Author: leahbakst

No. 01: Make 10 things from pinterest

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This entry could easily also be titled: No. 01: Be a Total Cliche. But I’ve been pinning things for awhile and it’s high time I started actually making them. I’ll plan on updating this entry as I attempt the various pins, because no one needs a whole post on one recipe or organizational method.

Anyway! Here goes.

Number 1/10: Sweet Potato and Black Bean Casserole
This was a relatively easy recipe to make. I was totally craving something Mexican-inspired with black beans and sweet potatoes, and this just required chopping and baking. Easy. My thoughts for future recipe use: definitely dice the potatoes small (or plan on baking longer). Also: less cinnamon, and add some cayenne pepper and cumin. Perhaps tortilla chips, or a hard tortilla shell would be better than the soft tortillas. I love some good crunch. Tasty, though.

 

Number 2/10: Strawberry Drinking Vinegar
Relatively recently I went to an amazing meal via this cool new app called Dyne. During the meal we were served this super refreshing, absolutely delicious drink made from purple shiso leaves, vinegar, and some other tasty things. I couldn’t stop thinking about the drink and how a fruity vinegar drink is kind of the ideal beverage for me: refreshing and light, sweet but not cloying. Anyway, I found this recipe on pinterest and decided to give it a go. It’s maybe 30 minutes worth of effort: you have to use a food processor and make some simple syrup, but it’s easy. And it turned out super tasty! Even the boyfriend and my housemates were pleased with the result. Here’s some picture proof!

Photo Oct 11, 5 51 21 PM

 

 

Number 3/10: Coleslaw
Recently some friends and I had a great October dinner of pulled pork sandwiches and dunkel beer. I was in charge of sides, and promptly decided that coleslaw would be a perfect mate for the meal. This straightforward and tasty recipe totally did the job. It maybe took me a little longer to prep than the recipe said (prepping veggies always takes longer than I expect!), but was still rather quick. Next time maybe I’ll slightly cut back on the mayo, or possibly up the amount of cabbage. (It’s also possible I did not use enough cabbage as I didn’t measure; I just used what was on hand.) Also, selecting a pepper with a hint of heat would probably be awesome, but even the bell pepper gives it a nice, crisp freshness.
Photo Oct 22, 8 07 18 PM

 

 

Number 4/10: Berry Rosemary Cocktail
I loved this one! A friend decided to have a cocktail party for her birthday where some basic liquors were provided (gin and whiskey), and everyone invited was asked to bring some kind of ingredient with which to make a cocktail. There were some excellent cocktails made throughout the night, I can vouch! A highlight for me was suddenly declaring that I wish someone would make a cocktail with egg whites (a favorite of mine), and immediately being given the leftovers for a delicious whiskey sour that had just been made! Perfection. Anyway, this recipe was simple and I liked it. Sweet, but not cloying. Herbal. Some tasters would have preferred it be strained, but I liked the berry chunks. I almost forgot that the recipe called for simple syrup (which I had to make), but otherwise it was incredibly quick & easy. Two thumbs up!
2014-10-24 19.38.53

 

 

Number 5/10: Sweet Dreams Baby Afghan
This was a true labor of love. Two of my first-cousins-once-removed (what a mouthful) each had a baby recently! They are adorable and I wanted to make them a little something to welcome them into the world. As I’ve been on a bit of an afghan kick and have been wanting to learn to make granny squares, I chose this pattern that little Harrison seems to enjoy 🙂 Things I learned in the process of making this: however much you want to be done with the project, do NOT cut your ends super short to avoid weaving them in (even though granny squares leave you with approximately 50 billion ends). They will come undone and the whole thing will start to unravel just creating MORE WORK. Ughhh. I was so mad, and the only person I could be mad at was myself. Bah. Here’s a baby to cheer us all up:

Baby Harrison and his mama

Baby Harrison and his mama

 

Number 6/10: Da Bomb Deviled Eggs
I was invited to a super fun Friendsgiving, and as the hostess expressly requested deviled eggs (and no one had yet taken on that job), I nominated myself. I had never made them before and was concerned that I wouldn’t do them justice. (I am an accomplished deviled egg eater, but that doesn’t mean I could recreate the magic.) Anyhow, this recipe was fairly easy. It came out a bit sweet to my taste, which I mitigated by adding a bit more vinegar and going with a dijon mustard (instead of honey mustard). After making these I vowed I would never eat eggs again (a total lie), and my house smelled like so many farts, but the deviled eggs got gobbled up pretty quickly so it was definitely a success! No pics because I was too slow, and mad at them for being so eggy, and then they were gone.

