I...uh...hmm...yeah.

BLEH. I need to get my act together. I spend too much time in front of my computer. I'm starting to get that zombie face feeling, if you know what I mean. And with all that time in front of the screen, I still leave my blog unedited for over a month. M'oh well, not like it's important in any way.

I've been very excited to get my hands on a game called Runebound. It's not like anything I own now; it is best described as an "adventure" game. From what I know of it, I'd describe it as Diablo, if it were a board game. You start off with a fairly weak character, fighting weak enemies, collecting gold, experience, and loot in hopes of becoming more powerful by collecting items, weapons, and allies. I'd likely have purchased it myself if my birthday weren't so close (I can be difficult to shop for as a result of my niche hobbies). It's not the type of game that will hit the table on games nights, as most people wouldn't care for the theme or the game length. Regardless, I'm sure it would make for a few entertaining afternoons with Adam, since he's always willing to do anything.

Laura and I have been seeing quite a bit of each other in the last few weeks, and things are going pretty well, despite my constant portrayals of insecurity. A gentleman mustn't kiss and tell, though, so I don't think I need to say much more on the subject. Trivia: Assuming Laura makes my list of "people I have considered at one time to be my girlfriend", then 50% of the people on said list will have the first name Laura.

I've started work on my course for the summer, an introduction to machine scheduling. So far, I'm left quite unimpressed both by the source material and the course organizer (who coincidentally is my new research supervisor). The material is dry and not very helpful with regard to the exercises. I had an assignment due today, and emailed the prof for help on Friday. She said she hasn't had time to look at the material yet. I went to her posted office hours today for help, but she was nowhere to be found. I'm less than impressed.

Well, Grant, Chanel, Sheena and Dan have headed off for Europe. The couples won't be back until May 27th and June 11th (!) respectively. I'm sure they're having a great time. They left on Friday, and skipped out on the previous games night to pack and visit family. I had a lot of cancellations that night, but had two new people come over. The three of us had a lot of fun; we played three games (as opposed to the usual 1 plus filler that I normally experience), and they really liked all of the games I showed them. They are both going to come back in the future. I had to convince them that I did indeed have other friends and everyone had canceled on me, but perhaps they think that I spend every Wednesday night sitting in my basement hoping that someone will finally show up.

Listening to... Metric - Down
Link of the moment... UHF video by Weird Al

"You cannot square the circle"

I was tired this morning after class, and thought to myself "but I went to bed early last night"! Then, I realized that by that, I meant I had gone to bed at 1 AM, which is not really all that early in a general sense.

I had a party last weekend, and it was awesome! I got the usuals, as well as a few people I don't see often, and I even got four people from my seminar class to show up! A new fascination among the board gamers is Headbanz, which I picked up at the thrift store god knows how long ago. We played a little poker (got cleaned out by the guy we had taught the game to), and some Guitar Hero and Wii as well.

I think the highlight of the night for me was when I convinced everyone to play Werewolf! I had 10 (the perfect number, IMHO), and everyone had fun playing it! My new scoring system was not too complex nor too shallow. The first round was a bit of crapshoot, with not much discussion going on. Grant and Chanel moderated the second and third round so I could play. On the first day, I wound up putting a werewolf up for lynching, and people voted in my favour (I had accused them on little to no evidence, but it must have worked!). In all three rounds, the villagers won, but I think it was solely from lucky first votes. I can't wait to play again!

School is winding down, I guess. I've only got one assignment left this term, and then two exams. I've also chosen my project advisor, Wendy Huang. Her research is in the Open-Shop Machine Scheduling problem, specifically with dense schedules. Mouthful, huh? It should be interesting (or else I'm screwed). I hope to get lots of work done by the end of the summer, rather than putting it off.

I don't think I mentioned it earlier, but I got a new scholarship, worth a total of $9000 over two years. Right now, I've got about $7000 worth of scholarship cheques to deposit. I should be a professional student!

I've broken in four of my six new games. I played Pillars of the Earth with Adam and my mom, and they both enjoyed it (my mom's not so great with rules per se). I won, but it was a VERY close game between the three of us. I'm looking forward to playing again now that I know the flow of the game. I also played El Grande with five last week. I think people generally enjoyed it and would play again, but I don't think it really "wowed" anyone, including myself. Still, it's a nice game deep in both strategy and tactics, that plays well with five.

This previous Wednesday, I had only Grant and Chanel, so we tried out some 3 player games. We started with Ra, which was about as good as I'd expected, but in a different way. The game is all about timing, and there are lots of things to consider when deciding to force an auction or place a tile. The game was super-quick, even with a rules explanation. I also went to the liberty of printing off four player sheets from BGG, and getting them laminated at Staples. After one play, I'm glad I have them since they make scoring and tile sorting easier.

We also played two games of Pandemic (though the first didn't really count, since we missed one rule which makes the game way more difficult). The second game, with *most* of the correct rules (hey, it's hard to remember all the details!), we lost. The cards came out kinda crappy, and there were a lot of chain reaction outbreaks. Overall though, I really like that game! I actually played a solo game tonight (that's right, you can play solo), and I wound up winning. I'm pretty sure I didn't cheat, and I think I just happened to get a good string of cards. I don't know if I'll still like the game as much when I feel like I've "solved" it, but I'm really in love with it at the moment. Maybe I'll play one more solo game before bed...

Listening to... No Use For A Name - Couch Boy
Link of the moment... Creepiest and coolest video you'll see in a while

Binge and Purge

Whoops, haven't updated lately. You can blame that mostly on SSBB starting from March 9th onwards. I went with Adam to Walmart for the midnight release (I think that means my geekdom has reached a new high). There were a handful of other nerds there for that very reason. They probably sold about 20 copies of the game that night. That night (same night as the clocks moving forward an hour), I played the game until about 4. I think the five or six days following the release of the game, it got a cool 35 hours of playtime. I remember checking the other day and seeing that there was 10 hours clocked on Sunday alone! Time well wasted, I tell you.

I realized it was becoming an obsession, and I had a few assignments to do, so I let Grant borrow my Wii since Saturday night. I think I'll pick it up either later today or get him to bring it to games night tomorrow, because I'm caught up again and itching to play.

