What a long, strange trip it's been

Hey,

So I wrapped up my vacation with a fight home from Portland this morning. Only delayed by an hour.

How did I spend my last few days?

Thursday: We successfully ran some errands that we'd failed at earlier and did a little long-distance sight-seeing. In the early evening we went out to see Cirque de Soleil. The show playing in Portland was Corteo, the basic gist of which ws that a circus clown is on his deathbed and is hallucinating the sort of dreamy episodes you would expect from a Cirque show.

It was, as always, a good show. methanopyrus enjoyed the lovely women spinning about in giant chandeliers, I rather enjoyed the strapping young men in the giant hula hoops who rolled about in them (carefully opening and closing hands in rapid succession to keep from crushing them against the floor). I also loved the trampoline sequences. So much fun and there's not a few tricks they did that I could readily duplicate (no idle boast, I had a trampoline as a kid and I'm pretty good at it).

Friday, I roped mathanopyrus to join me at Gamestorm 10, a gaming convention just over the river in Vancouver WA. I mostly went for the dealer room, but I did get the chance to show methanopyrus a few new games like Carcassone. She joined a demo game of High School Drama with the game's creator and there was one other thing we tried...

"So what's this game about?"

"Oh, you move these giant robots around and you shoot at each other. If you get shot too many times, you blow up. But you don't win if you blow up, that's a common mistake newbies make. You make the other guy blow up, not you. But it's a complicated game."

"I don't care, let's give it a try!"

"Um...if you're sure. They're doing demos over there..."

And that was how I found myself sitting down to play a demo of game of BattleTech with a girl!

"So, there's your base to-hit number, then you add modifiers for your movement speed, your range, cover, and how far the target moved."

"Ack!"

(this, incidentally, is why I don't play BattleTech, although the new Introductory Set is so damn tempting)

In the end, my Hunchback managed to close the gap and 2 AC-20 shots later, her Quickdraw was a glowing slagheap. She did put up a real strong fight, though. I was only two dots away from blowing up myself.

"This was the geekiest thing I've ever done in my life and I have a biochemistry dregree!"

But she was a good sport and seemed to like some of the other stuff a bit better so that's good. Besides, after that, we went out to supper and she ate most of my Butterscotch pudding desert (with real Scotch), so I figure she got something out of it.

Saturday: Mostly shopping. I got a couple of gifts for asciikitty. Then we went out West of Portland, past Beaverton (hee!) and out to a bar/hotel/restaurant that used to be an old Masonic lodge. The food was good, but sadly, there were no ancient artifacts to be discovered.

We came back home and I prepped for my flight home today.

It's been a long trip, but it was a lot of fun. Portland is a great city to visit and I had a great time seeing methanopyrus too. Tomorrow, I get to discover how bad the commute to my new office is. Whee!

later
Tom

What a long, strange trip it's been

Hey,

So I wrapped up my vacation with a fight home from Portland this morning. Only delayed by an hour.

How did I spend my last few days?

Thursday: We successfully ran some errands that we'd failed at earlier and did a little long-distance sight-seeing. In the early evening we went out to see Cirque de Soleil. The show playing in Portland was Corteo, the basic gist of which ws that a circus clown is on his deathbed and is hallucinating the sort of dreamy episodes you would expect from a Cirque show.

It was, as always, a good show. methanopyrus enjoyed the lovely women spinning about in giant chandeliers, I rather enjoyed the strapping young men in the giant hula hoops who rolled about in them (carefully opening and closing hands in rapid succession to keep from crushing them against the floor). I also loved the trampoline sequences. So much fun and there's not a few tricks they did that I could readily duplicate (no idle boast, I had a trampoline as a kid and I'm pretty good at it).

Friday, I roped mathanopyrus to join me at Gamestorm 10, a gaming convention just over the river in Vancouver WA. I mostly went for the dealer room, but I did get the chance to show methanopyrus a few new games like Carcassone. She joined a demo game of High School Drama with the game's creator and there was one other thing we tried...

"So what's this game about?"

"Oh, you move these giant robots around and you shoot at each other. If you get shot too many times, you blow up. But you don't win if you blow up, that's a common mistake newbies make. You make the other guy blow up, not you. But it's a complicated game."

"I don't care, let's give it a try!"

"Um...if you're sure. They're doing demos over there..."

And that was how I found myself sitting down to play a demo of game of BattleTech with a girl!

"So, there's your base to-hit number, then you add modifiers for your movement speed, your range, cover, and how far the target moved."

"Ack!"

(this, incidentally, is why I don't play BattleTech, although the new Introductory Set is so damn tempting)

In the end, my Hunchback managed to close the gap and 2 AC-20 shots later, her Quickdraw was a glowing slagheap. She did put up a real strong fight, though. I was only two dots away from blowing up myself.

"This was the geekiest thing I've ever done in my life and I have a biochemistry dregree!"

