Ok, who let it get to November? This is just ridiculous. Especially as I can't be bothered to even remotely keep up with the things that I need to. And there are. Things. That need to be kept up with. Or was that Jones's? I have a hard time telling them apart. The things. And the Jones's.
G had a pretty good birthday. He now has 2 foam swords. And he is not afraid to use them. Well, ok maybe a little afraid as there is a core that runs through most of the sword except for the tip and he's afraid the tip will tear off if he's too violent with it. So he as 2 foam swords that he's only moderately afraid to use.
We did have a good time at the Community musical, The Magical Adventures of Merlin. There were some magic tricks and some songs and some Arthurian nonsense. Plus it was right around an hour long. Which was just about right.
Watched Iron Man 3. That series actually seems to get better as it goes along. Weird...
I didn't actually make it all the way through The Shining. First it was a full screen edition (which is now incorrect thanks to widescreen tvs) and it was pretty badly scratched and I just wasn't as into it as I could have been. Kind of sad really. Still pretty eerie in places though. For the bit that I watched.
Showing posts with label birthdays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birthdays. Show all posts
Thursday, November 07, 2013
Thursday, August 19, 2010
In which there are puzzles and rain
M received Ubongo from us for her birthday. It's like a competitive tetris/tangrams game. You each get 12 tetris type shapes and a puzzle board. A die is rolled that lets you know which three (or four) pieces you will use to assemble the shape depicted on the board. You then have a very brief window of time in which to assemble the puzzle. If you manage it, you can collect two gems from the score track. At the end (9 rounds, different board for each round) the person with the most gems of a single color is the winner. (You can move across the columns of the score track depending on how quickly you finish the puzzle thus helping you to get gems of the color you want). It's fast and also pretty fun. Some of the puzzles are fiendishly difficult. And others not so. It's also pretty easy to adjust the difficulty so that everyone has a chance. Make the grown ups solve the 4 piece puzzles while the kids do the 3 piece offerings. Remove the timer for younger players (an option I think I'll try with G next time) and so on. There are several versions of Ubongo as well in case you need more puzzles.
Other than that M had a lovely birthday and managed to mostly avoid the rain we've had on and off for several days. There was a traditional pool party and some mu shu pork and a whopper pie. An we were glad for an opportunity to spend the day together. Happy birthday M!
Lovely wife has managed to get the kids geared up for school (next week! woo hoo!). Other than that things have been almost quiet at casa del 'd'. I've even manged to not read a ton of books. I'm going to give Last Apprentice a bit of a break so that I don't wear myself out on the series. I suspect I'll get book four in the next couple of weeks though. I have instead opted to collect all 120 stars in Super Mario Galaxy 2 which of course just opens the next 120. I think I will also take a break from that prior to hunting for them. I think I liked the first Mario Galaxy a touch more. Mostly because it forced you to progress through the "story" (such as it was) before going back for all the extra stuff. The second one let you do the extra stuff almost from the get go. And the completist in me wouldn't let me go ahead before I had it all. So aspects of it were more work than fun. It's not entirely the game's fault, but I liked that aspect of the initial game better. The second one certainly has some pretty amazing levels and fun game play, just like the first.
Other than that M had a lovely birthday and managed to mostly avoid the rain we've had on and off for several days. There was a traditional pool party and some mu shu pork and a whopper pie. An we were glad for an opportunity to spend the day together. Happy birthday M!
Lovely wife has managed to get the kids geared up for school (next week! woo hoo!). Other than that things have been almost quiet at casa del 'd'. I've even manged to not read a ton of books. I'm going to give Last Apprentice a bit of a break so that I don't wear myself out on the series. I suspect I'll get book four in the next couple of weeks though. I have instead opted to collect all 120 stars in Super Mario Galaxy 2 which of course just opens the next 120. I think I will also take a break from that prior to hunting for them. I think I liked the first Mario Galaxy a touch more. Mostly because it forced you to progress through the "story" (such as it was) before going back for all the extra stuff. The second one let you do the extra stuff almost from the get go. And the completist in me wouldn't let me go ahead before I had it all. So aspects of it were more work than fun. It's not entirely the game's fault, but I liked that aspect of the initial game better. The second one certainly has some pretty amazing levels and fun game play, just like the first.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
In which I don't make fun of Twilight
Mostly because that's a subtle enough jab for now and there are plenty of places to do it for me.
