Playing around

Mostly wanting to try out a blogging tool I ran into. Technically this is attempt 2, but the first was lost due to my own ineptitude. Alas.

As an addendum to the previous post, I should point out that teenage girls are very loud. You wouldn't necessarily think that five teenage girls would be that noisy, but you'd be wrong. They are very noisy. And only some of it was game related. This is really just an observation, but if you find yourself in the midst of a rampaging group of teenage girls, hope,that you have some earplugs. 

Went and saw the new Star Trek today. It was fine. Lovely wife liked it a touch more than me, but I suspect that's due to the Cumberbatch factor. It's interesting to see how they are creating this new reboot universe. Little twists and so on. I wonder what people that have never seen the originals think.

Urge to play games rising. Very glad of the three day weekend.

The dice, they mock me

Finished the 4th Reacher book. Enjoying that series quite a bit. But I am taking a break while I have lots of other things to read. I'm getting close to the end of NOS4A2 and You by Austin Grossman is pretty interesting too. So many books... (There's a new Hex Hall spinoff that's out as well!)

Watched the Persona 4 anime series. Mostly as I knew I'd never get around to playing the game (I'm still lost somewhere in the midst of 3) and wanted to know a little about the story. It was actually a lot of fun to watch. And I felt it said some really nice things about the ties we have with those around us.

McK had her birthday party and unleashed some board games on her friends. Escape: the Curse of the Temple was enjoyed by all, although I believe it did stress several of them out. We later tried out Dungeon Fighter - a dexterity game where you have to throw dice at a target on the table in order to fight the monsters found in the dungeon. The trick is the dice have to bounce at least once before it hits the target and occasionally you have to throw them in strange ways as you encounter certain types of monsters or equip certain types of weapons and so on. So basically it's an excuse to look silly in front of your friends while having a good time and losing badly. I rather enjoyed it. But the dice in both of those games are quite merciless.

Lovely wife will probably tell you that she's very glad school is out next week. Mostly as I think she needs a break. It will be interesting to see what mischief the kids get up to this year. Sadly far too much of it will probably involve a car...

If you're expecting something other than movie or game commentary, you're in the wrong place

Got to see John Dies at the End finally. It was good fun. I liked it quite a bit in spite of the large plot chunks they left out. Of course the movie was never going to contain everything, so I think they did fine. It managed the humor and the horror pretty well. Plus the weirdness. Can't forget the weirdness.

Cold Prey was a perfectly serviceable slasher film that suffers some in a post Cabin in the Woods world. It's Norwegian (I think). I liked it.

Les Mis was Les Mis. Unless you have absolutely no exposure to the musical, you know what you're getting.

For grins and chuckles I watched From Beyond again to relive some of my misspent youth. It's still an enjoyable Lovecraft flick from the Stuart Gordon/Jeffery Combs era.

McK decided she would be perfectly happy with a trip to BGR for her birthday gift. So she got a copy of Escape: the Curse of the Temple. It's a real time co-operative dice game. Each game lasts exactly 10 minutes. In that time you roll dice like mad to try and explore the temple and activate gems. Twice over the course of the game a gong will sound (there's a soundtrack) and you have to make it back to the starting chamber or you will lose one of your dice. And that's bad. At the end you have to find and make it to the exit and then roll more keys than there are gems left in the vault. And if one of the players doesn't make it out, you all lose. So it's a tight little game where you have to weigh sticking together (you can help each other unlock some of your dice if they land on the evil black mask side) and getting around and exploring tiles so that you can find the exit and free up the gems. Lots of fun to be had here. Plus it plays up to 5 and you can play it with kids pretty easily.

Other than that it's been a week. I'm ready for some form of vacation. Sadly that is not in my future.

Hitchcock and Pi

Hitchcock, the film detailing the making of the film Psycho, is pretty brilliant. I found it to be funny and sweet and pretty amazing as it showed what Alfred Hitchcock and his wife went through in order to make that film. Of course, now I want to see Psycho again...

Life of Pi was very beautiful, but also a little odd. I think I'm still coming to grips with the story and what it entails and how it fulfills its central conceit (a story to make you believe in God). I think I've finally wrapped my head around bits of it. So it is worth seeing, but also know that it's one of those films that requires some investment and will stick around in your head for a bit afterwards.

Had a great visit with Dad. Got to see McK in Pirates of Penzance, which was quite good (especially for a middle school production). Ate far too much good food. Failed to fix the sprinkler line, alas.

