Tubes

Yesterday was one of those days that involved getting a tube put down my throat.  Not necessarily the best of days, but if we limit the category of days to those involving tube insertion, it wasn’t so bad.  The most difficult part was the fasting beforehand.  For most people not eating after midnight isn’t really a problem, but for me it presents some difficulties.  Chicken bullion is unfortunately just as filling a dinner as you would think.  

Once I got there, the prep stuff went smoothly.  Due to the events of this year, I have gotten pretty familiar with seeing all the monitoring devices that they use, but this was the first time they were attached to me.  I was a bit concerned about one of the numbers and graphs on the screen fluctuating wildly, as I’m unaware of that ever being a good thing, but it turned out just to be a defective respiratory rate detector.  I don’t recall too much of the actual procedure, an UGI endoscopy.  Since it was well past my bed time, the sedatives didn’t have too much work to do to knock me out.  I spent a while recovering in the recovery room and about as long waiting for the doctor to show up, and then I was on my way.

The results of the test ended up in the happy medium between “we couldn’t find anything wrong with you” and “invasive surgery here we come.” Pending biopsies, it turns everything is just significantly inflamed; I developed a nice collection of itises.  So I get to take an otc pill twice a day and perhaps not ignore the suggested dietary restrictions quite as much, but everything does appear to be capable of healing on its own.  Though they did seem a bit concerned that I was only 29 and having this much inflammation.

After I was done I ate some food, wobbled home*, and slept for some large amount of hours.  Now my sister’s here to visit and I can go back to staring longingly at the ipad shaped box that Becky wrapped up for me.

* Becky and I weren’t sure which one us should use her cane

Merry Christmakah

Top 10 tabletop games

So I like games and I like lists, so I expect you'll see a lot of posts involving each here.  This are my current top ten games, subject to change based on what I have for breakfast.

1. Dominion

Even if you don't like deck building games, you have to admire the elegance of Dominion.  The cards are almost universally simple and straight forward, yet they are well balanced and require no errata.  I, on the other, love deck building, and to be able to build decks without the hundreds of dollars it takes to invest in a ccg is quite nice.  Every game is like a mini puzzle that provides you with instant feedback on how well you solved it.  I can say much more , but I think the best way to illustrate just how much I like Dominion is the following.   I'm not sure I've played a thousand games of Dominion since it game out a three years ago, but I probably have.  I've got a bit over 500 ranked isotropic games in there at least*, and will be hosting my 2nd tournament next month.

* hawkeye on there if you anyone is interested in head-to-head action.

2. Settlers of Catan

Settlers was my gateway to the good stuff.  As it turns out if you like playing mediocre games, you'll love playing good games.  I haven't played it much lately, but it remains my favorite game to use as a gateway for new gamers, and I've seen more than one person light up while playing it for the first time . It has just the right amount of player interaction, randomness, length, and complexity to be enjoyable to almost all.  Plus it got me a free trip to Ohio, more than can be said about the rest of this list* And it makes a pretty wedding cake.

*I'm looking at you Macao

3. Pandemic

Most people I game with I want to beat into a bloody pulp, but occasionally, say with people I married, I don't actually enjoy seeing them losing.  This brings us to the wonder of co-op games where players  to be on the same team against the vile game itself.  Pandemic remains my favorite of this genre.  It is thematic, difficult but usually not impossible, variable, rewarding, and fast enough that you can play multiple times.  Especially is the world goes boom in spectacular fashion early on.

4. Tichu
I spent a lot of time growing up at my grandma's house playing cards growing up like Casino, 7's and Rummy.  It was a good thing I didn't know Tichu at that point as Nanny didn't pick up new games too well, and Tichu is a much better card game than any of them.  Tichu is a climbing game with partnership that uses a slightly motivated deck of cards. It isn't too complicated, but is just inundated with strategy, which can change drastically even during the same hand.  If you have 3 other people and one of them you don't hate, you should give Tichu a try.

5. Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization

Thanks goodness for online gaming as it has taken TTA from a game that I played once with numerous incorrect rules, to a game that I've played so much that I've started growing tired of with only the occasional incorrect rule. I love epics in any form and TTA more than any game I've played, feels epic.  You are building a civilization from ancient times to modern day and will have a tale to go with it .  There are many paths to victory, but you must remain balanced enough to not be screwed.  Just an incredibly deep, well thought out creation.
 
6.Apples to Apples

The only party game on the list and the rare game in which I'm not actively trying to win.  It allows me to let my sarcasm run freely and forces others players to try to think like me.  What's not to love?

7. Overpower

A nostalgic pick as I haven't played the years, but it was one of the obsessions that got me through high school.  Would like to see how it has held up over the years at some point.  It is highly thematic and has some fantastic mechanics, but not remotely well balanced.

8. Macao

My favorite game from my favorite non-Dominion game designer Stephen Feld.  In has a really neat dice mechanic, and, well there is other stuff too, but the dice mechanic is enough.

9. Twilight Struggle

When I play war games like Axis and Allies I enjoy taking over random countries like New Zealand and Madagascar.*  While Twilight is more of an area control game than a war game, it does reward such a strategy, as you are going for influence rather than domination.  Alternately, you can set off a nuclear bomb, but that has the downside of resulting in an instant loss.  This cold war reenactment is steeped in history, there are pages in the rulebook dedicated to telling the historical relevance of each card, but is still a good enough game that you can enjoy it without being interested in the subject matter.  I just bought a copy, and am excited to break it in.

*Okay mostly just New Zealand and Madagascar.
10. Scrabble

Scrabble is a tile laying game in which.. oh you've heard of this one?  It is only game of my youth that I still play regularly, albeit it mostly in Words with Friends.  I do love beating people with superior vocabulary by creative use of letters.  I only wish there were fewer legal two letter words, as words like qi and za upset the scoring balance.

Honorable mention
Tigris & Euphrates
Endeavor
Vasco De Gama
Ticket to Ride USA (with 1910 expansion)
Stone Age

The Origin

So I got married.  I got the ring and insurance to prove it.  We wanted our wedding to be about us, so we threw in personal touches wherever we could, and only used the traditions had some meaning to us.  Some of them worked and some didn't, but we were generally pleased at how things went.  One of the things I wanted to do was to tell our origin story, so I wrote it, and included it in the program.  It is reprinted below. 

"People often ask us how Becky and I met.  Usually the answer given will be some variation of in college, through a friend of a friend, or through a high school classmate of Becky’s who went to college with me.  While these answers are all technically true, they don’t really capture the events that led to the pairing we are here today to celebrate.  After all, it isn’t terribly easy to shorten an irritating nick name, a scrabble game, a made up holiday and more into a 30 second spot.  But since you will be here a while, and I still have to get in my last nap as a bachelor, learn the full tale that led us here.   Names have been kept as to prosecute the guilty

For Becky the story begins with Kate, a good high school friend of hers, venturing off to the university of Bradley in Peoria, Il .   There she met all sorts of well adjusted folks as well as Amy and Carl.  Showing a clear preference for people on the other side of normal, she brought those two back to her hometown of Bourbonnais for Easter Dinner.  There Becky met them and learned Kate had some neat and undeniably comfy friends.

At the same time I was starting my own Bradley career.  Amy lived in my dorm, and I became friends with her as well as her cohorts.  After another particularly crushing Yankees win in the 2001 World Series, Amy posted a message of “poor Joel” as her AIM away message.

This message was Becky first awareness of my existence.  She asked Amy What a Joel was.  Except that wasn’t exactly what Becky asked as it wasn’t precisely what the aim box said.  In fact it was a nickname bestowed upon me, by my illustrious semi-cousin.    No I will not tell you what that nickname was, and no one else will either.  (What? It is my wedding, I can at least pretend that people will listen to me.)   

