Y2K Spuddy Awards

Good evening everyone and welcome to the Spuddy Awards! And a special welcome to my lovely and talented co-host Jessica Alba! Jessica, why don't you tell the folks at home what the Spuddies are all about?

"Sure Bob! These Spuddy Awards are given for humorous comments made on the ASL List during the first 11 months of the year 2000. A very few awards are given for private emails because the judges reward greatness wherever they find it, except in their own messages or those of their spouses, relatives, or co-dependents!"

Thank you, Jessica! And without further ado, we give you the SPUDDY AWARDS, Y2K!

Runners-Up:
Harvey "I never knew hitting 40 would be this annoying" Schouls
Scott "The Man has got me down" Faulk
Brian "I have blabbered" Beakes
Perry "Cause I say so" Cocke
Wynn "Wooden Tanks and Iron Crews" Polnicky
David "the French are an exception to everything" Olie
Dennis "You hear the voices, too?" Hess
Mike "geez HT's burn easily" Licari
Brien "just bought a Swiss automobile ... and I can't get it out of neutral" Martin
Laurent "dwarfass" Cunin
Pete "Friday night-no game, no date. What's wrong with this picture?" Shelling
NJ "Kindling in a Brimstone Location" Hickman
LARS-PETTER "MY RING FINGER IS STIFF FROM HOLDING DOWN THE SHIFT KEY" SIMONSEN
Dave "what was I talking about?" Schipani
Jesse "recon by berzerk commisar" McNelly
Ken "definitely under-laid" McManamy
Peter "They're coming to take me away, ha, ha!" Lageri
Jock "I Will Win Someday" Williamson.
Perry "My units are generally eliminated for Failure To Be Led Effectively" Cocke
Dale "No mercy... well, sometimes" Jinks
Kevin "Yes Dear, as soon as I fail this MC" Kenneally
Ken "When I "Visualize World Peace", I see a mushroom cloud over Baghdad" Katz
Marco "do I get a spuddy for most boring post ever?" Zamarian
Eric (I like parentheses) Henyey
Dennis "Rules? There are rules for this game??" Hess
Scott "PBEM: Patiently Beat Excrement outta Me" Faulk
Shawn "a few scenarios short of sanity" Mahoney
Brian "Russians in the RB...Crunch all you want....We'll make more...." Beakes
Brien "Why is it that no beautiful, scantily-clad women appear out of nowhere when I'm having a beer?" Martin
Sam "I know some of you disagree, but you'll come around" Belcher
Pete "not wearing my freaky pants today" Belford
Brian "My tactics revolve around making my opponent laugh so hard that he cannot see me peek at his concealed stacks" Beakes
Brian "1,000,000,000,000,023 too many pucks to the melon" Beakes
Randy "it hurts to be me" Yeates
Wayne "I channel for idiots" Hadady
David "if a unit breaks while Swimming can it do the Australian Low Crawl?" Olie
Warren "does this post qualify for a Spuddy of some sort? Oh right, funny, not stupid" Smith

> Of all the tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the 
> good of its victim's may be the most oppresive. It may be better to 
> live under robber barons than omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber 
> barons' cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some
> point be satiated, but those who torment us for our 
> own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the 
> approval of their own conscience.....

Yeah, I forgot Mothers' Day this year, too.

Give old Directive #3, Clash Along the Psel, or Vahalla Bound a try. All mostly tank scenarios....all will leave you in a cold sweat. It's great ASL...and great ASL, like great sex, needs to be a bit painful.

The best dice tower IMO is my dog. After he swallows you may have to wait a day, then do some picking and scraping to see what the result is, but talk about random!

> Just gotta slip one more whine into the mix - Phil had a King Tiger
> multiply hull-down in the 10Y6 square. Beginning of German turn 6, it
> pivots TCA 2 hexspines to engage an American Stuart - rolls snakes. 
> TK Kill DR is a 3.

Gad. In this case I believe the Stuart would have burned due to re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.

