Nickels and Dimes, 2009

Well, the last quarter of 2009 was pretty rough. I have a ton of posts I'm going to put up (yes, really), but I wanted to start with something a little more fun.

A big hobby of mine that I rarely mention here is playing board games. It's a niche hobby that grows every year, and one that I'm very excited about. I won't go into more detail here, because the three people who read this blog already know all about it.

Anyway, one of the things people in our hobby like to do is review the games they've played in the last year. This is similar to a movie review site's Top Ten Films of the year list, except here we list how often we played particular games, hoping this reflects how much we like a game. "Nickels" are the ones I've played at least five times, "Dimes" at least ten.

You may have noticed the widget on the right side that shows "Recently Played" games. That comes from Boardgamegeek.com, a board game site that allows me to log all of my plays. So, let's get on with it, shall we?

With 22 plays (just short of a quarter), Ingenious - or, as we call it, Einfach Genial. Specifically, the Travel Edition. This is an abstract tile laying game that I really like. This was one of the last major games that took a while to come out in an English version, which is why I still prefer to call it by the German title.

The main game plays from two to four players. Each plays hexagonal, domino-type tiles with colors and shapes on them. You get points for how long a line of the same shape you can make.
The travel edition is strictly two-player. The board is a smaller, plastic grid that allows the pieces to snap in. I bought this game when I went to Oktoberfest in Munich in 2006. I introduced it to a friend of mine on the trip, and I was stunned by how much he took to it and how often we played it in biergartens during the day.

So, if it's such an old game, why is it my most played game this year? Simple. My wife loves it. She is generally a good sport about my gaming habit. She enjoys the games I teach her, but for the most part she just doesn't get into it the same way I do. This one, however, is one of the exceptions. It became an almost weekly ritual to play a best-of-three tournament of this over Sunday breakfast. To be honest, I can't remember if I logged the games individually, or just one for each session. Either way, that's a lot of games.

Fortunately, we have both burned out on it a little, so it hasn't been played as much in the second half of the year.

Next up, with 20 plays, is Dominion. This one is a much newer game, released in 2008. Looking at last year's stats, I had only six plays, which I know is due to only having first played it in late November.

This is a great little card game that offers amazing variability and interesting strategy choices every time you play. Also, once everyone is familiar with the game, it can be played quite quickly. Almost every time this is played, we play it at least twice.

This game is on a lot of people's "Most Played" list, and I expect that to be the case for a while yet. It has spawned two expansions so far (both of which can also be played independently), and I'm sure more are to come. Many people play so often that they've put each card in an individual sleeve, much like baseball card collectors. I can see how this would prolong the life of the cards, but for me, give me that good old tactical feel of regular cards.

My last "dime" this year is Backgammon, with 11 plays. I won't bother adding a picture of this well-known classic. Again, I have to attribute this one to my wife. Those 11 plays are actually down from last year (16). However, they also represent sessions, rather than actual games. Karen and I play first to five series, using the doubling cube, and playing for a quarter a point.

Overall, I think I'm ahead in Backgammon because she relies too much on lucky rolls. However, we're pretty even on Genial.

My nickels this year are not very impressive. Last year, I had five different titles just at nine plays. This year, I only have eight total in all my nickels. This makes me sad, especially when you see what they are. However, I would like to believe that this means I've played a lot more different titles this year, and not as many repeats. I certainly hope that's the case.

10 Days in Africa - 8 plays
42 - 7 plays
Harry's Grand Slam Baseball - 6 plays
GiftTrap - 6 plays
Scrabble - 6 plays
Travel Blokus - 6 plays
Hey! That's My Fish - 5 plays
Kakerlaken Poker - 5 plays

As you can see, a lot of two-player games and many "lighter" games. These are not really my preferred games. But as I try to introduce new people to these games, I'm often put in the position of teaching simpler, family-friendly, casual games.

Fortunately, I do have a regular game group which allows me to get in some of the more heavier, "meatier" games I enjoy. Well, sometimes.

Once I figure out how to gather some of my other stats, I'll add them up here. I'm not really sure how many games I've played total, or how many unique titles I played.

UPDATE: Well, I figured out my other stats by the old fashioned method of "counting and arithmetic," as my friend Peter said. I had 354 plays of 173 unique titles. That's not bad. There were 101 games I played just once, and 40 games I played twice, which seems pretty good.

