The P@rix
I keep saying "Computer, end program," but
Thursday, August 07, 2025
I'm Shakin' - Jack White
Wednesday, August 06, 2025
Wordle Wednesday #25
7.30.25 - During the quest to assay the mettle of the spaceship, we submitted it to a psych test, making me smirk.
(Sometimes, I'm pretty clever.)
7.31.25 - I’d wager the phrase “no frill, just broil” is always applicable.
(Other times, just sort of meh.)
8.1.25 - You can’t go wrong with a banjo as a gift for your noisy demon.
(Okay, back to awesome. This is absolutely prequel for "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" material.)
8.2.25 - The challenge of finding an entrance to the smoky, faded plaza did not daunt the adventurer.
(I'm noticing a pattern of awesome, boring, awesome, boring here...)
8.3.25 - If you mowed the lawn, and it felt lumpy, you should get a First Aid kit.
(Heh. First Aid kit for you or for the lawn is the question.)
8.4.25 - The incident with the motel made of sugar caused the city to be much more rigid with the building permits they issued.
(So many questions. Who would build a motel out of sugar? How? Why? WHY?? What, exactly, was "the incident"?)
8.5.25 - “Hey, Sport,” the robot stork said gently, “let me offer you an intro to your story.”
(I'm hoping that the story starts off with a robot stork offering to give me an introduction to a story....about a robot stork offering to give me an introduction to a story...about a robot stork...)
Tuesday, August 05, 2025
Monday, August 04, 2025
Sunday, August 03, 2025
Fire It Up - Modest Mouse
Saturday, August 02, 2025
Some Kind of Joke - AWOLNATION
Friday, August 01, 2025
Thursday, July 31, 2025
2025 Games - July
After a few months of not playing any on the list, we hit the halfway mark of the year, and decided, you know what...let's try to catch up on this silly gimmick.
So... picking up, we started going thru the ones we had skipped for April, May, and June. These weren't necessarily played in the order that they were originally intended, but, at least they got played. Buckle up, this is gonna be a LONG post...
20. Fluxx - (avg score 7 ) - Card game where the rules can constantly change based on what cards are played. It can be a mixed bag. It can be chaotic and hard to keep track of everything going on, and can result in MASSIVE hands with a bunch of cards with long details of what the card represents/does...but it can also end rather abruptly. I don't know. It's fun. Mindless, heavy on the luck factor, but enjoyable enough.
21. Exploding Kittens - (avg score 2) - Steph HATED this game. It's.. essentially a Fluxx type game - cards that alter what's going on are drawn and played. Repeatedly, until an "exploding kitten" card is drawn, and if you don't have a card to "defuse" it, you lose. I think it thinks it's funnier than it actually is. Since it scored below the "keep" threshhold, we're gonna donate/get rid of it, and...I'm fine with that.
22. Family Challenge - (avg score 6.5) - This is one of those "Minute to Win It/Trivial Pursuit" mashup type games that is designed purely for families that really only have a slight interest in 'game nights'. Our kids have all outgrown this - the questions and tasks are really aimed at children probably 8 or under - and it was just Steph and I who played this. But... we somehow had a lot more fun with this than I think either of us planned to. I don't know that we'll keep it, because, like I said, we've aged out of it, really, and it probably should be donated so that it could potentially go to another family that will get more use out of it, but, it was enjoyable doing animal charades and racing Steph across the living room with a card balanced on our finger, and other silly activities.
23. Clue - (avg score 6.75) - Me, Steph, and Harper played this. The game actually ended pretty quickly, because...I just kind of got lucky with the first room I was going to being correct, and the suspects and weapons rapidly being eliminated from my list. So, not AS fun as nostalgia leads one to believe (and the movie, of course, does a LOT of heavy lifting, too.) but it wasn't horrible, either.
24. Codenames - (avg score 8) - Dude. I really do believe that Codenames is a masterpiece game. It's so simplistic and yet, due to the nature of the game, and the way people think, it's NEVER going to be the same game twice. It's better with multiple people (on teams) but you CAN play it with just two people as well, and that was what Steph and I did, and it was actually decent that way as well. (Which just also leads credence to my theory of how great the game is!) Gameplay for anyone who hasn't played this: A 5x5 grid of common words is laid out. The "spy master" has a coded card in front of them, so they can see which of the words are for your team, which are for the opposing team, which are essentially decoys going to neither, and which is the one word that, if chosen, ends the game. They then have to give one word clues along with saying how many of the words on the board that clue relates to. Their teammates then try to figure out which words the spymaster was trying to allude to.
