Author: Cassandra

Magickal Ailments

Hex Effects: Or, Side Effects of the Amateur Alchemists. Officially. Or, unofficially, When Family Rivalries Can Only Be Settled By Giving Your Relative an Evil Alter Ego! Amongst other miserable maladies.

Hex Effects is a game which you start afflicted, and spend trying to treat your own Hexes. As you do, though, each Remedy will leave you susceptible to other Hexes, which the other players will so ungraciously give you, while also triggering your untreated Hexes with Disasters to garner an effect. There really is no winning, is there? Only there is, because it’s a card game! The first person to treat all their Hexes wins. Take that, meddling relatives!

This one is relatively simple for something that goes back and forth so much. There are a few other ways to mess with other players and/or benefit yourself – usually ‘and,’ they’re very much joint concepts – and precious few things to keep track of that aren’t directly in front of you, rendering it rather easy to pick up! While also being a “plan six steps ahead, if you wish” (“…and if the deck favors you”) kind of options-transparent. The design is similarly details-rich combined with easy-to-parse!

(My favorite such detail at the moment is the tagline on the Remedy for Sinister Spores, Eau d’Acide No 7, which merely reads: “Sacré burn!”)

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Wine, Art, and Trees

My brain is a little fried this evening, having spent the midday heat (and my goodness was it hot) outdoors. I don’t regret it, though! The Morton Arboretum’s Wine and Art Walk was well worth it.

All this weekend, artists have set up shop around the lake nearest the Visitor Center, selling nature-themed pieces of all shapes, sizes, and price ranges. There were some very pretty landscape photography on-metal prints running in the range of $2,000, and a salamander sticker I got for $3. Shows like this are always a treat, because you never know quite what you’ll find! And what you’ll learn! Another artist and I had an illuminating conversation on glasswork. And of course, anything set in the arboretum is doomed to be gorgeous, especially when summer flowers are fully in bloom.

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Loro Parque

Here there be parrots! This was definitely the item on our Canary Islands trip for which I had the most expectation, and I wasn’t sure how it would live up. “Voted best zoo in the world, twice“? I mean, I’ve seen some pretty zoos, but a zoo’s still a zoo, y’know?

It was, in fact, still a zoo! Shocking, I know. At a glance, it looked pretty familiar: there are your ‘big, impressive animals’ – the lions, the tigers, the orcas and the apes; and then the little impressive animals, also – jellyfish, bats, tortoises. Food stops and gift shops, multiple ways to get to the same place, but still a couple of easy first-timer directions, where you can follow the loop and see mostly everything. I don’t mean this as a bad thing – this is the foundation on which our expectations of a zoo are built!

And then there’s the bonuses. Parrots, everywhere, which is a given given that Loro Parque means “parrot park.” Still, somehow, I was surprised at the amount of parrots. Between any two main exhibits, parrots. A whole cluster of walk-through exhibits: also parrots. Opening the dolphin show: there were parrots!

Even excluding the parrots (sorry, parrots), the dolphin show was a standout, with not just the tricks and edutainment one would expect, but also a strong sense of crowd work and how to keep a full house engaged! The pacing was solid, and the music choices were also strong. Delightful. We hit all four of the shows they were running, including the parrots, and while all of them were good, this one was the most memorable.

Also a favorite was the penguin house, as while Brookfield Zoo out by us has warm-weather penguins, it does not have Antarctic, and it definitely doesn’t have a conveyor belt to view them from. The walk-on conveyor belts were just a good idea in general, it seemed; slowly rotating around the exhibit while you view is definitely an experience! And it gets everyone on the belt all of the angles. Also a faint sense of comedic effect. You know. Just a little.

I have no idea how one chooses best zoo in the world, but this one was delightful, with so much to see and appreciate, and we still managed to see all but half an exhibit and all of the shows in an only-slightly-harried full day! If you happen to be visiting Tenerife, definitely keep it in mind, and if you happen to be in Puerto de la Cruz, there’s a free street train that runs to and from downtown. Happy travels!

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Hunters of the Outer Rim

This one is bittersweet, because I knew the game was being discontinued by the time that I acquired it. I recently came into a secondhand Nintendo Switch, and seeing that it was slated to be discontinued, the first of their free games that I tried was Star Wars: Hunters. That way, if I liked it, I’d have as long as possible!

Folks, I liked it. I adored it. I wish I’d written about it sooner, so those of you interested would have had as long as well, and it’s taken me a while to put it into words. Truth be told, I’m still a little short for words, and that’s ok.

Star Wars: Hunters is a no-hard-feelings 4v4 brawl/bloodbath with Star Wars-style characters, each new and with their own lore. And their own weapons! Lightsabers, flamethrowers, poison arrows… there are no holds barred. And! Rest assured your opponents (and your friends) will respawn when eliminated, no harm done. Except to their objectives.