On games night last week, I had the regulars, plus Adam and Sheena's friend Kim. We wound up playing Settlers and Power Grid (well, those two games were played), and afterwards, I played some four-way SSBB with Adam, Dan, and Grant. Haha, I remember one of the first matches, I played against them as a team of three and wound up winning. I played either Falco or Wolf and racked up a good 4 kills off of one of my final smashes alone. I failed in all my other attempts though. Grant's starting to get pretty good and we're close to being evenly matched

Since the last post, I ordered and received some new board games from the states. I purchased El Grande, Santiago, and Alhambra, which have been on my wishlist for a while, and I picked up Pillars of the Earth on a whim since I needed another $40 to get free shipping, and there wasn't really anything else I wanted that was in stock. It's been called "Caylus light" by lots of BGG users, and it's got some nice looking components. You'd think that after opening four new games and getting that "new game smell" into my system, I'd be happy, but I actually wound up going to the local game store to buy another game, RA! It wasn't in stock at ThoughtHammer when I placed my order, and it's been number one on my wishlist for a while. It's out of print, so I figured I should get a copy while I still can (even if the local store charges $10 more than I could get online).

I've also grown very interested in a new game called Pandemic. It's a cooperative game where you play as team of people who are trying to control and cure a bunch of diseases around the world. From what I read, it seems like the theme is tied in pretty well with the mechanics, and it seems like there's a lot of tension in the game. The local store has it at the same price as online stores, so I'm thinking of picking up a copy. At the very least, I could play it solo!

Listening to... Dream Theatre - Metropolis Part I
Link of the moment... My Wii's GPU is shot (but not to the point where it's unplayable), so I'm going to have to get it sent away and repaired. At least it's under warranty.

But first, an apology

Before I forget, I'd like to issue a formal apology to Andrew for berating his lack of rules knowledge when it came to Cities and Knights of Catan. It turns out I've been playing a number of rules incorrectly in Power Grid. Though there's not much behind the actions the players take in the game, the housekeeping can be a lot to keep track of. There are a lot of details in that game that are easy to overlook.

I was supposed to have my first class today, but the Ryan building was closed today due to a burst water main. The class was only going to be a ten minute "here's the outline, read these chapters for next week" thing, so the prof just sent the two of us an email (yeah, another huge class of two). Thus, my first real class will be the Graduate seminar tomorrow morning. I'll have to make sure to coerce some of my classmates into showing up to this week's game night. I ran into Chris and his girlfriend at a new year's eve shag, and they both mentioned that they were looking forward to playing some games, so I expect them to show up at least a few times.

Adam has made the bold statement that Power Grid is his favourite game, and that can be evidenced by the 10+ plays it's had in the last few weeks. I think I've only racked up two wins so far, and I always seem to make some pretty bad plays every time I play.

I started a new game of Disgaea. I've completely set aside any magic casting characters since they're a pain to level up, and opting for a beat-em-up team. One thing I've noticed about that game is that it's very easy to spend way more time playing it than you originally may have intended. I've racked up about 15 hours of playtime since I started it three days ago (hey, I'm trying to milk as much out of my free time as I can while I still have some!).

The other day, I made the mistake of drawing a comparison between X-Men Legends and Guild Wars. In doing so, I re-lit my spark for Guild Wars, and further fueled my hope that I can get Adam into it (since he seems to enjoy playing XML). The original game is only $30, with no monthly fees. For that price, you get some pretty good bang for your buck.

I had an urge the other day to buy a new computer. There was a computer on the Future Shop website that included a QUAD-core processor, 3GB of RAM, a 400GB hard drive, and a 19" widescreen monitor for a grand sum of $800. By the time I noticed, they were sold out. I'd still be a little wary buying a computer from a box store. I'd rather know that I have higher quality components than having to deal with the hassle of trying to replace crappy components that are jam packed into the case. Case-in-point, Adam's power supply died on his old Dell, and the spare power supply I had sitting around wouldn't fit into his computer since the old supply was sized specifically for a bracket in the case. Sure, you get a great computer for $800, but after a few years, you'll likely have to spend another $500 (as well as a ton of aggravation) to keep it up and running. I think I'll stick with my plan of getting a new computer when I'm done my masters degree (when I'll likely be moving away to get a job in, you know, a *real* city).

Listening to... Metric - Dead Disco
Link of the moment... David Blaine parody (heads up, foul language)

Did you think I was dead?

Hey, look at that. I *didn't* forget how to put up a post in my blog. It's been so long I figured I'd have lost the knowledge. I'm quite surprised myself that I would be on a 2 month hiatus from posting. I guess I don't really have much of an excuse, either, though most of my November was spent on schoolwork. Most of my December has been spent on sloth. Ever since I handed in my takehome exam for algebra, I've just been doing as little as possible.

Hm, now which events from the last two months should I discuss? I went on my trip to Waterloo a few weeks ago, and that was fun. I stayed with Andrew the first few days, and Hugh for the last leg of the trip. We had a four hour game of Cities and Knights of Catan that was rife with inaccurate rules since Andrew had never read the rules in any great detail.

I had that party that I mentioned in the last post, and it went off without a hitch. Lots of people showed up, everyone had a great time, and it didn't take much effort to clean up the next day. I'll be sure to do it again sometime next term.

Hey, here's some big news: I've started drinking! Not as a hobby, or anything, but I don't refuse to drink anymore. I realized a while ago that I didn't really have a good reason to *not* drink, but I felt like I needed an occasion to start. I didn't want my first drink to be anticlimactic. I decided that Phil being in town was a good enough reason to celebrate. Since then, though, I've decided I don't really like the taste of alcohol, and the last few times I've had drinks it's made me pretty queasy, so at least now I have an excuse if someone offers me a libation. Plus on top of that, I'm still a cheapskate, so I'm not willing to buy my own booze often. At the moment, Adam keeps making new and disgusting drinks with what I have sitting in my bar. The only thing that I've enjoyed so far is the Amaretto Sour.

Phil is back in town again (yes, he's visited *twice* since the last time I made a post), and he and Adam are more or less living out of my house. We've been playing lots of Power Grid and Nexus Ops, some Guitar Hero, and we started playing X-Men Legends (very fun multiplayer game). I've been staying up til 5 or 6 the last few nights; I haven't seen much sunlight lately. At least I'll be well seasoned for New Year's Eve.

I didn't get anything extremely noteworthy for Christmas besides a Bohnanza expansion (from Sheena and Dan), and Super Paper Mario and Metroid Prime 3 for Wii. I was sort of hoping to get Super Mario Galaxy, but it'll still be waiting for me once I play the two games I got.

I attended a games afternoon the other day at the game store with Doug, a guy I met via BGG. I invited all of my friends to come, but none came. I'm willing to bet that Sheena and Dan would have, if they were in town. Regardless, I had fun. We played Incan Gold, Citadels, Bang (twice), and Munchkin. I'm not really a huge fan of any of those games, but I wasn't about to bitch and whine about it since it wasn't really my event. I sent an email inviting all of them to come to my games nights. I'm anticipating a pretty nice turnout to my games nights, but of course I've said that in the past only to have the usual 5 or 6 show up. If all goes well, Doug and his friends will come, and up to 6 people from my classes will start coming out as well. Hopefully Dan's two brothers will start coming as well. If I could get enough for two tables on a regular basis, that would probably be ideal.

