Last week I did something that I haven't done in quite some time. Probably not since college. Last Thursday I sat down and played a good old fashioned game of Dungeons and Dragons.
I've played Dungeons and Dragons (D&D if your "cool") since I was in 6th grade. Back then it was a semi-rebellious activity since the media was fond of casting it as some sort of elaborate suicide cult. Some reasonable Christians are still afraid of it.
Not me though. I am a bad ass. Well right now I'm just a level one cleric. Still...that's pretty bitchin right?
When I was a kid, I remember my dad being a little concerned that I was choosing to spend time inside and "play pretend" rather than go outside and play football or baseball. I definitely remember him telling me that I would one day grow out of this whole fascination. I think he was more telling himself that in order to feel better. I'm not sure what good that sort of information would do for me.
Actually I think I remember making a promise to myself that I would RESIST growing out of D&D because it was too much fun. So there I was last Thursday. A 32-year old, hanging out with other thirty-somethings, talking about magic spells, goblins, and elves while munching on chips and Cheetos.
I know it's a little long in the tooth, but I love this song (and video). I feel like this must have been made by Americans who are making fun of Germans -- Like this video should have been premiered on sprokets.
You might remember that before I left for South America, I spent some time trying to learn some Portuguese before I left. By chance I happened to pick up the Pimsleur CD' s for my chosen language and I was really happy with the system...
[Something about that Pimsleur website makes it look like it might be associated with the Hanzo corporation]
...I'm especially enthusiastic about the system after trying something different for my upcoming trip to Germany. The "Learn in your Car" series is a pile of shit. Stay away. I went back to my Pimsleur buddies and have been making some pretty good progress in picking up a some of working German.
When I was going through the course for Portuguese I couldn't help but feel as if the authors operated on certain assumptions when crafting their lessons. Now that I've ventured into the German language lessons for a bit, those assumptions have come into sharper focus thanks to the contrast between the two. So while the Portuguese lessons seems to give a traveler some outstanding tools for picking up lusty prostitutes, Pimsleur's attitude toward German women seems a little colder. Consider this piece of dialogue from somewhere around lesson 10:
Me: Hello Miss!
German Woman: Hello
(Apparently I have no time to mess around so I get right to the point)
Me: I would like to eat something with you. At what time would you like to eat with me? One o'clock?
German Woman: No...not at one o'clock.
Me: At two o'clock?
German Woman: No...not at two o'clock.
Me: Would you like to eat with me at four o'clock or five o'clock?
German Woman: No sir. I do not want to eat with you at four o'clock or five o'clock?
Me: you want to eat later...at eight o'clock!
German Woman: Certainly not!
Me: at nine o'clock?
German Woman: No. I do not want to eat with you.
Me: Ah I understand...You do not want to EAT something. You want to DRINK something! Something at the restaurant in Opera Square!
(you have to give me credit for a positive attitude at least)
Me: What time would you like to drink something? one o'clock?
This goes on again, with me asking this woman for a drinking date for practically every tick on the clock. Finally (after more begging on my part) she finally says: German Woman: I do not want to drink something with you at four o'clock or five o'clock. and for good measure I don't want to drink with you at eight o'clock or nine o'clock.
Me: Would you like to drink something with me later?
German woman: You don't understand.
Me: What don't I understand?
German Woman: You don't understand German.
At that point the lesson abruptly ends which I think is "code" for a door being slammed or hand being slapped at my face.
So there you have it. The world according to Pimsleur is filled with hot and spicy Brazilian sex-pots but Germany is home only to the likes of Frau Blucher.
More (sorta) related German news is the current state of my recent fascination with random (mostly German-made) boardgames. Our little group (which began with about four Puerto Rico players) has really blossomed into a decent sized pool of people willing to spend a few hours on all sorts of intriguing games from all over the world. I've even managed to convince a few girls to join in!
It's a great hobby. I love how it brings people together. We can sit around the table, have a drink or two, and enjoy eachothers company while playing games that usually move pretty quickly but are genuinely interesting.
So if you're a friend of the blog and are interested in joining us one of these nights, let me know and we'll see about getting you in.
Here's my last bit of German-stuff. One of my all-time favorite animations. Sadly the youtube video of it doesnt read all that great -- give it a look anyway:
(A few things to talk about today so I don't think I'll be able to deliver this post with my usual laser-like focus.)
