Sondheim! A Birthday Celebration

Watch the full episode. See more Great Performances.

I watched the Sondheim! Birthday Concert earlier this summer on Netflix streaming - and while this isn't really supposed to be a review, it was too long for a Facebook status post, so I shifted it over here & expanded it. The concert was filled with amazing performances of some of Stephen Sondheim's best music by top Broadway stars.

I know that a number of the folks who follow my blog probably don't know Stephen Sondheim from a hole in a wall - so, here's some bullet points just for you:

• Unless you're a musical theater devotee, you probably haven't heard much of his music - except for a bunch of insipid re-recordings of "Send in the Clowns"... a song that doesn't make much sense yanked from the context of the musical it was written for, A Little Night Music. (He also wrote much of the lyrics for West Side Story - but didn't write the music.)
• Oddly enough, A Little Night Music is the only Sondheim musical I've ever seen in a theater.
• He is probably the most influential living Broadway composer... even though most of his shows had short runs in their original productions (Merrily We Roll Along - a personal favorite - was only on Broadway two weeks).
• On the other hand, his shows are revived over & over - and often in productions of amazing quality.

Now, the following details won't mean much unless you're a fan of the American musical theater and/or Mr. Sondheim...

There was a LOT of Follies - though I could do without watching E. Stritch & "I'm Still Here", as it seems to show up on every Sondheim tribute. OTOH, having John McMartin (the original Ben from Follies) sing "The Road You Didn't Take" - wow.

Note: if you haven't heard Sondheim before, don't come expecting a hoe-down. (obligatory Sports Night reference) The music is sophisticated, the lyrics are intelligent... but the stories they serve are often dark. And when I say dark, I mean that they can be downright depressing.

Performances on the video (I've bolded the ones I really enjoyed):

• "America" (Dancers, West Side Story)
• "Something's Coming" (Alexander Gemingnani, West Side Story)
• "We're Gonna Be Alright" (Marin Mazzie, Jason Danieley, Do I Hear a Waltz?)
• "Don't Laugh" (Victoria Clark, Hot Spot)
• "Johanna"(Nathan Gunn, Sweeney Todd)
• "You're Gonna Love Tomorrow" and "Love Will See Us Through" (Matt Cavenaugh, Jenn Colella, Laura Osnes, Bobby Steggert, Follies)
• "Too Many Mornings" (Nathan Gunn, Audra McDonald, Follies)
• "The Road You Didn't Take" (John McMartin, Follies)
• "It Takes Two" (Joanna Gleason, Chip Zien, Into the Woods)
• "Growing Up" (Jim Walton, Merrily We Roll Along)
• "Finishing the Hat" (Mandy Patinkin, Sunday in the Park with George)
• "Move On" (Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, Sunday in the Park with George)
• "Pretty Women" (Michael Cerveris, George Hearn, Sweeney Todd)
• "A Little Priest" (Michael Cerveris, George Hearn, Patti LuPone, Sweeney Todd)
• "Theme from Reds" with Pas De Deux (NY Philharmonic, Two ABT Dancers Maria and Blaine)
• "So Many People" (Laura Benanti, Saturday Night)
• "Beautiful Girls" (David Hyde Pierce, Follies)
• "Ladies Who Lunch" (Patti LuPone, Company)
• "Losing My Mind" (Marin Mazzie, Follies)
• "The Glamorous Life" (Audra McDonald, A Little Night Music)
• "Could I Leave You?" (Donna Murphy, Follies)
• "Not a Day Goes By" (Bernadette Peters, Merrily We Roll Along)
• "I'm Still Here" (Elaine Stritch, Follies)
• "Sunday" (Broadway Chorus, Sunday in the Park with George)
• "Happy Birthday" (All Cast)

Kid Game Reviews: A Quartet of Mini-Reviews

OK, these are not new games (well, with the exception of the Magic Labyrinth expansion)… but they’re new to me. And, more importantly, they’re new to my kids.

Zooloretto Mini

The first time I played Zooloretto (the original game that won the Spiel des Jahres), I was underwhelmed. It was nice to look at, it worked just fine… but somehow it just didn’t grab me.

But I was willing to try a second play – and that was enough to get me to buy a copy… and then track down the multiple little expansions. And then Michael Schacht got serious about expanding the game: XXL, Exotic, Boss & the sequel/sister game, Aquaretto.

For the record, I’m a huge fan now – esp. when using Exotic & Boss together. (If you’d like to know more about my opinions of the plethora of expansions, check out my blog post Renovating Your Zoo(loretto).)

I managed to get Zooloretto Mini from my gamer ‘brother from another mother’ (Mark Johnson of the Boardgames to Go podcast)… primarily because I thought that having the new animals would be kind of cool. (And, yes, there was a bit of the whole “I want to own everything Zooloretto-ish/I’m a collector” bug involved.)

Surprisingly, there’s more… well, less AND more in the box. By stripping out the money element of the game, the designer (Michael Schacht) has managed to make a version of Zooloretto that plays quickly and is simple enough for my six-year old son to enjoy. Yet there are enough interesting decisions to make it an involving 30 minute filler for gamers.

Monster 4

The Lego Games series debuted to much anticipation… and then an equal amount of groaning & complaining from gamers who were miffed that Lego, a toy company, wasn’t making games for adults. Seriously, I mean, who do they think their target market is? Adults males who spend 5+ hours a week on BGG, right?

Well, no. It’s kids – and by that measure, Monster 4 (which is a dice-y variant on tic-tac-toe) is a success. Players have a set of four monster pawns which they place on a 4×4 grid of “graves”. The die roll tells you where you can place your pawns… or if you get to add a skeleton (wild pawn) to the board… or if you can send the giant spider to clear off a section of the graveyard. The first to get four in a row wins.

The game is quick – quick enough that we typically play 3-4 rounds in about 15 minutes. It’s not going to set the gaming world on fire, but both my boys (10 & 6) enjoy the theme, the cool Lego pieces and the speed at which it plays.

Note: like I’ve said before, the Lego Games series has one major same feature and/or bug (depends on how you look at it): by leaving wide creative space for players to customize & change the games, they’ve left pretty big holes in the rule sets. For their intended audience, I think this is actually a good idea – but it’s pretty much guaranteed to make adult gamers a little nutso.

