Inconceivable

I have finally watched an action movie that had too much action. GI Joe: Retaliation (or whatever it was called) left me slightly motion sick and numb. The fight scenes were badly shot and horribly edited and comprised the bulk of the film. I didn't think such a thing was possible. Well, I know Hollywood is prone to bad action shooting/editing.

Which is a little funny as Hansel and Gretel could have used a little more action. The best bits were certainly the fighting the witch bits...

Other than that, I'm not sure I can come up with anything else to rant about.

I finished The Last Policeman. It was an interesting pre-apocalypse tale following a detective that wants to continue to solve a murder investigation while the world dissolves around him due to an impending asteroid impact. Pretty fascinating and I'm looking forward to the sequel.

String or Nothing

Here we are playing String Railway. I managed a pretty stunning victory in this one. But fun was had anyway. Except possibly by lovely wife, who thought we were all ganging up on her. She did lose a few points to us, but that's because she gained a lot early on. And I cleverly tried to misdirect how I was doing. I feel I should point out that if you do not let M place the mountain (the gray loop in the middle) she will wall you off with the river in retaliation. (See McK's corner in the lower right to see this in action.) You lose points for crossing the river. She does seem a little vicious...

Lovely wife and I also played Takenoko this afternoon. That's a pretty fun game too. I managed the title of master gardener in that one as well. It was a good boardgaming day for me.

Mental Disarray

I am finding it hard to focus on anything at the moment as my brain is occupied by far too many things to keep track of. So things are working as designed you might say...

I read Doubt v.1 recently. A horror graphic novel in which some teenagers are abducted and forced to play out a real life version of an online game called Rabbit Doubt - where one member of a group is secretly a wolf in rabbit's clothing slowly killing off the rabbits unless they can figure out who it is. This first volume was pretty good. I look forward to reading more.

Season 2 of VGHS is still lots of fun. Yay.

I received my kickstarter copy of Dungeon Roll. It's a pretty fun little push your luck dice game. Roll up your party of heroes and slowly chip away at them as you descend the levels of the dungeon. Lots of different characters to play as that give you special abilities as you make your way through the dungeon. Good times.

Kids are back in school. That summer went pretty quick. They seem pretty excited for the most part. I think McK is a little unsure about math, but that's about it. Lovely wife seems a little confused as to what to do with her time. I suspect she'll sort it out pretty quickly.

I'm sure there's other stuff, but I'm tired and can't think straight so go find something interesting to look at...

Cadet training

Managed to get in most of a game of Space Cadets over the weekend. I had forgotten several of the rules so play did not run very smoothly. Lovely wife and kids were only sort of tolerant of this fact. I find the game to be pretty fun, but there is no denying that it boasts one mean learning curve. And if you don't re-familiarize yourself with the rules prior to playing, it won't go especially well. So I'll just have to tattoo most of the important ones on my forearms or something. Or find a dedicated group of sci fi fans that want to get together regularly enough that we manage to get things right.

Watched what turned out to be the first season of a webseries called Video Game High School. It was silly and predictable and a lot of fun. I suspect I shall start watching season 2 on Youtube.

Finished reading Blackout by Mira Grant, the third book in the Feed/Newsflesh series or whatever it's called. It was decent. There's something about those books that's just compelling. They're not the greatest books, but they're fun to read. Or something.

I did not finish Cinnamon and Gunpowder. Mostly because I had like 5 books out at once and so I just turned a couple back in and may try to read them later. It still sounds fascinating and I liked what I did read, so there's that. I'm currently reading The Last Policeman because apocalypse story about the last cop that takes his job seriously.

We saw the new Percy Jackson movie. Mostly because M wanted to for her birthday. If you liked the first one, you'll like this one I suspect. I find it hard to say whether it's better or not. In a lot of ways, it's the same. Dunno.

And while the subject is sort of up, happy birthday to M. Not convinced she's allowed to get another year older... But we love her anyway. She seems to think we need to play Summoner Wars tonight. And really, who can argue with that?

Still addicted to FTL. Just sayin.

We call him Mr. Bullets

Here he is, direct from Aperture Science via Thinkgeek. Such a friendly homicidal sentry.

Captain's Log

Star date 2013.08.xx

The maiden voyage of the Kestral class starship the Hunk o' Junk launched under an ill fated star. The journey started well enough with the crew working together to overcome Federation ships as well as some scurvy pirates. But then disaster struck and we took several direct hits that led to fires breaking out. The Captain, moron that he is, tried to vent the affected cabins by opening a path to the airlocks. But the doors wouldn't open. Too late he realized that the chamber most affected by fire and damage was the door control cabin. By the time he deployed crew to try and contain the fire it was too late. It had spread too much and started to affect other nearby systems. The fires consumed the crew and left the Hunk o' Junk drifting dead in space, possibly to be discovered by others.

FTL reminds me a lot of Dark Souls in that it's easy to build up a narrative in your head while you watch your little ship get pummeled to death. I am very addicted, I picked it up for $2.50 during the recent Steam sale and am very glad I did. So worth it. I can't stop playing it. I have heard rumors that they might develop an iOS version. Oh I hope so. Although if they do I will never see my family again...

Playing FTL has made me want a fun space exploration/light combat board game. I will have to investigate to see if such a thing exists.

Watched Kick Ass the other day. I liked it. Some good humor and certainly an interesting twist on the average Joe tries to be a superhero conceit. Seems like I also watched some random goofiness on Netflix, but I forget what now. The Bay was one I think. It was ok for yet another found footage style horror flick. Certainly some creepy culprits for the horror/gore.

Oh, we watched Tai Chi Hero, the sequel to the brilliant Tai Chi Zero. It was ok. Second half was pretty great, but the first half was on the slow side. I liked it, but the first movie was better. Sad.