secret societys i can jon
Rooting around the Action Team control panel, I found two things out: First, I would imagine it is Enron working on a Database for our game list (coolio!), and second, these are the top search strings used to find our site. I think the people that live in the Internet are Double Bacon Genius Burgers.
Top 20 of 24 Total Search Strings
# Hits Search String
1 7 20.59% hottest woman on earth
2 5 14.71% theactionteam.org
3 1 2.94% 'jeanenne garafalo'
4 1 2.94% car accident photots
5 1 2.94% gangstar and strippers
6 1 2.94% in sixteen hundred and two zero the pilgrims landed dressed rea
7 1 2.94% jaime foxxworthy
8 1 2.94% johnny-five subtitles 1986 -short circuit 2
9 1 2.94% kids fuck
10 1 2.94% kurt vonegut download sound
11 1 2.94% leave a job to pursue an mba
12 1 2.94% masterson psychiatry kills
13 1 2.94% nude motorbyke party
14 1 2.94% rock-n-roll mcdonald's by wesley willis
15 1 2.94% sawhorse detective
16 1 2.94% school fuck
17 1 2.94% secret societys i can jon
18 1 2.94% tea baggin
19 1 2.94% text art stanley cup
20 1 2.94% the pilgrims landed dressed real queero
Maybe that's where Myke is right now. At a crazy "Nude Motorbyke Pary". It's as if I hired the Planet of the Internet to come up with phrases that would make me laugh my ass off, and then as the coup de grace, they actually used them to find the Action Team Website! I mean "sawhorse detective" is a riot! Car accident photots?
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Friday, June 02, 2006
It's a corona! =) excior class.
Coronas are actually Camrys, just older models. Toyota discontinued the name back in 1998 or something. You don't find these in the US because they only made these in Austrailia, japan, europe, where smaller cars are more practical especially in cities that are scare in roadestate. These are more sportier looking but the trade-off is less legroom space designed for non-anglo rasis. It's dope looking! In the philippines back in the 90's this was the car to have if you were wealthy, but i think that has gone by the wayside as these cars are cheap these days, but people still say that it's for the yuppi.
Customer Sales Nightmare:
I have to share this. It happens so often it seems that when customer service is lousy it's almost disregardable. But this time, it pissed me off so bad I just have to share it.
I called the local 3M division in the philippines inquiring on some product for our manufacturing. I get a nice enough sales lady, but after a few minutes discussion on the product, you can already sense that she's kinda flimsy with her knowledge of the product and what's she's saying. The answers just wasn't straight brooming with confidence. But anyhow, she tells me to call this distributor A, becuase they have the product. I call Distributor A, and after a rude operator, finally talked to someone there. They tell me that they don't have it and I should call 3m back. I do so and the sales lady refers me to distributor B, that she says she was wrong the first time and that this distributor should have it. Lo and behold, Distributor B does not. another half a day goes by because distributor B didn't even call me back, probably wondering why I was calling them for the product in which they didn't carry.
I call back to the lady, and this time, just hoping to bypass her (which I don't know if it's ever a good idea to do so). This is really debateable. 1) They might get offended THINKING you are implying that they are incompetant, which is probably the truth, 2) they might be afraid you actually SAY that they are incompetant to their bosses. 3) They badmouth you to their co-workers so that NO ONE would help you.
However, I just wanted the product so I ask for her manager. By this time, I was a bit frustrated. I start telling this guy my ordeal and asked where I could get this product. Well, instead of even helping or trying to help or even offering to look into, or ask me to write an email detailing my problem, the guy decides to be a real fucking jackass. He just decides to tell me they don't have it and gave me the full on silent treatment. That's basically they say 1 word and nothing else and expects you to just hang up and go away.
After a few minutes of asking him if he would help, would he look into it, and only getting a grunt for a response, I friggin snapped. I cussed him out and hung up.
Little does he know, I tracked the upper division management. The guy was nice enough to do exactly what this jackass should have done. He asked me to send him an email detailing what happeded etc. Even though he may not even bother reading, it feels as if someone is. And that's what problem resolution is all about.
Long story short, I hope he gets canned.
Coronas are actually Camrys, just older models. Toyota discontinued the name back in 1998 or something. You don't find these in the US because they only made these in Austrailia, japan, europe, where smaller cars are more practical especially in cities that are scare in roadestate. These are more sportier looking but the trade-off is less legroom space designed for non-anglo rasis. It's dope looking! In the philippines back in the 90's this was the car to have if you were wealthy, but i think that has gone by the wayside as these cars are cheap these days, but people still say that it's for the yuppi.
Customer Sales Nightmare:
I have to share this. It happens so often it seems that when customer service is lousy it's almost disregardable. But this time, it pissed me off so bad I just have to share it.