 

Number 7/10: 10-minute spinach lasagna
The name of this recipe is a bold-faced lie, but it was totes delicious and that’s what counts. There’s not much to share about this other than it was super tasty, straightforward, and made me significantly less hungry after I ate it. Boom.

 

Number 8/10: DIY Pillowcase Tote
Not that long ago I acquired a sewing machine. I think when I was in middle school I technically learned to use one in Home Ec and made a horrific apple pillow with a felt worm coming out of it. It looked something like this, but bigger and horribler. Anyhow. I have not touched a sewing machine since, and I wanted and easy project to start. This one seemed easy, but as I was not at a point where sewing in a straight line was in my skill-set, it was a bit harder than I anticipated. Also, the instructions seemed to leave out some steps… or perhaps I’m just a big dummy (equal likelihood, frankly). My favorite part of this project was that when I first finished it looked SO UGGO and ill-proportioned, and I was able to troubleshoot and make it significantly less awful. Yay for me! Plus, it holds things! That’s basically the whole purpose of a bag anyway. Check it out, below:

 

 

Number 9/10: Chunky Feather and Fan Crochet Afghan
This was a fun one to make! Once I got the hang of the pattern, it came together really quickly. I totally enjoyed working with a huge hook (it made me feel like an little kid using a giant crayon), and as I was making this for my grandmother who first taught me how to knit, it was also meaningful. For some reason I had some difficulty keeping the number of stitches the same on each row, but ultimately I kind of gave up and just made sure it looked right. Details – pah!

2015-01-27 22.01.50 2015-01-27 22.02.59 2015-01-27 22.04.32

 

 

Number 10/10: Crochet Grocery Bag
This turned out to be a one-day project, which I looooved. The pattern was easy to follow, and it came together quickly. And it’s actually making me want to go grocery shopping so I can see how much I can fit into this absurdly stretchy bag! If the bag ends up working out well, I might make others for myself/friends because I have a ton of this orange yarn left over from another project.
2015-02-17 08.12.42

No. 23: Officiate a Wedding!

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This past weekend I officiated a wedding! When I added this to my 101 things in 1001 days post I knew it was going to happen, so I’m not sure if that’s cheating, but it is such a momentous thing that I thought it merited being on the list. I kind of still can’t believe it’s over, and my mind is sort of a jumble of thoughts and feelings that I haven’t fully sorted out. Thus, I will apologize ahead of time for the discombobulated nature of this post, but here are some assorted thoughts, feelings, and pictures from the wedding weekend!

Photo Sep 15, 2 05 05 PM

Taking my oath to legally pronounce the marriage in Yolo county, Californa! Seriously. YOLO. You can call me Commissioner Bakst. (Picture from SS)

Photo Sep 13, 1 09 30 PM

The bride making love to the camera. Also utilizing the genius post-it trick to collect fallout (?). Is that what it’s called?

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DAS HOUSE GETS MARRIED! (Picture from SA)

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The gorgeous bride, F, and her lovely and wonderful best friend. (Picture from AM)

Photo Sep 13, 7 41 55 PM

Me and my main man, T! We’re all fancified.

Photo Sep 14, 3 38 05 PM

Oh, just for fun here’s me being a creeper with my housemate at the airport.

 

Those are the few pictures I collected of the weekend (and some of those weren’t even mine)! I haven’t been involved in (or even invited to) all that many weddings, but one thing that struck me about this one is that in all the prep the few days before, in all the speeches that were made, in all the things I heard wedding guests saying, everyone was just so full of love for the couple, and so invested in their happiness. Each person did so much to make the wedding go smoothly. And B and F (groom and bride, respectively) were champions. They managed their stress like bosses and did an amazing job of being present with their guests while still enjoying themselves (or at least I’d like to think they enjoyed themselves!).

I have to say that being an officiant was both amazing and amazingly difficult. I was the only one who knew the whole ceremony beforehand. I wrote my own introduction to the ceremony, and helped write and edit most other parts of the ceremony from the marriage pledge and pronouncement to the community vow. I helped make sure that readers prepped their speeches and gave the bride and groom feedback on their vows. It was an amazing thing to be part of. I also sang two songs (and played guitar) for the processional!

