PERSONAL NEWS: Birthdays Left & Right!

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Hi Everyone!

Wow! It seems like everytime I turn around this month, I have more birthdays to worry about whether Peter "Primarch" Ramos, local gamer Charlie, or my two nephews Quinn and Ryan!

And it was those two, my two lovable nephews that had a birthday bash this weekend (Saturday evening, 19 August 2006)... put a real crimp in my gaming plans! It was great though... we all met up at Red Robin, a burger joint, and enjoyed each other's company.

Quinn and Ryan came out like bandits too... their grandmothers went in together and got them some kind of fancy hand-held Nintendo devices... DS or something like that and their favorite uncle got them...

Godzilla toys!

Quinn received Mecha-Godzilla...

And Ryan is now the proud owner of King Ghidora...

That kid always hams it up for the camera!

You see we always play a Godzilla game on their SuperNintendo together and all of the kids invariably gang up on their uncle and give me a good drubbing. The Godzilla toys were a big hit.

And my sister made good use of my artistic and gaming skills. I was put in charge of decorating the cakes. She gave me two designs to transplant onto the cakes.

Quinn got a dinosaur that had to be mean-looking (that required a few alterations to the harmless dino I was given)...

And Ryan had to have Yu-Gi-Oh! What a design it was!

As usual, I have shared my photos here:

http://briefurl.com/Bdays_8-19-2006

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And, lo and behold, I was double-blessed with good company this weekend! My friend Joe called and came by today (Sunday, 20 August 2006) for a visit. He recently traded a number of board games for a 15mm ancients miniatures haul... full of Greeks, Romans, Carthaginians and who knows what else. I lent him a number of Ospreys (History books with color illustration plates) and other references to get him started. We chatted a good part of afternoon away and enjoyed some tasty libations. Joe, also brought some of his latest miniature painting artistry... I'll have to drum up some photos of his miniatures painting talents at some date in the future.

And I should always have such good company! Omayn!

All in all, a good weekend... even if I didn't get much gaming in!

I wish the best to all!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

P.S.
And one last shot of my niece...

Cute as a button, isn't she?

GAMING NEWS: Charlie's B-Day & Ajax (12 August 2006)!

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Hi Everyone,

A quick post... I've been very busy getting ready to move on to a new job (A number of interviews, paperwork, etc.) which has kept me from the blog for a bit.

This past Saturday (12 August 2006) was great...

We all celebrated Charlie's birthday down at A-1 Comics...

Happy belated birthday again, Charlie!

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We brought a few cupcakes and let the "games of war" loose...

The group started with "The Fury of Dracula" in, which "Charlie the Dark Count" showed the vampire hunters up.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/20963

The new "FoD" is definitely an improvement over the original, but it's still a very time-consuming game (count on several hours)... that, and it's blasted hard to catch Dracula!

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Dave and I played two games of "Roma" and enjoyed ourselves.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/16496

"Roma" is a fun little two-player that is starting to catch on with the group. I'm also abysmally bad at it, which should mean that I'll get plenty of invitations to play it.

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And the group ended with a game of "Cleopatra."

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/22141

"Cleopatra" is a game with a bidding mechanism that has a twist... whoever bids most gets eaten by the crocodiles... so, part of the game is to make sure you bid alot, but just under the leader. I think I'm getting the hang of it.

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Afterwards, I went over and visited my folks and my favorite cat, Ajax...

Love that cat, not sure who's training whom though. He'll do tricks for me (roll over, jump up, shake, etc.), but I end up petting him for an awfully long time. I think he may have me better trained than I him.

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I'm wishing everyone the best with their gaming and life in general!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

GAMING NEWS: Happy Birthday Primarch & Net-Epic!

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Hi Everyone,

Well, Net-Epic has lasted another year and so has Peter Ramos, the father of the Net-Epic project!

*** What's Net-Epic you ask? ***

Well, Net-Epic is one of the truly lasting counter-culture movements in the gaming community...

Epic itself was a small-scale (6mm or roughly 1/285 scale) miniatures game that was created some time around 1989 with the first edition called Adeptus Titanicus I, which featured combat between "Titans" or giant robots in the nascent world of Citadel / GW's 40k universe. A few years later, Space Marine 1rst Edition came out, which added vehicles and infantry to the giant robot mix. And a few years after that, Space Marine or Epic Space Marine 2nd Edition came out, sometime in the early 1990s, which made a huge impression in the gaming community. Expansions came out, new miniatures were sculpted... it was a happy time.

