I’ve been getting rid of the favorite objects of my youth, lately. I didn’t know it would all happen in the span of a few weeks, but it sort of shook out that way. Last week’s column was about my Magic addiction, and how I’ve finally started getting rid of all my cards. I think it’s a fairly accurate depiction of the hobby, and have been told it’s one of my better columns. So maybe you should read it.

Nobody has yet made a similar comment about this week’s column, but if you want to read about how I also sold all my action figures to a local collector, and sold all my old Nintendo games to a slightly less local store, go right ahead.

Also, I should perhaps mention that “local” in the previous paragraph refers to Rhode Island. I was back visiting last weekend, and am still a Rhode Islander at heart. Now and forever. Best of all, I got to stop at my favorite ice cream stand, Hill Top Creamery. Pina Colada Glacier Freeze (a slushee mixed with vanilla ice cream) is still the most refreshing thing you can possibly have on a summer day.

Normally, when I write a column, I’d like everyone in the world to read it. But sometimes that’s not the case. For example, last weekend I was at a wedding. And my column about that wedding should probably not be read by a certain attendee of the wedding. Of course, this is the Internet, so anything I post on here can be read by anyone at all.

So it would be especially foolish to then write something on this blog that even more people shouldn’t see. And yet… some things cannot pass without comment. (Or at least, cannot pass by me without comment.) So it’s hard to say which of the two speeches at the wedding irked me more — the wedding “toast” which exhorted the groom to realize he would be wrong in all arguments (and practice saying “Yes, Dear”), or the priest’s reading during the ceremony that said anyone not accepting Christ will burn in a fire.

The fusion of the two, however, is most excellent. People faced with crazy religious intolerance should smile condescendingly and say “Yes, Dear”.  And people who believe that certain gendered stereotypes or condescension should take the place of rational discourse should churn in a mire. And people who blather on their blogs should stop writing and go to sleep.

At the monthly local creatively-aligned potluck I attend, there are always interesting people. There are various artists of all types, including our frequent host, the inimitable Howard Cruse. There was once even a witch. But there are also two people who really, really care about the welfare of dogs, and vehemently oppose anything that might make canines suffer in the slightest bit. They should not read today’s column. The rest of you, though, should go right ahead.

Acquired some new board games yesterday, among them Power Grid and Caylus, both longish brain-busting sorts of games produced by the fine people at Rio Grande, and both currently on BoardGameGeek’s top ten list. We’ve already played three games, and are looking forward to more. While playing this game, it occured to me that some games are less suited for certain modifications than others. For example, in spite of how many people seem to enjoy it with poker, I imagine that Strip Caylus or Strip Power Grid (a.k.a. “Power Strip”) just wouldn’t be the same.

And no, I don’t plan to test this empirically, so if you want to find out, you’ll have to test it yourself. But if you do, let me know how it goes.

Well, I’m back from my weekend in Maine attending a wedding. The first of four for the year, albeit the only one likely to be held on a family farm while various people gleefully drive a rented golf cart all over the property. These kids were clearly abusing a vehicle meant for transporting deck chairs across the fields and doing other serious work. Personally, I would never condone frivolous use of such a vehicle, especially since I almost fell off while joyriding on the back as we went over some hills at top speed. I may have to write my upcoming column about my trip.

Meanwhilst, last Friday’s column was about the Fourth of July in general, although I couldn’t post it because I was on the road. Fireworks are apparently illegal in the entire state of Maine, so I won’t confirm or deny rumors that there were fireworks at said wedding. It does seem odd, though, that celebrating patriotism is illegal. Then again, rebelling against unjust governance is patriotic too.

I’ve developed an addiction to board games.

Perhaps that’s not quite right. More accurate would be to say, I’ve nurtured an addiction to board games. Because I’ve always loved board games, as far back as I can remember. And not those endless games like Monopoly, or lame games of chance like War or Life, but board games that tend to fall in the “euro” style. Games that involve lots of strategy without involving six hour wargaming sessions. (If I wanted to spend six hours repeatedly adding things up in the hopes of figuring out the best way not to be killed by my opponent, I’d do my taxes.)

Anyway, the point is, I like my board games. And so I’ve bought a fair number of them (or, some might say, an unfair number) in the past few months. I’ve gotten in a few shipments of multiple games, and another is on the way. Unfortunately, it’s somewhat rare that I have more than one person around to play with. So I’ve now stocked my shelves with games which, for the most part, sit unplayed.

And it was still a much better use of money than the dollar I spent on the Ace Ventura video in the bargain bin.

I may receive some flak for saying this, but I don’t necessarily think George Carlin was one of the funniest comedians the world has ever seen. I do, however, think that he may have been one of the most important.

The way he delved into words — both vulgar and otherwise — was unmatched. He went beyond mere observational humor and seriously examined the way we use words, what we mean by them, what they mean, and the gap in between. Where many comedians use profanity as filler when they have nothing funny to say, Carlin examined the very nature of profanity, and language itself. If I could put three people in a room with me to discuss the nature of language (presuming resurrection and Babel Fish insta-translation was available), they would probably be Wittgenstein, Carlin, and some other guy*. There’s no denying that more than any other big-name comedian, George Carlin took great pains to unpack the language we use every day.

And he didn’t just do it as shtick, to mock a phrase like “Nothing’s wrong, do whatever you think is right,” when coming from a wife or girlfriend. He really dove into each word in much more depth than anyone who has come before, or since. There are other comedians who have picked a particular word to unpack (Chris Rock with “nigger”, or Jeff Foxworthy with “redneck”), but George Carlin covered a wide range of words while still giving each one its due. And neither Rock nor Foxworthy ever got into the word itself in the way that Carlin did, discussing things like soft sounds of letters like F, and harsh sounds of phonemes like CK. George Carlin wasn’t just a comedian, he was a linguist.

Anyway, I mention him in this week’s limerick on BBspot.

*Hard to choose that third guy. I considered various people from Douglas Adams to Taylor Mali, but couldn’t quite find the right third person. Although really, either of those two would do just fine.