Thinking Outside the Box

Ugh last week was a long one, but I apparently survived. Mostly unscathed, at least if you don't count my almost utter lack of sleep. The company Christmas party went very well, and our performance seemed very well received. Now I just have to finish mixing three of five songs in less than four days. They're definitely not going to be my best work, but they should still sound pretty decent. With all the craziness going on last week, I have finally missed some workouts. Both my Thursday and Saturday workouts were skipped entirely. This was a conscious choice by me. I simply didn't have the energy or desire to do them on those days. They are marked in my calendar to be made up. While all three make-ups likely won't happen this week, I think I might be able to slate one of them in. Even with all of that stuff I still managed to lose a little weight. It's more likely due to my lack of sleeping than any food intake changes I made. But hell, I'll take i...

Busy busy busy busy busy. Work, practicing for a late-notice show with one band. Recording with another band (with a week less time than I was promised). Plus regular Christmas stuff and just trying to keep up with all the meetings I have to organize in addition to my normal job duties! Busy only barely starts to describe things. So on that note; Monday night gaming is cancelled for this Monday and next. I just don't have the free after-work time to make it happen. Tonight I'll be doing drum cleanups and hopefully tracking bass parts if it all goes well. But you don't care about that, you're here to read about my pain and out-of-breathness. Week 4 is finished and I've yet to miss a workout. The program thinks I did though. I made the mistake of starting a new program (9-Week on Easy) on the same day as finishing my first program. Since I marked Saturday as a workout day, it decided I'd missed that workout. I'll slip it in next Sunday I think,...

Another week is finished, and I am happy to say that I didn't miss a session for the entire three weeks of the Cardio Kick Start program on Easy. There were certainly a few exercises in the workouts that were not easy. There was one that I simply couldn't do at the end of my last session and I did have to skip it. One-leg hip bridges were beyond my ability that evening...especially at the end of my workout. Here are the stats for week three! Workouts: 4 Duration: 1 hour, 45 minutes Calories Burned: 809 Average Heart Rate: 123 bpm Max Heart Rate: 175 bpm Distance: 0.94 miles As you can see, I worked out a little bit longer and burnt more calories than last week. The distance was a little higher also, but I think the distance measurements in this case are weak relations at best. I don't really know how they're rating distance traveled when I'm actually running in place. However, I'll keep posting them up. Over the three week program my weight we...

Another week has passed and I still survive. The workouts this week have been a mixed bag. A few were easy, the last one was harder than I expected, but progress is being made. Here are the stats: Workouts: 4 Duration: 1 hour, 38 minutes Calories Burned: 684 Average Heart Rate: 119 bpm Max Heart Rate: 173 bpm Distance: 0.90 miles So it would seem I'm either not working as hard as last week, or my heart is a little stronger. I'd be inclined toward the second option, as my recovery times after high exertion periods is a touch shorter. Don't get me wrong, I'm still winded and red-faced, just not for as long. This week is the last one of the Cardio Kicks Start program on Easy. I'll be following it up with a 9-week program, also on Easy. Tune in next week for another update on my progress, and don't forget to let me know you stopped by!

Well I've survived my first week. In terms of commitment it actually was pretty easy. Four short workouts spread out over seven days. None of the workouts were longer than twenty five minutes in length. I will say that a few of the exercises, especially in the last workout, were harder than I expected on "easy" but I survived and here are the stats: Workouts: 4 Duration: 1 hour, 30 minutes Calories Burned: 580 Average Heart Rate: 121 bpm Max Heart Rate: 183 bpm Distance: 0.61 miles As always, feel free to post comments on this or any of my posts!

A few months back I was scouring the reviews over at BoardGameGeek to find some interesting new games to play. Something that caught my eye was a game entitled Omen: Reign of War . What finally cemented it for me was Drake's review over on his blog . It had been released a few months previously, but I couldn't find anything out about it from my local game shops. No one had heard of it. Turning my focus online I found that this small publisher's games are only available through their website www.smallboxgames.com . So I took a (smallish) risk and ordered a copy. When it arrived I found the packaging choice very interesting: they've chosen to use black plastic cases that look almost identical to old-style VHS cases, simply lacking the round knobby things that would keep the tape in place. Distinctive and fun choice. Looking more closely at the game itself, it is a rather simple yet inspired design. Each of the unit cards in the game has multiple uses, so eve...