Standing up at the front watching F come down the aisle toward B was a beautiful sight. And being able to sing to them as it happened, and stand up there with them as they read their vows to each other was incredibly meaningful. Frankly, I’m getting teary just thinking about it. But doing all of this stuff was also unbelievably challenging. I’ve been dealing with a lot of anxiety issues (in life in general), and this definitely intensified everything. Adding to that was the ridiculous heat — it was 100 degrees out when we did the ceremony (outside), and being all done up in formal wear, playing guitar, and singing… well, it was daunting. I was also sick. Of course. I had been running a bit of a fever the previous 4 or 5 days, and had also gotten my period. The bottom line is that all of those things conspired to make me incredibly anxious.

I have been seeing a therapist for the last few weeks and I thankfully had an appointment right before I left for the wedding. One of the things we talked about was how my anxiety may be to a point where it is interfering with my happiness and mental health, but it also tells me about what is important to me. Being so anxious about the ceremony makes sense: I value my relationships with F and B, I take marriage and the responsibilities of an officiant seriously, I value my health and my mental well-being… so ideally I can turn the gain down on all this anxiety, but it’s not irrational. It’s just intense.

And ultimately, I did it! And I would like to think that I did it well. I will always be the person that married them, and I am still completely awestruck at that fact. In these days after the wedding I am at once so relieved, happy, and exhausted, and I still cannot believe it’s all over! I wish F + B many years of happiness and health and I cannot wait to see what comes next for them. (Well, literally what comes next is a bomb honeymoon in Hawaii. JEALOUS.)

And with that, Commissioner Bakst out.

 

I am chaos

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I am chaos.
And by the grace of nothing but time
I am order.

Delicate fingers
Intricately weaving together
Ancient lives
Infinite stories

Out of madness
Out of mindless dissonance
Comes clarity
Like a gift

I am the unlikeliest of outcomes
I am nothing shy of miracle
And it’s a burden I happily bear
To know I am free of miracle-worker.

I am all the majesty I need.
My faith lies solely in that
Out of chaos
Came me.

101 in 1001

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Eeek! There’s this trend: 101 things in 1001 days. The idea is to  make a list of 101 things that you want to accomplish in 1001 days. The goals can range from very small (writing the list itself), to very big (go to Europe), but they have to be concrete. I read a friend’s list awhile ago and finally got around to making one myself. (Maybe the ‘small’ goal of writing the list was not as small as I originally suspected.)

Anyway, here’s my list! I’ll try to stick with it and update it as things are accomplished. Today is 27 August 2014 and in 1001 days it will be 24 May 2017. Holy mackerel. This feels exciting, overwhelming, and also kind of not really anything yet (as internet hopes and dreams often are).

Okay. Let’s gear down and do this.

