Today is Memorial Day down in the U.S. of A.

I want to wish all my friends a pleasant and safe Memorial Day.

'Nuff said.

I'm sitting here at 4:20 am in the bloody morning on the laptop.

Have not been able to get much sleep tonight, and the alarm for work should go off in about an hour or so. Just had a very sweaty night, and tossed and turns with a bad dream or two, and my left foot is hurting somewhat as I type this.

I'll probably spend part of the next hour writing by hand a scenario idea that I have for Desolation, and then get ready to go to work. This being the second week after CanGames, I'll be turning my attention back to rpgs. I always take the week after CanGames off from rpgs, and haven't looked at an rpg in a week, and it's been a sort of productive week in some ways, but... I have a few things to do before I run some rpg goodness on my Friday and Sunday groups.

Oh, and the weather forecast for today is extremely hot and muggy in the city. Just what I need, the way I've been feeling.

In the meantime ::yawn:: I want to do a bit of writing now, so will do that until it's time to get ready for work.

Saturday was one of those days that one just writes off, methinks. I suspect that it was a let-down due to last weekend's experience at CanGames, but that's another matter.

In other news, I spent part of yesterday afternoon out with spross looking at tablets over at FutureShop. (I still don't have my car, so it was good of him too take me over there.) While I was relieved somewhat about the issues I had with getting an iPad, in some ways I'm just a little more confused over what I want in a tablet, though I did discover that my fingers can handle the functionality of the tablets. I'm thinking now of either an iPad 2 or 3, an ASUS Transformer Prime, or a Samsung Galaxy. Anyone want to offer thoughts on these?

I spent a relaxing Saturday evening for the most part, and watched a movie off my To Watch Queue (TWQ) called La Princesse de Montpensier (2010). This movie is a 2010 French period romance film directed by Bertrand Tavernier, inspired by a short story anonymously published by Madame de La Fayette. It stars Mélanie Thierry in the title role, alongside Gaspard Ulliel, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, Lambert Wilson and Raphaël Personnaz. The story takes place in the French aristocracy during the Wars of Religion, and focuses on a young woman who is forced into marriage while passionately in love with another man.

I'm not going to spoil the movie for anyone here, but I will say that I thought the film was excellent. The costumes, the scenes, the film-making in this movie are superb, and the cast of actors (notably Mélanie Thierry) does a wonderful job in the movie, vividly portraying Marie de Montpensier as a woman trapped in a situation that she cannot control due to her own feelings. Court intrigues, duels, secret meetings, and the power of nobility push the story to a surprising but well designed end, and shows that in the end, passion of the heart can be destructive. I would definitely recommend the movie, which clocks in at 140 minutes in length, and is quite entertaining, although a couple of parts in the middle seemed to drag a bit.

As noted a couple of blog entries ago, it's a tradition with my gaming groups that the week after CanGames, we play board games. Friday night was no exception to the rule.

After my Friday gamers arrived around 7:35 pm, we chatted a bit about stuff over a light tea break, and then got down to playing games. We started off with a set of games of Poo! The Card Game during which everyone got to play as it's set up to be played by between 2 and 8 players. The games lasted about 10-minutes, and were a lot of fun. The goal in Poo! is to inflict sixteen (16) points of poo on your opponents; if everyone else is out of the game, you win. I didn't win any of the three games that we played, with Nick winning the first game over Joanne, Kathy winning the second game over Ellie, and Angela winning the third game over me. Lots of fun that game, with flinging poo everywhere, but the group treated the game more seriously (other than Ellie, of course), and all the bad jokes are found on the game cards! :)

The second game of the night was the brother card game to Poo! The Card Game, Nuts! The Card Game. Similar in style and feel to the former, Nuts! The Card Game is set up for between 2 and 6 players, with the victory conditions being the winner is the first player to have a stash of 20 or more points of nuts. Since the maximum number of players for this game was 6, we played four games of this, each lasting about 10 minutes once more. Ellie played in each of the games this time out, and won two of them, beating Kathy the first time and Nick the second time, while in the other two games Tom beat me and Kathy beat Ellie. Lots of fun in this game, and in some ways I actually prefer this one to the previous game.