I called the local 3M division in the philippines inquiring on some product for our manufacturing. I get a nice enough sales lady, but after a few minutes discussion on the product, you can already sense that she's kinda flimsy with her knowledge of the product and what's she's saying. The answers just wasn't straight brooming with confidence. But anyhow, she tells me to call this distributor A, becuase they have the product. I call Distributor A, and after a rude operator, finally talked to someone there. They tell me that they don't have it and I should call 3m back. I do so and the sales lady refers me to distributor B, that she says she was wrong the first time and that this distributor should have it. Lo and behold, Distributor B does not. another half a day goes by because distributor B didn't even call me back, probably wondering why I was calling them for the product in which they didn't carry.
I call back to the lady, and this time, just hoping to bypass her (which I don't know if it's ever a good idea to do so). This is really debateable. 1) They might get offended THINKING you are implying that they are incompetant, which is probably the truth, 2) they might be afraid you actually SAY that they are incompetant to their bosses. 3) They badmouth you to their co-workers so that NO ONE would help you.
However, I just wanted the product so I ask for her manager. By this time, I was a bit frustrated. I start telling this guy my ordeal and asked where I could get this product. Well, instead of even helping or trying to help or even offering to look into, or ask me to write an email detailing my problem, the guy decides to be a real fucking jackass. He just decides to tell me they don't have it and gave me the full on silent treatment. That's basically they say 1 word and nothing else and expects you to just hang up and go away.
After a few minutes of asking him if he would help, would he look into it, and only getting a grunt for a response, I friggin snapped. I cussed him out and hung up.
Little does he know, I tracked the upper division management. The guy was nice enough to do exactly what this jackass should have done. He asked me to send him an email detailing what happeded etc. Even though he may not even bother reading, it feels as if someone is. And that's what problem resolution is all about.
Long story short, I hope he gets canned.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
what kind of car is it? I couldn't find that in yer post! Plus, tons of funny and interesting things in the last bunch of posts, but too lazy to comment. But I <3 them all!
Moving on July 1st to .... (drumroll) HAWTHORNE. Ohhhh. Ahhhhh. Yeah, well its cheap and its a place to stay while's i a figure out what in the fux to do with my life. Party on.
Moving on July 1st to .... (drumroll) HAWTHORNE. Ohhhh. Ahhhhh. Yeah, well its cheap and its a place to stay while's i a figure out what in the fux to do with my life. Party on.
I bought a car dudes!
cheap car, 4k, but it is in very good condition. 4k in the US would get you a beat up pinto or less, maybe a few squeaky doors, noisy engine, and shoddy interior. I guess I can't generalize too much. I did rummage through 6 cars before finding this one. The last one I saw, was in a nightmare condition, 3 out of the 4 power windows didn't work, the internal wiring was all wierdly rewired, non-original engine replacement parts, outer body covered up damage. Ironically the magazine said "good condition: nothing to fix". Doh.
fyi, the car I bought is between good and ex, condition and I got quite a deal. The car is worth at least 4200 or 4300.
get skype accounts fools!
cheap car, 4k, but it is in very good condition. 4k in the US would get you a beat up pinto or less, maybe a few squeaky doors, noisy engine, and shoddy interior. I guess I can't generalize too much. I did rummage through 6 cars before finding this one. The last one I saw, was in a nightmare condition, 3 out of the 4 power windows didn't work, the internal wiring was all wierdly rewired, non-original engine replacement parts, outer body covered up damage. Ironically the magazine said "good condition: nothing to fix". Doh.
fyi, the car I bought is between good and ex, condition and I got quite a deal. The car is worth at least 4200 or 4300.
get skype accounts fools!
Yeah, these guys play a lot. On average there are 6-8 people at the game group. Everybody plays one big, quick game while waiting for the stragglers to show up. Then we break up into two smaller groups and play whatever. On average it seems that one of the groups will play 1 longer game while the other will play 2 shorter games and/or stay later. So that's an average of 4 games per game night. They get together on Saturdays a lot as well to play longer games (Game of Thrones, etc.). But yeah. It's a lot of gaming.
As for your return engagement, just be warned that I've been glazing my miniatures with raw egg and dietary supplements and force marching them up hills for 8 turns every day to attack 30mm scale bags of meat. So things might be a little different this time around (probably not though :p). I'm generally flying the proud blue and gold of Cygnar these days, but I may break out the Cryx for your return engagement. We shall see. Sorry you can't make it to Tahoe.
I think Myke is either in Italy or in torpor right now -- he won't be up here until August.
As for your return engagement, just be warned that I've been glazing my miniatures with raw egg and dietary supplements and force marching them up hills for 8 turns every day to attack 30mm scale bags of meat. So things might be a little different this time around (probably not though :p). I'm generally flying the proud blue and gold of Cygnar these days, but I may break out the Cryx for your return engagement. We shall see. Sorry you can't make it to Tahoe.