Introduced Dad to String Railway. Still thoroughly enjoy that game. Didn't manage a game of Space Cadets though. Did get in some Ticket to Ride Europe however as I managed to get him set up on his iPad. Now we can play long distance.

And finally a happy birthday to McK. She seems to think she needs to learn to drive soon. I have my doubts about this...

String or nothing

So we watched The Hobbit. Peter Jackson needs to step away from the franchise. I've seen Lord of the Rings and it was fine. Good even. He is ruining The Hobbit. It's my favorite book of the series and I don't need all the extra stuff shoved in and three movies. Guillermo del Toro should have done this film. So yeah, not really a fan. When it actually was The Hobbit, it was good. The rest of it is really unnecessary.

Still reading the Reacher books. Still decent (if silly) fun.

I think I've read some other stuff, but I have no idea what it was now. I've been bad about throwing things in Goodreads lately. Alas. I am, however, currently reading Nos4a2, the new book by Joe Hill. So excited.

We picked up String Railway and the expansion for King of Tokyo. Looking forward to playing both. Dad is in town and I plan on making him play String Railway. I think he'll get a kick out of it.

Life continues to be a muddle of kid centered activities and the occasional random form of entertainment. G managed to score a goal at his soccer game the other night. That was fun. He also managed to kick the ball into the face of one of his team mates. That was slightly more fun (for the adults watching).

Maybe it's time to make some ice cream...

Holistic Detectives and Chinese Cinema

We watched the first season of the BBC Dirk Gently based on the old Douglas Adams books. It was fine. Sort of a quirky Sherlock that couldn't ever quite get out from under that shadow. And it was a little odd seeing how they chopped up the books for the episodes. But it was relatively fun to watch and that counts for something.

I've also been watching a lot of Chinese films lately. The Great Magician was a rather fun little movie with some pretty good magic performances scattered throughout. But Let the Bullets Fly has probably been my favorite. Sort of a Chinese Western in the vein of Yojimbo or A Fistful of Dollars. You have your bandit pretending to be the mayor, his potentially traitorous adviser and the crime lord that runs the town. Lots of things ensue including some hilarity, some drama and lots of twists and turns. And bullets. There are those too. It's currently on Netflix so give it a go.

I've been wandering through the Jack Reacher books. The first two were pretty decent, I currently have the third and I'm reading some random one in the middle as I snagged the ARC for it a while back. (2010 I think?) I may have to pick up the movie here in a couple weeks.

Courtesy of the Flip the Table podcast we played a round of Wrong Scattergories the other day. It was rather amusing. It's basically madlibs with Scattergories. We also played Castle Panic which is a fun little cooperative tower defense board game. Lovely wife had a pretty good time with that one.

I broke down and picked up the 1910 and Switzerland expansions for the Ticket to Ride: Pocket iOS games. That Switzerland map in an odd little beastie. It didn't keep me from thrashing lovely wife in a game, but we're pretty new to it, so I suspect there will be lots of ups and downs there.

Oh. We watched Pitch Perfect as well. Really great music. Plot was a little cruder than I expected, but it was still pretty funny. Apparently they're making a sequel.

Have I mentioned that Tabletop is back with Season 2? It is. Today is an episode about the game The Resistance.

Lovely wife and I have also been watching Strip Search over on the Penny Arcade youtube channel. I am amused by how much she likes it. It's reality tv with webcomic artists. I tolerate it because of the art and the Penny Arcade vibe. (It's a pretty good show)

Zoned out

Well, Spring has managed the first blow with a lovely sinus infection. Remember kids, Mother Earth hates you and will do her best to kill you every chance she gets. Fortunately antibiotics seem to be doing their job. Mostly.

Tabletop day was last Saturday. Hope you all managed to play a game of some sort. McK and I managed a game of Cargo Noir. Interesting little bidding game.

I also managed a good chunk of the new Tomb Raider when I wasn't trying to claw my throat out. I like it. It's certainly darker than some of the previous entries. Well, maybe grittier is a better descriptor. But I enjoyed traversing around the island and looking for things while fighting off the creepy cult.

I finished Darksiders as well. It was pretty fun and I look forward to the sequel. It might indeed be a shame that there may not be more of them.

The first Jack Reacher book, Killing Floor, was pretty good. I'm reading the second one now and am enjoying it as well.

Lovely wife's Dad is in town so he's been treating the kids to all manner of junk food without me. He also took them to the local petting zoo type place and now everyone is screaming about getting a baby goat. Supposedly they are cute. I have my doubts.

