More than Meets the Eye!

Wow I'm just back from a trip to Ohio where I got to see my family and friends. It was a total blast and I had the excellent opportunity to attend Origins Game Expo 2007 (even if only for a few hours). During the convention I got to meet and greet my pals from Texas 12toMidnight. Also at the expo I got to meet actor Richard Hatch (who played Apollo in the original Battlestar Galactica and is in the new series as well) and Shane Hensley who heads up Pinnacle Entertainment Group. Both of them signed autographs for me the fanboy (Richard was kind and signed "Keep the Faith" while Shane wrote "With Big Sloppy Savage Hugs and Kisses"... thanks Shane now I'll never be able to hock this on eBay!?! ;)

While in Ohio we had a boys night out and all the men folk took the little guys to see Transformers the movie. I have to say that this film was absolutely incredible and easily the best summer blockbuster film of the year (oh yes WAY better than Spiderman, Shrek, or Pirates). Michael Bay did an outstanding job with this film and I sat through 2 hours with my jaw unhinged at some of the best visual effects to date.

Being a kid of the 80's I grew up with Transformers, G.I. Joe, Micronauts, etc. so I was excited about the chance to see a modern take on an eighties cartoon classic.

The film was (of course) action packed and very funny. I imagine huge fans of the classic Transformers will be a bit disappointed that some of the main characters where reimagined with different bits and pieces (Bumblebee is a yellow camero rather than a VW Bug in the cartoon series). For me though the updates looked and fit great.

The shape changing robots look absolutely amazing and move convincingly. It's easy to fall into the fantasy of the film and believe that these huge giant metal Transformers are really there moving through the sets and interacting with the human actors. In fact if you are a giant robot fan this movie will really showcase to you what Hollywood could do these days to bring those kinds of movies from cartoon to CGI (Battletech the movie sprung immediately to my mind while watching a Decepticon stomp around a military base shooting and pounding everything in sight)

There is a lot going on in the movie... maybe too much really as several different groups of humans converge together with the transformers by the end of the film. So much happens that it feels like the machines and humans don't really interact as they should. With the exception of Shia LeBeouf's character and his girlfriend the Autobots don't really communicate with the people they are on Earth to help and protect. Of course one could argue that the robots had much more pressing concerns as you see in the plot of the film (they WERE on a mission and very focused on it)

One great thing about the movie is that it doesn't paint the military as a bumbling dumb government tool. The opening scenes of the film show very sharp and by the numbers soldiers who mobilize to deal with the threat posed by the Decepticons (sorry bad guys, but just because you look like a friendly doesn't mean we will automatically treat you as such). You might detect a bit of pro-war undertones in the film, but nothing they club you over the head with and they level the field by taking a shot or two at the fearless leader of our country which is fine by me ;)

The film is mostly acceptable for kids. There is a lot of violence and explosions, but nothing my little one hasn't seen already on TV and in movies. By the end of the film several characters do fall in battle, but most are of the... non-human variety. There is no gratuitous blood, but a heck of a lot of gunfire and fast paced combat. I think kids 6 and under might be a little scared, but anyone older should find the film interesting and exciting.

This is truly a film worth catching on the big screen if you get a chance. From me it gets two big metal thumbs up!

Apple Introduces The Latest iNvention

Best... Music Video... Ever!

Yeah the Family Jewels haven't been stolen!

I haven't blogged in a few weeks because I have been very preoccupied with a severe pain.. in the the... uh... "nether regions"

Now I'll handle this post in the most "delicate" manner I can, but honestly I wouldn't blame ya a bit if you decided to skip it entirely. Frankly I could live without exposing my medical problems to the world (especially semi-embarrassing ones), but hell what fun would that be? Besides I am feeling REALLY relieved at the moment so heck yeah I'm gonna post about it!

About 3 weeks ago I suddenly started getting a sharp pain in one of my testicles. Now this wasn't a gentle ache or a throb, but a random sharp shooting OUCH type of pain. Being a guy this can be very distressing and you worry about all sorts of terrible evil things (don't want to end up with a Tom Green uniball). I waited a week hoping it was a sprained muscle, pulled groin or the like.

Finally I was too scared to wait any longer and saw the doc. She poked and prodded me. Let me tell you doctors can be pretty insensitive to a guys sensitive areas. She put two fingers completely inside my body and didn't use an existing hole to do it (use your imagination). Uh yeah she found the spot.