I think Myke is either in Italy or in torpor right now -- he won't be up here until August.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
500+ games is quite impressive
especially over a short time span of a year and a half. If theoretically each game took an average of 1 hour to play the group would have logged over 500 hours of actual game time. In comparison, A-Day-of-A-Million games, I think combined few years history, I doubt we have logged 100 hours of actual gamery. It would be either a really dedicated hard core game group, or just people with lots of time to spare. Factoring there is only 78 weekends, you would have to play 6.5 hours of games a weekend with your friends, Everyday!
Eatersen - I detect a little friendly?/rival? challenge on the lee-teaches-etersen front! I think the long windy SF months must have bashed the fragile mammories of which archaic army was decimated into oblivion the last time the cryx raised it's warcry. So I guess it's time for a little Memory jogger eh?
I would love to spend the weekend with you and your lovely miss, unfortunately I must pass! I'll just wait around when you and aaron gets back then on the 11th. I'll be back on June 7th, the only plans are to visit a local laboratory, other than that I'm all free for gamin! Staying at my parents house, my flight leaves on the 23rd of june, so I have a good 3 weeks.
Is mike in town or not, is he still alive?
Johnny
especially over a short time span of a year and a half. If theoretically each game took an average of 1 hour to play the group would have logged over 500 hours of actual game time. In comparison, A-Day-of-A-Million games, I think combined few years history, I doubt we have logged 100 hours of actual gamery. It would be either a really dedicated hard core game group, or just people with lots of time to spare. Factoring there is only 78 weekends, you would have to play 6.5 hours of games a weekend with your friends, Everyday!
Eatersen - I detect a little friendly?/rival? challenge on the lee-teaches-etersen front! I think the long windy SF months must have bashed the fragile mammories of which archaic army was decimated into oblivion the last time the cryx raised it's warcry. So I guess it's time for a little Memory jogger eh?
I would love to spend the weekend with you and your lovely miss, unfortunately I must pass! I'll just wait around when you and aaron gets back then on the 11th. I'll be back on June 7th, the only plans are to visit a local laboratory, other than that I'm all free for gamin! Staying at my parents house, my flight leaves on the 23rd of june, so I have a good 3 weeks.
Is mike in town or not, is he still alive?
Johnny
Ja-El! I'd love to teach you a lesson in Warmachine that weekend, but unfortunately I am gonna be out of town. Enron is too, I think. It's my gf's birthday weekend and we are going up to Lake Tahoe. That said, we definitely have room for one more in the cabin and you are welcome to attend... most people are going from the 9th-11th (I'll be leaving on the 8th though).
Hope you can make it! If not... how long are you going to be in the States? We can get together after the 11th fo' sho'.
The game list is admittedly an impressive sight. I'm kind of flaky about going to the Wednesday game nights, or maybe it's more accurate to say I'm just not as hardcore as those other guys, but I'm in the register for the very first night of the game group's existence, and that means something, dammit. If the AT had a repository to log games I'd log every single game I ever play. It would be a logical extension of me and Jael's ongoing "Day of a Million Games." Seems like it would be a non-trivial thing to host online. Maybe we could just keep an excel sheet on the FTP server and update that? That's unhip and low-tech admittedly, but it's easy.
Aeryk, that photo of you makes you look like the Feral Child from The Road Warrior. Do you have a cool razor boomerang?
Hope you can make it! If not... how long are you going to be in the States? We can get together after the 11th fo' sho'.
The game list is admittedly an impressive sight. I'm kind of flaky about going to the Wednesday game nights, or maybe it's more accurate to say I'm just not as hardcore as those other guys, but I'm in the register for the very first night of the game group's existence, and that means something, dammit. If the AT had a repository to log games I'd log every single game I ever play. It would be a logical extension of me and Jael's ongoing "Day of a Million Games." Seems like it would be a non-trivial thing to host online. Maybe we could just keep an excel sheet on the FTP server and update that? That's unhip and low-tech admittedly, but it's easy.
Aeryk, that photo of you makes you look like the Feral Child from The Road Warrior. Do you have a cool razor boomerang?
Oh yes
I remember both of those. BTW it was Uve Von Schneider. Ah the helmet was so dumb. but funny. Who was DMing that one?
C3PO. Umm, that was me. Elzar that was the worst game ever. Star Wars RPG, western theme. Lame. If I wanted boot hill I would signed up fr it. I remember getting my character and then hearing the world description and saying, "what the fuck?" I literally could not believe it. Then that ass-hat of a DM had the nerve to get mad at me because I told him for the third consecutive combat round that C3PO was doing nothing. I said "What the hell do you want him to do?" He failed his ability to comprehend the native language of the planet AND he was a pacifist in the middle of a battle in a vacant dessert field. Stupid. I had 3D+1 language skills. The rest of the party had 3D. What the truck? How lame. You convinced me to leave something to the order of 40 dice at the table, including my high rolling set of white pips on black, while going to 'check out if we saw Rudy'. Not that I blame you. I would still give up some seriously precious dice to avoid that game again. Jebuz.
