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Cthulhu for the Holidays
Dec. 25th, 2004 01:20 amWell, Xmas Eve was survived. We didn’t get up until almost noon when Russet’s mom called her cell from Ohio. Since the call wasn’t answered, she called my house which I picked up. It was a basic ‘check welfare’ call, she wanted to reassure us that they were OK as the snow in OH is pretty heavy in some parts. They’re partially snowed in but it isn’t a problem.
I called my mother to find out when we’d be getting together with my parents for dinner and stuff and settled on about 4pm.
Then off to the Game Depot and picked up some goodies, including Alhambra, the Cthulhu 500 race game, and Balloon Race. The first and last can be played two-player, Cthulhu 500 is a 3-8’er. Hopefully we’ll get to play 500 Saturday. What better day to celebrate Cthulhu than December 25th? :-)
Amusingly we encountered Sir Richard at the store, he was burning time until they started preparing a massive traditional Polish Christmas dinner. Seems like only 14 or so hours earlier since we’d last seen him.
So it was off to Bookman’s, and a surprise: Russet either didn’t know or had forgotten that Bookman’s is dog-friendly, as long as your pooch or poodle is on a leash, they don’t mind. So Celeste got a HUGE amount of attention and seemed to enjoy herself. Lots of neat smells to investigate. I ended up with a book and two DVDs, From Hell and Jackie Chan’s Fantasy Mission Force. The Chan movie was very strange. Popped the DVD in, eventually the menu comes up and displays “Master With Broken Fingers.” I assumed Bookman’s had given me the wrong disc, so I watched it anyway and decided that I would return it.
This is a bad movie. Just bad. No really clever Jackie moves, and he’s holding back his fighting skill until the final fight. Eventually the movie ended and I popped the disc out. Cue second surprise.
The DVD disc was labeled Fantasy Mission Force. Somehow it was mis-manufactured, or at least that’s the spin that I’m putting on it.
Actually, I’m out of sequence, so time for a time gash.
We left Bookman’s and headed home. We’d decided it was probably best to leave Celeste at home with a brand-new toy to rip the entrails out of. This time it was a small wolf with an amusing sound chip. We left, then had to immediately return as Russ forgot her laptop. She needed to connect to the observatory as they were doing engineering/calibration stuff and she needed to make sure everything went right. Eventually we make it to my parent’s house, I wrap two small presents for my folks and we eat. A decent little ham sandwich affair, potato salad, deviled eggs, green chili/cream cheese tortilla wraps. Very nice. After dessert we clear the table and I pull out Alhambra….
I explained the rules and off we went. My mom had a disadvantage as she somehow broke her glasses a few days ago, so she’s been sporting the Roy Orbison look and wearing her sunglasses indoors. Neither mom nor dad are really gamers in the sense that myself and my friends were, but we all had a good time. Russet pulled off a win (her first time playing) and managed to pop off the top of the score track! Said track goes to 120 points, she scored around 123. I came in second with over 100, my parents finished somewhat further back but had a good time. Alhambra is a challenging game because you’re dealing with several variables: what tiles are available when it is your turn, how much money of what colors you have in your hand, what colors and denominations are available to take, and, of course, the other players. You also need to take care building your estate or you can accidentally cut-off your ability to place new tiles.
It is an excellent game, well worth $25. I believe it was $35 when initially released, so I like seeing the price cut. I have heard that there is an expansion available that adds a lot to it, I’ll have to look it up.
Well, eventually we leave after I spend some time fixing something on my dad’s computer (I don’t think a holiday is possible without me fixing or explaining/suggesting something about/for computers. Sigh. We get home, do some laundry, eat a little ice cream, take the dog out for walks twice, I watch the Jackie Chan flic while Russet did some work via her Apple laptop with the observatory. Once I start the dryer I’m off to bed, I’m pretty beat and Saturday promises to be busy and fun.
Ta!
Have yourself a merry merry, and if you can’t be good, be careful.
I called my mother to find out when we’d be getting together with my parents for dinner and stuff and settled on about 4pm.
Then off to the Game Depot and picked up some goodies, including Alhambra, the Cthulhu 500 race game, and Balloon Race. The first and last can be played two-player, Cthulhu 500 is a 3-8’er. Hopefully we’ll get to play 500 Saturday. What better day to celebrate Cthulhu than December 25th? :-)
Amusingly we encountered Sir Richard at the store, he was burning time until they started preparing a massive traditional Polish Christmas dinner. Seems like only 14 or so hours earlier since we’d last seen him.
So it was off to Bookman’s, and a surprise: Russet either didn’t know or had forgotten that Bookman’s is dog-friendly, as long as your pooch or poodle is on a leash, they don’t mind. So Celeste got a HUGE amount of attention and seemed to enjoy herself. Lots of neat smells to investigate. I ended up with a book and two DVDs, From Hell and Jackie Chan’s Fantasy Mission Force. The Chan movie was very strange. Popped the DVD in, eventually the menu comes up and displays “Master With Broken Fingers.” I assumed Bookman’s had given me the wrong disc, so I watched it anyway and decided that I would return it.
This is a bad movie. Just bad. No really clever Jackie moves, and he’s holding back his fighting skill until the final fight. Eventually the movie ended and I popped the disc out. Cue second surprise.
The DVD disc was labeled Fantasy Mission Force. Somehow it was mis-manufactured, or at least that’s the spin that I’m putting on it.
Actually, I’m out of sequence, so time for a time gash.
We left Bookman’s and headed home. We’d decided it was probably best to leave Celeste at home with a brand-new toy to rip the entrails out of. This time it was a small wolf with an amusing sound chip. We left, then had to immediately return as Russ forgot her laptop. She needed to connect to the observatory as they were doing engineering/calibration stuff and she needed to make sure everything went right. Eventually we make it to my parent’s house, I wrap two small presents for my folks and we eat. A decent little ham sandwich affair, potato salad, deviled eggs, green chili/cream cheese tortilla wraps. Very nice. After dessert we clear the table and I pull out Alhambra….
I explained the rules and off we went. My mom had a disadvantage as she somehow broke her glasses a few days ago, so she’s been sporting the Roy Orbison look and wearing her sunglasses indoors. Neither mom nor dad are really gamers in the sense that myself and my friends were, but we all had a good time. Russet pulled off a win (her first time playing) and managed to pop off the top of the score track! Said track goes to 120 points, she scored around 123. I came in second with over 100, my parents finished somewhat further back but had a good time. Alhambra is a challenging game because you’re dealing with several variables: what tiles are available when it is your turn, how much money of what colors you have in your hand, what colors and denominations are available to take, and, of course, the other players. You also need to take care building your estate or you can accidentally cut-off your ability to place new tiles.
It is an excellent game, well worth $25. I believe it was $35 when initially released, so I like seeing the price cut. I have heard that there is an expansion available that adds a lot to it, I’ll have to look it up.
Well, eventually we leave after I spend some time fixing something on my dad’s computer (I don’t think a holiday is possible without me fixing or explaining/suggesting something about/for computers. Sigh. We get home, do some laundry, eat a little ice cream, take the dog out for walks twice, I watch the Jackie Chan flic while Russet did some work via her Apple laptop with the observatory. Once I start the dryer I’m off to bed, I’m pretty beat and Saturday promises to be busy and fun.
Ta!
Have yourself a merry merry, and if you can’t be good, be careful.