With Ellie all tucked up in my bed around 8:30 pm to 9:00 pm (I can't remember the exact time), the adults turned to another game, longer this time, for the final entertainment of the evening. The Sword and the Stars is a game of galactic Empire building in which one to five players guide the destinies of star-faring races as they expand from star system to star system. Based on SPI's popular Empires of the Middle Ages, The Sword and the Stars simulates the dynamics of an empire that stretches across hundreds of light years. Each player controls the central government of one race; during a year, the race may attempt to expand its range of operation through the creation of a StarGate, defend its system through the construction of a GuardianWeb, improve its technical level, encourage trade, or go on raids of pillage and conquest. Special rules cover the Confederation of Worlds, random events (from advances and failures of technology to the toppling of governments), colonization, and the appearance of alien raiders. The game includes a 17" x 22" map showing one quarter of a spiral galaxy, 56 Year Cards, 400 cardboard playing pieces, rules, and various playing aids. The Friday night players had expressed an interest in the game for some time, and this seemed like a suitable evening to play.

Since the game is only meant for five players and there were seven of us, it was decided that I would play with Kathy and that Joanne and Angela would team up to give us all something to do. We played what is called the Galactic Cycle of the game, and the gamers agreed by and large that it was an enjoyable game, though not as simplistic as stuff like Ticket To Ride, The Princes of Machu Picchu, and some of the other board games that they have done over the past few years. That said, David said that he liked the strategy of the game, and was quite fond of how it played. We didn't finish the game, of course, but suffice to say that the Draka were a menace to all the player Empires throughout the game, and several conflicts were fought over strategic star systems. Oh, and raids were...common. :)

Had a good evening playing the two card games and the board game with the Friday night group. It's been a while since we did this sort of thing, and I've missed it quite a bit. Nick suggested that perhaps during my birthday month we take one week out of the month and do board games again on the Friday night, and the others thought this was a wonderful idea. Just gotta make sure that the games chosen can also include Ellie until her bed time.

Here's some final thoughts on the CanGames, 2012 convention. You can read the post on CanGames 2012, Day 3 by following the link. This journal entry won't be all that long, but there are a few pictures, so the post is behind the cut.

( Final Thoughts on CanGames 2012 )

And that's it. The final post about this year's CanGames gaming convention in Ottawa. Hope everyone enjoyed these four journal entries about the convention, and please remember that comments are welcome. :)

Came home from work about twenty minutes ago. Absolutely scorching heat out there.

I've been sitting here for around fifteen minutes, writing up the basic final overview of this year's CanGames, and should be posting that up within the next half hour to forty-five minutes.

In the meantime, got the Friday gaming group coming out to play this evening. As is the tradition with me every year right after CanGames, the following weekend always consists of playing board games, and tonight will be no exception. We're going play some hands of Poo! The Card Game and Nuts! The Card Game. Since these are very short games, afterwards the plan is to play a 2- to 4-hour board game of some sort, with all kinds of options on the table. (But not Ticket to Ride, as the Friday night gamers have had enough of that game for now!)

Looking forward to see what game we play tonight.

Sitting here at work this morning, very tired and extremely sore.

The weather stayed quite warm overnight last night, and I didn't get a lot of sleep, tossing and turning most of the night, and feeling soaked to my skin.

To make matters worse, the ache and pain in the left foot due to the broken toes and now the work that was done at the footcare clinic yesterday on what turned out to be a hangnail kept the level of foot pain at a decent level most of the night, though my back pain was somewhat reduced for a change.

So I was up before the alarm went off, feeling like I had slept for maybe an hour in the last 36 hours or so (hey, that's just the way it felt), and am just feeling tired as I sit here at work and try to focus on the job at hand.

Just want to wish everyone a Happy Towel Day!

While it is a celebration of the life of Douglas Adams and all that good stuff, there is a message in there as well for everyone, even if one doesn't see it. So do something towel-ish today, and celebrate all things Hitchhiker. :)

Here's the post about the third and final day of CanGames, 2012. You can read the post on CanGames 2012, Day 2 by following the link. This convention day report is somewhat long, but perhaps not as long as the previous one. We'll see. :)

( Sunday at CanGames, 2012 )

And there you have it - my three-post report on CanGames 2012, and the rpgs I ran at the convention. Overall, it was a pretty good convention, tiring as per usual, and a somewhat painful time for me (but not as bad in that respect as 2011's). (I may write an impressions of the con post as well, but we'll see). I think I had a pretty good time at the convention, regardless.

Hope folks enjoyed these reports of the convention. :) Comments, thoughts, and questions would be welcome. :)

Just back home from my appointment at the Footcare clinic.

My feet were in pretty good shape overall, with the exception of the two broken toes. Otherwise, I have just the usual problems including deep callouses on the bottom of my left foot, and two pinkie toe nails that are just so difficult to cut because the nerves and blood vessels are so close to the top.

However, when it rains, it pours. The practitioner found another problem - I have a slightly infected hangnail on one of my big toes. She treated it, applied the Poly, and bandaged it, and told me to keep an eye on it for the next few days and keep applying the Poly.

*sigh*