Vacation! Take THAT, universe! Paid some bills, got some toys (we’re currently trying out Stefan Feld’s latest game - Castles of Burgundy).

All told, pretty good day.

It’s just about that time of year: time to take stock, examine the year that was and look ahead to the year that will be. It’s also an excuse to list things, and I love to list things. For those of you who don’t know (which I suspect is none of you) I am a big fan of board games. Not the crappy Monopoly/Risk/Trivial Pursuit board games that we all grew up with, but newer hobby games that have features such as strategy, tactics, tension and fun.

Here are the best games I played this year*

Best Expansion: Chaos in the Old World: The Horned Rat

This expansion for Chaos in the Old World (one of my favorite games) adds the option of a fifth player in the game with the new race, the Skaven. It also adds new cards for the four existing gods. It shakes things up without fundamentally changing the game, which is exactly what I want from an expansion.

Runners up: Dominion: Hinterlands, Innovation: Echoes of the Past, Container: Second Shipment

Best Components: Black Gold

One of the common complaints from folks who dislike eurogames is that they look boring; “You’re just pushing wooden cubes around a board!” No such complaints with Black Gold. This game about harvesting and auctioning oil has neat little plastic trucks, trains and oil derricks. It also has cool little oil plumes that you plug into the derricks to show how much oil is left in that derrick. Figures that the game is made by Fantasy Flight Games.

Runner up: Quarriors

Best Dexterity Game: Catacombs

Catacombs wins out oh-so-narrowly over Ascending Empires in this category. Ascending Empires feels more like a board game with a dexterity element, while Catacombs is all flicking/dexterity. There’s a fair amount of strategy and tactics as well. Indeed, you need to  be good with strategy and flicking both to succeed here. It’s a dungeon crawl where one player controls all of the monsters and the other player(s) controls the heroes. Each piece has its own special abilities, and the game has been a real joy for my group to play so far.

Runners up: Ascending Empires, Villa Paletti, Taktika

Best Artwork: Letters from Whitechapel

This tense game of cat and mouse has dark, gritty artwork really evocative of the Jack the Ripper theme. Some people will be scared away by the dark subject matter, but there’s a delightful, tense game there for the rest of us.

Runners up: Elder Sign, Forbidden Island

Best Children’s Game: The Magic Labyrinth

Nice little memory/deduction game consisting of a hidden maze underneath a board, magnetic pawns and metal marbles. You roll and move, and if your marble falls off (because you tried to move through a wall) you move your pawn back to the starting spot and start again.

Runner up: Mystery Garden

Best Family Game: Forbidden Island

Good little co-op game, this is essentially a beginner’s version of Pandemic. It’s a cooperative board game where the players are working together to collect treasure from a sinking island. The game’s artwork is quite beautiful as well.

Runner up: Villa Paletti

Best Brain-Burner:** King of Siam

This game packs a lot of difficult, agonizing decisions into a small box and short (~30 minutes) playing time. It’s a game of jockeying for position in the endgame where the more you invest in a faction, the weaker it becomes. Brilliant game. I’m a sucker for simple rule sets that yield challenging decisions.

Runners up: Reef Encounter, Triumvirate

Best Card Game: Hanabi

This was a tough category, as my wife and I have really enjoyed London and Magnate a lot over the year. Hanabi stands out for its accessibility for non-gamers, unique feel and sheer fun. It’s a cooperative game where the players are trying to collectively play a run of cards numbered 1-5 in each of 5 colors. The trick is that you cannot look at your own cards and must rely on clues from your fellow players. You start with a limited number of clues and, once you’ve spent them, must discard cards to gain more. Hanabi is a joy to play, and scales very well from 2-5 players.

Runners up: Nightfall, London, Magnate

Worst Game of the Year: Castle of the Devil

On paper, this is a game I ought to like. It’s a card game where you have hidden teams and must deduce the identity of your teammates, then collectively control 3 particular cards (and be able to point out their exact locations) to win. In practice, it’s too difficult to signal your allegiance to an ally, and there is not enough relevant information available to be able to deduce who is friend and who is foe. We’ve also had a couple of games where one team figured out their roster and hoarded cards, trading them back and forth to great benefit while the other team sat helpless. The other players in my group enjoy this game for reasons beyond my understanding. For me, if we have a high player count and want backstabbery, deduction and general dickitry I’ll push for Shadow Hunters or The Resistance because I like FUN.

