It’s a shame I was out of town for Spring. See, I’d gone to visit some friends on Friday, and it was suddenly a beautiful Spring day, after many months of winter and then a week of rain. And then when we returned two days later, it was 86 degrees outside and blazing hot summer sun. Basically, the Berkshires only gets a few days of Spring each year, and I’m sorry to have missed them. But no matter; enjoying the month anyway.

So tonight we’re sitting on the couch watching an action-packed movie with various things exploding and heavy gunfire in the middle of what is supposed to be a tense action sequence, and I realize that my partner and I are having a conversation about Spanish etymology.* This is indicative of something, which I had initially suspected might be the lack of acting talent** in the film we were watching, but which I eventually decided was simply the fact that my life is awesome.

Case in point: I’m now officially a Board Game Reviewer for About.com. For those of you keeping track, that means I now am a professional reviewer of board games, books, and restaurants. All I have to do is wait for someone to pay me to review my friends, and I will officially be a professional reviewer of everything I love.

Sure, it may not pay very well, but there’s something to be said for job satisfaction. I enjoy having a humor column where I can write about Tolstoy and truth if I feel like it. Or, if I’m feeling sillier, I can write about my propensity to consume questionable food. I’m pretty much living the dream***.

When I was young, I told myself one day I’d be fabulously wealthy and live in a house with a big room filled with food, and a big room filled with games. Well, here I am in a tiny victorian house, but it does have a pantry filled with food, and I do have a room filled with many, many boardgames. And heck, if one considers my friends rather than my finances, I would even account myself wealthy.

Of course, that kind of wealth doesn’t pay the bills, so don’t forget to buy my books.

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*”Fuego” meaning fire, not only as in the sense of burning flame, but also in the sense of “to fire a gun”. This seemed like an odd coincidence to us. But the word “droit” in French means not only “right” as in the opposite of left, but also human rights. So maybe these bizarre connections are the same between languages sometimes. Then again, “watch” in French is “montre”, which means “show”, which is the opposite. So who knows. I suppose it’s possible the movie just used a crappy not-in-context translation. Or maybe fuego is like droit. I don’t know.

**Sylvester Stallone is probably not someone who springs to mind as a good actor. But then again, he did a quite decent job in comparison to Arnold Schwarzenegger. I guess when you’re making a film where the budget all went towards explosions and car chases, acting talent and non-sucky endings fall in the category of the Expendables.

***And not that one where you’re late for your final exam and also you forgot your pants.

****This footnote isn’t related to the entry, just closes it, but I wonder if all blogs have to either end up self-absorbed or talking about politics. Maybe next month I’ll write about politics. I suppose I could share rejected jokes with you, like my friend who talks about anime all the time who I call “The Last Earbender”.

Why can’t you use an 11″ box for that game?

Anyway, I’m a lifelong gamer. I grew up playing many of the same traditional games everyone plays, such as Monopoly, Checkers, Cribbage, and so forth. Then I got a Nintendo and suddenly I realized I was a video gamer too. My enjoyment of console role-playing games has continued to this day, over many different systems. In college I played a lot of Magic: The Gathering, and in the past few years I’ve found and nurtured a board gaming addiction (mostly Euro-style games, but a smattering of other types as well). But I guess my point is, I think of myself as a gamer, to the point where I identify much more with gamers as a community than I do with… well, many other nebulous ideas that people form self-identities around.

And so I can’t help but be pleased when gamers do good. And I don’t mean well (although that’s nice too), I mean good. With all the destruction in Haiti, it makes me feel good to see various online gaming communities coming together to try to help. BoardGameGeek, where I spend far too much time reading about new board games that I have no space or money for and totally want, is offering incentives to all site members who donate. A link there pointed me to DriveThruRPG, where well over $1,000 worth of downloadable RPG content from various vendors of goodwill has all been made available in one giant package for the price of a $20 donation to Haiti.

I think that some people look down on the gaming community, because as with most matters of taste, people who enjoy different things than you must be ignorant benighted heathens. I don’t really feel like spending pages here detailing the many benefits of gaming (from social interaction, to improving analysis skills, to staving off Alzheimer’s, to every little kid’s favorite example in the 80s of hand-eye coordination), but the larger fact is that people who have different recreational preferences sometimes seem to acquire a holier-than-thou attitude.*

And thus although gaming and gaming communities need no other justification, I can’t help but feel good when I see things like this. It makes me want to say, “See this? My people, the gaming people, these are good people.” Am I overly defensive? Maybe. It’s not as if there aren’t countless other examples of gamers doing good, from various BGG board game drives for charity, to Child’s Play which has given millions of dollars to children’s hospitals.

Of course, another important thing to remember is that lots of gamers do good without some sort of large announced structure, as do lots of knitters, truckers, sports fans, writers, farmers, waiters, and so forth. We just don’t hear about things as much when individuals do them without P.R.. The result is that a few affiliations who often institutionalize the goode workes (such as churches) get much more positive press, which somehow leads some people to believe that certain affiliations are inherently much more generous.

Which is not to belittle the donations made with good PR. Sure, Maimonides may have pegged fully anonymous giving as the highest form of charity, but if PR is what inspires people to give, you won’t find me gainsaying it. The example that always comes to mind for me is Alan Shawn Feinstein, a Rhode Island philanthropist who is a veritable charitable typhoon**, and whose name is consequently on a lot of things. So is Carnegie’s. I think if you donate millions of dollars to good causes, you should get to enjoy some fame from it. And churches should be lauded for encouraging charity, because I’m all for encouraging goodwill in the public eye. So there’s nothing wrong with recognizing the publicized donations, so long as we also remember the many good people who donate quietly and anonymously, interested only in doing good and not even in getting any credit (individual, group, or otherwise) for it.

