The Last One

For the most part, I try to be a relaxed and laid back person. I'm not a "princess" by any real stretch of the definition, and I laugh at fart jokes just as easily as the dudes around me.

I tend to get pretty fussy about birthdays. Mine in particular. I would love a giant surprise party, or a big day of being spoiled rotten with "all the things". I also love throwing birthday parties. I think a birthday is a reason to celebrate and adore planning. Whether it's cake and ice cream or LAN parties or strippers and booze, I want your celebration to be perfect for you. I love going all out and seeing smiles on my friends and family's faces on their special day. Unfortunately, most people I love are not real fond of big birthday things.

I am very easygoing about most other holidays. I have never been one of those 'decorate for every holiday' people. I try to find meaning in the everyday,but I still value certain special days. For the past few years, Mother's Day hasn't been that huge a production at our house. We've been busy growing our kids and our business, and time for celebrations (big or small) has not been our priority.

This year, our family has really felt those choices in stresses and pressures, and the need for employees and TIME AWAY from the store has been huge. We were all kind of coming apart at the seams, some more than others. We started spending more time together as a family, and as we did so, I started to become fully cognizant of the face that my kids are growing up.

My son is 18, and while he may not be ready to move out right this minute, that time isn't too far off. I rarely get maudlin, but I'm very aware that I may not have another Mother's Day with both my kids at home, and this might be the last one.

I'm taking just a little time to acknowledge that being a mom has been important to me, and I've done the best I can. Family *IS* a priority to me, and I'm working hard to be an awesome inspiration and model to these wonderful people I've been given the privileged to raise. I've got a lot more work to do, but thinking about this time ending has me a little rough around the edges.

TheBoy, Waylon, TheGirl and TheDude 

It's not quite over yet. I still have some awesome left in me. TheBoy, TheGirl and TheDude enjoyed going to the Hed2Hed Show a few weeks ago. I took my kids to a bar to see a metal show with their dad, for their dad's birthday. I was there for my son's first pit. I watched and laughed as he was offered a shot by the Jaeger Girls. I watched my daughter rock out, banging her fool head off. I saw both my kids look stunned at my reaction to American Head Charge (I think they thought I was going to humor TheDude. Hellz no, I wanted to see "Martin Cock" and "Mr. H.C. Banks III").

I have a few more surprises and a little more time with them- and even if it is "the last one", I'm going to enjoy this Mother's Day.

[Review] Tok Tok Woodman

So, TheBoy and I came upon this fun idea. We would play a bunch of games. We would have fun. We would learn more about the products we sell at the store, and I could review them for my little blog.

We started out innocently enough with the Axis and Allies game. That was a blast. We had so much fun playing that game. I think we will play it a few more times so that I can get a chance to win. (Fat chance, but chance nonetheless.)

We have tried a few games. We loved some and didn't like others at all.

Tok Tok Woodman is one of our perennial favorites.

This game is billed as a "dexterity game", which means it involves hand/eye coordination. This is something I am usually truly bad at, but I STILL love this game.

It's more like a twisted version of Jenga than anything else.

The premise of the game is that you have a tree that you are trying to cut the "bark" off of without knocking any of the wood out from the base of the tree.

You do this with an axe, of course.

The axe pictured is actually from the expansion, but you get the idea. (Yes, there is an expansion. It's just as fun as the original!)  You tap the tree three two times, trying to knock the bark off but leave the discs of wood intact. Every piece of bark is worth points, while the wood COSTS points. Whoever ends up with the most points wins.

I have to say that for me, the largest portion of this game's appeal is how ramped up TheBoy gets. He is absolutely like a little kid, being given permission to break stuff. With an axe. (Yes, it's a little plastic axe, but it's an axe.)

I have sold this game on numerous occasions as a "party game". It's a great icebreaker or timewaster, without any complex strategy or overall need for thinking. It's just silly. The best part of the party game is that if you add drinking, it just gets sillier. I can only imagine making shots a part of this game.