Runner up: To Court the King

Biggest Surprise of the Year: Discworld Ankh-Morpork

I’ve never read any of the source material from Terry Pratchett, though I am a fan of Martin Wallace’s games. I read that it was quick and highly chaotic (for a Wallace game anyhow) and lost interest. My buddy bought the game and wanted to play, so I figured ‘why not?’ I was (as you may have guessed) pleasantly surprised by the game. It’s quite simple and chaotic, but there is more depth here than is apparent at first glance. This comes from the fact that each player is given a secret victory condition card at the beginning of the game. There are 7 such cards, and the game plays 2-4 players so there will always be a few cards unchosen. This means that you know what your opponents might be trying to do, but you won’t know for certain. This means the game is about trying to deduce the motives of your opponents while masking your own. Throw in a playing time of ~60 minutes so the game doesn’t wear out its welcome and you have a winner.

Runner up: None.

Biggest Disappointment of the Year: Troyes

Troyes was hyped as a eurogame that makes excellent use of dice (eurogames usually don’t use dice). It got rave reviews from many folks whose opinions I trust. It had a quaint art style that really worked for me. It was a worker placement game (which I typically like). It’s hard for me to put into words why it failed for me. I think the problem may be that it’s a game where you “get 4 of these and turn them in for 2 of those, then turn those in for 1 of that plus 3VP.” Games heavy in resource conversion seem to fail for me. Troyes was a hit for many (including my wife) but not for me. Sad face.

Runners up: Urban Sprawl, Glen More

Best Board Game of the Year: Dominant Species

Dominant Species is just about the perfect game. It has long term strategy and short term tactics. It has aggression and thoughtfulness. It has chaos, but that chaos comes from the decisions made by the other players - it isn’t random stuff that the game throws at you. It features different species, each with their own unique strength. The clean board and spartan components are highly functional, and it all just works.

Runners up: Ascending Empires, Stephenson’s Rocket, Catacombs, Letters from Whitechapel, Black Gold

*Note that these are new to me, not necessarily newly released.

**Makes my head hurt in a good way.

The room was thick with smoke when she entered. Gears, springs and dials were scattered across the table where the man was standing, his back to her. A toolbox was standing open on the table next to him. It was faded red in color and was beginning to rust in places. One of the fasteners that was meant to keep the lid shut was loose and ready to fall off. She wondered how a clockmaker whose work required such great attention to detail had let his toolbox fall into such a state. He had not given any sign that he knew she had entered the shop, despite the tingling of the bell that hung above the door.

On the edge of the table lay an ashtray, holding a long, dark cigarette that had burned itself down into a long tube of ash. Several more spent butts kept it company, like a gruesome little execution chamber. Upon the workbench sat a high pile of newspaper that had fallen over and was threatening to spill onto the floor, with today’s edition on top. The tall man was quietly muttering to himself while his hands worked feverishly inside the cuckoo clock in front of him. His hair looked like he hadn’t run a comb through it in weeks. He seemed singlemindedly focused on the task at hand, so much so that she wondered whether she should just leave him be. Some way to run a business, she thought to herself. She didn’t want to startle him and was about to quietly let herself out when he suddenly and loudly spoke up:

“Yes, yes?” he said with a hint of impatience in his voice. “Can I help you with something?”

“Er…”

She was having serious doubts about having come here in the first place.

“Come, come now” he said. “You’re not here about a clock. Are you lost? No, you’re not lost. So what can I do for you.” He still had yet to turn around or look up from his work.

“I beg your pardon, sir. Really, you haven’t greeted me, you haven’t looked at me, you haven’t even turned around! Now you presume to somehow know why I’m here? This is all quite-“

“Madam. You haven’t taken any time looking around the shop at the stock, you’re not looking for a timepiece. Your shadow isn’t holding anything in its hands and so neither are you. You’ve been standing there quietly, watching me work. You’re either lost and too polite to interrupt me to request directions or you have something you’re apprehensive to ask me about. You don’t seem polite, so I assume it’s the latter.”

We are ruled by the clock. It ticks out our deaths. Every second of every day, it kills. It brings life. It brings death. Ticking out every beginning and every end. Its ticking is the heartbeat of the universe, marching onward into oblivion and eternity. It exists to serve itself. It has no other purpose.