Hunters has, by and large, three game modes. “Eliminate opponents” (possibly with extra steps), “hold location” (possibly with extra locations to control), and “hold object” (and possibly do something with it). One of the latter, and one of my personal favorites, is a cycling special event called Huttball, which is basically like if soccer or American football were characterized by ziplines, fire hazards, and also The Power of Unspeakable Violence. What a delight! Another special event takes the usual “eliminate opponents” game mode, Squad Brawl (won by the first team to reach 20, 25, or 30 eliminations in all), and makes every single character the Wookie, with an Ultimate Ability recharge that’s absurd. The entire battle is eight Wookies yelling and hurling boulders at each other. It’s called Boulder Bash.

I could go on for hours, but truly, I cannot say enough good things about this game. Whether you like tanks, healers, snipers, or squishy melees, there’s a solid handful of characters for you, each with their own distinct gimmicks, power sets, and catchphrases. If you don’t like one healer, there’s a good chance you’ll think better of another! If you’re not a fan of straight-up PvP mode, perhaps controlling objectives is more your speed. And the implication, underneath it all, that they’re all friends and/or coworkers, to me makes the whole thing all the more sweet. I love this game.

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Enter To Win? Sure, Why Not!

Friends, I’m a big believer in micro-dosing bad decisions. Have some small vices here and there, at a scale where it doesn’t matter and won’t blow up in your face, so you don’t make all your bad decisions at once and explosively. Venting the saucepan, etc. etc. I have a similar rule for hope.

My standing hypothesis is that the stereotypical midlife crisis (see: buying a car) is an abrupt expression of needing something to look forward to, or at least the idea of a something forward to engage positively with. I think most of us could use a not-quite-midlife crisis right now, without the raw expenses of purchasing a vehicle. My solution? Free-to-enter sweepstakes.

In the perpetual vein of if it’s free to use, it’s because you’re the product, sweepstakes are a marketing ploy built either on garnering contact info to advertise towards, or buying your attention outright with the prospect of free stuff. If you’re willing to field that, there are many websites that dedicate themselves to compiling the links, and the one I’ve taken recently to is The Freebie Guy! Which also covers actual freebies and steep discounts, but I’ve only paid attention to the sweepstakes, because window shopping Free Paper Towels For A Year or a trip to Universal is an enrichment activity. (There were, when I first checked, four or five different trips to Universal up for grabs. They were all different promotions. My favorite was probably the Jurassic World one with the scratch-off dinosaurs, though the How To Train Your Dragon rendition of Flappy Bird came in close second.)

Interestingly, if you partake of the daily entry options at their optimal frequency, you get to be familiar with the aesthetics, daydreams, and the user interfaces, until you have opinions on all of them. Such it is that I forgot to enter “the pepperoni one” (Hormel Pepperoni is giving out a most-expenses-paid trip to somewhere) (“somewhere” is four different locations, and which you enter for is your pick) before midnight Eastern and I’m sad about it. It was one of the first sweepstakes I ever entered, and it closes tonight! The march of time is alarming. I’ll miss window shopping that trip to Cancún.

(Obligatory disclaimer that if you enter for a big-ticket item, like a car, be prepared for the income tax. That is a thing that exists.)

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What You’ve Got

I am, tragically, deep in the delights of audiobooks, new games, etc. etc., such that tearing myself away to write this post was an exercise of will. But! They raise an excellent point. Most of my distractions at the moment are a product of our library’s Summer Challenge, and my participation therein, trying to finish enough items by the end of July to win prizes, and completing the per-household Bingo card for chances at more! This has done exactly what it was intended to, and forced me to take stock of what library resources I’m not making full use of yet. Here’s what I’ve learned:

-Your library likely has a staggering amount of online resources! Ebooks and audiobooks, yes, but also potentially music, movies, TV shows, and ours even offers access to Great Courses! Which are well-regarded, but definitely expensive.

-Along with checkout resources, there are databases for language learning, practice written driver’s tests, and information resources for finding books you like! These will vary wildly depending on your library, and they’re definitely worth getting to know.

-There are back corner sections of physical resources you had no idea exist. I checked out a how-to-read-Braille kit last year, because Experience Kits were on the Bingo sheet. We have physical media for audiobooks, board games, and a not-zero amount of video game cartridges – I didn’t even know there was a Lego The Incredibles game!

-There’s a good chance your library’s digital media covers more languages than its physical media does. If you’re looking for practice, e-media is your friend!

-The library program usually has something neat going on. That may seem obvious, but I periodically forget to check and then surprise myself by the summer concerts or presentations they’ve got going on. There really is something for everyone.

-I can’t speak for anyone else’s regions, but if you’re in northern Illinois, it’s worth checking to see if your library partakes of the Explore More Illinois or Museum Adventure Pass programs, both of which can get you admission and/or discounts to a whole host of local attractions. We checked off that Bingo spot by going to the Ellwood House Museum in DeKalb, which I may write about separately. It’s a great way to find museums you didn’t know existed!

