Luis’ Illustrated Blog

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

After having finished with a Couch Gag on Monday and the finishing touches on Act 1 of show 3 on Tuesday, I was assigned one of the craziest, most complicated Couch Gag I’d ever done and it’s do Friday…no pressure.

MY WEEK

Okay, so I loooovve watching the World Cup. It’s the only time I go out of my way to watch ANY sport.  I don’t really do that but for the World Cup, I make an exception.  Why? I don’t know. The tournament has a  special place in my heart, I think, from watching it with family and friends and the vibe has never left me. I just enjoy it A LOT.

Problem is, it’s taking up all my time.  At least, all the time I’ve reserved to work on my private things like this blog and my personal projects.  The games just happen to fall exactly during the times I tend to use to work on those two things.  I’m writing this so you’re not surprised as to why my blog entries are suddenly so short and uninspired for the next Month.

It’s the World Cup’s fault.

ART

World Cup is taking all my time so I didn’t really get much drawn this week.  I developed the Sorceress a little bit more.  Decided on a face and refined the shapes a bit more to my liking:

FAMILY

Ambrose went to daycare for the first time this week.  He and his big brother and sister went to daycare everyday (except Tuesday, where they spent it with my parents) this week and the next. Alesha has gone back to work for the next two weeks and then the school year ends.

Ambrose was a very good baby and behaved himself. I’m very proud of the little booger.

VIDEO GAMES

STAR WARS video games have some of the best cinematic. Case in point:

It looks like they took the likeness of actor Sam Witwer and modeled it into the character.

And then there is this one:

There is something kinda DRAGONBALL Z about it.

VIDEOS

For those of you who are fan of George R. R. Martin’s SONG OF ICE AND FIRE books and have yet to see this, here is the teaser trailer for the HBO series based on the books:

For more comic and stories written by me, CLICK HERE.

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THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Second week doing board revisions. I’m getting a little bit more used to it.  I’ve been told that from this show until show 5 there’s just going to be a lot of rewriting of the shows after the story reel screenings.  This means I’m going to have some pretty crazy couple of Months.

To make things worse, I’ve come down with a really bad cold.  It’s a bad one but I came into work anyway since I really need to get the work done.  There is way too much work and I don’t want to drop it all on my friend’s lap if I have to take the rest of the week off.

ART

Last time I wrote about the basic setting my next project is going to take place in. This time, I’ll tell you the story I’m going to animate. If you don’t want to have it spoiled then don’t read on. Thing is, from now on when I write about the project and my progress, I’ll assume you know the story.

My goal with this story was to write the shortest story I could think of. Nothing epic at all.  Very simple. Something I know I can finish and at the same time have fun doing. It was very hard to come up with something that met all those requirements. Especially the “fun for me to do” part. Guess I’m very picky.

So here’s the rough idea of the story I have in mind:

After not eating for a day and a half, Rob Howard has finally managed to scrounge up enough money to buy a hot dog. Not just any Hot Dog but a Super Deluxe All Beef Ultra Dog with everything on it.  He and his Raven (which I haven’t yet named) are planning to share this hard earned feast.  He takes the Hot Dog to the nearest bench to sit down and eat it.  He’s been dreaming about eating this Hot Dog all day, and finally his dream is a reality.  He’s starving.

As he’s about to take a bite a shadow comes across him.  He stops and looks up to see three Sorcerers looming above him. He rolls his eyes and sighs.  The Sorcerer inform Rob they’re there to kill him.  That the prophesy will not be fulfilled. Rob is waaay to hungry to care. He just wants to eat his Hot Dog, so he asks the Sorcerers if they would just give him the courtesy of a few minutes so he could eat his Hot Dog in peace. They could try to kill him all they want after that.  The Sorcerer refuse and look as if they are about to attack.  Rob then pleads with them.  He asks if there is anything he can do just to get a minute.  The Sorcerers stop, look at each other, and maybe even converse.  They tell Rob that if he hands over his anti Sorcery Weapon, they will give him a minute.  Rob gladly accepts the terms telling them that he hates the thing and had no intention of using it anyway.  But he also tells them that the weapon has an annoying habit of coming back to him somehow. He hands over his weapon that, currently,  looks like small Medical Reflex Hammer. The Sorcerers take it, laugh at it and throw it away into the bushes. 

Happily Rob grabs his Hot Dog for his first bite only to be stopped by an attack by the Sorcerers.  The bastards went back on the deal. Uneaten Hot Dog and plate still in hand, Rob tries to run for safety. He’s blocked and attacked by a Flying Ape.  He gets hurt but he’s still okay.  He tries to escape through other directions only to come faced to face with something similar. Flying Apes, Giant Serpents, Stone Elemental,  all prevent him from leaving and hurt him as he manages to dodge and evade them while always keeping his precious Hot Dog safe.  Meanwhile the Raven fights to protect Rob, attacking the creatures and the Sorcerers.  At one point, the Raven gets hit hard and gets thrown into the bushes.

Rob realizes there is no escape for him, so he decides to do what he should have done from the start, eat his Hot Dog in the middle of all the chaos. But even this is difficult as he’s attacked left and right, almost dropping the Hot Dog and losing the Hot Dog quite a few times.  Finally there is a small lull in the fighting. Rob has managed to lose the Hot Dog (still on the plate), only a few feet out of reach.  He crawls to it and reaches out to it. Time to finally eat, only to have the Hot Dog SMASHED by the boot of the lead Sorcerer.

The Hot Dog is no more.  The only thing Rob wanted. The only symbol of peace Rob had, was destroyed. The Raven flies out of the bushes, something gleaming in it’s talons. Rob looks at the ruins of the his Hot Dog and asks the Sorcerers why they didn’t just let him eat in peace for only a few minutes. Only a few minutes, that’s all he had asked for. Now they had crossed the line. 

Rob gets on one knee, his shirt in taters, his pants burned and full of holes, his face scratched, his hair a mess. Sweat glistening off his battered bloody body. He reaches out his hand and the Raven drops the little hammer into his outstretched palm. Rob looks fiercely at the Sorcerers with a savagery that they’ve never seen in anyone’s eyes before.  The Hammer magically grows enormous. Almost bigger than Rob and yet he hold it as if it’s as lite as feather. The Sorcerers gulp. Beads of worried sweat on their foreheads.

Pay back.

Rob  attacks. The Flying Ape, The Giant Serpent, and the Stone Elemental go to protect their masters, only to get dispatched with ease by the enormous swingings of the hammer. The Sorcerers throw out all the magick they can in order to get away from the berserker coming at them. Nothing stops him.  Bam! goes one. Downed by the massive hit of the hammer to the chest.  The demon that gave the Sorcerer his magick is knocked out of it’s body leaving him powerless.  A second or two later, the same happens to another. He’s out for the count.  Finally the leader tries a last effort.  It fails. The hammer knocks the demon out the Sorcerer’s body and the guy is now defenseless. Rob walks over and picks up the quivering man.  He looks him straight in the eyes, “You owe me a Hot Dog”.

A trembling Hot Dog vendor standing in the midst of the chaos and rubble of the battle is asked politely for a Super Deluxe All Beef Ultra Dog by the now powerless leader of the trio of Sorcerers.  The Raven lands on Rob’s shoulder. He looks at his bird friend, “Make that two.”

The End

At this point the story is still malleable, but this is pretty much what it will be like.

What appeals to me about the story so far is the potential for really dramatic serious moments juxtaposed with lite comedic moments.  After all, it’s about a Hot Dog.