Doc said I may have an inflammation and prescribes antibiotics. She assures me it's completely normal and that I could have gotten from a cold (as opposed to that girl in Singapore, I knew she was bad stuff! ... yeah right ;)

Unfortunatly the pills didn't seem to take the pain away and I got worried again. Now it had been 2 weeks and things weren't looking a whole lot better. Researching on the internet made me more stressed. I had all but convinced myself I tangled up wires up inside my body and they would need untangling. Worse still was I had a hernia operation on that side and in that area just a little over 2 years ago so I begin to fret that something was tearing up in there. I went back to the doc and she ordered an ultrasound and x-rays. She thought it might be a good idea to check with the surgeon also to get his opinion.

Now is where my story gets off into the rant tangent. I'll save a lot of space and stress and just say that I had to do a LOT of calling, screaming, begging and threatening just to get seen by someone who knew what the hell might be going on. No one wanted to do their jobs and get me the help I needed in making sure this thing wasn't going to end up with me on an operating table. The cumulation was when I had to take 2 hours off of work, drive to my doctors office and stand there and MAKE her staff fill out the required authorizations and fax them. It was like dealing with spoiled little children who couldn't be bothered to do something. So damn frustrating... and now I'll have to switch docs, because there is no way I want her staff handling my medical records anymore.

Anyway, after all my hootin' and hollerin' I managed to get my ultrasound, 4 x-rays of my pelvis AND get into the surgeons office within a mere 10 more days.

When I see the surgeon he says "you waited over 3 weeks to get seen for this pain?" Well NOOOO I waited 1 week and then my insurance and local doctors office completely j*@$ed me around for over 2 more weeks.

The good news... no GREAT news is that my ultrasound and x-rays were clean and ruled out all of the horrible things my mind conjured up. The physical exam was good too. Nothing amiss and the mesh from the hernia is fine. The surgeon asks me about exercising and I reveal to him that I had beeen dieting for a while now and about 5 weeks ago I bought an exercise bike. Well like a chump I tired to be Lance Armstrong and rode it a lot the first week or so (like everyday intensely). So now he thinks I did pull a muscle or cramp a nerve bundle soemwhere and the pain is radiating down there. He surprised me by telling me a lot of guys suffer pains in their gear that is actually from an unrelated area and that the body is weird with transmitting pain signals. He tells me take it easy for a week or two more and see how it goes and if need be I can come back in and go for a CAT Scan.

So it looks like my panic was for naught and the jewels are safe! Huzzah!

Family Game Day II

So I decided that at each family game day we need to try new games to find the ones we like and the ones we don't! Sadly Family Game Day part deux revealed two new games... that... well... we don't :(

Lost Cities turned out to be a dissappointment. It was a thinly disguised rummy type math game. Unfortunately while the cards had pretty pictures of lost civilizations, it lacked a lot of depth. My wife was not fond of the math for scoring at the end either (which I didn't have too much of a problem with). The game itself just really felt lacking. It was neither very competitive, nor cooperative. Sad, because I thought the Indiana Jones type theme looked really interesting, but nope the game just didn't deliver.

This game really needed the addition of other elements: challenges, traps, treasures or ANYTHING else to give the game some depth. Where are the crocodiles? quicksand? torches? maps? ANYTHING?!?

Ah well...

Next up was another VERY highly rated Euro game called Carcassonne:



Carcassonne is a tile laying game that has really great components including colorful thick cardboard tiles that depict countryside, roads and medieval city walls. It also comes with cute little painted wooden followers nicknamed "Meeples".

Despite the quality of the pieces the game seemed a bit boring. At first I was annoyed that my wife immediatly seemed to dislike the game, but as we played it steadly became apparent that this game was a slow paced, low impact game not at all like the American "battle fests" that companies like Hasbro and Milton Bradley put out.

There was also some initial confusion about allowable tile placement and we definately messed up scoring (all of us ended up with well over a hundred points each and the scoring board only goes to 49 points). I think that given time this game could grow on me, but honestly I don't think my wife will be willing to try it again without altering the game completely. To her it's all yawn and snores. I have to be sympathetic. This one is not in my top ten (even though I wish it could be). The kids seemed to like it alright though so I may look for games that have more painted wooden bits or games that have a cartoon/colorful style.

In the end we decided to break out Ticket to Ride again. We had some more fun with that until mr. kitty-cat jumped right into the middle of the board and caused the worlds most horrific derailment every seen!

Next week I'm going to try some interesting fantasy games and see how they do:

Citadels - a card game of building districts in a fantasy city

and

Quest for the Heros - a cooperative RPG style fantasy game somewhat akin to Heroquest & Talisman (both great old fantasy games from years gone by)

Wish us luck!

