Squid Plays: Dominion

Dominion is an important tabletop game in the history of the the hobby as one of the earliest and most influential deck-building games.  Following a medieval theme, you begin with a ten-card deck, mostly currency.  Gradually, you add action cards with names like Village, Market, Cellar and Moat which gain certain advantages: extra cards, extra plays, extra money and so forth.  Whoever accumulates the most victory points wins.  An entire subgenre of games have been developed along this model.

Dominion was originally published in 2008 but I'd never played until last fall when the boys and I tried it out.  I've since played a couple times with my wife, too.  We've all enjoyed it.  The original box includes 26 action cards.  One can vary gameplay depending on which 10 of them you use each time.  There are both pre-set and randomized options for this variance.  There are also numerous expansion sets available for even more variety.  

While the game concept itself is fantastic, one of the biggest things Dominion has going for it is the organizing tray provided so you don't have to resort the cards each time.  

The BoardGameGeek rating is 7.6 out of 10.  I'll be more generous and give it an 8.  

State of the Blog 2025

Blogging Year 17, here we go!  

I don't have any big changes planned for the coming blogging year.  The schedule will be the same...

Tuesdays: Family Adventures

Fridays: Star Trek

Occasional book posts

For Star Trek, it's onward with both Deep Space Nine and Voyager.  I should be well into Season 5 for the former and Season 3 for the latter by this time next year.  We have a movie coming up before long, too.

Family adventures will likely continue with the same themes: travel, food, film and games, more or less in that order of priority.  No big travel plans for this year but Spain/Morocco was far from a certainty twelve months ago so who knows?  I can virtually guarantee trips to Massachusetts, DC and Pennsylvania.  Beyond that, we'll see.

I am eternally grateful to those of you who stop by to read and engage.  As always, if any of you enjoys reading The Squid half as much as I enjoy writing it, we're all doing fine.  

Squid Plays: Solo

Solo is a card game produced by AMIGO, a German company.  It's been described as "UNO on steroids."  It's basically the same concept: play a card, next player matches number or color, lots of other cards you can play to mess with your opponents.  Solo has some additional fun cards which involve swapping hands with another player, gifting two cards, everyone passing cards to the left (or right), etc.  The biggest change, and the most fun, is that you can play a matching card - color AND number - anytime, effectively stealing the turn.  So, you've gotta pay attention all the time.

Left to right: Protection, Gift, All Swap Cards, Swap Cards with Another Player

Our game group fell in love with Solo during COVID as it was one of several games we discovered on Board Game Arena during social distancing times.  We've since played a few times in person and it loses none of its appeal offline.  I might even go so far as to describe it as addictive.  Simple, well-designed games often are.

How does AMIGO produce what appears to be an UNO knock-off without getting sued?  Well, the more famous game itself is simply a marketed version of the much older, public domain game of Crazy Eights.  You can't really sue someone for stealing the same thing you did.  And it's not technically stealing if it's public domain.

On the Coffee Table: Dungeon

Title: Dungeon, Twilight, Vol.1: Dragon Cemetery

Creators: Joann Sfar and Lewis Trondheim

via Amazon

It's been nearly ten years since I'd last read a Joann Sfar comic.  He was our family favorite for a while as we explored The Rabbi's Cat, Little Vampire, Sardine and Klezmer.  Dungeon is a sweeping epic with Twilight only one of several sub-series.  Originally written in French, most though not all issues have been translated into English.  The first issue was published in 1998 and the series is still ongoing.

Dungeon is intended as a parody of Dungeons & Dragons.  For Twilight, we have a team of adventurers: Marvin the dragon, old and blind but clearly powerful; Marvin the Red, rabbit warrior, scrappy, caddish and impulsive and an unnamed, yet invaluable bat who serves as the dragon's faithful guide.  Dragon Marvin's quest is the titular dragon cemetery.  Herbert the Duck, also known as The Great Khan, wants to find it, too.  So while Marvin the dragon is technically his prisoner, Herbert pretends to let him escape so his minions can follow.