While sitting in your easy chair watching your favorite sport you notice the postman deliver the package. You say to your wife: "Be a good little woman for me, and fetch that package for me as well as a cold beer. Dinner will have to wait while I look over my purchases, so please keep it warm."

In other words, make a non-issue out if it.

Paul wants to play in a tournament on his wife's birthday and asks what he can do in order to do so ... AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

Paul, amigo, you're dead, KIA, do not pass go, do not collect $200. I'm a MM (Married Man) as well and I know.

The no-go list is as follows;

1. Kids birthdays.  A no-brainer unless you are a total a**hole.
2. SO's birthday.  However, being women, they can be bought.
3. Certain anniversaries.  A grey area.  Bribery can work but it will
   cost you big time, a trip, car or, god forbid, something as totally
   useless as jewellery.
4. Funeral/Wedding/Major Religious holiday. Verboten boyo.

A dog will not cut it. Try a new kitchen renovation with appliances and then maybe but don't hold your breath Paul.

If after all admonitions you still decide to go, hell awaits you upon your return. A really PO'd wife skips the mad part and goes right to the getting even segment of the program. It will be ugly.

> This is Phlegm calling from the ruins of NJ.
> Is anyone out there?

Phlegm, that is just how New Jersey looks EVERY day.

Runner-Up, to Pete Belford:

The best part of NJ is watching it disappear in your rear view mirror.

> I'm proud to have friends and relatives (my nephew is an ordnance
> specialist in New Jersey) in the military.

I can attest that virtually everyone in New Jersey is an ordnance specialist. Or a close-combat specialist.

The surviving ones, at any rate.

> A recommendation for future boards.  Why not put hindrances in 
> hex with buildings, i.e.,  put orchard, brush and grain in hex
> with buildings.  

I can certainly see the logic of having, for example, a combined Building/Wreck hex.

However, there aren't that many ASL scenarios set in West Virginia.

Why, yes, this is pointless, but I'm really looking forward to being flamed by Groundskeeper Willy types, and dudes from places called Wyllrggrymmynn or something.

-Dave "there's nay a doog alive th't c'n ootrun a greased Scotsman!" Schipani-

Don't know about the rest of you but how it works for me is:

1) Check the rule section where I am sure it ought to be.
2) Stare in dumb amazement at its absence.  "Rats, they have hidden another one."
3) Check next-most-likely place.
4) Check least likely place.  Invoke profanity.
5) Check first place again.  It was there all along.
6) Resist urge to throw rulebook.
7) Repeat as required.

Now, these young fellers think they got a chance against me ... and I'm here to tell you that they absolutely, positively DO!! They have no idea just how lucky they are to be playing someone so totally incompetent at this game.

Oh ... wait a minute ... isn't woofing supposed to work the other way around?

Runner-Up, to Mark Greenman:
The Utah contingent of the Greenman brothers will descend upon the Front Range like..., uh, like... , well something really scary and fearful!

You have just received the Amish virus. As the Amish don't have any technology or programming experience, this virus works on the honor system. Please delete all the files from your hard drive and manually forward this virus to everyone on your mailing list. Thank you for your cooperation.

Being fanatic in a factory doesn't always protect you in Red Barricades, because a critical hit with 150 mm ordnance vs. the fortified stone building is still a 7KIA. Ouch.

> I have decided that I will have to abdicate my throne and renounce 
> my title as VASL Map Cabal Czar.

I regret to inform you that the position you hold is not something you can retire from and still breathe.

> Buy more ASL stuff. Strive to hide the purchase from your wife.

I can't hide my purchases, she fills the orders...

Could we end the debate? I think this is another draw, making the current score 0-0 with 247 draws.

Runner-Up, to David Rosner:

Why I like the IFT:
because it justifies my failing grades in Math....
7 + 4 = 8...

Mr. Reenstra, Sir, you are puny girlie man. I laugh at you tinie pecs and flaby bum part, sorry!, you ass man. Hear me now and believ me later, I go now but will back later with big surpriz fucker man.