I adore our library and make use of its resources constantly, and I’m sure it still has features I don’t know. So take a moment, and see what you have to work with!

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Teide By Night

While we were in the Canary Islands, we partook of a Teide by Night tour, which picked us up near our hotel and gave us a full-evening experience of Teide National Park! The same bus was assigned to us to us for the whole trip, from pickup to drop-off, and for the hour climb through more and more residential areas, to the mist-laden forest above, and through the perpetual cloud cover into bright and sunny mountains.

We stopped at a restaurant briefly, with the opportunity for snacks; saw canaries (our first of the trip!) out and about while we waited; and headed back out in no time at all, off to see viewpoints. Gorgeous views from the bus, stop, step out, take photos, rinse and repeat – you can spend a whole trip in this park, so there was a lot to cover. The peak was not one of them – for that, you need a permit, far enough in advance to not be sensible for large tour groups.

And it was, indeed, a large tour group, or at least the company is – while our bus had maybe twenty people, there were three or four buses all running at the same time, and we all came in to dinner together, slightly staggered. It’s difficult to stagger them too far, you understand – after dinner, we all headed out to watch sunset, and it’s not like that waits for anybody! I enjoyed the food, certainly, but sunset was the stunner, made better with warm mint tea to stave off the impending cold. Another moment at the restaurant – bathrooms, liquor tastings for those who partake – long enough for the sky to darken, and then we were off to watch the stars. I learned more about where the constellations are in relation to each other and the information they actually convey than I have in the rest of my life! And the pre-set-up telescopes allowed us to get several special looks at the sky, including of a nebula. Magic.

This one… was a lot. As you may gather from the sheer quantity of stuff happening, there was a lot of rushing from place to place, and it’s definitely not for anyone who wants to stay in one place for an extended period of time, or have finer control over in which places you stay at a given moment. That said, if you only have a day for Teide, as we did, this was incredible, and any trip to Teide would be, with guaranteed clear weather and even clearer view of the stars. Difficult to be subject to the whims of clouds when you’re above them! Literally. So this was a delight.

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Have You Built A Coral Reef Today?

Ecosystem: Coral Reef is a closed-circuit deck-passing game, by which players use the dwindling supply of available cards to build a 5 by 4 grid of marine life! Everyone will wind up with their own completed ecosystem, but the particulars will grow harder and harder to orchestrate, leading to some… very strange placement. Coral floating at the surface, anyone?

Instead of having each organism’s effects on the cards, each player gets a cheat sheet, which will lead to a lot of cross-referencing in the early stages of the game. Each life form has a different bonus, most of them points-based, many of them in relation to the organisms they share rows, columns, or adjacency with. A couple of them have actions, like the octopus, who lets you move another card! Very important, as once cards are placed you can’t move them anymore. And sometimes you thought you knew what you were doing, and then your neighbor handed you a shark. Y’know, a normal problem.

Regardless, this one was a lot of fun, with point-stacking mechanics everywhere and an additional bonus for your least points-yielding type, be they producers, prey, or predators – which, being based off the point total of that variety and not merely the number of organisms, can be a hell of a bonus! This is definitely a ‘write down your math’ kind of game. And isn’t it gorgeous?

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Another Garden

A few weeks ago, I posted about our trip to Tenerife (Canary Islands) and our day trip to a number of gardens. Those were further afield, but Puerto de la Cruz – where we were staying – had gardens too!

On our second full day on Tenerife, we visited Jardín de Aclimatación de La Ortova, more simply known as “Jardín Botánico de Puerto de la Cruz,” a botanic garden (jardín botánico), a not-terribly-long walk from where we were staying. Beyond the usual garden things – plants, water features, a welcome amount of shade – we also saw Eurasian blackbirds, Eurasian collared doves, a rat (just chillin’ in the undergrowth), and an endemic butterfly! Called “Canary speckled wood,” which confused the hell out of me when I ID’d it. I thought perhaps my app had glitched and focused on a tree!

Unlike the animals, the plants were well-labeled – as one can do when the subject is stationary – with species, family, common name, and area of origin! Which is how I know this funky donut-looking thing is a fig tree from tropical Asia!

That, and having played Metaflora for a while now, I was delighted to actually recognize some of the family names!! It’s the little things.

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Creativity at the Crossroads

This is the second year we’ve made it to North Aurora’s Creativity at the Crossroads, and it was even more of a delight! The event is a Saturday art and craft fair, set up at a park by the river and in dappled shade – which was a great relief in the 90-degree weather! – with all sorts of booths and stalls. Selling prints, naturally; stickers, pins, crocheted plushies… there was a stall that almost exclusively sold scrunchies, and another that specialized in bow ties! Because bow ties are cool.

While the event is now passed for this year, I expect it will be back and even larger in 2026! I hope so, anyway. And if you’re around North Aurora, IL when it is, come check it out!

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