01. Make 10 things from pinterest. (10/10 Sweet potato black bean casserole September 2014, Strawberry Vinegar Drink October 2014, Coleslaw October 2014, Berry Rosemary Cocktail October 2014, Sweet Dreams Baby Afghan November 2014, Da Bomb Deviled Eggs December 2014, 10-Minute Spinach Lasagna December 2014, DIY Pillowcase Tote December 2014, Fan and Feather Afghan February 2015, Crochet Grocery Bag February 2015)
02. Learn to change my oil.
03. Visit Glacier National Park.
04. Visit Yellowstone National Park.
05. Take a road trip along the (Washington/Oregon/California) coast.
06. Join an intramural ultimate frisbee league.
07. Write a new song (most recently The Long Goodbye).
08. Complete an arrangement for Seatown (I arranged one song on my own for Seatown during my tenure in the group — Turn it Around — and just recently helped a friend arrange the Chanukkah song Ma’oz Tzur. I’m counting that as complete.)
09. Crochet an afghan (technically I’ve crocheted two baby afghans, but I’m still working on my adult-sized one!) (Fan and Feather February 2015).
10. Knit something that is not a scarf (while this was originally designed to get me to knit a pair of socks, which I haven’t done, I’ve crocheted a bunch of octopi, a sweater, and multiple scarves, so I’m counting this one).
11. Go to a Mariner’s game (4/10/15).
12. Go to a Sounders game (10/4/15 — and they won!).
13. Complete a sprint triathlon.
14. Embrace a minimalist spirit and get rid of things I don’t need. (Clothes & old papers August 2014, at least 6 trash bags worth of donatables, 2 bags of trash & recycling each, and a carload of furniture! November 2014)
15. Floss every day for a month. (October 2014)
16. Bring my lunch to work every day for 2 weeks.
17. Make a big dinner once a week, freeze leftovers, eat those throughout the week… for one month.
18. Go on a bike trip.
19. Go camping (not in the winter).
20. Go on a backpacking trip.
21. Grow something (edible) in my garden and then eat it (spinach, rosemary, others?).
22. Ride on a motorcycle (technically it was a scooter, but it had two wheels, I wore a helmet, and held on for dear life; January 2015).
23. Officiate a wedding. (September 2014)
24. Do a photoshoot with someone (as the photographer).
25. Try a hot tub boat.
26. Keep a book club going for 5+ books (November 2014 marked the fifth meeting!).
27. Read The Count of Monte Cristo out loud with T (February 2015).
28. Acquire tools to make a marimba.
29. Make a marimba.
30. Visit every park in Seattle (3/417).
31. Practice mindfulness mediation at least 10 minutes a day for a month.
32. Publish a paper as a second author.
33. Publish a paper as a first author.
34. Finish my PhD (?!) (holy shit) (please be true) (12/9/16 thank fucking god).
35. Learn to make two cocktails well (let’s say one gin-based and one whiskey).
36. Store family and friends’ birthday info in useful some way (either in a contacts book, or digitally) (Birthday Sweet app October 2014).
37. Host a murder mystery party.
38. Participate in a scavenger hunt.
39. Re-read a book (To Kill a Mockingbird).
40. Go one month without shopping (for anything beyond necessities).
41. Read 5 biographies.
42. Learn to use Illustrator (created a poster and a resume in Illustrator November 2014).
43. Teach my own course (Fundamentals of Vision, Spring 2015).
44. Teach a course at a community college.
45. Travel to someplace in Europe.
46. Visit Hawaii.
47. Take a cruise to Alaska (June 26-July 3 2016!).
48. Run a 5k with my mom (I did not do this, to be clear, but I did run a 5k with a friend of mine and I did go on a run with my mom. So… I’m counting it!).
49. Run a 5k with my dad (Similarly, I went on a long [for me] run with my dad in September 2016 so I’m counting it!).
50. Play ultimate with my brother.
51. Move into a new apartment (December 1 2014!).
52. Commute to work by bike for a month.
53. Visit a friend in a different city (Becca and Joc labor day weekend 2016 in New York!).
54. Practice my french on Duolingo every day for 2 weeks.
55. Buy a water bottle that I really like. (October 2014)
56. Drink 2 full bottles of water from said water bottle daily for at least a week (October 2014).
57. Attend (or somehow create a small version of) my high school reunion (I’m gonna be a little loosey-goosey here again, but I saw a BUNCH of high school friends at a wedding this summer, so I think that should surely count).
58. See a therapist. (August 2014 & Ongoing!)
59. Think of 101 things. (Surprisingly difficult.) (August 2014)
60. Set it up so that leahbakst.com links here! (November 2014)
61. Finish the scrapbook from my trip to Israel.
62. Take pictures using 10 rolls of film (and get them developed).
63. Take a carpentry class.
64. Make my mom a calendar.
65. Attend a friend’s intramural sports game with posters and cheer (no posters, but made up for that by cheering super loud! Go local field potentials!).
66. Attend a Huskies basketball game.
67. Take a hip hop dance class (started in October 2014).
68. Take enough ballet to go on pointe.
69. Learn to develop film.
70. Make my bed every day for a month. (September 2014)
71. Make my own espresso drinks for a week.
72. Go without coffee for a week.  (September 2014; getting sick helped with this, but I’ll take it)
73. Get up-to-date on my ‘board games to be blogged about’ list.
74. Learn to play Twilight Struggle.
75. Recruit a third person to try Damage Report with (3rd AND 4th players, September 2014).
76. Finish Myst.
77. Learn to drive stick.
78. Organize non-hung photos and store them in a reasonable way (September 2014).
79. Learn to do a handstand.
80. No snacks for a week.
81. Take a pottery class.
82. Take a trip with my mom.
83. Write a newsletter for T once every 2 weeks for 2 months (4 newsletters).
84. See all of the best film nominees for the oscars (5/8).
85. Attend an oscar party.
86. Go ice skating.
87. Go skinny dipping.
88. Read all of the books on my shelf.
89. See the aurora borealis.
90. Go tubing (as in, lazy river style).
91. Film at least one episode of my own news/science program.
92. Retake calculus (for free, online).
93. Complete the python course at codecademy.com. (October 2014)
94. Build an app.
95. Host an iron chef-type competition.
96. Host a ‘come as your middle/high school self’ party.
97. Learn to flip something (like an egg or pancake) in a pan (without a spatula!).
98. Make gefilte fish.
99. Make sourdough bread.
100. Make a list of 10 albums, and them really listen to them (no distractions).
101. Save $10 for each goal I meet.