Nope the bulk of this post will be about boardgames. Why (you may ask yourselves)? In large part because ol' letter 'd' had a birthday recently and boardgames were received. And played. (Which we'll also get to.)
But first, from the Sometimes You Can Go Back files: Krull and Something Wicked This Way Comes are both still decent movies. They show their age a little, but not as badly as you might think. So if you need a rollicking adventure or something a little creepy, one of these will fit the bill. Don't blame me if you get them mixed up, they make cover copy for a reason folks. But yeah, totally check them out again.
Also, Dexter in the Dark the 3rd book in the Dexter series byJeff Lindsay was good. A little on the interesting side, a little creepy (in that Dexter-ish way) and so on.
So. Yes. Boardgames. This year I decided that I would host my own mini boardgame convention. And so I did. Friends were invited, food was prepared and games were set out. The big news from the convention is that Arkham Horror is indeed good. I was finally able to convince the letter 'r' of this and even lovely wife thawed in her opinion of it. It's still long (I think we clocked in at around 3 hours) but once you know what's going on it becomes a lot more enjoyable. This is indeed the secret to playing this game. Make sure someone knows the rules. It works best when one player acts as a moderator of sorts and makes the turn taking of everyone else easier. "Oh, you want to do this? Well roll these dice for me and we'll see what happens. Congrats! You've just defeated the maniac. Oh, that's too bad, the Byakhee left you an insane, gibbering wreck, time for a trip to the Sanitarium." And so on. We even managed to save the world from the ravages of Azathoth. Way to go us!
We took a break for lunch and then played some Pitchcar with the kids. This is an awesome dexterity game. You lay out a wooden race track and then take turns flicking little wooden discs (your racecar) around the track. It's great fun. Anyone can play. We had 7 of us from ages 5 to 37 and had a blast. Highly recommended. It is a little pricey (quality wood track and pieces yo) but worth it.
Up next was Puerto Rico. We tried this one a while back as well and didn't quite get it. The secret to this game is playing San Juan first. It's a very nice training game for Puerto Rico. Basically you're trying to settle a little island colony. You each take turns claiming various jobs that allow every one the opportunity to do something. The player that picked the job gets a bonus. Over the course of the game you build up your settlement and earn points. We had a fine time playing this one as well. Also recommended (play San Juan first).
We had some dinner and then played some more Pitchcar. Swag was handed out (a couple print and play games from over at BGG). A good time was had by all.
Now you might think that would be the end of the tale, but you'd be wrong. As this was a convention those games were owned by the participants. Nothing new there. Well at least not ownership wise. No that's where the ol' letter 'd's birthday came in handy. I managed to pick up Skip Bo, Citadels and Galaxy Trucker for said journey around the sun.
Skip Bo is a fun little card game that works best with 4 and played as a partnership game.
Citadels also finds you trying to build a city and claiming various jobs to do it. The trick here is jobs are played in an order and not all of them get picked. And each player only gets the benefit of their own job. One will let you kill someone else (force them to miss their turn), one will let you steal someone else's money, and so on. Also a lot of fun. And pretty easily picked up. We play it with 2 of the 3 kids (recommended 8 and up).
Which brings us to Galaxy Trucker. This is a great game in which you build yourself a spaceship and then watch it get blown to bits. It's awesome (if a little nervewracking). The first portion of the game is a bit puzzle like as you compete to put together the ship best suited to the journey you're about to take. Once that's accomplished you go through a set of adventure cards that tells you what exactly happens to your poor little ship. Asteroids! Pirates! Abandoned ships! Also a great game, although the age recommendation on this one is a little higher. Our 11 year old is starting to make sense of it. It can be a little rough explaining that she's out of the race as she lost all her crew to vicious space pirates in round 1 (build more crew cabins!). An added bonus is the fact that the rulebook is downright hilarious. Truly a good time.
