DKs Intensities in Ten Cities! [Winner=TX AG 90]

[Dukasaur]

Deadline has passed. Please pass your papers to the front of the class...

[Shai]

I was about to go for gold, thought I'd put down the ticket price for the flight today...
But, the kids got whining, so I had to call it a day...

[arno30]

Ok guys, leave apart wiki and google, here is the true story of the first direct HK-Sydney direct flight.

You all know they are/were both british colonies. One day, Her Majesty the Queen woke up and decided she had enough of the greyness and dirtiness of London. So, after her croissant (I’m not gonna eat those beans for breakfast, am I ?) she started planning a round trip around the world. One condition: no way she’ll put her feet in a non-british soil, that’s for sure.

She heard about someone in London that wanted to do the exact same thing, Phileas Fogg, and to make her trip funnier and more exciting, proposed him to bet on who would go faster, the loser being forced to cross the channel to live on the continent, where dirty frog-eater people live too…
Phileas fogg, a convinced anti-royalist accepted the deal. He was sure he could do it in less than 80 days, something that noone never done before. So he was delighted in advance that he could get rid of this Queen and all her *$=”#@€ family... On her side, Her Majesty the Queen was thinking, I’m the Queen, nothing and noone can beat me.

And off they go. Both on a boat, but while Phileas Fogg went all around Africa to India, HM the Queen who secretly heard from the french (they for sure didn’t want her to lose her bet !) they were digging a canal in Egypt, went this way and took a big lead.
On a train across India while Phileas Fogg took an elephant, to finally arrive in HK.

Even if she was in advance, she didn’t want to take any risk and ask whether it was possible to find a direct flight to the pris… heu, Australia ? The aussie flying company in town heard about that and was wondering how they were going to move the “queen ass” without having to stop to refuel ?
“Let’s take a bigger plane, dundee ! yeah, and let’s fill it with as much fuel as we can, max !” (the aussies are clever). “Ok, but let’s leave some space for some beer too…” (and thirsty…). That day was born the Qantas flying company. No trace left from that plane, so we can’t have any technical precision about it.
The Queen loved the beer that make the 48h flight easy and asked to have some in Buckingham when she gets back.

Of course, back to London, the Queen won, Phileas Fogg went happily to France, changed his name into a French one (Jules Verne) and wrote his biography (as well as few other books). Australia opened to the world, discovered cricket and rugby and since then beat the british regularly at their sport. And export their forsters too…


Thanks dukasaur, this task wasn’t that challenging at the end.

[macbone]

In Hong Kong, youth and beauty are everything, and we have tons of advertisements everywhere for skincare products and cosmetic surgery. My favorite are the Medicare Breast Enhancement ads. =)

HK t-shirts are the best. They're often horribly misspelled, sometimes just random letters. A sampling of the coherent ones:

"Don't date me! I won't show up unless you are pretty." - worn on a 50-something dad.

"Enjoy your wonderful holiday in New York."

"More"

"Famine"

A shirt with a model on the front and Robert Frost's "I took the road less travelled and / That has made all the difference" on the back.

"No longer with stupid - girl in her 20s"

"I can be very scary," worn by an energetic little 5-year-old boy.

"Let me be your friends."

A Watchmen shirt with all the characters as cartoon rabbits. Bunny Rorscharch? Check. Bunny smiley face with blood dripping down? Double check.

Oh, and my favorite - "I'm so very unhappy."

[macbone]

And Perchorin, that Bible quote's straight from the King James. It doesn't get much more English than that. =)

[macbone]

i didn't know that. why are they translating so badly ?

My knowledge of characters is very limited, but the first two are "siu saam," or "Careful" (which is a very common expression - Chinese people love to give advice and warnings). My guess is the next two mean to fall down. Chinese is a very compact language, with not a lot of wasted words. My guess is that it was translated literally, instead of the real meaning.

Edit - I checked with my wife, and she said the sign was weird, kind of uncommon. The last two characters mean "slippery," but they also mean "slip down," so you could literally translate it as either "Careful slippery" or "Careful slip."

[macbone]

Ah, here we go:

[Dukasaur]

Only two Hong Kong games are still active.

[perchorin]

Only two Hong Kong games are still active.

Don't know about the other one, but Game 10080717 is finally over.

