Saturday Costco, Games, and Text

My usual Saturday night gaming was out because Richard was traveling.

At The 649, Corwin and I tried out my new game from Orange Nebula, Vestige. While it lifts its structure from their older game, Vindication, it shows growth in game design and thinking since Vindication’s successful Kickstarter, as I felt I had more choices, there was no wasted space in the components, and there were few exception rules. It fits in a small box that would be more what I would expect to be an add-on and not a whole game. The small roll-up maps that fit in the box really cut the required space. The cards are small but, again, enough to make the game work and fit in a slot in the box organizer. I have the “wretched” version, which uses wooden tokens (quite nice for wood) and no “swanky” organizer or card separator (add-ons). It fits in the box well, and there is a bit of room for some add-ons.

I checked their website, and the add-ons and improvements are all sold out for the moment (I see as I write this that they are now available). I would enjoy the Chop Bot small mat (used in every play) and maybe a few more locations, but my experience in Vindication was that I left most of those things in the box. There is an optional Nemesis in the game, and I have two packs that come with the game and two from the Kickstarter; I have not learned the rules for the Nemesis addition. There is a treachery pack for the game too, like Vindication, which I always played with, as it is fun that not all random items are just good for you. It changes the emotion of a random draw! More to come as I decide whether to invest in some updates.

Corwin and I agreed it was an excellent game, with your decisions based on what you start with, the layout of the map, and options you acquire as you play. The game does end suddenly, using the same random end game conditions, but this time two conditions are required to end the game. I ended the last game (having been crushed as I misplayed while teaching the game and watching) and won by one point.

The cook at The 649, whose name I did not get, and our Lesley bartender were interested in the game, and I explained what I knew about the style of play and showed them the components. As it is from Washington State and across the river in Vancouver, everyone is happy to see the local game company’s stuff.

Before this, Corwin appeared while I was still writing the blog and not dressed. He grabbed some coffee and some cornbread while I dressed. I also talked to Deborah, who had some events I cannot share here. She is doing OK now. Dressed, we headed to Costco in Corwin’s car, Air Viking!, and there Corwin got a Costco card from my account, as he uses my address for his mailings and IDs. We then collected groceries; I got a few items, and we split a few (I grabbed a set of rolls of toilet paper from his mountain) later. I bought the full basket for just under $300, and then we got gas at Costco, showing Corwin the process. He was happy to see the lower price, but was aware this is a credit card place (and no AMEX). Air Viking! was ready for the next raid.

Corwin took his stuff home after sharing a few items and dropping me at the house. Later we would take Air VW the Gray to the 649 and see Crystal and Matt, whom I shared my plans with. It was good to see everyone.

After all this, even with two beers and two games, I turned to OCR scanning the First United Methodist History text. I have a copy of some scrapbook history. It has a few updates to 1999 but covers to 1985. Deborah was clear I did this the hard way. I was especially frustrated when my Canon TR4720 printer/fax/scanner forgot how to scan, and nothing I could find would restore this ability. I finally managed to photograph the pages wtih my phone, send the image into Adobe Acrobat on my Apple computer, and use the AI to OCR the text, though it was slightly scrambled. I captured this without corrections to a Word document (using special pasting each time to only extract the text).

Aside: Deborah was clear in the morning that she was unimpressed with my skill set and suggested that Notes and my phone would do this faster and better. I will explore that when I do the next pages and articles. Deborah is a former Apple employee and knows all the tricks!

Still with my mangled OCR’d text, I sent that off (I will fix it later), and went to bed and read about the American Civil War and found Bruce Catton’s The Civil War, willing to call the Southern generals brilliant, but their cause doomed and their efforts in vain. I am in 1862, and soon the Confederates will reach, according to the book, their high-water mark. Already, U.S. Grant in the West (the Ohio Valley was west then) has ended the expansion of the Confederacy and forced them at the Battle of Shiloh (and, according to many, taught Grant what warfare would be now).

Aside: After my visit to the South last year, I believe if you remove the pageantry and mysticism of the Confederate generals and army to a lesser degree, it is more of a desperate grasp of men trying to justify the loss of men and treasury for a cause that was impossible. I would point out that while his army froze and starved and was then thrown against reinforced positions to die, Confederate General Hood in 1864 was eating well with his staff, who, according to their own account, were amazingly comfortable. Look at these actions more as a better-organized insurgency on the Confederate side, and it would remind you of headlines from today. And the officers and elites living well while the people of the Confederacy and its army suffered. Not the story I learned in school.

I got too tired to finish the wonderful chapter on navy stuff. I soon slept and seemed to sleep without dreams.

Starting at 7ish, I made coffee from the Hidden House coffee, the last. I had a banana and cornbread I made a few nights before with that. I wrote the blog and also sent some Howard, my SciFi/horror character, to Emma. I then read part of one, spotted some typos from years ago, but liked the story. I added some lines and even a start of a Howard story to the blog. It was fun to write that morning. Nice to find my voice again.

And I think I can stop there. Thanks for reading!