I’ve mentioned it on here before, but my all-time favorite board game is called Talisman. Talisman is an epic quest game for 2-6 players where you play one of several types of characters, on a quest to retrieve the fabled Crown of Command and rule the land. With three regions to navigate, numerous places to explore, many monsters to fight, etc., I find each game lasts about one hour per person playing. I was introduced to the game when I was in eighth grade; sometime in college I lost my set, but my friends Jeff and Malinda got me a new set a few years back, and I’ve been playing since.

I’ve also mentioned that there was a video game version of Talisman in the works, but it ended up being cancelled due to issues with the game’s quality. That disappointed me, because I would have liked to be able to play the game against AI players when I didn’t have actual people to play against.

Fortunately, another company called Nomad Games got the chance to take another shot. :-)

Their first release was a game called Talisman Prologue, a single-player game in which players can follow different quests to learn how to play their character better, culminating in a solo quest to reach the Crown of Command. The game serves as a fun introduction to the world of Talisman, and not only includes characters from the original game, but from some of the expansions including The Blood Moon.

They’ve since followed it up with Talisman: Digital Edition, which is the full board game for multiple players. The game plays with four characters at all times, though if you have fewer than four human players the game substitutes AI opponents. The PC version of the game is tied to Steam, and you can invite your Steam friends to play (provided they have the game, of course).

The game itself plays just like the original board game, and even gives options for house rules. The biggest worry I have with video game adaptation of board games are cheating AIs; the iOS version of Monopoly and PC version of Risk are known to be bad about that. Fortunately, Talisman: Digital Edition’s AI is very balanced and I saw no evidence of unfair dice rolls. The game also allows you to set how long a player has to enter in commands, so as not to let the game get bogged down by one person being away from his keyboard. In addition, games can be left off and resumed at later times.

Since its release, the expansions The Reaper and The Frostmarch have been released, allowing for additional characters, encounters, and endings. There are also extra characters available as standalone DLC, which as near as I can tell are exclusive to the video game. Another exclusive feature of the videogame is the concept of runestones, which are “cards” you can earn that will alter your play experience in future games. For example, a possibility during the game is that your character is turned into a toad for three turns, thus losing all of his/her/its items, followers, and gold. The last runestone I acquired reduces the time spent as a toad to two turns.

All in all, I really have enjoyed Talisman Prologue and Talisman: Digital Edition. Both are available for PC (via Steam) and iPad (not iPhone). It’s a fairly inexpensive way to get to play Talisman, and is very well implemented to boot. I highly recommend giving them a try. :-)

My reading queue seems to be growing faster than I can finish stuff. :-)

I had posted before about setting Sundays aside as my reading days. As of late, that habit has been broken, though I have been doing a relatively decent job of reading through books. As soon as I finish books, however, I end up adding more to replace them. The queue is ever-changing, and what may have been a high-priority read at one time sometimes ends up at the end of the line. Amusingly enough, the three books I mentioned in the aforementioned post are still in the “to read” queue.

Admittedly, the majority of our book buying recently has come from Amazon, if only because of the price and convenience. That being said, whenever possible we like to buy from local bookshops… and by local, I mean “locally owned”. We try to avoid Barnes and Noble if we can at all help it, for example, but we have been known to go into Half-Price Books. On our last couple of trips to Austin, we made a point to stop at BookPeople, an independent bookstore which has the claim to fame of being the largest in Texas (independent or chain). My last trip, I bought several books, including the proto-Lovecraftian horror anthology The King in Yellow by Robert Chambers, both volumes of The Intergalactic Nemesis, and a non-fiction book called Doctor Who and Philosophy.

Today, as part of our errands, Jennifer and I were in the Rice Village area. Instead of hitting Pearland Coffee Roasters for coffee, we decided to hit House of Coffee Beans in the Village. As it so happened, House of Coffee Beans is literally next door to my favorite Houston bookstore, Murder By The Book, so Jennifer had no problem with us going there first. :-)

It might come as a surprise to some, but my favorite literary genre right behind science-fiction/fantasy is the mystery story. I don’t collect mystery books anywhere near as much as I do sci-fi/fantasy, but I really do enjoy them when I get them. Some of my favorite TV shows have also been mysteries, like the various incarnations of Sherlock Holmes, Castle, Diagnosis Murder, In the Heat of the Night, and so on. A whole bookstore of mystery novels, as you might imagine, is right down my alley.

