Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting!

Today at Legends Comics in Towson I had the pleasure of demoing SlugFest Games Kung Fu Fighting card game and More! Kung Fu Fighting expansion for the small group of brave soles that ventured out in the horrible weather to attend the Face Smasher X-Treme 3000 Deluxe-A-Con '09 2.0 : Vengeance.

For those that did check out the game, thanks! The first match pit the Imperial General vs She Who Must Fight, and after a grueling match that was tolling on both fighters, the Imperial General gained the edge, and brought down his opponent with a final blow from his mighty blade.

The second match was also fought by 3 worthy opponents. The Venerable Master, the Mysterious Stranger, and the Jade Princess all entered the ring. The Mysterious Stranger learned fast from the Venerable Master as he seemed to copy his every move. Meanwhile the Jade Princess grabbed any object that was not nailed down. After delivering a devastating opening attack with the Bamboo Pole to both her adversaries, the Jade Princess spent most of the game on the defensive. Fortunately her Chi was quite strong, as she pulled the lion's share of the Chi Restoration cards. As the fierce battle drew close to it's conclusion, the Jade Princess managed to best the Venerable Master before receiving a savage attack from the Mysterious Stranger. However, her luck did manage to hold, and she dropped the Mysterious Stranger before he had a chance to finish her.

All in all, if you're looking for a fast-paced, tongue-in-cheek combat-oriented card game, that takes about 5 minutes to learn, and about a half-an-hour to 45 minutes for a good game, check this out! And pick up the expansion. The archetypes alone are worth the cost.

And on a completely random related not, if you've never heard Tom Jones version of Kung Fu Fighting from the Supercop soundtrack, check it out! It's fantastic! (And yes, I'm aware that, that sounded a little gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

Thankful for Mini-Waffles

For anyone reading that hasn't had a small child before, sometimes kids find certain foods that they love so much they can't live without. Our daughter loves 2 foods most of all: Mac & Cheese and Eggo Mini-Waffles. Further for those that haven't heard, we're experiencing an Eggo shortage. Which means that Mini-Waffles are particularly hard to find.

Fortunately, Lilly has decided that "it's magic" whether or not there are actually Eggo Mini-Waffles at the store or not. But recently her patience has been wearing thin. And luckily for Jill and I when we were in Target this weekend, they actually had 4 boxes of Mini-Waffles in the freezer, so needless to say, we cleared them out. Four boxes equates to 10 'sheets' of mini-waffles which basically have 4 minis to 1 waffle. That said, since Lilly only eats 1 sheet per breakfast, that gives us 40 breakfasts before we need to track down more. Needless to say, we're thankful for this minor holiday miracle!

Hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving! And check back in next Saturday evening for an event report from the Legends Mini-Con.

HoT God Box

Disclaimer: Those that aren't into HeroClix, or at the very least collectible gaming of some sort will likely be very lost trying to read the blog ahead. However, trying to make it accessible to everyone would require it to be overly explained and ultimately alienate the target audience for this blog.

And now that, that's out of the way, I didn't actually pull that configuration from a booster, however, that COULD be a configuration under the current model since it has 1 common, 2 uncommons, 1 rare, and 1 super rare. That said, I'm ecstatic that HeroClix is back! And I'm even more ecstatic that as an early Christmas present my awesome wife and daughter got me a case of Hammer of Thor.

And what a case it was! I didn't get a God Box, or a chase for that matter. But I did pull 6 Super Rares and all but 1 of the CUR set. The only one I'm missing is Air-Walker (which I was bummed about) but hopefully I'll have him by the end of next week. Then I just have 6 SRs to track down, and I've got what matters out of the set.

So back to the topic at hand, God Boxes. Originally when I heard about it, I thought it was a neat idea, when I didn't know that there was a Chase figure in with the Super Rares, and before I fully realized the rest of the implications on the brick/case distribution of SRs. Others on HCRealms have mentioned plenty of better ideas on implementation of the God Boxes if NECA decides to try it again in the future. I'm skeptical they will. It's ultimately been more polarizing then it needs to be. That said, I'm hoping people don't chastise NECA for something that could be a legacy idea from Topps.

Family Friendly Humor?

Last weekend, Lego had a grand opening for their new store in Arundel Mills Mall. Jill, Lilly, and I went down to take part in the festivities (which is a big part of why there was no comic last week). That said, we had a great time and got some Christmas shopping done. Unfortunately, they have far more things that I'd like to buy, but can't really afford.

We did manage to buy enough that we got the freebies that we went there for. And as unfortunate as it is, this comic does come directly from a conversation that was had in front of me. It is an obvious joke, and had Jill and I not had Lilly, she may have even made it herself. However, I didn't feel it was an appropriate joke to have made in the middle of a very crowded store full of families with small children. Maybe I'm just becoming more sensitive to what people say around me now that I have my own child. I'm not sure.

Anyway, it didn't taint my experience, and I'm very excited to have a store in a reasonable proximity. I can't wait to have another excuse to go down there when it's less busy.