[macbone]

It looks like all the games are finished now, right? On to Berlin!

[Dukasaur]

It looks like all the games are finished now, right? On to Berlin!

The spreadsheet with the scores on it is on my home computer, which hasn't been re-assembled since the move. I expect to have that up and running on Tuesday, and hopefully will have this show back on the road by Wednesday or Thursday.

[Dukasaur]

C&F results from Hong Kong:
4 for Greg Davidson
3 for Mageplunka69 (not awarded)
3 for arno
2 for perchorin

Sorry for the delay.

[Dukasaur]

Results for Hong Kong.
First, the alphabetical list:

...and then, the list sorted by current score:

The most spectacular performance was by Perchorin who gathered 23 points in Hong Kong, leaping all the way from 8th place to 2nd. GregDavidson is back on top, gathering 20 points in Hong Kong to regain the crown that he first held after San Francisco.

At the other end of the spectrum we have ckyrias, DoomYoshi, musteriuz, and Shai, who will be remaining at their new jobs in Hong Kong and not boarding the plane for Berlin. Sorry to see you guys go; we have much enjoyed your company this far in the journey.

[Dukasaur]

Four more will be dropped after Hong Kong, and will live out their lives working in massage parlours, so only 12 will make the hazardous trip across Eurasia to Berlin. The Berlin 1961 map is a little different than all the other maps in this series, in that it attempts to recreate a historical, rather than just geographical, entity. The Berlin on this map is Berlin during the Cold War, divided between Russian, French, British, and American zones.

Berlin was originally divided up between the various Allies in World War II, and the manner of its division was indicative of the stresses and tensions between the Allies, as the war against Germany drew to a close and the Allies secretly began thinking of war between each other. The Russians considered themselves to be one half of an East-West partnership. In their eyes all the Western allies were part of the same Capitalist club, joined at the hip, and Russia was the only truly independent Ally. They thus demanded a full half of Germany and Berlin. The Americans saw their interests as being very different from the British and refused to be lumped in together, and thus wanted a three-way split. The British, although heavily indebted to America, were just as mistrustful of the Americans as of the Russians. To avoid being outnumbered in a three-way split, they insisted that the French should be treated as an equal ally, and demanded a four-way split.

In the eventual compromise reached, each point of view was partially represented. As was typical in those late-war conferences, the Russians got the best deal: a segment that was somewhat less than half, but considerably more than one-third. The Americans got almost, but not quite, the one-third they wanted, the British slightly less, and the French least of all. The bonus structure on the map does a very nice job of representing this unequal division, which became so perfectly symbolic of Cold War relations.

In game terms we will model all of the above. We will play a Trips game to simulate the Russian point of view, a 6-player Dubs game to model the American viewpoint, and two 4-player Standard games representing the British and French opinions. To simulate the escalation of hostilites in the Cold War, we will start with Flat-rate, but then go quickly to Escalating and end up with Nuclear. Also, because many people have not played this map before, we will have a special 1v1 game which will start 4 days before the others and be worth only 1 point, so you can get some practise and not lose too many points in the process. And finally, we will have another assassination, to represent cold war intrigue.

Each player will participate in:
One 1v1 Automatic Flat-rate Chained Sunny Standard game. This game will be created 4 days before the others and score only 1 point to the winner.
One 4-player Automatic Escalating Chained Sunny Standard game.
One 4-player Manual Escalating Chained Foggy Standard game.
Both of the 4-player standards score 3 points to the winner, 2 points to the 2nd place finisher, and 1 point for 3rd place.
One Automatic Nuclear Chained Sunny Trips game, scoring 4 points to each member of the winning team.
One 6-player Automatic Nuclear Unlimited Foggy Doubles game, scoring 5 points to each member of the winning team.
One 6-player Automatic Nuclear Chained Foggy Assassin game, scoring 7 points to the winner, and a special 2 points to his victim.
5 points awarded for the "colour and flavour" bonus.
Maximum possible: 28 points

So, holiday hiatus over, we set out for Berlin. Remember, because this is a map that many people don't really know, and has a rather unusual bonus structure, the first game will start 4 days before the others, and score only one point, to give you a chance to practise. I'm creating the game 1's now (late Wednesday night) which means the other games should theoretically be created late Sunday night. However, I'll be at work at that time, so I may create the games either early on Sunday or early on Monday.

show: berlin game 1

show: berlin game 2

show: berlin game 3

show: berlin game 4

show: berlin game 5

show: berlin game 6

[Dukasaur]

C&F Task for Berlin

We'll keep it really simple. Draw a connection between Berlin and some other city we visit in this tournament. For instance: Berlin (Phase Seven) is German; Chicago (Phase Nine) is famous for having a huge German community. Of course, for good points you'll want to elaborate a bit more than that, but that's a basic connection you can work with.

