Does anyone recognize this story? I know I have it in an anthology somewhere, and I first read it in either the late 70s or early 80s. But I can't remember title or author, even though I recall most of the action, such as it is, and the final line.

The story takes place in an alternate universe where World War II never happened. Two men from different nations, friends, play a tabletop wargame that mimics World War II starting from the randomly-determined alliances on both sides to two burn marks made on the islands of Japan by falling cigar ash at the end of the game. (Followed by a comment about the flammable varnish on the game board, and how the next game might set the entire board on fire.) IIRC, one of the players is Churchill, who's playing the Allies, and it's his cigar which burns Japan. The narrator is an observer who remains unnamed until the final line, who comments on the ridiculous aspects of the game starting from the nations on each side through bizarre developments in the flow of the game. The player of the Axis is, IIRC, a German who tries something new he calls "the lightning war" -- blitzkrieg -- to many early victories. The story ends with a "note from the editor" wishing the narrator/author much success in his future endeavors, ending with "Good luck, Dwight!" (Eisenhower).

Does that ring a bell for anyone?

Thanks.

"On A Beach", by Hayden featuring Feist

Lyrics

Pretty obvious from the lyrics what this does: puts anybody in the area of effect into a hypnotic trance, with a secondary effect of Doug and the song's subject becoming well-disposed toward each other because the lyric "and you’re fond of me" is traded off between two singers. (In most cases, Doug had better play "I'll Play for You" first... although ending a melee by having the fighters suddenly like each other does have a certain appeal.)

Power: rubberriness and stretching l;ike Reed Richards or Luffy D. Monkey, though whether that's a side effect of being as bouncy as Chuck Taine or the other way around is debatable. Quite a versatile power with some imagination, and with a 9m31s run time it'll last through situations where something that might be more directly applicable would run out too soon.

My first thought was just to shift him into a female form, but that seems rather tame for the kind of powers Doug's magegift usually expresses, and if it was going to do something like that it would probably be using Ivor Biggun's Bra Size 45 anyway

Ugh. Not even two weeks into the new year, and we get this in the forecast:

Quote:Valid: 1:00 PM EST Tuesday 9 January 2024 - 1:00 AM EST Thursday 11 January 2024
A strong low pressure system is expected to bring snow, blowing snow and strong winds. Travel is expected to be hazardous at times. Consider postponing non-essential travel.

CBC News: Liberals pick byelection candidate who first tried running for Tories

Rough equivalent for folks in the USA:

Candidate: "I love the GOP platform! Can I be on the GOP candidate list in the primaries?"
Party brass: "Nope, you didn't get your paperwork in on time."
Candidate: "Oh. I don't love the GOP platform any more! Can I be on the Dem candidate list in the primaries?"
Other party brass: "Sure! Oh, and the party members picked you."

Yeah. That's pretty much what just happened in Durham for the upcoming byelection.

RIP Niklaus Wirth, creator of (amongst other things) the Pascal programming language.

The Homecoming servers for CoH have acquired a limited license to host and develop the game from NCsoft.  An FAQ and what details they can release are on their announcement forums here:
https://forums.homecomingservers.com/top...ouncement/

One tidbit of note: the development of the Homecoming launcher was spurred by this agreement. As such, support for Tequila and other third party launchers will be discontinued, although I saw no mention of a time frame on that.

non-embedded

(lyrics listed in the video comments)

Power: Doug can retroactively have done something within the last 24 hours that lasts up to the song's duration (3:33 without the intro screen on the video if I timed it right) that wouldn't have required using a song or combat actions, playing the song for as long as it would have taken. Basically the way players can retroactively do something to prepare for snags encountered while playing ... dammit, I can't remember the name of the RPG; the one designed for doing heist movie plots, basically.

Maybe just set the restriction to no songs? But Doug can do a hell of a lot with his bare hands in three and a half minutes even without songs - the idea is to prevent something like "I took a couple minutes to slip into the guard shack and knock them all out," while still allowing for "I went through that knocked out guard's pockets carefully and took the innocuously disguised RFID key to open this door," having stepped into a convenience store along the way and bought something, having stuck a tracking device on the target's car in case everything went wahoonie-shaped and they got away, or having paid special attention to some tricky security feature while doing the prep work.

As I post this, it's a few minutes after midnight GMT on 2024-01-01. Happy New Year, everyone!

Amazing what one can find on the Merriam-Webster website: 10 Uncommon Words for 'Drunkard'

Imagine if Doug sees a book titled "Tosspot's Travels" or "Shicker's Saunter" and ignores it, not realizing that it's about his journey...