I will have to check out that book Elzar. I really did like MicroSerfs. I never got into any of his other works though. They all just failed to stand up to the magnetism of MicroSerfs. A game list would be sweet. Creating a log would be fun, although it could take a while to put together. Lemme look into it. You know a lot of what we did during our time in Dorchester and El Crotch is pretty nostalgic for me. Very wierd. I have almost no nostalgia from before you came down to SDSU or for the period of time when you were down there for the second stint. I guess the wierdness of it all created some interesting memories. Maybe because our life consisted of NecroMunda, Hockey, Arby's, Punk music 24 hours a day, concerts @ Soma, Jack in the Box, "Jacckkk in the Box" *wink*, Barnes and Chernoble's, and being dirt poor. Simple and maybe even a bit elegant. Or not.
Ja-El, so you are going to be back in the AHHHHHHH, MOTHERLAND! From the 7th until when? When are you free? Info dude!
D>M>
I remember both of those. BTW it was Uve Von Schneider. Ah the helmet was so dumb. but funny. Who was DMing that one?
C3PO. Umm, that was me. Elzar that was the worst game ever. Star Wars RPG, western theme. Lame. If I wanted boot hill I would signed up fr it. I remember getting my character and then hearing the world description and saying, "what the fuck?" I literally could not believe it. Then that ass-hat of a DM had the nerve to get mad at me because I told him for the third consecutive combat round that C3PO was doing nothing. I said "What the hell do you want him to do?" He failed his ability to comprehend the native language of the planet AND he was a pacifist in the middle of a battle in a vacant dessert field. Stupid. I had 3D+1 language skills. The rest of the party had 3D. What the truck? How lame. You convinced me to leave something to the order of 40 dice at the table, including my high rolling set of white pips on black, while going to 'check out if we saw Rudy'. Not that I blame you. I would still give up some seriously precious dice to avoid that game again. Jebuz.
I will have to check out that book Elzar. I really did like MicroSerfs. I never got into any of his other works though. They all just failed to stand up to the magnetism of MicroSerfs. A game list would be sweet. Creating a log would be fun, although it could take a while to put together. Lemme look into it. You know a lot of what we did during our time in Dorchester and El Crotch is pretty nostalgic for me. Very wierd. I have almost no nostalgia from before you came down to SDSU or for the period of time when you were down there for the second stint. I guess the wierdness of it all created some interesting memories. Maybe because our life consisted of NecroMunda, Hockey, Arby's, Punk music 24 hours a day, concerts @ Soma, Jack in the Box, "Jacckkk in the Box" *wink*, Barnes and Chernoble's, and being dirt poor. Simple and maybe even a bit elegant. Or not.
Ja-El, so you are going to be back in the AHHHHHHH, MOTHERLAND! From the 7th until when? When are you free? Info dude!
D>M>
Mammories
As I sit here with not much to do waiting for a crew to finish some work on one of the houses, I think back to some delicious gaming moments I have enjoyed over the years:
- D&D with JP. We had an NPC named Uve Schneider that was a pompous french tongued guide for us. He had a pencchant for wearing his full helmet at all times. He met his end during some combat in the rain. First, he was knocked unconscious face down in a puddle and we fought hard to reach him intime to turn him over. Finally, the tide turned and we flipped him. The battle again pulled our attention away from sweet Uve. When it was all done and said, Uve's full helmet fulled with rainwater while he lay on his back, and he felt the cool touch of death, drowning while unconscious on his back. So sad. N o one really liked him anyway.
- Aaron or Jordan (I think) as a protocol droid in a convention Star Wars game: "I am fluent in over THREE forms of communication". Good times.
As I sit here with not much to do waiting for a crew to finish some work on one of the houses, I think back to some delicious gaming moments I have enjoyed over the years:
- D&D with JP. We had an NPC named Uve Schneider that was a pompous french tongued guide for us. He had a pencchant for wearing his full helmet at all times. He met his end during some combat in the rain. First, he was knocked unconscious face down in a puddle and we fought hard to reach him intime to turn him over. Finally, the tide turned and we flipped him. The battle again pulled our attention away from sweet Uve. When it was all done and said, Uve's full helmet fulled with rainwater while he lay on his back, and he felt the cool touch of death, drowning while unconscious on his back. So sad. N o one really liked him anyway.