But she was a good sport and seemed to like some of the other stuff a bit better so that's good. Besides, after that, we went out to supper and she ate most of my Butterscotch pudding desert (with real Scotch), so I figure she got something out of it.

Saturday: Mostly shopping. I got a couple of gifts for asciikitty. Then we went out West of Portland, past Beaverton (hee!) and out to a bar/hotel/restaurant that used to be an old Masonic lodge. The food was good, but sadly, there were no ancient artifacts to be discovered.

We came back home and I prepped for my flight home today.

It's been a long trip, but it was a lot of fun. Portland is a great city to visit and I had a great time seeing methanopyrus too. Tomorrow, I get to discover how bad the commute to my new office is. Whee!

later
Tom

Cultured Drunk Monkey Style!

Hi,

So while in Portland, I randomly grabbed a bottle of Kung Fu Girl Riesling. Because hey, cheap Riesling with a fun name.

I was not prepared for how kick-ass good it was.

I picked up two more bottles which I have seen safely home. They sell this stuff at grocery stores and stuff so it's pretty mass market, but even so -- a really nice Riesling. Worth checking out if you can find it around here.

later
Tom

Cultured Drunk Monkey Style!

Hi,

So while in Portland, I randomly grabbed a bottle of Kung Fu Girl Riesling. Because hey, cheap Riesling with a fun name.

I was not prepared for how kick-ass good it was.

I picked up two more bottles which I have seen safely home. They sell this stuff at grocery stores and stuff so it's pretty mass market, but even so -- a really nice Riesling. Worth checking out if you can find it around here.

later
Tom

Heirs to Heartbreak

Hi,

So one of the exhibitors at Gamestorm this weekend was an outfit called Countess Games which I'd never heard of and which had some product coming out called "Heirs of Olympia".

Apparently, this company just got started and it's main products haven't yet come out. So, to be fair, I can't really judge any of their stuff beyond the promo materials I picked up. But this is just screaming Fantasy Heartbreaker to me.

Why? Well, the website is up there, but just a few of the warning signs that I picked out:

• Rules for RPG/LARP/Miniatures -- all in one book. I would argue that a game can be great in one arena, good in two, but all three is pretty much impossible. You could argue that D&D has done well in all three arenas, but I would counter that there are only D&D-like LARP rules, no official D&D LARP rules and that most of the better fantasy-adventure LARPS dispense with a lot of the things that make D&D what it is. But the core rulebook will have all these disparate rulesets incorporated.
  
• It's just like Warhammer, but different! -- The demo rules for the miniature combat portion shows a huge GW influence (I'm told that the designer worked for them for awhile). It's not a one-for-one copy. Indeed, there are some neat things about the short mini demo I played that show some inventive thinking. But the stats just read like GW to me.
  
• Does this campaign world look familar? Hmmm...the game is called Heirs of Olympia and there's this Olympia right near a very distinctive looking bay or sound of some sort. Yeah...that doesn't bode well.
  
• The designer is a History Major -- So, on the one hand, probably a slightly more coherent world and indeed, the web blurbs suggest a more Game of Thrones and less Owlbear, but on the other hand sometimes the facts get in the way of a good game.
  

So this game makes me nervous. However:

Attention female gamers and miniature gamers in general!

The first line of products from Countess games are miniatures. And they're really quite good. They appear to be "true" 25mm figures which means they're a little small compared to most of the stuff you see nowadays. However, this gives them a nice "retro" feel.

More importantly every female warrior is properly armed and armored. They're mostly wearing heavy chain shirts and helms. They've got boobs, but they're not ludicrous boobs and it can be hard to distinguish male from female on first glance (which is about what you'd expect). Even if you don't want to use the miniatures for the actual game, they'd be great for all kinds of historical/fantasy skirmish gaming. I'm sorely tempted to pick up a couple, esepcially the female knight with the mace.

So, the game itself has me concerned but the minis look fantastic and I can only hope they find their niche in that realm. Again, I haven't seen any finished product (and their demo packet material is well-designed/presented), but I'll be very curious to see how this one does.

later
Tom

Heirs to Heartbreak

Hi,

So one of the exhibitors at Gamestorm this weekend was an outfit called Countess Games which I'd never heard of and which had some product coming out called "Heirs of Olympia".

Apparently, this company just got started and it's main products haven't yet come out. So, to be fair, I can't really judge any of their stuff beyond the promo materials I picked up. But this is just screaming Fantasy Heartbreaker to me.

Why? Well, the website is up there, but just a few of the warning signs that I picked out:

• Rules for RPG/LARP/Miniatures -- all in one book. I would argue that a game can be great in one arena, good in two, but all three is pretty much impossible. You could argue that D&D has done well in all three arenas, but I would counter that there are only D&D-like LARP rules, no official D&D LARP rules and that most of the better fantasy-adventure LARPS dispense with a lot of the things that make D&D what it is. But the core rulebook will have all these disparate rulesets incorporated.
  