People are offended by stereotypes. But stereotypes exist for a reason...they're simply a distillation of a widely known fact. One example of said stereotypes would be that gamers are fat and lazy slobs. Trust me, I have seen many, many examples to support this particular stereotype. So in my experience, it is a fact. Of course almost any generalization has exceptions to it. Unfortunately at this point, I am not one of those exceptions. About 10 years ago I had to undergo shoulder surgery, and following that, spent several months rebuilding all the muscle and mobility I had lost. Once I reached an equilibrium again, I decided to continue in my journey and make fitness a regular part of my life. A few years later I was a lean 179 pounds, 6% body fat and was training anywhere between 6 to 10 times per week. I was busy with training and all my other tasks in life, but I was fit and happy with myself. Do I sound vain yet? When I moved overseas I found it difficult to ke...

I've been really busy the past few weeks, but wanted to write up a quick message for Halloween! We tried our "Devoured By Zombies" VS System event last week and, while still fun, it didn't work as well as I'd hoped. I think my rules were a little too stringent, which made it pretty difficult to actually have a playable deck AND be able to eat your opponent's characters. I think allowing recovery effects would be fine, but I'm still not sure about having 'can not be stunned' legal in that format. Putting devoured characters into play late in the game also seemed a risky proposition. Especially if you were dealing with small characters like one- and two-drops into turn six and seven. It just didn't capture the zombie horde feeling I was looking for. One disappointment that I had was that no one really tried to build anything Halloween-themed except for me. Granted, the characters available to Underworld are not the greatest, I still h...

As a precursor, I loathe games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero . My friends that do like them assume that since I'm a musician I'll be good at these games. In terms of playing the crappy plastic drums, those I can manage, but still think they're pretty silly, not to mention extremely uncomfortable to sit at. The singing at least is still sort of like karaoke. But when I got handed a little plastic guitar w/ buttons on it because, "hey you know how to play this song!" and subsequently had to try pushing buttons in the wrong place on the fretboard I was immediately turned off. "This is NOT a game for musicians," I thought to myself. Enter Rocksmith . I hadn't heard about this game (for xbox and ps3) at all, but had it pointed out to me by my girlfriend in a flyer a few days before its release. About a year and a half ago I bought her a guitar, amp along with a book / DVD for beginners. I even spent some time in the first few months showing he...

Devoured by Zombies!!! So how exactly do you capture the idea of zombies in a superhero card game? By turning things on their head and considering all of your opponent's characters as zombies, that's how! I hope this seems somewhat thematic for the Halloween event. If you have any suggestions or comments please submit them to me before the 21st of October. Here's the idea... Rule 1: All characters in play gain the keyword Devour . This keyword's text is, "If an opposing character stunned by this character this turn would leave play, instead remove it from the game. That character is considered devoured ." This keyword can not be removed by card or character effects. Opponent's cards removed from the game this way go in a pile on your side of the table. Rule 2: Once per turn, at the start of the combat phase, you may put the lowest-cost devoured character card into play. This does not cost any resource points. If you have two devoured ch...

Recently I've been writing up sort of session notes combined with review thoughts into a collection of sentences. Well at least I think some of the strings of words might qualify as such. I'm still making ground after lamenting my lack of gaming, so that's been fun. Thursday's VS System sealed constructed event was Marvel Legends / Marvel Knights. We had a good turnout of 6 players, including one new player! I do hope that we can maintain attendance of around that number. It makes for good match-ups and variety, as you're not playing against the same three people every week. The sealed decks that I saw were pretty interesting. Although mine wasn't particularly effective I was able to win a game. As we usually do with sealed games, we followed it up with a rare draft to give everyone a chance at the rares from the packs. Saturday was my family's Thanksgiving dinner. This is the first time that I can recall ever having it on the Saturday. It...

I like horror games. Shocking, I know. The biggest issue with horror games isn't that they're scary and that people don't want to play them. The issue is that a lot of people think it's a little odd to play horror games at say...Christmas, or Thanksgiving, or at your birthday party. That makes Halloween a sort of horror gaming feast to the rest of the year's famine. With that in mind I scheduled nothing but horror board games for the entirety of October's events. The first game played was a new game to my collection, but not a new game. The version of Fury of Dracula that I bought is produced by Fantasy Flight Games, but is actually a remake of an older game of the same name, produced by Games Workshop. I sort of have a love-hate relationship with Games Workshop, because I think they make great stuff but it's generally too expensive. I also have a lot of trouble finding people to play Warhammer 40k with that I don't greatly disklike, so that...

Ok all you villains; I need your help! (Heroes just doesn't seem to be the right adjective for most of my readers, so you're stuck with what I give you...) Most of the time when I'm putting together the upcoming list of event formats I simply try to think of what formats might be fun, and that we haven't played for a while. However this month I thought I'd try something different. I want you to help me chose the format for not one, but TWO of this month's events. For the October 13th tournament, submit a comment on this blogpost with your top two suggestions from the format list. The format with the most suggestions submitted before October 7th will be the winner. A list of the formats can be found here . With Halloween coming up I wanted to try something with a horror or undead theme. I'm uncertain what this could be or how we can apply it to a VS System event. Here's a simple example idea: each player must build a BYOTT deck that features ...

