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TOO MANY QUESTIONS!
In the past decade, the world has seen a kind of renaissance of board games. The world has long moved past Monopoly and Stratego and standard entertainment fare. There are literally hundreds of new games coming out every year for every type of person in every conceivable genre. It would take me hours to even begin answering your questions, there’s just so many factors that go into it.
I’ve seen the frum oilem only partially embrace it (Ticket to Ride and Settlers of Catan are somewhat popular in heimishe homes) which is surprising considering that the content of most of these games is rather benign by moral standards and very few have any issues in regards to Shabbos. What annoys me the most is the frum publishing companies that make their own games just slap a few extra themes (“reskins”) on boring old existing titles like Candy Land when there’s so much potential for so much more. Seriously people, look up your local tabletop game store (yes, such a thing exists) and ask for a recommendation. Barring that, head out to Barnes and Noble and ask them.
I like games that are short (30-60 minutes), don’t involve too much luck, and can be played with 2-4 people. Right now my family is really enjoying Forbidden Island which is a co-operative game where everyone has to work together to collect treasures on an island before the water rises too high.
I have a few others on my “I want to play” list. There’s Hanabi, a co-operative game where everyone can see each others cards, but not their own, and have to tell the other players what they have in their hands, but the rules prevent giving away too much information.
Then there’s Sabotuer, which works in large groups. Everyone works together to dig for the treasure, except for one or two people who have to prevent the others from finding it. And no one knows who they are, so it often devolves into a shouting match of accusations and counter accusations.
BZZZZT!
Alex: Yes, Yserbius?
Yserbius: What are two Orthodox Jewish cults who believe in worshiping the dead?
MIR BACHUR: You don’t remember how you got them, they came with the dira. One gores the other three times and damages your friends shirt in the process.
BRISK BACHUR: You’re makdish one and then make a simcha when it gets a mum. The other is shechted and you’re still arguing over how to take ma’aser from the fleish.
LAKEWOOD BACHUR: The first cow has a baby. It now has to feed both the second cow and the baby on the alfalfa that it gets from government farm grants.
NER YISROEL BACHUR: You lock one up and make sure it stays kodesh until you find a bull, while the other heads out to pasture two nights a week.
TELSHE BACHUR: You really only have one cow, you just made the corral smaller to give the illusion of more cows.
CHAIM BERLIN BACHUR: They both die of emphysema.
LANDERS BACHUR: You send them both to a specialist who can train them to produce more milk.
YU BACHUR: They are better than all the other cows and you can explain why.
I gained a new appreciation for the tapes when my kids started listening to them. My father’s favorite part was the Shabbos guest (I forget his name) from “Baruch Learns about Shabbos” who spends 5 minutes listing out his entire family including “Rrrosy mit der runny nosey”.
I laughed a lot at the theme song (Lower East Side Anthem) from the first “When Zaidy was Young”. “We would handel on the price/Then return the merchandise/in that crowded little corner of New York!”
Recently I was at my parents, who live in a very frum city. The house phone rings and my mother says, “Here, listen to what we have to put up with” and answers on speaker. It was a robo call in Yiddish about some sweepstakes or other. She barely even glanced at the caller ID. Apparently, every call that comes in that they don’t recognize the number is a teletzedakaer.
I told my father that what they’re doing is illegal and can be reported. He said that there’s a possible maasrus shaaloh so he didn’t want to. I disagree, as there’s no mesirah if the person is actively committing a crime, there’s no shaaloh of medinas ra, and people are being bothered by it.
PLAY VIDEO GAMES!!!!
-BMO
There’s a specific issur of swimming with someone of the opposite gender that has nothing to do with how they’re dressed.
Also, I’ve heard b’sheim Rav Wolbe ZT”L not to close your eyes everywhere you go “If you don’t get the bekius, you won’t get the beiyun”. In other words, don’t try to look at people dressed inappropriately, but you also shouldn’t make a fuss about not looking at anything as it would just mean that your taivos will be that much greater when you accidentally see something.
Yes, but not the death threats. There’s a reason it’s assur to hunt.
7. During Aleinu, fill your mouth with phlegm then spit on the ground.
Never really understood that one.
SiSI: Oh oh it’s Me, yes that’s his name! No one you know is quite the same! And everystorythatyouhearwillmakeyoulaughandmakeyoucheer oh it’s Me and weee loooove youuuuuu!
Baruch Dayan HaEmes, R’ Shmuel Kunda. I drive my kids crazy by knowing all the words to the CDs when they listen to it for the first time.
edited for reasons obvious to the author
Lack of tznius is a huge problem in the frum velt. Just the other day a friend of mine was talking about how much a neighbor payed for their renovations! Last week during davening (!!!) I overheard a group of men discussing their salaries. When I was in Yeshiva, it was fairly common for bachurim to discuss who can afford what sort of clothing and car.
It’s a disgrace I tell you, an absolute shanda.
