Wednesday, March 5, 2008, 7:02
Section: Miscellany
They’re back, and they’re delicious. Oh, yes, I love the Thin Mints as much as every right-thinking American does, but I want to praise two less-heralded cookies:
Samoas – These incredibly evil cookies are coconut, caramel and dark chocolate. (The alternate bakery that the Girl Scouts use produces Caramel De-Lite, which uses milk chocolate, making them inferior but still damned tasty.) They’re the second-most popular Girl Scout cookie. If you’ve never had them, pick them up when the local scouts have run out of Thin Mints.
Lemon Chalet Cremes/Lemonade – A couple weeks ago, I was introduced to the new Lemon Creme Hershey’s Kisses, which brought back a powerful sense memory of sandwich cookies with strongly flavored lemon cream in the middle. The generics Jenn got at Albertson’s in response to my craving failed to satisfy. (That’s putting it mildly; I eventually chucked the entire package of cardboard-flavored cookies in the garbage can.) The Girl Scouts, though, have a cookie that delivers on this score. Insanely good with milk. Lemonades are the inferior cookie (same company as bakes Carmel De-Lites — coincidence?), which is just a big shortbread cookie with a frosted underside. The frosting is OK, but doesn’t have the same kick as the Lemon Chalet Cremes.
It’s a good thing these things only show up once a year.
Gary Gygax, the man who invented Dungeons & Dragons and roleplaying games, accidentally revitalized the fantasy fiction genre (which remade itself in his image) and inspired a whole genre of computer games (including World of Warcraft) has died.
Gary Gygax, who co-created the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons and helped start the role-playing phenomenon, died Tuesday morning at his home in Lake Geneva. He was 69.
He had been suffering from health problems for several years, including an abdominal aneurysm, said his wife, Gail Gygax.
Gygax and Dave Arneson developed Dungeons & Dragons in 1974 using medieval characters and mythical creatures. The game known for its oddly shaped dice became a hit, particularly among teenage boys, and eventually was turned into video games, books and movies.
Gygax always enjoyed hearing from the game’s legion of devoted fans, many of whom would stop by the family’s home in Lake Geneva, about 55 miles southwest of Milwaukee, his wife said. Despite his declining health, he hosted weekly games of Dungeons & Dragons as recently as January, she said.
“It really meant a lot to him to hear from people from over the years about how he helped them become a doctor, a lawyer, a policeman, what he gave them,” Gygax said. “He really enjoyed that.”
Dungeons & Dragons players create fictional characters and carry out their adventures with the help of complicated rules. The quintessential geek pastime, it spawned a wealth of copycat games and later inspired a whole genre of computer games that’s still growing in popularity.
Funeral arrangements are pending. Besides his wife, Gygax is survived by six children.
Appropriately, he died on GM Day and National Grammar Day. (The effect the original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons books had on my elementary and middle school vocabularies cannot be understated. How many 11 year olds know what a carbuncle is? Or hematite?)
EDIT: A tribute strip from Order of the Stick. A more serious one from Penny Arcade. Given that EGG shoved a ton of cartoons into the original Dungeon Masters Guide, I suspect he would be pleased. The man who showed all the Bond villains what a real death trap looked like in Tomb of Horrors had a good sense of humor.
Watching Michael Stipe telling the monsters to be happy again, it occurs to me that if Stipe would put on some muscle, regrow his hair and dress muy macho, he’d look just like Chris Metzen. Weird.
I just got back from Topaz Elementary School a little while ago. For the third year in a row, I’ve participated in the NEA’s Read Across America Day.
Once again, I read some Robert Munsch books to local students (third graders this time). This year, it was I Have to Go! (which is about what you think it’s about) and Mud Puddle. That’s right, I’m not above pandering to third graders with gross-out humor. I’m not ashamed.
Munsch’s books didn’t become popular until I had grown up out of his target age range, but he doesn’t seem to have written a dud yet. In previous years, I read his books Show and Tell and Wait and See.
The Philadelphia Daily News played it big on its April 23, 1998, front page for everyone to see. “Squeeze Play on Tap: Suds Fans Cheated 2 OZ. Per Cup At Vet, Adding Up To Big Bucks,” the headline read.
“In a town where beer is a fundamental part of baseball lore..failing to give an honest pour is worse than striking out with the bases loaded.
“It’s un-American.
“Joe Sixpack uncovered the rampant short-cupping during Tuesday night’s game against the Reds,” the story went.
Don Russell wrote that story. Wrote all of the Joe Sixpack stories, as a matter of fact. Still does, once a week, for the city’s pugnacious tabloid. Became so associated with the hometown hero most folks just call him Joe Sixpack. He left the newspaper racket after nearly 30 years to do Joe Sixpack full-time. The Joe Sixpack column, a Joe Sixpack Web site (joesixpack.net) and, coming in March, a book: “Joe Sixpack’s Philly Beer Guide.”
Calling Joe Sixpack a beer column is a little like calling Mike Royko’s a tavern column or A.J. Liebling a boxing writer. Like all the best columns, Joe Sixpack is about people and place. “He tends to tell Philadelphia stories that just happen to be about beer,” former Daily News Editor Zack Stalberg says.
Where Joe Sixpack’s investigation of the short-cupping at Veterans Stadium leads is worth the price of admission. A fun article about a very interesting columnist.
