I believe there's a new study out there showing that the more coffee you drink, the more it does to counteract excessive alcohol consumption. So, drink up everyone. All around.
Getting Dicey
This post is taking the place of Pixel Perfect Memories. Because I want to incorporate board games into this feature, I want to come up with a better name. So far, "Getting Dicey" is all I got. If anyone has a suggestion, please share.
I plan on using this feature to share about new board games I've played and heard of, and to speak about the board game hobby in general. Video games are still welcome, though I will probably not share much in that department
There's a gaming group that gets together here in Bloomington Normal every Wednesday. I'm lucky to get there about once a month (because I'm busy with kid's activities). This Wednesday, kids' activities were cancelled, so I took advantage.
First game was played was Russian Railroads. Despite the name, this is nothing like Ticket to Ride or Railways of the World or other such train type games. It's a medium-heavy Euro worker-placement game. You start with 5-6 workers and place them on areas of the main board in order to advance your own board, which represents your personal railways. You have three rails you are trying to develop, along with an industry track. Each one can produce points in different ways, and it's up to you to maximize the value among the tracks. It's somewhat difficult to explain, and the themeing is not intuitive, but I love this game. I've been playing this for a while online, and I really want to get the home version, but unfortunately I don't see myself getting this to the table very often.
Second game we played was Betrayal at House on the Hill. In this game, you're a character in a B-type horror movie, checking out an old abandoned house... on a hill. The twist is that halfway through the game, the "haunt" is revealed, and one of your characters turns into the villain. From then on, it's the traitor vs. the rest of the players in a battle of good vs. supernatural evil. The game has several different scenarios, which gives it great replayability.
Finally, we played Formula De which has since been redone as Formula D. In this game, you play a race car driver, pretty simple. It's a fairly straight forward roll-and-move game, but each turn, you have the choice to shift up or down, which changes what die you roll, and with it, how far you can go. There are turns which you'll have to stop with one of your die rolls, or suffer consequences. We played a much simpler rule set, and I would like to play it again with the real rules.
Next time, I'm going to preview my trip to Geekway to the West in St. Louis May 14-17.
What have you been playing?
Happy Birthday–March 30
Tom Burns (1857)
George Van Haltren (1866)
Ripper Collins (1904)
Dick Fowler (1921)
Dick Woodson (1945)
Grady Little (1950)
Jason Dickson (1973)
Jeriome Robertson (1977)
Josh Bard (1978)
Shairon Martis (1987)
Grady Little was the manager of the Boston Red Sox from 2002-03 and the Los Angeles Dodgers from 2006-07.
Josh Bard was drafted by Minnesota in the thirty-fifth round in 1996, but did not sign.
The Blow – True Affection
Okay, I have many complex feelings about these guys this gal. First off, she finds great people to collaborate with. Her studio albums are sonically pretty cool (and as she's singing over a recording, you'll get an idea of it). However, her schtick can get a little annoying. I mean, a lot of her songs, I think it's a conscious thing to kind of make a point, but that doesn't make it any less annoying. Kind of like a Girls type of thing, maybe. I don't know. That said, I still dig Khaela and her tunes, regardless of how nutty she is/may be.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttyRfev8wRc
2006
There really aren't any good live cuts out there at all, so this will have to do.
Amy Macdonald – Born to Run
Another woman singing about running? You got it.
httpv://youtu.be/7rA0VQ30vQ4
Happy Birthday–March 29
Cy Young (1867)
Duff Cooley (1873)
Bill Dietrich (1910)
Tommy Holmes (1917)
Ferris Fain (1921)
Denny McLain (1944)
Bill Castro (1952)
Tom Hume (1953)
Domingo Ramos (1958)
Mike Kingery (1961)
Billy Beane (1962)
Laz Diaz (1963)
Eric Gunderson (1966)
Brian Jordan (1967)
Alex Ochoa (1972)
Danny Kolb (1975)
Laz Diaz has been a major league umpire since 1999.
Danny Kolb was drafted by Minnesota in the seventeenth round in 1993, but did not sign.
March 29, 2015: Play Button
Nice day off for me here. Rare that i get a Sunday.
May 28, 2015: Misdirected
I had a guy in the store yesterday who was really, really annoyed with me personally because his favorite TV manufacturer doesn't make a TV in the size he wanted. People are strange.
Happy Birthday–March 28
Jimmy Barrett (1875)
August Busch (1899)
Lon Warneke (1909)
Vic Raschi (1919)
Garland Shifflett (1935)
Glenn Davis (1961)
Shawn Boskie (1967)
Craig Paquette (1969)
August Busch, owner of the Anheuser-Busch Company, bought the St. Louis Cardinals in 1953.
Craig Paquette was drafted by Minnesota in the 36th round in 1987, but did not sign.
Liz Phair – Cinco de Mayo
Love me some Liz.
1994
Unfortunately, there weren't too many videos from back in the day that captured her as she deserved (audio is pretty crappy all around too). Here's one more classic (with better audio, and a little less wooden performance) that we obviously couldn't lead with, but deserves mention all the same.