FAMILY | Luis' Illustrated Blog

Board games on the Xbox 360. A little piece of Heaven. Digital board game tables.

June 19, 2008 in BOARD GAMES, FAMILY, THE SIMPSONS NEWS, VIDEO GAMES

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…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSnRb2XsAHI&eurl=http://purplepawn.com/2008/06/14/digiboard-enters-the-crowded-field-of-interactive-computing/ http://youtube.com/watch?v=rP5y7yp06n0

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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Simpsons Ride invite, Mother’s Day at my house, playing Tigris and Euphrates online, Monastery: The Board Game, Munchkin problems

May 15, 2008 in BOARD GAMES, CATHOLICISM, FAMILY, MY WEEK, SPONSORS, THE SIMPSONS NEWS, VIDEO GAMES

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.

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First week off, Everyone got sick, My amazon store.

May 1, 2008 in FAMILY, MY WEEK, THE SIMPSONS NEWS

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Well, I’m on hiatus now. What really sucks about that is the fact that, last week, they had told me they were going to keep me until Wednesday in case they needed me. This pretty much meant that I was going to have three more days worth of pay and I probably wasn’t going to have a lot of work to do. On Friday around three o’clock I was told that I wasn’t going to stay and that It was my last day that day…yeah…that really stunk. Not only that, but none of my paper work was done so I didn’t even get my last paycheck that day so now I have to do the paperwork at home and so far I haven’t received it.

Over all, I was a bit heartbroken…but it turned out very Providential that this happened because of what happened with my…

FAMILY

My daughter got my wife, son and me sick last week. I just had a sore throat, no big deal, I seem to always have one anyway. My son had the sniffles and a small cough (poor little baby), but my wife…she got the flu. On Wednesday of last week, around 3:00 a.m., my wife woke up shivering, wondering why it was so cold. The temperature in the house was 80 Fahrenheit. It wasn’t exactly cold. I called in sick that day in order to take care of my wife, but more importantly the kids since they didn’t have a baby sitter I couldn’t leave them with anyone in such short notice.

My wife got better as the day went by. The next day, I went to work, and left the boy with my wife (who stayed home again) and I took Munchkin to her Godmother’s house (Carolina). Later, my mom left work a little early, picked up the Munchkin, and went to our house to help my wife. By the time I got home, my wife was feeling well enough to go to work the next day, and so she did. Perhaps it was a good idea, perhaps not, she ended up feeling sick again that night, and not only that, but she lost her voice from talking so much at the school. I spent the entire weekend taking care of a wife who seemed to be getting worse and that couldn’t talk to me. Friday night she couldn’t stop coughing for a good hour. It was awful. It made her throw up. My son, who seemed to be getting better one day, would get worse the next, and my daughter…she’s just a big ball of energy. She’s almost always a handful, even with a very cough that only showed up once a day.

Saturday night my wife had another coughing fit. I was doing everything I could do to make her feel as well as possible. My wife went through lots of lemons and honey. She coughed so much, she got a headache. Sunday was the worst day because around 2:00 a.m., she woke up with a fever. Fortunately, it was gone by seven o’clock that morning. The boy, got sicker that night. He didn’t want to eat and he cried a lot. He was coughing up a storm. My wife, on the other hand, had a really good night that night. She was feeling much, much better.

Monday came and everyone was still sick. The boy woke up with a dry throat and he cried every time he coughed. We remedied the situation quick and made a doctor’s appointment for him, just to make sure he was okay (by “okay” I mean, that he didn’t have more then just a cold). The appointment was for that day. I quickly went to the store to buy food (we were running out), and then I took the boy to the doctor who told me he only had a cold and then he gave me some advice as to how to treat it. It was good piece of mind.

My wife was feeling a lot better that day and her voice had returned. She was up (even though I advised her not to be). She wanted to be up. By the end of the day, she was feeling well enough to go to work the next day and so she did. She went to work because, since she is only a part time teacher at her school, she doesn’t get payed sick days (she’s our only source of income). It went okay for her but she’s still sick and she had a bad night that night. The next day she went to the doctor to find out why. The doctor told her she had a bad case of the flu and gave her some antibiotics. As of the time of this writing, she’s still sick. Hopefully, with the help of the antibiotics, she will finally start getting better.

MY WEEK

In order to make a little bit of extra money on the side, I put up an Amazon store on the site. If you look up near the top of the webpage, you will see a new page tab next to the Illustrated trip to Italy tab. Clicking on it will take you to my Amazon store. You will find some of the Simpsons products I’ve work on over the years, including a Simpsons Monopoly game (GASP! Monopoly!).

Sounds bad. It’ll be time to do something soon. Better get ready. I’ll keep you posted.

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Welcome to the real world Dante, Qwirkle board game, Lame Superman/Spiderman video

February 7, 2008 in ANSWERING COMMENTS, FAMILY, RANDOM THING, THE SIMPSONS NEWS

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

No word on when the show will start up yet. I heard the ride was still being worked on by Friday. I also heard that thirty people in the studio called in sick. I got out just in time before the bug that was going around got me.

FAMILY

I am the proud father of a bouncing baby boy. He was born Jan. 31st 2008 at 7:07 pm and he was 6 pounds,12.3 ounces.

My wife had a c-section because he was in breach position and we had scheduled it for 6:00 pm. Strange thing was that as soon as my wife got in the car to go to the hospital, she started going into labor. Very odd. She was in labor that entire time at the hospital and it wasn’t good news when we were told that an emergency had come up and she was going to be bumped to a later hour. By the time it was her turn for the C-section, her water had broken. The nurses had never seen anything like it. Alesha and I had felt a little odd about having picked the day our son would be born instead of leaving it up to the baby to decide when he wanted to be born. Guess he liked that day also. He was going to be born that day whether we liked it or not.

The operation was quick and went as good as it could be expected. My son was pretty calm about the whole thing. He didn’t really cry that much. Very much like his sister only she didn’t cry at all. One of the first things that my son did when he came into this world was pee on the nurse. I would love to say that my first thought when I saw Dante where more pure and joyous. Something like, “He’s beautiful!” or “Oh wow, that’s my son!” but no. My first thought when I saw my son was, “Holy cow, how come his testicles are so big!? Last time I saw testicles that big compared to the body was on a boy hamster!” (sigh) a Saint, I ain’t.

I had eaten dinner with my parents in the hospital cafeteria, a few minutes before. Alesha had told me that, since I was hungry, I should go eat because she needed me to have enough energy to deal with anything that might come up. So I went to eat and stopped by the waiting room to see if my parents where there. They were. I had pizza. It was terrible. Worst pizza ever. I was gone for about thirty minutes or so. On my way back I went to check the waiting room to see if my in-laws had made it. They had. I let them know about the situation and the delay and then went back to see Alesha. When the baby was born, one of the first things I did was take a picture of Dante with my camera phone and send it to my parents. Turns out, they hadn’t been expecting him to be born so soon and freaked out.

I followed the baby to the nursery and then let my parents in to the nursery area so they could see their new grandson. Everyone was very excited. I would have been even more excited myself if I hadn’t been worrying so much about my wife. I didn’t know how she was doing. We watched as the nurse poked and flipped and flopped Dante like a hamburger patty ready to be cooked. He took it pretty well considering. Then he was left there under a heat lamp buck naked in front of the nursery window for all to see. It was as if he was left to wait until a drive through customer came by and ordered a McDante sandwich. My wife has often told me since, that Dante smells like a sausage. While laying there, I guess he thought he should put on a show for the on lookers because when there was no nurse around he shot up a small fountain of pee.