Spring yadda yadda yadda

I still hate Daylight Savings Time with the passion of a thousand burning suns. So that's good to know. The weather is absolutely off its rocker today. Snow, rain, blue skies. It must be Spring I guess...

Jungleland, by Christopher Stewart, was a book in the same vein as The Lost City of Z. Take one reporter following in the footsteps of a famous explorer as he tries to retrace the journey of the explorer and find a lost city in the midst of the jungle. It's a fun book. The explorer being shadowed was a pretty interesting person (he also served as a spy during WWII) and the journey was pretty interesting to follow.

The World's Strongest Librarian was written by a co-worker (Josh Hanagarne) and follows his struggles with Tourette's. I liked this one quite a bit as well. Some nice humor along with all the trials. Plus I have similar reading tastes as Josh. His Mom sounds awesome too.

We've watched a lot of stuff (Sinister is a pretty good horror movie) but I can't remember half of it. Played some stuff too. I backed my first Kickstarter project. (A fun looking push your luck dice game with a dungeon crawl theme)

The new TMBG album, Nanobots, is pretty good. I was also thrilled to discover that Poe's album, Haunted, is available on Freegal. I can attest to the first 10 songs being great. Give me a couple weeks and I can tell you about the rest.

Zoning out

Watched Argo the other night. It was pretty good. I have vague memories of the hostage crisis. We lived in PA at the time and one of the hostages was local so my third grade class wrote them letters. A couple of the kids and I got to deliver them one night. So it was pretty interesting to learn about this other aspect of the situation.

Braved a blizzard to watch McK at her archery tournament. It was fun. Except for the blizzard part.

Finished reading Gun Machine by Warren Ellis. I liked it quite a bit. Nice quirky police procedural. Some of the characters were pretty fun.

Haven't managed a game of All Creatures Big and Small since we got the expansion. Mostly because life has been far too hectic in the evenings. And when we do have time I'd rather sleep. So very tired...

I have far too many movies to watch at the moment. And about half of them are of the horror variety. Heh.

How is it basically March already?

Oh and apparently March 30th is Tabletop Day. At least according to Wil Wheaton.

Frogblast the vent core

This will be very short.

Stuff: I have watched it.

Other stuff: I have read it.

Still more stuff: I have played it.

I will mention one thing specifically. If you have an ipod/phone/pad and some friends with access to those devices as well you really need to be playing Space Team. Because it is brilliant. Instant good time. Far too much of it was played over the weekend.

Also, thoughts go out to all the folks affected by the 1up layoffs. I found the site as I followed Jeremy Parish's musings on video games. The podcast was a staple of my morning commute. (And I still listen to Weekend Confirmed which is hosted by 1up alum Garnett Lee) I hope everyone affected lands on their feet.

This is the spooky holiday right?

It's not? Hmm. Well that's too bad because I'm going to briefly comment on Paranormal Activity 4. At this point you either like the series or you don't. This particular iteration was not as creepy as 3, but not as slow as 2. It offered a decent amount of lore for the series, so that was nice. And there were indeed some nice creepy moments. So it gets a "yeah, it's good" from me. Lovely wife merely commented that it wasn't too scary. Guess I'll have to try harder. In spite of her recent comments that we've seen an awful lot of scary movies lately. I blame release schedules.

I also finished Revenge, 11 Dark Tales by Yoko Ogawa. It was an interesting series of interlocking short stories that dealt with various and sundry slightly off kilter characters and plots. I liked it even if it made my head hurt.

McK has joined the ranks of the glasses wearing set. Like myself. And pretty much my entire family. Some would say she was doomed. But she doesn't seem to mind. In fact she was a little perturbed that she didn't get more comments on them the first day she wore them. Good on her.

Sounds like littlest sis has managed to complete both seasons of Haven that are currently out on DVD. Now she gets to wait with the rest of us to see what happens next. She too was less than thrilled with that season cliffhanger. Show needs to be on Netflix.

We have acquired Space Cadets as a somewhat belated Christmas gift from sis-in-law. It's a co-operative game where each person is responsible for a station on a starship and has to play a mini-game to achieve goals for that station. It has a timed element that adds to the tension and sounds pretty fun. Will certainly take a bit to play with a new group as you try to explain the roles, but I think once it gets going it should be pretty good.

I drank what?

