The Song Fight Bulletin Board

My February is becoming so crazy. I'm working on FAWM with Zinkline (4 songs written) and RPM with Dre (1 song written). I have more songs written for Zinkline because they have a recording session lined up and I wanna make sure they have material.

At the same time I'm doing a project for my kids' Valentine Day and I'm trying to finish the SF 200 but I can't finish it at work like I did in previous years (thanks office censor!). It's a lot of work but at least it's fun work.

QotD: What are some of your favorite board games? (I know we used to have a board game thread but that was about 4 years ago and think may have changed...)

1) Bermuda Triangle. A Milton Bradley game from the 70s. Plastic boats with little magnets on top follow trade routes on the board. Every turn, a big plastic mystery cloud is moved across the board. Occasionally it gets moved over one of the ships. There are, of course, magnets under the stormcloud, and sometimes you hear a little click of the magnets meeting, and your boat is never seen again. A gorgeous mechanic.

2) Talisman. Games Workshop. The ultimate medieval/fantasy board game. Zillions of cards and expansions and characters to play.

3) Curse of the Mummy's Tomb. A more obscure Games Workshop game. Explorers make their way through a three-tiered pyramid gameboard, facing egyptian-themed traps and creatures, and a mummy randomly shuffling about. Like all GW games, the art is fantastic. I think the yellow box can be seen over my shoulder in my avatar photo.

4) Illuminati (more of a tabletop card game, but still). Steve Jackson Games. Although not technically a board game, still worthy of inclusion. Players act as secret societies bent on world domination. A deck of cards provides different facets of society that can be controlled (everything from the Boy Scouts to Big Media to California to the Semiconscious Liberation Army). Players build power structures by linking these cards together. Deals are made and broken. Money is stolen and friendships are shattered. It's my favorite game ever.

Never heard of those. Tell me more.

jimtyrrell wrote:4) Illuminati (more of a tabletop card game, but still). Steve Jackson Games. Although not technically a board game, still worthy of inclusion. Players act as secret societies bent on world domination. A deck of cards provides different facets of society that can be controlled (everything from the Boy Scouts to Big Media to California to the Semiconscious Liberation Army). Players build power structures by linking these cards together. Deals are made and broken. Money is stolen and friendships are shattered. It's my favorite game ever.

I knew I liked you for some reason. In college (and through a good chunk of high school, too) the pocket box went with me everywhere. (http://www.sjgames.com/illuminati/ for Niv's informatizing)

Bermuda Triangle was great.

My Scrabble fascination is bordering on obsessive. I attend a club every Thursday. I played in my first sanctioned tournament back in December. I've even taken to posting my matches online.

Not that I'll ever be a top-tier player. Still, I spend an inordinate (Ooh! An 8 to make 10!) amount of time with the game.

I like Chess and Go. Anything more complicated than Chess (especially when there's an element of luck) is just annoying.

Oh man, Talisman was so great. I used to play that with one of my older brothers and his gaming buddies, when I was probably 10-15. I love the expansion pack aspect of it, too. I think my brother may still have a copy of that around somewhere...

I love Scrabble, too, but I haven't played much in a long time and I'm not as good as I used to be. Some day I'll have to play you guys online, Alb. and Niv.

Did any of you ever play Supremacy? It was like Risk for the nuclear age. Usually the conclusion of the game was mutual nuclear annihilation.

EDIT: After looking at that game, Alb., you are way way out of my league. Nice game.

Albatross wrote:Bermuda Triangle was great.

My Scrabble fascination is bordering on obsessive. I attend a club every Thursday. I played in my first sanctioned tournament back in December. I've even taken to posting my matches online.

Not that I'll ever be a top-tier player. Still, I spend an inordinate (Ooh! An 8 to make 10!) amount of time with the game.

Three bingos in that game. Nice.

QotD: Some friends of mine recently picked up Ticket to Ride - Europe, and that's been my most recent board-game obsession. There are some random elements to it, but not enough that you could ever blame bad luck if you don't do well.

My wife and I play a lot of Starship Catan. It's the best two-player game I've ever played...not that there are too many two-player games to begin with.

I remember Bermuda Triangle. I've never had the patience for board games much. I was always making things, building something, taking things apart to see how they worked. So I liked games that had any kind of mechanics to them. Even Life had the cool spinner in the middle. But one I really liked was Mouse Trap (as a very young kid). I mostly enjoyed setting it up and playing with the traps. I don't remember how it was played, lol. Battleships was a game that could hold my attention.

We play Balderdash regularly when the Fam gets together.

A friend of mine hold biweekly games nights at his house. My wife and I attend, and we've learned such games as Kill Dr. Lucky, Pandemic, and Dominion. Gotta mention Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan.

If you thinking about conventional board games, I love things like Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit.

QotD: not sure if it counts but I play Carcassonne & Settlers of Catan on my Xbox 360... which are digital board games... i used to have this cool board game with zombies and stuff... but it was missing pieces and i just used the zombie people as toys.

edit: they weren't zombies!! it was this...

My wife's grandmother died today, she was 104 years old. It's hard to imagine living through what she saw in her life.

Sorry to hear that Roy. 104? What's the secret?

Cookies and beer?

Loving life and not letting Nazis kill you. She did both expertly. There were many cookies and I'm sure plenty of beer as well.

My grandma is almost 98 and she insists she's going to make it to 100. I think she made it this far purely out of spite for everyone else though. My mom can't wait to "have" to pull the plug.

My great-grandmother turns 100 at the end of this month. She lives in Orlando; wish I could make it out there, but money's still kind of tight, and even tighter now, since...

Well, within minutes of getting home, I got a call from my wife. She got into a car wreck, and our beloved still-new Nissan is pretty much scrap.

I really should remember to never get used to having nice things. >.<

Generic wrote:My great-grandmother turns 100 at the end of this month. She lives in Orlando; wish I could make it out there, but money's still kind of tight, and even tighter now, since...

Well, within minutes of getting home, I got a call from my wife. She got into a car wreck, and our beloved still-new Nissan is pretty much scrap.

I really should remember to never get used to having nice things. >.<

Hope your wife is ok. If the car is scap and they call it totaled, you get a new one.

She's fine... I think. She keeps saying she's fine, but she's got a visible seat-belt burn from impact, a gash on her foot that we didn't discover till she took her shoes off, and she seems to be moving about like her joints are sore. But I keep saying, "Are you sure you don't need to go to the emergency room?" and she keeps saying "Yes! I just need to drink some tea and get a night's sleep and I'll be fine."

I hope.

Anyway. I checked on the insurance, and I'm pretty sure we're covered for all damages and then some. (I've never filed an insurance claim of any kind before, so this is pretty far outside my realm of expertise.) Our deductible, of course, is going to depend on where the fault is assigned, and I honestly don't know what's going to happen there. It was an all-way stop sign, and Allyson swears she stopped. The other driver also claims to have stopped. The accident is really bad (I wish I'd had the foresight to bring my camera to the scene), so at least one of them is badly mistaken. There was a witness, but of course, we don't know what his statement says.

Fortunately, most deductibles are small potatoes compared to the cost of the car.

No camera on your phone? (Obviously it's too late at this point, but still)

4 way stop and both say they were stopped and then proceeded? From a stop to impact in the intersection doesn't sound like a high speed event. So I'm thinking skid marks will indicate speed, etc.

And yes, your wife will feel it tomorrow morning. Her muscles will be very sore.