A Grimm Halloween

Halloween is a favorite holiday around the Grimm house, so I couldn't very well let the week of Halloween go by with a B'more Geek Halloween comic. Couple that with the fact that I just got my Nintendo DSi this week, with the AWESOME Scribblenauts, and this strip pretty much wrote itself.

I've been wanting to get a new game system for a while now, and until recently I had been leaning toward a Wii. However, once a friend showed me Scribblenauts, I quickly reconsidered. And yes, Cthulhu was one of the first items I summoned in the game. I'm not sure what that says about me, but I thought it was awesome that he was actually included amongs the multitude of other items. This game was definitely created by geeks, for geeks. So if you are one, and you have a DS, check this game out! The open-endedness of the game is it's greatest asset, and also makes it a little annoying at times. Once you get into Advanced Mode and have to figure out how to solve the puzzles for the third time using different equipment then you've already used, it can quickly become maddening. The game really makes you think. Although, I do find the "Action" levels FAR MORE ANNOYING then the puzzles, because Maxwell doesn't always do what you want/expect. That aside, the game is really fantastic and inventive. It's also totally worth the price of admission.

I haven't enjoyed a new/different game this much since Katamari Damacy, and that's saying a lot!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the strip, and have a happy and safe Halloween! For those that are wondering, I'm actually planning on dressing like Captian America from Ultimates 2 this year, and I'll be taking Supergirl (Lilly) trick or treating. I'll be sure to post pictures with the next strip.

HoT Conspiracy Theory

And yes, the punchline for today's comic is entirely true. I probably have committed why too many minutes to trying to prove that with the new WizKids release, that we've been waiting for, for a year, that they've decided to finally move from the L shaped dial slots to the "pie-shaped" ones that allow them to have more then one power in a particular slot without having to actually give the character a special power to accomplish said task.

Personally I'm hoping that they are moving to these dials which will give them a little more design freedom, while bringing the dials closer to running straight from the PAC again. It's a smart move, and I think most players will catch on to the change with little to no learning curve. And lets face it, the less we need white blocks on the dial, the better.

I LOVE special powers, but they were getting a little out of hand. I'd personally like to see HeroClix "go back to basics" more anyway. I think Feats have run there course, and I personally like the feel of event dials over Battlefield Conditions, but I know I'm also in the minority on that one.

Ultimately, I love where NECA seems to be going with the product, and I'm interested to see how it grows and changes over the next year.

We're Going to Call Her...

There's probably nothing more terrifying and hilarious then to overhear you almost 3-year-old daughter exclaim this to your mother on the phone. That being said this is almost word for word a conversation that my mother and my daughter had on the phone.

All that aside, it's been a long winding road trying to find the name for my second daughter, who's on her way in January. The selection of her name actually started with a joke that my wife played on my niece Rebecca, who is a die-hard Steelers fan in Baltimore, which isn't easy, considering the rivalry between the two teams. To aggravate Rebecca, Jill told her that we were going to name the baby Raven. I told her that she shouldn't joke about that, because I actually liked the name. Not necessarily for the football team. I was going more of a comic book/Edgar Allan Poe route.

After Raven made the list, we also went through and picked few other names that were top contenders. Willow, Olive, Scarlett, and Leslie all made the list. I'm sure that we both like Willow because of the character from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one of our mutual favorite shows. Olive, in hindsite, more than likely came from the character on Pushing Daisies, and Scarlett comes from Gone with the Wind for Jill, and G.I.Joe for me. And Leslie is my first name, and my Dad's middle name, so that would have been sort of a legacy thing. In fact Dad suggested that if we went with Leslie that we took Jill's middle name to give to the child, so it was like a mix of the two names. I kind of thought that was cool, but Jill wanted her to have her own identity, which is also understandable, so that idea quickly got scrapped.

Eventually we came back around to Raven and added the middle name Elisabeth, which I'm proud to say that I came up with. Our whole family liked the name, including Lilly, who's been very picky. However, once the name got as far as the Grandparents on either side, much resistance was met. Mainly they were upset that it wasn't a more traditional name. The thing that they missed was the fact that the baby probably wasn't going to have a traditional name anyway. It's a side effect of having a comic-geek and a teacher trying to name a kid.

Anyway, fate of the name Raven was sealed when a woman at church suggested that whether we wanted it or not, her name would be associated with the football team, and as much as my family likes the team, I don't want my child forever associated with it. So we started looking elsewhere for names, and for some reason we went totally off the list. The next name we landed on was Emily Rachel which in hindsight I found pretty funny being that the name is associated with two women that Ross both dated and subsequently married on Friends. Not to mention the fact that Ross called Emily, Rachel at their wedding. That name stuck for about a week. Just long enough for Jill to start telling people, and then we moved on again.

The next name I pulled out of the ether was Ashley Jean, which more than likely had a round-about link to Ashley J. Williams from Evil Dead/Army of Darkness. And Jean is Jill's Mom's name. There is probably a lot more going on with that name (on a subconscious level) then I care to admit, but that one had an even shorter stay than Emily Rachel.

