Welcome back to another installment of the Watercooler, RedState’s daily Open Thread! Today, we’ve got…

The Finer Things: Food

As I type this out, I’m munching on leftovers from Olive Garden’s new Lasagna Mia limited-time offer. It’s not my late grandmother’s old family recipe, but it’s definitely something different. I personally went with meatballs for topping, and when I couldn’t decide between five-cheese marinara or meat sauce the waitress suggested both, a pretty good call. I could see myself ordering this again… but next time I’ll probably do meat sauce with cheese ravioli for topping.

The Finer Things: Gaming

Gamers of a certain age will remember a little title called Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis, where you basically had the chance to take control and see if you could build a safe and profitable dinosaur park where John Hammond had failed before you. Well, slightly re-imagined and re-branded along with the parent movie franchise, it’s back–almost. Jurassic World: Evolution improves on Operation Genesis in a few ways, is a minor step backward in a few others (a snap-to-grid feature would be helpful in laying paths and rotating buildings), and generally if you’re into dinosaurs or theme-park-builder type games  will devour your time with an appetite to rival that of a tyrannosaur. Two helpful hints: 1. Don’t leap to a new island as soon as it’s offered to you–instead, make sure your old one’s squared away first, run several digs and extract from the finds until your storage is full of valuable minerals and “un-extractable” fossils to sell off. THEN go to your new island, because as soon as you have enough money to build a Fossil Center you have potentially a million-dollar cash injection to help get the new facility on its feet. Go back to your starter island, rinse and repeat periodically for additional cash infusions. 2. If you must breed raptors… well, there’s kind of a Rock-Paper-Scissors between Raptors, bigger carnivores like Ceratosaurs and ACU troopers (your security team): Raptors love them some Monkey McNugget, but go down like chumps to the Big Boys. Ceratosaurs (don’t try this with tyrannosaurs, they like breaking out as much as raptors!) and similar critters like Allosaurus beat and eat raptors, but are somewhat easier to wrangle for ACU. Solution: Build your Raptor Pen inside your Ceratosaur Pen, with gates to control where dinos go from your hatchery as you breed ’em. “So, Mr. Raptor, that fence isn’t there to protect us, but rather to protect you…” Styracosaurs and ankylosaurs, critters you’d think to be peaceful herbivores, on the other hand… those guys are escape artists. Don’t breed ’em unless a Mission or Contract requires ’em, you’re gonna have enough to deal with once you have a viable T-rex genome. (What, you’d play a game like this and NOT breed the most powerful land predator of all time? Doesn’t not having a T-rex defeat the entire purpose of having a Jurassic Park in the first place? Admittedly, I haven’t grown any myself… but that’s just because I want to make sure I have a suitably safe and secure environment for our big buddies first, since a happy T-rex is less likely to break out and snack on tourists.)

So, had any particularly appealing munchies or entertainment lately?

This Week In History

• Sunday, 6/17: Battle of Bunker Hill, 1775; Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor, 1885; CREEP employees arrested for Watergate burglary, 1972
• Monday, 6/18: War of 1812 begins; first Checker Cab built, 1923; B-52s enter combat over Vietnam, 1965
• Tuesday, 6/19: CSS Alabama sunk, 1864; Marianas Turkey Shoot, 1944; Garfield debuts, 1978 (happy birthday, Orange Meatball!)
• Wednesday, 6/20: Congress adopts Great Seal, 1782; West Virginia enters Union, 1863; Jaws premieres, 1975
• Thursday, 6/21: Guam captured from Spain, 1898; Japanese resistance on Okinawa collapses, 1945; Penn Central bankruptcy, 1970
• Friday, 6/22: Chesapeake-Leopard Affair, 1807; GI Bill signed, 1944; Cuyahoga River burns, 1969
• Saturday, 6/23: Battle of Springfield (NJ), 1780; Stand Watie surrenders last significant CSA force, 1865; Taft-Hartley veto overridden, 1947

Today’s Birthdays: Actors Errol Flynn, 1909 and Martin Landau, 1928; soldier-actor Audie Murphy, 1925.

Holidays Around the World: It’s World Refugee Day. Eritrea observes Martyrs’ Day, Argentina celebrates Day of the National Flag and Azerbaijan has Gas Sector Day.

This Week In History is compiled with assistance from History.com and Wikipedia. Something interesting not listed here? Please share in the Comments section–this is an Audience Participation Encouraged featurette.

Gratuitous Gun Giveaways

• *American Handgunner magazine, for an Olympic Arms KRP Retro AR15 pistol or S&W Hi-Viz .500 Magnum revolver package: http://americanhandgunner.com/giveaway/
• *Guns Magazine, for a Kahr Arms Snapshot .22LR rifle, Mossberg 590M Heat Shield shotgun or Aero Precision M4E1 rifle: http://gunsmagazine.com/giveaway/
• Davidson’s Gallery of Guns, for a Mossberg 590 Shockwave 20-gauge firearm or Patriot 6.5 Creedmoor bolt-action rifle: https://ggg.galleryofguns.com/
• Aero Precision, for a custom AR15: http://gvwy.io/6przbx9
• GrabAGun, for a Kel-Tec KSG 12-gauge bullpup shotgun: http://grabagun.com/giveaway
• Springfield Armory, for a variety of XD pistols and related gear: http://www.springfield-armory.com/resources/giveaways/

*Note: FMG Publishing giveaways require you to provide an FFL dealer’s info at entry. Aero Precision and Primary Arms giveaways give me one entry each per person who uses my referral link.

Public Service Announcement for “Sanctuary State” Residents
If you would like to report illegal aliens, please call Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at 1-866-DHS-2ICE (347-2423). They will need to know names, locations (either work place or residence) and any other specific information you can provide. Visit http://www.ice.gov for more information.

Quote of the Day

I’ve always followed my father’s advice: he told me, first to always keep my word and, second, to never insult anybody unintentionally. If I insult you, you can be goddamn sure I intend to. And, third, he told me not to go around looking for trouble.–John Wayne

As always, the Watercooler is an Open Thread. And as so eloquently coined by ntrepid, “Thanks for the click! Your effort helps fund future posts of this nature.”

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