Anyway, if I had a point in all of this***, it was that I like seeing gamers taking collective charitable action, because it might make some people stop and say, “Hey, gamers are awesome,” and it’s a truth I’m always happy to have more people see.

*Perhaps unsurprisingly, some organized religious groups oft seem to have said holier-than-thou attitude, which is why I was also glad to see Non-Believers Giving Aid help raise lots of money for Haiti. Charitable giving is not restricted to any race, religion, or recreational preference.

**Yes, I just wanted an excuse to write veritable charitable.

***Which I may have when I started, but that sure seems a long way off now. And highly unlikely. Actually, if I don’t have a point, I may as well share my column written the night before the election of Scott Brown.

Last week I was pretending to do some shopping, and was comparing prices between various stores. While walking through the parking lot, I was mumbling to myself, “Alright, so that one costs twenty. Twenty dollars.” And I passed another man who happened to be mumbling to himself, and just as I was mumbling “twenty,” I overheard him mumbling “Twenty-four,” and I thought to myself, gee, he’s off by four.

I really enjoy Thanksgiving leftovers. Turkey/stuffing/cranberry/sweet potato sandwiches are quite tasty, because the bucket of food theory still holds. My post-Thanksgiving column is also leftover food.

BestDangGames seems to have changed hands while I wasn’t looking. No matter; I was doing my Black Friday shopping at Fantasy Flight regardless, since they had a crazy discount sale. Although I really need to stop buying board games now. That, or acquire another room in my house that consists mainly of shelves.

Anyone local can catch my improv troupe in Pittsfield or North Adams in December. But I’ll have another more exciting post in December too. Just you wait.

Also, this cool lady that does make cool book also made this cool blog post with game with four. Read that post. Then, your next move? Seek that book. Some good read!

Well, I’m back from my week-long sojourn in Western lands. It rained for at least half of the time I was in California, which was sub-optimal. Still, it was a pretty good vacation, and I even wrote a column about it. The column doesn’t mention that I went back to Chinatown and got steamed BBQ pork buns from as many bakeries as I could. So tasty; I may have to learn how to make them.

In other news that transpired while I was away, some people in India are working on a new soft drink that sounds udderly ridiculous. Don’t believe me? Read my other column.

Last night was our improv show at the Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield. Although a concurrent  local comedy show stole some of our crowd (our previous show there was nearly a full house), I still thought it went quite well. We debuted a new game I invented called “Rap Psychiatrist”, where I am a rapping psychiatrist who helps other troupe members with their (audience-suggested) mental issues. I think it went quite well, and once the other folks in the troupe get better at rapping, I think it will quickly become one of our most popular games.

Finally, people sometimes ask me why I play board games all the time, and why I’m happy all the time. Well, the answers may be linked.

Have I mentioned how much I enjoy reviewing things? Well, I do. And hopefully you enjoy when I review things too. Because I have two recent reviews. One of them, team-written, can let you know where to get pizza in the Berkshires. The other will tell you whether you’re likely to enjoy a certain party board game, which happens to be a decent game for people who don’t like most board games.

And you should be glad that I’m happy writing these reviews. Because as I mention in yesterday’s column, new research suggests that your happiness is affected by the happiness of your friends, their friends, and even their friends. So if you’re looking to help yourself out by making me happy this holiday season, tell a religious friend about GodToVerse. Mentioning it to your pastor, your rabbi, or even fellow members of your congregation, would be appreciated. Definitely by me, and quite possibly by them as well.

So, lately life has been pretty great. I’ve been doing what I’ve always wanted to, which is writing restaurant reviews. I like eating, and I like reviewing, so that works out pretty well. But I also spend a copious amount of time playing board/card games, which I really enjoy (comma optional).  Thus I am pleased to share with you my first in a series of board game reviews over at the Talkin’ About Board Games blog.

I’ve played enough board games at this point to feel like I definitely know what I’m talking about, so head on over and check out my review of Race for the Galaxy, with more to follow in the coming weeks. And if you aren’t fortunate enough to live near a game store, but have a thirst for board games, the fellows who run the blog also have a game-selling website with nicely discounted prices. (And for any Florida readers, it sounds like they run local game nights too…)

At the monthly local creatively-aligned potluck I attend, there are always interesting people. There are various artists of all types, including our frequent host, the inimitable Howard Cruse. There was once even a witch. But there are also two people who really, really care about the welfare of dogs, and vehemently oppose anything that might make canines suffer in the slightest bit. They should not read today’s column. The rest of you, though, should go right ahead.

Acquired some new board games yesterday, among them Power Grid and Caylus, both longish brain-busting sorts of games produced by the fine people at Rio Grande, and both currently on BoardGameGeek’s top ten list. We’ve already played three games, and are looking forward to more. While playing this game, it occured to me that some games are less suited for certain modifications than others. For example, in spite of how many people seem to enjoy it with poker, I imagine that Strip Caylus or Strip Power Grid (a.k.a. “Power Strip”) just wouldn’t be the same.

And no, I don’t plan to test this empirically, so if you want to find out, you’ll have to test it yourself. But if you do, let me know how it goes.