Funky!

I realize that very few people actually read this weblog, but for those of you who do, or those of you just passing by, Please, PLEASE help me in my letter writing campaign.Some months ago the National Zoo closed down the Bat House for renovations, it is now entirely possible that it will never be opened up as a Bat House again, and i cannot let this happen. This is THE only place in the area that offers an opportunity for people to experience bats. The Zoo could really step up to the plate as it were by creating a new, more informative Bat House. Bats have long suffered under false myths and rumours while in reality they are one of our most important natural resources. Many people, you’d be surprised how many people, are still laboring under hte delusion of these falsehoods. A little education and interaction can go a long way. Bats need our help as an entire species, and we cannot let the Zoo remove this fantastic chance to educate so many people. Please take the time to write, actually write, not e-mail, just one letter (or more!) to the Zoo telling them what a mistake they’d be making, and how much everyone would benefit from a new improved bat house.

The National Zoo
3001 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008

David L. Evans, acting director
Mary R. Tanner, deputy director

zoo staff

James. M. Schroeder, Executive Director of/for Friends of the National Zoo

FONZ staff

Right, here we go, more games, then i’ll be up to date.

10 Days in the USA by Alan Moon and Aaron Weissblum- same game as 10 days in the USA, though slightly harder because of card distribution. The board is an map of the US with the states being one of like 5 or 6 colours. you have card holders in front of you that are marked for a 10 day journey and after your draw your first hand (all 10 cards) you are then switching our cards, you cannot swap cards around) until you get a complete 10 day journey. States that are right next to each other you can walk between, states that are one away from each other you need a car to go between, and you can fly to states that are the same colour, as long as you have the same colour plane. first person to get a complete journey lined up wins. It’s an easy and fun game, but my favorite part about the 10 days games is that you don’t need to know your geography to play, but you really pick it up just by playing. Rating- fun! 10 Days in the USA

Phoenix by Zach and Amanda Greenvoss- this is one of my favorite new ones i tried out. we don’t sell it at the store anymore though because we got it in on a customer recomendation and i bought the one copy we had, when we went to order more our distributor cannot get it from Eurogames anymore, they might have stopped making it. This is really ashame. Phoenix is a great 2 player game based on the colour spectrum, kinda. what you get is a board, 6 colour cubes, 30 pawns in the same colors (not 30 each) and a deck of action card. You set up the board by drawing the 6 cubes out of the handy bag they give you and placing them left to right on the board in the order you draw them, then you take turns drawing out the pawns, 10 on each side, again placing left to right. The goal is now to get all your pawns in the color order shown by the cubes. The action cards that make up your hand allow you to change the line up of your pawns, swap pawns with your opponent and change the color cubes in the middle. The first person to get their pawns in the right colour order ends the round, and usually wins. You get 5 pt. for finishing first. 4 pt. for having each colour represented on your side (it doesn’t always happen) 4 pt. for having a group of 5 of the same colour together, 3 pt. for a group of 4 and 2 pt. for a group of 3. Because it’s european, you play through 3 rounds, at least this seems to be a general rule for euro games. So, in the end. FANTASTIC game, i really really love it. Rating- Freakin’ awesome ooh, and colourful! Phoenix

Jambo by Ruediger Dorn- possibly the longest game i’ve every played by Kosmos, it’s quite a groovy little game. Lots of fiddly bits, but once you start playing it seems to make sense. Since it’s a kosmos game, it is for 2 players, you and your opponent are traders trying to make the most money (the first to 60 gold i believe) by buying a trading goods in the marketplace. There are also action cards that can be quite nice, or really thwart your plans. Just because this is a teeny description, don’t think i didn’t like it. I just can’t go into rule detail because they’re complicated, but that’s the gist of it. Anyhow, good, but a bit long for a lighter game. Bonus-it get’s you started speaking Swahili. Rating: raha tele! Jambo

Around the World in 80 days by Michael Rieneck- Bet you can’t guess the goal and premiss of this game! Anyhow, this is a great family game that i really enjoy. You are racing your cronies to get around to all the places Phineas Fogg visited and get back to London in the shortest amount of time. You play travel cards (trains or ships) to get to different destinations, and said cards have varying numbers that will cost you varying days. There are also action cards that can help or hinder, and the damn Detective, if you end your day where the detective is, you lose one day spent talking with him. (STUPID STUPID DETECTIVE. I think he’s the cousin of the thief in Settlers) It’s got good gameplay and i really like the card drawing mechanic of it. You’d like me to tell you about it, but i’m not going to, see? So you’ll just have to play the game yourself! NYEH! Rating-Gloriumptious. Around the World in 80 Days

