GenCan't 2020: The Dice Puzzle Answers

This was pretty simple... identify the games that use the custom dice above. 

One participant got all nine correct - congratulations to Chris S.!

Upper left corner: Dice Settlers

• Which, by the way, is an excellent solo game... especially when you add in the Western Sea expansion modules.
• 29% got this one right.

Upper middle: Impact: Battle of Elements

• This is the U.S. reprint of Strike, which is being reprinted yet again with a Harry Potter theme. It’s a fantastic dice-chucking game that has been a hit with pretty much everyone who has played it.
• 12% got this one right... one of the toughest dice to identify.

Upper right corner: Animal Upon Animal

• Best. Family. Stacking. Game. Ever. 
• In a dead heat with Rhino Hero Super Battle (also a HABA game) for best family dexterity game.
• 41% got this one right... even with the gator "smudged" by the camera.

Middle row left: Ghost Fightin’ Treasure Hunters

• Great components and easy-to-learn rules make this an excellent family cooperative game… and it’s pretty brutal. We don’t win very often, so when we do it’s time to celebrate!
• 53% got this one right.

Middle row center: Duelosaur Island

• The two-player version of Dinosaur Island…
• I did accept Dinosaur Island as a correct answer as well. I’m not a monster.
• 76% got this one right... but only 12% had Duelosaur Island.

Middle row right: Sushizock im Gockelwock

• I thought that this would probably be the toughest die to figure out, as the game did not get a big U.S. release.
• This is a cousin to Knizia’s Pickomino (I still like Heckmeck im Brautweck better as a name)… in this one, you are trying to eat sushi while only just enough fish bones.
• 24% got this one right... I was wrong.

Bottom row left: Hit Z Road

• Criminally underappreciated zombie auction game, with some of the most incredible production/graphic design – it’s a game “designed” by a kid who has to take a cross-country trip to dodge the zombie apocalypse and makes a game out of whatever pieces are lying around. The Easter eggs in the design are a lot of fun…
• …but the game underneath all that coolness is really good as well.
• 12% got this one right... and it had the best made-up answer: "Shooty lightning ghosts".

Bottom row center: Powerships

• Again, due to my non-monster status, I accepted Powerboats as a correct answer, since they both use the same die.
• I like Powerships better… a great push-your-luck racing game with nifty twists and actual strategy.
• 35% got this one right... but no one guessed Powerships.

Bottom row right: Roll Player (Fiends & Familiars)

• The most recent custom die in my collection… 
• I think you need one or both expansions to take Roll Player from good to great.
• 18% got this one right.

I'm Not Dead Yet

OK, so the blog's been in hibernation for a while... suffice it to say that my life has been complicated, my job (though financially a blessing) is a time sink, and I've been using precious blogging time to actually play board games.

I'm going to try and get going again - though I will warn you ahead of time that there could be dry spells through the early fall. 

If you have a question for me to answer - it can be personal, spiritual, weird or just hobby-related - leave it in the comments section. I'll see if that doesn't inspire some more interesting (and offbeat) posts.

 Recent & Recommended

• APP - Descent: Road to Legend (app for the iPad that works with your Descent: Journeys in the Dark 2.0 games & expansions to create a GREAT cooperative experience)
• BOARD GAME - 7 Wonders: Duel (fantastic re-imagining of a multi-player classic as a 2 player game... can't wait for the expansion!)
• BOOK - The Aeronaut's Windlass (first book in Jim Butcher's newest series... steampunk-y and creative)
• CARD GAME - Bear Valley (weird little racing game that is easy to teach and fun to play... a run through bear-infested wilderness)
• MOVIE - Captain America: Civil War (all the ways it could have gone wrong... and it didn't)
• MUSIC - Andrew Peterson: The Burning Edge of Dawn ("The Rain Keeps Falling" is the song of my heart some days)
• PODCAST - Revisionist History (Malcolm Gladwell + odd bits of history + musing on human behavior)
• TV - Limitless (it's on Netflix... and it's cheerfully wacky)

Six (6) Months

Forgive me, blogosphere... it has been 6 months since my last post. While I'm still pretty active on Twitter, I've been AWOL from here since early July - up to and including not finishing my Top 100 games from 2014, for crying out loud. 

I'm not promising any miracles, but the plan is to get my act back together and start posting at least once a week again.

We'll see.

ten years of aka pastor guy

And the box score is...

