Is it a good or a bad thing?

So, I'm pretty excited that I actually wrote four (now five!) blog posts today. We'll see if this actually sticks this time. Of course, this all means that I'm not getting anything ELSE done... I'll have to figure out the right balance.

No Tugging Allowed

The husband brought home a Chanukah gift for himself the other day. Yes, it was Superman's Cape, a replica from the movies. #70-something out of 200-something. This has to be the pièce de résistance of his comic book collectibles... and he has already proudly hung it in the entryway to the shrine.

Shrine, you ask? The shrine is a room in our basement, and, along with thousands of comic books, it holds a vast array of collectibles: the bat signal, the Bottle City of Kandor, Green Lantern's power battery, Wonder Woman's wristbands, and many many more. I barely knew what half these things were before the shrine was built. It's not hard to understand why I laugh so much at the TV show "Big Bang Theory".

It's interesting to note that Superman's Cape has a small pocket in the side. Who knew? Also, the cape is not actually wearable. You'd think for $300 that it would have that feature. Sigh.

Moulting Queen

Queen, the girl's new pet crayfish (that she got from a school science project), moulted today. I forgot that this would happen, and when the boy brought me the crayfish shell, I initially thought Queen was a goner. After a short three days.

Phew.

You have too many blogs (!)

Blogger just told me this:

You have too many blogs
You are only allowed to have 100 blogs per account. Please reuse or delete one of your existing blogs or create a new account.

If you think that you are receiving this message in error, please contact the Blogger Help Group. We apologize for any inconvenience.

It's like someone noticed my profile, and is teaching me a lesson. I'm awfully glad that I had this one available for reuse.

You may be asking yourself why I have 100+ blogs. I ask myself that every day. No worries, I don't touch very many of them at all... I started many for other people. And others just take up much appreciated blogger disk space.

New games for 2009

The family got several board games for Chanukah this year:

Quoridor was on our wishlist for many years and BRO2/SIL picked it up this time around for the boy. This is a very straightforward abstract strategy game. Extremely simple to learn yet has tons of strategy. You move your piece or place a wall, and try to get your piece to the other side. I couldn't beat the boy for the first few times we played... he is awesome at it. He picked up on the strategy immediately. Now if I can only teach him to be more of a gracious winner...

Race for the Galaxy is an extremely different animal. It was a gift to the boy from BIL/SIL, who were advised by my SIL's SIL. This is a 2-4 player card strategy game with a space theme, and the rules are absolutely overwhelming. We're just simple wannabe gamers, not even close to full-blown game players... it took us a good long while to get used to the game play. I mean, the reference sheet alone was a mile long. It's a fast-paced game once you get it, and can even last under 30 minutes, but you have to get it. And, there is little interaction with other players. It's almost like everyone is playing themselves and the winner is the person with the most points. The boy and I ended up in a tie this first go-round. (I won the tiebreaker according to the rules, which made the boy a little mad.) We liked the game in general, but I don't think we will successfully teach it to the girl or the husband. They simply won't have the patience, and crave interaction too much. Will have to wait for the next time we see the BIL/SIL - they are up for all games!

We played Quelf with BIL/SIL and laughed a lot. The girl chose this game as one of her Chanukah gifts. The game is an entertaining party game good for the whole family (so far). Look out though, we haven't seen all the cards and the game may very well get a little more inappropriate. It is hugely reminiscent of drinking games. The "rules" make the whole game - requiring people to touch the floor or say everything twice or talk with a pirate accent. I personally had to pretend my seat was a toilet and I had to flush every time someone else got a penalty. Lovely. The kids had a ball.

Next game up: Pirate's Cove. The boy chose this game as one of his gifts. We'll see how it goes!