Well, that's as much as I'm willing to write about at the moment, so I'll end it around here. I make no promises about when another post will show up, but hopefully I can get back into the habit of making a public journal of events in my life that next to no one cares about.

Listening to... Foo Fighters - Come Back
Link of the moment... Please do yourself a favour and watch all of these game reviews. HILARIOUS!

My thoughts on what makes a good game

I'd rather talk about board games than study.

I can't think of a good way to introduce this topic, so I'll just jump into it. I think that to analyze whether a game if 'good' or not, you need to consider two things:

1. How many choices does a player have?

If a player makes no or few choices during the game, the game is not good. For example, consider the card game War. Both players flip the top card of their pile. There is no choice involved, so War is not a good game. Similarly, Snakes and Ladders has players rolling dice and moving their pieces with no choices to make along the way.

2. Is it obvious to players which choice is best for them when faced with a choice?

Suppose now that while playing Snakes and Ladders, players throw two dice and choose which die determines their movement for the turn. The game is still not good, because a player can easily see which roll will benefit them more based on where their piece will land. Similarly, in Monopoly, when a player lands on an unowned property and has enough money to purchase it, it is usually in their best interest to buy it. Even if the choice is not obvious (for example when trading properties with other players), there are so few choices that one bad decision can cost a player the game (which relates to point 1 about how many choices a player makes in the game).

Now in Vegas Showdown (currently my highest rated game), players make at least one decision per turn, and the outcome of each option they have is not easily determined. Should you outbid a player to get a slots room? Or should you take the lounge at the minimum price? Should I save my money for a premier tile next turn? Each decision is quite tactical (which is a topic of its own), and the outcome of each is quite different in terms of the immediate and long term effects. Since there is no noticeable 'best' option, any choice the player makes will have a minimal, yet distinct, impact on the game.

For the most part, I think that's what makes a game good. There are plenty of other considerations such as player interaction, runaway leader issues, king-making, complexity, and plenty of other stuff that I haven't mentioned, but I think this is a good start.

Listening to... Transplants - D.R.E.A.M.
Link of the moment... A good resource for game design and the such.

OMG NEW BOARD GAMES

I think I'm already starting to freak out with regards to school. I keep getting more and more work shoved under my nose. The algebra course is the least of my worries since I'm pretty well versed in it already, but even the first assignment is taking way too much of my time up. On top of that, I'm taking a seminar on operations research where I've been told that I have to prepare and deliver five hour-long lectures in October. Again, at least there's a fair bit of material that I already know a little bit about. The real kicker is the Measure Theory graduate seminar I'm taking, where I have a presentation to give in a little over a week on how to do a sample question and I don't even have the pre-requisite knowledge to keep up in class. The prof has been relating everything we do in class to metric spaces that everyone seems to nod their heads at. Well, I suppose the one analysis course that I took neglected metric spaces, so now I have to learn 39 pages worth of it ASAP. On top of that, I absolutely abhor analysis, so trying to understand the material is like trying to eat hot coals.

But, I just have to keep telling myself that the worst that can happen is I'll fail miserably in my courses, have to drop out of grad school, and disappoint a few people. It's really not a big deal at all; I applied under the assumption that I might not be able to hack it anyways. Life is too short to worry!

On the bright side, it looks like I have Mondays and Fridays free! Of course, all I'll wind up doing on the weekends is working and studying anyways, but at least now I don't have to brave the elements five days a week. As a side effect, every time I get a new email, I'm too scared to see who it's from and what it's about, because lately the majority of my emails are from profs who are either shoveling more work my way or asking me to come in to see them on my precious days off so they can shovel more work my way.

Good news though: all the board games I ordered are now sitting in my collection! I went to pick them up yesterday and spent all day cuddling with them and fondling their components. I really can't wait to play them now. I actually had to re-reorganize my storage solution since I couldn't comfortably fit all of my new games on my shelf. Everything is very well organized at the moment, and there's plenty of space for future games.

My games nights are on Wednesdays now, as suggested by Dan (who originally suggested they be moved to Thursdays). I couldn't really care less if Dan and Sheena want to go to the Outpost on the occasional Thursday night (who would go before 10 anyways??), but I really made the change for Chanel, cause she watches Grey's Anatomy which is on Thursday nights and will be starting its new season soon. I know the feeling, cause there's no way I'll ever make ongoing plans for Monday nights (that's my Prison Break and Heroes night!)

At the last games night, I got another 8 people (I'm starting to get decent turnouts again!), so we split up to play Catan and Vegas Showdown. Those finished within about fifteen minutes of each other, someone left, and then we decided to play a game that accommodates 7. No one wanted to play Bang, and the usual split of "I don't like Balderdash" and "I don't like Pictionary" prevented either of those games as well. Bohnanza was excluded for length, and I guess Apples to Apples got looked over as well.

I decided to introduce Saboteur for something new (I don't think it had seen the light of the outside world for a good year and a half). This is one of those games that is really good with the right people, and the people I played it with are very much the right people. It's got the same hidden role element as Bang and Werewolf without the player elimination, and also that some players have more information than others. It went over well enough to play four rounds, and I'm sure it will hit the table quite often in the future.

Listening to... Hoobastank - Say the Same
Link of the moment... My game collection, along with ratings and comments

Woohoo! 14 hour sleep!

So, the other day I decided that going to bed at 4 AM probably wasn't going to work well with my school schedule, so I resolved to do something about it. Of course, you can't just shift your sleep schedule back 4 hours on a whim, so my plan was to pull an all-nighter and then go to bed early the next night. I wound up staying up for an entire 32ish hours without any sleep (well actually, I sort of passed out around hour 30 for ten or fifteen minutes). I went to bed that night at 9:30, and slept 14 hours straight (I probably could have kept going if my dad didn't wake me up). Unfortunately, I don't think it fixed my sleep schedule all that much, but it was a fun little experience.

I placed an order for my board games the other day. I'm still waiting for one to get in stock, but it will probably ship within the next week or so. When choosing games to buy, I tried to get a game that would fill every need I have. I got Power Grid for a heavy game, Citadels for 4-7 people, For Sale as a quick filler game, Coloretto for another filler, Shadows Over Camelot for a good thematic game, and San Juan for a fairly deep 2-3 player game.

I think it's interesting that ever since I've put serious thought into placing an order for games online, my list of "must haves" has changed quite a bit. The first game I really wanted to buy was Alhambra, and I've since changed my mind to buying San Juan as a substitute. I was also very intent on buying Category 5, but it didn't make the cut either.