For my fellow gumshoes

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I very much enjoy a good mystery. I know I’m in good company in loving Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes. Plus, I remember having this book as a kid and loving it so much. (SO MUCH.) Thus, I was incredibly pleased to find a couple of two-player mystery games! Mr. Jack and Le Fantome de l’Opéra pit the players against each other: one is the detective, trying to solve a whodunnit, while the other works on behalf of the criminal. The two games are almost indistinguishable excepting their background story and the look of the game board. In my opinion, Mr. Jack is the better game, but both are worth your time. So let’s take a little tour…

Mr. Jack takes place in London in the neighborhood of Whitechapel, where eight characters have gathered. Unbeknownst to the player acting as detective, one of the characters is actually Mr. Jack in disguise! The player acting as Mr. Jack must protect the identity of Mr. Jack’s character by avoiding being accused for 8 turns (or by fleeing the neighborhood altogether!). Each turn, both players have the opportunity to move some of the 8 characters.

Bird’s eye view of Whitechapel

Above, you can see the game board with some round character tokens (most visible are the red and blue ones, for instance), as well as some yellow light posts. Characters adjacent to the light, or in view of another character are considered ‘visible.’ At the end of each turn, the detective gets a binary piece of information: the other player says whether or not Mr. Jack is visible.

By the end of 8 turns, the detective must use this information to figure out which player is Mr. Jack! If the detective is wrong, or Mr. Jack escapes off the game board (via exits at each corner), the detective loses. But if Mr. Jack is accused before the last turn is up… it’s curtains!

Before Mr. Jack I had never played a game like this before. It wasn’t too difficult to learn or play, and kind of let me feel like I was in the various mysteries I love so much. Also, in this game you can feel super stealthy! (I am probably the opposite of stealthy in real life, so this is quite valuable to me.) I give Mr. Jack a very solid 4 stars.

Now there’s no need to spend very long on Le Fantome de l’Opéra. It is, in many ways, the same as Mr. Jack (although somehow for me it fell a little short). Instead of moving through a town, you are moving through an old opera house:

The famous (and spooky) ‘Opéra Garnier’

Again, you can see the different character tokens in different rooms of the opera house. The detective spends the game trying to identify the phantom (Le Fantome), and the phantom tries to avoid being caught! This game becomes infinitely more fun if you speak in french accents the entire time. Overall, 3 stars.

**

I’ll end this post with an extra tidbit. For some reason, writing about Mr. Jack made me think about film noir. I kept trying to find ways to include some sort of film noir lingo in the post. But aside from gumshoe in the title I just couldn’t swing it. However, to satisfy my desire for some film noir content, here are some choice film noir quotes:

Johnny Morrison (Alan Ladd): “You oughta have more sense than to take chances with strangers like this.”
Joyce Harwood (Veronica Lake): “It’s funny, but practically all the people I know were strangers when I met them.”
[The Blue Dahlia – 1946]

Monte (Zachary Scott): “Oh, I wish I could get that interested in work.”
Ida (Eve Arden): “You were probably frightened by a callus at an early age!”
[Mildred Pierce – 1945]

Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker): “You’re never around when I need you.”
Velda (Maxine Cooper): “You never need me when I’m around.”
[Kiss Me Deadly – 1955]

Joan to Halliday: “What I like about you is you’re rock bottom. I wouldn’t expect you to understand this, but it’s a great comfort for a girl to know she could not possibly sink any lower.”
[The Big Steal – 1949]

(all quotes [+ many others!] found @ andysnoir.blogspot.com/)

Catching up on games: Tsuro, Quoridor, and Repello

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Although I’ve been pretty horrible about reviewing games, I’ve played quite a few (as you can see from my revised to-review list below). It has been supremely awesome. Some of the games seem like they would review well together, so here’s a three-in-one of what I think of as ‘easy-yet-hard’ games: Tsuro, Quoridor, and Repello!