I left my parents at the nursery window and went to see my wife in the recovery room about twenty minutes after the baby was born. She was doing well but she was really doped up and groggy (at one point during the first night, as she was falling asleep, she told me that next time she wanted, “less noisy medicine”. Must have been the morphine talking). A few minutes later they wheeled her to her room. From this point on it became a waiting game to see what would happen and when we could go home. Once in the room, life got really slow and mellow. Alesha got to see, hold and feed Dante there for the first time. The first night there, I slept at the hospital in a cot by my wife. Munchkin was with my brother and his wife. Next morning she would get dropped off at my parent’s house. I took care of my wife as best as I could although the next night I drove home and brought Munchkin home with me. I did the same the third night but by the fourth I slept at the hospital with my wife again because she really needed me to be there. Munchkin slept at my parent’s house that night. The next morning, Alesha, Dante, the Munchkin and I went home together.

The Munchkin didn’t take her introduction to her little brother very well. On the second day, my parents came to visit brought her along. She got to find out where mommy and daddy had been. When she saw Dante, she was freaked out by him. He must look like one of her dolls to her but the fact that he moves around like a person freaked her out. She didn’t cry or anything but she got nervous and strangely hyper. As if, if she played and did thing loud and crazy enough, she could drive the strange things she was feeling out of her system. When it was time to leave and she realized that I was going to stay a little longer she started crying. My parents say she sat in her car seat unusually quite, holding her teddy bear, looking blankly into space all the way home.

The nurses were very nice. Especially the first four nurses that took care of Alesha the first two days and nights. There was one nurse though, that was really annoying. It was this Asian lady that would come into the room like a tornado and spoke so loud you’d think she was yelling. She was always in a rush and it always seemed as if she was only there to look in on Alesha real quick on her way to see a more “important” patient. “HEY! YOU OKAY?! YOU WANT DOPE?! I GIVE YOU DOPE! ANY PAIN?! NO?! GOOD! I GO NOW! I COME YELL AT YOU LATER!” Every time she’d leave and I’d managed to scrape myself off the ceiling, I’d find that my ears where bleeding. Very annoying.

I spent most of my time at the hospital reading or playing a game on my Gameboy DS. I would get up and help Alesha whenever she needed me and then I would go back to reading or playing. I was really enjoying myself. It’s my idea a great day when I could do that. Superbowl Sunday, I spent reading The Flash comic books and my Warhammer 4oK novel. I forgot about the Superbowl. I’m not an American Football fan though, so I didn’t mind that much. Heard it was a good game though. I went to Church at 5:00 pm that day and was wondering why there were so few people there. Didn’t find out until the next day.

Well, now we are home. Munchkin is getting used to the idea of having a moving doll around the house. She actually gave him a kiss on the head one time. Although she has started getting unusually disobedient lately and I don’t know if it’s because of the baby or because she’s getting to the “terrible twos” stage in her life. Alesha, is doped up all the time and it’s all she could do to breastfeed the Dante between her naps. Meanwhile, Dante is perhaps the easiest baby in the world to take care of. All he does is eat, sleep, and poo. The only time he’s awake is when he’s eating. The rest of the time he’s asleep. Meanwhile, I’m doing every chore around the house that a human being can do. I’m finding it very difficult to write on my blog or even draw. I’m more busy now than I was at work, or at least it feels like it. At work, I at least had a designated lunch break. The other thing I do is sit around and worry about money. I thought we’d be doing better but I haven’t gotten my unemployment checks yet and nor my wife’s maternity leave checks. Thing is, the way things are right now at home, I can’t get another job right now. I have to take care of everyone.

ANSWERING COMMENTS

Holy cow! I got a lot of comments this week. Lets begin.

Bill Ho wrote:

Holy crap, congratulations, Luis! A son and a daughter! Dante Gabriel…very cool that you named your boy after the 19th century poet/illustrator/painter. I’ve heard that people grow into their names, so it looks like Dante will aim high in life and restart the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in the 21st century.

Thanks Bill. The idea for the name Dante came from my wife who is a bit obsessed with Dante Alighieri and she’s been insisting that if we had a boy we had to name him Dante for years now. The middle name Gabriel was after the Archangel Gabriel who appeared to the Virgin Mary and told her she would bare Jesus. We needed to give Dante a Patron Saint as we did with Elizabeth. So far my son and daughter have “Marian” names. Turns out that Dante Gabriel Rossetti is another famous poet/painter, so it seems like Dante is named after two famous poets.

Chris wrote:

Hey Luis!

I’m a long time SQPN listener. And on a completely unrelated note, my wife is the designer of Qwirkle. Well, they were unrelated until I found Qwirkle on your blog! Glad you like it and thanks for the mention!

Chris

PS – Qwirkle retails for $24.95 so I don’t know what is up with that high Amazon price. The publisher sells it directly: www.qwirkle.com

Hi Chris,

So awesome when a designer, or in this case, game designer’s husband gets leaves a comment. I love it. Small world that you listen to SQPN. Get a hold of Greg and Jennifer Willits at the Rosary Army. They’ve been playing a lot of Scrabble lately and I think Qwirkle might be right up there alley since they share a few common mechanics.

Here’s what Board Game Geek has to say about the game:

From the back of the box:

While Qwirkle is as simple as matching colors and shapes, it is a game that also requires tactical maneuvers and well-planned strategy. The game consists of 108 wooden blocks with six different shapes in six colors. Using the blocks, players attempt to score the most points by building lines that share a common attribute – either color or shape. Qwirkle is a quick game to learn, but you’ll soon discover that you’ll need to think strategically in order to score the most points.

Ages 6 and up.

2007 Mensa Select
2007 Parents’ Choice Gold Award
2007 Major Fun Award
2008 Games Magazine Best Family Game Runner-Up

You’re right, the game is waaaaay overpriced on Amazon.com. Thing is, it’s not being sold by Amazon.com but it’s being sold by a “New and Used” seller through Amazon.com. They’re to blame. Maybe if you guys somehow have Amazon.com officially sell the game, they will sell it for the right price.

Carmella writes:

I read your blog in a regular manner and just love it
hope there will be more postings from you, keep on going
greetz, carmella

Thank you for the comment Carmella. I’m gonna try to “keep on going”. It’s getting tricky now that I’m at home. I’m gonna have to come up with a schedule that will allow me to draw and write on the blog during the week. Not only that but I don’t have a working scanner at the moment so either I draw directly on the computer with my Wacom tablet (which is what I did with week’s drawing, which came out so-so) or I draw it on paper and go to my parents house to scan it. It’s a pain.

I went to your site. I recommend you down load WordPress and upload it to your server like I did. Trust me, it’s not cheating. Your knowledge of html will come in reeeaaaal handy. I learned a bit of it myself before I put my blog up and it helps a lot. Meanwhile WordPress itself simplifies a lot of unnecessary work for you. Best of luck.

RANDOM THING

And the winner of The Oh God, how could you let something like this happen?! Quick, someone find me a gun so I could shoot myself in the face and end my misery! award goes to this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5Pjo0WjBcs&eurl=http://samrowan.blogspot.com/

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Baby birth eve, Last day of work, The Dragon Page Cover to Cover, Portrayal.

January 31, 2008 in ANSWERING COMMENTS, FAMILY, PODCASTS, THE SIMPSONS NEWS, VIDEO GAMES

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

Wednesday was the last day of work for me. As of this day, I’ve heard that the writers are back in at the negotiating table. Hopefully an agreement can be had this time. I hope it happens sooner than later. I’ve got enough saved to last a month or so but you never can tell.