Kinder Bunnies: Their First Adventure

What can you say about the Bunnies that hasn’t already been said? It’s Gamer Uno… and that’s damning Uno with faint praise.

Kinder Bunnies: Their First Adventure is less violent & less complicated… but with no more game than the original Killer Bunnies. It’s still too easy to get shut out of the game because you’ve been shut out of bunnies (which power all of the “good” cards in the deck). The game still ends with a lottery – if you have the one magic carrot, it doesn’t matter how the rest of the game went. It’s an exercise in futility for any adult with a half a brain. OK, I exaggerate – a quarter of a brain would suffice.

At the same time, my six-year old son (who is reading pretty well) absolutely adores the game – and not just for playing by the rules. He arranges & rearranges the cards, inventing his own (very possibly better) games with the components.

I can not recommend the game – it’s a chaotic mess of a “take that” card game that nearly drove my wife to throw the cards across the table during her one play. But that doesn’t mean your kid will agree with me.

Das magische Labyrinth: Erweiterung (The Magic Labyrinth: Expansion)

The Magic Labyrinth won the Kinderspiel des Jahres (Childrens Game of the Year) in 2009 – and it deserved it. It’s the first truly functional hidden labyrinth game (yes, I know & love Magical Maze/Goblin’s Gold, but it has some problems as a game) that works for 2-4 players. The design rewards players who pay attention not only to their own moves but also the moves of others as they create a mental map of the hidden walls.

Obviously, a review of the expansion is aimed at those folks who already own the game – so, what does this long thin box contain?

• a set of eight “magic walls” – which, due to their construction, act like one-way doors. You can pass through going one way but are stopped going the other.
• a set of four “magical hats” (made of felt) – once per game, you can cause another player to lose his turn
• a set of four magic wands (wooden) – once per game, you can discard the tile you’re searching for & draw a new tile
• a set of four potion bottles (wooden) – once per game, you can move without rolling the dice… moving as far as you want (until you hit a wall)

We’ve found that all of the elements in the expansion make the original game even more enjoyable without drastically changing the game. My one worry is the long-term viability of the “magic walls” (the design looks a little flimsy) but so far they’ve done just fine.

Sadly, while the original game is now easily available in the U.S., the expansion is (so far) more difficult to track down. I got my copy from amazon.de.

This article originally appeared on the Opinionated Gamers website. And although I do receive review copies of some games, all of the games here were purchased by me personally.

The Green Album

Thanks to the kind folks over at NPR, I had a chance to listen this morning to the new tribute/cover album, Muppets: The Green Album... and I thought I'd share some quick impressions with my faithful readers.

• It's actually a pretty good "cover" album - on par with one of my other favorites of the genre, Schoolhouse Rocks. (BTW, the cover of "Mr. Morton" on that album is cool with a capital C.)
• Some real highlights include Weezer's take on "The Rainbow Connection", Alkaline Trio's rockin' run through "Movin' Right Along" & Andrew Bird's thoughtful "Bein' Green."
• I don't recognize some of the songs - I wonder if they're from Sesame Street rather than The Muppet Show.
• I did not like OK Go's version of the theme song or Rachael Yamagata's overly-breathy rendition of "I'm Going To Go Back There Someday"... and as nice a job as Matt Nathanson did with "I Hope That Something Better Comes Along", it just makes me want to hear Kermit & Rowlf sing it - including the lovely tag line, "I've never seen a guy that green have the blues that bad."

If you want to listen for yourself, go to NPR's First Listen ASAP.

Addicted To Something Other Than Love

One of my ministry heroes, Ed Stetzer, has been blogging about The Pornification of American Culture recently. So far, he's posted three articles:

• Part 1: Introducing the Issue
• Part 2: Not That There Is Anything Wrong With That
• Part 3: Just the Facts

Of course, if you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that I've written a good bit about this myself... so I decided to not only link to his (excellent) articles but also give you a recap from a 3-year old post, Dear Person Who Googled Porn...

It helps me, as a recovering addict to pornography, to make a couple of things clear to folks:

1. the word addiction explains the compulsive hamster wheel cycle of suck that is porn - it doesn't excuse the way it hurt my wife or my churches, even when they didn't know what was going on
2. talking about porn without talking about masturbation is like discussing peace in the Middle East without discussing religion - which makes it INSANELY difficult to talk about in your typical church setting.

So you don't have to do too much searching, here's the direct links to those articles I've written:

• 9 Years Ago - my personal story about dealing with porn
• Minefield, Part Deux - a summary of my teaching on porn
• The "M" Word - my thoughts about masturbation

Thinking With Your Heart

They're just sitting there in the fridge, calling your name.. the last couple of pieces of pan pizza. It tasted so good a couple of hours ago.

If you're really honest with yourself, you're not that hungry. Actually, you're stuffed. But with all that tasty goodness waiting for you just a few feet away, it's easy to ignore the "No Vacancy" sign in your stomach.

And if you allow yourself a rare moment of gut-level honesty, you realize that someone else in the house (roommate, spouse, kids, rodents of unusual size, whatever) will eat it later if you don't eat it now - and you won't get any. You'll be cheated of the greasy cheesy pepperoni-covered yumminess.

So you make a decision to eat that ends up with your best friend being a couple of extra-strength Tums.

We've all done it at one time or another - made a decision based solely on our emotions rather than any kind of rational thought. Whether it was a couple of slices or choosing the wrong girl to date or blowing off studying for a test, we all can look back at moments in our lives and acknowledge that IF we were thinking, we were simply thinking with our hearts.

We live in a culture that enshrines our desires as the ultimate judge of morality & ethics - where our wants act as the rudder for our decisions. And it doesn't take much effort for us to fall in line, regardless of what we believe that the Bible teaches.

Now, you're probably expecting me to make some kind of personal application about turning to Christ or using our God-given wisdom rather than allowing our feelings to drag us around by our hair. That would be a really great article, by the way - but it's not where I'm headed today.

Yesterday morning, I taught about a biblical response to universalism - the belief that every person will be saved, regardless of their relationship to Jesus Christ here on this earth. I have to admit that universalism is an attractive idea - it feels right. While it's almost impossible to argue convincingly from Scripture, it's not difficult to build a case based on the nature of God.