There's no real rules breakdown, or complaint about pieces, or discussion of confusing something or other. This game is straightforward, and fun. It's even better when the folks you play it with understand it is meant to be silly, and get into it with the over the top actions (and reactions) to make it more entertaining.

The only downside I can think of is that if you like a serious, intelligent game, this isn't it.

I think you should play this game, and enjoy some good laughs.

[Review] Axis & Allies Angels 20

I have a giant soft spot for airplane games of any kind. I had pestered the living daylights out of TheDude for copies of Wings of War (now Wings of Glory), but he really didn't listen. (Sad panda!)

When Axis & Allies newest expansion line: Angels 20 came out, HiSign tried VERY hard to get me to buy it. I kept resisting, and he kept tempting me. I wasn't interested at first, and then I was worried I would spend too much, and I just didn't have anyone to play against.

Then TheDude bought a starter box. We all checked out the contents and were pretty impressed with the quality and quantity of items for the price. TheBoy started poking me about wanting to "play airplanes", and my resistance was wearing down.

The other day TheBoy out and out cheated. He asked me- "Mommy, will you play some airplanes with me?" He then proceeded to make cute engine and shooting sounds and batted his enormous eyelashes at me.

I bought a starter box and a booster.

DON'T YOU JUDGE ME!

The map- pretty nice quality

The starter set comes with 3 German and 3 British planes, along with dice, stands, a rulebook and counters. I wish I had actually READ the box before buying it, because I didn't want Germans, and TheBoy wanted British.  TheBoy got an entire flight (or bunch of planes), and I got zero planes I wanted. (More Sad Panda!) TheBoy took pity on me, and bought 2 boosters. I wound up with some Americans, some Japanese and some Russian planes. I still don't have a full flight of any one faction, but I have lots of choices.

We decided to try to play today. We set up the map, which is made of nice magazine thickness paper. There's not any obvious markings as to how they fit together, but after turning the map around a couple times, we figured it out.

Building my list of airplanes was really tough. With a point limit of 100 points, it was difficult for me to get more than 2 planes. I saw several options of 3-4 plane flights if I mixed factions (ie, 1 Poland, 1 Fin, 1 Britain) but single factions made it tougher.

For our first time around, I went ahead and played the Germans, even though I really didn't want to, because I had the most options that way.

This is what I picked from.  I had a bomber, an ace and two "average" planes to figure out what to fly. I picked the bomber and an ace.

These are the planes TheBoy had to pick from. They were pretty sweet, to be honest.

We figured out initiative and movement pretty well. There was a little confusion on whether and how to turn (and when), but after a little discussion, we got that decided. We opted not to use altitude because the rules were wonky and we wanted to get the basics down first. We just pretended we were at acceptable altitudes and went on our merry way. Lots of "merrrrroooooooooooom" noises were made.

My planes after movement

Movement went really fast. TheBoy had an ace that had movement almost double mine, so in one turn, it went from what you see above here to the picture below:

There was a little more movement (getting planes into place) that put us within a hex of each other. Unfortunately, we were situated in such a way that TheBoy was outside of my firing arc, but I was smack dab in the middle of his.

We did some shooting. TheBoy tore me up. It was awful. I am ashamed at getting beaten so badly by my lil punk so and so of a son. =/

I will take this moment to let you know that the rulebook is what I consider 'typical Hasbro/WotC' in that it is laid out badly and needs more examples. If I had any idea HOW bad it was, I would have brought TheDude's rulebook so I would not have spent so much time flipping back and forth from section to section for rules as we played.

We were interrupted quite a lot, so we didn't get more done, which is too bad. It was just starting to get fun. We both agreed that the game has a lot of promise to be extremely entertaining, but the map was way too small. There was not a lot of room for manuevering or moving around. Now, if the idea is to move the maps as you play, that might change things, but with the map staying static, we found it to be crowded.

We still had a blast and made way too many fun lil' airplane sounds as we tried to shoot each other up.

[WOD] Austin By Night: Agent of Chaos

Most of the writing I do here regarding WOD is about the characters I play in the game. I've chronicled at least some of Jak's antics, almost all of what I remember and was important for Eile, and have started on Vinnie's journey.

