Javabeans!

(corss-post from FB)

Quick question for a friend of a friend (with wife and 5-mo-old): any thoughts on looking for a reasonable 2-BR apt in Silver Spring/College Park area, safe neighborhood, infant-friendly? $1500 max. They're looking at apartment-finder websites, but would like some first-hand opinions.

Thanks!

Been a while since I've posted here. Very happy that the account is still active! (LJ has been deleting inactive accounts recently.)

Recently we've gotten several pieces of mail for at least three different people that do not live at our house. The address is ours, but we've never heard of the people. We know they are not previous residents, either. What scam is wrapping itself around us?

Yay! We received a copy of BattleLore on Friday! "BattleLore" is a fantasy miniatures war game in the same style as "Memoir '44" (WWII) and "Commands and Colors: Ancients" (Rome/Greece). We haven't had the chance to play the game yet (busy weekend!), but we've played a bit of Commands and Colors and I think BattleLore is going to rock. It was a tough game to find, being currently out of print. The rights were recently transferred from Days of Wonder to Fantasy Flight Games, and there are rumors that FFG is having trouble manufacturing it affordably. Sigh.

I just opened the game earlier tonight to go through the rules (80 pages, but lots of really nice artwork), and the inside of the box was amazing. The miniatures were not on sprues, but were already mounted to bases. Standards already had stickers affixed, and standard bearers had individual molded spaces in the plastic inner cases. All tiles were pre-punched and the tray was perfectly designed to hold all the non-miniature components (chits, terrain tiles, cards, etc.) Daqys of Wonder really spared no expense in putting this box together. Hopefully the gameplay will prove worth it.

Had a great time playing Dominion, Puerto Rico, Blockus, and Set on Saturday.

Saturday started with a bit of mini-golf at Rocky Gorge (south of Columbia) -- the course needs a bit of TLC, but still plays well. The singing pine tree was belting out country tunes. The well with the bucket succeeded in mocking us, as did other mechanical hindrances. But I think we all had fun.

Four games of Dominion (basic set only), each very different. One game included the witch and curses, which I used to the distress of my opponents. I think the village was in all four games, and was usually the first supply pile to vanish.

Puerto Rico started slowly, but ended with a fabulous mind-strangling effort to squeeze out one more round, as players tried to figure out their best exit strategies. We weren't sure if we'd run out of colonists or victory points first, and I still wanted to buy a large building as others were trying to maximize points by placement of colonists. blueeowyn was trying to hasten the ending before her chances of winning crashed to the ground.

Set was an interesting puzzle-matching game -- appealed to my OCD. I can see it as an addictive solitaire game.

I've played a bit of Blockus one-on-one with Blueeowyn, but playing a four-person game totally rocks. It reminded me a bit of Go in some ways, and now I wonder what Go would be like with four people.

Ended the weekend playing Quirkle Cubes with Blueeowyn over a dinner of take-out sub sandwiches. Nom. I thought she was going to stomp me into the ground, but a couple of fortunate rolls of the dice made the ending very close. She won, but only by two points.

In a BoardGameGeek review of Runewars was this photo. I assume the point was to show that the game comes in a really big box. The best part of the photo is the string of comments. Enjoy!

Runewars baby photo


Oh, and speaking of big box games, there seems to be a general belief that games in big boxes are better games, and worth the $100 that some of them cost. A game called "Planet Steam" seems to be using this mentality to sell itself. Supposedly the game is absolutely fabulous, and is reasonably well made, but the box is much, much bigger than needed for the components provided, and the price is higher than any other traditional board game on the market.

A CBS news item this week indicates that photocopier hard drives can store thousands of documents, pretty much anything they've ever scanned. If the copier is sold (or otherwise disposed of), the new owner can pull the hard drive and access all of those documents.

I consider myself relatively tech-aware, and I had no idea that photocopiers maintained long-term files of whatever I copied. Now I know, and so do you!

CBS article about photocopier security

Just something to think about if you copy proprietary info at work, personal information at Staples, or your drunken derriere at the new year's office party!

Recent Questionable Content comic features a javasaurus!

Nearly fell out of my seat!

So the computer that kept freezing, in spite of hardware passing lots of tests, and software apparently not to blame, has been reformatted. Currently has only the operating system (and the usual attached programs -- minesweeper, hearts, etc.). So far, it has not crashed/frozen/chased the cats/etc. and has been running for three days.

Next will be the reinstall of antivirus, then get online to update drivers, and then try out other processor intensive games to make sure all is well.

Saw "Date Night" this weekend. It was a lot of fun, though you might want to check your logic circuits at the door.

I kept wondering why Steve Carell (who is currently my favorite "everyman" actor) was starring opposite Palin...