Hey there on this glorious non-working (for me) Monday! One more of those left…unless I took the 1st as well, which I might have. I don’t remember. I’ll have to check that out when I go in to work tomorrow.

So I’ve been having fun using song lyrics as blog titles. The tricky thing is the lyrics to some of my favorite songs can sound rather depressing when taken on their own. I’ve been staying away from those, because I don’t want it being misconstrued as me feeling down. But now that I’ve said it, you’ll all know that the lyric doesn’t necessarily give any insight as to my mood, so I’ll just use any ol’ lyrics that come to mind, child. But no, this blog is not just six words long.

I placed some orders last week. I’ve been in a Star Warsy (totally a word) mood, so I picked up Aftermath, which is the first book in a trilogy that tells of the aftermath (clever title) of the events in Return of the Jedi. I also believe it’s the first book after Lucasfilm cleaned the slate of the Expanded Universe, relegating all that was written before to an alternate timeline they’re calling Legends. I haven’t done much if any reading of late, so that’ll be nice for my days off.

Star Wars Celebration was over the weekend (the source of that Star Warsy mood). Lucasfilm streamed all the panels live which was pretty cool. They shared a lot of information about upcoming projects like Rogue One and Rebels Season Three, including some great footage. Great marketing on their part and it’s profitable to boot. Rebels is one of my favorite shows on television and the third season looks tight! (Yay Wedge! Boo Thrawn!) Everything is on Youtube for those interested.

Speaking of YouTube, I also discovered GameNight! which is another show about board games from the good people at www.boardgamegeek.com. We watch as the play group does a play through of popular games. This gives you a real good feel for whether a game is a good fit for your group. And let’s face it, games aren’t cheap so the more you know before you buy, the better. Also, my mom is out in Nova Scotia for three weeks so I need a gaming fix and this is the next best thing to playing.

Finally, I indulged in the first chapter of King’s Quest (not a big indulgence since it was free). I loved those Sierra games back in the day and it was nice to see a new implementation of them. I’ll eventually break down and buy the other chapters because it’s a lot of fun. My only complaint is I wish Graham moved a little faster. You do a lot of backtracking so that would be a nice addition (or maybe I just didn’t find out how to do it).

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

Hello and how are ya? It’s Monday and that means it’s time for me to yammer for a bit. Let’s get to it.

This week’s lyric title comes courtesy of the Fabulous Rougeau Brothers. I was never a big fan of Jacques and Raymond, but man was their entrance music catchy. Beyond that, there’s just something a propos about this song today. I wonder why.

I’ve started my three day work weeks. It feels nice being home on a Monday without being sick, especially knowing that I’ll be home again on Friday. Woo!

There may or may not be a postal strike on Wednesday. Keep this in mind when ordering stuff. I’m hoping my order from Board Game Bliss gets here tomorrow so I won’t have to worry about how long it’ll take to get to me (it’s too late for it to get to me today).

I’m already almost finished the video game mash-up theme. I have one more piece to go and I’m saving my favorite franchise for last. Any guesses?

I bought Valkyria Chronicles on Steam last week. It was one of my favorite PS3 titles and it was on deep discount so I thought I’d give the PC version a try. It’s a good port but there’s nothing to really set it apart from the original. The DLC is included though so that’s a plus.

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

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.