Finished the newest Rick Castle book, Frozen Heat. I don't really have anything to say about it. It's a decent Nikki Heat story and at this point you either enjoy the Castle tie-ins or you don't care. So, yeah...
I have started reading Roadside Picnic which is apparently Russian sci-fi at its best. I rather like it so far myself.
Skyfall was indeed good.
As was my week off. In spite of turning another year older. Drucon 4 was rather successful. Ugg-tect may well be my new go to party game. Inflatable spiked clubs and caveman speech plus colored blocks do indeed make for a fun, silly game. We also got in some Shadows Over Camelot (I fail as traitor, although I remained undiscovered) as well as telephone pictionary and Say Anything. Plus there was an awesome companion cube birthday cake. (I really need to get a picture of it up) And lots of good food. Plus d4 keychains as swag. What's not to love?
Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Can't believe November is drawing to a close.
Showing posts with label Drucon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Drucon. Show all posts
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Rowling and other sundries
Alright. So I managed to finish The Casual Vacancy. And that's really the only good thing I can say about it. Well, the other is that Rowling still manages to be a decent world builder. Too bad she filled this one with such horrible people that by the end you really don't care what happens to any of them. I've heard that she said that she expected her audience to be in tears at the end of the book and if they weren't, then that was a person she didn't want to meet/know. After wading through 500 pages of terrible people, I don't know that I want to meet her either. Any emotional weight she wanted the ending to have is just completely overshadowed by her attempts to write an "adult" novel. It takes more than a lot of swearing, sex and drugs to manage to be mature. Just ask the video game industry - they've been struggling with that for years now.
Sigh...
On a lighter note, The Sixth Gun is a pretty fascinating comic collection that also features not necessarily nice people but manages to be a whole lot more enjoyable. It's an apocalyptic-ish Western sorta thing. I recommend this one. I like the art style and the story hits all of the right notes. The beats of the story aren't exactly ground breaking, but the setting itself is fun and that grants it a few favors.
I'm about to start This Book is Full of Spiders, the sequel to John Dies at the End. I'm looking forward to it.
Blade is dumb. That is all. (No really, it's horrible. Why are there three of these movies?)
The Tall Man is the weirdest "horror" movie I've seen in quite some time. You go in expecting one thing and then about halfway through it turns into something else and then the end manages a twist on that and then you're left wondering why this is a movie. It's not bad, but it is really weird...
After watching the Pandemic episode of Tabletop I really wanted to snag the game and its expansion. Alas the expansion is out of print at the moment and most likely won't be available until the end of the year/beginning of the next. So we've done the next best thing and played a lot of Forbidden Island. On legendary. With some of the alternate islands. We've lost every time and it has been glorious. I'm keeping my eye out for Pandemic and the expansion though.
I need a bell for our copy of Pit. I'm not sure why I have a copy that doesn't have a bell. This is terrible.
It's time to start planning Drucon. The real trick is finding some games that will play seven people or so. We might try splitting the group up some, but we'll see. Fortunately Shadows Over Camelot plays that many. As does Pitchcar and 7 Wonders and a few others that we have running around/access to. (See the previously mentioned Pit. Why do you think I need a bell?) I think we'll also try a round of the Pictionary/telephone game.
And to finish things off an early Happy Birthday to lovely wife. I would mention her age here (it's legitimate this go round) but I'll be nice. Love you sweetie!
Sigh...
On a lighter note, The Sixth Gun is a pretty fascinating comic collection that also features not necessarily nice people but manages to be a whole lot more enjoyable. It's an apocalyptic-ish Western sorta thing. I recommend this one. I like the art style and the story hits all of the right notes. The beats of the story aren't exactly ground breaking, but the setting itself is fun and that grants it a few favors.
I'm about to start This Book is Full of Spiders, the sequel to John Dies at the End. I'm looking forward to it.
Blade is dumb. That is all. (No really, it's horrible. Why are there three of these movies?)
The Tall Man is the weirdest "horror" movie I've seen in quite some time. You go in expecting one thing and then about halfway through it turns into something else and then the end manages a twist on that and then you're left wondering why this is a movie. It's not bad, but it is really weird...
After watching the Pandemic episode of Tabletop I really wanted to snag the game and its expansion. Alas the expansion is out of print at the moment and most likely won't be available until the end of the year/beginning of the next. So we've done the next best thing and played a lot of Forbidden Island. On legendary. With some of the alternate islands. We've lost every time and it has been glorious. I'm keeping my eye out for Pandemic and the expansion though.
I need a bell for our copy of Pit. I'm not sure why I have a copy that doesn't have a bell. This is terrible.
It's time to start planning Drucon. The real trick is finding some games that will play seven people or so. We might try splitting the group up some, but we'll see. Fortunately Shadows Over Camelot plays that many. As does Pitchcar and 7 Wonders and a few others that we have running around/access to. (See the previously mentioned Pit. Why do you think I need a bell?) I think we'll also try a round of the Pictionary/telephone game.
