Random Musings

The Random Musings posts are the easiest for me because this is how my brain works, popping from one thought to the next with no regard for connectivity.  Here goes!!

Last night I was in bed getting ready to fall asleep  play games on my Kindle and Mr. Big Ed was already fast asleep as he goes to bed about 4 hours ahead of me.  When all the sudden he started jerking, moving and making sounds (reminds of me how a dog barks and runs in their sleep) and then he kicked me!  He KICKED me!!  AND DID IT AGAIN!  I started trying to wake him up and said "Hey, you are kicking me!" And in his dream fog he replied back "Yeah, I know. I was trying to kick the zombies".

Huh?  Zombies?

That was quite the unexpected end to my day!  Can't wait to talk to him about this over dinner and see if he remembers any of it.

A few days ago it was one of my sister's birthday.  She was turning the Big 5-0.  I did that just a few years ago my own self and wanted to come up with something fun to mark the occasion for her.  So I turned to my friend Google, and speaking of Google let me say this:  I do NOT like the new Google logo thing.  But back to the Googling adventure.  I asked Google about what products were put on the market the same year that she was born, 1965 and got a nice long list of really fun things.  Then I set about trying to find some of them.

Here's what I got:

The Sound of Music - they had a 50th anniversary edition available

Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella - similar 50th anniversary edition

Mattel's See n Say, the Farmer says - This was a reproduction and it was the very first toy she was ever given as a Christmas gift so I was really happy to find one.

Operation Game - vintage with all the parts, money, even the original rubber band.

Mystery Date - reproduction of the original.

Spirograph - Be still my heart!  I loved the Spirograph so much!!!  This is an original one with everything still in the box minus the green pen.

Barrel O Monkeys - old, vintage, original.  Cute!

Spaghetti-Os - brand new can

Honeycomb Cereal - of course, new.

I found really fun brightly colored striped and polka-dotted giftwrap papers and wrapped them and set them out in a big pile in my family room because she happened to be in town this weekend.  She and her friend and friend's son all came over for dinner last night and I had her open them and try to figure out the connection between all these things.  I think the "50th Anniversary edition" on the damn DVDs gave it away but it was still lots of fun and I hope she likes them.

AND we broke out the Mystery Date game and played.  That was lots of fun.  We had dinner and I made a birthday cake which we were all too full to really enjoy.

This is the week leading up to the premiere of the new season of Doctor Who.  The 52nd season as a matter of fact.  And months ago they announced that there would be a showing of the first episode for this season in the movie theaters.  They did this last year and I got tickets and we all went dressed in our best Doctor Who outfits.  So the minute I saw this was happening again this year I snagged 2 tickets.  I have been beside myself about this ever since!

Until last week when I watched the trailer about the theater showing and see that it is actually going to be THE LAST EPISODE FROM LAST SEASON with a "special preview" of the upcoming episode.  WTF??

Are they kidding me?  What complete ass whistles.  That was a really crappy thing to do.  And guess what?  The new season starts this coming Saturday.  And this coming Saturday I will be at my mama's house at a family birthday party for my sister.  The one who was here.

Well, sonofabitch.  Now, not only do I NOT get to see the episode beforehand in the theater in 3D, but I also don't get to watch it on Saturday with the rest of the world.  I will get to watch it off the DVR much later then everyone else. Goddammit.

In other news, fall is shaping up to be absolutely gorgeous around here.  The sky is such a beautiful shade of blue, the birds and other critters seem quite happy.  And I have started decorating for fall/Halloween/Days of the Dead.  By decorating I mean I have hung Days of the Dead wreaths on my front doors and put out a package of Pumpkin Spice Kisses and some Halloween flavored Peeps. But it's a start!

Hope your fall or spring depending on your hemisphere is shaping up nicely!

Board Games

I may have mentioned it a time or two but just in case you have forgotten, I love me some board games.  I do. I really do.  I have a load of board games.  I think you could say I have a plethora of board games.  Do you think I could just say games and not stick the "board" in front of it any more?

I have probably 6 or 8 Monopoly games, all different ones.  I even have the one I received as a birthday gift when I was probably 11 or 12.  I also have my original Life game, Clue and my Twister.  Did you know Life is different now?  In mine you are trying your best to get to Millionaire Acres and NOT the Poor Farm.  I don't think there is a Poor Farm on the current one.  So why exactly are you trying really hard if there is no bad consequence?  Interesting, is what that is.

I also have many Trivial Pursuit games.  And several extra boxes of cards to use with the original Genus game board, that are all music or t.v. shows or 80's trivia.

I have Scrabble in English and Spanish.  I have several Pass the Pigs games, and Yahtzee, Uno and Skip-Bo like I was trying to corner the market.  I don't know exactly how that happened.  My collection includes several sets of dominos that are regular, traditional double-6 sets and one cool one that is double-12 for playing Chicken Tracks.  That one is a ton of fun.

One of my favorite old-school game is called Hedbanz.

