Thursday, December 31, 2009

In which the Year Ends

And really, it's probably about time. In a lot of ways I've managed to avoid most of the problems 2009 presented for everyone else - I kept my job and the economy didn't completely kill us as we live pretty stripped down as it is. But I'm certainly ready for things to return to a more even keel. So, get on that 2010. I suppose a monolith is a little too much to wish for as 2001 presented us with a striking lack of the real thing. Maybe we'll attempt a manned mission to Jupiter just for grins and chuckles. Although I suspect Mars has a little more priority.

Casa del 'd' had a pretty decent Christmas. The kids had a good time (and the adults did too). The girls only got up 3 times before I yelled at them at 4:30 to knock it off. I wouldn't have minded but lovely wife and father-in-law seem to think you're supposed to sleep in on Christmas. Madness I tell you. We managed to get everyone up around 7 and had presents and breakfast and so on.

It's definitely more interesting (for me) having a boy around the house on Christmas. Now we have an excuse to get cool things like race tracks and Nerf guns and Lego and ... well you get the idea. We had a lot of fun putting things together and then playing with them. I can recommend the Shake n Go race track thing (eh ask lovely wife what it's really called) and Nerf guns are pretty fun too. We got to build a fun dragon lego set courtesy of father-in-law.

As a family we got Pitchcar (thanks Dad!) and it remains a lot of fun. We even got lovely wife's Dad to play. And have a good time too. So if you are ever looking for a game that literally just about anybody will play and have a good time with, this is it. It is a little expensive, but so so worth it.

There have probably been some amusing stories in the last couple weeks, but I've got no idea what they are. I learned that the mail room here at the Library is capable of maintaining sub zero temperatures quite nicely and the postage machine will not work in such conditions. Envelopes won't seal, postage stickers will only sort of stick, the ink won't work, you get the idea. And I got to spend most of that day in that room. I wore my coat. It sort of helped. I eventually got feeling back in my hands...

We've seen lots of movies. Alvin and his Merry Chipmunk Friends Make the Goo Goo Eyes at the Conveniently Female Chipmunk Band... err the sequel (I will not write what they're really calling it) was as horrible as you might imagine. Which of course means the kids loved it. Star Trek was still good. Night at the Museum 2 was a lot of fun as was Up. I really liked those last two (which goes to show that kid's entertainment need not alienate the adults).

We've played lots of games. I can recommend New Super Mario Bros. Wii as well as Wii Sports Resort. The archery levels are fun as are the sword fighting levels. Don't much care for the frisbee golf. We'll see if it grows on me any. And I'm having a good time with the new Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. Not for kids, but fun for me.

Hopefully you got to spend Christmas with those you love. If not, hopefully next year provides you with those opportunities. I don't really have any profound thoughts to share as this year draws to a close and the next one starts. It happens often enough that we're all pretty used to it by now. The girls will attempt to stay up and ring in the new year, but I think I may just head to bed. So have a great New Year. And get off my lawn.

Oh and a quick resolution. I'm going to try to include more pictures next year. Not of the kids of course, that's crazy talk, but I really hope to put up some pictures of the games we're playing and so on. The kids might be in some of them, but really, since when was this blog about them...

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Eh, make up your own title

A few things have been accomplished in the last week. I finished Replay by Ken Grimwood. It was an interesting time travel story. I guess I'll call it time travel. The main character starts the book by dying and then "waking up" in his past with all his memories intact. He then gets to live that chunk of his life over and over again. The story runs through some of the usual ground (oh hey, I'll bet on some famous sporting events and the stock market to become rich) found in time travel stories, but as his time keeps repeating it starts to delve into new territory and focus on just what might happen in those situations. I'm not quite certain how I feel about the ending - it's a natural progression of the story, but the jury is still out. It can be a bit depressing to read, but overall a really good story.

Speaking of a little sad and yet great, go watch The Brothers Bloom. For it is excellent. I can't quite decide what my favorite thing about this movie is. (Bang Bang!) It might be the voice the story is told with (Bang Bang!) or the story itself (Bang Bang!) or possibly the characters (Bang Bang!). Or it might be Bang Bang. (She's the Japanese sidekick that doesn't speak English and likes to blow things up and is all around awesome) Eh, just go watch it.