And to finish things off an early Happy Birthday to lovely wife. I would mention her age here (it's legitimate this go round) but I'll be nice. Love you sweetie!
Thursday, December 01, 2011
December? Already? Who let this happen?
And so the week that was the letter d's vacation came to a close. Drucon was a rousing success with Fortune and Glory, Gang of Four, King of Tokyo, and a couple plays of Elder Sign making up the day. We learned to never play Gang of Four against Kim. Ever. Under any circumstances. We managed to prevent one Elder God from arising only to be devoured by Cthulhu itself the next time. Some might say we barely eked out a victory that game, but I prefer to think that we were horribly destroyed. Fortune and Glory was indeed quite a bit of fun, if a touch long. It should speed up some next time provided we play again some time soon, so we can remember how things work. I like the push your luck aspect of the challenges even if I invariably failed somewhere along the way and lost all my glory. I did manage a stellar go at the zeppelin where I snuck aboard, fought the guard and made off with all six fortune markers. It was pretty brilliant.
I decided to take a wander through some of my childhood favorites and re-read The Phantom Tollbooth and The House with a Clock in its Walls over the break. They were still great. Glad to see that. M is currently making her way through Tollbooth and lovely wife braved the house with the ticking clock. If you've never read them, you really should.
This is mostly for the letter K, but the rest of you can feel free to check it out as well. The Doubleclicks are awesome. Two girls, one ukulele, one cello and some seriously catchy geeky music. Their Thing a Week album that you can try out for free is suitably spectacular. It made the trip to Arizona a lot more tolerable. (Seriously, what is up with that drive? People complain about Kansas being boring, but it's got nothing on that stretch from Kingman to Phoenix... Admittedly it probably smells better than western Kansas. Hmm.)
Speaking of the trip, we did indeed brave the "road" down to Arizona and spent Thanksgiving with family. There was a lot of good food, a family picture and the Muppets. Two out of three... I will now gush for a bit about The Muppets. It was great. I loved this movie. I worry that it's too squarely aimed at my age group and thus will not appeal to kids enough to ensure a resurgence of the show. Because when you leave, that's what you want - the Muppets back on the air doing what they've always done. The soundtrack is catchy and heartbreaking and hilarious. The jokes are fun and the cameos were well done. This movie has probably the second best cameo after Zombieland. The first part of the movie is a touch slow compared to the last section (where they're putting on the telethon) but it does contain some wonderful moments, so it's ok. (Seriously, that Pictures in my Head song... It still gets to me)
I managed to get a little Black Friday shopping done online. Snagged Harry Potter 7.2 for $7 thanks to Best Buy and my sister's iPad. I really enjoy not having to go to the stores.
G is engrossed in Skyward Sword and I've fallen down the Uncharted well. Both great games. Man this time of year. I want to try Skyrim too and Disney Universe and... Heh.
So a big thanks to family for helping celebrate my birthday. Littlest sis gets points for making the yummy Boston Cream Pie/cake. In spite of false starts and horrible directions it sure tasted good. And the turkey and everything else was great as well. Little sis will have to send K'''''' up here to do hair. That was seriously the funniest thing.
Now to prepare for Christmas...
I decided to take a wander through some of my childhood favorites and re-read The Phantom Tollbooth and The House with a Clock in its Walls over the break. They were still great. Glad to see that. M is currently making her way through Tollbooth and lovely wife braved the house with the ticking clock. If you've never read them, you really should.
This is mostly for the letter K, but the rest of you can feel free to check it out as well. The Doubleclicks are awesome. Two girls, one ukulele, one cello and some seriously catchy geeky music. Their Thing a Week album that you can try out for free is suitably spectacular. It made the trip to Arizona a lot more tolerable. (Seriously, what is up with that drive? People complain about Kansas being boring, but it's got nothing on that stretch from Kingman to Phoenix... Admittedly it probably smells better than western Kansas. Hmm.)
Speaking of the trip, we did indeed brave the "road" down to Arizona and spent Thanksgiving with family. There was a lot of good food, a family picture and the Muppets. Two out of three... I will now gush for a bit about The Muppets. It was great. I loved this movie. I worry that it's too squarely aimed at my age group and thus will not appeal to kids enough to ensure a resurgence of the show. Because when you leave, that's what you want - the Muppets back on the air doing what they've always done. The soundtrack is catchy and heartbreaking and hilarious. The jokes are fun and the cameos were well done. This movie has probably the second best cameo after Zombieland. The first part of the movie is a touch slow compared to the last section (where they're putting on the telethon) but it does contain some wonderful moments, so it's ok. (Seriously, that Pictures in my Head song... It still gets to me)
I managed to get a little Black Friday shopping done online. Snagged Harry Potter 7.2 for $7 thanks to Best Buy and my sister's iPad. I really enjoy not having to go to the stores.