The short answer: very. After a 15 minute trip to the Apple Store I had a new back plate installed and I was on my way. The third photo above was taken before I had the replacement plate put on. The phone worked like nothing at all had happened, and continues to do so. Just a little note however, I don't recommend trying this at home.

Well over the past week I was able to make up some more ground in the "play some games" category. Our regular Thursday night VS System event was lightly attended, but everyone had a deck built for the format. That's rather unusual lately so I was happy to see it. More than that though, I was happy to play with one of my personal favorite decks: JSA w/ Lobo. There's an earlier article about the deck and how it works here , so I won't go into the details of it. It was originally built for this format, and modified to work in Golden Age play with the addition of a team-up card. Of course I was playing without that, and was very happy to not only get Lobo out on the table each game, but actually trigger his text in one of them. Granted it's a turn six or seven win, but it's fun and does what it's supposed to do quite well. We followed up the VS games with a test run of Sentinels of the Multiverse . WIlliam had already played the previous week, b...

Last week I was lamenting my lack of game-playing time and dropped a list of games out that I was eagerly awaiting in the mail. Several of them arrived yesterday, so I have a pile of games on the table still in their shiny new shrink wrap. On Friday my copy of Sentinels of the Universe arrived as well, so I made sure to pick up some various coloured ten-sided dice and some clear sleeves before Monday's regular gaming night. Not wanting to force my hopes on anyone I simply set the pile of new games, including the two games that were on the schedule, on the table. After a little "how've things been?" catching up, and the first part of a beer of course, William decided the Sentinels looked pretty interesting and that we should give it a try. So try we did. In fact, the unheard of happened. We actually played the same game more than once in the same evening. The game was so much fun that we played three games of it! However, the villains proved more than we b...

My schedule, not to mention my general existence, throughout September has been filled with challenges. Many of these have been beyond my control and caused untold levels of personal frustration, but in reality I suppose things aren't all that bad when compared to other folks who don't have money for food, or for a place to live, or games. Those poor bastards who can't afford games are truly in a sad and pathetic place in life aren't they? Anyway, my personal steaming pile of annoyances aside, if you have somehow found yourself reading my blog for the first time you might be shocked to find out that I love games. For anyone else, it's not news, just annoyingly repetitive. But hey, I'm not holding your eyes open and making you read this, so shut it. As much as I love playing games, I really haven't had a lot of opportunity to actually PLAY any this month. I've missed one of the two VS System events so far, and will miss tonight's as well. Th...

We got an early start on Monday, as I was able to get most of the day off. Over the weekend I had picked up a copy of an older Fantasy Flight game from the Silver Line called Scarab Lords . The game is essentially a two-player battle game. Each player takes on the role of the ruler of a house in a fantasy-based Egyptian realm, bidding their minions and their gods to take supremacy and rule all. I had looked the box over on the shelf several times before finally deciding to buy it; and I'm glad I did, because I think it's a lot of fun. The artwork is really nice and the components, while simple, are good quality and provide a great game in a small box. The decks at first seem a little unbalanced, with the blue deck appearing the weaker of the two. I did determine afterward that we had missed an important rule that allowed a player to essentially skip their turn, and for a discard, replenish their hand. I also came up with a modification to the advanced rules that repla...

Yeah I admit it's a pretty contrived title, but I wanted to hit everything in there that's happened in the past week. The biggest thing has been my nutzo work schedule, which not only had me working late on Thursday, but for almost all of Sunday as well. That was a real shame because the weather here on Sunday was a gorgeous sunny day. The format for Thursday's VS System tournament was Countdown , and I wish I could tell you who played what and how it went. However since I wasn't there, and no one has given me any details, all I can tell you is that cards were brought and games were played. I think. Monday's scheduled game was EVE: Second Genesis . If you've played the online computer game you might have heard of it's CCG counterpart. The card game shares a lot of artwork from the computer game, and boasts some truly fantastic original art as well. The cards look great and I was looking forward to playing. My anticipation was quickly dashed how...

