Alas poor blog

I finished both Let's Pretend this Never Happened and Red, White and Blood over this past week. One was extremely funny and worth reading, the other had it's moments but wasn't quite as good as the two previous installments. A shame really. Lawson's book (the funny one) was hilarious, horrifying, and surprisingly sweet. Quite often at the same time. If you've read her posts over at The Bloggess, you know what you're getting into. Otherwise be prepared for lots of humor, swearing and randomness. Giant metal chickens will be mentioned.

Farnsworth's book (the vampire one) is enjoyable enough, but doesn't quite match up with the two previous Cade novels. I'm not quite certain what it was either. The plot is decent enough and the characters are fun to hang out with again (except for Holt, really don't care for her) so I'm not sure why I didn't like it as much. The ending certainly leaves you wondering what will happen in the sequel. That book has some potential.

(Psst, the third Hex Hall book is out. I'm going to have to read it.)

Last week there was a giant sale on Pixeljunk games over on PSN. I snagged about 4 of them for $3. They are all rather enjoyable. Racer is a fun little slot car type game with a lot of different game modes. Plus the multiplayer can be pretty good. Monsters is tower defense, Shooter is a sort of Defender like type game with a heat mechanic (your ship will overheat and explode if you don't cool it off), and Eden is a puzzle/dexterity game where you need to help grow a garden by guiding a critter around the level in search of pollen and seed type things.

McK is trying to overcome a serious losing streak in softball. They've had to cancel one game and lost the other three. Four, possibly five to go. M has her first game (I believe) tonight. We shall see... Well, lovely wife will at any rate.

Epic Games over in Lehi does a family game night on Mondays. We finally managed to make it over and learned to play Evo. It's an interesting little game where you play dinosaurs trying to stay alive as long as you can before the meteor crashes into the Earth destroying everyone. It has a nifty little mechanic where you can bid on traits that will help you survive (fur for colder areas, umbrellas for warmer areas, feet to help you move more dinosaurs, etc.) by using your victory points. So you can potentially bid lots to get what you need, but then lose the game because you spent your points. G now wants a copy. I wouldn't mind one either. Unfortunately, we were playing the first edition of the game and the reprint changed things up some. So you no longer get little chits to attach to your dinosaur to show your upgrades and so on. It looks like it's pretty hard to find the first edition. So if any of you run across the old Descartes/Eurogames edition, let us know (not the new Asmodee box with the realistic looking dinosaurs on the cover).

catching up

Finally had a chance to watch Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and it was indeed a fine continuation of that series. I think I still liked the third one a touch more, but this is an enjoyable follow up. More missions. More impossibles. It'll be interesting to see where they go from here. And I was glad to see Simon Pegg get some decent screen time. Too bad about the mask.

Takenoko  is an addictive puzzle-y sort of game where you are trying to grow a bamboo garden while a panda eats some of your efforts. You take turns performing a couple of actions such as placing a new bamboo plot, growing bamboo, eating bamboo, irrigating a new section of the garden etc. in order to complete objectives you have (found on cards that you can draw). Once one player has completed a set number of objectives remaining players get one more turn and then scores are tallied. I find myself thinking about this game a lot and wanting to play it more. Definitely worth playing.

Speaking of playing games, we had our monthly board game weekend and celebrated Cinco de Mayo at the same time. Games! Fish tacos! Ice cream! A pinata! Taco Soup! It was a grand time. Plus we got to play a lot of games. So yay.

And speaking of ice cream, our second batch was not quite as successful as our first. This time we tried for a chocolate peanut butter ice cream, but it was a slightly different base and we managed to scorch it just a little. If you didn't know better you might think we had just used a very dark chocolate. Having been involved in the creation process, I could tell it was a little burnt. Alas. We shall continue to try though! More ice creams!

G managed to score a goal in his last soccer game of the season. He told his big sister he was going to score one for her since it was her birthday. Of course, he also told her they'd win their game. Or at least try to. And it sounds like they were off to a decent start. They were tied 3-3 when I managed to get there, but at that point the other team pulled ahead and the game ended 6-3. Oh well. He had fun and did manage to score a goal, so good for him.

I haven't finished Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson, but I can confirm it is hilarious. Of course if you know who she is, this comes as no surprise. It's pretty darn funny. And then you feel bad for laughing at her misfortunes.

Now if we can just convince the kids that they don't all need to be sixty different places at once...

And in case you missed the reference up there a Happy Birthday to McK. I refuse to believe she's as old as she thinks she is. For some strange reason she wants to have a birthday party where she and her friends play some board games. I can't for the life of me figure out why. There certainly won't be any adults at this party she can force her presence upon... Weird. Oh well, I suspect she'll have some fun anyway.