But those arguments break down in the light of the Bible & a full-bodied picture of Jesus - and yet it still feels like universalism is a good idea. I mean, who wants to see people separated from God? Who wants to try & talk about an eternity in hell?

Yet if those two pieces of pizza (or the ex-girlfriend) has taught us anything, it's that just because something feels right doesn't make it good or true. The winsomeness of a belief system - in other words, how much I like the sound of it - has nothing to do with the objective truth of that system.

So, as you think about & struggle with "Part Two" (what happens after we die), I'm asking you to prayerfully engage the Bible and these ideas based not on your feelings but on a deep desire to know truth... even if it makes you shudder & cringe.

Ed Stetzer: "Freedom of Religion Has To Be Freedom For Everyone"

Ed Stetzer is the President of Lifeway Research... and a whole lot of other things. (His Twitter feed, btw, is a wonderful mix of theology, missiology, humor & ranting about the TSA.) He's a thoughtful, witty & wise leader in Southern Baptist life that makes me proud of my denominational heritage...

...and never more so than when he deals with stuff like comments from presidential candidate Herman Cain, who said yesterday that Americans "have the right" to ban mosques from being built in their communities. Ed responded in his blog:

In the spirit of mutual respect and tolerance, Muslims should be free to build a masjid where they live, and Christians should defend their religious freedom to do so. At the same time, Christians should be free to plant churches in places like Bhutan, the Maldives, Brunei, and Saudi Arabia. No matter where we live or what religion we follow, we should not demand for ourselves that which we are unwilling to grant others--freedom from compulsion, freedom from discrimination on the basis of creed, and freedom of conscience.

Read the entire blog post (including some great historical background on tolerance & other world religions), please.

BTW, the image is my choice, not Ed's. (Though it would be interesting to seeing him as the lead singer for U2.)

First Impressions: HEROICA – LEGO does a Dungeon Crawl

This article originally appeared on the Opinionated Gamers website - with a very nice addendum from Andrea “Liga” Ligabue (who consults w/LEGO)... you should go there & read it.

While the official release of HEROICA™from LEGO Games happened on June 1st, somehow product began appearing at some Toys’R'Us stores on Memorial Day weekend. So, thanks to the magic of the U.S. monetary system, three of the four sets ended up in the very excited hands of, well, me. (And my boys – that’s right… I bought them for the 6 year old & the 9 year old. Just keep telling yourself that, Mark.)

What follows is not really a review but a series of first impressions & thoughts… so take it with a grain of salt.

Components

• Having played other LEGO games, I knew what the microfigs looked like, but they still take a bit of adjustment after years of playing with mini-figures. However, the smaller scale allows the folks at LEGO to pack a lot of gaming punch into a pretty small space.
• The modular design of passageways & rooms is nicely done – my boys & I began creating our own adventures pretty quickly.
• For those of you who are wondering if you could build custom rooms/dungeons for the game, the answer is a qualified “yes”. In order to do that, you’ll need a lot of what LEGO calls “Plate 2×2 W 1 Knob” (which is currently only available from LEGO in grey.)
• I have to say that I’m kind of in love with the LEGO dice. The interchangable face element doesn’t come into play here – but the springy-edged over-sized dice are just a lot of fun to play with.

Gameplay

• The game is a pretty simple roll’n'move/roll’n'fight – this system certainly isn’t advancing the technology of dungeon crawling games forward. If you move next to a monster, you have to fight it. If you move over an object (gold, potion, treasure chest), you can/should pick it up.
• There are 6 different hero types – each with a special power that is activated by rolling a particular symbol (a shield). The monsters, OTOH, are differientiated only by the amount of damage they can do to the players.
• The base rules to the game have the players racing to reach a particular space – acquiring potions, gold (to buy weapons) & fighting monsters in order to get there. As usual, the whole “the guy who defeats the last monster just opens the way for the next guy to win” problem rears its ugly head.
• The battle rules (where one player controls the monsters against the players) has worked MUCH better for us. We’ve played with the heroes working as a team & so far all the games have been close.
• The epic rules (playing multiple games & keeping gold/weapons/potions from game to game) is a good idea but isn’t very well-developed.

Game System

• There seem to be two competing design ideas operating here – the first is that each box of HEROICA be a playable game by itself. While I haven’t played the smallest box (Draida Bay), they seemed to have accomplished that with the other three sets (Waldurk, Nathuz & Fortaan).
• OTOH, the sets are obviously designed to fit together. (For those too dense to figure that out on their, the maps included in the Waldurk & Nathuz sets show you how to build a 4-set monster board.)
• HEROICA has the same feature/bug (depends on how you look at it) as the rest of the LEGO Games series: by leaving wide creative space for players to customize & change the game, they’ve left pretty big holes in the rules. This is especially true when you start combining the sets.
• As of June 9th, the HEROICA portion of the LEGO website is online – but it’s still pretty bare bones. (No new maps or rules available.)

Summary

• Even with all my questions/concerns about the “holes” in the system, I have to say that my boys & I have had a blast playing the game. It’s fast (our 3 set dungeon took about 30 minutes to play out), it’s fun & there’s nothing quite as cool as seeing two geeky things you love (Legos & board games) work together like this.

Game Review: Say Anything Family Edition

Say Anything: Family Edition

• Designer: Dominic Crapuchettes
• Publisher: North Star Games
• Ages: 8 and up
• Players: 3-6
• Time: 20 minutes
• review copy provided by North Star Games

Proving once again that my superpower is Getting Random Strangers To Give Me Things (though, frankly, there are not enough Random Strangers and not enough Things Given), I just received a review copy of Northstar Games Say Anything Family. This is actually my second free game from Northstar – the first was, oddly enough, Say Anything.