It's all more complicated that and a little too busy to follow at times.  But the world-building is rich and the characters charmingly colorful.  It's bawdier than I remember D&D being, too, though admittedly I stopped playing when I was about 13 - imagination limited by inexperience.

I'm inclined to continue with the series - could be a while, though.  The TBR shelves are pretty well stuffed these days.

Squid Games: First in Flight

via Amazon

In First in Flight, you take on the role of a famous early aviator - the Wright Brothers, for instance - competing with your rivals to construct the best flying machine.  It's part Magic the Gathering with the deck building and the tapping of cards to activate their powers.  It's part Tokaido with the turn-taking protocols.  It's part blackjack with each test flight as you seek to maximize your distance before landing - or crashing.

Full disclosure: I have significant rooting interest in the success of this particular board game.  It's a creation of my high school friend, previously referred to here as, you guessed it, Game Designer.  We were also investors in the Kickstarter funding campaign.

So far, I've played twice: once with the boys (Mock, Blue Liner and Young Buck) and once with my wife.  We all thoroughly enjoyed it.  The rules are a little more complicated than our usual games but once you get used to them, it's all fairly intuitive.  Lots of little wrinkles to remember.  

As far as determining the game winner, everything leads to a final flight.  Whoever gets the furthest wins.  All of the deck building and test flying up to that point is really just jockeying for position.  I like a game where everyone's in it to the end and with First in Flight, no one is far enough ahead or behind to make the final flight meaningless.  Our results: Blue Liner and Young Buck tied in the first game.  I eeked out the smallest of victories in the game with my wife, easing the pain of the thorough trouncing she had dealt out in Ticket to Ride.

The history is well-researched and the artwork is beautiful.  One can play solo.  I haven't tried that yet but I expect I will.  It was a much quicker game with only two players.  We skipped adding a third dummy player as the rules suggest - seemed too complicated for us beginners.

BoardGameGeek's rating is 7.8/10, not bad at all.  Complexity is 2.21/5.  The box recommends the game for 12 and up.  BGG says 10+.  1-4 players, the more the better.

Squid Games: Poop

Blue Liner, Drama Guy and I recently tried Poop: The Game.  The concept is admittedly gross but simple.  Players lay down cards (poop) with numerical values.  If you clog the toilet - meaning, your total discard score adds up to the number on the clog card - you take the discard pile.  The object, like in UNO, is to get rid of all the cards in your hand.  Also like UNO, there are reverse cards, skip cards, 0 value cards, etc.  If you play certain cards, you have to make particular bathroom-related noises.

It took us a few rounds to get the rules right but once we got it, Drama Guy won our game.

I'd play again.  There's enough subtle strategy involved to be able to see beyond the disgusting concept.  It's recommended for 5 and up so definitely intended for families with the right sense of humor.  There are expansions and variants, too.  I'm a sucker for those.

Squid Games: Can't Stop

Be forewarned, Can't Stop is the most addictive tabletop game I have ever played.  The name is 100% appropriate.

Can't Stop is a race game.  2-4 players strive to move their pawns from one end of a board to the other according to the rolls of four dice.  You can keep rolling as long as you like if you can keep moving.  However, if you ever have a roll you can't use, you lose all of your progress for that turn.  The concept is so simple.  The best ideas usually are.

I've been playing Can't Stop for a few years now.  It is by far my most played game on Board Game Arena and for which, at least at the moment, I have the highest rating.  Its appeal is potent.  My wife was ready to buy it after trying it once.  One grasps strategy over time but the best plan unravels quickly if your opponent is rolling better than you are.

I recently introduced the game to two friends, GerMAN and a longtime, much valued colleague I shall call The Pilgrim.  The Pilgrim and I were roommates on a trip to England once upon a time.  He wanted to see everything!  They both enjoyed the game.  I won this time, benefiting from my experience and their beginner's caution.  They seemed eager to play again some time.  It's not a great game for chatting.  You play or you chat.  Can't Stop is way too distracting to do both.