And then the unhappy times came to players of what are now known as the Specialist Games line... GW (Games Workshop, the megalithic UK company that has dominated the miniatures hobby) decided to cancel almost all of their popular side games to concentrate on their main line: the 28mm sci-fi 40k game and the 28mm fantasy game, Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Epic was tossed unceremoniously to the side. It was almost recreated in an abortive game called Epic-40k in the late 1990s, but the company quickly rejected the game and stopped supporting it in something like six months of its initial debut.

The result was that the Epic (6mm sci-fi) community was abandoned... We kept playing, but the company had left us behind for other pastures. Enter the Net-Epic project! Peter "Primarch" Ramos organized a team of fans to continue work on the Epic game utilizing the very popular Space Marine 2nd Edition game engine as the basis of a fan-created Epic game. And thus, Net-Epic was born!...And what a success it has been! It's been "I-don't-know-how-many-years-later" and even the official Epic folks over at GW / Specialist Games have recognized the Net-Epic project.

As a side note, the name of one of the original Net-Epic web sites as well as the Net-Epic fanzine was called the "EPIcentre Incoming" and is still around, to my knowledge, although now it's simply called "Incoming!" and covers games other than Epic.

At any rate, Happy birthday to Peter Ramos and the rest of the Net-Epic gang!

I know it's belated, but better late than never as the saying goes. I spotted Ramos Circle some time ago and decided to share the photo with Peter and the Net-Epic gang as sort of an impromptu birthday gift...

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For more information about Net-Epic, please check out these sites:

Newest Net-Epic site:
http://netepic.org/EPICentre/

Slightly older Net-Epic site:
http://epic40k.com/index.htm

Net-Epic Discussion Group at Yahoo E-groups:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/netepic/

Specialist Games, home of latest official Epic game, Epic-Armageddon:
http://www.specialist-games.com/

And my friend Stephane's site (...in France) with an article about Net-Epic:
http://www.stephane.info/show.php?code=epic

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Have a great weekend!

Shabbat Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

P.S.
The center of all Epic gaming can be found here:
http://www.epic40k.co.uk/

MINI WARGAMING: Spanish Civil War & MWS (5 August 2006)!

. Hi Everyone,

Yesterday was the most recent MWSS meeting and while it wasn't as lavishly attended as many meetings have been in the past, but there was still plenty of fun to be had by all.

I didn't act as the recorder / secretary yesterday so my post here is entirely recorded from memory. I did, however, take quite a few snapshots of the goings on.

[The above photo is of an International Brigades infantry section from the Spanish Civil War game.]

There were three miniatures games that ran and half a dozen board games that were played.

Mini games:
- DBA: Romans vs. Indians
[De Bellis Antiquitatis - A game of ancients warfare usually played with 15mm miniatures.]

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/299

- FOW (version 2): German elite tank army vs. Russian Razvedchik (Scouting) Force
[Flames of War - A WWII game usually played with 15mm miniatures.]

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/11168

- Rapid Fire: Spanish Civil War (International Brigade vs. Nationalists)
[A WWII game customarily played with 15 to 25mm miniatures. We used the "Rompan El Fuego" Spanish Civil War supplement for Rapid Fire.]

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/20610

Board Games:
- Who's the Ass!
[A card and trick game with lots of juicy player interaction.]

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/11104

- Ticket To Ride: Europe
[A railroad building game set in Europe.]

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/14996

- Some others that I must have forgotten.

As usual, I have posted my photos publicly so that all may enjoy them.

[The above photo is of part of Tony's elite German tank army defending a village and their battalion headquarters.]

A link to my photographs from the day can be found at this URL:

http://briefurl.com/MWS_8-5-2006

As always, I'm happy to allow others to use my photos. All I ask is that you let me now (...so I can admire your posting!) and that you attribute the photos to me.

[The above photo is of a section of Moorish Volunteers supporting the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War game.]

I expect that the recorder for yesterday's meeting will probably publish a better run-down on the meeting soon at this URL:

http://www.freewebs.com/mwssacto/

Or perhaps here:

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/M_W_S/

There was other gaming in town, notably at A-1 Comics, by the Sacto Board Gamers at Great Escape Games and elsewhere.

[The above photo, is of Joe Riddle, one of MWSS's finest members, a guy who knows not only how to gracefully lose, but how to gracefully win. Huzzah, Joe!]

Have a great Sunday!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

PERSONAL NEWS: Heart Healthy Again!

. Hi Everyone,

I got really excited today because... I went to donate blood today and my blood pressure was under control. I was able to donate again! Huzzah! I'm very happy about it because I haven't been able to donate for something like six months. I just about cried I was so happy.