- Aaron or Jordan (I think) as a protocol droid in a convention Star Wars game: "I am fluent in over THREE forms of communication". Good times.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
JPod
Douglas Coupland is at it again! Long story short, JPod is Microserfs 2.0. If you liked Microserfs, you will probably like JPod. So far, the characters are similar to MS-- wordy, smart, critical, headstrong, and funny. THe character banter, and much of the narration, is sort of like Clerks, where the delivery of the material is less important as the words and ideas themselves. It doesn't read or feel natural, but it is funny.
Anyway, this time around it is about 6 game programmers that work together, and the crazy, parent-laden shenannigans that happen to the main character.
Funny, relevant, pop-culture drivel.
Kinda like a Forgotten Realms novel. Drivel, but fun, enjoyable drivel none the less. I think Enron would enjoy this over any other Action Team member.
Douglas Coupland is at it again! Long story short, JPod is Microserfs 2.0. If you liked Microserfs, you will probably like JPod. So far, the characters are similar to MS-- wordy, smart, critical, headstrong, and funny. THe character banter, and much of the narration, is sort of like Clerks, where the delivery of the material is less important as the words and ideas themselves. It doesn't read or feel natural, but it is funny.
Anyway, this time around it is about 6 game programmers that work together, and the crazy, parent-laden shenannigans that happen to the main character.
Funny, relevant, pop-culture drivel.
Kinda like a Forgotten Realms novel. Drivel, but fun, enjoyable drivel none the less. I think Enron would enjoy this over any other Action Team member.
psuedo ketchup packs
hah... i love the imitation gucci purses, nike shoes, and anything else thats readily cloned. But as with all things, to save costs, these dopples aren't exactly made the same way. Take for example, the Mcdonalds ketchup packs, small, ubiquitous, the notable ketchup packet that everyone has come to expect with every pack of dull golden fries, everyone as in everyone cool, that is. The packets here are cloned to virtual perfection, even going as far as to mimic the "Tear Here" symbol embedded on the top right hand corner in a semi ovular shape. The catch? there's really no etch mark to tear! Unless what they meant was "Tear Here With Teeth" which would be definitely possible.
June 7th, Dday, I'm storming omaha-Frisco beach. You guys MUST make a trip to Fremont so I can teach you boys another lesson in Warmachines.
hah... i love the imitation gucci purses, nike shoes, and anything else thats readily cloned. But as with all things, to save costs, these dopples aren't exactly made the same way. Take for example, the Mcdonalds ketchup packs, small, ubiquitous, the notable ketchup packet that everyone has come to expect with every pack of dull golden fries, everyone as in everyone cool, that is. The packets here are cloned to virtual perfection, even going as far as to mimic the "Tear Here" symbol embedded on the top right hand corner in a semi ovular shape. The catch? there's really no etch mark to tear! Unless what they meant was "Tear Here With Teeth" which would be definitely possible.
June 7th, Dday, I'm storming omaha-Frisco beach. You guys MUST make a trip to Fremont so I can teach you boys another lesson in Warmachines.
Monday, May 29, 2006
Game List
I really like that idea. Of course to really implement, I would have to set up a second blog (which is easy peasy) that everyone could post to whenever they play a game, and we could log them. If there is enough interest, I will do it. And even if not, I might get the wild hair sometime. Interest?
Strategicon Update
Leslie, Wylie and I hit the con on Saturday and it was fair to middling in attendance and excitement. There was a great Star Wars miniatures game going on with TONS of stormtroopers in a huge custom Death Star board. Really cool. A homebrew WWII game that was squad vs. squad in scale, and evolved around small scenarios (rescue the pilot, torch the toilet, capture german officer, etc.) Looked fun, didn't play it though. Fair amount of Hordes/Warmachine going on, Axis and Allies up the ass, Ticket to Ride, etc.
It was neat because during the Beverly Hills Dr. visits, we listened to The Dice Tower, and I bought some games that they talked about. So this time at the con, Leslie actually recognized quite a few games in the dealer room from either hearing about, or playing. So that was fun!
Then Denis and I hit it on sunday for a few hours, and it was less exciting, very dark and empty feeling. Still more gamers that you could shake a stick at, but it was not GenCon/Kublacon.
Picked up Polarity, which is a neato magnetic game of dexterity (sort of), a few OOP WFRP items (Castle Drachenfels, two Doomstones books), Zero (a wwii PTO card game about air combat), and the crowning achievement: Twilight Struggle by GMT Games.
TS is a game about the Cold War played out in roughly 5-8 year "chunks" of time. The USSR and US vie for control over countries using influence, coups and something else I can't remember the name of, but it is basically a weak coup. Anyhoo, the game is driven by cards and each card is either a scoring card, or an event/operations card. The cards are either USSR or US events, and if the USSR uses a USSR card, he can use it either for operations points or the event, but noth both. If the USSR uses a US card, the US gets the event and the USSR gets the operations points. Herein lies the fun of the game. There is a space race part of the board which is used for discards, and of course the DefCon level.