What do you think?

The drawing above is another version of Rob I sketched out.  I like the drawing but I’m not sure the design of the face is where I want to take the character.

BOARD GAMES/VIDEO GAMES

I’ve been playing a surprising amount of games lately…well…sorta.  I’ve been playing some board games and some video games with my kids.  I’ve been testing out the capacity of my kids to play board games by the rules.  I’ve also been testing them to see how well they catch on to playing video games.  Why? Well, for one thing, I’m DESPERATE to play games with SOMEONE. Also, I want to keep the kids entertained because we can’t always go out and play at the community playground.

I’ve discovered that Dante, my two year old, is a bit of a lazy video game player.  Around his age, his sister used to at least press the buttons because she understood that she was somehow doing something on the screen.  Dante doesn’t do that. I think he understand that he’s doing something but for some reason he’d rather just passively watch the screen. He refuses to press the buttons.  I don’t know why. It almost seems like he’d rather have someone else to do it for him.

When it comes to board games, Dante is a little better.  He know how to take his turn and depending on the game, he follows the rules to some extent. What he really enjoys is being on the table somehow participating in the activity.  He especially likes it when I’m there on the table playing with them.  I’ve left them with some board games by themselves to see how they would play it on their own but he loses interest very quickly.

Elizabeth, my 3 year old, is a different story.  She loves to play video games and tries VERY hard to learn how to control the game.  I remember when she was around Dante’s age, she tried hard to play video games with far less success.  Now that she’s older, things are starting to make a little more sense to her. More often than not, when playing video games, the “game”, for her is moving something on the screen around.  Although I brought out a Space Invaders Playstation 1 game that came out in 1999 and had her play it. She learned it pretty quickly and knew what to do. She actually managed to clear the first level of “Invaders”. Later we played it cooperatively and had a great time.

I’ve found that Elizabeth “gets” the idea of playing board games now too.  She understand that there are rules and that they need to be followed in order to play a game.  One time, I took out some Dominoes.  I thought that they would probably just stack them and play around with them, making up their own games like they do sometimes.  Instead after looking and playing with them for about a minute, Elizabeth turn to me and asked me what we where suppose to DO with them.  She wanted some sort of rules that we could play a game with.  I was very surprised.  We played an open hand game of basic Dominoes and she caught on really quick.  With her, I can play very simple games and she’ll play by the rules. I’ve also found that basic roll and move games bore her.  Awesome.

It’s tricky to play games with both kids since they are each at different levels of comprehension. It’s great when I find a game that they each can understand how to play.  It’s even better when I find a game that they each understand how to play and I also enjoy playing.  Now, Dante comes up to me everyday and asks to play a game with me. His exact words are:

…in a very sing song way. He never fails to say “for” instead of “with”. It makes me smile every time. Even when I’m too tired to play.

BOARD GAMES

In other board game news, on Saturday, Alesha asked me if I wanted to play a board game. What do you think I said?

Well, we played LOST CITIES.  As always, I lost and Alesha laughed at me.  No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to beat her at that game. To see my review of that game CLICK HERE.

Then I played a game of BATTLELORE.  I wanted to play this game mainly to use the magic and “Lore” mechanic in the game.  Especially since I hadn’t yet. Unlike the last time I played BATTLELORE with Alesha, I managed to win this game, although it wasn’t a very satisfying win since we got a rule wrong and Alesha was confused about some rules at the beginning of the game so…it kinda doesn’t really “count”.

Also, this Tuesday one of my Alesha’s best friend Mariam came over in the evening with her husband Anthony and their baby daughter River (who’s a total cutie).  Turns out Anthony likes gaming, and he brought over a MARIO BROTHERS Chess set.  Seconds after saying hello we were sitting across from each other playing Chess.  I have a chess clock I had only used once. Since I’m a really slow Chess player, I thought it would be fun to use it. Otherwise my 15 minute long turns would get old real quick.  We played three games. I must say Anthony has some skills because he really had me running every game by at least the third move.  It didn’t help that I was making really bad blunders too.   My biggest flaw in playing Chess is my lack of full awareness of the board. I always tend to focus too much in one area and miss the potential of other pieces on the board. Needless to say, I lost every game.  It was fun though.

Somewhere during that time we managed to eat our dinner. Which was reeaaallly good. I almost wish I  hadn’t been playing a game so I could enjoy it more…almost. I’d rather game than eat.

While we were in a Chess mood, I brought out HIVE. Since HIVE uses the same type of mindset as Chess, Anthony not only picked it up right away, but thrived in it.  He beat me two out of three games.  Pretty cool.  We had fun playing that too.

As we played HIVE, Anthony brought up LORD OF THE RING STRATEGO. I’d never played it, but I do own LORD OF THE RINGS: THE CONFRONTATION: DELUXE EDITION. So I brought it out and we played  two games of that, switching sides after each game.  We both lost using the Fellowship pieces and each game was intense and different. We had a good time with that.  Meanwhile Elizabeth really wanted to play too.  Poor kid, someday when she’s older we could play those games.

It’s funny but I think, by the types of games I brought out, I gave the impression that all I have to play are heavy Chess like strategy games.  As I was thinking about it, I realized that I DO have some really heavy “thinky” games. But I do have some “lite” and/or “family” type games too, like: TICKET TO RIDE: EUROPE, TICKET TO RIDE: THE CARD GAME, CARCASSONE, BOHNANZA, DEAD MONEY, DOMINION, HOITY TOITY, TALES OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS, INGENIOUS, MODERN ART, SETTLER OF CATAN, CRANIUM: ZIGITY, WITS AND WAGERS, QWIRKLE, CRANIUM HOOPLA, LIAR’S DICE, LOOT, UNCLE CHESTNUT’S TABLE GYPE, TRIPOLEY, and SORRY SLIDERS.

As they were leaving, we mentioned something about, perhaps next time, instead of just Anthony and I playing, we could all four play a game.  They mentioned playing their game of CRANIUM.  That wouldn’t be a bad way to start a game night. Hope we can soon.

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THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Came back on the show this week and it was as if I’d never left.  I was handed 32 scenes to finish by the end of the week (yikes!) and I’m off and running. Time to earn my keep.

FAMILY

We had a baby shower this weekend. Lot’s of family and friends showed up. We received many helpful gifts. The shower itself was really nice and the food was fantastic.

I did my typical anti-social thing. I really don’t know why but I’m getting worse about hanging around people. When my brother and his wife Deborah showed up, I  spent my time with them, but that was mainly because they came over and sat down where I was at (and also asked to play a game with me). After talking for an hour or so, I took out two board games that I had brought and played it.  I’ll write about that another day.  I enjoyed myself.  They left early and I sat by myself thinking about stories and my next project.  A few people came by, sat down and talked to me for a few minutes but it wasn’t long before I was alone again thinking.

Later, Angelita, one of my cousin’s daughters, asked me if I wanted to play the board game TROUBLE (it’s that, LUDO/SORRY type game with the “Pop-O-Matic Bubble” that rolls the die for you). There where four of us playing, my three year old daughter was one and my two year old son was another.  My son lost interest quickly and Carolina (my cousin’s eldest daughter) took his place.

That game is awful. It’s such a bad game. We all thought so. You can’t leave the your “Home” base and start moving your pieces around the board unless roll a six.  Which you have no control over and if you manage to do so, if someone lands on your piece, you get that piece sent “Home” again.  It was such a bad game though, that it was actually fun.  We enjoyed making fun of it as we played and didn’t take it seriously at all since it was so luck driven.  I think, the best part about playing the game was that my daughter ended up winning.  She trounced us all.  She rolled so many sixes it was crazy.