The problem, however, is that I get lost easily, as my knowledge of the mystery genre is not nearly as advanced as my knowledge of sci-fi. That’s where the staff of Murder By The Book shines, in that they have always been friendly and willing to help and lend their expertise. As a result, I end up leaving with a book I didn’t even know existed (much less had intended to get). For example, as mentioned in the previously referred post, I had noticed a book by ex-CIA operative Valerie Plame on display, and bought it on the staff’s recommendation. I ended up enjoying the book.

This time, while Jennifer picked up the latest Christopher Moore book, I picked up two books for myself. The first was a book by an author named C. Robert Cargill called Dreams and Shadows. While Cargill had written the well-received horror movie Sinister, I had first become aware of him when he was a reviewer for Ain’t It Cool News, under the pseudonym “Massawyrm”. Cargill’s reviews were easily my favorite thing about the site at the time; I had known of his book, but this was the first time I had seen a copy and decided to pick up a copy for myself.

The second book I picked up was called Loki’s Wolves by K.L. Armstrong and M.A. Marr. Unlike Dreams and Shadows, which I had at least heard of, Loki’s Wolves was completely unknown to me. The series itself is called The Blackwell Pages; I saw the second book on a table, with a note from a staff member recommending it, especially if one liked the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. That in particular drew my eye, as Jennifer and I both enjoy that series. (She’s much further along in it than I am.) I eventually found Loki’s Wolves (the first book), and my decision to purchase it was cemented when the gentleman checking us out praised the book rather highly.

Both books are in my reading queue now; I’m thinking I may have both read by the end of the month, but if worst comes to absolute worst I’ll save them for our upcoming trip to Corpus Christi. After all, other than playing in the water, my favorite thing to do at the beach is sit back in a chair and get lost in a good book. :-) I’m just hoping I can find time to go back to Murder By The Book at some point soon to get some more reading material.

But then, that would depend on me making space in my reading queue so it doesn’t become unmanageable. ;-)

(BTW, if you have a Goodreads account, you can find mine here. I don’t review books per se, but you can see what I’ve rated books I’ve read, and what’s in my queue.)

When Jennifer and I went to see Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike this past Sunday, we happened to notice a flyer in the playbill advertising the next season of the Alley Theatre. Reading it, I saw that one of the first plays they had listed was Dracula. This was the original stage play based off of Stoker’s novel, which became the basis for the 1931 classic film starring Bela Lugosi and the 1977 film starring Frank Langella.

As I’m a fan of vampire stories and Dracula is my favorite vampire novel, I figured it would be fun to see. However, I then noted that the flyer said the production features “the extraordinary designs of Edward Gorey”. At that, my heart sank a little.

If you’re not familiar with Edward Gorey, he’s a dark and macabre artist who I personally know best for having animated the intro/outro for the old PBS series Mystery! (and later Masterpiece Mystery).

I used to have a beautiful hardcover edition of Dracula with art by Greg Hildebrandt, best known for his work on the original Star Wars poster. The artwork in the book was a mixture of penciled drawings and painted works, with models playing each of the characters. (There was a credit list at the end of the book.) It was my favorite edition of the book, and to this day I wish I knew what the hell happened to it.

After that disappeared, my parents found a new hardcover edition of Dracula for me, with art by Edward Gorey. I was thankful for the gift, but it just wasn’t the same as the Hildebrandt version. I admit I tend to be a very visual person, and I really enjoyed how the Hildebrandt edition’s artwork not only showed the characters, but showed them in the different scenes throughout the novel. By contrast, the Gorey edition only had simple cartoonish character portraits.

I still have the Gorey edition, but I’ve since picked up a new hardcover copy with artwork by Becky Cloonan. Both Cloonan and Hildebrandt illustrate the novel’s events as opposed to doing simple portraits, but where they differ is that instead of using models and going for realism like Hildebrandt, Cloonan goes for a graphic novel style. It works very well for the book, and the book in fact ends up with far more illustrations, with the typeset sometimes going around the art. I have to say, I’m really digging this edition, about as much as the Hildebrandt edition.