In fact, let’s just cut to the chase – if you’ve played the original game, there are no surprises here. The game is essentially the same wonderful Box O’Fun with the following differences:

• The family version of the game only supports 3-6 players… which is probably my only quibble with the new release. I don’t think it works particularly well with 3 players (though 4 – two kids & two adults – worked like a charm). I do understand that limiting the upper number of players makes picking easier for young players and answer duplication less likely.
• The cards have only three questions on them – and while some cards lend themselves to gross answers (we had a question which managed to invoke both booger-eating & posterior-picking during one of our games), the tendency toward R-rated answers seems to be mitigated. While some might be tempted to complain about the smaller number of questions, it’s quickly obvious when playing with kids (and some adults) that this keeps the game from bogging down while the Judge chooses their question.
• The artwork has been meeple-ized for your gaming protection – it’s very cute & the members of our family immediately had their favorites. (Due to the utter coolness of the yellow Super-Meeple, my boys end up with him & I’m left with orange Balloon-Meeple.)

The formula that makes Say Anything games work so well is extremely simple – take the rotating Judge concept from Apples to Apples, add in the answer submission system (tiny dry-erase boards & pens) from Wits & Wagers, and top it off with a kinder version of the Wits & Wagers betting system.

Players take turns being the Judge, who draws a question card & picks one of the questions to read. The rest of the players then race to scribble out answers that they think will entice/entertain or otherwise engage the Judge.

After all the answers are in (the Judge gets to decide if answers are duplicates – you can’t have those – and who got their answer down first), the Judge secretly picks the answer they like using the Select-o-Matic 5000, which sounds a lot more sophisticated than it is. (It’s a spinner that doesn’t spin very well – which is how it’s supposed to work.) Then the rest of the players quickly lay their bets (each has two betting chips) on the answer or answers they think the Judge will pick.

With the chips played, the Judge reveals their answer & points are scored – the system is designed to reward players who guess correctly without creating chances for runaway victories… in fact, the entire game is designed for maximum party enjoyment rather than maximum gamerness. (Yes, I know “gamerness” is not a word – but most of you get what I’m talking about.)

Here’s what I like about the games:

• plays quickly – a huge plus for party games
• nobody feels dumb – you can approach how to answer the questions in whatever form you wish: you can try to please the Judge, you can try to be the class clown & make with the silliness, you can simply try & entertain yourself…
• the score doesn’t matter much – sure, if you’re playing a 2 hour game of El Grande, you want to know the exact score at the end, but the draw here is not the winner(s) celebrating, it’s the journey getting there
• the rules – they are incredibly easy to explain
• it’s got the good parts of Apples to Apples with added creativity – the free-form questions means the game doesn’t devolve into the same kinds of jokes & picks (as A2A has a tendency to do)
• it simplifies the Wits & Wagers scoring – I love Wits & Wagers… but the betting system is tough for non-gamers to wrap their heads around. Say Anything uses the same kind of system in a way that’s friendlier to non-gamers. (Note: I have not played Wits & Wagers: Family, which evidently has much more non-gamer friendly scoring.)

Fundamentalists & S.O.B.s

To the faint of heart: the quote contains PG-rated language... which you could probably figure out from the title of the post. Consider yourself adequately warned.

This comes from philosopher Alvin Plantinga (courtesy of an excellent post on GetReligion.org) and probably should be required reading for all my friends with political and/or religious views:

I fully realize that the dreaded f-word will be trotted out to stigmatize any model of this kind. Before responding, however, we must first look into the use of this term ‘fundamentalist’. On the most common contemporary academic use of the term, it is a term of abuse or disapprobation, rather like ‘son of a bitch’, more exactly ‘sonovabitch’, or perhaps still more exactly (at least according to those authorities who look to the Old West as normative on matters of pronunciation) ‘sumbitch’. When the term is used in this way, no definition of it is ordinarily given. (If you called someone a sumbitch, would you feel obliged first to define the term?) Still, there is a bit more to the meaning of ‘fundamentalist’ (in this widely current use): it isn’t simply a term of abuse. In addition to its emotive force, it does have some cognitive content, and ordinarily denotes relatively conservative theological views. That makes it more like ‘stupid sumbitch’ (or maybe ‘fascist sumbitch’?) than ‘sumbitch’ simpliciter. It isn’t exactly like that term either, however, because its cognitive content can expand and contract on demand; its content seems to depend on who is using it. In the mouths of certain liberal theologians, for example, it tends to denote any who accept traditional Christianity, including Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and Barth; in the mouths of devout secularists like Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett, it tends to denote anyone who believes there is such a person as God. The explanation is that the term has a certain indexical element: its cognitive content is given by the phrase ‘considerably to the right, theologically speaking, of me and my enlightened friends.’ The full meaning of the term, therefore (in this use), can be given by something like ‘stupid sumbitch whose theological opinions are considerably to the right of mine’.

I don't have a particular ax to grind here - just a simple thought: "Wouldn't it be nice if we actually talked about what we agree & disagree on rather than tar (and feather) each other with terms straight from the land of Generica?"

Kid Game Review: Inspector Rabbit

Inspector Rabbit

• Designer: Heinz Meister
• Publisher: Haba
• Players: 2-4
• Ages: 6+
• Playing Time: 20 minutes
• Review by Mark Jackson (6 plays w/a review copy provided by Haba USA)

Let others worship at the feet of Dr. Knizia or fawn over the multi-layered creations from the mind of Martin Wallace… instead, let me have a wonderful day filled with games from the genius that is Heinz Meister.

“Heinz WHO?,” you ask, wondering if I’m just longing for extra ketchup for my french fries. Ah, gentle reader, you have simply missed out on one of the more prolific & successful game designers of the last 20 years. And Inspector Rabbit is the newest addition to his rather large body of work.

In fact, chances are pretty good that you’ve played one (or more!) of his games without realizing it:

• Hula Hippos (also known as Maus nach haus) – hard to believe you can make such an enjoyable game out of a wooden ring & 20 small bits of wood… but those simple elements are compelling enough that the game has been published successfully by two different companies
• Igloo Pop (or its ancestor, Zapp Zerapp) – never has vigorously shaking small objects been so much fun
• Hop Hop Hurray – a bouncing marble game that’s proven to be equally successful with kids & gamers
• Galloping Pigs – this cute little card/racing game was one of the earliest releases by Rio Grande

You’re less likely to have played some of my favorites from (insert your own Meister/Master/Maestro pun here):

• Die Kullerbande – Just watch – words cannot describe this…
• Zitternix – yes, it’s vertical pick-up-stix, but it works so much better than you think it would from the description
• Strong Stuff – Kapitan Wackelpudding for the junior set… a good enough dexterity game that it’s been published twice (once by Goldsieber & once by Haba)

So, with that glowing introduction for the designer, let’s get on to the actual review… yes, yes, I promise to actually review the game once I quit bowing & scraping.