The cows are wearing bonets and all you do is sing! What for! You think its cracker?

You Kursk is XXX dirty pictures for Yanks with big penises who yank them (Hilarity! Now we know why the are called Yanks!), and who the thinking of yanking them excites me.

WOLF E. COYOTE
-Supper genius-

Runner-Up, to Fritz Tichy:

> Why should I leave? I leave the list, knowing I'm not wanted here, 
> but my IQ overcomes that, so in fact I dont leave the list, much too
> funny.

Forgot tell tall 8 foot and muscles have 2 tons and king of the jungle when even wildest animals fear so more and much. Can fly and have kneeling angels in front and constant whisper in head is god telecommunicating via radar asking Wolf for job giving to him. Too much because when kid then ran with head against pole of flag and now pole thinks is Wolf and nothing left for what was WOLF then? Arrgh.

No wonder it took the Allies so long to break out of the bocage, the rules are so darn hard!

> > Haven't gotten a message in over 7 hours.
> 
> Neither did I, thanks for your message.
>

I'm betting on #2.

Man, this is really going to cut into my FtF play.

Floors 0 and -1 were overrun with ASL players, and I myself managed 70+ hours of play, 12 games. I didn't notice much else, except that there were quite a few hotties in the lobby from time to time. I should have known.... Ohio... hotties... it just doesn't add up!

Turns out that PLAYBOY was holding some super-special playmate search at the hotel - the latest stop in a tour across the country. They even had these huges buses in the parking lot. The funniest part was that, as far as I could tell, none of the ASLOK attendees even noticed. Us San Diego dudes were all packed up and getting on the shuttle to the airport when we finally figured it out. "... so then my heavy.... hey, look at that bus... so that's why there were so many, ah, er..., so, anyway, this berzerk half squad was running right at me..."

Runner-Up,to Binyamin Jones:

Lying in bed last night my partner was reading a book called Snow Falling On Cedars (I was reading about The Fighting in Burma) she turned to me and said "honey, have you ever heard of a place called Tarawa?" there is a description of the landings in this book -

She fell asleep 1/2 hour later but I just kept on talking.

Runner-Up, to Dave Schipani:

> For twenty years I have been waiting to overrun Russian infantry
> with an OA vz.30 armoured car crewed by heroic Hlinka Guard!

Damn. You, too?

Sex will get you through times of bad dice better than hot dice will get you through times of no sex.

If I ruled the world, ASL would be sandwiched between Fredricks of Hollywood and a sporting goods store... And of course this would all be located inside a beer garden.

My favorite Q & A, hands down:
> E1.8 Does assembling or dismantling a SW create a Gunflash?

"Hans, did you put the safety on before you started dismantling that machinegun?"

"Ya, of course, Fritz! What do you think I am, some kind of idio-" KABLAM!!!

With all the bickering going on about the rulebook, one thing has happened while MMP takes on this huge project....we have not gotten any new counters since January of this year.

Sure there is a certin statisfaction of having all the counters punched, clipped and sorted just so; but with that satisfaction also comes a large void. A void that can only be filled with counter related tasks.

Last night the TV came on, and there was a show on called "Surprise Wedding", a show where 5 women lead there boyfriends to Las Vegas, and in front of a TV & live audience asked them to marry them. Of course my woman wanted me to suffer through this abomination while she commented on how the steps on the stage were too deep; and the dress was all wrong for her. In other words it was a perfect time for counter clipping. (*sigh*) Me with no counters to clip.....oh the pain.

After looking at the cc list is there anyone left to actually buy the stuff?

Given the usual appearance of a RB scenario, or any city fight, I'd say we're all members of the Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Things.

> It seems to make the scenario even tougher on the French, because
> they will have little hope of blowing up a bridge while the Germans 
> are actually crossing it.

Historically, French DC's were fairly easily detected because they had the word "BEUMB" written on them in big red letters.

> In RB, they say the Russians
> own the night.  How about in Arnhem?

