Random Babblings

Well, it’s that time of year again.  The bags are mostly packed, the weekend is clear, and we’re headed to Williamsburg for the weekend.  I’ve attended most of the MarsCons since about 1992, and Lisa started joining me in about 1997.  This has transition from a gaming convention for us into more of a social gathering, seeing people we only see once or twice a year.  It’s a relaxing weekend, but sometimes that’s exactly what you need.

Our monthly game day was the 5th, and a full day of games it was. I haven’t really mentioned it here before though. Lisa and I belong to the Tidewater Strategy Group. As a group we get together one a month for a full day of board games, and the rest of the moth random people get together at peoples houses or the local game stores. There’s 30+ people in the group and between members and guests there’s usually 25-30 people at a game day. But on to the games…

(continue reading…)

Yes I’m still alive, just life gets away sometimes.

Been playing a lot of Guitar Hero. Finished Hinterland (4/5) and am on to the next Honor Harrington novel. Saw Sweeny Todd (3/5), and played quite a few games at Game Day.

I’ll try and expound on these over the next few days.

I Am Legend an adaptation of the novel by Richard Matheson, staring Will Smith. I say adaptation and not “based on” since the story line is quite changed. Getting away from that it was quite a good film.

Not having much to do today, Lisa and I headed out to the movies. We had discussed seeing this when it was released but events and timing got in the way, so we held off till this vacation week. Despite some negative commentary from folks at Lisa’s work, we’re glad we went and saw this.

When we first saw the previews we didn’t know what to expect, they didn’t reveal much of the plot, just that Will Smith was the only survivor of some catastrophe. Then as more commercials and previews came out we thought it was a Zombie movie. A little digging into the history of the original novel said Vampire. Neither of these are quite true, but the disease in the movie is portrayed as a little of both. Despite the horror/suspense genre not being our normal cup of tea, both Lisa and I wanted to see this movie. For Lisa at least there was some drool factor in Will Smith, but the concept of such an actor doing essentially a “one man show” was a good draw as well.

This movie could have been an effects fest, and probably many people went in expecting it. In the end the movie is all about the story, the story about the “last man” on earth and how he has survived, and how such solitude takes it’s toll. Will Smith manages to pull off a remarkable portrayal of a man fighting to save the world while at the same time fighting to save himself.

When you go to see this remember to turn off that blockbuster mentality. This movie is not meant to be that despite it’s budget. Instead, go in ready to care about the characters of this movie, because it’s hard not to.

Overall 4/5.

An evening of games at Duane & Steve’s was started (after an abortive attempt at Pinochle) with the gem known as Space Shuffle.

We cracked open the box, opened the deck of cards and immediately started shuffling, after all it is the name of the game. Duane tells us to stop as we missed the player ”

Two solar systems immediately take shape, and play progresses smoothly. A mostly yellow solar system (no player) and a mostly green solar system (me of course) shape up nicely, and purple cards (Steve) are nowhere to be seen. Steve makes a comment to the effect of “I think I hate this game”, my response is “I know who else hates this game… the scorekeeper”. To which Duane responds “watch it or that’ll be you”.

The score keeping in this game truly is tedious, and a few times people got too into the grove of playing for Duane to keep up on the score keeping duties. The game proceeds ok for the most part, the first solar system closed is a solid blue one. We continue toward the end, and as we are playing out the last cards in our hand, I get to play 3 cars in a row to end the game. Still wasn’t enough to win the game. Scores are scattered between 170 and 120.

Overall a run of the mill card game, I won’t be suggesting it any time soon.