The Ramblings of Rev. Karl

I had an excellent weekend at faire, as seen in the new icon :-) It was good to see everyone.

A quick reminder for the gamers that pre-reg for Euroquest is this coming Sunday. Euroquest is Nov. 12-15 in Timonium, come join us for games.

Lullaby of Broadway went well, thanks to everyone that came out and played.

This weekend I actually get to go to faire! Hope to see many of you there.

Weekend after that I am hosting a GCOM-Brunswick session on Saturday (the 17th), will probably be at faire on Sunday.

I'll probably be at faire closing weekend as well, though for the Jacqui Macmillan fans I'll point out that she's doing her Drum for Joy workshop in Frederick on the 24th in the afternoon and then a concert later in the evening. Details here.

Work has been keeping me too busy to keep up with the blogging, which is good for work but sad for the LJ. Last month we had a lovely trip to the Pacific Northwest including Oak Harbor, Victoria, and Seattle. While I haven't had time to do a proper write up I did get our pictures uploaded which you can enjoy here.

For the gamers, this weekend is the Congress of Gamers in Rockville. I'll be there for at least part of it.

I will be at Fires of Venus on Friday only.

A final reminder of TCEP, this weekend in Laurel, one of the best little gaming cons in the area. You know you want to join us for gaming goodness.

Today in Salon is the speech that Obama should give on healthcare:

( awesome hypothetical speech reposted here for your convenience )

Mid-Atlantic gaming opportunities this fall:

DeRail, August 1-2 in Newark, DE - minicon featuring railroad games.

World Boardgaming Championship, August 3-9 in Lancaster, PA - big con with mostly tournament style play.

TCEP, September 4-7 in Laurel, MD - great convention, I'll be there the whole time with a good chunk of my collection

Congress of Gamers, September 26-27 in Rockville, MD

Lullaby of Broadway, October 2-4 in Hagerstown, MD - weekend long LARP that I'm helping with, we're full on player characters but are still looking for cast.

Intercon Mid-Atlantic, October 23-25 in Gaithersburg, MD - LARP convention

Euroquest, November 12-15 in Timonium, MD - great con featuring Euro-style games - I will be there.

Philcon, November 20-22 in Philadelphia - general SF con that also has gaming.

Darkover, November 27-29 in Timonium, MD - now has gaming.

Also Brunswick Games Day is set for January 2 in Brunswick, MD - a full day of gaming goodness for the low, low cost of free.

( What I've been reading - Obama, vampires, dead people, and stupid, stupid rat creatures )

I want to take a moment to pimp out the Kiva reunion concert coming up August 8th in Silver Spring, MD. Details at http://www.kivasong.com/schedule/current.html. The concert promises to be awesome with Amikaeyla and Jaqui MacMillan joining them along with many past members including Lynn Cunningham who some of you might know better from the Pyrates Royale.

http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2009.htm

Just a quick notice that the LJ Advisory Board elections are currently going on, so GO VOTE. Personally I'm rooting for webqatch, you can find all of the candidates statements here.

I am safe and sound, the Metro crash is on my regular commute route, but I had driven in today rather than train.

I finally got around to cataloging my RPGs - the list can be found here, almost the entire list (excepting the original D&D and some of the oddball games) is available for sale or trade, so if you see something you'd like make me an offer. As a reminder I do have board games available as well (to see the full collection uncheck the filters: trade=yes). I also have more Battletech stuff that didn't really go on either the BGG or RPG list that I'd happily get rid of.

Morena Baccarin can be my Visitor any day.

Now with photographic evidence thanks to radiant_one

http://pics.livejournal.com/kmusser/gallery/0004467c

Games played:
Bombay, Can't Stop, Dominion (11 times at least, twice with the Seaside expansion), Hamlet, Imperial (Asia map variant), Keltis (twice), Kreta, Lokomotive Werks, Mr. Jack, Nexus Ops, Poison, Race for the Galaxy (twice), Saboteur, Small World (twice), Ticket to Ride, Tin Lizzies, Web of Power

Dominion clearly the "hot" game of the con, usually a 1/2 dozen games of it going on at a time. Seaside is the 2nd expansion in the pipeline after Intrigue. Recommended for those that like CCGs but don't like the CCG investment (for me it makes me miss playing my CCGs).

On the new releases played: Small World is a fantasy themed version of Vinci. I was already a big fan of Vinci so it's no surprised that I liked this one, plus it fixes Vinci's endgame problems. Added to the want list. Bombay is a quick pick-up and deliver type of board game, might be worth it for the cute plastic elephants alone.

New to me games: Lokomotive Werks is a kinda interesting game trying to balance supply and demand, like many Winsome Game releases left me kinda meh - they often make for better simulations than games. Nexus Ops is a kind of game I don't usually play, a sci-fi themed war game from Hasbro, complete with plastic figures and using the Axis & Allies combat system, I liked it a lot more than I thought I would, unlike similar games it is pretty fast-paced. Saboteur is a cute sort-of cooperative card game with a dwarves digging for gold theme, players are essentially on two teams, but you don't get to know who is on your team, also nice as it can handle large numbers of players.

Development of Tin Lizzies is going well, played with 4 and all enjoyed it, I still need to test it with larger numbers of players. Overall I'm pretty happy with the mechanics, though it could still use some way to trim down the playing time a bit, I might just chop a turn or two off. I also need to redo the graphic elements, but I don't know when I'm going to find time to do that.

First a LJ-related comment. My work has done something to make LJ somewhat dysfunctional, I don't know what it could be as other sites work fine, and LJ still works fine from my home computer - but at work LJ pages take a good 10 minutes or so to load or refresh. So, I haven't been posting or commenting as much as I used to, but I am still reading what you fine people are writing (except for the twitters - I skip those).

So anyway, currently our lives are being consumed by adventures in flooring. We're ripping up the carpet and replacing it with wood. When the estimator came out we got the pleasant surprise that parts of the house already have hardwood, so we're getting that refinished and the parts that don't will get new (why a house that only had one previous owner has 3 different types of floors, and then covered them up with carpet, remains a puzzle). I picked up the wood the weekend before last and the installers are due to arrive on Thursday. Meanwhile we've been busy trying to clear our crap so that they'll actually be able to get to the floor. The poor kitty is already traumatized, probably convinced that we're moving. Once they're done we'll have the fun task of putting it all back which will probably takes us the rest of the month.

This past weekend I had a fun diversion with Games Club of Maryland's Games Days, games played will get their own post following.

Plans for next month include Free Spirit - I hope to see many of you there. I don't have any official duties this year so plan on spending most of my time relaxing (though if any FSG staff reading this are still short-handing in their dept. I could probably be talked into helping).

I'm also hoping to make to Celtic Fling due to their drool worthy musical lineup. Any one else I know going?

Happy Beltane to all. Celebrate appropriately.

For the record, I don't appreciate skipping spring.

For my fellow Gaiman fanatics, he's doing an event over on the Eastern Shore, Monday the 27th. But that's sold out you say? They've moved it to a larger venue.

Games Club of Maryland's Games Days are coming up at the end of the month, a great little convention, details at http://gamedays.gamesclubofmd.org/

There is also a new gaming con this weekend, their site (http://www.freewebs.com/gamecon2009/) seems to be down at the moment, but I believe that they are more RPG oriented than GCOM events are, and it's at the Clarion Hotel in Aberdeen, MD this Friday and Saturday. I can't make it, but if you can, go check them out.

For our regular Brunswick sessions I am not hosting one this month, but will be back at Beans on May 16th.