4 posts tagged “friends”

Friday I had company come visit in several forms.  The first was a good friend who came to hang out for a bit and watch the kids play baseball.  Then my sister and her son came down to spend the weekend.  My sister took my Dad to the Braves/Reds game on Saturday (Braves lost in OT) while I took my nephew, my kids, my mom and my brother to see Speed Racer.  I have to say, I was a little shocked to discover that the "matinee" in Huber Heights is $7.50 (it's 3:50 in Piqua) and frankly I think I was overcharged.  The movie was set pretty solidly at the grade-school age boy level, and that's about it.  They overused the "pan the face across the screen while the background changes into a flashback" way too much--like every four minutes.  And no, I'm not kidding.
Moreover, a lot of people spent a lot of time looking like other people.  Roger Allam spent most of the movie channeling Tim Curry.  Christina Ricci spent a lot of the movie looking like Rose McGowan, and Emile Hirsch spent most of the time not looking like Leonard DiCapprio, which is his usual modus operandi.
Plot?  Paper thin.  Mostly a lot of CGR cars banging around with Spritle and ChimChim providing the "comic relief" up to and including throwing poo (thankfully the chimp's, who seemed to have the most expressive face of the cast as well).
Afterwards, I took the crew out for ice cream, which definitely helped me put a good spin on it.  When we got home, it was nothing but Hot Wheels track, which is the real payoff.

It was kind of a long and very full weekend.  Friday I got the Quarrelers painted (see below).  Saturday I was invited to a roleplaying game in Columbus, Ohio.  The game was The Morrow Project, a post-apocalyptic game written back in the early 1980's.  It was such a different experience than what I have with Castles & Crusades, for several reasons.  First, I was a player, not the gamemaster (first time in ten years).  Second, it was sci-fi and not fantasy.  Third, the group plays once every three months, but for an entire day: 7 full hours of gaming.  I play more frequently, but only for roughly two hour sessions.  That means an entirely different pacing.  Finally, it was a group that has been playing together for years and year, all guys.  The whole thing was fun and new and at only once every three months might even be something I could do again.

Sunday, after a very long service I went over to the fire station to play a game of Warhammer I was pretty sure I was going to lose.  For one thing, I had decided to experiment (at 4-0 you can afford to try some stuff out) with a gunpowder-free army.  Crossbows instead of handguns, bolt throwers instead of cannons, flame cannon instead of an organ gun.  Everything else was just large blocks of infantry and a gyrocopter.  Vince (my usual opponent) I knew would be ready to finally put paid to his four losses at the tiny hands of my dwarfs and after the first turn I thought he had the game in the bag.  His catapults decimated my large infantry blocks, wolf riders and ogre mercenaries were tearing away at my flanks, etc. 

Then suddenly the luck just went sour for him.  Animosity checks started holding his line back.  He miscast twice.  He got no less than five misfires on his warmachines.  And while he is being forced to hold back those crossbowmen (enjoying a 30" range rather than the handguns 15") peppered away at his army.  By the eighth turn, he had two figures left (aside from warmachine crew) and I had still half my army, including all of my heroes.  Now I'm 5-0 and Vince is swearing vengeance.

While I was writing this, I got a call to do a last-minute funeral for another church tomorrow, so I'll be wrapping up here to prepare for that.  Take care.

Who says you can beat peer pressure!  My friends Israel and Marie just signed up for a Vox blog, enlarging the size of my little Vox e-tribe to seven (including myself).  I've still got a few holdouts out there, but hopefully I'll get 'em in.

One of my 2007 resolutions was to read more books.  I wanted to read more for many reasons, not the least of which would be to not watch as much television and to improve my own writing.  As it turns out, I have managed to do that quite nicely.

This year, I've been considering several possibilities.  One of which is to draw more.  I used to draw all the time, mostly sketching during class.  Now I only draw Pokemon on my son's lunch bag (which is really cool, mind you).  But I'd like to start flexing my drawing fingers again.

Second, I'd like to keep up with my friends who are living far away better.  That means keeping up with emails, letters, and yes the odd blog post that keep me in touch with people.

Third, I'd like to actually do less.  Or rather, I'd like to set fewer big projects (e.g. my 300 room dungeon project, my 3000 pt. Warhammer dwarf army, or my Hadrian's Wall Milecastle, all of which aren't done).  I've actually considered just going with smaller stuff (i.e. small warbands, single small buildings, even just sketchy encounters and campaign premises).  It might be even time to unearth "Premise Beach," which was a heading I used to be into my blank book where I'd just write down basic ideas for stories without bothering to flesh them out.

In that theme, I'm going to stop the resolutions, just so I can focus on doing less.