• 10 years
• 1,648 posts
• 3.4 posts averaged per week (my original plan - found on my first post - was 3 times a week)
• 1,783 comments... of which probably half were spambots (sigh)

The five most popular posts (in order) are:

• Marryin' & Buryin': How Much Should I Pay the Pastor? 
• Heroscape for Beginners (and Robo) 
• It's a Small World is 45!
• Kid Games 100: The Whole Enchilada
• Meet the Unappreciated Pastor!

My favorite posts (or series of posts) from each year:

• 2005 - Dig Hay Zoose
• 2006 - The Minefield series...
• Minefield
• Minefield Spawns a Question
• 9 Years Ago
• Minefield, Part Deux
• The "M" Word
• 2007 - Open Mic: The Question Nobody Asked
• 2008 - Klutz & Konsulting
• 2009 - It's a Goth World After All
• 2010 - Heroscape: It's Been A Great Six Years
• 2011 - Westboro, Motown, Sesame Street & Tiny Tim
• 2012 - Jumbled Thoughts About Newtown
• 2013 - Game Review: Septikon - Uranium Mining
• 2014 - The "Artist Formerly Known As" series...
• Kenny Rogers, Toffee & A Hatmaker
• aka (former) pastor guy
• I React to "Why It's Difficult for Pastors to Leave the Ministry" 
• 2015 - Memoir '44: Operation Barbarossa - Phase One

Thank you to all my faithful readers over the years - I look forward to keeping the conversation going!

The Long Silence

Well... that was the longest I've gone w/out blogging since I managed to get the blog rolling again early last fall. My apologies to both my faithful & less-faithful readers.

My excuse is that we moved into a rental home this week - after 13 months of living with family & friends. We won't have Internet coverage at the house for another 48 hours, so we're busily using up our 3G bandwidth on our iPhones.

With all this transition, I think I'll be moving to a three times a week publishing schedule for a while... bear with me as I work the kinks out.

Regarding the picture with this post... my good friend & co-worker, Bob Trezise, had a knee replacement in mid-February 2014. One of the little doodads sitting on his desk is a pirate finger puppet who bears an amazing resemblance to Bob himself... and who I've named "Tiny Bob". If you'd like to know more, you can go to Pinterest and view The Adventures of Tiny Bob.

30 Questions 8 Years Later...

I originally posted answers to Mark Haberman's meme back in 2006 - back before the word "meme" even existed. (It looks like his blog is completely gone now... sigh.)

Anyhoo, it's 8 years later, and I figure the answers to these questions might (a) need revising a bit, and (b) be a good introduction to the newer readers of my blog.

1. How long have you been gaming?

I've played board & card games as long as I can remember. Over the years, I've had forays into nearly every area of gaming:

• classic American (the 1970's): Monopoly, Prize Property, King Oil, etc.
• wargames (late 70's/early 80's): Wooden Ships & Iron Men, Squad Leader Third Reich, etc.
• role-playing (early 80's): Dungeons & Dragons, Runequest, Traveller
• Games Workshop board games (mid-late 80's): Talisman, Fury of Dracula, Dungeonquest, etc.

It was finally in the late 80's that I discovered via Games Magazine that there was another world of gaming out there: Euros. (Well, at that point, "German" games.) I bought every Ravensburger game I could find that didn't look like it was for 5 year olds.

Then, in the mid-90's, two incidents changed my gaming hobby into an obsession:

1. buying a copy of Phantoms of the Ice from White Wind Games... bringing me into contact with Alan Moon & the rest of the White Wind line. That contact led to an invitation to the Gathering of Friends...
2. finding Linie 1 and Modern Art in a game store in Cinncinati, OH... I spent over $100 on the two of them (highway robbery!) but I was hooked...

Within the next few years came Settlers... then an online connection with Rob Wood - which led to a friendship with Ted "Roving Reporter" Cheatham - which led to an invitation to the second Gulf Games and becoming buddies with Greg Schloesser and yadda yadda yadda.

2. What was your first "Euro" game?

I think it was Scotland Yard... though I also have an early AH copy of Adel Verpflichtet.

3. Which game sucked you in?

Which time?! :-)

• wargames: definitely Third Reich - looking back, I'm still amazed we fought our way through the rule book
• roleplaying: D&D - a group of us read the cover article in Games Magazine and hunted down the "blue" starter box - $10. (Wish that was all I had spent on D&D... man, what I laid out for graph paper alone would finance a small 3rd world country...)
• Games Workshop games: Talisman
• Euros: Scotland Yard was good, but Midnight Party is what hooked me on Ravensburger games... and it was Settlers that shifted the whole thing into overdrive.

4. What is your favorite game?
Back in 2006, I noted that "Today, it's probably Return of the Heroes/Under the Shadow of the Dragon. Over time, it's either El Grande or Settlers of Catan."

