City Building Games

Lately I have been entertaining myself with a city-building game called Elvenar.

You can play as either a human or an elf. There are several worlds (or servers), and I am playing one of each. Because, you know, why not?

I started the elf city back in late March, and the human city a month later. In this game, you can play by yourself but it is very slow going. You need to trade and that is best done through joining a fellowship of 25 other players.

My fellowship in my elf city (which I named Arcadia) was small and out of sheer desperation, I began inviting other unaffiliated players to join us so I could have people to trade with. We had our numbers up to 19 players and then the archmage (the person who started the group) and our other top player (I was #3) simply stopped playing. Soon I was the #2 player. The lack of trades slowed me down considerably. No one else seemed to be playing as hard as I was, so last weekend, I dumped my fellowship. I spent a day moping about it, and redid my city so it would look a little less frantic, and applied to a fellowship that had a single opening but had players ranging in points from 180,000 to 101. (I am around 23,000 now).



My elf city, Arcadia

To my surprise, they accepted me, and I went in at #16. Three days later, I'm now at #13, having jumped ahead of a few players already. I intend to keep climbing, although the top players have been playing for over a year so I don't think I will beat them. I might catch them in points, eventually.

My human city (which I named Riften - Skyrim players will recognize that name) at this time is nearly even with my elf city, even though I started it a month later. I began in a young fellowship but the top 15 players or so work well together and seem to be doing great. I am #5 in that fellowship at the moment.

My human city, Riften.

City building cities have always fascinated me. I loved Age of Empires when it first came out, which not only was a city-building game but also a history teaching game. Civilization games taught me that ultimately corporations would rule the world - and it appears to be quite prophetic.

Anyway, these days you don't have to spend money to play games with all of these free apps. Of course they want you to spend money so that is why some things are hard, but with patience, you can move forward without dropping a dime.

14 Santas Come to Dinner

Friday night my husband and I were at Cracker Barrel in Troutville. I was stunned to see Halloween decorations on the floor already. It's still July!

They had a butler with his head on a platter, plates, and other ghostly and ghastly items available for purchase.

We sat down at our table, and as I was complaining about the early Halloween decorations, Santa Claus walked in.

He was followed by another Santa Claus, then another, and another, until I counted 14 of them. They also had Mrs. Santa Clauses by their sides.

Unfortunately I had no camera with me, so I used my husband's flip phone. I had never used this piece of technology for photos before - and neither had he, except apparently by accident - so I had to quickly figure out how to make it work. The photos are not great but hopefully you can see that these are Santas, complete with real beards and white hair.

Apparently there was a Santa convention at Camp Bethel, which is a Christian summer camp (Church of the Brethren) with rental facilities tucked away in the Mill Creek area of the county.

On the way home, we saw a double rainbow. I took this as a good sign and stopped and bought a lottery ticket.

However, we did not win a single dollar. I guess rainbows and Santa Clauses do not bring good luck.

They did, however, make me feel better.

Sunday Stealing: Firsts

Sunday Stealing:  Firsts

First Job: Babysitter, unless you count farm work, in which case I was a baby calf feeder, a chicken feeder, and assorted other farm-kid- duties doer.

First Real Job: Parts Manager

First Favorite Politician: Jimmy Carter

First Car: I had an old Jeep when I was 12 years old that I drove up and down our very long driveway.

First Record/CD:  I don't recall. I think as a young child my first album was children's songs from Disney. As a teenager, I think it might have been Captain and Tennille.

First Sport Played: Probably dodge ball.

First Concert: My parents took me to see Loretta Lynn. I think. It was somebody like that.

First Foreign Country Visited: We actually landed in London on our way to Spain. But we didn't get off the plane.

First Favorite TV Show: The Partridge Family.

First Favorite Actor: David Cassidy, who played Keith Partridge.

First Favorite Actress: Susan Dey, who played Laurie Partridge.

First Girlfriend/Boyfriend: I think his name was James. Seems like every boy I dated was named James.