I've transformed the back room into a games room now (well, it has other purposes, but what I mean is that my tables are permanently set up in there). The lighting is a bit better in there, and there's a bit more elbow room, but there are a few nitpicky drawbacks. The fridge and microwave are now no longer within sight, and I have to shuffle chairs around quite a bit to seat everyone. We'll see how I like the setup in a few weeks.

John's in town this weekend for a wedding and most of next week as well. I can only assume I'll see him tomorrow. It'll be fun to hang out with him again.

Listening to...
Link of the moment...

Things I've created that turned out alright

Here is a picture of a few things I've created in the last while that have turned out alright. On the bottom right is my two-tone plastic poker chips. They're especially useful for Bang, to show each players' health.

On the bottom left is a DS stylus fastened into the shell of a crappy old mechanical pencil. I got the idea from a much nicer looking stylus pen, but this pen is much more comfortable to hold and use than the stylus itself. Of course, it's not as portable as the stylus, which fits into the DS case.

At the top is a box that I got from the dollar store to hold my Harry Potter cards (and perhaps one day it will hold Magic cards as well). I made some inserts out of cardstock to make three rows for the cards. Everything fits snugly (or at least it would if I had more cards to put in the box). They fit all regular size playing cards, but cards with sleeves on them are a bit too bulky.

I'm just waiting to place my board game order, now. Of the five games that I'm quite certain will go on my order, three are out of stock so I'll have to wait about a month.

Now I'm going to play euchre online.

Listening to... Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
Link of the moment... Yahoo is all funky looking now

Let's see a BIG turnout next Thursday!

Games night has been rescheduled from Tuesday nights to Thursday nights starting next week (due to Tuesday being cheap night at the local movie theater). Last Tuesday wasn't much of a games night anyways. Chris brought Mario Party 8 as he had just rented it, so a four player game of MP8 ensued (unfortunately leaving multiple people to sit and watch, something I hate doing). After that was over, Dan broke out Singstar for PS2, much to Grant's zeal. The rest of the night was nothing but loud karaoke in my basement (though I did manage to fit in a game of Hive with Adam (I finally won!) and an unfinished game of Balderdash that was quite hard to converse over).

This was quite a shame, since I really had a hankering to play Vegas Showdown which I picked up (along with Nexus Ops) at the border earlier that day. I tried to get a game tonight with the neighbours, but once again my plans fell through as they had unexpected visitors. I swear, I shouldn't even attempt to plan anything anymore, since the universe likes to spite my plans.

My mom's Mac came in the other day (did I mention she got a Mac? Cause she did). I'm in the process of migrating her files to it and organizing them in some fashion (14GB to sort through!). I already threw boot camp on it and installed XP on a partition (for all those files that I unfortunately cannot transfer over to a comparable Mac program). It's really not fun to try to sort through other peoples' messes, so I might just tell my mom to sort it out on her own time.

Super Mario Sunshine is shit. I don't like it, but dammit I'm going to beat it. I have a bad habit of being unable to control Mario while jumping, which leads to MANY frustrating attempts at the same parts of levels. Sometimes he'll want to do a wall jump when I don't want him to, or he won't when I do. Sometimes if I want to turn around and do a small hop, he'll do a crazy backflip into the endless abyss. I've never wanted to bring pain upon Mario as much as I do now.

Well, Traveler is over. Only 8 episodes long. It's a pretty good show, and it's a shame that it's not going to be renewed for a second season (especially since there are DOZENS of loose ends that I won't get to see resolved now). Chanel and I have decided that we're going to start watching Prison Break season 1 (my mom has the boxset) on Wednesday nights since Traveler is over.

Listening to... Opeth - Deliverance
Link of the moment... Quite humourous. Watch it.

SMS or SM64? OoT or WW?

If you'll take note of the sidebar, you'll see that I have completed Suikoden 3 (and it only took 57 hours!). Often, when I finish a game, I already have another one in mind to play, but unfortunately no such game has piqued my interest so far. I've been spending a bit of time on Guitar Hero 2, trying to unlock some stuff. I'm currently trying to five star all the songs no medium (which is pretty easy but time consuming).

I bought a second Wavebird the other day. I couldn't find them at a slew of store, but I eventually picked one up at Superstore for $40. The next day, I was browsing the used games at Rogers Video, and noticed that they (most assuredly mistakenly) had priced the Wavebirds at $25 ($5 cheaper than they were selling the wired controllers!). Unfortunately, I had opened the packaging on the first one, and I didn't really feel like laying down $25 for a third one.

I think in the future I'll play a Mario game and a Zelda game, but I'm not sure which of each: either Super Mario Sunshine or Super Mario 64, and either Ocarina of Time or Wind Waker. Considering I still don't have my Wii online, and since Grant has WW that I can probably borrow, I'll probably choose SMS and WW, though in the future I might have time for the other two. I was telling my friend Gennie the other day how I try to stay at least 2 years behind the times WRT video games. You'll save a lot of money that way. I didn't buy my Wii because I wanted a Wii, I bought it because I wanted a Gamecube and figured that two years from now I'd want a Wii. It's genious, I tells ya.

I ordered Nexus Ops and Vegas Showdown from Amazon.com the other day. The two games are regularly $40, but they were on for $11 each (plus $4 shipping in the US). For that price, I figured it was worth the effort to get them shipped to Grand Portage and pick them up. I had planned on picking up Nexus Ops at some point, and Vegas Showdown has got some positive feedback on BGG. They made it to Minnesota on Friday, so they should be ready to get picked up sometime tomorrow. Maybe I'll try going Tuesday morning so I can break them out at the games night.

I'd like to turn as much of my media digital as I can, in an effort to clear up some space. I have a bunch of CD cases and DVD cases that are doing nothing but sitting there on the shelf. What I'd like is to get a 500GB drive, put everything I have on it, and then sell off my DVDs (undoubtedly illegal, so don't tell anyone). Of course, if I buy a 500GB drive, it'll be SATA. To use SATA, I'll need a new motherboard. For the new motherboard, I'll need a new processor, etc. I suppose I could get an external drive or a drive enclosure, but I think my system has issues with USB 2.0 (vs. 1.1), so maybe not. Well, it's not too urgent anyways.

I played softball last weekend with Sheena, Dan, and a bunch of Dan's friends. It was quite fun. I even got a double when I was up at bat! I was sore for a few days afterwards, but I'm looking forward to the next game (Dan wants to play sports more regularly, but we'll see if anyone actually has the motivation to organize it).

Listening to... THe Dillinger Escape Plan - 43% Burnt
Link of the moment... I'm starting to track game sessions to see how often games hit the table. Geeky, eh?

