Yesterday after biking back from Beachhead, I ran into Nick as he was getting up. We decided to hang out that morning, and went to the Chocolate Garage where I got the milk chocolate Momotombo. We also went by the Saturday farmer’s market in downtown Palo Alto, and got Mexican food there. We went over to the east bay to pick up Howard, and after dropping Howard off we stopped by the Palo Alto Animal Services. I played with the kittens there and had a great time. I am looking forward to getting 2 of them later this week. I’ll go back mid-week and pick 2 out based on how well they respond to being held and having their bellies rubbed. I spent the afternoon at Beachhead, and picked up some supplies for Steph to make her Faith carrier bag along the way. I also stopped by Milk Pail and picked up some dinner. I grabbed some spinach gnocci that I’m hoping to have this week. I’m not sure what sauce I’m going to put with it, but should be tasty now matter how it is prepared.
This book didn’t have all that much action directly revealed. There was a lot of plotting and a lot of hinting at action, but not all that much happened. There was plenty of setup for what will be coming in the next few books, but I was disappointing in what actually happened in this one. Much of the long action sequences has been taken out and replaced by small explosions and incessant plotting. I liked the longer travel narratives instead of the short battles mixed with large pieces of politics.
I introduced Nima to the worker placement genre with Stone Age last night. I used Nick’s strategy of getting a large population and never feeding them. This works out if you continually get points, and I was able to get 12 huts. I was able to get a score of 187 and Tina had a score of 178. Jeff didn’t do too well as he didn’t choose a strategy. Tina was using the card and agg strategy. Nima had fun, but didn’t know enough about what he was doing to get a good score. He did copy us decently well, so that his score wasn’t bad.
Many things happened in this book, with the final part being the unknown takedown of a forsaken. Rand almost dying was strange, and the instance that brought it about stranger. Some of the parts of this book seemed forced and contrived. Especially now that almost everyone has the ability to travel instantly there are contrived situations to keep them from doing that to fix everything quickly. The limit of information is probably the biggest limitation that is left at this point. I’m wondering how the other books will keep this limitation and the story in line.
I finally met the 4th Roommate. He is a pretty chill guy from first impressions, and hopefully he will join us at board games night.
I asked him about getting kitties and he said he is ok with it! So now it is time to start ordering and planning for the kittens. I’m so excited about kitties!
I had a great time in the city today. I took Caltrain in and biked to Chris’ place. We worked on our respective items, and he was nice enough to make me some eggs with spinach, tomato, and onion. He also gave me some delicious tea. He always has the tastiest loose leaf tea. We worked until around 1:30, when I left to go meet Bo at Sightglass Coffee. The coffee was pretty good, but I still prefer tea to coffee. We talked over a lot of stuff, and he seems to be doing well with the Meteor work. Even though he isn’t working for Meteor directly he seems to be doing the next best thing. I caught the train back and stopped by Milk Pail and Safeway on the way home.
I had a great time playing against Nima today. It was still strongly sided towards Nima with the games going 4-1 Nima-David. I think we are both getting better, but he is outpacing me. He agrees, especially since we are having to run so much more than we used to. The long bouts of hitting it down the middle are pretty much over. I’m looking forward to all the games on Tuesdays and might try to get Chris to play with me some other day of the week and I can catch up to Nima in skill level. It would also be nice to play with Chris anyway.
I played some volleyball today, but only Nima was there out of the people I know. The other people we were able to play with were really good, and I could tell that I was the worst player there. They were really nice about it and I could tell they were trying to balance the teams so that we could get some good volleys going. I had fun despite being the worst, and learned a little about how to play as well. After playing Nima got some beer and nachos for us to share, and I greatly appreciated him getting that for us. I locked myself out of the house today and didn’t have anything to eat, or my wallet, or my phone. I did have my computer, so I was able to get some work done. I wasn’t able to get as much of the game worked on as I’d like.
I really liked this book as Perrin and Loial got back into the mix. I really like Loial and Perrin. Those two and Matt are my favorite characters in the series. I very much enjoyed the black tower coming up in this book, and much of the action taking place. It still seems to be setting up for bigger things, and I’m still not certain what those bigger things are.