Eight years later, my current favorites are Eminent Domain & Descent: Journeys in the Dark (2nd edition)... while over time, I'd choose Race for the Galaxy, Memoir '44 and (still) The Settlers of Catan.

5. What is your least favorite game?

Wow. Such a long list to choose from... Devil Bunny Needs A Ham is pretty high up there (or low down there), as is Lunch Money, Munchkin (and all it's evil spawn), Wortelboer, Krieg & Fremden, and Vox Populi. (This list hasn't changed much, by the way... I've learned over time to avoid things I know I won't enjoy and that's made my life oh so much more enjoyable.)

6. Open or closed holdings?

For the uninitiated, there are a number of games (most notably Acquire) that have very important information hidden from other players that is trackable if you're a good card counter. Many people prefer to play with this information open to make the game less "mean."

I like holdings open for Acquire... but I don't particularly like Acquire, so there.

7. To gamble or not to gamble?

I don't gamble for money - but I'm happy to play Poker for chips. Or M&M's... though I'm in major danger of eating my winnings.

8. How much luck do you like in your games?

It just depends... sometimes I love the wild swings of fortune and other times I want total control. What I don't want is perfect information games.

9. Last three games played?

Warage, Coin Age & Clash of Cultures

10. Last three games purchased?

Clash of Cultures, Descent: Journeys in the Dark - Labyrinth of Ruin & Coin Age.

11. Pack rat or trader?

I'll trade stuff... but only if I really don't enjoy it. Otherwise it stays in the collection.

While that's still true (for the most part), my collection shed about 250 games early in 2013 what with moving from California.

12. What game are you thinking about right now?
After my eldest son beat me by ONE point last night in Clash of Cultures, my brain keeps trying to work out how I could have raised another warrior to prevent his flotilla of death & mayhem from swinging the game in his favor. (I really like the open-ended tech/advances system & the way the game flows... a new favorite after one play.

13. What's your favorite mechanic?

I don't know that I have one... but I like it when the mechanics mesh with the theme. (Goldland is an excellent example. More recently, Agricola & Fresco do a splendid job of this.)14. What is your favorite theme?

I like exploration games a whole lot.

15. Who is your favorite designer?

It's a toss-up between Klaus Teuber (Settlers, Gnadelos, Anno 1503, Entdecker, Lowenherz) and Wolfgang Riedesser (Dschungelrennen, Ausgebremst).

Eight years down the road, I need to add in Rob Daviau (Heroscape, Risk Legacy).

16. Best gaming experience?

Gulf Games... I'm hard-pressed to choose individual games, but particular highlights include:

• Shanghai (BAD game, GREAT company) with Ted Cheatham, Greg Schloesser & Craig Berg
• Princes of Florence with Derk, Vonda, Jon Pessano & ?... wining after Derk talked major trash about me being a fluffy gamer
• Waldschattenspiel with Frank Branham in a darkened kitchen

And so many others... sigh.

Eight years later, I need to add two other experiences:

• running my own invitational mini-con in Fresno (Stained Glass Games) for four years... what with the yearly Ca$h'n'Gun$ Live and the Memoir '44 Overlord and the wonderful times we had
• winning the Can't Stop tournament at the Gathering of Friends in 2013!

17. Worst gaming experience?

Perpetual Notion with my Bible study group - we renamed it "The Fight Game".

18. Favorite game for 2 players?

Memoir '44... even when I lose, I enjoy the ride. (Close second: Summoner Wars.)

19. Favorite game for 3 players?

Schappchen Jagd... I can't spell the game, but I love to play it.

20. Favorite game for 5 players?

Sadly, it's no longer El Grande. I grew weary of being targeted each time I played... so, I guess Princes of Florence & Puerto Rico take the honors.

21. Favorite game for 6 players?

Entenrallye. Just as long as one of them isn't Dave Vander Ark. (Hi, Dave!)

22. Favorite party game?

Time's Up, followed closely by Smarty Party. (This has reversed in 8 years... Smarty Party is now - barely- in the lead.)

23. Do you value Theme or Mechanics more?

Like I said earlier, I value the meshing of the two... I want a theme that works and/or draws me in that lines up with the mechanics of the game.

24. What color do you want to use to play with?

I like being yellow, but I don't always get to do that. I'd rather not be "doody brown" (which is an option in some of my games.)

25. What is your favorite movie?

"The Princess Bride"... followed closely by "Raising Arizona" and "The Truman Show".

Addendum from 2014: and pretty much anything Pixar makes.