Princes of Florence by Richard Ulrich and Wolfgang Kramer- Here is what i have to say about this game. I FREAKIN’ LOVE THIS GAME. That should be good enough reason for all of you (all 3 of you) to go out and buy it. The only draw back is that it’s not a two player game. You play very rich dudes (i’m sure there’s a better term than that) in Florence during the Rennaisance, by putting certain buildings and features on your land and offering certain freedoms you are trying to attract great artisans to come and stay with you and create a great work of art. Once you understand what goes on in a round, it’s easy to comprehend, but there’s LOADS of strategy and different tactics to employ. I like fact that each round is has an auction phase and a personal aquisition phase. AND, it that wasn’t enough. it’s got tetris bits too! so it’s great for people who play with their Meeples. And, the meeples in this game are the same ones from Master Labyrinth more or less, so should tragedy occur to one of your games, you could always switch them out, or have split custody of the little meeples. So, in conclusion, THIS GAME ROCKS! Rating- if i kissed an enchanted frog, this is the prince i would want it to turn into. Princes of Florence

There, HA! completely up to date! W00t!

oooohkay…i’m behind here, where am i….(looks at list….Oh CWAP! i’m WAAAAY Behind)

all right, well let’s just jump in here.

ZINGO! by Binary Arts/Think Fun- Bingo with a Zing! pretty much explains it. you’ve got a board, 4X3 i think, and the dispenser give you two tiles at a time, if you need one of them you want to be the first person to shout it out, then you get to take it. First to completely cover their board wins. Great favorite of 4 year olds, works well with lots of ages though. rating-Zingy! Zingo

Isolate by Educational Insights- Isolate is a 2 or 4 player game where you lay out tiles of your color (2 colors for 2 players and 1 color each for 4) on a 7×7 grid and then take turns moving complete rows and coloumns of tiles. When you succeed in Isolating (!) a tile, or group of tiles so that only a corner is touching they can be removed from the board. First to get all there pieces off wins. It’s kinda like a reverse Blokus I like it a lot, it’s got good bits, but probably my favorite part is that you don’t need to keep the box around, all the tiles snap up underneath the board! It’s pretty groovy. Rating-neat Isolate

Wordigo by River Edge Game Company- This is probably my favorite word game ever. What i love about this game is that everyone works on their own crossword puzzle at the same time. You have an choice of 4 different puzzles on double sided boards. you can have 8 tiles out at a time, the time limit is 7 min. and you have to work on the puzzle in order, each “word” of the crossword is numbered and you have to do them sequentially, which is very tricky on some of the harder ones. Also, you can look up any word you want, but it eats at your time, better to have you lap top next to you than your pc across the room. of course, I GUESS you could use your dictionary, tcha, if anyone has one of those anymore. Rating-speedylicious Wordigo

Ricochet by Reinhard Staupe- I LOVE this game. The problem is i’m Patrick isn’t good at it and doesn’t like it. Steven is too good at it even holding back. Regardless, I LOVE THIS GAME. It’s a quick number recognition game where each card has 4 different colored pinball bumpers with different numbers on it, and at the bottom is a pinball in a corresponding color, either large or small (pinball or pachinko!) So for cards are place face up all away from each other (in a circle, kind of) and when everyone is ready, you put one in the middle of the wagon train there. This card has already been ‘hit’ and it is out for the round, but what you’re doing is looking at the ball on that card you take the color (we’ll say yellow) and the size (we’ll say small) and so you’re looking for the smallest yellow bumper number on the four remaining cards, when you find it that card is now hit and is out and then you look at the ball on that one and find the correct card out of the remaining three. When there are only 2 cards to choose from, you slap the one that isn’t the right answer, or the only one that isn’t ‘hit’ already. But mind you, this is going on in 15-30 sec time. It’s number Jungle Speed. Anyhow, it’s great. SUPA GREAT, in fact, that’s my rating- SUPA’ GREAT (mad cap number fun) Ricochet

okay, that’s enough for tonight. more tomorrow. if you behave.

