To Take Over the World
Dec. 3rd, 2002 04:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguistJenn gave me my Christmas present yesterday. I love getting presents. But I think I love them more when I get them before Christmas.
Jenn got me Risk.
I have a lot of stories about Risk. My high school friends Matthew, John, Darren and Paul became Risk fiends the year after I graduated (I was the oldest of my group of friends; they were all still in high school). I came back from college for some vacation and found myself invited to John and Matt's house for DiGiorno pizza and Risk.
Risk is a game simple in its premise--global domination--but somewhat complicated in its execution. It kind of depends on luck in rolling dice (which Darren should be thankful for; it's the only reason he's any good!), but there's also strategy and other things that just aren't my paradigm. Plus I had no skill, whereas these guys were such veterans that they've developed a little subculture all their own.
Like re-naming the colors of pieces. And each person had the same one all the time. Matthew is green--Greenpeace. (Or just "greenpieces." And actually, he's green in any game because he says Greenpeace/greenpieces rule the world.) Paul is red, the Communists of course. John is black, the nihilists. (Sometimes he can't say "nihilist" right, which is really funny.) Darren is yellow, the banana republic. ("I don't want to be a banana republic!" he's said at least once; of course no one listens.) Blue is the federalists; the few times I played I have been blue. Then there's pink, the feminists.
Some of the countries have more interesting names, too. There's The Egypt and The Urinal The Holy Land of Fish and The Big Pile of Snow and The Country Nobody Wants. There is a situation in which you have to yell "Damn you gulag archipelago inmates!" (Jenn says that would be a good name for a punk band.) When Matt and John's dad played I remember him trying to take over South America and yelling at the dice in Portugese every time he rolled. John told me Vizzini (from The Princess Bride!)'s admonition to "never get involved in a land war in Asia." Matthew amended it to "Never start a land war in Asia." Somehow, I think Risk is where the "Die you stupid feminists!" song came from... (It's a simple song; those may be the only lyrics.) Even when I don't play--I'm really bad, I don't think I've ever gotten the hang of it--I like to watch my friends be so odd.
This is what I talk about and I talk about it enough that Jenn saw the game in Target and thought she had to buy it for me.
My version of Risk is not as old as the one I'm used to seeing, so the plastic infantries and cavalries and artilieries actually look like what they're supposed to be...and there are no pink pieces. This set has grey ones instead. So, of course, there was the dilemma of what to call them.
Jenn thought they should be the neo-feminists. That idea has its charm, but I thought I could do better. Grey is a color with such potential. I liked the phrase "robot invaders from space," which was in a story Matt told me this weekend, but actually he and I thought up a better one independently: "Greys." It's "a pop culture reference...sort of" in the words of Matthew. I know what greys are, but I also know people who don't. Greys are supposedly the aliens who landed at Roswell (and probably other places too). They have spindly bodies, enormous heads, and grey skin.
I like it. Aliens as a faction in Risk is very nice, very modern.
Jenn got me Risk.
I have a lot of stories about Risk. My high school friends Matthew, John, Darren and Paul became Risk fiends the year after I graduated (I was the oldest of my group of friends; they were all still in high school). I came back from college for some vacation and found myself invited to John and Matt's house for DiGiorno pizza and Risk.
Risk is a game simple in its premise--global domination--but somewhat complicated in its execution. It kind of depends on luck in rolling dice (which Darren should be thankful for; it's the only reason he's any good!), but there's also strategy and other things that just aren't my paradigm. Plus I had no skill, whereas these guys were such veterans that they've developed a little subculture all their own.
Like re-naming the colors of pieces. And each person had the same one all the time. Matthew is green--Greenpeace. (Or just "greenpieces." And actually, he's green in any game because he says Greenpeace/greenpieces rule the world.) Paul is red, the Communists of course. John is black, the nihilists. (Sometimes he can't say "nihilist" right, which is really funny.) Darren is yellow, the banana republic. ("I don't want to be a banana republic!" he's said at least once; of course no one listens.) Blue is the federalists; the few times I played I have been blue. Then there's pink, the feminists.
Some of the countries have more interesting names, too. There's The Egypt and The Urinal The Holy Land of Fish and The Big Pile of Snow and The Country Nobody Wants. There is a situation in which you have to yell "Damn you gulag archipelago inmates!" (Jenn says that would be a good name for a punk band.) When Matt and John's dad played I remember him trying to take over South America and yelling at the dice in Portugese every time he rolled. John told me Vizzini (from The Princess Bride!)'s admonition to "never get involved in a land war in Asia." Matthew amended it to "Never start a land war in Asia." Somehow, I think Risk is where the "Die you stupid feminists!" song came from... (It's a simple song; those may be the only lyrics.) Even when I don't play--I'm really bad, I don't think I've ever gotten the hang of it--I like to watch my friends be so odd.
This is what I talk about and I talk about it enough that Jenn saw the game in Target and thought she had to buy it for me.
My version of Risk is not as old as the one I'm used to seeing, so the plastic infantries and cavalries and artilieries actually look like what they're supposed to be...and there are no pink pieces. This set has grey ones instead. So, of course, there was the dilemma of what to call them.
Jenn thought they should be the neo-feminists. That idea has its charm, but I thought I could do better. Grey is a color with such potential. I liked the phrase "robot invaders from space," which was in a story Matt told me this weekend, but actually he and I thought up a better one independently: "Greys." It's "a pop culture reference...sort of" in the words of Matthew. I know what greys are, but I also know people who don't. Greys are supposedly the aliens who landed at Roswell (and probably other places too). They have spindly bodies, enormous heads, and grey skin.
I like it. Aliens as a faction in Risk is very nice, very modern.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2002-12-04 04:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2002-12-04 05:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-30 12:45 am (UTC)Anyhow, several people have coughed up ideas about how you could wiggle your way into some sort of tolerable activity/interaction in the UKianWorld, and I have another idea that might be useful.
I'd like very much to send you a couple hundred dollars toward financing whatever endeavor you might choose to pursue. Not a loan, or with any sort of expectations included: once it's sent, I'd handily forget all about it. It's one of my superpowers: once money is gone from me, it ceases to exist. I make crazy-ass Target headquarters-executive-guy money, and I'm getting back a whomping tax refund soon anyhow, and it wouldn't be any sort of dent for me at all. Even if you spent it on train recordings, or Beach Boys rarities (which is saying A LOT, because I really hate the Beach Boys, no offense, feel free to hate Pernice Brothers on my account) I couldn't possibly care less, if there's a remote chance it might help you adhere to something even moderately uplifting.
So think about it, lemme know: you wouldn't be buying any more participation or commenting from me or anything: I would be as much a nonentity in the future as I've been in the past. Just piddly cash one time from the sky, no one knows, is what I'm suggesting. Theenkaboutit.
M.
P.S. My email address is in my user info.