The Sky is a Hazy Shade of Winter
Curling aside, the general consensus seems to be that the winter Olympics are much more exciting than the more standard summer Olympics. There's still a lot of the same old sentimental bullshit, but the sports themselves seem more thrilling. You got your speed freaks in downhill skiing, and all the bobsledding variations. You got your The upstart snowboarders. You got the graceful traditional figure skaters (with goofy outfits to snigger at). You got your fluid and exciting speed skating. I watched hours of Olympic coverage last night and wasn't bored.
One of the most intriguing aspect of the speed skating is all the controversy tha sprung up with Apolo Ohno's victory by default over South Korea's Kim Dong-Sung in 2002. I managed to find a South Korean broadcast of this event years back and it did not disappoint. When the decision came through that disqualified Kim, the Korean announcer sounded like someone was sucking his intestines out through his belly button.
The Koreans were "displeased". I mean check out this video.
So I was really looking forward to the re-match (sort of - Dong-Sung wasn't racing again instead it was Ahn Hyun-Soo as the Korean favorite). Unfortunately Apolo got greedy and fucked up all the drama.
Another entertaining aspect to last nights games was the company I was keeping. Liz and Pete came over, two friends of mine with deep roots in the snowboarding industry. So watching the Winter Olympics with them is like having Joan and Melissa Rivers on your couch while watching the Oscars. They spend as much time (or more) commenting on what the athletes are wearing than how they perform. It's hilarious. Liz was getting visibly angry at some of the things people were wearing.
Puttin All Kinds of Shame in the Game You Got
As a result of some prodding from the birdman and some simultaneous inspiration from a co-worker, I've become increasingly interested in boardgames. Specifically games in the "German-Style". The way I understand it, there is a whole sub-culture of board games influenced by European designers - many of whom are German mathematicians like Riener Knizia.
Once you start to investigate this world, you quickly discover that the grandaddy of these games is probably Puerto Rico. Phipps put it well when he said, "If I wasn't told that Puerto Rico was the best game ever I never would have picked it up". There's nothing too exciting about it on the face of things, but some friends and I put it to the test for the first time last night and it was really an exceptional game.
It's really interesting to watch a group of people work out a new system of game mechanics and rules like we did on Saturday while playing PR for the first time. There is this initial feeling of trying to find ones way through a dark room in the beginning. Everyone is sort of flailing to make sense of everything. It's cool to watch the transition from total confusion to comprehension to actual strategic decision making.
The game itself has some of the flavors of the classic Monopoly game in that the objective is basically to acquire wealth and build a commercial empire. However, Monopoly is very short on real decision-making, and long on luck. Puerto Rico gives players multiple strategic options and rewards savvy tactics. It utilizes some unusual play-mechanics coupled with some amusingly un-PC elements to make for a great game.
So as some of you know. I recently got back into Magic: The Gathering. Or as Strongbad likes to call it, "Magic: The Nerdening". While cruising the official website, I came across this excellent example of Eurotophobia:
Now to be fair...it's possible this artist has never seen a vagina...but c'mon! There's gotta be at least ONE editor in there who has. That's seriously obscene.
Not only that but it sends the viewer mixed signals. Am I supopsed to be scared? Am I supposed to be turned on? What?
I'm holding out for a hero till the morning light.
I inadvertently cheated in monopoly this weekend and ended up winning. Weird how that works.
I was reflecting a little this weekend about how much I take advantage of this world wide web stuff. I can put on my grandpa pants now nd talk about old-school internet. It's weird to think that I used the internet (or something like it) for a long time without ever even looking at a world wide web page.
My first "on-line" experience wasn't even e-mail. It was with a BBS, which was basically like a web forum, except only one person could be on it at a time. The BBS was run outta a friend of mines house. A bunch of us would call in a few times a week (basically using our modems to call a secondary line at his house, which linked up with his computer) participate in discussions, arrange gatherings, and submit our PimpWars turn.
Pimpwars....I remember thinking it was really fun...but I cant reqally remember how you played. I just remember that the game was customizable, and that the guy who ran the game named most of the 'Hoes' after people who went to our high school (hilarious!).
In my first year of college I had access to an email account through my school, but I never accessed it through the web (I don't think you could), I had to telnet to it. I don't even know what that means really...I just know I was constantly doing it.
By my third year of college I discovered a chatroom (that I had to telnet to) called "Foothills". I "hung out" at foothills late into the evening, listening to music on my stereo, and having incredibly frustrating conversations with other young people. Almost all of these conversations involved sex, music, or suicide....most of them involved all three. After about a year of this I realized I was never actually enjoying myself and swore off chat-rooms forever.