I finished reading Hemlock Grove last night. I picked it up partially because I heard Netflix was turning it into a show and I thought the premise sounded interesting. It's a literary-ish horror novel with some rather unique takes on archetypal horror icons (vampires, werewolves, Frankenstein's monster, etc.). Honestly the story tends to fall on the confusing side of things, but there are some pretty fascinating bits to it. I think I'll check the show out when it becomes available.

Jack Reacher was pretty good. I think I'll have to read some of those books now. I've been meaning to for a while, but this may give me the push I finally needed.

The Total Recall remake was ... interesting. The plot manages to be kind of different while still hitting all the notes of the original. Weird.

Cliffhanging

Finished off season 2 of Haven. It was quite good and that last episode was quite mean. I want to see season 3 pretty much right now... So many niggling questions.

We also finished season 1 of White Collar. Also quite momentous. Fortunately we could watch the episode 2 season opener the next day.

Over the weekend we watched Brewster's Millions (still holds up) and Zorro the Gay Blade (what on Earth did I just watch?!) We were really hoping to watch Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins but the tape is MIA. We also played Smash Up (some interesting ideas that after a couple plays will probably gel a little better. It seemed to go on a little longer than it needed to, but I think that will tighten up once you know the cards and the factions a little better.) and String Railway (a clever little area control sort of game where you build railroad lines using strings and small tokens. It was pretty brilliant actually.)

G had his first Pinewood Derby. A couple second place finishes and a couple third place finishes. He had fun though so that's great. And he did pretty much the entire car by himself. McK has obtained the role of Pirate in the Jr High's upcoming Pirates of Penzance performance.

I finished off Bioshock. It's a pretty interesting game. Certainly some disturbing themes and moments. Also some pretty unique choices on offer. After I finished the game I watched a couple of the extra videos that were available. I was completely uncreative in my methods of dispatching enemies apparently. I tended to just bludgeon things with my wrench. Less ammo used that way... Figure I'll play Darksiders since it looks completely silly and goofy and then head back for Bioshock 2. (Not so much on the silly and goofy in that one.)

There's a lot of snow around here...

Waffling

So, first things first. If you find yourself in downtown SLC and you're hungry, go to Bruges and have a Torpedo with some creme fraiche and your choice of fruit. It will be amazing. Have some cocoa to go with it. That will also be amazing. Then tell the owner to buy Parker's Drive-in in AF so it's a lot closer ok? Thanks.

(Seriously though, those are some pretty awesome waffles)

Looper was ... honestly I have no idea. I liked parts of it, found the prosthetics they used on Joseph Gordon-Levitt distracting, and the ending made my head hurt. Because I think I'm overthinking something that wasn't really the case, but an argument could be made that it was implied. So, not the best Rian Johnson film (still Brothers Bloom) but interesting nonetheless.

Did have a good visit with littlest sis while she was in town. Introduced her to Ugg-tect and Kingsburg and got her hooked on a random episode of Haven. Heh. Speaking of Haven, where is the new doctor girl? I haven't seen her at all this season, and don't remember her disappearing at the end of the first season. So confused. It's still pretty good though.

Never play Bioshock for an extended period of time. Gave me a serious headache that I didn't realize I had until I stopped playing. I am very close to the end though.

The Uncharted book was pretty good. Not quite as good as playing the games, but a fun little diversion. I would read more of them.

Unsafe Haven

Yay! We're watching Haven season 2. So far the first few episodes have been pretty good. Looking forward to more.

The free game for Playstation Plus members this week was Darksiders. The sequel just came out a month or so back and I'd heard good things about both games so I thought I'd give it a go. It is terribly silly in an amusing sort of way and I look forward to playing more of it. It's sort of God of War (combat) meets Zelda.  So that's a little weird, but it works. The story is absolutely ridiculous and I won't say anything about it because you wouldn't believe me if I did.

Bioshock continues to be interesting. Although I'm a little tired of the hacking mini game. I guess I should just start wasting my money as it seems there's plenty of it.

Littlest sis is theoretically in town now and we're supposed to get together with some of her friends to play games tonight. Poor G is a little under the weather so hopefully that doesn't throw a wrench in things.

I am very glad it's a long weekend. Very. Glad.

G has gotten his Pinewood Derby car cut out and painted. It probably needs some more weight, but I have no idea if we'll get that accomplished. It also has slightly crooked wheels. So I suspect there are no victories in his future, but stranger things have happened.