I don't think the Russians did very well there :)

Here are the detailed results of Nor'easter IV. As Bob Walden already posted Steve Pleva came in first, Carl Nogueira third, and Carl Fago third.

Exactly what constitutes "gamey" VC is an interesting topic. Scenario VC's can go from something as simple as "Control Building X11" to the swirling mass of logic that produces a win in a KE scenario :-)

CSC (Computer Sciences Corp) golf outing. This guy tees off at a waterhole. Been having a bad day. 180 to the pin, he hits it 150. Right in the drink. DAMN! Bag and all right in the pond. I HATE THIS F'ING GAME. Storms off. Everyone laughing their butts off.

Few minutes later, the guy comes storming back. Swims into the pond. Retrieves his bag. Grabs his wallet and keys out of it, throws the clubs BACK into the pond, and storms off again.

I had (the IIFT) tattoed on my johnson. When I'm forced to use the IFT, I'm all flaccid and shrivelly, and the folds fall just right to reveal only the 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 30, and 36 columns. When I get to use the IIFT, I'm so turned on that the entire table is revealed in all of its glory, with room to spare for the CCT, the QRDC, and a picture of Commissar Denisova spanking an SS colonel.

Dear vicariously militant individual with shamefully excessive amounts of free time spent in puny efforts to conquer an imaginary chunk of God's green earth--speaking, of course, before the application of bombs, minefields, mortar attacks, and napalm...oh, your name is Rod, right?

"Peter the Great" is currently squandering away a significant portion of his time, energy, and talents wallowing through the churning, sloshy troughs of some truly insignificant ASL event in the state of Ohio this weekend. When he returns, I'll be sure to pass along your message.

With warmest regards and hopes for the development of gentle, more peaceful,and non-violent games to usher in world peace, (which, I must regretfully add, may take more imagination and creativity than could possibly sprout in the minds of otherwise seemingly intelligent, sensible men who drool over the application of heavy artillery represented by a over-priced, yet completely worthless bit of drab- colored, die cut poster board)

Runner-Up, to Rob Purdon:

The IIFT (Incremental Infantry Fire Table) is considered by some to be a hideous abomination, a complete mutation of the pure and good form of the Infantry Fire Table (IFT) included in the King McNamara version of the ASLRB. Insidious and evil to IFTers, they consider the IIFT to have corrupted the soul of many an innocent listmember. Led by their leader and champion Tate Rogers from a remote compound in Alabama (complete with derelict buses in the front yard and a carport) the IIFT minions have even infiltrated the Providers of Scenarios and Modules, and the IIFT will be included as an option in the New International Good News ASLRB. However, a breakaway sect of the ASL religion, led by Rev. Ron Mosher, has declared the IIFT to be a High Heresy to the Sanctity of ASL and have threatened excommunication to those who have adopted the new Table. These Orthodox ASL Commandos lurk in dark alleyways of the internet and, firmly indoctrinated and convinced of the supremacy of the IFT, they pounce on anyone who mutters the phrase "IIFT". A IFT attack is characterised by their rhythmic chant: "IFT good, IIFT bad, IFT good IIFT bad". Never ones to stray from an alley fight, the IIFTers quickly rally to the sounds of the IFT chant, bludgeoning the IFTers with cold logic and swift statistics. IFTers have tried to arm themselves with logic and statistics, but so far their tools have been crude and blunt in comparison to the IIFTers. IFTers therefore rely on Fanaticism and adherence to the words of the Tome as written in the King McNamara version. No blood has been spilt in this war (yet), but there have been many bruised egos and wounded prides.

Short of someone declaring a Jihad, the issue remains one of the standard debates within the halls of the ASLML, and is scheduled for May and November each year (except in years ending with 0, in which the November date is moved up one month to precede the annual pilgrimage to Ohio in observation of the Passing of ASLOK).