• It's just like Warhammer, but different! -- The demo rules for the miniature combat portion shows a huge GW influence (I'm told that the designer worked for them for awhile). It's not a one-for-one copy. Indeed, there are some neat things about the short mini demo I played that show some inventive thinking. But the stats just read like GW to me.
  
• Does this campaign world look familar? Hmmm...the game is called Heirs of Olympia and there's this Olympia right near a very distinctive looking bay or sound of some sort. Yeah...that doesn't bode well.
  
• The designer is a History Major -- So, on the one hand, probably a slightly more coherent world and indeed, the web blurbs suggest a more Game of Thrones and less Owlbear, but on the other hand sometimes the facts get in the way of a good game.
  

So this game makes me nervous. However:

Attention female gamers and miniature gamers in general!

The first line of products from Countess games are miniatures. And they're really quite good. They appear to be "true" 25mm figures which means they're a little small compared to most of the stuff you see nowadays. However, this gives them a nice "retro" feel.

More importantly every female warrior is properly armed and armored. They're mostly wearing heavy chain shirts and helms. They've got boobs, but they're not ludicrous boobs and it can be hard to distinguish male from female on first glance (which is about what you'd expect). Even if you don't want to use the miniatures for the actual game, they'd be great for all kinds of historical/fantasy skirmish gaming. I'm sorely tempted to pick up a couple, esepcially the female knight with the mace.

So, the game itself has me concerned but the minis look fantastic and I can only hope they find their niche in that realm. Again, I haven't seen any finished product (and their demo packet material is well-designed/presented), but I'll be very curious to see how this one does.

later
Tom

Spring Break Reviews

Hi,

So I read two books over my vacation. Mostly on the plane ride out and back:

The first was Absolution Gap by Alastair Reynolds. This is the conclusion to the trilogy of books started in Revelation Space. The series has been really good so far and I was looking towards the end. And it is a pretty good book most of the way through. Lots of neat ideas and fun characters and so on...

...but the ending. I'm reading along and I look up and say "hey, there's only 50 pages left, he's gonna have to cram a lot in there to get it wrapped up or else it's not a trilogy". And...he waves his hands and says "off-screen deus ex machina done!" and that's it. I mean...huh?

So a bit of a disappointment there, although right up to the end it's pretty good.

The other book I read (on the flight home) was Hammered by Elizabeth Bear. This was, apparently, her first book. Annie's got so many of them that I wasn't sure where she started. Annie pushed this book (along with the other two in the trilogy) into my hands and said "read these!" and I'm only just getting around to.

So this is about Jenny Casey, ex-Canadian Army and full-time cyborg. She wants to live out her life in quiet obscurity but gets dragged back into a secret government project.

I don't know if I have enough information to really judge this book. It's a fast read (I blasted through it during the last half of my plane flight), but it's so clearly the opener of a trilogy that, again, the ending feels chopped. Stuff happens, but nothing really happens and it's only near the end that we seem ready for things to begin. *shrug* Maybe another case where the book was longer than the publisher was willing to take a chance on. But until I have the next book read it's kind of in limbo for me.

later
Tom

p.s. Powell's turned up a small hordge of old-timey science fiction and Cossack Pulp goodness so be prepared.

Spring Break Reviews

Hi,

So I read two books over my vacation. Mostly on the plane ride out and back:

The first was Absolution Gap by Alastair Reynolds. This is the conclusion to the trilogy of books started in Revelation Space. The series has been really good so far and I was looking towards the end. And it is a pretty good book most of the way through. Lots of neat ideas and fun characters and so on...

...but the ending. I'm reading along and I look up and say "hey, there's only 50 pages left, he's gonna have to cram a lot in there to get it wrapped up or else it's not a trilogy". And...he waves his hands and says "off-screen deus ex machina done!" and that's it. I mean...huh?

So a bit of a disappointment there, although right up to the end it's pretty good.

The other book I read (on the flight home) was Hammered by Elizabeth Bear. This was, apparently, her first book. Annie's got so many of them that I wasn't sure where she started. Annie pushed this book (along with the other two in the trilogy) into my hands and said "read these!" and I'm only just getting around to.

So this is about Jenny Casey, ex-Canadian Army and full-time cyborg. She wants to live out her life in quiet obscurity but gets dragged back into a secret government project.

I don't know if I have enough information to really judge this book. It's a fast read (I blasted through it during the last half of my plane flight), but it's so clearly the opener of a trilogy that, again, the ending feels chopped. Stuff happens, but nothing really happens and it's only near the end that we seem ready for things to begin. *shrug* Maybe another case where the book was longer than the publisher was willing to take a chance on. But until I have the next book read it's kind of in limbo for me.

later
Tom

p.s. Powell's turned up a small hordge of old-timey science fiction and Cossack Pulp goodness so be prepared.