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WonderWebLog for 26 Apr 2004

Gosh it's been slow lately. I'm starting to wonder what's going on with the gamers around here. Sure, things are gearing up for finals at Tech, but that shouldn't cause a total slowdown. Not everyone's a student, after all.

However, we did lose another game store in the area and this time it was right here in Lubbock. Victory Games down on 50th and University has closed. Now I've been told it was because the owner was wanting to go back to school (and that's good). I'm really hoping it wasn't because of lack of support. That's always bad news for all game stores when that happens.

This means that everybody should show up here at Hatter's and game. Take a break from your finals and that pile of books, come down and play. It'll be good for you and keep you from burning out. And who knows, chances are somebody here (including me!) has taken that class already and can give you pointers.

On a more personal side, I've now succeeded in extricating myself from the huge mountain of debt I've racked up as a student. Having paid off old utility bills, parking tickets, and now a bank snafu, retty much all that remains of the biggies now is my student loan itself. That's going to be years in the paying, but it is now (as far as I can tell) my only remaining debt. This is very good as I've been denied everything from teaching positions to housing because of the money I owe from my days as a university student. Now that I plan to turn professional student it's nice to know I'll be able to do it out of my own pocket.

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They're making a new version of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Mos Def is set to play Ford Prefect (which I can see). Sam Rockwell as Zaphod, well, I'm trying to wrap my heads around that. At the very least it should be interesting. I've loved Guide ever since I was a kid and I'm still out on which version (radio, book, ministeries) is my favorite. I still even have a copy of the InfoCom text adventure and play it every now and again on my Apple IIgs.

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Well, must dash. I have a mah-jongg game to limber up for tonight. Should be fun! I'll be here all day Saturday, too. I'm hoping to try out a couple of new game designs and a refinement on an old one. Before too long, I should have them posted here so you can play them too.

Be well,

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"Looking at a picture of Pat Tillman, most American men recognized an ideal of manliness lacking in ourselves and especially in our elected leaders. Does anyone see even a remote resemblance between Pat Tillman and say, Dick Cheney, George Bush or former President Bill Clinton? If Pat Tillman typified the best and brightest that America had to offer, his example was a vision of America usually found in high school history books, not the sinister vision offered by the White House. But Pat was not the first idealistic athlete victimized by the State for its own purposes. In life--and now death--Pat resembled two similar athletes little known to most Americans. Olympic athlete Lutz Long and heavyweight boxing champion Max Schmeling both underwent glorious, much propagandized ascents and tragic falls similar to that of Tillman. Both men were German, and both opposed an evil, fascist regime that used them as poster boys--like our own jingoist media and Machiavellian State--for self-serving propaganda purposes."
-- Douglas Herman, "Pat Tillman, Meet Max and Lutz"

"The case should be a legal slam dunk. If free speech means anything in this country it is that a drug reform ad should be permitted to occupy the same bit of public space as an antiabortion ad or a gun control appeal. "Congress keeps forgetting that there is no drug exception to the Constitution," says Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. And get this: While drug reformers are being gagged by Congress, the same spending bill provides $145-million for communicating the opposite message. That whopping sum, funded by taxpayers, is to be used to buy ads promoting the drug war, with a special emphasis on demonizing marijuana."
-- Robyn Blumner, "A Phony War Defeats Free Speech"

"Having bombed Dublin and, perhaps, a few IRA training bogs in Tipperary, we could not have afforded to be complacent. We would have had to turn our attention to those states that had supported and funded the IRA terrorists through all these years. The main provider of funds was, of course, the USA, and this would have posed us with a bit of a problem. Where to bomb in America? It's a big place and it's by no means certain that a small country like the UK could afford enough bombs to do the whole job. It's going to cost the US billions to bomb Iraq and a lot of that is empty. America, on the other hand, provides a bewildering number of targets. Should we have bombed Washington, where the policies were formed? Or should we have concentrated on places where Irishmen are known to lurk, like New York, Boston and Philadelphia? We could have bombed any police station and fire station in most major urban centers, secure in the knowledge that we would be taking out significant numbers of IRA sympathizers. On St Patrick's Day, we could have bombed Fifth Avenue and scored a bull's-eye."
-- Monty Python's Terry Jones, "Mr. Bush Is Right! Let's Bomb Ireland!" (bottom of page)

"Or, since President Bush now seems to be a history buff, are the Germans to be given back Danzig or the Sudetenland? Or Austria? Or should we perhaps recreate the colonial possessions of the past 100 years? Is it not 'realistic' that the French should retake Algeria - or part of Algeria - on the basis that the people all speak French, on the basis that this was once part of the French nation? Or should the British retake Cyprus? Or Aden? Or Egypt? Shouldn't the French be allowed to take back Lebanon and Syria? Why shouldn't the British re-take America and boot out those pesky 'terrorists' who oppose the rule of King George's democracy well over 200 years ago? Because this is what George Bush's lunacy and weakness can lead to. We all have lands that 'God' gave us. Didn't Queen Mary die with 'Calais' engraved on her heart? Doesn't Spain have a legitimate right to the Netherlands? Or Sweden the right to Norway and Denmark? Every colonial power, including Israel can put forward these preposterous demands."
-- Robert Fisk, "By Endorsing Ariel Sharon's Plan George Bush Has Legitimised Terrorism"

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Smile, and welcome to The Wonderland Game Company's official website! This is where we hang out and put our various doings online for your enjoyment.

In addition to the site, we also run The Mad Hatter's House of Games, Lubbock's only game store. We're located right across the street from Texas Tech University in the middle of the student entertainment district.

We have free play space, big gaming tables, weekly sanctioned tournaments, giveaways, odd events, Mexican import sodas, nearly all of Mike Oldfield's albums on shuffle play, plus four pubs and the best pizza in the world all within a few steps of the front door. What more could you ask for?

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