I haven't really brought up anything that TheBoy is or has been doing- mostly because this is my blog and I write about stuff that affects me. Shamelessly self-centered, I know.

I spend a lot of physical time with TheGirl due to work schedules, the store, and other real life things. The time I get with TheBoy is pretty limited. WOD was a game that he and I joined together, as a deliberate attempt to have some time just for the two of us. I've guarded that time as closely as I can, knowing that I don't have much time left before his life changes dramatically and his priorities may not entail 'gaming with mom'.

Very recently, TheBoy's longstanding character Bruce died. Bruce was a Hunter, a lone human standout in a hugely supernatural world. Bruce was, in most cases, an unmitigated ass. There were some situations where he made allies and was helpful, but for the largest part, he was a man acutely aware of the horrors around him, forced to deal with them rather than die. He mainly chose not to slay the monsters in order to study them further, and gain valuable information for the "big wars"- and man, there are a lot of them.

Bruce died in an attempt to stave off an elder god being summoned by 2 grief crazed members of the group. [Yes, PCs tried to summon an elder god. It was weird.]

Whether Bruce was successful or just satiated the god's thirst for now was irrelevant to TheBoy. He was thrilled with how his character went out, and felt great pride in staying true to his character to the bitter end. I have to say I was really proud of him.

TheBoy is now playing a SinEater named John. John is a Celebrant whose Geist is an agent of chaos. John's Geist's name is Methusela, and he loves to create havok. TheBoy has a great rolling dialogue about how his Geist torments John's coworkers at the "pencil pushing factory" (stolen RIGHT from Fairly OddParents, I love this kid) or will depants the clerk at the grocery store, or other, random, weird shit; just because he can and because he thinks it's funny.

In high school, I was friends with two of the strangest guys, who were both delightful adherents to 'chaos in real life' as much as they possibly could be. Their singular purpose was to cause as much dissonance and sow as much strange as they could.

There were many times when being their friend was a lot of fun, just to see what would happen. The same is true with TheBoy's character. Watching what he does with John and Methusela and what trouble they get themselves into is immensely amusing to me. I love the creativity running through TheBoy's head and I can SEE the ideas burbling about as he blabs some new scene of what he is doing.

I can't wait to see what he does next!

Mine's Bigger Than Brent's

Dethtron and Brent's little "war" got me motivated to do something I really haven't done here- show pics of my place. So, in the spirit of a good, healthy competition, let's do this!

Quoting Dethtron here: 

Well clap if you believe in Project Mayhem, because I’m throwing down the gauntlet. Brent thinks he’s got the disease, well it’s time to prove he’s still standing on the tip of the iceberg; still one straw short of a camel fracture. So, beloved space monkeys- if you’ve got a ridiculous collection/game room of your own let the world know. Post your own blog entry under the title “Mine’s Bigger than Brent’s” for all the world to see. Then, re-post this challenge to every blog and forum you’re on.

Here it is, folks- a challenge meant for the "big boys", and I am ready to kill 'em. Here's a look at all my stuff. 

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The outside, before we got a sign or any fancy stuff.

We did have fancy door graphics, though. Custom made acrylic transfers, baby.

There's places to play- lots of tables. These are set up for 40K.

This photo is of the early days in this location, before we got WAY more merchandise and so forth.

Here are some samples of our stuff. I swear, this was the day after we opened in this shop, because we have SO MUCH more crap now.

We found out that this shelf-on-a-shelf idea was not a good one. We moved it, don't worry!

 All right, this is from the WAAAAAY back machine, as we had AT-43 in stock still.

Other assorted sundries and such-again, probably from the second or third day at this location.

Wow, we were so proud of this clean, shiny case....

 The view from behind the counter- BEFORE it got messy. It's a wreck now.

The whiteboard is totally awesome. We use it for SO many fun things. It came as a donation from a customer.

So next, some pics of actual GAMERS and GAMING.

The giant windows are a pretty big hindrance in the summer months.