Last night's gaming session had a group of four, which is twice as big as last week. A 100% increase in attendance is pretty good I'd say. Before firing up our Warlord game, we decided to try out a print-and-play game I happened upon last week called Zombie Plague . The game has been around for over 10 years, and recently a member over on Board Game Geek posted up a very nicely done 10th Anniversary Edition. Since I like horror games (and who doesn't love zombies?) I thought I'd print things up and give it a go. Since the game is electronically distributed for free, we needed some dice and pieces. I just happened to have a copy of Zombies!!! which suited us perfectly. There are three ways to win the game: 1. All of the search locations on the board must be searched by at least one player. 2. The house's windows and doors are all barricaded and the house is zombie free. 3. Someone finds the keys to the car, and all the (surviving) players get in the car...

For almost a year, I gave Magic the Gathering a try. I enjoyed the game, it is well designed, relatively fun, extremely well supported, and the players are plentiful. However, the trade-off in my eyes was twofold. The first issue with the game was the general player population. I played in a few organized events at my local gaming shop, and generally speaking didn't have any fun. The players were far too competitive, and generally not that accommodating to the newer players. I certainly don't mind losing, because in any game someone has to lose in order for another to win; but good sportsmanship goes a long way there. The second was the frequency of set releases. As a casual player I simply couldn't keep up with the number of new cards, their interactions and combinations. Having to at least be familiar with a new batch of cards every three months is simply too much work in my opinion; that being of a casual player. So what the heck am I talking about here and ...

Starting next week I'll be hosting some semi-regular gaming sessions on Monday evenings on my kitchen table. The way it will work is simple. I'll post a schedule, similar to the VS one, but each week we'll play a different game. In addition to the date and game title, I'll list how many players can join the game. Simply let me know if you're coming by email or phone. When we reach the maximum number of players I'll mark the event as closed or something. Please try to give me a decent amount of notice, and not leave it until 5:30 the night of the game before deciding to come...as there may not be enough room for you by then! Some nights we may be able to play a few different games. The schedule will only have the main game listed to keep it concise. If you have a game that you want to bring or try out with a group feel free to post a comment on this thread, or contact me directly. I'm not sure if I can host games every week of every month, as my s...

Over the past few years, I've introduced several people to the Call of Cthulhu and Warhammer Invasion living card games. Afterwards a few of my friends asked me about A Game of Thrones as well. That game was actually the first one that Fantasy Flight Games transformed from a collectable card game, into a living card game (hence LCG). Not having read the books, and assuming it was strictly a political game set in a fantasy setting, I hadn't really done much research into the A Game of Thrones LCG. Even when the TV series started showing on HBO, I still didn't really pay it much attention, even though it got good reviews and was mentioned to me by several people as something I might like. Part of the problem was my initial thought that it was a political drama type of thing, something along the lines of Battlestar Galactica. That show had been recommended to me several times as well, and the three or four times I tried to watch it, I sat there watching people talk and...

As I mentioned last week, we're playing with Marvel Factions this summer. I'd like to formally thank banstylejbo over at vssystem.org for putting this excellent set together. We were looking for a follow-up to the excellent DC Universe set, and this has definitely filled the bill so far! Back to my original thread of thought...Dark Avengers. Why the hell would I want to try Dark Avengers, out of all the other teams available in Marvel Factions? The reason is actually two-fold. The first part of it is that I've always have a fascination with the mini-teams that most set designers have made appearances throughout years. Fearsome Five, Infinity Watch, Birds of Prey, Doom Patrol, and yes even the Purifiers have all made their way through the VS meat-grinder under my piloting. Some have been team-ups, others mono-team, but almost always fun. The second part of the appeal about Dark Avengers was the premise itself. While I have not actually read the stories, I find it ...

Throughout the month of June my schedule didn't exactly allow me a lot of time to join in the VS events. But of the five Thursdays packed into the month, I was able to attend two of them; and took full advantage of the chance to explore some of the cards in Marvel Factions a little bit deeper. After playing our two-teams event early in the month I found myself leaning towards the Heroes For Hire over Marvel Defenders . Not that they had poor cards or stats by any means! The 4-cost Hulk and She-Hulk drops they have are very solid and performed very well. There just seemed to be something more in the Iron Fist / Luke Cage cards I had used that first event that needed further attention. So with that in mind I stripped out the Defenders cards and started working around this pair of characters. First off, the 2-cost Iron Fist with substitute is a great card...just not on turn two. So I decided to make Paladin my first choice, as he ALSO has substitute. The ideal play for turns ...

Last Thursday's Marvel Factions event was great. It was disheartening to see that three of our regular players declined to attend, but the four of us who were there had a great time pitting our heroes and villains against one another. Roy and Scott both followed the BYOTT format as laid out in the tournament rules with Defenders/Masters of Evil and Masters of Evil/New Warriors respectively. Anthony joined us with his Green Lantern/Anti-Matter offering and I played a Heroes For Hire/Defenders team-up. We played three rounds so that everyone was able to play all the other attendees. My first game against Anthony went well in my favor, although some willpower defense boosts and hidden characters were looking troublesome. I was able to get a 5 and 6 turn Luke Cage / Iron First pairing out on the board that allowed me to get into the hidden area and have some beefy stats to work with. By the end of turn 6 things looked good and a short turn 7 cemented the victory. My second game a...