Cool mechanic: Each turn, you must perform military actions (start wars, coups, etc.) equal to the current DefCon level, or give your opponent the difference in VP's. So, the more at peace the world is, the more capacity for aggression there is, and if you are not aggressive, you in effect lose face and control to your opponent.
Ryan and I played 5 (of 10) turns last night, and after the first few turns, it started making sense and was a lot of fun. The learning curve is pretty minimal, but how the best play the game might take longer.
It is expensive, but go get it! OR not!
More on the Game List
If I were smarter, I would figure out how to do a very minor database web interaction that would allow anyone to enter their game into the database that we could then search and look at. Game * Players * Date * Results * Notes. Hmm, could be cool. Enron, DO IT! Here is my most recent entry:
5.28.2006 Polarity - Denis vs. Eric - Winner Denis - Fun first game!
5.28.2006 Polartiy - Denis vs. Eric - Winner Denis - Better second game!
5.28.2006 Battle Line - Leslie vs. Eric - Winner Leslie - This chick ROCKS at Battle Line.
5.29.2006 Carcassonne - Leslie v. Ryan v. Eric - Winner Ryan - Always the new guy wins cause everyone else helps explain farming to the point of personal detriment.
Good times! Long ass post!
I really like that idea. Of course to really implement, I would have to set up a second blog (which is easy peasy) that everyone could post to whenever they play a game, and we could log them. If there is enough interest, I will do it. And even if not, I might get the wild hair sometime. Interest?
Strategicon Update
Leslie, Wylie and I hit the con on Saturday and it was fair to middling in attendance and excitement. There was a great Star Wars miniatures game going on with TONS of stormtroopers in a huge custom Death Star board. Really cool. A homebrew WWII game that was squad vs. squad in scale, and evolved around small scenarios (rescue the pilot, torch the toilet, capture german officer, etc.) Looked fun, didn't play it though. Fair amount of Hordes/Warmachine going on, Axis and Allies up the ass, Ticket to Ride, etc.
It was neat because during the Beverly Hills Dr. visits, we listened to The Dice Tower, and I bought some games that they talked about. So this time at the con, Leslie actually recognized quite a few games in the dealer room from either hearing about, or playing. So that was fun!
Then Denis and I hit it on sunday for a few hours, and it was less exciting, very dark and empty feeling. Still more gamers that you could shake a stick at, but it was not GenCon/Kublacon.
Picked up Polarity, which is a neato magnetic game of dexterity (sort of), a few OOP WFRP items (Castle Drachenfels, two Doomstones books), Zero (a wwii PTO card game about air combat), and the crowning achievement: Twilight Struggle by GMT Games.
TS is a game about the Cold War played out in roughly 5-8 year "chunks" of time. The USSR and US vie for control over countries using influence, coups and something else I can't remember the name of, but it is basically a weak coup. Anyhoo, the game is driven by cards and each card is either a scoring card, or an event/operations card. The cards are either USSR or US events, and if the USSR uses a USSR card, he can use it either for operations points or the event, but noth both. If the USSR uses a US card, the US gets the event and the USSR gets the operations points. Herein lies the fun of the game. There is a space race part of the board which is used for discards, and of course the DefCon level.
Cool mechanic: Each turn, you must perform military actions (start wars, coups, etc.) equal to the current DefCon level, or give your opponent the difference in VP's. So, the more at peace the world is, the more capacity for aggression there is, and if you are not aggressive, you in effect lose face and control to your opponent.
Ryan and I played 5 (of 10) turns last night, and after the first few turns, it started making sense and was a lot of fun. The learning curve is pretty minimal, but how the best play the game might take longer.
It is expensive, but go get it! OR not!
More on the Game List
If I were smarter, I would figure out how to do a very minor database web interaction that would allow anyone to enter their game into the database that we could then search and look at. Game * Players * Date * Results * Notes. Hmm, could be cool. Enron, DO IT! Here is my most recent entry:
5.28.2006 Polarity - Denis vs. Eric - Winner Denis - Fun first game!
5.28.2006 Polartiy - Denis vs. Eric - Winner Denis - Better second game!
5.28.2006 Battle Line - Leslie vs. Eric - Winner Leslie - This chick ROCKS at Battle Line.
5.29.2006 Carcassonne - Leslie v. Ryan v. Eric - Winner Ryan - Always the new guy wins cause everyone else helps explain farming to the point of personal detriment.
Good times! Long ass post!
The list:
Warmachine : Three times
Descent : I really like this game. Its a more fleshed out Warhammer Quest type game based on the Doom mechanics, but more in the players favor as opposed to Doom's grim Dungeon Quest style survival odds.
