Monthly Recap - July 2012

Another month down - here's the recap:

I mentioned last month that I'd gone to Seattle and to Protospiel - that technically was THIS month, but who's counting ;)

A friend of mine got engaged, which doesn't really count as my news, but seems like it's worth mentioning. I've sent a handful of emails to people on OKCupid.com lately, but none of those online sites ever seem to work out for me.

As for gaming events, I attended Gamesmiths (game design meeting), Ides of Gaming (monthly game day), and a new group that meets about once a month at Cartel Coffee Lab. I got to test one of my games (Alter Ego) at Gamesmiths - I'm not happy with that design at all right now and I think it needs a large overhaul. Ides is the game day put on by the Southern Arizona Gamers Association (SAGA), an organization of which I am the president. It was at a new location this time (Something Sweet) because our old venue got remodeled and didn't have space for us anymore. I liked being on campus, but Something Sweet isn't bad so far. This new group that meets at Cartel Coffee Lab, a coffee shop/restaurant on Campbell north of Grant, as well as up in Oro Valley. Cartel is near my house, so I thought I'd check it out. I went about a month ago as well. This time there were 20+ gamers there, which is a lot. The place was also fairly packed with regular patrons as well. A photographer from the local newspaper (AZ Daily Star) was there taking all kinds of pictures of the games we were playing. Maybe that means an article is imminent!

RinCon planning is still going on. Events are being added to the schedule, and people are signing up. We need to get some advertising going to make sure people know about the con - I'd like to take out ads in the paper in Phoenix, San Diego, L.A., Las Cruces, Albuquerque, and Las Vegas - all within reasonable driving distance (or perhaps a cheap flight). It turns out that when you run a convention, what you're really doing is selling hotel rooms, because in order to afford the banquet space, you have to guarantee a certain number of hotel rooms. So getting people to come from out of town will be key to this event's financial success! So tell your friends to come stay at the Holiday Inn and attend my con! :)

I did finally get some posters made, and they've been dropped off at Game Daze, Heroes and Villains, Amazing Discoveries, Bookman's, Casa Video, and hopefully Magic Tower as well. Game Daze was going to send some posters up to the Phoenix locations as well, hopefully that will pan out!

In other news, my hip has been feeling somewhat better - though it's clearly not 100%. I got some Joint Maintenance pills (Glycusomine, Chondroytin, And some kind of fish oil or something like that) which are supposed to help. I went out to pickup a couple of times - the weather was perfect for it: overcast, having rained that day but not still raining - and it's clear I'm out of shape, but it felt good to run again.

That's about it for this month. Next month I'll be heading to GenCon with Mikey in Indianapolis, so expect some TMG related new from that! In the meantime, you can check out TMG's latest kickstarter project: Stack It!

See you next month!

Overdue update

I haven't posted in almost a month... so what have I been up to?

Frisbee
As usual, I've been playing Ultimate. Practice has begun for the Tucson Men's team, Monsoon. My current frisbee schedule is Conditioning on Monday, League on Wednesday, Practice on Thursday, and Pickup on Sunday. Last year with this schedule I actually got into pretty good shape by Potlatch (4th of July), but I feel like right now I'm in terrible shape, and I feel like I've been moving really slow... so I don't know if that schedule will be enough.

I will note that my league team is leading the league after the regular season! Wednesday is Quarterfinals, and if we win that game then we will have semifinals and finals next week :)

Diet
In an effort to get into better shape, I've decided to lose some weight. I've been watching it for a while and hovering around 175-178 pounds. I'd said before that I'd rather weigh 165-170, but I haven't been actively trying to lose weight. Well, now I am. I've cut soda down to 1 during the week and maybe another on the weekend (down from 1 per day), and I've stopped eating the brownies Mandy has been bringing to game nights. I think I've already lost a couple of pounds this week!

Travel
Despite being out of work for the last 6 months, I have gone on a number of trips. Most recently I flew to Utah for a frisbee tournament. My flight would have had a layover in Los Angeles, so I talked to Stephanie and arranged to go to L.A. on Thursday and hang out with her*, then continue on to Utah on Friday. Steph had a game night at her house that Thursday night and I played a couple of games I'd not played before - one was called Big Boss, the other Corsairs. Unfortunately, neither one was terribly good. Big Boss wasn't terrible, but was largely dependent on what cards you draw (and it's not a card game, and some cards are way better than others). Corsairs was, as one guy put it, 8 minutes of fun in a 45 minute package.