I personally have always wondered what combination of higher-echelon idiocy and garbled communications sent that luckless platoon of T26S M37's in the D14.21-14.22 Platoon Movement example wandering through the Board 3 fields and sweeping over the DD2 hill mass with an ATG in 3FF3. Do the survivors ever pass their non-platoon-movement NTC and escape, or are they doomed to be chewed to pieces at the whim of the stern and implacable example writer? Was the commander of tank C a kind husband and father? Had the crew bonded as comrades, or were they ill-trained strangers thrown into the maw of combat by a blind and unfeeling bureaucracy? Did they even know how to use the RMG?

But that way lies madness . . . .

Get the children out of the room.

I can't even recall the scenario, but I sure as hell remember what happened:

My 10-2/PSK/658/LMG/658 in stone building. They didn't set up here...they had AM'd in and had concealment stripped on a DFF attack.

M4(105) DF's from 3 hexes away, no ACQ, but Infantry Target Type. Gets a critical hit. Rolls on the IFT. Gets a 2. Rolls a single die for Rubble. Gets a 1. Rolls for Falling Rubble. Rolls a red 6 and whatever he needs on the white die to rubble the adjacent building hex (same building). Rolls for Falling Rubble again. DR is r6,wy. Rubbles the NEXT building hex (still 2 story building. Rolls for Falling Rubble...rolls a r6,wz...z being right on top of a ?/9-1/LMG/658 (maybe another 658) sitting behind the building, in the street, out of LOS of any US unit and 2-3 hexes away from the original KIA'd location.

Poof! Over a third of my infantry and 2/3 of leaders gone with one shot.

Odds:

	DR 2	Crit		   1/36
	dr 1	rubble determ	   1/6
	DR 6,x	falling rubble   1/36 (needed exact role with r6,wx)
	DR 6,y	falling rubble   1/36 (needed exact role with r6,wy)
	DR 6,z	falling rubble   1/36 (needed exact role with r6,wz)

Total Odds: 1:10,077,696

Most precious moment:
After the scenarios ends (I lose) my opponent sez: "You could have won except your tactics were bad".

Runner-Up, to Stefan Fiedler:

After several months of FtF Red Barricade Campaign game we are in the last turn of the last day.

It is the last CCPh and we have a game deciding Melee. I need 7 or less to kill and win. I roll the dice and the first stops on a 1 so I am the winner against my age old foe at last. I am THE winner AND I am the best ever (My score was at that point something like 93-7 with me as the loser). The other dice keeps spinning on one corner...

I dance, I loose face as a bad winner, I am pushing his face in the dirt, but I am GOD.

The other die which is still spinning suddenly cracks into two pieces.

House rule says if there is any (even in theory) doubt of what the dice is showing - reroll with no exceptions.

I reroll, get something high, and lose. End of story!

I have witnesses. I almost gave up ASL at that point.

Runner-Up, to Richard Simonds:

I was playing Mika Manpenaa in Lash Out. My Germans are happily trekking across the board. He gets a sniper roll of "1", okay, kills the leader, squad takes an LLMC, passes, but Mika gets another Sniper roll, rolls a "1", sniper moves to another leader, kills it, squad takes an LLMC, Mika gets another sniper roll, rolls a "1", moves, kills another leader (note that I was blowing the RS rolls for this as well), attending squad rolls a "12" on the LLMC.

What I liked most about this was that this was PB(e)M and I was making all the rolls myself.

I know this scenario has been recently discussed but between the "6: A whole digit between 5 and 7" discussion and the "how many assault engineers can dance on the head of a panzerfaust" symposium I suffered from a serious bout of MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over) and deleted most discussion of the scenario.

I played Phil P. in a stiff fight... I was the stiff.

1) Before criticizing someone, walk a mile with their AP1. Then when
   you do criticize them, you will be a mile away and have their AP1.
...
4) If a newbie complains about his dice, I think a cute thing to tell 
   him is, "God is angry."  And if he asks why God is angry, another 
   cute thing to tell him is, "Probably because his tactics suck so 
   bad."
...
8) I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate.
   And I can picture finding an opponent there that I could beat.
...
10) Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that, I'll be over
    here, looking under your concealment counters.
...
12) I hope that after I die, people will say of me: "That guy owed me a
    PBEM turn."