The Universal Studios Simpsons ride deadline was Friday. We didn’t make the deadline. I worked Saturday but I spent time at home with my wife and baby girl Sunday. We had a lot of errands to do. I went back into work on Monday and it didn’t seem like much was done by anyone on Sunday even though some of us worked that day. When Wednesday came, it still looked like there was a lot of work left to do. Doesn’t seem like the work will ever end on that project. It did for me though. Pray for us.

FAMILY

My son Dante Gabriel will be born this Thursday January 31. He’s in breach position so it will have to be a C-section. It’s exciting and worrisome at the same time. Hope all goes well. Munchkin will have a crazy day. She’s going to be passed around like a baton for the next day and a half from Godparents, to Aunt, to Grandparents. Once she’s gone I won’t see her till I pick her up at my parents the following evening. I wonder what she will think is happening? I hope she doesn’t freak out when we bring the new baby home and she discovers that we can’t give her all our attention all the time like she’s used to.

In a strange way, getting layoff right now is turning out to be a really good thing. It means I’ll be able to help out when I’m needed most. On the other hand, the money would come in real handy now more than ever.

PODCASTS

I often listen to a Podcast called: The Dragon Page Cover to Cover. It’s basically a podcast where they interview hot Sci fi/Fantasy books authors, as well as discuss Fantasy books and writing. It’s a great podcast for people who like reading Sci fi and Fantasy books. The podcast is great when they keep to the topic of fantasy books, but the thing about Sci fi and Fantasy books is that they tend to bring up subjects that are often controversial, like politics, religion, or secular philosophy. Therefore, sometimes the hosts of the show, which seem to me to be secular humanists, tend to say things about subjects like Christianity that maybe they shouldn’t say. As is typical in these discussions they tend to be subtly and not so subtly anti-Christian and even anti-Catholic. Most of the time, I tend to ignore stuff like that because this kind of bigotry is so normal in California that, even though it bugs me, it’s usually not worth making a big stink out it. Thing is, sometimes, I just can’t stand it anymore and I have to say something. In the case of The Dragon page podcast, I couldn’t keep quite about something that was said by one of the hosts.

I think that this host is great. I have nothing against him personally and I find myself being really disappointed when he isn’t on show because he’s working or something. He’s great because he’s a published author of many best selling books and he often gives great insight to the inner workings of publishing. He also goes out of his way to help people learn to write and has a general reputation of being a stand up guy. Thing is, I get the impression that he’s a fallen away Catholic and as many fallen away Catholics, he tends to give out a small air of disdain about Catholicism, it’s dogmas, and it’s hierarchy. This wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the fact that this bias comes through once in a while in his comments.

There was a particular episode where he brought up something that seemed to me to imply a lot more than just the surface statement. It bothered me so much that I called and left a message asking if I thought I heard him right or if I was just reading more into his statement than he meant. He was good enough to answer my question. I’ve listen to the answer a few times and think he did his best to answer as best he could. I think I understand what he was trying to say but I’m not sure. Problem is that my question was rather long and had a lot of examples, I think there where multiple questions or statements in it and only having heard it once, it’s difficult to just answer everything in a nice little package. It’s obvious that he has read some books about the history of Christianity and since I haven’t particularly read the specific book he mentions in the podcast, I don’t know exactly what information he may be referring to that I don’t have. I do get the impression that the book he talks about puts forth an anti-orthodox theory stating that there where many legitimate Christianities in the beginning and the strongest ended up surviving. While an orthodox Catholic would say that there was only one true Christianity from the start and there were many heresies that tried claiming they were truly Christian but were proven wrong. Of course these kind of arguments use the exact same data but each use a different way of interpreting it based on the interpreter’s world view. I’m not a relativist so I think only one of these points of view is the correct one.

In any case, I’m thinking of maybe sending him an e-mail just to follow up and to thank him for answering my question. I admire his work and the good things he does for others and I hope that he continues to do well.

If you wish to hear the question and the answer, the episode is Cover to Cover #293A. My question begins in the 2:30 mark. Let me know what you think.

For some reason, this entire event has called to mind a quote from Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. It goes like this:

There are not a hundred people in America who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions of people who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church — which is, of course, quite a different thing.

Foreword to Radio Replies Vol. 1, page ix

BOARD GAMES

Besides playing Lost Cities and Lord of the Lord of the Rings – The Confrontation: Deluxe Edition against my wife this week and losing both games to her. I thought I might play a game with you. I was watching one of the latest Board Games with Scott video casts and he reviewed a party game that really caught my attention because of how clever the premise is. I will let Scott explain it in the video so I won’t go into it here. In the video, he actually plays a round of the game with the audience after explaining the game. I thought it would be fun so I played along. I was thinking that maybe you can also.

[video src="http://ia360629.us.archive.org/3/items/bgws_044/bgws_044_lq.mp4" /]

Directly underneath this paragraph is a small thumbnail of the drawing I came up with (it’s a bit difficult to see). DON’T CLICK ON THE THUMBNAIL UNTIL YOU’VE PLAYED THE GAME YOURSELF. After you’ve done so you can look at what I did. In the comments section below I will write what my score was. Did you manage to beat my score? No fair pausing the video. I didn’t.

ANSWERING COMMENTS

I don’t have a specific comment I want to answer this week. I would just like to thank everyone that has commented positively on the last cartoon I put up. Because of the response, I’m planning to make another one that will follow a similar style also involving Superman, Batman, and even Spiderman this time. I’ve already started writing it and it’s gotten a bit out of control in how long it is. I’m even thinking of animating it a bit more than the original one and I might have to use Adobe Flash to do it I haven’t made up my mind yet if I’m going to go that route. Now that I have a little more time, I might be able to do something as elaborate as that. Stay tuned.

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Simpsons show interships, Dresden books, Trailers, Birthdays, Working on weekends

January 18, 2008 in ANSWERING COMMENTS, BOOKS, FAMILY, MOVIES, THE SIMPSONS NEWS

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

More twelve hour days. I’m really getting burned out. It’s getting difficult to stay focused. I’ve run out of podcasts to listen to and that isn’t helping.

Usually I listen to six to sixteen podcasts a day depending on the their length but since I’ve been working more hours I’ve been listening to around eight to twenty four podcasts a day. The podcasts I listen to just don’t update fast enough to keep up with the amount of hours I listen. I’ve started putting in TV dvds and listening to them as I work. I did this with 30 Rock recently. I hadn’t seen it before, I thought it was a pretty clever show.

Anyway, hope I can keep this up. They’re having me work Saturday and Sunday this weekend. Sheesh!

FAMILY

Friday was Eduardo’s birthday. He’s my daughter’s Godfather (Compadre, in spanish). He celebrated it on Sunday. It was a nice party. He had all his family over and it really looked like he was enjoying himself an awful lot.

After the party had gone on a while, Eduardo took out Ticket to Ride: Europe. He only managed to explain the rules before people had to leave so the game didn’t even get past the first two turns. He then thought that it would be easier to play a game of Texas Hold ’em. Mostly because he wouldn’t have to explain the rules. I’d brought Modern Art the card game by Reiner Knizia and I managed to convince everyone who stayed to try it out. I personally find this game feels a bit like Texas Hold ’em without being like poker at all. Here’s the Board Game Geek description of the game:

Buying and selling paintings is a very lucrative business, at least that’s what Hollywood’s led us to believe, and that’s the premise of this game. Five different artists have produced a bunch of paintings, and it’s the player’s task to be both the buyer and the seller, hopefully making a profit in both roles. He does this by putting a painting from his hand up for auction each turn. He gets the money if some other player buys it, but must pay the bank if he buys it for himself. After each round, paintings are valued by the number of paintings of that type that were sold. The broker with the most cash after four rounds is the winner.

