Father's Day

I had a pleasant morning. Breakfast of pancakes plus eggs & grits made and served by the kids with an assist from the wife. Gifts were bestowed on me which I appreciated especially since the ones from the kids didn't include an assist. Machi Koro should be a fun little game. I hope the daughter will get into it as much as Tokaido. I dig that the boy likes spaceships and aliens and robots enough to get me a Star Wars origami book. Maybe there's some proto maker thinking in there too.

With the announcement that Bradley Cooper wants to see Hyperion on a screen I acquired the four books electronically and have been going back over them. I wonder if another ten or so years of time will change my thoughts on the books?

I did a decent amount of prep work for the week. Primarily getting familiar with a new platform that we're deploying. Now I need to check the calendar and prioritize what's time bound and what's floating. So far I'm not stacked with days of assigned time so hopefully I'll get some traction on bigger things.

Steam Sale and Games

The summer Steam sale is winding down. With over 320 games in my library it's tough to find new stuff that interests me, but here's some recommendations on games that I like quite a bit that you probably don't have yet.

• Grey Goo - Bad name, great old school RTS. Three async factions. Single player, AI skrimish, and multiplayer are all there. The campaign is really well done with cut-scenes by WETA.
• War for the Overworld - Kickstarted spiritual successor to Dungeon Keeper that is worthy of  the title. It was a rough "launch" but they've cleaned up the game quite nicely. 
• Ori and the Blind Forest - Stunning Metroidvania style game. Really beautiful and the controls, exploration, and progression hold up.
• Red Faction Guerilla - Before Volition lost their minds with Saint's Row 3 and 4 they created this open world game where structures could be destroyed walll by wall and strut by strut and behave the way you would expect. A joyous sandbox of destruction.
• Wasteland 2 - Olds school post-apocalyptic RPG. Something to tide you over until Fallout 4 is released.

Low Activity

Apologies for the low activity here. Work had an uptick with a combination of audit time plus presentation of the vision of what I'm doing with the group I lead for the next six months. All of my free time has been taken up with Seveneves. I'm just about done with the book, should be easy to complete in the three day weekend.

Back soon. Thanks for your patience.

"Stealth" Media Releases

This week I was made aware that Faith No More released a new studio album and Neal Stephenson blew up the moon in the first page of his newly released book.

I am pleasantly surprised by both of these events but a little concerned that I had no idea that either of these projects existed before their release. Maybe my intake filters need tuning. Or maybe they don't. Hmmm...

Star Wars Armada: Let's Play

SU&SD Play... Star Wars: Armada from ShutUpShow on Vimeo.

One of the other boardgames I'm playing a lot lately is Star Wars Armada. Here's the Shut Up and Sit Down folks running through a game.

Intro to Netrunner

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/14/netrunner-took-over-my-life-and-why-it-should-take-over-yours-too

I started analog gaming through Netrunner, but a site called Shut Up and Sit Down opened my eyes to the bigger world of board games. One of the site's founders, Quintin Smith, is a big Netrunner fan. Here's an article that he wrote for the Guardian that talks about the joys and satisfaction of playing the game from the perspective of someone who isn't already into these kinds of games.

In other words, it's worth a read if you don't play card games.

Digital-to-Analog

Since my parents bought me an Atari 2600 over 30 years ago I've been a videogamer. My peak was probably right after college when I had the time and the money to acquire and play all the games I wanted. It's been the core of my hobbies. I don't do fantasy sports leagues or even follow sports teams. It's been videogames up until about two and a half years ago. I played some poker pretty heavily back around my college days but never for more than a few dollars. My time came and went before the whole Texas Hold-em thing went off.

So I changed jobs in 2012 and for the first time ever I was working from home. If I wasn't on the road meeting with clients I was at home and on the computer for eight to ten hours a day. Then the family would come home and I'd be in the house and then the kids went to bed and I'd have to some time to spend on my own, in the house.

Right around this time Fantasy Flight Games released Android:Netrunner a reprint of the Netrunner card game that I played in college. I grabbed a copy and headed to the Friendly Local Game Store to see if anyone else was playing the game.

That was almost three years ago and unless I have family or work obligations you'll find me every Thursday night at the FLGS playing Netrunner and other games. It gets me out of the house, I get to socialize with people (not online) and I get to play some really cool games.

I still play videogames, but I'm a lot more selective in what I play. There's a lot of interesting things going on with board games and I spend the bulk of my free time on that side of the gaming world. But that's for another post.