Board Game collection valued at USD$401

I was doing pretty well at getting to bed early-ish and getting up early-ish these last few days, but due to my not being able to turn down a nap earlier, I can't sleep. I'm still going to get up at 9 tomorrow, but Sunday means breakfast at A&W with the family!

I was curious to know what my board game collection was valued at. Rather than estimating, or even just adding up some prices online, I whipped up a database in case I wanted to do a similar query in the future. I'm also able to sort my games by playing time and game complexity as well.

I've taken all my prices from Thought Hammer, which pretty well has the best prices on every game ever, and they're always well stocked. My valuation of $401 does not take into consideration my thrift store purchases (stuff that TH doesn't stock, like balderdash, pictionary, etc.). Also, the prices I'm using are pretty well best-case scenario, so I paid more for each game than I've accounted for (my valuation is simply how much it would cost to replace all my games by ordering on TH). It also doesn't take into consideration the taxes I've paid, so after all is said and done, I've probably spent closer to ~$550 on board games. Not too shabby.

I've watched a fair number of movies recently. The list includes Die Hard, Wedding Crashers, Clerks 2, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, and Talladega Nights. I guess I've sort of lucked out since there are actually some movies on the movie networks that I've wanted to see.

I've been invited to a softball game tomorrow. I'll know all of two people there, but I guess I should probably go. It's not as though I have anything better to do (although I'll probably be hurting for some sleep tomorrow early-afternoon). A pretty vicious thunderstorm has just started up, so we'll see if it's still raining tomorrow.

Sheena brought up a good point the other day; it would save me a lot of time if I just left my two gaming tables set up in the crawl space rather than moving furniture around every Tuesday. I think I'll do that, but first I'll need to clean up the crawl space, something I tell myself every year. I guess it's really a matter of throwing a bunch of shit out. For instance, I don't think I'll ever have enough of a need for those 15" and 17" CRT monitors (mind you, they'd be nice if I ever had another LAN party...).

I went to six different stores the other day and didn't wind up buying anything at all. I hit up Value Village and the Salvation Army looking for some cheap games, but there was nothing too amazing (besides a really old school Donkey Kong board game that even I had to pass up). I went to the Game Shelf after that. They had an "open games day", which, while I was there, comprised two guys playing Magic in the store. They had a lot of tables prepared for gaming, but until they update their website, I'm not going to try to find out about any events they hold. I think that they're catering to the more hardcore miniatures type of gamer anyways (you know, 40K and Star Wars minis). Their prices aren't all that good. Most of their games are about $5 more expensive than I'm used to. Once you hit games that are over $50 at J&J, they mark the price up quite a bit. Still, given that I intend to buy Martine a copy of Bohnanza as a going away present, they're going to get at least a little business from me.

Now where was I? Ah yes. I went to Cash Converters to see if they had any gems stashed away in their used games, but nothing caught my eye (although maybe I should have bought X-Men Legends 2 for $10). After that was Walmart, where I intended to buy a second, new Wavebird for my Wii, but they didn't have any. They did have the new wave of Heroscape minis a day earlier than they should have, but I don't really need any yet. I headed to Future Shop after that, and they also came up dry for Wavebirds. I was interested to see that Guild Wars (the original) is marked down to $30 from the original $50. If Adam ever gets a laptop, I'll probably have to buy him a copy so that I'll have a reason to play that game again (anything besides more Battlefield! It's all he wants to play, besides tetris). Guild Wars is pretty good for just playing a quest or two at a time, you never really have to worry about experience grinding.

Listening to... Soulfly - Living Sacrifice
Link of the moment... Daily updates on Super Smash Brothers Brawl on weekdays! It's the highlight of my day!

You know you're old when you can afford the things you used to have time for

So I guess I never got into chapter two of my chronicles of my Waterloo trip. It's all a blur now, so I'll never get around to it.

Well, I caved and bought the Heroscape Master Set, and now you're going to hear about it. I'm enjoying it so far, but it seems like there are so many different ways to play it that I'll never get around to trying them all to see which I like the most. It feels like you're at the mercy of the dice, but because of that, it's really quite fun. It reminds me of Risk, in a way (and I'm sure you could invent some sort of variant that has area control as well). I've played a handful of 2 player games with Adam, and even a four player match.

Even though the master set has so much in it, I think I'm going to wind up spending a lot of money on this game. I doubt I'll get any of the individual boosters unless they're on sale ($15 for two squads or four heroes is a bit much), but they're coming out with a new Master Set (which comes with lots of terrain pieces and figures). People speculate that when the new master set comes out, box stores like Walmart will put the current one on clearance to make shelf space. If that's the case, I'll probably get another copy of the current master set (if it's marked down enough) and one copy of the new one for the new units. I suppose that's quite a bit of coinage for one game, but I can just think of it as a Wii game and a half (not that I've even purchased a single new game for Wii yet, but that's beside the point!).

Listening to... Sparta - From Now to Never
Link of the moment... There's a smattering of useful information and discussion on this forum, but it's muffled by off-topic discussion and elitest snobs.

Monopoly? More like monotony.

It's been a while! I'll break up my adventures into multiple posts. I'll start off jabbering about board games for a while, I think.

While I was in Waterloo, one stop I was intent on making was to J&J to pick up some board games (since I brought a Wii to Waterloo for Andrew, I had some space in my luggage I had to fill up). I bought Dodge City, an expansion for Bang, a two player abstract game called Hive, and a starter deck for the Harry Potter TCG.

Hive has turned out to be a pleasant little suprise. I've played it a few times and have managed to lose most of those games, but it's a really nice little game. It takes no setup time whatsoever, and can be taught in about three minutes. Once you've played for five minutes and "get" the game, you can throw some interesting strategy into it right away.

I haven't played a game of the Harry Potter TCG yet, but I'm already looking to acquire some more cards. I can get 24 or 36 booster packs (11 cards each) from ebay or other online sources, but the shipping to Canada costs more than the cards themselves. I don't really know what to do about that.

I've already got a nice little list of games on the proverbial chopping block (or shopping block if you will). I suppose I've gotten most of my geek talk out of my system. I'm looking at Alhambra (for a good light 3 player game), one of Shadows Over Camelot or Arkham Horror (for a pseudo-RPG co-op game; the latter has decidedly heavier gameply and takes longer but has a nice theme), and I've been interested in HeroScape for a while (but I feel like I already have so many 2 player games that never get played).