Thanks you all for giving us such a good and memorable baby shower.

BOARD GAMES\VIDEO GAMES

I was listening to the Dice Tower Podcast Tuesday and I was made aware of a Carcassonne site that had all kinds of variant rules and printable tiles for the game.  If you like Carcassonne and you want to try new and fun ways to play it, I highly recommend it:

Carcassone Central

Also this site led me to discover a Carcassonne like game for the iPhone with a Sci fi theme that seems really cool called XENO SOLA. It looks cool.

ART

For Part 1 CLICK HERE.

For Part 2, CLICK HERE.

To be continued next week…

BLOGS

The Art Center Blog is fast becoming one of my favorite art drawing blogs to read.  There are a ton of great tips and drawing advice worth reading about there.

One of the article that I really enjoyed recently has been some videos they’ve put up on the merits of warm up sketching during figure drawing.

I highly recommend the article. To read it, CLICK HERE.

VIDEOS

So before I started back at work, I discovered and got addicted to watching yet another anime cartoon.  This time it’s a series sequel to one of my favorite animes SUPER DIMENSION FORTRESS MACROSS (the first part of what was called ROBOTECH in the U.S. which I wrote about show a few weeks back). The sequel I’m now watching is called MACROSS FRONTIER. It aired in Japan in 2008 and has not yet seen a U.S. release.

When I became aware of this show, I thought I’d give it a look because I’ve been recently re-watching the original 1980s MACROSS.  I wasn’t really expecting to like it much.  Mostly because I haven’t really gotten into too many anime cartoons in years.  Also, because the last two MACROSS shows I’d seen, didn’t really blow me away either.  Namely, MACROSS 2 (which was pretty bad), MACROSS PLUS Vol. 1-4 (which looked fantastic and were fun to watch but the story didn’t blow me away) and MACROSS 7 (which was a sequel series to the original MACROSS, that was just plain dumb).  This one though, knocked my socks off. It had enough call backs and archetypes from the original MACROSS show to make it feel familiar, but at the same time, they changed things enough so that it’s new. In fact, if you’re familiar with the original show, there is a type of inside joke fake out that they do all the way through the series where you think they’re writing the same story and then turn you’re expectations on their heads.  It’s great.

Besides, I just can’t help watching cool robots fighting aliens. Especially when the robots transform from jets into robots. The effects on the robots and vehicles are mostly CG.

MACROSS is known for one of the female protagonists who ends up becoming a famous pop singer.  This meant the show had a singing component in it that sometimes made it a very lite musical. This version follows the tradition only I actually like the music for once and don’t find it annoying.

I’m also a big sucker for love triangles in my anime (as you can see from my own comic above) and this one has that too.

This is a fun cartoon to watch if you’re a MACROSS fan like me. Best MACROSS since the original. I’m not sure if the show will have the same impact on someone who hasn’t seen the original version but you might enjoy it anyway.  Give it a shot if you can find it online.

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THE SIMPSONS NEWS

I’m slowly making my way through the scenes I need to get done for the show. There were a few last minute scenes I needed to do yesterday but for the most part, I’m making good progress.

FAMILY

Saturday I took the kids out with me to the board game store.  At the store, they made a bee line for some rubber ducks that were out on display for the game duck! duck! Go!. When the kids are older (6 and up), I so want to get this game for them.

I’d totally go for the Justice League rubber ducks.

It looks like a lot of fun.

I also saw the game Pitch Car (which I want to get) but it’s a bit too pricey right now at  $80.00.  I heard it’s great.

A game about flicking “race cars” around a track.

I saw lots of other games I wanted to pick up (but didn’t).  The kids had a good time looking at the games.  Almost as much fun as I did.

When we left and went back home, we dropped off Dante for his afternoon nap and left for the local pet store.  Munchkin had a fantastic time looking at all the animals.  Her favorites where the fish and the birds.  I liked the hamsters and the rats but I know better than to own any of those (I used to have some when I was younger).  I can’t take it when they die.  I get too attached.

On Sunday we all went to Mass together. This basically meant that I payed absolutely no attention to the Mass what so ever, even though the kids where relatively well behaved, mainly because they kept me distracted the whole time as I tried to get them to not cause trouble. After we got home and the kids took a nap, we went out again and went to the mall (just so we had something to do). We wandered around, had some ice cream and Alesha bought a thing or two.

One thing caught Munchkin’s eye. A bike, just her size.  She sat on it and wanted to peddle it out the store.  I liked the way she looked in it and I wanted her to have it so we got it for her on the way back out of the mall.  After all, it was only 30 bucks.  Less than the prize of a video game.

Monday she rode on it.  The bike is really kinda crummy.  If you stop pedaling the bike stops.  Kinda like a tricycle.  Unfortunately Munchkin discovered that she has absolutely no strength in her legs.  She was having a really difficult time trying to get the bike to move.  Most of the time I had to help her by giving her a push.

On that same day, Dante built up the nerve to slide down the slide at the playground by himself.  He climbed up the steps by himself and once he got to the top, he would turn around and go down the slide, feet first, on his belly.  It was really funny to see.  He was very proud of himself and loved doing it.  He spent all his time doing it over and over.

BOARD GAMES

So we ended up playing the Advance Wars board game (aka. Skirmish Wars: Advance Tactics), I printed out, with Andy last  Friday.  It was fantastic!  It works really well.  The game plays a bit long so you we ended up borrowing the end game rules from the Command and Colors games (games like BattleLore) in order to have the game end faster.  Andy ended up winning because of a blunder I made.  Otherwise things were looking pretty bleak for him.  The game has almost no luck at all. It plays very much like a game in the style of Final Fantasy Tactics or Fire Emblem only every “Figure” represents a unit of troops. Also, you are able to capture buildings in the game in order to get more money at the beginning of your turn which enables you to pay for more expensive more powerful units.  The only luck in the game is a dice you roll you make in order to see if you do an extra point of damage during an attack, otherwise the damage you will do to your opponent is a known quantity.  If really fun.  I highly recommend it and you really can beat the price, free.

VIDEO GAMES

I’ve written about Magic: The Gathering before, but now, if you own an Xbox 360 you will be able to play the game without having to buy any cards.  The game is coming out  for  Xbox LIVE Arcade on June 17th for 800 MS points.  It seems like it’s going to play fairly well.  The only thing I thought was kinda odd is that you won’t be able to buy “booster packs” in the game in order to customize your deck.  It will only let you unlock one card at a time as you win matches. That’s the only way you will be able to customize your deck. Otherwise, you only get pre-constructed decks to play the game with.  That said, I think the game sounds fun.  After I read about the game, I actually considered maybe getting an Xbox 360 for the first time.  I doubt I could afford to buy one even if I wanted one though.

If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.

Comments are appreciated as well.

I also have a store. Click Here and check it out.

If you would like to have a text ad on my site, click on the red BUY LINKS button under the Archives list.

And while you’re at it, please Digg me too.

Writing this blog is almost a part time job for me. Tips are most welcome.

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Working late for two days straight again this week.  Need to make up the hours because I’m going to be missing a day of work to take care of the kids for a day.  My work load isn’t too crazy but the scenes I need to do are pretty complicated.  I’m working on a new crew right now. I’m helping out for the week. I’m not sure what happens afterward.  Hopefully I get put on a new crew.  Right now, the show I’m helping out on, is a show from last season.  This is their last week to ship everything.  I’m feeling the pressure.

