Boy, this could be enough to push me back towards cable and Windows Media Center.  I don't know if they'll push this patch down to DirectTivo (which isn't officially a Tivo device, though of course DirecTV licenses their software from Tivo), but this would have a pretty big impact on us.  We commonly record pay-per-view shows and keep them for months (mostly because of Matthew).

While watching the Cardinals look ever more futile this evening, I managed to try out a few solitaire Piecepack games.

First up was Tula (ppwiki), which feels like a solitaire card game.  This is an enjoyable puzzle game where you try to deconstruct a tower (temple) of tiles by matching either the suit or the rank with the last piece removed.  There's some pathmaking and memory involved and it was a fine diversion.

Next up was One Man: Thrag! (ppwiki).  A fun diversion, but too luck driven for my taste.  There isn't much strategy involved - mostly a figure-the-odds and decide if you want to roll the dice to kill a monster.

Looks like Yourself!Fitness, the XBox-based personal fitness trainer, shipped this month.  This is a product of responDESIGN, a company founded by Corillian founder (and my former boss) Ted Spooner.  The reviews don't look so bad - good luck folks!

While this game is a smash hit with the family, I should warn those of you contemplating playing this with younger children: consider toning down some of the narrative in the haunts.  A week after our playing, Matthew tolds Julie at night that he couldn't stop thinking about the mummy that breathed into the girls mouth, whose eyes then turned red.  OK, now I'm freaking out myself. 

We finally celebrated Jacob and Matthew's respective birthdays with their friends on Sunday afternoon.  The opted for a joint gameday, with each inviting 4-5 of their friends.  It worked out pretty well.  In case you care, here's how we scheduled out the afternoon:

• 2pm - 2:30 - Welcome kids, start a big game of Liar's Dice.  This is an easy game for players to join mid-stream.  We didn't come close to finishing, but the kids had a blast.
• 2:30 - 3:30 - First game session.  The older kids played Finstere Flure while the younger ones played Can't Stop.
• 3:30 - 3:45 - Outside game to burn off some steam.  We played with balloons and finished with a balloon-popping relay race.
• 3:30 - 4:15 - Cake and gifts
• 4:15 - 5:00 - Second game session.  The older kids played 3 rounds of Colossal Arena and the younger ones played Quicksand.

All of the older kids were very much into the games and had a blast.  There were 6 of them so I had to choose games with very little downtime to keep everyone interested.  Matthew's group was hit and miss - two of the kids are still lacking some of the attention span required to play games like this, but one of them was a surprise and latched right onto them (and will likely get an invite back from Matthew real soon).

Liar's Dice for the opening.

The young uns playing Can't Stop.  This would be a great game to bring into the classroom for math labs.

Some Finstere Flure action.  Evan escaped the dungeon first with two of his characters.

Jacob and the mandatory Costo cake.

Matthew wanted a birthday apple pie this year.

Gratuitous shot of our cool cat Sammi.

Time to catch up on some session reports.  I had some good gaming activity over the weekend, starting with a Friday lunchtime session at work.  Side note: I'm sitting here in a hotel in California (Huntington Beach) and it looks like I'm on the edge of hurricane here.  There's some serious wind blowing, driving rains, and the palm trees are leaning to the north about 10 deg.  Can't wait to get back to Oregon, land of everlasting sunshine and blue skies.

Back to gaming: Eric, Arron, Paul, Jason, and I sat down for a game of Acquire.  I love this game and it was on my short list of games to suggest for five players that could be played in about 90 minutes (the other was Through the Desert, which I'm sure we'll get to soon).  Funny enough, only Eric had even heard of Acquire before.

Acquire is a game of corporate acquisition and, in the paraphrased words of Eric Landes, “just might be the best game ever from an American designer.”  He's speaking, of course, of Sid Sackson.  Alan Moon, though, is certainly giving him a run for his money.  The game is easy to learn, just makes sense when you are playing it, is a decent lesson in cash flow and investments, and is a must-have for serious and casual gamers alike.

I had the benefit of sitting to the left of the three newbies, with Eric sitting to my left (I suspect Eric has played the game quite a bit more than I have; this was probably my 6th playing).  Somehow I managed to participate as the major or minor leading shareholder in every single acquisition that happened, leading to a fairly lopsided game:

Last week I participated in a four-way discussion on the pros and cons of the card game St. Petersburg.  Obviously I like this game.

This is where I am today.

You can find the Games Magazine 100 list, along with the awards for 2005, over at Funagain.