Obviously, highest recommendation from me.

Squid Games: Azul

The concept of Azul is simple.  You draft tiles from the center of the table and place them on your own board.  You gain points from certain tile patterns, after each turn and at the end of the game.  Simple, yet I haven't fully sorted out the strategy yet.

Racquet Man introduced it to our game group a few years ago, then it was a good choice for our Board Game Arena online sessions during COVID.  In total, I would guess that I have played it maybe a handful of time.  I'm fairly certain RM has won every time we've played so he, at least, has sorted out a few things the rest of us haven't.  I may need to pay closer attention to his board if we play again.

Racquet Man's winning board

The game art is beautiful, based on the Moorish tiles at the Alhambra palace in southern Spain, as seen by the Portuguese King Manuel I, who reigned 1495-1521.  The games name derives from azuleijos, the Spanish word for the tiles.  Azul has won numerous industry awards.  The Board Game Geek rating is 7.8/10 with a 1.76/5 for complexity.  

Squid Games: Mysterium

This past weekend, I got together with Blue Liner, Racquet Man and Young Buck for a game session.  We started with Mysterium which RM had gotten as a birthday present.  I own the game myself but have only played it a couple times.  I've had to relearn the rules every time I've played.

Mysterium is sort of a combination of Clue and Dixit.  A murder has been committed and the victim's ghost (one game player, YB in our case) tries to communicate the details - murderer, location and weapon - to psychics (the rest of the game players).  The ghost has trippy, dreamy image cards which they submit to each psychic in hopes of making connections with the more concrete image cards on the table.  Through a series of stages, the ghost leads the group to the ultimate solution - hopefully.  It's a cooperative game.  Either everyone wins or everyone loses.  We lost.

Mysterium is a fun game once you sort out the rules.  The rules are the issue.  It's all too complicated to be intuitive, thus the need to relearn for me each time.  I suppose if one played more often, one would remember better.  Maybe we should play again next time we're together.

Board Game Geek rates Mysterium 7.2/10 with a complexity rating of 1.91/5.  I might quibble with the second rating, though I suppose my objection is not complexity, exactly.  It's all quite understandable in the end.  Perhaps better written directions would clear up my issues.

Squid Games: Glasgow

via BoardGameGeek

Glasgow is a two-player, tile placing, resource management game.  You and your opponent move around a circle collecting resources.  Together, you build the city of Glasgow in a 4x5 grid in the middle of the circle: parks, monuments, factories, etc.  Each of your assets generates points to be tallied at the end.  It's tricky because you can also help your opponent depending on what you place where in the grid.

The game is a little bit Catan in the building of assets and gathering or resources.  Movement is similar to Tokaido.  The grid is reminiscent of Patchwork.  My wife and I enjoyed Glasgow, though I don't know if I'd play again.  She won our game.  Her two train stations alone gained her a crushing 20 points, though I think she would have won anyway.

The box says ages 10 and up, though BoardGameGeek rates it at 8+.  Game play is quick: 30 minutes estimated.  BoardGameGeek gives it a complexity rating of 2.7 out of 5.

Squid Games: Koi-Koi

For Christmas, my wife got me a deck of hanafuda, a style of Japanese playing cards which are also used in Korea, Micronesia and Hawaii.  I readily admit, despite my time in Japan, I'd never heard of hanafuda.  The deck I have is produced by Nintendo, the video game company which evidently got its start in 1889 as a hanafuda producer.

The deck came with instructions for Koi-Koi, the most popular Japanese game played with hanafuda.  The objective of this two-player game is to create sets of cards called yaku.  Figuring out the yuka is challenging for novices like us - not unlike the challenge of learning all the winning combinations in mahjong.  A few examples:

Seeds

Blossom Viewing

Five Lights

Unlike western playing cards, hanafuda are not numerical.  They do have suits in a sense, the cards being grouped into each of the twelve months.  Within each month, the four cards have different values, though the values are not printed on the cards.  Some cards have scrolls.  Some have animals on them.  Some have celestial objects.  Only one has a human.  