26. What is your favorite book?

• Fiction: The Silver Chair (C.S. Lewis)
• Non-Fiction: Seizing Your Divine Moment (Erwin McManus) & Blue Like Jazz (Donald Miller)

27. Last three books read?

• End of Days: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy (James Swanson)
• Allegiant (Veronica Roth)
• Spirituality for the Rest of Us (Larry Osborne)

28. Last three movies watched?

• Despicable Me 2 (not as good as the first film... but still fun)
• Monsters University (not as good as the first film... but better than most of the animation from anyone else - I like how the story went in some unpredictable directions even though it was a prequel)
• The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (while the movie plays around a bit with the storyline, this film actually does a better job than the first one of capturing the horror & oppression that permeates this story)

29. Favorite beverage?

When I answered eight years ago, I was (pre-gall bladder surgery) off of carbonated beverages. No longer! I am a Coke Zero man now!

30. What are the three most important people in your life?

My wife, Shari, and my two boys, Braeden & Collin. (No surprise here, right?!)

Blame Must Be Assigned

So, last week, after nearly a month & a half of posting on schedule, I missed Friday. And, if you want to be technically accurate, this "apology" barely counts as a post, so I'll end up missing two days.

You are obviously not getting full value for your blogging dollar... and for that I am truly sorry.

I blame (in no particular order):

• a sugar coma from Halloween candy
• the time change
• Baylor having a bye week in preparation for the Thursday night game against Oklahoma
• the contractors for the Obamacare website
• sunspots
• me playing board games just released at Essen

We'll be back on track tomorrow.

State of the Blog: April 2013

I just got back from Alan Moon's The Gathering of Friends on Monday (it should have been Sunday, but United cancelled my flight from Cleveland due to mechanical problems and I ended up in the airport Sheraton eating room service brownie & ice cream on United's nickel) and I'm trying to get my feet back under me, blog-wise.

In the next couple of weeks, I'll be posting:

• my review of the game expansion, Dungeon Lords: Festival Season
• my review of the excellent ministry book, Dangerous Calling
• my thoughts about The Gathering, the good games I played, and the great friends I got to spend time with
• a personal response to an amazing blog post by Jen Hatmaker
• a post about our move to Texas
• and, God willing & the creek don't rise, I'll start back with more of my Top 100 games!

Thanks for being patient with the sporadic nature of the blog over the last year. 

graphic from http://www.briansolis.com/2009/11/rumors-of-the-death-of-blogs-are-greatly-exagerated/

Why, Yes, I Have Been Gone A While

This may well be my longest period of silence on the blog. I wish I could tell you that I was on some kind of spiritual retreat - that I'd planned a blog fast that I'd forgot to tell you guys about. 

But it wasn't that. The debris of life & ministry piled up against my metaphorical door and rendered me unable to post, as if I had duct-taped to the wall and have only now pulled myself loose. (I am imagining me covered in sticky residue, unable to type correctly due to the keys bonding with my fingertips.)

So, to recap:

• long period of silence
• not spiritual "blog fast"
• not actually stuck to a wall with duct tape

I don't know how quickly I'll get back up to speed, but I'll try to touch base with y'all at least once a week.

Summer Plans

So, I've got a busy summer ahead... 

• my eldest son turns 11 next Tuesday (wow - where did the time go?!)
• he & I leave for CentriKid camp less than a week after that
• my wife & I celebrate our 22nd wedding anniversary on June 16th
• the church I pastor will host our annual Vacation Bible School starting the day after Father's Day
• I reach the 48 year milestone at the end of June
• the boys have daily swim lessons in June & July
• my youngest son has a speech class for six weeks
• we've got a camping trip in the planning stages for late July/early August
• the boys have earned tickets to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom which we need to use before the summer is over
• our homeschool year starts in early/mid-August
• and NewLife's yearly Family Camp is Labor Day weekend

That doesn't count, of course, being a dad & a husband & a pastor & a regular host of a gaming group.

Or writing this blog... which is really where I was headed with this post. This summer, I'll be attempting to:

• finish Mark's Top 100 Games (I got to #50 just as I left for the Gathering of Friends)
•  write up my Gathering of Friends experience
• do some serious ruminating about chronological snobbery, sex, and Pierce Pettis so aptly called "unoriginal sin"
• revisit some classic older posts that need updating - most importantly, Heroscape for Beginners
• add a couple of new posts to my series on paying attention to the man behind the curtain - in other words, your pastor
• writing some more game reviews - including Abaddon, Dragon Valley, The Rivals for Catan: Age of Darkness, and others

Here's hoping I get some of that done!

