| ||||||||||
Links du jour:
| ||||||||||
Bookshelf:Recently Read & Reviewed:
 Currently reading:  Next up:
| ||||||||||
Wot, A Whole Week?Did I not update this past week? No, surely I must have updated Tuesday or something... Hmm, nope, it seems I haven't updated since last Sunday. Geez! And it's not like I have a great excuse or anything. I mean, I was home Monday and Tuesday nights. Sure, I was gaming Wednesday night and playing ultimate on Thursday, but I should have worked in an entry this weekend somehow... Well, I guess this is it!
 Actually, come to think of it, I was only home part of Tuesday night, because my complex had its first homeowners association meeting since I moved in! The occasion is that the treasurer (who's had the job since the complex opened) is moving out, so new officers needed to be elected. No, I didn't volunteer for anything; I want to wait for a while to see how things work before I take that step. Plus I've got plenty to do right now as I continue to settle in to my place. I met all of my neighbors (well, all but one, since one unit is being rented out), and they mostly seem like nice folks. The other two people in my building (other than the departing treasurer) seem quite nice. I only see folks from the other eight units occasionally, though I've met one before (and her two kittens). The attitude of the folks here seems to be to let people do to their units what they want as long as it doesn't disturb everyone else, and to make sure the common areas are properly looked after. Seems just about ideal, I think!
On the gaming front, Wednesday we played a Cheapass Game called U.S. Patent No. 1, which was an amusingly-themed time travel game (you're trying to assemble a time machine from different eras, and then registering it in 1790 as the first U.S. patent), although I felt the game mechanics needed a little work, since it seems easy for the game to turn into an "everyone pile on everyone else until someone manages to win" game at the end. Not a lot of strategy there. We also played another Cheapass Game called Unexploded Cow, which is a pretty mindless game, involving setting up fields of mad cows from Britain who end up detonating unexploded mines in France. There's a little positional strategy, but not as much as The Great Dalmuti. It's fun and silly, though, and it probably worth the price if you like fun and silly games.
Anyway, the games I ordered are Carcassonne (which I've played before and enjoyed), Chrononauts and El Grande (neither of which I've played before), so I'll be bringing them to gaming in future weeks and will probably write them up here.
I had a good time at Ultimate on Thursday, although it's still quite cold lately (meaning, dips into the 40s while we're playing). Plus, we seemed to play a lot of quick points all evening, so I never did enough running to truly keep warm. Still, I did manage a pretty nifty defensive play in the end zone, which brought me the kudos of my teammates. Probably the nicest such play I've made since I joined the league, so I was pretty happy with that!
This weekend Debbi and I have mostly been running around doing work for my house. We've been going around to look for a futon/chair to put in my office room, since having a comfy reading chair in the same room as my computer is handy, and having one which can be used as a guest bed is also handy. We also went by Bed, Bath & Beyond and bought a curtain to use to cover the peculiar window-over-window in my office, and bought a curtain rod to hold it. I learned about using drywall anchors (which turned out not to be a big deal), and the curtain is now installed and looks just like I'd hoped. It's dark blue and velvety, which I think sets off the room's light blue walls and white trim rather well. I also placed an order for two more sets of venetian blinds, which hopefully will arrive this coming week. Once those are installed, all I need are curtains and pull-rods for my two sliding glass doors, and my windows all will be properly privatized (and will have that extra layer of insulation in the winter). Lastly, we carried my old desk up to my office and moved the large, L-shaped desk that the previous owners left behind into a corner. Now I have a smaller desk which nonetheless is facing out the window as I want, and it doesn't have the shelving on top of one arm of the desk which limits the stuff I can put on it. I just want a big, flat desk with some drawer space, so eventually I'm going to buy some wood and construct what I want myself. Meantime, this desk, plus my two filing cabinets, should suffice. Now I have to take apart and throw away the L-shaped desk... it's too big to transport without disassembling, and the previous owners said the workmen who assembled it apparently glued some of the pieces together, so I will probably need to destroy it to get rid of it. Hence the "throwing away" part. But it was free, so I feel no guilt at all about that.
Yesterday Debbi and I noticed that a branch of an inexpensive but yummy Italian restaurant had opened in Sunnyvale, so we decided to go there for dinner tonight. We had a good time, except that we had pretty lousy service. Actually, the hostess was nice and helpful, but we didn't have any silverware when we sat down, and we had to ask our waiter twice for it while we sat. It was really irksome, and I don't think it was that the place was busy as people near us with other waitstaff were getting good service. We left a substandard tip. Lucy has complained in the past about the quality of Bay Area serving staff. I've generally had reasonable-to-good experiences (for instance, Friday we had a fun and prompt server at Amici's in Mountain View), but mid-way through this meal I thought, "Wow, if we're not going to lower the tip for this meal, when would we?"
I'll try to update before a whole week has passed!
|
||
