What really bothered me about all of this was that I felt like my kids deserved a better summer. I don’t feel obligated to provide some grand excursion every summer, but I do feel like a summer isn’t really a summer without some kind of family trip. This did not happen this summer; however, the summer was saved from total disaster by a small plastic box.

We have never been a video game family, but one day my wife brought home the new Xbox 360 with the Kinect tuner. I argued against it, but she felt it was important for various reasons that the kids have something fun this summer. I think it was a good call on her part. What I thought would divide the kids has brought them together. What I thought would be a huge waste of money ended up being a pretty good value for the amount of entertainment we’ve gotten out of it.

The Kinect is pretty amazing. Just yesterday we downloaded the new Fruit Ninja game for it, and it’s a blast. Watching my kids jump around and laugh while they slice up virtual fruit is a bargain at $9.99. The regular games are fabulous as well. My kids are five years apart, and yet they have a great time playing something like the Lego Pirates of the Caribbean game. I haven’t really played any console game since Final Fantasy VII, and I’m blown away by these new games like Gears of War. It’s crazy when I think back to the Atari games I had when I was my daughter’s age. We also use the Xbox to stream Netflix and ESPN. It’s an entertainment suite.

I still love my boardgames, but I have to admit that my wife made a good purchase.

How satisfying that the next store worthy of review is just a few miles away. The Crazy Squirrel Game Store, or the squirrel, as we are fond of calling it, is the result of a great deal of hard work and intelligent planning by its owners, Scott Martin and Jennifer Ward. In less than a year, they have managed to not only provide a good inventory of games, but have also become the center of the local gaming community. I think that’s really important. A good game store will have a copy of that game you might want, but a great game store also provides you a with place to sit down and play that game, or try out some new games and maybe make some new friends in the process.

The squirrel has a weekly calendar of events that range from tactical minis to RPGs to boardgames. I tend to go to the boardgame meetups on Thursday evenings, when I can manage it. I had a great time last week on Free RPG Day. I once brought my kids in for a bit while my wife was at a doctor’s appointment nearby. We sat and played one of the many games available in the store library. Great job Scott and Jennifer!

I found that over time the expectation that I was somehow behind in my gaming was making me anxious. I found myself choosing shorter games so that I could somehow catch up to my gaming goals for the month. I would think about how far behind I was that month, and how a game of Agricola was going to count as a single play, compared to a few games of Dominion or Lost Cities. I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with shorter games, but I don’t think that some meaningless self-imposed quantitative goal should influence my choice of game. It’s really all about the quality of the time I spend gaming that is most important.

It’s the same reason that I normally don’t do daily quests in World of Warcraft. If I have to do a repetitive task every day, then that seems like a job. I have a job. I certainly don’t need another one that doesn’t pay. I don’t need to punch a clock playing multiple games of Zombie Dice just because I need the overtime. That’s just stupid.

I have resolved to let go of these goals. I will play what I feel like when I feel like it, and not worry about it.

I know there is a boardgame based on the book, and I’ve heard good things about it. Designed by Michael Rieneck, Around the World in 80 Days was nominated for the Spiel des Jahres in 2005, but lost to Niagara. My goal is to play Around the World in 80 Days before the end of February. As far as I can tell, which means I briefly checked the Geek, it’s a racing game that utilizes card management to make your way through the events of the novel. It plays from three to six players, but as with most race games, I imagine the more players the better.

Okay, so who owns this and when do we play?

My wife asked me yesterday why I hadn’t been blogging as much, and I said that I hadn’t really played anything recently. She reminded me that we had just played Uno the day before. I said, “I can’t blog about Uno!” Well, why not?

I hadn’t thought about Uno until I listed to an episode of the Game Night Guys podcast. I don’t really know what to say about this podcast. For gamers, there’s really nothing that’s going to be of any interest to you; however, for some odd reason, I find these guys very amusing. Anyway, they did an episode on Uno, and I realized that I had played the game incorrectly when I was young. Who knew?

I picked up a copy with an Iron Man 2 theme that came in a nice tin. The Iron Man theme made it an instant hit with my son, and there’s even a special card type unique to the set that allows you to cancel an opponent’s play. I have to say that once we were playing with the correct rules, it’s not a bad game. Remember, Uno is a variant of Crazy Eights, so you are trying to get rid of your cards by playing matching cards the same type or of the same suit. Uno is the same but there are additional cards thrown in that force an opponent to skip their turn or draw cards. I was under the impression that if you couldn’t play a card, you had to draw cards until you could play, but that’s not right! If you cannot play a card or do not wish to play a card, you must draw a single card from the deck. If it is a playable card, you may play it immediately; otherwise, your turn is over. There’s even an actual scoring system where you accumulate points based on the cards that remain in your opponent’s hands. We always just played until someone got rid of all their cards. Oh, and you can’t play a wild draw 4 card unless you have no other legal play. Uno with actual rules? Go figure!

We’ve played it a few times in the last week, and I must admit that it does not suck. Go find that beat up copy in your drawer and actually read the rules. If you can’t find the rules, then you just do a search for them online. I’d toss up a link, but I’m too lazy.

Have fun, everybody.

I think it’s pretty safe say that I will never attend the Internationale Spieltage. Even if I had the Quatloos to take my family to Europe, I doubt Essen would be on our itinerary. Even when my kids are all grown up, and I no longer have to buy them new clothes every damn week, I seriously doubt I’m going to drag my fat retired ass to a German game festival so I can fight against massive crowds of smelly young board game enthusiasts.

While I’m on the subject, I will also probably never attend Comic-Con, or Gen Con, and it’s extremely unlikely I will ever be invited to or attend the Gathering of Friends. I’m sure those events will survive without me.

There are some events I would like to attend. I thoroughly enjoy KublaCon and look forward to going again next year. Instead of Comic-Con, I would rather check out WonderCon in San Francisco, which apparently is a comic book convention that still has something to do with comic books. Instead of Gen Con, I’d rather attend something like PAX in Seattle. I may never make it to the Gathering of Friends, but there are a few invitational events in California that I do attend and really enjoy.

If I have an event that I see as a personal pilgrimage, it’s BoardGameGeek.CON. This sounds more like my style, and I hope that I can make it in the next few years before it becomes too big, but it’s a tough sell to spend the money to send dad out to Texas by himself to play boardgames.