Carcassonne & Qwirkle

01.25.2014

The first game of the 2014 Widgey Season was a double header of Carcassonne and Qwirkle, both of which have been featured on Wil Wheaton's TableTop YouTube show (or is it a channel?). While Carcassonne has been sitting in the gaming closet for a year or two, Qwirkle was a purchase due solely to how much fun is looked when Wil Wheaton played, along with how simple it looked to learn and speed of playing a game. As such, I picked up a copy before Christmas and have played it a couple of times.

Qwirkle

Carcassonne has been popular for the majority of the last 10 years and is one of those "games every board gamer should play", so it was only fitting that if nothing else we should play it so as to mark it off the gaming bucket list. There's a lot of strategy involved for what seems like a simlpe game on the surface - lots of ways to score, play offensively and defensivley. Not as fast a game to play (or learn) as Qwirkle, but variety is part of what makes gaming fun.

Carcassonne

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3D Printed Fun

01.17.2014

One of my Christmas presents to myself was a batch of 3D printed models which I could (hopefully) use for gaming. My goal has long been to integrate some type of GI Joe Comic Book/Cartoon inspired element into a game, and someone made a few of the Gi Joe & Cobra vehicles in 28mm scale on Shapeways. Last year Jerry ordered a couple of space ships from Shapeways, mainly to test out the quality ofwhat they are able to print. The ships he ordered had a nice amount of detail for how small they were. Thanks to a Black Friday sale, I finally placed my order for a helicopter, tank, and trio of jeeps.

The jeeps were based on the VAMP jeep. One was a basic jeep, the second had a machine gun to mount, and the third a missile rack. I probably should have just ordered one to see if these vehicles would work for what I wanted to use them, but they were on sale and buying them had been on my mind since I discovered them almost a year ago.

It took almost a month for my order to ship. 3D printing is a slow process, and Jerry pointed out I might have been the first person to ever order these models so there was a good chance some quality assurance checking was going on with a better than average chance included that something wasn't going right. That's fine, I wasn't in a hurry. I told myself this a couple of times each day.

After my order arrived I looked through everything. Helicopter, tank, jeeps. While looking at the jeeps something wasn't right. 1 of the jeeps had a part missing - the back 1/5 was missing. I looked in the back in which it was packed - there wasn't a trunk to glue on. Nothing had broken off. The open back end of the jeep was just... open. Normally I would think something has cleanly sliced the back end off, but in this case it was like the 3D printer had just run out of plastic when it was printing the jeep.

I sent exchanged emails with Gary at Shapeways Customer Service, including the above pictures. I like Gary, he has a good sense of humor and could tell I wasn't an irate customer wanting an immediate solution. Basically they'll look into it and let me know what to do next. That's the answer I was looking for.

I can figure out how to use 4/5 of a jeep. I can work up something to close the big hole in the back - the rear axle is there so I can still make a 4-wheeled vehicle. More fun would to make a wrecked vehicle objective marker out of it. I bet that's what will eventually happen. Now my mind gets to wander around all the different ways to make it less than 4/5 of a vehicle. And on fire.

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I still want a Helicarrier

01.08.2014

I had an idea for something today that would amuse Jerry since he's been amused the past couple of days, but I've waited to long and have forgotten whatever it was.

Instead, here's a bonus feature about the SHIELD Helicarrier from the Avengers movie.

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I need to watch more cartoons

01.07.2014

Two things I'm supposed to know about, especially when quizzed by Jerry, are movies and comics. Jer was telling me about watching the Avengers movie with Alice over the weekend and how she enjoyed it, which led to how she watches most of the Marvel cartoons, one of which features teenage versions of Iron Fist and some other guys. While Jerry was trying to describe the other guys, I wasn't real sure who they were. That bothered me, so of course I had to track it down.

The cartoon in question is Ultimate Spider-Man. The character I had never heard of was White Tiger. The character that messed me up because his costume and personality is so different is Power Man, but given that the description I had to go on was "some black guy who's powers are forgettable" I give myself a little leeway.

From the Ultimate Spider-Man wiki, from L. to R.

White Tiger - (real name Ava Ayala) is a S.H.I.E.L.D. trainee and the current successor in her family's legacy to bear the name. Originally a lone hero, she joined S.H.I.E.L.D. in an effort to become a right-hand woman to Nick Fury. With the rest of her group, she embarked on many missions and developed further as a hero. Throughout her time with the rest of the group, she rediscovered her hatred for Kraven the Hunter for the murders of her father and grandfather and overcame her desire to kill him herself with the aid of Spider-Man. She controls herself naturally and helps the others with that too.

Nova - (real name Sam Alexander) is a super-hero with cosmic-energy abilities. Ever since being inducted into the Nova Corps, Sam has developed quite the cocky attitude. He believes himself to be a natural leader, despite not seeing the limitations of his powers and his "fight now, talk later" strategy, which ends up, not being the best choice.

Power Man - (real name Luke Cage) is the muscle and "street-smart" man of a S.H.I.E.L.D.-sanctioned superhero team. He is Iron Fist's best friend. It is revealed that Luke received his powers from a S.H.I.E.L.D. version of the Super Soldier Formula developed by his parents.

Iron Fist - (Daniel "Danny" Rand) is a master of K'un Lun's martial arts. Wealth, awesome kung fu skills, head of a company, Danny has it all. Always calm, always in control, always there to aid and assist. Despite his laid-back personality, Danny takes himself very seriously but always keeps his cool. He loves to meditate and does it whenever possible to practice his Zen.

He provides his S.H.I.E.L.D.-sanctioned team insightful advice and teachings from his past experiences in K'un-Lun. Iron Fist is the glue that holds the team together.

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Post Op Week 14

01.06.2014

After a couple of weeks of my weight loss slowing down to less than what had become the norm of 4 pounds per week, the past week saw a sudden upswing to nearly 8 pounds loss. I have no idea what I've done differently over the past week that spurred this on, but that's part of the joy of losing weight - sometimes it just happens.

I finally built up the courage to eat a real salad last week. Looking at the paperwork from the doctor's office I was allowed to finally try raw vegetables now, so it was time to revisit my old friend the salad. My salad did not require a building permit like my salads of old. This new salad was fairly dainty, in a bowl that could easily be held in my hand. For the actual salad, I mixed in some good old fashioned Iceberg Lettuce, broccoli, mushrooms, along with a little chicken and (fat free) cheese. I was nervous about how the salad would settle after I ate it, but it actually sat better than most other meals I've had.

Saturday I was out running errands and decided to be adventurous and eat out. Mexican food has been one of my safer foods of late (ironic since I've never really cared for Mexican) so I opted for Moe's as I was on that side of town. For fun, I called Jer and invited him out. He brought a date.

Lunch with Jer and Alice was nice - I think I managed to not provide too bad of an influence.

The hardest parts about eating is to not eat too fast and not eat too much. I ordered a small burrito but told myself I wasn't going to eat all of it. A small burrito from Moe's is still roughly the size of my fist. I ate about half of it.

Half was the right point to stop at.

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