Board Game Search Part II

~ Melissa Bianco ~ Leave a comment

Well, good news!  I have found a few games for my search.

Thanks, all, for the suggestions about Talisman, it just so happens that my husband has been a long-time fan of it and has it as well as a few expansions tucked away somewhere.  Actually, they’re all in our closet in the front room which is now pretty much stocked floor to ceiling with board games.

And since I like to add to the craziness, I just picked up a few more:

  • Pirate’s Cove (great fun, tried this at work)
  • Carcasonne (thought I had it, apparently I didn’t)
  • Monty Python’s Fluxx (no idea what this is but it looked cute)
  • …something about Trains and Stations Oh!  Ticket to Ride

Anyway, that should keep me busy for a while.

Settlers of Catan was a huge hit with my kids, by the way.  I was looking for games like that.  I think they’ll really enjoy Pirate’s Cove, too.  We played Pirateology, but – uh – apparently we played it wrong.  No one ever actually battled.  Whoops!

I’m usually good for about 45 minutes to an hour.  After that, I get ants in my pants and, well, stick a fork in me, I’m done. 

So thanks to Kalkin and RoseVortex for the suggestions!

Melissa

Oh, and I picked up some new dice and the 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons Player’s Handbook, too.  We’re playing at work and since I’m new at all of this, I figured it would be a good idea if I knew a little bit about what I’m doing.  Can’t look like a dork all the time.

I definitely walked out with a lighter wallet, that’s for sure.  Sheez.

~M

Board Game Search

~ Melissa Bianco ~ 2 Comments

I had a really nice weekend playing board games with the kids this weekend.  In short, we played:

  • Pirateology
  • Settlers of Catan
  • Shadows Over Camelot
  • Betrayal on Hill House (or something like that)

I don’t know what my deal is, but I mess up that last one every time I say it.  House on Betrayal Hill, Battle of Hill House…whatever.  It’s a game.  Fun one!

I tried to play Vampire the Requiem but the instructions read like an IKEA manual, so we gave up.  16, 12, and 10 — and me…no one was in the mood to wait.

I’m looking for other fun games, like Settlers which the kids LOVED, but I’m not sure where to start.  They love “pieces”, but they don’t love LONG and INVOLVED set-up times with respect to reading rules and doling out information. 

By “they”, I mean “me, too”.

So, if anyone has any ideas, gimme a shout.  I’d love to hear ’em.  It’s got to be suitable for 10+ and we’re good for about an hour to an hour and a half before people start sniping at each other.  I’m all ears.

Wacom Tablets…

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are incredibly confusing.  I’m not the best sketch artist at the best of times.  Apparently those skills went to my mother, sister, and father.  But, I did try and play with the tablet and took a few minutes to play with the cool pen and palettes in the PhotoShop.

I have two monitors and it seems to be trying to center both of them, so that has proved to be veeeerrry interesting.

Half-Face
Half-Face

The Perfect Gift for my Husband

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If I had a few thousand dollars lying around, I’d totally buy the Sultan Gaming table for him.  And by a few thousand dollars, I mean over 9K.

http://www.geekchichq.com/The_Sultan_.html

This gaming table is stunning, don’t get me wrong, but unless some guy is dropping by every Wednesday to wipe it down with linseed oil and buffing it up for me, too, I’m not sure 9K is worth it!  BUT…it does look pretty sweet and it’s really quite functional!

Wonder if it comes with chairs that massage your back…

Jen’s Life Under a Microscope

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I’ve been reading a lot of magazine covers lately and, okay I admit it, I’m intrigued.  I enjoy seeing how the famous half lives.  Jennifer Aniston has been in the press a lot lately with her (alleged – it’s always ALWAYS alleged unless you’re in the room) break-up with John Mayer.

Everyone falls back on the relationship that she had with Brad Pitt and, invariably, the comparisons with him and his hockey-sized family with Angelina Jolie.  First off, I’m a big fan of the underdog so I’m going to naturally side with Jen, even though I don’t know her, don’t know anything about her, and truly have no idea what her life is really like.

I’m sure she’s sick and tired of the comparisons, the speculation, the “poor Jen”, and all the other feelings that outsiders have with respect to the one-sided view we voyeurs have of her life.  From what I’ve seen in interviews, she seems to have a great head on her shoulders so I hope that things smooth out and we, the adoring public, “drive on, citizen.”