Part of the Knizia auction trilogy.

Winner of the 1993 Deutscher Spiele Preis.

There where six people wanting to play but it’s a five player game so I sat out of the game and just played banker (which I did a lousy job at since I’m terrible at math). The game was played by Eduardo, Eduardo’s brother, his brother’s wife, my wife Alesha, and Eduardo’s daughter Carolinita. I think everyone had a good time. The game has you making really tough decisions through out the game. I’m not sure everyone understood all the rules but I think that game was played as good as it could have been. It didn’t help that we were playing on a really, really windy night, outside, with very little light. Eduardo played the game the way I did the first time I played it. He went all out on the auctions he really wanted the “paintings” in. Eduardo’s brother and his wife were playing the game really well. I was really impressed by the smart decisions they were making. I think one of them would have won if it wasn’t for the fact that Eduardo ended up spending all his money on an auction late in the game which gave Carolinita a ton of money since she was the one auctioning off the “paintings”. I think, I did something similar the first time I played. The game ended shortly after that and Carolinita ended up winning by a lot of money. She was very, very happy about that. Eduardo came in dead last, poor guy.

We then played Texas Hold ’em. Which I like playing, although I find it gets repetitive if you play for too long. I thought I’d be cool and see if I could guess what cards people had by looking at their faces and not even look at my cards. I’d play the game on just “tells” alone (I saw it in a movie once). I lost all my chips. We left a little after that. Not because I lost but because someone reminded me that it was Sunday and I had work the next day. Otherwise I would have stuck around and cried a little more. I had a good time though.

Happy Birthday Eduardo.

MOVIES

Here’s a few trailers that have caught my eye in the last few months.

Batman Dark Knight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jqq4j52Fb4

Still not sure if it will be as good or better than Batman Begins but it looks interesting.

Iron man:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhgzIM-9lfA&feature=player_embedded#t=61

I just liked the shot were you see Iron man out running the jets. Too cool. I never read Iron man comics but I’ve read comics with Iron man in them and I think the idea of the character is great. As a kid he never really appealed to me but for some reason he appeals to me quite a bit now.

Prince Caspian :

I don’t know. I didn’t really like the book this movie is based on, all that much (I also didn’t like The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe book either) but this movie might be good. I didn’t much like the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe movie. I thought it came off as emotionally flat in places that it should not have been. So far I’ve only read four Narnia books and the only ones I’ve liked have been skipped as movies. They are: The Magician’s Nephew, and A Horse and his Boy. Personally I think they should have made The Magician’s Nephew the first movie.

I’ve read they’re making a Justice League Movie also but now it’s on hold. Read about it by clicking HERE.

BOOKS

A month or so ago I finished reading Storm Front, a Harry Dresden book by Jim Butcher, and I really liked it. Since the book I have is an anthology of four novels in one, I began reading the next one right after I was done with the first. I don’t think I’ll be able to get through it anytime soon though. It’s longer and I haven’t gotten back to it in a while. At the moment I’m in the mood for something a little different. Then I’ll get back to it. I like the Dresden stories a lot and I think Jim Butcher’s writing style is just really fun. The wacky situations Harry Dresden gets himself in are just great. I highly recommend these books.

ANSWERING COMMENTS

Alex wrote:

Luis, I find your story very inspiring, and truly appreciate where you are coming from. You seem like one of the hardest workers, and one more importantly, who will not give up on his dreams. In the same footsteps, I am an aspiring screenwriter with a focus on humor and satire; from the start have longed to write for The Simpsons. It has been a childhood dream, since my beginning days watching, and has followed me to college today. I was wondering if you would have any advice when it comes to getting an internship with The Simpsons, or if you would possibly be willing to talk more about your experience. I do apologize if it seems I am asking a lot, but I am fascinated by your story and your ability to succeed. If anything, please do not mistake me for just another Simpsons freak, I am a passionate and dedicated writer. Feel free to respond to the comment or email me.

Thanks so much, and great work for The Simpsons!

-Alex

Hi Alex,

First I’d like to thank you for the compliments. I really appreciate them. I must say, that the way a lot the things happened to me really felt like pure dumb luck or, since I’m Catholic, they where a bit Providential (and even then, on hindsight, it seems it wasn’t just for my sake these things happened to me. More on that some other time perhaps). If I was to try to do the same thing today, I would not be able to. The studio no longer has an internship for up and coming artists and I’m afraid that it never had one for writers. Most of the new artist that have gotten hired lately have done so through the presentation of a portfolio and then turning in and passing the Layout test they received afterwards. Some artists have worked their way from being receptionists to artists. They did this by befriending artists and learning how to do the work and then taking the Layout test and passing it. So that’s almost like the internship route I took except I wasn’t getting paid for my internship and the person who took this route took five years to make it as an artist.

I’m afraid the writing processes might be a bit trickier to get into. First of all the writers don’t work at the studio I work in. They work at the Fox Studio Lot. Second, I don’t think there’s an easy way to just get hired as a writer on the show except by recommendation (in fact, I think that’s the way it is on all TV shows). That means you not only need to be a really good writer but you also need to have the right connections. I’ve heard it’s very difficult to pull off, but it’s doable.

I spoke to a friend of mine at work, who is trying to get into sitcom writing (not on The Simpsons) and he gave me a rundown of all the things he’s learned so far after reading a lot about it and talking to a lot of writers and producers. You may already know this stuff, but perhaps there are others who don’t. Here’s some helpful tips he’s learned:

Tape six episodes of TV shows that you like that are currently on the air and study them. Pay close attention to their story structure (take notes on any conventions, variants on conventions or structural innovations), show formulas, humor, etc…
Get actual scripts for these shows. (On e-bay or Script Shack) Study the writing style, make a list of the type of humor in the show (example: Ironic humor, slapstick…etc.) Note what type of gags are used the most and how the show is structured to pay them off. Label each joke. Invent names for them if necessary.
Write a spec script for a show that is CURRENTLY ON THE AIR but not on the show that you want to write for. For example, if you want to write for The Simpsons, write a Family Guy spec script. Why? Because producers and writers will be much harsher on someone writing in a universe they know well than one they don’t. They will pay more attention to the writing on a spec script written for a different show than the mistakes you made writing in their’s. (This is also true for artists. It’s not a good idea to put Simpsons characters in your portfolio when trying to get a job on the Simpsons).
Get an agent. Studios will not read you script without one.

It’s possible you already own these books but I’ll put them here anyway. My friend recommends these books:

The Comic toolbox, by John Vorhaus

Writing Television Sitcoms by Evan Smith

Comedy Writing Secrets by Mel Helitzer, Mark Shatz

My friend also told me that there is some sort of writers workshop program at Warner Brothers. It’s a program that is very much under the radar and as of the time of this writing it’s the off season for it. Besides there is also a writer’s strike so that also doesn’t help. You might look into it though. It’s possible to get a script writing assistant job from it.

When I worked on the Simpsons Movie, I worked at the Fox Studio Lot for about three months and I saw the Simpsons writers once in a while. I would also see Matt Groening almost at a daily basis because his office was near the place I was working and in order to go to the bathroom I passed by his office. One or two writers ventured into our work place out of curiosity just to see how we did things. They where real modest and very friendly. From the stories I’ve gotten from some directors, I heard they went through as much hell as we did in the movie, if not more. I gathered from things that they said when they came by that there was a definite hierarchy within the writers. Some were part of the “A team” and some the “B team”. Of course, I may very well have misunderstood because I’ve also heard (perhaps from the movie commentary) that there was a group that was having more fun than another group because one group was under the pressure of making the movie story work while the other group sat around having fun coming up with gags and laughing all the time. It’s possible that the “gag group” thought the “story group” was having more fun because they got the “important” job while they sat around feeling like second class citizens. Not having been part of the writing processes, I could only speculate from what I saw and over heard so take this with a grain of salt.

