Greetings and salutations! You’re just in time for some blogging. Let’s get to it.

I went out to mow the lawn this weekend (long overdue) and wouldn’t you know it, my lawnmower wouldn’t start. The repair shop close to my house was closed so I couldn’t bring it in. This gave me a valid excuse not to mow the lawn but…I really needed to get it done. Oh well. The mower is in the shop right now. Hopefully I’ll get it back soon.

I got to try Broom Service last Friday…and the reviews are mixed. I really liked it. Kayla thought it was good, but a little on the long side for what it was. My mom didn’t much care for it.  The theme of the game is witches collecting and delivering potions to various towers on the map to earn victory points. The player with the most points at the end, wins. The game plays over seven rounds (you could easily stop after the fifth round, which would have fixed Kayla’s problem with it). Each round, players choose four actions from a possible ten (3 gathering actions, 4 movement actions, two delivery actions and one cloud dispersal action). The first player then says which action they want to start with, choosing to perform that action bravely or cowardly. Choosing the cowardly option allows them to take the basic action listed on the card. Choosing the brave option provides a better version of the action. The twist is that if anybody else has chosen that particular action to be one of their actions for the round, they HAVE to play it right away and if they choose the brave action, the previous player doesn’t get to do their action at all. So each action is a guessing game where you weigh how much you need to perform the action against how likely you think somebody else might have chosen the same action. Dispersing clouds opens up different areas and is worth more points at the end of the game. That’s the basic game, which is what we played. Seeing as the game didn’t go over that well, I didn’t get to try some of the extra options.

I brought Star Wars Carcassonne back to the table and it was a hit. Kayla was pretty good at it too as she won three out of the five games we played. My mom and I split the other two. Cutthroat players of Carcassonne will play tiles in a way to block or at least slow down other players. The Star Wars version also allows for players to fight over areas. The first four games, we all largely stayed out of each other’s way and focused on playing tiles to help ourselves as much as possible. For the last game, we played the cutthroat way, which I think makes the game more interesting, but Kayla didn’t like it.

For those wondering, I haven’t abandoned Bandit Baby. Lately, it’s taking all I have to draw two strips and a mash-up. When I get to my summer schedule of four-day weekends, I should have more energy to dedicate to draw the final strips that will conclude the story.

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

Greetings and salutations. It’s time to blog!

I got caught in the rain again today. The rain by itself or the cold by itself would have been fine on their own, but combined, they were a fighting force terrible to behold. It wasn’t a true schlorping as one would have expected, but still wet enough. There’s a certain amount of irony in needing to take a shower because you got caught in the rain. At least, I think it’s irony. Popular music and the backlash against such has me second guessing myself on this point.

This past weekend was the annual giant sidewalk sale. It used to be that I could reasonably expect to find a number of treasures hidden in the junk. I’m a little more discriminating as to what constitutes a treasure now so for that past few years, I haven’t walked away with very much. This year, however, I scored one of those hoped for treasures. Back when I was about six or seven, I got a Disney LP of three stories featuring the Three Little Pigs. I may have discussed this very record before here. It was one of my very favorite records. I still have my original copy to this day, but it’s in a poor state and I long lost the album cover/book that came with it. It’s one of the records I put on my wish list on discogs, because I wanted a better copy. You can see where this is going. At one table, I saw a small stack of children’s records. I expected to find the same old copies of Disney records I already had, but there at the bottom of the pile, was the Three Little Pigs record I’d been waiting to find! I asked how much, and was told $5, which for a sidewalk sale seemed a bit high, but considering the rarity of the thing, it was a price I was very much willing to pay. So now I have a very good condition copy. Score!

I ran into Frank and Melanie during the sidewalk sale and we made plans to get together that evening to either go see a movie (Warcraft was discussed) or get some gaming in. We did settle on going to the movies, but rather than see Warcraft (the next available showing was in accursed 3D), we chose to see the new Ninja Turtles movie. Actually, we hemmed and hawed and kept passing the buck to each other to pick a movie until finally I just said, “Okay, we’re going to see Ninja Turtles!” And to my great surprise, it was pretty good. By no means a great movie, but quite entertaining. We did not regret the choice.

I watched Zootopia prior to going out and it was also very good. I really liked the character designs. One of the directors cited Robin Hood as one of his early influences and it showed (I love that movie). The story was pretty solid and I have no real complaints about the movie. Oh, I guess there’s the music. I didn’t care for Shakira’s song. It’s the first time in a long time where I didn’t like the songs in a Disney movie so that’s saying something.

I picked up Broom Service on Friday. The rulebook was a little long to read before game day, so I’ll have to wait until next week to give you all my thoughts. It’s an award winning game that supposedly scales down well to two players which is a big plus for me.

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