So, it's been a while since I posted it up. What's been going on lately?

Since my last post, I turned 0x20h. I've decided my age in hexidecimal looks better than normal base-10. (To paraphrase Tom Lehrar, base 16 is just like base 10... if you've got 6 extra fingers! (Actually, technically, would't it be 5 extra fingers?)) We didn't do too much for my birthday, which is how I like it. My parents made an appropriate amount of fuss and had us over for presents and took us to dinner, which was nice. My friends all posted the obligatory "You're the coolest" messages on our Yahoo group. I certainly don't need presents, just a little pat on the back every once in a while. It was nice.

Eryn hosted his annual gift exchange holiday party, which was a good time as usual. I drafted Gabe as my receivee, and thanks to some saavy deal-finding on Diana's part, was able to get him many of the gifts he wanted while keeping within the appropriate budget guidelines. Rhiannon thoughtfully got me some board/card games, and while I already owned one of them, I was able to exchange it for credit at my new favorite store "Pair-a-Dice Games". Good stuff.

The bulk of the party was taken over by Rhiannon's "Celebrity Fantasy League" draft. The idea is that players draft celebrities on their "team" and get points for their celebrities showing up on magazine covers, best dressed lists, etc. The draft was a lot of fun, and while I definitely like the concept, I have to say that the actual website (tabfl.com) is extremely confusing and not user friendly. I don't want to step on Rhiannon's toes as organizer, but I'm kinda hoping to give fafarazzi.com a try. Similar concept, but looks like it's much cleaner and easier to use.

Speaking of games, Eryn and I have nerded it up a few times recently. We played one game called "Twilight Struggle", which is a two player game pitting the USSR vs. USA between the years of about 1950 and 1988 (ie, the Cold War). In the game, you play various "Events" cards that allow you to gain influence over other countries. The Events appear to be all historical, like the U2 spy-plane that was shot down, the Korean Airlines that was shot down, etc. A very good game, and a neat way to think about Cold War in the context of a game. For example, some events move the "Defcon" level from 5 down to 1. If you are the player that moves it to 1, representing nuclear war, then you automatically lose the game.

Seperately, Eryn also brought out "Die Macher", the supposed granddaddy of the whole German board game genre. It's a game where each player manages the campaigning and elections of a German political group. You hold a series of elections in some German "states", and the results of those elections determine your power in the national government. Sounds pretty exciting, huh? Well, it's probably more fun than it sounds. The downside of the game is that, in normal gameplay, it takes about 5 hours to play. I think we probably started at 7'ish or so, and didn't finish until about 12:30am. The game was solid, but I can't say that I would rather play it over some of the other games we've played. The time it takes to play, while I think is necessary, doesn't make it more attractive to me. But it certainly has it's place and time.

Speaking even MORE about games, I recently bought and INDIE license for the Torque Game Builder computer game engine made by GarageGames.com. The TGB is a game building application. It basically gives you a solid framework for a computer game, and let's you plug in the artwork and design and make your own games. As someone who's started half a dozen games and finished exactly zero of them, I think it will be great. I've already played around a lot with it, and am glad I got it. It comes packaged with a lot of things that I've coded (or tried to code) myself by hand (sprite animation, collision detection, particle emissions, physics engine). So, my mind is swimming with possibilites. Stay tuned.

Diana's sister is scheduled to arrive in town sometime today or tonight. I'm looking forward to seeing her. I wonder what it would be like to go from winter in Sweden to winter in SoCal...

Smell ya later.