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.

Roll and Movies

Pacific Rim was everything I wanted out of a giant robots vs giant monsters movie. The scale was awesome, the fights were epic and the story was serviceable. What more do you really want? Good job del Toro. Good job. I had a decent amount of faith that he'd pull it off, but it really was a thing of beauty. Might have to see this one again in the theater.

Red 2 was thoroughly silly. Which, really, was to be expected I guess. It was funny and the action was pretty good, so I guess I can't really hold the silliness against it. If you liked the first one, it's probably safe to say you'll like this one.

Managed another couple games of Formula D. We played the Singapore track and the road track on the flip side of the Monaco track (I forget the name). I really like that game. We're still playing the easy rules, so we should probably start to look into some of the advanced rules, but it's nice to know there's plenty of room to grow with this game.

Joyland, by Stephen King was really enjoyable. It's billed as a crime novel, and while there is a murder mystery at the center of it, it's very much a coming of age novel. I liked the amusement park locale and the characters and pretty much everything about this story. Certainly worth reading if you get the chance.

Absentia was an interesting little indie horror flick. I don't really want to say too much about it as that would ruin some of the surprises, but it's good. Give it a watch.

Had a nice visit with Dad. Ate some yummy steak and watched some movies and played some games. Definitely a good visit. They're always over too soon. He did have some funny stories about bears.

Random Geekery

So I ordered a few things from Thinkgeek. They have arrived. I am now the proud owner of a Bag of Holding and a plush Portal 2 turret that talks and senses movement. (I see you!) The bag is fairly nifty. I really like the material and several of the pouches. It could really use a few more pockets and the existing phone pockets need to take into account newer smartphone sizes. But other than that no real complaints. The turret is amusing and fun. The kids like it. I'll have to take a photo and post it up. I also snagged a birthday gift for lovely wife and another for the letter 'r'.

I am on the verge of having 5 different books checked out. I just recently finished Drive, by James Sallis. It was a pretty interesting book. You can see the elements that got turned into the film, but they are somewhat different experiences. I'll have to check out the sequel. But not until I've done something about this ridiculous logjam I've found myself in. 5 Books. Eesh.

Watched The Incredible Burt Wonderstone. It was relatively fine. I think they spent a touch too long on how much of a jerk he was before moving on to the redemption bit, but that's about it. Carrey was pretty amusing as the Criss Angel/David Blaine character.

Other than that, things are sort of a blur. Dad is in town, so that's nice. Had to get the van fixed. Kids have had various camps and treks and whatnot. They all had good experiences. I'm pretty amazed that the girls were so excited for Trek. I'd have not been at all excited about that at their age. Glad they went and had a good (if hard) time though, sounds like parts of it were pretty neat.

Waving around

So I finished Rick Yancey's The 5th Wave. I gave it three stars, but that's a little misleading. It was a decent book, but I'm not really the target audience for it. It was certainly a little more female friendly than I expected it to be. I don't know I'd go so far as to call it chick-lit, but it's close. It did get a little better as the story progressed, but I dunno... It was ok. I don't mind female protagonists, and I don't suppose I really mind love triangle stuff (not that this story had much of a love triangle) but it was just a little too meandering or something. Which is weird given that Yancey is known for the Monstrumologist series.

Anyway, it might be worth checking out if you like alien apocalypse type stories, just know that it's a little wander-y. Or something. I'd be interested to see someone compare it to The Host...

We got to see little sis and her family last night. That was fun. Too bad we couldn't get a game of something in. Oh well, next time. Littlest K makes me laugh. He's a goofball in the best sense of the word.

We've been watching The 50 Greatest Magic Tricks on YouTube over the last couple days. I really like magic... Did I mention we saw Now You See Me? It was really good. I'm not completely convinced the ending holds up, but the show itself is a lot of fun.

And now to enjoy a rather long weekend.

Oh check out #YABooksWithALetterMissing on twitter. It's pretty funny.

Let's see...

Books to be mentioned/commented upon:

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. Gaiman's latest novel has a quiet, haunting quality to it. It focuses on events that happened during the childhood of the narrator and features Gaiman's usual blending of mythology and reality into an enchanting dream-like musing on the events that shape us and the choices we make in life. It's relatively short, but I think that just means it's easy to read again. Which I can see myself doing as I think there is indeed more depth to be found. Much like Lettie's titular pond/ocean.

5 Centimeters per Second by Makoto Shinkai. I first ran across Shinkai when he did the film, Voices of a Distant Star, which was both beautiful and heart breaking. This is a graphic novel version of his newest film. It is also beautiful and heart breaking. I really like Shinkai's work, but dude needs a donut. And a happy thought.

The Diaries of Adam and Eve, by Mark Twain was a lot of fun to read. Definitely worth tracking down. It's a wry look at the first couple and how they came to know and love each other.

Vader and Son was the first of this series I believe. It's more cute comics about Darth Vader, this time raising Luke. Worth flipping through.

Not books:

Mama was pretty good. I didn't find it to be very scary, but it's definitely got some creepy moments and was a really nicely told tale. I especially liked the montage during the title sequence where they illustrate the girls' first few years through a series of childish drawings.

The Imagine Dragons CD is downstairs waiting for me. I am looking forward to listening to it. I just might have to play Radioactive very loudly on my way home...

I really need to get Space Cadets back to the table...

Formula D and Wallflowers

Got in a game of Formula D tonight. Let's see if I can get this link to work so you can see the pictures.