I can see how the game would be fun after a lot of practice with visual guides.  The cards are small - maybe 1/3 the size of typical western cards - and very pretty.  Our first attempt was rather frustrating but I think Koi-Koi has promise once we learn our way around the deck itself.  

Squid Games: Ticket to Ride

via Amazon

Ticket to Ride has been the go-to game for my wife and me for many years now.  I reviewed the Africa variant in this post but have yet to give the base game its proper due.  Created by Alan R. Moon and published by Days of Wonder since 2004, Ticket to Ride has won many industry awards, spawned numerous variants and been translated into at least 19 languages.  One competes with one's opponent(s) to complete railroad routes across early 20th century USA.  I love it for three simple reasons:

1. Maps!  I adore maps and have since about age 6.  Real world maps are best.
2. Everyone is in it until the end.  I don't like games in which players are eliminated.
3. I have fun win or lose.  I prefer to finish all of my routes but even if I don't, I enjoy building stuff.

We play with the 10th Anniversary special edition set which features a larger board, larger cards and larger, specially designed cars.  In truth, the larger cards are the best benefit over the original.  

Generally speaking, I won most of the time over the years.  But recently, my wife has been kicking my ass - final scores over 200 points not unusual.  Clearly, she has sorted out a strategic wrinkle I have not.  In most games, I believe in playing the board rather than the opponent but with Ticket to Ride in particular, I have found the best approach is to beat the opponent - whether human or computer - at their own game.  Of course, that means sorting out what they're doing and that's the tricky bit.  I think I've figured out her way, or at least a way that keeps me competitive.  I won our most recent tilt.

We own several variants and enjoy them but the original board always draws us back.  

Star Trek: The Quality of Life

Episode: "The Quality of Life"

Series: Star Trek: The Next Generation

Season 6, Episode 9

Original Air Date: November 14, 1992

via Memory Alpha

The Enterprise visits a mining operation at Tyrus 7A.  The engineer, Dr. Fallaron introduces the crew to the Exocomps, remarkably adaptable machines she has created to aid in the work.  In fact, their adaptability includes an instinct for self-preservation which Data argues means they're technically alive.

I enjoy Star Trek stories that challenge the idea of what qualifies as a living being: "The Devil in the Dark," "Home Soil," etc.  After all, it's part of the stated mission from the very beginning: "to seek out new life."  "The Quality of Life" does not generally fair well with critics, but I find both Data's sympathy for the Exocomps and the willingness of one to sacrifice itself for the others to be genuinely touching.  It is admittedly techno-babble heavy, even more so than most.

Game Notes

Oddly, the episode's comic relief comes in the beginning.  The story ran short on time so the writers tacked on a poker scene for padding.  Episode director Jonathan Frakes was disappointed that they never returned to the game in the script.

Acting Notes

via Dexter Wiki

Ellen Bry (Dr. Fallaron) was born in New York, February 13, 1951.  She graduated from Tufts University.  She made her screen debut in a sentimental favorite of mine: To Fly, the National Air and Space Museum's long-running IMAX feature.  

Interestingly, quite a lot of Bry's early work came as a stunt double, notably in 1978's Superman.  She is best known for the role of Nurse Shirley Daniels on St. Elsewhere.  Other television guest appearances include MacGyver, Murder, She Wrote and Renegade.  Films include Bye Bye Love, Deep Impact and Mission: Impossible III.

Squid Games: Marrying Mr. Darcy Undead Expansion

via Amazon

Marrying Mr. Darcy has been one of our family's favorite tabletop games for quite a few years now.  It's a Kickstarter-funded card game based on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice created by Erika Svanoe, art and design by Erik Evensen.  You choose a heroine from the story and compete over six suitors including, of course, Mr. Darcy.  I always choose Kitty Bennet if I can.  She can draw the top Event card off the discard pile given the choice.  Trust me, that's an advantage.  Unlike a lot of adaptation games, it's effectively crafted and repeatedly playable.  The cards are hysterical.  Knowledge of the source material is unnecessary.  I've never read the novel yet I love the game.