Journey to the Dark Side has begun!

What can I say? I love games! Always have. Back in the day my pop and I would play Risk, Axis & Allies and Fortress America (I love that game!) When we were a lot younger (and shorter on children) my wifey and I would play roleplaying games, card games and board games all the time. Now as a daddy and a worker-bot I miss those fun times so very much. We just never seem to have enough time to sit down and play those great games from our youth...

In an effort to get my wife back into gaming (or at the very least to letting me push little plastic heroscape pieces around a board with her) I decided to "trick her" into the fun. I did some diligent reseach into terms like "gateway games" and "spouse approved games" to find just the right sneaky kind of games that are both fun enough and interesting enough to creep up on you and get you wanting to try even more games... sort of like crack for gamers haha!

What I ended up deciding on was 2 games: Ticket to Ride and Lost Cities, both of which I grabbed from a great online store called Thought Hammer that offers 35% off on board and card games (no I'm not an affiliate, but I really was impressed by thier speedy service, large selection and low prices)

Ticket to Ride has got to be hands down the perfect game for suckering in non-gamers or just casual gamers.



It's a fun board game where you plunk down rows of colorful plastic trains all across the Umited State. It has pretty simple rules and though it says ages 10 and up, my six year old had no problem catching on to laying down sets of cards and putting his trains on the board (albiet he missed the finer details of connecting long routes together, but he did understand the basics and more importantly he had a lot of fun doing it!). I highly recommend it as a family game. It seems very insidious too because I can see you developing lots of strategy as you play the game more and more (you could gobble up lots of short routes, go for super long routes, focus on connecting lots of destinations, block your competition out, etc. etc.)

All in all a great game and my wife who initially thought she wouldn't like it at all insisted on playing twice and I can see the glimmer in her eye for a future rematch (since I won the second game we played hehe ;)

Lost Cities on the other hand is a 2 player card game about archeological expeditions. I have read from many other guy gamers that it's the perfect game for playing with your wife or girlfriend and that they get quite good at it so watch out!



Sadly we didn't have time to try it out tonight, but I'm sure it will be fun to play as well.

Hopefully these games will lead not only to more family game nights for all of us, but also to more elaborate and interesting games to play like Carcassone, Alhambra & Settlers of Catan and maybe into the really neato stuff with lots of little plastic monster and character pieces like Runebound, Arkham Horror & Twilight Empire. Oh and of course maybe back to my old love roleplaying (Hey killing orcs, zombies and dragons is fun too! Honest! ;)

So the only time I blog is???

When I have a silly meme to post of course! My friend Simple American posted his and I was intrigued... so here's my visual DNA!

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Arrrrr!

Well so much for my new years resolution of keeping my blog updated timely (*sigh*).

Let's see how about a quick recap of recent goings on:

(1) I have a new product (yea!) out: Standup Doors for roleplaying games. Very interesting new idea. We'll see if it catches on. I'm already planning a follow up version with more modern and sci-fi type doors & portals.

I'm also privy to a REALLY cool adventure coming out this year by 12toMidnight and I hope to be doing a super cool new set of tiles and tokens for it. Finger crossed.

(2) Lost sucks. I love it. I hate it. Secretly I'm tired of it dragging on and I hope this is the last season (sorry!). With it moving to a late night 10:00 PM time slot I don't see it lasting. My current prediction is it all ends with another key being turned and everyone back on the plane... with strange memories intact only this time Desmond enters the code and the flight 815 doesn't crash. There will be some over-arcing message about fate and choosing your own destiny... well at least thats what I think. Who knows??

(3) In less than 3 weeks I turn 38. Yuck! I'm really feeling my age :P

In light of that I thought the results of this quiz Preston pointed out on his blog were pretty funny (and prolly accurate har!):

You scored as Captain Jack Sparrow. Roguish,quick-witted, and incredibly lucky, Jack Sparrow is a pirate who sometimes ends up being a hero, against his better judgement. Captain Jack looks out for #1, but he can be counted on (usually) to do the right thing. He has an incredibly persuasive tongue, a mind that borders on genius or insanity, and an incredible talent for getting into trouble and getting out of it. Maybe its brains, maybe its genius, or maybe its just plain luck. Or maybe a mixture of all three. Captain Jack Sparrow 67% Neo, the "One" 67% Maximus 63% William Wallace 63% Batman, the Dark Knight 58% Lara Croft 54% The Terminator 46% The Amazing Spider-Man 46% El Zorro 42% Indiana Jones 38% James Bond, Agent 007 25% Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com

Later Mateys!