* I had asked Steph before buying the ticket if stopping off in L.A. was a good idea or not, and she said she thought it would be fun... but I really got the impression she didn't want me there. I knew she would have work to do, so I brought my computer and planned to be as flexible as possible. When not doing work though, Steph spent almost all her time on the phone with another friend or else grilling me for being cheap. She kept asking if there was anything I wanted to do, and I kept saying that the only thing I wanted to do in particular while I was there was to play 1 game of Fermat with her, and she blew that off. She also swapped me off of her team for Times Up immediately after I mentioned that for once we'd be the same team. I don't know if I've ever felt less welcome.

Other recent trips include:
* Las Vegas for the GAMA trade show - a trade show for the Game industry. Mike, Erin and I learned a lot and made a lot of contacts there, and for me in particular I'm referring to a game designer we met who has a game we (Tasty Minstrel Games) might want to publish. Also, the designer guy was really cool, I liked him a lot.

* Portland for Gamestorm and to visit Jeremy. Jeremy and Amelia will be moving back to Seattle, just in time for me to visit them again on my annual 4th of July trip for Potlatch.

Upcoming trips:
* San Fransisco for KublaCon game convention in about 2 weeks
* Eugene Oregon for Solstice frisbee tournament in June
* Seattle for Potlatch frisbee tournament in July
* L.A. for Strategicon game convention in September
* Dallas for BGG.con game convention in November

Work
I still haven't found an engineering job, but things are looking up for Bobbie's new company Mooradian and Associates, so I'm hopeful for some full time employment there. I may be getting a phone call to do some temporary "consulting" for them in the meantime. So I guess that's good.

Movies
I went to see Star Trek the other day. I've never been a big fan of Star Trek, but I can say that they did a good job with the new movie. The casting was great, and I really liked the movie. If I had to complain, I'd say they drew out some of the early scenes with Kirk as a kid, and then they really rushed to get all the characters aboard the Enterprise.

I don't want to spoil anything for anyone, so I'll be a little cryptic - I was really surprised to see that guy on the icy planet (not Scotty and his little buddy). I'm SO glad that wasn't in the previews! I noticed that the story made it possible for them to really re-start the franchise from the beginning, like James Bond got a reboot with Casino Royale and Batman Begins started that franchise from scratch again. They did it in such a way that the original series can remain intact and not cause contradictions for big fans. The only old Star Trek movie I remember is Star Trek IV - the one where they go back in time to save the whales. I remember Scotty talking to an old Macintosh, and someone says "no, no... you have to use the mouse!" After which he picks up the mouse and tries talking into it.

I also recently saw Monsters Vs Aliens, The Watchmen, and Push (all pretty good), as well as Taken (awful). On my satellite I watched Journey to the Center of the Earth (terrible), Forgetting Sarah Marshall (not bad), and I've recorded but not watched Traitor, Pan's Labrynth, Intacto (seen before - neat movie), and Ghost in the Shell II (I heard something bad about it since I recorded it).

Television
As for TV I've been watching a lot of Crossing Jordan. Some channel plays it every weekday morning at 5am. I watched all of season 6, and then they started over with season 1 so I'm watching that. I like that they play them in order. I have watched maybe the first half of season 7 of 24... it's not terribly good. I still think the only interesting thing they can do with that franchise is to have Jack Bauer turn into a terrorist - maybe in a feature film as opposed to another season of the show. Other shows I've been watching are Chuck, Heroes (thank god it's over - it's finally starting to get a little better), In Plain Sight, Scrubs, Burn Notice (starting again soon!), The Unusuals (pretty dumb), and something called Deadliest Warrior where they pit 2 of history's deadliest warriors against each other by studying their weapons via modern technology and then simulating a fight to see who would win. They reveal the outcome by acting it out, and it's all very cool. They've done Pirate vs Knight, Ninja vs Spartan, Apache vs Gladiator, Viking vs Samurai, and Mafia vs Yakuza so far.

Under her spell

I don't know if it's true of all women, but I've noticed that at least some women seem to have an enchantment about them that I frankly don't understand. A friend of mine is so blessed - guys take to her immediately, they'll do anything for her, etc. There's a stereotype that smokin' hot women can get anything they want with a wink and a smile - but I think there's more to it than that. This friend of mine, though not unattractive at all, isn't the kind of person you'd normally think of as "hot" or "sexy." Yet her enchantment remains.

