the mandatory Sunday post

Since P is working today we got together yesterday afternoon/evening and had an early Father's Day burger dinner at Foster's Grille, which despite the pretentious spelling dishes out a quality burger with fresh-cut fries and is a Coke joint besides; think Five Guys with a bigger bun, a tad less grease, and beer on tap if you want it. Good eats. Too bad it was full of Little Leaguers, which made it a little tough to carry on a conversation.

I then motored down the road and hung out with Mark, who is understandably stressed about his mother, but not so much so that he couldn't show me the mid-season finale of BSG (which was every bit as awesome as advertised) ,Casting Call of Cthulhu, and the trailer for the actual Call of Cthulhu movie (silent, of course) produced by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, those fine folks who brought us Shoggoth on the Roof and other Things That Should Not Be. We also discussed Civilization strategy in general terms. I'm getting to the point where I can whip Civ III at the Regent level so long as I don't have to deal with more than four AI, though I usually wind up playing the same map multiple times so that I know where the resources are. Cheating? Good question; in a conventional wargame you'd know where all this stuff was already, and in any case I don't care. It works. Mark' struggles with Civ IV sounded painfully familiar, and hopefully some of the advice I gave him based on my C3 experience will help. Needless to say, we both miss Call to Power.

This ended far later than either of us planned, and I aggravated matters by staying up until past 0400 reading Farmer in the Sky. It was good reading forty years ago, and it hasn't lost anything in the meantime. Come to think of it, none of the Heinlein juveniles have aged that badly, allowing for the changes in what we know about Mars and Venus.

Today was largely spent lolling around playing C3 with expeditions to the Walmart (for waterproof bandages and meat) and the swimming pool. Was going to do laundry, but I'm pretty tired out from thrashing around in the pool for half an hour and I'm going to call it a night.

the mandatory Sunday post

Since P is working today we got together yesterday afternoon/evening and had an early Father's Day burger dinner at Foster's Grille, which despite the pretentious spelling dishes out a quality burger with fresh-cut fries and is a Coke joint besides; think Five Guys with a bigger bun, a tad less grease, and beer on tap if you want it. Good eats. Too bad it was full of Little Leaguers, which made it a little tough to carry on a conversation.

I then motored down the road and hung out with Mark, who is understandably stressed about his mother, but not so much so that he couldn't show me the mid-season finale of BSG (which was every bit as awesome as advertised) ,Casting Call of Cthulhu, and the trailer for the actual Call of Cthulhu movie (silent, of course) produced by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, those fine folks who brought us Shoggoth on the Roof and other Things That Should Not Be. We also discussed Civilization strategy in general terms. I'm getting to the point where I can whip Civ III at the Regent level so long as I don't have to deal with more than four AI, though I usually wind up playing the same map multiple times so that I know where the resources are. Cheating? Good question; in a conventional wargame you'd know where all this stuff was already, and in any case I don't care. It works. Mark' struggles with Civ IV sounded painfully familiar, and hopefully some of the advice I gave him based on my C3 experience will help. Needless to say, we both miss Call to Power.

This ended far later than either of us planned, and I aggravated matters by staying up until past 0400 reading Farmer in the Sky. It was good reading forty years ago, and it hasn't lost anything in the meantime. Come to think of it, none of the Heinlein juveniles have aged that badly, allowing for the changes in what we know about Mars and Venus.

Today was largely spent lolling around playing C3 with expeditions to the Walmart (for waterproof bandages and meat) and the swimming pool. Was going to do laundry, but I'm pretty tired out from thrashing around in the pool for half an hour and I'm going to call it a night.