Well Alex, I hope this is in someway helpful.

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Nephilim skeletons, writer’s strike offspring, Munchkin goes to work

January 11, 2008 in BLOGS, BOARD GAMES, FAMILY, MY WEEK, Nephilim Skeletons, PODCASTS, THE SIMPSONS NEWS

THE SIMPSONS NEWS
I heard the deadline for the Universal Studios Simpsons ride is the twenty fifth of January. So now I know what the potential day of my layoff is. I’m glad that I have this job even though I’m really reaching burn out. I’m making quite a bit of overtime money which will help once I haven’t got a job. I’d much rather be able to pay off debts or put the money in savings though.

I overheard a conversation at the office the other day about the writer’s strike and how it effects the animation industry. Animation writers are not part of the Writer’s Union. They are part of the Animation Union. This means that writers other than the ones on The Simpsons, King of the Hill, and Family Guy (who are part of the Writer’s Union) can still work. In other words, writers at Cartoon Network, and other studios that are part of the Animation Union are NOT on strike. They still have work. This means it’s possible for me to find work in another studio.

BLOGS
So I thought I’d go on the internet and find studios that I might be able to work for and I stumbled on a fire storm that I didn’t even know was going on by my fellow Animation Union members about how they want to get residuals for the work we do. If you’re interested in this, click here. It’s crazy. Some of these guys are saying pretty much what many of us are thinking. I just didn’t know how complicated things were. Here’s a small taste of what is said on the post:

At 11/08/2007 07:27:00 PM, Anonymous said…

Some artists talked about taking action to get residuals like the writers.

I think that’s something that should be address too. Artist have been creating shows from zero scripts in tv and feature. Where’s the piece of pie for them?

FAMILY
Brought my wife and the Munchkin to work last Friday. We got there at six o’clock a.m. They both had doctors appointments one after the other in Pasadena in the afternoon and it was the only way that I could take them and not lose too much work time. Since my wife is on medical bed rest and that entails not driving, I had to take them.

Munchkin had a great time. She sat on my lap most of the morning as I worked. We have these giant, life size, wooden cutouts of the Simpsons family on the wall and she loved to look at them. Especially Maggie who was exactly the same hight she was. She kept staring at her and pointing.

We brought a portable playpen with us and when it was time for her nap, we put it and her in Lance and Tommy’s office. They where out on vacation so they weren’t using it. She was having so much fun that she didn’t want to be put in the crib and started to cry. She only cried for about thirty seconds before she realized she was too tired to continue and fell asleep. Unfortunately she was only able to sleep for about an hour before I had to take her out so we could go to the doctor’s office.

At the doctors office, my wife was told (again) that the baby is still in breach position, which means she’s gonna get a C-section. The doctor told her that the baby would be coming in two to three weeks (around the time of my layoff). Meanwhile the Munchkin got a flu shot at the pediatrician. She was on my lap when it happened and before it happened I covered her eyes. She didn’t see it happen but she felt it and cried for about fifteen seconds before I “rescued her” and made her feel better. It couldn’t have gone better.

Afterwards, I took them back home, and drove an hour back to work. I got back at three o’clock and worked till seven. I actually managed to work my eight hours that day, in spite of all the driving around I did.

BOARD GAMES
Played Age of Empires III: Age of Discovery board game this weekend with my brother and his wife Deborah. This time we played with the correct rules (I really messed them up the last time). It was awesome! We had so much fun with that game. It definitely plays better when you know the rules and don’t have to constantly be looking them up. We played it for a bit over three hours. Don’t know why it took us so long. I guess I need to take into account the fact that it was a learning game for my brother and Deborah. In any case we had a lot of fun. They told me that we should play it again sometime soon. I don’t know when since it’s a long game but we’ll see. I still have a few longer games that I want to try that I haven’t gotten around to.

PODCASTS

I got mentioned a few times on Geeklabel radio podcast #67. Man, that podcast cracks me up. I still need to send them some things I owe them. Man, I need more time.

MY WEEK
So a friend of mine at work had gotten all apocalyptic on me. He was telling me how, in four years a planetoid called Nibiru is going to pass by the earth and wreck havoc on the planet. He then proceeded to show me a You Tube video about it. It was very interesting but it was also very typical of the apocalyptic videos that where making the rounds in 1999 except that this one combines biblical passages, and UFOs. It would make a great Sci-fi movie. It took him a few days to realize how much misinformation and hog wash was in the video. I will not put it up on my site because it’s just silly.

The thing that struck me about this video though is that they talked a lot of about the Nephilim. You know, the off spring of the sons of God and human women in the book of Genesis 6: 1-4.

4 Now giants were upon the earth in those days. For after the sons of God went in to the daughters of men, and they brought forth children, these are the mighty men of old, men of renown. (Gen 6:4)

Well, the thing is that the video showed pictures of people sitting next to excavated skeletons of GIANTS. The pictures had me wondering if the photos where real or if they where just doctored photographs. Where they really the excavated remains of the Nephilim? If they where, how come no one ever talks about them? I thought they must be fake because if scientists made such a big deal out of the “hobbit” skeleton, they would go nuts over skeletons of giants. Here are the pictures:

Pretty creepy looking, huh? So I went on the internet and found a few places that explain all the photos but one. The first one is obviously just a forced perspective trick. It’s one of the ways they made the Hobbits in the Lord of the Rings movies look short. The skeletons are close to the camera and the men are down in a ditch farther away. Here is another picture that was taken of the same two guys:

The second…I don’t know, the lighting on the man doesn’t match the lighting on the skeleton so the photo seems doctored.

The third is a digitally doctored photograph. [EDIT: I’ve just been informed that the third photo was made specifically for a Photoshop contest. It won third place. This is the site for the contest: Worth1000.com. They’ve got other weird Photoshoped photos there. Check them out.] One of the original pictures used in this photo is this one I put below:

Sure would have been cool if they were real. Just imagine if you were to go to a Museum who had some…

Of course, Genesis 6:4 may have a deeper symbolic interpretation than just a literal one. The New Advent website puts forth this commentary to the DOUAY-RHEIMS version of this passage:

Giants… It is likely the generality of men before the flood were of a gigantic stature in comparison with what men now are. But these here spoken of are called giants, as being not only tall in stature, but violent and savage in their dispositions, and mere monsters of cruelty and lust.

For more on this topic see my other post:Nephilim Skeletons again, Superhero geekness.

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Bed rest, Munchkin beds, Selling ads, Playing games

January 3, 2008 in BLOGS, BOARD GAMES, FAMILY, THE SIMPSONS NEWS

THE SIMPSONS NEWS
Had an easier week than usual working on the ride. I actually got to home on time most of the week.

There are less and less people working on the show every week. I talked to one of the character designers of the show today and he told me he only had two more weeks before he gets laid off.

Today is my dad’s last day on King of the Hill because of the strike. Please pray for him and all the people affected by it. We all need the prayers.