FAMILY

Big day for Carolina’s family last Saturday.  Angelita, Carolina’s youngest daughter, did her First Communion.  We were all very happy for her.  Afterward we gathered at their house and had a First Communion party.  Munchkin had a fantastic time.  She had so much fun that when it was time to go, she left crying.

Meanwhile Dante and Alesha had to stay home.  Dante had a fever late last week.  He wasn’t doing very well at all.  Still, in spite of the fact that he was burning up, he insisted on sitting down to eat.  He also wanted to walk around and play.  He wanted so much to do what he always does, but the poor boy found himself not being able to do much.  By the end of the week, he was back to normal.  He just needed to spend at least one weekend at home without going out anywhere.

CATHOLICISM

I went to get my lunch on Monday from the kitchen at work.  As I was walking back to my desk I overheard a conversation at a  table in the kitchen from my fellow co-workers talking about the whole Obama/Notre Dame thing. Of course, most of the people I work with are on Obama’s side of the debate; and of course, they saw it as a purely political thing.  “Conservative Catholics” vs. “Liberal Catholics”. Their conversation was also the typical anti-Catholic prejudice, you hear everywhere.  “Those Catholics don’t know what they’re doing, they have it all wrong, they’re holding on to ancient things that don’t mean anything”…etc.   It ruined my lunch.  All I heard was a couple of sentences but it got me sooo steamed up it just ruined my lunch.  I couldn’t stop thinking about all the things I would say to them and how I would say it.  How “I would SHOW THEM”.  How my arguments would make them look foolish.  How I would show how much smarter and more intellectual my view was.  How arrogant, heartless and mean an angry Catholic could be…which is, of course, the reason I couldn’t do it and didn’t do it.  I was too angry to say anything that wouldn’t have done more harm than good. It wouldn’t have been a conversion about the topic at hand so much as an exercise in arrogance and pride on my part.

I wondered though, if I HAD said something in a calm, collected, and charitable way, if they would have seen it as a political argument rather than a logical one anyway.  I wonder how much I would be able to say to them that wouldn’t have sounded as if I was politically “Conservative” instead of just Catholic.  Why is it that if you live your faith as it is taught by the Church  you are automatically “a close minded, ultra conservative, right winger”? Why is it that being unfaithful to your Church and faith is celebrated as being “progressive” and open minded? Yes, I understand that there are political Conservatives that are Catholics. I also understand that there are political Liberals that are Catholics. Yet, that really shouldn’t be the issue.  The issue should really be about whether you are a FAITHFUL Catholic or not. You shouldn’t put you parties or political views ahead of the dogmas of your faith.  If you do, it only goes to show which one of the two is your REAL Religion.  In the end, it just  made me sad.

MOVIES

I  used to like Star Wars more than Star Trek.  I thought that Star Wars, in general, was a bit more fun and Star Trek was a bit to “hard sci-fi” to be as fun.  Then George Lucas released his  Star Wars prequels and pretty much ruined the fun of Star Wars by making three movies that never actually captured the fun of the original three.

Along comes the new Star Trek movie and does to Star Trek what Lucas couldn’t pull off with Star Wars. It updates the Star Trek franchise, makes it fun, captures the essence of what made the original Star Trek work (the characters), takes away the dryness of Star Trek, adds some action and makes it cool to like Star Trek.  Yes, the intellectual parts and the hard science, that made Star Trek truly geeky, are missing, but what we get in it’s place is a good fun time.  Hopefully, some of the intellectual stuff will make an appearance in the next movies, for now, I’m happy with what they gave us.

BOARD GAMES/VIDEO GAMES

Haven’t written about games in a while so I just thought I’d write about a board game that will become a video game and some video games that have become board games.

• Dungeon Twister

Andy and I played a game of Dungeon Twister last Friday.  He beat me, but I think the game would have kept going. On hindsight I think we messed up a rule that would have changed the way we saw the last move of the game.

Andy really likes the game. He’s liked it ever since we played it for the first time months ago.  It’s a dungeon crawl-ish chess game with a modular board whose parts twist around. There is no luck in the game.  It’s all tactics and strategy. Here’s the Description of the game:

Dungeon Twister is a 2-player high level strategy game where 2 teams of adventurers with various powers are trapped in a dungeon. The board is composed of 8 rooms that can be moved and rotated by the players. Each turn, a player is able to spend actions to move around the dungeon, pick up and use items, battle with the opponents team, or turn and move the rooms of the dungeon.

The goal is to reach 5 victory points. Points are collected by moving adventurers out of the dungeon or by killing an opponent’s adventurer. Treasures are disseminated across the whole dungeon and will bring the adventurers well-needed powers.

Each player has the same characters, each with different powers. Some run fast, some fight or disarm traps. The cleric heals, magician burns everything in sight and the goblin is so weak that the simple fact of getting him out will bring you two victory points.

Combat and actions are managed via cards. To move, fight, heal or turn a room, you must manage action points obtained by playing cards. Those cards are not drawn but selected from a set of cards by both players. Both players have access to the same panel of cards at the beginning of the game so the game is really about managing the resources and adapting to the changing environment.

It has recently  been announced that a new version of the game is coming out called: Dungeon Twister 2: Prison. This version of the game will actually be different and yet will still play the same as the original and it will be “backwards compatible” with the original. It will be coming out in December. The interesting part is that the game will also be released for Xbox live through Hydravision at the same time.

• Skirmish Wars: Advance Tactics

A few years back, when the first Advance Wars game came out for the GBA, I bought it and totally fell in love with it.  I played that game once for an entire night.  I started playing it at around 7 or 8 pm, looked up after some hours had gone by and discovered the sun was rising.  It was just such a fun game.   I didn’t buy the new ones that came out after that, Mostly because (like the Street fighter games) the new games where pretty much, more of the same and I hadn’t (and still haven’t) unlocked all the maps in the game I have, and the original allowed you to make your own maps as well.  Theoretically I can keep playing the game without needing to buy a new one.  Besides, I haven’t played the game in a few years.

Just found out from the Purple Pawn website that someone has made a free print and play version of the game called Skirmish Wars: Advance Tactics.  They put it up on BGG  and I downloaded the pdf.  It looks great. They made the maps modular so you can create your own scenarios and everything. I’m so going to print it out.  I just need the figure out how “fancy” I want to make my version. I’m sure Andy will be up for a game. I just hope the game doesn’t take too long to play.

Above is a screenshot of what the original video game looks like.  Below is the board game version.

Just looking at the picture make me want to play it.  It looks so fun.

• FITS

From the mind of Reiner Knizia comes FITS.  It’s Tetris the board game. It sounds great.  He really came up with a great way to translate the game into a tabletop game.

FITS (Fill In The Spaces) is essentially a multi-player Tetris . Each player has an inclined board on which they place different polyominoes - like Blokus pieces, with three, four, or five squares. Cards are drawn from a pile to tell the players which piece to take. The pieces may be rotated and reversed before they slide down the inclined area to dock to other gaming pieces, but unlike Tetris cannot be slid horizontally once dropped. Scoring is based on quantity and configuration of squares left uncovered.

Unlike original Tetris there is no time pressure but like Tetris there is no player interaction as every player is engaged with his own board.

This game is now on my Wishlist under “Must have”.  Definitely looks like a game most people will want to play if I was to bring it out.

