Kong Pung, and Chow! Or I play Mah Jongg

mixedpung

Good Morning! I told you before that I would write a blog on Mah Jongg since I started playing again after an absence of several years. Let me begin by saying it’s been a great time, I’ve met new people, have new friends. I guess that’s what gaming is all about. I’m going to begin by reading a poem written by a long time Mah Jongg player named Jelte Rep.
Come…
Come and let the wind take you
to where the winds gather
and three dragons meet.
Come to the square center of the world
where the wall keeps the ghosts at a distance,
where the moon reflects off the bottom of the sea
and where the flowers blossom on the rooftop.
Come and be seduced by Mah Jongg
game of the 100 wonders
game of 10,000 options
game of the sparrows
game of the winds
game of the dragons
game of dumb luck
game of sharp reasoning
game of 100 wars
game of 100 victories
game of 100 thoughts
game of poetry
game of symbolism and wisdom
game of greed and rotten luck
game of beauty and refinement
game younger than the singing of the bird
game more bewitching than the sunrise
game so easy to play
game so hard to control
game so hard to resist.
There been many questions about the age of Mah Jongg and where it began. Some people speak of centuries some people speak of a millennium. There are even people who think that Mah Jongg was played on Noah’s Ark to pass the time. There are several games that precede Mah Jongg,but in its present form Mah Jongg is a little less than 200 years old 1200 years ago a courtesan in the Tang Dynasty played a game with 32 cards that happen to be made of wood and ivory. There are one or two sets of these cards in a couple museums. They look a little bit like Mah Jongg tiles but probably look more like regular playing cards. 700 years later, they added more cards including bonus cards. Around 1846, a Chinese Imperial servant combined several different games change the cards to tiles and basically created Mah Jongg. The game was a hit! Because there were no written rules, each home Providence, town, street, home, and family, each had its own version of the game. It could be said that Mah Jongg was as varied as a recipe for chicken soup. What is even more interesting is nowadays, the Chinese version is different than most of the varied Western versions. There are some basic rules of Mah Jongg that are the same no matter what version you play. That is to say, if you don’t play by the rules, you’re probably not playing Mah Jongg.
I grew up playing Mah Jongg the Chinese way. Simply put, I learned to play the game with no jokers, using seasons and flowers, and having a set number of special hands. I am now playing the Wright-Patterson form of Mah Jongg. It was developed by a group of officers wives in the late 1920s. There are three, for lack of a better word standard ways of playing Western Mah Jongg. There is the all-American, Maj, and military Mah Jongg. Most Americans play the all-American variant. Maj has eight jokers. Military Mah Jongg has a discipline, control, and orderliness. If you are playing Mah Jongg anywhere near a base you are probably playing military Mah Jongg. The most unique aspect of the armies playing rules are the dozens and dozens of bizarre special hands which American soldiers are so proud of, they had them copyrighte. When the cultural Revolution broke out in the People’s Republic of China Chairman Mao Zedong waged a cruel war against “for old ones”. They were old ideas, old cultures, old traditions, and old habits Mah Jongg was declared a waste of time and an onset to corruption and a very evil element. The game was forbidden and anyone caught playing Mah Jongg was punished in public. Chairman Mao died in 1976. The sins of Mao as it is known, is partially blamed on Jiang Qing, commonly known as his crazy wife. The ban on Mah Jongg was finally lifted in 1998 with a set of official playing roles which were established by the Ministry of sports affairs and forbid gambling.
There are some funny little rules for playing British Mah Jongg. In England the ruling party is called the British Mah Jongg Association. It guards over the regulations organizes tournaments and acts as a referee. If you’re familiar at all with Mah Jongg, tiles are shuffled face down then built into four walls. In Britain to players, usually South and North, never east mixed the tiles and tell East judges they been sufficiently shuffled and calls “Pow”. In Holland bonus tiles are not used. In France, you’re likely to hear “Je vous supplie: pas de grands jeux!”(I beg you: no special hands!) In Germany, you hope never to hear “Entschuldigung, Frau Müller, aber Sie haben eine tote Hand.” (I’m afraid, Mrs. Johnson, you have a dead hand.) In Italy, a dead hand, meaning the player can no longer Mah Jongg, sound something like “Scusi, Signore, Lei è Grandissimo Signore .”(Excuse me Sir, but your hand has too many tiles.)
Typically Mah Jongg is played with four players each representing a wind, ESWN ( East South West North, (eat soup with noodles).) However there are ways to play, two, three, or even five players. There are some very good books to teach you to play Mah Jongg, there are games on the Internet, where you can play real Mah Jongg, not the match two tiles Mah Jongg. There are probably Mah Jongg clubs in your local area. Gotta run, playing Mah Jongg today. (PS:  I don’t know why the Italian is smaller than the other words. No insult intended, it just won’t change.)

Let go of my LEGO!!!

LEGO BUILDERS UNITE!

I am going to build my last Lego scene. It is the fight at Glod Durgur, Gold Digger, Dol Guldor. That’s it. Dol Guldor.

