchant of Venice (produced 1596-97?)
  • The Merry Wives of Windsor (produced 1598-99?)
  • Much Ado About Nothing (produced 1598-99?)
  • Henry V (produced 1598-99)
  • Julius Caesar (produced 1599)
  • Hamlet (produced 1599-1601?)
  • Twelfth Night; or, What You Will (produced 1601-02?)
  • Othello (produced 1602-03?)
  • Macbeth (produced 1602-06)
  • King Lear (produced 1605)
  • Coriolanus (produced 1607-10?)
  • The Tempest (produced 1610-11?)
  • The Winter’s Tale (produced 1611?)

Especially in the last few years of his career, his plotlines darkened and clear connections could be made between his personal life and his characters. This was particularly noticeable in Hamlet, King Lear and The Tempest.

    Shakespeare’s work was popular during his life, and even more so after his death. He continues to be an inspiration to generations, a god of the literary world, immortally ingrained in our minds and lives.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

Fluxx Who?

Or maybe Doctor Fluxx? Ooh, that could be fun. “Got a problem? Doctor Fluxx can help! When you’re feeling down, just grab a Fluxx deck and play! Relax as you get Time, Money, and the Rocket you always wanted! Change your goals to something that works for you! Watch as the rules that stop you from winning in life are discarded! Email doctor.fluxx@looneylabs.com for a free consultation today, and we’ll tell you what deck will target your problems the best! Doctor Fluxx — helping people one game at a time!”

Doctor Who Fluxx

On second thought, maybe it’s for the better that they called it Doctor Who Fluxx. Less confusion. For the most part, Doctor Who Fluxx is like the other Fluxx variations (see Science and Firefly Fluxx here, respectively): specialized Keepers, Goals, and Creepers, as well as some specialized New Rules, Actions and Surprises. For this version, the change that stood out to me the most was the grouping system in the Keepers. Some were marked as “The Doctor” or “Companions” with a little symbol on the side. Sometimes, you need a specific Doctor for the goal, but sometimes any one of them would suffice. The same goes for companions.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

Murder of Crows

Yes, that’s what a group of crows is called. But no, that’s not actually what I’m going to talk about today. Not that way. I’m here to, for the first time in a couple of weeks, actually talk about a game! Yeah, I know, it’s about time, but there’s a reason we re-branded….

Murder of Crows

Anyhow, there’s this game called Murder of Crows that I got in my stocking for Christmas. Crows are actually barely involved, it’s mostly about the murder. Each of the five letters (yeah, there are five letters in “murder”: the “r” only counts once) has an effect when played. It either affects the players’ hands or their murders, which are the cards set out in front of them. When you play a card, you put it in the stack for that letter (“r” has two stacks but one effect). The goal is to get the six stacks necessary to spell out “murder.”

Once you spell murder, you get my favorite part of the game: the story. Each letter has a part of a sentence (who, where, why, how…) that, when put together, create a story. As a writer, I love this method, and it gives you some interesting stories, like the guy who killed someone in a dark alley with nail clippers thanks to a misguided sense of justice. Not as well worded here as it was with the cards, but just be glad you didn’t get the pictures. The bloody nail clippers are the stuff of nightmares.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

Same Track, Different Train

The New Year (thereabouts, anyhow) seemed like a good time to announce what we’ve been working on for a while now: Kids Play Games, Too is officially rebranding to Random Geek Child this year (soon, hopefully, but that’s on my programmer). As you may have noticed, the general subject matter of my work has expanded to well past just games, and I feel the need to recognize that.

The content will continue to generally be whatever I feel like writing about, within reasonable parameters, and I’m not anticipating any noticeable shift in tone between the two beyond title and background. The URL kidsplaygamestoo.com will still be owned by us and will redirect to Random Geek Child (until the update goes up, Random Geek Child is rerouting to Kids Play Games, Too), so the URL will still be usable (that way I don’t need new business cards!).

Likewise, my programmer (Mom) has assured me that all of the content from Kids Play Games, Too should be accessible from Random Geek Child. This is less of a big announcement of “this big change is happening” than a heads-up of “Hey folks, don’t freak out when you try to read my work and everything looks different,” but I figured that was worth mentioning.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

Words

Today, I want to talk about impressions. Not the imitation sort, but the “this is what I think about this” type of impressions. What people think about us plays a huge part in our lives, primarily what bad they may think if you do something wrong. We spend so much time troubling ourselves over little imperfections that they might notice that we completely overlook all of our winning traits, which are, ironically, usually what they do notice. There’s an amazing balance to it — no, Thanos, not that type of balance, what are you doing here? Go bother some other planet. — Anyhow, it seems poetic that in ourselves we see the bad, the flaws and mistakes, but in us others see all the good that we cannot.

This was something I first really encountered four(ish) years ago, when my dad fished up a blog post from a friend of mine about the day we met. I hadn’t thought much of it, but she must have, because it warranted what transfers to Google Docs as a solid three and a half pages. There was something extraordinarily enticing about reading someone’s honest opinion of me.

On that note, I’d like to call out Cheshire Moon and thank them for Apple, a personalized version of their song Critters. It, just like that blog post, was a moving reminder of the good that others see, even when I can’t, and there is a uniqueness to the inspiration I get from both of them, not as a call to be more, but as a reminder of what I already am, and to not lose sight of that in the midst of the bad.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail