Fun for little tossers

One of the things my sister asked for for her sons this year was board games. The oldest is three-and-a-half, which seems to be just about the age that he can start grokking rules of play. My older brother found a used copy of the children's classic Candyland at a rummage sale; I considered picking up Chutes and Ladders (Snakes and Ladders to you twee Brits), but didn't get around to it.

On St. Stephen's Day ("the day after Christmas" to you pagan babies), I went out for bubble tea with my parents and my stepmom made the mistake of mentioning that there was a Korean grocery nearby. I dragged them in and spent nearly and hour showing them everything from wrong candy to aloe soda. Right at the entrance was a stack of yut games. (Since playing it is a traditional Korean New Year's pastime, I assume they were aimed at customers who celebrate according to the Western calendar.)

Years ago, I made a yut game of my own with a piece of typing paper and popsicle sticks, but I never found anyone to play it with. These were the first games I'd seen for sale commercially and they contained the rustic sticks that I was trying to mimic on the cheap and easy. (That's about all they contained, besides a paper mat and eight plastic counters.) You see, yut is a straightforward racing game, but players don't roll dice. Instead, they use hardwood sticks with one flat side that were originally developed to cast the Yijing (another traditional New Year's pastime).

AWI (or perhaps I should start typing "BBD" so e. isn't always reminded of the Average Wage Index) is at a stage where throwing things around is Fun. It occurred to me that a game where tossing is an integral part--but actually keeping track of where and how the thrown objects is important--might be just what he needs. (My sister had the same thought, so she's in the market for some monkey-tossing game that was discontinued years ago. If you know of a set for sale, please comment!)

Mixed results. On the plus side, he liked the game more than his mac 'n' cheese and grasped that he had to count the flat sides in order to do something with his guys. But he was vague on just what he got to do with them. At first, he started putting one on for each flat side instead of moving that many spaces forward. Then he began making moves that seemed to have nothing to do with anything, such as pushing all the markers to the middle of the mat. Oh well; I'll send his father a copy of the rules and see if he can make any progress in my absence.

Note: There's an illustration of a set quite similar to the one I bought that I unfortunately can't reproduce here. The thick red letters on the box say yuch. (Final ch in Korean is pronounced "t".) The sticks are identical (obviously, the flat sides are all facing down), but the counters in BBD's set are round and the mat is different. The circles on it are marked with Korean toponyms. (Dad had the same thought I did: South Korean or pan-Korean? I didn't examine them long enough to tell, though I think I did see Taybaksan, which is to the Koreans what Mt. Fuji is to the Japanese.)

Addendum: From this page on Korean traditional culture: "Watch the boys when they are losing (especially to girls) They are holding four child-sized weapons and frustration can get the better of them." Ah, the dangerous toy tradition continues!

This violin is all for the journalists out there

In a recent column in the Reader, Michael Miner talked about recent poll results showing journalists rating about as high as local politicians and auto mechanics on the trust-o-meter. He speculated on why this was so, but I've been struck by specific examples recently.

First, while stuck in the airport, I had no choice but to see a local newscast featuring an interview with a woman whose daughter and granddaughter were brutally murdered. At least a solid minute of a distraught woman sobbing and carrying on. And to what purpose?

Then there's the coverage of the tsunami, which is loaded with nauseating examples of bias. Both humpingbears and niemandsrose have good posts condemning the Western media's laserlike focus on blond tourists at the expense of those who don't have safe, comfy homes to return to.

I know I'm one of the first to defend shallow and pixilated media coverage as the natural product of market forces--this is what we get because don't demand something better--but still. "Princess Di is wearing a new dress."

Another Family Christmas Update

I would direct those of you dying of curiosity about the our big family Christmas dinner to bunj's journal, but I see that he's Friend-locked the entry so that those not nearest and dearest to him might never know his secret shame. (You wouldn't think that someone who has appeared in the alumni magazine clad in naught but leaves and a hat would have much dignity left to lose, but apparently so.) He also doesn't mention how skillfully he disarmed what was either a hamfist attempt at small talk or a gauche criticism of his own snobbishness thinly disguised as good-natured ribbing on the part of the hostess by assuring her that his wife and he weren't really accustomed to gourmet food; they only had soufflé twice a week!

There's really not much else for me to add. Not only was it the same location as last year, but it was even the same dinner. (The roast beef might have been a tad less overdone or that might just be my own wishful thinking. In any case, it didn't take a gourmet to recognise that it was wrong, wrong, wrong.) I talked to pretty much the same people, including the cousin who should make me cease all of my whining forever. Last year, he had started off college scrambling for accommodation because his father had managed to lose his room reservation two weeks before the first class. He's since dropped out and become head of a maintenance unit for a local hotel. He got called in on Thanksgiving and, sure enough, Christmas day, when his boss went into labour. A week ago, he spent three hours with his arms at basically full extension holding up and repairing part of a boiler and has been on steroids for the inflammation ever since. (How could I dare mention my bad back after hearing that?) Oh, and despite all this, he remains polite and unrancourous. How do some people do it?

In other news, my gay cousin drove up from Dixie with his media personality lover and their newly-adopted newborn and the aunt who was hosting had the children sing "Happy Birthday" to the Baby Jesus and blow out the candle on his cake for no other reason--as near as we can tell--than to get the goat of her anti-establishment pagan/wiccan daughter. In other words, Christmas as usual. It was very touching to discover that my grandma, who's still recovering from her stroke months ago, insisted on personally signing every one of the gift cards to her 60+ grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It took her many tries, since she didn't want shaky lines on any of them that would give away the extent of her injury. I really, really hope she's still around next year.

Posting it forward

I'm not normally a meme-spreader, but bitterlawngnome made me this spiffy new icon and now I'm obligated to follow in his brightly-shining footsteps. So reply to this post and, as the feeling seizes me, I will:

1. Reply with a word I associate with you
2. Describe one of monshu's Yixing teapots
3. Rant about a random subject (generated using the method previously posted here).
4. Generate an exotic new nickname for you.