Month: September 2019

We’re On Tour!

Now, wait, don’t get too excited, I’m not actually going on tour. Rather, I’m talking about a game called On Tour, in which you’re musicians trying to plan a tour to hit as many states as you can. It’s like 10 Days In The USA, right? Well, no.

On Tour board game with most of the locations filled in

For starters, it’s played on an erasable board with dry erase markers, but that’s not all. You see, in On Tour, you can only go to adjacent states in a given move. You’re also not going to only ten states, you’re going to as many as you can. And where you’re going isn’t based off of the color on the board, nor on adjacency alone, it’s also based on numbers. “What have numbers got to do with this,” you ask? Let me explain.

Each round, you flip over three state cards, and roll a pair of dice. You’ll get two numbers from the dice, once with the first die in the tens digit and the second in the ones, and one vice versa. For instance, if you roll a 2 and a 6, one of your numbers will be 26, and one will be 62. You then put each number in a state within at least one of the regions of the flipped cards, or, if you roll doubles, you put a star on one state in the available regions instead, which serves as a wild number. You can circle the number/star if you put it in one of the states you flipped, and not just the region. Eventually, every state will have a number or a star.

When finalizing the tour route, you can only go to a state of equal or greater numerical value to the one before it, so the game is a challenge of lining up the numbers in a manner that allows the most states without spreading them out so far that a stray number blocks the path. You also get bonus points for each circled state you visit, so try to incorporate as many of those as you can!

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What I Didn’t Inherit

This is a narrative on a trip to Six Flags that my mom and I went on. Enjoy!

“Are you insane?” I asked my mom, watching across X-Force’s twisting track as a car of screaming people descended American Eagle.
Of course, this was the woman who had walked through the entire theme park oggling almost every ride that I shied away from, and had already ridden the worst of them on past ocassions. How she had gotten me to go to Six Flags again, I wasn’t quite sure – probably the Justice League ride, which I do enjoy – or worse, how she had gotten me to ride Viper. Granted, I had already ridden Viper once before, the last time we had come to the park, but I hadn’t liked it, and it was a severe lapse in judgement to ride it again. I suppose everything I read about “second chances” and the lot had gotten to my head, and it hadn’t occurred to me that those ideals were aimed at people, not at roller coasters. While I grasped the handles tightly, as though plummeting to my death (which it certainly felt like I was), she was whooping with the careless ease of an adrenaline junkie (which she most certainly is).
“Do you really have to ask?” She responded, staring at American Eagle with a hunger in her eyes characteristic to people who actually like roller coasters. “Come on, you said you’d ride it this time.”
That was true – I had said that I was going to finally ride American Eagle that visit, since I was tall enough and the line wasn’t all that long. But that had been back in the car, when we had first arrived, and there were other aspects of that conversation that she was neglecting to consider. For instance, the fact that I hadn’t had wind in my hair and recent plummeting experiences for my mind to call on at the time. Or the exchange prior to my making that stupidly bold statement.
“I’d like to ride American Eagle this time,” she had remarked as she pulled into the parking lot. I knew what she really meant was, “I’d like for you to ride American Eagle with me this time,” and I looked out the window to see it.
“It’s the wooden one, right?”
“Yup. It has some record for longest wooden roller coaster, I think.”
“It doesn’t look too bad,” I had reasoned.
“It isn’t.”
“Any drops?” Drops are my kryptonite. They say it’s not heights or falling that you’re afraid of, just the landing. I’ve found that isn’t true. I think that some people genuinely are afraid of the altitude and perspective of heights, I’m just not one of them. Then again, I’m not afraid of landing either. It’s unpleasant, to be sure, but thanks to martial arts training I have plenty of experience with poorly done landings. No, what bothers me is the falling bit, where there’s nothing, just the wind around you, the drop in your stomach as you fall, and the complete and total lack of control. That’s what frightens me.
“Nothing serious,” she had replied. She would know, I figured. She had ridden just about everything in this park, at some point or another.
We had very different definitions of serious, it would seem. I stood there, watching the car speed forwards and downwards, and even though I was far from it, I could imagine the plummeting feeling that I hated so much, and I knew that ride held far too much of it for my taste. It was ironic – I could ride swinging cars that sped in circles and tipped you sideways, until you were horizontal to the ground, and I didn’t mind at all, but I couldn’t take a steep descent.
“Yes, I said that I would, but you also said that there weren’t any big drops.”
“There aren’t.”
I stopped picking at my thumb to gesture wildly at the tracks in front of us. “What do you call that?”
She frowned. “That’s not a big drop.”
“Yes it is!”
“Not to me.”
“You’re insane.”
“I know.” She gestured towards it. “Please?”
“Absolutely not! Why don’t you see if there’s a single rider line?”
There wasn’t.

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Welcome To Catan!

I’ve mentioned Kids of Catan before, but it was recently brought to my attention that I haven’t spoken about Settlers yet. Settlers of Catan is a game of resource collection, building, trading, and, of course, backstabbing.

Settlers of Catan board game

Each person starts with a settlement and a road. The settlement is at the intersection of three hexagonal tiles, each with resources on them. There are five resources – ore, lumber, wheat, brick, and sheep. There’s also the desert, which people avoid starting adjacent to because it has no practical purpose to neighbor. Each resource tile has a number on it. When that number is rolled, every settlement adjacent to any tile with that number gets the resource specified on that tile.

