At the Kitchen Table

In followup to my earlier post, I have to report that Settlers of Catan is a smash hit at our house.

We’ve had standard 3 & 4 player games, and Nancy found rules for a 2 player variation which plays as well as the multiplayer version.

We’re looking forward to playing ‘Settlers’ a great deal over the summer.

After reading James Robertson’s blog about these new-fangled board games, and most recently Martin Fowler, I decided to have a go. After talking to Martin about it, I picked up a copy of Settlers of Catan today (interestingly the manufacturer of the English version, Mayfair Games, is a short drive from my hotel in Skokie IL). I expect/hope to play a few games over the weekend.

So far I’m impressed. The materials and construction look great… wooden pieces (including dice) and nice heavy board tiles.

Guess where I was yesterday.  The Mothership (and yes… I got the tShirt)I actually spent the afternoon walking from my hotel (at rt 85 & E El Camino) to Apple and on to Hobee’s on Stevens Creek Blvd. Nice walk, beautiful day, cool Apple swag.

We went to see Alice Cooper in concert tonight.. all of us: Nancy & I and our sons Thomas & Jason.

The opening band was Helix. They sucked in the 80s and are worse now. The guitarist, Rainer Wiechmann, and the bassist, Jeff Fountain, seemed at ease and on top of their game… but the rest of the band should have stayed in the last century. They got a lackluster response from the audience… which stayed seated for the duration.

When Alice Cooper hit the stage it was a completely different story. The audience (at least on the floor where we were) were on their feet before the opening chords had faded… and remained standing for the rest of the show. It was awesome. The music was perfect, and he was as much a showman as ever.

This was my Jason’s (my son) first real rock concert. I think he started off in fine style