Ahem… well, Inspector Rabbit is a push-your-luck game cleverly disguised as a memory game. This Kinderspiel des Jahres recommended game (last year) borrows the dice mechanism from Herr Meister’s classic adult game, Nur Peanuts (whose title colloquially translates as “Chump Change” and whose gameplay I’ve previously described as “Monopoly boiled down to dice & cash”) and combines it with a relatively simply memory challenge to make for a fast-playing exercise in luck management.

Seems that the Rabbit Police Force has leads on the hiding places of a number of wanted criminals… and it’s time to go out & arrest the bad guys. (Seriously, the Frog has a gun, as does the Chicken. It’s a time of extreme lawlessness.) Weirdly enough, all of the criminals are twins – really! – and therefore you must arrest both of the offenders in order to bring them to justice.

So, pairs of rabbit detective teams head into the garden, searching for the various animals on the lam. Each turn, a player has the option of rolling:

• a d6 that generates 1-3
• a d6 that generates 1-6
• both dice (generating 2-9)

…and then moving one of his rabbit officers the full amount. (You may name your team anything you like: Jon & Ponch, Starsky & Hutch, Cagney & Lacey… I prefer Lenny & Rey, in honor of my favorite Law & Order detective team.) If a rabbit lands on a hiding place, he gets to flip over both of the animals hidden behind the bush.

In subsequent turns, the player must maneuver his other rabbit into position so that they both have cornered matching suspects – and then the player may claim the criminals & send them off to Animal Jail. (Or Rikers… why, yes, I’ve been watching a lot of reruns lately.)

If there are no rabbits left on a hiding place, the two criminal tokens are turned face down… and that’s the entire memory element of the game. It’s thankfully not too taxing for parents & other adults.

There’s one more wrinkle – if a rabbit lands directly on another rabbit, they can relocate them to any empty space on the board.

When one rabbit team has bagged 4 pairs of law-breakers (3 pairs in a four player game), they win.

Some thoughts on the game:

• I like the dice mechanism a lot… you have to think carefully about where you need to go & the chances you have to get there.
• The memory element doesn’t overwhelm the game… the dice are what drive the action.
• Having played with 2, 3 & 4 players, I believe that the four player game is where the game is the most enjoyable (lots of jockeying for position) & the least mentally taxing (most of the hiding places were quickly revealed).
• The rabbit relocation thing seems overpowered in a 2 player game – I’d suggest a “if you’ll land on another rabbit, move to the next empty space” variant with two players.

My six year old had a hard time with this game the first couple of times we played – it took him a bit to get the hang of choosing the dice he needed to get where he wanted to go. As well, he was really bothered by someone landing on & moving his rabbit. He’s getting better with both of those issues & really enjoyed our last playing.

The artwork is very cute – though if you’re bothered by adorable animals as criminals, this may not be the game for you. I think that the artwork helps sell the game… though I wonder if it doesn’t mislead buyers into thinking this game plays best at the younger end of the age range (ages 6-7). I actually think it works better with 9-10 year olds.

I haven’t had the opportunity to try it with gamers – it would be a light filler but still a nice bit of fun. Where I think Inspector Rabbit will be best, however, is a family game that comfortably allows kids & parents to play together.

This post originally appeared on the Opinionated Gamers website.

Darkest Night... and all that!

Play It Again

The "rules" are simple... first, be honest! Don't keep shuffling forward for "cooler" songs.

If you want to play:

1. Turn on your MP3 player or iTunes on your computer.
2. Set the controls for all your Music in Shuffle mode.
3. Write down the first 15 songs that come up, title and artist at least.
4. Tag some interesting folks, and ask that they tag you on their lists.

My Personal Fifteen

• Shake (Russ Taff from his album "Russ Taff")
• Jazz (This Train from their album "The Emperor's New Band")
• He Reigns (Newsboys from the compliation album "Worship: The Ultimate Collection")
• All Fall Down (Sarah Masen from her debut album "Sarah Masen")
• Healing (Iona from their album "Beyond These Shores")
• 2 Honks & A Negro (dc Talk from their album "Free At Last")
• Hey, Pauline (Randy Stonehill from his album "Edge Of The World")
• My People (Charlie Peacock from his album "Charlie Peacock")
• Last Song for Michael (Randy Stonehill from his album "Edge Of The World")
• Rocket (Andrew Peterson from his album "Resurrection Letters: Volume II")
• Watching Eternity (Charlie Peacock from his debut album "Lie Down in the Grass")
• Brendan's Return (Iona from their album "Beyond These Shores")
• Prodigal/I Don't Know Who You Are (Prodigal from their debut album "Prodigal")
• Vital Signs (White Heart from their album "Vital Signs")
• Rusty Old American Dream (David Wilcox from his album "How Did You Find Me Here")

Surprised by the doubles with the huge iTunes library I have (Stonehill, Iona & Charlie Peacock) but all in all it sounds like a pretty good list to me.

Most importantly, here are the lyrics to the spoken word/instrumental piece by This Train - "Jazz".

You know what this world could really use about now? Jazz. You're probably thinking "We already have jazz," but we don't have jazz, not real jazz, anyway. Don't be deceived by the false prophets of jazz: elevator jazz, doctor's office jazz, double-decaf skinny latte jazz, and, worst of all, jazz fusion. Simply owning a saxophone does not necessarily a jazz man make, my friend. Kenny G is not jazz, he is the anti-jazz. You may argue, "But his music is so relaxing." Since when was jazz supposed to be relaxing? We need to get back to real jazz, true jazz, 1967 Greenwich Village-type jazz: Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman, Roland Kirk, and don't forget the king of jazz, the Elvis, if you will, of jazz, Miles Davis. Was Miles here to soothe you, to relax you? No way man! Miles was here to challenge you, to expand your mind, man. And don't give me any of that "Miles played fusion" nonsense, Elvis went to Vegas, Miles went to fusion. The point is the bigger they are, the harder they fall, but Miles rose again from the ashes of fusion and back into the loving arms of jazz. And this is how we thank him?