oh wait- Here is the ironic thing you should know about me that i’ve just figured out. I seem to really like number games (ricochet, ricochet robots…) i’m not always good at them, but i really like them. Also, i enjoy sports, not watching them (except Aussie rules) but i enjoy playing outside, kickball, tennis, soccer, wiffleball, red rover etc. The thing is- i’m awful at Math and INCREDIBLY lazy. perhaps it harkens back to me wee days when i wasn’t as lazy and was good at math (these of course would be my wee, wee, WEE days)

anyhow, yeah, so that’s it. remember. BEHAVE!

Fun from the toy store!

“There’s a difference between Apes and Monkeys? I thought monkeys
was just one of those made up words that didn’t really mean anything.”

Oi. i ask you.

And patrick sent me this. Some poor IT guy posted to Craigslist the
other day. Hillarious, but he must have been really frustrated.

A Friendly Reminder From Your IT Department

I think it might be time for those of you who work in the corporate
environment to get a bit of a refresher on your IT departments unspoken
rules. It seems a few of you have forgotten what it’s all about. This
should provide as a reminder as to the inner workings of the corporate
IT world.

1. They are all my computers; I am only letting you borrow them.
   People constantly laugh at me when I say this, with no idea that I am
   absolutely serious. I have been given the responsibility of every
   computer in the office; they are all under my auspices, bar none. if I
   am gracious enough to give you access to one of my computers, then be
   nice to it. Talk to it kindly, call it a nice computer, and
   occasionally pat the monitor. Your computer – and your IT guy – will
   thank you for it. Also, this applies to printers, the network
   connection to the outside world, the videoconference system, and the
   phone system. Mine. All mine. Get it? Good.
2. If you are going to use my stuff, then use it properly. This
   means LEARN ABOUT FUCKING SPYWARE. If you absolutely HAVE to go to some
   site during work hours (and we’ll talk about this in a minute), then
   make sure, when the popups start showing up, you click the little black
   X in the upper right hand corner. Don’t click the big flashing “OK” in
   the middle. Don’t. Whatever it is you think you should do – if it’s not
   that little grey X in the uppermost right corner, don’t do it. Don’t.
   Just. Fucking. Don’t.
3. We know. Yeah, that’s right, we know. Every little site you’ve
   gone to. All the email that passes through your computers. All the
   instant message chats you have. We know. All of them. So the next time
   you decide you just HAVE to visit some idiotic website with a movie of
   two guys fucking a chicken, the next time you HAVE to spam emails to
   all your friends about the cute guy you hooked up with the other night
   and he gave you chlamydia, the next time you HAVE to talk to your
   ex-girlfriend about hooking up one more time behind your fiance’s back,
   think twice about who might be reading that shit, and if you’ve pissed
   your IT guys off. Because we know.
4. Do not take advantage of us, or our toys. It’s awful nice of us
   to provide you with a boatload of network storage space for your own
   private use. Oh, and incidentally, that network storage space at work?
   IT’S FOR WORK PURPOSES. That means take the seventeen gigabytes of mp3s
   from some shitty hip-hop artist that you got from some peer-to-peer and
   GET THEM OFF MY FUCKING NETWORK. I won’t ask nicely again. And listen
   to some real music – hip-hop sucks.
5. Learn to share. Look, I realize that the computer came with
   Windows XP. I don’t like it any more than you do. But really – that T1
   we’ve got? It’s for everyone, so you can’t hog all our bandwidth by
   downloading the entire Fedora Core 3. Do it from home. If you want to
   bring it in to work and dual-boot your drive, I really don’t have a
   problem with it. But go back to kindergarden first and realize that
   hoarding is a bad thing, ok? Thanks.
6. The computer I let you use is for your use alone. This is
   somewhat malleable, where if someone at work needs your machine for a
   minute, you can let them use it. When your fourteen year old son comes
   to the office with you on Saturday and you let him use one of MY
   computers, then bitch to me about spyware, well, I’m just gonna tell
   you to lick the crack of my ass and spit in a cup. Sure, I’ll fix your
   machine, but after that you’re gonna have two icons on your desktop;
   “Go To Work” and “Go Home”, and “Go Home” won’t work until 5:30. Think
   I can’t do it? Try me.
7. Are you a Program Manager? Then keep your fucking hands off of my
   fucking computers. This is non-negotiable. You people could fuck up a
   free lunch. Get the fuck away from them or I will stab you in the neck
   with a pencil.
8. Are you in sales? Please see #7. You people are worse than Program Managers. Drink bleach.
9. Are you in Engineering? I realize that most of you have forgotten
   more about hardware than I will ever know. This doesn’t really give you
   the right to attempt to overclock the PC I’ve let you use to Ludicrious
   Speed. Please use discretion. Attempting to eke out a few hundred more
   hertz is fine; requisitioning a Freon Cooling Unit because 3.06G just
   isn’t fast enough is a little overkill. Trust me.
10. Oh, so you have a laptop of your own? Keep. It. Off. My. Network.
    If I catch an unknown machine anywhere on my net (please see #3), I
    will fuck that machine up so badly your high-school TI calculator will
    be a Beowulf Cluster compared to your new paperweight. Also, I don’t
    fix home computers. Tough shit. I hope you get herpes.
11. If you want something from your IT Department, email is your
    friend. This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine, but still – if you need
    something from me, email it to me. Don’t blindly call me, don’t
    magically materialize next to my desk and sit there while I’m working
    on something, waiting for me to pay attention to you – email it to me.
    I’m not doing shit for you until I have a paper trail originating from
    you about it. You can follow up with a phone call, that’s fine; you can
    come over and say, “I just shot you an email, can we discuss?” – that’s
    fine too. If you just come over and leer at me while I’m in the middle
    of something, I will ignore you, and mentally give you cancer with my
    mind.
12. Anti-virus software. Look, people, it’s there for a fucking
    reason. Don’t try to shut it off, please? Can we at least agree on
    that? We spent a lot of money on that software so that it would be up
    and running all the time, and it’s not really my fault if you have
    fifty applications open and “the anti-virus software is slowing my
    machine down!!” So I’ll make a deal with you; if you don’t shut my
    anti-virus software on my computers off, I won’t shove an abacus
    straight up your ass. Ok? Good.