First Encounter with a Famous Person: When my high school band played the Star Spangled Banner for President Jimmy Carter.

First Brush With Death: My grandfather passed away when I was 12. I almost died when I was 23 and had an ovarian cyst rupture.

First House/Condo Owned: The one I live in now is the first one I owned.

First Film Seen: Planet of the Apes.

First Favorite Recording Artist: Linda Ronstadt

First Favorite Radio Station: Whichever one played American Top 40.

First Book I Remember Reading: The Cat in the Hat, by Dr. Seuss.

First Meme You Answered on Your Blog: I've been doing this since 2006. But it appears my first "meme" type thing was BlogBlast for Peace, then known as The Peace Blog Initiative. That was in November 2006. In January 2007, I started doing Thursday 13.

__________
I encourage you to visit other participants in Sunday Stealing posts and leave a comment. Cheers to all us thieves who love memes, however we come by them.

Saturday 9: Never Let You Down

Saturday 9: I Will Never Let You Down (2017)

. . . because Smellyann recommended Fastball

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) Fastball is a trio from Austin, Texas. Austin is the capital of Texas. When you were in school, did you have to memorize the state capitals?

A. I don't recall having to do so.

2) Have you ever visited your state's capital?

A. Yes. Virginia's state capital is Richmond, which was incorporated in 1742, though it was founded in 1737. The city is located along the James River and was an early commercial hub. It served as the capital of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. When the Union Army took Richmond, the Civil War was basically over. (There is a legend that when the Confederate legislature abandoned Richmond, they took a lot of gold and other wealth with them, and hid it somewhere. But no one knows where.)

3) Fastball played dates throughout Canada this past spring. When did you last leave the US of A?

A. I visited Spain and France in 1979.

4) Tony Scalzo is a founding member of Fastball. He's the singer in the video for this song, and that's his wife, Jennifer, playing the organizer of the speed-dating event. Have you ever gotten a job because you knew somebody?

A. Yes. I think that is mostly how it is done these days. It certainly isn't from the help wanted ads in the newspaper.

5) In this pitch to a perspective lover, he admits he doesn't have much money. Last time you went to the ATM, how much did you withdraw?

A. I don't use the ATM. I go to the drive-through window at the bank so I can speak to a live person.

6) He sings that at times, his mind is hazy. Do you have a good memory for names?

A. No. I frequently do not recall who someone is, especially if they are not where they are supposed to be. I have embarrassed myself many times by mistaking someone for another person, or not remembering their name. I have learned to be generic, like "how are things?" instead of asking about family.

7) Fastball guitarist Miles Zuniga admits that he once had a crush on Carrie Fisher (aka Princess Leia). Tell us about one of your one-sided love affairs, either with a celebrity or someone you knew in real life.

A. I had a big crush on Legolas in the Lord of the Rings movies. He is the elf who helped get the One Ring back to Mount Doom, though his role was more in battles away from the quest than the actual quest part. I thought Orlando Bloom was quite handsome. However, it turns out that is the only role I like him in. I have seen him in other things and not been impressed.

8) Fastball's drummer Joey Shuffield is partial to drums from Pork Pie Percussion. This company was started by Bill Detamore, who began making drums as a hobby. Do you have any hobbies that, under the right circumstances, could make you money?

A. I used to make money playing the guitar in a band, a very long time ago. I could probably do that again if I were to practice a bit. And there's my writing. I made a living as a freelance writer for a very long time. Now I only write for myself, but I could go back to that.

9) The fast ball is the most common pitch in major league baseball. Now that the MLB season is past the halfway mark, how is your baseball team doing?

A. I don't have a baseball team. Sorry.

_____________

I encourage you to visit other participants in Saturday 9 posts and leave a comment. Because there are no rules, it is your choice. Saturday 9 players hate rules. We love memes, however.

Just What is Fake Media?

Everywhere I look these days, I see someone write about the fake media. "I don't trust the media," they say.

"It's all fake," they say.