This friend was telling me that this weekend while out of town she met a guy. She's known him for 4 days and already he wants to call her his girlfriend and he's talking about flying across the country to visit her... she's pretty happy about the whole thing, is thinking of a cute pseudonym to use for him in her blog, and has a good feeling about a potential relationship. Don't get me wrong - I'm happy for her. but this blog isn't called His Life or Her Life - it's called My Life...

So what's this got to do with me? That situation in particular? Nothing, not directly anyway. I'd just like to get to the bottom of this magical power she possesses!

My friend said she was feeling pretty comfortable that he'd be calling her like he said he would... as if there was a chance he wouldn't. He's under her spell! Some time ago I was under her spell. It took a long time, but I eventually snapped out of it (at least I tell myself that and then don't think about it, just in case it's not true). So I feel like I know a little bit about what this guy is thinking. Yes, he'll call. Yes, he'll come visit. He'll be happy to do it, and he'll keep on doing it until she decides he's not right for her and looks for something else, or until "happily ever after." He's under her spell.

As for "happily ever after," this guy's got a better shot than I did, as my friend is willing to admit to her friends (and herself) that she's interested in him. And from the sound of things, he's made an excellent first impression.

I wish I understood how and why this enchantment thing works. In the meantime I'd settle for finding someone else's spell to fall under. I miss that feeling :-/

Back from the game convention

I had a great time last week at BGG.con, an annual board game convention I've been going to for 3 years now. It's a ton of fun, and a great excuse to see my childhood friend Brian (who's now got a 2nd son!) and a lot of other friends from across the country. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, here's a quick list off the top of my head of friends I only see a couple times a year, usually at these conventions (in no particular order). I'm sure I'll miss a bunch:

Brian, Edward, Aldie from Dallas
Peter and Julie from Seattle
Steph, Chris, Mike, Shannon, Lincoln, Nikki, Eric, Erin, and Aaron from L.A.
John from Tucson (yes, Tucson... he never leaves his home so I only see him in Dallas!)
Chris (ceej) from NorCal
Derk from New York
Winton from Prescott

And new friends who I've seen or met before but only barely:
Simon from DC
Justin from Ithaca
Zev from New York
Mischa from New Orleans
Judson from L.A.
Ravindra from North Carolina

And this ignores all the people I know online but seldom actually see:
Dan and Kelly from Texas,
Chester - who might be moving to Tucson
Gil and Morgan from New York

And I'm sure I've missed someone, if not several people.

At the convention I managed to play a lot of games, including the 4 new ones that were at the top of the list (of new games I really wanted to play). I even played some Guitar Hero 3 finally. Stephanie humored me with a Pro Face Off (Freebird on Hard of course). I did miserably (266k), and she's gotten even better(360k).

I also talked to a publisher about some of my games, and he took one of them home with him to test out. He said I could send the other 2 I was showing him as well. I met another publisher there, but never seemed to find the time to meet with him about my games. I asked if I could email him about them and of course he said "OK" to that. I guess I'll see what he says after reading about the games!

And finally, I made some real headway getting prototypes noticed/played at the convention - mine as well as other peoples' games. I had posted a sort of "sign up sheet" online beforehand to solicit interest, and I wanted to make a little sign so people would know where to look for that kind of thing. John Theys did me one better by making a decent sign, and then posting it all over the convention! It had my avatar on it so people would know who to look for...



I was surprised at how many people were actually interested in playing my games, and there was very positive feedback all around for the most part. I approached it more like demo-ing the games rather than playtesting and looking for feedback. I mean I would happily take feedback, but I didn't want to give the impression that these games are unfinished, just unpublished. I have several games that I think are really done except for whatever minor tweaks a publisher might request, and I think people would be more willing to play a game if they thought it wasn't still brand new and in need of work. I didn't think the interest level would be so high, I hope I didn't disppoint too badly when scheduled games didn't happen (that often is the case at these kinds of conventions)! next year the Unpublished Game portion of the con will be much better organized, if I have anything to say about it! Which... I probably do, as I'm the one who's doing all the spearheading of this stuff anyway :)

I'll be posting a long recounting of my trip, maybe broken up day by day, but that will take a while and I wanted to put up something about my fun trip before it was old news. It seems a lot more people are reading my blog now, so I hope it's a good read!

