Have been feeling game deprived so I dragged Matt into a few tabletops - as opposed to on a few tabletops ;-)
First we did a few rounds of King of Tokyo. Still love this game. It works fine 2 player but it just gets better the more people you add. Didn't take a picture of it: 1) I forgot, 2) I have several pictures of it posted already so when we have something a little more epic going on, I'll post another one. 
We finally pulled Pillars of the Earth back out. Based on Ken Follett's novel of the same title, Pillars of the Earth is a resource collecting game. Matt and I were backwards in gaming. We played this (and several others) before getting to Settlers of Cataan. So when I explained to him what Settlers was like, I basically said it was Pillars crossed with Carcassonne only simplified. The resource strategy of Settlers is here, gathering gravel, stone, timber, and metal from deposits, trying to avoid being taxed, getting a hold of enough workers to do the job, and rack up the most victory points. Each round is depicted by a section of the Cathedral which you build up - a silly bulky round tracker but, hey, what would the connection be to the books if you didn't actually build a Cathedral? There are cards that you can purchase or earn that make your resources more valuable, and if you're familiar with the book, you'll get a kick out of the characters who trot along to help you. It's not an overly exciting 2 player game; there's absolutely no reason to ever purchase for 7 gold coins in a 2 player game, so the edge-of-your-seat "omg! I have no money!" doesn't occur as quickly or frequently when you have so little competition. Just adding the 3rd player, however, starts limiting your options and then it's all a matter of doing the best you can with whatever you're stuck with. Matt and I have only been playing it 2 player thus far - haven't done 3 since we first played it with my brother. I always lose at this game - I always lose at King of Tokyo too but it's one of my favourites! Pillars of the Earth was worth the purchase in my books, even if it isn't the first game we want to grab. It's a quieter play, crunching numbers in your head and secretly plotting about where you want to move next, but I enjoy that I get to re-enter the Ken Follett's world. I loved the novel, both Matt and I loved the mini-series (he'd love the book too if he'd read it), and so the game has a bit of a nostalgic flair to it, even if the connections are very faint in reality. You can easily play this game without having read or watched anything to do with the theme, but I wouldn't be surprised if such a person found another resource collecting game more appealing. It's not the best game we own, but it certainly isn't the worst. I think if we ever had exactly 4 of us playing, we would probably be more inclined to playing several of our games more, but normally if it isn't just the 2 of us, it's at least 6. It's a problem that most of the games we're encountering play best at the 3-4 range. Though I must say, City of Thieves is proving to be a great purchase, even with it's 4 player limit. If only a game like Defenders of the Realm could accommodate a few more - like Arkham Horror kind of more... That's where King of Tokyo is so awesome, you can't even play the whole board until you have at least 5 people - definitely one of our staple games at the moment!

"Why are you going on about board games? I thought you were a writer? Why aren't there more damn books?!?! Why do you write so slow?!?! Who do you think you are, George. R.R. Martin??!?!" Ha! I wish... I wrote 1,500 words today! I know, that's not even NaNo standard, but this is also the book that has plagued me for the last 10 years. I've re-written the thing 3 times! Knightsbridge and I have a love-hate relationship, and I'm pretty sure that whatever I come up with over the next few days won't even blend in with the whole other half of the story. Nevertheless, I made a promise to end this thing, and damn it, I'm going to do it! So it's slow going, but I promise, I am not going to wait another 10 years to finish the silly first draft! Notice, that wasn't a promise for it's release... if I can just finish the first draft of it without one of us getting killed, it will be a miracle... I'm not ready to think about revising and editing yet... I'm gettin' the horrors juss thinkin' 'bou' it...

So I think I'm missing everything since Friday...
Friday was grand! Went to Theatre Calgary's production of God of Carnage. I knew nothing about this play going in, but Matt and I loved it. Real world comedy about love, life, marriage, and the facades we put up. It was quick and witty. Wonderful date-night for us!

As for NaNoing. I did what I could on Friday night but, alas, did not meet my word goal. I wrote as much as I could, submitted at midnight, and then went to bed.

Saturday. 
Exciting dress fitting! Sorry no pictures.
Then Matt brought a friend over and we had a game night (surprise, surprise). Arkham Horror, Miskatonic School For Girls, King of Tokyo. 
I am hoping to break open some of our new(er) games soon. 

As you can probably guess, no writing was done this day either.

It is now 5:30 on Sunday. I keep thinking that I will start writing... We'll see if this actually happens...

Oh, and totally just realized that I didn't bring this up at all!
My proof copy of Freakhouse arrived on Friday! Thus far I have already found 3 typos on the back
cover alone. Matt will read it and find the billion of others sometime soon.