As far as the Alley Theatre production goes, I’m still very undecided whether I want to go or not. While I’d like to see the original stage play, I can’t say that it’s my favorite version of the story. On the other hand, it can’t be as bad as Dracula: A Musical Nightmare, a musical version I had seen close to twenty years ago that turned out to be a comedic play-within-a-play that was frankly a right mess. In addition, Gorey’s designs seem too cartoonish/comical for me to really take seriously. That may be unfair, however, as the only reference point I have with them regarding Dracula is that book. On the other hand, at least one of my favorite Alley actors is starring in the production.

I’ve got time to think on it, as the play doesn’t open until October. I might spring for a matinee performance or go if there’s a good offer on tickets. Otherwise, as of right now, I’m leaning towards not going. It’s a shame, but while it might be my favorite vampire novel, I don’t feel the need to go to a performance if I’m not sure I’m going to like it.

It’s been a fairly quiet stage theater season for us.

While Jennifer and I both love theater, very few of the productions being shown this year have really drawn our attention. Nothing at Theatre Under the Stars looked interesting enough for us to spend the high price to go, and Bayou City Theatrics‘s season mainly made us go, “Huh?” As far as non-musical theater goes, our favorite is Alley Theatre, but again there wasn’t anything playing that we found too terribly interesting. The exception came when we were waiting for the Brit Floyd show (which was across the street from the Alley), and we saw one of the shows for this season was Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. We knew it had been the winner of the 2013 Tony Award for Best Play, so we thought it couldn’t be THAT bad. We went ahead and got tickets, and saw it this past Sunday night.

So, how was it? Well, I liked it more than Jennifer did.

The entire play is pretty much a homage to the works of Anton Chekhov; Jennifer was far more familiar with Chekhov’s work than I was, so I was basically only seeing it on the surface without getting the reference. The play itself was about two siblings (one adopted) living in the same home they had since childhood, spending their days bemoaning the fact that they never did anything with their lives. Their expenses are paid by their sister Masha, who works as a movie actress. Masha returns home with her protegee and love interest, the handsome yet dim Spike, and informs her siblings that she intends to sell the house. The play then proceeds with the siblings worrying about Masha’s decision, Masha’s own insecurity about being upstaged, and Spike’s inability to keep his clothes on.

All in all, I enjoyed the performance and found it quite amusing and heartfelt. Admittedly, my favorite character was the housekeeper Cassandra, one of two non-title characters. Her character was funny, sassy, and resembled her namesake from Greek legend in that she would make dire predictions, but no one would believe her. The actress who played Cassandra played her with plenty of attitude to pull the role off.

I have to say that I was surprised by the other non-title character, Nina. Introduced as a potential rival for Spike’s affections, I was expecting the literal girl-next-door to be an antagonist, working against Masha to get Spike. The character was very sweet and kind, and instead of being interested in Spike found herself working alongside Vanya until the climax of the play, in which she helps Vanya perform a stage work he had written.

The only characters I really didn’t care for were Spike and Masha. Spike was one-dimensional and most likely intentionally so, more concerned about himself than those around them. Masha, on the other hand, was shrill and insensitive, and I found it difficult to feel sympathy for her as she worked to upstage everyone around her. Admittedly, neither Jennifer nor I have ever actually liked the actress who plays her, so my bias is probably showing there.

Again, not being familiar with Chekhov’s works, I only saw the surface elements in it. Once Jennifer explained Chekhov’s style to me, I got an impression of the deeper meaning; however, I get the feeling that I enjoyed it despite the Chekhov symbolism. Based on how Jennifer described his works, I don’t think I would enjoy them very much at all. Perhaps that’s why I liked the play more than she did.

Still, I was glad I got a chance to see Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, and would recommend giving it a try if it’s playing near you.

Well, today was a long time coming.

I’m a coffee drinker. However, for health reasons, I only drink decaffeinated coffee. Some people might wonder why I would do so, but the simple fact is that I like the taste, plus being warm it helps wake me up in the morning. Being a decaf coffee drinker has its drawbacks, though, especially in the workplace. Usually, I end up being the only one who needs the decaf coffee.

At my last job, the IT department had its own contract through Community Coffee, and my boss had no problem with ordering decaf coffee for me. Once I left there and came to my current job, I found that I was the only decaf drinker, and the fact it was a smaller company and didn’t have the huge coffeemakers my last job did meant I was essentially out in the cold. I brought in my own coffeemaker, and started buying my own coffee.