I got a lot of game time in while I was in Waterloo. I played three games of Catan (one with 3 players, one with 5, one with 6), two games of Bohnanza, a game of Monopoly, two games of Mario Party 8, lots of Smash Bros, some really good 4 player Wii tennis, a few games of Hive. That's quite a lot of gaming in one weekend. Even after all those games of Catan, I'm still ready for more! It gets a lot of table time on Tuesdays, so I'm sure I'll get into another game soon.

I'm not really sure how many games I'll have in my collection before I think that I have enough games. I have a ton of games that I rarely play (I don't want to introduce too many to my friends at once), but there is always a set of games that I want to purchase. I really hope that once the Game Shelf gets a website up, I can hook up with some more hardcore gamers. I might even be able to come across a few gamers in the math department at Lakehead. Until then, I'm going to have to try to mold my Tuesday night crowd into hardcore gamers.

Listening to... Opeth - Deliverance
Link of the moment... HeroScape even has a nice little community and is loaded with customized scenarios.

OMG! Game store in Thunder Bay!

Hm, so I guess I'll nerd it up on my blog since I'm at a loss of other nerdy things to do at the moment.

Last Saturday I went to a concert with my mom at my old high school whose theme was video games. Even though I was well aware that I'd be subject to the usual high school concert conditions (babies crying, uncomfortable seating, idiot high school kids hamming it up), I couldn't turn down video game music. About half the songs were from Final Fantasy games, and unfortunately about half of those were from the FFs I haven't played (8, 10-2, 11, and 12). Among the songs I recognized were the generic Zelda and Mario medleys, "To Zanarkand" (FF10), "Aeris' Theme" (FF7), "Red Wings" (FF4) and the Pokemon theme.

Accompanying the Zelda medley was the worst choreographed fight between a guy dressed up as Link and some girl with a scythe (can anyone identify this character? I don't think Ganon(dorf) ever used a scythe). Actually wait, I take that back. "Choreographed" implies that they knew ahead of time what they were doing. What I saw must have been impromptu. Props to that guy for having a good Link costume. I'll finish this topic with ten words: hot high school girls dressed up as video game charcters. Yeah. I know it's wrong too. Wrong and awesome.

I've heard of a few good games lately, one of which is called Cash'n'Guns. Unfortunately, the game seems to not have been picked up by an American publisher and thus can be difficult to find. For some reason (and I really can't remember why I thought to do this), I had the bright idea of constructing the game myself and printing off a copy of the official rules. After some forum research, I found a program that lets you create custom decks (called nanDECK; if you ever need to to create a simple deck for anything, take a look). I also have used Cool Text extensively in the card design. I'm accumulating different guns as they come to me from dollar stores (I'm up to three, I need six).

Before making components for that game, I decided to make a more permanent deck for werewolf. After a little tinkering with card sizes, I've gotten to a finished product. I printed a front side and back side, used an old playing card between them for stiffness and threw them all in a clear plastic card sleeve. Normal printer paper is 20lb, I bought and used 28lb; I suggest using at least 65lb (card stock) if you are going to print a front and back and use a sleeve, otherwise shoot for 110lb if you dont' plan on using a sleeve. Two 28lb sheets are for too flimsy (these are the sorts of things you learn when you feed your nerdy habits).

I went the extra mile and constructed a tuckbox for the deck as well. It was inredibly easy considering I made a friggin' tuckbox on my first try. I used 65lb paper for this which is the heaviest I could find in the house. It's not too bad, but I might track down some 110lb paper for any I make in the future (I likely will; they're very nice looking and an upgrade from elastics).

I went to the Bookshelf (factoid: the website of the Bookshelf is www.thunderbay.com. The city's website is www.thunderbay.ca) today to track down clear plastic card sleeves. I could get 200 on eBay shipped for $5, but I figured it would be cheaper to find some locally. When I parked, I looked for a sign that said "parking for Bookshelf customers". What I saw was "Parking for Gameshelf customers". I looked up at the store next to the Bookshelf. There was no sign, but the door was open. I peered inside, and saw a girl behind a till, a lot of empty space, and a few stands set up with board games. Yes that's right my friends: Thunder Bay is getting a (dedicated) game store! They're not officially open until next weekend (or so they told me), but they sold me my card sleeves. I looked around at the stuff they had set up, but I (stupidly) didn't take note of any of the prices for comparison puposes. I did happen to look at Hive which has caught my attention lately. It had a marked price of under thirty dollars. J&J has their copies marked at $27, so if the rest of their stock has similarly comparable prices, they'll get a lot of my patronage.

Before I found out about the Game Shelf, I figured out a nice little plan to acquire games cheaply. Thought Hammer comes highly recommended on BGG, for good reason. With the Canadian dollar doing as well as it is (or is the US dollar just doing poorly?), it is much cheaper to place an order at TH and get it shipped (free if the purchase is over $125) to Ryden's (a store just across the border that handles packages) which is only about an hour drive away from Thunder Bay. I'd still have to pay some form of taxes crossing the border, but even if I have to pay some sort of fees on top of PST/GST, it would have to be extremely high to not make it worth my while. The prices at TH really are amazing.

Pictures follow:

My werewolf deck, with tuckbox in the background (yeah, I even added some "colour text" to all the role cards).


My table in all its glory (well, not all of it. I obviously don't have the legs folded out at the moment).


A close-up of one of the corners. Isn't that exposed wood rail just breathtaking?

Listening to... Iced Earth - Wolf (I've listened to this song about a dozen times in the last few days)
Link of the moment... My new TV drama fix

The one about games nights

Well, I had my second games night last night, so I guess I'll give an update on how they're going.

Last week, I got most of the regulars, plus a few people I haven't seen in a long time. No one was on time; I was hanging out with Stephanie until 8PM when more people finally showed up (I invited them all for 7PM). Once there was a sizable number of people here, I started off with Apples to Apples since it was so easy to explain, and is good for semi-large groups. It went over well as usual, but it's easy to get bored of it if you play it too much, and most of the people there had played it a few days prior.

After that, I tried to live my dream of playing Werewolf. There were 8 of us, so that meants 7 playing with me moderating. The first game was a bit haphazard since the only way to really learn the game is to play it. Grant showed uppartway through the first game, so the next game had 8 players. Chanel graciously took over moderating so I could play. Both games were really short, and as a result I'm going to say that Werewolf is no good until you get at least 10 people. 9 players means that there will be at least three votes before the werewolves can win. With only two votes, the werewolves have it way too easy. Luckily, I was able to convince most of the people there to try again when we have more people rather than giving up on the game after a bad introduction.

When we were down to seven people after that game, we broke out Bohnanza. I didn't read the rules very carefully and we didn't play correctly (you are supposed to change some stuff when 6 or 7 people play), but everyone enjoyed it quite a bit. I like it too, but I always get so impatient in trading games. This game ended at nearly 11, so everyone left after that.