Just out of curiosity, how long have you not trusted the media?

Was it before our current president started calling it fake news?

Maybe it was when Fox came to town and changed the dialogue to one of opinion instead of facts?

Was it when Dan Rather broke the story about George Bush's lackadaisical service in the Texas Air National Guard,  and was then ran out of broadcasting? (A story that to this day has never been proven true or false, by the way.)

Do you not trust the media because big corporations own most of it?

Maybe it's because Judith Miller at the New York Times reported about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq - weapons that the federal government insisted were there?

Is it because Rachel Maddow is one of the smartest person on the planet? Or may you simply think she's overrated?

Do you only mistrust MSNBC and CNN, or do you include ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX in your "fake news" mantra?

Do you mistrust the White House page on Facebook, which as of today has turned into a massive propaganda machine, the likes of which even Edward Louis James Bernays (November 22, 1891 − March 9, 1995), an Austrian-American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, who is often called "the father of public relations," would applaud and Hitler would salute? Or do you trust that?

Do you trust newspapers more than TV, or the other way around?

Do you trust Rush Limbaugh over someone else? Why would you trust the opinion of a single person, regardless of who he/she is, over anyone else, anyway?

I used to be in the media, so I am genuinely curious. People tell me all the time they don't trust the media, but I have yet to have anyone explain to me exactly why they don't trust it.

"Because I think it is one-sided/liberal" is not a good answer unless that can be backed up with fact, and so far no one has been able to back it up with facts, at least, not to me. Just because someone doesn't like what the media reports doesn't make it one-side or leaning in one direction. Just because one reporter messes up doesn't make it all wrong.

The media is not liberal, that's simply opinion, an opinion that's been chanted long and loud for far too long, but still not a fact. Determining whether something is liberal or conservative is opinion, not fact, because that's what the political divide is, opinions. Facts count. Opinion doesn't. We live by opinion these days and look where it's getting us. But it facts (and science) bring us the Internet and radio waves and TV. Not opinion.

Opinion doesn't do anything except make people's stomach's hurt and create bad policy. So what are the facts that make you not trust the media?

Even people that I have known a long time, people who have for years handed off stories to me from various news sources they trusted, no longer trust the media. Is this simply because one person says the news is fake?

I trust the media. Maybe I am in a minority here, and I understand that journalists are at the mercy of editors and owners and therefore they are constantly being undermined by big money and that stories are buried and changed based on dollar bills and not facts. I know this.

I also know that if one reads (which, apparently, most Americans do not), then you can read stories from multiple news sources and anyone with an IQ above 90 can figure out that if the story reads the same everywhere, it's a press release and probably not to be trusted, but if it has been researched and told differently from various sources, then the key things that are the same - names, dates, places, for instance - are probably true.

That isn't to say that journalists don't make mistakes, but I think that most journalists, even the highly paid ones, try to bring truth to the newsroom. I do not think journalists themselves set out to deliberately mislead. I think politicians try to use journalists to deliberately mislead, and it sometimes happens. I had it happen once myself and was incredibly unhappy with the politician who used me thusly. I no longer consider him a trustworthy person, though he seems none the wiser.

I know many people will disagree with me, even friends, but I do not think the media is the enemy. I do not think government, as an entity in and of itself, is the enemy. But I do think that certain individuals within the government, and within the media, may be the enemy. Apparently people can no longer tell the difference between an entity and an individual. And therein lies the problem.

Thursday Thirteen

Today, I offer you 13 statements about women that have came from the political realm in recent years. Some have become rallying cries. (And the last two are just because.)

1. Nevertheless, she persisted.

2. Nasty Woman

3. On Wednesdays, we wear pantsuits.

4. Binders full of women.

5. Women's rights are human rights.

6. The War on Women

7. My body is not a political issue.

8. Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.

