Category: History

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Update?

What a month, amirite?

Aside from working at the office every Tuesday, I’ve been working from home every weekday.  The Tuesdays feel the most ‘normal’ since I’m at the office, though it’s weird walking the floors wearing a mask, with hardly any employees around.

I’m not quite back to playing my sports replay projects regularly, though I have played a game here and there.

I’m doing my best in utilizing home delivery for necessities instead of going out shopping myself.

I dove into yet another new hobby, 3D printing, and so far I seem to be enjoying it, stumbling my way through frustrations and successes.

I got to see my sister and niece when I dropped off a gift for my sister’s birthday.  I had also seen them when I picked up some cookie dough from the now-defunct Specialties Café.

I really miss baseball.

A crewed commercial spacecraft launched from American soil for the first time, and a first for a crewed spacecraft since the last shuttle mission in 2011.  I cried tears of joy.

June is here.

Everyone stay safe until next time, okay?  Love you all.

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What to do?

When I get home tonight, do I set up one of the Leader games (Corsair, Hornet, Phantom) or a Sunday double header, Braves @ Giants, 1967?

I can probably play the double header tonight.

Any of the Leader games will probably be played over a couple of days.

And I found that I had been playing wrong, adding a phase that is only used in B-17 Leader.

I would include a round of homeward bound air/ground combat, which isn’t even listed in the sequence of play.

Whoops.

I was used to a phase like this because of playing B-17 Queen of the Skies for so many years, which requires a possible Luftwaffe intercept in every zone on the way back to base from the target.  Again, B-17 Leader has this step, the other games don’t.

Maybe this will speed up my games.  We’ll see.

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I Don’t Want To Grow Up…

What can I say about Toys R Us closing that hasn’t already been said?

Like many folks, it’s a place where I grew up.

It’s the place where I grew up.

The Colma location was where my parents took us for birthday and Christmas gifts, and the occasional time for doing a good thing.

It’s where my friends and I would stop on road trips, in our 20s and 30s, and for me, through my 50s.

It’s where I think we got our first home computer, the ViC-20.

The big Space: 1999 Eagle One Transport, a Christmas gift.

Micronauts.

Most of the Star Wars toys that I ever owned, including the Millennium Falcon that my parents bought for me after telling me they would if I cleaned the house, which I did from top to bottom, to their shock, er, surprise that same day when they got home from work.

Great Mazinga, a birthday purchase after my godmother gave me money in my birthday card. I saw a $20 bill held by a paper clip attached to the card, and when I handed the clipped money to the cashier, she handed a second $20 bill back to me, along with the rest of my change. Talk about surprised, that was more money than I ever had, prior to getting and saving allowance from my parents.

The first Jeff Gordon die cast car that I owned, still sitting in my workstation at the office.

Midnight release of toys for the Star Wars prequels, I think I went to all three of those. They had them for the last three recent Star Wars films.

G.i. Joes and other action figures, from Megos to Marvel Legends.

Fisher-Price Little People.

Plastic model kits.

Estes Rockets, which my Dad was reluctant to let me get into, until he saw a launch at Candlestick Park when my brother was learning how to drive and park. Dad took me to Toys R Us to pick up the Estes Rockets X-15 starter kit, later that day.

I’m not 100% sure it’s where I got the Six Million Dollar Man, or the first Battlestar Galactica toys, or even various early Star Trek toys.

I do recall getting the 12″ Indiana Jones figure there in 1981, but never seeing the original 3.75″ Indy figures.

And the last thing I got from Toys R Us?

The Infinity Gauntlet.

With time I could go on and on about other items acquired from TRU over the years, but I won’t.

I’ll just say that I’ll be sad when the stores close. But the memories will stay with me.

I’m a Toys R Us kid. And I always will be.

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Pilot

At the last moment I changed my mind again and decided to pledge for my name on an aircraft card in Corsair Leader.

I posted a question to Facebook, asking what would be a good callsign for a World War II F4F Wildcat pilot.

There were a few good suggestions, but I wanted to have some connection to my own Filipino heritage, so when someone suggested ‘Bailout’, I came up with… ‘Balut’.

Chris ‘Balut’ Saguisag, F4F Wildcat pilot, reporting for duty!

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Funded

So happy that this game got funded, and that the backers were able to knock down some great, nay, awesome stretch goals at the end, including this one:

I was one of a bunch of folks who requested this particular stretch goal.

The last stretch goal (for $105K) gave us P-40 Warhawks to use in the game.  Which of course remind me of John Belushi in the movie 1941.

Looking forward to receiving this game in July.

“Sayonara, sucker!”

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Soon

So here’s where I go way out of my wargaming comfort zone:

Should be delivered today, along with more counter storage trays.

Hey, if I like this one enough, I may get the Rommel, Napoleon, and Nimitz games as well.

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Something Different

So here’s something that I picked up as a change of pace:

This is a solitaire game where you take the role of the Japanese carrier fleet during the Battle of Midway.

In all of my years playing wargames, I’ve never taken the Axis side.  It’s one of the reasons I’ve yet to pick up U-Boat Leader.

In two player games about WWII, I’ve played both sides solitaire, but always favored the Allied Forces over the Axis Powers.

But I realize that military forces are simply tools to forward a government’s agenda, the individual soldier/sailor/pilot may have a differing viewpoint than that of the regime.  By the same token, playing a table top wargame doesn’t mean you support that regime either, especially 75 years later.

If anything, this is seeing an historical event from a different point of view, simulating the tactics from the other side from where I’m used to playing.

I may end up ordering U-Boat Leader sooner than later.