Nice Cat Skin Hat. 
And by the way I grew up in the Catskill mountains area of New York.
From a 1600âs Dutch map of New Amsterdam (New York)
The land of Kats Kill. The letters C and K are interchangeable in Dutch writing.
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They both look like they have checkered pasts. 
Hey, if all hell breaks loose, can I come to your place and sleep in the shed? Sometimes, I worry. 
(Heâs a nice guy so will want to say âyesâ but knows that his family (and family of cats) will assail or stomp me so will diplomatically deflect which is fine. 
)
You realize you could claim anything and I probably wouldnât look it up. Really, darling, the Dutch are so passĂ©, you should really get au courant.
I have an alternate screen name for Dave if he gets bored with his current:
Ian Mosothers
Hey, it occurs to me he chose 27 because thatâs when all those famous rock stars checked out. Has anyone checked to see which ones died on multiples of 27 (54, 81, 108?) That might be something for someone to do since we canât post by email anymore. 
A Frog posting in Frog. The map was current in 1685
I would post the entire map but it is 14.1 MB
I kid. Itâs a cool looking map, and even roughly matches the catskin cap, so fashion forward!
If I were you I would have that map printed onto a cloak and you could drape yourself in it and sashay around the neighborhood. Plus the catskin cap, of course, lots to do. 
You can download it and use it to decorate your Lily Pad.
Maybe you can use the 115.2 MB size to cover the pond.
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As you wish⊠Howâs this?
I prefer chess⊠Both in my past and my present. I play chess every day. At any given time I have 1 to 3 dozen open chess games running, mostly casual nowadays. Anyone interested can start a game with me on chess dot com or their official chess website. I like that you can allow up to x days between moves so you can just play in cracks of time without having to dedicate an uninterrupted period of time for a game. Iâll even play nice and not rated. 
My teen daughter even beat me once and never lets me live it down.
But speaking of checkers I did play checkers against an international checkers [grand?] master though. I learned a lot. It definitely takes as much it more skill on intermediate levels or higher. The guy I played against could tell people with a few moves exactly how the game would play out and when he has a guaranteed win. It was crazy. Checkers is less forgiving on mistakes, so using the phrase checkered past to describe mistakes is fitting. Checkers is more brutal and unforgiving but surprisingly just as strategicâŠmoreso in some ways.
Haha, Iâm totally pulling a Joe Rogan and going away off topic from what was actually said based on a comment that only reminded me of something else I felt like talking about. 
Ongoing rant about the adage of playing chess while others are playing checkers and how checkers might actually be the superior intellectual game as stated and preferred by people who have actually mastered both, which I reluctantly admit/agree despite me preferring chess
Youâve likely heard the adage âitâs chess not checkersâ or that someone is playing chess while the other is playing checkersâŠand the intended point is valuable, but sometimes with a false premise.
I learned checkers is a lot more complex than most people realize.
Did you know that scientists found there are actually over 500 quintillion move combinations in checkers? There is not a person in all of history who can come anywhere close to calculating all of that out in advance in their head. Checkers, surprisingly, is nothing to scoff at. Chess and checkers arenât actually very comparable games, and despite itâs simplicity of rules, checkers is not actually easier or simpler than chess in practice according to statisticians. A person may argue that Chess has more combinations, but since the human brain cannot calculate beyond a certain level, and both games have calculations that exceed that threshold, it is irrelevant.
With chess you can change/correct vs everything permanent and committed in checkers (better make sure you were right the first time!)
In Chess, anything can happen, vs with checkers you must always be vigilant. Itâs possible to represent the old adage: Youâre already dead, you just donât know it yet and have lost the game completely and guaranteed dozens and dozens of moves earlier. It can be over within a few moves if you arenât playing at a high level at all times with every single move (thatâs hardly simple to do).
People take checkers less seriously and will absolutely always lose to a master or someone more skilled than them if they are ignorant of how the game really works.
To be at the master level of checkers takes every amount of critical thinking as a chess game does, and many who are masters of both have said they prefer checkers. Part of the reason checkers is played at a much higher level than chess is because it is less complex. Therefore, your margin for error in a checkers game is lower with less forgiveness than the flexibility for more mistakes you have in a chess game. One single mistake usually totally ends the game in checkers. The game can be over from one of the first few moves. In checkers, EVERY single move matters a lot and is permanent and totally committed. Nothing is trivial. In chess, most moves by themselves donât carry as much weight or commitment and can be changed or corrected.