Which ultimately brought us back around to the original list, and our original middle name. So after much back and forth and more than a little stress, we've landed on Willow Elizabeth, which still isn't terribly popular with the grandparents, but it's not their kid, so they can deal with it. What makes this amusing to me now is that since we call Lilly, Lilly and not Lillian, someone might thing that Jill and I just have a thing for Alyson Hannigan (which probably isn't wrong on some level) since both of our kids will be named after (or similarly to) characters that she's made popular.

Sounds Like Team Spirit

Ever since I moved to Baltimore in 2000, they've done "Purple Friday" at the very least during playoffs, if not all of football season. And between my wife, my neighbors, and now me, my daughter has grown up a Ravens fan. And since one of the owners at her Daycare is also a huge Ravens fan, the kids are more or less a sea of purple on Fridays.

That said, an odd thing has happened with Lilly. She doesn't want to let ANYONE wear purple if it's NOT Friday. This makes for interesting discussions on Sundays when Jill and I want to wear Ravens clothes during the actual games.

It also led to Lilly actually going up to one of the girls in church, who was proudly sporting her Flacco Jersey, and Lilly explained to her very matter-of-factly that she shouldn't be wearing the jersey because it was not Purple Friday. Fortunately the girl just got a chuckle out of it.

Guess you can chalk this one up as a situation where, "Kids say the darnedest things."

Red Dragon Gambling! I'm Inn!

So I've finally gotten around to posting my first comic, and I figured I'd start out right by taking myself out. I have a feeling I'll be doing that a lot in the comic, using the other characters to comment on how I tend to get really excited, and talk in length about things I like.

That said, for those of you that are coming here and don't have any idea what I'm talking about. I'm part of the SlugCrew for Slugfest Games. And last week I ran a demo/tournament event for a mini-con at my favorite comic book shop, Legends Comics & Games in Towson, MD. The event that I ran was for a Slugfest Game called Red Dragon Inn & Red Dragon Inn 2. Players played in games of one or the other, and if they won, they got to select one of the 8 characters to play in a championship round at the end of the day to win a copy of one of the 2 games.

The first group of players to sit down with my played RDI 2 and Nathan playing as Dimili the Dwarf came out on top. Naturally, he selected Dimli to play in the Championship round. Nick was the second player to win, playing the original RDI, but being entertained by the "hulk-speak" on Gog's cards, he decided to take him in the championship round. Next to win was Lisa, playing as Dimli in her second round of RDI 2. She selected Eve (who she used in the first round) to play in the final. Two players that had played in the first round of RDI requested to play a mixed game, since Gog was not currently being used, and Julia won playing him. She selected Fiona for the final. Then Tim won in a round using the original RDI, and selected Gerki. Finally Timra won in a round of RDI 2, and selected Zot & Pooky. That left 2 spots open going into the final and time was running short, so I tapped to of the people that had played earlier in the day, and Eric filled in as Diedre and Ian filled in as Fleck.

This is when things got interesting! I was concerned that with 8 players the match might run long, but to my surprise, it played very quickly. As in the comic, Fiona was the first player to drop, quite literally. After a pretty potent "Round on the House" she came out as the "Winner" of a drinking contest gaining somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 on her alcohol content.

Next to fall were Dimli & Gerki simultaneously. There were a few big gambling pots early in the game, which the wench made off with, thanks to the persuasion of the Bard. As the ranks closed, Gog went down drinking, followed by Dierdre. Leaving Eve, Zot, and Fleck to see who could last the longest. Unfortunately for Zot and Fleck, Eve was doing an excellent job at sluffing off just about anything that came her way. And eventually Fleck followed closely by Zot, also passed out, and got thrown from the Inn.

Ultimately I was pretty happy with how the event went. I had a nice number of people come through and try out the game, and everyone seemed to have a great time. Lisa, who was playing Eve, went home the winner of a copy of Red Dragon Inn 2, and I felt she earned it, since she had pretty much played at my table all day.

The store opted to raffle off the copy of Red Dragon Inn, and it went to one of the players that not only demoed Red Dragon Inn, but Kung Fu Fighting as well, so I was pretty happy about how that turned out as well.

Well, if you made it this far, I hope you enjoyed my first real blog & the accompanying comic. If you have any comments or suggestions for going forward, I'd love to hear them!

Starting a new Blog

Well, I used to blog over on mySpace, but I eventually got tired/bored with it. Plus I seldom had time to actually do it. And I used to have a website, but I hadn't updated it in forever, and then that space closed. That said, I've been trying to motivate myself to create a new presence on the web, and I've been trying to decide exactly how I want to do that. If you're reading this, you've already got a pretty good idea where I'm going with this.

In the past couple of years I've really become a fan of a few online comics/blogs, namely Multiplex, Theater Hopper, and Joe Loves Crappy Movies. I've really been trying to motivate myself to get something together and start posting one myself. That said, I don't make any illusions that mine will be as good, as frequent, or as focus as those I listed. It's likely that I will not only deal with topics of movies, but also games, comics, and family.

Of course one could argue that I'm already off on the wrong foot by not including a comic with my first post, but unfortunately I don't have one ready to go, nor would it be worth throwing one together just for the sake of having one here. I will try to do one soon however.