Approach it any way you want: educational, serious, oddball, humorous, whatever. Just make a clear and coherent connection.

You have one week.

[Dukasaur]

I thought it might be a good time to review the C&F standings.

Montreal:

Howdy here folks! The results are in!

kiwi3... 2 points
wolfpack0530, GregDavidson, Mekii, MattiWacklin, ElricTheGreat, Mad777... 1 point each

Nice jokes all

Vancouver:

The results are in for the round 2 contest!

Macbone and DoomYoshi both get 5 points!
Fewnix gets 3 points and Greenbaize gets 1 point!

San Franciso:

Ladies and gentlemen, tournament players of all ages, the esteemed judge, Victor Sullivan, is here to deliver you the results of this phase's flavor task.

All who participated will receive at least 1 point, so kudos to the lot of you for taking the time to post your pictures and captions.

The Results:

Tied for 5th place with one point each...

Rbelgrod and GregDavidson!


In 4th place with 2 points...

MattiWacklin!


In 3rd place with 3 points...

DoomYoshi!


In 2nd place with 4 points...

Perchorin!


And the winner, scoring 5 points...

WorldCup4James!

Congrats to WorldCup4James and all who participated!

-Sully

Cairns:

The deadline for the Cairns C&F task has now passed. Only four people posted promptly. { }
-- WorldCup4James, musteriuz, GregDavidson, and kiwi3.

I guess we dropped the ball a bit on announcing the scores.

musteriuz, as noted previously, was the first person to answer part 3 correctly and gets the maximum of 5 points.
kiwi3 was the only one who dug up an interesting fact that I hadn't expected, and gets 4 points.
GregDavidson gets 3.
WorldCup4James answered only part 1 and gets the minimum of one point.

For those who haven't seen the movie or read the book, I strongly suggest both. They are both very powerful and moving.

Sydney:

Okay, it took a bit, but I've finally extracted some scores from our procrastinating C&F judges!

(It's been a hectic time to be a Team CC member.)

Macbone 5
TX AG 90 4
Greg Davidson 3
DoomYoshi 2
MattiWacklin 1
rbelgrod 1

Hong Kong:

C&F results from Hong Kong:
4 for Greg Davidson
3 for Mageplunka69 (not awarded)
3 for arno
2 for perchorin

Sorry for the delay.

Greg Davidson 1 1 3 3 4 12
macbone 5 5 10
DoomYoshi 5 3 2 10
kiwi3 2 4 6
Perchorin 4 2 6
WorldCup4James 5 1 6
musteriuz 5 5
MattiWacklin 1 2 1 4
TX AG 90 4 4
Fewnix 3 3
arno30 3 3
rbelgrod 1 1 2
wolfpack0530 1 1
Mekii 1 1
ElricTheGreat 1 1
Mad777 1 1
GreenBaize 1 1

[perchorin]

Both Berlin and Hong Kong spent part of the 20th century occupied by foreign powers, and both became the destination of choice for desperate refugees from the Communist powers surrounding those cities before the system collapsed around the former and mutated into pseudo-capitalism in the latter...

[macbone]

What’s the most important export of any country or city? Why, food and booze, of course! And in that respect, Hong Kong is indebted to Berlin, and indeed, Germany as a whole. One of my favorite parts of Germany, Berlin and elsewhere, are the many fine bakeries and wiengartens to be found nearly on every street corner. And in this respect, Hong Kong mirrors Berlin as being a city of good eats and watering holes.

Bakeries are very popular in Hong Kong. Almost every morning I stop by Saint Honore’s bakery for my morning chocolate rocky bun, and Hong Kong has several awesome German bakeries, all owned by a Japanese company called A-1 Bakery that serves up German-style breads, along with Hong Kong and Japanese favorites.