Months ago when I learned I was unable to donate for the first time ever, I was devastated because I take alot of pride in being a lifelong blood donor. I've donated multiple gallons (literally) over the years and am proud that I can contribute to the community in this way and help out other folks in need. At the time I discovered my high blood pressure (It's hereditary), I decided that I needed to radically change my lifestyle and immediately took up regular gym attendence. I've been running two to five miles a day now, five to six days a week, for about ten months. I'm glad to see the investment finally pay off. It's vindication at its best.

For those of you interested in donating blood to the sick, it's not a hard thing to do at all. In fact, it's a snap. All you have to do is call your local donor agency and they'll set you up with an appointment. It takes about thirty to forty minutes and will be over before you know it.

In my area, the local donor agency is called Blood Source and their web site can be found here:

http://www.bloodsource.org/

They have locations located all over California.

They also offer small incentives for donors such as key chains, t-shirts and other items. Local businesses often also offer freebies such as ice cream pints (Baskin Robbins), free car oil changes (Midas) and others. It just depends on what the freebie is at the time.

I stopped by the synagogue later in the afternoon and said a few psalms for Eretz Israel... psalm 83 in particular. Sometimes it's amazing to note how those psalms, written thousands of years ago can be so applicable to the events of today.

http://briefurl.com/Psalm-83-Words

And speaking of psalm 83, check out this link:

http://briefurl.com/Psalm-83

Just recently, archaeologists in Ireland found a book of psalms around a thousand years old and guess which psalm the book was frozen open to... PSALM 83! Sometimes, this sort of thing just makes you wonder. It's one heck of a coincidence if you don't take it in a religious or spiritual way.

A link to the CNN report:

http://www.aish.com/http://briefurl.com/Medieval_Book_Found

This made my heart easy in this tough time of war... a link to a video why the Israel-Hezbollah war isn't such a new phenomena:

http://www.aish.com/movies/everygeneration.asp

I'm very grateful to be in good health again. I wish it for everyone.

Wishing everyone the best!

Shabbat Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

MINI-WARGAMING: Origami Mami AKA Origami-Mania!

. Hi Everyone,

This is one of those wacky things that I always seem to end up coming across while surfing the 'Net.

Check this out:

http://briefurl.com/Origami_Mania

I'm not sure exactly what this guy is making (Sure is skillful though...), but it looks like it might be:

- Starcraft video game
- Starship Troopers
- Games Workshop 40k miniatures game
- Aliens
- Frogs and Whatever?
- Or who the heck knows?

I found it amusing at any rate.

Have a great Friday!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

P.S.
I tip my hat to Black Horizon in the UK. Additional thanks to Mojarn in Finland!

HUMOUR: Yanks In Europe! The Fineries of Belgium.

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Hi Everyone,

A friend of mine recently forwarded me this:

Hello Europhiles,

A friend's 19 yr. old son is currently in Belgium bike racing with the US National team. As a fairly skilled writer he sent the note below.

Sincerely,
Dean "Whatshisname".

I changed Dean's last name to hide his identity (We all know him anyway), but here's what the cyclist wrote:

*** WARNING: DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU ARE A EUROPHILE! ***

Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2006 23:10:01 -0700

Belgium condensed.

- Locals are either rude as poop, or just indifferent.
- A small percent are nice.
- The small percent of nice people make fun of you because you're American.
- The girls are hideous...
- All cars are tiny.
- All cars are manuals.
- Not many cars at all.
- NO FORKING SUVs!!!
- Everything is close together
(Grocery store, bakery, bar, cafes, retails, train station, and the house are all within one mile.)
- All buildings are made from bricks.
- No football, baseball or basketball.
- Cycling and soccer are huge, really huge!
- Belgium cyclists are forkin' dip shits to Americans.
- It rains everyday.
- The chocolate is awesome.
- The frites are awesome.
- The waffles are awesome.
- If I liked beer, I'm sure it'd be awesome.
- Everything else is gross, especially the girls.

For as shitty as it sounds, it's really been awesome so far and I like Belgium a lot.

- Erek.

You can get a real idea of Erek's world views just from this little snippet of a letter.

Have a great Friday!

I'm going to donate blood today. For those of you have never donated blood, I highly recommend it. It's one of the easiest ways to help others in need.

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

GAMING NEWS: ConQuest SF Just Around The Corner...

