Apr 292019
 

Hey there blog readers.

So it was a big weekend for media of the nerd kind. Avengers: Dead End…I mean End Game came out and a big episode of Game of Thrones dropped. So some quick thoughts without delving into spoilers.

First, Avengers. Joking aside, the movie was alright. I can’t say it blew me away. There were parts I really liked and others that had me rolling my eyes with how serious they were trying to play things. It was a good transition point as the first cycle of storytelling came to an end and they planted some seeds for things to follow. Do not overthink it. The writers obviously did. I feel the story was more convoluted than it needed to be. In a story where they could write their own rules, they spent too much time explaining why the rules worked the way they did…and then neglected them when it served what they wanted to do. Time travel that does not involve phone booths or De Loreans really sucks eggs. It was probably longer than it needed to be but at least the action scenes were not a jumbled and overdrawn mess.

As for Game of Thrones, the feeling of dread has been building as the battle with the Night King and his army of the dead has been drawing ever closer and finally, it was time for the battle…and now it’s done and we can get on to storylines I’m more interested in. Don’t get me wrong, it was an amazing battle, but fight scenes do not captivate me anymore. There was one point that I checked my watch but not because I was bored. I wanted to see if the battle was going to need to be continued in the next episode. To their credit, I think they had the idea going in that this episode was going to be as long as it needed to be to get through the whole battle. And the action didn’t overstay its welcome. I came out feeling satisfied, if surprised, with the result. Just three more episodes left.

So that’s the big news coming out of the weekend and that’s all the blogging I have for now. Have a good seven and we’ll do this all again next Monday.

Apr 222019
 

Hello and good time period. It is time for the words.

I’m on the tail end of my Easter weekend. I love me a four-day weekend. I’ll be having more of those in July (woot). It’s been fairly quiet, which isn’t a bad thing.

For some reason I’ve become fascinated with Cookie Monster videos and also these videos from Universal Studios Theme Park of people in Transformers costumes posing for pictures, like the Disney mascots from Disneyworld. The Megatron ones in particular are the most fun because he has to be mean, all the while not overly cruel or scary.

I got Call to Adventure over the weekend. I tried solo mode and it doesn’t quite work right for me. Some of the adversary cards work but others are just weird. One of them says, when you’re going to choose a quest, you have to choose another. Well, I’ve already undertaken the quest I’m on when the card gets played, so it has to be for the next one. But it makes little sense. I can obviously pick any quest and say that’s the one I wanted to do and then pick another. I know that that’s against the SPIRIT of the card which is that whichever one you most want to do, pick another. But again, it’s just weird. I’ve seen multiplayer and it looks good. I just think the solo rules are forced. It doesn’t help that the rulebook just isn’t very good. There were symbols on some of the cards that were left unexplained. They realized this and added a sentence in the pdf after the fact. Awesome (not awesome). I

That’s all for this week. Have a good seven and we’ll do this all again next Monday. Carja V.

Apr 152019
 

Hmmm…not feeling very bloggy today so this will be a short one this week.

We caught the latest FCL show on Saturday night and it was a good night of graps. There were some technical difficulties with the ring that caused a delay during the intermission, but the final matches were well worth it. Yup, even after a weekend full of wrestling last week, I was still up for more this week. And Monday Night Raw is emanating from Montreal tonight so I’ll be catching that in about ten minutes.

We came within an eyelash of beating Pandemic: Fall of Rome yesterday. We decked ourselves out with just four cubes left to defeat. The last Revolt card just killed us. If it had led to any other colour than white, I think we had it. Oh well, that’s how it goes sometimes.

I also tried Barnacle Bay again. Cleared up a couple of things I got wrong the first time. Some things still seem weird. I’ll need to try some more.

The first FFVI piece goes up on Wednesday!

That’s all for this week. Have a good seven and we’ll do this all again next Monday. Carja V.

Apr 082019
 

You know, I was just thinking to myself recently that I hadn’t gotten enough snow this year. Looks like ol’ Mother Nature doesn’t know sarcasm when she hears it as we’re getting a little bit of a snow storm today. Gah!

So Wrestlemania 35 weekend is in the books and overall it was good. Friday night was NXT Takeover: New York and that card was stellar. A 3 hour show with five matches that were just fantastic. More on this later.

On Saturday, the Hall of Fame ceremony was…decent. The only speech that really dragged was Brutus Beefcake’s. It might have behooved him to actually prepare something rather than just try to call it on the fly. Torrie Wilson was surprisingly inspirational with her speech. The Honkytonk Man was..alright. Oh and Bret Hart got attacked by a fan. That was WEIRD.

Wrestlemania itself was just too darn long. 16 matches over 7 and a half hours (including the pre-show). Seriously, they have to tone it down a bit. Having a Wrestlemania moment doesn’t mean as much if everybody gets to have one.

They were really hyping that this was the first time that the women were getting to main event. They did them no favors with such a long show. It was near midnight before the match started and the crowd just didn’t have the energy to get into it as much as they could have. And while the desired result happened (Becky Lynch won) they did it in about the least exciting way possible. Most people didn’t even realize the match was over until her music started playing. Very underwhelming.

The highpoint had to be Kofi Kingston winning the title. That match was just so well done and the crowd was really into it. Good stuff.

The next best thing on the card was the Smackdown tag title match. They rocked the house.

AJ Styles vs. Randy Orton, Roman Reigns vs. Drew McIntyre and Kurt Angle vs. Baron Corbin were just matches and nothing to write home about. It’s a shame that THAT’s the match Kurt Angle goes out with.

I know that Triple H vs. Batista was a marquee match, but I just wanted it to be over at the point it went on. The egos were running wild in this match.

Everything else was decent and individually didn’t overstay its welcome. There was just too much of it.

So that’s it for Wrestlemania. Now to watch Raw. Have a good seven and we’ll do this again next Monday.

Apr 012019
 

Hey there! Let’s blog it up!

It didn’t seem like I did a lot of gaming over the weekend, but the games were memorable.

First on Friday night we started Pandemic Legacy. The gimmick behind Legacy games is neat where the game evolves as you play with stickers and new cards and such. We lost early January but won late January so we go into February with the win which is nice. I haven’t played enough regular Pandemic to have “solved” the game, so it’s a good challenge.

On Sunday we continued the campaign for Mechs vs. Minions. I’ve started the campaign over three times now? And I’ve never gotten past game number 4…until now! Yes! We’ll be going on to game number 5 next time!

Later, I got Rune Age to the table. The remarkable part is that the game came out in 2011 and I believe I’ve had it since then. The expansion came out in 2012 and I know I bought that when it came out, so it’s been at least since 2012 that I’ve owned the game and it just never hit the table. I’ve brought it to game night a few times but it didn’t feel like the right fit. Yesterday I just decided to go for it. So Melissa and I played and it was a decent game. I can’t say it was GREAT, but definitely playable. Maybe it won’t take another seven years to get it back to the table.

Next weekend is Wrestlemania! I’ll be sharing my thoughts as usual. Until then, have a good seven and we’ll do this all again next Monday. Carja V.