It appears Digicolleen over at The Duck Show and I were thinking the same way this morning... or at least our duckies were.  A couple of hers are in Hawaii (wellllll...), while three of mine had been pestering me to let them go sunbathing.  I promised I'd let them this morning.

The result?

Three inches of snow and ice fell on Duckford last night.  Oopsie.

(The F1 Update! is coming this evening.)

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So The Brickmuppet and I are chatting, and he tells me that his pal BOB (who is never mentioned on his website) is going to be carrying a "collectible game" that uses rubber duckies as game pieces. 

Oh.  Oh my.  Yes, please.

Duck Duck Go! does, in fact, use rubber duckies as pieces, but they move around a hexagon board as guided by random movement cards, all the while being chased by a "bird dog" that can cause all sorts of havoc to your plans.

The rules (pdf) are simple enough to be understood in just a couple of minutes, but can become complex enough to require strategic thinking, which I really didn't expect.  All in all, methinks I see a new addition to the Flock's collection sometime in the future.  You can get it from APE Games, or from your favorite game retailer, of course.

There is one rule that I think they missed, though... they advertise "100 different duckies" are available as playing pieces (I've already got 34 of them, by the way), but none of them have 'special powers'.  The advanced game introduces action tokens, yes, but that's not quite the same.  For example, a Halloween duckie could scare the bird dog once a game, which would keep it from bonking you.  A Christmas duckie could give a gift of one hex of movement to any duckie (or the bird dog), which could make the target miss a bouy (or the drain!).  The possibilities are endless... which could make this game even more fun! 

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As most of my regular readers are aware, I've long been fascinated by the War in the Pacific.  For thirty years (at least), I've been a voracious reader of anything I could get my wings on related to that conflict.  While I've been interested in anything that happened in those years, over time I've also narrowed my focus down onto the Battle of Midway.

As I read the incredible book Shattered Sword, I became aware of something called The Battle of Midway Roundtable (BOMRT).  Calling itself "an international forum focusing on the 'Incredible Victory' at Midway, the turning point of the Second World War in the Pacific," it's something of a clearinghouse for information on Midway.

The most important part of BOMRT, however, is without a doubt the weekly newsletter.  Members ask questions, which are then answered by other members... and the breadth and depth of the knowledge available is immense. 

Currently on the member list are 45 veterans who were actually present at the Battle of Midway, ranging from a Marine on the atoll, to PBY pilots, to Dauntless pilots and gunners, to crewmen from all three US carriers, to the lone TBF Avenger pilot and crewman to survive that plane's baptism of fire (Bert Earnest and Harry Ferrier, flying from Midway as part of the detachment from Hornet's VT-8, both of whom are covered extensively in the book A Dawn Like Thunder).

One member of the BOMRT has gained the nickname of "Santa Claus".  Annually, Ted Kraver goes to a major used book sale and picks up a bunch of military history books.  He then gives them away to other members of the BOMRT as a 'thank you' for the past year's worth of insight and experiences. 

This year, I was one of the lucky recepient of one of Santa's gifts:

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Way to go!!!

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So I'm grocery shopping, walking down the bread aisle (rye bread: crack for ducks) and an attractive young woman is walking the other way, towards me.

Much to my surprise, she stops, looks at me, and says "I know you!"

This is good.

Then she says, "You're the weird guy with all the ducks!"

This... this is why people drink heavily.

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1

I'm told that young women in Japan dread the day that strangers start calling them -san instead of -chan. It means they're getting old.

Equally, one of the saddest moments in an American male's life is when cute girls start calling him "sir".

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 07, 2009 05:47 PM (+rSRq)

2 Hey look on the bright side...She really DOES know who you are!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at March 07, 2009 07:47 PM (V5zw/)

3 As I said, "six of one, half-dozen of the other."

Posted by: Wonderduck at March 07, 2009 09:42 PM (tMdKd)

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1 DINOSAUR EMPIRE!!1!!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at March 02, 2009 09:48 PM (DcSb+)

2 IT'S A COOK BOOK!!!!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at March 02, 2009 09:52 PM (DcSb+)

3

"There IS no third planet!"