To help illustrate that nobody actually calculates every move anyway, brain scans have shown that those with lots of experience, including grand chess masters, they have their brains naturally switch from using functional memory (considering every move) to instead automatically start playing based on patterns and probabilities, not ever actually considering the majority of worthless possible moves. Most of the possible moves in chess just donât matter and arenât even considered by the best-skilled players. Theyâve learned to train their brain to more quickly recognize what is actually important, to prioritize. That is the real key to these games, and something worth learning in life.
One statistician [Mark Palko] who intricately studied the math and complexities of both games explains why checkers should actually be considered the overall smarter game after all:
Or as EAPoe put it:
Yet to calculate is not in itself to analyze. A chess-player, for example, does the one without effort at the other. It follows that the game of chess, in its effects upon mental character, is greatly misunderstoodâŠ.I will, therefore, take occasion to assert that the higher powers of the reflective intellect are more decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of draughts [checkers] than by all the elaborate frivolity of chess. In this latter, where the pieces have different and bizarre motions, with various and variable values, what is only complex is mistaken (a not unusual error) for what is profound. The attention is here called powerfully into play. If it flag for an instant, an oversight is committed, resulting in injury or defeat. The possible moves being not only manifold but involute, the chances of such oversights are multiplied; and in nine cases out of ten it is the more concentrative rather than the more acute player who conquers. In draughts [checkers], on the contrary, where the moves are unique and have but little variation, the probabilities of inadvertence are diminished, and the mere attention being left comparatively what advantages are obtained by either party are obtained by superior acumen.
Having played a checkers master multiple times, and actually learning about the two games, I still prefer chess (I still play it every day), but I reluctantly have to confess that checkers is definitely harder. I was able to beat the checkers grandmaster in chess sometimes when we played, but nobody could ever beat him in checkers, regardless of which version was played. If it was such a simple non-thinking game, then itâs really sad nobody could ever possibly beat him even with tons of luckâŠ
I guess the life lesson here is that itâs not so much about WHAT game you are playing, as HOW you play the game. Also, nobody can ever calculate or prepare for every single possible combination of event that could happen, you just have to play like the experienced people and do what gives you the highest probability of success based on patterns and prioritization.
Okay just kidding, Iâll stop deflecting:
Sure! I probably wonât be here anymore myself though. I live less than 2 miles from an Air Force Base, so if the world turns to chaos, my house is likely going to get nuked. I also live on major fault lines, one of which is way overdue for magnitude 7+ earthquake. Then there is also a decent amount of lava rock in my state, indicating weâre susceptible to some of the volcanos even though we donât have any very near us in particular. But you can certainly hide in my shed. Iâm likely to do a little migrating elsewhere myself if things break into all our chaos. My neighborhood is highly likely to become a military target at that point, with no nearby naturally running water either. Though, you might get enough filtered water out of my sump pump well. My cats might bring you some mice and snakes to eat,
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Thank you, sir. Hereâs a couple stanzas of a Dylan song Iâve been drawn to lately.
I came to a high place of darkness and light
The dividing line ran through the center of town
I hitched up my pony to a post on the right
Went in to the laundry to wash my clothes downA man in the corner approached me for a match
I knew right away he was not ordinary
He said, âAre you lookinâ for somethinâ easy to catch?â
I said, âI got no money.â He said, âThat ainât necessaryâ
Whatâs that? 
Sure, I can sing it!
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Pretty trick iteration, there, carbuncle. Transparent background? Looks slick. 
PeepCorpâs all about family. Crease Co.'s a perfect fit.
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@habib has given me purpose, and now Iâm waiting for him to adopt an appropriate avatar.
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How do you like this?
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Hey, man, whatever floats your boat. Feel free to change it up at any time, especially if youâre gonna use the unicorn.
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Sure is a fat unicorn. Not that there is anything wrong with that. 
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Well, if @habib doesnât go with it, then I might just use it myself at some point to show support for my 
brethren. 
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I want to call him The Beeb sometimes but will only do if he assents.
Iâve thought about that, too, and Iâve wondered what a BibCo/BeebCo logo would look like for his avatar.
I wouldnât want to cause any confusion with âThe Biebâ, though, especially since theyâre both , and I certainly hope he doesnât have Bieber fever! 
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Hopefully The Bieb is endorsing something he knows something about (solving a Rubicâs Cube in ten seconds for instance) and not endorsing a candidate on the front page (like a majorette is wont to do.)
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