Twitter Monsoon

OK... so, I know I've been radio-silent since the middle of last week (well, longer than that, but the magic of the queue kept many of my faithful readers in the dark). I'm home from the Gathering of Friends now & ready to restart Mark's Top 100 Games as well as finish up & begin publishing the Five & Dime Lists for 2011.

Before that, though, I need to help out a friend. Tom Vasel - aka Mr. Dice Tower - began Tweeting a virtual avalanche of "just posted this video to YouTube" Tweets yesterday... and despite a number of "hey, stop that" messages, it didn't.

When I asked Tom about it via direct message this morning, he replied:

Laura had some free hours yesterday, and so she helped me by organizing playlists on Youtube.  We had no idea that they were going to twitter until it happened.  By the time I figured it out, it was too late, and they were sent - obviously into a queue that is lasting into today.  I've disabled everything, changed my twitter password, etc., etc.

I am at the lowest I have ever been I think with the Dice Tower at this point.  I didn't mean to spam anyone, and there was literally nothing I could do to stop it.  I can't even tell people I'm sorry, since they unfollowed me - I've lost 1000 followers.  

I'm not trying to make enemies, I don't like spam either.  Hopefully it's over now, but I think the damage is done.

 So, with that information in hand, I want to encourage those who ran for virtual cover from the Twitter monsoon to come back out & re-follow @thedicetower... you know you want to.

Mark's 100 (2010): Reboot + #100 - #91

OK, so back in September of 2010 I announced that I had:

• (a) made a list of my top 100 games AND
• (b) planned to blog about them over the next 3 months

Well, it's February of 2012.. and I've only got as far as #80. With that glacial pace, I should be able to finish it up around, say, March of 2018.

That is NOT going to cut it.

So, over the next week, I'll give you my 2010 list (in short form)... and then give you yet another list for the spring of 2012.

Let's start with links to some of the entries I've already done:

• #100: Mississippi Queen (44th in 2005)
• #99: Brawl (did not appear in 2005)
• #98: Tannhauser (did not appear in 2005)
• #97: Klunker (95th in 2005)
• #96: Thunder Road (did not appear in 2005)
• #95: Liar's Dice (82nd in 2005)
• #94: Ca$h'n'Gun$ (did not appear in 2005)
• #93: Columbus (did not appear in 2005)
• #92: Batik (did not appear in 2005)
• #91: Nur Peanuts (did not appear in 2005)

this is not a political blog...

...but every once in a while, it drops in my lap.

And, no surprise, it's the people we elected who have written a vague piece of legislation to "cure" a problem... SOPA and PIPA are like handing out flamethrowers to kill flies.

Want to know more? You can start with the EFF site.

Today is Internet Blackout Day... but I am NOT a web guru with mad skillz, so you're going to have to settle for the graphic at the top of the page.

Everybody Dance Now!

I am thankful for a number of things.

The first is that I am not the guy in the lobster costume (or the other one which I can't recognize).

I'm also thankful that DJ Chuang was kind enough to let me verbally spam everyone in his breakout session Monday afternoon with the address of my blog. (BTW, welcome to any newcomers... be sure to say "Hi" in the comments!)

Both of these things (the costuming of a bunch of youth interns & the blog shout-out) occurred at an amazing conference, Sticky Teams 2.0, which I'll be blogging about in the upcoming weeks.

Stay tuned.

"You Gotta Fight Your Way Through"

Ira is talking about making video pieces... but I think this applies equally well to preaching. (Think about it.)

The video interview that this was taken from is available on YouTube.

Twitterpated

This is the throwaway sentence & graphic acknowledging my title-checking a Disney classic with an extraordinarily weak pun. You may now continue reading the actual blog post.

A good friend of mine (hi, Stephen "Want a Blizzard, Loser?" Weaver) asked me yesterday:

Would Jesus have used social media... twitter, facebook, and other... is there any biblical principle that gives us a hint? other than the obvious low-hanging fruit of twitter being based on following?

I thought my answer might be of interest to a couple of you... of course, I took the opportunity to clean up my dashed-off response and make it sound more erudite before releasing it into the wild.

Would Jesus have used social media? Hmm... maybe that's not the best way to ask the question. (It's kind of like asking "would Jesus have bombed Hiroshima?" - it's not an option He had living in 1st century Palestine and trying to answer the question is simply an adventure in speculation.)

How about this instead:

Q: In light of Paul's clear Biblical admonition in 1 Corinthians 9:22 to "become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some," what are some reasons we SHOULDN'T use social media to spread the good news of Jesus Christ?

A: I can think of three pretty quickly...

