August Wrap-Up

August was another breeze, ending as quickly as it started. Working from home for over three months came to an end, but not before we filled the month with adventures. We took a week long trip to North Carolina to visit family, visited the Museum of Illusions in Philadelphia for James' birthday, did an augmented reality experience in Lancaster with my mom and her husband for the kids' collective birthdays, and saw a couple of movies in theaters (including one during a date night for Christine and I). The school year starts tomorrow and I'm ready to get back into our normal routines.

Blah Blog Log

• July 2024 Wrap-Up - More gaming, a work trip that had an interesting experience, and a lot of good food.
• An Apology - I said sorry for not staying in touch with people in my life.
  

Bored Board Games

One of my favorite casual games (Mountain Goats) along with a couple games I just received in the mail (Grove & Forage) were just added to BGA, so those fueled a lot of the plays in August. I logged 51 plays across 21 games, 8 of those being new for the year. That brought me to 78.3% of the way to part one of my goal (600 plays) and 85.3% of the way to part two of my goal (150 unique games). This month's highlighted game is:

The Red Cathedral - I received this back in January in a one for one trade and it sat on my shelf until just this past Wednesday. This Euro style game came out in 2020 and was incredibly well received as "a lot of game in a small box". As of this post, it still sits just outside of the top 200 on BGG. I had my eye on it for a while because of the rondel mechanic that incorporates dice and multiple actions with each turn. The object of the game is for players to work together to put up St. Basil's cathedral in Moscow, as ordered by Ivan the Terrible. However, only one of them will be able to gain the favor of the Tsar. This part of the game also works as a clock, since once any player completes the construction of their sixth section it brings about the end of the game. Scoring happens throughout the game through various actions but the game will ultimately be decided by the area majority scoring of each of the towers. I loved this game and will definitely be playing it next month during Solotober. 

Enjoyable Eats

I didn't get any pictures of the food but we ate really well while in North Carolina. I enjoyed some great seafood among other things. But the most enjoyable thing was the ice cream contest that Christine's dad and his wife set up for the kids. Each day, we went out for ice cream and on the final day, we went back to the place that the kids voted the best overall (The Seaside Mermaid was the victor). We also voted, but the kids didn't agree with our favorite, which was a gelato place. I wasn't going to complain because we still got to have some delicious ice cream, most of which was made locally. I thought this was an amazing idea and one we want to do whenever we go on vacation going forward.

I'm Watching 👀

Our date night movie originally was going to be Deadpool & Wolverine, but we switched it up at the last minute and saw Longlegs, a psychological thriller/supernatural horror. The film revolves around the pursuit of a serial killer, where a young FBI agent uncovers a series of occult clues that she must solve to end his terrifying killing spree. We watch quite a bit of true crime media so this seemed right up our alley, plus we hadn't seen a horror movie in a while. I don't want to give away the hooks and turns the film takes but I will say that it's fairly violent at parts and very suspenseful. Nicholas Cage is nearly unrecognizable and the way he plays the antagonist in a way that makes one shudder. 

Resolutions Update

I'm very close with the board game goal, but the other two are falling behind. There's still time to do well with each so we'll see.

• Goal #1: Cook More Italian Food - Didn't find a lot of opportunities to make anything new in August, still enjoying pasta nearly each week. As the weather cools, hopefully I find inspiration to try more with this.
• Goal #2: Log 600 Plays of At Least 150 Games - As of August 31st, I've played 128 unique games 470 times total.
• Goal #3: Write at Least 3 Blog Posts Each Month - Another month where I snuck in a second post just before the end of the month. Currently hitting this goal only 50% of the time. We'll see if inspiration bites this month.

Whatcha Snackin?

While we were at the Haven, the gelato place in Southport, NC that Christine and I liked during the ice cream contest, we saw some small bags of kettle chips on a shelf. All of the flavors they had sounded good so we ended up buying six or seven smaller bags. We got some of the ones in the picture and a couple others that aren't. My favorite so far have been the Coastal Crab Boil. I thought they were just going to be like an Old Bay seasoned chip, but they're more heavily seasoned and a bit saltier. That seems to be the theme across the ones we've tried, more flavor and added crunch from being kettle cooked.  

Wrap It Up

Please comment below with any thoughts or comments on anything I've covered. Thanks for reading!