Resources can be used for many things, namely, building. Building roads, building settlements, building cities…. They can also be used to trade for things you do want, either with other players or with the bank, though usually the deal is better with people. You can also trade them for development cards, which have various perks.

There’s one special number that has only one tile it is present on, and that number is seven. Seven is on the desert. “Why would seven be on the desert?” you ask, “You said the desert is useless.” Yes, yes it is, but it’s resource isn’t. When you roll a seven, you get the robber. Instead of everyone getting something useful, you get to take something useful by placing the robber on a tile and stealing one random card from one player that neighbors that resource. That resource is also blocked, so until the robber is moved again no resources will come out of that tile, even if it’s rolled. I may have gotten in trouble once for blocking a tile that all three of my opponents had settlements near, which proceeded to be rolled by each of the three of them, in turn, before the dice got back to me and I rolled another seven. Whoops.

In the end, the game comes down to who gets the most stuff fastest. Settlements, cities, longest road, largest army, extra point cards… you get the idea. If you’d like to read a comedy piece pointing out the logical flaws of Catan, click here. It mentions some more complicated processes, like Universities, which are from the expansions that I don’t think I’ve played, hence I haven’t mentioned them here.

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Throwing Killer Baby Dinos!

Well, okay, that’s an unlikely result. But it’s what the friends who introduced us to Evo called it. What is Evo, you ask, besides throwing killer baby dinosaurs? Well, it’s a game of dinosaurs trying to survive and reproduce, in an ever-changing climate with new mutations to match, and the unlivable temperatures of each area necessitating migration, and sometimes a fight, to be able to reproduce, and hopefully survive the “survival phase” better known as the “death phase.”

Evo board game

There are a lot of fun parts to this game, but by far my favorite is the mutation phase, because of all the options. What happens with the climate phase, which comes first, is a new climate is arranged, determining which spots are hot, which are cold, which are instant death, and which are safe. Mutations make it easier to survive with a number of possibilities, like an extra pair of legs for more movement, fur to protect from cold, thermal regulation to protect from heat, extra babies to, well, get extra babies… and the special mutations.

Special mutations are a real treat. I honestly haven’t seen most of them, but there are special mutations for increased attack, increased defense, a ton of other awesome things I don’t remember, and the two from which this game got its nickname, Throwing Killer Baby Dinos. The first is called Hard Shelled, which allows the baby dino to be one space away from the parent, as opposed to next to it (usually babies are born in the tile adjacent to their parent). The other, while I don’t know its official name, is, in essence, Killer Baby Dinos, stating that the baby can be born into a space with an enemy dinosaur. Presumably, a fight ensues, though we didn’t actually get that tile during our round. While getting both special mutations to throw Killer Baby Dinos is unlikely, it’s a fun concept!

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Jaguars!

Yes, the cat, not the car. Cats are very near and dear to me, as I may have mentioned in a previous post, but so are jaguars in specific. One of my favorite places to go is Guatemala, visiting the relatives I have there (I’ve mentioned that some time, I’m sure). Jaguars, being important to Mayan culture, a characterization that artist friends of ours used for my parents and I, and a cat, are a species that I feel connected to. As such, when I had a Biology project involving choosing a species to write about, you can guess what I chose! And here it is:

The jaguar is a prime example of a species being perfectly adapted to its environment. Its distinctively short legs, powerful jaws, thick skull, and its affinity for water all help it to maximize its efficiency in its native environment of remote Central and South America.

In the heavily forested areas in which jaguars live, camouflage is well-put to use and chasing prey can be difficult due to the myriad obstacles. With conditions as such, jaguars adapted to a stalk-and-ambush style of hunting prey that minimized effort while not lowering the amount of food intake. For this reason, jaguars have a short, stocky limb structure, which allows them greater success at climbing, crawling, and swimming, which are directly helpful in the above mentioned hunting style. For instance, they have been known to climb trees to ambush their prey.

When they reach their prey, they try not to leave room for a hassle, going in for a killer bite through the skull. They can do this thanks to their powerful jaws. In comparison to other types of cats, jaguars have slightly stronger jaw muscles and slightly shorter jaws, allowing for more leverage on the bite. The result is a bite which, relative to the animal’s size, is the strongest of any big cat.

Jaguars also have thick skulls, which, besides supporting their killer jaws, may be to protect them in the event of a fight. While jaguars have no natural predators, some of their prey can be just as dangerous. Besides many of their prey potentially outweighing them by up to six times, they’re also known to go after caimans as one of their many food sources. And while jaguars may prefer to kill by biting through the skull, they likely also prefer not to be bitten through theirs.

If it was being attacked by most any other type of cat, the caiman would probably be fine just to retreat into the water, but not with jaguars. This is another trait of jaguars’ that sets them apart from other types of cats – they don’t mind water. In fact, they’re excellent swimmers, a trait they likely adapted due to South America’s wide network of rivers, teeming with potential meals, such as fish, turtles, and, as mentioned above, caimans. Swimming is also a convenient trait should the jaguar have reason to cross a river, as a much easier way across than going around or trying to find a dry path over.

Jaguars are truly remarkable creatures, beautifully adapted to the habitat they live in. Their specialized limb structures, jaws, skulls, and swimming capability allow them to better hunt their prey without expending superfluous energy. Even if on an efficiency scale alone, these beautiful, well-adapted cats are to be admired.

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