dgeisert

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dgeisert

New Era

Also at Brian’s we played New Era. Stephanie left for her horseback riding lesson, but Adam, Andrew, and Brian stayed to play. The game was quite interesting. It took elements of worker placement, resource management, tableau building, engine building, and drafting. The game was a lot of fun, but really hard to grasp fully in the first play through. I got last in this game as well, but was doing well until the final turn. The part of the game that I didn’t quite get was how the point engines you make mid-game don’t survive until the end of the game. Anything making points can only do it 3 times before it stops, meaning that you will constantly have to look for other ways to get the points you needed. The other players will also be attacking your buildings so planning too far in advance will leave you vulnerable. The ability to interact with other players tableaus is what brought the game together, and made it a multiplayer game. The only other interaction is the drafting, but that wouldn’t make it much of a board game. That being said factory fun is a great game and the only player interaction in that game is the drafting. I really enjoyed the game, despite my engine falling apart towards the end.

BGG Link

August 6, 2013 0

Fish Cook

We played a good game of Fish Cook at Brian’s place for an EGD. The game was going well and I thought I was taking the lead, but other players were making many more recipes, and the fish they were using were much cheaper. That lead to the differential being more for them even though my recipes were worth more. I ended up in last place on that game, but still had fun doing it.

BGG Link

August 6, 2013 0

Bike Ride and Farmer’s Market

Yesterday morning, Stephanie and I went by the California Avenue Farmer’s Market. We biked there and had a really nice time. I got a samosa and a mango lasi, and Steph got bolani and tofu. We ran into Nima and Caryn there. Nima had 2 of his friends from Canada visiting and was showing them around. I have to say that the Cal Ave farmer’s market is a good choice for a taste of California.

August 6, 2013 0

A Memory of Light: Wheel of Time 14

This was a fantastic book. The whole thing was packed with great action, unexpected plot twists, and moving scenes of valor and love. I got choked up at a few points in the book when main characters died or something really lovely happened. I also really liked the ending, and especially the subtle ways the final sequence with Rand plays out.

The series overall was grand, and I think too expansive in many ways. The levels upon levels of complexity that were there seemed needless. There were so many different alternate universes, ways to move between them, and things that were there that it seemed like he would just invent something because he needed a tool that fit the specific instance, but didn’t go much beyond that. Despite the multiplicity of everything there was a nice stacking to it all. The snakes and foxes was the furthest I think any of it was pushed, with some of the testing universes also pushing the envelope. The characters did develop well over time, but seemed to be a little too at ease with everything that was happening. He had stated that they should show a bit more reluctance than other books of the genre, but I’d say the reluctance didn’t show through as much as it should have. This is especially true towards the end of the series.

This series is the second best I’ve read, only second to A Song of Ice and Fire. I’d highly recommend reading all of these, but you will need to set aside a huge chunk of time to accomplish such a massive task.

August 4, 2013 0

Rooster T Feathers Comedy Club

This evening I joined Steph, Nick, Tina, Amit, Candice, and Brian at Rooster T Feathers for a Comedy night. The MC was pretty good, the first act (Sandy Stec) had great jokes and ok timing, and the main act (Sheng Wang) was really funny with only a few jokes that fell short. I had a really good time and will probably be going back for more comedy shows. They had a special for tonight, with $10 for 2 people, but you had to buy 2 items from the menu each as well. I got 2 drinks, since afterwards we were going to Shah. The food at Shah was a little bland, but I did really like the aloo naan (potato stuffed bread).

August 3, 2013 0

Sailing

We had a good trip aboard the Cat35. The seas were rather smooth and the wind was steady and strong. That led to the day being less seasick than the other trips , as well as less eventful. I had a good time as we did get to see a number of otters, dolphins, and birds. Riley did get sick, but only for the shortest period of time. Overall 9 of the 14 people we’ve taken out have gotten sick. in the first 2 trips we only had 1 person each trip that wasn’t getting seasick. We got much more lucky on this one, and the only person to get seasick only did so momentarily. Rong, Steph, Riley, Bo, and Yumi were there with me. Rong was the only one brave enough to take the wheel for any period of time. I was surprised when Bo wasn’t up for steering. There was a pod of maybe 6 dolphins about 1.5 miles from the entrance to the harbor, which we passed on the way out and back in, they weren’t doing anything fancy. They were also quite small dolphins.

August 3, 2013 0

Innovation

Nick and I played a round of Innovation the base game. I got an early lead, but Nick quickly caught up. He was 1 achievement away from winning, but I was able to super tech up and stop him from his last one. Then I was able to use the super tech to score a ton of points and take the game. It was really close the entire time and a little bit of a change would have made the difference in the game.

BGG Link

August 3, 2013 0

A Trip to the Vet

The kitties went to the vet today, and they did well. Archer was meowing the entire way, he doesn’t stop at all while he is in the carrier. He was great while we were actually in the exam room. He was on my shoulder most of the time, and was really nice. Lana was a bit more of a pain since she wouldn’t let me hold her. One more trip to the vet before they have all their vaccines done.

August 2, 2013 0

Keyflower

This was a really good game, but it was both longer and shorter than I would have liked. The number of rounds was a little few, since the engine building didn’t really get the chance to take off. I always feel that in any engine building game you need the game to end just before the engines get out of control. It may have been our inexperience with the game, but we weren’t even close to having the game get out of control. I had a great time doing it though. I think the game would be better with fewer options per round and more rounds.

I played it twice. The first was Adam, Steph, and Brian playing with me. Steph did not join in the second game. I got second to Adam in both situations, as he was able to exploit two really well developed strategies. I was very close to winning the second game, but Brian blocked one of my big point tiles by 1 meople.

BGG Link

August 2, 2013 0