The Undead Expansion was, I assume, inspired by the Seth Graham-Smith parody novel, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  It's just 20 extra cards thrown into the mix but that's enough to add plenty of humorous peril.  There's also an Emma variant based on the 1815 novel.  It's much cattier.  Emma's mean!

We played as a family twice over the past couple weeks.  Daughter and I each won once.

Squiddies 2020

The Armchair Squid turns eleven years old today!  It's time to hand out some hardware.  And the Squiddy goes to...

Biggest Surprise: The Beatles' Appearance in Strange Tales #130

To say the Beatles were a big deal in 1965 would be a ridiculous understatement.  The band was frequently mentioned in the Marvel comic books of the era.  However, a special treat was prepared for Strange Tales #130: the Fab Four actually appeared on the page!

via Pinterest

In 1978, Marvel published a Super Special called "The Beatles Story," an unauthorized history of the band.  Skrull Beatles impersonators would eventually feature in the fictional Marvel universe, first appearing in Wisdom #6 in July, 2007.


Biggest Disappointment: COVID-19

This one's obvious, right?   I can't say I've been entirely miserable personally with social distancing.  To be perfectly honest, it suits me just fine most of the time.  But that's the selfish view.  People are dying and my own government is doing an absolutely pathetic job of managing the pandemic.  I hate when people talk about this as the "new normal," as if we've already embraced it as an acceptable state of affairs.  It is anything but.


Best Read, First Time Category: March: Book Two by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin

Lewis and Aydin's March series did an outstanding job reminding me how little I know about the American Civil Rights Movement.  It's not easy picking a favorite out of the trilogy but, as is often the case, the middle volume represents the heart of the story.  In particular, Book Two introduced me to the Big Six: Lewis, Martin Luther King, Jr., James Farmer, A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins and Whitney Young.  Lewis and King are the only ones I already knew.  Biographies for the other four went immediately on the wish list.

via Wikipedia

Sadly, John Lewis passed away on July 17th from pancreatic cancer.  Generous to the end, he left us with a final message of hope and inspiration.


Best Read, Re-Read Category: The Calvin and Hobbes Lazy Sunday Book by Bill Watterson

via Amazon

Calvin and Hobbes is the best of the best.  Lazy Sunday Book collects the Sunday strips from May 24, 1987 to July 30, 1989.  It's glorious.  Yup, better than Harry Potter.


Best Comics Find: Marvel Unlimited

Marvel maintains its back catalog - 27,000 issues and counting - online and available at a highly reasonable subscription rate, especially if your intention is to read one comic book a day for at least a year.  My Marvel Immersion Project would have been a lot more expensive and a much bigger hassle - i.e. impossible - without it.   An additional benefit I haven't even tapped into yet: Marvel owns all Star Wars comic book series now!


Athlete of the Year: Joe Frazier (1944-2011)

via Wikipedia

I finished Ali: A Life, Jonathan Eig's excellent biography about Muhammad Ali in January.  Here's what I wrote about Frazier, Ali's greatest rival:

For me, the most sympathetic character in the Ali saga has always been Joe Frazier.  Their three encounters are probably the most celebrated matches in boxing history.  Smokin' Joe never had Ali's flash but he more than made up for it with a nasty left hook.  Beyond the ring, the Ali-Frazier story is one of betrayal.  Frazier was supportive of Ali during his exile, even lending him money.  Frazier came to see Ali as a friend.  In the lead up to each of their matches, Ali resorted to low-ball attacks, calling Frazier out as a gorilla and an Uncle Tom.  Ali always defended his actions as gamesmanship.  Frazier carried the grudge for the rest of his life.

