According to Reuters, Lassana Bathily, the Malian Muslim who risked his own life to hide shoppers during last week’s attack on the Jewish supermarket where he works, will be granted French citizenship in a ceremony on January 20th.
And — unless the Wall Street Journal has been punked — the Green Bay Packers share a pastime in common with some of the Balloon Juice community:
… There may not be a more unusual bonding tradition in the NFL than the gang of Packers who get together regularly to play a board game called “Settlers of Catan.” For the past two months, it’s been the talk of the locker room. The number of players that have devoted a long night to the game is in the double-digits—including most of the team’s starting offensive line, among others. And don’t let the words “board game” fool you, this is not Candy Land…
On any day in Green Bay’s locker room, you can find starting tackle David Bakhtiari, who introduced the game to the team, rounding up players for a Settlers get-together that night—and there’s no shortage of willing participants. But players may not know what they are in for. Backup quarterback Matt Flynn said he was interested in the game because it was “a nonviolent version of Risk,” referring to Parker Brothers’ notoriously lengthy game of world domination. But Flynn said the players take it so seriously that when he stopped by to play for the first time after a win last month, he was shocked by what happened when he attempted to turn on some celebratory music.
“I was just trying to play some music—some Pearl Jam, and [Bakhtiari] wouldn’t let me. He wanted to hear the players talk and strategize. He was very serious,” Flynn said. “They take it to a different level.” …
The game’s popularity among the Packers is due in part to the lack of other things to do in town. Green Bay is the smallest town in the NFL. “We’re always looking for something to do, it’s cold. No one wants to go outside, better find something,” Flynn said. “And this is a great game.”…
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Apart from telling the newbies how you played Settlers back when the Seafarers expansion was still a source of controversy, what’s on the agenda as we wrap up the week?
raven
The sewer project is hummin along. They are in front of our house and only have one more doghouse manhole to go. After they lay the main sewer they pressure test and then hook up the individual houses. They’s have to dig on both sides of out house so it’s going to stay messy but that’s the price you pay!
tybee
another story concerning the packers is that the lack of things to do in Green Bay saved Bret Favre’s life.
when he was in atlanta he couldn’t stay out of the night clubs. trading him to the Packers cured that issue, or at least slowed it down greatly.
raven
@tybee: I posted this for you last night
Interview with Dr Crabtree about the Red Snapper
“You rednecks caught too many”!
Mustang Bobby
This will be a crazy weekend. Two car shows — one on Saturday, one on Sunday — at the Art Deco Weekend out on Miami Beach on tap, and I’m handling registration for both days. This is a huge event; a few years ago Billy Joel showed up with some friends and their motorcycles.
Also this weekend is the Miami 1-Minute Play Festival, and I have two pieces in that. So Saturday afternoon I have to get from Miami Beach down to the Deering Estate in Cutler Bay — about twenty miles — in time for the show. Sunday I get to do it all over again. Yippee.
raven
@Mustang Bobby: Sounds power-packed!
Mustang Bobby
@raven: Well, I wish I was. Two car shows with a different car in each: the Mustang convertible on Saturday for the parade, then Sunday with the Pontiac for the judged car show means two cars to detail tonight.
For the parade they usually give me the models from the firefighter calendar, so I get to drive some eye-candy around, so there is that.
raven
@Mustang Bobby: It’ll keep you out of trouble!
Tommy
I went to undergrad at a small DI school. Two of the football teams offensive linemen were in my frat and I live with them in the frat house for a few semesters. Outside of being kind of “strange birds” they were really, really smart. They played board games a lot.
Whenever I watch a college football game on TV and they show the Academic All-Americans it sure usually seems to be either the QB or one of the O linemen. They may be huge dudes that just seeing them on TV they look like a “strong” man out of a turn of the century circus that often don’t appear they know how to shave.
But also often really smart. And for the casual football watcher this makes sense. Because in today’s college and pro football, the blocking schemes they run are actually a lot more complex than most realize.
Anything to establish a running game, and more important, keep your QB upright and not on a stretcher.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Good news.
Meanwhile, another for the annals of bar headline writing:
132-year-old cowboy’s rifle found propped up against tree in Nevada desert
132 years old? I wonder how he knew it was his? I’m only 56 and I can’t remember where I laid my glasses 5 minutes ago.
Tommy
@Mustang Bobby: Very, very cool. I don’t think I have mentioned this to you, but a few years ago my father tracked down the 55 Ford Thunderbird he went on the first date with my mom.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/webranding/8114170277/
Mom on her first date with my dad … in said 55 Thunderbird.
He drives down to Texas to look at it, mint condition.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/webranding/6105429650/
Guy has another, black 55 Thunderbird next to it, in close to perfect condition as well, if somebody would just install the new gas tank sitting next to it. Somehow it ended up on the truck back to Southern Illinois with the other one.
I say this because that was almost four years ago. The gas tank is still sitting in the garage and the other one, don’t think he as put 50 miles on it (no really). My brother and I keep tell him not driving those cars is a crime in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Heck I am willing to bet the thing won’t even start. Has not been started in 3.5+ years. Only positive I guess, outside he owns them, is they are housed in a very nice, climate controlled garage.
Maybe I need to pay to buy you a plane ticket so you can fly out here and slap him around a little :). I assume you’ll run into a lot of people at the two car shows you are going to this weekend that would give their left arm for those two cars. And you know, actually enjoy them!
Mustang Bobby
@Tommy: Oh wow, I know a lot of people who would love to get their hands on those cars.
