This book didn’t have too many tips or how to’s about bootstrapping. It mainly said that it is a good idea. I admit that I shouldn’t expect much out of a 41 minute listen, but I still expected more than was delivered.
We went to the Creamery in Palo Alto for dinner, and I got the crispy buffalo chicken sandwich. I was joined by Riley, Steph, Tina, Candice, and Brian. We chatted about all sorts of stuff, most of it drama and board games. The milkshakes that Steph and Tina got were really tasty, and they were both kind enough to share a good bit of them with me. Milkshakes with Oreo are amazing, but so bad for any diet.
Brian, Tina, and I played some Suburbia, and it was the craziest game of it I’ve played so far. We got off to an odd start, with me making an industrial loop off the bottom. Brain went for a concentrated business district and was doing really well with it. Tina got into the Mints and Community Parks. I ended up getting a power plant and taking off in income, Brian did the same with his business district. Brian then got a PR firm and doubled it to get a feedback loop of passing lines to increase reputation. I got a Stadium and put many greens around it, then put it in the recycling plant into the center of my industrial loop. Those two combined for a super powerful combination of income and reputation, and I was able to keep almost maxed out on both. Brian lost traction on the income as his doubled PR firm really went insane. He was ahead by a lot before taking the bonuses into account, but I took all the bonuses and got a total score of 139, the highest score I’ve seen so far.
Tina and Mark played Race for the Galaxy with me, and as expected Tina won with me in a distant second. She is quite the veteran and the only way I could expect to beat her at it is to have a really lucky draw. She ended with a moderate score of 69, but since I was playing a rushed military strategy that wasn’t too strange. I ended up with 44 points and Mark had 39. I also had 2 prestige coming from every produce, which essentially put a block on her produce, so she went alien for the win.
I played factory fun with Tina, Jeff, Mark, and another guy I don’t really know. Mark I don’t know well either; he is one of the guys from the Stanford board games group. The game went really well for me and I got a score of 102, the highest I’ve made. The score board only goes up to 105, so I feel really good about the score. The guy I didn’t know decided to give up after he couldn’t place a machine and lost track of where he started before that turn. I did the same on my first play through of the game.
This was a really good game, but it was a little too complicated and we didn’t interact much. The game could have been different if we fought each other, and I had considered attacking Tina to stall the game. We all went the merchant route and Tina beat me, with Jeff in 3rd.
This morning I woke up to do some chores before Steph got up and got going. Then we headed to the farmer’s market on Cal Ave. The Bolani guy said he had missed us and called us the ‘pumpkin people’ which I like. Steph got some other stuff there, but I think I’m going to keep to Milk Pail mainly.
After a bike ride to Steph’s house and back I sat down for a nice pasta dinner. I decided to smother the noodles in a good helping of La Victoria’s orange sauce. It was really tasty, but before I could properly enjoy it Steph showed up saying that we needed to get out the door immediately to make it to Brian and Candice’s so that we could carpool to the Sabercats game. I ate the pasta in the car while extolling the virtues of orange sauce. When we got to their place we headed straight to San Jose for the game. On the way to the stadium we passed La Victoria, and Steph decided she had to try some of this orange sauce. She definitely understands now why I like it so much, but I’m not sure if she is quite hooked yet.
At the game we got to see the over the top entrance that we missed half of last time. It was just as outdone as last time, and fantastic. Steph and I took some strolls around the concourse for the exercise and to get away from the noise. Today was pompom day for the Sabercats, so we got some free pompoms.
They also had the family pack deal going on, which was 4 tickets, 4 hot dogs, 4 drinks, and 4 chip bags for $50, which is hard to pass up for such an entertaining sport with a good number of friends. We had Brian, Candice, and their neighbors, Jeremy B, Kerry and gf, other David, Tina, Steph, and myself. The Sabercats won by a lot, and when they were soundly ahead they tried some onside kicks. I thought the onside kicks were pretty harsh moves against a team that was already down 20 points or so, but it was still entertaining.
Afterwards we grabbed drinks at Firehouse, a bar close by the Stadium. It was a nice place to chat and I’m getting some great feedback on the kickstarter ideas from Brian.
I played the Volkare’s Quest campaign of Mage Knight and I played the crystal making dragon character. I was playing with Brian and Tina.
Brian got a really good early start to the game when he ran across a ruin that required one of each basic mana, and he was able to do it then keep going attacking the mage tower he was planning on attacking anyway. There were a few points where we did things wrong, but we will keep those in mind next time and work it out. The campaign took us from about a 2:30 start to a 10 pm finish. All in all that is a moderate time scale for Mage Knight as it can easily take much much longer.
Towards the end we got a good formation going around Volkare, and we had the cards set up so that we were just waiting for him to make a move. When he did I was able to take out all 14 green enemies, and then Brian and Tina split the 8 red and white. I had the perfect setup for taking down the little guys as I had 2 spells; the first removed the first wound from any attack to me, the second reduced the armor of all enemies I was fighting. I also had 2 units that could do 6 ranged fire damage each, and I also got 6 siege damage in there as well.