1. addiction - some people are unable to use social media without it consuming their "real" lives... that could be as obvious as the temptation of porn or as subtle as the gnawing suck of time spent hidden behind a computer screen
2. wrong context - if the community you're trying to reach isn't using it, don't waste your time... though this is becoming less & less of an issue as more & more well-seasoned adults (isn't that PC?) are using Facebook & Skype to connect with distant family members & friends
3. cool factor - using social media (whatever site is the "cutting edge" this week) BECAUSE it's the hip new thing is oopidstay... use it because it helps you do what you're called to do - "cool" is such a fleeting & elusive thing to be chasing

Otherwise, Paul has it right - use"all things" and "all means". The message of the Gospel is worth sharing!

Post #1000: Evolution of a Gamer

Thanks to some wonky wonderful silliness from Google & YouTube, I proudly present my Search Story... the 1000th post here on the blog! (And a big tip o' the virtual hat to Monkey See & Linda Holmes for pointing out the app.)

Five Years of Vintage Posts

On April 1st, this blog flipped over the virtual odometer to "five years & 989 posts." And, as has become my tradition, I now present to you a "best of aka pastor guy" post.

Those of you who follow this blog realize that I did a post very much like this for the last three years... which, frankly, I copied & pasted to provide the meat of this post. However, I've added the last year (2009-2010) of "highlight" posts down at the bottom of the list.

In honor of this momentous occasion, I've picked a post (or two or three) from each month that I think is a "highlight" (you are welcome to disagree - but you'll be wrong with a capital "Wr").