The following pics are from my *verysmall* house. The two larger shelves are *literally* packed from top to bottom full of gaming material. There's about a foot of my scrapbooks, but all the rest is games, books, minis,  notes, etc.

This is another shelf, tucked in the corner. It's actually got a shelf ON the shelf just to hold all the stuff we have.

Menoth, Part the One.

More Menoth.

Tons of paint. The top case on the left is the Vallejo line and the stuff on the right is paints picked up from hobby supply stores. Plus, tools! I love tools. Brushes, washers, clippers, many other goodies. The boxes are full of bits.

 Oops... That tray of models is full of Harlies I am supposed to be painting.

 More foam, waiting to be used.

A random game hiding between the couch and a shelf.

 While I don't have drums tucked away in my gaming closet, I do have to rep some music here.

Back to the store, where there's even MORE stuff. Here's a much more recent picture of the outside. I think I took this in August.

Lots of 40K and way more WarMachine than we need.

GW's greedy- it takes two full shelves, the tops, AND two spinner racks to fully display their stuff.

Our used shelf! Bargains, dudes!

 This is the "Big Red Monster", and it's the home of many board games. That we want to sell to you.

Middle shelf=roleplaying, mostly.

Grey Shelf=more board games.

 Of course, paint and all the stuff that goes with it.

The dragon, the case and the Confrontation models are all on "loan". One of our regulars displays them at our place because... well, it involves a wife- I'll be nice.

This is the second "Big red monster", also lovingly known as "The Gamer Nutrition Center" (inside joke). The setup varies, but it is usually sleeves, card boxes and other "Magic crack" related materials. 

This is my personal hell. It is also one of my proudest and best achievements as a store owner. Inside each box, divided by uncommon or common, are playsets of MtG cards. Each box holds several hundred playsets- and there are more than 50 boxes.

I was instrumental in taking huge piles of 5 slot boxes of random crap and turning them into a well organized system for our customers to find what they want instead of rooting through the dreaded "penny bin". Yes, we charge more- but we have made a killing out of these boxes. Well worth the HUNDREDS of hours put into it.

Also on this shelf is our "50 cent box", which is chock full of rares that don't trade at crazy insane costs. It's sometimes known as the "jank box", but there are a lot of cards in it that are great EDH material, fun to trade, or just interesting. The 50 cent box generates some serious cash, so we keep it stocked.

We recently filled that "gap" with boxes of cards, and added enough boxes to go all the way to the bottom shelf.

Here's our display case now. We pride ourselves on having the best pack choices around- and man, we find (and sell!) some oldies but goodies. Ravnica block, Onslaught, Invasion, Visions, Ice Age, Chronicles (we did an afterdraft with it!)- all kinds of things are in our case.

The blue binder above and the binders below are part of our singles. We divide by price- and stick cards in any order as long as it's starting low and going high. Our customers really seem to like it, and even ask for the "make your wallet cry" binder by name. (That's the red one seen below.)

A rare shot of TheBoy, from behind. He was hard at work, helping his buddy with something or other.

We have a fridge with sodas and snacks, too.

Chips & giant Pixy stix! Also visible is our "demo shelf" with copies of popular games to try before you buy.

Don't think this is a lot of stuff? We rented an entire PODS unit for overflow, random crap, and the assloads of terrain we have. Really, we have a shit ton of terrain. 

Four huge rubbermaid type totes, another Glass case, several random boxes, felt mats, and a ton of stuff I don't even know what it is. Here's some pics: 

 Well, this is an entire terrain table that was donated by one of our customers.

Some terrain.  (And models)

 More terrain.

Plus, more terrain!

And more terrain.

 More terrain.

 Even more terrain.

 Yeah, more terrain.

And, more terrain.

The POD and all the random stuff inside it. 

Don't think we have enough terrain? We have more.

And some of the nicest chairs you'll ever see in a game store. Really.

 Card boxes. Lots of them.

I don't know what this is. Maybe some more terrain?

 Older fixtures, files, light bulbs, other stuff.

This is terrain building material. Once upon a time, we made our own. I think we have plenty, now.

Well, the gauntlet is down- let's see YOURS.