Life update

I figured I should talk to you readers about my current issues with posting regularly. Being an adult really sucks for me lately. Responsibility has really been piling up.

For those of you who don’t know I made the decision to go back to school. I had expressed some dissatisfaction with my job to my manager in the fall. Being 35 and having the same job title as Beaker from the Muppets was getting me down. She was extremely supportive and directed me to a course I could take to advance in the lab. She even helped me secure funding to be reimbursed for the course if I complete it.

I’m less than a month from completing the course and I’m more than a little stressed. The work is getting steadily more difficult and intense. At least it’s also getting more fascinating. By the end of the course I will be a certified tissue specialist. Meaning I will be recovering and processing human tissue for transplant: a considerable step up from lab assistant.

Now I’m working full time, going to school, working on our new home, on top of the usual other family commitments. Some things are falling through the cracks. Right now school and work are my biggest priorities so I apologize if I don’t post as often in the next while.

The course ends on May 25^th so I should be gold after that. I took that week off of work so I can go all hermit at home with my studies and really hit the books for the big final exam.

You know what really sucks about this? I had to miss out on the Calgary Expo last weekend. My Facebook feed is full of friends posting about it. I keep seeing them with Bruce Campbell, The Doctor (Matt Smith) and Amy Pond, the cast of Aliens, Alfonso Riberio, Danny Glover, and the Highlander Adrian Paul. At least staying home means I didn’t spend my money... or the banks money. And I worked on Ocular transplant stuff so I kept it nerdy and interesting. The wife… she really wanted to go too. But she has some plague and is a total snot machine. So I guess it worked out for the best... sorta kinda...

Ah well, there’s always Edmonton Expo in the fall. I really hope Sigourney Weaver comes to that. She’s one of my big celebrity crushes; same with Karen Gillian (Amy Pond.) Matt Smith would be cool but Tom Baker is my Doctor.

Well, I'm working on a few board game reviews but nothing is quite done yet. Hopefully I will have one up soon.

Thanks for your patience and once again sorry for my lack of updates!

The new Game Room

The wife and I bought a new townhouse recently. Now that we are mostly settled we decided to set up a game room in the basement. I’m really in love with the space but we haven’t had anyone over for game night yet.

To start off we had two bookshelves in the old apartment to store our games. They are a little full so we are looking for some more. Mostly for my RPG books to go down into the game room but some of the game boxes are too large so we need somewhere to better store them.

We wanted a new table for down there and asked at John at Mission Fun and Games where to get one. He went into their storage room and brought out some table toppers. We liked the one but I was on the fence about it. He offered us a deal and when I mentioned we would need to get a table he ran back into storage to bring out a round pedestal table. Turns out some were left over from when the building was a restaurant so he threw that in for free. I couldn’t resist the deal. I think he was happier than us because it’s out of his way in the storage area.

My sister is big into Kajiji shopping and she let us know about some chairs being sold for cheap: $60 for ten. We called only to discover we had sat in those chairs at our wedding. The hotel was selling off the old chairs because they were getting new ones in their renovation. Chairs elsewhere were $60 each so now we have an old school looking room.

It all fits in because the room has an outlet and phone jack every couple of feet: 13 in total. We think it was used as a call center. There was a debate on whether we should run a 1-900 number out of there to earn back money but my wife was a little against that. I’m happy with a game room.

My mom is big into knick knacks and has bought me a few over the years. So of course I put them up in the game room. The bear and buffalo heads are from her, as are the monkey clock and the African mask. I snagged the green man from my grandparent’s cabin when they sold it. The Kit Rae dagger was a collectible I bought. The light sabres my wife’s sister and husband bought us as a wedding present will be going in there somehow.

We added in our old microwave on a stand in the basement. We will be filling the stand with snack food to make game night easier. We have a small chest freezer and a wine fridge in the basement too so that makes for a lazier snack run. I’m wanting another beer fridge for right in the room but the budget is way to tight to get that any time soon.

Finally there is a washroom in the basement. It’s a toilet and sink in the ugliest colour scheme ever. Someday we will update it. I think my wife has that renovation higher on the “to budget for” list than the beer fridge. The old owner left room deodorizing spray cans in every room of the house. I moved them all down to the basement bathroom after my brother designated it his pooping bathroom. I also threw in some bathroom reading: Dilbert and the Big Book of Being Rude.

What I really want to get is a video game cabinet for down there. I know of one local supplier called Retroactive Arcade that I keep looking at. Again the budget it not really open to that yet. Maybe if my lottery investment ever pays off.