9. Fight like a girl!

10. The Future is Female.

11. There is no Force more powerful than a woman determined to rise.

12. I will fight for those who cannot fight for themselves. (Wonder Woman)

13. Only love can save this world. (Wonder Woman)

__________

 

Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 508th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Kudzu

On US 220 as one heads into Franklin County, the highway is lined with kudzu. We don't see much of it here where I live; perhaps we're just a little too far north and not exactly the right climate. But two counties away, there it is.

Kudzu covering the side of the road, moving up into the trees, as far as one can see from a car.

Kudzu has always fascinated me. When I was growing up, I heard tales of how it was going to take over everything. It would grow overnight around a vehicle and encompass it, eating it like a giant anaconda engorging a cow. It was poisonous, or so I thought.

It was going to take over the world.

In Margaret Atwood's Oryx & Crake book, and the two that follow, a newly created humanoid, one Crake thought up to take the place of us reckless, angry, thoughtless, immoral and degraded human beings, sits and stares at the landscape, dreamily contemplating apparently nothing at all. These creatures, innocent and unthinking, ate kudzu because it was so plentiful that Crake thought it would be an endless food source for them.

It looks like it would eat everything, doesn't it?

Kudzu, named an invasive species by Congress in 1998, found its way to the United States via the 1876 World’s Fair Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Farmers had little use for the climbing, coiling, and trailing perennial vines native to much of eastern Asia, Southeast Asia, and some Pacific islands. (The name is derived from the Japanese name for the plants, kuzu, which was written "kudzu" in historical romanizations.)

Kudzu was hard to harvest, being a vine, and sustained animal grazing killed it. For almost 60 years, it was largely forgotten.

Then along came the dust bowl of 1935, which left the prairie farms lifeless. Congress in its infinite wisdom decided it should do something about soil erosion, and somebody decided kudzu was the perfect foil. Greenhouses grew more than 70 million kudzu seedlings, and they were taken over by a new government entity, the Soil Conservation Service. In order to get it planted, the SCS offered $8 an acre to farmers to plant the vine.

While farmers remained skeptical, contractors, eager for something to cover the sides of the new roads they were carving into mountains and slopes, planted kudzu seedlings everywhere they went. In 1940, there was even a Kudzu Club of America, which had a membership of 20,000 and a goal of planting eight million acres of kudzu across the South.

However, just five years later, only about 1 million acres had been covered with the "crop." Once federal payments stopped, it was grazed over or plowed under. The government left kudzu to do what it would.

Kudzu climbing toward the sky via the trees.

 



It grew, and legends grew along with it. Today it does not cover millions of acres, but because it does grow well along roadsides, it is highly visible. It has become a symbol of the South, and part of the mythology of an area that other parts of the nation see as run-down, poor, and overtaken by grief and a nostalgia for a past that never really existed.

Kudzu became a symbol of the hopelessness of a land scarred by a Civil War that even now is still fought, with a battle raging just this weekend in Charlottesville as KKK and anti-racist protestors argued over whether a statue of Robert E. Lee belongs in the city park.

In Smithsonian Magazine, I found this paragraph in an article about kudzu:

In a 1973 article about Mississippi, Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, wrote that “racism is like that local creeping kudzu vine that swallows whole forests and abandoned houses; if you don’t keep pulling up the roots it will grow back faster than you can destroy it.” The photographs of kudzu-smothered cars and houses that show up repeatedly in documentaries of Southern life evoke intractable poverty and defeat.

It seems a truth, this notion and thought, this statement about a vine that supposedly eats the land. As I stand back and watch the changing mindscape of humanity, I have to wonder - are we becoming not Atwood's kudzu-eating innocents, but the mythology of the kudzu itself, a vine-like snake that eats everything in sight, and which will eventually kill itself when it turns around and eats its own tail.


Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/true-story-kudzu-vine-ate-south-180956325/#8HfbETilyKTcpkVJ.99

Review: Fallout 4

Over the July 4 "celebration period," Steam, the video game engine that most of the video games are now played through, at least on PC, had a big game sale.