It is our master. We are its servants. One day it will send each of us down into the dirt. I will cease to be one of you, becoming another notch on the clock. It will continue on its reign of terror over us all. It inflicts decay on all life. Every tick is one tick closer to your last.*

I got mine for $7.99. It was a half-off sale on clocks at Hobby Lobby that week.

*Thanks, Dream Theater!

It is useful, I think, to be able to examine your own feelings and thoughts, particularly to find the sources of stress in your life. My stress pretty much begins and ends with the good old job. I hate my job. There is scarcely a day that goes by where I don’t say that, and certainly not a day where I don’t think it. In a way though, when I say I hate my job I’m really saying I hate myself, or at least that I’m massively disgusted with myself. After all, I’ve been languishing there for 8 years now, hating and complaining.

And my place of work isn’t a bad company to work for by any means, but it’s retail. I work in the services area, but it’s still retail. For me, retail is fucking terrible. Hating my job because it’s retail is a bit like damning a cheeseburger because it isn’t a steak. The job is fine for what it is, but I want more out of it. It isn’t just the pay (though more would be nice). It’s hard sometimes, but we make ends meet and that would be more tolerable if my work was satisfying. I mean, I have in-laws that look at me like I’m something they scraped off of their shoe - this is largely because I don’t make a lot of money, with “I’m not a Manly Man” coming in a close second place. If you’re judging me on that criteria, I don’t give a shit what you think about me (or anything else, really). Ha! So there.

Now, I don’t believe that we were all put here for a reason. I don’t believe in fate. I don’t believe in the existence of a higher power. I do, however, believe each of us has a calling, something that just fits for us even if we never find it. A chance to stop being the square peg in the round hole, the ugly duckling, whatever. I know that it isn’t what I’m doing, and I know that I’m not finding it by sitting on my ass and complaining. On a related note, I happened upon something I posted elsewhere a while back; I had taken the Briggs-Meyer personality test and posted the results (INFJ):

Being an INFJ means you have a quest to live a life of meaning and purpose, and therefore your career needs to be more than a job, but has to be something that can live up to your principles and feel right. As an INFJ, your intuition is mixed with your strong values, you have a sense of knowing and therefore are natural and comfortable as leaders and work well as such, although you can work as a follower if you are taking directions from someone you fully support, otherwise you will not be happy in your situation.
In the outside world, you place a great deal of importance in having things in order, and having the best system for getting things done, whilst always reevaluating the priorities in your life. On the other hand you can operate internally with spontaneity. Your intuition gives you great insight into things, and you are often right about something, even with little background information.
Your penetrating insight into other people and issues, and the internal way you deal with this, means you don’t easily share what information you obtain about others unless you choose to share it. You are deep and complex, usually private and therefore difficult to understand.
However, as an INFJ you are genuinely warm as you are complex, and you have a special place in your heart for those close to you, for which you can see and feel the depth of your caring. In tune to other’s emotions you avoid hurting other’s feelings. Often the perfectionist, you may wrestle with finding peace as you feel that there is more to improve your world and the lives of others around you. Your high expectations means you strive to exist in a state of continual growth and you easily overlook your own accomplishments.

Like other INFJs, your workplace should be one of creatively and independence. You most likely have a natural affinity for art and the sciences, as well as being found in service orientated positions. You should avoid working with very detailed tasks, or else you be in the other extreme, where you are working so meticulously you cannot see the big picture and can be highly critical of others who are not being as meticulous.

Bulls-eye. No wonder I hate my freaking job. I feel like I’m becoming a wraith. I’m considering writing some short stories, publishing them on Amazon and becoming a filthy-rich internet sensation. I may even take a class or two, though I’m not taking that too seriously. After all, writing is a creative endeavor. Paying someone to teach you how to write seems asinine.

Hire me, world. Pay me for my self-awareness.

Some say that “cellar door” is the most beautiful phrase in the English language. I know the ugliest string of syllables, or at least a finalist for the honor:

Nelly Furtado.

My god. Say it. Say it aloud.

First off, let’s start with Nelly. This is just a goofy name - it sounds like jelly, plus it reminds me of that spoiled little blonde bitch from Little House on the Prairie. I can deal with that, though. There are plenty of ugly names out there. The last name is what really brings it home. It’s like a jab followed by an uppercut.