We have acquired a couple new games thanks to an early Christmas with the letter 'r'. Bull in a China Shop is a kids game that has a surprising amount of strategy to it. Buy china that will help increase your score until you run out of money and are forced to let the bull damage your collection so you can get more money. Decisions, decisions.

Balloon Cup
is a two player game that can be slightly cutthroat. There are 4 tiles that represent 4 different balloon flights. You play cards in an attempt to meet the requirements of each card to collect cubes that you trade for trophies. (It's not as complicated as it sounds) The trick is you can play on either side of the tile, so you can really mess up your opponent's plans if you want. Lovely wife isn't too sure about that aspect of things.

Bang! is a bit of a party game that plays 4-7 people. It's basically a spaghetti Western in a box. One person, known to the entire group, is the sheriff. The rest of the group is made up of outlaws, deputies and a renegade and at first nobody knows who is who. The sheriff and the deputies want to kill the outlaws. The outlaws want to kill the sheriff. The renegade wants everybody dead, but only if he's the last one standing. And that's when the bullets start flying. It's a pretty fun game with some deduction and a lot of humor. Lovely wife managed to eke out a victory as the sheriff the other night due to a lucky character trait that had her a little further away than she'd normally have been (the person sitting next to you is considered a distance of 1 and it goes up as you count people on either side of you - she had a distance of +1 and was just out of range of my poor ol' Colt .45). Definitely a lot of fun.

As there is a lovely holiday coming up, it's entirely possible you won't hear from me until the other side of it. So have a wonderful Christmas. Again I hope you can spend it with those that mean the most to you.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

In which I seek my fortune

And so another week has passed. We are in the relative calm that is the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I say relative calm as shopping occasionally happens and that can be terribly exciting. Although we're pretty much done I believe, so not so much on the excitement front.

We did watch Azumi, an alright Japanese flick about a female assassin set back in historical Japan after the battle of Sekigahara. They were still trying to unite Japan under a Shogun and so on. Messy time. Somewhat messy movie. Fights were alright. I'm pretty sure it was based on a manga series, so there's some of that sensibility to it.

I'm currently reading a rather fascinating time travel story called Replay. You'll get more on it as I finish it. Suffice to say I'm enjoying it quite a bit, although it's on the depressing side.

See? Not much worth rambling on about. G has learned to whistle. Well one tone anyway. So he's attempting to drive lovely wife insane with his new found skill. Girls are ... well ... actually not up to much. I suspect we're all marking time until Christmas. Which is in two weeks. How did that happen?

Oh, hey, you know what time it is? Last Line time, that's what time it is. This week comes courtesy of Andrew Pepper and The Revenge of Captain Paine. "Pyke had done what he had done, and while those actions may have led to the death of his wife, fortune too, had played its hand, and fortune, as it always did with men who took risks and imposed themselves on the world, would shine on him again." You too can take risks, go up against fortune, kill your wife and expect good things to come of it. I'm glad we have these books. Truly nature may be red in tooth and claw, but nothing is vicious like a good fortune seeking, wife sort of lamenting, reversals of fortune waiting in the wings-ing, ne'er do well. Huzzah! In case lovely wife is reading this, honey, you totally don't mind if I bet your life so that fortune may shine upon us me right?

That was nice. I really needed something to give this post a little purpose. Littlest sis needs to regale us with more massage therapy class stories.

So, off with you lot for another week or so.

Thursday, December 03, 2009

In which I don't make fun of Twilight

Mostly because that's a subtle enough jab for now and there are plenty of places to do it for me.

Nope the bulk of this post will be about boardgames. Why (you may ask yourselves)? In large part because ol' letter 'd' had a birthday recently and boardgames were received. And played. (Which we'll also get to.)

But first, from the Sometimes You Can Go Back files: Krull and Something Wicked This Way Comes are both still decent movies. They show their age a little, but not as badly as you might think. So if you need a rollicking adventure or something a little creepy, one of these will fit the bill. Don't blame me if you get them mixed up, they make cover copy for a reason folks. But yeah, totally check them out again.