Best Family Adventure: Zoom Gatherings

Social distancing came with an unexpected silver lining.  If anything, I have been more sociable than I was before.  Zoom and its many competitors have inspired me to "get together" with several friends I hadn't seen in years.  I even have a (more or less) weekly board game night (via Board Game Arena) with a group of childhood friends, all of whom live in other states.  Yes, Zoom meetings for work are annoying but as a social avenue, they have been essential to my happiness in these troubled times.

Star Trek: Peak Performance

Episode: "Peak Performance"

Series: Star Trek: The Next Generation

Season 2, Episode 21

Original Air Date: July 10, 1989

via Memory Alpha

Starfleet stages a war game exercise.  Riker and his select crew take over the ancient USS Hathaway to oppose Picard on the Enterprise.  Strategist Sirna Kolrami is aboard to advise - and snark.  Riker proves a more worth adversary than Kolrami anticipated and, of course, there's an unexpected external wrinkle as well...

I love this episode.  For starters it's one of the few Star Trek stories of any series that affords meaningful material to all of the principal characters.  Picard defends Riker to Kolrami - what could have been a simple "don't undermine my First Officer on the bridge" was a more interesting direct challenge to Kolrami's doubts.  The Riker-Worf bond is strengthened.  Wesley gets a shining moment when, as a member of Team Hathaway,  he sneaks dilithium off of the Enterprise - all is fair in love and war games.  We even see the growth in Pulaski's regard for Data, one of the more interesting sub-plots of Season 2.  As I near the end of the second year, "Peak Performance" has put itself in late contention for best episode.  I feel the series settling into itself.  The characters (and actors?) are more comfortable with each other now, making the audience more comfortable, too.

Board Game Notes

The game Stratagema makes its only canon appearance.  Kolrami is a "third level grandmaster" and he plays both Riker and Data over the course of the story.  For Data, his initial loss causes a self-confidence crisis, one that threatens to derail the war games.  This final scene is the rematch:

Acting Notes

via Wikipedia

Roy Brocksmith (Sirna Kolrami) was born September 15, 1945 in Quincy, Illinois.  After graduating from Quincy University, he embarked on a stage career.  Broadway credits include Louis XIII in The Three Musketeers and the balladeer in The Threepenny Opera.  Films include Total Recall, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey and Arachnophobia.

Brocksmith died December 16, 2001 due to complications from diabetes.

Star Trek: The Emissary

Episode: "The Emissary"
Series: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Season 2, Episode 20
Original Air Date: June 26, 1989

via Memory Alpha

Starfleet sends the Enterprise to intercept a Klingon warship.  The crew is emerging from a 75-year cryogenic hibernation and it is feared that they will assume the Klingons are still at war with the Federation.  But that's all just window dressing for the real story.  Joining them for the mission is K'Ehleyr, a half-human, half-Klingon diplomat who also has a romantic past with our own Worf.

As stated before, I love the Worf stories and this is one of the most important.  We get to observe the Klingon mating rituals first hand which is, of course, awesome - not to mention deliciously uncomfortable.  K'Ehleyr herself, however, is the real treat, the perfect romantic foil for Worf.  Her biracial identity is, if anything, a more concrete manifestation of Worf's own self-concept struggles.  She teases him and challenges him.  She loves him but she is her own woman.  When Tracy Tormé wrote the character Doctor Selar (also played by Suzie Plakson) for "The Schizoid Man," he saw her as a potential mate for Worf.  He was disappointed when it didn't happen, feeling a Klingon-Vulcan relationship would have been more interesting.  I disagree.  K'Ehleyr is ideal.

"The Emissary" is also a good Picard leadership style episode.  When Worf raises objections to working with K'Ehleyr, Picard insists he do so anyway.  Lean into the discomfort, Lieutenant...