Last night, I had pretty much the same crew, except that Veebs and Jason were able to make it. As I was waiting for people to trickle in, I played a game of Crib with Grant (he won), and then High Society with four and then five people. All of my friends in Waterloo hated this game upon first playing it, but it went over really well. It can be a pretty intense game at times, and I had a really good time playing it. Perhaps it helped that I explained the rules well this time, though it could just be that I was playing with the right people.

Once the second game finished, there were nine of us and I recommended we split up into different tables. I agreed to play Settlers of Catan with Grant, Veebs, and J, while everyone else said they wanted to play Bang and Bohnanza. So I first gave them a crash course in Bang. I think that the game is a bit dry when you play with all the slightly more confusing cards stripped out, but it's hard to play if you have to go to a reference sheet every five minutes. Everyone at that table had already played Bohnanza the week before, so I didn't need to worry about teaching them that. I left them to their devices, and I went to teach Catan to the others.

After a Catan tutorial, we were on our way. Everyone made quite a bit of use out of ports the entire game. It was overall a pretty friendly game. No one was really left behind, since at the end of the game, everyone was near 7 or 8 points. I've heard it's a good rule of thumb to not win any game that you're trying to teach anyone, but the dice really seemed to be coming up my way and I won (it was also getting sort of late, so I didn't want to try to wait around for someone else to win). It also went over well with everyone who played it (how could you not like Catan?), so I'm sure it'll see some playtime in the future.

Next week I'd like to get Ticket to Ride on the table, and I'm sure that at least a few games will get requested. I'm trying to avoid playing the same games week after week so that they don't get stale, so I hope I can get some new games out next week. I'm also hoping to get a bit of a better turnout. I'd still like to get a 10 or 12 player game of werewolf going, and I'd like to play in a seven player game of Bang myself so I can play with all the cards in the deck.

Wednesday is the worst day of the week cause it's as far away from games night as you can get.

Listening to... Hopesfall - April Left With Silence
Link of the moment... Funny dubbed scene from LotR

The one about board game accessories

You know what I'd like to acheive? I'd like to have more, smaller blogposts that are dedicated to only one subject. It seems pretty stupid to use labels on my posts at all if every single one uses "board games, video games". I guess on that note, I should use more labels as well (but then again I'm not sure if there's even a point in using labels at all). Anyways, in hopes of getting one step closer to that goal, I'm going to dedicate this post to all the small thoughts I've had about board game accessories.

The first accessory I started working on is a new gaming table (or poker table, if want). It's nearing completion, but the next step (padding and attaching the vinyl rail) is likely the most difficult, and shows off any mistakes I make the most. My dad has been a huge help, but at the same time he's sort of taken over my project and has made a few decisions without me that I think are making things stray from my intended plan.

Also on this note, I'm giving my older table a bit of a facelift. Nothing cosmetic, but throwing a few screws in the right places will make it a lot sturdier. I also took 2 inches off each leg for the following reason: in a poker game, each player only really needs to see the cards in front of them. In a board game, each player has to see the whole board to get a good grasp of what's going on. So, it follows that a lower table will let you get a higher view of the whole board more readily. I really hope that it's not too low so as to impede anyone's sitting, but I'll have a slew of tables that serve slightly different purposes.

Another great idea I had is to use a cribbage board to keep score for games for which one needs to keep score. For instance, Ticket to Ride has a track around the edge which isn't that bad, but Lost Cities has no way to keep score with the game (so it's usually pen and paper). Many a people have complained about Carcassonne's board only going to 50, so it's hard to see when someone has passed 50 points. I already had red, blue, and green pegs, I spraypainted some extra ones black (turned out pretty nice), and I'm using white pegs to represent yellow, so that it covers all the basic colours. I would like to have yellow pegs, but acrylic paint didn't work, and I don't want to go spend five bucks on yellow spraypaint for three measly cribbage pegs.

While on a spraypaint high (not literally), I went crazy with painting some Memoir '44 pieces. I spraypainted the sandbags tan, and the hedgehogs and wire bundles in grey. I think they look so much nicer than the default army colours. My neighbour had the grey paint, so it didn't really cost me anything but a few minutes. I also used the tan paint to spraypaint the bases of the Through the Desert desert (green palm tree trunks? blech).

I also spraypainted one side of a whole slew of red plastic poker chips black. I plan to use these wherever I need to represent life points. The only thing I can think of off the bat is Bang, where you'd normally use a card covering part of another card to represent your health. It's easy to budge a card out of place, and difficult to see how close to death someone across the table is. Again, well worth the few minutes it took.

I picked up a bunch of plastic storage boxes from the dollar store. I'm using two for Memoir '44 whose pieces are hard to manage. The two fit very nice and snug in the game box. They fit just about everything perfectly, besides the cards and terrain hexes which I still keep in the remnants of the plastic insert. I'm using another for Through the Desert which will make setup time much faster, and it too fits perfectly in the game box. I'm using a fourth one for general game pieces (namely dice, those coloured cribbage pegs, and those red and black chips I mentioned earlier). Each one of those boxes is a dollar VERY well spent.

Lastly, I plan to get some 1" by 1" wood and cutting some shallow, angled cuts into it to make a bunch of 10" playing card holders. I got the idea from the plastic holders that Memoir '44 has. They make it much easier to consider all your options for any games that use cards with text on them. In longer games, too, it gets annoying to have to keep all your cards clenched in your hand.

Well, I think that's all! I'm also trying to get my poker chips back from Adam (who seems to have left them at a friend's house), as I've heard from other gamers that poker chips are far superior to paper money or cardboard coins for any game that uses currency that is passed around a lot.

Listening to... Dcay - In Step
Link of the moment... For only $15 at the Superstore, I couldn't refuse

Hit the peg! Hit the peg!

Argh, thanks for waking me up, truck outside. Curse you!

I feel like I've been quarantined in my house lately. I can't seem to find anyone to hang out with. No one is phoning me, and anyone I phone is busy or not answering their phone. It was a pretty boring weekend; I just watched some movies on the movie networks.

Spiderman 3 spoilers
I watched Spiderman 3 on Friday, at a matinee. The theatre was only about half full. I don't want to give a full on review (I'm not a movie buff, so anything I say would just be coming from someone who doesn't know shit about production values and such), but I do want to say that I'm unimpressed with the way venom turned out. Topher Grace is not the right casting choice! They didn't put enough effort into building up Eddie Brock's hatred for Spiderman and Peter Parker. We saw Eddie lose his job, and have his camera broken, and even have his "girlfriend" stolen, but I never got the impression that it was all adding up and making him go mad.