FAMILY
Alesha was put on bed rest by her doctor. She was feeling some long moments of “discomfort” a few days ago (and by discomfort I mean pain). Turns out she needs to take it easy so the baby doesn’t come too soon. It was bad enough so that on the 30th we went to register at the hospital and then she checked herself in just in case there was something wrong. There wasn’t, as we found out after being there for about two hours but it made my wife feel a lot better knowing that. That’s when the doctor gave her the bed rest prescription. From now on, she needs to take it easy until the baby comes.

Meanwhile, this New Year’s Eve we decided it would be a good idea to start training our sixteen month old Munchkin to sleep on a toddler bed. Especially since her baby brother would use her crib once he’s born. Also Alesha won’t need to reach into a crib to pick her up. I built the bed this New Year’s Eve and introduced the bed to the Munchkin who was overwhelmed with excitement when she saw it. She ran over to it, climbed into it, and began jumping and dancing around on it. She would then lay down on it (with her little butt up in the air) and say “nigh nigh” lay there for about ten to fifteen seconds before standing up on it to dance and jump again. She would do this over and over again. It was hilarious. I was having so much fun watching her.

So after all that, I took her downstairs so she could play for a little while longer before I put her down for a nap. When nap time came I took her upstairs and put her in her new bed. A minute after I left the room, we saw her in the baby monitor getting up out of the bed and playing with the toys around her room. I went in her room and put her back on the bed about three times before I just decided to let her be. It was funny because she would get out, sit by her bed and look at it for a long time with her bottle in her mouth. She would then touching the bed once in a while and would sometimes even kiss it but she wouldn’t get in it. At one point she got up and went off camera so we didn’t know what she was doing. I left her alone for a long time but she never made it back within camera range. I told Alesha that it had been long enough and if she wasn’t going to go to sleep, I would just go get her. When I opened the door, I found her on the carpet asleep in the center of her room. I put a blanket on her and let her be.

Since it was New Years Eve, the Munchkin spent the night away parting with our family at our aunts house (and she really partied hard. She danced and ran around and ate and played bongos. She had a blast). When we got home she slept in her new bed without incident. Next day though, when we put her on the bed for her nap, she got out of the bed again, began playing with her toys and next thing we know, she fell asleep in the same place on the carpet as she did the day before. She looked like a doll laying there as if some careless kid had just dropped her as they walked out the door. It was very funny.

We were a little concerned that she wouldn’t sleep in her bed when we put her down to sleep that night, but she was actually fine. She didn’t get out of bed and just lay down until she fell asleep. She moves around a lot and I was afraid, when I saw she had moved to a spot on the bed that didn’t have a rail, that she would fall out. So I got a big cushion we had laying around and put it under the opening. It’s a very very low bed so it’s no big deal but I just didn’t want her to land on the carpet get all bothered and begin to cry. Sure enough, a little while later I saw on the monitor that she was no longer in the bed. I went in and found her on the cushion completely asleep covered by blankets. She looked very comfortable and I almost left her there but I decided that it wouldn’t be a good idea and put her back in the bed. She didn’t even wake up. She slept the rest of the night without incident and even slept an hour longer than she usually does.

Now when we put her down for her nap she sleeps on her bed instead of on the carpet. She’s apparently gotten used to it and I think she likes her it.

BLOGS
I’d like to give a big THANK YOU to Science of Identity Foundation for paying to advertise their site on my site. I’m very grateful. Thank you. The link ad is located in the top right just above the “Pages” and “Top Commentators” tags.

It’s funny but considering the subject matter of the site, it makes me curious as to why they would have chosen my site. In any case, I’m glad they did. Yay!

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BOARD GAMES
We played quite a few games this weekend. We actually got to play Dune! It was really fun. We only played with three people but we had a good time. My wife played the Bene Gesserit, my wife’s best friend played the Atreides, and I was Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV . The game ended in turn four and I won. It took us two hours to get to turn four but that was only because we were checking the rules every other minute as we learned the game. Next time we play, I doubt it will take that long to get to the fourth turn. If no one wins after fifteen turns, the game ends. I must say, that all the effort I made putting the game together paid off because the game was really great fun.

Afterwards we played a game of Liar’s Dice (my wife gave it to me for Christmas). That game was fun also. It’s a nice short “filler” game.

The next, day we had a little bit of time when we put the Munchkin down for a nap, so we thought we’d play a game. The game was Cleopatra and the Society of Architects. We knew we wouldn’t be able to finish it before Munchkin woke up but we played it anyway. We only played for a while before she woke so we decided to end the game and do all the end game scoring. The winner of the game is the person with the most money at the end of the game but there’s a catch…the person who has accumulated the most corruption tokens at the end of the game (even if they have the most money) gets thrown to the crocodiles and cannot win. My wife’s friend and I tied with the most corruption. Cleopatra threw us to the crocodiles so my wife ended up winning. It was a very fun game. I recommend it. It shares a few mechanics with Settlers of Catan but the point of the game is to build a miniature of Cleopatra’s Palace instead of building cities and roads.

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Universal Studios Simpsons ride

December 21, 2007 in ANSWERING COMMENTS, BOARD GAMES, FAMILY, MY WEEK, PODCASTS, THE SIMPSONS NEWS

THE SIMPSONS NEWS
Okay so, it turns out that I got laid off the Simpsons show but I’m still not out of a job just yet. Wednesday, the day after I got laid off, I went back to work because I got put on the Simpsons’ Universal Studios Ride. As it happens, the Simpsons’ writers have discovered that the ride is something that they can actually write for because it’s not a movie or a t.v. show. This means that all the writers have set their eyes on the ride and have begun re-writing the heck out it, seemingly, just because it gives them something to do. Everyone that was working on the ride until now was having a hard time of it but it was getting done and it was going to meet it’s deadline. Not anymore. Now, because of all the re-writes, it’s in huge trouble. How much trouble? I wasn’t even laid off yet, nor was I done with my work, when they called me and asked me to pick up ride stuff so I could start working on it as soon as I was done with the show. On the one hand this is good because it gives me a little more work to do. On the other hand, it’s only for about two more weeks and it’s been as chaotic and stressful as working on the Simpsons movie. If a fact, I feel like I’m on the movie all over again. Speaking of the movie, The Simpsons Movie DVD is out now. (See how I did that?)

Meanwhile the scenes I worked on for Lance’s crew were just insane. I hadn’t worked on so many complicated scenes in a row EVER. They were driving me crazy. They were just so hard. I’m really tired. I need a break. I’m almost looking forward to being laid off…almost.

MY WEEK
So, there is nothing worse then Internet trouble. Our Internet connection wasn’t working for a couple of days this week. We got it fixed but our router isn’t working right now and switching computers is a big pain. Mostly because every time we switch computers, the modem stops working. We have to unplug the modem for a minute and make sure the computer is turned off for it to work with the new computer we plug it up to. At least it’s better than not having Internet at all.

FAMILY
I would like to say a big Happy Birthday to my niece Carolinita. She celebrated her birthday this weekend with a fun little party. My baby girl had a really good time at the party. We ended up having to leave a little early (even though I didn’t really want to) because we needed to see a sick friend (it took us two and a half hours to get to our sick friend’s place that day. That really stunk). I got Carolinita Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers. I own regular Carcassonne and it’s a big hit. It’s a simple game where you score points by laying down little tiles that, by end of the game, makes up a big map of Carcassonne that you created yourself and is different every time you play. I got her Hunters and Gatherers instead of regular Carcassonne because I’ve been hearing, a lot lately, that Hunters and Gatherers is a better game. I also heard it’s an even easier game to understand. I hope she likes it. She’s really into Cranium games right now and may not be too into anything else. Especially since the last present I got her was Hey! That’s My Fish!, which I think intimidated her because of it’s abstract, tactical nature. Luckily, even though Carcassonne can be played very competitively, you can’t really tell when you first start playing it and therefore it’s easier and much more fun to get into.

