Friday, February 27, 2009

Color Blind

My Friend Who Lies (MFWL) is color blind. When we were in college, he would have me help him figure out what color clothes to put on his video game people (What color is this?...Blue...What color is this?...Brown...What color is this?...Red...What color is this?...Greenish Blue...What color is this?...Yellow...Ok! Now for the pants!). His sister numbered his clothes and made him a chart so that he would always know which pants went with which shirts.

So when I found out about this application, I thought of him. It's called Color Oracle, and it changes your computer screen so things look like how a color blind person would see them.

You know what's funny? MFWL's favorite teams are the San Francisco 49ers and the Portland Trailblazers, who both have red as one of their team colors. Take a look at these pictures using the app...U-G-L-Y!!!


Edit: These are the original pictures. For the color blind version, go here.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Ingenious

Here's an introduction to another tile-laying game: Ingenious.

This is actually one of my favorite games. It's a great game to play with people who are new to boardgaming. I even taught my dad to play this!




It may be hard to notice, but you might be able to tell that my box top is slightly damaged. I bought this game as a 'Ding and Dent' game from an online retailer. Several online retailers sell games with damaged boxes at a slight discount. So if you don't care about what your box looks like, 'Ding and Dent' games are an option that can save you a little bit of money.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Not what I wanted to see...

A couple of nights ago, I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth. I walked up to the sink and reached over to grab my toothbrush only to find some sort of a white cloth draped on top of it. It seemed pretty strange. I thought it must've been a washcloth or something, but couldn't figure out why someone would put it there. I picked it up and was immediatly thrown into a state of shock, horror, and disgust when I realized what I was holding...

My son's underwear!

LilKat1 had went into our bathroom and tossed his UNDERWEAR on my TOOTHBRUSH! We let him use our shower when his brother is taking a bath in their bathroom. I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but I can just picture him taking off his underwear and start whipping it around in the air like he was a Steelers fan with a Terrible Towel before randomly flinging it across the room (and onto my toothbrush) as he hopped  into the shower.

You know, finding your son's underwear on your toothbrush is completely disgusting and gross...

But for some bizarre reason, it's made me giggle inside every time I've thought about it today.

I love my goofy kids.

Wasabi!

Ok, maybe I'm starting to have a little too much fun with these boardgame videos...

Now I own several racing games. I own a few detective games. I have a whole bunch of train games. But I only have one game about sushi making -Wasabi!

Here's a short video introduction to the game. Keep in mind that there are a lot of rules that I don't go over. I just wanted to introduce the game and give you a brief overview of what it's about. It really is one of the more unique games in my collection, and it's definitely near the top of the list as far as nice looking games. If you're interested in finding out more details, there's a lot more information at Board Game Geek.

Anyhow, enjoy the video!

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Water Baths

Something I learned while sitting on the potty today...

When you cook a custard using a water bath, the material that you use for your water bath can make a big difference. A cast iron pan can go up to 195 degrees, while a stainless steel pan might only get to 180.

A while ago, I tried making a cheesecake (which is a custard) using a water bath. It tasted fine, but it didn't quite set right. I think part of the problem was that I used an aluminum pan for my water bath. I don't think it ever got up to 185. Next time I'm going to try using cast iron or glass.

Worm Up!

Recently, Eagle Games had a nice sale and I was able to get a big stack of games for not a whole lot of money (7 games for just over $70! Woo hoo!). One of the games I got was Worm Up! I had never heard of this game before, so I did some research on it. It actually looked really fun, so I picked it up.

Good call by me! We played it last night loved it.

Here's a short video I made so you can see what the game is like:



I forgot to mention one important rule. The lower numbers get to move before the higher numbers. So if you play a 4, you don't get to move as far as someone who played a 7, but since you're moving first, you get first shot at cutting them off.

Anyhow, like I said, I've only played this game one time, but I think it's great. It's fun, it's silly, and it plays really fast. It won't be a 'Main Event' type game at your game night, but it's definitely a great warm-up act.

(By the way, Eagle Games still has several games on sale. They also have free shipping if you purchase over $70. Not a huge selection, but you could get some good deals if they have what you're looking for.)

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Hey! That's My Fish!

A little while ago, I was telling a friend of mine about my boardgames. He asked what kind of games I had, and you know what? I had a really hard time answering him! First of all, I have a wide variety of games, so it's kind of hard to put them all into one category. Also, giving a brief description of a game can give a sense of what the game is about, but may not necessarily show why the game is fun (oh sure...your game about the 1960 election sounds really fun...weirdo...).

I think seeing a game, and watching a small sample of how it plays is much better than me trying to describe it. So I thought it would be fun to make some short video clips introducing some of my games. The first one I did was for Hey! That's My Fish! Here it is:

I forgot to mention a couple of things (like the fact that the number of fish on each tile is the nunmber of points that you get for that tile. So tiles with 3 fish on them are worth more than tiles with 1 fish). But I think this is a pretty good introduction to what I consider to be a very solid family game.

Rock Music

You know what's cute? Watching PrincessKat put her dollies into her little toy crib, get them all tucked in, and gently start rocking them to sleep while singing...

We will, we will ROCK YOU!
We will, we will ROCK YOU!

That's cute!

Monday, February 2, 2009

Sonicare

I love my Sonicare toothbrush. It makes my teeth feel just-like-a-dentist-scraped-your-mouth-with-a-metal-hook clean.

But it has one fatal flaw...the colored rings.

The colored rings are these little rubber circles at the base of the detachable brushes. The rings are supposed to identify whose brush is whose, so that when someone goes to brush their teeth, they don't stick someone else's toothbrush in their mouth.

The colored rings used to work great. They had standard colors: blue, yellow, green, etc. Perfectly useful for identifying toothbrushes. But now, some genius decided that the standard colors didn't look right on the fancy-schmancy toothbrush. So they decided to make all new colors...THAT LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME! They're all grey! It's completely ridiculous!

Now when me and Mrs. BigKat go on vacations, we have ridiculous conversations like this.

'Which one is my toothbrush?'

'What color did you have?'
 
'Grey'

'Was it dark grey?'

'Ummm...I don't know...Maybe...I think it was kind of bluish grey'

'Ok, then this one is yours'

'But that one's greenish grey. Wasn't yours greenish grey?'

'No mine was light grey'

'Light greenish grey, or light bluish grey?'

'I don't know...I guess light bluish grey...'

'Then this one's probably yours. It's light bluish grey'

'But the other one's light bluish grey too. Just a little greener. Maybe greenish-light bluish grey. Are you sure yours was light bluish grey and not greenish-light bluish grey?'

(pause)

'Fine...I'm just going to use this one. I don't care if I get your cooties.'