> Some of the guys that run the WBC are kinda wacko too.

Yeah, I play ASL to avoid wackos.

Runner-Up, to Darrell Anderson:

> "The Long March 1934-1935": Mao's 6000 mile retreat 
>  vs Nationalist China

This must require a hell of a map...

Runner-Up, to Mike Reed:

> What does it take to make New Jersey worthwhile?

About 25 megatons....

Runner-Up, to Pete Young:

> I would also like to see a PTO version (of chapter K) with a Japanese 
> leader and squad going through the motions.

It'd be the shortest day in the chapter. The first question the squad gets wrong, the leader disembowels himself.

Runner-Up, to David Brown:

> A note regarding Canadian WW2 formations...for whatever reason a
> Canadian Regiment during WW2 usually consisted of only one battalion,
> therefore there would be nine infantry regiments (each consisting of 
> a single battalion) in a Canadian Division...dunno why this was 
> done...any other fellow Canuck's out there have an explanation for this?

Because the general staff were Canuckle heads?

Runner-Up, to Brien Martin:

> Can anyone tell me the length and width of a deluxe board?

5'4" tall, 5'4" wide ... oh ... I thought you said deluxe *broad*?

Once upon a CG dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over plans to stretch my defense line out to the Volga shore.
While my conscripts all were napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As one not so gently rapping, rapping at their cellar door.
'Tis some rotten Kraut' they muttered, 'tapping at our cellar door -
Only this and nothing more.'

Ah, distinctly, I remember, Stalingrad in cold November,
Dying embers settled from the scorched earth up above the floor,
Signs now that a new day's started, my line of defense has parted,
Jerry troops commencing their assault where they had failed before.
This small building left behind by his retreating troops before,
Hope to hold out one day more.

Now I found myself afraid he would clear out the Barrikady,
Smashing through my brave heroic troops defending Russia's core.
Lest I found some way to stem this Nazi armored troop offensive,
Mother Russia's imminent demise I felt must be in store,
German troops parading through the Kremlin could soon be in store,
Lest I won in CG IV.
...
Thus I came to this conclusion, lost in desolate confusion,
German planes would be forever crossing Russian skyways o'er,
No more would my brave troops tussle with the Nazi armored muscle,
Armored might extending closer to the Eastern Volga shore,
Destined now to reach the Urals far beyond the Volga shore.
One more Russian loss for ROAR.

Runner-Up, to Bob Kaijusan Hayes for "The Tiger" and his takeoff on ghostwriters and purple counters

Grognards ... how do you want to play?
I said, Grognards ... resolving your OBA
There's a table
Called the IIFT
It will make your game time hap-py

It has ... extra columns on it
I said columns ... so the FPs can fit
On this table
Is where you wanna be
It makes o-ther ta-bles wim-py

It's fun to play with the I-I-F-T
It's fun to play with the I-I-F-T
It has ev'ry FP for your friends to exploit
It's for men and it's not for boys ...

Runners-Up:
Brien Martin, for "ASLOK Grofaz Tourney"
Lars-Petter 'WHADIADAH' Simonsen for "Wonderful World"
Scott Faulk, for "I Use The Table"
John Appel, for "The DC Conscript's Hymn"
Lars Thuring, for "Yesterday"
Dave Schipani, for "OBA, OBA"

> Does anyone else think it should be notated like a
> Bible is?

Definitly not. I think the bible should be notated like the ASLRB.

J25.2.1(99) Thou shalt not kill [EXC: A7.301 or when it just happens (A.14A & A.14B - SPECIFIC and GENERAL Collateral Attack)]. See also Q&A Gen25/3 and debriefing annual'96 A7.301. Some Pope sez pending.

> B) If a redeployment DR is needed, what happens if the
> result is that the unit remains in the hex? Does such
> a result take precedence over the requirment that the
> unit is removed?