Hopefully we can kick off a routine game night session sometime in the near future.  We actually haven't used the room yet. School and work are holding us back right now but my schedule will clear up before summer. I can work on my nerd tan down there.

Battleship board game review.

My brother and I spent many an afternoon playing battleship in the basement. My parents even got us the electronic battleship. It’s still in their basement somewhere. The memory will no reset so it still has a game from the late 80s stored forever. I like to think that a piece of our childhood will live on forever and someday long after the machines have taken over they will pull up the memory. They will see my military genius and seek to clone the master of the electronic battleship.

Okay that will never happen. Battleship is a very light strategy game of guess where the ships are. Two players place their ships on a board the other player cannot see in the first part of the game. The second part of the game has the players alternately calling out coordinates as shots. If it hits a ship you call hit, if it misses you call miss. The whole point of the game is to sink the other player’s fleet.

The game actually plays very slowly and has little to do with actual naval warfare. The ships do not move, unless you are my brother then you cheat like crazy and we fight until dad gets home. The alternating blind guessing gets very tiresome after a while and then the game goes back into dust collection mode.

I do harbour a lot of nostalgia for battleship as I actually had fun playing it with my brother, especially the fighting over it. It’s a game I am willing to play only very occasionally. It just gets very dull very quickly.

I have no idea why there was a movie made after this game. I actually would prefer watching people play the game than watch that terrible movie.

To sum up Battleship is a mediocre game. I would only recommend this to those with nostalgia for the game or for parents who would like another source of conflict for their children. It will keep them busy up until they tire of the game and begin to argue over it.

Red Dragon Inn Allies game review

Yet another Red Dragon Inn post from me. This time it’s on all of the single character expansions called Allies. I find these expansions fun and interesting. They are great if you only need one or two more characters for your game group to play. Since the characters fit with the base game rules there’s no need to go over those again so I will jump right into the characters.

First off is my wife’s favourite: Pooky. For those familiar with Red Dragon Inn the resident wizard Zot has a familiar named Pooky. He’s a bunny with some insanity issues and now you can play him too. Pooky has an extra mechanic where his mood slowly descends into psychotic where he becomes very damaging to other players’ fortitude. He plays a lot like Kaylin from Red Dragon in 3 but Pooky’s mood fluctuates much more rapidly. Pooky is definitely a character for your table’s wild card player.

My favourite ally is Cormac the Mighty. A barbarian of great power and drunkenness and by Crom he reminds me of someone… He has a mechanic where certain cards have a rage icon. Once used these rage icon cards go into the rage pile instead of the discard pile. Cormac slowly builds his rage until the next rage marker turns. Each increase in rage increases the fortitude damage he deals. However it does increase the rate at which he gets drunk as well. His rage is a double edged sword, one he will use to crush his enemies, see them driven before him and hear the lamentation of their women!

Erin the Everchanging is an interesting ally. She is the resident shapeshifter. Depending on your stance in the game you can be an aggressively damaging bear, a gold loving raven, a sober tree or an elf. Knowing when to change and why is very important for her. Erin is a great character for the cunning strategist player.

The Witchdoctor Natyli is the last of the Allies out at this point. A witchdoctor with a bag of curses who just so happens to be Brewmaster Phrenk’s niece. A nice touch for those who really get into the role play Her cards are really funny for the subtle voodoo doll art. Her hexes are needles in the side: her mind hex ups the alcohol content of your next drink, her pain curse increases the damage of the next incoming attack and her most sinister mind hex decreases your next card value by one. The mind hex often completely nullifies some much needed cards. Natyli is great when you are working with her against another character. When she teams up against you she can be a real… witch… doctor.

Each of these characters does have a downside. Natyli is pretty underpowered, Cormac can get drunk under the table if he doesn’t build his rage fast enough, Pooky always seems to be a big target and Erin is a very basic wooden character (pun intended.) All of the characters require other players to constantly watch how they are played. Often players can forget to change a mood or form leaving themselves in a powerful position. Missing these required changes can really unbalance a game. New players will definitely be confused by these characters extra mechanics. The components of the boxes (namely the gold and player boards) are very different from the base game. Aesthetically this makes for an ugly mash-up but you can always use the components from RDI 1, 2, or 3 so it’s more of a nitpicky issue.

To sum up each of the characters has their pros and cons but for a collector of Red Dragon Inn or for a player who really likes the style of an ally these are great buys. Of course you do get more characters for your dollar with the other boxes of Red Dragon Inn. The Allies do not include drink decks so you will need to get the base game but being able to choose characters on player preference is a definite plus, I hope to see more allies in the future. As always I love Red Dragon Inn so I don’t think you can go wrong with this game or choosing your favourite Allies to play with.