PODCAST
So I was listening to the Rosary Army Podcast #199 and Greg was talking about comics and video games and I just couldn’t help myself, I went on their forums and started a Comics and Games folder. I’ve been writing in that thing all week. For a while, there were only a handful of posts in it that weren’t mine. I was just having a conversation with myself most of the time hogging up the folder. I guess I just like to read my own writing. I must have the biggest ego ever. Pretty pathetic. At least I’ve discovered that there are other people, who listen to Rosary Army out there that play some of the board games that I write about. Also, the people that have written about the comics they read, have made me want to pick those specific comics up (which is bad because I can’t afford to). In any case, little by little other people are making comments in the folder. Hope it keeps up. Don’t want the folder to become my next blog.

Meanwhile Rosary Army podcast #200 is just NUTS! It’s a musical. They did a really great job with it. Go check it out.

Congratulations on 200 episodes guy!

BOARD GAMES
Just thought I’d throw this out there in case you wanted a twenty minute modern board game 101 class. I got this from Board games with Scott. Enjoy:

ANSWERING COMMENTS

Mike wrote:

Sorry to hear you are without income soon Luis. That’s not something that could easily happen here, as you probably know we live in a ‘welfare state’ and are pretty well protected against things like these. Trust me, it has its downsides as well. Of course if you are self employed like I am, then you just have to make sure you have money in the bank to cover for lesser times. Being without (enough) money has its upsides though: when it returns, you appreciate it a lot more 🙂 Board games are easily to get here. We have this Dutch factory called Jumbo that no doubt is part of the reason for the popularity of board games. Cultural heritage must be another one. It’s just fun to do something that involves the whole family, whether you’re 7 or 77.

I agree that being without money helps you appreciate it a lot more once you have some again. Another thing it helps you do is prioritize what’s important and what’s not. Also, it helps you enjoy the good things you already have instead of looking around for the next big thing. Personally, all I really need is enough money for the mortgage, the bills, and food. My wife and I have been talking and planning about this and we’ve actually discovered that we might be able to get by with enough money for this stuff without losing too much from our savings for a few months. Hopefully the strike won’t last that long.

Your board game cultural heritage is has been getting “exported” to the U.S. since Settlers of Catan came over here. European board games have a different flavor to the traditional U.S. Games. 90% of the board games I own are translated European games. The European games have become so popular that there are many new American games that have begun adopting their game mechanics. There is even a new Monopoly game that has done this called Monopoly – Tropical Tycoon DVD Game. Tom Vasel from The Dice Tower podcast (one of the best board game podcasts out there and I highly recommend it) thinks that it’s the best Monopoly game out there.

My sister Elsie wrote:

Hi my brother! I heard about the Christmas decorating little get together. Bummed I wasn’t there 🙁 So happy that the Munchkin is feeling better. Goodness me! It took her forever to get her little teeth, I guess they waited to come out until her head and body could kinda catch up with the enormity of her teeth 😉 I so looooove the pics! especially the booger one. Boogers have never looked so good, tee hee. Oh, and those hidden ornaments…*sigh* poor little guys, they are now officially affected for life. I hope that the writer’s strike clears up sooner than later. I hope that everyone gets what they deserve. What an terrible time to be left jobless! I’m just starting my new job and I haven’t worked for 3 weeks, and won’t really get paid until next year, so I kinda know….it totally sucks! I know that it will be hard to keep up your blog, with all the different transitions and the like but hey, I’m sure we all would love to hear what’s up with you 😉 I love you!!!! your sister li.

We really missed you at the party Li, but of course Juan and Deborah didn’t make it either so you shouldn’t feel too sad.

As far as everyone getting what they deserve from the writer’s strike…to quote Shakespeare in my favorite play, Hamlet:

“God’s bodykins, man, much better. Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping?”

I’m very happy about you new job. I wish you all the best with it and I hope you enjoy it very much.

Even after I get laid off I will still continue to blog. I’m just going to have to come up with a special time to do it. Hopefully I can get my scanner to work, but if I can’t I’ll think of something.

I love you and I miss you.

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Writer’s strike got me! Decorating trees, Board gaming comments

December 14, 2007 in ANSWERING COMMENTS, BLOGS, BOARD GAMES, FAMILY, THE SIMPSONS NEWS

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

The writer’s strike, strikes again! On Tuesday we found out that an entire crew was sent off into the limbo that is hiatus. That is to say, they got laid off that day. Director Bob Anderson didn’t have any more work to give them and they had finished all they could. So the studio didn’t have any other choice but to put them on temporary hiatus until the strike is over.

Funny thing is, I found this out in a crew meeting that was called to tell us that our crew was going on hiatus next Tuesday when we finish our animatic. That right, you read right, after Tuesday of next week, I no longer have a job until the writer’s strike is over. I feel very helpless. I don’t know how long the strike is going to last. I was hoping this wouldn’t happen. I was sort of anticipating this but now that it’s happened, it’s really messed up. We were told we would be able to come back a week after the strike was over but when will that be? How will I be able to pay the bills? There is a lot of things going through my head about what I might be able to do about this. I’ll keep you posted. By next week, depending on what happens with Bongo comics, I may or may not make a few additions to this site. I’m definitely going to add a Pay Pal donations button as soon as I can. One thing that would help is, if you buy a board game or book or something that you see at this site, please do so through this site. Amazon will give me four percent of the purchase for being the “middle man” . In fact, one of the things I was thinking of doing is adding an Amazon store to the site. There, you would be able to buy some of the comics I’ve worked on as well as other things. What do you think? Do you have any ideas?

Please pray for us and pray the strike ends soon. Thanks and Pax Christi.

FAMILY

My wife and I decided to put up an Advent/Christmas tree up this weekend (I called it “Advent/Christmas” since it’s the Advent season right now, not the Christmas season. Technically, Christmas season doesn’t start until the twenty fifth of December and ends on the Feast of the Epiphany, January sixth) I wasn’t really going to put up a tree. I haven’t put up a tree since I moved out of my parents place, but now that I have a one year old daughter (The Munchkin), I thought it would be nice to do something big and visual for her for the Holidays. That way, she could see that there was something different going on this time of year. Then, maybe next year she will recognize that it’s happening again (my Nativity scene, besides being tiny, is packed up somewhere and I can’t seem to find it). I told my wife my idea and she agreed. We then thought it would be nice to invite people over to help do it so the baby saw it as an event. Problem was that it was a bit last minute so everyone had prior engagements. We didn’t even bother asking my brother and his wife because we knew they had their own thing going on since it was their wedding anniversary weekend. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY GUYS!

Another problem came up when The Munchkin came down with a crazy fever early in the week because of her teething. She was miserable. I don’t know why but she’s getting the biggest teeth I’ve ever seen on a baby. They’re huge! They’re bigger than her FACE!

Once they start coming out, she’s in crazy pain and her body reacts with a heavy fever. I mean she gets so hot you could fry an egg on her forehead.

To make matters worse, she also caught a cold. So she was coughing and sneezing and she had boogers all over her face.

It was awful. She didn’t want to eat or anything. We took care of her all week and I adjusted my work schedule to make sure I was able to do so. She had some really bad moments, poor baby.