Also, Dexter in the Dark the 3rd book in the Dexter series byJeff Lindsay was good. A little on the interesting side, a little creepy (in that Dexter-ish way) and so on.

So. Yes. Boardgames. This year I decided that I would host my own mini boardgame convention. And so I did. Friends were invited, food was prepared and games were set out. The big news from the convention is that Arkham Horror is indeed good. I was finally able to convince the letter 'r' of this and even lovely wife thawed in her opinion of it. It's still long (I think we clocked in at around 3 hours) but once you know what's going on it becomes a lot more enjoyable. This is indeed the secret to playing this game. Make sure someone knows the rules. It works best when one player acts as a moderator of sorts and makes the turn taking of everyone else easier. "Oh, you want to do this? Well roll these dice for me and we'll see what happens. Congrats! You've just defeated the maniac. Oh, that's too bad, the Byakhee left you an insane, gibbering wreck, time for a trip to the Sanitarium." And so on. We even managed to save the world from the ravages of Azathoth. Way to go us!

We took a break for lunch and then played some Pitchcar with the kids. This is an awesome dexterity game. You lay out a wooden race track and then take turns flicking little wooden discs (your racecar) around the track. It's great fun. Anyone can play. We had 7 of us from ages 5 to 37 and had a blast. Highly recommended. It is a little pricey (quality wood track and pieces yo) but worth it.

Up next was Puerto Rico. We tried this one a while back as well and didn't quite get it. The secret to this game is playing San Juan first. It's a very nice training game for Puerto Rico. Basically you're trying to settle a little island colony. You each take turns claiming various jobs that allow every one the opportunity to do something. The player that picked the job gets a bonus. Over the course of the game you build up your settlement and earn points. We had a fine time playing this one as well. Also recommended (play San Juan first).

We had some dinner and then played some more Pitchcar. Swag was handed out (a couple print and play games from over at BGG). A good time was had by all.

Now you might think that would be the end of the tale, but you'd be wrong. As this was a convention those games were owned by the participants. Nothing new there. Well at least not ownership wise. No that's where the ol' letter 'd's birthday came in handy. I managed to pick up Skip Bo, Citadels and Galaxy Trucker for said journey around the sun.

Skip Bo is a fun little card game that works best with 4 and played as a partnership game.

Citadels also finds you trying to build a city and claiming various jobs to do it. The trick here is jobs are played in an order and not all of them get picked. And each player only gets the benefit of their own job. One will let you kill someone else (force them to miss their turn), one will let you steal someone else's money, and so on. Also a lot of fun. And pretty easily picked up. We play it with 2 of the 3 kids (recommended 8 and up).

Which brings us to Galaxy Trucker. This is a great game in which you build yourself a spaceship and then watch it get blown to bits. It's awesome (if a little nervewracking). The first portion of the game is a bit puzzle like as you compete to put together the ship best suited to the journey you're about to take. Once that's accomplished you go through a set of adventure cards that tells you what exactly happens to your poor little ship. Asteroids! Pirates! Abandoned ships! Also a great game, although the age recommendation on this one is a little higher. Our 11 year old is starting to make sense of it. It can be a little rough explaining that she's out of the race as she lost all her crew to vicious space pirates in round 1 (build more crew cabins!). An added bonus is the fact that the rulebook is downright hilarious. Truly a good time.

As for those other things, Thanksgiving was nice. We had a decent time with lovely wife's family (I was shockingly bad at Bananagrams that day) and the food was good. I avoided Black Friday, had a good birthday, got the Christmas tree up (December?! who let that happen!) and so on. My week off seemed far too short and towards the end was a little bittersweet as I missed Mom. But all in all it went well enough. Next time I'll have the game convention at the end instead of the beginning. ^_^

So thanks to family for the lovely gifts (especially Dad for the new camera) and I hope you all had a lovely holiday as well. Now to get ready for the next one. (Christmas shopping almost complete!)