Board Game Notes

The episode begins with a poker game and appropriate to the rest of the story, the focus is on Worf's style of play.  "Klingons never bluff."

via Memory Alpha

Acting Notes

via Wikipedia

Suzie Plakson (K'Ehleyr) was born June 3, 1958 in Buffalo, New York, though she was raised in Kingston, Pennsylvania.  She went to Northwestern for college.  This was her second of five Trek appearances as four different characters.

via Memory Alpha

In television, Plakson had a principal role in Love & War and recurring roles in Mad About You and How I Met Your Mother, plus a recurring voice role on Dinosaurs.  In film, she appeared in such movies as My Stepmother Is an Alien, Disclosure and Wag the Dog.  She has dabbled in country music as well, releasing an album called DidnWannaDoIt!

Star Trek: The Royale

Episode: "The Royale"

Series: Star Trek: The Next Generation

Season 2, Episode 12

March 27, 1989

via Memory Alpha

The Enterprise crew discovers the wreckage of an Earth vessel - marked with NASA and a 52-star US flag - on far away Theta 116.  When they go down to investigate, Riker, Data and Worf are trapped in a Las Vegas-style casino hotel.  None of the characters they meet exhibit any life signs, apart from a decaying corpse in an upstairs room, apparently one of the astronauts from the crash, Col. Steven Richey.  The colonel's diary offers the explanation.  The alien beings who were responsible, accidentally, for his predicament created this dreamworld for him based on a trashy novel he was reading.

This was certainly an enjoyable episode, though lacking in substance.  On the positive side, it presents the loneliness of space quite effectively.  Richey's story is heartbreaking and the hotel itself feels brutally isolated.  The original screenplay was heavily edited.  In fact the writer, Tracy Torme (Mel's son) basically disowned the piece after the changes, asking that his pen name, Keith Mills, be used instead.  I'm curious about the original, apparently far more surreal.  Picard's "curiouser and curiouser" line early in the episode is an Alice in Wonderland allusion, certainly suggesting a trippier atmosphere.

Acting Notes

via Memory Alpha

Noble Willingham played the role of Texas, a loud, sleazy gambler who befriends Data at the blackjack table.  He was born in Mineola, Texas, August 31, 1931.  He went to North Texas State (now U of North Texas - great jazz program incidentally) as an undergrad, then got a master's in educational psychology at Baylor.  He served in the Army during the Korean War.

He was working as a high school social studies teacher when he went on his first professional audition, landing a part in Peter Bogdanovich's masterful film, The Last Picture Show.  He was in quite a few memorable films over the years: Chinatown, Norma Rae, Good Morning, Vietnam and The Hudsucker Proxy among others.  He had lots of television work, too, most prominently opposite Chuck Norris in Walker, Texas Ranger.

Willingham left Walker in 2000 to run for congress.  He ran as a Republican against Max Sandlin, a Democratic incumbent, in Texas's first district.  Willingham lost, getting only 43% of the vote.  Four years later, Sandlin lost the seat to... (heavy sigh)... Louis Gohmert who still holds it today.

Willingham died of a heart attack in 2004.

Star Trek: The Measure of a Man

Episode: "The Measure of a Man"
Series: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Season 2, Episode 9
Original Air Date: February 13, 1989

via Memory Alpha

Commander Bruce Maddox (Brian Brophy), a cyberneticist, has come aboard the Enterprise with the intention of stealing Data away so he can dismantle him for study.  Data attempts to resign from Starfleet in order to decline the transfer order but Maddox fights it.  In a legal hearing with the JAG - Captain Philippa Luvios, another old flame of Jean Luc's - Picard argues for Data's rights as a sentient being to make his own choices.  As second-in-command, Riker is assigned to argue for Maddox, an awkward position to say the least.

"The Measure of a Man" is a popular choice for all-time best lists and has, in fact, been called TNG's first truly great episode.  It is certainly one with reach beyond Star Trek.  The parallel drawn to human slavery provides a provocative historical perspective, of course.  Additionally, the story has been referenced in real-world computer ethics academia.  Within big-franchise sci-fi, I perceive influence - from Data in general and from "The Measure of a Man" specifically - on The Clone Wars.  As I have written before (here, among several posts), the most interesting stories in that series revolve around the plight of the clone troopers themselves in their complicated relationship with the Jedi who lead them.  The issues are rarely if ever confronted as directly as they are regarding Data but the moral tension is implied throughout.  Perhaps the episode "The Deserter" relates most closely.