This is hilarious and way too much fun when you have a big group playing.

I have told you before about my Mah Jongg playing.  I play twice a month and as a matter of fact, I am playing tonight!

Last year for Christmas my daughter the lovely and talented Miss Rachel Pie bought us a game as a family gift called Wise and Otherwise.  It looks like this:

This game is a real hoot!  It's very much like Balderdash, in case you are familiar with that one.

We have a game we received as a gift way back in the Dark Ages when we were first married called 221B Baker St.  That's Sherlock Holmes' address, by the by.  It is a whole lot like a grown-up version of Clue.  Instead of going around a house room to room, you go around London to the Tobaccanist, the Apothecary, Library, etc.  

In addition to board games, I also like jigsaw puzzles.  And we have tons of these things.  You would think I would have caught on years ago that no one really likes to work on the damn things but me. But no, I still drag one out every holiday season and set up a table by the Christmas tree and play Christmas carols and hope people will join me.  Not so much.

I love to play card games too.  When Rachel Pie is home we have a running gin tournament and sometimes will stay up till 2 or 3 a.m. playing cards.

Anyone have any board games they can recommend?  Any games bring back fun memories for you?  Any holiday traditions that include games or puzzles?  

Lemme hear from you!  I am always on the lookout for a new game!

I am such a player

Who loves games more than I do?  Since there is no real way to quantify this, I will just go ahead and pick up the crown and wear it!  Queen of Gaming!

I love games.  Not mind games, not relationship games, no, not any of those things.  Board games, card games, all sorts of domino type games, dice games and the Big Top of the Heap game . . . . .

MAH JONGG!!

I love Mah Jongg.  This is a great game.  People who know how to play will always want to get a game going.  I have never met a single person who learned to play Mah Jongg and then said "Nah, never mind, not so much".  Of course, I wouldn't hang out with people like that and maybe that's why I have never met them.  But anyhoo, I will repeat myself.  This is a great game.

With this in mind, you might be surprised, even bumfuzzled to learn that my family will begrudgingly play with me about once every blue moon.  What!?  you say?  How can that be?  (all aghast and taken aback)  And that is exactly what I say!  What?  What do you MEAN you don't want to play Mah Jongg with me?

What gives with relatives doing this?  What gives with Evil Husbands and Ungrateful Children not wanting to play my favorite game with me?  That is what I want to know.  I think I should make a rule. A proclamation, if you will.  "If you expect to enjoy my home, my largesse; you might want to brush up on your Mah Jongg skills".  Ha!

Ok, now back to other board games.  Rachel Pie got us a new board game for Christmas called Wise and  Otherwise.  It is similar , no it is exactly the same as Balderdash but with really cool sayings from all over the world.  We played this many times over the holidays and had such fun with it.

We also played Jonathon's new Grateful Dead-opoly.  That was a fun game too.  I love all the Monopoly games and different versions of it.  I own about 6 or 7 different Monopoly games.  One from my childhood, one anniversary edition, one Texas version, another newer anniversary edition, I would have to go look at them to tell you the rest.  I love to play Skip-bo, Uno, Trivial Pursuit, Spades, Gin Rummy, heck, I will even play Solitaire for hours.  Oh, and games from my childhood; not only do I have my old Monopoly, but also my Life and my Twister.  The game of Life has changed over the years.  I don't care for the newer, up-dated, PC version.  My old one where you either choose well or end up in the poorhouse is much better!

Long ago in a smaller city, not so far away, Mr. Big Ed and I had some really good friends who had kids of similar ages to our own small fries.  Every Friday night we would get together and cook, eat, drink beer, play with the kids, then get them jammied-up and parked in front of a movie to fall asleep and then we would play games.  99.9% of the time it was Trivial Pursuit.  Oh, what fun that was!  With Mr. Big Ed trying to sneak off to find a dictionary or encyclopedia to look up answers while pretending to be going to the bathroom!  And our good friend, let's call her "Hot Check Lil" saying "I'll be right back" and then sneaking off and going to bed.  That left me and Mr. Hot Check Lil to battle it out for the weekly crown and the bragging rights.  Then we would scoop up our sleeping babes and take them home and get ready for next week.

I love Bunco and Farkle. And that comes from playing Yahtzee as a kid, I guess.  There are these new "gaming" stores that have all sorts of D&D games and such.  Anyhoo, these stores sell the coolest dice you can imagine.  Not just six-sided white with black dots.  Oh no, these aren't your Great Aunt Tilly's dice!  You should check them out.  (If I would sit and spend a couple hours on my new and fancier-than-fancy computer and learn how, I would post some photos of all these cool dice.  But since I haven't you will have to look for them your own selves.)

Staying at home (or going to a friend's) and playing games is such a great way to spend a day, or an evening.  It's interactive (as opposed to watching a movie), it's inexpensive, it exercises your brain, it works on your team-building skills, strategizing and even evil manipulations.

Do you play games?  Any favorites?  Any that you recommend?