All of these can be learned rapidly, the rules are simple and straightforward, and they are rather quick to play (~30 minutes, give or take). But they are all excellent and are deceptively difficult! As is usual, I tried each game with only two players, but you can play with more. (Tsuro is 2-8 players, Quoridor is 2-4, and Repello is 2-4.) Also as usual, the first time my boyfriend and I played I won handily, and haven’t won since.  D:

Here is a brief run-down of each game!

Tsuro is a game of tile placement, and depending on the tiles you play, you move your token along different paths. The goal is to keep your token traveling along a path (without hitting either the edge of the board or your opponent) longer than anyone else. Tsuro tiles look like this:

Tsuro tiles

You have a secret hand of tiles, and each turn you place a tile on the game board, and then move your token as far as it can go along its path. Each token starts at the edge of the game board, and moves as each new tile is placed. In the image below, you can trace the routes that have been taken thus far by each piece.

Tsuro board and tokens

So… you pretty much already know enough to play, but if you want to watch a cheesy how-to video, you can do that right here. In addition to being a pretty great game, I also really like its aesthetics. It evokes a sense of old Japanese art (at least to me).

Tsuro art!

This game is surprisingly easy, but also strategically challenging and lends itself to playing multiple times. 4 stars!

—–

Next up, I want to talk about Quoridor. Quoridor also falls into this lovely category of easy to learn, yet deceptively difficult to play well. It’s an abstract strategy game in which you try to take your pawn from one edge of the game board to the other. You are also simultaneously trying to stop your opponent from completing this goal, and can do so by placing little walls to block their path. However, on each turn you can only take one action: move your pawn OR place a wall. The board looks like this:

Ready to play!

That is what the start of the game looks like. From then on you are allowed to move your pawn or place a wall, so long as you don’t entirely block all possible paths for your opponent. Here’s an example of a game in progress.

The blocking has begun…

This game can be a little heart-breaking depending on when and how your opponent uses their walls. Or a lot heart-breaking if you get really invested in your games. Not that I know anyone like that. (Disclaimer: I’m totally like that.) Lots of fun to play, and can be surprisingly dramatic! 3 stars.

—–

Last but not least: Repello. I would say Repello falls into this ‘games based on abstract strategy that are easy yet hard’ category. That’s a mouthful, but I’m not sure how else to describe it. (Other games like this include Hive and The Duke.) Repello is maybe slightly more onerous to learn than Tsuro and Quoridor, but is certainly not that difficult compared to most board games. The overall goal in Repello is to score more points than your opponent(s). You score points by knocking black, silver, and gold tokens off the board (worth 1, 3, and 5 points, respectively). Each player starts with a stack of black tokens, and some black, silver, and gold tokens are laid out on the board. Each turn you move your stack some number of spaces in any direction, dictated by the game board. Here’s an example:

Repello board

Now ignore the mysterious blurry finger moving a black token in the picture. The stack of black tokens on the clear plastic stick is the blue player’s stack. All around the stack are numbers, and these are the numbers that dictate the number of spaces the stack moves in each direction. The blue stack can go 2 spots to move “down” in the image. Or 3 spots to the left. 4 to the lower left, etc.
Each time you move your stack you leave behind one black token from the stack in the spot the stack started. This is where things get interesting! Every piece on the board repels each other. (Hence the name Repello!) So if your move results in two tokens being adjacent to each other (including diagonals), one of them must be moved.

Below is a small example of a section of Repello board. If it were red’s turn, and red moved two spots (down and to the right in the image), it would end up next to blue. But they can’t stay like this because they repel!

Repello example

So either red or blue would need to move one space away from each other to resolve this repulsion. (And since it was red’s turn, red makes that decision). What you see above is a simple example, but when you have a whole game board with many different tokens you can create this fantastic chain reaction of repulsions that has far-reaching effects. It makes you feel all powerful! (Or maybe that’s just me.)

Anyway, super fun game. I’m actually really excited to try this with more people; I imagine play would progress differently with more tokens being left all over the place. Overall 3.5 stars!

—-

Lastly, mostly for my own reference, here is my increasingly long to-review list!