With Factions becoming legal for our group as of May 15th, 2011 I've revised the Age list. It can be found HERE .

Ok kiddies, here are the details for our first Marvel Factions-themed event, which will take place on June 2nd. The format is Bring Your Own Two Teams but...I've picked your teams for you! Remember that BYOTT means that you use teams of two different affiliations, and they are automatically teamed up. Additionally, ALL the character cards in your deck must have one of those two printed affiliations, and all other cards MUST reference one of those two affiliations in its text. I selected the teams using random die rolls, and have made some allowances for players that do not possess full sets of Marvel Factions. Finally, you may ONLY use cards from Marvel Factions unless I've specified otherwise below. Here's the team list: Anthony: Any two team affiliations Charles: Heroes For Hire & Defenders Collin: Excalibur & Asgardians (may substitute one team for a DCU team affiliation) Jordan: Asgardians & New Warriors Roy: Defenders & Masters of Evil (may substit...

The printing is underway but will not be complete in time for tomorrow's event. I will update as soon as I have a confirmed delivery date. We will be playing DCU sealed (Free!) tomorrow to make up for the delay.

WARNING: This article has nothing to do with games! For the most part I'm not a person who is terribly interested in politics, but as I grow older I find myself paying more attention to where my money goes. This applies both to the money I spend of my own accord, as well as that which is involuntarily liberated from me by way of taxation. The sad truth of the matter is that, locally, provincially and federally, I feel that the service I received for dollars rendered is very much lacking. I have written to my local MP on several occasions, and have never once received a response of any kind. Our provincial premier here in Alberta seems to live in an entirely different universe than those he has been elected to represent. Finally, our prime minister (as well as those who want his job) seem to be more interested in telling us how terrible their opponents are rather than actually doing anything to better the country. As saddening as this entire situation is, these are the people th...

Quoted from Facebook: " Squire Kershner - February 23, 2011 at 8:58am Subject: Upper Deck is asking you for your input . . . so do it! There have been several announcements from Upper Deck and members of their staff, that they are looking for input and guidance from the masses regarding a re-launch of VS. Members of the VSSystem.org Council have been told, that if enough interest is shown on sites like VsSystem.org , or enough comments/likes show up on the below pages, there is a significant likelihood that UD's new gaming division could be convinced to relaunch VS System. If you care about this game, and would be as geeked as I would be, to see VS back in production, take a the time to "Like" and Post on the following two pages. Tell your friends and gaming pals. We CAN make a difference. PLAY MARVEL Bring Back Vs. System "

The Warlord "Learn-to-Play" tournament last Sunday was a lot of fun. We had 6 players come out to play; and were short another 2 due the lovely arctic cold snap we were enjoying over the weekend. Here is a list of players, factions and warlords that made appearances: Alex: Yvaalis (Elf) Charles: Yavlo (Deverenian) Ed: Jorgun (Dwarf) Jason: Krenthor Gouge (Nothrog) Jordan: Rreg'jen (Nothrog) Sebastian: Cathel Rowan (Elf) After three rounds of fighting Jason and Sebastien were our two top commanders. Due to time, they were unable to play out for the win and made it a die-roll victory. After exerting a little of my mental power on the outcome (hey it could happen!) Sebastien was crowned victor of the event. As the victor Sebastien extended a challenge to the Overlord "Drasek the Furious". Drasek was hungry though, and after only four rounds the entire elven army had been devoured in a shower of fire and blood. (A small bit of advice for anyone who is interest...

On January 30th I will be hosting a Warlord introductory tournament at 2pm. People who are interested in learning the game are welcome to attend. I will provide decks for new players to use during the tournament. Of course returning players are also welcome to come out and play with their own decks as well! There will be prize cards available to all participants (subject to the number of attendees). In addition to the promo cards check out the other great prizes I have planned! 1st Place: Receives the first TWO packs from the latest expansion City of Gold (APS #20 - The Storm Awakens and APS #21 - The Mummy). 2nd Place: Receives APS #16 - Tales of the Ruby Rogue If attendance is six or more players, the players will also gain the right to challenge an Overlord. Overlords are the lowest tier of the Warlord challenge system. It is a high-level character who acts as warlord of their deck. They typically begin the game with special rules in play to them to make them even more p...