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THE SIMPSONS NEWS

EDIT: (Okay, I’m keep the original post up but we are no longer accepting suggestions.  Thank you all who participated. Hopefully some of your suggestions will be used when the show airs.)

Well, we haven’t really gotten much of a response from the whole helping us out thing from my last post. Although Josh Lama sent us a really good one. Thanks Josh! We’re still accepting help. Also, I added a link to a Simpsons Show Archive, in that post, so that it’s easier to find the Show numbers and Titles.

In other news, we found out Monday of last week that the show is not going digital yet. It seems the budget for that never got approved so we’re going to need to wait until it does. The process is going to be much slower than everyone thought. We’ve been doing the show the “traditional way” for so long, that changing the entire way we do things, is going to take a lot of effort and growing pains. Thing is, if we go digital, the Korean studio we work with, will also need to do so, which means that we’re going to need to convert two animation studios to a new way of doing things, not just one.

That being said, there are some interesting changes to the show. First, we are now working in a wide screen format. We are using the paper we used in the movie, and though we are not using the same fielding we did in the movie, we are using much wider framing. Second, the show is now four acts long instead of three. The shows are not longer or shorter, this just means that the commercial breaks will break up an episode into four parts instead of three. I think, for us so far, it’s the trickiest thing to rap our heads around.

This week we got to see a crew screening of the colored version of show 17 (which was the last show we worked on before hiatus). It turned out nice. We all had a good time watching it. I’m very happy with it. I’m not sure when it’s airing.

Little by little, I’m getting used to being back at work again. It’s nice to be joking around with friends and generally making fun of things and each other. I still miss being with my kids though.

VIDEO GAMES
So my favorite video game was slightly modified and came out for the Gameboy DS.

I finally managed to find and buy a copy of Civilizations Revolutions (CivRev) last week. I guess the game was either, under ordered or, it was really popular because I couldn’t find a copy anywhere. I managed to get the last copy they had at the store I finally found it in. Like I’ve said in previous post on the this blog, Civilizations (Civ) is my favorite game. The fact that it’s now on the DS is amazing to me because of how involved a game of Civ is.

Once I got the game, I had to wait a while before I was able to sit down and play it because I never had the time. Two days or so after I got it, I had an afternoon free, so I played it. I beat it on Chieftain (the easy difficulty setting) in three hours. I then had enough time, a day later, to play the game on Warlord (the normal difficulty setting) and beat it in about four. Awesome! Not having played the other CivRevs (there is also one for the Xbox 360 and on PS3), I can’t compare the way it plays with them, but from what I’ve read, they play pretty much the same. Of course, the graphics on the DS game are more reminiscent of Civ II than the other versions (but since when has Civ been about the graphics?) It’s definitely a streamlined version of the game. So streamlined that it makes me think that it would translate into a board game pretty easily. I might use some of what this game does, to see if I can’t “fix” my Civ board game (the one I wrote about in a previous post).

Things I like:

• How quick it plays. You can beat a game in a few hours, instead of a few days.
• The different powers of the leaders you choose to play as. You can find the leader that suits your play style best.
• How second nature the controls are. This is, by far, one of the most impressive things to me.
• It feels like Civ. They could have easily messed this part up.
• The fighting is pretty cool, considering. The little animation of the battles you get as really fun to watch.
• The “Great people” are cool. If you’re culture is doing well, you produce “Great people” (like Einstein, Aristotle…etc.) who give your nation a benefit. It’s very neat.
• St. Thomas Becket is one of the “Great people” your culture can produce. Anytime a Saint shows up in a game and has a positive role, is super cool.
• Roads, farming and irrigation have been streamlined to upgrades and something you can buy real quick. As opposed to having to micromanage your Settlers to, irrigate, farm and build roads little by little.
• I can now play Civ anywhere.
• It plays a lot like a boardgame since it’s now far more streamlined.
• You can play against other people online. Although, having played other games online, I’m not sure how fun it would be to have someone leave a game after playing you for a while, just because you’re winning; as has been my experience in other games.

Things I don’t like:

• Spies are really weak. Almost useless. You can’t bribe other units with them. Best thing you can do is steal “Great people” away from your opponent’s cities. They should at least let you be able to view an opponent’s city info.
• Settlers are only there to settle cities. So if you build extra settlers and find out there isn’t any more room to settle more cities, they just sit there doing nothing. They should at least have a secondary function.
• Fighting a city is a crap shoot as to who you will be fighting when you attack it for the first time. Some units develop a special ability that helps you see into the city, but you can’t count on your units developing it.
• Roads, farming and irrigation have been streamlined to upgrades and something you can buy real quick. I kinda miss the micromanaging of these things.
• No world map option. It wouldn’t have been difficult to do either. It’s difficult to get a good idea of the map without it. You’re zoomed in all the time and can’t zoom out.

Still, I love the game. I highly recommend it if you have a DS, an Xbox360 or a PS3.


MY WEEK

I’m posting this right before I leave to go to Comic Con. Yes, it’s that time of the year again where all the geeks go and gather at the San Diego Convention Center and geek out. I worked late on Monday and Tuesday to make up the eight hours I’m going to be missing by going to the Con today. I’ll let you know how it goes for me next week.

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SIMPSONS NEWS

EDIT: (Okay, I’m keep the original post up but we are no longer accepting suggestions.  Thank you all who participated. Hopefully some of your suggestions will be used when the show airs.) 

Are you a Simpsons fan? You want to help out the show and be part of Simpsons history? Well now you can. We need a little bit of help. The show I’m working on is going to have a quick montage of scenes, from previous shows, of Homer getting hurt. Problem is, there are about seven artists on the show plus a Director and an Assistant Director and we haven’t got the time to be looking through, over a hundred shows, to find these scenes. We have to get the show’s new scenes done. That’s where you can help. I’ve been asked by my Director Lance (with permission from one of our producers) to ask you to help us out. If you love the Simpsons and are watching the shows all the time or you just happen see or remember a scene where Homer gets hurt, let us know. Leave a comment on this blog post.

If you choose to help us out, then ideally we need two (or three) things from you:

• A short one line description of the scene where Homer gets hurt (no one else, just Homer) AND…

• The show’s number (which, if you own the DVDs, should be in the booklet that comes in the box or use the handy database in this site: Simpsons Episode Archives) OR at the very least…

• The show’s title OR both…

For example: Homer falls down Springfield Gorge (Show 7F06, Bart the Daredevil.) or Homer chops his thumb off (Trilogy of Error, Show CABF14) Please provide at least either the title or the the show number, if you cannot find any of that info, it’s not likely we would be able to use your suggestion (because without that info we can’t search the archives).

This is the perfect opportunity for you to be able to influence a part of the show. Some day you can be watching the show and say to your grandkids, “I told them to put that in there.”

So are you interested? We need the help. Come on, you know it will be fun to look that stuff up!

VIDEO GAMES

And now for something completely unrelated…

I’ve been writing long winded e-mails back and forth with one of my best friends for the last two weeks about games. It started at first with board games but it has now gone into video games. One of the subjects we’ve written about is a game I really love called Nethack. Now, this game is actually based on a game called Rogue, and Rogue has spawned many variants. So many that it has become it’s own genre. What the Rogue genre tends to have in common is as follows:

1. They are typically fantasy based Roleplaying games.
2. The player only gets one life. When you die, the game is over, you start from the beginning again and often times with a new character.
3. They typically are about exploring a very deep dungeon or group of dungeons.
4. The dungeons are randomly generated. In other words, it’s never the same game twice.
5. They are very difficult.
6. They give the player, many options for actions to take in a given situation.
7. They often times have very, very, primitive graphics, or even no graphics at all.
8. They are often freeware, so you can play them for free.
9. They’re very addictive.