Fallout 4 had been on my wishlist for a while. The game, by Bethesda, had received more good reviews than bad and I am a fan of their Elder Scrolls series, having played Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim. I have over 1,300 hours of game time in Skyrim alone. (That's over a period of 6 years, and some of it is time I am not even playing it: I've set a pack of dimes on a key to make my character stay in stealth mode to build up that skill and walked away.) These are open-world games and enormously playable. The Elder Scrolls series are set on another planet, where you have humanoids but also characters that function as humans but which have different capabilities; lizards, cat-like creatures, orcs, and so forth. The Elder Scrolls also deals with magic and doesn't use guns.

Bethesda generally does not have great main story lines, but their multiple side quests can keep me engrossed for hours and are in and of themselves long games. I also like to explore and do not barrel through each quest. I take my time and search every nook and cranny of a cave or whatever. I appreciate the detail in the game.

Anyway, given my track record with Bethesda games, I thought I'd give Fallout 4 a try since it was on sale for a very low price, like, paperback book-level price. Given that, if I only spent 5 hours with it, I would consider it ok. Generally speaking, with Bethesda games one does not necessarily need to have played the earlier games in a series for it to make sense.

So far I have spent 6 hours with the game, and I confess I find it wanting. It is set in a dystopian world, the year 2285, more or less, in Boston, MA after nuclear war created by over-consumerism and an ignorant population (the beginning was so like today that it made me shiver) make everyone angry and riotous. It is our world though not quite, as it is initially set in 2075; however, the differences aren't enough to shake the queasy feeling that this might actually be our tomorrows.

I'm going to talk about the story line as well as game controls, so if you don't want to know any of that, stop reading here.

SPOILER ALERT

Fallout 4 uses the same game engine as Skyrim, so I thought my learning curve on the PC controls would be quick. Wrong. The menu system on Fallout 4 is terrible. After six hours of play I still haven't figured out how to favorite a weapon, use armor, or anything else useful. I can use a security baton and beat up roaches and that's about it. I found a pistol and either I am a really bad shot, taking nearly a full clip to kill a radiated cockroach, or the aiming mechanism is off. This kind of thing should be intuitive, and a somewhat seasoned Bethesda game player, playing on novice no less, should not be left still wondering how to figure out the menu after six hours of game play. If I decide to play anymore on this game, an iffy adventure at the moment, I am going to first find a walkthrough with control directions and something that explains this weird menu.

In Skyrim, the player interacts with the AI world using text. Fallout 4 gives the player voice options, but they are terribly limited and frequently are not the questions you'd want to ask. Whereas in Skyrim you might hear the player grunt occasionally, in Fallout 4 the character makes comments about the scenery around her (I was playing as a female). The story line begins with a husband and wife in the bathroom. The player sets up the character, facial characteristics, hair, eye color, all of that stuff, and the husband comments on it. "New hair style?"  "Shaun (their child) has your eyes."

Once the character is created and named, you go into the kitchen where you meet a robot helper, who cooks, cleans, and cares for the baby. He goes off to feed the child. During this time, a salesman comes to the door to force you to purchase space in Vault 111, a safe space where your family can go and stay for a year or something in the event of a nuclear event. You agree to the purchase. The robot comes back to say Shaun needs his mother. You visit the baby, spin a mobile above him, and then the robot tells you to come and look at the TV.

Oddly a lot of the things in the detailed surroundings (they are very good, graphically speaking) are more like 1950s style than futuristic. It is an odd mix of old and new. Anyway, there is nuclear war starting, the TV announcer says, and then the screen goes blank. A Vault 111 van pulls up and someone on a loud speaker tells everyone to get up the hill to the vault. Your husband grabs Shaun, and you both run. You go onto a little circle thing - other people are being beaten back by Vault 111 security, which is kind of not nice - and you go down. You are hustled into a room, handed a suit, and told to go into a decontamination unit to change.

Everything goes white for a while. Then you wake up, and you see through a glass in your decontamination chamber, which is really a cryogenic pod, a man grab your child from your husband and then shoot your husband in the head. Then you go back into stasis or whatever you call it.