• April 2005 - 12:13 pm - Collin is born!
• May 2005 - How In The Heck Did I End Up Here? - the stories of my ministry life (yes, I still need to write a couple more posts in this series)
• June 2005 - Dig Hay Zoose - this story still blows me away...
• July 2005 - Interview #2 - wherein Tom Vasel does an e-mail interview with me & I manage (I think!) to get my thoughts straight about the crossroads between being a Christ-follower & being a gamer
• August 2005 - Welcome to Pat's World - which explains why the catchphrase "Be Like Pat" is never going to gain traction
• September 2005 - Enter Pastor Man - the history of my musical tastes & a pretty decent summary of how I deal with art from a Christian perspective
• October 2005 - The Tale of the Pig (And How His Influence Still Touches My Life) - ah, the Pig... I wonder where he is now?
• November 2005 - Small Soldiers Big Battle - I'm finally figuring out how to write a review that sounds like me
• December 2005 - Blasts From The Past - gaming & autobiography... a theme I'd return to with a vengance during the summer of 2006 for my series about D&D
• January 2006 - Unpacking the Baggage - one of my most painfully honest posts
• February 2006 - Five & Dime 2005 - where I finally find a good way to showcase all the data I've been collecting over the years
• March 2006 - Come Back To The One Hundred, Blog Reader, Blog Reader - which is a signpost pointing to another blog I created with Stephen Glenn & 65 of our closest friends about the best games ever...
• April 2006 - Pastoral Advice For Engaged Meeples, Minefield, Minefield Spawns a Question, & 9 Years Ago - April was one of those months where I was writing lots of good stuff... so, I picked four.
• May 2006 - Minefield, Part Deux & The "M" Word - Cuz you really shouldn't read all that stuff I wrote in April without reading the follow-up stuff in May
• June 2006 - Stay Out Of Range Of The Giant: Descent - Journeys in the Dark, The Day I Quit Playing D&D, & Say It With Me: "Non-Binding Resolution" - D&D and alcohol... June was evidently a dark month or my attempt to write a rebuttal to Chez Geek
• July 2006 - DW, Bill Cosby & Evercrack - the "Return of the King/Return of the Jedi" of my D&D trilogy
• August 2006 - Three Geeks... er, Caballeros - a surprise reunion of high school friends
• September 2006 - Underwear & the Four Gods - one of the weirder analogies I've made... in print and/or while preaching
• October 2006 - I Don't Want To Be Some Kind of Nutjob - in which I talk about spiritual warfare & how I'm scared of being a holy roller
• November 2006 - Crackpipe Remote OR Yes, As a Matter of Fact, I Do Watch Too Much Network Television - the title says it all
• December 2006 - Asleep on the... Hershey Bar? - I'm still weirded out by this one...
• January 2007 - This is News? - Obviously, Chris Herndon & his flying monkeys did not live near this lady...
• February 2007 - The Mouse Gave Me The Bum's Rush - how I got thrown out of Disneyland
• March 2007 - Peanut Butter & Karo Syrup - I had some of this just the other night... it's still very yummy.
• April 2007 - Soundtrack of My Life: Steve Taylor - the first (and so far - sigh - only) post in a planned series on the music that has dug deep into my soul.
• May 2007 - I wrote a set of posts about my trip to SoCal for The Origins Experience: Yelo, More Yelo, Origins Experience: Tuesday & If Everyone Jumped Off A Cliff. Not a big blogging month, but a pretty profound one in my pilgrimage as a leader.
• June 2007 - We played games at Braeden's birthday party... and he got games... and somehow the post Birthday Gaming has become one of the more commented upon posts in the history of this blog.
• July 2007 - After four years here in Fresno, I ended up meditating on the nature of my profession & how easy it is to live the Christian life like a magic trick in a post entitled Shattering the Illusion.
• August 2007 - In response to questions I got as part of an Open Mic series at my church, I began answering some of them with the blog, starting with Open Mic: Sex, Lies & Videotape.
• September 2007 - For some reason, I got inspired in September & pumped out some more really good stuff in the Open Mic series (Knock Knock Knockin', All Day Singin' & Dinner on the Grounds, and The New World Slang) as well as a post on the game, The Settlers of Catan, that I feel real good about (The Unofficial Guide to Catan, Part I).
• October 2007 - I answered a question no one asked (Open Mic: The Question Nobody Asked) about why we homeschool and also wrote a really good game review entitled 1492/Ocean Blue (about Mayer's game, Columbus).
• November 2007 - As we close in our Disneyland vacation, I launch into an extended theological musing about DLR I called The Hypnotic Power of a Bug Zapper & the Happiest Place on Earth... and I also managed to finish my guide to all things Catan (The Unofficial Guide to Catan, Part II).
• December 2007 - Two posts stick out in December: my plea for sanity in the face of a potentially anti-church film (Three Requests) and my plea for sanity in the face of sub-standard Monopoly play (Giving Away Your Own (Monopoly) Money).
• January 2008 - Less pleading this month... instead, I wrote a lot about religion & politics. The best of the bunch was Religion & Politics: Oil & Water.
• February 2008 - Of course, there was a chunk of Five & Dime posts... but the highlight of the non-statistical/gaming stuff was Evangelical Does NOT Equal "Right Wing Nut Job".
• March 2008 - Take Me Out To The (Ball) Game... where I ruminate about baseball & board games
• April 2008 - Klutz & Konsulting... the story of how I ended up as a consultant for a board game book for kids
• May 2008 - I wrote a series of posts on the emerging church: Emerging?: 13th Gen to Pomo, Emerging?: Pomo to Emergent, and Emerging: Celebrity Death Match.
• June 2008 - The Kid Games 100 began... but the individual post I'm proudest of was Swingtown, White Guilt & Splitsville.
• July 2008 - I wrote a number of different posts last year about marriage... Framing the Conversation: It's Got A Good Beat & I Can Dance To It - I'll Give It An 85 is one of the best of them in that it managed to offend both sides.
• August 2008 - It was a good month for writing long semi-autobiographical posts that turned into theological/ethical musings: Against All Odds We're Living Separate Lives and Mental Pinball & the Hamster Wheel.
• September 2008 - Camping At Limekiln is how pictures recaps should be done... and not how I end up doing them most of the time.
• October 2008 - A great political post (Religion & Politics: When Atheists Attack) as well as two posts chronicling the biggest Heroscape battle we've had to date (Battle Royale & Battle Royale: National Heroscape Day.)
• November 2008 - The end of the election prompted a couple of posts: Framing the Conversation: How To Get Tossed Out of a Game Group & The Wrong Glass.
• December 2008 - This reminds me... I need to write the last post of this trio about Disneyland: DLR in a Day: Morning & DLR in a Day: Afternoon.
• January 2009 - Both Moral/Ethical/Legal and Memory Is A Funny Thing are great examples of what I call "trigger" posts... where something happens that sparks deep thoughts about something completely different.
• February 2009 - Graceland ruminates on music & memories while Warning Signs is my plea for people to avoid close-minded liberals & conservatives, regardless of their religious persuasion.
• March 2009 - If you want something serious: Brother, Can You Spare A Definition?; something silly: Keep Your Godless Commie Pinko Hands Off My Candy!....
• April 2009 - I'm proud of my boys for many reasons - but this was a real highlight: My Son, the Game Designer.
• May 2009 - The title says it all: Mom is Cool.
• June 2009 - The deep post of the month was It's A Goth World After All... but you need to check out How Well Do You Know Mark Jackson? if you want to, well, get to know me better.
• July 2009 - I finally finished the Kid Games 100 in July... and started adding to it with a series of MIA posts. I also wrote the oddly titled When a Parable Bites Me in the Rear End.
• August 2009 - I consider Rapture Ready: A Review to be one of my best written book reviews... ever.
• September 2009 - I noted at the top of Fred, Lionel & Erwin: The "Royal Wedding" Syndrome that was a Faulkneresque post.
• October 2009 - Less Faulkner-lite but still good: Green Beans & Humiliation.
• November 2009 - There were lots of good posts in November (lots to be thankful for!) including a number of kid game reviews... but I'll focus on Heroscape for Beginners (and Robo), the Translation Party - The Game Quiz and (because I don't want to leave you hanging) Translation Party - The Answers.
• December 2009 - Combining my love for Disneyland with my love for Jesus, Small World Christmas.
• January 2010 - The "winner" for this month is actually a post I wrote back in 2001... and finally reposted here at akapastorguy as a part of my Migration project: A Provocative Email.
• February 2010 - I'm a big fan of Richard Borg... but not as pleased with Fantasy Flight's way of handling his fantasy version of his Command & Colors system, as evidenced by the following posts: Battlelore is Pregnant, ...and Tide of Iron is the Baby Daddy, and, finally, Battlelore: Lost in Translation.
• March 2010 - This was a very good month... I hate to exclude any of the following from your attention: More Popular Than Jesus, Math is Magic... Really, Parenting is Hard, and Book Review: Raven's Ladder.