So since we’ve been talking about these Rogue type games, I’ve gotten the urge to play them again.

I first got into playing these games years ago in high school when, this same friend, gave me a copy of a game to play on my computer. This particular game was called Moria. You basically created a character from scratch and the object of the game is to enter “Moria” go down 100 randomly generated levels and kill the Balrog. At the time, I hadn’t read The Lord of the Rings, so the name Moria and Balrog meant nothing to me. When I first played the game, I was confused. I thought at first it was a text based game. But then I realized that the “@”symbol on my screen was supposed to be my character and that when I pressed the arrow keys, he moved around a map that was slowly being revealed. Also, I discovered that the letter “s” that was moving toward my “@” symbol was a snake. It reached my character and began to attack him. I knew this because a line of description appeared at the top of the screen telling me so. I didn’t know what to do. I think that character died. It turns out all I had to do was move toward the snake and the character automatically would have attacked it. In any case, the game caught my attention. Little by little, I learned to play the game with some help from my friend who told me to press “?” to look up the commands. It was the deepest game I’d ever played. I still think that some of these games are deeper than many of the newer fancier games out now. I later discovered that the game Diablo from Blizzard Entertainment was inspired by this game (or possibly Nethack which is a sister game). To give an idea of what this game looks like, I’ve provided a picture below:

Yes, that’s what the game looks like but don’t let it’s look fool you. There is depth in that game greater than in most newer games.

Personally I like Nethack (pictured above) a bit more than Moria. It’s harder, a little more unpredictable and you have far more options than on Moria. I can’t say enough good things about Moria, Nethack and their sibling games. They are sooo much fun and best of all, just about everyone of them is free to play. But don’t take my word for it, Gamespy inducted Nethack into it’s video game hall of fame. Here’s an except from the article:

Progress from version to version is fairly slow (sometimes a couple of years will elapse in silence between releases), but every change in the game is debugged extensively and thought out to its fullest extent. The result? A fascinating exploration of possibilities.

Some examples: Eat a floating eye corpse and you’ll get ESP, which will allow you to see enemies anywhere on the map, but only while blinded. To take advantage of it, you may want to drink a potion of blindness, or preferably, find and wear a blindfold. Of course, while blindfolded, even with ESP you won’t be able to see inanimate objects on the floor — when you find piles of items, your character will have to “feel” for them. Oh, and you won’t be able to read scrolls. Whoops! In that pile of items you just felt is a cockatrice corpse — fortunately you were wearing gloves, otherwise you would’ve been turned to stone just by touching it. But now, blind and protected, you can pick up the cockatrice corpse and use it to attack monsters — now your enemies will turn to stone when you strike them! Unfortunately, their inventory turns to stone as well. Hey, no problem — you’ve got a pick-axe, so you can chisel open their statues to yield a pile of rocks and any of their old possessions. Sadly, thanks to the blindfold, you can’t see a nearby pit and tumble inside. Too bad you were holding the cockatrice corpse — it landed on top of you and turned you to stone. Yet Another Stupid Death, and another reason to cry out in anguish because they think of everything!

NetHack’s legacy is very real. Blizzard admits that Diablo’s gameplay owes a little something to the Rogue-ish dungeon crawl that NetHack inspires. Of course, even Diablo II doesn’t have the depth and complexity of NetHack’s items and interactions… but to be fair it looks a little bit sharper.

If after reading this you feel like trying out one of the games, below is a list of links to sites you can download the games that interest you the most.

Nethack - My favorite one of the these games so far.
Moria - The first game I ever played of these. Almost as tough as Nethack. Not as many commands to learn compared to Nethack.
Angband - Similar to Moria but a lot easier. Chances are, you won’t die early in the game unless you do something really dumb. In this game, instead of going down the dungeon to fight and kill a Balrog, you go down to fight and kill Morgoth.
Rogue - The original game all the other games are based off of.
PRogue - It’s a really fancy full color game with a world map and many dungeons.

If you own a Gameboy DS, and would rather spend some money and play a Rogue type game with better graphics, you can try: Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer. It’s the one I own and I love it.

I’ve heard decent things about these other games.

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THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Well, I haven’t heard anything yet about when I should come in and move my stuff to my new desk. All I know is that I’m going to have to do that before my start date so I can get to work right away. When they’re ready to have me do that, I was told I would get a call. No call yet.

BOARD GAMES

After owning the game for about three years or so, Alesha and I finally got around to playing my Tales of the Arabian Nights board game. This is a storytelling adventure board game. It’s by far one of the most unique games I own. It’s a cross between a roleplaying game and a choose your own adventure with storytelling optional rules (one of 5 optional rules). Very odd but tons of fun.

When I read about the game on Boardgamegeek.com (BGG), I was very intrigued. I decided to get a copy but the only one I found was being sold on BGG by another user. I bought it from them and found, to my dismay, that it was all in German. Lucky for me, the person who sold me the copy help me get a translation for everything in the game. This was a good thing because this board game has a very important item that absolutely needs a translation, namely The Book of Tales. This book is the heart of the game.

During a turn, a player can move a number of spaces on a map of Europe, the Middle East, Asia and a bit of Africa, according to your wealth level. Once you finish your move (if you chose to move) you take a card from the encounter deck. If you flipped over a Fate card you can choose to keep it for later. If you flipped over an encounter, you have some sort of an adventure. Depending where on the map you are, what time of day it is, and what number you roll on a six sided die, the person on your left looks up what happens to you in The Book of Tales. Once they do, they tell you what or who you encounter. You then choose what you want to do, from a small unique group of decisions, based on what you just encountered. Once your choice is made and depending on what skills your character processes, the person on your left reads you a paragraph of what happens to you. The outcome can be good, bad, or sometimes, a bit pointless. Never the less, you have a small adventure. Each adventure you have changes your character in some way, either by giving you Story points, Destiny Points, a new skill, a change in your statues (for good or ill), a change in wealth (for good or ill) or even a treasure.

So what’s the point of the game? Well, that depends on what version of the game you are playing. At the beginning of the Standard and Storytelling version of the game you are asked to secretly distribute 20 points between Story points and Destiny points on a separate piece of paper, this is your secret goal called your Formula (for example if you put 12 points on Story points and 8 points on Destiny points that is your Formula). If during the game, as you travel around the board, you manage to meet your Formula (to continue from the example above…you happen to accumulate 12 Story points and 8 Destiny points) you can return to Baghdad (where all players started from) and win the game.

In The Adventure version of the game, the goal is different. If you manage to complete two quests and return to Baghdad first, you win the game. The adventure version of the game is a little more involved but just as much fun. During the Merchant version of the game, the object is to set up trade routes though out the map in order to gain great wealth. You win if your the first player to return to Baghdad with a treasure. If you’re playing the Solo adventure, you have to complete all the goals of all the other versions of the games (complete your formula, complete two quests, and obtain great wealth).

Out of all the ways to play the game, the Storytelling version is the most unique. This version of the game is different in that, instead of passing The Book of Tales to the person on your left, you keep the book, read what happens to you to yourself, and then you are given two minutes to tell the story in your own words to the people at the table. The more entertaining your version of the story, the more rewards you can get out of your adventure. If you recruit others at the table to help you tell the story by having them make sound effects for you or play a spontaneous supporting role, they might get rewards out of it as well.

