Board Games Played
This was a pretty slim week. Different events led to us only playing two games this week. I think we started the month of challenge focused that now that we’re wrapping this month up for things that work we’ve been “saving” games for next month. I have plans to play some games today and we were going to play some on Saturday but I needed to watch a movie to hit my movie a week goal so we did that instead.
Jan 16: Cartographers – We’re big fans of this flip and fill game and my kid asked to play “the monster game” so we let them play as well by just drawing shapes and having fun filling up the map. We were both evenly paced between the rounds until I took just a slight enough lead in the last round to claim the win. It’s been a bit since we’ve played just regular base game Cartographers and it’s still a nice game to play.
Jan 17: Cafe – I love layering games where you build a map or have to create something by covering other cards. I’ve designed two of them since I enjoy them so much. This is one that we both really enjoy but don’t play it that often for some reason. It’s a clever game in that you get X actions a round based on how many coffee cups you have on your display, but you can group action types together to make one action more powerful. There’s a variant in the box that I want to play soon to see what that’s like.
Not exactly board games played, but I did book my hotel for Unpub 2023. I’m now on the advisory board for the organization and last year was my first show back since 2017. I don’t have any plans to show anything this time, I’m just going to help the organization and the event run. I do have a table, but haven’t decided if I want to whip up a game or if I want to just keep it on hand for someone who needs a table last minute. The event is March 16-19 in Hunt Valley, MD. It’s a playtesting event where designers buy table space for playtesters to come play their games for free and give feedback. Players can enter to win prizes of published games for giving feedback and there’s a charity raffle with some pretty solid prizes. There’s going to be some pretty interesting panels too. Randy Flynn, the designer of Cascadia (a personal favorite) will be there so I’m excited to finally meet him in person after interacting only online.
Movies and TV
I watched two movies as I forgot I had watched one earlier in the week until starting to write this up. The first was John Mulhaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch on Netflix. This was Ok. I appreciated the ironic humor to it, but overall didn’t have that many laughs. That is until Jake Gyllenhaal’s Mr. Music appeared at the end. That was amazing and such a wild performance compared to the rest of the movie that I’ve rewatched that a few times since then. Lucky for you, that section is on YouTube to watch so you can skip the rest of the show.
The other movie was Lady Bird. This one came out back in 2017 and I’ve wanted to watch it for so long since everyone said how great it was and now I’m upset I didn’t watch it until now. It was fantastic. A great coming of age story where I related to it both from the teen who timewise was hitting that high school/college age right about when I was, but also now as a parent relating to the mom and dad of it as I have hopes for my kid. It was a really good movie and one I may come back to again. Greta Gerwig’s direction was amazing and I’ll be tracking down more movies from the cast and crew.
Lastly on the YouTube side of things I found a new channel of a magician named Jason Maher. He’s a magician and I do love a bit of up close magic. He’s doing a 365 video a day challenge and has just started Jan 1 so there’s not that many to catch up on. Here’s the one I watched a few days back that got me to subscribe. The cups and balls are a classic and when done well are so much fun to watch even if you know what’s going on. I’m not sure if I’ll keep watching. I tend not to stick with channels that post daily videos, but these are all pretty short, right around 5-8 minutes so that’s pretty easy to even binge a few of them at once.
Video Games Played
Not much in the video game department this week. I did get the 8th gym badge in Pokemon Scarlet and I’m levelling up to take on the Elite Four. I’m really debating whether I want to stick with the plan of getting a new team to take on the titans and Team Star since there’s not as many battles in those lineups and I’ll have to do a lot of grinding. We’ll see how I feel, I might just snag my gym team and stick with that. The whole reason for me to play Scarlet is to be able to catch the legendary at the end for my living dex since that’s the only one I don’t have my own copy of. So blitzing the game to get there is easier but I also really like this generation and want to savor it a bit more. On the other hand, I could just replay the game once again with another whole team and use those other teams as well. I’ll figure it out.
Pottery Update
I’m buying a kiln! My mother in law goes to church with a guy who does ceramics with his daughter and they’re upgrading some of their set up. They’ve got an old Paragon kiln they’re selling for a great price. I went over yesterday to check it out and turn it on to see how it handles. After a bit of repair up front we got it going and it looks great. It’s used, but in really good shape. I have mostly done wheel throwing, so my first thought was to get a wheel. But I read that you should start with a kiln because you can always hand build and test and learn how to do things and get them fired if you have a kiln, but if you just have a wheel you can only throw and still have to find a place to get your things fired. I’ve been planning a studio for a couple months now and it will be a few more months until I get an actual studio set up. But this is a good first step.
Invisalign Update
I’m done with Invisalign! I’m pretty sure I didn’t mention it in the last two posts but for 18 months I’ve been adjusting my face. I had a tooth that got chipped in high school and the repair to it has been grinding down for years as it was hitting my bottom teeth. My dentist said the only way to repair it without it happening again is to get braces. So I’ve been slowly realigning my jaws to fit nicely and I’m really happy with the results. It is weird to be just going and eating whenever I want and not needing to immediately get up and brush my teeth after a meal. I still panic that I forgot to put them back in after I eat. But I’m glad I did this and I look forward to getting that tooth fixed at some point and completing the whole process.