Monday morning

A friend/colleague had a couple of grad school buddies in for the weekend, from Alabama and South Carolina. We spent a couple of hours on Friday afternoon at nearby Pickett's Mill Battlefield, a nice site. At one point, conversation turned to how various contemporary journalists might describe that and other Civil War battles, which reminded me of this: How World War II would look if it had been a real-time strategy game. I saw it on the web a couple of years ago, and fortunately I was able to find it again:

*Hitler[AoE] has joined the game.*
*Eisenhower has joined the game.*
*paTTon has joined the game.*
*Churchill has joined the game.*
*benny-tow has joined the game.*
*T0J0 has joined the game.*
*Roosevelt has joined the game.*
*Stalin has joined the game.*
*deGaulle has joined the game.*
Roosevelt: hey sup
T0J0: y0
Stalin: hi
Churchill: hi
Hitler[AoE]: cool, i start with panzer tanks!
paTTon: lol more like panzy tanks
T0JO: lol
Roosevelt: o this fockin sucks i got a depression!
benny-tow: haha america sux
Stalin: hey hitler you dont fight me i dont fight u, cool?
Hitler[AoE]; sure whatever
Stalin: cool
deGaulle: **** Hitler rushed some1 help
Hitler[AoE]: lol byebye frenchy
Roosevelt: i dont got **** to help, sry
Churchill: wtf the luftwaffle is attacking me
Roosevelt: get antiair guns
Churchill: i cant afford them
benny-tow: u n00bs know what team talk is?
paTTon: stfu
Roosevelt: o yah hit the navajo button guys
deGaulle: eisenhower ur worthless come help me quick
Eisenhower: i cant do **** til rosevelt gives me an army
paTTon: yah hurry the fock up
Churchill: d00d im gettin pounded
deGaulle: this is fockin weak u guys suck
*deGaulle has left the game.*
Roosevelt: im gonna attack the axis k?
benny-tow: with what? ur wheelchair?
benny-tow: lol did u mess up ur legs AND ur head?
Hitler[AoE]: ROFLMAO
T0J0: lol o no america im comin 4 u
Roosevelt: wtf! thats bullsh1t u fags im gunna kick ur asses
T0JO: not without ur harbors u wont! lol

And so on (available here, and elsewhere).

On Saturday, a cookout/birthday party with the same folks and others. A lot of fun. We ended up playing a board game. I don't think I ever saw the title, but the basic point was that players have to list as many examples as they can of certain categories. At one point, I had "sexy movie actresses." After one or two names, my mind went blank, and I said "Julie Andrews," which resulted in more ribbing than I thought appropriate. Another time, the category was "famous people whose first and last names begin with the same letter." The others didn't like my "Daniel DeLeon" (late 19th-cent. American socialist--not famous enough, they said), so I raised an objection about Woodrow Wilson (his first name was Thomas). I won on the first point, lost on the second.

A week and a half into summer classes, and things are going well. The pairing of Clio Bluestocking's posting on her town's trauma and Eric Foner's Who Owns History? worked very well for my methodology class-- Thanks again, Clio.

Off to class. This morning, the Populists!