There are two kinds of car collectors that I hang out with. There are those who have them in the garage and the furthest they drive them is on to the trailer to go to a show. Those are called “trailer queens” (the cars, not necessarily the drivers). Then there are those who believe that cars are meant to be driven to the show field, in parades, and on the occasional pleasure drive. It’s better for the cars to be driven; it keeps the machinery alive… both the car and the driver. Naturally, I fall into the latter category.
Mustang Bobby
@OzarkHillbilly: Ah, the curse of the misplaced modifier.
One of my favorites: “Did you ever pick raspberries with short sleeves?”
“Gee, I didn’t know raspberries wore shirts.”
Tommy
@Mustang Bobby: My father isn’t a collector. Honestly not even sure why he bought them. My mom is even confused. She bitches at him to drive them more than I do, and every time he is at my house for a few days, about once a month, I mention it multiple times.
I get why you might not want to go shopping in your cars. But at least for me if you have the car you ought to drive it some. You know at least once a month or so. Take it out on all the back, country roads around where my father lives, open it up, bring it home and give it a bath.
One day they will be mine (I hope far into the future) and that is what I’ll do with them.
Mustang Bobby
@Tommy: I drive the Pontiac wagon at least once a week… like the proverbial little old lady, I take it to Sunday meeting.
The fun part is taking it to the gas station or the car wash. I invariably get people telling me what great shape it’s in or how they had one like it. The best was when I took it to the car wash and the teenager who handed me the ticket pronounced it to be “bad-ass.” Priceless.
Knight of Nothing
I still can’t believe this, but LinkedIn sent me a link to some wingnutty Islamophobia.
NotMax
Say what? Pshaw.
Back in junior high days we played Diplomacy, a single game of which might span an entire holiday weekend.
Never have played Catan but know someone casually addicted to playing whatever version of it that’s available for his iPad.
Tommy
@Mustang Bobby:
My great grandmother, into her 80s, drove a hand-me-down car from my grandfather (he was a hardcore car guy). She only drove it to church and the grocery store. A 65 Fastback Mustang. 289.
Later when she passed away and I turned 16 it would become my first car. White exterior. White leather interior. Close to perfect condition (although it did tend to overheat). Less than 30,000 miles on it.
As a typical teenager that can bitch about anything, I bitched 24/7 about having to drive that car. I wanted a “new” car like all my friends had. No really I bitched about it all the time.
Sidenote: I kid you not I saved my money from my various summer jobs and bought a used Pontiac Fiero. Yes you read that right. Given the choice between a free 65 Mustand and paying my own money for a Fiero, I choose the Fiero (I have grown, I swear I have grown as a human being since then).
It was only later in my life I finally said to myself, “WTF dude, how cool was that your first car was a Fastback Mustang!”
I should have caught on a lot earlier, because even in the mid-80s when I was driving it, it seemed like at least once a week (if not more) somebody would ask to take a look at it or inquire if it was for sale.
Darn teenagers ……
Mustang Bobby
@Tommy: My first car at 16 was a 1965 Mustang 2+2. It was 1969. It had a three speed manual, a heater, and a radio. I loved it and beat the crap out of it. I dreamed of keeping it forever, but my dad said it would never be a collectible since there were so many of them. He convinced me to get rid of it and I sold it for $300 in 1973.
I love my dad, and he knows a lot about a lot of things, but as I remind him to his everlasting chagrin, he doesn’t know shit about collectible cars. A nicely restored ’65 Mustang fastback goes for about $40,000 depending on its provenance.
danielx
People are getting fired up this morning about the local homeboys playing the evil New England Patriots on Sunday, and getting snarky about that Satan in a hoodie who coaches them. I can’t get all that excited, particularly since I don’t think Andrew Luck is quite ready for this level of prime time, but it’s fun to watch and listen to the fanatics.
I know I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help myself when I saw the title of David Brooks’ latest, which glories in the title “Rating the Republicans”. I thought it might have something to do with the initial actions of the new Congress, chief of which include screwing future Social Security recipients, smoothing the path of Wall Street thieves and pushing the Keystone XL pipeline among other things. Sadly, no – its subject is one near and dear to Villager hearts, that being wanking about 2016 Republican hopefuls. Nothing particularly noteworthy about that except that my man Dave identifies four governors as potential candidates, those being John Kasich, Chris Christie, Scott Walker and Mike Pence. He does specify that he’s looking at only those potential candidates who are governors, but…ain’t none of those guys ever going to be presidential candidates, because none of them are crazy enough, as Brooks very well knows. Very definitely a column written on autopilot, courtesy of that special Brooks software that generates 800 words of gibberish on command.
ChrisH
A particular group of people who run the podcast Geeknights talk about how they played Settlers so much it eventually felt like checkers to them and they couldn’t play it anymore
wvng
I’ll bet I could get them hooked on Carcassonne too.
PaulW
We’re having a Paddington Bear party at the library today.
Paul in KY
@Tommy: I think I’d have to start driving them myself. If only for the health of the cars ;-)
Cervantes
@Mustang Bobby:
Sounds great. Enjoy!
MattR
@Tommy: It is a crude measure, but the NFL positions with the highest average Wonderlic scores are the QB’s and the offensive line.
R-Jud
Settlers is an obsession of my Dad’s and my brother-in-law’s, and it’s become the centerpiece of winter gatherings at our house (summer is for croquet). I think I played about 15 games over two days at Christmas. BIL is a lifelong Dolphins fan, but when I send him that link he may just buy a cheesehead.
Epicurus
Settlers of Catan? You haven’t lived until you’ve played a few rounds of “The Cones of Dunshire.” Much better game, imho.