- Seth

Juxtaposition, part 1

Well, this weekend I rented my guest house. My tenant is a U of A student (that might be a first) - he works at the bar on the corner, and the school is about half a mile away, so the location is great for him. I guess he liked it and seemed fine with the price because he barely looked at the place before he decided to sign a year lease.

Yesterday I got the bar back in there from Lowski's room, and I did some other things around the house, fixing broken toilet seats, replacing light bulbs, etc. I also called DirecTV to get another receiver installed for the guest house (which I've been meaning to do for a while). My discussion with DirecTV is a rant for another blog post, but they're coming Tuesday morning to install the receiver and "update" my receivers to DVRs.

I hope the DirecTV guys don't get delayed, because Wednesday morning I'm on my way to Dallas for BGG.con! It's a big open gaming convention, where about 500 people from all over the country (even a couple from across the ocean) get together for 4 days of hanging out and playing board games. I'm really looking forward to it, and while there I'm going to be showing some of my designs to people in general, and 2 publishers in particular. Who knows, maybe they'll like one of them enough to consider publishing it!

So everything's going pretty well. Well, several things are going well anyway. I get to play some of the new games that just came out at the Essen game fair last month, I get to see my childhood friend Brian again and meet his second son Reagan, I get to hang out and play games with Steph and company. In general I think things are going pretty well right now.

New personal best score on Freebird

I just scored 303,408 points on Freebird on hard... we're still talking Guitar Hero 2 here - unlike some of my friends, I have not yet bought GH3 on PS2, nor have I bought an Xbox360 3 days later to play online.

I felt like I had a really good start, but then I missed a hammer-on late in the pre-solo ("easy") part, which means I missed a couple notes right after that too. I missed like 2 other notes pre-solo, but went into the solo with a decent score, like 120k or so I think.

I did really well on most of the solo parts that I normally do well on, but I did crappy on a couple as well, so I think I could get more points than 303k. I'll have to try again soon.

The best part might be that I wasn't pro-faceoff-ing with Nate, I was playing by myself, which means the game actually recorded the score in the High Scores thing.

Mea Culpa

Regarding my post from yesterday, it should be noted that it's mostly my own fault. If I could keep from acting sort-of-affectionately then perhaps things would go more smoothly between me and Steph.

I guess I'll work on that. Too bad she doesn't take it as flattering rather than annoying. Ah well.

Lyrics on my mind

I am everything you want
I am everything you need
I am everything inside of you That you wish you could be
I say all the right things
At exactly the right time
But I mean nothing to you and I don't know why

This is from a song by Vertical Horizon called Everything You Want. I'm not entirely sure what the song is about, but the lyrics above strike me as analogous to a recent relationship I had. It's not entirely accurate - I never said any of the right things - but there's a sentiment that is close.

I don't think I need to go into details, but long story short, I liked this girl more than she liked me, so we're just friends now. Maybe it's a good thing she lives 500 miles away! The confusing part is that everything she complains about in other guys she dates, and everything she's ever said she was looking for, are qualities I have. So I guess it's just too bad she wasn't all that interested.

Or maybe not too bad in the end...

Since I met her, this girl has been relatively unpleasant to be with in person, and thinking back this includes most of the time I've known her, not just since we broke up. It was much different than when I talked to her on the phone or IM. I just didn't used to care. As such, my romantic interest in her has gone away, and my platonic interest in her has dropped off as well. After spending last weekend hanging out with her* I was asking myself what I ever saw in her in the first place.

* Doing things I thought were nice, like waiting on dinner for her to arrive (at 11pm) rather than eat with the group, and bringing her breakfast to the room when she didn't get up in time to get any... but evidently my normal, everyday behavior is intolerable to her. *shrug* So I spent much of the weekend avoiding her.

And then I see her when she's sleeping and I remember. When she's asleep, or in the morning before she puts on her big city and people person facades, she looks at peace. Content. Maybe happy or innocent. When I see that I see whatever it was I fell in love with, and talked to on the phone all those times.

So I'll just pretend that that's true - that she puts on a facade to deal with her busy, big city life, and that facade wears her down and makes her grouchy all the time. I'll pretend that's true because it stings a little less than the realization that I invested myself a little too heavily in something I was so very wrong about.

I think this girl reads my blog, and I don't know how this post will go over with her. It may be a little awkward. But frankly, me creating an awkward situation between us is about par for the course.