"There WAS...but not anymore....."

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at March 02, 2009 09:55 PM (DcSb+)

4 I don't think my friends and I could make it through the day without quotes from The Princess Bride. Other than that, my movie canon would have to include Aliens, A Fish Called Wanda, They Live, Big Trouble in Little China, and Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins.

And Python. Lots of Python.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at March 03, 2009 12:03 AM (2XtN5)

5 So, I push the post button, and immediately realize this isn't about the works that make up a well-rounded geek -- it's about the the stuff geeks bring up in conversation over and over. The geek memes, if you will.

So, please throw away more than half my post.

Gah.

That said, yeah, I think most geeks should have some contact with all the things I mentioned.

Posted by: refugee at March 03, 2009 02:47 AM (IsSOG)

6 Well, we can all do "obscure reference-fu" until we go blue in the face. I'm cracking up often enough on my own with no hope of explaining why I just found something so funny, and even the normal people I work with are fairly geeky ("I'm not a geek!" "Diane, you own a life-size standee of Jean-Luc Picard." "Doesn't everyone?")

The idea of the canon, though, is that there should be some body of geekdom that the geek is expected to have encountered - not just "that's on my get-around-to-it list", but the things which you're expected to be familiar with, the things where if you say "I never read that" or "I've never seen that", other geeks look at you like you're some kind of mundane.

Star Wars is part of the geek canon. So is Star Trek - not necessarily any individual bits of it, but you have to have seen some Trek somewhere.

Number one is indeed Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail. Hitchhiker's Guide is up there too, but a bit lower. Princess Bride, sure.

Books are harder - you really quickly set a fairly high intellectual bar for geekdom if you throw too many of them in.

Damn. This needs to be a whole series of posts, not just a few comments. Guess I know what I'm posting about this week, in between finishing off Lucky Star and Persona 3...

Posted by: Avatar at March 03, 2009 04:00 AM (7TgBH)

7 Ok, so I'll admit, I worked Renaissance Faires for about a decade, so the Python/Princess Bride references are everyday usage for me (And then, they had to eat the minstrels. And there was much rejoicing!). I had a friend who was actually an Anglican minister. He built a replica "holy hand grenade" cause he thought that bit was the funniest he'd ever heard. I'll add on another genre now... hasn't anyone seen Army of Darkness? "Gimme some sugar baby!"

Posted by: madmike at March 03, 2009 10:58 AM (mV2q+)

8

I find myself thinking that "The Terminator" should be on the list, simply because of "I'll be back." Besides which, it's Arnold. But I'm not so sure it really rises to the level of canon.

Meanwhile, about Holy Grail...

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 03, 2009 01:21 PM (+rSRq)

9 Is Doctor Who necessary canon?  It certainly seemed like it was when I went to school, although I managed to avoid watching any until... drum roll... last fall.  Some Tom Baker-era episodes, and boy howdy did I hate them.

Even though I managed to avoid Doctor Who until early middle-age, I still absorbed way too damn much of the details of that British mess through osmosis & daily contact - I had a roommate for five years who wore a Tom Baker hat & muffler ensemble whenever it got cold out.

Posted by: Mitch H. at March 03, 2009 02:13 PM (jwKxK)

10  Terminator (2!) crossed my mind, but I don't know that that's specifically "geek" canon. Almost too normal, huh?

Who is necessary to the extent that you need to know that there's more than one of them, and you need to recognize a Tardis.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at March 03, 2009 02:57 PM (pWQz4)

11

Who is necessary to the extent that you need to know that there's more than one of them, and you need to recognize a Tardis.

Well golly...I'm not sure who that would be.  

