This morning I was dreaming my wife and I were looking at buying a house and went to the Open House on a dark, snowy night. It was kind of creepy and I heard the bureau rattling. Then I was half awake and hearing a real bureau rattling and thinking my cats had gotten into my underwear drawer again (my wife suspects it's because my drawer smells like a catbox, but I digress). Then I heard a SKWONK! and I thought the siding was coming off the house. I came fully awake when my wife shouted "Earthquake!" and we both ran downstairs and out the front door as the siren in town nearby went off.
At first I wasn't sure what exactly had happened, but yes, we had a damn earthquake. If a tornado comes through town and knocks down the high school or something we don't think much about it here in Indiana. But an earthquake! Dang, man!
In other seismic occurrences, my brother had a birthday this week. I won't tell you which one because I've lobbed enough grendaes at my brother when I was supposed to be his wingman. I'm really out of practice being a wingman, having been married most all of my adult life; the last time I tried to put the moves on a stone fox, Gerry Rafferty was playing on the radio. Suffice to say he is young at heart. We celebrated by going out for Thai and then playing the "War on Terror" board game with a pal.
"War on Terror" is sort of like a mix between "Risk" and "Settlers of Cataan" with the backroom dealings of "Monopoly" thrown in. I believe you could actually be sent to Guantanamo Bay for even owning this game. Basically you build an empire while deciding whether you secretly want to fund terrorism to take down the other empires that are competing with you. However, if you start seeding terrorists all over the place, they can turn on you and be used by other players as well.
Both times we played terrorism won. The first time rather abruptly when a terrorist hijacking bankrupted an empire when an attempt to foil it went wrong, allowing too much of the world to fall into anarchy (and thus the terrorists won). The second time rather slowly, as a player willingly became a terrorist after I nuked the U.S. and Europe (only a little) from my South American empire because the U.S. kept trying to destabilize me. I thought I had launched an endgame to solidify my empire but actually ended up causing worldwide chaos and had to give in to terrorism in the end. I left being glad than neither my brother or my friend are running for public office.
Waiting for aftershocks at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.
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