So yesterday was International Table Top Day, but between Matt working late and my bookclub meet, the gaming did not happen in my house. So we made up for it tonight. 3 two player games to kill time, trying not to think about the epic awesomeness of Game of Thrones that aired today... sigh... 
Anyways, it was still a good night, especially since Matt and I have been slacking on our game nights.
So on the menu tonight was City of Thieves, King of Tokyo, and Miskatonic School for Girls. I may suck at being the king of Tokyo, but I can be a damn good thief!

What? Two posts in one day?!?! 

I like time off. Time off is my friend. 

Anyways, after my zumba class, I was informed that people were inviting themselves over for a game night, which, considering I generally love hosting and it has been far too long since we last had a game night, this was alright by me. I've also noted how sucky I've been at documenting these games, so I made sure to do some of that this time. 

The first game we did was Defenders of the Realm, a cooperative fantasy game were you choose your hero and try like crazy to not be killed or let the world be destroyed. This was only my third time playing this game (if you ignore the back-to-back plays in the same night), and the funny thing is that I never remember how to play it, but I firmly remember loving it. I expect that I will have to be re-taught the game, even if we play it tomorrow. Anyways, the one thing I did know when sitting down to it today was that I wanted to kill the dragon. She is one the stubbornest bosses on the board, but I was determined. I chose a new character for this game. I've been the Cleric and the Sorceress before, so this time I tried out the Eagle Rider. All three of these characters are pretty good. My eagle rider didn't win, but I did manage to take on Sapphire the Dragon all by myself, no one could reach me to even try to help. All of my cards resulted in direct hits (thanks to Eagle Rider's special ability of being able to re-roll failed dice) and I proudly took the kill! She was the only boss I killed; the unicorn riding dwarf was collecting hood ornaments with the bosses he was cleaning up after the other players brought them down. You know you're the badass when you strut around demon infested villages on a unicorn, swinging an ax overhead. 

After that epic adventure, my friend MM unpacked his box of Settlers of Cataan since neither Matt nor his friend had ever played it before. I explain it as Carcassonne meets Pillars of the Earth, but since more people tend to have played Settlers than either of those other games, I guess that explanation only works in my house. Basic Settlers is almost too simple of a game for us, I guess. Between it being a minimum three player game and the fact that EVERYONE has this game, we haven't added it to our collection. Though tonight was my first time playing with a Settlers expansion... something about Knights... We did the basic game first, then the expansion. I got blocked in during the first game and couldn't expand to save my life. Second game I build a huge road, but that did me little good when MM built up his cities super fast and out victory-pointed (yes, I use made-up verbage!) us all! Long night, but a fun one. 

Still need to have a bug game night soon so that we can break open Shadows Over Camelot. I have played it before but we haven't even opened the game since we bought it. Another game I remember nothing about other than the fact that after I first played it I knew that I had to have it. Joys of goldfish memory.

I have realized that I might need to add a new section to this website, one that has absolutely nothing to do with books. After all, there are plenty of other things in my life, though most of them just as geeky. Like gaming for example, and no, I don't mean video gaming; I get enough of that second hand from my partner. Tonight we spontaneously purchased a new table top game that neither of us had ever heard of, which is rare for us because usually we put some research or playtesting into a game before buying. This one caught our eye just from the title: "Miskatonic? Why, that reminds me of Arkham Horror (our most beloved house game of all time). Oh, look! It says that it's set in the Lovecraft world! It is Arkham's Miskatonic! But why in the hell is there a Hogwarts looking girl's school in Arkham?!?!?!" Upon reading the back discription, "While H.P. Lovecraft wrote his stories with a sinister tone, this game is lighthearted and cheery, because we're twisted like that," we were sold on it. We were practically skipping up to the till and eagerly we tore open the box when we got home. The rulebook is a little thin but there was a video guide online that was very helpful for getting started. I was in charge of the rules so we were a little slow to start as I was getting Matt caught up, and then we ran into some trouble with Locker cards and the random values they had (and no help in the rulebook about that), but thankfully for online forums the mystery was solved and we played a re-match game. I lost both games. The first I fell deep into insanity very early on while Matt was barely even half way. The second game I drove him down one point away from Cthulhu brain possession and then was overwhelmed by 4 demon teachers that two useless girl-powerless school girls didn't have a hope of even putting a dent in so I dropped down 11 points into the loser's circle of mental breakdown. It was cute, entertaining, and made for being made fun of - you lose sanity as your teachers use paddles on you, what's there not to take in the gutter? Best of all, even after two games of decent length, we both still feel rather up-beat as opposed to being mentally drained as some of our more intense games can do to us. A new favourite? Well, it won't replace Arkham Horror for us anytime soon, but it was more entertaining as a two player game than Red Dragon Inn for example. I am very interested to see how it will play with 3 or 4 (it's a max 4 player game). Oh, and no, you don't have to know anything about Lovecraft to play or enjoy the game, but I think it's better if you do simply because it makes it all the more ridiculous ( ie. the Lunch Lady is Lulu, can you guess what she looks like? Hint, very iconically squidy). All in all, fun game, worth the buy in our house!