It has the last of the Lego characters I need to finish off my Bilogy. That’s two parts of the Trilogy. The first was the Gilogy. (Gandalf was the most important there.) Bilogy (Bilbo), the second movie, and the last movie, the Trilogy (Obviously Thorin.) My mind is a wonderland of amazement, sometimes even to me. Anyway, I have all the Major Characters so far. The only ones missing are the Eagles, and any that Sir Peter might throw in on the way home. The characters, Arkenstone, the characters. Right I have Gandalf, Bilbo, 78-rawithlego2Thorin and the 12 Dwarves, Saruman, Radagast, Thranduil, Goblin King, Beorn, (he’s sooooo cute) Gollum, Legolas, Tauriel, Master of Lake town, Azog, Necromancer, Orcs, Goblins, Elves, soldiers and Wargs. Plus two big-ass spiders. I’ve decided that since I also have a poster of the map of Middle Earth I should lay the map down on the table and put the little Lego people at the places on the map with the little Dwarves marching along in a row.200px-thOrinlego

So I think everyone out there who got Lego for their birthday or Christmas, or Yule, or Hanukkah or whatever holiday, or just went out and bought them should try to make a little diorama. You can use any thing in the scenes you need but you can’t just use the Lego built scene. See I would win. I have all the scenes. Yes, all of them. Including some from LOTR. I have one with Gandalf and Saruman that has the Big eye. It revolves. How about that? We’ll maybe have a vote with a prize. A bracelet with charms depicting the Movies…..I’ve just received a new order of cross bow charms. I had someone tell me the swords looked dangerous and some idiot would probably try to use it as a real weapon. I figured it would be themselves. Mwahaha. So here are the rules. I don’t do well with rules, and it’s my game, so they won’t be real hard.

All you have to do:

1. Write to me at village_witch at yahoo dot com and tell me you going to do a scene using Lego characters.

2. Tell me which characters you are going to use.

3. Take a couple of pictures and send them to me in jpeg form so I can put them in a blog. On sending in your picture, you will receive a number, so no one will know who they are voting for.

4. Vote on the one you like the best. You cannot vote for yourself and I will not be competing.

5. The Winner (the one with the most votes) will receive a One of a Kind Thorin’s Adventure Bracelet made by me. The runner up (second most votes) will receive a cup with a picture of their entry on it and their name.

Okay, then. Feel free to borrow your children’s Lego too, since I’m not asking you to send them to me. Orcrist thinks I have enough, thank you very much. Good luck to all and I hope I get a lot of entries.

maxresdefault Touch this  picture.  It will take you to a link.

If you don’t laugh, you don’t have a sense of humor.

Disclaimer: Everyone is invited to enter and you can do whatever you feel comfortable with doing to and with child’s toy. However, understand, that any pornographic pictures (you know what that is as well as I do) will not be displayed and will be deleted without comment. Let’s just say if you even have a passing thought that someone will be offended, I probably will be and so will someone else. Let’s keep it fun and clean.

I’m on a Soapbox Today…

Why I am on a soapbox today?

I am an avid reader.  So blame my parents.  Back in the day, when we did something wrong we were sent to our rooms.  We didn’t have TV, computers, IPads, XBoxs, or any of those electronic devices we give our children, then rarely take away as punishment.  Like Bilbo Baggins, the only entertainment I had back then had been my books.  We weren’t punished with a 5 minute timeout.  It was a 5-day time out.  My favorite things were taken away and not returned until my punishment was over. I turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself.  I respect my elders.  I say “yes sir, and no, ma,am.”   I say “please and thank you.”   I understand personal space.   I very rarely swear, even though I was a sailor.  I never use the “F-word.”  Young people nowadays use it because they think it is cool to type.  It only makes them look stupid and illiterate.  When my husband is playing an internet game he can immediately pick out the under 25 year olds.  They are the ones who still use racial, sexist, and swear words during game play. Of course, they are usually thrown off the board almost immediately, but they just go to another board, under another name.  Sometimes they use their parents ID.  Then Dad or Mom is banned from the site.  They have to go back on and explain to the Administrator of the site it was “someone else who hacked their computer.”   Why do they do it? Because their parents haven’t taught them any better.  Their parents haven’t taught them manners.  They believe they are entitled.   I was talking to my young nephew yesterday about personal space.  Before we could even have an intelligent conversation, I had to explain what personal space was.  It was sad.
I can put two words together and make a sentence.  I can spell.  I can write cursive.  I don’t use internet abbreviations unless I have to.  I don’t actually know most of them.  I have to look them up.    A friend of mine sent me a copy of a resume she got for an Executive Assistant job she’d advertised for.  It was written almost completely in internet language.  You know with pictures of eyes for the word “I” , “R” for “are” , etc.  She sent back a picture of her throwing it in the trash can, with a note that said “when they learned how to write a resume she would consider them.  Did you see the resume floating around the internet done in “My Little Pony” style?   And they want six-figure jobs? What if I told you 69 percent of our college graduates cannot read at or above a “proficient” level.

http://www.mrconservative.com/2013/07/20684-college-kids-dont-know-anything-about-independence-day-or-american-history/

To set the stage, a new disciplinary action guide-book has been written for the company where one had never existed.  I have to write a lesson plan to teach a group of SUPERVISORS how to investigate and dispense disciplinary action evenly throughout a small company based on this new guidebook.  There has been no set standard of practice and it is imperative that it be done.  This group will include the Chief Financial Officer, President, and General Operating Manager, plus five Department Heads.  All of them have at least a 4-year college education, some with Advanced Degrees.

I have to write the lesson plan as if I were writing it for students in the 8th grade just to make sure they all understand what I am saying.

That’s why I’m on a soapbox today, because I got in trouble and my parents made me read.  I learned.  I became aware.  I wanted more.   I am like a sponge absorbing information.  I never quit learning.

As my sister the Wicked Witch of West would say–

“What a world, what a world.”