Busy, fun filled weekend!

My god, I think I need a weekend from my weekend! Here's what my schedule's looked like since Friday...

Friday, 5pm: Friends start arriving for a BBQ. Karen, Kage, Tyler, Eric, Michael, Sean, Steve, Nate, John, Bo, Weike and Karl all came by and we made burgers, played Guitar Hero, Werewolf, and Time's Up! After a bunch of people left, Bo, Nate, Eric and I played Arkadia - a new board game which I really like. There was more Guitar Hero after that, and after everyone left I practiced my Hammer-ons until late o'clock.

Saturday, 11am: Went to Grandma's house to help her with a few things, then we got some lunch.

Saturday, 2pm: From there I went straight to my friend Joe's wedding on Mount Lemmon. It was actually pretty cool, and the groom made wan-tans. There was also beef and veggies for kabobs, and a pinata.

Saturday, 7pm: From the wedding I went straight to Chilie's to meet my friend Ron's birthday group - about 30 people strong. After dinner they went back to his house and there was some Guitar Hero, a game of Mission: Red Planet, and some Karaoke. I got home from that around late o'clock again, so didn't have time to work on my convention reports and stuff :(

Sunday, 11am: Time for playtesting - Aric, Eric, Ben, and Joe came over and we tested the heck out of the 'advanced rules' for Blockade Runner (a Firefly themed game I'm making with Bo). We also played Aric's board game version of the old computer game Worms.

Sunday, 5pm: Time flies! Eric and I went to Sunday pickup. Karen had talked Tyler into coming. Steve Bowles was there too, and Ryan and Anthony - that's 5 members of my league team plus Karen (who's evidently our mascot, even though she's the captain of another team). There were some Tucson High kids there, so they played with us. It's good to have fresh, young people starting to play ultimate, however it's also hard to get any good play in.

Sunday, 7:30pm: Karen, Eric, Tyler, Ryan, Anthony and I went to Eegees, where one of the high school kids (Corbin) was eating. We all went to my house afterwards for, you may have guessed it... more Guitar Hero! Corbin is a superstar, so he was playing on Expert. Afterplaying GH all weekend, I'm getting to the point where I should probably step up to Hard from Medium. Karen, despite crying about being scared of Medium on Friday, is almost ready to move up to Hard as well. I want to get the Hammer-ons and Lift-offs down before stepping up the difficulty, but I've been trying to keep my fingers in the right place for using all five buttons so when Orange starts popping up (on the Hard level) I won't be completely screwed.

In the middle of all the Guitar Heroing, I got a chance to chat with my friend Stephanie from L.A... she had just installed Skype and added me as a contact, just as I sat down to check my email. So we talked on Skype for a bit, which was cool because Skype is pretty cool, and because we hardly ever talk anymore.

After most of the guests left it was just me, Eric, and Karen, and after a while we switched from Guitar Hero (and the odd game of Katamari Damacy) to Karaoke Revolution for a while.

Monday, 2am: I am writing this, thinking about finishing Day 2 of my convention report, and ready to fall asleep.

Puzzle pieces

I've been feeling pretty down/confused/borderline miserable for a couple of weeks, mostly because there was a piece of information that I wasn't aware of. I was worried that a particular thing was my fault, or I'd done something wrong and I didn't know what, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what had happened.

Well, the other day I found out what that missing puzzle piece was, and almost immediately I felt relieved, like some weight had been lifted (to use a tired, old cliche). Finding that out seems to constitute closure, and now I feel like I can go on with my life without feeling so terrible all the time.

Apparently I'm the kind of guy who just likes to know all the information, all the time. That's not a surprise, really.

Life imitates art.

I've been listening to some music I really like, but haven't heard in a while - Billy Joel's Greatest Hits (Vol II). I like to listen to lyrics, and I like songs that have clever lyrics and/or tell a story. I'm often amused how the lyrics to a song can be applied to a real life situation that I'm actually going through.

So this morning when heard the following, well... I was amused, as it pretty much sums up mid January through mid March:

Maybe this won't last very long
You feel so right, I could be wrong
Maybe I've been hoping too hard
But I've come this far, and it's more than I'd hoped for

Who knows how much further we'll go on
Maybe I'll be sorry when you're gone
I'll take my chances
I forgot how nice romance is
I haven't been there for the longest time