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Hi Everyone,

ConQuest SF (San Francisco) is just around the corner and this news was recently released to the public:

Father of RolePlaying Games Runs Game at ConQuest SF for Charity this Labor Day Weekend.

Legendary Guest of Honor Dave Arneson, co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons, will be running a session of his fabled Blackmoor Campaign on Saturday September 2 at ConQuest SF (San Francisco). We are offering a Once-In-A-Lifetime opportunity to play in the 'First Fantasy Campaign', Blackmoor, with Dave as the the GM. Dave invites all to come and visit the 'New Temple of the Frog!'

ConQuest will hold a charity silent auction during the show to determine the eight higest bidders who will get to play in this game. 20 more ringside observer seats will also be available to be bid on. Starting bids for the eight player seats is $20, and $5 for each of the observer seats. 100% of all proceeds from this auction will go to Paralyzed Veterans of America, our charity for this year's ConQuest SF.

ConQuest SF, formally known as ConQuest and before that Pacificon, is one of the oldest, and now one of the fastest growing game conventions on the West Coast. This years convention features our Non-Legendary Guest of Honor, James Ernest, as well as Special Guests Keith Baker, Ken Hite, and Pete Dorman. Dave Arneson appears in part, courtesy of RPG Sponsor Black Diamond Games. End Game of Oakland is our major show sponsor.

For information about ConQuest SF, and our other conventions in Sacramento, Seattle, and Los Angeles, or CruiseCon, please visit http://www.con-quest.com

Thanks,
Gabriel "Mondo" Vega
Avalon Game Conventions

And for those of you who don't know, I'll be working at Conquest SF and other gaming events hosted by Avalon Game Conventions. I ran the fantasy / sci-fi miniatures area at ConQuest Sac and I'll be returning in the same role to Conquest SF. I had a blast at Conquest Sac and took plenty of photos which you can peruse here:

http://briefurl.com/Photos_CQ_Sac_2006

And there should be plenty of good fun at ConQuest SF 2006. Whether you enjoy board gaming, miniatures games, celebrity talks, a wide variety of vendors or more, it will be there at ConQuest SF 2006!

Have a great Friday!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

P.S.
The above zombie photo comes from Marcus's amazing "Zombietown" games, which he hosts, along with some friends, every year during Halloween at Great Escape Games in Sacramento. Marcus has since built himself a web site... I highly recommend checking it out here:

http://www.skankgame.com/

HUMOUR: Priceless! A Custodian In Action.

.Hi Everyone,

This is one of those classic jokes that makes the rounds:

LIPSTICK IN SCHOOL -- PRICELESS

According to a news report, a certain school in Garden City, MI was recently faced with a unique problem. A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the washroom. That was fine, but after they put on their lipstick they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints.

Every night, the maintenance man would remove>them and the next day, the girls would put them back. Finally the principal decided that something had to be done. He called all the girls to the washroom and met them there with the maintenance man. He explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night.

To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, he asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required. He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet bowl, and cleaned the mirror with it.

Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror.

~~~~~~~~

THE MORAL OF THIS STORY...

~~~~~~~~~~~>

There are teachers, and then there are Educators.

Have a good Friday!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

HASBARA: Myth & Facts of Israel-Hezbollah War.

Hi Everyone,

I'm going to post more later today about gaming, but I am really upset at the amount of drek that the mainstream media is pushing out about this conflict.

Again, above all, I recommend watching "Obsession" (click the top link for a direct URL to the "Obsession" video on Google video), but...

"Obsession: What The War on Terror Is Really About"

http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/

Aish.com has just come out with an excellent little "-.asp" video enumerating the myths and facts of the conflicts. It's quick... only 120 seconds (2 minutes) and very neatly talks about Hezbollah's and Israel's actions in context.

Check it out:

http://www.aish.com/movies/Lebanon.asp

Wishing for peace in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

P.S.
Here's are a few more:

http://briefurl.com/Media-Missiles

http://briefurl.com/Oops_Retraction

http://briefurl.com/Brink_Of_Madness

http://briefurl.com/Jihad_Theatre

HASBARA: "Obsession" Video Clip

Obsession Video Clip -


Hi Everyone,

Here's a clip from "Obsession."

"Obsession: What The War on Terror Is Really About"

http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/

It's really sad to see children acting that way. Children aren't born hating anyone. Thats something that they have to be taught. And Jihadist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and others are raising entire generations of children from the Middle East to hate.

Beautiful children and they've been taught to spew that filth from their innocent mouths.

And unfortunately it will be you and I and our children who will have to face these generations of children raised in hate.

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

HASBARA: Terminators Loose In Lebanon!