I have not played this version of the game yet, but it really sounds like something that would be fun and silly to play. I can picture how much laugher there would be around the table if played with the right group of people.

All in all, we really enjoyed playing the game. Even though it was just the two of us. In fact, I was surprised my wife liked it so much. She like it so much that we played it two nights in a row because Alesha wanted to play it again. She beat me in the game we played the night before. It was a fun time. Alesha had an adventure in the Valley of Diamonds that had her laughing. The floor of the Valley of Diamonds is covered in diamonds but no one goes down there because giants snakes live down there. Alesha decided to risk going down there in a very unique way (but I won’t say what it was so I won’t spoil it for anyone who decides to play the game and investigate the Valley). To make a short story shorter, she didn’t quite succeed in her attempt and was lucky to escape with her life.

We had a blast playing this game. I highly recommend it. Up until now, there is no English version of this game, but that’s going to change soon. Z-man games is releasing an English language version. The version they’re releasing doesn’t seem to support the Merchant variant of the game, like my copy does, but hopefully they won’t change too much more. The new version will have 1000 new paragraphs that my version doesn’t have. In any case, the art looks amazing. It’s much better than the art in my copy (for a view of the new artwork click here). Depending, on how pretty the game is and depending if I happen to have a little extra cash on me, I might want to pick up a copy of the new version as well. Especially since my wife likest the game so much. As of the date of this writing, the game is suppose to come out late this year. You can already pre-order it from Thoughhammer.com.

ROLE PLAYING GAMES

This weekend, my wife invited her nephew and one of her best friends to stay over. I know that her best friend likes playing board games, and her nephew likes to come over, mostly because he wants to play my video games (he’s ten years old). I tried to play Dreamblade with him earlier in the day because I thought he’d get into the figures and the dice rolling, but the game fell flat because it was too complicated for him.

I wanted to play a game with him that he’d be into. The last time they were both over, we played Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery, and even though my wife, her best friend and I had fun, her nephew was bored. I don’t have any board games that would really appeal to a ten year old boy like him. If I had Heroscape it would be a different story, but I don’t. I needed a game that was Heroscape like. I also needed a game that would appeal to my wife and her friend because I wanted them to play as well. I knew that my wife’s best friend would have fun playing anything so after thinking it over and looking into the game closet I took out, Dungeons and Dragons 3.5.

A years or so ago, I picked up a Dungeons and Dragons Basic Game box. It looks like a board game box and it comes with miniatures, pre-generated character sheets, dice, an adventure, basic rules, and a bunch of boards that you can put together to make a dungeon. I brought that down, put it on the table and pretty much treated as if it was a board game. Of course, an hour before, I had to quickly read the adventure so I could take the players through it and I was familiar enough with the rules, that I thought I could play through it without really having to look many of them up.

Besides my wife, no one else knew what to expect from the game. I was not going to make it a heavy Role Play experience. All I was going to do is run a good old fashioned mindless “Hack and Slash dungeon crawl”. Having the minis and the boards helped a ton. The game played without any complications. It also helped that my wife was familiar with the game and she took it upon herself to lead by example, showing everyone all the endless choices that could be made in the game. All in all it was a hit with them. They were having a fantastic time playing the game. We played for four hours before my wife asked if we could stop because she was really tired and wanted to go to sleep. Everyone else at the table wanted to keep on going. They all thought that the game had stopped just as it was getting interesting. I was very surprised how much they liked it. In fact, the whole next day, they were constantly asking me when we would be able to play again. Unfortunately circumstances that day made it impossible to get back to it. Never the less, I got a new appreciation for the game.

Up until that day, I thought that if you were going to play D&D and just run a Hack and Slash Dungeon crawl, you might as well just play a video game that does that, like Diablo, Baldur’s Gate, or Champions of Norrath. Playing the game that night showed me that playing over a tabletop is much more fun. Yes, the fighting it s bit slower but because it’s not a scripted video game, you can choose to do much more creative things. This makes a huge difference, and makes the game much more fun than just playing a video game. Lesson learned.

Speaking of video games…

BOARD GAMES/VIDEO GAMES

Ticket to Ride came out on Xbox Arcade on the 24th of June. I’ve been reading the reviews, just to see what people say about it. Over all the game has gotten dissent reviews. Some player are even shocked at the way the game makes them feel. Like this quote from the Official Xbox magazine site:

Turns unfold steadily but relentlessly, and since you can perform only one action per turn, every moment is significant. We found ourselves at the edge of our seats with Ticket to Ride, hoping our rivals didn’t take certain stretches of track before we could. Yes, on the edge of our seats during a board game! In fact, we got so set on completing our Destination Tickets that the end of the game nearly always caught us by surprise.

Not all the reviews are like this. The IGN review is down right odd. For example this statement in the review:

It’s also a shame that there’s zero story built around the action. There’s no need for much, but something to tie it all together would have really helped this game gel.

Uh…someone should remind him he’s playing a board game not a roleplaying game or a first person shooter. How much story does UNO or RISK have?

Anyway, most everyone likes the game. The thing most reviewers are disappointed with is the visual presentation. They say it looks a bit dull. I agree, compared to the other modern board games on Xbox Arcade, Ticket to Ride doesn’t look as good. Still, it’s about the game play and as far as that goes, they all agree it’s a fun game.

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Writing this blog is almost a part time job for me. Tips are most welcome.

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

So the person who is in charge of putting the schedule together and generally telling us whose crew we are going to be on, is no longer working for the show. Why? I don’t know. All I know is that I’m going to miss him and that now we have to go directly to the producer to know whose crew we will be working on until they find a replacement.

I e-mailed the producer earlier this week to find out if my status has changed. If I am still going to be starting work on the first or second week of July. The answer I got back was sort of the same. I might actually start the 14th of July which is the third week of July. Well, no big deal. At least I’ll be working soon and won’t have to worry about money.

BOARD GAMES/VIDEO GAMES

I’ve been writing a lot about board games through out my blog. That’s because I think they are great fun. Most people, when you say board games, they think, Monopoly, Scrabble, or Risk. These games aren’t bad games but they often bring a lot of baggage with them. Usually when you think of these games, you think, “I used to play that when I was little” or “Man, I played that game to death”. You don’t think, “Boy, I really want to go play that”. Well, there are a ton of new board games out there made by smaller companies that once you try playing them with friends or family, you do say, “Boy, I really want to play that again!” Unfortunately, you won’t see commercials for these games but you can often learn about them through word of mouth or even by playing them on your Xbox 360. Which brings me to my topic today, of board games on the Xbox 360.

If I was to say, “The Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride, or Carcassonne,” the board game geeks would think, “Modern classic board games”. Some of the more adventurous of you would say, “Hey I’ve played one of those. I loved it!” I think most of you would say, “Huh, are they Beatles songs?” Well, the Xbox 360, will hopefully change all that. It seems that the best selling games on Xbox Arcade (which is the place you buy and download games on the Xbox 360) are board games. Though UNO is the best selling, other board games are doing well in their own right. The Settlers of Catan is one of these games:

Ever wanted to try it? You can, using your Xbox 360.

You can also play Carcassonne:

…and Lost Cities. Lost Cities is the ultimate “couples game”. At least it seems that way, because if you look at any “Geek List” on Boardgamegeek.com on: “Couples games“, it’s almost always somewhere on the list. Last time I played this against Alesha, she really beat me pretty good.

