The suckerpuncher sounds like a real hooser.

Jesus. This completely shatters my conception of Canadians generally and Canadian baseball fans in particular.

I guess there was no one on the actual pitching staff left for the fates to injure...

Jesus. This completely shatters my conception of Canadians generally and Canadian baseball fans in particular.

This was in Calgary. Those people are practically Americans.

This was in Calgary. Those people are practically Americans.

I need to calibrate my scale here, are they worse than Winnipeg?

I need to calibrate my scale here, are they worse than Winnipeg?

Oddly enough some of my favourite people in the world (both artists and friends) are from, or live in Winnipeg. The place itself is a cesspool of awfulness, but it produces some genuinely great people.

Calgary on the other hand is just a run-of-the-mill sad place as it has turned into that which it claimed to despise (ie. Toronto).

But this is of course all just me trying to single-handedly maintain the heated regionalist infighting that makes Canada great.

But this is of course all just me trying to single-handedly maintain the heated regionalist infighting that makes Canada great.

How does the Northwest Territories fit into all of this? All I know about that province comes from playing Risk.

All I know about that province comes from playing Risk.

Ah, yes, Risk, which makes my friends and I singularly excited whenever we see the name "Kamchatka".

How does the Northwest Territories fit into all of this? All I know about that province comes from playing Risk.

I know that the capital is Yellowknife, a nicely odd name.

Ah, yes, Risk, which makes my friends and I singularly excited whenever we see the name "Kamchatka".

Fools gold! You'll never keep Asia, my friend.

The funny thing about risk is that playing as a kid games would take hours and hours because we all played very conservatively and eventually every army possible would be on the board. Then I played the videogame version and realized the way to play is to take as many territories as you can as fast as you can and weaken your opponents before they can gain strength. The games also go much faster that way. So, basically, Risk was created by some kind of Hitler worshipper.

The rubbish about how Canadians are all polite and harmless has never been anything but a nonsensical myth that some Canadians like to put forth as a way of trying to make them seem superior to Americans.

Watch those videos one more time of the crazy rioting that always takes place in Vancouver whenever the Canucks lose the Stanley Cup. They're just as capable of acting like wild, out of control maniacs as us American "savages".

How does the Northwest Territories fit into all of this? All I know about that province comes from playing Risk.

Actually I went to a wedding this July that was 75% Northwestern Territoriers, (or "Northerners" as they call themselves). The wedding itself was just outside Calgary. They seem like an eccentric bunch. One of them noted that he hadn't had car insurance for a decade or two, and didn't see this as a problem at all. The groom had met his wife (an Australian) while travelling around Europe. After a year or so of that, and then a summer in Australia, they moved up to "The Territories". I don't she had ever seen snow before, so that was a rather bold move. It all worked out though.

I went to school with him, he took film. Up there he worked as a high school teacher/cultural festival organizer/prison guard. It kind of seems like the sort of place where you can just show up one day and be the mayor the next.

My stance on the Northwest Territories are that they are a cool place and if I find out someone has lived up there I'm going to hang out with them at parties and hear some great stories. But I'm not sure I want to live there. I'd visit, if there was a way to speed up the 20 hour drive from civilization.

I know that the capital is Yellowknife, a nicely odd name.

And Whitehorse in the Yukon. The single hardest thing about a Canadian geography class is not gettin those two mixed up.

Basic, out-of-the-box Risk actually isn't that good of a game, sad to say. Without some incentive to move things along the game gets too static, but accelerating card-set values is an imperfect solution. Single game outcomes are also much too dependent on the luck of the dice rolls.

I won't advertise but anyone interested in Risk is encouraged to look around the internet; there are some really great websites out there where you can play Risk and Risk-variants (from literally as simple as possible to as complex as you like), with terrific communities behind them. I recommend one with initials WG.

My stance on the Northwest Territories are that they are a cool place and if I find out someone has lived up there I'm going to hang out with them at parties and hear some great stories. But I'm not sure I want to live there. I'd visit, if there was a way to speed up the 20 hour drive from civilization.

Really dumb question: Are the Northwest Territories truly still territories, not a province with a weird name? Does that mean they don't get to vote in national elections and stuff?

They get to vote. Difference between province and territories has to do with autonomy in areas of provincial jurisdiction, I believe. Pretty sure the territories are controlled by Ottawa.

Basic, out-of-the-box Risk actually isn't that good of a game, sad to say. Without some incentive to move things along the game gets too static

This is true, although it can be fun for joking/threatening conversation! :p In reality, I'm much of a Diplomacy/Axis&Allies; person, but both of those games can take ages (Axes&Allies;, in particular, takes over half an hour to set up, let alone run a turn) or even days - not that I mind, but that this can be difficult to work with. A game with a similar problem that some of my friends and I were recently addicted to is the Game of Thrones board game, which is hellishly complicated and very difficult to get going (took us a couple of weeks to fully understand the rules/basic strategy), as well as requires a fairly good knowledge of the book series, but also consumed a highly substantial portion of the spring.