Then you wake up. This is when you finally really get to take over the character. Previously all you could do was walk around. (Fortunately I knew that was "w" on the keyboard from Skyrim, because nothing else told you.) You go to your husband's pod, open it, and all you say is "I will avenge you, sweetheart, and I'll find Shaun," and you take his ring. No weeping, nothing. At this point you don't know how long you've been "asleep." As you wander through the underground enclosure, you come across computer terminals that, if you read them, explain that you were put in deep freeze and that the crew that was supposed to watch over you mutinied after about 180 days of being locked underground. No one else is alive in their pods and you can't open them.

After you kill cockroaches and pick up coffee cups and various other pieces of junk (which I did only because I had pre-read that you should pick up everything), you finally make your way out. You go to your house and your robot is still there, tending to a fallen-in house (made of wood, it really wouldn't be standing, still). He tells you that you have been gone for 210 years. So it is now 2285 or so.

Everything is very dismal, with your little subdivision in shambles. Somehow couches still have some stuffing and you wander around the neighborhood picking up more junk. Across the street from your house you find a couple of workstation for creating things. Apparently crafting is an integral part of Fallout 4.

In Skyrim, crafting is an option. You don't have to improve a thing to move forward in the game. But in Fallout 4, you are ultimately creating new settlements, so you actually have to use all of that junk you pick up to make beds, electricity, radios, etc. Also, if the weather turns weird, you take radiation hits, which you have to cure somehow or another.

Anyway, the gist of this is you go from town to town and you're still searching for your son. Now, you have no idea when he was taken from his father's pod. So you don't know if that was 200 years ago or 10 minutes before you woke up. Odds are, though, given the shape of the world, that it was a very long time ago, and probably about the time the crew watching over your units mutinied, which would make it a very long time ago indeed. This really makes no sense as a main quest. I mean, I understand wanting to find your son but I would think you'd be wondering if you're actually looking for your great-great-grandchildren.

There are side quests, from what I read - you do this or that for people, and you create a settlement in your little subdivision. The things you have to fight off are killers and looters, roaches and other assorted oversized bugs, some bigger creepier things that are very hard to kill, and ghouls, which are irradiated people who are like zombies. There are normal people wandering around but they are not very helpful, or at least, not the few I met in the six hours of game time I have played.

Jumping forward, because I went and read the storyline to see if I even cared about it, in the end you find your Shaun and he's an old man, overseeing some section that was running Vault 111 and which is now trying to control the world or something by creating synthetic people.

It is not a story line I particularly care about.

It is unusual for me to feel this much distaste for a video game, but I am not keen on this one at all. It has a balance of good and bad reviews and I wish I had paid more attention to the bad reviews, but it is hard to judge those things, just as it is with book reviews. It is all subjective.

Part of the problem is I dislike using guns for multiple reasons, and part of it is the dreariness of this world is such a start contrast to Skyrim - which is full of color, northern lights, brilliant moons, etc. - that it is almost shocking. The other part is it is not a fantasy world, it's reality of sorts, and not a very nice one. It is one thing to watch Waterworld for two hours, and then return to your life, but quite another to want to invest 100+ hours in this kind of landscape.

I suppose I shall have to wait until the next version of The Elder Scrolls comes out before I purchase another open-world video game.

Sunday Stealing: Box Questions

 Sunday Stealing: The Put Your Questions in the Box Questions

1. Where were you three hours ago?

A. Sitting at the computer. But earlier I had cattle out, so I was out chasing cows (I was in the car). Actually I was watching them while I waited for my husband to come home and chase them in; I was simply ensuring they didn't find their way to the main road. Had they done so, then I would have blocked the road with my car and turned the blinkers on and moved in for more drastic action, but fortunately I did not have to do that.

A newborn calf.

2. Make a confession.

A. A Bless me Father for I have sinned confession? I really don't have any. I'm pretty vanilla anymore. Well, I read the Tarot the other day and it was eerily spot on. And I spent $26 on a video game sale on Steam. Whoo hoo, I'm a bad girl, I am.