I don’t want to see her crash and burn.  I don’t want Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie to crash and burn.  I just want them all to be happy and find peace and contentment, wherever it may be.

Then again, I’ve always hoped that she’d get back together with Brad Pitt.  (What do I know?)

Audiobook du jour

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What I’m listening to right now…

Right now, I’m listening to Black House, by Stephen King and Peter Straub.  I just finished listening to The Talisman so it seemed a natural progression.

It started a little slow, I have to say.  That may be because I listen to these books while driving and if there’s any kind of distraction or commotion on US 101, well…my attention drifts a bit.  So I’ll give it that.  There were a few minor misses here and there.

I’ve been devouring S.K. books recently from The Gunslinger (first book in the Dark Tower series) all the way up to The Dark Tower (the last book in the series).  It’s been a wild ride and all I can say is,

Thank GOODNESS I hadn’t heard about the series until Stephen King had finished writing them all.  That several year gap when he wasn’t writing ths series would have about killed me.

So I’m getting into the swing of things again and enjoying reading all about Jackie Sawyer, all grown up.  What’s next?  I haven’t decided yet.  I may listen to the J.R.R. Tolkien Lord of the Rings series or I may listen to Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman.

Guess we’ll see.

House Bunny

~ Melissa Bianco ~ Leave a comment

I admit it, I’ve been looking forward to this silly movie since I first saw the preview.  My friend, Theresa, and I are going to go see it on Saturday. 

I don’t have grand expectations, but – c’mon – she’s so lovably dorky and I’m a big fan of any offspring of Tom Hanks.  I’ll let you know how it goes!

~Melissa

Real Life – available online!

~ Melissa Bianco ~ 2 Comments
Real Life
Real Life

Finally!

I checked Amazon late last night and there it was, my book.  It’s pretty surreal that something I wrote has gone from closet gathering dust to Amazon.com, but I’m excited.  Really excited!

I’m oddly nervous, too.  Are people going to find it funny?  Or amusing?  Or just plain stupid?  Are they even going to know it’s there?  This marketing stuff is a lot of work.  I had no idea!

You can find my book on Amazon here.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1439204225

Now I have to send emails to every friend I know and get them to buy a copy.  😀

It Had to Happen Sometime…

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So after a few weeks of playing, wholeheartedly in fact, Age of Conan I finally had to uninstall it.  I was a little sad about this because I spent quite a bit of coin upgrading my machine to play it “right”.  I upgraded my motherboard, my video card, and my power source.

I even picked up Windows Vista 64 for pete’s sake.

Know what?  Still crashed.  I must have reinstalled Windows four or five times.  Now, in all likelihood, it’s my hard drive.  That’s still sitting in a Fry’s Electronics bag on top of my computer desk.  I don’t have the heart to reinstall all of my programs again.  I know I should, but my teeth itch every time I think about it.

Shell shock, maybe.

Anyway, the game had some merits.  I thought it was lush and beautiful.  I loved the music and the atmospheric sounds, and my character was pretty awesome looking (if not slightly cookie-cutter to all the other hot women running around Old Tarantia).  At least my character had clothes on.

She was an Algonquin beauty, I’ll give her that.  Blonde hair, deep tan, silver eyes.  Really lovely.  Something to behold.  And I could especially appreciate my great taste in character creation during some of the earlier cut scenes. 

And then with the crashes…   I’d managed to get one of my characters up to level 43 and was well into my altoholic addiction when the crashes started.  By then, I’d already gotten a little annoyed with some of the game’s quirks and was actually opting to watch episodes of The Closer rather than play the game.

That’s a death sentence.

Actually, that’s almost a death sentence.  The death sentence comes when you have to reinstall the game five or six times because you’ve had to reinstall Windows five or six times.  And patching is great fun. 

So, I hate to say it.  I really do because visually, I really love the game, but I’ve gone back to WoW for now.  My husband wants me to play EQ2 with him again, and I am actually a big fan of EverQuest 2, but WoW was calling me back.

I do have to say, though, the graphics pale in comparison.  It’s like Marge Simpson standing next to one of Luis Royo’s amazonian creations.  Just doesn’t measure up.  At least, in that regard, Everquest 2 looks pretty good (now that they’ve finally given us appearance alternates).

So we’ll see.  Time will tell.  It always does.