Yes, they are set in Stonne :-)

Runner-Up, to Bob Kaijusan Hayes:

I showed my Spuddies to one of my friends last night. I said, "They think I am a real wit." He replied, "Well, they are half right."

Runner-Up, to Paul Kenny responding to Aaron Cleavin:

> I'm arriving in Saturday Afternoon 4-ish from Ireland.
> Any early action going either ASL or just Carousing?

Will he be "Cleavin on a Jet Plane?"

Runner-Up, also to Paul Kenny:

> Steve Dethlefsen who worked as a Captain of Marines including
> combat experience in Dessert Storm...."

Sounds a tad Pie in the Skyish to me.

Runner-Up, to Bob Kaijusan Hayes:

> I don't think Sally Struthers would qualify as a SMC. Maybe a pillbox.

I just remembered. Sally Struthers was a Bunker. That was before she became Mrs. Meathead.

Runner-Up, to NJ Hickman:

> >The City of Stalin, the Jewel of the Volga, the Worker's 
> >Paradise, has been invested by the Fascist
> 
> Invested?  Damn, I wish I could could have gotten in on the
> IPO!  
> 

I wouldn't worry - in '43, it becomes a Russian Bear market.
NJ Hickman
sending in the 1st Stock Army now

Runner-Up, to Brien Martin:

> And what if I need to truck a squad over there, unload them, have the
> truck hide while the squad does something, then reload them and truck 
> them off board?

Guess you're shit outta truck ...

I've recently gotten into collecting WWII stuff, almost everything, mainly uniforms and stuff, German cuff titles, some of the cooler ordnance (got a PIAT with the legs still attached coming my way).

Anyway, box arrives the other day, I kinda knew what it was but I was pretty pumped anyway (kinda like the old AH days :). Sure enough, out comes a German Flammenwerfer '41. Tanks and all the hoses still there, attached, wand has no cover, but the trigger still works. Later that night, my son Gehrig was doing some rootin' around when I turned to see him where he shouldn't be.

"Gehrig! Put the flamethrower down!"
How cool is that :)

It 2 AM, but I have won my second game vs. Rodney Kinney (Mr. VASL). Since we've played a dozen or more games, 2 wins isn't great, but it proves two things.

1) I may suck at this game.
2) But I don't TOTALLY suck at this game.

> The only constant in ASL is YOU!  You have to get better to 
> understand how to handle all the changing factors.  For example:
>
> * How do I attack when my OB is all infantry?
> * How do I attack when I have 1-2 AFVs?
> * What does my opponent have on defense?
> * Am I attacking with cover, or is it open ground? ...

These are all excellent questions. I, however, more often find myself asking:

* Why did I take the Germans this time?
* What phase is it again?
* A 2+2 isn't the worst shot in the world, is it?
* Doesn't this guy ever wash that T-shirt?
* I just forgot to deploy, didn't I?
* Are there any more of those crispy cheese things?

Third Runner-Up, an English As A Foreign Language insult that will echo down the halls of ASL history, to Wolf:

You're a big garage without motivation.

For each paragraph in the ASLRB:
Q: Are you sure this is the way it's supposed to work?
Repeat until EOF.

>  Really should include a music CD of Wagner's 'Ride of the Valkeries'
>  (you know, the music from the air assault scene in Apocalypse Now)
>  in the box.

Huh???

Ohhhh...."Kill the Wabbit"....gotcha, thanks.

A hush comes over the audience. And a drum roll, please!

Dadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadada....

And the Spuddy Award For Best Post of Y2K GOES TO:

JR TRACY:
Last night (my daughter) Willa said, "Papa, after you go to heaven I'm going to make a puppet out of your skull."

Then she added, "...and I'm going to take it to school for first grade Show and Tell."

I'm keeping a close eye on her.

Well, that's it for the Spuddy Awards Y2K! Congratulations to the winners and especially JR and Willa! Along with my co-host Jessica Alba, goodbye from the Civic Auditorium in Idaho Falls, drive safe everybody and roll low!