3. Bad habits?

A. I bite my nails and I eat chocolate. Again, bad, bad girl.

4. Favorite color?

A. Blue.

5. Can you drive?

A. I have been driving since I was 12 years old.

6. Three pet peeves.

A. People who leave shopping carts in the middle of the parking lot. Liberals and conservatives who can't see past the trees and into the forest (lack of long-range understanding of consequences is a big problem today). TV commercials for drugs and lawyers.

7. Last person you hugged.

A. My husband.

There he is, my guy.

8. Something you miss.

A. My gallbladder and my ovaries.

9. What song is stuck in your head at the moment?

A. A song called "True Love" as sung by Anne Murray on her album Croonin'.

10. Favorite quote.

A.

11. Favorite band.

A. I have so many it is hard to choose, but I am going to go with The Eagles today.

12. Something you're excited for.

A. I am getting a hair cut next week. Whoo hoo!

13. Favorite movie.

A. Lord of the Rings (all three movies in the trilogy, all 9+ hours)

Boromir dies a most valiant and tragic death in
The Fellowship of the Ring.

14. What type of phone do you have?

A. I have a Nokia flip phone.

15. Favorite animal.

A. I consider the deer to be my totem animal.

I suppose my totem would be a doe, not a buck, but
hey, it's a deer.

__________
I encourage you to visit other participants in Sunday Stealing posts and leave a comment. Cheers to all us thieves who love memes, however we come by them.

Saturday 9: The Joker

Saturday 9: The Joker (1973)

because Stacy recommended it.

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) In this song, Steve Miller claims he's a picker, grinner, sinner, lover, smoker and joker. Do any of those six words describe you?

A. All but the smoker one. I've used the other words to describe myself in answers to some of these meme questions, if I'm not mistaken. I'm a picker (guitar player), grinner (weird sense of humor), sinner (aren't we all?), lover (thank you husband), and a joker (that weird sense of humor again). And I sure don't want to hurt no one.

2) He maintains he's still a midnight toker. When's the last time you got high?

A. Ha. With illegal substances, when I was a teenager. With stuff from the doctor, not all that long ago. Good thing I don't drink alcohol.

3) The lyrics include a reference to peaches. Name your favorite fruit.

A. Apple.

4) This song had a big impact on the character of Joey on Friends, who had an imaginary friend named Maurice with the occupation of space cowboy. Did you ever have an imaginary friend?

A. Oh yes. I had several of them when I was growing up. One was named Davy and he was very mischievous. I had another named Jamie, whom I told my mother I was going to marry when I grew up (and I married a James, imagine that). There were others, too. Sometimes when I am at the store and I am buying something silly (like say, a Wonder Woman coloring book) and someone asks me if it is for my daughter (or granddaughter, now that my hair is graying), I smile and say yes. Toys for my imaginary family.

5) Steve Miller is the pride of Milwaukee, WI. What else is Milwaukee famous for?

A. Beer is about all I can think of.

6) Steve Miller considers himself a serious blues guitarist. When did you last feel like singing the blues?

A. I sing them every day, I think.

7) In 1973, when this song was popular, you could buy a portable 8-track tape player for $44.50. On what device do you listen to music most often?

A. Now I listen to music on either my desktop computer or my Amazon Kindle, and I still listen to the radio or the CD player in the car.

8) A Curious George book packaged with a Curious George plush toy was a big seller at Christmas 1973. Tell us about a toy -- either given or received -- that brightened a holiday or birthday for you.

A. My brother this past Christmas gave me Santa Mouse, which is actually a Christmas tree decoration. However, we played with it when we were children. My mother got it, I think through Avon, when she was pregnant with me just after my parents married, so it is older than I am.




9) M*A*S*H was one of TV's top-rated shows in 1973. Who is your favorite M*A*S*H character?

A. Hawkeye aka Captain Pierce, although Major Margaret Houlihan is a close second.

 

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