I don't think I saw a web page until my third year of college. That first web page? IGN.
Internet Gaming Network. I used it to make sure I wasn't missing out on any hidden short-cuts in Mario Kart 64, and I still visit the site daily.
Up until then of course, there were no "graphics" involved in anything I had done or seen on the internet (with the exception of ascii stuff). Now it's all about the pretty pictures and the web is part of my daily life. It's probably my main source of information and entertainment.
I started down a dangerous path last night. A path known as Magic the Gathering: Online. I used to play a lot of MTG when I was in college. It was always a really fun game, but eventually I ran out of people to play with, and it got to be a too cumbersome (and too expensive) to lug all those cards around.
I remember how exciting the game was when I first discovered it. My friends and I would travel all over the county looking for specialty shops that sold the individual cards that would make our decks invincible.
That was something like 7 years ago. The game has progressed a lot since then. There are plenty of new rules, new cards and all that stuff.
The online version of the game is basically just that. It's got all the elements of the real game just on line. You buy and trade cards (there is no monthly subscription), build decks, and can play all sorts of game variants with 2 people, 5 people, whatever. Pretty cool.
Hopefully it won't suck my life and money away like the regular version did years ago.
ANyhow I jumped on line after registering last night. I had bought a simple pre-fab deck just to get started and test the waters. I was expecting to get blown out of the water but it actually went okay. I managed to sneak a few victories in here and there (in between getting blown out of the water).
Work has been a little slow for me so I have been honing my Maya skills a little. Hopefully I'll have something to show for it later. However there are lots of things simmering beneath the surface and once it comes to a boil...LOOKOUT!
This week marked the first round of our Madden league playoffs. I exorcised the demons of my fist season and beat my rival to advance to the next round. SO huzzah for me.
In other news...there's Civilization: The Board Game. I mentioned it in my last post. I started a game at work (we play a few turns a day really), and had some people over tonight to get a game together. It's pretty much everything I could hope for. It's got elements of Risk, and Axis and Allies. In terms of pure military strategy stuff I still think Axis and Allies is the king, but Civ is just much more diverse and allows for deeper game play.
It's a total Mountain Dew game though. We're talking hours and hours to really finish a game. We had to arbitrarily call our game tonight as players were getting tired. With the game's scoring system I ended up tying for first place with the Birdman (who made quite a comeback thanks to some fast-talking/ taking advantage of the fact that one of the other players was his wife :) )...but I think only Iwan was in danger of really getting wiped out. By that I mean he was done for. Also, Adam's fast-talking resulted in a very Risk-esque betrayal.
So here we are at the weekend. No big plans...so you can look forward to more bland blogging from me come monday :)
Here are a few photos from the past week or so. Most of them gingerbread related:
With the holiday season basically over I managed to sneak in a few more "good friends from outta town" visits in the last few days. Wendy popped into San Diego for a day in between Hawaii and San Fran. We hung out and grabbed a bit of coffee/tea. Meanwhile my college friend David came into town on vacation with his girlfriend Alyssa. I had never met Alyssa before so that was cool. She scored high marks all around and I promised David I would report as much to our mutual friend Liz.
Over the break I got a lot of good solid gaming in. I finished both Jak II, and Prince of Persia. I'm also well on my way towards finishing Beyond Good and Evil and XIII (most of those games compliments of my buddy Marc...Thanks Marc!).
Jak II was excellent and I must say I thought Prince of Persia was outstanding. One of the best games I've played this year for sure.
I also managed to pick up the board game version of one of my favorite PC games of all time: Civilization! I haven't had a chance to really play it yet but I've given it a few test runs and it seems to be everything I would hope for in a board game version of the PC classic. Let me tell you...if bigger is better...this is the best fucking board game ever. Aside from the millions of choking-hazard game pieces, It doesn't even fit on my coffee table.
On Sunday H-bomb and her sister had themselves a lil garage sale, Kelowna and Paul also brought some stuff to hawk. It was funny watching people browse through piles of clothing that was half their size. Lots of frowning faces on those bargain hunters
:)
speaking of plus sizes...I saw the Triplets of Belleville last night. Awesome! Don't go see it expecting much dialogue. It's a really unique film. I highly recommend it. Especially if your an American with a good sense of humor about your own culture
:)