A month or two after I started here, though, one of my former coworkers at the last job let me know that the CIO had said that as no one else was going to be drinking the decaf coffee, I was welcome to what remained. On my lunch break a day or two later, I went back there and picked up their remaining decaf coffee. It was about five or six boxes worth, which in the past would have lasted me a few months. Each box contained bags of coffee; each bag was good for one oversized carafe of coffee. As I was using a normal household coffeemaker, I didn’t quite need as much for each carafe. A few times since, I’ve supplemented it with the very occasional (as in, once a year) bag of Rouses Coffee or Cafe Du Monde.

That was well over three years ago. This morning, I used the very last of that Community coffee.

In that time, I’ve since replaced the standard coffeemaker with a small Keurig machine, but have still used the Community coffee with a My K-Cup reusable cup/filter unit. Now that I’m done with the leftover Community, though, I really don’t have any intention of switching to regular K-cups. I can get better coffee by going to local places like House of Coffee Beans or Pearland Coffee Roasters, and it will probably be cheaper overall than using the disposable K-cups. While I’ve only had House of Coffee Beans coffee once or twice, I have had Pearland Coffee Roasters coffee several times (at Killen’s Steakhouse), and have found it to be fantastic.

Still, it’s a bit bittersweet losing that supply of coffee that at one time looked like it was going to be infinite. I now have an “emergency” stash of Donut House Decaf K-cups at my desk, and this weekend I’ll probably get the Pearland Coffee Roasters stuff. I guess it’s time for me to get used to bringing coffee in on a regular basis. :-)

Well, this past weekend was kind of a first for me.

While I had been to a couple of Houston sci-fi/comic conventions before (namely, Oni-Con and Space City Con/The Houston Con), I have never been to what seems to be the biggest of the cons, Comicpalooza at the George R. Brown Convention Center. I decided to go ahead and bite the bullet and attend this year, visiting this past Saturday.

After waiting in a very long line to purchase tickets, Jennifer and I decided to hang out on a balcony waiting area while watching the even-more-massive line waiting to get into the autograph and vendor area on the first floor. After checking the schedule, I realized that Paul McGann, the Eighth Doctor, was having a panel shortly after the convention’s official opening, so we went to that first, getting in line relatively early. The panel itself was pretty interesting, as McGann not only talked about the Doctor Who TV-movie he had been in, he also discussed some of the audio adventures (including “Zagreus”, my copy of which I would have brought to sign if I had thought about it) and how he got involved in the minisode “The Night of the Doctor”.

After the McGann panel, we decided to join the line already forming for the Agents of SHIELD panel; we knew it was going to be popular, as people were asking us about it while we were in line for the first panel. It was a good thing we did, as the line became incredibly long. Jennifer decided to hold down the fort while I went exploring, finding where the Game Preserve had set up, then getting a small lunch for the both of us. After eating, I wandered downstairs to the dealer area, where I took a brief look around, looking for things that I would want to buy later when Jennifer came down with me. After finding some stuff at different booths, I found one item that I knew I had to get right there and then: Ninja Burger, a card game that one of Jennifer’s coworkers had recommended and that I had had difficulty locating until then. Once I had picked that up, I went back and joined Jennifer in line for the panel.

The panel itself was pretty awesome. All of the main cast except for the actors who played Fitz and Skye attended, including Ming-Na Wen and Clark Gregg. It was obvious they were having a blast, riffing off each other pretty heavily. The one person I felt bad for was Brett Dalton, because he got more than a few boos (his character had been revealed to be a HYDRA agent). We were even treated to a special guest appearance by Stan Lee and Lou Ferrigno; Lee was the man as always, and Ferrigno is even more imposing in person than he is on screen. :-)

After the Agents of SHIELD panel, we went downstairs to browse the entire vendor area. While there, I managed to pick up two t-shirts and a tumbler shaped/colored like an Eternal Dalek. We saw John Scalzi signing autographs at the Barnes & Noble booth, but decided against getting an autograph as we didn’t see any hardcover books of his there, and we had already gotten copies of Redshirts signed. By this point, both of us were getting tired, and wanted to see what celebrities were in the autograph area. We saw several Power Rangers, James Marsters, and all of the Agents of SHIELD actors who had been at the panel. However, for me, the highlight was seeing Fifth through Eighth Doctors: Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, and Paul McGann. I hemmed and hawed, trying to muster up the courage to get a picture with one or an autograph… and finally decided on a selfie with Sylvester McCoy, as his Doctor is my favorite.