On top of that, I didn't like how after Eddie supposedly reached his breaking point, he's still making wisecracks to Spiderman. I like how Scott Dewitt says that "Venom was the same dork as Eric from That 70's Show. Venom. Not the guy that turns into Venom. Venom himself is a dork". Venom and Eddie Brock really are two different characters, and there wasn't enough in the movie to get that point across. One thing I really missed not seeing as well was Venom calling himself "we", to show that the symbiote is a part of him, and not just something to enhance his powers. But enough of that.
END Spiderman 3 spoilers

I'm QUITE excited about my games night tomorrow night. I've had this fascination with werewolf ever since I had the idea of playing it. I've put a fair amount of effort into considering which roles to use, and how to handle voting in the day phase. I've whipped up some reference sheets for the roles and their powers, set aside some playing cards to assign roles to players, and even scrounged up some poker chips in hopes that the assist in the voting process. Now, all I've got to do is wait to actually play the game!

I picked up the Megaman X collection for Gamecube, as previously mentioned. So far I've blown through the first game, and I'm starting on the second. Even with all my heart tanks and four full energy tanks, the final boss took me countless attempts. Most of the time, I wouldn't be watching my health bar and found myself dead before I could use an energy tank. If memory serves correctly, X2 is just as hard, if not harder if I try to get the good ending by defeating three extra bosses.

I've been thinking of building my own poker table, using one of these designs. My old one is sort of in shambles, and if my weekly games nights actually pan out, having a nice table would go a long way. I've never been that good at that sort of stuff though. Even when I just changed the fabric on the old table, it came out in worse whape than when I started. I think I'm just too impatient. If I throw actual carpentry on top of that, I'm sure the end product won't turn out as it looks in my dreams. Still, I think stuff like that can be fun, and it's nice to have something that you built with your own two hands and can be proud of. I think I'll just mull over it some more.

Listening to... Death By Stereo - These are a Few of my Favorite Things
Link of the moment... They make it look so easy!

There's been a change in plans.

Well, it looks like I'm not going home on Wednesday this week anymore. Now, Hugh is coming with me and we're leaving on Friday and doing a one-day trip. Unfortunately, that means that I'm either going to have to wake up really early to make it home at a reasonable time, or stay up late and drive through the night. I'm not sure what I'll do. It will probably depend a lot on what my sleep schedule wants to do in the next week.

I graduated! I'm a university graduate! I now have a Bachelor's degree in Combinatorics and Optimization behind me. I'm just waiting for one more mark to come in, but I have no reason to beleive I failed Network Flow.

This past weekend was one big party. On Friday, Julie wrote her last exam, so John, Julie, Hugh and I went out to the Huether for some food, then to the Silver Spur. It wasn't really that wild of a time. For some reason, everyone called it quits pretty early. I wanted to go to the Starlight to get my groove on, but the line was way too long.

On Saturday, Nicole came into town for a visit. The bunch of us, along with Katie and her friend Kat, went bowling and then for an end-of-term dinner at Red Lobster. For some reason, I've been feeling a bit queasy lately, so I'm not sure if seafood was the best choice. No one actually finished all of their meal, so I didn't feel too bad taking the rest of mine to go. After that, there was some Super Jeopardy on NES and some Apples to Apples.

Katie had invited us to her "dance party" that night too, so we headed over. I gotta say, it wasn't as hopping as I'd thought. There was some pretty tame music, and they were all playing some drinking game when we got there. Regardless, a good time was had by most. I offered Caroline a ride home (well, actually I think she asked), so my crew went home at that point. Afterwards, I stopped off at Katie's again for a farewell game of euchre with Jordan, since she was leaving the next day.

Today is John's last day. That is, he's heading for the airport later today with Julie. Of course, when Hugh and I pull in to Thunder Bay later this week, the four of us will hang out anyways, so it's not much of a goobye.

I finally got a hold of Memoir '44 after my last exam, and I've played both sides (Axis and Allies) of the first scenario (Pegasus Bridge). I'm having a tough time liking it, solely because Andrew absolutely massacred me both times, proving that he didn't just get lucky with one overpowered side. I'm hoping Adam doesn't have the same luck when I introduce him to the game.

Listening to... The Black Mages - Fight With Seymour (FFX)
Link of the moment... Play Coloretto online (against Bots)

Memoir '44 is out of stock? GAH!

I must be the target of a conspiracy...everytime I go to J&J with one game in mind, they don't have it in stock! It happened first with Thurn and Taxis (which I eventually got a hold of (but have yet to play)), and now it's happened again with Memoir '44! They say they're getting a Days of Wonder shipment in this week, but they're not sure if Memoir '44 will be in it. I hope so, because I'd really like to pick it up before I leave Waterloo. It seems like the kind of game that Adam would be interested in, and I don't have any wargames in my collection (besides Risk 2210, blech). I also had hoped to pick up Kill Doctor Lucky and Bohnanza, but they only had the latter in stock (I guess one out of three aint bad?).

I've also been thinking about picking up a mixed lot of Magic cards on eBay, or a starter set. No matter how many games I get, I'll never have enough to satiate my thirst. I certainly have no hopes of being one of *those* Magic players. You know, the ones that buy booster pack after booster pack, hoping to score one of those rares that they need to have an unbeatable deck. No, I just want something I can divy up between some chums and play when I need my nerd itch scratched. I mean, MTG has been around as long as it has, so the gameplay must have some sort of redeeming qualities.

In case you haven't noticed, I'm trying to include more links in my posts. I don't suppose any of you have said "jeez, I wish Kevin would direct me to a page with more information about his favourite board games", but you never know. If I can infect one of you with my gaming disease, I'll consider it a success.

While I'm (still) on the subject of games, let me tell you a little story. When I last played Catan with Jordan and Katie, they mentioned that they were walking through the V1 cafe one day, when someone asked if they wanted to play some guy's game. They told me that he had gotten it published. This had reminded me of some guy who was showing off his game at a WATSFIC games day, saying he was trying to get it published. Long story short, they were one and the same. Having played the game, I didn't think it was that great. Someone (Andrew?) said I shouldn't trash talk him, since he got his game published, something I probably couldn't do. Since then, I've been trying to get inpiration to design a game of my own, and I think I've finally got something workable. I'm working out the kinks, but so far I'm thinking of an old west theme, with "simultaneous action selection" (ala Diplomacy). We'll see if I can make something workable out of it.

I've also been looking into Arkham Horror, but I'm not sure how much use I would get out of a 3 hour long, heavy weight game that requires a few playthroughs to get used to. Ok. I'm done talking about games for a while. Thanks for letting me indulge.

Listening to... The Offspring - Something to Believe In
Link of the moment... I have SERIOUSLY got a one-track mind