Sunday, July 29, 2012

Dame Huffing

Known by several names, English Draughts or American Checkers or, Israeli Damka.  Draughts is the more correct name as it drives its meaning from the verb to draw or move.  Draughts evolved from an old Middle Eastern game called Alquerque some time between the 10th and 13th century.  A Standard Draughts board is 8x8 squares.  International Draughts (also called Polish draughts or international checkers) is a variant played on a 10×10 board.  Malaysian and Canadian Draughts is on a 12x12 board for some reason.  Chinese checkers is neither a variation of checkers, nor did it originate in China.


In most non-English languages draughts is called dames or damas, or a similar term that refers to ladies. Pieces are usually called stones, or some similar term that does not imply a gender, but are called dames or ladies when crowned.  Official rules state play is on the dark squares.  If you play on the light squares, you're just doing it wrong.


One rule of long standing that has fallen out of favour is the "huffing" rule. In this variation jumping is not mandatory, but if a player does not take their jump (either deliberately or by failing to see it), the piece that could have made the jump is "blown" or "huffed", i.e. removed from the board. After huffing the offending piece, the opponent then takes their turn as normal. Huffing has been abolished by both the English Draughts Association and the American Checker Federation.


Under International Draughts rules: non-crowned pieces can also capture backward (not only forward). Crowned pieces, can move freely multiple squares in any direction (like a bishop in chess) and may jump over an opponent piece some distance away and continue moving afterwards.

Have a play.

Play Draughts free online game
Play Draughts

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Hells Kitchen Witch

The Witch From Hells Kitchen by Robert E. Howard.  This book is actually a poster for the latest season of  Gordon Ramsays kitchen nightmare series.


In this series Ramsay challenges his aspiring chefs to manufacture armour and weaponry from kitchenware and do battle in an assortment of mythologically inspired battles while producing delicious culinary masterpieces.  To spice things up and improve ratings Ramsay is joined by a demonic co-host and her giant angry pussy.


Saturday, July 21, 2012

Smells Like Annunciation

Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana became an instant classic for misheard lyrics when it was released from their Nevermind album in 1991. Not surprising considering Cobains preoccupation with mumbled angst.

 
 
There should be a covenant between record labels, radio stations and musicians that says you may not publish a song without passing an annunciation test. Radio stations could tell emerging artists "No, we can't play your song because none of us understand a word you're singing".

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Bathykolpian

The latest uncommon word I've read is Bathykolpian.

It's meaning is "deep bosomed".  The picture below is a far more descriptive explanation of the word than I can type using one hand.



Monday, July 09, 2012

Prince Devo

In the fairy tail Snow White, Prince Charming was a complete deviant.  As I recall part of the story, Snow White eats the poison apple and the dwarves consider her dead so they put her in a glass coffin.  Some prince rides past on his horse, sees the coffin and decides to kiss the dead body of some woman he's never seen before.  Not only does he kiss the corpse of some strange woman, the fact that he discovers the piece of poison apple in her mouth shows that he must have used his tongue.  "Prince Charming" is the sort of guy who sneaks into mortuaries and tongue pashes dead bodies.

Well as it turns out, the deeper you did the worse the character of "Prince Charming" becomes.  The whole wake the girl up with a kiss is a much later version of the story.  The original version has the prince telling his servants to carry the coffin back to his palace and the apple is dislodged when they trip.  One can only imagine what disgusting things "Prince Charming" planned to do with some dead woman he found in the forest when he gets the body home in private.

All evidence point towards the fact that "Prince Charming" was a necrophiliac corpse grinder. Those dwarves weren’t so nice either, in the original story they were robbers not miners...  Anyway here's Snow White and the Dwarves Rammstien style.




Friday, July 06, 2012

Butchs Shining Axe

There's something distinctly Charles Manson cultish about the LP cover Swing That Gospel Axe by Butch Yelton and Upbound.



The Closer you look the creepier their smiles get.  Brings to mind The Shining movie based on Stephen Kings novel of the same name.


A film which was also the inspiration for this cuckoo clock by Chris Dimino.
Each hour the Jack Nicholson doll bursts through the door accompanied by his line "Here's Johnny" and the screams of Shelly Duvall.

Too bad it's a one off piece, I want one of those.  Here's Chris Diminos web site if you'd like to see what other arty things he has done.