Robbbbb's Random Ruminations
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| Sunday, April 5th, 2009 | | 9:13 pm |
Field of Dreams
Baseball season starts tomorrow. I always like to sit and watch Field of Dreams as the season approaches. It gets me in the right mindset, and reminds me why I love this game. It reminds me, too, that I used to go play catch in the back yard with my little brother. This year, I'm reminded that in a few more years I get to play catch with my son. | | Sunday, March 22nd, 2009 | | 6:28 pm |
Overheard
Overheard at our house tonight; my wife talking to our son: "Why can't you be more like James Coburn?" | | Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 | | 1:21 pm |
That Curve Ball Says "Hi"
Phillippe Aumont is the top pitching prospect in the Mariner farm system. He's currently pitching for Team Canada in the World Baseball Classic. A couple days ago, he got into trouble versus the US team, and loaded the bases with no one out. He then broke David Wright's bat, getting him out on a soft line drive, and then struck out Kevin Youkilis and Curtis Granderson. His best pitches looked like this. Yes, that's a 95 MPH fastball that tails away from the left-handed hitter. To quote Bull Durham: "This kid's got some pretty serious shit." | | Monday, March 9th, 2009 | | 12:51 pm |
Lunchtime Music
I went home for lunch today, and got to spend a little time with my boy. On the way back, KING FM was playing Satie's Gymnopedies, which is a beautiful composition. There's a Youtube of #1 here, for just a sample. | | Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 | | 4:22 pm |
Iceland
I think Michael Lewis just might be the best writer working in America today. He moves from drop-dead funny to deathly serious in the space of a paragraph, and he makes you feel it, just like you were sitting there. And in the current issue of Vanity Fair, he takes on the Icelandic banking system. Must reading. (Hat tip: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) silversouth.) | | Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 | | 12:02 pm |
Ash Wednesday
Remember: You are dust, and to dust you shall return. | | Monday, February 23rd, 2009 | | 10:03 pm |
A Tale of Two Movies
We've rented a couple of Christian-themed movies in the last week and watched them. One was very good. The other was quite mediocre. Kirk Cameron, of Growing Pains fame, converted to Christianity loudly and famously at eighteen. Since then, he's taken a strident tone toward the movies he appears in. He did the movie adaptations of the Left Behind series, and recently did a movie called Fireproof, about a Georgia fire captain who's having marital difficulties and the steps he takes to right his marriage. I was watching the flick, and kept thinking, "Y'know, there's a good movie in here, but they lay it on so thick." Mr. Cameron's character is kind of a schlub, and doesn't see the problems he's causing in his marriage. He undertakes a forty day program to try and re-build his relationship with his wife. The movie's formulaic, and by the end of the film he rights all his wrongs and gets back together with his wife. It's not bad, but it is preaching to the converted. If you're not pre-convinced of the path that the main character is taking, you're not going to get much out of the film. There's maybe a good movie in there, where a character who's destroyed his marriage embarks on a last-second attempt to save it by devoting himself to his wife and overcoming his own problems. But the characters start out so self-centered that it's hard to believe that they can make such serious changes in the midst of their daily lives. Henry Poole Is Here, on the other hand, is a lovely movie. The more I think on it, the more I like it. It's deliberately ambiguous at several key points, and leaves space for the viewer to find his own interpretation of events. It doesn't lay its Christianity on especially thick. It doesn't require that the main charcter confess his love for Jesus before the end of the movie. It just requires that he accept the events of the film and find some meaning in them. And the characters have flaws. I like that the characters have flaws. Henry Poole (Luke Wilson) is mopey and dejected for most of the movie. As the story unfolds, you get a good idea of why he's mopey and dejected, and it makes sense. Some of the characters have too little respect for others' personal space, but they're so earnest when they try to butt in to Henry's life that you find that you forgive them for it. I suppose the reason I like the movie so much is that it reminds me of the people I've found in Christian churches everywhere: They're fine, kind people, who are genuinely interested in the spiritual well-being of their fellow men. It comes on a little strong, sometimes, but that's okay because their heart is in the right place. This movie reminds me why I keep coming back to Christianity: I like the people. If you lay your moral on with a trowel, you lose people. That's what makes so many Star Trek episodes so awfully mediocre. Henry Poole doesn't lay it on a thick, and that ultimately makes it a terrific little character drama. | | Thursday, February 19th, 2009 | | 5:04 pm |
Clair De Lune
My lovely wife is working on piano music again. I just got to spend fifteen minutes sitting and listening to her work on Clair de Lune. Have I mentioned recently how much I love living with a musician? | | 3:30 pm |
| | Wednesday, February 18th, 2009 | | 4:23 pm |
| | Saturday, February 14th, 2009 | | 7:47 pm |
Happy Valentine's Day
My wife's cultural background shows up when we go out for an upscale dinner. She grew up in the midwest, and so a very nice dinner out is a good steak. I, on the other hand, was rasied in the Pacific Northwest, where going out for an upscale dinner means some kind of seafood, often salmon. We bought a brand-new cast iron pan today, and I decided I wanted to try it out. So I stole Vodkapundit's completely decadent steakhouse dinner made easily at your house. Filet mignon, baked potatoes, asparagus, and bearnaise sauce. Erica came home from work and sat down just as the steaks came out of the oven. Good stuff. We need to do this recipe again sometime, but probably not soon. Filets are expensive. | | Thursday, February 12th, 2009 | | 9:14 pm |
Viva La Revolucion!