M participated in her first (and last? I forget what grade they stop) spelling bee. She made it to the fifth round or so before misspelling "enact". She had focused so much on the harder words that it was an easier one that got her. She did great though. (and apparently she had written it out correctly as well as the incorrect version and just went with the wrong spelling)

Caught the first episode of Wallander. I like it. Will watch more. I also watched the first 30 minutes of Iron Sky. It is truly ridiculous. (Secret Nazi base on the moon)

It's cold! Just sayin'.

Snowpocalypse

That's what they're saying anyway. I'll believe it when I see it. Although it is now rather dark gray outside as opposed to the nice sunny 47 degrees it was earlier.

I have acquired Kingsburg and it's expansion. I shall let you know how it is once I actually get a game of it played. It's been that kind of week. Littlest sis might get to help test this one out as she is supposed to be in town this next week. I suspect we shall also force her to play Ugg-tect. Because we all need a little more caveman in our lives.

Got together with J&K over the weekend and watched Beastmaster. It was still shockingly bad/good. So silly that movie. I don't normally do MST3K type stuff, but for some reason this one dragged the comments out of me. "I come from the village of NO BUTTONS" Alas Marc Singer. And who knew Tanya Roberts went on to be the redhead's Mom on That 70s Show? Weird.

Sand Sharks was enjoyably horrible. As was Lockout. (Think Escape from New York in space for that last one.) White Collar also continues to be enjoyable.

I can't honestly remember too much of what's happened over the last little while. It seems like there was lots of watching and reading stuff, but who knows?

Have I told you that Tichu is good? I finally caved and picked it up for the iPad after enjoying Haggis so much. This is a similar idea in which 4 players (it's a partnership game) try to get rid of their hands whilst scoring points. If you think you can go out first you call Tichu in the hopes of scoring yourself an extra 100 points. There are some special cards and some special rules and bombs and so on. It's good fun. I have a sneaking suspicion that when we get around to getting the physical version I will not be allowed to play...

Same as it ever was

So. 2013. Guess we can finally say good bye to 2012. Not sure I cared much for 2012. I suppose it had its moments. Did get to see a little more of family, so that was something. Need to convince Dad to move closer.

The letter 'd' clan had a good Christmas. Dad was there as was lovely wife's Mom. Kids once again made out like bandits. I got a couple nifty things and lovely wife got some nice stuff too. It was mostly a chance to watch the kids have fun though and that was indeed worth it.

Dad got us hooked on White Collar over the holiday. We're rather enjoying that show.

While exercising one morning I was dismayed to note that Netflix had dropped FLCL (and I was just about done watching it too). Stupid Netflix. I did, however, stumble across Sand Shark. It's a wonderfully horrible B movie that is basically a mish mash of Jaws and Piranha. (Moreso the newer version than the old) All I really need to sell this movie is two words: Corin Nemec. That's right, Mr Can't Lose Parker Lewis plays a relatively sleazy guy trying to "save" his home town with a Spring Break Party while the titular sand shark munches on people every 10 minutes or so. So wonderfully bad.

In case any of you have ever wondered, do NOT put a mini disc in an iMac. It will only end in tears. And possibly ruin your new computer. I'm pretty sure we avoided that, but time will tell. And the way to get it out? Stick a regular sized disc in and when it tries to eject, yank it out really quickly. The mini disc should follow. It took us a few tries. No wonder Apple is removing the disc drives on all their computers...

New Years was fine. Mostly as I went to bed at a reasonable time... The kids stayed up this go round.

Wreck it Ralph is indeed good. I liked it quite a bit as did the kids.

If you like ukulele music, give Jake Shimabukuro a try. He plays a mean ukulele. Manages to almost make it sound like a guitar to some extent and he's only using a 4 string uke. His renditions of Bohemian Rhapsody and While My Guitar Gently Weeps are pretty amazing.

I like Bioshock. Yeah, yeah, late to the party, but I got a PS+ membership for Christmas and one of the free games was the sequel, so I finally decided to pick up the original. Farcry 3 is interesting as well, although the save system is just plain odd. And annoying. And Quantum Conundrum does indeed scratch that Portal itch.

Ever wondered what D&D Alignment you were? Wonder no more.

I am mere pages from finishing Breed. It was decent for a reverse Rosemary's Baby sort of book. Certainly horrific in places. I'm not entirely convinced I recommend it, but it's not bad either. Probably not a Christmas book after all... (these are the jokes kids)

I managed to pick up John Dies at the End and a book based on the Uncharted video game series with some birthday money I still had. I'm looking forward to reading the Uncharted book probably a little more than I should admit to. I almost snagged one based on Ico...