As for being the best so far, it's a strong candidate but not a slam dunk for me.  In "Elementary, Dear Data," I find Moriarty to be a more appealing adversary than Maddox and nothing in "The Measure of a Man" offers the same visual dazzle as the Sherlock Holmes-scape of the earlier story.  However, this week's episode presents the strongest statement yet for the moral compass of TNG - certainly compatible with TOS's but different in important ways.  With the more developed principal characters, TNG allows for a deeper exploration of the challenges for the individual in a pluralistic society.  Data's arc has, to this point, brought the most opportunities for such questions but we've seen it with others, too: Worf reconciling his Klingon identity with the life he has lived among humans, Geordi's conflicted feelings about his disability, Deanna's choice to keep her baby as well as her sense of responsibility to her family and culture, Beverly's parenting challenges and so forth.  For TOS, the moral dilemmas generally revolve around confronting the new.  In TNG, while we still get the awkward alien encounters from time to time, the more interesting stories involve our heroes' struggles with more personal matters.  While the specific threat to Data's autonomy is new in this story, the prejudices behind it are not.

Game Notes

The story opens with a poker game, the first of many over the TNG run.  These games offer important character insights and critical lessons for Data in understanding human nature.  This time, Data falls for a bluff by Riker, greatly confusing for our favorite android.

Acting Notes

via Memory Alpha

Amanda McBroom (Captain Luvois) was born August 9, 1947 in Woodland Hills, California.  While she has numerous acting credits, she is more accomplished as a musician, especially as a songwriter, particularly as the writer of "The Rose," the Bette Midler classic.  The song brought a Golden Globe award for McBroom and a Grammy for Midler:

On the Coffee Table: Winning Chess Openings

Title: Winning Chess Openings
Author: Yasser Seirawan

via Amazon

Back when I first discovered Seirawan's books in the late '90s, I started with Openings.  My problem at the time was straightforward: I didn't know how to begin a game.  I knew some general principles but lacked the tools to implement them, especially if my opponent should go off-script from the main line.  So, I needed a resource to properly dig into the subject and Seirawan's book was perfect.

And now, having read and re-read several of his other volumes, I feel confident saying it's the best one.  His introductory chapter provides a wonderful history of his own early journey in the game as well as a glimpse into what he projects as a charming, jocular and refreshingly self-deprecating personality.  With that first read, I liked him instantly, both as a writer and a person, the sort of patient teacher who would never shame you for your ignorance. 

Am I a better chess player now than I was 20 years ago?  Probably, though more practice over the years would have helped.  I do, however, understand more of what he's talking about now so even if I'm not a significantly better chess player, I am a better chess reader. 

Once Seirawan gets to the meat, he divides his openings study into seven chapters:  classical king pawn openings, classical queen pawn openings, modern king pawn defenses and modern queen pawn defenses, wrapping up with three chapters for his own recommendations in each relevant situation.  I understand his approach to each better than I did 20 years ago.  He builds the first three around the most studied main line: Ruy Lopez for the king pawn, Queen's Gambit Declined for the queen pawn and the Sicilian Defense for the modern king pawn.  The queen pawn defenses are more varied.  Through each, he digs into the significance of each individual move and also explores relevant variants.

His actual recommendations are decidedly unconventional: the Barcza Opening, the King's Indian Defense and the Pirc Defense.  For those of you who are not chess enthusiasts, each intends to protect the king before challenging for control of the middle of the board, the primary function of most opening sequences.  I have used all three in the years since and have been more or less happy with the results.  In the book, he also recommends the English Opening (1. c4 for the curious), though he doesn't analyze it.  No doubt an editor told him to stop already.

Fortunately, it looks I will get a chance to practice more soon.  A colleague is starting an online chess league at school in this new distance learning phase of our lives.  Teachers are playing, too.  Can't wait!