Furtado. This is like 3 words rolled into one: Fur. Turd. Taco. It conjures an image of a taco covered in fur with a turd inside. Named Nelly. Congratulations.

A good way to start the morning: sugary coffee in the nerdy coffee mug that my wife gave me for Christmas. So begins Wednesday, June 15th.

I won’t waste your time with the details, I know why you’re all here. It’s the frozen Swiss Cake Rolls. I’m here to tell you, if you like Swiss Cake Rolls (Ho-Hos in some circles) go ahead and put them in the freezer. They don’t freeze solid, they just get really really cold. If you like these, buy a box and toss it - nay, throw it - into your freezer. I prefer chocolate from the refrigerator as opposed to room temperature (mmmm…refrigerated Reese’s Cups) so I may be alone here.

In other news, my wife is 9 months pregnant, so things are going to be turned upside down soon. We’re excited, nervous, all the things that come with the territory.Our second child, and a new sibling for our daughter. We’re passing on our DNA and improving the gene pool.

I’m also trying to work the logistics so I can attend the World Boardgame Championships in Pennsylvania in August. Add this to a newborn on the way and not a whole lot of money to go around, and I may be up for some sort of “Most Irresponsible Father and Husband” award or something. Still, the wife insists that I need a vacation and I’m inclined to agree. This will be the first year since 1995 that I will not be attending Gen Con, but I think the WBC will be a better fit. It won’t have the bigness of Gen Con, and the focus is much more on open gaming and tournaments (real tournaments, not the garbage at Gen Con) than the Dealer’s Hall. I love the Dealer’s Hall, but it’s far less fun if you don’t have a pocketful of cash. I’ll probably play in tournaments for Battle Line and Agricola.

I recently read a quote that said something to the effect of “Your friends aren’t the people who like you best, they’re just the people who got there first.” I’m not sure I agree with that, but it’s an interesting thought.

Stanley Cup Finals Game 7 is tonight! Go Canucks! I felt a little better about saying that before Roberto Luongo started running his mouth, but still - go Canucks!

My dad is, in some ways, a cranky old man. He hates technology and its progress. He loves AM radio and 45 RPM records. He hates television (the “idiot box”)and computers. He also loathes sports, which is relevant since much of my family enjoys sports and discussing them.

Now, I’m pretty big into board games and card games. I’ve noticed an inverse affect on my interest in video games and sports in that time (though sports started waning for me a bit earlier). I also have an increasing disgust with television (fuck you, reality TV). That started with commercials and has spread to include most televised programs. Lucky for me, I have not had TV service for a long while now, and choose to ball out of control via Netflix instead. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not anyone’s target audience when it comes to advertising. I don’t mean that in the “white males between 30 and 35” way, but rather that I’ve been factored in; the marketing suits know that there’s a certain percentage of the population that is going to hate them as soon as they open their mouth to try to sell anything. That’s me. Tell me what the product is and what it does. Try to do anything more and you’re losing me.

Anyhow, sports. I’ve really become jaded with major league sports. The big money, big business aspect of it really has started to make my interest more and more passive and casual. I mean, my Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl against the hated Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl this year, and I was happy. I was pleased. I wasn’t ecstatic, though. It was like “Oh, nice. That happened. Okay then.” I feel similarly ambivalent about tomorrow night’s Sharks/Wings game 7. Sure, I really hope Detroit wins, but I’m not emotionally invested in it. That’s the bottom line with video games too. I play them as short distractions to fill the time, but I don’t get absorbed in them anymore. Even the brilliant ones (Hi, Portal 2) don’t really wind my clock anymore. The last great one for me was Persona 3, and that was a over year and a half ago. Sometimes I feel like my attention span has gone to shit, but then again I can sit down and play a 4-hour game of Dominant Species with no problem. Perhaps my tastes are changing and I’m simply clinging to outdated, dead parts of my life that don’t want me anymore.

This post started off being about something, and ended up being about nothing in particular. Have it your way, universe.

I watched the pilot for Sports Night on Netflix last night. Since The West Wing is one of my all time favorite shows, I’m interested in Aaron Sorkin’s other work. Studio 60 seems quite good from the couple of episodes I watched. Sports Night has a great reputation, sort of like Firefly in that it was taken from us before its time.