La Citta : Ugly graphics and fussy images on the tiles that can be tough to read, but very cool resource management game.
Saboteur : Quite fun, if not erratic, beer and pretzels dwarven tunnel digging game with a variable number of unknown conspirators a la Bang style
Cash n Guns : Fun gun pointing for cash.
Medici : Auctioning game that has the single worst graphic and UI design set of any game I have ever seen. Truly piss poor graphic design, but the game play is pretty cool. Seriously someone probably let their friend's 12 year old design this because he had a copy of Photoshop he bootlegged off of his middle school's computers.
Through the Desert : Quick and easy game with little bits that look like sweetarts. Don't play if you are hungry for sugar.
San Juan : Puerto Rico card game derivative. Good stuff.
Daimint : More mining fun, Short, sweet... another beer and pretzels thing.
? : A carom (sp?) style dexterity game. Sort of like shuffle puck meets golf on a round board.
All in all this was a pretty damn good weekend. Kubla was hopping as usual. I am glad that Kubla remains a very strong con.
In many ways this con reminded me of the EpiCon that Eric and I worked in one Valentine's Day Con.
One of the guys in the gaming group keeps a log of the games they play and who played. Super impressive list. For the last year and a half they have played 580+ games. Quite an impressive load of games.
D>M>
Warmachine : Three times
Descent : I really like this game. Its a more fleshed out Warhammer Quest type game based on the Doom mechanics, but more in the players favor as opposed to Doom's grim Dungeon Quest style survival odds.
La Citta : Ugly graphics and fussy images on the tiles that can be tough to read, but very cool resource management game.
Saboteur : Quite fun, if not erratic, beer and pretzels dwarven tunnel digging game with a variable number of unknown conspirators a la Bang style
Cash n Guns : Fun gun pointing for cash.
Medici : Auctioning game that has the single worst graphic and UI design set of any game I have ever seen. Truly piss poor graphic design, but the game play is pretty cool. Seriously someone probably let their friend's 12 year old design this because he had a copy of Photoshop he bootlegged off of his middle school's computers.
Through the Desert : Quick and easy game with little bits that look like sweetarts. Don't play if you are hungry for sugar.
San Juan : Puerto Rico card game derivative. Good stuff.
Daimint : More mining fun, Short, sweet... another beer and pretzels thing.
? : A carom (sp?) style dexterity game. Sort of like shuffle puck meets golf on a round board.
All in all this was a pretty damn good weekend. Kubla was hopping as usual. I am glad that Kubla remains a very strong con.
In many ways this con reminded me of the EpiCon that Eric and I worked in one Valentine's Day Con.
One of the guys in the gaming group keeps a log of the games they play and who played. Super impressive list. For the last year and a half they have played 580+ games. Quite an impressive load of games.
D>M>
AveoCon
I ended up having a really good time actually. I rented a car, the luxurious Chevy Aveo and we spent the last few days trekking back and forth. Honestly, we got in as much or more gaming than usual. Fortunately I had a lucky break in that a guy in my board gaming group rented a room, and had no problem giving me a key so we could store stuff in there.
Those guys are hard core gamers. They own and play TONS of games, mostly Euro-style. When I was in the room looking at the piles and piles of unfamiliar games I suddenly experienced the Jael-style "dude, how'd you get so many games???" sensation. I don't think these gamers ever spent more than an hour away from the gaming table. Gotta respect that. Anyway, through them Aaron and I managed to try out a few good ones, including one where you threaten each other with foam guns that was a lot of fun. We also got a game of Descent in, which was fun. I was the overlord player and I was completely helpless to even scratch those guys for most of the time. I've played two games of that so far and it's a good game, although takes about four hours so it's a time sink.
Enron and I got in a few good games of Warmachine as well, including the stunning conclusion of our three-game campaign (which somehow took four months to get through). I completely had the upper hand, but in a stunning move he managed to swoop in and use the Renegade to chainsaw poor old Nemo in half. Well played sir, well played.
Warmachine is definitely becoming a very popular game. There were tons of people playing it and several tournaments -- Hordes is big too. One massive tournament had four warcasters and their battlegroups per side with all factions (including Magnus) represented. Some really beautiful paintjobs. Inspired me to ramp up my painting output. The playerbase seems to be growing and invigorated, and generally friendly. While we were playing in open gaming, at least ten people said hello and asked if we were planning on going to the 8 PM Sunday night WM tournament. We didn't go (although I meant to stop by). Also, one or two kids asked us about the game and if it or Warhammer was better.
At one point a group of like six teenagers came by and sat around the table and watched us play and excitedly talked about how certain characters were like ninjas, etc. So for a while, we had an audience and were total rock stars. Until the kids realized that watching miniatures games is pretty boring and walked off. We had them for like 30 minutes though. That's not bad in today's climate, imagine how much MTV would have paid us to advertise to them during that time. One or two of the kids even seemed like they would have watched for the duration, but group dynamics prevailed and they all eventually blew away. I believe in the youth of America!
