Wait... you're saying this is busy?!?

Tonight, my father said something to the effect of "the street we live on is too busy, I don't like it."

Now, I've known my father hates busy places; he routinely makes disparaging remarks about pretty much every town with more than a few thousand inhabitants. But, my dad lives miles out of town. In the week I've been here, I would guess that maybe one car has gone by his house every 10-15 minutes, on average: more in on weekends and during commute times, practically no cars late at night. And that's "too busy?" Good grief!

Give me cities, with their variety of things to do, and wider variety of people to do it with. I might enjoy visiting my parents in their small towns, but I would go absolutely nuts if I had to live here full time again.

Gaming with Non-Geeks: Board Game Review

Tonight, while at my dad's, I played a "non-typical" board game with my dad, stepmom, and stepbrother (by "non-typical," I mean something you probably wouldn't find at a Target.)

The game, Dread Pirate:
The Good:
It certainly wins points for presentation. The board is stylish and cloth and the ships are detailed (though more color variation would be good--platinum, silver, bronze, and copper can be a bit difficult to distinguish.) Your personal treasure bag has a satisfying weight and clink to it when you are doing well, and is depressingly empty when you are close to losing.

The Bad:
To me, it was very simple. Go to ports, roll a die. Attack another ship, roll a die. It's also entirely player-vs-player. I generally enjoy some cooperation in my games. It felt more like a Monopoly type game than a true geeky board game.

The Non-Geek:
While to me it was really simple, a lot of rules were misremembered by my family and a quick flip through the book showed what we were doing wrong. They seemed to enjoy it, though.

Verdict:
Fun enough, but a bit simple. I directed my dad to a still pirate-themed but more complex Pirate's Cove.

Back to Blogging!

I spent this morning setting up a joint blog for me and Brent to use while we prepare for/are in Japan, and so I decided to get my own personal blog up and going again.

The other blog will be a place to talk about what life in Japan is like, what we're doing there, how our jobs are going, how food is, etc. I'll use this blog for more personal entries, as well as to talk about stories that interest me, interesting pictures that I find, and stuff like that.

I wonder if I'll have much to say this time around!