Junta is a great little game, which I've had a ton of fun playing over the years. A good game of Junta is a blast. It's got some flaws, though. You'll find reviews on Boardgamegeek from time to time like this one, which point out said flaws. Man, what a ripe setting for a game, though. A good conspiratorial, backstabbing wargame about a revolution in a banana republic has so much to recommend it. It's not really a well-explored setting, either. Just about the only other game in the genre was published by Steve Jackson Games in the early 90s, and it ain't very good. So, if I were going to design this sucker, how would I do it? Oh, no, it's another one of robbbbbb's game design posts. ( Continue on at your peril. ) | | Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 | | 12:18 pm |
| | Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 | | 8:07 pm |
Awesome Gift
One of the things my wife cooks very well is apple crisp. She's got an old family recipe that's really good. For Christmas, my parents decided to encourage this, and got us a peeler/corer/slicer. Marvellous gift. We got to try it out tonight, and it makes short work of apples. I think I might just get apple crisp a little more often. | | Sunday, February 1st, 2009 | | 9:43 pm |
Power Grid
Got to play my new copy of Power Grid on Friday night with a couple of friends, who both enjoyed it very much. It's such a well-designed game, and it teaches excellent lessons on amortizing investments and managing inventory. We played a short game, in which I established an early lead. (I had connected to eight cities, and my opponents were connected to five and three, respectively.) We started over. The second game was a close race at the end. A friend picked up a seven-power plant, which allowed him to quickly go from 14 to 17 cities, and win the game. I was close behind at 16. I just couldn't get that one more city powered before the game ended. I think I got bit on the second-to-last turn when I had three 4-city plants, and I was first in the turn order. I could've picked up a 7-city plant, but thought the cost wouldn't be worth it. The next plant drawn left the power plant market with four 2-city or 3-city plants. Step three started on the following turn (and the game ended soon after.) So I wasn't able to build a plant that turn, and got stalled out. That allowed the other players to catch up, and then pass me by. I think you have to buy a new power plant on most turns when you're playing that game. Failure to increase capacity can be deadly later, as I found out to my peril. Power Grid plays okay with three, but it's a much better game with four, five, or six players. It's obvious that the game has been modified down to play three or four. After that, we took a couple rounds of Galaxy Trucker, including on the IIIA board. All kinds of fun. GT is pretty darned good filler. You can play however many rounds you feel like, and you don't have to play it super-competitive. | | Thursday, January 29th, 2009 | | 3:27 pm |
Dear Cubs Fans
Roger Cedeno and Garrett Olson for Aaron Heilman? Thank you. I'm with Dave Cameron of the USS Mariner: Either player alone would have been a fair trade for Heilman. Both? Well, y'all got robbed. Thanks! | | Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 | | 1:04 pm |
| | Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 | | 12:50 pm |
Game Review: Oasis
I got this one for my birthday last year, and we got a chance to break it out and play it with some friends Sunday afternoon. This is a good game. Not a great game, but a fun way to pass an afternoon. It's also a relatively low-key game. While fun, it's not fiercely competitive. It's a VP-accumulating game, based on laying tiles and accumulating scoring chits. There are four scoring categories, and you multiply the number of scoring chits by the number of tiles on the board in each category. The nice bit is the way that each player chooses his playing pieces. Each turn, in order, the players make a "bid", laying out one to three cards that show tiles or scoring chits. Then, in order, each player chooses another player's bid. The player whose bid is chosen receives the order token of the person who chose his bid. So, if you're the fourth player and your bid is chosen by player #1, you'll be the first player next round. The nifty thing about this mechanic is that it encourages players to bid well, so as to be the first player on the following turn. It's got a nice balance. The mechanic encourages a player to think about timing. "Do I want to bid well now, or next turn? Is going first next turn my best move?" It's a game that rewards good, smart tactics, but it's not fiercely competitive. There are limited ways to screw your opponent, so it's a great social game to play with a couple of friends at a dinner party. I like Oasis. I like Galaxy Trucker a lot more, but it takes a different crowd to play GT. I appreciate this one because my wife and I can have a nice, social game with a couple of friends, and chat all the while. | | Thursday, January 15th, 2009 | | 4:14 pm |
| | Monday, January 12th, 2009 | | 2:28 pm |
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