I guess if you’re on your third expansion for a game, you’re officially a fan. Carcassonne came with the River expansion, and we added Inns and Cathedrals a year or two ago. This time around, we’ve added The Princess and the Dragon to the mix. All the expansions layer on top of the base game, and now it’s extended to a Hera-and-Zeus level of near chaos, which makes for an awesome game. We played until 1am last night (and I still biked to work, woop!).
Category: Gaming
Wrenny Turns Six!
Wren turned 6 on Tuesday! We had a party for her on the previous weekend at her gymnastics gym. We were worried it wouldn’t happen – ice and snow were predicted – but the bad weather held off and all 12 friends showed. The kids started arriving in the front room, and before the party started they had turned that into an extension of the gym, rolling and tumbling and yelling. Everybody had a blast!
I think the best part was watching Wrenny thank each kid for attending, politely handing each a goodie bag. Mom had given her some preemptive manners lessons to head off Wrenny’s shyness, and it worked like a charm. Coupled with Wrenny’s new desire to carefully enunciate every word, you couldn’t ask for a cuter kid. :> Pictures forthcoming…
On Tuesday we all played her new cooperative game called Rainbowland. You can’t beat a great cooperative game for family fun, and this one qualifies! Cute as all get out. :>
9.0 Battlestar Galactica
Just finished watching the Battlestar Galactica miniseries (read: pilot) and season 1. Good fun! I fell in love with episode 5 and did not like 10, other than that it was solid military-centered space sci-fi. I even broke out Descent yesterday in inspiration! Descent 3 still rocks to this day. If anyone’s got the guts to play, shoot me a hello and I’ll hook ya up for a smackdown. :>
Rubik’s Cube: 3×3 down, 4×4 to go…
I solved the Rubik’s Cube I got for Christmas yesterday (cool gift, thanks baby!). I never had the patience for it in my youth, and that always bugged me. This time, I just used some formulas and it’s a piece of cake. My pal Larry got a 4×4 Rubik’s Revenge (he’s the pro) and I played with that a little bit… now THAT is going to take some work…
Hera and Zeus winning streak shattered!
Andrea has whooped my butt at Hera and Zeus every time we’ve played for a LONG TIME. Until this last week – I scored 2 wins in a row! She won the third game, so she’s still sitting on the queen’s throne… it’s just a little bit more wobbly now…
Thanksgiving
We had a quiet Thanksgiving week here, just the “core” family. I had the first nice block of time off in a LONG time. It was nice to hang out with pretty much NOTHING on the schedule. We ate a ton of food, played some games (Heroes Incorporated, Mind Trap, Sims Unleashed), took the dogs for a walk, and caught up on some movies (Down By Law (9.5), Waiting for Guffman (8.0), Run Lola Run (9.0)). Ahhh…
Oh brother Dan, where art thou?
Had a great time last weekend with my brother – my brother, my suffering brother, come out to the Volga! We got in our road trip, jam session, all-night-gaming, high-stakes-casino-play, lan party, studio recording time, night out on the town (fort lauderdale in this instance) non-stop party all in a measly sixty or so hours. What a ride.
The Millers are planning on a trip up here around Thanksgiving, can’t wait, see ya soon! :P
9.5 Heroes Incorporated
Wow! We had 5 hours of fun on Father’s Day with my gift of Heroes Incorporated! The game is fantastic – it’s got a solid foundation – chase down crime in city streets and roll the dice to beat it – bent by lots of juicy exceptions. There are superhero special powers, various gadgets, and “bonus cards” that you’re not always sure are worth using. Should you go all out crime fighting or try to stop the competition by throwing a super villian in their path? Everything you do has a cost, and it’s not often an easy choice – the sign of a great game. And while that’s all going on, you get to watch your superhero achieve greatness, gaining fighting power and gathering powerful gadgets. Fun cubed!
Friends Making Games!
Sam Clifford’s got his Heroes Incorporated boardgame onto store shelves! You can order a copy online from GameFest – if you look quickly you can see it still on the top of the newly released games list!
And in similar but unrelated news, for Reiley’s eighth (!) birthday, the day before yesterday, my folks sent her the boardgame version of Boxum!, the game for which John Carpenter made the PC version! It’s so great to hear that Boxum! is going strong, too – I don’t think my parents had any idea it was the game John did! I hope you’re getting something out of it, John. :P
Reiley also picked up Bohnanza, a really nice looking Rio Grande game with a decent amount of complexity. Andrea and I can’t wait to steal it and play!
Board gaming is everywhere! Whooo!
My Vegas Angle
I’ve been to Vegas once or twice. It’s fun to play, but I would never bet more than I expected to lose. You can see how people get addicted to it though – it’s easy to start fantasizing and lose track of reality. Case in point…
I thought I had perfected my gambling angle to the point where it couldn’t fail. The idea is to shift the long odds to shorter by decreasing the payout. Here’s the details, it’s pretty simple.
First, some basic Roulette. You can play red (or black) with a 2:1 payout. What this means is that if you bet $1 on red, and the little ball lands on a red number, you win $1. If it lands on black, you lose. All the numbers are either red or black, so it’s pretty good odds – the only down side is the 00 number – if that comes up, EVERYONE loses. OK, now for the angle.
If you lose, double your bet and play again. Keep doing this until you win. Once you win, if you do the math, you will see that you have won $1 since beginning the round of betting. You ALWAYS WIN $1!
OK, one bad assumption has ruined many a scheme, and the same is true here: you can’t double your bet indefinitely. Therefore, it’s just a matter of time until you lose several times in a row, doubling your bet each time, until you hit the betting limit and you’ve lost your shirt. Losing your shirt is typically seen as a BAD gambling strategy.
It’s still not too bad though, if you look at the numbers… UPDATE: yes it is… move on, nothing to see here…