Today being the last day of April, I have just written my 30th poem of National Poetry Month 2014. Or technically, 31st poem*, given that in the middle of the month I wrote a Raven parody about how social media means nobody has time to read. It’s what I like to call “meta-true”, since I posted it on Facebook and only 2-3 people seemed to read it there, although many more people have time to read a haiku; here’s one I wrote this month but didn’t put on Facebook:

The difference between
genius and insanity
is retroactive

Earlier in the month I went to perform some food-themed poetry at a meat market, which was interesting, and performed some comedy at an open mic where I mainly told people how depressing life was. Only, y’know, in a fun way. Speaking of fun, this month we returned to some of our old favorite card games we haven’t played in too long, like Race for the Galaxy and Eminent Domain. I also have a new review up for Lords of Vegas. On the videogame front, Hearthstone and SolForge have been joined by Starbound, accurately described by two BGG friends as “SNES to Terraria’s NES” and “Terraria in space”. Terraria, in turn, has been described as “2d Minecraft with more fighting”. And Minecraft has been described as “completely pointless” and “totally awesome”***.

Also this month we grilled some Reubens**** (or as I like to call them “The King of Sandwiches”) and they were pretty dang tasty.

*Or technically, 33rd, given the two poems I wrote for the food slam mentioned in the following paragraph, but who’s counting**?

**Hopefully a purple muppet vampire.

***Actually, a lot of totally awesome things are completely pointless. Sadly, most completely pointless things are not totally awesome. For example, this footnote.

****Whenever we grill Reubens, the deliciousness thereof becomes a moral issue. It is not uncommon for me to invoke Rabbi Hillel in explanation of why a most delicious Reuben is of utmost importance.

Today is April 1. APRIL FOOL! It’s technically April 2. Unless you’re west of my time zone, in which case DOUBLE APRIL FOOL! It’s still April 1. I’m not sure how the holiday progressed to saying false things as a form of entertainment*, but I think eventually I get to the point where I’m saying things like, “I didn’t eat a lot of delicious soups last month or receive a lovely gift book about psycho-linguistics** – APRIL FOOL!”, and I think the form has overridden the function — just like dropping your taxes on the top row of your keyboard.

April is National Poetry Month, which means that I (as well as a few friends and a vast plethora of strangers) will be participating in the 30/30 poetry challenge to write a poem every day during April. Lots of people’s poems (including mine) will be posted at 3030Poetry.com, brought to you by the fine folks who run WordXWord. If I write one I’m particularly pleased with, maybe I’ll post it here on this blog. I’m participating in a food-themed poetry slam in Great Barrington on April 19th, and last month I was honored to be named “Haikuster of the Year 2014” after emerging victorious from the Rambling Poets Haiku Head to Head. Many of them were impromptu, and consequently I cannot recall them precisely, but one of them was something along the lines of:

marijuana fans
took over Colorado
with their own “high coup”

All this lovely poetry, but what about gaming? Well, I do mean to get back to working on my boardgame book, and thankfully we’ve finally started playing boardgames more regularly again. The newest review I have up is for Mad City, a quick little city-building game that surprised me with how much I enjoyed it. Still, my preferences tend more towards the epics***, which is why getting back to playing behemoths like Through the Ages and Caverna has been so much fun.

Oh, and although April is here now, it’s still not too late to read my column about The Ides of March.

*Although to be fair, that describes half of my career. Even if I’m usually more proud of the half that involves saying true things as a form of entertainment.

**Appropriate, since many people have mistaken me for a linguist or a psycho.

***This also holds true for opening packs in Hearthstone.