T w e n t y S i d e d

Interesting story behind that splash image at the top. I was pretty pleased with myself getting all the upgrades and repairs for the bathroom done, so I went looking for an image about “success.” The marquee ad for the 1923 Metro Pictures movie Success seemed the most appealing easily clippable Public Domain image on the first page of Wikimedia Images search. After editing, I figured I better look up the movie in case I was making a statement I didn’t want to support…I mean, the movie may have been about the rise of fascism or something. But believe it or not, it’s EVEN MORE applicable. Well, not the movie itself. I would call Success a twist on the famous and beloved Charlie Chaplin movie Limelight, except Success premiered in 1924 and Limelight appeared in 1952. But don’t get excited, Limelight is just one of the best-known versions of this type of story (and arguably is more of a “cousin” story). Actor is unable to deal with his phenomenal success, ruins his life with {insert here; drink in this case}, abandons his family including his young daughter Rose. Years later he tries to make a comeback, is hired as a dresser for the *big star,* his daughter Rose is the co-star and the subject of shenanigans, *big star* can’t perform, the has-been goes on stage and achieves wild “success”, a happy ending ensues for everyone.

But that’s not important. See at the top of the splash image, where it says the money man was Murray W. Garsson, Inc.? Murray Wolfe Garsson came to New York from England as a two-year-old in the 1880’s. He apparently achieved “success” in real estate and movies in the 1910s and 1920s, and got involved in the U.S. government in the 1930s, first in the Department of Labor and later as a civilian working for the House of Representatives. After the outbreak of World War II, Garsson and his brother used his government connections to secure munitions contracts for a non-existent company. After acquiring the contracts the Garssons partnered with two men who fabricated watch cases and compact mirrors to produce faulty mortar shells. Garsson’s inside man was Kentucky congress-person Andrew May, who just so happened to chair the extremely powerful and influential House Military Affairs Committee. May pressured dozens of government agencies and departments to throw business and other favors to the Garssons and their friends. The entire scandal was discovered after the war by a Senate committee investigating the fake munitions business due to the high failure rate of their product. May and both Garssons were sentenced to a few years in prison. Murray was flat-broke upon release, and died a few years later. His brother Henry lived until 1983 in obscurity. The crooked Congress-person served nine months while appealing his case all the way to the Supreme Court (which refused to hear his appeal). Despite this, he was still popular and influential in the Democrat Party, and President Truman issued a full pardon in 1952. Democrats *did* reject his attempts to re-enter politics, so he returned home and practiced law (he wasn’t disbarred or punished in any way for actually breaking the law) until his death in 1959, two years after Murray Garsson.

A very modern scandal, and at least May had a very modern success story. One that could be in the news today. Oh, and Murray’s first wife was named “Rose,” and I wonder if she was the namesake of the character “Rose” in Success. Which in turn makes me wonder how involved Garsson was with the production. I can’t find any information. But I didn’t come here to tell you any of that.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Bathroom Done, and the View From Nar Shaddaa”

Paige Francis He/him

This is a Star Wars: The Old Republic post for two reasons: one is the continued home improvement, which is going well. No pics, at least not for now…you don’t want to look at my bathroom renovation and I don’t particularly want to share it. I reserve the right to change my mind; as I started out thinking “sure, I can do plumbing repair and replacement, right?” to having accomplished “most” of the repairs and replacements over the past week. There is certainly a difference between knowing how to do something in your mind and actually having the experience of doing it. The biggest challenge remains: I need to replace the bathtub/shower handle and valve, which will require shutting off the water supply to the house. I actually wasn’t too worried about it until I tested, or tried to test, the new shower head and faucet. The connection to the valve for the faucet leaked horribly. Like, spraying water. I don’t know if it was leaking already; I don’t think so. I am guessing I damaged it during the installation of the new faucet. And now I’m worried the connection is actually damaged. I should find out tomorrow.

I spent the entire week in Tropico experimenting with strategies to increase my citizen’s happiness level as I grow my population. In my previous scenario successes, the average happiness of my Tropicans usually wound up between 35 and 40. If you remember, there was one training scenario that required you to finish with an average “Housing” happiness of 60. The solution there was to build a large amount of luxury Housing and Condominiums. As there was only one completion requirement, the moment you reached 60 the scenario was finished. You could hyper-focus on meeting that criteria at the expense of everything else. (NOTE: only to an extent. Even in the training scenarios, if you go into debt over $10,000, you will be get a College-educated wage cap. If you stay $10,000 in debt for another year, you will receive a High School-educated wage cap. If you stay in debt for ANOTHER year, you will receive a global wage cap. And if you STILL don’t fix it, you will be kicked off your island. So, you know, you can’t *completely* ignore your economy.)

But back in the present, the “Born Again” scenario requires both 300 Tropicans *and* an average overall (not just housing) happiness of 300. Last week I determined this would require learning a new strategy. As of Saturday, I can reliably reach 200+ citizens with 50 overall happiness. This should indicate I am on the right path and just need to optimize my building order and timing. Each play-through of the scenario reaches new experimental ground, which also introduces some new error in my thinking. I thought I had the problems licked yesterday, but once I hit 54 happiness I found myself scrambling to get the last 50 immigrants on my island while maintaining happiness. To address this, I have two possibilities to explore: I have been using an immigration office to help boost…well, immigration. I use this early on to get some skilled workers specifically, but I also noticed I’m not attracting many people to my high school. I will still use the immigration office to increase overall immigration, but I’m going to try a Presidential Edict I’ve never used before: the Contraception Ban. This will hopefully increase home-grown (heh) Tropicans, and also increase home-EDUCATED Tropicans.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “So When You Say “Dailies”… (SWTOR, Tropico, Plumbing)”

Paige Francis He/him

After a full month of 100+ degree temperatures and failing air conditioners (literally; two window units broke during the heat wave), we had a little over a week of cool temperatures. While we’re back into the 90’s off and on now, you can see all around us the signs of impending Autumn. The pets have started begging for more food. The cash crops (I live in an agricultural area) have started what they call “cutting out,” the process of dropping any fruit that isn’t developed sufficiently to mature off the existing nutrients. As part of this process, the leaves start shriveling-up and falling off, as the plant itself no longer needs to grow or synthesize energy from sunlight. It’s not a full die-off yet, that will come most likely naturally with the first night of freezing temperatures or, unfortunately, artificially through chemical applications. With the cooler temperatures now, it’s time to start the repairs beyond the emergencies that have been put off. We have ongoing house improvements, with more planned before we move sometime in the next year to 18 months. I also had to clean and/or replace the cabin air filters in two cars, both of which have been experiencing air conditioner problems as well. Unfortunately, only one of them had a cabin air filter so dirty it probably was affecting performance.

In the computing world, I found something very interesting in Linux, I proceeded further in Star Wars: The Old Republic Galactic Seasons 7, and I have progressed in Tropico scenarios. I have a LOT more to say about the difficulty labels, which continue to be confounding.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “The Last Gasps of Summer Means More Home Repair and Tropico Funstration”

Paige Francis He/him