Tsuro acquired!

On the Friday before the July long weekend I popped into Pendragon’s on the way home and was finally able to get a copy of Tsuro. It was a few dollars more than it would have been at GameKnight but at least it was in stock. No Get Bit! in sight there either.


A quick setup and we were able to get some games in that night. So that definitely saves me the ‘trouble’ of having to make one. Now I can make a travel version when I get time.


According to the rep on BoardGameGeek.com they are resupplying and should expect more in stores by mid-July. We let GameKnight know that we no longer needed the Tsuro but are still interested in getting the Get Bit!

Tsuro - still denied - Thanks Wil!

We popped back into Game Knight to see if Tsuro and Get Bit! Had come in – but they were still on backorder. They only had the Mayfair version of Hey, That’s My Fish – with the wooden pieces. They did have a bunch of the Castle Panics though – I may have to pop back and pick one up.


My wife, who loves me, had bought me a Deluxe Hey, That’s My Fish from Kite and Kaboodle. It’s the Mayfair version but comes with the painted plastic penguins instead of the wooden shapes. She paid a bit more for it than I would have but she was annoyed at not being able to get a Tsuro or Get Bit! At least this way I won’t have to paint them – my painting vs buying total isn’t so good lately.

My daughter and I have already played it a few times. It seems simple enough with a fair amount of replayability. The penguins are a good size and the hexes make a board that fits nicely on our coffee table. The only odd thing is the rules mention to shuffle the tiles face down but our tiles are double sided – with fish on both sides. This doesn’t really affect play as you have to adjust the board anyways if the higher-fish floes clump together.



If I can’t find a Tsuro or Get Bit! I may have to make a temporary copy for us to play until they finally restock. Both games are pretty simple to replicate and the rules are basic enough to remember.

Quick - draw condiment gun

For Father’s Day, my daughter picked out a Condiment Gun from Avon for me. I had never seen one before. It looks a bit like a ray gun and has two triggers – one for ketchup and one for mustard. When you open it up, there are two containers – each of which is compressed by a trigger.

I haven’t tried it out yet – but it looks pretty keen.



Here is a picture from the Avon.com web site - the Avon.ca site doesn't have it listed.

dial of the times

Back in the day, the odometers on cars used to actually be a series of dials. As the lower dials rolled past nine back to zero, the dial to the left would increment one as well. This became more fun when you ‘rolled it’ or went from 99999.9 to 00000.0 (as they didn’t show hundreds of thousands).   I remember seeing it happen a few times from when I was a youth and it always left an impression on me.



So on the old car, when we came close to rolling the odometer, we piled the kids in the backseat and drove around the Safeway parking lot a bit until it rolled over so they could see.

 

With the van, I recently ‘rolled it’ from 199,000 to 200,000. 

With the new digital odometers, it’s not nearly as cool.

My Fish - bigger or smaller box?

After Keycon, I had popped into Game Knight to check out some games that we had played at the convention. Game Knight had been a sponsor and had a table of games that you could borrow to play. They had Lascaux but did not have Tsuro or Get Bit! in stock. They said that they had both on order and took my name to call me when they came in.

It’s now been a month and I haven’t heard from them.


I finally managed to pop into Kite and Kaboodle at the Forks over the weekend. They have a facebook page and when I asked if they had Tsuro they said they too had it on order and it might have come in but it hadn’t.

While I was there I did see the box for Hey, That’s My Fish. I had heard a bit about this game as well but the box was smaller than I thought. In checking it out online at BGG, I find that there were 2 versions – one a bit bigger than the other. The bigger one also has painted figures instead of merely colored ones. I’m not sure it’s worth the extra money for the bigger box – but we’ll see.

HDMI to RCA?

It’s been pretty wet and rainy lately.  Which has meant that, except for cutting the lawn twice, we haven’t had to do a lot of yardwork.  This has allowed us a bit of time to try to catch up on the shows recorded on the PVR.  Now we are no longer right at our buffer limit and we even watched the rest of Boardwalk Empire.

I’m looking at connecting the laptop (which has an HDMI output) to the TV (which has RCA connections in front).  I don’t seem to be having any luck finding a HDMI to RCA cable so I might have to check to see if the VCR/DVDR has a HDMI input I can use.  This way we can watch Tabletop on the TV instead of having to crowd around the laptop.  It will also make it easier to watch The Guild as well.

Tabletop - on the list

I’ve been following Wil Wheaton’s blog for quite some time now.  It turns out that he is also a big-time gamer in addition to being an actor and author.  He recently started a youtube channel Tabletop where he plays a board game with people – actors and others.

They are running through some of the Eurogames Like Settlers of Catan, and Ticket to Ride as well as games like ZombieDice.

Two of the games that he has shown on Tabletop - Tsuro and Get Bit! I was able to try out at Keycon over the weekend.

I’ve seen Tsuro advertised before from WizKids but it never hooked me.  The theme of dragons flying on pathways in the air just didn’t make we want to pursue it.  Seeing it on Tabletop got me interested enough to play it at Keycon and it definitely makes the list.  Besides being visually elegant it also plays very well up to 8 people.  It’s simple to explain and easy to pick up.  Even though I worked out the permutations for the tiles, I’ll look to pick up a copy.

Get Bit! was also shown on Tabletop and we managed to play a bunch of games at Keycon.  You play robots swimming away from a hungry shark.  As the shark catches the last robot in line, you actually pull the limbs off the robot.  It plays up to 6 people and is also quick and easy to learn.  I’ve added it to my list even though you can no longer get the variant that allows you to play as the shark.  Also, they played it slightly wrong on Tabletop so be aware when you play it – after the shark bites off a limb, that robot is flung to the front of the line.

While they showed Ticket to Ride on Tabletop, I didn’t catch the episode until after Keycon so never had enough interest to play during the convention.  It seems interesting enough to give it a try but not enough to actually put on the list.

At the convention, I finally saw Power Grid being played.  It seems a bit too fiddly for my crowd so it doesn’t make the list.  I may change if I play it but it didn’t inspire me enough to rush out and try it yet.

In the Great Canadian Board Game Blitz I saw a bunch of other games being played that caught my eye – notably Lascaux and Acquire.

I’ve known about Acquire for decades but never played it or knew anyone who had.  I’ve heard a lot of good things about it and in seeing it played and reading the rules it seems like it might be worth trying.  I’m not putting it on the list unless I can find a deal on a copy though.

I also got to see Lascaux being played.  Besides the pretty stones, the game seems quite simple to play and devious enough to keep interesting.  It quickly made the list as well.

On Wednesday, I finally was able to get to Game Knight.  Since they moved to Osborne, I haven’t been able to find their store while driving by but with their updated website showing the actual storefront, I finally did.  They have a good selection of games but were between shipments of Tsuro and Get Bit!  They did have a copy of Lascaux left though so I snapped it up right away.