I like posting about music I’m listening to because I usually get good pointers to other artists that I’ll enjoy.  So keep the recommendations coming!

An automatic purchase for me recently was Son Volt’s Okemah and the Melody of Riot.  I’ve long been a fan of Uncle Tupelo (going back to my late college years in St. Louis where they were a local band) and while I’ve generally agreed with critics that Wilco was the better of the two bands formed from the Uncle Tupelo bifurcation (Son Volt being the other), I find myself listening to Jay Farrar and Son Volt a lot more than I do Jeff Tweedy and Wilco.  Julie and I caught Son Volt’s live show here in Portland earlier this year and I think she has turned into a genuine fan as well; at least I catch her listening to the CD at home from time to time.  So if you are a fan of Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and other singer-songwriters with some country influence, check this one out.

Julie had me pick up a few CDs from Amazon recently, namely Coldplay’s X&Y, Green Day’s American Idiot, and Weezer’s Make Believe.  I also added Beck’s Guero to the order.  So, I expected to like American Idiot and Guero quite a bit, was skeptical about Make Believe, and had no clue what to expect with X&Y.  I rarely listen to music on the radio and Coldplay has never even been on my radar.  I think I remember hearing comparisons to U2 and the Beatles and that they are perhaps the best band so far of the 21st century, which drastically reduced my interest in seeking them out.  I had visions of the Oasis hype back in the mid 90s.  Boy, was I surprised – this album is as good as anything I’ve heard from U2 (and I’m a huge Joshua Tree fan) and now I understand the hype.  They are also very different than just about everything I’ve been listening to for the past few years, which is a pleasant change.  Some times talent does lead to extreme popular success.

My final mention is of Fall Out Boy.  BMG Music recently acquired the music club part of Columbia House, and I had a lingering membership that was transfered over.  Somewhere in the shuffle they think I failed to decline one of the monthly selections (I’m certain I did) and I was going to return it, but instead opened it to give it a listen and rip into iTunes.  I’m glad I did – From Under the Cork Tree is a fine album that I’m enjoying.  This is mild punk rock with some good pop harmonies – reminds me of Green Day and The Clash.

I really enjoy reading The Escapist – very relevant an insightful information on video gaming, often with ties into tabletop gaming.  This month they have a focus on wargames, with the highlight being Les Grognards.  Check it out.

Julie just wrapped a redecorating project in the game room (formerly the play room – the boys informed me that they are too old to have one of those).  The project started a while back as Julie and I discussed a way to introduce board game box covers into the decorations.  I had seen a similar decorating approach in Greg Schloesser’s game room down in New Orleans and quite liked it.

Our approach was to do color copies of the box covers and have a friend of a friend do a high quality vacuum mounting job on foam core followed by lamination and a precise cut job around the outside.  The results were fantastic – in many cases the art looks better than the original.  The cost per piece was $10, but that was a discounted price that I don’t think we’ll be able to get again.

Julie brought in a friend who specializes in interior design and did some brainstorming and decided that using the Power Grid style for the room would work best.  Think 1950s government green, brushed metal, industrial look.  She found some cool storage cabinets at Home Depot, some great lighting fixtures to replace the boring dome lights on the ceiling, and some wire frame shelves for game overflow (heh heh).  She painted our two wooden computer desks (we have three computers in the room for LAN gaming goodness) glossy black and bought 4 black/chrome chairs and 4 brushed aluminum chairs.

We arranged the game art mostly by theme.  Note that we chose the games to mount for their style and graphical quality, not necessarily the quality of the game!

The Memoir ‘44 box was a bit of a challenge to scan, but we found that we could clip the bottom a bit and it would still look fine.

The most expensive part of the process was the set of built-in shelves we added earlier this year to house my game collection.  Amazingly, this vast array of shelves filled up easily and I’m forced to use the closet (where the games used to live) and the wire shelves for overflow.

Overall I love the results and want to publicly thank Julie for her efforts bringing this to fruition.

That’s what we’ve been hoping for… a break from the rain.  Don’t get me wrong, I love winter storms on the coast but we’ve been itching to get outside to do some non-rainy activities.  Looks like things might get better today as we could actually see the sunrise and it is looking like we’ll see some scattered showers but no continuous rain.   The boys and I plan to play some basketball outdoors this morning after breakfast, and we have a low tide mid afternoon so it’s a perfect opportunity to drive down the coast and visit the Yaquina Head tide pools.

Yesterday was full of rain and wind so we stayed indoors most of the day.  We did see the latest Harry Potter movie and had quite a good time.  Very good effects and a good treatment of the story.  Now I feel caught up enough to read the latest two books.  One complaint – Emma Watson as Hermione.  Was she intentionally over-acting to portray the high drama of an adolescent teenage girl, or is she just having troubles acting?

Before dinner last night we got in a few games of For Sale (thanks Yehuda for the last-minute recommendation to bring this out).  David has spent a career in real estate so I thought this would be a good fit.  He and Jan picked up on the rules quickly and had fun playing I think – this is definitely my favorite filler and intro game.