1911 Amundsen vs. Scott
Babel
Carcassonne
Carcassonne: South Seas
Castellan
Castle Panic
Concept
Damage Report
Dominion (original, seaside)
The Duke
Le Fantome de l’Opera
Forbidden Island
Guillotine
Hive
Iota
Jaipur
Kittens in a Blender
Legacy
Morels
Mr. Jack
Munchkin
Pandemic
Quoridor
Repello
RoboRally
Rockwell
San Juan
Settlers of Catan
Smash Up
Splendor
Spot It
Ticket to Ride
Tsuro

A quickie: Castellan!

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Things have been bonkers busy lately (is that always the case? I feel like I’m always saying things like that) so I haven’t had time to make progress on my to-review list. Ugh! Plus, I moved and now no longer live a block from the magical center of games and delicious food/drank that I love so much. (It’s now like a 15-minute walk away. My life is SO HARD, guys.) Anyway! I thought a quickie would be perfect (an appropriate descriptor of both the review and the game).


Castellan is a two-player game that is super easy to learn, but also fun to play. I’d say you get a fair amount of bang for your buck in fun per time spent learning/reading rules. Plus, the game revolves around these castle pieces that you have to physically link together to form courtyards and it is totally reminiscent of playing with legos or blocks as a kid. Bonus points for nostalgia. Here are all the pieces in the game (minus some cards):

As you might surmise, the walls link up with the round towers, and the colored pieces represent the two players and their claims on courtyards. When a player completes a courtyard they claim it with their piece, and the score for that courtyard is the number of tower pieces that touch the courtyard. So for example…

The courtyard with one blue piece has 4 towers, so its worth 4. The one with two blue pieces is worth 7. Easy peasy. (In each game you can claim one courtyard with two of your colored pieces and it nets you double the points.)

Ultimately, this game is certainly not one you’ll likely go and rave to your friends about. But it’s easy, it’s fun, and it’s kind of hard to tell who is winning until you count up everything at the end. (Okay, sure, you could count as you go, or just crush your opponent, but it’s much more fun to be surprised by the outcome, I think.) As a little filler when you only have a short amount of time, or if you want something easy to teach to friends, it’s a really solid option. Plus, again: lego nostalgia!

Overall, 3 stars.

P.S. I found this video that explains the game. How much does that background music add to the video? SO MUCH.

P.P.S.  Fun fact! Castellan means governor or captain of a castle. Comes from Latin.

 

The Duke: best chess substitute

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Let me tell you: although there’s been a shortage of updates here, there has been no shortage of game-playing! Oh, I’ve been a super slacker at cataloguing my gaming thoughts. I’m going to make a little list to keep track, but today I will be focusing just on a game that I really enjoyed called The Duke!

The Duke is a game that feels a bit like chess, but with some luck and memory components that stop it from feeling entirely strategy-based.

The game starts with a board that is smaller than a chessboard, but otherwise quite similar:

The Duke setup

The game starts with your duke (equivalent roughly to the king in chess), and two footmen (like pawns). Although there are actually a number of other pieces, you only start with these three. You can randomly draw other pieces to add to the board throughout the game — this is where some of the luck comes in!

Each piece (whether it be the Duke, footmen, or any of the others) is a little wooden square with symbols on the front AND back. Like so:

Example pieces!

As you might have guessed, part of the image on the piece is a map of the game board and represents what this piece can do! Different symbols mean different things. For example, the closed circle means the piece can move to that square, while the open circle means the piece can jump to the indicated square. (It is, of course, all relative to where the piece is.) There are some other fancy moves too, like the general being able to move other pieces. (Full description of rules and gameplay here.)

We’ve pretty much covered the major aspects of play except for one other tiny little thing. Every time a piece moves, you have to flip it over. This is super important because both sides of the piece are NOT the same! So, this is where the memory part comes in: it is crucial to remember what your pieces’ other side shows, so that when you move a piece it is well-positioned to utilize its other side. Make sense?

These extra elements which combine strategy with a bit of luck and memory make The Duke a lot of fun. It can help match up two otherwise unmatched players (i.e. my boyfriend and I — I’ll leave it up to you to guess who is the better strategist). The game is easy to learn, and fun to play. It also feels well-made. The wooden pieces make the game feel much more substantial than using plastic or paper markers.

