You can register online here.  We plan to go this year, with Jacob and I probably attending for three of the days.  Perhaps Matthew will be ready as well.

I played a quick solitaire game of Vanished Planet tonight to acquaint myself with the rules and get a feel for the game play.  Maybe I'll write a review after I get a chance to play it with the boys this weekend, but for now I'll share a few first impressions:

• This game is difficult.  I played on the easiest setting and lost, though I was close.  There is a countdown effect similar to Sauron approaching the fellowship in the Lord of the Rings Boardgame.
• There are some human factors issues with the game.  I found it very difficult to read the symbols for the different resource and personnel types.  There is too much use of dark colors like black and purple with too little contrast.
• The quick reference on the back of the rules could use some work.  For example, the symbols for the professions should be shown next to each profession since they are referred to in the purchase cost for some of the technologies.
• There are too many levels of indirection in the game, which leads to a certain fiddlyness.  I'm sure this will become more natural over time, but simple things like distinguishing between a trade station or research station can be tough. Why not just use the resource symbols for these locations on the game board?  Or use an iconic representation that would look good on the map but still be appropriate for use on the cards.
• I didn't realize until too late that the creature will eat the satellites fairly early in the game, which put me in a bind.  I only had one goal by the time they were consumed, which made it nearly impossible to win.  I had to spend too many resources to build a Communications Relay so that I could retrieve goals from my home planet.  Had I been able to save those resources for the actual goals I would have won the game.
• The rules could use some work - the specifics seem to be bit scattered around the main rules, the tutorial, and the quick reference.

These notes are mostly negative, but I did enjoy the solitaire play and look forward to trying it with a group.

Bowing to pressure from Fantasy Flight Games, the great folks that built A Game of Thrones Online have taken the game down.  Apparently one of the concerns is physical game ownership of the players that are playing online:

They did have one interesting requirement, however, which has compelled me to launch a question on the forum (http://www.agotonline.com/forum/):

All judges and PBeM games 'must be structured in such a way that it is impossible to play without owning a copy of the game.'

I am not sure how we can comply with this request.  In reality, there is no way to determine whether a human judge needs a copy of the game since the rules are published on their Web site.  Though we heavily encourage ownership of the game and very much want everyone to own a copy, I can't know for sure that every player owns a copy.  (Or do we just need one of the five players to own a copy?)

I think this is a bad move by the Fantasy Flight.  They run the risk of alienating the very individuals most likely to evangelize their games.

I took a bit of a chance and ordered the game Vanished Planet, a cooperative game published independently.  I've heard it is insanely difficult to win, but the mechanics and theme looked interesting enough to give it a try.  Hopefully I'll get a chance to try it this weekend, and I'll certainly report back when I do.

Julie and I have recently converted to nearly all digital photos, and while I like my Nikon Coolpix 2500 it is pretty challenging getting photos to turn out the way I'd like.  About 10 years ago I bought a Canon Eos Elan for Julie on her birthday, and that has been our workhouse for 35mm ever since.  We didn't go nuts on lenses, adding only a zoom lens to the lens that came with the camera.

I've always thought that some day we would get a digital body for those lenses, but $1500+ is just too much to justify.  When Canon announced their Digital Rebel last year, my ears perked up and I started to seriously consider it.

We also discovered that our local Walgreens will do 4x6 printing of our digital photos for only $0.29, so there's some potential savings in development costs (i.e., only print the photos you like).

My only hesitation right now is an ignorance of the quality of the Digital Rebel body vs. some of the other options.  Since my price point is certainly below $1000, there really aren't any other options (other than wait).  Any commentary or feedback would be appreciated.

After a long week of travel to the east coast, and a busy week of activities for the kids, we were all content to lay low and take it easy this weekend.  On Saturday, we did a bit of shopping and saw the movie Miracle, a great flick about the 1980 USA Olympic hockey team.  I'm thrilled that Jacob and Matthew can get a taste of how momentous this event was; for those of us who lived through it stands as one of the most memorable events in our lifetime.  For me, only the Challenger explosion, the collapse of the Berlin wall, and the Sept 11 disaster stand out as much.  The movie was fantastic - a great script in the same league as The Rookie and other Mike Rich classics, though he didn't get writing credit for this one due to some weird writer's guild ruling.

After the movie we just had to stop in at Fry's, and we picked up the PC game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. This game is amazing and kept the men of the house engaged for the better part of Sunday.  If you like role-playing computer games and are a Star Wars fan, you must get this game.

Come join the clash of kings at A Game of Thrones Online.

Check out Chris Farrell's article on ASL pros and cons. My favorite quote:

...I think an unhealthy percentage of the skill involved in playing ASL is in simply knowing the rules. Is this really what you got into gaming for? Every time you play, you're likely to discover a rule you've never seen before, or at least can't remember ever seeing before.

Ken and I gave ASL another shot last year and I finally decided to let go and stick to lighter wargames and German style games.

My friend Mike Deans was kind enough to open his household for a day of gaming with a rather large crowd.  All four us joined the crew from Rip City Gamers.  Oh yeah, I heard there was a football game on two.

Since it is late Sunday and I'm traveling all week, I will post the report with less than my usual game commentary - mostly photos with a few editorial comments.

Today was the regional Chess for Success scholastic tournament, and I coached 10 boys from Archer Glen to compete for the right to compete in the state tournament in March.  There were 11 teams competing and we needed to finish 1st or 2nd to advance.  I knew we had a strong team, but I had no expectations of advancing and just wanted the boys to have fun and try their hardest.

They did amazingly well!  This is a team competition in five rounds, swiss-style.  Of the 10 players we send to the tournament, we count the scores for the top four players on the team.  Players get 1 point for a win, 1/2 point for a draw, and 0 for a loss.  So the maximum team score over five rounds is 20 points.

Our team got off to a great start with a perfect score of 8 after the first two rounds.  Things got tough then, with a couple of our heavy hitters taking losses in the third round, where we score 2.5 points.  By the time the final round came up, we were tied for second place with 12 points, with two other teams knocking on the door with 11.5.  We needed some key final round victories to secure a second place finish and a trip to the state championship.

Our hero of the day, Justin Davis, carried us with a perfect 5-0 record, winning the individual championship.  Jacob and Conner Hendryx had critical final round victories to give the team a final score of 14.5, tying them for second place and a trip to the state championship!  Jacob finished the day with 3 points, making him one of the top 4 players on the Archer Glen team.

Matthew had a great day as well - he held the team's 10th position, and was the only first grader playing in the tournament.  He finished the day with 2 points and felt great about his achievements.