Summer Update

Wow ... this place is pretty dusty. I guess that is what happens when the blog is ignored for nearly 5 months. Anyway, I guess I should update people on what has been happening. The spring semester exams have come and gone and I am carrying a 3.89 GPA into the third and final semester of my retraining from Electronics tech to bookkeeper/accounting clerk. The 2011 outdoor soccer season is entering into tournament time and my U10s are middle of the pack while the U12 team is towards the bottom. My wife has switched to a new job and I am working a few hours every week bookkeeping.

On the nerd front, I was able to find some time to hit the theater to watch a few flicks. Those flicks would be Harry Potter 7b, Captain America, X-Men: First Class and Thor with the latter being the best in my opinion. On a side note, 3 of the 4 movies were watched at my local single screen theater so that I did not have to violated with 3D.

I have also been watching a fair bit of anime as I continue to work through my DVD collection. I have polished of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Eden of the East and I am currently working through One Piece and Naruto. Speaking of the DVD collection, I finally found the nerve to finish Battlestar Galactica and the ending was not as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, I quite enjoyed it.

On the gaming front, I finished Uncharted and what a great game. I am part way through Uncharted 2 and enjoying it just as much. I still have to finish Dragon Age (I am on the last fight) but I cant seem to find the excitement to do so since I know what crap is waiting for me afterwards with the DLC and DA2. I have played little LOTRO this summer but I did manage to run a few raids and level the burglar to Level 52. As for my gaming list, I am well of pace to say the least.

I have been playing a large number of board games lately as it slowly becomes my favorite pastime. I currently own 13 distinct titles which includes several expansions per title and I have 4 more on pre-order. You check out my collection on BoardGameGeek. I have been getting together with a few game groups in the area but it never seems like enough. I would be happy gaming 4 or 5 days a week. Thanks to some friends I have been able to play a few new games with the best one so far being Star Trek : Expeditions. Also, D.P and A.S traveled with me to Toronto to be a part of TABScon in the early summer. We were able to play Battlestar Galactica and Cyclades which were both very fun games. I am so looking forward to our trip this September.

Anyway, there you have it, an update and a long one at that. Until later ... have fun gaming!!

I am the Power Lord!!!

Playing new boardgames is always fun for me because I am willing to play anything once. Therefore this weekend was very good since I got to play some new boardgames thanks to an invite to a family game day. The new games were Power Grid and Bohnanza ( the Bean Game).

I was not expecting Bohanaza be much fun when you see the set-up. It is a deck of cards full of different beans and the concept is to plant bean crops and accumulate the most money. Sounds lame right? Well like I found out, you would be wrong. Bohnanza is a very deep game full of strategy especially when you add-in the main mechanism of the game, card trading. The game is fun, frustrating , cut-throat and did I mention fun. For the price, definitely a must buy.

The next game was the true gem. It's a small game named Power Grid. In the game you buy power plants of different varieties, the raw material to power the plants and cities to power. The end-game is to power more cities and have the most cash. The game really is a bookkeepers or accountants dream come true. I simply love this game. I will be buying this game. I will become the next Mr. Burns ...

Welcome to OZ

My lovely wife and I sat down last night to watch a movie. As always, I was able to talk her into which movie but instead of the usual fair this time we sat down to watch Summer Wars, an animated film from Japan by Mamoru Hosoda. This is highly unusual in our house since Marie really dislikes most if not all anime but she was gracious enough to watch it with me which made me very happy.

The movie is about a young dude who goes to the country to pose as a young lady's fiancée for her entire family. Soon though, the entire family is caught up in saving the world from a malicious Artificial Intelligence which is taking over OZ, an internet-style full virtual reality world that everyone uses for everything from talking to shopping to banking to everything else.

The movie has won several wards and in my opinion the movie is deserving of every award it has received. It is a great movie full of family value, romance and science Fiction adventure. The movie does a great job of showing the possible doom that can come from the internet highway we ride in a satirical way that does seem like preaching. Ultimately, for me the take away was the importance of family and the beauty of simply sitting together and enjoying food and drink as a group. This is something Marie and I have always valued but have fallen away from since she started working nights. After watching this film, it stirs a passion in my to be much more intentional about carving out time for this important tradition of the family.

As for whether my wife enjoyed the movie or not I can not speak to. However, in church today listening to the Youth Pastor preach about engaging youth culture he rambled off a pile of stats on internet usage in todays culture and at that very moment Marie leaned in close and whispered "That sounds a lot like OZ." I take that as a win for Anime in my books!!

Enjoy the trailer below for the film.