Because many large companies can afford to pay a lot more to their employees so that raising the minimum wage won’t affect them. The affects only smaller and mid-sized companies who will be forced to lay off workers and/or hire illegals for under minimum wage. But the vast majority of minimum wage workers work for places that can well afford an extra 50k a year to pay their workers.
It strengthens my conviction that people get their news from a single biased source and draw their own conclusions on it instead of paying attention to the newspapers and radio.
I’m curious. Where does Rav Moshe assur it? Can someone find me the chelek and shayloh?
Until you hear Shir HaMa'alos {Psalm 128} being sung.It’s become very popular at non-Yekkish weddings too. Now if they sing it after the cups broken, then you know that they’re Yekkish. And that you somehow traveled back to 1962.
Time #9823 that my wife almost murdered me:
Someone was asking about a shidduch for my sister. It was a “double shadchan” situation, where one shadchan knew my sister and the other knew some guy. The boys shadchan (not a professional, just a ba’alabusta) asked to email a picture. I sent her a smiley face I drew with the message “You trust me on her middos, surely you can trust me on her looks”.
A very limited time with parental supervision as long as the game isn’t particularly violent.
So let’s take an account of games my five and under kids like to play. We have a tablet with Android at home with a few and they like (in no particular order)
- Ticket to Ride
- Jetpack Joyride
- Super Hexagon
- World of Goo
- Plants vs. Zombies
Of course we also have a computer which they play
- Peggle
- FTL (with some help from me)
- A few others to varying degrees of interest
Soon I’ll probably introduce them to Super Mario and Tetris. In my personal opinion, as long as there’s known a limit to how much time they could spend playing, there’s nothing wrong with giving them a computer/phone/tablet and letting them let out a bit of steam. It’s even better when said device has a strong password for any and all Internet uses (dedicated Linux laptop
sudo iptables -A INPUT -m owner --uid-owner TheKids -j DROP) and a handful of pre-approved non-violent games on it.There are two types of alternate medicine: Those that work and those that don’t. Historically, alternate medicine that works has been called “medicine”.
If YWN would not have such obnoxiously intrusive ads, I would happily disable my AdBlock as I do for other sites. Problem is, I hate having to click close on a full page add for some hotel or insurance just to read some content which is buried beneath more ads.
The American court system is extremely biased in favor of women when it comes to divorce. I know of and have heard of cases where the wife’s family use that to their advantage and try to extort money out of the husband and take away his right to see his child/children. In those cases, yes, the husband has a right to withhold the <i>get</i> as a last resort.
Iran isn’t such a surprise. The government is nutso and antisemitic, but the people are all right (by Middle East standards, that is). Greece doesn’t surprise me either, considering that they literally elected a Neo Nazi party into parliament.
I doubt that 0.2% of Laos even know what a Jew is.
He’s a Dutch politician who was very anti-Islam in a lot of his policies. Many Jews saw him as an ally due to his stance on Israel. Truth is, he’s just another right-wing nutter, which in Europe means he’s a Nazi in everything but name.
The Neutral Zone.
Does it have to be purely non-violent? Like, not even smashing robots?
- Thomas Was Alone is a great game. It has a very “artsy” style that may take a bit getting used to.
- Braid is one of my favorites. You play a man trying to get from point A to point B and avoiding all sorts of dangerous things. But the cool part is that you have to play with time by rewinding it, making it go slower or go faster to pass most of the puzzles.
- Some guy above mentioned Minecraft which is definitally falling in the kosher category (squids and pigs non-withstanding)
- Then there’s a lot of great free games out there. One of the best is something called Open TTD where you have to manage a transportation empire
Tell me what you think.
Do you believe in man-made global warming?
I’ve got a friend named O’Connor. Smart guy, made more than a few siyumim.
Presently the vast majority of Israeli society supports Lapid because of how the Chareidim are framing the fight. If the Chareidim would demand instead that conscription need not be mandatory, the tide would turn very quickly against Lapid.
In my opinion everyone has been framing this argument in black and white. It’s either join the IDF or stay in kollel ???? ?????. Lapid can easily persuade the Chareidim by offering the option to leave kollel without joining the IDF and the Chareidim can easily persuade Lapid by offering to accept the same.
The non-Chareidi velt sees this “Million Man Atzeres” as a demand for welfare and indefinite government payouts to kollels and kollel families which did nothing but anger everyone. Had the Atzeres instead have been framed as a demand to give Chareidim equal opportunity without the requirement of draft, it would have gone over a lot better.
Just a point of clarification: was it brillig when you had the borogoves problem?
While it’s always important to daven for a yid, let’s not forget that Ariel Sharon is far from a tzaddik. From cutting funding to Yeshivas and Chedarim in 2002 to failing to stop the Lebanese in murdering the residents of Sabra and Shatila in 1980, he’s no tzadik and certainly doesn’t deserve a shlita.