Following these 12 simple steps will make for a far more pleasing work environment. I guarantee it.

Thanks for reading.

Okay, i’ve played some more games and i need to write them up. but here are the highlights of my week

• A customer at work asked Reggie if we had Audio Tapes for Sign Language
• I recognized my first German word without already previously knowing it. I was going throught the Haba Catalog at work and came across the DrauBenSpielen tin, which is Outside Games! YAY!!!
• and possibly the funniest thing on SNL in a while, the Woomba robot commercial. It’s the little pink robot that cleans your Noony.

Getting up early makes me ill. blech. unless it’s Ass-early and there’s the promise of Roller coasters or other fun to get me going, then it’s fine

But anyhoo happy peoples, here i am, bright and cheery to give you a new installment of the S.G.P. (summer games project-of course, i just totally cancelled out the point of shortening it by explaining it. THANKS A LOT!)

first off, I Won! woo-hoo! so far that’s a 1:4 ratio. not bad for me but i digress…

Sole Mio! by Uwe Rosenberg- brought to us by the same guy who did Bohnanza (Hooray!) this game is interesting because it works both as an expansion to Mamma Mia! and as a stand alone game. It’s self described as “lighter, faster and more fun” Steven said it was quicker, and i’ll take his word on it (for it?) I don’t know if it was MORE fun, per say, but i enjoyed myself. (winning didn’t hurt ) I think it would be interesting to play it with Mamma Mia as it has some clever new pizza cards. Still, i would never eat any of the pizzas you make in this game
:P. But that’s mostly me. (What am i saying? that’s ALL me) Rating-delicious Sole Mio!

