The Ramblings of Rev. Karl

( 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.

With the Hugo nominations going out I guess it's time to make a books update.

( What I've been reading )

Finally got my snow :-) Commute in wasn't too bad, drove in, took maybe 1/2 hour longer than usual. If you're not good at driving in the snow stay home, roads were pretty sucky and the crazy shit that DC area drivers do make them more dangerous than they otherwise would be.

Back from my first Prezcon. Not really my type of con as the tournament to open gaming ratio was way too high (being a pain in the ass to get into a game is not a good thing in a gaming convention IMHO), but there were lots of familiar faces and many games were indeed played and so fun was had - and I managed to score my first tournament win :-) I also really liked the hotel (Charlottesville Doubletree), they ran a nicer than average food concession just for the con, and I was regretting I didn't bring my bathing suit to take advantage of the jacuzzi. I also was successful in unloading 30 games at the auction - spent a good chunk of Saturday watching the auction which definitely helps in seeing what sort of games go over well at those.

The final games played tally: Burg Appenzell (twice, only game new to me, wins for being one of the cutest games I've seen - also it's about cheese!), Dos de Mayo (twice), Dominion (4 times at least), Hive, Imperial (twice, placed 2nd in the tournament), Pandemic (3 times), Poison (twice), Ra, Race for the Galaxy (5 times at least, qualified for semi-finals but it conflicted with Union Pacific), Shear Panic, Snow Tails (3 times), St. Petersburg, Thurn & Taxis, Tin Lizzies (got in two playtest games, both with only 2 players, went well, but really needs to be tested with 5-6 players), and Union Pacific (4 times, won the tournament!).

Oscar best picture nominees with the ones I've seen bolded.

( not all that many really )

I only bolded the ones I was sure about, there were many that I really couldn't remember whether I've seen or not.

radiant_one posted pictures here.

This weekend: Saturday in Brunswick; Sunday in Chantilly.

Next weekend: Prezcon in Charlottesville.