No sites yet this week.
This weekend was exhausting. I barely got to play any DDR, partially because I needed to keep my hair unsweaty, but there were three birthday parties (four, if you count the one yesterday!). The three parties were for my grandmother, who has just turned 90. There was a fancy dinner party, an open house, and then another dinner party that was thankfully less fancy. The open house was very well attended, with many people coming to visit and congratulate my grandmother on her life and accomplishments. I felt more like a showpiece than anything else for much of it, but that's acceptable, given the occasion.
I did get to see my parents and my brother and sister-in-law, though. They live about 12 hours away in opposite directions (Connecticut and Iowa, respectively), and have their own lives, so it's unfortunately rare for me to get to spend time with them. I even got to spend 15-20 minutes just with my sister-in-law. In order to feed her baby properly, but not have to be onhand all the time, she's opted to use a breast pump machine to extract the milk for later use. (She works full time as a professor, and my brother politely stays home and works on his thesis, bakes for a local shop, and does kidlet care. The latter consumes a surprising amount of time, especially now that their son has started crawling...)
Due to society being rather touchy about a woman's chest (except, y'know, in ads, at the beach, and pretty much anywhere besides the context of child care), she excuses herself to a private area to use the breast pump. She invited me along, and since I was rather "peopled out" and I don't get to talk with her much, I agreed. The resulting experience was pleasant, if slightly odd. The machine makes a surprisingly loud noise for such a small thing, and for all that my sister jokes about it ("mooooo") it is kind of odd to see such a machine work. But it was a good conversation and I don't regret it in the slightest.
The last party, yesterday, was for a friend, and sadly about a week late. Schedules are hard to align. But she seemed to have a good time, and since it was a small party, it wasn't too stressful for her. We played a game I now kinda want to own despite the annoying amount of money involved: Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival. It's basically an electronic game for up to four people. You each choose an amiibo, which is a figure of a character with a fancy (NFC) base. Then you take turns going around the board, with your characters living the events of a month inside an Animal Crossing world. Animal Crossing is well-noted for its lighthearted, friendly, cute, and happy environment. So events like "I took part in a singing contest and won a prize today!" or "Today I went fishing and caught a ____ worth 1000 bells!" (currency) are pretty common. Unlike other electronic party games, this game didn't really foster a cutthroat competitive spirit, though it was the players versus each other. Something that distinguishes this game from a board game easier played in person is the fact that you can "level up" the amiibo figures, unlocking new content for them. For instance, the owl character I played was level 2, and had two outfits available to him: his normal attire, and a fancy white tuxedo.
To get and use the game, I would need to buy the game itself for $60, the console for $180, and at least two more Amiibos for another $24 or so. All told, over $250. Sadly not worth it. I guess depending on how busy they are, I might get to play again at their place, but they're often very, very busy. So I wouldn't count on it. I don't have sufficient numbers of games I'd like to play on the Wii U (that I'm aware of), to merit spending the money for one.
We did also play an actual board game based on the series Discworld. I've only read it once, and then only up to book 4 or 5, so sadly I didn't get as much enjoyment out of the cards and pieces as the players who'd read the books more recently. Still, the game was interesting, if complicated. Chris and I played as a single entity, and partially due to his trolling/scheming, we won. Each player gets a win condition that only they known, randomly determined at the start of the game. Ours was "if the deck runs out of cards." I rolled my eyes at it, assuming that would never happen. But with four player-units (two teams, and two players playing for themeselves), it did actually happen. Chris smokescreened our win condition twice: first as a personality that wasn't even on the board (we knew this due to a card, nobody else did) and second as a personality that thrived on having many markers on the board. That turned out to be the team across from us, so we certainly didn't fool everyone.
Overall it was a pretty decent, if extremely tiring, weekend. Next weekend won't be much better, as unfortunately my other grandma is fading fast. Given my druthers, I'd rather keep my head down over here on the other side of the state and not visit, but she only has three grandchildren, and I'm the closest. And admittedly, if I was on my deathbed, I guess I'd like some company, even if my focus has deteriorated to the point of being unable to make conversation. So that's this coming weekend, at least in part. I'm unsure if Chris and I will opt to stay there overnight. I'm not overfond of the house and environment, but it's a 3 hour drive to get there. That's a lot of gas.