Memorial Day 2011

Memorial Day Originally uploaded by mc_christopher (formerly eMCiiCii)

"Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations, that we have forgotten, as a people, the cost of a free and undivided Republic." (John A. Logan)

Fuzzy Pack

"It's A Small World" is 45!

Yes, the theme song is one of the most notorious ear-worms on the planet... but I have such fond memories of this ride. Until reading the post on the Disney Parks blog - 45 Years of Laughter & Hope - I didn't realize that I rode "It's A Small World" for the first time only a couple of years after it opened at Disneyland.

In 1966, Walt Disney presided over the opening ceremonies of the attraction in its new home at Disneyland park. Children representing countries from around the world came together to pour water from all seven continents into the “Rivers of the World.”

Since that moment, more than 233 million Disneyland park guests have joined “the happiest cruise that ever sailed” – enough to circumnavigate the Earth more than 190 times.

One other Small World memory: my family used to kid me that the dancing girl was winking at me. (I believed them.)

If You're Reading This, Harold Camping Is Having A Really Bad Day

Since this is published on Sunday morning the 23rd, by the time you read this a whole lot of comedians will have made some serious joke mileage off Family Radio folks still sitting in their billboard-covered vans, waiting for a Rapture that didn't happen.

Our temptation is going to be to join in... to mock them for their stupidity and/or arrogance. It'll be easy to pile on. There's that sweet/bitter taste of being right... and rubbing it in.

But Jesus calls us to show the same kind of grace to the Family Radio followers as He showed us... to:

Proclaim good news to the poor... bind up the brokenhearted... proclaim freedom for the captives &release from darkness for the prisoners. (Isaiah 61:1, NIV)

Not pity, not pious looking down our nose, not patting ourselves on the back for our theological brilliance... but instead grace.

And lots of it.

Upfront About the Upfronts: The Crackpipe Remote Looks At His Future

This week has been upfronts in the TV business - where critics and (more importantly) advertising folks get a look at the new pilots & schedules for Fall 2011. As one of my favorite bloggers, Linda Holmes, so wisely wrote earlier this week:

You should not, under any circumstances, look to the upfronts to tell you either (1) what will be good in the fall, or (2) what will be successful in the fall. No, sirree. Critics (like me) will offer you gut reactions, and it's sort of a fun and speculative time when you figure out how the table is being set, but that's all those reactions are, and that's all you should assume they are.

She also said:

So mostly, we are gazing upon a giant cage in which a motley collection of animals is assembled, and very soon, the cage will be opened, they will all attempt to run across the highway at the same time, the vast majority of them will become roadkill, and perhaps two or three will reach the other side. When they do, you may well look at those that survived and say, "Really? The one with the two broken legs and the boulder tied around its neck? That is very curious!"

So, with that firmly in mind, here's my picks for the three shows I'm mostly likely to watch in six months.

Awake (NBC) - a tremendous cast & a mind-bending premise... what if you lived two parallel lives?

Alcatraz (FOX) - another mind-bender... this time with Jorge Garciz (Hurley!) from "Lost" and arch-criminals who've managed to escape - through time!

Person of Interest (CBS) - Pretty intense "real" sci-fi/vigilante show w/Michael Emerson (Ben!) from "Lost" & Jim Cavaziel!

Lego in My Pixar, Pixar in My Lego

Mashed & Unmashed: Mark's Top Ten Games of 2010

While my esteemed colleagues at the Opinionated Gamers have found much to love in the joys of the classic 2 hour + Euro, I want to extol the virtues of the mash-up game… those wonderful & odd moments where a designer/publisher has shoved chocolate into my gaming peanut butter & made “two great tastes that taste great together.” (I’ll also say some nice things about some other games that don’t make me want to reference candies and/or ancient TV ad campaigns.)

Mash-a-riffic!

Catacombs

When you combine the dungeon crawling joys of Descent: Journeys in the Dark with the flicking goodness of Carabande… then subtract 3+ hours worth of playing time – voila! you have Catacombs. It’s a one hour romp through a dungeon with combat resolved via wooden discs.

There are so many ways this could have gone horribly wrong: out-of-balance player and/or monster powers, items that ramp up adventurers too quickly, making the game too long, etc. That a first-time designer & publisher managed to avoid all of those traps is a miracle – an extremely playable miracle!

I can NOT wait for the expansions. (Yes, there are two different expansions promised right now. I have goosebumps.)

Forbidden Island

Matt Leacock lifted his own basic design for a “smart” game engine from Pandemic (a wonderful game in its own right, especially with the On The Brink expansion added) and combined it with the stunning art from the computer game Myst… and this year, we’ve all been transported to a island stocked with treasures yet ready to pull an Atlantis & disappear into the sea.

OK, so the art isn’t really from Myst - but it certainly reminds me of it… and the cooperative puzzle of figuring out how to abscond with the four treasures before one of a number of different things goes horribly wrong is edge-of-your-seat fun.

Two other things I need to mention about Forbidden Island:

• because of the short (30 minutes or so) playing time & open hands, this is a great family game – I’ve played it with kids as young as six years old
• this is probably the best gaming value for the money to come down the pike in a long, long time – the components are beautiful AND sturdy… and for a price point cheaper than many card games!

Heroscape: Battle for the Underdark

Amongst the sadder bits of gaming news this last year was the shuttering of the venerable Heroscape franchise. For long-time fans (I literally own at least one of every Heroscape item published), it was a time of mourning & gnashing of teeth.

It was also a very good year for Heroscape to go out on… what with the Battle for the Underdark Master Set & three waves of D&D-based figures coming out. The last gasp of this “war at the end of time” was to attempt to cross-pollinate with Dungeons & Dragons… which, while it may not have saved the game, gave us some of the best new special powers & scenarios we’ve had in a long time.

Yes, yes, I know, Heroscape fans – I’m supposed to hate on the borrowed sculpts and the weird choice to change the base size for the last wave, but I just can’t muster the energy to do that right now – I’m having too much fun playing with the excellent character designs & the adventure mode of stringing battles together.