.Hi Everyone,

Like many of you out there, I've been following the events in the Israel-Hezbollah War. And it's not so much the fighting that I'm been following, but how the mainstream media has been reporting the conflict, which has been, as usual, pretty one-sided in favor of the terrorists.

If you simply resorted to watching television (...with the exception of FOX and a few others), you'd think that all of Lebanon was a flaming ruin and that "evil Jewish helicopters" were hunting down innocent Lebanese civilians like the Terminators from the famed sci-fi film of the same name.

And that's simply not what's happening. Israel has pulled off the kid gloves, but they're only going after areas where the un-uniformed Hezbollah terrorists are operating from, which unfortunately is behind every civilian they can find. Israel has been very specifically targetting terrorists. No ifs, ands or buts about it. If you want indiscriminate murder of civilians, you'll have to look to Hezbollah's rocket attacks.

Here are two links with satellite photos of Beirut showing that the damage is very localized (...as in localized to buildings and areas used by Hezbollah):

http://arabist.net/archives/2006/08/02/beiruts-southern-suburbs/

http://briefurl.com/Large_View_Beirut

Israel has even warned the local populations where they're going and to evacuate or, at the very least, avoid all Hezbollah members and facilities. What terrorist organization every warned the people it went after? Here's what the note looks like that has been dropped across Lebanese areas where the IDF is targetting Hezbollah:

And that leaves Israel with a choice between the lesser of two evils. Go after the terrorists and have them exploit any accidents in the media or don't go after them and put up with rockets raining down on your people. And I'm glad that Israel made the choice it did. And, as expected, Hezbollah has been doing its utmost to present its propaganda as fact...

In one case, the killings at Qana, it's starting to look like Hezbollah manufactured the supposed "Israeli attrocities" and not only killed those poor children and women, but also carted in other dead bodies in a refridgerated truck from other areas to inflate the body count. And this is on top of passing off dead Hezbollah fighters as civilians since they don't wear uniforms or otherwise identify themselves as combatants as the laws of warfare demand.

If there was one film that I could recommend you watch, it would be:

"Obsession: What The War on Terror Is Really About"

http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/

It was originally produced by HonestReporting.Com, but it has now been released to the public via Google video. I'm not the first to have noted it, but I'm certainly happy to pass it along to those of you who need to see that the War on Terrorism is very real and it affects all of us.

Abba Gav is one of the many folk who is recommending the film. His blog can be found here:

http://briefurl.com/Abba_Gav_Obsession

My friend, Yehuda, a fellow gamer, is also upset and has mentioned the most current round of terrorist propaganda that the mainstream media is gullibly and more likely deliberately trying to pass on to the public. You can find his blog here:

http://briefurl.com/Yehuda_Pallywood

And, Yael AKA Oleh Girl, a very kind soul, has also noticed the false Jihadist propaganda that CNN, BBC and other unethical mainstream media sources are trying to pass off to the public:

http://olehgirl.blogspot.com/

Yael has an amazing number of links to bloggers around the Middle East. In fact, she corresponds with many of them regularly. If anything, the Internet will probably be one of the greatest contributors to a future peace in the Middle East. It's opened up dialogue between real folks, not the ones who occupy political positions and try to pass off their opinions as those of everyone else's. It might just be the only way that the Arab peoples and others suffering under the yokes of dictatorships in the region might eventually be heard.

I highly recommend that you check out some of the many blogs written by Arabs, Lebanese and others in the region. You might be surprised what many "regular people" on the "Arab street" think...

Hint: It's not what Al Jazeera would have you beleive.

I'm linking to two notable bloggers from the region. One in Iraq:

http://briefurl.com/ITM_Arab_Media

And another in Egypt:

http://www.sandmonkey.org/

But above all else, watch the film, "Obsession." It goes a lot farther to explaining what groups like Hezbollah want and why they act as attrociously as they do than any one article in the mainstream media ever can.

As always, check out www.DryBonesBlog.com if you haven't already.

Wishing for peace in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

P.S.
I've been receiving a huge number of telephone calls and E-mails from friends and supporters letting me know that they stand with Israel. Among the most heartening calls have come from the many WWII veterans I know. Their's was a generation that had moral clarity and never worried about the "proportionality" of their war against the Nazis (And make no mistake, the Nazis were allied to Jihadists that we are currently fighting). They rightly saw it as a war of right vs. wrong and did their duty for which we, the future generations, can still be thankful. I wish that more of that generation, the "Greatest Generation," was around today. God bless them.