Monday, December 09, 2013

House portrait 8 x 10"

with two detail shots

Weekend roundup


It was a pretty nice weekend. Friday was freezing rain, sleet, and snow, so some of the afternoon was spent sledding down the small hill in our front yard. 

On Saturday, Kim and the girls drove to Ohio for a cookie-baking-oriented outing with Mom at my cousin’s.  I worked on another house drawing while they were gone, but on Saturday afternoon I attended a “meet-up” at a house not too far from my neighborhood.  It was a board game meet up with some members of the Louisville Atheists and Freethinkers. I am normally averse to any sort of in-depth interaction with strangers, but I figured if I wasn’t going to indulge my passion for board games with like-minded individuals at a home not for from my own, I may as well write off being social at all.

The people I met were very nice, and I had a good time.  I stayed long enough for three games.  First, we played Dominion, which has been a hugely popular card game for eight years or so.  I’d been wanting to try it, and I wasn’t disappointed.  I only played one game, but I was impressed by its cool elegance.  I certainly will be (finally) getting it for myself soon.

Second, we played Shadow Hunters.  I enjoyed that, too, but I sort of felt like there was some little part of the game’s theme that wasn’t “clicking” for me.  I get that the game is “about” some players being supernatural monsters, some players being hunters of supernatural monsters, and some players being independent unaffiliated people with their own victory conditions—all of us stalking each other in the woods.  However, the  manga-tinged artwork,  the Euro-style wooden cylinders used as player markers and counters, and the player-fighting-player interaction all seemed like a slightly odd mix, and I felt like something was being referenced (a certain anime series? A movie? Fairy tales?) that I didn’t quite know about.  Regardless, it was a fun, fairly easy to learn game, and I’d play it again.

Last, we spend quite a long while playing Cards Against Humanity, which is by design a sophomoric, politically incorrect, limits-pushing card game in the vein of Apples to Apples.  Certainly fun with the right group of people (and if you suspect you are NOT a member of this “right group of people,” you are probably correct).  I enjoyed it, and I’d have fun playing it with certain of my friends, but I can’t see ever owning a copy.

And then I finished watching season 2 of “Game of Thrones” while eating Chinese take-out.

Thus passed my weekend.



Friday, December 06, 2013

Putting up the tree. Record snowfall for today's date. Secretly working to help finish off the girls' Halloween candy. Good day.

Snowball fight

I am being pelted