Space Hulk: Death Angel – The Card Game

Space Hulk is a classic Games Workshop miniatures combat board game (with nifty modular board design) that lifts the aliens from well, “Alien”, and puts hordes of them up against a couple of squads of heavily armored Space Marines. Carnage ensues. Death Angel simply takes this theme and adds a cooperative element (while cutting about $80 bucks off the list price.)

Once you figure out how to play the game (made more difficult by a spectacularly bad rulebook), this is a great little card-driven system that captures the nail-biting tension of Space Hulk. Fantasy Flight has even published a couple of small expansion decks to add even more variety to your desperate adventures.

The one dissonant note thematically is the Space Marines blissful lack of awareness of their ultimate mission – while I haven’t tried it yet, I’ve wondered if the final card should be revealed at the start of the game.

Tannhauser: Revised Rulebook

When I played the original U.S. release of Tannhauser back in early 2008, I enjoyed the alternate history theme & the Pathfinding board mechanism that makes checking LOS easy… but the rules were kind of a mess, with some real problem areas that begged for serious development. So, even though I knew this was “my kind of game”, I was scared away by “good luck, you’ll need to house rule ad infinitum to fix this” nature of Tannhauser circa 2008.

So, earlier last year when Fantasy Flight finally announced that they had revised the rules so completely that they were publishing a new rulebook, I sat up & took notice. One math trade later, I had a copy of the game in my hands to go with the aforementioned rules… and Fantasy Flight had a serious customer on their hands. (It’s no surprise that the guy who owns every expansion set for Heroscape & Memoir ’44 would do the same with Tannhauser.)

Here’s what I like about the game: it combines a compelling thematic world (an alternate history universe where the First World War never ended & the armies utilize alien technology harvested from the Roswell crash and occult items harvested a la Raiders of the Lost Ark), a simple combat & line of sight system that makes game play fast-moving, and a wide variety of characters & weapon packs that make each game a different experience. It plays well as a 2 player game… or with multiple players (up to 10) with each person controlling a single character. And it doesn’t hurt that it has pre-painted minis – that stuff is like catnip for me.

This is “Hellboy” (theme) meets “Halo” (game play)… and it works like a charm.

Unmashed – But Still Terrific

Familigia

This is a great 30 minute 2 player card game where your decisions can vary the speed & direction of the game. This Mafia-themed recruiting romp is a sweet variation on the current deck-building card game wave we’re all experiencing (and which I am not particularly enamored of.)

Fresco

Possibly the best marriage of theme & game mechanisms since Thebes… and a worker placement game that doesn’t make me want to run screaming from the room. (Fresco is, by the way, the most Euro-y game on my list. I’m not hating the Euros – but some of the highly touted new stuff leaves me cold.) I also like the way the included expansions can vary the complexity without damaging the purity of the base game.

The Glaziers expansion goes 2 for 3 with one expansion feeling completely unnecessary (the Wishing Well) while the other two add some very interesting twists to the game.

Memoir 44: Breakthrough/Winter Wars

OK, so the actual game came out in 2004… but the two expansions released for Memoir ’44 this year took the game in a new direction – a real breakthrough! (Yes, the pun was intended – mea culpa.)

With the Breakthrough expansion maps, Jacques David and Richard Borg (and Days of Wonder) managed to create an expansion that added tactical and strategic depth to Memoir ’44 without adding undue complexity. By adding a Breakthrough Command deck to the Winter Wars expansion, they added more fluid movement to compliment the expanded playing area – an excellent combination. (Happily, the rest of the expansion is also quite good.)

Rivals for Catan

As a long-time fan of the original game (The Settlers of Catan Card Game), I was pretty excited when I read that Klaus Teuber was rebooting the card game to both streamline the game play & the playing time. The big question was, of course, could he do it successfully? In other words, could he keep the sprawling “build your kingdom” feel of the original game while smoothing out the rough edges of the design?

The answer is “yes.”

Simply put, I think The Rivals for Catan is a splendid re-design of a game I liked a lot but seldom got to play. By reducing the playing time & streamlining the rules, the game is not only more playable for those of us who enjoy it but also easier to teach to new players.

7 Wonders

What the rest of them said.

Seriously, I like the game a lot, but I am not wasting precious mental energy trying to come up with a new way to describe/praise the thing.

Honorable Mentions

• Hey Waiter!
• Pocket Battles (Orcs vs Elves)

This article originally appeared on the Opinionated Gamers website.

The Rapture is Coming?! Part II

Well, things are getting more & more frenetic the closer we get to the zero hour for Harold Camping's prediction - which is, by the way, 6 pm PST on Saturday. (Read my first post, The Rapture is Coming?!, for more background.)

One of the by-products of this intense coverage/discussion of the End Times (and particularly the Rapture) has led me to do some more extended reading & study this week... and it leaves me in a kind of weird spot.

We'll get to the "spot" in a minute - but first a little history. I grew up in Southern California in the 1970s, back when it was one of the great gathering places for Jesus Movement folks - Calvary Chapel was king & Chuck Smith (their pastor) was a gifted speaker who spent a lot of time on the sure return of Jesus Christ. One of the guys who led my youth group Bible study was an ex-hippie who came to Jesus & was a big part of a "Jesus Music" band - and he was also very into teaching & talking about the End Times.

You see, evangelical culture was flooded with books (The Late Great Planet Earth was the most notable), films (I still run into people who were profoundly influenced and/or scared by "Thief in the Night"), and music (Larry Norman's "I Wish We'd All Been Ready" was popular - long before DC Talk covered the tune or LaHaye & Jenkins ripped off a line to title their series) about the Rapture.

Remember, it was the 1970s: Watergate, the fallout from the Sexual Revolution, the loss of the Vietnam War, the energy crisis - complete with gas rationing, the 1973 Arab-Israeli War,etc. It was pretty easy to convince folks that life was getting worse & a one-way ticket out of here was an incredibly desirable thing - esp. if the destination was eternity with God.

Notice that the fervor for this kind of thing began to ebb as circumstances got better - reaching a real low point for the End Times business when the perennial favorite for the "Who is Gog & Magog?" contest (see Revelation 20) - the Soviet Union - went belly up in 1989.