We might also try and fit in a game of Railroad Tycoon today in between b-ball and the tide pools.  The boys are anxious to play Duel of Ages again but having lugged RR Tycoon out here I’d like to see it hit the table at least once.

I worked a half day on Wednesday and we hit the road by about 2pm, arriving at the coast around 4pm.  Surprisingly, we beat Jan and David here by about 30 minutes; they spent a decent amount of time shopping in the midst of their drive from PDX to the coast.

Last night the boys and I took a stab at Duel of Ages.  I picked this one up from Doug and I thought it might hit a sweet spot with the boys.  There are a few fiddly rules that we didn’t get right until our second play today, but overall it was easy to dive right in and play.  Matthew and I took on Jacob with four characters on a team.  The luck went Jacob’s way for the first 2/3 of the game and it looked like Jacob would run away with a victory.  The dice started rolling our way and Matthew and I made an amazing comeback (we were down 3–1 I think), partly due to an ill-advised attack by Jacob which allowed us to tie the game just before time ran out.  We entered sudden death and Matthew and I were able to advance one of our guardians to pull out the victory.  The boys (and I) came away from the game eager to play again, and we were able to get in another play today with David.

Before that play we tried a 6–player game of Pickomino (aka Heckmeck Am Bratwurmeck), a game Julie chose and brought home from Essen.  This is a fun little press-your-luck dice and collection game that has a nice amount of take-that and we found to be quite enjoyable.

This afternoon we played 2v2 Duel of Ages with David and Matthew defeating Jacob and me soundly.  We fixed a few of our mis-played rules this time around – we weren’t doing separate rolls for damage, instead using the attack roll to also determine damage.  Our fun didn’t diminish at all in the second playing so now I suspect I’ll need to anxiously go out and get all of the expansions.  Where should I start?

Julie and Jan once again prepared a tasty Thanksgiving turkey with great side dishes.  Extremely well timed as well, as we sat down just as half-time for the Cowboy game started.  You’d think they had been trained by the Boni Maroni.

Jacob was checking out the weather outside to see if it was still raining, and noticed a salamander sitting in the pine needles just outside the window.  He decided to venture out to bring him in out of the cold – he was quite sluggish as you might expect. Matthew of course had to wear it.

Here he is on Jacob’s hand.

Tomorrow afternoon we’ll load up the car and drive out to the coast for Thanksgiving weekend, which we’ll spend with Jan and David.  We’ll be sure to get some gaming in, so it is time to decide what to load up in the crate.  We have a decent selection of party games out there already, but I’m hoping to get in a few meatier games.  Here’s what I’m thinking:

• Railroad Tycoon – the kids are loving this one as am I, and I think it will be an easy sell to get David to play this one.
• Time’s Up – a rematch!  Maybe we’ll switch teams up this time, as Julie and I won handily last time.
• Lost Valley – I managed a few plays at BGG.CON but the boys haven’t played it yet and I think they’ll love it.
• Cribbage – Jacob’s been enjoying this one lately so why not run with it for a while?
• Drive – Curious to see how this plays with four players.

Probably not worth trying to bring Indonesia, Antike, Caylus, or Byzantium though I’d love to play any of these over the weekend.  Hmmm… Matthew did love Caylus, maybe I should reconsider.

I wish I had a decent football boardgame to bring out during the Cowboys game on Thursday.  I’ve heard good things about Pizza Box Football but haven’t tried it yet.

Any other suggestions?

KC, Rita, and I held a Havoc launch event at our friendly local game store, Rainy Day Games.  We did this on Sunday to kick off National Games Week.  Turnout was, well, “meh” but we did have non-stop demos going on and it was fun to just hang out with friends (the Rudes, Loops, Deans’s’s).

We did a drawing at the end and give away a gift card for RDG and a copy of Havoc with all of the expansions.  Steve Ellis, owner / manager of RDG, is such a nice guy and we always have great conversations about game industry trends, distribution, game store profitability, and more.

Ken, Brandon, and Jacob played some CribbGolf, a game I picked up at Goodwill earlier this year for $1.99.  As Ken put it, “this is a great way to ruin cribbage.”  Oh well… maybe I spent too much.

Steve showed a few of us how to play Tsuro, the new abstract release from WizKids.  The production on this game is very nice, and the play isn’t too bad either.  It reminds me a bit of Metro but it plays quickly and should be a big hit for these guys.

What’s amazing is the price-point on this game – about $25.  Just goes to show how volume production can get the cost (and price) down on what looks to be a high quality game.

Football season for Jacob and Matthew ended this Saturday as Jacob’s team lost in their championship bid against a tough Canby team 6–0.  The only touchdown was a defensive score off of a fumble – this was a tough defensive battle!  Jacob did a great job this year on the line, playing offensive center and tackle and a number of different line positions on defense.  Matthew also had a great year, playing fullback and scoring over five touchdowns and putting in some great play at cornerback.  He’ll be playing again at the same level next year so should be a dominant force at running back.