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at March 03, 2009 03:09 PM (cpnJa)

12 The geek memes are works that a well rounded geek should know.  Or half of what a well-rounded geek should know, the half with a sense of humor.  I'd put Terry Pratchett somewhere on the list as well, as I've seen recent SF works by Charles Stross and Vernor Vinge that have substantial Pratchett in-jokes.  And, of course, Pratchett's works contain in-jokes that rely on knowledge of other items of cultural canon, from Dracula to RoboCop. 

An important reason canon is canon is because other works make references to it.  Part of the reason we study Homer and Shakespeare is because so much else references their works.  It's hard to read Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters without knowing Macbeth. 

For the more serious half of the Necessary Geek Knowledge, the books at any rate, I'd expect a geek to at least know who Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein are and something accurate about their major works.  The exact books can be left as an exercise for the reader, but it's important to note what parts of their works are referred to over and over.  For example, how much of how we view AIs in SF is colored directly or indirectly by the Three Laws of Robotics?

Posted by: Civilis at March 03, 2009 07:23 PM (tSDyr)

13

Mike, regarding Army of Darkness, I'd go more with "This... is my boomstick!" and "Honey, you got reaaaaal ugly."

 

Posted by: Wonderduck at March 03, 2009 07:30 PM (UdB9M)

14 Has Ph.Duck seen Holy Grail yet?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 04, 2009 01:08 AM (+rSRq)

15

Here's a curious suggestion: a true geek will have read Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

"The Red Queen's race" alone is more than enough to justify that, but there are a lot of other reasons.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 04, 2009 01:15 AM (+rSRq)

16 Steven, I'm sure he hasn't.  I'm not sure he'd like it much... but I've been horribly wrong about his tastes in the past, too, so maybe I SHOULD inflict it upon him...

Posted by: Wonderduck at March 04, 2009 01:47 AM (tMdKd)

17 For those of us non-youngsters, LPs used to be a factor.  And Firesign Theater's works certainly warped many geeks and such with whom I've worked.  I would hate to have to recall how many times someone uttered a line from same only to end up with a ping-pong exchange with others, none of whom knew the others had partaken of Firesign until that point.

Posted by: Jim Horn at March 04, 2009 05:37 PM (s11YI)

18 Generally I agree that book references set the bar pretty high -- but we *can't* leave out the Three Laws of Robotics.

Also for the list:  Lost In Space -- at least for "Danger Wil Robinson!" and "Oh, the pain..."

And what geek doesn't recognize a quick utterance of "Bedebedebede" from Buck Rogers?

Posted by: Stephen R at March 06, 2009 11:59 AM (1WX9E)

19 Oh, and even geeks who never saw the movie know that "There can be only One"

Posted by: Stephen R at March 06, 2009 12:07 PM (1WX9E)

20 Certain elements of The Twilight Zone -- such as the goblin on the airplane wing, and the story "Eye of the Beholder" (and, yes, "It's a cook book!") -- are certainly sci-fi canon, if not "geek" canon.

I'll go away now. ;-)

Posted by: Stephen R at March 06, 2009 12:35 PM (1WX9E)

21 How about Tom Lehrer?

How about Spivak's Calculus?

I've got more suggestions here.

Posted by: unsquander at March 11, 2009 08:30 PM (AEdWT)

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My stepfather, Ph.Duck, is a good guy.  Every now and again, however, Momzerduck and I trip over the strangest cultural blind-spots.

You see, Ph.Duck was born to a pair of missionaries (one Swedish, one American) in Nepal, and (mostly) raised in India.  He's lived about half of his years there, though not all at one time.  As a result, we'll discover unexpected gaps in his knowledge of American culture, mostly entertainment-based.  For example, up until about five years ago, he'd never seen Star Wars.  Momzerduck and I might go off on a riff from, say, a Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch, and he'll just look at us like we've gone completely insane.

He's a huge fan of the opera (and classical music in general), and they recently went to see Tristan und Isolde at the Chicago Lyric Opera.  A few days before, I said the only operas I've ever seen were by Warner Brothers.  He gave me a blank look... and I had to explain.  He had never seen some of the classic Bugs Bunny cartoons!

So this past Friday, after dinner, we all sat down to watch...

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