But the flames were fanned again with the release of the "Left Behind" book series... and movies... and young adult book series... and one begins to wonder whether the primary motivation is theological or financial. (My personal critique of the series? In short: "badly written dialogue, cardboard cut-out characters in an interesting plot... but undercut by the need to shoehorn in the author's very detailed premillenial dispensationalist view of Bible prophecy.")

Of course, there's been a long history of prophecies (check out the website A Brief History of the Apocalypse - http://www.abhota.info/ - for that long, sad lineage) about the end of the world, both inside & outside Christianity... Camping is just the latest one to gain notoriety.

OK, enough history. With that particular theological context growing up, I'd always just assumed that the Chick Tract/Left Behind/Thief in the Night storyline was the only or best way to interpret the Scriptures.

But with some research, I kept running into the pretty much inescapable fact that the "doctrine" of the Rapture (as we know it) pretty much starting in the 19th century with the teachings of John Darby (pretty much the father of dispensational theology) & C.I. Scofield (who published the Scofield Chain Reference Bible, which put Darby's theology on the same page as the Scriptures in the form of footnotes). So, the Rapture is a theological belief that's a little more than 150 years old.

New isn't necessarily bad... but when it comes to theology, it's always possible that something "new" simply means folks pulled stuff out of context to come up with their belief system... so I find myself struggling with what I believe about the Rapture - but, then again, I've always struggled with what I believe about the End Times. Not about the sure return of Christ or that God will reign... but with the nitty-gritty details of what will happen when and the tendency of some believers to want a "map" of how it's all gonna go down.

Am I saying there won't be a Rapture? No. Is it possible that the return of Christ (the Second Coming) and the Rapture will occur at the same time? Yes. Do I know this for sure? Absolutely not.

Here's my two cents - this particular issue (the Rapture) can NOT be one of those theological hills that we chose to fight to the death for... the divinity of Christ, the truth of the Resurrection, the inspired nature of Scripture - yes, these fundamental beliefs are worth everything we have.

But a particular brand of End Times theology is not worth our time & energy. Since we acknowledge that "no man knows the day or the hour" and that appearance of the Lord will be "like a thief in the night", we do a horrendous disservice to those in need of Jesus' saving grace by focusing inordinate amounts of attention & emotion on fighting with each other over signs & interpretations.

You & I may not agree completely on what will happen at the end of time - but I once again would suggest that our call to evangelize & disciple, to serve & minister in the name of Christ is substantially more important than convincing someone of our particular eschatology.

Staff Infection: Collected Thoughts

I had the privilege yesterday of participating in Leadership Network's online conference on church team leadership (unfortunately) entitled "Staff Infection." There was some great stuff packed into the four & a half hours... and I just wanted to take a minute to share my personal highlights with you.

Doing this kind of post-mortem on an event like this not only give you a snapshot of what I experienced but also helps me get a better picture of what God is doing through & with the information I received.

• The theme of appropriate rest in ministry came up a lot - I especially liked Kim Trobee's image of the oxygen mask on an airplane - "put on your own oxygen mask before helping others." She suggested that too often we Christians help others before tending to our own spiritual walk & end up passing out, no use to the people we're helping and/or ourselves!
• Kevin Queen talked about giving the gift of a "non-anxious presence" in the midst of crisis... and my mind immediately jumped to some of the difficult situations I deal with in the lives of my congregation: death, tragedy, legal troubles, etc. He, however, was suggesting that leaders can give this "non-anxious presence" (peace) in the midst of church conflict & change... which seems obvious but yesterday was like a light bulb clicked on over my head.
• DC Curry pushed hard on an important question: "Is who we say we are who we are being?" That's a question we have to face here at NewLife - an excellent way of evaluating if our stated vision lines up with our strategy.
• That vision/strategy dichotomy showed up a lot of places - which isn't really a surprise in a leadership conference. Jeff Brodie spoke about leadership misalignment happening NOT because of disagreement on vision but instead because of disagreement on strategy - it's not where we're headed but how we get there that can cause major problems.
• Dan Reiland talked about investing in volunteers & staff through leadership development - something I really struggle with. I like his ideas but am really unsure how to implement them here in Easton.
• I was really moved by Mark Meyer's talk on "safe is the enemy of great". Our desire to 'be nice", to make "can't do" lists to keep bad stuff from happening, and to stay busy enough not to actually have to chase vision keeps us from making a real & meaningful Kingdom impact.
• Finally, on a humorous note, Bill Hybels should get royalties for the character/chemistry/competency hiring rubric - lost count of how many folks mentioned it during the conference. (Some added an extra "C" - commitment or call... but at the heart, it's straight from Willow Creek.)

Mason Jars & Rethinking Vision

Challenging thought at the end of the quote from Will Mancini...

A pumpkin farmer was strolling through his rows of beautiful green leaves. At the beginning of the season, the acorn size pumpkins were beginning to add dots to the landscape. When he glanced down he noticed a clear glass jar and curiosity got the best of him. He brought the jar over to one of his pumpkin buds, slipped the small pumpkin inside and left it sitting there in the field.

Months later, with the experiment long forgotten, the farmer walked his land with great satisfaction as large beautiful pumpkins covered the patch. Startled, he noticed the glass jar totally intact, yet completely filled up with that little pumpkin that grew inside. It was hard not to notice how the thin glass barrier defined the shape of the orange mass within. The pumpkin was only one third of the size it should have been.

The problem for this little pumpkin is the same problem for most churches today. Rather than growing to their full potential based on their unique DNA, they conform to the shape of external molds or models. These “glass jars” create invisible barriers for growth and predetermine the shape of community for churches across the country.

Visionary leadership today seems to be about more “jar-sharing” than about DNA-discovering. Therefore, it’s time to redeem vision by recasting it. We must rethink what it means to be visionary- to see it in a different light. Missional leaders can “break the mold” one church at a time by leading their people into God’s unparalleled future for their church.

As promised, challenging thought: have the Five Purposes (Purpose-Driven Church) become a glass jar for my church?

this story is from the amazing FREE resource, the Church Unique Visual Summary