I love how creative the Germans are with their game concepts. Though sometimes that makes it hard to explain a really good game to a customer. “This is a game about bean farming…” I think it’s rare to find that kind of “plot” creativity in american games. I mean, their games just run the gammut. Flea circuses (two on that theme!) Pizza Making, Bean Farming, Landlording, Farm Clean up, i could probably go on and on. For thankgiving some years ago, i said i was thankful for German TV programing. because, clearly, IT’S CRAP, and they have to come up with all these great games to fill their free time. And to my Mysterious Canadian Viewer, if you’re still out there, i haven’t forgotten about you, as usual, all posts unless otherwise noted are dedicated to you, and HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!! (well, i hope you had a happy Canada day as i’m a day late )

Okay, in no particular order…here we go:

Final Count: 122
Current Count: 109

• Puerto Rico
• Amun-Re
• Princes of Florence
• Tigris & Euphrates
• Entdecker
• Tower of Babel
• Louis XIV
• Hansa
• Tongiaki
• Oasis
• Wyatt Earp
• Mystery of the Abbey
• Torres
• Mammoth Hunters
• Carcassonne-the City
• Carc.exp-Inns and Cathedrals
• Carc.exp-the count
• Carc.exp-king/scout
• Carc.exp-Princess and the Dragon
• Starship Catan
• LOTR-the duel
• LOTR-the confrontation
• Jambo
• Babel
• Gone Fishing
• Kingdoms
• Boomtown
• Wooly Bully
• Empire Builder
• Eurorails
• Iron Dragon
• TransAmerica
• TransEuropa
• Diplomacy
• Aquire
• Axis and Allies
• Memoir ‘44
• Risk
• Risk 2210
• Stratego
• Runebound
• Heroscape
• Mexica
• Ticket to ride Europe
• Around the World in 80 days
• Pirates Cove
• Phoenix
• Formula DE mini
• Hare and Tortise
• Ninja Burger
• Illuminati
• David & Goliath
• Oh, Pharoh!
• 10 Days in the USA
• Great States
• Borderline
• Mad Dash
• World Dash
• Sole Mio
• Circus Flohcati
• Mu & More
• Pig Pile
• Frank’s Zoo
• WordXchange
• Wordigo
• Word Rummy
• Letter Flip
• Buy Word
• Pass the Bomb
• Fire and Ice
• Go
• Rumis
• Make N Break
• Isolate
• ZigZag
• Coda
• 3D5
• Parchesi
• Catch Phrase
• Guesstures
• Cranium Turbo
• Tribond Jr.
• Rummikub
• Blurt
• Take it Easy
• Ghost Chase
• Chicken ChaChaCha
• Gulo Gulo
• Rivers Roads and Rails
• Cariboo
• Space Race
• Kit & Caboodle
• Dog Dice
• Hocus Focus
• Wigout
• Ricochet
• Lickety Split
• Tara Diddle
• Hear N Seek
• Gopher it!
• Catch the Match
• Yummy
• 1st Hand
• PDQ
• ASAP
• Turbulent Top
• Monster Match
• Splash Attack
• Grab Bag
• What’s Gnu?
• Mystery Garden
• Zingo
• Tell a Story
• Scavenger hunt
• Maask
• Amazing Animal Trivia
• Horse Sense
• The Way Things Work
• Highly Suspect
• Smath
• Equate
• Wizard

first off, the new brand of hair dye we tried SUCKED. only i can’t remember what it’s called to warn you away from it. it may be some crap name like Color Zone. it totally doesn’t work. however, i did just try out 2 new colors from Special Effects, Joyride (UV reactive!) and Wildflower. I’m quite partial to Wildflower. But none of this matters-

Why it helps to be a geek!!

I just noticed that i had 25 (!!) people poke in here from my user profile on BoardGameGeek.com 25! that’s a lot, well, i mean, for me. Aaaand, on this same vein here i am to announce my summer project. I, for everyone who wasn’t aware, work in a really awesome toy store called Barstons Child’s Play in Washington, D.C., anyhoo, i made a list the other day of all the games i haven’t played yet, and it turned out to be a much larger list than i was expecting. ( i made a list of games i have played to make myself feel better, it turns out i’ve played a little over half the games we sell.) So i have about 115 games to play this summer. i had to add two more to the list last night that i had missed. So i’m gonna post it here, and Patrick kindly made a little buttony linky thing on the side here so you can keep tabs on it. should you be interested. I mean, who doesn’t like a countdown? Also, i’ll be posting about the games i play. Hopefully, this will keep me better about posting. okie dokes, i’ll put this up, then here comes the beer–WHAT THE HELL? this is what happens when you’re watching TV and blogging. As i was saying, then here comes the list.