HoodedHawk

Hugh Laurie and the Copper Bottom Band played at Ram’s Head On Stage in Annapolis tonight. Fantastic blues show. Hugh Laurie is quite the showman, and an accomplished pianist and singer! I enjoyed the intros he gave to most of the songs, and the great rapport he had with the audience. Had a great time. Started the night off at Lemongrass restaurant (up the street) with a delicious chicken Red Curry. Genius Stout and Copperhead ale at Ram’s Head rounded it off. Delicious food and then wonderful music; great evening.

[Update 7/19/2012]
Another full game of Eclipse last night, this time 4 players (Steve[Planta], Dave[Hydran], George[Orion] and me[Mechanema].

I did the opposite of last game, and cut a path right across the board, bisecting it in two. I was able to get some alien tech (ion missiles) by battling an ancient hex. I upgraded my cruisers and attacked the center hex. I was able to conquer the center hex with my upgraded cruisers. That gave me another tile with something like +9 mineral resource.

Alliances were made with Hydra and Planta, so I attacked Orion. But Orion upgraded ships bigtime, and came back at me. Even with my battles, I failed to get good VP tiles (lots of “1”s!). I even had enough resources to build a monolith. As I was now exposed to everyone, Planta and Hydra (in that order) broke alliances with me and attacked (that hex with monolith and 3VP was tempting).

By turn 8 I think I was just on 3 little isolated hexes with no ships built, and no way to get resources to build them. I think I had previously brought Orion down to just a few hexes via battles, but he was wise enough to keep resources to rebuild. In the end I had only 13 victory points, and most of those were the chips won via battles (9 pts). I had researched almost nothing, so no VP from those. I think Hydra had researched ALL rows of tech so got like 15 VP just for those.

Turns out I pretty much played a similar strategy as Dave had done last game (with the yellow alien) in that I expanded (for me it was via battles mostly) but then lost all the territory. I will eventually learn. I’m having fun in the meantime. :)

I spent too much time/resources building (deploying) my upgraded ships vs. researching more tech for better weapons. Orion upgraded to a point where he was rolling something like 12 dice to attack with missiles before the regular battles even started! I’ve figured out: don’t let yourself get spread out, and rely on alliances to protect you. Alliances WILL be broken, especially at end game when a nice, juicy monolith is on a 3VP hex. If you build a monolith(s), be sure to be able to protect them, as they will be very attractive points.

I’d like to play Mechanema again, and change my strategy. Then play some different aliens! :) Great time last night, even though by round 8 I was out of the running. Total game time was like 5.5 hours (8p -1:30a). I think the scores were something like Planta: 45, Hydra: 41, Orion 36, and Mechanema: 13.

[Orig post]
We managed to get a full game of Eclipse in last night! 5 players: 2 humans and 3 aliens. Game lasted about 4 hours, and made for a great game night. I ended up “turtling” (blocking myself off from the rest of the galaxy; playing defensively). This is not a good strategy for this game, as many of the victory points are won by participating in battles. I came in (next to) last – I was only in 2 battles, and although I won them, I ended up with the fewest victory points at the end. The yellow alien (Dave) was eliminated in ~round 8 (expanded too a lot, but then lost all the territory). Next time, I will play more aggressively!

Today at Chautauqua: Children’s parade around Bestor Plaza in the morning, followed by the 10:45AM lecture by Jim Lehrer. The rain held off for the parade, but interrupted the beginning of Jim Lehrer’s talk. Quite a downpour – but people braved the weather to attend the lecture. The rain had stopped by the time the lecture ended (~12:00) and we had to pickup the kids from the Children’s School schoolbus.

This is the first time I’ve heard Jim Lehrer speak outside of the News Hour show; he is an extremely engaging speaker, and a lot of fun. Some of the anecdotes he told about Presidential debates and interviews with candidates were hilarious!

Lots of pix follow:

This week guys from our board game group played Eclipse; it was the first time for the 5 of us who played. OK! I now have a new favorite game. I’ll review it more later, but suffice it to say that even though after 4 hours we called it (only ~halfway through; 4 of 9 rounds), it felt like less than an hour had gone by!

Initially the game looks forbidding, as it has something like 900 pieces. However the rules are straightforward and very easy to follow. The game pieces are designed so well that after awhile you can pick up a new one and the basics of what it does without reading. Some of the mechanics are like Through the Ages, which works for me. Combat rules are simple, but fun. Not a lot of downtime in the game. The review linked above has a lot more detail.

Now I wonder how I can get Dylan to play this with me on vacation next week? I think he will like it, as it has the territory building and dice/combat aspect he can relate to (ala Risk). No, this game is really nothing like Risk. But I can use it as a comparison for Dylan as Risk is one of his favs. :)

This past weekend Preston and I had a great time “primitive” camping in the Green Ridge State Forest, about 100 miles west of our house. “Primitive” means no facilities other than a fire ring and a picnic table are provided. WOW! This was idyllic. Most sites are 1/2 mile from nearest neighbor. ~44,000 acres and only 100 camping sites. This is definitely my idea of camping. We drove for about 2 miles on a dirt road to get to our site. You could drive for ~50 if you did a full loop of all the sites. You can see the dirt path (off the dirt road) that leads into our site in one of the pix below.

We stopped first at the Ranger HQ, and the ranger there (and staff) were very nice and helpful. I asked him to recommend good sites for a 5 year old. He crossed off the ones near the C&O canal with steep dropoffs. He asked me what kind of vehicle we were driving. He smiled when I said “minivan” (its NOT mine; and it does hold a lot more gear than my car), and crossed off some more sites. The site he suggested was secluded, and huge! Lots of space for Preston to run in, but also lots of shade to setup the tent. The site was about 0.7mi from a creek, and Preston had a great time catching tadpoles and throwing rocks into the water. Beautiful setting. And the best part? NO CROWDS! No screaming kids, barking dogs, loud music, or neighbors’ banging pots in the morning.

I got up early (before Preston!) and made a pot of coffee and the only sounds I heard were the birds. SO much nicer than the State Parks, which pack everyone in like sardines. They have an atmosphere akin to camping in the parking lot of a daycare center. My only regret is that I didn’t find this place sooner.

One of the last-minute, spur-of-the-moment things I picked up was a butterfly net and bubbles at Target. That was the best $6.00 ever spent! Preston wore himself out chasing bugs all over the site, and in the creek. Preston also decided at the last minute to take some of his blocks and a train set. I said, “Sure! we have room in this van! They also kept him occupied in camp while I did other things (like try to rest in the hammock – until he found me).

We are going back in ~ 3 weeks. So looking forward to that!