At the risk of making myself seem superior to anyone (I am Canadian after all!), I could never really take Risk seriously as a game after I discovered the glory that is "Diplomacy".

With respect to Canadian politeness, I think there is a small kernel of truth to it...in so far as generalizations about entire nations can have any truth. Like most nations I think there is a shifting "politeness index" between urban and rural areas. Growing up in Toronto I was raised to not talk to people in the street because they are probably crazy. When I moved to the prairies and strangers would actually say hello to me in the street it took me a while to adjust. The Maritimes (especially Newfoundland I'm told, though it's the one province I've never been to) are the same in terms of hospitality.

In terms of international comparison I think "polite" might be the wrong word, which leads to some confusion. Again, I'm sure there's a lot going on beyond national character, but I find I'm adapting much more easily to British culture than the American friends I have here in the UK. American seem to value honesty very highly. They (again I'm throwing around very general stereotypes here) don't "suffer fools gladly", if something's bothering them they'll let you know, etc. Whereas the English sensibility is much more passive. They'll hem and hah, or agree with someone just to have a pleasant conversation...and then afterwards tell people what a moron that guy was. I fit much better into that latter approach. Whether that's because I'm Canadian or not, who can say?

I will say, any Canadian stereotype of politeness does immediately come off the table if there's a hockey game on.

The best game of Risk I've played, and one of the last, was the perfect definition of "balance of power"- three of us had wiped out the other three players and consolidated ourselves, and had maxed out the card values. We'd continually play card sets, do terrible damage to both other players, with one being seriously weakened, only to watch the other two rebalance the game to avoid being stuck in an unwinnable 1v1 competition.

Give me Diplomacy any day.

edit: Coke to Greg.

Diplomacy is superior but, alas, we didn't have that game when I was a wean. Stabbing people in the back is all kinds of fun, though.

The Ukraine is weak, feeble land.

Are the Northwest Territories truly still territories, not a province with a weird name? Does that mean they don't get to vote in national elections and stuff?

Yes, they are still a "territory", just like Yukon and Nunavut. Territories don't have ownership of lands (surface and subsurface) and don't control justice. They also are scarcely populated, and their economy is tied to Federal government's subsidies.

Really dumb question: Are the Northwest Territories truly still territories, not a province with a weird name? Does that mean they don't get to vote in national elections and stuff?

Hinske more or less answered, but some other interesting notes are...

There are three territories, Yukon, Northwest, and Nunavut (which was created out of the Eastern part of the Northwest Territories a few years ago)

Each territory gets one seat in parliament (out of the national total of 308 I believe).

The Ukraine is weak, feeble land.

Adrian Gonzalez is the Ukraine.

They also are scarcely populated, and their economy is tied to Federal government's subsidies.

They way my friend describes it is they exist so that the indigenous populations can continue to live up there, with non-indigenous people being subsidized to live there to provide administration, healthcare, and education.

My stance on the Northwest Territories are that they are a cool place and if I find out someone has lived up there I'm going to hang out with them at parties and hear some great stories. But I'm not sure I want to live there. I'd visit, if there was a way to speed up the 20 hour drive from civilization.

I've been to Yellowknife a couple of times to do some research at the Territorial archives and I greatly enjoyed my stay there. Beside, it's not that far when flying. It's only 1 hour and a half from Edmonton. But, it does take a whole day from Eastern Canada.

And Whitehorse in the Yukon. The single hardest thing about a Canadian geography class is not gettin those two mixed up.

True. I kept thinking about this when I was in Yellwoknife and kept reading "KN" (for "Yellowknife") everywhere in town and kept thinking it stood for Yukon...

I want to play Diplomacy now! Who wants to come to New York and play?

They way my friend describes it is they exist so that the indigenous populations can continue to live up there, with non-indigenous people being subsidized to live there to provide administration, healthcare, and education.

Well, it's more complicated I would say. Most Indigenous of the NWT, Yukon and Nunavut have signed Land Claims agreement and it's through their land claims organization - most of which are staffed with aboriginals (in Nunavut anyway) that they get those services. Obviously,there are non-Indigenous providing services, and Indigenous will use hosiptals, etc. But I think it's unfair to say that non-Aboriginals are only there to provide services to Aboriginals.
[Edit: and you know, indigenous would live up there whether the territories existed or not. They had been there well before the territories were created...]

I want to play Diplomacy now! Who wants to come to New York and play?

BTF e-mail game!

I remember once one guy in my group of friends was getting annoyed because as he was really good at Diplomacy, people kept ganging up on him quickly. So we played an anonymous e-mail game, each of us creating e-mail accounts with our particular nation's Foreign Minister as the name. That was fun.

EDIT: My brother's actually in New York right now, and a friend of mine is flying there from London tomorrow...sadly I am not.

whenever the Canucks lose the Stanley Cup

In other words, annually?