G is engrossed in Skyward Sword and I've fallen down the Uncharted well. Both great games. Man this time of year. I want to try Skyrim too and Disney Universe and... Heh.
So a big thanks to family for helping celebrate my birthday. Littlest sis gets points for making the yummy Boston Cream Pie/cake. In spite of false starts and horrible directions it sure tasted good. And the turkey and everything else was great as well. Little sis will have to send K'''''' up here to do hair. That was seriously the funniest thing.
Now to prepare for Christmas...
Thursday, November 17, 2011
If you listen close, you can hear it
That would be the sound of Thanksgiving. Yeah, that holiday that stores pretend doesn't exist between Halloween decorations and Christmas decorations. It's my favorite. And that's only partially due to it's orbit around my birthday. At any rate it draws nigh.
Theoretically this weekend is Drucon. The weather and outside circumstances are doing their best to thwart that notion. Oh well, I've got the games and the t-shirts. That's right, t-shirts. And they are awesome.
You know what else is awesome? Watching the first eight Friday the 13th movies over the course of a week. Well, except for that last one. Manhattan? Really? Flooding the sewers with toxic waste every night at midnight? Whatever. And the psychic chick in the seventh one. What was that all about? But the rest were varying degrees of successful. Except maybe the third one. In spite of the 3D. And we wore the glasses. It was occasionally spectacular and mostly eye strain inducing. It was actually pretty interesting to watch them all like that. The first two are certainly the best, the third was a gimmick, the fourth-sixth were definite products of their time (80s slasher films), the seventh was the weird one until the eighth one came along, and the eighth was both weird and horrible. We've not seen the 9th one yet and Jason X is a silly guilty pleasure. There you go. The body counts reflected a nice bell curve peaking around 5 I think it was. There was also a strange continuity from 4-6 that started with Corey Feldman. Weird. And that possibly explains a lot.
Isle of Blood, the third Monstrumologist book by Rick Yancey, was decent. I think I liked it a touch more than the second one and am still interested in following the series. I'm still amazed at how gory these books can be (considering they're YA) but they are pretty fascinating. I like the characters quite a bit and there is a decent amount of humor and wit woven through.
G is very excited about the upcoming Zelda game. The demo for Disney Universe is also pretty cool. It's pretty similar to the Ratchet & Clank game (competitive co-op if that makes sense) just with a Disney skin. I suspect you only need one, just pick the one that appeals to you more. The Disney game has an added Little Big Planet vibe in that it looks like you're sort of a sackboy character wearing different Disney character outfits. Cute.
I've started reading 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. It's interesting so far. Been a while since I've read him. Looking forward to seeing where it goes.
At any rate, family get together soon. Shindigs. Possible Black Friday shopping. We managed to convince the kids to start throwing together wish lists so we'll probably toss some Christmas shopping in there too. Yup, it's the end of the year...
Theoretically this weekend is Drucon. The weather and outside circumstances are doing their best to thwart that notion. Oh well, I've got the games and the t-shirts. That's right, t-shirts. And they are awesome.
You know what else is awesome? Watching the first eight Friday the 13th movies over the course of a week. Well, except for that last one. Manhattan? Really? Flooding the sewers with toxic waste every night at midnight? Whatever. And the psychic chick in the seventh one. What was that all about? But the rest were varying degrees of successful. Except maybe the third one. In spite of the 3D. And we wore the glasses. It was occasionally spectacular and mostly eye strain inducing. It was actually pretty interesting to watch them all like that. The first two are certainly the best, the third was a gimmick, the fourth-sixth were definite products of their time (80s slasher films), the seventh was the weird one until the eighth one came along, and the eighth was both weird and horrible. We've not seen the 9th one yet and Jason X is a silly guilty pleasure. There you go. The body counts reflected a nice bell curve peaking around 5 I think it was. There was also a strange continuity from 4-6 that started with Corey Feldman. Weird. And that possibly explains a lot.
Isle of Blood, the third Monstrumologist book by Rick Yancey, was decent. I think I liked it a touch more than the second one and am still interested in following the series. I'm still amazed at how gory these books can be (considering they're YA) but they are pretty fascinating. I like the characters quite a bit and there is a decent amount of humor and wit woven through.
G is very excited about the upcoming Zelda game. The demo for Disney Universe is also pretty cool. It's pretty similar to the Ratchet & Clank game (competitive co-op if that makes sense) just with a Disney skin. I suspect you only need one, just pick the one that appeals to you more. The Disney game has an added Little Big Planet vibe in that it looks like you're sort of a sackboy character wearing different Disney character outfits. Cute.
I've started reading 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. It's interesting so far. Been a while since I've read him. Looking forward to seeing where it goes.
At any rate, family get together soon. Shindigs. Possible Black Friday shopping. We managed to convince the kids to start throwing together wish lists so we'll probably toss some Christmas shopping in there too. Yup, it's the end of the year...
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