What else... there was a pretty strong Blood Bowl game going on (Kubla Cup), plenty of DBA, lots of cool historical minis (my favorite was a battle in China with a large river, and a junk on it with gunners firing at the shore from the deck), a solid dealer room, lots of smelly people in that old familiar way, a couple of good ass crack viewings, that racing game you play by flicking discs... good times.
The only thing we couldn't fit in that I missed was having a 34-ouncer at Knuckles (where it all comes together). Due to time and driving requirements it just didn't happen. Maybe it's better that we saved that until more of you guys can make it. Next year, boys, next year.
I ended up having a really good time actually. I rented a car, the luxurious Chevy Aveo and we spent the last few days trekking back and forth. Honestly, we got in as much or more gaming than usual. Fortunately I had a lucky break in that a guy in my board gaming group rented a room, and had no problem giving me a key so we could store stuff in there.
Those guys are hard core gamers. They own and play TONS of games, mostly Euro-style. When I was in the room looking at the piles and piles of unfamiliar games I suddenly experienced the Jael-style "dude, how'd you get so many games???" sensation. I don't think these gamers ever spent more than an hour away from the gaming table. Gotta respect that. Anyway, through them Aaron and I managed to try out a few good ones, including one where you threaten each other with foam guns that was a lot of fun. We also got a game of Descent in, which was fun. I was the overlord player and I was completely helpless to even scratch those guys for most of the time. I've played two games of that so far and it's a good game, although takes about four hours so it's a time sink.
Enron and I got in a few good games of Warmachine as well, including the stunning conclusion of our three-game campaign (which somehow took four months to get through). I completely had the upper hand, but in a stunning move he managed to swoop in and use the Renegade to chainsaw poor old Nemo in half. Well played sir, well played.
Warmachine is definitely becoming a very popular game. There were tons of people playing it and several tournaments -- Hordes is big too. One massive tournament had four warcasters and their battlegroups per side with all factions (including Magnus) represented. Some really beautiful paintjobs. Inspired me to ramp up my painting output. The playerbase seems to be growing and invigorated, and generally friendly. While we were playing in open gaming, at least ten people said hello and asked if we were planning on going to the 8 PM Sunday night WM tournament. We didn't go (although I meant to stop by). Also, one or two kids asked us about the game and if it or Warhammer was better.
At one point a group of like six teenagers came by and sat around the table and watched us play and excitedly talked about how certain characters were like ninjas, etc. So for a while, we had an audience and were total rock stars. Until the kids realized that watching miniatures games is pretty boring and walked off. We had them for like 30 minutes though. That's not bad in today's climate, imagine how much MTV would have paid us to advertise to them during that time. One or two of the kids even seemed like they would have watched for the duration, but group dynamics prevailed and they all eventually blew away. I believe in the youth of America!
What else... there was a pretty strong Blood Bowl game going on (Kubla Cup), plenty of DBA, lots of cool historical minis (my favorite was a battle in China with a large river, and a junk on it with gunners firing at the shore from the deck), a solid dealer room, lots of smelly people in that old familiar way, a couple of good ass crack viewings, that racing game you play by flicking discs... good times.
The only thing we couldn't fit in that I missed was having a 34-ouncer at Knuckles (where it all comes together). Due to time and driving requirements it just didn't happen. Maybe it's better that we saved that until more of you guys can make it. Next year, boys, next year.
Lightning BolT!
So tell ye, tell all! How was the RPG AD&D tourney? Scantily clad chicks, succubusses? PRON? ham man? Axis and Allies boat captains who invite you to play on their yaught? Blood bowl?! WWII MINIATurres?
I actually bungled on my schedule, in fact, I probably could have made it back this last weekend, but forgOT!!! Lightning strikes head. Anyways, it worked out because last week I had a supplier meeting and after finally getting the money trouble out of the way, this week I'm buying a car so i will be able to drive upon my re-exile to the nether ethereal realm.
In secondary news, Prince Alb of Monaco is one lucky *******. Just like Coming to America,... almost.
So tell ye, tell all! How was the RPG AD&D tourney? Scantily clad chicks, succubusses? PRON? ham man? Axis and Allies boat captains who invite you to play on their yaught? Blood bowl?! WWII MINIATurres?
I actually bungled on my schedule, in fact, I probably could have made it back this last weekend, but forgOT!!! Lightning strikes head. Anyways, it worked out because last week I had a supplier meeting and after finally getting the money trouble out of the way, this week I'm buying a car so i will be able to drive upon my re-exile to the nether ethereal realm.
In secondary news, Prince Alb of Monaco is one lucky *******. Just like Coming to America,... almost.
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