But I think it's unfair to say that non-Aboriginals are only there to provide services to Aboriginals.

Yeah, I sort of assumed he was being a tad glib. It does sound like an interesting place.

Watch those videos one more time of the crazy rioting that always takes place in Vancouver whenever the Canucks lose the Stanley Cup. They're just as capable of acting like wild, out of control maniacs as us American "savages".

The difference with Canada is that after the riot was over, there was a quick volunteer movement to clean up the damage, and when the police requested help for tracking down the rioters, their website was flooded with videos, images, and tips.

Occasionally a group of Canadians will act badly, but we'll quickly slap them down and apologize.

The funny thing about risk is that playing as a kid games would take hours and hours because we all played very conservatively and eventually every army possible would be on the board. Then I played the videogame version and realized the way to play is to take as many territories as you can as fast as you can and weaken your opponents before they can gain strength. The games also go much faster that way. So, basically, Risk was created by some kind of Hitler worshipper.

Holy crap you are right. I never really even thought about it until now. My home games take about ten times as long as the CPU ones.

I played with some friends about 7 years ago. Stayed up until about 6 a.m. Drunken Risk is the bestest!

Diplomacy games played over the course of a cottage weekend are super fun. Say, a turn every 2 hours. There's nothing like the paranoia of looking out on the lake and thinking...is that Will and Karim paddling over to the island to have some beers, or is that Germany and Austria planning a strike on Warsaw?

The funny thing about risk is that playing as a kid games would take hours and hours because we all played very conservatively and eventually every army possible would be on the board.

You want something even slower? Take those same conservative people and have them play "Axis & Allies".
It took 13 hours to finish one game, simply because they guy playing USA refused to intervene in Europe OR Pacific until he built up a force that would simply overwhelm the entire planet. As England, I spent the first 10 hours desperately hanging on, as the Axis powers basically took over everything else on the map except England and USA/Canada.

When the USA did wade into things, it was like a tsunami of armed forces.

We used to play some WWII reenactment game that took place on a giant paper map and took days or weeks to finish. I can't for the life of me remember what it was called.

We used to play some WWII reenactment game that took place on a giant paper map and took days or weeks to finish. I can't for the life of me remember what it was called.

I had a good friend who played something like that and it lasted an entire year. Actually, I don't think it even ended. Even I thought it was hopelessly nerdy.

USA refused to intervene in Europe OR Pacific until he built up a force that would simply overwhelm the entire planet

This should never have worked if Germany/Japan had any idea what they were doing.

Diplomacy is incredible, thought that went without saying. I bet I still have DipJudge (or whatever it was called) installed on some machine somewhere. The Internet really revolutionized that game - anonymous games are absolutely the only way to go.

Pitt the Elder

Oddly enough some of my favourite people in the world (both artists and friends) are from, or live in Winnipeg. The place itself is a cesspool of awfulness, but it produces some genuinely great people.

Calgary on the other hand is just a run-of-the-mill sad place as it has turned into that which it claimed to despise (ie. Toronto).

But this is of course all just me trying to single-handedly maintain the heated regionalist infighting that makes Canada great.

I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for humour, I can tell you I don't find you funny. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you apoligize now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for humour, I can tell you I don't find you funny. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you apoligize now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

Pfft. As if you could penetrate into my den of fellow Saskatchewanians. Even if you did, what would you do? Shoot an entire room full of us before anyone could draw their gun? A likely story.

Saskatchewanians!!!!!

Next weekend you will be in the beer line at Winnipeg Stadium laughing how the Riders are beating the Bombers and you will hear:

"You don't remember me? We were on BTF nine days ago. I told you I would find you."

PS - as a comic in all seriousness...at least you aren't from Edmonton. (trying to widen the scope of regional fighting)

Canadians seem almost human when they're smack talking. It's...creepy.

PS - as a comic in all seriousness...at least you aren't from Edmonton. (trying to widen the scope of regional fighting)

I'm actually from Toronto sadly enough. But it was while living in Regina for six years that I developed my particular attitude towards Winnipeg (being from Toronto I of course wasn't aware of its existence before then). So for the purposes of this discussion I am aligning with my adopted province.

Of course all this is moot as the scenario you lay out has one major flaw. It was my impression that the Riders are no longer in the business of winning football games.

Canadians seem almost human when they're smack talking. It's...creepy.

And we seem superhuman when we're plowing your mom. Which is creepier.

And we seem superhuman when we're plowing your mom. Which is creepier.

As long as Mom's happy!

Risk is OK. Diplomacy is great. I have not played either in years. Civilization (the board game) can also be amusing. these days I play more family style board games - they play much faster and are better for parties.

I haven't played since I was a teen, but Diplomacy was the shiznit.

Gotta love BBTF: A guy gets killed arguing over the Blue Jays, and the thread needs only four posts to devolve into a discussion of Canadian geography, Canadians, and boardgames.

BTF e-mail game!

In all seriousness, I would be completely and totally up for this.