It was a pretty fun game. I managed a pretty steady lead thanks to some smart gear shifting and some decent rolls, but there was a lot of position jockeying for the rest of the spots.

In more depressing news, we watched The Perks of Being a Wallflower last night. Reminded me a lot of high school. Minus the abuse and institutionalization. Most of my friends my freshman year were juniors so I didn't have to deal with the bulk of people leaving, but a lot of those experiences were pretty similar. It was kind of rough to watch even if it was relatively happy at the end.

Enjoying the silence

The house has been pretty empty these last couple days. The girls are off at camp and G has been in and out with friends. Ah blessed silence. Lovely wife has managed to tidy up G's room to some extent. Who knew he had a floor in his room?!

We've watched a couple B grade action movies these last couple days. The Numbers Station with John Cusack and The Double with Richard Gere. They were serviceable action/thriller movies. Not great, but not horrible.

I finished reading You by Austin Grossman. It was a lot of fun. Similar in some ways to Ready Player One and different in others. It tends to cover the history of video games as opposed to the future, but they both deal with people that let their lives revolve around them or the industry. Pretty fascinating. I've read some negative reviews by people that had issues with the point of view changes and so on. I think they're idiots. It's not that confusing. Admittedly 2nd person does take a little getting used to if you've never read something like that before, but it makes perfect sense in this context as Grossman is discussing a medium that is all about player interaction.

Apparently G is scared by Betrayal at the House on the Hill. This could have had something to do with the fact that he ended up getting selected as the traitor, or it could be that he just finds the game spooky. Not sure. The girls still love it though.

Random things we've noticed recently: chocolate chips make pretty much all breakfast foods better, home made ice cream is still really good, grilling on a serious bbq grill is pretty awesome, serious bbq grills still have problems with odd hot and cold spots.

I should also mention that I rode a zip line.

Vroom Vroom

Formula D is pretty great. G and I played a quick game once we got back from the camp out just to give it a go. We then played a big game Sunday with Lovely Wife's Mom and the whole family. We had a pretty good time. Although G started to lose a little interest about 2/3 through the course. I think selecting gears and optimizing your lane selection might be a touch above him. Although not much. It's definitely a better game with more cars on the track as you really do get to jostle for position and fight for corners and so on. Definitely a fun game and I highly recommend you give it a go. (And there are more tracks you can pick up and beginner's rules and advanced rules and...)

Managed to survive another year of Fathers and Sons camping. The hike wasn't too bad (although the short way down in near dark was not the best of ideas). Breakfast was good. There was absolutely no sleep. I need either a cot or one of those self inflating/deflating pad things. Something...

If you're following E3 at all you're aware of the new consoles coming out and how Sony stomped all over Microsoft in their press conference when it came to privacy rights and consumer rights and a few other things. It'll be interesting to see how things play out once Fall comes and people actually buy the things. And if you haven't seen it, this is hilarious.

McK has started volunteering up at Timp Caves. That's a little fascinating to me. M has had Day Camp for Girl Scouts this week. And G has Day Camp for Cub Scouts this weekend. I think lovely wife thought that Summer would be less busy. She was wrong.

Father's Day this weekend. Too bad Dad is far away. Will have to get him to actually use his iPad and video chat. And maybe play some Ticket to Ride.

Our love is like a golf course

If you substituted holes for years. Or something like that. (This is just a ridiculous way to say we hit 18 years this past week on our anniversary) In a lot of ways it doesn't seem that long, but then McK decided to go to the DMV and get her learner's permit (in spite of the DMV guy telling her she had to be at least 5 feet tall). And yeah, that and two other kids and other assorted parts of life chimed in and it's actually not that hard to realize that it has indeed been that long. But they have (for the most part) been great years and lovely wife is as lovely as ever, so there you go.

She even bought me a game for our anniversary. In spite of all the other games we've gotten recently. True love folks. I got Formula D the racing game and I can't wait to try it out. Little cars and lots of dice and fun race tracks and... Heh.

We've been having a pretty good visit with lovely wife's Mom while she's in town. So that's been fun. She had a birthday and my Dad had a birthday. It's kind of an event filled week.

Alas there is camping waiting at the end of it. I guess it goes to show that nothing is perfect.

A little of this, a little of that

I finished up Nos4a2 by Joe Hill. It was pretty darn good. It's the most Stephen King-like book he's written (in my opinion) but that's not a bad thing. I liked all the little nods to his previous books. I always find it interesting when authors build their own world over the course of their books and put little nods here and there. I also found this one to be pretty spooky and certainly horrifying in lots of places. Definitely some characters you wouldn't want to run into. So if you like horror/fantasy stories, give this one a go.

Waiting in the Summer was a sweet little anime series. And that's really all I have to say about it. It almost had the most depressing ending ever, but fortunately they fixed that.

We've been watching more Hemlock Grove. I think it's growing on me some. It's not bad, I'm just not convinced it's good either. Of course, I'm pretty sure I had that same impression of the book.

We had a pretty good holiday weekend. Games were played, managed a nap here and there, other games were played. It was nice.

G managed to place third in the Writer's Olympics with a story featuring a squid and unicorn doing battle to see who would win and who would be lunch. I ... actually have very little to say about this as well.

M decided to use her head as a mitt the other day during the teacher/6th grader softball game. She claims to be fine.

Is summer over yet? What do you mean it just started?! Ugh...

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.