This weekend was exhausting. I barely got to play any DDR, partially because I needed to keep my hair unsweaty, but there were three birthday parties (four, if you count the one yesterday!). The three parties were for my grandmother, who has just turned 90. There was a fancy dinner party, an open house, and then another dinner party that was thankfully less fancy. The open house was very well attended, with many people coming to visit and congratulate my grandmother on her life and accomplishments. I felt more like a showpiece than anything else for much of it, but that's acceptable, given the occasion.
I did get to see my parents and my brother and sister-in-law, though. They live about 12 hours away in opposite directions (Connecticut and Iowa, respectively), and have their own lives, so it's unfortunately rare for me to get to spend time with them. I even got to spend 15-20 minutes just with my sister-in-law. In order to feed her baby properly, but not have to be onhand all the time, she's opted to use a breast pump machine to extract the milk for later use. (She works full time as a professor, and my brother politely stays home and works on his thesis, bakes for a local shop, and does kidlet care. The latter consumes a surprising amount of time, especially now that their son has started crawling...)
Due to society being rather touchy about a woman's chest (except, y'know, in ads, at the beach, and pretty much anywhere besides the context of child care), she excuses herself to a private area to use the breast pump. She invited me along, and since I was rather "peopled out" and I don't get to talk with her much, I agreed. The resulting experience was pleasant, if slightly odd. The machine makes a surprisingly loud noise for such a small thing, and for all that my sister jokes about it ("mooooo") it is kind of odd to see such a machine work. But it was a good conversation and I don't regret it in the slightest.
The last party, yesterday, was for a friend, and sadly about a week late. Schedules are hard to align. But she seemed to have a good time, and since it was a small party, it wasn't too stressful for her. We played a game I now kinda want to own despite the annoying amount of money involved: Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival. It's basically an electronic game for up to four people. You each choose an amiibo, which is a figure of a character with a fancy (NFC) base. Then you take turns going around the board, with your characters living the events of a month inside an Animal Crossing world. Animal Crossing is well-noted for its lighthearted, friendly, cute, and happy environment. So events like "I took part in a singing contest and won a prize today!" or "Today I went fishing and caught a ____ worth 1000 bells!" (currency) are pretty common. Unlike other electronic party games, this game didn't really foster a cutthroat competitive spirit, though it was the players versus each other. Something that distinguishes this game from a board game easier played in person is the fact that you can "level up" the amiibo figures, unlocking new content for them. For instance, the owl character I played was level 2, and had two outfits available to him: his normal attire, and a fancy white tuxedo.
To get and use the game, I would need to buy the game itself for $60, the console for $180, and at least two more Amiibos for another $24 or so. All told, over $250. Sadly not worth it. I guess depending on how busy they are, I might get to play again at their place, but they're often very, very busy. So I wouldn't count on it. I don't have sufficient numbers of games I'd like to play on the Wii U (that I'm aware of), to merit spending the money for one.
We did also play an actual board game based on the series Discworld. I've only read it once, and then only up to book 4 or 5, so sadly I didn't get as much enjoyment out of the cards and pieces as the players who'd read the books more recently. Still, the game was interesting, if complicated. Chris and I played as a single entity, and partially due to his trolling/scheming, we won. Each player gets a win condition that only they known, randomly determined at the start of the game. Ours was "if the deck runs out of cards." I rolled my eyes at it, assuming that would never happen. But with four player-units (two teams, and two players playing for themeselves), it did actually happen. Chris smokescreened our win condition twice: first as a personality that wasn't even on the board (we knew this due to a card, nobody else did) and second as a personality that thrived on having many markers on the board. That turned out to be the team across from us, so we certainly didn't fool everyone.
Overall it was a pretty decent, if extremely tiring, weekend. Next weekend won't be much better, as unfortunately my other grandma is fading fast. Given my druthers, I'd rather keep my head down over here on the other side of the state and not visit, but she only has three grandchildren, and I'm the closest. And admittedly, if I was on my deathbed, I guess I'd like some company, even if my focus has deteriorated to the point of being unable to make conversation. So that's this coming weekend, at least in part. I'm unsure if Chris and I will opt to stay there overnight. I'm not overfond of the house and environment, but it's a 3 hour drive to get there. That's a lot of gas.
No comments:
Post a Comment