Why don’t we follow the standard of the frum newspapers? A man is called depending on your subjective standards of him:
- Chariedi Gadol HaDor from Eretz Yisroel: Moreinu HaRav
- Gadol from America: HaRav
- Rosh HaYeshiva or Rabbi of a big shul and has a beard: Rav
- Rabbi but doesn’t have a beard: Rabbi
- Rabbi but has opinions that disagree with yours: Rabbi
- Chosson with a beard: Reb
- Bearded man with a lot of money: Reb
- Clean shaven man who doesn’t have a shul or yeshiva or dough: Mr.
Rummikub always works, as there’s a good chance you both will be interested in it and it’s a game that’s still good with only two people.
If you want my suggestion, forget the typical games that you find in Toys R’ Us and haven’t changed since the 60s. Go to Barnes and Noble and look in the “Strategy Games” section. Lots of really cool stuff that’s also a lot of fun to play.
One of my favorites is Forbidden Island which is fun because you have to work together to beat the game and the proverbial clock by finding treasures before the island sinks. It’s similar to another game (which I haven’t played) called Pandemic where you have to travel around the world curing diseases before everyone is infected.
Another cool (but expensive!) game is Agricola where each player has to manage a farm, including harvesting, livestock, a farmhouse and a family, and snatch up resources before the other players.
I’m also a fan of Carcassone which is kind of like a more fun version of dominoes.
Personally, I find BBC to be more even handed than frum news sources in reporting news about Israel. Most Jewish newspapers are incredibly biased.
I once slipped on my wife’s sheitel on the newly waxed kitchen floor and it became a WYSIWYG.
If you know someone who can take you in to see Rav Aharon Leib Shteinman, Rav Chaim Kanievsky, or another major gadol, then go. If not, chances are you will be waiting for hours just for the Rov to show up and there’s a 50/50 shot that he won’t. Then you may have two or three minutes to ask him anything, but chances are you’ll just get a quick brocha.
Just take your sisters to the Kosel and say tehillim for 7 hours. It takes the same amount of time and accomplishes so much more.
It’s incredibly difficult. Basically, it comes down to showing the tuition committee every penny you spend and earn and begging for a large enough break that you can just manage to break even.
@writersould
SQUEAK
Misread that as “Frum Geek Culture”. Oh well, back to the Discworld thread.
Little Froggie: There is something called a “credit rating”.
I saw a group of men standing by the kever of R’ Yonason HaSandler. One was blindfolded and stood in front, facing the kever while another guy stood in front of him giving him mussar.
There are strange frum people in this velt.
Technically, many Sephardim can be considered Arabs.
- How many identified asteroids are there in the asteroid belt?
- Why do humidifiers require salt before they humidify?
- If sfek sfeika works m’tam rove, why isn’t a taynas besulim considered kol kevuah?
Velz Meshugener: What if I just drop the whole thing and write it from scratch in Prolog?
Would it be kedai to convert an iThink System Dynamic model into an Agent Based Model, and if so, should it be run in AnyLogic or Arena?
crazybrit: iPhones require a bit more hacking than just downloading a program. And even rooting Androids can permanently disable it if you don’t know what you’re doing. As for flashing a recovery image without the parents noticing, I’m pretty sure that the parents would notice if suddenly their phone isn’t rooted any more.
Yeshurun: I would NOT RECOMMEND you to attempt to root the device yourself. It can permanently damage the tablet. Best thing to do is to find someone who knows computers and mobile devices and ask them to do it for you.
crazybrit: It’s not so simple to flash a recovery. It seems that the computer is closely guarded, so downloading a recovery image and transferring it to the tablet would be difficult. Doing it without the parents noticing is impossible. Besides, diddling with the hardware would probably lead to some really bad results, considering how closely connected all the different components are in a standard tablet.
LevAryehBoy: Most WiFi networks are password protected. Unless Yeshuruns kids are walking around town looking for free WiFi, the tablet stays in the house so it can only connect to the house network. Or not, as the case may be.
Yeshurun: To permanently disable the WiFi on the tablet there is no solution. It’s possible, but it requires a decent level of computer expertise. You will need to gain root access and uninstall the network drivers, a tricky task that may or may not permanently break the tablet.
nossb: <REDACTED FOR FEAR OF REVEALING MY IDENTITY> Let’s just say it was a moderate sized Asian country where the entire Jewish population consists of a Chabad Shaliach and a Morrocan guy who runs a cigar store.
Is anyone upset in the double standards in Yiddishkeit? A 30 year old man with a good job and apartment is a schlepper, looser and nebbech but a 30 year old girl living in her parents house and a part-part-part-time job is such a sad story for such a wonderful maidel.
Or a shadchan complains about people asking for support but will only set “Top guys in Lakewood” up with girls whose families have dough?
Funny thing that, everyone talking about ordering a Coke. I was recently in a country where kosher food was completely unavailable, so drinking the beer (which was brewed at the restaurant) was actually halachically more permissible than drinking the Coke, as beer brewing relies on a very specific set of ingredients.