So, Sports Night. My first thought is that it had some potential. The subject matter is interesting enough. I mean, I hardly give a shit about sports anymore, but I care even less about politics. About 5 minutes or so into the pilot, it happened. I heard canned laughter. It sounded so out of place that I was confused for a second. “Is that sound coming from a TV that’s on in the show?” Nope, there it is again.

Now, Aaron Sorkin’s shows are full of fast-paced dialogue and subtle wit (I’m so clever) and it’s amazing just how out-of-place audience laughter is. I feel like that whole idea has become obsolete, and for me that started with The Office. I’m a big fan, and after watching so much of that series, canned laughter just feels out of place when I find it elsewhere. Some shows are good enough to overcome this, like Big Bang Theory. For some shows, I just can’t stomach it (I turned off Sports Night after about 10 minutes).

On a related note, I’m finding that I enjoy searching for things to add to my queue on Netflix more than I enjoy actually watching new things. I have many, many shows and movies in my queue, but I’m rarely in the mindset where I want to park in front of the TV and focus on it. Shows that are interesting but don’t require complete focus (like Pawn Stars and Mythbusters) are great and, while I enjoy them, I just don’t want to sit down for Lie to Me, Fringe or Studio 60 very often. Likewise, video games no longer hold the same interest for me that they once did. Board games engage my brain in a way that nothing else currently does, and I could foresee becoming a big reader.

My game auction on Board Game Geek ends tonight. Cheer for me.

*I immediately decided that I hate this title. Hate it so bad. I then decided that I should keep it. So there.

Did I just make up a word? I think I just made up a word.

So yesterday was one of those days for me. Everything and everyone was getting under my skin, and I was feeling lost and disconnected from the world. I hate feeling that way. There’s a lack of order, direction and purpose to the universe, and this all boils down to the big religion question. I’m looking for my second post on here to turn into a holy war (I’m saving that for my fourth or fifth post, don’t want to spoil it) so I’ll just say that I’m an agnostic and leave it at that.

I feel sometimes that all life in connected, that everything is part of everything else. It’s something I really wish I believed, but that’s not the same as believing something. So yeah, I was all emo yesterday. I can’t sing or play an instrument, so a blog is the next best place to whine and/or ponder the mysteries of the universe. QQ.

Thankfully, when I got home (feeling surly and mopey) my daughter hadn’t yet fallen asleep, and she came running out of her room: “Daddy! Daddy! I love you!” and gave me a big hug. So that helped quite a lot. After my requisite 6 hours of sleep and a nice sugary cup of coffee, I’m ready to head back to out there into Retail Land.

Oh yeah - generosity. I’m doing a lot of wheeling and dealing on Board Game Geek this week; I have an auction going on where I’m selling off some unplayed and underplayed board games, and for one of the games I’ve skipped the auction and am selling it directly to one of my friends on there. I’ve included a game piece that a bunch of us are going to send to each other, take photos of and send back. It’s one of those “traveling gnome goes around the world” projects, and I’ve linked the page where the images and details will be posted.

Generosity. Right. I’ve been selling off unloved parts of my board game library frequently of late, and one of my friends on BGG had commented that he was going to trade or sell a game called Stephenson’s Rocket (it’s a game with trains, route-building, company shares and mergers). I posted that I was interested, then went to the game’s BGG page to find a copy being sold for $60. Ebay shows copies ranging from $55-$100. “Crap” I’m thinking. “I don’t have anything to trade in that value, and I don’t know that I want to spend that much” even though I’ll have proceeds from my auction. I log back in to BGG to see an email in my inbox; it’s from my friend Kurt saying he’ll just give me Stephenson’s Rocket if I’ll pay for shipping. He’s a seriously terrific guy, and it sucks that I know him only as an avatar on a webpage. I’d like to think I’ll be able to go to the WBC in Pennsylvania this August and hang with him for a few days, but that seems pretty unlikely, at least this year.

A short while later, I got an email from another BGG friend offering to sell me the game Reef Encounter for $15. I’ve had my eye on it, and that’s a great price. These games each have a reputation for being opaque and subtle. Sounds great. Board Game Geek is a wonderful community full of good people. There are asshats there (it’s the internet after all) but they are few and far between.