The newest modern board games on the horizon for the Xbox Arcade are Ticket to Ride (pictured below) and Alhambra (no picture for that game yet, sorry).

Many people have gone out and bought the actual versions of these games after having played them on Xbox Arcade. Woo hoo! The more people out there that play these games, the more people I might be able to get to play with.

For more pictures and reviews of these games, go to TeamXbox.com

MORE..BOARD GAMES/VIDEO GAMES

A few months back I wrote a post called: Comparing the pros and cons of Video games and Board games. In the last line of that particular post I wrote this:

Maybe someday board games and video games might become one. We’ll have video tables were we move physical pieces around on a digital board that can read what you are doing and we’ll have the best (and worst) of both worlds.

Well, guess what…

For more info on products like these, click on the following link: Gizmo Watch

I found out about this stuff from reading Purple Pawn.

FAMILY

On Friday, I spent the entire day alone with the kids. They woke up at the same time in the morning. I fed them both. Played with them both for a few hours, then I put them to bed for their naps, just a little bit later than usual (and at the same time, which is very unusual for them). They slept well and, wouldn’t you know it, they both woke up at the same time. I went and got them both, fed them while I got ready for a small day out. After lunch I got the kids ready, put on my iPod ear buds, turned on a gaming podcast and we went outside for a walk.

Munchkin, pushed her little brother on his stroller (as I guided it) and she pushed it to the little playground we have in our housing community. Once there, she began climbing and going down the slide. I picked up the boy, sat down and watched his sister be a little daredevil. The sun was shining and a small breeze often cooled us down. The boy and I followed Munchkin around as she played. At one point she decided to play in one spot, picked the curving latter thingy in the playground and began climbing it in all sorts of ways. She was being quite fearless in some of the things she was doing on it. Her brother and I sat a foot away and watched her. We must have sat there for a good twenty minutes.

It’s moments like these that make life worth living. I was so happy I was there with my kids and for the hour and twenty minutes that I was there with them in that playground, there was nothing wrong with the world. Nothing to worry about, no money problems, nothing to stress about, just the breeze, the kids, and the innocence of trying out new things. It was heaven on earth. I kissed the boy, I encouraged the girl, and I was soooo happy. I’m going to miss this kind of thing when I go back to work.

When we got back to the house, I fed Munchkin her dinner and she surprised me by eating it all up in just a few minutes. I gave her treats as a reward. Meanwhile I managed to keep the boy awake for an extra hour until his official bedtime (if I don’t do this, it makes for a very rough night). Then I gave Munchkin a bath, which she loooooves to take. She had a blast splashing around in the tub. Afterwards, I took her out, brushed her teeth and put her to bed (which of course she didn’t want me to do). She stayed awake for a few hours after and I even came in once and “kissed attacked” her. She laughed and giggled and then fell asleep a few minutes after.

It was a great day. I love my kids. They are amazing gifts. I hope I could be a good father to them. I really want to raise them right. Thinking about the day, make me want to cry for some reason. God, I love them so much.

It was the Feast Day of St. Anthony that day. He must have prayed for us to have a little piece of Heaven that day. Thanks, St. Anthony.

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THE SIMPSONS NEWS

I haven’t heard anything yet about getting back to work, but that’s mostly because I haven’t called in to see how things are going. I’m thinking of doing that sometime next week if I don’t heard anything from them.

Meanwhile, I checked my e-mail and I received an invite to go to a preview party, at Universal Studios, for the new Simpsons Ride this Friday. At least we get a small reward for having killed ourselves working on that thing. Can’t wait. I’ll let you know what I think.

FAMILY

For Mother’s Day, my family got together for dinner at our house. We ordered Tai food and pretty much talked and laughed a lot. One of our conversations was about the Indiana Jones movies. We then started talking about how silly and ridiculous Temple of Doom was. I got up and put the movie on, since I own the DVD. By the time we were done with dinner, we were all sitting around the TV watching the movie, making fun of how lame it was, and just having a great time watching it. It was a good fun evening.

BOARD GAMES/VIDEO GAMES

So I decided to go on Board Game Geek to play a game of Tigris & Euphrates using their Play-by-web version of the game on the site. I was doing fairly well for about five turns and then I just got my butt kicked. I ended the game tide for third place out of four people which isn’t very good but I had a blast. In fact, I had such a good time that I immediately joined two more games after the the last one was over.

Tigris & Euphrates is a game designed by Reiner Knizia and it’s by far, one of the most counterintuitive games you’ll ever learn. It’s fun and very very cut throat but it’s difficult to explain and learn. I played it against a free computer program and learned to play it using that before I bought it. It took me three games before I understood what I was doing and then it took me two more before I could even begin to figure out what strategies to use to even have a chance at winning. The first time I played it live, I discovered how crazy cut throat the game really was. The last time I played it was with my brother, his wife Deborah, and my wife Alesha. Alesha got mad at me during that game because I made a move that really messed her up big time. I haven’t played the game with her since. I didn’t really know she’d react that way. Now I’m playing that game online with complete strangers and were really beating each other up in the game and we’re fine with it. Go figure.

CATHOLICISM/BOARD GAMES

So I was reading up on some board game news at the Board game news website and I read a really interesting article about a new board game coming out, from Ragnar Brothers, called Monastery. It’s a 2-4 player game and it lasts 90 minutes. According to the article players:

…experience two days of monastic life. Within each day are three rounds of tile placement and scoring (divided between study and toil), three service rounds (Matins, Sext and Vespers), and a night round.

Wow, how cool is that? To win the game:

…players must collect the letters of the abbey’s motto ‘Libera Nos Quaesumus Ab Omnibus Malis Amen’. The letters become progressively more expensive and players must decide whether to buy letters or recruit extra monks.

As far as I can tell, with my ridiculously bad understanding of Latin, the motto means something like, ‘Liberate us so we could be completely free from evil, amen.’ (if I got this wrong, please feel free to correct me). Wow, religious Latin in my board game.

From the articles I’ve read so far on this game (one on Board game news and the other on BGG), it sounds really pretty darn cool. It looks like there is a lot to it and the theme of being a monk is remarkably well represented in the game:

You start the game with one monk in the Abbey, and monks move about to construct tiles, study, toil, use icons (in the advanced game), or pray. The plastic monk figures are designed to tip forward in prayer, which scores you the value of the tile and takes the monk out of service until it returns to the Abbey. Most of these activities score points for a player, and those points can retrieve letters or additional monks from the “letter grid.”

What other game can you think of where praying is a positive, point giving benefit? I hope it comes out in the U.S., I’d love to buy myself a copy.

MY WEEK

I’ve been fighting with the Munchkin all week, to get her to eat. I sit her down and feed her but she refuses to chew and swallow her food. She just packs the food in her cheeks like a hamster. I’ve tried tricking her by offering her yogurt or even a snow cone while she has food in her mouth, so she could swallow it, but she’s found a way to swallow the yogurt and ice without swallowing the actual food. It’s real frustrating. She only wants snacks treats and milk but not real food. It’s such a pain.

SPONSORS

So I got a new sponsor! Hurray! Thank you Direct TV for advertising on my site. My sponsors are located right in between the “Hi Welcome” greeting and the “Page” “Top Commentators” areas on the right hand side of the blog. Please click on their links and make it worth their while to advertise on this blog. Thank you.

If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.

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I also have a store. Click Here and check it out.

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And while you’re at it, please Digg me too.

Writing this blog is almost a part time job for me. Tips are most welcome.