I've Been Wearing My Santa Hat

OK, this is a short apology for not blogging more.

Well, maybe not as short as it should be, as I feel obliged to explain myself. I've been Christmas shopping (there's nothing like working your way through a crowd of irritable rain-soaked shoppers on Saturday afternoon in a Wal-Mart) and Christmas gift making and Christmas sermon writing.

I've also been playing some games:

• Braeden & I pulled out Sub Search again, which is great fun. Our game last night was a nail-biter: both of us were down to one sub & one surface ship each... and I managed to sink his sub before he could torpedo my PT boat.
• I also taught him to play Phantoms of the Ice... it's basically the card game "War" on steroids, but the pun-tacular names (Stu Late and Behind Hugh, for example) are right up his alley. I'm guessing we'll end up playing it again this afternoon with his best friend, Canaan.
• And in serious "blast from the distant past" mode, Canaan & I taught him how to play Chinese Checkers. Man, I haven't played that since I was in middle school.

I've got three reviews percolating (Wiggling Cow, Casino Hot Dog & Ring-O Flamingo), so watch for them later this week. Also, I'll be putting together my "Top Ten Books of 2009" list pretty soon.

And, since my life isn't busy enough, the Five & Dime Report is waiting just around the corner.

Visual Learners

At some point in my education (probably seminary), I was given WAY too much information about learning styles. Some of us are "reading-writing preference learners" (that would be me, btw); other are "tactile" or "kinesthetic learners" (that would be my wife.) A few are "auditory learners" (probably no one in my congregation, he sez grinning) and finally there are the "visual learners." (With this paragraph, I'm reminded of Craig Ferguson's wee "Scottish finger rabbits" - if anyone can give us a link to the clip, I'd love to find it.)

For the visual learners in the audience, here are a couple of websites I've happened upon recently.

Cake Wrecks came up thanks to a conversation at a party on Saturday night (Happy Birthday once again, Lydia - 30 is the new 29!) which started being about spell-checking emails, then morphed into the TV shows ACE OF CAKES and CAKE BOSS... and finally led us to this completely gonzo website/blog. Be warned, some of the humor is a adult-edged... but the just plain WRONG things that are done in the name of cake decorating are absolutely hysterical.

A good place to start is Cupcake Cakes: Always Wrecktastic. Always. From there, you can move on to the right-hand sidebar menu, which contains a list of fan favorites & "classic" posts, including the pictured Naked Mohawk-Baby Carrot Jockeys, I Want Sprinkles, and The First Censored Cake Wreck. The last of these is wrong on SO many levels that it must be seen to be believed.

I heard about My Parents Were Awesome on NPR a few weeks ago... and instead of being a fount of laughter (for that, go directly to Cake Wrecks; do not pass Go; do not collect $200), it's a sweet trip down memory lane. I find myself looking at the pictures and wondering about the stories behind them.

Basically, the creator of the website just has folks sending pictures (and stories) about their parents when they were young. As he says, "Before the fanny packs and Andrea Bocelli concerts, your parents (and grandparents) were once free-wheeling, fashion-forward, and super awesome." It's nifty stuff.