Overall, I highly recommend, and enthusiastically give 4.5 stars!

To be reviewed:
Castellan
Mr. Jack
Babel
Le Fantome de l’Opera
Legacy
Rockwell
Castle Panic
Forbidden Island
Tsuro
Quoridor
Repello
Pagoda
Concept
Damage Report

Carcassonne South Seas

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A couple of weeks ago I went to Cafe Mox (my amazing local game library) with my boyfriend to have a night of tasty foods, excessive drink, and a bunch of 2-player games. It was much fun! And we were 2 for 2 on great games for the night. So, here are my thoughts on the first great game we played that night:

Carcassonne: South Seas
This game is a spin-off of the original Carcassonne (which has quickly become one of my favorite board games!). One of the great things about Carcassonne in general is that the game can be really different each time you play — you are assembling the game board as you go. It’s a tile-laying game where you try to complete various structures (islands, bridges, markets, and seas), but it’s complicated by the need to have claimed these structures in order to get points for them. Here’s an example of what the game board can look like:

South Seas game board

Clearly visible in this shot are the islands, bridges, seas, and the islands that are only one square (called markets). Thus far the description of South Seas is almost the same as the original Carcassonne, but here is where the two games diverge. You also must acquire resources (bananas, fish, or shells) to gain points, and all points are counted only at the end of the game. There are NO points counted throughout. In some ways this greatly simplifies things, because the need to carefully count points throughout the game (as in the original) disappears. You just do some pretty easy mental math at the end to add everything up.

Ultimately, much like the original, I think South Seas is a highly successful game. It’s straightforward enough to learn pretty quickly, but variable enough to be fun for a long time. Really good for 2-5 people, which means it’s quite flexible, too! I think I’m still partial to the original Carcassonne, and am a little disinclined  toward all the extras that complicate it (like the need to collect/trade resources). I do wonder, though, if I had played this before the original if I wouldn’t feel differently… maybe I just get attached to whatever version I play first. Anyway! I sincerely recommend this or the original for a unique board game whose simplicity and variability make it a great and accessible game.

3 out of 5 stars.

New blog series; San Juan review!

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Firstly: wow, it’s been awhile since I’ve blogged! Since I last posted I’ve passed my general exam (and am now a Doctoral Candidate!) and applied for my first big girl grant (an NRSA through the NIH). And now that I am pretty literally counting down the hours until my official vacation it’s time to get back on the horse. And what better way to do that than by starting a new type of blog entry: board game reviews!

This may seem slightly esoteric, but I know a lot of people who enjoy games and cafes & bars that feature board games are becoming more and more popular. Well, that’s a made up statistic, but too bad. This will be fun, I promise.

San Juan:
This is a resource management type of board/card game that can be played by 2-4 players. If you’re wondering what ‘resource management’ really means, join the club. This is just what the clerks at my local game library call it (seriously, I won the jackpot by living a block away from this place). I think it roughly means there are different types of goods/resources you can have, and you must successfully manage them to win. WOW. Insight of the century.

Anyhow, the game looks like this:

San Juan: the game (not the city)!

Overall I would say I was a bit underwhelmed by this game, but I think resource management games aren’t so much my favorite. Here’s a quick and dirty summary of how the game works. The goal is to have the most victory points (aka points… that can lead you to victory!) at the end of the game (when someone has built 12 buildings). You amass victory points by constructing buildings, for which you pay by producing and trading goods, and collecting cards in your hand.

Although you are playing with/against others, your actions don’t much affect the other player. You can’t sabotage them in any way, really. This probably encourages more civilized play, but I really do enjoy a good sabotage (mostly when I’m not the recipient, of course). Anyhow, it’s a little more creative than some other similar card/resource management games. There’s some strategy involved, but it’s relatively straightforward to learn. And not too much lingo to acquire. Also, it is not too cumbersome in terms of space required, thankfully.

All set up and ready to go!

Random +1: They have these nifty score cards for the end of the game. Actually super helpful in counting up victory points because there are some sneaky/confusing ways to earn points!

Random -1: The slot for the cards in the box is oddly slanted so it’s hard to fit everything back into the box. Or I am just seriously spatially challenged. Or both, frankly.

Certainly worth checking out, but I wouldn’t add it to my wish list. (Unlike this magical gem, which I thankfully already own!)

2 stars (out of 5, I guess. I don’t know. Let’s go with 5.)