Recap of a week+ off from work.
3/4 – Start of a week off from work. Not much happened on Monday.
3/5 – Testing day for… reasons. Mostly an assessment of how I deal with computer support issues and stuff like that. Visited a comics/toys store on Geary, which I’d never been to before. Almost bought a really expensive Mazinger Z import from Japan, but talked myself out of it.
3/6 – Urologist visit. Had a blood draw, which resulted in a bruise in my bicep due to a third label being printed as I was walking away from the blood draw lab. Arrgh.
Tried GloWing (chicken wings) at Stonestown, not bad.
Drove to the office because my new phone was delivered way earlier than I expected.
3/7 – Flight to Las Vegas for Dice Tower West 2019! I found that having a emotional support movie playing onscreen (Rogue One) helped with my flying anxiety.
Once we got to the hotel Nelson and I played a couple of board games (Azul & Memoir 44). A guy named Jason helped us learn how to play Azul.
Both games were enjoyable, and later I would order my own copy of Memoir 44.
Between games we got a chance to check out the Exhibitor area, where companies were demoing new and upcoming games and selling stuff. One interesting game was Escape from Dulce, which involved a secret government facility, and 2-headed cow armed with machine guns.
We had dinner in the ‘food court’ near the sports betting area. I had a cheesesteak with the best onion rings I’ve ever had.
We then checked into our room. Nice view.
We then tried a game that I already own, Baseball Highlights 2045.
I think it was a little too abstract from regular baseball for Nelson.
And that was Thursday.
3/8 – Started off with a complimentary buffet breakfast, which was actually pretty good.
I also encountered one of those fancy ‘flavored’ Pepsi machine, though I found out the next day that they *didn’t* have any extra flavors available.
Since we had planned to go see Captain Marvel this morning, we tried a short game based on competitive cycling, Flamme Rouge.
This one was a lot of fun in the short time we played, and I later ordered a copy.
We grabbed a Lyft to a movie theatre, or a hotel with a movie theatre. They had the fancy recliners in them.
The movie was enjoyable. I saw it again with my sister and niece on Sunday.
We took another Lyft to the MGM Grand and walked the Strip, which I hadn’t seen in 14 years.
Once we got back to the hotel, we rested a bit in the room, and then headed back down to the game room. We decided to try a game called Bunny Kingdom. Another guy named Jason offered to teach us how to play, along with this wife, so we had 4 players for this one. It too was a lot of fun.
After a quick dinner of a gift shop sandwich and chips, we called it a day.
3/9 – Another buffet breakfast, but we opted for the ‘brunch’ items, including orange chicken, fried rice and Korean BBQ ribs. Big mistake. Should have just stuck with the breakfast items we had the day before, though I did get oatmeal and a mini bear claw.
We started the morning with a game of The Networks, another game that I own but had not tried yet. It turned out to be fun.
I ended up producing 5 ‘action’ genre shows, which gave me some bonus points.
We took another trip through the exhibitor area, where I talked to the folks from Ares Games about their Battlestar Galactica Starship Battles game, and managed to get the elusive Starbuck pilot card. Woohoo!
We then tried a game called Camel Up, which involved betting on a camel race. Once again a couple joined us (neither named Jason, though) and taught us how to play. It was another fun game experience.
Thought this card had a weird resemblance to me…
Then came Gold Raiders. I picked it up based on the packaging and the quote on the back of the box.
It certainly looked promising. Nelson even got excited that he was able to pick a monkey as his game character piece.
But the game play was a bit underwhelming. We stopped after 4 rounds, which is a rare thing in my opinion. This was the only dud we played all weekend.
Finally we got together with a couple of folks from SoCal and Chicago, to learn and play a game called Root. It was the second animal-themed game that we played all weekend. And it was a bit complex, as each ‘animal’ had different rules and play style and objectives, especially mine.
Harris from SoCal was the orange cats, I was the blue birds, Brian from Chicago was the green mice, and Nelson was the grey raccoon. My bird army would fall into ‘Turmoil’ if all of it’s ‘decree’ could not be played during my turn, which resulted in a couple of changes in leadership and reorganization of the ‘decree’. It felt very political.
When that game ended, we went back to the room to get an early sleep, since our flight was in the morning, and we’d lose an hour to Daylight Savings.
3/10 – The flight home was uneventful, though I decided to start watching Infinity War somewhere in the middle, so it would actually end by the time we landed in San Francisco. The passenger to my left started Infinity War from the beginning, so between watching both screens I more or less got to watch the whole movie anyways.
I had to figure out how I was going to include the game that I got from our swag bag into my carry on luggage. Luckily there was enough space in my backpack to accommodate it.
Though the board split when I was checking out the components.
We’re planning to go back next year. Anyone interested in joining us?
After I arrived home I got a call from Jen asking if I wanted to see Captain Marvel again, so I did. Both she and Chloe liked it. I found I liked it more after a second viewing.
I got Hawaiian BBQ for dinner and called it a night.
3/11 – We will not speak of the lost day due to food poisoning. It was probably due to the Hawaiian BBQ.