Now, when I got to his table, I was about to pay for the selfie, when I noticed that among the photographs that could be autographed was a caricature drawing of McCoy as the Doctor. I REALLY liked the drawing, so I decided to get it autographed instead of getting the selfie. When I was paying his assistant, she mentioned I should ask him about it. When I met him, I told him that I saw the pic and just had to have it, and he said that his son had drawn it. :-) He also complimented my shirt, which was my Doctor Who “villain select” t-shirt. I admit that I was quiet and Jennifer did most of the talking, as I was more than a little overwhelmed. Once I had gotten the autograph, we left.

All in all, we had a really fun time at Comicpalooza. Needless to say, I want to go back again next year. Fortunately, I won’t have to wait an entire year for another con, as there are three coming up in the next year that I want to hit: the aforementioned Houston Con, the Houston Arcade Expo I go to every year, and PAX South in San Antonio.

Here’s hoping they’ll be as fun as Comicpalooza was. :-)

It would be fair to say that my all-time favorite band is Pink Floyd. I’ve been listening to them ever since my friend Kourt introduced me to them via the album A Momentary Lapse of Reason while on a trip to Galveston with his family. While I admit I tend to like the newer stuff more than the older stuff (and I don’t have any albums before The Dark Side of the Moon), it’s still all some of my favorite stuff. I even had the movie Pink Floyd – The Wall on VHS, and wish the movie was out on Blu-Ray.

That being said, one of my greatest regrets was not seeing the band live in concert. The one time I knew of that they came into town for a concert when I knew about them and liked them was when they toured for The Division Bell, and not only did I not know they were coming into town until it was too late, I wasn’t much of a concert-goer and I didn’t feel comfortable asking anyone to go with me.

Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to do the next best thing twice. Last year, Roger Waters came into town for his The Wall Live concert tour, which was essentially his performing the entirety of The Wall. It was an incredible show, complete with an actual wall being built during the show, projection and laser effects, and the like. Not only was I impressed, so was Jennifer, who wasn’t familiar with Pink Floyd’s work and wasn’t sure she would like the concert.

As much as I liked the show, though, I kind of wished that I could see a performance containing more of Pink Floyd’s catalog. That wish came through on Tuesday, when Brit Floyd came to town.

Brit Floyd is a tribute band for Pink Floyd, with a stage presence that is almost exactly like the original band’s, complete with the round projection screen above them. Jennifer and I had seen their performance at Red Rocks on our local PBS station, so when they announced they were coming to Houston we decided to go ahead and get tickets.

So, how was the show? In a word: AWESOME.

The musicians were all extremely good at what they did, and the singers (Ian Cantell and band leader Damian Darlington) sounded so close to David Gilmour and Roger Waters it was eerie. They literally played at least one song from all of their studio albums, including what I thought were less popular songs like “Sorrow” (from A Momentary Lapse of Reason) and “High Hopes” (from The Division Bell). They covered all of the big hits as well, with the biggest highlight being their performance of “Comfortably Numb” at the very end. For “Comfortably Numb”, they even had a small “hotel room” set, with Cantell acting as the doctor and the percussionist acting like the patient. The widescreen TV in the set was even playing the “Comfortably Numb” scene from the movie. :-)

It was one little detail that made me truly appreciate their dedication to Pink Floyd’s music, however. When performing the song “One of These Days” live, Pink Floyd would add the first few notes from the Doctor Who theme song somewhere during the middle. Brit Floyd did the exact same thing, at the exact same spot. :-)

The most telling reaction, however, came from Jennifer. She had gone into the show with no expectations, not really knowing Pink Floyd’s music. By the end, she had REALLY enjoyed the performance, and wanted to listen to some of their earlier albums. :-)

All in all, it was a wonderful show, and Jennifer and I definitely want to catch them next time they come through town. They may not be the original Pink Floyd, but given how good they are at the music and how much attention and care to detail they give towards the source material, they’re definitely the next best thing. :-)