When I got back from Thanksgiving break in 2001 Amy, Carl and I played a game of scrabble.  Now, you may think there are no words that start with Y and end in pong.  Congratulations, you are on the list of people I will play scrabble with.  As it turns out, Amy and Carl were not of that opinion as Carl added e’s and a lone I to form Yeeeipong .  As per the rules of some game somewhere a vote was taken, and by a margin of 2-1 the play was allowed.  (Guess who the dissenter was.)   Amy was so excited by the new word that she proclaimed it a Holiday, celebrated on the Monday after Thanksgiving.   Carl repeated Yeeeipong! in a unique high strung voice.  I lost the game as well, as made up words can apparently be worth a substantial amount of points.

Thus my first contact with Becky was as a square box on my computer, complaining that she found out about the holiday of Yeeeipong too late, so it had to be extended for a 2^nd day.   We talked a fair bit online after that, and come January she visited Bradley and her friend Kate.  When I first saw her she was sitting under mistletoe at the Apartment.  I threw a rainbow souvenir keychain at her that I picked up for her in N.Y. and gave her a kiss.  We had our first official date at a hole in the wall Chinese place, which we still try to do each anniversary.  A month or so later I visited her at college and we officially started dating.

After that things went as these things go.  You know, virtual snow ball fights, Rocky and Bullwinkle references, pretend and real family trees, and dealing with short-long distance, long-long distance, and the immediate switch to living together in Boston.  And merely 7,830 times of being asked when it was going to happen, here we are.  No, we aren’t having kids right now; we will let you know, maybe.

Like I said, it was through a friend of a friend."

Fifteen Percent Paycut

If all goes to plan, I'll be getting a 15% pay cut in about a month! I'm really excited about this.  I'm not actually being sarcastic here.*  I'm legitimately happy about it.  Well, not about the pay cut itself, but the reason for it, which that I get to go back to normal people hours. 

*This isn't to say this blog will not use sarcasm in unhealthy doses.  It might just be easier to assume that I never quite mean what I say, and be pleasantly surprised when I do.*

*Note style stolen shamelessly from Joe Posnanski.

For the last ten months or I've been working roughly 9:00/9:30-5:30.  This may not seem especially strange except that the PM goes with the 9 and the AM with the 5:30.  Thus, I've been on Honk Kong time, which isn't especially convenient when living in Boston.  Soon I'll be able to actually spend time with my wife while she is awake, do things on weekends, sleep when it is dark, and get lunch from places that don't have chicken from a General on the menu*.

*Like say nondescript vans.  mmmm van food. 

That isn't to say there won't be things that I will miss besides the extra dinero.  I'll have to deal with my arch nemesis mornings again, and I'm not especially looking forward to that.  It is likewise nice to never have to deal with rush hour, a dress code, or people walking up behind me at work.  There is actually a number of unexpected advantages and disadvantages of working weird hours.  I'll have to get into them all at some point.

*The nightshift dress code is to make sure you have pants on before the early shift comes in. 

Let's see what else is new.  Oh, I decided to start a blog.  See it says so right in the url.  There are a couple of main reasons for this development.

One is that I generally do a miserable job with keeping people updated to my life status. Thus, many of you may not know that I'm switching back to days, or that I currently work nights, or that I got married, or moved to Boston, or survived the rough and tumble world of 2nd grade.  I would like to do better.

The other reason is that I feel like I spend way too much time consuming and way too little producing.  It is isn't that I don't have things to say or ideas worth exploring, I just all too often fall into the passive activity of clicking and reading.  It makes me feel unproductive and unaccomplished.  I'd like to get that ratio more balanced.

I don't know that I'll be successful.  After all I didn't decide to start a blog today.  I decided to start a blog a while ago, actually created it a few days ago, and wrote in it today.   I figure it's a start at least.