Flower 2, Squirrels 0

This morning our dog, Flower, paid us the highest tribute she knew how: she left a dead squirrel on our doorstep.

This is actually the second squirrel she's caught, which I have to admit astounds me. I mean, I see her chase after the squirrels and bark up a storm every day. But even as fast as she is, I never expected her to actually catch one. And now she's caught two!

Karen, of course, was mortified. She screamed when she saw it, then ran back inside crying, "That squirrel had a family!" It was up to me to go out and congratulate Flower, give her some love and high-fives, then pick up and dispose of her trophy. I think she was pretty disappointed that I didn't bring it inside to make a stew.

I don't think I've ever mentioned Flower on the blog before, so let me take a minute to describe her.


She's part Catahoula and part Blue Heeler. So, Cataheeler or Bluehoula both work just fine. She's a mutt that Karen saved from the SPCA through her work at the Vet Tech Institute. She just turned two at the beginning of November. I tried to create a Facebook page for her, but it kept getting kicked out (I think because she's "too young").

She is also one of the most affectionate dogs I have ever known. If we're ever burglarized, I can only hope that the intruders are allergic to puppy saliva, as she is more likely to lick them to death than anything else.

She loves to run with me in the morning; she loves to ride in the Jeep; and, of course, she loves chasing squirrels. We're still working on her training, but she's coming along pretty well. She knows a lot of words, but unfortunately chooses to ignore them when she's not in the mood.

I'll post more about her in the future as the mood hits me. I just wanted to make sure I posted a little something about her latest kill. I'm kicking myself for not getting the camera in time. Next time, I'll be ready.

Digital Barbarism

Digital Barbarism by Mark Helprin

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
Mark Helprin is a novelist who wrote this screed in defense of copyright. His style is excessively erudite and pompous, with almost as many commas as nouns. Unfortunately, I agree with him. It would be so much easier to be turned off by his style and simply dismiss him as an ass.

In arguing for copyright, he branches into other more philosophic ideas like individualism versus collectivism. I found the book to be very interesting, but his voice was off-putting.

Apparently, this book originated from an Op-Ed article he wrote not long ago. It drew such a firestorm of criticism from people from all over the internet that he felt compelled to respond. Sadly, he comes across as a bit of a troll, except instead of responding to his detractors on the internet, he wrote a book about it (so that he can be verbose and get the last word in, I suppose). It amused and somewhat saddened me that an author would bother to quote and reply to some anonymous posters from the web.

In the end, I think the battle for copyright is an important one, and Helprin is literate, intelligent, and stubborn enough to keep up the good fight. I'm just glad I don't have to be in the same room with him while he's doing it.

View all my reviews.

Moby-Dick

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
I had heard good things about this classic from various people, so I thought it was time for me to give it a shot. If nothing else, I could claim to be well-read in classic American literature. Unfortunately, although it begins and ends very strongly, the middle is filled with long, dry passages which brought the book down as a whole for me.

It may be part of the style of writing at the time, but there are many, many chapters of the book that are devoted to describing the facts around whaling. There were many detailed chapters about whales themselves, the process of chasing and killing a whale, the tools used, the value of different parts of the whale, and the process of extracting those parts. Some of these were very interesting, but all of them distracted me from the actual narrative. It was only the infrequent interspersion of chapters about the characters that kept me going. One could probably just read the first and last 100 pages and get all the pertinent information.

However, I will say that the narrative passages were quite good. There were many interestingly drawn characters, vivid imagery, and beautiful, haunting dialog. I would most likely not recommend this book to most people, but I wouldn't dissuade someone from reading it either.

View all my reviews.

The Tipping Point

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
Yet another light non-fiction book basically centered around making new observation from gathered data.

I actually enjoyed the book, but there wasn't much meat to it. The anecdotes and conclusions were very interesting, and I can see how these observations could be helpful in future situations.

Unfortunately, I found several parts of the book were deliberately repetitive. Like the other Gladwell book I've read, Outliers, the whole book read more like a padded out magazine article rather than a serious book.

Still, it was informative and entertaining, and I would recommend it as a casual weekend read.

View all my reviews.