Well, here's to hoping for an enjoyable 2013. And managing to keep up with my exercising.

It's cold outside

I contemplated calling you all Baby in that title. But I refrained. You're welcome. But it is indeed quite chilly here.

I finished reading The Nerdist Way or whatever that book was called. Geeky self help style book. Had some interesting ideas. I think one of the ones I really want to look into is de-cluttering. It is sadly probably time for me to throw away a bunch of my old magazines. Alas.

Season 4 of Castle is fine. The working with the CIA episode was a little sillier the second time through. I'm not sure how/why we managed to catch that one when it originally aired, but I remember it. Although I didn't remember the twist at the end. Funny.

Introduced Dad to Ugg-tect last night. It was amusing. The boys managed to eke out a victory over the girls. Guess we still manage to prove the old saw that guys are better at spatial relations than girls...

Glad Christmas is around the corner. Only sort of ready for it. Even more glad that it is accompanied by some time off. Really hoping to decompress some again. Hopefully get some games played with family and friends. Wil Wheaton did a google+ hangout that you can find over at the Geek and Sundry channel about Tabletop. It was pretty interesting. He had a couple nice stories about playing games with his kids while they were growing up. Apparently NBC found Tabletop interesting enough that they're trying to rip it off to turn into a prime time show. I doubt it will be quite as interesting. Especially as I can't picture them actually playing interesting games.

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday and can spend it with those you love.

Winter is here

Not so much due to snow as the sudden drop in temperature. I suspect we're now officially in the chillier temperature mode of the season. Which is fine. I don't mind the cold too much. As long as there's a blanket somewhere...

Not really anything else to say about Roadside Picnic. It was good. I'm now going through a geeky, improve your life sort of book as well as Breed which is a sort of reverse Rosemary's Baby kinda thing from the sounds of it. And nothing says Merry Christmas like a reverse Rosemary's Baby sorta thing.

Got to go to J & K's wedding reception last night. That was nice. Got to see a couple of old Ovid co-workers as well. And that was fun too. Lovely wife managed to represent for us at the wedding itself. I was too busy fighting with a printer to get away.

We watched Lake Mungo over the weekend and it was kind of amazing. It starts out as what you think will be a sort of run of the mill ghost story done as documentary sort of film but there are some pretty nifty surprises waiting for you in the film. I recommend this one. Except that while we were watching it, some of the should be spooky ghost scenes were too dark to see what was supposed to be going on. Not sure if this was the fault of the film or our tv settings. I think it was the version of the film we were watching. Little sis should give this one a go on Netflix. K might appreciate it too.

We're finally starting to make our way through Castle season 4 (I believe). The first few episodes were pretty good. I still like the banter.

Glad that Dad will be in town next week. Will be good to see him again and have him around through Christmas. Hard to believe that's as close as it is. Still have a touch of Christmas shopping to do, but we're pretty close to being done.

Oh and I'm no longer sort of addicted to Haggis on the iPad. It's full blown now. Such a fun little game.

Just a jumble

So I ran across this show called Holliston while working one day. It stars Adam Green of Hatchet and Frozen fame. I like his stuff. And this was a sitcom about two slackers trying to make a low budget horror movie (Shin Pads! When they score, you die! It's about a zombie soccer team and, well, you really had to be there I guess...) Anyway, it started off sort of slow and I wasn't entirely sure I'd finish it. But it grew on me. I either lowered my expectations appropriately, or it really did get better. So it gets a tentative thumbs up. But you really probably ought to like low budget horror to really get a kick out of it.

I am virtually finished with Roadside Picnic (I have something like 4-5 pages left I think) and it's pretty darn good. I can't say whether I liked it or Solaris better, but Russian sci fi is indeed good. Well, ok the 2 books I've read have been good.

We got in a game of 7 Wonders with the Leaders expansion the other day. It was pretty fun. It's been a while since we've played that one. I ended up roughly somewhere in the middle of the score pack while M managed a victory due to R's coaching. We also played some Lords of Waterdeep and I actually managed to beat R whilst playing. Truly an amazing moment.

I'm somewhat addicted to Haggis on the iPad. It's a ladder style card game for 2-3 people and it was on sale the other day. I've always wanted to try it and I find it truly compelling. I may break down and buy Tichu next as it's a similar style game.

And in case you thought Cthulhu wasn't good for anything, I present this. (Oh and the Cthulhu advent calendar on the iPad is pretty great too.)