As for those other things, Thanksgiving was nice. We had a decent time with lovely wife's family (I was shockingly bad at Bananagrams that day) and the food was good. I avoided Black Friday, had a good birthday, got the Christmas tree up (December?! who let that happen!) and so on. My week off seemed far too short and towards the end was a little bittersweet as I missed Mom. But all in all it went well enough. Next time I'll have the game convention at the end instead of the beginning. ^_^
So thanks to family for the lovely gifts (especially Dad for the new camera) and I hope you all had a lovely holiday as well. Now to get ready for the next one. (Christmas shopping almost complete!)
Nope the bulk of this post will be about boardgames. Why (you may ask yourselves)? In large part because ol' letter 'd' had a birthday recently and boardgames were received. And played. (Which we'll also get to.)
But first, from the Sometimes You Can Go Back files: Krull and Something Wicked This Way Comes are both still decent movies. They show their age a little, but not as badly as you might think. So if you need a rollicking adventure or something a little creepy, one of these will fit the bill. Don't blame me if you get them mixed up, they make cover copy for a reason folks. But yeah, totally check them out again.
Also, Dexter in the Dark the 3rd book in the Dexter series byJeff Lindsay was good. A little on the interesting side, a little creepy (in that Dexter-ish way) and so on.
So. Yes. Boardgames. This year I decided that I would host my own mini boardgame convention. And so I did. Friends were invited, food was prepared and games were set out. The big news from the convention is that Arkham Horror is indeed good. I was finally able to convince the letter 'r' of this and even lovely wife thawed in her opinion of it. It's still long (I think we clocked in at around 3 hours) but once you know what's going on it becomes a lot more enjoyable. This is indeed the secret to playing this game. Make sure someone knows the rules. It works best when one player acts as a moderator of sorts and makes the turn taking of everyone else easier. "Oh, you want to do this? Well roll these dice for me and we'll see what happens. Congrats! You've just defeated the maniac. Oh, that's too bad, the Byakhee left you an insane, gibbering wreck, time for a trip to the Sanitarium." And so on. We even managed to save the world from the ravages of Azathoth. Way to go us!
We took a break for lunch and then played some Pitchcar with the kids. This is an awesome dexterity game. You lay out a wooden race track and then take turns flicking little wooden discs (your racecar) around the track. It's great fun. Anyone can play. We had 7 of us from ages 5 to 37 and had a blast. Highly recommended. It is a little pricey (quality wood track and pieces yo) but worth it.
Up next was Puerto Rico. We tried this one a while back as well and didn't quite get it. The secret to this game is playing San Juan first. It's a very nice training game for Puerto Rico. Basically you're trying to settle a little island colony. You each take turns claiming various jobs that allow every one the opportunity to do something. The player that picked the job gets a bonus. Over the course of the game you build up your settlement and earn points. We had a fine time playing this one as well. Also recommended (play San Juan first).
We had some dinner and then played some more Pitchcar. Swag was handed out (a couple print and play games from over at BGG). A good time was had by all.
Now you might think that would be the end of the tale, but you'd be wrong. As this was a convention those games were owned by the participants. Nothing new there. Well at least not ownership wise. No that's where the ol' letter 'd's birthday came in handy. I managed to pick up Skip Bo, Citadels and Galaxy Trucker for said journey around the sun.
Skip Bo is a fun little card game that works best with 4 and played as a partnership game.
Citadels also finds you trying to build a city and claiming various jobs to do it. The trick here is jobs are played in an order and not all of them get picked. And each player only gets the benefit of their own job. One will let you kill someone else (force them to miss their turn), one will let you steal someone else's money, and so on. Also a lot of fun. And pretty easily picked up. We play it with 2 of the 3 kids (recommended 8 and up).