A-1 Bakery



I’m salivating right now.

One of Hong Kong’s finest bakeries with several branded stores, A-1 has several tasty baked goods available, good German black bread, and tasty sprinkle-covered chocolate doughnuts. Perhaps my favorite choice is their French milk bread, which is light, spongy, and sprinkled with a light coat of powdered sugar.



A sweet-potato roll? Yes, please!

Das Gute



Slap on a little butter, maybe some honey, and you’ve got yourself a little bite of heaven.

Das Gute is another brand owned by A-1 bakery, and is a bit more high-end. Just as with the A-1 flagship brand, Das Gute serves up the awesomeness that is German baked goods at twelve different locations in Hong Kong.



Tastes so good you’ll slap your mama.

Schnurrbart’s



It’s like Where’s Waldo, except the challenge here is to find a native HKer.

But there’s more to German cuisine in Hong Kong than bakeries. Hong Kong has a few other German establishments, including a nice little bar, founded by three Germans, that’s been in HK for almost 30 years called Schnurrbart’s, one on Hong Kong Island, and the other in Tsim Sha Tsui in Kowloon.



All Germans are required by law to consume at least one bratwurst per day.



And of course you need something to wash it down with afterwards.

[DoomYoshi]

In the 18th century, both Berlin and New York became national capitals. Berlin became capital of the Prussian Empire in 1701, as the ruler felt a centralized city would help his far spread empire run more efficiently (yes, even hundreds of years ago, the Germans were all about efficiency). In 1785, New York became capital of the new United States. While New York did not last long as capital (5 years), it is now known as the cultural capital of the world and has been for some time.

Both cities are known as cosmopolitan. While New York is famous as the mixing pot, Berlin is more than 1/4 immigrants. Right now, Berlin has the largest Turkish population anywhere outside of Turkey. While New York was founded by Dutch, then British, then every other kind of immigrant, as early as 1700, Berlin was already 20% French.

Two of the most iconic images of the last hundred years exist in these cities. The Berlin Wall was a symbol not only of repression, but of the battle between freedom and communism, the battle between USSR and USA. When it fell, Francis Fukuyama declared this was the end of history. However, history did not end, and more than 10 years later, planes crashing into the World Trade Center became the dominant image of that decade.

Clearly, both cities have immense standing, both in their national and international identities. While New York has twice as many people, Berlin's history make it just as interesting a place to study.

[kiwi3]

One connection that Berlin has with San Francisco is its respect or "celebrations" of diversity. San Francisco is known as the gay community of the world. During the Folsom Street celebration, people wear all kinds of leather costumes. Berlin also seems to recognize diversity in people by its (excuse the language) Fuckparade. It is a gay celebration where the participants wear different costumes, as well. I havent been to either of these cities. If I had, I could have probably been able to come up with something better. As with most of the United States, there are pockets of German descendants that integrate their heritage and impact the community by the traditions they bring with them: the foods, traditions, and certain mannerisms or words.

[arno30]

just a quote, DoomYoshi said: "The Berlin Wall was a symbol not only of repression, but of the battle between freedom and communism, the battle between USSR and USA."

you should do a movie about that !

[arno30]

what is the famous german brand you can find all other the world, and so in all the cities we've been travelling into as well ?

what's the thing shared by hockey fan in canada, the hippie community in SF, the surfer in australia and the policemen in HK that has been designed "for the people" in germany ? (yeah, i know, not in berlin but do you really make the difference, you american ?)

ok, now you have it, the volkswagen !

look at those samples...
in canada:




in SF:


in australia:


and in HK


and http://www.flickr.com/photos/michael-hansen/490648036/

and finally berlin !



created in 1936 by Ferdinand Porsche (pushed by the national socialism party of course) who wanted to design a "car for the people" (litterally in german Volks - Wagen): here was born the famous beetle, for a long time the only model proposed by the german firm, that reach an all time production record of 16 millions in 1973, more than the ford T. the rest is on wiki...

[Dukasaur]

C&F deadline has arrived. No more submissions.

[macbone]

I like Arno's. Nice bugs! =)

[Dukasaur]

The C&F scores for Berlin:

macbone 5
DoomYoshi 3
arno30 3
kiwi3 2