By the time the tree decorating day came, the worst of the sickness had passed and she was almost her old happy self again. She still had a cold but the fever was gone and she began eating again. My parents were able to show up and some other friends told us they would be coming over also. Since they would not be able to arrive until later, we began the decorating. I put on some Christmas music (since I didn’t have any Advent music) and we began to decorate the tree. We had a fantastic time. There was only the five of us. It was a very intimate family moment. The Munchkin helped put up tree ornaments along with everyone else (And by helping “put up tree ornaments” I mean, The Munchkin would get a ornament and shove it into the tree as deep as she could so you couldn’t even see it anymore. She did this with quite a few and all of them in the same spot. They are now officially “lost” deep inside the tree.)

We had a great time. Later, it turned out that everyone we invited was actually able to come. We had a good little party for The Munchkin and she had a good time, the way I wanted her too. I consider the night a great successes.

By the way, my parents, also celebrated an Anniversary this week. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MOM ON POP!

ANSWERING COMMENTS

Wow, I got quite a few long comments last post. I like it.Keep them coming.

Mike wrote:

Thanks Luis. No wonders involved, just hard work. I am sure you will say the same about your excellent work. Coincidentally, just yesterday I heard on the news that board games sales went up again here in Holland.

Hi Mike , that’s interesting that you heard on the news that board game sales went up over there in Holland. The fact that you heard anything at all about board games on any news channel or radio station is amazing to me. Here in the U.S., we have a very limited selection of board games to choose from at our large chain stores. The old classics (Monopoly, Risk, Scrabble, etc…) that have been around for the last 30 to 40 years (usually themed around the latest hot movie of the month) are pretty much the only things we can get unless you count the handful of new party games here and there. We actually have to go out to specialty board game stores (which I only know of three in all of Los Angeles) in order to get something different. The only other way is to order online. How is it in Holland?

Maria wrote:

I have to respond to the person who thinks board games are for kids. There’s really nothing to be done about that. There are just people who get it, and people who don’t, and the ones who don’t get board games probably never will.

I grew up playing all the classics, and I am glad to say that my kids love board games, too, and that’s really fun now that they are in college and finishing high school. Every once in a while I’ll hear one of them say they have a really cool friend, but they don’t like board games (like it’s a character flaw, LOL–well, it is!)

We are currently conducting a family experiment to see who can make the best “team” when playing games requiring some kind of intuitve communication (we really enjoy Cranium-type games). We’re actually trying to collect empirical data about our skills and how they complement each other. Maybe that’s going a bit too far, but hey, we’re having fun.

Maria, thank you for the response. Your family experiment sounds fascinating and fun. If anything, if just sounds like a darn good excuse to play games with the family. You’ve made gaming a “Meta game”.

I agree that it’s a character flaw when someone doesn’t like board games. It’s almost like their saying, “I’m too grown up for that kind of silly thing” Where’s your sense of good, clean, light hearted fun?!

Of course it’s possible that when someone brings up the topic of board games, they immediately think of Monopoly or Scrabble or some other classic. To be honest, if I was to be asked to play any of these games, I wouldn’t want to play them either. I’m not much on words and spelling, so I wouldn’t want to play Scrabble, even though it’s a fun game (I’d play Qwirkle though. Similar mechanics but with shapes and colors instead of letters), and Monopoly feels like work and it goes on forever. In fact any “Roll and Move ” game that doesn’t provide some sort of tricky decision making (Careers did this pretty well) is just plain dull. It’s like the game plays itself and your just there to roll the dice. Where is the fun in that? Monopoly is only fun when you actually start wheeling and dealing and if I want that kind of game, The Settlers of Catan pretty much provides that kind of interaction and fun from turn one. In the same way as the Cranium games have taken Parlor games , Party Games and board games and evolved them to a more wacky, crazy, fun experience. The other modern board games have taken board games and made them into something completely new.

I think that some people might be able to “get” board games, if only they were presented with the right one for them. Of course there are always the other kind of people who just refuse period but that’s their problem. I don’t know what kind of game your kids have presented to their cool friends but I know that the games that tend to really work well for me are The Settlers of Catan , Ticket to Ride , and Carcassonne . I don’t know if you own any of these. If you don’t, I highly recommend them, if you do, have your kids tried them on their friends? Did they still not like them? If they didn’t, maybe they are wargamers.

In any case I’m going to provide some links that might help anyone learn and familiarize themselves with some of these games:

How to play Settlers of Catan– this link goes to an interactive tutorial that explains how to play The Settlers of Catan .

Other Catan games– This link take you to the main page where you can click on other interactive tutorial of other Catan games.

How to play Ticket to Ride– This link take you to a six minute video at the Days of Wonder site that shows you how to play Ticket to Ride .

Carcassonne: The Discovery review and explanation– This link takes you to a video from “Board games with Scott” (It’s a really geeky video cast that explains some of the modern board games out there). This video explains Carcassonne: The Discovery , which is a Carcassonne variant. It will give you an idea of what the Carcassonne games are like.

By the way, if you don’t own these already, I highly recommend, Lord of the Rings by Reiner Knizia and Shadows over Camelot by Serge Laget and Bruno Cathala . They are both cooperative games (like Cranium Hoopla ). The Lord of the Rings game plays 2-5 players (6 with the Sauron expansion) and Shadows over Camelot plays 3-7 players. They are great games to play if everyone wants to be in one team a fight a common enemy, (namely the game). Maybe I’ll write more about these games some other time. For now I recommend you look them up on Board Game Geek . (By the way, love your blog).

Tao wrote:

Hi Luis,

Amusingly enough, Starlit Citadel is one of the few board game store sponsors to his site. I completely agree with you about his blog, I find it really interesting though sadly don’t have a huge amount of time to read it.

As for board games being for kids, I think in North America, there’s been a trend for board games to become more main stream. Certainly it seems that way especially when you compare it to 10 years ago or even 5.

I’ve never tried Civ the board game myself, though I hear a good translation of computer to video game is Age of Empire III. Definitely one I have to play soon.

Tao , Yehuda’s blog can be addicting once you start reading it. I’m glad you’re one of his sponsors.

As to the board games sales increasing, well, that sounds pretty cool. I wonder if word of mouth is getting around.

Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery board game ROCKS! A while ago, my wife gave me most of the money to go get the game because the first Age of Empire games were some of her favorites and I sure wasn’t going to argue. I loved the game. This is strange of me to say because our first game wasn’t all that great. The game has a really steep learning curve, it’s rather long, and we got rules wrong. I didn’t necessarily have a fantastic time, yet thirty minutes after we finished I became completely obsessed with it. All I could do was think about it and what I would try doing next time I played. In fact, I wanted to play it again that night but it was way to late to play. I still want to play it again. I can’t wait to do so. I will put one disclaimer though. It doesn’t play like a real time strategy game at all. I haven’t played the Age of Empires III video game but I doubt it plays like the board game. Also I wouldn’t recommend it for the newbie board gamer since it’s a bit complicated for people not used to some of these game play mechanics. It throws a lot of them at you at once. It’s similar in complexity to Pillars of the Earth. Still, Age of Empires board game rocks!

Bill wrote:

Funny, I never thought the board game called “chess” was just for kids.

Hey Bill , Yehuda’s blog post took that into account. He wrote:

Board and card games used to be for adults; today, mainstream board games require no more brain than the average 3-6 year old can wield. Games like Sorry. Trouble. Monopoly. Most “games” are not even games but “activities”, such as Trivial Pursuit, Pictionary, etc… meant for breaking the ice at parties.

Mystifyingly enough, ask the same person if Chess or Bridge or Go are for children, and he will admit that they are for adults, but that he never thought to group them under the term “board game”. But Bridge and Chess require so much time to learn to play well, and who has that much time?

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Luis' Illustrated Blog

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Universal Studios Simpsons ride

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