Which brings us to Galaxy Trucker. This is a great game in which you build yourself a spaceship and then watch it get blown to bits. It's awesome (if a little nervewracking). The first portion of the game is a bit puzzle like as you compete to put together the ship best suited to the journey you're about to take. Once that's accomplished you go through a set of adventure cards that tells you what exactly happens to your poor little ship. Asteroids! Pirates! Abandoned ships! Also a great game, although the age recommendation on this one is a little higher. Our 11 year old is starting to make sense of it. It can be a little rough explaining that she's out of the race as she lost all her crew to vicious space pirates in round 1 (build more crew cabins!). An added bonus is the fact that the rulebook is downright hilarious. Truly a good time.
As for those other things, Thanksgiving was nice. We had a decent time with lovely wife's family (I was shockingly bad at Bananagrams that day) and the food was good. I avoided Black Friday, had a good birthday, got the Christmas tree up (December?! who let that happen!) and so on. My week off seemed far too short and towards the end was a little bittersweet as I missed Mom. But all in all it went well enough. Next time I'll have the game convention at the end instead of the beginning. ^_^
So thanks to family for the lovely gifts (especially Dad for the new camera) and I hope you all had a lovely holiday as well. Now to get ready for the next one. (Christmas shopping almost complete!)
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Spinning my wheels
Well, I'm not sure I could tell you what's gone on in the past week. I have vague memories of watching Mummy 3. Not really worth your time. They mostly forgot what made the first one fun, instead choosing to almost parody that style. Which was in some ways already a parody. Oh well. There were some funny bits at least. And the effects weren't bad.
I'm pretty sure I've read a lot of graphic novels lately. I remember Locke and Key: Welcome to Lovecraft by Joe Hill (of Heart Shaped Box - so good). It was appropriately spooky and certainly reminded me that he's Stephen King's son. I think I saw a lot more of his Dad's influence on this one than in some of his other work.
Dungeon is a French fantasy story that's rather amusing, if cartoon-ily bloody. Follow Herbert the Duck as he tries to become a barbarian. Or at least able to pull his sword from the scabbard. His friend Marvin (the vegetarian dragon) tries his best to keep him alive. It's all good fun.
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser is old fantasy at it's finest. Mike Mignola (Hellboy) illustrates Howard Chaykin's telling of the old Fritz Leiber stories. Fun romp through classic fantasy.
Our front yard is currently in a state of disrepair as we wait for the city to come inspect our sprinkler hookup. It's a good thing we have neighbors that understand this stuff. Although my back is certainly not thrilled that we decided to take the city up on irrigation water...
McK and M have both been in plays the last couple days at school. Lovely wife reports that all went well. I have no idea if photographic proof of this exists or not.
Favorite niece and younger Sis are celebrating birthdays soon. We wish them well. And that's a pretty good note to end on. Happy birthday!
I'm pretty sure I've read a lot of graphic novels lately. I remember Locke and Key: Welcome to Lovecraft by Joe Hill (of Heart Shaped Box - so good). It was appropriately spooky and certainly reminded me that he's Stephen King's son. I think I saw a lot more of his Dad's influence on this one than in some of his other work.
Dungeon is a French fantasy story that's rather amusing, if cartoon-ily bloody. Follow Herbert the Duck as he tries to become a barbarian. Or at least able to pull his sword from the scabbard. His friend Marvin (the vegetarian dragon) tries his best to keep him alive. It's all good fun.
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser is old fantasy at it's finest. Mike Mignola (Hellboy) illustrates Howard Chaykin's telling of the old Fritz Leiber stories. Fun romp through classic fantasy.
Our front yard is currently in a state of disrepair as we wait for the city to come inspect our sprinkler hookup. It's a good thing we have neighbors that understand this stuff. Although my back is certainly not thrilled that we decided to take the city up on irrigation water...
McK and M have both been in plays the last couple days at school. Lovely wife reports that all went well. I have no idea if photographic proof of this exists or not.
Favorite niece and younger Sis are celebrating birthdays soon. We wish them well. And that's a pretty good note to end on. Happy birthday!
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