Really great game about communication, and gives neat insights into how the other person thinks. Good stuff all around.
25. Enchanted Forest - (avg score 5.5) - Essentially a kids game where if Sorry, Candyland, and Memory had a baby, it would be this. There's a bunch of 'trees' on the board that each have a different fairy-tale related image on the bottom. Race around the board landing near the trees to see what's there, then get to the castle to match whatever card is at the top with the corresponding tree. First to 3 wins. This is a fine game, although, like plenty of others, we've sort of aged out of it. Also, memory games for older people like myself are annoying.
26. The Crew - (avg score 9) - Me, Steph, and Silas have been working our way through all 50 'missions' of this for a while. It's fun, even if we sometimes suck at it. (The round last night where I put down the pink 4 that killed us even though I had a perfectly fine pink 2 in my hand was prime example of a dumbass move that is typical, and hilarious.) This is a great game about cooperation, communication, and logic. We still have another 14 missions to get thru, and I'll kind of be sad when we do finish it up. But, there are spin-offs we could purchase, too....
27. Holiday Fluxx (avg score - 7.5) - It's ...Fluxx, but with Christmas and Thanksgiving and Hanukah and New Years and Halloween themed cards. Fun, but, essentially sort of like how Ms. Pac-Man was just Pac-Man with a bow.
28. Fairies Rule, Goblins Drool (avg score - 5) A card game, designed for children, but all ages can play it, but... ugh. I didn't care for this. You have to take cards from your pile, add them to the pot, to create rhymes and match patterns on the cards. I won, but it was mostly by lucking into it. (Although, near the end of the game, I did figure out what I was doing, but, still, overall, just not something that I'd choose to play.)
29. Get Bit (avg score - 4.5) card game where the little figurine dudes are swimming away from a shark. Place a card with a number to determine what order the line becomes, figurine in the back gets chomped and loses a body part. Pretty dumb game, overall.
It also came with stickers to put on the people - which seems like it would be cool, but the stickers (especially those for the faces) don't stick! So, I just put them all over ME instead.
30. Haunted Mansion (avg score 7) - themed on the ride at Disneyland, this had rounds where you move your piece into various rooms in the mansion, attempting to collect sets of ghost cards that gave you points at the end. There's a lot going on in this, but it mostly works. The limitation of only being able to take 3 actions per turn felt ...limiting. Or, not limiting, per se, but just...like it doesn't allow you to take full advantage of ALL the stuff the game has to offer, perhaps? I don't know. Still pretty enjoyable overall.
46. Imhotep (avg score -7 ) - Steph and I played this Egyptian-themed game that involves a lot of strategy (and a bit of luck, too) regarding moving blocks to various parts of the board to get points. (After it was all over, I realized that this game doesn't have any dice in it! That's... kinda cool, in a weird sort of way.) My biggest complaint was at how QUICK the 6 rounds went, as I felt like I was JUST getting into the groove of the game, when it was done. But, this is fun, and I defintely want to make sure we play it more often in teh future.
47. King of Tokyo (avg score - 7 ) - definitely a lot more luck based, though there's a bit of strategy involved as well, but really, it's sort of the inverse of Imhotep in that regard. We've played this plenty of times, and it's fun, although the two times we played this time were both really short - Silas died early on in game one, and I got killed after just a few rounds in game two - and games that kick people out of them always make me ...I don't know. It just puts in a factor of "well, now what is that person supposed to do, while the rest of the game happens?" which is not really FUN, ya know? But, those issues aside, KoT is still an enjoyable enough game, even if it's not perfect.
49. The Chameleon (avg score 1.75) - Deception game that all of us pretty much hated. A card with a bunch of words on it is presented to everyone. One person is the chameleon who DOESN"T know what the key word is, but has to 'blend in' by hopefully saying a word that makes everyone THINK they know what it is. If the Chamelon has to go first, they're pretty much screwed. Plus, the system of knowing what the key word is is overly complicated.